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Gunmen killed a significant number of civilians Saturday in Niger, authorities said, in the latest attack to rock the landlocked Sahel nation’s troubled western Tillaberi region.”The attack took place around noon (1100 GMT) and there were deaths,” a senior regional official told AFP, without giving an exact toll or further details of the attack.A local official said “many civilians were killed” in the attack on Tchomo-Bangou, a village near the Mali border, but did not give details.”The attackers came to surround the village and killed up to 50 people. The wounded were taken to Ouallam hospital,” a local radio station journalist said on condition of anonymity.The attack came on the same day election officials announced results for the first round of Niger’s presidential vote that put ruling party candidate and former government minister Mohamed Bazoum in the clear lead, with a runoff set for next month.The vast and unstable Tillaberi region is in the so-called tri-border area, a jihadi-plagued zone where the porous borders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso converge.About 4,000 people across the three nations died in 2019 in violence and ethnic bloodshed stirred by Islamists, according to the U.N.Seven Nigerien soldiers were killed in an ambush in Tillaberi on December 21.Travel by motorbike has been banned in Tillaberi since January in a bid to prevent incursions by highly mobile fighters.A landlocked state in the heart of the Sahel, Niger is also being hammered by jihadis from Nigeria, the cradle of a decade-old insurgency launched by Boko Haram.Last month, 34 villagers were massacred in the southeastern region of Diffa, on the Nigerian border, the day before municipal and regional elections that had been repeatedly delayed because of poor security.
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President-elect Joe Biden said he plans to be aggressive in fighting COVID-19 upon taking office, pushing for 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days. Biden also criticized the outgoing administration Tuesday, saying it was falling short in needed vaccinations. “The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling far behind,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware. He vowed “to move Heaven and Earth to get us going in the right direction” once he takes office on January 20. President-elect Joe Biden speaks at The Queen theater, in Wilmington, Del., Dec. 29, 2020.Biden, after being briefed by experts, said he would undertake the “greatest operational challenge we’ve ever faced as a nation” to inoculate against the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 1.7 million lives globally. COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has killed more than 335,000 Americans and infected 19.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Drive had predicted that 20 million Americans would be vaccinated by the end of December. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said as of Tuesday, with three days left in 2020, about 2.1 million had received the first shot of the two-shot vaccine. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert and Biden’s chief medical adviser, told CNN, “We certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of December. We are below where we want to be.” EMT Christian Ventura receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the Chester County Government Services Center, in West Chester, Pa., Dec. 29, 2020.President-elect Biden said with the availability of the vaccine, he was confident the country could return to normality, but not immediately, in 2021. “The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough — a very tough period for our nation, maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,” Biden said. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that with tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases being recorded in the United States every day, the disease “has just gotten out of control in many respects.” He said January’s caseload could exceed that of December. “You just have to assume it’s going to get worse,” Fauci said, because millions of Americans traveled to visit relatives and friends over the Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays, quite likely spreading the virus. Harris vaccinatedEarlier Tuesday, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, received their first doses of the coronavirus vaccine. Harris pulled up the left sleeve of her blouse at a community health care center in Washington and told a nurse, “OK, let’s do it.” Harris, who is Black and Indian American, received the first of her two required shots at a facility that primarily serves African Americans, a televised reminder to minorities, who have been disproportionately hard hit by the coronavirus, to get vaccinated in the coming months. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Patricia Cummings, at United Medical Center in southeast Washington, Dec. 29, 2020.Biden received his first vaccination shot last week. President Donald Trump has been advised to postpone getting vaccinated because he was treated with monoclonal antibodies during his recent hospitalization with COVID-19. Fauci said Biden, by “showing leadership from the top,” could make an impact in fighting the virus — a comment that appeared to be implicit criticism of outgoing Trump, who has often belittled the impact of the virus and said little publicly about it since losing reelection to Biden last month.  “What he’s saying is that let’s take at least 100 days and everybody, every single person put aside this nonsense of making masks be a political statement or not,” Fauci said of Biden. “We know what works. We know social distancing works. We know avoiding congregant settings works. For goodness sakes, let’s all do it, and you will see that curve will come down.”  Biden has pledged to distribute 100 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days in office and said he wants to secure money for measures to safely open as many schools as possible. He said he will sign an executive order requiring masks to be worn on federal property.  New variantAlso, the Mountain state of Colorado reported the first U.S. case of the COVID-19 variant that had been found in Britain, state Governor Jared Polis said Tuesday. A state health official said a man in his 20s, who had no travel history, tested positive for the virus and was being isolated southeast of Denver, the state capital. British scientists said the new COVID-19 variant is more contagious than previously identified strains of the coronavirus. The discovery of the new variant led the CDC to issue new rules on Christmas Day for travelers arriving to the U.S. from Britain, requiring they show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
 
