Author: CensorBiz

Military jets flew over U.S. cities on Saturday to salute front-line workers in the country with the highest coronavirus caseload and death toll in the world.Residents of the nation’s capital, Washington, as well as Baltimore and Atlanta, were treated to sights of the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds arcing across the sky.Crowds turned out on the National Mall to see the jets fly in formation past sites such as the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.Most of those in attendance appeared to be following social distancing rules, and many wore face masks.”Proud to see the #AmericaStrong salute to our healthcare & frontline workers with a spectacular flyover today in Washington, D.C. Thank you to the @AFThunderbirds and @BlueAngels for this beautiful display of solidarity,” first lady Melania Trump tweeted, including a photo of herself watching the fly-by from outside the White House.The Thunderbirds hailed health workers and first responders battling the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 1.1 million in the U.S. and killed more than 66,000.”They are an inspiration for the entire country during these challenging times and it was an honor to fly for them today,” the group said on Twitter.The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds last month flew over U.S. virus epicenter New York City, as well as Newark and Trenton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
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A young Egyptian filmmaker imprisoned for directing a music video critical of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has died in a Cairo jail, his lawyer said Saturday.Shady Habash, 24, died in Tora prison, said lawyer Ahmed al-Khawaga, who was unable to give a cause of death.”His health had been deteriorating for several days. … He was hospitalized, then returned to the prison yesterday evening, where he died in the night,” he told AFP, without giving further details.Habash was detained in March 2018, accused of “spreading fake news” and “belonging to an illegal organization,” according to the prosecution.He was arrested after having directed the music video for the song “Balaha” by rock singer Ramy Essam.The song’s lyrics lambast “Balaha” — a name given to el-Sissi by his detractors in reference to a character in an Egyptian film known for being a notorious liar.Essam gained popularity during the popular revolt against then-President Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. He has since gone into exile in Sweden.The video has had more than 5 million views on YouTube.Died of ‘negligence’The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said in a Twitter post that Habash died as a result of “negligence and lack of justice.”Human rights groups have regularly highlighted poor prison conditions in Egypt.Since early March, because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, authorities have suspended visits and the work of the courts, further isolating detainees.”Due to the measures taken against the coronavirus, no one has been able to see [Habash]” recently, said Khawaga.Habash himself warned of his predicament in October, in a letter posted Saturday on Facebook by activist Ahdaf Soueif.”It’s not prison that kills, it’s loneliness that kills. … I’m dying slowly each day,” he wrote.Fearing the spread of the virus in overcrowded prisons, human rights defenders have called for the release of political prisoners and detainees awaiting trial.According to several NGOs, an estimated 60,000 detainees in Egypt are political prisoners, including secular activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and Islamists arrested in an ongoing crackdown against dissent since the military’s 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
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Warren Buffett planned to lead an unusual annual meeting Saturday afternoon without any of the roughly 40,000 shareholders who typically attend, but the investor did plan to offer some of the commentary that draws the huge crowds.Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting was to be livestreamed and include an abbreviated version of the question-and-answer session Buffett normally leads. All of the surrounding events, including a trade show where Berkshire companies sell their products, were canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.”It’s going to be a strange annual meeting,” said Andy Kilpatrick, a retired stockbroker who wrote a Buffett biography and has attended every annual meeting since 1985.Instead of sitting next to business partner Charlie Munger in an arena filled with shareholders, Buffett was being joined this year by Berkshire Vice Chairman Greg Abel, who oversees all of the company’s non-insurance businesses, to answer questions in front of a camera.The two men likely were likely to be asked about the nearly $50 billion loss that Berkshire reported Saturday morning and the huge pile of cash the company is holding.Berkshire said it lost $49.7 billion, or $30,653 per Class A share, during the first quarter. That’s down from last year’s profit of $21.66 billion, or $13,209 per Class A share.  Investment values sinkThe biggest factor in the loss was a $54.5 billion loss on the value of Berkshire’s investment portfolio as the stock market declined sharply after the coronavirus outbreak began. The year before, Berkshire’s investments added $15.5 billion to the company’s profits.Buffett has long said Berkshire’s operating earnings offer a better view of quarterly performance because they exclude investments and derivatives, which can vary widely. By that measure, Berkshire’s operating earnings improved to $5.87 billion, or $3,617.62 per Class A share, from $5.56 billion, or $3,387.56 per Class A share.Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected operating earnings per Class A share of $3,796.90 on average.Berkshire’s revenue grew 1 percent to $61.27 billion. The company said revenue slowed considerably in April as the virus outbreak negatively affected most of its businesses. Berkshire closed several of its retail businesses, such as See’s Candy and the Nebraska Furniture Mart, this spring while BNSF railroad and its insurance and utility businesses continued operating.  Berkshire is sitting on a pile of more than $137 billion cash because Buffett has struggled to find major acquisitions for the company recently. Edward Jones analyst Jim Shanahan said it was striking that Buffett didn’t find any bargains to invest in at the end of the first quarter.”The lack of investment activity really sticks out,” Shanahan said.Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns more than 90 companies, including the railroad and insurance, utility, furniture and jewelry businesses. The company also has major investments in such companies as Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola and Bank of America.
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The United Nations says torrential rains and flooding have affected nearly 150,000 people throughout Yemen, causing serious damage to vital infrastructure and exposing thousands to potentially life-threatening disease outbreaks.U.N. agencies say the rains, which have been ongoing since mid-April, have damaged houses and shelters, rendering thousands homeless. Flood waters have washed out roads and bridges, contaminated water supplies and knocked out electricity and other vital services.The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says conditions are particularly harsh for thousands of families already displaced by conflict, who have lost shelter, food rations and household supplies.OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told VOA many people are at risk of getting ill or dying from disease outbreaks, which thrive in flooded, unsanitary conditions.“Water-borne disease such as cholera or vector-borne, such as malaria because the stagnant water after the flooding is a breeding ground for mosquitos. So, getting rid of the water as fast as possible is very important and, of course, providing clean drinking water for the families who are there already,” he said.Laerke said more than 110,000 cases of suspected cholera have been recorded across Yemen since January.Yemen’s civil war, which is in its fifth year, has taken a heavy toll in lost lives and has shattered the country’s socio-economic structure. The U.N. says 80 percent of the population, or 24 million people, are in need of international assistance. It calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.Looming over the existing calamity is the threat of COVID-19. Laerke said so far only six cases of the disease have been confirmed in the country.“But really, the setting there almost conspires to make this into a disaster if we start seeing widespread communal transmission of COVID-19. One particular issue here is really the massive funding problems in Yemen at the moment,” he said.Laerke said the U.N.’s humanitarian operation needs a significant boost in funding. Otherwise, he warns many programs critical to combatting COVID-19, such as providing clean water, sanitation and access to health care, risk being shut down in coming months. 
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Kenyan Health Ministry staff began mass coronavirus tests in a low-income neighborhood of Nairobi Friday.
   
