World
UN report says Myanmar poverty could double from coup chaos
Political turmoil and disruptions following the coup in Myanmar could undo years of progress and double the number of its people living in poverty to nearly half the population, a United Nations report said Friday.
The report by the U.N. Development Program, or UNDP, said 12 million people could fall into dire economic straits as businesses remain shuttered in a standoff between the junta and a mass civil disobedience movement.
“The hardest hit will be poor urban populations and the worst affected will be female heads of household,” Kanni Wignaraja, the UNDP’s assistant secretary-general for the region, told The Associated Press via a Zoom recording.
The Feb. 1 coup wrested power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained along with more than 3,400 other people. Since then, the military has severely restricted internet access and gradually stepped up violent repression of protests.
Many factories, offices, banks and other facilities have closed and trade has been disrupted by work stoppages and other disruptions at ports, economists and others familiar with the situation inside Myanmar say. That has worsened already bleak conditions due to the pandemic.
Also read: Myanmar airstrikes target ethnic forces on 2 fronts
The UNDP said conditions could deteriorate by early 2022 to a level of poverty last seen in 2005.
The economy grew rapidly after a previous military regime initiated a partial transition to a civilian government, while keeping control of key ministries and industries and seats in parliament.
Foreign investment in garment manufacturing, tourism and other industries helped create millions of jobs, providing a lifeline of support for many families living in rural areas.
But that progress has ground to a halt as the coup added to troubles from the pandemic.
“With the effects of the political crisis, we could see these gains removed in just a few months,” Wignaraja said.
The research agency Fitch Solutions has forecast that the economy will contract 20% in the current fiscal year, which ends in September. In a report released last week, economist Jason Yek noted that food insecurity is rising due to hoarding and inflation, while people struggle to access cash to pay for necessities due to the closure and cash limits put on ATMs.
A weakening of the Myanmar kyat to about 1,600 kyat per dollar from about 1,350 kyat before the coup also hinders the country’s ability to import much needed medicines and other supplies.
“We really cannot rule out any worst-case scenario,” Yek said in an online briefing.
So far, foreign governments and businesses have sought to levy pressure on Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and others in the junta through targeted sanctions meant to cut off financial support to the army, or Tatmadaw.
The UNDP report’s findings suggest that ordinary people already are suffering regardless of sanctions.
Also read: Myanmar guerrillas capture gov't base; airstrikes follow
The magazine Nikkei Asia Review said Thursday that the group Independent Economists for Myanmar issued a report urging the targeting of sources of foreign exchange, such as Myanmar’s exports of natural gas, its biggest revenue earner, and of gems and jade.
Sanctions could freeze deposits linked to the state-owned Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank, it said.
It said targeting the junta’s sources of hard currency with international sanctions could reduce its revenues by roughly $2 billion annually.
It said the military was prioritizing spending on weapons and security operations over providing desperately needed public services.
Also read: ASEAN leaders demand Myanmar coup leaders end killings
The U.S. recently ordered sanctions against the company that controls most of Myanmar’s gems, pearls and jade sales, though a huge share of that trade is done illicitly.
So far, foreign energy companies involved in Myanmar’s natural gas industry have resisted calls for them to stop paying revenues to the government, saying such moves might endanger their employees and hurt access to already scarce electricity.
Activist says he flew 500K leaflets across Koreas’ border
A South Korean activist said Friday he launched 500,000 propaganda leaflets by balloon into North Korea this week in defiance of a contentious new law that criminalizes such actions.
If confirmed, Park Sang-hak’s action would be the first known violation of the law that punishes anti-Pyongyang leafleting with up to three years in prison or a fine of 30 million won ($27,040). The law that took effect in March has invited criticism South Korea is sacrificing freedom of expression to improve ties with rival North Korea, which has repeatedly protested the leafleting.
Also read: North Korea fires missiles into sea, criticized by South
Police stations in frontline Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces said they couldn’t immediately confirm if Park sent balloons from their areas, which Park has used in the past and said he used in two launches this week. Cha Duck Chul, a deputy spokesman at Seoul’s Unification Ministry, said the government would handle the case in line with the objective of the law, though police and military authorities were still working to confirm Park’s statements.
Park said his organization floated 10 giant balloons carrying the leaflets, reading materials critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government, and 5,000 one-dollar bills over two launches from frontline areas this week. He would not disclose the exact locations in the two border provinces he used, citing worries police would stop future attempts.
