16 April – Could not comment on the US defunding of WHO for two days as I was laughing non-stop. So UN agencies render services to strong member states or are manipulated or put under pressure by them!! Really!! NO?! In the winter of 2002, four whole months before the US invasion of Iraq, I saw firsthand a full proposal by a UN agency that was sent to the US government to help provide food aid for all Iraqis after the planned Americans invasion of Iraq. Washington DC would have to pay the whole cost of the program or about USD800 million. I and several other people in the organizations were shocked and some of us were smart or principled enough to talk the American head of the organization out of this proposal. We did that out of concern for appearing publicly as a part of the US overall military strategy. Later in 2003, the UN food aid organizations carried out this very operation which was largely funded by the US but as a multilateral aid operation. I have a ton of stories on the complex relationships between strong member states and senior management of UN agencies in which both connived and conspired for corporate or political gains. This is a complex challenge but to do what Trumps did with WHO is outside the realm of reason, and even below dirty politics, it is just simple and pure insanity!

23 April – “Your money and your life,” this is what we are being told by gun-toting pundits, politicians and businessmen wanting to reopen the “economy” in the same old way asap.