THE NEW YORK TIMES: The president has boasted of his health and is sure to receive the best possible care, but he carries a number of risk factors as he begins his battle with Covid-19.
WASHINGTON — President Trump, like many men in their 70s, has mild heart disease. He takes a statin drug to treat high cholesterol and aspirin to prevent heart attacks. And at 244 pounds in a health summary released in June, he has crossed the line into obesity.
All of that, experts say, puts him at greater risk for a serious bout of Covid-19. So far, White House officials say Mr. Trump’s symptoms are mild — a low-grade fever, fatigue, nasal congestion and a cough — but it is far too soon to tell how the disease will progress.
“He is 74, he’s hefty and he’s male, and those three things together put him in a higher-risk group for a severe infection,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, adding: “Although he is being watched meticulously and may well do fine for a few days, he is not out of the woods, because people can crash after that period of time. This is a very sneaky virus.” » | Sheryl Gay Stolberg | Friday, October 2, 2020
Saturday, October 03, 2020
Trump’s Covid News Meets a Landscape Primed for Mistrust
THE NEW YORK TIMES: A president who rose to fame — in business, on TV and in politics — on an archipelago of exaggerations finds himself facing a public skeptical of his account of his own health.
Was it a hoax? Was it a lie? Was the president sicker than he claimed — or not sick at all? (What does “mild” mean, and how is it different from “moderate”?) Was there any way this alarming news was an ultra-cynical con?
Waking up on Friday to the stunning development that the president of the United States had tested positive for Covid-19 after months of downplaying the virus, some Americans had a similar reaction: Maybe it’s not true.
“I don’t believe it,” said Anthony Collier, a truck driver from Atlanta. “It’s like he’s trying to get sympathy.”
There is no evidence, of course, to support the view that Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, are anything but ill. As updates on the president’s condition came in, followed by the news that he would be hospitalized, the chatter turned from skepticism that the president was sick to doubts that the White House was being forthright about his condition. Across social media, in interviews, in conversations, the questions poured in all day from people who have heard so many contradictory things over the last four years — a warp-speed whiplash of conflicting realities — that they no longer know what is true. » | Sarah Lyall and Reid J. Epstein | Friday, October 2, 2020
Was it a hoax? Was it a lie? Was the president sicker than he claimed — or not sick at all? (What does “mild” mean, and how is it different from “moderate”?) Was there any way this alarming news was an ultra-cynical con?
Waking up on Friday to the stunning development that the president of the United States had tested positive for Covid-19 after months of downplaying the virus, some Americans had a similar reaction: Maybe it’s not true.
“I don’t believe it,” said Anthony Collier, a truck driver from Atlanta. “It’s like he’s trying to get sympathy.”
There is no evidence, of course, to support the view that Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, are anything but ill. As updates on the president’s condition came in, followed by the news that he would be hospitalized, the chatter turned from skepticism that the president was sick to doubts that the White House was being forthright about his condition. Across social media, in interviews, in conversations, the questions poured in all day from people who have heard so many contradictory things over the last four years — a warp-speed whiplash of conflicting realities — that they no longer know what is true. » | Sarah Lyall and Reid J. Epstein | Friday, October 2, 2020
Trump Hospitalized with Covid as More White House Cases Emerge | DW News
Trump Positive for Covid-19, Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, India Rape Cases
It was one A-M in Washington when the president of the United States confirmed he tested positive for Covid-19. Face masks were a topical issue in Tuesday's first presidential debate. Even if the other debates were cancelled, there were enough fireworks in Tuesday's 90 minute shoutfest in Cleveland to last a lifetime. In Portland, Oregon Wednesday, the arraingment of Alan Swinney, a member of the Proud Boys, on twelve charges including allegations he pointed a revolver at counterprotesters and fired a paintball gun and mace at them during a mid-August protest.
