Home Blog Page 212

Murray, Assange’s trial by ordeal

0
JA
Julian Assange in his cage. There is a court order against taking such pictures.

The armored glass box is
an instrument of torture

by Craig Murray

In Thursday’s separate hearing on allowing Assange out of the armored box to sit with his legal team, I witnessed directly that District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling against Assange was brought by her into court BEFORE she heard defense counsel put the arguments, and delivered by her entirely unchanged.

I might start by explaining to you my position in the public gallery vis a vis the judge. All week I deliberately sat in the front, right hand seat. The gallery looks out through an armored glass window at a height of about seven feet above the courtroom. It runs down one side of the court, and the extreme right hand end of the public gallery is above the judge’s bench, which sits below perpendicular to it. Remarkably therefore from the right hand seats of the public gallery you have an uninterrupted view of the top of the whole of the judge’s bench, and can see all the judge’s papers and computer screen.

Mark Summers QC outlined that in the case of Belousov vs Russia the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg ruled against the state of Russia because Belousov had been tried in a glass cage practically identical in construction and in position in court to that in which Assange now was. It hindered his participation in the trial and his free access to counsel, and deprived him of human dignity as a defendant.

Summers continued that it was normal practice for certain categories of unconvicted prisoners to be released from the dock to sit with their lawyers. The court had psychiatric reports on Assange’s extreme clinical depression, and in fact the UK Department of Justice’s best practice guide for courts stated that vulnerable people should be released to sit alongside their lawyers. Special treatment was not being requested for Assange – he was asking to be treated as any other vulnerable person.

The defense was impeded by their inability to communicate confidentially with their client during proceedings. In the next stage of trial, where witnesses were being examined, timely communication was essential. Furthermore they could only talk with him through the slit in the glass within the hearing of the private company security officers who were guarding him (it was clarified they were Serco, not Group 4 as Baraitser had said the previous day), and in the presence of microphones.

Baraitser became ill-tempered at this point and spoke with a real edge to her voice.

“Who are those people behind you in the back row?” she asked Summers sarcastically – a question to which she very well knew the answer. Summers replied that they were part of the defense legal team. Baraitser said that Assange could contact them if he had a point to pass on. Summers replied that there was an aisle and a low wall between the glass box and their position, and all Assange could see over the wall was the top of the back of their heads. Baraitser said she had seen Assange call out. Summers said yelling across the courtroom was neither confidential nor satisfactory.

I have now been advised it is definitely an offense to publish the picture of Julian in his glass box, even though I didn’t take it and it is absolutely all over the internet. Also worth noting that I am back home in my own country, Scotland, where my blog is based, and neither is within the jurisdiction of the English court. But I am anxious not to give them any excuse to ban me from the court hearing, so I have removed it but you can see it here.

This is the photo taken illegally (not by me) of Assange in the court. If you look carefully, you can see there is a passageway and a low wooden wall between him and the back row of lawyers. You can see one of the two Serco prison officers guarding him inside the box.

Baraitser said Assange could pass notes, and she had witnessed notes being passed by him. Summers replied that the court officers had now banned the passing of notes. Baraitser said they could take this up with Serco, it was a matter for the prison authorities.

Summers asserted that, contrary to Baraitser’s statement the previous day, she did indeed have jurisdiction on the matter of releasing Assange from the dock. Baraitser intervened to say that she now accepted that. Summers then said that he had produced a number of authorities to show that Baraitser had also been wrong to say that to be in custody could only mean to be in the dock. You could be in custody anywhere within the precincts of the court, or indeed outside. Baraitser became very annoyed by this and stated she had only said that delivery to the custody of the court must equal delivery to the dock.

To which Summers replied memorably, now very cross “Well, that’s wrong too, and has been wrong these last eight years.”

Drawing argument to a close, Baraitser gave her judgment on this issue. Now the interesting thing is this, and I am a direct eyewitness. She read out her judgment, which was several pages long and handwritten. She had brought it with her into court in a bundle, and she made no amendments to it. She had written out her judgment before she heard Mark Summers speak at all.

