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About 20 U.S. professional basketball teams will convert their venues into pandemic-safe voting centers for the 2020 presidential election. The move is part of a deal with the NBA players, who briefly halted their participation in the season-ending playoffs to protest racial injustice and police brutality. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports the latest arena to announce its plans is New York City’s Barclays Center, home to the Brooklyn Nets.
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Egyptian security forces have arrested two journalists, including one sick with COVID-19, the latest step in a sweeping crackdown on news media during the pandemic, an international press watchdog reported Friday.On separate days in late August, officers burst into the homes of Hany Greisha and El-Sayed Shehta without warning, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Both work as editors for Al-Youm Al-Sabae, or Seventh Day, a prominent pro-government news outlet.Greisha was ordered detained for 15 days on charges of spreading false news and joining a terrorist group, CPJ said, citing his family’s official complaint to the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate.FILE – Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi delivers an address at the Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, May 26, 2017.Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egyptian prosecutors have frequently brought vague terrorism-related charges against reporters, secular activists and online critics, in addition to Islamist political opponents, drawing widespread scorn from human rights monitors.Earlier this week, security forces raided Shehta’s home in northern Egypt, confiscating his laptop, cellphone, money and IDs, CPJ said, adding that it remained unclear whether he faces any charges. The deputy managing editor had been in quarantine after testing positive for the coronavirus a few days earlier, according to a statement from his wife.Officers took Shehta to a police station in the Nile Delta city of Zagazig, where he collapsed and lost consciousness, CPJ reported. He remained shackled to a hospital bed in the city.The Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press, and a government media officer did not answer calls seeking comment.It was not immediately clear why security forces targeted the two editors. Egypt’s counterterrorism legislation broadly empowers authorities to exert tight controls over traditional media and crack down on all kinds of dissent. Amnesty International released a report earlier this year detailing how a growing number of journalists at state-owned media outlets have landed in jail for expressing their private views on social media.The coronavirus pandemic has presented new challenges for the government. When infections surged this summer, threatening to overwhelm hospitals, authorities arrested journalists who questioned official virus statistics and doctors who complained about their working conditions. As of Friday, the country had reported more than 99,000 cases, including 5,479 deaths, one of the highest death tolls in the region.Outbreaks in prisonAlthough Egypt’s daily virus case count has declined in recent weeks, reports of suspected coronavirus outbreaks in the country’s crowded prisons have increasingly come to light. In July, a prominent Egyptian journalist who had been jailed on charges of broadcasting false news died of COVID-19 just days after his release, stoking fears of unchecked contagion in what rights groups describe as packed and dirty cells.”Egyptian authorities should be urgently releasing journalists from its prisons because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s regional program coordinator. “Instead, [Egypt] is diligently rounding up more to throw in jail — including now one who was sick and in quarantine.”
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Six Belarusian journalists detained earlier this week while covering an anti-government protest in Minsk were sentenced to three days in jail, as authorities continued their crackdown on dissent and media freedom following a disputed election that gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth-straight term.
 
The verdicts came just ahead of a scheduled address by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the self-exiled presidential candidate who has become a leader of the Belarusian opposition, to the U.N. Security Council later on September 4.
 
The journalists were covering a student rally demanding the resignation of Lukashenko on September 1 when they were detained by police near the Dinamo district stadium.
 
A district court in the capital sentenced the journalists to three days’ administrative arrest after finding them guilty of participating in an illegal rally, an accusation they denied.
 
They were later released having already served their terms while in pretrial detention.
 
The reporters work for the Belarusian independent news website Tut.by, the local Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi daily, and the independent news agency BelaPAN.
 
Hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets across Belarus to protest the “rigged” results of the August 9 vote.Belarus Opposition Leader Appeals to UN to Stop Human Rights Abuses in Her CountrySviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tells UN that ‘a nation cannot and should not be a hostage to one man’s thirst for power’The protesters are calling on the 66-year-old Belarusian leader to step down after 26 years in power, release all political prisoners, and hold free and fair elections.
 
The authorities have tried to halt the protest movement with threats and the prosecution of protesters, political activists, and journalists covering the demonstrations.
 
On September 4, police detained several student protesters gathered inside the Minsk State Linguistic Institute. A witness said the students started singing the French national anthem La Marseillaise, which contains words about the fight against tyranny, when riot police entered the building and dragged the students away.
 
Officials at the institute had warned students it would call in the police unless they halted their protests.
 
Those detained were later released from police custody after reportedly being charged with taking part in illegal rallies.
 
The Interior Ministry earlier said that a total of 26 people were detained during protests in Minsk on September 3 for violating the law on public events, adding that seven of them will remain in pretrial detention.
 
A photographer working for the news outlet Tut.by., Zmitser Brushko, was detained for a few hours and charged with petty hooliganism for allegedly pushing a police officer.
 
The crackdown on protests, strikes, and the media has drawn condemnation from human rights groups, media freedom watchdogs, and the international community.
 
On September 3, Britain and Canada said in a joint statement to the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that they were “extremely concerned” by the treatment of journalists and independent media in Belarus.
 
