Author: CensorBiz

Greek police have reinforced security around a community of Roma in central Greece as government health officials prepare to enter the settlement today to remove 35 people infected with the coronavirus.The infections mark a sharp uptick in Greece’s almost spotless record of COVID cases. Even so, members of the Roma community at the settlement of Nea Smyrni are resisting a lockdown order, staging violent protests in response to what they call racial targeting.Dumpsters were set ablaze and a local journalist was brutally beaten, hit with stones and pummeled in the face. Health officials were chased away and residents refused to heed a 14-day lockdown order on the settlement of 3,000, among the biggest in the country. No arrests were made for fear of inflaming the worst COVID-related protests to grip Greece since the outbreak of the pandemic.However, the deputy minister for civil protection and crisis management in the Ministry of Citizen Protection, Nikos Hardalias, said health officials will return again today to remove the infected patients. He is calling for cooperation.”Stopping the spread of this virus will only benefit local communities, so cooperation is imperative,” he said.Hardalias refused to elaborate, but authorities have boosted patrols around the settlement to enforce the quarantine.This is not the first time Nea Smyrni has been struck by the coronavirus, nor is it the first 14-day lockdown authorities have decreed for it. Locals, now though, are defying the order, saying it is more racially than health-motivated.Emerging from the crowd of protesters, one person held a batch of medical tests in his hand to explain why.He said several residents had undergone COVID antibody testing at local private laboratories, and all of them showed they were immune to the virus.Health officials here are dismissing the results. They say such blood screening exams are not reliable enough. They say testing can go wrong in several places and that only detailed screenings at state hospitals should be trusted. Whether the Roma in Nea Smyrni are convinced remains to be seen.
With one of Europe’s lowest infection rates, Greek authorities are not taking any chances.Police say they will remain on standby, ready to intervene and, this time, make arrests if new violence erupts and the infected Roma are prevented from being taken to a local hospital for treatment and observation. 
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Greece has opened up 500 of its beaches as the country eases lockdown restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.Authorities authorized the move as a heat wave was expected to hit the country this weekend. But sizzling temperatures aside, the measure is seen as a crucial test of readiness for Greece’s biggest challenge: summer tourism.From early Saturday, sunbathers swarmed beaches across the country, taking cool respite from scorching temperatures and over a month-long period in lockdown.Yet as they entered ticketed facilities a new reality set in. Sun loungers at many sites were seen hammered down, fastened to the ground to secure social distancing.Kiosks were not allowed to play music and bars were prohibited from serving alcohol — all for the sake of keeping crowds sober and orderly.Scores of municipal workers and police have been deployed to spot offenders, slapping business owners with fines of up to $65,000. Sun-seekers caught violating social distancing rules, or creating crowds, will be subject to fines of about $1,080.
And to be sure of orderly behavior, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said sea sports and other recreational activities on the beaches have been banned.This marks an important test which Greece has to pass with flying colors, he said. How well or bad it does, he said, would impact efforts by the government to reboot tourism.
Tourism accounts for about 25 percent of the nation’s income, and also one in four jobs.Greece has reported 155 deaths out of some 3000 COVID-19 infections — one of the lowest rates among European countries. Yet with reopening measures so limiting, some beach bar owners are keeping their operations shut.”It just doesn’t make financial sense,” explained one such owner near the Greek capital of Athens. “It also defeats the carefree, live-and-let-live spirit of such operations.”Limited or not, authorities say this will be a summer to remember. 
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A Los Angeles coroner’s report says that everyone in the helicopter crash that killed basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter died from blunt-force trauma.The pilot tested negative for drugs and alcohol, according to the 180-page report released Friday.There were six other people in the helicopter in addition to Bryant, daughter Gianna, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan.The helicopter slammed into a hill north of Los Angeles on January 26 in foggy weather.  The passengers were headed to a basketball tournament where Bryant was slated to coach his daughter’s basketball team. Two team members, three parents and a coach were also victims in the crash.The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the crash. 
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Ten people died in gunbattles between police and suspected gang members in a shantytown in Brazil on Friday.Police chasing a gang leader raided the Alemao slum in northern Rio de Janeiro, triggering the gunbattles. Authorities said in a statement that there were “multiple clashes.”An elite Brazilian police unit known by its Portuguese acronym BOPE carried out the operation. The local drug kingpin sought in the raid was among the dead, the statement said.Police did not release the man’s identity but said he had escaped prison in 2016 and was on the list of leading drug traffickers in slums, bordering Rio’s iconic Copacabana and Ipanema neighborhoods. 
