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The World Health Organization says leaders who take tough action and persuade their citizens to embrace new and difficult measures to control the spread of the coronavirus will succeed in crushing this deadly disease.  
 
The assessment comes as health officials are bracing for another grim landmark this week as the number of global COVID-19 cases is expected to reach 20 million, including 750,000 deaths. Despite the sobering news, the WHO’s director-general sees what he calls green shoots of hope.
 
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says a number of countries in different regions of the world were able to suppress the virus early on.FILE – WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a session of the WHO Executive Board held virtually by video-conference, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, May 22, 2020, in this image provided by the World Health Organization in Geneva.“New Zealand is seen as a global exemplar.  And, over the weekend, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern celebrated 100 days with no community transmission, while stressing the need to remain cautious. Rwanda’s progress is due to a similar combination of strong leadership, universal health coverage, well supported health workers and clear public health communications,” he said.   
    
Tedros said countries that have invested in rapid case identification, comprehensive contact tracing and adequate clinical care for patients have succeeded in breaking the chains of transmission. He said those that have suppressed the virus effectively can safely open up their societies.
    
“Invest in the basics of public health and we can save both lives and livelihoods. In the countries that have done this successfully, they are using a risk-based approach to reopen segments of societies, including schools.  And, as they do so, they must remain vigilant for potential clusters of the virus,” he said.   
 
Tedros said everyone wants to see children go back to the classroom. However, he warned against re-opening schools hastily, without assurances that children, staff and faculty will be safe.   
 
Until effective treatment and safe, effective vaccines are available, the WHO chief said the best way countries can protect their people from COVID-19 is to implement basic health measures. These include social distancing, wearing masks, and practicing good hygiene.  
 
He added that countries that succeed in suppressing the virus, can gradually and safely get their economies moving again.
 
