Society's Child
© AP Photo/Janie Har
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, speaking at the podium, joins Federal authorities announcing, Friday, March 13, 2020, indictments against 17 alleged members and associates of the MS-13 gang, saying they were trying to take over San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood. Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge Tatum King, left and second from left is U.S. Attorney for Northern California David Anderson.
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, speaking at the podium, joins Federal authorities announcing, Friday, March 13, 2020, indictments against 17 alleged members and associates of the MS-13 gang, saying they were trying to take over San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood. Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge Tatum King, left and second from left is U.S. Attorney for Northern California David Anderson.
"San Francisco continues to suffer from gang violence and gang claims on our public spaces," said U.S. Attorney Anderson. "I am grateful to the men and women of Homeland Security Investigations and the San Francisco Police Department for their professionalism and teamwork. San Francisco is safer when we all work together. We will oppose gang activity with professional law enforcement and vigorous prosecutions."
"MS-13 gang members prey upon the communities they live in, committing the most heinous violent acts against their victims. The streets of San Francisco and the surrounding communities are safer when criminal gang members are held to account for their crimes," said Special Agent In Charge King. "I'm proud of our agents' exhaustive investigative work, together with the San Francisco Police Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office, in bringing these subjects to justice. We also appreciate the law enforcement assistance with yesterday's successful criminal arrests provided by the South San Francisco Police Department, the Mountain View Police Department and the San Mateo County Gang Intelligence Unit."
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Drive-thru coronavirus screening clinic in Daegu, South Korea
Drive-thru coronavirus screening clinic in Daegu, South Korea
South Korea is a model to follow if countries want to avoid long-term locking down millions of people with the police and military, as China and Italy have done. To be fair, South Korea may still impose stricter quarantine measures as they run out of hospital beds in some areas. Yet, despite these huge problems, South Korea has been a relative success story by focusing on hot spots and asking people to remain at home voluntarily and avoid travel and large gatherings. In addition, anyone tested positive for COVID-19 who breaks quarantine will run afoul of South Korean law.
Comment: Additional information surfaces from China's strategy:
Acknowledgements for South Korea's handling of the coronavirus back in February:
© United Nations
Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Real News. I'm Marc Steiner. Good to have you with us.
In February, the United Nations Human Rights Committee published a list of 112 companies that profit from the Israeli occupation on Palestinian and Syrian land. Now the colonization of occupied territory, and the exploitation of property and people in that territory, is prohibited by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. It's interesting to note that that convention was prompted, these international rules were prompted, because of the Nazi theft and exploitation of Jewish land and property, in large part. The companies listed by the UN are all involved in activity benefiting from this illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land. That makes them complicit in a war crime. What will all that mean? We're going to talk about:
© Concord Monitor
"Project Python," a DEA-led initiative, targeted members of Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). According to the DEA, over the last six months federal law enforcement officials have been monitoring the activities of the accused. The operation resulted in more than 600 arrests nationwide, 350 indictments and "significant seizures of money and drugs," according to the agencies.
"Project Python marks the most comprehensive action to date in the Department of Justice's campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy CJNG," Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement.
Benczkowski cited an executive order President Trump passed shortly after Trump was inaugurated in 2017 that condemned cartel operations in the U.S. and directed federal law enforcement to use the Threat Mitigation Working Group, which was put in place by the Obama administration in 2011.
"When President Trump signed an Executive Order prioritizing the dismantlement of transnational criminal organizations, the Department of Justice answered the call and took direct aim at CJNG. We deemed CJNG one of the highest-priority transnational organized crime threats we face. And with Project Python, we are delivering results in the face of that threat for the American people."
Condemning the attack, the Iraqi military described it as targeted aggression against the nation's formal armed forces and a violation of sovereignty, according to Reuters.
Three soldiers, two policemen and one civilian were killed, it said. Four soldiers, two policemen, one civilian, and five militiamen were wounded, the military added.
The Pentagon claimed the strikes targeted "five weapon storage facilities" allegedly operated by Iraq's Kata'ib Hezbollah forces - part of the country's paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) - a group the US has blamed for attacks on its forces in Iraq.
© RTV Noord/Erik Hoogeboom
Following a federal lawsuit that Lambda Legal, an LGBT legal defense nonprofit, filed against the state last month on behalf of a transgender boy, officials in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's and New York Attorney General Letitia James' offices announced the policy change allowing minors age 16 or younger to make a request for a sex change on their birth certificates through their parents or legal guardians, Dallas Voice reported.