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The Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong on Friday ruled out an independent inquiry into allegations of police brutality against pro-democracy protesters, though she did accept a watchdog’s recommendations on tear gas and training.”I disagree and won’t do it,” Carrie Lam said of the demonstrators’ demand for an independent probe, speaking at a news conference against a backdrop of pictures of blazing protests and a banner saying: “The Truth About Hong Kong.”Months of often-violent protests since mid-2019 against China’s control of the former British colony ebbed during the coronavirus crisis, though arrests of activists in recent days have revived frictions.Demonstrators accuse police of excessive force, while authorities say protesters have been riotous and provocative.Lam said an independent inquiry would weaken police powers, though the government will accept recommendations from a police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC).In its long-awaited, 999-page report, the Lam-appointed IPCC on Friday called for a review of guidelines on use of tear gas and public order training for police.The report said police acted within guidelines though there was room for improvement. Accusations of police brutality must not be used as “a weapon of political protest,” the IPCC added.On one of the most controversial episodes, the IPCC said it did not find evidence of police collusion with gang members during a July 21 mob attack in Yuen Long district.The report did, however, identify deficiencies in police deployment during the incident, when a mob of white-shirted men beat protesters and others with sticks and poles.The Yuen Long attack intensified a backlash against police who some accused of deliberately responding slowly.’Turning a blind eye’Opposition politicians were unimpressed.”The report has turned a blind eye to disproportional police brutality,” pro-democracy lawmaker Fernando Cheung said. “This report has eliminated what little credibility is left of the IPCC.”Another lawmaker Kenneth Leung, a former member of the IPCC, said many recommendations “are really piecemeal, superficial and general” and were insufficient to resolve the issues.Rights groups including Amnesty International have backed protesters’ complaints over disproportionate police force and the arrest of more than 8,000 people.Police have repeatedly said they were reactive and restrained in the face of extreme violence. The IPCC report said Hong Kong risked being dragged into an “era of terrorism,” echoing comments by senior Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.During the most intense clashes, protesters, many clad in black and wearing masks, threw petrol bombs at police and central government offices, stormed the Legislative Council, trashed metro stations and blocked roads.Police responded with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and several live rounds in the air, in many cases warning crowds beforehand with colored signal banners.On the July 1 storming of the Legislative Council, the IPCC said police could have stopped it with stronger barriers.The protests started as a campaign against a now-shelved extradition bill that would have let criminal suspects be sent to mainland China for trial but evolved into broader calls for greater democracy.Members of the IPCC, which reviews the work of the Complaints Against Police Office, an internal police department, are appointed by Lam. In December, five foreign experts quit from advisory roles because of doubts about its independence.Police handling of protests came under fresh scrutiny at the weekend when officers pepper-sprayed journalists and made some kneel in a cordoned-off area. In a rare move, the police chief said on Tuesday his officers should have acted more professionally.  
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The fate of about 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children is in the hands of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices. The court is expected to decide in the coming weeks if the Trump administration has the right to end a program that allows these immigrants to work in the U.S. free from the threat of deportation.  Amid the 2020 presidential campaign, the Supreme Court is hearing a lawsuit that began after the September 2017 decision by President Donald Trump to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  Three injunctionsImmigrant groups filed several lawsuits against the administration’s decision and argued that ending DACA was unlawful, resulting in U.S. district courts in the District of Columbia, California and New York issuing three nationwide injunctions, allowing DACA recipients to renew their deferred action.  Shelly Peskin, a legal assistant at CASA de Maryland and member of Avodah Jewish Service Corps, told VOA that while the Supreme Court’s decision has not been issued, they are pleading with clients to renew their DACA benefits.  “I am taking clients whose expiration dates are through early 2021. … We are doing appointments over the phone because CASA has gone remote for the foreseeable future,” she said.  Mercedes Kent, of New York City, left, marches in support of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs for immigrants, Jan. 17, 2018, in Miami.USCIS offices reopen on June 4The injunctions by the three district courts obligates U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency responsible for administering the nation’s legal immigration system, to continue accepting and adjudicating DACA renewal applications. “The typical protocol for when USCIS is open and functioning normally is between four and eight months. … But before all this [pandemic] happened, we were seeing really fast [turnover] times from USCIS. … I was sending out DACA [applications] one day and they were coming back about a month later with the approvals,” Peskin said.  Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS offices will remain closed until June 4, but the staff has continued to perform duties that do not involve face-to-face contact with the public. Though the fate of DACA remains uncertain, eligible DACA recipients are encouraged to submit renewal applications. If the justices agree with the government, the Trump administration could end the program.  There is also a lawsuit in Texas claiming that DACA is illegal, and it could likely go forward in the U.S. court system. Texas and six other Republican-governed states sued the U.S. government hoping to end the program initiated by former President Barack Obama. Texas, joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, argued in the lawsuit that the Obama administration exceeded its authority by creating the program without congressional action. 
