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allthebrazilianpolitics · 3 years

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Jair Bolsonaro is facing a political reckoning in Brazil. How far will it go?

Brazil saw big protests last week, and an inquiry is showing just how deeply Bolsonaro botched the pandemic response.

[Image description: demonstrators gather during a protest against the government’s Covid-19 response on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo on May 29, 2021.]

The panelaços — the banging of pots and pans — became a socially distanced way for Brazilians to protest President Jair Bolsonaro during the pandemic. But last weekend, a year into a prolonged coronavirus crisis, hundreds of thousands marched in more than 200 cities across Brazil to demand Bolsonaro’s impeachment.

Signs bore slogans, such as “fora Bolsonaro” (“Bolsonaro out”) and “genocida,” a reference to Bolsonaro’s mismanagement of the pandemic, which has left more than 460,000 Brazilians dead, one of the worst death rates in the world.

Protesters blame Bolsonaro for it. Their case is now being backed up by a formal Senate inquiry into Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic. The hearings have become a public accounting of Bolsonaro’s negligence — including testimony from a Pfizer executive who said the pharmaceutical company reached out to Brazil about procuring doses last year, and Bolsonaro’s government didn’t respond for two months.

These hearings are taking place as Brazil still averages around 2,000 coronavirus deaths daily, with many bracing for third wave, and the public-health system is battered to the point of near-collapse. Brazil’s vaccination campaign is chaos, and what is working is largely happening in spite of Bolsonaro. A little more than 10 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Opinion polls suggest support for impeachment is growing: 57 percent are now in favor, up 11 percentage points from three months ago.

All of this would suggest Bolsonaro’s year-long pandemic blunder is finally catching up to him along with plenty of other scandals, from those involving his family to his environmental minister who was allegedly smuggling illegal timber.

Whether this is a real reckoning for Bolsonaro — one that could truly push him from power — is the larger question. The anger and frustration are real, at the handling of the pandemic, at the economic situation, and plenty of other issues.

But experts said many of the groups mobilizing against him — including women, students, and labor groups — already largely opposed the president. Bolsonaro himself has remained defiant, drawing on the unwavering support of his base. And impeachment is a tricky question, in part because Bolsonaro is up for reelection in just over a year.

“I think this is a kind of catharsis movement, you know — ‘I cannot stay at home seeing this anymore. So I prefer to take some risk and go to the streets,’” said Arthur Ituassu, a professor of political communication at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro.

“But if this will have political consequences,” he added, “I don’t know.”

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #coronavirus #covid 19 #jair bolsonaro #mod nise da silveira

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antoine-roquentin · 4 years

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Like the US president, Jair Bolsonaro has raged against the quarantine implemented by his own government and has just dismissed his level-headed health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta. A few days after the first shutdown measures were announced in São Paulo, the president blatantly defied them by encouraging his supporters to attend a mass rally on March 15, filling part of the megalopolis’s wide Avenida Paulista in support of Bolsonaro and against Congress. Covid-19 is just a gripezinha (sniffle), he insists, while heading a campaign on social media to reopen the economy under the slogan “Brazil cannot close.” On Sunday, he headed a second small rally in the capital of Brasília, where social distancing was replaced by manic jostling to get close to the president, along with chants demanding that the army intervene to get people back to work.

Bolsonaro has dismissed as “hysteria” the lockdown measures, implemented swiftly in Brazil despite the president’s rhetoric. “Let’s face the virus like men, not kids,” he urged, as he visited a Brasília street market last month. Perhaps the only head of state able to out-Trump Trump in sheer recklessness and social-networked delirium, Bolsonaro has mobilized his three loyal sons, two of them members of Congress, to help peddle conspiracy theories concerning China and snake-oil remedies such as chloroquine. Ironically, Bolsonaro, 66, was lucky to escape infection on March 7, when he attended a neoconservative get-together hosted by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, after which several members of the Brazilian delegation came down with severe symptoms.

The terrifying implications of such a cavalier approach to the pandemic in a country with a stretched health care system and vast slum cities where social isolation, and even the routine precaution of washing hands, is an impossible challenge, soon forced the Brazilian establishment into action. When Bolsonaro—following the Trumpian script—announced that he would reverse the lockdowns in São Paulo, Rio, and other cities, the Supreme Court reiterated that under Brazil’s federal system, it is state and city authorities who decide such matters. Leaders of both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies supported Mandetta, while governors like João Doria in São Paulo and Wilson Witzel in Rio—allies of Bolsonaro in the presidential elections of 2018—maintained the city lockdowns. Justice minister and super judge Sérgio Moro, who led the “car wash” anti-corruption probe and sentenced former president Lula da Silva to nine years in prison, dared to defy the president whom he had helped into power.

The other super minister in the Bolsonaro government, billionaire financier Paulo Guedes, whose global investment funds are now staring into the abyss, also seemed skeptical of Bolsonaro’s antics, despite his concern that the lockdowns and a pandemic-driven 5 percent drop in GDP this year (an IMF forecast) might scupper his plans to privatize the Brazilian economy. Pots and pans were banged from the balconies of locked-down apartment blocks in middle-class districts of Rio and São Paulo in protest against Bolsonaro, just as they had been five or six years before against the soon-to-be-impeached President Dilma Rousseff. Like Trump’s health adviser Anthony Fauci, also a doctor, Mandetta had emerged as a voice of reason, with better ratings in the polls than Bolsonaro’s, and appeared to have cleverly outmaneuvered the president. At least, until his dismissal last week.

Even the armed forces—well represented in the Bolsonaro cabinet—seemed prepared to intervene against the madness of President Jair, despite the Bolsonaristas’ calls for military action in favor of the president. A report in DefesaNet, an online media outlet used by the military to get its message out, said that effective control of the government’s strategy on Covid-19 had devolved to the chief of staff, Gen. Walter Souza Braga Netto. “The president will thus be able to behave democratically as if he did not belong to his own government,” explained DefesaNet, a contorted phrase that perfectly captures the Brazilian establishment and military’s paternal approach to Bolsonaro’s childish outbursts.

When Mandetta was confirmed in his post after Bolsonaro’s initial threats to oust him, many concluded that the lunatic had been removed from control of the asylum, or at least the intensive care ward. “The general feeling here is that Bolsonaro is a puppet,” remarked an employee early last week at the country’s state development bank, BNDES, whose role in successfully fending off the global economic crisis in 2009 will be sorely missed this time, after Guedes’s decision to downsize it. But the removal of Mandetta, and Bolsonaro’s paranoid appeal to his base Friday to help him fight off an alleged coup attempt orchestrated by Doria in São Paulo and Rodrigo Maia, the head of the Chamber of Deputies, suggest an alternate reading. Could the president glimpse opportunity in the chaos?

“There is method in the madness,” explained the anthropologist Luiz Eduardo Soares in an interview. Soares is co-author of Elite da Tropa, a gripping 2006 account of police brutality and extreme-right-wing death squads in Rio’s favelas that was turned into two blockbuster films, Elite Squad and Elite Squad 2. Soares, whose latest book, O Brasil e Seu Duplo (Brazil and Its Duplicate), explores the origins of Bolsonaro and Brazilian neofascism, says Covid-19 will either stop the Bolsonaro project in its tracks or accelerate its progress. “Bolsonaro has been advised to deny the threat of the pandemic,” said Soares. “He feels sure of himself, in part because he’s mimicking Trump. But his authority has diminished, and he’s in danger of becoming a lame-duck president only a year into his term.”

But the president has a plan. Behaving, as the generals suggested, “as if he did not belong to his own government,” Bolsonaro may be able to escape the blame for the devastating economic crisis now unfolding. A brutal recession triggered, as elsewhere, by the pandemic, comes after seven years of stagnation. Even before the pandemic, 60 million Brazilians had fallen back into poverty (defined as earning less than $5 a day) after the advances of the Lula years. “The plan is to transfer responsibility and accuse the others for allowing the tremendous crisis which we are going to encounter,” said Soares.

