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Protesters in Thailand are pressing on with their demands for the dissolution of parliament, new elections and changing the constitution.Leaders said Friday they would step up pressure on the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha if it failed to act on changes.”(Our demands) are clear enough for the government to hear and follow,” said protest leader Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree. “To set up a committee to have hearings is like an act. It’s like a show with no meaning. Is it to buy time? They think that we will disappear. They believe that we will fade away. So, they set up this committee to buy time. But the fact is we want real change. We want to send our demands to those with powers to make decisions, not to some rubber stamp committee.”Meeting in front of Bangkok’s iconic Democracy Monument, eight leaders of the Free People Movement, formerly known as Free Youth, announced plans for a big rally on August 16.Protesters held signs reading: “Constitution needed to be amended. Democracy must come from the people” and “We don’t hate our nation. We hate dictatorship. No coup.”Prayuth said early this week he will consider protester’s demands, but protest leader Tattep suggested the premier’s statement was just a delaying tactic, as the prime minister is unlikely to agree to dissolve parliament or call new elections.After more than five years of relative calm since a military coup in 2014, anti-government protests have erupted again, mostly on school and university campuses in the capital Bangkok and other Thai cities.Protesters, majority of them young people, are highly dissatisfied with the current administration.A former army chief, Prayuth first took power in 2014, then held a tight grip on it through the 2019 elections, widely seen as manipulated in his favor. 
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Numbness and shock at first — now fury. The massive blast at Beirut’s port Tuesday night that wrecked large parts of Lebanon’s capital is likely to have as enduring an impact on the impoverished Mediterranean country as the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, say diplomats and analysts. The question, though, is whether the impact will be for the good. The 2005 killing triggered the Cedar Revolution, forcing a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Briefly it held out, too, the promise of a peaceful democratization of a country that has been ruled along rigid sectarian power-sharing lines since a devastating civil war three decades ago tore Lebanon part. Even before the explosion, many Lebanese had had enough of a deal-making system seamed with corruption and incompetence, a political set-up that’s mismanaged the economy, bringing it to the brink of collapse. Weak state institutions have floundered in curbing the spread of the coronavirus. As the country has sunk deeper into an economic crisis, which has seen the currency collapse, inflation soar and poverty rise, sectarian leaders have clung on to their political clout and their monetary perks. Street protests since last October have done little to shake the power of the warlords and religious leaders. The blast that has left at least 145 dead, 5000 injured and 300,000 homeless is being widely seen in Lebanon as a symbol of the rottenness of the state.  French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 6, 2020.That was clear midweek when crowds mobbed President Emmanuel Macron of France as he toured shattered streets in Beirut pleading with him for help. “The people want the downfall of the regime — revolution,” they chanted, directing their anger at the country’s national leadership.  Macron said he stood with them against the ruling class. One woman shouted at the French leader, “You are sitting with warlords. They have been manipulating us for the past year.” He replied: “I’m not here to help them. I’m here to help you.”“I guarantee you this,” he told residents in a district neighboring the port. “Aid will not go to corrupt hands. I will talk to all political forces to ask them for a new pact. I am here today to propose a new political pact to them.”How that can be done is another matter. Economic mess
France, Lebanon’s former colonial overlord, has been heading an international effort for months offering aid to cope with the country economic mess in return for major political reform. Paris and Beirut have clashed over the proposals with Hassan Diab, Lebanon’s prime minister, who is aligned with the Iranian-backed Shia militia group Hezbollah, accusing the French and the International Monetary Fund of seeking to blackmail Lebanon.  France’s top diplomat, Jean-Yves Le Drian, scolded Lebanon’s leadership only last month for failing to take the measures he said are necessary to save the country from collapse. “Help us to help you,” the French foreign minister said while visiting Beirut. He said Paris stood ready to mobilize support but there must be concrete action on reform.In Photos: Beirut Explosion Massive Explosion Rocks Beirut Blast rippled through several parts of city and causing widespread damage and injuriesLebanese officials are trying to head off and contain the mounting anger over the blast, which was triggered when 2,750 tons of confiscated ammonium nitrate stored for years at the port ignited. A fire sparked by welders repairing an electrical fault spread to the chemical fertilizer, which had been seized from a Russian cargo ship and impounded since 2014, according to Lebanese media. Lebanon’s customs chief said the government had been warned numerous times that the stockpile was unstable. Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun has promised punishment for those responsible and 16 port employees have been detained. But that is unlikely to assuage public outrage. Thursday saw clashes in central Beirut between stone-throwing protesters and security forces. Lebanese politicians are exchanging accusations over who is responsible as the people round on them. “What happened Tuesday evening wasn’t just any explosion. It was ‘the explosion’ — an event that Lebanon will remember for decades — just like the one that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005,” according to Ali Hashem, a commentator for the news-site Al Monitor. Turning point
Jack Watling, analyst at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank, hopes the blast might prove to be a turning point for Lebanon – “a catalyst for change.” But he harbors doubts. He says Macron is right, that, “Offers of aid should not be made without the firm recognition that the disaster was the result of a systemic failure of Lebanon’s political class.” He adds: “If that political class is unwilling to reform, then aid will do little more than set the conditions for subsequent disasters.” He fears Hezbollah will seek “to capitalize on anger felt towards the Lebanese government, both by offering money for reconstruction and contrasting government ineptitude with its competence.” The dysfunction of Lebanese governance, as well as the slump in the country’s economy, has largely worsened as the balance of power in Lebanon has tilted slowly in Hezbollah’s favor, say some analysts. Volunteers clean debris from the street following Tuesday’s blast in Beirut’s port area, Lebanon, Aug. 7, 2020.Writing earlier this year, Chatham House analyst Nadim Shehadi noted that the country was being “pulled away from its principal economic partners, the Arab Gulf states,” which stared to reduce investments and bank deposits in Lebanon as Hezbollah joined in the war in neighboring Syria in support of the Assad government and served as a proxy for Iran elsewhere in the region  “Saudi Arabia withdrew $4 billion of aid to the Lebanese army and internal security forces, and no aid or deposits were forthcoming,” he noted.    According to French officials Macron’s trip to Lebanon is “an opportunity to lay down the foundations for a pact for the reconstruction of Lebanon, binding for all, that will limit conflicts, offer immediate aid and open up a long-term perspective.” But for that to happen reform is crucial and the risk, they acknowledge privately, is that major structural change risks conflict.  “Hezbollah won’t relinquish its power easily, neither will other sectarian patrons, Christian or Sunni Muslim, who fear change will diminish their power. They benefit from weak state institutions,” said a French diplomat. But without change, he adds, Lebanon will likely spiral deeper into crisis, becoming a failed state in a highly turbulent region.WATCH: Video from our reporter in Beirut, Anchal Vohra  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 16 MB720p | 37 MB1080p | 64 MBOriginal | 76 MB Embed” />Copy Download Audio 
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A Panamanian judge has ordered 12 Haitian migrants detained for trial for their roles in a protest Saturday during which rocks were thrown at Panamanian border service officers and supply tents set on fire.The migrants face multiple charges, including injuring the officers and arson.The migrants have challenged Panamanian authorities for not allowing them to move freely through the country on the way to the U.S. border.Haitians make up the vast majority of those at remote camps in Panama’s southern Darien province, which also has Cuban and African migrants.COVID-19 travel restrictions have complicated migrants’ efforts.In an apparent effort to ease tensions at the border, Panama is proposing to provide some Haitians flights home.
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Afghanistan is holding a loya jirga, an assembly of elders, Friday to determine what to do about the final stumbling block before peace negotiations can begin – the release of 400 Taliban prisoners.The U.S. and Taliban negotiators agreed earlier this year that peace talks could move forward on the conditions that Kabul released 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban release 1,000 government personnel that the militants were holding captive.The government has released 4,600 prisoners, while the Taliban has released all its prisoners.Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says the remaining Taliban prisoners’ crimes were too serious and needed a ruling from the traditional council which consists of elders from various tribes, ethnic groups and factions.“We acknowledge that the release of these prisoners is unpopular,” U.S. Secretary Mike Pompeo said in a statement Thursday. “But this difficult action will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and Afghanistan’s friends: reduction of violence and direct talks resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war.”The council is meeting in Kabul, despite a recent surge in COVID-19 cases that has seen about half the city’s residents infected.
