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Russians, Saudis, top UK 'independent' sanctions list for rights violators
Britain on Monday identified 49 "notorious" individuals and organisations, 25 of them Russian and 20 Saudis, to be sanctioned under its first post-Brexit targeting of accused human rights violators. The Russians are listed for their alleged involvement in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and the Saudis for suspected roles in the death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Foreign Office said. One notable name on the list is Saud al-Qahtani, who it is believed oversaw the team that killed Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 16:30:58 GMT

Maxwell moved to NY for Epstein-related sex abuse charges
Jeffrey Epstein's longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred Monday to New York to face charges that she recruited women and girls, one as young as 14, for him to sexually abuse, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed. Prosecutors have asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in Manhattan federal court for for Maxwell, 58, who was arrested last week at a million estate she had purchased in New Hampshire. Maxwell, the daughter of British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was the former girlfriend and longtime close associate of Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail last August while he awaited trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:49:25 GMT

Johnson & Johnson cuts price of TB drug bedaquiline in poorer countries
J&J's bedaquiline, marketed under the brand name Sirturo, will be available at the reduced price to more than 135 eligible countries, through the United Nations-hosted Stop TB Partnership's Global Drug Facility, created in 2001 to negotiate lower prices for treatments. The move comes at a time when the virus outbreak has been feared to have derailed global efforts to curtail the spread of tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that mainly affects a patient's lungs.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:17:23 GMT

COVID-19 imperils AIDS progress, UN warns
COVID-19 could cause an additional half a million AIDS deaths if treatment is disrupted long term, the United Nations said Monday in a warning that the pandemic was jeopardising years of progress against HIV. At the start of a week of virtual International AIDS Conferences, the UN said the world was already way off course in its plan to end the public health threat even before COVID-19. Although AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 60 percent since the peak of the HIV epidemic in 2004, in 2019 around 690,000 still died from the illness.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:05:43 GMT

COVID-19 imperils AIDS progress, UN warns
COVID-19 could cause an additional half a million AIDS deaths if treatment is disrupted long term, the United Nations said Monday in a warning that the pandemic was jeopardising years of progress against HIV. At the start of a week of virtual International AIDS Conferences, the UN said the world was already way off course in its plan to end the public health threat even before COVID-19. Although AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 60 percent since the peak of the HIV epidemic in 2004, in 2019 around 690,000 still died from the illness.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:57:09 GMT

Groundbreaking UAE-Israel Deal to Fight Coronavirus Unites Key Defense Companies
Israel is increasing its cooperation with Gulf states against the threats of the coronavirus and Iran-caused instability.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:21:00 GMT

Viewpoint: What Donald Trump gets wrong about Somalia
Somalia has been caught up in the US election campaign thanks to Donald Trump, writes Ismail Einashe.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:20:37 GMT

Global U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings Market: Focus on Product Types and Their Applications, Technology Types, Layer Types, and Country Level Analysis - Analysis and Forecast, 2019-2025
Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05919174/?utm_source=PRN Key Questions Answered in this Report:• What are the major driving forces that are expected to increase the demand for the global U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market during the forecast period, 2020-2025? • What are the major challenges inhibiting the growth of the global U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market?• What is the global U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market size in terms of value () and volume (million square meters) from 2019-2025 along with the year-on-year growth rates and the CAGR from 2020 to 2025?• What are the different layer types of U.V. and blue light blocking coatings and their growth pattern in terms of volume in different regions and countries?• What are the major technologies used for applying U.V. and blue light blocking coatings?• What are the new strategies adopted by the existing market players to make a mark in the industry? • What major opportunities do the U.V. and blue light blocking coatings manufacturers foresee?• What are the major end user industries for U.V. and blue light blocking coatings globally in terms of revenue generation?• What is the consumption pattern of the U.V. and blue light blocking coatings across end users in different regions and countries?• Which are the major regions and countries that provide growth opportunities for the U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market?• What is the impact of COVID-19 in different end user industries of both U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market?• What is the competitive strength of the key players in the U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market on the basis of their recent developments, product offerings and regional presence?• Who are the key players (along with their detailed analysis and profiles including their company snapshots, key products and services, and SWOT analysis) in the market?Global U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings Market ForecastThe Global U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings Market analyzed is expected to show a decent growth in the coming years. Blue light and ultraviolet light blocking coatings address the ongoing issue of digital eye stress and are able to present an extensive amount of opportunities to revolutionize the working principle of different end user industries such as optical industry, and automotive industry, among others. The usage of innovative coatings has become a necessity in maintaining the durability of a product, over time, leading the manufacturers in the industry to use different functional coatings and add new properties to their products to distinguish their products in the competitive market.Blue light and ultraviolet lights are a part of High Energy Visible (HEV) radiations.These radiations are harmful for our eyes and create stress-related issues.Blue light could be radiated from both natural and artificial sources.The blue light which is found in natural sources is necessary for maintaining melatonin levels and thereby ensuring productivity of human body.On the contrary, blue light that is generated from artificial sources such as television screen, and smartphone screen, among others is harmful and creates an imbalance in the melatonin level of the body thereby disturbing the sleep cycle and the circadian rhythm of the body.It also causes digital-eye stress that results in reduced productivity, fatigue, headaches and several other health problems.Over exposure of ultraviolet light is also harmful as it causes cancer and reduces the visibility of the human eye by degrading the cornea. It also possesses the capability of degenerating atomic bonds thus rendering the monetary value of certain artifacts useless. Due to such issues, protection from the ultraviolet light has become essential in today's world. The research study focuses on putting forward a clear picture of the current consumption and future growth potential of both U.V and blue light blocking coatings.Scope of the Global U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings MarketThe Global U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings Market provides detailed market information for segmentation on the basis of technology, application, layer and region. The purpose of this market analysis is to examine the U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings outlook in terms of factors driving the market, trends, technological developments, and competitive benchmarking, among others.The report further takes into consideration the market dynamics and the competitive landscape along with the detailed financial and product contribution of the key players operating in the market. While highlighting the key driving and restraining forces for this market, the report also provides a detailed analysis of the technologies involved in the recycling process.The global U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market is segregated by region under seven major regions, namely North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, China, South America, and Middle East and Africa.Key Companies in the Global U.V. and Blue Light Blocking Coatings MarketThe key market players in the global U.V. and blue light blocking coatings market include 3M, B + D, Blueberry Glasses, Carl Zeiss AG, Cyxus, Essilor International S.A., Gunnar Optiks LLC, HOYA Corporation, ICOAT COMPANY, LLC., IOT Neochromes, IZIPIZI, PPG Industries, Inc., PRIVE REVAUX, Swanwick Sleep, and ZENNI OPTICAL INC.Countries Covered• CHINA• ASIA-PACIFIC & JAPAN• JAPAN• SOUTH KOREA• INDIA• TAIWAN• THAILAND• REST-OF-ASIA-PACIFIC• EUROPE• GERMANY• FRANCE• SPAIN• ITALY• REST-OF-EUROPE• NORTH AMERICA• U.S.• CANADA• MEXICO• MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA• IRAN• SOUTH AFRICA• REST-OF-MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA (MEA)• SOUTH AMERICA• BRAZIL• ARGENTINA• REST-OF-SOUTH-AMERICARead the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05919174/?utm_source=PRN About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:20:00 GMT

Justices rule states can bind presidential electors' votes
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College. The ruling, in cases in Washington state and Colorado just under four months before the 2020 election, leaves in place laws in 32 states and the District of Columbia that bind electors to vote for the popular-vote winner, as electors almost always do anyway.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:14:53 GMT

AIDS report: Kids are lagging and COVID-19 is harming care
“We are making great progress against the HIV epidemic ... but the bad, bad news is that kids are lagging behind,” said Dr. Shannon Hader, deputy executive director of UNAIDS. The United Nations agency reported last year's numbers Monday at the start of an international AIDS conference. Progress against HIV also is being hurt by another infectious disease — the new coronavirus.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:03:47 GMT

