Nearly 10,000 prison inmates have been released in the Philippines as the country races to halt coronavirus infections in its overcrowded jails, a Supreme Court official said Saturday.The move follows a directive to lower courts to release those awaiting trial in prison because they could not afford bail, Associate Supreme Court Justice Mario Victor Leonen told reporters.”The court is very much aware of the congested situation in our prisons,” Leonen told reporters as he announced the release of 9,731 inmates.COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported at some of the country’s most overcrowded jails, affecting both inmates as well as corrections personnel.Social distancing is all but impossible in the country’s prison system, where cells are sometimes filled to five times their capacity due to inadequate infrastructure and a slow-moving and overburdened judicial system.Overcrowding has become an even greater problem since President Rodrigo Duterte launched a drug crackdown in 2016 that has seen thousands sent to prison.Among those which have reported outbreaks are the Quezon City Jail in the capital Manila, a facility so crowded that inmates take turns sleeping on staircases and open-air basketball courts.The worst outbreaks so far are at two prisons in the central island of Cebu, where two city jails have announced a combined 348 infections among more than 8,000 inmates as of Friday.The outbreaks have fueled calls from rights groups for the early release of prisoners charged with non-violent offences as well as the sick and elderly.The Philippines has reported nearly 9,000 coronavirus infections and 603 deaths.
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Month: May 2020
Aboriginal Australians Take Music to The World During COVID-19 Lockdown
Locked down in COVID-19 biosecurity zones, thousands of kilometers from Australia’s big cities, aboriginal artists are performing online to global audiences for the first time. Musicians from northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory are joining the worldwide trend of artists in lockdown performing from home.For a month, indigenous artists are giving free weekend performances online. The virtual concerts are helping to sustain the region’s musicians during the age of COVID-19. Festivals and other cultural events have been canceled.The executive producer, Nicholas O’Riley, hopes new audiences will enjoy what they hear.“Doing the East Arnhem live is great, [a] great opportunity for them to keep playing, but also, you know, open up their music to a whole different audience from, you know, right around the world,” he said. “Hopefully we will see, you know, an EP [extended play record] or a small album come out of it.”There are no known cases of COVID-19 in Arnhem Land. The government said aboriginal Australians are one of the groups most at risk from the disease because of widespread ill health and overcrowded housing.Indigenous people make up about 3 percent of the Australian population, and they suffer high rates of chronic disease, poverty and imprisonment.Travel to and from remote parts of the Northern Territory is being tightly controlled under efforts to protect indigenous communities from the spread of the new coronavirus.
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White House Blocks Fauci’s Congressional Testimony
The White House is blocking Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, from testifying Wednesday before a House of Representatives committee that is investigating how the Trump administration has handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci’s testimony would be “counter-productive,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesman said in a statement.“While the Trump administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again, and expediting vaccine development,” Deere said, “it is counter-productive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings.”Fauci and U.S. President Donald Trump have not always agreed on how best to fight the spread of the virus. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has criticized the country’s testing capacity for the virus, calling it “a failing.” Last month, Trump retweeted a #FireFauci posting from another account, but the White House insists that the president is not looking to fire highly popular scientist.More than half of the 50 U.S. governors have taken steps to partially relax lockdown restrictions, while hoping a spike in infections won’t trigger another round of business closures.Other U.S. governors, many of whom are Democrats, are taking a more guarded approach, trying to balance the need to reopen their state economies with concerns about the coronavirus.Laborers work at an emergency hospital under construction, an extension of one of the hospitals that’s handling COVID-19 coronavirus patients in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 2, 2020.As some U.S. governors push to relax restrictions after Thursday’s expiration of White House distancing guidelines, Fauci, warned them to avoid lifting state limits prematurely.“Obviously you could get away with that, but you’re taking a really significant risk,” Fauci said on CNN.Another warning came in a report by the University of Minnesota, which said the pandemic could last two more years. The report, released Thursday by the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, warned that the U.S. should prepare for a decline in infections followed by a spike as early as this fall.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted an emergency use authorization for the antiviral drug remdesivir, clearing the way for more hospitals to use the drug. Recent clinical data show the drug might be a promising treatment for the coronavirus.More than 3.3 million people around the world have been infected with COVID-19 and nearly 284,000 infected with the virus have died.In the U.S., there are more than 1.1 million COVID cases and more than 65,000 deaths.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told BBC that it is a tragedy that the world’s leaders have not been able “to come together to face COVID-19 in an articulated coordinated way.”The U.N. estimates that 8 percent of the world’s population, about 500 million people, could be forced into poverty by year’s end because of the devastation brought by the virus.As countries consider how and when to reopen, India, the world’s second-most populous country, said Friday it would extend its nationwide lockdown for two more weeks after Monday. But the country’s ministry of home affairs said “considerable relaxations” would be allowed in lower-risk areas, including the manufacturing and distribution of essential goods between states.Spain emerges from lockdown during the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease.Many European countries have begun gradually reopening or have plans to do so in the coming days. The economy in the eurozone – European countries that use the common euro currency – shrank a record 3.8 percent in the first quarter of the year.In Britain, health minister Matt Hancock announced Friday the country has hit its target of carrying out 100,000 COVID-19 tests a day. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday that Britain is past the peak of the coronavirus outbreak and that cases are declining. The coronavirus has killed more than 27,500 people in Britain and infected about 178,700.Italy, Spain and France on Friday reported declines in deaths from the virus, down from the peaks of their countries’ outbreaks.
