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Tanzania is heading toward October elections after five years under President John Magufuli. Magufuli has initiated major infrastructure projects and fought against official corruption.  But critics call him “The Bulldozer” for ignoring criticism of the projects and cracking down on opponents and freedom of the press.  Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam. Camera: Rajabu Hassan 
Producer:  Henry Hernandez 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that it has informed public health officials in all 50 states and several large cities to be prepared to distribute a coronavirus vaccine by November 1, two days before the presidential election.The McClatchy news service was the first to report Wednesday that the CDC had sent out a four-page memo on August 27 for health departments to draft vaccination plans by October 1  “to coincide with the earliest possible release of COVID-19 vaccine.” The Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus crisis hearing, July 31, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington.Fauci’s take on potential vaccine
News of the CDC memo coincided with remarks made Wednesday by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said that he is confident there will be a “safe and effective” COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year.However Fauci also said in an interview last week with Reuters news agency that “the one thing that you would not want to see with a vaccine is getting an [emergency approval of a vaccine] before you have a signal of efficacy.””One of the potential dangers if you prematurely let a vaccine out is that it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the other vaccines to enroll people in their trial,” he said.Other  health experts have also expressed skepticism about rolling out a vaccine before the completion of clinical trials, saying hastening its distribution to the public could pose safety risks and deepen anti-vaccination sentiments.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 2 MB480p | 3 MB540p | 3 MB1080p | 9 MBOriginal | 19 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioSafety checks
Patricia Zettler, a former Food and Drug Administration associate chief counsel told the Washington Post this week, “I think it’s extremely critical we have rigorous evidence of safety and effectiveness supporting a vaccine before the FDA gives its okay.” Zettler is currently a law professor at Ohio State University.Some state health departments say they lack the staff, money and tools to educate people about vaccines and then to distribute, administer and track hundreds of millions of doses, according to the Associated Press.  “There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to be prepared for this vaccination program, and it will not be complete by Nov. 1,” Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of immunization education at the Immunization Action Coalition, a national vaccine education and advocacy organization in Minnesota, told the AP. “States will need more financial resources than they have now.”   Only half of Americans trust vaccine
A recent Thousands of bikers rode through the streets for the opening day of the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally Friday, Aug. 7, 2020, in Sturgis, S.D. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves)COVID death linked to South Dakota rally
Meanwhile, a resident of the northern state of Minnesota is believed to be the first person to have died of the coronavirus after attending a huge motorcycle rally in the neighboring state of South Dakota last month.Health officials in Minnesota say the man was in his 60s and had underlying health conditions.  He was one of hundreds of motorcycle enthusiasts who converged on the small town of Sturgis for 10 days, many of them also refusing to wear face masks or observe social distancing.  At least 260 new COVID-19 infections in 11 states have been tied directly to the event, according to the Washington Post.    
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The U.S. State Department has imposed a new set of restrictions on Chinese diplomats working in the United States.Under the new rules, which were announced Wednesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, senior Chinese diplomats must get prior approval to visit college campuses or meet with local government officials, and to host any cultural events outside of the Chinese Embassy or consular posts if the audience is larger than 50 people.Pompeo also said the administration will require the Chinese government to properly identify all government-run social media accounts.Pompeo said the imposition of similar rules on American diplomats working in China was the reason for the restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States.“We’re simply demanding reciprocity,” he said.The Chinese Embassy in Washington issued a statement calling the move “yet another unjustified restriction and barrier” on their diplomatic and consular personnel.The new restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States is the latest sign of worsening relations between the world’s two largest economies. The two sides have clashed over numerous issues, including trade, technology, the new national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong, and China’s increasingly aggressive behavior toward Taiwan.
