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Ray Cordeiro considers himself the luckiest radio DJ in the world.
 
In a storied career spanning over 70 years in Hong Kong, Cordeiro has interviewed superstars including the Beatles and Elton John, and even received an MBE — an order of the British empire for outstanding achievement or service to the community — from Queen Elizabeth.
 
Cordeiro, who holds the Guinness world record for the world’s longest-working DJ, retired last month at the age of 96.
 
“I’ve been talking all my life about music and all, and I’d never thought that I would retire. I never thought that I was getting older,” he said.
 
Cordeiro was born in 1924 in Hong Kong and is of Portuguese descent. His musical tastes as a child were influenced by his brother who was 10 years older and collected records from groups like the Mills Brothers and the Andrews Sisters.
 
Back then records were breakable, Cordeiro said.
 
“When he’s not home and I played his records, I had to be very, very careful, because if I broke it he would get awfully angry,” Cordeiro said. “I grew up with his music.”  
 
In his youth, Cordeiro worked as a warden at a local prison and a clerk at an HSBC bank. His love for music eventually led him to pursue a career in radio, where he joined public broadcaster Radio Hong Kong, now known as Radio Television Hong Kong.
 
It was during a three-month study course in London with the BBC in 1964 that Cordeiro landed the interview that kickstarted his career — with the Beatles, the biggest band in the world at the time.
 
He had some free time after the end of the course before he had to return to Hong Kong and didn’t want to “sit around for two weeks doing nothing.”
 
“So, I said, why don’t I grab the chance of finding some peeps, some pop groups or singers that I can interview and bring back (tapes) to Hong Kong,” he said.
 
During those two weeks, Cordeiro traveled to venues where groups were performing and interviewed them afterward.
 
The Beatles had become wildly popular and Cordeiro wanted to interview them the most. Armed with a notebook and a pen, he went to the offices of the band’s record label, EMI, to ask for an interview with the group.
 
By a stroke of luck, he was told to return the next day for an interview, with EMI loaning him a tape recorder for it. He bought a magazine with a picture of the Beatles on the cover and took it with him to the interview and got all the members to autograph it.
“Altogether I have some 26 signatures of all the Beatles, and it’s probably worth a fortune,” he said.
 
The interview was short because he didn’t have a lot of tape in the tape recorder, but Cordeiro managed to spend time with each member of the Beatles. He said John Lennon recounted the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg, Germany, where they lived in relative poverty and played in clubs.
 
He later interviewed the Beatles again when they visited Hong Kong. The interviews shot him to fame, and he quickly became Hong Kong’s top DJ, armed with interviews he had conducted in London with the popular music groups at the time.
 
“I had a career before that, because I was interviewing local pop stars, but when you compare them to the Beatles it is something quite different,” he said.  
 
As the city’s most recognizable DJ, he also got to know other stars such as Elton John and Tony Bennett.
 
Known for his deep, calm voice, flat cap and easy listening repertoire, Cordeiro garnered a loyal following of listeners who would tune in to his weekday radio show “All the Way with Ray,” which ran from 1970 until last month.  
 
“I fulfilled my work as a DJ, did what I had to do and the audience followed me, grew up with me, and they’re all over the world now,” he said. “They’re all over and they still listened to me on the internet.”
 
Asked if he were to do it all over again if he would pick being a DJ as a career, Cordeiro doesn’t hesitate.
 
