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Japan declares state of emergency for Tokyo, paying price for virus complacency

InternationalJan 08. 2021

By The Washington Post · Simon Denyer

TOKYO – Japan’s leaders believed they had found a way to live with the coronavirus and keep the economy open, relying on widespread mask-wearing and sensible precautions without resorting to mandatory lockdowns.

On Thursday, with the limits of that approach becoming clear as the country’s outbreak spirals out of control, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga reluctantly declared a state of emergency in the Tokyo area.

“This global infectious disease has exceeded our imagination and it’s becoming a severe fight,” Suga said at a news conference. To overcome the situation, he added, “we need to ask people to have a limited lifestyle.”

The measures include asking restaurants and bars to close early, requesting residents to refrain from non-urgent outings, and limiting attendance at sports and other events to 5,000 people, at least until Feb. 7.

But medical experts are already expressing concern that the measures will be too little, too late to quickly contain the virus – meaning they will have to remain in place for longer. Adding to the worry, the Olympics are scheduled to open in Tokyo in under 200 days.

Japan’s coronavirus caseload and deaths have been much lower than in the United States or Europe, but a surge in cases since November is threatening to overwhelm health services. The country had just over 6,000 new cases on Wednesday, a record, with the cumulative death toll surpassing 3,600.

The irony is that the Japanese public behaved responsibly early in the pandemic, with mask use widespread and social contact dramatically reduced without the threat of legal penalties. Japanese scientists were also ahead of the curve in identifying and warning against high-risk situations, stressing the need to avoid crowded and poorly ventilated spaces.

But the government has been reluctant to take measures that would harm the economy.

A nationwide state of emergency in April and May suppressed infections but didn’t eliminate them, and when the government pivoted to introduce a massive subsidy program to encourage domestic tourism and dining out, the virus roared back.

By November, it was apparent the travel subsidies were helping to spread the virus around the country, but officials resisted calls from medical experts and the general public to end the program – until an abrupt U-turn in late December.

The government’s efforts to avoid total lockdown may have lessened the short-term pain but prolonged the pain. Many here look at Japan’s neighbors, from Taiwan to South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, and see governments that have shown more determination to bring the virus under control and have benefited economically and in lower death tolls.

Suga, who took office in September, has suffered a plunge in his popularity as he appeared to dither in the face of an unfolding crisis.

“The government’s responses have been slow and tepid,” the Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial this week. “There is no disputing the fact that the ‘wait and see and hope for the best’ approach adopted by both the central and local governments has helped to create the current dismal situation.”

At the same time, a sense of complacency set in that Japan could dodge the worst of the virus.

But wearing masks outdoors, while removing them in packed bars and restaurants, was never going to work. Suga now admits that dining out has become a major source of virus transmission.

“People behaved very well, and they did whatever they could during the first and second waves to cope with the situation,” said Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College, London. “But now, because of this lack of strategy and leadership – and confusing messages – I think people are a bit confused.”

Under the new rules, restaurants in the Greater Tokyo area, the epicenter of the latest virus wave, have been asked to close at 8 p.m. and stop serving alcohol at 7 p.m. Businesses are again being asked to encourage working from home, with the government hoping to reduce the number of employees in offices by 70 percent.

Schools will remain open, albeit with tougher precautions to limit virus transmission.

To increase compliance, Suga says the government aims to revise legislation that will combine compensation for businesses that comply with virus guidelines with financial penalties for those that do not.

But it’s not clear if the measures will be enough to placate a pandemic-weary public.

“The worst thing is to pretend to be doing something by declaring a watered-down emergency,” Kentaro Iwata, an infectious-disease expert at Kobe University, tweeted this week.

Professional sports resumed in front of large crowds last year, albeit with venues at half capacity and spectators asked to wear masks and refrain from shouting and cheering. On Monday, more than 24,000 people attended the end-of-season game in Japan’s soccer league in the new National Stadium, the venue for the Opening Ceremony for the Summer Olympics in July.

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‘What happened at the Capitol is domestic terrorism’

InternationalJan 08. 2021

By The Washington Post · Meryl Kornfield

WASHINGTON – After supporters of President Donald Trump descended on the U.S. Capitol building, hoping to stop the counting of electoral college votes, lawmakers and experts alike repeated a phrase to describe the violent mob: “domestic terrorists.”