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Pakistan announced Friday that it would begin “within weeks” production and export of the antiviral drug remdesivir for treating COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.As of Friday afternoon EDT, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics, the pandemic had killed more than 306,000 people and infected more than 4.5 million worldwide since late in 2019, when it struck first in China.Zafar Mirza, Pakistan’s health minister, told reporters in Islamabad that a local pharmaceutical company, Ferozons Laboratories Ltd., would make the medicine in partnership with America’s Gilead, which developed remdesivir.He noted that Pakistan would be one of only three countries to produce and export the drug.”The manufacturing of the injectable medicine will start within six to eight weeks and it will be available not only for coronavirus patients in Pakistan, but it will also be exported to 127 countries,” Mirza said.FILE – Gilead Sciences Inc. pharmaceutical company is pictured in Oceanside, Calif.Four firms in IndiaThe U.S. pharmaceutical company has also signed agreements with four drugmakers in neighboring India to help manufacture and supply the drug to those countries.Under the “nonexclusive licensing” pacts with the South Asian partners, Gilead said, the companies all will have the “right to receive a technology transfer of the Gilead manufacturing process for remdesivir to enable them to scale up their production quickly.”Osman Khalid Waheed, the chief executive of the Pakistani pharmaceutical company, speaking alongside Mirza, said once production begins, the medicine will be exported to both developed and low-income nations.“We are committed together with Gilead to produce the medicine at minimum cost and make it most accessible in the developing world,” Waheed said.FILE – Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks to The Associated Press, in Islamabad, March 16, 2020.Pakistan, with a population of 220 million, has confirmed that more than 37,000 people have contracted the coronavirus and more than 800 of them have died since the country detected the outbreak nearly three months ago.Relaxing lockdownPrime Minister Imran Khan vowed Friday to further relax a nationwide partial lockdown, citing a relatively very low number of infections and deaths as opposed to the earlier official projections.Khan defended his decision, saying while the virus-related situation remained under control, “about 150 million individuals” across Pakistan, including daily wagers and laborers, could soon begin suffering from starvation because of the economic shutdown.“Until a vaccine is available, the coronavirus will persist irrespective of a lockdown. Hence, we will have to learn to live with it until then,” he said.
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A second journalist in less than a month has fled the tiny southern African kingdom of eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, alleging government intimidation and harassment.Journalist Eugene Dube recently told VOA he fled eSwatini early May 5 after royal police came to his house for the third time within a month to say he was wanted for interrogation.”The reason I have left is that my life was in danger,” he told VOA, explaining that police told him that his reporting on a political opposition group had upset King Mswati III, the last absolute monarch in Africa.King Mswati III”Police alleged … I had given a platform to one of the radical political groups, the newly formed Economic Freedom Fighters of Swaziland,” said Dube, who is an editor for Swati Newsweek. “The police told me that the king was not happy about this story because it promotes democracy.”The EFF of Swaziland was trying to say the kingdom of eSwatini must have a multiparty democracy and must have a constitutional monarch, not an absolute monarch.”Phindile Vilakati, chief information and communication officer of the royal eSwatini police, confirmed to VOA that police had visited Dube’s home to execute a search warrant as part of an investigation and that some items had been seized. She said that Dube was never arrested and that the investigation involved Dube’s contravention of COVID-19 regulations.Dube responded to the spokesperson’s assertions by telling VOA that “I’ve never been questioned on breaching any regulations of the COVID-19. It’s news to me.”Dube said police mentioned nothing about COVID-19 regulations when they detained him for nearly nine hours on April 23. “If there was any evidence to that, the police will have charged me,” he said.Dube said he hid in the forest for over a week before illegally crossing into South Africa by foot.”I had to cross an overflowing river to get to South Africa,” he told VOA. “Fortunately for me, the soldiers didn’t notice me on both sides in South Africa and in Swaziland. Right now, I’m hiding in a certain location that I cannot disclose at the moment.”HarassmentIn late April, Zweli Martin Dlamini, editor of Swaziland News, told VOA that he’d fled the kingdom after being harassed by police, following publication on April 11 of a news report that the king had contracted the coronavirus and that the government was not forthcoming with information.A rights group, the Swaziland Solidarity Network, said police had raided Dlamini’s home and harassed his family. In addition to reporting on the king’s health, Dlamini has published several articles critical of the king, whose lavish lifestyle is in stark contrast to the dire poverty faced by most Swazis.Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, says eSwatini police also arrested and interrogated Swati Newsweek journalist Mfomfo Nkhambule in April for critical reports about the king.“The proceedings initiated against these journalists amount to persecution,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “The systematic harassment and intimidation of journalists who dare to criticize the king or his government pose a major threat to independent news production. Hounding critical journalists is all the more unacceptable at this time, as it is liable to encourage even more self-censorship and reduce access to reliable and credible information about the coronavirus crisis.”As of Thursday, the landlocked nation of 1.1 million people had 187 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with two deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.“Swazi police should stop threatening journalists like Eugene Dube and Mfomfo Nkhambule for writing critically about King Mswati III, and should instead champion their right to report freely,” said Angela Quintal, Africa program coordinator for the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “The era of ‘the king can do no wrong’ has long been relegated to the annals of history, and the police should rather focus their resources on fighting real criminals, not the press.”Renamed the Kingdom of eSwatini at King Mswati’s behest in 2018, the small southern African enclave ranks 141st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa service.