The worsening social conditions will undoubtedly create fertile ground for Bolsonaro’s bid to capitalize on discontent. A survey cited by piauí magazine found that 72 percent of Brazilians have enough savings to cushion lost earnings for just one week before entering serious hardship, and 32 percent already report problems buying essential goods like food. “We are staying in, but food is scarce, and without work there is no money,” said a mother of two who lives in the enormous Rio favela of Rocinha, where at least 50,000 inhabitants are packed into the hillside above Ipanema and Leblon. “Practically everybody in the favela works in the informal economy, so the lockdown doesn’t really apply here; businesses are open but close earlier. People are wearing masks; there is little information,” said Macarrao, a rapper from Cinco Bocas, a favela in the North Zone of Rio, whose daughter has Covid-19. “She got treatment fairly quickly,” he added. This may not be the case now. Epidemiologists at five important institutes in Brazil forecast recently that the health system could reach the point of collapse by late April.

The Bolsonaro government has guaranteed a basic monthly income of 600 reales ($112) to those with no income, but the electronic application has failed, and long lines of people—practicing scant social distancing—have waited outside the public savings bank Caixa Econômica, only to discover that their transfer has not arrived. In any case, $4 a day is a pittance, and Guedes seems reluctant to take any other measures to soften the blow for Brazil’s poor, even though he has passed tax cuts for business. There is a logical link to Guedes’s neoliberal stance, as millions descend into poverty and hunger, and Bolsonaro’s populist plan to blame it all on Mandetta and the governors of the two big cities: Both governors are potential rivals for the next presidential elections, and Bolsonaro will use his media to pinpoint them as responsible for the hardship.

While registered cases of the coronavirus in Brazil are 40,000, the real figure is probably over 10 times that, as indicated by the current unnaturally high mortality rate. According to official data, by the end of last week some 2,600 people had died from the virus—low compared with Europe and the United States, but Brazil is late in the curve. And Brazil’s intensive care units are fast approaching capacity, just as they have in Europe. Manaus, the Amazon metropolis where the reports of contagion in the indigenous territories make harrowing reading, is already at 100 percent capacity and is transferring patients to other sites. A survey by the University of Pelotas in Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of the country, estimates that there are at least seven times more cases than the official figures suggest.

Bolsonaro will try to build a strategy from his base of support among evangelicals and people in the orbit of the police and military. Evangelicals have been another element of the Covid-19 denial, but they are fired by conviction rather than nonchalance. Edir Macedo, the billionaire pastor whose TV networks are used by Bolsonaro in preference to the establishment Rede Globo, said the WHO’s warnings on Covid-19 were the “work of Satan.” “Our position from the first moment has been to keep the churches open, because God will defeat the virus,” said Washington Reis, the evangelical mayor of the Rio working-class district of Duque de Caxias last week. Days later, God had spoken, and Reis was hospitalized with Covid-19. The tactic may be working. Bolsonaro appears to have maintained support in the pandemic, despite the pot banging and international horror at his stance. A poll by Datafolha last week showed that 36 percent of Brazilians believe his management of the health crisis is “good or great,” slightly more support than before the pandemic. And 52 percent say he’s capable of leading the country through the crisis.

There may even be a second phase to Bolsonaro’s strategy of leveraging Covid-19 to stay in power, said Soares. “Building on the contradictions of his own government and the coming crisis in the health system and the economy, Bolsonaro may be hoping for some kind of a social explosion in the streets,” he said. “That would create the conditions for a state of emergency and the end of democratic institutions that are still blocking the path of Bolsonaro’s basic project: a dictatorship and the perpetuation in power of his family.”

The call for a coup against Congress—pitched, at Sunday’s rally, at more extremist elements in the armed forces—may be a first step in this direction. By first denouncing an alleged coup plot against his own presidency, allegedly planned by Congress and the big-city governors, and then calling for military action in his defense, “Bolsonaro is following the example of many authoritarian presidents, starting with Hitler in 1933,” writes Nabil Bonduki, former São Paulo culture secretary, in an article in Folha de S.Paulo. “The allegation of an attempted coup is thus the pretext for a coup planned by the president himself.” The idea might sound fanciful, and as paranoid as Bolsonaro’s own rhetoric. But the former army captain was a reluctant recruit to democratic politics even before the devastating arrival of Covid-19.

Bolsonaro’s close links to right-wing militias made up of former military police and firemen, which run whole swaths of the West Zone of Rio, may help. “The militias have always been close to the Bolsonaro family, and now they are becoming more ideological, part of a Bolsonarist movement. They could help in a coup if he wants that,” said Soares. The militia Escritório do Crime (the Crime Office) is known to be implicated in the assassination of left-wing Rio city councilor Marielle Franco over two years ago. To square the circle of fascism and Covid-19, reports are just out that the militias in Itanhangá and Rio das Pedras, adjacent to the kitsch beach resort of Barra da Tijuca, where the Bolsonaro family has its base, are forcing businesses to stay open during the lockdown so they can continue to charge for protection.

as ian kershaw points out, the latin american cold war governments that were called fascism don’t really correspond with the italian and german examples because they lack the mass movements that brought hitler and mussolini to power. they, like salazar and franco, used symbols of fascism to exude power, but did not share the key characteristics of the movement. for instance, the nazi party numbered in the hundreds of thousands before it took power, while the falange only had 10,000 members at the outbreak of the spanish civil war. bolsonaro, in contrast, has a mass movement behind him, with the parties that back him having membership in the millions. his supporters are not older men, like most conservatives, but men in their 20s and 30s who are willing to go out and rally and brawl for him. like nazis, they have developed an intellectualized but conspiratorial and religiously-imbued notion of national salvation from international threats. they are often armed and control territory, with more favelas actually being under control of paramilitary groups than drug gangs.

on the other hand, many definitions of fascism, particularly on the left, require an economic component. a crude form of trotsky’s theory of fascism essentially labels these groups as pinkertons who took over a state, who come when the rate of profit is low and force labour to give up more of its share of national income. brazil is indeed experiencing a low rate of profit, but its labour movement is not well organized enough to seriously defend its prerogatives from a traditional state-backed approach. it can be pointed out that PT, which was attempting such an approach, was removed from power by those who viewed the party as defenders of labour. this grouping, based in the traditional military power centres of the brazilian regime, did not have any real support on their own among the brazilian populace, with temer’s government having a 5% approval rating. bolsonaro was seized upon by this grouping because it offered the chance for a government that largely agreed with its goals but could muster a far greater base of support among the populace. this partially mirrors the rise of hitler, who was also seen by supporters of the former military dictatorship as their ticket back into such a situation. the combination of hitler’s love of the military contrasted with the disdain of him by actual military figures (hindenburg called him “the little corporal”) can be seen in the current bolsonaro-generals dynamic. it took the nazi party leadership a year and a half to subsume the military to its own prerogatives, while bolsonaro has done far less in that time. however, bolsonaro’s base has been primed for a coup they view as a countercoup, with rumours of a military takeover having spread across the pro-bolsonaro blogosphere starting in march along with rhetoric of defending him from such an event.

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Sunday, November 8, 2020

Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided US (AP) Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, positioning himself to lead a nation gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil. His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots. Biden crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania. Trump refused to concede, threatening further legal action on ballot counting. Biden, 77, staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanizing a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy. Biden, in a statement, said he was humbled by the victory and it was time for the battered nation to set aside its differences. “It’s time for America to unite. And to heal,” he said. Kamala Harris also made history as the first Black woman to become vice president, an achievement that comes as the U.S. faces a reckoning on racial justice. The California senator, who is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government. Trump is the first incumbent president to lose reelection since Republican George H. W. Bush in 1992. Americans showed deep interest in the presidential race. A record 103 million voted early this year, opting to avoid waiting in long lines at polling locations during a pandemic. With counting continuing in some states, Biden had already received more than 74 million votes, more than any presidential candidate before him.