“Though (authorities) can handcuff and put me to a prison cell, they cannot stop (my leafleting) with whatever threats or violence as long as the North Korean people waits for the letters of freedom, truth and hopes,” said Park, a North Korean defector known for years of leafleting campaigns.
Park called the anti-leafleting legislation “the worst law” that “sides with cruel human rights abuser Kim Jong Un and covers the eyes and ears of the North Korean people that have become the modern-day slaves of the Kim dynasty.”
Video released by Park showed him releasing a balloon with leaflets toward a dark sky and showed him standing in the woods with a sign that partly reads, “The world condemns Kim Jong Un who is crazy for nuclear and rocket provocations.”
Also read: North Korea flies out foreign diplomats amid virus fight
The anti-leafleting legislation was passed in December by Parliament, where lawmakers supporting President Moon Jae-in’s engagement policy on North Korea hold a three-fifths supermajority. It went into effect in March.
It’s the first South Korean law that formally bans civilians from floating anti-North Korea leaflets across border. South Korea has previously banned such activities only during sensitive times in inter-Korean relations and normally allowed activists to exercise their freedom of speech despite repeated protests from North Korea.
Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, last year furiously demanded South Korea ban the leafleting and called North Korean defectors involved in it “human scum” and “mongrel dogs.”
Despite the law, ties between the Koreas remain strained amid a standstill in broader nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington. North Korea has made a series of derisive statements against Seoul, including Kim Yo Jong calling Moon “a parrot raised by America” after he criticized the North’s recent missile launches.
4th flight fizzles for NASA’s Mars helicopter, retry Friday
NASA’s Mars helicopter fizzled Thursday on its fourth flight attempt.
The 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter named Ingenuity was supposed to lift off on its longest, fastest flight yet, after three successes. But the chopper remained on the ground.
Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will attempt a redo on Friday.
Also read: NASA’s Mars helicopter takes flight, 1st for another planet
Ingenuity’s took flight for the first time at Mars on April 19 — becoming the first powered aircraft to soar at another planet — after controllers fixed a software error.
Managers said the solution would work 85% of the time. After three successful flights, Thursday’s attempt was not one of them.
The helicopter team has until early next week to test Ingenuity in the Martian skies. Two more flights are planned before NASA’s Perseverance rover shoves off on its primary mission: seeking signs of past life in the Martian rocks. The rover will collect core samples and set them aside for pickup by a future robotic craft, for eventual return to Earth.
Also read: NASA releases Mars landing video: 'Stuff of our dreams'
Perseverance and Ingenuity arrived at Mars on Feb. 18, landing in an ancient river delta.
Religious festival stampede in Israel kills 44, hurts dozens
A stampede at a religious festival attended by tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in northern Israel killed at least 44 people and injured about 150 early Friday, medical officials said. It was one of the country’s deadliest civilian disasters.
The stampede began when large numbers of people trying to exit the site thronged a narrow tunnel-like passage, according to witnesses and video footage. People began falling on top of each other near the end of the walkway, as they descended slippery metal stairs, witnesses said.
“Masses of people were pushed into the same corner and a vortex was created,” a man identified only by his first name Dvir, told Israel Army Radio. He described a terrifying sight as the first row of people fell down. He said he was in the next row of people that tripped.
“I felt like I was about to die,” he said.
Also read: Jerusalem tension triggers Gaza-Israel fire exchange
Video footage showed large numbers of people, most of them black-clad ultra-Orthodox men, squeezed in the tunnel. The Haaretz daily quoted witnesses as saying police barricades had prevented people from exiting quickly.
The stampede occurred during the celebrations of Lag BaOmer at Mount Meron, the first mass religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted nearly all restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The country has seen cases plummet since launching one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns late last year.
Lag BaOmer draws tens of thousands of people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, each year to honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd century sage and mystic who is buried there. Large crowds traditionally light bonfires, pray and dance as part of the celebrations.
This year, media estimated the crowd at about 100,000 people.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the stampede a “great tragedy” and said everyone was praying for the victims.
After the stampede, photos showed rows of wrapped bodies lying on the ground, with dozens of ambulances at the site.