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A 37-year-old teacher with no political experience has become an unlikely challenger to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko — widely known in the West as ‘Europe’s last dictator’. As Henry Ridgwell reports, huge crowds have turned out to support the opposition presidential candidate in recent weeks — but it’s unclear if the show of ‘people power’ will be reflected in the election on Sunday.Camera: Henry Ridgwell    Produced by Henry Ridgwell
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The United States is pressing ahead with plans to push for the extension of a U.N. arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in two months under the 2015 nuclear deal, but it is likely to face stiff opposition from other nations, including Russia and China.“We have an objective to extend the arms embargo,” U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Brian Hook told reporters in a phone briefing Thursday. “That can be done the easy way, or it can be done the hard way, but it’s going to be extended.”Council diplomats said the U.S. might push for a vote on its draft resolution seeking the extension early next week, but it may not have the necessary nine votes to pass it or to force Russia and China to veto.Washington’s case for extending the ban on conventional weapons is one of national security, arguing that Iran is a bad actor that perpetuates conflict and spreads terrorism, often through its proxies in the Middle East and beyond.“It [the arms embargo] has been in place for 13 years. Iran has still been able to move a lot of weapons around the Middle East to its proxies in the gray zone,” Hook said. “If this is what Iran has been able to accomplish in the dark, imagine what they will be able to accomplish in broad daylight.”Warning from HookHook, who announced Thursday that he was stepping down after a two-year tenure, warned that an Iran unshackled from restrictions would lead to further regional destabilization, intensified conflicts and a regional arms race.FILE – The U.N. Security Council meets at United Nations headquarters in New York, Feb. 26, 2020.“The U.S. draft resolution is an extremely tough text that Washington knows China and Russia at least will reject out of hand,” said Richard Gowan, International Crisis Group’s U.N. director. “The draft got a very cool reception from the rest of the council when the U.S. first floated it in June.”In addition to renewing restrictions on selling weapons or related materiel to or buying them from Iran, Washington goes further, seeking authorization for nations to have the right to search, seize and dispose of prohibited cargo. The draft would also impose asset freezes and travel bans on designated individuals and entities.“Council members have been very wary of engaging with the U.S. on this resolution, because they are not sure the Americans really want to find a deal on the arms embargo,” Gowan said. “They suspect that the U.S. is just using this as a prelude to an attempt to snapback U.N. sanctions on Iran and push the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] into a terminal crisis.”The JCPOA is the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Snapback” refers to the process that would trigger the reimposition of previous U.N. sanctions on Tehran.Terms of dealUnder the JCPOA, the five permanent Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany agreed with Iran to gradually lift international sanctions in return for limits on its nuclear activities that would prevent it from making a nuclear bomb. It also reopened Iran’s markets to many foreign investors.FILE – President Donald Trump holds up a proclamation declaring his intention to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement after signing it in the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, May 8, 2018.But under President Donald Trump, the U.S. withdrew from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions. It also made it more difficult for Iran to export oil and for other countries to do business with Iran. Tehran responded by resuming some of its nuclear activities, and in July 2019 it breached the deal by exceeding limits on both uranium enrichment and stockpile levels.Iran has always denied its nuclear activities are for military purposes.The U.S. move to extend the arms embargo has already had strong pushback from other council members. Russia and China have been vocal for months that they would not support an extension.On Thursday, China’s U.N. mission repeated that stance on Twitter, saying the “U.S. draft resolution goes against international justice & multilateralism” and predicting the Security Council wouldn’t support it.In July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said any attempt to renew the arms embargo indefinitely had no legal ground.Allies at oddsAnd while the three European members of the deal — Britain, France and Germany — agree in principle with U.S. concerns about Iran’s destabilizing regional activities, they diverge over Washington’s “maximum pressure” strategy and its withdrawal from the deal, and have worked hard to keep the agreement from completely falling apart.Strong support for the U.S. draft from the elected members of the Security Council is also not guaranteed.“Some council members may try to float a milder alternative resolution extending the arms embargo temporarily,” ICG’s Gowan said. “But it will be very hard to find a compromise that the U.S. on one side and China and Russia on the other can accept.”FILE – Iranian demonstrators burn representations of the U.S. flag during a protest in front of the former U.S. Embassy in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal and renew sanctions, in Tehran, May 9, 2018.If the U.S. draft fails to pass and a compromise text is not reached, Washington would likely invoke the snapback mechanism. But that would be controversial, since it withdrew from the deal two years ago and some countries will question its right to trigger that process under the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal in international law.Council diplomats have expressed concern that however the issue moves forward, it has the potential to be messy and do damage to the body’s credibility, while worsening existing divisions.