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FDA Approves Emergency Use of Remdesivir to Treat COVID-19
The United Stated Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for a drug called remdesivir to treat patients diagnosed with the coronavirus, President Donald Trump announced Friday. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
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In Chechnya, Message to Press Is Clear: Journalists Are Not Welcome or Safe
Former rebel fighter-turned-president Ramzan Kadyrov has made it clear that independent journalism will not be tolerated in Chechnya: a message that appears to come with the Kremlin’s blessing.Irritated at criticism of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kadyrov in mid-April threatened Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s few remaining independent media outlets that still covers Chechnya, and its reporter Elena Milashina.“If you want us to commit a crime and become criminals, then just say so. Someone will take on this burden, responsibility, and will be punished according to the law, serve time in prison and be released,” Kadyrov said in comments shared on social media.It wasn’t the first time Novaya Gazeta or Milashina have been threatened. In February, Milashina was beaten while in Grozny, and both she and her colleagues have been threatened repeatedly. Six of the paper’s journalists have been killed because of their work, including prominent reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006.But Kadyrov’s latest threat still shocked the paper’s editor and sparked a wave of condemnation, with the U.S. Helsinki Commission, the European Union and the Council of Europe, and international human rights organizations demanding that Moscow take action and offer protection to Novaya Gazeta and Milashina.The Kremlin’s response was to dismiss the threat as “nothing unusual.”“There is nothing forbidden or illegal in this,” Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on April 16, adding that the Kremlin did not consider it necessary to publicly respond to Kadyrov’s threats against Novaya Gazeta or to provide state protection for Milashina.Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor also ordered Novaya Gazeta to remove the article. The news website complied.Chechnya: History of media violenceThe Kremlin assessment that this was “nothing unusual” is close to the truth.Kadyrov, who fought against the Russian army at age 18, has ruled the autonomous republic for 13 years. From the start, his government has harassed journalists and human rights activists. And his critics have been attacked, publicly humiliated or even killed.In 2015, Chechen blogger Adam Dikayev criticized Kadyrov for working out in his gym while the song “My best friend is President Putin” played. A few days later Dikayev appeared in a video shared on social media. The blogger was on a treadmill, half-naked and apologizing for his comments.Five years later, residents of Chechnya rarely risk discussing their leadership on social media, and the few journalists who travel to the republic for work can face violence.More recently, in February attackers beat Milashina and lawyer Marina Dubrovina in the capital, Grozny.They were in the city to report on a lawsuit filed against Chechen vlogger Islam Nukhanov, who used YouTube videos to discuss the luxurious lifestyle of Kadyrov’s relatives and inner circle.The attackers filmed their actions, Milashina said, to report back to those who ordered the attack.The journalist reported the attack to police, who said they were investigating.Quitting not an optionThe threats and attack were nothing new for Milashina, who leads Novaya Gazeta’s special projects unit.In 2017, when Novaya Gazeta released her investigation into Chechnya’s repression of the LGBT community, she had to leave Russia because of threats.Milashina told VOA that the only way to ensure the safety of journalists is with solidarity of the media.“Extreme measures taken against journalists, when you kill them, lead to emergence of another journalist, who would keep doing the same,” she said. “The only protection for journalists amid the inaction of authorities is to keep working. Only this would protect us, nothing else would.”Milashina, who has been awarded several prizes, including the U.S. State Department’s International Women of Courage Award, said she has moments of despair.“I have already given up a thousand times, because, frankly, I rarely can boast of any successes there — when I manage to save someone, get someone out [of prison].”She said she did not expect the Russian government to protect her from Kadyrov, because the Kremlin has given the Chechen leader free rein.“Kadyrov is efficient from the Kremlin’s point of view. The Kremlin needs Chechnya to be suppressed, with people who are afraid of [authorities],” she said. “Of course, they handed him a blank check to act with locals without limitations, and neither security forces nor authorities would be punished for overreaching.”Milashina ruled out the possibility of stopping reporting on Chechnya, saying, “Can I abandon the region where 1.5 million people live, who actually do not have a chance to be heard? This is not an option.”Coverage of Chechnya will continueMilashina is not the first Novaya Gazeta staff member to be attacked or threatened for their work.Dmitry Muratov, the paper’s editor-in-chief, still remembers Politkovskaya, who covered human rights violations and the Chechen war.In 2006, Politkovskaya was found shot dead in her Moscow apartment building. Six people have been convicted for their role in her murder.Muratov said he was surprised by the bluntness of Kadyrov’s latest threats.“Like everyone, I was surprised by the frankness, utter sincerity he described with the algorithm we already know about: ‘We’ll kill her, serve some time in jail, having it on our conscience,’ ” he told VOA.“Of course, I was surprised. Still, he is a civil servant, moreover, police general and the head of the region, and he allows himself to say such things,” Muratov said.Muratov noted the willingness of some Chechen authorities to mitigate the attack on the newspaper.“I told Kadyrov’s spokesman that they have the right to answer: the party that felt hurt or unfairly accused of anything has this right even in pre-trial order. And two or three days later, we received a letter from them that we published. I would very much like to consider the conflict settled on this.”He ruled out stopping coverage of the region.“Since Chechnya is the territory of the Russian Federation, and we are a federal media and work throughout Russia, we naturally will continue to cover Chechnya,” he said. “A totalitarian enclave in an authoritarian country.”Sometimes, as in the case of the trial of Oyub Titiev, head of the Chechen branch of the Memorial Human Rights Center, attention is so great that authorities do not impede the work of journalists.Dozens of visiting journalists were allowed into the Titiev trial; TV cameras stood in a line at the Grozny City Hotel.But it was an isolated case. Kadyrov has declared journalists and human rights defenders to be enemies of the nation, Tatyana Lokshina, program director for Russia at Human Rights Watch, said.“Many people remember Kadyrov’s public statements, that the republic will be closed for the human rights defenders after the Titiev trial is over,” she said. “And by ‘human rights defenders’ he also meant all those journalists who are not personally loyal to him.”Lokshina said that in Chechnya, “the concept of freedom of the press does not apply.”“In terms of human rights, Chechnya flouts international law, as well as the Russian constitution. There’s only one law, notoriously known as ‘Ramzan said so,’ ” Lokshina said.Cruel but populist leaderRussian President Vladimir Putin installed Kadyrov, son of assassinated leader Akhmad Kadyrov, as president of Chechnya in 2007. Under his presidency, the region has been relatively stable after two brutal wars, but rights groups have criticized him for serious human rights abuses.Kadyrov is rarely interviewed by Western media. But Gregory Feifer, executive director of the Institute of Current World Affairs in Washington and a former correspondent for RFE/RL, had a chance to interview the leader in 2009.[Editor’s note: Reporter Danila Galperovich, who wrote this story, and Feifer interviewed Kadyrov for RFE/RL in 2009.]“When we recorded the interview with him, not even a month had passed after the murder of Natalya Estemirova, human rights activist. The whole atmosphere of this interview was surreal: after many hours of waiting for the interview, it was scheduled for 2 a.m., and it took place in his huge residence with a personal zoo,” Feifer told VOA.“Kadyrov played pool when we entered his palace and behaved like a frat boy — he sang and cheered himself up with screams. In general, he behaved quite eccentrically, as a person who is slightly out of his mind or prone to emotional outbursts,” Feifer said.He added that Kadyrov demands loyalty from everyone, but also talks about concerns for his people and said in the interview that he had to live in a mansion for security reasons.“Kadyrov is openly cruel, inhuman, and at the same time he is a populist leader. There is much talk that Kadyrov ‘won the Chechen war,’ that he receives money from Moscow, while de facto having real independence from Moscow in exchange for loyalty to Putin. This is partly true, but this is not a problem for Putin. In fact, this is what Putin wants,” Feifer said.However, the more that human rights are violated in Chechnya, the more attention is drawn to Kadyrov from the international community.Since 2013, the U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions under the Magnitsky Act on Kadyrov and 11 others for human rights violations in the region. The act penalizes human rights abusers by freezing their assets and blocking them from entering or doing business in the U.S.Recently, U.S. lawmakers called on the State Department to remind Middle East countries with ties to Kadyrov that these links could be subject to U.S. sanctions.U.S. Representative Tom Malinowski, who initiated this appeal, told VOA, “The signal to President Putin should be the following: If you act alongside this man, if you use him, then you become an accomplice.”This story originated in the Russian Service of Voice of America.
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NYC Doctor: COVID-19 Toll ‘Soul Crushing’
The recent suicide of a New York emergency room doctor has refocused attention on the toll the COVID-19 pandemic is taking on medical professionals. While maintaining a stiff upper lip on the job, two doctors shared with VOA their struggles to cope with the almost unimaginable burdens they are shouldering and the deaths they have been unable to prevent. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti reports.
