Researchers develop software to find drug-resistant bacteria

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: THIS IS A MEDICAL ILLUSTRATION OF CLOSTRIDIOIDES DIFFICILE BACTERIA, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE, PRESENTED IN THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC) PUBLICATION ENTITLED, ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE THREATS IN... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF CDC

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Washington State University researchers have developed an easy-to-use software program to identify drug-resistant genes in bacteria.

The program could make it easier to identify the deadly antimicrobial resistant bacteria that exist in the environment. Such microbes annually cause more than 2.8 million difficult-to-treat pneumonia, bloodstream and other infections and 35,000 deaths in the U.S. The researchers, including PhD computer science graduate Abu Sayed Chowdhury, Shira Broschat in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Douglas Call in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, report on their work in the journal Scientific Reports.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria or other microorganisms evolve or acquire genes that encode drug-resistance mechanisms. Bacteria that cause staph or strep infections or diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia have developed drug-resistant strains that make them increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to treat. The problem is expected to worsen in future decades in terms of increased infections, deaths, and health costs as bacteria evolve to "outsmart" a limited number of antibiotic treatments.

"We need to develop tools to easily and efficiently predict antimicrobial resistance that increasingly threatens health and livelihoods around the world," said Chowdhury, lead author on the paper.

As large-scale genetic sequencing has become easier, researchers are looking for AMR genes in the environment. Researchers are interested in where microbes are living in soil and water and how they might spread and affect human health. While they are able to identify genes that are similar to known AMR-resistant genes, they are probably missing genes for resistance that look very unique from a protein sequence perspective.

The WSU research team developed a machine-learning algorithm that uses features of AMR proteins rather than the similarity of gene sequences to identify AMR genes. The researchers used game theory, a tool that is used in several fields, especially economics, to model strategic interactions between game players, which in turn helps identify AMR genes. Using their machine learning algorithm and game theory approach, the researchers looked at the interactions of several features of the genetic material, including its structure and the physiochemical and composition properties of protein sequences rather than simply sequence similarity.

"Our software can be employed to analyze metagenomic data in greater depth than would be achieved by simple sequence matching algorithms," Chowdhury said. "This can be an important tool to identify novel antimicrobial resistance genes that eventually could become clinically important."

"The virtue of this program is that we can actually detect AMR in newly sequenced genomes," Broschat said. "It's a way of identifying AMR genes and their prevalence that might not otherwise have been found. That's really important."

The WSU team considered resistance genes found in species of Clostridium, Enterococcus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and Listeria. These bacteria are the cause of many major infections and infectious diseases including staph infections, food poisoning, pneumonia, and life-threatening colitis due to C. difficile. They were able to accurately classify resistant genes with up to 90 percent accuracy.

They have developed a software package that can be easily downloaded and used by other researchers to look for AMR in large pools of genetic material. The software can also be improved over time. While it's trained on currently available data, researchers will be able to re-train the algorithm as more data and sequences become available.

"You can bootstrap and improve the software as more positive data becomes available," Broschat said.

###

The work was funded in part by the Carl M. Hansen Foundation.

US envoy to Israel: a hardliner on West Bank annexation

Issued on: 07/07/2020 - 

US ambassador to Israel David Friedman has a long history of supporting West Bank settlements that are considered illegal under international law MENAHEM KAHANA AFP/File

Jerusalem (AFP)

A fervent supporter of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the US envoy to Israel has emerged as a central figure in the uncertainty surrounding Israel's annexation plans in the Palestinian territory.

Ambassador David Friedman has, according to some experts, encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to act swiftly on annexation -- even more swiftly than the White House wants.

Friedman, a 61-year-old lawyer, was an enthusiastic supporter of the US embassy's 2018 move to Jerusalem and has a long history of supporting West Bank settlements, communities considered illegal under international law.

Before being named ambassador in 2017, he worked with an organisation called the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, which supports an illegal settlement outside the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Since taking up his post, Friedman has asserted Israel's "right" to annex West Bank territory.

Friedman also has a long-standing relationship with President Donald Trump, having represented Trump-linked companies in US bankruptcy proceedings.

The US president's controversial Middle East peace plan paves the way for Israel to annex roughly 30 percent of the West Bank as part of a larger package of proposals, including negotiations with the Palestinians on a future state.

- 'His own goals' -

The Palestinians have rejected negotiations on Trump's terms and some see Friedman as the main US voice pushing Israel to move forward unilaterally on annexations alone -- a move certain to cause international outrage.

"I think he is not representing exactly the US, but more his own opinion or goals," Nitzan Horowitz, an Israeli opposition lawmaker and head of the left-wing Meretz party, told AFP.

