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Securing the TikToker vote. Moscow’s authorities plan to use TikTok to promote Kremlin-backed candidates during the 2021 elections

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/18/securing-the-tiktoker-vote

Political strategists working for the Russian authorities are planning to use the video-sharing app TikTok for campaigning in Moscow ahead of the 2021 State Duma elections. The hope is that a presence on the popular app can be used to encourage apolitical young people to vote for Kremlin-backed candidates. The spin doctor that "sold" the Moscow authorities on the idea claims to have successfully used the app during this year's regional elections, though most of the videos under the corresponding campaign hashtag have nothing to do with the vote. Using TikTok to campaign for the 2021 State Duma elections was the brainchild of political spin doctor Dmitry Gusev, a founder of the Bakster Group agency, who has long worked with the Presidential Executive Office and the Moscow Mayor's Office, a source close to the Putin administration told Meduza. Today, Gusev is one of the key figures involved in Moscow City Hall's informal election campaign headquarters, a source close to the internal political bloc at the Moscow Mayor's office said. According to him, Gusev is responsible for the social media and, in part, the media orientation of the campaigns of Kremlin-backed candidates in the Russian capital. A Meduza source close to the Putin administration explained that Gusev's suggestion was approved since politicians are expected to have a presence on all social networking sites. That said, not all sites, TikTok included, are considered suitable for every single candidate. In particular, TikTok is set to be used to promote the campaigns of Kremlin-backed candidates from United Russia, who are running for election to the State Duma in Moscow's single-mandate constituencies. Their campaign slogans, which are still under development and have yet to be approved, will be turned into hashtags that TikTokers will be encouraged to use when they post their videos. According to a Meduza source close to the Kremlin, Gusev "sold" the idea of using TikTok for campaigning in Moscow based on his campaign work with Dmitry Makhonin — the former acting governor of the Perm Krai who ended up winning the gubernatorial elections in the fall of 2020. Makhonin's TikTok campaign mainly involved an account called Razvivayem Prikamye ("We're Developing Prikamye"), which uploaded videos under a corresponding hashtag #РазвиваемПрикамье. Accounts with the same name popped up on Facebook and Instagram, where they posted positive news stories about the regional authorities and their initiatives. The Razvivayem Prikamye account's first TikTok was a video challenge featuring an auto-tuned track that repeats the phrase "we're developing Prikamye." This audio was then picked up and used in about two dozen videos — but most of them had nothing to do with Makhonin's election campaign (instead the backtrack was picked up for dog and cat videos, as well as for dances, skateboarding videos, and even a photo montage of cities in the Perm Krai). Most of these videos have no more than a few thousand views and a handful of likes. At the time of this publication, the original TikTok had 45,000 views and 705 likes, and the Razvivayem Prikamye account had 661 subscribers. While there are quite a lot of videos that use the corresponding hashtag, most of them have nothing to do with the Perm Krai or its development. In total, videos under this hashtag were seen by 975,000 TikTok users. Almost immediately after the elections, videos using this hashtag stopped cropping up, and the pages on Facebook and Instagram stopped posting before election day on September 13. Nevertheless, Dmitry Makhonin won the election with 75.7 percent of the vote. According to a political strategist working with a Kremlin-linked autonomous non-profit called Dialogue, the video challenge had all the hallmarks paid content and, in all likelihood, the TikTok campaign hardly contributed to the number of votes Makhonin gained. "From the point of view of an electoral effect, the result is rather negative, but from the point of view of reporting to the customer, the indicator is probably not bad — one million views for the hashtag," the source explained. As Meduza previously reported, the Moscow authorities are seriously worried about the potential impact of Alexey Navalny's strategy during the 2021 race. During the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections, candidates supported by Navalny's Smart Vote strategy won in 20 of the 45 single-mandate constituencies. Currently, the Putin administration considers eight of the capital's 15 districts as potentially problematic during the 2021 vote. And this is precisely where TikTok is expected to help them claim victory. The Moscow Mayor's Office has already made one very unsuccessful attempt to whip up the youth demographic: ahead of the capital's 2019 mayoral election, rappers Timati and Guf recorded a collaborative music video called "Moscow." Guf rapped about his love for the city, while Timati sang the praises of Moscow's incumbent Mayor Sergey Sobyanin. The video gained 1.4 million dislikes on Youtube — a record-breaking number for the Russian-language version of the site at the time. Timati ended up deleting the video and Guf issued an apology, saying that he didn't know about the political intent behind the project.

Russian sapper killed during demining in Nagorno-Karabakh

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/18/russian-sapper-killed-during-demining-in-nagorno-karabakh

A Russian sapper was killed in Nagorno-Karabakh while demining roads near the city of Shusha, Interfax reported on Friday, December 18, citing the Russian Defense Ministry. "An explosive device was detonated. As a result of the explosion, an officer from the International Mine Action Center's demining group was seriously injured. The serviceman was promptly given medical assistance. The officer died of his injuries while being transported to the hospital," the defense ministry said, as quoted by Interfax. Russia sent nearly 2,000 peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenia and Azerbaijan signed an agreement ending renewed hostilities in the unrecognized republic on November 10.

Russia’s Health Ministry announces talks with Germany on joint production of Russian coronavirus vaccines

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/18/russia-s-health-ministry-announces-talks-with-germany-on-joint-production-of-russian-coronavirus-vaccines

Germany is prepared to cooperate with Russia on the production of Russian vaccines against the coronavirus, German Health Minister Jens Spahn told his Russian counterpart Mikhail Murashko during a phone conversation on Friday, December 18. "According to the agreement reached, in the near future Russian and German experts will soon hold working talks to try to find production facilities for the joint production of Russian vaccines," the Russian Health Ministry reported in a press release. The health ministry's statement did not specify which Russian vaccines were discussed. Mass vaccination campaigns began in Moscow on December 5 and, according to the health ministry, all of Russia's regions have been provided with doses of Sputnik V as of December 14. The vaccine's developers maintain that it's more than 90 percent effective and 100 percent effective against severe cases of COVID-19.

Tech giants beware. Russian lawmakers seek significantly harsher fines for Internet companies that fail to comply with censorship orders

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/18/tech-giants-beware

The Russian State Duma's state-building and legislation committee has approved amendments to a draft law on fines for Internet companies that fail to comply with orders from Russia's federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, Interfax reports. In particular, tech companies that do not restrict access to and/or remove content banned in Russia could face fines tied to their annual revenue. For major companies, this could mean penalties in excess of millions or even billions of dollars. The lawmakers behind the proposal underscored that foreign companies like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are usually the ones responsible for these types of violations. In the approved amendments to the draft law, Russian lawmakers have proposed making repeated violations committed by hosting providers punishable by maximum fines ranging from 5 to 10 percent of the company's revenue, with a minimum penalty of four million rubles (about $54,500). In its original form, the bill contained no mention of penalties tied to company revenue: it simply outlined fines for legal entities ranging from four to eight million rubles (about $54,500 to $109,000). The authors of the amendments suggested tying fines for website providers and owners who fail to remove information banned in Russia to income level, as well. In such cases, the maximum fine for legal entities would range from 10 to 20 percent of their revenue for the year, with a minimum penalty of eight million rubles ($109,000). In its original form, the bill outlined fines for legal entities ranging from 8 to 15 million rubles (about $109,000 to $204,000). According to the authors of the bill, foreign companies — including Internet giants like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter — violate Russia's legal requirements more often than others. According to Roskomnadzor, as of April 2020, YouTube had failed to remove 10,482 pages containing banned content, Twitter had failed to remove 1,462 pages, Instagram — 1,435, and Facebook — 362. Who will be responsible for paying the fines — the company's head office or its representative offices in Russia — remains unclear. For example, YouTube's parent company, Google, has its own Russian LLC. According to open data, this company's revenue amounted to 74.9 billion rubles (about $1.02 billion) in 2019. In this case, it could face a maximum fine of nearly 15 billion rubles ($204 million). But if lawmakers were planning to impose penalties on the company's head office, Google could face fines . Previously, Russian courts have repeatedly fined the American company Google LLC for refusing to filter content banned in Russia — the penalties imposed on the company thus far have ranged from 700,000 to three million rubles (about $9,525 to $40,830). Facebook and Twitter do not have representative offices in Russia. In 2019, Facebook's revenue was $70.7 billion (the amount it earned in Russia remains unknown), so presumably it could face a maximum fine of more than $14 billion. Twitter's income last year was $3.46 billion, which means it could face a maximum penalty of around $700 million.

‘I want to say thank you to Putin personally’. Moscow lawmaker Yulia Galyamina’s final statement in court as she faces three years behind bars for protesting

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/18/i-want-to-say-thank-you-to-putin-personally

On Friday, December 18, Moscow's Tverskoy District Court held deliberations on the case of Moscow City Duma deputy Yulia Galyamina, who is facing for repeatedly violating the "rules on conducting public events." Galyamina, who is also a lecturer at Moscow's Higher School of Economics (HSE), became the subject of a criminal case due to her involvement in an unauthorized protest opposing amendments to the Russian constitution on July 15, 2020 (law enforcement officers arrested more than 100 people at the demonstration). She was also fined several times for taking part in protests ahead of the Moscow City Duma elections during the summer of 2019. State prosecutors are now seeking a three year prison sentence for the Moscow lawmaker. Here is the final statement that Yulia Galyamina made in court today. Dear friends, I want to start my final statement with the word "thank you." Thank you to everyone who supports me: to my family and friends, my team and colleagues, fellow teachers and students, deputies, politicians, and of course, my voters, present and future, from different parts of our motherland. To the millions of people who I represent in this court. So I want to say thank you to those who persecuted me, as well: the police officers, officers, and the FSB officers, the investigators, judges, their assistants, the prosecutors, the Presidential Executive Office, and Vladimir Putin personally. You not only helped me see how many people came to my defense. You not only made me stronger by giving me the experience of resilience and the ability to enjoy life, no matter what. You proved to the entire country that I really am a threat to you. I am teacher, a municipal deputy, a politician who advocates for non-violent change, for honest political competition, for a decent life for people. I, a woman, pose a threat to a man, who, it would seem, enjoys all possible power. But this man is still just a little man, who is afraid of soft, feminine power. He's afraid because, as yesterday's show Putin's annual press conference showed, he has absolutely nothing to offer the people of Russia other than cheap pasta and violence. I, unlike my persecutors, offer all of us a future. I am proposing a future in which each person in our country, wherever they live, would be able to live with dignity: earn decent money, buy good food and clothes, travel, heal their relatives, and teach their children. And while feeling free and safe. It's precisely for such a future — the future of normal life, the normal Russia of the future — that the 16 million Russian citizens who supported against the amendments to the constitution voted for. Against the amendments that were designed to deprive us of that future. And, mind you, it's precisely for this campaign against the amendments, meaning, for our common future — that I'm on trial. To achieve the future that we are all dreaming about, we need for officials not to make decisions for the people, but rather just to fulfil their will. For them not to cut down forests and parks, not to build landfills, not to erect high-rise ghettos, not to amalgamate hospitals, not to switch to online education exclusively, not to build digital surveillance systems, not to take resources from the regions and local governments, not to destroy small- and medium-sized businesses, and not to take money from pensioners and the parents of large families. A system in which entities decide the life of millions is abnormal. As abnormal as the coronavirus epidemic. After all, people have the right to decide how their life, their world, their future, will be built. But for this, any person needs their representatives in power. People who promote the interests of every Russian citizen to the administrations of the country's rural settlements, cities, and regions. The interests of everyone — of the ones sitting in this courtroom and of those who don't even know what's happening here. The interests of every ordinary Russian, not Putin and his entourage. We need for our representatives in power to be the most active from among us ordinary, living people. Politicians who we can run into at a neighborhood store, and not Kremlin puppets in cars with flashing lights and dead meat inside. Who can ensure that power becomes the power of the people and for the people? There are thousands of women and men across the country who are becoming leaders of change, leaders of perseverance, leaders of a normal future. Everyone who dreams of this future should unite around them. They don't simply want to return power to the people, but they are already doing a lot to achieve this, getting elected as local deputies, leading charity organizations, creating useful, lively businesses, organizing campaigns to protect the environment…Those people who already want to protect historical heritage or socially unprotected and persecuted people. By interacting with these drivers of change, I am inspired to go further. And so I look at today's trial without fear. It doesn't matter whether I am free or in prison, whether I can personally continue to be a deputy or not, I know for sure that this movement won't be stopped. And I will work to make this noticeable to every citizen of Russia, to resonate with every soul. And inspire everyone to take a step towards the future. We must remember that despite all of the obstacles and resistance from the Kremlin, 2021 is a real chance to turn the tide. If we miss this chance, the next one will appear only in . Therefore, all of us together need to unite our efforts and make next year's elections decisive. And not only the State Duma election, but also the regional and local ones. We need a general civil monitoring project for the vote, maximum support for candidates, and truly massive participation in the elections. Only a massive turnout will be able to break the machine of falsification and make it so that ordinary, normal people have their representatives in power at all levels. Because this is our right, this is our country, this is our life, and our future. I would also add at the end of my final statement that the three years that the prosecutors have asked for me now are exactly the three years that separate us from the 2024 elections. I think these three years will give me a great chance to become the most popular politician in Russia. And take part in Russia's presidential elections.

Hackers target ‘IStories’ investigative journalists following Putin’s press conference

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/18/hackers-target-istories-investigative-journalists-following-putin-s-press-conference

The online accounts of six journalists from the investigative outlet IStories were targeted by hacking attempts after Russian President Vladimir Putin's press conference yesterday, IStories reported on Telegram. During the early hours of Friday, December 18, someone tried to hack journalist Dmitry Velikovsky's Facebook account, as well as the Telegram accounts of IStories editor-in-chief Roman Anin, and editors Olesya Shmagun and Roman Shleynov. The Facebook accounts of journalists Alesya Marokhovskaya and Irina Dolinina were hacked on the morning of December 18. The six journalists targeted are the authors of a recently published investigation about the business dealings of Putin's alleged former son-in-law, billionaire Kirill Shamalov. Eight journalists worked on the investigation in total, including Meduza editor Denis Dmitriev. We note that in the case of Roman Anin, the unknown individuals were able to obtain a two-factor authentication code, bypassing Roman's SIM card, but these unknown individuals weren't able to correctly enter the password for second factor. In the investigation, IStories revealed that Kirill Shamalov acquired a 3.8 percent stake (valued at an estimated $380 million) in Russia's largest petrochemical company, Sibur, for just $100. This took place just months after his 2013 wedding to Katerina Tikhonova, a woman widely believed to be Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughter. During his annual press conference on December 17, Putin commented on the IStories investigation, claiming that the outlet obtained Shamalov's emails from the U.S. State Department. Putin added that Shamalov acquired his stake in Sibur according to the rules that were in place for all top managers at the company at the time. Several hours later, Shamalov made similar statements to the press. In response, IStories editor-in-chief Roman Anin stated that Putin "allowed himself to slander journalists and baselessly accuse them of working for Western intelligence services." "We live in Russia, we don't hide behind pseudonyms, we sign our names and we are prepared to prove every word with a document," Anin added.

‘It’s always a choice’. ‘Bellingcat’ lead investigator Christo Grozev explains how his team unmasked the Russian agents who tried to kill Alexey Navalny

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/18/it-s-always-a-choice

On December 14, 2020, Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny published a video on YouTube, titled "I Know Everyone Who Tried to Kill Me," where he named the Federal Security Service agents he says are responsible for poisoning him in Tomsk on August 20. Navalny attributed the discovery to Christo Grozev, Bellingcat's "chief and very cool investigator from Bulgaria," who recently contacted him with the message: "You know, I think we've found the people who tried to kill you." Navalny's own Anti-Corruption Foundation then joined the investigation, retracing Grozev's steps and verifying his findings. Meduza special correspondent Liliya Yapparova spoke to Grozev about how he managed to track down a "secret and completely separate" group inside the FSB, why he's certain these men are responsible for the attempt on Navalny's life, and what he expects next in this story. Alexey Navalny had uninvited company for the past three years — at least eight federal agents followed him nearly everywhere, whenever he left Moscow, according to a new investigation by Bellingcat and its media partners. In an interview with Meduza, Bellingcat's lead Russia investigator, Christo Grozev, described two basic theories to explain why Navalny was watched so closely before he was nearly poisoned to death: either the FSB team had orders to be ready to kill him when instructed, or the agents were trying to assassinate him all along. Readers can draw their own conclusionsLeading experts on chemical weapons told Bellingcat that "optimal dosage" with nerve agents is tricky business when "in the field," and Navalny's assailants had reason to act cautiously. There's some evidence that Navalny was poisoned last year with the same substance that nearly killed him this August: Aboard a plane in 2019, he says he experienced the same acute discomfort that preceded his violent illness and coma. A few months earlier, moreover, his wife Yulia was also suddenly albeit briefly unwell. Both of these incidents, Grozev told Meduza, could very well have been the result of the FSB's attempts to find the dose needed to kill Navalny as delicately as possible. The poison used against Navalny, which medical experts later narrowed down to a "Novichok-class" nerve agent, would have taken effect almost immediately, but Navalny suspects he was exposed through a suspiciously bad-tasting cocktail, the night before his symptoms began. If this is true, Grozev says the substance must have been "micro- or nano-encapsulated" — coated with something to delay the body's absorption of the poison. For all its apparent efforts involving Alexey Navalny, the FSB team of operatives and toxin specialists seems to have other assignments, as well, though the agents clearly focused on Navalny after 2017 (when he declared his intention to challenge Putin for Russia's presidency). Grozev says the agents he identified often visit cities that don't intersect with Navalny's travels, with frequent stops in the North Caucasus, where militants and armed separatists remain a thorn in the authorities' side. Grozev says the FSB team might be poisoning other oppositionists on these trips, as well, which he will explore in his next investigative report. Grozev says Bellingcat adopted a "conservative" editorial approach to the evidence it collected showing the FSB's involvement in the attempt on Navalny's life. Even the report's headline — "FSB Team of Chemical Weapon Experts Implicated in Alexey Navalny Novichok Poisoning" — deliberately stops short of direct accusations. At the same time, Grozev says there is "no innocent explanation" for why a group of specialists trained in medicine and chemical weapons traveled under assumed identities and then used a secure network to communicate with Russia's Novichok experts immediately before Navalny was poisoned and then with experts in mass spectrometry (who could explain how long a poison's traces remain detectable), immediately afterward. "Any court would convict these people," says Grozev. Bellingcat proved that these FSB agents followed Navalny in Tomsk on the day he was poisoned, just as these men had tailed him 37 times before. "We leave it to the reader to decide if they tried to kill him," Grozev told Meduza. Following the dataGrozev stumbled onto the FSB operatives when he expanded his research into the use of Novichok by military intelligence agents in Russia, building on a Bellingcat investigation that identified the "Signal Scientific Center" as the heart of the Kremlin's clandestine chemical weapons program. "We realized that agents called precisely these scientists for consultations at peak moments, just before Novichok poisonings," says Grozev. When Bellingcat conducts this kind of work, says Grozev, it identifies about 70 percent of the telephone numbers that apparently belong to federal agents through GetContact or some other leaked database available on Russia's black market. For more subtle evidence, the researchers turn to leaked archives like "Larix" for credit records, employment histories, past convictions, and flight itineraries. Many FSB agents complete long tours of service in Russia's Border Guard, explains Grozev, which can offer further corroboration when tracking down operatives. To investigate Navalny's case, Grozev returned to the telephone records Bellingcat obtained in its work on Russia's chemical weapons lab, the Signal Scientific Center. According to these documents, the facility's director, Arthur Zhirov, had a history of calls with someone identified by GetContact as "Alexey Podlipki FSB" — apparently a reference to a small village outside Moscow, where the Federal Security Service has no official presence. These communications spiked on July 6, 2020 — a date that held no significance, as far as Navalny and the public record were concerned. Wondering if he'd missed something, Grozev contacted Navalny in mid-November and asked if anything had happened on this day. It turns out that Navalny's wife Yulia became suddenly ill on July 6 while vacationing in Kaliningrad. Navalny didn't publicize the incident when it happened because he didn't understand it himself. "This was the first moment when I realized that it seemed we'd found something," Grozev told Meduza. The cellular records Bellingcat acquired on Russia's black market make it possible to geolocate specific calls and data transfers by triangulating the different tower connections used in these communications. Grozev told Meduza that Bellingcat typically maps this out manually, after using MySQL (an open-source relational database management system) to remove records of calls and data usage that occurred on weekends, holidays, or late at night. The result, he says, is a fairly reliable picture of where these men spent their work hours. The telephone records show that the suspected agents frequented two locations: an FSB research institute on Varga Street in Moscow believed to work with chemical weapons and an area near Podlipki. Using Wikimapia, Bellingcat discovered that this second location leads to another secret FSB facility, solving the mystery of "Alexey Podlipki FSB." According to Wikimapia users, the KGB once used the Podlipki grounds to develop missile technologies. Today, Grozev says, the laboratory serves as an unofficial extension campus for the FSB's Varga Street facility, which manufactured the poisons used against Soviet dissidents, according to former KGB General Oleg Kalugin, who now lives in the United States. Bellingcat bases much of its conclusions on surges in calls between experts at Signal and the suspected FSB agents who tailed Navalny across Russia. Grozev acknowledges that the calls could have been about anything (there were lots of telephone conversations on Defender of the Fatherland Day in February, for example, presumably about the holiday), but the timing and the sequence of communications before and after the attacks against Navalny strongly suggest, he says, that these discussions concerned Novichok. After using phone records to single out a handful of suspected FSB agents, Bellingcat guessed that the operatives who followed Navalny around the country likely traveled under assumed identities using false, albeit only somewhat modified names and birthdates (a lazy but typical practice in Russia's intelligence community). Grozev says his team began its work with airline records by "blindly and randomly" purchasing black-market passenger manifests for flights booked by Navalny and his staff. When Bellingcat realized that the federal agents traveled in groups, almost always a day before or after Navalny, Grozev bought more flight records and repeated his search for the FSB agents' aliases. As a pattern emerged, his work gained precision. Grozev says the phone records obtained by Bellingcat indicate that Navalny's FSB surveillance team stayed abreast of his travel plans by communicating frequently with the agency's officers stationed at airports, who have direct access to Russia's ticket-reservation databases. When looking for federal agents involved in a supposed assassination operation, Bellingcat adjusts its search algorithms to filter out travelers on flight manifests who don't fit the FSB's pattern. Grozev says he calibrated his search parameters to exclude people traveling with apparent family members (other passengers with the same surname) and anyone who booked their tickets well in advance. A rich travel history also reduces the odds that someone is using an FSB alias because the agency generally doesn't bother to invent deep records, says Grozev. This is especially true, he adds, with special units like the team that pursued Navalny, where looping in the additional colleagues needed to counterfeit long personal pasts can compromise an operation's secrecy and risk leaks. According to Meduza's own calculations, an investigation like Bellingcat's report on Navalny's alleged FSB assailants could have cost as much as 1 million rubles ($13,630). A source in Russia's data-leak market told Meduza that a single geolocation request costs 25,000 rubles ($340), while the call history for one phone number can be as much as 80,000 rubles ($1,090). Flight passenger manifests, meanwhile, run about 10,000 rubles ($135) apiece. Grozev says Bellingcat has to conserve its resources, pursuing only the most important investigations. Sometimes, the organization even has to abandon certain leads because its funding doesn't permit all avenues of information gathering. "And we refuse to work with the foundations that would give us money for such work," he adds. When tracking Navalny's poisoners, Bellingcat researchers had to watch out for "poisoned" data. For example, Grozev says one source sold him a flight manifest listing 177 passengers, while another archive acquired elsewhere showed 179 passengers. The two extra names, it turns out, "were the most interesting." To avoid being led astray by tampered records, Grozev says Bellingcat acquires databases from different dealers without revealing the information it seeks. "For 10 phone records, we buy from 10 different dealers," he explains. Researchers can never rely on individual dealers for very long. "After several investigations, Russian counterintelligence realizes which sources to use to start feeding us ‘tainted' data," Grozev told Meduza. When investigating intelligence officers, Grozev says Bellingcat tries to avoid using data leaked by rival agencies. These dealers often stand out by deviating from the usual time it takes to fulfill an order. "If it's suddenly too short or too long, something's off," he says. After Bellingcat releases a major report, many sources often cut ties with its researchers. Following the investigation into Navalny's poisoning, for example, the organization lost access to several dealers. "Even though they've said they don't want to talk to us anymore, we're going to make sure they're okay," Grozev says. Grozev admits that he struggles with the ethical implications of working with stolen personal data. In Navalny's case, he argues that these tactics are ultimately in the prevailing public interest because they were required to expose not just a group of attempted murderers but also a secret government unit devoted to hunting down the Kremlin's political enemies using dangerous chemical weapons. "I believe that we at Bellingcat occupy a niche between journalism and the law enforcement agencies that aren't doing their jobs either because, as in the West, they can't or they don't want to, or because, as in Russia, political pressure makes it impossible," Grozev told Meduza, comparing his brand of investigative reporting to the ambulances we allow to speed through city streets. Before exposing individuals' personal data, Grozev says he needs to be completely sure that he hasn't made a mistake in his research. Bellingcat's report on Navalny's poisoners, for example, singles out eight suspected FSB operatives, but Grozev says his team was able to identify 15 agents in total. In the end, he says he decided to reveal the names of only the individuals for whose actions he could conjure no innocent explanation. Grozev says he and his wife disagree philosophically about the disclosure of government officials' personal information. "She believes it's not worth releasing the private information of people who are just doing their jobs — the people the state told, ‘Go do this.' I'll never agree with that. It's a choice. It's always a choice. Even in the Soviet Union, it was a choice," Grozev told Meduza. A comedy of errorsThough Bellingcat's investigation into the FSB's operation against Navalny reads like a spy thriller, one of the most shocking things about the story is closer to comedy: the agents aided researchers repeatedly by making basic mistakes, like bringing a personal cell phone on a secret mission. But these errors don't surprise Christo Grozev. "Imagine it," he says. "You're there and you need to call a colleague but you don't have his number in the burner phone set up specially for the trip to Tomsk. So you turn on your main cell phone to look up the number you need, disabling the mobile connection, the second the screen lights up." Even that, however, would have been enough to register a tower connection, leaving a digital trail for anyone who knew where to look. Grozev says the phone records show IP-channel data indicating that the agents also used an online messenger (ironically, the American-owned WhatsApp) and more secure lines for some conversations. "Apparently, they went with unsecured lines only for non-confidential calls, thinking it was probably enough to protect whatever they discussed," he says. In a sense, they were right: Bellingcat can only guess about the content in these communications. Russia's intelligence community is presumably tempted to erase its agents' information from the databases Bellingcat uses, but Grozev says this isn't as simple as it sounds. "Purging doesn't always solve the problem because sometimes the absence of something is evidence itself. When you remove something, you're leaving new evidence," he explains, adding that Russia's military intelligence started restoring its agents' "RossPassport" data after realizing that blank records raise altogether new suspicions. For all its failings, Russian counterintelligence theoretically has the power "to destroy Bellingcat forever," Grozev admits. All the Kremlin needs to do is unearth some evidence of the organization's supposed ties to Western spy agencies — the secret collaboration to which Bellingcat's critics constantly allude. If this partnership existed, Russia's hackers should have little trouble proving it. In fact, Grozev says he has a "low opinion" of the West's intelligence agencies. If they knew what Bellingcat regularly discovers, he says, the CIAs of the world would leak the information to more established news outlets, like The New York Times. More importantly, he adds, Western intelligence agencies would inform their own governments, leading to better-educated sanctions that target Russia's modern-day chemical weapons program, instead of its Soviet remnants. This comedy of errors isn't entirely a tale of bad ideas. Grozev acknowledges that the FSB has concocted some brilliant schemes to thwart sleuths like him, but the agency's poor execution held success at bay. For example, Grozev says the FSB once introduced an algorithm that fed Bellingcat researchers "RossPassport" photos of other people who physically resembled federal agents, concealing the operatives' real portraits. "Essentially," he explains, "they devised a way to poison the entire system with fake pictures. It was a good idea!" Unfortunately for the FSB, its computer whizzes forgot to add a gender filter. When Bellingcat's searches started returning photos of women, the team knew something was up. "A good idea, but bad execution," says Grozev.

Kremlin spokesman reiterates Putin’s statements about Russian intelligence surveilling Navalny

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/18/kremlin-spokesman-reiterates-putin-s-statements-about-russian-intelligence-surveilling-navalny

During a press briefing on Friday, December 18, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on President Vladimir Putin's statements about why the Russian intelligence services "ought to keep an eye" on opposition figure Alexey Navalny. Peskov told reporters that Russia's intelligence agencies "keep an eye" on anyone who is in contact with foreign intelligence services or calls for a violent change of government. Vladimir Putin spoke about the fact that the intelligence services keep an eye on those who are in contact with the intelligence services of other governments. And to that I can add that of course the intelligence services are keeping an eye on those who make statements calling for a violent change of power, and so on — which can be interpreted as a violation of the current legislation. Intelligence services keep an eye on such people around the world. During his annual press conference on Thursday, December 17, Putin commented on a journalistic investigation that implicated a special FSB sub-unit in . Putin called the investigation a "legalization of materials from the American intelligence services." He also noted that Russian intelligence ought to keep an eye on Navalny because he allegedly enjoys the support of U.S. intelligence. "But this in no way means that it's necessary to poison him, who needs that? You see, if they'd wanted to poison him, they would have finished the job," Putin said.

‘He slandered us’. Journalists respond to Putin’s allegations linking their work to Western intelligence agencies

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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/17/he-slandered-us

During his annual press conference on December 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on two major journalistic investigations — both of which came out in December and concerned the president directly. The first report, published by the investigative outlet IStories, had to do with the business dealings of Putin's alleged former son-in-law, Russian billionaire Kirill Shamalov. The second investigation — a joint effort by Bellingcat, The Insider, Der Spiegel, and CNN — identified a team of FSB operatives who had been following opposition figure Alexey Navalny for years — and, apparently, were involved in poisoning him with a Novichok-type nerve agent back in August. Putin said that both investigations were the "legalization of materials from the American intelligence services." In conversation with Meduza, the journalists behind these reports respond to Putin's allegations. Putin's responses were expected. When journalists with documents prove corruption on the part of the first family, he always attributes it to an attack from the West and the intelligence services. He did that when we published the Panama Papers. He's doing it now. The other thing is that he went too far. Whereas before Putin said that publications were ordered by customers from abroad, this time he directly accused journalists of working with intelligence agencies. This, of course, is slander and untrue. I think that, unfortunately, the president has a distorted picture of the world. He sees enemies, conspiracies, and the intelligence services everywhere. The truth is, the authors of this article don't work for any Western intelligence agencies. These are young authors — journalists from Yaroslavl, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg, and Magadan. These are people who love their country. But, unfortunately, this country has been ruled by one person for 20 years now. If a person is in power for 20 years and nothing limits his power, his picture of the world is greatly distorted. This majorly impacts the adequacy of one's perception of the world. He thinks that everyone is seeking revenge against him and wants to plot against him. In addition, he judges the outside world by how things work in Russia. After all, if he Putin really orders Perviy Kanal CEO Konstantin Ernst or VGTRK CEO Oleg Dobrodeev to bark, they will bark. And he thinks that's how it works everywhere. That if in America president-elect Joe Biden tells someone from CNN to bark, they will start barking — but that's not the case. He is under the delusion that independent journalists are always fulfilling an order from someone. This time he said "these guys" — meaning the authors of the article, me and my colleagues — are from the intelligence services. If the president, as the highest official in the country, makes such statements, then he ought to ground them in something, bring facts. We, as the journalists who he is accusing of something, can back up any of our statements with documents, we can come to any court in the world and legitimately prove our position. The president is allowing himself to make unsubstantiated claims. In my opinion, he simply slandered me and my colleagues. Putin gave an absurd response. He basically didn't refute anything that we wrote. Apart from our conclusion that the people from the FSB were there to poison Navalny. Everything else he actually fully confirmed. Putin said that they didn't poison him Navalny. But there are two, big, problematic holes in this answer. First off, if Navalny was only under surveillance, how does he explain the fact there were doctors and chemists near him? There is no logic here. I'm sure Putin understands that he's lying when he says that our investigation is a "legalization of materials form the American intelligence services." I don't think that FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov could afford to deceive Putin. I think he looked at who was verifying the data and who received the list of passengers on Navalny's flights. He must have seen immediately that journalists requested this information. Hence, Bortnikov knew that journalists were doing an investigation. He wouldn't lie to Putin. Meaning Putin lied to everyone when he said this was intelligence agencies. Saying that Western intelligence services did the investigation is less embarrassing and less inconvenient for the Kremlin than saying it was journalists. The Kremlin thinks: "Intelligence services? Well yes, it's bad that they caught us. It would be much worse if we were caught by journalists." That is to say Putin lied here deliberately. With his response to our investigation, Putin has significantly limited the work of his surrogates: TV host Vladimir Solovyov and Life News. How can they create narratives in such a limited form as the one Putin presented? It will be difficult for them to figure out a harmless way to present these stories. And for us, now it will be important to simply prove the part that Putin called incorrect. We need to prove that the FSB specifically tried to poison Navalny. It's always good when journalists are given a concrete task. We have it. We will be working on it in the coming days.

Putin’s former son-in-law comments on recent investigation into his business dealings

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https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/17/putin-s-former-son-in-law-comments-on-recent-investigation-into-his-business-dealings

In conversation with RBC, Putin's alleged former son-in-law, billionaire Kirill Shamalov, commented on a recent journalistic investigation alleging that he acquired hundreds of millions of dollars in shares in Russia's largest petrochemical company (Sibur) for just $100. The conditions for my participation in the program Sibur's incentive program for top management didn't differ from the conditions for … other top managers. This circumstance allows me to focus public attention on the fact that any claims about the uniqueness of my position in the stock options program don't correspond to reality, are speculative in nature, and aimed at discrediting my business reputation. Previously, the head of Sibur, Dmitry Konov, confirmed that Shamalov did in fact pay just $100 for a 3.8 percent stake in the company, but he also maintained that the deal came with several conditions. Shamalov, like other top managers who participated in the program, took on a proportional share debt belonging to the company Themis Holdings, which owned Sibur shares. In its report, the investigative outlet IStories wrote that Shamalov acquired the 3.8 percent stake in Sibur back in 2013, just months after his wedding to Putin's alleged daughter, Katerina Tikhonova. Shamalov himself estimated the market value of his stake in Sibur at $380 million. Shamalov later purchased an additional 17 percent stake in Sibur from Putin's longtime friend, billionaire businessman Gennady Timchenko. However, amid his divorce from Tikhonova in 2017, Shamalov sold the shares in Sibur that he had purchased from Timchenko, which, according to Bloomberg, he initially received as a guarantee of Putin's trust. During his annual press conference on December 17, Putin commented on the IStories investigation into Shamalov's business dealings during his marriage to Tikhonova. He said that Shamalov's emails were handed over to journalists by the U.S. State Department and called the investigation itself a "pastiche." Putin noted that he had not read the investigative report in full.

Warm and fuzzy Russia. The highlights from Putin’s annual press conference, in a nutshell

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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/17/warm-and-fuzzy-russia

On Thursday, December 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin held his sixteenth annual marathon press conference — albeit via video link. He answered questions from journalists for nearly five hours straight, covering everything from Russia's "Sputnik V" coronavirus vaccine, to the latest allegations about opposition figure Alexey Navalny's poisoning, and New Year's benefits for families. Here are the highlights, in a nutshell.

Russian lawmakers propose changes to bill on housing for children of Soviet repression victims

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/17/russian-lawmakers-propose-changes-to-bill-on-housing-for-children-of-soviet-repression-victims

A group of lawmakers from Russia's State Duma have put forward changes to the existing bill on amending the law "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression," Vedomosti reported on Thursday, December 17. The changes were proposed by Galina Khovanskaya from the party A Just Russia, Sergey Shargunov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), and Nikolai Gonchar from United Russia. The State Duma approved the bill in question in its first reading back in November. In its current form, the draft law allows the regional authorities to retain power over housing compensation for victims of Soviet-era political repressions, effectively meaning that the "children of the Gulag" will continue to be placed on general waiting lists for social housing — a process that can take decades. The lawmakers have proposed amending the bill so that victims of repressions receive payments for housing from the federal authorities within a one-year period, lawyer Grigory Vaypan explained to Vedomosti. According to lawmaker Galina Khovanskaya's estimates, the number of victims of political repression in need of housing is no more than 500 families. These are mainly former residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Krasnodar, in addition to 51 families from Sevastopol. Solving the problem will require 2.5 billion rubles (approximately $34.3 million), Khovanskaya told Vedomosti. The government left this question to the mercy of the regional authorities. As a result, the regional authorities gained the right to put victims of repression in the line for receiving housing in accordance with the usual procedure. Thus, repressed people — mostly elderly people over the age of 70 — have to wait 25–30 years to receive housing from the state. In December 2019, Russia's Constitutional Court ruled in favor of three daughters of repressed Moscow residents who were requesting compensation for housing lost when their families were deported from the Russian capital. The Russian high court demanded changes to the legislation, affirming that rehabilitated victims of political repressions, as well as any children born in the Gulag system or in exile, have the right to receive housing in the cities where their families lived at the time of the repression. In the summer of 2020, the government submitted a draft law to the State Duma on preserving the powers of the regional authorities on the issue of housing allocation. A Just Russia party leader Sergey Mironov and lawmaker Galina Kovanskaya put forward an alternative bill, proposing that the children of repression victims be allocated housing at the expense of the federal government within a clearly specified one-year period. The State Duma rejected this bill. In September 2020, two UN special rapporteurs appealed to the Russian authorities to provide housing compensation to the children of victims of Soviet era political repressions within two years.

German prosecutors question Navalny at the request of the Russian authorities

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https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/17/german-prosecutors-question-navalny-at-the-request-of-the-russian-authorities

On Thursday, December 17, Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny reported that he had spent the day being questioned by German prosecutors at the request of the Russian authorities. Navalny reported this on Twitter, without specifying what he was asked during the interrogation. Earlier, the Russian Attorney General's office had sent the German authorities several requests for legal assistance regarding Alexey Navalny's "hospitalization" in Berlin this summer. According to the German authorities, Navalny was with a Novichok-type nerve agent. However, the Russian authorities continue to maintain that there are no grounds for launching a criminal investigation into the attack. On December 14, Bellingcat, The Insider, CNN, and Der Spiegel published an investigation implicating a special FSB sub-unit in poisoning Alexey Navalny with a Novichok-type nerve agent, after following him for several years. Navalny himself concluded that such an operation couldn't have been carried out without the approval of FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Just keeping an eye on him. Putin dismisses poisoning attack allegations, repeating claims about Navalny’s ties to U.S. intelligence

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/17/just-keeping-an-eye-on-him

During Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual press conference on Thursday, December 17, a journalist from the online outlet "Life" asked him about the of opposition figure Alexey Navalny. "This week an investigation about Alexey Navalny came out. Why hasn't a criminal case into his poisoning and who poisoned him been opened, tell me, please?" the correspondent asked, referring to a joint investigation that implicated the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning attack. Here's how Putin responded, word-for-word. As for, then, this patient, meaning the one at the Berlin clinic. I have already spoken about this repeatedly, I can only repeat some things. Well, I know about the investigation. Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov actually just told me about the latest fabrications in this regard yesterday, about the information from our intelligences officers and so on. We understand perfectly what this is. … This isn't some kind of investigation, it's the legalization of materials from the American intelligence services. What, we don't know that they're location tracking, or what? Our intelligence services understand this very well and they know it. FSB officers know it and other special bodies know it. And they use phones in places where they think they don't have to hide their place of stay and so on. If that's the case — and I assure you, that is the case — this means that this patient at the Berlin clinic enjoys the support of the U.S. intelligence services in the present case. And if this is correct, then it's curious. Then, of course, the intelligence services ought to keep an eye on him. But this in no way means that it's necessary to poison him, who needs that? Ha-ha. You see, if they'd wanted to poison him, they would have finished the job. And so…His wife appealed to me and I gave the command to release him for treatment in Germany immediately. At that very second.

Troll wars. Facebook takes down rival networks from Russia and France for attempted interference in African countries

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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/16/troll-wars

Facebook has removed three networks originating in Russia and France for violating its policy against foreign interference, the company reported on Tuesday, December 15. According to Facebook, these networks were responsible for carrying out "coordinated inauthentic behavior" targeting multiple countries in North Africa and the Middle East. While Facebook has removed Russian "troll factories" for similar activities in the past, the company says this case is unique due to the apparent rivalry that developed between the French and the Russian campaigns. On December 15, Facebook announced that it had identified and removed two "troll factories" targeting residents of numerous countries in Africa and the Middle East. These networks carried out actions coordinated from Russia and France — and according to Facebook, this is the first time their team has identified two campaigns competing for influence in third countries. What's more, it's the first case where the social network has identified and blocked a group of trolls acting in the interests of a Western government. Facebook's investigation linked the Russian network to individuals associated with the past activities of the Internet Research Agency (also known as the St. Petersburg troll factory) and other entities connected to Russian catering magnate . The French campaign was traced to individuals associated with the French military. In total, Facebook removed 63 accounts, 29 pages, and 7 groups belonging to the Russian network, and 84 accounts, 6 pages, and 9 groups belonging to the French campaign. They also removed one Instagram account belonging to the Russian side, as well as 14 belonging to the French. Both the Russian and the French networks primarily targeted the Central African Republic (CAR), where presidential elections are set to take place at the end of December. In addition, the Russian accounts were actively involved in Madagascar, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Mozambique, while the French accounts targeted Mali, Niger, Burkina-Faso, Algeria, and Chad. Facebook also removed a third, separate network of Russian accounts operating independently in North African countries. Facebook noted that both campaigns used similar tactics in the CAR. The French accounts wrote positive commentary about France's influence on the country's security, while warning about Russian plans to interfere in the upcoming presidential vote. In turn, the Russian trolls wrote about Russia's fight against terrorism in North Africa, plans to supply the "Sputnik V" vaccine to the region, and criticized France's foreign policy. Both campaigns also left critical comments on each other's posts, including mutual accusations of publishing fake news. As Reuters underscores, the activities of the two campaigns hardly had any influence on the general mood of Facebook users in the region, since neither group managed to attract a significant audience. "They looked like two troll teams arm wrestling, with nobody else really paying attention," social media analyst Ben Nimmo told Reuters. The Central African Republic is set to hold presidential elections on December 27. It is believed that Russia is supporting the incumbent candidate, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra. During Touadéra's first term, companies linked to Prigozhin received several major contracts in the CAR — in particular, for diamond mining and security (this hasn't been officially confirmed; three Russian journalists investigating the activities of the Prigozhin-linked private military company Wagner were murdered in the CAR in 2018). Since the Central African Republic is a former French colony, countering Russian business interests in the country is an important part of Paris's general policy of maintaining its influence in the region.

