What to Expect From U.S. President Donald Trump’s Visit to India

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American and Indian national interests are clearly converging.

President Donald Trump will, therefore, strive to enhance US – India bilateral relations with the context of a multilateral environment.

What does that mean?

I refer back to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concept of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), first articulated in 2015.

SAGAR stresses the importance of the Indian Ocean to India and the close alignment between Indian and global interests, as Dhruva Jaishankar outlined in his article “Indian Ocean Region: A Pivot for India’s Growth:

“(i) preserving freedom of navigation for commercial shipping, (ii) sustainably and equitably harnessing the Indian Ocean’s natural resources, (iii) establishing protocols for enhancing disaster prevention and relief as well as search and rescue operations, (iv) countering piracy, terrorism, smuggling, and illegal weapons proliferation, and (v) managing international naval competition.”

It is no accident that regional security is the fundamental component ensuring that the benefits of regional economic growth can be realized.

Acknowledging and de facto supporting Prime Minister Modi’s SAGAR strategy, it is also no accident that the United States recently renamed its military Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command.

The foundation of growing US – India strategic convergence has been the recognition of potential Chinese economic hegemony and military expansion in South Asia, especially via China’s close alliance with Pakistan and Pakistan’s own obsession with the use of terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy, all threats to the Modi SAGAR goals.

It is, therefore, not surprising that increased US-India defence cooperation has been the leading element in the expanding relationship and a segue to a new trade agreement likely to be completed within the next year.

Last November, the US and India completed their most expansive joint military exercises in history amid efforts to coordinate more ambitiously on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region as outlined in the SAGAR doctrine.

Sales of American weapons systems to India have concomitantly increased, which has included Apache attack helicopters for anti-terrorist operations, Seahawk helicopters for the Indian navy, C-17 heavy air-lift sustainment and anti-surface warfare and anti-air defence MK 45 5 inch/62 calibre (MOD 4) naval guns.

The need for greater US – India coordination will only increase as the American forces withdraw from Afghanistan and the Trump legacy in that regard will be determined by ensuing regional events precipitated by that withdrawal.

Both India and the United States have a shared interest in preventing strategic adversaries, namely China and Pakistan, from unduly benefitting from that withdrawal at the expense of regional stability and a balance of power.

Make no mistake, China seeks global domination. One vehicle to achieve it is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a collection of infrastructure projects and a network of commercial agreements in 152 countries designed to link the entire world directly to the Chinese economy through interconnected land-based and maritime routes.

A critical part of BRI is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an infrastructure and development project, the backbone of which is a transportation network connecting China to the Pakistani seaports of Gwadar and Karachi located on the Arabian Sea

The guarantor of that soft power approach is the hard power of Chinese military expansion.

China plans to establish a naval and air bases on the Arabian Sea within easy reach of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. That military facility will complement China’s already operational naval base in Djibouti, located at another strategic chokepoint, the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

All of that is the opposite of what Prime Minister Modi seeks to achieve through SAGAR.

It may be that the outcome of the Modi-Trump meeting and subsequent greater US– India cooperation may largely determine peace, stability, economic prosperity and the democratic future of the Indo-Pacific region.

Both the stakes and the potential benefits are that high. (For more from the author of “What to Expect From U.S. President Donald Trump’s Visit to India” please click HERE)

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Global Tipping Point Reached; What Really Inflamed The Coronavirus Epidemic; Coronavirus Cases In The United States Reach 34

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By Nautilus. Last year, in late December, Li Wenliang, a young ophthalmologist, wrote 150 of his friends from medical circles. He said he had seen a number of cases of viral pneumonia come into the Wuhan Central Hospital, where he worked, and that they all seemed linked to the Huanan Seafood Market, the main source for restaurants in Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people, and the most important city of the central regions of China. Five weeks later, Li was dead, at 34, killed by the same virus about which he warned his friends in the same hospital that had warned him not to tell people what was happening.

