| Dozens wounded in clashes as hundreds of protesters flood Beirut Posted: 06 Jun 2020 04:34 PM PDT  Protesters poured into the streets of the Lebanese capital Saturday to decry the collapse of the economy, as clashes erupted between supporters and opponents of the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah. Hundreds filled the streets in and around the protest hub of Martyrs Square in the centre of Beirut, with skirmishes also between protesters and security forces, who fired tear gas. Forty-eight were wounded in the violence, 11 of whom were hospitalised, while the rest were treated at the scene, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
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| Coronavirus: The misinformation circulating in Africa about Covid-19 Posted: 06 Jun 2020 04:20 PM PDT  We examine claims of bribes and poison, a positive virus test that was not and anti-virus "badges".
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| Former longtime Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader dies Posted: 06 Jun 2020 03:19 PM PDT |
| Egyptian doctor accused of removing genitals of 3 girls Posted: 06 Jun 2020 11:49 AM PDT |
| Analysis: White House, Pentagon tensions near breaking point Posted: 06 Jun 2020 11:09 AM PDT  Tensions between the White House and Pentagon have stretched to near a breaking point over President Donald Trump's threat to use military force against street protests triggered by George Floyd's death. Calm may return, both in the crisis over Floyd's death and in Pentagon leaders' angst over Trump's threats to use federal troops to put down protesters.
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| Anatomy of a political comeback: How Biden earned nomination Posted: 06 Jun 2020 09:50 AM PDT  It seemed easy to write off Joe Biden. Other Democratic candidates such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg each had moments of radiating a kinetic energy, while Biden appeared to be conserving his resources. The opening contests in the 2020 nominating race in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada were humbling losses for Biden.
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| Mali vows to investigate after army accused of deadly village attack Posted: 06 Jun 2020 09:37 AM PDT  Mali on Saturday pledged to investigate claims that the army killed dozens of civilians in its conflict-riven centre, as complaints about the military's conduct in the West African nation escalate. Friday's attack targeted a Fulani village named Binedama in the volatile Mopti region, said Aly Barry, an official from Tabital Pulaaku, a Fulani association. The group released a statement later on Saturday saying that 29 people had died and called for an independent probe led by the United Nations.
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| As Trump blames antifa, protest records show scant evidence Posted: 06 Jun 2020 08:56 AM PDT  Scott Nichols, a balloon artist, was riding home on his scooter from the protests engulfing Minneapolis last weekend when he was struck by a rubber bullet fired from a cluster of police officers in riot gear. Nichols, who before the coronavirus pandemic made his living performing at children's birthday parties under the stage name "Amazing Scott," spent two days in jail before being released, facing criminal charges of riot and curfew violation. President Donald Trump has characterized those clashing with law enforcement after George Floyd's death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer as organized, radical-left thugs engaging in domestic terrorism, an assertion repeated by Attorney General William Barr.
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| Egypt proposes new Libya plan after collapse of Haftar offensive Posted: 06 Jun 2020 08:38 AM PDT  Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a new peace initiative for Libya in Cairo on Saturday, flanked by the eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, whose 14-month offensive to capture the capital, Tripoli, collapsed this week. The head of the Tripoli parliament, aligned with the Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital, dismissed the offer as that of a defeated force. Haftar's reversal extends the GNA's control across most of northwest Libya while Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), based in Benghazi, and its allies control the east and much of the south, as well as most of Libya's oilfields. For more than five years, rival parliaments and governments in the east and the west have engaged in a stop-start conflict. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia have provided support Haftar, but that backing has been outweighed in recent months by Turkish military backing for the GNA. Sisi, who was also accompanied in Cairo by eastern Libyan parliament head Aguila Saleh, proposed a ceasefire starting on Monday. He said the plan included a call for negotiations in Geneva, then the election of a leadership council, the disbanding of militias and the exit of all foreign fighters from Libya. In brief comments, Haftar said he hoped Sisi could make "urgent and effective efforts to compel Turkey to completely stop the transfer of weapons and mercenaries to Libya". The UAE was quick to state its support for Saturday's declaration. But Khaled al-Meshri, head of the GNA-aligned legislative assembly, said Libyans had no need for new initiatives and rejected Haftar's attempt to return to negotiations after military defeat, according to Al Jazeera. GNA forces also continued their advance as the LNA retreated from al-Washka, west of the coastal city of Sirte, sources on both sides said. Libya has had no stable central authority since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by NATO-backed rebels in 2011. Haftar is a deeply divisive figure whose offensive upended a U.N.-led peace process, and it is unclear how much traction any initiative proposed by him or his allies can gain. A text of the plan included "the disbanding of militias and the handing over of their arms so that the Libyan National Army ... can carry out its military and security responsibilities". That language reflects the LNA's narrative of restoring order over western Libya's many disparate armed groups, and is likely to antagonise its rivals. Numerous previous attempts to establish truces and a return to negotiations have foundered, though the United Nations has started holding separate ceasefire talks with both sides. Egyptian-led efforts to unify Libya's military have also stalled in the past over Haftar's request to be supreme commander, diplomats say. GNA forces are likely to keep going until they meet resistance, said Tarek Megerisi, a Libya analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "Right now, military voices are ascendant and supported by a fear that Haftar and the UAE will exploit any truce to consolidate and launch counter-attacks," he said.