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Mexican police are seeking the gunmen who stormed a funeral service late Tuesday and opened fire, killing at least eight people and wounding more than a dozen others in the city of Cuernavaca.Interior Minister for Morelos State Pablo Ojeda said according to the initial witness accounts, the gunmen arrived in different vehicles, with weapons that are for the exclusive use of the armed forces.The mass shooting is the latest in a country plagued by drug-related gang violence.Mexico’s murder total reached a record 34,582 last year, more than 1,000 more killings than the previous year.Reuters reports the number of murders in Mexico was up slightly, 1.6%, the first seven months of this year compared to the same period in 2019.  
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At least one person was killed and more than 2,000 people evacuated to temporary shelters in South Korea as a powerful typhoon churned across the peninsula, authorities said Thursday.Typhoon Maysak — named after the Cambodian word for a type of tree — made landfall early Thursday in Busan on the southern coast, knocking down traffic lights and trees and flooding streets.A woman was killed after a strong gust shattered her apartment window in Busan, while a man in his 60s was injured when the wind toppled an outdoor refrigerator, crushing him.More than 2,200 people evacuated to temporary shelters and around 120,000 homes left without power throughout the night across southern parts of the country and on Jeju Island.Maysak was making its way up the eastern side of the peninsula into the Sea of Japan, known as the East Sea in Korea, packing gusts of up to 140 kph.”The typhoon’s influence on our country will gradually weaken,” South Korea’s Meteorological Administration said, forecasting heavy downpours and strong winds in eastern areas.Maysak was forecast to make landfall again in North Korea at around 0300 GMT at Kimchaek, in North Hamgyong province.Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact in the North due to its creaking infrastructure, and the country is vulnerable to flooding as many mountains and hills have long been deforested.Pyongyang’s state media was on high alert, carrying live broadcasts of the situation.”The trait of this typhoon is that it has brought heavy precipitation,” said a news reporter for Korean Central Television in its early morning newscast, standing in an inundated street in the eastern port of Wonsan.”The total precipitation from 21:00 on September 2 to 6:00 on September 3 is 200 millimeters,” he added.Maysak is the second typhoon in a week to hit the peninsula.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week visited a farming region hit by Typhoon Bavi and expressed relief the damage was “smaller than expected.” 
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Tropical Storm Nana barreled westward Wednesday just off the coast of Honduras on a collision course with the Central American nation of Belize, where thousands of people were stocking up on food, water and construction materials.Long lines stretched through supermarkets and hardware store shelves were nearly bare as Belizeans bought materials to board up windows and doors ahead of Nana’s expected landfall late Wednesday night or early Thursday, possibly as a hurricane.The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that Nana was located about 160 kilometers east-southeast of Belize City with maximum sustained winds of 95 kph. The storm was moving at 24 kph and was expected to strengthen throughout the day.Belize issued a hurricane warning for its coastline. Nana was 80 kilometers north-northwest of the Honduran island of Roatan, a popular tourist destination.Heavy rains were expected in Belize, as well as in northern Honduras and throughout Guatemala as the storm crosses the isthmus Thursday.Local leaders in rural villages in the southernmost district of Toledo were awaiting word from the National Emergency Management Organization to open hurricane shelters.As evening approached, dark clouds hung on the horizon as uneasy residents awaited the storm’s arrival. 
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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he is visiting Kenosha, Wisconsin, Thursday, two days after Republican President Donald Trump walked along a street in the Midwestern city left in rubble in the aftermath of civil unrest spawned by the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer.
 
