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Thousands of demonstrators gathered again Saturday in Russia’s Far East city of Khabarovsk to denounce the arrest of the region’s governor a month ago, protests that are posing a direct challenge to the Kremlin.Sergei Furgal was arrested on July 9 on suspicion of involvement in murders and taken to jail in Moscow. The estimated 3,000 demonstrators on Saturday protested the charges, believing them to be politically motivated, and want him returned to the city for trial. Furgal has denied the charges.Furgal, who has been removed from his post, is a popular figure in the region bordering China about 6,100 kilometers (3,800 miles) east of Moscow. Since his arrest, daily demonstrations have been held in the city, with attendance peaking on weekends.Demonstrations in support of the Khabarovsk protesters were held in at least seven other cities in Russia. The OVD-Info organization that monitors political arrests said at least 10 people were arrested in those demonstrations.No arrests were reported in Khabarovsk, where authorities have not interfered with the demonstrations, apparently hoping they will fizzle out. 
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A Venezuelan court sentenced two former U.S. soldiers to 20 years in prison for their role in a failed incursion aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro in early May, chief prosecutor Tarek Saab said late on Friday.Former Green Berets Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41, admitted to participating in the May 4 operation, Saab wrote on his Twitter account.”Said gentlemen ADMITTED to having committed the crimes,” he wrote, adding that the trials were ongoing for dozens of others captured.Denman and Berry were charged with conspiracy, terrorism and illicit weapons trafficking, Saab wrote.Alfonso Medina, a lawyer for the two, said their legal team was not allowed into the courtroom. The two men were not available for comment.The sea incursion launched from Colombia, known as Operation Gideon, left at least eight dead.Maduro’s government said it arrested a group of conspirators that included Denman and Berry near the isolated coastal town of Chuao.U.S. special forces veteran Jordan Goudreau, who ran Silvercorp USA, a private Florida-based security firm, has claimed responsibility for the raid.Denman appeared in a video on Venezuelan state TV days after their capture, saying they had been contracted by Silvercorp USA to train 50 to 60 Venezuelans in Colombia, seize control of Caracas’ airport and bring in a plane to fly Maduro to the United States.Opposition leader Juan Guaido’s office said Guaido had known about the operation since October, but did not finance or order It.Maduro, who describes Guaido as a Washington puppet, has said that President Donald Trump’s government backed the Operation.The Trump administration has denied any direct involvement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the U.S. government would use “every tool” to secure the U.S. citizens’ return.
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For decades, thousands of vendors have fanned out along roadsides from Alabama to Michigan each summer to haggle over the prices of old Coca-Cola bottles, clothes, toys, knives and more at The World’s Longest Yard Sale.And though the coronavirus pandemic has canceled events around the globe, the six-state yard sale is happening this weekend for the 34th straight year.Beginning Thursday and ending Sunday, thousands of people will mingle, chat and bargain across a 1,110 kilometer stretch of Middle America. Organizers say they might not get the usual crowd, estimated at 200,000 people, but they could.“We feel like there’s a lot of pent-up demand,” said Hugh Stump III, executive director of tourism in Gadsden, at the southernmost end of the sale.The crowd was predominantly older on the first day in Gadsden, and many people wore face masks and visibly tried to keep away from others. COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, can be particularly dangerous for the elderly and people with other health problems.But many others didn’t wear facial coverings, and it wasn’t uncommon to see people standing shoulder to shoulder as they looked through racks of clothes or tables full of shoes set up outside.Promoters considered canceling the event because of the pandemic, which has killed more than 160,000 Americans and infected nearly 5 million more, but they decided to go ahead with precautions including reminders about masks, social distancing and handwashing.“The fact that it’s a mostly outdoor event was a large determining factor in going forward. There’s plenty of space for social distancing and the other guidelines can be followed as well. In addition, because this event is critical to many people’s livelihood it’s very important,” sale spokesperson Josh Randall said in an email.Vendors set up days early at Cumberland Mountain General Store in Clarkrange, Tennessee, where as many as 100 booths will be open though the weekend.A crowd looks through items at the World’s Longest Yard Sale, which stretches from Alabama to Michigan, at its southernmost point in Gadsden, Ala., on Aug. 6, 2020.“It’s usually packed here,” store clerk June Walker said.Other places opted out this year because of the virus. The Darke County Steam Threshers Association in Ansonia, Ohio, decided against allowing vendors on its 12 hectares of land, President Jo Stuck said.“To keep up with all the health mandates … we just do not have the volunteers to do it this year,” she said. “The two of us who can be there all the time have compromised immune systems, and that puts our health at risk plus the health of our visitors and our vendors.”The loss of rental income will hurt the group, which stages events featuring old farm machines, but members didn’t want to be put in the position of dealing with people who willfully defy Ohio’s mandatory mask rule, Stuck said.“There are a lot of people around here that have an issue with it and don’t want to follow it,” she said. “It’s a big problem.”The yard sale began in 1987 as a way to lure visitors off interstate highways to a small town in Tennessee. No one owns the event, Randall said, but it’s promoted on a website that includes tips for vendors, maps and, for 2020, pandemic health guidelines.Also known as the 127 Yard Sale, the event follows U.S. 127 from near Addison, Michigan, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Ohio and Kentucky. From there, it meanders through northwest Georgia to Noccalula Falls, a 100-hectare public park in Gadsden.Patricia Gurley piled into a car with two friends and drove about 275 kilometers to the Gadsden end of the sale from her home in Corinth, Mississippi. With a yellow mask pulled down under her chin, she was excited about visiting the sale for the first time and wasn’t concerned about the pandemic.“I don’t worry about that. If you’re gonna get it, you’re gonna get it,” she said.A crowd looks through items at the World’s Longest Yard Sale, which stretches from Alabama to Michigan, at its southernmost point in Gadsden, Ala., on Aug. 6, 2020.Nicole Gerle came even farther: She drove 3,340 kilometers from her home in San Diego and planned to travel the route at least to Ohio, maybe even all the way to Michigan.Wearing a mask, Gerle said she wasn’t fretting over the coronavirus: “If other people aren’t going to be smart, I’m going to be smart on my side.” But Gerle was worried about getting good deals on items including a metal basket she planned to take home, repurpose into other goods and sell.“The purchasing is livelihood for me and the selling is livelihood for them,” she said, pointing toward sales tables. “People make their income; they count on this.”Vendor Ann Sullins has set up shop at the past five sales and was thankful this year’s wasn’t called off. But realistically, she said, the yard sale is just too big to cancel.“People are going to do just like they do,” said Sullins, who wasn’t wearing a mask but tried to keep her distance from others and had hand sanitizer. “When something like this comes up, they’re going to go out and do it just because it gives them a break from home.” 
