Steve McGookin
The world marks a grim anniversary
One year ago this week, the Chinese city of Wuhan entered an unprecedented lockdown that would last 76 days, as the global threat from the newly-emerging Coronavirus began to become apparent.
The US confirmed its first case of Covid-19 on January 21, 2020. This week, its incoming President helped the nation remember the more than 400,000 Americans who have died since. The US will also introduce strict restrictions on travellers, reimposing an entry ban on nearly all non-US travelers who have been in Brazil, the UK, Ireland and other European countries.
The UK is also introducing stricter restrictions from Monday morning, requiring a negative test before traveling into the country.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson – apparently set to be played onscreen by Kenneth Branagh – warned for the first time that the new Coronavirus variants, which spread more rapidly and are showing up in more countries around the world, may also be more dangerous.
Here in Northern Ireland, an extension of the local Coronavirus restrictions was announced until March 5th. More than 100 medically-trained members of the British military are to be deployed to help local medical staff and relieve pressure on hospital wards.
Meanwhile, the UK government continues to work towards its target of 15m first-dose vaccinations by mid-February.
Elsewhere in Europe, France saw its biggest increase in Covid-related hospital admissions since November, while in Holland, protests broke out against a nightly curfew the government had introduced to reduce the spread of the virus. A Covid test centre was attacked.
There was some doubt this week over the Tokyo Olympics, set for this summer, after reports that the Japanese government had privately concluded that the games would have to be cancelled. The report was denied by the IOC and world athletics bodies, as well as the Tokyo government, who vowed to press ahead with the games, due to begin on July 23.
See Also:
Leaders Need To Lead: The Executive and Covid-19
Life Is Harder Right Now. We Should Be Kinder To Ourselves
The Covid-19 Vaccine Explained
***
Protests sweep across Russia
Crowds clashed with police in several Russian cities this week during protests in support of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny and to demonstrate against the regime of Vladimir Putin – the largest such protests for a decade.
This video thread gives an extent of the crowds turning out across the country.
Navalny was detained last weekend after returning to Moscow from Berlin, where he was recovering from being poisoned. In a message via his lawyer, Navalny said he was in good spirits. “Just in case, I am announcing that I don’t plan to either hang myself on a window grill or cut my veins or throat open with a sharpened spoon.”
***
Trump Senate trial to begin next month
Former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial will begin in the Senate on February 8th, after House Democrats are set to deliver the single article to the upper chamber on Monday, triggering the process.
It also emerged that, according to the New York Times, Trump had plotted with a senior lawyer in the Justice Department to remove the Acting Attorney General and pressure electoral officials in the state of Georgia to overturn the results of November’s election, in which Trump was defeated by Joe Biden.
This week saw Biden’s inauguration, with Washington still on edge amid the threat of further insurrectionist violence from Trump supporters. Thankfully, the events passed off peacefully. And while 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman may have stolen the limelight on the day, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and his mittens probably had the greatest longevity…
See Also:
From The Big Lie to A Great Undoing
***
Brexit continues to roil business and politics
The effects of Brexit continue to mount, and despite a reprieve this week for Nissan workers in Sunderland, the prognosis was more gloomy for other businesses.
Andrew Rawnsley writes in The Observer that: “The post-Brexit world is so tough for many that the government’s own trade specialists are advising afflicted British entrepreneurs to relocate some of their operations out of the UK and to the EU. This has to be one of the greater absurdities of Brexit. British companies are being told by the British government that the way to survive is to lay off British workers and transfer their jobs to folk across the Channel.”
Meanwhile, as the row continues over the Northern Ireland Office’s meeting with loyalist paramilitary groups to discuss the effects of Brexit, its fallout has accelerated pressure on the constitutional future of the United Kingdom, a combination of regional polls for the Sunday Times showed.
A Twitter thread by Northern Slant’s Jamie Pow looks at the numbers behind the headlines.
Meanwhile, the News Letter’s Sam McBride assesses the impending impact of the Irish Sea border on local business and politics. He writes:
“No one is starving as a result of Brexit and Northern Ireland remains constitutionally a part of the Union. Some of the problems which have disrupted trade since January 1 have already been, or will be, resolved.
“However, it is already clear that even if the border erected 22 days ago does not result in economic disaster, it has the potential to radically re-orient Northern Ireland’s economy away from Great Britain and towards Ireland and the rest of the EU.”
See Also:
Reinforcing Northern Ireland’s In-Betweenness
Under Review: Northern Ireland’s Constituency Boundaries
***
Mary Ann McCracken commemorated
Finally, the life and work of anti-slavery campaigner Mary Ann McCracken was marked this week with the establishment of a foundation named for her by the Belfast Charitable Society.
Its aims will be to advance public knowledge about her life and work, as well as working “to prevent or relieve poverty, to advance human rights and promote equality.”
Mary Ann, who died in 1866 aged 96, was the younger sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the leaders of the United Irishmen, who was hanged in Cornmarket for his role in the 1798 rebellion.
At a ceremony to launch the foundation, historian Prof David Olosuga gave a talk on the ‘Legacies of Slavery’ a subject, he said, which is “never simple and certainly never neat, and what it is, is morally complicated”.
In November, Belfast City Council approved the building of a statue in Rosemary Street of US abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a former slave who visited the city on a speaking tour in 1845.
Also published on Medium.
