Captured on CCTV camera.

The Man Who Deleted His Past Before He Was Found Dead
In 2009, a man calling himself Peter Bergmann was found washed up on an Irish beach. Ten years later, police, journalists, and internet sleuths are still trying to work out what happened.
FG
By Francisco Garcia
October 14, 2019, 10:27am

One June afternoon in 2009, a thin man dressed in black boarded a bus to Sligo, a small coastal town not far from the Irish border. Three days later, after a quiet weekend spent largely alone, the man was dead—his passing the first act of a mystery that has now baffled and compelled police forces, journalists, film-makers, and internet sleuths for over a decade.

The beginning of this story is the earliest known point of the man’s journey: Derry, in northern Ireland, where he boarded a mid-afternoon bus over the border to Sligo.

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Arriving at 6:28 p.m. as the evening sun warmed the water of Sligo Bay, the man took a taxi to the center of town. In the years since, some have offered this as proof of his unfamiliarity with Sligo: to walk from the station takes just over ten minutes at an ordinary pace. That said, he did also have two bags to carry, and his graying hair and slight frame suggested he could have used the help.

The first hotel the man tried was full—it was a Friday night at the peak of the summer tourist season—but he had more luck at the Sligo City Hotel on Quay Street, where he paid for three nights upfront. Writing in the register, he put down his address as Ainstettersn 15, 4472, Vienna, Austria, which matched his Germanic accent. With the same pen he gave his name as Peter Bergmann. At no point was he asked for identification.

The next day passed without much incident. Bergmann made his way to the General Post Office at 10:49 a.m., where he bought eight stamps and some airmail stickers. He ran some errands around town and arrived back at the hotel to eat and take an occasional cigarette outside, keeping himself politely but firmly to himself.

On Sunday, in the early afternoon, he left the hotel for the town’s only taxi rank and asked to be taken to a quiet beach, where he could swim. The driver took his softly-spoken fare to Rosses Point, the peninsula known for its dramatic views, about 15 minutes away by car. On arrival, Bergmann got out, surveyed the vast blue expanse and seemed satisfied with the choice. Instead of disembarking as expected, he took the taxi immediately back to Sligo, where he settled into the groove of another evening alone.

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Just after 1 p.m. on Monday, June 15, Peter Bergmann checked out of the hotel and deposited his key at reception. He left one of his original bags—a purple plastic “bag for life”—and what appeared to be a new black luggage case. He took a circuitous route to the bus station; at one point he stopped in the doorway of a shopping precinct and waited, poised like a man about to turn back. Instead, he made his way to the bus station and, on arriving, read notes on scraps of paper he’d picked out of his pocket, before tearing them up and depositing them in a nearby garbage bin. The bus departed at 2:20 p.m. to Rosses Point.

Later, it was established that up to 16 people had seen Bergmann on the beach that afternoon. He wasn’t trying to hide himself. They all remember a jovial, if formally-dressed, figure greeting the strangers who crossed his path.

The next morning, not long after 6 a.m., a local man and his son were jogging along the sand, amid the last remnants of a sea fog. They were the first to find the washed up body of a thin, middle-aged man with closely-cropped gray hair. Peter Bergmann was dead, but the mystery that has since surrounded his story was only just beginning.

peter bergmann cafe sligo
BERGMANN IN A SLIGO CAFE.

Ivisited Sligo for the first time on a Friday in May 2019. I’d flown to Dublin that morning and taken the three-hour cross-country train, passing field after field, town after town, before arriving at Sligo’s train station, directly above the bus station where Peter Bergmann arrived all those years ago. It was a fine day, so I let my feet direct me into town, past the full wall mural to WB Yeats, Sligo’s most famous advocate.

I made my way straight to the Sligo City Hotel. I wanted to start there, just as Bergmann had, but I couldn’t say exactly why. For the last year or so I have spent much of my working life covering cases of missing people in the UK and further afield. Their stories can sometimes tell us all sorts of things about the way we live now, about loneliness and pain. But they can often speak to nothing else than the missing person’s own private mysteries.

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Peter Bergmann’s body had been taken to post mortem. He had been found naked, his clothes scattered across the shore. The pockets were empty. No money, no wallet, no forms of ID. It was quickly established that he’d drowned, though there wasn’t any hint of foul play. His teeth were in good condition, excluding a few fillings. It was his body that drew attention. It was battered and wrecked. The tests revealed advanced prostate cancer and bone tumors. He had suffered previous heart attacks and was missing a kidney. The toxicology report returned no evidence of medication in his system, despite the intensity of the pain he must have been suffering.