Eli Beer, director of the Hatzalah rescue service, said he was horrified by how crowded the event was, saying the site was equipped to handle perhaps a quarter of the number who were there. “Close to 40 people died as a result of this tragedy,” he told the Army radio station.
By Friday morning, Zaka, another ambulance service, said the death toll had risen to 44. Spokesman Motti Bukchin said families were being notified and the bodies were being taken to a single location for identification. He said he expected the bodies to be buried before sundown of the Jewish Sabbath, when funerals do not take place.
The death toll was on par with the number of people killed in a 2010 forest fire, which is believed to be the deadliest civilian tragedy in the country’s history.
Zaki Heller, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service, said 150 people had been hospitalized, with six in critical condition.
Heller told the station “no one had ever dreamed” something like this could happen. “In one moment, we went from a happy event to an immense tragedy,” he said.
The Israeli military said it had dispatched medics and search and rescue teams along with helicopters to assist.
Health authorities had warned against holding such a large gathering.
Also read: Global rights group accuses Israel of apartheid, persecution
But when the celebrations started, the Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, police chief Yaakov Shabtai and other top officials visited the event and met with police, who had deployed 5,000 extra forces to maintain order.
Before the stampede, Ohana, a close ally of Netanyahu, thanked police for their hard work and dedication “for protecting the well-being and security for the many participants” as he wished the country a happy holiday.
Netanyahu is struggling to form a governing coalition ahead of a Tuesday deadline, and the national tragedy is sure to complicate those efforts.
Indians turn to black market, unproven drugs as virus surges
Ashish Poddar kept an ice pack on hand as he waited outside a New Delhi hospital for a black market dealer to deliver two drugs for his father, who was gasping for breath inside with COVID-19.
But the drugs never arrived, the ice that was intended to keep the medicines cool melted and his father died hours later.
As India faces a devastating surge of new coronavirus infections overwhelming its health care system, people are taking desperate measures to try to keep loved ones alive. In some cases they are turning to unproven medical treatments, in others to the black market for life-saving medications that are in short supply.
Poddar had been told by the private hospital treating his father, Raj Kumar Poddar, that remdesivir, an antiviral, and tocilizumab, a drug that blunts human immune responses, were needed to keep the 68-year-old man alive.
“It’s nearby” and “coming” read some of the texts that Ashish received as he waited.
“I wish he had at least told me that he isn’t going to come. I could have searched elsewhere,” the grieving son said.
India set another global record in new virus cases Thursday with more than 379,000 new infections, putting even more pressure on the country’s overwhelmed hospitals. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people has now recorded over 18 million cases, behind only the U.S., and over 200,000 deaths — though the true number is believed to be higher.
Death is so omnipresent that burial grounds are running out of space in many cities and glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night.
The few medicines known to help treat COVID-19, such as remdesivir and steroids in hospitalized patients, are scarce. The most basic treatment —oxygen therapy — is also in short supply, leading to unnecessary deaths. Even hospital beds are scarce. There were just 14 free intensive care beds available in New Delhi, a city of 29 million people, on Thursday morning.
India’s latest treatment guidelines mirror those of the World Health Organization and the United States with a key exception: India allows mildly ill patients to be given hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, drugs used for certain tropical diseases.
There is little evidence they work against COVID-19, and the WHO strongly recommends against hydroxychloroquine’s use for COVID-19 of any severity and against using ivermectin except in studies.
While India is a leading producer of medicine globally, its regulation of drugs was poor even before the pandemic. And mounting despair is driving people to try anything.
Dr. Amar Jesani, a medical ethics expert, said many prescription drugs can be bought over the counter, including emergency drugs greenlit by Indian authorities for COVID-19.
“Hospitals and doctors are so used to having a ‘magic bullet’ that will cure you,” he said, explaining the use of unproven drugs as COVID-19 cases skyrocket.
When Suman Shrivastava, 57, was infected with the virus, her doctor in Kanpur city in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, prescribed ivermectin. When her symptoms worsened, her doctor then asked her to take favipiravir, an antiviral, though it is unproven against COVID-19.
Her nephew, Rajat Shrivastava, said that drug was hard to find but he eventually located it in a pharmacy which was rationing its supplies by giving a single strip daily to each patient. He eventually bought extra doses from an online volunteer on Twitter and now his aunt is doing well.