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US Coronavirus Stimulus Went to Some Health Care Providers Facing Criminal Inquiries
Eager to bolster the health care system during the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. government last month sped $30 billion in stimulus payments to most health care providers that billed Medicare last year.That speed resulted in taxpayers’ money flowing to some companies and people facing civil or criminal fraud investigations, according to defense lawyers and others representing more than a dozen firms and people facing such inquiries.The disclosures about such payments have prompted outrage among some congressional Democrats, who say they highlight the problems with how stimulus funds have been distributed.”I have an enormous amount of frustration with the way the Trump administration is distributing these dollars, and examples like these magnify the consequences of the White House’s efforts to limit transparency and stonewall oversight,” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, told Reuters.FILE – Sen. Ron Wyden speaks to reporters after leaving the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in April 2011.Henry Connelly, a spokesman for House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, added: “It is alarming to see the Trump administration giving precious taxpayer dollars to unscrupulous entities while so many hospitals and health care workers on the front lines of the battle against coronavirus are desperate for resources.”The Department of Health and Human Services, which sent the payments, told Reuters it transmitted funds to all medical providers who submitted billings in 2019 to Medicare, the federal health insurance program for elderly and disabled Americans, unless they had already been excluded from participating.It declined to respond to the criticism from Wyden and Pelosi’s office and did not respond to specific questions from Reuters about the payments.Katherine Harris, a spokeswoman for the HHS Office of the Inspector General, said her office oversees the program but declined to comment on the specific distribution of funding.”While we cannot comment specifically on any work other than what has been publicly announced, I can tell you that we regularly perform reviews of the department’s administration of programs, including the distribution of funding,” Harris said.Reuters was unable to independently determine what portion of the stimulus payments went to entities and individuals involved in civil and criminal actions with Medicare.In an email to funding recipients seen by Reuters, HHS asked providers to sign a lengthy attestation that stipulates they have been or will be treating patients suffering from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill, on April 24, 2020, in Washington, D.C.If providers do not respond within 30 days, HHS said, it will assume they have accepted the government’s terms and conditions.It said in a statement it “has mechanisms in place to recoup funds and address fraudulent activity.”The funds came from the $2.3 trillion CARES Act passed by Congress to blunt the economic toll of the pandemic, which has killed more than 64,000 Americans and thrown at least 30 million people out of work.Unlike the portions of that package intended to help small businesses, which required companies to apply for it, some of the health care funding was initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and showed up as a surprise in the bank accounts of many healthcare providers.Reuters interviewed six defense lawyers and others representing more than a dozen health care providers facing civil or criminal inquiries who received the money, including a pain medicine doctor who recently settled a civil false claims case, and an operator of an assisted living facility who is planning to plead guilty to health care fraud.”The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing,” said Joel Hirschhorn, an attorney who represents the pain medicine doctor and the operator of the assisted living facility.The lawyers who spoke to Reuters declined to identify their specific clients, citing confidentiality rules.The surprise deposit of funds has led attorneys to scramble to warn clients to be ready to return the money.”There is no such thing as a windfall from the government,” said Sam J. Louis, a former prosecutor who is now a partner with the law firm Holland & Knight, whose law firm issued an alert to clients warning them of the potential of legal liability in taking the funds.Some former federal prosecutors say it would not have been difficult for HHS to weed out these providers first.”If fraudulent providers, either convicted or under investigation, are receiving CARES Act bailouts automatically, without any vetting, then shame on the government,” said Paul Pelletier, one former prosecutor.However, defense lawyers stressed that people charged with crimes are innocent until proven guilty, and they are not usually barred from billing Medicare until well after they are convicted of a crime. People facing criminal healthcare charges usually agree to stop billing Medicare as a condition of their bond, they added.Another pool of practitioners eligible for the cash infusions include doctors who have lost their medical licenses or licenses to prescribe highly addictive drugs, said Ron Chapman, a lawyer in Miami.HHS declined to say what portion of the $30 billion went to providers facing criminal or civil inquiries.It said it distributed funds to more than 315,000 provider billing organizations reaching over 1.5 million healthcare providers.In fiscal year 2019, investigations by the HHS inspector general’s office led to 747 criminal actions and 684 civil actions.
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Missing Pakistan Journalist Found Dead in Sweden
A Pakistan journalist living in exile in Sweden who has been missing since March has been found dead, police said Friday.”His body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” police spokesman Jonas Eronen told AFP.Sajid Hussain, from the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan, was working part-time as a professor in Uppsala, about 60 kilometers north of Stockholm, when he went missing on March 2.He was also the chief editor of the Baluchistan Times, an online magazine he had set up, in which he wrote about drug trafficking, forced disappearances and a long-running insurgency.”The autopsy has dispelled some of the suspicion that he was the victim of a crime,” Eronen said.The police spokesman added that while a crime could not be completely ruled out, Hussain’s death could equally have been the result of an accident or suicide.”As long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the risk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist,” Erik Halkjaer, head of the Swedish branch of Reporters without Borders (RSF), told AFP.According to the RSF, Hussain was last seen getting onto a train for Uppsala in Stockholm.Hussain came to Sweden in 2017 and secured political asylum in 2019.The Pakistan foreign ministry declined to comment when asked about Hussain by AFP.
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Hong Kong Police Spray Tear Gas in Protest at Shopping Mall
Hong Kong police used pepper spray on Friday to disperse over a hundred protesters in a shopping mall who were singing and chanting pro-democracy slogans. The demonstrators sang the protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” and chanted “Glory to Hong Kong, revolution of our times” in the New Town Plaza mall in Hong Kong’s New Territories. As protesters gathered in the mall, riot police stopped and searched some and later told them to leave, saying they were violating social-distancing rules. The police then sprayed tear gas to disperse the crowd before cordoning off the atrium of the mall. The protest was one of several that went ahead on May 1, Labor Day, despite rules that forbid public gatherings of more than four people. Protesters display open palm with five fingers, signifying the “Five demands – not one less”, during the Labor Day in Hong Kong, May 1, 2020.Small groups of protesters also gathered near Kowloon’s Mong Kok and Kwun Tong subway stations. Organizers initially planned citywide protests but many were canceled, with the organizers urging people to support pro-democracy restaurants instead. Friday’s protests were the latest in a string of demonstrations over the past week in which protesters gathered in shopping malls. They follow the arrest of 15 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers last Saturday. The demonstrations are a continuation of a movement that began last June to protest an extradition bill that would have allowed detainees in Hong Kong to be transferred to mainland China. Although the bill was later withdrawn, the demonstrations continued for months before a lull starting in January as the coronavirus pandemic broke out.
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Trump Leaves White House Grounds for First Time Since March 28
U.S. President Donald Trump, cooped up in the White House for weeks due to the coronavirus lockdown, flew to Camp David, Maryland, on Friday for a weekend away at the presidential retreat. When his Marine One helicopter left the South Lawn, it was the first time Trump had left the White House grounds since March 28, when he visited Norfolk, Virginia, to see the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort set sail for New York harbor. Trump told reporters as he left the White House that he would be practicing social distancing while at Camp David, and that he plans a working weekend that will include phone calls with foreign leaders. He is to return to Washington on Sunday in time for a Fox News Channel “virtual town hall” event at the Lincoln Memorial. Trump plans a trip to Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday. Vice President Mike Pence has made a handful of trips out of Washington to check on coronavirus relief efforts.