Kawangware, where voluntary testing rolled out, is an area where social distancing can be a challenge, according to Ministry of Health official Lydia Mudeyo.  
 
“The social distancing in this area is difficult and therefore it is advisable for the government and the ministry as a whole to take the initiative of educating the common mwananchi [referring to an ordinary citizen] on how to do the hand washing and the social distancing and that is why we decided, first of all, to do the mass testing in this area so that it can advise us on the outbreak in this area,” Mudeyp said.
 
If they test negative, residents of Kawangware hope they stand a better chance of finding jobs in the impoverished African country.
 
“I am very happy because I know my status now and my family will be safe and also when I go to look for work elsewhere, since I am a hotelier, I know things will be good,” Monica Wairimu, a Kawangware resident who was among those tested.
 
Wairimu said that due to the coronavirus outbreak, her business has drastically declined and as the COVID-19 hit the country, she was selling a quarter of what she used to.
   
Africa has now more than 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported. There have been more than 1,600 deaths across the continent.
 
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Locked down in COVID-19 biosecurity zones, thousands of kilometers from Australia’s big cities, aboriginal artists are performing online to global audiences for the first time.  Musicians from northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory are joining the worldwide trend of artists in lockdown performing from home.For a month, indigenous artists are giving free weekend performances online.  The virtual concerts are helping to sustain the region’s musicians during the age of COVID-19.  Festivals and other cultural events have been canceled.The executive producer, Nicholas O’Riley, hopes new audiences will enjoy what they hear.“Doing the East Arnhem live is great, [a] great opportunity for them to keep playing, but also, you know, open up their music to a whole different audience from, you know, right around the world,” he said. “Hopefully we will see, you know, an EP [extended play record] or a small album come out of it.”There are no known cases of COVID-19 in Arnhem Land.  The government said aboriginal Australians are one of the groups most at risk from the disease because of widespread ill health and overcrowded housing.Indigenous people make up about 3 percent of the Australian population, and they suffer high rates of chronic disease, poverty and imprisonment.Travel to and from remote parts of the Northern Territory is being tightly controlled under efforts to protect indigenous communities from the spread of the new coronavirus. 
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The White House is blocking Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, from testifying Wednesday before a House of Representatives committee that is investigating how the Trump administration has handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci’s testimony would be “counter-productive,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesman said in a statement.“While the Trump administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again, and expediting vaccine development,” Deere said, “it is counter-productive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings.”Fauci and U.S. President Donald Trump have not always agreed on how best to fight the spread of the virus.  Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has criticized the country’s testing capacity for the virus, calling it “a failing.”   Last month, Trump retweeted a #FireFauci posting from another account, but the White House insists that the president is not looking to fire highly popular scientist.More than half of the 50 U.S. governors have taken steps to partially relax lockdown restrictions, while hoping a spike in infections won’t trigger another round of business closures.Other U.S. governors, many of whom are Democrats, are taking a more guarded approach, trying to balance the need to reopen their state economies with concerns about the coronavirus.Laborers work at an emergency hospital under construction, an extension of one of the hospitals that’s handling COVID-19 coronavirus patients in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 2, 2020.As some U.S. governors push to relax restrictions after Thursday’s expiration of White House distancing guidelines, Fauci, warned them to avoid lifting state limits prematurely.“Obviously you could get away with that, but you’re taking a really significant risk,” Fauci said on CNN.Another warning came in a report by the University of Minnesota, which said the pandemic could last two more years. The report, released Thursday by the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, warned that the U.S. should prepare for a decline in infections followed by a spike as early as this fall.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted an emergency use authorization for the antiviral drug remdesivir, clearing the way for more hospitals to use the drug. Recent clinical data show the drug might be a promising treatment for the coronavirus.More than 3.3 million people around the world have been infected with COVID-19 and nearly 284,000 infected with the virus have died.In the U.S., there are more than 1.1 million COVID cases and more than 65,000 deaths.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told BBC that it is a tragedy that the world’s leaders have not been able “to come together to face COVID-19 in an articulated coordinated way.”The U.N. estimates that 8 percent of the world’s population, about 500 million people, could be forced into poverty by year’s end because of the devastation brought by the virus.As countries consider how and when to reopen, India, the world’s second-most populous country, said Friday it would extend its nationwide lockdown for two more weeks after Monday. But the country’s ministry of home affairs said “considerable relaxations” would be allowed in lower-risk areas, including the manufacturing and distribution of essential goods between states.Spain emerges from lockdown during the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease.Many European countries have begun gradually reopening or have plans to do so in the coming days. The economy in the eurozone – European countries that use the common euro currency – shrank a record 3.8 percent in the first quarter of the year.In Britain, health minister Matt Hancock announced Friday the country has hit its target of carrying out 100,000 COVID-19 tests a day. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday that Britain is past the peak of the coronavirus outbreak and that cases are declining. The coronavirus has killed more than 27,500 people in Britain and infected about 178,700.Italy, Spain and France on Friday reported declines in deaths from the virus, down from the peaks of their countries’ outbreaks. 