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The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action ramping up tensions with China.The U.S. Commerce Department said it was amending an export rule to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.”The reaction from China  was swift with a report saying it was ready to put U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list,” as part of countermeasures in response to the new limits on Huawei, FILE – A security personnel stands near the logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) during an investor conference in Taipei, July 16, 2014.The rule change is a blow to Huawei, the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker, as well as to Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple and Qualcomm. TMSC announced late Thursday it would build a $12 billion chip factory in Arizona.TSMC said Friday it is “working with outside counsels to conduct legal analysis and ensure a comprehensive examination and interpretation of these rules. We expect to have the assessment concluded before the effective date,” the company said, adding the “semiconductor industry supply chain is extremely complex, and is served by a broad collection of international suppliers.”Huawei, which needs semiconductors for its widely used smartphones and telecoms equipment, is at the heart of a battle for global technological dominance between the United States and China.Huawei, which has warned that the Chinese government would retaliate if the rule went into effect, did not immediately comment on Friday. U.S. stock market futures turned negative on the Reuters report.”The Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board,” Huawei Chairman Eric Xu told reporters on March 31.The United States is trying to convince allies to exclude Huawei gear from next generation 5G networks on grounds its equipment could be used by China for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied the claim.Huawei has continued to use U.S. software and technology to design semiconductors, the Commerce Department said, despite being placed on a U.S. economic blacklist in May 2019.FILE – A chip by Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon is displayed in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, March 21, 2019.Under the rule change, foreign companies that use U.S. chipmaking equipment will be required to obtain a U.S. license before supplying certain chips to Huawei, or an affiliate like HiSilicon. The rule targets chips designed or custom-made for Huawei.In order for Huawei to continue to receive some chipsets or use some semiconductor designs tied to certain U.S. software and technology, it would need to receive licenses from the Commerce Department.National security concernsCommerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business “there has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been in able, in effect, to use U.S. technology with foreign fab producers.” Ross called the rule change a “highly tailored thing to try to correct that loophole.”Ross said in a written statement Huawei had “stepped-up efforts to undermine these national security-based restrictions.”The Commerce Department said the rule will allow wafers already in production to be shipped to Huawei as long as the shipments are complete within 120 days from Friday. Chipsets would need to be in production by Friday or they would be ineligible under the rule.The United States placed Huawei and 114 affiliates on its economic blacklist citing national security concerns. That forced some U.S. and foreign companies to seek special licenses from the Commerce Department to sell to it, but China hawks in the U.S. government have been frustrated by the vast number of supply chains beyond their reach.Separately, the Commerce Department extended a temporary license that was set to expire Friday to allow U.S. companies, many of which operate wireless networks in rural America, to continue doing business with Huawei through Aug. 13. It warned it expected this would be the final extension.Reuters first reported the administration was considering changes to the Foreign Direct Product Rule, which subjects some foreign-made goods based on U.S. technology or software to U.S. regulations, in November.Most chip manufacturers rely on equipment produced by U.S. companies like KLA, Lam Research and Applied Materials, according to a report last year from China’s Everbright Securities.Other recent actionThe Trump administration has taken a series of steps aimed at Chinese telecom firms in recent weeks.The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month began the process of shutting down the U.S. operations of three state-controlled Chinese telecommunications companies, citing national security risks. The FCC also in April approved Alphabet Inc. unit Google’s request to use part of an 8,000-mile undersea telecommunications cable between the United States and Taiwan, but not Hong Kong, after U.S. agencies raised national security concerns.This week, President Donald Trump extended for another year a May 2019 executive order barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by companies deemed to pose a national security risk, a move seen aimed at Huawei and peer ZTE Corp. 
