| UN team reports new evidence against Islamic State in Iraq Posted: 18 May 2020 06:29 PM PDT |
| Lebanese man pleads guilty to drone parts export conspiracy Posted: 18 May 2020 06:09 PM PDT |
| Burundi election: Nkurunziza set to become 'supreme guide' Posted: 18 May 2020 04:48 PM PDT  Burundi's president did everything to remain in power five years ago but is now stepping down - officially at least.
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| Thomas Thabane resigns as Lesotho prime minister Posted: 18 May 2020 02:30 PM PDT  Lesotho's prime minister, a suspect in the murder of his former wife, says he is resigning.
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| Trump calls world health body 'puppet of China' Posted: 18 May 2020 01:51 PM PDT  President Donald Trump attacked the United Nations health body as a Chinese "puppet" on Monday and confirmed he is considering slashing or canceling US support. "They're a puppet of China, they're China-centric to put it nicer," he said at the White House. Trump said the United States pays around $450 million annually to the World Health Organization, the largest contribution of any country.
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| Trump says he's taking malaria drug to protect against virus Posted: 18 May 2020 01:40 PM PDT  President Donald Trump said Monday that he is taking a malaria drug to protect against the coronavirus, despite warnings from his own government that it should only be administered for COVID-19 in a hospital or research setting due to potentially fatal side effects. Trump told reporters he has been taking the drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a zinc supplement daily "for about a week and a half now." Trump spent weeks pushing the drug as a potential cure or prophylaxis for COVID-19 against the cautionary advice of many of his administration's top medical professionals.
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| Indigenous infections grew amid slow Brazil agency response Posted: 18 May 2020 01:38 PM PDT  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's repeated promotion of developing the vast Amazon has for months prompted indigenous activists, celebrities and agents on the ground to sound the alarm. In the face of a spreading pandemic, they warn inaction is enough to wipe out many indigenous people. The Associated Press spoke to four agents who work with indigenous peoples in the farthest reaches of Brazil's Amazon, and they were unanimous in their conclusion: The national Indian foundation, known as FUNAI, is hardly doing anything to coordinate a response to a crisis that could decimate ethnic groups.
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| Outside judge named to preside over cases in Arbery slaying Posted: 18 May 2020 01:19 PM PDT  A judge from outside the coastal Georgia community where Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot has been appointed to preside over trial proceedings of the two men charged with Arbery's murder, including one defendant with close ties to law enforcement. Court documents filed in Glynn County show that Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley was appointed to the case after all five judges in the legal circuit where Arbery was killed recused themselves. Walmsley is based in Savannah, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of where the slaying occurred just outside the port city of Brunswick.
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| Feds urge 'extreme caution' for reopening nursing homes Posted: 18 May 2020 01:17 PM PDT  Federal authorities are urging governors to use "extreme caution" in deciding when to resume visits at nursing homes, saying it shouldn't come before all residents and staff have tested negative for the coronavirus for at least 28 days. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' criteria for relaxing restrictions at nursing homes come more than two months after the agency ordered homes to ban visitors. Already, outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities have claimed more than 33,000 lives, more than a third of all coronavirus deaths in the U.S., according to a count by the AP.
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| Watchdog was investigating Pompeo for arms deal and staff misuse before firing Posted: 18 May 2020 01:00 PM PDT  State department inspector general Steve Linick was reportedly close to finishing his report before his dismissal on FridayThe government watchdog who was fired last week had been investigating the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, for sidestepping Congress to approve arms sales to the Gulf and using staffers for personal errands, according to congressional sources.Donald Trump declared his intention to fire the state department inspector general, Steve Linick, in a letter sent to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, late on Friday night. The White House said the decision was taken at Pompeo's advice.Congress has 30 days to investigate the decision, but the Senate has so far declined to intervene in a string of dismissals of officials in watchdog roles, as Trump has steadily dismantled the machinery of government oversight.According to Democratic congressional aides, Linick had nearly completed an investigation into a highly controversial decision by Trump and Pompeo last May to approve $8bn in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without consulting Congress, on the grounds that the regional threat posed by Iran constituted a national emergency.Congress had sought to curb the weapons sales in the wake of the Saudi killing of the Washington Post columnist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi and high civilian casualties from Saudi bomb strikes in Yemen.The congressional aides said Linick had also been looking into allegations that a political appointee at the state department was being employed to run menial errands for Pompeo and his wife, Susan. The chores included walking the family dog, picking up dry cleaning and making dinner reservations.The details of the errands were first published by NBC News and the investigation into the Saudi arms sales was first reported by the Washington Post on Monday."