Big Pharma and Corona vaccinations: Putting big pharma in charge of global vaccine rollout was a big mistake : by Nick Dearden

Pfizer has had an exceptionally good pandemic. Today it announced that its Covid-19 vaccine brought in $37bn billion last year, making it easily the most lucrative medicine in any given year in history.

That isn’t all. For a company that was until recently the least trusted company in the least trusted industrial sector in the United States, Covid-19 has been a PR coup. Pfizer has become a household name over the last 12 months. The company was toasted on nights out in Tel Aviv, and there are cocktails named after its vaccine in bars across the world. The US president referred to Pfizer’s chief executive, Albert Bourla, as a “good friend”, and the great man parked his jet next to Boris Johnson’s at last year’s G7 summit in Cornwal

The global vaccine rollout has created levels of inequality so great that many call it a ‘vaccine apartheid’. Pharmaceutical corporations like Pfizer have led this rollout, setting the terms by which they sell vaccines and deciding who to prioritise. Ultimately, their approach affects who does, and does not, receive vaccines. Right from the start, Pfizer was clear that it wanted to make a lot of money from Covid. The company claims that its vaccine costs just under £5 per dose to produce. Others have suggested it could be much cheaper. Either way, the company is selling doses at a huge profit – the UK government paid £18 a shot for its first order, £22 for its most recent purchase. That means the NHS has paid a mark-up of at least £2bn – six times the cost of the pay rise the government agreed to give nurses last year.

It has been claimed that the company initially tried to pitch their medicine to the US government for an eye-popping $100 a dose. Tom Frieden, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accused the firm of “war profiteering”.

Pfizer has sold the vast majority of its doses to the richest countries in the world – a strategy sure to keep its profits high. If you look at its global distribution, Pfizer sells a tiny proportion of its vaccines to low-income countries. By last October, Pfizer had sold a measly 1.3% of its supply to Covax, the international body set up to try to ensure fairer access to vaccines.

Pfizer wasn’t selling many doses to poorer countries, but neither would it allow them to produce the life-saving vaccine on their own, through licensing or patent sharing..

Read more at: Putting big pharma in charge of global

Italy's tourism industry braces for 'worst revenue slump in over 20 years'

The country, which welcomed over 60 million foreign tourists in 2018, according to the World Tourism Organization, is now expecting 56 million fewer overnight stays, according to a new survey from Florence's Centrefor Tourism Studies.

Read more at:
Italy's tourism industry braces for 'worst revenue slump in over 20 years' - The Local

US Economy: Another drain on the U.S. economy: The long, painful road toward deglobalization

With political leaders and publics rejecting openness in a mannerunlike anything seen since the tariff wars and competitive devaluations of the 1930s.

The byproduct will be not just slower growth, but a significantfall in national incomes for all but perhaps the largest and most diversified economies.

Read more at: 
Another drain on the U.S. economy: The long, painful road toward deglobalization - MarketWatch:

Trump will lose in a landslide because of the economy, new election model predicts

The economy has gone from President Donald Trump's greatest political asset to perhaps his biggest weakness.

Unemployment is spiking at an unprecedented rate. Consumer spending is vanishing. And GDP is collapsing. History shows that dreadful economic trends like these spell doom for sitting presidents seeking reelection.

The coronavirus recession will cause Trump to suffer a "historic defeat" in
November, a national election model released Wednesday by Oxford
Economics predicted.

Read more at:
Trump will lose in a landslide because of the economy, new election model predicts - CNN

Coronavirus: The economic toll taken by the coronavirus is growing across the US

The economic damage caused by the coronavirus is growing as Americans change their behavior.

Read more at :
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/13/coronavirus-toll-taken-coronavirus-growing-across-us/5032674002/

British Brexit Disaster: EU fears short article 50 extension will mean no-deal Brexit in June - by Daniel Boffey

EU officials fear Theresa May is setting the UK on course for a no-deal exit at the end of June because she will not have the political courage to ask for the longer Brexit delay they believe she needs.

Senior figures in Brussels have been war-gaming the likely next steps by the British government, and believe a delay to the UK’s exit date of 29 March is inevitable.