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Two years after a pan-European military initiative was first proposed to help tackle the Sahel’s Islamist insurgency, the Takuba task force is finally becoming reality, as its first troops arrive amid the coronavirus pandemic, political turmoil and spreading unrest.A group of roughly 100 Estonian and French special forces are the first on the ground to comprise Takuba, the Tuareg name for a sabre. Some 60 Czech troops are to join them in October, and another 150 Swedish ones by early next year. Estonia, Belgium and more recently Italy count among others to announce troops for the mission intended to help Mali and Niger forces fight extremist groups in the region.But for now, and likely in the future, the main foreign troop contributor in the region is France, analysts say, whose own 5,100-troop Barkhane counterinsurgency operation enters its seventh year.And despite recent military victories, they say, chances of eradicating the conflict are remote, unless the Europeans and Africans offer more holistic, long-term solutions.“If you have a gushing wound on your neck, you don’t put a plaster on it,” said Andrew Yaw Tchie, a senior Africa security expert at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, or RUSI.Victory possible?France thinks differently. At a June Sahel summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania, French President Emmanuel Macron urged regional and international governments to intensify their military campaign against the Islamists.”We are all convinced that victory is possible in the Sahel,” Macron said, citing progress in recent months.Emboldening his stance was the early June killing of a key Islamist leader by French forces with the reported aid of a U.S. drone. Abdelmalek Droukdel, headed al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the main groups operating in the region.But other prominent jihadist leaders, including two linked to al-Qaida, remain at large, in a tangled conflict in which Islamist and local extremist groups have fueled and profited from inter-communal violence as well.Overall, the United Nations estimates terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets in three of the most vulnerable Sahel countries — Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger — has increased fivefold since 2016.In a recent interview with VOA, J. Peter Pham, the top U.S. envoy to the Sahel region, noted extremist attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger had increased 40 percent in the first quarter of this year alone.Asked whether counter-insurgency efforts were winning, Pham added, “It depends on what time horizon you use and what definition you use for winning.”While Droukdel’s death might be considered a “specific” success, he noted insecurity was expanding in Burkina Faso and central Mali, which “certainly cannot be counted a success.”Spreading threatExtremist groups are also spreading southward, deeper into sub-Saharan Africa — profiting from north-south ethnic and religious divides within countries, and more recently, analysts say, the coronavirus pandemic.Against this backdrop, there is no unified international military response, says Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute in Dakar.“Today, there are 19 different international strategies in the Sahel and no coordination,” Sambe said. “At a time when terrorist groups are beginning to coordinate, international partners are diverging.”The Takuba task force is intended to facilitate regional coordination, as well as to provide equipment and training to Malian and other G-5 Sahel forces, which also hail from Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Chad.Some observers see it as a test case for Macron’s broader goal of a more unified European Union defense, which a number of other EU member states are lukewarm about.It’s also unclear how many European countries will ultimately commit to the Sahel initiative. Some, including Norway and Germany, have already bowed out for a mix of reasons. Britain, which formally exited the EU last year, plans instead to dispatch 250 forces to beef up the U.N.’s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Mali.RUSI’s Tchie, who describes Britain as joining an “unwinnable fight in the Sahel” with its U.N. commitment, has similar reservations about the Takuba troops.“In essence, all you’re doing is saying, ‘Let’s deal with counterterrorism, and at some point, we’ll deal with the other stuff,’” he said, summarizing what he considers the European thinking.Yet such thinking, he added, fails to address interlinking problems, including climate change, corruption, poverty and underdevelopment that are fueling the conflict.Parallels with SomaliaAdding to the challenges is the current political turmoil in Mali, where West African leaders are trying to find an exit plan to a crisis in which protesters are calling for President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to quit.Some regional forces have been accused of civilian abuses. For their part, extremist groups have capitalized on the coronavirus pandemic to further their interests, including staging attacks and recruiting new members, analysts say.France faces its own set of challenges. Its Barkhane force has lost 43 men in its Sahel operations since 2013. It also faces a negative image in some countries, where memories of its colonial presence linger.Takuba is partly intended to send the message that “France is not alone in the Sahel,” the country’s newspaper Le Monde wrote.The Timbuktu Institute’s Sambe sees it another way.“I think that wanting to realize Takuba is in itself an admittance that Barkhane and other foreign interventions have been a failure,” he said. “It’s been years that a purely security and military approach hasn’t functioned to eradicate terrorism.”In London, RUSI’s Tchie draws parallels between the Islamist groups in the Sahel and Somalia, where the al-Shabab terrorist group has grown and spread despite years of U.S. and other military efforts. In both regions, he says, extremist groups have scored points in local communities, he says, in ways national and foreign intervention has not.“It delivers justice, it delivers humanitarian relief to communities, and people feel more secure,” he said of al-Shabab. “It’s not that people want to go to al-Shabab. But when they need security, justice and things to work for them, al-Shabab delivers.”  
