Americans Hit the Road for Memorial Day Holiday, a Year After Pandemic Stunted Travel

With half the country at least partially protected against the coronavirus, Americans escaped their pandemic doldrums over the three-day holiday weekend that traditionally unleashes the country’s pent-up wanderlust at the doorstep of summer. A year after Memorial Day weekend travel was depressed by fears of the spreading virus, Americans took to the skies and roads. The Transportation Security Administration said 7.1 million people were screened at U.S. airport checkpoints from Thursday through Sunday. Friday was the highest single travel day since March 2020, when COVID-19 slashed air travel demand, as 1.96 million people were screened. Last week, AAA forecast travel to jump by 60% for the Memorial Day holiday period, with 37 million people expected to travel 80 kilometers (50 miles) or more from home, AAA Travel said. FILE – Travelers check in at Love Field airport, May 28, 2021, in Dallas.United Airlines said it was forecasting Monday to be its busiest travel day since March 2020. For the five-day holiday period, it was forecasting 1.34 million passengers, which was fewer than the 2.3 million during the same period in 2019. Tracking firm GasBuddy said Sunday’s U.S. gasoline demand jumped 9.6% above the average of the previous four Sundays, the highest Sunday demand since summer 2019. The 2021 total, which is still 13% below that of 2019, includes 34.4 million people traveling by car, AAA said. Patty Doxsey, 63, of Red Hook, New York, was set to take a 10-hour drive with her husband on Monday for a weeklong camping stay at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee in hopes of seeing a synchronous firefly light show. The couple, both vaccinated, had planned to go last year, but the pandemic scotched their trip, she said. “I am so excited,” said Doxsey, a reporter for the Daily Freeman in Kingston, New York. “It has been a long, long year, and we like to travel.” By Sunday, 50.5% of Americans had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of new coronavirus cases plummeted from a seven-day average of more than 250,000 a day in early January to about 18,900 on Saturday, the lowest number since the emergence of the pandemic in March 2020, the CDC said. Top Memorial Day travel destinations this year were Las Vegas, Nevada, and Orlando, Florida, AAA said.  

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Morocco, Spain Trade Accusations of Violating Good ‘Neighborliness’

Morocco and Spain traded new accusations on Monday in a diplomatic row triggered by the Western Sahara territorial issue that led this month to a migration crisis in Spain’s enclave in northern Morocco.Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described Morocco’s actions in appearing to relax border controls with the enclave of Ceuta as unacceptable and an assault on national borders.Morocco’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile blamed Spain for breaking “mutual trust and respect,” drawing parallels between the issues of Western Sahara and Spain’s Catalonia region, where there is an independence movement.The dispute was sparked by Spain admitting Western Sahara independence movement leader Brahim Ghali for medical treatment without informing Rabat.”It is not acceptable for a government to say that we will attack the borders, that we will open up the borders to let in 10,000 migrants in less than 48 hours … because of foreign policy disagreements,” Sanchez said at a news conference.Most migrants who crossed into Ceuta were immediately returned to Morocco, but hundreds of unaccompanied minors, who cannot be deported under Spanish law, remain.The influx was widely seen as retaliation for Spain’s decision to discreetly take in Ghali.Morocco regards Western Sahara as part of its own territory. The Algeria-backed Polisario seeks an independent state in the territory, where Spain was colonial ruler until 1975.Describing Spain as Morocco’s best ally in the European Union, Sanchez said he wanted to convey a constructive attitude toward Rabat but insisted that border security was paramount.”Remember that neighborliness … must be based on respect and confidence,” he said.Morocco’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Spain violated good neighborliness and mutual trust and that migration was not the problem.Rabat added that it has cooperated with Madrid in curbing migrant flows and in countering terrorism, which it said helped foil 82 militant attacks in Spain.The case of Ghali “revealed the hostile attitudes and harmful strategies of Spain regarding the Moroccan Sahara,” the ministry said in a statement.Spain “cannot combat separatism at home and promote it in its neighbor,” it said, noting Rabat’s support for Madrid against the Catalan independence movement.Separately, Ghali, who has been hospitalized with COVID-19 in Logrono in the Rioja region, will attend a Tuesday high court hearing remotely from the hospital, his lawyer’s office said.Morocco, which has withdrawn its ambassador to Madrid, has said it may sever ties with Spain if Ghali left the country the same way he entered without a trial. 

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Hundreds Evacuated, Some by Helicopter, From New Zealand Floods

Several hundred people in New Zealand were evacuated from their homes Monday, with some recounting dramatic helicopter rescues as heavy rain caused widespread flooding in the Canterbury region. Authorities declared a state of emergency after some places received as much as 40 centimeters (16 inches) of rain over the weekend and into Monday. Forecasters warned of possible heavy rain through Monday evening before conditions improve. The military helped evacuate more than 50 people, including several overnight in an NH90 military helicopter. One man was clinging to a tree near the town of Darfield when he jumped into floodwaters and tried to swim to safety but was swept away, the military said.  Helicopter crews scoured the water for 30 minutes before finding the man and plucking him to safety. The military helicopter also rescued an elderly couple from the roof of their car. A member of the New Zealand Defense Force rescues a dog from floods as they assist a family with their evacuation near Ashburton in New Zealand’s South Island, Sunday May 30, 2021.”Seeing the community overnight pull together and support the displaced residents who were evacuated from their homes has been heartening,” said Captain Jake Faber, Army liaison officer. Another man was rescued by a civilian helicopter pilot Sunday after he was swept from his farm as he tried to move his stock to safety.  Paul Adams told the news organization Stuff that he thinks he got hit by a wall of water he didn’t see coming. He was swept down the raging Ashburton River before managing to drag himself onto a fence and then into a tree. Another farmer spotted his headlamp and organized a rescue mission. “The rescuers are fantastic,” Adams told Stuff, adding that he was now back on his farm and “good as gold.” He said that so far, he’d found only about 100 of his herd of 250 animals alive. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was visiting New Zealand, told reporters that he was thinking of those caught up in the floods. “Australia is no stranger to floods,” Morrison said. “Or fires, or cyclones, or, indeed, even mouse plagues. We have, both countries, endured a large amount of challenge over the course, particularly, of these last few years.” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern planned to travel to Christchurch later Monday to be briefed on the situation firsthand. 

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Mobile Vaccination Units Hit Tiny US Towns to Boost COVID Immunity

