Biden: White supremacists are ‘the most dangerous people’ in America posted at 13:02:32 UTC
Biden: White supremacists are ‘the most dangerous people’ in America
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WASHINGTON — Two weeks after President Biden’s inauguration, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, spoke publicly about the importance of dialogue with Moscow, saying that Russia is a part of Europe that cannot simply be shunned and that Europe must be strong enough to defend its own interests.
On Dec. 30, just weeks before the inauguration, the European Union clinched an important investment agreement with China, days after a tweet by Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, asking for “early consultations” with Europe on China and seeming to caution against a quick deal.
So even as the United States resets under new White House leadership, Europe is charting its own course on Russia and China in ways that do not necessarily align with Mr. Biden’s goals, posing a challenge as the new American president sets out to rebuild a post-Trump alliance with the Continent.
On Friday, Mr. Biden will address the Munich Security Conference, a gathering of leaders and diplomats from Europe and the United States that he has attended for decades and that helped cement his reputation as a champion of trans-Atlantic solidarity.
Speaking at the conference two years ago, Mr. Biden lamented the damage the Trump administration had inflicted on the once-sturdy postwar relationship between Washington and Europe’s major capitals. “This too shall pass,” Mr. Biden said. “We will be back.” He promised that the United States would again “shoulder our responsibility of leadership.”
The president’s remarks on Friday are sure to repeat that promise and spotlight his now-familiar call for a more unified Western front against the anti-democratic threats posed by Russia and China. In many ways, such talk is sure to be received like a warm massage by European leaders tensed and shellshocked by four years of President Donald J. Trump’s mercurial and often contemptuous diplomacy.
But if by “leadership” Mr. Biden means a return to the traditional American assumption — we decide and you follow — many Europeans feel that that world is gone, and that Europe must not behave like America’s junior wingman in fights defined by Washington.
Demonstrated by the European Union’s trade deal with China, and conciliatory talk about Moscow from leaders like Mr. Macron and Germany’s likely next chancellor, Armin Laschet, Europe has its own set of interests and ideas about how to manage the United States’ two main rivals, ones that will complicate Mr. Biden’s diplomacy.
“Biden is signaling an incredibly hawkish approach to Russia, lumping it in with China, and defining a new global Cold War against authoritarianism,” said Jeremy Shapiro, the research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
That makes many European leaders nervous, he said. And other regional experts said they had seen fewer signs of overt enthusiasm from the Continent than Biden administration officials might have hoped for.
“There was always a cleareyed recognition that we weren’t just going to be able to show up and say, ‘Hey guys, we’re back!’” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who was in line to become the National Security Council director for Russia but who did not take the job for personal reasons.
“But even with all of that, I think there was optimism that it would be easier than it looks like it’s going to be,” said Ms. Kendall-Taylor, the director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Ulrich Speck, a senior visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, added: “After the freeze in relations under Trump, I expected more warming. I don’t see it yet.”
Mr. Biden quickly took many of the easiest steps toward reconciliation and unity with Europe, including rejoining the Paris climate agreement, renewing an emphasis on multilateralism and human rights, and vowing to rejoin the disintegrating 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
But aligning against Russia and China will be much more difficult.
China may be a peer rival for the United States, but it has long been a vital trade partner for Europe. And while European leaders see Beijing as a systemic rival and competitor, they also see it as a partner, and hardly view it as an enemy.
And Russia remains a nuclear-armed neighbor, however truculent, and has financial and emotional leverage of its own.
Since Mr. Biden was last in the White House, as vice president during the Obama administration, Britain, historically the United States’ most reliable diplomatic partner, has left the European Union and now coordinates foreign policy less effectively with its continental allies.
“That sophisticated British view of the world is absent,” said Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state and ambassador to NATO in the George W. Bush administration. “I don’t think the U.S. is intertwined yet with Europe, diplomatically and strategically,” he added.
This week’s security conference is not run by the German government, but Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will address it, along with Mr. Biden, Mr. Macron and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain. And Germany itself illustrates some of the problems the Biden administration will face in its effort to lock arms against Moscow.
Ms. Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Party has chosen Mr. Laschet as its leader, and he is its likely candidate to succeed her in autumn elections. But Mr. Laschet is more sympathetic than Mr. Biden to both Russia and China. He has cast doubt on the extent of Russian political disinformation and hacking operations and publicly criticized “marketable anti-Putin populism.” He has also been a strong supporter of Germany’s export-led economy, which is deeply reliant on China.
Germany still intends to put into operation the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a 746-mile natural gas artery that runs under the Baltic Sea from northern Russia to Germany. The paired pipelines are owned by Gazprom, itself owned by Russia. Work stopped on the project last year — with 94 percent of the pipes laid — after the U.S. Congress imposed further sanctions on the project on the grounds that it helped fund the Kremlin, damaged Ukraine and gave Russia the potential to manipulate Europe’s energy supply.