[Linick's] office was investigating – at my request – Trump's phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia," Eliot Engel, the Democratic chair of the House foreign affairs committee said in a written statement."We don't have the full picture yet, but it's troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted Mr Linick pushed out before this work could be completed."Pompeo claimed he was unaware he was being investigated by the inspector general and insisted he called for Linick's firing because he was "undermining" the state department's work."I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the state department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing," Pompeo told the Washington Post. "The kinds of activities he's supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us."Pompeo did not provide evidence but a state department official, Brian Bulatao, said there had been a pattern of leaks of draft inspector general reports.Pompeo's claim to have no knowledge he was under investigation conflict with a report in Politico on Monday that he had refused to sit for an interview with the inspector general's office about the Saudi arms sales. In his letter on Friday, announcing Linick's dismissal, Trump said he no longer had full confidence in him. On Monday, he said he had never heard of Linick before being asked to fire him."I don't know him. Never heard of him," Trump said. "But they asked me to terminate him. I have the absolute right as president to terminate. I said who appointed him, and they say: President Obama. I said: look I'll terminate him."The president ridiculed the allegations against Pompeo as trivial, saying his secretary of state could have been too busy to do domestic chores himself."Maybe he's negotiating with Kim Jong-un about nuclear weapons so that he said: 'Do you mind walking my dog – I'm talking to Kim Jong-un,'" the president said, adding that he had been unaware of the investigations when he fired Linick. "I think this country has a long way to go. The priorities are really screwed up."Engel and the lead Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, Bob Menendez, launched an investigation on Saturday into Linick's firing."Reports indicate that Secretary Pompeo personally made the recommendation to fire Mr Linick, and it is our understanding that he did so because the inspector general had opened an investigation into wrongdoing by Secretary Pompeo himself," Engel and Menendez said in a joint statement. "Such an action, transparently designed to protect Secretary Pompeo from personal accountability, would undermine the foundation of our democratic institutions and may be an illegal act of retaliation."Engel called for all relevant state department records to be turned over to Congress by Friday.Pompeo has been under scrutiny for his behaviour in office for several months. Last July, congressional Democrats launched an inquiry into the use of diplomatic security agents to run family errands like collecting the family dog from the grooming salon and picking up Chinese food. CNN reported the bodyguards were complaining of being treated like "UberEats with guns".The head of the diplomatic security service at the time denied the agents had been asked to do anything "inconsistent with our professional obligation to protect the secretary 24 hours a day, seven days a week". Congress eventually dropped the investigation.There has also been longstanding controversy over the Pompeo's use of government housing normally assigned to senior military officers, on Potomac Hill opposite state department headquarters. His predecessors, and traditionally almost all non-uniformed government employees, have been responsible for their own housing in Washington.A state department spokeswoman at the time insisted that Pompeo was paying an (unspecified) fair market rent for the government house and that he was saving taxpayers money in security costs.The role of Susan Pompeo has also drawn attention as she has accompanied the secretary of state on several foreign trips, and is reported to be drawing on state department resources like staffers' time and official cars while on those trips."I have friends who have been at meetings called by Mrs Pompeo about trips, about plans and what she wants to have her agenda on the trip which is not supposed to happen," said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat and White House director of global engagement"You're not allowed as a non-government official to take government resources for your own agenda."The culture that Pompeo has created at the state department is a mix of fear as well as self-serving policies where his wife is on the plane, and she is in charge of trips and meetings," Bruen said.