FALLON, Nev. — Pick-up truck drivers motor up to a white trailer in a parking lot on Fallon Paiute-Shoshone land in Nevada’s high desert and within a few moments, they’re handed forms to sign, jabbed with coronavirus vaccine and sent on their way. The pop-up clinic, 96 kilometers east of Reno, is one of 28 locations in the Western state where the Federal Emergency Management Agency has dispatched mobile vaccination units to ensure people in far-flung rural areas and one-stoplight towns can get inoculated.  It’s one of the tactics health officials are using across the country to counter waning interest in vaccinations. In churches, ballparks, strip clubs and even marijuana dispensaries in tiny towns, officials are setting up shop and offering incentives to entice people as the nation struggles to reach herd immunity. In Nevada, health officials acknowledge they’re unlikely to hit their initial goal of vaccinating 75% of the population believed necessary to reach herd immunity. People pass by a temporary vaccination clinic the Washoe County Health District organized with the Nevada National Guard offering COVID-19 shots at the home season opener for the Reno Aces Triple-A minor league baseball team in Reno, May 13, 2021.Their push in northern Nevada is headquartered at the Reno Livestock Events Center, where 65-year-old Dan Lavely and others are showing up for shots. Lavely said he teared up while thanking the nurses who vaccinated him. “I told them I was just so thankful that they were volunteering their time to help get us back to normal so I can go shop at the mall or go to the beach at Lake Tahoe,” said Lavely, who works at a big box store in neighboring Sparks. Waiting to get vaccinated had nothing to do with safety concerns or distrust of the government, he said. “It was a scheduling deal. Plus, my middle name is procrastinator,” Lavely said. No turnout too smallTwo FEMA mobile trailers have meandered through Nevada to towns without pharmacies, clinics or other vaccination sites, giving doctors, nurses and National Guardsmen a firsthand look at rural and tribal communities where finding vaccinations has been difficult for residents. “That’s our philosophy: It doesn’t make any difference if there are two (people) nor 200,” said Peggy Franklin, a volunteer nurse who has traveled alongside a FEMA trailer to Fallon, Alamo, Panaca and other towns in Nevada. To preserve the vaccine, the trailers are equipped with ultra-cold refrigerators powered by generators-on-wheels. On Monday, the two mobile clinics completed six-week loops through Nevada that included returning to finish two-shot regimens in the state that covers an area that would stretch from Boston to Baltimore and Buffalo, New York. Initially, the goal was to vaccinate 250 people a day at each stop. But the numbers have varied, as vaccine supply has increased, and demand has fallen. FILE – Peggy Franklin, a volunteer nurse from Reno, administers vaccines at a mobile vaccination clinic held at a tribal health center on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation and Colony on May 18, 2021 in Fallon, Nev.”Just a month ago, people were still having a hard time finding vaccination sites. That’s really changed in the last three or four weeks. And now, we’re trying to find people that are more vaccine-hesitant,” said Marc Reynolds, a doctor from Fallon who has volunteered at the mobile clinic in his hometown and the state prison in Lovelock. Other states using mobile clinicsThe clinics have delivered 7,600 shots during two tours of Nevada and have also been used in Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky and other states. Nevada Division of Emergency Management Chief Dave Fogerson said people in the remote communities of the state “probably would not have got it any other way.” Gerlach, for example, is 160 kilometers from the closest pharmacy in Reno-Sparks. With just 34 people, it was once home to a booming gypsum mine on the edge of the desert that hosts 80,000 visitors each year for the Burning Man Festival. The desolate landscape was featured in this year’s Academy Award-winning movie, Nomadland. Nearly half of Nevada’s eligible population has had at least an initial vaccination against COVID-19. But rates have varied geographically. In Clark and Washoe counties, home to Las Vegas and Reno, respectively, about half of those eligible have gotten at least one dose, the state reported. The rate has been about half of that in Eureka and Elko counties, while Storey County has seen just a 15% rate. As infection rates drop and the state moves further away from the height of the pandemic, officials acknowledge persuading the vaccine-hesitant to get shots won’t get easier. As a result, on the heels of the FEMA effort, officials have been preparing similar pop-up events in urban centers, suburban neighborhoods and unconventional venues ranging from a Las Vegas strip club to a Sparks truck stop along an interstate that runs to Utah. FILE – Jeff Cantrell waits at Larry Flint’s Hustler Club strip club after getting his second dose of coronavirus vaccine, May 21, 2021, in Las Vegas. Las Vegas officials held a pop-up vaccine clinic at the strip club.”It’s important that the people running the vaccination events look like the community,” said Jeanne Freeman of Carson City Health and Human Services. “Comfort levels are important. Sometimes, just being in a familiar location.” Nevada has long struggled with some of the nation’s worst vaccination rates. It improved to fifth-worst last year with 42% of adults vaccinated against the flu, according to the CDC. Part of the current outreach effort targets the 340,000 people who got those flu shots but have not yet gotten a COVID-19 vaccination. Nevada is refining its messaging based on a growing understanding of why some people remain reluctant to get shots. Much of the focus so far has been on cultural and historical barriers that make certain groups less open to vaccinations. But for many, it may come down to simple convenience. Convenience an issue”A lot of individuals are not opposed to getting vaccinated, it’s just not fitting well in their daily life,” said Karissa Loper, chief of Nevada’s Bureau of Child, Family and Community Wellness. “That’s truly what we’re moving to work on now with all of our partners, to do those mobile and pop-up clinics.” Jackie Shelton, a vice president with the public relations firm that Nevada hired to help promote vaccine equity and outreach, said the latest ad campaign intends to “show people who look like you — peers who are getting the vaccine and why.” “People don’t want to be told what to do, but they love to see their friends and others talking about why they are doing it,” she said. “It’s all about empathy. And reminding people what they have missed during the pandemic and what they can get back.” IncentivesFuture promotional ideas include raffles open to residents who are fully vaccinated by July 4. Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, New York and Oregon are among several states already enticing people with lottery prizes approaching $5 million. Immunize Nevada is planning vaccination pop-ups at breweries, churches and parks — complete with swag like water bottles — and scheduling them to coincide with holidays such as Juneteenth to target specific populations. In Reno, shots are offered at minor league baseball games, and the Medical Social Justice League at the University of Nevada’s School of Medicine was set to co-host a clinic Saturday at a Catholic church with a large Latino congregation. “We need to meet them where they are and where they feel safe,” Diana Sande, spokeswoman for the university’s School of Community Health Sciences, said about outreach efforts to the Latino community. Kyra Morgan, Nevada’s chief biostatistician, has suggested it may not be possible for the state to reach its initial goal of vaccinating 75% of the population.  Still, communities may be able to return to normalcy even if they don’t reach the threshold needed for herd immunity, added Dr. Nancy Diao, division director for epidemiology and public health preparedness in Washoe County. “If we can reach a high enough population level, say maybe 60% or 70%, that might also just be good enough for our community to bring the numbers drastically down,” she said. “And we can have this virus live with us in an equilibrium like we do with so many other diseases.”  

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At least 55 Killed in Eastern Congo Massacres, UN Says 

At least 55 people were killed overnight in two attacks on villages in eastern Congo, the United Nations said on Monday, in potentially the worst night of violence the area has seen in at least four years.The army and a local civil rights group blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist armed group, for raiding the village of Tchabi and a camp for displaced people near Boga, another village. Both are close to the border of Uganda.Houses were burned and civilians abducted, the U.N. office for humanitarian affairs said in a statement.Albert Basegu, the head of a civil rights group in Boga, told Reuters by telephone that he had been alerted to the attack by the sound of cries at a neighbor’s house.”When I got there I found that the attackers had already killed an Anglican pastor and his daughter was also seriously wounded,” Basegu said.The Kivu Security Tracker (KST), which has mapped unrest in restive eastern Congo since June 2017, said on Twitter the wife of a local chief was among the dead. It did not attribute blame for the killings.”It’s the deadliest day ever recorded by the KST,” said Pierre Boisselet, the research group’s coordinator.The ADF is believed to have killed more than 850 people in 2020, according to the United Nations, in a spate of reprisal attacks on civilians after the army began operations against it the year before.In March, the United States labeled the ADF a foreign terrorist organization. The group has in the past proclaimed allegiance to Islamic State, although the United Nations says evidence linking it to other Islamist militant networks is scant.President Felix Tshisekedi declared a state of siege in Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces on May 1 in an attempt to curb increasing attacks by militant groups.Uganda announced earlier this month that it had agreed to share intelligence and coordinate operations against the rebels but that it would not be deploying troops in Congo. 

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Spam Is No Longer Just Luncheon Meat for Sandwiches

Before “spam” became a computer term, it was an American luncheon meat that was exported and embraced by cultures around the world, especially Asians. Spam is sold in more than 40 countries worldwide, and immigrants in the U.S. are serving it — but with a twist. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee went on a Spam culinary tour in Los Angeles.Producer: Elizabeth Lee   Camera: Elizabeth Lee, Roy Kim

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Russia’s Navalny Asks Court to End Prison Security Checks

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny asked a court Monday to halt the hourly nighttime checks he has been subjected to in his penal colony.  Speaking to the court in a video link from prison, Navalny charged that he has done nothing that would warrant the authorities’ decision to designate him as a flight risk, which has resulted in the checks.  “I just want them to stop coming to me and waking me up at nighttime,” he told the judge in remarks that were broadcast by the independent Dozhd TV. “What did I do: Did I climb the fence? Did I dig up an underpass? Or was I wringing a pistol from someone? Just explain why they named me a flight risk!”He argued that the hourly nighttime checks “effectively amount to torture,” telling the judge that “you would go mad in a week” if subjected to such regular wake-ups.The court later adjourned the hearing until Wednesday.Navalny, the most determined political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin — accusations that Russian officials reject.In February, he was handed a 2 1/2-year sentence for violating terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction, which he says was politically motivated.He went on a 24-day hunger strike in prison to protest the lack of medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs, ending it last month after getting the medical attention he demanded.While he still was on hunger strike, Navalny was moved from a penal colony east of Moscow, where he was serving his sentence, to the hospital ward of another prison in Vladimir, a city 180 kilometers (110 miles) east of the capital. He remains at that prison, where he said the nighttime checks continued, although they were less intrusive.With Navalny in prison, prosecutors have asked a Moscow court to designate his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his network of regional offices as extremist groups. A bill, which has sailed quickly through the Kremlin-controlled lower house of Russian parliament, bars members, donors and supporters of extremist groups from seeking public office.The parallel moves have been widely seen as an attempt to keep any of Navalny’s associates from running in September’s parliamentary election. 