“Though the strain faced by independent media has been made evident before, during, and after the presidential elections, in the past week Belarusian authorities have made greater moves to hinder the free press,” the statement said, adding that more than 70 independent news websites had been blocked.
 
About 50 journalists were detained on August 27-28 for accreditation checks and some foreign reporters were subsequently deported and banned from Belarus for five years, it also noted.
 
At least 17 journalists, including four from RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, had their accreditations revoked. 
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Portland police made multiple arrests overnight on Friday as the Oregon city nears 100 days of demonstrations against U.S. racism and police brutality, which have at times turned violent.
 
Police arrested 27 people, mostly on charges of interfering with law enforcement or disorderly conduct after not complying with orders to clear the area where they assembled and throwing items at officers.
 
“Officers began to make targeted arrests and in some cases moved the crowd back and kept them out of the street,” according to a press release issued on Saturday.
 
One arrested protester was injured with a “bleeding abrasion” on her head, police said.
 
Demonstrations against racism and police brutality have swept the United States since the death in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
 
In Rochester, New York on Friday night nearly 1,000 demonstrators marched downtown to protest the March death of black man Daniel Prude in police custody. Police used pepper balls to clear protesters during protests the night before, according to local news reports.
 
Portland has become the epicenter of demonstrations, with protests taking place nightly over the last three months calling for policing and social justice reforms. These have at times turned into clashes between demonstrators and officers, as well as between right- and left-wing groups.
 
Police shot and killed a self-declared anti-fascist activist in Washington state on Thursday night as they moved in to arrest him on suspicion he fatally shot a right-wing counterprotester last weekend in Portland.
 
The administration of President Donald Trump deployed federal forces to Portland in July to crack down on the protests. Trump signed a memo on Wednesday that threatens to cut federal funding to “lawless” cities, including Portland.
 
His Democratic challenger in the Nov. 3 presidential election, Joe Biden, has accused Trump of stoking violence with his rhetoric.
 
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Officials in Bangladesh said Saturday that at least 11 people have died following a blast likely caused by a leak in a gas pipeline at a mosque outside Dhaka during evening prayers Friday.The Dhaka Tribune reported that 26 people are being treated at Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka.The victims have burns covering at least 60% to 70% of their bodies, according to Fatullah police station Officer-in-Charge Aslam Hossain.Narayanganj Fire Service’s Deputy Assistant Director Abdullah Al Arefin said apparently all six air conditioners on the mosque’s ground floor exploded.  He said fire officials suspect “that gas had leaked from the pipeline and accumulated inside as the windows were closed. The explosion was probably triggered due to sparks when someone tried to switch on or off the ACs or fans.”  
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The World Health Organization says it is unlikely a safe, effective vaccine
against COVID-19 will be available for widespread use before the middle of next year.  Urging people to lower their expectations, health officials say the development of a safe, efficacious vaccine takes time and cannot be rushed.  As it is, the WHO reports remarkable progress is being made toward this end. It notes at least six to nine candidate vaccines have begun Phase 3 clinical trials.
 
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris says many thousands of people participate in these carefully crafted trials. She says a vaccine must be proven to be safe and seen to provide protection against the coronavirus in at least 50% of subjects before it can be approved for public use.   
 
Harris says the safety of the vaccine has to be monitored at all stages of the research, making this a lengthy process.
    
“The good news is the manufacturers are already putting bets on which one is likely to be the vaccine.  And, they are all working on how they can scale-up production of vaccines, once we know which ones are the ones we will roll out.… But, in terms of realistic timelines, we are really not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year,” she said.FILE – A poster advertises a hunt for volunteers for a study of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, in Binghamton, New York, July 27, 2020.Harris told VOA that the WHO does not tell governments when a vaccine should be made available for emergency or general use. She said that is a decision for countries to make for themselves.  However, she cautioned against raising false hopes about the prospect of an imminent vaccine that would vanquish the pandemic.
 
“What we have been saying over and over is nobody should be sitting there waiting for the magic bullet. You know, thinking that the vaccine is going to solve all this or that there will be a wonder drug. What we have to do now is do the things we know suppress this virus…. And those are the basics—the hand-washing, the social distancing that we are doing, the mask-wearing,” she said.   
    
According to Harris, the WHO believes all nations must work together in the search for a vaccine. She said sharing and comparing data is important and will result in a vaccine that protects everybody.
 
Harris called this a global public good. She said a vaccine not only is essential but must be provided in all parts of the world, adding that unless everybody is protected, nobody is protected.
 