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| Ministers accused of hypocrisy over immigration block on care workers safeguarding elderly from Covid-19 Posted: 18 May 2020 12:38 PM PDT  Boris Johnson has been accused of hypocrisy over new immigration laws that will bar the type of low-paid migrant care workers who have safeguarded the elderly during the coronavirus crisis. Labour and a former Conservative immigration minister Caroline Nokes both urged the Government to adopt a more "nuanced" and "intelligent" approach to such workers rather than branding them as unskilled. They were backed by an ICM poll which showed more than six in ten members of the public said they valued care workers and other low-paid staff more since the Coronavirus outbreak - and believed the Government should make exemptions to allow them into the UK after Brexit. The disclosures came as MPs debated the Government new immigration Bill which will end free movement from EU from January 1 next year, at the end of this year's transition period. It will introduce a points-based system that will expand the number of skilled workers who can come from the EU and the rest of the world but ends migration to the UK by unskilled workers. The system sets a salary threshold of £25,600 a year below which migrants can only earn extra points the may need if they are in shortage areas and earn over a minimum of £20,480, which excludes most care workers, shop workers, NHS ancillary staff and construction workers. Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow home secretary, said: "It is rank hypocrisy towards our NHS and care workers – over 180,000 in England and Wales alone – to stand and clap for them on a Thursday night, and then tell them that they are not welcome in the UK on a Monday. He said the Bill would make workers in the NHS and the care sector feel unwelcome in this country, as well as labelling retail workers, carers, local government workers, refuse collectors, and many more as 'low skilled'. "These are the very same workers who have been keeping this country running throughout the crisis. This Bill creates a threat to our national interest. "It risks the NHS not being able to fill the desperately needed roles for trained nurses and care home workers at the very moment when we rely on the NHS most." Ms Nokes said she supported ending freedom of movement by January 1st next year to fulfil the majority vote in the 2016 referendum but urged the Government to proceed with caution and a phased approach. She said that even with the scale of unemployment anticipated after the coronavirus crisis, there was no guarantee that British workers would fill the gaps left by so-called unskilled staff in fields such as social care. Earlier she also cautioned: "It is a mistake to refer to people who are working in the care industry, construction, road haulage, people who are stacking those supermarket shelves who we have been so reliant on over the past six weeks to feed ourselves to call them unskilled. "I think it is always a mistake to call them unskilled. They may not have graduate qualifications, they may not be earning over 25 thousand pounds a year, that does not mean they are unskilled." Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, said the Government had moved to support foreign health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic by extending their visas and waiving the health surcharge. This included doctors, nurses, paramedics, midwives, radiographers, social workers and pharmacists. She said the Government was working on long-term plans to tackle social care, which had already received an extra £1.5 billion. However, she warned that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) said the immigration system was not the sole solution to problems in social care. The ICM poll found 61 per cent of the public believed there should be exceptions for care workers and nurses from any blanket salary threshold. Sunder Katwala, Director of thinktank British Future, which commissioned the poll, said: "The Government will need to strike the right balance too – and accept that people's value isn't determined by their salary level."
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| China Pledges $2 Billion In Coronavirus Funding Posted: 18 May 2020 11:48 AM PDT  China has promised to spend $2 billion over the next two years to help fight the coronavirus. Chinese President Xi Jinping made the announcement in an online address to the World Health Organization assembly Monday. The pledge comes as over 100 countries backed a resolution, drafted by the European Union, calling for an independent investigation into how the World Health Organization handled COVID-19.
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| China Pledges $2 Billion in Coronavirus Funding Posted: 18 May 2020 11:48 AM PDT China has promised to spend $2 billion over the next two years to help fight the coronavirus. Chinese President Xi Jinping made the announcement in an online address to the World Health Organization assembly Monday. The pledge comes as over 100 countries backed a resolution, drafted by the European Union, calling for an independent investigation into how the World Health Organization handled COVID-19.
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| Democrats: Fired watchdog was looking into Saudi arms sale Posted: 18 May 2020 10:44 AM PDT  Congressional Democrats say the State Department watchdog fired by President Donald Trump last week was investigating possible impropriety in a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year, adding new questions to the watchdog's abrupt dismissal. Democrats said Monday that ousted Inspector General Steve Linick was probing how the State Department pushed through a $7 billion Saudi arms sale over congressional objections. Democrats previously suggested the dismissal might have been tied to Linick's investigation of allegations that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may have improperly ordered staff to run personal errands for him.
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| Local leaders resist Mexico president's push for reopening Posted: 18 May 2020 10:30 AM PDT  Local governments across Mexico pushed back Monday against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's call to reopen the economy in some 300 townships that do not have active cases of coronavirus, with leaders saying they preferred to wait until June before resuming normal activities. Mexico, which has reported 51,633 total cases and 5,332 deaths, has seen a steep climb in new infections. Front-line doctors fear that a premature reopening could lead to a second wave of infections — a scenario that recently played out in Chile and Guatemala, where governments had to roll back reopening plans.
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| Putin intervenes as Russia's Dagestan faces virus 'catastrophe' Posted: 18 May 2020 10:21 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin was forced to intervene personally on Monday in the epidemic sweeping Russia's North Caucasus region of Dagestan, as local officials described the coronavirus situation as a "catastrophe." Dagestan's top cleric, Mufti Akhmad Abdulayev, described the situation as dire and pleaded to the Kremlin for help. "The scope of the catastrophe is forcing us to appeal to you," he told Putin via video link Monday.
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| Barr says he doesn't envision investigations of Biden, Obama Posted: 18 May 2020 09:37 AM PDT  Attorney General William Barr said Monday that he did not expect an investigation into the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation to lead to criminal probes of either President Donald Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, or former President Barack Obama. Trump has stated without evidence that he believes Obama committed unspecified crimes as president, repeatedly tweeting, "OBAMAGATE!" The claims have become a rallying cry among Trump supporters, while Democrats view it as a desperate attempt to shift the focus from the president's handling of the coronavirus outbreak and the nation's soaring unemployment.
