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President Donald Trump ventures to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday for an early Independence Day celebration that thousands of people are expected to attend.Although the U.S. leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases, local officials say there are no plans for observing social distancing or mask wearing at the event  However, free masks will be available for those who want them.South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, said on Fox News earlier this week: “We’ve told folks that have concerns that they can stay home.”The Washington Post reports that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Arizona this week was delayed from Tuesday to Wednesday after Secret Service agents organizing the trip either fell sick with the virus or displayed symptoms.The U.S. on Thursday reported more than 50,000 new cases. Four states – Arizona, California, Florida, Texas – were responsible for half of the new cases.The jump in coronavirus numbers is blamed in part on what New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called “knucklehead behavior” – people not wearing masks or practicing social distancing.There are nearly 11 million global COVID-19 cases. The U.S is approaching 3 million cases.Australian officials say 10,000 people in Victoria have refused to take the coronavirus test this past week because they believe the outbreak is not real and is instead a “conspiracy theory.”The New York Times reports that Australia, which has been successful in keeping COVID cases to a minimum, is now locking down an area of 300,000 people in a largely immigrant community in the state of Victoria.India reported nearly 21,000 new daily cases of the coronavirus Friday.India said Thursday that it had it had recorded about 100,000 cases in four days. Johns Hopkins University said early Friday that the South Asian nation has more than 625,000 COVID-19 cases.South Africa reported a new record number of 8,100 new cases in 24 hours Thursday.Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told voters not to be afraid to come out and cast ballots in the second round of the presidential election July 12.Despite hundreds of new cases reported daily, Poland has been relatively successful in fending off COVID-19, with 1,500 deaths.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday he is easing the mandatory quarantines for travelers arriving in Britain. He said he would announce details Friday or Saturday.And in Mexico, a medical supply company has started using unmanned drones to deliver masks, gloves and other equipment to hospitals.Doctors, nurses and other medical workers have staged nationwide protests against what they say is a shortage of protective equipment. 
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Two former presidents of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli and Juan Carlos Varela, have been charged with money laundering in separate cases.After leaving the prosecutor’s office in Panama City on Thursday, Martinelli said he was angered by prosecutors continuing to link him to the so-called “New Business” case in which a publishing group was allegedly purchased with government money during his five-year term, ending in 2014.The French News Agency (AFP) said prosecutors accuse former President Juan Carlos Varela of taking illegal campaign donations from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht during his term ending in 2019.Varela has pledged to cooperate with prosecutors to clear his name.Both Martinelli and Varela share more than identical legal challenges.Martinelli won the 2009 election with Varela as his running mate, but their partnership collapsed when Varela was fired as foreign minister in 2011. 
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The slow easing of anti-coronavirus containment rules in Western countries and nearly nonstop work at major factories in Vietnam gave the export-reliant South Asian nation a small yet elusive economic boost in the second quarter this year, analysts say.The economy grew 0.36 percent from April to June compared to economic activity in the same months of 2019, Vietnam’s General Statistics Office announced Monday. The bulk of that came from manufacturing late in the quarter rather than services, economists believe.European nations began easing business shutdowns in April and May. In mid-June, those countries opened borders to one another for travel. And U.S. states have allowed phased-in reopening of businesses since May despite continued rises in coronavirus cases.Both trends allowed consumers to visit stores and buy goods that they had put off during the shutdowns, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist with IHS Markit in Singapore. Electronic gear for remote communication is a particular draw for those consumers, he said.Vietnam counts the United States as its biggest market, with 23.2 percent of all exports. The European Union takes 15.7 percent of Vietnamese exports.