Elation and Anger: Catharsis in the streets as election ends (AP) As soon as the news buzzed on their phones, Americans gathered spontaneously on street corners and front lawns—honking their horns, banging pots and pans, starting impromptu dance parties—as an agonizingly vitriolic election and exhausting four-day wait for results came to an end Saturday morning. And for all that joy, there was equal parts sorrow, anger and mistrust on the other side. Across the United States, the dramatic conclusion of the 2020 election was cathartic. Just after The Associated Press and other news organizations declared that former Vice President Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump, fireworks erupted in Atlanta. In Maine, a band playing at a farmers’ market broke into the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In Manhattan, they danced in the streets, banged cowbells and honked their car horns. In Louisville, Kentucky, Biden supporters gathered on their lawns to toast with champagne. But Trump’s supporters, far from jubilant, were angry, defiant and mistrustful of the news. But for many Saturday, it was a relief to Biden’s supporters to celebrate victory, put bitter partisanship aside and dance in the streets, if only for one afternoon.

Trump supporters refuse to accept defeat (AP) Chanting “This isn’t over!" and “Stop the steal,” supporters of President Donald Trump protested at state capitols across the country Saturday, refusing to accept defeat and echoing Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations that the Democrats won by fraud. From Atlanta and Tallahassee to Austin, Bismarck, Boise and Phoenix, crowds ranging in size from a few dozen to a few thousand—some of them openly carrying guns—decried the news of Joe Biden's victory after more than three suspense-filled days of vote-counting put the Democrat over the top. Skirmishes broke out in some cities. In Atlanta, outside the state Capitol in the longtime Republican stronghold of Georgia, chants of “Lock him up!” rang out among an estimated 1,000 Trump supporters. Others chanted, “This isn’t over! This isn’t over!” and “Fake news!” Contrary to the claims of Trump supporters, there has been no evidence of any serious vote fraud. The utter rejection of Biden as the legitimate president by Trump and his supporters appears to represent something new in American political history, said Barbara Perry, presidential studies director at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. “We typically haven’t had a leader who loses the presidency who then tells his followers, ‘This is false. This has been stolen from us,'” Perry said. "Incumbent presidents have been mad, so mad they didn’t go to the inauguration, but not like this, where they are leading those people to say this is fraudulent.”

Nations long targeted by US chide Trump’s claims of fraud (AP) Demands to stop the vote count. Baseless accusations of fraud. Claims that the opposition is trying to “steal” the election. Across the world, many were scratching their heads Friday—especially in countries that have long been advised by Washington on how to run elections—wondering if those assertions could truly be coming from the president of the United States, the nation considered one of the world’s most emblematic democracies. “Who’s the banana republic now?” Colombian daily newspaper Publimetro chided on the front page with a photo of a man in a U.S. flag print mask. The irony of seeing U.S. Donald Trump cut off by major media networks Thursday as he launched unsubstantiated claims lambasting the U.S. electoral system was not lost on many. The U.S. has long been a vocal critic of strongman tactics around the world. Now, some of those same targets are turning around the finger. Along with the mockery comes dismay. Many people in Africa see the U.S. as a bellwether for democracy and, after troubled votes in Tanzania and Ivory Coast in recent days, they looked to what Washington might say. “We are asking ourselves, why is the U.S. democratic process appearing so fragile when it is meant to be held up to us in the rest of the world as a beacon of perfect democracy?” said Samir Kiango, a Tanzanian out in his country’s commercial capital Friday.

Second Mexican state to enter highest coronavirus alert level (Reuters) A second Mexican state will from next week enter the highest level of coronavirus alert as authorities bid to contain a recent jump in infections in the north of the country, the health ministry said on Friday. The northern state of Durango will as of Monday join Chihuahua, a neighboring region on the U.S. border, in the red alert phase following an increase in hospitalizations. Most of Mexico’s 32 regional governments are currently at the lower orange or yellow alert levels.

Guatemalan mudslides push storm Eta’s death toll near 150 (Reuters) The death toll from torrential downpours unleashed by storm Eta leapt on Friday as Guatemalan soldiers reached a mountain village where around 100 people were killed by a landslide, adding to dozens of other dead in Central America and Mexico. Many of those who lost their lives in the village of Queja in the central Guatemalan region of Alta Verapaz were buried in their homes after mudslides swallowed around 150 houses, army spokesman Ruben Tellez said. The devastating weather front brought destruction from Panama to Honduras and Mexico, which between them have registered more than 50 flood-related deaths.

Evo Morales to return from exile to Bolivia in 800-vehicle convoy (Guardian) Bolivia’s exiled former president, Evo Morales, is set to make a triumphant homecoming next week, leading an 800-vehicle convoy to the jungle-clad coca-growing region where he began his political career. The Bolivian newspaper Página Siete reported that Morales would cross from Argentina into the southern border town of Villazón on Monday morning before heading 600 miles north to the province of Chapare. Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who was driven into exile last November in what supporters called a US-backed coup, plans to arrive in the town of Chimoré on Tuesday, exactly a year after fleeing the same location on a Mexican airforce jet. The return of Bolivia’s first indigenous president comes after his Movement for Socialism (Mas) reclaimed the presidency last month when Morales’ former finance minister, Luis Arce, won a landslide election victory.

Trump berated and baffled European allies. They aren’t sad to see him go. (Washington Post) President Donald Trump called Europe a “foe.” He said the continent’s cities were migrant-ridden, dangerous “no-go zones.” He threw leaders into a panic with threats to withdraw from NATO. And as Europeans watched the United States elect Joe Biden as its next president, many embraced his promises to respect long-standing alliances and regain the world’s trust in his country. Few Europeans expect Inauguration Day to repair all the damage—the close election suggests Trumpism will endure in some capacity, and the divergence of U.S. and European interests is part of a long-term trend. But policymakers here say they will be glad for summits without Trump there to dominate the agenda. Trump spent four years dismantling U.S. policies that many Europeans consider key to their security interests. Sometimes, policymakers here felt, he made decisions specifically because he knew it would infuriate them. They were shattered when he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accords. They have spent years holding together the Iran nuclear deal, which has been faltering ever since he denounced it and slapped new sanctions on Tehran. They have been exasperated by his admiration for authoritarian leaders and his distaste for them. Trump is not universally disliked in Europe. His 2016 election gave a jolt of energy to the continent’s populists. The right-wing leaders of Poland and Hungary—who have been sanctioned by the European Union for dismantling courts and undermining their opponents—get along well with him. But most leaders here will be glad to see Trump’s back and eager to trade him in for a more conventional counterpart.

Europe’s Hospital Crunch Grows More Dire, Surpassing Spring Peak (NYT) More Europeans are seriously ill with the coronavirus than ever before, new hospital data for 21 countries shows, surpassing the worst days in the spring and threatening to overwhelm stretched hospitals and exhausted medical workers. New lockdowns have not yet stemmed the current influx of patients, which has only accelerated since it began growing in September, according to official counts of current patients collected by The New York Times. More than twice as many people in Europe are hospitalized with Covid-19 as in the United States, adjusted for population. In the Czech Republic, the worst-hit nation in recent weeks, one in 1,300 people is currently hospitalized with Covid-19. And in Belgium, France, Italy and other countries in Western Europe, a new swell of patients has packed hospitals to levels last seen in March and April. Countries across Europe are scrambling to find solutions. Swiss authorities approved deploying up to 2,500 military personnel to help hospitals handle rising infections in the country, while others like France have postponed non-emergency surgeries. And in Belgium, staff shortages have led some hospitals to ask doctors and nurses who have tested positive for the virus but who don’t have symptoms to keep working.