There are all sorts of ways we deal with the dead. Some are simple enough: their bodies are collected, identified, and put to rest with the minimum amount of fuss. They are the known deceased, with loved ones and mourners. Some, though, are trickier, and require exploration to make sense of.

It quickly became apparent that there was something strange about Peter Bergmann. The total lack of ID or belongings, and the fact that the labels of his clothes had been crudely hacked away with scissors. Authorities checked his address and found a vacant lot in Austria, while extensive searches didn’t reveal any “Peter Bergmann” who could possibly match the man’s description. The letters he posted from Sligo have never been traced.

As more days passed, the mystery mutated into something the police hadn’t really encountered before. Missing people were one thing; this was becoming something else entirely, almost supernatural in its intrigue.

missing people
Inside Britain’s Escalating Missing Persons Problem
FRANCISCO GARCIA
03.07.19

Peter Bergmann’s last days were pieced together by trawling through Sligo’s CCTV network. The shuffling, scrupulously-careful figure had left the hotel each day armed with his purple plastic bag, full, and returned with it empty. The hours in between were a mystery. It appeared that he had deposited his belongings in various garbage bins around the town, taking great care to avoid being picked up by surveillance cameras. Watching the snippets of available footage is an odd sensation, like watching a ghost move through the world of the living. The man who spent his last days as Peter Bergmann has never been identified.

On a Saturday afternoon in September 2019 I met with Detective Inspector Ray Mulderrig at Sligo Garda station. He is the third DI who has had ultimate responsibility for the Bergmann case. In 2009 it was John O’Reilly, who has since been promoted and moved to a different district. Mulderrig talked with precision, and politely corrected me when I asked if he was fascinated with Peter Bergmann. “We don’t get fascinated in cases,” he said. “They arrive to us and we deal with them.”

Mulderrig believes Sligo was no random choice of destination. “There seems to have been a purpose to it,” he said. “Everything he did seemed to have had a purpose, from cutting the labels of his clothes and all the rest of it. The question you have to ask is: Why Sligo? If you want a scenic place to die, you’re spoilt for choice across the west coast of Ireland, or even Scotland for that matter. Something must have brought him here, even if we’ve never been able to say what that was.”

Despite the dead ends and false starts, Mulderrig explained how many hours have been dedicated to the hunt for answers. Almost everything in their power has been attempted. They have conducted searches and chased down leads, no matter how far-fetched. They have Bergmann’s DNA, clothes, and remains. It is now a waiting game may go on forever. “I liken it to a computer that has gone into ‘sleep mode,’” he said. “When something new comes up, or someone credible comes forward, then we will move the mouse and it will spring back into action.”

The years have spawned all sorts of wild, mostly online theories. At the time of writing, I counted nine separate Reddit threads dedicated to the mystery of Peter Bergmann. Some posit he was an intelligence operative, or a gangster on the run from a shadowy organized crime group. Others, that he was trying to claim a life insurance policy for his loved ones.

One even suggests that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, cooked up by Irish filmmaker Ciaran Cassidy—whose 2013 documentary The Last Days of Peter Bergmann was until recently some of the only media coverage of the case—as some kind of avant-garde comment on our macabre fascination with true crime. I asked Cassidy about this directly on Twitter and he responded a couple of minutes later. “It’s real,” he messaged back. “Welcome to the rabbit hole.”

peter bergmann cigarette
BERGMANN SMOKING A CIGARETTE.

In September 2019 I met Treasa Nealon, writer of A Dream of Dying—a play telling the Bergmann story in reverse, which kickstarted my fascination with the case over three years ago.

It was early evening when we met at Sligo’s Riverside Hotel, and—after much back and forth on Twitter—I could finally ask how she came across the case. Despite growing up in a small town only a few miles from Sligo, Treasa had never heard of Bergmann before she wrote the play; she’d stumbled across him after searching for “unidentified missing people, west coast Ireland,” and had been unable to stop reading. The story seemed to stir something in her, empathy and creativity in equal measure.

“It’s too intrusive to say that ‘I wrote from his perspective.’ You can’t put thoughts in this man’s head,” she said. “But creating the backstory for him painted a picture for me, at least. I hope he had a nice childhood and a good life, though we can’t ever be sure. Everything he left us with is just so sad. To know that you’ve seen the play and it’s sparked something in you makes me happy, because I want him to be identified. Of course people want to know the answer, but he didn’t want to be identified. Maybe he thought no one would care, I don’t know.”

We talked over what we knew of the case. There were the cut up clothes and the ghostly room at the Sligo City Hotel. There was the grainy hotel CCTV footage showing the condemned man making his way to and from his final errands, the substance of which we can still only guess at. There is the documentary and play, as well as all the theories and speculations of the online sleuths, transforming the patchwork of concrete details into an intricate tapestry of conspiracy. Finally, there are those who were left behind, whoever they may be.

