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Dwyer, Belated Chinese revelations cast light on COVID’s origins

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dinner
A wild racoon dog on the market. Archive photo from Animal Defense League Los Angeles.

China’s only now revealed COVID-19 origins data. Earlier disclosure may have saved us three years of nonsense

by Dominic Dwyer, University of Sydney

Once more, we’re talking about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

First the US Department of Energy’s review gave more emphasis to the laboratory leak hypothesis than previously, although the confidence for this conclusion was low.

Second, and more importantly, is the release and analysis this week of viral and animal genetic material collected from the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, the place forever associated with the beginning of the pandemic.

It’s a subject close to me. I was the Australian representative on the international World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. I went to Wuhan on a fact-finding mission in early 2021. I visited the now-closed market.

Now we have stronger evidence that places raccoon dogs at the market as a possible animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, potentially infecting humans.

If we’d had this evidence three years ago, we need to ask ourselves how different recent history would have been. We would have reduced the enormous energy, media frenzy and political argy-bargy about less likely hypotheses of the pandemic’s origins. We might have better focused our research attention.

The twists, turns and puzzles

Samples were taken from various places in the market, in January 2020, within weeks of the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan. SARS-CoV-2 RNA and human DNA were identified in these environmental samples, although no animal swabs were positive for the virus.

This was presented to the WHO team investigating the origins of the pandemic in January 2021, of which I was part.

The work was published as a preprint (posted online, before being independently verified) in February 2022.

The underlying “metagenomic” data to support the conclusions in the preprint – that SARS-CoV-2 and human (but not animal) sequences were present – needed to be provided to allow further analyses. This is something that is generally required by journals and regarded as appropriate in the spirit of scientific openness and collaboration.

However, it wasn’t until early March 2023 that the international community had access to the data.

That’s when there was a “drop” of these environmental metagenomic sequences into the GISAID database, the international open access repository of viral sequences.

This allowed an independent team of international experts to analyze them. In a startling revelation, they identified large amounts of raccoon dog and other animal DNA in conjunction with SARS-CoV-2. Raccoon dogs can be readily infected with SARS-CoV-2 and can transmit it. The international team published their observations as a preprint earlier this week.

Racoon dogRaccoon dogs can be readily infected with SARS-CoV-2 and can transmit it. Shutterstock

Of note was the physical co-location of these virus and animal sequences in the corner of what is a very large market, the corner associated with early human cases. It is now known (but initially rejected by Chinese authorities) that wild and farmed animals were sold in this area of the market.

After the sequences were analyzed by the international team, the Chinese scientists who had performed the market testing were contacted for comment and discussion – especially around the important observation that mixed in among the SARS-CoV-2 sequences were a large proportion of raccoon dog and other animal DNA.

The sequences were then withdrawn from the GISAID database within a few hours of the study authors being approached. This is perhaps unusual for an open database such as GISAID, and clarity could be sought why this occurred.

Why is this work important?

This latest work does not prove raccoon dogs were definitely the source of SARS-CoV-2. Presumably, they are likely to have been an intermediate host between bats and humans. Bats harbor many coronaviruses, including ones related to SARS-CoV-2.

However, the data fits the narrative of the animal/human connections of SARS-CoV-2.

This, along with other examination of animal links to SARS-CoV-2, should be taken in the context of the lack of robust data to support the other SARS-CoV-2 origins hypotheses, such as a laboratory leak, contaminated frozen food, and acquisition outside China. Bit by bit, the evidence supports animal origins of the outbreak, centered on the Huanan market in Wuhan.

The length of time taken for this early work to surface and the difficulty in accessing the raw data are unfortunate, points made recently by the WHO.

Sympathetically, one might say, the wrong analysis of the original data collected in early 2020 was undertaken and the researchers missed the animal links.

Cynically, (and without evidence) one might say that the significance of the data was recognized, but not made readily available. This is a question for the Chinese researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control to answer.

What are the implications of this delay?

If this had been identified in early 2020 then further studies to understand the viral origins in animals could have been undertaken.

Three years on, it is very difficult to do such studies, tracking backwards from the now closed market to the animal sources and the people who handled these animals.

Clearer answers would have taken some of the heat out of the debate around the possible viral origins. Of course, all hypotheses should remain on the table, but some of these could have been much better explored with earlier data.

Would it have changed the course of the pandemic? Probably not. The virus had already spread worldwide and adapted very well to human-to-human transmission by the time this work was available. However, it would have driven research in better directions and improved future pandemic planning.

