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In Russia, a colossal new Orthodox Church cathedral has gone up on the outskirts of Moscow. It is called the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed forces – a place of worship not only dedicated to the Christian faith, but a museum and also, for many, a symbol of the former Red Army’s conversion to conservatism. Jonathan Spier narrates this report by Ricardo Marquina in Moscow.
Camera: Ricardo Marquina et al
Video editor: Jason Godman
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European markets are all down in midday trading Thursday as bad economic news from Japan, and China’s worsening trade and diplomatic relations with Australia and the United States, are having a ripple effect with investors across the globe.   The FTSE index in London is 0.9% lower, the CAC-50 in Paris has lost 1% and the DAX index in Frankfurt has plunged 1.3% lower.   A masked woman walks past an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, May 21, 2020.Thursday’s trading doldrums began in Asia, with Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei index losing 0.2% at its closing bell after the government announced that Japan’s exports fell 21.9% last month, the biggest drop since the 2008 global financial crisis.  Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.4%, while Shanghai closed 0.5% lower and the S&P/ASX 500 in Sydney was down 0.4%.   Seoul and Taipei provided the regions few bright spots, earning 0.4% and 0.9% respectively.   Monday’s major rally on global markets after news of a potential coronavirus vaccine have faded after Beijing imposed massive tariffs on Australian barley imports, plus the Trump administration’s increasingly heated rhetoric against China over its initial response to the coronavirus pandemic, which was first detected late last year in Wuhan.    The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are all 0.5 lower in futures trading, indicating a lower opening on Wall Street Thursday as investors brace for another grim unemployment report from the Labor Department.   Oil markets are in positive territory Thursday, with U.S. crude trading at $34.13 per barrel, up 1.9%, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, is trading at $36.37 per barrel, up 1.7%.        
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Russia continues to pose “serious” and “growing” threats to U.S. interests in space, according to the top military officer for space defense. “They’re real, they’re serious and they’re concerning,” Gen. John Raymond, chief of the newly established U.S. Space Force and head of U.S. Space Command, told reporters Wednesday. “Our advantage has been diminished, and that’s why the establishment of the Space Force in the Aerospace Command is so important — to allow us to move fast with agility of effort, reducing costs to stay ahead of that growing threat,” he added. The realm of space is essential to everyday activities from navigation to banking. Space assets are also critical to military missions from launching missiles to collecting intelligence. Raymond did not elaborate when pressed for specific areas where the U.S. advantage is eroding but touted “significant strides” over recent months to remain the world leader in space.  Raymond credited having the “best partnerships” as a major reason the United States leads in space, confirming that Peru this month became the latest nation to join a U.S.-led network that shares information on space objects.  The data-sharing space situational awareness agreement will give Peru access to satellite tracking data, connecting Peru’s space agency with the military team that tracks space objects for the United States. Raymond warned, however, that as the United States has watched both Russia and China advance in space capabilities, “any progress they make could erode our advantage.” Russia and China have recently placed a greater emphasis on their space capabilities, including developing technology and weapons that could disrupt or destroy satellites.  “Our adversaries in the last several years have weaponized space. They’ve made it a war fighting domain,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Friday.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, speaks during a news conference on Feb. 29, 2020.In recent weeks, Russia fired an anti-satellite missile, technology that could threaten U.S. orbital assets. It also conducted test maneuvers of two satellites that followed a U.S. spy satellite, a move that the U.S. Space Force said last month “exhibited characteristics of a space weapon.”  Raymond slammed Russia’s “hypocritical” behavior toward space, saying that Moscow is advocating for outer space arms control at the same time it is developing space weapons.  Iran and North Korea have less developed capabilities than Russia and China, but they still pose a threat, according to defense officials. Last month, Iran conducted its first successful launch of a military satellite into space. Raymond reiterated to reporters Wednesday that the satellite was “nothing more than a tumbling webcam” that was unlikely to provide intelligence. 