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Chemicals in, Meth out: Asia’s Golden Triangle Drug Trade Goes Into Overdrive

A large haul of precursor chemicals in Laos since the end of last year has revealed` the new recipe being used by the methamphetamine cooks of Asia and the routes crime groups are using to get raw materials from Chinese factories, through Thai ports and into the narcotics labs of the Golden Triangle.Meth production in the region has gone into overdrive since Myanmar’s February 1 military coup unsettled the complex balance of power in the Golden Triangle, an area dominated by warlords, armed militias, gunrunners and drug traffickers, say law enforcement officials.Laos, Myanmar and Thailand are within this mountainous corner. Laos and Myanmar share a border with China.Thailand, the main route for Myanmar meth to the Asia-Pacific, has so far this year seized more than 300 million meth pills known as “yaba,” or crazy medicine, and nearly 20 tons of the highly addictive crystal meth, or “ice” — double last year’s haul over the same period, according to Thai drug authorities.It is the consequence of ruptured cease-fires among Myanmar’s ethnic rebel groups as a result of the coup that ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi.“Fighting in Myanmar near the drug production sites is forcing out the products at a higher volume than usual,” according to Police Major General Pornchai Charoenwong, deputy commissioner of Thailand’s Narcotics Suppression Bureau (NSB).The drugs flow through Thailand, but then sweep out to the Asia-Pacific, officials say.In mid-May, the Australian Border Force found 316 kilograms of ice with a street value of nearly $80 million packed inside a shipment of immersion heaters and barbecues originating from a Thai port.But changes in production are most immediately felt by Myanmar’s neighbors. Laos is the poor, landlocked Communist-run neighbor to Myanmar’s Shan State, where most of the meth is manufactured.It is the key route into the Golden Triangle for precursor chemicals, as well as the main exit point for the end product — the highly addictive synthetic drugs to the Asia-Pacific market.FILE – A giant Buddha on the Thai side of the Golden Triangle in Chiang Rai province, is seen with Myanmar in the background and Laos on the right, Sept. 20, 2019.Authorities there recently revealed a seizure of 200 tons of precursors. The stash included 72 tons of made-in-China propionyl chloride, a new ingredient or a “pre-precursor” transported through Vietnam and captured in Bokeo, Laos, the gateway to Myanmar drug factories.“You can only imagine the amount of drugs that volume of precursors can make,” a Laos official told VOA News on the condition of anonymity.Curse of the precursorsThe highly flammable liquid is not banned — unlike traditional meth staples ephedrine and pseudoephedrine (used in cold remedies) — and its appearance heading into the Golden Triangle shows the ability of drug networks to “shift gears,” said Jeremy Douglas, regional representative with the U.N.’s Office of Drugs and Crime.“They have long been creative smugglers, but they are now bypassing stringent chemical controls and producing precursors using pre-precursors — not easy, and it signals sophistication and knowledge not seen elsewhere,” Douglas said.Precursors pose a complicated cross-border challenge, with some controlled, others entirely legal in normal industrial use.Thailand is a major entry point for the huge tonnage needed by the drug production zones but struggles to keep on top of the flow of containers full of chemicals — an issue only likely to get worse as infrastructure improves.FILE – Bags of methamphetamine pills are pictured during the 50th Destruction of Confiscated Narcotics ceremony in Ayutthaya province, Thailand, June 26, 2020.Drug traffickers exploit “loopholes” in customs’ laws, a Thai drug official told VOA News, requesting anonymity.“We’re a transit point, so customs has no authority to open the container for inspection without a warrant, or at least a good reason,” the official said. “So, these precursors are unloaded at the port onto trucks set for Laos with no problems.”The same Thai ports — especially Laem Chabang in the eastern seaboard — are being used to move the finished product of crystal meth out to the most expensive markets.The recent Australian meth haul was traced to a boat that left Laem Chabang. As Myanmar slumps deeper into chaos, and armed rebel groups hunt money to stockpile guns to fight the army known as the Tatmadaw, drug experts say stemming the flow of precursors is the only way to slow drug production.Until then, regional police fear the flow of drugs from the Golden Triangle is going to worsen, with the crime bosses at the apex of an estimated trade worth up to $60 billion a year so rich and connected they remain beyond arrest.“You can never really take down these networks,” Montree Yimyam, commissioner of Thailand’s Narcotics Suppression Bureau, told reporters. 
 

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Amid France’s Africa Reset, Old Ties Underscore Challenge of Breaking With Past

After outlining a fresh chapter in French-African relations, with calls for massive economic support for Africa and visits to Rwanda and South Africa last week, President Emmanuel Macron is back home to confront familiar and thorny problems in France’s former colonies, underscoring the challenges of breaking with the past.At front and center is Mali, buffeted by its fifth coup since independence from Paris in 1960 — and the second in less than a year. To the east, Chad is also unsettled by a controversial political transition, following the April death of longstanding leader Idriss Deby. Both countries are key allies in France’s counter-terrorism operation in the Sahel.Russians and Malian flags are waved by protesters in Bamako, Mali, during a demonstration against French influence in the country on May 27, 2021.Farther south, Paris fears Russia’s growing influence in the Central African Republic — among that of other newer foreign powers — including Moscow’s alleged role in fueling anti-French sentiments.Taken together, some analysts say, these developments, combined with France’s legacy in Africa — and, in some cases, Macron’s own actions — may make it harder to deliver on his promises of change.“Emmanuel Macron is trapped in a contradictory position,” Africa specialist Antoine Glaser told French television station TV5 Monde.“He wants to get out of FrancAfrique by turning to anglophone countries like Rwanda and South Africa,” he said, referring to the tangle web of business and political interests with France’s former colonies, “but he’s bogged down in the francophone countries.”Moving forward, looking backMacron states otherwise, as he looks for new ways and new places to exert French influence on the continent. At a May summit in Paris, he called on richer countries to invest massively in Africa’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and echoed Washington’s call for a patent waiver on COVID-19 vaccines — calls he reiterated during his visit to South Africa on Friday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the virus.The French leader also organized a special donors’ conference on Sudan — another country outside Paris’ traditional sphere of influence — and announced plans to cancel Khartoum’s $5 billion bilateral debt.Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, left, Chad President Idriss Deby, center, and France President Emmanuel Macron arrive for a picture during the G5 Sahel summit on June 30, 2020, in Nouakchott, Mauritania.The calls fit into Macron’s broader reset of relations with the continent since taking office in 2017. Visiting Burkina Faso later that year, he promised to return plundered artifacts to former colonies, a pledge several other European governments have since echoed.“For sure, colonialization has left a strong imprint,” Macron told the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, in a lengthy interview published Sunday. “But I also told young people in Ouagadougou (in 2017) that today’s problems aren’t linked to colonialism, they’re more caused by bad governance by some, and corruption by others. These are African subjects, and relations with France should not exonerate leaders from their own responsibilities.” Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso.Yet Macron has also gone further than his predecessors in acknowledging France’s blame for past injustices. He set up fact-finding commissions to examine Paris’ role in Algeria’s war of independence and in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. While both reports were critical, Macron ruled out official apologies.Still, he has followed some of the reconciliatory actions recommended by the Algeria commission. And in Kigali on Thursday, he turned the problem around, asking Rwandans instead to forgive France for its role in the mass killings, while saying France had not been an accomplice in them.”His words were something more valuable than an apology. They were the truth,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said of Macron’s speech, calling it “an act of tremendous courage.”French President Emmanuel Macron, center, and his wife Brigitte Macron, left, welcome Chadian Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, right, for a dinner with leaders of African states, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, May 17, 2021.Continuation or break?Yet in Rwanda and elsewhere, Macron’s actions have also drawn controversy—reflecting, some analysts say, a continuation rather than a break with the past. Some question Macron’s visit to Kigali, for example, noting its increasingly authoritarian leader.In Chad, where Macron was the only Western leader to attend Deby’s funeral, Paris appeared to initially endorse the military council that took over after Deby’s death, and which is headed by his son. While the body has promised eventual elections, some opposition activists claim its existence amounts to an effective coup d’etat.Days later, Macron appeared to backtrack, saying France supported a democratic and inclusive transition and not a “succession plan.”“For too long, France’s view remained short-sighted and purely military: Chad was no more than a provider of troops for regional wars,” Chad expert Jerome Tubiana wrote in Foreign Policy magazine.Deby’s death, he added, was a potential game changer Paris should seize.“If France renews with a new junta the same deal it had with Deby — fighters in exchange for political, financial, and military backing — it will miss that long-awaited turning point when democratic change in Chad could actually become a reality,” he added.In Mali, by contrast, France and the European Union have denounced the country’s latest coup as “unacceptable.” Macron warned West African leaders they could not support a country without “democratic legitimacy or transition,” he told Le Journal du Dimanche, threatening to pull French troops from the country if it tipped to “radical Islamism.”The president has long floated an eventual drawdown of France’s 5,100-strong counter-insurgency operation in the Sahel, hoping also to beef up other European forces in the region, to help shoulder the fight.But analyst Glaser believes Mali’s latest military takeover could make it harder, not easier, to fulfill that goal.“This situation puts him in a delicate position,” Glaser said of Macron. “He wants to get out of FrancAfrique and keeps saying … that the solution in Africa is political, not military. So, when Mali faces major problems politically, his whole strategy is undermined.” 