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The United States is delivering emergency aid to Lebanon, starting with food, water, and medical supplies, under the direction of President Donald J. Trump following Tuesday’s blast in Beirut, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien said Friday.In addition, the U.S. will continue to work with authorities in Lebanon to identify further health and humanitarian needs and will provide further assistance. The U.S. Agency for International Development is deploying a disaster assistance response team to help coordination and delivery of assistance, the statement said.The Trump administration has initially pledged more than $17 million in disaster aid for the country, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said, and “will continue to help the Lebanese people as they recover from this tragedy.”In addition to providing aid, Pompeo said, the U.S. is joining other nations in the call for “a thorough and transparent investigation” into the cause of the explosion.United Nations rescue workers searched the wreckage for survivors Friday. French and Russian rescue teams with dogs also searched the area Friday.Lebanese authorities believe that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrite stored in warehouses for the last six years led to the explosion of this week.An aerial view taken Aug. 7, 2020, shows a partial view of the port of Beirut, the damaged grain silo and the crater caused by the colossal explosion three days earlier of a huge pile of ammonium nitrate.Officials say they expect the death toll to go up as they pick through the wreckage. Initial damage estimates are as high as $15 billion.Health officials also fear the disaster will aggravate the coronavirus outbreak as victims pack hospitals and the homeless seek shelter.Human Rights Watch was the first to call for an independent investigation of the explosion. The group said international experts should be allowed into Lebanon to “determine the causes and responsibility for the explosion and recommend measures to ensure it cannot happen again.”Russia flew in a mobile military hospital along with 50 medical workers. Qatar is also sending a field hospital, while Iraq is supplying a crew of medical workers and truckloads of supplies.Tunisia offered to bring patients there for treatment and Germany has dispatched a team of rescue experts and search dogs.Cash pledges have come in from Australia, Britain, Hungary, and other countries.   
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The African Union says “aggressive and bold” action is needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak on the continent.More than 1 million cases of the virus have been reported across Africa, but officials warn the real number is likely larger, citing the absence of comprehensive testing in some countries.Australia’s Victoria state reported more than 450 new coronavirus cases Saturday and 12 deaths. Victoria is home to more than two-thirds of Australia’s almost 21,000 COVID infections.On Friday, a day when more than 60,000 new COVID-19 infections were reported in the U.S., Sturgis, South Dakota, began welcoming participants for its annual motorcycle rally. Some 250,000 people are expected this year. The biker event regularly attracts 500,000, but the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to keep some people home.There are no mask requirements in Sturgis and people have been asked to social distance, a practice that was not being observed Friday on the town’s crowded streets.Elsewhere, a student who was suspended for posting a photograph of a crowded hallway in her school, where many students were not wearing masks in the U.S. southern state of Georgia will be back in school Monday. School officials were widely criticized for suspending her over the photograph. The student told CNN on Friday that she has no regrets about what she did.Johns Hopkins University says there are 19.3 million reported global COVID-19 cases and more than 720,000 deaths.
