British scientists announced Tuesday a major coronavirus breakthrough, saying a cheap, readily-available steroid can prevent deaths from COVID-19. Scientists from Britain’s University of Oxford say in a trial the drug dexamethasone reduced death rates by 35% for patients on ventilators, and by 20% for less immediately critical patients needing oxygen.
Peter Horby, the academic leading the trial, told a Downing Street press conference, “what we saw was really quite remarkable.”
Standing by his side, Prime Minister Boris Johnson lauded the trial, hailing it as the “biggest breakthrough yet” in treating COVID-19.
“I am proud of these British scientists, backed by UK government funding, who have led the first, robust clinical trial anywhere in the world to find a coronavirus treatment proven to reduce the risk of death,” Horby said. Johnson added, “we have taken steps to ensure we have enough supplies, even in the event of a second peak.” Britain’s Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty attends a remote press conference to update the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic, inside 10 Downing Street in central London on June 10, 2020.The country’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said it is “the most important trial result for COVID-19 so far.” Scientists across the globe have been racing to find treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, which has sickened more than 8 million people and killed more than 430,000.
Dexamethasone is a generic steroid that’s been used for 60 years to reduce inflammation from a range of other conditions, including arthritis and asthma. It is low-cost — in many parts of the world costing just a dollar for a dosage course. Oxford University scientists tested it as part of a collective effort across the world by commercial labs, pharmaceutical companies and universities to existing drugs to see if any can work for the coronavirus.
It is “the only drug that’s so far shown to reduce mortality — and it reduces it significantly,” said Horby.Martin Landray, a colleague, said: “It will save lives, and it will do so at a remarkably low cost.”In the Oxford’s study 2,104 patients were given the drug and 4,321 weren’t with the outcomes being compared. The university enrolled over 11,500 patients overall to test existing drugs, making it by far the biggest clinical trial in the world.
The scientists said for patients on mechanical ventilation, it can reduce the risk of death from 40% to 28%. And for those being given supplemental needing oxygen, it can reduce fatalities from 25 to 20%. The Oxford scientists say if dexamethasone had been used sooner in Britain, it could have saved about 5,000 of the more than 40,000 Britons who so far have died of COVID-19.
They say hospital patients should be given it without delay but cautioned it doesn’t seem to help people with milder coronavirus symptoms and who are not having breathing problems.
“The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients,” said Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health.
The only other drug proven so far to show some benefits with severely ill patients is remdesivir, an anti-viral drug created to fight Ebola, which can reduce the duration of bad coronavirus symptoms from 15 to 11 days.Oxford’s findings have not yet been peer-reviewed and the researchers are “now working to publish the full details as soon as possible.”
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Month: June 2020
With Landmark Decision, US Supreme Court Expands Protections for LGBTQ Workers
For LGBTQ rights activist Jerame Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling Monday banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is all too personal. In 1999, Davis, then 24, was an assistant manager at a grocery chain store in Bloomington, Indiana. At a corporate meeting, store manager Bill Browning, now Davis’ husband, suggested the company “expand its nondiscrimination” policy to include gays and lesbians. Within days, Browning was fired. After criticizing the firing, Davis said, he was also let go. A few days later, another gay store clerk was forced to quit amid “the new management’s anti-gay taunts and jeers,” according to Browning’s account. Though the city of Bloomington had passed a nondiscrimination ordinance that protected gays and lesbians, under Indiana state law, their firing was perfectly legal. “So, when we looked for help, we couldn’t find help,” Davis recalled. “No lawyer would take our case.” Their only legal recourse was a complaint with the local human rights commission. But it took days of picketing outside the store by gay rights activists and union members for the company to offer a settlement. In those days, Davis said, the settlement was a rarity. FILE – Gerald Bostock, one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case about LGBT rights, poses outside his home in Atlanta, Georgia, September 9, 2019.“To be able to negotiate with this company and have some kind of settlement that both sides could be happy with, that wasn’t the norm,” he said. “That wasn’t what happened to most LGBTQ people.” The incident pushed Davis into LGBTQ rights activism, a decades-long campaign by his group, FILE – Aimee Stephens, one of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case about transgender rights, talks during in an interview in Ferndale, Michigan, August 28, 2019.Their employers, backed by the Trump administration, argued that the word “sex” as used in the 1964 Civil Rights Act “does not include sexual orientation or gender identity.” The Supreme Court disagreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative textualist appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, wrote that an “employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender” violates Title VII of the civil rights law.To many LGBTQ activists, the ruling by the majority-conservative court was a stunner. Yet, the 172-page opinion was a very conservative one, Lowey said. “It is rooted entirely in the statutory text as is appropriate when you’re interpreting a law and really recognize that you cannot disaggregate a worker’s sex from the discrimination that they experience when they are LGBTQ,” Lowey said.Prior to Monday, the court’s most significant ruling on LGBTQ rights was its 2015 decision recognizing same-sex marriage as constitutionally protected.In practice, though, this week’s anti-discrimination ruling will have a greater effect on people’s lives, according to some activists.”Not everyone is going to get married, but everyone has to get a job,” Davis said.According to a 2017 Gallup study, 4.5% of Americans are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. While most employers have embraced their own anti-discrimination policies in recent years, the ruling sends a “message of values” across the board, Davis said. Joseph Fons holding a Pride Flag, stands in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after the court ruled that a federal law banning workplace discrimination also covers sexual orientation, in Washington, D.C., June 15, 2020.Years in the making The groundwork for Monday’s ruling was laid more than two decades ago when the court began what Lowey called a “trajectory of increasing recognition of equal dignity and humanity of LGBTQ people.” In 1996, it struck down a Colorado statute that prevented cities from passing anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians. In 2003, in a reversal of a 1980’s opinion, the court eliminated sodomy laws in the United States. In 2013, it annulled a federal law that defined marriage as “the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” Finally, in a historic decision in 2015, the justices voted 5-4 to make same-sex marriage legal in the United States. With these rulings, federal courts “really started to grapple more in earnest with the way in which discrimination against LGBTQ workers really functions as a form of sex discrimination,” Lowey said. Along the way, LGBTQ rights advocates suffered some setbacks. In 2018, the court sided with a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. While celebrating Monday’s rulings, LGBTQ rights advocates say their work is not done. They are now pressing Congress to pass the Equality Act, which protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, education and jury service. The House passed the bill last year, but the Senate has not adopted its own version.
