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Asian markets went on a downward spiral Wednesday, sparked by heavy losses the day before on Wall Street and a setback in the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.   Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index lost just over one percent, while the S&P/ASX index in Australia dropped 2.1%. The Shanghai Composite index lost 1.9%, the KOSPI in South Korea closed down just over one percent, and Taiwan’s TSEC finished 0.4% lower.   In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is down 0.6%, while Mumbai’s Sensex is 0.5% lower.   Investors were shaken after Tuesday’s big selloff in all three major U.S. indices, led by the technology-heavy Nasdaq, which lost a staggering 4.1%.  Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s announcement that it was halting late-state trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine after a participant became ill also rattled investors in the region.    But Europe’s benchmark indices are off to a strong start Wednesday — Britain’s FTSE index and the DAX index in Germany are both up one percent, while France’s CAC-40 is 0.9% higher.  In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,935.90 an ounce, down 0.3%.  U.S. crude oil is selling at $37.30 per barrel, up 1.4%, while Brent crude, the international standard, is selling at $40.19 per barrel, up one percent.   Meanwhile, the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are all trending higher in futures trading despite Tuesday’s slump.    
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Chinese dissidents fleeing abroad have long used Thailand as a route for escaping repression at home. In recent years, Thailand’s government has been cooperating more with Beijing’s effort to pursue dissidents overseas, putting them at risk.   Several cases show how Chinese police are working through Thai law enforcement agencies, or even traveling to Thailand on their own, to try to find fleeing dissidents and bring them back to China. Jian Xing escaped to Thailand in 2015 after volunteering for a Chinese civil rights website and speaking out about corruption in the local government.   He told VOA that before he qualified to move to New Zealand in 2019, four police officers came to his residence in Thailand and took away his belongings without a search warrant.    “They told me that they could kill me in Thailand, and nobody would even know,” Xing said.   Yong Hua, an exiled artist, fled Thailand in 2019 after being stalked, arrested and sent to re-education camp by Chinese authorities because he said he voiced opposition to what the Chinese government has done to its people over the years. He recalled being constantly on the run to avoid Chinese agents hired by the government.    Hua told VOA that a Twitter account with no followers sent him a YouTube video on Aug. 28, saying, the “Thai Chinese Chamber of Commerce” offered a reward of $1,600 (50,000 baht) for him, accusing him of scamming money and saying they will post a “wanted notice” with his photograph on it in Bangkok and other places. “I don’t know if the so-called Chamber of Commerce is real,” Hua said. “I suspect they are the Chinese spies.” A VOA reporter called the phone number on the notice, but no one answered.  Some dissidents say the situation in Thailand has become so difficult that some of them are choosing to go back to China “voluntarily” under pressure from the Thai and Chinese governments. Xing refused.    “I told them if you deport me forcefully, then you will only get my corpse,” he said. Xing’s incident caused panic among Chinese refugees stranded in Thailand. Other refugees sent the video of police in Xing’s home to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to seek help. By then, Xing had already been sent to an immigration detention center waiting to be repatriated to China. Eventually, he received emergency humanitarian assistance and was resettled in New Zealand. Hua is making a documentary on the plight of Chinese refugees in Thailand waiting to relocate to third countries, which connected him with other refugees. He said many people who have fled China to Thailand, and even among those who qualify for refugee status, are living in very difficult situations. “I think they are suffering too much,” said Hua. “This suffering has two sides. The first one is economic, because you can’t work in Thailand. It’s illegal. Even if you get the refugee card, Thailand doesn’t recognize it. If your passport expired, you can get caught if you stay here. So, they are under a lot of financial pressure,” Hua told VOA. “Some people go to temples, to places that don’t charge them, because they have no money.” Hua said even worse is the second kind of suffering, the mental pressure.  “I think refugees all have severe or mild depression. They are not very healthy mentally,” he said. Many refugees have been in Thailand for years waiting to be resettled, and their state of mind is very worrying. Hua said because many people are Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and activists, they are afraid of being followed by people from China. So, they are very nervous and tense. Hua has been to the U.S. Embassy and the UNHCR to seek help and share his experience. He hopes to move to the United States where he thinks he will be safe.   Hua said he received a case number from the UNHCR and was told that the second interview would be held next year. But he said the U.N. officer told him there are too many cases like his. Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.    
