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Cameroon says it has deployed more troops in the capital Yaoundé after yet another bomb exploded, leaving at least 20 people severely wounded. No one has claimed responsibility, but it is suspected that separatists fighting for the creation of an English-speaking state in Cameroon and people who escaped from prison a month ago are responsible.Naseri Paul Bea, governor of the Central Region, where Yaoundé is located, says he convened a security meeting Friday night because there has been mounting insecurity in the capital city. He says he is calling on the clergy and traditional rulers to help bring peace back to the city.”I instructed them to control those who sell arms, to include the traditional rulers to be able to know the new people who come into their quarters so that if there is any person who looks strange, they can be able to inform the forces of law and order{military},” said Bea.The government said on Thursday night, yet another bomb exploded in the Damas neighborhood, severely wounding five people. 15 others with wounds were later discovered in their houses. Bea says he has information that some prisoners were organizing the attacks from their detention centers.”Some of the organizers are in the prisons and they have people outside who are doing it {planting the bombs} for them,” said Bea. “I instructed the penitentiary administration to put their ears to the ground to be able to get those information and sensitize the population to know that the security of the country is their own security.”Bea said the bombs were locally made. It was the third locally made bomb to explode in a popular neighborhood in Yaoundé within two weeks. At least 37 people were wounded in the three explosions. No one has claimed responsibility.Rights activist Edwin Ayuk of the Cameroon Human Right Center says it is imperative for the government to open negotiations with English speaking separatist leaders who are detained at the Yaoundé-Kondengui prison if they want peace to return. Speaking via a messaging application from the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda, he said the government should also investigate the activities of former ministers arrested and detained at the Kondengui prison by Cameroon president Paul Biya for corrupt activities.”We have been calling on the government to call these individuals, sit with them on the table and let them discuss their differences so that the atrocities that have been going on can come to an end,” said Ayuk.Innocent Ngono, a peace and development lecturer at the university of Yaoundé says Cameroon should handle the insecurity in its capital city with care since it already has many security challenges.He says if Cameroon has been able to resist the security challenges it has been facing since 2013, it is because the population has supported the military through information sharing. He says he is afraid Cameroonians may now be reluctant to assist the military because the government is not showing serious signs of wanting to solve the crisis the country is facing.    Since 2013 Cameroon’s eastern border has suffered a spillover of the carnage in the Central African Republic with regular intrusions of rebels. Boko Haram terrorism on Cameroons northern border with Nigeria has entered its 10th year with at least 3,000 people killed. A separatist crisis in the English-speaking western regions of the French majority state has left at least 3,000 people dead and 500,000 displaced. The Cameroon military has been deployed to handle border disputes with Equatorial Guinea.Many civilians say if the attacks on the capital city Yaoundé are not stopped, the military may be overstretched.  
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As the coronavirus spreads in Africa, it threatens in multiple ways those who earn their living on the streets — people like Mignonne, a 25-year-old sex worker with HIV.The lockdown in Rwanda has kept many of her customers away, she said, so she has less money to buy food. And when she doesn’t eat, the antiviral drugs she takes for HIV can bring on pain, weakness and nausea, or even make her pass out.“Yet it’s equally dangerous when you don’t take the drug,” Mignonne said in an interview. “You will die.”Similar challenges exist elsewhere in Africa, which has the world’s highest burden of HIV.  Studies have shown that food insecurity is a barrier to taking the drugs daily and can decrease their efficacy, affecting not only sex workers but anyone where food — or the money to buy it — is scarce.Among sex workers in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, “most who are living hand-to-mouth have been lamenting that it’s making it difficult to adhere to treatment,” said Talent Jumo, director of the Katswe Sistahood, an organization for sexual and reproductive health.  That’s a danger as many sex workers around the world are excluded from countries’ social protection programs during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and elsewhere wrote in a new commentary for The Lancet.