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Brazil’s Sao Paulo state is building thousands of vertical funeral plots in order to meet the demand caused by the surge in coronavirus victims.Heber Vila, director of Evolution Technology Funderaria, the company that manufactures these vertical cemeteries, said the plots being constructed of recyclable materials are safe as it prevents any type of contact between cemetery visitors in the form of liquids or gases from the body.An estimated 13,000 vertical plots are being built in three cemeteries in Sao Paulo state, one of the areas in Brazil hardest-hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.The impact of the virus on Sao Paulo prompted Gov. Joao Doria to repeat his stance of gradually easing lockdown restrictions, although President Jair Bolsonaro has complained that the lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus have hurt the economy.Brazil leads all Latin America in coronavirus infections with more than 200,000 confirmed cases, and the death toll is nearing 14,000. 
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Armed communist rebels are exploiting the Philippine government’s fight against COVID-19 to launch attacks, intensifying a violent 50-year-plus struggle with no solution in sight.The New People’s Army, active for 51 years in impoverished rural parts of the archipelago, has sustained the ambushes for which it’s best known while publicly condemning President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration over its handling of the disease outbreak.“That’s part of their basic doctrine. Wherever they have a chance to strike on the enemy, they do it,” said Enrico Cau, Southeast Asia specialist researcher at the Taiwan Strategy Research Association.“That’s basically how they operate. COVID is a strategic opportunity,” he said.Insurgencies in 218 townsIn late March and April, 18 New People’s Army fighters and 31 government soldiers were killed in clashes, domestic media outlet Rappler.com reported. On May 1, the rebel army’s broader organization, the Communist Party of the Philippines, officially ended its own “ceasefire” and ordered attacks, Rappler.com said.Insurgencies were taking place in 219 towns in 31 of the country’s 81 provinces as of April 10, the Communist Party said on its website.The rebels are stepping up verbal criticism too. Their website condemns Duterte’s government over food distribution and a perceived failure to test, trace and isolate people who might have the deadly respiratory disease.“It may be in their interest to try to exploit the situation to show that government is not doing enough, because of course they can tap into the dissatisfaction of a lot of people, particularly those who have not been getting support from various levels of government,” said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at University of the Philippines Diliman.As of last month, about 18 million poor households hadn’t received government cash subsidies of $98 as pledged in March, the ASEAN Post online reported.The Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army say they hope to overthrow the government and let working-class Filipinos lead their country. The organization also hopes to eliminate U.S. influence from the Philippines.The group, with an estimated 4,000 combatants, has killed about 30,000 people total.Duterte says he will ‘not hesitate’Today’s fighting is unlikely to earn the rebels much sympathy outside poor regions where people believe in their cause, analysts say. They should take a “more orthodox path” to push their causes, Cau said.Duterte, though, is taking time to hit back at the rebels. He will “not hesitate” to declare martial law if the rebels keep attacking soldiers, presidential office spokesperson Harry Roque said last month.Duterte decided in April against renewing peace talks because the rebels had attacked soldiers who were part of a food delivery mission, domestic media reports say.His government declared martial law over the southern island Mindanao from mid-2017 through last year to help soldiers and national police fight Muslim rebels gaining ground there.Renato Reyes, secretary general of the Manila-based Bagong Alyansang Makabayan alliance of leftist political organizations, said Duterte should say more about COVID-19 and less about the rebels.“It’s just Duterte who thinks the problem of the insurgency is more important than the COVID crisis,” Reyes said. “He devotes a significant time of his weekly speeches to mentioning the NPA.”    
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It’s a race against time.As communities start to open, governments are rushing to put together smartphone apps that can be part of their arsenal to curtail the spread of COVID-19.But the apps — and the technologies they rely on — vary, and for many that has led to confusion about what to expect.“It’s overwhelming how many proposals are coming out,” Gennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said. “There’s total alphabet soup of different acronyms, of different technologies. And it’s hard to understand exactly what is what. And I think that’s because it’s still early days.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyGennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier FoundationTracking your proximity to an exposureAt the moment, there’s not yet an app available in the United States that lets someone know if they’ve been exposed to someone testing positive for COVID-19. Around the world, Singapore, Australia and other nations have released apps that do this but with varying success.The main proposal for a consumer app comes from Apple and Google, which together create the operating systems for most smartphones in the world. They have joined forces to release software tools so that governments can make an app that will help with letting people know if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19.Their approach relies on Bluetooth, a short-range radio frequency inside a smartphone. Phones with the app will store the Bluetooth beams they receive from other phones and check daily a database of those who have reported testing positive. If there is a match – that someone has been too close for too long to a person with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 – the person learns about it and can contact a health professional to find out the next steps to take.Privacy advocates such as the ACLU and EFF support this approach, which keeps data decentralized and anonymized. Bluetooth doesn’t provide information to public health departments.GPS location data approachBut some states, such as North and South Dakota, as well as Utah, are looking to apps for a different purpose — to help with their contact tracing efforts. That’s when public health workers contact people who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. These apps rely on GPS location data, which can reveal information about a person’s movements, as well as the Bluetooth proximity information.With the Dakotas app, Care 19, if a person consents, their location data is shared with local public health officials. More than 45,000 residents of Utah – about 2 percent of the state’s population – have signed up for its state app, Healthy Together, according to CNBC.To download or not?Gebhart, of EFF, said there are an array of questions people might want to consider before they download a COVID-19 app. How much data is collected? Are users allowed to turn it on and off, or uninstall it at will?“There needs to be trust for the system to work for people to want to adopt it and want to interact with it,” she said.In many ways, the apps proposed have been unproven and untested, Gebhart said. But as governments open society again, this public health technology experiment may play a role in whether residents can begin to safely venture out.