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Hundreds of people demonstrated in Mali’s capital on Tuesday in support of the junta that has seized power in a coup, as debate rages over the timeframe for the country’s return to civilian rule. Months of protests over the simmering jihadist insurgency, bloody ethnic violence and endemic corruption in the country boiled over when rebel troops arrested the president and took control on August 18.  The protests were led by an opposition coalition called the June 5 Movement, and a new group calling itself the Popular Movement of September 4 organized the rally in Bamako on Tuesday. After the coup, the junta pledged to hold fresh elections and initially proposed a three-year, military-led transition back to civilian rule, before ratcheting it back to two.   “We want the army to stay in power for as long as it takes,” shopkeeper Hamza Sangare said at the Bamako protest over the din of the crowd. “Why not three years, by end of the mandate of former president IBK?” he suggested, referring to ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, whose second five-year term had been scheduled to end in 2023.   But the 15-nation West African regional bloc ECOWAS has demanded the transition take place in 12 months — and be led by a civilian president and prime minister. ECOWAS, which has hit Mali with sanctions including closing borders and trade bans over the coup, said Monday that the civilian transition leaders should be appointed by September 15.  While the coup has provoked international outrage, it has received support among some in Mali, fatigued by the country’s bloodshed and economic struggle. “The soldiers, the soldiers,” a group at the Bamako rally chanted, holding up Malian flags, placards saying “long live the army,” and pictures of junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita. Dozens of green minibuses that generally provide public transport were mobilized to transport the demonstrators to Bamako’s Independence Square, which was a main rallying point for protesters before the coup. The junta has organized three days of consultations with political parties and civil society groups from Thursday to plan the transition.   Ousted president Keita has been released and flew to the United Arab Emirates on Saturday for medical treatment after suffering a mini-stroke last week. 
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Five years ago, a Belarusian teenager studying film in Poland set up a YouTube channel to show videos that he made and poke fun at his country’s longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko.   After tangling with YouTube copyright laws, the student, Stsyapan Putsila, shifted his Nexta channel and his tactics in 2018 to Telegram, the messaging app. Its encryption technologies have made it wildly popular in Russia, Iran and other countries whose governments have suppressed independent media and communications.   Fast forward two years, and Putsila’s Nexta – taken from the Belarusian word for “someone” and pronounced “nekhta” — has grown in popularity, first and foremost among Belarusians seeking uncensored information in a country whose state-run media usually serve only as a mouthpiece for the government. A mix of user-submitted photos and videos, forwarded news items, biting opinion, and instructions for street protesters, the channel’s Telegram subscribers now total more than 2 million, making it one of the biggest information sources for Belarusians.   And with protests against Lukashenko showing no sign of relenting a month after a deeply disputed election in which he claimed to have won a sixth term, Nexta is at the vanguard – both in documenting the demonstrations and in encouraging them.   ‘A bit like revolutionaries’ “Even before the start of the Belarusian revolution, we were a nontraditional media [outlet],” Putsila, 22, said in a telephone interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service Thursday. “We did not have a centralized website on the internet — we are a modern information channel, mainly for young people.” Since the protests began, “we have changed a little and become a bit like revolutionaries, because people want that from us,” he said. “We are asked to publish plans describing what to do, because there are simply no clear leaders in Belarus, especially ones with such an audience,” Putsila said. “If there had been, it is clear that they would have been immediately detained. Now we not only inform, but to some extent also coordinate people.”   With a team of six working out of a community center Warsaw, Putsila, who also uses the pseudonym Stepan Svetlov, pushes out dozens of items on the Telegram channel. On Monday, one day after tens of thousands of Belarusians surged into Minsk’s streets for the 29th day of protests, Nexta published — in Russian, which is spoken by nearly everyone in Belarus — a statement of support from European Union leaders and news items about the disappearance of one of the country’s leading opposition figures. Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya spoke via videolink to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Tuesday.Belusus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya takes part in an U.N. General Assembly online debate from Vilnius, Lithuania, Sept. 4, 2020.Mixed in were videos of the Sunday protest in Minsk, whose numbers Belarusian authorities said totaled just 30,000 — an estimate that Nexta and Belarusian opposition groups said was laughably low — as well as an aerial photo with a diagram showing which streets protesters could use to get around riot police blocking a key boulevard.   “We do not force anyone to protest,” Putsila said. “We tell people that they can go out, defend their rights. Belarusians come out on their own.”   A native of Minsk, Putsila went to the Polish city of Katowice to study film, and then moved to Warsaw, the Polish capital, after graduating. He has not been in his homeland since 2018, when Belarusian authorities opened a criminal investigation accusing him of “insulting the president” on YouTube. YouTube eventually pulled down Putsila’s channel after Belarusian authorities complained of copyright violations, prompting the move to Telegram. “We’ve received dozens of threats against us; we’ve even received threats that our office would be blown up,” he said. His parents and his younger brother have fled to Poland, fearing for their safety.   News reports say Polish police now guard the building where he has his offices; Putsila would not comment. In 2019, Nexta began publishing classified and confidential documents that purported to come from within Belarus; the channel gained new popularity after revealing that a traffic police officer whom authorities said had committed suicide was in fact the victim of a killing. “People have always been unhappy, especially in recent years, when they really became tired of him,” Putsila said of Lukashenko, who came to power in 1994 and has extended his rule though elections and other votes that international observers have called undemocratic.   ‘Great example’After the August 9 election, which opponents say was falsified to give Lukashenko more than 80% of the vote, “people managed to unite, and now they feel they are the masters of their own land,” Putsila said. “Nevertheless, there are also the ‘enforcers’ — this is how we call police and security officials, who are the foundation of Lukashenko’s regime. However, he no longer has support among many officials; they don’t support him, but only themselves,” he said.   Putsila said that Belarusians had genuine hopes in Lukashenko, but that his actions over 26 years in office have worn on them. And that the official election result and the harsh police crackdown — the violent arrest of hundreds of people and evidence that some have been tortured — was the last straw.   “Belarusians have set a great example for the rest of the world. During the protests, people even were taking off their shoes when they climbed onto benches, they brought each other water, food, flowers. This shows a high level of self-organization,” he said. “Lukashenko tells Belarusians that the state has raised them and made people out of them, and they are ungrateful,” he said. “However, it is the people themselves who are teaching children in schools, who are creating jobs, and the state, as represented by Lukashenko, does not respect these people.”   Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Mike Eckel based on reporting by Daria Yurieva, a contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service. 
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Top Democratic and GOP leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee have called on President Donald Trump to investigate the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.In a bipartisan letter  sent to Trump on Monday, Representative Eliot Engel, the Democratic committee chairman from New York, and Republican Michael McCaul, the committee’s ranking member from Texas, urged the Trump administration to launch an investigation into the attack, saying sanctions against Moscow may be necessary.Navalny, a prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin, fell ill on August 20 during a domestic flight in Russia. He was transferred to a hospital in Germany for treatment. The German government said on September 2 that toxicology results showed the 44-year old was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok  nerve agent.Suspicion surrounding the poisoning quickly mounted against the Russian government, which has used similar methods against critics of the state in the past. Most recently, the Kremlin was found to have used the same chemical weapon against an ex-Soviet spy in Britain in 2018. Navalny, who has been hospitalized in Berlin for several weeks, was taken out of a medically induced coma on Monday.In a statement issued Monday, Berlin’s Charité hospital said Navalny’s