Demand in Japan for appliances at record high amid consumers staying home
More time at home has driven demand for home electrical appliances to record levels.
The value of domestic home electrical appliance shipments in fiscal 2020, which ended in March, increased 6.5% from the previous fiscal year to ¥2.61 trillion, the Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association said Tuesday. This was the highest figure since fiscal 1997, when the current statistical method was introduced.
The fiscal 2020 figure was also 5.9% higher than the previous record of ¥2.47 trillion in fiscal 2018, when there was last-minute demand ahead of the consumption tax rate hike from 8% to 10%.
By product category, the shipment value of air cleaners nearly doubled from the previous year to ¥109.4 billion, exceeding ¥100 billion for the first time. For room air conditioners, the shipment value increased 3.5% to ¥818.2 billion. The rising demand is believed to be due to increased awareness of health and cleanliness amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Online sales have been strong as electronics retailers have had to shorten business hours.
Consumption was also boosted by the central government’s special cash benefit of ¥100,000 per resident. There was increased demand especially to replace consumer goods and appliances with high sticker prices. The shipment value of washing machines increased 8.4% to ¥399.5 billion and that of vacuum cleaners by 7.6% to ¥99.5 billion.
Demand for kitchen devices also increased as some companies began introducing telecommuting. Sales of refrigerators rose 3.1% to ¥452.5 billion, while sales of microwave ovens increased 5.7% to ¥94.4 billion.
On a monthly basis, the overall shipment value of home electrical appliances in April and May was sluggish, in the range of ¥150 billion to ¥200 billion, because of the state of emergency issued during those months. After the emergency was lifted, shipment value surged to ¥308 billion in June, and remained above ¥200 billion from July through September.
A second state of emergency was declared for parts of the country in January and continued for about 2½ months, but the shipment value in January was the highest seen for that month in the past 10 years.
The strong demand from people staying at home continued in February and March. The shipment value in March increased 8.9% from the same month the year before to ¥238.9 billion, marking six consecutive months with a year-on-year increase.
Entry approvals for non-Sporeans, non-PRs travelling from India cut due to Covid-19
SINGAPORE – Entry approvals for non-Singapore citizens and non-permanent residents are being reduced with immediate effect, in response to the worsening Covid-19 situation in India and the emergence of new virus variants, the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday (April 20).
From 11.59pm on Thursday, all travellers from India will also have to serve an additional seven-day stay-home notice (SHN) at their place of residence, following the usual 14-day SHN at a dedicated facility.
Those who have yet to complete their 14-day SHN by that time will also have to serve the extra seven days.
The travellers will be tested for Covid-19 at the end of the initial 14-day SHN and at the end of the additional seven-day SHN.
Migrant workers arriving from India who work in the construction, marine and process sectors will continue to be subjected to a 21-day SHN. These measures will minimise importation risks and protect public health, the MOH said.
Measures for travellers from Hong Kong, Britain and South Africa relaxed
Meanwhile, the SHN period for travellers from Hong Kong will be reduced from 14 days to seven days as the situation there has improved, and the SHN can be served at one’s place of residence if it is suitable.
This will apply to travellers who have remained in Hong Kong in the last 14 consecutive days and who enter Singapore from 11.59pm on Thursday.
They will be subjected to the Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test upon arrival and another PCR test before the end of their seven-day SHN.
Singapore will also allow entry and transit for all long-term pass holders and short-term visitors with recent travel history to Britain and South Africa from 11.59pm on Thursday.
They will be able to enter Singapore after obtaining the relevant entry approvals or transit through the airport on airlines approved to operate such transfers.
This group had earlier been subject to restricted entry due to concerns of a more contagious variant of the coronavirus circulating in these places.
Arriving travellers who were in Britain or South Africa in the last 14 days before their entry will continue to be subjected to a seven-day SHN period at their place of residence, following their 14-day SHN at dedicated facilities.
The MOH said Singapore’s existing border control and domestic measures have been able to contain the risks of community spread from imported cases with such variants, which is now present in many countries beyond Britain and South Africa.
It added that it will continue to evaluate the data on the various strains of the virus that cause Covid-19 as they emerge and review Singapore’s border measures accordingly.
Essential official travel overseas to be allowed
In spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, essential business and official travels still need to continue, the MOH noted.
It said: “While many meetings have been conducted over digital media, certain critical discussions need to be done face to face. Official interactions are also crucial to safeguarding and advancing Singapore’s national interests.”
In order to facilitate such travel, the MOH said it will allow fully vaccinated individuals who need to travel to higher-risk countries or regions as part of an official delegation to be subjected to a stringent testing and self-isolation regime from 11.59pm on Thursday.
They must adhere to a strict event-by-event controlled itinerary while overseas, and undergo Covid-19 PCR tests upon arrival, and on the third, seventh and 14th days of their return.
As an added precaution, these travellers will also be required to undergo a seven-day self-isolation period at home or in a hotel upon return.
They may leave their place of accommodation only to commute to the PCR test site or to the workplace for essential work that cannot be done remotely.
Travellers who are not fully vaccinated will continue to be subjected to prevailing border measures upon their return.
Some private banks re-run for some services, Yangon ATMs being crowded
Some private banks are providing some banking services with a lot of people withdrawing cash from automated teller machines (ATMs) in Yangon city.