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Protesters in Montenegro took on the streets again Thursday, a day after police arrested dozens of demonstrators demanding the release of priests detained after leading a religious procession in disregard to the lockdown regulations.Protesters had clashed with police at rallies Wednesday over the detainment of eight Serbian Orthodox Church priests who are facing charges of violating health regulations.Authorities said 26 police officers were injured during the clashes in the towns of Niksic and Pljevlja. One policeman has been hospitalized.Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic condemned the clashes in a televised statement on Thursday.”Everything we have achieved in the past three months of devoted work and mutual renunciation has been brought into question,” Markovic said. “We are afraid that in 10 days we could find ourselves in the same situation we were in two months ago with the great danger and consequences to the heath and lives for you all. There is no reasonable explanation or justification for such behavior.”The priests had led a procession Tuesday attended by a few thousand people without wearing surgical masks or respecting distancing rules.In Serbia, meanwhile, a few hundred protesters gathered in the capital, Belgrade, to demand the release of the eight priests.The ban of large gatherings in Montenegro is still in force as one of the measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus.  
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Karen Pence says it’s OK to not be OK during the coronavirus pandemic.While Vice President Mike Pence runs the White House coronavirus task force, his wife is leading a parallel effort to help people deal with anxiety and other unsettling emotions brought on by the pandemic.Two months into the crisis, millions of Americans are struggling to cope with the fallout, whether it’s losing loved ones, losing a job or staying at home more than they ever have.”This is something we’re all going through together, and it’s not like anything we’ve ever gone through before,” Karen Pence told The Associated Press in a recent interview.She is lead ambassador for the PREVENTS task force, an acronym for the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End the National Tragedy of Suicide. It was created in 2019 to focus on veterans’ suicides but recently launched a social media campaign called “More Than Ever Before” to help reach Americans before they get to “the end of their rope,” she said.”We want them to know there’s help out there, and there are things that we can do to prevent some of the effects that this is having on our mental health as a nation,” Mrs. Pence said. She joined the PREVENTS effort early this year, before the extent of the coronavirus threat in the U.S. became clear.Recent pollA majority of Americans say they have felt at least one negative emotional reaction in the last seven days, according to a new poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Data Foundation.At least a third of Americans reported feeling nervous, depressed, lonely or hopeless at least one day in the past week. But taken together, 61% of Americans say they have felt at least one of those emotions at one point throughout the week.Nine percent also reported having a physical reaction, such as sweating, nausea or hyperventilating, when thinking about their experience with the pandemic on one or more days.The new poll, conducted last week, is the second wave of the COVID-19 Household Impact Survey.Thirty-eight percent of Americans say they felt lonely at least one of the last seven days. Sixteen percent said they felt that way on three or more days. And 38% said they felt hopeless about the future at least once, with 14% saying they felt that way on three or more days.Those patterns are similar for feelings of anxiety and depression.Ways to copeMrs. Pence says there are four basic things people can do to help them cope with the situation, beginning with a daily “check in” with themselves to gauge how they’re feeling and then reach out to a friend or other individual if they need someone to hear them out.They should also figure out what puts them at ease, whether it’s reading, cooking or another activity, and schedule time for it. Mrs. Pence, a watercolor artist, said she’s been working on a painting of a friend’s house and is designing her family’s Christmas card.People should also talk about their struggles and successes and include children in those conversations. And if they’re concerned about themselves or someone else, they should feel comfortable calling the national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.”It’s OK to not be OK,” said Mrs. Pence. She posts tips and information about available resources on her Twitter page.Among those grappling with the new dynamics is Jody Garrison, who works from her Milwaukee home, turning old books into journals and selling them online.It’s the rare trip to the grocery store — or to the auto mechanic shop later this week to pick up her car after a repair — that brings on the anxiety.”You worry about, ‘Am I going to catch something from touching something?’ so I truly don’t go out in public much at all,” she said by telephone.Being retired helps, as Garrison had long settled into a routine. The 68-year-old plays with her grandchildren online and meets friends there, and is exercising and reading more, too.”I think what’s kept my sanity is that I’ve tried really hard to stay focused on things that kept me happy in the past to sustain the thought of being alone,” she said. “I’m trying to stay focused on the positive, and when you do that, it doesn’t seem quite so bad.”Suicide and substance abuse Anxious to see the U.S. economy humming again, President Donald Trump has pushed back against those who warn that coronavirus cases will spike after state lockdowns are lifted. He says more people will die from suicide and substance abuse the longer schools, businesses and workplaces remain closed and people stay at home.Experts say rates of suicide and substance abuse were rising before the pandemic, but it’s too soon to know how much they may have increased during the outbreak.Suicide prevention and mental health advocates said they welcome the PREVENTS effort but would like to see more spending on a more coordinated effort to reduce deaths caused by despair.”You don’t have to be a mental health expert to know we’re in deep trouble,” said former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., co-chair of a new public-private effort to respond to mental health and suicide prevention needs both during and after the coronavirus.Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., with 48,000 deaths reported in 2018, said Jerry Reed, who serves with Kennedy on the executive committee of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, which is separate from the virus-related initiative.Reed, a longtime suicide prevention advocate, said he’d like to see the same amount of effort that went into combating the coronavirus put into responding to mental health needs.”I like the fact that we all came together to flatten the physical curve of the virus,” Reed said. “I would suggest we all come together to flatten the mental health curve.” 
 
