As The World Turns

{The following are excepts from various

articles from various news sources} 

They will be fotnoted.

 Other folks Are having troubles of their own. Let me give you a list of a few things happening around the Globe.

1]   European Central Bank

2]   World vaccine distribution

3]   New Zealand Schools

4]   Afghanistan pullout

5]   Environmental degradation

6]   Bhutan coup plot

7]   Myanmar coup

& much, much more!

Why don’t we hear about any of this??

1] Christine Lagarde: Countries  must not 'brutally' pull stimulus.

The European Central Bank president told CNN Business' Richard Quest on Thursday that her biggest fear isn't that the European Union will accumulate a mountain of debt, but that governments could "brutally" withdraw job guarantees and income support before the time is right.

More than 130 countries haven't received

a single Covid-19 vaccine, while 10 countries

have administered 75% of all vaccines,

the UN says.      by Scottie Andrew, CNN

2]   Just 10 countries have administered 75% of the world's available Covid-19 vaccine supply, while more than 130 countries haven't even received their first doses, according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

© UNTP In this image made from UNTVV/A video, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a U.N. Security Council high-level meeting on COVID-19 recovery focusing on vaccinations, chaired by British Foreign Secretary Dominc Raab, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in New York. (UNTV via AP)

It's unfair, Guterres said, that so few countries should control the bulk of the world's vaccine supplies. To address that inequity, the secretary-general proposed that members of G20 create an emergency task force to promote global vaccine access.

"At this critical moment, vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community," he said in a virtual meeting on Wednesday with the UN Security Council.

Around 188 million vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, according to the digital database Our World in Data. Tens of millions of those doses have gone to the United States, China, the United Kingdom and Israel.

New Zealand schools will offer free

period products to students.      by: Sophie Lewis  

3]   Schools in New Zealand will soon offer free menstrual products to all students. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the lack of access to such products, known as period poverty, keeps thousands of young people out of school.

© Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

Gives COVID-19 Update As

Auckland Enters Three-Day Lockdow

The program will begin in June following a six-month pilot program that provided free period products to about 3,200 students in 15 schools. Ardern said that the "positive response" from the trial encouraged her to expand the initiative nationwide.

"Young people should not miss out on their education because of something that is a normal part of life for half the population," Ardern said in a statement Thursday. "Removing barriers to healthy, active, educational outcomes for children and young people is an important part of the Government's Youth and Wellbeing Strategy."

No decision on Afghanistan pullout, says NATO chief.

4]   Jens Stoltenberg, the military alliance's secretary-general, says NATO countries are as yet undecided whether or when to leave Afghanistan. The US and its allies invaded the southeast Asian nation after the 9/11 attacks.

© Olivier Hoslet/AP Photo/picture alliance

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg

says no decision has been taken

on a possible Afghanistan pullout

NATO has made no decision on whether or when to pull out of Afghanistan, the military alliance’s top official said on Thursday.

But Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said May 1 was the final deadline for any possible future withdrawal as part of a peace deal struck between the US and the Taliban last year.

After two decades of Western military intervention and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, NATO countries are worried about undermining progress towards democracy.

Environmental degradation poses

triple threat to humans: UN.

5]   Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution pose a triple threat to human health and prosperity that may be averted only by transforming how we power our economies and feed ourselves, the United Nations said Thursday. 

© Raul ARBOLEDA A scientific assessment

by the UN Environment Programme found

that decades of economic growth has come

at a devastating cost to the planet

A scientific assessment by the UN Environment Programme found that galloping economic growth has come at a devastating cost to the planet and urged governments, businesses and people around the world to act to reverse the damage before it is too late

Top Bhutan general, judges detained in alleged overthrow plot.

6]   A top general and two judges in Bhutan have been detained by the police over an alleged plot to overthrow the country’s top military officer and chief justice.

© Former Royal Bodyguard Commandant Brigadier

Thinley Tobgay, Supreme Court Justice Kuenley Tshering

a... Former Royal Bodyguard Commandant Brigadier

Thinley Tobgay, Supreme Court Justice Kuenley Tshering

and top district court judge Yeshey Dorji appeared in court

on Wednesday after being detained at their homes

[File: Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP]

The three have been accused of plotting to overthrow the country’s top military officer, Lieutenant General Batoo Tshering, by implicating him in a corruption scandal.

Military Imposes Full Grip on Myanmar in Overnight Crackdown

 By Hannah Beech

7]   Armored vehicles rolled in along with soldiers in camouflage in cities across the country as generals moved to crush the protest movement against the Feb. 1 military coup. With the night in Myanmar came the terror.

In cities across the country on Sunday evening, armored vehicles moved in, along with trucks filled with soldiers in camouflage. Security forces fired rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas at a crowd. Troops surrounded the houses of government workers who had dared to join a nationwide civil disobedience campaign. Politicians, activists and journalists fled, turning off their phones as they disappeared into the shadows, hoping to outpace the men coming after them

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Hundreds of thousands still without power in Texas.

