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Firefighters battling history-making wildfires in Northern California say the weather is not in their favor as they struggle to bring more than 600 separate blazes under control.Hot weather, unpredictable winds, and possible lightning strikes that could set more fires are making an incredibly difficult job even harder.  The U.S. National Weather Service forecasters posted a Red Flag Warning for Sunday and Monday for the San Francisco Bay area north along the coast.California Wildfires Burn Million Acres; Trump OKs Disaster AidThe weather forecast doesn’t offer much help to more than 14,000 firefighters battling the state’s blazesThese warnings mean that warm temperatures, stronger winds and lower humdity are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger.   “There’s a lot of potential for things to really go crazy out there,” California fire chief Mark Brunton said, noting that the winds can blow from any direction.  President Donald Trump declared a major disaster area for Northern California, making the state eligible for federal funds to help those who have lost their homes and property.State officials are calling the fires the second-largest clusters of wildfires in recorded California history.As of Sunday, about 450,000 hectares have been torched. More than 1,000 homes and buildings have been incinerated. Thousands have fled their homes. At least five fire-related deaths have been reported.  There are reports that a number of ancient redwood trees have been destroyed.Soot, smoke and haze are clouding the skies over other parts of the state, creating a health hazard.  Experts blame the latest fires on storms that brought lots of lightning but no rain. The extreme heat that baked California last week, including a 54 degree Celsius (130 Fahrenheit) reading in Death Valley, is aggravating the fire risk.    
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A former Soviet republic on the fault line between Russia and Europe is boiling with revolt this summer. Sounds familiar — but Belarus 2020 isn’t Ukraine 2014, and that’s why it’s hard to predict what will happen next. Here is a look at what’s different this time, and why it matters: No real leader The uprising in Belarus erupted last week in a democratic vacuum, in a country where challengers to President Alexander Lukashenko are jailed or exiled and where there is no experienced parliamentary opposition. So those at the forefront of Minsk protest marches have been ordinary Belarusians, instead of established political leaders like those who helped galvanize crowds and funding for Ukraine’s 2014 protest movement, centered around the Maidan independence square in Kyiv. In Belarus, “the absence of bright leaders undoubtedly weakens the protests … Leaders bring awareness,” independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said. So Belarusian protesters formed a new Advisory Council this week to try to “offer the street a clear plan and agenda,” he said. However, opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova argues that the mass protests this month in Minsk, which came together in decentralized clusters via messaging app Telegram, show that Belarusians no longer need a vertical hierarchy telling them what to do. And a leaderless protest has one key advantage, she said: “It cannot be beheaded.” Orderly protests When unprecedented crowds of 200,000 people marched through the tidy, broad avenues of Minsk on Sunday, they came to a halt at red traffic lights, waiting obediently until they turned green. In Ukraine, by contrast, “protesters burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails,” said Syarzhuk Chyslau, leader of the Belarusian White Legion organization. That’s in part because the Minsk marches lack the kind of far-right and neo-Nazi militant groups that joined Ukraine’s uprising and fanned the violence. It’s also because Belarusians aren’t driven by the deep-seated anger at Russian influence that fueled Ukraine’s uprisings in 2004 and 2014, or Georgia’s ground-breaking Rose Revolution in 2003. While Ukraine has been geopolitically split between pro-West and pro-Russian camps since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarusians are broadly Moscow-friendly. Not a single European Union flag has appeared at the Minsk rallies, and the protesters aren’t pursuing NATO membership at the Kremlin’s expense; they just want to freely choose their own leader after an election they believe was stolen from them. Pavel Latushko, a former Lukashenko loyalist now on the protesters’ Advisory Council, hopes this could allow Belarusians to count on help from both Brussels and Moscow to settle the current tensions. “If the EU and Russia together acted as a mediator in resolving the Belarusian crisis, this would be an ideal option,” Latushko told The Associated Press. Economics While Ukraine’s protest movement built a huge tent camp in the center of Kyiv, complete with food delivery and security forces, the only perks for protesters in Belarus so far are bottles of water. “There are no oligarchs in Belarus who would give money for hot meals, medical treatment and tents. Even to pay police fines, Belarusian protesters collect money themselves,” analyst Alexander Klaskouski said. Unlike Ukraine’s largely privatized economy, Belarus’ economy remains 80% state-run, and little has evolved since the Soviet era. That makes it even more remarkable that workers at state-run factories have joined this week’s protests and strikes. “The structure of the economy allowed Ukrainians not to be afraid of the state, which in Belarus could throw any person out on the street with nothing at all,” said Klaskouski. The EU and U.S. also had economic interests in Ukraine before its 2014 uprising, but have only a marginal role in the largely closed-off Belarusian economy. Moscow’s role Given that, the Kremlin can’t easily portray Belarus’ protests as