Latino, Black neighborhoods struggle with test disparities
A Latino cook whose co-worker got COVID-19 waited in his truck for a free swab at a rare testing event in a low-income neighborhood in Phoenix. As the pandemic explodes in diverse states like Arizona and Florida, people in communities of color who have been exposed to the virus are struggling to get tested. While people nationwide complain about appointments being overbooked or waiting hours to be seen, getting a test can be even harder in America’s poorer, Hispanic and Black neighborhoods, far from middle-class areas where most chain pharmacies and urgent care clinics offering tests are found.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 13:53:28 GMT

German interior minister blocks investigation into alleged police racism
A senior German minister has come under fire after he vetoed an investigation into allegations of racism in the country’s police. An investigation was ordered last month into alleged racial profiling in routine German police checks in the wake of protests at the killing of George Floyd in the US. But it emerged at the weekend that Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, had blocked the inquiry. The interior ministry said there was “no need” for an investigation as racial profiling is banned under German law. “Neither the federal police laws nor the relevant regulations and decrees permit such unequal treatment of people,” a spokesman told Zeit newspaper. “Individual cases of discrimination are relentlessly investigated and promptly disciplined.” Mr Seehofer’s move inflamed long-standing tensions within Angela Merkel’s government and infuriated her main coalition partners, the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD).

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 13:51:29 GMT

Germany: 3-year sentence sought for former SS camp guard

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 13:40:44 GMT

What makes a 'wave' of disease? An epidemiologist explains
Panic about a second wave of coronavirus cases is “overblown,” Vice President Mike Pence wrote in June, implying the U.S. has COVID-19 under control. On the other hand, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warns that the U.S. is still firmly within a first wave of cases.As media broadcast information about daily increases in the number of cases, it’s hard not to wonder which way the country is headed. Have the weeks and months of lockdown really helped? What do the trends in diagnoses and deaths mean for the course of the pandemic? Is the U.S. stuck in a first wave? Through the worst of it? Headed for a second round? Six months into the pandemic, people are looking for ways to make sense of what’s happening. Talking about waves of disease, with the implication of predictable rises and falls, is part of that. As an epidemiologist, I know that disease waves aren’t scientifically defined. But looking to the history of previous epidemics and other countries’ current COVID-19 outbreaks can be useful. Characterizing a waveThere’s no strict definition for what is or is not an epidemic wave or phase. A wave implies a rising number of sick individuals, a defined peak, and then a decline. The word “wave” implies a natural pattern of peaks and valleys; it hints that even during a lull, future outbreaks of disease are possible.Historical outbreaks of infectious diseases offer some models for how the course of a disease like COVID-19 might unfold over time.Some diseases come in somewhat predictable seasonal waves, with higher transmission rates at some times of the year than at others. Seasonal coronaviruses, like 229E or HKU1, which cause the common cold, have a high point from around December through March, according to research in the U.S. and elsewhere.Several factors influence whether a particular disease is seasonal in nature. Some pathogens may spread less well with greater humidity. Annual epidemics, like of influenza may occur because of climate or patterns of social mixing – often driven by the school year or people staying inside more during the winter.[Get our best science, health and technology stories. Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter.]It’s possible that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, spreads more efficiently under certain weather conditions. But recent outbreaks in Florida, Arizona, Texas and Southern California suggest that warm or humid weather is not sufficient to stop the spread of the disease. Some scientists model that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually become seasonal like other coronaviruses.Waves and seasonal dynamics are also affected by levels of immunity in the human population. As more individuals become immune to a pathogen, its spread slows and eventually stops as the virus runs out of new people to infect. The U.S. is nowhere near what epidemiologists call herd immunity in the general population, however; mathematical modelers suggest at least between 43% and 60% of people would need to be immune to SARS-CoV-2 for that to be the case. Ebb and flow, 150 years of influenza wavesSome of the current talk of coronavirus waves likely stems from comparisons with past epidemics that did show these peaks and troughs of infections.University of Oxford scholars of evidence-based medicine Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan have summarized past waves in respiratory virus pandemics over the previous 150 years. For example, the 1889-92 influenza outbreak had three distinct waves, which differed in their virulence. The second wave was much more severe, particularly in younger adults.The current COVID-19 pandemic is often compared to the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic, which had three distinct waves over the course of a year. The proportion of influenza patients who were severely ill or died was much higher in the last two waves compared to the first. It’s unclear whether being infected earlier on protected individuals during later waves.More recently, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, though mild, had two distinct waves; this virus still commonly shows up in seasonal influenza outbreaks. A study of H1N1 influenza in 2009-2010 found that the second wave affected more older people, with underlying conditions.Insight from the past suggests that discrete waves result as a disease spreads into and out of a population. Different waves can have different features, too, regarding factors like disease severity or which populations are most affected. What’s happening now in the USSARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S. are on the rise. Some of this increase may be driven by more widespread testing now. But the increases felt in many large states – Texas, California, Florida – are a result of more community transmission.Currently, even with an increase in the number of cases in many parts of the U.S., there has not been a corresponding increase in the number of deaths.The story from Iran may offer a cautionary note. From a peak of over 3,000 cases confirmed per day in early April, it declined to less than 1,000 by May, from which it has climbed to hover around 2,500 daily confirmed cases as of the end of June. The rise in the number of deaths did not occur until the second half of June. This is likely due to the time lag between when someone is infected and when they die.Accordingly, U.S. states currently experiencing an uptick in COVID-19 confirmed cases could see a notable increase in deaths within a few weeks. The average age of those infected is getting younger, though, complicating predictions about a death toll.The U.S. is not yet in a second wave and increasingly it looks like the country may not see one. Instead, the U.S. may sustain a constant first wave that just continues to crest. The political willpower necessary to limit transmission through robust, ongoing lockdown measures seems, unfortunately, to have been snuffed out.But arguing about whether the U.S. is in a second wave, the first wave, or wave 1.5 ultimately doesn’t matter. Whichever it is, the commonsense actions everyone can currently take to limit the spread of infection remain the same: Staying home when possible, wearing a mask and socially distancing when out, and frequently washing hands will help speed our way beyond this pandemic, regardless of what wave we’re in.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Compare the flu pandemic of 1918 and COVID-19 with caution – the past is not a prediction * The US isn’t in a second wave of coronavirus – the first wave never endedAbram Wagner receives funding from the NIAID and the NSF.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 12:15:21 GMT

Israel launches new spy satellite with Iran in its sights
Israel launched a new spy satellite on Monday that could help monitor Iran’s nuclear activity, as Israeli officials remained evasive about recent incidents at Iranian industrial facilities that have raised suspicions of foreign sabotage. Israel’s defence ministry said the Ofek 16 satellite was transmitting data after successfully launching on Monday morning, joining an array of sequentially named spy satellites Israel has placed into orbit since 1988. “The investment of the state of Israel in space technology is considered essential and strategic for intelligence purposes,” an Israeli defence official said. The addition of another satellite would improve Israel’s intelligence gathering speed, said Amnon Harari, the head of the defence ministry's space and satellite programme. “Once you have more than one satellite in parallel in the sky, you achieve better visit times over the targets of interest," he said. "Iran is investing a lot into building its space power and programme,” he added, referring to Tehran successfully launching its own military satellite in April after months of failures. “The effort is there and we should assume that eventually, they will reach a significant level in this area." Israel's launch came the day after Iran acknowledged that an unexplained fire at the underground Natanz nuclear plant last Thursday caused significant damage to its main uranium enrichment facility and could slow its production of advanced centrifuges. The spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Keivan Khosravi said the “cause of the accident” at the centrifuge assembly plant in central Isfahan province had been identified but did not immediately offer more information “due to security considerations”. Other Iranian facilities have reported mysterious incidents recently, including a fire at a power station in southwest Iran on Saturday, an explosion at a medical clinic north of Tehran that killed 19 people last Tuesday, and an explosion at a missile facility near Tehran on June 26. Israel has previously shown itself capable of carrying out operations in Iran, including the brazen theft of half a tonne of secret nuclear documents from a Tehran warehouse in 2018, though Israeli officials do not normally confirm covert activities. When asked about the Natanz fire on Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said “we take actions that are better left unsaid,” and Defence Minister Benny Gantz told Army Radio that “not everything that happens in Iran is necessarily related to us”. “There is a growing sense that this is not all a coincidence,” said Holly Dagres, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, calling Mr Gantz’s comment “more of a non-denial denial”. Iranian state news agency IRNA published an article on Thursday addressing what it called the possibility of sabotage by Israel and the United States, although it avoided accusing either directly. “So far Iran has tried to prevent intensifying crises and the formation of unpredictable conditions and situations,” IRNA said. “But the crossing of red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile countries, especially the Zionist regime and the U.S., means that strategy ... should be revised.” Israel is believed to be the region’s sole nuclear power and has pledged never to allow its arch-enemy Iran obtain atomic weapons. Iran denies seeking to develop an atomic bomb, saying its nuclear programme is peaceful. However since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, Iran has walked back on a number of commitments it made under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, including enriching uranium beyond levels set by the deal. If Iranian facilities were shown to have been attacked, “this is only going to increase the Iranian government’s push to take its nuclear programme underground,” Ms Dagres said.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 12:14:28 GMT