It's a three-decade old border dispute that's now escalated into what looks like all-out war between former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan. Trying to sift through the fog of war propaganda are journalists. Four injured Thursday including Le Monde's Raphael Yaghobzadeh and Allan Kaval.Turkey's president blasting Russia, France and the U-S, saying they've lost their credibility as longtime mediators in the conflict and putting Armenia in his crosshairs.
In India, outrage over two gang rapes and murders of young Dalit women Police Thursday in the country's largest state Uttar Pradesh reporting the gang rape and murder of a 22-year old while 500km away in Hatras district. There were angry protests after police officers cremated the body of a 19-year old victim without her family's permission. Rushed to hospital in New Delhi 200 kilometres away but died on Tuesday. And when he tried to go for a rally, police shoved to the ground Rahul Gandhi, the head of the opposition and prevented him from meeting with the family.
It's a three-decade old border dispute that's now escalated into what looks like all-out war between former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan. Trying to sift through the fog of war propaganda are journalists. Four injured Thursday including Le Monde's Raphael Yaghobzadeh and Allan Kaval.Turkey's president blasting Russia, France and the U-S, saying they've lost their credibility as longtime mediators in the conflict and putting Armenia in his crosshairs.
In India, outrage over two gang rapes and murders of young Dalit women Police Thursday in the country's largest state Uttar Pradesh reporting the gang rape and murder of a 22-year old while 500km away in Hatras district. There were angry protests after police officers cremated the body of a 19-year old victim without her family's permission. Rushed to hospital in New Delhi 200 kilometres away but died on Tuesday. And when he tried to go for a rally, police shoved to the ground Rahul Gandhi, the head of the opposition and prevented him from meeting with the family.
Friday, October 02, 2020
In Profane Rant, Melania Trump Takes Aim at Migrant Children and Critics
WASHINGTON — The first lady, Melania Trump, delivered a profanity-laced rant about Christmas decorations at the White House and mocked the plight of migrant children who were separated from their parents at the border in 2018 during a conversation secretly taped by a former aide and close confidante.
“I’m working like a — my ass off at Christmas stuff,” Mrs. Trump laments to the former aide, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who has just published a tell-all book, in a recording that was first broadcast on CNN on Thursday night. Mrs. Trump continued, “You know, who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration?”
Later in the conversation, which occurred in July 2018, the first lady complained about the criticism leveled at President Trump and his administration that summer for separating families in a crackdown on illegal immigration.
“I say that I’m working on Christmas planning for the Christmas, and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children?’ That they were separated.” She used another obscenity to express her exasperation, asking Ms. Winston Wolkoff, “Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?”
The audio recording puts the first lady’s frustrations on full display only weeks before Mr. Trump faces voters in his bid for a second term. » | Michael D. Shear | Thursday, October 1, 2020
Donald Trump: From Denial to Testing Positive
Jen Is a Longtime Republican Voter Who Is Voting against Trump for the Sake of the Country
The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi | DW Documentary
Did the Saudi state plan the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi? Was Khashoggi so much of a threat to the Saudi regime that it was prepared to commit a terrible crime to get rid of him?
This documentary reconstructs Jamal Khashoggi’s personal plans and movements in his final days. It also examines records, leaks and reports related to his assassination, as well as motivations that may have led Saudi Arabia to commit such a shocking crime.
The film’s key feature is exclusive testimony from Khashoggi’s close circle, including from his fiancée Hatice Cengiz. She tells of her emotional struggle in dealing with his death; hoping against hope he was still alive despite accounts of how he was killed; the struggle to discover his fate; and the pain of not knowing where his body is.
The documentary also uncovers how the Saudi government handed the incident, including the attempts it made to cover up the story. In London, Washington, Istanbul and Montreal, the film visits and speaks with Khashoggi’s friends, security experts, analysts and activists. The events surrounding Khashoggi's killing and the assassination itself are reconstructed in reenactments and with aerial photographs, graphics and animations, including archive footage. In the words of one official close to the case, UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard: "There is credible evidence that requires further investigation into the involvement of senior Saudi officials in the crime, including the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself."