When someone is reported missing, we are used to seeing their grieving family and loved ones representing their concerns. Homemade posters are printed, campaigns are organized and coordinated. There will be someone there to carry the heartbreak long after police resources and media interest have run dry.

With Peter Bergmann, there are no loved ones that we know of, and only professionally concerned advocates pressing for answers. Instead of deep memory and grief, we have snatched recollections gleaned from a cluster of chance encounters. The taxi driver who remembers his courteous, softly spoken passenger. The people at the beach, who couldn’t have known they were witnessing the strange figure’s final moments. There are those that believe the initial hunt was aborted too soon. That somewhere, someone must remember or hold the key to his real identity. But despite the ongoing interest—buoyed by a recent Irish Times podcast about the case—Ray Mulderrig told me that no one has ever come forward with anything truly convincing.

“We have a standardized format that we follow for any missing persons investigation,” he explained. “Sometimes people just go missing for a short period of time. There are people who take their own lives in circumstances that mean we never recover the body. We had a missing person from here in 2008 who we suspected might have been murdered. We identified them eight years later with assistance from the Welsh police, through fingerprint technology. Bergmann is unusual. We don’t have a missing persons report and never have. No one has ever come forward to say that this could be my father, brother, or cousin.”

Peter Bergmann, the man who transformed himself into a ghost, is a threat to our expectations of what a missing persons case is supposed to look like. There is an unofficial spectrum that runs from an everyday vanishing, through to the cases that become myth, or are supposed to represent something broader than the sum of their own facts. People go missing all the time, for all manner of reasons. Of course, they may have been taken and come to harm. They may be lost to us forever, having chosen to leave their life behind.

In Sligo, every unsolved case is a matter of the same priority, and there are always several investigations going on at any one point, as Mulderrig explained: “[With a] long-term case like Peter’s, it’s exactly the same [as any other]. There are four of five long-term cases at the moment, including one woman from 2011, which we are treating as a murder inquiry. We go, we search, we look. And in some cases we never find the person.”

peter bergmann sligo

Every hour of every day sees someone reported missing in Ireland, at a rate of around 9,000 reports a year. According to figures compiled in 2015, the average length of time for a person to be officially listed as missing by gardaí is over ten years, while the oldest open case dates back to 1967.

In 2015, it was reported that no one could really say how many unidentified bodies were buried in Ireland or being housed in its morgues. Most missing persons cases are resolved within hours, or days, just as they are in the UK and around the world. The teenage runaway comes home, the vulnerable adult is located, things return to what they were before. But that is no excuse to neglect those who remain lodged out of sight. For every Peter Bergmann who grabs attention and headlines, there is a case like that of the male skull that was recovered at sea in February of 2006. Estimates placed him as between 25 and 45 when he died, and likely of North African descent. The skull had been in the water for less than a year. Interpol was contacted and a DNA profile circulated, though nothing has ever come back and the case remains shrouded in silence.

Peter Bergmann’s story takes all of this and flips it into something that feels both new and strange. We know that he chose it all, from his pseudonym to the place and time of his death. Perhaps his story was an extreme manifestation of taking back control. He was at the end of illness and wanted to die, so he did it, with a rare kind of premeditated thoroughness. There was a death sentence deep in his bones and heart, but the remainder of his time was his and his alone.

Before my second visit to Sligo I’d spoken with Tosh Lavery, an ex-Garda who’d spent 30 years in the Sub-Aqua unit, investigating some of Ireland’s most infamous murders and missing persons cases. Since his retirement at the start of the decade, he has worked with the families of missing people across the country to highlight their plight and drum up interest when it wanes. Tosh is a vocal advocate for the missing and has his own thoughts on Peter Bergmann. Solving the case is a moral issue, just as all missing persons cases are to Tosh. He told me how he much he hates the word “closure,” which crops up so often in any conversation involving the missing, Bergmann included.

“I don’t know what it means when people say that,” he told me over the phone. “Even if we find the person and get to the bottom of their story, it doesn’t mean that it makes up for all the ambiguity that people have had to live through.”

The more I thought about the man who called himself Peter Bergmann, the more I started to doubt the motives for my own search. He had tried to cover his identity so thoroughly that it would never be discovered. The forensic attention to the circumstances of his own death spoke of a man who didn’t want to be remembered, for whatever reason.

Did I, or anyone else, have the right to reject that statement of intent, in the name of curiosity. And what was it that I even hoped to find? Like Tosh, I questioned what closure could mean for Peter Bergmann. Does our urge to know outbid his right to be forgotten? There are many different answers, each with their own partial and unsatisfactory truth. But Peter Bergmann does not stand alone; his story made me think of another 21st century case that had gripped the frenzied attention of online sleuths and baffled law enforcement.