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“Those who performed these reprehensible acts cannot be called protesters; no, these were rioters and insurrectionists, goons and thugs, domestic terrorists,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a speech after lawmakers reconvened. “They do not represent America.”

“What happened today was domestic terrorism,” GOP spokesman Michael Ahrens tweeted. “Our soldiers have died carrying the American flag into battle for our freedom. To see that flag used in the name of unfounded conspiracy theories is a disgrace to the nation, and every decent American should be disgusted by it.”

Members of both political parties pointed to the destruction of government property, threats to law enforcement and two explosive devices found near the Capitol as acts of terrorism as far-right extremist groups rallied in the nation’s capital to contest the results of the presidential election. In the media, CNN executives told the organization’s journalists that they could refer to the siege as “domestic terrorism.”

National security experts agreed with that assessment, comparing the aggressive takeover of the federal landmark to the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism: “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”

The FBI, which is investigating the violence, declined to comment when asked if the raid was considered domestic terrorism.

But the agency has acknowledged that homegrown violent extremism has become an increasingly prevalent threat, especially in the past four years.

“A majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacy, but it includes other things as well,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress in 2019.

In April, the State Department designated the Russian Imperial Movement as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” the first time in history the government classified a white supremacist group as a terrorist threat.

Even members of groups that have publicly supported Trump, such as the Proud Boys and the “boogaloo” movement, have faced prosecution after last summer’s unrest.

But the violence Wednesday indicates how anti-government, white supremacy and other far-right groups are still able to subvert law enforcement, even as their plans were widely shared on social media. Despite the masses that breached the Capitol, only 52 arrests were made, according to D.C. police.

“The fact that the planning to assault the Capitol happened in public shows the bankruptcy of the intelligence apparatus that has been built since 9/11,” Michael German, a former FBI special agent and Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program fellow, told The Post.

The United States has no domestic terrorism statute, and concerns that the government could infringe on citizens’ constitutional protections of speech and assembly have hampered the ability to respond to threats, experts say.

Recent intelligence assessments focusing on Black and environmental rights extremists have allowed some white supremacy and anti-government groups to act with impunity, German said.

“That has conditioned them to believe they are authorized to act this way,” he said. “So it’s not surprising at all that you would see people who aren’t covering their faces, aren’t trying to hide their identity, attacking police officers and invading and vandalizing the Capitol and disrupting our democracy in the process.”

After the largely White mob was allowed to leave the Capitol mostly unscathed, Black Lives Matter protesters compared the police treatment with their own confrontations with law enforcement.

The unrest could also encourage further violence, experts warned.

On their social media channels, white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups have celebrated the disruption of the election process, said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a nonprofit think tank focused on global security issues. In one meme posted on Telegram, an app used by these fringe groups, the woman who died after she was shot in the Capitol building is lauded and compared to a photo of a Black person instigating violence.

“I truly think that the imagery that we’re seeing already today from the Capitol is going to serve as critical propaganda for militia groups, for neo-Nazis and for far-right extremist groups,” Clarke said. “I think what they gained today was so valuable for this movement.”

Clarke said the groups have grown online in recent years with the spread of conspiracy theories, and Trump’s recent baseless claims that the election was stolen has further enraged them.

After the election, Clarke warned in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that Trump’s rhetoric could encourage a “sizable minority” that the government is illegitimate – a catalyst for past uprisings internationally.

“I’ve seen this play out in other countries,” he told The Post. “I’m just shocked to see now playing out in my country.”

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Gaetz, other GOP politicians suggest antifa is to blame for pro-Trump mob rioting into Capitol

InternationalJan 08. 2021

By The Washington Post · Teo Armus

WASHINGTON – On the House floor early on Thursday, hours after a violent, pro-Trump mob burst into the Capitol, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., expressed his anger at the perpetrators. But Gaetz wasn’t pointing the finger at fellow Trump supporters – instead, he suggested that members of antifa had secretly infiltrated the group to cause the chaos.

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Citing a widely contested article published by the Washington Times, Gaetz admitted that he does not know “if the reports are true.” But, he said to audible boos, “some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”

In fact, many of the Trump supporters who stormed into Capitol openly boasted about their participation, live-streaming as they forced their way past police and bashed the building’s doors and windows.

Yet Gaetz wasn’t alone. Across social media and conservative-leaning TV stations, some right-wing figures peddled the similar claim that the loose collective of far-left activists were responsible for the riots, as The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr reported.