Her key points were that Assange was able to communicate to his lawyers by shouting out from the box. She had seen him pass notes. She was willing to adjourn the court at any time for Assange to go down with his lawyers for discussions in the cells, and if that extended the length of the hearing from three to six weeks, it could take as long as required.

Baraitser stated that none of the psychiatric reports she had before her stated that it was necessary for Assange to leave the armored dock. As none of the psychiatrists had been asked that question – and very probably none knew anything about courtroom layout – that is scarcely surprising

I have been wondering why it is so essential to the British government to keep Assange in that box, unable to hear proceedings or instruct his lawyers in reaction to evidence, even when counsel for the US government stated they had no objection to Assange sitting in the well of the court.

The answer lies in the psychiatric assessment of Assange given to the court by the extremely distinguished Professor Michael Kopelman (who is familiar to everyone who has read Murder in Samarkand):

Mr. Assange shows virtually all the risk factors which researchers from Oxford have described in prisoners who either suicide or make lethal attempts. … I am as confident as a psychiatrist can ever be that, if extradition to the United States were to become imminent, Mr. Assange would find a way of suiciding.

The fact that Kopelman does not, as Baraitser said, specifically state that the armored glass box is bad for Assange reflects nothing other than the fact he was not asked that question. Any human being with the slightest decency would be able to draw the inference. Baraitser’s narrow point that no psychiatrist had specifically stated he should be released from the armored box is breathtakingly callous, dishonest and inhumane. Almost certainly no psychiatrist had conceived she would determine on enforcing such torture.
.
So why is Baraitser doing it?

I believe that the Hannibal Lecter style confinement of Assange, this intellectual computer geek, which has no rational basis at all, is a deliberate attempt to drive Julian to suicide. The maximum security anti-terrorist court is physically within the fortress compound that houses the maximum security prison. He is brought handcuffed and under heavy escort to and from his solitary cell to the armored dock via an underground tunnel. In these circumstances, what possible need is there for him to be strip and cavity searched continually? Why is he not permitted to have his court papers? Most telling for me was the fact he is not permitted to shake hands or touch his lawyers through the slit in the armored box.

They are relentlessly enforcing the systematic denial of any basic human comfort, like the touch of a friend’s fingertips or the blocking of the relief that he might get just from being alongside somebody friendly. They are ensuring the continuation of the extreme psychological effects from isolation of a year of virtual solitary confinement. A tiny bit of human comfort could do an enormous amount of good to his mental health and resilience. They are determined to stop this at all costs. They are attempting to make him kill himself – or create in him the condition where his throttling death might be explained away as suicide.

This is also the only explanation that I can think of for why they are risking the creation of such obvious mistrial conditions. Dead people cannot appeal.

I would remind you that Julian is a remand prisoner who has served his unprecedentedly long sentence for bail-jumping. His status is supposedly at present that of an innocent man facing charges. Those charges are for nothing except for publishing Chelsea Manning’s revelations of war crimes.

That Baraitser is acting under instructions seems to me certain. She has been desperate throughout the trial to seize any chance to deny any responsibility for what is happening to Julian. She has stated that she has no jurisdiction over his treatment in prison, and even when both defense and prosecution combined to state it was normal practice for magistrates to pass directions or requests to the prison service, she refused to accept it was so.

Baraitser is plainly attempting psychologically to distance herself from any agency in what is being done. To this end she has made a stream of denials of jurisdiction or ability to influence events. She has said that she has no jurisdiction to interfere with the strip searching, handcuffing and removal of Assange’s papers or with his being kept in solitary. She has said she has no jurisdiction to request that his defense lawyers have more access to their client in jail to prepare his defense. She has said she has no jurisdiction over his position in the courtroom. Se has suggested at various times it is up to Serco to decide if he may pass notes to his lawyers and up to Group4 to decide if he can be released from the armored dock. The moments when she looks most content listening to the evidence, are those when prosecution counsel James Lewis argues that she has no decision to make but to sign the extradition because it is in good form and that Article 4 of the Treaty has no legal standing.