Last year, German politicians responded to threats of economic punishment made by Republican American senators by claiming “blackmail,” “economic war” and “neo-imperialism.” Many want to complete the pipeline project, but on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters that Mr. Biden opposed it as a “bad deal” that divided Europe and made it more vulnerable to Russian treachery.
Despite the sanctions, Russian ships have renewed laying pipes, and Ms. Merkel defends the project as a business venture, not a geopolitical statement. The Germans argue that European Union energy regulations and new pipeline configurations reduce Russian ability to manipulate supplies and that Russia is more dependent on the income than Europe is on the gas.
There are signs that, as with the China deal, the Biden administration wants to move on and negotiate a solution with Germany, to remove a major irritant with a crucial ally. That could include, some suggest, snapback sanctions if Moscow diverts supplies or halts transit fees to Ukraine.
In France, Mr. Macron has long sought to develop a more positive dialogue with Mr. Putin, but his efforts for a “reset” have gone nowhere. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, tried something similar this month with embarrassing results when Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia humiliated him at a news conference and called the European Union “an unreliable partner.”
Together with the attempted assassination and then the jailing of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, the treatment of Mr. Borrell means that Brussels is likely to place new sanctions on Russia, but not before the end of March, and will be more open to Mr. Biden’s suggestions for a tougher line.
Biden administration officials say that coordinating with a fractious Europe has never been easy and that its leaders welcome restored American leadership — especially on a Chinese threat more apparent to Europe than it was five years ago.
As for China and the investment agreement, after seven years of difficult talks, European officials have defended it as largely an effort to obtain the same access to the Chinese market for their companies that American firms had received through Mr. Trump’s China deal last year.
“There is no reason for us to suffer from an unlevel playing field, including vis-à-vis the U.S.,” Sabine Weyand, the E.U. director general for trade, said in a virtual forum in early February. “Why should we sit still?”
Ms. Weyand said the deal set high standards for Chinese trade practices, which would ultimately put the United States and Europe “in a stronger position to have a more assertive policy together on China.”
The deal must be ratified by the European Parliament, however, which has been critical of its failure to guarantee more labor rights, and it is unlikely to come to a vote until much later this year. And, again, Biden administration officials seem to be willing to move on, given the importance of cooperation with Europe on China.
“The deal potentially could complicate trans-Atlantic cooperation on China,” said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator and a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, “but I don’t think it’s going to preclude it.”
Michael Crowley reported from Washington, and Steven Erlanger from Brussels. Ana Swanson contributed reporting from Washington.
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from  The News And Times. |
New York's Washington Square Park Turns Into Winter Wonderland
Washington Square Park in New York looks like a winter wonderland as the city expects up to 25 centimeters of snow.
Snow fell steadily across New York City throughout the morning, forcing the cancelation of hundreds of flights and delaying the opening of two COVID-19 vaccination sites after the storm disrupted dosage delivery.
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from  Аргументы и Факты. |
Экс-губернатор Хабаровского края Виктор Ишаев получил пять лет колонии условно по делу о растрате 7,5 млн рублей, передает ТАСС.
Замоскворецкий суд Москвы также назначил ему штраф в размере 800 тысяч рублей и дал бывшему губернатору испытательный срок на пять лет.
Еще один фигурант дела, Геннадий Кондратов, получил три года колонии условно со штрафом 400 тысяч рублей.
Отмечается, что суд в качестве смягчающих обстоятельств учел государственные награды и хронические заболевания у Ишаева. Кроме того, в срок наказания было зачтено время нахождения подсудимых под домашним арестом.
Ранее суд признал экс-губернатора виновным в растрате 7,5 млн рублей.
По версии следствия, с 2014 по 2017 год Ишаев заключил с подконтрольной фирмой договор об аренде помещения по завышенной стоимости. Соучастник перевел деньги на счета, к которым Ишаев имел доступ. Свою вину в совершении преступления экс-глава Хабаровского края не признает.
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- Yet another winter storm on the way, with significant snow for Thursday and Friday WFMZ Allentown
- More snow chances on the way <a href="http://WISHTV.com" rel="nofollow">WISHTV.com</a>
- Cincinnati weather: What's next? Freezing temperatures, negative wind chill and more snow The Cincinnati Enquirer
- Bitterly cold temperatures ahead of light snow tomorrow | First Alert Update - Feb. 17, 5 a.m. WTOL11
- Just the start of a massive temperature improvement WKOW
- View Full Coverage on Google News
- UK aims to infect healthy volunteers with COVID-19 for medical research Fox News
- BREAKING: UK volunteers to be deliberately exposed to COVID in world-first trial Sky News
- Anti-Vaxxers Aren't the Only Ones Selling Vaccines Short The Daily Beast
- UK gives go-ahead to expose volunteers to COVID in medical trial Reuters
- UK to infect up to 90 healthy volunteers with Covid in world first trial The Guardian
- View Full Coverage on Google News
themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/16/rus…
themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/16/rus…
themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/17/kar…
| Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The News And Times. |
| Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The News And Times. |
| Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The News And Times. |
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Ex-Khabarovsk head’s sentencing in Rosneft embezzlement case rescheduled for February 17
Context
MOSCOW, February 15 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court on Monday will announce sentence against ex-governor of Russia’s Khabarovsk Region Victor Ishayev accused of embezzling over 7.5 million rubles (over $100,000) from Rosneft oil company on February 17, but not February 16 as was scheduled earlier, the court’s press service told RAPSI.