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Democracy Imperiled, Biden Warns, as He Pays Tribute to Nation’s War Dead

“Democracy itself is in peril – here at home and around the world,” U.S. President Joe Biden warned Monday in remarks to commemorate the Memorial Day holiday.Biden made the comment after he, along with Vice President Kamala Harris and the nation’s top military officials, took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
 
“What we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen, will determine whether or not democracy will long endure,” the president said, in a veiled reference to the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol by those seeking to overturn the results of last November’s election in which Biden, a Democrat defeated incumbent Republican President Donald Trump.
 
Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a House-approved bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the rioting.  
 
Biden, as he has done numerous times, spoke of a struggle for the “soul of America” that “is animated by the perennial battle between our worst instincts — which we’ve seen of late — and our better angels.”U.S. President Joe Biden arrives with Vice President Kamala Harris to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, on Memorial Day, in Arlington, Virginia, May 31, 2021.As the country observed the annual holiday honoring its war dead, Biden, at the cemetery located just south of Washington, also referenced “the right to vote freely and fairly and conveniently.”  
 
Hours prior to the president’s speech, Democrats walked out of the Texas House chamber to prevent Republicans from passing a bill that would create new limitations to voting in the second most-populous U.S. state.  
 
“The right to vote, the right to rise in the world as far as your talent can take you, unlimited by unfair barriers of privilege and power — such are the principles of democracy,” the president said.  
 
In his 22-minute speech honoring the fallen, Biden also called for the media to pursue “the truth, founded on facts, not propaganda.”  
 
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, preceded Biden in remarks at the cemetery’s memorial amphitheater. U.S. President Joe Biden takes part in a wreath-laying ceremony during the National Memorial Day Observance, at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, May 31, 2021.The previous day, in his home state of Delaware, Biden addressed a crowd of veterans and families of fallen service members.“We must remember the price that was paid for our liberties. We must remember the debt we owe those who have paid it, and the families left behind. My heart is torn in half by the grief,” he said.Biden’s Sunday remarks came on the sixth anniversary of the death of his son Beau, who served as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, including a tour of duty with U.S. forces in Iraq, before dying of cancer in 2015.“I know how much the loss hurts,” Biden said. “I know the black hole it leaves in the middle of your chest. It feels like you may get sucked into it and not come out.”
 
The United States has commemorated Memorial Day to honor its war dead at the end of May since 1868 after the Civil War. The national holiday is now held each year on the last Monday in May.  To coincide with the holiday, flags are placed by the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery and at many of the other national cemeteries across the country, where many who served in the U.S. military are buried.U.S. President Joe Biden walks with first lady Jill Biden as they visit section 12 at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, May 31, 2021.The holiday also marks the unofficial start of summer and what traditionally has been a busy travel season in the United States.While travel suffered last year because of coronavirus restrictions, this year, Americans are looking to get back to their pre-pandemic routines.More than 1.8 million people went through U.S. airports on Thursday and Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.The American Automobile Association said it expected a 60% jump in travel this Memorial Day from last year, with 37 million Americans planning to travel at least about 80 kilometers from home, mostly by car. The travel boom comes despite higher prices for gasoline.The price index for typical Memorial Day activities rose this year about 4.3%, faster than the overall consumer price index, according to the Reuters news agency. It listed higher prices over pre-pandemic rates for cookout fare such as hamburgers and hotdogs, as well as higher prices for dinner and drinks out, amusement parks, concerts and car rentals. Prices are below pre-pandemic levels for airfare and hotels.Prices for many goods have been rising because of surging consumer demand, as well as supply issues for both materials and labor.
 
 

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Attacks on Election Offices in Nigeria Raise Concerns

Nigerian political observers are expressing concern over the many attacks on the facilities of Nigeria’s electoral body – the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC. INEC officials say the commission has recorded at least 42 attacks on its facilities since the last polls in 2019.
 
Nine attacks occurred in 2019 and 21 others took place last year. But in the last four weeks, 12 more offices of the commission have either been set ablaze or vandalized.
 
The latest incident occurred Sunday in southeastern Imo state. Ballot boxes, voting cubicles, power generators and utility vehicles were destroyed.
 
Election officials are evaluating the extent of the damage but say an initial assessment shows it could significantly affect their ability to conduct credible elections in the affected places.
 
Political analysts like Jibrin Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy and Development, agree that attacks on facilities coupled with Nigeria’s general security challenges and separatist calls in two areas will affect polls.
 
“When some people are saying, ‘We want out of the nation,’ others are saying let’s just vote and keep the nation, it becomes a difficult context to ensure that there’s a level playing ground for election,” Ibrahim said.
 
Officials blame unidentified armed groups and the separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, for the latest attacks. IPOB advocates for an independent state in a part of Nigeria that tried to break away more than 50 years ago.  
 
The government has not commented on the attacks.
 
In recent months, Nigeria has seen an escalation in violence by armed criminal groups, as well as the rising profile of IPOB and another separatist movement in southwestern Nigeria.  
 
But political analyst and co-founder Youth Hub Africa Rotimi Olawale says insecurities can only delay elections but not hinder them.  
 
“I am assured that the 2023 general elections will hold as scheduled. In 2019, the election was moved for a couple of weeks to allow for better management of the security architecture in the northeastern part of Nigeria. At the very worst-case scenario, I suspect that the elections in 2023 might also be moved for a few weeks,” Olawale said.
 
Last week, INEC chief Mahmood Yakubu declared attacks on election offices a national emergency and met with top security chiefs to address the problem.
 
At a meeting Thursday, Nigerian security units pledged to support the commission by beefing up security around election offices.
 
However, expert Ezenwa Nwagwu says the attacks are politically driven and will likely escalate before the next polls.
 
“The Nigerian political elite [is] not innovative. They have not found any other means of negotiating for power except violence. You’re going to see that towards next year, there will be the escalation of this violence,” Nwagwu said.
 
INEC is approaching a major gubernatorial election, set for this November. Next month, the commission will begin a voter registration process for Nigeria’s general polls in 2023.
 
