#just a few like Darmanin and Le Pen

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Everytime a french politician call the left "terrorists" for not supporting Israel AND ALSO HAMAS, but the palestinians, I'm putting them on my list of people that will not survive the next terror.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, May 1, 2021

Student loan debts (WSJ) U.S. taxpayers could ultimately be on the hook for roughly a third of the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. This could amount to more than $500 billion, exceeding what taxpayers lost on the saving-and-loan crisis 30 years ago. While defaulted student loans can’t cause the federal government to go bankrupt the way bad mortgage lending upended banks during the financial crisis, they expose a similar problem: Billions of dollars lent based on flawed assumptions about whether the money can be repaid.

Costa Rica to close non-essential businesses next week over COVID-19 (Reuters) Costa Rica will for the next week close non-essential businesses, including restaurants and bars, across the center of the country due to a sharp increase in new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations, the government said on Thursday. From May 3-9, restaurants, bars, department stores, beauty salons, gyms and churches must close in 45 municipalities in central Costa Rica, where almost half the population lives and over two-thirds of new cases have been registered. The government will also impose travel restrictions during the week.

After a Year of Loss, South America Suffers Worst Death Tolls Yet (NYT) In the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, the mayor is warning residents to brace for “the worst two weeks of our lives.” Uruguay, once lauded as a model for keeping the coronavirus under control, now has one of the highest death rates in the world, while the grim daily tallies of the dead have hit records in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru in recent days. Even Venezuela, where the authoritarian government is notorious for hiding health statistics and any suggestion of disarray, says that coronavirus deaths are up 86 percent since January. As vaccinations mount in some of the world’s wealthiest countries and people cautiously envision life after the pandemic, the crisis in Latin America—and in South America in particular—is taking an alarming turn for the worse, potentially threatening the progress made well beyond its borders. Last week, Latin America accounted for 35 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the world, despite having just 8 percent of the global population, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

France Proposes More Surveillance to Hunt for Potential Terrorists (NYT) The French government, responding to several attacks over the past seven months, presented a new anti-terrorism bill on Wednesday that would allow intense algorithmic surveillance of phone and internet communications and tighten restrictions on convicted terrorists emerging from prison. “There have been nine attacks in a row that we could not detect through current means,” Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, told France Inter radio. “We continue to be blind, doing surveillance on normal phone lines that nobody uses any longer.” The draft bill, prepared by Mr. Darmanin, came in a political and social climate envenomed by Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, who applauded a letter published this month by 20 retired generals that described France as being in a state of “disintegration” and warned of a possible coup in thinly veiled terms. Published in a right-wing magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, the generals’ letter portrayed a country ravaged by violence, swept by hatred and prey to subversive ideologies bent on stirring a racial war. “If nothing is done,” they said, “laxity will spread inexorably across society, provoking in the end an explosion and the intervention of our active-service comrades in the perilous protection of our civilization’s values.”

Toll of Afghan ‘forever war’ (AP) After 20 years, America is ending its “forever war” in Afghanistan. Announcing a firm withdrawal deadline, President Joe Biden cut through the long debate, even within the U.S. military, over whether the time was right. Starting Saturday, the last remaining 2,500 to 3,500 American troops will begin leaving, to be fully out by Sept. 11 at the latest. Another debate will likely go on far longer: Was it worth it? Since 2001, tens of thousands of Afghans and 2,442 American soldiers have been killed, millions of Afghans driven from their homes, and billions of dollars spent on war and reconstruction. The U.S. and NATO leave behind an Afghanistan that is at least half run directly or indirectly by the Taliban—despite billions poured into training and arming Afghan forces to fight them. Riddled with corruption and tied to regional warlords, the U.S.-backed government is widely distrusted by many Afghans.

In India’s devastating coronavirus surge, anger at Modi grows (Washington Post) As he surveyed the thousands of people gathered at an election rally in eastern India on April 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared jubilant. “Everywhere I look, as far as I can see, there are crowds,” he said, his arms spread wide. “You have done an extraordinary thing.” At the time, India was recording more than 200,000 coronavirus cases a day. In the western state of Maharashtra, oxygen was running short, and people were dying at home because of a shortage of hospital beds. In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, crematoriums were being overwhelmed by the dead. For Modi, the most powerful Indian prime minister in five decades, it is a moment of reckoning. He is facing what appears to be the country’s biggest crisis since independence. Modi’s own lapses and missteps are an increasing source of anger. As coronavirus cases skyrocketed, Modi continued to hold huge election rallies and declined to cancel a Hindu religious festival that drew millions to the banks of the Ganges River. Modi swept to a landslide reelection victory in 2019, offering Indians a muscular brand of nationalism that views India as a fundamentally Hindu country rather than the secular republic envisioned by its founders. He has cultivated an image as a singular leader capable of bold decisions to protect and transform the country. Now that image is “in tatters,” said Vinay Sitapati, a political scientist at Ashoka University in the northern Indian state of Haryana. Modi and his governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) built a formidable machine for winning elections, Sitapati said, but their mind-set of continuous campaigning has come “at the cost of governance.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia Edge Toward Détente (Foreign Policy) Iran’s relationship with Saudi Arabia could be entering “a new chapter of interaction and cooperation,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Thursday, as the two countries signal a rapid mending of diplomatic ties. Khatibzadeh’s comments came in response to an interview Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave to state television this week, when he said that problems between the regional rivals could be overcome and “good relations” could soon prevail. His recent comments offer a stark contrast with ones he made in 2018 when he compared Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Adolf Hitler and described Iran as part of a “triangle of evil.” Behind the scenes, the two countries have also been busy. Earlier this month, the Financial Times broke news of direct talks, held in Baghdad, with a primary focus on ending the war in Yemen.