There is no verifiable evidence that these activists, who broadly identify as anti-fascist, formed part of the insurrectionist mob that abruptly halted Congress in the midst of certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Earlier that morning, President Donald Trump incited his supporters during a speech outside the White House , telling them they should never accept defeat.

But Trump and his allies have long sought to blame antifa – an ideology, not an organized group, according to the FBI – for any violence tied to protests, though there’s been virtually no evidence to back up those claims.

As conspiracy theories quickly spread online about the Capitol breach as a “false flag operation,” conducted by left-wing activists to cast blame on Trump supporters, Rep. Paul A. Gosar, R-Ariz., took to Twitter to point fingers.

“This has all the hallmarks of antifa provocation,” he wrote, about three hours after the incident went down.

Plenty of other GOP lawmakers followed. Speaking to Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs on Wednesday night, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., said “there is some indication that fascist antifa elements were involved, that they embedded themselves in the Trump protests.”

Offering no evidence to back his claims, Brooks said the rioters “could be any other number of groups, anarchists or what have you, that could have taken advantage of this opportunity to vandalize the United States Capitol.”

Shannon Grove, the Republican leader in the California state Senate, tweeted and then deleted a post putting the blame on antifa. “Patriots don’t act like this!!” she wrote, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “This was antifa.”

The Washington Times report cited by Gaetz and others claimed that a “retired military officer” had sent the newspaper a facial recognition analysis of rioters by a technology firm called XRVision. That company, whose website is nearly nonexistent, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.

Those claims were echoed by an unsupported story by the conspiracy-hawking, right-wing site Gateway Pundit, claiming that “at least 1 bus load of antifa thugs infiltrated peaceful Trump demonstrators as part of a false Trump flag ops.”

On Trump-friendly networks, too, several hosts gave airtime to that unsubstantiated theory.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Wednesday that the rioters “were likely not all Trump supporters.” She alluded to unspecified “reports” of involvement by antifa and claimed that the insurrectionists’ wardrobe choices were suspicious.

On Newsmax, a cable channel that has won favor with the president for endorsing his baseless claims of a stolen election, Trump supporter and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell claimed “there were probably some undercover antifa people that dressed as Trump people.”

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Amnesty condemns Trump for ‘instigating’ Capitol invasion

InternationalJan 07. 2021

By The Nation

Amnesty International has condemned US President Donald Trump for instigating the violent storming of the Capitol building on Wednesday, calling it a “moment of reckoning for the United States”.

At least four people died as rioters invaded Congress in Washington, shortly after Trump held a rally nearby to protest results of the presidential election won by his Democrat rival Joe Biden.  

In his speech, subsequent audio recording and tweets, Trump continued to reject the US election results and incite his supporters – leading thousands to storm and breach the US Capitol, said the rights watchdog. 

“President Trump’s refusal to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power has put human rights, public safety and the rule of law at grave risk in the United States,” said Amnesty International USA’s executive director Bob Goodfellow.

“The president’s embrace of white supremacist groups and extremists has further fanned the flames of the chaos and violence we witnessed [on Wednesday],” said Goodfellow. He called on all US officials to respect and protect human rights, including the right to be free from violence, intimidation and racism.

“Across the world, we have witnessed the dire consequences of government officials who spread false information and incite racist or political violence to stay in power. The world is watching, and so are our more than 10 million supporters and members.”

Amnesty said Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence and disorder by his supporters. “These are not the actions of a leader, but an instigator. All public officials must condemn the president’s words,” said Goodfellow.

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Trump promises ‘orderly transition’ to Biden administration, one day after inciting mob to storm Capitol

InternationalJan 07. 2021President Donald Trump leaves the White House on his way to a rally in Georgia on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary

By The Washington Post · Antonia Noori Farzan

President Donald Trump early Thursday pledged “an orderly transition on January 20,” acknowledging for the first time that he will be leaving office in less than two weeks but stopping short of conceding to President-elect Joe Biden.

The pledge for an orderly passage of power came just one day after a pro-Trump mob, incited by the president, stormed the Capitol and disrupted the certification of Biden’s victory. With Trump still suspended from Twitter over his role in the unrest, he issued the statement through spokesman Dan Scavino minutes after Vice President Pence affirmed that Biden will be president.

“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20,” said Trump, echoing his baseless claims that the results were not legitimate. “I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.”