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For most of the coronavirus pandemic, the daily Downing Street briefing by ministers of the ruling Conservative party has been accompanied by a chart showing Britain’s death toll trailing comfortably behind tallies in other Western countries, notably Italy and Spain. But earlier this month, when Britain’s toll surged past continental neighbors, the chart unceremoniously disappeared.Britain has not had a good coronavirus war, say critics of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, including some Conservatives, who fault him for not locking down the country earlier than he did.”I’ve always been skeptical about British exceptionalism,” former Conservative lawmaker Matthew Parris commented in Britain’s The Times newspaper. “No longer. Our handling of this crisis has been exceptionally poor.”On Monday, an all-party parliamentary panel criticized Johnson’s Conservative government for missteps and U-turns, and for failing to be transparent with the public about the scientific reasoning behind its shifting strategy.Government ministers say they have just been following scientific advice, but until recently, the membership of the main expert body advising ministers was kept secret and the minutes of its deliberations also have been held from publication.The parliamentary panel rebuked the government for what it termed a “lack of boldness” with the country’s virus testing regime and for a failure to boost testing capacity fast enough. “Capacity drove strategy, rather than strategy driving capacity,” the committee said.Medical Director of NHS England, Professor Stephen Powis, speaks as Britain’s Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden chairs the daily coronavirus disease news conference at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, May 20, 2020.Committee members also fumed about the explosion of infections and deaths in Britain’s nursing homes, which have accounted for about 42 percent of the 40,000 coronavirus-related deaths so far in the country, which is the second highest reported death tally in the world.Public health officials failed to warn nursing home operators about the rate of infection in the sector during March and April, even though they knew it was rapidly increasing, critics say. And they forced care homes to admit elderly patients from hospitals without testing them first to see if they were infected.Polls suggest even Britons think many foreign governments, including those in the European Union, have handled the crisis better. The pandemic risks upending Johnson’s bid to restore the image of Britain being an orderly, well-governed place after the country’s governance took a battering during its long, drawn out and shambolic Brexit process — a fear held even by some Conservative party loyalists.Recession fearsGovernment steps to ease the lockdown also are not going well. Public unease is mounting about whether the government is prioritizing the economy above public health. Figures released this week showed that claims for unemployment benefits rose 69 percent between March and April, the fastest month-to-month rise since records began in 1971.Britain’s top finance minister, Rishi Sunak, warned Tuesday that the country was facing a severe recession on a scale “we haven’t seen” before and that the economy could be permanently scarred by the lockdown.He added the country was unlikely to “bounce back” quickly and spelled out the bleak impact on the economy, health and society for prolonging the lockdown. Sunak highlighted research suggesting that for every two percent increase in unemployment, more than a million people develop chronic health conditions.Reopening schoolsEven so, the government is facing stiff resistance to its efforts to ease the lockdown. A crucial part of unlocking is reopening schools, but teacher unions have criticized the plans to allow some age groups to resume classes on June 1, dubbing them unsafe. And the government is facing an unprecedented revolt by local governments, including large cities in the north of the country, whose leaders say they will defy government plans to reopen elementary schools.French coordinator Julie Bonaz covers a bookshelf with plastic to help provide a teaching environment safe from coronavirus for pupils and teachers at La Petite Ecole Bilingue at Kentish Town, north London, May 20, 2020.”We recognize the importance of schools reopening. We also recognize the role of getting children back to school in helping to kick-start the economy. But this needs to be done with the safety