8]   Families in Houston and all over Texas were doing anything to stay warm, sometimes making deadly choices. 911 calls were way up throughout the state. Hospitals treated hundreds for exposure to the cold and for carbon monoxide poisoning as Texans fired up generators and stayed in their cars to keep warm.

Frozen pipes were bursting, flooding homes and businesses. One Dallas apartment building had icicles inside. So many pipes burst that Texas' governor asked for help from out-of-state plumbers. A North Texas plumber told CBS Dallas his company had gotten 2,200 calls in 24 hours.

Analysis: Exodus of Republican voters tired of Trump could push party further right.   by: Jason Lange and Andy Sullivan 

© Reuters/ANDREW KELLY FILE PHOTO:

9]   People watch live election results come in at an election night watch party held on Election Day, at the Staten Island Republican Party Headquarters on Staten Island in New York City

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A surge of Republicans quitting the party to renounce Donald Trump after the deadly Capitol riot could hurt moderates in next year's primaries, adding a capstone to Trump's legacy as president: A potentially lasting rightward push on the party.

More than 68,000 Republicans have left the party in recent weeks in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, crucial states for Democrats' hopes of keeping control of Congress in the mid-term elections in 2022, state voter data shows.

That's about three times the roughly 23,000 Democrats who left their party in the same states over the same time period.

Compared to the Republicans who stayed put, those who fled were more concentrated in the left-leaning counties around big cities, which political analysts said suggested moderate Republicans could be leading the defections.

Mitch McConnell's Condemnation of Donald Trump Firmly at Odds with GOP Consensus.   by: Jacob Jarvis 

 

10]   Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's suggestion former President Donald Trump is "practically and morally responsible" for provoking the violence of January 6 stands firmly at odds with the opinion of most Republicans asked in recent polling.

© Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) departs after the day's proceedings in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol on February 10, 2021 in Washington, D.C. He voted to acquit Trump but said the former president held responsibility for the events of January 6. He has since faced criticism from Trump.

While the Kentucky Republican voted to acquit Trump, he said this was a decision based on the constitutionality of the trial and still criticized the former president—even suggesting he could face consequences through other legal means.

Following this, Trump lashed out at McConnell in a scathing statement branding him a "dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack," and suggesting he was at fault for the GOP losing its Senate majority.

As McConnell and Trump's feud plays out, in terms of public opinion most Republican supports reject the suggestion of the former president being at fault for the storming of the Capitol.

11]   In YouGov/The Economist polling carried out February 13 to 16, 1,500 U.S. adults were asked how much responsibility they felt Trump had for "the takeover of the Capitol" and also asked whether they thought Trump did "anything wrong during the takeover of the Capitol."

 

MITCH AND THE BITCH

Mitch & Elaine – a marriage made in Hel 

Not enough has been made of Elaine Cho, her family, Mitch McConnell and the undeniable ties to Communist China.

This how Moscow Mitch got rich.

 

In the heart of the Great Recession, Mitch McConnell suddenly got richer. According to his 2009 financial disclosure, while other senators’ fortunes were falling, McConnell’s jumped, thanks to a multimillion-dollar gift from his father-in-law, James Chao, to him and his wife, Elaine Chao, who now serves as President Trump’s Secretary of Transportation.

 

When Ruth Chao died, she was the matriarch of a family of eight. Four decades earlier she and her three oldest daughters traveled by ship from Taiwan to the U.S. to join her husband, James, in New York. By the end of her life, she personally had nearly $59 million of assets to her name, according to an inventory filed with her will. She owned a home 25 miles north of Manhattan in Harrison, New York, worth $1.17 million; checking and money market accounts worth a combined $50,900; a 2006 Lexus sedan worth $23,000; miscellaneous personal property worth $25,000; and a “closely held business interest”—worth $57.5 million. 

 

The New York Times Company

For the Chao Family, Deep Ties to the World’s 2 Largest Economies

As transportation secretary,

Elaine Chao

is the top Trump official overseeing the

maritime industry. Her family owns

Foremost Group, a shipping company.

Credit...Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times

               

By Michael Forsythe and Eric Lipton

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/transportation-secretary-elaine-chao.html

The family of Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary and wife of Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has high-level political connections not only in the United States but also in China. That gives the family unusual status in the world’s two largest economies.

Through interviews, industry filings and government documents from both countries, The New York Times found that the Chaos, and by extension Mr. McConnell, prospered as the family’s shipping company developed deeper business ties in China. Along the way, one of the company’s boosters was Ms. Chao, who now oversees efforts to promote America’s own maritime industry, which is in steep decline as China’s shipping sector rises in global dominance. Here are five takeaways.

The Chao family’s connections to the Chinese state go back decades.