Trump’s acknowledgment that his presidency will soon end followed a day like no other in modern history, which saw Trump supporters scaling walls and pushing their way past law enforcement officers to force their way into the U.S. Capitol.

The tallying of electoral college votes, ordinarily an uneventful affair, had to be put on hold while lawmakers fled to safely. By the time Trump told the mob to “go home now,” one woman had been fatally shot and multiple police officers had been injured. Three others in the mob died of unspecified medical emergencies.

The violent riot prompted some Republican senators who had planned to challenge the election results to change heart, and tallying the electoral college votes went relatively smoothly after a joint session of the House and Senate resumed late Wednesday. Though some GOP senators disputed election results from Pennsylvania and Arizona, both challenges failed and Vice President Mike Pence officially affirmed Biden’s win in the early hours of Thursday morning.

“The announcement of the state of the vote by the president of the Senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration as persons elected president and vice president of the United States,” Pence said.

As critics pointed out, Trump’s statement following the electoral college vote notably failed to congratulate or even mention Biden.

Trump has repeatedly refused to concede the election over the past two months, at times suggesting that he might remain in the White House after Jan. 20. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 at noon.

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Senior officials have discussed removing Trump under the 25th Amendment. Here’s how that could work.

InternationalJan 07. 2021Vice President Mike Pence. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara.

By The Washington Post · Tim Elfrink

Hours after a pro-Trump mob incited by the president stormed the Capitol, dozens of Democrats demanded that he be removed under the 25th Amendment – an unprecedented option being seriously discussed late Wednesday by senior administration officials alarmed at Trump’s conduct.

The amendment, which can remove a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” has only been used briefly for medical events, as when President Ronald Reagan underwent colon surgery.

But some politicians and experts argue that Trump has met those standards by encouraging violence through his incendiary rhetoric and by refusing to accept the reality of his defeat.

“President Trump revealed that he is not mentally sound and is unable to process and accept the results of the 2020 election,” Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday. “President Trump’s willingness to invite violence and social unrest to overturn the election results by force clearly meet this standard.”

Although the amendment has never been used in these circumstances, some experts say it could provide a faster and more realistic path than impeachment to quickly remove Trump from power. That would all depend, though, on the backing of Pence and the Cabinet.

So how would it work?

The amendment, which was ratified in 1967 after concerns about the order of succession after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, would allow Pence and a majority of the Cabinet to declare that Trump is unfit for duty. They would then send a letter to Congress about their decision.

At that moment, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, Pence would assume the powers of the presidency. If Trump were in a coma or otherwise incapacitated, Pence would keep that power indefinitely.

But the amendment also gives Trump the power to object by writing his own letter to Congress – an action that would immediately restore his powers. If that happened, though, Pence and the full Cabinet would have four days overrule him. (There’s no agreement on who would be in power for those four days, The Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported. The amendment is unclear and would likely have to be tested in court.)

If Pence and the Cabinet did overrule Trump, Congress would be called on to decide the dispute. Pence would remain in power in the meantime.

That’s where the timing gets interesting. The amendment orders Congress to convene within 48 hours to decide on whether to boot the president – but then it gives lawmakers 21 days to make a decision.

Affirming Pence’s move would require a two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate. That’s an unlikely result, considering a majority of House Republicans voted early on Thursday to back Trump’s electoral objections.

But if the House and Senate leadership simply stalled the vote, they could effectively run out the clock on Trump’s term, leaving Pence in charge until President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Chemerinsky said.

“Pence would be the president for that time,” he said.

Impeachment, by contrast, would be extraordinarily difficult to push through the House and a Senate trial by Jan. 20, Chemerinsky said. (Unlike impeachment, the 25th Amendment can’t actually remove Trump from office – instead, it would delegate his powers to Pence.)

That’s not to say that Pence or the Cabinet would ever embrace removing Trump under the 25th Amendment. While senior aides did discuss the option on Wednesday, those talks were informal and no concrete plans were in the works, The Washington Post reported.

If the aim is to avoid further violence and turmoil, Pence and the Cabinet would have to weigh whether removing Trump early would actually accomplish that, Chemerinsky said.

“Do they perceive Trump as so dangerous in the next 13 days that he needs to be gone immediately?” Chemerinsky said. “Or do they think this would just divide the country even further and make him into a martyr?”