After announcing that customers need to register first for their cash withdrawal, private banks reopened some of their branches on April 20.
Yoma Bank opened some branches on April 20 announcing that customers will be informed daily about reopening of its branches, but they are requested to inform prior to their cash withdrawal.
CB Bank is also adopting a token system to prevent delays in cash withdrawal. The bank says token issuance time and number of tokens can be browsed on its Facebook page for respective branches.
Moreover, the ATMs of some private banks in Yangon city are crowded on April 20. Among them, those of KBZ Bank, AYA Bank, CB Bank and Yoma Bank are most crowded.
KBZ Bank announced on March 30 that a customer will be able to withdraw a maximum of Ks200,000 per day from its ATMs.
For customers of Yoma Bank, they will be allowed to withdraw a maximum of Ks300,000 per day. Only one ATM card can be used for withdrawing one time. On April 20, the bank also called for a systematic queue for ATM cash withdrawal.
CB Bank announced that it was trying to insert as much money as possible into its machines for the convenience of customers. Moreover, CRMs (cash recycling machines) are being arranged for its customers to make both deposits and withdrawals.
Seoul’s “strategic ambiguity” to be tested amid Washington’s ramped-up efforts to form a unified front on a more assertive China
Last week’s highly productive US-Japan summit has left few options for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is heading to Washington next month for a summit with the new US president, experts say.
US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga presented a united front on China in their first face-to-face meeting on Friday.
The leaders reaffirmed their commitments to countering China’s continuing assertiveness over Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea, while pledging a whopping $4.5 billion to develop ultrafast communications technologies to prevent Huawei, China’s state-backed telecom giant, from dominating the global market.
“It’s almost like the US and Japan have announced a set of new global orders,” said Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University. “Now the only option left for South Korea is whether to join the initiative or not.
“It had been widely expected that China issues would loom large in the summit. But discussions were much more direct and specific than expected,” he added.
Biden, three months into his term, has invested heavily in rebuilding ties with Japan and South Korea amid the growing influence of China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Tokyo and Seoul were the first destinations of his administration’s highest-level foreign travel in March. With Suga and Moon becoming the first foreign leaders to meet Biden in person, the summit talks are considered the culmination of a flurry of diplomacy over the past months.
But South Korea has walked a fine line to avoid being drawn into the escalating US-China rivalry, while Japan has explicitly backed the US policy of challenging a more assertive China.
For Seoul, Beijing is more than just its biggest trading partner. South Korea has used its ties with China as leverage to engage with a defiant North Korea and put an end to its nuclear ambitions — Moon’s signature policy goals.
With Washington’s new North Korea policy coming soon, Moon has expressed high hopes of reviving his mediating role in the collapsed diplomacy between the US and North Korea, whose relationship has reached a new low since the breakdown of the second summit talks between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2019.
“Moon may want to make a breakthrough in the stalled denuclearization talks through the upcoming summit with Biden. But the North Korea issue is not a top priority for the US president,” Park said. “Due to Korea’s strategic ambiguity, the Korea-US alliance could be reduced to a regional alliance tackling North Korea only.”
Hwang Jae-ho, a professor of international studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, was also cautious about placing high expectations on the Moon-Biden summit, but made it clear “it’s not a competition with Japan either.”
Even for Suga, it was a tough decision to make a direct reference to Taiwan, China’s most sensitive territorial issue, during the joint press conference with Biden. China rebuked Japan immediately, warning of retaliatory action. Some critics in Japan criticized Suga for going too far, considering Japan’s dependence on trade with China.
“Suga, a diplomatic novice, seemed well-prepared. Upping the ante against China or North Korea is helpful for a Japanese prime minister to elevate approval ratings at home,” Hwang said, predicting a limited impact from China’s retaliatory threats due to Japan’s huge domestic market.
“But South Korea’s situation is much more complicated than that of Japan, which is a fact both the US and China are well aware of,” he added. “Rather than losing their crucial partner in the region at all, both countries will continue to gauge the situation, adjusting the pressure level.”
As for the “Quad,” an informal strategic alliance consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia that aims to confront challenges from China, Park urged the South Korean government to join immediately in a clear sign of its alliance with the US. Meanwhile, Hwang said there is no need to rush when the US has not yet made an official request.
“There are not many things Moon can gain in the summit with Biden, especially at a time when inter-Korean relations have remained at a standstill,” Hwang said. “No serious confrontations between the two countries are expected at least under the two liberal presidents, except that time is running out for Moon, who is in his final year in office.”
Xi: China will never seek hegemony, sphere of influence
BEIJING – China will never seek hegemony, expansion, or a sphere of influence no matter how strong it may grow, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday.
Nor will China ever engage in an arms race, Xi added.
Xi made the remarks while delivering a keynote speech via video at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2021.
China will develop friendship and cooperation with other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and promote a new type of international relations, Xi said.
Justice is needed in today’s world, not hegemony, he said.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has made it all the more clear to people around the world that we must reject the cold-war and zero-sum mentality and oppose a new ‘Cold War’ and ideological confrontation in whatever forms,” Xi said.
The principles of equality, mutual respect and mutual trust must be put front and center in state-to-state relations, Xi continued.