But they fear the prime minister’s strategy of seeking simply to survive from day to day will lead to her requesting an inadequate short three-month extension for fear of enraging Brexiters in the Conservative party.

EU officials and diplomats said the danger of the UK then crashing out in the summer was an underappreciated risk given that the escalation of no-deal planning and the cries of betrayal by Brexiters would give momentum to a cliff-edge Brexit.

On Thursday the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, became the first cabinet minister to admit that the two years of negotiations allowed under article 50 may have to be prolonged, describing the Brexit impasse as “a very challenging situation”.

EU sources suggested it was unlikely that the heads of state and government of the 27 member states would reject such a request given the pressure that would be applied from the business community.

On Thursday, Portugal’s foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, said he believed a delay would be the wisest course given May’s hopes of a renegotiation.

Read more: EU fears short article 50 extension will mean no-deal Brexit in June | Politics | The Guardian

Britain- Brexit: For the poor, it’s not Europe that’s the problem. It’s austerity - by William Keegan

As the Brexit farce proceeds, it is worth remembering that before David Cameron made his catastrophic error of calling a referendum, the EU was way down the list of British people’s concerns in almost every opinion poll. Indeed, not even in the first 11.

The central point is that Brexit became the focus for all manner of discontents, many of them understandable. But leaving the EU would indubitably not be the answer to them, and would be guaranteed not to make the discontents into “glorious summer”.

Indeed, it would exacerbate the sources of this discontent. Why? Surely it is becoming increasingly obvious that growing swaths of British industry – much of it foreign-owned by conglomerates that enjoy the advantages of the single market – are cutting back their investment plans and in many cases planning to relocate to mainland Europe. The prospect of the diminution of the economic base of the country has dire implications not only for employment and living standards, but also for the tax base on which living standards depend.

We have spent 45 years becoming an integral region of Europe, creating an economic omelette that no one in their right mind would try to unscramble. Unfortunately there are a lot of not-so-right minds about, some of them in the cabinet, and we have the misfortune to have a prime minister who transmits but does not listen, and is fixated on a treacherous mission.

Read more: For the poor, it’s not Europe that’s the problem. It’s austerity | Business | The Guardian

USA -Trucking Industry: Here's what could happen in 3 days if truckers stopped working

Trucking moves 71% of the freight in the United States. And if it were to suddenly cease, the effects would be more drastic than you might expect.

A study by the American Trucking Associations outlined what would happen if truckers were to stop working. The effects would hit hospitals, gas stations, ATMs, grocery stores, and even your garbage can.

And, of course, your Amazon Prime packages would be delayed.
Within the first day

Basic medical supplies, like syringes and catheters, would be at risk of running out. Medication for cancer patients that use radiopharmacuticals, which only have a life span of a few hours, would expire.

Read more: Here's what could happen in 3 days if truckers stopped working

Global Economy: The Big, Dangerous Bubble in Corporate Debt - by William D. Cohan

The $30 trillion domestic stock market seems to get all the attention. When the stock market sets new highs, we instinctively feel things are good and getting better. When it tanks, as happened in the initial months of the 2008 financial crisis, we think things are going to hell.

But the larger domestic debt market — at around $41 trillion for the bond market alone — reveals more about our nation’s financial health. And right now, the debt market is broadcasting a dangerous message: 

Investors, desperate for debt instruments that pay high interest, have been overpaying for riskier and riskier obligations. University endowments, pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds have been pouring money into the bond market with little concern that bonds can be every bit as dangerous to own as stocks.

Unlike buying a stock, which is a calculated gamble, buying a bond or a loan is a contractual obligation: A borrower must repay a lender the borrowed amount, plus interest as compensation.

The upside in a bond is limited to the contractual interest payments, but the downside is theoretically protected. Bondholders expect to get their money back, as long as the borrower doesn’t default or go bankrupt.

For the complete report go to the NY times 

Turkey: Will Turkey′s economic woes reach Europe? - probably not say the experts

With diplomatic tensions high, the Turkish lira has hit yet another all-time low against the US dollar, which not only impacts the Mediterranean country. But will its spillover into the eurozone bring a bang?