“Sex workers are among the most marginalized groups,” they wrote, adding that “it is crucial that disruption to health services does not further reduce access to HIV treatment.”  Rwanda, which offers free antiretroviral therapy to all, has been widely praised for its progress in controlling HIV. The country has kept HIV prevalence at 3% for more than a decade and the number of new infections has dropped.But sex workers and health experts warn that those gains could be lost.More than 45% of the estimated 12,000 sex workers in the East African country live with HIV. Not taking the antiretroviral therapy risks spreading the virus, said Aflodis Kagaba, a medical doctor and executive director of Health Development Initiative, a local organization that promotes better access to health care.The organization has been giving some sex workers food, hand sanitizer and hygiene materials and is talking with the government about budgeting aid for sex workers.“Sex workers are part of the society and they deserve to live a healthy life,” Kagaba said.In Migina, an entertainment area in the capital, Kigali, Mignonne acts as a leader of 60 sex workers, reminding colleagues with HIV to take their antiretroviral therapy and visit health centers every month.“Now many are telling me they cannot take the drug because they don’t have food. It’s understandable and I don’t know what to do,” she said. She, like other sex workers, gave only her first name for her safety.Rwanda was distributing food to households under lockdown but stopped after three months. It has since lifted lockdown restrictions for some businesses, but others such as bars are still closed.Now COVID-19 cases are rising more quickly, prompting authorities to impose a nighttime curfew. As of Friday, the country had more than 1,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.“We are seeing sex workers in Africa being denied the support others are given, like food,” UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima said this month. “Some are being shamed and run out of their homes and called the source of corona.” Her organization and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects have called for sex workers to be included in countries’ COVID-19 social protection programs.UNAIDS is also warning about possible shortages of medication for millions of people with HIV in the next two months, especially in developing countries. Lockdowns and border closures are slowing the drugs’ production and distribution. A World Health Organization survey of 99 countries found 32% already reporting disruptions to established antiretroviral therapy, Meg Doherty, director of the U.N. agency’s department of HIV, hepatitis and STIs, said this week.“We are engaging in unsafer sex practices because we can’t be able to access prevention tools or to drugs that we are used to,” Grace Kamau, a Kenya-based coordinator with the African Sex Workers Alliance, told a COVID-19 global webinar for sex workers last month.Agnes, an HIV-positive sex worker in Kigali, said new stigma also hurts. Before the coronavirus it was easy to make money, she said. Now “you cannot dare go on the streets, yet back in communities we are treated like outcasts,” the 26-year-old told The Associated Press. “During the lockdown, when local leaders distributed food, my family was skipped on account that I was a sex worker.”Local officials have denied discriminating against sex workers. Like many others, Agnes quickly consumed her small savings she had intended to use on running a business selling tomatoes. Now, like many others, she has no lifeline.Deborah Mukasekuru, the coordinator of the National Association for Supporting People Living With HIV, called it a “difficult situation.”“We try to mobilize food for sex workers, but they are many and we cannot feed all of them,” she said. “You cannot blame the government because corona caught the government unaware.” 
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Coronavirus cases have surpassed 11 million worldwide, as the outbreak continues to surge in several countries including the United States, where case numbers tallied their largest single day total, topping 57,000.Friday’s totals in the United States, reported by The Washington Post, marked the seventh record-breaking day of coronavirus cases in nine days. Cases are now rising in 40 out of the 50 U.S. states.The U.S. state of Florida reported 9,488 new cases Friday, a day after setting a new daily record with more than 10,000 cases.Florida said it has reached about 80 percent capacity of its hospital intensive care units while the state of Arizona reported it is at 91 percent capacity, an all-time high.Patrons observing social distancing rules sit outdoors at the Guerrilla Tacos restaurant in Los Angeles, July 3, 2020.President Donald Trump visited Mount Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday for an early Independence Day celebration that thousands of people attended.Although the U.S. leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases, local