A member of the Assange family remarked to me at the end of week one that she seems very lazy, and thus delighted to accept any arguments that reduce the amount she needs to do. I think it is different to that. I think there is a corner of the mind of this daughter of dissidents from apartheid that rejects her own role in the torture of Assange, and is continually urging “I had no choice, I had no agency.” Those who succumb to do evil must find what internal comfort they may.

With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible. I wish to stress again that I absolutely do not want anybody to give anything if it causes them the slightest possibility of financial strain.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.

 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

Bolton, The “Cuba issue” among Democrats

0
b2
Greeting backstage backers at a winter outdoor rally. Photo from the Bernie Sanders campaign website.

Here’s why Bernie Sanders was spot
on with his comments about Cuba

by Peter Bolton

Bernie Sanders has recently come under fire for statements about the government of Cuba. The attacks have been vicious, and they need calling out. Because his comments are not only perfectly accurate but also shine an important light on a gaping blind spot in the US political psyche.

Red-baiting tactics

On 23 February, Sanders said it’s “unfair to simply say everything is bad” about the Cuban Revolution. Republicans and establishment Democrats alike were quick to seize on the comments to fearmonger about his presidential bid.

Sanders is now the undisputed frontrunner in the Democratic Party presidential primary contest. And his rivals in this race have been sinking to pathetic depths to try and discredit him. The Cuba comments have played a part in their ridiculous red-baiting tactics.

Sanders may possibly have scored an own goal given the strong feelings about Cuba amongst many expatriates living in the US – and especially in the crucial swing state of Florida. But in reality, Sanders’s comments add an important element of balance into a discussion that is often represented in stark black-and-white terms.

Proper context

Firstly, the context for Sanders’s comments matter. Because he actually said:

We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know, when Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?

Note that he is qualifying his statement by acknowledging that there are legitimate criticisms of the Cuban government on some issues. Indeed, there have been some human rights problems in Cuba, which progressives should not brush under the carpet.

Hijacking human rights

It’s also important to remember, however, that the situation has been grossly exaggerated by the US foreign policy establishment for its own ends – as part of its hypocritical hijacking of human rights discourse to provide bogus justification for its international interventionist agenda. Indeed, it can’t possibly be human rights issues that motivate US hostility when you consider Washington’s fawning treatment of the Saudi dictatorship, Israel, Colombia, Turkey, and Honduras.

In fact, looking at Cuba’s own history helps to cut through the hypocrisy. Because Washington had no problem with the brutal Batista dictatorship, because he was dutifully serving US interests.

Ignoring social gains

Sanders is also right that Cuba has made important social gains. These have been recognized by multiple regional and international institutions such as the World Health Organization – and even some that are very critical of the Cuban government in other respects.

In addition to the widely successful literacy program that Sanders mentioned, gains also include impressive social indicators such as high life expectancy and low infant mortality – especially when compared with other developing countries. It’s also taking real steps to address climate breakdown. According to research by the World Wildlife Fund, for example, it’s the only country in the world that meets its definition of sustainable development due to its high human development indices combined with a low ecological footprint.

Cuban exile brigade

Sophisticated Cuban exile hardliners have a set of glib rebuttals to the above points at the ready. Trying to portray the situation in Cuba in as negative a light as possible, they claim that any statistics coming out of the country should be treated with skepticism because they are ‘manipulated or fabricated by the government’. But even the CIA (which has been plotting regime change against Cuba for decades) apparently considers these statistics credible enough to cite them in its own ‘Factbook’.

