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South Carolina Dem debate reflects different approaches to defeating Trump

Translated Thursday 27 February 2020

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South Carolina Dem debate reflects different approaches to defeating Trump
February 26, 2020 12:06 PM CST BY MARK GRUENBERG

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South Carolina Dem debate reflects different approaches to defeating Trump
South Carolina Democratic debate | Patrick Semansky/AP
CHARLESTON, S.C.—After they trooped onto the stage in Charleston, S.C., most of the other Democrats jumped on Bernie Sanders over the cost of Medicare For All. Although it’s almost impossible to pick a debate “winner” after the heated exchange of barbs against one another it is clear that the biggest tactical difference in the primary continues to be between those who believe moderation on the issues is called for in order to win over swing voters and even some Republicans and the Sanders approach of expanding the electorate to bring in millions who didn’t vote last time around.

Elizabeth Warren jumped on Michael Bloomberg’s history of sexism and disclosure agreements but unlike all the others she did not attack Bernie Sanders, saying instead that she agreed with him on issues but thought she would make the better president and be able to work with others to achieve more of those goals. She attacked Bloomberg for allegedly having told a female employee that she should terminate her pregnancy if she wanted to keep her job. Warren made a convincing argument about how personal that issue was to her when she described how she lost her first job as a special education teacher when the principal fired her after she became visibly pregnant.

The Feb. 25 debate came as Sanders, the longtime independent senator from Vermont, assumed national front-runner status, though he still trailed Biden, the former vice president, by four percentage points in the latest South Carolina primary poll. Sanders has a substantial lead in pledged delegates thus far.

It was clear last night that those pushing to stop the Bernie Sanders momentum are far from settling on any one candidate they think can do that and that no one can be expected to pull out before Super Tuesday is over and perhaps even after that.

Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg focused all of his attacks last night on Bernie Sanders painting an almost cataclysmic picture of what would happen if Sanders wins the nomination. He repeatedly condemned Sanders for having made a positive statement about Cuba’s literacy campaign.

Although most observers think Buttigieg can’t compete with Sanders in the coming Super Tuesday votes his strategy appears to hang in and accumulate as many delegates as he can for the national convention in June, giving him leverage there to stop Sanders if there is a contested convention and perhaps to emerge as a “consensus” candidate.

The debate also came as the seven hopefuls – Sanders, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., multibillionaire Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Steyer, and Biden – looked ahead to Super Tuesday, March 3, when 15 states, including the two largest, California and Texas, hold primaries. Those tilts will allot one-third of all Democratic delegates and several of the hopefuls pitched their claims to those voters, too.

The South Carolina outcome may well affect Super Tuesday, particularly if tallies show Sanders continues strong showings among people of color. Biden considers African-Americans, some two-thirds of South Carolina Democratic primary voters, his strongest voting bloc, but he’s been losing ground with them.

As a result, after the initial barbs, many of the questions and answers focused on issues pertinent to African-Americans, and that let the others put Bloomberg on the defensive.

“Yes, in effect it was” racist, Buttigieg said of Bloomberg’s infamous stop-and-frisk program when the multibillionaire was Mayor of New York City for 12 years. “It was about profiling people because of the color of their skin.” Bloomberg again tried to apologize. His effort drew his first of many boos.

But the Indianan also pointed out one failing among the hopefuls on the stage: In a political party ever more known for its diversity, all seven were white. “None of us have lived the experience of feeling eyes on us because we’re supposed to be dangerous because of the color our skin,” Buttigieg noted. The only person of color still in the race, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, did not make Democratic Party criteria to join her colleagues.

“Every single policy area” being discussed “has the gigantic subtext of race,” added Steyer, citing housing discrimination, racism in the criminal justice system and lack of credit for women- and minority-owned businesses. “And I’m the only person up here who believes in reparations” for the nation’s years of slavery from 1619-1865, starting as British colonies. None mentioned the ensuing decades of Jim Crow laws, racist violence, and political repression.