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Rhetoric or Reality? Britain’s Hong Kong Passport Offer Angers China
Britain and China are engaged in a heated dispute over plans to make it easier for some Hong Kong residents to emigrate to Britain. The British government announced the proposal last month in response to China’s ongoing attempt to impose a new security law on Hong Kong, following violent anti-government protests in 2019. Critics say the proposed legislation would make any form of anti-government criticism or protest a criminal act, with the potential to be charged with terrorism. They fear it could also allow Chinese security agencies to set up bases in the city. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, whose 2017 appointment was approved by Beijing, said Monday the proposed security law was needed in the territory. “The people of Hong Kong want to see stability again. They want a safe environment to work and live in,” Lam said at a news conference in Hong Kong. She described opponents of the security law as “enemies of the people.” Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – A woman wearing a protective face mask stands in front of a Chinese national flag and a Hong Kong flag outside government headquarters, in Hong Kong, February 4, 2020.As part of that commitment, it seems Britain may offer Hong Kong residents an “emergency exit.” Britain issued so-called British Nationals Overseas passports to people who were Hong Kong residents before the 1997 handover. The government says around 350,000 people currently hold such a passport and over 2.5 million people who lived in Hong Kong before the British handover are eligible to apply. The British government is proposing to make it easier for holders of those passports and their immediate families to move to Britain, with what it calls a “clear pathway to citizenship” after five years. Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined the plans in an article for The Times newspaper June 3. “This would amount to one of the biggest changes to our visa system in history. If it proves necessary Britain will take this step and take it willingly,” Johnson wrote. The proposal is targeted both at Hong Kong residents and at the Communist Party in Beijing, according to Professor Steve Tsang of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, who spoke to VOA on Monday via Skype. “Implicit in the British plan is the possibility that Hong Kong could lose a very significant percentage of its talented people,” Tsang said. “From the perspective of Beijing, they want Hong Kong to do well. They are not, however, prepared to pay any price to keep the talent in place in Hong Kong, particularly if those talents also happen to be ‘troublemakers’ for Beijing.” “Beijing believes that they have millions of very well-educated Chinese on the mainland with Western educations who are perfectly capable of backfilling people who leave Hong Kong and continue to make Hong Kong a success and be very loyal to the Communist Party,” Tsang added. Until the policy is finalized, British ministers have proposed emergency measures to allow BNO passport holders easier entry rights into Britain. It’s the biggest change in policy since the handover, said Johnny Patterson of advocacy group Hong Kong Watch. “It signals not only an incredibly generous and meaningful immigration shift but also a sea change in Sino-British relations potentially,” Patterson said in a recent VOA interview. Professor Tsang said there is a notable lack of policy detail: “I think the ambiguity is very much by design. What the British government has offered Hong Kong essentially is to send a message both to people in Hong Kong that they are not forgotten and a message to China that there will be responses from the U.K., (and) hopefully the Chinese government will back off.” Beijing has warned that the British citizenship offer would itself breach the 1997 Joint Declaration. Until recently Britain agreed with that verdict. China’s attempt to impose the new security law appears to have changed the calculation in London.
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Eiffel Tower to Reopen After Longest Closure Since World War Two
Workers are preparing the Eiffel Tower for reopening next week, after the coronavirus pandemic led to the iconic Paris landmark’s longest closure since World War Two. France’s tourism industry is opening back up, but the 324-meter tall wrought-iron tower won’t immediately welcome visitors the way it did before the country went into lockdown in March. Only limited numbers of people will be allowed in when the Eiffel Tower opens again on June 25. Elevators to the top will be out of service, at least at first, and only the first and second floors will be accessible to the public. “At first, only visits by the stairs will be available,” Victoria Klahr, the spokeswoman for the tower’s management, said Tuesday. Everyone over 11 years old will be required to wear face masks, and crowd control measures will be in place. “We are optimistic that visitor numbers will pick up, even if it will likely be local tourists who visit the monument in the first weeks,” Klahr said. The tower’s director told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he hopes access will be back to normal by August. A stringent cleaning operation is in place and will continue daily from next week. “There is a new protocol,” said Eiffel Tower hygiene consultant Alain Miralles. “The day cleaning teams will be able to clean all the points of contact every two hours, from the opening of the site to its closing.”Visitor stairs are demarcated with social distancing stickers during a presentation of the security measures at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, June 16, 2020. The Eiffel Tower will partially reopen on June 25.Tourists planning trips to the City of Light are advised to book tickets to visit the Eiffel Tower online once the ticket office reopens Thursday. Paris tourism officials have expressed muted optimism about the city’s reemergence as a travel destination. Since confinement measures were imposed in March, tourism levels have dropped by about 80% compared with the same month in previous years, they said. “To visit Paris now is quite exceptional, as we of course don’t have many visitors and we don’t expect this summer to be at the same level as previous ones,” Corinne Menegaux, the director of Paris’s businesses and tourism office, told The AP. Hotel owners are also keen to welcome visitors again, if realistic about the challenges ahead – and the competition among European countries to draw tourists back in the coronavirus era. “Everyone is Europe is looking to draw the European clientele. The Italians want to bring in the French, the Germans want to attract the Danes,” said Serge Cachan, president of France’s Astotel Group. He pointed out the plexiglass protections in the reception area of one of his hotels and arrows to ensure social distancing. He welcomed the French president’s Sunday decision to let Paris restaurants reopen earlier than planned. “Without restaurants, there is no conviviality, there is no tourism, there are no clients in hotels,” he said in an interview.
