As the brown haze and fumes from the massive explosions lifted, Beirut appeared as a war zone, with destruction more extensive than after weeks of intensive shelling during Lebanon’s civil war of 1975-1989. The damage has extended across half the city, at a cost estimated at $3 billion, with 300,000 people now homeless, according to the city’s governor, Marwan Abboud, in a city where housing was already in short supply.
“Eye mutilation continues in Chile. Military officers shoot people in the face in Santiago,” Chilean correspondent Paola Dragnic tweeted.
Chile’s social leaders and activists condemned President Sebastian Piñera’s omission of human rights violations and mishandling of the pandemic in his administration’s public account presentation to Congress on Friday.
MoA—There is zero ‘virus disinformation’ in the Korybko piece. The aid flight did happen and was widely reported. In a response to the allegations the proprietors of OneWorld point out that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a recent Q&A also alluded to a new détente with Russia. Was that also ‘virus disinformation’?
PATRICK MARTIN—Over the past week a curious “groundswell” has taken place in the American media. Former Obama national security advisor Susan Rice, someone who has never run for political office and is largely unknown to the American public, has been promoted in a series of press reports as a likely choice of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to be his running mate.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, will imminently enact a National Security Law (NSL) for Hong Kong. For many in the Special Administrative Region, especially patriots, this will be the most hopeful day in the life of Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997. It could mark the start of the SAR’s long-delayed process of decolonization — and of Hong Kong’s ‘second return to the motherland.