Chloe Zhao's challenge to Chinese Beauty standards (Quartz) Although Chloé Zhao’s Oscars win has largely been censored in China, her chill, no-makeup look at the awards ceremony has become a hit among many Chinese women, who say Zhao made them feel they can also ditch cosmetics and stop appealing to mainstream beauty standards in the country. China has a set of rigid standards for women’s appearance, prompting online slimming challenges that encourage young girls to pursue body shapes that allow them to wear children’s clothes, or have waists with a width similar to the shorter side of a piece of A4 paper (around 21 cm). As such, Zhao’s no-makeup look is a much-needed endorsement for women in China, where few public figures dare to break away from traditional beauty requirements.

Hong Kong’s latest star TV host? City leader Carrie Lam. (Washington Post) In a city known for producing action-packed martial arts movies, there’s a gripping new TV show on the block. The title promises to captivate viewers: “Get to Know the Election Committee Subsectors.” The star? Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, not as a guest but as the host. The show, which premiered Wednesday on public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, gives Lam a platform to promote electoral changes introduced by Beijing that further tilt the system against pro-democracy voices, add weight to industry-sector representatives and ensure only “patriots” loyal to the Communist Party can govern Hong Kong. People in mainland China have long been accustomed to state propaganda broadcasts. Hong Kong, however, traditionally had a freewheeling media environment. But almost a year after China imposed a security law that curtailed freedom of speech there, the public broadcaster has become a vital instrument of Beijing’s efforts to control the narrative. Wednesday night’s double-episode premiere featured furious agreement on the merit of Beijing’s electoral changes. The episodes scored only a few thousand views and mostly “thumbs-down” responses on YouTube. One user drew comparisons to George Orwell’s “1984.” If you missed the show, there’s plenty of opportunity to catch it again; episodes will air four times a day, every day.

Cambodians complain of lockdown hunger as outbreak takes toll on poor (Reuters) Residents in Cambodia’s capital gathered on Friday to demand food from the government, outraged at what they called inadequate aid distribution during a tough COVID-19 lockdown that bars people from leaving their homes. Authorities put Phnom Penh and a nearby town under a hard lockdown on April 19 to quell a surge in coronavirus infections that has seen Cambodia’s case total balloon from about 500 to 12,641 since late February, including all 91 of its deaths. Though private food deliveries are operating, markets and street food services are closed, making it difficult for poorer families to get supplies, with many without income because of the stay-home order. Amnesty International on Friday called Cambodia’s lockdown an emerging humanitarian and human rights crisis, with nearly 294,000 people in Phnom Penh at risk of going hungry.

Palestinian election delay (Reuters) It could have marked a political turning point. Palestinians were slated to go to the polls starting next month for the first time in 15 years—but on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced he will indefinitely postpone the elections. He blamed Israel, accusing authorities of stonewalling efforts to let Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem cast their ballots. But Israeli officials suggested Abbas was using Israel as a pretext to cancel a vote his faction might lose. Hamas, his party’s rival, has rejected the move, and some Palestinians took to the streets to protest.

The real threat to Chad’s military rulers: unemployed youth (Reuters) When Neldjibaye Madjissem graduated with a mathematics degree in 2015, he began searching for work as a school teacher. Six years on, he is still looking—and is angry. The 31-year-old blames Chad's government for lack of work, mismanagement of oil revenues and corruption. No wonder people are protesting on the streets in their thousands, he says. The battlefield death of President Idriss Deby last week, after 30 years of autocratic rule, sent the Central African country into a tailspin. But perhaps the greater threat for Chad’s rulers comes from the mass of unemployed young people tired of the Deby family and its international allies, particularly former colonial ruler France. At least six people died in violent protests this week. "The lack of jobs risks creating a great problem. The people are angry," said Madjissem, as he prepared a private lesson to a high school student in the living room of a tiny house in N'Djamena. His infrequent wage: $3 an hour.

Famine looms in southern Madagascar, U.N.’s food agency says (Reuters) Famine is looming in southern Madagascar, where children are “starving” after drought and sandstorms ruined harvests, the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. Amer Daoudi, senior director of WFP operations globally, speaking from Antananarivo, Madagascar, said he had visited villages where people had resorted to eating locusts and leaves. “I witnessed horrific images of starving children, malnourished, and not only the children—mothers, parents and the populations in villages we visited,” Daoudi told a United Nations briefing in Geneva. Malnutrition has almost doubled to 16% from 9% in March 2020 following five consecutive years of drought, exacerbated this year by sandstorms and late rains, he said.