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At least 10 times over the past six years, authorities from Lebanon’s customs, military, security agencies and judiciary raised alarm that a massive stockpile of explosive chemicals was being kept with almost no safeguard at the port in the heart of Beirut, newly surfaced documents show.Yet in a circle of negligence, nothing was done — and on Tuesday, the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up, obliterating the city’s main commercial hub and spreading death and wreckage for miles around.President Michel Aoun, in office since 2016, said Friday that he was first told of the dangerous stockpile nearly three weeks ago and immediately ordered military and security agencies to do “what was needed.” But he suggested his responsibility ended there, saying he had no authority over the port and that previous governments had been told of its presence.”Do you know how many problems have been accumulating?” Aoun replied when a reporter pressed whether he should have followed up on his order.The documents surfacing in social media since the blast underscore the corruption, negligence and incompetence of Lebanon’s long-ruling political oligarchy, and its failure to provide its people with basic needs, including security.Investigators probing the blast have focused on personnel at the Port of Beirut, Lebanon’s main port, so well known for corruption that its common nickname is Ali Baba’s Cave.So far, at least 16 port employees have been detained and others questioned. On Friday, investigators questioned and then ordered the detention of the head of the port, Hassan Koraytem, the country’s customs chief, Badri Daher, and Daher’s predecessor.But many Lebanese say the rot permeates the political system and extends to the country’s top leadership.The explosion of the ammonium nitrate, after apparently being set off by a fire, was the biggest in Lebanon’s history. The known death toll reached 154, including bodies recovered from the rubble Friday, and more than 5,000 people were wounded. Billions of dollars in damage was caused across the city, where many are too impoverished by Lebanon’s financial crisis to rebuild.People remove debris from a house damaged by Tuesday’s explosion in the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 7, 2020.Aoun’s comments were the most senior confirmation that top politicians had been aware of the stockpile.”The material had been there for seven years, since 2013. It has been there, and they said it is dangerous and I am not responsible. I don’t know where it was placed. I don’t even know the level of danger. I have no authority to deal directly with the port,” he told a news conference.He said that when he was told of the stockpile on July 20, he immediately ordered military and security officials “to do what is needed.””There are ranks that should know their duties, and they were all informed. … When you refer a document and say, ‘Do what is needed,’ isn’t that an order?” he added.He said the explosion may have been caused by negligence, but the investigation would also look at the possibility that it could have been caused by a bomb or other “external intervention.” He said he had asked France, which has close ties to its former colony, for satellite images from the time of the blast to see if they showed any planes or missiles.The ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizers and explosives, originated from a cargo ship called MV Rhosus that had been traveling from the country of Georgia to Mozambique in 2013. It made an unscheduled detour to Beirut as the Russian shipowner was struggling with debts and hoped to earn some extra cash in Lebanon. Unable to pay port fees and reportedly leaking, the ship was impounded.The first known document about it came on February 21, 2014, three months after the ship’s arrival. Col. Joseph Skaff, a senior customs official, wrote to the customs authority’s anti-smuggling department warning that the material still on board the ship docked at port was “extremely dangerous and endangers public safety.”Skaff died in March 2017 in unclear circumstances. He was found near his house in Beirut after allegedly falling from a big height. Medical reports at the time gave different explanations, one saying it was an accident, the other saying there was unusual bruising on his face.On June 27, 2014, Jad Maalouf, a judge for urgent matters, wrote to the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, warning that the ship was carrying dangerous material and could sink. He said the ministry should deal with the ship, remove the ammonium nitrate and “place it in a suitable place that it (the ministry) chooses, and it (the material) should be under its protection.”A dog of the French rescue team searches for survivors at the scene of this week’s massive explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 7, 2020.Soon after that, the shipment was moved into Warehouse 12 at the port, where it remained until it exploded. It is unclear if it was officially under the ministry’s control.Lebanon’s LBC TV station reported that in October 2015, the army intervened after learning of delays in dealing with the shipment. Military intelligence sent an expert who tested the material and found that the nitrogen levels were 34.7 percent, considered a highly explosive level, LBC said.The army reported to the customs department that the material should be quickly removed, suggesting it be exported. Customs referred the report back to the judge of urgent matters, LBC said.Three military and security officials did not respond to calls and messages from the Associated Press to comment or confirm the report on LBC.Daher, the customs department head, told the AP before his detention that between 2014 and 2017, he and his predecessor sent six letters to the judge warning that the stockpile was dangerous and seeking a ruling on a way to remove or sell it.Daher said it was his duty to alert authorities of the danger but that was the most he could do. He said he never got a reply.Relatives of Lebanese army lieutenant Ayman Noureddine, who was killed by Tuesday’s explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, mourn over his coffin during his funeral procession, in Numeiriyeh village, south Lebanon, Aug. 7, 2020.Earlier this year, State Security, after investigating the stockpile, issued a five-page report saying the material must be gotten rid of. It said the ammonium nitrate could explode and warned terrorists could steal it, saying one wall of the warehouse had a hole in it and a gate was open.Throughout this period, Lebanon had four prime ministers, including the current one — Hassan Diab, who came to office earlier this year — as well as multiple government reshuffles. In 2013, when the ship docked, Michel Suleiman was president, followed by two years without a president as political factions wrangled, before finally electing Aoun in October 2016.For decades, Lebanon has been dominated by the same political elites, many of them former warlords and militia commanders from the civil war. The ruling factions use public institutions to accumulate wealth and distribute patronage to supporters. A blind eye is often turned to corruption, and little development is put into institutions. As a result, power outages are frequent, trash is often uncollected and tap water is largely undrinkable.The leader of the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group, whose allies dominate the government, said in a speech Friday that “negligence, corruption, nepotism” had a role in the explosion and must be dealt with.Hassan Nasrallah warned that if no one was held accountable, “we are basically saying to the people there is no state.” He also said Hezbollah’s domestic opponents were trying to use the blast to stir public opinion against it but would fail. He denied any role by Hezbollah in the disaster.Both Nasrallah and Aoun rejected calls for an international investigation.Since last October, the Lebanese people have held mass protests denouncing the country’s entire ruling elite, including Nasrallah. The demonstrations achieved only a rearranging of the names in the government, and largely faded amid the coronavirus pandemic and Lebanon’s financial collapse.In a sign of how the public has largely come to expect government inaction, thousands of volunteers have cleaned up streets in the neighborhoods worst hit by the blast. They swept broken glass and reopened roads, helped restaurants and shops clear debris, and salvaged merchandise. They separated rubble into piles of broken glass and mangled metal. Others volunteered to go into destroyed homes to look for medicine, valuables and essential documents for the residents who fled in panic.French and Russian rescue teams with dogs searched the port area on Friday, pulling more bodies from the rubble. Women cried nearby as they waited for news about missing relatives.France has sent a team of 22 investigators to help investigate the cause of the blast. Based on information from Lebanon so far, France’s No. 2 forensic police official, Dominique Abbenanti, said Friday the explosion “appears to be an accident” but that it’s too early to say for sure.In an interview with the AP, he predicted that the death toll would grow. 