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Rhetoric or Reality? Britain’s Hong Kong Passport Offer Angers China
London and Beijing are engaged in a heated dispute over plans to make it easier for some Hong Kong residents to emigrate to Britain. The British government announced the proposal in response to China’s attempt to impose a new security law on the territory, following violent anti-government protests. Hong Kong is meant to be semi-autonomous from Beijing — but critics say the new law threatens that status. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Striking Doctors in Nigeria Demand COVID-19 PPE, Hazard Pay
A Nigerian doctors union is demanding that the government provide members with more personal protective equipment and hazard pay in treating patients infected with COVID-19, or they will escalate a strike that began Monday, its leader said. Dr. Aliyu Sokomba, president of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, said union members now caring for patients in COVID-19 treatment facilities will suspend those duties unless federal and state governments comply with their demands within two weeks.An undisclosed number of the union’s 5,000 members, who represent at least a third of Nigeria’s physicians, have walked off their jobs at government-run hospitals.“We cannot continue to let ourselves continue to get infected and continue to die in the absence of necessary personal protective equipment,” Sokomba told VOA when reached by phone Monday in Abuja, the capital. In a separate interview, he described the supply of masks, gloves and other PPE as “grossly inadequate.”At least 10 doctors have died of COVID-19, the highly contagious disease caused by the coronavirus. Sokomba has expressed concern that an estimated 200 doctors have tested positive for the disease.Nigeria’s FILE – Pedestrians walk past a sign telling residents to call phone numbers if they have symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in Lagos, Nigeria, May 12, 2020.Residents, who have completed medical school and work under the supervision of senior doctors, provide much of the front-line care, including in emergency rooms, for Nigeria’s 200 million people. The West African country is the continent’s most populous nation.The Nigeria Center for Disease Control’s director general, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, expressed concern about the strike.“We need more health workers in the fight,” not fewer, he told Nigeria’s Vanguard news organization.The residents’ union had threatened the strike over multiple issues, including protection against pay cuts or dismissals in two regions.Sokomba told VOA that the union also sought life insurance “for all health care workers, so that should anybody fall dead as a result of infection through this COVID-19, the family and next of kin will have something to fall back on.”The union has been criticized for calling a strike during the pandemic, especially while the federal government and many states are confronting COVID-19-related economic challenges, as well as insecurity because of armed extremist groups.
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Kenyan Father Relieved Policeman to Face Charges for Son’s Killing
Kenyan police have confirmed a police officer is to face charges over the killing of a 13-year-old boy during enforcement of a coronavirus curfew.Yassin Moyo was shot in late March while standing on his family’s apartment balcony in Nairobi – a tragedy that a police spokesman described as an accident. But activists have long accused Kenyan police of brutality and unlawful killings, with little to show in the way of action.Yassin’s father, Hussein Moyo, said he is relieved to hear that a policeman will face charges over his son’s death.Moyo said his neighbor, who witnessed the incident, saw the policeman steady his gun and take aim on his target. He then let loose his shot, Moyo said. By then, he said, his eldest daughter had told her mother, Hadija, “Let’s get away from this balcony, it’s not safe.” Hadija beckoned the children to get away, Moyo said, but by then it was too late. Yassin had been hit by the bullet.A Kenyan police spokesman confirmed a policeman is to be charged over the teenager’s death but also described it as an accident.”We know he didn’t do it intentionally but still he has committed a crime of manslaughter or whatever. He has killed an innocent life because of his professional negligence. If he would have done his work professionally, the way he is trained, we would not have lost that boy,” he said.Kenyan protesters last week decried what they call years of police impunity and a jump in incidents of police brutality during the curfew.Protesters hold placards during a demonstration against police killings and brutality, in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, Kenya, June 8, 2020.Hawa Hussein was one of hundreds who marched in Mathare, the poor Nairobi neighborhood where Yassin Moyo was killed.“We are tired of police brutality. They are killing our youth, including my late husband. I have a young son and by protesting I am fighting for his future because the unlawful killings are constant, and our voices are not being heard,” said Hussein.Kenya’s Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) says five other police are facing charges over other deaths, injuries, and assaults that pre-date the COVID-19 curfew.The IPOA says it is investigating 15 deaths linked to police since March.But protester Rahma Wako said that is not enough.”We thought that IPOA would level charges against more rogue officers whom we as a community know have committed unlawful killings,” said Wako. “But nothing has happened. And that is why we ask ourselves, what powers do these police officers have?”Since its 2012 launch, Kenya’s IPOA has overseen the conviction of just seven officers for unlawful deaths, despite dozens of killings linked to police.The Independent Police Oversight Authority did not have a spokesperson available to comment.
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COVID-19 Vaccine to Be Free in US, Official Says
The Trump administration says it will make an eventual COVID-19 vaccine available for free to virtually anyone in the United States who wants it. Insurance companies are expected to cover the vaccine for most Americans, according to a senior administration official at a briefing Tuesday to discuss the government’s efforts to develop a vaccine by the end of the year. For those who are not insured, the official added, “Our role as the federal government is to ensure anyone who is vulnerable, cannot afford it and desires it gets it.” The official said Americans would get any vaccine produced with federal funding before it would be made available to other countries. FILE – A man stands outside an entrance to a Moderna, Inc., building in Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 2020. Moderna entered the first phase of a three-step clinical trial process for a COVID-19 vaccine in mid-March.”Our priorities are very clear. Let’s take care of Americans first,” the official said. “To the extent there is surplus, we have an interest in ensuring folks around the world are vaccinated,” since the virus arrived through international travel, he noted. Other countries are signing separate contracts to manufacture the vaccine elsewhere, he said. “In no way are we inhibiting through our contracts those vaccines from getting to others around the world,” the official added. As part of FILE – The AstraZeneca logo is shown on the company’s building in Shanghai, China.Fourteen vaccine candidates have been chosen from more than 100 in development. The government said it will select the most promising seven for clinical trials. President Donald Trump’s administration has already announced support for candidates produced by three companies: Moderna, which entered the first phase of the three-step clinical trial process in mid-March; Johnson & Johnson, which plans to start phase 1 testing this summer; and AstraZeneca, which is entering the final, large-scale testing phase this summer with a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford. The administration says this vaccine could be available as soon as October if it works. Federal funding is going toward building manufacturing capacity at the same time as vaccine candidates undergo testing, so that whatever vaccine proves safe and effective can be distributed as soon as possible. The government has also signed contracts with companies that make the vials and syringes to package vaccines.