Digital contact tracing's mixed record abroad spells trouble for US efforts to rein in COVID-19
Two public health measures – testing, to identify those infected, and contact tracing, to identify those who may have encountered an infected person – have become essential as countries around the world reopen their economies and fresh surges of COVID-19 infections appear.Even as testing ramps up, contact tracing with a wide enough net remains a daunting task. Contact tracing involves public health staff conducting interviews with infected people. Public health experts are calling for 180,000 more contact tracers, but progress on contact tracing has not been going well, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Enter digital innovations that offer a tantalizing promise: to automate the laborious task of alerting people who have been exposed to the virus. Numerous governments have championed such apps as a means of augmenting manual contact tracing. As an economist who tracks digital technology’s use worldwide, I’ve found that the experiences of these countries reveal challenges to getting enough people to use the apps. Unfortunately, these challenges appear to me to be all but insurmountable in the U.S. Privacy and trustContact tracing apps detect when a smartphone is in the presence of another app-enabled smartphone whose owner has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.These apps come in two types. One mimics traditional contact tracing by uploading to a central public health server the ID numbers of smart phones that have been close to an infected person’s smart phone. Depending on the app, public health authorities can be notified of the smart phone owners’ identities. The alternative is an “exposure notification” app that prioritizes privacy by using random numbers to ensure that no one can learn anyone else’s identity. All data are stored on the users’ phones. The Apple-Google collaboration supports these types of apps.Initial enthusiasm for digital contact tracing was sparked by early successes in countries such as South Korea. Some countries, such as India, had to mandate it. Others, such as Germany had to reconsider its approach and change course. [The Conversation’s newsletter explains what’s going on with the coronavirus pandemic. Subscribe now.]South Korea’s, India’s and Germany’s experiences suggest a three-question test for gauging the potential of such apps: Does the government have its citizens’ trust, leading citizens to believe that the government is not collecting data or, if it is, will not misuse it? Are citizens willing to “pay” for improved health outcomes by accepting some loss of privacy? Are there events in the nation’s history that help shift the balance in favor of citizens’ willingness to share data? South Korea: widespread voluntary adoptionDespite being hit early and hard by COVID-19, South Korea kept its number of deaths low by deploying contact tracing technology together with widespread testing. Its contact tracing arsenal included tracking apps paired with CCTV footage, travel and medical records and credit card transaction information. Arguably, it has one of the most intrusive digitally aided tracking systems anywhere. The system shares locations of infected people, even with the media, and issues emergency text alerts. All of this was widely accepted, except when intrusion crossed a line. When a COVID-19 cluster was linked to gay clubs and bars and led to calls to out people who visited such establishments, it raised concerns about discrimination against the LGBTQ community. The government stopped singling out particular clubs or bars in its alerts.Why were Koreans willing to tolerate this level of official intrusion? The explanation can be traced to the country’s history. The previous administration had botched its response to the 2015 MERS outbreak, when it shared no information about hospitals visited by infected citizens. This led to public support for legislation giving health authorities access to CCTV and smartphone location data on infected citizens and the right to issue alerts. India: partially mandated adoptionIn preparation for reopening post-lockdown, the Indian government declared its Aarogya Setu contact tracing app to be mandatory for office workers, with police enforcement in some cases. But then, concerns mounted. The app had few privacy safeguards. It collected data using both GPS and Bluetooth technologies, stored it in centralized servers with no data protection law in place. In response, the government switched the app from mandatory to “advisable,” with enough loopholes for organizations to set individual mandates. In addition, the app was uploaded to a public GitHub repository, which, in principle, opens the app – though not the data it collects – to public scrutiny. Ironically, Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed overwhelming public support even as the country endured the most stringent of lockdowns anywhere, with unspeakable hardships for many. However, the app stored citizens’ data on centralized servers, which compounded fears of digitally enabled state surveillance. Also, the app had been co-created by a ministry headed by Modi’s lieutenant, Amit Shah, who has a troubling history of abuse of power. All this made voluntary adoption difficult. Germany: interrupted adoptionGermany had to stop and restart its digital contact tracing effort. The government launched a contact tracing app based on technology developed by a European initiative. However, a highly critical open letter from multiple experts raised fears of state surveillance because the data was stored centrally, and Apple refused to allow its iPhone operating system to work with it. As a result, the German government abandoned the centralized model for an Apple-Google-compliant decentralized alternative. This U-turn occurred despite widespread confidence in Chancellor Angela Merkel, especially with her administration’s handling of the coronavirus response. Again, history provides a guide. Germans have lived through two notorious surveillance regimes: the Gestapo during the Nazi era and the Stasi during the Cold War. Even with a decentralized, privacy-protecting approach, Germany’s new app is unlikely to achieve the level of adoption of South Korea’s. However, the government’s investment in an effective traditional contact tracing approach using public health staff to investigate contacts makes a digital alternative less urgent. Prospects for digital contact tracing in the USWhat do these cases say about adoption of digital contact tracing in the U.S., which leads the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths?Americans’ trust in government is near an all-time low. Concerns about the government and tech companies accessing citizens’ data have been heightened in recent years with a string of revelations, from Edward Snowden to Cambridge Analytica, and citizens are worried about privacy breaches and misuse of data. There is also no cohesive nationwide plan to deploy such apps. The White House, federal agencies and state governments have failed to champion them, which means that adoption rates are likely to be low and people won’t see enough value in using them to risk their privacy. Apps may appear in pockets – companies, college campuses, local communities – creating a fragmented, unreliable system of digital contact tracing. In short, the U.S. is left relying almost entirely on tried-and-true though time-consuming and expensive manual contact tracing. As it stands, only seven states and the District of Columbia have sufficient numbers of contact tracers. Compliance is another challenge. Officials in Rockland County, New York have issued subpoenas to force people to cooperate with contact tracing efforts.Ironically, the U.S. may need digital contact tracing more than any other country but appears to me likely to turn its back on the very lifesaving innovations it has helped develop.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * How South Korea flattened the coronavirus curve with technology * How Apple and Google will let your phone warn you if you’ve been exposed to the coronavirusBhaskar Chakravorti has founded and directs the Institute for Business in the Global Context at Fletcher/Tufts that has received funding from Mastercard, Microsoft, the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Omidyar Network and the Onassis Foundation. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings India and a Senior Advisor on Digital Inclusion at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 12:13:17 GMT