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| Prosecutor: 2 Buffalo police charged with assault in shoving Posted: 06 Jun 2020 08:25 AM PDT  Two Buffalo police officers were charged with assault Saturday, prosecutors said, after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester in recent demonstrations over the death of George Floyd. Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski, who surrendered Saturday morning, pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault. McCabe, 32, and Torgalski, 39, "crossed a line" when they shoved the man down hard enough for him to fall backward and hit his head on the sidewalk, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said at a news conference, calling the victim "a harmless 75-year-old man."
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| Amid virus, US students look to colleges closer to home Posted: 06 Jun 2020 07:09 AM PDT  As students make college plans for the fall, some U.S. universities are seeing surging interest from in-state residents who are looking to stay closer to home amid the coronavirus pandemic. At the University of Texas at Arlington, commitments from state residents are up 26% over last year. Ohio State and Western Kentucky universities are both up about 20%.
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| Prosecutors seek right mix of charges in George Floyd case Posted: 06 Jun 2020 07:08 AM PDT  As damning as video evidence in the George Floyd case appears to be, prosecutors know they must bring the right charges underpinned by sound legal logic if they hope to convict a Minnesota officer in Floyd's May 25 death. Exhibit No. 1 at trial is likely to be bystander video showing Officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee into the back of Floyd's neck as the handcuffed Floyd says he can't breathe. Chauvin held his knee there even after the 46-year-old black man stopped moving.
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| Clashes, tear gas in Beirut as protests turn to riots Posted: 06 Jun 2020 07:07 AM PDT  Lebanese riot police fired tear gas at protesters in central Beirut on Saturday, after a planned anti-government demonstration quickly degenerated into rioting and stone-throwing confrontations between opposing camps. A few thousand demonstrators had gathered in Martyrs' Square hoping to reboot nationwide protests that began late last year amid an unprecedented economic and financial crisis. Scattered groups of protesters arrived in the capital's downtown area, many of them without masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus, in response to calls for a centralized protest to press for demands.
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| Mexican families struggle to send virus victims back home Posted: 06 Jun 2020 06:55 AM PDT  When Crescencio Flores died of coronavirus in New York, his parents back in Mexico asked for one thing: that their son be sent home for burial. The 56-year-old construction worker had been in the United States for 20 years, regularly sending money to his parents but never going home. Since he died in April, Flores' brother has been working with American and Mexican authorities to have the body transported to the town of Huehuepiaxtla in the state of Puebla.
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| Iraqi lawmakers vote in new premier's remaining ministers Posted: 06 Jun 2020 06:50 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus disrupts global fight to save endangered species Posted: 06 Jun 2020 06:48 AM PDT  Biologist Carlos Ruiz has spent a quarter-century working to save golden lion tamarins, the charismatic long-maned monkeys native to Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Thanks to painstaking reforestation efforts, the population of these endangered monkeys was steadily growing until an outbreak of yellow fever hit Brazil in 2018, wiping out a third of the tamarins. Enter the coronavirus, which is now hampering critical work to protect threatened species and habitats worldwide.