In September of 2001, a 25-year-old man checked into a motel in a village in rural Washington, using the pseudonym Lyle Stevik. His body was discovered several days later, with an immediate verdict of suicide. He had left a note and some petty cash, but had spent great pains obscuring his identity. As the years passed and leads grew cold, a dedicated community mushroomed around his memory, trying to crack the puzzle to a sad, sorry story.

In 2018, there was a breakthrough. DNA analysis led law enforcement to the man’s family, who had lost touch many years before his death. They had thought him alive, and that he had simply cut ties with them and left for a life far away from his beginnings. The family appealed for privacy and the specifics have never been released, at their request.

In my last few hours in Sligo, I did what I told myself I had to do, as I arrived at Rosses Point. It was shaping into a volatile Saturday afternoon. The sky was heavy, but the rain was light enough. I stood for a few minutes and felt my thoughts drift, staring at the whiteness of the water as it bled out into the Atlantic Ocean. I suppose I was trying to wonder what it must have felt like for the man who had called himself Peter Bergmann as he stood here, full of resolution and God knows what else, all those years ago. It was hard to shake what felt like an intruder’s guilt, bearing vigil at the carefully curated site of the unidentified man’s last moments. At a loss, I picked up some sand and let it stupidly flow through my fingers as the sun started to break out from the thick clouds overhead.

Man Who Fell Into Yellowstone Hot Spring Completely Dissolved Within A DayBeneath Yellowstone National Park resides one of the largest magma chambers in the world. Thanks to this unfathomably hot fuel source, the water systems around the park can often be incredibly hot and stupendously acidic.

You should not take a dip in them. They will kill you, and science has confirmed that death is really quite bad for your health.Back in June, a 23-year-old man fell into one, and he died fairly quickly. Now, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by a local TV network, more grisly details of the cause and the aftermath have come to light.Apparently, he was looking for a place to “hot pot,” which describes the act of getting slightly singed in natural hot springs for no logical reason whatsoever. He leaned over to dip his forefinger in, in order to test the temperature of the waters, when he slipped and descended beneath the surface.The victim was found dead and drifting around the pool later that day, but officials could not quite reach him to drag him out.

A thunderstorm promptly arrived and forced them to retreat for the night. Returning the next day, they found that nothing of the man remained – except his wallet and his flip flops.In his incident report, Deputy Chief Ranger Lorant Veress pointed out that the waters were particularly hot and acidic that day. “In a very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving,” he noted, as reported by Time.

Although incidents like this are clearly quite tragic, they’re also a testament to the incredibly daft lengths people go to show off to someone, be “brave”, or – in this case – have a very unique bath.Yellowstone’s geothermal ponds, pools, and geysers average around 93°C (199°F) at the surface, and they are far hotter just a few meters down.

They are fenced off and surrounded by a bunch of quite prominent warning signs for a really, really good reason.These watery doom portals are actually only inhabitable to a specialized bunch of organisms known as archaea. Are you a microscopic, extremophilic lifeform? No, we didn’t think so. So stay the hell back, and don’t try any of this “hot potting” nonsense unless you want to dissolve like a sugar cube in coffee.

Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo has tested positive for COVID-19, Portugal’s Football Federation said in a statement on its website on Tuesday.

The 35-year-old Juventus striker will miss Wednesday’s UEFA Nations League game against Sweden.

In a statement, the Portuguese federation said “well, he has no symptoms and is in isolation.”

US threatens to sanction African countries that engage in electoral violence

The United States state department seal

The United States Government has warned that it will clamp down on African countries that engage in electoral violence.

A statement on the US official website signed by Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo urged all political party leaders across the continent to hold on to integrity and ensure that peace prevails before, during and after the conduct of their respective elections.

The statement mentioned the imposition of travel restrictions as key among the restrictions the US Federal Government will place on African countries that will engage in violence.

The statement further urged African countries to uphold democratic credentials and avoid acts that undermine freedoms.

“We will watch closely the actions of individuals who interfere in the democratic process and will not hesitate to consider consequences – including visa restrictions – for those responsible for election-related violence,” parts of the US government’s statement read.

Below is the full statement:
The United States is committed to supporting free, fair, inclusive elections. The conduct of elections is important not only for Africans but also for defenders of democracy around the world. We believe all sides should participate peacefully in the democratic process. Repression and intimidation have no place in democracies.