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Minneapolis’ mayor and police chief on Tuesday announced changes in the city’s disciplinary processes for police officers in an effort to make it easier to hold them accountable for bad behavior. Mayor Jacob Frey and Chief Medaria Arradondo, in their latest initiative to change department practices in the wake of George Floyd’s death, said the city attorney’s office would be more deeply involved in misconduct investigations as soon as they begin, helping to guide them and to analyze evidence.  Frey said more than 50% of all disciplinary cases are either reduced or overturned, with arbitrators typically citing due process concerns such as faulty investigation. He called that unacceptable. “We want to take every reason that stems from City Hall for overturning a disciplinary decision off the table,” Frey said. The city attorney’s office will also offer the chief legal advice on disciplinary decisions, and work with the department’s training unit to make sure it is “fostering a culture of accountability and professionalism.”  Conflicting rolesMichelle Gross, of Communities United Against Police Brutality, was skeptical that the newest change would make much difference. She suggested the city’s need to minimize exposure to civil litigation over an officer’s actions would be a strong disincentive to the city attorney’s office in investing an allegation of misconduct. “A lot’s going to depend on whether they can figure out their conflicting roles,” she said. City Attorney Jim Rowader rejected that, saying his office “has a fidelity to truth and to the integrity of our institutions, not to individual officers.” The head of the city’s police union didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Tracy Fussy, the city’s mitigation manager, said the new initiative should cut through some of the bureaucracy by having “someone consistently birddog the process” and by putting the emphasis on the quality, rather than speed, of an investigation. “When misconduct goes unchecked, everybody suffers,” Fussy said. “So let’s stop that.” Minneapolis police have come under heavy pressure to reform since Floyd’s death in May, after an officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes, ignoring his cries of distress. The officer, Derek Chauvin, and three others on the scene were fired and charged in Floyd’s death, with trial scheduled in March. Critics said Floyd’s death was just one more instance of brutality in a department long unable to change its culture. Activists have attacked a system that rarely disciplines problem officers. Chauvin had 17 complaints against him and had been disciplined only once.A Minneapolis Star Tribune analysis the month after Floyd’s death found that statewide, more than 80 police officers had fought their firings in arbitration over the past 20 years, and about half got their jobs back. The newspaper’s analysis of decisions by the state’s mediation office included 10 cases involving Minneapolis police officers, with eight of them getting their jobs back. Public safety unit rejectedIn the months since Floyd’s death, the city has struggled over how to reshape the department, with an unsuccessful push by several City Council members to do away with it entirely in favor of a new public safety unit. Frey and Arradondo, who opposed that move, have launched several initiatives since Floyd’s death. Those including limiting the use of so-called no-knock warrants, revising use-of-force policies and requiring officers to report on their attempts to de-escalate situations. The city is in the midst of negotiating a new contract with the union. Arradondo announced in June that the city was pausing negotiations for a review of ways the deal could be restructured to give more flexibility, including on how discipline is handled. Frey declined Tuesday to give an update on where those negotiations stand. The city this month announced an agreement with an outside law firm, Jones Day, for free assistance that could include involvement in the negotiations. 
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The U.S. House of Representatives has passed higher pandemic relief payments to Americans, meeting President Donald Trump’s demand for $2,000 COVID-19 relief checks, and it passed an override of Trump’s veto of a multibillion-dollar bill funding the country’s defense programs.  The House interrupted its usual Christmas recess to return to work to pass the measures Monday, less than a week before a new Congress is to be sworn into office. The Democrat-led House passed the additional pandemic relief payments by a vote of 275-134. The House and Senate had previously passed $600 payments for struggling Americans as part of a compromise $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package between Democratic and Republican lawmakers, however Trump sharply criticized the legislation. He threatened to block its passage if Congress did not increase the stimulus payments to $2,000 and cut other spending. But on Sunday, as a government shutdown loomed, he signed the bill. Trump’s support for the larger checks has been seen as a rebuke to members of his Republican Party, whose members have largely resisted the extra spending. The Republican-led Senate is set to return to session Tuesday to consider the measure, where its fate is uncertain.The House also passed a measure Monday that would override Trump’s veto of a $740 billion bill funding the country’s defense programs, securing the two-thirds vote necessary to override a presidential veto. The defense spending bill also gives raises to members of the military and sets Pentagon policy on issues such as troop levels, weapons systems and personnel matters. FILE – President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Dec. 23, 2020. Trump traveled to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.The Senate could vote on the measure as early as Tuesday and is also expected to override Trump’s veto. Trump has criticized the defense bill on several fronts, arguing without explanation that the bill benefits China. He has demanded the removal of language that allows the renaming of military bases that honor leaders of the Confederacy, which seceded from the United States in the 1860s, before collapsing at the end of the U.S. Civil War a few years later. He has also demanded the repeal of a provision that protects social media companies from liability over content their users post.   House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s veto “an act of staggering recklessness that harms our troops.”Trump went against lawmakers with both his veto of the defense bill and his criticism of the $2.3 trillion spending package, passed by both the House and Senate. Trump initially called the spending package “a disgrace,” but relented Sunday and signed it.In a statement announcing his signature for the spending bill, Trump said, “As president, I have told Congress that I want far less wasteful spending and more money going to the American people in the form of $2,000 checks per adult and $600 per child.”Without Trump’s signature or passage of a stopgap measure to fund operations, a partial government shutdown would have begun Tuesday. Increased unemployment benefits and eviction protections expired early Sunday.The spending bill Trump signed includes $900 billion for coronavirus relief and $1.4 trillion for government funding through next September.Democrats have characterized the coronavirus relief bill as just a first step in their push for a more expansive aid package. “We need to ensure robust support for state and local government to distribute and administer a vaccine, keep workers employed and prevent devastating service cuts — and we must do so as soon as possible,” Pelosi said.FILE – U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), walks from the Senate floor following an agreement of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) aid package, on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 2020.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised Trump for preventing “a government shutdown at a time when our nation could not have afforded one.” “The bipartisan rescue package that Republicans in Congress and the Trump Administration negotiated with the Democrats will extend another major lifeline to workers at struggling small businesses, renew major relief for laid-off Americans, invest billions more in vaccine distribution, send cash directly to households, and more. The compromise bill is not perfect, but it will do an enormous amount of good for struggling Kentuckians and Americans across the country who need help now,” McConnell said in a statement.Trump said in announcing his signature for the spending package that he was also insisting on changes to the funding legislation to remove what he called “wasteful items.”  Those demands amount to suggestions to Congress and will not necessarily result in any changes to the bill.“I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP (Paycheck Protection Program), return our airline workers back to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution, and much more,” Trump added. 