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US Argues Diplomacy Demands Withholding Taliban Attack Data
The Defense Department is defending its decision to withhold information on the frequency and success of Taliban attacks, saying it is necessary if the United States is going to be able to help usher in an era of peace in Afghanistan.Officials Friday pushed back against a U.S. government watchdog’s report that said restricting access to the data was making it difficult to assess the security situation as Afghan and Taliban officials have struggled to build on a U.S.-Taliban peace-building deal signed in February.”The decision was that we’re working toward a better solution and a better place for Afghanistan, and that the sharing of that information would not move that ball forward,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters.
But Hoffman also made clear that Washington has not been happy with the recent scope and pace of Taliban attacks.“We are not pleased with the level of violence in Afghanistan. The level of violence by the Taliban is unacceptably high,” Hoffman said, adding it “is not conducive to a diplomatic solution.”Impediment to assessmentIn the report, released Friday, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) warned that the sudden refusal to share the data on enemy-initiated attacks (EIA) and effective enemy-initiated attacks (EEIA) was making it increasingly difficult to assess safety and stability.“This EIA data was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan,”Inspector General John Sopko wrote, noting it was not the first time such information had been withheld.SIGAR chastised U.S. defense officials in May 2019 after Resolute Support — the NATO-led training and advisory mission in Afghanistan — stopped providing district-level stability assessments, which showed Afghan forces losing ground to the Taliban.US Military, Key Watchdog in War of Words Over Unfavorable Data
A decision by U.S. military officials in Afghanistan to stop tracking the amount of territory controlled by the Taliban is sparking an increasingly tense showdown with the watchdog overseeing reconstruction efforts.The so-called district-level stability assessments, which measure the number of the country's districts under government or insurgent control or influence, have been one of the most widely cited indicators of U.S.
At the time, SIGAR said Resolute Support officials claimed the assessments, showing which districts were under government or insurgent control, were “of limited decision-making value.”Sopko and others have said the willingness to restrict or classify data that might not show favorable results threatened to skew the public’s perception of progress in a country at the center of America’s longest war.”We have incentivized lying to Congress,” SIGAR’s Sopko told lawmakers in January. “The whole incentive is to show success and to ignore the failure. And when there’s too much failure, classify it or don’t report it.”Pentagon Defends Track Record in AfghanistanSpokesman says accusation there was an intent to lie or mislead ‘doesn’t hold water’Officials with Resolute Support and the Pentagon said Friday that the data on Taliban-initiated attacks, while withheld, had not been classified, and that it could be released in the future, once peace talks between the Afghan government in Kabul and the Taliban had more time to take hold.“We’ve been pushing the military option for some time on this. And we’re helping right now to weigh in and push that diplomatic side a little bit more,” Hoffman said.Despite a weeklong reduction in violence in the run-up to the February 29 agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban, there’s been little letup in fighting between the Taliban and Afghan forces, especially in areas farther away from the country’s provincial capitals.“Between March 1 and 31, the Taliban refrained from attacks against coalition forces,” according to a letter from Resolute Support to the special inspector general. “However, they increased attacks against ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] to levels above seasonal norms.”Hundreds of casualtiesAfghan officials accuse the Taliban of killing more than 100 members of the Afghan security forces and killing or wounding up to 800 civilians since signing the February peace-building deal with the U.S.And even before the deal was signed, the last available data on enemy attacks, covering the last three months of 2019, showed enemy attacks trending significantly higher.“Both overall enemy-initiated attacks and effective enemy-initiated attacks [resulting in casualties] during the fourth quarter of 2019 exceeded same-period levels in every year since recording began in 2010,” SIGAR’s January report said.Still, the U.S. insists that while it continues to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, with the goal of getting down to 8,600 by mid-July, it has not abandoned the country’s still-struggling security forces.“We have continued to do retaliatory attacks, defensive attacks, to help defend our partners in the area,” the Pentagon’s Hoffman said. “And we’ll continue to do that.”
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Dying Mother of Jailed Chinese Dissident Pens Open Letter: ‘I Just Want to Say Goodbye’
The mother of China’s first cyberdissident, who has been in detention since 2016, has published an open letter asking for permission to visit her son before she dies.Huang Qi is serving a 12-year sentence for leaking state secrets. His 87-year old mother published her letter earlier this month, and it has been circulating online.In the letter, Huang’s mother, Pu Wenqing, said she’s suffering from several chronic illnesses including diabetes and cancer and doesn’t have much time left to live.“I have two requests,” she wrote, “to see my son for the last time, and talk with him about his case.”Chinese dissident Huang Qi is pictured with his son at their home in Chengdu, in southwest China’s Sichaun province.Who’s Huang Qi?Huang Qi is widely considered China’s first cyberdissident. He ran a website called “64 Tianwang,” named after the June 4, 1989, crackdown on Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters.The news website is blocked in China, because it covers local corruption, human rights violations and other topics routinely censored in Chinese media.The website was awarded a Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Cyberfreedom Prize in November 2016. A few weeks after that, Huang was detained. Three years later, he was Huang Qi’s mom meets with diplomats from five countries in Chengdu to advocate for her son in 2018. (Web screenshot)A mother’s last appealHuang’s mother has long been advocating for her son. She has been kept under police surveillance since Huang’s sentence in 2019.Pu said in her letter that while she still trusts China’s judicial system, she believes her son’s case has been handled unjustly.“Internally, they all know Huang Qi has been set up. There’s no official document regarding his sentence. It’s all been sealed up in an envelope and labeled as classified,” she wrote. Pu added that she believes the local Sichuan authorities have made up the charges against her son.Pu Fei, a former volunteer with 64 Tianwang, told VOA that no one has been able to visit Pu Wenqing since she was placed under constant police surveillance.“Her physical condition is deteriorating. It makes no sense to make her suffer mentally,” he told VOA.Pu Fei said he understood that prisons and detention centers have been closed to visitors since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic. “However, we hope that the authorities could make an exception in this case, since Huang’s mom doesn’t have much time, and visiting her son is within her rights.”Respect for rights urgedChen Yunfei, a well-known rights activist in Sichuan, urged officials in China’s legal system to respect Huang’s and his mother’s rights, citing the case of a top security official now under investigation for legal abuses.“I urge officials in the public security system to stop following Sun Lijun’s methods. His cruel ways of dealing with activists have long been ignoring the law,” he said.Sun Lijun, a vice minister of public security, is under investigation for serious violation of party discipline and the law, according to a brief statement issued by China’s top investigating agencies.Analysts describe Sun as an “invisible hit man” who had played a key role in top leader Xi’s past efforts to maintain social stability by rounding up dissidents.Observers have been paying close attention to how his arrest will impact prosecution law across the country.