a Western-backed effort to sow chaos in its backyard the way it could in Ukraine. Russia used that argument to justify its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and backing for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine in a war that still simmers, six years on. But Russia’s role in Belarus is pivotal, as the country’s top trade partner and main military ally. So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear to Germany and France that they should steer clear of any interference, but hasn’t revealed how he wants to deal with the protesters or with Lukashenko, the only leader in the former Soviet space who’s been in power longer than Putin himself. Potential parallels Ukraine has been a cacophonous democracy for much of the 29 years since winning independence from the USSR, and Belarus is dubbed Europe’s last dictatorship — but they share some similarities. “Lukashenko made the same mistake as [former Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych — he began to brutally beat peaceful protesters, which sparked a tsunami of popular protest, insulted dignity and triggered a revolution,” said analyst Vladimir Fesenko, director of the Penta Center in Kyiv. Belarusian economist Dmitry Rusakevich, 46, participated in the Kyiv protests on the Maidan, and now goes out to Minsk’s Independence Square every evening. “Maidan woke up Belarusians and showed that we need to fight for freedom,” he said. “It took the calm Belarusians a long time to muster the courage to say no to the dictator.” 
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Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is in serious condition with a fever, her party’s spokeswoman said on Sunday. Tymoshenko, 59, who twice served as premier before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted COVID-19. Parliament has been on summer vacation since mid-July. “Her condition is assessed as serious, her temperature is up to 39 [Celsius],” the spokeswoman for her Fatherland party said, declining to say whether Tymoshenko had been hospitalized or give further detail. Ukraine has experienced a sharp rise in infections this week, with a new 24-hour total of 2,328 cases reported on Saturday. The overall number of infections reached 104,958 along with 2,271 deaths. Tymoshenko rose to prominence as co-leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 in which pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was confirmed as president after a court declared the election result to have been rigged in favor of his pro-Moscow foe. She served twice as prime minister under Yushchenko before the two fell out after years of political turmoil. Tymoshenko ran for president in 2010 and lost to Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovich and in 2011 was sentenced to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges, which she denied, calling the accusations politically motivated. She was freed from prison in early 2014 after Yanukovich was toppled in a popular uprising that put Ukraine on a path away from former Soviet master Moscow toward closer ties with the European Union and the United States.  
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Analysis from the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane shows it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart and that passengers were still alive for some time after the impact of the first blast, Iran said on Sunday.The announcement by the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading in July.Tehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukraine airliner in January, at a time of extreme tensions with the United States. All 176 people aboard the plane were killed.”Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit, indicated that the passengers were alive … 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane,” Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh was cited as saying by state television.Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada and other nations that had citizens aboard the downed plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.”The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicized,” Zanganeh said.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on January 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Tehran later acknowledged as a “disastrous mistake” by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.Iranian and Ukrainian officials have held talks on the compensation to families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October. 
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“We’re on the brink of a nationwide pandemic,” the director general of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday. Jung Eun-Kyeong said “new cases are increasing in all 17 regions” across South Korea. The 397 new COVID-19 cases reported late Saturday represented the highest daily jump in cases since March.  Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said Saturday that new nationwide restrictions, which begin Sunday, followed nine days of triple-digit increases in coronavirus cases.   A man reads posted directions to receive the COVID-19 testing at a makeshift clinic in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 20, 2020.South Korea’s nationwide ban on large gatherings closes churches, nightclubs, beaches and stops fans from attending professional sports events. Jung said 841 new cases could be traced back to an anti-government rally held this month by a right-wing preacher who heads the Sarang Jell Presbyterian Church.  Another group of cases in South Korea has been traced to a Starbucks, officials say. FILE – A pick-up truck passes a sign for free COVID-19 testing, in San Antonio, Texas, Aug. 14, 2020.Johns Hopkins University reported 23.2 million COVID-19 cases worldwide early Sunday, with more than 800,000 deaths. The U.S., as it had for months, leads the world in the number of COVID-19 infections with 5.6 million, followed by Brazil with 3.5 million and India with more than 3 million.  