officials did not require social distancing or mask-wearing at the event. However, free masks were available for those who wanted them.South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, said on Fox News earlier this week: “We’ve told folks that have concerns that they can stay home.”Brazil is another country where coronavirus cases are rising, surpassing 1.5 million. The nation has the world’s second-largest outbreak after the United States.On Friday, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro approved a law requiring people to wear face masks on streets and on public transportation. However, he vetoed clauses that would have required wearing a face mask in enclosed spaces, including churches, schools and shops. The president, who has been widely criticized by health experts for downplaying the severity of the virus, says such a move could violate property rights.In another development, the World Health Organization updated an account of how it learned of the coronavirus outbreak. It said it was alerted by its own office in China, and not by Chinese government officials. The agency had earlier said that the first report of the virus had come from China without further specifying from whom the information came.A woman wearing a face mask amid the spread of the new coronavirus walks past a mural of an Indigenous man in Bogota, Colombia, July 3, 2020.The United States has strongly criticized the World Health Organization for its early handling of the pandemic and its dealings with China and said it would withdraw from the group.In India, officials reported nearly 21,000 new daily cases of the coronavirus Friday. Johns Hopkins University said Friday that the South Asian nation has more than 625,000 COVID-19 cases.In Pakistan, the country’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced Friday he’s tested positive for the coronavirus. Qureshi, who says he is quarantining at home with a “slight fever” is the senior most government official in Pakistan to contract the virus.Australian officials say 10,000 people in Victoria have refused to take the coronavirus test this past week because they believe the outbreak is not real and is instead a “conspiracy theory.”The New York Times reports that Australia, which has been successful in keeping COVID cases to a minimum, is now locking down an area of 300,000 people in a largely immigrant community in the state of Victoria.In England, pubs are planning to reopen Saturday for the first time in more than three months.Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told voters not to be afraid to come out and cast ballots in the second round of the presidential election July 12.Despite hundreds of new cases reported daily, Poland has been relatively successful in fending off COVID-19, with 1,500 deaths.And in Mexico, a medical supply company has started using unmanned drones to deliver masks, gloves and other equipment to hospitals.Doctors, nurses and other medical workers have staged nationwide protests against what they say is a shortage of protective equipment. 
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At least 17 people, included journalists, were detained Friday in Moscow, after protesting in front of the Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters over criminal charges leveled against a Russian journalist.Prosecutors in Pskov requested a six-year prison term for Svetlana Prokopyeva, who wrote an article on the blast outside a branch of Russia’s FSB in Arkhangelsk in 2018.People have gathered here today because the prosecutors have asked for an impossible six years of prison for her article,” said journalist Irina Dolinina. “But they can’t express their opinion because they are detained and taken to the police car before they can take out their banners.”Protesters have expressed fear that Prokopyeva’s case could be followed by more repression in the country, as people are unable to freely protest because the coronavirus restrictions are still in effect.”Hereafter the society will be decaying, and the repressions will strengthen until people start expressing their anger,” said Moscow resident Alexander Matskevich. “I don’t know how far it (the repression) can go. We have an example of North Korea. I doubt anyone wants to have the same here.”Russian authorities had identified the attacker in Arkhangelsk as a local 17-year-old man and treated the case as an act of terrorism.In her article, Prokopyeva wrote that the attacker’s motives were linked to the political climate in Russia.After the publication, authorities accused Prokopyeva of publicly justifying terrorism.The court is expected to announce the final verdict on Monday. 
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Amid a controversy in Washington over media reports that Russia has offered bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers, some Afghan lawmakers are concerned about the potential beginning of a new proxy war in their country. VOA’s Rahim Gul Sarwan reports from Kabul.