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In France, Street Names Carry a Colonial Burden
Throughout France, long-dead slave traders live on in French port cities like Nantes, Bordeaux and La Rochelle, where streets bear their names. Statues and schools still bear the monikers of Joseph Gallieni, a military commander who quelled rebellions in former colonies, and Jules Ferry, who is lauded for founding the secular school system, but who also believed in superior races. Here, as in Europe’s other former colonial powers, police violence, #BlackLivesMatter protests and toppled Confederate monuments in the United States are sparking attacks on colonial-era relics and soul searching in France –including how the country should move forward. Some, including former socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, want the names of at least some controversial historical figures to be scrubbed from streets and monuments, or to at least add contextual plaques. Others believe doing so offers a dishonest take on history — and still others claim today’s French should not have to apologize for their forebears. “With the slavery debate again out in the open in the U.S., it seems to me that militant groups are taking the opportunity to open it in France,” said historian Nicole Bacharan. “Despite very different pasts, both countries are confronted with the key question of ‘do we have the right or not to revisit history?’” Bacharan added. “And I think we do.” National conversation If questions about France’s colonial and slave trading legacy are not new, they have catapulted into the national conversation in recent days, amid swelling protests against police violence and accusations of discrimination against minorities.FILE – A demonstrator clenches her fist as she stands on a statue on the Place de la Republique during a rally against racism in Paris, June 9, 2020.Last week, activists tried to steal a 19th century African pole from Paris’ Quai Branly Museum, with the apparent intent of returning it to Africa. And even before George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, protesters in the French overseas territory of Martinique attacked a pair of statues of 19th century abolitionist Victor Schoelcher – who was also a staunch supporter of colonialism. More recently, ex-prime minister Ayrault waded into the debate, calling buildings named after 17th century French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert to be rebaptized. “Maybe we should say he wasn’t just a great economy minister, but also the minister of colonialism and the minister of the Black Code,” Ayrault said in an interview with French radio, referring to the code that regulated conditions for slavery in former French colonies. But Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron flatly rejected editing or obscuring the colonial-era monikers. “The Republic will not wipe away any trace or any name from its history,” Macron said in a televised address. “It will not forget any of its works. It will not take down any of its statues but lucidly look at our history and our memory together.” The debates and protests are mirrored in other European countries with colonial pasts. In Belgium, protesters burned and daubed in blood red a statue of King Leopold II, who oversaw the brutal rule of the then-Belgian Congo, which he treated as his personal property. Leopold’s grand-niece, Princess Esmeralda, has called for an official Belgian apology on colonization. In Britain, where protesters toppled a slave trader statue in Bristol, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the country cannot “edit or censor history.” Yet Johnson has also sparked anger, including in Africa, for downplaying Britain’s past and role in the slave trade, as a member of parliament in 2002. Yet both countries, along with the Netherlands and soon, Germany, have national museums dedicated to their colonial histories. France does not. FILE – The statue of French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who served as Finance minister from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV, sits in front of the French National Assembly in Paris, June 10, 2020.Addressing France’s past Still, perhaps more than many of his French predecessors, President Macron has taken steps to address France’s colonial past. As presidential candidate in 2017, he sparked controversy for calling France’s colonization of Algeria a “crime against humanity.” More recently, he announced France would return looted artifacts to former African colonies that request them. “I belong to a generation which was not that of colonization,” Macron said in a visit to Abidjan last December, following an announcement that another colonial symbol — the West African CFA franc currency — would be transformed into the Eco. But now, Macron’s thumbs down to removing colonial-era names from edifices and streets has sparked sharp divisions. “He’s shutting the discussion,” said Karfa Diallo, the Senegalese head of Bordeaux-based association of Memoires et Partages (Memories and Sharing), which has fought for greater awareness of the city’s darker legacy as a former slave trading port. “The government is absent from the debate. It doesn’t realize the … anger that’s mounting worldwide.” On the other side of the debate, former far-right lawmaker Marion Marechal rejected any links to the colonial past in the recent deaths of African American Floyd and Frenchman Adama Traore, who was killed in police custody in 2016. “I don’t have to apologize as a white French woman,” she tweeted recently. For others, remembering the past, with all its blemishes, is essential. “Removing names from roads for the symbolism in some cases is important,” said prominent historian Pascale Blanchard in an interview with France Info radio. But others should be left alone, Blanchard said, with explanatory plaques added instead. “We can’t make history without a trace, without patrimony, without an archive,” he said.
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COVID-19 Reshapes UN Security Council Election
The U.N. General Assembly will hold its first major vote Wednesday since the coronavirus pandemic forced United Nations headquarters to essentially shut down in mid-March. Member states will hold an election for five seats on the powerful 15-member Security Council. The annual event normally draws hundreds of diplomats to the assembly hall in a collegial atmosphere, where candidate countries hand out small treat bags with national goodies to promote their candidacy, capping off months of campaigning and parties to raise their profiles. FILE – Flags fly outside the United Nations headquarters in New York.U.N. headquarters is in the heart of New York City, which has been one of the hardest-hit places globally by COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The complex closed in mid-March to all but a few hundred essential personnel who could not perform their duties from home. Since then, the secretary-general has held virtual news conferences, the Security Council has taken its public meetings online, and the United Nations, like many individuals and businesses, has had to navigate an evolving reality, which included the cancellation of events promoting candidacies. “The pandemic initially upset the candidates’ campaign plans in March and April, but they have got back to lobbying via phone and Zoom as the vote approaches,” said Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group and a longtime U.N. watcher. ”Justin Trudeau and other leaders have been popping up in webinars and placing calls to wavering leaders.” FILE – Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, speaks at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14, 2020.Trudeau is Canada’s prime minister, and his government is running in a tight race with Ireland and Norway for two available seats in the regional group dedicated to Western Europe “and others.” Canada lost its last bid for a seat in 2010 and has a lot on the line. Both Ireland and Norway are popular contenders. The European Union’s 27-strong bloc will be behind Ireland, especially as it seeks to maintain its influence on the council. With permanent council member Britain now no longer part of the bloc, it has lost one influential seat and could see its current hold on four seats cut in half as Belgium and Germany complete their two-year terms and exit the council at the end of the year, leaving France and Estonia. Norway is not an EU member but has a solid reputation in multilateral diplomacy and conflict resolution. “Norway is a strong candidate, and has emphasized diplomatic experience mediating in Colombia, Venezuela and the Middle East,” Gowan noted. In the other contested race, Djibouti and Kenya are competing for a single seat in the African Group. Typically, the African bloc rotates seats among its sub-regions and presents one agreed-upon candidate. This year it is East Africa’s turn, but there was initially a lack of consensus on who should run. Kenya subsequently received the endorsement of the African Union’s Permanent Representatives Council, but Djibouti has challenged the PRC’s authority to make the endorsement and has continued with its bid. Mexico is the candidate from the Latin America and the Caribbean bloc, and India for Asia-Pacific. Both are running uncontested. Member states cast secret ballots and candidate countries must win a two-thirds majority of votes to succeed, even if running unopposed. The current General Assembly president will oversee the proceedings. Diplomats will also vote simultaneously for members of the social and economic council and to approve the uncontested bid for the next president of the General Assembly. On Wednesday, diplomats will vote in person during designated time slots in the assembly hall to respect social distancing and guidelines prohibiting large gatherings. Several rounds of voting are often needed to settle contested races. “The new voting process will be quite onerous, and diplomats will not be happy if they have to troop in and out of headquarters for repeated rounds of ballots,” Gowan predicted. The countries running for the Security Council are looking to replace exiting members Belgium, Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa. The winners will take up their two-year terms on Jan. 1, 2021.