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| UN envoy calls for Russia-US talks to help end Syrian war Posted: 18 May 2020 09:33 AM PDT  The U.N. special envoy for Syria called Monday for talks between Russia and the United States to help end the more than nine-year-old war, saying the two major powers could play "a key role." Geir Pedersen's encouragement to Moscow and Washington to take a leading role was his first public appeal to the rival powers on opposing sides of the conflict — Russia which has been the key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the United States which supports the opposition.
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| Lives Lost: An unassuming maestro of Sunday soundtracks Posted: 18 May 2020 09:28 AM PDT  "Joe was music," says the Rev. Richard Fitzgerald, pastor of St. Columbkille Parish in Brighton, where Policelli was music director. Policelli grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, his father a maintenance supervisor for Amtrak, his mother a substitute teacher who gave piano lessons on the baby grand in the living room of their split-level ranch. "He always knew when to pull back and when it would be full throttle," says Monica Hatch, a soprano who Policelli hired as a singer.
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| A week of images from the coronavirus pandemic Posted: 18 May 2020 08:27 AM PDT  Moviegoers took in a film from the trunk of their hatchback in a rural part of New York state. Americans sought entertainment while abiding by restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Spain, for instance, eased many rules over the past week.
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| Mob storms Saudi-owned channel in Iraq following show Posted: 18 May 2020 08:19 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus: Are African countries struggling to increase testing? Posted: 18 May 2020 08:00 AM PDT  As African countries ease lockdowns, is testing being scaled up?
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| Iran calls for solidarity against pandemic, condemns U.S. sanctions Posted: 18 May 2020 07:44 AM PDT |
| VIRUS DIARY: Starting a life, as life withdraws around her Posted: 18 May 2020 07:35 AM PDT  In December, I sat in a Manhattan building booming with shouts of praise and listened intently as a speaker from my church spoke about the end of the decade. The word was on my mind as I packed a large black suitcase, hopped on a plane and left New York City in March to start my first real job in Atlanta. A friend who had spent time in Atlanta called to give me a list of things I needed to do once I arrived: take strolls through Spelman College, visit different churches and of course, be social.
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| South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa jokes about arrest for breaking coronavirus rules Posted: 18 May 2020 06:59 AM PDT  Cyril Ramaphosa says "come, before we get arrested" to fans who get close to take a photo.
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| FBI: Shooter at Pensacola base coordinated with al-Qaida Posted: 18 May 2020 06:58 AM PDT  The gunman who killed three U.S. sailors at a military base in Florida last year communicated with al-Qaida operatives about planning and tactics in the months leading up to the attack, U.S. officials said Monday, as they lashed out at Apple for failing to help them open the shooter's phones so they could access key evidence. Law enforcement officials discovered contacts between Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani and operatives of al-Qaida after FBI technicians succeeded in breaking into two cellphones that had previously been locked and that the shooter, a Saudi Air Force officer, had tried to destroy before he was killed by a sheriff's deputy.
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| WHO faces global call for pandemic investigation at general assembly Posted: 18 May 2020 06:49 AM PDT  Tensions surrounding the global handling of the coronavirus pandemic came to a head at the World Health Organization's assembly Monday, with China pledging an extra $2 billion to deal with the crisis and the United States blaming the WHO for a failed response that "cost many lives." Speaking by video link, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the 73rd World Health Assembly that his country's funding package would aid "economic and social development" in developing countries hit badly by COVID-19.
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| UN: Floods in central Somalia hit nearly 1 million people Posted: 18 May 2020 06:30 AM PDT |
| UN agency warns of fentanyl production threat in SE Asia Posted: 18 May 2020 06:19 AM PDT |
| Iraq faces full local lockdowns as virus cases jump Posted: 18 May 2020 06:18 AM PDT  Iraq will impose a complete lockdown on some areas of the capital, the country's new health minister said on Monday, amid an uptick in coronavirus cases in recent weeks since curfew hours were relaxed. Areas of Baghdad believed to play a role in spreading the virus will face a full lockdown as of Wednesday for a period of two weeks, Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi said in a statement. The areas lie in Baghdad's peripheries and are mostly impoverished and over-crowded.
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| What you need to know today about the virus outbreak Posted: 18 May 2020 06:12 AM PDT  Europe reopened more widely on Monday, allowing people into the Acropolis in Greece, shops in Italy, markets and museums in Belgium, golf courses in Ireland and beer gardens in Germany while its leaders discussed how to salvage hallowed summer vacations. New infections and deaths have slowed considerably in Europe, where some countries started easing lockdowns a month ago and even the harshest shutdowns — such as those in Italy and Spain — have loosened significantly. Here are some of AP's top stories Monday on the world's coronavirus pandemic.