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President Donald Trump is headlining U.S. Independence Day celebrations Friday at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, where he plans to criticize protesters for trying to “tear down” the nation’s history.A Trump campaign official said the president would denounce a “left-wing mob” for tearing down statues during demonstrations against racial inequality.The official, who described Trump’s planned remarks in advance only on condition of anonymity, said the president would condemn such “totalitarian behavior that is completely alien to American life.”The president’s speech is also expected to include traditional Independence Day praise of the country’s values.The celebration at Mount Rushmore will feature fireworks at the South Dakota national park for the first time in more than a decade.“It’s going to be a fireworks display like few people have seen. It’s going to be very exciting,” Trump said during a White House event Thursday.Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a giant sculpture featuring the faces of four American presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln — carved into a granite mountainside.Native Americans Angry Over Trump Visit to Mount RushmoreNative Americans also question timing of the event, scheduled during a period in which Americans struggle to come to terms with racism and police violence, and underfunded tribes battle spread of COVID-19This would be the first fireworks display at Mount Rushmore since 2010, when the National Park Service stopped staging pyrotechnics out of concern that they could spark wildfires. The memorial is surrounded by 486 hectares of forested land and located next to the Black Hills National Forest’s Black Elk Wilderness.In April, the Park Service prepared an environmental assessment and concluded the fireworks would have “no significant impact.”Monumental feudTrump’s visit comes during a national debate over monuments honoring American leaders who were slaveholders or held racist views. Universities and local governments across the country are removing controversial monuments, at a time when many Americans are protesting for ways to address systemic racism following the death of George Floyd, an African American, in police custody in May.The president has consistently opposed protesters who want to remove statues of Confederate leaders and figures who supported slavery and white supremacy. Trump signed an executive order in June directing federal law enforcement agencies to prosecute people who damage federal monuments.Choosing Mount Rushmore as the backdrop of this year’s Independence Day event is a political strategy clearly informed by the debate over monuments, said Vanessa Beasley, who teaches presidential rhetoric at Vanderbilt University.“Trump is basically trying to say to his base audience; ‘Hey, if you don’t like what’s happening with all these monuments, I’m going to go to the biggest and most immovable monument there is and I’m going to claim it as my own,’ ” said Beasley to VOA. “I don’t think there’s any nuance or ambiguity in that message.”Americans urged to stay homeAs the nation witnessed a spike in new coronavirus cases, with an 80 percent increase in the past two weeks, health officials urged Americans to stay home on July Fourth — a holiday usually celebrated with big parties and town parades.  “The safest choice this holiday is to celebrate at home,” the Oregon Health Authority said in a news release.South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican who worked with the administration to organize the celebration at Mount Rushmore, said Monday that masks would be provided but social distancing would not be enforced.”In South Dakota, we’ve told people to focus on personal responsibility. Every one of them has the opportunity to make a decision that they are comfortable with. So, we will be having celebrations of American independence; we will have a large event July 3,” she said during an appearance on Fox News earlier this week.Tickets for the 7,500-person capacity event were allocated by lottery in June.In trying to balance personal liberties and freedom against public safety, the president and Noem have decided that they want to come down on the side of personal freedom, said Michael Cornfield, associate professor of political management at The George Washington University, told VOA.“It’s quite risky,” he said.Presidential preferenceAmerican presidents typically have celebrated July Fourth based on their personal preferences and many have done so in ways that are “very much connected to what’s happening at that moment,” said Matthew Costello, a historian with the White House Historical Association, in an interview with VOA.James K. Polk, the nation’s 11th president and the one who pursued the expansion of the continental United States through wars in the mid-19th century, celebrated with military parades and other ways that were very much about patriotism, Costello said.“It was about the war effort, but it was also about continuing the fight for what he believed was in the best interest of the country,” he said.Trump is not the first American president to commemorate Independence Day in a pandemic. During the Spanish flu in 1918, Woodrow Wilson reviewed a parade that marched on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, Costello said.Wilson missed the Fourth of July in 1919, as he was returning from the Paris Peace Conference.Many historians, including John M. Barry, professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, believe Wilson himself fell ill with the flu around that time. 