Exile hardliners also say Cuba was “one of the most advanced and successful countries in Latin America” prior to the 1959 revolution. But there seems to be little historical analysis to back this up. And much analysis suggests Cuba was a mess before the revolution. It suffered not only with rampant poverty, illiteracy and lack of access to even the most basic public services but also extensive infiltration of organized crime into its state, society and economy. As historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. put it:

The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the government’s indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice… is an open invitation to revolution.

Crippling economic blockade

The major cause of poverty in Cuba since 1959, meanwhile, has been the decades-long ‘embargo’ (more accurately described as an economic blockade). This flagrant violation of international law – which has been denounced by a majority vote in the United Nations General Assembly every year since 1992 – has cost the island economy over $100 billion since it was first enacted.

As a result, it has been denounced as a human rights violation by multiple mainstream NGOs and human rights organizations. And as is often the case with sanctions, the people who suffer most are the civilian population, rather than ostensible targets in the government.

Sanders is spot on

Considering all of the above, Sanders isn’t just correct; he’s simply stating something that’s completely uncontroversial outside the narrative concocted by Cuban-American exile hardliners. And that’s something Sanders supporters must stress consistently.

 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

Coronavirus: how authorities are reacting

0
Tocumen
Ministry of Health workers, decked out in regalia that seem more intended to impress than protect, screen passengers coming into Tocumen Airport. So far they have not found anyone infected with coronavirus, but they’re just looking for symptoms so would not catch someone with an infection in this strain’s long incubation period. MINSA photo.

Different approaches as a pandemic blooms

by Eric Jackson

Histories written after the Julio-Claudian lineage of Roman Emperors was over are very mean to Nero. So DID HE play his musical instrument while a large section of Rome burned? And if he did, would hustling to the scene to rally the population and the public servants to fight the fire have helped? What if he had, from his palace, shouted orders, assigned blame and specified cruel and gruesome punishments — would any of that have helped? (Note that Tacitus wrote that Nero was actually out of town for the fire.)

Like so many other politicians, President Cortizo made himself scarce starting just before Carnival. Notwithstanding the crises we have had in the week and a half, the Presidencia’s website was not updating since just before Carnival. The government, however, has not shut down.

It was decided that there would be repairs to the nation’s main water plant in Chilibre over Carnival Weekend, and the outage went longer than people had been advised that it would. A tweet from IDAAN blaming a contractor was unseemly even if true, but the president was spared the fate of issuing that stuff over his signature. There were two big problems with working on the metro area’s big water plant when everyone was expected to head out to the Interior. First, because of the bad economy a lot more capitalinos than usual just stayed put because they could not afford otherwise. Second, in much of the Interior the local water systems were running dry.

The bureaucracies muddled through. Sending the presidential guards out to pass out clean water to the diminished flock of pilgrims headed for Ash Wednesday at Atalaya was a nice touch, as was sending cistern trucks to pour water into that town’s aqueducts.

But while this was happening, the news about a virus outbreak coming out of China was getting worse and worse, from sensationalist and responsible sources alike. The doctor who leaked word of the emerging disease to the world fell afoul of the Chinese government, then fell ill and died from the disease. The outbreak broke out of China, with world health officials expressing concerns about a possible worldwide pandemic.

And Nito Cortizo has been unavailable. He has given neither optimistic assurances nor decisive-sounding orders to the general public. But let us hope that wherever he has been he’s been maintaining constant contact with the appropriate people and making decisions when called upon to do so.

Will it disappoint the religious fanatics in Cortizo’s and allied political parties that The End Times do not draw nigh? As far as we have seen, most people who are infected have not become sick enough to go to a health care facility that will add their case to the statistics, and of those who have become statistics the death toll is in single digits. Cause for great concern and terrible economic disruption, but probably not a pandemic of 14th century proportions, probably not as bad as the flu that ended World War I by shutting down German war production turned out to be.

We are not all going to die of this. It will probably not set the stage for a great battle among Middle Eastern armies that’s fought to the very last Jew, after which the good Christians will follow Mike Pence up to heaven in the rapture. Santeños will probably not be visited by guys following oxcarts and asking them to bring out their dead.