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| Group: Egypt uses virus to renew detentions of hundreds Posted: 18 May 2020 05:54 AM PDT  Egypt's security and judicial authorities have been using the coronavirus pandemic to renew pretrial detentions of hundreds of people since mid-March, further depriving many of due process, an international rights group said Monday. Human Rights Watch said hundreds, and most likely thousands, are in detention in Egypt without even "a pretense of judicial review," saying that this is a government tactic. "COVID-19 has peeled away the last fig leaf covering Egypt's grossly unjust pretrial detention system by eliminating even a pretense of independent review," said Joe Stork, the group's deputy Mideast and North Africa director.
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| More than 100 countries are calling for an independent investigation into the coronavirus crisis Posted: 18 May 2020 05:52 AM PDT  The two-day, virtual World Health Assembly meeting has begun as more than 100 countries back a resolution calling for a probe into the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.A resolution at the annual assembly calls for an investigation into the global response coordinated by the World Health Organization to the coronavirus crisis, per NBC News. A draft mentioning the need for an "impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of the response to COVID-19 is being supported by 116 countries out of 194, including Australia, Britain, Russia, and members of the European Union, Reuters reports. The European Union is presenting the resolution, which also mentions identifying "the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population."Chinese President Xi Jinping in a remote speech at the assembly on Monday claimed the country has acted "with openness and transparency" during the crisis, saying any investigation should only occur after the virus is under control, BBC News reports.President Trump last month announced funding to the World Health Organization would be put on hold "while its mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic is investigated," accusing the organization of having a "dangerous bias towards the Chinese government." When Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for a coronavirus inquiry last month, Axios notes that China "accused Australia of doing the United States' political bidding." The resolution that has the support of more than 100 countries, though, doesn't actually name China, The Washington Post notes.The United States, Reuters reports, appears likely to back the resolution at the World Health Assembly, with U.S. Ambassador Andrew Bremberg saying, "My hope is that we will be able to join consensus."More stories from theweek.com Researchers are learning to predict your chances of surviving COVID-19 Report finds Treasury Department has hardly spent any of its $500 billion fund to help businesses Dropkick Murphys, Bruce Springsteen to team up for livestreamed concert from empty Fenway Park
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| Burkina Faso unveils 'corrected' Thomas Sankara statue Posted: 18 May 2020 05:02 AM PDT  A new monument to the African nationalist hero is unveiled after parts of the original "melted".
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| Merkel: Coronavirus pandemic will be overcome quicker if world works together Posted: 18 May 2020 04:02 AM PDT |
| Swiss president opens WHO assembly with praise for chief Posted: 18 May 2020 03:27 AM PDT |
| Without human touch, Britain-EU Brexit talks struggle to find harmony Posted: 18 May 2020 03:18 AM PDT |
| Tropical Storm Arthur hits North Carolina coast with rain Posted: 18 May 2020 03:17 AM PDT  Tropical Storm Arthur moved out to sea Monday after dumping heavy rain on North Carolina as forecasters warned that the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season could continue to whip dangerous surf and rip currents for another day or more along the U.S. East Coast. The storm represented another early start for the Atlantic hurricane season. Arthur formed Saturday in waters off Florida, marking the sixth straight year that a named storm has developed before June 1.
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| Family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe call on UK ambassador to urgently visit her before furlough ends Posted: 18 May 2020 03:07 AM PDT  The family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe have called on Dominic Raab to order Britain's ambassador to Iran to visit her on furlough amid growing fears that Iranian authorities plan to return her to prison. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been living at her parents' home in Tehran since being granted temporary release in March, will have to return to prison on Wednesday if her furlough is not extended. She telephoned the Tehran prosecutor's office to ask for information on her furlough on Saturday, but was told to call back on Wednesday - the day her furlough expires. The family had previously hoped that the furlough could herald an easing of tensions around her case that would eventually lead to release. They say that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office has refused their requests for an ambassadorial visit during her temporary release, despite extending her special diplomatic protection more than a year ago. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said he had called on Mr Raab, the foreign secretary, to make a personal decision about whether Rob Macaire, the UK's ambassador in Tehran, should visit her at home in a signal of solidarity. "This seems like brinksmanship. I fear an escalation for sure," said Mr Ratcliffe. "Nazanin's return [to prison] is the next step. Next step [after that] will be someone else getting convicted," he added. The Foreign and Commonwealth office granted Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe diplomatic protection in March 2019, a status that formally escalated the case from a consular matter to a dispute between Britain and Iran. An FCO spokesperson said: "We are in contact with Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family and will continue to make decisions in line with what we believe will produce the best outcome." Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British mother of one from Hampstead, was arrested at Tehran airport in 2016 as she prepared to fly home after a holiday with her parents. She was jailed for five years for plotting to overthrow the government, a charge she denies. She was released from prison on temporary furlough in March as part of Iran's efforts to combat the spread of Covid-19 in its prison system. Her furlough was extended for another month in April. She is obliged to wear an electronic tag and banned from travelling more than 300 metres from her parents home.