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Alabama reported more than 1,700 new confirmed coronavirus cases — the highest number yet for a single day in the state — as doctors and state officials expressed concern about further spread during the Fourth of July holiday weekend.  The state on Thursday surpassed the previous high-water mark for the most infections reported in a 24-hour period while the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 also reached a new high of 843. The state this week also recorded the lowest availability in ICU beds since the pandemic began.  Dr. Michael Saag, an infectious-diseases physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who also had COVID-19, likened the spread in the state to a “wildfire.”  “The data are pretty dismal right now, not just in our state but around the country,” Saag said in a Friday interview with reporters.  In May, Alabama was averaging 300 cases a day, but now is at over 1,000. “The data are telling us we are headed toward a tough situation,” Saag said.After the state saw a surge in cases after Memorial Day, doctors and state officials pleaded with people to use precautions during the July Fourth holiday weekend.  “As we celebrate America’s independence this weekend, remember we’re still battling a pandemic. … Now is not the time to let our guard down. Our state & nation are depending on you,” Governor Kay Ivey said in a tweet.  Avoid virus ‘havens’Saag said the two things people can do to mitigate spread is to wear a mask and avoid large crowds — particularly ones where most people aren’t wearing masks.  “If people are gathering in large spaces together, it’s a haven for the virus,” Saag said.  Alabama has reported more than 41,000 cases of the new coronavirus since the pandemic began, with more than 25% of infections being reported in the last two weeks, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. So far, at least 983 Alabamians have died after contracting the virus.  State Health Officer Scott Harris urged people to be cautious and not give in to “COVID caution fatigue.””Too many people are failing to take precautions and follow the simple steps that have been proven to prevent transmission of the virus,” Harris said in a message to the state.  Dr. Don Williamson, the former state health officer who now heads the Alabama Hospital Association, said Thursday that the state has about 16% of intensive care beds available, the lowest share vacant since the pandemic began. By comparison, in early April, the state had 35% of ICU beds available.  The Alabama Department of Corrections reported Thursday that a second prison employee had died after testing positive for COVID-19.  The prison system said 75 inmates and 173 staff members and contract employees had tested positive for COVID-19. Nine inmates and two employees have died after contracting the virus.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he was still unsure whether he would go to Washington next week to celebrate a new North American trade treaty, citing concern about possible U.S. tariffs on aluminum.Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is to meet U.S. President Donald Trump next week, has said he would like Trudeau to attend.Mexican sources had previously said Lopez Obrador’s visit was planned for Wednesday and Thursday, with the possibility of a trilateral meeting on Thursday.FILE – Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during an event to sign an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement, at the national palace in Mexico City, Dec. 10. 2019.”We’re still in discussions with the Americans about whether a trilateral summit next week makes sense,” Trudeau said in a news conference. “We’re obviously concerned about the proposed issue of tariffs on aluminum and steel that the Americans have floated recently.”U.S. national security tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, including from Canada and Mexico, were a major irritant during negotiations for the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal, which was reached last year and entered into force on July 1.But now, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is considering domestic producers’ request to restore the 10% duty on Canadian aluminum to combat a surge of imports.Coronavirus concernsConcern about the “health situation and the coronavirus reality that is still hitting all three of our countries” is another factor in his decision on whether to go to Washington, Trudeau said.Also next week, Trudeau said he would hold a two-day virtual Cabinet retreat — without saying which days — to discuss how to prepare for a potential second wave of COVID-19, among other things.The spread of the novel coronavirus has slowed steadily in Canada over the past eight weeks, but new cases are spiking in many U.S. states.As of July 2, Canada had recorded a total of 104,772 coronavirus cases, with 68,345 recovered and 8,642 deaths. 
 
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Two former presidents of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli and Juan Carlos Varela, have been charged with money laundering in separate cases.After leaving the prosecutor’s office in Panama City on Thursday, Martinelli said he was angered by prosecutors continuing to link him to the so-called “New Business” case in which a publishing group was allegedly purchased with government money during his five-year term, ending in 2014.The French News Agency (AFP) said prosecutors accuse former President Juan Carlos Varela of taking illegal campaign donations from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht during his term ending in 2019.Varela has pledged to cooperate with prosecutors to clear his name.Both Martinelli and Varela share more than identical legal challenges.Martinelli won the 2009 election with Varela as his running mate, but their partnership collapsed when Varela was fired as foreign minister in 2011. 
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President Donald Trump ventures to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday for an early Independence Day celebration that thousands of people are expected to attend.Although the U.S. leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases, local officials say there are no plans for observing social distancing or mask wearing at the event  However, free masks will be available for those who want them.South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, said on Fox News earlier this week: “We’ve told folks that have concerns that they can stay home.”The Washington Post reports that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Arizona this week was delayed from Tuesday to Wednesday after Secret Service agents organizing the trip either fell sick with the virus or displayed symptoms.The U.S. on Thursday reported more than 50,000 new cases. Four states – Arizona, California, Florida, Texas – were responsible for half of the new cases.The jump in coronavirus numbers is blamed in part on what New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called “knucklehead behavior” – people not wearing masks or practicing social distancing.There are nearly 11 million global COVID-19 cases. The U.S is approaching 3 million cases.Australian officials say 10,000 people in Victoria have refused to take the coronavirus test this past week because they believe the outbreak is not real and is instead a “conspiracy theory.”The New York Times reports that Australia, which has been successful in keeping COVID cases to a minimum, is now locking down an area of 300,000 people in a largely immigrant community in the state of Victoria.India reported nearly 21,000 new daily cases of the coronavirus Friday.India said Thursday that it had it had recorded about 100,000 cases in four days. Johns Hopkins University said early Friday that the South Asian nation has more than 625,000 COVID-19 cases.South Africa reported a new record number of 8,100 new cases in 24 hours Thursday.Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told voters not to be afraid to come out and cast ballots in the second round of the presidential election July 12.Despite hundreds of new cases reported daily, Poland has been relatively successful in fending off COVID-19, with 1,500 deaths.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday he is easing the mandatory quarantines for travelers arriving in Britain. He said he would announce details Friday or Saturday.And in Mexico, a medical supply company has started using unmanned drones to deliver masks, gloves and other equipment to hospitals.Doctors, nurses and other medical workers have staged nationwide protests against what they say is a shortage of protective equipment. 
