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President Donald Trump says he’s ready to return to the campaign trail after his recent COVID-19 diagnosis. Former Vice President Joe Biden is heading to Ohio this week to press his case for a White House win come November 3rd. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate begins confirmation hearings on Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee for the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Michelle Quinn reports.PRODUCER: Mary Cieslak
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China staged a large-scale island invasion military exercise during Taiwan’s National Day as President Tsai Ing-wen called for “meaningful dialogue” with Beijing.  The simulated night attack drill Saturday included drones, special forces and airborne troops moving from multiple locations, according to a report by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV).  It was the first time in recent years that Chinese media had disclosed the entire process of a staged military landing in Taiwan.  “The exercise, with the effective integration of multiple new combat forces, increased the actual combat capability of the troops in joint landing and three-dimensional assault,” the report said.  Tensions over Taiwan have risen sharply in recent weeks as Beijing has ramped up military pressure with its warplanes almost daily crossing the sensitive “median line” of the Taiwan Strait that normally serves as an unofficial buffer zone.  According to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, a Chinese military aircraft entered the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) again Sunday, marking the 17th such incursion since Sept. 16, when Taipei began regularly publishing Chinese military movements on its website.  Beijing views self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and says it must one day be reunited with the mainland – by force if necessary.  Speaking at National Day celebrations, the Taiwan president described the situation in the Taiwan Strait as “quite tense” and called for “meaningful dialogue” with Beijing on an equal basis.  “As long as the Beijing authorities are willing to resolve antagonisms and improve cross-strait relations, while parity and dignity are maintained, we are willing to work together to facilitate meaningful dialogue,” Tsai said.  Beijing responded by accusing Taipei of trying to keep its “confrontational thinking and hostility” toward China.  “Taiwan independence is a dead end, while confrontation will lead to nowhere,” said Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson at the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, on Saturday.  Chinese state media also reported on Sunday that the government has cracked hundreds of espionage cases involving spies from Taiwan in a special initiative called “Thunder 2020.” A CCTV report singled out one Taiwan resident, Li Meng-chu, saying he was “instigated by ‘Taiwan independence’ forces” to engage in espionage.
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Life on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota can be harsh: it’s poor, it’s dangerous, and there are few prospects for girls and young women. But women of the Lakota tribe are taking their lives and their future into their own hands, offering the young generation of women new opportunities. Victoria Kupchinetsky reports.VIDEOGRAPHER: Vladimir Badikov
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Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has won his record extending 13th French Open title, defeating Novak Djokovic of Serbia 6-0, 6-2,7-5 on Sunday. With the win at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, the Spaniard notched his 20th Grand Slam title, moving into a tie with Swiss tennis great Roger Federer for most men’s major titles ever. Nadal dominated Sunday’s match from the start, but Djokovic came to life in the third set before his serve was broken at 5-5. In the women’s draw Saturday, Poland’s Iga Swiatek defeated American Sofia Kenin 6-4,6-1.   This year’s French Open was held a month later than normal due to the coronavirus pandemic.  