Biden chastised Steyer for having purchased a private prison notorious for abuse of African American prisoners. Steyer protested that he sold the prison when he found out what was going on in there.

Racial questions let Biden tout his Senate record in passing a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act – the extension before the one which the GOP-named majority on the U.S. Supreme Court gutted several years ago. Biden did not, this time, promise legislation to restore the law’s strength against racist state voting actions. He has done so in past debates, and on the stump.

Restoring full voting rights is a key part of HR1, the comprehensive election reform package the Democratic-run House passed last year. Trump’s poodle, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has pigeon-holed it – and 400 other House-passed bills, including comprehensive pro-worker labor law reform. He calls them all, including voting rights, “socialism.”

Race also let Biden get in one of the best barbs of the debate, aiming not at the others but at the radical right politically powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association. Shootings disproportionately wound and kill people of color nationwide. “If I’m elected, NRA, I’m coming for you,” Biden said.

What Biden didn’t mention: His votes and congressional leadership for the infamous “three strikes” crime law of a quarter of a century ago. The law disproportionately jailed people of color. Biden also didn’t mention his terrible treatment of an African-American woman, Anita Hill, during hearings on Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination almost 30 years ago.

Hill detailed how Thomas, the right-wing Republican nominee for the High Court at the time, had sexually harassed her. Between GOP lobbying and Biden’s mistreatment of Hill, Thomas wound up on the court. He’s still there.

But before they jumped on Bloomberg, the other hopefuls slammed Sanders, and particularly his Medicare For All plan, which he has championed for decades in Congress. It’s also a major part of his campaign and his signature issue against the 1%, which he – and Warren – say have taken over politics and the government. Warren has her own version of Medicare For All.

At least a dozen unions, led by National Nurses United – it’s their signature cause, too – campaign for Medicare For All. It would eliminate the private insurers, their high co-pays, premiums and deductibles and denial of care. Biden charged Sanders’s plan would cost $60 trillion, double Biden’s prior estimate, without citing his source for that figure.

And Buttigieg, continuing to attack Medicare For All and Sanders all the way through the debate, said it was so unpopular it would divide Democrats and hand a second White House term to Trump. So did Steyer.

“This conversation” about Medicare For All “shows a huge risk for the Democratic Party,” Steyer said.

He claimed Sanders’s Democratic Socialism is as unpalatable to voters as Bloomberg’s “long history of being a Republican.”

Warren did not limit her attacks on Bloomberg to his history of sexist disregard for women. She scored the former New York mayor, a Republican-turned-independent, for financially supporting GOPers, too – including the senator she beat, despite Bloomberg’s money. She noted too Bloomberg’s financial support for Trump’s South Carolina toady, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Klobuchar didn’t go as far as Buttigieg in her attack on Sanders. She just said Sanders’s numbers “don’t add up,” before adding: “Expanding medical coverage would be useless with no providers,” especially in rural areas. She touted her legislation to expand federal subsidies for “critical access hospitals” in those regions and sometimes in low-income areas housing people of color in U.S. cities.

“And we’re going to have a shortage of one million home health care providers and more than 100,000 nursing assistants,” Klobuchar added. Her solutions: Comprehensive immigration reform, to let people with those jobs stay in the U.S., and making community colleges and technical schools, for the first year or two, tuition-free, to entice more students into those occupations.

The problem with all the attacks on Sanders and Medicare For All was that they didn’t work well in Nevada caucuses the week before. The Vermonter won a near majority of the votes, doubling the total of second-place finisher Biden, and walked away with most of the Silver State’s delegates. And 60% of Nevadan caucus-goers supported Medicare for all.

And a pamphlet slamming Medicare For All circulated in the prior week’s Nevada caucuses, allegedly from the most-powerful union there, 50,000-member Culinary Workers Local 226, apparently backfired.

It said Medicare For All would take away workers’ hard-won excellent private health insurance. But exit polls and interviews showed the unionists, most of them people of color, worried about not just themselves but people they knew without such plans – and backed Sanders.