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More than a week after Category 4 Hurricane Laura ripped through the southwestern corner of Louisiana, state officials report more than 230,000 residents remain without power Friday. Another 175,000 are without water.“People around the country don’t realize how bad it is here,” Michelle Lee of Lake Charles, Louisiana, told VOA. “Entergy says we won’t have power for four or five weeks. Some people say they don’t think it’ll be until November.”Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday that power has been restored for nearly 400,000 people, but that the remaining outages would likely be the hardest ones to fix. The reason for this, he said, was that thousands of miles of electrical wires, thousands of utility poles and many hundreds of transmission towers were damaged by the storm.Lake Charles officials said this is a main reason residents have been unable to return to the city of 80,000, which was hit early August 27 with winds of more than 240 kph — the most powerful hurricane to reach Louisiana since 1856.“Why come back right now if you don’t have to?” Lee said. “I have friends who are in hotel rooms in New Orleans and Texas, and why not? A hot shower is a lot better than what we’ve got here. There are people in Lake Charles living in homes with a tree through the roof and with no water or power. I know people who are sleeping in cots on their porch or in tents in their backyard.”Edwards estimated that more than 11,000 people are being sheltered by the state, some in large emergency shelters, but the majority in hotel rooms in cities around Louisiana.Lee said she tried to find a place for herself and her two dogs but didn’t have any luck.“At first I was told I could find a place to stay in Baton Rouge, so I drove there, but then they said, ‘No, go to Metairie.’ So I drove to Metairie and they said, ‘No, go to Alexandria.’ It was a mess,” Lee said.The lucky oneAfter driving more than 800 miles during the evacuation, Lee was afraid her old car might die, stranding her and her dogs. She was also worried about missing work at an auto repair shop if she couldn’t return to Lake Charles.“I don’t have a lot of great options,” she said. “I didn’t want to go into one of the big shelters, because I didn’t think it was safe with COVID. Even if I managed to find an open hotel room, as far as I can tell, the emergency vouchers are gone, and that would be a lot of money for me to pay out of pocket.”Michelle Lee says the RV park she calls home looked ‘like a war zone’ after Hurricane Laura tore through. (Courtesy Michelle Lee)She decided to try her luck back home.Just three days after the hurricane, Lee and her dogs returned to the RV park they’d lived in since Lee’s daughter left for college. (Lee playfully calls it “the cheap life.”) She was horrified by what she saw.“When I left before the storm on Wednesday, there were 20 RVs in the lot,” she said. “When I got back, there were only two that were livable. The rest were tipped over on their sides, or had been split completely in half. It looks like a war zone.”Fortunately for Lee, one of the RVs still habitable was her own. She is now living in her wind-damaged motorhome with her two dogs, as well as a couple and their dog whose RV was destroyed. Lee doesn’t have running water, and the only electricity they have is when they run the generator, which Lee says is getting expensive.“It’s another $150 a week to run the generator, the RV is kind of crowded and I’d really like a warm shower, but I still think I’m one of the lucky ones,” she said. “At least I’m home and I can go to work.”Far from homeOlivia Dean also evacuated the day before the storm. She and the nearly 15 family members and friends she’s traveling with, including her grandparents and several uncles, have yet to make it home, though.She said they have been unable to get an emergency voucher to cover their housing costs. This has forced them to move from one hotel to another across Texas as they search for more affordable options.“I can’t believe how much these hotels are costing us,” Dean said. “But, stuck between a pandemic and a disaster, we don’t really have a better option.”Dean said the group is eager to return home so they can go to work and check on their property. They are finding it difficult, however, to get information that would tell them if it’s safe to return.“I was able to find one stranger on Facebook to go by the property and take a picture so we knew what the damage was like,” she said, referring to the social media groups that pop up in the wake of disasters to help get information and assistance to victims.Olivia Dean hasn’t been able to go home. She knows her apartment house lacks water, and she says she doubts the building has power. (Courtesy Olivia Dean)She said she knows her building lacks water, either because it has been turned off or it is contaminated. She also doubts her apartment building has power because no one in that area has electricity unless they use a generator.“One of the buildings looks like the roof and side were torn off, but ours looks like it might be OK. We can’t really tell,” Dean said.For natural disaster victims like Dean and Lee, the lack of information causes the most frustration, they said.“The governor said the disaster wasn’t as bad as expected, but that’s tough to hear when you know so many people who have lost everything,” Dean said. “Nobody wants to hear how bad it isn’t right now. It’s bad enough.”Lee agreed, adding she worries that statements like that from local officials will lead to less urgency for the rest of the country to help rebuild the region.“We might not be as well-known as New Orleans or New York or Miami, but we have 78,000 people here and most don’t have power,” Lee said. “I’m worried people will hear what the governor says and think maybe we don’t need the help. But, trust me, we do.”In a press conference Thursday, Gov. Edwards acknowledged the progress that has been made clearing debris, but noted that the storm “left a long trail of devastation and just catastrophic damage.”Olivia Dean hasn’t been able to go home. She knows her apartment house lacks water, and she says she doubts the building has power. (Courtesy Olivia Dean)“We clearly have a very, very long way to go,” he said, adding that “this is very much going to be a marathon, not a sprint.”For residents like Lee and Dean, the marathon has just begun.“It’s going to be weeks until I see any sort of assistance from FEMA,” Lee said. “An inspector hasn’t even made it to our RV park, so my application is still pending. I’m just hanging on the best I can until I get some help — that’s all I can do.” 
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A bitter dispute between China and the Czech Republic threatens to affect relations between Europe and Beijing. A delegation from the Czech senate visited Taiwan this week – which China claims as part of its territory. Strongly worded threats from Beijing against the delegation have prompted criticism from EU leaders. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the dispute comes as Europe hardens its language towards China. 
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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