But, being The Crossroads of The World, we have already taken a big hit in our transportation, tourism and commerce industries. It’s likely to get worse. And if, at the time these words were written, our public health officials had not identified a confirm coronavirus case, that’s likely to happen. The president will have some more decisions to make.

The nation needs to keep the water running so that people can wash their hands and bathe themselves.

We may have to figure out some workable quarantine provisions, which would vary as to how severe and where outbreaks go. Tell people to stay at home, and send out health care workers to check on them and bring supplies to quarantined households? Turn large public places into giant flu wards, where all infected will be obliged to go?

We may have to impose restrictions on gatherings to slow the spread. No public sporting events? Padlock theaters until further notice? Shut the schools? Religious services by broadcast or online only? Close the bars and casinos? Nobody with a runny nose to be allowed on a bus or Metro train? There would be major and cascading economic damages to follow from any of those things, but it may be necessary to do all of those things.

Mr. Cortizo has his work cut out for him, and has yet to give any cause for great alarm. Anyone in Panama with any sense will wish him well in these endeavors.

And when this disease outbreak has passed? However many bullets we may have taken or dodged, there are some lessons to learn about preparedness, and several ways to address each of these, if ever Panama’s public officials decide to be prudent.

GT

And then, in the USA

Taking the credit for everything positive, blaming someone else for everything negative. Legend has it that Nero blamed the Christians, well before the time that feeding them to the lions became the great imperial pastime. Ancient Roman politics was far from the first occasion of leaders looking for scapegoats in the face of a catastrophe.

Someone might think that with all of the Trump supporters who swear to be guided by the Bible, that it would not occur to him that both of its testaments are full of politically motivated assignments of blame, almost always by bad guys. But here we go, in an election year. 

The market will probably recover, perhaps before the election. But cut taxes way back on the rich, run huge deficits, pray to the markets to provide in things economic, pull threads and cables out of social safety nets, and fewer tools are left in the face of an economic emergency. That will play itself out over the months to come.

Ecuador, France, Italy and so on

As soon at Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno leaned that a coronavirus case had been indentified in his country, he imposed restrictions on many sorts of large public gatherings.

Moreno was following the lead of France, which has banned indoor public gatherings likely to attract more than 5,000 people and outdoor events likely to attract international crowds.

In Italy Serie A soccer matches were postponed.

In southern Iran, a frightened mob burned a health care center where people with coronavirus were being quarantined, the government complained of hostile foreign media exaggerating the outbreak there, and people were urge to stay at home to the extent that they can.

In China repression against doctors who publish information about the problem continued, but the notion of getting sick for the cause has pretty much ended the Hong Kong protests for the time being. According to Confucian traditions disasters are a suggestion that a government’s “mandate of heaven” may have lapsed, and this more than preventing panic is what drives the Chinese government’s response.

 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

¿Wappin? Something to believe in

0
back then

Forward! / ¡Pa’lante!

Curtis Mayfield ‎– Something To Believe In
https://youtu.be/VEdBORHmr-w

Bad Bunny & Sech – Ignorantes
https://youtu.be/PC0GvyEIXfk

Mad Professor – Harder Than Babylon
https://youtu.be/cBntEOxIcj0

Chaka Khan – Through the Fire
https://youtu.be/-g1wTUzAg64

iLe – Contra Todo
https://youtu.be/_UqA4_wci04

John Coltrane – Wise One
https://youtu.be/yrqb0373cVs

Zahara & Mzwakhe Mbuli – Madiba
https://youtu.be/t5xAcjpo-jE

Residente – René
https://youtu.be/O4f58BU_Hbs

Third World – Freedom Song
https://youtu.be/481LM2iAlpg

Tracy Chapman – Talking About a Revolution
https://youtu.be/fQuJXWTUa3k

The Selected Few – Selection Train
https://youtu.be/gW1gICRVGIw

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.  