What now?

Lessons for the future are obvious. Open disclosure of sequence data is the best way to undertake scientific investigation, especially for something of such international significance.

Making data unavailable, or not reaching out for assistance in complicated analyses, only slows the process.

The resulting political to and fro by all countries, particularly the United States and China, has meant that suspicion has deepened, and progress slowed even further.

Although WHO has been criticized for errors in how it managed the pandemic, and in collating data to understand the origins and progress future research, it remains the best international agency to foster open sharing of data.

Scientists, for the most part, want to do the right thing and find the answers to important questions. Facilitating this is crucial.The Conversation

Dominic Dwyer, Director of Public Health Pathology, NSW Health Pathology, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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Amnesty International, Regional overview of the Americas last year

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Lima
Police and protesters clash this past December in Lima, Peru. Voice of America photo.

Americas: Double standards and inadequate responses have undermined human rights

by Amnesty International

Amnesty International Report 2022/23: The State of the World’s Human Rights found that double standards and inadequate responses to human rights abuses taking place around the world fueled impunity and instability.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created 75 years ago, out of the ashes of the Second World War. At its core is the universal recognition that all people have rights and fundamental freedoms. While global power dynamics are in chaos, human rights cannot be lost in the fray. They should guide the world as it navigates an increasingly volatile and dangerous environment. We must not wait for the world to burn again,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

In the Americas, states across the continent have failed their populations throughout the last year by making empty promises, applying double standards and failing to uphold their international human rights obligations, Amnesty International said today upon launching its annual report in the region.

Despite promising prosperity, security, social progress and environmental protection, governments in the Americas have turned their backs on women, refugees and other historically marginalized groups, while failing to adequately address the climate crisis and viciously repressing those who dare raise their voice against injustice and inequality. It is time for states to assume their responsibility for human rights and put an end to the injustices ravaging the region,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

Ruthless repression of dissent

In response to growing threats to the right to protest, Amnesty International launched a global campaign in 2022 to confront states’ intensifying efforts to erode the fundamental right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

Across the Americas millions of people, alongside social movements and activists, took to the streets to demand basic economic and social rights, an end to gender-based violence, the release of those unjustly detained and to defend the environment. Authorities in many countries responded by violating people’s rights to life, liberty, fair trial and physical integrity.

Excessive use of force and unlawful killings by security forces were widespread throughout the region, often targeting low-income and racialized neighbourhoods. In Brazil, 84% of all people killed by police were Black, including 23 people killed in a raid in Rio de Janeiro in May. In the USA, more than 75 people were arrested in connection with protests after police shot Jayland Walker, a Black man, 46 times in Akron, Ohio, in June.

In Venezuela, according to the human rights organization COFAVIC, security forces carried out 488 alleged extrajudicial executions between January and September. Reports by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela highlighted the manipulation of the judicial system to shield police and military officers responsible for previous violations from justice and identified chains of command that linked suspected perpetrators to Nicolás Maduro’s government. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela, the first such investigation in the region.

In Peru, security forces used excessive and lethal force with racist bias against Indigenous people and campesinos to quell protests during the political crisis since the ousting of then-president Pedro Castillo in December. At least 49 people have died from state repression, 11 due to road blockades, and one policeman and six soldiers have been killed, while hundreds have been injured since the crisis began.

Arbitrary detentions remained widespread across the region. Those held were often tortured or otherwise ill-treated and, in some cases, forcibly disappeared. Last March, authorities in El Salvador declared a state of emergency in response to a spike in homicides, allegedly committed by gangs. The measure has resulted in massive human rights violations, more than 65,000 arrests and widespread unfair trials.

In Nicaragua, as of last December authorities had revoked the legal status of at least 3,144 organizations, closed at least 12 universities, jailed journalists and harassed political activists and opponents. In February 2023, the government forcibly exiled 222 people, and stripped more than 300 of their nationality, including prominent human rights defenders, writers and journalists.

The defense of human rights remains a perilous pursuit across the region, with at least 189 social leaders and human rights defenders killed in Colombia alone last year. In Venezuela, there were at least 396 attacks against human rights defenders, including intimidation, stigmatization and threats last year, while in Guatemala, judges, prosecutors, human rights defenders and protesters faced unfounded criminal proceedings. Press freedom remained at risk as Mexico recorded its deadliest ever year for the press with at least 13 murders, while journalists were also killed in Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela.