Biden’s campaign said the former vice president would hold a community meeting in Kenosha, a 100,000-resident city on the shores of Lake Michigan.
 
“What we want to do is — we’ve got to heal,” Biden said at a news conference Wednesday. “We’ve got to put things together. Bring people together.”FILE – Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden walks to an outdoor stage with his wife Jill Biden during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, Aug. 20, 2020. His campaign said that he and his wife, Jill Biden, would later make a separate campaign stop in the city.
 
Biden’s visit underscores how he and Trump are trying to gain a political edge on the sensitive U.S. reckoning over racial issues and police treatment of minorities. The issue came to the forefront when a Black man, George Floyd, died in late May while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and spiraled into coast-to-coast protests over Floyd’s death and similar, subsequent incidents.
 
Trump marked his visit to Kenosha with vocal support for law enforcement, saying, “You have to be decisive, and you have to be tough, and you have to be strong, and you have to be willing to bring people in,” such as National Guard troops, to quell violence.
 
Biden, the Democratic candidate opposing Trump in the November 3 election, has criticized the U.S. leader for failing to condemn all violence from the political left and right, while at the same time refusing to criticize a teenage vigilante accused of killing two people and wounding another during protests launched by the shooting of the Black man in Kenosha, Jacob Blake.
 
“This president keeps throwing gasoline on the fire,” Biden said at his news conference. He added, “I didn’t hear him say much” about Blake being shot seven times in the back as police attempted to arrest him. “The fact is he’s not acting very responsibly,’ Biden said of Trump.  
Biden’s visit will be the first stop in Wisconsin by a Democratic presidential candidate in eight years. In 2016, the state looked safe for Democrats, and the party’s candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, skipped campaigning there. But Trump narrowly won Wisconsin, along with two other normally Democratic states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, to capture a four-year term in the White House.
 
Democrats had been scheduled to hold their national convention last month in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s biggest city, but abandoned those plans in favor of a virtual convention for fear of spreading the coronavirus pandemic if thousands of convention delegates jammed into a basketball arena, as had been scheduled.
 
During his visit to Kenosha, Trump said of urban protests, “You have anarchists, and you have the looters, and you have the rioters. You have all types. You have agitators.”Trump, Biden Trade Barbs as President Visits WisconsinUS leader views damage from Kenosha civil unrest after police shot Black man 7 times during arrest Trump attacked “reckless, far-left politicians,” adding, “We must give far greater support to our law enforcement.”
 
Trump said that in Kenosha, “Violent mobs demolished or damaged at least 25 businesses, burned down public buildings and threw bricks at police officers, which your police officers won’t stand for.”
 
“And they didn’t stand for it,” Trump said. “These are not acts of peaceful protests but really domestic terror.”
 
Biden this week accused Trump of “rooting for chaos and violence” during the election season because he sees it as “a political lifeline.”
 
Biden said at the news conference “burning and looting is wrong, and that person should be held accountable.”
 
Trump did not meet with Blake’s family during his visit and it was unclear whether Biden would. Trump did speak with a pastor he identified as the Blake family’s, and Biden talked earlier with some of Blake’s relatives.  
Authorities have charged 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenage vigilante, with five felonies in connection with the shootings of three people during August 25 protests. Rittenhouse claimed to be in Kenosha in order to protect businesses during the civil unrest.
    
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An American who traveled to Syria to fight for Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate has pleaded guilty to terror charges, a year after he was returned to the United States.The U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday that Omer Kuzu, 23, had pleaded guilty of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.The Dallas, Texas, native faces up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for January 2021.“This defendant, an American citizen radicalized on American soil, pledged allegiance to a brutal terrorist group and traveled halfway across the world to enact its agenda,” U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox said in a statement. “I am gratified Mr. Kuzu faced justice in an American court.”US Citizen Accused of Joining IS in Syria Is Repatriated to Texas to Face ChargesOmer Kuzu of Texas is the sixth US citizen or permanent resident to be brought back from Syria or Iraq According to court papers, Kuzu admitted leaving the U.S. with his brother in October 2014, against the wishes of their parents, to join IS.The brothers, who held dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship, then made their way to Istanbul before being smuggled into Syria.Kuzu said that shortly after arriving in Syria, they were taken to Mosul, Iraq, where they trained.Once back in Syria, he pledged allegiance to then-IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and began working for the terror group’s telecom directorate, repairing communication equipment for frontline fighters, earning $125 a month.Officials said Kuzu was captured by U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces last March, along with 400 other IS fighters, near the Syrian village of Dashisha.Upon his return to the U.S., Kuzu told investigators he had a wife and child, but their fate and that of his brother remains unclear.Since 2017, the U.S. has repatriated eight adults and 10 children from Syria and Iraq.Mohamad Jamal Khweis of Virginia was convicted on terror charges.28yo #Virginia man Mohamad Jamal Khweis gets 20years for joining #ISIS, acting asst AttyGen calls him “unpredictable & dangerous person” pic.twitter.com/1VHV6mOqLt— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 27, 2017Another, Samantha Elhassani, pleaded guilty last November.Samantha ElHassani – one of six US adults repatriated from #Syria or #Iraq to face charges of supporting #ISIS – pleads guilty to financing terrorismElHassani admitted she transported $30k in gold/jewels out of the US to be used by ISIShttps://t.co/INOzjnnFTU— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 26, 2019Charges against three others are pending. Two women who were repatriated last June have not been charged.What to do with IS foreign fighters and their families has been a source of debate among the U.S. and its allies since the terror group’s caliphate collapsed.The U.S. has long been pushing for countries to repatriate those who left to join IS, but many countries, especially those in Western Europe, have been reluctant to do so.“The Department of Justice remains committed to holding accountable those who have left this country in order to join and support ISIS,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement Wednesday, using an acronym for the terror group. “We hope countries around the world, including our European allies and partners, will likewise take responsibility for their own citizens who traveled to support ISIS.”The SDF continues to hold about 2,000 foreign fighters in makeshift prisons in northeastern Syria. Another estimated 10,000 foreign women and children reside in displaced-persons camps in the region.
 