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The United Stated Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for a drug called remdesivir to treat patients diagnosed with the coronavirus, President Donald Trump announced Friday. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
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A Pakistan journalist living in exile in Sweden who has been missing since March has been found dead, police said Friday.”His body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” police spokesman Jonas Eronen told AFP.Sajid Hussain, from the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan, was working part-time as a professor in Uppsala, about 60 kilometers north of Stockholm, when he went missing on March 2.He was also the chief editor of the Baluchistan Times, an online magazine he had set up, in which he wrote about drug trafficking, forced disappearances and a long-running insurgency.”The autopsy has dispelled some of the suspicion that he was the victim of a crime,” Eronen said.The police spokesman added that while a crime could not be completely ruled out, Hussain’s death could equally have been the result of an accident or suicide.”As long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the risk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist,” Erik Halkjaer, head of the Swedish branch of Reporters without Borders (RSF), told AFP.According to the RSF, Hussain was last seen getting onto a train for Uppsala in Stockholm.Hussain came to Sweden in 2017 and secured political asylum in 2019.The Pakistan foreign ministry declined to comment when asked about Hussain by AFP.
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Hong Kong police used pepper spray on Friday to disperse over a hundred protesters in a shopping mall who were singing and chanting pro-democracy slogans. The demonstrators sang the protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” and chanted “Glory to Hong Kong, revolution of our times” in the New Town Plaza mall in Hong Kong’s New Territories.  As protesters gathered in the mall, riot police stopped and searched some and later told them to leave, saying they were violating social-distancing rules. The police then sprayed tear gas to disperse the crowd before cordoning off the atrium of the mall. The protest was one of several that went ahead on May 1, Labor Day, despite rules that forbid public gatherings of more than four people.  Protesters display open palm with five fingers, signifying the “Five demands – not one less”, during the Labor Day in Hong Kong, May 1, 2020.Small groups of protesters also gathered near Kowloon’s Mong Kok and Kwun Tong subway stations. Organizers initially planned citywide protests but many were canceled, with the organizers urging people to support pro-democracy restaurants instead. Friday’s protests were the latest in a string of demonstrations over the past week in which protesters gathered in shopping malls. They follow the arrest of 15 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers last Saturday. The demonstrations are a continuation of a movement that began last June to protest an extradition bill that would have allowed detainees in Hong Kong to be transferred to mainland China. Although the bill was later withdrawn, the demonstrations continued for months before a lull starting in January as the coronavirus pandemic broke out. 
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U.S. regulators on Friday allowed emergency use of an experimental drug that appears to help some coronavirus patients recover faster.  It is the first drug shown to help fight COVID-19, which has killed more than 230,000 people worldwide.  President Donald Trump announced the news at the White House alongside Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who said the drug would be available for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The FDA acted after preliminary results from a government-sponsored study showed that Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31%, or about four days on average, for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. FILE – FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn speaks as U.S. President Donald Trump listens during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House, April 21, 2020.The study of 1,063 patients is the largest and most strict test of the drug and included a comparison group that received just usual care so remdesivir’s effects could be rigorously evaluated. Those given the drug were able to leave the hospital in 11 days on average versus 15 days for the comparison group. The drug also might be reducing deaths, although that’s not certain from the partial results revealed so far. FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, April 17, 2020.The National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci said the drug would become a new standard of care for severely ill COVID-19 patients like those in this study. The drug has not been tested on people with milder illness, and currently is given through an IV in a hospital. The FDA authorized the drug under its emergency powers to quickly speed experimental drugs, tests and other medical products to patients during public health crises. In normal times the FDA requires “substantial evidence” of a drug’s safety and effectiveness, usually through one or more large, rigorously controlled patient studies. But during public health emergencies the agency can waive those standards, simply requiring that an experimental drug’s potential benefits outweigh its risks. Gilead has said it would donate its currently available stock of the drug and is ramping up production to make more. No drugs are approved now for treating the coronavirus, and remdesivir will still need formal approval. The FDA can convert the drug’s status to full approval if Gilead or other researchers provide additional data of remdesivir’s safety and effectiveness.  “This is a very, very early stage so you wouldn’t expect to have any sort of full approval at this point,” said Cathy Burgess, an attorney specializing in FDA issues. “But obviously they want to get this out to patients as quickly as possible.” HydroxychloroquineThe FDA previously gave emergency use authorization to a malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, after Trump repeatedly promoted it as a possible treatment for COVID-19. No large high-quality studies have shown the drug to work for that, however, and it has significant safety concerns. The FDA warned doctors late last month against prescribing the drug outside of hospital or research settings, due to risks of sometimes fatal heart side effects. Two small studies published Friday add to concerns about the malaria drug.  
 