The second time around. Latest mortality statistics reveal that the fall coronavirus wave was worse for Russia

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/16/the-second-time-around

Last week, the Russian Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat) published new data on mortality in all of the country's regions, revealing that 30 percent more people died in October 2020 than in that same month last year. This data shows that the coronavirus pandemic's second wave in Russia this fall was in fact more serious than the first wave in the spring: it appears that in September and October the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus was nearly the same as during the period from April to August. In addition, Russia remains ranked among the top-five countries with the highest death tolls from the coronavirus in the world. Please note! All Meduza content about the coronavirus pandemic is free to distribute according to Creative Commons CC BY 4.0. In other words, you can republish this stuff! (Except for any photographs featured in our stories). What data did Rosstat release?Rosstat publishes data on the number of deaths per month, which allows for the calculation of and a lot of other data related to spread of COVID-19 — including the actual number of people who have contracted the disease (asymptomatic cases included). During the coronavirus pandemic, the excess mortality rate has emerged as the most accurate data on the epidemic. Even Russian officials rely on it: recently, a source in the federal government familiar with the work of the operational headquarters for fighting the coronavirus told Meduza that this is the most accurate data that the authorities have. Data on mortality is also considered difficult to manipulate: Rosstat obtains these numbers from local registry offices, where death certificates are issued to relatives of the deceased. And families can't hold funerals without obtaining death certificates. In theory, not all excess deaths are related to the coronavirus itself necessarily: for example, some portion could be attributed to the fact that medical care for other illnesses has worsened during the pandemic. But in practice it turns out that in 90 to 100 percent of cases in 2020, excess deaths in Russia are linked to the coronavirus infection in one way or another. This is evidenced by reports from the country's few regions where the data on excess mortality has been analyzed in detail (for example, the Moscow Health Department has been working on this since April). The main drawback of Russia's excess mortality data is that its publication is significantly delayed and its not broken down by week, let alone by day. Rosstat publishes its reports 35 to 40 days after the end of the month, which is compounded by the fact that on average, deaths from the coronavirus occur 20 to 25 days after infection. The data being so delayed means it can't be used to accurately predict how the epidemic will develop in the future, or even understand how it's developing now. Countries in Europe publish (incomplete) data every week and then update the numbers later on. That said, Rosstat's data is perfectly sufficient for assessing general trends, identifying where the coronavirus death tolls have been manipulated, and making rough forecasts about the near future. Who's distorting the coronavirus statistics the most?Many of Russia's regions have been underreporting the number of deaths from COVID-19. Meduza uncovered more than a dozen regions that were clearly not only providing made-up mortality figures to the public database Stopcoronavirus.rf, but also to classified government registries. Judging by Rosstat's data for October, the Republic of Bashkortostan (Bashkiria) remains Russia's biggest manipulator — the region underestimated its mortality data more than 100 times over. So it's safe to say that the republic's official figures don't correspond with reality at all. According to Rosstat, Bashkortostan saw 1,601 excess deaths in October 2020 compared to October 2019. Meanwhile, official reports stated there were only nine deaths in the region that were connected to the coronavirus in some way. Neighboring Tatarstan and several other regions are not far behind Bashkortostan in terms of the severity of the apparent manipulations. And even the number of excess deaths in Moscow, which is considered one of the most honest regions in terms of coronavirus statistics, has exceeded the number of COVID-19 deaths reported on the Stopcoronavirus.rf database more than two-fold. On average, during various months, the data on excess deaths across Russia exceeded the number indicated in the operational reports on the website Stopcoronavirus.rf four to seven times over (in October there was a 6.5-fold difference). The methodology for determining post-mortem diagnoses plays a big role here. In the spring, the federal center decided that all deaths among COVID-19 patients should be carefully investigated. As such, the final cause of death is only declared after an autopsy aimed at establishing the links between the deceased's primary condition (for example, the coronavirus infection), complications from other diseases, and their death. Since the coronavirus often exacerbates other diseases, which can ultimately lead to a patient dying from these complications, COVID-19 may not be considered the main cause of death. According to the Russian Health Ministry's guidelines, pathologists are expected to put down the most severe (and most resource-demanding) illness as the original cause of death. As Meduza uncovered this summer, the broad interpretation of such rules has allowed chief physicians at hospitals in a number of regions — often not of their own free will, but rather at the behest of the local authorities — to manipulate the COVID-19 statistics by attributing the deaths of coronavirus patients to other causes. Cases where COVID-19 is considered the original cause of death.Cases where COVID-19 was not the main but rather the "other cause of death" and was "essential in the development of an underlying disease and its fatal complications." Cases where COVID-19 didn't cause any complications at all (for example if a person with stomach cancer dies after being diagnosed with a mild case of the coronavirus). Today, pathologists in Russia are required to list the coronavirus as the original cause of death or as a condition that significantly affected the course of another disease in almost all cases. But in practice, even in Moscow, a third of the deaths among coronavirus patients in October were classified as cases where the person "died from other causes" after testing positive for the coronavirus (maintaining that the latter diagnosis did not significantly impact the course of the primary disease). That said, in many regions, such as Bashkortostan, it seems as though those who have died from the coronavirus aren't being classified in any of the above groups at all. How many people have died in Russia during the pandemic? And how many have been infected with COVID-19?The number of excess deaths in Russia until the end of October was 164,057 people. In all likelihood, this figure is close to the actual death toll from COVID-19. In October, there were 47,777 excess deaths in Russia. The combined total for September and October is 79,443, which isn't much less than all of the previous months of the pandemic put together — the country saw 84,614 excess deaths from April to August. According to Stopcoronavirus.rf, the official mortality rate in November was 66 percent higher than in October. The number of excess deaths will likely be higher too. As such, one can presume that a significantly larger number of people died from the coronavirus in Russia this fall than during the spring and summer. Based on the excess mortality rate, one can roughly the actual number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 in Russia since the start of the pandemic. It turns out that as of the end of October, more than 24 million Russians, or about 16 percent of the population, had "come in contact" with the virus. If Russia were to maintain the same monthly excess death rate as in October, by the end of the year 26 percent of the country's coronavirus patients will have recovered. However, it's worth noting that the mortality rates in November and December are likely to be higher. Most of Russia's regions are just approaching the peak of the infection; in Moscow, which remains the epicenter of the epidemic, the number of cases is likely to remain about the same; no longer increasing, but not decreasing as of yet. How does Russia compare with other countries? Is it on the brink of a crisis?Russia has already been ranked among the top-five countries in the world with the most coronavirus victims. But it's hard to say where exactly Russia should fall on this list — the number of deaths from COVID-19 is being underestimated around the world, and data on excess mortality, as in Russia, is collected with delays. In all likelihood, the only countries with death tolls higher than Russia's are the United States, Brazil, Mexico, and possibly India. However, Russia isn't being threatened with a demographic crisis comparable to that of the 1990s and the early 2000s as of yet. Even if the number of deaths in November and December is two-thirds higher than in October, the country's total death toll for the year will be a little more than 2.1 million people. That's 300,000 more than in 2019, but still less than the worst year of the demographic crisis — 2003, when 2.365 million people died. On the other hand, the population decline will be very significant: Russia's birth rate hasn't compensated for mortality since 2016. And, judging by Rosstat's data, it has continued to decline in 2020 — down 57,000 from January to October compared to the same period in 2019. The decline is approaching the scale of the crisis seen at the turn of the twenty-first century: if October's trends persist, it will exceed 680,000 people — or 2.1 million deaths per 1.41 million births. For comparison, the worst decline Russia has seen since the collapse of the USSR was 958,000 in 2000; in 2019, it was minus 317,000. However, there may be some "compensation" at the end of the epidemic — mortality rates may decrease slightly due to the number of people who were already seriously ill but died prematurely from the coronavirus in 2020. Demographic statistics aside, however, the situation facing individual families is much more tragic. Indeed, mainly elderly people with serious underlying conditions die from COVID-19. However, as research from Harvard Medical School has shown, if it weren't for the coronavirus, those who died in the United States would have lived another 13 years on average. There are no comparable statistics for Russia as of yet.

St. Petersburg deputies call on Russian FSB to investigate operatives implicated in Navalny poisoning

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https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/16/st-petersburg-deputies-call-on-russian-fsb-to-investigate-operatives-implicated-in-navalny-poisoning

Three deputies from St. Petersburg's legislative assembly have sent an appeal to Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov, demanding that his office look into the information outlined in a recent journalistic investigation about the of opposition figure Alexey Navalny. The statement was signed by St. Petersburg deputies Maxim Reznik, Mikhail Amosov, and Boris Vishnevsky. As Vishnevsky wrote on Facebook, deputies from Moscow, Pskov, Karelia, and other Russian regions will also be sending similar appeals to the FSB. The deputies are demanding the launch of a criminal case under article 277 of the Criminal Code ("encroachment on the life of a statesman or public figure") against the operatives from the special FSB sub-unit implicated in Navalny's poisoning. "What's the point of reporting a possible crime by FSB officers to the FSB?" — they ask me...Yes, we aren't very naive people. And we understand how meager the chance of the opening of a criminal case is...And nevertheless, we are addressing the FSB...They will have to answer us — about whether an inquiry was carried out, whether the people mentioned in the investigation were questioned, and whether they really are FSB officers, whether they really performed all of the actions that were written about. On December 14, Bellingcat, The Insider, CNN, and Der Spiegel published an investigation implicating a special FSB sub-unit in poisoning Alexey Navalny with a Novichok-type nerve agent, after following him for several years. Navalny himself concluded that such an operation couldn't have been carried out without the approval of FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s foreign minister dismisses investigation implicating FSB in Navalny poisoning

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https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/16/russia-s-foreign-minister-dismisses-investigation-implicating-fsb-in-navalny-poisoning

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed a recent investigative report connecting the of opposition figure Alexey Navalny to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). Lavrov commented on the investigation during a press conference in Zagreb on Wednesday, December 16, which was reported on by Interfax. All this news is amusing to read, but the manner in which it is presented says only one thing: that our Western partners don't have any ethical standards and lack any skills of normal diplomatic work and are unwilling to comply with international legal norms when it comes to establishing facts. According to the foreign minister, Moscow is "already accustomed" to Western countries "announcing accusations against Russia in the media, be it hackers, or be it some kind of sensation about the double and even triple poisoning of Navalny." "It turned out that the first time his wife was poisoned," Lavrov noted. And the logic is this: they say, we announced for example, new facts that were discovered by the German special services about Navalny's poisoning, but Moscow has been silent for two days already. If Russia is silent, it means she's guilty. In my opinion, the flaw in this approach is obvious to any sane person. On December 14, Bellingcat, The Insider, CNN, and Der Spiegel published an investigation implicating a special FSB sub-unit in poisoning Alexey Navalny with a Novichok-type nerve agent, after following him for several years. Navalny himself concluded that such an operation couldn't have been carried out without the approval of FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The investigation also says that about two months before Navalny's poisoning in Tomsk, this same group of FSB operatives attempted to poison him in Kaliningrad, causing his wife Yulia to fall mysteriously ill. Navalny released a video about the investigation on his YouTube channel, which gained more than six million views within the first day. The Kremlin has yet to comment on the investigation: Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov cancelled his daily press briefings on December 15 and 16.

As if none of it ever happened. The story of Alexander Vasilevich, a Belarusian businessman and gallery owner who became an enemy of the state before Lukashenko visited him in a KGB jail

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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/15/as-if-none-of-it-ever-happened

It's been four months since mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko (Alyaksandr Lukashenka) started in Belarus. Police have arrested thousands and judges have convicted hundreds. People across different professions, including journalists and entrepreneurs, now have personal experience with political repression. Alexander Vasilevich (Aliaksandr Vasilevich), a gallerist, co-owner of an advertising agency, and co-founder of the digital newspaper "The Village Belarus," is one of the businessmen targeted by the authorities. In a special report for Meduza, journalist Alexey Shumkin tells Vasilevich's story. On October 10, Alexander Lukashenko visited a KGB pre-trial detention center in Minsk, where he met with a dozen of his biggest political opponents (most of whom are now recognized internationally as political prisoners), including Viktor Babariko (Viktar Babarika) and Sergey Tikhanovsky (Siarhei Tsikhanousky), who had hoped to run against him in this year's Belarusian presidential election. Additionally, Lukashenko spoke to Opposition Coordinating Council members Liliya Vlasova and Maxim Znak. At the unusual meeting, the president discussed potential constitutional reforms in Belarus. Since the beginning of the protests, he's regularly mentioned these hypothetical reforms, promising that he will no longer be the head of Belarus under the new Constitution. "I'm not making any laws for myself. I won't be your president under the new Constitution. So, calm down and take it easy," he reasoned. Lukashenko promised that amendments to the current Constitution would be prepared within two years and adopted through a referendum. After the four-and-a-half-hour conversation, the jailed oppositionists were permitted to use a sauna, and Tikhanovsky was allowed to telephone his wife, the opposition's leader whose supporters say won this summer's election before she was forced to flee the country. Lukashenko's representatives argued that the meeting was necessary in order to "hear everyone's voices," but many political observers viewed it as evidence of the government's weak position in the face of the protests. The very next day, the skeptics' opinion was reinforced with the release of two prisoners invited to the gathering: director of the IT-company "PandaDoc" Dmitry Rabtsevich and businessman Yury Voskresensky (who belonged to Viktor Babariko's initiative group). According to Voskresensky, none of the detainees knew that Lukashenko was visiting the jail. "They come to your cell and say, ‘Voskresensky, investigative questioning.' And you go… We were standing and looking at each other, wondering why they gathered us together, maybe for some kind of collective interview. And then the president walks in," he recounts. Voskresensky notes that all participants in the conversation expressed their proposals for a new Constitution, but many political prisoners were "speaking emotionally" and kept getting into altercations with Lukashenko. Alexander Vasilevich, a well-known media manager and gallery owner, was among the arrested opposition activists present at the meeting. In footage from the event, he's the one wearing a red sweater. He is still behind bars today. Eliminating the DisloyalThe meeting at Minsk's KGB jail failed to reach a breakthrough. The very next day, on October 11, security forces used stun grenades and water cannons against demonstrators during another Sunday march through the capital. The situation did not improve over the next two months, either. The Belarusian economy continues to struggle, as well, thanks in part to efforts by protesters like boycotts on state-manufactured goods. The nation's GDP has dropped by 1.3 percent compared to 2019, and external debt rose by $1 billion since the beginning of the year to a total of $18.1 billion. "The Belarusian economy is in stagnation. The sources of growth on which Belarus used to rely have run out. The country needs economic reforms today," argues economist Sergey Guriev. Instead of pursuing reforms, the state has decided to pressure "disloyal" businesses. In early August, Mikita Mikado, the founder and director of the IT-company PandaDoc, offered financial assistance to those security officers who were willing to side with the protesters. On September 2, police raided the company's office and arrested four employees, including the company's manager, Viktor Kuvshinov, who remains in custody on fraud charges. "They arrested Viktor to punish me for helping security officers who lost their jobs after refusing to carry out criminal orders. When they started beating and killing people in my home country of Belarus, I decided to offer an alternative. Viktor had nothing to do with my initiative. Yet, the repressive machine decided that he was guilty simply because he worked for my company," explains Mikado, who lives in the United States. Given the political instability, many companies have followed this example and moved their assets to neighboring countries. According to Sergey Povalishev, the head of the domain registration service "Hoster.by," Belarus' IT sector "is losing five years' worth of progress." Back in August, the average domain-registration rate fell by 3.5 times. "I don't remember seeing such statistics in all the years I've worked in this field," he says. Many software engineers, startup creators, and entrepreneurs left the country on their own accord. In late October, Alexey Begun, the head of Belarus's Citizenship and Migration Department, said that roughly 10,000 Belarusians had left for Poland, nearly 3,000 had gone to Ukraine, and around 500 had moved to Lithuania and Latvia since the beginning of autumn. "These unreasonable inspections and equally absurd fines for minor infractions killed us. We don't have the strength or the money to stand up to these ‘closure orders,'" explains Nellie Troinich, the director and co-founder of the Lokma Cafe. Vasilevich himself had no political ambitions, but he did communicate with Viktor and Eduard Babariko and was friends with Maria Kolesnikova and Maxim Znak. He also volunteered at Babariko's election headquarters. "He liked Babariko, we all liked him. Babariko wanted to be the new normal president with a democratic and humane vision of the state. We stood up for the truth and the belief that a brighter future is possible," Kyky and The Village Belarus director Sasha Romanova told Meduza. Police first arrested Alexander on July 28 in front of the KGB building where he had brought a petition to free Viktor Babariko from jail. Vasilevich came with Yevgenia Sugak, the editor-in-chief of The Village Belarus. Sugak says Vasilevich hoped that Babariko would be released under house arrest. A man in civilian clothes met them inside the KGB building. He asked them to go to a room, where six men in balaclavas took Vasilevich and Sugak's possessions, searched them, and then brought them to a police van waiting in the courtyard. "No one would explain why we were being detained. Some 40 minutes later, we were taken to the police department. They took our fingerprints, photographed our tattoos, and questioned us on camera," says Sugak. In about three hours, Sugak was released, probably because of her official media editor-in-chief status, while Vasilevich remained at the police department. Later, he was charged under Article 23.34 of the Belarusian Administrative Code for violating the order of organization or conduct of mass events. The charges were based on the statement of a riot police officer who said that Vasilevich "participated in a rally in front of the KGB building" and shouted "Freedom to Babariko!" In her conversation with Meduza, Sugak stressed that this was false as there had been no rally at all. Still, Vasilevich was jailed for 14 days. The businessman was released in mid-August before he was arrested again, days later. This time, the police raided his apartment and his companies' offices. According to Sergey Vorozhun, a co-owner of Vondel/Hepta, officials also seized accounting records and interrogated staff at "Red Graphic," which Vasilevich's wife Nadzeya Zeliankova manages. Alexander Vasilevich and his pregnant wife were brought in for questioning. Nadezhda was later released, but her husband remains in custody. Sergey Vorozhun told Meduza that an inspector called him shortly afterward, announcing that a criminal case had been opened against him and Vasilevich, focusing on their alleged "foreign payments." Vorozhun then surrendered all his files to investigators, believing it would resolve the matter and get Vasilevich out of jail. "However, when we saw Sasha at a meeting in the KGB jail with Lukashenko, it became clear that he was being held there for political reasons," says the businessman. Vasilevich's partner remains free — he's long resided in Tallinn, Estonia. According to Vorozhun, Vasilevich now faces charges of tax evasion and up to seven years in prison. On September 8, Belarusian human rights activists from the center "Viasna" declared Vasilevich a political prisoner. In September, Alexander's wife (now seven months pregnant) became a suspect in the same criminal case. It's still unknown what charges (if any) she might face. The investigation is ongoing: Alexander Vasilevich is being held in the Minsk pre-trial detention center No. 1 on Volodarskogo Street. His wife says the businessman is kept in a 12-person cell, letters arrive with long delays or sometimes not at all, and he's not permitted to receive any books. It's always cold inside the cell and the inmates have to sleep fully dressed. "Years of work and investments — lost"About a month ago, Alexander Vasilevich and Nadezhda Zelenkova officially withdrew from the founders' group but retained the rights to the "Galereya Ў" and "Ў bar" trademarks. Sasha Romanova says the project is closed "until better days." A new venue called "Vershy" — a project handled by Valentin Losev, Vasilevich's former partner — will replace the gallery. "Such projects need constant support and nourishment. Neither I nor Sasha can provide it now. Years of work and investments that were put into the gallery are just lost. It's as if none of it ever happened. Of course, this hurts, but it is what it is. I've lived through it and I cried it out," says Nadezhda Zelenkova. Without any explanation, government censors started blocking The Village Belarus, co-founded by Vasilevich, on August 12. "All our requests to the official agencies have gone unanswered. Despite this, we have not cut the volume of articles, although traffic has been significantly reduced, due to the restrictions. In Belarus, you can only access our website via VPN. Before we had about 1.5 million unique users, now we have 800,000," editor-in-chief Yevgenia Sugak told Meduza. Sasha Romanova, the director of Kyky and The Village Belarus, told Meduza that the company decided to move its key employees abroad. However, some personnel are still in Minsk. On September 1, the Belarusian authorities also blocked the bank accounts of "Mint Media," which publishes Kyky and The Village Belarus. The company can now only receive funds through special requests to the authorities. As Romanova notes, however, these amounts are insignificant. Meanwhile, the newspaper's advertising revenue has plummeted almost 10-fold since the election. The company is now registering an office in the European Union and hopes to have it ready by 2021. "All these difficulties are temporary, and I am sure that we will be able to endure and keep the outlet, at least until our teams are safe," Romanova emphasized. Belarusian officials also seized Vondel/Hepta accounts on the grounds that Vasilevich is one of the ad agency's co-owners. Some of its funds remain inaccessible to this day. "In the advertising business, people are the most important resource, and the head of an advertising agency is both an advertising guru and a rock star. Our work depends heavily on Sasha's authority and charisma. After he was arrested, I was worried that our clients might be wary of the situation, but we actually received tremendous moral support from everyone: our clients, our colleagues in the industry, and of course our employees who selflessly continued to work with no salary guarantees," Sergey Vorozhun told Meduza. On November 25, the court extended Alexander Vasilevich's arrest for another month, without any official comment on his case from the authorities. Nadezhda Zelenkova told Meduza that the businessman's lawyers are trying to challenge his arrest, and Vasilevich's colleagues are attempting to explain to the prosecution how his business operated, providing additional documents to rule out any suspicion of tax evasion. "It's rhetorical to ask why someone charged with an economic crime ought to be jailed for four months. I think no one knows how to deal with politically driven (allegedly economic) criminal cases while the country's legal system is failing completely. Quite simply: Sasha is being held hostage," says the businessman's wife. On December 2, Nadezhda gave birth to a baby girl named Urszula. That same day, Viktor Babarika's headquarters launched a new initiative called "Politzekme," created to raise awareness about political prisoners in Belarus. The website allows visitors to "become friends" with one of the country's 147 political prisoners, for example, by writing letters to them in jail. Alexander Vasilevich is one of these 147 people.

Putin’s cousin establishes another anti-corruption political party

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https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/15/putin-s-cousin-establishes-another-anti-corruption-political-party

Roman Putin, the cousin of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has created a new political party called "Russia Without Corruption," reports RIA Novosti. The party was founded at a congress held in Moscow on Tuesday, December 15. RIA Novosti's source close to the party says that "Russia Without Corruption" plans to run in the 2021 State Duma elections. Roman Putin was previously the chairman of the political party "People Against Corruption," which the Russian Supreme Court dissolved in November 2020 following a claim filed by the Justice Ministry. Before that, the Central Election Commission named "People Against Corruption" among a list of four parties at risk of being dissolved due to failure to compete in any elections seven years in a row. Roman Putin is the son of the president's cousin, Igor Putin, meaning he is technically Vladimir Putin's first cousin once removed. Roman has previously worked in the Federal Security Service (FSB) and was a volunteer adviser to the governor of Novosibirsk. He owns several oil and shipping companies and has headed the "Taekwondo Federation of Russia" trust foundation since 2013.

‘This is a real terrorist act’. Navalny’s latest interview with ‘Ekho Moskvy’ about who poisoned him, in brief

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/15/this-is-a-real-terrorist-act

Yesterday, Bellingcat and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, released a joint investigation revealing that a secret sub-unit of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) were responsible for poisoning opposition figure in August. While Russian state media and officials have had little to say about the report, Navalny himself has spoken out. Here's what he said during a radio interview with Ekho Moskvy, in a nutshell. I have no doubt that Vladimir Putin was in charge of the poisoning. We are seeing an operation involving dozens of people and several generals. FSB chemists and doctors, who are in communication with the producers of "Novichok," followed me for four years. This is a real terrorist act, FSB director Alexander Bortnikov wouldn't have done this without Putin's order. They didn't want to scare me, they wanted to kill me, they simply didn't calculate the right dosage. Because it's impossible to do this outside of a laboratory, it's Russian roulette — there's always a danger in putting more, then the person dies on the spot and others may suffer. I have an idea of where I was poisoned but so far the investigation continues. One theory is a cocktail at a bar. The FSB's murder department is much bigger than this group that followed me — the weren't poisoned by another group, these were different structures. We aren't assuming — we know that the FSB is behind this, because we know how the FSB works. And we know that Putin operationally manages the FSB. I will still return to Russia. When this will happen depends not on me, but on the doctors. You can listen to Alexey Navalny's full interview with "Ekho Moskvy" in Russian here.

What investigation? Russian state media remains silent following report linking Navalny’s poisoning to the FSB

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/15/what-investigation

A day has passed since Bellingcat and The Insider released a joint investigation, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, implicating the Russian FSB in the near-lethal poisoning of opposition figure Alexey Navalny in Tomsk this summer. The story has been making headlines around the world ever since it came out — here's what Russian state media and officials have had to say on the topic, in as much detail as possible. TASS: Nothing. RIA Novosti: One article about the fact that in an interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny said that he plans to return to Russia (the article contains no mention of the investigation). One article about the fact that in an interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny said that he would appeal to Russia's law enforcement agencies "in connection with the publications in the media about the new circumstances surrounding his poisoning" (this article contained a brief mention of the investigation, "which claims that several FSB officers were involved in the poisoning"). Perviy Kanal: Nothing. Rossiya 1: Nothing. NTV: Nothing. The Kremlin: Nothing. In fact, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has cancelled his daily press briefings with journalists for the next two days (ostensibly due to the fact that Putin is set to hold his annual press conference on Thursday, December 17). Is it possible that Russian state media isn't reporting on the article because no one is interested? That's unlikely. On his YouTube channel, Alexey Navalny released a video about the investigation titled "Case solved. I know everyone who tried to kill me" — it gained more than six million views in 24 hours. Leading international media outlets have also reported on the investigation, including the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais, South China Morning Post, Anadolu, Deutsche Welle, and many others.You can read Meduza's summary of the investigation here.

Russian lawmaker proposes imprisonment for defamation committed online

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/15/russian-lawmaker-proposes-imprisonment-for-defamation-committed-online

Russian lawmaker Dmitry Vyatkin, from the ruling party United Russia, has submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing up to two years in prison for those convicted of spreading libel online. Vyatkin proposed adding this provision to the second part of article 128.1 of Russia's Criminal Code, which outlines liability for slander that appears in public speech, a publicly displayed piece of work, or in mass media. Currently, this is punishable by a fine of up to one million rubles ($13,590) or 240 hours of community service. The State Duma deputy also proposed punishment of up to two years in prison for libel committed "against several persons, including individually undefined ones" (what this means was not specified). In addition, Vyatkin suggested expanding the types of punishments outlined in the other qualifying paragraphs of the article on slander. He proposed adding imprisonment, forced labor, and arrest as possible punishments, in addition to the fines and community service already contained therein. According to the draft law, the maximum punishment under the article on slander would be five years in prison for "libel combined with accusations against the individual of committing offenses against the sexual inviolability and sexual freedom of a person, or of a grave or especially grave crime." The current version of the article on slander contains no mention of sexual offences.

‘They found a foot and a bottle of vodka’. Life in Russia’s southern Kamchatka, where there’s one increasingly hungry bear for every two people

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/15/they-found-a-foot-and-a-bottle-of-vodka

The number of wandering bears rivals the human population in Ozernovsky, a town in southern Kamchatka. Meduza correspondent Irina Kravtsova visited the remote area to learn how locals manage to live alongside animals that can turn deadly when driven from their usual food sources, which are rapidly disappearing, thanks to overfishing. In the summer of 2019, forty-two-year-old Sergei Vorovyov's wife was craving jam, so he went to his garden on the outskirts of the village of Ozernovsky to get some berries. "I get out of the car, look up, and there he is, fucking Winnie the Pooh! Sitting in the middle of my garden, chowing down on strawberries," Sergey told Meduza. Located at the southern tip of Kamchatka, Ozernovsky has a population of 1,560 people. It is the largest village in the so-called Ozernovsky Bush, which also includes Zaporozhye (population 549), Pauzhetka (78 people), and Shumniy (just 23 residents). Out here, there are almost as many bears as people. The Ozernovsky Bush borders the South Kamchatka Federal Sanctuary, where the brown-bear population is estimated to be roughly 1,000. This is a record-level population density for Kamchatka, where the overall bear population is more than 24,000. "He would have crushed Vasya, dragged him away, and buried him"In the summer of 2014, Vasily Tretyakov was walking home from his garden when he found himself face-to-face with a bear. "He stared at me, I stared at him. Then he got on his hind legs and lunged at me," Tretyakov says. At that moment, Vasily admits, his legs took over, and he ran. The bear overtook him in two jumps, caught him by the buttocks with its teeth, pulled him down, and pinned him to the ground with its paw. Luckily, Tretyakov's neighbor Zhora Zhidomorov happened to be passing by. Zhidomorov drove his Jeep right into the animal, hitting him with the bumper. After being hit three times, the bear finally released Tretyakov. Zhidomorov put Tretyakov in the Jeep and brought him to the hospital. The last thing Tretyakov remembered when he woke up was "being eaten by a bear." At first, he decided that he must be dead, but then he thought, "How can I be dead if I'm thirsty?" He stayed in the hospital for a month, then spent another month at home on sick leave. He's since given up gardening. Many people in Zaporozhye live in private homes with gardens. Along the roads, meadowsweet and hogweed grow as tall as people. When drivers see pedestrians, they insist that walking is too dangerous, and offer to give them a lift. Whenever locals do go on foot, they try to travel in groups of three or four, staying in the middle of the road and talking loudly. They say bears have bad eyesight but excellent hearing; if the animal expects to encounter "something big," it tries to avoid it. The bears' presence doesn't bother Nadezhda Martinyuk as much as their bad behavior does. "Some of them come, carefully take the ripe strawberries from the bushes, and leave. Others come all sloppily, uproot the bushes, and make a mess for nothing!" she complained. Usually, the dog Fifa starts barking to notify the Martinyuks when there's a bear nearby. Nadezhda sits by the window to look, and her son Mikhail goes out onto the porch. Sometimes he takes videos of the animals and puts them on Instagram. He doesn't try to scare them off. "This is their home, and we're guests," he says. "Oh, Misha's here!" called Martinyuk, cutting off his conversation with Meduza's correspondent. There was a crackling sound in the thicket opposite the house, and the bear's head appeared. Then he ran towards the river. About five minutes later, shots rang out. "He's as big as a bulldozer"In August 2019, a repairman from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky came to Ozernovsky to fix the ventilation system at Fish Cannery No. 55. After finishing the job, he decided to go for a stroll along the shore. The next morning, local factory workers found a skeleton, a foot, and a bottle of vodka scattered in the sand. Wildlife specialists ended up shooting four bears on the beach. One of the bears had human flesh and bits of clothing in his stomach, and another one smelled strongly of vodka. "A bear that's tasted human flesh is considered spoiled," said Kosolapov, explaining why they shot them. Once a bear learns that humans are easy prey, it's bound to kill more, he explained. In the 1990s, salmon poaching skyrocketed. Like everywhere in Russia at the time, salaries were often not paid for month-long periods, and local diets often included caviar and salmon, but not oil or cereal. Since there wasn't any money to buy grain, people fed salmon to chicken and pigs. Fifty-eight-year-old Pauzhetka resident Gennady Chumichev worked in those days as an ATV driver for a geothermal power plant. He didn't receive a paycheck for four years. Like many others, he started poaching, "not to pamper myself, but to survive." He set a net on the Ozernaya and traded his bags of salmon for bags of sugar or flour. Chumichev shot the bear, injuring his paw. What followed is best described in Chumichev's own words. Death should be met head-on — not ass-firstHe did a number on me, of course — what a mind he's got! I released two more bullets on him, they went right past him. I got up onto a branch, reloaded my gun, and he's coming at me, head-on — there's no way to shoot him in the head. I dropped my gun and ran. But what's the use of running? Death should be met head-on — not ass-first. I turn around, and he's coming at me. And he's healthy, his muscles are working. I run around his stomach, spin around — he can't catch me, and I keep running. And suddenly he lifts me up by the arm and throws me to the ground with all his might. I fell down, and out of fear, my soul separated from my body and flew up there. He points at the sky. I look down at my body like it's someone else's, and I see in slow motion how he grabs me by the leg and starts shaking me from side to side, like I weigh nothing. He starts dragging me around, and I look down and don't even feel any pain. At that moment, I saw the image of my wife, Nadyusha, up above. Note: Chumichev's wife is still alive. She's saying to me, "Gena, you're leaving us." I really didn't want to go back. I experienced heaven in that moment. That's when I realized: we're all living in a fuss, trying to prove something, just doing nonsense. And there, where I was, was bliss: no pain, no fear, no vanity — time was stopped. But when I heard my wife's words, I remembered that I was supposed to take my son to first grade in September, and I had dreamed so much about that day. So I went back to my body. At that very moment, the bear stopped tearing at me. And I had such energy, I felt that God himself had decided to protect me. I got up, stormed toward him, waving my hands, and cried, "Get out of here, you dumb thing!" I just didn't give a fuck! But the bear was actually in pain, I had shot it, and it was bleeding. I yelled at him, and he stood there, too, roaring and looking at me. Then he looked at the tundra, looked at me one last time, and left. "I started to understand that when you hunt, you're taking away someone's energy. There's no love. You're basically getting rich financially, but your soul is deteriorating," said Chumichev. One evening, he collected all of his furs, took them out into the yard, soaked them in gasoline, and burned them. Since then, he's sworn off hunting — now he grows cucumbers and tomatoes in a greenhouse that looks out onto Kambalny volcano. Right outside of Chumichev's house is a pile of bear feces. But Chumichev doesn't take a gun or a hand flare with him anymore — he says he's no longer afraid. But the bears are still numerous. In 2020, according to local wildlife specialists, as many as eight bears visit Ozernovsky and Zaporozhye on a daily basis. How big are Kamchatka's bears? Try Meduza's Instagram filter. If you're reading this on a smartphone, follow this link (the Instagram app must be installed). If you're on a computer, use your camera to scan the QR code below."Bears need their fish rations, too"When 39-year-old Ekaterina Bersinsh was a kid, she usually managed to see bears only from far away, when they first woke up in springtime. "You would look, and wa-a-ay out there on a snowy hill, you'd see a black dot moving. Then you'd think, thank God, I saw a bear this year, my life was made," she says. But around the end of the 2000s, bears started appearing in town late in the evening and early in the morning. And then in broad daylight: they climb into gardens and landfills without paying humans any attention. Most locals blame the fishermen, who overfish the rivers and leave the bears hungry. In 2020, the bears even visited Kamchatka's larger cities, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and neighboring Yelizovo. In September, first responders, wildlife specialists, and policemen spent several weeks trying to catch an "uncatchable bear," who came into Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and approached a city administration building. The bear didn't attack anybody — it just raided the garbage for food. A few years ago, when a storm brought in more salmon than usual, "the bears quickly satisfied their hunger, realized the fish weren't going anywhere and became patient and friendly with one another. The adults, not to mention the cubs, started playing with each other. Cannibalism was very rare," said Varavskaya. But the competition for fish has increased in recent years. In Soviet times, two facilities were responsible for fishing and fish processing. Now there are nine factories of various sizes operating in the area: four in Ozernovsky and five in Zaporozhye. Kirill Volkov, the executive director of Canning Plant No. 55, told Meduza that there are "more than enough" fish in the rivers, and that bears have started coming into town because there are so many of them. Allegedly, poachers used to kill more of them, but then "the Reserve put things in order," cracking down on poaching. This view has other supporters as well. After the bear attacked the plumber outside the canning plant in 2019, Sergey Milov, editor-in-chief of the Kamchatka publication Rush Hour asked officials to require the Kronotsky Reserve to shoot half of the bear population (about 500 bears). According to Sergei Kolchin, this is absurd. "Going onto a protected natural territory and shooting the animals that we've forced to starve — lightly speaking, it's not the answer," says Kolchin. Almost none of the cubs born in 2020 are left. "The female bears are traveling alone because their cubs were eaten by hungry males." Varavskaya also confirms that tension among the bears has been growing for the last three years: the adult males are very aggressive, and fights are to be expected. In 2019, according to official data, wildlife specialists shot 35 bears. A local wildlife specialist who requested anonymity says, however, that the real number of bears shot in 2019 was between 120 and 130, if both wildlife specialists and local residents are taken into account. "Children freeze, waiting for it to pass"Every resident knows the rule — if you see a bear, you should notify the rapid response team of its location and any identifying features. After that, two members of the team will go out to the location. If they find the bear, they'll detonate a stun grenade nearby. If the bear gets frightened and leaves, the specialists conclude there's no reason to kill it. "After all, it's impossible to know beforehand whether it just got lost, scared — we'll drive him back into the tundra, and he won't want to come back," Lobov explained. If the bear growls, attacks, or tries to hide, they kill it. The Zaporozhye and Ozernovsky residents' WhatsApp chats consist of birthday wishes, holiday wishes, and conversations about bears. Disputes almost always get heated, with cursing and personal attacks. Some residents are afraid of the bears and demand for them all to be killed, and others feel bad for them and leave condensed milk and fish outside for them. Officially, Ekaterina Berzinsh is responsible for sanitation in the fish factories, but in her spare time, "just for the soul," she takes care of injured foxes, hares, and birds that other villagers bring her. Last year, somebody brought her a one-year-old bear cub — he was so weak he could barely move his paw. They put him in a garage, and for a month Ekaterina fed him fish. After he regained some strength, he was taken back into the tundra. "Fishing, playing PUBG, and getting drunk"Most residents of southern Kamchatka work in fish factories. On average, they earn 40,000 rubles ($550) a month, but they get bonuses during the fishing season — 250,000–400,000 rubles (roughly $4,500) altogether. At the beginning of the year, everyone awaits the ichthyologists' forecast of how many fish will come to spawn, which determines what the rest of their year will be like. There's no fresh fish in the local stores. Kirill Volkov told Meduza that the factories don't sell fish to the locals because they won't buy them for "city" prices, and if they lower the price, the residents will resell them. At the same time, locals are banned from catching fish in the Ozernaya, even with regular fishing poles, as part of anti-poaching efforts. This is monitored not only by the local government and the nature reserve but also by private security guards from local factories. They travel the river in a boat, threatening fishermen with fines and confiscating fishing rods. According to local teenagers, private guards are the worst of all. Every day, local teenagers Sanya and Dima go fishing on the bridge that connects Ozernovsky and Zaporozhye. They sell fish to seasonal workers right there and advertise their fish on local WhatsApp groups. They work all year round — in winter, they use holes in the ice. This summer, the director of Sanya's school answered one of the announcements about fish, and Sanya sold him fish for the same price as everyone else — 100-120 rubles (about $1.50) per fish, and 1,500 rubles ($20) for a kilogram of caviar, which he extracts, salts, and prepares himself. In the fall, Sanya comes home from school, changes into camouflage, and heads out to the bridge with his dog, Dina, who alerts him when a bear is nearby. No matter the weather, Sanya and Dima spend all day fishing. Often, they build a fire to cook fish soup or bake fish while they work. Young people in the Ozernovsky Bush do three things for entertainment: fish, play PUBG (an online shooter game), and get drunk — "like lots of our friends here," say Sanya and Dima. In a year, Olya plans to move to St. Petersburg to study design. This has caused some "misunderstanding" between her and her parents — they think it would be better for her to stay home and get a permanent job in the factory, like they did. "Nothing to be done"The sky above Ozernovsky and Zaporozhye is almost always overcast. It drizzles a lot, and the sun appears very rarely. The mineral springs in Pauzhetka is the only place people can go to warm up and relax. It's only 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Ozernovsky to Pauzhetka, but it's not an easy path — it requires crossing seven bridges that are currently damaged. Driving to the "city," on the other hand, requires taking multiple ferries and driving off-road multiple times. Many people from the Ozernovsky Bush have tried to move to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky permanently, and some have even gotten apartments there, but they've all returned in the end.

Putin congratulates Biden on winning U.S. presidential election

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/15/putin-congratulates-biden-on-winning-u-s-presidential-election

On Tuesday, December 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to Joe Biden congratulating him on his victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, the Kremlin reported. In his message, Vladimir Putin wished the President-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which bear special responsibility for global security and stability, can, despite their differences, effectively contribute to solving many problems and meeting challenges that the world is facing today. The U.S. presidential election took place on November 3. Three days later, the largest media outlets in the United States, which were tracking their own counts of the vote, announced Joe Biden's victory. His rival, incumbent President Donal Trump, did not recognize the election results and began challenging them in courts. Many world leaders congratulated Biden on his victory in the elections right away, however the Kremlin refrained from doing so until the official results were released. On December 15, the Electoral College officially confirmed Biden's victory: he gained 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. These votes will be tallied at a joint meeting of the Senate and the House of Representatives on January 6, 2021. The president-elect's inauguration will take place on January 20.

Minimum 30 percent. The Russian authorities have set a coronavirus vaccination target, but will they have enough doses?

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/15/minimum-30-percent

Russia began a large-scale vaccination campaign on Monday, December 7. In Moscow and the Moscow region, the roll out happened two days earlier, on December 5. So far, the results look modest: Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin reported that 6,000 people had been immunized in the capital as of December 10, whereas the regions are, at best, reporting that they have received doses of the "Sputnik V" vaccine. At the same time, the authorities are calling on the regions to vaccinate at least 30 percent of the population by the end of the first half of 2021, government sources tell Meduza. And it has been made clear that 60 percent vaccination would be "optimal." That said, whether or not Russian manufacturers are up to the task of producing the millions of required doses of Sputnik V remains to be seen. How many people are going to be vaccinated?Six days after the vaccination campaign began in Moscow, only 6,000 people had been immunized against COVID-19, while an additional 20,000 had signed up for the shot via an online service, reported Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin during a broadcast on the state television channel Rossiya 24. Immunizations began in Moscow on Saturday, December 5, whereas the Sputnik V vaccine only began arriving in the regions last week — some regions only got their doses closer to the weekend. For example, more than 2,000 doses were delivered to St. Petersburg over the course of last week and the city is set to receive several thousand more before the end of the year. Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, and Tatarstan received a thousand doses each. While Kaliningrad received around 900 doses, the first batch sent to Veliky Novgorod contained just 200, sources from the governments in these regions told Meduza. Going forward, the vaccine is set to be delivered once or twice a week in increasing volumes, one of Meduza's sources explained. The company Immunotechnology — a subsidiary of Sberbank — is responsible for supplying the vaccines to Russia's regions. A source in a regional government told Meduza that the federal center is distributing the vaccine according to certain quotas. But how the exact number of doses sent to each region is determined remains unclear. "The principle of distribution isn't clear — probably, it's in proportion to the population, or perhaps based on the severity of the situation," another Meduza source in one of the regional governments speculated. Meduza's source from the federal headquarters for the fight against the coronavirus said that the calculations took into account the number of doctors and teachers in each region. At the same time, only people between the ages of 18 and 60 are being vaccinated across the country (research on the use of Sputnik V among the elderly is still ongoing). In response to Meduza's request for comment, the Health Ministry was unable to explain how exactly they are distributing doses of the vaccine. How many doses Moscow received in total also remains unknown — the capital's health department didn't respond to our request for comment either. That said, it's in the interests of the regions to use everything the federal center has allocated to them as quickly as possible — otherwise, they'll receive fewer doses of the vaccine the next time, explained Meduza's source from one of the regional governments. What's more, the federal center has already set targets for the regions: they are expected to vaccinate 30 percent of the population against COVID-19 by the end of the first half of 2021 — 60 percent would be optimal, two sources from the Kaliningrad and Novgorod regional governments told Meduza. "During the video conference there were two figures — 30 percent of the population should be vaccinated minimum, ideally it's 60 percent. We're also vaccinating 60 percent of the population against the flu yearly, so that there's no flu in the region," one of Meduza's sources said. How quickly Russia's regions could possibly hit this 30 percent goal is unclear, too. The regions are calmly handling getting 60 percent of their populations vaccinated against the flu within three months, but this involves a single injection, Meduza's source explained. The coronavirus vaccine, on the other hand, involves two injections within a 21-day interval, as well as fairly long protocol procedures, meaning each doctor can vaccinate no more than two people per hour. "Currently, no one understands how quickly we can process this," Meduza's source concluded. This regional official was referring to the fact that the Russian capital effectively abandoned its own rules during the first week of its vaccination campaign. Before it began, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin specifically underscored that in the first stage, immunization would be available to teachers, doctors, and municipal social services workers. To get vaccinated, Muscovites belonging to risk groups were advised to bring their passport and proof of a compulsory medical insurance policy, as well as a document confirming their place of work. However, Meduza uncovered that in Moscow and the Moscow region healthcare workers are often vaccinating whoever comes along. For example, a clinic in Khimki told Meduza's correspondent that anyone can register for Sputnik V. There's also another incentive for distributing the drug — it comes in bundles of five doses, which can be stored for no more than two hours after opening. Therefore, healthcare workers are inclined to vaccinate five people at the same time — whoever they may be — rather than throw doses away. And that's not to mention the fact that Moscow is also focused on vaccinating as many people as possible against COVID-19. As Sobyanin said himself, the Russian capital needs to immunize six to seven million people to achieve herd immunity. Meduza's source close to the headquarters for the fight against the coronavirus explained that since doctors and teachers in the capital are reluctant to get the vaccine, city hall is set to expand the list of people eligible for immunization. Sobyanin has already said that as of December 14, vaccination appointments will be made available for employees of municipal services centers, as well as "cultural workers" and people working in the commercial and services sectors. Are there enough doses of Sputnik V?According to Meduza's estimates, vaccinating 30 percent of the country (excluding everyone under the age of 18 and over the age of 60) will require more than 20 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine. The number of doses already produced is dozens of times fewer than that, and whether it will be possible for Russia to manufacture these 20 million doses is not yet clear. As Meduza reported previously, two Russian companies are currently manufacturing Sputnik V on an industrial scale — Pharmstandard's "Generium" and AFK Sistema's "Binnopharm." They will soon be joined by the St. Petersburg-based company "Biocad," which recently announced that it will release around one million doses of Sputnik V in December. That said, the Sputnik V vaccine is made up of two injections, which need to be administered several weeks apart. The manufacturers have already worked out the kinks when it comes to producing the first dose, but difficulties have arisen with the booster shot — since it turned out to be "more finicky," fewer of the second-stage dose were produced than the first one, explained a Meduza source from the leadership of one of the manufacturers. In early November, The Bell reported that none of the Russian manufacturers had been able to consistently mass produce up-to-quality doses of both components of the vaccine. On December 10, Meduza's source close to one of the Russian manufacturers said that this problem still hadn't been resolved. As Meduza reported, as of December 4, the Russian Health Ministry had approved 200,000 doses of Sputnik V for mass release (doses available for use outside of clinical trials). According to the federal healthcare watchdog, Roszdravnadzor, four more batches of the Sputnik V vaccine produced by Generium have been tested in the past week. An informed source told Meduza that there's currently a total of 300,000 doses of this vaccine (including both components) in civilian circulation. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin promised to send the regions an additional half a million doses of the vaccine in December. According to Meduza's estimates, this is the total number of vaccines currently being held in warehouses — around 500,000 doses (including both components). At the same time, these doses have yet to be quality tested. In turn, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova promised to put almost seven million more doses of Sputnik V into circulation before the end of February 2021. How this will be achieved remains unclear. Generium — the leading manufacturer — said that it will produce two million doses by the end of December, and only after that begin producing "several million doses of the vaccine" per month. However, on December 11, Sergey Sobyanin announced the launch of the "R-Farm" plant in Moscow, which is set to produce 10 million doses of the vaccine monthly. A Meduza source close to Moscow's coronavirus headquarters said that in actual fact, the plant will produce several times fewer doses. In the event of such a shortage, people will need to be vaccinated very selectively, said an epidemiologist, who wished to remain anonymous (since October, the Russian Health Ministry has forbidden doctors from medical institutions under its jurisdiction from making comments to the press about the coronavirus without approval). First and foremost, Russia will need to vaccinate people who come in contact with many others — potential super-spreaders, who pass the virus along at an accelerated rate. Elderly people, for whom the coronavirus is especially dangerous, will also need to be vaccinated (as previously mentioned, Sputnik V's clinical trials for the over 60 age group have yet to be completed). Other countries are taking this approach to vaccination. At the same time, on Friday December 11, Rospotrebnadzor head Anna Popova announced that the first batches of Russia's second coronavirus vaccine had entered into civilian circulation — the "EpiVacCorona" vaccine, developed by Russia's Vector Research Center. Fifty thousand doses of EpiVacCorona are set to be released by the end of the year and mass production of the vaccine is scheduled for early 2021.