Sanders retorted by once again emphasizing that Medicare For All would save U.S. workers and families far more in premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses – costs that produce up to 500,000 bankruptcies per year – for denial of care. He also said it would save lives. Harvard Medical School studies and a recent study in Lancet magazine, out of Yale, calculate insurers’ denial of payment for care causes up to 68,000 needless deaths yearly.

Sanders also pointed out, countering charges from the others that he’s so inflexible he wouldn’t be able to get anything done, that he got Congress to increase spending on local health care centers by $11 billion “and that I put $2 billion for (student) debt forgiveness for doctors, nurses and dentists” in legislation, though he was not specific about which bill contains those two sums.

He also declared Medicare For All would solve the health care provider problems Klobuchar raised, but he didn’t say how because the moderators cut him off by going to another topic.

A short opening discussion on the economy let Sanders raise the issue of income inequality, which has grown to a chasm unequaled since the 1920s. Trump makes a big deal out of the economy, including a 3.6% jobless rate, leading Sanders – and unions – to point out that many workers must hold two or three jobs to try to make ends meet.

“The economy is doing really great for people like Mr. Bloomberg,” Sanders declared, an oblique reference not just to Bloomberg’s billions but to his willingness to spend a lot of his fortune — $400 million and counting – on ads to help propel himself into the Oval Office.

Bloomberg shot back that “Russia is helping you get elected so you lose” to Trump. U.S. intelligence agencies told lawmakers last week the Russians are again interfering in the election, through cyberwarfare, agitating for both Trump and Sanders. Trump, disliking that news about Russian President Vladimir Putin, fired his own intelligence chief.

Foreign policy also gave several of the others the chance to jump on Sanders for his recent remarks citing educational and health care improvements in Cuba. The others blasted Sanders’ past positive remarks about limited aspects of everyday life in Cuba, Nicaragua and the former Soviet Union.

Sanders shot back that he criticized dictatorships and dictatorial tendencies in those governments and elsewhere, and that he was quoting Obama about the Cuban improvements. He also noted the U.S. itself does not have clean hands, as it – the CIA, though he didn’t say so – overthrew popularly elected, and independent, governments in Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s, among others.

Once again, the contestants agreed on a few issues, mostly the need to beat Trump. They faulted the president for ignoring science — and the facts – on everything from the coronavirus to climate change.

They slammed Trump for endangering U.S. security through his “go it alone” decisions, his “cozying up” to China and North Korea, his alienation of allies, his unilateral support of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and his dismissal of Palestinian aspirations, and for Trump’s Middle East war-mongering.

That also let Sanders, the only hopeful who’s ever lived in Israel, say he’s proud to be Jewish but hates the right-wing Bibi and his government. The Israelis need secure borders and the Palestinians need a real state for themselves, Sanders said. Trump cooked up a Palestinian swiss cheese “semi-state” plan for Bibi.

Bloomberg was the exception to general criticism of Trump’s war-mongering and willingness to deploy troops abroad. Bloomberg also differed from the others on China. He supports Trump’s overall troop buildup, which produced record U.S. military spending. And Bloomberg said the U.S. must both call out and negotiate with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

All seven agreed on legalizing marijuana – which drew big cheers — though Bloomberg favored continuing criminal penalties for dealers and scientific study of pot’s impact, which he called problematic.

By contrast, Sanders zinged Biden for the former veep’s votes, as a senator, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sanders led the fight against GOP President George W. Bush’s Iraq conflict and is co-leading the Senate fight against Trump’s saber-rattling and war threats against Iran.

CONTRIBUTOR
Mark Gruenberg Mark Gruenberg
Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People’s World. He is also the editor of Press Associates Inc. (PAI), a union news service in Washington, D.C. that he has headed since 1999. Previously, he worked as Washington correspondent for the Ottaway News Service, as Port Jervis bureau chief for the Middletown, NY Times Herald Record, and as a researcher and writer for Congressional Quarterly. Mark obtained his BA in public policy from the University of Chicago and worked as the University of Chicago correspondent for the Chicago Daily News.