Health officials in the U.S. believe the number of infections in America may be 10 times greater than reported because of a lack of testing and reporting. COVID-19 cases are starting to emerge from the massive 10-day motorcycle rally held earlier this month in Sturgis, in the U.S. state of South Dakota, authorities say.Thousands of bikers rode through the streets for the opening day of the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally, Aug. 7, 2020, in Sturgis, S.D.Health officials in Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota say they have identified infections connected with the rally.  Authorities warn, however, that the full extent of infections from the rally will not be known for some time.  Children age 12 and older should wear a face mask in the same situations an adult should, while 6-year-olds to 11-year-olds should wear them as risks require, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said, to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Older children could play more of a role in virus transmission than younger children, the two organizations said, adding that more information is needed to help understand how children of all ages may help spread the virus, which causes COVID-19. The situations in which older children should wear a face mask include when a distance of 1 meter from others cannot be guaranteed and when there is widespread transmission in the community, the WHO and UNICEF said in a document dated August 21. For younger children, parents should consider their children’s access to a mask and ability to use it, the intensity of transmission in the area, and adequate adult supervision, the two organizations said. Children younger than 5 should not be required to wear masks, the WHO and UNICEF said. U.S. President Donald Trump, without evidence, Saturdaty accused employees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of working to slow testing of COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election.  President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Aug. 19, 2020, in Washington.In a tweet, Trump said the slowdown is the work of the so-called “deep state,” a conspiracy theory suggesting federal workers constitute a hidden government entrenched within the legitimate government. Trump’s comments came after Reuters first reported on Thursday that a senior FDA official said he would step down if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was declared safe and effective. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Saturday on Capitol Hill that Trump made a “dangerous statement” about FDA employees and added Trump is “beyond the pale.” 
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Protesters took to the streets of Portland in the Western U.S. state of Oregon for the 87th consecutive day Saturday.Opposing left- and right-wing factions briefly clashed without interference from onlooking police.The Associated Press reports that federal authorities moved demonstrators away from a plaza near federal buildings.Media reports say hundreds of protesters were on the scene, some armed with pepper spray and makeshift shields. Some threw rocks and other articles and engaged in skirmishes.Portland has been the scene of demonstrations since the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
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At least 17 people were killed in three attacks across Colombia in regions contested by criminal groups, drug traffickers, and dissidents of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.Officials and local media reported on Saturday that the attacks occurred within 24 hours in three Colombian provinces.Colombia’s President Ivan Duque condemned the violence.”The rejection of violence is because it mainly hurts the young people of Colombia,” he said. “It hurts that in recent years we have seen that the main victims of violence are youth. It hurts that in many communities these armed groups have always tried to recruit children.”The attacks in the Columbian provinces of Cauca and Narino claimed the life of 12 people, six in each, while the attack in the province of Arauca left five people dead.Just a week ago, eight people were killed by an unidentified armed group in a contested drug trafficking area in Narino. Five other people were killed on August 11 in a neighborhood in the eastern part of the city of Cali.More than 260,000 people have been killed and millions displaced during Colombia’s decades-long drug trafficking conflicts that have involved drug gangs, other criminal groups and former members of FARC who reject the Duque’s 2016 peace deal.     
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Two hurricanes could hit southeast Louisiana two days apart, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said Saturday.Tracks were still uncertain Saturday, and both systems were still tropical storms. But the center issued a hurricane watch for the New Orleans area, indicating that hurricane-force winds could arrive within 48 hours. The city of New Orleans advised residents to have five days’ worth of food and water on hand, rather than the usual three.Tropical Storms Laura and Marco both appeared to be heading toward the same general area. Gov. John Bel Edwards, who declared a state of emergency on Friday so the state can help local governments prepare for the storms, asked President Donald Trump on Saturday for a federal emergency declaration.”The cumulative impact of these storms will likely have much of Louisiana facing tropical storm/hurricane force impacts for a much longer period of time than it would with any one hurricane,” he wrote. “These extended impacts could bring flooding and wind damage to numerous Louisiana communities statewide.”Both are projected to approach the Gulf