The Bosnian War, in photos.  ‘Meduza’ marks the 25th anniversary of the end of Europe’s bloodiest interethnic conflict since World War II

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/12/14/the-bosnian-war-in-photos

On December 14, 1995, the Dayton Accords were signed in Paris, officially ending the Bosnian War — the bloodiest interethnic conflict in Europe since World War II, which saw about 100,000 people killed between 1992 and 1995. To mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the conflict, Meduza shares photographs from the three-and-a-half years of fighting. In February 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina's authorities announced an independence referendum. At this point, Slovenia and Croatia had already seceded from former socialist Yugoslavia, resulting in two other wars. The majority of (who made up almost half of the local population) and Croatians (the third largest ethno-religious community in Bosnia and Herzegovina) voted in favor of secession. However, the Bosnian Serbs, who made up almost a third of the population, boycotted the referendum and refused to acknowledge the outcome of the vote. They announced the creation of their own independent Republika Srpska, which received support from the led by President Slobodan Milošević. This was followed by the outbreak of the war. The fighting was particularly brutal due to the fact that Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats lived in villages located several kilometers from each other, whereas in larger towns and cities members of these different groups lived side by side. Initially, the Serbs had the advantage in terms of strength and armaments — they made up the majority of soldiers and officers in the former Yugoslav People's Army stationed in Bosnia. But the Bosnian Muslims and the Croats soon manage to restore parity between the forces. At the beginning of the war, the Serbs besieged Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, Sarajevo, which was defended by Bosnian Muslims. They attacked the city from the surrounding hills with artillery fire and sniper shots almost without stopping. In the three years, nearly 9,000 people died in the city, a third of whom were civilians (the Serbs' losses are estimated at about 3,000 people, with civilians also making up a third of the casualties). Much of the hostilities consisted of indiscriminate shelling of cities and villages, as well as ethnic cleansing and genocide of civilians, which was carried out by all parties to the conflict without exception. The UN's attempts to stop the massacres by establishing "Safe Areas" under the protection of peacekeepers didn't always succeed. In July 1995, the Serb forces took the mining town of Srebrenica — in just a few days, they killed around 8,000 local Muslims, including women and children. The UN's peacekeepers, who were responsible for maintaining Srebrenica as a "safe area," actually failed to prevent the mass shootings. Today, the Srebrenica massacre is considered the largest mass killing in Europe since World War II. The Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre were carried out by troops under the command of Ratko Mladić, who was sentenced to life in prison at an International Tribunal in the The Hague in 2017. The final episode of the war was the shelling of the Markale marketplace in Sarajevo in August 1995, which resulted in the deaths of 100 people. After blaming the Bosnian Serb forces for yet another massacre, NATO began intensively bombing their positions, eventually leading them to agree to negotiations. As a result of the Dayton Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina became a confederation made up of two parts: Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country's supreme authority is a three-member Presidency that includes one representative from each ethno-religious group. The Bosnian Serbs initially refused to support the agreement, which they considered unfair, and empowered Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to represent their interests. He, in turn, signed the treaty. Eleven years later, Milošević, indicted for , died in The Hague. Many believed that the peace would be short-lived. Indeed, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains one of the least developed states in Europe, where mass unrest takes place periodically. Nevertheless, the peace has held to this day.

St. Petersburg historian facing 15 years in prison for murdering graduate student girlfriend

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/14/st-petersburg-historian-facing-15-years-in-prison-for-murdering-graduate-student-girlfriend

The prosecution has requested 15 years in a maximum-security prison for former St. Petersburg State University professor Oleg Sokolov, who killed his former graduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko in November 2019. State prosecutors asked that Sokolov be sentenced to 13 years behind bars for Yeshchenko's murder, along with additional time for illegal possession of a weapon. "I admit my guilt completely and regret what I have done. It torments me. But it wasn't deliberate, it was in a state of complete insanity, which was due to terrible insults to my children that were said. Yes, I did it, but I don't know if it can be called intentional, and even more so premeditated. In my opinion — no," Sokolov said, as quoted by RIA Novosti. In November 2019, Oleg Sokolov was pulled from St. Petersburg's Moyka River, carrying a backpack containing a woman's severed hands. He later confessed to killing his former graduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko, with whom he was romantically involved. According to Sokolov, he shot Yeshchenko four times before dismembering her body.

Trial of ex-police officers accused in Golunov case postponed

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/14/trial-of-ex-police-officers-accused-in-golunov-case-postponed

Just minutes after the start of today's hearing in the trial of the former police officers accused of staging Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov's last summer, the Moscow City Court decided to postpone further consideration of the case until Thursday, December 17. The hearing was postponed because the court was unable to establish the status of defense lawyer Alexey Korvizhkin, who claimed that he had been deprived of his right to practice law on October 29, but couldn't provide any supporting documents to the court. Korvizhkin's client, ex-policeman Igor Lyakhovets, then announced that he intends to refuse the services of a lawyer and represent himself in court. Five former Moscow police officers stand accused in the Golunov case: Igor Lyakhovets and his former subordinates Roman Feofanov, Denis Konovalov, Maxim Umetbaev, and Akbar Sergaliev. They are facing charges of fabricating materials in a criminal case and illegal drug possession. According to state investigators, Lyakhovets organized the crime — the prosecution maintains that he was the one who decided to plant the drugs on Golunov, in order to improve his department's clearance rates. Konovalov, who confessed to planting drugs on Ivan Golunov and testified against Lyakhovets, was placed under house arrest. The remaining suspects are being held in pre-trial detention. Umetbaev has pleaded partially guilty of abuse of office: he confessed to beating up Golunov while he was in police custody, but denied any involvement in planting the drugs. During a preliminary hearing on October 28, state prosecutors sought to close the trial to both the media and the public. Ivan Golunov's lawyer, Sergey Badamshin, insisted on an open-door trial. As a result, the Moscow City Court decided not to hold closed-door proceedings.

‘Bellingcat’ joint investigation implicates FSB in Navalny poisoning

meduza.io

https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/12/14/bellingcat-joint-investigation-implicates-fsb-in-navalny-poisoning

A group of operatives from a secret sub-unit of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) were responsible for the on opposition figure Alexey Navalny in Tomsk this summer, says a joint investigation from Bellingcat and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN. By analyzing call metadata, overlapping flight records and previously leaked offline databases, we have identified at least 15 operatives who appear to work within this clandestine sub-unit of the FSB Criminalistics Institute. At least eight of these ... were in close contact at various stages of the operations to tail Navalny and in the days and hours prior to his poisoning. The overlapping flight records revealed that members of this FSB sub-unit had flown to dozens of the same Russian cities as Navalny since 2017 — they were usually traveled in groups of two or three, purchasing tickets under their real or fake names, and attempting to travel on parallel flights (usually from another Moscow airport, rather than on the same flight as Navalny). The group was most active in 2017, when Navalny announced plans to run for president, and in 2020. The investigation identifies the real names and aliases of the eight operatives implicated in Navalny's poisoning. Apparently, three of them were responsible for following the opposition figure on his trip to Novosibirsk and Tomsk in August. While the operatives used burner phones throughout the operation, one of them turned on his main phone on two occasions — once near the hotel where Navalny's colleague Maria Pevchikh was staying in Novosibirsk, and once not far from the hotel where Navalny was staying, according to geolocation data. This sub-unit appears to report to a scientist who previously worked in Russia's military chemical weapons program in Shikhany, where nerve agents from the Novichok family were originally developed, and is supported by a network of other chemical weapons specialists dispersed at several government-run institutes. Moreover, according to the investigation, the attack in Tomsk was the second recent attempt to poison Alexey Navalny this year — less than two months earlier, the same operatives made an attempt on his life in Kaliningrad; apparently causing his wife Yulia to fall mysteriously ill. These aren't FSB operatives working on the orders of an oligarch or an official who I offended with one of my investigations. An entire FSB department under the leadership of high-ranking officials has been conducting an operation for two years, during which they have tried to kill me and my family members several times by obtaining chemical weapons in a secret state laboratory. Of course, an operation of such magnitude and such during can't be organized by anyone other than FSB head Alexander Bortnikov, but he would never have dared do it without President Vladimir Putin's order.

Our Top Weekend Reads

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/19/our-top-weekend-reads-sweden-coronavirus-progressives-biden-arab-spring/

Sweden has long enjoyed a sort of wholesome global image: home of Ikea, Pippi Longstocking, and meatballs in cream sauce. But that reputation has taken a beating during the coronavirus pandemic, as the country became a lone proponent of herd immunity and floundered accordingly. Now, the government has instituted some restrictions, but confusion remains as to how Swedes should behave toward the coronavirus. Meanwhile, progressive groups have developed a robust strategy for laying down roots in U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's foreign-policy ranks. And, a decade after the Arab Spring, a look at the permanence of an enduring, but never consummated, revolution. Here are Foreign Policy's top weekend reads. Rattled by a staggering second wave of coronavirus infections, Swedes are less opposed to mask recommendations and social-distancing guidelines than they are puzzled by their government's chronic mixed messaging—a result of infighting between the prime minister and public health officials, Carl-Johan Karlsson writes. Though progressives have recently won some key posts in Biden's cabinet, his foreign-policy team is still fairly establishment. But the left isn't fretting—yet: Cabinet posts are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to political appointments, and they've got a plan for putting down roots at a lower level, FP's Jack Detsch reports. The Arab Spring was less a coordinated, democratic movement than a series of localized struggles against decades of failed governance. Ten years on, the fact that those struggles instead provoked further repression is not just an indictment of brutal Arab dictatorships, but also of the Western countries that embrace them, Oz Katerji writes. There are fears that the burgeoning civil war in Ethiopia could lead to one of the largest state collapses in modern history. That's ironic given what the conflict is all about: not whether Ethiopia should exist, but how it should be governed, Teferi Mergo writes. China is making inroads in Iran. But observers shouldn't be too worried about the prospect of a robust Beijing-Tehran alliance. China cares far more about courting the West than wooing Iran, and it won't risk further U.S. sanctions by saving Iran from its own financial peril, Wang Xiyue writes.

How the Western Sahara Became the Key to North Africa

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/how-the-western-sahara-became-the-key-to-north-africa/

Fighting erupted last month between Morocco and separatists in the disputed Western Sahara, a territory claimed by Morocco. The sparsely populated region is bordered by Algeria to the east, Mauritania to the east and south, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and Morocco to the north. First, Morocco launched a military operation in a U.N.-controlled buffer zone in a village called Guerguerat. The soldiers removed a camp of 60 peaceful protesters who were blocking traffic between the Moroccan-controlled side of Western Sahara and Mauritania. Then, the pro-independence, Algeria-backed Polisario Front declared an end to the 1991 cease-fire with Morocco and promised a full resumption of fighting. Although the United Nations and the international community have called for restraint on both sides and for the maintenance of the cease-fire, on Nov. 15, the Polisario Front said it was mobilizing "thousands of volunteers" to join its fighters. Since then, there have been reports of exchanges of fire between the two sides. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement this month that the United States would officially recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco normalizing ties with Israel, upending decades of U.N.-led mediation and U.S. diplomatic efforts that aimed to resolve the regional dispute. This U.S. policy shift further increases the likelihood for a resumption of large-scale fighting and intensifies growing regional instability in North Africa. Much is at stake in the Western Sahara conflict. Beyond the threat of fighting between Morocco and the pro-independence forces, there is the potential (albeit unlikely) for direct military clashes between Morocco and Algeria, two of the largest and most well-equipped militaries in Africa. Moreover, many other regional and global actors have vested economic and political interests in the outcome of the conflict, given Western Sahara's strategic position on the Atlantic coastline and its natural resources. If the conflict heats up, in other words, the Western Sahara won't be the only prize at stake. The Western Sahara conflict is more than four decades old, resulting from a dispute over territory that arose after the Spanish colonizers withdrew in 1975. The Moroccan monarchy organized a mass gathering of nearly 350,000 Moroccans into the region, which became known as the Green March. The participants claimed that they were taking back sovereign Moroccan territory. In short order, a war broke out between neighboring Morocco and Mauritania, as well as the Algeria-backed Sahrawi independence movement, later called the Polisario Front. Fighting stopped after a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in 1991, and a plan was set to hold a referendum for self-determination for the Sahrawis, the Indigenous people of Western Sahara. However, no such referendum has ever come to pass, due to disagreements over the questions the referendum would cover (would full independence be an option?) and who would be allowed to vote (would  Moroccans who moved to Western Sahara after 1975 be eligible?). In the meantime, Morocco was able to assert its de facto control over around 75 percent of the disputed land and has invested heavily there in recent decades. The kingdom offers tax breaks and high salaries for civil servants there. While Morocco may have agreed to the 1991 U.N. cease-fire stipulation to hold a referendum, the kingdom has changed its position in practice. It has rejected any referendum that would include full independence as an option. Instead, it has proposed an autonomy plan for the region. Many of the country's Western allies welcomed the move, even though it directly undermines the U.N. promise of self-determination for the Sahrawi people. And so, the conflict remains unresolved, thousands of refugees remain stranded outside the region, and tensions flare up regularly. Political negotiations started back up last year, but they, too, have stalled. Part of the reason for the deadlock is that the Western Sahara is strategically placed on the Atlantic coast and has vast natural resource wealth, including phosphate and shale gas. Since phosphates are a key, and finite, ingredient for synthetic fertilizer, they are a core resource in global food production. The region is also believed to have significant offshore oil and gas reserves, but due to the unresolved conflict, these waters are officially off-limits to exploration. Morocco maintains control over most of the disputed land, and is aiming to turn it into a major economic and investment hub. The kingdom has plans for the construction of a $1 billon port in the Western Sahara coastal city of Dakhla. In January 2020, the Moroccan parliament passed two draft laws to expand the country's territorial waters and to establish an exclusive economic zone that includes waters along the disputed Western Sahara, a move that angered Spain, which controls the waters surrounding the neighboring Canary Islands, and the Polisario Front, which rejects all exploitation of resources by Morocco off the Western Sahara coastline. But Morocco has every reason to push forward. It has been pursuing a significant economics-driven foreign-policy shift toward sub-Saharan Africa, especially since it rejoined the African Union after a 33-year hiatus. It is seeking to become a member of the Economic Community of Western African States and is investing in ambitious projects such as a Morocco-Nigeria trans-African gas pipeline, a project that could help reduce European reliance on Russian gas. All of this is part of the North African kingdom's ambitions to become an economic hub connecting Europe and Africa. The disputed Western Sahara territory is an integral piece of land in this puzzle. The conflict concerns more than just regional rivals Algeria, Mauritania, and Morocco. Other regional and global powers are closely following the dispute. Morocco's main trade and investment partners include European countries, the United States, Persian Gulf Arab states, and, increasingly, China. All of the Gulf states, in a rare show of unity, expressed solidarity and support for Morocco's position. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have taken this a step further by establishing consulates in the disputed territory. Groups such as the UAE's Dubai Port World are likely eyeing significant investment opportunities in the Dakhla port, as well as the fruits of greater connectivity between European and African markets through Morocco's infrastructure projects. China, meanwhile, views the northwest African hub as a major partner for expanding its flagship project, the Belt and Road Initiative. Morocco has embarked on major infrastructure projects, such as a high-speed train connecting financial hub Casablanca to Tangier, a city less than 10 miles from Europe and home to the Mediterranean's and Africa's largest port by capacity. Morocco's King Mohammed VI has also publicly called for expanding the railways south, toward Marrakech and Agadir, and even further into the disputed Western Sahara territory to connect the cities of Laayoune and the coastal port city of Dakhla. Chinese and French companies are already competing to build the Marrakech-Agadir leg of the railway. The Mohamed VI Tangier Tech City is set to receive $1 billion of financing from China's Haite group and will host more than 200 Chinese businesses. Chinese companies, along with European, Japanese, and American ones, are also gravitating toward Morocco's growing automotive manufacturing industry. Over the years, there has even been talk of building an undersea transportation tunnel between Morocco and Spain. Russia is also seeking to expand its influence across North Africa. Moscow has engaged with both Morocco and the Polisario Front and supports a U.N. solution to the conflict. Although Russia has historically maintained closer ties with Algeria, a function of the Cold War era alliance system, and provides most of Algeria's weapons, Russia is also increasingly interested in Morocco and the Western Sahara coastlines and energy exploration. Last month, Morocco and Russia signed a new agreement on maritime fisheries cooperation, allowing 10 Russian trawlers to fish in Moroccan waters, replacing a similar 2016 deal (and the eighth such agreement since 1992). Sources such as Western Sahara Resource Watch say that that deal primarily includes waters off the coast of Western Sahara, a violation of international law. In 2019, meanwhile, the European Parliament approved a four-year Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Morocco. This agreement explicitly includes Western Sahara waters, which violates European Court of Justice rulings. France and Spain are two of Morocco's most important economic partners, though, and are eager to find a solution to the conflict and dispel many of the diplomatic blocks lying in the way of fully exploiting Western Sahara waters and resources. Morocco is a valuable economic partner, as well as a major defense ally. It plays a significant role in regional counterterrorism efforts and in managing migration flows between Africa and Europe, a top priority for Europe. The United States has traditionally acted as a mediator in the Western Sahara dispute, and has expressed support for Morocco's autonomy plan on the grounds that it represents a realistic compromise "that could satisfy the aspirations of Western Sahara." The Trump administration, under the direction of then National Security Advisor John Bolton, stepped up diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict at the end of 2018, helping to organize the first direct talks in six years between Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria, and Mauritania. After two rounds of talks held in Geneva, however, the U.N. envoy resigned, allegedly over pressure from Morocco, as well as from France on the Security Council. Morocco was concerned about these talks because of the involvement of Bolton, a well-known supporter of self-determination for the Sahrawis. After the resignation, negotiations stalled again. Trump's 11th-hour decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara only weeks after the resumption of hostilities ignited yet another foreign-policy fire that the Biden administration will have to put out in January.  No matter how you spin it, Trump's decision was a win for Morocco—and it will be hard to walk back. The Biden administration will not want to risk Morocco-Israel normalization, which is now directly tied to U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. However much the new administration promises to restore human rights to U.S. foreign policy, the self-determination of Sahrawis will likely not be considered a high priority. Morocco's autonomy plan, for which the United States and its European allies had already expressed support even before Trump's decision, will be presented as the only realistic way forward. Given the geopolitical and regional realities surrounding Western Sahara, Morocco will probably get its way. But it's important to remember that the Sahrawis and their supporters won't give in without a fight.

Why India’s Farmers Won’t Stop Protesting

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/india-farmers-wont-stop-protesting/

Since late November, tens of thousands of Indian farmers have marched to New Delhi and blocked the highways leading into the city, protesting against three bills that passed in both houses of India's Parliament in September. The demonstrations have since spread to other parts of the country with farmers blocking roads and railway tracks, and limiting the movement of people and goods, including farm produce. What are the bills in question? Listing them may feel cumbersome, but in the interest of understanding their value—and the immense scale of the protests against them—they are: 1) the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act; 2) the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act; and 3) the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act. The first two laws expand the marketing infrastructure provided by India's state-level governments and allow direct marketing of farm products to processors, aggregators, wholesalers, large retailers, and exporters. The third law seeks to facilitate the production, movement, and distribution of farm produce by removing existing regulatory barriers. While economists have long acknowledged the need for agricultural reforms in India, the ongoing protests likely have more to do with how the new laws were rolled out: The bills were all passed using the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary majority, and without suitable consultation with key stakeholders such as farmer unions. The passage of the legislation also displayed all the hallmarks that have come to characterize Prime Minister Narendra Modi's key decisions, ranging from a botched policy of demonetization in 2016, a hasty rollout of a goods and services tax in 2017, and then a nationwide lockdown with four hours' notice this year to contain the spread of the coronavirus. India's farm policy architecture is a holdover from the 1960s when the country was poor and food insecure. Policies were put in place with food security as the primary goal. While this set of laws allowed India to achieve advances in food production by the 1980s, the farm sector has suffered a decline in public investment, a lack of marketing alternatives, and stagnant rural incomes. Almost everyone, including farmers, agree that India's farm policies need to change; however, there is little agreement on the details of those reforms. In the early 2000s, the government at the time encouraged Indian states to design and enact reforms, but predictably every state adopted only piecemeal policy changes that did not hurt key interests within the state. As a result, there is no uniformity in policies and laws across the country. Ostensibly, the laws that the Indian Parliament enacted in September were designed to reduce regulatory interference from the government and to fix that lack of uniformity and create a national policy. The intention was to make it easier to bring private investment—both domestic and foreign—into India's farm sector. The laws promise to provide more freedom to farmers to trade outside state-designated markets and to private traders to move, distribute, and export farm produce. However, the farmers are apprehensive for several reasons. First, more than 85 percent of India's farmers own farms smaller than three acres. These farmers mostly engage in subsistence farming and sell their surpluses, when available, to private traders. The average income of farmers has remained low, at just over $1,000 a year, making them highly sensitive to fears over market fluctuations. And while there is a great deal of variation within this group of farmers, they are not likely to benefit from the legislation the government has announced. Past experience with marketing reform from Indian states has shown that small farmers are likely to gain only from well-considered reforms of existing infrastructure—not a complete deregulation that the new laws propose. The government-appointed Dalwai Committee, which published its final report in 2018, recommended that the government should radically change India's farming policy ecosystem from a supply-focused, government-led one-to-one that would be demand-focused and market-based. Such a retreat would further reduce public investment into the farm sector. These farmers are also afraid that this changing policy environment and rising corporate power would result in a loss of both land and livelihood. Another concern about the new laws comes from farmers who sell their produce either to the government or to private traders but who enjoy the security of floor prices guaranteed by the government—officially referred to as the minimum support price. Despite assurances built into the new laws, most farmers deem them to be vague and are less than confident enough to rely on them. Farmers fear that the new legislation will weaken government-designated markets in which most transactions have taken place in past decades. While many lament the stranglehold the aggregators at these market yards have had over farmers, the existence of these markets and the traders within them offered the advantage of a minimum support price—a floor farmers are afraid they could lose. They see the weakening of the markets as a reflection of the government's increasing retreat from the farm sector. After all, while the farm sector provides livelihoods to more than half the population of India, its contribution to the Indian GDP has been declining: During the past two decades the percentage of the country's GDP from the farm sector has declined from 23 percent to 16 percent. Part of the problem lies in the fact that many of the farms are small and thereby cannot benefit from economies of scale. Yet this is the source of livelihood for many farmers who fear that without government intervention they will soon be left to the mercies of the emerging agri-business sector in India. Most contemporary developed economies have gone through a period where the population is dependent on a declining farming sector even as the strength of manufacturing grows, absorbing labor. But in India, the manufacturing sector has not been able to create much employment. Indeed, for a variety of complex reasons, India appears to have almost entirely skipped this particular stage of economic evolution. Instead, the country focused on service industries and most notably the information technology sector, which almost by design can only absorb a miniscule segment of the country's burgeoning population. Though technology contributes as much as 8 percent of the country's GDP, it employs a mere 3.9 million individuals, or less than a third of 1 percent of the population. Consequently, farm employment is expected to remain a mainstay of the Indian economy—at least in terms of employment—for decades. In an economy that has cratered virtually across the board since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the farming sector has provided a much-needed buffer to those who have had to return to their villages. Preserving the agricultural sector, even as it fails to deliver high incomes, has been an entirely understandable rallying cry across much of India, and especially in its breadbasket in the northwest of the country. Even if one assumes that the government's intent in pushing through agricultural reforms was well-meaning, the abrupt passage of such sweeping legislation, without adequate consultation, has led to a seeming impasse with a range of farming organizations. Despite several rounds of talks, a deadlock persists. The government may believe that a firm stance toward the farmers, along with some cosmetic gestures, will ensure the protests dissipate before long. But those hopes may underestimate the enduring importance of farming for India's labor market, especially amid the tumult of the pandemic.

Is the Cyberattack Big News—or Just a Footnote In a Year Like No Other?

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/is-the-cyberattack-big-news-or-just-a-footnote-in-a-year-like-no-other/

Emma Ashford: It is, and thank goodness you're here. I have a problem. Foreign Policy just published an article by President Donald Trump's former National Security Advisor-turned-critic John Bolton—and I agree with him. This has never happened before. EA: I didn't want to pay to read the memoir. But seriously, Bolton wrote an article arguing that the Trump administration's new deal with Morocco is a bad idea. The deal recognizes the disputed territory of Western Sahara as a part of Morocco in exchange for Morocco improving its relations with Israel. And Bolton argues that this is ridiculous: Morocco and Israel already had good tacit relations, and that it violates a commitment to take the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara seriously. MK: Well, I often agree with Bolton and I think I do on this issue as well. Foreign policy is about making difficult trade-offs, and there are real benefits to convincing majority-Muslim countries to formally recognize Israel, so that is an upside to this deal. But the cost—undermining the international process for resolving the territorial dispute in Western Sahara through a referendum, which Bolton helped craft as an aide to then-Secretary of State James Baker in the early 1990s—may have been too great. EA: It reminds me of our earlier discussion about Trump and his strange willingness to ignore U.S. foreign-policy needs to hand Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu political wins, whether in Sudan, Kosovo, or elsewhere. We'll have to see whether this decision outlives the end of the Trump presidency. MK: This is a real problem, and what is worrying is what we don't know. In addition to the agencies hit, some fear that departments dealing directly with international security—like the Defense Department or the intelligence community—might have also been compromised. Cyberspace is becoming among the most contested domains of international security. Shame on the United States for not having better cyber-defenses in place. EA: It's funny. If you asked people about the biggest cyberattacks in history, they'd probably name Stuxnet in Iran or Russian attacks on Ukraine's power grid, or other big, showy incidents. But in reality, one of the biggest and most consequential incidents was the (likely) Chinese hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management a few years back, where hackers stole a huge amount of personal and security clearance information. This incident falls into that same category, and it's an important reminder—as Joshua Rovner of American University has argued—that cyber-tools are typically used for espionage rather than anything more destructive. MK: I was going to make the pedantic point that cyberespionage is not technically an "attack," but the more substantive point is that we shouldn't treat cyberspace as a special domain. If Russian commandos physically broke into the Commerce Department and stole files, then how would the U.S. government respond? That is how we should respond in this case. Because it actually happened during the Cold War, and Washington considered it a normal part of state-on-state espionage operations. MK: If commandos broke into the Commerce Department, U.S. diplomats would raise it in public and private diplomacy with Russia—and hold those personally involved responsible. The U.S. government should do the same in this case. The scope of the SolarWinds attack remains unknown. But I don't think there is a lot that U.S. officials can or should do about it, other than reinforcing U.S. defenses—at least not if Americans want to keep these tools of espionage for their own use. MK: It was an eventful year! And there are many candidates for the most significant event, from the killing of Qassem Suleimani in January to the conclusion of the U.S. presidential election with the Electoral College vote earlier this week. But, the most significant event of the year was certainly the COVID-19 pandemic. It killed more people than most wars and changed the way we all worked and lived, perhaps forever. I do think the more important long-term trend, however, may be the deterioration in U.S.-China relations and the return of great-power rivalry. With any luck, vaccinations will be successful and COVID-19 will soon be behind us. But I fear that competition with China will be with us for a generation or more. EA: Yeah, 2020 has been… something. More than 300,000 Americans dead of COVID-19, and perhaps another 50,000 will pass away before the end of the year. It's almost enough to make you forget that the United States almost started a war with Iran in January, and maybe sponsored a coup attempt in Venezuela in May. Interestingly, though, it really does look like the biggest long-term foreign-policy implications of COVID-19 will be the increased U.S.-China rivalry. As I recently wrote, U.S. structural power seems fairly unaffected, other than perhaps an increased deficit. U.S. military readiness is also mostly unaffected. And the negative soft power effects of Trump's terrible response to the virus are probably outweighed by the fact that U.S. companies like Moderna were among the first to respond, creating and distributing a vaccine in less than a year. MK: Oh no. It sounds like we agree almost completely. I can, however, raise a possible point of disagreement: Looking back on 2020, the biggest thing many analysts got wrong was that Trump was a dictator in waiting, undermining the rule of law and destroying U.S. influence and the rules-based system. Lest we forget, the impeachment hearings also happened in 2020. In the end, however, we have seen that the American democratic system and its international position are much more resilient than many appreciated. All it took was a Democrat to be elected president for the Twittersphere to regain its confidence in the country. EA: Oh, God. It says something about this year that I literally forgot the impeachment. But I think you're overstating it. Just because the U.S. system was resilient to Trump in this case doesn't mean that there hasn't been damage to the system—and to norms overall. The president of the United States is still ranting on Twitter that the election was rigged after the Electoral College voted. His party continues to partly support him. If this election had been closer, we might be in serious trouble. Can we shift back outside the United States, though? I want to get back to the China question. In addition to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 was also the year we saw Chinese crackdowns in Hong Kong, and a growing body of evidence about their terrible treatment of the Uighurs. It seems to me that Washington has really flubbed the response to these developments, with the Trump administration being simultaneously too confrontational toward Beijing while ignoring these human rights developments. MK: I disagree. A more confrontational approach was needed. And Mike Pompeo's State Department made China's human rights practices a priority with a number of measures, including sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party officials involved. And there is growing international concern: Europeans are not focused on the Chinese military threat, but they do care about human rights. The United States is building a counterbalancing coalition against Beijing thanks largely to the egregious actions of the CCP. EA: Yeah, but when the president simultaneously tells Xi Jinping that it's fine to build camps for the Uighurs, you can see why they're getting mixed messages. Here's an interesting factoid: As the impacts of COVID-19 fade, trade is coming back, and so is support for free trade. That's a place where Trump's legacy is already disappearing. MK: I suspect the uptick in trade with China is temporary and that there will be a continued decoupling of the two economies—the strategic rationale for doing so is simply too great. EA: Well, the American people evidently don't think so. Trapped at home during the pandemic, they have actually been ordering more stuff from China! Maybe it will be short-lived, but it's notable that COVID-19 didn't actually snip the supply chains the way some suggested they would. I continue to think Trump's trade legacy is ephemeral. MK: Many are asking about the future of Republican foreign policy and whether Trumpism continues after Trump. I am of the view that it won't. Trump has long been a worldwide celebrity with a unique personality. That is a large part of his appeal. There is no one—certainly not any career politician—who can easily adopt his persona and pick up that mantle. His support was certainly not due to his foreign-policy positions. Political scientists have repeatedly shown that, unlike with domestic policy or culture war issues, the American public does not know much about, or have strong opinions on, foreign policy. Politicians, therefore, have a lot of running room in this area. I suspect, therefore, that we will see a return to a more traditional Republican foreign policy in the near future. EA: Probably a topic for a longer discussion, but I think you're partly right. A traditional Republican foreign policy—most notably in support of traditional U.S. partnerships and hostility to dictators—is probably coming back. But it's going to be shaped by Trump, and in particular by the notions of those who attempted to turn his foreign-policy foibles into policy. After all, the Republican foreign-policy elite is no longer Bill Kristol and the neoconservatives. Today it's people like James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and Bolton, people who offer a more coherent version of Trumpism: hawkish, nationalistic, and unilateralist foreign policy. We'll probably learn more about the post-Trump direction of the Republican Party over the next few years. MK: It is our last column of 2020. What do you predict we will be talking about this time next year? What is the biggest story of 2021? After all, I'm sure we would have correctly predicted a once-in-a-century pandemic if only given the opportunity. EA: I would have preferred to predict it at the bookies, not in this column! As 2020 proved, predictions are notoriously hard. But I think we can predict some things with pretty good accuracy. The Biden administration will return to the Iran nuclear deal, struggle to put together a coherent set of invitees to its "summit of democracies," and see internal conflict between President-elect Joe Biden and his own advisors over issues like Afghanistan, Syria, and Russia. MK: There will certainly be plenty to debate. Until then, have a happy holiday and New Year. MK: Well then, I hope that those who are celebrating it have a merry Christmas and that everyone can enjoy a much-deserved break after a year most people would rather forget.

Trump Leaves Biden Administration a Parting Gift in Currency Wars

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/trump-leaves-biden-administration-a-parting-gift-in-currency-wars/

The U.S. Treasury Department's decision this week to label both Vietnam and Switzerland currency manipulators lacked precedent and raised plenty of eyebrows. Labeling even one country a manipulator is a rare and headline-grabbing event. Until now, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had named only one country, China, a currency manipulator—only to remove it later. Never had the Treasury designated two countries in one fell swoop. You could be forgiven for having expected a more vigorous overhaul of U.S. policies on currency manipulation during the Trump administration. After all, in 2015, Trump vowed to name China a currency manipulator on his first day in the Oval Office. As president, he launched accusations of currency manipulation on Twitter. Decrying the United States' trade deficits, he overhauled decades of official U.S. policy on trade. And if one's goal is to reduce the overall trade deficit, the natural complement to trade policy becomes currency policy. Still, given the lack of real follow-through to official changes to U.S. currency policy, it would be tempting to interpret this week's designations as a last-ditch quack of disruption by a lame-duck administration. To the contrary, this action underscores the continuity of currency manipulation policy under Trump, which underwent only minor tweaks of the Treasury Department rules formulated under the administration of former President Barack Obama. So why label Switzerland and Vietnam—and only those two countries—as currency manipulators now? For starters, the Treasury Department's hands were tied in a way that, like the announcement itself, lacked precedent. Since the 2015 legislation requiring the Treasury to promulgate specific criteria for identifying currency manipulation came into effect, Switzerland and Vietnam are the only two countries ever to meet all three of the Treasury's criteria: running a big trade surplus with the United States, running a large current account surplus, and intervening heavily in foreign-exchange markets to artificially weaken a currency. For context, China was labeled a currency manipulator after meeting only one of the three. Two of the Treasury's three criteria address the types of trade imbalances that can emerge for any number of reasons and in lots of countries. Vietnam and Switzerland have met these criteria before: that, in the past 12 months, the country have run a bilateral trade surplus in goods with the United States of at least $20 billion and that it have an overall current account surplus of 2 percent of its gross domestic product. But it was the third criterion that nailed Vietnam and Switzerland. If a country undertakes "persistent, one-sided intervention" to weaken its currency by at least 2 percent of GDP over a 13-month period and already meets the other two conditions, the Treasury effectively then has to label it a currency manipulator. Why were they now trying so hard to push their own currencies down? Vietnam, a rising export power, has a history of undervaluing its currency, as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative recently alleged in opening a Section 301 investigation into the country. A cheaper currency means more competitive exports. But, partly due to the Trump administration's tariffs on Chinese goods, Vietnam has seen a surge in foreign investment, since Vietnamese factories can still ship goods to the United States tariff-free. An influx of foreign investment would tend to drive up the value of Vietnam's currency, which would make those newfound exports that much less competitive. Vietnamese authorities, fearing the pace of currency appreciation, seem to have wanted to mitigate that through large-scale interventions, thus running afoul of the Treasury. In the case of Switzerland, all the global carnage and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic played to the Swiss franc's reputation as a safe haven, inducing sharp upward pressure on the currency. But a stronger franc would mean lower prices in Switzerland, threatening to turn negligible Swiss inflation, already less than half of 1 percent in 2019, negative. And negative inflation—deflation—triggers a vicious cycle of economic contraction. Inflation may induce anxiety on Wall Street, but deflationary spirals are (and were) the stuff of great depressions. And there are other potential pitfalls that may come from the Treasury report. While acknowledging Switzerland's legitimate growth and inflation concerns, the report said that Swiss authorities can reduce the need for unconventional monetary policy "by raising labor force participation rates and productivity growth." But faulting other countries for relying on monetary policy to shore up deficiencies elsewhere may soon come back to bite Washington. For instance, the United States faced complaints of currency manipulation from countries such as Brazil in response to the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program, which helped shore up a tottering U.S. economy but had the effect of weakening the dollar. Today, the dollar is again weakening as the Federal Reserve undertakes unconventional measures to help a U.S. economy in a crisis. The United States, then, may soon find itself hearing the Treasury's critique of Switzerland turned back on itself. So what happens next between the United States and these two countries? The only certainty is that the Treasury will conduct "enhanced bilateral engagement" with each country that "will include urging the development of a plan with specific policy actions to address the underlying causes" of external imbalances. But there is little chance that either country addresses those "underlying causes," even if the United States were to threaten more than loss of access to government procurement programs. In undervaluing its currency, Vietnam's authoritarian government is choosing to decrease how much stuff every Vietnamese citizen can buy in order to have fewer unemployed. In Switzerland, the national government tends not to issue bonds because it eschews budget deficits that need financing. This is one reason the Swiss central bank turns to currency interventions, rather than purchases of government bonds, to try to save its economy from deflation. In both countries, the external imbalances have deep roots in the foundations of domestic governance. They're unlikely to change due to a semiannual Treasury report. Instead, the most likely legacy of this announcement likely lies in its effect on government in the United States. Inheriting these "enhanced bilateral engagements," the likely next Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, and her colleagues may well choose to continue them. In that case, the Treasury starts off with the gift of an existing bilateral forum in which to press Switzerland and Vietnam even on issues unrelated to currencies per se. If, however, the Biden administration symbolically delists the countries without extracting any concessions right away, they'll start off by making a mockery of the Treasury's existing currency manipulation regime. Either way, the clock on Biden's first shot at currency policy is shorter. But the Trump administration now leaves behind a situation that could embarrass any Biden administration eager to soften U.S. policy on currency manipulation. After the past four years and the flurry of last-minute announcements, it's tempting to presume that all disruptions from U.S. policy are due to disruptions to that policy. But the Treasury's criteria on currency manipulators—despite all that has changed about U.S. international economic policy—are largely unchanged from the Obama administration and will continue at least into the Biden administration's opening days. Sometimes, the continuity of U.S. policy in a world that never stands still is the real source of surprise.

Sweden’s Second Wave Is a Failure of Government—and Guidance

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/sweden-second-covid-wave-failure-of-government-guidance/

In late November, the Swedish government finally caved. The country had attracted attention worldwide earlier this year for ignoring calls to implement a lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic's first peak, as the government favored recommendations to hard regulation. But at long last, facing a perilous second wave of coronavirus cases, the Swedish government introduced its very first commercial ban: Bars and restaurants would close after 10:30 p.m. After watching Sweden with confusion—and sometimes horror—many onlookers from abroad saw the move as the final verdict on whether governments should implement bans or just recommendations as the pandemic rages on. Even Swedes, they thought, were finally being told what to do. Admittedly, foreigners' disdain for the country's approach hasn't been unwarranted: My fellow Swedes have been ignoring the government's loose guidelines this whole time. Without bans, they're still huddling together in malls and sitting knee to knee in bars (now before 10:30 p.m.) as the death toll has risen to nearly 8,000 in a nation of 10 million—a figure higher than that of all its neighboring countries combined. Criticism of the authorities is mounting from within the country as well. Here, however, the conversation is more nuanced. What people are calling for isn't more restrictions or a lockdown but simply what the Swedish government promised from the outset: clarity. When Sweden braced for its first COVID-19 outbreak in February, the Public Health Agency, spearheaded by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, emphasized the importance of giving clear instructions to the public. The plan was for these guidelines to allow Swedes to make responsible choices while still being able to go about their daily lives—and to keep the economy going—while the Public Health Agency adjusted the recommendations as the situation developed. Of course, a lack of clarity in the national response has become the norm instead, and what was labeled a "trust-based" approach by the health authorities has become a source of confusion. Two things in particular have caused dysfunction and made it all too easy for Swedes to ignore official recommendations: First, there are too many guidelines—ranging from how to shop and eat out to how to attend church—which vary between the country's 21 regions. And second, there is a growing disconnect between the recommendations of the ruling party and those of the Public Health Agency, which by constitutional law acts independently of the government. The best example of how confusing Sweden's guidelines have been is the debate over masks. Whether to wear masks has been a perpetual issue since the pandemic began: The Public Health Agency advised against "general" mask use but maintained that masks "could" be useful in certain places such as on public transportation—with the caveat that masks could also be counterproductive as they may grant people a "false sense of security." Throughout the pandemic, Tegnell in particular has stressed that there is a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of masks and warned Swedes about the supposed risks of people wearing masks the wrong way. Eventually, on Dec. 18, the Public Health Agency announced that the updated guidelines will in fact include wearing masks on public transportation during peak hours. Tegnell fended off criticism by saying that "whoever wants to can wear a mask." That may be, but the individual decision to wear a mask is just at the top of a long laundry list of other choices Swedes have to make on a given day. That list includes if and how to shop for nonessential goods (the city of Malmo's largest mall had to temporarily shut down as shoppers neglected national social distancing guidelines on Black Friday), whether to visit loved ones in nursing homes (regulations and/or recommendations depend on region and/or relationship), and whether to eat out at restaurants (Prime Minister Stefan Lofven says to stay at home, while Tegnell approves of eating Christmas buffets in restaurants as long as guidelines are followed). Mixed messaging, especially between Lofven and Tegnell, has only further confused the public. When the pandemic began, the Public Health Agency called the shots under Tegnell. But as opposition parties have now lashed out at the ruling center-left coalition and accused it of botching the pandemic response, that coalition has started to take action without consulting the Public Health Agency. And yet the reality is that even if the ruling party wished to roll out stricter regulations, its powers are fairly limited. During the peak of the first coronavirus wave in April, parliament granted the government a temporary license to shut down restaurants, malls, gyms, and public transport, should the pandemic worsen. However, the law was never used, and after its expiration at the end of June, the government failed to extend the emergency legislation, because the health authorities forecast that herd immunity would protect Swedes from a large-scale second wave. Of course, the prediction proved gravely wrong, and Sweden now has one of the highest per-capita death rates in Europe. Even though the government is drafting new emergency legislation, it's not expected to come into force until March 2021 at the earliest—two months after vaccinations are expected to arrive in the country. By now, it's hard to imagine that the world will remember Sweden's handling of the pandemic as anything other than a deadly blunder. But beyond the many lives lost, there's an added layer of tragedy in that the Swedish voluntary model could have been at least a partial blueprint for other countries if the authorities had not fumbled it so greatly. Sweden could have managed without a lockdown had the government, for instance, fully closed nursing homes to visitors before the virus started to spread. The ruling party could also have better prepared—and braced the Swedish people—for a second wave, even as health authorities deemed another large-scale outbreak unlikely. Indeed, where Sweden messed up was its execution. The model was designed to protect the old, but the authorities didn't take into account that nursing homes would reel from decades of neglect and lack of resources; the plan was to give people freedom in exchange for responsibility, but authorities failed to deliver clear enough guidance for people to even be responsible. If the government had prized clarity—and if it had put aside its political squabbles to present a unified response—the criticism heaped upon Sweden might instead have become praise for not buckling under misplaced international condemnation.