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Malaysia’s New Government Cracks Down on Critics
A wave of criminal charges and police probes targeting critics of Malaysia’s embattled new government has rights groups worried the country is backsliding on free speech protections following the brief spell of a reform-minded administration. They say at least eight people have been charged or summoned for questioning for critical social media posts about the government, police or royals since May 6, including opposition lawmakers, journalists and the head of a clean government watchdog group. “We are beginning to see a reverting to the old government ways where not only were people called in for questioning — people are now getting charged and brought to court,” said Thomas Fann, chairman of the local pro-democracy group Bersih. “They want to send a very strong message that they won’t be tolerant of any sort of dissent against them,” he said. Malaysia’s long-ruling and corruption-mired Barisan National government was toppled in a 2018 general election that ushered in a reformist coalition led by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. But the coalition collapsed this past February when breakaway lawmakers joined forces with the lead party of the previous government, setting off a leadership tussle that saw Malaysia’s king name one of the defectors, Muhyiddin Yassin, the new prime minister. FILE -Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad participates in ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Nonthaburi, Thailand, Nov. 2, 2019.The king claimed Muhyiddin had mustered the support of a majority of lawmakers, but that has yet to be tested with a vote in Parliament. Critics of his “back door government” meanwhile bemoan the political horse-trading that has allegedly kept it together and want to see fresh general elections. Fann said the investigation and prosecution of government critics had tapered off after Barisan’s defeat two years ago and that he feared the recent spike will pressure some lawmakers and journalists to self-censor. “And that’s a real shame because we were beginning to see an opening-up of the media, you know, where media [were] becoming more vocal, more independent.” he said. Among those who have run afoul of the new government is Cynthia Gabriel, founding director of the independent Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism. She was summoned by police for questioning on June 10 over an open letter she penned urging the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the horse-trading allegations and possible payoffs to buy lawmakers’ loyalties. Gabriel called her ordeal “an act of intimidation and harassment” meant to silence her and others while Muhyiddin’s nascent government was still on shaky ground. “There are so many factions within political parties and the power grab has never been more intense,” she said. “So in all that uncertainty of holding on to power, criticism and dissent have become a major victim as authorities use their power to shut us up and instill fear of a more authoritative state.” Also summoned recently was an opposition lawmaker, Xavier Jayakumar, who criticized the government’s decision to shorten a sitting of Parliament on May 18, effectively bumping a planned no-confidence vote off the agenda. Among those charged have been a blogger over posts about the prime minister and king and a former radio personality for a post that allegedly offended a crown prince. Malaysia’s Center for Independent Journalism said such charges overstepped any legitimate need to preserve public order. “We need an enabling environment that promotes critical thinking and healthy debates that would uphold democracy and good governance,” executive director Wathshlah Naidu said. “It is time that we reject actions of the state to silence dissenting voices so that freedom of expression and speech can flourish in Malaysia.” International rights groups Article 19 and Human Rights Watch have also chimed in. “Malaysians should be able to criticize their government and its policies without fear of facing police questioning and possible criminal charges,” HRW deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement. Rights groups place part of the blame on the laws the authorities are using for being overly broad, including sections of the Penal Code, Communications and Multimedia Act and Sedition Act. They have been urging the authorities for years to amend them so as to limit the potential for their abuse. Fann, of Bersih, said Mahathir’s administration missed its chance to do so. Had they managed, he added, “I think we would not be in this position where [critics are] as vulnerable as we are now.” The prime minister’s press secretary and political secretary refused VOA’s requests for an interview. The press secretary for the Home Affairs Ministry, which oversees the national police, also refused. The national police and attorney general’s office did not reply to requests for comment.
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China’s Plan to Take Charge of ‘Serious’ National Security Cases in Hong Kong Sparks Concern
China must take charge of “serious” cases in Hong Kong that breach national security, a senior Chinese official said this week as Beijing prepares to impose new national security laws in the city.
Analysts and legal experts say Hong Kong’s freedoms are under unprecedented threats after China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, passed a plan in late May to impose sweeping national security laws on Hong Kong to prevent and punish what Beijing considers “acts and activities” that threaten national security, including advocacy of secession, subversion and terrorism and foreign interference.
The plan, which bypassed Hong Kong’s legislature, would also allow Chinese national security organs to set up agencies in the city. The laws are expected to be enacted within the next few months, with some reports suggesting it could take effect as soon as late June or July.
China insists such laws are necessary to halt widespread anti-government protests in Hong Kong, which started off being peaceful in June last year but turned violent as frustrations mounted.Police stand guard outside a mall where mourners pay their respects on the one year anniversary at the site where a man fell to his death after hanging a protest banner, in Hong Kong, June 15, 2020.Deng Zhonghua, deputy head of China’s ministerial-level Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, told an official conference on Monday that the majority of the work to safeguard national security, including law enforcement and judicial process, should be done by Hong Kong’s authorities. But “in very special circumstances, the central (Chinese) authorities should have the power to retain jurisdiction over offenses in Hong Kong that seriously endanger national security,” he added.