Turkey's embattled lira on Friday hit new record lows against the US dollar, losing some five percent in value as fears grew over the exposure of European banks and tensions with the United States showed no sign of easing as Washington piled more pressure on Ankara through sanctions after a meeting between a Turkish delegation and US officials in Washington yielded no apparent solution to a diplomatic rift over the detention in Turkey of an evangelical American pastor.

The lira went into free-fall, sinking more than 12 percent at one point to reach and all-time low, having now lost more than one third of its value this year against the US dollar and the euro.

More broadly, concerns over the sickly Turkish economy's wider impact were intensified Friday by a report in the Financial Times that the supervisory wing of the European Central Bank had began to look more closely at eurozone lenders' exposure to the country.

Deepening investor concerns about Turkey's authoritarian trajectory under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the economic fallout have also weighed on the currency. Markets are deeply concerned over the direction of economic policy in Turkey where inflation has hit nearly 16 percent while the central bank remains reluctant to raise rates in response.

Speaking to supporters in the Black Sea province of Rize late on Thursday, Erdogan dismissed concerns over the currency as a campaign against his country. "There are various campaigns being carried out. Don't heed them," Erdogan said.

"Don't forget, if they have their dollars, we have our people, our God. We are working hard. Look at what we were 16 years ago and look at us now," he said. On Friday, Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak — at the same time Erdogan's son-in-law — is set to unveil the government's latest plan for country's economy.

Turkish economist Korkut Boratav sees the need for urgent action: "The economy is fragile. Due to the foreign debts of companies and banks and the current account deficit, there is a great need for foreign capital."

A new analysis by Berenberg Bank sees little long-term impact of high Turkish inflation and low interest rates on eurozone gross domestic product (GDP) growth. "Even if eurozone goods exports to Turkey were to fall by, say, 20 percent, this would subtract no more than 0.1 percentage point from growth in the big eurozone," according to the report.

Even Turkey's annual GDP which is around €750 billion ($860 billion) is only equivalent to 6.5 percent of the eurozone's GDP. Though this is four times larger than Greece, it is still "less than half the size of the Italian economy, despite Turkey's larger population of around 80 million versus around 60 million for Italy," according to the analysis. 

And even if eurozone exports to Turkey fell through the floor, previous experience has shown that European companies are "pretty quick in identifying and switching to new markets. Selling more elsewhere would offset some of the hypothetical decline in eurozone exports to Turkey." Once any crisis was over, the bank expects exports to recover quickly.

Obviously a real Turkish crisis would have knock-on effects, though Berenberg sees Europe's exposure to Turkish banks as being too small to cause much harm. Even in the worst case scenario, "bank supervisors in the eurozone would have sufficient tools at their disposal to contain the damage," making a credit crunch in any part of the eurozone highly unlikely, concludes the upbeat analysis.

Korkut Boratav is more concerned and thinks an intervention by the IMF is the only way to save the European banks. "The Europeans should have known that they should not lend to distressed banks," criticizes Boratav. "This is one of the most important principles of the free market economy — if you lend money, you take a risk and must accept the losses."

Read more: Will Turkey′s economic woes reach Europe? | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 10.08.2018

Armageddon: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades' - by Paul Ehrlich

A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.

In May, it will be 50 years since the eminent biologist published his most famous and controversial book, The Population Bomb. But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever.

The world’s optimum population is less than two billion people – 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues, and there is an increasing toxification of the entire planet by synthetic chemicals that may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change.

Ehrlich also says an unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption of resources, but “the rich who now run the global system – that hold the annual ‘world destroyer’ meetings in Davos – are unlikely to let it happen”.

The Population Bomb, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970s – a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture.

Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall.

“Population growth, along with over-consumption per capita, is driving civilisation over the edge: billions of people are now hungry or micronutrient malnourished, and climate disruption is killing people.”

Read more: Paul Ehrlich: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades' | Cities | The Guardian

South America: Corporations, Environment and Pollution: Coca-Cola And Nestlé To Privatize The Largest Reserve Of Water In South America

Private companies such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé are allegedly in the process of privatizing the largest reserve of water, known as the Guarani Aquifer, in South America. The aquifer is located beneath the surface of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay and is the second largest-known aquifer system in the world. 

