In Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city, a protester was killed last Tuesday as a result of soldiers firing tear gas and live bullets against demonstrators. Angry crowds set fire to two banks, and demonstrations spread out across the capital city of Beirut. Over the next few days, four more banks were vandalized and firebombed. Last Wednesday, seven protesters who had...
HONG KONG: BEIJING FEARS NEW PROTESTS
Over the past few weeks, officials representing the Chinese government in Beijing have put strong pressure on Hong Kong’s political leaders to enact security laws prohibiting the return of massive street protests, which rocked the city and surrounding area from March 2019 until the COVID-19 pandemic starting last January. The increasing concern from Beijing comes as anti-government activists in Hong...
LOVE & MARRIAGE PLUNGE
According to government data released last week, the number of Americans tying the knot is now at the lowest level ever recorded. While this trend was happening before the spread of COVID-19, with the U.S. marriage rate dropping six percent in 2018, fear of the virus and stay-at-home orders are plunging the number even lower. On 29 April, Sally Curtin,...
JAWS 2.0
“Stay out of the water. COVID will kill you!” have been the orders of political “authorities,” especially in America. The closing of beaches is yet another example of the American public bowing down to irrational government lockdown restrictions, which have nothing to do with science or bonafide medical data. With temperatures rising, both outdoors and among locked down citizens eager...
AMERICANS LOVE THE NEW ABNORMAL
In America, “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave,” the vast majority of citizens not only accept the shutdown of the economy and government orders to stay at home, according to several polls, they want the restrictions to continue. Eighty percent of respondents to a recent NPR poll said they are against the reopening of schools, restaurants, and all...
CORONAVIRUS: THE SWEDEN SUCCESS STORY CONTINUES
As reported last week in the Trends Journal, Sweden is successfully managing the COVID-19 pandemic without shutting down its economy and imposing severe government restrictions on travel and daily life. As data continues to come in, the results continue to impress. The death rate from coronavirus in Sweden of 22 per 100,000 is the same as Ireland, which was seen...
CNN, HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?
In the 21 April Trends Journal, we reported how Jeff Zucker, Chairman of CNN, seized on the coronavirus to pump up the cable networks failing ratings: Ratings Soar, Ads Vanish at CNN Pandemic coverage boosts viewership On a recent conference call, CNN chief Jeff Zucker urged editors and producers at the network not to shift focus from coronavirus new updates...
U.S. MARKETS
After losing 622 points on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average regained 26 of them Monday and bounced up another 133 points today on the hopes the lockdown economy will be opening up. The NASDAQ fared better, reversing its 284-point Friday loss by 105 points yesterday and was up 1.13 percent today. The S&P budged up 12 points to 2,842...
THE COVID DOPE OPERA
In the never-ending quest to sell coronavirus pandemonium panic, in the 29 April edition of the New York Times, under the headline “Coronavirus Update,” were these two sub-headlines: “Number of Infections Rises Past 1 Million” “Japan May Postpone Olympics Yet Again” The first article opens with: “It took 99 days to go from one case to one million. The United...
MORE BUSINESS BLUES
Detroit’s auto companies tentatively plan to resume limited vehicle production on 18 May, about two months after shutting down assembly lines during the virus pandemic. The date was agreed on through talks among Ford, Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, the United Auto Workers union, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. The union insisted on delaying reopening the plants in early May as...