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The slow easing of anti-coronavirus containment rules in Western countries and nearly nonstop work at major factories in Vietnam gave the export-reliant South Asian nation a small yet elusive economic boost in the second quarter this year, analysts say.The economy grew 0.36 percent from April to June compared to economic activity in the same months of 2019, Vietnam’s General Statistics Office announced Monday. The bulk of that came from manufacturing late in the quarter rather than services, economists believe.European nations began easing business shutdowns in April and May. In mid-June, those countries opened borders to one another for travel. And U.S. states have allowed phased-in reopening of businesses since May despite continued rises in coronavirus cases.Both trends allowed consumers to visit stores and buy goods that they had put off during the shutdowns, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist with IHS Markit in Singapore. Electronic gear for remote communication is a particular draw for those consumers, he said.Vietnam counts the United States as its biggest market, with 23.2 percent of all exports. The European Union takes 15.7 percent of Vietnamese exports.“The lockdowns started to come off in May in Europe, and so that’s why I think we’re seeing that June is better,” Biswas said.Export manufacturing drives Vietnam’s normally fast-growing, $262 billion economy. Foreign manufacturers like Vietnam for its low wages, support from government and proximity to raw materials in neighboring China. Vietnam has siphoned away some foreign investment from China since 2018 because of U.S. tariffs imposed on Chinese exports during a two-way trade dispute.Vietnam’s economic future “really depends on the world economy,” said Jack Nguyen, partner in the business advisory firm Mazars in Ho Chi Minh City. “Vietnam is now so linked to the world that how other countries are opening up will indicate how big Vietnam will be (in) improvement.”The operation of major foreign-invested factories in Vietnam supports economic growth, said Ralf Matthaes, founder of the Infocus Mekong Research consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City.“If you go like Samsung, Panasonic, the big guys, if they’re opened up again it would be a huge spike,” he said. Both foreign electronics firms and many others have cautiously operated their factories year to date. Vietnam’s relatively low coronavirus caseload of just 355 people with no deaths allows work to go on with few risks.In China and India, two other Asian manufacturing powerhouses, governments ordered factory closures at the height over their virus outbreaks.Domestic consumption further helped strengthen Vietnam’s economy in the second quarter, though people on the ground report that small stores have gone out of business. A lack of foreign tourists due to Vietnam’s ban on most arrivals is hurting hotels and airlines. The ban has left some foreign factory heads stuck in other countries, Matthaes said.The International Monetary Fund forecasts Vietnam to grow faster than any other Asian country with full-year GDP growth of 2.7 percent. The IMF expects Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar and Nepal to grow as well but by smaller percentages.Vietnam’s second half of 2020 is widely expected to beat the first half. A free trade deal with the European Union will cut tariffs when it takes effect August 1. Spending before the Western year-end holidays should help too, Biswas said.“Vietnam is going to be one of the best performing Asia Pacific countries,” he said. “Vietnam won’t have a recession this year. It will be one of the only countries in Asia.”  
