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Von der Leyen: EU plans to spend €100bn to save jobs during coronavirus crisis

Daniel Boffey
The Guardian
Thu, 02 Apr 2020 13:57 UTC
Ursula von der Leyen
© EPA-EFE/Francois Lenoir
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen holds a news conference detailing EU efforts to limit economic impact of the coronavirus disease.
Ursula von der Leyen has laid out plans to borrow and spend €100bn to stop firms in the EU laying off staff during the coronavirus pandemic, and has apologised to the Italian people for the bloc's lack of solidarity.

The president of the European commission said she was confident the 27 member states would back her scheme, describing the EU's budget as the Marshall plan for the crisis, in reference to the post-second world war fund that rebuilt Europe.

The EU's executive branch is proposing to borrow from the international markets and make loans to member state governments to allow them to fund short-time working schemes, under which employees work reduced hours with some of their salary paid by the state.

Comment: EU borders; feedback from Italy
"We are in consultation with member states on how to proceed beyond Easter," Ursula von der Leyen told Europe 1 radio.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants to expand his country's border controls to include more states as well as the airports.

Feedback to Von der Leyen's apology to Italy for Brussels' muted response to the pandemic has been less than optimistic. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that he welcomed the news, but that the bloc would need to create a "European lifeboat" in order to overcome the crisis. "European solidarity ... was not felt in the first days of this crisis and now there is no more time to waste."

Matteo Salvini, head of the opposition League, said in response to von der Leyen's apology that it was "understandable" why Italians would want to leave the European Union entirely. He said that the bloc must take broad and immediate action to help his country.
EU's inaction followed by 'coronabonding'
The coronabond idea has been supported by the countries affected the most by the virus, namely Italy, Spain, and France. Other, more well-off EU members, like Germany and the Netherlands, strongly oppose the idea of issuing bonds together with heavily indebted nations.

Italy and Spain were offered use of the European Stability Mechanism, which grants conditional financial assistance to countries in dire financial straits, to which Salvini responded that he doesn't want the Germans and the Dutch to "come to demand money from our children," and later calling the ESM a "mortgage on the future of Italians."


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Magic Hat

UK govt. to write off £13.4bn NHS debt freeing hospital trusts from balancing the books

Lizzy Buchan
Independent
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
plymouth NHS hospital
© Aruba Network
The government will write off £13.4bn of NHS debt to allow the health service to focus on the response to coronavirus crisis, the health secretary has said.

Matt Hancock announced plans to wipe out historic debts to let hospital trusts channel their resources into battling the outbreak, rather than balancing the books.

In his first public appearance after self-isolating for seven days, Mr Hancock also paid an emotional tribute to NHS staff who have lost their lives, including doctors who had come to work in the British health service and "paid the ultimate price".

The health secretary told the daily Downing Street briefing that he would ease financial pressures on trusts that have built up significant debts after years of austerity.

Comment: Is it a loop? How does government bookkeeping interfere with government hospitals when the trusts are owned and funded by the government via taxation of the people? Does this handy dandy government write-off merely serve itself?

The left saw it as proof that the NHS debt has been a "a pernicious fiction" all along, blaming it on Tory austerity policies, and argued it was time to fully re-nationalize the health service they say was "privatized" by a succession of Conservative cabinets.




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Oil Well

Saudis in furor over Russia's claim the Kingdom withdrew from output deal


RFE/RL
Sat, 04 Apr 2020 04:32 UTC
oil rigs
© Reuters
Saudi Arabia's energy minister has rejected Russia's allegation that the kingdom withdrew last month from a deal to cut oil production. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was quoted early on April 4 by Saudi state news agency SPA responding to comments made the day before by his Russian counterpart.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud also commented on the ongoing dispute with Russia, saying that a statement attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the kingdom's withdrawal from the OPEC+ deal was not correct, and that Russia was the one that withdrew, SPA reported.

Russia and Saudi Arabia have been at odds since failing last month to agree on a deal to curb output as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the globe. The pandemic has worsened since, freezing economic activity worldwide and sending oil prices into a steep decline.

The world's oil-producing countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies such as Russia have been discussing a deal to cut production in hopes of reversing the crash.
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X

Merkel: Test #3 negative for coronavirus; back to work


AFP
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Merkel/virus
© CNN/Odd Andersen/KJN
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Chancellor Angela Merkel's third coronavirus test has come back negative but the German leader will stay in home quarantine for the coming days, her spokesman said Monday.

Merkel, 65, has been in self-isolation at her Berlin flat for just over a week, after learning on March 22 that a doctor who gave her a vaccination two days earlier was infected with the virus.

"The chancellor's third test also turned out negative. The chancellor will continue to carry out her official business from her at-home quarantine in the coming days," spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear if Merkel would undergo further testing.

Comment: Update: Merkel to come out of isolation
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, revealed on Friday "Now her work continues from the Chancellery."

Merkel hinted on Wednesday that an app to help slow the spread of the virus was also being considered.

"It would be on a voluntary basis but if the testing of these apps shows them to be good and set to be successful in better tracing cases of where there has been contact, I'd certainly be in favor of recommending that to citizens."


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Snakes in Suits

Try, try again: US Envoy to NATO suggests Idlib aid 'package' to Turkey if it nixes Russian S-400s


Sputnik
Sat, 04 Apr 2020 08:56 UTC
Transport carrier
© AP/Turkish Defence Ministry
Russian Transport Carrier at Murted Military Airport, Turkey
Ankara is expected to activate the S-400s in the coming weeks, but Washington has not given up on its plans to get the much-feared weapons out of Turkey. Stick has not worked, apparently, so now is the time to offer some carrot.

The United States may come to Turkey's aid in Idlib in exchange for dropping plans to deploy Russia's S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.