Your Digital Footprint Is Worryingly Easy to Match to Reality

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/digital-footprint-match-reality-information-online-privacy-protection/

As a person who helps other people manage their digital footprint, I actually dislike the phrase "manage your digital footprint"—it sounds corporatist, bland, and frankly neurotic. But it's also pretty serious. Your digital footprint is not just about an embarrassing "that's what she said" tweet you posted that one time at 2 a.m. In fact, the information we reveal online can be a personal and/or operational security risk. If you need proof, please consider the case of the Japanese singer who was assaulted after a stalker figured out her location by zooming in on the reflection in her eyes. Whether you have a sensitive job, are going through a difficult divorce, believe you may be being stalked online—or, God forbid, all of the above—the impact of inadvertently revealing too much on the internet can be tremendous. Even when life is relatively calm, it's always good to keep a handle on how what you reveal could end up being used, and by whom. And if, like a lot of Foreign Policy readers, you work in government, diplomacy, or other sensitive areas, then it's not just your own life that's affected. First of all, don't be paranoid. I know this sounds like a tall order in the year 2020, but paranoia simply saps us of energy. It's not productive. Instead, assess the situation soberly. I like this piece from Maria Farrell and my former colleagues at the Conversationalist, which essentially argues that we have an abusive relationship with our technology right now. We love our gadgets, but we can't entirely trust them. For that, we need better legislation on tech and a better mindset. But there are ways to improve the relationship we have with technology—and with other people through it. One of the first ways to do that is to understand how the rules online are always changing. What seemed "safe" a few years ago may not be so safe today. In a world that has Google Street View and apps like the beer rating service Untappd or the fitness tracker Strava that give away far more about us than we might otherwise think, our location is usually easier to figure out than we believe. These changes won't be the last ones; the possibility of bleeding our information into the internet only increases with time. Malicious actors, be they creepy stalkers or foreign intelligence operatives, can and do cross-reference our information. For example, if you have your location posted on your public Twitter account, and you frequently post cropped but nevertheless distinctive photos from your city block, you've already given someone the tools they need to narrow down the options as to where you live. Geolocation is merely the process of elimination. Give people enough data points—a distinctive curb, a prominent background landmark, and so on—and they'll be able to find you. Here's just one personal example of how it can work, in which I challenged people to guess where I was based on a single photo. Because I'd previously alerted my subscribers to the fact that I was traveling in Virginia, they found me despite the fact that the picture I posted seemed random. I laughed and told him that I would never just tag without asking, but I was upset to learn that many other people in his life not only didn't ask but would actively go against his wishes when tagging him online, exposing his personal life in ways that made him feel increasingly uncomfortable. You don't have to have safety concerns to opt out of being featured in other people's posts. Sometimes all it takes is an unpleasantly nosy ex, and, let's face it, life is stressful enough without worrying about those people. Apps like Facebook that actively encourage tagging don't help when it comes to normalizing a process too often done without other people's consent. When it comes to public posts, it's also helpful to familiarize yourself with topics such as EXIF data, which gives us details about how and where a picture was taken, and how it can work across different platforms and websites. The same goes for the metadata on any files you may publicly upload—this is especially important if you manage your own website. There are pockets of information in the work that you are showcasing, and that information can and does get exploited. Meanwhile, tools in photo editing apps can be a godsend for when you want to tweet a photo or post it to Facebook but don't really want it to give too much away.  For some reason, a lot of the people I talk to—older men especially, some of whom hold leadership positions in the military and politics—still think that photo editing apps are there for a younger woman to get rid of an annoying zit in a picture. They don't realize how useful these apps are for blurring a distinctive background, a vehicle license plate, or, say, a document that's on your desk. A lot of people ask me if they should stop posting pictures altogether, but I think that all depends on what you do and your own comfort level. The one thing I absolutely ask people not to do is to post the view from their home windows—even if there is an adorable cat perched on the windowsill. Speaking of our pets, you'll be surprised how many people will post a picture of an animal while its tag, which gives away sensitive information like the owner's phone number, is fully visible. The ability to zoom, zoom, zoom as seen in Hollywood movies may not exist, but a lot more can be picked out of a clear shot than you might think. Same goes for pictures in which you are holding your mail. And don't even get me started on military personnel who think they're being "anonymous" while forgetting to blur out name tapes and, sometimes, even dog tags. Again, a simple blurring tool can save you a lot of trouble when it comes to pictures like that. Yet at the same time, when it comes to anonymity, our safest bet is to never count on it. People who believe in anonymity online tend to find out the hard way just how wrong they are—especially if they're, say, trolling public officials on Twitter or conducting an affair. I'm not saying Foreign Policy readers, a very sober and clean-living bunch, would ever do such things, but it's always better to just assume that your business is more public than it is private. Again, this simply cuts down on trouble. If all of this is overwhelming and stressful, consider the fact that, at the same time, there is a lot of white noise on the internet. A lot of what we do online drowns in that white noise. Meanwhile, scandals involving say, leaked nude photos, are becoming so common that public standards will shift on them eventually. This may be an uncomfortable topic for some, but most women my age and younger have sent nudes. Men do it without even asking if the recipient is interested. Publicly posted information doesn't exist in a vacuum—it exists at an intersection of political and social mores. Those change over time. When it comes to the politicians of 2040, a leaked pic from a vengeful ex hopefully won't matter—but a statement that might have passed as edgy in 2020 could seem outright bigoted. Changes mean that none of us is ever fully in control of our digital footprint, or of life in general. And that's OK. The best thing we can do is play along and be as conscientious and as kind to others as we can. If infosec in 2020 taught me anything, it taught me this.

Personnel Cuts Leave USAID With Skeleton Crew to Monitor Nearly $1 Billion of Aid Programs in Iraq

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/usaid-aid-programs-iraq-personnel-cuts/

An eleventh-hour drawdown of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Iraq is leaving a skeleton crew of full-time American aid officials, in addition to locally hired staff, to monitor nearly $1 billion worth of foreign aid programs, current and former officials told Foreign Policy. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo moved forward with plans to withdraw dozens of diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, officials and congressional aides said, a preemptive safety measure amid potential security threats tied to the one-year anniversary of the U.S. killing of a top Iranian military commander last January. The decision roughly halved both the number of U.S. diplomats and also that of full-time U.S. foreign aid officials at the embassy, current and former officials as well as congressional aides familiar with the matter said. The move, they said, will leave only four full-time U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers in place, in addition to locally hired employees, at the embassy to monitor hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars' worth of foreign aid programs. Former officials and humanitarian workers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would be difficult, if not impossible, for such a limited staff to ensure so much aid funding is properly implemented without mismanagement or graft. While some described the decision as quickly reversible, it comes amid a broader, last-minute drawdown of military and diplomatic personnel from Iraq in the final weeks of Donald Trump's presidency that some in Congress fear could undermine Iraq's stability and open a vacuum for Iran and its proxies to gain even more influence in the country. "If Iran wants us out of Iraq and we are leaving under pressure, we are giving them just what they want," said a Senate aide familiar with the matter. The drawdown also reflected mounting frustration in Congress over the administration's handling of the Middle East. Members and staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee had been requesting briefings on staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad since September and October. Administration officials did not inform Congress about the decision before the news was published in advance, in stories from Politico and the Washington Post, according to several congressional aides familiar with the matter. In a statement to Foreign Policy, acting USAID spokesperson Pooja Jhunjhunwala would not comment on staff numbers, citing security concerns, but said that the agency "continually adjusts its posture at Embassies and Consulates throughout the world" depending on the mission, local security, and holidays. Jhunjhunwala said the relocation of USAID staff would not impact local Iraqi employees, who are on telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency has also brought in third-party monitors on contract to attempt to ensure accountability for its projects. "The proper oversight of U.S. taxpayer funds spent on foreign development is paramount to USAID," she added. A State Department spokesperson also declined to comment specifically on the movement of staff and did not address questions on the criticisms from Capitol Hill. The spokesperson said that ensuring the safety and security of U.S. citizens, government personnel, and facilities "remains our highest priority." The spokesperson added that the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Matthew Tueller, remains in Iraq and the embassy in Baghdad continues to operate. Democrats in Congress said the move is another parting shot from the Trump administration that could make life more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden. When State Department officials did brief lawmakers on the issue in early December, they described the departures from the embassy as a "temporary and readily reversible" decision, linked to heightened threats to U.S. government personnel and troops in Iraq from Iran, according to the Senate aide. This is the second wave of personnel drawdowns at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in the past year. The Trump administration ordered the departure of diplomatic and aid personnel last year that dramatically reduced the size of the staff and left in place less than two dozen USAID officials. According to a Senate aide familiar with the matter, the new order will leave less 100 full time employees. The United States earmarked about $960 million worth of aid to Iraq in fiscal year 2019 and $197 million in fiscal year 2020 so far, according to data from USAID. The diplomatic and aid shrinkage in Iraq coincides with a last-minute military pullback from the region. During Trump's last weeks in office, the outgoing administration appears to be attempting to downshift its campaign to counter the Islamic State, with the Defense Department reducing U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the departure of top officials coordinating those campaigns. Following a presidential directive, the U.S. military will cut the number of troops in Iraq from 3,000 to 2,500 by Jan. 15—five days before Biden will be inaugurated. The response to the situation in Iraq has also been hampered by personnel turnover and the White House's desire to declare the Islamic State defeated, even as the group's attacks continue. Christopher Maier, an Obama administration holdover who led the anti-Islamic State task force at the Pentagon, was ousted weeks ago after losing trust with Trump allies who now dominate the agency's powerful policy shop. The special envoy for Syria and the anti-Islamic State coalition, Jim Jeffrey, also left the administration last month. But the fall of the Islamic State's territorial empire, which spanned 34,000 square miles into Syria and included about 40 percent of Iraq during the height of the self-declared caliphate, has done little to lessen Iraq's crushing bills to rebuild the country, embroiled in near-constant upheaval since the 2003 U.S. invasion that led to the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein. There are 1.4 million people still internally displaced and 4.1 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Iraq, according to the United Nations, which remains nearly $60 million short of funding for the humanitarian response in the country. The embattled Iraqi government, which faced anti-corruption protests last year that forced the ouster of then-Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has pledged to devalue the nation's currency in a draft budget that leaked this week, raising concern from workers who will now have to make do with even less. Senior diplomatic correspondent Colum Lynch contributed to this report.

One Year After Mass Protests, India’s Muslims Still Live in Fear

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/one-year-mass-caa-protests-india-muslims-citizenship-amendment-act-modi/

Last December, hundreds of thousands of people in cities across India joined in protest against the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The law creates a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented residents who have fled religious persecution, but it discriminates against refugees and immigrants who happen to be Muslim—members of India's largest minority. The anti-CAA movement, as it became known, was India's most sustained people's movement since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. The size of the protests caught Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government by surprise. Like the ongoing protests led by Sikh farmers against new agricultural laws, the anti-CAA movement was characterized by the ruling party as "anti-national." But while the Modi government is now negotiating with the farmers to end their blockade of Delhi's borders, the anti-CAA movement was never accorded any political legitimacy. One year on, the anti-CAA movement has receded into the background, its anniversary barely remembered: Delhi police stopped a candlelight march led by students on Dec. 15. In March, the mass protests were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, but it is hard to say how long they would have survived anyway, given the movement's vilification by BJP leaders, hostilities from Delhi residents over blocked roads, and the lack of support from India's so-called secular parties. The movement has suffered from its own limitations. It failed to engage a larger cross-section of society, building bridges with other distressed communities such as farmers and Dalits, and to counter the BJP's messaging that it was stirred by Pakistan. The arrests of the anti-CAA movement's leaders, as well as others who have decried the BJP's virulent Hindu nationalism, mark the decline of India's inclusive and consensus-building democratic ethos. Indian Muslims remain in the same precarious situation they found themselves in 2019: living in fear of becoming second-class citizens. The anti-CAA movement challenged not only the BJP's Hindu majoritarianism but also the Modi government's authoritarianism, apparent in its moves to ram through laws such as the CAA or its sudden announcement in 2016 that it would replace certain Indian rupee notes with new ones, causing chaos and lasting economic damage. Using the language of the 1949 constitution, the movement was a tribute to the idea of an India built on secularism and pluralism, an appeal for practicing tolerance. But it's clear that the anti-CAA protests did not resonate much beyond an urban, liberal segment of Indian society. Much of the media and the Hindu middle class—the country's largest demographic—remain solidly behind the prime minister and his politics. Even so, the large numbers of people who joined the movement served as a rude awakening for a leadership confident that it had stamped out dissent. The protests, coupled with a shift in international perceptions, seemed to push Modi's government to take a step back and soften its tone. The arrests of anti-CAA activists and students reflect a narrative that pins blame for the riots on the protesters, and by extension the Muslim community. Delhi police have called activist Umar Khalid, 33—one of the most vocal critics of the Modi government—the "mastermind" behind the Delhi riots. "He has been targeted because he refused to be silenced," Banojyotsna Lahiri, his partner, said. Despite a few political setbacks in state elections, the BJP's brand of Hindu nationalism is gaining strength in the Modi government's second term. In addition to the passage of the CAA, it has stripped Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir of its constitutional autonomy and prompted fears of demographic change in the region. And in November 2019, after decades of litigation, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of building a Hindu temple on the site of a 16th-century mosque destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992. The CAA grants citizenship to non-Muslim minority groups from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Modi government maintains that the law won't affect Indian Muslims. But some fear that coupled with the National Population Register, a data collection exercise, and a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) aimed at identifying those living in the country without the proper documents, the CAA will be used to target Muslims who can't produce documents and strip them of the right to call India home. One year after the Indian parliament passed the CAA, the Modi government says it is still drafting the rules to enforce it, and the Supreme Court has yet to hear more than 140 petitions challenging its constitutional validity. Home Minister Amit Shah, who has described undocumented immigrants as "termites," backtracked on the plan for a nationwide citizens' register last year, after 11 states not governed by the BJP refused to implement it. But while the government may have put the NRC on hold, it has not ruled out implementing data collection, which some argue is a surreptitious way of reintroducing the NRC. The stripping of Kashmir's protected status, the passage of the CAA, and the subsequent crackdown on anti-CAA students at two predominantly Muslim universities have offended Islamic countries that are friendly to India. Iran, Turkey, and Malaysia condemned the Delhi riots in February. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has called on Modi to ensure protection for Muslims and Islamic holy places in India. And after a year of lobbying, Pakistan managed to get the organization to pass a strong statement on Kashmir. India's CAA push has even put off friendly Bangladesh, which has refused to accept the return of any Indian residents left out of the NRC. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called the CAA unnecessary, and three of her ministers canceled trips to India amid the protests. The Modi government will likely tread forward carefully, given that Islamophobia in India has become somewhat of a liability—and could be a thorny issue with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden. The issue is already playing out in Assam state, home to many Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims who have immigrated from Bangladesh over many years. The state government prepared a list of citizens in August 2019. But the BJP suffered a setback: Of the 1.9 million people found to be living in Assam without documents, over 500,000 were Hindus who would effectively have to claim they fled religious persecution in a neighboring country to gain their citizenship. BJP leaders have said that Hindus left out of the NRC would be covered under the CAA, and Shah said last year that the NRC would be repeated in Assam. This month, the Assam government said that the list it had declared final in 2019 was not final after all. With state elections due next year in both Assam and Bengal, the BJP is now letting the CAA issue simmer. In Assam, the BJP's attempt to make the NRC a Hindu-Muslim issue—rather than one tied to local differences in language and ethnicity—hasn't quite worked. Winning Bengal, which also has a sizable population of immigrants from Bangladesh, would be a milestone for the Hindu right wing. There, the BJP has tapped into Hindu conservatism dormant among upper-caste communities and worked hard to polarize the base of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who took power after three decades of Communist Party rule in 2011. "The BJP is in a legal bind when it comes to Assam. But wherever there is some space in the communal game, they are playing it," said Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, the author of Assam: The Accord, The Discord. In the anti-CAA movement, progressive forces couched their pleas to uphold the rights and freedoms of minority groups as a call to defend the constitution. They now recognize the BJP government's unwillingness to even pay lip service to India's constitutional values—and the not-so-silent majority's antagonism toward these calls.

Washington Needs a Cybersecurity Overhaul

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/hack-biden-harris-cybersecurity/

As made clear by the revelations this week about suspected Russian hacks into various federal agencies, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris face a daunting task when it comes to cybersecurity. Nine years ago, as vice president, Biden delivered remarks advocating for a free, open, and secure Internet while highlighting the need to protect against the cyberthreats targeting Americans daily. Years later, the dangers are ballooning in scope and size, authoritarian governments are gaining ground in their efforts to control the Internet for their citizens, and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has downgraded the country's cyberdiplomacy efforts. But as a new report from the think tank Third Way, where one of us is deputy director, makes clear, there are things Biden and Harris can do to strengthen and protect the United States. There is no shortage of research that highlights the different cyberthreats faced by the United States. Much of the discourse has focused on threats posed by nation-states, such as Iran and Russia, to the United States' critical infrastructure, including its election systems. All this is, of course, important. But there is perhaps no threat that has a greater impact on all aspects of American society on a daily basis than cybercrime. According to polling, 1 in 4 American households has been impacted by some form of cybercrime, and, according to Third Way, only 3 in 1,000 of these cybercrime incidents ever see an arrest of the perpetrator. Biden and Harris understand all this. As a senator, Biden pushed for more resources to fight cybercrime. And as vice president, he took a forceful stand against intellectual property theft, pushed for more global cybersecurity cooperation, and supported efforts to bolster the ranks of the United States' cybersecurity workforce. Harris has also been a strong champion of cybersecurity and technology policy issues in the Senate and, as California attorney general, launched the state's cybercrime center. Now, at the top of the U.S. government, they'll have to make up for lost ground. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. government did pursue a comprehensive approach that yielded some success in imposing consequences for cybercrime and building new partnerships with foreign governments to combat state cyberterrorism. The Department of State, in particular, has taken a leading role in these efforts, and the hardworking women and men left at the department should be commended. But this work was, in some cases, undermined by Trump and his allies. Where former U.S. President Barack Obama often raised cybersecurity issues in his discussions with other leaders, leading to increased cooperation and dialogues, Trump preferred to ignore the issue. The Trump administration also downgraded the United States' architecture for handling international engagement on cyberthreats, which are typically global in scope and require an unprecedented level of cross-border cooperation. The Trump administration downgraded the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues at the State Department, which was established by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and led by one of the authors. The United States was the first country to establish such a senior-level position to spearhead its global cybersecurity engagement. Downgrading the post eliminated its direct connection to the secretary of state and sent a signal to the United States' allies, partners, and adversaries alike that cyberdiplomacy is not a top priority for the U.S. government. The Trump administration has also proposed cuts to critical programs at the State Department aimed at boosting the cybersecurity capacity of other countries. First, the new secretary of state should establish an office of international cyberspace policy led by an experienced official with the rank and status of ambassador to restore the United States' global leadership on cyberdiplomacy. The office will need the authority to coordinate all aspects of international diplomacy related to cybersecurity policy issues—instead of each bureau pursuing its own goals in this area. Congress has introduced legislation to establish such an office, but it has languished amid fights between the Trump administration and Capitol Hill. The Biden administration should revive the effort in its first 100 days. Second, the Biden-Harris administration should build an explicit strategy for repairing the global alliances that have been weakened under the Trump administration and for advancing diplomacy related to cybersecurity priorities. The administration should build on successful aspects of prior cybersecurity engagement strategies by formally assessing what is working and what is not. Because cybercrime has largely not received attention in previous strategies, it must be one area of central focus. The new strategy should also lay the groundwork for the U.S. government to play a more strategic and productive role in its engagement with international organizations, including the United Nations, on these issues. This will be particularly critical as the U.S. government decides how to engage in negotiations on a new cybercrime treaty pushed by Russia and in continued debates on cybersecurity norms. Third, Biden and Harris should be prepared to put cybersecurity issues on the agenda in meetings with other heads of states and ministers. They're too often dismissed as the province of technical experts, but they are, in fact, core issues of national security, economic prosperity, human rights, and, ultimately, foreign policy. There is no better way to mainstream cybersecurity than having it on the agenda when the president and vice president meet with their peers. At the heart of this engagement, the U.S. government must also commit to living by the cybersecurity norms it is promoting and work to enforce those norms when they are violated. Fourth, the new administration must evaluate how cybersecurity sanctions can be employed more strategically and consistently. Since Obama first instituted a cybersecurity-related sanctions regime five years ago, sanctions have become an often-used tool to punish hard-to-reach malicious actors. But they are not always applied in a way that would change a bad actor's calculus, and—even worse—are undermined by contrary messaging. The time is ripe to reassess those sanctions and determine whether they might be more effectively employed. Fifth, the incoming administration should prioritize global cybersecurity capacity building in its budget and make sure adequate resources are provided to determine the impact. Some countries lack the ability to conduct investigations into cybercrime and other cyberactivity. While the U.S. government has provided foreign aid to help address these capacity gaps, the State Department has not seen a big boost in these resources by Congress despite the proliferation of the threats. Additionally, as the outgoing chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, and ranking member Michael McCaul highlighted last year, the department has little ability to assess, monitor, or evaluate whether the funding is making a difference. The State Department needs a comprehensive framework to allow it to better monitor its efforts. Lastly, the Biden administration should prioritize reforms to the mechanisms the U.S. government uses to share and request cross-border data. Washington needs healthy partnerships with other countries and the private sector to help investigate, arrest, prosecute, and, when warranted, extradite criminals operating outside U.S. jurisdiction. But processes for foreign governments to request the data held in the United States that is needed for such cooperation remain too slow and cumbersome. Attempts in recent years to overcome these challenges might have some impact but are expected to be limited in scope. It will be critical for the attorney general to prioritize negotiations and further reforms aimed at making cross-border data-sharing more efficient. Biden and Harris will be faced with an endless array of national security threats and a U.S. foreign-policy machine in dire need of repair. They will have to make tough decisions about what to prioritize, but will have no choice but to take on the cybersecurity threats that continue to endanger U.S. national, economic, and human security. The challenges in addressing these threats are (seemingly) intractable, but Biden and Harris's records demonstrate that, with their strong leadership, progress is possible.

China Is Gnawing at Democracy’s Roots Worldwide

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/china-democracy-ideology-communist-party/

The 20th century may have been the world's bloodiest, but in the end democracy was triumphant. A political system that was an aberration among monarchies in 1900 cut a swath through empires, fascism, and communism to emerge as the dominant political system by the end of the century. But while the world celebrated the fall of authoritarianism in Russia and Eastern Europe in 1989, China was carefully studying how to avoid the same fate. The Chinese Communist Party concluded that its Soviet counterpart had collapsed not only because it failed to adapt to the changing world but also, more importantly, because it had turned its back on its own historical and ideological experiences. Even as China firmly went down the path of economic reform and the spectacular growth that came with it, it doubled down on its core ideology: socialism with Chinese characteristics under the absolute leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Thirty years on, the world, according to the Chinese Communist Party, is undergoing a once-in-a-century change that will turn the tide of global power from the West to the East, thus transforming the nature of post-World War II international order. China's experience of the coronavirus pandemic has reaffirmed this assessment of faltering American global leadership, the failing capacities of the West to address the challenges of the new century, and the resilience of China's socialist economy in comparison to capitalism; most importantly, they think it has also validated the superiority of their political system. In a nutshell, the Chinese leadership seems convinced that China's national experience and the international situation have proved a fundamental premise of the 20th century to be wrong, namely that democracy is superior to other forms of governance and most conducive for national development and prosperity. Although China's successful economic model has won admirers and friends around the world, its ability to move to the center of the world stage depends upon whether its political or ideological model becomes a world standard. The United States is referred to as the "leader of the free world" due as much to the attractiveness of its political model as its economic power; it owes as much to Hollywood as to the dollar. The Chinese Communist Party's problem is that its model of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is, by its very definition, exclusive to China. Or as Xi put it himself in his address in 2013, the idea is "imbued with characteristically Chinese features bestowed by the conditions of the time." Its adoption as a global standard becomes difficult since it is virtually impossible to replicate Chinese conditions in other societies, and thus it is difficult for other polities to emulate. Since the failed Soviet experiment has dampened any desire in the Chinese leadership to go down the path of exporting communist ideology as a means of building its own political brand, discrediting democracy as a political system appears to be the option of choice for the Chinese Communist Party. It appears to be moving from a defensive strategy of preventing the subversion of the communist state in China through so-called peaceful evolution by democratic means to an offensive strategy of undermining democracy abroad as the better political model. It is a turning of the tables. The Chinese famously claim that they never interfere in the internal affairs of others. That is a good principle, but it's one that should no longer be taken at face value. The Chinese Communist Party appears to be influencing the politics of democracies in many different ways. The more obvious ones include the manipulation of the principles of freedom of speech and assembly while denying the same tools to others. China denies the American and European ambassadors in China the right to publish their unedited views in the Chinese mainstream media, even as their own diplomats have unfettered access to the media in democracies. China is happy to use Western social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook—where party newspaper People's Daily maintains one of the most followed accounts on the site—while banning the platforms from China itself. The lack of access for foreigners to Chinese decision-makers in government as well as opinion-makers in the strategic community stands in sharp contrast to the readiness with which democracies allow access in the name of openness. Chinese state media abroad are using the same openness to collate and present information that portrays the host democracy in negative light, such as the performance of democratic governments in handling COVID-19, whereas it denies access to foreign media even to report on the facts about how China handled the same crisis domestically or its social and economic consequences. Even the small pockets of openness that once existed have been closed off, with numerous journalists kicked out of China and the country's own social media, such as WeChat, more heavily censored than ever. But these are only the more obvious ways. Less obvious are the activities of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party, virtually a parallel foreign office, which not only systematically cultivates foreign personalities and their families in traditional ways but also plants its people as diplomats inside Chinese embassies so they can influence politics and policies in democracies under legal cover. Originally designed to work with fellow communist parties, it's become a much broader group targeting any organization it thinks might prove a useful tool. While the International Liaison Department targets foreigners, the United Front Work Department—a long-standing body whose power has swollen with new responsibilities under Xi—targets the Chinese diaspora, putting social, financial, and personal pressure on communities for the party's ends. As with all efforts at propaganda nowadays, China's efforts are digitalized, including the use of big data and artificial intelligence. For many years, the world's democracies believed that their triumph made them secure. They are still hoping that China implodes, as it well might. The Chinese are keenly aware of the fragility of their own political system. There is no ideology left beyond the idea of prolonging the Communist Party's absolute dictatorship over China. Painful economic slowdown loomed even before the impact of COVID-19; even as China can point to an early recovery thanks to its successful control of the coronavirus, it still faces an unprecedented year of recession. While democracies dither, China is silently undermining the roots of democracy throughout the world like a river systematically erodes the bank—until even the mightiest tree must fall. The Chinese authorities are fond of saying that they do not play zero-sum games, but Xi Jinping's self-declared historical mission for China to become the world's leading power by 2049 will remain incomplete unless its model supplants democracy as the leading idea in this century. Democracies can no longer afford to rest on their laurels.

Progressives Try to Sway Biden on Top Foreign-Policy Jobs

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/progressives-biden-foreign-policy-pentagon-state-department-white-house/

More than a dozen progressive groups are calling on incoming President-elect Joe Biden to staff top foreign-policy jobs in his incoming administration with candidates seen as anti-war and not tied to Washington lobbying, after some of his picks raised eyebrows due to perceived establishment ties. While progressives, some lacking foreign-policy experience to compete with centrists in the Democratic Party for top administration jobs, aren't being considered for many leading cabinet roles, left-leaning groups are hoping to put down roots at lower levels. In a request sent to the Biden transition team today, progressives identified more than 100 candidates to fill jobs in the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council—the majority of whom are women and people of color. Progressive groups have largely cooperated with the Biden transition so far, only staunchly opposing former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell in his bid for the top job at the agency, and raising concerns about Michèle Flournoy—a one-time candidate for defense secretary—and her ties to the defense industry. But the continued push to place their own candidates in top jobs could cause tension with the president-elect, who has mostly opted to place longtime allies like Lloyd Austin, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan into top national security positions. The cadre of progressive contenders is led by Matt Duss, a longtime foreign-policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, a key behind-the-scenes operator who helped mount a congressional challenge to outgoing President Donald Trump's war powers related to the Saudi-led fighting in Yemen. Duss is being considered for a role as deputy national security advisor or as a special advisor to the secretary of state. Trump vetoed the war powers bill that passed both houses of Congress earlier this year, but the issue became a calling card for progressives over the past four years, a time in which Duss also made a name for himself as an outspoken critic of U.S. policy toward Israel. Biden reportedly plans to continue with Trump's push for so-called Abraham accords between Israel and Arab nations, an issue that could be a point of contention with progressives such as Duss. Another leading candidate is Trita Parsi, the Iranian-born co-founder of the anti-war Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank in Washington. Progressives want Biden to consider him for senior director for Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council. Parsi had called for the United States to engage diplomatically with Iran before negotiations began on the 2015 nuclear deal that the Trump administration later abandoned. Parsi's Quincy Institute has called for the United States to shrink its military commitments around the world. Dozens of organizations, including the Quincy Institute and the MoveOn advocacy group added names to the list. The effort was coordinated by Yasmine Taeb, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, and Common Defense, a veteran-led grassroots organization opposing Trump, and the Progressive Change Institute. In particular, the CIP has pushed for senators not to confirm cabinet picks with corporate ties, a move that is now backed by Rep. Raul Grijalva on Capitol Hill. The effort to land subcabinet-level picks is an outgrowth of a call earlier this month led by many of the same groups to find suitable candidates. A similar cluster of progressive groups also called for Biden to move his foreign-policy agenda to the left after he emerged as the Democratic nominee this summer, including requests to slash the defense budget and re-engage diplomatically with Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea. Among the other names floated by the groups include Alison Friedman, who fought human trafficking during the Obama administration, to be the State Department's Senate-confirmed undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights. That's a broad portfolio that could allow progressives to scrutinize U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as relationships with foreign autocrats such as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that have grown closer under Trump. The groups have also flagged Noah Gottschalk, Oxfam America's top policy official, to be a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and Mike Darner, who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as a senior White House policy advisor. Also being recommended is Elisa Massimino, a chair in human rights at Georgetown University Law Center, as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, and Kate Gould, a senior staffer for Rep. Ro Khanna, another architect of war-powers legislation in Congress, to serve as a senior policy advisor at the United States Mission to the United Nations, which Biden has tapped Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a Black woman, to lead. The groups are also hoping to to bring foreign-policy voices cast out during the Trump administration into the Biden team, including Susan Thornton, a career diplomat who led the State Department's Asia bureau on an acting basis until mid-2018, but faced pushback against her nomination for the full-time role from inside the White House and on Capitol Hill over concerns she wasn't hawkish enough on China. Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a career civil servant removed by then-director of Policy Planning Brian Hook in 2017 after asking top Trump officials to help defend her from attacks in conservative media, is also being flagged for a role by progressives. Progressives are hoping the Biden administration will bring back Obama-era veterans to high-level roles, such as Robert Malley, a former top National Security Council official for the Middle East and advisor to Sanders who is reportedly in the mix for a top Iran-focused job; Jarrett Blanc, a deputy lead coordinator to implement the Iran nuclear deal under Obama; and Patrick Gaspard, a former ambassador to South Africa. Sasha Baker, a top advisor to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Keane Bhatt, the current communications director for Sanders, are also being touted for top jobs. The progressives' campaign has intensified in part due to perceived corporate ties among many Biden picks, such as Blinken, the secretary of state-designate. A longtime Biden acolyte, he co-founded WestExec Advisors with Flournoy, which has not publicly revealed its client lists inside the government, something that progressives have worried could raise conflicts of interest. Austin, a retired Army general, who would become the first Black defense secretary if confirmed, sits on the board of Raytheon Technologies, which designs many of the smart bombs used by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and is also tied to Nucor, an American steel corporation. Update, Dec. 18, 2020: This article was updated to provide more information about candidates to serve in the upcoming administration.

Biden Shouldn’t Rush to Restore the Iran Nuclear Deal

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/biden-iran-nuclear-deal-jcpoa-sanctions-weapons-trump/

It's now clear that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is determined to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—as soon as possible after his Jan. 20 inauguration. Both Biden and his designated national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, have given recent interviews in which they underscore their intent to make Tehran a straightforward offer: If Iran comes back into compliance with the deal, the United States will do likewise. Iran would bring its nuclear activities back within the JCPOA's limits, while the United States would ease sanctions imposed since outgoing President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the deal in 2018. Rushing to restore the Iran deal virtually guarantees that Biden will start his presidency with a hugely divisive controversy. Such a step flies in the face of advice from JCPOA skeptics, who have urged Biden not to rush back into the deal. Rather than squander the leverage built up by Trump's maximum-pressure campaign for no higher purpose than restoring a flawed arms-control agreement, Biden should exploit that leverage (and Iran's desperate economic straits) to negotiate a better deal. Such a revised deal would delay or even remove the JCPOA's sunset clauses—which provide for restrictions on nuclear activities to eventually be lifted. Or better yet, ban entirely Iran's uranium enrichment efforts. Or better still, include constraints on Iran's most threatening non-nuclear activities, especially its missile programs and regional aggression. Biden and his team have yet to be convinced. While agreeing on the importance of a JCPOA 2.0—a follow-on agreement in which the constraints on Iran's malign behaviors are both longer and stronger— they don't see pursing it as a viable short-term strategy. On the contrary, they clearly fear that a failure to restore the original JCPOA is the surest route not to a better deal, but to a dangerous expansion of the Iranian nuclear program, an escalation of regional tensions, and perhaps even war. Needless to say, an all-consuming crisis over Iran's nuclear program has no place in Biden's agenda, which he has promised will be intently focused on tackling the daunting array of challenges now confronting the American people—from the devastation wrought by COVID-19 to racial inequality, climate change, and competition with China. Concerns about the current trajectory of Iran's nuclear progress are well founded. "We're in a dangerous situation," Sullivan told the Wall Street Journal. "Since the United States left the JCPOA, Iran has moved closer to a nuclear weapon." That includes expanding its uranium stockpile, enriching to higher levels of purity, and testing more powerful centrifuges. And just two weeks ago, Iran's parliament dramatically raised the stakes, passing a law that would require the government—within Biden's first weeks in office should sanctions relief not be forthcoming—to embark upon its most far-reaching violations of the JCPOA yet, including deploying thousands of advanced centrifuges, building a stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, and placing major constraints on inspectors. All in all, it's an exquisite act of nuclear blackmail designed to send an unmistakable message to Biden: Either lift sanctions or face a nuclear crisis that could derail your presidency almost before it starts. Whatever benefits Biden might see in buckling to Iran's extortion, the risks and potential costs should also be apparent. The U.S. domestic backlash is certain to be fierce—from the majority of Republicans, for sure, and perhaps even a few prominent Democrats. It's worth recalling that the top two Democrats on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin, not to mention Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, all opposed the JCPOA in 2015. That fight was one of the most bitter of President Barack Obama's tenure and there's no reason to believe that a second round would be any easier. Biden has suggested that his presidency's north star will be rebuilding bipartisan consensus to address the country's most urgent problems. Opting for a bruising battle over granting an economic lifeline to Iran's terror-sponsoring regime has all the markings of a poison pill that could derail that agenda. Biden's difficulties will be further exacerbated by the international reaction. Whatever chits he earns with pro-JCPOA Europeans will be offset by the opposition triggered among Washington's most consequential allies in the Middle East. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood alone railing against the deal five years ago, he's likely to have significant company this time around, particularly from U.S. partners in the Gulf. Things could get ugly quickly, with charges of betrayal flying fast and furious. Biden's bid to restore U.S. credibility internationally could take a substantial beating. Others, such as the New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, have suggested that the Biden team's worries about Iranian nuclear blackmail are overblown. It could be that the Iranians are only bluffing and that their escalation options are in fact heavily constrained—not only by their desperation to see sanctions lifted, but more importantly by their understanding that if they push too far, they will face the implacable determination of an Israel that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to do whatever it takes to stop Iran's progress toward a bomb. A National Intelligence Estimate could shed important light on these competing claims and scenarios and help inform what is likely to be one of the most fateful choices of Biden's presidency. Should the assessment end up supporting his instinct to rejoin the JCPOA, it could also serve as important ammunition in his efforts to manage domestic opposition and fretful friends in the Middle East. Biden's hand would be stronger still if the U.S. assessment incorporated the views of Washington's most capable intelligence allies, especially Israel and Britain. In addition to an intelligence assessment that buttresses his position, Biden would be wise to couple any return to the JCPOA with something approaching a guarantee that would commit to triggering the snapback of sanctions automatically if, within a proscribed time period such as one year, Iran is not engaged in serious follow-on negotiations on the full range of U.S. concerns. It would be better still if Biden's new snapback guarantee has the upfront backing of Washington's key European partners. It would also be smart to include a bipartisan delegation from Congress in any follow-on diplomacy that could monitor progress and act as a check on any administration tendency to prevaricate or avoid hard decisions.

China Won’t Rescue Iran

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/china-wont-rescue-iran/

In June 2020, a draft of the China-Iran Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was leaked to the media by an Iranian source. In this purported deal, which ostensibly covers bilateral cooperation in economic, political, cultural, and military spheres for the next 25 years, China pledged a maximum investment of $400 billion to improve Iran's oil, gas, and transportation infrastructure. Some observers were quick to point out that this groundbreaking deal not only demonstrates China's unrelenting ambition to succeed globally, but also shows the failure of the Trump administration's so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran, which instead has pushed Iran into China's orbit. Others noted that should President-elect Joe Biden try to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the China-Iran deal would potentially harden Iran's bargaining position vis-a-vis the United States. These commentators all regard the deal as a fait accompli, as if it has already been signed—but they are exaggerating China's will and capacity to aid Iran in defiance of the United States. Although China has been Iran's largest trading partner since 2009, Iran has remained a minor one for China. Even in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates outperform Iran when it comes to trading with China. According to China's Ministry of Commerce, at its peak in 2014, Chinese-Iranian trade was $51.85 billion, or 1.2 percent of China's total foreign trade volume—and it has plummeted since then. That same year, China's trade with Saudi Arabia and the UAE were $69.15 billion and $54.8 billion, respectively. In contrast, the volume of Chinese-U.S. trade that year was $555 billion, or 12.9 percent of China's total foreign trade. Geopolitically, infrastructure projects mentioned in the purported deal, such as Jask and Chabahar ports as well as railroad projects connecting Central Asia, if they materialize, would provide unique advantages to Iran rather than to China. These economic and geopolitical realities dictate that Iran does not occupy an irreplaceable position in China's strategic calculations but is just one of the relationships Beijing needs to manage in the region. While China should be a factor in an effective U.S. strategy towards Iran, it would be unwise to assume that Beijing-Tehran ties have disproportionate importance. The idea of the Chinese-Iranian comprehensive deal was proposed in early 2016 by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his state visit in Iran after the implementation of the JCPOA. Mindful of China's unique role in engaging with Iran through the difficult period of sanctions before the nuclear deal, Xi hoped to expand Chinese-Iranian cooperation and apparently expected some kind of preferential treatment for Chinese commercial interests in Iran under the auspices of the JCPOA. Indeed, following Xi's visit, many large-scale Chinese companies arrived in Iran, optimistically expecting to explore new opportunities. Around this time, I was studying Persian in Tehran and conducting research for my dissertation on modern Iranian history. I was able to mingle and interact with many Chinese businessmen representing large state-owned enterprises through my social circles and witness firsthand the commercial dynamics between the two countries. Despite initial optimism, Chinese commercial interests met a lukewarm reception and the preferential treatment for which China hoped fell short of expectations. Shortly after the implementation of the nuclear deal, many foreign companies suddenly started exploring Iranian markets. With potentially a wide range of alternative products and services becoming available thanks to the relaxation of sanctions, Iran's business community suddenly made increasing demands on Chinese businesses. Iranians have long had a clear preference for all things Western. They also tend to be prejudiced against Chinese products and services, even when they are comparable in quality and lower in price than Western equivalents. Even Iranian state media was known for subtly insinuating the inferiority of Chinese-made goods and promoting other cultural and political biases toward China. Chinese businessmen complained that, to their frustration, their Iranian partners often wanted a higher amount of Chinese investment but a lower proportion of Chinese products, services, and technologies in joint projects. Iran strongly prefers to partner with Western companies when possible, presumably due to a cultural reflex and a strategic consideration: It is politically and economically safer to cooperate with multiple partners than with just one. For example, even though China has long coveted South Pars, the world's largest oil and gas field, Iran did not hesitate to give the South Pars Phase 11 project to the French oil and gas giant Total, making it the majority shareholder of the joint venture, with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) the second-largest shareholder in the project after Total. After the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic, many Chinese businesses also suspended their projects or left Iran just as their Western counterparts did, due to the blockage of payment channels and increased financial risks in investing in the Iranian market because of U.S. secondary sanctions. Although at the height of U.S. sanctions after 2018, China remained the biggest buyer of Iranian oil—with a steep discount since Iran is not in a position to dictate prices—Chinese payments for Iranian oil are not being remitted back to Iran in the form of much-needed foreign exchange. They are being used instead to pay down Iranian debts owed to Chinese oil companies for work done in Iran or held in China's Bank of Kunlun, the sole Chinese bank handling oil-related transactions with Iran, only for "humanitarian transactions" of food and medicines. It reportedly costs the Iranian regime a fortune—at least 12 percent of the amount—to transfer, through illicit channels, some of these funds. Iranian businesses are also finding it increasingly difficult to carry out business transactions in China after the reimposition of sanctions by the United States. As the Chinese-Iranian strategic deal became news this summer, an Iranian businessman who had been dealing with China questioned the media reports sarcastically. He pointed out in the Iranian press that Chinese banks were refusing to deal with Iran and closing the bank accounts of Iranian students and businesses in China because of pressure from U.S. sanctions, right at the time when Tehran was touting a deal that was supposed to save Iran from crushing U.S. sanctions. The claim that the Chinese-Iranian partnership would include significant cooperation in the military sphere, especially China maintaining a military base on Iran's Kish island, is also doubtful. The Iranian popular wariness of foreign military presence on its territory notwithstanding, China has been careful not to bring Iran too close in its security sphere. Since 2008, Iran has been eager to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—a Eurasian security and economic alliance effectively led by China. Despite Russia's recent explicit support, China has not allowed Iran to become a full member of the organization. Beijing will likely continue blocking Iranian membership in the SCO in the foreseeable future, since maintaining a balance of power among regional actors in the Middle East by not taking sides is clearly in China's interest, and challenging a regional order adjudicated by the United States through bolstering Iran in a security alliance is obviously undesirable for China. Given Beijing's aloofness, any permanent and close military cooperation with Iran appears improbable. The purported deal is mostly an Iranian gambit at China's expense and appears to be an Iranian public-relations ploy. Tehran is seeking to appease domestic discontent over the grim economic situation caused by the regime's "maximum resistance" policy, by suggesting that China has Iran's back. It also allows Iran to flaunt its so-called China alternative. News of the deal benefited only Tehran, as it exacerbated the heated U.S. debate on the efficacy of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign and implied that the policy has failed. From China's perspective, the news of the deal was badly timed. It confirmed and aggravated the sense of a Chinese peril in the United States, at a time when U.S. policymakers from both sides of the aisle have serious concerns about China's rise and apparent global ambitions—epitomized in its Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing has been trying to mitigate anti-Chinese sentiment and rhetoric in the United States and was probably not pleased by such high-profile media stories about China cementing a deal with America's archenemy, Iran. In fact, China has until now remained reticent about the deal. No Chinese media outlets have reported or analyzed the deal based on Chinese sources. When asked by reporters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespeople twice avoided making any comments. China's silence on the matter is telling. Beijing understands that to sustain its own economic growth, it must manage hostilities and continue its modus vivendi with the United States. It should be apparent to Beijing that if China opts to closely cooperate with Iran, any future escalation of U.S.-Iranian tensions (which could easily happen) would also further strain already delicate relations between Beijing and Washington. Consequently, if the United States plays its cards carefully, China is unlikely to stand by Iran. While China is and will be a formidable challenger in a U.S.-dominated world order, China's determination and capability to act as Iran's "economic alternative" in the face of U.S. sanctions should not be exaggerated. When Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Chief Executive Carrie Lam has been left without a bank account, her salary having to be paid in cash due to U.S. sanctions—even in China's own special administrative territory—one should question to what extent China can actually defy U.S. sanctions, if the United States is determined to enforce them, and economically support Iran without suffering some serious blowback. It is worth remembering that in December 2018, only a month after U.S. sanctions against Iran's oil and gas sector had gone into effect, in the midst the U.S.-China trade dispute, CNPC suspended its investment in Iran's South Pars gas field project, which it had just taken over from France's Total in August after the latter announced its withdrawal from the project. Due to U.S. pressure, by October 2019 CNPC had completely pulled out from the project. This does not mean Iran and China will not have limited cooperation, much like Iran's relations with other Asian powers like India. Major economies such as China and India would like to diversify their oil supplies for energy security and have access through Iran's transportation network to a broader international market. If Beijing is indeed negotiating the deal with Tehran, it will at least want to assess its options after the incoming Biden administration's foreign policy has taken shape before deciding whether to formally commit itself to an approach that could anger Washington. China's paramount foreign policy goal in the coming years will be to repair its relations with the United States. Any potential deal with Iran will only be subordinate to this larger imperative. China's interests in Iran would be best served by a situation of manageable tension between Iran and the United States—when there are sufficient sanctions to keep major international competitors away so that Chinese businesses can dominate Iranian markets, but not too much hostility or strong enough sanctions to stop the flow of capital. According to a recent interview with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif with a Chinese media outlet, Tehran is clearly expecting some kind of sanctions relief from the United States under the Biden administration. Zarif shared his belief that the China-Iran deal will be signed soon if the U.S. sanctions are eased. This means that if the Biden administration offers political and financial concessions to Iran too soon, it will create a welcoming environment for Chinese investment in Iran. In such a scenario, Beijing could sign the deal or a modified version of it, and the China-has-got-Iran's-back story would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Judging from the current situation, however, if the United States decides to engage China as it crafts a new U.S. strategy toward Iran, China may well abandon Iran by delaying and remaining noncommittal about the bilateral deal as it works to ameliorate its relations with the United States. After all, China and the United States are the superpowers on the geopolitical chessboard—and even if Iran is more than a mere pawn, in Beijing's view it is ultimately dispensable.