“Bossing others around or meddling in others’ internal affairs would not get one any support,” he said.
“World affairs should be handled through extensive consultation, and the future of the world should be decided by all countries working together,” Xi said.
“We must not let the rules set by one or a few countries be imposed on others, or allow unilateralism pursued by certain countries to set the pace for the whole world,” Xi stressed.
Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and with a greater sense of responsibility, he added.
Opening-up
The Chinese president said that 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA).
The forum has borne witness to the extraordinary journey of China, of Asia and of the world, and has exerted a significant influence in boosting development in Asia and beyond, Xi said.
ALSO READ: Xi set to elaborate on growth in Boao speech
Xi underscored the significance of the theme of the forum, which he said was convened against “a very special background”.
The theme – A World in Change: Join Hands to Strengthen Global Governance and Advance Belt and Road Cooperation – is most opportune and relevant under the current circumstances, Xi said.
China has achieved progress and development in tandem with the rest of Asia and the world, the president said.
As an important member of the Asian family, China has kept deepening reform and opening-up while promoting regional cooperation, Xi said
As an important member of the Asian family, China has kept deepening reform and opening-up while promoting regional cooperation, Xi said.
All are welcome to share in the vast opportunities of the Chinese market, Xi said.
China will take an active part in multilateral cooperation on trade and investment, fully implement the Foreign Investment Law and its supporting rules and regulations, and cut further the negative list on foreign investment, said Xi.
China will continue to develop the Hainan Free Trade Port and develop new systems for a higher-standard open economy, he added.
Upholding true multilateralism
In his speech, Xi stressed following the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and upholding true multilateralism.
Economic globalization is showing renewed resilience, and the call for upholding multilateralism and enhancing communication and coordination has grown stronger, Xi noted.
In the age of economic globalization, attempts to “erect walls” or “decouple” run counter to the law of economics and market principles, and would hurt others’ interests without benefiting oneself, Xi said.
Xi called for building an open world economy, saying that openness is essential for development and progress, and holds the key to post-COVID economic recovery
The Chinese president called for building an open world economy, saying that openness is essential for development and progress, and holds the key to post-COVID economic recovery.
“We need to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, deepen regional economic integration, and enhance supply, industrial, data and human resources chains,” said Xi.
READ MORE: Report: Integration key to Asia’s sustained economic recovery
China will work with all sides to promote “hard connectivity” of infrastructure and “soft connectivity” of rules and standards in an effort to build a closer partnership for connectivity, Xi said.
He called for turning the fruits of scientific and technological innovation into greater benefits for people in all countries.
Efforts must be made to boost the digital economy, and step up exchanges and cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, biomedicine and modern energy, Xi said.
Belt and Road Initiative
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a public road open to all, not a private path owned by one single party, the Chinese president said.
“All interested countries are welcome aboard to take part in the cooperation and share in its benefits,” he said.
Xi called for improving the BRI International Green Development Coalition, the Green Investment Principles for the Belt and Road Development and other multilateral cooperation platforms “to make green a defining feature of Belt and Road cooperation.”
Meanwhile, China will work with all willing participants to build the BRI into a pathway to poverty alleviation and growth.
By 2030, Belt and Road projects could help lift 7.6 million people from extreme poverty and 32 million people from moderate poverty across the world, Xi said, citing a World Bank report.
COVID-19
Xi said that the key role of the World Health Organization (WHO) must be given full play in the ongoing fight against COVID-19.
“We must put people and their lives above anything else, scale up information sharing and collective efforts, and enhance public health and medical cooperation,” he said.
Xi called for efforts to bolster international cooperation on the research and development, production and distribution of vaccines.
He stressed that efforts should be made to ensure that everyone in the world can access and afford the vaccines they need.
China will expand cooperation with various parties in infectious disease control, public health, traditional medicine and other areas, said Xi.
READ MORE: Full text of Xi’s speech at Boao forum opening ceremony
Climate change
Meanwhile, Xi stressed the importance of advancing international cooperation on climate change and doing more to implement the Paris Agreement.
“The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities must be upheld, and concerns of developing countries on capital, technology and capacity building must be addressed,” Xi said.
Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations
China will host the second Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations once the pandemic gets under control.
It will be part of China’s active efforts to promote inter-civilization dialogue in Asia and beyond, Xi noted.
Chauvin convicted of murder and manslaughter in death of George Floyd
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day.
He was immediately taken into custody after the jury announced its verdicts Tuesday afternoon, and he will be sentenced in the coming weeks.
The verdicts came less than a full day after closing arguments in the three-week trial concluded. One local man called it “a new day in America.” Minnesota leaders hailed it as justice served. Former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama called it “the right thing,” and President Biden called the Floyd family.
Following the reading of the jury’s unanimous verdict that found Derek Chauvin guilty on all three charges, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill instructed Chauvin to be immediately remanded into custody of the Hennepin County sheriff after revoking the defendant’s bond.
Chauvin will now wait in jail until sentencing in eight weeks. Meanwhile, defense attorney Eric Nelson is expected to begin preparing an appeal based on several concepts.