“I don’t think I have to actually think about it, the answer is yes,” he said.
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An ideologically broad group of Israeli political parties struck a fragile deal late Wednesday that could unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Less than an hour before a midnight deadline, Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid party, announced that he had secured the support of the majority of the 120-seat Knesset.  Naftali Bennett, who leads the hardline nationalist Yamina party, announced his support for Lapid’s coalition on Sunday. The agreement between the two would see Bennett serve the first two years as prime minister before Lapid rotates into the role. But Lapid’s fragile eight-party coalition has a thin majority in the Knesset. Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli, whose party is a member of Lapid’s coalition, expressed hope that their shared animosity toward Netanyahu will provide enough incentive to find some common ground.“Throughout the last campaign and also for the last two months, I reiterated and promised that the Labor party would make every effort to form a government that would replace the Netanyahu regime,” he said. “There were days that were very, very uneasy. Today, we succeeded, we made history, we held our promise. As we always promised you to tell the truth and to do what we said we will do, tonight, we’ve succeeded.”President Reuven Rivlin gave Lapid the opportunity to bring together a coalition of parties after Netanyahu failed to do so in early May. The Knesset is now required to hold a vote of confidence in the new government, a procedure that cannot be approved until the next plenum session, which is scheduled for Monday. FILE – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he speaks at a military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 19, 2021.Israel has been in a period of political turmoil for two years, during which the country has held four elections.  After two 2019 elections, Netanyahu failed to form a coalition but stayed on as caretaker prime minister. A year ago, he formed a coalition government with rival Benny Gantz, but that fell apart in December as parliament failed to pass a budget.  The 71-year-old Netanyahu has been prime minister since 2009 after holding the same office for three years in the 1990s. He is on trial facing criminal corruption charges but has denied any wrongdoing.   
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As gunfire crackled outside, Genet Webea huddled with her husband and seven-year-old daughter, praying they would be spared in the latest bout of ethnic strife to rock central Ethiopia.
But that morning in April, around a dozen gunmen broke down the front door and, ignoring Genet’s pleas for mercy, fatally shot her husband in the chest and stomach.
He was one of more than 100 civilians to die in a recent flare-up of violence in the town of Ataye that also saw the assailants torch more than 1,500 buildings, leaving once-bustling streets lined with charred and twisted metal.
The destruction continues a pattern of unrest that has blighted the tenure of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, and now threatens to disrupt elections in which he will seek a new term.
Ethiopia’s polls are scheduled for June 21, but officials say insecurity and logistical challenges make voting impossible — at least for now — in at least 26 constituencies across the country.
That includes Ataye, where Abiy’s vision of unity for Ethiopia’s diverse population of 110 million can seem like a distant dream.
Since Abiy became prime minister in 2018, the town has endured at least six rounds of ethnic killings, and ties between members of the country’s two largest groups, the Oromos and Amharas, have visibly frayed, said mayor Agagenew Mekete.
Genet, an ethnic Amhara, told AFP that since the April attack she blanches when she hears the language of her husband’s ethnic Oromo killers, saying it conjures the painful image of him bleeding out on their kitchen floor.
“I don’t want to see or hear them,” she told AFP.‘It was a war’
A lowland farming town 270 kilometers (167 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa, Ataye’s population of 70,000 is majority Amhara, but it borders Oromo settlements in three directions. For Agagenew, the mayor, the relentless violence reflects tensions over lush land used to grow wheat, sorghum and maize.
Ethiopia is Africa’s second most-populous country, with different ethnic groups living cheek by jowl in some areas, straining ties as they jostle for land and resources.
In recent years tensions have worsened in parts of the country, leading to deadly violence and displacing millions.
Abiy took office vowing to put an end to the government’s iron-fisted rule, yet this has created space for violent ethno-nationalists to wreak havoc, Agagenew said.
“There has been a looseness after Abiy came to office, in the name of widening the democracy,” he said.
“There is looseness in enforcing the rule of law.”
Like Genet, he blames the killings partly on the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel group that lawmakers last month designated a terrorist organization.
But the OLA denies any presence in the area and says officials falsely invoke the rebels to justify “ethnic cleansing” against ordinary Oromos.
Boru, who gave only his first name for safety reasons, is one of several Oromo residents of Ataye who said the OLA were not involved.
Instead, he said, the carnage was set off when Amhara security forces shot dead an Oromo imam outside a mosque, then prevented mourners from retrieving the body.
“It did not come out of the blue,” he said. “It was a war. Each side was attacking the other.”
This jibes with accounts from officials in nearby Oromo communities, who note that the violence extended beyond Ataye and claimed many Oromo victims.
Ethiopia’s chief ombudsman, Endale Haile, told AFP more than 400 were killed in total and more than 400,000 displaced, declining to provide an ethnic breakdown.Election apathy  
Whoever bears responsibility, there is no disputing the killings have left Ataye resembling a ghost town.
The hospital and police station were both ransacked, and demolished storefronts offer only scattered clues — burnt shoeboxes, the ripped sign of a beauty salon — to what they once contained.
Most residents have fled, with crowds gathering only when officials hand out sacks of wheat as food aid.
Ethiopia’s electoral board insists voting will take place in Ataye and other violence-wracked constituencies before a new parliamentary session opens in October.
But no preparations are under way and residents have little enthusiasm.
“Why would we vote in elections? We have no interest in elections,” said 19-year-old Hawa Seid. “We’ve lost our homes.”‘Politicized’ deaths  
The Ataye violence spurred days of protests in cities across the Amhara region, where the bloodshed could shape the election.
“For people whose basic existence is questioned and being violated, I think the security of Amharas all over Ethiopia will determine how people vote,” said Dessalegn Chanie, senior member of the National Movement for Amhara, an opposition party.
The Amhara Association of America, a Washington-based lobbying firm, says more than 2,000 Amharas have been killed in dozens of massacres going back to last July.
The regional spokesman, Gizachew Muluneh, accused rival parties of “trying to politicize the killings and get something from the deaths of others,” adding, “It is not morally good.”
Genet, whose husband was shot dead in their kitchen, participated in the protests herself.
“I was happy to be there because I wanted to show how much they are hurting us and to ask the government to stop the Amhara genocide,” she said.
But she has not given up on the idea that Amharas and Oromos could one day live together in harmony.
She noted that after her husband was killed, Oromo neighbors briefly housed her and her daughter until it was safe to leave.
It was a gesture of kindness that reminded her of a more peaceful era she would like to return to.
“Once,” she said, “we all lived together like a family.”
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It went down to the wire on Wednesday, but Israel has a new government after 2 years and 4 elections. The new governing coalition effectively ends Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12 years in office.
 