An online tidal wave of reflection and grief that I’ve never seen before resulted. My own personal WeChat feed was flooded with comments and tributes to him, ranging from poems to cartoons of him eating his favorite meal of fried chicken. The rage was directed largely at Wuhan city officials. After Li had written to his friends, he had been called into a police station, where he was forced to sign an unusual document designed to coerce him into silence. Later, he spoke to Chinese private media company Caixin, shedding light on the unfolding epidemic which, having engulfed first Wuhan and its surroundings, is now front page news across the world. Li became, as a result, the face and name of a censorship phenomenon involving a number of other doctors.

Rightly, people are in uproar about China’s security forces blocking Chinese doctors from sharing crucial public health information. To date, the coronavirus, a respiratory illness that begins with a fever before escalating to attack the lungs, has killed more than 1,300 people. Is Li a representative case of the failings of Chinese government censorship? Yes. Being punished for sharing information about a virus among medical professionals changes the incentives for everyone wishing to report the virus, cooling relations and slowing information.

But did censoring Li and others make the outbreak of the virus much worse, leading to many more deaths, as many Chinese people believe? Not so much. The censorship, and its subsequent chilling effect, is not what is killing people: What is a far more proximate cause of these deaths is the incompetence of the Wuhan government and the central health authorities in the two weeks that followed the censorship. They failed to prepare any sort of health system response, and the Wuhan authorities were preoccupied by a major political conference. When the virus took hold and became an epidemic, the health system was swamped. People were unable to access health services, and in some cases, people were contracting the virus when already sick or weak, making them more likely to succumb. . .

The Wuhan authorities knew that the epidemic was of grave concern, yet did not notify the public nor begin preparing. It seems most likely that they were completely occupied by the two political meetings, which took up all government and Party resources, and killed any air time for public health announcements—thus negligently wasting two vital weeks to prepare for any possible outbreak. For example, they lacked the capacity to test for the virus at the necessary scale, making only 200 test kits per day, and sending early tests off to Beijing for results. On January 20, Xi Jinping got involved and the vast Chinese bureaucracy kicked into gear, shutting down a whole province. Local governments were told to take any measures necessary. For the past three weeks, we have seen the overreaction: airports and travel grinding to a standstill, most of China working from home (around half of China’s citizens are unable to move), and various countries closing their borders to Chinese nationals. (Read more from “What Really Inflamed The Coronavirus Epidemic” HERE)
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Coronavirus Epidemic Hits Global Tipping Point

By Hilary Brueck. The World Health Organization signaled on Friday that time may be running out to contain the worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus.

“The window of opportunity is narrowing to contain the outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Friday during a press conference in Geneva. “We still have a chance to contain it. But while doing that, we have to prepare at the same time for any eventualities because this outbreak could go any direction. It could even be messy.”

More than 1,000 people are sick with the pneumonialike illness, COVID-19, outside China, and some new cases have “no link” to China’s Hubei province where the virus is thought to have originated in a wet market in Wuhan, the WHO director-general said. It’s a first and “very worrisome” sign, he said, that the virus may be readying to spread broadly and independently outside the country where it originated in December. (Read more about the coronavirus epidemic HERE)

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Coronavirus Cases In The United States Reach 34, And More Are Expected

By New York Times. At least 34 people in the United States are infected with the coronavirus spreading from China, federal health officials said on Friday. . .

But so far there has been no community spread of the infection in the United States, she added; all of the cases have been linked to overseas travel.

Eleven of the infections were diagnosed in travelers who fell ill after returning on their own from overseas, and two of their close contacts became infected. The other 21 patients are people who were returned to the United States by the State Department. (Read more from “Coronavirus Cases In The United States Reach 34, And More Are Expected” HERE)

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South Korea Steps Up Containment Efforts As Virus Cases Jump To 208; Health Officials Worry As Untraceable Coronavirus Clusters Emerge

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By The Korea Herald. South Korea said Friday the new coronavirus is in the initial stage of a full-blown outbreak, but stressed that it is still “manageable,” although the number of infections has almost quadrupled in just three days.