This documentary reconstructs Jamal Khashoggi’s personal plans and movements in his final days. It also examines records, leaks and reports related to his assassination, as well as motivations that may have led Saudi Arabia to commit such a shocking crime.
The film’s key feature is exclusive testimony from Khashoggi’s close circle, including from his fiancée Hatice Cengiz. She tells of her emotional struggle in dealing with his death; hoping against hope he was still alive despite accounts of how he was killed; the struggle to discover his fate; and the pain of not knowing where his body is.
The documentary also uncovers how the Saudi government handed the incident, including the attempts it made to cover up the story. In London, Washington, Istanbul and Montreal, the film visits and speaks with Khashoggi’s friends, security experts, analysts and activists. The events surrounding Khashoggi's killing and the assassination itself are reconstructed in reenactments and with aerial photographs, graphics and animations, including archive footage. In the words of one official close to the case, UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard: "There is credible evidence that requires further investigation into the involvement of senior Saudi officials in the crime, including the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself."
Saudi Expats Launch Opposition Party on Anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi's Death
A group of intellectual Saudi Arabian expatriates have launched an opposition party on the second anniversary of the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
The aim of the National Assembly party is to gather the support of people inside and outside Saudi Arabia for the formation of a representative government, which would be the first elected democratic institution inside the country since its birth 90 years ago.
Madawi al-Rasheed, a scholar and party co-founder, said the party’s leaders were “already being bombarded by threats, including threats of beheading, since we violated the taboo of uttering the words democracy and political party”.
Rasheed said the new non-sectarian party would try to show how claims by the powerful Saudi crown prince and heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman – that the country was modernising – were a sham, and that total obedience to the royal family was still demanded.
Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018. » | Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor | Friday, October 2, 2020
Trump Tests Positive for Coronavirus. What Now? | DW News
US President Donald Trump and the first lady tested positive for coronavirus Thursday. Trump tweeted that he and his wife Melania would begin their "recovery process immediately" and "get through this together."
The Trumps had entered quarantine earlier in the day after senior aide Hope Hicks had also tested positive. She spent a substantial amount of time in close proximity with Trump this week, including traveling with him to a campaign rally on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported, citing an administration official. She also traveled with Trump several other days this week, including on board the presidential helicopter Marine One as well as on Air Force One. If Trump were unable to do his job — even due to a short illness — the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution allows the vice president becomes the president.
The Trumps had entered quarantine earlier in the day after senior aide Hope Hicks had also tested positive. She spent a substantial amount of time in close proximity with Trump this week, including traveling with him to a campaign rally on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported, citing an administration official. She also traveled with Trump several other days this week, including on board the presidential helicopter Marine One as well as on Air Force One. If Trump were unable to do his job — even due to a short illness — the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution allows the vice president becomes the president.
Thursday, October 01, 2020
Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait Obituary
The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who has died aged 91, ruled his country for 14 years and acquired a reputation for being committed to peaceful dialogue and unity among other Gulf states known for their divisive quarrels in recent times. Discreet, mild-mannered and valuing his personal links with fellow monarchs, Sabah was known as “the dean of Arab diplomacy”.
Since 2017, however, when the younger, more assertive leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates boycotted their rival Qatar, he found it increasingly hard to play the role of regional mediator, but was still credited with having forestalled potentially disastrous military action. The war in Yemen, scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, was another nightmarish situation. » | Ian Black | Thursday, October 1, 2020
Kingdom of Silence: 2 Years after Khashoggi Murder, New Film Explores Deadly US-Saudi Alliance
Amazon, Jeff Bezos and Collecting Data | DW Documentary
No company stores more data than Amazon, the former online bookseller. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has become the richest man in the world. Every second Euro in online trading is spent at Amazon. Is the IT giant, with its unabated growth, about to turn our economic system upside down?