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A task force commissioned by the Washington, D.C., government has recommended renaming, relocating or adding context to dozens of monuments, schools, parks and buildings because of their namesakes’ participation in slavery or racial oppression. Among the targets are the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.
Some of the proposals in the report released Tuesday are definite non-starters, as many of the most prominent monuments and statues stand on federal land, outside D.C. government control. Still, the recommendations have already prompted fierce reactions amid an ongoing national debate over America’s racial history.
“As long as President Trump is in the White House, the mayor’s irresponsible recommendations will go absolutely nowhere, and as the mayor of our Nation’s capital city — a city that belongs to the American people — she ought to be ashamed for even suggesting them for consideration,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement Tuesday.
The task force, known as DCFACES (District of Columbia Facilities and Commemorative Expressions), was formed by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser over the summer in the face of a nationwide wave of protests over police brutality and systemic racial inequities that included Washington as one of its epicenters. It released a 24-page executive summary Tuesday.
Some of the group’s recommendations were widely expected; for example, Woodrow Wilson High School has been a prime candidate for a name change for years due to Wilson’s open public support for segregation. Others are more controversial, such as proposals to rename schools named for Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and “The Star-Spangled Banner” composer Francis Scott Key.
For the multiple statues and monuments on federal land, the committee advises Bowser to ask the federal government to “remove, relocate, or contextualize” landmarks such as the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and the statue of Christopher Columbus outside Union Station.
The task force, in its summary, explained that it focused on “key disqualifying histories, including participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of color, women and LGBTQ communities and violation of the DC Human Rights Act.”
The report doesn’t go into detail about how “re-contextualizing” would work, but there have been recent recommendations that plaques be added to the monuments to Jefferson and Washington, explaining that their namesakes were longtime slave-owners.
Bowser, in a Tuesday tweet, said she looked forward to reviewing the recommendations from the task force, which she had tasked with “evaluating public spaces to ensure the namesake’s legacy is consistent with #DCValues.”
Bowser has very little power to control what happens on federal land. She and the D.C. Council fought for years to have a statue of former Confederate general Albert Pike  removed; they were unsuccessful because the statue sits on federal land. In June, hundreds of protesters toppled the Pike statue while officers from the Metropolitan Police Department looked on and kept their distance.
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It was quite a sight when the World War II-era battleship the USS Missouri fired her guns in anger for the final time.First there were billows of smoke so dense that we could still see them against the darkness of the night-sky from a nearby warship, Britain’s HMS Gloucester. Then huge orange fireballs spat from her 16-inch guns which were targeting Iraqi positions along the Kuwaiti coast.  Sharp cracks and thunderous booms followed even before the smoke had dissipated — so ear-piercing that I ripped my neck jerking away from the roar. Then a few seconds later, we could feel the thud of the Missouri’s shells landing on targets twenty miles away. The Missouri, a veteran from the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, has a storied history. But for many people the Missouri’s greatest claim to fame is hosting the signing of the formal surrender in 1945 by the Japanese 75 years ago Wednesday, as the 45,000-ton battleship lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay. V-J Day, an abbreviation for Victory over Japan Day, had been celebrated almost a month earlier on August 15 by many Allied nations, the day the Japanese government announced surrender. The U.S. marks V-J Day on September 2, the day three-quarters-of-a-century ago when Japan’s foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu signed their names to the Instrument of Surrender, which had been approved by U.S. President Harry Truman.  It set out in eight short paragraphs Japan’s unconditional capitulation. The second paragraph read: “We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated.” U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur also signed, as did others for the Allied forces.  