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| 2020 Watch: Battleground map taking shape for Biden, Trump Posted: 18 May 2020 02:28 AM PDT  President Donald Trump is traveling more, determined to model the confidence he believes the nation needs to return to normal. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, continues a virtual campaign from his Delaware residence, determined to heed public health recommendations he says are the first steps toward a national recovery.
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| Official: Libya's Tripoli forces take key base from rivals Posted: 18 May 2020 02:22 AM PDT |
| Sterling stuck near 8-week lows on Brexit, talk of negative rates Posted: 18 May 2020 01:19 AM PDT |
| Ukraine's overburdened doctors in desperate virus fight Posted: 18 May 2020 12:20 AM PDT  Dr. Olha Kobevko rushes from room to room to see if there is an electrician among her other patients who can fix it. Kobevko, 37, is the only infectious disease specialist at the infection division of a hospital in the western city of Chernivtsi that is supposed to accommodate 60 patients but now holds about 100. The deplorable conditions — broken or substandard equipment, a lack of drugs, low wages — reflects the meltdown of Ukraine's health care system, which has been quickly overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic even with the country's relatively low number of cases.
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| Gangs deliver food in poor Cape Town area amid lockdown Posted: 18 May 2020 12:16 AM PDT  Preston's new face mask is emblazoned with the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag. While protecting him from the coronavirus, it would normally also put him in danger in Manenberg, one of a number of violent and poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of Cape Town known as the Cape Flats. The mask's colors identify Preston as a member of the Americans, a criminal gang usually unwelcome on the turf of the rival Hard Livings gang.
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| Me and we: Individual rights, common good and coronavirus Posted: 17 May 2020 11:46 PM PDT  The history of the United States and the colonies that formed it has been a 413-year balancing act across an assortment of topics, priorities, passions and ambitions. On Friday, protesters massed at the foot of the Pennsylvania Capitol steps — most of them maskless — for the second time in a month to decry Gov. Tom Wolf and demand he "reopen" the state faster. It is one of many states where a vocal minority has criticized virus-related shutdowns for trampling individual rights.
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| Jewish extremist convicted in arson that killed Arab toddler Posted: 17 May 2020 11:30 PM PDT  An Israeli district court on Monday convicted a Jewish extremist of murder in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents, a case that had sent shock waves through Israel and helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The court ruled that the Jewish settler Amiram Ben-Uliel hurled firebombs late one night into a West Bank home in July 2015 as a family slept, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. "This trial won't bring my family back," Hussein Dawabsheh, the toddler's grandfather, said outside the courtroom in central Israel.
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| 'GOD TV' spat exposes tensions between Israel, evangelicals Posted: 17 May 2020 11:11 PM PDT  An evangelical broadcaster who boasted of miraculously securing a TV license in Israel now risks being taken off the air over suspicions of trying to convert Jews to Christianity. The controversy over "GOD TV" has put both Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an awkward position, exposing tensions the two sides have long papered over. Evangelical Christians, particularly in the United States, are among the strongest supporters of Israel, viewing it as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, with some seeing it as the harbinger of a second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of days.
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| Hong Kong lawmakers clash as pro-Beijing camp elects chair Posted: 17 May 2020 10:43 PM PDT  Clashes broke out in Hong Kong's legislature Monday for a second time this month as a pro-Beijing lawmaker was elected as chair of a key committee that scrutinizes bills, ending a prolonged struggle for control with the pro-democracy camp. The legislature's House Committee, which vets bills and decides when to present them for a final vote, had been without a chairperson for more than six months. The central government in Beijing criticized deputy chairperson and pro-democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok for deliberately delaying matters and causing a backlog of bills that affect public interest.
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| Sri Lanka newlyweds cancel wedding party, help poor instead Posted: 17 May 2020 10:09 PM PDT  As couples do all over the world, Darshana Kumara Wijenarayana and his fiance, Pawani Rasanga, spent months planning a grand wedding. Darshana, the 30-year-old owner of a small retail shop, and Pawani, 25, a lab assistant at a state-run school, decided to share their wedding day with some of their neediest neighbors.
