| Minneapolis council majority backs disbanding police force Posted: 07 Jun 2020 04:37 PM PDT  A majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council said Sunday they support disbanding the city's police department, an aggressive stance that comes just as the state has launched a civil rights investigation after George Floyd's death. Nine of the council's 12 members appeared with activists at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon and vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it. "It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe," Lisa Bender, the council president, said.
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| Letter from Africa: Why Nigerians are muting their mothers on WhatsApp Posted: 07 Jun 2020 04:30 PM PDT  Children are now having to police their credulous parents about fake news, writes Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
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| When protesters cry 'defund the police,' what does it mean? Posted: 07 Jun 2020 01:11 PM PDT  Protesters are pushing to "defund the police" over the death of George Floyd and other black Americans killed by law enforcement. Supporters say it isn't about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all of their money. "Why can't we look at how it is that we reorganize our priorities, so people don't have to be in the streets during a national pandemic?" Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza asked during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press.
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| Democrats' legislation would overhaul police accountability Posted: 07 Jun 2020 12:24 PM PDT  Democrats are proposing to overhaul legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force episodes and ban police choke holds in legislation coming Monday in response to the deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, according to a draft outline obtained by The Associated Press. "We're in a real moment in our country," Rep. Karen Bass, D-Ca., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," speaking after days of massive protests set off by the death of George Floyd and other African Americans involving the police. The Justice in Policing Act confronts several aspects of law enforcement accountability and practices that have come under criticism, especially as more and more police violence is captured on cell phone video and shared widely across the nation, and the world.
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| Quarantine policy to be decided in court as 500 travel and hospitality firms attempt to stop restrictions Posted: 07 Jun 2020 11:27 AM PDT  Boris Johnson's quarantine policy is set to be decided in court with more than 500 travel and hospitality businesses expected on Monday to join a legal bid by airlines to reverse the restrictions. A new group called Quash Quarantine, which includes major names such as hotelier Sir Rocco Forte, will announce how it plans to stop the policy in its tracks, with options including backing a judicial review or seeking its own injunction. They claim the quarantine rule — which comes into force on Monday — is driven by politics rather than science, with one senior figure accusing the Prime Minister's chief adviser Dominic Cummings of pursuing it as a "tactic" in Brexit negotiations. Almost all arrivals into the UK must now self-isolate for 14 days, which the travel industry says will have a "catastrophic" impact on the sector and on the wider UK economy. British Airways' parent company IAG, Ryanair and Easyjet have already sent a "pre-action" letter to the Government, setting out why they believe the coronavirus quarantine policy is legally "wholly unjustified," "disproportionate," and "unfair." The move by the 500-plus travel and hospitality firms now makes legal action a near certainty, and means the Prime Minister faces an unprecedented wall of opposition to quarantine from industry.
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| Watery end for statue of slave trader in UK city of Bristol Posted: 07 Jun 2020 10:53 AM PDT  For someone who died nearly three centuries ago, Edward Colston has become a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement in Britain. The toppling of his statue in Bristol, a city in the southwest of England, on Sunday by anti-racism protesters was greeted with joyous scenes, recognition of the fact that he was a notorious slave trader — a badge of shame in what is one of Britain's most liberal cities. Demonstrators attached ropes to the statue before pulling it down.