~ ~ ~
These announcements are interactive. Click on them for more information. Estos anuncios son interactivos. Toque en ellos para seguir a las páginas de web.
 

VOTE

 

npp

 

FB CCL

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

 

$$

 

vote final

 
Dinero

Nance: nature’s bird feeder starts up for another year

0
nance 1
Nance — Byrsonima crassifolia — is a flowering neotropical tree or shrub of the acerola family, Malpighiaceae.

There are PEOPLE who like
nance, too, for some reason

photos and article by Eric Jackson

Ask somebody about the fruit that grows on the nance tree in this reporter’s back yard, and she might sing high praises — if she is a bird. Many species of birds love this stuff and it makes working conditions so much more pleasant to have the nance tree in the background of the computer on which The Panama News is produced.

If you are one to sell the berries to people unfamiliar with them, you might put it this way:

What does Nance taste like?

Nance fruit has an oily white pulp that surrounds 1 to 3 small inedible white seeds. The aroma of the pulp has been described as “soap-like” due to its high oil content. Nance fruits have a starchy texture and are somewhat acidic but have a subtle sweetness when fully ripe.

www.specialtyproduce.com

But this is a publication that tries to adhere to the first principle of journalism, the truth.

Those berries taste like vomit.

Ah, but let’s have none of this intolerant “objective reality” stuff that does not take into account that perceptions depend on the point of view of the observer. People sell bottles of nance berries in water, and find customers. There is even nance ice cream. People bake all sorts of things with them.

But few are the gringos that like the stuff. An “acquired taste,” so it is said.

Except for songbirds that visit this reporter’s tree. To them it’s instinctive.

Also know that meats, poultry and seafood smoked or grilled over firewood from the nance tree is very popular here, and this writer does like that flavor. However, there is a bit of a controversy, and could be more if ever Panama would remove economic and cultural blinders and get serious about environmental medicine. We have a fairly high rate of gastric tract cancers here, especially in rural areas. There are some physicians who suspect that it has to do with all the smoked stuff that we eat.

For birds, that doesn’t seem to be an issue.

nance 2
They’re the first flowers of the year but the whole nance tree does not flower or fruit all at once. Give us a few weeks and we should get some rain, and after that some fruit and birds coming to eat it. As nance berries ripen, fall and ferment on the ground, there will be rowdy drunken birds eating those, too.
 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

What Republicans are saying

0
LG
Explained his vote against anti-lynching law.

GOP voices

 


https://youtu.be/aN9TllOemSA




 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

What Democrats are saying

0
dap

For ballot and details on email voting, which is already underway, click here.

Dem voices

 





https://youtu.be/SdkTUoANNq8

 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

Zandi, COVID-19 and the world economy

0
bug
Coronavirs COVID-19. Graphic by TheDigitalArtist/Pixabay.

COVID-19: body blow

by Mark Zandi — chief economist at Moody’s Analytics

The coronavirus has been a body blow to the Chinese economy, which now threatens to take out the entire global economy. A global recession is likely if COVID-19 becomes a pandemic, and the odds of that are uncomfortably high and rising with infections surging in Italy and Korea. The US economy is more insulated from the impact of the virus, but it is not immune, and it too would likely suffer a downturn in this scenario.

A global battering

COVID-19 is battering the global economy in numerous ways. Chinese business travel and tourism has all but stopped; global airlines are not going to China and cruise lines are canceling most Asia-Pacific itineraries. This is a huge problem for major travel destinations, including in the United States, where some three million Chinese tourists visit each year. Chinese tourists to the USA are among the biggest spenders of any foreign tourists. Travel in Europe is also sure to be severely impacted as Milan, Italy, the center of the new infections in that country, is a major travel hub for the Continent.

Shuttered Chinese factories are also a problem for countries and companies fastened into China’s manufacturing supply chain. Apple, Nike and General Motors are some prominent American examples. Shortages of some goods will likely result this spring, meaning higher prices for things we buy at Walmart and on Amazon.