Experts say the security situation will determine both turnout and the credibility of the process.
 

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Cameroon Investigates Missing $335 Million in COVID Funds 

Cameroon rights groups, opposition parties and local media are asking the government to publish its findings after most of a $335 million loan from the IMF could not be accounted for.  At least 15 officials have appeared before commissions of investigation.
 
A government statement read on Cameroon state media Monday calls on civilians to remain calm as investigations on missing funds continue.  The statement from government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi states that justice will take its course. 
 
The statement comes after Cameroon rights groups and opposition asked the government to explain what happened to about $335 million loaned by the International Monetary Fund to fight COVID-19. Cameroon says within the past week, 15 ministers have appeared at the audit bench of the Supreme Court and a special criminal tribunal to account for the funds. Joseph Lavoisier Tsapy is legal adviser to the opposition Social Democratic Front Party and a member of the Cameroon Human Rights League. Tsapy says the Cameroon Special Criminal Tribunal should have ordered their arrest after the audit bench of the Supreme Court found out that some ministers stole COVID-19 funds. He says the money should have been invested to save lives and assist suffering people. He says he wants to make it clear that government ministers in Cameroon do not have immunity like lawmakers. In June 2020, SDF lawmakers complained that the awarding of COVID-19 contracts did not respect procurement procedures and gave room for massive corruption.  Local media like Equinox Radio and TV, Roya FM reported gross cases of embezzlement. 
 
In one case, the Ministry of Scientific Research received $9 million to produce the drug chloroquine. The ministry instead bought chloroquine amounting to 30 percent of the funds from China. Other cases involve overbilling and failure to render services or provide supplies after payment. André Luther Meka speaks for the ruling CPDM party, to which all of the ministers called up for questioning belong. 
Meka says Cameroonians should stop asking for ministers to either be punished or to refund COVID-19 funds. He says Cameroon considers all suspects innocent until found guilty by the law courts. He says Cameroon President Paul Biya has a strong political will to punish everyone who has either mismanaged, embezzled or siphoned state money. Angelbert Lebong is a member of the Cameroon Civil Society. He says President Biya should explain to the Cameroonian people how his government has managed the COVID-19 funds. FILE – Cameroon President Paul Biya attends the Paris Peace Forum, France, Nov. 12, 2019.He says Biya should for once speak out against embezzlement and publicly condemn his collaborators who have stolen COVID-19 funds. He says Cameroon has more serious life-threatening issues to handle than the heavily publicized receptions Biya gives diplomats in his office. Last month, Human Rights Watch urged the IMF to ask Cameroon to ensure independent and credible enquiry on the management of COVID-19 funds before approving a third loan. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cameroon in March 2020, the IMF has approved two emergency loans to the central African state totaling $382 million. 

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Vets Return to Memorial Day Traditions as Pandemic Eases

A pair of military vets navigate the hilly, meandering paths in a historic cemetery in Boston, searching out soldiers’ graves and planting American flags in front of them.
About 10 miles away, scores of other vets and volunteers do the same, placing more than 37,000 small flags on the downtown Boston Common — a sea of red, white and blue meant to symbolize all the Massachusetts soldiers killed in battle since the Revolutionary War. It’s an annual tradition that returns in full this year  after being significantly scaled back in 2020 because of the pandemic.Bob Workman of Boston, a retired Marine Gunnery Sgt., and past commander of the Boston Police VFW, replaces flags at veteran’s graves ahead of Memorial Day on May 27, 2021, in the Fairview Cemetery in Boston.In Boston and elsewhere, this holiday weekend will feel something closer to Memorial Days of old, as COVID-19 restrictions are fully lifted in many places.
“This Memorial Day almost has a different, better feeling to it,” said Craig DeOld, a 50-year-old retired captain in the Army Reserve, as he took a breather from his flag duties at the Fairview Cemetery earlier this week. “We’re breathing a sigh of relief that we’ve overcome another struggle, but we’re also now able to return to what this holiday is all about — remembering our fallen comrades.”
Around the nation, Americans will be able to pay tribute to fallen troops in ways that were impossible last year, when virus restrictions were in effect in many places. It will also be a time to remember the tens of thousands of veterans who died from COVID-19 and recommit to vaccinating those who remain reluctant.
Art delaCruz, a 53-year-old retired Navy commander in Los Angeles leads the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination, said his group has been encouraging inoculated veterans to volunteer at vaccine sites to dispel myths and help assuage concerns, many of which are also shared by current service members.
“We understand it’s a personal choice, so we try to meet people where they are,” said delaCruz, who is also president of Team Rubicon, a disaster-response nonprofit made up of military veterans.
There’s no definitive tally for coronavirus deaths or vaccinations among American military vets, but Department of Veterans Affairs data shows more than 12,000 have died and more than 2.5 million have been inoculated against COVID-19 out of the roughly 9 million veterans enrolled in the agency’s programs.
The isolation of the pandemic has also been particularly hard on veterans, many of whom depend on kinship with fellow service members to cope with wartime trauma, says Jeremy Butler, a 47-year-old Navy Reserve officer in New York who heads the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
“We’re reuniting now, but it’s been an extremely challenging year,” he said. “To have those connections cut off — the counseling sessions, the VA appointments, social events with other vets — those are so important to maintaining mental health.”
But for the families of veterans who survived the horrors of war, only to be felled by COVID-19, Memorial Day can reopen barely healed wounds.
In western Massachusetts, Susan Kenney says the death of her 78-year-old father last April from the virus still remains raw.
Charles Lowell, an Air Force veteran who served during the Vietnam War, was among 76 residents of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home who died in one of America’s  deadliest coronavirus outbreaks last year in a long-term care facility. A memorial service was held at the home earlier this week, and the names of residents who died over the past calendar year were read aloud.
Kenney, who has been a vocal advocate for reforming the troubled home, says there are still lingering questions about who else should be held accountable, even as top officials at the state-run facility face criminal negligence and abuse charges and federal and state agencies launch investigations.
“I’ve been reliving this for a whole year,” she said. “At every milestone. Veterans Day. His birthday. His death anniversary. Everything is a constant reminder of what happened. It’s so painful to think about.”
For other families, Memorial Day will be as it ever was, a day to remember loved ones killed in war.
In Virginia, Willie Ransom, a 74-year-old Vietnam War vet, said his family will hold a modest service at the grave of his youngest son.
Air Force Maj. Charles Ransom was among eight U.S. airmen killed in Afghanistan when an Afghan military pilot opened fire at the Kabul airport in 2011. The American Legion post in Midlothian, Virginia, that the elder Ransom once helped lead is now named in his honor.
The Powhatan resident says a silver lining this year is that the country is poised to end the war that claimed his 31-year-old son and the lives of more than 2,200 other American fighters. President Joe Biden has promised to end the nation’s longest conflict by Sept. 11, the anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks that launched the war.
“It’s the best decision we could make,” Ransom said. “It’s become like Vietnam. They don’t want us there. We should have been out of there years ago.”
Back in Boston, DeOld will be thinking about his father, an Army vet wounded in a grenade attack in Vietnam.
Louis DeOld returned home with a Purple Heart and went on to become a police officer in New Jersey, but the physical and mental scars of war persisted long after, his son said. He died in 2017 at the age of 70.
On Memorial Day, DeOld will gather with fellow vets at the VFW post in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood that he commands.
They will lay a wreath by the American flag out front and then grill burgers out back. It will be the first large social event hosted by the post since the pandemic virtually shuttered the hall more than a year ago.
“I hope it’s nice,” DeOld said. “I hope folks linger. Families and friends gather. Good camaraderie. The way it should be.”