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US, China Step Up Activities in South China Sea Amid COVID-19 Pandemic
An old geopolitical hotspot is poised to boil again amid the coronavirus pandemic, with U.S. and Chinese warships stepping up their presence in the South China Sea. “This week the United States conducted two successful freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. The USS Barry and the USS Bunker Hill both started and ended a full transit at a time and place of our choosing, as we always do,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters Friday. The USS Bunker Hill, a guided-missile cruiser deployed to the Western Pacific theater, sailed through waters near the Spratly Islands that are claimed by China and several other countries on Wednesday. The USS Barry guided missile destroyer on Tuesday sailed through waters near the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan. Both transits are legally permitted by international law and challenged controversial maritime claims in the South China Sea. Hoffman said China’s “interference with international navigation” and “excessive territorial claims” have persisted in the region despite “very strong push-back from the United States, international community, and many of their neighbors.” “So we will continue to sail where we’re legally allowed to, and we’ll continue to encourage our allies and partners around the world to do the same,” the Pentagon spokesman added. In this file picture downloaded from the US Navy website, taken on April 29, 2013, the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry arrives in Souda Bay, Greece.On Tuesday, a strongly worded statement on the Chinese Defense Ministry’s website said that the USS Barry illegally entered Chinese waters without permission and was promptly expelled by Chinese air and naval forces. The back-to-back freedom of navigation operations by the U.S. military have been seen as a response to China’s aggressive activities in the disputed waters over last few weeks, including the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel, the formal establishment of administrative districts to strengthen Beijing’s control over most of the South China Sea, and the deployment of a PLA carrier strike group in the area. The United States on Wednesday accused China of taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak and increasing its military activities near Taiwan and in the South China Sea. “The United States strongly opposes China’s bullying,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, ahead of a virtual meeting between the U.S. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers. Jonathan Odom, a retired U.S. Navy commander, said Beijing may continue to raise the risk of conflict in order to achieve its strategic goals in the South China Sea. “There is a greater potential that China will use that risk as a weapon against its neighbors, and there is a potential that some of its neighbors may shy away. I think the U.S. has the military capability and political will to not leave areas where we are committed to protect U.S. interests and those of our allies and partners,” said Odom in an interview with VOA Mandarin Service. Both China and the U.S. have included the coronavirus pandemic among the reasons why the other side should show restraint in the South China Sea. The Chinese military urged the U.S. to focus more on efforts to deal with the pandemic at home in its statement condemning the USS Barry’s operation. In an earlier statement on the sinking of the Vietnamese fishing vessel, the Pentagon said the COVID-19 pandemic is a shared threat and called on all parties to refrain from destabilizing actions in the region. State Department Correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.
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Jump in Sudan Coronavirus Cases Prompts Total Lockdown
After a steep jump in confirmed COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, Sudan’s transitional government has imposed a nationwide lockdown to try to stop the spread of virus. Health officials blame the rising number of confirmed cases on citizens who refuse to follow preventative directives issued by authorities. Sudan’s High-Level Task Force for COVID-19 now says anyone who violates the directives will be punished. In the past 24 hours, the government reported 67 new cases, raising the total to 442 confirmed cases, according to Professor Sadiq Tawor, a member of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, who leads the task force. Tawor says the death toll stands at 31 after three more people died Thursday. Thirty-nine patients have fully recovered. Thirteen of Sudan’s 18 states have confirmed at least one case of coronavirus. The government had no other option but to impose a total lockdown, according to Tawor. “This measure is taken as one of our solid responsibility toward the safety of our citizens, to protect them from the carelessness of opportunists, who are trying to gain and benefit despite the ongoing pandemic,” Tawor told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus. FILE PHOTO: Sudan’s Minister of Health Akram Ali Altom speaks during a Reuters interview amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Khartoum, Sudan, April 11, 2020.Last week, the government banned all travel from Khartoum to other parts of the country and vice versa, but drivers continue to smuggle people from Khartoum to other states, according to Health Minister Akram Ali Altom. Tawor said such behavior has contributed to the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases. “The majority of infection cases came through smuggling of individuals through some neighboring countries, those who travel from Khartoum to other states. Some got it through social transmissions, which are a clear violation of the health directives,” Tawor told VOA. From now on, Tawor said people who violate the travel ban could be sent to jail. “Punishments under the health emergency act include imprisonment, quarantine, fine, and confiscation of assets, such as cars which are used to smuggle travelers between states,” Tawor told VOA. Osman Hadadi, a resident of Khartoum’s east Sahafa neighborhood, supports the lockdown. He thinks the government should go a step further by punishing people who violate restrictions on social gatherings. “Our traditions in Sudan have contributed a lot to the spread of the virus. The social life of our people is so much connected and there are some practices that they need to drop. Otherwise, this virus will kill a lot of our citizens,” Hadadi told South Sudan in Focus. Luka Lawrence Ndenge, a South Sudanese who resides in Khartoum’s Eastern Nile district, also supports the nationwide lockdown but says it could hurt certain groups of people. “It’s a wise decision but it has an impact on the nation itself especially on those who depend on daily work to run their lives. It will be difficult for them to run their lives because they depend on daily income,” Ndenge said. Minister Ali Altom said Wednesday the country would run out of medical supplies within a few weeks to fight the pandemic unless it received more supplies from international aid agencies.
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Scotland Makes Strides on COVID-19 Testing
Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Friday the country will have the capacity to test 12,000 people for COVID-19 by the middle of the month.Speaking at her regular coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said Scotland had exceeded its target for testing, and currently has the capacity to conduct 8,350 tests per day in its labs.Testing is considered crucial in getting coronavirus under control, as it allows cases to be identified and isolated.Sturgeon also confirmed 40 additional deaths from coronavirus from Thursday to Friday, bringing Scotland’s COVID-19 death toll to 1,515.The first minister also reported that 2,659 patients who had tested positive and been admitted to the hospital have been discharged. Scotland has reported 11,654 positive cases of the coronavirus.
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Hungary: The First Dictatorship in the EU?