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Much of Canada’s remaining intact ice shelf has broken apart into hulking iceberg islands thanks to a hot summer and global warming, scientists said.Canada’s 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island had been the country’s last intact ice shelf until the end of July when ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service noticed that satellite photos showed that about 43% of it had broken off. She said it happened around July 30 or 31.Two giant icebergs formed along with lots of smaller ones, and they have already started drifting away, White said. The biggest is nearly the size of Manhattan — 21 square miles (55 square kilometers) and 7 miles long (11.5 kilometers). They are 230 to 260 feet (70 to 80 meters) thick.”This is a huge, huge block of ice,” White said. “If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there’s nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig.”The 72-square mile (187 square kilometer) undulating white ice shelf of ridges and troughs dotted with blue meltwater had been larger than the District of Columbia but now is down to 41 square miles (106 square kilometers).Temperatures from May to early August in the region have been 9 degrees (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1980 to 2010 average, University of Ottawa glaciology professor Luke Copland said. This is on top of an Arctic that already had been warming much faster than the rest of globe, with this region warming even faster.”Without a doubt, it’s climate change,” Copland said, noting the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below.”The Milne was very special,” he added. “It’s an amazingly pretty location.”Ice shelves are hundreds to thousands of years old, thicker than long-term sea ice, but not as big and old as glaciers, Copland said.Canada used to have a large continuous ice shelf across the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, but it has been breaking apart over the last decades because of man-made global warming, White said. By 2005 it was down to six remaining ice shelves but “the Milne was really the last complete ice shelf,” she said.”There aren’t very many ice shelves around the Arctic anymore,” Copland said. “It seems we’ve lost pretty much all of them from northern Greenland and the Russian Arctic. There may be a few in a few protected fjords.”
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New York schools can bring children back to classrooms for the start of the school year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday, citing success in battling the coronavirus in the state that once was the U.S. heart of the pandemic.The Democratic governor’s decision clears the way for schools to offer at least some days of in-person classes, alongside remote learning. Students will be required to wear masks throughout school day.”Everywhere in the state, every region is below the threshold that we established,” Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters. “If there’s a spike in the infection rate, if there’s a matter of concern in the infection rate, then we can revisit.”Many New York school districts have planned to start the year with students in school buildings only a few days a week, while learning at home the rest of the time. Cuomo said individual districts will decide how to instruct students.More than 1 million public school students in New York City — the largest district in the U.S. — had their last day of in-class instruction on March 13, just as waves of sick people were beginning to hit city hospitals. All schools statewide were closed by March 18.The city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has been saying since the spring that his goal for fall was to bring students back on schedule, with as much classroom time as possible while still allowing for social distancing.A coalition of teachers, students, and families protest during a rally called National Day of Resistance Against Unsafe School Reopening Opening, Aug. 3, 2020, in New York.That plan has looked exceedingly ambitious as other large school systems have backed away from in-person instruction in recent weeks.Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Houston, among other places, all announced they would start the school year with students learning remotely.De Blasio, while cautioning that he could change course at any time, had expressed hope that the relatively low rate of transmission of the virus in the city would allow students and staff to return safely.He had also said a return to classroom instruction is vital to jump-starting the city’s economy, now hobbled by parents being forced to stay home with their children.”It will not be easy but I think most parents feel strongly that even some time in school is a lot better for their kids than none,” de Blasio said Friday at a separate briefing earlier in the day.School reopening plans, though, face enormous hurdles.Cuomo warned that New York’s roughly 750 districts still need to address the fears of parents and teachers that schools will be unsafe. He said he will ask school districts to post their remote learning plan and require “discussion sessions” with parents.”They have to communicate with the parents and explain the plan and answer the questions of the parents,” Cuomo said.The outbreak, while reduced, is not over in New York. Around 10,000 New York City residents tested positive for the virus in July.On Wednesday, two unions, New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers, demanded clearer health protocols dictating that schools should shut down immediately for two weeks if any student or member of the staff contracts the virus.Teachers are prohibited from striking in New York, but it has been unclear whether large numbers would either opt out of classroom instruction for medical reasons or simply refuse to work.Parents, too, have struggled to decide whether to send their children to school or opt solely for online instruction at home.Schools have spent the summer coming up with safety plans, securing protective gear and figuring out how to fit fewer students into classrooms and school buses. Cuomo required all school systems to submit plans detailing their reopening plans, saying that the state would not allow any district with an unsafe plan to bring students back to classrooms.The governor said the Department of Health will continue to go through plans over the weekend, and will notify school districts where incomplete or deficient. He said about 50 school district health plans are incomplete or deficient. A district can’t open if its health plan is rejected.State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker warned this week that “an ill-prepared reopening could put students, staff and parents in peril.”Earlier this summer, Cuomo set a general metric to help measure when it was safe to bring students back, saying the state would allow a return in regions where fewer than 5% of people tested for COVID-19 came back positive.The entire state has been well under that threshold all summer, but Cuomo had also recently stressed that, even if he allowed schools to reopen, it wouldn’t work if parents and teachers aren’t sure they are safe.  