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| China Hails Its Virus Triumphs, and Glosses Over Its Mistakes Posted: 07 Jun 2020 10:33 AM PDT  BEIJING -- Under continued fire for its early mishandling of the coronavirus, the Chinese government vigorously defended its actions in a new, detailed account Sunday that portrays the country's approach to combating the outbreak as a model for the world.Calling the epidemic a "test of fire," Beijing builds a comprehensive picture of its "painstaking efforts" to identify the virus, stop its spread and warn other countries -- a narrative that discounts and ignores missteps by the government at the outset of the outbreak.In the report, local and provincial officials are described as acting decisively. The World Health Organization is said to have been kept informed in detail starting Jan. 3, while Chinese scientists quickly released the genome sequence. China's top leader, Xi Jinping, is described as playing a pivotal role throughout the crisis."Confronted by this virus, the Chinese people have joined together as one and united their efforts," the report said. "They have succeeded in containing the spread of the virus. In this battle, China will always stand together with other countries."Like much of China's state propaganda on the coronavirus, the report provides a sanitized version of events, leaving out political and bureaucratic problems that exacerbated the crisis when it first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.There is no mention of the doctor who was reprimanded by police for raising an early alarm about the virus or the young Chinese bloggers who were taken into custody after creating videos of the suffering in Wuhan.There is no discussion of local officials' delays in reporting cases and underplaying the outbreak, or their subsequent firing. Officials instead are lauded for dedicating themselves to defeating the virus in the report, which speaks of "an effective and well-functioning, whole-of-the-nation control mechanism."The report offers no new information on the origins of the virus. In a news conference Sunday, a top Chinese official dismissed accusations about Beijing's conduct as "completely unwarranted and unreasonable," an apparent reference to numerous accusations by the Trump administration that China is to blame for the pandemic.China has much at stake in global perceptions of its actions. Whether China is pilloried or praised could have a big effect on Beijing's world standing in the months and years ahead and its ability to continue playing an ever more assertive role in international organizations and geopolitical affairs.The Chinese government put its full propaganda muscle behind the report. Three ministers, two vice ministers and the president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences held a joint news conference to release it Sunday at the State Council Information Office, an elite propaganda agency.Xu Lin, the minister who oversees the office, characterized China's handling of the disease in heroic terms."China's fight against COVID-19 is extraordinary and should be remembered forever," he said.As the United States and other countries struggle to bring their outbreaks under control, China has largely returned to normal life. Its last remaining high-risk area, a district in the northeastern city of Jilin, lowered its epidemic response level Sunday. The city of Beijing gave permission Friday for people to stop wearing masks when outdoors and well separated.The government reported six new cases across the country Sunday. Five originated abroad, and one was said to have been transmitted locally in the southern island province of Hainan.Since the outbreak began, the Chinese mainland has recorded more than 89,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths. By contrast, the United States has confirmed almost 2 million cases and nearly 110,000 deaths.Ma Zhaoxu, vice minister of foreign affairs, complained bitterly about foreign criticisms of China's handling of the coronavirus. Critics "went all out to smear and slander China; this is spreading a political virus, and in responding to such politicized practices, China, of course, will push back resolutely," he said.As evidence of China's transparency, Xu said that 480 journalists from state news media had risked infection by reporting from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province. In his only hint that China may have had any difficulties in handling the epidemic, he said, "They have also uncovered some issues and pressed for their solution."The report also highlights its cooperation with the United States.It notes that the heads of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its Chinese equivalent spoke to each other by phone Jan. 4 and again four days later. In the first call, the Chinese official briefed his U.S. counterpart about the new pneumonia, the report said, adding, "The two sides agreed to keep in close contact on information sharing and cooperation on technical matters."Ma Xiaowei, the minister who oversees the National Health Commission, said Sunday that China had not covered up the epidemic."We have not delayed in any way" the release of information, he said.But he indicated that China was stepping up preparations to make sure that it would catch any future outbreak of disease quickly."We shall also develop a smart early-warning system with multiple triggers," he said.He did not explain how the existing early-warning system, put in place after the severe acute respiratory syndrome crisis in late 2002 and early 2003, mostly failed during the coronavirus outbreak.The news conference Sunday underlined how completely Xi has consolidated his power.China's top leader said little publicly in the early days of the outbreak and made a state visit to neighboring Myanmar in mid-January as the virus spread swiftly through Wuhan. He sent Premier Li Keqiang, the country's second-highest official, to Wuhan soon after that city's lockdown began, on Jan. 23, and put him in charge of handling the government's response.But the new report barely mentions the premier, while Xi was praised at length. He is described in often martial terms as a resolute commander in combat, making important decisions every week and sometimes every day.As in an earlier account, the report indicates that the Chinese leader was engaged in the fight against the outbreak since Jan. 7 but offers little further details on his role back then. Toward the end of February, Xi "called for a greater effort to marshal the resources of the whole country to reinforce Wuhan and Hubei," it says. Two months later, he said the country had "won a vital battle in defending Wuhan and Hubei against the novel coronavirus and achieved a major strategic success in the nationwide control efforts."Xi "made key decisions at critical moments and led the Chinese people in an all-out fight," Xu said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Palestinian Islamic Jihad group buries ex-leader in Damascus Posted: 07 Jun 2020 10:22 AM PDT  Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad buried its former leader Ramadan Shalah in Syria Sunday, an AFP correspondent said, a day after he died in neighbouring Lebanon. The 62-year-old died in a Beirut hospital before his body was transported across the border to Syria, a Palestinian source said. Shalah led Iran-backed Islamic Jihad from 1995 until 2018 when he was replaced by his deputy Ziad al-Nakhala.