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Alex Chong, whose company, MBA Crew, owns nine restaurants in Malaysia was having trouble last Friday luring customers in for lunch, a sign of the economic pain facing the country because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was not a lot of foot traffic at the MyTown Shopping Centre, a destination mall in a commercial area, and Chong, MBA Crew’s managing director, was standing in front of one of the company’s restaurants, Leleh, specializing in Malaysian food. “Just a couple of weeks ago, we would have had a lot more foot traffic in the mall at this time,” he told VOA. It has been this way across Malaysia for the past week. The country has seen a surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Alex Chong says a recent spike in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Malaysia has meant a dramatic drop in business at his company’s nine restaurants. (Daven Grunebaum/VOA)“So, people are just staying at home and they are more afraid,” Chong said. For several months it looked like Malaysia had things generally under control, but the country had record high new case numbers several days last week. A popular shopping mall has been temporarily closed after several positive cases were linked to it. Even Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and several members of his Cabinet are now in quarantine after Religious Affairs Minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri tested positive. “It just shows how anyone can get this and we all need to be really careful,” said Sam Lee, age 29, as he headed to his car after finishing work on Friday. “I’m going straight home now. No happy hour drinks for me,” he said. Rising health concerns are taking an increasing toll on local businesses.  Alex Chong says after several rough months during the start of the pandemic, business was bouncing back in August and September. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)Chong said business at his restaurants is down by more than 50% from just a few weeks ago. He said if this continues for a few more weeks he may have to close two restaurants and lay off about 20 employees.  “We’ll have to shut down those locations where our landlords don’t give us rebates, our landlords don’t help us with the rentals,” Chong said. Hakimi Azri, 32, had lunch outside with some friends Friday but said such occasions are becoming rarer for him because the rising number of COVID-19 cases has convinced him to spend more time at home. Hakimi Azri (middle) enjoyed lunch outside with some friends. Azri says he usually goes straight home from work each day because of the rising number of Covid-19 cases. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)“Most of the time, I only just go to work and then just immediately go back to the house,” he said.  “Even for my colleagues and my friends, I can say they’re doing like that.”  At Lim Brothers Fruits, Ben Lim made his store’s signature rojak fruit salad, a Southeast Asian specialty, with a mix of papaya, mango, apples, guava and spices. The shop has been operating for 45 years. Ben Lim prepares his family fruit shop’s popular rojak salad. Lim says business is down almost 40-percent in just the past week. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)Lim said business has dropped 40% just in the past week, on top of decreased sales since the start of the pandemic, and now the store is barely breaking even. “Much more fear, concern about how the businesses will be affected, on the rental of this shop, and the salary of our staff,” he said.  Lim said that, so far, the store has not laid off any employees, but he took a pay cut. He also said the store is stocking considerably less fruit than it was before the pandemic. Chong said that after several rough months, starting in March, his restaurants were bouncing back in August and September and he had thought a comeback was on the horizon, but the latest plunge has changed his outlook. “I’m totally blank. I don’t know what to do,” he said.  
  
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Israel will oppose any U.S. sale of F-35 warplanes to Qatar, Israel’s intelligence minister said on Sunday, citing a need to maintain Israeli military superiority in the region.Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen made the comments on Israeli Army Radio when asked about a Reuters report that Qatar had submitted a formal request to Washington to buy stealthy F-35 fighter jets.Asked whether Israel would oppose such a sale, Cohen said: “The answer is yes. Our security and military superiority in the region are the most significant things for us. Our region has still not turned into Switzerland.”The Qatari request follows an August deal between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates in which Washington agreed to consider giving the Gulf state approval to buy F-35s in a side deal to a U.S.-brokered agreement called the Abraham Accord to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel. 
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About 40 unidentified people armed with metal bars and using fireworks as projectiles tried to storm a police station in the Paris suburbs on Saturday night, officials said.   “Violent attack last night on the police station of Champigny with mortar shots and various projectiles. No police officer was injured,” the Paris police headquarters said on Twitter on Sunday.   The police posted a video showing a barrage of fireworks going off in the direction of the police station in Champigny-sur-Marne, about 15 km (nine miles) southeast of central Paris. The assailants tried to force entry into the station but failed to do so.   Nobody was arrested, but images showed smashed windows at the station and damaged cars.   The motive for the attack, the third on this police station in two years, was not immediately clear. The station is in a housing estate area known for drug trafficking and deemed by authorities as a high priority district for order to be restored.   Champigny Mayor Laurent Jeanne said the attack may have been triggered after a scooter accident that local residents blamed on the police.   “It was an organized attack of about 40 people who wanted to do battle. For a few days it has been tense with people who have a certain willingness to do battle with the police,” he told BFM TV.   “Little gang leaders don’t impress anyone, and they will not deter our work fighting drug trafficking,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter. “Full support for our police officers who are doing a difficult job.”   A spate of criminal incidents across France since the end of the COVID-19 lockdown in mid-May has put President Emmanuel Macron’s government on heightened alert for increases in crime amid the economic fallout from the pandemic.  