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| Food, coffee, diapers: Amid pandemic, van delivers donations Posted: 06 Jun 2020 06:08 AM PDT  On a recent day, a powder-blue van parked curbside in Brooklyn, one of the hardest-hit communities in America by the coronavirus pandemic, and a group of women wearing protective face masks and gloves set to unloading. Known as Sistas Van and sponsored by the nonprofit Black Women's Blueprint, in normal times the vehicle serves survivors of sexual trauma and domestic violence. In times of pandemic, its mission has shifted to delivering donated resources in New York to individuals and communities in need.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump's alternate reality in time of anguish Posted: 06 Jun 2020 06:02 AM PDT  Such alternate realities pervaded the world described by Trump and his team over the past week. The White House, tweeting as an American institution, not Trump's personal account or campaign, posted social media disinformation to make people think leftists were stockpiling rocks to commit terrorist attacks in the United States. Trump and aides denied that authorities in Washington used tear gas against protesters, who fled from chemical clouds that looked like tear gas, stung eyes like it and met the dictionary definition of it.
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| Egypt announces initiative to end war in Libya Posted: 06 Jun 2020 05:07 AM PDT  Egypt's president Saturday announced a unilateral initiative to end the civil war in neighboring Libya, a plan that was accepted by Khalifa Hifter, commander of the eastern forces that have suffered heavy losses in recent weeks. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told a news conference in Cairo that his initiative includes a cease-fire starting Monday and is meant to pave the way for elections in oil-rich Libya. "There can be no stability in Libya unless peaceful means to the crisis are found that include the unity and integrity of the national institutions," el-Sissi said.
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| Separate attacks kill 14 Afghan forces in Kabul, northeast Posted: 06 Jun 2020 04:37 AM PDT |
| One man lays wreaths in Normandy on this unusual D-Day Posted: 06 Jun 2020 04:17 AM PDT  The essence of war remembrance is to make sure the fallen are never forgotten. All it takes is a wreath, a tiny wooden cross, a little token on a faraway grave to show that people still care about their fallen hero, parent or grandparent. This year, though, the pandemic stepped in, barring all travel for families to visit the World War II graves in France's Normandy, where Saturday marks the 76th anniversary of the epic D-Day battle, when allied troops successfully stormed the beaches and turned the war against the Nazis.
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| Iranians must live with virus 'for long time': Rouhani Posted: 06 Jun 2020 03:44 AM PDT  President Hassan Rouhani warned Iranians Saturday to prepare to live with the novel coronavirus "for a long time", as the country gradually rolls back restrictions imposed to curb the outbreak. People should not assume that "this disease will be eliminated in 15 days or a month: we must therefore follow the instructions for a long time," Rouhani said during the weekly meeting of the coronavirus taskforce broadcast on state TV. Iran has been battling the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the novel coronavirus since reporting its first cases in February.
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| Iranian wedding party fuelled new COVID-19 surge, President Rouhani says Posted: 06 Jun 2020 01:55 AM PDT |
| Pandemic makes for a lonely D-Day observance in Normandy Posted: 05 Jun 2020 11:47 PM PDT  COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — At daybreak on Saturday, Charles Shay stood lonesome without any fellow veteran on the very same beach where he waded ashore 76 years ago, part of one of the most epic battles in military history that came to be known as D-Day and turned the tide of World War II. Compared to last year, when many tens of thousands came to the northern French beaches of Normandy to cheer the dwindling number of veterans and celebrate three-quarters of a century of liberation from Nazi oppression, the coronavirus lockdown turned this year's remembrance into one of the eeriest ever. "I am very sad now," said Shay, who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach under horrific machine-gun fire and shells.
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| Russian Orthodox priest tends to Moscow's COVID-19 patients Posted: 05 Jun 2020 11:41 PM PDT  The Rev. Vasily Gelevan bends over a COVID-19 patient at her apartment to administer Holy Communion and say words of comfort while clad in a hazmat suit. The bedside ministry is one of many such visits the 45-year old Russian Orthodox priest makes daily as he shuttles across Moscow in a minivan to tend to people fighting the coronavirus at their homes or in hospital rooms.