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A passionate and entertaining account of GDR socialism

A Socialist Defector: from Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee

Author: Victor Grossman

Publisher:  Monthly Review Press, 2019

Book review by Tim Pelzer

VANCOUVER - Thirty one years ago the Berlin Wall came down and the working class in the GermanDemocratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany, voted to merge with capitalist WestGermany. In “A Socialist Defector: from Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee” veteran journalist Victor Grossman provides insight into why the GDR’s 41 year experiment with socialism did not last. He describes the ups and downs of the former GDR, spicing it up with many interesting details of life before and after the Berlin Wall.

Grossman, an American, is in a unique position to comment on events in the former GDR. In 1951, he was drafted into the US army. He lied to recruiters about his long listof leftwing associations, including membership in the CPUSA. When he was sent toGermany, authorities found out that he had not told them the truth and ordered him to gobefore a military judge. To avoid a $10,000 fine and 5 years in prison, hedefected to the GDR and continued to live in eastern Germany even after the Berlin Wall camedown in 1990. Grossman trained in journalism and worked for the GDR media until1990. He continues to write for the international communist press.

Despite being smaller with fewer natural resources and industry than its western counterpart, the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SEP) government, with no help from outside, turned the GDR into an economic powerhouse and eliminated poverty. Initially theeconomy thrived and living standards surpassed those of the Soviet Union, withfull employment, cheap housing, free healthcare and education, adequate food and agrowing supply of consumer goods. Women gained full equality and control overtheir lives, in contrast to West Germany where women needed their husband’s permission towork outside the home until 1977.

In the late 1970s, government efforts to build an electronics industry,maintain a large army and keep prices low for food and housing meant reduced investmentto produce consumer goods. The Soviet Union raised oil and gas prices without offering more money for East German imports, further straining the economy. The top party leadership “feared” speaking openly about thecountry’s economic problem and how to deal with them.

Grossman notes that one of the GDR’s greatest failures was its lack of freedom of speech. The SEPdid not allow open debate about problems and criticism ofgovernment policies, which it viewed as helping the enemy on the other side of the wall. Though the party leadership tolerated dissident groups outside the SEP, at times itexiled vocal critics from the GDR. The leadership did not trust thepopulation which “was an important factor in the GDR’s decline,” writesGrossman.

He is also highly critical of the GDR’s weak democracy, in which the only electoral optionwasthe SEP and its five party coalition partners. The only way citizens couldinfluence the government was through its legal obligation to respond to written complaintsand many injustices were resolved. However, to itscredit the SEP coalition government did respond to demands from society, leading to the legalization of homosexuality in 1968 and abortion in 1972, and many other improvements.

Sadly, despite the SEP’s social and economic achievements, many EastGermans, especially the young, took for granted their cradle-to-grave economicsecurity and, bombarded by rosy images from West German television, believed that life was better in West Germany under capitalism. The US invested heavily in economically building upWest Germany to make life seem less appealing in the GDR and lurepeople west.

The leadership’s unwillingness to publicly address the country’s economic problems,restrictions on freedom of speech, its mistrust of the population, the lack ofdemocracy and the widespread belief that life was better in West Germany helped undermine support for the SEP and socialism in the GDR.

Grossman does not explore if democracy existed in the factories and workplaces. Did workers participate in production and management decisions or were all decisions made by management appointed by central planners? Did they feel that they were the true owners of the country’s publicly owned economy? Exploring these questions can also help understand why many workers came to reject GDR style socialism.

East Germans never expected the disaster that would unfold whenthey voted for reunification in 1990. The new Christian Democrat governmentwasted no time in selling off the GDR’s 8,000 publicly owned companies. Manycompanies, including high-tech factories,were sold for a song and then shut downbecause West German firms did not want new competitors. Many workers lost theirand social benefits and came to regret the GDR’s demise.

