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Analysts and activists alike are demanding that rampant corruption that has eroded Lebanon’s governing system be uprooted. Supported by the United States, the European Union’s recent adoption of a new sanctions regime on Lebanon’s corrupt players is seen by observers as one way forward to tackling the endemic problem while pressing for the formation of a new government. The U.S. secretaries of state and Treasury, Antony Blinken and Janet Yellen, welcomed the E.U.’s new sanctions targeting corrupt figures in Lebanon. A joint statement on July 30 said the United States “looks forward to future cooperation with the EU in our shared efforts.”Mona Yacoubian of the United States Institute of Peace told London’s Chatham House research group that targeted sanctions are important as is government formation and systemic reform in Lebanon. She notes that power broker Hezbollah and other actors are able to exploit weak institutions.“Sanctions that seek to address those particular members of the political class who are most corrupt and who are obstructing the need to form a new government include things like travel bans, asset freezes, and so forth,” said Yacoubian. “If done in a concerted effort by the U.S., France, EU and even Gulf countries that might yield what Lebanon desperately needs right now. Any policies that assist the Lebanese with building strong, accountable, transparent institutions, those policies are the most potent antidote to corruption and also allow a significant counterweight to Hezbollah.”Besides being a militant group, Hezbollah is a political party with lawmakers in parliament.Yacoubian warns that Lebanon is undergoing “a slow-motion implosion” and urges the West to ramp up support to the Lebanese armed forces. She said it remains the “one state institution standing between where we are today and total chaos.”Recently, telecoms tycoon Najib Mikati was designated as prime minister and tasked with forming a Cabinet of specialists to carry out reforms required by the international community to unlock badly needed funds for the crisis-wracked country—something that dogged his predecessor for nearly a year. Questions remains as to whether he will be successful in forming a Cabinet.   Meanwhile, anti-corruption activist Badri Meouchi told Chatham House that Lebanon’s civil society is working together to press for laws combating corruption in several key sectors, with a draft law on public procurement on the table. But he stresses that ultimately a change in how Lebanon is governed is needed.“Whatever laws we look at in the anti-corruption arsenal of reforms, you cannot expect those who benefit from the system to change the system. It’s time to wake up. This ties to one of the key recommendations in that we need new leadership in this country. This leadership is corrupt to the core,” said Meouchi.Writing in the Saudi Arab News daily, political commentator Baria Alamuddin warned that “if we allow Lebanon to continue fragmenting, it opens the door to catastrophes of an infinitely greater magnitude than the port explosion. This disaster must be our wake-up call for inaugurating a new Lebanon.”Alamuddin calls for “collectively banishing” those she describes as having “colluded in Lebanon’s downfall and who remain wedded to a medieval and inherently corrupt sectarian system.” She says citizens should unite “to rebuild a secular, sovereign nation rooted in the rule of law and justice for all.” 
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The death toll from last month’s floods in the central Chinese province of Henan rose to 302 as of Monday, officials said, triple the figure of 99 that was reported last week, with most of the fatalities reported in the provincial capital Zhengzhou.   In Zhengzhou, a city of 12 million that lies along the Yellow River, the death toll was 292, including 14 who perished when a subway line was flooded. In total, 39 people died in underground areas in Zhengzhou including garages and tunnels.   Over three days last month, 617.1 mm (24.3 inches) of rain fell in Zhengzhou, nearly equivalent to its annual average of 640.8 mm, causing widespread damage and disruption in a city that is a major transport and industrial hub.   FILE – An aerial view shows cars sitting in floodwaters at the entrance of a tunnel after heavy rains hit the city of Zhengzhou in China’s central Henan province.Of the 50 people still missing in Henan province, 47 were from Zhengzhou, local officials told a briefing on Monday.   Direct economic losses in Henan reached 114.27 billion yuan ($18 billion), with more than 580,000 hectares of farmland affected.   China’s State Council said it will set up a team to investigate the disaster in Zhengzhou and will hold officials accountable if found to have derelicted their duty, the official Xinhua news agency reported. 
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Eight Egyptian army soldiers have been killed in anti-terrorism operations, the armed forces said Sunday. According to an armed forces statement, most of the fighting took place in the northern Sinai, where militants loyal to the Islamic State group operate, “during the last period.” It was not clear whether all the soldiers were killed there or in various other regions. Eighty-nine “very dangerous Takfiris” were killed during the fighting in northern Sinai, the statement said, using a term it normally employs to refer to suspected militants. The army confiscated different types of arms and ammunition during the operations and destroyed hundreds of explosive devices and some explosive belts. It also destroyed 13 tunnel entrances used to infiltrate the North Sinai region, which has borders with the Gaza strip and Israel. It didn’t say exactly when the operations took place. Air forces, in coordination with border guards, also attacked and destroyed 200 vehicles, some of them loaded with arms and ammunition, while trying to penetrate the western and southern borders of the country, the statement said. Libya borders Egypt from the west and Sudan borders it from the south. Attacks by Islamic militants began spreading in Northern Sinai after the military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Hundreds of policemen and soldiers and more than 1,000 civilians have died in the attacks, according to official statements. 
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Rescue ships picked up more than 700 people trying to cross the Mediterranean in makeshift vessels this weekend, mainly off the coasts of Libya and Malta, a migrant aid group said Sunday.The latest figures came as United Nations migration officials repeated their calls for a fairer mechanism to share the responsibility of caring for them, rather than leaving it to the Mediterranean countries.SOS Mediterranee said that its vessel, the Ocean Viking, had carried out six operations in international waters since Saturday.  In the last intervention, it rescued 106 people off the Maltese coast after being alerted by German aid group Sea Watch, said the Marseille-based organization.”The youngest survivor rescued in this operation is just 3 months old,” SOS Mediterranee tweeted.Overnight Saturday to Sunday, the Ocean Viking joined vessels from Sea Watch and ResQship, another German group, to help 400 people in difficulty in the central Mediterranean, said the group.They were rescued from a vessel that was taking on water, in what a spokesman for the organization told AFP was a particularly perilous operation.Those who were rescued were shared out between the Ocean Viking and Sea-Watch3.Ocean Viking alone has 555 passengers on board from this weekend’s operations, including at least 28 women, two of whom are pregnant. The organization has yet to determine at which safe port they will be able to leave them.Libya remains one of the main departure points for tens of thousands of migrants hoping to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing, despite the continuing insecurity in the country. Most of them try to reach the Italian coast, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) away.Celine Schmitt, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ French operation, said last month there was an urgent need for an automatic system to share the new arrivals between countries, to ensure them a better reception, and not leave it to Mediterranean countries to assume sole responsibility.”If we look at the central Mediterranean, last year, there were fewer than 50,000 people who arrived,” she said.”It is totally manageable for the European population,” when you consider there are 82 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes, Schmitt said.International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Paul Dillon took a similar position last week.”By advocating for better migration management practices, better migration governance and greater solidarity from EU member states, we can come up with a clear, safe and humane approach to this issue that begins with saving lives at sea,” he said.The central Mediterranean crossing, between Libya and Italy or Malta, is by far the deadliest in the world, according to figures from the IOM.Of the 1,113 deaths recorded in the Mediterranean in the first half of this year, 930 of them were recorded there.Nevertheless, according to the latest IOM figures, increasing numbers of migrants have attempted the crossing this year.
 
