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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago

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Rob Rogers

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 16, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 17, 2023

A few quick notes tonight about some ongoing stories: There is more news about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his misreporting of his financial connections. This morning, Shawn Boburg and Emma Brown of the Washington Post reported that for twenty years, Thomas has reported rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a real estate firm that was shut down in 2006. The misstatement might be dismissed as a problem with paperwork, the authors note. “But it is among a series of errors and omissions that Thomas has made on required annual financial disclosure forms over the past several decades, a review of those records shows. Together, they have raised questions about how seriously Thomas views his responsibility to accurately report details about his finances to the public.” The cascade of stories about Thomas threatens to continue to undermine the legitimacy of this Supreme Court. Last night, the nation suffered one mass shooting in Dadeville, Alabama, that killed four people and wounded twenty-eight others, and another in Louisville, Kentucky, that killed two and wounded four. On Friday, Republican hopefuls for the 2024 presidential nomination courted members of the National Rifle Association, the NRA, at the organization’s 2023 annual convention, promising looser gun laws. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem complained about liberals who “want to take our guns,” and boasted that her granddaughter, who is not yet two, has a shotgun and a rifle. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to focus on rebalancing the Indo-Pacific to counter China. Just two weeks after the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and nearly thirty years after the restoration of diplomatic ties in 1995, the U.S. has broken ground on a new $1.2 billion embassy compound in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh yesterday and vowed to “broaden and deepen” relations between the two countries. Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Samantha Power, and members of Congress have all visited Vietnam recently as part of a long-term strategy to help area friends and allies counterbalance China in the Indo-Pacific region. Yesterday, Blinken emphasized how the U.S. and Vietnam, working together, “can advance a free and open Indo-Pacific, one that is at peace and grounded in respect for the rules-based international order.” But, as Vietnam has a one-party communist government, he explained, “When we talk about ‘free and open,’ we mean countries being free to choose their own path and their own partners and that problems will be dealt with openly; rules will be reached transparently and applied fairly; and goods, ideas, and people will flow freely across land, the seas, the skies, and cyberspace.” Vice President Harris spoke yesterday at a march for reproductive rights in Los Angeles, where she emphasized how deeply our international standing depends on our commitment to freedom at home. “I’ve been traveling around the world as your Vice President,” she said. “When we, as Americans, walk in those rooms around the world, we have traditionally walked in those rooms, shoulders back, chin up, having some authority to talk about the importance of rule of law, human rights. “But here’s the thing we all know about what it means to be a role model: People watch what you do to see if it matches what you say. So let us understand that what is happening in our nation right now, by extension, can impact people around the world who dare to say, ‘I want my country to be like the United States and protect rights.’ And those autocrats and those dictators might look at those folks and say, ‘What are you pointing to as the example?’” “We are seeing, around the country, in a myriad of ways, those who would dare to attack fundamental rights and, by extension, attack our democracy,” Harris said. “Around our country, supposed so-called extremist leaders…dare to silence the voices of the people.” “A United States Supreme Court, the highest court in our land, that took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America. “We have seen attacks on voting rights; attacks on fundamental rights to love and marry the people that you love; attacks on the ability of people to be themselves and be proud of who they are. “And so, this is a moment that history will show required each of us, based on our collective love of our country, to stand up and fight for and protect our ideals…. [W]e have been called upon to be the next generation of the people who will help lead and fight in this movement for freedom and liberty based on our love of our country…. [W]e stand for our democracy. And we stand for foundational and fundamental principles that have everything to do with freedom, liberty, and equality for all people.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #gun violence #Corrupt SCOTUS #Corrupt GOP #NRA #China #Kamala Harris #Women's rights #reproductive rights #constitutional rights

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newsliverecord · 3 years ago

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Ex-director of Hanoi public hospital jailed over gouging of medical equipment price

The former director of a major public hospital in Hanoi has been sentenced to five years in prison for hiking the price of medical equipment that caused financial damage worth VND10 billion (US$440,500) to over 600 patients.

During a trial on Monday, the Hanoi People’s Court handed a five-year jail term to Nguyen Quoc Anh, 63, ex-director of Bach Mai Hospital, for abuse of positions and powers while performing official duties.

For a similar offense, Nguyen Ngoc Hien, former deputy director of Bach Mai Hospital, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, and Pham Duc Tuan, former chairman of BMS Medical Technology Company, was jailed for 36 months.

However, Tuan was given a suspended sentence.

The remaining five defendants who are former staff of Bach Mai Hospital, BMS Company, and Hanoi Valuation and Financial Services Company (VFS) were also handed jail terms or suspended sentences.

The indictment showed that Bach Mai is a public hospital under the management of the Ministry of Health.

In May 2016, Tuan met Anh to offer the sale of a robotic surgical system named the Rosa Robot.

As the original procedures were complicated, the two sides agreed to enter into a joint venture to install the robotic system at Bach Mai Hospital and let Tuan decide the price for the equipment.

Anh went on to sign a contract with BMS Company without reporting to the health ministry in accordance with regulations.

To legitimize the process, Tuan asked Tran Le Hoang, an employee of VFS, to issue a certificate of appraisal for the Rosa Robot.

Investigators found that the price of the robotic system was inflated to VND39 billion ($1.7 million), while its market price was only VND7.4 billion ($326,000).

Doctors at Bach Mai Hospital have used the robotic system to perform cranial nerve surgeries on 637 patients.

This resulted in financial damage worth more than VND10 billion to the patients as they had to pay much more than they should have for their surgeries.

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troybeecham · 4 years ago

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Today the Church remembers the Vietnamese Martyrs (Vietnamese: Các Thánh Tử đạo Việt Nam), also known as the Martyrs of Annam, Martyrs of Tonkin and Cochinchina, Martyrs of Indochina, or Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions (Anrê Dũng-Lạc và các bạn tử đạo).

Orate pro nobis.

The Martyrs of Vietnam

The Vatican estimates the number of Vietnamese martyrs at between 130,000 and 300,000. The Vietnamese Martyrs fall into several groupings, those of the Dominican and Jesuit missionary era of the 18th century and those killed in the politically inspired persecutions of the 19th century. A representative sample of only 117 martyrs—including 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish Dominicans, and 10 French members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions Etrangères de Paris)—were beatified on four separate occasions: 64 by Pope Leo XIII on May 27, 1900; eight by Pope Pius X on May 20, 1906; 20 by Pope Pius X on May 2, 1909; and 25 by Pope Pius XII on April 29, 1951. All these 117 Vietnamese Martyrs were canonized on June 19, 1988. A young Vietnamese Martyr, Andrew Phú Yên, was beatified in March, 2000 by Pope John Paul II.

Vietnamese martyrs Paul Mi, Pierre Duong, Pierre Truat, martyred on 18 December 1838.

The tortures these individuals underwent are considered by the Vatican to be among the worst in the history of Christian martyrdom. The torturers hacked off limbs joint by joint, tore flesh with red hot tongs, and used drugs to enslave the minds of the victims. Christians at the time were branded on the face with the words "tả đạo" (左道, lit. "Left (Sinister) religion") and families and villages which subscribed to Christianity were obliterated.

The letters and example of Théophane Vénard inspired the young Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to volunteer for the Carmelite nunnery at Hanoi, though she ultimately contracted tuberculosis and could not go. In 1865 Vénard's body was transferred to his Congregation's church in Paris, but his head remains in Vietnam.

The Church in Vietnam was devastated during the Tây Sơn rebellion in the late 18th century. During the turmoil, the missions revived, however, as a result of cooperation between the French Vicar Apostolic Pigneaux de Behaine and Nguyen Anh. After Nguyen's victory in 1802, in gratitude to assistance received, he ensured protection to missionary activities. However, only a few years into the new emperor's reign, there was growing antipathy among officials against Christianity and missionaries reported that it was purely for political reasons that their presence was tolerated. Tolerance continued until the death of the emperor and the new emperor Minh Mang succeeding to the throne in 1820.

Converts began to be harassed without official edicts in the late 1820s, by local governments. In 1831 the emperor passed new laws on regulations for religious groupings in Viet Nam, and Christianity was then officially prohibited. In 1832, the first act occurred in a largely Christian village near Hue, with the entire community being incarcerated and sent into exile in Cambodia. In January 1833 a new kingdom-wide edict was passed calling on Vietnamese subjects to reject the religion of Jesus and required suspected Christians to demonstrate their renunciation by walking on a wooden cross. Actual violence against Catholics, however, did not occur until the Lê Văn Khôi revolt.

During the rebellion, a young French missionary priest named Joseph Marchand was living in sickness in the rebel Gia Dinh citadel. In October 1833, an officer of the emperor reported to the court that a foreign Christian religious leader was present in the citadel. This news was used to justify the edicts against Christianity, and led to the first executions of missionaries in over 40 years. The first executed was named Francois Gagelin. Marchand was captured and executed as a "rebel leader" in 1835; he was put to death by "slicing". Further repressive measures were introduced in the wake of this episode in 1836. Prior to 1836, village heads had only to simply report to local mandarins about how their subjects had recanted Christianity; after 1836, officials could visit villages and force all the villagers to line up one by one to trample on a cross and if a community was suspected of harbouring a missionary, militia could block off the village gates and perform a rigorous search; if a missionary was found, collective punishment could be meted out to the entire community.

Missionaries and Christian communities were able to sometimes escape this through bribery of officials; they were also sometimes victims of extortion attempts by people who demanded money under the threat that they would report the villages and missionaries to the authorities.

The court became more aware of the problem of the failure to enforce the laws and applied greater pressure on its officials to act; officials that failed to act or those tho who were seen to be acting too slowly were demoted or removed from office (and sometimes were given severe corporal punishment), while those who attacked and killed the Christians could receive promotion or other rewards. Lower officials or younger family members of officials were sometimes tasked with secretly going through villages to report on hidden missionaries or Christians that had not apostasized.

The first missionary arrested during this (and later executed) was the priest Jean-Charles Cornay in 1837. A military campaign was conducted in Nam Dinh after letters were discovered in a shipwrecked vessel bound for Macao. Quang Tri and Quang Binh officials captured several priests along with the French missionary Bishop Pierre Dumoulin-Borie in 1838 (who was executed). The court translator, Francois Jaccard, a Christian who had been kept as a prisoner for years and was extremely valuable to the court, was executed in late 1838; the official who was tasked with this execution, however, was almost immediately dismissed.

A priest, Father Ignatius Delgado, was captured in the village of Can Lao (Nam Định Province), put in a cage on public display for ridicule and abuse, and died of hunger and exposure while waiting for execution; the officer and soldiers that captured him were greatly rewarded (about 3 kg of silver was distributed out to all of them), as were the villagers that had helped to turn him over to the authorities. The bishop Dominic Henares was found in Giao Thuy district of Nam Dinh (later executed); the villagers and soldiers that participated in his arrest were also greatly rewarded (about 3 kg of silver distributed). The priest, Father Joseph Fernandez, and a local priest, Nguyen Ba Tuan, were captured in Kim Song, Nam Dinh; the provincial officials were promoted, the peasants who turned them over were given about 3 kg of silver and other rewards were distributed. In July 1838, a demoted governor attempting to win back his place did so successfully by capturing the priest Father Dang Dinh Vien in Yen Dung, Bac Ninh province. (Vien was executed). In 1839, the same official captured two more priests: Father Dinh Viet Du and Father Nguyen Van Xuyen (also both executed).

In Nhu Ly near Hue, an elderly catholic doctor named Simon Hoa was captured and executed. He had been sheltering a missionary named Charles Delamotte, whom the villagers had pleaded with him to send away. The village was also supposed to erect a shrine for the state-cult, which the doctor also opposed. His status and age protected him from being arrested until 1840, when he was put on trial and the judge pleaded (due to his status in Vietnamese society as both an elder and a doctor) with him to publicly recant; when he refused he was publicly executed.

Many officials preferred to avoid execution because of the threat to social order and harmony it represented, and resorted to use of threats or torture in order to force Christians to recant. Many villagers were executed alongside priests according to mission reports. The emperor died in 1841, and this offered respite for Christians. However, some persecution still continued after the new emperor took office. Christian villages were forced to build shrines to the state cult. The missionary Father Pierre Duclos (quoted above) died in prison in after being captured on the Saigon river in June 1846. The boat he was traveling in, unfortunately contained the money that was set for the annual bribes of various officials (up to 1/3 of the annual donated French mission budget for Cochinchina was officially allocated to 'special needs') in order to prevent more arrests and persecutions of the converts; therefore, after his arrest, the officials then began wide searches and cracked down on the Christian communities in their jurisdictions. The amount of money that the French mission societies were able to raise, made the missionaries a lucrative target for officials that wanted cash, which could even surpass what the imperial court was offering in rewards. This created a cycle of extortion and bribery which lasted for years.

Saint Vincent Liem Le Duang.

He was born into the Christian community of Thong-Dong in 1731. From a young age he showed great devotion and ability. He was sent to the Philippines at the age of fifteen and took the habit in 1753. After completing his studies at the University of St. Thomas, he was ordained priest and returned to his native land. As he could speak Vietnamese he started his apostolate immediately. He spent the next fourteen years ministering to Christian communities, teaching at the seminary of Trung-Linh and preaching in the non-Christian areas.

From 1767 the Church in Vietnam came under attack from the authorities. Vincent nevertheless continued to proclaim the Gospel openly, regardless of the obstacles and threats. He was captured in 1773, beaten and imprisoned. He was placed in a cage and displayed like a wild animal. However the local Mandarin believed that this ritual humiliation would not help the authorities’ attempt to crush the Christian religion. Vincent was released from his cage and allowed to walk about the prison. He took advantage of his relative liberty and preached the Gospel to his fellow prisoners and all who would come to listen. This status was short lived and he was put back in his cage and taken to Hanoi and the Imperial Court.

At the Court the Emperor arranged a disputation between Vincent, a Buddhist, a Confucian and a Taoist. His reasoning, clarity and elegance, in defending the true faith, left a deep impressio, so much so that an Imperial Prince declared the superiority of Christianity. However Vincent’s fate was decided after a stormy dialogue with the Queen Mother. He was sentenced to death and was beheaded on the 7th of November 1773.

The persecutions of the Vietnamese Church continue. In 1975, the exodus of Vietnamese friars would result in the formation of a new vicariate outside their motherland: the Vicariate of St Vincent Liem. Every day, the brothers of the vicariate, pray for the conversion of Vietnam, through the intercession of St. Vincent.