The War in Tigray Is a Fight Over Ethiopia’s Past—and Future

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/the-war-in-tigray-is-a-fight-over-ethiopias-past-and-future/

It has come as a shock to many that a civil war is raging in Ethiopia, with the Ethiopian government waging what it startlingly called a "law enforcement operation" in the Tigray region, branding the former ruling party in Ethiopia—the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF)—a criminal organization and vowing to destroy it. The conflict, which has already claimed thousands of lives and displaced tens of thousands, has caused trepidation in foreign capitals that it could lead to one of the largest state collapses in modern history, with significant implications for peace and stability in the Horn of Africa and beyond. Despite the government's declaration that it has already concluded the operation, it is far from certain that the capture of Tigray's capital, Mekelle, by government forces will bring the conflict to an end any time soon—with the TPLF retreating to the mountains and, in all likelihood, positioning its fighting forces for a costly and drawn-out guerrilla war. There is a palpable fear that the war might induce civilians unfamiliar with the rules of war to actively engage in the conflict, and this could lead to a dire human tragedy. Evidence is emerging that the recent massacre in Mai-Kadra in Tigray state was perpetrated by vigilante groups—the Amhara group Fano and the Samri youth organization—with loose connections to their respective regional governments, the Amhara and Tigray states. Ironically, the international community—which neglected many serious misgivings from credible corners about the suitability of the untested Abiy Ahmed as Ethiopia's prime minister and welcomed (and likely enabled) the Nobel Committee's imprudent awarding of the coveted Peace Prize to Abiy—was reduced to trying to persuade the peace laureate to refrain from escalating the conflict. The African Union, the European Union, the United Nations Security Council, and leaders of several countries have expressed their angst about the looming disaster and are appealing to the warring parties to resolve their political differences through dialogue. Abiy has rejected peace talks with the TPLF until "the rule of law is restored," and his ally and predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, faults those calling for dialogue as naive do-gooders with an "attitude of false balance and bothsidesism." Desalegn argues that a power-sharing arrangement that may be brokered through dialogue is unsustainable, as that would absolve the TPLF of the crimes it has committed. However, it is difficult to take the self-serving bias of these arguments as anything more than a not-so-subtle justification for war, which the international community is trying to avert. The current conflict in Ethiopia is a manifestation of the long-running clash between two opposing visions for the country. One camp fosters the view that a strong central government is the only guarantee for the unity and territorial integrity of the country; the other advances the idea that political power should be devolved from the center to the peripheries in a federal system granting regions significant autonomy. The clashing visions are essentially contestations over history and memory. Those who promote a strong central government maintain that Ethiopia is an exceptional state that ought to be preserved at any cost (this includes Abiy and his supporters), while those in the opposing camp—notably the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF)—highlight the imperial legacy of the country, portraying it as a so-called prison of nations and nationalities that ought to be significantly reformed or dismantled. The modern Ethiopian state was founded by the Amhara ruling class as an empire state toward the end of the 19th century. This state formation process coincided with and was partly facilitated by the so-called Scramble for Africa by the European colonial powers, with Emperor Menelik II (who ruled from 1889 to 1913) expanding his kingdom into what is today the southern half of the country, conquering the Oromos (the demographic plurality of the country), the Somalis, and dozens of other ethnic groups currently making up Ethiopia. Menelik identified himself as a member of the Amhara, a national group whose kings ruled over Abyssinia (Northern Ethiopia) for centuries, outmaneuvering the other key Abyssinian group, the Tigraway. The establishment of the modern Ethiopian state through conquest has been a source of serious contestation, leading to countless resistance movements, with the conquered populations fighting to keep their identities, cultures, and languages—and with the unitarist camp justifying the wars of conquest as necessary campaigns to reunify territories that had been part of the ancient Ethiopian empire. In particular, the Oromo, the Wolaita, and the Kafficho resisted Menelik's advancing army, but they were outgunned and defeated, submitting to Menelik's dominion over their territories. The other notable resistance movements against the Ethiopian state came during Haile Selassie's regime in the mid-1900s, in the form of the first Woyane rebellion of 1943 in Tigray (which opposed the reorganization of the country into 14 provinces, as a measure to consolidate power at the center) and the Bale Oromo uprising in the early 1960s (which sought to prevent the government's policy of settling the Amhara in the Oromo province of Bale). Both rebellions were defeated by the well-organized imperial army of Ethiopia, which used superior firepower against civilian populations. The Ethiopian student movement of the late 1960s and the early 1970s—which was instrumental in overthrowing the imperial regime, and whose leaders represented the entire cross-section of the Ethiopian society—had as one of its key missions the transformation of the Ethiopian state from a hegemonic empire to a democratic polity that respected the rights of the various nations and nationalities making up the country. Initially, the Derg—a committee of military personnel who took over the reins from Emperor Selassie—appeared ready to address plights of the nationalities neglected during imperial rule. However, the project was upended when the Derg adopted oppressive tactics and became a centralist authoritarian regime, leading to the formation of armed liberation movements, including the TPLF and the OLF. It was hoped that the defeat of the Derg by the liberation forces in 1991 and the subsequent reorganization of the country along ethnonational lines would settle the destructive center-periphery disputes in the country. However, the TPLF-led Ethiopian government—while recognizing the cultural and linguistic rights of the subjugated nationalities—continued to utilize imperial tactics to suppress dissenting voices by non-Tigrayans, and this contributed substantially to its downfall in 2018. Depending on which perspective one subscribes to, these wars were fought to either maintain the unity and territorial integrity of the ancient Ethiopian state or to remake or dismantle an empire and free the nations it has imprisoned. By and large, the Tigray war is part of the same debate that has plagued Ethiopia since its foundation as an empire state: whether Ethiopia is an exceptional country that ought to be governed in a more centralized manner or one that needs to be ruled as a decentralized polity. The war can be viewed as a continuation of the ongoing undeclared conflict between the Ethiopian army and the Oromo Liberation Army in Oromia, the largest regional state in the country. Despite Abiy's self-identification as an Oromo, Oromia has been a hotbed of opposition to his agenda of putting Ethiopia first at any cost—which he has framed as "medemer," a concept that some have translated as "synergy." Meanwhile, the Ethiopian army has been accused by credible human rights organizations of committing atrocities in the region in what appears to be an unsuccessful attempt to subdue the Oromo Liberation Army. The other major complicating factor in this conflict is the role of external forces, which fail to understand the deep historical roots of the current divisions in society. Whereas the conflicts in Ethiopia have causes that are structural and historical and require impartial assessments and patient, long-term approaches to resolve, Western foreign policies toward the country have been geared toward short-term solutions that disregard the underlying problems. A strand of political economy theory posits that the structure of policymaking in democratic countries may induce politicians to opt for maximizing their own interests at the expense of broader social welfare, leading them to choose policies that are suboptimal. With politicians in office focusing on winning the next election cycle, their foreign policies might be constrained by their short-term political goals, as opposed to providing the necessary leadership in global affairs. Ethiopia is a case study demonstrating how the short-term political objectives of politicians in powerful nations have constrained the desirable goal of seeking long-lasting solutions for the structural problems bedeviling the country. For instance, former U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice's misguided public eulogizing of Meles Zenawi—Ethiopia's former strongman who is partly responsible for the current mess in the country—as "uncommonly wise, able to see the big picture and the long game," and someone with "little patience for fools, or idiots" is indicative of what is considered mainstream in the foreign-policy discourse on Ethiopia in the United States. Exploiting this, the unelected rulers of Ethiopia have for centuries used the narrative of Ethiopian exceptionalism in seeking and somehow acquiring advice, material assistance, and legitimacy from powerful states, and this has contributed to the perpetuation of conflicts in the country. Moreover, given the perceived fear that the federalist bloc's agenda of remaking the country is fraught with risks that may lead to a chaotic disintegration of the Ethiopian state, the U.S. government has shown significant deference to the unitarist camp and its political objectives, but this has only complicated the core contradictions of the Ethiopian state, deepening the chasm between the unitarist and federalist forces in the country. Whatever the reasons might be, a U.S. foreign policy that enables the totalizing tendencies of the unitary camp appears to have reached its logical conclusion. Therefore, the United States should use this historical opening to rebalance its foreign policy toward the country, with the view of serving as an impartial arbiter of the conflicts between the two sides. It can wisely use its vast financial and diplomatic assets as leverage to induce the two sides in the conflict—the Ethiopian government and Amhara political forces on the one hand, and federalist forces (particularly the TPLF and the OLF) on the other—to sit down and hammer out a lasting solution to the country's long-standing problems. The U.N., the EU, and the AU can assist U.S. diplomats in devising—with significant inputs from the warring parties—a credible mechanism that could defuse the conflict and put the country on a different course. There are models from around the world that could be adopted with some tweaks to hold Ethiopia together in some form—including the Belgian model, the Swiss model, the Canadian model, and the EU model—but this should come out of serious discussions with the stakeholders, including the relevant nongovernmental organizations. A political formula that recognizes the essential diversity and similarity of the Ethiopian public will serve the cause of justice and peace and have a lasting positive legacy on U.S.-Ethiopian relations. During his time as a senator, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden showed that he can take positions at odds with the conventional wisdom of Washington's foreign-policy establishment. Biden and his exceptionally qualified foreign-policy team must now tackle the current Ethiopian conflict with the attention, knowledge, and commitment it demands—not with short-sighted policies that may compound the conflict. It might seem unfair to expect the incoming Biden administration—which will be preoccupied with other urgent priorities of the country it has been elected to lead, including dealing with the mounting economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic—to rectify a foreign-policy problem that has been in the making for many decades. It is, however, vitally important for the newly minted U.S. foreign-policy team to rigorously reexamine the United States' long-standing foreign policy toward Ethiopia if it aims to avoid a Yugoslavia-type disaster in the Horn of Africa.

Russia’s Alleged Hack Could Be Worst in U.S. History

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/18/russias-alleged-hack-could-be-worst-in-u-s-history/

Here is today's Foreign Policy brief: A cyberattack on the U.S. government appears to be the worst ever, Nigerian schoolchildren released, and Germany plans to begin its vaccination program on Dec. 27 as coronavirus cases climb. If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here. As more details are revealed about Russia's alleged hack of the U.S. government, it's becoming clear that the breach is much worse than previously thought. On Thursday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that is "poses a grave risk" to federal, state, and local governments as well as private companies and organizations. Who's been hacked? There is a growing list of reported victims: the Centers for Disease Control, the Defense Department, State Department, Commerce Department, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy were all affected. The DOE says the hack poses no threat to its national security operations—including the National Nuclear Security Administration—but did impact its business networks. As Elisabeth Braw argues in FP, cyberattacks may be declining in number but the damage they cause is greater than ever. "With businesses and institutions getting better at cybersecurity, garden-variety cyberattacks are decreasing while sophisticated and targeted intrusion is on the rise," she wrote. Bobi Wine court hearing. Ugandan opposition figure Bobi Wine is set to appear in court today on charges of violating coronavirus restrictions by holding political rallies. Human Rights Watch has accused Ugandan authorities of weaponizing COVID-19 to suppress dissent ahead of Uganda's Jan. 14 presidential election, in which Wine is seeking to end the 34-year-reign of President Yoweri Museveni. Earlier this week, the Ugandan government asked Google to take down 14 YouTube channels linked to the opposition; Wine, a pop star, enjoys a large online following. Pence getting vaccine today. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen will receive a coronavirus vaccination today. Pence, who leads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, plans to televise his inoculation to build "vaccine confidence." Pence and his team's approach to the pandemic has been controversial. The United States is seeing record coronavirus caseloads and hospitalizations, and recently surpassed 300,000 COVID-19 deaths. Germany plans vaccine rollout. In Germany, where the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was developed, pressure is mounting to approve the drug for use. German Health Minister Jens Spahn is expected to announce a vaccination priority list at a press conference today, alongside plans to begin mass vaccinations on Dec. 27. The Pfizer vaccine has not yet been given a green light by EU regulators, though Brussels recently caved to public demands and moved its assessment date up to Dec. 21 from Dec. 29. Germany is facing record daily case counts of over 30,000, and recently ditched it's "lockdown-lite" for a full lockdown after the partial closure failed to slow the spread of COVID-19. COVID's effects on migrants. To coincide with International Migrant's Day, the World Health Organization will release findings today from a new study on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on refugees and migrants. An earlier OECD study found that the "few data available by origin usually show a significant over-representation of immigrants in the incidence of COVID‑19," noting higher infection rates in Norway, Sweden, Portugal, and Canada compared to native-born populations. The higher rates have been linked to poverty, poor housing and work conditions. Tensions grow between Kenya and Somalia. Somalia cut diplomatic ties with Kenya on Tuesday after accusing its neighbor of meddling in an internal election and a day after Kenya's president hosted the leader of Somaliland, a region within Somalia that declared independence in 1991. The diplomatic spat comes just after Washington announced it would with withdraw U.S. troops from Somalia—leading to fears that the al-Shabab militant group could step up attacks throughout the Horn of Africa. Tearing down Trump's legacy. The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino was once a fixture in the gambling destination of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Although the casino went bankrupt and shut in 2014, it has remained standing—apart from occasional pieces of the crumbling structure that have fallen into surrounding streets. City officials have long urged demolition of the building; now they are auctioning off the right to raze it for charity. Bidding for the privilege of dynamiting the 39-story building began on Thursday. That's it for today. For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.

Betrayed by Their Leaders, Failed by the West, Arabs Still Want Democracy

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/betrayed-by-their-leaders-failed-by-the-west-arabs-still-want-democracy/

On Dec. 17, 2010, the world was changed forever by the actions of one man. A Tunisian fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire outside the provincial headquarters of Sidi Bouzid in protest against local police officials who had seized his fruit cart. Just 28 days later, Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution had ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, driven by the righteous fury of a population who had witnessed enough, a reaction not just to the desperation and subjugation of a 26-year-old street vendor, but to the routine humiliation and oppression of many decades. One question frequently asked during the early days of the Arab Spring was whether the Arab world was ready for democracy. After 10 years, it is clear that it was always the wrong question. The Arab public systematically dismantled decades of oppressive silence overnight. The question was always whether the rest of the world was ready to support them. The answer to that question should be clear from the decade of Middle Eastern blood spilled to almost total indifference from world powers. For generations, Middle Eastern dictatorships had grown bloated and complacent, consoled by the false belief that their security apparatus could intimidate their populations into subservience in perpetuity. But by 2010, those dictatorships no longer held a monopoly over information. Greater access to the internet in the Middle East brought social media, and with it access to the kind of platforms for ideas and debate that many of these same dictatorships had so effectively prohibited, repressed, and criminalized in previous decades. Under those new conditions, the suicide of a young Tunisian man in the small city of Sidi Bouzid was no longer a local story reduced to a footnote dismissed in a state-controlled newspaper, it was a tragedy that triggered widespread outrage and a civilian uprising that would result in the downfall of a 23-year-dictatorship in the space of just 28 days. Tunisians were not alone. Witnessing events in Tunisia, civil protests broke out across the Middle East in a series of uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring. The Middle East had previously lived for generations in a culture of fear and silence, where even mild public criticism of political authorities resulted in arbitrary arrest, torture, and even death. For the first time in the lifetimes of many, that silence had finally been broken, and it was now the tyrants who were trembling with fear. After Ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh, and eventually, Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi fell. The uprisings spread as far as Bahrain and Syria, where the Assad regime had been in power for four decades. However, the Arab Spring and the political movements it created were less united by collective democratic goals than they were by a rejection of decades of failed governments. The uprising in Syria, for example, began as small regional protests calling for political reforms, not the downfall of the dictatorship. It was only after the initial calls were met with overwhelming violence that those calls eventually changed. This sense of optimism, this palpable feeling that democratic freedoms could finally be in reach for people across the Middle East, was so dangerous to the hereditary dictatorships and monarchies that governed them that they spent the next nine years at war against their own populations, salting the earth to make sure the democratic movements that terrified them could never take root again. Hundreds of protesters were killed by security forces in Bahrain and Libya in the first few weeks of the uprisings. Bahrain's protests were crushed, Libya's death toll began to spiral out of control, prompting a U.N.-Security Council response, mandating a NATO no-fly zone, eventually leading to Qaddafi's downfall and extrajudicial execution by Libyan rebels on the streets of Sirte on Oct. 20, 2011. By December 2011, the Assad regime had murdered more than 5,000 civilians, many of them protestors gunned down on the streets of Syria, or arrested and tortured to death. By 2020, Syria has become the worst war of the 21st century, with the U.N. officially giving up on counting the death toll in 2014, with the last estimate put at more than 400,000 dead in April 2016, with the true figure expected to have risen substantially since then. There is no way to neatly package the impact of the Arab uprisings into comforting lessons for the future. While the death toll and infrastructure damage in Libya has remained several orders of magnitude below the bloodshed in Syria, it is still no success story. While the Western-imposed no-fly-zone reduced civilian suffering and was never intended as state-building, the civil war, migrant slave markets, and deteriorating human-rights situation remains a shameful legacy for the international community that intervened, but failed to follow through. Things are little better elsewhere. Revolutions were crushed, or fell under the weight of nationalist or Islamist counterrevolutions. In many cases, especially Syria, the uprising was not crushed from within, but from without, only falling after the full-scale military intervention of Iran and Russia. Syrian revolutionary interests were also further destabilized, co-opted, and corrupted by Qatar and Turkey. The dictatorships in Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain continue to receive legitimacy and support from the Gulf monarchies, just as the Gulf states continue to provide legitimacy and support to Libya's embattled warlord Khalifa Haftar in his goal to take control of the country from the barely functioning Turkish-backed, U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord. The Gulf States are not the only culprit. The grotesque embrace of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's junta by the United States government that began under former President Obama, even after killing 1,000 civilians during the Rabaa Square massacre, was perfectly encapsulated by outgoing President Donald Trump referring to Sisi as his "favorite dictator" at an international summit late last year. France, which has played a crucial role in legitimizing Libya's Haftar alongside its Gulf allies, has also embraced the Sisi regime, with French President Emmanuel Macron handing the dictator France's highest award, the Légion d'honneur, last week. This cycle of conflict is far from over. The protests and ongoing economic difficulties in Lebanon and Iraq show that the public appetite for democratic change is still burning strongly, even after a decade of crushed regional protests, mass displacement, and Western indifference. Iran's regional Shiite paramilitary organizations and their brutal techniques continue to escalate tensions, and non-state Sunni fundamentalist organizations are finding fertile ground throughout the chaos. The economic and sociopolitical factors that triggered the Arab Spring uprisings are significantly worse than they were in 2011, and that's before the region has fully realized the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The Arab Spring may be over, but the civilian uprisings in the Middle East have barely begun. The Middle East now finds itself in the state of flux that Karl Marx described as permanent revolution, the aspirations of its people permanently churning but never fulfilled. There is no way for dictatorships to turn the clock back to 2011, and there is no desire from their populations to accept a status quo that permanently disenfranchises them. The powder is drier than it has ever been; all that is missing now is the next spark.

Bellingcat Can Say What U.S. Intelligence Can’t

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/bellingcat-can-say-what-u-s-intelligence-cant/

Not for the first time, an open-source investigation published by Bellingcat revealed the identities of Russian intelligence operatives, with a report published on Monday naming several members of a hit squad accused of trailing Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for three years before he was poisoned in August with the lethal nerve agent Novichok. The work of Bellingcat, an open-source investigative outfit, has been instrumental in exposing years of nefarious Russian activity. But, perhaps more importantly, it has also enabled U.S. officials and lawmakers to discuss Moscow's skullduggery openly without revealing the sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence agencies. "I don't want to be too dramatic, but we love this," said Marc Polymeropolous, the CIA's former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia. When former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned, it was Bellingcat that was first to publicly identify the two Russian military intelligence operatives that had traveled to the U.K. to spritz the door handle of the Skripals' home with the Soviet-era nerve agent. "Whenever we had to talk to our liaison partners about it, instead of trying to have things cleared or worry about classification issues, you could just reference their work," said Polymeropolous,  who retired from the CIA in 2019. Unlike intelligence agencies which often rely on anonymous sources for sensitive investigations, Bellingcat and their Russian partners The Insider base their work on cell-phone metadata and flight records which are readily available in Russia's thriving black market of stolen data. And unlike most major media organizations that are willing to accept leaked data but draw the line at buying information, Bellingcat and their partners have proven willing to go a step further and pay for information from data merchants which often originates from low-level employees in banks, telecoms companies, and government agencies looking to make a quick buck. Bellingcat's transparency about their investigative process also makes it difficult to refute and harder for Russia to dodge responsibility. Plausible deniability has long been a cornerstone of Russian activity, whether the invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, or the poisoning of Navalny. In the wake of the Skripal poisoning, Russia launched a major disinformation counteroffensive advancing more than 40 different conspiracy theories intended to obfuscate their involvement. Most memorably, the suspected assailants said that they were just a pair of innocent fitness instructors who had travelled from Moscow to Salisbury to see the city's cathedral. Russian state media have repeatedly sought to portray Bellingcat as working on behalf of the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies. Polymeropoulos was unequivocal on this point. "We have no ties to them," he said. The other benefit of the very public nature of Bellingcat's findings is that it can free up U.S. officials and legislators to discuss the issue when formulating a response—which can be tough to do otherwise. "It's a significant policy challenge when you make a decision based on intelligence, and you don't want to risk your sources and methods," said Hoffman. The U.S. intelligence community will periodically release short statements about threats to the nation, while keeping information about how they were able to reach these conclusions tightly under wraps. Open-source intelligence gets around that. "The advantage of having Bellingcat doing it is that you don't have to have a sources-and-methods debate within your government," said Daniel Fried, a retired diplomat who served as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs under former President George W. Bush. And that holds true for lawmakers as well. "The fact that it's open-sourced is so important because we can talk about it more to the public," said Democratic Rep. Bill Keating, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia. Keating said he hopes through his work on the subcommittee to make Russia's destabilizing actions a priority for the Biden administration.

Tunisia’s Decade of Democracy

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/tunisias-decade-of-democracy/

On Dec. 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old street vendor in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, poured a bottle of gasoline over his head and body and set himself on fire. The act came after his goods and cart were confiscated by municipal officers and he was refused a meeting by the local governor. He died from his burns a few weeks later. His wasn't the first self-immolation in North Africa that year, but his act of desolation resonated with millions of other young Tunisians who, like him, lacked stable jobs and lived meager existences under the autocratic rule of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. They took to the streets in protest until Ben Ali's 23-year rule collapsed and he was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia the next month. Bouazizi's lonely gesture changed the course of Tunisia and the Middle East at large. But a decade later, the same flames that killed him burn today. And in Tunisia, they risk incinerating so many of the positive changes that emerged out of that singularly violent event. Bouazizi's self-immolation sparked unrest across the region, leading to uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and the Gulf. Compared to the misery and conflict that visited other countries shaken by his gesture, Tunisia has moved toward a notably better future. But the standard by which political transitions are measured—especially those that put an end to autocratic regimes—should be higher than simply avoiding civil war or the clutches of an even worse despot. Yes, Tunisia has become a democracy. But if this is the only criterion that counts, then the victory will always be a fragile one. After decades of being tucked away in a corner, billed as one of the Arab region's most stable and socially progressive nations, Tunisia has gotten a bitter taste of the tragedies that have stalked other Middle Eastern countries for generations through its own revolution. At times throughout the country's strenuous transition into democracy, it has seemed that the same forces that were unleashed by the revolution might swallow it. Since 2011, for example, Tunisians have endured substantial economic turmoil. They have witnessed political assassinations and become familiar with the recurring threat of terrorism. Corruption, previously confined to the highest spheres of power, seems to have infected most levels of society. On the mountainous regions along Tunisia's border with Algeria, Islamist insurgent groups—affiliated with the Islamic State and al Qaeda—have waged a low-level insurgency, killing scores of security personnel and civilians. Multiple short-lived and mostly ineffective governments since 2011 have stalled economic and political reform. In fact, Tunisian lawmakers are so rarely in agreement that a few of them got into a physical fight in parliament just last week. It was a new low for an already discredited body, prompting public calls for the president, Kais Saied, to dissolve the assembly. Despite these achievements, something critical has been missing. Revolution and political freedoms have not brought economic equality. Government debt increased from 41 percent in 2010 to over 70 percent in 2019. Unemployment grew from 12 percent to 15 percent over the same period. In the southern regions, where lack of jobs affects 30 percent of the population in some towns, clashes between protesters and police often paralyze economic activity. And this was before COVID-19. The global pandemic, albeit an exceptional occurrence, is expected to shrink the economy by 7 percent this year and double Tunisia's budget deficit to 14 percent in 2020, its highest level in almost 40 years. This will only add to existing strain. It is this pressure, the daily toll of struggling to make ends meet, that many Tunisians associate with the past 10 years. Unsurprisingly, it is not uncommon to meet many who are unashamedly nostalgic for the orderly years of Ben Ali. The same rage that pushed Bouazizi to the brink 10 years ago has festered in many corners of society, encouraging many other Tunisians to rebel in their own ways. Those who can, attempt to emigrate abroad in search of a better life. Many have joined the ranks of the estimated 20,000 migrants who have died since 2014 trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to figures from the United Nations. Others have sought extremist groups at home or abroad. The majority of the disenchanted, a whole generation of them, are still waiting for things to get better, hoping that the events of 2011 will translate to more than a new government system, freedom of expression, and changed street names. Ten years after Bouazizi's death and the disorder it unleashed, it is up to Tunisians to decide whether or not it was all worth it. If there is one thing that the country's transition underscores—especially in this age of renewed authoritarianism—is that political freedom without economic opportunity amounts to little in the long term.

Top Pentagon General Meets With Taliban to Salvage Peace Deal

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/top-pentagon-general-mark-milley-meets-taliban-salvage-peace-deal-afghanistan/

Welcome to Foreign Policy's Security Brief. What's on tap today: The top U.S. general makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan, the U.S. government reels from a suspected Russian hack, and the U.S. Army is looking for some catchy new slogans. If you would like to receive Security Brief in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here. The Trump administration may be intent on drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan before Inauguration Day—but don't tell that to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. In an unannounced trip this week, the top military officer visited Taliban negotiators in Qatar to urge the group to cut down on violent attacks, which have risen as the White House has pushed for a faster withdrawal than advised by military officials. "The most important part of the discussions that I had with both the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan was the need for an immediate reduction in violence. Everything else hinges on that," Milley told a traveling press contingent, which agreed to hold off on reporting about the trip until it ended. While Milley's behind-the-scenes trip is likely to grab headlines, it's not clear how much leverage the United States has to move the talks forward. The Doha agreement calls for the United States to zero out troop levels in Afghanistan by mid-2021 if the Taliban upholds commitments to halt the violence. But the U.S. President Donald Trump has opted for a quicker time frame, drawing down to 2,500 troops by January. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is drawing fire from U.S. government watchdogs who say that the agency failed to properly keep track of sensitive defense equipment provided to the Afghans that went missing on the battlefield. Experts have urged President-elect Joe Biden to stay the course on talks by allowing Trump's envoy for the Afghan talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, to stay in place. But the incoming administration may have little patience for the negotiations, as so-called "forever wars" are likely to take a back seat to bigger foreign policy priorities, such as pivoting U.S. focus to Asia and the fight against the coronavirus at home. In the latest round of talks, the Taliban has made 24 significant demands, including a new constitution and a return to Islamic government, as both sides work toward a renewed cease-fire. Change your password. A slow-rolling disaster is unfurling within U.S. national security agencies, as new details emerge of a massive hack that targeted the federal government, likely engineered by Russian intelligence services. The Defense, State, Commerce, Treasury, and Homeland Security departments were all compromised by the highly sophisticated attack, as the New York Times reports. The U.S. government didn't detect the attack, until a private cybersecurity company, FireEye, alerted them to the matter in recent weeks. An IT network software provider unwittingly pushed out malware through an update to about 18,000 users, including at federal agencies. "It will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which ones they just occupy," Trump's former homeland security advisor, Tom Bossert wrote. Incoming President-elect Biden "has to assume that communications about this matter are being read by Russia and assume that any government data or email could be falsified," Bossert warned. Wilkie in the hot seat. Top veterans advocacy groups are calling on Trump to fire Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie, following the release of an internal watchdog report that criticized how he handled a sexual assault allegation last year. The watchdog report accused Wilkie and other political appointees at the department of working behind-the-scenes to discredit the sexual assault survivor, a congressional aide who said she was groped and verbally abused by a veteran at a VA medical center last year. Fresh energy. Biden is selecting former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to be his energy secretary. Arun Majumdar, a scientist who led the Energy Department's cutting-edge research agency under Obama, is in the running to be picked as deputy secretary, the Washington Post reports. If confirmed, Granholm and Majumdar would be in charge of maintaining the United States' massive nuclear arms arsenal and network of national laboratories. Stacking the boards. Trump is tapping more allies to advisory boards and commissions in the waning days of his administration, naming Andrew Giuliani, the son of his personal lawyer and a White House aide, to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Trump also reconstituted the Defense Policy Board this week, naming allies such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Air Force fighter pilot Scott O'Grady to the panel. Got a tip about recent Trump administration firings or the transition? Get in touch with Jack (jack.detsch@foreignpolicy.com) or Robbie (robbie.gramer@foreignpolicy.com). Bolton on Trump's Morocco-Israel deal. John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, unleashed on his former boss for agreeing to recognize the Western Sahara, a disputed territory, as sovereign Moroccan territory in exchange for Morocco recognizing Israel. "This is what happens when dilettantes handle U.S. diplomacy, and it is sadly typical of Trump's nakedly transactional approach during his tenure," Bolton writes in Foreign Policy. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Arab Spring protests. The U.S. Senate is set to go home for the holidays on Friday, though Congress is clearing last-minute hurdle—including a second coronavirus stimulus package and Trump's threat to veto the Pentagon's authorization act. Kyrgyzstan is set to hold fresh parliamentary elections on Sunday, after massive street protests earlier this year. The Army needs your help. U.S. Army Europe had things more or less figured out when it was just handling Europe—with a clear, if simple, slogan: "Europe Strong." But last month, the Pentagon merged the Army's Europe and Africa commands, meaning the newly formed U.S. Army Europe-Africa (or USAEUR-AF, for the acronym-inclined) needs a new slogan. Have a good idea? The Army wants to hear from you. It will be accepting pitches on a new slogan through Feb. 1. Slogan ideas can be submitted here. That's it for today. For more from FP, subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or typos to securitybrief@foreignpolicy.com.

The Arab Spring Let the People Shout, Not Whisper

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/arab-spring-ten-years-syria-protests-prisoner-refugee/

I was in fifth grade when the school's officials ordered all the teachers at my school to end the day early and take us to march the streets of Damascus singing songs of admiration about the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. I arrived home from the daylong rally, excited to tell my father—a successful army officer—my realization: Our president had big ears like a monkey. He didn't laugh with me. Rather, my father slapped my face and taught me a lesson I will never forget. He said: "The walls, windows, doors—all you see, smell, or feel around you, everything and everywhere—have ears. They can hear your words when you talk about the president, his friends, or politics. They can even hear your whispers." I was 10 years old when I was first introduced to dictatorship. Ten years later, when I was 15 years old, on Dec. 17, 2010, the thrones started to shake. The Arab world woke up to the news that a 26-year-old Tunisian man had burned himself to death after authorities banned him from trading vegetables in the city—his only source of income. His name, Mohamed Bouazizi, would be remembered as one of the martyrs of what would soon become a new Middle Eastern revolution. At a time when most people believed that it was impossible for the Arab dictators to fall, Tunisian street merchants and their supporters gathered in demonstrations and forced President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country. The Tunisian people defeated their dictator, who had been ruling Tunisia for over 23 years, after 28 days of demonstrations—and with minimal bloodshed. What casualties there were came largely as a result of police brutality. The Tunisian people rose up and called for freedom, sparking a new phase in world history, the Arab Spring. Shortly after the Tunisian movement began, the people of Libya, Egypt, and Yemen also rose up. My family watched the Egyptian revolution on TV as millions of people marched for freedom. I remember my father whispering to me: "Could we see these great demonstrations in Syria as well?" He was excited but afraid to say it out loud. The walls could still hear whispers. Eventually the Arab Spring did reach Syria. It started after 15 young children were arrested after writing on a wall "your turn is coming, doctor," which was interpreted as an anti-Assad message. The children were taken by intelligence officers and endured torture: They were beaten, and their fingernails were ripped off. Among the children was Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy who died under torture, slaughtered by Syrian prison guards. Within days, the reaction of their families and the people of their city created a storm that soon reached my hometown, Baniyas, and sparked our own revolution. Little did I know that in just a couple of years I would be in prison, while my father and brothers would be murdered in the same living room that was once filled with our excitement as we watched the demonstrations across Syria on our TV screens. Like more than 500,000 other Syrians, my family members would become victims of the Assad regime and the subsequent wars. A massacre took place in my hometown, Baniyas, and my village, Bayda, where the regime wanted to commit an act of ethnic cleansing of the Sunni people in the Alawite-majority area. In every conflict there must be winners, losers, and victims. The Arab Spring, whether you consider it successful or not, has taught the people of the Middle East the difference between dictatorship and leadership. It has freed the minds of the people, at least, by showing them the beauty of calling for freedom after years of tyranny. It has also shown the West that the Middle East is open to democracy and change, and proved to the Arab regimes that violent suppression is not a solution, only a desperate delaying action. The Tunisian, Libyan, Egyptian, and Yemeni people managed to get rid of their presidents, but they were not successful in toppling their regimes. Now, after 10 years of suffering and loss, people are facing the same struggles they faced before. In Tunisia, the motherland of the Arab Spring, the democratic presidential election of 2014 was a source of hope, but it soon became apparent that much of the same systematic corruption remained. Egypt has removed two presidents since the revolution began, only to end up with a new dictator: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Today in Syria, 11.5 percent of the population has been killed or injured since March 2011, and more than 12 million—more than half the population—are internally or externally displaced. Nearly 100,000 Syrians have disappeared in that period, mostly at the hands of the Syrian regime, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. The Assad regime, with the help of Russian and Iranian allies, has managed to retake most of the parts of Syria that were liberated by opposition forces, leaving more than 4 million people—a majority of them children—gathered in the small city of Idlib, the opposition's last stronghold, fighting for their daily survival. The opposition groups have had to survive by relying on sponsorship from other countries, such as Turkey and Qatar, which have their own ideas of what Syria should look like and have shaped the way these groups operate—leading them to turn on each other instead of focusing on the real enemy. In 2014, the Islamic State established itself in Syria and soon became the biggest danger that the Syrian revolution faced. The militant group did not hesitate to spend its resources killing opposition forces. It has turned the focus of Western countries from the brutalities of the Assad regime to the brutalities of terrorist groups. This has resulted in a lack of hope and trust in the Syrian opposition groups, and all that is left today is the hope people had when they went to the first demonstrations in early 2011. As millions of young Arabs have grown up during the Arab Spring learning how corrupt their governments are, and how dangerous the security services that protect them are in turn, they had the chance to engage with people they disagree with, to find common ground. They have shaped a new idea of what the future should look like. They will keep fighting until they gain freedom, for the sake of those who died, fled, or were tortured under the regime's control. Millions of refugees have fled their countries to seek safety in Europe. Today, tens of thousands of them are studying at universities, and thousands are advocating for freedom and democracy, speaking for equality, dignity, and human rights. They managed to create new successes that contribute to the future of the region, shaped by their lives in Europe. I wanted to attend the first demonstration to prove myself to my father. Changing how my father perceived me was my first revolution, but after 10 years I have ended up somewhere bigger. Like the estimated 215,000 other Syrians who have been detained, I saw what the regime was like in its darkest places. When I made it to Europe I was given my first taste of democracy. I experienced freedom. I could talk without having to whisper. If, like in Egypt, the Syrian revolution had ended in less than a month, we would not have learned so much about freedom, democracy, and human rights. Ten years of unrest will make Syrians the most capable people in the Middle East at rebuilding their country in the future. We will not make the same mistakes of other countries that have rid themselves of their dictators but are still trapped in corrupt systems. We have been tortured, killed, and forced to flee our homes. But we are not broken. We have not lost our hope and will for change. Even if we had the chance to go back in time, to the time prior to our revolution, to the time prior to the killing and torturing of our families, loved ones, and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, we would still choose to break our cage of fear that has locked us for over 40 years. We would still choose to chant under our skies for democracy. The revolution we started was the first step on our long walk to freedom.

Refugees Can’t Live in Limbo Forever

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/refugees-cant-live-in-limbo-forever/

As of this year, a full 1 percent of humanity (80 million people) is living in displacement—as refugees, internally displaced persons, or asylum-seekers—because of conflict or persecution. To put the number in context, it is similar to the population of Germany (about 83 million) and greater than the population of the United Kingdom (about 67 million). Forced displacement has doubled in the past decade, and it is likely to rise still faster in the coming years as people are pushed to leave their homes because of climate change or natural disasters; a midrange, widely cited estimate of climate migration is 200 million migrants by 2050. The world's existing strategies for managing the displaced are no longer sufficient, but the next U.S. administration has an opportunity to lead the world in creating a new way forward. There are five fundamental problems with how displaced people are managed today. This is the case for all of the 80 million forcibly displaced, and in particular among the nearly 30 million of them who have crossed a border to another country as refugees. First, current approaches lead to ballooning numbers of people who live in exile in limbo for decades or generations, without a solution that permits them to restart stable lives. Although the United Nations promotes helping displaced people find "durable solutions"—returning home, integrating into their new host community or country, or resettling to a third country—the vast majority stay in limbo. Returns are rare, as conflicts remain unresolved and as those who fled are reluctant to return to dangerous situations. Although some host countries allow refugees to be naturalized as citizens, many have policies that limit integration or keep displaced people in camps. Resettlement to other countries—a process by which a third country accepts a refugee—has not kept pace with displacement. Less than 1 percent of refugees are resettled in another country. (With the exception of the past few years, the United States has taken in the vast majority. In 2015, the United States accepted 62 percent of all refugees resettled globally.) But the most common and enduring solution is extended exile. Millions live this way indefinitely—not able to return home or put down roots elsewhere. Second, existing refugee policy puts enormous strains on host communities and host countries. Around 85 percent of refugees live in developing countries, which are themselves often struggling to provide for their own populations. The countries hosting the most refugees are Turkey, Colombia, Pakistan, Uganda, and Germany. Refugee influxes are so large in some cases that they cause demographic changes; crowd housing, schools, and hospitals; and strain public services. Host communities worry that their jobs will be taken by desperate newcomers who will work for less, and sometimes locals resent the refugees for receiving aid even as they themselves live in poverty. Such circumstances strain stability and security in host countries. Surges of new residents have led to political backlash. The 2015 migrant crisis in the European Union led to the rise of far-right political parties in multiple countries and was a contributing factor to Brexit. And among the refugee populations, poor conditions have sometimes led to radicalization. Risks are highest when refugees face poor opportunities in education and jobs, restricted freedom of movement, and alienation from the societies in which they live. Third, policy solutions designed for the near term in refugee crises establish fundamentally problematic structures that last into the future, leading to high human costs. Forty percent of the world's refugees live in camps. Camps are meant as temporary solutions for an urgent short-term humanitarian need. Yet they often grow into towns that endure for decades, trapping people in substandard, squalid conditions. Human beings who have committed no crimes should not live confined to camps without freedom of movement. Camps set up for Palestinians in Middle Eastern countries in 1948 and 1967 endure to this day. The Dadaab camps in Kenya were established in 1991 and 1992, yet people there still live in tents, face restrictions in leaving the camps, survive on food rations provided by multilaterals, and have few education opportunities past elementary school. Fourth, the current approach is economically unsustainable, keeping displaced people in grinding poverty and in dependence upon aid, and draining government budgets of both host countries and donor governments. In many host countries, refugees lack or have limited rights to work, as host country leaders fear refugees will take citizens' jobs. At the same time, there is not enough donor money to support many millions of people indefinitely. Caught in a Catch-22 of not being allowed to work while not receiving enough aid to survive, refugees often work under the table, under minimum wage, and without social protections. When parents cannot earn enough to support families, it leads to higher rates of child labor and early marriage for girls. Not able to obtain citizenship or required documentation in new locations, refugees often cannot obtain bank accounts, access credit, save, or borrow. When refugees live outside of camps in urban areas, they depend upon host government public services, such as education and health. Developing country host governments absorb these costs, without tax revenues from refugees (who are not working legally) and with most donor money going toward U.N.-managed services. Meanwhile, the United States provides more than the next nine donors combined to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. With coronavirus pandemic expenses to pay in coming years, it is not clear how willing or able it and the other main donor countries will be to continue increasing contributions. Fifth, outcomes in terms of human development and human rights are worse for refugees than local populations, creating a global underclass of people. In many countries, refugees have much lower educational and job prospects—a huge waste of human capital and potential. Indeed, over half of refugee children globally are not in school, and host countries struggle to absorb them into their education systems. Those in urban areas often struggle with access to housing, basic public services, and using their skills in jobs. Leadership to reform this global system is lacking, and there are few mechanisms to improve it. Established after World War II in response to displacement in Europe, the 1951 Refugee Convention established basic principles to manage refugee situations. It was not set up to handle numbers of this magnitude or time frames of this duration, and many developing country refugee host countries are not signatories to it. Since then, there have been incremental changes made to existing structures and legal principles. The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees has been the biggest update, laying out principles that donor countries should support host countries in provision of public services and promoting the self-sufficiency of refugees instead of the current often indefinite dependency. However, it is not legally binding, the United States is not a signatory, and it does not provide concrete mechanisms for implementing such new principles. In short, new—and practical—solutions are needed to address this growing global problem. Under incoming President Joe Biden, American leadership is particularly called for, given the United States' role as the primary humanitarian funder for refugee situations globally and, for most of recent history, the main recipient of resettled refugees. One solution is to put more effort into the diplomacy of conflict prevention and resolution so people are not displaced at this scale in the first place. The United States and others could also offer more types of legal, flexible visa pathways for refugees to migrate. The United States has an opportunity both to increase the numbers of refugees it accepts—as Biden has pledged to do—and to encourage other countries to take additional refugees, including in other regions, such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United Nations could work with host countries to gradually close camps or lift restrictions to freedom of movement for those within the camps. If refugees are legally allowed to work, they could also be expected to pay taxes, which could help finance their own public services such as education or health care. Donor funding could be prioritized to help host countries expand existing national public services, rather than supporting parallel services run by multilaterals in perpetuity. And finally, the United States could lead an initiative with other donor countries, the United Nations, and refugee host countries to promote self-sufficiency and human capital development for refugees, by enabling better access to education, access to banking and the internet, better tools for providing identity documents, and allowing refugees to use their skills in their occupations in their host countries. Existing systems are dysfunctional, harmful, and poorly suited to the needs of displaced people and their host countries. Fixing them may seem like a big task, but it is an urgent one. Permanent refugee populations strain stability in multiple countries, deplete government budgets, create a global underclass of people not able to partake in the normal activities of human life, and does not meet global humanitarian values. The next administration has the opportunity to exercise American leadership in solving one of the biggest human development issues of our era—it should run with it.

Arab Dignity Is Real. So Is Arab Failure.