Dr. Anant Bhan, who researches public health and ethics in the city of Bhopal, warns there are risks in the do-it-yourself approach. Bhan said antivirals and steroids should be taken in a hospital setting due to the risk of side effects. And drugs that are life-saving at one point could be harmful at another, depending on timing and how severe the symptoms are.
“It’s scary because these aren’t vitamin pills,” he said.
Black market prices for remdesivir, which is produced by several Indian companies, have increased up to 20-fold to about $1,000 for a single vial, said Siddhant Sarang, a volunteer with Yuva Halla Bol, a youth activist group which is helping patients find medicines and hospital beds.
In September, federal data showed that Indian drug makers had made over 2.4 million vials of the drug. But when cases dipped in September, companies destroyed much of their expired stock and production declined.
India was then slow to respond to the uptick of infections in February, and production was only scaled up in March. Earlier this week, Merck announced a deal with five makers of generic drugs in India to produce molnupiravir, an experimental antiviral similar to remdesivir, which is given by IV, but in a more convenient pill form. It’s unclear when that might become available.
With demand high, black market dealers are insisting on cash upfront, said Sarang.
“People are going to dealers with 200,000 to 300,000 rupees ($2,700-$4,000) in a suitcase,” he said.
Authorities have started cracking down on the dealers. In New Delhi, for instance, raids are being carried out on shops or people suspected of hoarding oxygen cylinders and medicines.
Despite all the desperate efforts, medicines that work remain unavailable to many.
Virus-blocking antibody drugs, widely used elsewhere, aren’t yet authorized in India. Roche, which works with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals on marketing one such treatment, said Wednesday it is negotiating with India to speed up emergency use. American drug maker Eli Lilly, which makes a similar treatment, said it is in discussions with the Indian government.
Stuti Bhardwaj, 37, went from one pharmacy to another in southern New Delhi this week. Her parents, both in their seventies, were not able to get tests but showed symptoms of COVID-19 and had dangerously low oxygen levels. A doctor advised a host of medications, including hydroxychloroquine.
She eventually found it and bought it, aware it was unlikely to work.
“My parents are dying,” Bhardwaj said. “I am desperate.”
India cases set new global record; millions vote in 1 state
India set another global record in new virus cases Thursday, as millions of people in one state cast votes despite rising infections and the country geared up to open its vaccination rollout to all adults amid snags.
With 379,257 new infections, India now has reported more than 18.3 million cases, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry also reported 3,645 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 204,832. Experts believe both figures are an undercount, but it’s unclear by how much.
India has set a daily global record for seven of the past eight days, with a seven-day moving average of nearly 350,000 infections. Daily deaths have nearly tripled in the past three weeks, reflecting the intensity of the latest surge. And the country’s already teetering health system is under immense strain, prompting multiple allies to send help.
Also read: India grieves 200,000 dead with many more probably uncounted
A country of nearly 1.4 billion people, India had thought the worst was over when cases ebbed in September. But mass public gatherings such as political rallies and religious events that were allowed to continue, and relaxed attitudes on the risks fed by leaders touting victory over the virus led to what now has become a major humanitarian crisis, health experts say. New variants of the coronavirus have also partly led the surge.
Amid the crisis, voting for the eighth and final phase of the West Bengal state elections began Thursday, even as the devastating surge of infections continues to barrel across the country with a ferocious speed, filling crematoriums and graveyards.
More than 8 million people are eligible to vote in at least 11,860 polling stations across the state. Election Commission has said social distancing measures would be in place.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have faced criticism over the last few weeks for holding huge election rallies in the state, which health experts suggest might have driven the surge there too. Other political parties also participated in rallies.
The state recorded more than 17,000 cases in the last 24 hours — its highest spike since the pandemic began.
Starting Wednesday, all Indians 18 and older were allowed to register on a government app for vaccinations, but social media were flooded with complaints the app had crashed due to high use, and once it was working again, no appointments were available.
The vaccinations are supposed to start Saturday, but India, one of the world’s biggest producers of vaccines, does not yet have enough doses for everyone. Even the ongoing effort to inoculate people above 45 is stuttering.
One state, Maharashtra, has already said it won’t be able to start on Saturday.
Since January, nearly 10% of Indians have received one jab, but only around 1.5% have received both required doses.