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| UN says 'encouraged' by Libyan calls to resume peace talks Posted: 07 Jun 2020 09:57 AM PDT  The United Nations on Sunday said it was encouraged by calls to resume talks on ending the conflict in Libya, a day after Egypt announced a unilateral peace initiative supported by the eastern Libyan camp. The U.N. support mission in Libya said the fighting over the capital, Tripoli, for more than a year "has proven, beyond any doubt, that any war among Libyans is a losing war." The statement urged Libyan parties to "engage swiftly and constructively" in the U.N.-brokered military talks aimed at reaching a lasting cease-fire agreement, "accompanied by firm implementation of and respect for the recently renewed U.N. Arms Embargo on Libya."
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| Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader buried in Syria Posted: 07 Jun 2020 09:43 AM PDT  The former head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement was laid to rest Sunday in the Syrian capital Damascus, a day after he died following a long illness. Ramadan Shallah was on the U.S. "most wanted list" of terrorist suspects with a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Shallah, who had been in a coma for more than three years after heart surgery.
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| Deputy killed in California ambush by Air Force sergeant Posted: 07 Jun 2020 09:39 AM PDT  A Northern California sheriff's deputy was killed and two law enforcement officers wounded Saturday when they were ambushed with gunfire and explosives while pursuing a suspect, authorities said. The U.S. Air Force confirmed Sunday that the suspect was an active duty sergeant stationed at Travis Air Force Base. Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38, was shot and killed in Ben Lomond, an unincorporated area near Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said.
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| U.S. Diplomats Struggle to Defend Democracy Abroad Amid Crises at Home Posted: 07 Jun 2020 08:43 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- American diplomats who are the global face of the United States are struggling with how to demand human rights, democracy and rule-of-law abroad amid concerns overseas and criticism at home over the Trump administration's strong-arm response to the protests across the country.Diplomats are being confronted by the unrest arising from the death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis, assaults by security forces on protesters and journalists nationwide, and a tear-gas attack that Trump administration officials ordered this past week on peaceful protesters outside the White House.In private conversations and social media posts, career diplomats at the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development have expressed outrage after the killing of George Floyd and President Donald Trump's push to send the military to quell demonstrations.Diplomats say that the violence has undercut their criticisms of foreign autocrats and called into question the moral authority the United States tries to project as it promotes democracy and demands civil liberties and freedoms across the world. It has also handed adversarial governments -- including those of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea -- a powerful propaganda tool to paint a dark portrait of the United States."As American diplomats, it is our job to explain America to the world," Eric Rubin, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Bulgaria, wrote in a letter Wednesday to the union of American foreign service officers that he leads. "We have always pointed to our story as being worthy of emulation.""This week, we have been forcefully reminded that we still have a long way to go as a nation," Rubin said.Around the world, diplomats at U.S. missions are bearing witness to fresh human rights protests -- but ones aimed at the United States, not at oppressive leaders of foreign countries.Hundreds of people have protested at the U.S. Embassy in London and the office of the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, to demand racial equality in the United States. Similar demonstrations unfolded outside U.S. embassies in Paris, Berlin and Copenhagen, Denmark. More than 160 British lawmakers have called for ending exports of riot gear, tear gas and rubber bullets to the United States -- similar to a ban that Trump and Congress placed last year on products to Hong Kong.In a statement, the State Department acknowledged challenges that were "difficult to address," but maintained that the United States is devoted to free speech and assembly and the rule of law."The United States is proud of the role we have played in defending and advancing human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world," the department said. "Governments that take human rights seriously are transparent, and welcome conversations about addressing concerns and making improvements."This year, diplomats have already had to grapple with representing a president and government that have been widely criticized for their failures in handling the coronavirus pandemic, which have led to the deaths of more than 100,000 people in the United States -- far more than any other nation -- and a crippled economy.Current officials who described frustration and concern in the diplomatic corps spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution or of endangering their careers. The department is led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who in the last year alone has pushed Trump to fire the agency's inspector general and refused to back foreign service officers who came under attack from Trump over the issue of Ukraine.Former ambassadors and agency officials also spoke about the current difficulties of defending U.S. governance and the legal system to foreign nations, given what is unfolding at home."Now of course the whole world can see that many Americans have been systematically denied justice," said Dana Shell Smith, a former career diplomat and ambassador to Qatar. "Our public diplomacy should embrace more humility than it has had in the past as a result."She added, though, that diplomats could seize on the idea "that American people are using our voices to demand change, and that is something that could not happen in so many countries where I served."Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration, said "the use of the military to violently disperse peaceful protesters in front of the White House was the biggest gift we could possibly have given to Putin or Xi Jinping and to every other dictator around the world who delights in arguing that America's government is no different than theirs.""Most sophisticated dictators don't argue they're angels," he added. "They argue that America is sanctimonious and hypocritical because we do the same things they do."Several diplomats pointed to the case of Tianna Spears, a black foreign service officer who resigned last year after making repeated -- and unheeded -- complaints of being harassed by Customs and Border Protection officers when entering the United States from her assigned post in Mexico.In a blog post widely shared among diplomats, Spears described being accused of looking like a drug dealer and carrying counterfeit identification, including her diplomatic passport. At one point, she recounted, one U.S. border officer told her to "look at the ground" when talking to a man."How many Black women have fled the State Department in the last five years?" she wrote. "I felt angry that this career opportunity I dreamed of since I was 19 was something I had to flee to save myself."Customs and Border Protection, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, did not respond to requests for comment. In a brief interview Wednesday night, Spears said she believed the border security agency never acted on her complaints.In this moment, top State Department officials and sitting ambassadors have yet to publicly address institutional discrimination in their corps, as some military commanders have done this past week. After this article was posted online Saturday, the department's South and Central Asia bureau announced on Twitter that it was committed to "promoting inclusivity" -- but no official's name was attached to the statement.In December, Congress passed the Global Fragility Act to help certain nations prevent violence and conflict, with $1.15 billion in U.S. aid over the next five years. The State Department has an entire bureau devoted to promoting human rights issues. Each year it releases an assessment of nations' commitments to civil liberties, freedoms and rule of law.The department's annual review does not evaluate the U.S. on human rights issues, but other international groups do.In its own annual rating system, the Fund for Peace found that 29 other countries were more stable than the United States in terms of security forces, human rights, government stability, societal grievances and other measures. It concluded that the United States had become increasingly more unstable since 2017."Americans can no longer hide behind a vision of U.S. exceptionalism," seven former career officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development who are now with the Alliance for Peacebuilding wrote in a June 1 letter posted on Medium.The officials, who helped create an office for conflict management and mitigation at the aid agency during the administration of President George W. Bush, noted that "every country has conflict and grievances."But they cited international analyses and other indicators showing that in the U.S., there were signs of degrading "peace and security, democracy and trust in institutions."In an interview with Fox News last Sunday, Pompeo expressed condolences to Floyd's family, and called the actions of the Minneapolis police officers charged in his killing "abhorrent."He also applauded the Trump administration's response -- not only in investigating Floyd's death, but also in offering to send military personnel to states partly to stop "violent protesters."Pompeo's comments came the day before federal police forcefully cleared peaceful protesters near the White House, so that Trump could stage a photo opportunity holding a Bible outside a church. A leading bishop and other clergy said they were outraged by the incident.On Tuesday, Pompeo met with survivors of the 1989 massacre of peaceful protesters by the Chinese military around Tiananmen Square in Beijing. But in the run-up to Thursday, the 31st anniversary of the massacre, it was images of National Guard personnel and armored vehicles in the streets of the U.S. capital that proliferated online and on television screens around the world.Chinese officials are using the crises in the U.S. as ammunition in their rhetorical battles against U.S. diplomats, which Pompeo denounced as "laughable propaganda" Saturday.After Morgan Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, expressed concern over Hong Kong, writing on Twitter that "freedom loving people" must "stand with the rule of law and hold to account the Chinese Communist Party," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Beijing taunted her with Floyd's final words: "I can't breathe.""If Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were deeply damaging, this situation is downright devastating for American diplomacy," said Brett Bruen, a former career diplomat and director of global engagement