Reported by Correiodo Brasil the major transnational conglomerates are “striding forward” with their negotiations to privatize the aquifer system. Meetings have already been reserved with authorities of the current government, such as Michel Temer, to outline procedures required for private companies to exploit the water sources. The concession contracts will last more than 100 years. 

The first public conversation about this dilemma was scheduled on the same day the process of voting for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff was opened. As Central Politico reports, “This coincidence was fatal for the adjournment of the meeting.”

“There must be another list of projects to be granted or privatized in the medium term, with auctions that may occur in up to one year, such as Eletrobras energy distributors and freshwater sources,” adds the news site, translated via Google from Portuguese. 

This issue extends beyond South America, as all humans will be affected by the decision to privatize the second-largest aquifer system in the world. Essentially, the corporations are profiting off a natural resource that should be freely available to all. 

Under the Guarani Aquifer Project’s Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development Project, known as ANA’s Guarani Aquifer Project (SAG), the aquifer would be managed and preserved for present and future generations. Following the conservatives’ victory in Argentina and the coup d’état, pressed for by the ultra right in Paraguay and Brazil, only Uruguay was left to vote on the privatization of the aquifer. 

Approximately two-thirds (1.2 million km²) of the reserve is located in Brazilian territory, specifically in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Future generations will ultimately suffer if this deal goes through, which is why human rights organizations around the world are getting involved.

 Read more: Coca-Cola And Nestlé To Privatize The Largest Reserve Of Water In South America

Italian elections: Eurosceptic Italy in race to form majority government - by Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Daniel Boffey

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The two populist parties that won major upsets in the Italian election – the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the League (La Liga) – are in a race to be the first to try to form a majority government after the election produced a hung parliament.

The decision will ultimately fall to Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, who could take weeks to determine whether the anti-establishment M5S, which took 32.6% of the vote, or a fragile centre-right alliance led by the League’s bombastic Matteo Salvini, with 35.7% of the vote, are better equipped to create a majority government.

As Italy and Europe digested the news on Monday that a majority of Italian voters had supported Eurosceptic candidates in the national election, both sides began jockeying for position, saying each had earned the right to lead. The Italian constitution gives Mattarella the power to give the mandate to any party, regardless of who has won the most votes.

While the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had been seen as leading the centre-right coalition, results showed he was beaten by his younger rival on the right, following a campaign in which Salvini emphasised support for radical immigration policies, including mass deportations of immigrants who are in Italy illegally.

Read more: Eurosceptic Italy in race to form majority government | World news | The Guardian

USA: One year anniversary of Trump Presidency - a disaster for the US and the world

The US is "celebrating" Trump's one year in office today, as the President of the US, with a shutdown of the Government and demonstrations going on Nation-Wide

Trump's popularity at home and abroad are the lowest of any US President. In addition official records also show he did not tell the truth during interviews and speeches 2015 times during the first year of his presidency.

On the international scene the results are just as grim. The US relationship with Mexico and many other :Latin and Caribbean states are on a downward slope. His vulgar off the cuff  statements about Haiti and African states made him and the US enemies in both areas.

The Iran Nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement are now both on shaky grounds,

Turkey's President Erdogan, whose nation is a member of the NATO, recently said he does not believe previous statements about keeping the Kurds at bay, made byTrump to him anymore, and today attacked the US Kurdish allies in Syria,

As Mr trump starts his second year in office, hopefully there still is a silver lining of hope above the dark clouds which seem to have covered the US. A nation which always was the shining light of democracy around the world.

EU-Digest

USA - Shithole: Trump’s 'Shithole Countries' Comments: What He Meant - by Ryan Teague Beckwith and Maya Rhodan

President Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” comments ricocheted around the world, spurring criticism from U.S. allies, rebuttals from Americans with roots in those countries and condemnation from some in his own party.

Lost in the furor over his “shithole” comment is the argument that Trump was making at the time.

The White House held the meeting to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal that would help undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who got relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, foreign nationals who fled manmade and natural disasters and received temporary protected status (TPS) in the U.S. and immigrants seeking to come to the U.S. through a diversity lottery.