FILE – Japan’s delegation gather to sign the formal surrender document on the U.S. Navy battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2, 1945. (US Navy/Handout via Reuters)Japan’s foreign minister removed his top hat and white gloves to sign. Thousands of sailors from the Missouri and other allied warships crammed on the gun turrets, earning by ballot their place to witness a momentous moment in world history. On the warship’s teak decks it was more orderly with officers lined up drawn “from the countries that were involved in World War II,” recalled Lieutenant Robert G. Mackey in an interview with the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. He remembered there was a last-minute scramble before the Japanese representatives arrived to find an appropriate table to use for the ceremony.“The British sent us over this table and it’s not big enough and I don’t want it on a British table anyway,” Harold Stassen, an aide to Admiral William Halsey, told Mackey, who suggested the table from the officers’ mess. They overlaid the table with a green felt cloth the ship’s officers used for playing cards. “It looks all right to me!” Mackey told Stassen.  FILE – U.S. F4U and F6F planes fly in formation during surrender ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, off Japan, Sept. 2, 1945. (U.S. National Archives/via Reuters)In twenty-three minutes the ceremony was over.  FILE – Servicemen, reporters, and photographers perch on the USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, for the onboard ceremony in which Japan surrendered in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II.But the memory for the men on board the Missouri remained vivid decades later. Walter Garth Holmes, a U.S. Marine, recalled in a 2015 interview with a local television station: “I was that close to where General MacArthur was and he had his corn cob pipe, which is what he’s famous for and his chest full of ribbons.” Holmes was 20 years old at the time. “His cap was turned sort of cocked. He was in charge. That’s what I remember about him.” MacArthur began the brief ceremony with a short speech. He noted: “It is my earnest hope and, indeed, the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past; a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish, for freedom, tolerance and justice.” He referred to the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which had persuaded Japan to capitulate, saying the blasts had “revised the traditional concept of war.” The world had had its last chance, the general noted, warning that the world had to devise a more equitable system or Armageddon would be at its door. Five years later both MacArthur and the Missouri were at war once again. The Missouri was the first American battleship to arrive in Korean waters after North Korea invaded the South in 1950, firing her massive guns for the first time since World War II in a bid to divert attention from the Incheon landings by United Nations forces.  She was to repeat the feint the night I saw her blasting away at the Kuwaiti coast in 1991, a bombardment aimed largely at tricking the Iraqis into thinking allied forces were about to mount an amphibious landing rather than launch a ground assault from Saudi Arabia. The Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf.  She survived some near misses. In April 1942, a kamikaze Zero warplane crashed into Missouri’s starboard side, striking just below her main deck. In 1991, the Missouri was also targeted, this time by an Iraqi Silkworm missile. That threat was intercepted by Sea Dart missiles fired by Britain’s HMS Gloucester. FILE – The battleship USS Missouri, ‘Mighty Mo’, looms over a gathering of fans as it returns to Pearl Harbor, June 22. 1998.Finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992, the Missouri is now a floating museum at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The dent on her side from the kamikaze attack can still be seen. 
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Facebook said Tuesday that it removed a small network of accounts and pages linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the “troll factory” that has used social media accounts to sow political discord in the U.S. since the 2016 presidential election.  Twitter also suspended five related accounts. The company said the tweets from these Russia-linked accounts “were low quality and spammy” and that most received few, if any, likes or retweets. The people behind the accounts recruited “unwitting” freelance journalists to post in English and Arabic, mainly targeting left-leaning audiences. Facebook said Tuesday the network’s activity focused on the U.S., U.K., Algeria and Egypt and other English-speaking countries and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.  