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The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion Thursday in U.S. district court in Boise, Idaho, for a preliminary injunction to block a new law that bans transgender and intersex women and girls from participating in school sports.The Idaho bill, known as HB500, was signed into law by Republican Gov. Brad Little in late March. It is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2020.The motion filed in Hecox v. Little, the lawsuit challenging HB500, requests that the judge block the implementation of HB500 by early August so that transgender students can participate in athletic tryouts this fall. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student at Boise State University, and an anonymous junior at Boise High School. The motion cited the law’s violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.HB500 bans transgender girls from participating in school athletics and legalizes the practice of gender verification screenings, by which female athletes may be required to prove their sex with invasive genital or genetic screenings in order to compete. Idaho is not the first state to introduce bills to restrict the participation of transgender athletes; however, it is the only state to have passed a statewide ban on participation of transgender athletes. Idaho’s legislation is a sign of the growing debate surrounding how to regulate transgender athletes. Earlier this year, many states, including New Hampshire and Arizona, introduced similar bills attempting to regulate transgender athletes.FILE – Attorney General William Barr speaks in Washington, March 23, 2020.In March, the debate reached the U.S. Justice Department. In a statement signed by Attorney General William Barr, the Justice Department argued against a Connecticut policy allowing transgender students to compete as the gender with which they identified. The policy was based on a state law that requires high school students to be treated according to their gender identity and Title IX, the federal law that prohibits exclusion from an educational program on the basis of sex. Barr and other department officials argued that the Connecticut policy ignores the real physiological differences between men and women, and deprives biological females of fair, single-sex competitions protected by Title IX. 
 