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New details of an Iranian nuclear facility damaged in a mysterious fire suggest Thursday’s incident is a much greater setback to Iran’s nuclear ambitions than Tehran has publicly admitted.The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security identified the facility as a centrifuge assembly workshop at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant in central Iran’s Isfahan province.The site of the fire at the Natanz Enrichment Plant identified in an AEOI photo is the same building the Institute identified as centrifuge assembly workshop in 2017. See: https://t.co/8WPao3i3F5pic.twitter.com/aw9q0vqTqo
— Inst for Science (@TheGoodISIS) July 2, 2020In a series of Thursday tweets, the Institute showed how it used a photo of the fire-damaged building released earlier in the day by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to geo-locate the site on Google Earth satellite images. The research group said it had previously identified the building as a centrifuge assembly workshop in 2017.#Iran’s state TV report shows #Natanz nuclear facility following ‘incident’ pic.twitter.com/TmDCHnEyLc
— Sobhan Hassanvand 📰 سبحان حسنوند (@Hassanvand) July 2, 2020As well as releasing the photo of the damaged building, an AEOI spokesman gave an interview to an Iranian state TV reporter at the site, downplaying the fire as an “incident” that had done some damage to an above-ground workshop that he said was under construction. Behrouz Kamalvandi also said there had been no interruption to enrichment work involving centrifuges spinning underground.“It took the Iranians a long time to build this workshop,” Institute researcher Sarah Burkhard told VOA Persian in an interview. “Its construction started in 2012 and they only got to a point where they could start operations there in 2018,” she said.State TV network IRIB was given a tour of the facility, officially named the “Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center” just before it opened in June 2018. A video of the tour posted on YouTube showed an IRIB reporter doing a walk-through of the site, revealing what appeared to be brand new machinery in several small and large rooms.“You can see that it was a very clean facility. And that’s important. It needs to be very clean,” Burkhard said. “You also can see that Iran was proud of this site.”The AEOI’s photo of the aftermath of the fire, which it said happened at 2 a.m. Thursday local time, showed extensive damage to one end of the workshop, with roof panels charred, exterior walls cracked and doors ripped from their hinges, apparently from the force of an explosion.“The equipment inside the workshop was meant to be used for making precision measurements in assembling advanced centrifuges that are sensitive machines and difficult to build, because you have to ensure that they are identical,” Burkhard said. “We think the centrifuge equipment likely is not easily replaceable, because the components would be subject to international export controls,” she added.Under a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers to curb Iranian activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons, a Joint Commission was set up to monitor Tehran’s procurement of certain nuclear and dual-use items to ensure that its nuclear work stayed within agreed limits.The United States also sanctioned Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA) in 2011 and since then has further sanctioned international companies in TESA’s procurement network.U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Tehran, and began unilaterally imposing sanctions aimed at pressuring Iranian leaders to stop a range of perceived malign behaviors. Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, has vowed to resist the U.S. sanctions, which have weakened its economy. Tehran also has been violating a series of limits on its nuclear activities since last year to try to pressure the 2015 deal’s remaining signatories to compensate it for the U.S. sanctions.One of Iran’s violations has involved research and development of advanced centrifuges at facilities such as the fire-damaged workshop at Natanz. The Institute for Science and International Security is unaware of any other similar workshop in Iran, Burkhard said.“The fire was a significant setback for Iran’s advanced centrifuge production,” she said.Burkhard also said the damage to the facility was so large that it did not appear to have been caused by an industrial accident. Her colleague David Albright told The New York Times that he believed it was an act of sabotage, because the assembly of centrifuge components in the workshop would have involved few flammable liquids and was unlikely to be dangerous.After downplaying the incident, Iranian state news agency IRNA issued a warning later Thursday, saying “if there are signs of hostile countries crossing Iran’s red lines in any way, especially the Zionist regime (Israel) and the United States, Iran’s strategy to confront the new situation must be fundamentally reconsidered.”In an email to VOA Persian, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Iran analyst Behnam Ben Taleblu said the Iranian warning suggests that Tehran thinks its earlier assertions about the fire being an “accident” were not convincing enough for many Iranians who suspect foreign involvement.The U.S. State Department said it was monitoring reports of the fire. In a statement sent to VOA, it said the incident “serves as another reminder of how the Iranian regime continues to prioritize its misguided nuclear program to the detriment of the Iranian people’s needs.”“Iranian officials have a good reason to downplay foreign acts of sabotage on their soil, as it would expose them as incompetent,” Taleblu said. “How Iran responds to this, at home and abroad, will determine a great deal about the origins of the fire.”This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Barry Newhouse contributed.  