Those whose names are known are listed below:

(Please keep in mind that for Vietnamese martyrs these are the anglicized versions of their names)

* Andrew Dung-Lac An Tran

* Augustin Schoeffler, MEP, a priest from France

* Agnes Le Thi Thanh

* Bernard Vũ Văn Duệ

* Dominic Mậu

* Emmanuel Le Van Phung

* Emmanuel Trieu Van Nguyen

* Francis Chieu Van Do

* Francis Gil de Frederich|Francesc (Francis) Gil de Federich, OP, a priest from Catalonia (Spain)

* François-Isidore Gagelin, MEP, a priest from France

* Francis Jaccard, MEP, a priest from France

* Francis Trung Von Tran

* Francis Nguyen

* Ignatius Delgado y Cebrian, OP, a bishop from Spain

* Jacinto (Hyacinth) Casteñeda, OP, a priest from Spain

* James Nam

* Jerome Hermosilla, OP, a bishop from Spain

* John Baptist Con

* John Charles Cornay, MEP, a priest from France

* John Dat

* John Hoan Trinh Doan

* John Louis Bonnard, MEP, a priest from France

* John Thanh Van Dinh

* José María Díaz Sanjurjo, OP, a bishop from Spain

* Joseph Canh Luang Hoang

* Joseph Fernandez, OP, a priest from Spain

* Joseph Hien Quang Do

* Joseph Khang Duy Nguyen

* Joseph Luu Van Nguyen

* Joseph Marchand, MEP, a priest from France

* Joseph Nghi Kim

* Joseph Thi Dang Le

* Joseph Uyen Dinh Nguyen

* Joseph Vien Dinh Dang

* Joseph Khang, a local doctor

* Joseph Tuc

* Joseph Tuan Van Tran

* Lawrence Ngon

* Lawrence Huong Van Nguyen

* Luke Loan Ba Vu

* Luke Thin Viet Pham

* Martin Tho

* Martin Tinh Duc Ta

* Matthew Alonzo Leziniana, OP, a priest from Spain

* Matthew Phuong Van Nguyen

* Matthew Gam Van Le

* Melchor García Sampedro, OP, a bishop from Spain

* Michael Dinh-Hy Ho

* Michael My Huy Nguyen

* Nicholas Thé Duc Bui

* Paul Hanh

* Paul Khoan Khan Pham

* Paul Loc Van Le

* Paul Tinh Bao Le

* Paul Tong Viet Buong

* Paul Duong

* Pere (Peter) Almató i Ribera, OP, a priest from Catalonia (Spain)

* Peter Tuan

* Peter Dung Van Dinh

* Peter Da

* Peter Duong Van Truong

* Peter Francis Néron, MEP, a priest from France

* Peter Hieu Van Nguyen

* Peter Quy Cong Doan

* Peter Thi Van Truong Pham

* Peter Tuan Ba Nguyen, a fisherman

* Peter Tuy Le

* Peter Van Van Doan

* Philip Minh Van Doan

* Pierre Borie, MEP, a bishop from France

* Simon Hoa Dac Phan

* Stephen Theodore Cuenot, MEP, a bishop from France

* Stephen Vinh

* Théophane Vénard, MEP, a priest from France

* Thomas De Van Nguyen

* Thomas Du Viet Dinh

* Thomas Thien Tran

* Thomas Toan

* Thomas Khuong

* Valentine Berriochoa, OP, a bishop from the Basque Country

* Vicente Liem de la Paz

* Vincent Duong

* Vincent Tuong, a local judge

* Vincent Yen Do

Almighty God, who gave to your servants the Martyrs of Vietnam the boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

#father troy beecham #christianity #troy beecham episcopal #jesus #father troy beecham episcopal #saints #god #salvation #peace #martyrs

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newstfionline · 3 years ago

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Friday, August 27, 2021

Coronavirus vaccine mandates for workers (Bloomberg) Using formal federal approval as cover, a growing number of U.S. employers are imposing coronavirus vaccine mandates on workers, increasingly limiting the places people who have shunned shots can work, shop and play. In New York, Goldman Sachs required bankers prove they’d been vaccinated. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University will demand vaccination or negative Covid-19 tests to see a game at Tiger Stadium. CVS has mandated shots for corporate employees and those working with patients. And fossil fuel companies Chevron and Hess added requirements for employees on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Delta Air Lines even said it would levy a $200 monthly charge on workers who refuse to protect themselves. And the list goes on.

Most US government agencies are using facial recognition (The Verge) A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 19 of the 24 US government agencies surveyed are using facial recognition in some way, illustrating how commonplace the controversial technology has become within the federal government. The list of agencies includes agencies like the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that maintain in-house systems, alongside smaller agencies that use the system to control access to high-security locations.

Medical intimidation in Mexico (Guardian) Mexico has the world’s fourth-highest COVID-19 death toll—253,000 to date. Researchers believe the true figure could be nearly three times higher because testing numbers are low. When the pandemic hit, demand for oxygen soared. Two companies that supply medical oxygen, Grupo Infra and Praxair Mexico, control 70% of the market together. In 2020, deliveries were often delayed, causing shortages and price increases. Some hospitals responded by building their own onsite oxygen generator plants, with help from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank. Grupo Infra noticed its orders had begun falling. Grupo Infra’s lawyers, crying breach of contract, embarked on a harrowing campaign against the hospitals, sending threatening letters with misleading and untrue claims, asserting patients’ lives were at risk, and imposing ever-larger fines. When the Bureau of Investigative Journalism accused the company of unlawful intimidation, Grupo Infra said it was not aware of any legal action taken against any hospital for installing its own oxygen-generating equipment. Praxair, which reported $27 billion in sales in 2020, had no comment.

Death toll rises to at least 20 in western Venezuela floods (Reuters) At least 20 people have died in the western Venezuelan state of Merida following intense rains that caused mudslides and rivers to overflow. State governor Ramon Guevara said that more than 1,200 houses had been destroyed and 17 people remained missing as rescue workers search the wreckage. Images shared on social media showed cars being swept down streets, buildings and businesses filled with mud, and mudslides that left boulders strewn across roads.

Uruguay starts to dance again as pandemic subsides (AP) After long months of illness, Uruguay is once again starting to dance. The government last week authorized ballrooms and event halls to open as the country’s COVID-19 death rate—once among the highest in the world per capita—has fallen sharply. Seventy percent of Uruguayans have received both doses of vaccines against the virus and once-overstressed hospitals now have empty beds. The government decided to let ballrooms for dancing open five hours a day—though with limited capacity and mandatory 20-minute pauses each hour to air out closed spaces.

Blue whales returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after 40-year absence (Guardian) Blue whales, the world’s largest mammals, are returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after an absence of more than 40 years. The first one was spotted off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain in 2017 by Bruno Díaz, a marine biologist who is head of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in O Grove, Galicia. More have been spotted since then. A typical blue whale is 20-24 metres long and weighs 120 tonnes—equivalent to 16 elephants—but specimens of up to 30 metres and 170 tonnes have been found.

Harris, in Vietnam, gets a dose of China’s challenge to the U.S. (Washington Post) Vice President Harris, on her second international trip in the role, got a taste of the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China as she flew into Vietnam—a former U.S. adversary wary of Beijing’s growing dominance and now courted by Washington. Harris was en route Wednesday to announce, among other things, a donation of 1 million coronavirus vaccine doses to the pandemic-hit country. But a three-hour delay in her schedule handed China a window of opportunity. Beijing quickly sent its envoy in Hanoi to meet with Vietnam’s prime minister and pledged a donation of 2 million vaccine doses, undercutting the subsequent U.S. announcement. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, thanking the envoy, said Vietnam “does not ally with one country to fight against another,” according to state media. The incident underscored the challenges facing the Biden administration as Harris has made her way through Southeast Asia this week, along with Chinese sensitivity about her visit. Washington’s agenda does not always align with that of governments in the region, which face a diplomatic high-wire act in balancing the competing interests of the United States and China—the latter being Vietnam’s top trading partner.

Suicide bombers target Kabul airport (AP) Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. The attacks killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, Afghan and U.S. officials said. Eighteen service members were wounded and officials warned the toll could grow. More than 140 Afghans were wounded, an Afghan official said. The U.S. general overseeing the evacuation said the attacks would not stop the United States from evacuating Americans and others, and flights out were continuing. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said there was a large amount of security at the airport, and alternate routes were being used to get evacuees in. About 5,000 people were awaiting flights on the airfield, McKenzie said. The blasts came hours after Western officials warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport. But that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the killings on its Amaq news channel. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz.

Taliban shows off ‘special forces’ in propaganda blitz (AFP) The Taliban has been showing off its own “special forces” on social media, soldiers in new uniforms equipped with looted American equipment who contrast sharply with the image of the usual Afghan insurgent. Pictures and videos of fighters in the so-called “Badri 313” unit have been posted online for propaganda purposes. The soldiers are shown in uniforms, boots, balaclavas and body armour similar to those worn by special forces around the world. Rather than a battered Russian-designed Kalashnikov rifle slung over their shoulder, the men of Badri 313 hold new US-made rifles such as the M4, sometimes with night-vision goggles and advanced gunsights. The amount of equipment at their disposal is unclear, but multiple pictures online show jubilant Taliban fighters posing with captured armoured Humvees, aircraft and weapons abandoned by the defeated US-equipped Afghan national army. Experts say the most sophisticated equipment, especially the helicopters, will be difficult to operate and near-impossible to maintain.

The Real Winner of the Afghan War? It's Not Who You Think. (NYT) Just days after the Taliban took Kabul, their flag was flying high above a central mosque in Pakistan’s capital. It was an in-your-face gesture intended to spite the defeated Americans. But it was also a sign of the real victors in the 20-year Afghan war. Pakistan was ostensibly America’s partner in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban. Its military won tens of billions of dollars in American aid over the last two decades, even as Washington acknowledged that much of the money disappeared into unaccounted sinkholes. But it was a relationship riven by duplicity and divided interests from its very start after 9/11. Not least, the Afghan Taliban the Americans were fighting are, in large part, a creation of Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, which through the course of the war nurtured and protected Taliban assets inside Pakistan. In the last three months as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan, the Pakistani military waved a surge of new fighters across the border from sanctuaries inside Pakistan, tribal leaders have said. It was a final coup de grâce to the American-trained Afghan security forces. Pakistan’s already shaky reputation in the West is likely to plummet now, as the Taliban take over Afghanistan. Calls to sanction Pakistan have already circulated on social media. Relations with the United States, already on the downslope, will unravel further. So the question for the Pakistanis is what will they do with the broken country that is their prize?

Biden meets Bennett (Politico) When President Biden meets with new Israeli PM Naftali Bennett in the Oval Office today, the two leaders will have their work cut out for them in repairing a damaged bilateral relationship. Biden is one of a dwindling band of older Democratic leaders holding back a tide of younger progressives who want the U.S. to adopt a much tougher line with Israel. The Jerusalem Post notes there is just one thing on Bennett’s mind: “Iran, Iran and more Iran.” Bennett, who heads a shaky coalition and is a neophyte on the world stage, has made it clear in recent days that Israel wants Biden to drop any plans for a return to the Iran nuclear agreement that former President Donald Trump tore up, and instead back Israel’s plan for a potential military option to degrade the Iranian program. On the big issues, Biden is as far apart with Bennett as he was with former PM Netanyahu. In an interview with the NYT this week, Bennett “said he would expand West Bank settlements that Mr. Biden opposes, declined to back American plans to reopen a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem and ruled out reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians under his watch.”

The cost of war (AP) Hamas and Israel have engaged in four wars in Gaza in thirteen years. The pattern is always the same: Palestinian rocket fire, devastating Israeli airstrikes, a mounting loss of life and property, and appeals for the “senseless cycle” to stop. According to the U.N., there has been more than $5 billion (in 2021 dollars) in damage to Gaza’s homes, agriculture, industry, electricity, and water infrastructure. 4,000 plus Palestinians have been killed, half of them civilians. The death toll in Israel is 106, including civilians, soldiers, and foreign residents The property damage is estimated to reach $193 million. U.N. economist Rami Alazzeh says Gaza’s economy is caught in a “vicious” cycle of destruction, reconstruction, and infusions of aid “just to get it back to before this military operation. If this cycle keeps going on, Gaza can never recover.” Palestinian officials say 70% of Gaza’s two million residents are under age 30. The median age is 19, compared to 30 in Israel. Gaza’s young adults have spent their childhood and adolescent years in an active war zone, and symptoms of PTSD are common. And under Hamas, unemployment among young people has worsened, standing at 62% in June. “This is a lost generation,” Alazzeh said.

#headlines #news

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covid19updater · 3 years ago

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COVID19 Updates: 08/13/2021

UK: Can someone point me to where 'cases are stable' and vaccines are 'breaking the link between infections and serious illness'? Cases are rising from 30K/day, 615 deaths in the past wk & drops in hospitalisations have halted. This is literally PHE's own data.

US: 27 people test positive for coronavirus on Carnival cruise ship LINK

Fiji: 644 new cases reported on 13 August in Fiji, bringing the cumulative total to 39,456. Test positivity rate (7 day average) is 36.4%. #covid19 #covid19fiji

US: U.S. COVID update: More than 1,000 new deaths - New cases: 144,726 - Average: 125,533 (+2,987) - In hospital: 79,265 (+2,402) - In ICU: 19,271 (+655) - New deaths: 1,036

Indiana: BREAKING: The Supreme Court refuses grant Indiana University students’ request to block the school’s vaccine mandate. Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the request without referring it to the full court.

Mississippi: With hospital system near collapse, Mississippi begs for hospital ship to rescue state “The Mississippi hospital system will fail within the next five to seven or 10 days if the current trajectory continues,” University of Mississippi School of Medicine Dean LouAnn Woodward said. LINK

Australia: 100s more Australian military personnel to deploy next week to Sydney, to help enforce city’s LD. This comes as officials report biggest daily in covid-19, & outbreak spreading beyond Sydney. Sydney’s nine-week LD now unlikely to end Aug 28, as originally planned;

Israel: Israel Health Ministry said it would be offering a third Pfizer dose to “people over 50, health care workers, people with severe risk factors for the coronavirus, prisoners and wardens”.