One of the possible arguments Nelson could make is related to the improper influence of extensive media coverage of the case and the trial on the jury, and more particularly, based on what Nelson described as “threatening and intimidating” comments made by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., over the weekend. Waters told protesters they should be more “confrontational” if Chauvin was found not guilty.
A state court of appeals would then review the case and make the final decision, or it could send the case back to trial for additional proceedings. The defense could also request that the Minnesota Supreme Court review the case.
Less than an hour after jurors found Derek Chauvin guilty on all charges, prosecutors thanked the jury for making what they called the “right and decent” choice to convict the former Minneapolis police officer in the murder of George Floyd.
Standing outside the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, special prosecutor Steve Schleicher, who presented the closing arguments, said it was a privilege to get to know Floyd’s family. He added he was grateful that he and the rest of the prosecution were able to bring a conviction.
“I want to thank the jury for their service, for doing what was right and decent and correct and speaking truth and finding the right verdict in this case,” Schleicher said.
He was followed by colleague Jerry Blackwell, who borrowed a saying from the late Georgia congressman John Lewis. Blackwell thanked those who filmed Floyd’s death, saying they “had the willingness, the courage, the passion, the intestinal fortitude to get into good trouble.”
Published : April 21, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Timothy Bella, Keith McMillan, Abigail Hauslohner
Floyds death led to concern for race and racism, but its unclear what that means
MINNEAPOLIS – Every morning, Crystal Lescault stares at the app on her phone that has been counting the days since George Floyds death. On Tuesday, it read 330. And she wondered whether that number would be the one.
Lescault spent nearly a year praying for a guilty verdict in the case against former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing Floyd by putting his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. In the past few weeks, she’s been unable to look away from the trial coverage, struggling to concentrate at work and experiencing escalating, debilitating anxiety as businesses boarded up their windows and police walked near her house, which is four blocks from where Floyd was killed.
“I could probably have tuned this out better in a different life, but not as a mother of a Black child. I have to pay attention. It’s important,” said Lescault, who is White, is married to a Black man and has biracial twins.
On Tuesday, Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
As Americans awaited the verdict, many found themselves grappling with the racial reckoning brought about by Floyd’s death May 25. Since then, huge numbers of Americans have shown up to Black Lives Matter rallies, bought books about racism, planted signs in their front yards and engaged in difficult conversations. Less visible are those who have remained silent and unchanged, making it unclear whether lasting systemic changes are on America’s horizon.
Each time a Black person is killed by police or racism-fueled violence occurs, there is a burst of awareness and discussion, calls for action and promises of change – which often fade as time passes. Floyd’s death, which was captured in a video viewed by millions, ignited a response that seemed to be longer lasting and has been resurgent as Chauvin stood trial.
Before the verdict, many residents of the Minneapolis area reflected on what the outcome could be and what it would mean.
For some, including Lescault, the verdict was be a symbolic measurement of where the United States is in its fight for racial equity. His conviction, they said before the announcement, is a sign that progress is being made. Anything less than that, they said, would have showed that nothing had changed.
Others struggle to see this trial as anything more than one police officer on trial for one crime, saying no deeper meaning should be gleaned from the outcome.
And others are not quite sure what to make of the trial, or how they fit in amid the Black Lives Matter protests and the pro-law-enforcement “thin blue line” flags.
Public concern for race and racism increased in June after Floyd’s death, fell slightly in August, then plateaued in recent months at a higher level than it was before, according to Gallup polling. Although Gallup has seen similar spikes in attitudes about race in years past, this shift appears to be longer lasting than those before it.
But it’s unclear how permanent this shift in opinion is. In the poll, issues of race and racism were considered one of the top four U.S. priorities but were overshadowed by concerns about the pandemic, the government, and the economy and unemployment. Levels of concern also split sharply along racial lines, with White Americans less concerned about racial issues than Black and Hispanic Americans.
After following the trial coverage for days, Justin Gelking said Chauvin should not have put his knee on Floyd’s neck for those nine-plus minutes. But the 33-year-old, who is a fan of the phrase “All Lives Matter,” does not think race was a factor in Floyd’s death.
“Seems like a one-time thing that hopefully won’t happen again,” he said as he left his shift Monday as a dishwasher at Billy’s Bar and Grill, a restaurant in the northwestern suburb of Anoka, Minn. He’d watched the concluding arguments of the trial that morning.
Gelking, who is White, said that police are “good at protecting people and doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” and that no matter what the jury decides about Chauvin’s actions, that would not change.
Some experts say systemic racism is too entrenched in American society for one incident to make a difference.
Helen Neville said she’s not convinced that Floyd’s death “caught on video will transform U.S. society and people’s opinions without deep, deep reflection and engagement.” Neville, a University of Illinois professor who specializes in the psychology of racism, said: “I do see there’s been conversations, but we’ll see if real change happens.”
– – –
In the weeks before Floyd died, reports were showing that Black and Latino Americans were becoming infected with the coronavirus and dying at higher rates than Whites.
On the morning of May 25, a Black birdwatcher in Central Park named Christian Cooper asked Amy Cooper, a White woman of no relation, to put her dog on a leash in a zone of the park where that’s required. When she refused, he recorded her as she called police and told them that “an African American man” was threatening her. It sparked national outrage.
Several hours later that same day, a nine-minute video circulated that showed Chauvin putting his knee on Floyd’s neck as Floyd pleaded for air, called out for his mother and died.
