Статті

Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​. Daily Debunk”Fact-checking 22 claims from Donald Trump’s Axios interview,” PolitiFact, August 4.Social Media DisinfoScreenshotCirculating on social media: Claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci said in 2005 that hydroxychloroquine was both a cure and a vaccine for coronavirus.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Lead StoriesFactual Reads on CoronavirusCoronavirus: WHO gears up for main mission into China to hunt for the origins of Covid-19
WHO and Chinese experts have drafted terms of reference for probe into the epidemiology of early infections.
— South China Morning Post, August 4Everything you need to know about the UK’s new 90-minute coronavirus test
Two new coronavirus tests that can return results in just over an hour are set to be released in the UK, the government has announced.
— Euronews, August 3
…

The United States is pushing ahead with its bid to extend an international arms embargo on Iran by way of a second draft U.N. Security Council resolution, despite what some diplomats say is a lack of enthusiasm for such a move among its 15 members.The U.S.-drafted resolution needs at least nine votes in favor to force Russia and China to use their vetoes, which Moscow and Beijing have signaled they will do. Some diplomats question whether Washington can even secure those nine, however.”We have tabled a resolution that we think accomplishes what we think needs to be accomplished,” U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook told the Aspen Security Forum, held virtually, on Wednesday.FILE – U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook speaks to VOA Persian at the State Department in Washington, Feb. 26, 2020.”The easy way is to do a rollover of the arms embargo,” he said. “It’s not difficult. There’s all the reasons in the world to do it. But we will do this, one way or another.”The arms embargo on Iran is set to end October 18 under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which Washington quit in 2018.The second draft circulated by Washington is virtually unchanged from the first text shared with the council in June.Return of all sanctionsIf the United States is unsuccessful in extending the embargo, it has threatened to trigger a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran under a process agreed to in the 2015 deal.Such a move would kill the deal, touted as a way to suspend Tehran’s suspected drive to develop nuclear weapons. Washington argues it can trigger the sanctions because a Security Council resolution still names it as a participant.Iran has breached parts of the nuclear deal in response to the U.S. withdrawal and Washington’s reimposition of sanctions.”For as long as Iran is allowed to enrich, we’re going to be having this discussion: How close is Iran to a nuclear breakout? … We need to restore the U.N. Security Council standard of no enrichment,” Hook said.Iran denies it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb.Diplomats say Washington would face a tough, messy battle if it tried to trigger a return to sanctions.The United States would have to submit a complaint to the council, which would then have to vote within 30 days on a resolution to continue Iran’s sanctions relief. If such a resolution is not put forward by the deadline, sanctions would be reimposed — what is known as a snapback.Some diplomats have suggested the United States will submit its complaint by the end of August to ensure the 30 days ends in September, before Russia takes the monthly rotating council presidency in October.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign and the national Republican Party have sued to block the western state of Nevada from sending a mail-in ballot to every registered voter in the state, even as Trump says absentee voting is fine by him in his adopted home state of Florida. The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday claims the Nevada voting plan approved by the state legislature Sunday night will result in “inevitable” fraud in the Nov. 3 national presidential election.  President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Aug. 4, 2020, in Washington.In an interview on the “Fox & Friends” television show Wednesday, Trump sought to draw a distinction between absentee voting — when states send voters applications for ballots which they must return before being sent an actual ballot — and states like Nevada that are planning to automatically mail all registered voters a ballot. “Absentee is OK because you have to go through a process,” said Trump, who has voted by mail in Florida. “What they’re going to do [in Nevada] is blanket the state. Anybody who ever walked, frankly, will get one.” For weeks, Trump has disparaged mail-in voting across the country as potentially rife with fraud and claimed that it will lead to a “rigged” election stolen by Democrats to defeat him. But he abruptly reversed course Tuesday on mail-in voting in Florida, a state critical to his reelection chances, after surveys showed that some Republican voters were more inclined than Democrats to not vote by mail after Trump’s repeated complaints about the practice. Trump won Florida en route to his 2016 upset victory, and he almost certainly will have to win the state again for a second four-year term. The southeastern state has 29 of the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the presidency through the Electoral College, the indirect voting system in which state-by-state voting outcome determines the national outcome, not the national popular vote.  FILE – A Miami-Dade County Elections Department employee places a vote-by-mail ballot for the August 18 primary election into a box for rejected ballots at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, in Doral, Florida, July 30, 2020.Trump claimed in the television interview that Florida’s mail-in voting is more reliable because it has had “two good governors,” Republicans Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott. Nevada’s Democratic governor, Steve Sisolak, is a Trump critic. “They have an infrastructure that’s taken years to build,” Trump said about Florida’s mail-in voting system. Despite Trump’s complaints, election fraud is rare in the U.S. But the vast increase in mail-in voting expected this year as voters shun in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic could lead to substantial vote-counting problems. In some state elections this year, officials have been overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of extra mailed-in ballots compared to previous elections. In some instances, with the tedious vote-counting of the mailed-in ballots, it has taken weeks for the outcomes of close elections to be determined, contrary to the usual practice in the U.S. when winners and losers are most often known within hours of polls closing on Election Night. Trump contended that the outcome of the presidential election “could be for months and months. It could be for years.” By law, however, the next U.S. president is set to be sworn in Jan. 20, 2021. But Trump expressed hope that the coronavirus pandemic will have abated substantially in less than three months, making voters less fearful of heading to polls to vote in person. “By the time we get there, we’ll probably be in very good shape,” he predicted. “November 3rd is a long way off. That’s an eternity, as far as I’m concerned.” In the Nevada lawsuit, the Trump campaign and Republicans claimed the voting law is unconstitutional because it allows for ballots to be counted even if they are received up to Nov. 6, three days after the election, and even if they lack a postmark. In a statement Monday after signing the legislation, Sisolak said the law would protect Nevadans and “safeguard their right to make their voices heard.” 
…