Thailand: Thailand projects that coronavirus cases in the country could double by early next month to 45,000 per day, despite lockdown measures. Thailand which recorded a record 23,418 new cases today and 184 new deaths, struggles to contain its worst outbreak to date;

Japan: Japan's daily coronavirus cases top 20,000 for 1st time LINK

Japan: Tokyo to set up 'waiting stations' to accept COVID-19 patients amid lack of hospital beds LINK

Japan: A woman infected in Japan's first case of the Lambda coronavirus variant has been identified as a person associated with the Tokyo Olympics, government sources said Friday. LINK

Germany: German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said the country could keep coronavirus restrictions until next Spring - BILD

US: NIH Director Collins says a booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccine could come "later this fall or early next year" LINK

US: New hospital admissions in the US due to COVID-19 rose +29.6% from a week ago.

Florida: New hospital admissions in Florida due to COVID-19 are up a further +22.3% from a week ago, to a new high.

Mississippi: ‘We are stretched to breaking point': Pulmonologist warns about the dire state of Mississippi hospitals LINK

Florida: After just the second day of school, 440 students were already quarantined in Florida's Palm Beach County due to detected cases of COVID.

World: American "archbishop" is distributing bleach as "miracle cure" for COVID LINK

Ohio: St. Vincent Medical Center saves patient with severe case of COVID-19 using ECMO technology LINK

Hawaii: 2 tourists were arrested in Hawaii in connection with fake COVID-19 vaccination cards, officials say LINK

Canada: Alberta to backtrack on plans to lift COVID-19 protocols, government source says LINK

UK: COVID-19: UK reports another 32,700 coronavirus cases and 100 deaths | UK News | Sky News

Tennessee: In the first two weeks of August, the Memphis Fire Department said it has been overwhelmed by a call volume 23 percent higher than this time last year. The Memphis dispatch center is taking an average of 469 calls a day. LINK

Tennessee: Methodist LeBonheur staff updates on Delta in the embedded video. Here is what it looks like here in the Mid-South. LINK

Israel: As of Wednesday, Israel had 451 seriously ill Covid patients in its hospitals. 276 are vaccinated: 266 fully, 10 partly. A year ago today, before vaccines existed, it had a TOTAL of 368 seriously ill hospitalized patients. If this is vaccine success, I'd hate to see failure.

Utah: With COVID-19 rates still holding strong, Utah's intensive care units are officially over capacity at 102% full. LINK

Vietnam: VIETNAM: COVID-19 lockdown extended in Hanoi's Chuong Duong through 28 August

Arkansas: #NEW: The number of #COVID19 patients admitted to Arkansas Children’s has slightly increased since Wednesday. 31 patients with coronavirus, 28 in Little Rock and three in Springdale. 14 are in ICU and seven are on a ventilator.

Arkansas: Arkansas now has TEN CASES OF THE LAMBDA VARIANT.

UK: Manchester United: For those attending tomorrow’s game, please consider downloading the NHS Covid-19 app onto your smartphone to be able to check in. You will be prompted to use the app when you enter the stadium.

RUMINT (UK): Had an old feller come in my covid testing clinic this afternoon, he is a cancer patient who has been isolating for the past year, double vaxxed, went out for the first time last weekend to watch a soccer match, woke up this morning, cough, sore throat, no taste or smell, came in to the clinic in a panic, the poor chap couldn't believe he had isolated that long, only to get infected at a soccer match

Texas: 96% of ICU beds across Texas are full as COVID cases surge: "Some wait hours, some wait days" LINK

RUMINT (Iowa): Nurse: We got a COVID+ admit last night here for the state fair. They are visiting with family from out of state. They knew they were COVID+. His family still plans to attend, "You can't catch covid outside."

UK: United Kingdom Daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) Report · Friday 13th August. 32,700 new cases (people positive) reported, giving a total of 6,211,868. 100 new deaths reported, giving a total of 130,801.

Arkansas: #BREAKING: Arkansas health officials report 1,458 #COVID19 hospitalizations, the highest ever since the pandemic began. The state recorded 3,023 new cases in the last 24 hours. #ARNews

World: Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.575.2 containing the E484K mutation in the spike protein in Pamplona (Spain) May-June 2021 LINK

Oregon: Is @OregonGovBrown and @OregonDHSAPD *trying* to repeat the mistake of NY gov Cuomo by moving COVID patients to long term care facilities? LINK

Iran: Iran’s Health System ‘Beyond Disastrous’ from Covid Surge

World: How SARS-CoV-2 Evades And Suppresses The Immune System (Part Two) LINK

US: BREAKING: Number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 tops 80,000

Tennessee: DRAMATIC! Latest @TNDeptofHealth data shows #COVID19 cases skyrocketing among Tennessee's school-age children - almost 4,000 cases reported so far this week.

US: Some U.S. hospitals have reported spikes in amputations as #COVID19 disrupted routine care. Major amputations shot up 42% last year at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago, according to the hospital’s section chief for wound healing and tissue repair

Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Medical Center, arguably the most important medical facility in the entire state of Tennessee, is "completely full." LINK

Hawaii: BREAKING: 1167 #COVID19 cases reported today, highest one day total but @HawaiiDOH says this is a combination of cases from the past 24 hrs plus cases from earlier this week not reported due to lab issues. Average daily count for the 3 days impacted = 729/day. #HawaiiNewsNow

District of Columbia: At Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., diagnoses of Type 2 Diabetes nearly tripled in the first year of the pandemic from a year earlier. Dr. Brynn Marks said school closures and decreased physical activity likely contributed to the spike

US: A COVID-19 patient in Oklahoma needed a bed. The closest one was in Boise,Idaho. It is 1,107 miles from Boise City, OK to Boise, ID. LINK

Alabama: #AL #Breaking Gov. Kay Ivey issues ‘limited’ COVID-19 emergency order; ‘No statewide mandates, closures’ LINK

South Carolina: Pickens County School District decides to go virtual after emergency meeting on COVID-19 cases LINK

World: Why the delta variant is hitting kids hard in the U.S. and how we can prevent that in Canada LINK

India: A 69-year-old fully vaccinated journalist has died of #DeltaPlusVariant of #COVID19 at Nagothane in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. LINK

US: U.S. COVID update: - New cases: 153,659 - Average: 128,680 (+3,147) - In hospital: 81,183 (+1,918) - In ICU: 19,856 (+585) - New deaths: 886

Philippines: 13,177 new Covid19 cases yesterday. Test Positivity Rate is 23.% Total tests done was 57,355 tests yesterday

Oregon: PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon governor deploying up to 1,500 National Guard troops to support hospitals as COVID cases soar.

Iceland: Yesterday(12.08) Iceland 30 covid patients, 5 of them in the ICU, 4 on ventilators. 20 are fully vaccinated, 10 not vaccinated. Of the 5 in ICU, 4 are fully vaxed. 68 hospital admissions for this 40% not vaxed. 9 have been in the ICU, 6 of them vaxed. No deaths.

Georgia: Metro Atlanta school districts report over 3,000 cases of COVID-19 in first weeks. Georgia reports highest 7-day average of COVID-19 cases in children since start of pandemic. Georgia reported the highest 7-day average of new COVID-19 cases among children 17 and younger since the start of the pandemic Friday. Today’s 7-day average was 949.8 for children between 0 and 17 years old across the state. Just one month ago, on July 13, the state was averaging 69.1 cases in that age group. That represents over a 1,200% increase in cases over the course of the last 30 days. The previous highest 7-day average was 868.4 cases on Jan. 14, 2021.

RUMINT (Mississippi): What's the next level up from wild weasel? Because that's where Mississippi is today. Going parabolic over there. Two and a half times more cases than last Friday but nowhere left to put the sick.

New Jersey: @ABC7NY @CBSNewYork @NBCNewYork The State of New Jersey has almost 700 people in the ICU with COVID-19 variants. Eight died from COVID-19 on Wednesday. Southern New Jersey is a disaster.

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justincaseitmatters · 4 years ago

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Rewind: Warrior with a Xerox Machine: An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg about “The Most Dangerous Man in America“

From the February 19 issue of KCActive.com.

By Dan Lybarger

From 1971 to 1973, Daniel Ellsberg took on the White House and played an important role in helping to end the Vietnam War. The Richard Nixon Administration were so afraid of the former Marine Corps officer that they unsuccessfully prosecuted him for 12 felony counts which might have sent him to prison for 115 years. Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s National Security Advisor, dubbed Ellsberg “The Most Dangerous Man in America.” The president’s subordinates were so eager to stop Ellsberg that they even sent “The Plumbers,” the same criminals behind Watergate, to break into the office of Lawrence Fielding, Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. As with the other crime, they managed to botch it spectacularly.

Daniel Ellsberg in Vietnam Courtesy Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg

What was the frightening weapon that Ellsberg held over Nixon during the days of his presidency? An ordinary copier.

In 1969, Ellsberg secretly copied a top-secret history of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968. As a military analyst for the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg was one of only three people who had read the 47-volume, 7000 page document.

This massive collection was known as the Pentagon Papers. Commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in 1967, the study was so secret that even then President Lyndon B. Johnson had no idea it existed.

The data in Ellsberg’s safe at RAND contained no current troop information or data that would have helped the regime in North Vietnam. But the Pentagon Papers contained damning revelations that had been kept secret from Americans, including:

• Harry S. Truman had aided the French government in their military campaign to retake their former colony in Indochina. The United States wound up paying for 85 percent of the disastrous French effort.

• Dwight D. Eisenhower scuttled an election in South Vietnam in the hopes of preventing a Communist victory. So much for making the world safe for democracy.

• John F. Kennedy had moved from Eisenhower’s limited involvement into what was dubbed a “broad commitment.”

• Lyndon B. Johnson ordered increased bombing of North Vietnam even though intelligence reports informed him that doing so wouldn’t stop the government in Hanoi from supporting the Viet Cong rebels in the south.

The documents also indicated that the chances for a victory were remote.

Ellsberg was an unlikely person to blow the whistle on the war. He was a staunch anti-Communist and had worked in the Pentagon. He also served as a civilian advisor for the State Department in Vietnam.

After trying to convince anti-war senators William Fulbright and George McGovern to act on the information in the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg went to The New York Times. On June 13, 1971, The Times begin publishing a series of articles that led to a June 30, 1971 Supreme Court ruling, which enabled the Times and dozens of other papers to print the information Ellsberg provided.

Now that his status as a member of Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List” can be seen as a badge of honor (fellow “enemies” included actor Gregory Peck and footballer Joe Namath), Ellsberg can add another title to his list: Oscar nominee.

The new documentary by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers has just received an Academy Award nomination for Best Feature documentary.

As of this writing, the film is not currently scheduled to play in Kansas City, which is a shame because it plays more like a John Grisham thriller than a dry history lesson. It vividly captures the fear that dominated the Cold War and manages to get into Ellsberg’s formidable mind. He has a PhD. in economics from Harvard and at 78, he can recall dates, names and incidents with intimidating accuracy.

Normally, when I begin an interview, I let my subjects know I’m recording them off the phone. Ellsberg began by joking about what it was like to have Nixon’s men taping him instead of reporters.

Daniel Ellsberg: They gave me on discovery (for my trial) the FBI recordings of my speeches and other things. My FBI file was 27,000 pages. I think the recordings of me were several thousand pages. It was very nice. It was like having an electronic (pioneering biographer James) Boswell going around trying to capture me.

Dan Lybarger: What must be gratifying for you is that this is the second time a documentary featuring you has received an Oscar nomination.

DE: That’s true. You’re the first person to mention that actually. The first one (Hearts and Minds was a good sign. It actually got the Oscar, so that’s a good sign for this one, maybe. Maybe I’m good luck for documentaries.

DL: There were a couple of things I didn’t know before I saw the film. The one that really jarred me the most was hearing Nixon wanted to nuke Hanoi.

DE: Not necessarily Hanoi, by the way. He doesn’t say that in the film. He was seriously threatening to use nuclear weapons against North Vietnam, but he did not specify targets. As early as 1969, he had a target folder which one of (Henry) Kissinger’s aides actually saw. It was Roger Morris, who later resigned over Cambodia.

But Roger Morris saw a target folder for a nuclear target just a mile and a half from the Chinese border at a railhead, where a railroad came into North Vietnam and branched off into many other smaller lines. They were going to use that target as a signal to China. It was to be an airburst, relatively small, what they call a tactical weapon. That is, something on the order of Hiroshima. That counts as a small, tactical weapon these days. In theory, they were expecting very few civilian casualties because it was off in the jungle.

There was also another target selected. This one was the Mu Gia Pass into what they called the “Ho Chi Mihn Trail” for infiltration down into South Vietnam. So, cities would not have been their first targets almost surely, but they could have more than conceivably have developed that.

Very few people are aware of those threats. It didn’t come out, of course, until much later. So during the war, I think, people were not aware. I was told by Mort Halperin, who had worked for Kissinger that Nixon had been making nuclear threats as early as May 1969. And the planning I was telling you about was for November of that year.

Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon Courtesy Air Force Magazine

And later, in the film, you saw (Kissinger and Nixon) on the tape in the Oval Office on April 25, 1972 during the offensive, Nixon (Ellsberg imitates Nixon’s distinctive drawl) is saying, “How many would be killed if we hit the dikes?”

I think Kissinger says, “150,000.” Something like that (The actual number Kissinger cited was 200,000!).

Nixon says, “No, no, no, I’d rather use a nuclear bomb. Have you got that ready?”

Kissinger says, very reasonably, “Oh, I think that would be just too much.”

Nixon, “That’s what you think, Henry? I want you to think big for Christsakes!”

He wasn’t saying Hanoi, necessarily, just nuclear weapons in North Vietnam.

DL: But when you use a nuke, it’s not like you can claim the land after you’ve destroyed the target.

DE: That’s right. Radioactivity. Again, it was an airburst. They figured there wasn’t a lot of residual radioactivity. But you’re right. It’s not exactly new in the film. If you look at the National Security Archives. It’s NSArchive.org of George Washington University in DC. They put out a lot of tapes and documents and whatnot.

And if you look up Nixon, “Duck Hook,” that was the code name for the escalation in 1969, which included nuclear weapons. They’ve got a big file on that. So it’s been out for a number of years, but I won’t say that one person in a hundred has ever heard of it.

DL: Just to clarify it for the readers, with the information you revealed with the Pentagon Papers, the Soviets and the VC already knew this stuff but we here in America didn’t. Would that be a correct thing to say?

DE: Yes and no. The Soviets and the Chinese and the North Vietnamese and the VC, they’d know the threats we’d been making because they were made to them. And some of them were made through the Russians. So they knew those.