“It served as an awakening point,” said Neville. “It alerted people to the harsh realities of police brutality directed toward Black folks, which then served as a symbol for institutional racism.”
Samuel Sinyangwe, co-founder of Campaign Zero, an organization that tracks police violence and advocates for changes, said the video was unusual in the way it captured the “cold, emotionless expressions” on Chauvin’s face.
He also pointed out that the presence of three other police officers in the video may have disabused some viewers of the “bad apple” myth – that the officers portrayed in police brutality videos are bad people who slipped through the cracks of a reliable system, as opposed to the officers being a symptom of a larger, systemic problem in U.S. policing. Those three officers are charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.
Then there were Floyd’s last words, which included calling out for his mother.
The cries were a universal signifier, one that hit home for mothers across the racial spectrum. In Portland, Ore., a “wall of moms” formed during protests, with White women putting themselves between police and protesters of color. They grew to become such a symbol for White women’s involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement that the group became an official nonprofit.
As the White proportion of the U.S. population shrinks, White buy-in becomes less essential to these movements, said Tim Wise, author of “Dispatches from the Race War.” But for now, “in a society of white supremacy, Black moral authority” is not enough, Wise said.
In the Floyd video, the racism was overt, said David Campt, creator of the White Ally Toolkit. He said the video did not display “new racism,” which he described as the subtle, unconscious kind that is difficult to see without an education on race issues and a willingness to view the world through a racialized lens.
That lack of subtlety, Campt said, has helped expose the more subtle acts ever since.
With the coronavirus raging last summer, many people were working at home and more exposed to the media images and details of Floyd’s death, experts said. When protesters took to the streets in cities large and small across the country, it made the Black Lives Matter movement ubiquitous in the digital and physical realms, therefore unavoidable for many.
And Floyd’s death occurred while the country was being led by President Donald Trump, who stoked racial tensions during his campaign and presidency. Floyd died during Trump’s final year in office, as thousands of suburban voters were shifting left and preparing to vote for a different candidate in November.
It is for all these reasons that the video of Floyd stood apart from the others. And it’s why many see the trial as a test: If this video would not make a difference, what would?
For Eryn Frost, 33, watching the video was a profound experience that she said changed her and made her realize that she had done racist things in the past, such as shuffling the job applications of those with hard-to-pronounce names to the bottom of the stack. The White resident of Prior Lake – a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis – grew up conservative and was the president of her college’s Republican group. In 2016, she and her husband voted for minor-party candidate Gary Johnson.
But when Trump became president, a “crack” formed in the couple’s mind-set, she said, and they became increasingly dissatisfied with where the country was headed. Then Floyd died, and Frost said “the whole thing exploded.”
“You’re like, ‘What the hell is happening? What the hell is going on?’ And then you realize this has always been going on,” she said. “And once you hit that realization it’s like, oh my God.”
– – –
As the sun began to set over the George Floyd memorial site, Anna Ashcroft’s son ran up to her, chalk in hand.
“Mama, how do you spell justice?” the boy asked, before writing out “Justice for everyone” in green chalk, feet from where Floyd died.
“This felt like the right place for us to be,” said Ashcroft, who is White and was hoping for a guilty verdict. “In my mind, this is them processing,” she said of her children’s scrawls. It was Floyd’s death that moved Ashcroft to talk to them about racism and police violence.
As the jury began deliberations Monday night, a feeling of anxiety mounted across the city. Many were concerned about what the verdict could mean for their hometown – whether people will get hurt, whether small businesses could suffer blows, whether troops would march in their streets.
“If they don’t convict [Chauvin] of murder, I don’t even know,” said Zaynab Mohamed, a 23-year-old Somali American who awoke Tuesday morning after a sleepless night in her home blocks from where Floyd died. “I think we wonder, ‘Are we less than human?’ Because every one of us sees themselves in George Floyd.”
She said many in the Somali community were watching the Chauvin trial after the 2019 verdict against Mohamed Noor, a Black, Somali Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of manslaughter and murder for killing 40-year-old Justine Damond, a White woman.
Miles away at an intersection near a CVS Pharmacy that burned during protests last year, was rebuilt and has been newly boarded up following the Daunte Wright killing in nearby Brooklyn Center, Brandon Bollig, 30, was walking his dog and following the latest trial updates “1,000%.”
Wearing a Black Lives Matter wristband, Bollig spoke to the fact that Black and White people are not policed equally.
Tim Bohmer, 60, had not been following the trial closely and said he was not sure that Chauvin was guilty of murder – though he said what the officer did was wrong. Instead of framing it as a racism problem, Bohmer said police have “bad habits” that get passed on to their subordinates in a vicious cycle.
“I truly hope the city doesn’t destruct itself. My biggest fear is we’re going to go through what we went through last summer all over again,” Bohmer said.
Leslie Redmond, former president of the local NAACP, said she was nearly drained of emotion.
“We’re exhausted, and I cannot reiterate that enough. You can hear it in my voice,” she said, her voice scratchy and quiet. “There’s a lot of wear and tear on Black people.”