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The mountain kingdom of Bhutan has scripted a rare success story in the South Asian region devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting just two deaths, about 2,500 cases and inoculating 90% of its adult population in one of the world’s fastest inoculation campaigns.Experts say mobilizing the community, meticulous planning by authorities and international donations of vaccines paved the way for the tiny country with limited resources to get a grip on the pandemic and emerge ahead of most nations.When the coronavirus began ravaging countries last year, Bhutan offered financial incentives to people to augment its small pool of health workers and simultaneously called for volunteers.Thousands stepped forward.“Within a very short period of time the volunteer system crashed because there were so many people wanting to volunteer. And it was an amazing experience to see that instead of the incentives people were registering to volunteer, wanting to give something back to the community,” Dechen Wangmo, the country’s health minister, told VOA.The country now has a roughly 30,000-strong force of citizens volunteers. Dressed in bright orange and known as “desuups,” they have boosted the efforts of some 350 doctors and 3,000 health workers.  They have helped reinforce public health messages such as encouragement of wearing masks, and assisted in testing, surveillance and contact tracing among Bhutan’s approximately 750,000 people.The first half a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, donated by India, were administered in March during a 16-day campaign that was timed to coincide with auspicious dates suggested by Buddhist monks. Choosing the right time to roll out the vaccines helped build faith in the shot — Bhutan is a Buddhist country and is sometimes called the world’s last Shangri-la.  When New Delhi halted exports due to domestic shortages, Bhutan turned elsewhere. A batch of Moderna vaccines arrived in July from the COVAX program, an initiative to give vaccines to underdeveloped countries. Several other countries have also donated vaccines.While some questions were raised on social media about inoculating people with two different vaccines, those issues were quickly laid to rest in a country known for its implicit faith in its Oxford-educated, 41-year-old constitutional monarch, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk. Although he has turned the country from an absolute monarchy into a democratic, constitutional monarchy, he is still hugely popular.The medical background of its leadership helped — Bhutan’s prime minister and foreign minister are doctors and health minister Wangmo is a Yale-educated epidemiologist.FILE – Bhutanese people wash their hands before entering their office as a precaution against the COVID-19 in Thimpu, April 12, 2021.Unlike many countries, vaccine hesitancy did not pose a problem — although Bhutan has few doctors, it has a strong primary health care system.“There is a lot of trust and confidence in the health system and people do understand the benefits of vaccine, that vaccines prevent diseases and they have seen it for generations,” Wangmo said.The second doses were administered to 90% of the adult population in a weeklong campaign that began July 20, the health ministry said. UNICEF officials called it the fastest vaccination campaign during the pandemic. While Bhutan’s small population made the task easier, it faced the challenge of reaching far-flung mountain areas, often across difficult terrain.“If Bhutan can succeed in a monsoon with so few health workers to get almost the entire population vaccinated and then move to the children, maybe Bhutan can be a beacon of hope in a region that is on fire,” said Will Parks, UNICEF Representative in Bhutan.Even as many countries scramble for vaccines for adults, Bhutan now plans to inoculate 12- to 17-year-olds. The goal, officials said, is to reach herd immunity or at least avert serious infections in a country with only one doctor trained in critical care.This photograph provided by UNICEF shows airport personnel in protective suit handle unloaded 500,000 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine gifted from the United States arrived at Paro International Airport in Bhutan, July 12, 2021.Inoculations are not the only achievement. Unlike many countries, Bhutan opened schools earlier this year.UNICEF’s Park and domestic media credit the leadership with astutely navigating the pandemic.King Wangchuck has traveled to remote hamlets to alert people about the pandemic – by car, foot or horseback.  When the transmissible delta variant tore through India earlier this year, he visited areas in the east and south that adjoin India, with which the country has a porous border.Bhutanese officials say those visits reinforced the message of solidarity and were more effective than public health guidelines.“The visits conveyed that it is time for everyone to fight the common enemy. He would give that moral confidence to people and assurance that we are in it together and we are all going to follow the same rules,” Wangmo said.The king would follow the country’s strict quarantine rules after each trip. Bhutan has shown that the COVID pandemic is not just about the virus, but also about leadership, according to Parks.“If there are lessons to be learnt from Bhutan, it is about compassionate leadership that has to come from the top,” Parks said. “By compassionate leadership I mean having deep empathy, really walking in the shoes of others, and then actively making efforts to support people throughout this terrible, terrible pandemic.” 
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Israel’s prime minister Sunday directly blamed Iran for a drone attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Oman that killed two people, making a veiled threat to retaliate as Tehran denied being involved in the assault.  The comments by Premier Naftali Bennett and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh come after the strike Thursday night on the oil tanker Mercer Street. The attack marked the first-known fatal attack after years of assaults on commercial shipping in the region linked to tensions with Iran over its tattered nuclear deal.  While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, Iran and its militia allies have used so-called “suicide” drones in attacks previously.  “The Iranians who attacked with unmanned aircraft the Mercer Street intended to harm an Israeli target,” Bennett said at the start of Israel’s weekly Cabinet meeting. “Instead, their piratical act caused the deaths of a British citizen and a Romanian citizen.” He warned: “We know, at any rate, know how to convey the message to Iran in our own way.” On Sunday, Khatibzadeh described the allegation Iran carried out the attack as “baseless” during his last news conference as the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman. “It’s not the first time that the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem has made such empty accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Khatibzadeh said. “Wherever this regime has gone, it has taken instability, terror and violence with it.”  He added: “Whoever sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” Khatibzadeh spoke around an hour after Iran’s outgoing president acknowledged that his government at times “did not tell part of the truth” to the public during his term. The American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the guided missile destroyer USS Mitscher were escorting the Mercer Street as it headed to a safe port, the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet said in a statement early Saturday. It said Navy explosive experts believe a drone attacked the vessel.  The drone attack blasted a hole through the top of the oil tanker’s bridge, where the captain and crew command the vessel, a U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as an investigation into the attack still was ongoing. The Mercer Street is managed by London-based Zodiac Maritime, part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. The firm said the attack killed two crew members, one from the United Kingdom and the other from Romania. It did not name them, nor did it describe what happened in the assault. It said it believed no other crew members on board were harmed. British maritime security firm Ambrey said the attack on the Mercer Street had killed one of its team members on board the vessel. From Jerusalem, Bennett offered condolences to both the United Kingdom and Romania for the killing of their citizens. He said Israeli intelligence had evidence linking Iran to the attack, but did not offer it.  “Iran is the one who carried out the attack against the ship,” he said. “Iran’s aggressive behavior is dangerous not only for Israel, but harms global interests in the freedom of navigation and international trade.” Bennett took over as premier in June after a coalition deal unseated Israel’s long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is suspected of launching a series of attacks targeting Iran, including explosions at the country’s main enrichment site and the killing of a prominent military nuclear scientist. However, Bennett as well has made hawkish comments in the past about needing to attack “the head of the octopus” in Tehran as opposed to Iran’s regional militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon. The attack on the Mercer Street marks the first during his time as prime minister and analysts suggest he could seek a major attack in retaliation. “Israel may wish to deliver a resounding blow; that’s the spirit of political sources’ comments in Jerusalem,” wrote Amos Harel, a longtime military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “This blow will be aimed at ending things without a tit-for-tat that could escalate. But as usual, events also depend on the other side.” Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed to this report. 
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Florida reported a record 21,683 COVID-19 cases on Saturday, making the Southeastern U.S. state the national epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.The state’s previous record was 19,334 cases reported on January 7, before vaccinations had become widely available, according to federal health data, The Associated Press reported.Florida, with a population of nearly 21.5 million people, now accounts for about one-fifth of all new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., the CDC said. The state had reported about 17,000 new cases on Friday, the same day state Governor Ron DeSantis barred schools from requiring that students wear masks when they return to in-person classes in August.AdventHealth, one of the state’s largest health care systems, said on Friday that its Central Florida Division would not perform nonemergency surgeries in an effort to conserve resources because of the increase in COVID-19 patients in the region.Since the start of the pandemic, Florida has recorded 2.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 39,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.Cruises returnThe cruise ship industry, which is a big part of Florida’s tourism industry, was hit hard when the pandemic began in early 2020. On Saturday, the Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras ship was to set sail from Port Canaveral, Florida, the first ship since March 2020.The ship, planning a seven-day voyage to the Caribbean, was running at just 70% of its normal 5,282-passenger capacity.The pandemic forced cruise lines to suspend trips leaving from U.S. ports. Carnival Cruise Line is requiring — at least for its July and August voyages — that 95% of its passengers and crew be vaccinated, according to the AP.A day earlier, Royal Caribbean announced that six passengers — four fully vaccinated adults and two unvaccinated minors — had tested positive for COVID-19. All six were Americans, Royal Caribbean spokesperson Lyan Sierra-Caro told the AP. She said the six, who were not all traveling together, had disembarked in Nassau, the Bahamas, after a seven-day cruise. Royal Caribbean planned to fly the six back to the U.S. on private transportation, Sierra-Caro said, according to the AP.FILE – Guests cool off with a water mist under the globe at Universal Studios City Walk in Orlando, Fla., Oct. 22, 2015.Florida also is home to several major theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld. On Saturday, Universal and SeaWorld began asking guests to wear masks indoors. Universal also is requiring employees to wear masks while indoors and to practice social distancing protocols.“The health and safety of our guests and team members is always our top priority,” Universal said in a statement.On Friday, the Walt Disney Co. started requiring employees and guests older than 2 to wear masks indoors and on Disney transportation and said it would be requiring all salaried and nonunion employees who work at its properties in the U.S. to be fully vaccinated. As of now, face coverings are not required outdoors at the park.Raquel Heres gets a COVID-19 test to be able to travel overseas, July 31, 2021, in North Miami, Fla. Federal health officials say Florida has reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19, the state’s highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic.Those Disney employees who are unvaccinated will have 60 days to receive the shots.Across the country, the state of Arizona, in the U.S. Southwest, is dealing with a worsening outbreak caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus, as well as low vaccination rates in the state, health officials said.”Unlike last summer when we were headed into school w/ declining rates, the match has been lit and the kindling is aflame this time,” Dr. Joe K. Gerald, a University of Arizona researcher who tracks COVID-19 data, said on Twitter, according to AP.The state reported more than 2,000 new daily COVID-19 cases for the first time in nearly five months, according to an AP report. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients topped 1,000 for a third straight day as well, according to officials.Arizona, with a population of 7.2 million, has reported 925,169 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 18,224 deaths since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins.Vaccine distributionThe CDC also reported that as of Saturday, the U.S. had distributed 400.6 million vaccine doses and had administered 345.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which include the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna and the one-dose Johnson & Johnson.More than 190.8 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while more than 164.4 million had been fully vaccinated as of Saturday.Also of Saturday, 197.7 million cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 4.2 million deaths had been recorded globally, according to Johns Hopkins. The U.S. led the world in number of COVID-19 cases, with nearly 35 million, and related deaths, 613,113, according to the university.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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At age 46, the second-oldest skateboarder at the Tokyo Games is hoping to not have a heart attack and have mounds of fun. Should be no problem. Fun has been a life’s work for Dallas Oberholzer.”I have never had a real job. I have never applied for a job,” he says. “My whole life has just been skateboarding. I am just hooked.”Skateboarding’s young guns, with their endorsements and boards bearing their names, have bigger tricks and bigger Instagram followings than the grizzled South African with a salt-and-pepper beard. Oberholzer isn’t expecting to beat them when they go wheel-to-wheel this week in Tokyo’s huge purpose-built Olympic skate bowl.But Oberholzer has big tales, woven from a nomadic existence on four squeaky polyurethane wheels. If skateboarding is the punk rock sport of the Games, disruptive and not taking itself too seriously, then Oberholzer is its Iggy Pop — raw, wild and worn, someone who can talk and talk and talk.About, say, when he worked as a concert chauffeur, ferrying around Janet Jackson’s dancers. Or his 16-month road trip, from Canada all the way to Argentina, after he graduated from university with a degree in marketing that he quickly realized he had no use for.”Just a collection of experiences” is how he describes himself. Another description could be: A mascot for middle-aged people everywhere, flying the flag for Generation X against Gens Y and Z.”I’m not going to win. I am not going to get a medal,” he said. “But, like, I am legitimately the best guy in Africa. By default, the best guy in Africa goes to the Olympics.””It’s just unbelievably epic,” he added. “It’s all expenses paid and it’s going to be the best course I would have ever skated in my life.”Only Rune Glifberg, aka “the Danish Destroyer” and also 46, is older (by eight months) than Oberholzer among the 80 men and women competing in skateboarding’s Olympic debut in Tokyo.In the men’s park competition on Thursday, Oberholzer and Glifberg — with their spiky shocks of grey-flecked hair — will face skaters less than half their age.The women’s event on Wednesday has even younger skaters: Kokona Hiraki of Japan is just 12. In the women’s street event in Week 1, three young teens — 13, 13 and 16 — won gold, silver and bronze.Dallas Oberholzer, 46, from South Africa, takes part in a men’s park skateboarding training session at the 2020 Summer Olympics, July 31, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.”I have got nothing to lose, nothing to prove. I know I am 46 and all I need to do is keep my cardio up so I can stay on my skateboard for 45 seconds,” Oberholzer said. “I’m going to be the one smiling, bro. I hope. Or I will be having a mild heart attack.”Skating’s age range is remarkably broad for an Olympic event and testifies to the sport’s inclusivity. In July, skating pioneer Tony Hawk competed at the X Games at age 53, and was beaten by a 12-year-old, Gui Khury.The sport’s coffee mug could read: “Skaters don’t grow old, they just get new wheels.””Skateboarding definitely makes you feel younger,” Glifberg said. “It’s not just a physical thing. It’s a lot to do with style and grace and just the way that you present yourself on the board.”Whereas Gens Y and Z have had “how-to” videos on YouTube and Instagram to teach them tricks, Oberholzer and Glifberg had to find their own way.Glifberg started right around the time that Back to the Future turned kids onto skating in 1985. For Oberholzer, it was a rented VHS copy of the 1986 movie Thrashin’, about skateboarding gangs, that “made all our eyeballs pop out.”Until then, his sport had been tennis.”I remember just thinking to myself, ‘I could play tennis and let the ball have all the fun or I could be the ball,'” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘I want to be the ball. I want to be the one flying around.'”Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was still in prison when Oberholzer started riding buses into central Johannesburg in search of places to skate. Schooled, like other white South Africans, separately from Black kids, it was on his board that Oberholzer first started to meet and mingle with Black peers who also skated.”It really helped me get over my apartheid upbringing,” he said.In turn, Oberholzer is giving back. He uses skateboarding to reach out to kids in tough neighborhoods, to keep them from drugs and gangs and help them develop skills. The Indigo Youth Movement he founded has built multiple skate parks and ramps.But none of that has impressed his mum, Linda, quite like qualifying for the Olympics.”My mom is finally happy with my life choices, bro. You know what a good feeling that is? It’s taken that long for my mom to acknowledge what I do with my life,” he said. “That’s probably the best thing I’m taking out of this, is that my mom finally goes, ‘Wow.'” 