Books? Hairdressers? Europeans split on lockdown essentials (AP) In times when a pandemic unleashes death and poverty, the concept of what is essential to keep society functioning in a lockdown is gripping Europe. Beyond the obvious—food stores and pharmacies—some answers in the patchwork of nations and cultures that make up Europe can approach the surreal. What is allowed on one side of a border can be banned just a brief stroll down the road, on the other. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that while it might seem fairest to just shut everything down, “it’s perhaps not the most practical” solution. That’s why Germany is keeping car dealerships open this time, after their closure in the first, spring lockdown hurt the country’s huge automobile industry. In Belgium, of course, chocolate shops are staying open. “Chocolate is very much an essential food around here,” said chocolatier Marleen Van Volsem at the Praleen chocolaterie south of Brussels. “It has to be. Because chocolate makes you happy.” In Italy, the country that coined the term “bella figura”—the art of cutting a fine figure—hairdressers are deemed essential. “Italians really care about their image and about wellness,”″ said Charity Cheah, the Milan-based co-founder of TONI&GUY Italy. “Perhaps psychologically, the government may feel that going to a salon is a moment of release from stress and tension, a moment of self-care, that citizens need.”

Nagorno-Karabakh says its two largest cities under fierce attack (Reuters) Three residents of Nagorno-Karabakh’s largest city were killed during overnight shelling by Azeri forces, the enclave’s ethnic Armenian-controlled Emergency and Rescue Service said on Friday, as the battle for control of its major settlements intensified. Two independent observers said fighting appeared to be moving deeper into the enclave, with Azeri troops stepping up attacks on its biggest two cities. At least 1,000 people—and possibly many more—have died in nearly six weeks of fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said allegations that it had shelled civilian areas were “misinformation”. It has previously accused Armenian-controlled forces of shelling cities under its control, including Terter and Barda, as well as Ganja, the second-largest city in Azerbaijan. Dozens were killed in those attacks.

Ethiopian air strikes in Tigray will continue, says PM, as civil war risk grows (Reuters) Ethiopian jets bombed the Tigray region on Friday and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pledged more air strikes in the escalating conflict amid reports that Tigrayan forces had seized control of federal military sites and weapons. Civilians in the northern region should avoid “collateral damage” by not gathering outside as strikes would continue, Abiy said in a televised speech on Friday evening, defying international pleas for both sides to show restraint. The developments illustrate how quickly the days-old conflict is escalating, raising the threat of a civil war that experts and diplomats warn would destabilise the country of 110 million people and hurt the broader Horn of Africa.

Unemployed man finds new job by posting huge resume on truck (Fox News) It’s a full-time job to look for a job, but one man refused to let opportunity drive by, and found work after posting his resume on the back of a truck. James Pemblington of Nottinghamshire, England, was out of work in March when the theme park where he worked was forced to cut employees due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Annesley man applied for about 100 jobs and went on two interviews, but the opportunities ultimately, unfortunately, fell through. The determined dad kept striving, sending companies “edible” versions of his resume—i.e. packages of brownies featuring a QR code that linked to his website. No employers ate up the gimmick, but Pemblington’s luck changed when he won a contest to have his resume displayed on the back of an 18-ton truck. Two days after his CV hit the road, he was offered a new position by an employer who reportedly spotted his credentials while sitting in traffic.

#headlines #news

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whatshappeninginchile · 5 years

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One million Chileans march in Santiago, city grinds to halt

By Dave Sherwood and Natalia A. Ramos Miranda

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - As many as a million Chileans protested peacefully late into the evening on Friday in the capital Santiago in the biggest rallies yet since violence broke out a week ago over entrenched inequality in the South American nation.

Protesters waving national flags, dancing, banging pots with wooden spoons and bearing placards urging political and social change streamed through the streets, walking for miles (km) from around Santiago to converge on Plaza Italia.Traffic already hobbled by truck and taxi drivers protesting road tolls ground to a standstill in Santiago as crowds shut down major avenues and public transport closed early ahead of marches that built throughout the afternoon.

By mid-evening, most had made their way home in the dark ahead of an 11 p.m. military curfew.

Santiago Governor Karla Rubilar said a million people marched in the capital - more than five percent of the country’s population. Protesters elsewhere took to the streets in every major Chilean city.

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“Today is a historic day,” Rubilar wrote on Twitter. “The Metropolitan Region is host to a peaceful march of almost one million people who represent a dream for a new Chile.”

Some local commentators estimated the Santiago rally well over the million mark, describing it as the largest single march since the dying years of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Chile’s unrest is the latest in a flare-up of protests in South America and around the world - from Beirut to Barcelona - each with local triggers but also sharing underlying anger at social disparities and ruling elites.

Protests in Chile that started over a hike in public transport fares last Friday boiled into riots, arson and looting that have killed at least 17 people, injured hundreds, resulted in more than 7,000 arrests and caused more than $1.4 billion of losses to Chilean businesses.

Chile’s military has taken over security in Santiago, a city of 6 million people now under a state of emergency with night-time curfews as 20,000 soldiers patrol the streets.

Clotilde Soto, a retired teacher aged 82, said she had taken to the streets because she did not want to die without seeing change for the better in her country.

“Above all we need better salaries and better pensions,” she said.

Chile’s center-right President Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire businessman, trounced the opposition in the most recent 2017 election, dealing the center-left ruling coalition its biggest loss since the country’s return to democracy in 1990.

But as protests ignited this week, Pinera scrapped previous plans and promised instead to boost the minimum wage and pensions, ditch fare hikes on public transportation and fix the country’s ailing health care system.

“We’ve all heard the message. We’ve all changed,” said Pinera on Twitter following the peak of the rallies. “Today’s joyful and peaceful march, in which Chileans have asked for a more just and unified Chile, opens hopeful paths into the future.”

Still, many protest placards, chants and graffiti scrawled on buildings around the city call for his exit.

MULTICOLORED CROWD

As crowds of colorful demonstrators stretched along Santiago’s thoroughfares as far as the eye could see, the noise of pots and pans being clanged with spoons, a clamor that has become the soundtrack for the popular uprising, was ear-splitting.

“The people, united, will never be defeated,” the crowds chanted over the din.

By early evening there had been no signs of violence or clashes with the security forces, who maintained a significant but low-key presence inside paint-spattered and stone-dented armored vehicles parked in side streets.

Beatriz Demur, 42, a yoga teacher from the suburb of Barrio Brazil, joined a stream of demonstrators shuffling toward Plaza Italia with her daughter Tabatha, 22.

“We want Chile to be a better place,” said Demur. “The most powerful have privatized everything. It’s been that way for 30 years.”Eyeing the crowds packing the square, her daughter said: “I have waited for this a long time ... It’s not scary, it’s exciting. It means change.”

Slideshow (35 Images)

Anali Parra, 26, a street hawker, was with her daughter Catalina, 9, and five-month-old son Gideon Jesus, his buggy decked in streamers and an indigenous Mapuche flag.

“This isn’t going to go away,” Parra said. “Pinera should just go now.”

‘URGENT’ REFORMS

On Friday morning, trucks, cars and taxis had slowed to a crawl on major roads, honking horns and waving Chilean flags. “No more tolls! Enough with the abuse!” read bright yellow-and-red signs plastered to the front of vehicles.

Many bus drivers in Santiago also staged a walk-off on Friday after one of their number was shot.

While much of wealthy east Santiago has remained calm under evening lockdown, the poorer side of the city has seen widespread vandalism and looting.

Pinera told the nation on Thursday he had heard the demands of Chileans “loud and clear.”

He has sent lawmakers legislation to overturn a recent hike in electricity rates, and called for reforms to guarantee a minimum wage of $480 a month and introduce state medical insurance for catastrophes.

Seated with a group of elderly Chileans over lunch on Friday, Pinera put finishing touches on a bill to hike minimum pensions by 20%. “We must approve these projects with the urgency that Chileans demand,” Pinera said.

Lawmakers pushing the reforms forward were nonetheless forced to evacuate the country’s Congress in the port city of Valparaiso earlier in the day when angry protesters rushed the building, overwhelming security forces.

An online poll conducted by local company Activa Research of 2,090 people between Oct. 22-23 found 83% of respondents said they supported the goals of the demonstrators, but 72.5% opposed violence as a method of protest.

The principal causes of the protests were low salaries, high utility prices, poor pensions and economic inequality, it said.

Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Additional reporting by Natalia Ramos, Aislinn Laing and Fabian Cambero; Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Daniel Wallis and Sandra Maler

source: Reuters

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h4rr3h · 6 years

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Harry and Evan were as platonic as platonic could be. Living together does that. You see their unlivable quirks; like how they always leave the toilet seat up, or how they never rinse their dishes, or how they never fully close the chip bag so they end up stale. And after six years of living together, Harry and Evan knew each other’s quirks well. The pair were long gone from their college days and fully immersed in the confusing reality of adulthood. Navigating your twenties is hard, but with your best friend by your side, it makes the whole disarray just that much easier. But, Harry has a secret, one that he’s been hiding from his best friend since the day they met, and she’s about to find out. Especially now that Niall spilled about the “Ohio Incident”. A lesson on facing your fears, being too old for college parties, cronuts (are those even still a thing?) and finding things out just a bit too late.

ohio is for lovers, prologue harry styles and the runaway bride

It’s quarter past twelve and everyone is running late.

Saturday, March 27, 2019

185 Bleecker Street, Apartment 11B, New York, NY

It’s quarter past twelve and everyone is running late.

“Who the hell in their right mind decides to have a winter wedding outdoors in New York City?” Louis complains, buttoning the sleeves of his white Oxford shirt.

“The ceremony is outside, it’ll be like twenty minutes and then there’s an open bar inside the reception. Relax.”

His girlfriend Polly eyes him from the mirror where she’s layering mascara on her lashes. Louis fumbles with the knot on his tie and she groans, closing the tube of makeup and setting it back onto the bathroom vanity. She undoes the tangled knot he’s managed and adjusts it for him, “how do you think Harry’s doing?” She asks.

“Niall and I were going to stop over before we head to the wedding. Kid needs an intervention,” Louis sighs.

“I heard my name!” An Irish accent rings in the living room.

Louis and Polly roll their eyes in unison. They meet with the others, and by others, they mean Niall and his bottle of Smithwick’s because god damnit, just because he’s Irish, does not mean he always has a Guinness in his hand.

Although there is a six pack in the fridge.

“So Polls,” Niall inquires, “do you think she’ll really go through with it? Now that she knows everything? I’m surprised we were even still invited to the wedding.”

Polly shrugs and sits on the arm of the sofa beside him. She takes a lengthy sip of his beer before handing it back, “I think she will. She loves Jake -”

“She also loves Harry,” Louis interrupts, followed by a swift jab to the ribs by his girlfriend.

“She loves Jake,” Polly states again, “and yes, she does love Harry but not in the same way he loves her. Maybe if he hadn’t hidden it from her for six fucking years, things would be different but there’s not much we can do about it now, can we?”

The two boys stay silent, now it’s Louis’ turn to take an unwarranted sip of Niall’s beer.

Polly glares, fists resting on her hips, “oh please don’t tell me you two are going to ruin my cousin’s wedding all because your friend can’t get over the fact that someone doesn’t like him back.”

She’s fed up, she’s late, and they must really be getting a move on.

“We just need ten minutes with him. That’s all. Maybe if he sees her truly happy that will be enough,” Louis negotiates to an annoyed Polly.

“- truly happy,” Niall snorts under his breath, bemused with himself.

The other two scowl for a moment and he puts his hands up in surrender.

“Fine, you only get ten minutes,” Polly cautions, “any longer and I’m leaving. This is supposed to be the happiest day of her life, do not screw it up.”

Thirty seconds later, the two blue eyed boys are across the hall banging furiously on their best friend’s door.

“MAAATE!” Louis hollers while his fist slams against apartment 11A’s door.

There’s rustling on the other side of the door, the shifting of various takeout boxes and empty cans and bottles. The chain lock slides against the plate, the deadbolt clicks in protest.

“What?” Harry glares through the slight crack he’s made in the doorway.

Niall and Louis can smell him before they see him. His hair is a mess, and the bulky old man cardigan he’s wearing is stained and wrinkled, his bottom half has only a pair of shorts and fuzzy slippers that look eerily like a pair of Evan’s that she can’t seem to find.

“Harry,” Louis spoke gingerly, his heart dropping into his stomach and trying to find the right words to say, “you look-”

“Like shit,” Niall proclaims, shoving past the two of them and pushing the door open to the apartment, “you have got to clean this place up. The neighbors are going to think you’re hiding a corpse in here.”

Although he’d like to, Harry doesn’t have the strength to raise his middle finger.

Louis shoots Niall a look but he’s busied kicking around the various takeaway containers scattered about.

Harry stumbles back to the couch and the other boys follow. He’s not drunk, but acts it. He’s far too drawn into himself lately. He prefers the quiet static of the television, played just loud enough to block out the downstairs neighbors screaming at each other for the twelfth night in a row. He orders takeaway because it was Evan who used to cook and now all the pots and pans go untouched in the cupboards that are empty for the exception of some random leftover spices and a box of macaroni and cheese that even Harry doesn’t have the vitality to make. He gets home from work and eats and watches the telly until he passes out on the couch and wakes up with the morning sun to start the process all over again.

This was the first time Harry had sat straight up on the sofa in weeks. It made his back feel funny, less tense, he supposed. Louis sits beside him, although careful not to step on the mess of clothing and boxes and whatever else had made it’s way into the living room. Harry hadn’t slept in his own bed since the thunder storm the night after she moved out. There were too many memories of humid summer nights when the fans just weren’t enough and the sticky air stuck to the walls and the sheets. The lightning would blind the night’s streets below their apartment and he’d know it was only a matter of minutes before Evan would quietly tiptoe up the hallway into his bedroom.

In the nearly two months since she’d been gone, Harry had called out of work four times. The first, was the day after it happened. He’d drank himself half to death the night before and woke up an hour after his first lesson and blamed a family emergency. The second was when he thought he saw her in the grocery store, her honey hair pulled back in a plait in the produce aisle admiring a head of lettuce. But then he remembered she doesn’t like salad, and it was enough to send him back into a tailspin. He’d stayed up all night, staring blankly at the television and trying to think of all the ways he could’ve made her stay. His third call out, when he thought maybe things were getting better, he’d played a gig at the bar with the band and took home a girl who used the same shampoo she did. The fourth one was yesterday, there’s something about a long weekend, the kick start to her wedding weekend.

“We um,” Louis struggles to find the right words comfort his lifelong best friend, he’s never seen him this broken. Sure, they’ve seen each other through the melodramas of growing up, but in this moment, no matter how many pep talks and words of advice he’d given his friend in the past, the word clogged in his throat, and nothing came out.

But that’s why we have Niall.

“Mate this is just embarrassing,” he muses, “we came here for an intervention. You need to get over Evan. She’s getting married today. Either you go and wedding crash, or you move on. But sitting at home in your boxers feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

“You don’t know that,” Harry grumbles childishly, folding his arms across his chest.

“I think what Niall is trying to say,” Louis starts, always the voice of reason, “is to take action, in whatever capacity that is.”

He looked to Niall for support, he was digging at something under his nails, “oh right, yeah. I mean, here’s how I see it. If I was in your situation, I would go after her, life’s too short to and wait for something to happen. Or you could sit here and die a miserable old bloke. Either way, there’s an open bar at this thing and I’m really fixing to get there. So if you could make up your mind that would be great.”

Louis mouth parted at the gall of his friend’s words, Niall always had the least eloquent way of laying the truth down into you, whether you were prepared for it or not, “he’s right.”

“I am?” Niall questions.

Lou nods, “I say we crash a wedding.”

The corner of Harry’s lip twitches at the thought, and then he remembers of the look in Evan’s eyes when their world came crashing down and he couldn’t bare the thought of being the cause of her destruction again.

“Can’t do that to her,” Harry reasons, “I can’t hurt her again. It’s best if I let her be.”

He leans back against the sofa. He’d thought it so many times, to just let go of her, of the feelings and memories of the last six years and just move on. Accepting a life without her was going to be a hell of a lot easier to handle than a half lived life of always wondering what if.

“I was kind of hoping you’d want to crash, but alright.” Niall says, discouraged.