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: Over 80% of all diseases in the world are transmitted by hand.Verdict: MisleadingRead the full story at: Africa Check Social Media DisinfoScreenshotCirculating on social media: Claim that the Pirbright Institute, a British research institute dedicated to the study of infectious diseases of farm animals which has ties to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, holds a patent for a vaccine against COVID-19.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Reuters​Factual Reads on CoronavirusCould My Symptoms Be Covid-19?
These days, every cough, sneeze or headache makes you wonder: Could it be Covid-19?
— New York Times, August 5​Nine Important Things We’ve Learned about the Coronavirus Pandemic So Far
Some early public health messages about COVID-19 have been overturned.
— Scientific American, August 4Coronavirus: WHO gears up for main mission into China to hunt for the origins of Covid-19
WHO and Chinese experts have drafted terms of reference for probe into the epidemiology of early infections.
— South China Morning Post, August 4
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Officials in northwestern Italy have evacuated part of an Alpine resort town and are closely monitoring a glacier which, following days of warm temperatures, is showing signs of breaking apart and could crash into the valley below.Officials Thursday evacuated 75 residents and tourists in the Ferret Valley from their homes and two lodgings in the shadow of the glacier.Aerial views of the Planpincieux Glacier taken Friday show a large section – estimated to be about 500,000 cubic meters in size, breaking away from the rest of the ice field. A regional glacier expert, Valerio Segor, told reporters Friday the section is about the size of a cathedral, or perhaps a soccer field if it were under 80 meters of ice.Segor said the next two or three days will be critical for the glacier, as temperatures are expected to rise during that time. He said water circulation between the ice and rocks beneath will determine if glacier breaks apart.‎The Planpincieux Glacier is located under a group of Alpine peaks on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, near the border with France.
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Protesters in Thailand are pressing on with their demands for the dissolution of parliament, new elections and changing the constitution.Leaders said Friday they would step up pressure on the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha if it failed to act on changes.”(Our demands) are clear enough for the government to hear and follow,” said protest leader Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree. “To set up a committee to have hearings is like an act. It’s like a show with no meaning. Is it to buy time? They think that we will disappear. They believe that we will fade away. So, they set up this committee to buy time. But the fact is we want real change. We want to send our demands to those with powers to make decisions, not to some rubber stamp committee.”Meeting in front of Bangkok’s iconic Democracy Monument, eight leaders of the Free People Movement, formerly known as Free Youth, announced plans for a big rally on August 16.Protesters held signs reading: “Constitution needed to be amended. Democracy must come from the people” and “We don’t hate our nation. We hate dictatorship. No coup.”Prayuth said early this week he will consider protester’s demands, but protest leader Tattep suggested the premier’s statement was just a delaying tactic, as the prime minister is unlikely to agree to dissolve parliament or call new elections.After more than five years of relative calm since a military coup in 2014, anti-government protests have erupted again, mostly on school and university campuses in the capital Bangkok and other Thai cities.Protesters, majority of them young people, are highly dissatisfied with the current administration.A former army chief, Prayuth first took power in 2014, then held a tight grip on it through the 2019 elections, widely seen as manipulated in his favor. 