condition has continued to improve, but that it was too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of the severe poisoning.The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the poisoning and dismissed any accusations of a crime, saying there is no evidence to support a full-fledged criminal investigation into the case.On Tuesday, representatives of the G-7 condemned the “confirmed poisoning” of Navalny, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department.”We, the G-7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, are united in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the confirmed poisoning of Alexei Navalny,” said the statement. White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said last week that the U.S. will be working with the international community to determine whether monetary sanctions should be levied against Russia.Lawmakers also called for the U.S. to demand that Russia cooperate with an international investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to bring the perpetrators to justice.“Those responsible for this despicable attack must be held accountable, and Russian President Vladimir Putin must know that he and his cronies will not be allowed to violate international law with impunity,” Engel and McCaul wrote in their letter to the president. 
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Sri Lanka’s navy said Tuesday that an oil slick had been spotted a kilometer from a loaded supertanker off the country’s east coast, as efforts to extinguish a fire on board continued. Sri Lankan officials are working to assess any damage to the environment and marine life from the incident, which began last Thursday, when a fire initially broke out in the engine room of the New Diamond supertanker. The first fire aboard the ship, which was chartered by Indian Oil Corp to import 2 million barrels of oil from Kuwait, was put out, but a second one broke out Monday. “The ship has tilted slightly towards where the fire broke out due to the large amount of water sprayed to douse the fire,” Sri Lanka navy spokesman Indika de Silva told Reuters, adding: “Oil in the engine room appears to have leaked out to the sea”. The New Diamond was being held about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Sri Lanka, while firefighting boats sprayed it with water, de Silva said. An Indian air force plane stationed at the international airport in Hambantota dropped a specialized chemical mixture on the slick to control it, the Sri Lankan navy said in a statement. The latest fire was on the right side of the vessel near the funnel and was not near the tanks holding the crude oil, Silva said earlier, adding it was still burning. A salvage team was working at the site and “additional assets, salvage personnel and fire fighting equipment” were on the way, he said. Sri Lanka has deployed scientists and experts from its Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA), with one team examining the area around the ship and another coastal areas for signs of pollution, Jagath Gunesekara, deputy General Manager of MEPA, said. 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) Tuesday opened the initial meeting of an international review panel established to evaluate the performance of its International Health Regulations (IHR) during the COVID-19 pandemic.The IHR were last revised in 2005 and grew out of the response to deadly epidemics that once overran Europe. They provide a framework by which nations can respond to an international health emergency, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and they define countries’ rights and obligations in handling emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.Former WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland told reporters in June that WHO should change the IHR guidelines that led it to oppose travel restrictions early in the outbreak, a step criticized later by the United States.Last month, current WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for the formation of the review panel that is made up of independent health experts from around the world.In his opening remarks to the panel, which is meeting virtually Tuesday and Wednesday, Tedros said he was sure they were aware of “the weight of this moment in history, and of the enormous expectations of your work.”He added that the panel was uniquely equipped to meet the moment.This is the fourth time such a review committee has been established to examine the response to an international health crisis. Such a panel met in 2010 to evaluate responses to the H1N1 Influenza outbreak, in 2014 to review deadlines for implementing international regulations, and in 2016 for the West Africa Ebola outbreak.The panel may present interim findings, if they choose, at the World Health Assembly in November and will present their final report at the May 2021 World Health Assembly. 