The country reported 104 new cases of the novel coronavirus as of 7 p.m. on Friday, bringing the total number of infections to 208, the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.

Most new infections have been traced to church services in the southeastern city of Daegu.

Daegu, where the 2.5 million inhabitants have been asked to stay indoors, and neighboring Cheongdo were designated as a “special management zone” earlier in the day. The nation’s capital, Seoul, banned demonstrations in downtown areas.

Of the 104 new cases, 86 are in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and neighboring North Gyeongsang Province. Another seven were reported in Seoul, the KCDC said. (Read more from “South Korea Steps Up Containment Efforts As Virus Cases Jump To 208” HERE)

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Health Officials Worry As Untraceable Coronavirus Clusters Emerge

By Star Advertiser. In South Korea, Singapore and Iran, clusters of infections are leading to a jump in cases of the new viral illness outside China. But it’s not the numbers that are worrying experts: It’s that increasingly they can’t trace where the clusters started.

World Health Organization officials said China’s crackdown on parts of the country bought time for the rest of the world to prepare for the new virus. But as hot spots emerge around the globe, trouble finding each source — the first patient who sparks every new cluster — might signal the disease has begun spreading too widely for tried-and-true public health steps to stamp it out.

“A number of spot fires, occurring around the world is a sign that things are ticking along, and what we are going to have here is probably a pandemic,” said Ian Mackay, who studies viruses at Australia’s University of Queensland.

That worst-case isn’t here yet, the WHO insists. It isn’t convinced that countries outside China need more draconian measures, but it pointed to spikes in cases in Iran and South Korea to warn that time may be running out to contain the virus. . .

The newest red flag: Iran reported 18 cases, including four deaths, in just two days. The cluster began in the city of Qom, a popular religious destination, but it’s not clear how. Worse, infected travelers from Iran already have been discovered in Lebanon and Canada. (Read more from “Health Officials Worry As Untraceable Coronavirus Clusters Emerge” HERE)

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Trump Appoints LGBT Activist as First Openly Gay Member of Cabinet

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President Donald Trump appointed Richard Grenell, former ambassador to Germany, as acting director of national intelligence on Thursday. He will now oversee the nation’s 17 spy agencies. Grenell replaces Admiral Joseph Maguire who led the DNI since last August.

Although conservative reaction to Trump’s appointment of the LGBT activist has been muted, Grenell was an early proponent of gay marriage. He signed onto a United States Supreme Court legal filing supporting homosexual marriage two years before the SCOTUS ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which required states to recognize same-sex marriage.

Grenell is also credited with an international campaign to coerce other nations to remove prohibitions on sodomy from their legal codes. The Family Research Council criticized this effort, calling it “‘cultural imperialism’ by imposing policies . . . on other countries with different cultures, traditions, and values.” But Grenell claimed Trump’s support and even bragged that evangelical Vice President Mike Pence was “fully on board” with his plan.

A number of third world nations affected by Grenell’s campaign have pushed back, with the archbishop of the Church of Uganda stating that “homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture” and that it is a perversion of the created order regarding family. Uganda Christian News agreed, stating that “the Bible describes homosexuality as an immoral and unnatural sin (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9).”

China Deploys 40 Incinerators to Wuhan Amid Fears of Coronavirus Death Toll ‘Cover up’

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By Daily Star. China has reportedly deployed 40 industrial incinerators to the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak Wuhan.

Chinese media reports that the furnaces have been shipped to the city amid ongoing fears the death toll is being covered up.

NTD reports that the cabins are for the disposal of animal carcasses, while China Ship news reports the incinerators are for medical waste. . .

The mobile incinerators can reportedly destroy up to five tons of waste every single day – and can burn its load in as little as two seconds. . .

Reportedly the incinerators have been sanctioned for the use by the Chinese military after a test in Golmud, Qinghai in January. (Read more from “China Deploys 40 Incinerators to Wuhan Amid Fears of Coronavirus Death Toll ‘Cover up'” HERE)

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China Records Drop in New Coronavirus Cases; Two Deaths Reported From Quarantined Ship

By Reuters. China reported a dramatic drop in new coronavirus infections on Thursday although scientists warned the flu-like pathogen may spread even more easily than previously believed, while more passengers disembarked a quarantined cruise ship off Japan.