Shameless double standards fuel abuses against refugees

Human rights and humanitarian crises throughout the Americas led to sharp increases in the numbers of people leaving their country in search of protection. At least 7.17 million Venezuelans have now left their country, while the number of people leaving Cuba and Haiti has also increased significantly, adding to a steady number of people fleeing Central America. UNICEF recorded 5,000 children crossing the perilous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama in the first half of 2022, twice the number from the same period in 2021.

Yet US federal courts upheld the Migrant Protection Protocols and Title 42 of the US Code, resulting in irreparable harm to tens of thousands of asylum seekers who were expelled to danger in Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexican authorities continued to collaborate with US authorities to stop others seeking safety in the United States, detaining at least 281,149 people in overcrowded immigration detention centers and deporting at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children.

The USA has been a vocal critic of Russian human rights violations in Ukraine has admitted tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war, yet under policies and practices rooted in anti-Black racism, it expelled more than 25,000 Haitians between September 2021 and May 2022, subjecting many to arbitrary detention and discriminatory and humiliating treatment that amounted to race-based torture.

Women and LGBTQI+ people bear brunt as states fail to protect their rights

Women’s rights were under fire, as authorities in several countries took actions that seriously jeopardized sexual and reproductive rights. The US Supreme Court overturned a long-standing constitutional guarantee of right to abortion, threatening other human rights, including the rights to life, health, privacy, security and non-discrimination for millions of women, girls, and people who can become pregnant. By the end of 2022, several US states had passed laws to ban or curtail access to abortion.

El Salvador’s total ban on abortion remained in force, with at least two women still imprisoned on charges related to obstetric emergencies, including one serving a maximum 50-year sentence. In the Dominican Republic, Congress again failed to table a revised Criminal Code that decriminalizes abortion.

Authorities failed to protect women and girls from entrenched gender-based violence or to address impunity for these crimes. Indigenous women continued to face disproportionately high levels of rape and other sexual violence in the USA, while hundreds of femicides were recorded in countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela. Mexico’s government continued to stigmatize feminists who protested against government inaction on gender-based violence and, in some states, security forces violently beat and arbitrarily detained demonstrators.

States’ hunger to control the bodies of women and girls, their sexuality and their lives leaves a terrible legacy of violence, oppression and stunted potential,” said Agnès Callamard.

Nonetheless, some advances were made on sexual and reproductive rights, as well as LGBTI people’s rights. In Colombia, the persistence of women’s rights activism and sophisticated legal action contributed to the Constitutional Court’s decision to decriminalize abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. The same court also recognized a non-binary gender marker for ID registration, establishing legal precedent for gender diversity in Colombia. Meanwhile, following a referendum, Cuba approved a new Family Code legalizing same-sex marriage and allowing same-sex couples to adopt.

However, LGBTI people continued to be at risk of killings, attacks, discrimination and threats and faced obstacles to legal recognition in several countries. Transgender people were at particular risk of killings in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. Brazil remained the world’s deadliest country for transgender people, despite two transgender women winning election to the federal congress for the first time in the nation’s history.

Regional action against threats to humanity woefully inadequate

The Americas continued to suffer the fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic, while climate change and economic instability compounded the risks to human rights. Authorities across the region failed to guarantee millions of people’s access to basic rights to food, water and health and healthcare systems remained critically underfunded. Inflation compounded economic hardship, while the number of people living in poverty remained above pre-pandemic levels.

Most people in Venezuela experienced food insecurity and by August the country had the world’s third highest inflation rate for food prices. Food shortages in Cuba forced people to queue for hours for basic goods, while more that 40% of Haiti’s population faced crisis or emergency hunger levels, amid a re-emergence of cholera. More than half Brazil’s population also lacked adequate and secure access to food.

Most countries failed to strengthen protections to the right to health, despite the pandemic demonstrating that health systems needed major reform. In Chile a large majority of citizens rejected a proposal for a new constitution that would have strengthened protections for economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.

Against this backdrop, countries failed to act in the best interests of humanity and address fossil fuel dependency, the main driver behind the climate crisis that threatens life as we know it. Despite their rhetoric in support of global emissions reductions, many governments did not match these words with actions.

Although the US Congress passed the first package of climate change legislation in US history, it also reinstated old auctions of oil and gas leases on federal land and the Gulf of Mexico, which the Biden administration had tried to cancel, and forced the administration to hold several new auctions. Meanwhile, Canada’s Export Development agency had pumped $2.5 billion into the oil and gas sector midway through the year, even as Canada launched a plan to phase out public financing for new fossil fuel projects.