The company said it started investigating the network based on information from the FBI about its off-Facebook activities. The network was in the early stages of development, Facebook added, and saw “nearly no engagement” on Facebook before it was removed. The network consisted of 13 Facebook accounts and two pages. About 14,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages, though the English-language page had a little over 200 followers, Facebook said.FILE – An man looks at a Facebook app on his smartphone in Amritsar, India, March 22, 2018.Still, its presence points to ongoing Russian efforts to disrupt the U.S. election and sow political discord in an already divided country. To evade detection, the people behind the network recruited Americans to do their bidding, likely unknowingly, both as journalists and as people authorized to purchase political advertisements in the U.S. Facebook said the people behind the network posted about global events ranging from racial justice in the U.S. and the U.K., NATO, the QAnon conspiracy, President Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. The network spent about $480 on advertising on Facebook, primarily in U.S. dollars. However, Facebook said less than $2 worth of those ads targeted the U.S. The network’s posts directed people to a website called PeaceData, which claims to be a global news organization that, according to a  report by research firm Graphika, “took a left-wing stance, opposing what it portrayed as Western imperialism and the excesses of capitalism.” The FBI said in a statement Tuesday that it provided information to the platforms “to better protect against threats to the nation’s security and our democratic processes.” “While technology companies independently make decisions regarding the content of their platforms and the safety of their members, the FBI is actively engaged with our federal partners, election officials, and the private sector to mitigate foreign threats to our nation’s security and our elections,” the statement said.  Separately, Twitter said Tuesday it will start adding context to its trending section, which shows some of the most popular topics on the service at any given moment. Experts and even Twitter’s own employees have expressed concerns that the trending section can be gamed to spread misinformation and abuse. Twitter uses algorithms and human employees to determine what topics are trending — it is not simply the most popular topics, but topics that are newly popular at any given time. But it’s not difficult to artificially elevate trends.  In the coming weeks, Twitter said, users in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, India and several other countries will see brief descriptions added to some trends to add context. “To be clear, we know there is more work to do to improve trends and the context updates we’re announcing today are just a small step in the right direction,” said Liz Lee, a product trust partner and Frank Oppong, a product manager, in a blog post. “We need to make trends better and we will.” 
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The Khmer Rouge commander known as ‘Comrade Duch’, Pol Pot’s premier executioner and security chief who oversaw the mass murder of at least 14,000 Cambodians at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, died on Wednesday. He was 77. Kaing Guek Eav or ‘Comrade Duch’ was the first member of the Khmer Rouge leadership to face trial for his role within a regime blamed for at least 1.7 million deaths in the “killing fields” of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Duch died at 00:52 a.m. (1752 GMT on Tuesday) at the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge tribunal spokesman Neth Pheaktra said. He gave no details of the cause, but Duch had been ill in recent years. In 2010, a U.N. tribunal found him guilty of mass murder, torture and crimes against humanity at Tuol Sleng prison, the former Phnom Penh high school which still stands as a memorial to the atrocities committed inside. He was given a life sentence two years later after his appeal that he was just a junior official following orders was rejected. Duch – by the time of his trial a born-again Christian – expressed regret for his crimes. Under Duch’s leadership, detainees at Tuol Sleng prison, codenamed “S-21,” were ordered to suppress cries of agony as Khmer Rouge guards, many of whom were teenagers, sought to extract confessions for non-existent crimes through torture. The guards were instructed to “smash to bits” traitors and counter-revolutionaries. For the Khmer Rouge, that could mean anyone from school teachers to children, to pregnant women and “intellectuals” identified as such for wearing glasses. Beneath Tuol Sleng’s chaotic facade, Duch – himself a former math teacher – had an obsessive eye for detail and kept his school-turned-jail meticulously organized. “Nothing in the former schoolhouse took place without Duch’s approval. His control was total,” wrote photographer and author Nic Dunlop, who found Duch in 1999 hiding near the Thai border, two decades after the Khmer Rouge fell. “Not until you walk through the empty corridors of Tuol Sleng does Stalin’s idiom that one death is a tragedy – a million a statistic, take on a terrifying potency,” Dunlop wrote in his account of Duch and his atrocities, “The Lost Executioner.” At S-21, new prisoners had their mugshots taken. Hundreds are now on display within its crumbling walls. Norng Chan Phal, one of the few people to have survived S-21, was a boy when he and his parents were sent to Duch’s prison and interrogated on suspicion of having links to the Khmer Rouge’s mortal enemy, Vietnam. His parents were tortured and killed but Chan Phal survived to give testimony at Duch’s trial in 2010. “He was cooperative, he spoke to the court frankly. He apologized to all S-21 victims and asked them to open their hearts. He apologized to me too,” Chan Phal told Reuters. “He apologized. But justice is not complete.” 
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