on President Barack Obama's National Security Council."Career ambassadors and officials overseas have had to grapple with a lot of hard questions," he added. "'How the heck do I explain the excesses in some security forces' response to peaceful protesters? Worse yet, can I even stomach a defense of the despicable comments by my commander in chief?'"The United States inadvertently leads by example in a new way: providing homegrown images of anti-government protests that inspire dissenting citizens overseas. Unrest in the U.S. appears to have galvanized anti-government or pro-equality protests in countries like Iraq, New Zealand and Russia.Some U.S. embassies have decided to publicly embrace the contradictions."We will not try to hide our painful struggle, and instead believe that honest public debate will help us emerge better and stronger," the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, said in a statement.The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, announced, "Law enforcement officials must be held accountable in every country."Alex L. Wang, a law professor at UCLA who advocates rule of law in China, said the crises in the U.S. meant American officials had less credibility to single out abusive behavior elsewhere. "It looks hypocritical when they criticize acts of violence against Hong Kong protesters, even as they call for violence against peaceful protesters at home," he said."The right answer," he added, "is not for the U.S. to stand down as to rights violations abroad, but to uphold rights at home as well."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Post-Brexit fishing rights progress blocked by EU member states Posted: 07 Jun 2020 08:26 AM PDT  Michel Barnier was forced by EU fishing nations to block any hope of progress in talks over post-Brexit fishing rights last week, senior UK negotiating sources claimed on Sunday. The EU's chief negotiator had suggested a new process in a bid to break the deadlock over how to calculate fishing rights. But he was forced to abandon the move after EU fishing countries such as France, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands rejected his bid for compromise and told him to hold firm to his red lines. The week's negotiations ended with no significant progress on fishing, which is one of the major obstacles to agreeing a free trade deal with Brussels before the end of the transition period at the end of the year. "The intervention of the [EU] fisheries ministers does seem to have sort of skewed things possibly a bit late in the process and things didn't move quite as we would have hoped," a senior UK source close to the negotiation said. "We were hoping for more this time round," the source said, after accusing the EU of failing to come up with a list of the new factors and criteria, "social acceptability, effects on coastal communities, historic rights and so on." "Until they give us some more there's no way of deriving hard information about the numbers. That appears to be the difficulty. If they could do it we would happily talk to them." Britain wants a Norway-style fishing agreement, separate from the free trade deal and with annual negotiations. Rather than catch shares being determined by the historic catch patterns of the Common Fisheries Policy, the UK wants to use zonal attachment, a system it argues more accurately pinpoints where the fish are. More fish are now in UK waters because of climate change. "Zonal attachment is the fundamental," the source said before predicting the British quota would be "quite a lot larger" in the future.
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| Longtime observers see violent change in Park Police tactics Posted: 07 Jun 2020 08:25 AM PDT  Few have watched how the U.S. Park Police deals with protesters for as long and as closely as Ellen Thomas, an anti-nuclear activist who anchored a continuous sit-in vigil day and night on the pavement in front of the White House over two decades. Two former Park Police overseers dating back to the Reagan administration also said the response was unprecedented in their experience. "I was horrified," Thomas said.
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| Class of 2020: Battle-scarred and resilient amid new crises Posted: 07 Jun 2020 08:17 AM PDT  On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a young woman in Texas -- as yet unaware of the horrors unfolding half a country away -- learns that she is pregnant. Next week, he will leave his home state for the first time in his life and fly to Chicago for boot camp.
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| Street gatherings bring joy in Hell's Kitchen in pandemic Posted: 07 Jun 2020 07:55 AM PDT  On a late Friday afternoon, there is joy and fraternity found on a blocked-off street in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. After three months of sheltering-in-place, this scene of normalcy is still not commonplace as New York City tests the waters of socializing, within the prescribed limits. Steve Grillo lives on the street and is a walking advertisement touting his West Side community.
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| Lebanon deescalates sectarian clashes after tense night Posted: 07 Jun 2020 06:57 AM PDT  The Lebanese military on Sunday said overnight riots and sectarian tensions in central Beirut and other areas left dozens of people injured, including 25 soldiers, and warned that the clashes had endangered national unity. The Lebanese Red Cross said 48 demonstrators were wounded, 11 of whom were hospitalized. Shooting broke out in several areas around Lebanon late Saturday after videos circulated on social media showing some supporters of Lebanon's two main Shiite Muslim groups — Hezbollah and Amal — chanting sectarian insults.