Grossman also explains why the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. US cold warriorsalways used it to demonstrate alleged communist inhumanity. Duringthe 1950s, West Germany along with the US tried to undermine the steady economicprogress and improving standard of living in the GDR. Their tactics ranged from incentives to lureengineers and technicians to the west, to the imposition of a separate currency, to acts of industrial sabotage and terrorism. The West German spy organization —composed of former SS and Gestapo members — and the CIA even tried to place poisonedfood in supermarkets to kill Soviet soldiers, a plot foiled by the EastGerman security agency (Stasi). At the same time, there were heightened militarytensions between US and Soviet forces in Berlin, accelerating immigration from theeast. All these factors led GDR leaders to order the construction of the BerlinWall in 1961 to save the country from disintegrating.

“A Socialist Defector” allows us to honestly assess and extract useful lessons from the GDR in going beyond capitalism. Grossman’s compelling,entertaining and passionate book is recommended for those wanting to know why socialism did not endure in the GDR.

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Conway shreds Nancy Pelosi, calls her a child for ripping Trump's speech

Trump's entire 2020 State of the Union address

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Portuguese CP, About the UK's withdrawal from the European Union

2/3/20 1:52 PM

·          Portugal, Portuguese Communist Party  En  Pt  Europe  Communist and workers' parties

Release from PCP Press Office
31 January 2020

The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union is an event of great importance for the people of the United Kingdom, a fundamental change in the framework of relations between States in the European continent, and the only outcome that guarantees respect for the sovereign will of the British people, expressed in the 2016 referendum.

This important event is inseparable from, and simultaneously an expression of, the contradictions and deep crisis of the European capitalist integration, which increasingly reveals itself in conflict with the peoples' interests and aspirations, increasingly exhausted and incapable of answering the economic, social and political problems affecting various countries in the European continent.

The UK's withdrawal from the European Union represents a serious setback to the theories of inevitability and irreversibility of the European Union; a defeat for all those who tried – through unacceptable pressures, blackmail and manoeuvring, in both the European Union and the United Kingdom– to counter the sovereign decision of the British people.

PCP expresses doubts, disagreements and concerns about the terms of the UK Withdrawal Agreement, inseparable from the mould and impositions of the Treaties, the political and ideological nature of the forces that negotiated the Agreement, and the long process of interference and blackmail at the origin of its shortcomings, weaknesses and constraints, and which do not answer the legitimate aspirations and interests of the British people, but rather try impose solutions that keep that country bound by European Union policies.

However, and despite the profound contradictions that have arisen and that continue to mark the social and political situation in the United Kingdom – many of which are the result of pressure and interference from the European Union – PCP underlines that the decision of the British people now realized constitutes a victory over fear, submission and catastrophism, thus representing an additional element in the struggle for another Europe of workers and peoples.

PCP salutes and expresses its solidarity with the communists and other British progressive forces who have never given up affirming and defending an alternative progressive project for the UK to leave the EU and who, in this new framework, defend the rights and aspirations of British workers and people and fight, like PCP, for an alternative framework of relationship between sovereign states in Europe, respecting the sovereignty and rights of peoples.

PCP reaffirms its commitment to fight against all attempts and manoeuvres that, under the pretext of a “reinforced Union of 27” and the supposed consequences of the UK's withdrawal, seek new attacks on workers' rights and the sovereignty of States, the deepening of the neoliberal and militaristic pillars of the European Union, and an even greater asymmetry and concentration of power in the supranational sphere and in the Franco-German axis.

PCP affirms its intention to continue to closely monitor all issues related to the rights of the Portuguese to work and reside in the United Kingdom, and reiterates that the Portuguese Government must resolutely intervene, with the authorities of the United Kingdom and the European Union, to ensure the defence of their legitimate rights – among which, the right of residence, the right to equal treatment, the right of access to public health care and education services, the right to social security benefits, the right to family reunification, the mutual recognition of academic qualifications and professional qualifications.