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Tokyo’s metropolitan government said new coronavirus infections surged to a record high Saturday as the city hosts the Olympic Games.The government reported 4,058 new cases, topping 4,000 for the first time.The new record was set one day after Japan extended a state of emergency for Tokyo through the end of August to contain the spread. The extension also applies to three prefectures near Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka.A new record for infections also was set nationwide Saturday. Public broadcaster NKH reported 12,341 new cases, 15% higher than the day before.“The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it,” World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday in Geneva about the global COVID-19 outbreak that is now being driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox and that infections in vaccinated people may be as transmissible as those in the unvaccinated.COVID-19 Spreads in China, Australia as WHO Sounds Alarm on Delta Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing“WHO’s goal remains to support every country to vaccinate at least 10% of its population by the end of September, at least 40% by the end of this year, and 70% by the middle of next year,” the WHO chief said, but added that the realization of the goals is “a long way off.”“So far, just over half of countries have fully vaccinated 10% of their population, less than a quarter of countries have vaccinated 40%, and only three countries have vaccinated 70%,” Tedros said. He recalled that WHO had earlier “warned of the risk that the world’s poor would be trampled in the stampede for vaccines” and that “the world was on the verge of a catastrophic moral failure” because of vaccine inequity.  “And yet the global distribution of vaccines remains unjust,” Tedros said.  “All regions are at risk, but none more so than Africa.”“Many African countries have prepared well to roll out vaccines, but the vaccines have not arrived,” he said. “Less than 2% of all doses administered globally have been in Africa,” with only 1.5% of the continent’s population fully vaccinated.  The WHO chief said his organization was “issuing an urgent call” for $7.7 billion for the launching of the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response, or RADAR, a response to the delta surge that would provide tests, treatments and vaccines.  CDC: COVID Delta Variant May Spread as Easily in Vaccinated as UnvaccinatedInternal CDC report urged staff to “acknowledge the war has changed” in light of the delta variant He also said COVAX; which provides vaccines to lower-income countries, needs additional funding.“The question is not whether the world can afford to make these investments,” Tedros said,” it’s whether it can afford not to.”U.S. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that civilian federal government employees must be vaccinated or submit to regular testing and wear masks. On Friday, a reporter asked Biden as he was leaving the White House whether Americans should expect more guidelines and restrictions related to the coronavirus. “In all probability,” he said.Biden also noted that on Thursday almost a million Americans received COVID-19 vaccinations and said, “I am hopeful that people are beginning to realize how essential it is to move” in response to the coronavirus threat.The White House said the average number of people getting their first shot of the coronavirus vaccines this week was up 30% over last week.  Also Friday, Walmart joined a growing number of U.S. companies issuing mandates for its workers to be vaccinated, saying the policy would apply to all employees at its headquarters along with managers who travel within the United States.    The Broadway League said Friday that audiences will be required to show proof of vaccination to watch Broadway performances and will be required to wear masks.Vietnam said Saturday it would extend travel restrictions in Ho Chi Minh City and 18 other southern cities and provinces for another two weeks to contain its worst outbreak to date, according to Reuters. The extension begins Monday in a country that contained the virus for much of the pandemic but reports a total of 145,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths, 85% of which were reported in the last month.A weekend lockdown has been imposed in India’s southern state of Kerala as it grapples with some 20,000 new cases daily, Reuters reported. Federal authorities sent experts to the area to monitor developments in the state that accounts for more than 37% of the nearly 32 million cases reported by India’s health ministry.Australia’s third-largest city of Brisbane said it would begin a COVID lockdown on Saturday amid rising case numbers. Neighboring areas will also be subject to the stay-at-home orders.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that 80% of adults must be vaccinated before the country will consider reopening its border.     In Israel, health officials began administering coronavirus booster shots Friday to people older than 60 who have been fully vaccinated in an effort to stop a recent spike in cases. Italy’s Health Institute announced Friday that the delta variant accounted for almost all new COVID-19 cases in the country at nearly 95% of cases as of July 20.  German officials announced Friday that unvaccinated travelers arriving in the country will need to present a negative COVID-19 test result.     The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center Saturday reported there have been more than 197 million global COVID infections.
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Katie Ledecky is now the first swimmer to win a gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle in three consecutive Olympics.  The 24-year-old U.S. swimming phenom says she is looking forward to competing in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.  She’s leaving Tokyo with a bundle of medals — gold in the 800- and the 1,500-meter race, in addition to silver in the 400 and the 4×200 relay.U.S. Swimmer Caleb Dressel set a world record and won his third gold medal of the Tokyo Games in his 49.45-second triumph in the 100-meter butterfly.Simone Biles Makes Mental Health the Talk of the Tokyo GamesOlympians in many sports have spent the past two days coming forward to recount their own battles while offering support to BilesAmerican gymnast Simone Biles will not compete Sunday in the finals for the uneven bars and the vault.  USA Gymnastics did not say whether Biles will compete in next week’s floor exercise and balance beam finals.  Biles withdrew from the team and individual all-round competitions earlier this week, saying she had mental health issues and trouble maneuvering in the air.  She posted on Instagram, “Literally can not tell up from down.”  Ivan Litvinovich won the gold in the men’s trampoline final.  The score for the 20-year-old from Belarus was 61.715, while China’s Dong Dong won the silver with 61.235.  New Zealand’s Dylan Schmidt took home the bronze.  On Saturday, the Olympic Games announced 21 new COVID-19 cases among people connected with the Olympics, bringing the total number to 246, including 26 athletes.  Olympic Swimming: More Gold for Dressel, Ledecky and McKeownBritain wins the inaugural mixed medley relay