It’s the first time in two months that Harry’s genuinely smiles. He doesn’t feel a lick of change, though. There’s still a sadness that sits like a rock in his chest, weighing him down every day to the point of exhaustion. It’s not a change but a reasoning, he figures, the soft rustle of turning to a new page.

“Just promise me one thing?” Louis asks and Harry raises an eyebrow, “can you please clean your bloody apartment?”

Harry stifles a laugh with his hands. It didn’t feel right to laugh, not yet at least. He composed himself in a half breath and Louis nudged him on the shoulder, “you going to be alright?” He whispers lowly.

Harry nods as his front door slams open.

“Our ten minutes must be up!” Niall exclaims, standing up from the armchair, “time to find me a wifey.”

“We have a big problem here,” Polly says, she’s clutching her cell phone to her chest, “Evan didn’t show up at the chapel to get ready, she’s not answering anyone’s calls. No one can find her.”

Suddenly all three are staring at Harry as if he’s got the answer, “well I sure as shit don’t know where she is!” He defends.

“But you know her the best out of anyone,” Polly pleads, “just think! Where does she go when she doesn’t want to be found?”

It’s not an aha moment when Harry thought of the Diner. The conclusion was just as easy as answering to his own name. He didn’t think twice about it, not for a second, “I think I know.”

Polly sighed, “go find her, please. I need to know she’s alright.”

“That I can’t promise.”

Harry thinks of the last time he saw her in that Diner. It was the last time they had an actual conversation, where she made her decision to leave him and move out of the apartment. Even after she knew the whole truth, and everything he’d been hiding from her for the past six years came to light, she left. Harry doesn’t think he could go back there, and if she was there, which he was sure she was, he knows he can’t go and see her.

“Where is she, Harry?” Polly questions again with desperate eyes.

“The Diner.” He pips.

“That grubby old Diner a few blocks over?” Polly bawks.

“Don’t knock it, that place has excellent chicken kebabs,” Niall quips.

He’s knocked over by a pillow, courtesy of Lou’s spiral throw.

Harry buries his face in his hands. What does this mean? He thinks over and over to himself. The room is spinning and he can hear the tapping tones of Polly calling Evan, he’s memorized the touch tones of her phone number. It goes right to voicemail and the sound of her voice makes him queasy.

“Now it’s not even ringing. She knows we’re looking for her. Sharna is trying to keep everyone calm at the chapel but she doesn’t know how long that’ll last.”

Polly is on the verge of tears now and Louis does the best to comfort his best friend and his girlfriend.

“Let’s calm down for a moment, Polls,” he tries to reason, “she’s not hurt or missing. She’s just taking some time to think about things. Cold feet, it happens. I’m sure she’s just fine, wherever she is.”

Harry finally picks his head up. He pretends to not feel the three sets of eyes burning into him. His heart is racing and it’s the most alive he’s felt in the last two months.

“So what are you going to do?” Louis asks, the silence in the air stinging everyone’s ears.

“I’m gonna go find her.”

Ahh so here it is!!!! A day early because honestly I work tomorrow and have to pack for vacation and I just have too much to do but I’ve been so excited to share this with you guys! My plan is to post every two weeks, so I can get back into the swing of writing, and it also allows me to plan ahead and whatnot.

Please please please let me know what you think. I’m so so rusty on fic writing these days that I’m dying to hear what everyone thinks!!!

#fic: oifl #yayyyy prologue #i'm so nervous but excited about posting this #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #1dff

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jccamus · 5 years

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After Fare Hike Stirs Violent Unrest in Chile, President Suspends It

After Fare Hike Stirs Violent Unrest in Chile, President Suspends It https://ift.tt/33P4IpP

SANTIAGO, Chile — After a chaotic two days of violent protests and looting in Chile’s capital, the president suspended a subway fare hike that had set off an intense wave of unrest. Shortly afterward, a curfew was announced from 10 p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday in Santiago, the capital.

What had begun as a protest by high school students quickly devolved on Friday into looting and arson in Santiago, prompting the president to declare a state of emergency in the city. Three people were killed in a supermarket fire in Santiago, officials said on Sunday.

On Saturday, as tanks watched over its landmark Plaza Baquedano, protests spread to a dozen other cities. In the capital, at least five subway stations and buses were set ablaze, while violent demonstrators looted supermarkets and pharmacies.

With several groups calling for a national strike on Monday, people feared much worse to come.

“The government hasn’t understood anything,” said Gabriela Muñoz, 40, a secretary. “You just need to scratch the surface to discover that people are fed up with so much abuse. This is happening because the government won’t listen.”

The sight of military tanks and troops roaming the streets was jarring for many Chileans, given the country’s former 17-year military dictatorship, during which the armed forces committed rampant abuses. This is the first time since Chile’s return to democracy in 1990 that the government has declared a state of emergency for public disorders in the capital.

The mayhem in Chile is the latest spasm of unrest in a region that has been awash in political crises this year.

President Sebastián Piñera issued the fare-hike suspension late Saturday, and indicated that the army general in charge of security in Santiago might soon issue a curfew.

Many were stunned by what the regional governor called “a level of destruction never seen before.”

Far from heeding Mr. Piñera’s restrictions, by midday people in the capital were banging pots and pans in the streets in an outcry against the rising cost of living, miserable pensions, relatively low wages, deficient health and education systems and costly and inefficient public utilities.

“The people who govern the country seem to be living in a different world from the rest of us,” said Enrique Araya, 49, a lawyer, as he banged pots on Friday evening with his family in front of a subway station.

He added that a feeling of impotence was the true impetus for the protests. “The metro fare was just the detonator,” he said.

Troops took control of some areas of Santiago on Saturday where protests once again turned violent, as demonstrators erected barricades and attacked subway stations and buses. At least five buses were burned downtown by the early afternoon, and all bus services were temporarily suspended in the capital.

The government declared a state of emergency on Saturday night in the city of Concepción, about 310 miles south of the capital, because of looting and vandalism. Protests and arson attacks have also taken place in the port city of Valparaíso, where Congress is, and other cities around the country.

The nearly 8,000 army troops deployed overnight in Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción did not deter vandals and looters who ransacked and set fire to supermarkets, gas stations and car dealerships.

On Friday students jumped subway turnstiles to protest the second fare increase this year. But that night, demonstrators set fire to dozens of subway stations, several banks, buses and the headquarters of Chile’s largest electricity provider, Enel. Looters stormed into pharmacies, supermarkets and other stores.

Special police units barged into stations and deployed tear gas, beat up demonstrators and violently dragged people from subway cars to take them into custody.

Government officials confirmed that on Friday night more than 300 people were arrested and 156 police officers and 20 civilians were wounded. Seventy-eight subway stations, or about 60 percent of the subway network, have suffered some sort of damage; the subway is likely to be closed for much of the week. Calling the demonstrators “organized vandals” and “criminals,” officials announced that they would authorize higher penalties than usual for offenses.

The political scientist Guillermo Holzmann of the University of Valparaíso blamed “an accumulation of factors” for the strife: frustration over the economy, the rising price of water, electricity and transportation, plus more crime and corruption.

“People feel the state is inefficient, it doesn’t protect them, and the market abuses them,” he said. “The metro fare was the last straw.”

The fare increase, which went into effect on Oct. 6, came at a time when the cost of living for poor and middle-class families has been rising while wages have remained stagnant. The average monthly salary is $807, about a fifth of which is spent on transportation. With the fare hike, a rush-hour subway ride would cost about $1.20.

“Everything that is going on is so unfair, because everything is going up: transportation fares, electricity, gas; and salaries are so low,” said Isabel Mora, 82, a retiree who receives a monthly pension of about $62.

Several economies in Latin America are either in recession or sputtering, which prompted the International Monetary Fund in July to cut its growth projection for the region from a meager 1.6 percent to a dismal .6 percent.

The dire fiscal landscape has exacerbated political tensions across the region and fueled protest movements that have taken aim at austerity measures, harmful environmental policies and rising inequality, among other causes.