Deng stopped short of defining what constitutes “serious” cases but insisted that such cases would be “very few” and would not affect the independence of the semi-autonomous city’s judiciary. He however stressed that the Chinese government must have an “actual grip” on national security offenses in Hong Kong.
“(The laws) must create an effective deterrence, instead of just being slogans and gestures,” Deng said.
He further stressed that the national security laws “have the authority and status that cannot be challenged” and no local laws in Hong Kong should override them.
He said Chinese security agencies will also “supervise and guide” the Hong Kong government in safeguarding national security.FILE – A woman wearing a protective face mask stands in front of a Chinese national flag and a Hong Kong flag outside government headquarters, in Hong Kong, Feb. 4, 2020.In his original address, Deng said the national security laws would give national security agents set up by the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities’ enforcement and judicial powers. But the word “judicial power” disappeared from his speech released after the conference.
Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Deng’s speech was “very disturbing because it’s up to Beijing to define what is serious and what cases need special treatment.”
“It will be determined according to Beijing’s yardstick and this goes against the principle of the rule of law,” said Lam. “This is very dangerous.”
Johnny Lau, a veteran political commentator on Chinese affairs, said although the Chinese authorities have repeatedly emphasized that the national security laws would apply to only “a small bunch” of people, “the laws would likely be used to justify suppressing not so few government critics in Hong Kong”, where people have enjoyed a range of civil freedoms that would soon be deemed illegal under the national security laws.
Johannes Chan, professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, told local media Deng’s words on the “unchallenged authority” of the national security laws could mean they supersede Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and its laws which have mechanisms to safeguard human rights. He worried that Hong Kong courts would effectively become “rubber stamps” that execute the national security laws, without the authority to challenge and interpret them.A pro-democracy activist waves a banner during a protest at the New Town Plaza mall in Hong Kong, June 12, 2020.Philip Dykes, the chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association said Beijing’s intention to take control of the most serious national security cases amounts to a “reverse engineering” of a now withdrawn extradition bill which sparked the huge, year-long anti-government protest movement. The proposed law, which could see individuals sent to China for trials, plunged the city into its deepest political crisis in decades.
“It sounds like a reverse engineering of the ill-fated extradition bill. Rather than you going to the mainland, the mainland comes to you,” Dykes told the public broadcaster RTHK.
Experts have said the national security laws have sounded the death knell for the “one country, two systems” policy that has enabled Hong Kong to maintain its core values — the rule of law and basic civil liberties — that have underpinned its success as an international business hub in the past 23 years after its reversal from British to Chinese rule.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security John Lee also said this week a new police unit being created to implement the national security laws will operate secretly because national security is involved. He also said Tuesday that the new laws will stipulate what politicians are barred from doing when they meet foreign government officials. Pro-democracy politicians have often been criticized by China for “inviting foreign interference” when they discuss Hong Kong with foreign officials.
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First Drug Proves Able to Improve Survival from COVID-19
Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients.
Results were announced Tuesday and researchers said they would publish them soon. The study is a large, strict test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to get the drug and compared them with 4,321 patients getting only usual care.
The drug was given either orally or through an IV. After 28 days, it had reduced deaths by 35% in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20% in those only needing supplemental oxygen. It did not appear to help less ill patients.
“This is an extremely welcome result,” one study leader, Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, said in a statement. “The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
Even though the drug only helps in severe cases, “countless lives will be saved globally,” said Nick Cammack of Wellcome, a British charity that supports science research.
“Dexamethasone must now be rolled out and accessed by thousands of critically ill patients around the world,” said Cammack, who had no role in the study. “It is highly affordable, easy to make, can be scaled up quickly and only needs a small dosage.”
Steroid drugs reduce inflammation, which sometimes develops in COVID-19 patients as the immune system overreacts to fight the infection. This overreaction can prove fatal, so doctors have been testing steroids and other anti-inflammatory drugs in such patients. The World Health Organization advises against using steroids earlier in the course of illness because they can slow the time until patients clear the virus.
Researchers estimated that the drug would prevent one death for every eight patients treated while on breathing machines and one for every 25 patients on extra oxygen alone.
This is the same study that earlier this month showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was not working against the coronavirus. The study enrolled more than 11,000 patients in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who were given either standard of care or that plus one of several treatments: dexamethasone; the HIV combo drug lopinavir-ritonavir, the antibiotic azithromycin; the anti-inflammatory drug tocilizumab; or plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 that contains antibodies to fight the virus.
Research is continuing on the other treatments. The research is funded by government health agencies in the United Kingdom and private donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Cameroon Doctors Begin Home Consultations for COVID Wary Patients
The U.N. Population Fund says many women are reluctant to seek medical care at health facilities for fear they may be exposed to the coroanvirus. In Cameroon, a nonprofit group of doctors has started to make home visits, the first program of its kind in the country. For VOA, Anne Nzouankeu reports from Yaoundé in this story narrated by Moki Edwin Kindzeka.Camera: Anne Nzouankeu Produced by: Marcus Harton
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Panel Says NOAA Administrators Violated Scientific Integrity Policy
An investigation conducted on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has found that agency leaders violated NOAA’s own scientific integrity policy in releasing a statement last year contradicting their own forecasters and supporting U.S. President Trump’s false assertion about the path of Hurricane Dorian last year.NOAA is the agency that includes the U.S. National Weather Service.From his Twitter feed Sept. 1, Trump wrote that Hurricane Dorian, a storm that at that time was approaching the U.S. southeast coast, would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Ala., posted from its Twitter account “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”Alabama was not struck by the hurricane.The next week, on September 4 during a White House news briefing from the Oval Office, the president displayed a forecast map which appeared to have been altered with a marker to show Alabama in the path of the hurricane. On September 6, NOAA issued a statement contradicting its forecasters in Birmingham.In a report released Monday, the independent investigating panel found that acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs, and former NOAA deputy chief of staff/ communications director Julie Kay Roberts twice violated codes of the agency’s scientific integrity policy amid their involvement in the September 6 statement.NOAA’s scientific integrity policy prohibits political interference with the conduct and communication of the agency’s scientific findings. No punishments were recommended, but the report did call on the agency to better ensure “the right of NOAA scientists to review, comment, and amend any official communication that relies on their scientific analysis.”The investigation had been requested by two NOAA employees, a former NOAA administrator and New York U.S Congressman Paul Tonko, among others. It was conducted on NOAA’s behalf by a panel assembled by the National Academy of Public Administration. NAPA, a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution dedicated to facilitating good governance, conducts assessments for government agencies.