Published : April 21, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Silvia Foster-Frau, Emily Guskin, Kim Bellware, Jared Goyette
Biden to propose cutting emissions significantly by 2030
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden this week will pledge to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at least in half by the end of the decade, according to two individuals briefed on the plan, as part of an aggressive push to combat climate change at home and persuade other major economies to follow suit.
The move comes as Biden convenes a virtual summit of more than three dozen world leaders on Thursday, aimed at ratcheting up international climate ambitions and reestablishing the United States as a leader in the effort to slow the planet’s warming.
The planned U.S. pledge represents a near-doubling of the target that the nation committed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, when President Barack Obama vowed to cut emissions between 26% and 28% compared with 2005 levels.
Asked for comment, a White House official said a final decision had not been made.
The Paris accord, which President Donald Trump exited but Biden promptly rejoined, was designed with the expectation that countries would embrace bigger, bolder targets over time.
“The Biden-Harris administration will do more than any in history to meet our climate crisis,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech Monday. “This is already an all-hands-on-deck effort across our government and across our nation. Our future depends on the choices we make today.”
The administration probably will offer broad strokes rather than a detailed breakdown of how it will meet the more ambitious target, according to the individuals briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan had not been formally announced. Officials are considering a target range, they added, which could go above 50% at the higher end.
Still, the new pledge will offer the latest glimpse at the profound changes that Biden wants to set in motion, from decarbonizing the country’s energy sector to phasing out gas-powered vehicles. Administration officials have made clear that they see the effort not only as a climate pursuit but as a massive investment in a new generation of jobs nationwide.
“We’re going to do it in a way that’s very deliberate,” White House domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy told reporters Monday in a call organized by the World Resources Institute. The administration wants to transition to a cleaner economy with well-paying occupations in communities that have been hardest hit by unemployment and underinvestment, she said. “It’s intended to meet the moment we are in.”
The forthcoming pledge also is meant to serve as a marker for the kind of scope – and urgency – that the Biden administration wants other countries to embrace ahead of a critical United Nations climate gathering this fall in Scotland.
Some nations, including those that are part of the European Union, have locked in more aggressive emissions-cutting targets. The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a commitment to reducing its emissions by 78% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels – a goal that the government said would take the nation more than three-quarters of the way toward reaching net zero by 2050.
But other major emitters, including China, India and Russia, have yet to spell out how they intend to help put the world on a more sustainable trajectory.
China, the largest greenhouse gas polluter, has said it plans to effectively erase its carbon footprint by 2060, though the details remain unclear. Still, despite myriad diplomatic tensions between the two countries, the United States and China vowed Saturday to jointly combat climate change “with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.”
The world remains nowhere near meeting the central Paris aim of limiting Earth’s warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels – or ideally, remaining closer to 1.5 Celsius. Failure to hit those targets, scientists have warned, will result in a cascade of costly and devastating effects.
“We are on the verge of the abyss,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Monday, as a new World Meteorological Organization report detailed the intensification of extreme weather events and underscored that 2020 was one of the hottest years recorded.
“We are way off track,” Guterres said. “This must be the year for action – the make-it-or-break-it year.”
The International Energy Agency this week projected that global carbon dioxide emissions are set to rise by 1.5 billion tons in 2021 – the second-largest increase in history – as the world comes out of the pandemic-induced downturn. Coal demand in the electricity sector will drive the emissions rise, according to the agency.
“This is a dire warning that the economic recovery from the Covid crisis is currently anything but sustainable for our climate,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a statement.
In the United States, the power sector represents one of the best opportunities to cut greenhouse gas emissions. On Friday, a collection of 13 utilities, including Exelon, National Grid and PSGE, urged Biden to pursue a range of policies “to enable deep decarbonization of the power sector, including a clean electricity standard that ensures the power sector, as a whole, reduces its carbon emissions by 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.”
The Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency are laying the groundwork to curb methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling, in part by reviving Obama administration standards reversed under Trump. And the EPA is moving ahead to phase down the production and import of hydrofluorocarbons – which are widely used as refrigerants and in air conditioning – by 85% over the next 15 years, as mandated by Congress.
Passage of Biden’s new infrastructure plan, which includes generous federal support for climate priorities like electric vehicles, renewable projects and energy efficiency upgrades, could play a key role in helping the country meet its new climate pledge. But it remains unclear whether Congress will adopt the infrastructure proposal in its current form or scale it back.
For months, Biden has faced growing pressure to demonstrate that the United States not only is returning to the Paris agreement but that it intends to back up its words with action.
Environmental activists, Democratic lawmakers, foreign leaders and hundreds of private companies, including Apple and Walmart, have implored the White House to make the boldest climate pledge possible. Advocacy groups and academics have published detailed analyses, demonstrating ways they say the nation could cut at least half its emissions by the end of the decade.
To craft the new pledge in the administration’s first 100 days, White House officials scrambled staffers at agencies across the government to look for funding, programs and policies that could help curb emissions in the years ahead. Agency by agency, sector by sector, federal officials tallied up the math to make Biden’s pledge credible.
To reach the 50% target, the administration will have to make difficult-to-guarantee assumptions about the future. For instance, that new regulations aimed at curbing emissions will not be reversed by a future administration or the courts – even though Trump furiously dismantled key Obama-era climate policies.