United States ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison floated the idea of providing an unspecified assistance "package" during a press briefing on Wednesday, without elaborating on what that package might comprise:
"We hope that Turkey will also not put the Russian missile defence system in their country; that is deterring some of the capabilities that we would be able to give them to fight against the Syrian aggression.

"We do want the area in Idlib, where the civilians are really trapped, to be protected, and I think the Turkish soldiers agree with that; they're trying to do it.

"So we hope that the Turks, because they're being the victims of Russian-Syrian aggression, will take out the missile defence system that is in the middle of Ankara and let us have the freedom to help them completely to protect those innocent civilians in Syria."
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X

IG Horowitz: 'Apparent errors, inadequately supported facts' in every FBI FISA application reviewed

Tobias Hoonhout
National Review
Tue, 31 Mar 2020 11:13 UTC
Horowitz
© YouTube
IG Michael Horowitz
The Justice Department inspector general said it does "not have confidence" in the FBI's FISA application process following an audit that found the Bureau was not sufficiently transparent with the court in 29 applications from 2014 to 2019, all of which included "apparent errors or inadequately supported facts."

Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December which found that the FBI included "at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications and many errors in the Woods Procedures" during its Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign. After releasing the report, Horowitz said that he would conduct a further investigation to see if the errors identified in the Page application were widespread. Horowitz told lawmakers during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing:
"The concern is that this is such a high-profile, important case. If it happened here, is this indicative of a wider problem — and we will only know that when we complete our audit — or is it isolated to this event? Obviously, we need to do the work to understand that."

Comment: See also:

29 more FBI spy warrants checked; DOJ IG found problems with ALL of them!

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Heart - Black

UK govt won't release Assange amid virus despite pre-existing lung condition

Marty Silk
Canberra Times
Sat, 04 Apr 2020 19:25 UTC
assange glass box court sketch
© Julia Quenzler
Court artist sketch of Julian Assange trying to address the court from inside the enclosed, glass-fronted dock ay Bellmarsh magistrates court
Julian Assange will not be among those temporarily released from jail under a UK government plan.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange isn't eligible to be temporarily released from jail as part of the UK government's plan to mitigate coronavirus in prisons.

There are now 88 prisoners and 15 staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the country and more than a quarter of prison staff are absent or self-isolating due to the pandemic.

Comment: It couldn't be more clear that the Deep State is counting on Assange succumbing in prison, one way or another. One more cruelty heaped on Julian and his family:





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Snakes in Suits

Russian aid to Italy, dubbed an 'influence operation' by EU-partnered media outfit, is indeed shameful — for Europe

Danielle Ryan
RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 19:20 UTC
russia aid italy
© Russian Defence Ministry/Alexey Ereshko/Handout via REUTERS
The EU response to Italy's Covid-19 crisis was bungled so shamefully that the bloc apologized as other nations, including Russia, stepped in at Rome's request. Now, journalists are smearing the aid as an "influence operation."

EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen admitted Thursday that "in the face of the need for a common European response" to the pandemic, too many EU countries "thought only of their own" problems. Brussels will now "mobilize alongside Italy," she said. With nearly 14,000 dead, surely it's about time.

The decision to put up a united European front came only after Russia had sent doctors, personal protective equipment and 600 ventilators, among other supplies to Italy, which has suffered more Covid-19 cases and deaths than any other country in Europe. China and Cuba also sent critical supplies to help Italy battle the outbreak — and to their credit, some European nations including Germany and France did too, but not before trying to block the export of essential supplies to their neighbors in need in anticipation of domestic shortages. The bottom line is, there was certainly no "united" European response of the kind Italians might have been expecting.
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Radar

Shooting the messenger? US Navy sacks captain for 'causing alarm' with plea to evacuate Covid-19-stricken carrier crew


RT
Sat, 04 Apr 2020 19:14 UTC
USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier
© US Navy / handout via Reuters / File
USS Theodore Roosevelt
The commander of USS Theodore Roosevelt hit by Covid-19 has been relieved of duty, with the military stating he was "overwhelmed" by the crisis, after writing a letter pleading for infected sailors to be evacuated.

The head officer aboard the carrier, Captain Brett Crozier, was removed from his post, the Navy said in a statement, taking him to task for "causing alarm" with a letter sent directly to senior officials as scores of sailors on the aircraft carrier contracted the lethal coronavirus, skipping several rungs on the chain of command.

The captain's letter urgently requested an immediate evacuation of the ship to "prevent tragic outcomes," striking a dire tone after more than 100 sailors became infected and the Roosevelt was forced to dock in Guam.
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Heart - Black

US sidestepped OWN SANCTIONS against Russia to save American lives from Covid-19... If only it cared as much about Iranian lives

Scott Ritter
RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 19:11 UTC
medical aid
© Ruptly
When it comes to saving American lives, sanctions are not an obstacle to the provision of life-saving medical equipment. Ramping up sanctions on struggling Iran is okay however - which goes to show the US price tag on human life.

It was a sight that warmed the heart of even the most cynical American opponent of Vladimir Putin's Russia — a giant An-124 aircraft, loaded with boxes of desperately needed medical supplies, being offloaded at JFK Airport. When President Trump spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart on March 31, he mentioned America's need for life-saving medical supplies, including ventilators and personal protective equipment. Two days later the AN-124 arrived in New York.

As the aircraft was being unloaded, however, it became clear that at least some of the equipment being offloaded had been delivered in violation of existing US sanctions. Boxes clearly marked as containing Aventa-M ventilators, produced by the Ural Instrument Engineering Plant (UPZ), could be seen. For weeks now President Trump has made an issue about the need for ventilators in the US to provide life-saving care for stricken Americans.
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