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President Joe Biden is launching a monthlong nationwide push to get 70% of American adults vaccinated by Independence Day on July 4. But the administration has not yet outlined its vaccine-sharing strategy with the rest of the world. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Central American leaders to tackle corruption, poverty and drug trafficking to improve the lives of their citizens and stem migration to the United States. Blinken made the appeal in Costa Rica, where he met with the region’s leaders, as VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Authorities in Australia’s southern state of Victoria have extended a one-week lockdown for its capital, Melbourne, to contain the spread of a new COVID-19 outbreak. The lockdown was initially imposed across the entire state last week after health officials detected a highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that was rapidly spreading across Victoria state.  The latest outbreak has been linked to an overseas traveler who became infected with a variant first detected in India during his mandatory hotel quarantine phase. FILE – A mostly-empty city street is seen on the first day of a seven-day lockdown as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, May 28, 2021.Health officials announced six new locally acquired COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 60.   “If we let this thing run its course, it will explode,” Victoria state Acting Premier James Merlino told reporters in Melbourne.  “We’ve got to run this to ground because if we don’t, people will die.”   Although Melbourne’s 5 million residents will remain under strict restrictions until June 10, the lockdown measures have been lifted for residents in regional Victoria, with limits on public and private gatherings and restaurant capacity.   The new lockdown is the fourth one imposed on Melbourne and Victoria state since the start of the pandemic.  The most severe period occurred in mid-2020, which lasted more than three months as Victoria was under the grip of a second wave of COVID-19 infections that killed more than 800 people. Moderna seeking full FDA authorization
In the United States, Moderna said Tuesday it is seeking full authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its COVID-19 vaccine for adults 18 years old and older. The Moderna two-shot vaccine is one of three coronavirus vaccines the FDA authorized for emergency use in the United States, playing a major role in the steadily declining number of new infections in the country.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say more than 150 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been distributed since the emergency use authorization was granted last December.   FILE – A nurse draws a Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine, in Los AngelesModerna announced last week that it will apply for emergency use authorization this month to administer the vaccine to young people after discovering it was safe and effective for children between 12 and 17 years old.  If approved, it will join the two-shot vaccine developed by Pfizer and Bio N Tech that was authorized for use in 12 to 15 years old last month.   Brazil to host soccer tournamentBrazil confirmed Tuesday that it will host the troubled Copa America soccer tournament despite warnings of an upcoming new wave of new infections.   President Jair Bolsonaro said the tournament, which will take place from June 13 to July 10, will be held in the capital Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Cuiaba and Goiania.   The tournament’s organizers, the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), announced Monday it was moving the upcoming event to Brazil due to a surge of new COVID-19 infections in Argentina, which was co-hosting the tournament with Colombia, which is unable to stage the tournament because of massive anti-government street protests.   Scientists in Brazil are concerned about hosting a tournament in a nation with a more transmissible COVID-19 variant, with many predicting another wave of the disease to hit the country in a matter of weeks.  The opposition Workers Party has filed an injunction with the Brazilian Supreme Court to block the tournament.  FILE – Demonstrators shouts slogans during a protest against the government’s response in combating COVID-19, demanding the impeachment of President Jair Bolsonaro, in Rio de Janeiro, May 29, 2021.President Bolsonaro has come under heavy criticism for his apparently dismissive attitude toward the pandemic, and is the subject of a congressional investigation over his government’s management of the crisis.   Brazil trails only the United States and India in the total number of coronavirus cases with more than 16.6  million, and is second only to the U.S. in deaths at more than 465,199, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
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On Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting American president to commemorate the anniversary of the destruction of a prosperous Black community by a white mob that left up to 300 people dead and 10,000 homeless.