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| Jesse Jackson: 'The gated community does not protect you from the pandemic' Posted: 17 May 2020 10:00 PM PDT  After more than 50 years fighting for civil rights, the activist is now watching coronavirus ravage African American communities. But he has a warning for the rich and powerfulThe Rev Jesse Jackson was born in the racially segregated south when Franklin Roosevelt occupied the White House and war raged in Europe. He was an eyewitness to the assassination of Martin Luther King, campaigned against the Vietnam war and twice ran for US president.But, now an elder statesman of 78, he has never seen anything like the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 1 million Americans and killed more in April alone than died in Vietnam over 15 years. The world's most powerful and wealthy country also bears by far its biggest death toll: almost 90,000. It is enough to shake faith in American exceptionalism."Our military cannot defeat this germ," Jackson says by phone from Chicago, one of the hardest-hit cities. "Having the biggest banks, having the biggest military has no meaning in this kind of germ warfare. The frontline is not soldiers; the frontline is doctors and nurses. The planes are grounded, the bombs are irrelevant. It turns out that pride precedes a fall. Sometimes people have to learn that we don't control everything."Despite lockdown and Parkinson's disease, Jackson is still working with gusto at the Rainbow Push Coalition, a progressive organisation he founded in 1996. It has convened thousands of black doctors and lawyers and released a manifesto suggesting that high-risk groups, including African Americans, be prioritised for coronavirus testing.Jackson has twice written to Donald Trump urging testing for the 2.2 million people currently in prison. At a time when most Americans are looking inward, he has also called for massive intervention in Africa, a particularly vulnerable continent that is close to his heart."We're working virtually, making conference calls, using this time to organise people," he says. "We've talked to about 2,000 ministers around the nation over the past 10 days, trying to convince their congregations to honour the protocols and stay in the house."For a brief while it became voguish to indulge a comforting myth that the coronavirus was the great equaliser, touching the bus driver and Prince of Wales alike. But while infections do not discriminate, humans do. Despite making up only 13% of the US population, African Americans represent 30% of the deaths from the coronavirus.A Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee report last month concluded that people of colour have less access to quality healthcare, are more likely to have a pre-existing health condition and suffer greater exposure to air pollution that puts them at higher risk of asthma. They also make up a disproportionate share of frontline workers, are less likely to be able to work from home and more likely to rely on public transport, and are hit hardest by poverty as layoffs continue to rise."We know that people should honour the [social distancing] protocols, but some find it more difficult because of congested conditions or their transportation," says Jackson. "A lot are untested and uninsured. If you're uninsured, you can go to the hospitals only to be told you can't get service, so you end up resorting to your own home remedies, or you end up in the hospital too late."That points to disparity in income and education and healthcare. It shows the black condition in America. The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is very clear."Like Trump's regressive presidency, the virus is a shock to the system that forces a confrontation with class, race and structural inequality. What had been ambient noise for the privileged is suddenly vividly clear and difficult to ignore."After 400 years of slavery, segregation and discrimination, why would anybody be shocked that African Americans are dying disproportionately from the coronavirus?" Jackson asked in a statement published on 7 April, arguing that all past US presidents have failed to "end the virus of white superiority and fix the multifaceted issues confronting African Americans".He adds, by phone: "America has decided the place of blacks in this society, which is beneath that of European immigrants. People say America is 244 years old, but Africans have been here 157 years before the constitution. We shouldn't say America was founded in 1776 – it started with slavery in 1619; so we're still invisible to that extent."We still make less, live under stresses and don't live as long. We're still looked upon as the other based upon skin colour, as some kind of irreparable sin in the society. People try to adjust to it but, when a pandemic sets in, the data comes out."We're about 60% of prisoners in this country. People are sick behind those walls. You can have 200 inmates sick with Covid-19 and the workers go home and they spread it. So the prisons become the epicentre of the untreated and untested and undetected."Itching to revive their economies, several southern states led by mostly white male governors are already reopening bowling alleys, cinemas, hairdressers, restaurants and other outlets against federal guidelines. A group of activists, mostly black women, warned in a petition that reopening now "is irresponsible and a death sentence for many of us".White privilege will offer no immunity in an interconnected society, says Jackson. "If blacks are the drivers and unprotected, the driven are hurt. If the cooks and waiters are unprotected, those they cook for are all unprotected. So we're more integrated than we realise on a daily basis."So we really must have healthcare for all as one of the by-products of this pandemic. Anybody who's left out is a threat to those who are left in. When people as affluent as Prince Charles and Boris Johnson and athletes are affected, it means that the gated community did not protect you from the pandemic. If the poor are not protected, the rich are in jeopardy, because you cannot separate by community the poor from the rich, the white from the black."Roosevelt was tested by the Great Depression and second world war and rose to the challenge. George W Bush faced the 9/11 terrorist attacks; Barack Obama the financial crisis. Trump had his shot at greatness with the coronavirus pandemic and few, outside his most ardent supporters, would dispute he threw it