A series of explosions rocked a North Korean city near the border with China this week, according to multiple reports, resulting in possible casualties.Neither North Korean officials nor state media have commented on the blasts, which reportedly occurred late Monday in a residential area in the city of Hyesan.Videos, posted by the Associated Press and the Seoul-based Daily NK, showed repeated explosions, along with orange flames and dark smoke rising from a neighborhood in Hyesan. The videos were shot from China, which lies just across the Yalu River from North Korea.Daily NK, which relies on a network of anonymous sources across North Korea, reported that the explosion killed at least 15 people. That figure has not been confirmed.The outlet said the initial blast appeared to be caused by a gas leak in a house, which exploded a liquid petroleum gas cylinder. That set off as many as 10 other explosions at nearby houses, it reported.North Korea frequently does not report deadly accidents.
…

A Slovak court has postponed verdicts in the trial of a businessman and others charged with killing an investigative journalist in 2018, a case that shocked the nation and reshaped its political landscape.A court spokeswoman said a hearing would take place on Sept. 3, shifted from a planned verdict on Wednesday, to give more time to review the rulings.The murders of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, sparked mass protests and forced then prime minister Robert Fico to step down amid public anger over perceived graft in public life.Fico’s Smer party lost a general election to anti-corruption politician Igor Matovic’s party in February, ending the leftist group’s nearly decade-and-a-half rule in the central European country.Anger over the killings and demands to end corruption have remained a strong theme in civic life since mass protests two years ago that were sparked by the killings at Kuciak’s home in February 2018.Prosecutors say Slovak entrepreneur Marian Kocner, the subject of Kuciak’s reporting on corruption involving politically connected businesspeople, had contracted the reporter’s killing.He and two co-defendants, who deny wrongdoing, face 25 years in prison if found guilty.Two others have already been sentenced after admitting guilt. A former soldier received 23 years in prison in April for shooting and killing Kuciak and his fiancee while a fifth suspect admitted to arranging Kuciak’s murder and was jailed for 15 years in December.
…

White House officials and top congressional Democrats plan to meet again Wednesday as they aim to agree on a new coronavirus aid package by the end of the week. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said after 90 minutes of negotiations Tuesday that the goal was to finalize the proposal in the coming days in order to allow for a vote in Congress next week. Wednesday will be the third straight day of talks between Mnuchin, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. “We really went down issue by issue by issue, slogging through,” Schumer said after Tuesday’s session. “They made some concessions, which we appreciated.  We made some concessions, which they appreciated.  We are still far away on a lot of the important issues, but we’re continuing to go at it.” Meadows called the Tuesday meeting “probably the most productive meeting we’ve had to date.”White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, right, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive at the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol to resume talks on a COVID-19 relief bill, Aug. 1, 2020, in Washington.The two sides have been divided by the size of their proposed aid packages, with Democrats calling for $3.4 trillion in new spending and Republicans wanting to limit it to $1 trillion.   Among the items under discussion are sending out another round of stimulus payments, helping renters avoid eviction, aiding the Postal Service and action to address $600-per-week federal unemployment payments that expired last week.   Republican leaders have proposed passing a smaller aid package that addresses some items while leaving negotiations on others for later. Democrats have dismissed that approach, arguing instead that the federal government needs to take big action to confront the economic challenges facing the country.   The White House criticized Democrats for blocking passage of a short-term bill Friday that would have extended the unemployment benefits for seven days, giving congressional leaders more time to negotiate.   “That should tell you exactly where the Democrats stand,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a briefing Tuesday.   But Democrats are aware they have a better negotiating position since Senate Republican leadership needs their votes for passage.   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Tuesday he would not have full Republican support as he did in March when Congress quickly agreed on a massive aid package addressing the beginning of the crisis.  “If we’re looking for a total consensus among Republican senators, you’re not going to find it,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “So, we do have divisions about what to do. What we’re hoping for here is a bipartisan proposal negotiated by the president of the United States and his team and the Democratic majority in the House to sign a bill into law that can appeal to a significant percentage of Republicans.”   Mnuchin signaled some flexibility Monday, telling reporters, “We’re open to a bigger package if we can reach an agreement.” 
…

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will visit Taiwan “in the coming days,” a move that is sure to anger China. Secretary Azar will become the highest-ranking U.S. cabinet member to visit the self-ruled island since 1979, when Washington formally switched diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing. He will also be the first cabinet-level official to visit Taiwan since then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy visited in 2014. In a statement released late Tuesday, the agency said Azar’s “historic visit  will strengthen the U.S.-Taiwan partnership and enhance U.S-Taiwan cooperation to combat the global COVID-19 pandemic.” Azar praised Taiwan’s “remarkable success battling COVID-19 as a free and transparent democratic society.” Azar will hold talks with his Taiwanese counterparts and Taiwan health experts about the island’s COVID-19 response and its role as a reliable global supplier of medical equipment and critical technology.   Azar held a rare telephone conference back in April with his Taiwan counterpart, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung. His planned visit is the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to build stronger ties with Taiwan, which broke away from China in 1949 after Chaing Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces settled on the island when they were driven off the mainland by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces. China considers the self-ruled island a breakaway province and has vowed to annex the island by any means necessary, including a military invasion. Taiwan has had surprising success in limiting the coronavirus outbreak to just 476 confirmed cases and seven deaths. But Taiwan is neither a member of the World Health Organization nor the United Nations because of opposition from Beijing.   
…