Coast at or close to hurricane force — Marco possibly on Monday afternoon and Laura on Wednesday afternoon. But the times were uncertain, and forecasts so far have changed widely for the storms.Winds could reach 119 to 177 kph, the National Weather Service said.Mariners were warned that “Tropical Storm Marco is expected to begin affecting the coastal waters by early Monday morning and continue to affect the waters through Tuesday. Tropical Storm Laura will then begin impacting the waters by Tuesday night and continue to impact the waters through early Thursday morning.”Raymond Monday of Gretna, a New Orleans suburb on the west bank of the Mississippi River, said, “They’re only (expected to be) Category 1, so I’m not really worried.” Most carts in the Sam’s Club there held cases of bottled water stacked high, but his held only a generator.He said he didn’t need anything else — he has a freezer full of food and ballpark-sized containers of water at home. The generator has electric ignition so his wife or daughter can start it if he’s not there, he said.Danielle Braud also wasn’t terribly worried: “I was here for Katrina.” Her cart held baby Gabriel in an infant seat and — among other items — several cases of water, at least one of Gatorade and a box of frozen pancake-wrapped sausages. She said her next stop would be the diaper aisle.In Acadiana, KATC-TV reported where people could get sandbags, and whether they needed to bring their own shovels.Residents of Cameron Parish, on the coast’s southwest edge, began stocking up, filling gas tanks and getting generators ready Friday morning, Emergency Director Danny Lavergne told KPLC-TV.”The residents are ready,” he said Friday.Cattle farmers began moving their stock and heavy equipment even earlier, he said. People need to consider both storm safety and the dangers of the coronavirus, said Lavergne: “Bring your mask, hand sanitizer, plan plenty of time to get to your destination; have more than one route.”Cameron Parish is subject to storm surge.”Our job is to protect life and property, but life is first so if we call an evacuation it’s to make sure you have enough time for you and your family to get out,” Lavergne said. 
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West African envoys led by former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said they were optimistic after talks in Mali’s capital city of Bamako with the military junta that forced President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to resign and disband the government earlier this week.”The interviews are going well,” Jonathan said Saturday night, according to Agence France-Presse.Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) delegation also met with the ousted president and the other government and military officials detained by the rebel soldiers.”We have seen President Keita, he is doing very well,” Jonathan said, according to AFP.The ECOWAS envoys met for about 30 minutes with members of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, including Col. Assimi Goita, the leader of the junta.A spokesperson for the military, Ismael Wague, agreed the talks “are going very well.”The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, said the discussions would continue for a second day Sunday.The envoys’ visit comes one day after thousands crowded into Mali’s capital in a raucous show of support for the military junta.Demonstrators in Bamako also denounced ECOWAS for condemning the coup and for closing Mali’s borders to neighbors in the regional bloc’s 14 other member nations.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A man holds a banner against the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Misiion in Mali (MINUSMA) and Barkhane, an anti-insurgent operation, during a protest to support the Malian army in Bamako, Mali, on Aug. 21, 2020.“An act of mutiny in Mali is strongly condemned,” Karns continued. “It is an act that is inconsistent with the legitimate role of the military in free societies and everything that is taught in the U.S. military and its training.”The junta leaders have promised to hold elections within nine months.“This gives an assurance that they’re not here to remain in power,” said Yeah Samake, a leader of the Malian opposition coalition known as the Movement of June 5-Reassembly of Patriotic Forces (M5-RFP).Samake said he was encouraged by their plan for a transition team in which the military would hold six of 24 seats and then would be forming a unity government.“They are working with the people,” Samake said.The opposition leader said he considers the coup “a turning point from corruption, from ill governance, to a more efficient leadership,” but he cautioned the junta leaders to stay true to their pledge to cede control.“The people of Mali are going to remain mobilized and vigilant, making sure that the power belongs to the people – and that power is for the well-being and the welfare of the people of Mali.”A more pessimistic view comes from John Campbell, who served twice as U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and now is a senior fellow for African policy studies with the Council on Foreign Relations.“A way to think about the coup is that it essentially occurred in the political class. Mali has been run for a long time by a political class and the military, and the two interpenetrate,” Campbell told VOA. “So, it was not a coup  against  those that have been running the country, but rather more or less  among  those that have been running the country.”Despite the celebratory nature of Friday’s demonstration in Bamako, the coup likely “won’t mean very much in terms of addressing the fundamental problems that Mali faces,” Campbell said, elaborating on a recent blog post.Mali confronts sizable challenges, with half of its 19 million people living in poverty. It also faces deep ethnic divisions and threats from Islamist jihadists in the country’s north.VOA’s Pentagon correspondent, Carla Babb, contributed to this report, which originated with the Bambara service in VOA French to Africa. Other contributors are English to Africa’s Peter Clottey and Adam Phillips, and the Somali service’s Harun Maruf.     