Also read: Murder case filed against India's Election Commission
On Thursday, India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters that the country is facing an “unprecedented” second surge with over 3 million active cases that have pushed the health system close to collapse, causing the acute shortages of oxygen and other hospital supplies.
Help is coming from overseas. “There’s been an outpouring of, lets say, assistance from various countries,” Shringla said, adding that over 40 nations have committed to send assistance.
The White House said the U.S. will send more than $100 million worth of items, including 1,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests. They will begin arriving Thursday, just days after President Joe Biden promised to step up assistance. The U.S. and Britain have already sent a shipment of medical items.
France, Germany, Ireland and Australia have also promised help, and Russia sent two aircraft carrying oxygen generating equipment, Shringla said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has advised its citizens to leave India. An alert on the U.S. Embassy’s website warned that “access to all types of medical care is becoming severely limited in India due to the surge in COVID-19 cases.”
Also read: India bans all electoral victory rallies
Myanmar airstrikes target ethnic forces on 2 fronts
Myanmar government forces launched airstrikes against ethnic minority guerrillas in two areas of the country on Wednesday, local reports said.
Fighting has been raging daily in northern Myanmar in territory controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization, representing the Kachin minority, and in the east by the Karen National Union, representing the Karen.
Both groups have struck alliances with the popular movement opposing the military junta that seized power in the country in February after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Generally non-violent marches against military rule continue in many cities and towns, despite the security forces’ use of lethal force to stop them.
The Kachin and the Karen have been struggling for decades for greater autonomy from the central government and have their own well-armed and trained military units, whose help the protest movement has been seeking to counter the government’s armed might.
Col. Naw Bu, a Kachin spokesman, said fighting against the junta’s forces intensified Wednesday, reported 74 Media, an online news service in Kachin state.
Also read: ASEAN leaders demand Myanmar coup leaders end killings
It quoted him as saying that since Tuesday, the government has used heavy artillery and fighter jets to attack a Kachin position at the foot of Alaw Bum mountain. The position had been a government outpost but was seized by the Kachin on March 25.
Naw Bu said heavy fighting has been continuing in the area for five days, causing most civilians to flee.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, clashes between the two sides have escalated since mid-March, with almost 50 armed confrontations. It said both sides have used mortar shelling.
Details of the fighting in both the Kachin and Karen areas were not possible to independently verify.
In eastern Myanmar, government aircraft continued to carry out airstrikes in Karen state on Wednesday, according to aid groups active in the area, a day after Karen guerrillas overran an army base on the banks of the Salween river dividing Myanmar and Thailand.
Also read: Southeast Asian summit to address Myanmar’s post-coup crisis
Both the Karen Peace Support Network and the Free Burma Rangers confirmed a total of six air attacks involving jets and helicopters. They said there were no known casualties but the Peace Support Network said about 300 villagers fled across the border.
There also were air attacks on Tuesday just hours after the Karen seized the riverside base.
The latest wave of airstrikes increased fears that more villagers will abandon their homes in vulnerable areas, with many likely to try to cross into Thailand.
Fighting between the Karen and the Myanmar military has been intense since February.
Myanmar jets have bombed and strafed Karen villages since March 27, and its army has deployed new battalions to the area in possible preparation for a large-scale offensive
Harris, Pelosi make history seated behind Biden at speech
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made history Wednesday as the first women — one of them Black and Indian American — to share the stage in Congress during a presidential address.
President Joe Biden noted the historic development at the very opening of his address. After taking the podium, Biden greeted the two women standing behind him with a “Madam Speaker” and “Madam Vice President.”
Also Read: Kamala Harris makes history
He then declared, “No president has ever said those words — and it’s about time.”
Biden delivered his first prime-time speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night flanked by Pelosi and Harris, two California Democrats.
The two began the night with another historic moment: An elbow-bump hello, a pandemic spin on the traditional handshake. Pelosi and Harris stood side by side behind the dais in the House chamber, chatting with each other and occasionally waving to lawmakers as the group waited for Biden to arrive.
Also Read: Vice President Harris: A new chapter opens in US politics
“It’s pretty exciting. And it’s wonderful to make history. It’s about time,” Pelosi said hours before the speech during an interview on MSNBC.