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Numbness and shock at first — now fury. The massive blast at Beirut’s port Tuesday night that wrecked large parts of Lebanon’s capital is likely to have as enduring an impact on the impoverished Mediterranean country as the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, say diplomats and analysts. The question, though, is whether the impact will be for the good. The 2005 killing triggered the Cedar Revolution, forcing a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Briefly it held out, too, the promise of a peaceful democratization of a country that has been ruled along rigid sectarian power-sharing lines since a devastating civil war three decades ago tore Lebanon part. Even before the explosion, many Lebanese had had enough of a deal-making system seamed with corruption and incompetence, a political set-up that’s mismanaged the economy, bringing it to the brink of collapse. Weak state institutions have floundered in curbing the spread of the coronavirus. As the country has sunk deeper into an economic crisis, which has seen the currency collapse, inflation soar and poverty rise, sectarian leaders have clung on to their political clout and their monetary perks. Street protests since last October have done little to shake the power of the warlords and religious leaders. The blast that has left at least 145 dead, 5000 injured and 300,000 homeless is being widely seen in Lebanon as a symbol of the rottenness of the state.  French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 6, 2020.That was clear midweek when crowds mobbed President Emmanuel Macron of France as he toured shattered streets in Beirut pleading with him for help. “The people want the downfall of the regime — revolution,” they chanted, directing their anger at the country’s national leadership.  Macron said he stood with them against the ruling class. One woman shouted at the French leader, “You are sitting with warlords. They have been manipulating us for the past year.” He replied: “I’m not here to help them. I’m here to help you.”“I guarantee you this,” he told residents in a district neighboring the port. “Aid will not go to corrupt hands. I will talk to all political forces to ask them for a new pact. I am here today to propose a new political pact to them.”How that can be done is another matter. Economic mess
France, Lebanon’s former colonial overlord, has been heading an international effort for months offering aid to cope with the country economic mess in return for major political reform. Paris and Beirut have clashed over the proposals with Hassan Diab, Lebanon’s prime minister, who is aligned with the Iranian-backed Shia militia group Hezbollah, accusing the French and the International Monetary Fund of seeking to blackmail Lebanon.  France’s top diplomat, Jean-Yves Le Drian, scolded Lebanon’s leadership only last month for failing to take the measures he said are necessary to save the country from collapse. “Help us to help you,” the French foreign minister said while visiting Beirut. He said Paris stood ready to mobilize support but there must be concrete action on reform.In Photos: Beirut Explosion Massive Explosion Rocks Beirut Blast rippled through several parts of city and causing widespread damage and injuriesLebanese officials are trying to head off and contain the mounting anger over the blast, which was triggered when 2,750 tons of confiscated ammonium nitrate stored for years at the port ignited. A fire sparked by welders repairing an electrical fault spread to the chemical fertilizer, which had been seized from a Russian cargo ship and impounded since 2014, according to Lebanese media. Lebanon’s customs chief said the government had been warned numerous times that the stockpile was unstable. Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun has promised punishment for those responsible and 16 port employees have been detained. But that is unlikely to assuage public outrage. Thursday saw clashes in central Beirut between stone-throwing protesters and security forces. Lebanese politicians are exchanging accusations over who is responsible as the people round on them. “What happened Tuesday evening wasn’t just any explosion. It was ‘the explosion’ — an event that Lebanon will remember for decades — just like the one that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005,” according to Ali Hashem, a commentator for the news-site Al Monitor. Turning point
Jack Watling, analyst at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank, hopes the blast might prove to be a turning point for Lebanon – “a catalyst for change.” But he harbors doubts. He says Macron is right, that, “Offers of aid should not be made without the firm recognition that the disaster was the result of a systemic failure of Lebanon’s political class.” He adds: “If that political class is unwilling to reform, then aid will do little more than set the conditions for subsequent disasters.” He fears Hezbollah will seek “to capitalize on anger felt towards the Lebanese government, both by offering money for reconstruction and contrasting government ineptitude with its competence.” The dysfunction of Lebanese governance, as well as the slump in the country’s economy, has largely worsened as the balance of power in Lebanon has tilted slowly in Hezbollah’s favor, say some analysts. Volunteers clean debris from the street following Tuesday’s blast in Beirut’s port area, Lebanon, Aug. 7, 2020.Writing earlier this year, Chatham House analyst Nadim Shehadi noted that the country was being “pulled away from its principal economic partners, the Arab Gulf states,” which stared to reduce investments and bank deposits in Lebanon as Hezbollah joined in the war in neighboring Syria in support of the Assad government and served as a proxy for Iran elsewhere in the region  “Saudi Arabia withdrew $4 billion of aid to the Lebanese army and internal security forces, and no aid or deposits were forthcoming,” he noted.    According to French officials Macron’s trip to Lebanon is “an opportunity to lay down the foundations for a pact for the reconstruction of Lebanon, binding for all, that will limit conflicts, offer immediate aid and open up a long-term perspective.” But for that to happen reform is crucial and the risk, they acknowledge privately, is that major structural change risks conflict.  “Hezbollah won’t relinquish its power easily, neither will other sectarian patrons, Christian or Sunni Muslim, who fear change will diminish their power. They benefit from weak state institutions,” said a French diplomat. But without change, he adds, Lebanon will likely spiral deeper into crisis, becoming a failed state in a highly turbulent region.WATCH: Video from our reporter in Beirut, Anchal Vohra  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 16 MB720p | 37 MB1080p | 64 MBOriginal | 76 MB Embed” />Copy Download Audio 
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A Panamanian judge has ordered 12 Haitian migrants detained for trial for their roles in a protest Saturday during which rocks were thrown at Panamanian border service officers and supply tents set on fire.The migrants face multiple charges, including injuring the officers and arson.The migrants have challenged Panamanian authorities for not allowing them to move freely through the country on the way to the U.S. border.Haitians make up the vast majority of those at remote camps in Panama’s southern Darien province, which also has Cuban and African migrants.COVID-19 travel restrictions have complicated migrants’ efforts.In an apparent effort to ease tensions at the border, Panama is proposing to provide some Haitians flights home.