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The coronavirus death toll topped 800,000 Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University, which also reported more than 23 million cases worldwide.As it has for months, the U.S. continued to lead the world in COVID-19 deaths, with more than 175,800, and infections, with over 5.6 million.Health officials in the U.S. believe the number of infections in America may be 10 times greater than reported because of a lack of testing and reporting.Effect on people of colorThe grim news came as an analysis by The Associated Press and the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system, found that while people of color make up just under 40% of the U.S. population, they accounted for approximately 52% of all the “excess deaths” through July.The report defined excess deaths as the number of deaths above the typical number in the United States during the first seven months of the year, based on figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump, without evidence, accused employees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of working to slow testing of COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election.In a tweet, Trump said the slowdown was the work of the so-called “deep state,” a conspiracy theory suggesting that federal workers constitute a hidden government entrenched within the legitimate government.Trump’s comments came after Reuters reported Thursday that a senior FDA official said he would step down if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was declared safe and effective.U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Saturday on Capitol Hill that Trump had made a “dangerous statement” about FDA employees and added that Trump was “beyond the pale.”FILE – Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program, speaks at a news conference on the novel coronavirus, in Geneva, Feb. 6, 2020.Elsewhere:— The World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, Mike Ryan, said Friday that the scale of the pandemic in Mexico was “under-recognized” and that testing there was limited.He told a Geneva briefing that Mexico was testing about 3 people per 100,000, compared with about 150 tests per 100,000 people in the United States.— Mexico had nearly 550,000 cases of the virus early Saturday and more than 59,600 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.— South Korea is imposing a nationwide ban on large gatherings, closing churches, nightclubs and beaches. In addition, fans will not be allowed at professional sports events.Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said Saturday that the new nationwide restrictions, which begin Sunday, follow nine days of triple digit increases in coronavirus cases. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 332 new cases Saturday. The country has had more than 17,000 coronavirus infections and more than 300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.— Several European countries have been reporting new surges of COVID-19 cases.“There should be no confusion: Things are not going well,” Fernando Simón, Spain’s health emergency chief, said this week.  “If we continue to allow transmission to rise, even if most cases are mild, we will end up with many in hospital, many in intensive care and many deaths.” The number of COVID-19 cases admitted to hospitals last week in Spain was double the admission numbers from the previous week.FILE – A sign advising people to wear face masks is seen at the Protestant high school Zum Grauen Kloster, on the first day of classes after the summer holidays, amid the coronavirus disease pandemic, in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 10, 2020.Berlin experienced a COVID-19 outbreak after its schools opened. Hundreds of students and school personnel are now in quarantine.French schoolchildren are set to return to school even though the country recorded 4,700 new cases Thursday and more than 4,500 Friday.In Germany, officials warned Friday against travel to the Belgian capital of Brussels because of its high rate of coronavirus infections.Britain said Friday that it planned to start regular, population-wide testing for COVID-19 by the end of the year to help suppress the spread of the virus. The country has the highest death toll in Europe, with more than 41,500 fatalities.— The head of the World Health Organization said he hoped the coronavirus pandemic would end in under two years – less time than it took to stop the 1918 Spanish flu.Speaking Friday at his regular briefing in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the key to stopping the virus was for countries around the world to “pool our efforts.”
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London’s famous Tower Bridge, which crosses the River Thames in the heart of the British capital, was stuck open Saturday, leaving traffic in chaos and onlookers amazed at the sight.The historic bascule-and-suspension bridge failed to close after opening to allow ships to pass underneath on the Thames. London police tweeted shortly after 5 p.m. that the bridge was closed to pedestrians and traffic and that mechanics were working to fix the problem. An hour later, police tweeted that the bridge had reopened.Tower Bridge is 244 meters (800 feet) long and its towers are 65 meters (213 feet) high. It was built between 1886 and 1894.
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The U.N. Human Rights office is calling on Belarusian authorities to immediately release all people unlawfully arrested during anti-government protests, which broke out nearly two weeks ago in the wake of allegedly fraudulent presidential elections.
 