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No region in the world is spared from the devastating health and economic consequences of COVID-19.  Among those most affected are the forcibly displaced, including more than 25 million refugees, most of whom are being sheltered in some of the world’s poorest countries.The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) warns the more than 70 million people forcibly displaced by conflict and violence throughout the world are facing unprecedented hardships due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
For example, the UNHCR says it has been receiving desperate appeals for financial aid from hundreds of thousands of refugees across the Middle East and North Africa, who have been unable to work since lockdowns came into force in March.
 
It says more than 5.6 million Syrians who have taken refuge in neighboring countries, as well as six million people forcibly displaced within Syria are in urgent need of money, health care and necessities.   
 
UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic says an alarming number of refugees in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan have lost their livelihoods because of the pandemic.  He says many refugees are forced to skip meals, while others are threatened with evictions because they cannot pay the rent.
 
“Groups at particular risk include female heads of households, unaccompanied and separated children, elderly people, LGBTI persons.  Their situations can be improved through emergency assistance, notably through cash grants.  Across this region, many are at risk of losing shelters and they are running out of means to support themselves,” he said.
 
Mahecic notes millions of Afghan refugees, including those in Iran and Pakistan, are facing a similar situation.  He notes Afghanistan itself is facing the prospect of having its medical and social services overwhelmed due to the spread of COVID-19. This, as an increasing number of Afghans return home.
 
Elsewhere in the world, the UNHCR spokesman says the numbers of homeless and destitute Venezuelans throughout Latin America are increasing as jobs dry up because of COVID-19 lockdown measures.
 