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| Duty to intervene: Floyd cops spoke up but didn't step in Posted: 07 Jun 2020 06:57 AM PDT  Minneapolis was among several cities that had policies on the books requiring police officers to intervene to stop colleagues from using unreasonable force, but that didn't save George Floyd and law enforcement experts say such rules will always run up against entrenched police culture and the fear of being ostracized and branded a "rat." Power dynamics may have been magnified in the Floyd case because two of the four officers involved were rookies and the most senior officer on the scene was a training officer, Derek Chauvin, a 19-year police veteran who was seen putting his knee on the back of the black man's neck despite his cries that he couldn't breathe. Chauvin is now charged with second-degree murder, and his three fellow officers are charged with aiding and abetting.
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| Black activists push for criminal justice system overhaul Posted: 07 Jun 2020 06:54 AM PDT  Black activists believe the police killing of George Floyd and the nationwide civil unrest that followed could be the catalyst for overhauling the criminal justice system. Following Saturday's massive demonstrations against racism and police brutality, some are pushing for incremental change, such as requiring more rigorous training, reviewing policies and mandating that officers live in the communities in which they work to deepen their relationship with residents. "What we're facing is a real reckoning on a lot of levels," said Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter.
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| 'A long time coming': Iconic Lee statue to be removed Posted: 07 Jun 2020 05:15 AM PDT  David Harris Jr., a nephew of humanitarian and tennis legend Arthur Ashe, tried for decades to get a street named after his uncle in Richmond, the hometown that once denied Ashe access to segregated public tennis courts. Finally, in 2019, the city council approved the renaming over the objections of some residents. In recent days, amid an extraordinary outpouring of grief over Floyd's death, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has pledged to remove the Lee statue, while city leaders have also committed to taking down the other four Confederate memorials along Richmond's prestigious Monument Avenue.
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| Iran says virus uptick due to increased testing Posted: 07 Jun 2020 04:56 AM PDT  Iran's health ministry said Sunday a surge in new reported coronavirus infections was due to increased testing rather than a worsening outbreak. After hitting a near two-month low in early May and a lifting of tough movement restrictions, cases of the COVID-19 illness have been rising in Islamic republic which is battling the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the disease. "The main reason for rising numbers is that we started identifying (infected people) with no or light symptoms," said Mohammad-Mehdi Gouya, the health ministry's head epidemiologist.
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| Thousands march in NYC as curfew ends and peace prevails Posted: 07 Jun 2020 04:36 AM PDT  Police moved barricades Sunday so protesters could approach the Trump International Hotel and Tower in midtown Manhattan as thousands continued to march against police brutality — this time without a curfew looming in the night. Mayor Bill de Blasio lifted the city's 8 p.m. curfew ahead of schedule Sunday after a peaceful night Saturday, free of the clashes or ransacking of stores that rocked the city days earlier. "I want to thank everybody who has expressed their views peacefully," de Blasio said Sunday morning.
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| Netanyahu calls for Iran sanctions over nuclear 'violations' Posted: 07 Jun 2020 03:58 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged world powers Sunday to reimpose tough sanctions against Iran, vowing to curb Tehran's regional "aggression" hours after another deadly strike on pro-Iranian fighters in Syria. "The International Atomic Energy Agency has determined that Iran refused to give the agency's inspectors access to secret sites where Iran conducted secret nuclear military activity," Netanyahu told his cabinet. The UN nuclear watchdog said Friday that Iran had accumulated enriched uranium at nearly eight times the limit under a landmark 2015 deal, and has for months blocked inspections at sites where nuclear activity may have taken place.
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| Anti-racism protesters rally around world, topple statue Posted: 07 Jun 2020 03:54 AM PDT  Thousands of people took to the streets of European cities Sunday to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, with protesters in the English port of Bristol venting their anger at the country's colonial history by toppling a statue of a 17th-century slave trader. Demonstrators attached ropes to the statue of Edward Colston before pulling it down to cheers and roars of approval from the crowd. Images on social media show protesters appearing to kneel on the statue's neck, recalling the death of George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25 that has sparked worldwide protests against racism and police violence.