The right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression and association are at the heart of a functioning democracy. Adherence to these democratic norms and to the rule of law allows all citizens to engage in political dialogue and support their choice of candidates, parties, and platforms. We will watch closely the actions of individuals who interfere in the democratic process and will not hesitate to consider consequences – including visa restrictions – for those responsible for election-related violence. As long-time partners to the nations of Africa, we care about the region’s democratic trajectory and are committed to working constructively with international and regional partners.

Source: Ghanaaview.com

President Trump’s campaign is still pushing for an in-person debate to take place in Miami next week even though plans for the remaining showdowns with Joe Biden have unraveled over the last day.

Read:https://ghanaaview.com/trump-mounts-bizarre-and-misleading-white-house-return-despite-warnings/

Two more debates, scheduled for Oct. 15 and 22, have long been on the books. But those plans were thrown into doubt Thursday after the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), in the wake of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, released a statement saying “the second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations.”

Shortly after that announcement, Trump said he would not participate in a virtual format, calling it “ridiculous.” Biden on Thursday moved on, agreeing to attend a different event that night hosted by a television network.

By Thursday night, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who also recently tested positive for coronavirus, called for an in-person debate to still take place on Oct. 15. He cited a new memo from Trump’s doctor saying it is safe for him to return to public engagements this weekend.

 “President Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, says the president will be medically cleared for ‘safe return to public engagements’ by Saturday, five full days before the originally scheduled debate in Miami on October 15. There is therefore no medical reason why the Commission on Presidential Debates should shift the debate to a virtual setting, postpone it, or otherwise alter it in any way,” Stepien said.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also hit back at the commission, pointing to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidance that persons with mild to moderate COVID-19 remain infectious for no longer than 10 days.

“The Commission on Presidential Debates claims to follow science,” McEnany said. “Well, they don’t. They follow it when convenient for Biden.

The drama over the next debate continued into Friday after C-SPAN released a statement saying host Steve Scully believes his Twitter account was hacked in the aftermath of a tweet sent from his account to former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci that raised questions of impartiality.

Scully “did not originate the tweet,” C-SPAN claimed in a statement, adding that the Commission on Presidential Debates was investigating the incident “with the help of authorities,” who were unidentified. Scully himself did not immediately comment.

Scully had been selected to host the second presidential debate, although the status of all future 2020 debates has been unclear.

The now-deleted tweet, sent Thursday night, read: “@Scaramucci should I respond to trump.”

Frank Fahrenkopf, a co-chairman of the commission, first made the hacking claim to Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Friday morning.

“Steve is a man of great integrity, okay?” Fahrenkopf said. “I don’t know this question about whether he tweeted something out or not, I do know, and you’ll probably pick up on it in a minute, that he was hacked. … Apparently, there’s something now that’s been on television and the radio saying that he talked to Scaramucci. … He was hacked. It didn’t happen.”

source:fox news

Ghanaaview

Trump removes mask promptly after return to White House 01:51

(CNN)A strongly medicated President Donald Trump bolted from his VIP hospital bubble Monday, staging a bizarre White House comeback that included an irresponsible mask removal and a reckless pronouncement there is nothing to fear from Covid-19, which has already killed 210,000 Americans.His actions show him, if anything, entrenched deeper in denial over the virus than ever before and more committed to trashing scientific protocols that could slow the pandemic.”We’re going back. We’re going back to work. We’re gonna be out front. As your leader I had to do that. I knew there’s danger to it but I had to do it,” Trump says in a strange campaign video whipped up by aides within an hour of his return to the White House, in which the President framed himself as a warrior who took on the virus and won.”I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did. I know there’s a risk, there’s a danger,” Trump said, despite his doctors earlier saying he is still not fully “out of the woods” in his fight with the virus.A still infectious Trump ignored advisers who wanted him to stay admitted and instead rode Marine One from Walter Reed Military National Military Medical Center back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.Profound questions remain about the state of the President’s health after he tested positive for the disease last week and suffered two dips in oxygen levels. A torrent of misinformation surrounds his condition, including when he actually got sick. That health information is crucial to establishing whether the President went ahead with official duties while potentially infectious with Covid-19.Meanwhile, the virus continues to rip through the White House, which has become a hotspot amid flagrant violations of social distancing.White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said she was positive — “after testing negatively” — in a possible attempt to excuse her failure to wear a mask when briefing reporters Sunday. Two of her staffers have also tested positive for the coronavirus.