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Texas voters are back to facing limits on places to drop off their absentee ballots while a federal appeals court considers whether Republican Gov. Greg Abbot violated voting rights by his decision to provide Texas voters with only one ballot drop-off location per county for the Nov. 3 presidential election.Late Saturday the appeals court lifted an injunction granted Friday by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman.Abbott said the limit on ballot boxes was meant to discourage voter fraud. His order was issued after multiple ballot box locations had been set up and the dropping off of ballots had begun.Pitman wrote in his 46-page decision, “By limiting ballot return centers to one per county, older and disabled voters living in Texas’s largest and most populous counties must travel further distances to more crowded ballot return centers where they would be at an increased risk of being infected by the coronavirus in order to exercise their right to vote and have it counted.”Voting rights activists have argued that Abbott’s decision was a move to suppress the vote.The U.S. has a long history of absentee ballot voting, but this year Republican President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have vehemently opposed it.
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The world marks the International Day of the Girl Child on Sunday, during a year in which a global pandemic and subsequent economic downturn has created further challenges for girls.The United Nations, which created the day in 2011 to promote girls’ rights, says difficulties already faced by girls have been exacerbated by the coronavirus health crisis, including in the areas of education, child marriage, domestic violence and economic opportunity.A U.N. website for the observance says by next year, an estimated 435 million women and girls will be living on less than $1.90 a day – including 47 million “pushed into poverty as a result of COVID-19.”It notes that the loss of economic prosperity and education for girls fueled by the crisis is also linked to increased levels of violence.The U.N. says even before the pandemic, one in three women worldwide had experienced physical or sexual violence. “Emerging data shows that since the outbreak of COVID-19, violence against women and girls and particularly domestic violence, has intensified.”Child marriageDuring humanitarian crises, “time and again, we see other things getting prioritized” – including food and shelter, said Lyric Thompson, a policy expert for the Washington-based International Center for Research on Women.Thompson, who also co-chairs with Aria Grabowski, Girls Not Brides USA, part of the global coalition trying to halt child marriage, said during such times of crisis, the planning to counter “gendered forms of violence, including child marriage, falls by the wayside.”Child marriages have been on the rise during the pandemic as COVID-related lockdowns have kept youngsters out of school and, in some cases, confined them in close quarters with sexual predators. The pandemic has also led to families trying to place daughters in more economically stable households to ease their own financial burdens.An estimated 500,000 more girls around the world are at risk of being forced into child marriage in 2020 as a result of the effects of COVID-19, according to an October report by Save the Children.The surge in child marriages frustrates but does not surprise Grabowski, who recommended dedicating funding and programing early on in the pandemic to combat child marriage and gender-based violence.“So much of the health response is focused on infection prevention and control,” she said.Few optionsRohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh are one place where child marriages have risen since the onset of the pandemic.A refugee camp resident told VOA Bangladesh on condition of anonymity, “In some cases, families must live together in overcrowded tents in the camp. To make room, their daughters were married off before they reached adulthood.””No parent wants to give their daughter into the hands of others, but they have to marry because of circumstances,” he added.Wai Wai Nu, co-founder and director of the Women’s Peace Network, told VOA that the increase of child marriages in the camps is alarming.She said parents allow their child daughters to get married not because they are poor or uneducated, but because they believe that marriage can bring security for their daughters’ lives.“Parents believe that if their daughters are married off, their husbands can protect them better than the parents could,” she said.Domestic and sexual violenceOther forms of violence against girls are also on the rise during the pandemic, including in online spaces where more people are communicating as a result of increased social distancing.A recent survey by Plan International found 32% of Indonesian girls have experienced violence on social media, while 56% have witnessed violence on social media. The organization surveyed 500 Indonesian girls between the ages of 15 and 20.