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On Tuesday, Italy lifted restrictions on indoor dining, Germany downgraded the coronavirus risk level from very high to high, and Israel lifted almost all pandemic restrictions. More from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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Greece, Germany and five other European Union nations introduced a vaccination certificate system for travelers on Tuesday, weeks ahead of the July 1 rollout of the program across the 27-nation bloc.The other countries starting early were Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia and Poland, according to the European Commission.Greece, which depends heavily on tourism, has been pressing for the commonly recognized certificate that uses a QR code with advanced security features. The certificates are being issued to people who are fully vaccinated, as well as those who have already contracted the virus and developed antibodies, and others who have had a PCR test within the last 72 hours.The documents will have both digital and paper forms. They’ll be free of charge, distributed in the national language plus English and be valid in all the bloc’s countries.”EU citizens are looking forward to traveling again, and they want to do so safely. Having an EU certificate is a crucial step on the way,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said.Greece’s digital governance minister, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said easier travel will open up within the EU as nations adopt the new verification standard.”What will happen is that countries will stop issuing certificates using their own convention and adopt the common convention. That will simplify things considerably, because you can imagine the number of bilateral agreements that would otherwise need to be worked out,” Pierrakakis told private Skai television.Kyriakides said in the next few weeks, all EU nations need to “fully finalize their national systems to issue, store and verify certificates so the system is functioning in time for the holiday season.”Countries will be allowed to add extra vaccines to their individual entry list, including those that have not been formally approved for use across the EU.The EU Commission believes that people who are vaccinated should no longer have to be tested or put into quarantines, regardless of where they are traveling to or from, starting 14 days after receiving their second shot. Member countries, however, have not yet endorsed that recommendation.
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Israel’s defense minister on Monday distanced himself from comments made by his military chief after Israel bombed a Gaza Strip high-rise housing an Associated Press office and other news outlets, saying the remarks were not meant to be taken literally.In an article published on the website of Channel 12 news over the weekend, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, was quoted as saying that “the building was destroyed justly” and he did not have a “gram of regret.”The article claimed that the Hamas militant group that rules Gaza used various floors of the Jalaa Tower for “significant electronic warfare” meant to disrupt Israeli air force GPS communications.The article then said Kohavi had told “a foreign source” that AP journalists drank coffee each morning in a cafeteria in the building’s entrance with Hamas electronics experts, whether they knew it or not.The AP called the comments ” patently false,” noting that “there was not even a cafeteria in the building.”Asked about Kohavi’s comments, Defense Minister Benny Gantz told foreign journalists that the military chief was only speaking in figurative terms.”When the chief of staff talked about it, he was trying to portray the atmosphere, not the actual aspects,” Gantz said.Gantz again alleged that “there was Hamas infrastructure in offices that operated from this building.”Asked to respond to Gantz’s comments, the military spokesman’s office also said Kohavi’s statements were meant to be figurative.”It was never claimed that AP journalists were knowingly interacting with Hamas personnel. On the contrary, due to the nature of Hamas’ activities, AP journalists had no means of knowing that Hamas personnel were in the building,” it said.”The chief of the general staff explained the possible circumstances of such an encounter where the terrorist organization Hamas embeds itself within the civilian population and uses civilian buildings for military purposes,” it said.The Israeli army gave occupants of the building one hour to evacuate before the May 15 airstrike. No one was injured, but the high-rise was reduced to rubble.The AP has said it had no indication of a Hamas presence in the building and was never warned of any possible presence before that day. It has called for an independent investigation and urged Israel to make public its intelligence.Gantz said Israel has shared its intelligence with the U.S. government. But he indicated that Israel has no intention of making the information public, saying it did not want to divulge its sources.
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Nigerian political observers are expressing concern over the many attacks on the facilities of Nigeria’s electoral body – the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC. INEC officials say the commission has recorded at least 42 attacks on its facilities since the last polls in 2019.
 