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The post-Usain Bolt era in the men’s Olympic 100 meters began on Saturday in Tokyo with Dorian Keletela, who is competing as part of the Olympic Refugee team, advancing to the next round with a personal best 10.33 seconds.Bolt won three straight titles from Beijing in 2008 and his retirement in 2017 has left something of a vacuum in the showpiece athletics event, with no one stepping up to fill the Jamaican’s shoes.On Saturday, amid stifling temperatures that hovered above 30 degrees Celsius, sprinters took the track as they began their attempts to succeed world-record holder Bolt.Keletela, 22, is one of those athletes.Originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he moved to Portugal in 2016 following the death of his parents due to conflict in his homeland and ran a personal best 10.33 to advance to the next round later on Saturday.”I am very, very proud of this and I am very, very proud of this team. It gives me a lot of strength to go on,” Keletela said after the race. “You can do … anything, whether you are a refugee or not.”Others who progressed from the preliminary heats include Zimbabwe’s Ngoni Makusha, who got off the block fast to win his heat in 10.32, and Oman’s Barakat Al Harthi, who posted 10.27s to win his race.There were three preliminary heats overall and the first three in each heat qualify to round one, along with the athlete who posts the next fastest time.The world’s top sprinters enter the equation later Saturday, with the United States, who have won more golds in the event than all other nations combined, determined to take Bolt’s mantle and regain their supremacy.Their last gold medal win in the event came via Justin Gatlin in 2004.Contenders include Trayvon Bromell, whose 9.77 second run in Florida last month is the fastest of the year and propels him into the top tier of favorites in the race.His compatriot Ronnie Baker is probably his closest rival for podium positions and finished second to him at the U.S. trials with a time of 9.85.Canada’s Andre De Grasse, who won bronze in the 100m in Rio five years ago, will be looking to go for the title this time around while South African sprinter Akani Simbine, fifth in Brazil and boasting the second-fastest time of the year, will also be in the running.Bolt’s former training partner, 2012 silver medalist Yohan Blake, the second-fastest man in history, will carry his nation’s hopes on his shoulders.  
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Swimming is nothing if not orderly.Get ready for a little chaos.Here comes the 4×100-meter mixed medley relay making its Olympic debut in Tokyo on Saturday: Two men and two women per country doing backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle. The teams get to decide who swims each stroke, so a woman from one team and a man from the other could be doing the butterfly, say, at the same time.”I was probably a bit skeptical when it first came on the program, but I’m so thrilled that it’s now an Olympic event,” Australian sprinter Cate Campbell said. “It keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last moment.”FINA, the sport’s world governing body, added two mixed relays to its program at the 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, where the 4×100 mixed freestyle relay also debuted.While there are no restrictions on whether a man or woman swims which stroke, there are some general strategies that teams follow at the highest levels for the mixed relay.Most teams put a woman on the final freestyle leg because the time difference between women and men is generally less on that stroke than the other three. All 16 teams anchored with a female in the Olympic preliminaries.Likewise, a man generally swims the breaststroke, where there’s a larger gap between the fastest men’s and women’s times — roughly 7 1/2 seconds for the gold medalists in Tokyo. All but one team in the preliminaries went with a male on the third leg.There’s more wiggle room on the backstroke and butterfly legs. In the preliminaries, 10 of 16 teams used a man on the backstroke, while the butterfly leg featured nine females and seven men.”Different nations have different strengths on different legs and that brings in so many different strategies,” Britain’s Duncan Scott said. “You can be so far behind and claw it back.”Led by a blistering breaststroke leg from Adam Peaty, Britain topped the qualifying with an Olympic-record time. The United States advanced in second, followed by China and Australia for Saturday’s final.”There’s no pressure on us,” Peaty said. “If China wants to bring it, they can bring it. If America wants to bring it, they can bring it.”Coaches are looking for the fastest combination of swimmers in the four strokes. Swimmers negotiate extremely choppy water throughout the eight-lap race. A team that leads off with two men can build a big lead if others go with a different lineup. Things get so hectic, it’s often hard to tell who’s ahead.”You might be leading by a lot at 100, but then someone else might take over,” Peaty said, “and that’s just the fun of it.”In a sport known for its traditionalism, adding a mixed event to the Olympics initially had its critics. But Peaty views it as a chance to modernize and raise swimming’s entertainment value.”It’s good to have some fun out there,” he said. “I love the scrap.”