Amazon is a machine that can simultaneously observe, compare and analyze more than 300 million people worldwide. The company is not just a marketplace, market supervisor and provider of more and more services and consumer items - it also controls all the data streams in this market and uses them to its own benefit. Who suspects that a single click on an Amazon page will forward information to the company that fills a printed DIN-A-4 page? A conversation with Alexa, watching a streaming offer on Amazon-Prime, ordering vegetables via Amazon-Fresh - all this put together creates a whole library of information about every customer. The group collects everything - it just won’t reveal what conclusions it draws from it. What would be possible if data from other, new business areas were added? In the USA, Amazon is also active in the health and insurance sectors, and police officers are using its facial recognition software to search for wanted persons.
Amazon is a machine that can simultaneously observe, compare and analyze more than 300 million people worldwide. The company is not just a marketplace, market supervisor and provider of more and more services and consumer items - it also controls all the data streams in this market and uses them to its own benefit. Who suspects that a single click on an Amazon page will forward information to the company that fills a printed DIN-A-4 page? A conversation with Alexa, watching a streaming offer on Amazon-Prime, ordering vegetables via Amazon-Fresh - all this put together creates a whole library of information about every customer. The group collects everything - it just won’t reveal what conclusions it draws from it. What would be possible if data from other, new business areas were added? In the USA, Amazon is also active in the health and insurance sectors, and police officers are using its facial recognition software to search for wanted persons.
Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos (Full Film) | FRONTLINE
Democracy Now!: Top US & World Headlines — October 1, 2020
Brexit: Ireland Needs to Press for Reunification Vote, Says Sinn Féin
THE GUARDIAN: Party leader Mary Lou McDonald says Boris Johnson’s attitude to EU withdrawal agreement means her country cannot trust him
Ireland cannot trust an “erratic” and “dangerous” Boris Johnson on Brexit and needs to start pressuring Downing Street for a referendum on Irish unification, according to Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin.
Johnson has forfeited credibility by unpicking the withdrawal agreement and cannot be believed when he says he wants a trade deal, said McDonald. “He’s the prime minister and perfidious Albion just got perfidiouser, if there’s such a word.”
If Britain did not “honour a bargain fairly struck” it would face a backlash from Ireland’s allies in the EU and US, where congressional leaders could sink Downing Street’s hopes of a US trade deal, said McDonald. “If there is damage in Ireland, if there’s a hardening of the border – well, then all bets are off.” » | Rory Carroll, Ireland correspondent | Thursday, October 1, 2020
Ireland cannot trust an “erratic” and “dangerous” Boris Johnson on Brexit and needs to start pressuring Downing Street for a referendum on Irish unification, according to Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin.
Johnson has forfeited credibility by unpicking the withdrawal agreement and cannot be believed when he says he wants a trade deal, said McDonald. “He’s the prime minister and perfidious Albion just got perfidiouser, if there’s such a word.”
If Britain did not “honour a bargain fairly struck” it would face a backlash from Ireland’s allies in the EU and US, where congressional leaders could sink Downing Street’s hopes of a US trade deal, said McDonald. “If there is damage in Ireland, if there’s a hardening of the border – well, then all bets are off.” » | Rory Carroll, Ireland correspondent | Thursday, October 1, 2020
Brexit: EU Launches Legal Action against UK for Breaching Withdrawal Agreement
THE GUARDIAN: UK put on formal notice over internal market bill, which ministers admit breaks international law
The EU has launched legal action against Boris Johnson’s government over breaching the terms of the withdrawal agreement.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, announced that the UK had been put on formal notice over the internal market bill, which ministers admit breaks international law. » | Daniel Boffey in Brussels | Thursday, October 1, 2020
The EU has launched legal action against Boris Johnson’s government over breaching the terms of the withdrawal agreement.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, announced that the UK had been put on formal notice over the internal market bill, which ministers admit breaks international law. » | Daniel Boffey in Brussels | Thursday, October 1, 2020
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