Two elderly passengers from the quarantined Diamond Princess ship had died of the disease, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported. The passengers were a man and a woman in their 80s, NHK said, citing an unidentified government source.

South Korea reported a spike in infections, with 23 new cases linked to a church congregation, up from 14 on Wednesday, in what health officials called a “super-spreading event”.

A 61-year-old woman known as “Patient 31” is suspected of passing the disease to others who attended religious services at a church in the central city of Daegu.

Hundreds of people are believed to have attended services with the woman in recent weeks at a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, a religious movement founded in 1984 by South Korean Lee Man-hee, who is revered as a messiah by followers. (Read more from “China Records Drop in New Coronavirus Cases; Two Deaths Reported From Quarantined Ship” HERE)

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Iran’s Ayatollah Claims ‘Wealthy Zionists’ Control America

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Tuesday claimed “wealthy Zionists” control America.

America has reached the “peak of arrogance,” and it is controlled by “corporate owners,” which makes it a “manifestation of oppression, abhorred by the world,” he said in a tweet.

Attacking Zionists is the Iranian regime’s usual rhetoric. But claiming that “Zionists” control America is intended to push antisemitic conspiracy theories while hiding behind its official anti-Israel line.

The official slogan of some of Iran’s allies, such as the Houthis in Yemen, is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews.” . . .

The Iranian leader has slammed Jews before. He claims the US “Deal of the Century” is “satanic” and that it includes the “Jewishization” of Jerusalem. (Read more from “Iran’s Ayatollah Claims ‘Wealthy Zionists’ Control America” HERE)

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COVID-19: Are We on the Verge of a Global Pandemic?

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By CNBC. Japan could be a key indicator when it comes to predicting a pandemic-level spread of the deadly coronavirus, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Tuesday.

Japan appears to be “on the cusp of a large outbreak and maybe epidemic growth in Japan. We need to watch that very closely. They’ve had a doubling of cases just in the last four days” with a total of 59 confirmed cases and one death so far, Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.”

If other countries report sharp rises in COVID-19 cases, Gottlieb said it could be a sign that the new virus can’t be controlled on a global scale. The CNBC contributor said earlier in February it’s likely the flu-like virus will grow into a pandemic but avoid becoming an epidemic in the United States.

A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease, according to the World Health Organization. An epidemic is an often sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in a population in an area, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Syra Madad, an expert in public health and special pathogen response, said that while it’s still early in the outbreak, a pandemic could be near. (Read more from “COVID-19: Are We on the Verge of a Global Pandemic?” HERE)

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Russia to Ban Entry of Chinese Nationals to Halt Virus

By Associated Press. Russia will temporarily ban Chinese nationals from entering the country due to the virus outbreak centered in China that has infected more than 73,000 people worldwide, Russian authorities said Tuesday.

The entry ban goes into effect Thursday at midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT) for an indefinite period, according to a decree signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The government said it took the move due to the “worsening epidemiological situation” in China.

Russia already had cut off most Chinese visitors by closing the long land border with China and Mongolia and imposing other travel restrictions. The new entry ban won’t affect travelers who need to transfer flights at Russian airports, authorities said. (Read more from “Russia to Ban Entry of Chinese Nationals to Halt Virus” HERE)

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Bare-Faced Robbery: Thieves Steal 6,000 Hygiene Masks in Japan

By Yahoo. Thieves in Japan have made off with some 6,000 surgical masks from a hospital, with the country facing a mass shortage and a huge price hike online due to the coronavirus.

Four boxes containing the face masks disappeared from a locked storage facility at the Japanese Red Cross hospital in the western port city of Kobe, a hospital official said on Tuesday.

“We still have a large number of masks — enough to continue our daily operations at the hospital, but this is so deplorable,” the official told AFP.