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A fast-food eatery at Pompeii has been excavated, helping to reveal dishes that were popular for the citizens of the ancient Roman city who were partial to eating out.Pompeii Archaeological Park’s longtime chief, Massimo Osanna, said Saturday that while about 80 such fast-foods spots have been found at Pompeii, it is the first time such a hot-food-drink eatery — known as a thermopolium — was completely unearthed.A segment of the fast-food counter was partially dug up in 2019 during work to shore up Pompeii’s oft-crumbling ruins. Since then, archaeologists kept digging, revealing a multisided counter, with typical wide holes inserted into its top. The countertop held deep vessels for hot foods, not unlike soup containers nestled into modern-day salad bars.Plant and animal specialists are still analyzing remains from the site, with its counter frescoed with a figure of an undersea nymph astride a horse. Images of two upside-down mallards and a rooster, whose plumage was painted with the typical vivid color known as Pompeiian red, also brightened the eatery and likely served to advertise the menu.Another fresco depicted a dog on a leash, perhaps not unlike modern reminders to leash pets. Vulgar graffiti were inscribed on the painting’s frame.A fresco depicting two ducks and a rooster on an ancient counter discovered during excavations in Pompeii, Italy, is seen in this handout picture released Dec. 26, 2020.Valeria Amoretti, a Pompeii staff anthropologist, said “initial analyses confirm how the painted images represent, at least in part, the foods and beverages effectively sold inside.” Her statement noted that duck bone fragment was found in one of the containers, along with remains from goats, pigs, fish and snails. At the bottom of a wine container were traces of ground fava beans, which in ancient times were added to wine for flavor and to lighten its color, Amoretti said.”We know what they were eating that day,” said Osanna, referring to the day of Pompeii’s destruction in 79 A.D. The food remains indicated “what’s popular with the common folk,” Osanna told Rai state TV, noting that street-food places weren’t frequented by the Roman elite.One surprise find was the complete skeleton of a dog. The discovery intrigued the excavators, since it wasn’t a “large, muscular dog like that painted on the counter but of an extremely small example” of an adult dog, whose height at shoulder level was 20 to 25 centimeters, Amoretti said. It’s rather rare, Amoretti said, to find remains from ancient times of such small dogs, discoveries that “attest to selective breeding in the Roman epoch to obtain this result.”Also unearthed were a bronze ladle, nine amphorae, which were popular food containers in Roman times, a couple of flasks and a ceramic oil container.Successful restaurateurs know that a good location can be crucial, and the operator of this ancient fast-food eatery seemed to have found a good spot. Osanna noted that right outside was a small square with a fountain, with another thermopolium in the vicinity.Pompeii was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which is near present-day Naples. Much of the ancient city still lies unexcavated. The site is one of Italy’s most popular tourist attractions.Human remains were also discovered in the excavation of the eatery.Those bones were apparently disturbed in the 17th century during clandestine excavations by thieves looking for valuables, Pompeii authorities said. Some of the bones belonged to a man, who, when the Vesuvius volcano erupted, appeared to have been lying on a bed or a cot, since nails and pieces of wood were found under his body, authorities said. Other human remains were found inside one of the counter’s vessels, possibly placed there by those excavators centuries ago.
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Barry Lopez, an award-winning writer who tried to tighten the bonds between people and place by describing the landscapes he saw in 50 years of travel, has died. He was 75.Lopez died in Eugene, Oregon, on Friday after a years-long struggle with prostate cancer, his family said.Longtime friend Kim Stafford, former Oregon poet laureate, said Lopez’s books “are landmarks that define a region, a time, a cause. He also exemplifies a life of devotion to craft and learning, to being humble in the face of wisdom of all kinds.”An author of nearly 20 books on natural history studies, along with essay and short story collections, Lopez was awarded the National Book Award in 1986 for Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape. It was the result of almost five years of traveling the Arctic.His final work was Horizon, an autobiography that recalls a lifetime of travel in more than 70 countries.’Desire simply to go away’Born in 1945 in Port Chester, New York, Lopez grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley and, after his mother remarried, New York City. In Horizon, he wrote that in those formative years, he developed “a desire simply to go away. To find what the skyline has cordoned off.”His later years were spent with his wife, Debra Gwartney, in a wooded area along the McKenzie River east of Eugene. After years of writing about the natural world and humans’ effect on climate change, he mourned the loss of acres of timber, not to mention personal papers, in the September 2020 Holiday Farm fire.The wildfire damaged Lopez’s home so badly that he couldn’t live in it. The blaze also destroyed a building that stored his original manuscripts, personal letters, photos and a typewriter he used to write his books. The IBM Selectric III was quickly replaced with an identical model by his friends.”Just an incredible body of work and memories,” said his stepdaughter Stephanie Woodruff. “Very meticulously kept and organized. That [loss] was devastating, certainly. He wrote every single book on a typewriter.”In 2013, Lopez wrote the essay Sliver of Sky, revealing he had been sexually abused by a family friend for several years starting when he was 7. Lopez said the essay was an attempt at catharsis.Crowning achievementWoodruff said the essay possibly helped lead to Horizon, a book more than two decades in the making. In a 2019 review, The Associated Press said the book felt like the crowning achievement of Lopez’s illustrious career, describing it as part travel journal, part history, part science lecture, part autobiography and completely unique.”I do think that [the essay] released something in him to really ground and round out and complete ‘Horizon,’ ” Woodruff said. “Everything he wrote was personal, of course.”In a statement Saturday, his family encouraged financial support for the McKenzie River Trust, with which Lopez had worked on conservation efforts.Lopez is survived by his wife, four stepdaughters and an older brother. A younger brother died in 2017.