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Noor Mukadam’s last hours were terror-filled. Beaten repeatedly, the 27-year-old jumped from a window but was dragged back, beaten again and finally beheaded. A childhood friend has been charged with her killing.The gruesome death last week in an upscale neighborhood of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, is the latest in a series of attacks on women in Pakistan, where rights activists say such gender-based assaults are on the rise as the country barrels toward greater religious extremism.Mukadam was the daughter of a diplomat, and her status as a member of the country’s elite has shone a spotlight on the relentless and growing violence against women in Pakistan, said prominent rights activist Tahira Abdullah. But the majority of women who are victims of such violence are among the country’s poor and middle classes, and their deaths are often not reported or, when they are, often ignored.”I could give you a list longer than my arm, only in one week” of attacks against women, said Abdullah. “The epidemic of sexual crimes and violence against women in Pakistan is a silent epidemic. No one sees it. No one is talking about it.”A women’s rights activist places a candle beside a poster with the pictures of Noor Mukadam, who was recently beheaded, during a candle light vigil to pay tribute to Noor and other domestic violence victims, in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 25, 2021.Still, Pakistan’s Parliament this month failed to pass a bill that seeks to protect women from violence in the home, including attacks by a husband. Instead, it asked an Islamic ideology council to weigh in on the measure — the same council that previously said it was OK for a husband to beat his wife.Data collected from domestic violence hotlines across the country showed a 200% increase in domestic violence between January and March last year, according to a Human Rights Watch report released earlier this year. The numbers were even worse after March, when COVID-19 lockdowns began, according to the report.In 2020, Pakistan was near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s global gender index, coming in at 153 of 156 countries, ahead of only Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, which held the last spot despite billions of dollars spent and 20 years of international attention on gender issues there.Many of the attacks in Pakistan are so-called honor killings, where the perpetrator is a brother, father or other male relative. Each year, more than 1,000 women are killed in this way, many of them unreported, say human rights workers.”The authorities have failed to establish adequate protection or accountability for abuses against women and girls, including so-called ‘honor killings’ and forced marriage,” according to the HRW report.Rights groups have been sharply critical of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government, saying he panders to the religious right and excuses the perpetrators of attacks on women.A former cricket star who has married three times, Khan once had a reputation as a womanizer but has now embraced a conservative Islam. He keeps close ties with a religious ceric who blamed COVID-19 on “the wrongdoing of women.” He once appeared to blame women for attacks by men saying, “if you raise temptation in society … all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society.”Women’s rights activists demonstrate to condemn the violence against women in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, July 24, 2021.His information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, says Khan’s statements have been taken out of context and denied violence against women is on the rise, without offering evidence. He said his government encourages women in politics and sports and in provinces where Khan’s party dominates human rights legislation has been strengthened.”I think this perception is not really close to reality, that in Pakistan women are not safe or maybe that there’s a misogyny in practice in Pakistan,” Chaudhry said in an interview.Yet last week, one of Khan’s Cabinet ministers, Ali Amin Gandapur, told a rally of thousands of mostly male supporters, that he would “slap and slap” a female opposition political leader.Last September, a senior police officer blamed a woman who was ambushed and gang raped in front of her two children, saying she should not have been traveling at night and without a man.Such remarks reflect an increase in ultraconservative and even extremist religious values in Pakistan, said Amir Rana of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.The country has seen an explosion of religious organizations and religious political parties, many with extreme beliefs, said Rana, whose organization tracks and documents extremism in Pakistan.These organizations have tremendous reach in most cities and towns, where they provide services from education to health care, and thus have extensive ability to influence social values, said Rana.The history of religious extremism in Pakistan is complicated, and Chaudhry, the information minister, argued that America shares responsibility for the role it played in the region in the 1980s. At that time, Pakistan’s military dictator aided by the U.S. used religious fervor to inspire Afghans to fight an invading Soviet Union. Many of those Afghans ended up in Pakistan as refugees.”And very conveniently now, the U.S. media and U.S. authorities … blame everything on Pakistan and have left the region,” he said.Pakistan’s prominent rights activist Tahira Abdullah speaks about violence against women during an interview with The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 27, 2021.But Abdullah, the rights activist, said Pakistan cannot shirk its own responsibility, noting that same dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul Haq, introduced Islamic laws that, among other things, reduced women’s rights to inheritance, limited the value of their testimony in court and made reporting a rape almost impossible by requiring four male witnesses.In Mukadam’s assault, police have charged Zahir Jaffar, the son of a wealthy industrialist, with murder. Initial reports say she was killed after spurning his marriage proposal. It’s not clear whether Jaffar has a lawyer.The brutality of the assault — the attacker used so-called brass knuckles — and the fear that his high social status means he could be freed, galvanized many in Pakistan to speak out. They have held protests and a candlelight vigil and launched a social media campaign #justicefornoor to preempt attempts to use influence and money to whisk the accused out of the country.In one petition circulating online, the author demanded the country’s judicial system “hold perpetrators of violence responsible. We demand justice. We demand it swiftly. We demand it for Noor. We demand it for all women.”Zarqa Khan, a student who attended a candlelight vigil for Mukadam, bemoaned how religion now pervades so much of life in Pakistan and how today she fears walking alone on the streets.”I just didn’t feel safe outside anymore,” said Khan. “And that shouldn’t be the scenario.”
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Face mask requirements are returning to the United States in some communities and workplaces, along with directives for mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, in a new push to curb the easily transmissible delta variant of the infection that has already killed more than 611,000 Americans.