Nine attacks occurred in 2019 and 21 others took place last year. But in the last four weeks, 12 more offices of the commission have either been set ablaze or vandalized.
 
The latest incident occurred Sunday in southeastern Imo state. Ballot boxes, voting cubicles, power generators and utility vehicles were destroyed.
 
Election officials are evaluating the extent of the damage but say an initial assessment shows it could significantly affect their ability to conduct credible elections in the affected places.
 
Political analysts like Jibrin Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy and Development, agree that attacks on facilities coupled with Nigeria’s general security challenges and separatist calls in two areas will affect polls.
 
“When some people are saying, ‘We want out of the nation,’ others are saying let’s just vote and keep the nation, it becomes a difficult context to ensure that there’s a level playing ground for election,” Ibrahim said.
 
Officials blame unidentified armed groups and the separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, for the latest attacks. IPOB advocates for an independent state in a part of Nigeria that tried to break away more than 50 years ago.  
 
The government has not commented on the attacks.
 
In recent months, Nigeria has seen an escalation in violence by armed criminal groups, as well as the rising profile of IPOB and another separatist movement in southwestern Nigeria.  
 
But political analyst and co-founder Youth Hub Africa Rotimi Olawale says insecurities can only delay elections but not hinder them.  
 
“I am assured that the 2023 general elections will hold as scheduled. In 2019, the election was moved for a couple of weeks to allow for better management of the security architecture in the northeastern part of Nigeria. At the very worst-case scenario, I suspect that the elections in 2023 might also be moved for a few weeks,” Olawale said.
 
Last week, INEC chief Mahmood Yakubu declared attacks on election offices a national emergency and met with top security chiefs to address the problem.
 
At a meeting Thursday, Nigerian security units pledged to support the commission by beefing up security around election offices.
 
However, expert Ezenwa Nwagwu says the attacks are politically driven and will likely escalate before the next polls.
 