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A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after president-elect Joe Biden takes office.U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomery’s execution date for Jan. 12. Montgomery had previously been scheduled to be put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, this month, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the amount of time to file a clemency petition.Moss prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year and officials rescheduled her execution date for Jan. 12. But Moss ruled on Wednesday that the agency was also prohibited from rescheduling the date while a stay was in place.”The Court, accordingly, concludes that the Director’s order setting a new execution date while the Court’s stay was in effect was ‘not in accordance with law,'” Moss wrote.A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Under the order, the Bureau of Prisons cannot reschedule Montgomery’s execution until at least Jan. 1. Generally, under Justice Department guidelines, a death-row inmate must be notified at least 20 days before the execution. Because of the judge’s order, if the Justice Department chooses to reschedule the date in January, it could mean that the execution would be scheduled after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.A spokesperson for Biden has told The Associated Press the president-elect “opposes the death penalty now and in the future” and would work as president to end its use in office. But Biden’s representatives have not said whether executions would be paused immediately once Biden takes office.Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004. She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from the womb, authorities said.Prosecutors said Montgomery removed the baby from Stinnett’s body, took the child with her, and attempted to pass the girl off as her own. Montgomery’s legal team has argued that their client suffers from serious mental illnesses.”Given the severity of Mrs. Montgomery’s mental illness, the sexual and physical torture she endured throughout her life, and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we appeal to President Trump to grant her mercy, and commute her sentence to life imprisonment,” one of Montgomery’s lawyers, Sandra Babcock, said in a statement.Two other federal inmates are scheduled to be executed in January but have tested positive for coronavirus and their attorneys are also seeking delays to their executions.
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Four pregnant women were among 20 migrants whose bodies were found off Tunisia’s coast after their smuggling boat sank, Tunisian authorities said Friday, as search efforts continued for 13 others believed missing.Nineteen of the 20 migrants who died in Thursday’s sinking were women, according to Mourad Torki, the court spokesman for the Sfax region in central Tunisia.Coast guard officials and local fishermen retrieved the bodies, brought them to shore and transferred them in white body bags to a nearby hospital where autopsies were carried out.Four migrants were rescued, Torki said. One remained under medical supervision Friday and another fled the hospital.The boat, overloaded and in poor condition, was carrying 37 people — three Tunisians and others from sub-Saharan Africa, Torki said. Coast guard boats and navy divers were searching for the 13 missing, but found no new bodies or survivors Friday, amid strong winds and high waves in the area.Tunisian authorities said they had intercepted several migrant smuggling boats recently, but that the number of attempts had been growing, notably between the Sfax region and the Italian island of Lampedusa.Migrant smuggling boats frequently leave from the coast of Tunisia and neighboring Libya carrying people from across Africa, including a growing number of Tunisians fleeing prolonged economic difficulties in their country.
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The Pentagon has sent several naval vessels and a marine expeditionary unit to the coast of Somalia to support an operation repositioning hundreds of U.S. troops to bases elsewhere in East Africa. The USS Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit reached Somali waters on Monday. It joined the USS Hershel Woody Williams, an expeditionary sea base that arrived on December 16, according to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). FILE – A U.S. Marine gives the thumbs up as a truckload of troops arrive at the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, Dec. 10, 1992.The Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group consists of three vessels, including the amphibious assault ship of the same name. Combined with the expeditionary sea base USS Williams, they have nearly 5,000 troops to conduct maritime security operations. The vessels have the combined “capability to boost firepower and protect and enable the repositioning of U.S. forces,” AFRICOM spokesperson Col. Christopher P. Karns told VOA Somali Service in an email Tuesday. “Also, if provoked, (they can) strike al-Shabab terrorists swiftly and with precision. “For this operation, a full range of military capability is available to project power from sea, land or air,” he wrote. “… The ability to bring forth robust capability quickly should reassure partners. Also, al-Shabab should take notice and recognize what awaits those seeking to do harm. U.S. forces are clear-eyed and focused on completing this mission. U.S. Africa Command has an ability to bring forth added capability as situations warrant.” Karns declined to provide details about AFRICOM’s strategy or timeline. But he insisted it would continue to develop Somali forces and conduct airstrikes against the militant group. Concerns over drawdown The U.S. troop drawdown in Somalia and its timing have sparked concerns.FILE – The Somalian army special commando unit known as Danab marches at army headquarters in Mogadishu, April 12, 2014.She said the Danab have benefited from their U.S. mentors’ capabilities, whether in military intelligence, air surveillance or superior weaponry. The presence of U.S. forces also has shielded Danab from being used to settle internal Somali political disputes, said another Somali official who was not authorized to speak to media and asked not to be named. The official suggested that with the drawdown, Danab members might be sent to address political disputes and would be vulnerable to al-Shabab attacks. Building capacity After its November announcement of the troop drawdown, AFRICOM resumed airstrikes to demonstrate its continued support. A December 10 strike killed eight militants, the Pentagon said, noting it was the 50th U.S.-led strike in Somalia this year. Most target al-Shabab, but a few have been directed at pro-Islamic State terrorists. U.S. airstrikes have killed roughly a thousand al-Shabab fighters since 2017, Karns said. The U.S. military carried out 35 strikes that year, 47 in 2018 and 63 in 2019, he said. AFRICOM said its airstrikes disrupt al-Shabab activities and restrict the group’s movements and ability to expand. The U.S. drawdown exposes Somalia’s unpreparedness to assume security responsibilities, analyst Gaid said, adding that its government must build a force capable of securing national land, air and sea borders and eliminating terrorist threats. She offered an optimistic prediction: “If we double up the efforts and refocus, in 10 years, we can have that force.” This story originated in VOA’s Somali Service.