“Here (in Indonesia), girls do not only experience one type of gender-based online violence. Out of 500 girls, 395 said they experienced multiple instances (of violence), said Nazla Marisa, influencing director of Plan International Indonesia.No country is immune to the abuse. In the United States, minors accounted for half the calls made in March to the National Sexual Assault Hotline operated by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Of those claiming coronavirus concerns, “67% identified their perpetrator as a family member,” according to Harvard Medical School’s Center for Primary Care.U.N. Women has described the gender-based violence during the global coronavirus outbreak as a “shadow pandemic.” It says since the outbreak of COVID-19, all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, have intensified.EducationEducation is another area in which girls are suffering because of the coronavirus health crisis. Research by the Malala Fund estimates that 20 million secondary school-aged girls may never return to the classroom after the crisis is over.The Malala fund was started by activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived a shot in the head after being targeted for campaigning for girls’ education in Pakistan.Malala, who won the Noble Peace Prize for her efforts in 2014, spoke about the pandemic’s effect on girls education with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, in a video set to be released Sunday to mark the International Day of the Girl Child.The schooling of girls is critical to advancing gender equality, according to a new, related UNESCO report. The report said that despite an increase across all levels of education, girls are still more likely to suffer exclusion than boys, an outcome it said is exacerbated by the current pandemic.Around the world, 132 million girls are out of school, according to U.N. figures, with 1 in 3 adolescent girls from the poorest households having never been to school.Sasmito Madrim of the Indonesian Service, Ingyin Naing of the Burmese Service, Carol Guensburg of the Africa Division, and the Bangla Service contributed to this report.  
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Minutes after suddenly becoming a Grand Slam champion at age 19, while ranked just 54th in the world, Iga Swiatek held a microphone during the French Open trophy presentation and was hesitant for pretty much the only time over the past two weeks.”First of all, I’m not very good at speeches,” Swiatek began, haltingly, “so, sorry, because I won my last tournament like two years ago, and I really don’t know who to thank.”When she has a racket in her hand, it’s a whole different story. With the poise of a veteran and the shots of a champion, Swiatek wrapped up a dominating run at Roland Garros, grabbing the last six games to beat Sofia Kenin 6-4, 6-1 in Saturday’s final.”Two years ago, I won a junior Grand Slam, and right now I’m here. It feels like such a short time,” Swiatek said, her voice cracking. “I’m just overwhelmed.”Swiatek is the first Polish tennis player to win a major singles trophy and said, “I know it’s pretty crazy back home” — where one newspaper’s front page was splashed with the headline “Poland Garros” ahead of the final.The way she played these two weeks — with those great groundstrokes, the occasional drop shot, terrific returning and impressive court coverage — made this outcome less of a surprise.Kenin said Swiatek’s “spinny forehand up the line” bounces high enough to make things difficult for opponents.Swiatek lost 28 games across seven matches and is the first woman to triumph in Paris without ceding a set since Justine Henin in 2007. She’s the first teen to win the women’s title there since Iva Majoli in 1997.”She’s, like, really hot right now,” said Kenin, who was hampered by an injury to her upper left leg, an issue that first cropped up during a practice session last weekend.Swiatek beat both 2018 champion Simona Halep and 2019 runner-up Marketa Vondrousova 6-1, 6-2.So it made sense that Swiatek would handle the fourth-seeded Kenin, even if the 21-year-old from Florida won the Australian Open in February and entered Saturday 16-1 in Grand Slam play this year.This weekend is the culmination of an unusual two weeks, to say the least. The tournament was postponed from May-June to September-October because of the coronavirus pandemic; the recently rising number of COVID-19 cases in France led the government to limit the number of spectators allowed on the grounds to 1,000 each day.Some top women, including 2019 major champions Ash Barty, Naomi Osaka and Bianca Andreescu, didn’t enter the event at all; 23-time Slam winner Serena Williams withdrew before the second round with an injury.