European Commission refuses to apologise after accusations of meddling in Croatia's elections
The European Commission refused to apologise on Monday after its president appeared in a party political video for the ruling party before elections in Croatia. Ursula von der Leyen was accused of meddling in the national vote and of breaching expectations of neutrality after the video for the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which won Sunday’s election, was posted at the weekend. The commission’s chief spokesman said on Monday the video clip, which was filmed in the EU executive’s studios by its staff, was meant as a contribution “in her personal capacity”. He told reporters at the daily press briefing in Brussels that “mistakes” were made, including the use of a backdrop featuring the Commission headquarters and the EU flag, but refused to say sorry. “Mistakes were made and the important thing is to make sure that such mistakes are not repeated,” he said, after numerous questions over whether Mrs von der Leyen would apologise for the gaffe. The spokesman blamed the video’s Croatian producers for adding a title reading European Commission President to the clip of Mrs von der Leyen. He said Mrs von der Leyen thought it was “”good thing for European democracy” for commissioners to have “an active political life”, provided they respected their code of conduct. The commission president was reported to the European Ombudsman, which investigates maladministration in the EU institutions, after breaking the long-standing taboo. “She wishes to ensure that the appropriate procedures are in place to avoid such an unintentional error creeping in again in the future,” the spokesman said. Croatia’s HDZ, which must now try and form a coalition government, is a member of the centre-right pan-EU European People’s Party, which counts Mrs von der Leyen as a member. Other EPP politicians, such as the leaders of Austria, Latvia and Bulgaria and Ireland former prime minister Leo Varadkar, as well as Croatia’s EU Commissioner Dubravka Šuica,, appeared in the video. Angela Merkel, an ally of Mrs von der Leyen, did not.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 12:03:43 GMT

What Arron Banks and 'the Bad Boys of Brexit' did next: joining up for election fight in New Zealand
The Bad Boys of Brexit are back! Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore have been hired by New Zealand's version of the UK Independence Party to help fight September's general election in a move bound to infuriate their Left-wing critics. A team from Mr Banks' Leave.EU campaign is advising Winston Peters' New Zealand First party on its social media campaign in a deal said to be worth a six figure sum. It comes just nine months after Mr Banks was cleared of any criminality by the National Crime Agency over £8 million in EU referendum campaign funding. Mr Banks, with Mr Wigmore, published a diary called The Bad Boys of Brexit charting their adventures during the 2016 campaign. A six-strong team from Leave.EU have been dispatched to Auckland with an instruction to increase New Zealand First's vote share to as high as 12 percent. The hope is for New Zealand First to double its MPs to 20 so the party can hold the balance of power in the country's 120-strong Parliament after the September 19 poll. New Zealand First's leader Winston Peters, and the country's deputy Prime Minister, surprisingly backed Labour party leader Jacinda Adern at the general election in 2017 and the pair are said to work well together. Mr Banks said that Ms Ardern - who he likened to "Jacinderella" with her party playing the role of "the ugly Sisters" - is being groomed for a bigger job at a supra-national body like the World Health Organisation. He said: "Our job is to get their vote share to 11 per cent, 12 per cent, 13 per cent and then Winston holds the traditional position of king maker." Mr Banks continued: "We have deployed our top social media team and data experts to do all the creative work, Andy and I are giving Winston strategic advice." He added: "Since 2016 we have known Winston, he is a huge supporter of the Commonwealth and watched first hand the referendum campaign. "He’s always been a more seasoned version of Farage with massive government experience. "He is one of very few current politicians that speaks fluent human and can relate to anyone, he’s in the same mould as Boris they speak truth on behalf of the ordinary people. He is always on the side of the people. "He has studied the way social media can be a useful channel when the mainstream media want to try and cancel what you have to say. "His strength, like Boris/Farage, is he has a direct conversation with the public and social media is the perfect platform to do precisely that. "We have deployed our top social media team and data experts to do all the creative work. Andy and I are giving Winston strategic advice." Mr Wigmore added: "I’m going to be on ground in New Zealand causing trouble - mischief, mayhem and guerrilla warfare in the New Zealand election - the bad boys are back."

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 12:02:11 GMT

China detains professor who criticised Xi over coronavirus
Chinese authorities on Monday detained a law professor who published essays criticising President Xi Jinping over the coronavirus pandemic and accusing him of ruling "tyrannically", according to friends of the man. Xu Zhangrun, a rare outspoken critic of the government in China's heavily censored academia, was taken from his home in suburban Beijing by more than 20 people, one of his friends said on condition of anonymity. Xu published an essay in February blaming the culture of deception and censorship fostered by Xi for the spread of the coronavirus in China.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 10:45:06 GMT

Russian journalist found guilty of 'justifying terrorism' over opinion piece
A Russian court has convicted a journalist of “justifying terrorism” after she wrote an opinion article suggesting a teenage suicide bomber was driven to the act by anger at the repression of law enforcement agencies. Svetlana Prokopyeva was on trial for a year over a 2018 radio piece in which she said the 17-year-old bomber "did not see any other way to express his protest." Prosecutors shocked Russia’s journalist community on Friday by asking the court to send the woman to prison for six years. The court in the north-western city of Pskov on Monday found Ms Prokopyeva guilty of justifying terrorism and fined her 500,000 rubles (some £5,000). The judge also seized her laptop and phone. Ms Prokopyeva told a crowd of applauding supporters outside the court that their campaigning was crucial in helping her to escape a prison sentence. She denied the charges and said she would appeal. Russian journalists have faced threats and intimidation in recent years, and newsrooms critical of the government have been disbanded under apparent pressure from the Kremlin Yet Ms Prokopyeva’s case marks a rare attempt to prosecute a journalist over an opinion piece In a column for the Ekho Moskvy radio station in Pskov, Ms Prokopyeva spoke about the political environment that drove Mikhail Zhlobitsky to blow himself up in the lobby of the FSB intelligence agency in the north-western city of Arkhangelsk in October 2018. Just minutes before he committed suicide, the 17-year old student issued a statement on a public messaging app saying that he was protesting against the FSB “which trumps up charges and tortures people." In a column that was ordered by the court to have been taken offline, Ms Prokopyeva wrote that a “a stern state with a violent law enforcement system that views punishing a criminal as more important than defending rights has bred this new generation of citizens.” “The boy who was born and grew up in Putin’s Russia did not see any other way to express his protest against torture and trumped-up charges.” She compared the attack to a decade of terrorist bombings in Russia in the late 19th century when young anarchists people to violence in protest heavy handed tactics and repression of the czar’s government.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 10:16:06 GMT

Katsina: The motorcycle bandits terrorising northern Nigeria
Insecurity has worsened in the north-west as kidnapping for ransom becomes a lucrative trade.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 09:56:09 GMT

Why Ending the Korean War Won't Be Easy
There are two approaches to ending the Korean War. The first sees the armistice agreement replaced with a peace treaty once North Korea has denuclearized; the second sees the Korean War declared over in order to encourage the North to denuclearize by eliminating the stimulus for its siege mentality. In other words, the former sees the end of the Korean War as an outcome of North Korean denuclearization, while the latter sees it as a catalyst for the denuclearization of North Korea.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 09:30:00 GMT

Czech volunteers develop functioning lung ventilator in days
Tomas Kapler knew nothing about ventilators — he’s an online business consultant, not an engineer or a medical technician. “It was a disturbing feeling for me that because of a lack of equipment the doctors had to decide whether a person gets a chance to live,” Kapler said. Working around the clock, he brought together a team of 30 Czechs to develop a fully functional ventilator — Corovent.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 08:22:44 GMT