The Americans did not. It was a super-secret here, lest it worry the Americans that we were getting into a nuclear war instead of ending it. That was Nixon’s idea of how to end it successfully. When he promised that he would end (the Vietnam) war, he had in mind winning it with threats like this, and if necessary, carrying out the threats.

It was his fear, by the way, that I would reveal that to the American people that led him to take the criminal actions against me to shut me up, to get information from my doctor’s office to blackmail me, or later to bring people up from Miami to beat me up or kill me.

That’s why I was regarded by them as the “Most Dangerous Man,” not that I wasn’t going to reveal anything to the adversaries who knew this and who also knew that they were winning the war. Anyway, the war was stalemated. They were not losing the war. They would never lose the war.

They knew that, and it was the American people who were being told the opposite, very largely by Johnson, in particular, that we were on the verge of winning. Nixon did not tell the people what he had in mind for winning the war, but that was his secret plan.

So he didn’t want that secret objective, which would sound overambitious to say the least to the American people. He didn’t want that out, and that’s what made me dangerous to him: the fear that I knew that and would put it out.

DL: In both your book Secrets and the film, you describe this insular culture in Washington and RAND. You said that you were the only person at RAND who had even spoken with someone who was opposed to the war.

DE: Of course, RAND was in Santa Monica, not Washington. They had a Washington office. I think that’s probably true that the Cold Warriors and the officials, we were all Cold Warriors in the Pentagon. I guess that’s before your time.

I’ve never really thought about this, about how people who are significantly younger can even imagine what the Cold War was like. Just imagine the feeling that the terrorists of today had the strength and power of the Soviet Empire let’s say beneath them and were not just a band of people without even a base, particularly.

So it’s this idea of constant danger. So the people who were put in the (antiwar movement) were on the whole much younger, including the children of these people (the war’s supporters). Unless they had a high school or college age child, man or woman, who was very opposed to war, these people would probably have never passed paths at all.

They didn’t go to a demonstration. We didn’t have the Internet. Unless you went to a demonstration or made some effort, you wouldn’t know anybody who’d done some civil disobedience or was refusing the draft. And it just happened that I bit-by-bit came into contact with these people.

I don’t think I did know anybody (who was in the anti-war movement). I think that’s true. I probably didn’t know any colleague who in turn had ever met a draft resister. It shouldn’t be as hard to imagine as you think. These are just totally different circles.

DL: Do you think you would have been as bold in releasing the Papers without your wife Patricia’s influence?

DE: From the movie you get an impression that’s misleading because of the way it was abridged, really. The decision to copy the papers was done during a three-year period, which is just mentioned. It wasn’t really shown.

There was a three-year period where we were totally apart, not expecting to get back together again, either. It does go into some detail of how I broke it off in Vietnam. That was ‘66.

From ‘66 to late ‘69, we were totally apart. It was during that period that I had the change of position somewhat from being a President’s man to obeying my oath to the Constitution, being more concerned about the country than the President and about what we were doing to Vietnam.

So we got together after I had got started copying the Pentagon Papers. I didn’t tell her about them for quite a while because I didn’t want to implicate her. But of course, now that I had shifted so much, it all made that much easier for us to get together.

She hadn’t been the one who wanted to part. It was me. Now that I agreed with her totally, there was no friction between us, and she became a total partner in the operation from then on. I have to say I’d be glad to give her full credit if she were the one. But in fact, it didn’t work that way.

DL: I don’t want to get all “Dr. Fielding” on you here, but one thing that made the film more involving was you did mention the childhood auto accident and how it affected your development. Your father was asleep at the wheel, and your mother and sister died in the wreck.

DE: It’s an inference, long after the fact. I didn’t think of it at the time, but looking back I think it did.

DL: It would seem that you wouldn’t normally defer to authority.

DE: Well, yes and no. I think I see what you’re driving at. Keep in mind, I was once a Cold Warrior. I had been a Marine infantry officer, so I was really familiar with the concept of discipline and of chain of command.

If I weren’t capable of being a good, disciplined obedient officer, I wouldn’t have been given the command of a rifle command under me. And, of course, I was under a battalion commander. So, I was in the Pentagon, and I was very familiar with having bosses and being a very good servant of them. And in the end, when I felt that my boss, the President, and this is more than hinted at in the movie, when I felt he was asleep at the wheel, you might say, going off the road, that was not entirely unfamiliar to me.

In other words, it wasn’t that I distrusted or couldn’t obey orders. But I think that looking back, that childhood incident did save me in a couple of ways:

One, that catastrophe was possible. I think that’s more vivid to me than it is to people who haven’t had that kind of experience. People think, “We’ll get through this. We’ll muddle through some how. The worst can’t happen.” I had experienced that the worst can happen very suddenly. And it may not work out all right.

The other was that the person who was responsible for that could be someone that you otherwise trust and admire, like my father, and/or the President. And I really did put a lot of trust in Presidents like other people, not just Americans, people from any country. But I was also aware they can go very wrong. That had been revealed to me very early.

So the possibility that the President was just on a wrong course, I think, was more available to me than to somebody who hasn’t had that kind of traumatic experience in their background. But that’s just a guess. I’m not Dr. Fielding, either. He didn’t bring it up, by the way, looking back on it. In fact, it was another psychoanalyst, not mentioned in the film that was a friend of mine, an associate. I met her much later in life, in the ‘80s, and we talked a lot, and she’s the one who pointed me toward this interpretation.

DL: I’d like to ask you about another movie for a moment: Dr. Strangelove. In Secrets, you describe a couple of potential scenarios in the late 1950s that could have lead to a Dr. Strangelove situation where there weren’t clear-cut plans to prevent a lower-level commander from ordering a nuclear strike.

DE: They had various regulations that were supposed to do that, but what I had discovered was they were very loose and lax. They weren’t observed, so that in fact a low-level could have indeed launched and might well have. It’s something I mean to write a lot about in the coming year.

If you look at my website, there are various pieces I’ve written over the last year or so and then some op-ed things from Truthdig.com: One on Hiroshima and my father and another on the war planning called “Planning a Hundred Holocausts” this last September.

And I plan to do a lot more writing on that subject. I’m going to be using the Internet to put out things that wouldn’t have been easy to do earlier.

DL: I remember how copy machines were back in the 1970s. I remember the paper was slick and sometimes the type was runny. Was it difficult to handle the sheets as you were copying them?

DE: You’re maybe thinking of something that’s in the very early stage where they used special papers of various kinds. By the time I was doing this, we were using regular paper the way they do now. But the machine was very slow.

There was no collating and no zip, zip, zip kind of thing. It was a very slow page-by-page thing with a green light as in the movie. I didn’t know what that light was doing to my eyes. I was doing it so many times. And I did it without the cover because the cover took just too much time. So I tried to do it without the cover, and it really made me wonder whether I was possibly doing some real damage to my eyes. But apparently not.

DL: You’ve done one thing, that I haven’t seen too many people do. You’ve emerged from a Stephen Colbert interview with your dignity intact.

DE: (laughs). He was nice to me. That’s a matter of his decision, not mine.

DL: Even though much of the interview was in jest, you said you wished you had come forward with what you had known earlier. In your book, you said that as early as ’61, you had talked to some colonels when you were visiting Vietnam, and they had told you even then the situation was dicey.

DE: What they made clear was that without U.S. troops, it was hopeless. And they were not in favor of putting U.S. troops in. I did think it was a pretty hopeless situation, one that we should not get involved in.

But once the President (Johnson) in ’65 started the bombings, then as a Cold Warrior I thought as unpromising as it is, we can’t afford to have a total defeat here for our prestige and our influence in the world. We’ve got to make something out of this.

So for a matter of months in ’65, I would say that I did hope that now that he’s decided to go ahead, I hope we could make this less than a total fiasco, not another Bay of Pigs. Or course, it was a Bay of Pigs, on a scale of a thousand.

So for some months, I went to Vietnam in that spirit, hoping that I could contribute to some degree of success there. At the end of that year, and definitely by spring of the next year, ‘66, it was clear to me that that wasn’t going to happen. Nothing good was going to come of this. But in the end I stayed there another year.

DL: I know you’ve been following the Oscars because I’ve read your interview in the New York Times today. I was wanting to know if you’ve seen one of the nominated films called In the Loop, which is now on DVD.

DE: Oh, I loved that, and that’s terrific. That’s very realistic about the Washington scene and the British scene. It’s a satire supposedly, but really it could be just out of the Pentagon Papers themselves.

It may seem horrifyingly funny. Of course it’s not funny in real life there are people who are just as crass and shallow and unthinkingly ruthless and cynical. Those people do dominate policy in most imperial capitals like London, or even more Washington. That’s how empires are run. (Laughs). It probably goes back to the Romans.

I once said to my wife, a year before we were married. She said, “Why is it so important to put these out since (U.S. Sen. William) Fulbright doesn’t seem to feel it’s necessary to do it and other senators? If they don’t think it’s worth the risk, why do you think that it is?”

And I said, “First, they haven’t read them. I’m the only one who’s read them. Normally, I would trust their judgment, but I can’t really rely on their judgment now. I have to go on my judgment because they don’t really know what’s in these papers even though I’d given them to them in some cases.” But they hadn’t read them.

I said, “Second, this is the inner decision making of an empire. I’m sure that if you went back to the Sumerians or the Romans or the Greeks or the Egyptians or whoever, it would be very much like this. But it really hasn’t come out.

The closest to it were when we captured the decision-making documents of the Nazi regime in East Germany because we invaded. And that was the basis of the Nuremburg Trials. Everybody could say, “Well, that’s the Nazis. That doesn’t teach us anything. Those Germans they’re very weird. It doesn’t apply to us.”

So I said, “The point is even if nothing comes of this now, these documents will give us a sense on which an empire is run, meaning: the shallow, narrow-minded political interests that are involved, the fear of losing face, the fear of losing office to rivals who would say they were tougher than you. That sort of thing.” The total unconcern for the innocent people to be killed in the process here and not much concern for one’s own soldiers either. “They volunteered or they didn’t volunteer. Who cares? They’re expendable.” That’s the kind of thinking you find in those documents. You come back to In the Loop.

In the Loop is a documentary. Period. That’s it. They should be a rival for the category for Documentary. If that’s the case, I’d gladly defer to it. If it were one of the five, I’d say, “For sure, that should win.”

#Daniel Ellsberg #The Most Dangerous Man in America

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auskultu · 6 years ago

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TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1968

Viet Cong gunners fired 40 shells into Saigon and its suburbs early today in the heaviest bombardment of the war on the capital. For the first time, general alert sirens sounded, but it appeared that the barrage of 100-pound rockets caused mostly terror and harassment.

Le Due Tho, a ranking North Vietnamese official, arrived in Paris yesterday to join Hanoi’s negotiation delegation and issued a firm restatement of the demand for an “unconditional halt” in American bombing of the North.

A wave of student demonstrations swept Europe, as young protesters pushing for change met the police in head-on confrontations in a number of cities. Students in Belgrade rallied to the cry of “We want action—enough with words!” and surged into a free-swinging battle with the police. At Oxford, a noisy group of 300 students won concessions on university regulations, including the lifting of a ban on distributing literature, by rushing the offices of the proctors. After breaking up a battle between opposing factions of Rome University students, Italian policemen cut chains that bound the gates to the main campus and moved in to oust without resistance the 200 to 300 extremist students who had barricaded themselves inside.

Premier Pompidou appeared on the French national television network to tell potential voters that their June 23 ballots would be “for or against totalitarian communism.” He called on striking workers to return to. their jobs, as a matter of “national duty,” but immediately after his speech broadcasters walked out charging that they could “no longer assure objective reporting.”

With the California primary polls scheduled to open at 7 A.M. today, Democratic Presidential aspirants wound up their bids for the state's golden prize—172 delegates to the national convention. Senator Robert F. Kennedy led the two latest straw polls, but backers of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy predicted an Oregon-style upset. In South Dakota’s primary, also today, Senator Kennedy and Senator McCarthy are in a battle with Vice President Humphrey, whose slate is listed under President Johnson’s name. In today’s New Jersey primary, the regular organizational slate is facing a challenge from Senator McCarthy’s forces at a local and statewide level.

“The tide has turned,” said Governor Rockefeller at a Milwaukee news conference. He was referring to his chances for victory and predicted that he would be the Republican nominee for President.

In a 6-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck a blow at capital punishment by ruling that persons expressing general conscientious scruples against the death penalty cannot automatically be kept off juries in capital cases.

A singing, shouting band of hundreds of participants in the Poor People’s Campaign staged a seven-hour camp-in on the steps outside the Attorney General’s office. An entrance to the Justice Department was blocked, but there was no vandalism and no arrests.

A young woman appeared at the film studio of Andy Warhol in the late afternoon and shot and seriously wounded the well-known 39-year-old artist.