PCP considers that the Portuguese Government should take the necessary initiatives to ensure the development of mutually advantageous bilateral relations between Portugal and the United Kingdom, within the framework of respect for the sovereignty and equal rights of each country and the rights and aspirations of the Portuguese and British people. Therefore, PCP considers that the defence of the interests of the Portuguese people, and of the Portuguese community in the United Kingdom, should not be constrained or jeopardized by any impositions or conditions from the European Union, namely in the context of a future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

http://www.pcp.pt/en/about-uks-withdrawal-european-union

Sobre a saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia

Nota do Gabinete de Imprensa do PCP
31 Janeiro 2020

A saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia constitui um acontecimento de grande importância para o povo do Reino Unido, uma alteração de fundo no quadro de relações entre Estados no continente europeu e o único desfecho que garante o respeito pela vontade do povo britânico, expressa de forma soberana no referendo realizado em 2016.

Este importante acontecimento é inseparável, e simultaneamente uma expressão, das contradições e profunda crise do processo de integração capitalista europeu, que cada vez mais se revela em confronto com os interesses e aspirações dos povos, crescentemente esgotado e incapaz de dar resposta aos problemas económicos, sociais e políticos que afectam vários países do continente europeu.

A saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia representa um sério revés nas teorias da inevitabilidade e da irreversibilidade da União Europeia. Constitui uma derrota para todos quantos tentaram, através de inaceitáveis pressões, chantagens e manobras, quer na União Europeia, quer no Reino Unido, contrariar a decisão soberana do povo britânico.

O PCP manifesta dúvidas, discordâncias e inquietações sobre os termos do Acordo de Saída do Reino Unido, inseparáveis da matriz e imposições dos Tratados, da natureza política e ideológica das forças que negociaram o Acordo e do longo processo de ingerência e chantagem que está na origem das suas insuficiências, debilidades e condicionalidades que não respondem a legítimas aspirações e interesses do povo britânico, tentando, ao invés, impor opções que mantenham aquele país vinculado a políticas da União Europeia.

Apesar disso, e de profundas contradições que se manifestaram e que continuam a marcar a situação social e política no Reino Unido – várias delas resultantes das pressões e ingerências da União Europeia –, o PCP sublinha que a decisão do povo britânico agora concretizada constitui uma vitória sobre o medo, a submissão e o catastrofismo, representando por isso um elemento adicional na luta por uma outra Europa dos trabalhadores e dos povos.

O PCP saúda e expressa a sua solidariedade aos comunistas e outras forças progressistas britânicas que nunca desistiram de afirmar e defender um projecto alternativo progressista de saída do Reino Unido da UE e que, neste novo quadro, defendem os direitos e aspirações dos trabalhadores e do povo britânico e lutam, tal como o PCP, por um quadro alternativo de relacionamento entre Estados soberanos na Europa, respeitador da soberania e direitos dos povos.

O PCP alerta e reafirma o seu compromisso de lutar contra todas as tentativas e manobras que a pretexto de uma “reforçada União a 27” e de supostas consequências da saída do Reino Unido visem novos ataques aos direitos dos trabalhadores e à soberania dos Estados, o aprofundamento dos pilares neoliberal e militarista da União Europeia e uma ainda maior assimetria e concentração de poder na esfera supranacional e no eixo franco-alemão.

O PCP afirma a sua intenção de continuar a acompanhar de perto todas as questões relativas aos direitos dos portugueses a trabalhar e a residir no Reino Unido. Reitera que o Governo português deve intervir resolutamente, junto das autoridades do Reino Unido e da União Europeia, para assegurar a defesa dos seus legítimos direitos – entre os quais, o direito de residência, o direito à igualdade de tratamento, o direito de acesso aos serviços públicos de cuidados de saúde e de educação, o direito às prestações de segurança social, o direito ao reagrupamento familiar, o reconhecimento mútuo das habilitações académicas e das qualificações profissionais.