That’s a lot to unpack, so we’ll walk through these one at a time. But here’s the short version: If you are upset about Trump calling African nations “shithole countries” and disparaging Haitians, you probably won’t like what he was proposing either.

Note EU-Digest: The new Yorker wrote: "President Trump’s credibility as a world leader has been, to borrow his vulgarity, shot to shit. With one word—just the latest in a string of slurs about other nations and peoples—he has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage. “There is no other word one can use but ‘racist,’ ” the spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes,’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.”

We can not agree more: Donald Trump is a disgrace for America. 

Read more: Trump’s 'Shithole Countries' Comments: What He Meant | Time

US Economy: Tax bill approved by Republican Senate majority: US Students, Middle Class Citizens getting the shaft in this new Tax Plan, which adds trillions to the National Debt

The U.S. Senate narrowly approved a tax overhaul, moving Republicans and President Donald Trump a big step closer to their goal of slashing taxes for businesses and the rich while offering everyday Americans a mixed bag of changes and addiding trillions to the National Debt.

Trump who is getting closer and closer to being linked to the Russian  probe now that his former security advisor Flint is starting to spill the beans  tweeted early in the morning: “We are one step closer to delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America,”

The Senate approved their bill in a 51-49 vote with Democrats complaining that last-minute amendments to win over skeptical Republicans were poorly drafted and vulnerable to being gamed later by lawyers and accountants in the tax avoidance industry. 

“The Republicans have managed to take a bad bill and make it worse,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. “Under the cover of darkness and with the aid of haste, a flurry of last-minute changes will stuff even more money into the pockets of the wealthy and the biggest corporations.” 

The framework for both the Senate and House bills was developed in secret over a few months by a half-dozen Republican congressional leaders and Trump advisers, with little input from the party’s rank-and-file and none from Democrats. 

EU-Digest

USA: Flood Insurance: Most Florida flood zone property not insured

As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, an Associated Press analysis shows a steep drop in flood insurance across the state, including the areas most endangered by what could be a devastating storm surge.

In just five years, the state's total number of federal flood insurance policies has fallen by 15 percent, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data.

Florida's property owners still buy far more federal flood insurance than any other state - 1.7 million policies, covering about $42 billion in assets - but most residents in hazard zones are badly exposed.

With 1,350 miles of coastline, the most in the continental United States, Florida has roughly 2.5 million homes in hazard zones, more than three times that of any other state, FEMA estimates. And yet, across Florida's 38 coastal counties, just 42 percent of these homes are covered.

In the counties being under at least partial evacuation orders Wednesday (Collier, Broward, Monroe and Miami-Dade), where 1.3 million houses are estimated to be in flood hazard zones, the percentage is an even lower 34.3 percent.

Florida's overall flood insurance rate for hazard-zone homes is just 41 percent. Fannie Mae ostensibly requires mortgage lenders to make sure property owners buy this insurance to qualify for federally backed loans, and yet in 59 percent of the cases, that insurance isn't being paid for.

Nationwide, only half the 10 million properties that need flood insurance have it, said Roy Wright, who runs the National Flood Insurance Program. He told the AP last week that he wants to double the number of policies sold nationally in the near future.

Read more: Most Florida flood zone property not insured

USA - Health Care Disaster: Trump owns plenty of blame for health care defeat - by John Harwood

President Donald Trump's remarks conceding defeat on repealing and replacing Obamacare demonstrated why his first big effort failed in the first place.

To begin with, the president remains only loosely attached to his own team. He referred to his Republican allies in Congress as "they," while casting himself passively as "sitting in the Oval Office ... pen in hand, waiting to sign something."

"For seven years, I've been hearing 'repeal and replace' from Congress, and I've been hearing it loud and strong," Trump told reporters at a photo op. "And then when we finally get a chance to repeal and replace, they don't take advantage of it. So, that's disappointing."

Second, Trump continued to display no understanding of health-care issues themselves. He again touted an alternative to Obamacare "with much lower premiums, much lower costs, much better protections."