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years ago

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Events 11.7

335 – Athanasius is banished to Trier, on charge that he prevented a grain fleet from sailing to Constantinople. 680 – The Sixth Ecumenical Council commences in Constantinople. 921 – Treaty of Bonn: The Frankish kings Charles the Simple and Henry the Fowler sign a peace treaty or 'pact of friendship' (amicitia), to recognize their borders along the Rhine. 1426 – Lam Sơn uprising: Lam Sơn rebels emerge victorious against the Ming army in the Battle of Tốt Động – Chúc Động taking place in Đông Quan, in now Hanoi. 1492 – The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France. 1619 – Elizabeth Stuart is crowned Queen of Bohemia. 1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published. 1775 – John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters to fight with Murray and the British. 1786 – The oldest musical organization in the United States is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society. 1811 – Tecumseh's War: The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana, United States. 1837 – In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time. 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Belmont: In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive. 1861 – The first Melbourne Cup horse race is held in Melbourne, Australia. 1874 – A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party. 1881 – Mapuche rebels attack the Chilean settlement of Nueva Imperial, as defenders fled to the hills and the settlement was effectively destroyed. 1885 – The completion of Canada's first transcontinental railway is symbolized by the Last Spike ceremony at Craigellachie, British Columbia. 1893 – Women's suffrage: Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote, the second state to do so. 1900 – Second Boer War: Battle of Leliefontein, a battle during which the Royal Canadian Dragoons win three Victoria Crosses. 1900 – The People's Party is founded in Cuba. 1907 – Jesús García saves the entire town of Nacozari de García by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers (3.7 miles) away before it can explode. 1910 – The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse. 1912 – The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg, with a production of Beethoven's Fidelio. 1913 – The first day of the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, a massive blizzard that ultimately killed 250 and caused over $5 million (about $118,098,000 in 2013 dollars) damage. Winds reach hurricane force on this date. 1914 – The German colony of Kiaochow Bay and its centre at Tsingtao are captured by Japanese forces. 1916 – Jeannette Rankin is the first woman elected to the United States Congress. 1916 – Woodrow Wilson is reelected as President of the United States. 1916 – Boston Elevated Railway Company's streetcar No. 393 smashes through the warning gates of the open Summer Street drawbridge in Boston, Massachusetts, plunging into the frigid waters of Fort Point Channel, killing 46 people. 1917 – The Gregorian calendar date of the October Revolution, which gets its name from the Julian calendar date of 25 October. On this date in 1917, the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace. 1917 – World War I: Third Battle of Gaza ends: British forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire. 1918 – The 1918 influenza epidemic spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 (about 20% of the population) by the end of the year. 1918 – Kurt Eisner overthrows the Wittelsbach dynasty in the Kingdom of Bavaria. 1919 – The first Palmer Raid is conducted on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists are arrested in 23 U.S. cities. 1920 – Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow issues a decree that leads to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. 1929 – In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public. 1931 – The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed on the anniversary of the October Revolution. 1933 – Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Madrid Defense Council is formed to coordinate the Defense of Madrid against nationalist forces. 1940 – In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion. 1941 – World War II: Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people died in the sinking. 1944 – Soviet spy Richard Sorge, a half-Russian, half-German World War I veteran, is hanged by his Japanese captors along with 34 of his ring. 1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States. 1949 – The first oil was taken in Oil Rocks (Neft Daşları), oldest offshore oil platform. 1954 – In the US, Armistice Day becomes Veterans Day. 1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to immediately withdraw their troops from Egypt. 1956 – Hungarian Revolution: János Kádár returns to Budapest in a Soviet armored convoy, officially taking office as the next Hungarian leader. By this point, most armed resistance has been defeated. 1957 – Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters. 1967 – Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city. 1967 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1972 – 1972 United States presidential election: U.S. President Richard Nixon is re-elected in the largest landslide victory at the time. 1973 – The United States Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval. 1975 – In Bangladesh, a joint force of people and soldiers takes part in an uprising led by Colonel Abu Taher that ousts and kills Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf, freeing the then house-arrested army chief and future president Maj-Gen. Ziaur Rahman. 1983 – United States Senate bombing: A bomb explodes inside the United States Capitol. No one is injured, but an estimated $250,000 in damage is caused. 1987 – In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. 1989 – Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States. 1989 – David Dinkins becomes the first African American to be elected Mayor of New York City. 1989 – East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, along with his entire cabinet, is forced to resign after huge anti-government protests. 1990 – Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland. 1991 – Magic Johnson announces that he is HIV-positive and retires from the NBA. 1994 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world's first internet radio broadcast. 1996 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor. 2000 – Controversial US presidential election that is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Case, electing George W. Bush the 43rd President of the United States. 2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. 2004 – Iraq War: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day "state of emergency" as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. 2007 – Jokela school shooting in Tuusula, Finland, resulting in the death of nine people. 2012 – An earthquake off the Pacific coast of Guatemala kills at least 52 people. 2017 – Shamshad TV is attacked by armed gunmen and suicide bombers. A security guard was killed and 20 people were wounded. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.

#Events

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/india-sees-highest-daily-jump-in-coronavirus-cases-live-updates-news/

India sees highest daily jump in coronavirus cases: Live updates | News

India confirmed the steepest spike of 57,118 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking its coronavirus caseload close to 1.7 million.

Vietnam recorded its second coronavirus death as the country battles a new outbreak of the virus, which emerged in the city of Danang.

Spain reported a second day of 1,000-plus coronavirus infections, the highest since the nation lifted its lockdown in June.

Here are the latest updates:

Saturday, August 1

08:10 GMT – Russia plans mass vaccination against coronavirus from October

Russia is preparing to start a mass vaccination campaign against coronavirus in October, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Saturday, RIA news agency reported.

The minister, who did not give details about the vaccine to be used, said doctors and teachers would be the first to be vaccinated.

A source told Reuters this week that Russia’s first potential COVID-19 vaccine, developed by a state research facility, would secure local regulatory approval in August and be administered to health workers soon after that.

Russia has reported more than 838,400 cases and at least 14,000 deaths [AFP]

07:45 GMT – US records biggest single-day deaths since May

US deaths from the novel coronavirus rose by at least 1,453 on Friday, the biggest one-day increase since May 27, to reach a total of 153,882, according to a Reuters tally.

For July, US cases rose by 1.87 million, or 69 percent, and deaths rose by 25,770, or 20 percent [Marco Bello/Reuters]

The rise in deaths was the biggest one-day increase since fatalities rose by 1,484 on May 27.

US cases rose by at least 66,986 to a total of 4.58 million with some local governments yet to report.

06:50 GMT – India records highest daily jump in coronavirus cases

India recorded the steepest spike of 57,118 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking its coronavirus caseload close to 1.7 million, with July alone accounting for nearly 1.1 million infections.

The Health Ministry on Saturday also reported 764 additional deaths for a total of 36,511.

Only US and Brazil have reported more cases than India [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said Friday that India achieved more than 1 million recoveries with active cases only one-third of the total. India is now conducting more than 640,000 tests in 24 hours, taking cumulative tests across the country to nearly 1.9 million, he said.

06:15 GMT –

Hello, this is Hamza Mohamed in Doha taking over from my colleague Zaheena Rasheed.

04:58 GMT – Japan’s Okinawa declares state of emergency

Japan’s Okinawa region has declared a state of emergency and asked people to stay home for two weeks amid an “explosive spread” of coronavirus cases.

Governor Denny Tamaki said hospitals were being overwhelmed by the surge and told residents to avoid non-essential outings through the emergency, which is set to end on August 15.

Okinawa reported 71 new coronavirus cases Friday, bringing its total to 395. US forces based on the island account for 248 of those cases.

04:21 GMT – S Korea arrests Christian leader over church cluster

Authorities in South Korea have arrested the founder of a secretive Christian sect at the centre of the country’s largest outbreak on charges of obstructing the government anti-virus efforts.

Lee Man-hee is the powerful head of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus which is linked to more than 5,200 coronavirus infections, or 36 percent of South Korea’s total cases.

Prosecutors allege the 89-year-old conspired with other sect leaders to withhold information from authorities, including meeting places and the number of participants at the sect’s gatherings as authorities tried to trace infection routes in February.

Lee and his church have steadfastly denied the accusations, saying they’re cooperating with health authorities. Its spokesperson, Kim Young-eun, said the church will do its best so that “the truth is clearly proved in court”.

People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on a news conference held by Lee Man-hee, founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, in Seoul, South Korea, March 2, 2020 [File: Heo Ran/Reuters]

03:47 GMT – Google says 20 US states, territories ‘exploring’ contact tracing apps

Alphabet Inc’s Google says 20 US states and territories, representing about 45 percent of the country’s population, are “exploring” contact tracing apps using a tool it developed with Apple Inc.

In addition, the company said public health authorities in 16 countries and regions outside the US had launched apps using the Apple-Google tool, up from 12 previously. They include Austria, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Gibraltar, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Northern Ireland, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Uruguay.

The technology enables app users to track encounters with other people through Bluetooth signals and anonymously notify contacts if they later become infected with the virus.

Google said the first of the US apps would be released in the “coming weeks”, but declined to name the states. It added that its system with Apple now enables apps launched by different countries to talk to each other, allowing contact-logging to continue even when users cross borders.

03:26 GMT – Sharp drop in new cases in China

China has reported a sharp drop in newly confirmed infections in the mainland, logging 45 additional cases in a possible sign that its latest outbreak in Xinjiang may have run its course.

Thirty-one of the cases were in far western Xinjiang, eight were in northeastern Liaoning and the remaining six were imported cases. The figures are down from 127 cases reported nationally on Friday.

03:15 GMT – Vietnam logs 12 new cases, ramps up testing

Vietnam’s health ministry has reported 12 new local coronavirus cases linked to the recent outbreak in the tourist hotspot of Danang, taking total infections to 116 since the virus resurfaced last week.

The new patients, with ages ranging from two to 78, are linked to Danang hospital, the ministry said in a statement.

Vietnam has registered a total of 558 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. After months of successful curbs, it reported its first two deaths on Friday.

In Hanoi, where two people have tested positive after returning from Danang, more than 100 clinics have been set up with test kits to detect the virus. Hanoi has tested a third of the 54,000 people returning from Danang.

Residents wait to be tested at a makeshift rapid testing centre as Vietnam records a rise in cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Hanoi on July 31, 2020 [Manan Vatsyayana/ AFP]

“I want to be tested so I can stop worrying if I have the virus or not. It is for me and for the community,” said Pham Thuy Hoa, a banking official who recently went to Danang for a family vacation.

“Since coming back, my family and I have quarantined ourselves at home. I did not go to work or see others. We must be responsible for the entire community.”

In Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s southern hub, five people who returned from Danang have tested positive for the virus. The city is testing some 20,000 other returnees.

As the number of cases continues to increase, Danang has tightened security and set up more checkpoints to prevent people from leaving or entering the city, which has been in lockdown since Tuesday.

02:48 GMT – California, Florida report record rise in deaths

California and Florida, two of the most populous US states, have reported record increases in COVID-19 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Florida reported 257 deaths and California, 208 on Friday.

For Florida, this is the fourth day in a row with a record rise in deaths and for California the second this week. Mississippi, Montana and Nevada also had a one-day record increase in deaths on Friday.

Overall in the US, deaths have increased by more than 25,000 in July to 153,000 total lives lost since the pandemic started.

01:41 GMT – Puerto Rico extends restrictions

Wanda Vazquez, the governor of Puerto Rico, has extended measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus for two more weeks.

That means bars, gyms, marinas and movie theatres across the US territory will stay shuttered until at least August 15. Beaches remain closed on Sundays, and are open the rest of the week only to people doing exercise, including surfers, swimmers and runners.

Face masks continue to be mandatory, and those who refuse to wear one will be arrested, Vazquez said.

A curfew from 10pm to 5am will remain in place, and no parties or gatherings will be allowed in short-term rental facilities.

01:22 GMT – Fitch revises US outlook to negative

Fitch Ratings has revised the outlook on the US’s AAA rating to negative from stable, citing eroding credit strength, including a growing deficit to fiscal stimulus to combat the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

The credit rating agency also said the future direction of US fiscal policy depends in part on the November election for president and the resulting makeup of Congress, cautioning there is a risk policy gridlock could continue.

00:56 GMT – Mexico overtakes UK to post third-highest death toll

The number of coronavirus deaths in Mexico rose to 46,688 on Friday, with the Latin American country overtaking the United Kingdom for the world’s third-highest COVID-19 death toll.

The health ministry registered 8,458 new cases, a record for a single day, as well as 688 additional deaths, bringing the total to 424,637 cases and 46,688 deaths.

The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

00:36 GMT – Free tests for migrants stuck at Costa Rica-Nicaragua border

Costa Rican doctors have started giving free coronavirus tests to about 200 Nicaraguan migrants who have been stranded at the two countries’ border for more than a week because the Nicaraguan government has demanded negative test results.

Clinica Biblica Hospital in the capital of San Jose sent a mobile lab to the Penas Blancas border crossing.

“I thank God that finally we are going to be able to return to our country,” said one migrant, who declined to give their name.

Nicaragua has prevented the entry of hundreds of its citizens from Costa Rica citing COVID-19 concerns [File: Wendy Quintero/ AFP]

00:18 GMT – Argentina halts plans to ease lockdown

Argentina President Alberto Fernandez has announced a halt on the easing of lockdown measures due to an increase in new cases and fears the health system could become overwhelmed.

“We will keep things as they are until August 16,” said Fernandez.

“In the last few days the virus has been spreading more, and we’ve seen a larger increase in infections. All this generates hospital admissions and unfortunately, deaths.”

In Argentina, more than 185,000 infections and nearly 3,500 deaths have been registered so far, figures well below those of other countries in the region.

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives.

For all the key developments from yesterday, July 31, go here.

#World

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khalilhumam · 4 years ago

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Reopening Vietnam: How the country’s improving governance helped it weather the COVID-19 pandemic

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/reopening-vietnam-how-the-countrys-improving-governance-helped-it-weather-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Reopening Vietnam: How the country’s improving governance helped it weather the COVID-19 pandemic

By Trang (Mae) Nguyen, Edmund Malesky Vietnam discovered its first COVID-19 infection in early May. Now, this country of 96 million people has reported a mere 324 confirmed total cases and zero deaths. Having earned high praise for its effectiveness in containing the COVID-19 outbreak, Vietnam is now one of the first countries to ease social distancing measures and reopen its society. Vietnam’s effective response is enabled by the country’s ongoing efforts to improve governance and central-local government policy coordination. Vietnam’s state capacity was not born overnight but resulted from decades-long efforts to improve governance and responsiveness at local levels.