“The Nigerian political elite [is] not innovative. They have not found any other means of negotiating for power except violence. You’re going to see that towards next year, there will be the escalation of this violence,” Nwagwu said.
 
INEC is approaching a major gubernatorial election, set for this November. Next month, the commission will begin a voter registration process for Nigeria’s general polls in 2023.
 
Experts say the security situation will determine both turnout and the credibility of the process.
 
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In marking World No-Tobacco Day, the World Health Organization is urging smokers to quit their habit, warning they are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than non-smokers.     Head of WHO’s Tobacco Control Program, Vinayak Prasad tells VOA a plethora of scientific studies over the past year confirm smokers face a 50%  higher risk of developing severe disease and death from COVID-19.    “It is logical because smoking does compromise on the lung functions and this virus does attack the lungs. So, that is where we see the rational for taking measures to not use tobacco,” he said.    The World Health Organization is urging smokers to join its year-long quit tobacco campaign, which helps countries scale-up their tobacco-control services. These include running national awareness campaigns, opening new cessation clinics, and offering nicotine replacement therapies.   Prasad says it is of utmost importance to make users aware of the risks they run. He says some eight million people will die prematurely this year from tobacco-related illnesses, such as cancers, heart disease and respiratory illnesses. Most of these deaths will occur in low-income countries.   He notes it usually takes decades for these deadly illnesses to develop. Therefore, preventing young people from taking up this habit is essential as that can lead to a life-long addiction.    FILE – Customers puff on e-cigarettes at the Henley Vaporium in New York City, Dec. 18, 2013.He accuses the tobacco industry of targeting young people to get them hooked on their products by offering freebies, such as tickets to concerts, nicotine pouches and e-cigarettes. This, he says has been met with success in many countries. For example, he notes 38% of Indonesia’s teenage boys smoke. “Likewise, in European settings for example, the girls’, the women’s tobacco use is so high, that the male to female difference is no longer there… The industry is continuing to reap all of these benefits they can getting more and more women, targeting the girl child, adolescents from this divide, and then continuing to push their products in developing countries,”  he said.  WHO reports imposing substantial taxes on tobacco products is one of the most effective ways of getting smokers to quit. Other successful smoke-reduction measures include a ban on advertisements and promotions, health warnings on tobacco products and designating areas as smoke-free zones. 
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All seven passengers aboard a plane, including “Tarzan” actor Joe Lara and his diet guru wife, are presumed dead after it crashed in a lake near the U.S. city of Nashville, authorities said.
 
The small business jet crashed at around 11:00 am local time Saturday, shortly after taking off from the Smyrna, Tennessee airport for Palm Beach, Florida, Rutherford County Fire & Rescue (RCFR) said on Facebook.
 
The plane went down into Percy Priest Lake, about 19 kilometers south of Nashville.
 
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed seven people had been aboard the plane, CNN reported.
 
By Saturday night, operations had switched from search and rescue to recovery efforts, RCFR incident commander Captain Joshua Sanders told a press conference.
 
“We are no longer in an attempt to (look) for live victims at this point so we’re now recovering as much as we can from the crash site,” he said.
 
On Sunday afternoon, RCFR said on Facebook that recovery operations had found “several components of the aircraft as well as human remains” in a debris field about half a mile wide.
 
Operations would continue until dark and resume Monday morning, RCFR wrote.
 
Lara played Tarzan in the 1989 television movie “Tarzan in Manhattan.” He later starred in the television series “Tarzan: The Epic Adventures,” which ran from 1996-1997.
 
His wife Gwen Shamblin Lara, whom he married in 2018, was the leader of a Christian weight-loss group called Weigh Down Ministries. She founded the group in 1986, and then in 1999 founded the Remnant Fellowship Church in Brentwood, Tennessee.
 