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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Saturday he has been discharged from a New Jersey hospital where he spent a week, following his announcement that he had contracted the coronavirus.”I am happy to let you know that this morning I was released from Morristown Medical Center,” Christie said in a Saturday morning post on Twitter. “I want to thank the extraordinary doctors & nurses who cared for me for the last week. Thanks to my family & friends for their prayers. I will have more to say about all of this next week.”Christie announced Oct. 3 that he had tested positive and said hours later that he had checked himself into the hospital after deciding with his doctors that doing so would be “an important precautionary measure,” given his history of asthma.Christie was part of a string of virus cases connected to President Donald Trump’s inner circle. In addition to Trump and first lady Melania Trump, multiple people who had traveled with the president or attended events with him recently contracted the virus.Trump’s former 2016 rival told The Associated Press on Oct. 2 that the last time he was with the president was Sept. 29 in Cleveland during preparations for Trump’s debate with former Vice President Joe Biden. He tweeted the morning of Oct. 2 that he had last tested negative ahead of that first presidential debate and was not having any symptoms then.In 2013, during Christie’s first term as New Jersey governor, he underwent lap-band surgery and lost a significant amount of weight. Two years before that, he was hospitalized for difficulty breathing. The 58-year-old, who uses an inhaler, once called himself “the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump held a large White House political rally Saturday, his first public event since he tested positive recently for the coronavirus that has, according to Johns Hopkins University, claimed over 214,000 lives in the U.S., more than in any other country.The rally marked the resumption of public campaign activities for Trump, who was hospitalized for three nights for treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as the Nov. 3 presidential election draws closer.As questions lingered about his health, Trump spoke from a balcony without wearing a mask, telling a crowd of largely Blacks and Latinos, who have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, there are “a lot of flare-ups, but it’s going to disappear.”He said, without evidence, a “vaccine is coming very, very quickly, in record time.”All attendees were required to wear masks to what was billed as “a peaceful protest for law and order” White House event. They were urged to practice social distancing, were given temperature checks and were asked to complete a brief questionnaire. The Associated Press reported that most of those who gathered for his speech wore masks, but there was little social distancing.A crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters gather on the South Lawn to listen to him speak, Oct. 10, 2020, in Washington.The president’s last public event, the announcement of his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, took place Sept. 26 in the Rose Garden and was attended by more than 200 people, most of whom didn’t wear face masks. It has been described as a coronavirus super spreader — an event that is linked to a large number of new infections. After the Rose Garden event, more than two dozen people contracted COVID-19, including Trump, first lady Melania Trump and several aides.The “law and order” event was announced as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert, warned the White House to avoid large gatherings of people without masks.Trump’s doctors said the president began experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 on Oct. 1. Trump’s White House physician, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said in a statement Oct. 8 that Trump’s condition “remained stable and devoid of any indication to suggest progression of the illness,” and that Trump could safely resume holding events Saturday.CDC recommendationsThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have recovered from the infection continue to wear masks and take social-distancing precautions. Trump, who received experimental treatments for the coronavirus while hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, has been inconsistent in wearing masks during the pandemic.Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will take his campaign to Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the first presidential candidate to visit the city since Trump in 2016.The Erie County Democratic Party said Biden would meet with business owners, members of organized labor and other community members. The party said Biden’s visit would not be a major public event, citing the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the U.S.