The Proxy War Over a Top Biden Adviser
The rise of a former deputy CIA director on Joe Biden’s transition team is drawing furious objection from the left—to the shock of her colleagues in the Obama administration, who believe Avril Haines’ record in government ought to endear her to progressives.In late June, the Biden campaign announced that Haines, an attorney who served as deputy director of the CIA from 2013 to 2015, will helm the foreign policy and national security aspects of a potential Biden transition team.To activists, security experts, congressional aides who are more left than liberal—as well as mainstream human rights campaigners and at least one ex-senator—Haines’ elevation is worrisome or unacceptable. She approved an “accountability board” that spared CIA personnel reprisal for spying on the Senate’s torture investigators, and was part of the team that redacted their landmark report. After the administration ended, Haines supported Gina Haspel for CIA director, someone directly implicated in CIA torture, a decision that remains raw amongst progressive activists. Until late June, she consulted for the Trump-favorite data firm Palantir, which emerged from the CIA.“This is a pretty ominous signal about what is to come” in a Biden administration, said a Senate staffer who works on national security issues. “To have the deputy CIA director touted for her record in advancing human rights and respect for the rule of law I don’t think can be adequately squared with not only her record but her deliberate choices of advocacy.” To Obama administration alumni who are more liberal than left, the antipathy for Haines is stunning. Haines was perhaps the leading voice inside the administration for restricting the drone campaign. She was “a voice of restraint on all counterterrorism issues,” said Harold Koh, the former State Department legal adviser. As deputy national security adviser, she was principally responsible for increasing refugee admissions against massive nativist headwinds. Haines, her old colleagues say, kept pressing to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo Bay when others conceded defeat. “When someone doesn’t get everything they seek inside the U.S. government, critics can say ‘that person is legitimating policy by improving it,’” said Samantha Power, the former ambassador to the United Nations, “but the fact of the matter is that more innocent civilians would have died and a far wider set of targets would have been pursued without the changes that she secured.”The divide between liberal and left perceptions of Haines highlights a crossroads for the future of Democratic national security policy and for a prospective Biden presidency. Liberals tend to view Obama’s maintenance of the war on terror, however circumscribed, as unfortunate but understandable. A reinvigorated left views it as an epic, discrediting mistake. Behind its dissatisfaction with Haines is a fear that Biden will restore the Obama legacy, rather than expand its horizons to, among other things, rolling back the counterterrorism apparatus. “As a general matter, I am somebody who believes in good process and I try to keep myself out of the spotlight. I can understand people wondering whether I am someone who can help to promote big change where it is needed, and for what it is worth, I believe I’m exactly the right person for making such change where appropriate,” Haines told The Daily Beast in a rare interview. “Being someone who values good process doesn’t mean you don’t seek big shifts in policy—it just means that the change you seek, once achieved, is far more likely to be sustainable. And in a moment like the one we face today, with a president as unpredictable and disdainful of rational, evidence-driven decision-making as President Trump is, it wouldn’t be bad to have someone working to promote good process,” she continued. A sign of her values, she added, came from her current work at Columbia University’s Columbia World Projects to “bring research and scholarship to bear on fundamental challenges we are facing around the world, such as inequality, access to energy, climate change, and maternal health."Haines is not part of Biden’s foreign-policy inner circle, like former Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken; ex-Pentagon policy official Brian McKeon; Jake Sullivan, Biden’s vice-presidential national security adviser; and Carlyn Reichel, his vice-presidential foreign-policy speechwriter. The campaign says she won’t have a leading role staffing the administration, despite a perception to the contrary on the left. Instead, she’ll convert Biden’s campaign pledges on those subjects into policies for the first year of his presidency. Many expect her to get a senior position in the administration. "The transition operation will be focused on responsibly developing the readiness of a potential new administration to serve the American people,” said Ted Kaufman, the former senator in charge of Biden’s transition. Interviews with nine former Obama officials, as well as admirers in the human rights community, echoed with paeans to Haines’ warmth, diligence and commitment to the law. As State Department attorney during the late Bush administration, Haines unearthed and shepherded through the Senate 90 languishing treaties. “Without Avril, the Bush administration would not have had this very good record on treaties,” said John Bellinger, Koh’s predecessor as State Department legal adviser. “I can’t think of a bad thing to say about Avril, I just think she’s a superstar.” A detail to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put her on the radar of Biden, then the chairman. By late 2010, she transitioned to the White House, where she was deputy legal adviser before ascending to the legal adviser's job the next year. There she chaired the interagency lawyers’ group that would convene to consider the “targeted killing” enterprise—that is, drone strikes. She came to see it as operating without meaningful constraint and quickly partnered with White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, the CIA veteran. “We wanted to make sure that the counterterrorism program and any type of lethal strikes that we might take would be very sharply caverned within a framework that made certain stipulations [and] criteria before any strike was taken,” said Brennan. “We all approached it from our various portfolios in a manner that limited the number of times that strikes would be authorized. Avril and I bore the scars of a lot of the pushback that we received from counterterrorism proponents that wanted to have more latitude in carrying out strikes.”Koh, a contributor to the process, remembered Haines as a force for curbing the drones. “A lot of people characterize themselves as voices of restraint, but she really was. ‘That’s illegal, we’re not gonna do that,’ she would say. She showed guts,” Koh recalled.Haines remembered pressing for a process that would ensure drone strikes would occur “only in the rarest circumstances, when it’s absolutely necessary.”The result was Obama’s 2013 policy-planning guidance. It required “near certainty” that both someone targeted “is in fact the lawful target”—a standard that did not previously exist—and that civilians would not be killed. The drone attacks diminished. In 2010, the high-water mark of the bombardment, the CIA launched 122 strikes in Pakistan alone. After the guidance was issued, there were 61 Pakistan strikes in Obama’s entire second term. But while the drone attacks diminished, human rights groups, as well as relatives and survivors of drone strikes, disputed that civilians had stopped dying from the lethal activities in significant numbers. And while the drones were placed under restrictions, they persisted. Haines supported restraint. She did not, she said, support abolition, which she did not consider “realistic.” Her former colleagues say that the only one who could have decided on abolition was Obama. “The drone program existed and wasn’t going away. President Obama saw the risks of abuse in the program and tasked Avril with making it law-abiding,” said Power. “Avril sought to put a lethal instrument of U.S. power into a legal framework, to minimize the risk of civilian casualties, and to give a program shrouded in secrecy far more transparency.”Andrea Prasow, the acting Washington director of Human Rights Watch, has resisted the war on terror since its inception. She credited Haines with increasing transparency around the drone strikes—though, in 2016, the Obama administration released a civilian death tally that human rights groups considered a cynical undercount—and said Haines did not share the “just-trust-us approach, ‘we’re the good guys’” that she saw from other Obama officials. At the same time, Prasow continued, “I don’t know how you reconcile the drone program with anyone who believes in human rights and international law.”Haines said she “understood the concern expressed by some that the process that was put in place legitimized the program, but if you come to the conclusion that the program will remain in place, having a rigorous process and a clear, transparent legal framework that promotes accountability is critical, especially one we can live with as other countries begin to have access to such weapons.”Brennan, Obama’s second-term CIA director, took Haines, an outsider and a lawyer, to Langley as his deputy in 2013, “to challenge many conventional wisdom or thinking or practices within CIA.” Asked what Haines’ legacy at the agency was, Brennan called her a “tremendous mentor and role model to young officers, especially to women,” as well as aiding with a structural overhaul unveiled in 2015 and ensuring CIA lawyers understood Obama’s counterterrorism restrictions. A different former senior CIA official, however, immediately answered, “she had that shit-burger to deal with”—meaning the Senate intelligence committee’s torture investigation. Led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the years-long investigation found that the CIA torture was vastly more sadistic than known; useless for counterterrorism; and enveloped in an edifice of lies so extensive as to constitute a disinformation campaign against Congress and the public. The CIA, resisting those conclusions, took the fateful step of secretly accessing Senate investigators’ work product on a shared private network—enraging Feinstein—and requested the Justice Department prosecute lead investigator Daniel Jones. A CIA inspector general report said the agency personnel involved in the spying exhibited a “lack of candor” about the episode. Haines played two roles over the report. First, she was part of the CIA team, supported by the White House, that spent months negotiating with the Senate over how much of the report to declassify. It infuriated Feinstein and her allies, who saw the purpose of the exercise as concealing the report’s findings. “My recollection was that Avril was pushing as vigorously as she could for minimal redaction,” said Denis McDonough, Obama’s White House chief of staff. Those recollections are not shared by others in the process, who remember Haines pressing to obscure the Senate narrative. Haines would not comment about it for this story.