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/arab-spring-dignity-is-real-so-is-arab-failure/

On Dec. 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. After lingering in a hospital for more than two weeks, he finally succumbed to his self-inflicted injuries. While he lay dying, popular protests rolled toward the Tunisian capital, eventually overwhelming Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's fearsome 24-year iron-fisted and corrupt reign when he took flight to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14, 2011. Ben Ali was not supposed to fall. Neither was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Nor was Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi supposed to be run out of Tripoli. Ali Abdullah Saleh was supposed to have mastered the art of dancing on the pin that was/is Yemeni politics. The Assads were also supposed to have Syria wired. The events of late 2010 and 2011 were so extraordinary and so unexpected—at least to most Westerners—that journalists, analysts, and officials began referring to them collectively as the Arab Spring. The name was poetic, in a way, but it implicitly assumed an outcome that in those early days was far from assured no matter how awe-inducing the uprisings may have been. Now, a decade later, what was the meaning of the uprisings? There has been a bounty of articles about how the Arab Spring turned to winter, but perhaps it is too early to tell. After all, the Prague Spring was crushed mercilessly, but Czechs and Slovaks threw off communist rule two decades later. The idea that the uprisings in the Middle East have set the stage for future success has been a fallback position for activists and analysts alike. It may well be that the winter and spring of 2010-2011 was a prelude to change that will slowly, but inevitably, topple regional authoritarians, making way for democratic politics. But then again, maybe not. It is true that much has changed in the Middle East since Bouazizi's self-immolation. The uprisings altered the discourse in the region, demonstrated that centers of power are not invulnerable, and inspired promise for a better future. These are factors that activists can leverage should a new opportunity to challenge authority arise, yet the defenders of regimes have also undergone their own transformation. For them, the terms of battle have changed. They see the events that unfolded a decade ago as an aberration, a distortion of the natural order of things, and thus seem determined never to allow public, private, and virtual spaces to become spheres of dissent again. It would be considerably more difficult for the "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page to be a mechanism of mass mobilization today given how much the Egyptian security services have learned in the last decade. Still, Egypt's present crop of officers and their counterparts in other parts of the region are no more omniscient than those who were responsible for the stability of their countries a decade ago. The result is an odd dynamic in which activists who imagine just and open societies are in a race against those responsible for the reinstitutionalization of authoritarianism in Middle Eastern societies before their inevitable arrest. The way observers think about what might come next in Arab countries is dependent on what they think happened 10 winters and springs ago. And on this there is less agreement than one might expect. Were the uprisings revolutions? In an offhand way, they seem like revolutions. People rose up and leaders fell, but revolutions are more complicated. They require the overthrow of both the political system and the mutually reinforcing social order. This is what happened in Iran in 1979, but not in Arab countries in 2010-2011. Tunisia, which has progressed more than other countries, did not have a revolution. It has undergone a transition, if not exactly by a pact, but by a series of negotiations and renegotiations among leaders in order to avoid or move beyond crises. This is all a testament to Tunisia's civic culture, but the old social order that buttressed Ben Ali's rule remains. In Egypt, only the romance surrounding the Jan. 25 uprising and Mubarak's ignominious fall 18 days later makes what happened a "revolution" instead of what really happened: a coup. If Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in July 2013 by way of a coup, then surely the same is the case for Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in February 2011. In Egypt, there was a change in leadership, but the political order and the prevailing patterns of power in society remained unchanged. Libya, perhaps, came closest to a revolution. But, despite the best efforts of some political elites to forge a peaceful and democratic way forward, the social order did not disintegrate and put fragmentary pressure on the country. People resorted to tribe and region for succor and support in the chaotic aftermath of the Feb. 15 uprising. That was hardly surprising given the importance of both during the Qaddafi era, but narrow political interests soon took over and cracked Libya, resulting in a dizzying array of militias, two governments, extremist groups, and a civil war that became a regional proxy struggle. Syria never even got that far as Bashar al-Assad responded to peaceful demonstrators with bullets and torture. Ten years later, Syria has been torn asunder in a conflict so cruel and devastating that repeating the numbers of dead and displaced people is almost pointless, if only because, as numbers, they seemingly don't mean anything. How is any of this a "spring," and what can it tell anyone about the future? Intrinsic to the moniker "Arab Spring" was the assumption that from the thundering calls for "bread, freedom, and social justice" those good things would necessarily follow once leaders were forced from their palaces. Yet looking back over the last decade, it is hard to fathom why anyone would venture to argue that the uprisings produced much more than sorrow. That does not mean that the uprisings were a mistake—as if such unpredictable events could even be categorized as such. Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, Yemenis, Bahrainis, and others rose up in response to their bitter circumstances to demand a better future. They were mostly crushed. Does this make Middle Easterners exceptional? No. Revolutions are rare, and transitions to democracy fail more often than they succeed. And should activists somehow manage to capture lightning in a bottle again and fill the public spaces of Arab cities with demands for the end of their regimes, there is no guarantee that the outcome would be any different. One can only hope.

Obama’s Brutal Drone Legacy Will Haunt the Biden Administration

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/obamas-murderous-drone-legacy-will-haunt-the-biden-administration/

In 2017, I met Kabir Aluzai, a tall man with big hands and facial features that reminded me of the late Sean Connery. Aluzai described how his brother, Kareem, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2013 while on his way to sell watermelons in Afghanistan's Wardak province, near Kabul. "Nothing was left of him. Even most of his bones were gone," Aluzai recalled. Aluzai introduced some of the village children around him and added that all of them knew the sound of Predator drones. "They can distinguish between drones, helicopters, and fighter jets. They know when to play outside and when not. They are traumatized—we all are," he added. Like many other rural parts of Afghanistan, Aluzai's home district was controlled by the Taliban. Most of the drones, however, did not kill the insurgents, but civilians: farmers, merchants, miners, or—most disturbingly—children. Under the Obama administration, Afghanistan became the world's most drone-bombed country. President Barack Obama also expanded clandestine wars in countries where the United States was not officially at war, such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. In most of these countries, Obama's drone wars fueled more extremism, militancy, and anti-American sentiment. In 2015, the United Nations reported that Obama's drones had killed more civilians in Yemen that year than al Qaeda did. In Pakistan's tribal areas, adjacent to the porous border with Afghanistan, most drone strikes did not kill militants. In 2014, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that less than 4 percent of all identified drone victims in Pakistan were actually militants affiliated with al Qaeda. The cases of Obama's many innocent victims remain unknown. Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old anti-drone activist from North Waziristan who was killed while driving a car, was one. Momina Bibi, a grandmother torn to pieces by Obama's drones in her backyard in front of her grandchildren, was another such case. "They were dangerous, these young men, often deliberately and casually cruel. Still, in the aggregate, at least, I wanted somehow to save them—send them to school, give them a trade, drain them of the hate that had been filling their heads. And yet the world they were a part of, and the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead," Obama wrote. Obama's self-righteous words do not reflect on-the-ground realities. Leading human rights organizations from all over the world regularly criticized the effects of drone strikes and the massive civilian casualties they caused. Contrary to the imagination of Obama and many other politicians and military officials, drones are not precise weapons that only kill arbitrarily defined "bad guys." In fact, the vast majority of designated terrorists, like al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, were not killed. Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, the target of the very first drone strike in U.S. history in late 2001, was never killed by any of the Predators and Reapers that hunted him. Many years later, in 2013, he died of natural causes not too far from a U.S. military base in southern Afghanistan, with the rest of the world only finding out two years later. It's a similar story with other figures like Ayman al-Zawahiri of al Qaeda or Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Taliban. Yet in his memoir Obama ignores these facts while praising "more targeted, nontraditional warfare" and, "unlike some on the left," as he writes, embracing parts of his predecessor George W. Bush's controversial counterterrorism doctrine. Compared to the Bush era, drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen increased tenfold under Obama, while his "kill list," which he personally signed off on each "Terror Tuesday," became notorious. As a former member of Obama's administration, President-elect Joe Biden might be keen to carry on the drone program, in a manner not too different from that of his onetime boss. In Afghanistan, for example, Biden might continue outgoing President Donald Trump's withdrawal plans, but it is hard to imagine that clandestine forces and Predators will stop operating and killing people there. It's also unrealistic to assume that America's shadow wars in Africa, which increased heavily under both Obama and Trump, will decrease. However, Biden should rethink the devastating counterterrorism policies of his predecessors. In the eyes of many people around the world, America's drone war has become a symbol of injustice, oppression, and impunity that led to both global and local radicalization of Muslim populations who are living with the consequences. Extrajudicial drone strikes have also led to questioning of the rule of law itself and the notion of a presumption of innocence—something that did not exist for Kareem Aluzai and all the other countless drone victims. The rule of law stands as a crowning achievement on which many Western societies pride themselves, but it is undermined by Western leaders championing the concept to justify their foreign misadventures. For those on the ground living beneath the drones, such lofty concepts provide little solace. To the Predators, they are visible only as targets—and invisible to the world once they die.

Putin Faces the Press at the End of a Mixed Year

foreignpolicy.com

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/putin-faces-the-press-at-the-end-of-a-mixed-year/

Here is today's Foreign Policy brief: Russian President Vladimir Putin faces his end-of-year press conference, Brexit talks narrow down to fishing policy, and Sudan and Ethiopia border tensions increase. If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here. Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts his annual end-of-year press conference today, a chance for Russian and international media to put one of the world's most powerful men on the spot. Like most world leaders in a pandemic year, Putin has had a mixed 2020. On the positive side of the ledger, he succeeded in making changes to Russia's constitution—allowing him to run for two more terms as president if he so wishes. Russia also continued its opportunistic foreign policy in Libya and in Nagorno-Karabakh, proving kingmaker in the latter conflict. Other developments cast a shadow, however. Falling oil prices depressed the country's economy and could spell more trouble if global demand remains low. Months of protests in Belarus against President Aleksandr Lukashenko showed the weakness of a key ally. Closer to home, a challenge to Moscow's leadership in the southeastern city of Khabarovsk over the summer revealed that all is not well on the country's periphery. Still out in the cold. The poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, allegedly carried out by Russian security forces, won't make it any easier for the West to accept Russia back into the fold. International sanctions will likely persist. Reset 2.0? Olga Oliker, the director of the Europe and Central Asia Program at International Crisis Group, says another attempt to start anew with Putin is unlikely. "Biden's team will be walking a careful line of sticking to values in places like Belarus, where there's little room to actually do much; trying to support Ukraine, which has and presents its own problems; and finding a way to rationalize sanctions without looking weak—all while trying to move forward on arms control and lessen tension," Oliker told Foreign Policy. Biden's attention is likely to be on domestic issues, Oliker notes, meaning the Russia relationship may have to take a backseat to other priorities. Writing in Foreign Policy, David J. Kramer doesn't think Biden should overthink Russia policy. "As long as Putin remains in power, there is little point in spending precious U.S. diplomatic and presidential time and effort in trying to improve U.S.-Russian relations," Kramer writes. Other than urgent nuclear arms control talks, Kramer sees a policy of containment as the most effective U.S. approach in dealing with Putin's Russia. Spoiler fish. The debate over fishing rights remains an obstacle to a final deal in Brexit negotiations, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Wednesday. Von der Leyen added that the other outstanding issues of governance and the so-called level playing field have largely been resolved, meaning the emotional issue of access to Britain's waters is all that remains. Downing Street Press Secretary Allegra Stratton said that a no-deal Brexit was still the most likely outcome, although it was announced that British Parliament would return from its Christmas recess to ratify a deal should one be agreed. Sudan-Ethiopia tensions. Sudan reported that an unspecified number of its troops were killed by Ethiopian military and militia forces on Tuesday in a confrontation on the border between the two countries. The news comes just three days after Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok met with his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa. That trip was cut short to mere hours despite Sudan's announcement that it would be a two-day visit. Qatar boycott. The Saudi-led boycott of Qatar by Gulf states may soon end as the rescheduling of an annual regional summit from December to January suggests rapprochement is at hand. Reuters reports that the summit was moved to give time to settle the dispute so that the countries could present a united front in January. January's deal is unlikely to end tensions between Qatar and Gulf states immediately, but is expected to provide an off-ramp to a policy widely seen as ineffective since it was instituted in 2017. Hunger in the U.K. UNICEF is to fund relief operations in the United Kingdom for the first time in its history, as roughly 2.4 million children face food insecurity in the country. The U.N. agency will grant roughly $33,000 to a London-based food delivery charity that operates in the south of the city. Children's access to food in the United Kingdom was given new voice earlier this year by professional soccer player Marcus Rashford, whose campaign to reverse a government decision to end free school meals eventually led to the British government backing down. Phrenology meets technology. Chinese software giant Alibaba has backtracked from a claim on a company website that said its software can be used to identify the faces of Uighurs and other minorities. A report by IVPM  found that Alibaba touted "is it Uighur?" as a facial recognition option among other attributes like age, gender, and smile detection available on its Cloud Shield service. When asked by the New York Times about the service, the company removed the posting from the website and claimed the feature was only ever considered in a testing environment, and not ever sold to customers. Trickle up economics. As countries seek ways to boost their economies post-pandemic, a new report found that one oft-proposed solution will not help: tax cuts for the rich. Researchers at the London School of Economics and King's College London looked at 50 years of tax policy favoring the rich across 18 OECD countries and found that the benefits remained with the wealthy while poorer citizens saw little improvement in the form of jobs or economic growth. "Policymakers shouldn't worry that raising taxes on the rich to fund the financial costs of the pandemic will harm their economies," David Hope, one of the report's authors, told Bloomberg. Pincer movement. Having largely defeated the coronavirus, Australians are now feasting on lobster. However, the reasons behind the popularity of the shellfish are a cause for concern down under. Australian lobsters were effectively banned from the Chinese market in November after Canberra's call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus angered Beijing. Normally, 90 percent of lobster exports would go to China, but with exports slashed, the Australian market faces a glut and a resulting price drop. Australian supermarkets have even begun placing a limit on the number of lobsters shoppers can buy in order to manage stocks, the Washington Post reports. Australia's loss is a gain for the United States, where Boston lobster has largely made up the shortfall in the Chinese market. The import ban could be seen as bad news for Chinese fishmongers, though: Boston lobster usually sells at a fraction of the price of its tougher, fishier Australian cousin. That's it for today. For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.

Despair is hurting America’s labor markets

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http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/640496456/0/brookingsrss/topfeeds/latestfrombrookings~Despair-is-hurting-America%e2%80%99s-labor-markets/

There is much to be troubled about in America today. The past few years have exposed deep divisions in the U.S. Many of these are a result of a widening gap between those with opportunities and hope, and those who are falling behind. These divisions are evident in high income inequality, reduced social and geographic mobility, and in gaps across the rich and poor in a range of other outcomes, including in premature mortality. Americans have higher levels of well-being inequality and report more pain on average than countries of comparable and even lower levels of income. Other signs of decline range from falling levels of civic trust to viscerally divided politics. Meanwhile, prior to COVID-19, while many observers boasted about our record low levels of unemployment, a less featured story was the rate of labor force dropout, with almost 20 percent of prime-age males out of the labor force (OLF). This group was—and is—overrepresented in the crisis of deaths of despair (suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol poisoning) that took roughly 70,000 lives per year over the past decade. COVID-19 has exacerbated the same trends among the same vulnerable cohorts. Despair—and the associated mortality trends—is concentrated among the less-than-college educated and is much higher among whites than minorities. The trends are also geographically dispersed, with populations in racially and economically diverse urban and coastal places more optimistic and with lower premature mortality (on average). Death and desperation are higher in the heartland and in areas that were previously hubs for manufacturing and mining jobs that have long since disappeared. The high concentration of prime-age workers who have dropped out of the labor force in these places also reflects in poor health indicators and behaviors (such as high rates of heart disease, diabetes, and reported pain, and extensive opioid addiction), and, in turn, lack of hope. In recent work, we found surprising differences in well-being across race and income groups. We also tracked the links between low well-being levels and high rates of death of despair at the county level across the country. We find significantly higher hope and optimism among poor Black respondents compared to white ones (with Hispanics in between), and the geographic patterns in lack of hope, worry, reported pain, and deaths of despair are consistent across places with higher death rates. Shannon Monnat and David Brown find that counties with higher levels of poverty, obesity, smoking, deaths of despair, non-Hispanic whites, and individuals on disability, were the same places where Trump "over-performed" in 2016. Nationwide, meanwhile, counties with more Trump voters in 2016 had a higher percentage of respondents who had experienced drops in optimism about the future in the years preceding the election. In "The Geography of Desperation," a forthcoming paper in Social Science and Medicine, we explored the well-being and health of prime-age individuals OLF in greater detail. Our findings highlight the low levels of hope and poor health of this group, particularly white men, and speak to the related issue of why there is less geographic mobility today than in previous decades, which, in turn, reduces the productivity of the U.S. labor force and labor markets. Based on data from both Gallup and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2010-2017, we find that prime-age (ages 25-54) males OLF fare much worse than young and older OLF individuals in terms of both well-being and health, and middle-aged prime-age males (35-54) report more pain than any other labor/age group. Prime-age OLF women, meanwhile, display significantly higher well-being and health indicators than their male counterparts. This is likely because OLF women typically have additional purpose and identity as caregivers for either the young or the old. While these are not easy roles, they do provide a purposeful identity and existence, which is key to well-being in all populations, and is something that many OLF men—particularly white ones—have lost. The story also varies across race and place. The deepest desperation is among OLF men in the white working class, who in the past had stable, middle-class lives compared to the more precarious status of minorities. Yet Black and Hispanic OLF males retain higher levels of well-being, especially hope, and are more likely to report that they get recognition for giving back to their community than are whites. Minority OLF men also report less pain than whites. This suggests psychological pain, as there is no objective reason why whites should have more physical pain than minorities, particularly as the latter often have inferior jobs. Finally, within prime-age white males OLF, well-being and health are particularly bad for those with lower educational attainment and aged 35-44 and, especially, 45-54, in line with the more general demographic patterns in deaths of despair. We also focused on those who stay behind in economically depressed places, using geographic data from Raj Chetty's Opportunity Insights project. Respondents in counties with a high percentage of adults still in their childhood tract and those with a high percentage still in their parents' homes are generally less hopeful for the future and have poor health and health behaviors (such as drug addiction and high rates of smoking). These trends reflect the reduced ability of these groups to move to places with better employment opportunities and add to the explanation for our general declines in geographic mobility over the past few decades. Our findings on intergenerational mobility are more mixed. While on average those with higher levels of mobility (both relative and absolute) have generally better health, there are nuances ranging from how optimistic (or not) they are, to levels of worry, to some health indicators. This may reflect unobservable differences across places, as well as mediating factors, such as rising aspirations and loss aversion, in the association between well-being and intergenerational mobility. Our story is nuanced, with pockets of remarkable hope and resilience among cohorts with a history of discrimination and marginalization. The most worrisome finding is the high levels of desperation and overall ill-being among white prime-age males out of the labor force and the association between living—and staying—in places with few opportunities, lower well-being, and worse health. Much previous work shows that hope matters to health, productivity, and lifespans. These trends thus have implications for the future of our labor markets and their ability to provide productive opportunities for all Americans. In terms of policies, we must address both the demand and supply sides. This entails creative solutions in terms of the future of new kinds of jobs that can help revive economies in at least some of the places in decline. But it also entails addressing the health and well-being of these increasingly desperate cohorts. Our findings suggest that there is an important role for restoring hope and a sense of purpose among these populations and places and providing new forms of training for the next generation, so that they are both healthy and capable of taking up and moving to new jobs and opportunities. The state of prime-age workers who have dropped out the labor force—and white men in particular—is one of many reasons the country is so divided in terms of labor market outcomes and well-being on the one hand, and civic trust and politics on the other. While restoring hope is an unusual topic for economists, the geography of desperation in America suggests that we must take this issue on to address the gaps between those who get ahead (often by moving) and those who are left behind.

Africa in the news: Kenya and Nigeria updates

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Earlier this month, Kenya signed a trade deal with the United Kingdom, an agreement that will help Kenya avoid disruptions once the U.K. begins to transition out of the European Union on December 31. The agreement will ensure that Kenya will continue to enjoy quota-free and duty-free access to the U.K. market. The U.K. is one of Kenya's top trading partners, as it imports a large share of Kenya's flower and tea exports and accounts for 43 percent of its vegetable exports. The two nations trade more than $1.8 billion of goods each year, with Kenya importing primarily pharmaceuticals, electronics, machinery, and cars. Though the details were not immediately clear, there is scope for other members of the East African Community (EAC) to join the trade deal at a later date. Hours after Somalia announced that it was severing diplomatic ties with Kenya, Somaliland and Kenya agreed to begin direct Kenya Airways flights to the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa by March 2021. As part of the agreement, Kenya intends to set up a consulate in Hargeisa early next year. These two actions have both practical and symbolic significance. The route to Hargeisa would be the first destination for Kenya airways into a Somali area. In establishing a consulate, Kenya would join a growing list of countries—one which includes Ethiopia and Djibouti—that have set up diplomatic posts in Hargeisa. Nigeria announced Wednesday that it would be reopening its borders after a 16-month closure due to disputes over smuggling. The administration announced that the main border crossings—at Seme, Illela, Maigatari, and Mfun—would open immediately, with the rest of the borders opening by December 31. Notably, the existing bans on imports of rice, poultry, and other products will remain in place. The closures have resulted in hits to the livelihoods of informal border traders and increases in transport costs—resulting in rises in food prices of 18 percent in November. The rise in food prices have exacerbated the economic challenges Nigeria was already facing, including a recession under COVID-19 and dropping oil prices. Moreover, the border closures had threatened progress towards the implementation of the landmark African Continental Free Trade Agreement. In other Nigeria news, on December 10, more than 100 gunmen raided the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in the state of Katsina in northwestern Nigeria, kidnapping at least 300 high school boys. By December 15, Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for the attack. Authorities believe the attack was carried out by local gangs hired by the terrorist group for the operation—breaking slightly with past school raids led by Boko Haram, like that of the Chibok girls in 2014, of whom at least 100 are still missing. Notably, the attack also took place outside of Boko Haram's traditional stronghold in the northeastern part of the country, which security experts say hints that the group might be shifting its focus. During the attack, hundreds of schoolboys were able to escape by fleeing into the woods in the surrounding area. By Friday morning, 344 schoolboy were reunited with their families in Katsina City.

Open letter to the incoming Biden administration on Next Generation Community Schools

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We, the undersigned members of the Brookings Institution's Task Force on Next Generation Community Schools, applaud President-elect Biden's stated commitment to expanding community schools. We believe that with the right policy actions, this work could be scaled to a next generation of community schools, serving millions of students nationwide, which can address the impact of COVID-19 and combat educational inequity long term. In community schools, every family and community member is an asset that can be leveraged to build on students' strengths so that every student can learn, thrive, and reach their full potential. The Community School Coordinator partners closely with the principal, school staff, students, and families, and plays a central role in harnessing community resources to support whole child development. Expanded and enriched learning time. This includes after-school and summer programs, as well as enriching the curriculum through culturally relevant, real-world learning opportunities. Active family and community engagement. This includes both service provision and meaningful partnership with parents, family, and community members to support children's learning. Collaborative leadership and practices. This includes the coordination of community school services, as well as site-based, cross-stakeholder leadership teams and teacher learning communities. Integrated student supports. This includes supports such as mental and physical health care, nutrition support, and housing assistance. The synergy and interaction among the four pillars create the necessary conditions for learning both in and beyond the classroom. We recommend the scaling of community schools as a central strategy in both the recovery from COVID-19 and in building back better and more inclusive school systems. The unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on our students, families, and communities requires a powerful response. We must seize the moment and emerge from the pandemic with a new and better way of schooling—one that meets student and family needs and addresses systemic failures to provide equitable educational opportunities for all. Proven solution. Community schools are a proven solution for coordinating services so that the right students have access to the right services at the right time. Effective community schools begin with understanding community assets and designing support specific to the needs of children and families. And, community schools are proving their mettle during COVID-19. By leveraging relationships with students, families, and community partners, they have quickly coordinated local resources in creative ways to meet unprecedented student and family needs. Serving as neighborhood hubs, community schools have addressed emergent challenges, including the digital divide, hunger, health, trauma, and homelessness. The building blocks for scaling exist. There is a groundswell of support that stands ready to help scale a community schooling approach. A diverse national network composed of advocacy groups, such as the Coalition for Community Schools, teachers' unions, parent networks, expanded learning providers, higher education institutions, and capacity-building intermediaries, supports policy development and provides technical assistance. A shared commitment to all children thriving and to strengthening communities brings all of these groups together. A research network, focused on marshaling evidence and setting standards, supports quality implementation across the country. There are numerous examples—both urban and rural—of successful district, regional, and state community school initiatives (New Mexico, Cincinnati, Oakland, and New York). (6) amplifying successful strategies at the level of the Local Education Agency (LEA) for community school implementation and braiding funding. Identify and use common definitions, metrics (e.g., GPRA requirements), and priorities across discretionary grant programs issued across federal departments and agencies that relate to school health, school mental health, school safety, and other issues central to the community schools framework. Issue guidance on combining funds across formula and discretionary grant programs that support healthy whole child outcomes in the context of community schools. Leverage a common application form across multiple grant programs to reduce the burdens associated with preparing and submitting grant proposals. Updating and issuing new nonregulatory guidance on the use of ESSA funds (particularly for Title I-A, Title I-D, Title IV-A, and Title IV-B) that includes a specific focus on the community schools strategy. Establishing a community schools technical assistance center through the Department of Education focused on supporting local and state education agencies, as well as their governmental (e.g., Departments of Health) and nongovernmental (e.g., community nonprofits) partners to collect quality data and establish community schools partnerships. Prioritize community schools as a critical COVID-19 recovery strategy in communities and an eligible use of federal COVID-19 relief dollars earmarked for schools in communities most impacted by the pandemic. Provide start-up funding for state- and local-level children's cabinets that facilitate the integration and coordination of cross-sector resources for whole-child supports. Expand AmeriCorps to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of students, particularly those in the schools most impacted by COVID-19. Address food insecurity. Extend waivers allowing universal school meals and extend Pandemic-EBT SNAP benefits for school age children through at least September 2022. Build incentives for community schools as part of infrastructure revitalization. Encourage the co-location of critical community services, including technical certification/job training programs and social service agencies (e.g., community health and mental health providers), at schools as part of funding to build a more modern and sustainable community infrastructure. Create incentives for districts that develop the community school strategy as part of their Title I plans. Extend the use of funds from the Student Success and Academic Enrichment grant program (Title IV Part-A) to support hiring staff critical to the functioning of community schools. Such staff include, but are not limited to, community school coordinators, social workers, guidance counselors, family engagement specialists, positive behavior and intervention supports specialists, and out-of-school time program directors. Establish next generation community school national and regional technical assistance centers to build the professional capacity of community school leaders and to create national peer learning communities. Reinvigorate and expand the Promise Neighborhood Grants Program, center it around the community school strategy, and focus funding on the 500 neighborhoods most impacted by COVID-19 as a way to activate and connect local community resources to invigorate building back better. Make community schools a priority area for a rapid-cycle learning agenda and 10-year improvement science research and development effort, as well as a focus area for Institute of Educational Science (IES) and Education and Innovation (EIR) grants.

Top Brookings content of 2020

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The year 2020 will be remembered as one of the most eventful years in memory. The world experienced a pandemic that caused businesses and borders to close, pushing medical systems to the brink, collapsing economies, and causing the deaths of over a million people. The Black Lives Matter movement and racial tensions came to the forefront in American cities large and small after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others at the hands of police. And the year ended with a tumultuous U.S. presidential election, which saw Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump despite the latter refusing to concede. 2020 holiday reading list. Foreign Policy Fellow Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings, documented President Donald Trump's track record on the environment. She counted 74 actions to weaken environmental project by the publication in August of her Voter Vitals paper for the Policy 2020 project, and noted that "President Trump is particularly focused on rolling back policy to address climate change, which is possible because Congress has been unwilling to enshrine such policy in law." See also from Samantha Gross, "Why are fossil fuels so hard to quit?," a Foreign Policy Essay. The Hamilton Project's Kriston McIntosh, Emily Moss, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh examined the "staggering" racial disparities of wealth in the United States. The net worth of the average white family, they noted, is nearly ten times larger than that of the average Black family. "The Black-white wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all its citizens," they wrote, arguing for, among other policy responses, increased taxation of income from wealth. See also the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative. Trade between China and the U.S. became a more contentious issue during the Trump administration when Washington slapped tariffs on a number of Chinese imports, and trade negotiations between the two countries devolved into a trade war. Foreign Policy Fellow Ryan Hass and expert Abraham Denmark detailed how the trade war with China hurt America, writing that "the ultimate results of the phase one trade deal between China and the United States—and the trade war that preceded it—have significantly hurt the American economy without solving the underlying economic concerns that the trade war was meant to resolve." Brookings recently published the final papers in its multi-year Global China Initiative. In Foresight Africa 2020, experts from the Africa Growth Initiative and also from outside Brookings discussed the priorities of the African continent over the next decade. Experts outlined six overarching themes in the report: achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, deepening good governance, leveraging demographic trends for economic transformation, combating climate change, capturing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and bolstering Africa's role in the global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic had (and continues to have) a devastating impact on workers and the economy, especially in the spring when many businesses were first forced to close or scale back their activities. Metropolitan Policy Program researchers Mark Muro, Robert Maxim, and Jacob Whiton mapped which areas in the U.S. would be the hardest hit economically due to the virus. "The most affected places," they wrote, "are a who's who of energy towns and major resort, leisure, and amusement destinations across the nation." Visit the Metropolitan Policy Program for the most up-to-date information about the pandemic's impact on the economy and workers. In the most read piece of Brookings content this year, David M. Rubenstein Fellow Rashawn Ray unpacked what "defund the police means" in the wake of nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police. As Ray noted: "Different from abolishing and starting anew, defunding police highlights fiscal responsibility, advocates for a market-driven approach to taxpayer money, and has some potential benefits that will reduce police violence and crime." Also, watch Ray's video on how to improve police accountability.

What Deb Haaland’s historic nomination as interior secretary means for Indigenous peoples

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In an historic election year that saw the first African American and first Asian American woman elected vice president of the United States, the first woman nominated for treasury secretary, and the first openly gay man nominated to a cabinet position, yet another first was announced this Thursday: Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as the nominee for secretary of the interior. If confirmed, she will become the first Native American to hold a cabinet position, and will be the second-highest-ranking enrolled Native American ever to serve in the federal government. While the secretary of the interior may not be as high-profile as other cabinet offices, the position is enormously consequential for many people's lives. Not the least among these are the Indigenous peoples of the United States, including the nation's 574 federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native communities. The Department of the Interior has oversight of federal lands and waterways as well as the plants, animals, and natural resources located there. The department also manages the U.S. government's relationship with Native American nations via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That bureau has a notorious history: stripping ownership of tribal reservation lands under the Dawes Act, instituting Indian boarding schools, and carrying out the Indian Termination Era. In more recent years, the bureau has generally worked toward expanding the self-governance and economic activities of tribal governments through the administration of policies such as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which allows tribes to administer their own programs and services on reservation or village lands. Rep. Haaland's nomination marks a turning point in valuing the experiences, knowledge, and leadership of Native American nations, which would have been unimaginable in previous presidential administrations. In particular, Rep. Haaland possesses a unique capability and perspective for this position: She's from a state with a range of Native American reservations, from the Navajo Nation to the Pueblo communities (she is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo); she was the chairwoman of her tribal economic development corporation; and she supported efforts at Standing Rock to preserve tribal sovereignty and protect the natural resources threatened by the proposed oil pipeline in 2016. All of this will be important to change the direction of a department that has often found its stewardship of public lands and waters challenged by politically empowered interest groups, and that will likely encounter sharp resistance to repatriating tribal lands—a priority for Native Americans. While Native American issues have never fallen cleanly along partisan lines, the Trump administration was perhaps the most hostile presidency to Native Americans in the past half-century. Over the last four years, the administration has taken a variety of actions harmful to Native American communities, such as scaling back public lands like Bears Ears National Monument, destroying sacred sites for border wall construction, opening federally protected lands to drilling and mining, and creating unnecessary controversies over COVID-19 relief to tribes. And in a moment when Native American nations are trying to reclaim their homelands, the Trump Interior Department threatened to take the U.S. back to the Termination Era by disestablishing the reservation of the Mashpee Wampanoag—the first reduction of Native American reservation lands in decades. In light of this, the nomination of an interior secretary who not only understands but has firsthand experience with the injustices Native American communities face will make a world of difference. It is also possible to envision the insights and expertise Rep. Haaland may lend to other cabinet secretaries administering crucial programs for Native American nations, such the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. But she will face challenges. Congress continues to underfund its trust and treaty obligations to Native Americans so severely that the U.S. government itself has described it as a "civil rights crisis in our nation." Lawmakers will also have a significant say in how much leeway Rep. Haaland has to return lands to tribes and restrict fossil fuel extraction. Meanwhile, Native American communities continue to grapple with a host of emergencies, such as the disproportionately deadly impacts of COVID-19 and the ongoing epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. So, while having an Indigenous interior secretary is a necessary condition for improving the well-being of Native Americans, it's by no means sufficient on its own. The day-to-day challenges many Native Americans face will be impossible to overcome through just a single nomination. Nonetheless, this is a historic moment and an opportunity to move the Interior Department from a position of active harm toward Native American nations to one of mutual respect, partnership, and understanding. Robert Maxim is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and a research associate with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. Randall Akee (Native Hawaiians) is a nonresident fellow with the Economic Studies program at Brookings and an associate professor in public policy and American Indian Studies at UCLA.

How political uncertainty hurts the US economy: Lessons from Italy

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Overseas observers of American politics are certainly disconcerted by the degree of domestic political animosity in the U.S., and by the self-inflicted delegitimization of its democratic institutions in the last two decades. Those who observe similar events from Italy feel a particular shiver run down their spine. Memories of what happened in the early 1990s, when Italy's state and institutions suffered a severe loss of credibility and the political fight turned fierce and acrimonious, still haunt. Since then, the Italian economy has never recovered, in part because investors need a stable political framework to take risks, particularly around intangible investments. At that time, Italy's regional divide became so contentious as to cast doubt over the very unity of the state. The public debt grew at record levels for peace time. Financial instability was so severe that Italy's exchange rate agreements with European partners were suspended. However, it was the discredit suffered by Italy's political class that caused the economy to stop growing. The parties' reciprocal accusations of corruption and hidden interests tore apart the citizens' sense of community and created a climate of profound mistrust. In the mid-1990s, Italy's GDP per capita was higher than the United Kingdom, and aligned with Germany's and France's. Since then, the income of Italians has dropped by 30% compared to European counterparts. For economists, the "Italian disease" is still kind of a mystery. In fact, it is especially elusive because the causes of Italy's economic decline were rooted in political events. In some ways, those events are perhaps similar to what we see in the U.S. today: Deep fractures in government degrade its efficacy, the legitimacy of the highest public offices has been denigrated, and there are attempts to manipulate judicial powers. All this has taken place amid a frenetic electoral cycle in a hyper-partisan media landscape. On top of this, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently estimated that U.S. government debt may amount to 160% of the GDP by 2030, reaching exactly the same level as Italy today. Rising public debts, regardless of why they exist, are a strong amplifier of political uncertainty, and transmit instability to the rest of the economy. In Italy's experience, this has happened mostly through the effects of political shocks on the prices of government bonds, which are the backbone (the "safe asset") of the financial system. This produces what is called a "doom-loop" between sovereign and banks debts. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve can mitigate those effects, but this may happen at the cost of eroding the central bank's credibility in pursuing its monetary objectives. In the long term, risk premiums on the government bonds might become permanently higher and affect economic growth. The particular uncertainty originating from the state's institutional framework especially affects "intangible" investments, such as those in research, intellectual property, software, and changes and improvements in labor and capital organization. These investments are riskier than tangible ones because they require high capital engagements and high start-up costs in the face of uncertain outcomes and returns that are postponed over time. Moreover, labor and capital reorganization requires associated political reforms. Finally, if a country's stability is questioned, banks and financial investors are more wary of engaging and funding intangible investments, from which they will not be able to recover any material collateral in case of failure. Empirical experience and statistical data confirm that for intangible investments to flourish, a first requirement is stability in political and institutional frameworks. Unfortunately, it is precisely those investments in new ideas, new ventures, new research, or still unknown advanced technologies that will be vital for every country's development and well-being in the decades to come. When Italy experienced its phase of exceptional political turbulence and the loss of credibility in its institutions, the economy suffered a dramatic setback. Public and private investments collapsed, and the intangible ones fell by more than 20% between 1992 and 1993. The consequences are still felt today because Italian productivity has never recovered. Entrepreneurs were afraid of immobilizing their capital in an unstable political context. Instead, they chose to cut costs, beginning with the number of employees, and piled pressure on the government to introduce any form of flexibility that allowed firms to expatriate at the first signs of instability. Thirty years later, none of the major Italian private corporations of the time — Fiat (now FCA), Luxottica, Fininvest, or Pirelli, among others — has its legal seat in Italy. Of course, the early 1990s were a spectacularly wrong time for skirting intangible investments. It was the time in which information technologies emerged as the most transformative power in the production of traditional goods and services, opening the way to innovative solutions, higher productivity, and better-paying jobs. In many ways, the present moment is an exceptional one too, albeit with differences from the 1990s. Whatever one thinks of the claim that we entered an age of secular stagnation or of excess of savings over investments, there is no doubt that the U.S. needs significant infrastructure investment to bring the quality of the capital stock in line with other advanced or "advancing" economies. The most striking hole is where public and private investments should leverage each other: Just think of the American delays in 5G networks and other important infrastructures, where the material component is indistinguishable from the immaterial one, from air and ground transportation to medical services. The state's role in incentivizing lower-emission means of power generation or greener transportation, either private or public, is far behind the curve. There is ample space for a catch-up, but making the government work proficiently with the private requires political stability. Maintaining people's trust is of paramount importance. The political climate in the U.S. in recent years has been disappointing for anyone who understands the relevance (economic and otherwise) of public consensus around democratic rules and values. Governments must demonstrate to citizens that they (the people) ultimately benefit from the democratic system. In order to do that, improving social policies, such as by upgrading the federal and state safety nets, is key, as well as increasing poor families' access to quality education. The Italian experience shows that the loss of political credibility and the weakening of the economy are self-sustaining. Once a vicious circle is generated, it is extremely difficult and enormously painful to reverse it.

International Migrants Day and COVID-19

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The U.N. General Assembly recognized December 18 as International Migrants Day in 2000, 10 years after the 1990 adoption of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant workers and Members of their Families. This year the day comes in the midst of a raging pandemic further challenging the world's estimated 272 million migrants—a term that applies to all those who, legally or otherwise, have left their country for another. This number reflects a vast increase; the U.N. says a 2003 estimate foresaw only 230 million migrants by 2050. The U.N. expects these numbers to grow due to population growth, increasing connectivity, trade, rising inequality, demographic imbalances, climate change, and conflict. The United States has the largest number of migrants at 50.7 million—around 15 percent of the population. Canada has 8 million, 21 percent of its population. Jordan, Lebanon, and the Gulf Cooperation Council states host 35 million international migrants, 23 million classified as migrant workers. They constitute a high proportion and often the majority of the population in Saudi Arabia (30 percent), Oman (45 percent), Bahrain (50.1 percent), Kuwait (70 percent), and over 80 percent in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In Belgium, migrants constitute 17 percent of the population; the corresponding numbers are 16 percent in Germany and 14 percent in the U.K. In terms of specific groups and going beyond first generation migrants, the European Union had 26 million Muslims in 2016, comprising 9 percent of France's population, 8.1 percent in Sweden, 6.9 percent in Austria, and 6.1 percent in Germany. Yet, migrants are and will remain a very visible and indispensable part of life in many countries. Their numbers, the critical work they perform, and the risks they face speak for themselves. Two-thirds of migrants are labor migrants, accounting for 20.6 percent of all workers in North America and 18 percent in Western, Eastern, and Southern Europe. These workers are often in "essential critical infrastructure," i.e., health, infrastructure, manufacturing, service, food, and safety. In the United States, nearly 70 percent of all migrants in the labor force work in these sectors. They also play a critical role in these sectors in large hosting regions like the Persian Gulf and Western Europe. The U.N. says, the U.S., France, Spain, U.K., Italy, Germany, Chile, and Belgium depend on the foreign born for health care. In the U.K. 33 percent of doctors and 22 percent of nurses are foreign born. Migrant populations are most vulnerable to economic shocks like lockdowns and COVID-19 infections given their economic precarity and lack of adequate shelter and access to appropriate protective gear and health care. Migrant populations are also most vulnerable to economic shocks like lockdowns and COVID-19 infections given their economic precarity and lack of adequate shelter and access to appropriate protective gear and health care. In Saudi Arabia, migrants comprised 75 percent of all new cases of the pandemic in May 2020. In June 2020, 95 percent of Singapore's confirmed cases were migrants, mostly in dormitories. In New York, where 37 percent of the population is foreign born, migrants were overrepresented in 9 of 10 areas most affected by COVID-19. However, their contributions go beyond performing the essential services avoided by locals. Migrant firms were the first to announce COVID-19 vaccinations. Underlining that immigrants have higher entrepreneurship and contribute disproportionally to innovation, Germany's BioNTech, with employees from 60 countries was established by Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, children of Turkish migrants. Moderna has Lebanese-Armenian Noubar Afeyan as a co-founder. Moroccan born Moncef Slaoui heads America's Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines. Women refugees are slightly less than half of all migrants, but their numbers are increasing faster while facing additional discrimination and mistreatment. Women are also most often the ones caring for the stricken whether at home or work with higher infection risks. The U.N. says their remittances skew more toward educational, health, and livelihood needs. Some 8.5 million women migrant domestic workers on insecure contracts face income loss and greater risks of abuse and exploitation, even as travel bans and border controls make returns impossible. For example, many of Lebanon's 250,000 migrant domestic workers were abandoned by employers as the country's economic crisis plus the pandemic and the port blast took their toll. Among the most vulnerable are refugees, i.e., those displaced from their countries, mostly by conflict but also by economic crises, natural disasters, and climate change. Developing countries host 84 percent of all refugees. Over 50 percent of all refugees are from Syria (6.6 million), Venezuela (3.6 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), and South Sudan (2.2 million). The top three hosts were Turkey (3.6 million), Colombia (1.8 million), and Pakistan (1.4 million). As a share of population, Lebanon leads with 156 refugees per 1,000; Jordan follows with 72 per 1,000. The pandemic has much worsened an already problematic health care situation. The economic impact of migration is enormous and globally, 800 million people—1 in 9—receive remittances. In 2019 remittances to low- and middle-income countries ($548 billion) outpaced foreign direct investment ($532 billion) and official aid ($166 billion). The World Bank projects a drop to $508 billion in 2020 and $470 billion in 2021. The top three remittance senders in 2018 were the U.S. ($68 billion), the UAE ($44.4 billion), and Saudi Arabia ($36.1 billion). The top three destinations were India ($78.6 billion), China ($67.4 billion), and Mexico ($35.7 billion). Foreign direct investment ($532 billion in 2019) is projected to decline by 32 percent in 2020. Migrants send home, on average, 15 percent of what they earn, the rest is spent in-country.

Charts of the Week: Biden’s cabinet diversity; COVID-19 in Trump-won counties; health inequities

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In this final edition in 2020 of Charts of the Week: proposals for diversity members in Biden's cabinet; COVID-19 cases emerging fastest in Trump-won counties; and racial inequities in health and health care.