White House press secretary and two aides have tested positive for coronavirusTrump choreographed his departure from the hospital, which coincided with network evening news bulletins, emerging from the front door and clenching his fist. His flight home turned into a personal victory lap against a virus that is still in his system, showing how he intends to try to pivot the events of the last few days into a political winner.Back at the White House in imagery replete with authoritarian overtones, Trump climbed the staircase at the South Portico, which was decorated with American flags, removed his mask, adjusted his suit, lifted his chin and saluted the departing helicopter in a reckless photo op that was one of the most bizarre moments in modern presidential history.Then, still bare-faced, Trump, in scenes that would not have been out of place in totalitarian North Korea, walked into the presidential residence, contaminating the air inside. He then reemerged with a film crew to make the campaign video, in which he gave deeply misleading and potentially damaging advice to the American people about how to handle the worsening pandemic.”Now I’m better and maybe I’m immune? I don’t know. But don’t let it dominate your lives. Get out there, be careful,” the President said.His behavior alarmed public health experts.”It is inexplainable that the President of the United States, who is actively shedding virus in millions of particles, would walk into that building with an enormous number of staff, unmasked,” said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor at George Washington University School of Medicine.”It is really hard to understand how no one told him not to do that. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in charge of his care other than the President of the United States, other than the patient,” Reiner told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

‘Some really great drugs’

How Trump’s Covid-19 treatment is far different from what most American patients getTrump earlier announced his pending departure from the hospital in a tweet in which he said he felt better than he did 20 years ago and showed no sign that his brush with a serious disease had caused him to rethink his previous messaging about the virus.None of the seven million Americans who have tested positive for Covid benefited from the 24-hour treatment and several experimental therapies that were given to Trump in a dedicated suite tended by the military’s best doctors.Trump’s comments will come as a cruel blow to relatives of Americans who have died from the disease and the many who have recovered and are now so-called “long-haulers” suffering serious after effects. It shows the same kind of denial and negligence that the President has displayed all along about a national crisis that he downplayed and mismanaged and relegated behind his own personal political needs.”He is clearly doubling down on the worst mistake of his presidency,” CNN political analyst David Gergen and adviser for four presidents told Wolf Blitzer.”I think he is going to get a lot of people killed as a result,” Gergen said, adding that he sometimes wakes up in the morning and thinks American is in the grip of a “mad man.”Since the President was diagnosed with coronavirus on Thursday night, more than 2,000 Americans have died and there have been a further 150,000 infections. There are alarming signs that the feared fall and winter spike is beginning to unfold with cases rising in 22 states.

Trump defies advisers by leaving hospital

‘Spitting on my father’s grave’: Doctor slams Trump’s Walter Reed parade 01:32The President left the hospital despite his advisers telling him that it would be better if he stayed, given the uncertainties of the disease.”You don’t wanna come back,” is the message that’s been relayed to the President, one source told CNN. If Trump got worse after returning to the White House, this source said: “That would be bad.”But the President, who has been itching to come home for several days, has a pressing political interest in proving that he is better 28 days from an election in which he is trailing Joe Biden. His campaign said Monday that he fully planned to debate the Democratic nominee in their second head-to-head clash — a town hall event with members of the public in Miami next week. Trump’s press aides are busily boosting his personality cult of a conquering strongman who beat the virus in order to show Americans there is nothing to be afraid of.Biden wished Trump and first lady Melania Trump well in their convalescence during a campaign trip to Florida. But he also appealed to the President to take the virus more seriously.”Now that he’s busy tweeting campaign messages, I would ask him to do this: Listen to the scientists, support masks,” Biden said.Vice President Mike Pence plans to debate Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California, on Wednesday in Utah, despite the viral wave sweeping through the White House. The Commission on Presidential Debates has decided that the two candidates will be separated by plexiglass on stage to prevent the possibility of airborne contamination.Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller mocked her boss’ adversary over the precaution — showing the disregard for basic health measures that are typical in the White House.”If Sen. Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it,” Miller said.Trump’s diagnosis interrupted his efforts to race to the finish line in a desperate bid to overturn his deficit to Biden and win a second term.His campaign on Monday advanced a new argument that his experience with Covid-19 made him uniquely qualified to tackle the crisis — even though he is evidently again flouting all scientific protocols that might slow its spread.”He has experience as commander-in-chief, he has experience as a businessman, he has experience now fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those first-hand experiences, Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those,” Trump campaign director of press communications Erin Perrine said on Fox News.But a new CNN poll released on Monday found that the President’s performance during his affliction may have further damaged his political standing. Two-thirds of Americans said he handled the risk of a viral infection to those around him irresponsibly, in the survey conducted by SSRS.And 69% of those asked in the poll conducted after Trump’s diagnosis said they trusted little of what they heard from the White House about the President’s health, with only 12% saying they trusted almost all of it.In a new high, 60% said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

‘He’s back’