Most of the several thousand people detained reportedly have been released. However, U.N. human rights monitors report that more than 100 people remain in jail. They express particular concern about the cases of some 60 people accused of criminal acts, charges that could carry heavy prison sentences.
 
U.N. human rights spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, said her agency is particularly worried about the fate of at least eight people whose whereabouts are unknown. She said information has been hard to get because of the practice of mass detentions.  
 
Nevertheless, she said Belarus has a duty to make sure comprehensive, accurate records are kept. She said family members and legal counsel must be informed about where all individuals are being held.
 
“Allegations continue to emerge of large-scale torture and ill-treatment of people including of journalists, and particularly alarming of children, during the arrests and in detention.  We are, therefore, disturbed that reportedly no action has to date been taken to investigate these reports, with a view to bringing those responsible to justice,” Throssell said.
 
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital Minsk Aug. 9, claiming the country’s long-serving president, Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed Europe’s last dictator, had stolen the election. Demonstrations calling for him to step down show no sign of abating despite the violent actions of riot police to suppress the protests.
 
Throssell said people have a right to freedom of expression and to freedom of peaceful assembly.  She said the government should take steps to facilitate and not to repress these rights.
 
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Belarus opposition figures are urging Western governments to collectively make it clear to the Kremlin that Russia must avoid a military intervention to save Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
 
They want Western nations to announce their readiness to stand by the Budapest Memorandum, an international protocol signed in 1994 guaranteeing the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Belarus.
 
In a video interview with VOA and other news outlets, Valery Tsepkalo, a former diplomat, and one of Lukashenko’s main electoral rivals until forced into exile, says the West should immediately recognize Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as the legitimate ruler of the country—in the same way it recognized last year Juan Guaido in Venezuela as the legitimate ruler after declaring Nicolas Maduro’s presidency illegitimate.
 
The 55-year-old Tsepkalo, who served for five years as ambassador to United States, says Tsikhanouskaya is “seen in the mind of every person in the Republic of Belarus” as the real winner of this month’s election. Tsepkalo fled Belarus before the poll, after being disqualified from standing. He feared he’d be imprisoned or that his children might be abducted.People hold a flag with a portrait of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, main opposition candidate in Belarus’ presidential elections, during a rally contesting official poll results, in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 17, 2020.Two other key contenders were imprisoned before voting took place, including Tsikhanouskaya’s husband, a well-known blogger. She and Tsepkalo’s wife, Veronika, joined forces, and along with Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign manager, presented a united female front against authoritarian leader Lukashenko in the run-up to the August 9 presidential election.
 
Lukashenko claims he won 80 percent of the vote, a tally disputed by his opponents and Western governments. European Union leaders midweek refused to recognize the results of the election. They say they intend to impose sanctions on officials involved in electoral fraud, and the violent repression of pre-election rallies and post-election protests, marking the biggest challenge to Lukashenko’s 26-year rule.
 
“The EU will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression and election fraud,” European Council President Charles Michel said at the end of an emergency summit of EU leaders. EU officials are calling for a peaceful dialogue between the government and the opposition to arrange a “transition of power in Belarus.”
 
Michel said the situation in Belarus is “increasingly concerning,” dubbing violence against peaceful protesters as “shocking and unacceptable.” About 7,000 people were detained, and hundreds, including reporters, were injured with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs in just the first four days of demonstrations following the poll.
 
At least two protesters have died.
 FILE – Valery Tsepkalo, a former Belarusian diplomat forced into exile, speaks during an interview near Red Square in Moscow, Russia, July 28, 2020.Valery Tsepkalo says, aside from now recognizing Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as president-elect of Belarus, Western states should avoid doing anything that might be seen as legitimizing Lukashenko, including appointing any new ambassadors to Minsk. “Do not send any ambassadors, new ambassadors to Belarus at this time,” he advises.
 
For Tsepkalo, the international move to recognize Tsikhanouskaya as the legitimate winner of the August 9 election would help to erode any residual support that may remain for Lukashenko in the ranks of the country’s armed forces. It would allow generals and senior officers a justifiable reason for ignoring any instructions from Lukashenko.
 
“It would help the transition of power because many guys from the army and from law enforcement agencies, they do not want to resign,” he says. “They would like to continue to serve the country,” he says.
 