Housing inequality gets worse as the COVID-19 pandemic is prolonged

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In June, we reported that Black and Hispanic Americans faced higher rates of housing hardship than white Americans, and we emphasized the importance of identifying a long-term rather than a "Band-Aid" solution. Now, almost six months later, with COVID-19 cases skyrocketing, no significant efforts have been taken to mitigate the situation. Additionally, a change in administration will bring more delays, making the risk of a major housing crisis even more real. To make matters even worse, data from our recent survey indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on homeowners not only still exists, but it has significantly worsened, especially among Black and Hispanic households and young adults. Data from our recent survey indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on homeowners not only still exists, but it has significantly worsened, especially among Black and Hispanic households and young adults. Strikingly, the eviction/foreclosure rates for all respondents doubled in August, mainly driven by Black and Hispanic households reporting higher evictions/foreclosures than white households (Figure 1). For example, the eviction/foreclosure rate of Black and Hispanic respondents increased by 7 percent as compared to only 2 percent among white respondents. Additionally, Black respondents were almost twice as likely to be forced to move than non-Hispanic white respondents in Wave 2, despite being least likely to be forced to move during Wave 1. While the jump in eviction risk among Black households is certainly alarming, Hispanic respondents maintain the highest vulnerability to eviction among the three groups both in Wave 1 and Wave 2. The trends of rent/mortgage delinquency (Figure 2) and other delayed bill payments (Figure 3) were similar to the eviction and/or foreclosure experience. The disproportionate housing-hardships across racial/ethnic groups widened as the pandemic was prolonged and will continue to widen if no action is taken. In addition to severe disparities in housing hardships based on race and ethnicity, we found a significant increase in hardship over time among young adults. In both survey waves, young adults (18-39 years old) were the most vulnerable to housing-related hardships, followed by middle-aged adults (40-54 years old), then older adults (55+ years old), and Wave 2 further widens the gap. While a very small number of older adults reported housing-related hardship experiences during either wave of our survey, both middle-aged- and young adults faced more housing instability as the pandemic persisted. In particular, nearly twice as many young adults reported both eviction/foreclosure and mortgage/rent delinquency (or "payment" delay) in August as compared to May. This is compounding the financial situation of young adults who have had a shorter amount of time to accumulate protective financial assets, making it harder to weather the shock of the pandemic. This situation could potentially widen the wealth gap for Black and Hispanic households, as well as young adults, and increase hardship for landlords. Additionally, Aspen Institute estimates that 30 million to 40 million people could lose their shelter when the eviction moratorium ends, exacerbating the situation for emergency shelters. Despite the alarming trend in housing instability at the onset of the pandemic, the public sector provided short-term, ineffective solutions. Eviction moratoriums provided some relief, yet the current moratorium, which expires on December 31, does little to guarantee protections. Instead, this solution—merely an agreement declaration between tenants and landlords—postpones impending housing and financial disasters rather than eradicate problems renters may confront after the expiration, including paying back missed bills. Furthermore, this measure could exacerbate the risks for "mom and pop" landlords, exposing them to housing hardship, bankruptcy, or foreclosure due to an erosion of liquid assets. And our findings imply that housing resolutions did little to reduce the risks of financially vulnerable groups. More proactive and sustainable remedies are needed. Solutions should also be oriented not only to highly pronounced groups, such as Black and Hispanic families, but also to obscure and less pronounced groups, including young adults and noncorporate landlords. A universal housing voucher for those with income below a certain level is an effective remedy. This not only secures stable income for landlords, it also drastically reduces evictions and homelessness, as well as widespread discrimination against voucher tenants. Obviously, universal vouchers have a cost. Though the expenditure seems huge, it is far less than tax benefits for homeowners. The Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of Treasury estimates that the exclusion of imputed rent in 2020 reduced federal revenues by $126 billion. And we have the money; as of September 2020, the Department of Housing and Urban Development still has $134.5 billion that has not been allocated. In addition to monetary costs, there's a public perception challenge, too. Paying for universal vouchers requires public consensus that every member is related to one other, especially in the era of contagion. Every member of society is impacted by this housing situation. If Black and Hispanic families are unable to pay off their rent and mortgage, their financial risks shift to their landlords and mortgage lenders. If young adults are evicted, the coronavirus could spread rapidly to older generations. Indeed, stable shelter is not only a fundamental human need for individuals, but also an imperative tool for society to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

War powers in the era of Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin

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That is a valid question, but to our mind there is an even more pressing one concerning the checks and balances on how our country employs military power. Since World War II, the executive branch has usurped war-making powers that the U.S. Constitution entrusted to the people's branch of government, Congress. This pressing issue demands major, comprehensive new legislation from a new Congress and president come 2021. The issue is not just Donald Trump and his impulsive style of decisionmaking. The worry goes way beyond Trump. Indeed, whatever his other flaws, he may leave the White House having conducted fewer new military operations than most of his post-Franklin Delano Roosevelt predecessors. Under Article I of the Constitution, only Congress can declare war, raise armies, and maintain navies, and otherwise provide funds for the common defense. The president, by contrast, is commander in chief of the military. Both branches have huge responsibilities; neither can wage war by their own decision or preference. Yet Congress has not declared war since World War II. Nor has it formally approved, in any meaningful alternative way (except belatedly through the appropriations process), several of the major conflicts the nation has engaged in since then — notably, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Kosovo War, or 2011 Libya operation. Perhaps it is no coincidence that a number of those conflicts did not turn out so well. In fairness, it did approve both Iraq wars in advance, as well as the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and in a manner of speaking the Vietnam War (through the somewhat disingenuous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution). The stakes could be even higher in any possible scenario against Iran, and especially against nuclear-armed North Korea, China, or Russia. The people's branch of government should play a central role in advance of any decision to initiate hostilities against one or more of these potential adversaries. The nation cannot tie the hands of this or any future commander-in-chief in a way that could leave the nation even temporarily defenseless. But that does not mean the president should get a blank check. To begin, we should revise the 2001 Authorization on the Use of Military Force (AUMF) legislation. For 20 years, it has never been revised or even re-authorized. Policy-wise, that law targeted the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks — Sunni/Salafist extremists under the al-Qaida banner and their associates. It does not even attempt to speak to the current situation with Shia-run Iran. But, this is also a problem because the American people remain disconnected from the wars they have been sending men and women to fight for two decades. A new AUMF should not be indefinite. It might span five years, for example, after which another new AUMF would be needed. However, in the event that Congress failed to replace it, the previous authorities could remain in effect so as not to leave the country defenseless in the event of Washington gridlock. In addition, it should require that the director of national intelligence certify that any new extremist group had ideology, goals, and/or key membership that were related to al-Qaida or broader violent extremism/Salafism before a president was entitled to strike it. That would prevent a president from using the AUMF for entirely different purposes than its original intent, while allowing flexibility if new terrorist groups splintered off from old ones or simply changed their names to avoid being targeted. In addition, the War Powers Act of 1973 needs revision. The current act only calls for the president to consult Congress before using force. It then effectively allows them free rein for 60 days before requiring congressional support for further action. Absent an acute and unexpected threat to the United States, for any operation the United States initiates, that number should instead be 0 days. Authorization before any attack should be required, except in cases of self-defense. Finally, we need more constraints on the possible first use of U.S. nuclear weapons, unless the United States is itself already under direct nuclear attack. Richard Betts and Matthew Waxman have recommended requiring that the secretary of defense and attorney general both certify a decision to use nuclear weapons. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer has suggested a similar concept. Mandatory advance consultation with congressional leadership (not necessarily advance approval, though) should be considered, too. This would add an additional check specifically focused on nuclear use, above and beyond the requirement that Congress would need to approve any U.S. decision to go to war in the first place, unless the president were acting in immediate national self-defense. Republicans and Democrats should be able to work together on this. The question is not about strengthening or weakening any one party at this particular moment, but honoring and respecting what our founders saw so clearly when they built a country based on institutions, laws, and checks and balances rather than on individuals.

Visual explanation in 2020

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USA TODAY created dozens of visual stories and graphics to inform Americans about COVID-19, the evolving science around it and how to cope during the pandemic. We also dug deep into politics – from the third impeachment of a U.S. president to the results of November's elections. When politics and COVID-19 crossed paths throughout the year, we explained that, too. We hope this sampling of our work – including a few graphics unrelated to the pandemic and politics – might offer additional understanding or guidance for you as vaccines move closer to broader distribution and Inauguration Day nears. Since March 1, we've recorded the daily toll that the virus has taken on America and the rest of the world and taken note of some milestones. Click an image to read any of the stories. Researchers have learned a great deal in recent months about how this coronavirus is transmitted, affects humans and how best to prevent its transmission. The year started with a mysterious virus vexing a Chinese city, but much of the U.S. media focused its attention in the dawning weeks of 2020 on President Donald Trump and his impeachment trial. The year included questions about his finances and another allegation about sexual misconduct. Regardless of the claims leveled against him in the months leading up to the election, more than 74 million Americans voted for him. Our analysis found that Joe Biden's victory turned more on him attracting more voters than Trump losing support. Our dozens of pages in USA TODAY's print edition helped readers understand the effects of COVID-19 on our bodies, the science of vaccines and even a template for making your own mask.

What can go in blue bins

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'Tis the season for gift giving. And waste. If you're surrounded by endless wrapping paper, festive bows and Christmas cards this holiday, it's important to note proper recycling protocols — especially for paper products, the most recycled material in the U.S, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. "Millions of Americans can also do their part during the holiday season by recycling paper-based products at home," Heidi Brock, President and CEO of the American Forest & Paper Association, said in a statement to USA TODAY. "The act of putting something in the recycling bin in the hope that someone else will figure out what to do with it, actually impedes the recycling process," she said, urging communities to help educate consumers about local guidelines. Not everything can go in those blue bins. Glue, ribbons and glitter-dusted decorations can clog the recycling process. Most nonpaper products need to be tossed or reused. Each holiday gift wrap is disposed of differently at the end of the year. Unsure of what to do as you pack up this season's festivities in a sustainable way? Have no fear — this list is for you. Recycle? Reuse? Or trash? Here's what you need to know. Wrapping paperBrock said plain wrapping paper can be recycled. Sheets  with foil, glitter and plastic or poly coatings cannot. Additional nonpaper embellishments should also be avoided. According to Lisa Skumatz, National Recycling Coalition chairperson, wrapping paper should be separated from your regular curbside mix. It can be recycled with special programs for collection and drop-off in some cities. Try reusing wrapping paper that can't be recycled. If Christmas morning causes  damage beyond repair, trash it — and maybe consider sturdier gift bags to easily reuse in the future. "We do discourage people from using wrapping paper because it is difficult to recycle and instead encourage people to either use reusable gift bags or other types of materials or use recyclable material like calendars, maps, etc," said Randy Moorman of Ecocycle, a recycling non-profit in Colorado. Gift bagsGift bag recycling requirements are similar to wrapping paper. Plain paper bags can be put in the recycling bin — but not bags made with plastic, foil or fabric according to Brock and the American Forest and Paper Association. If a paper bag has rope handles, beads or other nonpaper decorative elements, remove them before recycling. If your bags don't fit recycling requirements, they will need to be trashed or reused. Good news is, they are easy to preserve. Ribbons and bowsRibbons and bows are not accepted at recycling bins. The decorations can clog production at recycling plants. To fix the problem, "the facility then needs to shut down all the equipment so they can get in and cut out all the junk," Peter Spendelow, a materials management specialist for Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality, previously told USA TODAY. When ribbons and bows are too dead to reuse, trash them. Otherwise, save them for next year — tape can be a perfect substitute adhesive. Christmas cardsDon't forget to sort holiday cards. According to the American Forest and Paper Association, cards and envelopes made of paper can be recycled. But those with glitter, plastic or metallic accents should be tossed in the trash. Most recycling processes will remove stamps. Cardboard boxesOnline orders are on the rise this year and cardboard boxes need to be recycled properly. In short: don't forget to flatten and remove nonpaper packing materials. Packing peanuts and bubble wrap are not recyclable. And unflattened boxes take up more room in recycling trucks — causing crews to make more trips.

Lakers, Bucks and beyond

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Lawmakers reach 'bipartisan breakthrough,' announce $900 billion COVID-19 relief deal, will vote Monday

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WASHINGTON – Congressional leaders said Sunday that they reached a deal on a nearly $900 billion COVID-19 relief package that includes individual checks, loans to small businesses and benefits to the unemployed struggling with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, ending months of gridlock in negotiations. "Moments ago, the four leaders of the Senate and the House finalized an agreement. It will be another major rescue package for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced on the Senate floor Sunday afternoon. McConnell, hailing the "bipartisan breakthrough," said the bill's text must be finalized and, barring any "last-minute obstacles," pass the House and Senate before President Donald Trump can sign it into law. Both chambers are expected to debate and vote on the package Monday. The measure will be tied to a $1.4 trillion must-pass spending bill that will fund federal agencies and programs through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Averting a partial government shutdown deadline, Congress is expected to pass a one-day extension of government funding Sunday evening to give lawmakers one more day to review the deal. The deal is likely to pass the House and Senate as top leaders on both sides of the aisle argued for its passage. The agreement ends months of wrangling between Republicans and Democrats over the type and size of legislation to help the nation weather a pandemic that has killed more than 317,000 Americans, infected millions and shuttered scores of businesses. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor the deal was "far from perfect" but will deliver "emergency relief" to Americans. He vowed it would not be the "last word" on COVID-19 stimulus and said he would push for another bill once President-elect Joe Biden took office. Democrats declared victory in keeping top Republican priorities like COVID-19 liability protections for schools and businesses out of the package, though they also were unable to secure one of their top priorities of aid for state and local governments. President-elect Joe Biden has called the package "a good start," and Democrats are hopeful that priorities not fully addressed in the relief package will get an extra boost when the new president moves into the White House. Schumer told reporters at a Sunday evening press conference he hoped for a "more robust" bill on state and local funding and other provisions once Biden was sworn into office, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., predicted they would have an "easier" time negotiating a bill than they did with a Republican-controlled Senate and Trump in the White House. The measure, which Trump is likely to sign, would establish a temporary $300-per-week supplemental jobless benefit (less than the $600 provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act passed in March) for the next 10 weeks and $600 direct payments to most Americans (less than the $1,200 checks approved in the spring), with $600 payments included for dependents. $25 billion for direct rental assistance The extension of an eviction moratorium The extension of the PPP small business lending program and the expansion of its eligibility$15 billion in grants for live venues$82 billion in education funding $30 billion for procurement and distribution of the vaccineA tax credit for paid sick leave An end to surprise medical billingGovernment spending was set to expire Friday, but Trump signed a bill passed by both chambers that kept the government open and gave negotiators on Capitol Hill another week to work out a compromise. Congress has not passed a comprehensive relief package since March. As case totals climbed and benefits lapsed, Democrats and Republicans were unable to come together on another deal. The Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate offered their own versions of legislation only to be rejected by the other side. Negotiations started and stopped over the course of the year, the two sides often blaming one another for the impasse as Americans and businesses hoped for relief. A late summer effort failed to produce a deal right before lawmakers went on a weekslong recess, prompting a string of executive orders from Trump. Talks picked up before the election as moderate lawmakers urged leadership to offer struggling Americans some form of relief, but the two sides were unable to produce a compromise. Discussions started again this month, both sides agreeing relief is desperately needed as Americans head indoors for the winter and coronavirus cases spike. As of Sunday, the USA had reported more than 17.8 million confirmed cases. Though both sides of the aisle promised a deal on government funding, several shutdowns have taken place in the past several years. Since Trump took office, the government has shut down three times, including for 35 days in 2018 – the longest shutdown in modern U.S. history. It stemmed from a standoff between Congress and the White House over funding for a wall along the southern U.S. border.

Fast-moving new coronavirus strain in England raises alarms

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The bad news is that a new strain of the coronavirus racing across England appears to be more infectious than the original. The good news is it doesn't seem to make people any more sick. The best news might be that vaccine makers routinely take mutations into account. Seasonal influenza vaccines, for example, include a variety of viral strains already circulating and allow for some that could develop later. Melissa Nolan, an infectious disease expert and professor at the University of South Carolina, said the coronavirus vaccine designers expected that the virus would mutate and have included various predictions of viral strains. Ogbonnaya Omenka, an associate professor and public health specialist at Butler University in Indianapolis, said a variant of the coronavirus had been reported to be circulating in parts of China. The new strain, not yet detected in the U.S., is drawing attention just as vaccines are being rolled out around the world. American health care workers began getting vaccinated with Pfizer's product a week ago. This week, Moderna's vaccine becomes available. President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to be vaccinated Monday. The vaccines are considered crucial to ultimately crush the pandemic now roaring virtually undeterred around most of the world. No nation is struggling more than the U.S., where each day brings another 200,000 infections – and often more than 2,000 deaths. Vivek Murthy, Biden's nominee for surgeon general, on Sunday urged Americans not to let concerns over the new strain shake their faith in vaccination. Eric Cioe-Peña, a physician and director of Global Health, Northwell Health, in New Hyde Park on Long Island, New York, says the new strain shouldn't delay the timeline for a return to a version of "normalcy" later this year. Still, a virus strain that spreads even more readily than what the world already has been facing is ominous. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the infection was "out of control" in Southern England. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who described the new strain as 70% more transmissible than the original, ordered tighter restrictions and dropped a much-anticipated relaxation of rules that had been set to kick in across much of England ahead of the holidays. More than 16 million people are now ordered to stay at home in London and southeast England, and socializing elsewhere in the country is now restricted to Christmas Day only. The World Health Organization said the new strain was identified in southeastern England as early as September. WHO said the mutation has been detected as far away as Australia. Public health officials around the globe are wary and governments are taking no chances. Italian foreign affairs minister Luigi Di Maio announced a ban on flights from the United Kingdom, citing his government's "duty to protect Italians." Germany, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands also banned flights, and Belgium halted train links, the lifeblood of European travel. France and Ireland also were considering travel measures. Omenka warned that border closures are usually "reactionary" and may not completely keep out transmissions. Curbing the spread comes back to basics, he said: washing hands, wearing masks, keeping socially distant.

Police, firefighters, teachers will be next in line for COVID-19 vaccine

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Police, firefighters, teachers and grocery workers will be among those next in line for a COVID-19 vaccine, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel decided Sunday. The committee voted 13-1 to recommend that Phase 1b include people 75 and older and front-line essential workers. Phase 1c will include people 65 to 74 and people 16 to 64 who have high-risk medical conditions, along with other essential workers. "My hope is that these short-term recommendations will support efficiency and equity in every phase of vaccination until we can get to the time when all individuals have access to safe and effective vaccines in the U.S. and worldwide," said Dr. Grace Lee, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and committee member. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began its deliberations Sunday morning and spent the day discussing who would follow front-line health care workers and people in long-term care facilities in receiving vaccines, a second phase that could begin in February. The committee is responsible for recommending who gets what vaccines when. They made difficult decisions that were based on getting a vaccine as quickly as possible to people at the greatest risk of contracting COVID-19 and those who will suffer the most severe outcomes, said Dr. Sharon Fry of the Saint Louis University Medical School and a committee member. "There are no perfect recommendations. and people will continue to become ill with this disease and die from the disease until there are adequate vaccines. So please, I will plead also for our leaders and the government to move quickly on this and support this effort," she said. There are now two COVID-19 vaccines in use in the United States. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 11. The Moderna vaccine was authorized Friday and should begin arriving at hospitals on Monday. The United States has created a phased vaccination plan for the coronavirus because there won't be enough vaccine in the beginning of the rollout. Phase 1a includes front-line health care workers and people in long-term care facilities. "Essential workers are at high risk because of exposure, by virtue of being in contact with others, in performing their duties. Prevention of disease in essential workers may reduce transmission to others," said Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a CDC physician who is co-lead on the advisory committee's COVID-19 Vaccines Working Group. ObesityType 2 diabetesCOPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseHeart conditionChronic kidney diseaseImmunocompromised state from solid organ transplantSickle cell diseasePregnancySmoker (current or with a history of smoking)Phase 2 would include all people 16 and over who were not in Phase 1 who are recommended for the vaccination. That means people 16 and over with high-risk medical conditions. Because vaccine supplies are initially limited, Phase 1b isn't expected to begin until February. Exactly how the 20 million doses will be distributed by the end of the month is not clear. Last week, 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were distributed. This week, another 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be distributed, together with 5.9 million doses of the Moderna vaccine. More vaccines are in the pipeline. Another candidate, from Johnson & Johnson, fully enrolled its large-scale human trial Thursday and expects to report its first safety and effectiveness data in January. A fourth, created by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, is a few weeks behind, and a fifth candidate, by vaccine developer Novavax of Gaithersburg, Maryland, is expected to begin its major U.S. trial shortly. If all or most of these come through, there should be plenty of vaccine by the end of next summer to cover every American who wants one.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp draws anger and mockery after attending White House Christmas party amid Trump attacks

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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp faced a slew of social media criticism after he attended a White House Christmas party with his daughter on Friday, despite being repeatedly insulted by President Donald Trump in the weeks since the Nov. 3 election. "Lucy and I had a great time at the @WhiteHouse Christmas Party today. Merry Christmas, everyone!" the Republican governor said in a tweet along with photos of the and his daughter at the event. The morning of the Christmas party, Trump tweeted that Kemp should call a special session of the Georgia Legislature to challenge the election result. "So easy to do, why is he not doing it? It will give us the State. MUST ACT NOW!" the president said. Trump also called him a "so-called 'Republican'" in another tweet that morning. Kemp's tweet about the party drew strong reactions. Trump has been criticized for holding holiday parties at the White House at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has reached record levels of daily infections and deaths. And Kemp was slammed for attending the event despite the rapidly rising COVID-19 death count. Chenue Her, a reporter for WXIA in Atlanta, said some accused Kemp of hypocrisy because he had recommended Georgians "hunker down" for the holidays to avoid spreading the virus. But the most irate reactions to Kemp's attendance came from Trump's supporters who agree with the president that the Georgia governor should do more to try to flip the election outcome in his state. "Why didn't someone arrest Brian Kemp at the White House Christmas Party?" asked Matt Couch, founder of the right-wing news aggregator The DC Patriot, despite the fact Kemp is not charged with any crimes. Jenna Ellis, an attorney for Trump who has been a public face of the effort to overturn the election, was more succinct in her reaction to Kemp's attending the party. "Seriously?" she tweeted.

'Survivors of solitary confinement'

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Introduction by Johnny PerezThere were significantly fewer mouths to feed in my apartment this Thanksgiving as my family followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendation not to travel and not to gather in groups. I'll be doing the same thing for Christmas. And yet, having spent a total of three years in solitary confinement, I am more grateful for the family I can be with than I've ever been. I know I'm not alone. One of the hardest parts of spending the holidays in solitary confinement was watching the correctional officers clock-out early to be home with their families. Overhearing their plans with their sons and daughters only reminded me of how I was arrested for robbery and eventually sent to prison for 13 years, just two days after my first born came into the world. When I read accounts of incarcerated people dying from COVID-19, I remembered once contracting the flu while in solitary, struggling for days with high fever, sweats and chills. Each day, corrections officers ensured my request to see a doctor had been passed on. and each day my pleas went unanswered. No aspirin, no decongestant, no extra blankets, no Kleenex, no care. Today, my past is the present for many incarcerated people who are five times more likely to contract COVID-19 than the general public. They are also several times more likely to die from it. Since the arrival of COVID-19 in the U.S., the use of solitary confinement in our nation's jails and prisons has risen 500%, mostly as a means of containing a health crisis which continues to permeate every crevice of carceral institutions across the United States. There are humane COVID-19 mitigation proposals on the table like releasing anyone with less than 365 days left on their sentence or anyone who does not pose a danger to public safety, including people who are especially vulnerable like the elderly and women who are expecting. But our leaders continue to ignore the humanity of the incarcerated and place them in situations that can turn any prison sentence into a death sentence. The Nelson Mandela Rules, a set of revised minimum standards on the treatment of incarcerated individuals, call for United Nations member states to prohibit indefinite or prolonged solitary confinement beyond 15 consecutive days for all incarcerated people, and ban solitary altogether for vulnerable groups, including people with mental illnesses. Fifteen consecutive days can cause permanent psychological harm but is shockingly common in the United States: Nearly 15% of people held in solitary confinement have been there for more than one year, and nearly 30% have been in solitary confinement for one to three months, according to a 2016 report. While leading the National Religious Campaign Against Torture's movement against solitary confinement, I work with many faith leaders, who, despite coming from different communities, all share the common values of humanity, redemption, and the golden rule of treating others with radical compassion. It's tempting to think spending two weeks in solitary is worth saving a life from COVID-19. But it's never just two weeks. Before COVID-19, corrections officers were already notorious for arbitrarily normalizing solitary as a means of punishment. Today, that normalization has been marred by the smoke of the current health crises and a historical election. When combined with a lack of transparency, accountability and political leadership, departments of corrections, bereft of accountability, perpetuate sickness and death. Because of COVID-19, Americans are missing their extended families. Seniors want to hug their grandchildren; nieces want to see their aunts; and everyone is getting a taste of the pain of being separated from the people they love. This year approximately 300,000 incarcerated people will spend their holidays in solitary, more alone than anyone else could be. Below are accounts by two other survivors of solitary confinement on what it was like for them to be completely isolated over the holidays when we're meant to be the most together. In reading them and as we proceed through the holiday season, regardless of the faiths we hold, may we find it within our hearts to agree that torture has no place in our prisons and that all are entitled to compassion and care. Johnny Perez is the director of the U.S. Prisons Program at the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. PAMELA WINNI was 20 weeks pregnant in September 2008, when I miscarried in my cell. The jail where I was detained until trial was on overnight lockdown from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., meaning no corrections officer would be making the rounds for hours. The room was too dark to see, but, being an OB-GYN nurse, I knew what was happening. In a jail cell, there's no call button to alert someone of a medical emergency, so when my cellmate awoke to find me writhing in pain, she had no recourse other than to scream out to the other women in my unit who, in turn, also started screaming that I needed help. After 2 a.m., officers finally arrived and initially took me to the designated medical room at the facility, debating over whether they should call the marshal or 9-1-1. The nurse called the staff medical doctor, who knew me to be a nurse and who directed the nurse to follow my instructions. The moment I arrived at the hospital, I was handcuffed to the bed and put in a room. As a nurse and doctor examined me, two male officers stood directly behind them watching the exam very closely. My legs were in stirrups, and the nurse informed me that I had indeed lost my baby. The officers had thrown sheets that I had bled on, and that had contained the fetus, into the trash. Once the examination was over, I was transported back to the jail and placed in solitary confinement under "medical supervision." In the name of my own "safety" I spent the next eight months completely alone, with no books, no television, no phone access, no visitors, nothing but a bed, a toilet and myself. The next two months were shear torture. I replayed in my mind the trauma I had just endured. I wondered whether my sons were OK. Did my sons know I had lost the baby? Did the baby's father know? As October passed into November, I realized that this would be the first holiday season my children would spend without me. Thanksgiving came and went with nothing, not even a special meal, to observe it. The agony continued. Every year my family would put up a tree on Dec. 12 in advance of the 12 days of Christmas. What kind of holiday would my sons have without me? There was just no way to know because I couldn't speak with them. After the holiday, I was transferred to another jail and again placed in solitary confinement for my own "safety," because the jail was considered a hostile environment for people with federal charges for white-collar crime. I had been charged with health and bank fraud. It would be almost eight months before I spoke to my sons and to the father of the child I lost. As a trained medical professional who has witnessed first-hand the horrors awaiting anyone whose health is at the mercy of a jail or prison, it breaks my heart thinking about the thousands of lives that have been and will continue to be ended unnecessarily due to gross negligence. I bought a house in August, became a grandmother in November, and this year I'll be hosting my granddaughter Aya Alise for her first Christmas. As the holidays arrive and we get frustrated over not being able to see everyone we want to, it's only right to pause for a moment and consider those who can't see anyone at all. Pamela Winn is the the founder of RestoreHER, an organization advocating for better treatment and access to health care for incarcerated women. JACK MORRISI spent 40 years in prison, much of that time in solitary confinement, but never did I stop celebrating the holidays. In fact, the holidays were a lifeline that kept me sane and engaged with the outside world. I never suffered a lack of mother's love, but geographic realities and her crippling rheumatoid arthritis made visits from her nearly impossible. The drive from her home in Los Angeles County to Crescent City on the California/Oregon border took approximately 15 hours. One year, the parents of someone in my unit surprised me by bringing my mother with them to visit me over the holidays. During the one hour she was allowed to speak to me, over a phone through plate glass, I could see exhaustion in her face and the crippling pain in her body. It caused me extreme sorrow resulting in me begging her to please, never put herself through the journey again. For people serving long sentences in solitary as I did, visitations from friends and family become more and more infrequent. As decades transpire and lives evolve, it is only natural to eventually forget someone behind bars. But that didn't stop me from caring about my mother and others. I wanted them to know I still remembered them even though I had been incarcerated for so long. I was locked up as a teenager on murder charges. I was an accomplice to the crime. Every holiday, I would set about making elaborate cards wishing to reach out to everyone in my address book. This was no easy feat. Being in solitary, stringent limits are placed on what one has access to. Sometimes on Christmas I was allowed only paper, pen filler and five envelopes. My Christmas card list was well over 20 people. I collected old Sunday Los Angeles Times newspapers and was able to extract colors from the newspaper print for use on my cards. Once the cards were written, drawn and colored, I set about creating enough envelopes to mail them. Using nothing but a paperclip, I cut sheets of paper into a pattern that could be folded to make an envelope. Then I used diluted sealing glue from a real envelope to seal them. For someone with nothing but time on his hands, these cards made me feel like I had no time to waste. They were how I kept up with what month and day it was. They were how I let others outside know that while they may have forgotten about me over the decades, I would never forget about them. For 40 years, these cards were my only means of expressing love in any form to another person. This year, I will spend Christmas with my mother who lives with me and my girlfriend. Because of COVID-19 and her age, I am the only family member she can see at Christmas time, but it makes this holiday season and our ability to spend it together no less sacred. Jack Morris is a peer community health advisor helping formerly incarcerated people reenter society at St. John's Well Child and Family Center.

'They potentially have the capacity to cripple us': Romney raises alarm about cyberattack tied to Russia

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Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, raised concerns about a recent cyberbreach that has compromised vast swaths of the federal government, as well as the security of major corporations, think tanks and other key American institutions. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the nation's top digital command, warned that multiple federal agencies and "critical infrastructure" were compromised in the attack. Dozens of federal agencies, most Fortune 500 companies and other private sector firms, as well as utilities and infrastructure across the country, also were compromised in what officials are calling a "grave risk" to national security. While each institution is now scrambling to patch up its networks after the news, it is still possible that hackers placed further vulnerabilities in systems that will need to be discovered. "This is an extraordinarily damaging invasion, and it went on for a long, long time," Romney said. The attackers infiltrated federal computer systems through a common piece of server software offered through a company called SolarWinds. The hack was likely perpetrated by Russian-backed agents, according to national security officials. The news has renewed calls for a more forceful U.S. digital posture against the country's geopolitical rivals. In November, President Donald Trump fired CISA chief Chris Krebs for denouncing claims that the 2020 election was compromised by foreign actors. Officials at the departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Treasury and the National Security Council also acknowledged that their systems were breached. Officials have widely called it the worst and most wide-reaching hack in American history. "You can bring a country to its knees if people don't have electricity, don't have water and can't communicate," Romney said. "What Russia appears to have done is put themselves in those systems in our country. They don't need rockets to take those things out. While many analysts and national security officials have stressed the danger of the security vulnerability, the Trump administration has sent mixed messages on its severity. Romney condemned the "inexcusable silence and inaction from the White House" on the breach during an interview with Sirius XM. President-elect Joe Biden also has condemned Trump's comments and has promised a potent response from the incoming administration.

Notre Dame will need flawless game to upset Alabama in Rose Bowl

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The matchup is a television executive's dream: Alabama against Notre Dame in the national semifinals of the College Football Playoff. Whether the game meets the hype is in serious doubt after the Fighting Irish lost 34-10 to Clemson in the ACC championship game, revealing serious flaws and weak spots after Notre Dame's charge toward an unbeaten regular season. The loss rekindled concerns over how Notre Dame has fared amid similar stakes throughout Kelly's tenure and beyond. The Irish have reached the equivalent of six New Year's Six bowls since 2000 and lost each by two or more touchdowns, most recently losing 30-3 to Clemson in the 2018 national semifinals. After beating the Tigers in overtime during the regular season, Notre Dame seemed unable to stop Clemson at full strength. With quarterback Trevor Lawrence back under center, the Tigers gained 541 yards of total offense and averaged more than eight yards per play. With senior James Skalski back at linebacker, the Tigers' defense held the Irish to just 263 yards, about half of Notre Dame's total in November. It will take something close to perfection to take down the Crimson Tide on Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl, being played in Arlington, Texas, after it was moved from Southern California because of COVID-19 complications. Alabama leads the Power Five in scoring (49.7 points per game) and yards per play. The offense has averaged more yards per play against ranked than unranked opponents after gaining 605 yards in the 52-46 win against Florida to clinch another SEC championship. Quarterback Mac Jones, a heavy Heisman Trophy favorite, has thrown for 32 touchdowns against just four interceptions while averaging 11.4 yards per attempt. The team's second Heisman contender, wide receiver DeVonta Smith, has caught 98 passes for 1,511 yards and 17 touchdowns. Alabama's second-leading receiver, John Metchie III, has more catches (44), receiving yards (782) and touchdowns (six) than Notre Dame's leader in each category. Overlooked for much of the regular season, running back Najee Harris ran for 178 yards, had 67 receiving yards and accounted for five touchdowns against the Gators. The wealth of options on this side of the ball presents problems for Notre Dame, which had tremendous difficulty stopping a similarly balanced offense against Clemson. Evenwith Lawrence and running back Travis Etienne in the backfield, Clemson's weapons don't match up with Alabama's skill talent. But the Crimson Tide defense gives Notre Dame a chance. After several weeks of resembling a vintage Nick Saban-era defense — the Tide held six straight opponents to 17 or fewer points — Alabama gave up 462 yards against Florida, the fourth time this season an opponent has eclipsed the 400-yard mark. Three of those opponents rank among the nation's best teams: Texas A&M, Georgia and the Gators. While the offense bottomed out against Clemson, Notre Dame had showed incredible balance for most of the regular season and taken an obvious step forward since the end of October. The Irish ran for at least 199 yards and threw for at least 199 yards in each of the five games leading into the ACC championship. The key on offense will be to develop an effective running game, which was nonexistent against the Tigers. Keeping Alabama's defense honest against the run could open up passing lanes for quarterback Ian Book, who has thrown just two interceptions across 314 attempts. By avoiding turnovers, controlling the clock and keeping pace with Alabama's offense, the Irish would have a shot at pulling off a significant upset.

Biden's influence on federal judiciary may be limited despite liberals' talk of 'court-packing'

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Trump suggested naming Sidney Powell as special counsel on election in Oval Office meeting, reports say

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During a White House meeting Friday, President Donald Trump floated the idea of naming conservative attorney Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden, according to multiple media reports. In the Oval Office meeting, which was first reported by The New York Times, Trump discussedwith his advisers the possibility of appointing Powell to investigate election fraud claims and to potentially seize voting machines that Trump claimed were rigged against him. Most of the advisers at the White House meeting, which included Powell, opposed the ideas. According to the Times, among those objecting to the suggestion of Powell as special counsel were Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani – who joined by phone – White House counsel Pat Cipollone and chief of staff Mark Meadows. According to Politico, the debate grew heated and voices were raised. The White House did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. Powell worked with the campaign to challenge election results in several states, including Michigan. Giuliani and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis distanced the campaign from Powell after she publicly made outlandish and unfounded claims of election fraud. Powell claimed there was a conspiracy to rig voting machines against Trump that involved a range of players, including "thousands" of poll workers, deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the CIA and Chinese communists. Citing two anonymous sources who said they were at the meeting, the Times reported that Trump raised the possibility of Powell being granted security clearance to investigate her suspicions. Trump has continued to claim he won the election, making unsubstantiated voter fraud claims and trying to overturn the results. Powell, along with other staunch supporters and allies of the president, encouraged and echoed his allegations of fraud, though evidence has been lacking and courts have rejected the challenges. The appointment of a special counsel would have to be carried out by the attorney general or an act of Congress. The Associated Press reported that Trump asked his team of lawyers, including Giuliani, about whether the president has the power to appoint one himself. Attorney General William Barr announced his resignation last week. The president said Barr, who declared the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, will leave his post Dec. 23. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was in attendance at the White House on Friday, where Trump asked him about the idea of invoking martial law, according to the Times. The Wall Street Journal and CNN also reported that the idea of martial law was discussed but did not specify who raised it or how Trump viewed it. All the reports said the suggestion was rejected. Trump denied the reports about the discussion of martial law in a tweet early Sunday, but he did not dispute any other aspects of the reports about the meeting. That tweet came immediately after one in which he insulted his former national security adviser John Bolton, who told CNN he found it "appalling" martial law had reportedly been considered. "What would Bolton, one of the dumbest people in Washington, know?" Trump tweeted. During an interview with Newsmax on Thursday, Flynn said that by implementing martial law, Trump "could immediately on his order seize every single one of these machines around the country," referring to the voting machines Trump claims were rigged against him. Flynn said Trump could, "if he wanted to," use "military capabilities" to "basically rerun an election in each of those states" that were narrowly won by Biden. Flynn was pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. He was represented by Powell in his efforts to reverse his guilty plea. During Friday's Oval Office meeting, Powell and Flynn reportedly pushed for Trump and the administration to do more to overturn Biden's election win.

Ariana Grande is engaged to real estate agent Dalton Gomez: 'forever n then some'

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Ariana Grande is shifting gears from seven rings to just one. The "Thank U, Next" singer, 27, debuted a huge ring Sunday on Instagram, showing off a diamond and pearl ring on her left ring finger while cozying up to her new fiancé, real estate agent Dalton Gomez. "forever n then some," Grande captioned the post. USA TODAY has reached out to Grande's reps for further comment. Music executive Scooter Braun, Grande's manager, extended his congratulations to the couple in the comments. Reports first emerged of Grande and Gomez's relationship in March, though neither has publicly confirmed their relationship aside from occasional photos together on social media. According to his bio online, Gomez is the sole buyers agent for the luxury real estate firm Aaron Kirman Group in Los Angeles. He also served as the Director of Operations during his first three years with the company. Grande was previously engaged to "Saturday Night Live" star Pete Davidson after meeting him during her stint on "SNL." Love blossomed for the pop star and the comedian, and they became engaged just weeks after making their relationship Instagram official. The two called off their engagement in October 2018. A month later, Grande released "thank u, next." The opening lines of the song mention Davidson along with her other exes Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez and Mac Miller, who died of a drug overdose in September 2018.

'SNL': Alex Moffat takes over Joe Biden role from Jim Carrey, tumbles into Mike Pence's vaccination

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It did not take "Saturday Night Live" long to find Jim Carrey's replacement to play President-elect Joe Biden. Hours after Carrey announced he would no longer play Biden, Alex Moffat made a tumbling entry onto the "SNL" stage for the last show of 2020. Literally, Moffat's Biden did a somersault in his boot cast – straight into the scene where Vice President Mike Pence (played by Beck Bennett) was receiving his COVID-19 vaccination. Rudolph's Harris replied, simply: "I won more votes," prompting cheers from the studio audience. "I suppose you and Joe might be here soon if those election results hold up," said Bennett's Pence, prompting Rudolph's Harris to slap him for continuing to cast doubt on the November presidential election results. Rudolph's Harris then introduced, "My man, Joe Biden. Get in here Joe," prompting Moffat's grand entrance. Carrey took to Twitter early Saturday saying he will not be returning to the sketch comedy show to portray Biden. In the episode, hosted by Kristen Wiig, Pence's real-life, high-profile vaccination on Friday was alluded to in a joke by "Weekend Update" host Michael Che. "It's the first time he's ever been OK with using protection," Che cracked of the socially conservative Pence.

Notre Dame joins Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State in College Football Playoff field

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Body of work trumps most recent impression. Notre Dame, less than 24 hours after losing 34-10 to Clemson in the ACC championship game, was selected for the College Football Playoff on Sunday. The Irish are the fourth seed and will play No. 1 Alabama in a national semifinal Jan. 1 in Arlington Texas. The game was moved from the Rose Bowl because of COVID-19 restrictions in California. The other semifinal will have No 2 Clemson against No. 3 Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Notre Dame finished 10-1 including a victory over Clemson on Nov. 7 when it was ranked No. 1 in the Amway Coaches Poll. The Tigers were without star quarterback Trevor Lawrence and a few key defensive players for that game. But the Irish finished on top of the ACC, taking a decisive win on the road over 8-3 North Carolina along the way. The top three all are in familiar territory. For Alabama, it is a return to the field after missing out last season. The Crimson Tide had made the previous five playoffs dating back to the start of the system in 2014. Clemson returns for its sixth consecutive trip, coinciding with its sixth consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference championship. This is the fourth trip for Ohio State, tying Oklahoma for the third-most in playoff history. The Big Ten champions got in despite playing just six games in a season that two contests were called off due to COVID-19. Combined the top three seeds have 16 selections in the seven seasons of the playoff. Notre Dame's only other trip came in 2018 when the Fighting Irish lost 34-10 in the Cotton Bowl semifinal. They faced Alabama in the BCS championship game in the 2012 season, falling 42-14 in what was the third national title for the Crimson Tide in four years. Teams with an argument left out: No. 5 Texas A&M, whose only loss was to Alabama, and Cincinnati, which closed out an undefeated season Saturday night by beating Tulsa to win the American Athletic Conference championship. Oklahoma, which won the Big 12, is No. 6. The announcements for the New Year's Six games came later Sunday. Oklahoma will play Florida in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 30. Cincinnati faces Georgia in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1. Pac-12 champion Oregon meets Iowa State, the loser of the Big 12 title game, in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2. North Carolina, the highest-ranked ACC team not in the playoff, gets the conference's spot in the Orange Bowl against Texas A&M on Jan. 2.

Apple is temporarily closing all California stores, a dozen more around U.S. amid COVID-19 surges

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Apple is temporarily closing all 53 of its retail stores California and about a dozen outlets in other states because of COVID-19 surges. The closures come during the final days of the busy holiday shopping season. Besides California, Apple is closing, or already has shuttered, all four of its stores in Tennessee, all three in Utah, all four in Minnesota, its two stores in Oklahoma, and outlets in Anchorage, Alaska; and Albuquerque New Mexico, the company says. California has been the epicenter of the health crisis in recent weeks. Total cases top 1.8 million and there have been more than 22,000 deaths. Average daily cases have increased 10-fold the past seven weeks to more than 40,000. The company also has closed its two stores in Mexico and Brazil, and some in London. More stores shutting down:J.C. Penney closing more stores after exiting bankruptcy. Will your store close in March 2021? See the list. Apple has reopened most of its 270 or so U.S. outlets in recent months, though generally by appointment only, according to Bloomberg.

Coronavirus updates: Congress agrees on $900B relief deal with stimulus checks; first Moderna vaccines roll out of distribution center

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USA TODAY is keeping track of the news surrounding COVID-19 as vaccines begin to roll out nationwide. Just last week, the U.S. marked the stark milestone of more than 17 million cases and 300,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. Keep refreshing this page for the latest updates on vaccine distribution, including who is getting the shots and where, as well as other COVID-19 news from across the USA TODAY Network. Sign up for our Coronavirus Watch newsletter for updates directly to your inbox, join our Facebook group or scroll through our in-depth answers to reader questions for everything you need to know about the coronavirus. ►Congressional leaders worked through an impasse and agreed Sunday on a coronavirus relief package worth about $900 billion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the deal, which would provide $600 stimulus checks for most Americans, boost unemployment benefits by up to $300 a week and enhance vaccine distribution. ►Essential workers like police officers and teachers, along with people 75 and older, will be in line to get coronavirus vaccines after the first phase, which is focusing on frontline health care workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities. ►The nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, which has hit California especially hard in recent weeks, has prompted Apple to temporarily shut down all 53 of its stores in the state and about 12 others elsewhere. ►The first shipments of the nation's second COVID-19 vaccine rolled out of a Memphis-area distribution center Sunday. Inoculations with the vaccine developed by Moderna  and the National Institutes of Health are expected to begin Monday, three days after the Food and Drug Administration authorized their emergency rollout. ►Italy, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands have banned travel from the U.K. to prevent the spread of a more infectious variant of coronavirus. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered tighter restrictions and scrapped a plan to relax rules for the holidays. ►President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will get vaccinated Monday, Biden's office said. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will receive their doses the following week. Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received their first doses Friday. ►U.S. health officials say they have seen six cases of severe allergic reaction out of more than a quarter million shots of the first authorized COVID-19 vaccine. 📈 Today's numbers: The U.S. has more than 17.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 317,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 76.6 million cases and almost 1.7 million deaths. New virus strain a concern, but vaccines still expected to be effectiveA new variant of the coronavirus that has prompted tighter restrictions in England poses a danger because of its increased level of transmissibility, but it does not appear to be immune to vaccines. "We should be vigilant, not worried," said Butler University associate professor Ogbonnaya Omenka, among the public health experts who noted that vaccine makers take into account virus mutations when developing their products. Vivek Murthy, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for surgeon general, said Americans should not lose confidence in the new COVID-19 vaccines just because the virus has mutated. Moderna coronavirus vaccines are on the wayModerna coronavirus vaccine deliveries should begin to arrive across the nation Monday, just three days after it was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. Initial shipments of the second COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. left a Memphis-area distribution center Sunday. The Pfizer vaccine was approved Dec. 11. The first Pfizer and Moderna shots are nearly all going to health care workers and residents of long-term care homes, based on the advice of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The general public is expected to have access to the shots in the spring or summer. Essential workers will get vaccine nextKey workers regularly exposed to the public, such as police officers, firefighters, teachers and grocery-store employees, will be next in line for a COVID-19 vaccine priority, based on a recommendation Sunday by a CDC panel. They would follow front-line health care workers and staff and residents in long-term care facilities in receiving vaccines, possibly as early as February. The panel also voted in favor of those age 75 and older to be part of that vaccine phase. "Essential workers are at high risk because of exposure, by virtue of being in contact with others, in performing their duties. Prevention of disease in essential workers may reduce transmission to others," said Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a CDC physician who is co-lead on the advisory panel. Increased travel may further fuel spike in infectionsThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says "postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19." More than 1 million people in the U.S. ignored that advice and took to the skies both Friday and Saturday, according to Transportation Security Administration figures. Saturday's total of about 1.07 million air travelers was 57% below last year's figure at the same time, but still represents the largest surge in daily traffic at U.S. airports since Nov. 22 as people began their Thanksgiving getaways. That's raising concerns among public health officials as the country continues to get staggered by the biggest spike in infections, hospitalizations and deaths since the pandemic began. Some of that dramatic growth has been blamed on Thanksgiving travel and gatherings. Experts note the upcoming holiday period from Christmas to New Year's Day covers a longer stretch timespan than the Thanksgiving break. Even prominent health officials struggle to abide by the recommendations to avoid travel and gatherings with people from outside the home. The Associated Press reports that Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, traveled to one of her vacation properties in Delaware the day after Thanksgiving along with three generations of her family from two households. As vaccine rolls out, undocumented immigrants fear retributionAfter years of isolationist and punitive immigration policies from the Trump administration, many immigrants – whose physical and fiscal health has, along with many people of color, been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic –  might be unwilling to come forward and get vaccinated. COVID-19 has been particularly merciless to Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans for reasons that include poverty, preexisting health conditions and front-line jobs. This demographic includes many immigrants; the vast majority of those undocumented are from Mexico and Central America. Many of them are critical to farming and meatpacking, and their illness and death represent both a human tragedy and an economic blow. "The vaccine must be fully available to undocumented Americans, if not, it will put all of us at risk," said Manuel Pastor, head of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, which uses data and analysis to dissect equity issues. Read more here. Fast-moving COVID-19 strain in UK blamed for new restrictionsMillions of people must cancel their Christmas get-togethers and most shops have to close in London and much of southern England, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Saturday as he imposed a new, stricter level of coronavirus restrictions on the region to curb rapidly spreading infections. In announcing the more restrictive category, Johnson said a fast-moving new variant of the coronavirus that is more than 70% more transmissible than existing strains appears to be driving the rapid spread in London and southern England. While London fared relatively well in controlling the virus throughout the fall, the city now has the highest infection rates in England. Officials said the new mutation accounted for about 60% of the capital's cases. "There's no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness," the prime minister stressed, or that vaccines will be less effective against it. England's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said the U.K. has alerted the World Health Organization that the new variant identified this week appears to be accelerating the spread of COVID-19. The government's scientific advisers came to that conclusion based on preliminary modelling figures, and they are continuing to analyze the available data, he said.