Prosecutors earlier demanded 7 years in prison for the defendant.
Ishayev was arrested in Moscow on March 28, 2019. On March 29, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court denied a 15-million-ruble ($200,000) bail to Ishayev and placed him under house arrest.
From 2013 to 2018, Ishayev was a vice-president of Rosneft. According to investigators, between 2014 and 2017, he fraudulently ensured signing of premises lease agreements for the company office’s use in the Khabarovsk Region at an overvalued price. The contracts were concluded with Ishayev’s firm.
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from  РИА Новости. |
| Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The News And Times. |
The News And Times Blogs Network - <a href="http://newsandtimes.net" rel="nofollow">newsandtimes.net</a>11:53 AM 2/16/2021 - Tweets by @mikenov
Seven Coronavirus Variants In The US All Independently Gained Similar Mutations via @IFLScience: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/seven-coronavirus-variants-in-the-us-all-independently-gained-similar-mutations/ …
The News And Times - News Channels https://news-channels.com/ https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm5iY25ld3MuY29tL2J1c2luZXNzL2J1c2luZXNzLW5ld3MvYml0Y29pbi1zdXJwYXNzZXMtNTAtMDAwLWZpcnN0LXRpbWUtZXZlci1tYWpvci1jb21wYW5pZXMtanVtcC1uMTI1Nzk3NNIBLGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm5iY25ld3MuY29tL25ld3MvYW1wL25jbmExMjU3OTc0?oc=5 …
10:03 AM 2/16/2021 - North Carolina GOP censures Sen. Burr for impeachment vote https://thenewsandtimes.blogspot.com/2021/02/1003-am-2162021-north-carolina-gop.html …
- Michael Novakhov Retweeted
Palestinian Authority accuses Israel of failing to transfer COVID vaccines to Gaza https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/west-bank-covid-vaccine-rollout-on-hold-as-gaza-still-awaits-first-shipment-1.9542113 …
- Michael Novakhov Retweeted
The Evolution of Alexey #Navalny’s Nationalism
Let me join in the chorus of praise for @mashagessen's exploration of Navalny's views but above all trajectory in @NewYorker. Certainly not a Nazi, but nor Mandela, he comes across as someone in evolution https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-evolution-of-alexey-navalnys-nationalism … https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1006407045/tag/all-articles/view/html … https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1006407045/tag/all-articles/view/html … https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMihAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uYmNjaGljYWdvLmNvbS93ZWF0aGVyL3dpbnRlci1zdG9ybS13YXJuaW5nLXJlbWFpbnMtaW4tZWZmZWN0LWFjcm9zcy10aGUtY2hpY2Fnby1hcmVhLXR1ZXNkYXktYXMtc25vdy1jb250aW51ZXMvMjQzODg1Mi_SAYgBaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubmJjY2hpY2Fnby5jb20vd2VhdGhlci93aW50ZXItc3Rvcm0td2FybmluZy1yZW1haW5zLWluLWVmZmVjdC1hY3Jvc3MtdGhlLWNoaWNhZ28tYXJlYS10dWVzZGF5LWFzLXNub3ctY29udGludWVzLzI0Mzg4NTIvP2FtcA?oc=5 …
Athens Acropolis covered in a blanket of snow https://youtu.be/_BS-sf9yntg via @YouTube
- Michael Novakhov Retweeted
Мирный протест в России - самый мирный в мире. И не надо верить госпропаганде и путать его с реальными массовыми беспорядками, которые время от времени случаются за рубежом. И вот почему: https://youtu.be/_ItlwYHUJcU
- Michael Novakhov Retweeted
Совет Европы: дискриминация ЛГБТ в Польше усилилась https://parniplus.com/news/sodiskriminatsiya-lgbt-v-polshe/ …
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from  ABC News: Top Stories. |
"We must get to the truth of how this happened," Pelosi said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Monday that Congress will move to establish an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, similar to the one set up in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Now, as always, security is the order of the day: the security of our country, the security of our Capitol which is the temple of our democracy, and the security of our Members," Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The events of Jan. 6 occurred after then-President Donald Trump and his allies held a rally earlier that day in Washington, D.C., urging Congress not to certify the results of the November presidential election, in which Trump lost to Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Trump vowed to "never concede" and urged his supporters "to fight," as he continued to push baseless claims of election fraud.