The long road towards improved governance

While observers have attributed Vietnam’s success to the country’s authoritarian nature and past experience with SARS, one salient narrative has garnered little attention: the decades-long effort to improve governance and responsiveness at local levels. As students of Vietnam well know, the implementation of central policies is anything but automatic; rather, it is symptomatic of a carefully calibrated central-local relationship. Against that backdrop, how have Vietnamese leaders managed to induce compliance with restrictive COVID-19 measures in a country otherwise notorious for challenges in regulatory enforcement? Crediting mainly Vietnam’s authoritarian toolkit risks missing the country’s long-standing efforts to professionalize the administrative state. Leveraging data from Vietnam’s Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and Provincial Administrative Performance Index (PAPI) — joint projects between Vietnamese authorities and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), respectively — we show that Vietnamese provinces have made steady improvements in healthcare, information access, and corruption control. Access to health insurance has grown rapidly over time, with 90% of Vietnamese citizens insured today (Figure 1). Hospital quality has improved continuously, and demands for hospital bribes have dropped to a 10-year low (Figure 2). Taken together with the government’s policy to provide mass quarantine largely free of charge, these data suggest that Vietnamese citizens today did not have to worry about costs from COVID-19 tests (formal or informal), associated hospitalization, and centralized quarantine, thereby increasing their willingness to comply with extensive contact tracing and strict quarantine measures. Survey data also document a turnaround, albeit a slow one, in citizens’ perception of government transparency — defined as the “full flow of information” — at both national and provincial levels. Citizens are increasingly able to access government documents (including land maps, budgets, and legal documents) (Figure 3), enabled by Vietnam’s 2018 Access to Information Law and publicly available court judgments. Though some suspect political motives, the ongoing anti-graft campaign has generally received favorable responses from Vietnam watchers and international audiences, and experience with petty bribery appears to be declining across a range of citizen and business surveys. The anti-graft campaign has also intersected with the pandemic response. The head of Hanoi’s Center for Disease Control was recently indicted on a charge of collusion to inflate COVID-19 test kit costs. Transparency efforts have also mitigated skepticism towards the Party-State’s COVID-19 reporting. The Ministry of Health has posted all reported cases online, enabling deeper analysis by data scientists and bloggers, and gaining endorsement from public health experts. Vietnam’s online network of activists, while still critical of privacy violations and the lack of freedom of speech, has not raised the alarm on widespread fatalities or cover-ups. When a patient who earlier tested positive for COVID-19 died from liver failure, the government’s Facebook portal publicly discussed the reasoning for not counting his death, due to the patient’s advanced liver dysfunction and a series of negative COVID-19 tests premortem. Thus, while under-counting is possible, public disclosures open space for discussion and allow for corrections if needed. In sum, Vietnam’s strengthened state capacity during these past months is the culmination of a deliberate, sustained effort to improve governance starting at local levels. While it is too early and difficult to make any claims of causality, Vietnam’s upward trends in healthcare access, transparency, and overall local governance suggest that effective local-central coordination plays an important role implementing national policies. Beyond the simple distinction between authoritarian and democratic regimes, this narrative deserves further attention as part of a larger, global account of the administrative state in times of crisis.

Hanoi’s experience

Hanoi’s experience provides a key window into this dynamic. The capital of Vietnam and home to Noi Bai International Airport, Hanoi has registered far more COVID-19 cases than other cities and provinces. While Hanoi ranks high as an attractive destination for businesses, Hanoians have ranked the capital relatively low in its quality of public services and transparency measures, especially as related to environmental and land management. Against this background, Hanoi faced a steep battle against local outbreaks. Its success so far has relied on both reaching downward and upward, by strengthening coordination with lower administrative levels and effectively utilizing centralized resources, including the Vietnamese army and specialized units led by healthcare experts. Hanoi’s first local outbreak in early March led to the swift lockdown of one of its most affluent neighborhoods — a move sanctioned by central authorities. Days earlier, an infected person returned to Vietnam from the U.K. after a side trip to Milan, Italy — by then, the pandemic’s epicenter. Hanoi leadership called an overnight emergency meeting, immediately declared the news, and started a highly public campaign to find and notify other passengers from the same flight. While policemen barricaded the streets and set up stations around the infected neighborhood, they also provided daily check-ins, disinfectants, and free food to quarantined locals. Following a model the Ministry of Health established in early February, Hanoi’s Health Department called emergency meetings with the heads of hospitals and local health departments within Hanoi to coordinate action. It requested the six major hospitals to work on scenarios for a possible surge, including plans to add 1,000 beds. Hanoi authorities issued an order extending school closures, by then already shuttered for a month and slated to open in just two days. National authorities quickly updated regulatory measures: passengers arriving from international flights were required to fill out health declaration forms; arrivals from high-risk areas were subjected to testing and, if deemed potentially infected, required to enter a centralized quarantine camp run by army units. These swift actions, together with consistent public health messaging, bolstered public confidence in leadership at a time when much was still unknown about the virus. In late March, Hanoi faced a severe outbreak at Bach Mai, one of its busiest hospitals. Hanoi leaders rolled out rapid testing, conducting swab tests for over 30,000 patients, medical personnel, and visitors. Coordinating upward, it brought in specialized units (tổ công tác) of health experts who had worked on other outbreaks as well as the Hanoi Capital High Command (Bộ Tư Lệnh Thủ Đô Hà Nội) — a People’s Army special unit under the Department of Defense — to disinfect the hospital and coordinate people’s movement. Coordinating downward, in addition to regular check-ups and home visits, city authorities encouraged local administrative units and citizens to report home quarantine violations through a mobile app, Hanoi Smart City, which provides daily updates on COVID-19 cases, self-reporting of health symptoms, and mapping the location of existing cases. Hanoi’s case highlights the importance of both upward and downward coordination. While citizen survey data indicated that Hanoi has been struggling with certain governance metrics, its many transparency measures and comprehensive response in the past few months point towards a path of improved governance and responsiveness.

Reopening the Economy

Transparency, reduced corruption, and increased government responsiveness will also be critical for healthy businesses to emerge from the lockdown. On April 22, Vietnam declared that the nationwide social-distancing order could be relaxed, except for a delayed release of several areas deemed high-risk, including Hanoi. As the slogan now shifts from “fighting the enemy epidemic” to “live peacefully with the pandemic,” what are the prospects for Vietnam’s economic recovery? The current strategy focuses on promoting the domestic market and repositioning Vietnam for opportunities in shifting global supply chains. First, it is useful to understand COVID-19’s effect on Vietnam’s economy. The pre-pandemic PCI survey documents the operational difficulties firms faced in 2019: Even then, 63% reported difficulty in finding customers, 35% in getting credit, 34% in recruiting employees, 28% in finding business partners, and 27% in market downturns. The pandemic exacerbated all of these problems. A recent snap survey by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) shows the economic trade-offs the containment measures posed. Most firms, whether foreign, private, or state-owned, projected losses (Figure 4) and lay-offs (Figure 5). Looking at the underlying cause, VCCI finds that nearly 85% of the surveyed enterprises said their consumption markets have narrowed, 60% worried about the lack of capital and cash flow, and 43% anticipated lack of work. To promote Vietnam’s domestic market, particularly firm survival, Vietnamese leaders have issued a host of relief measures, including freezing business obligations to pay costs such as retirement and life insurance contributions, providing quick-access loans for wage payments, and increasing social welfare for laid-off workers. The Access to Information Law will help citizens and businesses monitor these transactions. Government responsiveness is also critical, as business advocates have flagged access to relief as an issue. Officials have elevated concerns about the high barriers to access funding (for example, the requirement that employees were reduced by at least 50% and the requirements around documenting loss). Hanoi leaders have put forth a plan, coordinated with other provinces, to promote linkage in the domestic market, including in tourism, agriculture, and seafood. Among other actions, this requires reorienting businesses towards high-demand areas, for example from growing decorative plants to consumable produce. While eager to restart its economy, Hanoi also made clear that economic revitalization must be balanced with public health goals by imposing limited hours for businesses, crowd control, and continued enforcement of social distancing and face-covering requirements. Compliance with these measures hinges on continued public trust. National and local leaders are also exploring ways to reposition Vietnam for opportunities in shifting global supply chains. While Vietnam likely stands to benefit from countries’ desire to diversify away from China, its domestic businesses — 80% of which have fewer than 10 employees — themselves depend on China for raw materials and components. As a result, leaders have advocated for boosting supporting industries, particularly manufacturing, technology, and textile sectors. Hanoi has also promised economic incentives such as extended land leases and preferential loans to attract investment. As the PAPI data highlights, improving transparency measures toward land and environmental policies will be key in sustaining public support. Despite the clear challenges Vietnam faces, the country’s strong growth trajectory and swift COVID-19 response have positioned it to be one the world’s few economic bright spots. The World Bank projected that Vietnam will be one of few countries to experience positive economic growth in 2020, and it managed to attract $8.6 billion in foreign investment during the first the quarter of 2020. This success, however, depends upon continuing the historical trajectory of improved economic governance, including reducing corruption.

Conclusion

Vietnam’s improving governance and central-local policy coordination have helped it weather the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling the reopening of its society and economy ahead of most peers. These key features likely remain critical as Vietnamese leaders grapple with balancing the need to support businesses with ensuring public health. As we collectively seek to glean lessons from the global efforts to combat the pandemic, Vietnam’s story moves beyond the simple distinction of regime type to challenge us to think deeper about bureaucratic capacity and responsiveness within all forms of government. Data for the above graphs, except VCCI’s proprietary data, are available here. Adrien Chorn created the graphs for this post.

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southeastasianists · 7 years ago

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In the end, the military campaign was called Operation Ranch Hand, but it originally went by a more appropriately hellish appellation: Operation Hades. As part of this Vietnam War effort, from 1961 to 1971, the United States sprayed over 73 million liters of chemical agents on the country to strip away the vegetation that provided cover for Vietcong troops in “enemy territory.”

Using a variety of defoliants, the U.S. military also intentionally targeted cultivated land, destroying crops and disrupting rice production and distribution by the largely communist National Liberation Front, a party devoted to reunification of North and South Vietnam.

Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent Orange, which contains the toxic compound dioxin. It has unleashed in Vietnam a slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health and ecological impacts that are still being felt today.

This is one of the greatest legacies of the country’s 20-year war, but is yet to be honestly confronted. Even Ken Burns and Lynn Novick seem to gloss over this contentious issue, both in their supposedly exhaustive “Vietnam War” documentary series and in subsequent interviews about the horrors of Vietnam.

Vietnam’s half-century of disaster

More than 10 years of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam exposed an estimated 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese people to Agent Orange. More than 40 years on, the impact on their health has been staggering.

This dispersion of Agent Orange over a vast area of central and south Vietnam poisoned the soil, river systems, lakes and rice paddies of Vietnam, enabling toxic chemicals to enter the food chain.

Vietnamese people weren’t the only ones poisoned by Agent Orange. U.S. soldiers, unaware of the dangers, sometimes showered in the empty 55-gallon drums, used them to store food and repurposed them as barbecue pits.

Unlike the effects of another chemical weapon used in Vietnam – namely napalm, which caused painful death by burns or asphyxiation – Agent Orange exposure did not affect its victims immediately.

In the first generation, the impacts were mostly visible in high rates of various forms of cancer among both U.S. soldiers and Vietnam residents.

But then the children were born. It is estimated that, in total, tens of thousands of people have suffered serious birth defects – spina bifida, cerebral palsy, physical and intellectual disabilities and missing or deformed limbs. Because the effects of the chemical are passed from one generation to the next, Agent Orange is now debilitating its third and fourth generation.

A legacy of environmental devastation

During the 10-year campaign, U.S. aircraft targeted 4.5 million acres across 30 different provinces in the area below the 17th parallel and in the Mekong Delta, destroying inland hardwood forests and coastal mangrove swamps as they sprayed.

The most heavily exposed locations – among them Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc, Thua Thien Hue and Kontum – were sprayed multiple times. Toxic hotspots also remain at several former U.S. air force bases.

And while research in those areas is limited – an extensive 2003 studywas canceled in 2005 due to a reported “lack of mutual understanding” between the U.S. and the Vietnamese governments – evidence suggests that the heavily polluted soil and water in these locations have yet to recover.

The dangerous quantity of residual dioxin in the earth thwarts the normal growth of crops and trees, while continuing to poison the food chain.

Vietnam’s natural defenses were also debilitated. Nearly 50 percent of the country’s mangroves, which protect shorelines from typhoons and tsunamis, were destroyed.

On a positive note, the Vietnamese government and both local and international organizations are making strides toward restoring this critical landscape. The U.S. and Vietnam are also undertaking a joint remediation program to deal with dioxin-contaminated soil and water.

The destruction of Vietnamese forests, however, has proven irreversible. The natural habitat of such rare species as tigers, elephants, bears and leopards were distorted, in many cases beyond repair.

In parts of central and southern Vietnam that were already exposed to environmental hazards such as frequent typhoons and flooding in low-lying areas and droughts and water scarcity in the highlands and Mekong Delta, herbicide spraying led to nutrient loss in the soil.

This, in turn, has caused erosion, compromising forests in 28 river basins. As a result, flooding has gotten worse in numerous watershed areas.

Some of these vulnerable areas also happen to be very poor and, these days, home to a large number of Agent Orange victims.

War propaganda and delayed justice

During Operation Ranch Hand, the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments spent considerable time and effort making the claim that tactical herbicides were safe for humans and the environment.

It launched a public relations campaign included educational programs showing civilians happily applying herbicides to their skin and passing through defoliated areas without concern.

One prominent comic strip featured a character named Brother Namwho explained that “The only effect of defoliant is to kill trees and force leaves to whither, and normally does not cause harm to people, livestock, land, or the drinking water of our compatriots.”

It’s abundantly clear now that this is false. Allegedly, chemical manufacturers had informed the U.S. military that Agent Orange was toxic, but spraying went forward anyway.

Today, Agent Orange has become a contentious legal and political issue, both within Vietnam and internationally. From 2005 to 2015, more than 200,000 Vietnamese victims suffering from 17 diseases linked to cancers, diabetes and birth defects were eligible for limited compensation, via a government program.

U.S. companies, including Monsanto and Dow Chemical, have taken the position that the governments involved in the war are solely responsible for paying out damages to Agent Orange victims. In 2004, a Vietnamese group unsuccessfully attempted to sue some 30 companies, alleging that the use of chemical weapons constituted a war crime. The class action case was dismissed in 2005 by a district court in Brooklyn, New York.

Many American victims have had better luck, though, seeing successful multi-million-dollar class action settlements with manufacturers of the chemical, including Dow, in 1984 and 2012.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government recently allocated more than US$13 billion to fund expanded Agent Orange-related health services in America. No such plan is in store in Vietnam.

It is unlikely that the U.S. will admit liability for the horrors Agent Orange unleashed in Vietnam. To do so would set an unwelcome precedent: Despite official denials, the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, have been accused of using chemical weapons in conflicts in Gaza, Iraqand Syria.

As a result, nobody is officially accountable for the suffering of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. The Burns and Novick documentary could have finally raised this uncomfortable truth, but, alas, the directors missed their chance.

This story was co-authored by Hang Thai T.M., a research assistant at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, in Hanoi.

#Southeast Asia #Viet Nam #Vietnam #Vietnam War #Agent Orange

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thekoreanist · 5 years ago

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Foreign relations of Japan/wako English bibliography

Chen Chingho 1960, ‘Chinese junk trade at Nagasaki at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty’, New Asia Journal (Hong Kong), 1.3: 25-50, 273-332.

J. P. Delgado, Khubilai Khan's lost fleet: in search of a legendary armada (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008).