On the Independence Day holiday earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden heralded the strides the country had made in combating the coronavirus. But now he said he was seriously considering requiring that the more than 2.1 million federal workers be vaccinated, and that he would adhere to face mask rules when he visited parts of the country where the virus was surging.

The U.S. is now recording more than 60,000 new coronavirus cases each day, the government said, up from fewer than 12,000 a day in late June.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, has reimposed a mask requirement in the chamber.

The western state of Nevada, where the popular Las Vegas gambling mecca is located, is reimposing mask rules for indoor gatherings, as is the Midwestern city of Kansas City, Missouri. A major newspaper, The Washington Post, said it would require that all its journalists be vaccinated before returning to the office in mid-September.

The requirements follow new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said Tuesday that new data suggested even vaccinated people could pass on the virus if they became infected. The CDC said masks should be worn inside public places in communities that have seen a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“I know this is not a message America wants to hear,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told CNN on Wednesday. “With prior variants, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn’t see the capacity of them to spread the virus to others, but with the delta variant, we now see that you can actually now pass it to somebody else.”

She stressed that vaccines against the coronavirus were preventing greater levels of hospitalization and death. But millions of Americans remain skeptical of the vaccines and are refusing to get inoculated, or are saying  they are unlikely to do so.

Walensky said unvaccinated people were accounting for “a vast majority” of new infections. Two-thirds of the vaccine-eligible population of people 12 years and older in the U.S. have received at least one dose. Still, the government said slightly less than half of the U.S. population of more than 328 million people had been fully vaccinated.

“We can halt the chain of transmission,” Walensky said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” “We can do something if we unify together, if we get people vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated. If we mask in the interim, we can halt this in just a matter of a couple of weeks.”

With the new federal guidance, numerous state and municipal governments across the U.S. are reconsidering or rescinding their earlier easing of mask rules.

The CDC also called on school systems across the country to require masks for students, teachers and visitors as they start the new school year in August and September. But some states in the South have passed laws banning masks in schools, leaving it unclear as to how they may react to the new CDC guidance.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
 
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As the U.S economic recovery continues, many Americans want to buy new cars and trucks. But finding them is hard amid a global semiconductor shortage. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on how COVID-19 continues to affect supply and demand in the automotive industry.

Producers: Kane Farabaugh, Adam Greenbaum. Videographer: Kane Farabaugh.
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The White House is strongly considering requiring federal employees to show proof they’ve been vaccinated against the coronavirus or otherwise submit to regular testing and wear a mask — a potentially major shift in policy that reflects growing concerns about the spread of the more infectious delta variant. 

The possible vaccine mandate for federal employees — regardless of the rate of transmission in their area — is one option under consideration by the Biden administration, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss deliberations that have yet to be made public. The White House is expected to announce its final decision after completing a policy review this week. 

According to an analysis from the federal Office of Management and Budget, in 2020 there were more than 4.2 million federal workers nationwide, including those in the military. 

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday that expanding that mandate to the entire federal workforce was “under consideration,” but offered no further details. The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday became the first federal agency to require vaccinations for its health workers. 

The broader requirement under consideration would be the most significant shift by the Biden administration this week as the White House grapples with a surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide driven by the spread of the delta variant and breakthrough infections among vaccinated Americans. 

On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its masking guidelines and said that all Americans living in areas with substantial or high coronavirus transmission rates should wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. 

And just like that, masks were back at the White House. 

By Tuesday afternoon, when the latest CDC data found that Washington, D.C., is facing substantial rates of transmission, White House staff were asked to begin wearing masks indoors starting Wednesday. Members of the press were asked to follow suit, and those staff and reporters remaining in the White House were masking up. 

An aide for Vice President Kamala Harris passed out masks to the reporters covering her events earlier that day, asking them to put them on before walking into her meeting with Native American leaders on voting rights. 

Masks will also be required again at the U.S. House. 

Citing the new CDC guidance, the Capitol’s Attending Physician Brian P. Monahan issued a memo late Tuesday reinstating the mask requirement for all individuals, vaccinated and not, when entering the House chamber or other interior spaces in the complex when others are present. Fines that had been established under previous House rules can be imposed for offenders, though exceptions will be allowed when lawmakers are recognized to speak during proceedings. 

For the Senate, with far fewer members, the masks are being recommended but not required for the chamber and other indoor spaces. 

“All individuals should wear a well-fitted, medical-grade filtration mask,” Monahan wrote in a similar letter obtained by The Associated Press. 

Biden dismissed concerns that the new masking guidance from the CDC could create confusion among Americans, saying those who remain unvaccinated are the ones who are “sowing enormous confusion.” 

“The more we learn, the more we learn about this virus and the delta variation, the more we have to be worried and concerned. And there’s only one thing we know for sure — if those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world,” he told reporters after speaking to intelligence community employees at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday. 

But the whiplash on masking and vaccinations — just the day before, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had avoided questions over why the administration had yet to require vaccines for federal workers — reflects the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus. 

Various state and local governments, private companies, hospital administrators and universities across the nation have reverted to indoor mask mandates and instituted vaccine mandates in recent months, but just 60% of American adults have been completely vaccinated, and the latest wave of the coronavirus is hitting those communities with low vaccination rates particularly hard. The nation is averaging more than 57,000 cases a day and 24,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. 

But the Biden administration had thus far avoided embracing a vaccine mandate for its own employees — in part because officials are wary of further politicizing an already fraught issue by coming down too hard on the side of vaccine mandates. 

Psaki acknowledged Tuesday that administration officials are aware of the risk that Biden’s support for vaccine mandates could harden opposition to vaccines among his detractors. 

“The president certainly recognizes that he is not always the right voice to every community about the benefits of getting vaccinated, which is why we have invested as much as we have in local voices and empowering local, trusted voices,” she said. 
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