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The U.S. added 4.8 million jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1 percent as the job market improved for the second straight month. This comes as parts of the CARES Act, a pandemic related relief bill passed by the U.S. Congress, is set to expire soon and the country experiences a spike in new coronavirus infections. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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The World Health Organization called on African countries Thursday to take comprehensive safety measures to “mitigate a surge” in COVID-19 cases, as nations resume air travel. The African economy, which is heavily reliant on travel and tourism, has been struck hard by the global pandemic. “Air travel is vital to the economic health of countries,” Dr. FILE – Passengers arriving from a China Southern Airlines flight from Changsha in China are screened for the coronavirus, upon their arrival at the Jomo Kenyatta international airport in Nairobi, Kenya, January 29, 2020.Thursday’s press release came hours after Amani Abou-Zeid, the African Union’s commissioner for infrastructure and energy, said that the continent had lost nearly $55 billion in travel and tourism revenue in just three months because of the pandemic. Africa had previously expected revenue jumps in these sectors this year. “We have 24 million African families whose livelihood is linked to travel and tourism,” Abou-Zeid said. “The blow is very hard, between the economic losses and the job losses.”  African airlines, she added, have experienced an $8 billion, or 95%, drop in revenue, alongside other economic losses. The International Monetary Fund projected last month that the sub-Saharan African economy would shrink by 3.2% this year, revised from a 1.6% contraction in April. The WHO, however, pressed countries to weigh the financial costs of maintaining closed borders with the costs of a more severe outbreak, and asked nations to decide if their health care and contact tracing systems could handle an increase in COVID-19 cases. Temperature screening at points of entry is relatively well-established in Africa because of the continent’s experience with Ebola, Moeti said Thursday at a WHO-World Economic Forum press conference. Ebola outbreaks have also primed COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, she said. As of Thursday, Africa had over 414,000 confirmed infections and nearly 200,000 recoveries, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 10,000 people have died. South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have reported the most cases in the region by far. About 22% of destinations worldwide had eased travel restrictions as of June 25, up from just 3% in mid-May, according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization. Most are in Europe.On Tuesday, the European Union released a list of 15 countries whose citizens would be allowed to enter the bloc, provided the gesture was reciprocated. 
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At least 113 workers at a jade mine in northern Myanmar were killed Thursday in a landslide.The disaster was announced on the Facebook page of Myanmar’s fire service. The miners were collecting the precious stones in Hpakant township in Kachin state when they were smothered by “a wave of mud” following heavy rains.Fatal landslides and other accidents are a common occurrence in the area in recent years.  Many of the victims are from impoverished ethnic communities who scour the jade mines searching for any of the precious stones missed by large mining firms. 
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A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela control of over $1 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault, ruling that it is unlawful to give it to the President Nicolás Maduro since Britain does not recognize him as the president.
Maduro has demanded the gold to help his cash-starved nation fight the coronavirus pandemic.
But the central bank for the United Kingdom, whose government recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as his country’s legitimate leader, had refused to hand it over to Maduro’s socialist administration.
Guaidó has sought to preserve the gold stash at the Bank of England to keep it out of the hands of the Maduro government.
Banco Central de Venezuela sought to release the gold, which it wants to sell for food and medical equipment that is desperately needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
A lawyer representing Maduro’s side promised to appeal.
Sarosh Zaiwalla said in a statement that the judgment “entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground” in Venezuela.
“Mr Maduro’s government is in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions, and only it can ensure the distribution of the humanitarian relief and medical supplies needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic,” he said. “This outcome will now delay matters further, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people whose lives are at risk.” 
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Authorities in Brazil say nine people were killed and more than 1,000 others were forced to leave their homes after a cyclone raced across southern Brazil, off the coast of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.Meteorologists said Tuesday’s “extratropical bomb cyclone,” originated in the South Atlantic Ocean.The storm packing nearly 110-kph winds damaged homes across dozens of towns in Santa Catarina.Structures in Florianopolis, the capital of Santa Catarina, suffered the greatest damage.The storm prompted officials in Rio Grande Mdo Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana to issue flood warnings.      
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