Prior to the policy change, the State had been permitting people who were 18 and over to change their sex designation on birth certificates without surgery, but minors were prohibited from doing so.
© REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
Director-General of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Director-General of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the death toll passed the "tragic milestone" at Friday's daily briefing. He told the virtual press conference that Europe has become the center of the outbreak and the continent has more cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.
The global health body said it is "impossible" to say when the pandemic will peak and Tedros warned world governments that a raft of measures are needed to tackle the disease.
He said that any country that thinks it could not fall victim to a large outbreak of the Covid-19 illness is making a "deadly mistake".
The health chief announced that the WHO is launching a Covid-19 solidarity response plan to enable individuals and organizations to contribute to disease control efforts.
Comment: The EU is running into problems coordinating its response among members. Rusula von der Leyen slammed Trump's travel ban, but individual EU nations are implementing their own travel restrictions. Austria banned travel from Italy. Slovakia banned all international travel. The Czech Republic shut the borders with Austria and Germany. Slovenia closed its border with Italy. Macron said any country closing borders with Italy is making a bad decision. (But says it may be appropriate in the future.) Merkel too thinks it is not appropriate.
The same spirit of unity and solidarity was notably absent last week, however, when France and Germany, among others, refused to lift controls on the export of protective medical gear to avoid facing shortages at home - even after a desperate request to do so from Italy.While Ireland has closed all schools, those in Britain will remain open "for the foreseeable future." France too is closing schools (the kids must be happy!), and banning gatherings of over 100 people - to "postpone the spike" as long as possible (or "flatten the curve" as it's being called).
The refusal was criticized by EU crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarcic, who said the ban risks "undermining" the bloc's "collective approach" to handling the crisis.
Ukraine reported its first death, and Kazakhstan its first cases. Ukraine is closing its borders for the next two weeks. Iranian security forces have been ordered to clear the streets, making sure businesses and roads are shut down, and a nationwide lockdown has been ordered - to take effect in the next 24 hours. Russia has closed its border to anyone coming from Italy.
In the States, Louisiana postponed its Democratic primary for two months. New York "canceled Broadway" (and all other theaters), and banned gatherings of 500 or more people. And Wall Street had its worst day since 1987's Black Monday.
See also:
- Coronavirus fears '50% panic,' could be over by summer - top Russian scientist
- US Troops in Europe face limbo following canceled exercise, travel ban
- Trump: Domestic travel ban within US a 'possibility' to fight coronavirus
- Coronavirus will bankrupt more people than it kills — and that's the real global emergency
- The Swine Flu 'Pandemic' Was Officially a Hoax, Corona Virus Probably is Too. Big Pharma Stands to Profit, Again
- Justin Trudeau's wife Sophie tests positive for COVID-19
- Norway imposes 'strictest measures since WWII' to quell coronavirus outbreak
- Breathe! Don't Succumb to the Pathological Hysteria from the Coronavirus Madness
© Reuters / Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Orzechowski
Medical staff in protective gear stand near an ambulance upon the arrival at the infectious ward of the Public Hospital in Lublin, Poland March 12, 2020.
Medical staff in protective gear stand near an ambulance upon the arrival at the infectious ward of the Public Hospital in Lublin, Poland March 12, 2020.
In Russia, one senior scientist believes the crisis could have stabilized by the middle of summer.
"It can be predicted that the spread in the world will subside by June-July. In China, the peak incidence rate passed on February 2," says Alexander Shestopalov, head of the experimental modeling and pathogenesis department of infectious diseases at the Federal Research Center for Fundamental and Translational Medicine.
Attending to a patient with Lassa fever in Nigeria
But the coronavirus is not the only viral outbreak in Africa's most populous country. Nigeria is currently dealing with what is turning out to be the world's largest epidemic of Lassa fever, a viral disease deadlier than coronavirus.
Lassa fever is a severe viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) like Ebola and Marburg that occurs throughout the year in Nigeria and was declared an "active outbreak" by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) five weeks into 2020. The epidemic which occurs during the annual dry season (roughly November through March) has spread across half the country.
Comment: Nigeria has been through many epidemics, including ebola, meningitis and HIV. They have a good amount of expertise to bring to bear when COVID-19 makes its appearance. What they will need is material support for that expertise to be of any use.
Comment: Some more reporting from Adam Larson for Fort Russ: He goes on to further state that Turkey's "Grey Wolves", a Turkish far-right & fascist organization, have been attacking the workplaces and homes of Syrian refugees in the south of Turkey, with the intention of driving them across the border into Greece.
You can read the full post with all the documentation here.