The establishment of one-man rule in the heart of Europe has enraged civil libertarians and Hungary’s opposition leaders, who accuse Viktor Orbán of manipulating the coronavirus pandemic to establish what’s effectively an elective dictatorship. Pressure is mounting on the European Union to take action against Hungary for passing sweeping emergency measures that will allow populist leader Orbán to rule by decree indefinitely. Orbán insists the measure is only temporary. And his foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, told CNN that it was “unfair” to say the rule-by-decree measure amounts to a threat to the country’s democracy. Although there’s no deadline on Orbán’s enhanced authority, he said, the parliament can remove his new powers when the virus subsides.”There are many fake news and lies spread about Hungary based on this new law,” Szijjártó said. Orbán’s foes doubt his good faith. They say his emergency measure fits into a disturbing pattern from Ankara to Beijing and Caracas to Moscow, with authoritarian-minded leaders using the pandemic to consolidate or expand their power.A man sits on a road in Budapest during a demonstration to protest the Hungarian government and its measures to respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic, April 20, 2020.In Hungary’s case, the emergency coronavirus measure cancels the country’s elections, allows eight-year prison sentences for anyone breaking quarantine and gives Orbán the power to shut down media outlets that spread what is deemed “fake news.””Parliament can, technically vote to end this extra power,” Umut Korkut, a politics professor at Scotland’s Glasgow Caledonian University wrote in a recent commentary. “But Orbán’s party Fidesz has a two-thirds majority. The Constitutional Court can investigate the legality of any governmental decrees Orbán produces, but again, he has made sure it is packed full of judges chosen by his party. It has been a long time since the court last voted against the government.””The legislation therefore effectively delivers the country to Orbán in full, without any checks and balances,” Korkut wrote.Since Orbán’s re-election in 2010, civil libertarians have denounced him for initiating a concerted erosion of democratic checks and balances. They include curbing judicial independence, politicizing the civil service and interfering in media and civil society.”He moved quickly to consolidate power now because the public health crisis provides the perfect opportunity to take advantage of Hungarians’ sense of vulnerability, fear, and anger,” according to Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank on the campus of Stanford University in California. The Hungarian leader has remained undeterred in his shaping of what he likes to call an “illiberal democracy.” His political message has been that national sovereignty is being undermined by globalization, and nation states and their traditional cultures and lifestyles are being weakened by bankers and Eurocrats.Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seen on a laptop screen in a flat in Budapest as he makes an April 9, 2020, announcement that the government extended the partial curfew for an indefinite time in Budapest.Orbán has at various times cited Russia, Turkey and China as useful models for Hungary and opposed Western sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea. The European Commission, which has clashed with Orbán before over rule-of-law issues, said it was monitoring developments in Hungary and may now need to take action against Hungary. A spokesman said the commission was carrying out a ”mapping exercise” of member states to examine whether any laws adopted during the crisis comply with EU and international laws. ”There is particular concern about the case of Hungary, and I can tell you that we will not hesitate to take further action if this is deemed necessary,” said the spokesman, who requested anonymity to speak frankly at a briefing.Donald Tusk, the former European Council president who now heads the largest political grouping in the European Parliament, the center-right European People’s Party, said it should consider expelling Orbán’s Fidesz party as a member once the coronavirus crisis ends.The Fidesz party was suspended last year from the main pan-European center-right alliance as controversy flared over alleged rule-of-law violations in Hungary.”Making use of the pandemic to build a permanent state of emergency is politically dangerous, and morally unacceptable,” Tusk said. As the vote passed on the emergency legislation, Orbán assured the national assembly: “When this emergency ends, we will give back all powers, without exception.” He added: “Changing our lives is now unavoidable. Everyone has to leave their comfort zone. This law gives the government the power and means to defend Hungary.”But Norbert Röttgen, head of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee and a candidate in the race to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, also condemned the law, writing on Twitter that it “effectively eliminates opposition” and was a breach of basic principles the EU “cannot accept.”Legally the EU could suspend Hungary’s membership of the bloc until it decides Hungary is in compliance. That would require the backing of all member states, however. The EU could also withhold funding and subsidies, which amount to 6 percent of Hungary’s gross domestic product. That, too, needs unanimous consent.There are doubts whether the commission will act decisively, despite mounting pressure. Last week, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, a center-left political group in the European Parliament, issued a statement saying ”Orbán has crossed all red lines” and that ”Hungary is becoming the first dictatorship in the EU.” The parliament’s president David Sassoli has called for ”swift action.” The commission’s formal response, however, has not gone beyond the rhetorical stage. The threats contain no suggestion of possible economic punishment. Brussels has ducked taking sharp action before against Hungary over rule-of-law breaches.The European Commission is the executive arm of the EU and makes recommendations to the heads of national governments. All EU member states are supposed to observe rule-of-law standards and separation of powers. In 2017, for example, the commission brought a case in the European Court of Justice against Poland over laws that allegedly politicized the judiciary.In the past, Orbán has had the support of like-minded nationalist leaders in neighboring states in Central Europe — although this time they have also expressed disapproval at what they see as an over-reach. Othmar Karas, a lawmaker and member of Austria’s ruling conservative OVP party, which has been supportive of Orbán in the past, told reporters that the emergency measure “puts Orbán on the path” of authoritarianism.But Orbán’s defenders say actions under Hungary’s emergency legislation can be struck down both by parliament and the constitutional court, the country’s top tribunal.John O’Sullivan, a former adviser to Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and the president of the Danube Institute, a pro-Orbán think tank based in the Hungarian capital Budapest, says Orbán’s action is no different from other Western leaders during the coronavirus crisis.Writing in the National Review, the U.S. political magazine, he says: “Macron is already ruling by decree, and both Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel are doing the same in effect, through primary and secondary legislation.”Orbán made his name as a young anti-Communist dissident delivering a fiery anti-Russian speech at the 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy, leader of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 against the Soviet Union. But since the 2008 financial crash he has morphed from a libertarian leader into a populist conservative.Last year, Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog group, described Hungary as only “partly free,” the first time in history it withheld the designation “free” from an EU member state. It accused the Fidesz-led government of having “moved to institute policies that hamper the operations of opposition groups, journalists, universities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) whose perspectives it finds unfavorable.”One punitive step the EU could take, said Renata Uitz of the Comparative Constitutional Law program at the Central European University in Vienna, is to block Hungary from accessing a €861 million fund set up to assist with the pandemic. ”Conditioning access to EU funds based on member states’ respect for the founding values of the European Union has never been more urgent – and has never been more achievable,” Uitz said. “Otherwise,” she said, “the Union will continue to support a regime that has already demonstrated its commitment to abusing the unlimited emergency powers it arrogated.”
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WHO Adviser Asks US to Rethink Funding Suspension
A chief adviser to the World Health Organization’s director-general said the recent decision by the United States to halt funding to the organization is “devastating” and that the U.S. should rethink the move.Dr. Senait Fisseha is a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan’s medical school and a lawyer. She said the suspension would have a significant impact on the U.N. organization’s ability to fight for global public health.
“Where we’re going to feel the pinch the most is going to be around routine services like immunizations, lifesaving interventions that the WHO provides in collaboration with national governments,” Senait told VOA via Skype. “So, this is not good news. Of course, the decision is not final.” Last year, U.S. funding made up about $450 million of the WHO’s $6 billion budget. President Donald Trump has expressed frustration at statements by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus which appeared to excuse China from blame for the origination of the coronavirus and seemed to applaud their efforts to contain it. On April 14, Trump ordered a 90-day halt to WHO funding for “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” The acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, John Barsa, said that during the pause in funding, the U.S. will try to build relationships with other international health agencies.
“We’re going with existing programs outside of the World Health Organization, and we’re looking for different partners,” FILE – Medical staff treat COVID-19 patients at a hospital in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province, March 19, 2020.The WHO also waited until March 11 to declare coronavirus a global pandemic. By that time cases had been recorded in 110 countries.But Senait said the WHO seeks to stay out of politics and maintain a relationship with all countries in order to have access to information. She pointed out that, early on, the WHO sent a team of international scientists to China to investigate the outbreak. Within two weeks of the first public reports of the virus, the WHO was able to share the sequenced gene of the virus which was used to create diagnostic tools and for research on a vaccine. “Frankly, the world is able to do this only because WHO can coordinate this response,” Senait said. “A lot of countries have a bilateral relationship. The United States has a relationship with China. But those bilateral relationships are fraught with a lot of politics. And what the WHO tries to do is stay away from politics and focus on global public health.”WHO Director-General Tedros has also been under fire for praising China’s “transparency” in reporting about the virus at a time many believe Chinese officials were underreporting the extent of the outbreak.
Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have written a letter accusing Tedros of supporting a Chinese “propaganda campaign” and demanding that Tedros release all correspondence between the WHO and Chinese officials.But Senait, who is originally from Ethiopia and has worked with Tedros on public health issues for 20 years, said Tedros is a leader of the highest integrity. She pointed out that during his time as Ethiopia’s health minister, he relentlessly worked to decrease maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS infections, malaria, tuberculosis, and mortality for children under five years old.“He was highly focused. He was highly precise. He was fantastic at garnering partnerships and collaboration and support,” she said. However, Tedros was criticized for his role in responding to cholera outbreaks in Ethiopia during his time as health minister. For years, Ethiopian officials have reported the outbreaks as “acute watery diarrhea” in an apparent effort to downplay their severity.Some critics see parallels between that response and the current one. “That episode bears a striking, chilling resemblance to the WHO’s response to the coronavirus’s appearance in China,” wrote Jianli Yang, the president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, and Aaron Rhodes, the president of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe in an op-ed for the National Review.Senait believes Tedros will weather the storm and is the right person to lead the global health body. “There are going to be critics. It doesn’t mean that Dr. Tedros is a perfect person. The good thing about him is he has a growth mindset. He’s always willing to learn and grow and improve. But the truth is some of the attacks that have been targeted at him during this time are heavily unfounded. They are very political,” Senait said.
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UN Agency: COVID-19 Creating Unseen Hardships for Millions of Forcibly Displaced
No region in the world is spared from the devastating health and economic consequences of COVID-19. Among those most affected are the forcibly displaced, including more than 25 million refugees, most of whom are being sheltered in some of the world’s poorest countries.The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) warns the more than 70 million people forcibly displaced by conflict and violence throughout the world are facing unprecedented hardships due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For example, the UNHCR says it has been receiving desperate appeals for financial aid from hundreds of thousands of refugees across the Middle East and North Africa, who have been unable to work since lockdowns came into force in March.
It says more than 5.6 million Syrians who have taken refuge in neighboring countries, as well as six million people forcibly displaced within Syria are in urgent need of money, health care and necessities.
UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic says an alarming number of refugees in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan have lost their livelihoods because of the pandemic. He says many refugees are forced to skip meals, while others are threatened with evictions because they cannot pay the rent.
“Groups at particular risk include female heads of households, unaccompanied and separated children, elderly people, LGBTI persons. Their situations can be improved through emergency assistance, notably through cash grants. Across this region, many are at risk of losing shelters and they are running out of means to support themselves,” he said.
Mahecic notes millions of Afghan refugees, including those in Iran and Pakistan, are facing a similar situation. He notes Afghanistan itself is facing the prospect of having its medical and social services overwhelmed due to the spread of COVID-19. This, as an increasing number of Afghans return home.
Elsewhere in the world, the UNHCR spokesman says the numbers of homeless and destitute Venezuelans throughout Latin America are increasing as jobs dry up because of COVID-19 lockdown measures.
“Some are now resorting to survival sex, begging or hawking on the streets. Others are at risk of being prey to smugglers and illegal armed groups. With growing fears of social unrest, xenophobia and discrimination across the region are also on the rise,” Mahecic said.
The UNHCR reports it is working to provide emergency aid, including cash-based assistance and shelter across all major refugee operations. It notes the coronavirus crisis is worsening existing dire humanitarian needs globally. It says an infusion of cash is urgently needed to support these crucial aid operations.
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South Korea Balances Privacy, Public Health in Virus Fight
South Korea is one of very few countries to contain the coronavirus without resorting to mass lockdowns. So how did they do it?At the forefront of South Korea’s strategy was a rapid rollout of coronavirus testing that is widely seen as the global standard. The testing campaign has been so successful that South Korean companies are now exporting test kits across the world.But underpinning South Korea’s coronavirus success is a sweeping web of digital surveillance that lawmakers have reinforced specifically to contain epidemics.Burned by the previous MERS virus outbreak, which killed 39 South Koreans, lawmakers in 2015 loosened digital privacy laws. During outbreaks, authorities now have access to personal data without needing court approval. And there is lots of it, since South Korea is one of the world’s most-wired countries.The data – including cell phone, GPS, and bank records, along with closed-circuit TV footage – supercharged South Korea’s attempts to locate the path of individual coronavirus infections, as well as inform and isolate those exposed.Digital tracing also allowed South Korea to fight the coronavirus in a more targeted way without shutting down its economy. Even at the height of the outbreak, life in South Korea has never felt “locked down” as in many other parts of the world.As a result, more South Koreans have been able to keep their jobs, leave their homes to shop or eat at restaurants, and in recent elections, even vote at the highest rate in nearly three decades.South Korea Shows World How to Slow Spread of Coronavirus This softer approach may provide a model for virus containment effortsEffectively, South Koreans may have given up a degree of digital privacy, but they have kept what some see as more fundamental freedoms.Still, as in other countries that have expanded digital surveillance to deal with Covid-19, there are concerns about whether South Korea is striking the right balance between public safety and personal privacy.Some accuse South Korean officials of disclosing too many personal details about confirmed coronavirus patients. There are also questions about how long the expanded digital surveillance will last, since the law is vague on that point and the coronavirus may be around for years.In other words: Digital tracing campaigns like the one employed by South Korea may help contain the coronavirus, but they risk reshaping the way governments around the world interact with personal data during emergencies.Movements, means, contactsSouth Korea’s digital tracing efforts have been aided by the country’s national registration system. Under the system, phone companies must require all customers to provide their real names and national identification numbers.When combined with the new surveillance powers, the data allow health officials to quickly determine the movements, means of transportation, and recent contacts of confirmed and suspected coronavirus patients.As a result, authorities can quickly test and isolate those who have been exposed to the virus. It also allows central and local governments to send detailed reports – mostly in the form of non-optional, emergency text messages – to those who live or have visited nearby.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
This photo illustration shows a man holding her phone showing emergency alert text messages announcing locations that confirmed COVID-19 patients have visited, among others, in Seoul on March 10, 2020.Authorities have defended their approach, pointing out they set up a system whereby confirmed patients can file a complaint if they feel the reports are too revealing.South Korean authorities also insist the data is secure and the collection is legal. Only a specified number of epidemiological investigators, they say, have access to anyone’s personal information.Long-term powers?But it’s not clear how long the expanded surveillance powers will last.Although the law intends for it to be temporary, South Korean officials now concede they are prepared for a long-term battle against the coronavirus. Some health experts estimate it could take years to defeat the disease.”The concern, of course, is that once a government has data, they never want to give it up,” says Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch.That may not be a huge worry in democratic South Korea, where the public has repeatedly shown it is capable of holding accountable leaders who are seen as abusing their power.Still, Robertson says Seoul should place an expiration date on its expanded surveillance powers, after which the government would need to ask lawmakers for an extension.”Democratic governments and countries like South Korea … could set as a model that, (even though) we recognize that these urgent times may require this kind of action, when we go back to a normal time, we will not do this,” he says.Autocratic governments across the world have already used the coronavirus to grab further power – monitoring and restricting free speech, arresting dissidents, and preventing freedom of movement – often with very little resistance.FILE – A woman wearing a face mask to help protect against the spread of the new coronavirus casts a vote for the parliamentary elections at a polling station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 15, 2020.Advancing democracyBut South Korean authorities say the success of their response helped advance the cause of democracy in last week’s parliamentary elections. Voters felt safe enough to turn out at a rate of 66 percent – the highest level in 28 years.South Korean President Moon Jae-in, whose approval rating had been sagging as recently as two months ago, campaigned heavily on his successful COVID-19 response. Voters apparently approved, giving his ruling party a landslide win.The results showed it is possible not only to move ahead with elections during the pandemic, but that political leaders could receive a boost if they are perceived as having effectively dealt with the virus and kept people safe.”I think (South Korea’s approach) makes more sense to limit personal freedoms involving privacy,” said Seoul resident Kim Jae-gyu, “rather than to limit everyone’s freedom, like if things were locked down.”