O PCP considera que o Governo português deve tomar as iniciativas necessárias para assegurar o desenvolvimento de relações bilaterais mutuamente vantajosas entre Portugal e o Reino Unido, no quadro do respeito da soberania e igualdade de direitos de cada um dos países e dos direitos e aspirações do povo português e do povo britânico. Nesse sentido o PCP considera que a defesa dos interesses do povo português, e da comunidade portuguesa no Reino Unido, não deve ser condicionada ou colocada em causa por quaisquer imposições ou constrangimentos da União Europeia, nomeadamente no quadro da futura relação entre o Reino Unido e a União Europeia.

http://www.pcp.pt/sobre-saida-do-reino-unido-da-uniao-europeia-0

Events

February 28, 2020 - March 1, 2020 - Frankfurt, Germany 23rd Congress of the German CP

March 21, 2020 - March 22, 2020 - Helsinki, Finland Shorter Working Time - Helsinki Seminar by CP of Finland

July 10, 2020 - July 12, 2020 - Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid, Spain) XI Congress of CP of the Peoples of Spain

September 4, 2020 - September 6, 2020 - Atalaia - Seixal Avante Festival

November 27, 2020 - November 29, 2020 - Portugal XXI Congress of the Portuguese Communist Party

   All coming events in detail

Urgent Actions

·         CP of El Salvador, Communist Parties of the World Pronouncement on Bolivia

·         Paraguayan CP, On the international sentence in the Arrom-Martí case

·         CP of Venezuela, Statement against imperialist aggression - Unity in defense of the homeland!

·         CP of Cuba, URGENT MESSAGE TO THE WORKERS´ AND COMMUNIST POLITICAL FORCES OF THE WORLD.

International Issues

·         Anticommunism in EU

·         Venezuela 2019

·         Bolivia 2019

UN envoy calls for ’solidarity’ in battling virus outbreak

L’Humanité in English supports China

Translated Monday 3 February 2020

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L’Humanité in English extends its full solidarity with China, its gouvernment and its people in their courageous and certainly victorious struggle against the coronavirus.
Hervé Fuyet, coordinator

https://fr.sputniknews.com/societe/202002011042988998-hopital-en-15-jours-la-video-impressionnante-de-lavancee-des-travaux-en-chine/

UN envoy calls for ’solidarity’ in battling virus outbreak
lChina Daily, January 31, 2020

China’s top envoy to the United Nations appealed to the international community Thursday for "solidarity" in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.

Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the UN, said that in this difficult time it is crucial that the international community be united. He addressed a large media gathering at UN headquarters in New York and provided a briefing on measures China has taken in controlling and preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

On Thursday, World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). The virus had killed 213 people on the Chinese mainland as of Friday morning.

Zhang emphasized that the director-general said the main reason for the declaration is "not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries".

The organization’s greatest concern is "the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it".

"WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak", Zhang said, in quoting Tedros, and said "there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade".

Tedros also pointed out that the WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.

Zhang said the "director-general’s recommendations should be seriously considered".

Zhang called for all countries to adopt a responsible attitude, work together to combat the virus, and avoid overreaction.

He told the reporters that the Chinese government has always put the lives, health and security of the people first.

The government has already adopted "rapid, powerful and scientific" measures.

Right now, "the whole nation is in action", Zhang said, adding that China will spare no effort to save lives and curb the virus’ spread.

"As WHO Director-General Tedros said, China’s response is unprecedented," Zhang said. "China has demonstrated its speed, strength and effectiveness and won praise from the international community.

"We are confident, and we do think we are capable of defeating this virus and making our lives normal again," the envoy said.

"As the situation remains challenging, meanwhile, the measures we have taken are becoming effective, and we are really making progress," he said.

He told the media that medical teams from other provinces have arrived in Central China’s Hubei province, whose provincial capital, Wuhan, is the epicenter of the outbreak. Medical supplies are being delivered; new hospitals are being built.

Zhang said that more than 130 patients have been treated and discharged, including people in their 80s.

Moreover, with strict measures controlling the movement of people, the momentum of the virus is being curbed inside and outside China.

He said that China has been "open, transparent and responsible" in communications about the outbreak.

Zhang said State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has had telephone conversations with his foreign counterparts, and that foreign embassies and consulates will be kept informed through various channels.

Journalists from nearly 20 media organizations, including China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, The Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, Kyodo News, Tass, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and RIA Novosti attended the briefing.

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