James S.C. Chao, 91, Ms. Chao’s father, studied navigation at a university in Shanghai before fleeing the mainland ahead of the Communist takeover in 1949. His schoolmate for a time was Jiang Zemin, who would become China’s president.

As China was emerging from decades of turmoil in 1984, the Chao family took a stake in a state-owned Chinese manufacturer of marine electronic equipment, documents show. The company targeted sales to China’s military, among other sectors, and was closely affiliated with a ministry run by Mr. Jiang. After Mr. Jiang came to lead the Communist Party a few years later, Mr. Chao met with him at least six times, including in August 1989 in Beijing — inside the party’s secretive leadership compound. Chao family members said they could not recall this investment.

The family shipping company is centered on China.

The main gate of the Shanghai

Waigaoqiao shipyard, a building

site for Foremost ships.

Credit...Giulia Marchi for The New York Times

Foremost Group, the New York-based shipping company founded by Mr. Chao in 1964, landed its first big contract with the United States government, shipping rice to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Now, it builds most of its ships in state-owned shipyards in China, with some financed by Chinese government loans. In at least two instances, those Chinese-backed, Chinese-built ships entered long-term contracts to deliver iron ore for a state-owned steel maker.

More than 70 percent of Foremost’s freight goes to China, and most of that is iron ore, according to recent shipping data. The cargo helps feed China’s industrial machine, which manufactures steel products that are a point of dispute in the deepening trade war between China and the United States. The company describes itself as a small international business and says it does not have a particular focus on China, beyond what most dry bulk carriers have in a world dominated by Chinese manufacturing.

As budget cuts have targeted America’s shipping sector, the Trump administration’s commitment under Ms. Chao has been questioned.

The Trump administration has left little doubt that the federal government is willing to use its clout to boost certain American industrial sectors, including coal and steel. Those efforts have not extended to the maritime industry under Ms. Chao’s leadership.

The Transportation Department budget during her tenure has repeatedly called for cuts for programs intended to support the depressed system of American-flagged ships. The agency budget has also called for scaling back plans to replace up to five academy ships to train a new generation of American mariners.

Agency officials noted that many of the cuts were forced on the department by the White House, and that some of the same programs had been previously targeted, only to see the money restored by Congress, as happened again with the Trump cuts.

With the action by Congress, the plans to build the new training ships are now back on track, and overall maritime spending is up. But the proposed cuts have led to bipartisan questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to shipping.

Transportation Department officials say that Ms. Chao has been a champion for the United States maritime system, and that her actions as the head of the agency have nothing to do with her family’s business in China. In China, the Chao family has for decades offered scholarships to students training to join the fast-growing shipping industry there.

“My family are patriotic Americans who have led purpose-driven lives and contributed much to this country,” Ms. Chao said in a statement.

Ms. Chao’s family ties to the shipping company and her dealings in China raise ethical issues.

A certificate being presented to Ms. Chao

in her role as an international adviser to

the city of Wuhan.

Credit...Imaginechina, via Associated Press Image

Ms. Chao hasn’t held a formal position at Foremost since the late 1970s, but she has repeatedly used her connections and status to boost the company’s reputation and visibility.

As transportation secretary, she attended a Foremost contract-signing ceremony in New York in 2017. The other party to the contract, the Sumitomo Group of Japan, was subject to Transportation Department oversight for transit projects. Two months later, she canceled a China trip after officials at the American embassy in Beijing raised ethical concerns when her office asked to have family members from the shipping company participate in events.

The Transportation Department provided no reason for the trip’s cancellation, though a spokesman later cited a cabinet meeting President Trump had called at the time.

At her confirmation hearing, Ms. Chao did not mention her family’s extensive ties to the Chinese maritime industry. She also did not disclose several accolades she had received in China — including a role as an international adviser to the city of Wuhan — though the Senate questionnaire requires nominees to list all honorary positions. An agency official described that as an oversight.

Marilyn L. Glynn, a former general counsel at the Office of Government Ethics, said Ms. Chao should recuse herself from decisions that broadly impacted the shipping industry. “She might be tempted to make sure her family company is not adversely affected in any policy choices, or it might even just appear that way,” Ms. Glynn said.

The department spokesman denied the existence of any conflict, saying that “the family business is not in U.S.-flag shipping.” Angela Chao, Foremost’s chief executive, said her sister Elaine attended Foremost events “as a family member.”

Mr. McConnell benefited from his marriage into the Chao family.

Ms. Chao and Mr. McConnell married in 1993, but her campaign donations, along with those of her parents, sisters and brothers-in-law, began flowing years before the wedding. The first $10,000 came in June 1989. In the 30 years since, 13 members of the extended Chao family have given a total of more than $1 million to Mr. McConnell’s campaigns and to political action committees tied to him. In 2008, James Chao gave the couple a gift of as much as $25 million, vaulting Mr. McConnell into the ranks of the richest senators.

In a statement, Mr. McConnell said he was proud to have his family’s support.

Also see:     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_