The fierce public backlash is unfolding in countries that experienced an expansion of the middle class during the commodity boom of the 2000s, which expanded access to education and higher paying jobs across the region. With less cash on hand, leaders are struggling to meet their citizens’ expectations.

Mr. Piñera’s decision to declare a state of emergency followed a wave of violent protests in Ecuador this month, which led its president, Lenin Moreno, to temporarily flee the capital. In neighboring Peru, President Martín Vizcarra dissolved Congress in late September in a dramatic escalation over a political fight set off by a corruption inquiry.

The economic meltdown in Venezuela, meanwhile, continues to spur a migration wave testing the generosity and social safety net of neighboring countries.

Marta Lagos, director of the polling firm Latinobarometro, said the unrest of the past few days “has shown the real Chile: with many problems and people willing to protest.”

Chile’s international image is an idealized fabrication of the international press, she said.

In a recent interview with The Financial Times, Mr. Piñera boasted that in the context of Latin America, “Chile looks like an oasis because we have stable democracy, the economy is growing, we are creating jobs, we are improving salaries and we are keeping macroeconomic balance.”

The protests come as Chile prepares to host two major international conferences: an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting next month and the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December.

“This was a social explosion waiting to happen, and high school students opened the floodgates,” Ms. Lagos said.

“This is the beginning of something, not the end. People are realizing they have power over the government, and they can paralyze Santiago. This is the closest thing to a citizen revolution, but it has no leadership, no one to negotiate with.”

Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.

https://ift.tt/2J672Au via The New York Times October 21, 2019 at 10:41AM

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lindawood · 5 years

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The Best Cyber Monday Household and Kitchen Deals of 2018

Follow our Guide to Cyber Monday for all the best deals this holiday season.

On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, truly great deals pop up for the most coveted household items we recommend, everything from Instant Pots to cozy L.L.Bean flannel sheets to Dyson cordless stick vacuums (a perennial favorite among the Wirecutter staff). If these are the kinds of items you’ve had an eye on all year, this may be the time to buy. But before you get swept up in a whirlwind of doorbusters, make sure you’re hunting for something you’ll love—something that will serve you well for years to come. As always, Wirecutter is here to help with that, armed with years of research and testing.

We polled our colleagues on the household beat, and they were consistent about one thing: Approach Cyber Monday and Black Friday with a plan. Starting with a wishlist will take you a long way, especially when you can count on us to hunt down the truly great deals for you—just keep an eye on our Cyber Monday Deals page. On top of that, our kitchen and home experts have some extra tips to help you make the best purchases for your home.

Cyber Monday (and remaining Black Friday) deals on household items we like

Kitchen

Down to $70, the versatile and easy-to-use Instant Pot Duo 6-Quart—the top pick in our guide to best electric pressure cooker—is now even more affordable for all your electric cooking needs.

The ProTeak TeakHaus Rectangle Edge Grain Cutting Board is $93, an all-time low on the top wood pick in our guide to the best cutting boards. This high-quality cutting is normally $120.

The Libbey Signature Kentfield Estate All-Purpose Wine Glass is down to $27 (from $35) when you clip the on-page coupon. These 16-ounce stemmed wine glasses—ideal for everyday use—are the top pick in our guide to the best wine glasses. This is not the lowest price we’ve ever seen, but this is still a nice deal on these inexpensive, durable, and versatile wine glasses

If you could use a pair of new baking sheets, the Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Baker’s Half Sheet is available from Amazon in an $18 two-pack. That’s the best deal we’ve seen all year on our recommendation for the best baking sheet.

The Oster Versa Performance Blender is the runner-up pick in our guide to the best blender. It’s down to $105, just about the the lowest price we’ve ever posted for it.

The Anova Precision Cooker Nano is the new top pick in our guide to the best sous vide machine and gear and Amazon has it for $69 – it normally goes $100.

Our upgrade cookware set, the All-Clad Try-Ply Stainless Steel 10-Piece Set, is down to $560 from $700. It isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen, but it can also go for over $700, so we think this is a good deal if you want to upgrade to a long-lasting cookware set.

Bedroom

The Xtreme Comforts Shredded Memory Foam Pillow, our top pick for the best bed pillows, is 20% off in all sizes with code Z65HN8IK.

The LectroFan is our top pick in our guide to the best white noise machine, and Amazon has it for $39, down from its normal $50 street price.

The Snowe Down Comforter, which used to be a runner-up in our comforter guide and we still like a lot, is down to $182 from $228 in the full/queen-size all-season version when you add it to your cart.

Snowe’s Percale Sheets, our upgrade pick, are also on sale, with the queen size down to $150 from $188.

The queen-sized Leesa Mattress, our favorite foam mattress, is $835, down from $870 with promo code WireCutter. We’ve seen lower prices on this mattress, but this one includes a Leesa pillow.

Bathroom

Our top pick for the the best showerhead, the Delta In2ition 58480 Showerhead, is down to $85 from a typical street price of $95. This is within $5 of the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this item.

The Restoration Hardware Luxury Plush Long Robe is the softest robe pick in our guide to the best robes. It’s normally $100, but you can snag it for $50 right now.

The Eufy BodySense Smart Scale is the top pick in our guide to the best smart scale, and you can save $10 on the black model.

Using code GIFT30 gets you a 30% discount off the Onsen Towel, the quick-drying lattice pick in our guide to the best bath towels. You can choose the configuration that best works for you, be it a single towel ($40 shipped) or a set ($58 shipped).

Cleaning

Our primary pick in our guide to the best upright and canister vacuum cleaners, the Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352, is currently $99—it normally sells for $140.

The Dyson V7 Motorhead and the Dyson V8 Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner are both discounted right now. The V7, our pick for the best cordless stick vacuum, is down to $230. This isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen, but it’s still well below its usual $300 street price. The V8 is down to $345 from $500 – it’s our upgrade pick with 50% more battery life than the V7, but we think most people will be more than happy with the V7.

The iRobot Roomba 690, our recommended pick for a repairable bot with Wi-Fi in our guide to the best robot vacuums, is down to $250. It’s generally $290.

How to shop for kitchen deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Photo: Michael Hession

Now is a great time to find deals on everything from blenders to toaster ovens, but remember that the world of small kitchen appliances is particularly prone to fads and gimmicks. Once in a blue moon, an innovation pays off, and you get something versatile enough to earn a space in your kitchen, such as the Instant Pot. More often, you get a mediocre machine hogging precious counter space. Case in point: the air fryer, which is really just an awkwardly shaped, less versatile convection toaster oven. Although you’ll surely see air fryers on sale this season, keep an eye out instead for price drops on our larger toaster oven picks, and you’ll get more bang for your buck.

In general, as you make your list, ask yourself one hard question: What do you really need? For example, do you need a nonstick cookware set? You do only if you cook a lot of fish and eggs and other delicate items. If not, you probably can spend your money better elsewhere. A stainless cookware set is a longer-lasting choice (nonstick pans wear out fast). If your kitchen is small, don’t pass up a deal on a single 12-inch All-Clad skillet—that’s a pan that will last a lifetime.

Wirecutter kitchen writers Lesley Stockton and Michael Sullivan both told us that although it’s best to stick to trusted brands, it’s important to know what features you want—as well as your dealbreakers—to make sure you’re getting what you need. You’ll see deals pop up for several nearly identical models of big-ticket items like KitchenAid stand mixers and Vitamix blenders, as well as numerous variations of cookware that look and sound almost the same. We’ve found in our testing that these small details make a big difference: For example, the narrow, tapered jar of the Vitamix 5200 blender we recommend is notably more efficient than the wider jars of other Vitamix models. And All-Clad’s five-ply d5 Stainless Steel Cookware is slower and less even in heating than the tri-ply All-Clad cookware we love.

If you’re unsure about an item, check our Cyber Monday Deals page for discounts on Wirecutter picks. And when in doubt, tweet questions to @WirecutterDeals.