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Australian Police Shoot, Kill Knife-Wielding Attacker in Mall
Police in the northwester Australian coastal city of South Hedland say they shot and killed a man Friday who attacked several people with a knife in and around a shopping mall.
Police and witnesses at the scene say the suspect, a man in his 30s, first stabbed a man at a motel and another outside a local McDonald’s restaurant before entering the South Hedland Mall, where he attacked more people.
Western Australia State Premier Mark McGowan told reporters police confronted the man and tasered him, but that he continued lunging at them with his knife, forcing them to shoot.
Police did not say how many people were injured in the attack, but local media say at least five. They did say the victims were being treated at a local hospital but did not report on their condition.
Officials have no motive for the attack and are studying security camera footage for more clues.
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Kudlow Says White House to Focus on Future Growth Incentives
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday the Trump administration would focus on pro-growth measures and removing business barriers, as Congress deliberates the next massive coronavirus relief package.
Among the measures Kudlow said the White House would like see in the next relief package were payroll tax cuts for workers and business investment expensing and implementation of safeguards against liability to help smaller businesses.
“So, we have our own set of asks, and we’ll probably come together in a few weeks, and resume the discussions, but our emphasis, I believe, is going to be on future growth incentives,” Kudlow said in an interview with Fox News.
He said he would also like to see “regulatory handcuffs” removed from U.S. businesses.
Kudlow added that the United States was in a sort of “pause mode” for the next 20 to 30 days as it waits to see what happens with the latest tranche of financial help.
“Right now, we’re all sort of pausing and trying to figure out our positions,” Kudlow said.
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Jobless Fret As Rent Comes Due Again Amid Virus Outbreak
The rent is due again for more than 30 million people around the U.S. who have filed for unemployment benefits after losing work in the coronavirus pandemic.
Jason W. Still has been waiting six weeks for his first unemployment check since losing his job as a cook at an upscale restaurant in Spokane, Washington. Out-of-work bartender Luke Blaine in Phoenix got his first check three weeks ago, but now has to pay his landlord again.
Eli Oderberg in Denver is among those swept up in a later wave of layoffs as the pandemic’s effects spread from restaurants to corners of the economy like the oil company where he had worked on apps to track spills and leaks.
Federal data released this week show the U.S. economy contracted at a 4.8% annual rate last quarter as the pandemic put the nation into a recession. Economists expect January-March to be just a taste of the widespread pain being recorded for April-June. And while a record number of people have applied for unemployment insurance payments, there are many other out-of-work people who don’t qualify or couldn’t get through the states’ overwhelmed systems.
Still said he’s filed for unemployment every week, with nothing yet to show for it, since he was first interviewed by The Associated Press a month ago, just before he paid April rent. His wife still has her job in the legal marijuana industry, and his $1,200 stimulus check helped pay an assortment of bills. “But I’m about to hit my savings and I really don’t want to do that,” he said.
Still said he called Washington state’s unemployment office dozens of times a day until April 24, when he somehow got into an on-hold queue behind 83 other people. After hours of waiting, he was transferred to a claims specialist, but then the call was dropped. It took him until this week to reach a human, who said there seemed to be a minor glitch in his file that needs to be worked out.
“It seems to be getting closer, but it’s not clear to me what’s going on at that end,” said Still. “I think I’m the last person who was laid off at my restaurant who hasn’t gotten an unemployment payment yet.”
The restaurant, Clover, remains in limbo. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee this week announced a partial opening May 5 of some recreational offerings like state parks, fishing and golf courses, but restaurant dining rooms and most other businesses will remain closed for now.
Blaine counts himself lucky: He started receiving unemployment checks three weeks after being laid off on March 17. Several coworkers are still waiting for their money after losing their jobs at Fez, a popular restaurant in Phoenix.
“I feel very fortunate based on what I’ve heard from my friends here and around the country,” said Blaine, who also was interviewed by the AP a month ago. His boyfriend, Kyle Schomer, still has his job in the tech industry, and is working from their home in a trendy neighborhood of adobe homes. They have a huge vegetable and flower garden out back.
Blaine also said that he and everyone else he knows have received their stimulus money. With that and the unemployment checks, which through July include an additional $600 per payment, Blaine has made ends meet, for now.
“We will be back,” Fez management promised on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “We hope sooner rather than later.”
Anything but an opening soon is unlikely resolve the anxieties of people whose savings are running out as the initial wave of service-industry layoffs sweeps up other hard-hit sectors, like energy.
Oderberg lost his job in Denver on April 19, as global oil futures plunged into negative territory following the shutdowns of air travel, factories and commuting around the world.
He said his wife got her first unemployment check after losing her job in retail, but he’s still waiting for his. The Colorado website for benefits has confirmed he is eligible, “but I haven’t been able to get through to talk to anyone after making about 100 calls each time,” he said.
In the meantime, Oderberg has been lining up job interviews in information technology, including at least four this week, and hopes to land something quickly, before he has to scramble for their next mortgage payment for the house he shares with his wife, who is pregnant, and their 4-year-old daughter.
“From my job, I’m accustomed to planning everything six months in advance,” said Oderberg. “So we’re going to be OK, for now at least.”
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Biden Denies Former Staffer’s Sexual Assault Allegation
Joe Biden denied a former Senate staffer’s allegation of sexual assault on Friday, saying the accusation isn’t true. “This never happened,” Biden said.It’s the presumptive Democratic nominee’s first public comment on an accusation of sexual assault by his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade. He was to appear on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to discuss the allegation for the first time on television.Biden said he will ask the National Archives to determine whether there is any record of such a complaint being filed.”The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993,” Biden said. “But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files.”
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VOA Reporter Stands Ground at Press Conference with Cambodian Prime Minister
During a recent Covid-19 press conference, VOA Khmer reporter Kann Vicheika sought answers from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on a ‘state of emergency’ draft law.
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