“It was not my sense that her goal was to cover up torture,” said Human Rights Watch’s Prasow. “Was that the outcome? Sure.” Second, Brennan appointed an “accountability board” to assess the intrusion. Its findings clawed back the CIA inspector general’s assessment, found no reason to discipline those who spied on their Senate overseers, and criticized the Senate. Brennan recused himself, leaving Haines to accept the board’s conclusions, which she did in one of her last acts before returning to the White House in 2015 as deputy national security adviser. “I found the Board’s review and conclusions to be persuasive and consequently, I accepted their recommendations. I have no trouble believing that people disagreed with the Board’s conclusions or, for that matter, my acceptance of them,” Haines said. “Both Senate staff and CIA personnel felt passionate about the situation. Personnel on the agency side felt wronged, like the Senate staff had gone after them, and the people on the Senate side felt like the agency folks had spied on them. I honestly think both sides have a misimpression of the other side’s intent and I understand that others will not have come to the same conclusion. But again this has nothing to do with the RDI [Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation] report or the program and what I think about torture, which I believe is immoral and unacceptable.”Mark Udall was a Democratic senator from Colorado on the intelligence committee when it finished the torture report. Asked about Haines’ role with Biden, Udall said: “If our country is going to turn the page on the dark chapter of our history that was the CIA's torture program, we need to stop nominating and confirming individuals who led this terrible program and helped cover it up. I trust Joe Biden to ensure his administration's intelligence agencies understand the grievous mistakes the CIA committed through its torture program and to only nominate intelligence officials who are dedicated to changing the culture at the CIA.”Haines returned to the White House for what her colleagues consider perhaps her finest hour. The Syrian civil war and the so-called Islamic State prompted a dire refugee exodus. It also prompted a nativist backlash on both sides of the Atlantic. Republican governors, conflating ISIS with those fleeing them, refused to resettle refugees. Haines took charge of expanding the admissions. Ronnie Newman, a former NSC official, remembered Haines leveraging her CIA pedigree against intransigent security agencies. “She was able to say convincingly and persuasively not only we could live up to our humanitarian commitments but also keep the nation safe,” Newman said. “There were life and death consequences for people and that was what was great about working with her. Every refugee counted.” Haines’ work raised refugee admissions from 70,000 to 85,000. As the Obama administration wound down in fall 2016, she got the admissions totals raised again, to 110,000 for fiscal 2017. In a speech to Human Rights First, Haines framed embracing refugees as a counterterrorism measure, since “when we support and care for refugees, we contradict [extremists’] message.” Ben Rhodes, one of Obama’s chief foreign-policy aides, reflected, “Not a single human being besides Barack Obama did more than Avril to get more refugees into this country.” A record like that stunned Democrats when, in 2018, Haines joined a chorus of former intelligence officials supporting Gina Haspel for CIA director. To anti-torture activists, it was nauseating to permit someone who played a leading role in torture to run the CIA—and the inevitable consequence of suppressing the Senate report. As Democratic opposition to her nomination crested, the White House crowed over the ex-intelligence officials’ support. For many on the left, this moment defines Haines. “Even in the Trump era, with the supposed ‘Resistance’ rallying cry of congressional Democrats, that [Haines] went on the record and endorsed Haspel speaks to the depths of a commitment to a similarly lawless enterprise,” said the Senate staffer. Added the leader of a progressive nonprofit that works on national security issues who requested anonymity out of concern for professional reprisal, “Being where any decent person should be on a few issues doesn’t cancel out an endorsement of torturers.” Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, said, “Her support was used by the administration to legitimize the nomination, and that’s a black mark against Haines’ record.”Haines would not comment for this story about her support of Haspel. Sources familiar with her thinking on the episode said that she had come to see Haspel as an independent voice within CIA and thought that of anyone Trump would nominate to the position, Haspel would be best equipped to push back against inappropriate uses of the agency. In an April co-authored piece for Foreign Policy, Haines observed that Trump’s long-predicted politicization of the intelligence agencies has manifested, something many of Haspel supporters backed her to prevent. After the Obama administration ended, Haines took several academic and consulting positions. One of them was with Palantir, the data firm allied with Trump that, among other things, aided ICE in rounding up undocumented immigrants. According to Palantir, Haines consulted on promoting diversity within the company’s hiring from July 5, 2017 to June 23, shortly after her position with the Biden transition was announced. As The Intercept first reported, Palantir quickly disappeared from her Brookings Institution biography, smacking of a whitewash. Brookings told The Daily Beast that Haines’ office had requested an update scrubbed of non-active affiliations broader than Palantir. A Biden transition said Haines removed several affiliations from her bio, not just Palantir, after ending those affiliations as part of her onboarding to the transition. “The vast majority of my work for Palantir was related to diversity and inclusion, with a particular focus on gender. For the most part, this involved visiting with different offices, talking to those in the workforce about their experiences, occasionally mentoring some of the remarkable young women who work there and suggesting ways in which they might promote diversity and inclusion,” she said. “This is an issue I feel passionate about and on which we need to do better not just at the CIA but across the national security workforce in government.” Haines’ left critics consider her Palantir work egregious, swampy and a capstone for her career. “It’s interesting to do diversity for a company founded by Peter Thiel,” who has mused that womens’ political empowerment is a negative for “capitalist democracy,” observed Jeff Hauser of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.“Those who engage in revolving-door for-profit national security firms like Palantir, there’s something redolent of the corruption the progressive left is fighting against,” said the Senate staffer. “We should absolutely be able to expect that a Democratic national security leader will both be humane as relates to refugees—and also not cover up for torture, promote torturers, and take paychecks from some of the world’s most malevolent corporations,” the nonprofit leader added. More broadly, the concerns with Haines on the left underscore an exhaustion over Obama’s cautious embrace of the war on terror and a fear that Biden will continue it. Constraining the war on terror instead of dismantling it did nothing to confront the post-9/11 nativist security paranoia that Trump rode to power. Once he did, all the work Haines did to circumscribe the drone strikes vanished as Trump intensified the bombardment and returned it to the shadows. The 110,000-refugee ceiling she raised crashed to its foundations. All that remains is the war on terror. “When we look at the continuities between Bush and Obama, we should be concerned that we’re going to return in a Biden administration to a kind of status quo. A return to transparency and legality is hardly enough,” observed Nikhil Pal Singh of New York University, author of Race and America’s Long War. “That’s just handing the baton back and forth between two types of approaches that are deeply flawed, unjust and provide no durable security framework.”The leftmost Obama alumni want the Biden team to listen to the dissatisfaction and translate it into policy. "The main takeaway from this controversy is that the Biden campaign ought to reach out to progressives and hear them out on matters of foreign policy as much as it does on domestic social and economic matters,” said Rob Malley, president of the International Crisis Group and Haines’ former colleague on the NSC. Haines said that’s what she wants as well. “Yes, I’m absolutely open to it. There’s no question. What the Bush administration called the global war on terror and what the Obama Administration called the conflict with al Qaeda and associated forces, cannot simply exist forever on automatic,” she told The Daily Beast. “To the extent the concern would be ‘Is she somebody who represents just a return to the policies of the Obama administration, simply promoting constraint but not actually changing the landscape,’ that’s not a concern with me. We have to rethink things.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 07:41:51 GMT