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Turkish Agents Capture Nephew of US-Based Cleric Overseas

Turkish agents have captured a nephew of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen in an overseas operation and have brought him to Turkey where he faces prosecution, Turkey’s state-run news agency said Monday.Selahaddin Gulen, who was wanted in Turkey on charges of membership in a terror organization, was seized in an operation by Turkey’s national spy agency MIT, the Anadolu agency reported.  The report did not say where he was seized or when he was returned to Turkey. Gulen’s nephew, however, was believed to be residing in Kenya.His case is the latest in a series of forced repatriation of people affiliated with Gulen’s movement, which the Turkish government blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016.  Gulen, a former ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who now lives in exile in Pennsylvania, has rejected the accusations of involvement in the coup attempt.Turkey has designated his network a terrorist group, which it has named the Fethullahist Terror Organization, or FETO.Erdogan announced earlier in May that a prominent member of Gulen’s network had been captured but did not provide details.On July 15, 2016, factions within the Turkish military used tanks, warplanes and helicopters in an attempt to overthrow Erdogan. Fighter jets bombed parliament and other spots in Turkey’s capital. Heeding a call by the president, thousands took to the streets to stop the coup.A total of 251 people were killed and around 2,200 others were wounded. Around 35 alleged coup plotters were also killed. 

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Turkey’s Erdogan Under Renewed Pressure Following Mafia Boss Accusations

The Turkish government is facing accusations of arming and funding jihadists in Syria. The allegations are just the latest by an exiled mafia boss in a weekly YouTube broadcast that are putting the Turkish president in an increasingly tight spot.  
 
Among the many allegations being spread by Sedat Peker on YouTube is one that allegedly implicates the Turkish government of arming and buying oil from Syrian jihadists. In one of his broadcasts Peker explains in detail how key aides of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ran the scheme.  
 
Peker, who analysts say once enjoyed close ties to Turkey’s rulers, started broadcasting weekly Sunday videos on a YouTube channel, alleging government misdeeds after he was forced to flee the country.  
 
Analyst Atilla Yesilada says the mafia boss has a growing audience.  
 
“It is huge. He is easily attracting audiences in excess of four and five million per video. And everything he says is scrutinized in the opposition channels. So, I would say everyone knows about what he is saying. Obviously, the most damaging is him opening the 1990s file, the extrajudicial killings,” Yesilada said.
Peker alleges former interior minister Mehmet Aga was the head of a shadowy organization known as the “deep state,” which is said to have been responsible for a series of assassinations of prominent journalists dating back to the 1990s. Aga is closely linked to Erdogan, and his son Tolga is a parliamentary deputy for the ruling AKP, Turkey’s ruling party.  FILE – A photo taken May 26, 2021, in Istanbul, Turkey, shows a YouTube broadcast by exiled mob boss Sedat Peker on a mobile phone.Aga has denied the allegations. Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders says there is a need for government transparency.
 
“This should be part of a parliamentary investigation first, but I think that it will never be possible without the Turkish government naming some state actors in this period. So, transparency today should calm public opinion today and show respect to victims’ families,” Onderoglu said.
 
But Erdogan is dismissing the allegations.
 
Speaking to his party’s deputies, the Turkish president claimed the accusations are part of an international conspiracy to oust him.  
 
But Peker’s allegations continue, accusing the son of Erdogan’s close confidant, former prime minister Binali Yildirim, of cocaine smuggling, and turning Turkey into one of the biggest hubs for importing and distributing drugs into Europe. Yildirim dismissed the allegations.  
 
Analysts point out Erdogan is experienced at weathering political storms. But analyst Yesilada says, unlike in the past, Turkey is in the midst of an economic crisis and record-low opinion poll ratings for Erdogan.
 
“These are all unmistakable signs of Armageddon for Erdogan approaching. It will really take a miracle to repair the reputational damage that is caused by the Peker videos. The picture that emerges is that this is a government set for personal benefit and for the benefit of cronies and [one that] has completely lost interest in the voters,” Yesilada said.
 
Peker is promising more YouTube videos that he says will share more intimate secrets he claims he learned from spending two decades in the inner circles of the ruling party.
 

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British, Other Western Intel Agencies Assist US in Wuhan Probe

Britain’s intelligence agencies — along with other Western European security services — are assisting a new American investigation to try to establish the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to officials on both sides of the Atlantic.  The central focus of the investigation is on the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as suspicions mount that the novel bat-derived virus roiling the world, and which has led to at least four million deaths, may have leaked from its lab, a claim Beijing has furiously denied.British officials briefed London newspapers Sunday that the thesis the virus escaped from the lab is “plausible” and “feasible,” a turnaround from British intelligence’s skepticism for most of the past 18 months of the possibility that the pandemic may have been triggered by a lab leak. Other Western intelligence agencies were also skeptical last year of the leak theory, seeing it as being only a remote possibility.But last week, U.S. President Joe Biden instructed American intelligence agencies to investigate the leak theory and report back within three months. Biden’s order came after U.S. intelligence discovered more details about three researchers at the Wuhan lab who fell ill in November 2019, several weeks before the first identified case of the outbreak — and more than a month before China informed the World Health Organization of “cases of pneumonia” of an “unknown cause” had been detected in Wuhan.The researchers were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but also with common seasonal respiratory illnesses, according to a U.S. intelligence report first publicly disclosed by The Wall Street Journal.The new details have added to circumstantial evidence supporting the theory that the virus may have spread to humans after a leak from the Wuhan lab, say Western officials.FILE – An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China, April 17, 2020.A WHO-led team report earlier this year ruled the lab-leak theory “extremely unlikely,” and favored the prevailing theory that the coronavirus most likely originated in a Wuhan wet market, jumping from an animal, likely a bat or pangolin, to humans. But the WHO inquiry has come under mounting criticism from some prominent Western scientists — as well as Western governments, who say the Chinese authorities blocked the WHO team during a four-week visit to Wuhan in January.
Eighteen of the world’s top epidemiologists and geneticists wrote a letter to the journal Science calling for an independent inquiry into the lab leak theory.British intelligence officials confirmed to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph that British security agencies are cooperating with the new American probe. “We are contributing what intelligence we have on Wuhan, as well as offering to help the American to corroborate and analyze any intelligence they have that we can assist with,” an official was quoted as saying.They added: “What is required to establish the truth behind the coronavirus outbreak is well-sourced intelligence rather than informed analysis, and that is difficult to come by.”Intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic say the probe will include using artificial intelligence systems to help data mine everything from Chinese social media comments to intercepted phone and electronic communications in China. Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, also known as GCHQ, the eavesdropping spy agency and the country’s largest intelligence service, will be key in Britain’s collaboration with the U.S., British officials told VOA.With few on-the-ground intelligence sources in China, Western intelligence agencies are believed to be trawling the so-called “dark web” to unearth information posted and shared there anonymously by Chinese scientists and officials secretly critical of the Communist government.FILE – A technician is seen inside the the P4 laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China, Feb. 23, 2017.British lawmakers are welcoming the redoubled effort to identify the origins of the pandemic. “The silence coming from Wuhan is troubling. We need to open the crypt and to see what happened, to be able to protect ourselves in the future,” Tom Tugendhat, chair of the House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee said on Sunday.  China’s authorities have denied there was any leak from the Wuhan lab, which conducts research on viruses and receives some funding from the U.S. government. Last year, Chinese propagandists blamed the coronavirus outbreak on a U.S. Army sports delegation which visited Wuhan and touted several conspiracy theories subsequently discredited by prominent virologists and epidemiologists.Last week, China’s Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party daily tabloid newspaper, condemned Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, for saying he supported investigating multiple theories of the virus’ origins, including probing whether it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.Fauci said it was important to increase efforts to unearth why, where and how the pandemic began because knowing the origin could help prevent future outbreaks of coronaviruses. “I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,” he said.The Global Times accused Fauci of attempting “to hype the old and groundless narrative that the virus was leaked from a lab in Wuhan.” It said the leak theory “is a blatant lie, a conspiracy created by U.S. intelligence agencies and media outlets to slander China, and China has denied it.”
 