G. Elison 1988, ‘The Priest Keinen and His Account of the Campaign in Korea, 1597-1598: An Introduction’, in Motoyama Yukihiko kyoju taikan kinen rombunshu henshu iinkai, ed. Nihon kyoikushi ronso: Motoyama Yukihiko kyoju taikan kinen rombunshu (Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan)

W. Enomoto 2012, ‘The current state of research on the history of Japan’s contacts with other countries in the first half of the medieval period’, AA 103: 95-120.

J. A. Fogel (ed.) 2002, Sagacious monks and bloodthirsty warriors: Chinese views of Japan in the Ming-Qing period (Norwalk CT: Eastbridge).

J. A. Fogel (ed.) 2007, Crossing the Yellow Sea: Sino-Japanese cultural contacts 1600-1950 (Norwalk CT: EastBridge 2007).

J. A. Fogel 2013, ‘Sino-Japanese shipping connections as reported in Chinese and Japanese sources’, SJS 20

R. von Glahn 2014, ‘The Ningbo-Hakata merchant network and the reorientation of East Asian maritime trade, 1150–1350’, HJAS 74: 249-279.

A. E. Goble 2009, ‘Kajiwara Shozen (1265-1337) and the medical Silk Road: Chinese and Arabic influences on medieval Japanese medicine’, in A. E. Goble, K. R. Robinson and H. Wakabayashi (eds), Tools of culture: Japan’s cultural, intellectual, medical, and technological contacts in East Asia, 1000s-1500s (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Association for Asian Studies), pp. 231-257

A. E. Goble, K. R. Robinson and H. Wakabayashi (eds) 2009, Tools of culture: Japan’s cultural, intellectual, medical, and technological contacts in East Asia, 1000s-1500s (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Association for Asian Studies).

M. Guang 2017, ‘Tributary ceremony and national security: a reassessment of Wokou diplomacy between China and Japan during the early Ming Dynasty’, Journal of Asian History 51: 27–54.

Y. Hashimoto 2012, ‘Korea in Muromachi culture: cultural exchange between Japan and Korea and between Ryukyu and Korea’, AA 103: 23-52.

B. H. Hazard 1967, 'The formative years of the Wako', MN 22:260277

B. Hazard 1976, ‘The wako and Korean responses’, in J. B. Parsons, ed., Papers in honor of Professor Woodbridge Bingham: a festschrift for his seventy-fifth birthday (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center) .

S. M. Hong-Schunka 2005, ‘An aspect of East Asian maritime trade: the exchange of commodities between Korea and Ryukyu (1389-1638)’, in A. Schottenhammer, ed., Trade and transfer across the East Asian “Mediterranean” (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz), pp. 125-161

H. M. Horton 2012, Traversing the frontier : the Man'yoshu Account of a Japanese mission to Silla in 736-737 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).

K-J. Hur & Y-S. Cho 2016, ‘Aspects of Korea-Japan cultural exchanges analyzed through Tongshinsa delegations during the National Seclusion period’, Athens journal of history 2.2: 129-136.

K. Ito 2008, ‘Japan and Ryukyu during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, AA 95: 79-99

E. Hae-Jin Kang 1997, Diplomacy and ideology in Japanese-Korean relations from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century (New York; St Martin’s Press)

E. H. Kang 1998, ‘Diplomacy and Ideology in Early Modern Korean-Japanese Relations’, in Sang-Oak Lee and Duk-Soo Park, eds, Perspectives on Korea(Sydney: Wild Peony)

C-S. Kim 2010, ‘Parhae’s maritime routes to Japan in the eighth century,’ Seoul journal of Korean studies 23: 1-22.

M. Laver 2012, 'Diplomacy, piracy, and the space between: Japan and East Asia in the medieval period', in K. F. Friday, ed., Japan emerging: premodern history to 1850 (Boulder CO: Westview Press)

J. B. Lewis (ed.), 2015. The East Asian war, 1592-1598: international relations, violence, and memory (Abingdon: Routledge).

G. Ma 2017, ‘Tributary ceremony and national security: a reassessment of Wokou diplomacy between China and Japan during the early Ming Dynasty’, JAH 51: 27-54.

G. M. McCune 1948, ‘The Japanese trading post at Pusan’, Korean review 1: 11-15.

S. Ogura 1991, 'About two Japanese scrolls: "Sea map - trade with the state of Jiazhi" and "Avalokitesvara"', in Ancient town of Hoi An: an international symposium held in Danang on 22-23 March 1990 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House), pp. 128-134

H. Okamoto 2008, ‘Foreign policy and maritime trade in the early Ming period: Focusing on the Ryukyu kingdom’, AA 95: 35-55

S-R. Park 1992, ‘Korea-Japan Relations and the History of Science and Technology’, Korea Journal 32.4: 80-88

J. Reckel 1995, Bohai. Geschichte und Kultur eines manschurisch-koreanischen Kônigreiches der Tang-Zeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag)

K. R. Robinson 1996, ‘The Tsushima governonr and regulation of Japanese access to Choson in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, Korean studies 20: 23-50

K. R. Robinson 1997, ‘The Jiubian and Ezogachishima embassies to Choson, 1478-1482’, Chosenshi kenkyukai ronbunshu 35: 55-86

K. R. Robinson 1999, ‘The imposter branch of the Hatakeyama family and Japanese-Choson Korea court relations’, Ajia bunka kenkyu 25: 67-88

K. R. Robinson 2000, ‘Centering the King of Choson: aspects of Korean maritime diplomacy, 1392-1592’, JAS 59: 109-125

K. R. Robinson 2001, 'Treated as treasures: the circulation of sutras in maritime Northeast Asia, from 1388 to the mid-sixteenth century', EAH 21: 33-54

K. R. Robinson 2006, ‘An island's place in history: Tsushima in Japan and in Choson, 1392-1592’, Korean studies 30: 40-66

K. R. Robinson 2009, ‘A Japanese trade mission to Choson Korea, 1537-1540: the Sonkai tokai nikki and the Korean tribute system’, in A. E. Goble, K. R. Robinson and H. Wakabayashi (eds), Tools of culture: Japan’s cultural, intellectual, medical, and technological contacts in East Asia, 1000s-1500s (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Association for Asian Studies), pp. 71-101

K. R. Robinson 2010, ‘Japanese presence, Korean military bases, and Korean maps in the late fifteenth century’, Acta Koreana 13.1: 7-34.

K. R. Robinson 2015, ‘Violence, trade, and imposters in Korean-Japanese relations, 1510-1609’, in J. B. Lewis, ed., The East Asian War, 1592-1598: international relations, violence, and memory (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 42-69.

E. D. Rockstein 1973, ‘Maritime Trade and Japanese Pirates: Chinese and Korean Responses in Ming Times’, Asian and Pacific Quarterly of Cultural and Social Affairs 5.2: 10-19

K. Saeki 2003, 'The Hakata merchant Sokin and relations with East Asia in the Muromachi period', Interactions and transformations: bulletin of the JSPS 21st Century COE Program (Humanities; Kyushu University), 1: 167-182.

B. Seyock 2005, ‘Pirates and traders on Tsushima island during the late 14th to the early 16th century: as seen from historical and archaeological perspectives’, in A. Schottenhammer, ed., Trade and transfer across the East Asian “Mediterranean” (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz), pp. 91-124

K-W. So 1975, Japanese piracy in Ming China during the 16th century (Michigan State UP).

T. Takatsu 2008, ‘Ming Jianyang prints and the spread of the teachings of Zhu Xi to Japan and the Ry?ky?kingdom in the seventeenth century’, in Angela Schottenhammer, ed., The East Asian ‘Mediterranean’: maritime crossroads of culture, commerce and human migration (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz), pp. 253-270.

Y. Takekoshi 1940, The story of the Wako, Japanese pioneers in the southern regions (Kenkyusha, Tokyo)

K. Tashiro 1976, 'Tsushima-han's Korean trade, 16841710', AA 30: 85-105

H. Tono 1995, 'Japanese embassies to T'ang China and their ships', AA 69: 39-62.

T. Uezato 2008, ‘The formation of the port city of Naha in Ryukyu and the world of maritime Asia: From the perspective of a Japanese network’, AA 95: 57-77

C. von Verschuer 2003, 'Official missions to Tang China and information technology', in Soaring the Silk Road : Japanese Envoys to the Sui and Tang (Nara: Research Center for Silk Roadology)

C. von Verschuer 2004, 'Across the sea : intercourse of people, know-how, and goods in East Asi'", in Murai Shôsuke, ed., 8-17 seiki no higashi Ajia chiiki ni okeru hito, mono, jôhô no kôryû (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press), vol. 1, pp. 13-28.

C. von Verschuer 2005, 'Journal de voyage de Jôjin en 1072: la vie sur le Grand Canal dans la Chine des Song ', Revue d'Etudes Japonaises du CEEJA 1 (Colmar : Centre européen d’études japonaises d’Alsace), pp. 79-124.

C. von Verschuer 2006, Across the perilous sea : Japanese trade with China and Korea from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, trans. K. L. Hunter (Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University)

C. von Verschuer 2007, ‘Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s Foreign Policy 1398 to 1408 A.D.: a translation from Zenrin Kokuhôki, the Cambridge Manuscript’, MN 62: 261-298

C. von Verschuer 2011, ‘Les relations diplomatiques entre la Chine et le Japon au début du XVe siècle, d’après une lettre adressée par l’empereur Yongle au shôgun Ashikaga Yoshimochi ', Société des historiens médiévistes de l’Enseignement supérieur public, ed., Les relations diplomatiques au Moyen Âge (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne), pp. 197-208.

G. Wade 2007, 'Ryukyu in the Ming reign annals 1380s-1580s', Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series No. 3

http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/showfile.asp?pubid=676&type=2

M. Watanabe 2008, 'An international maritime trader -Torihara Sôan: the agent for Tokugawa Ieyasu's first negotiations with Ming China, 1600', in A. Schottenhammer, ed., The East Asian 'Mediterranean': maritime crossroads of culture, commerce and human migration (Wiesbaden: Harrassowtz), pp. 169-176.

M. Yamamoto 2008, ‘The Gusuku period in the Okinawa Islands’, AA 95: 1-17

T. Yamawaki 1976, 'The great trading merchants, Cocksinja and his son', AA 30: 106-116.

Peter D. Shapinsky. Lords of the Sea: Pirates, Violence, and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies) Peter D. Shapinsky

Aleko LiliusI, Sailed With Chinese Pirates by Oxford University Press, US, October 17, 1991

Fabio Rambelli. The Sea and the Sacred in Japan: Aspects of Maritime Religion. Bloomsbury Publishing, 12. 7. 2018

So, Kwan-wai. Japanese Piracy in Ming China During the sixteenth Century. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, 1975. ISBN 0-87013-179-6

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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Whitbread Opens First hub by Premier Inn Hotel Outside of London’s Zone 1

Whitbread has opened the first hub by Premier Inn hotel outside of London’s Zone 1. The new 89-room hub by Premier Inn West Brompton is located on Lillie Road, adjacent to West Brompton Underground station and opposite the Earls Court development site. Whitbread committed to a 30-year lease on the completed hotel building, which increases Whitbread’s network of hub by Premier Inn hotels to nine locations across London with a further five locations (more than 900 rooms) on-site or in planning.

Derek Griffin, Head of Acquisitions in London and the south for Whitbread, said, “West Brompton is an excellent location for a hub by Premier Inn hotel given the vibrancy of the local area and it’s excellent transport connections. Our hub by Premier Inn hotels are performing well across our network of sites in London and Edinburgh and we’re confident the brand will trade just as well in urban village locations like West Brompton as in central London. It’s an exciting time for our hub by Premier Inn brand and we are actively seeking new freehold and leasehold opportunities across London and in towns and cities across the UK.” The hub by Premier Inn employs 23 people, all of whom were recruited through the local Fulham Job Centre and live in the West Brompton / Fulham area. Approximately half of the staff work at the hotel part-time, with four front-of-house employees studying at University whilst working at the hotel. 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bluemagic-girl · 5 years ago

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Vietnam detains 380 Chinese people in illegal online gambling bust

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HANOI (Reuters) – Law enforcement in Vietnam on Sunday detained much more than 380 Chinese people accused of managing the country’s major-ever underground online gambling ring, the governing administration stated.

Gambling is unlawful in Vietnam in most situations, nevertheless foreigners are allowed to gamble at area casinos. Last yr, Vietnam explained it would enable some local citizens to gamble at chosen casinos on a demo foundation.

The folks, aged amongst 18 and 24, ended up arrested when working online gambling internet websites from more than 100 rooms at a tightly-guarded city spot in Haiphong Metropolis, 100 kilometers east of Hanoi, the ministry claimed in a statement on its web site.

It claimed the ring hosted online platforms for Chinese gamblers to bet on sporting activities game titles and lotteries, with the volume of transactions believed at 3 billion yuan ($436.14 million).

“This is the biggest at any time gambling ring in conditions of equally the number of foreigners concerned and in phrases of dollars in Vietnamese territory,” a statement from the Ministry of Public Security claimed.

Law enforcement also confiscated all-around 2,000 smartphones and 530 computers in the raid, it added.

In November, a Vietnamese court docket jailed two senior police officers identified guilty of operating an underground on the internet gambling ring which lifted millions of bucks.

Reporting by Khanh Vu, enhancing by Deepa Babington

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auskultu · 7 years ago

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VIETNAM REPORT: THE FOE IS HURT

Hanson W. Baldwin, The New York Times, 27 December 1967

Following is the second of three articles on the situation in Vietnam by the military editor of The New York Times; who has made his-second visit to South Vietnam. He also toured it in 1965:

SAIGON, South Vietnam — The military indicators in Viet' nam present the most dramatic find clear-cut evidence of progress in the war since the dark days of 1965.

Victory on the battlefield has eluded the enemy. There seems little reason to doubt that Hanoi has abandoned the Hope 6f conquest of South Vietnam by military force.

Even the enemy's latest offensive has won no military victories and has accomplished only a part of its alms. Despite months of preparation and concentration of men and sup* plies in Laotian and Cambodian sanctuaries, the enemy has been unable to capture a district or provincial capital, has failed to annihilate any major American unit and has been defeated in every important battle and campaign.

The enemy has shown, however, that, despite the awesome firepower of the United, States, one of the heaviest bombing campaigns in history and the concentration of half a million Americans in South Vietnam, he is still capable of widespread .and concerted attacks throughout South Vietnam. He has also exacted a price in American blood.