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Even as new infections slip to the lowest levels in three months, on Saturday, India crossed the 10 million mark of total infections since the pandemic began, second behind the U.S. mark of 17 million, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.India’s falling infections, down from its record of about 100,000 new cases daily to about 25,000 cases reported Saturday, give health experts some reason to hope. India has suffered more than 145,000 deaths, Johns Hopkins says.”If we can sustain our declining trend for the next two to three months, we should be able to start the vaccination program and start moving away from the pandemic,” Dr. Randeep Guleria, a government health expert, told The Associated Press.Some of the world’s biggest vaccine makers are located in India, and there are five vaccines in clinical trials. Two vaccines, by Oxford University-AstraZeneca and India’s Bharat Biotech, are nearing authorization for emergency use. The South Asian nation with a population of 1.3 billion people hopes to vaccinate 250 million people by July.As India’s cases are waning, Canada was approaching 500,000 cases Saturday, an increase of 25% since two weeks ago, when the North American country surpassed 400,000 cases.”COVID-19 is spreading among people of all ages, with high infection rates across all age groups,” Canada’s chief medical officer Theresa Tam said.Cases surging in CanadaCanada is to receive 500,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. And about 168,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine should arrive soon. It is expected to receive emergency-use approval by Canadian health officials soon.However, Minister of Public Services and Procurement Anita Anand said there will not be enough shots for every Canadian who wants one until September.Santa ‘good to go’One person who won’t have to wait for his shot is Santa Claus, thanks to Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert.”I took care of that for you because I was worried that you’d all be upset,” he said Saturday during a CNN and “Sesame Street” coronavirus town hall for families, after worried youngsters asked whether Santa could safely enter homes on Dec. 25.”I took a trip up there to the North Pole; I went there, and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go,” Fauci said.”He can come down the chimney, he can leave the presents … you have nothing to worry about,” he said.US general apologizesGen. Gustave Perna, the U.S. Army general in charge of distributing COVID-19 vaccine across the U.S., apologized Saturday to the governors of more than a dozen states that will be getting fewer doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than they expected.”I want to take personal responsibility for the miscommunication,” he told reporters during a telephone briefing. “I know that’s not done much these days. But I am responsible. … This is a Herculean effort, and we are not perfect.”Perna said he mistakenly cited the number of doses he believed would be ready, not understanding the difference between manufactured doses and those ready to be released.Between the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna Inc. vaccine, Perna said the government is expecting to deliver 20 million doses to the states by the first week of January.Moderna and its partners have started distributing its vaccine, the second approved for emergency use in the country. Trucks will begin shipping the vaccine to more than 3,700 U.S. locations on Sunday, Perna said Saturday during the virtual news conference.Perna said the Moderna vaccine will reach health care workers as early as Monday, but that the delivery of some of the first 20 million doses of vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer Inc. could be delayed until the first week of January.Nearly 76 million people around the world contracted the coronavirus as of midday Saturday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.The U.S. tops the list as the country with the most cases, with 17.6 million; India is second, with more than 10 million, followed by Brazil, with 7.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins.Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, said Saturday the country would focus on vaccinating high-risk groups over the next several months before beginning to vaccinate the general public.”During the winter and spring seasons, carrying out novel coronavirus vaccination work among some key population groups is of great significance to epidemic prevention,” Zeng, who also is director of State Council’s vaccine R&D working group, said.The World Health Organization (WHO) said it has gained access to 2 billion doses of several coronavirus vaccines.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said access to the vaccines ensures that some 190 countries will be able to inoculate their populations “during the first half of next year.”