Chalian: Trump hit high-water mark of disapproval on key issue 02:48Trump’s White House physician, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said that though Trump was in uncharted territory following the rare administration of several experimental medications, his clinical team agreed that he could go home to be monitored by the White House medical unit.Conley’s briefing appeared at several points to support Trump’s political narrative, as when he declared “he’s back” and that the President was “holding court” and had been a “phenomenal patient.” Yet he justified not sharing information that could potentially be politically damaging to Trump — such as details of his lung function and whether he had pneumonia — on privacy grounds. Presidents assume a public trust when they take office. And, although many have sought to hide their health concerns from Americans, they are assumed to have a duty to prove to the country that they are medically fit to serve.Steroids, which are part of the President’s regimen, can for instance make a patient feel better than they actually are and can impair judgment.Conley’s briefing, as has become habit, left more questions than it answered. He said that Trump had not been on any fever-reducing medicine for 72 hours. But the steroid drug dexamethasone, which Trump is taking as part of his regimen, can act to reduce fever as a subsidiary effect.The selective disclosures about Trump’s health during the briefing mirrored the gaudy display of his return from the hospital as another moment once considered separate from politics appeared to be caught up in the churn that surrounds the President

COVID-19 won’t stop this dad from supporting his son.

When 14-year-old Aiden Yielding was diagnosed with Leukemia earlier this year, his family had to accept that they might not be able to be with him during his chemo treatments. Coronavirus regulations at the hospital meant that only one parent could be with him at a time.

But Aiden’s dad, Chuck, was determined to support him despite that challenge.

Every Tuesday, Aiden goes to the hospital with his mom for chemo. And Chuck posts up outside Aiden’s window, dancing his heart out.

Sure, they’re wearing masks. But those smiles are so big, you can see them anyway.

The support from this dad for his son absolutely warms our hearts.

source:951shine.com

Video

WATCH HERE

Toilet contractors chase Bawumia for their cash
Angry Contractors
The Angry Contractors at a press conference

A group of contractors calling itself New World Contractors Association of Ghana are chasing the Akufo-Addo government for failing to pay them their monies after they were contracted to build toilets in different parts of the country.

At a press conference to register their displeasure, the aggrieved contractors said they were awarded contracts between the period 2017 and 2019 and were asked to pre-finance to a certain point before they are paid.

“Contractors were to pre-finance the project and after 60% completion, the amount involved shall be paid to the contractor,” they said in a statement “We are stating that all contractors have complied and fulfilled the first part of the agreement; however, not a pesewa has been paid any of us.”

They are angry because despite piling pressure on the government, the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, had listed their projects as the government’s achievements during a town hall meeting.

“The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in delivering his address on the infrastructure projects executed by his government made reference to a lot of the projects we have done,” they said and asked “How can we be denied our money but for the government to claim credit for those projects?”

They said they “see this as a deliberate attempt by the Government and Ghana First Company to kill the spirit of contractors in this regard” adding “Our members procured loans from banks to execute the projects. Now, we are being chased by those banks for repayment.”

Below is their statement;

PRESS STATEMENT DELIVERED AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE HELD BY NEW WORLD CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION OF GHANA ON TUESDAY 29TH SEPTEMBER, 2020 AT THE CLOGSAG CONFERENCE HALL, ADUM – KUMASI

BY: EMMANUEL DAPAAH – CHAIRMAN

Good day, Ladies and Gentlemen. We thank you all for honouring our invitation. We have gathered here as members of New World Contractors Association of Ghana; that is contractors who have been contracted by Ghana First Company Limited to build ultra-modern toilet facilities across the length and breadth of our country. Ghana First Company Limited is working in collaboration with the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry and Ministry of Water and Sanitation. In fact, it is the MMDCE’s that grant the site for the project.

The project specifications and cost of each are stated below:

1. 14 seater at the cost of Two Hundred and Ninety Thousand, Four Hundred and Eighty Four Ghana Cedis (GHC 290,484.00),
2. 16 seater at the cost of Three Hundred and Twenty Six Thousand, Two Hundred and Fifty Nine Ghana Cedis and Thirty Six pesewas (GHC 326,259.36),
3. 20 seater (A) at the cost of Five Hundred and Three Thousand, Nine Hundred and Thirty Five Ghana Cedis (GHC 503,935.00), and
4. 20 seater (B) at the cost of Three Hundred and Thirty Three Thousand, Six Hundred and Seventy Six Ghana Cedis (GHC 333,676.00).

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is a documentary of the projects we have executed.
TERMS OF REFERENCE PER CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT

1. The contracts were awarded to individual contractors between the period 2017 and 2019.
2. Contractors were to pre-finance the project and after 60% completion, the amount involved shall be paid to the contractor.
3. Furtherance to that, a letter was issued to each contractor specifying certain conditions. Copies of the letters have been provided here. (read sample letter)

We are stating that all contractors have complied and fulfilled the first part of the agreement; however, not a pesewa has been paid any of us. Meanwhile, the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in delivering his address on the infrastructure projects executed by his government made reference to a lot of the projects we have done. How can we be denied our money but for the government to claim credit for those projects?