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Afghanistan is holding a loya jirga, an assembly of elders, Friday to determine what to do about the final stumbling block before peace negotiations can begin – the release of 400 Taliban prisoners.The U.S. and Taliban negotiators agreed earlier this year that peace talks could move forward on the conditions that Kabul released 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban release 1,000 government personnel that the militants were holding captive.The government has released 4,600 prisoners, while the Taliban has released all its prisoners.Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says the remaining Taliban prisoners’ crimes were too serious and needed a ruling from the traditional council which consists of elders from various tribes, ethnic groups and factions.“We acknowledge that the release of these prisoners is unpopular,” U.S. Secretary Mike Pompeo said in a statement Thursday. “But this difficult action will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and Afghanistan’s friends: reduction of violence and direct talks resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war.”The council is meeting in Kabul, despite a recent surge in COVID-19 cases that has seen about half the city’s residents infected.
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A 37-year-old teacher with no political experience has become an unlikely challenger to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko — widely known in the West as ‘Europe’s last dictator’. As Henry Ridgwell reports, huge crowds have turned out to support the opposition presidential candidate in recent weeks — but it’s unclear if the show of ‘people power’ will be reflected in the election on Sunday.Camera: Henry Ridgwell    Produced by Henry Ridgwell
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The United States is pressing ahead with plans to push for the extension of a U.N. arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in two months under the 2015 nuclear deal, but it is likely to face stiff opposition from other nations, including Russia and China.“We have an objective to extend the arms embargo,” U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Brian Hook told reporters in a phone briefing Thursday. “That can be done the easy way, or it can be done the hard way, but it’s going to be extended.”Council diplomats said the U.S. might push for a vote on its draft resolution seeking the extension early next week, but it may not have the necessary nine votes to pass it or to force Russia and China to veto.Washington’s case for extending the ban on conventional weapons is one of national security, arguing that Iran is a bad actor that perpetuates conflict and spreads terrorism, often through its proxies in the Middle East and beyond.“It [the arms embargo] has been in place for 13 years. Iran has still been able to move a lot of weapons around the Middle East to its proxies in the gray zone,” Hook said. “If this is what Iran has been able to accomplish in the dark, imagine what they will be able to accomplish in broad daylight.”Warning from HookHook, who announced Thursday that he was stepping down after a two-year tenure, warned that an Iran unshackled from restrictions would lead to further regional destabilization, intensified conflicts and a regional arms race.FILE – The U.N. Security Council meets at United Nations headquarters in New York, Feb. 26, 2020.“The U.S. draft resolution is an extremely tough text that Washington knows China and Russia at least will reject out of hand,” said Richard Gowan, International Crisis Group’s U.N. director. “The draft got a very cool reception from the rest of the council when the U.S. first floated it in June.”In addition to renewing restrictions on selling weapons or related materiel to or buying them from Iran, Washington goes further, seeking authorization for nations to have the right to search, seize and dispose of prohibited cargo. The draft would also impose asset freezes and travel bans on designated individuals and entities.“Council members have been very wary of engaging with the U.S. on this resolution, because they are not sure the Americans really want to find a deal on the arms embargo,” Gowan said. “They suspect that the U.S. is just using this as a prelude to an attempt to snapback U.N. sanctions on Iran and push the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] into a terminal crisis.”The JCPOA is the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Snapback” refers to the process that would trigger the reimposition of previous U.N. sanctions on Tehran.Terms of dealUnder the JCPOA, the five permanent Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany agreed with Iran to gradually lift international sanctions in return for limits on its nuclear activities that would prevent it from making a nuclear bomb. It also reopened Iran’s markets to many foreign investors.FILE – President Donald Trump holds up a proclamation declaring his intention to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement after signing it in the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, May 8, 2018.But under President Donald Trump, the U.S. withdrew from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions. It also made it more difficult for Iran to export oil and for other countries to do business with Iran. Tehran responded by resuming some of its nuclear activities, and in July 2019 it breached the deal by exceeding limits on both uranium enrichment and stockpile levels.Iran has always denied its nuclear activities are for military purposes.The U.S. move to extend the arms embargo has already had strong pushback from other council members. Russia and China have been vocal for months that they would not support an extension.On Thursday, China’s U.N. mission repeated that stance on Twitter, saying the “U.S. draft resolution goes against international justice & multilateralism” and predicting the Security Council wouldn’t support it.In July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said any attempt to renew the arms embargo indefinitely had no legal ground.Allies at oddsAnd while the three European members of the deal — Britain, France and Germany — agree in principle with U.S. concerns about Iran’s destabilizing regional activities, they diverge over Washington’s “maximum pressure” strategy and its withdrawal from the deal, and have worked hard to keep the agreement from completely falling apart.Strong support for the U.S. draft from the elected members of the Security Council is also not guaranteed.“Some council members may try to float a milder alternative resolution extending the arms embargo temporarily,” ICG’s Gowan said. “But it will be very hard to find a compromise that the U.S. on one side and China and Russia on the other can accept.”FILE – Iranian demonstrators burn representations of the U.S. flag during a protest in front of the former U.S. Embassy in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal and renew sanctions, in Tehran, May 9, 2018.If the U.S. draft fails to pass and a compromise text is not reached, Washington would likely invoke the snapback mechanism. But that would be controversial, since it withdrew from the deal two years ago and some countries will question its right to trigger that process under the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal in international law.Council diplomats have expressed concern that however the issue moves forward, it has the potential to be messy and do damage to the body’s credibility, while worsening existing divisions.
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