If such a plan existed, congressional Republicans would have figured it out over the last seven years and passed it this year. Trump's summary assessment — "something will happen, and it will be very good" — showed that he doesn't have one either.

Third, his thinly staffed administration lacks an effective team to develop, push through Congress and implement a new system. As Trump dined at the White House to plot strategy with Senate leaders, he and his aides had no idea that GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas at that moment were sinking their plans.

Read more: Trump owns plenty of blame for health care defeat

Paris Agreement on Global Warming: Donald Trump Dumps agreement as US Conservatives and Evangelicals applaud move

Noah Could Be Back In Business

Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of the US from the global Paris agreement on climate change - in a huge blow to efforts to curb the effects of global warming. The president said he wants to "renegotiate" a "more fair" deal for the US with Democrats and other countries.

He added: "if we can get a deal, that's great. If not, that's fine."

Mr Trump, who had made pulling out of the pact - which has been signed by almost 200 nations - a central plank of his run for the presidency, said that in withdrawing he was "keeping his campaign promise to put American workers first".

He said he wants to talk to citizens of "Pittsburgh, not Paris" to cheers in the crowd of the Rose Garden at the White House.

The President had been put under extreme pressure by allies around the world to stay in the agreement, and though administration said his views on the subject were "evolving" - having previously claimed climate change was a "hoax" - Mr Trump refused to be backed into a corner.

He has said that the deal would hit the US coal industry hard and that it would prove "too costly" for US to stick to the Paris accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But Mr Trump ignores the fact that new money in renewable energy outpaced new investments in fossil fuels for the first time in 2015 to the tune of $350bn.

Pulling out of the agreement outright would take four years under the standard cooling-off period for new international treaties - the route Mr Trump is likely to take, but he said that the US is out "as of today."

Note EU-Digest: Of the world's countries, the climate change denial industry is most powerful in the United States. 

The Koch brothers, industry advocates and libertarian think tanks, often in the United States. More than 90% of papers sceptical on climate change originate from right-wing think tanks.The total annual income of these climate change counter-movement-organizations is roughly $900 million.

Between 2002 and 2010, nearly $120 million (euro 136 million) was anonymously donated via the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund to more than 100 organizations seeking to undermine the public perception of the science on climate change.. In 2013 the Center for Media and Democracy reported that the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella group of 64 U.S. think tanks, had been lobbying on behalf of major corporations and conservative donors to oppose climate change regulation.

Since the late 1970s, oil companies have published research broadly in line with the standard views on global warming. Despite this, oil companies organized a climate change denial campaign to disseminate public disinformation for several decades, a strategy that has been compared to the organized denial of the hazards of tobacco smoking by tobacco companies.

Also for millions of Americans evangelical Christians belief in the science of global warming is well below the national average.

Recent data from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication suggests that while 64 percent of Americans think global warming is real and caused by human beings, only 44 percent of evangelicals do. 

Evangelicals in general, tend to be more politically conservative, and can be quite distrusting of scientists (believing, incorrectly, that they’re all a bunch of atheists). Plus, since some evangelicals really do go in for that whole “the world is ending” thing—not an outlook likely to inspire much care for the environment. 

EU-Digest 

US Trump Adm. Environmental Policies: Thousands join worldwide climate marches on Trump's 100th day in office

Thousands of people across Canada, the United States and other countries marked U.S. President Donald Trump's 100th day in office by marching in protest of his environmental policies.

Participants in the Peoples Climate March say they're objecting to Trump's rollback of restrictions on mining, oil drilling and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, among other things.

In Washington, D.C., large crowds on Saturday were making their way down Pennsylvania Avenue, where they planned to encircle the White House. Organizers say about 300 protest marches are taking place around the country, and dozens more in Canada and overseas.

• Trump signs order to expand drilling in Arctic, Atlantic oceans
• Trump wins victory in effort to roll back Obama climate change efforts  

Note Almere Digest: the EU hopefully is prepared to act forcefully in what is becoming an ever greater increasing problem in dealing with the US Trump Administrations irresponsible executive orders and decisions, among others, those of combating Global Warming. 

Read more: Thousands join worldwide climate marches on Trump's 100th day in office - World - CBC News