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European countries are imposing a variety of new coronavirus containment measures as they confront a second wave of infections.The World Health Organization reported Friday that nearly one-third of a record-high one-day total of 350,000 new cases worldwide were in Europe.Record daily highs were reported Saturday in Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland and Russia.FILE – View of a swimming pool closed to the public in Prague, Czech Republic, Oct. 9, 2020. The Czech government has responded to record-high numbers of coronavirus infections by imposing further restrictive measures to try to contain the spread.The Czech Republic reported Friday that daily cases had reached a high for the fourth consecutive day. Italy, France, Germany and Ukraine also reported sharp increases Friday in new infections.But it was Spain that again became the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak, reporting 7,000 new cases Friday, a significant increase from a one-day low of 134 cases in June.The Spanish government declared a state of emergency Friday to reimpose a partial lockdown for several million people in and around Madrid after a regional court struck down the restrictions.Protective gloves hang by a testing booth as health workers prepare for the day at a COVID-19 testing center in Kohima, capital of the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, Oct. 10, 2020.On Saturday, India said it had recorded more than 73,000 new COVID cases in the previous 24 hours.In a press briefing Friday from Geneva, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan acknowledged that even as COVID-19 cases increase worldwide, “there are no new answers,” and he stressed that governments must ensure the most vulnerable people are protected.More than 37 million people in all have been confirmed infected with the coronavirus worldwide and more than 1 million have died, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins.COVAX cooperationChina said Friday that it was joining a World Health Organization international initiative to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to the developing world.Russia, the U.S. and previously China had said they were not joining the alliance to help two-thirds of world’s population receive the vaccines by 2022.China’s reversal made it the largest country to participate in what is known as the COVAX deal.“We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support COVAX,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement.
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Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov strengthened his grip on power on Saturday, reshuffling senior security officials and having his principal opponent, ex-president Almazbek Atambayev, detained again just days after he left prison.The president’s allies in parliament elected a new prime minister, taking a step towards emerging from what close ally Russia has described as a state of political chaos.Kyrgyzstan, which hosts a Russian military airbase and serves as a hub for trade with neighboring China, has been gripped by unrest since Oct. 4, the date of a contested election that was subsequently annulled.Lawmakers voted in the only candidate for premier, 51-year-old Sadyr Zhaparov, who some opposition factions accused of being in league with Jeenbekov.Jeenbekov on Friday ordered troops to deploy and re-establish order amid flare-ups of violence, and military checkpoints were put up overnight around the capital Bishkek while personnel carriers were spotted in the city.He fired top security council officials who had either supported his opponents or failed to intervene when the opposition said on Tuesday it was seizing power in the Central Asian nation.More than 1,200 people have been injured and one person has been killed in clashes that erupted on Monday following the election, in which establishment parties had claimed a landslide victory.With the parliament building ransacked by protesters, lawmakers gathered on Saturday in the presidential residence on the outskirts of Bishkek to vote in Zhaparov.He previously served as adviser to another former president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was succeeded by Atambayev in 2011.Atambayev’s supporters had on Tuesday secured his release from prison, where he was serving a lengthy sentence for corruption, and said he survived an assassination attempt on Friday.The state security service said it had rearrested Atambayev on charges of inciting unrest. The ex-president is Jeenbekov’s former patron and now his arch-enemy.Prior to his appointment as premier, Zhaparov called for constitutional reforms before fresh presidential and parliamentary elections.He told parliament that Jeenbekov had reaffirmed to him his intention to resign once a new cabinet was approved. Zhaparov said he would make no changes to the cabinet line-up.Before parliament voted on Zhaparov’s candidacy, speaker Myktybek Abdyldayev resigned, meaning Zhaparov would also assume presidential powers if Jeenbekov resigned.Zhaparov’s supporters had clashed on Friday with followers of a few other parties which nominated their own candidate for PM, Omurbek Babanov.Kyrgyzstan’s opposition is divided between 11 parties that represent clan interests. The country has seen two presidents toppled by popular revolts since 2005.The former Soviet republic, which has a population of just 6.5 million, is also home to a large Canadian-owned mining operation. 