Elsewhere, Brazil submitted a national climate mitigation plan insufficient in relation to the country’s contribution to climate change. However, after winning Brazil’s presidential election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced he would promote the protection of the country’s biomes with special emphasis on the Amazon, an area that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports have declared highly vulnerable to drought and high temperatures.

In Guatemala the Indigenous Mayan environmentalist Bernardo Caal Xol was released on parole after spending four years in jail on bogus charges. However, environmental activists and Indigenous peoples continue to face attacks for trying to address the climate crisis, with killings recorded in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.

Despite the grave challenges facing us, people across the Americas have shown time and again that they have the power to affect change in the region. From the Indigenous activists leading the defense of our planet to the brave people opposing racial injustice, and the women and girls standing up to reclaim control of their bodies, new generations of human rights defenders keep emerging to hold our governments to account,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Facts and figures: Human rights in the Americas in 2022-23

  • An estimated 201 million people were living in poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2022, equivalent to 32.1% of the region’s population. This represents a 25-year setback, with an additional 15 million people living in poverty since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and an additional 12 million living in extreme poverty since 2019.

  • The Americas remains the region with most fatalities from COVID, with more than 2.9 million confirmed deaths.

  • The United States had more than 102 million confirmed cases and 1,111,000 deaths from COVID as of 14 March 2023, more than any other country on earth. Brazil had the world’s second highest death toll, with more than 699,000 fatalities.

  • Peru still has the highest fatality rate in the world from COVID, with 6,481 confirmed deaths per million inhabitants.

  • Authorities in El Salvador have detained more than 65,000 people since declaring a state of emergency in March 2022. With nearly 2% of the adult population behind bars, El Salvador has the world’s highest incarceration rate.

  • As of last December, Nicaraguan authorities had revoked the legal status of at least 3,144 organizations and closed at least 12 universities. In February 2023 the government forcibly exiled 222 people, and stripped more than 300 of their nationality, including prominent human rights defenders, writers and journalists.

  • At least 67 people have died since widespread protests began across Peru in December, including at least 49 deaths from state repression.

  • Mexico suffered its deadliest ever year for journalists, with CPJ recording at least 13 killings. Only Ukraine recorded more killings of journalists (15) in 2022, while Haiti was the next deadliest country with seven killings.

  • Turks and Caicos Islands recorded the highest murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean last year (77.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants), followed by Jamaica (52.9), St. Lucia (42.3) and Venezuela (40.4).

  • The Americas accounted for 273 of 327 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered worldwide between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022. Brazil recorded more killings (96) than any other country on earth, followed by Mexico (56), the United States (51) and Colombia (28).

  • Mexico recorded 3,754 killings of women in 2022, of which 947 were investigated as feminicides.

  • The number of people officially missing in Mexico surpassed 100,000 last year. As of 13 March 2023, the total stood at over 112,000.

  • The US Supreme Court overturned a long-standing constitutional guarantee of abortion access last June, threatening critical rights, including the right to life, security and non-discrimination for millions of women, girls, and others. By the end of 2022, several US states had passed laws to ban or curtail access to abortion.

  • US federal courts upheld the Migrant Protection Protocols and Title 42 of the US Code in 2022, resulting in irreparable harm to tens of thousands of asylum seekers who were expelled to danger in Mexico.

  • Between September 2021 and May 2022, the USA expelled more than 25,000 Haitians without due process, in violation of national and international law.

  • Mexican authorities detained at least 281,149 people in overcrowded immigration detention centers last year, and deported at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children.

  • More than 7.17 million Venezuelans have left the country, mostly since 2015. Of these, over 6 million are living in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

  • The number of migrant children crossing the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama on foot hit an all-time high, with UNICEF counting 32,488 children from January to October.

  • Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon totaled more than 11,500 km² in the first 11 months of 2022, the second highest figure since 2006.

 

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Editorials: Assigning blame; and the GOP sinks into violent madness again

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Panamanian political culture
Blocking the road in Pueblo Nuevo. Photo from several spots on Twitter, nobody credited for the photo.

Uh huh…

Many households in Panama City’s Pueblo Nuevo had been without electricity for five days, so some of the residents began to block traffic.

The electric company said it was a blown transformer, and blamed the people who live in the neighborhood.

Perhaps the ASEP utilities regulator, as it now is on the PRD shift, will buy that excuse. It’s very much the style that the anointee in the PRD primary, Vice President Gaby Carrizo, behaved during last year’s militant strikes.

In case you haven’t noticed, this kind of stuff is no way to run a country.