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As the coronavirus pandemic roared to new record highs across the United States, it lit a fire in the U.S. Congress, where Republicans and Democrats were scrambling to pass a new round of aid after months of partisan finger-pointing and inaction. Even as they contemplated passing a third stopgap measure to give them a few more days to agree on final amounts, lawmakers from both parties said COVID-19’s worsening toll meant that failure to agree was no longer an option. Multiple lawmakers floated the possibility the federal government would run out of money early Saturday morning while the COVID-19 relief negotiations continue if Congress is unable to pass a temporary government funding bill before Friday at midnight. FILE – Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., answers reporters questions outside his office at the U.S. Capitol, Jan 29, 2020.The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Thune, said there could be an objection to passing such a stopgap measure from those who want to keep the pressure on for a deal on COVID-19 aid. “Government shutdowns are never good. If it’s for a very short amount of time on a weekend, hopefully it’s not going to be something that would be all that harmful. But that being said, the preferable route is to keep the government open and get this done and get it done quickly,” Thune said. But a House Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations said there was confidence that the Democrat-run House could meet the midnight Friday deadline for passing spending and coronavirus aid measures. Lawmakers said they were being spurred to action by hospitalizations and deaths caused by the pandemic rising at an alarming rate. The United States has registered more than 17 million COVID-19 cases and more than 310,000 deaths, by far the most in the world, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. FILE – Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaks during a Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, May 7, 2020.”Today, this week, we’re seeing more deaths due to COVID than ever. The fact that even with a vaccine coming in my state, we are at our highest rate ever for transmission of the virus, for hospitalizations,” said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. “That’s the difference … the calendar, the passage of time, and the passing of lives,” Murkowski said when asked by reporters why a coronavirus aid bill was gaining momentum among Senate Republicans. FILE – Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, speaking during a news conference in Washington, Oct. 26, 2020.Republican Senator Rob Portman pointed to growing lines of unemployed Americans at food banks.  “Something’s going on here, folks … people waiting five, six hours for a box of food,” he said. Republicans also have a wary eye on the impact inaction might have on a pair of January 5 U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia, which will decide whether their party maintains control of the Senate for the next two years or hands it over to Democrats. For months, the Republican-run Senate refused to take up a $3 trillion bill the Democrat-run House passed in May, pointing out that Congress had previously passed $3 trillion in aid in March and April. For a long time, leading Republicans argued for something closer to $500 billion (about twice the value of the gross domestic product of South Africa) more. Now, House and Senate leaders are negotiating a bill of about $900 billion that would be attached to a $1.4 trillion measure to fund federal programs through next September. The plan is to attach the bill to a massive government bill and pass both by midnight Friday to avoid a shutdown of much of the federal government. Lawmakers in both parties said they wanted to avoid a shutdown. The coronavirus legislation is expected to include stimulus checks of about $600, extended unemployment benefits, help for states distributing the vaccine and assistance for small businesses struggling through the pandemic as millions have been thrown out of work. Fed lending and other sticking points While congressional leaders reported progress in negotiations, there still were thorny problems to iron out. Republicans were trying to ensure that the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program that was enacted earlier this year ended this month, a move that Democrats oppose. FILE – Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, listens during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Dec. 1, 2020.Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, a Republican, told reporters he was negotiating for a rental assistance program that would “avoid the need for an eviction moratorium.” Negotiators were in varying stages of debates over increased food aid for the poor and reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to local governments for expenses related to COVID-19, like personal protective equipment for schools. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that if a deal is not reached by midnight Friday, he would insist that lawmakers put off a Christmas break until one is reached. That would necessitate, he said, passage of a “very, very” short stopgap measure to keep the government running. FILE – In this image from video, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., takes his face covering off as he speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, April 23, 2020. (House Television via AP)House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has talked about a temporary bill possibly running through next Tuesday. Two contentious issues appear to have been left by the wayside. The measure was not expected to include a dedicated funding stream for state and local governments, a Democratic priority, or new protections for companies from lawsuits related to the pandemic, something high on the Republican agenda. Lawmakers were discussing $300 weekly in federal unemployment benefits — which would also be half the amount passed last spring that expired in the summer — and about $330 billion to help small businesses, lawmakers said. 
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Hurricane-force winds and torrential rain have destroyed scores of houses and flattened crops in Fiji’s northern regions, aid agencies said Friday, though early assessments suggest minimal casualties. Cyclone Yasa, a Category 5 storm, made landfall over Bua province on the northern island of Vanua Levu on Thursday evening, bringing heavy rain, widespread flooding and winds of up to 285 kph (177 mph) across the archipelago. Fiji declared a state of natural disaster Thursday, ordered its entire population of nearly 1 million people to seek shelter and implemented a nightly curfew. A house is shuttered in the preparation for Cyclone Yasa in the Tamavua neighborhood of Suva, Fiji, Dec. 17, 2020.The alarm was largely heeded, and as a result, humanitarian groups said it appeared the initial impact of Cyclone Yasa was less than originally feared, though still extensive. “Villages in Vanua Levu have lost a lot of houses. The wind has flattened many community buildings, and crops have been flattened,” Fiji Red Cross Society Director-General Ilisapeci Rokotunidau told Reuters by phone from Suva, the country’s capital. “So far there is just one fatality that has been reported.”Images shared on social media showed roads blocked by landslides, floodwaters and fallen trees. All roads in Rakiraki, a district on the main island with about 30,000 residents, were flooded, Fiji’s Road Authority said. Authorities remain concerned about heavy rains bought by Cyclone Yasa, though the storm has weakened in strength and is now a Category 2 as it moves south across the island chain. Still, the adverse weather has hampered efforts by aid groups to dispatch assistance, with waves of more than 3 meters (10 feet) preventing ships from leaving Suva. Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said with treacherous conditions, the country’s citizens must remain vigilant. “#TeamFiji, we are not out of the woods yet, keep safe and adhere to weather warnings!!” Bainimarama tweeted on Friday.  