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed $14 billion in budget cuts on Thursday because of the coronavirus, with more than half coming at the expense of public schools already struggling to educate children from afar during a pandemic.The cuts are part of a plan to cover a $54.3 billion budget deficit caused by plummeting state revenues after a mandatory, statewide stay-at-home order forced most businesses to close and put more than 4.7 million people out of work.On Thursday, Newsom proposed filling that hole through a combination of cuts, tax increases, canceled spending, internal borrowing and tapping the state’s reserves. It also includes a 10 percent pay cut for all state workers, including the governor himself. Overall, the $203 billion spending plan is about 5 percent lower than the budget lawmakers approved last year.”Nothing breaks my heart more than having to make budget cuts,” he said. “There’s a human being behind every single number.”Aid package could helpNewsom said all of those cuts could be avoided if the federal government approves a $1 trillion aid package for state and local governments. The state would need that money before July 1 to avoid the cuts, a daunting task considering the partisan divide between Democrats who control the U.S. House of Representatives and the Republicans in charge of the U.S. Senate.”Depending on the federal government is not going to be a solution,” said Republican Sen. Jim Nielsen of Red Bluff.Public education, which accounts for 40 percent of all state general fund spending, was the hardest hit. School districts get money based on a formula outlined in the state constitution that is based on revenues, per capita personal income and school attendance.That guarantee dropped by $19 billion. But Newsom added a bunch of money to offset those losses. He wants to temporarily eliminate some business tax deductions to create $4.5 billion in new revenue. Plus, he wants to give school districts $4.4 billion from the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund. Even with those changes, schools are looking at a loss of $7.5 billion compared to the budget Newsom proposed in January.”They will be the single largest cuts public schools have ever had in California history,” said Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist who represents most public school districts. “Public school officials do not know where to start when it comes to trying to reopen with so much less money to work with.”$2.8 billion savings from pay cutThe 10 percent pay cut for the more than 233,000 state workers would save about $2.8 billion and includes firefighters and health care workers. The lowest-paid workers would still get planned raises, however, to bring them up to the state’s $15-per-hour minimum wage law.The pay cut proposal is just the starting point for a negotiation with public-sector labor unions. The Service Employees International, which represents about 96,000 state workers, plans to try to negotiate an alternative.”We could put our head in the sand and say, ‘Let’s take it,'” said Yvonne Walker, president of SEIU Local 1000. “But you know what, Local 1000? We’re not head-in-the-sand people.”Just four months ago, Newsom proposed a $222.2 billion spending plan that included a nearly $6 billion surplus and a host of new programs. Thursday, nearly all of that new spending disappeared. That included eliminating plans to give government-funded health insurance to low-income adults 65 and older living in the country illegally. And it cancels a plan to make more older adults eligible for Medicaid.”These potential cuts will be a body blow to the health care system we all rely on, at the very time we need it funded more than ever, in the middle of a pandemic,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide health care consumer advocacy group.Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon called the state’s budget picture “grim” but said it was too soon to know which of Newsom’s proposed cuts his Democratic caucus would support. He said education and the social safety net must be priorities, and he, like Newsom, said the state needs the federal government’s help.”We have well-placed Republicans from California in Congress, and we’re going to obviously appeal to them and make sure they remember, obviously, where they got elected from,” Rendon said.$16 billion rainy day fundCalifornia’s financial downturn is cushioned by a $16 billion rainy day fund set aside during the good times. Newsom’s budget, which now must be negotiated with the state Legislature by June 15, calls for spending the rainy day fund down over the next three years, starting with roughly $8 billion in the upcoming year. He’s also tapping two other reserve funds for another $1 billion.The state would also spend more than $200 million to boost the state’s preparations for looming wildfires and other disasters, including hiring another 500 firefighters and 100 support personnel to help make up for the loss of dozens of inmate firefighters who were paroled to ease the risk of coronavirus outbreaks.State officials have furloughed state workers during previous budget deficits and used tricks like paying state employees a day later to save money. But Tim Edwards, president of the union representing state firefighters, said cuts to firefighters didn’t end up saving money because idled firefighters had to be backed up with replacements earning overtime.”Being one of the lowest-paid fire departments already in California (compared to metro fire departments), pay cuts would not go well for us,” said Edwards, president of CalFire Local 2881.  