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Report: Japan Considering Proof of COVID-19 Vaccination or Negative Test for Olympic Spectators

A Japanese newspaper is reporting that potential spectators of the Tokyo Olympics will either have to show proof they received a COVID-19 vaccine or tested negative for the virus. On Monday, government officials are considering to impose other measures such as banning eating, loud cheering and exchanging high-fives, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Commuters walk near Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on May 31, 2021 after the announcement that the government extended a coronavirus emergency in Tokyo and other parts of the country until just a month before the Olympics. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)Reports of restrictions will likely cast a further cloud over the upcoming Olympics, observers say, which are facing growing public opposition amid a new wave of COVID-19 infections across Japan and a slow rate of vaccinations. Tokyo and several other regions in Japan are under a state of emergency that was set to expire Monday, but have been extended until June 20, just a little over a month before the opening ceremonies.   Foreign spectators have already been barred from attending the Olympics.   The Tokyo Olympics are set to take place after a one-year postponement as the novel coronavirus pandemic began spreading across the globe. But a new public opinion survey published Monday by the Nikkei newspaper revealed over 60% of those asked want the games to either be delayed again or outright cancelled, compared to just 34% in favor of holding the event as scheduled. Members of Australia’s Olympic softball squad at Sydney Airport on May 31, 2021 before their departure for a pre-Games training camp in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The squad will be among the first athletes to arrive in Japan from overseas.The Asahi Shimbun newspaper, a major sponsor of the Tokyo Games, issued an editorial last week calling for the event’s cancellation due to the worsening COVID-19 crisis, the first major Japanese newspaper to do so. The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association, which represents about 6,000 primary care doctors and hospitals, has also called on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to convince the International Olympic Committee to cancel the games. New restrictions in South Africa
In South Africa, new coronavirus restrictions are set to take effect on Monday as it deals with a growing number of new infections. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Sunday that a nighttime curfew will take effect at 11 p.m. local time, forcing all non-essential businesses such as restaurants, bars and fitness centers to close an hour earlier. All gatherings will be limited to a maximum number of 100 people indoors and 250 outdoors.   South Africa posted 4,515 new cases over the last 24 hours Monday, and an average of 3,745 new infections over the last seven days, while just 963,000 people, less than one percent of its 60 million citizens, have been vaccinated, according to data report on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Experts warn that the current wave of new COVID-19 cases could worsen with the upcoming Southern Hemisphere winter season. Johns Hopkins is reporting more than 170.3 million global coronavirus infections, including over 3.5 million deaths. The United States is leading in both categories with 33.2 million total cases and 594,431 deaths.  

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‘Tarzan’ Actor Joe Lara Among 7 Presumed Dead in US Plane Crash

All seven passengers aboard a plane, including “Tarzan” actor Joe Lara and his diet guru wife, are presumed dead after it crashed in a lake near the U.S. city of Nashville, authorities said.
 
The small business jet crashed at around 11:00 am local time Saturday, shortly after taking off from the Smyrna, Tennessee airport for Palm Beach, Florida, Rutherford County Fire & Rescue (RCFR) said on Facebook.
 
The plane went down into Percy Priest Lake, about 19 kilometers south of Nashville.
 
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed seven people had been aboard the plane, CNN reported.
 
By Saturday night, operations had switched from search and rescue to recovery efforts, RCFR incident commander Captain Joshua Sanders told a press conference.
 
“We are no longer in an attempt to (look) for live victims at this point so we’re now recovering as much as we can from the crash site,” he said.
 
On Sunday afternoon, RCFR said on Facebook that recovery operations had found “several components of the aircraft as well as human remains” in a debris field about half a mile wide.
 
Operations would continue until dark and resume Monday morning, RCFR wrote.
 
Lara played Tarzan in the 1989 television movie “Tarzan in Manhattan.” He later starred in the television series “Tarzan: The Epic Adventures,” which ran from 1996-1997.
 
His wife Gwen Shamblin Lara, whom he married in 2018, was the leader of a Christian weight-loss group called Weigh Down Ministries. She founded the group in 1986, and then in 1999 founded the Remnant Fellowship Church in Brentwood, Tennessee.
 
She is survived by two children from a previous marriage, according to a statement posted on the church’s website.

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Polls Open in Somaliland’s Local and Parliamentary Elections

Polling stations have opened in the self-proclaimed republic of Somaliland as voters go to the polls to elect their parliamentary and local representatives. Long queues were reported in the early hours of Monday in the capital Hargeisa. Some of the voters have been queuing up to two hours prior to the opening of polling stations at 7:00 a.m. local time. The President of Somaliland Muse Bihi Abdi told VOA Somali that the election should be conducted in a peaceful manner.President Muse Bihi Abdi speaks to the media after casting his vote in the presidential election in Hargeisa, in the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland, in Somalia, Nov. 13, 2017.“If one has a dispute when the election passes, the argument should be calm and civil,” he said. “You should not undermine the interest of the nation. Complain peacefully, the court is open.” More than 1 million people have registered to vote, a record in Somaliland. The previous presidential election in November 2017 recorded just over 700,000 registered voters, according to government figures. Somaliland held six popular elections, and three presidential elections since 2003. But this will be only the second time that Somaliland holds parliamentary elections. The current members of parliament were elected in 2005, but quotas, allocation of seats, prioritizing presidential, electoral laws have delayed parliamentary elections multiple times, observers say.  Among those voting today is a 17-year-old first time voter Amira Ahmed. “This will be the first time I get to participate in Somaliland national elections,” she told VOA. “I’m very happy.” Another voter, Mustafe Mohamed Abdullahi, said he received a text message from the election commission the day before, reminding him where he has registered to vote. “They told me that I got my ballot in Badda As [a neighborhood in Hargeisa]. They said I should cast my vote there as a citizen. So, I’m ready,” he said. In the parliament, there are 246 candidates from the three registered political parties vying for the 82- seat House of Representatives. Rights activists say 13 female candidates are participating in the parliamentary elections alone in a broader effort to increase women’s representation. There is just one female lawmaker in the current parliament. Civil rights activist and former Somaliland representative to the United Kingdom Ayan Mahamoud has been advocating for the candidates from the marginalized minority Gaboye communities, and women. According to a report published by the Minority Rights Group International, an advocacy group focusing on global minority rights, the Gaboye “have traditionally been considered distinct and lower-caste groups.”  “The two most pressing issues are rights of minority groups such as Gaboye communities and women,” she told VOA.  “There’s one Somaliland woman representative now, but fortunately we have 13 standing. If they are voted in at least, we will have 10 %.” The Gaboye community has no representation in current parliament, Mahamoud says. She has been urging voters to correct that record. “It’s only fair and just to break with the horrible past and stigmatization of our Gaboye communities,” she said. “Democracy is about equality and fairness and not only about the will of the majority.” The Somaliland National Electoral Commission increased the number of polling stations to 2,709 from 1,642 in 2017 due to the expected higher turnout.The increase in the number of registered voters have been attributed to the participation of youth in the election. This is also the first time in Somaliland that two elections — parliament and local councilors — take place at the same time. The voting also coincides with two historic milestones in Somaliland. It was 20 years ago Monday when Somaliland adopted the constitution that enshrines the multiparty democratic system. Also, this month, Somaliland commemorated 30 years since declaring secession from the rest of Somalia. Despite holding democratic elections, Somaliland failed to gain international recognition as an independent state. But this did not stop the presence of international observers. There are 103 international election observers who have arrived to witnesses the election proceedings, President Abdi said. They include observers from Europe and Africa, among them the former President of Sierra Leone Ernest Bai Koroma.H.E. former President of Sierra Leone Ernest Bai Koroma on election preparedness tour in Hargeisa today. #Somalilandelection2021#Somalilandis30yearspic.twitter.com/jyK6w0NHaI— John Githongo (@johngithongo) May 30, 2021Official results could take days to be announced. 