“The lockdowns started to come off in May in Europe, and so that’s why I think we’re seeing that June is better,” Biswas said.Export manufacturing drives Vietnam’s normally fast-growing, $262 billion economy. Foreign manufacturers like Vietnam for its low wages, support from government and proximity to raw materials in neighboring China. Vietnam has siphoned away some foreign investment from China since 2018 because of U.S. tariffs imposed on Chinese exports during a two-way trade dispute.Vietnam’s economic future “really depends on the world economy,” said Jack Nguyen, partner in the business advisory firm Mazars in Ho Chi Minh City. “Vietnam is now so linked to the world that how other countries are opening up will indicate how big Vietnam will be (in) improvement.”The operation of major foreign-invested factories in Vietnam supports economic growth, said Ralf Matthaes, founder of the Infocus Mekong Research consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City.“If you go like Samsung, Panasonic, the big guys, if they’re opened up again it would be a huge spike,” he said. Both foreign electronics firms and many others have cautiously operated their factories year to date. Vietnam’s relatively low coronavirus caseload of just 355 people with no deaths allows work to go on with few risks.In China and India, two other Asian manufacturing powerhouses, governments ordered factory closures at the height over their virus outbreaks.Domestic consumption further helped strengthen Vietnam’s economy in the second quarter, though people on the ground report that small stores have gone out of business. A lack of foreign tourists due to Vietnam’s ban on most arrivals is hurting hotels and airlines. The ban has left some foreign factory heads stuck in other countries, Matthaes said.The International Monetary Fund forecasts Vietnam to grow faster than any other Asian country with full-year GDP growth of 2.7 percent. The IMF expects Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar and Nepal to grow as well but by smaller percentages.Vietnam’s second half of 2020 is widely expected to beat the first half. A free trade deal with the European Union will cut tariffs when it takes effect August 1. Spending before the Western year-end holidays should help too, Biswas said.“Vietnam is going to be one of the best performing Asia Pacific countries,” he said. “Vietnam won’t have a recession this year. It will be one of the only countries in Asia.”  
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New details of an Iranian nuclear facility damaged in a mysterious fire suggest Thursday’s incident is a much greater setback to Iran’s nuclear ambitions than Tehran has publicly admitted.The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security identified the facility as a centrifuge assembly workshop at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant in central Iran’s Isfahan province.The site of the fire at the Natanz Enrichment Plant identified in an AEOI photo is the same building the Institute identified as centrifuge assembly workshop in 2017. See: https://t.co/8WPao3i3F5pic.twitter.com/aw9q0vqTqo
— Inst for Science (@TheGoodISIS) July 2, 2020In a series of Thursday tweets, the Institute showed how it used a photo of the fire-damaged building released earlier in the day by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to geo-locate the site on Google Earth satellite images. The research group said it had previously identified the building as a centrifuge assembly workshop in 2017.#Iran’s state TV report shows #Natanz nuclear facility following ‘incident’ pic.twitter.com/TmDCHnEyLc
— Sobhan Hassanvand 📰 سبحان حسنوند (@Hassanvand) July 2, 2020As well as releasing the photo of the damaged building, an AEOI spokesman gave an interview to an Iranian state TV reporter at the site, downplaying the fire as an “incident” that had done some damage to an above-ground workshop that he said was under construction. Behrouz Kamalvandi also said there had been no interruption to enrichment work involving centrifuges spinning underground.“It took the Iranians a long time to build this workshop,” Institute researcher Sarah Burkhard told VOA Persian in an interview. “Its construction started in 2012 and they only got to a point where they could start operations there in 2018,” she said.State TV network IRIB was given a tour of the facility, officially named the “Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center” just before it opened in June 2018. A video of the tour posted on YouTube showed an IRIB reporter doing a walk-through of the site, revealing what appeared to be brand new machinery in several small and large rooms.“You can see that it was a very clean facility. And that’s important. It needs to be very clean,” Burkhard said. “You also can see that Iran was proud of this site.”The AEOI’s photo of the aftermath of the fire, which it said happened at 2 a.m. Thursday local time, showed extensive damage to one end of the workshop, with roof panels charred, exterior walls cracked and doors ripped from their hinges, apparently from the force of an explosion.“The equipment inside the workshop was meant to be used for making precision measurements in assembling advanced centrifuges that are sensitive machines and difficult to build, because you have to ensure that they are identical,” Burkhard said. “We think the centrifuge equipment likely is not easily replaceable, because the components would be subject to international export controls,” she added.Under a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers to curb Iranian activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons, a Joint Commission was set up to monitor Tehran’s procurement of certain nuclear and dual-use items to ensure that its nuclear work stayed within agreed limits.The United States also sanctioned Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA) in 2011 and since then has further sanctioned international companies in TESA’s procurement network.U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Tehran, and began unilaterally imposing sanctions aimed at pressuring Iranian leaders to stop a range of perceived malign behaviors. Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, has vowed to resist the U.S. sanctions, which have weakened its economy. Tehran also has been violating a series of limits on its nuclear activities since last year to try to pressure the 2015 deal’s remaining signatories to compensate it for the U.S. sanctions.One of Iran’s violations has involved research and development of advanced centrifuges at facilities such as the fire-damaged workshop at Natanz. The Institute for Science and International Security is unaware of any other similar workshop in Iran, Burkhard said.“The fire was a significant setback for Iran’s advanced centrifuge production,” she said.Burkhard also said the damage to the facility was so large that it did not appear to have been caused by an industrial accident. Her colleague David Albright told The New York Times that he believed it was an act of sabotage, because the assembly of centrifuge components in the workshop would have involved few flammable liquids and was unlikely to be dangerous.After downplaying the incident, Iranian state news agency IRNA issued a warning later Thursday, saying “if there are signs of hostile countries crossing Iran’s red lines in any way, especially the Zionist regime (Israel) and the United States, Iran’s strategy to confront the new situation must be fundamentally reconsidered.”In an email to VOA Persian, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Iran analyst Behnam Ben Taleblu said the Iranian warning suggests that Tehran thinks its earlier assertions about the fire being an “accident” were not convincing enough for many Iranians who suspect foreign involvement.The U.S. State Department said it was monitoring reports of the fire. In a statement sent to VOA, it said the incident “serves as another reminder of how the Iranian regime continues to prioritize its misguided nuclear program to the detriment of the Iranian people’s needs.”“Iranian officials have a good reason to downplay foreign acts of sabotage on their soil, as it would expose them as incompetent,” Taleblu said. “How Iran responds to this, at home and abroad, will determine a great deal about the origins of the fire.”This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Barry Newhouse contributed.  
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The U.S. added 4.8 million jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1 percent as the job market improved for the second straight month. This comes as parts of the CARES Act, a pandemic related relief bill passed by the U.S. Congress, is set to expire soon and the country experiences a spike in new coronavirus infections. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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The World Health Organization called on African countries Thursday to take comprehensive safety measures to “mitigate a surge” in COVID-19 cases, as nations resume air travel. The African economy, which is heavily reliant on travel and tourism, has been struck hard by the global pandemic. “Air travel is vital to the economic health of countries,” Dr. FILE – Passengers arriving from a China Southern Airlines flight from Changsha in China are screened for the coronavirus, upon their arrival at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport in Nairobi, Kenya, January 29, 2020.Thursday’s press release came hours after Amani Abou-Zeid, the African Union’s commissioner for infrastructure and energy, said that the continent had lost nearly $55 billion in travel and tourism revenue in just three months because of the pandemic. Africa had previously expected revenue jumps in these sectors this year. “We have 24 million African families whose livelihood is linked to travel and tourism,” Abou-Zeid said. “The blow is very hard, between the economic losses and the job losses.”  African airlines, she added, have experienced an $8 billion, or 95%, drop in revenue, alongside other economic losses. The International Monetary Fund projected last month that the sub-Saharan African economy would shrink by 3.2% this year, revised from a 1.6% contraction in April. The WHO, however, pressed countries to weigh the financial costs of maintaining closed borders with the costs of a more severe outbreak, and asked nations to decide if their health care and contact tracing systems could handle an increase in COVID-19 cases. Temperature screening at points of entry is relatively well-established in Africa because of the continent’s experience with Ebola, Moeti said Thursday at a WHO-World Economic Forum press conference. Ebola outbreaks have also primed COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, she said. As of Thursday, Africa had over 414,000 confirmed infections and nearly 200,000 recoveries, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 10,000 people have died. South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have reported the most cases in the region by far. About 22% of destinations worldwide had eased travel restrictions as of June 25, up from just 3% in mid-May, according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization. Most are in Europe.On Tuesday, the European Union released a list of 15 countries whose citizens would be allowed to enter the bloc, provided the gesture was reciprocated. 
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