 

          Ted Nugent’s homophobic pro-Putin rant in Waco. The MAGAs applaud.

GOP madness

Uh huh. The Donald held a rally in Waco, commemorating the uprising led by a religious fanatic in 1993, wherein 86 people, many of them children, were killed. But of course, to the gun nuts among the MAGAs, David Koresh’s rifles were supposed to protect against a raid by the AFT or any other act deemed to be government repression.

As the rally opened, Trump saluted the flag. But rising above the flags, behind the former president a large screen showed images of the January 6 Capitol riot, in which Trump’s forces tried to stop the orderly succession of power, in accordance with US laws and the will of the voters. For the background music, Trump played a song recorded by a choir of men who were jailed for participation in that riot.

Back in 2016, Trump led people in “Lock her up!” chants. In Waco in 2023, he screeched like a wounded bird about the possibility of he, himself, being locked up. He threatened death and destruction.

You know what? Trump SHOULD be indicted, convicted and sent to prison, for any of a number of serious crimes. Paying off a hooker to stay silent and keep his 2016 campaign on track was one of his lesser offenses.

It’s not in the public eye right now, and there would be problems because a principal witness is awaiting trial on Odebrecht bribe charges, but when Trump tried to thwart the ruling of a US bankruptcy court AND of the former Trump Ocean Club condo owners by leaning on former Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela, he was obstructing justice and also trying to extort an emolument from a foreign potentate, which would have been a violation of the US Constitution had it been forthcoming and accepted.

It’s not just a matter of the sovereignty of the American people to bring Donald Trump to justice. It’s also a matter of righting a wrong in US-Panamanian relations. And would Uncle Sam be left with only tainted evidence? It would seem likely that US intelligence agencies would have electronic communications intercepts and other proofs to bolster the case.

There are other cases with priority. Perhaps the biggest investigation, not yet concluded, is about whether the classified documents that Trump stole were passed on to any foreign powers.

Yes, Trump has violent neofascists, “patriot” militias and other flavors of gunmen on his side. Maybe he can get Marjorie Taylor Greene to whip out her machine gun and join in the fray. None of that should be allowed to stop or delay the due process of law.

Many Republicans look on with dismay and search for an alternative. Maybe a Ron DeSantis book burning would be more fun for them.

Not to say that everything blue is perfect, that the Democrats have all the correct answers. But today’s Republican Party is a disgraceful mess. They’re “conservatives” running on pure hatred, not to actually conserve anything.

Not since the run-up to the Civil War have the choices that US voters will face next year been so stark.

 

3
Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor. Shutterstock image.

           To know another language is to have a second soul.

Charlemagne           

Bear in mind…


The world won’t give you any gifts. If you want to have a life, steal it.

Lou Andreas-Salomé

 

The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing, and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.

Fred Rogers

 

A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.

Virginia Woolf

 

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Water outage season with a twist

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IDAAN

Although we have had a relatively wet dry season…

by Eric Jackson

Lots of water outages in late March? That has been common enough over the years. It’s the tail end of dry season, reservoirs are low and so are streams and in some cases wells from which water is drawn for the nation’s aqueducts. This, however, is a La Niña season, with drought that started a bit later than usual, and some unseasonable showers now and then. If the IDAAN water and sewer utility, and local aqueduct systems, warn of water outages it’s mostly not the usual natural causes. Yet they keep coming:

  • In the Panama Oeste community of Cermeño, the water went out because maleantes stole the cables that powered the local water system’s pumps.
  • In some of the banana plantation areas of mainland Bocas del Toro, water was out or at low pressure for more traditional reasons — the stream that fed the Guabito water plant’s intake ducts was running low.
  • In Puerto Armuelles they water was out because the electricity for the San Bartolo water plant was out. It was planned and previously announced repairs on the electrical grid causing the problem there.
  • There will be water shortages in parts of La Chorrera on Monday the 27th of March, due to scheduled maintenance at the Jaime Diaz Quintero water plant.
  • There will be a water outages during the day on Tuesday the 28th of March in parts of Arraijan, as IDAAN plans some maintenance work on major water mains.
  • The water treatment plant in Penonome was out on March 25, due to one of the frequent power outages that Cocle province has been experiencing. That, along with all of the other outages, elicited protests from local business groups.

And so it goes. The plan is to get some preventive maintenance done before systems go out during Holy week, which would be considered more serious annoyance than usual. 