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Ten states on Wednesday brought a lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of “anti-competitive conduct” in the online advertising industry, including a deal to manipulate sales with rival Facebook.Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the suit, which was filed in a federal court in Texas, saying Google is using its “monopolistic power” to control pricing of online advertisements, fixing the market in its favor and eliminating competition.”This Goliath of a company is using its power to manipulate the market, destroy competition, and harm you, the consumer,” Paxton said in the video posted on Twitter.Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, called Paxton’s claims “meritless” and said the price of online advertising has fallen over the past decade.”These are the hallmarks of a highly competitive industry,” the company said in a statement. “We will strongly defend ourselves from (Paxton’s) baseless claims in court.”Paxton led a bipartisan coalition of 50 U.S. states and territories that announced in September 2019 they were investigating Google’s business practices, citing “potential monopolistic behavior.”Now Texas is bringing the suit along with other Republican attorneys general from Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah.The complaint targets the heart of Google’s business – the digital ads that generate nearly all of its revenue, as well as all the money that its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., depends on to help finance a range of far-flung technology projects.As more marketers have increased their spending online, those digital ads have turned Google into a moneymaking machine. Through the first nine months of this year, Google’s ad sales totaled nearly $101 billion, accounting for 86% of its total revenue.And now the states contend Google intends to use its alleged stranglehold on digital ads to choke off other avenues of potential competition and innovation. The company struck an illegal deal with Facebook, a major competitor for ads, to manipulate advertising auction, according to the complaint. Facebook declined to comment.”Google has an appetite for total dominance, and its latest ambition is to transform the free and open architecture of the internet,” the suit alleges.’Ad tech’ marketplaceIn the “ad tech” marketplace that brings together Google and a huge universe of online advertisers and publishers, the company controls access to the advertisers that put ads on its dominant search platform. Google also runs the auction process for advertisers to get ads onto a publisher’s site. Nine of Google’s products in search, video, mobile, email, mapping and other areas are estimated to have over a billion users each, providing the company a trove of users’ data that it can deploy in the advertising process.Google officials say the company shares the majority of its “ad tech” revenue with publishers, such as newspaper websites. An official recently rejected even the assertion that Google is dominant, saying that market dominance suggests abuse, which is foreign to the company.The state’s suit comes after the U.S. Justice Department sued Google in October for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising – the government’s most significant attempt to buttress competition since its historic case against Microsoft two decades ago.Separately, the FBI is investigating whether Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, broke the law in using his office to help a wealthy donor who is also under federal investigation. This fall, eight of the attorney general’s top deputies accused him of bribery, abuse of office and other crimes in the service of an Austin real estate developer who employs a woman with whom Paxton is said to have had an extramarital affair.All eight of Paxton’s accusers have since been fired or resigned, including the deputy attorney general who had been leading the office’s probe of Google. The court complaint list attorneys with private firms in Houston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., as the lead lawyers on the case.Paxton announced the lawsuit the week after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his legal push to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, a case that prompted widespread speculation that the attorney general is angling for a preemptive pardon from Trump.  
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The number of journalists jailed for their work hit a record high in 2020, with 274 imprisoned globally. The annual survey by press freedom organization Committee to Protect Journalists lists China, Turkey and Egypt as the worst jailers. Unrest in Belarus and Ethiopia led to a surge in arrests, and protests in the U.S. resulted in unprecedented numbers of arrests. VOA’s Press Freedom Editor Jessica Jerreat has more.
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When Tunisia’s embattled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali delivered a last-ditch speech promising new freedoms to a country in revolt, Nadia Khiari sketched her cat delivering the same address to a group of mice. The next day, January 14, 2011, Ben Ali fled into exile, forced out by weeks of unprecedented mass protests against his rule. Ten years later, her cat remains in rude health, and his cartoon alter-ego Willis from Tunis has become an icon of the revolution. “I decided to use this character to tell the story of what was happening in my country,” said Khiari, a painter and lecturer in fine arts. Pouncing on Tunisia’s unprecedented new freedoms, she began posting bitter and witty political cartoons on Facebook, all featuring cats. “For me as an artist, it was a true revolution, because from one day to the next I was able to express myself freely,” she said. Her audience, initially just family and friends, has grown to more than 55,000 followers today. Tunisian cartoonist Nadia Khiari, creator of the “Willis from Tunis” cartoon cat series, poses with her latest Willis book, in Tunis on Dec. 12, 2020.In November she published her latest Willis from Tunis book, a selection of her best work over the decade since the uprising.  Tunisia’s revolution, with its demands for “work, freedom and national dignity,” sparked a string of revolts across the Arab world.  The North African country has since been praised for its democratic transition.  But many Tunisians, disillusioned by economic woes, official corruption and pitiful public services, say they have gained little — apart from to right to say what they think. In one of Khiari’s cartoons from 2018, Willis lies silently on the floor, a boot stamped on his face.  “Before the revolution,” reads the caption. The next frame shows the same cat under the same boot but letting out a scream: “AAAAIIIE!” The caption reads: “Today, happily we have freedom of expression.” Growing corruptionKhiari says she has always enjoyed drawing, but Ben Ali’s fall let her creativity out of the bag. Before the protests against his rule, she had hinted at political subjects in the titles of her paintings, but “a satirical picture as such, a political cartoon — no, never,” she said. Today, she no longer pussyfoots around tough subjects. Instead, she takes regular swipes at Tunisia’s post-revolt political class, seen by many as just as corrupt as Ben Ali’s regime. “Hide your wallet,” one of her cartoon cats tells another as they walk toward the government’s headquarters in Tunis. “There are lots of robberies in this area.” This Thursday will mark 10 years since Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, set fire to himself, sparking the uprising.  