“Some are now resorting to survival sex, begging or hawking on the streets. Others are at risk of being prey to smugglers and illegal armed groups.  With growing fears of social unrest, xenophobia and discrimination across the region are also on the rise,” Mahecic said.
 
The UNHCR reports it is working to provide emergency aid, including cash-based assistance and shelter across all major refugee operations.  It notes the coronavirus crisis is worsening existing dire humanitarian needs globally.  It says an infusion of cash is urgently needed to support these crucial aid operations.
 
 
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As China re-emerges from more than two months of quarantines and lockdowns, its government is relying on a familiar playbook during times of crisis.Critics are being detained and silenced online. The government has tightened controls over communications, banning whistleblowers and critics from online forums while state-backed media champions Beijing’s actions.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says it’s a typical response for an autocracy facing a crisis: Become more aggressive and deny people their rights.”While they may in some instance solve a particular problem in a particular way that facially resolves the crisis that’s in front of them, in the end they do enormous harm to the people of their own nation and put the rest of the world at risk as well,” he said in early April.But China leaders are also adding a new chapter in their playbook – taking suppression to pandemic-level heights against even high-ranking insiders.Hours before Pompeo spoke, Beijing announced an investigation into an influential critic of President Xi Jinping. The detention of Ren Zhiqiang, a retired business tycoon and “princeling,” or child of top party officials, shocked longtime China observers who saw it as a significant signal within China’s leadership.And Ren wasn’t alone. Two weeks later, Sun Lijun, vice minister of public security, also was placed under investigation. Sun handled domestic security and is among the very few of trusted keepers of China’s most sensitive secrets, which include information on the personal lives of senior leaders.In this April 1, 2020, photo, a QR code is set up for passengers to check their green pass status at a subway station in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province. Life in China post-coronavirus outbreak is ruled by a green symbol on a smartphone…Containment by QR  What became the biggest quarantine in human history began in China.
Cities here were sealed off, transportation between them stopped. For more than two months, people were not allowed to be outside. Hundreds of millions of people were placed under quarantine after the virus was discovered in Wuhan.Today in many cities, barriers erected during the quarantine have not been demolished, and residents are not allowed to come and go freely.It is a new normal: “The largest public health experiment in the history of humankind,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University told VOA. China was well-positioned to police it.With hundreds of millions of high-tech surveillance cameras installed across the country, biometric facial recognition can identify even people wearing masks, while artificial intelligence systems can spot them by their walking postures.Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic talks in front of medical experts from China after they arrived with medical supplies to help country’s fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) outbrake in Belgrade, Serbia, March 21, 2020.Charm offensiveSo did China spread the virus – or the remedies?Critics of President Xi aren’t persuaded that he can ward off all blame.”Xi is trying to forestall these (negative) outcomes through a charm offensive, trying to posture China as a leader in the world’s crisis,” said Miller, the international affairs professor.”His overtures are frankly incredible and laughable to most western audiences and risk making Xi’s problem worse through the sheer chutzpah,” he said.  Internally, Xi faces a different set of challenges. The moves against Sun and Ren are seen as telling. Ren had survived political storms before thanks to a carefully cultivated network of communist party allies.But in a February essay, he blamed Xi for covering up the truth about the extent of outbreak, for failing to make critical information public and for allegedly lying to cover up his mismanagement.”By placing Ren Zhiqiang under investigation, Xi Jinping sent a powerful message that he will not tolerate his power being questioned openly,” Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, told VOA. 
 