While allies are likely to embrace Biden’s push to aggressively cut emissions, some Republicans have insisted that the far-reaching changes needed to cut greenhouse gas pollution so fast could harm an already struggling economy, particularly in communities that still depend on the fossil fuel industry.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, W.Va., the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has said Biden’s aggressive climate actions could kill thousands of jobs in her state. On the Senate floor last month, she called the notion that new policies could quickly replace lost jobs in coal and other fossil fuels with ones in renewable energy “a fantasy world that does not exist.”
Even as the White House manages that political balancing act at home, Biden’s new pledge is meant to serve as a tool to cajole other major economies that have yet to detail their updated plans. While the United States remains the world’s second-largest emitter, about 85% of emissions now come from other countries.
Persuading other key nations to bolster the promises they made in Paris remains critical if the world is to meet its collective goal of slowing Earth’s warming. The targets set by countries such as China, India, Russia and Brazil could affect whether the world can reach the goals set almost six years ago.
Few experts are expecting major new commitments from other countries at this week’s White House summit. But if the willingness of the United States and its European allies to go big eventually helps nudge them in the same direction over the coming months, the gathering will have served an important purpose.
“The international community will have the opportunity to see that Biden is good for his word,” said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “A lot of diplomacy is about momentum and building momentum.”
Published : April 21, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Brady Dennis, Juliet Eilperin
Elon Musks SpaceX is about to fly astronauts for a third time, but there is nothing routine about it
When Megan McArthurs husband, Bob Behnken, flew to space almost a year ago, she watched from the ground with their 6-year-old son. As an astronaut herself, she was optimistic and proud, especially since it was the first flight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil in nearly a decade.
But she was also fearful.
“One of the hardest things to do is watch the person that you love launch into space,” she said in an interview. “It’s much harder than actually doing it yourself when you’re in the rocket. You have the training. You’re prepared for the mission. When you’re watching, you’re just a spectator. And no matter what happens, there’s nothing you can do to contribute to the situation.”
Now, it’s McArthur’s turn to fly – and Behnken’s turn to spend that fretful time on the ground with their son, now 7.
If all goes well, McArthur will be strapped into SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft along with the rest of the astronauts known as Crew-2 – NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, Thomas Pesquet of France and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan – for a launch to the International Space Station scheduled for 6:11 a.m. Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The flight will be SpaceX’s third with astronauts aboard. Last May, it flew Behnken and NASA astronaut Doug Hurley in a short test flight to the station. Then, in November, it flew a regular crew of four for a full-duration mission of about six months, restoring regular transportation to the station from U.S. soil after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011.
That group of astronauts, known as Crew-1, is expected to overlap with Crew-2 on the space station for about a week before coming back to Earth in a return flight scheduled to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico on April 28.
That flight cadence stands in stark contrast with that of Boeing, the other company under contract with NASA to develop spacecraft capable of flying astronauts to and from the space station. Boeing has not flown for nearly a year and a half, after its Starliner spacecraft suffered a software malfunction that made the spacecraft think it was 11 hours later in a test mission without any astronauts aboard than it actually was. The company was able to bring the spacecraft down safely and said it would repeat the test before flying a mission with astronauts.
The company recently said it would be ready to fly as early as May. But because of traffic on the space station and the availability of the launchpad it uses, Boeing does not expect the launch to occur until August or September. Still, it said in a statement that it “will be mission-ready in May should another launch opportunity arise.”
It is not clear when Boeing’s first flight with astronauts aboard will be.
SpaceX, meanwhile, is moving ahead with its launch schedule, which includes another flight with a crew later this year. For the flight Thursday, it is incorporating a key difference: The rocket and the spacecraft that will fly the crew have been flown before, marking first time NASA has allowed SpaceX to reuse its hardware in a human spaceflight.
Instead of throwing away its rockets, as had been done in the space industry for years, SpaceX flies them back to Earth, where they land on ships at sea or on a landing pad near the launch site. SpaceX has been doing it for years now, perfecting a practice once thought impossible.
But it only recently convinced NASA that it should be allowed to use its boosters and spacecraft again with humans aboard.
SpaceX will use the same Falcon 9 rocket that flew the Crew-1 astronauts. It stands on Launchpad 39A not shiny white and new but bearing the sooty streaks from the previous launch. The Dragon spacecraft for the flight is the same one that Behnken and Hurley flew in their mission. McArthur will be sitting in the same seat Behnken occupied for his flight.
SpaceX’s goal is to get to something similar to airline-like efficiency, where rockets and spacecraft take off, land and fly again. But space presents all kinds of different challenges, particularly for the capsules, which come screaming back through Earth’s atmosphere, generating temperatures in the thousands of degrees. Then they splash into the ocean under parachutes, which poses its own problems.
“One of the things you have to worry about is water intrusion,” Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director of human spaceflight programs, said during a recent press briefing. “Saltwater is very corrosive. It’s not a great thing when you want to keep your physical materials sound and especially easy to refurbish and to reuse.”
After the spacecraft, dubbed Endeavour, came back last year, SpaceX inspected it to make sure it was safe to fly again. The company replaced some parts, Reed said, and the thermal protection system and the parachutes for this coming flight will be new as well. “But otherwise, it’s really the same vehicle,” he said. “That’s very carefully inspected, carefully prepared, refurbished as needed and ready to fly.”