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The U.S. war against global terrorism has displaced as many as 59 million people since 2001, according to a new report released Tuesday by Brown University.The study, published by the Rhode Island-based university’s “Costs of War Project,” says between 37 million and 59 million people in eight countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East “fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001,” when the al-Qaida terror group attacked the United States.The figures in the report, titled “Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States Post-9/11 Wars,” show that displacements have risen sharply from 21 million in 2019. The majority of those displaced were from Iraq, with at least 9.2 million. Syria saw the second-highest number of displacements, with at least 7.1 million, and Afghanistan was third with at least 5.3 million people displaced.The study’s authors say the estimate was derived by counting refugees, asylum seekers pursuing protection as refugees, and internally displaced people or persons (IDPs) in the eight countries that the United States has most targeted in the post-9/11 wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria.The report said 37 million displaced people is “almost as large as the population of Canada” and “more than those displaced by any other war or disaster since at least the start of the 20th century with the sole exception of World War II.”“We are not suggesting the U.S. government or the United States as a country is solely responsible for the displacement. Causation is never so simple. Causation always involves a multiplicity of combatants and other powerful actors, centuries of history, and large-scale political, economic, and social forces,” the study’s authors noted. “Even in the simplest of cases, conditions of pre-existing poverty, environmental change, prior wars, and other forms of violence shape who is displaced and who is not.”The study does not include “the millions more who have been displaced by other post-9/11 conflicts where U.S. forces have been involved in ‘counterterror’ activities in more limited yet significant ways, including in: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia.” 
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Spain has become the first nation in Western Europe to exceed a half-million COVID-19 total infections, as the total number of cases around the world surged to 27.3 million, including 893,000 deaths.Data from Spain’s Health Ministry showed a total of 525,549 cases as of Tuesday, including 29,516 deaths.  In comparison, France has recorded 367,174 total infections and 30,732 deaths, while Britain has 352,451 total cases, including 41,643 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracking project.    Social culture
Spain imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns at the pandemic’s peak back in March, when the country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with new coronavirus patients and the number of fatalities exceeded more than 800 on a daily basis. The outbreak eventually was brought under control, but the number of new infections has steadily risen since the country began relaxing restrictions in July.  Some experts believe the rising COVID-19 infections are due to the country’s highly social culture, while others blame the recent surge on a lack of widespread contact tracing and a premature exit from lockdown.  FILE – Visitors wearing masks to avoid the spread of COVID-19 fill out a form which is mandatory to get into a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 26, 2020.South Korea
In South Korea, thousands of physician trainees returned to work Tuesday after a nearly three-week walkout that has complicated the nation’s efforts to contain a new wave in COVID-19 infections.The trainees went on strike on August 21 to protest the government’s medical reform scheme, which called for increasing the number of medical school students and opening new public medical schools.  The walkout caused delays at major hospitals where new and resident doctors play a crucial role in emergency rooms and intensive care units.  South Korea has posted daily new COVID-19 infections in the hundreds since mid-August, averaging well over 300 a day at one point, but have fallen below 200 for the sixth consecutive day Tuesday.People wearing face masks walk on Jinli Ancient Street, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, Sept. 8, 2020.In China, cause for celebration
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping is praising the country’s response to the pandemic, which was first detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan.Speaking during a ceremony in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People Tuesday honoring four officials for their contributions during the outbreak, President Xi said China acted quickly to combat the virus in “an open, transparent, and responsible manner,” contradicting accusations by the United States and other Western nations that Beijing either downplayed or possibly covered-up the severity of the virus until it was too late and had spread beyond China’s borders.
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Ángela López hardly fits the profile of a rule-breaker. But the mother of a 7-year-old girl with respiratory problems has found herself among parents ready to challenge Spanish authorities on a blanket order to return to school.  
 