,000 reward offered in Atlanta killing of 8-year-old girl
The shooting death of an 8-year-old girl in Atlanta prompted a ,000 reward for information as authorities searched Monday for at least two people who opened fire on the car she was riding in near a flashpoint of recent protests. Police identified the girl killed on Saturday night as Secoriea Turner. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms called for justice in Secoriea's death during an emotional news conference Sunday with the girl's grief-stricken mother.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 07:00:08 GMT

Egypt arrests doctors, silences critics over virus outbreak
A pharmacist picked up from work after posting online about a shortage of protective gear. A pregnant doctor arrested after a colleague used her phone to report a suspected coronavirus case. As Egyptian authorities fight the swelling coronavirus outbreak, security agencies have tried to stifle criticism about the handling of the health crisis by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 06:14:49 GMT

Families of Syria detainees hope for news amid US sanctions
Alaa Arnous and his family found the photo of his father Mohammed online last week, the first proof of his fate since he was seized by Syrian government forces seven years ago. The elder Arnous was among thousands of Syrians who, since their country’s civil war began in 2011, went missing into Syrian government prisons. Anguished relatives are poring over photos of torture victims from Syrian prisons, posted online by activists after the United States imposed heavy new sanctions on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad last month.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 05:33:02 GMT

With a view toward Iran, Israel launches spy satellite
Israel said it successfully launched a new spy satellite into space on Monday as its leaders hinted it was behind a massive fire at an Iranian nuclear site last week — potentially ratcheting up a long-running covert war. If Israel was responsible for the fire at the heavily fortified Natanz facility, it would mark another in a series of daring strikes against Iran’s nuclear program attributed to Israel, while also risking Iranian retaliation on either Israeli or Western targets. “The success of the Ofek 16 satellite very much increases our ability to act against Israel’s enemies, near and far alike," he told his Cabinet.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 05:21:13 GMT

Coast Guard alters training for incoming class due to virus
There will be nobody screaming in the face of 18-year-old Ellie Hiigel when she arrives Wednesday for training in advance of her first year at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and that has her mother a bit disappointed. The school in Connecticut, like other service academies and military training centers, has made major changes because of the coronavirus pandemic. Ellie Hiigel and the 266 other swabs will be arriving not as one large group, but in eight separate platoons spaced out throughout Wednesday.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 05:04:28 GMT

Iran says damage at nuclear site 'significant'
An accident at a nuclear complex in Iran caused significant damage and could slow the production of centrifuges used to enrich uranium, the country's atomic energy spokesman said. The incident happened on Thursday at a warehouse under construction at the Natanz complex in central Iran, but caused no casualties or radioactive pollution, according to the Islamic republic's nuclear body. Security officials called it an accident and said they had determined the cause, without providing any further explanation.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 04:40:12 GMT

Trump's leadership is tested in time of fear, pandemic
Not long after noon on Feb. 6, President Donald Trump strode into the elegant East Room of the White House. The night before, his impeachment trial had ended with acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate. “It was evil," Trump said of the attempt to end his presidency.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 04:23:41 GMT

AP FACT CHECK: Trump falsely says 99% of virus cases benign
President Donald Trump is understating the danger of the coronavirus to people who get it, as more and more become infected in the U.S. In his latest of many statements playing down the severity of the pandemic, Trump declared that 99% of cases of COVID-19 are harmless. Trump also sounded a dismissive note about the need for breathing machines.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 04:16:17 GMT

1 ad, 3 accents: How Democrats aim to win Latino votes
The Spanish-language ads for Joe Biden used the same slogan to contrast him with President Donald Trump — “los cuentos no pagan las cuentas,” a play on words that roughly means “telling stories won't pay the bills.” In Orlando, Florida, the accent was Puerto Rican. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is hoping to capture Florida and other pivotal states by pushing Latino turnout rates higher than when Hillary Clinton was defeated in 2016.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 04:13:21 GMT

Bucking China pressure, Taiwan, Somaliland establish ties

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 03:53:38 GMT

Prosecutors seek Friday court appearance for Epstein friend
Prosecutors on Sunday asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in New York for Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate to face charges she helped him recruit women to sexually abuse. British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, was arrested Thursday at a million estate on 156 acres that she purchased last December in Bradford, New Hampshire. Prosecutors have labeled her an “extreme risk of flight" and said they want her jailed until trial.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 02:01:13 GMT

Frederick Douglass statue vandalized in Rochester park
A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches, delivered in that city in 1852. Police said the statue of Douglass was taken on Sunday from Maplewood Park, a site along the Underground Railroad where Douglass and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom. In Rochester on July 5, 1852, Douglass gave the speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” in which he called the celebration of liberty a sham in a nation that enslaves and oppresses its Black citizens.

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 00:13:40 GMT

Lawyer: Remains of missing Texas soldier identified
Army investigators have identified the body of a soldier who vanished more than two months ago from a base in Texas, according to a lawyer for the soldier's family. Remains found last week buried near Fort Hood belong to Spc. Vanessa Guillén and Army officials informed her family in Houston Sunday, attorney Natalie Khawam told The Associated Press.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 22:53:25 GMT

Iran confirms damaged nuclear site was centrifuge facility
Iran on Sunday confirmed that a damaged building at the underground Natanz nuclear site was a new centrifuge assembly center, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iranian officials had previously sought to downplay the fire, which erupted early on Thursday, calling it only an “incident” that affected an “industrial shed.” A spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said Sunday that work had begun on the center in 2013 and it was inaugurated in 2018.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 20:41:42 GMT

Airstrikes hit Libya base held by Turkey-backed forces

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 19:34:24 GMT

China and Taiwan Could Be Headed Towards a Showdown. What Should America Do?
Hand it to CCP strongman Xi Jinping: he is a uniter. His bluster and saber-rattling may well unite Taiwanese behind the cause of independence. Beijing could respond quite aggressively. What would America do in response?

