Headlines: difficult Senate confirmations for Biden candidates
US President Joe Biden delivers a speech as he participates in a virtual Munich Security Conference event from the White House on February 19, 2021. REUTERS - KEVIN LAMARQUE
Text by: Marie Normand Follow
4 min
Publicity
Read more
In the United States, the candidates appointed to the federal government by President Joe Biden are currently in the process of confirmation by the Senate.
According to the
Washington Post
, which relies on analysis by civil rights organizations, "
black, Latino, Asian and Native American candidates
" see more obstacles in their path.
The newspaper takes the example of Neera Tanden, the first American of Indian origin appointed to a post in the federal government.
Old comments she had posted on social networks and which targeted senators in particular were exhumed.
Result: She is threatened with not being confirmed for this post - which is usually not talked about much, notes the
Washington Post
-, that of director of the Management and Budget Office.
Same difficulty for Deb Haaland, the first Native American appointed to head the Department of the Interior.
For civil rights activists, this is a trend: all of these minority candidates see "
their qualifications scrutinized more closely and their reputation attacked with more force than their white counterparts
."
Charges that some elected Republicans qualify as ridiculous in the columns of the same newspaper.
New York governor accused of sexual harassment
Head to New York now, where Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing charges of sexual harassment.
This is one of his former advisers, Lindsey Boylan, who accused him in a long essay on the media
Medium
and whose
New York Times
published excerpts.
She describes several years of "
uncomfortable interactions
" with the governor, including a forced kiss and "
an invitation to play strip poker on a plane
."
The Cuomo administration, already embroiled in controversy over its management of retirement homes, has denied the charges.
Baltimore: a city producing vaccines ... but not for its inhabitants
This Tuesday, in the
Washington Post
, Baltimore made the front page.
This city in Maryland, on the east coast, has been hit hard by the health crisis.
This is where the largest manufacturing plant for the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines, which must supply the entire country, is located.
There is "
enough to vaccinate every inhabitant of Baltimore hundreds of times,
" the newspaper said, but most vaccines - which have yet to be approved by US health officials - leave town never to return.
"
Most of these doses will not go to the people of the city, or even to the state of Maryland,
" where 2 million eligible people are still waiting to be vaccinated.
This is a sign, according to the
Washington Post
, "
of the complexity of a global supply chain struggling under the weight of demand
."
"
Earlier this month
," the newspaper continued, "
the mayor of Baltimore wrote a letter asking Johnson & Johnson to sell 300,000
doses of vaccine directly to the city, to bypass the federal system
" and "
speed up vaccine delivery
" to African Americans and Latin Americans in particular.
No response from the pharmaceutical group for the moment.
Scandal in El Salvador three days before the elections
We are finishing this press review in El Salvador.
A few days before the municipal and legislative elections, the Court of Auditors reveals a possible scandal in the allocation of aid to farmers, notes
La Prensa Grafica
.
The “
agricultural package
” program is intended to help them seed their fields.
But the Court of Auditors notes irregularities in the management of the program by the Ministry of Agriculture between June 2019 and June 2020. “
In some municipalities, like Suchitoto, [north-east of the capital San Salvador], these agricultural packages were delivered to warehouses which were neither authorized nor included in the program
”,“
notably the property of one of the candidates for the primaries of the Nuevas Ideas party for mayor of the city
”.
Nuevas Ideas is none other than the party of President Nayib Bukele.
Also pointed out by the Court of Auditors: the use of "
funds allocated to the purchase of these agricultural parcels to buy strategic reserves of basic grains
during the pandemic, without asking the authorization of the Assembly to modify the budget, which is prohibited by law and could even lend itself to embezzlement
, ”according to
La Prensa Grafica
.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Newspaper
Joe biden
United States
Salvador
Coronavirus
Vaccines
On the same subject
Portrait
Linda Thomas-Greenfield: a seasoned diplomat at the United Nations
Covid-19: Johnson & Johnson's vaccine effective against severe forms, according to FDA