 

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Ocasio-Cortéz: Don’t ban TikTok, protect social media users’ privacy

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Representative Ocasio-Cortéz, from her congressional Twitter feed. “Our first priority should be in protecting your ability to exist without social media companies harvesting and commodifying every single piece of data about you without you and without your consent,” the Democrat argues.

In first TikTok, AOC says solution is
not ban but strong privacy laws

by Jessica Corbett — Common Dreams

Amid a national debate over whether Congress should ban TikTok, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday posted her first video on the social media platform to make the case for shifting the focus to broad privacy protections for Americans.

The New York Democrat’s move follows TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifying before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as rights content creators, privacy advocates, and other progressive lawmakers rallying against a company-specific ban on Capitol Hill earlier this week.

Supporters of banning TikTok—which experts say would benefit its Big Tech competitors, Google, Meta, and Snap—claim to be concerned that ByteDance, the company behind the video-sharing platform, could share data with the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, digital rights advocates such as Fight for the Future director Evan Greer have argued that if really policymakers want to protect Americans from the surveillance capitalist business model also embraced by US tech giants, “they should advocate for strong data privacy laws that prevent all companies (including TikTok!) from collecting so much sensitive data about us in the first place, rather than engaging in what amounts to xenophobic showboating that does exactly nothing to protect anyone.”

Ocasio-Cortez embraced that argument, saying in her inaugural video: “Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No.”

“I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented of a move this would be,” Ocasio-Cortez says. “The United States has never before banned a social media company from existence, from operating in our borders, and this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it.”

Advocates of banning TikTok “say because of this egregious amount of data harvesting, we should ban this app,” she explains. “However, that doesn’t really address the core of the issue, which is the fact that major social media companies are allowed to collect troves of deeply personal data about you that you don’t know about without really any significant regulation whatsoever.”

“In fact, the United States is one of the only developed nations in the world that has no significant data or privacy protection laws on the books,” the congresswoman stresses, pointing to the European Union’s legislation as an example. “So to me, the solution here is not to ban an individual company, but to actually protect Americans from this kind of egregious data harvesting that companies can do without your significant ability to say no.”

“Usually when the United States is proposing a very major move that has something to do with significant risk to national security, one of the first things that happens is that Congress receives a classified briefing,” she notes, adding that no such event has happened. “So why would we be proposing a ban regarding such a significant issue without being clued in on this at all? It just doesn’t feel right to me.”

The “Squad” member further argues that “we are a government by the people and for the people—and if we want to make a decision as significant as banning TikTok,” any information that could justify such a policy “should be shared with the public.”

“Our first priority,” Ocasio-Cortez concludes, “should be in protecting your ability to exist without social media companies harvesting and commodifying every single piece of data about you without you and without your consent.”

 

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Reporting on the economy through a bus window

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empty billboards
Looking out the bus window, changing conditions in the Panamanian economy emerge from the things you see and the repeated patterns in them. Photo by Eric Jackson.

Not exactly in the form of a “he said, she said” story

by Eric Jackson

In a sense, it’s like 2019, when the government changed hands and a lot of people were asking about who would eat the losses from unsold inventory of all sorts throughout the national economy. Outgoing gangs had taken their pickings and usually were wary of being too obvious. The prudent sticky fingers were also wary about investing in new ventures when no longer riding the gravy train. Plenty of folks in the previous gangs were flat-out on the run, and having bought out a big share of the nation’s billboards, Ricardo Martinelli was finding that lots of businesses were wary of any connection that might be perceived if they rented advertising space from him. But the biggest underlying bottom line was that less business was being done. It was a real estate buyer’s market. Construction projects languished unfinished, or were done but no occupants were to be found.

The Panamanian economy limped along, and then the COVID epidemic hit. Many of the upscale resident foreigners took evacuation flights, never to return. Some left with plans to come back from their also infected and chaotic countries of origin, sometimes to shocking scenes of what had happened to their property in their absence when they did return. The vaunted “expat community” is substantially reduced and that’s a Panamanian business reality.

During and just after the lockdown, while riding by on the busses it was easy enough to see all of the businesses that had been smashed into and looted. Then came brave new businesses, mostly informal ventures by the side of the road, but also renovations, expansions and replacements of more substantial companies that had suffered so much during the lockdown.

(How much of the devastation at COVID’s worst points was directly due to the deaths or illnesses of owners or key employees? That would be an interesting mashup of economic and medical history to research and write.)

Most small businesses that start up do not succeed for very long. So there was another wave of economic change to be seen from the buses, roadside stands that had been opened or reopened, then abandoned. Little drive-up businesses with no customers parked out front. Buildings that had visibly been smashed into during the lockdown and ensuing crime wave, now fixed up but not yet open for business.