They are wary of safety measures they see as ill-funded as a new wave of coronavirus infections sweeps the country. They fear sick students could infect relatives who are at higher risk of falling ill from COVID-19. And they claim that they have invested in computers and better network connections to prepare for online lessons, even preparing to homeschool their children if necessary.
 
Many of the defiant parents, including López, are also ready to stand up to the country’s rigid, one-size-fits-all rule of mandatory in-school education, even if that means facing charges for truancy, which in Spain can be punished with three to six months in prison.  
 
Her daughter was born with a condition that makes her prone to suffer episodes of bronchial spasms, which can cause difficulty breathing. With COVID-19 affecting the respiratory system, López doesn’t want to take any risks.
 
“We feel helpless and a little offended. It’s like they force us to commit an illegal act because they don’t give us a choice,” said López, who lives in Madrid.
 
“It’s a matter of statistics,” she added. “The more cases there are, the more likely you are to catch it.”
 
More than half a million people have contracted the virus in Spain and at least 29,500 have died with it, although the official record leaves out many who perished in March and April without being previously tested.
 
With an average of 229 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the past two weeks, Spain currently has the highest rate of contagion in western Europe. Within the region, it leads what many experts are already calling a second wave of the pandemic, although the Spanish government insists that it now identifies most of the infections because it’s testing more and better.
 
Officials also say that more than half of those infected now show no symptoms, which explains why hospitals that struggled at the peak of the epidemic in spring are seeing fewer COVID-19 patients this time.
 
As cases continue to go up and fuel debate in parents’ group messaging chats, Spanish authorities last week issued revised guidelines for the reopening. They included mandatory masks for students 6 and older, daily body temperature checks, hand-washing at least five times per day and frequent ventilation of classrooms.
 
The Ministry of Health has also recommended setting up so-called “bubble-classrooms” where a reduced number of students interact only among themselves, and “COVID coordinators” in every school who can react quickly if an outbreak is identified.  
 
But many parents say funding is insufficient to hire more teachers and that some schools just don’t have additional space. They also see an inconsistency in authorities allowing up to 25 children in classrooms while banning large meetings of people or imposing curbs on nightlife in response to surging contagion. In Madrid, those restrictions have been expanded even to private homes, where no gatherings of more than 10 relatives or friends are allowed.
 
Over 8 million students in Spain are beginning the academic year this week or next, with the starting date varying in each of its 17 regions and according to education levels.
 
Although scientists are still studying the role children play in spreading COVID-19, younger children appear less infectious than teenagers. Children mostly suffer only mild infections when they catch the virus, but in rare cases they can get severe illness and studies have shown they can transmit COVID-19 to others in their households, including their parents.
 
Aroha Romero, a mother of two from the eastern region of Valencia, said the lack of clarity increases her anxiety.
 
“I would rather be threatened (to be charged with absenteeism) than have my children be motherless due to the coronavirus,” she said
 
Lorenzo Cotino, a law professor at the University of Valencia who has studied the impact of legislation in education, noted that schooling is widely supported in Spain since a 1970 law made physical attendance mandatory, reducing social divisions.
 
The pandemic has reinforced the idea that “equality and schooling go hand in hand,” Cotino said, because “children in marginalized groups with less internet access received a poorer education at home.”
 
The families contesting the status quo say Spain’s constitution gives them freedom to keep their children away from school. But there is neither a legal umbrella for homeschooling, nor is there a system that sets standards for studying at home.
 
The situation is similar in Germany, where homeschooling is illegal, although there has been enthusiasm there about the return to schools, and in Britain, where very high attendance rates followed last week’s reopening. The British government has pledged to only fine parents not sending their children back as a “last resort.”
 
Even in European countries where homeschooling is allowed, the practice is not as widespread as in the United States. A longstanding distance learning system for all ages exists in France but parents can also choose to privately educate their children.
 
French education authorities say it’s too early in the academic year to identify if the coronavirus is driving a homeschooling trend.
 
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has warned of a “risk of social exclusion for not returning to school.” And although he said there is “no such thing as zero risk,” he said both students and teachers “will be much safer in educational centers than in other places.”
 
His education minister, Isabel Celaá, has acknowledged that a number of students will miss the return to school for medical reasons. But stressing the existing punishment for absenteeism, she said last week that in-school learning “cannot be replaced by homeschooling.”
 
Irene Briones, a law professor at Madrid’s Complutense University, said that “if truancy numbers increase massively, nothing will happen” because “it’s not in the government’s interest” to go against large numbers of parents.
 
When Spain went into a strict three-month lockdown last spring, millions of students were forced to finish school from home and parents suddenly became teachers. Online classes helped a great deal and set the path towards a new way of learning in COVID-19 times, families said.
 
The demand now is that online education becomes standardized with an official digital learning program that will help students keep up with the coursework at least through December, during the first trimester of the academic year. They also say that laptops and other equipment should be handed out to narrow the technology divide between families.
 
“We will defend ourselves using all legal tools and arguments” if authorities and families don’t reach an agreement, says Josu Gómez, whose Safe Return to School association has enlisted nearly 1,500 families in three weeks. A further 250,000 people have signed in two months a Change.org petition to demand safety measures for kids and teachers in classrooms.
 