US exports to China will suffer given slumping Chinese demand. China is supposed to ramp up its imports of US products as part of the Phase One trade deal signed by the two countries late last year. How much the Chinese would actually purchase from the United States was already an open question. Given COVID-19, it is even more questionable. President Trump has suggested that the federal government will cut another check to hard-pressed US farmers to make up for the losses.

Commodity slump

Because China is the biggest buyer of many of the world’s commodities, including oil, copper, soybeans and pork, and will be buying a lot less of these and many other things, prices are slumping. Americans will pay less at the gas pump, which is a plus, but it will be hard on the energy, mining and agricultural industries. Emerging economies, especially in Latin America and Africa, that rely on commodity production for their livelihoods will be slammed.

Global businesses can’t seem to catch a break. They have been grappling with the trade war, the Brexit transition, and the economic policy implications of the fast-approaching US presidential election. COVID-19 is now another on this lengthening list of concerns, making it even more likely that already-cautious business executives will continue to sit on new investment and expansion plans. Moreover, they will likely be slow to ramp up their operations, fearful of the implications if they move too quickly and their workers get sick.

Perhaps most significant, stock and bond investors have finally taken note of what the virus means for the global economy. It was one thing when the virus was exclusively a Chinese problem; it is something else altogether if the virus is spreading through the rest of Asia and Europe, with rising odds the entire globe will be infected. The implications will soon come into even stronger relief as multinational corporations begin reporting what the virus has done to their sales and profits. With stock prices trading at record highs just last week, investors aren’t ready for bad news from the companies they are invested in.

The outlook

So, what does this mean for this year’s economic outlook and the risks to that outlook?

Under our baseline (most likely) scenario, which assumes the outbreak remains contained to China and largely plays out by the spring:

China’s economy will contract in the first quarter of this year, and growth for the year will be cut by a full percentage point to 5.4%.

The global economy will suffer a hit to GDP of almost a percentage point (annualized) in the first quarter, and slow by 0.4 percentage point to 2.4% in 2020. For context, global potential growth is an estimated 2.8%.

The US economy will experience growth of only 1.3% in the first quarter (annualized), down by 0.6 percentage point because of the virus. Growth in 2020 is now expected to be 1.7%, down 0.2 percentage point. The US economy’s potential growth is an estimated near 2%.

However, the assumption that the virus will be contained to China appears increasingly tenuous, and the odds of a pandemic are rising. We previously put the odds of a pandemic at 20% (see Alternative Scenario), but we now put them at 40%. A pandemic will result in global and US recessions during the first half of this year. The economy was already fragile before the outbreak and vulnerable to anything that did not stick to script. COVID-19 is way off script.

COVID-19 came out of nowhere. It may be what economists call a black swan — a rare and inherently unforeseeable event with severe consequences. We all hope the global effort to contain the virus will ensure this black swan will not fly. But it is prudent to be prepared if it does.

 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

Editorials: Water crises and health risks; and Rape culture

0
pilgrims
SPI presidential guards passing out water to pilgrims making their way to Atalaya. Ministry of the Presidency photo.

Pushing our luck

On the day this is written, an editor who has been not only preoccupied with US politics but also under the weather for the better part of a week sees a screen through itchy, watery eyes and is uncomfortably grungy. No water coming to the house through the rural aqueduct for about three weeks now. It’s a familiar drill in which things like laundry, dishwashing, floor mopping, toilet flushes and personal bathing are rationed to get by on much less. It’s also a health risk, more to others whenever it’s necessary to go out and get supplies.

Is it the coronavirus? Probably not. Even if it is, there is a small chance of getting seriously sick, and if that happens, perhaps a one in ten chance of not surviving it. The news came through of Brazil’s first documented case on this day, but there is an incubation period that includes an asymptomatic phase in which the infected person is contagious. Brazil will see a geometric increase in cases. Probably Panama, The Crossroads of The World, has unreported cases and some of those will blossom.