She is survived by two children from a previous marriage, according to a statement posted on the church’s website.
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Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday for a record-equaling fourth time, in front of the largest crowd to attend a sporting event in the United States since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.The 46-year-old Brazilian surged to the front with two laps to go and held off a challenge from hard-charging Spanish young gun Alex Palou to claim victory and join AJ Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser as the only four-time winners of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”It was the 21st Indy 500 start for Castroneves but his first with Meyer Shank Racing, his other wins in 2001, 2002 and 2009 all coming with Team Penske.With the race back in its traditional U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend slot, after last year’s event was moved to August and held at an empty track because of the pandemic, a sold-out crowd of 135,000 excited fans flocked to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.While the crowd was well shy of the nearly 400,000 that the speedway can accommodate, the roars returned to the Brickyard as fans partied in the sunshine.
 
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West African leaders suspended Mali from their regional bloc Sunday over what they said amounted to a coup last week, Ghana’s foreign minister said after an emergency meeting to address the political crisis in Mali.The 15-nation bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, “is worried about the security implications for West Africa because of the continued insecurity brought about by the political upheavals in that country,” Ghana Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said.  At the end of their summit, the heads of state of the ECOWAS member nations demanded that Malian authorities immediately release former transitional President Bah N’Daw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, who are being kept under house arrest.  In their statement, the leaders condemned the arrests by Mali’s military, which they said violated mediation steps agreed to last September, a month after a coup led by the same man who has now again taken power in Mali, Col. Assimi Goita.  ECOWAS also called for a new civilian prime minister to be nominated immediately and a new inclusive government to be formed as well as a transition of power leading to February 2022 elections. A monitoring mechanism will be put in place to assure this, they added.   In addition, the statement said, the head of the transition government, the vice president and the prime minister should not under any circumstances be candidates in the planned February 27 presidential election.  ECOWAS urged all international partners, including the African Union, the United Nations and the European Union, to continue to support the successful implementation of the transition in Mali.  The heads of state expressed “strong and deep concerns over the present crisis in Mali, which is coming halfway to the end of the agreed transition period, in the context of the security challenges related to incessant terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic with its dire socio-economic impacts,” the statement said.  Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo opened the summit Sunday in Accra, saying ECOWAS must “remain resolute in supporting the people of Mali to find a peaceful solution, and restore democracy and stability in the country.”  Mali’s constitutional court on Friday named Goita as the West African nation’s government leader days after he seized power by deposing the president and prime minister and forced their resignations.  Their arrests last Monday by the military took place hours after a new cabinet was named that left out two major military leaders. The court said Friday that Goita would take the responsibilities of the interim president “to lead the transition process to its conclusion.”The deposed interim president and prime minister had been appointed following the August 2020 coup led by Goita. That coup, against then-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, led to mediations by ECOWAS and Nigeria’s former leader, Goodluck Jonathan. The transitional government was set up with Goita as transitional vice president. Elections were to be held in February and March 2022.  After taking power, Goita assured that the elections would still be held, though it wasn’t clear what part the military would play in the government.  The international community, including the African Union, has condemned the power grab. The U.N. Security Council has said the resignations of N’Daw and Ouane were coerced. The U.S. has already pulled its security force support and other bodies, including the EU and France, are threatening sanctions.  Goita has justified his actions by saying there was discord within the transitional government and that he wasn’t consulted, per the transitional charter, when the new cabinet was chosen.  Akufo-Addo said Sunday that ECOWAS was committed “to the peaceful transition in Mali, with the basic goal of restoring democratic government, and working for the stability of Mali and of our region.”  He acknowledged that a May 14 dissolution of the government by the transitional prime minister was worrying and the reappointment of the new, broad-based government on May 24 hours before the arrests “generated considerable tension between various groups, particularly the military, as the former ministers for defense and security were not reappointed.”Goita attended the summit after being named transitional president by the court. Presidents Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea Bissau, Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast, Adama Barrow of The Gambia and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria were also in attendance, along with presidents from Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and Liberia.  The heads of state called for the immediate implementation of all the decisions made Sunday. Jonathan is expected to return to Mali within the week to “engage stakeholders on these decisions.”
 
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