“With Ren in custody, few dissident voices are left within the party,” Wu said. “The party members, intellectuals and entrepreneurs who had supported him are now in trouble, too.”They have no choices but to remain silent.”VOA State Department reporter Nike Ching contributed to this report.
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Two of India’s most beloved movie stars, Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, died within a day of each other this week, and though they came from two very different worlds and two very different schools of acting, both leave behind a treasure of cinematic work and millions of grieving fans.
This double whammy for India’s Hindi-language film industry, known as Bollywood, comes amid a crippling coronavirus lockdown that has brought the entertainment business — along with so much else — to a complete halt.
“It seems we are in the midst of a nightmare,” popular actor Akshay Kumar tweeted.
In normal times, the funerals for two of Bollywood’s most-admired actors would mean tens of thousands of fans gathering to bid them goodbye. Instead, their ceremonies were held in the presence of a handful of family and friends, surrounded by police.
The 54-year-old Khan died Wednesday after battling a rare cancer, while the 67-year-old Kapoor had leukemia and died Thursday.  
The career trajectories of both actors reflect the changing contours of Bollywood, which in the past traversed two parallel streams of arthouse cinema and commercial films. The growing acceptance and box-office viability of content-driven films over the last two decades gave the two a chance to cross paths and act in movies that were both critically acclaimed and popular.
 