Now the order of who is doing which business where is altered, even among companies with deep pockets. For those with the money to risk investing during hard times, there are some assets to acquire or build cheaply. Other than mergers and acquisitions – especially in the telecommunications business — the tales of roving cannibals are exaggerated.

So there are the self-serving declarations of Panama’s business tycoons and wannabes, and the often snobbish declarations of international financial institutions and bond rating services, and of course all o the political propaganda that takes credit or assigns blame, in each case often unduly so.

And again, there are observations from riding down the highway. All the empty billboards are a dead giveaway of an ailing economy. It might even be an apt time, imparting less pain to fewer companies and people, to just ban that sort of advertising.

And of the companies that are putting up billboards, the winding curves of Campana Hill and straightaways from below that into the beaches community also tell of a huge “before” and “after” market change. Gone are the pictures of blonde families in their upscale beachfront homes, with the messages written in English. That’s not the market anymore, if it ever was. Matchbox tracts with Spanish-language ‘you could be home by now’ pitches are the offerings you see now.

Which may feed into the politics of ‘It doesn’t faze Panama or its business climate if all the rest of the upscale foreigners are driven out, either.’

And so at the US Consulate you see relatively few US citizens waiting to be served, and this crowds of Panamanians lined up to get visas to the United States. You don’t see THAT from a bus, but you may see it at the midpoint main order of business punctuating a day mostly spent on buses between the Interior and Panama City.

 

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Hassen, Paving the way for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

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demo against W
A world without accountability paved the way for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A demonstrator holds a sign reading “Impeach Bush” at an antiwar protest in Ithaca, New York. Shutterstock photo.

Will there ever be justice for the Iraq War?

by Farrah Hassen

The wars in Iraq and Ukraine may differ, but both speak to the tragic realities of war. They also make a strong case for strengthening the rule of law instead of undermining it through flimsy pretexts for endless militarism.

Like the 2003 US war in Iraq, which marked its 20th anniversary this March, Russia’s year-long war on Ukraine is an act of aggression in blatant violation of international law.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although Russia is not a member of the ICC, human rights groups hailed the warrant as a step towards justice.

President Biden called the court’s decision “justified,” but acknowledged that the United States isn’t a member of the ICC either. It is important to see the USA support justice and accountability for Ukrainian victims. This should be extended to all victims of wars, including in Iraq.

That illegal war killed upwards of a million Iraqis, displaced over 9 million from their homes, and destroyed the country’s infrastructure. Terrorist groups, including ISIL, emerged in response to the invasion and have continued to unleash violence. Political divisions plague the country, Iraqis continue to struggle, and the United States has troops there even today.

The glaring lack of accountability for our government’s actions in Iraq compromises America’s authority to meaningfully promote human rights, justice, and the rule of law elsewhere — including in Ukraine.

The invasion of Iraq directly contravened the UN Charter’s prohibition against the use of force in international relations. The United States sent 130,000 troops to overthrow Iraq’s government, without UN authorization and under the fraudulent pretext that the country was amassing weapons of mass destruction.

Widespread human rights violations emerged from the invasion and occupation. Among them, tens of thousands of Iraqis were arrested and detained by US personnel. The majority were innocent civilians and many were abused.

Photos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in April 2004 revealed horrifying, unlawful acts of torture. Naked men were leashed like dogs, electrocuted, and beaten. This barbarism was part of a broader post 9/11 torture network that spanned secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan and Europe to the notorious US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Years later, WikiLeaks published classified US government records that included evidence of other war crimes in Iraq. In the “Collateral Murder” video published in April 2010, shocking footage from 2007 showed US helicopter gunships killing civilians and two Reuters journalists in Baghdad.

No US government officials who created, implemented, or oversaw torture have been held accountable. The only ones to face charges over the WikiLeaks revelations were the people who publicized them. And no US officials faced consequences for waging a war that killed nearly 4,600 US soldiers and that continues to cost our government trillions.

If the United States is serious about enforcing international law, it must right its own wrongs in Iraq and elsewhere.

Joining the ICC would be a positive step.

On previous occasions, the United States has undermined the court, such as by derailing its investigation of US crimes committed in Afghanistan. More recently, Pentagon officials stymied efforts to share US-gathered evidence of Russian crimes with the ICC due to reported concerns that it could one day set the stage for prosecuting Americans.