But some are ready to face whatever consequences may come. Romero, the mother of two from Valencia, insisted her kids will stay home as long as infection numbers don’t go down.
 
“If adults can work from home, kids can study from home,” she said.
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Two Australian journalists left China overnight Monday to Tuesday, fearing they would be arrested, their employers said Tuesday. Bill Birtles, Beijing correspondent for the ABC channel, and Michael Smith, Shanghai correspondent for the Australian Financial Review, took refuge for several days in Australia’s embassy in Beijing, before leaving China accompanied of Australian diplomats. They arrived in Sydney on Tuesday morning, according to ABC. The hasty departures come after the arrest last month for undetermined reasons of an Australian business journalist working for the Chinese state-run English-language channel CGTN, Cheng Lei. This arrest greatly strained relations between Beijing and Canberra. According to ABC, Birtles was advised last week to leave the country by the Australian Foreign Office. But shortly before his return to Australia, scheduled for last Thursday, seven Chinese police officers came to his home in the middle of the night and informed him that he was going to be questioned on a “national security matter” and that he had no right to leave the country. After this, the journalist took refuge in his embassy in Beijing. Birtles was subsequently questioned by Chinese police, in the presence of two Australian diplomats, and allowed to leave the country. Smith was also visited by police at his home the same night, according to AFR, which added pressure on the two journalists was linked to the arrest of Cheng last month. Smith took refuge in Australia’s Shanghai consulate. Relations between Australia and China have deteriorated sharply over the past two years. Canberra then decided to act against what was seen as Beijing’s growing interference in the affairs of Australia. Canberra also caused fury in Beijing a few months ago for its requests to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. China has since taken steps to reduce Australian imports and encouraged its students and tourists to avoid Australia. 
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In April, during the height of the coronavirus lockdown, Trump administration health experts hailed a test that would confirm if someone had already had the virus and therefore couldn’t get sick again. The antibody test would show who might have “the wonderful, beautiful immunity,” President Donald Trump said was needed to get the nation working again. Months later, the tests exist but haven’t fulfilled their promise of allowing Americans to reclaim their lives, said Dr. Jennifer Rakeman of New York City’s Public Health Laboratory. In fighting off the virus, the body makes antibodies, which the tests measure. Unfortunately, scientists are still figuring out how well and for how long antibodies provide the immunity that protects against another infection by the coronavirus.  An Indian girl cries as a medical worker collects her swab sample for a COVID-19 test at a rural health center in Bagli, outskirts of Dharmsala, India, Sept. 7, 2020.In truth, “there’s no easy path to this knowledge” about immunity, Marc Jenkins of the University of Minnesota said. Long-term human or animal studies are usually needed to reach answers about immunity. Much of that work is done by the National Institutes of Health and universities, but they are occupied developing a vaccine against the coronavirus. Until more is known, antibody tests should not be used to determine when it is safe to return to work or school, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association. But the tests are useful in large studies to see how widely the coronavirus has spread and to screen people who have recovered and could donate their blood plasma for use as a treatment for those in the throes of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. WHO: Learn from pandemicEarlier Monday the World Health Organization (WHO) said that countries that built up their health care systems in recent years fared better amid the COVID-19 pandemic. People pack the Ipanema beach amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept.6, 2020.As of Monday, the United States leads the world with about 6.3 million confirmed cases and more than 189,000 deaths, according to the A nurse prepares an injection for a COVID-19 patient in the ICU of the National Hospital in Itagua, Paraguay, Sept. 7, 2020.The other vaccine is a joint project between AstraZeneca and Oxford University currently in late-stage trials. Morrison said Monday that CSL will manufacture that vaccine as well for distribution in Australia, and that he expects 3.8 million doses to be available in January or February 2021. Israel is beginning partial nighttime lockdowns in 40 cities and towns with the country’s highest infection rates. Schools in those areas will also be closed, and gatherings will be limited to 10 people inside and 20 outdoors. “I know that these restrictions are not easy but in the current situation there is no avoiding them,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. 
 
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