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Hong Kong’s ‘Grandma Wong’ Arrested for Solo Tiananmen Protest

Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly democracy activist as she made a solo demonstration over China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown in a vivid illustration of the zero protest tolerance now wielded by authorities in the financial hub. Alexandra Wong, 65, was detained on Sunday on suspicion of taking part in an unlawful assembly as she walked towards Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong.   Wong — known locally as “Grandma Wong” — was a regular fixture of the huge democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019.   She could often be seen waving a Union Jack flag, a symbol of her dissatisfaction with Beijing’s rule since the city was handed to China by former colonial power Britain in 1997.   Protest is now all but outlawed in Hong Kong. Authorities have used both the threat of the coronavirus and security concerns to ban demonstrations. A vigil planned for this Friday — the 32nd anniversary of Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square — has been denied permission for the second year in a row. Authorities have cited the coronavirus, although Hong Kong is currently celebrating no local transmission cases of unknown origin for the last month. Activists had also sought permission for a small Tiananmen-themed march on Sunday to the Liaison Office, which represents the central government in the city, but it was also denied permission. Wong turned up anyway that afternoon holding as sign that read “32, June 4, Tiananmen’s lament” and a yellow umbrella — the latter a symbol of Hong Kong’s democracy movement. The South China Morning Post said the pensioner started chanting slogans in a park before heading towards the Liaison Office by herself, while being followed and filmed by police. She was stopped twice. “I’m only by myself, just an old lady here. Why stop me?” the Post quoted Wong as telling officers. Soon afterwards she was arrested. Police confirmed a 65-year-old woman surnamed Wong had been arrested for “knowingly participating in an unauthorized assembly and attempting to incite others to join an unauthorized assembly.” Hong Kong’s democracy movement has been crushed by a broad crackdown on dissent over the last year, including the imposition of a sweeping security law that criminalizes much dissent.   In the middle of the 2019 protests Wong disappeared for more than a year.    She resurfaced saying she had been detained by mainland authorities during a trip to Shenzhen, a neighboring city where she lived at the time.   

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Biden to Pay Tribute to Nation’s War Dead on Memorial Day

U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the nation’s top military officials are due to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony Monday at Arlington National Cemetery as the country observes the annual Memorial Day holiday dedicated to honoring its war dead. Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley will also speak during a remembrance ceremony at the cemetery located just outside of Washington. “We must remember the price that was paid for our liberties,” Biden said Sunday as he addressed a crowd of veterans and families of fallen service members. “We must remember the debt we owe those who have paid it, and the families left behind. My heart is torn in half by the grief.”   Biden’s remarks came on the sixth anniversary of the death of his son Beau, who served as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, including a tour of duty with U.S. forces in Iraq before dying of cancer in 2015.President Joe Biden speaks at a Memorial Day event at Veterans Memorial Park at the Delaware Memorial Bridge in New Castle, Del., May 30, 2021.“I know how much the loss hurts,” Biden said. “I know the black hole it leaves in the middle of your chest; it feels like you may get sucked into it and not come out.”    “Folks, you know, despite all the pain, I know the pride you feel in the loved one and— that you lost and those who are still serving — the pride and the bravery in the service to our great American experiment,” he said.  The United States has commemorated Memorial Day to honor its war dead at the end of May since 1868 after the Civil War. The national holiday is now held on the last Monday in May of each year.  To coincide with the holiday, flags are placed by the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery and at many of the other national cemeteries across the country, where many who served in the U.S. military are buried.  The holiday also marks the unofficial start of summer and what traditionally has been a busy travel season in the United States. While travel suffered last year because of coronavirus restrictions, this year Americans are looking to get back to their pre-pandemic routines. More than 1.8 million people went through U.S. airports on Thursday and Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.     The U.S. travel group AAA said it expected a 60% jump in travel this Memorial Day from last year, with 37 million Americans planning to travel at least about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from home, mostly by car. The travel boom comes despite higher prices for gasoline.     The price index for typical Memorial Day activities rose this year about 4.3%, faster than the overall consumer price index, according to Reuters. It listed higher prices over pre-pandemic rates for cookout fare such as hamburgers and hotdogs, as well as higher prices for dinner and drinks out, amusement parks, concerts and car rentals. Prices are below pre-pandemic levels for airfare and hotels.  Prices for many goods have been rising because of surging consumer demand as well as supply issues for both materials and labor. 

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Biden to Visit Tulsa as Nation Reflects on Race and Reparations

President Joe Biden visits Tulsa, Oklahoma, this week as part of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The visit comes as the United States reflects on its legacy of slavery and racial violence. Michelle Quinn reports.Produced by: Mary Cieslak    

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Brazil’s Castroneves Wins Indianapolis 500 for 4th Time

Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday for a record-equaling fourth time, in front of the largest crowd to attend a sporting event in the United States since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.The 46-year-old Brazilian surged to the front with two laps to go and held off a challenge from hard-charging Spanish young gun Alex Palou to claim victory and join AJ Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser as the only four-time winners of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”It was the 21st Indy 500 start for Castroneves but his first with Meyer Shank Racing, his other wins in 2001, 2002 and 2009 all coming with Team Penske.With the race back in its traditional U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend slot, after last year’s event was moved to August and held at an empty track because of the pandemic, a sold-out crowd of 135,000 excited fans flocked to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.While the crowd was well shy of the nearly 400,000 that the speedway can accommodate, the roars returned to the Brickyard as fans partied in the sunshine.
 

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West African Leaders Suspend Mali From Regional Bloc Over Coup

West African leaders suspended Mali from their regional bloc Sunday over what they said amounted to a coup last week, Ghana’s foreign minister said after an emergency meeting to address the political crisis in Mali.The 15-nation bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, “is worried about the security implications for West Africa because of the continued insecurity brought about by the political upheavals in that country,” Ghana Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said.  At the end of their summit, the heads of state of the ECOWAS member nations demanded that Malian authorities immediately release former transitional President Bah N’Daw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, who are being kept under house arrest.  In their statement, the leaders condemned the arrests by Mali’s military, which they said violated mediation steps agreed to last September, a month after a coup led by the same man who has now again taken power in Mali, Col. Assimi Goita.  ECOWAS also called for a new civilian prime minister to be nominated immediately and a new inclusive government to be formed as well as a transition of power leading to February 2022 elections. A monitoring mechanism will be put in place to assure this, they added.   In addition, the statement said, the head of the transition government, the vice president and the prime minister should not under any circumstances be candidates in the planned February 27 presidential election.  ECOWAS urged all international partners, including the African Union, the United Nations and the European Union, to continue to support the successful implementation of the transition in Mali.  The heads of state expressed “strong and deep concerns over the present crisis in Mali, which is coming halfway to the end of the agreed transition period, in the context of the security challenges related to incessant terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic with its dire socio-economic impacts,” the statement said.  Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo opened the summit Sunday in Accra, saying ECOWAS must “remain resolute in supporting the people of Mali to find a peaceful solution, and restore democracy and stability in the country.”  Mali’s constitutional court on Friday named Goita as the West African nation’s government leader days after he seized power by deposing the president and prime minister and forced their resignations.  Their arrests last Monday by the military took place hours after a new cabinet was named that left out two major military leaders. The court said Friday that Goita would take the responsibilities of the interim president “to lead the transition process to its conclusion.”The deposed interim president and prime minister had been appointed following the August 2020 coup led by Goita. That coup, against then-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, led to mediations by ECOWAS and Nigeria’s former leader, Goodluck Jonathan. The transitional government was set up with Goita as transitional vice president. Elections were to be held in February and March 2022.  After taking power, Goita assured that the elections would still be held, though it wasn’t clear what part the military would play in the government.  The international community, including the African Union, has condemned the power grab. The U.N. Security Council has said the resignations of N’Daw and Ouane were coerced. The U.S. has already pulled its security force support and other bodies, including the EU and France, are threatening sanctions.  Goita has justified his actions by saying there was discord within the transitional government and that he wasn’t consulted, per the transitional charter, when the new cabinet was chosen.  Akufo-Addo said Sunday that ECOWAS was committed “to the peaceful transition in Mali, with the basic goal of restoring democratic government, and working for the stability of Mali and of our region.”  He acknowledged that a May 14 dissolution of the government by the transitional prime minister was worrying and the reappointment of the new, broad-based government on May 24 hours before the arrests “generated considerable tension between various groups, particularly the military, as the former ministers for defense and security were not reappointed.”Goita attended the summit after being named transitional president by the court. Presidents Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea Bissau, Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast, Adama Barrow of The Gambia and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria were also in attendance, along with presidents from Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and Liberia.  The heads of state called for the immediate implementation of all the decisions made Sunday. Jonathan is expected to return to Mali within the week to “engage stakeholders on these decisions.”
 

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