Are people, and is the government, taking all due precautions? Well, yes and no.

The measures to prevent infected people from abroad coming in to infect us are sensible enough, yet not enough and at the same time harmful to our transportation and commerce hub economy.

Should we have called off the Carnival celebrations, and the Lent pilgrimage to Atalaya, to avoid large crowds that might be infected? Perhaps, but  because of precautions not taken long before a crisis, much of the metro area, many rural places and Atalaya have been without water. Unwashed people, and thirsty people, tend to be more vulnerable to getting infected and infecting others.

Do not panic. This, too, shall pass. But along the way we need a national discussion about water policy, and that also should be part of a constitutional debate. We have this bastion of political patronage and nepotism, the IDAAN water and sewer authority, not showing much competence at its higher levels but grabbing for control of the rural aqueducts from time to time. We have a collection of bankers, construction company execs and corporate lawyers on the Panama Canal authority grabbing for control of the national water supply and demonstrating a preference for generating ship tolls over protecting the public health.

To aggravate matters, IDAAN decided to shut down water supplies to all but the very rich in Panama City over the holidays, creating health issues for those who decided to stay put and avoid the big crowds. But the diminished count of cars headed to the Interior, a lot more people than usual decided to stay in the city, and if they had prepared for the announced water shortages, those turned out to be much worse than they had been told. We’ve had uncomfortable days and we shall see the extent that these were dangerous days. But don’t blame the hacks at IDAAN — they’re blaming a private consortium they contracted:

IDAAN

Privatization? Outsourcing? A charismatic adminstrator? A bureaucratic reshuffle? Taking the water we need from someone else who is unable to defend it? We have seen all of that over many years.

The problem is that water and snake oil don’t mix.

  

https://youtu.be/lQNPnGgaSXg
Vile stuff that the rabiblanco media offer us for entertainment. Fair use of copyrighted material, to show how creepy it is.

Rape culture up there and down here

Sexual gratification as one of the perquisites of wealth or power? It has often been the norm, surely since before the onset of recorded history. There are cultures and legal systems built around the presumption.

From a female perspective survival and propagation, the ability to feed and raise children, has often depended on picking a mate who can afford to do this. Hence the fury unleashed at various points in history at humble women who chose relationships with foreign conquerors whose days in power proved ephemeral. Hence the clear if incomplete DNA record of what really happened when Panama’s first nations were conquered..

Times do change, and cultures with them. Sometimes a change is just a slight correction, less often a profound transformation.

Was the conviction on sexual assault charges of Harvey Weinstein, with more trial pending, the daw of a new era for Hollywood culture? Or was it just notice that peviously existing limits that had been applied to more ordinary men may now be applied to the crudeness of US cultural moguls?

And what about rape culture here? A firestorm of criticism of the use of the La Cascara television program to suggest the rape of a semi-conscious drunk woman was followed by a quick and inadequate apology. Some of Panama’s labor leaders put it in a larger context, wherein rabiblanco television constantly celebrates rather than satirizes abuse agains those with the least power in our society.

Unacceptable, you guys. Harvey will have some lonely and difficult years to ponder social change if he cares to do so. Ubaldo may find time to reflect, as a former television personality, about the evolution of what viewers and advertisers will accept.

  

Elie W.

Bear in mind…


There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Zora Neale Hurston

 

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

Hannah Arendt

 

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

Japanese Proverb

 

Contact us by email at fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

 

These links are interactive — click on the boxes

 

VOTE

 

donate

 

NNPP

 

FB_2

 

Tweet

La vaina del Carnaval de IDAAN

0
IDAAN
su vaina

~ ~ ~

Estos anuncios son interactivos. Toque en ellos para seguir a las páginas de web

 

Dinero

 

Tweet

 

Tweet

 

FB esp

 

FB CCL
1...211212213...445Page 212 of 445

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

©