of school communities at front and center,” said Tamoor Tariq, a local politician in Bury, a town in northwest England. Liverpool, the ninth largest city in England, has also said it won’t reopen schools and Manchester, too, the third largest English city, is also opposed.The leader of the municipal authority in Gateshead in the north east of England, Martin Gannon, which has one of the highest infection rates in the country, says Britain “locked down too late and this un-locking strategy is premature. The testing capacity isn’t robust enough, neither is the tracking and tracing system, the R-rate [the virus’s reproduction rate] isn’t low enough. They’re doing this too soon; it means a second wave will happen.” Municipal defiance has now thrown the government’s school-reopening plan into disarray with one senior government minister, Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, Wednesday conceding that Downing Street accepts there are still issues needing to be addressed. School resumptions might not be able to happen in a “uniform way,” he suggested.That partial reversal of thought came after one of the government’s most senior scientific advisers said schools should only reopen once an effective system to test for the virus, track transmissions and isolate the infected has been established.Britain isn’t alone among Western countries struggling to balance public health needs with economic imperatives. Defenders of the government’s efforts say all nations have experienced setbacks and missteps, and have had to shift strategies and tack as new evidence and data has emerged.’The science’World shortages of protective equipment, as well as technical and administrative problems with testing, have affected Britain’s near neighbors, too. All countries are trying to feel their way forward as they deal with a novel virus, government supporters say.”You can only make judgments and decisions based on the information and advice that you have at the time,” work and pensions minister Therese Coffey said Tuesday.”If the science was wrong, advice at the time was wrong, I’m not surprised if people will then think we then made a wrong decision,” she added. “Ministers say they have been guided throughout by ‘the science.'”People sit in the sunshine in London Fields, north east London, May 20, 2020.Her remarks have led to accusations that ministers are trying to divert blame for any mistakes on to the government’s science advisers. They, in turn, have pushed back. Adrian Smith, the president of the Royal Society, Britain’s most prestigious scientific body, chided ministers earlier this week for saying they are just doing what scientists tell them.He said ministers felt the need to appear decisive but that with a new virus, there is much that is uncertain and that politicians needed to be frank and open about that.”We’re fairly sure about how the planets work, but once you get into new viruses you get extraordinary amounts of uncertainty,” he said in a newspaper interview.Political pressure is now mounting on the government to publish all scientific advice the government is receiving to head off a deepening “blame game” among ministers, officials and scientists. So far, the government has published only 28 of the 120 papers produced by its top expert group.Poll ratingsJohnson, who was hospitalized for COVID-19, has opinion poll ratings that have personally remained high but have dropped in recent weeks. A poll Sunday showed that approval ratings for his government over the handling of the coronavirus crisis have plummeted with a net disapproval rate — the figure reached when the percentage who disapprove is subtracted from percentage who approve — now at minus three percent. In late March it was +42 percent.Much of the disapproval of the government’s performance and of its unlocking plans is coming from the north of the country — in parts of the country Johnson’s Conservatives captured from the main opposition Labor Party in last year’s general election. That is adding to unease in Conservative ranks.So, too, is the increasing divergence on coronavirus policy between the government in London and the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales, which have chosen increasingly their own paths and are turning their backs on a speedy unlocking. Senior Scottish lawmakers say the British government’s handling of the crisis is “building the case for Scottish independence.”That may be wishful thinking, according to commentators, but the divergence between different parts of Britain is adding to a picture of coronavirus confusion. 