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Cameroon Teens Urge Education for Peers in Separatist Crisis Areas
In Cameroon, thousands of children who fled the country’s separatist conflict in western regions are marking the International Day of the African Child, which underscores the right to education. Schools in French-speaking regions hosting the children are calling for peace so that schools closed in the troubled English-speaking regions can be reopened. But peace is elusive after four years of fighting.
Treasure Fomunyuy, a 13-year-old who escaped from Cameroon’s English-speaking northwestern town of Kumbo a year ago after his school was torched by armed men, has joined 300 other school children at the Etoug Ebe government school in Yaounde to ask for closed schools in the English-speaking North West and South West regions to be reopened.
Fomonyuy said he does not want his peers to continue to be deprived of education.
“I stayed in the house for three years without going to school. I do not want my brothers and sisters who are in the North West and South West to be stopped from going to school. Many of them want to be doctors, teachers and presidents,” he said.
Fomonyuy lives with his uncle, who has agreed to pay his fees. He said many children lack the opportunity he has.FILE – A teacher wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus writes on a blackboard at the Technical High School of Nkol-Bisson in Yaounde, Cameroon, June 1, 2020.Mumah Bih Yvonne of the Cameroon Women’s Peace Movement is asking for the right of children to education to be respected on the Day of the African Child in commemoration of the June 16, 1976, street protests in South Africa against poor quality education there.
Yvonne said the situation in Cameroon is becoming worse because children are outrightly denied access to education.
“We are sincerely calling on the stakeholders (protagonists) to stop hostilities. Please, please, our children need their education. Without education they are nothing. Education is their right,” Yvonne said.The separatist crisis began in 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers organized protests against what they called the marginalization of English in the majority French-speaking nation. The military responded with a crackdown, and armed groups took up weapons, saying that they were defending their people from military brutality.
Separatists called for a closure of English-speaking schools until the crisis is solved. Some parents transferred their children to be educated in safer French-speaking towns, but a majority of English-speaking students have remained at home, according to the government.FILE – A woman stands outside a damaged school dormitory after it was set on fire, in Bafut, in the North West English-speaking region of Cameroon, Nov. 15, 2017.Asheri Kilo, the secretary of state in the Ministry of Basic Education, said the government is determined to educate all children, but added that some schools are constantly attacked, torched, looted or are occupied by separatists.
“In the North West, 46 elementary schools were burned down by the separatists and 24 of those schools were occupied by them. In the South West, there were 73 schools burned and 35 occupied. Of course, the military is taking care of getting the separatists out of the school campuses that have been occupied,” Kilo said.
The separatists have blamed the military for torching schools and public buildings and said they will allow children to go to school only after the central government withdraws its troops from the English-speaking regions.
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Spain Grants Few Asylum Requests, Yet Many Arrive Illegally Anyway
During Europe’s migrant crisis of 2015, European Union member states promised to accept 160,000 asylum seekers in two years, of which the Spanish government pledged to receive nearly 18,000. Five years later, Spain has given asylum to only two thousand people — held back in part by opposition from some Spaniards who say the kingdom already has too many migrants — many of them from Africa. Alfonso Beato filed this report from Barcelona, narrated by Jonathan Spier.Camera: Alfonso BeatoProduced by: Jon Spier
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New York Police Probe Clears Workers of Criminality in Alleged Police Poisoning
A New York City police department investigation has determined that employees at a U.S. fast food restaurant did not any commit criminal acts after three officers drank milkshakes that may have been tainted with bleach.New York Police Department Chief Detective Rodney Harrison tweeted the announcement early Tuesday after a “thorough investigation” had been conducted.After a thorough investigation by the NYPD’s Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by shake shack’s employees.
— Chief Rodney Harrison (@NYPDDetectives) June 16, 2020The New York Patrolman’s Benevolent Association said in a statement three officers concluded “a toxic substance, believed to be bleach,” was added to their milkshakes at a Shake Shack restaurant in the borough of Manhattan.The officers had been assigned to work at a protest against racial injustice that was sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody in the midwestern city of Minneapolis.They stopped at the Manhattan restaurant Monday evening in for a meal, according to the New York Patrolman’s Benevolent Association. The Detectives’ Endowment Association said the officers were treated at a hospital but were not seriously injured.Shake Shack tweeted it was “horrified” by the alleged contamination and said it was cooperating with police in the investigation.
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European Markets Pick Up Baton from Asia as Big Rally Spreads
Tuesday’s big rally in Asia carried over into Europe as investors cheered new moves by central banks in the United States and Japan to help the global economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The FTSE in London is up 2.5% at the midday trading mark, Paris’ CAC-40 index has risen 2.6%, and Frankfurt’s DAX index is soaring above 3%. Tokyo’s Nikkei index led Asia’s big rebound earlier in the day, earning 1,051 points to finish the trading session 4.8% higher. The S&P/ASX index in Sydney was close behind, earning 3.9% at its closing bell. Elsewhere in the region, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 2.3% higher, and Shanghai’s Composite index had gained 1.4%. The Sensex in Mumbai was up 1.1%, while Taiwan’s TSEC was 1.8% higher. The rebound was sparked by Monday’s announcement by the U.S. Federal Reserve that it would begin buying individual corporate bonds as part of its efforts to help the overall U.S. economy recover from the COVID-19 lockdowns that ground all economic activity to a halt. The announcement sparked a late rally on Wall Street, which had lost ground over fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections. A man walks past an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, June 16, 2020.Markets were also bolstered by the Bank of Japan’s decision to expand its corporate lending program and purchases of corporate bonds from about $700 billion to $1 trillion. The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ continue to trend upward in futures trading Tuesday, indicating a positive opening for Wall Street. Oil markets are rising, with U.S. crude trading at $37.72 per barrel, up 1.6%, while Brent crude oil is trading at $40.42 per barrel, up 1.7%
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India Says 3 Soldiers Killed in Standoff with Chinese Troops
At least three Indian soldiers, including a senior army officer, were killed in a confrontation with Chinese troops along their disputed border high in the Himalayas where thousands of soldiers on both sides have been facing off for over a month, the Indian army said Tuesday.