Tsepkalo said he doesn’t believe Lukashenko can now count on the loyalty of the army, and he is doubtful the country’s generals and top military commanders would obey an order to deploy to the streets to suppress continuing anti-government protests. He says there have been reports that defense chiefs have been demanding written orders from Lukashenko, something he has been fearful of doing “because he is very afraid of [the] consequences” for himself.Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (L) visits a military firing range near Grodno, Belarus, Aug. 22, 2020. (Andrei Stasevich/BelTA/Handout via Reuters)U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Belarusian protesters Thursday. “The United States has been inspired by the display of peaceful expression of the Belarusian people seeking to determine their own future,” America’s top diplomat said in a written statement. “We stand by our long-term commitment to support Belarus’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the aspirations of the Belarusian people to choose their leaders and to choose their own path, free from external intervention.”
 
Tsepkalo says a formal re-commitment by all Western states to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum would send a “strong message” to Russia. The protocol refers to three identical political agreements signed at a conference in Budapest overseen by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
 
The agreements provided security assurances to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any of the trio. In return, Belarus and the other two states gave up their stockpiles of Soviet-era nuclear weapons.
 
The protocol was cited by Ukraine’s leaders when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 — to little avail. Tsepkalo acknowledges the Budapest Memorandum “didn’t work” to stop Russia from absorbing the Ukrainian peninsula. He adds, though, the commitment could still be useful, saying it would demonstrate “very, very strong moral support for Belarus’ independence.”FILE – Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, presidential candidate (C), Veronika Tsepkalo, wife of opposition figure Valery Tsepkalo (L), and Maria Kolesnikova, campaign representative of another opposition candidate, gesture in Minsk, Belarus, July 30, 2020.Both Valery and Veronika Tsepkalo, who are together now in exile in Moscow, emphasize that the agitation against Lukashenko is neither anti-Russian nor pro-EU. He says he is hopeful Belarus and Russia will remain friends.
 
During the interview, Veronika Tsepkalo declined, when asked by a journalist, to draw any parallels with protests in Russia against President Vladimir Putin. “Our situation is unique,” she says. “We just want to change our country and have the right to be independent,” says Veronika Tsepkalo.
 
“We don’t want to be part of Russia. We don’t want to be, or are ready to be, part of the European Union. So, we just want to stay independent,” she says.
 
Western diplomats and analysts say Putin’s biggest fear is the emergence of a Western-oriented, EU-friendly Belarus, but there is mounting evidence the Kremlin is not wedded to Lukashenko remaining in power. Some Russian members of parliament have expressed disdain publicly for Lukashenko, criticism that’s unlikely to have been voiced without the prior go-ahead behind-the-scenes by the Kremlin, say analysts. 
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The World Health Organization is concerned by the rapid increase and spread of the deadly Ebola virus in remote, densely forested areas of Equateur province in the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.Health officials report 100 people in DRC have been infected with Ebola in fewer than 100 days, killing nearly half or 43 of those who have contracted this highly contagious disease.   
 
The WHO says the virus is continuing to spread and is already in 11 of the province’s 17 health zones. This is of particular concern because of the difficulty of reaching affected communities in the geographically vast area.  
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says there currently is a delay of about five days from the onset of symptoms to when an alert about a suspected case is raised.
    
“This is concerning because the longer a patient goes without treatment, the lower their chances of survival, and the longer the virus can spread unseen in communities. The situation has been further complicated by a strike by health workers, which is affecting activities including vaccination and safe burials,” Tedros said.  
    
Health care workers in Mbandaka, Equateur’s provincial capital, recently went on strike in protest over allegedly unpaid wages. After promises by the government to investigate, the strike reportedly now has ended.   
 
Nevertheless, money remains a central problem in the fight to combat this epidemic disease, especially as COVID-19 resources are draining funds away from Ebola operations. Tedros says the operation is seriously underfunded.
    
“There continues to be an urgent need for increased human resources and logistics capacity to support an effective response across an ever-expanding geographical area, and to help health officials identify cases earlier. The government of DRC has developed a plan that needs about $40 million U.S.  We urge partners to support this plan,” Tedros said.  
    
This latest Ebola outbreak, DRC’s 11th, was declared in DR Congo’s Equateur province on June 1, just as the previous outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces was winding down. That outbreak, the largest in the country’s history, infected 3,481 people and killed nearly 2,300. 
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