 
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The sky-high ratings and talk of a start-up nation are long gone. So is the reformist agenda, pushed through over strikes and demonstrations.  Two years before the next presidential elections, France’s 42-year-old leader, Emmanuel Macron, is struggling to find a second wind, as the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath shreds the country’s economy and his progressive programs.  Macron’s approval ratings are underwhelming, his unifying rhetoric in dispute. For this week, at least, it seems the only good news has been regional.  FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a joint video news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in Berlin, Germany, May 18, 2020.On Monday, Macron teamed up with France’s traditional ally, proposing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel a massive bailout for struggling European Union countries. While reactions have been mixed, the announcement offered the president a chance to polish his image as a regional leader.  Whether he can bounce back at home, as he has before, is another question.  “Macron must realize his 2017 program is partly or completely dead,” wrote the country’s respected Le Monde newspaper, “upended by the coronavirus epidemic and its consequences.” “I think for Mr. Macron, the game is over,” said geopolitical analyst and former French diplomat Philippe Moreau Defarges. “Presidents generally can do many things in the first months or even first year of their term. After that, it’s over.” Macron faced a fresh setback Tuesday, when his centrist Republic on the Move, or LREM Party, lost its absolute majority in parliament, with the departure of half-a-dozen leftist and ecology-minded members.  To be sure, the fallout was widely expected. And in a landscape where the traditional right and left have been severely weakened, the LREM can still cobble alliances with other smaller parties. Yet, losing the majority was symbolic, analysts say, and underscored a steady trickle of defections in recent months.  “It’s going to impact the image Emmanuel Macron wants to project as a unifier” in the health crisis, Sciences Po Paris political analyst Bruno Cautres told Le Parisien newspaper.   FILE – A picture taken on April 3, 2020 shows a banner reading “Emergency services are suffering” above empty stretchers in the hall of the emergency services of the Aix Hospital Center in Aix-en-Provence, southern France.Reforms on hold Macron’s government has faced sharp criticism over its handling of the coronavirus crisis, which saw the country short of face masks, tests and even some basics such as thermometers and hand sanitizer.  The pandemic has also highlighted a hospital system weakened by funding and staff cuts over successive administrations, problems which sparked massive protests last year.  Visiting a Paris hospital last week and in a rare admission, Macron acknowledged a “mistake” in his hospital reform strategy and promised action. Still other reforms his government rammed through, including a hard-fought battle to overhaul the pension system, are on indefinite hold. Recent polls show see-sawing public opinion. An early May IFOP survey, reflecting several others, showed Macron’s approval rating falling six points to just 40%. By contrast, the ratings of conservative Prime Minister Edouard Philippe — who has been on the front lines of daily crisis management — were on the uptick and five points more than Macron’s.  Reports suggest relations between the two are tense and competitive, although officially they reportedly view each other with “mutual respect.” In this file photo taken on Sept. 8, 1968, French President Charles de Gaulle holds a press conference at the Elysee Palace, in Paris.”De Gaulle tells us that France is strong when it knows its destiny, when it stays united, when it searches the path of cohesion,” Macron said at the site of a key battle in northeast France. But critics say calls for unity are hollow when Macron’s own party is divided. Moreau Defarges doubts Macron shares de Gaulle’s farsightedness as he charts a post-COVID-19 recovery.  “He will be both populist and conservative,” predicts Moreau Defarges on how Macron will finish his term. He describes the government’s stimulus package to reboot the economy as “we give money, and after that, we will see.”  But for now, polls show that Macron faces no major mainstream rival. France’s traditional right and left imploded during the 2017 elections. He has also bounced back from previous crises, including monthslong yellow vest demonstrations over social and economic disparities. Last year, Macron announced a “Great Debate” giving French a say in finding solutions, which helped diffuse tensions.  He could still pull another surprise solution “out of his hat,” Le Monde wrote, among other options moving forward.  “I think he’s convinced that during these two small years, he can climb back,” Moreau Defarges said. “But it’s not sure.” 
 
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British War veteran Colonel Tom Moore, who became a national celebrity this week when he raised about $50 million  for the National Health Service, was awarded a knighthood Wednesday by Queen Elizabeth.  The 100-year-old Moore, who was a captain in the British Army in World War II, wanted to thank the health service for treatment he received for recent illnesses. So, he launched a fundraising campaign earlier this year, seeking pledges for each lap he took in his small yard, using a walker. His goal was 100 laps by his 100th birthday last month.Moore’s initial goal was to raise about $1,200 for NHS charities. But his efforts went viral through social media and he ended up raising tens of millions.On his birthday, he received well wishes from thousands of people across Britain. His accolades included an honorary promotion to the rank of colonel by the British Army.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among those wishing him well last month and suggested a knighthood for Moore’s efforts. It was officially approved by the queen Wednesday.Colonel Moore said he has been overwhelmed by the gratitude and love from the British public and beyond and was amazed to see how many people decided to raise money to help those fighting COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Moore said he never “in the world” anticipated he would be knighted. He said he is the same person inside but acknowledged “Sir Thomas” sounds nice. 
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