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| Sahel force fighting terrorism faces growing threat Posted: 05 Jun 2020 10:59 PM PDT  Mauritania's foreign minister said Friday the five-nation African force fighting terrorism in the Sahel is facing a growing security threat sweeping the region that is not only local but a global problem that demands an international response. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, whose country holds the presidency of the G5 Sahel force, told the U.N. Security Council the security situation "is deteriorating visibly and with rare constancy" as a result of a "diabolical alliance of terrorist and drug trafficking groups," with violence spreading every day to new territories. Leaders of Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger launched the joint force in 2017 with support from the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union.
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| No 'silver lining': Trump faces voter backlash amid crises Posted: 05 Jun 2020 10:15 PM PDT  At the end of one of his most turbulent weeks in office, President Donald Trump was eager on Friday to boast of a better than expected jobs report to argue the country is poised for a booming recovery. Benjamin Lund was not moved. The 45-year-old Milwaukee man is a longtime Republican who was raised in a conservative family in the political battleground of Wisconsin.
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| Protesters flood streets in huge, peaceful push for change Posted: 05 Jun 2020 10:11 PM PDT  Tens of thousands of protesters streamed into the nation's capital and other major cities Saturday in another huge mobilization against police brutality and racial injustice, while George Floyd was remembered in his North Carolina hometown by mourners who waited hours for a glimpse of his golden coffin. Wearing masks and calling for police reform, protesters peacefully marched across the U.S. and on four other continents, collectively producing perhaps the largest one-day mobilization since Floyd's death 12 days ago at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
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| Japan advocate for daughter, others abducted to NKorea dies Posted: 05 Jun 2020 10:03 PM PDT  Shigeru Yokota, a Japanese campaigner for the return of his daughter and more than a dozen others who were abducted to North Korea in the 1970s, has died. Megumi disappeared in 1977 on her way home from her a junior high school in Niigata on Japan's northern coast when she was 13. A former Central Bank official, Yokota, and his wife kept looking for Megumi and found out 20 years later that she had been abducted to North Korea by its agents.
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| Biden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination Posted: 05 Jun 2020 09:47 PM PDT  Joe Biden has formally clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, setting him up for a bruising challenge to President Donald Trump that will play out against the unprecedented backdrop of a pandemic, economic collapse and civil unrest. "It was an honor to compete alongside one of the most talented groups of candidates the Democratic party has ever fielded," Biden said in a statement Friday night, "and I am proud to say that we are going into this general election a united party." The former vice president has effectively been his party's leader since his last challenger in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, ended his campaign in April.
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| Protests support Floyd, Black Lives Matter on 4 continents Posted: 05 Jun 2020 07:51 PM PDT  Tens of thousands of people gathered Saturday in cities far from the United States to express anger over the death of George Floyd, a sign that the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality is resonating with wider calls to address racism from Australia to Europe. In Berlin, where police said 15,000 people rallied on the German capital's Alexander Square, protesters chanted Floyd's name and held up placards with slogans such as "Stop police brutality" and "I can't breath." "The killing and these violent physical things that have happened is only just the top of it," said Lloyd Lawson, 54, who took part in the Berlin protest.
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| Biden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination Posted: 05 Jun 2020 07:25 PM PDT  Joe Biden formally clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Friday, setting him up for a bruising challenge to President Donald Trump that will play out against the unprecedented backdrop of a pandemic, economic collapse and civil unrest. "It was an honor to compete alongside one of the most talented groups of candidates the Democratic party has ever fielded," Biden said in a statement Friday night, "and I am proud to say that we are going into this general election a united party." The former vice president has effectively been his party's leader since his last challenger in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, ended his campaign in April.
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| AP PHOTOS: Images of calm emerge after days of protests Posted: 05 Jun 2020 05:24 PM PDT  Amid the anger, violence and grief evident in the massive protests shaking the country after the death of George Floyd, images of calm are beginning to emerge as the mood shifts to more peaceful calls for change.
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