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Chileans took to the streets of the capital, Santiago, for a third consecutive Friday, demonstrating against the government, inequality and police brutality as a postponed referendum on constitutional changes nears.Protesters threw rocks at police, who responded with water cannons and tear gas.A few hundred people gathered in the city’s iconic Plaza Italia, a considerably smaller crowd than those at last year’s gatherings and those earlier this year before the coronavirus pandemic.The protests started last October because of increased transport costs.The protesters’ main demand is the change of the constitution. Chileans will be voting Oct. 25 on whether they want a new constitution and whether it should be drafted by the current Congress or a new constituent assembly.
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A ruling by a U.S. federal judge has cleared the way for voters in the U.S. state of Texas to have multiple locations per county where they will be able to drop off their absentee ballots for the November presidential election.  
 
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman granted an injunction Friday against Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s order that there would be only per one ballot drop-off location for each county.  Abbott, a Republican, said the limit on ballot boxes was meant to discourage voter fraud. The order was made after the dropping off of ballots had already begun.
 
Pitman wrote in his 46-page decision, “By limiting ballot return centers to one per county, older and disabled voters living in Texas’s largest and most populous counties must travel further distances to more crowded ballot return centers where they would be at an increased risk of being infected by the coronavirus in order to exercise their right to vote and have it counted.”
 
Voting rights activists have argued that Abbott’s decision was a move to suppress the vote.    
 
The U.S. has a long history of absentee ballot voting, but this year Republican President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have vehemently opposed it.
 
It was not immediately clear if Abbott will appeal the ruling.  
 
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North Korea may have held a massive military parade around dawn Saturday, according to South Korea’s military, amid expectations it might use the event to unveil a major new weapon.Signs indicate North Korea “mobilized a large-scale amount of equipment and personnel” in the early morning hours of Saturday in Pyongyang’s central Kim Il Sung Square, according to a statement from South Korea’s National Defense Ministry.North Korea had been expected to use the parade to display a new weapon, such as an intercontinental or submarine-launched ballistic missile. At the beginning of the year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised to unveil a “new strategic weapon.”Displaying a weapon at a parade, rather than by staging a test launch, might be a less provocative way for Pyongyang to demonstrate its military capabilities. U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Kim against any major provocations near the Nov. 3 U.S. election.As of mid-afternoon Saturday, North Korean state television had not begun broadcasting the parade, which marks the 75th anniversary of its ruling political party. Often such broadcasts are tape-delayed; other times they are broadcast live.NK News, a Seoul-based website with contacts in North Korea, reported that loud noises could be heard in Pyongyang around midnight. The noises, which included aircraft, heavy machinery, and fireworks, could be heard through early morning, the website reported.South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have been closely tracking the reports and are trying to determine whether the middle-of-the night event was a rehearsal or the actual parade, according to South Korea’s military.North Korea often holds military parades on major political anniversaries. But it would be unusual to hold a parade in the middle of the night. Doing so might obscure the view of North Korea watchers, who closely monitor such events to see signs of new North Korean weapons development.North Korea has been preparing for the parade for weeks, according to satellite images of a training site on Pyongyang’s outskirts.The event was set to be a major celebration of Kim’s accomplishments of the past five years, although the country is actually facing significant challenges.International sanctions continue to batter North Korea’s economy, after the U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks in 2018 and 2019 failed to reach the point of permitting sanctions relief.North Korea also saw a much worse than usual typhoon and monsoon season, leaving crops devastated and thousands of homes destroyed.Its economy has also been hit hard by strict anti-pandemic measures, including border closures, that have sharply reduced trade with neighbor and economic lifeline China.Faced with such hardships, a parade might be meant to boost national pride and domestic solidarity, analysts say.“This is particularly important when policy errors, natural disasters, international sanctions and the global pandemic have caused the Kim regime to fall short of its economic promises,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.“Due to unmet economic ambitions and unfinished construction projects, the 75th Workers’ Party anniversary is perhaps not everything Kim envisioned. But it is an impressively large gathering during a global pandemic, suggesting North Korean authorities are concerned more with political history and national morale than with preventing a COVID-19 superspreader event,” Easley said.
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