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Eight COVID-19 patients died in India when a fire engulfed the critical care unit of a hospital in Ahmedabad city in the western Gujarat state early Thursday.The victims included five men and three women.About 35 other patients in the hospital were shifted to other facilities.Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “saddened by the tragic hospital fire” and said that all possible assistance is being given to those affected.Gujarat, Modi’s home state, is among the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.Preliminary investigations revealed that the fire, which broke out around 3:30 a.m. in the private hospital, was caused by an electrical short circuit. It spread to the intensive care ward within minutes, municipal commissioner Mukesh Kumar told the Press Trust of India.Poor safety standards are often a cause of fires in India.Firemen who fought the blaze will have to undergo quarantine, fire officials said. 
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A team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) is in South Africa to help the country get control of its rapid rise in coronavirus cases.The WHO said in a statement that 43 experts in specialties including, epidemiology, health education, and surveillance, prevention and control will support the COVID-19 response team.The WHO’s surge team will first observe the work of South Africa’s health department before lending special support to the hardest-hit jurisdictions, including Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, Kwazulu Natal, and Mpumalanga.The rise in the spread of the virus has pushed South Africa to nearly 530,000 cases, the fifth highest in the world.South Africa has confirmed more than 9,200 deaths from the coronavirus.In a separate development, Health Minister Dr. Zwelini Mkhize said, cases in Gauteng, Western Cape, and Eastern Cape have slowed but it’s too early to determine if the cases have peaked.
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Colombian media outlets say that former President Alvaro Uribe is self-quarantining with the coronavirus Thursday. The local media reported Wednesday that Uribe was infected with the virus, a day after the Supreme Court ordered that he be placed on house arrest. The court is investigating if Uribe was involved in a plot to bribe witnesses in a case involving former members of paramilitary death squads. Uribe, one of the most influential politicians in Colombia, is said to be in good health with no symptoms of the virus at his ranch in Córdoba. Bogotá’s El Tiempo newspaper says Uribe is expressing concern for his wife’s well-being, with their sons Jerónimo and Tomás also infected with the coronavirus. The status of the couple’s sons is unclear.   Colombia has confirmed more than 345,700 cases of the coronavirus and more than 11,000 deaths. 
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Some people in a Brazil hotspot for the coronavirus are taking extraordinary steps to receive a free coronavirus test in Sao Paulo state, the hardest hit region in the country. A day after missing her test because the supply ran out, Manuela Souza said, she secured her place in line and slept in the car with her children overnight to make sure she got tested. The drive-thru tests are being administered by the Butantan Institute for Biological Research. Juliana Carvalhal, the project manager at Butantan Institute said, their goal is to identify asymptomatic people carrying the virus. Carvalhal said, people unaware they are infected continue to socialize and potentially infect others.Brazil aims to test up to 400 people in Sao Paulo daily through next Monday. Sao Paulo state has confirmed 585,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 24,000 deaths. Brazil leads all of Latin America with more than 2,860,000 cases and more than 97,400 deaths. 
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Due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, a growing number of U.S. states are expanding options for voting by mail instead of in person for the November presidential election. Voting by mail has a long history in the U.S., dating back to the Civil War. However, President Donald Trump claims mail-in voting will lead to election fraud or months of uncertainty following the vote.  White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports on how a routine voting option is becoming a central political debate of the 2020 election.  Produced by:  Bakhtiyar Zamanov
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Police in Florida said three teenage boys were arrested after they entered U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with an AK-47 in a backpack.Palm Beach Police spokesperson Michael Ogrodnick said the three 15-year-old boys jumped a wall at Mar-a-Lago while fleeing a police officer late last Friday.The officer had approached the boys as they sat in a car a few miles north of the resort. The boys sped off in the car, trying to escape. They abandoned the car near Mar-a-Lago when they saw another police cruiser and escaped onto the grounds of the resort, Ogrodnick said.”They didn’t try to get into any buildings, they just jumped over the wall and tried to hide,” he said.Trump was not at the resort when the incident took place.The teens, who were not identified, are being held in a juvenile facility while prosecutors decide if they should be charged as adults. The teens have denied they owned the AK-47, saying they had found it.Trump’s resort has been the scene of several invasions since he became president.In January, two women were arrested after police opened fire on them for running two security checkpoints nearby, in a car chase not related to Trump.In February, a Chinese woman was sentenced to six months in jail for resisting arrest during an incident last year when she entered Mar-a-Lago without permission. That took place just months after another Chinese woman was found guilty of lying to federal officers and trespassing onto the resort.   
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