Pelosi already knows what it feels like to sit on the rostrum in the House chamber and introduce a president for their speeches. She has sat there for several addresses by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Women’s advocates said seeing Harris and Pelosi seated together behind Biden will be a “beautiful moment.” But they noted that electing a woman to sit in the Oval Office remains to be achieved, along with the addition of an equal rights amendment to the Constitution.
Biden helped usher the moment along by pledging to pick a woman for his running mate and selecting Harris, then a U.S. senator from California.
“This is a great start and we have to continue to move forward to give women their equal due,” said Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women.
Pelosi made history by becoming the first female House speaker during Republican Bush’s presidency. He acknowledged the moment by noting during his address to Congress after Pelosi’s election that he had the privilege of being the first president to open with the words “madam speaker.”
Pelosi, 81, reclaimed the powerful leadership post during Republican Trump’s presidency and sat behind him during his final two speeches to Congress, famously ripping up her copy of Trump’s remarks in 2020 as cameras continued to roll after he was finished addressing lawmakers.
Harris, 56, made history last year when she became the first woman and first Black and Indian American person elected vice president. In her role as president of the Senate, she joins Pelosi to preside over the joint session of Congress.
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said Wednesday night will show men, women, boys and girls that women can attain and hold high-level positions and that they are as entitled to them as men are.
Walsh also noted Biden’s promise to put a woman on his ticket, and pointed as well to the diversity of his Cabinet. She said Biden was likely to begin the speech by turning around to face Pelosi and Harris and feeling proud — not just personally, “but I also think proud for the country and proud for his party and I think he will clearly see the historic implications of this and the role that he played in making that happen.”
“For all of us who care about women’s public leadership, we still look forward to the day when the person standing at the podium, in front, is a woman,” Walsh added. “But for now this is a particularly gratifying moment.”
Harris’ office declined comment Wednesday on her historic role in the president’s address, preferring to let the moment speak for itself.
Apart from the speech Wednesday, Harris and Pelosi have notched another first in U.S. and women’s history. They are first and second, respectively, in the line of presidential succession.
Biden's declaration: America's democracy 'is rising anew'
President Joe Biden declared Wednesday night that “America is rising anew” as he called for an expansion of federal programs to drive the economy past the pandemic and broadly extend the social safety net on a scale not seen in decades.
In his first address to Congress, he pointed optimistically to the nation’s emergence from the coronavirus scourge as a moment for America to prove that its democracy can still work and maintain primacy in the world.
Also Read: Biden to propose free preschool, as speech details emerge
Speaking in highly personal terms while demanding massive structural changes, the president marked his first 100 days in office by proposing a $1.8 trillion investment in children, families and education to help rebuild an economy devastated by the virus and compete with rising global competitors.
His speech represented both an audacious vision and a considerable gamble. He is governing with the most slender of majorities in Congress, and even some in his own party have blanched at the price tag of his proposals.
At the same time, the speech highlighted Biden’s fundamental belief in the power of government as a force for good, even at a time when it is so often the object of scorn.
“I can report to the nation: America is on the move again,” he said. “Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength.”
Also Read: US will share AstraZeneca vaccines with world
While the ceremonial setting of the Capitol was the same as usual, the visual images were unlike any previous presidential address. Members of Congress wore masks and were seated apart because of pandemic restrictions. Outside the grounds were still surrounded by fencing after insurrectionists in January protesting Biden’s election stormed to the doors of the House chamber where he gave his address.
The nationally televised ritual raised the stakes for his ability to sell his plans to voters of both parties, even if Republican lawmakers prove resistant. The president is following the speech by hitting the road to push his plans, beginning in Georgia on Thursday and then on to Pennsylvania and Virginia in the days ahead.
“America is ready for takeoff. We are working again. Dreaming again. Discovering again. Leading the world again. We have shown each other and the world: There is no quit in America,” Biden said.
This year’s scene at the front of the House chamber also had a historic look: For the first time, a female vice president, Kamala Harris, was seated behind the chief executive. And she was next to another woman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The first ovation came as Biden greeted “Madam Vice President.” He added, “No president has ever said those words from this podium, and it’s about time.”
The chamber was so sparsely populated that individual claps could be heard echoing off the walls.
Yet Biden said, “I have never been more confident or more optimistic about America. We have stared into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy — of pandemic and pain — and ‘We the People’ did not flinch.”
At times, the president plainly made his case for democracy itself.