He added that NASA signs off on the vehicle and ensures that it is safe to fly. In the days and weeks leading up to the launch, officials from NASA and SpaceX repeatedly said that while this will be the third mission with people, the flight is by no means routine and the serious risks inherent in all human spaceflight remain.
“We’ve completed thousands and thousands of tests to get to this day,” Reed said.
The company has pored over the data and performed intensive reviews alongside NASA, always looking for the worst-case scenario, trying to find it in a spreadsheet or an engine-test stand before a flight.
“We call them paranoia reviews. We want to be paranoid,” Reed said. “We want to make sure that we’re going to fly these people safely and be able to bring them home safely when it’s time. So we check. We check under every rock. And we double-check and we triple-check and we ask each other and we challenge each other all the time.”
He said that he feels responsible not only for the astronauts but their families as well, and that he and the engineers kept McArthur’s 7-year-old son, Theo, in their minds when preparing for the mission.
“In particular in my heart, there’s a little boy out there whose mom is flying,” Reed said. “This is something that we pay a lot of attention to. We ask ourselves all the time: Would we be willing to fly our families on these vehicles? That’s kind of a test for us.”
Before Behnken’s flight last year, he and McArthur took their son to Cape Canaveral for a launch so he could see the rocket take off and give him a sense of what his parents were about to do. He was excited for the flight and thrilled when Behnken returned home safely from the mission – in part because his parents had promised him a puppy once the flight was over.
Now he’s looking forward to another flight. But the splashdown will be better than the liftoff.
“I think he’ll mostly be thrilled when I come home again,” McArthur said. “That would be the best part for him.”
European regulator says J&J coronavirus vaccine needs rare blood clot warning but that benefits outweigh risks
European regulators on Tuesday said the coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson should carry a warning about rare blood clots, but they placed no restrictions on the use of the vaccine inside the European Union.
The decision by the European Medicines Agency was based on the same U.S. data that led American regulators last week to pause the use of the vaccine inside the United States.
Johnson & Johnson said after Tuesday’s announcement that it would resume distribution in Europe. But the U.S. hold remains in place as American authorities make an independent evaluation. New guidance is expected as early as Friday, and top officials, including Anthony Fauci, say they expect the vaccine will also be given a green light.
The European regulators said Tuesday that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed on the packaging of the vaccine as “very rare side effects,” but they took no further action. The regulators assessed that, overall, the vaccine is safe and effective.
“The benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh these risks, and we now have detailed information in the labeling that alerts to these risks,” said Emer Cooke, the head of the European Medicines Agency. “We’re confident that it can be rolled out appropriately.”
Six cases of unusual blood clots with possible ties to the vaccine had been reported in the United States last week. The European regulators said they had evaluated eight U.S. cases, without explaining the discrepancy.
Nearly 7 million shots of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been administered in the United States before the pause. Public health officials especially appreciated that the inoculation involves just a single dose, making it easier to give to vulnerable and underserved populations for whom a follow-up appointment for a second shot could be difficult.
The vaccine has been slower to roll out in Europe, with only two E.U. countries – Poland and Luxembourg – using it since it became available last week. In response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s halt on April 13, Johnson & Johnson halted its European distributions, as well. There had been no formal European hold on the use of the vaccine, apart from the drugmaker’s own pause in deliveries.
“We appreciate the rigorous review,” said Johnson & Johnson’s chief scientific officer, Paul Stoffels, in a statement after the European announcement. We “share the goal of raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of this very rare event to ensure the correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment.”
The European regulators noted that the blood clots in the United States were similar to cases in Europe among people who had received the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, which also uses “viral vector” technology. The vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are based on messenger RNA technology, instead, and are not suspected to cause any unusual clotting.
Many European countries have restricted the AstraZeneca vaccine to older age groups, after the majority of concerning clots were identified in younger people, most of them women – though regulators have said that may also reflect who was getting the vaccine.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is not currently authorized in the United States.
European regulators said it was not yet possible to determine whether there is more or less risk of blood clots associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or with AstraZeneca’s. At least 287 cases of unusual blood clots have been reported worldwide following the AstraZeneca vaccine, the E.U. regulators said, but that vaccine has been in use longer – since December in some countries.
Concerns about blood-clotting complications were first triggered in Europe when a nurse in Austria died soon after her AstraZeneca vaccination in mid-February. More cases followed, and though rare, their severity spurred action from medical regulators across the continent.
Teams of scientists in Germany and Norway have said the clots are caused by an antibody response triggered by the vaccine.
Scientists are still trying to work out what might cause one person to be more affected than another and whether young people or women might be disproportionately at risk.
For the AstraZeneca vaccine, the EMA estimates the risk of someone developing rare blood clots alongside a low platelet count to be about 1 in every 100,000 inoculations. Concerns largely center on cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, a clot that prevents blood from being drained from the brain and can cause hemorrhaging. The condition can be serious.
But doctors and regulators say early intervention and treatment can help, making it essential that medical workers and the public are informed of side effects to look for. Those include headaches or blurred vision occurring more than four days after vaccination.
Published : April 21, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Michael Birnbaum, Loveday Morris
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