away.The first president elected with no previous political or military experience squandered a precious six weeks, instead golfing, holding rallies and prophesying that the virus would disappear "like a miracle" in warm weather rather than following the pandemic emergency plan bequeathed by Obama and building a rigorous nationwide testing programme.Is Trump responsible for tens of thousands of deaths? "He had an opportunity to move early on it and did not move early on it. The infrastructure that [George W] Bush and Barack had put together on pandemics was ignored. He dismantled the infrastructure and did not pay adequate attention to the threat."As the threat changed, we didn't have ventilators and respirators. All our preparation was for a financial fight or a military fight. He should have declared a national testing mechanism. There should have been a national lockdown to break the back of it. The attention should have been early; it was not."Trump has sought absolution at press briefings that sometimes run for more than two hours with a mix of self-congratulation, bloated exaggerations, broadsides at reporters and bad science. He recently ad libbed a jaw-dropping proposal to study the merits of injecting disinfectant into coronavirus patients. It has left his opponent in November's election, the former vice president Joe Biden, struggling to get a share of the limelight."Trump is using the daily press briefing as a platform to promote his politics while Biden is facing lockdown in his basement. But there's a real chance the more he talks, the weaker he gets."Jackson – whose activism began as a student trying to desegregate the public library in his birthplace of Greenville, South Carolina – ran against Biden in the 1988 Democratic primary. Biden's campaign fell apart after he quoted without attribution the then British Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, and was accused of plagiarism. Jackson, bidding to become the US's first black president, gathered 7m votes and finished first or second in 46 out of 54 primary contests. But he lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis, who went down to George HW Bush.Does it hurt that he will never be president? "No, it doesn't," he says firmly, "because I was a trailblazer, I was a pathfinder. I had to deal with doubt and cynicism and fears about a black person running. There were black scholars writing papers about why I was wasting my time. Even blacks said a black couldn't win."Some of his foreign policy positions at the time, he points out, became widely adopted: a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa (he met Margaret Thatcher to plead for Britain to drop its support for the apartheid regime). In 2000 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the US's highest civilian honour.When Obama won in 2008, he praised Jackson for making his run possible. As Obama delivered his election night victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago before a crowd of 240,000, Jackson's tear-stained face was among the most indelible images. "It was a big moment in history," he recalls. "I cried because I thought about those who made it possible who were not there … People who paid a real price: Ralph Abernathy, Dr King, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, those who fought like hell [at the Democratic national convention] in Atlantic City in 64, those in the movement in the south." Some felt that Obama should have pushed faster and further on racial justice in his two terms. But Jackson ranks him among the US's top presidents. "First, given America's history in terms of race, he inspired indescribable pride. No 2, his family and their decency and dignity were a big deal."He points to the Paris climate accords, Iran nuclear deal, rapprochement with Cuba and rescue of the economy as signal achievements. "He stabilised the ship when the ship was sinking and got it back above the water. And no scandal. Trump creates a desire for Barack all over again. When he travelled around the world, he was the best face America's ever had."In March, Jackson endorsed Bernie Sanders, returning a compliment from 1988 when Sanders backed his campaign. "His ideas made the most sense to me," he explains. But after a promising start Sanders fell away, partly because of his failure to connect with older African American voters, where Biden dominated."His campaign was [about] class without appreciating the caste dimension of poverty," Jackson explains by way of post-mortem. "There are 55 black members of Congress and he didn't have one. Maybe one or two black mayors, but he didn't cultivate an African American constituency."Biden, meanwhile, benefited from his "kinship" with Obama as well as Trump's repeated attacks that kept his profile up and his name on the front pages. "The opposition had no infrastructure for the black vote. In many ways, he inherited votes he didn't campaign for."In recent weeks, Biden has been endorsed by Sanders, Obama, Hillary Clinton, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the civil rights hero John Lewis in a show of party unity. Will Jackson support him enthusiastically? "Yeah, as an alternative to the present administration, but we've not had a meeting with the black constituency on what our demands are."The ground is shifting under Trump and Biden's feet. Sanders argues that the pandemic, which has put more than 30 million Americans out of work, shows the failure of the US healthcare system. As an opportunity to reimagine the social contract, the present moment is being compared with Roosevelt's New Deal or the post second-world-war consensus in Britain."Biden won the delegates but Sanders won the issues," Jackson reflects. "Sanders' agenda will dominate the [Democratic national] convention. One of the by-products of this pandemic is going to be the need for healthcare for all. We can't afford not to have healthcare for all because if you see the gap between the 1% and 99%, the 1% can't hide from who it is that's caring for the masses. The real soldiers are not the investment bankers. It's the doctors and nurses. There is a new appreciation of the common people, doctors and janitors and truck drivers, what they call essential workers.""In many ways," he says, "as African Americans, we're at the the bottom of the foundation. The foundation is where it starts from. So when the foundation's in trouble, the whole building's in trouble."
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