Biden demanded that the government take care of its own as a powerful symbol to the world of an America willing to forcefully follow its ideals and people. He confronted an issue rarely faced by an American president, namely that in order to compete with autocracies like China, the nation needs “to prove that democracy still works” after his predecessor’s baseless claims of election fraud and the ensuing attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?” he asked. “America’s adversaries – the autocrats of the world – are betting it can’t. They believe we are too full of anger and division and rage. They look at the images of the mob that assaulted this Capitol as proof that the sun is setting on American democracy. They are wrong. And we have to prove them wrong.”
Biden repeatedly hammered home that his plans would put Americans back to work, restoring the millions of jobs lost to the virus. He laid out an extensive proposal for universal preschool, two years of free community college, $225 billion for child care and monthly payments of at least $250 to parents. His ideas target frailties that were uncovered by the pandemic, and he argues that economic growth will best come from taxing the rich to help the middle class and the poor.
Biden’s speech also provided an update on combating the COVID-19 crisis he was elected to tame, showcasing hundreds of millions of vaccinations and relief checks delivered to help offset the devastation wrought by a virus that has killed more than 573,000 people in the United States. He also championed his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, a staggering figure to be financed by higher taxes on corporations.
His appeals were often emotive and personal, talking about Americans needing food and rental assistance. He also spoke to members of Congress as a peer as much as a president, singling out Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ leader, to praise him and speaking as one at a professional homecoming.
The GOP members in the chamber largely stayed silent, even refusing to clap for seemingly universal goals like reducing childhood poverty. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said, in the Republicans’ designated response, that Biden was more rhetoric than action.
“Our president seems like a good man,” Scott said. “But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes.”
The president spoke against a backdrop of the weakening but still lethal pandemic, staggering unemployment and a roiling debate about police violence against Blacks. He also used his address to touch on the broader national reckoning over race in America, urging legislation be passed by the anniversary of George Floyd’s death next month, and to call on Congress to act on the thorny issues of prescription drug pricing, gun control and modernizing the nation’s immigration system.
In his first three months in office, Biden has signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill — passed without a single GOP vote — and has shepherded direct payments of $1,400 per person to more than 160 million households. Hundreds of billions of dollars in aid will soon arrive for state and local governments, enough money that overall U.S. growth this year could eclipse 6% — a level not seen since 1984. Administration officials are betting that it will be enough to bring back all 8.4 million jobs lost to the pandemic by next year.
A significant amount proposed just Wednesday would ensure that eligible families receive at least $250 monthly per child through 2025, extending the enhanced tax credit that was part of Biden’s COVID-19 aid. There would be more than $400 billion for subsidized child care and free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
Another combined $425 billion would go to permanently reduce health insurance premiums for people who receive coverage through the Affordable Care Act, as well a national paid family and medical leave program. Further spending would be directed toward Pell Grants, historically Black and tribal institutions and to allow people to attend community college tuition-free for two years.
Funding all of this would be a series of tax increases on the wealthy that would raise about $1.5 trillion over a decade. Republican lawmakers in Congress so far have balked at the price tags of Biden’s plans, complicating the chances of passage in a deeply divided Washington.
Astronaut Michael Collins, Apollo 11 pilot, dead of cancer
Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the moon alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic first steps on the lunar surface, died Wednesday. He was 90.
Collins died of cancer, his family said in a statement: “Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge, in the same way.”
Collins was part of the three-man Apollo 11 crew that in 1969 effectively ended the space race between the United States and Russia and fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to reach the moon by the end of the 1960s.
Though he traveled some 238,000 miles to the moon and came within 69 miles, Collins never set foot on the lunar surface like his crewmates Aldrin and Armstrong, who died in 2012. None of the men flew in space after the Apollo 11 mission.
“It’s human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand,” Collins said on the 10th anniversary of the moon landing in 1979. “Exploration is not a choice really — it’s an imperative, and it’s simply a matter of timing as to when the option is exercised.”
“Whether his work was behind the scenes or on full view, his legacy will always be as one of the leaders who took America’s first steps into the cosmos,” acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement Wednesday.
Collins spent the eight-day mission piloting the command module. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the moon’s surface in the lunar lander, Eagle, Collins remained alone in the command module, Columbia.
“I guess you’re about the only person around that doesn’t have TV coverage of the scene,” Mission Control radioed Collins after the landing.