Crowds of people then made their way to the Capitol steps, pushing through barricades, officers in riot gear and other security measures that were put in place in anticipation of the protest. An angry mob breached the Capitol building, forcing a lockdown with members of Congress and their staff holed up inside. It took hours for law enforcement to clear the building and establish a perimeter around the area. Five people, including a police officer, died during the rampage.
Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore was appointed to examine security on Capitol Hill following the insurrection. Meanwhile, the Senate acquitted Trump on Saturday in his second impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the Capitol rioters.
"For the past few weeks, General Honore has been assessing our security needs by reviewing what happened on January 6 and how we must ensure that it does not happen again," Pelosi said in her letter. "He has been working with Committees of Jurisdiction and will continue to make proposals."
"It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened," she continued. "To protect our security, our security, our security, our next step will be to establish an outside, independent 9/11-type Commission to 'investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex… and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement in the National Capitol Region.'"
The so-called 9/11 Commission was convened by congressional legislation that was signed into law by then-President George W. Bush in November 2002. After a 20-month-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks and how to prevent a similar attack, the bipartisan panel concluded in its final report that U.S. government intelligence agencies had failed to adequately assess the threat posed by al-Qaeda, among other things.
A growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the Capitol siege. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who crossed party lines and voted alongside six other Republicans to convict Trump, told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Sunday on "This Week" that he supports a full investigation into the events of Jan. 6. In interviews following Cassidy, House impeachment manager Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said they would support the creation of a 9/11 Commission-style independent inquiry into the Capitol siege.
In her letter, Pelosi said Congress must also allocate additional funding "to provide for the safety of Members and the security of the Capitol."
"We will be forever grateful to the Capitol Police for their life-saving courage and heroism in securing the Capitol and protecting Members," she said.
ABC News' Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
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The latest chapter of the COVID-19 pandemic has been defined by vaccines and variants, the lineages of SARS-CoV-2 that have undergone notable mutations and taken root in different parts of the world. The most infamous examples of this line-up are the UK variant (aka the Kent variant), the South African variant, and the Brazilian variant – but the US has got more than its fair share of worrying variants too.
New preliminary research has reported that seven lineages of SARS-CoV-2 are on the rise across the US. Curiously, the seven variants have all independently gained similar mutations to the spike protein of the surface of the virus.
The new study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, was posted on the preprint server medRxiv.
The report explains that seven independent lineages of SARS-CoV-2 with S:Q677H or S:Q677P mutations arose between August and November 2020. While it’s not certain whether the new variants in the US are innately more contagious, they are certainly on the rise in the southcentral and southwest US. Infections with SARS-Cov-2 viruses carrying a mutation called Q677P were first detected on October 23, 2020. Between December 1, 2020, and January 19, 2021, it represented almost 28 percent of cases detected in Louisiana and over 11 percent of cases in New Mexico.
All of these variants obtaining similar mutations might sound like an unlikely coincidence, but researchers do have some clear ideas about why this might be the case.
“The simplest explanation is that the mutations we are seeing at this site – Spike position 677 – might be one of the many subtle ways that this virus is fine-tuning itself to infect human cells,” Jeremy Kamil, co-author of the paper and a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport, told IFLScience.
“However, we have no evidence yet as to whether these changes make the virus any more transmissible or dangerous. Indeed, it has been plenty dangerous all along. One might conjecture that they could —potentially— give the virus some sort of slight advantage over one of its siblings that doesn’t have the change. I will stress that [if] there are any effects of these mutations, we expect they would prove to be quite small, and quite subtle,” Dr Kamil added.
Mutations are a natural part of the virus life cycle and, over the course of the pandemic, there have been thousands of SARS-CoV-2 variants that have undergone subtle mutations – most of which are inconsequential or harmless. However, if those mutations somehow provide the virus with an advantage over others, then they provide the opportunity to thrive. If they are all obtaining the same or similar mutations, then that could be a sign the mutation is beneficial for whatever selective pressures they are facing.
As Dr Kamil indicates, this instance is an example of convergent evolution, the process whereby different organisms independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar conditions. This is the reason why bats, bugs, and birds all have wings; they evolved them separately, as they provided the animals with an evolutionary advantage over others. It's also the reason why so many crustaceans have independently evolved into a crab-like form.
It’s something that’s also been seen in other parts of the world with other variants of SARS-CoV-2. For example, there were some reports of the UK variant mutating further and obtaining changes to the spike protein mutation found in the Brazilian and South African variants, known as E484K. Once again, scientists speculated that the mutation was giving the virus some kind of evolutionary advantage.
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