A trained stage actor, Khan started his career with television and found work in new-age Bollywood, which was experimenting with visceral themes reflecting India’s social and political fault lines in the 1990s.  
It took years of roles in small films before Khan made it to the Bollywood big leagues. Balancing arthouse movies with popular commercial fare, Khan went on to play a wide array of roles including an intensely tormented lover in “Maqbool,” an adapation of “Macbeth,” and a gentle immigrant in Mira Nair’s “The Namesake.”
Unlike other Bollywood superstars with mega-stylized personas, the versatile Khan brought a rare intelligence and empathy to his characters over his 30-year career.
“He managed to walk off the screen and come home with us,” wrote film critic Shubhra Gupta in the Indian Express newspaper.
One of the best-known Indian faces in world cinema, Khan crossed over to Hollywood with ease, playing a variety of parts in movies like “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Life of Pi” and “The Amazing Spider Man.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a tweet that Khan was an ” incredible talent” and “left his imprint on global cinema.”  
“Gone too soon. When he is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off of him. He lives on in his films,” tweeted Hollywood filmmaker Ava Duvernay.
Kapoor’s cinematic journey could not have been more different.
Kapoor was a third-generation actor, born with showbiz in his blood. His grandfather Prithiviraj Kapoor and father Raj Kapoor were legendary actors of their time.  
Rishi Kapoor started young, receiving the National Award, India’s preeminent film award, for his role as a child artist in his father’s 1970 film “Mera Naam Joker.”
“Acting was in my blood and there was simply no escaping it,” Kapoor wrote in his 2017 autobiography.
The runaway success of the teenage romance “Bobby” in 1973 made him a Bollywood heartthrob and a string of romantic, musical blockbusters followed.  
The charming lover boy of the 1970s and 1980s went on to become one of the most dependable actors of his time and appeared in some of Bollywood’s most-loved films, including “Amar Akbar Anthony” and “Chandni.”  
To be in sync with contemporary filmmakers moving away from melodrama and mining plot-driven stories, Kapoor refashioned his career in later years to play a variety of strong character roles. His portrayal of an old man in the 2016 movie “Kapoor & Sons” and as a Muslim man forced to prove his patriotism in “Mulk” in 2017 won him great acclaim. His most recent movie “The Body” was released last year.
“There may not be another actor who grew up and grew old on camera,” tweeted film critic Uday Bhatia.
In his final years, Kapoor became a popular presence on social media, and was refreshingly honest about his opinions. In his last tweet on April 2, he appealed to people to respect the work frontline health workers were doing.
“We have to win this Coronavirus war together,” Kapoor wrote.
Altogether Kapoor acted in more than 100 movies in a career spanning more than 40 years.
“He smiled on screen and the world outside became a little bit lighter,” film critic Baradwaj Rangan wrote in a tribute. “He gave us joy.” 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that it has not been invited by China to join the investigation into the cause of the coronavirus pandemic.WHO’s representative in Beijing Dr. Gauden Galea said he expected China would discuss collaborations with the organization in the “near future.””We know some national investigation is happening but at this stage we have not been invited to join. We are expecting to get, in the near future, a briefing on where that is and to discuss possible collaboration,” Galea said.The coronavirus disease COVID-19, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has taken over 230,000 human lives worldwide, according to a collection of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and confirmed infection cases have reached 3.2 million.Beijing has been criticized for lack of transparency in its handling of the pandemic, with the United States investigating whether the virus might have gotten out from a Wuhan biosecurity laboratory.The official tally of infections in Wuhan has been questionable from the very beginning with the government frequently changing its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak.Meanwhile, China has dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated in that lab and it was not transmitted from animals to humans in Wuhan as commonly believed.Although the origin of COVID-19 is yet to be determined, some scientists suspect the virus was transmitted to humans from animals at a wet market in Wuhan.
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Assessing the security situation in Afghanistan is getting increasingly difficult now that Western military officials have started withholding some data on militant attacks across the country, according to a key U.S. government watchdog.The warning from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, also known as SIGAR, comes as hopes for an end to decades of war appear to be fading following February’s agreement between the United States and the Taliban, due to political infighting in Kabul and a steady increase in Taliban-initiated violence since the deal was signed.Only according to SIGAR, the full extent of the Taliban’s offensive remains something of a mystery because coalition forces monitoring the violence are keeping the intelligence to themselves.“NATO Resolute Support (RS) restricted from public release data on the number of enemy-initiated attacks (EIA) that took place this quarter,” Inspector General John Sopko wrote in the quarterly report issued Friday.“This EIA data was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan,” he added, noting it was the first time the NATO-led mission had refused to provide the figures since 2018.NATO officials defended their decision, telling SIGAR data on enemy-initiated attacks “are now a critical part of deliberative interagency discussions regarding ongoing political negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban.”Afghans clear glass from a broken window of a house after a suicide bomb attack on the southern outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, April 29, 2020.However, they also said that while the Taliban generally refrained from attacking coalition forces after signing the agreement with the U.S. in late February, “they increased attacks against ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] to levels above seasonal norms” during March.The last available data for enemy attacks, covering the last three months of 2019, before the U.S.-Taliban deal was signed, showed enemy attacks trending significantly higher.“Both overall enemy-initiated attacks and effective enemy-initiated attacks [resulting in casualties] during the fourth quarter of 2019 exceeded same-period levels in every year since recording began in 2010,” SIGAR’s January report said.This is not the first time SIGAR has criticized the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan for hiding or manipulating data.SIGAR also chastised U.S. defense officials in May 2019 after Resolute Support Afghan special forces stand guard near the site of a suicide bomber attack on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, April 29, 2020.”We have incentivized lying to Congress,” SIGAR’s John Sopko told lawmakers this past January. “The whole incentive is to show success and to ignore the failure. And when there’s too much failure, classify it or don’t report it.”For now, the security situation remains murky.Officials with the U.S.-led Resolute Support mission told SIGAR the Afghan government maintains control of Kabul, provincial capitals, major population centers and most district centers but that Taliban forces are vying for control in some areas even while reducing attacks against Afghan forces in provincial capitals.But Afghan officials have accused the Taliban of killing more than 100 Afghan security forces, while also killing or wounding up to 800 civilians, since signing the February peace-building deal with the U.S.And while both U.S. officials and the United Nations found overall civilian casualties decreased during the first three months of 2020, the United Nations said civilian deaths due to anti-government forces, mainly the Taliban, rose by 22 percent, including the deaths of 150 children.Late last month, the Taliban also rejected calls for a cease-fire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.There is also growing uncertainty about the impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on Afghanistan.So far, the government has reported just under 2,200 confirmed cases and 64 deaths, but the SIGAR report warns the worst is yet to come.“Afghanistan’s numerous unique vulnerabilities — a weak health care system, widespread malnutrition, porous borders, massive internal displacement, proximity to Iran (where the disease has spread widely), and ongoing conflict — raise the possibility of significant social and economic disruption in the coming months,” it said.Afghanistan & Pakistan Bureau Chief Ayesha Tanzeem contributed to this story.
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