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Global markets are mostly higher Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at extending coronavirus relief payments for many Americans. In Asia, Sydney’s S&P/ASX index gained 1.6%.  Shanghai’s Composite index finished 0.7% higher. Seoul’s KOSPI index earned 1.4%, and the TSEC index in Taipei rose 0.5%.   In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was off 0.6%, while the Sensex in Mumbai was up 0.7%.   The Nikkei in Tokyo was closed for a public holiday. European markets are off to a good start, with the FTSE index in London up 0.8%, the CAC-40 in Paris is 0.6% higher, and the DAX index in Frankfurt gaining 0.2%  In commodities trading, gold continues its record-setting pace, selling at $2,022.80 per ounce, up 0.6%.  U.S. crude oil is trading at $41.82 per barrel, up 1.4%, and Brent crude oil is up one percent, trading at $44.88 per barrel. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 are trending positively in futures trading, while the Nasdaq has dipped slightly into negative territory. 
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Nineteen Afghan civilians were killed in multiple roadside mine blasts in Kabul and Kandahar Sunday.  Two of the blasts occurred in Arghistan district of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.  In the first incident, a Toyota pickup carrying civilians hit a roadside mine near Shana Nari village killing nine and wounding two more Sunday afternoon, according to a spokesman for Kandahar provincial police, Jamal Barakzai. The second incident occurred near Tajaw village when a van hit a mine, killing eight Sunday night.  Meanwhile in Kabul, two civilians including a woman were killed while security personnel were trying to depose of a roadside landmine.      The civilian casualties happened on a day when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced he would release the remaining 400 Taliban prisoners—removing the last remaining hurdle to the start of direct negotiations with the militant group. Reducing civilian casualties and working toward a ceasefire is expected to be the highest priority of the Afghan team—an amalgamation of government representatives, other political factions, and civil society activists—when it meets the Taliban in Doha in the coming days. The two sides are supposed to negotiate a political settlement that ends four decades of conflict in Afghanistan.Afghan municipality workers clean a road in front of the damaged buildings, a day after an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, May 9, 2019.“In the next few days, we expect the completion of prisoner releases, then travel of the Islamic Republic team to Doha, and from there the immediate start of intra-Afghan negotiations,” Tweeted Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, early Monday morning.    Khalilzad, who headed the U.S. negotiations with the Taliban, had been proposing to start the intra-Afghan negotiations urgently. However, parts of the U.S. deal with the Taliban—particularly the promise to release up to 5000 Taliban prisoners as a pre-requisite to start direct negotiations with the Afghan government—irked Ghani, who felt this took leverage away from him.  Ghani’s government had since been dragging its feet on the prisoner release issue, trying to link it to the announcement of a ceasefire by the Taliban. Not only was this demand repeatedly rejected by the group, according to the Ghani administration, it ratcheted up its attacks against the Afghan security forces. In a video address to a regional conference last month, Ghani said Taliban had killed or wounded more than 10,000 members of Afghan security forces in the months since the U.S.-Taliban deal in February.    The mood of the general public in Afghanistan seemed to be overwhelmingly upbeat about the start of talks. Although, there was some criticism in social media posts, particularly from human rights and women’s rights groups, over releasing the 400 hardcore Taliban. There was some concern that the team finalized to represent the Afghan government and other Afghan factions was not representative.  “The Kabul team is not qualified I feel. They are children of political big wigs. It seems like the same old sharing of the pie. Public opinion is not wholly reflected,” said Mushtaq Rahim, a Kabul based independent political analyst. He added however that at the time all everyone wanted was for intra-Afghan negotiations to start.    
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U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar praised Taiwan’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic as an example of the island’s “transparent, democratic nature.” Azar made the remarks Monday during a joint appearance in Taipei with President Tsai Ing-wen. His arrival Sunday at Taipei’s Songshan Airport marked the highest-level visit by an American official since Washington formally switched diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. His trip is the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to build stronger ties with the self-ruled island. “It is a true honor to be here to convey a message of strong support and friendship from President Trump to Taiwan,” Azar told President Tsai. Trump signed a law in 2018, the Taiwan Travel Act, that calls for high-level visits between the U.S. and Taiwan.  Taiwan has had surprising success in limiting the coronavirus outbreak to just 477 confirmed cases and seven deaths.Soldier wears a mask against COVID-19 outside military airbase in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 10, 2020.China has issued strong objections to Azar’s visit to Taiwan, as it considers the island a breakaway province and has vowed to annex it by any means necessary, including a military invasion. Beijing has acted aggressively in cutting Taipei off from the international community, including objecting to its participation in the World Health Assembly.   Tsai, who has strongly advocated for Taiwan’s recognition as a sovereign nation,  denounced China’s moves to bar it from the WHO in her remarks Monday.  “Political considerations should never take precedence over the rights to health,” she said. China and Taiwan split after the 1949 civil war when Chaing Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces were driven off the mainland by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces and settled on the island. Azar’s trip has sparked another flashpoint between Beijing and Washington, with tensions already inflamed over trade, technology, China’s tightening grip on Hong Kong, and the administration’s accusations over the coronavirus outbreak, which was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. China lodged a formal complaint with the United States last week after Azar announced his trip to Taiwan, and urged Washington to end all forms of official contact with the island.  