This highly selective “rule of law” breeds a culture of impunity. As Russia’s actions demonstrate, these double standards weaken the rule of law and human rights around the globe.

A long overdue reckoning with Iraq is also important for Americans who were lied into this devastating war in order to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

In the meantime, Iraqis still wait for accountability. Like all victims of war, they deserve justice.

No one is above the law.

 

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¿Wappin? Lista de reproducción del 23 de marzo / March 23 playlist

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Samara Joy
Samara Joy McLendon and band at INNtöne Jazz Festival 2022. Wikimedia photo by Schorle.

The Friday after the Exquinox
El viernes siguiente al Exquinox

Samara Joy – Can’t Get Out Of This Mood
https://youtu.be/tb1reqE4BzY

Fito Páez en Viña del Mar
https://www.youtube.com/live/wER1tcsrL3E

Janis Joplin – Ball and Chain
https://youtu.be/Z1LAphWvPwI

U Roy, Big Youth, Mad Professor & The Robotics at Rototom Sunsplash
https://youtu.be/eVS7TMDLCFY

The Bangles – Walk Like an Egyptian
https://youtu.be/Cv6tuzHUuuk

Cássia Eller – O Segundo Sol
https://youtu.be/QdWtFUiBLE0

Peter Tosh – Burial
https://youtu.be/eirblXMl30s

Billie Holiday – All of Me
https://youtu.be/7ON5i5-Trf4

Celia Cruz – Nuevo Ritmo Omelenko
https://youtu.be/JHHYiAM5vAs

Zoé & Denise Gutiérrez – Luna
https://youtu.be/6W4L2O-JQ-w

Roger Waters in Lisbon the other day
https://youtu.be/bdgaAJ-sayo

The Corrs – Dreams
https://youtu.be/-_GMSQD5bTg

Samantha Fish in Dortmund
https://youtu.be/8pFpIFJ_hvs

 

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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.  

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Dinero

Labor: Los Angeles schools on strike

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UTLA
United Teachers of Los Angeles protest, photo from their Facebook page.
“How do we properly service our students when we are being overworked and underpaid and disrespected?” asked one special education assistant.

Tens of thousands of LA teachers strike
in solidarity with support workers

by Julia Conley — Common Dreams

Demanding “respect and dignity” for tens of thousands of school support workers who help the Los Angeles Unified School District run, the union that represents 35,000 teachers in the city has called on its members to join a three-day strike starting Tuesday as school support staffers fight for a living wage.

Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 “work so hard for our students,” said United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) on Monday. “They deserve respect and dignity at work. We will be out in force tomorrow to make sure they get it.”

Roughly 65,000 teachers and support professionals including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, teaching aides, and grounds workers are expected to walk out from Tuesday through Thursday this week, nearly a year after SEIU Local 99 entered contract negotiations with LAUSD, the second-largest school district in the United States.

The union is calling for a 30% pay increase for its members, who earn an average of $25,000 per year, or roughly $12 per hour. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a living wage in the Los Angeles area is more than $21 per hour for a single person with no children and far more for people with children.

“I am a single mother and for the past 20 years I have worked two and sometimes three jobs just to support my family,” Janette Verbera, a special education assistant, told In These Times Monday. “How do we properly service our students when we are being overworked and underpaid and disrespected?”

The school district offered a 20% overall pay increase spread over several years on Friday, along with a one-time 5% bonus.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, noted that LAUSD has a $4.9 billion surplus and said the district must use those funds to “invest in staff, students, and educators.”

SEIU Local 99 members voted to authorize a strike in February, and said the limited three-day action is a protest against the district’s negotiating tactics.

LAUSD has claimed the strike is unlawful and that workers are actually staging the walkout over pay without having exhausted all bargaining avenues. A state board over the weekend denied the district’s request to block the strike.

As In These Times reported, negotiations between the district and SEIU Local 99—as well as separate ongoing talks with the teachers’ union about educators’ contracts—are being led by Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, “whose $440,000 salary is nearly 10 times that of a starting salary for a LAUSD teacher.”

“LAUSD won’t get away with underfunding our schools,” tweeted UTLA last week. “This is for our students, for our communities and for our lives.”

 

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The editor is running for secretary of Democrats Abroad Panama

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running
I’d hope that others jump in for other races, and don’t leave DA Panama up to people who were elected to do a job and did not do it during last year’s midterm election campaign.

I am for a well coordinated coalition of the different strains of Democrats, people concerned with doing the work more than flaunting the titles.

And me with the bit part that I seek.
 

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