Fact check: Nurse who fainted after COVID-19 vaccine has an underlying health condition

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The claim: A nurse fainted after receiving the COVID-19 vaccineThis week, frontline health care workers became the first recipients of the coronavirus vaccine in the United States. Some received the shot on television and spoke to reporters about their experience, emphasizing the necessity and safety of the vaccine. Video clips of a nurse who fainted about 15 minutes after she received the vaccine have spread rapidly online, some accompanied by claims that the reaction is proof the vaccine isn't safe. "I'm sorry, I'm feeling really dizzy," the nurse remarks, midway through speaking with the press. She then stumbles and faints into the arms of a nearby doctor. The nurse would later explain her reaction had nothing to do with the vaccine itself. Erin Marie Olszewski posted a clip from WRCB Channel 3 Eyewitness News on Facebook. Olszewski told USA TODAY that because "correlation does not imply causation," it is impossible to know if the vaccine caused the nurse to faint. "How can you say beyond a reasonable doubt that the vaccine didn't cause this?" she wrote. Tina Justine posted a similar clip of the nurse from WTVC-TV NewsChannel 9. "WTF!!! Nurse receives a COVID-19 vaccine, proceeds to tells media how awesome it is, and THEN PASSES OUT!!" she wrote. Justine has not responded to requests from USA TODAY for comment. The nurse fainted after the shot due to an underlying health conditionIt's true that Tiffany Dover — a nurse manager from Catholic Health Initiatives Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee — fainted shortly after she received the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday. The moment was caught on camera by local news outlets WRCB Channel 3 Eyewitness News and WTVC-TV NewsChannel 9. But the incident was not indicative of any safety concerns with the vaccine. Dover explained that she has an underlying health condition that causes her to faint when she experiences pain. "I had a syncopal episode. I have a history of having an overactive vagal response, and so with that if I have pain from anything — hangnail or if I stub my toe — I can just pass out," Dover told WRCB. "It's common for me," she added. What is a vagal response?The vagal response is an automatic response that occurs when the vagus nerve is stimulated by triggers like stress, fear and pain. It can lead to nausea, dizziness and fainting, according to Very Well Health. Dr. Jesse Tucker, the director of critical care medicine at CHI Memorial Hospital Chattanooga, told WCTV that it is not an unusual response after any vaccination. Fainting can happen after many types of vaccinations, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most reports are linked to three shots with different ingredients: HPV, MCV4 and Tdap. That led scientists to conclude that the fainting may result from the temporary pain of vaccination, rather than the shot itself. Numerous other staff members at CHI Memorial also received the COVID-19 shot without incident. Soon after her vaccination, Dover told WTVC that she felt better. There is no reason to believe that the shot that Dover received is unsafe. The vaccine — manufactured by Pfizer and BioNTech — received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 11. A trial of over 44,000 people found the shot to be extremely safe and 95% effective, per USA TODAY. Our rating: Missing contextBased on our research, the claim that a nurse fainted as a result of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine is MISSING CONTEXT. The nurse, Tiffany Dover, told reporters that she has an underlying health condition that causes her to pass out easily, including after she experiences pain. A doctor also said the reaction occurs "frequently" with all vaccines. And there is no reason to believe the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe.

TV standoff ends: AT&T and Tegna reach deal bringing channels back to DirecTV in 51 markets across US

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Just ahead of kickoff on Sunday NFL games, AT&T reached a deal bringing Tegna's 64 stations back to DirecTV. The two companies had a standoff of more than two weeks that resulted in the removal of Tegna's stations in 51 markets across the U.S. from AT&T's satellite TV service, as well as AT&T U-verse and the AT&T TV streaming service. Cities affected include Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Phoenix, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa and Washington. All Tegna stations will return Sunday to the services in the affected markets, the companies said. AT&T has about 17.8 million pay TV subscribers across its services. DirecTV has about 13.6 million subscribers, according to the Leichtman Research Group. As the news spread on Twitter, reactions were mixed. Some were just happy to get stations back, but others criticized the companies for taking so long. "Only cost us three weeks of local nfl games. Thanks a lot! We're in the middle of a pandemic with sports being one of a few outlets and you're all arguing over money. Pathetic," said one Twitter post. Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

Leah Remini accuses Tom Cruise of staging a publicity stunt with his leaked COVID-19 rant

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Leah Remini, a former member of the Church of Scientology who has since dedicated herself to speaking out against the church, has written an essay accusing Tom Cruise of staging a publicity stunt with his now-famous COVID-19 safety rant. In a piece penned for the blog The Underground Bunker and retweeted by Remini, the actress wrote that Cruise, 58, a high-profile member of the church, had taken the situation as an opportunity to stage concern for the pandemic while privately not believing it poses a real threat, because Scientologists believe their members get sick "far less frequently than before" they joined. "Tom seems to think that Hollywood is incapable of making films without his help," Remini, 50, wrote, noting that it is the job of "COVID officers assigned to the movie" to monitor and enforce safety guidelines. Remini went on to call Cruise "an abusive dictator" and blamed Scientology. USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Cruise, Remini and the Church of Scientology for further comment. Remini had been a member of the church for 35 years before leaving in 2013. Two years later, she said in an interview that Cruise was one of the factors that led her to leave, because the actor is so tethered to the church, they view an attack on him as an attack on all of them. The Sun on Tuesday released leaked audio of the "Mission: Impossible 7" producer and star shouting at crew members on the set in Leavesden, England, in an expletive-filled tirade, purportedly for breaking COVID-19 set safety protocols. Paramount Studios declined to comment on the audio to USA TODAY. Variety cited two sources close to the production confirming that it was Cruise speaking. The Sun reported the outburst started in front of the crew of 50 after Cruise saw two crew members standing too close to one another in front of a computer screen. The action franchise shut down its planned Venice shoot in February when coronavirus broke out in Italy before the first day of production. The movie was hit with more delays in October when 12 people on the set tested positive for COVID-19, Variety reported. Production resumed a week later. Two weeks ago, the shoot returned to the U.K. Since then, other entertainers have weighed in. Whoopi Goldberg, Alec Baldwin, Ava DuVernay, Josh Gad and George Clooney were among those who publicly sided with Cruise.

Shania Twain makes a 'That Don't Impress Me Much' joke on Brad Pitt's birthday

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For one day only, that does impress her much. Shania Twain made a cheeky reference to her hit "That Don't Impress Me Much" in celebration of Brad Pitt's 57th birthday. "Happy Birthday to Brad Pitt, I'll make an exception for today," the 55-year-old country music star tweeted Friday with a kissing face emoji. In the song, a 1998 single from Twain's third studio album "Come On Over," the singer rattles off a list of traits she doesn't find all that important in a man: taking care of his car like it's his child, being a rocket scientist, or toting around a mirror and a comb to make sure his hair looks perfect at all times. "OK, so you're Brad Pitt? That don't impress me much," she sings. Twenty years later, Twain explained in a 2017 interview with Billboard that while she was working on the album, news broke of Pitt's nude photo scandal with his then-fiancée Gwyneth Paltrow in Playgirl. Pitt would go on to sue the magazine for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress, claiming a photographer trespassed at a hotel to photograph the couple without their consent. Twain said she intended to reference the ordeal as something she didn't think was a big deal, not as any sort of snarky call-out to the actor.

A Florida woman woke up to find a raccoon in her Christmas tree. Chaos ensued.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Aubrey Iacobelli of Tallahassee woke up at 4:15 a.m. on Dec. 10 to find a new and unwelcome decoration in her living room. "I heard a scuffle, in through the doggie door. I don't know how the heck this just happened, there's a cat inside my Christmas tree," she says in a must-see video of the ordeal she posted to Facebook. In the video, while her dog watches attentively, she attempts to coax the cat out from where it is barely visible, deep inside the top of the tree. She pokes at it with a frying pan and, later, a wise man statue pulled from the mantlepiece holiday display. At one point Iacobelli even sprays the cat with vinegar. Only, it wasn't a cat. It was a raccoon. And when the dog finally lunged for it, chaos erupted. The tree goes over, hard. Glass ornaments break. Iacobelli, barefoot and in her robe, leaps onto the furniture as the dog and raccoon roll on the floor, biting and scratching and barking and snarling. Unfortunately the raccoon didn't take advantage of the front door that was wide open just a few feet away. Instead, it ran into the dining room and up on a table, where it started eying the chandelier hanging above. By 5 a.m., a frazzled Iacobelli takes stock of her situation. The tree is back up, looking like it had been run over a few times. There's a small, sad pile of carefully collected, unbroken ornaments. There's a dog by the dining room table, ready to go again. And there's a raccoon now completely inside the chandelier, watching them warily and swaying back and forth. She finally was able to shoo the animal outside with a broom and was ready to laugh about it when she posted the video later. The dog had a few minor scratches, she said.

Judge dismisses GOP lawsuit alleging out-of-staters voting in Georgia runoff; 2nd suit attacks voting process

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Georgia Republicans, including the campaigns of Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, sued on Thursday to get election officials to remove from the ballot count the  votes of new Georgia residents who took part in the ongoing runoff elections for Georgia's two U.S. Senate seats. A federal judge on Friday evening rejected their case. And as that voter residency lawsuit was heard and dismissed, another lawsuit was filed on Friday against the state regarding its conduct of the high-profile runoff elections, said prominent Democratic lawyer Marc Elias. Elias has been tracking litigation surrounding the 2020 elections. The new lawsuit asks the court to order Georgia to quit using in the runoffs any electronic voting equipment made by Dominion Voting Systems. It also says the election officials are handling mail-in absentee ballots improperly and illegally. Atlanta lawyer Lin Wood filed this lawsuit. He has been involved in similar lawsuits in Georgia and around the country challenging the results of the presidential election  in which Democrat Joe Biden defeated Republican incumbent Donald Trump. Dominion machines have been the target of much ire from Trump supporters alleging, without evidence, that they were rigged in Biden's favor. Previous lawsuits alleging problems with Dominion's machines have been dismissed. Loeffler and Perdue are defending their seats from Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Polling says the races are close. If the Democrats win, they will snatch control of the Senate away from the Republicans. All the president's lawsuits: Click here for a guide to the status of the Trump campaign's election result challenges in eight states. Thursday's voter residency lawsuitIn the voter residency lawsuit filed Thursday, the plaintiffs believe some new Georgia residents "raced to Georgia to register to vote" specifically to cast ballots in Georgia's runoff election, lawyer George Meros of Tallahassee, Florida, said in a hearing late Friday afternoon. Voters shouldn't be allowed to vote in the same election cycle for senators in two states, Meros told the judge. He contended that it is illegal under the federal Voting Rights Act and unfair to Georgia's other voters. The lawsuit cites statements made in November on Twitter and on CNN in which commentators said people should quickly move to Georgia in order to vote in the runoff. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whose office is in charge of elections, previously said his office is investigating whether several groups were bringing people to Georgia to fraudulently vote. Voter registration reopened following the Nov. 3 general election and closed on Dec. 7 for the runoff balloting. Residents who weren't registered to vote in Georgia the Nov. 3 balloting – when none of the four Senate candidates obtained a majority – were allowed to register to vote in the runoff elections. Early voting and absentee voting are underway, and balloting ends Jan. 5. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week nearly 76,000 people registered to vote from Nov. 4 through Dec. 7. The residency lawsuit was filed against Raffensperger, the State Election Board, the Glynn Glynn County Board of Elections and the Chatham County Board Of Elections. The plaintiffs are the Georgia Republican Party, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (which is working to elect Loeffler and Perdue), the Loeffler and Perdue campaigns, and three Georgia voters. The plaintiffs said in the filings they found eight newly registered voters in Glynn County who voted in another state, then registered to vote in Georgia, and voted early, and another 19 such newly registered voters in Chatham County. "Ballots cast by these registrants – that have already voted for a candidate for U.S. Senator of a different state – in Georgia's 2021 run-off election will be unlawful," the lawsuit says. Meros asked U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to tell election officials to separate the mail-in ballots of newly registered voters from other states who previously voted in the November balloting, and to set aside the in-person ballots of such voters. Then each voter could be reviewed to see if his or her ballot will be counted. Judge Wood was skeptical of the case and ultimately rejected it on Friday evening. She said there was no way to know whether these voters filled out the Senate portion of the ballots in their old states. In past rulings, the appellate courts have said judges should not change the rules of an election while it is underway as that creates confusion and opportunity for mistakes among election workers and voters. Further, the process of pulling ballots to review a voter could suppress some voters from voting, Judge Wood said. The voters would have no obligation to answer questions and it would be difficult logistically to do what the plaintiffs want. She also said plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue. Judge Wood was nominated for the federal bench by Republican President George. W. Bush in 2007. New voter machine lawsuitLawyer Lin Wood's new voter machine and absentee ballot lawsuit was filed late Friday in U.S. District Court, Democratic lawyer Elias said on Twitter. Elias posted a copy of the litigation on his website; the USA Today Network was not immediately able to find the case on Pacer, the federal court system's online electronic database of court records. The public-facing portion of Pacer is not always updated immediately as lawyers file lawsuits and other court papers. On Thursday, another federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that claimed there are problems with the verification of voter signatures on absentee ballots and that said the use of ballot drop boxes is against state law. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many more voters than usual cast mail-in ballots across the country to avoid coming into contact with strangers who could be infected. Some state election offices start tabulating these votes before Election Day due to the size of that task and the amount of time it requires. Final election results can be delayed past election night when there are a large number of mail-in ballots to remove from their envelopes to be scanned and tabulated. As of Friday, 1.12 million voters so far have cast ballots for Georgia's runoff election: nearly 642,000 in person and more than 481,000 by mail, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project.

Worlds align this winter solstice: Jupiter and Saturn will look like a 'double planet' on Monday

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This year's winter solstice will bring a rare sight to our night skies – just in time for the holidays. For Earth viewers, Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer to each other on Dec. 21 than they have been since the Middle Ages. If you gaze into the southwestern horizon at the right time, the two gas giants will look like neighboring points of light. They will appear to be almost a "double planet," said Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan. "Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another," Hartigan said. Astronomers call what we'll witness on Dec. 21 a "conjunction." From asteroids or moons to planets and stars, a conjunction is when two objects in space appear to be close to each other as observed from Earth. In the reality of space, they're still hundreds of millions of miles apart. Every 20 years, our solar system's largest planets align during their orbits around the sun. Jupiter and Saturn's last conjunction was in 2000. But this year is particularly special because the two will appear to separated by just one-fifth the diameter of a full moon – or 0.1 degrees – an occurrence the world hasn't seen since the Middle Ages. The last time Jupiter and Saturn came this close was 1623, but that conjunction was too near the sun to be seen by Earthlings. So 1226 is actually the most recent time such a close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was visible to humans. "That's just sly of 800 years ago," said Amy Oliver, spokeswoman for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. How to watch the 2020 conjunction on Dec. 21Saturn and Jupiter are already visible in December's sky; the two planets have been moving closer to each other for much of 2020. They will look like two points of light in the sky. Saturn, which is farther from Earth, will be the fainter one. Hartigan and Oliver encourage stargazers around the world to start looking now. "Over the next couple of weeks you can watch them move, which is super-cool, because you're actually seeing planets in orbit," Hartigan told USA TODAY, adding that identifying them now will also make the conjunction on winter solstice easier to identify. And to witness the conjunction on Dec. 21? Weather permitting, it will be observable anywhere on Earth, although it will more difficult in high northern latitudes. You won't need a telescope, but you'll have to find a good viewing spot and be on time. Avoid tall buildings or mountains, and look toward the low southwestern horizon right after sunset. If you're too early, you might miss a fainter Saturn. If you're too late, the two may have already slipped into the horizon for the night. The best viewing conditions will be near the equator. There will be less time to catch a glimpse farther north. Oliver said the best time for viewing is between dusk and 15 to 20 minutes after dark. She added that the maximum conjunction will occur at 1:20 p.m. ET on Dec. 21, and it won't be visible to the naked eye during daylight. Still, Americans across the U.S. will be able to see the conjunction in the early night of Dec. 21, weather permitting. If a snowy day or tight schedule makes you miss winter solstice's sky event, never fear: Although the maximum conjunction is on Dec. 21, Jupiter and Saturn will still appear to be closer than the diameter of a full moon from Dec. 16 to Dec. 25. Such a close conjunction won't happen again until early March 15, 2080. Although this might be the only time most adults witness the rare occurrence, Hartigan adds that it's a special opportunity for family. Hartigan says looking up to the sky enriches people's lives.

Notre Dame drops to No. 4, while Alabama keeps lead in Amway Coaches Poll

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If the last Amway Coaches Poll of the regular season does indeed foreshadow the playoff pairings, Notre Dame fans will be happy and Texas A&M's not so much. Alabama is the unanimous No. 1 team heading into the playoff, where the Crimson Tide will also almost certainly be the top seed after staving off Florida in the high-scoring SEC championship game. Clemson avenged its earlier loss to Notre Dame in the ACC final in convincing fashion and jumps up to No. 2 in the poll. Ohio State moves up to No. 3 following its Big Ten title win against Northwestern. The Fighting Irish drop only to No. 4, which will still be good enough for a spot in the semifinals if the playoff committee agrees with the poll voters. Texas A&M was ranked in the top four by a number of voters but stays put at No. 5 overall. Unbeaten Cincinnati checks in at No. 6, followed by Big 12 champion Oklahoma. Indiana Georgia and Florida round out the top 10. No new teams enter the poll, though there is some shuffling near the bottom. San Jose State jumps five spots to No. 20 after completing an undefeated run to the Mountain West crown. Tulsa remains in the poll at No. 25, slipping just five places following its last-second loss to Cincinnati in the American Athletic finale.

Sephora is having a super rare sale on its sale items—and the savings are huge

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— Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed's editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. Sephora is known for a great many things. Great brands? Undoubtedly. A killer rewards program? Absolutely. But fabulous sale events? Not so much. Frankly, they're few and far between, and when they do come around, they often require membership to the store's Beauty Insider program, with the best discounts going to the store's highest-tier members. Right now, however, there's a huge sale happening at the store that everyone take can advantage of, making it one of the best we've seen all year. Get expert shopping advice delivered to your phone. Sign up for text message alerts from the deal-hunting nerds at Reviewed. One top-rated pick that's selling fast is Fenty Beauty Glossy Posse mini gloss bomb set. Regularly $36 and on sale for $25.50, you can pick this four-piece collection up for just $20.40 with the MAJORSALE code. Including best-selling glosses in Cake Shake, Baby Brut, Taffy Tea$e and Ruby Milk that are designed to look great on any skin tone, this set has shoppers raving about its non-sticky formula and "juicy" glow. Designer makeup, like this Lancôme Favorites gift set, regularly $139 and on sale for $96, also drop—this one falls to $76.80 with the code for a whopping 45% discount. With the backing of more than 2,500 Sephora shoppers, this five-piece collection is a solid investment that works for all skin types. You'll get a 1-ounce Advanced Génefique anti-aging face serum, a .5-ounce Advanced Génefique eye cream, a 6.7-ounce Tonique Confort toner, Monsier big mascara and a 4.2-ounce Bi-Facil double action eye makeup remover. While these items may not ship in time for the big day, if you're looking to gift it by Christmas, you can reserve many online for same-day in-store pickup. Keep reading to discover all the other top-rated sale buys you can find on the site now. Looking for hard-to-find essentials? Sign up for our Resources by Reviewed newsletter. The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest deals, reviews, and more. Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

Don't cut in line for the COVID vaccine. Elites who do will be named and shamed.

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Concierge medical practices are fielding inquiries from their wealthy patients wondering when the COVID-19 vaccine will be available. Dr. Bill Lang of the WorldClinic was even fielding texts from patients on Thanksgiving day, according to the health publication Stat. The rules around who gets a vaccine when will shift from state to state, but the ethics and scrutiny around who will receive a vaccine first remain immutable. And they don't require any late-night texts to answer. The U.S. government is laying out broad guidance for vaccine distribution starting with health care workers (21 million), nursing facilities (3 million), high-risk people and those older than 65 (153 million) and essential workers (87 million). Well over 200 million complete vaccinations would have to be administered before the healthy, wealthy and under-65 clients who can afford high-priced concierge medical care should receive a dose if the U.S. health care delivery system were equitable and just. Uneven access to medical careWhich it's not. The entire COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the uneven nature of access to medical care, to jobs in which staying home is not a path to starvation, and to in-person schooling for children. And that makes the individual moral decisions of U.S. elites all the more crucial in this time of national crisis. There are already rumors of executives seeking special dispensation to have their workers newly designated "essential" in order to cut in line. Any new designations should be carefully examined, and governmental agencies should sequester their decision-making processes from undue political influence. The lives of those who have been risking theirs to care for our sick, work in our drive-thrus and stock our grocery stores and drugstore shelves should come first. The optics of jumping the COVID-19 vaccine line will be terrible and should be damaging. Anyone who has the means to finagle access to a vaccination before essential workers who have no option to work from home should think twice. Media and political scrutiny of those who leverage connections and money for early access will be intense. Conveniently timed claims of fresh diagnoses of chronic asthma or sudden onset diabetes in order to engineer admission to the "at risk" group will — and should — be met with deep suspicion. And this scrutiny will be applied to global business leaders as well. The multinational elites of Davos are set to gather in person in Singapore in May. The World Economic Forum, usually held in Switzerland in January each year, will now be in Asia, a region of the world that has a better handle on COVID-19 transmission than the United States and European Union. This year's gathering will also be a litmus test for lifeboat ethics on an individual scale. Singapore may require forum participants to have proof of vaccination to enter the country. If that's the case, corporate executives and their retinues will be on the hunt for access to the vaccine perhaps before all those at higher risk are protected. That's wrong, especially for any healthy executive whose company has successfully weathered the pandemic. Misbegotten 'badge of horror'Vaccinations could come with a certification that will likely free up the holder to travel and resume a near normal, pre-pandemic lifestyle. And for a period of time, while manufacturing ramps up, an early vaccination certificate might become the ultimate high-net-worth status symbol. Such a misbegotten "badge of horror" will be particularly incriminating if vaccine manufacturing and distribution go poorly and the lives of those most impacted continue to remain at risk. For those leaders who are healthy and still wealthy in the midst of the global health and economic meltdown, and whose employees have largely been able to work effectively from home, patience will be the name of the game and the path toward lasting trust with customers, global policymakers and the public. The ongoing inconvenience of remote work and more frequent testing — until those most at risk are protected first — could be preferable to the societal and media condemnation of those who don't wait their turn. Line-cutters will be named and shamed. It's inevitable, as will be the congressional hearings and front-page investigative stories ferreting out who saved their own skin at the expense of others. No one should want to be the metaphorical man in the fur coat elbowing his way through women and children to secure a seat in the lifeboat. Elites must think carefully about the collective social opprobrium bound to rain down before seeking a shortcut.

Need a holiday escape? 100 entertaining movies from 2020 you still have time to stream

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Most years, I spend many, many hours in movie theaters, sitting in a sometimes comfy chair in a dark room watching the latest films on a big screen. This year, at least since March, I spent many, many hours in my house, sitting on a very comfy couch – usually with dogs sleeping near or on me – watching the latest films on my TV or laptop. The arrival of COVID-19 sent the movie business into a tizzy, and theaters were shut down all over the country. Many major movies shifted into 2021, while others decided to premiere on streaming services and video-on-demand platforms. And it meant a shift in workflow for critics like myself: I don't think I've seen as many films ever as I watched this year, and thank goodness for decent Wi-Fi. Assuming folks have made their way through the 100 films we suggested everyone watch at the beginning of quarantine (come on, you've had eight months!), here are 100 more movies – all of which debuted on streaming and VOD in 2020 - for every cinematic yearning that you can catch up on during the holidays. When you need some yuletide cheer1. "The Christmas Chronicles 2" (Netflix): Kurt Russell (again) proves he's the best Santa around. This time with a saxophone. 3. "Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey" (Netflix): The rare holiday flick that boosts Black voices and puts an emphasis on female ingenuity. 4. "Dear Santa" (VOD): Good luck not tearing up watching this documentary after hearing kids' letters to the Man with the Bag. 5. "Happiest Season" (Hulu): The lesbian Christmas rom-com that proves Kristen Stewart's funny and Aubrey Plaza rules. When you need a musical treat6. "Fisherman's Friends" (VOD): It's sea shanties a plenty when British fishermen snag a record deal. 7. "Hamilton" (Disney+): Don't throw away your shot to watch Lin-Manuel Miranda's brilliant show. Lives up the hype and more. 8. "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (Netflix): Just give the late Chadwick Boseman a best actor Oscar, please and thank you. 9. "The Prom" (Netflix): When you're done having "Hamilton" on repeat, this joyous, inclusive comedy will be your new fave. 10. "Valley Girl" (VOD): The musical remake of the 1983 flick – with an old-school soundtrack – is totally tubular, man. When you need to entertain your kids11. "Over the Moon" (Netflix): Phillipa Soo's lunar goddess is one seriously cool diva in a super-fun Asian-influenced animated extravaganza. 13. "Trolls World Tour" (VOD): Honestly, it's worth it to see Kelly Clarkson as a twang-tastic country Troll. 14. "The Willoughbys" (Netflix): A group of adventurous siblings try to get rid of their negligent parents (and you don't blame them, really). 15. "Wolfwalkers" (Apple TV+): You'll – ahem – wolf down this enchanting Celtic fantasy about family and friendship. When you're looking for an inclusive LGBTQ narrative16. "The Boys in the Band" (Netflix): Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto stand out in the 1960s-set story about the friendships and tensions between gay New Yorkers. 17. "Dating Amber" (VOD): The charming rom-com of sorts centers on a gay teen boy and a lesbian classmate who pretend they're a straight couple to fit in. 18. "Disclosure" (Netflix): A fascinating – and must-watch – documentary about how trans people are treated in America and how they're taught to feel about themselves. 19. "The Half of It" (Netflix): A spin on "Cyrano de Bergerac" finds a closeted girl hired to write love notes by a football player – though they're aimed at her own crush. 20. "To the Stars" (VOD): The coming-of-age teen drama explores the brutal intolerance of conservative 1960s Oklahoma. When you need sci-fi spectacle21. "Archive" (VOD): A scientist in the near future develops an artificial intelligence as a way to bring back his dead wife. 22. "Bacurau" (VOD): The weird and Western-tinged plot hinges on a Brazilian village that disappears from maps whose residents don't take kindly to mercenary strangers. 23. "Love and Monsters" (VOD): Dylan O'Brien befriends a dog in the monster apocalypse and tries to avoid getting crushed by gigantic critters. 24. "Palm Springs" (Hulu): Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg go to a wedding, get caught in a time loop and have existential crises in an innovative rom-com. 25. "The Vast of Night" (Amazon Prime): Spielbergian delight abounds when youngsters investigate weirdness in their 1950s New Mexico town. When you need something truly quirky26. "Black Bear" (VOD): Aubrey Plaza rules (again!) as a filmmaker who pits a bickering couple against her for inspiration. 28. "Tesla" (VOD): The only movie you'll ever need where Nicola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) gets in an ice-cream fight and sings Tears for Fears at karaoke. 29. "The True Adventures of Wolfboy": Ultra-hairy kid teams with trans mermaid and pirate queen for a fairy tale about embracing who you are and not what you look like. 30. "The Wolf of Snow Hollow" (VOD): A clever horror comedy that uses a werewolf story as a metaphor for battling addiction. When you need youthful enthusiasm 31. "Enola Holmes" (Netflix): "Stranger Things" mainstay Millie Bobby Brown gets her own franchise as Sherlock's sleuthing sister. 32. "The Kissing Booth 2" (Netflix): The "Avengers: Endgame" of young-adult rom-coms, with as many characters plus more dance video-game throwdowns. 33. "Selah and the Spades" (Amazon Prime): Things get Shakespearean at a private Pennsylvania prep school with warring cliques. 34. "Spontaneous" (VOD): A charming high school love story where the kids meet-cute after their classmates inexplicably explode. 35. "Work It" (Netflix): Familiar tropes get a raucous refresh when an underdog brainiac teams up with misfit dancers to pop-and-lock like a champ. When you need a good cry36. "Blackbird" (VOD): Break out the hankies when a family matriarch (Susan Sarandon) with ALS gathers loved ones a final time before ending her life. 37. "Clouds" (Disney+): Prepare to be wrecked watching the true-life tale of a teenage boy with terminal cancer whose uplifting song becomes a viral sensation. 38. "Howard" (Disney+): The touching doc chronicles the life of Oscar-winning lyricist Howard Ashman, who worked on "Beauty and the Beast" songs up until his final days. 39. "Miss Juneteenth" (VOD): The moving coming-of-age film centers on a Black woman who enters her independent teen daughter in the same Texas beauty pageant she once won. 40. "Tigertail" (Netflix): An aging Taiwanese man looks back on the hard decisions of his life while finally reconnecting with his estranged grown daughter. When you need a dose of social justice41. "All Day and a Night" (Netflix): A young aspiring rapper (Ashton Sanders) ends up in the same prison as his dad (Jeffrey Wright), who wished for a different life for his son. 42. "Mangrove" (Amazon Prime): Letitia Wright leads Steve McQueen's historical drama centering on police brutality and the London riots that lead to a famous 1971 trial. 43. "Red White and Blue" (Amazon Prime): John Boyega headlines McQueen's '80s-set film about a young Englishman who joins the London police to root out racism. 44. "Time" (Amazon Prime): Home-video footage and a thoughtful doc follow a Louisiana woman's fight to free her husband from a 60-year prison sentence. 45. "The 24th" (VOD): Racial discrimination of an all-Black Army regiment by white locals and cops leads the violent Houston riot of 1917. When you need some action46. "Extraction" (Netflix): Chris Hemsworth trades Thor's hammer for a mercenary's machine gun but is still damn good at saving the day. 48. "The Old Guard" (Netflix): Charlize Theron wears the mantle (and the really cool axe) of an immortal warrior well. 49. "The Outpost" (VOD): Scott Eastwood and Orlando Bloom play soldiers in a tense wartime thriller based on real-life American heroes in Afghanistan. 50. "7500" (Amazon Prime): White-knuckle thrills are in store when Joseph Gordon-Levitt's an airline pilot having to fend off a crew of hijackers mid-flight. When you need a genre-smashing thriller51. "Antebellum" (VOD): Janelle Monae has dual roles as an enslaved woman and a sociologist in a movie exploring the continuing echoes of America's original sin. 52. "Archenemy" (VOD): Those yearning for a superhero fix could do worse than watching Joe Manganiello as a de-powered warrior from another dimension. 53. "Becky" (VOD): Kevin James plays a neo-Nazi skinhead who runs afoul of, yep, a clever teen girl. 54. "Run" (Hulu): Hitchcockian intrigue is in store with Kiera Allen as a wheelchair-bound teen who wonders if her overprotective mom (Sarah Paulson) is on the level. 55. "The Wretched" (VOD): There's a fun '80s horror vibe at play when a teen boy visiting his divorced dad finds out there's an evil forest witch living next door. When you need a laugh56. "Bill & Ted Face the Music" (VOD): And Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves steal our hearts yet again. 57. "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" (Amazon Prime): Maria Bakalova takes on Rudy Guiliani, steals the sequel from Sacha Baron Cohen. 58. "The Forty Year Old Version" (Netflix): All hail Radha Blank, who might just be the funniest woman most people don't know about yet. 59. "John Bronco" (Hulu): National treasure Walton Goggins channels Burt Reynolds to be the faux pitchman for the Ford Bronco. When you need a top-notch character-study doc 61. "Dick Johnson Is Dead" (Netflix): Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson crafts an absolutely charming, heartfelt and darkly funny doc about life and death starring her beloved dad. 62. "I Am Greta" (Hulu): The enlightening origin story of Greta Thunberg, the world's most famous teenage climate activist. 63. "John Lewis: Good Trouble" (VOD): The late congressman and civil-rights icon receives the cinematic tribute he deserves. 64. "The Painter and the Thief" (VOD): A stranger-than-fiction tale is in store when a Czech artist develops a close bond with the man who stole her paintings. 65. "You Cannot Kill David Arquette" (VOD): The "Scream" actor trains to become a real pro wrestler in a super doc that bodyslams expectations. When you need a solid freakout66. "The Beach House" (Shudder): Don't get near the water when an otherworldly menace emerges from the deep. 67. "Black Box" (Amazon Prime): An amnesiac father seeks out a scientist who can help him get his memories back but unlocks something else knocking around in his noggin. 68. "The Cleansing Hour" (Shudder): The web show of a faux exorcist turns chaotic when – oh no! – a special guest actually is possessed by a demon. 69. "His House" (Netflix): Sudanese refugees seek asylum in England and a dark force haunts their new place in a timely, scary flick that sticks to your soul. 70. "Spell" (VOD): Omari Hardwick plays a family man whose plane crashes in Appalachia and he's taken in by a hoodoo woman with nefarious plans for his body. When you need a thought-provoking documentary71. "Athlete A" (Netflix): Investigative journalists dig into the many abuses of USA Gymnastics, including those victimized by Dr. Larry Nassar. 72. "Boys State" (Apple TV+): A thousand teenage Texas boys create a mock state government and uncannily reflect our own political problems. 73. "Dads" (Apple TV+): Bryce Dallas Howard directs a tribute to her own dad, director Ron Howard, as well as looks at a series of real-life devoted fathers with a modern sensibility. 74. "Spaceship Earth" (Hulu): OK, a movie about people stuck inside might not be your first choice, but this story of scientists in a biosphere is nuts and absolutely watchable. 75. "Totally Under Control" (VOD): If you can stand it, Alex Gibney's look at the way America struggled with containing COVID is eye-opening. When you need a historical point of view76. "A Call to Spy" (VOD): Stana Katic leads a crew of Allied spies entrenched in France to disrupt Nazi operations and generally be straight-up heroes. 77. "Greyhound" (Apple TV+): It's "dad movie" heaven when Tom Hanks plays a World War II Naval commander doing battle at sea with German U-boats. 78. "Mank" (Netflix): David Fincher's love letter to 1930s Hollywood is a star-packed dive into "Citizen Kane" that's also about art vs. politics. 79. "The Trial of the Chicago 7" (Netflix): Aaron Sorkin packs his courtroom drama with an acting dream team from Baron Cohen to Eddie Redmayne – no weak link in sight. 80. "True History of the Kelly Gang" (VOD): The punk-rock 19th-century biopic casts George MacKay as colorful and infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. When you need a rockin' doc81. "All I Can Say" (VOD): The last five years of Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon's life are captured via videotape. 83. "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" (HBO Max): It's Gibb family drama with a bunch of disco and brotherly love (well, some of the time). 85. "Zappa" (VOD): Alex Winter's deep dive into the life and music of politically minded iconoclast Frank Zappa. When you need a great performance86. "Bull" (VOD): Rob Morgan's superb as an old Black bullfighter who befriends a teen delinquent girl next door. 87. "Da 5 Bloods" (Netflix): Spike Lee's Vietnam war film has a strong ensemble but Delroy Lindo is magnificent. 88. "Let Them All Talk" (HBO Max): There's not much better than Meryl Streep holding court on the Queen Mary 2. 89. "The Life Ahead" (Netflix): Sophia Loren returns for the first time in a decade and, boy, have we missed her. 90. "Uncle Frank" (Amazon Prime): Paul Bettany has an amazing mustache and an even better role in an emotional '70s-set coming-out dramedy. If you need high-minded horror91. "Blood Quantum" (Shudder): A zombie apocalypse wipes out humanity except a tribe of Canadian indigenous people. 92. "The Platform" (Netflix): A gory Spanish satire takes class warfare to another level with a prison that feeds the rich and leaves scraps for the poor. 93. "Relic" (VOD): A slow-burn haunted-house flick that doubles as an exploration of the effects of dementia. 94. "Scare Me" (Shudder): A couple of horror writers are snowbound in a cabin and their freaky tales begin to come alive. When you need a throwback thriller96. "Bad Hair" (Hulu): The 1989-set horror satire unleashes a killer weave – no kidding, it totally murders people. 97. "The Devil All the Time" (Netflix): The 1950s Southern noir gives us a guy who drops spiders on his face and an unholy Robert Pattinson with the weirdest drawl ever. 98. "Rebecca" (Netflix): Set in the 1930s, the twisty romantic redo has Armie Hammer marrying Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas chewing scenery. 99. "Shirley" (VOD): Elizabeth Moss inhabits old-school horror author Shirley Jackson in a story as kooky as the writer's real stories.

First Moderna COVID-19 vaccines roll out of distribution center in Mississippi

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First Moderna COVID-19 vaccines roll out of distribution center in MississippiThe vaccines were prepared for shipments at the McKesson distribution center in Olive Branch, Miss.

Don't miss 2 planet's 'Great Conjunction,' rare astronomical event on winter solstice

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Don't miss 2 planet's 'Great Conjunction,' rare astronomical event on winter solsticeJupiter and Saturn will appear their closest since the days of Galileo in this rare space event.

'Saturday Night Live' debuts its new President-elect Joe Biden in final 2020 episode

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'Saturday Night Live' debuts its new President-elect Joe Biden in final 2020 episode"Saturday Night Live" crowns Alex Moffat as the new Joe Biden, replacing Jim Carrey as the president-elect.

How to wash face masks in your laundry without losing them

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How to wash face masks in your laundry without losing themHere's how to avoid face masks getting lost in loads of laundry.

Track COVID-19 outbreaks

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The number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 each day plateaued after reaching a peak in late April, then peaked again in late July. But in recent weeks, there has been a new surge of cases across the country. New deaths and confirmed cases of COVID-19 by dayEarlier in the year, New York had the largest number of cumulative cases. But by summer, spread of the disease slowed there while transmission increased in other states. Now, the number of cases is accelerating in almost every state. Toggle the map below between cumulative totals and data from the last seven days to get a picture of where the virus is spreading. Each state has declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency, and many implemented restrictions on travel, business and public gatherings. Most states began easing or lifting those restrictions in the summer, despite the fact that case trends were on the rise in many places. Now that cases are increasing more quickly again, some states are re-implementing previous measures. The number of new cases in the U.S. reached new heights in recent weeks and continues to accelerate. The nation became the epicenter of the global pandemic in the spring, when case totals eclipsed those of other countries experiencing similar outbreaks. Currently, the U.S. is reporting more cases per day than any other nation. How the US coronavirus case trajectory compares to other nationsView novel coronavirus data by stateYou can search the latest totals for all states below. Be sure to check back each day to see the latest news. It's important to understand that the numbers reported by agencies and officials don't paint a complete picture of the pandemic. Many people who have COVID-19 — and no one knows how many — are not being counted by medical authorities. Because COVID-19 can have mild symptoms or even none at all, many people with the disease are unaware they have it. Others may have symptoms, but be unable to access testing near them. Finally, local governments and other organizations count and update case data differently, meaning different sources of information may show different numbers of cases. Sometimes, data sources or formats change unexpectedly, leading to temporary inaccuracies in county-level data. We fix these as soon as possible. However, if you see a problem let us know at coronavirusdata@usatoday.com. Coronavirus has spread from Wuhan, China, to countries across the world. But how do you know you have it? Here are some signs to watch out for.

Countdown to Inauguration Day

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Though Americans choose most of their elected officials by popular vote, the selection of a U.S. president is not as direct. The presidency is decided by vote of the Electoral College, a temporary slate of 538 electors, all chosen by their state political parties. Each elector casts one vote; a presidential candidate needs 270 of these votes to win. The process has faced mounting criticism, starting in the controversial 2000 presidential election, in which Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore, despite having lost the popular vote. President Donald Trump also lost the popular vote while winning the Electoral College to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Political parties choose the electors, who pledge to vote for their party's candidate. Members of Congress and high-level federal employees are barred from being electors. Breakdown of the Electoral CollegeNov. 3: Election DayThe public casts ballots for presidential and vice presidential candidates. Though most ballots have only candidate names, voters actually choose groups of electors. The candidate with the most overall popular votes gets all the electors. The exception: Maine and Nebraska, which can split electors among candidates. Dec. 14: Electors cast ballotsElectors meet in their respective state capitals and vote. The results are sealed and sent to the president of the U.S. Senate – currently Vice President Mike Pence. Jan. 3, 2021: New Congress is seatedNewly elected and current members of Congress are officially seated. Jan. 6: Electoral votes are countedMembers of the House and Senate meet jointly for a formal count of electoral votes. The candidate with 270 votes is declared the winner. Jan. 20: Inauguration DayThe winning presidential and vice presidential candidates take the oath of office. The Electoral College has critics...In recent years, the National Popular Vote movement has sought to replace the Electoral College, preferring the popular vote to choose presidents. Detractors say the system has become more flawed because candidates can win the popular vote but still lose in the Electoral College. This has happened five times in American history, most recently in Bush vs. Gore in 2000 and Trump vs. Clinton in 2016. It could happen again this year. Critics claim it favors small-population states over larger ones and forces presidential campaigns to focus too heavily on battleground states or states that are possible wins for either party. A Gallup poll in September showed 61% of American favored getting rid of the Electoral College. ...and supportersThe Electoral College as we know it has been part of American politics since 1804. Supporters say it's essential. "The Electoral College was designed by the framers deliberately, like the rest of the Constitution, to counteract the worst human impulses and protect the nation from the dangers inherent in democracy," noted National Affairs in its fall 2020 edition. Battleground states in 2020Do electors have to vote for their party's candidate?They're expected to, but sometimes don't. "Faithless" electors have broken rank and voted for someone other than their candidate. Fairvote.org says 90 electors have cast "deviant" votes in the past 58 presidential elections. None affected the outcome. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have laws that mandate electors vote in accordance with the popular vote. The Supreme Court ruled July 6 that states can punish faithless electors who go rogue. What happens if there's a tie?It's possible, but extremely unlikely, that the Electoral College could deadlock 269-269. In that case, the newly elected House would vote on who becomes president. Each state gets one vote; 26 votes are needed to win. The Senate would decide who becomes vice president.

Your guide to COVID-19

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As the health crisis continues to rage across the country and more temporary job losses become permanent, a small but growing number of laid-off and working Americans in hard-hit industries like restaurants, retail and travel are switching to new careers or occupations. Many are transitioning to sectors that have thrived during the pandemic, such as technology, health care, real estate, banking, and warehousing and delivery.