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An idea is percolating in Vietnam as it fights COVID-19: “send in the robots.”  The pandemic has brought artificial intelligence (AI) more of a spotlight as nations around the world look for uses, from combing data for clues to predict an outbreak, to robot waiters that reduce human contact. In Vietnam, which has reported remarkably low infection and death figures, the possible uses are still being tested. They include chatbots to dispense information, face recognition technology, predictive mapping, and software to combat rumors about the disease.  For instance, FPT Corp., the nation’s biggest telecommunications and software company, introduced a web application that uses automation to assess COVID-19 risk. How it works: Vietnamese go to the Corona Check website and enter data on where they have been recently. The app then cross references that with data on the location, timing, and quantity of cases nationwide to calculate the odds someone has come into contact with the coronavirus.  “Our AI system is continuously updating data to improve itself,” Tran Hoang Giang, the FPT Software vice president, said. “Currently it could predict the probability of coronavirus infection with 90% accuracy. But it’ll get even better as more people submit self-assessments on the web.” The process is helped in part by the fact that Vietnam, which has had 841 COVID-19 cases this year, publishes uniquely detailed, anonymized data on patients’ movements so that others can check if they went somewhere at the same time as an infected person. For instance, one record showed the times that a patient had gone to a mall, a cafe, and a market. Warning system The work on machine learning sends a good message, according to FPT chairman Truong Gia Binh.   “Not only tech enthusiasts in developed countries but also young, talented Vietnamese have the opportunity to exchange knowledge and research about AI,” he said. Vietnam has also joined in on a popular AI strategy globally to map out many data points that might predict where the next cluster of COVID-19 cases will occur. The data points can number in the dozens and may not seem directly related, such as weather, density in a shopping center, or popular Google searches. However, taken together, the right data can correlate with disease outbreaks and serve as a warning system that detects risks before humans do.  In addition to models that assess the threat of a disease, Vietnam has a COVID-19 map that is paired with news articles, which are updated through automation software to dispel misinformation. The Southeast Asian nation has taken a hard line against pandemic rumors, which could prove deadly and in other nations have encouraged unscientific home remedies. Telemedicine  Beyond machine learning, COVID-19 is also spurring more interest in another emerging technology called telemedicine. For instance, the company Doctor Anywhere now has physicians assessing Vietnamese patients for signs of the disease via video consultations, which are also conducted in Thailand and Singapore.  All of this is part of Industry 4.0, a term for the latest advancements that are supposed to help economies move to the next stage of development. Vietnam expects these advances to help it recover from the pandemic, too. “AI is considered a core technology for Industry 4.0 that has implications for post COVID-19 healing,” Chu Ngoc Anh, the Minister of Science and Technology in Vietnam, said. His government is working with Australia, which said last week it donated 650,000 Australian dollars “to find new ways to use AI as Vietnam recovers from COVID-19.” The money will fund things like a contest in which programmers submit competing ideas to put machine learning to use. “In the face of the global pandemic, it [innovation] has become more important than ever,” Robyn Mudie, the Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, said.  She added: “This AI initiative is a great example of how new technology can be adapted quickly to respond to Vietnam’s emerging needs.” 
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Six French aid workers with the nongovernmental organization ACTED and their local guide and driver were killed Sunday by gunmen riding motorcycles in an area of southwestern Niger that is home to the last West African giraffes, officials said.The six worked for the international aid group, Niger’s Defense Minister Issoufou Katambé told Reuters. Officials had earlier described them as tourists.”Among the eight people killed in Niger, several are ACTED employees,” said Joseph Breham, an NGO lawyer.No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assault.  French President Emmanuel Macron denounced “the deadly attack which cowardly hit a group of humanitarian workers” in Niger and said in a statement Sunday the attack will be investigated.Macron, who spoke Sunday with his Nigerien counterpart Mahamadou Issoufou, added that “their determination to continue the common fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel” remained intact.The president “expresses his condolences and the support of the French nation to the families and relatives of the victims,” the statement said.It is believed to be the first such attack on Western tourists in the area, a popular attraction in the former French colony thanks to its unique population of West African or Niger giraffes.A source close to Niger’s environmental services said the assault took place around 11:30 a.m. (1030 GMT) 6 kilometers (4 miles) east of the town of Koure, which is an hour’s drive from the capital, Niamey.”Most of the victims were shot. … We found a magazine emptied of its cartridges at the scene,” the source told AFP.”We do not know the identity of the attackers, but they came on motorcycles through the bush and waited for the arrival of the tourists.”The source also described the scene of the attack, where bodies were laid side-by-side next to a torched off-road vehicle, which had bullet holes in its rear window.Around 20 years ago, a small herd of West African giraffes, a subspecies distinguished by its lighter color, found a haven from poachers and predators in the Koure area.Today they number in their hundreds and are a key tourist attraction, enjoying the protection of local people and conservation groups.  However the Tillaberi region is in a hugely unstable location, near the borders of Mali and Burkina Faso.  The region has become a hideout for Sahel jihadist groups such as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS).The use of motorcycles has been totally banned since January in an attempt to curb the movements of such jihadists. 
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Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been arrested, accused of suspected collusion with foreign forces under the new national security law, his top aide said on Twitter, in what is the highest-profile arrest yet under the legislation. Lai has been one of the most prominent democracy activists in the Chinese-ruled city and an ardent critic of Beijing, which imposed the sweeping new law on Hong Kong on June 30, drawing condemnation from Western countries. The new security law punishes anything China considers subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. Critics say it crushes freedoms in the semiautonomous city, while supporters say it will bring stability after prolonged pro-democracy protests last year. “Jimmy Lai is being arrested for collusion with foreign powers at this time,” Mark Simon, a senior executive at Lai’s media company Next Digital, which publishes local tabloid Apple Daily, said early on Monday. Police did not immediately comment. Apple Daily reported that Lai was taken away from his home in Ho Man Tin early Monday. The paper says one of Lai’s sons, Ian, was also arrested at his home. About 10 other people were expected to be arrested Monday, local newspaper South China Morning Post reported, without naming its sources. Lai was also arrested this year on illegal assembly charges, along with other leading activists, relating to protests last year. In an interview with Reuters in May, Lai pledged to stay in Hong Kong and continue to fight for democracy even though he expected to be one of the targets of the new legislation. Before Monday, 15 people had been arrested under the law, including four ages 16-21 late last month over posts on social media. The new legislation has sent a chill through Hong Kong, affecting many aspects of life. Activists have disbanded their organizations, while some have fled the city altogether. Slogans have been declared illegal, certain songs and activities such as forming human chains have been banned in schools, and books have been taken off shelves in public libraries. The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, the territory’s current and former police chiefs and eight other top officials for what Washington says is their role in curtailing political freedoms in the territory. Beijing’s top representative office in Hong Kong described the sanctions as “clowning actions.” Beijing and the Hong Kong government have said the law will not affect rights and freedoms, and that it is needed to plug security loopholes. They said it will only target a small minority of “troublemakers.”  
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