It can be expected that the television pictures of the dead G.I.’s piled near Hill 875 will influence United States public opinion. Officers in Saigon say that the fiercely fought battles of the frontiers—first along the demilitarized zone in spring and summer, then along the Cambodian border in late October and the Laotian frontier near Dakto in November—are in a major sense indicative of the military progress made in South Vietnam.

In these battles, the Vietcong main force and North Vietnamese Army units operated from base and supply areas outside the boundaries of South Vietnam. Two years ago, and even a year ago, the enemy’s main units were operating primarily from the heart of South Vietnam, and many of the major battles were occurring along the seacoast or in the Mekong Delta rather than on the frontiers.

Since the days of the French, the Vietcong had been based with impunity in internal sanctuaries where neither the South Vietnamese Army nor the French had penetrated.

Bases Are Destroyed There are 53 Vietcong-North Vietnamese base areas in South Vietnam and 19 others in Cambodia and Laos and near the demilitarized zone in North Vietnam. Since June, 1966, United States and South Vietnamese forces have operated in 40 of the 53 base areas in South Vietnam and have neutralized 14, at least temporarily, by destroying enemy facilities, capturing stockpiles of weapons and rice, etc. Almost every base area in the country has been bombed by B-52’s.

The enemy can no longer find security in his South Vietnamese sanctuaries. Many of the Vietcong main units and the North Vietnamese divisions have been forced to use external bases for rest and regrouping and as supply points. Such important areas as the Iron Triangle and Hobo Woods are no longer sanctuaries. Hundreds of thousands of acres of jungle have been leveled by United States bulldozers and tree crunchers. Supply depots, tunnels, underground hospitals, weapons factories and rice caches have been cleaned out.

Enemy Losses High The casualty estimates also reflect the allied military successes. While United States casualties have increased sharply as the forces have, grown, the enemy has suffered: disproportionate losses.

From the beginning of 1964 to Dec. 1,1967, the allied forces—those of the United States, South Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand and the Philippines—had 54,708 men killed in action, 15,339 of them Americans. In the same period, official estimates are that 187,229 of the enemy were killed, considerably more than 40,000 defected and thousands became prisoners of war.

The figures are not conclusive, but they indicate that the enemy is being hurt far more than the allies. Intelligence officers in Vietnam believe that total enemy manpower losse—killed, disabled, sick, ill and starving, defectors, prisoners of war and deserters—are running at the rate of 12,000 to 15,000 men a month and that both the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong are experiencing difficulty in providing adequate replacements.

Northerners in Majority There are seven organized North Vietnamese divisions in South Vietnam or on its borders, plus two so-called Vietcong divisions and enough separate regiments and battalions to equal about seven divisions.

The North Vietnamese now represent the majority in the fully organized units. Some 54.000 of them are in North Vietnamese units and an additional 12,000 to 15,000 North Vietnamese are serving with indigenous South Vietnamese in Vietcong main and local units that total about 64,000 men.

The combined total is about 118.000 men in the regular, uniformed, well-armed battalions, regiments and divisions, a slight reduction from the peak estimated at 127,000 in September, 1966.

Another North Vietnamese division, or elements of it, has recently entered South Vietnam or is poised to do so and still another division may be prepared to move south. The enemy appears to be trying to replace his losses and to match relatively the current program for increasing allied strength.

A Manpower Problem Nevertheless, intelligence officers believe that the enemy may be approaching his manpower limit. They think North Vietnam has “a manpower problem, not yet a manpower crisis.” They concede that Hanoi might be able to send two or three more divisions south, including the one already en route, but only by stripping the North of reserves.

Their calculations indicate that about half a million people are required in North Vietnam to replace bridges, move supplies, repair bomb damage and fill in cratered roads, that 175,000 more are tied down in air and coastal defense in North Vietnam and that Hanoi must keep on its own soil the majority of the nine or ten divisions still in the north for coastal defense, a training base, protection against invasion and internal security.

They say that over-age men and under-age boys from North Vietnam, some of them with little training, are appearing in replacement levies in the South and that all North Vietnamese reserve officers have already been called up. Even so, 15 per cent of the men who start out on the long trail to South Vietnam never get there, United States experts believe, as a result of bombing, exhaustion, disease or desertion.

The infiltration rate from North Vietnam across the demilitarized zone and through Laos and Cambodia in the second and third quarters of 1967 is estimated at 6,000 men a month, compared with a high figure of 12,000 men a month in the first quarter of 1966.

Rate May Be Rising The rate, however, could be increased, and may now be increasing, to 12,000 men a month—about 6,000 of them replacements, the other half in new units—and might be maintained at that level, the experts say, for four or five months. Whether Hanoi could long supply any such number is another question.

In addition to the formally organized military units of the enemy, new intelligence data, now far more complete and far more thoroughly analyzed by a modern computerized intelligence center in Saigon, indicates that there are 70,000 to 90,000 non-uniformed full-time guerrillas in South Vietnam, said to be a “significant decline over a year ago.”

These guerrillas are included in the enemy’s military order of battle, along with a revised estimate of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese administrative services—medical, personnel, transportation and support elements. The strength of the administrative forces is estimated at 35,000 to 40,000 full-time personnel. The revised estimate of the number of people engaged full-time in military operations on the enemy side thus totals 223,000 to 248,000.

In addition, there are an undetermined number, probably many thousands, of part-time guerrillas or sympathizers and perhaps some 65,000 to 90,000 in the Vietcong political organization, defined in Saigon as “the political and administrative organization through which the Vietcong control or seek to control the Vietnamese people."

These new estimates of Vietcong strength, spokesmen for Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the United States commander, have emphasized, are based on new data and cannot be compared with previous figures. They reflect a far greater knowledge of the enemy than was available in 1965 or 1966, and they also show that the Vietcong military and political structure was more deeply embedded in the whole fabric of South Vietnam’s political, economic and social life than was estimated two years ago.

But the numerical estimates of enemy strength do not reflect the true situation, officers in Saigon believe. They have detected, they say, irrefutable evidence of a decline in enemy morale and effectiveness, even though the fierce battles on the frontiers, skillful enemy generalship at Dakto and the courage, discipline and fanaticism of the enemy troops do not seem to reflect this.

The decline is particularly evident, it is said, in Vietcong and North Vietnamese units still operating in the heart of South Vietnam, and especially in some of the local and regional guerrilla units.

Drop in Morale Many captured documents and prisoners-of-war interrogations clearly reflect the problems of the enemy—malnutrition, disease, high casualties, endless fighting and harassment, exhaustion and disillusionment. North Vietnamese replacements apparently anticipate participation in an easy victory march in South Vietnam. Their morale appears to drop perceptibly after they face the actualities of combat in the South. The realization that assignment to South Vietnam is likely to mean death appears to be spreading.

Desertions are increasing, particularly in the IV Corps area, the Mekong Delta, and field courts-martial have been established with authority to “reorient” or execute those found guilty. Nevertheless, the number of prisoners of war and defectors rose sharply in 1967, Recruiting in South Vietnam, in most cases forcible impressment, dropped to some 3,000 to 3,500 a month during 1967, and most enemy units are considerably under strength.

In the delta, two enemy battalions have been disbanded and the enemy is recruiting boys of 12 to 14. In the I and III Corps areas, many enemy units have been worn down to a fraction of their former strength.

Balancing these indications of reduced enemy effectiveness is the improved and heavier armament of the enemy. In the last year, the Soviet Union has supplied heavier weapons, apparently via railroad through China and, perhaps hidden in crates, via ships through Haiphong, to North Vietnam. These weapons have been appearing n South Vietnam in greater and greater quantities.

They include 122-mm. and 40-mm. rockets, 12.7-mm. heavy machine guns, 120-mm. mortars and two types of rocket-propelled grenades. The Chinese appear to have supplied 75-mm. pack howitzers, 12-mm. mortars and 102-mm. rockets. These weapons have added to United States tactical problems, but because of their weight they have also decreased the enemy’s remarkable jungle mobility.

Not many of the heavier weapons appear to have reached South Vietnam. The Soviet Union, for instance, is believed to have supplied Hanoi with 5,000 of the 122-mm. rockets. Intelligence experts in Saigon believe that fewer than !00 of these have yet been transported south.

Effect of Bombing This limitation upon the transportation of weapons to South Vietnam is, the experts believe, a direct consequence of the increased effectiveness of United States bombing and of the Navy’s coastal and river surveillance.

There is almost unanimous agreement that in the last six ;o eight months, particularly since restrictions on key targets were eased by President Johnson in August, the interdiction campaign against communications and supply routes in North Vietnam has been more effective than in all the rest of the war put together.

The monsoon has materially reduced this effectiveness, but the rains and low visibility prevalent during the northeast monsoon season were less than normal in October and November and unexpected breaks in the weather since then have permitted effective follow-up attacks against key railroad yards, bridges and communications points.

The bombing campaign has severely limited the supply and support of enemy forces in South Vietnam. In May, it was estimated that on the main northeast railroad line from Hanoi to China 150,000 tons of supplies had to be unloaded from freight cars, carried or trucked by a bypass across a damaged section of the rail line or ferried across a bridgeless river and reloaded into freight cars on the other side. In August, this amount was put at 260,000 tons.

Congestion Is Eased Shipping congestion and unloading delays appear to have been eased at Haiphong. In July, August and September, 22 to 25 deep-draft ships reached North Vietnam each month, a considerable drop from the high point in January, 1966, when the figure was 47. About 25 ships have been steaming into Cambodian waters recently.

Although the ships’ turnaround time in Haiphong is less—19 days for the average cargo ship, 4 to 6 days for food ships—the total tonnage delivered may also be less, and aerial photographs and other intelligence data reveal major congestion around the docks and in the city. The bombing of the bridges and communications to Haiphong have made it difficult for the enemy to relieve this congestion.

The silting of the entrance to the Haiphong Channel has also had an effect upon the shipping situation. The dredge bat was used to keep the channel deep has disappeared and Hanoi’s attempts to purchase a few dredge or spare parts in Japan and elsewhere have so far been rebuffed. Some ships, therefore, can enter the port only at high tide. Other deeper-draft vessels cannot reach the docks.

Food Gets Priority The North Vietnamese are still capable of unloading high-priority cargoes into lighters or at the docks rather rapidly. Food appears to be the highest priority cargo now coming in by sea. The Soviet Union is furnishing about 500,000 tons of cereal grains to North Vietnam this year as an unpopular substitute for rice, the production of which has dropped sharply as North Vietnamese peasants have left their rice paddies for war work.

The basic picture of North Vietnam that the experts paint is of a nation with no very evident break in morale, but under great and growing strain, a strain likely to be eased temporarily in the monsoon season.

In sum, intelligence experts are convinced that allied strength and effectiveness are increasing and that the enemy’s in decreasing, though they admit that Hanoi may well be starting a major effort to build up strength in the South to match, relatively, recent United States increases.

The margin of Allied superiority is debatable. It could be as high as 6 to 1 if all South Vietnamese military and paramilitary forces are included and the enemy's political cadre and part-time militia are excluded. On the other hand, it could be as low as 3 or 4 to 1 if the Vietcong’s political apparatus and internal structure and its irregular local militia are included.

Pacification Is Slow Far less progress has been made in the pacification, or revolutionary development, program. All authorities agree that only the winning of the allegiance of the South Vietnamese people by the Saigon Government can ultimately confirm military victory and that triumph on the battlefield will be hollow without political endorsement.

Most agree that security must be provided against Vietcong terrorists and guerrillas before much progress can be expected in pacification, that well-digging, or land reform have little meaning if a terrorist can slit the throat of a village headman or the Vietcong can maintain hidden control with impunity.

The authorities also agree that, ultimately, the South Vietnamese must win their country for themselves. The United States can provide a military screen against North Vietnamese encroachment and car help eliminate the Vietcong structure, but the final job must be Vietnamese.

So far, progress in providing full security, reclaiming villages and people for the Saigon Government and destroying the structure has been slow and spotty, most observers agree.

Terrorism Reduced Perhaps the most pronounce: progress has been made in some parts of Binhdinh Province, in Vinhmy village in the delta and especially in Saigon The well-organized, large-scale terrorist activities in Saigon which in 1964 and 1965 re suited in the bombing of the United States Embassy and o United States billets and other large-scale terrorist operations have been reduced to minor incidents.

The combined operations o the Vietnamese police intelligence, the United State 199th Brigade and Vietnamese ranger battalions around Saigon, and the leveling of the Iron Triangle-Hobo Wood area, plus the interruption o communications between Saigon cells and higher commands, have severely hobbled enemy activities in the capital

On the other hand, in Hoahiep, only 15 miles north o Danang, a village guarded by a Marine-Vietnamese Combined Action platoon for the last 11 months, the Vietcong still flourish and have assassinated hamlet and village officials.

Perhaps the greatest advances in pacification have been made in organization, in program and in the increased emphasis placed upon it.

“Rooting out the infrastructure is like getting rid of the Mafia in the United States." said one official, who admitted little progress. Another officer said that the Vietcong had the best underground, secret organization of which he had ever heard. He told of the capture of a wounded Vietcong soldier deep in the jungle.

"He was tagged, with description of his wound and his destination, and he was being guided by a peasant woman over a jungle trail to an underground hospital." he said.

This officer, and scores of others, agree that the United States cannot say with certainty that the apparatus of enemy control had been rooted out completely anywhere in South Vietnam.

Most feel, however, that the apparatus has been damaged and they view hopefully the organization now under development for coping with it. This organization includes the district operational intelligence centers at each district capital, provincial reconnaissance units to operate directly against known members of the apparatus and detailed, intelligence appraisals of every village in South Vietnam. The tabulation and identification of all known members of the apparatus and their apprehension are enormous tasks.

The Start of the Job Most authorities agree that the job of eliminating the underground government and terrorist apparatus in South Vietnam, and of what amounts to nation-building, is just starting, that it has made very limited progress, but that it appears now to be on the right track. None are hopeful that it can be accomplished quickly, but only one out of hundreds of officers and officials questioned doubted that the task could be done.

Thus, an appraisal of the war in Vietnam today—as gleaned from intelligence reports, visits to all parts of the country and talks with hundreds of persons—indicates major progress e since 1965 in the military field and little or very limited progress in pacification and nation-building.

There is no doubt that the dismal picture of 1965 has been reversed: the allies are winning land the enemy is being hurt. But the road ahead could be long and slow, with no clear end in sight.

#Vietnam war #military action #nlf #viet cong #guerrilla warfare #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

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