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 19:30:00 GMT

Israeli military says Gaza militants fire 3 rockets

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 16:46:33 GMT

Constitutional changes are the "right thing" for Russia - Putin

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 16:39:30 GMT

The Pandemic's Big Mystery: How Deadly Is the Coronavirus?
More than six months into the pandemic, the coronavirus has infected more than 11 million people worldwide, killing more than 525,000. But despite the increasing toll, scientists still do not have a definitive answer to one of the most fundamental questions about the virus: How deadly is it?A firm estimate could help governments predict how many deaths would ensue if the virus spread out of control. The figure, usually called the infection fatality rate, could tell health officials what to expect as the pandemic spreads to densely populated nations like Brazil, Nigeria and India.In even poorer countries, where lethal threats like measles and malaria are constant and where hard budget choices are routine, the number could help officials decide whether to spend more on oxygen concentrators or ventilators, or on measles shots and mosquito nets.The question became even more complex last month, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data suggesting that for every documented infection in the United States, there were 10 other cases on average that had gone unrecorded, probably because they were very mild or asymptomatic.If there are many more asymptomatic infections than once thought, then the virus may be less deadly than it has appeared. But even that calculation is a difficult one.On Thursday, after the World Health Organization held a two-day online meeting of 1,300 scientists from around the world, the agency's chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, said the consensus for now was that the IFR is about 0.6% -- which means that the risk of death is less than 1%.Although she did not note this, 0.6% of the world's population is 47 million people, and 0.6% of the U.S. population is 2 million people. The virus remains a major threat.At present, countries have very different case fatality rates, or CFRs, which measure deaths among patients known to have had COVID-19. In most cases, that number is highest in countries that have had the virus the longest.According to data gathered by The New York Times, China had reported 90,294 cases as of Friday and 4,634 deaths, which is a CFR of 5%. The United States was very close to that mark. It has had 2,811,447 cases and 129,403 deaths, about 4.6%.Those percentages are far higher rates than the 2.5% death rate often ascribed to the 1918 flu pandemic. Still, it is difficult to measure fatality rates during pandemics, especially at the beginning.In the chaos that ensues when a new virus hits a city hard, thousands of people may die and be buried without ever being tested, and certainly without them all being autopsied.It is never entirely clear how many died of the virus and how many died of heart attacks, strokes or other ills. That has happened in both New York City and in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.Normally, once the chaos has subsided, more testing is done and more mild cases are found -- and because the denominator of the fraction rises, fatality rates fall. But the results are not always consistent or predictable.Ten sizable countries, most of them in Western Europe, have tested bigger percentages of their populations than has the United States, according to Worldometer, which gathers statistics. They are Iceland, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Britain, Israel and New Zealand.But their case fatality rates vary wildly: Iceland's is less than 1%, New Zealand's and Israel's are below 2%. Belgium, by comparison, is at 16%, and Italy and Britain at 14%.Both figures -- the infection fatality rate and the case fatality rate -- can differ quite a bit by country.So far, in most countries, about 20% of all confirmed COVID-19 patients become ill enough to need supplemental oxygen or even more advanced hospital care, said Dr. Janet Diaz, head of clinical care for the WHO's emergencies program.Whether those patients survive depends on a host of factors, including age, underlying illnesses and the level of medical care available.Death rates are expected to be lower in countries with younger populations and less obesity, which are often the poorest countries. Conversely, the figures should be higher in countries that lack oxygen tanks, ventilators and dialysis machines, and where many people live far from hospitals. Those are also often the poorest countries.The WHO and various charities are scrambling to purchase oxygen equipment for poor and middle-income nations in which the coronavirus is spreading.And now, new factors are being introduced into the equation. For example, new evidence that people with Type A blood are more likely to fall deathly ill could change risk calculations. Type A blood is relatively rare in West Africa and South Asia, and very rare among the Indigenous peoples of South America.Before this past week's meeting, the WHO had no official IFR estimate, Oliver Morgan, the agency's director of health emergency information and risk assessment, said in an interview in early June.Instead, it had relied on a mix of data sent in by member countries and by academic groups, and on a meta-analysis done in May by scientists at the University of Wollongong and James Cook University in Australia.Those researchers looked at 267 studies in more than a dozen countries, and then chose the 25 they considered the most accurate, weighting them for accuracy and averaged the data. They concluded that the global IFR was 0.64%.The CDC relies on a "symptomatic case fatality ratio" that "is not necessarily equivalent to the number of reported deaths per reported cases." The best estimate for the United States is 0.4%, according to a set of planning scenarios released in late May. The agency did not respond to requests to explain how it arrived at that figure, or why it was so much lower than the WHO's estimate. By comparison, 0.4% of the United States population is 1.3 million people.The 25 studies that the Australian researchers considered the most accurate relied on very different methodologies. One report, for example, was based on diagnostic PCR tests of all passengers and crew aboard the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship that docked in Japan after it was overcome by the coronavirus. Another study drew data from an antibody survey of 38,000 Spaniards, while another included only 1,104 Swedes.The current WHO estimate is based on later, larger studies of how many people have antibodies in their blood; future studies may further refine the figure, Swaminathan said.But there is "a lot of uncertainty" about how many silent and untested carriers there are, Morgan of the WHO said.To arrive at the CDC's new estimate, researchers tested samples from 11,933 people for antibodies to the coronavirus in six U.S. regions. New York City reported 53,803 cases by April 1, but the actual number of infections was 12 times higher -- nearly 642,000, the agency estimated.New York City's prevalence of 7% in the CDC study was well below the 21% estimated in a state survey in April. But that number was based on people recruited at supermarkets, and so the results may have been biased toward people out shopping during a pandemic -- often the young, who have been less affected.The global fatality rates could still change. With one or two exceptions, like Iran and Ecuador, the pandemic first struck wealthier countries in Asia, Western Europe and North America where advanced medical care was available.Now it is spreading widely in India, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria and other countries where millions are crowded into slums, lockdowns have been relatively brief and hospitals have few resources.But the death rates may also shift in wealthier northern countries as winter approaches. Most of the spread of the virus in Europe and North America has taken place during mild or warm weather in the spring and summer.Many experts fear that infections and deaths will shoot up in the fall as colder weather forces people indoors, where they are more likely to infect one another. Discipline about wearing masks and avoiding breathing on one another will be even more important then.In each of the eight influenza pandemics to hit the United States since 1763, a relatively mild first wave -- no matter what time of year it arrived -- was followed by a larger, much more lethal wave a few months later, noted Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.More than a third of all the people killed by the Spanish flu, which lasted from March 1918 to late 1920, died in the stretch between September and December 1918 -- about six months after a first, relatively mild version of what may have been the same virus broke out in western Kansas."We will go much higher in the next 12 to 18 months," Osterholm said. Because this is a coronavirus, not influenza, it may not follow the same pattern, but it is "a much more efficient transmitter than influenza."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 15:36:09 GMT

Moscow Has a Field Day With Trump’s Fireworks at Mt. Russia-More
Kremlin-controlled Russian state media set out to tickle U.S. President Trump’s fragile ego amid falling ratings after his blustery appearance at Mount Rushmore on Friday. Mentioning that the American head of state had previously toyed with the idea he might be featured alongside Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln, Russia’s premier state media channel Rossiya-1 aired a graphic of Trump’s mug right up there on the mountain beside them. Given the frequent allusions on Russian state media to Trump as Moscow’s friend, even Moscow’s “agent” in the White House, maybe the Kremlin would like to see the enormous monument renamed Mount Russia-More. But there were signs on Saturday, July 4, that, for now, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are trying to keep their longstanding bromance in check, at least where the official record is concerned. Putin sent a telegram congratulating U.S. President Donald J. Trump on America’s Independence Day. Interesting move. By avoiding a phone call Putin also avoided any direct pressure to address reports about the Kremlin paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers and coalition forces in Afghanistan.Prior to the bounty leaks flooding out of the U.S. intelligence community, the calls between Trump and Putin had become unusually frequent, but those revelations put the brakes on the presidential chatter. Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Event to Sic Supporters on ‘Evil’ ProtestersTrump—who is at least as reluctant as Putin to discuss the matter—had also avoided calling to congratulate him on Russia’s nationwide vote for constitutional amendments that assure Putin the Russian presidency for life.The Kremlin described the vote as a “triumphant referendum” demonstrating nationwide confidence in Putin. But only a handful of foreign leaders called to congratulate him, and as they rang in from the presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and South Ossetia the impression of Putin as pariah for life was only heightened. While Trump was likely given a “Do not congratulate” input from his national security advisors, the old Chekist Putin can most certainly read between the lines. After all, Trump notoriously took Putin’s side in Helsinki, denied Russia’s proven interference in the U.S. elections, essentially abandoned U.S. bases in Syria for the benefit of the Russians, toyed publicly and divisively with the idea of re-admitting Russia to the G8, and threatened to remove nearly a third of U.S. troops from Germany—a midsummer night’s dream for Putin.Trump-centric Fox News and the GOP follow the lead of America’s most pro-Russian president, churning out talking points that increasingly benefit the Kremlin. Russian state media have aired so many of Tucker Carlson’s comments that the host of Russia’s state television program 60 Minutes Evgeny Popov lovingly described Carlson as “practically our co-host.” Likewise, instead of concocting its own divisive propaganda, TASS simply quotes Devin Nunes and Mike Pompeo, both of whom sought to find and punish the leakers who exposed the Kremlin’s alleged cash for kills program instead punishing Russia for putting a price on the heads of American soldiers.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 14:50:11 GMT

Virus, Floyd death merge in brutal blow to Black well-being
Doctors have known it for a long time, well before the resounding cries of “Black Lives Matter”: Black people suffer disproportionately. The stress of living with racism has very real, physical effects. Then came COVID-19 and George Floyd — one killing Black people in alarming numbers, the other shining a harsh light on systemic racism.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 14:07:11 GMT

Hachalu Hundessa: Ethiopia singer's death unrest killed 166
Protests over the killing of Hachalu Hundessa spread from Oromia, where he was seen as a hero.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 14:02:36 GMT

Sudan protesters remain camped in Darfur, seeking security

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 13:56:43 GMT

Iran mandates masks as public shrugs off resurgent virus
Iran on Sunday instituted mandatory mask-wearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus, even as its public increasingly shrugs off the danger of the COVID-19 illness it causes. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicized an image of himself in a mask in recent days, urging both public officials and the Islamic Republic's 80 million people to wear them to stop the virus's spread.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 13:18:39 GMT

7-year-old among 13 killed in weekend shootings in Chicago

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 13:10:43 GMT

Trump Cabinet members look to reassure battleground voters
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tromped through a strawberry festival in central Florida, detailing the government's new trade pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talked about foreign policy at a roundtable in south Florida. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler toured parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, where he boasted of the Trump administration's efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 12:34:58 GMT

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