The incident — in which neither side fired any shots, according to Indian officials — is the first deadly confrontation between the two Asian giants since 1975.
The Indian army said in a statement that a “violent faceoff” took place in Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region on Monday night, “with casualties on both sides.”
“The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers,” the statement said. “Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.”
China, for its part, accused Indian forces along the border of carrying out “provocative attacks” on its troops, leading to “serious physical conflicts” between the sides.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian gave no details on any casualties on the Chinese side, but said Tuesday that China had strongly protested the incident while still being committed to maintaining “peace and tranquility” along the disputed and heavily militarized border.
“But what is shocking is that on June 15, the Indian troops seriously violated the consensus of the two sides, crossed the border illegally twice and carried out provocative attacks on Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical conflicts between the two border forces,” Zhao said.
Thousands of soldiers from the two countries, backed by armored trucks and artillery, have been facing off just a few hundred meters (yards) apart for more than a month in the Ladakh region near Tibet. Army officers and diplomats have held a series of meetings to try to end the impasse, with no breakthrough.
Indian authorities have officially maintained near-total silence on the issues related to the confrontation, and it was not immediately clear how the three Indian soldiers died.
But two Indian security officials familiar with latest developments told The Associated Press that soldiers from the two sides engaged in fistfights and stone-throwing, which led to the casualties. Both maintained that no shots were fired by either side. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with government regulations.
The tense standoff started in early May, when Indian officials said that Chinese soldiers crossed the boundary in Ladakh at three different points, erecting tents and guard posts and ignoring verbal warnings to leave. That triggered shouting matches, stone-throwing and fistfights, much of it replayed on television news channels and social media.
China has sought to downplay the confrontation while saying the two sides were communicating through both their front-line military units and their respective embassies to resolve issues.
The disputed border covers nearly 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) of frontier that the two countries call the Line of Actual Control.
Though skirmishes aren’t new along the disputed frontier, the standoff at Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, where India is building a strategic road connecting the region to an airstrip close to China, has escalated in recent weeks.
India and China fought a border war in 1962 that also spilled into Ladakh. The two countries have been trying to settle their border dispute since the early 1990s without success.
Since then, soldiers from the two sides have frequently faced off along their long frontier that stretches from Ladakh in the north to the Indian state of Sikkim in the northeast.
The Indian army statement said the “violent faceoff” occurred “during the deescalation process underway in the Galwan Valley.”
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Burundi President-Elect to be Sworn into Office Thursday
Media agencies say Burundi will swear in president-elect Evariste Ndayishimiye on Thursday, a week after the sudden death of outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza. The Constitutional Court ruled last week that the president-elect be sworn in as soon as possible. Ndayishimiye, was originally planned to be sworn in August. He will take the oath of office Thursday in the capital, Gitega. Ndayishimiye was handpicked by the ruling CNDD-FDD party to succeed Nkurunziza. He went on to secure more than 60 percent of the vote in the May election that was unsuccessfully contested by the opposition over allegations of fraud. Ndayishimiye will serve a seven-year term, pending his reelection.
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US, China to Each Allow 4 Weekly Flights for Airlines; Delta to Fly Next Week
The United States and China will each allow four weekly flights between the two countries, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Monday, easing a standoff on travel restrictions in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Following the Chinese government approval, Delta Air Lines said it would resume passenger flights to Shanghai from Seattle next week via Seoul, and once weekly flights from Seattle and Detroit beginning in July. In a statement, the Transportation Department said it will continue to press for the full restoration of passenger air travel between the United States and China, in part to allow for the repatriation of Chinese students who have been unable to fly home because of the shortage of flights. “As the Chinese government allows more flights by U.S. carriers, we will reciprocate,” it said. A person briefed on the matter said Chinese authorities have agreed to some changes on requirements for U.S. carriers flying there, including allowing temperature checks to be done before flights take off for China, rather than mid-flight as previously discussed. United Airlines had also asked for approval to resume flights to China in June.
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N. Korean Army ‘Fully Ready’ for Action Over S. Korean Propaganda Leaflets -KCNA
North Korea’s army is ready to take action if defector groups push ahead with their campaign to send propaganda leaflets into North Korea, state media said on Tuesday, in the latest warning of retaliatory measures. The General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) said it has been studying an “action plan” to reenter zones that had been demilitarized under an inter-Korean pact and “turn the front line into a fortress.” “Our army will rapidly and thoroughly implement any decisions and orders of the Party and government,” the KPA said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. Tensions have risen as Pyongyang threatened to sever inter-Korean ties and take retaliatory measures over the leaflets, which carry messages critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un including human rights abuses. Several defector-led groups have regularly sent back flyers, together with food, $1 bills, mini radios and USB sticks containing South Korean dramas and news, usually by balloon over the heavily fortified border or in bottles by river. On Saturday, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim who serves as a senior official of the ruling Workers’ Party, said she ordered the military to prepare for next action. South Korea took legal action against two of the defector groups, saying they fuel cross-border tensions, pose risks to residents living near the border and cause environmental damage. But the groups say they intend to push ahead with their planned campaign this week. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in urged Pyongyang on Monday to keep peace agreements reached by the two leaders and return to dialog.
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Mozambique Begins Closing Markets for Cleaning and Reorganization to Prevent COVID-19 Outbreak
The largest market in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo city, remains closed Tuesday, the second day of a three-day sanitizing and reorganization to fight the spread of the coronavirus. The move at Xipamanine market is the beginning of the gradual temporary closing of the capital’s 63 markets and five fairs for disinfecting, new spacing of stalls, implementation of social distancing between merchants and customers, and the wearing of face masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The municipal councilor for health and social welfare, Alice de Abreu, said Friday during a press conference that the closings are important because COVID-19 cases were detected in the city’s markets, but she did not reveal the name of the markets. The reorganization of all the markets is expected to be completed by the end of next month. The revamping of market operations also comes as the southern African country experienced a spike in COVID-19 cases, which increased by 74 over Friday and Saturday. So far, Mozambique has confirmed just over 600 coronavirus cases and three deaths.
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