Ahead of the anniversary, Tunisia has seen protests demanding jobs and investment in long-marginalized regions, amid an economic crisis amplified by the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of medics from crumbling public hospitals protested last week to demand the health minister’s resignation, after a young doctor plunged to his death in a hospital lift shaft. The tragedy was widely blamed on official corruption and indifference. In this environment, Khiari’s cartoons have struck a chord.  “The government fights corruption,” reads the title of another of her cartoons, showing a cat in suit and tie sitting behind a desk. “If you want to speed up the process,” the cat purrs with a wide grin, “that can be arranged.” Taboos swept away Khiari says that while the media describes Tunisia as a “laboratory of democracy,” the messy reality is closer to that of a building site.  But she told AFP at a chic art and craft boutique she runs with her husband, the revolution did sweep away “lots of taboos.” “We talk about religious questions. We talk about sexual questions, homosexuals, women’s bodies, power,” she said. She regularly tackles themes of women’s rights and gender inequality in her work. In one cartoon, a female kitten asks why her brother gets more pocket money than herself. “It’s to prepare you for later on,” her mother replies. Khiari is on the board of Cartooning for Peace, set up by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and French cartoonist Plantu to “fight with humor for the respect of cultures and freedoms.” That is an ongoing battle in Tunisia, where press freedom watchdog RSF says the climate for the media and journalists has worsened since the election of a new president, Kais Saied, in October 2019.   For Khiari, that means the fight that began a decade ago is far from over.  “The attempts to silence us again have never ended, never, because freedom of expression bothers (some people),” she said. “So unfortunately, it’s a struggle every day to preserve that freedom of expression.”
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A radio station run by women for women in Kandahar, Afghanistan, has been awarded the 2020 Reporters Without Borders Prize for Impact. VOA’s Azizullah Popal reports from Kandahar.
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The nation’s largest veterans organization and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday joined the growing calls for the ouster of President Donald Trump’s Veterans Affairs chief, under fire after a government audit found he acted unprofessionally, if not unethically, in the handling of a congressional aide’s allegation of sexual assault at a VA hospital.”It is unfair to expect accountability from the nearly 400,000 VA employees and not demand the same from its top executive. It is clear that Secretary Robert Wilkie failed to meet the standard that the veteran who came forward with the complaint deserved,” the American Legion’s national commander, James W. “Bill” Oxford, said in a statement. He urged Wilkie and several other top VA officials cited in the report to resign because of their “violation of trust” of the agency’s commitment to not “tolerate harassment of any kind.”Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wilkie “has lost the trust and confidence to serve, and he must immediately resign.” She said Wilkie “has not only been derelict in his duty to combat sexual harassment but has been complicit in the continuation of a VA culture that tolerates this epidemic.”On Saturday, the VA said Wilkie, who has denied wrongdoing, doesn’t intend to resign.”He will continue to lead the department,” said spokesperson Christina Noel.The demands for Wilkie’s resignation came a day after numerous veterans groups expressed similar outrage and sought Wilkie’s dismissal in the final weeks of the Trump administration. Those organizations include Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Modern Military Association of America, and they said they had lost confidence that Wilkie could effectively lead the department, which is responsible for the care of 9 million veterans.Concerns about leadershipAn investigation by the Veterans Affairs’ inspector general on Thursday concluded that Wilkie repeatedly sought to discredit Andrea Goldstein, a senior policy adviser to Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, after she alleged in September 2019 that a man at the VA medical center in Washington had physically assaulted her.The inspector general found that Wilkie’s disparaging comments about Goldstein, a Navy veteran, as a repeat complainer as well as the overall tone he set influenced his staff to spread negative information about her while ignoring known problems of harassment at the facility.Wilkie and other senior officials had declined to fully cooperate with the investigation by VA Inspector General Michael Missal. For that reason, Missal said he could not conclude whether Wilkie had violated government policies or laws, allegedly by personally digging into the woman’s past. Wilkie has denied that he improperly investigated Goldstein.”We’ve had our concerns about Wilkie’s leadership throughout the pandemic and this IG report really cements the fact that the VA is not being led with integrity,” said Jeremy Butler, chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “That calls for an immediate change.”The report on Thursday drew widespread concern from lawmakers from both parties about VA’s leadership, with Takano the first to call for Wilkie’s resignation. Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative group who supported Wilkie when he became VA secretary in 2018, chided Wilkie and his team, stressing that “VA leaders should always put the veteran and the integrity of the institution ahead of themselves.”AMVETS national commander Jan Brown said she found it unacceptable that VA would dismiss known problems facing women who receive care at its facilities.”Women veterans already hesitate to use VA services for a number of reasons and we need a secretary who will make our community feel welcomed,” she said. “We strongly disapprove of any VA official that took part in the scheme to wreck the credibility of a victim.”The case of Goldstein, who agreed to be publicly identified, was ultimately closed by the inspector general’s office and Justice Department earlier this year because of a lack of enough evidence to bring charges.Wilkie is Trump’s second VA secretary after David Shulkin was fired in 2018. A former Pentagon undersecretary, he presided over the nation’s largest hospital system that has seen continuing improvement and veterans’ satisfaction since a 2014 scandal involving lengthy waiting times for medical appointments.President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to rebuild trust in the VA when he takes office on Jan. 20. He has selected Denis McDonough, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, to be VA secretary.
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