How to shop for vacuum deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

If you’ve been holding out for a Dyson or a robot vacuum (both of which are pricey but can vastly improve your life), you’re in luck. Appliance editor Liam McCabe told us he expected to see good deals on both Dysons and Roombas this holiday season. But as with kitchenware, you’ll need to pay attention: The brand name alone doesn’t mean it’s a good buy. “The trick,” said Liam, “is that they aren’t always the exact variant we recommend. That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker, but you gotta pay attention to the accessories.”

Dyson makes all kinds of vacuums, but the V7 cordless stick vacuum offers the best balance of price and performance, and it’s our current choice for the best cordless stick vacuum. Although we’re already seeing deals on the V7, keep an eye on its predecessor, the Dyson V6, too. The V6 is louder than the V7, with a slightly shorter battery life, but for the right price (around $160) it’s a good buy.

The Dyson V8 is the exact same vacuum as the V7, only with longer battery life and a larger price tag. It’s our upgrade pick, but most people will be more than satisfied with the V7.

For upright plug-in vacuums, we don’t recommend Dyson. Instead, look for a deal on the Shark Navigator Lift-Away. If you really want the very best plug-in vacuum, consider the $600 Miele Compact C2 Electro+. It’s expensive and far more vacuum than most people need, but we recommend it over similar Dyson models.

iRobot’s Roomba variations abound, and Liam told us the company tends to offer additional, slightly different models just for special events like Black Friday. Most of the time, he said, “you can’t really go wrong with a Roomba,” but be sure to note the accessories and features before buying.

There are two things in particular a good Roomba should come with: the ability to connect to Wi-Fi and at least one virtual wall (a small beacon you can set up to keep the bot from entering a certain room). Last year we saw special editions without Wi-Fi, which we’d avoid—the ability to control the vacuum with your phone or Alexa is one of the things that set our Roomba picks apart from the less expensive Eufy robot vacuums we recommend.

Speaking of Eufy, if you’re trying to decide between a Eufy robot vacuum and a Roomba, let price and features be your guide. Roombas are repairable, so they last longer, and they come with some nice extras. But they’re louder and bigger than Eufy vacuums, and they don’t get much more powerful until you’re in the $400 price range (before discounts).

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As the poor join protests, Venezuela may be hitting a turning point

By Mariana Zuñiga and Nick Miroff, Washington Post, April 29, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela--In the cramped hillside slums where they once adored Hugo Chávez, hungry families now jeer and bang pots at the man struggling in his shadow, President Nicolás Maduro.

Chávez, a master showman who promised his country a socialist “revolution,” loved to wade through crowds of poor Venezuelans, blowing kisses and dispensing hugs. But when his successor has ventured out in public in recent months, he’s been pelted with eggs and chased by angry mobs.

“Maduro is so different,” said Irene Castillo, 26, who lives in El Guarataro, a tough neighborhood not far from the presidential palace. She voted for Maduro in 2013 when Chávez died after 14 years in power. But no one on Castillo’s block supports the government anymore, she said. “Now, those who remain ‘chavistas’ are just the radicals.”

As the country’s bloody, volatile, month-old protest movement hardens into a prolonged standoff between demonstrators and the government, the loyalties of poorer Venezuelans like Castillo have become a swing factor in determining whether the president will survive.

The thousands of demonstrators pouring into the streets in recent weeks are mostly middle class, outraged by Venezuela’s economic collapse and the government’s increasingly authoritarian rule. But Venezuelans from longtime chavista strongholds are starting to join them, at considerable risk. Residents of Castillo’s neighborhood protested openly against Maduro for the first time last week.

Pro-government block captains in neighborhoods like El Guarataro have responded by threatening to deny food rations to those who march with the opposition or fail to join pro-Maduro rallies. Militia groups armed by the government and known as “colectivos” are deployed to intimidate would-be defectors and are suspected in the deaths of several protesters.

As the confrontation escalates, many other destitute Venezuelans remain on the sidelines, disillusioned with Maduro but unpersuaded by his opponents, or too busy looking for food to join a march.

Aside from a military revolt, there is perhaps nothing Maduro fears more than a rebellion spreading through the neighborhoods that long backed Chávez. There are signs it’s already happening.

On several occasions this month, a pattern has emerged in which mostly middle-class Venezuelans and student activists swarm the capital’s main highway during the day, while poorer residents stage smaller protests in their neighborhoods at night, some of which have degenerated into chaos and looting.

In El Guarataro, where services such as electricity and water are frequently shut off, residents built barricades of flaming debris in the streets last week , clanging pots and pans at their windows to amplify their frustration. Riot police and national guard troops arrived, touching off clashes in a neighborhood that has long been a solid-red bastion of support for the government.

“The base of the chavista movement has eroded, and the situation is growing more explosive,” said Margarita López Maya, a political analyst in Caracas. “There’s no bread, but the government continues to insist it has the majority of Venezuelans on its side, so it looks increasingly dissociated from the reality of people’s lives.”

The leaders of the Democratic Unity party, the big-tent coalition of Maduro opponents, are demanding that the government release political prisoners and move up presidential elections due to take place in late 2018. They also want full power restored to the legislative branch, which Maduro and pro-government judges have stymied since the opposition won majority control in 2015.

Maduro depicts his opponents as terrorists who are trying to sow chaos to prepare the ground for a foreign invasion.

With the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela used to be one of Latin America’s most prosperous nations. Now it’s among the most miserable, tormented by rampant crime, corruption and staggering government dysfunction. A scarcity of food and basic medicine has left more and more Venezuelans suffering from empty stomachs or languishing in squalid hospitals.

The shortages have spread widely but fallen hardest on the poor.

A survey by three of the country’s leading universities found that three-fourths of Venezuelans lost weight last year, by an average of 19 pounds.

Aware that mass hunger will hasten Maduro’s political demise, the government last year began assigning food sacks to Venezuelans in poorer areas, putting local party activists in charge of distribution. The program is known by its acronym, CLAP, and in neighborhoods like El Guarataro, residents know they could go without meals if they join protests or decline to join government-organized marches.

“They are afraid of losing the CLAP bag,” said Mirlenis Palacios, 45, an activist for the Primero Justicia party of opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who was recently banned from running for office for 15 years.

In interviews, several residents of poorer Caracas neighborhoods said they have been warned not to participate in any anti-government protests. “They blackmailed us with the bag,” said one man in El Guarataro, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Pro-government “colectivo” militants on motorcycles are a more fearsome threat. Phil Gunson, a Venezuela-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, said they function like a paramilitary police force, suppressing potential protests while allowing the government to deny responsibility for their violence.

“They are a very effective form of intimidation,” Gunson said. “They openly display weapons on the street, and everyone knows who they are. So if you’re an opposition activist, it’s very risky to dissent in the barrios.”

The poorer neighborhoods are still widely referred to as “chavista” neighborhoods, but the label no longer applies, said Luis Vicente León, director of the Datanalisis polling firm, whose recent survey found that 88 percent of Venezuelans are unhappy with the government.

“The Venezuelans living in those neighborhoods want change, too,” León said. “But they don’t have time to go to marches, and they have no leadership.” Even as they sour on Maduro, he added, they feel the middle-class opposition movement is “not their natural ally.”

Democratic Unity activists only recently have begun making inroads in Caracas’s poorest districts, he said, because it remains dangerous for them to attempt ordinary grass-roots political work like knocking on doors or staging rallies.

But León said there are clearly more poor Venezuelans at opposition protests now than there were in 2014, when the government last faced a major rebellion, months of clashes in which more than 40 people were killed.

The political violence this month has left 29 dead, including Venezuelans apparently slain during looting.

Maduro still has Venezuela’s military, its oil revenue and its state-run media, even as the poor have started to tune out the propaganda. But the biggest obstacle the opposition faces in appealing to the poor may be the perception that the street protests won’t make a difference.

“We’re almost reaching a month of protests, and it’s done nothing,” said Xavier Hernández, 23, a motorcycle-taxi driver who lives in El Guarataro. “I’m not going to risk my life for it.”

#Venezuela #Venezuela protests

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