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| Israeli PM: Killing of Palestinian with autism a "tragedy" Posted: 07 Jun 2020 02:29 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called the deadly police shooting of an unarmed Palestinian man with autism a "tragedy," although he stopped short of apologizing for the incident. Netanyahu's remarks were the first he's made since police in Jerusalem's Old City shot and killed Eyad Hallaq last week. The 32-year-old Palestinian with severe autism was chased by Israeli border police forces into a nook in Jerusalem's Old City and fatally shot as he cowered next to a garbage bin after apparently being mistaken for an attacker.
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| Africa's essential truckers say they face virus stigma Posted: 07 Jun 2020 02:07 AM PDT  They haul food, fuel and other essential supplies along sometimes dangerous roads during tough economic times. It was the second time the frontier was closed in less than a month and was taken after many Tanzanian truckers with negative results started testing positive at the border.
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| High winds, rain as tropical storm makes Louisiana landfall Posted: 07 Jun 2020 12:25 AM PDT  Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall Sunday on the Louisiana coast, packing 50 mph winds and spinning dangerous weather as far east as northern Florida, where it spawned a tornado that uprooted trees and downed power lines. The lopsided storm moved ashore between the mouth of the Mississippi River and the barrier island resort community of Grand Isle, which had been evacuated a day earlier. Forecasters said the storm could dump as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in some areas.
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| Protesters topple Confederate statue in Virginia capital Posted: 06 Jun 2020 10:47 PM PDT  A small group of demonstrators toppled a statue of a Confederate general in the the former capital of the Confederacy late Saturday, following a day of largely peaceful protests in the Virginia city. The statue of Gen. Williams Carter Wickham was pulled from its pedestal in Monroe Park, a Richmond police spokeswoman said. A rope had been tied around the Confederate statue, which has stood since 1891, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, adding that someone urinated on the statue after it was pulled down.
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| Curfews lift, police show less force amid peaceful protests Posted: 06 Jun 2020 10:11 PM PDT  With New York City poised to reopen after a more than two-month coronavirus shutdown, officials on Sunday lifted a curfew that was in place amid protests of police brutality and racial injustice. Cuomo said the state would open 15 testing sites dedicated to protesters so they can get results quickly.
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| The Latest: Romney is 1st Republican senator to join protest Posted: 06 Jun 2020 10:02 PM PDT  — National Guard troops set to leave California cities. — Peaceful protests continue in New York City. WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney marched in a protest against police mistreatment of minorities in the nation's capital, making him the first Republican senator to do so.
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| Washington protesters express optimism after week on edge Posted: 06 Jun 2020 09:18 PM PDT  On Monday, they were forcibly removed from the street by law enforcement. The tens of thousands of racially diverse demonstrators who flooded Washington to protest injustice and police brutality reshaped the mood of a city that has been on edge this week. Bursts of looting and violence early in the week prompted a dramatic clampdown by law enforcement that gave the nation's capital the feeling of an occupied city, complete with military vehicles, helicopters buzzing low to the skyline and National Guard troops on patrol.
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| Brazil expunges virus death toll as data befuddles experts Posted: 06 Jun 2020 09:02 PM PDT  Brazil's government has stopped publishing a running total of coronavirus deaths and infections in an extraordinary move that critics call an attempt to hide the true toll of the disease in Latin America's largest nation. Saturday's move came after months of criticism from experts that Brazil's statistics are woefully deficient, and in some cases manipulated, so it may never be possible to understand the depth of the pandemic in the country. Brazil's last official numbers showed it had recorded over 34,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, the third-highest number in the world, just ahead of Italy.
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| A U-turn, an angry president and a fateful walk to a church Posted: 06 Jun 2020 07:17 PM PDT  Defense Secretary Mark Esper was three blocks from the FBI's Washington field office. Go the White House. President Donald Trump wanted a briefing from him and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on how the military was handling security as protests grew on the streets of the nation's capital.
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| AP PHOTOS: Massive protests punctuate a week in the streets Posted: 06 Jun 2020 05:29 PM PDT  Tens of thousands of protesters marched worldwide in what could be the biggest one-day mobilization against racial injustice since a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into Floyd's neck for several minutes. Protesters held signs with slogans saying "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice No Peace" during marches that were peaceful, sometimes even festive, after previous days had devolved in chaos.
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