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Police in Cameroon have detained several hundred people for not wearing face masks in public, as COVID-19 cases in the central African state continue to rise. Seventeen-year-old David Ngwa Fru said a team of police and gendarmes detained him and his two younger sisters in the capital, Yaounde, on Thursday morning.”The police removed us from a taxi on our way to the market because we were not wearing our masks. They detained us at the police station for three hours. We paid 2,000 (each) before we were released. Many people who did not pay the money are still there.”Fru, speaking to VOA through a messaging app, said that although they were not issued any receipts, the police told them that the $9 he and his siblings paid were fines for not wearing their masks, and assured them that the money would be sent to the state treasury.FILE – A health worker wearing protective equipment disinfects a member of medical staff amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an hospital in Douala, Cameroon, April 27, 2020.Police official Oswald Ateba said officers are implementing a Cameroon government order that everyone in public must wear a face mask as of 6 a.m. Thursday. He said they have been instructed to arrest everyone found along the streets, markets, bars and popular spots without masks and to impound all vehicles and motorcycles that are seen with drivers and passengers not wearing masks.The police said authorities have detained hundreds of people, seized 250 motorcycles and impounded hundreds of taxis in Yaounde alone as part of efforts to implement the new rules.Government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi said the decision to make arrests came after lockdown restrictions were eased, but a majority of Cameroonians were not wearing masks.He said the government is also battling the growing stigmatization of people testing positive for COVID-19 and those who have recovered from the disease, stressing that COVID-19 is neither shameful nor a curse and any person can be contaminated.Cameroon has about 3,000 reported cases of COVID-19 and has recorded 139 deaths.Even though the government has eased the strict lockdown measures, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute said on Wednesday no one should think that COVID-19 has been conquered in the central African state.  
 
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International media-freedom watchdogs are urging Iran to stop jailing members of the press arbitrarily, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, after a local journalist started serving an 18-month prison sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison.Hassan Fathi, a freelance columnist, began his prison term last week after his appeal in a 2018 criminal case stemming from an interview with the BBC’s Persian service was denied, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a U.S.-based outlet that covers news in Iran.The Iranian authorities “continue to jail journalists although COVID-19 is taking a heavy toll on the country’s prison population,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Thursday.Iranian officials “must stop their absurd practice of imprisoning journalists solely for speaking to foreign media outlets, especially during a pandemic, when any jail term could be a potential death sentence,” said Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).Detained in May 2018Fathi was detained in May 2018 after he gave an interview to  the BBC’s Persian service about the reelection of President Hassan Rohani, according to an interview with the journalist by Iran International.Tehran’s Revolutionary Court charged Fathi with “spreading lies and disrupting public opinion,” before releasing him on bail, Fathi told the Britain-based broadcaster.It was unclear when Fathi was initially convicted or sentenced, but a Tehran court early this month rejected his final appeal, HRANA reported.Also Thursday, RSF quoted the family of Mahmud Shariari, a former national radio and TV presenter, as saying he had been transferred last week from Evin prison to a section of a Tehran hospital that is reserved for coronavirus patients.Shariari has been detained since mid-April for “publishing false information about the coronavirus,” the Paris-based group said.RSF said that imprisoned journalists in Iran “have routinely been denied adequate medical care in the past and … are now in danger of dying from the coronavirus that is spreading in the prisons.”
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