“That’s all right. I don’t mind a bit,” he responded.
Collins was alone for nearly 28 hours before Armstrong and Aldrin finished their tasks on the moon’s surface and lifted off in the lunar lander. Collins was responsible for re-docking the two spacecraft before the men could begin heading back to Earth. Had something gone wrong and Aldrin and Armstrong been stuck on the moon’s surface — a real fear — Collins would have returned to Earth alone.
Though he was frequently asked if he regretted not landing on the moon, that was never an option for Collins, at least not on Apollo 11. Collins’ specialty was as a command module pilot, a job he compared to being the base-camp operator on a mountain climbing expedition. As a result, it meant he wasn’t considered to take part in the July 20, 1969, landing.
“I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have,” he wrote in his 1974 autobiography, “Carrying the Fire.” “This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two.”
Aldrin, the remaining Apollo 11 astronaut, tweeted a picture Wednesday of the three crewmates laughing, saying: “Dear Mike, Wherever you have been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future.”
Collins was born in Rome on Halloween 1930. His parents were Virginia Collins and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James L. Collins. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 1952, a year behind Aldrin, Collins joined the Air Force, where he became a fighter pilot and test pilot.
John Glenn’s 1962 flight making him the first American to orbit the Earth persuaded Collins to apply to NASA. He was accepted on his second try, in 1963, as part of the third group of astronauts selected. Collins’ first mission was 1966′s Gemini 10, one of the two-man missions made in preparation for flights to the moon.
Along with John Young, Collins practiced maneuvers necessary for a moon landing and performed a spacewalk during the three-day mission. During the spacewalk, he famously lost a camera, which is frequently cited as one of the items of “space junk” orbiting Earth.
On Jan. 9, 1969, NASA announced that Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin would be on the crew of Apollo 11, the United States’ first moon landing attempt. Of his fellow Apollo 11 astronauts, Collins said they were: “Smart as hell, both of them, competent and experienced, each in his own way.” Still, Collins called the group “amiable strangers” because the trio never developed as intense a bond as other crews.
Of the three, Collins was the acknowledged jokester. Aldrin called him the “easygoing guy who brought levity into things.” In summarizing Kennedy’s famous challenge to go to the moon, for example, Collins later said: “It was beautiful in its simplicity. Do what? Moon. When? End of decade.”
The Apollo 11 crew trained for just six months before launching on July 16, 1969, from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. The mission insignia — an eagle landing on the moon with an olive branch in its talons — was largely Collins’ creation.
Collins said one of the things that struck him most was the way the Earth looked from space — peaceful and serene but also delicate.
“As I look back on Apollo 11, I more and more am attracted to my recollection, not of the moon, but of the Earth. Tiny, little Earth in its little black velvet background,” Collins said while marking the mission’s 50th anniversary in 2019.
In contrast, he said the moon seemed almost hostile. In fact, it was considered so hostile that on their return, Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin all spent several days in a quarantine trailer. They received visitors, including President Richard Nixon, staring through a window.
When the group was finally deemed safe, they went on a world tour, visiting 25 countries in just over five weeks.
Collins often remarked that he was surprised that everywhere they went people didn’t say “Well, you Americans finally did it.” Instead, they said, “Well, we finally did it,” meaning “we” humans.
Early on, Collins said Apollo 11 would be his last mission, though officials at NASA wanted him to continue flying. Collins soon left NASA and joined the State Department as assistant secretary for public affairs. Though he enjoyed the people he later wrote that “long hours in Washington flying a great mahogany desk” didn’t suit him.
After about a year he left and joined the Smithsonian Institution. There, he led a team responsible for planning and opening the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. The Apollo 11 capsule is in the museum’s collection along with some of Collins’ personal items from that mission — flight checklists, his toothbrush, razor and a tube of Old Spice shaving cream.
He is survived by two daughters and grandchildren.
Along with his autobiography, Collins wrote a book on his experience for younger readers, “Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut’s Story.” In a 1994 preface to the book, Collins urged more spending on space exploration and on an astronaut mission to Mars.
“I am too old to fly to Mars, and I regret that. But I still think I have been very, very lucky,” he wrote. “I was born in the days of biplanes and Buck Rogers, learned to fly in the early jets, and hit my peak when moon rockets came along. That’s hard to beat.”