We see this as a deliberate attempt by the Government and Ghana First Company to kill the spirit of contractors in this regard. Our members procured loans from banks to execute the projects. Now, we are being chased by those banks for repayment. Several appeals to Mr. Frank Akuley, the C.E.O. of the Ghana First Company Limited have fallen on death ears. He is blaming the government for the delays.

We are using this medium to draw the attention of the government to our plight. The government should come out to state its position on this matter. We don’t want to believe that this is a scam which has been endorsed by this government.

REQUEST
We are giving the government 10 days to respond to the following issues:

1. Explain to us the contractors, its position and involvement in the Ghana First Company issues,
2. Why the sector ministers gave Ghana First Company introduction and support letters knowing the company’s inability to pay,
3. Why the MMDCE’s refusal to perform their part of the contract with Ghana First Company by providing the land title documents as per their undertaken letters, (sample shown)
4. Why the sector ministers: Minister of Local Government and Rural Development and Minister of Water and Sanitation have refused to respond to the Ghana First Company blaming the Local Government for delaying on their part to raise funds to pay the contractors,
5. Why the government captured our projects (Ghana First Toilet Facilities) as its achievement during the town hall meeting in Accra by the Vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, when during the same town hall meeting in Kumasi, we were told by the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah that it is a private project.
   The government should intervene by helping Ghana First Company to have access to funds and pay the contractors.
   OR
   The government should take over the projects and also engage us, the affected contractors, on the way forward.
   If the government refuses to adhere to our concerns, we will take the following actions.

We will call and mobilize all the communities where some of these uncompleted toilet facilities are being constructed to demonstrate massively against the government and Ghana First Company.

We will press upon members, their families and workers not to vote and we will campaign massively against the government in this year’s elections.

Lastly, we will expose all the MMDCE’s who took between 5% – 15% from our members before awarding the contracts knowing very well that Ghana First took only 2%

Source:mypowerfmonline.com

Boris Johnson‘s controversial Brexit legislation which allows the Government to break international law has been backed by MPs.

The Internal Market Bill tonight cleared its final stage in the House of Commons by 340 votes to 256 and now passes to the Lords for further scrutiny.

This is what some Africa leaders with their selfish interest are also trying to implements, like GHANA MALI AND OTHERS. GhanaaView.com noted this.

ALSO:https://ghanaaview.com/coronavirus-students-scared-and-confused-as-halls-lock-down/https://ghanaaview.com/coronavirus-students-scared-and-confused-as-halls-lock-down/

It allows ministers to override parts of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement brokered with Brussels last year, an act which the Government concedes breaches international law ‘in a limited and specific way’.

Critics, including all five living former prime ministers, also argue this would wreck the UK’s reputation as a nation which honours its agreements.

But the Government insists it needs the powers to safeguard the integrity of the UK amid fears the EU could block goods travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister was forced to water down the legislation earlier in the Bill’s passage to appease a Tory backbench rebellion – MPs will now be given a vote before ministers are able to wield such powers.

No Conservative MP voted against the Government tonight and the Bill sailed through the Commons with an 84-vote majority.

Yet a handful of Tories, including former Tory prime minister Theresa May, abstained from voting.

However the Bill’s smooth passage into law will likely face hurdles in the pro-Remain Lords which has previously thwarted Brexit legislation. 

Boris Johnson’s controversial Brexit legislation which allows the Government to break international law has been backed by MPs (PM pictured making a speech in Exeter today)

Defending the controversial aspects of the Bill at its third reading tonight, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: ‘The reason we have taken powers to ensure that in the event we do not reach an agreement with our EU friends on how to implement the (Northern Ireland Protocol) is so we’re able to deliver on our promises in our manifesto and the command paper.

‘This is a legal safety net that clarifies our position on the Northern Ireland Protocol for protecting our union, businesses and jobs.’ 

To avoid checks on goods passing between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the UK and Brussels agreed Northern Ireland would abide by the EU’s customs rules. 

It in effect draws a customs border down the Irish Sea, and ministers fear unfettered movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern could be compromised if a deal is not reached.   

The EU has warned it will mount a legal challenge if the UK reneges on sections of the Withdrawal Agreement.  

Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband tonight said: ‘On international law, nobody should be in any doubt the damage already done by this Bill. This law-breaking Bill has been noticed around the world.’ 

SOURCE:DAILYMAIL.CO.UK