Police have launched an investigation as they suspect the thieves intend to resell the masks.

Masks have sold out at many drug and discount stores across the nation as the number of infections have increased in Japan — one of the most affected countries after China where the death toll from the virus has hit 1,800. (Read more from “Bare-Faced Robbery: Thieves Steal 6,000 Hygiene Masks in Japan” HERE)

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Mask Shortages Threaten U.S. Hospitals After Warnings Ignored

By Asian Review. The U.S. is facing a potentially severe shortage of surgical masks due to the coronavirus outbreak in China, despite repeated warnings that American hospitals are overly dependent on Chinese-made medical supplies.

While the coronavirus has caused just 12 confirmed cases in the U.S., the country sources the bulk of its surgical masks, respirators and other “personal protective equipment” from China, where the disease has killed 1,770 and infected tens of thousands.

The epidemic has not only disrupted mask production in the country, it has also sent China’s own demand for medical supplies soaring.

Now hospitals in the U.S. are having to ration their inventory amid one of the worst flu seasons in decades.

Last week, staff at Mt. Sinai Health Systems received an email informing them that, among other measures, surgical masks will only be available in departments such as intensive care units, divisions involved in infection prevention and emergency departments, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Read more from “Mask Shortages Threaten U.S. Hospitals After Warnings Ignored” HERE)

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Terrorists Kill 24 in Attack on Burkina Faso Church

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Gunmen killed twenty-four people, including a pastor, in an attack on a church during Sunday mass in northwestern Burkina Faso, four security sources told Reuters on Monday.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, which comes as jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State seek to gain control over once peaceful rural Burkina Faso, fuelling ethnic and religious conflict.

Hundreds have died over the past year, and over half a million people have fled their homes.

The timing of the shooting, during a church service in the village of Pansi in the Yagha region, mirrors that of other attacks on Christians in the past year, including church attacks and assassinations of pastors and priests. . .

It said 18 people were also injured in the attack and an unknown number were kidnapped. It added that a pastor was killed but did not specify that the attack occurred in a church during mass. (Read more from “Terrorists Kill 24 in Attack on Burkina Faso Church” HERE)

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Court Orders Tesla to Stop Cutting Down Trees

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Elon Musk’s Tesla has been ordered to stop clearing forest land near the capital of Berlin, Germany, to build its new “Gigafactory.”

Reuters reports that a German court has ordered Tesla to stop cutting down trees in a forest near the capital of Berlin to make room for its first European “Gigafactory.” The electric vehicle maker announced plans last November to build a factory in Gruenheide, located in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

The ruling by the higher administrative court of the states of Berlin and Brandenburg comes shortly after the state environmental office gave Tesla permission to clear 92 hectares of forest to make room for the new manufacturing plant. However, the planning permission for the factory had not yet been granted meaning that preparing the ground for the factory was done at the company’s own risk. (Read more from “Court Orders Tesla to Stop Cutting Down Trees” HERE)

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China to Burn Currency to Slow the Spread of Deadly Coronavirus

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The Guangzhou branch of China’s central bank says it will destroy all banknotes collected by hospitals, wet markets and buses to ensure the safety of cash transactions as the country battles a coronavirus outbreak.

Financial news outlet Caixin reported on Saturday that officials at the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) branch in the southern city ordered that all paper currency from sectors with high exposure to the coronavirus be withdrawn for destruction.

Commercial banks in the province should put banknotes from these sectors aside, disinfect them and hand them in to the PBOC.

The order comes after Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the central bank, said on Saturday that 600 billion yuan (US$85.6 billion) of new banknotes had been distributed throughout the country since January 17, including 4 billion yuan (US$572 million) in fresh notes sent to Wuhan at the centre of the outbreak before the Lunar New Year.

The central bank said that in general it would use high temperatures or ultraviolet light to disinfect cash, and store the currency for more than 14 days before putting it back in circulation. (Read more from “China to Burn Currency to Slow the Spread of Deadly Virus” HERE)

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