"He is pursuing a very obsessive agenda of annexation, which according to my knowledge and understanding, is not shared by most of his colleagues in Washington," Horowitz said, explaining that his information came from talks with multiple foreign and Israeli officials.

The US embassy declined to comment.

Netanyahu's centre-right coalition had set July 1 as the date it could begin acting on annexation under the terms detailed in Trump's plan.

When no implementation roadmap was announced on Israel's self-imposed kick-off date last week, speculation began circulating in Israeli media that US reticence about immediate action partly compelled Netanyahu to pull back.

Michael Oren, who served as Netanyahu's envoy to Washington, told AFP that the US position on annexation is split between Friedman's view and that of senior White House advisor Jared Kushner.

Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a leading architect of the peace proposals, sees the plan as an "organic whole", added Oren, an expert on US-Israeli affairs.

For Kushner, if Israel acts unilaterally on annexation it risks alienating regional players whose support for the broader plan is essential, especially Arab states in the Gulf theoretically responsible for financially supporting a future Palestinian state.

- Showing 'movement' -

Oren, who said he knows Friedman "fairly well", agreed that the ambassador wanted action on annexation independent of progress on the rest of the Trump plan.

But he downplayed the notion Friedman was motivated purely by religious zeal or a personal desire to see so-called Jewish Law applied in West Bank areas some Israelis refer to by the biblical terms "Judea and Samaria".

"Yes, (Friedman) is pro-settlement, yes he is pro-annexation," Oren said, warning that people wrongly attribute to the ambassador a desire "to annex the entire West Bank".

Friedman's motivations are partly tactical, added Oren.

He believes "you have to show movement on the peace programme or it is going to die like every other peace programme" and that moving ahead with annexation would in effect put the Trump plan in motion.

Friedman's view is that if the Palestinians "leave the (negotiating) table they cannot go unpunished," added Oren, who also advised former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the 1994 Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians.

Evidence of a Friedman-Kushner split was on display within days after Trump's plan was unveiled at the White House in January.

The ambassador told reporters that night that Israel "does not have to wait at all" before annexing West Bank territory, comments publicly walked back by Kushner days later.

© 2020 AFP

Yemen's starving children, grim legacy of six years of war

THIS IS OUR WAR TOO WE SELL ARMS TO THE SAUDI'S TO USE IN YEMEN

Issued on: 07/07/2020 - 

A medic holds a Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition, at a treatment centre in Yemen's northern Hajjah province ESSA AHMED AFP

Sanaa (AFP)

Masirah Saqer could barely open her eyes, as she struggled to swallow the milk her grandmother attempted to feed her with a syringe.

Nearby the cries of other malnourished children reverberated around the pink-walled hospital ward, a vivid reminder of the human cost of Yemen's devastating conflict, which drags into a seventh year on Tuesday.

Masirah, just short of three months old, was undergoing treatment at Al-Sabyine hospital's infant malnutrition department in the capital Sanaa.

Swaddled in a pink and white comforter, her tiny frame and slender limbs were dwarfed by the full-sized bed on which her grandmother sat as she tried to feed her.

The war in Yemen, the Arabian peninsula's poorest country, has mutated into what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

After years of protests and political crises that escalated into violent clashes, the conflict took a decisive turn on July 8, 2014.

Huthi rebels from the north pulled off a decisive victory in the battle for the city of Amran north of Sanaa, comprehensively defeating government troops.

The major battlefield win opened the way for the rebels to march on the capital and take it with ease -- but not without a dire human cost, with millions eventually pushed to the brink of starvation.

- Brink of famine -

Masirah was one of the many thousands of infants affected by the conflict.

Weighing just 2.4 kilograms (5.3 pounds), she suffered from acute malnutrition, her grandmother told AFP.

"We needed a medical checkup, milk, and food. If the medicines are available in the hospital, they give them to us, if not we have to buy them outside," she said.

Millions of children in Yemen now face starvation due to a lack of aid for the country, UNICEF said in June.

The long conflict has devastated the health system and displaced 3.3 million people who live in camps where cholera and other diseases are rife.

The humanitarian situation has worsened since Saudi Arabia intervened in March 2015, leading a coalition in support of government forces against the rebels, who are in turn backed by Riyadh's arch-rival Iran.

Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, including hundreds of children, in air strikes and raids.

- Serious shortages -

Yemen, a country with scarce clean water supplies, is now facing another threat -- the spread of the novel coronavirus. Officially, the respiratory disease has killed 330 people in the country.

Doctors at Al-Sabyine's malnutrition department, a facility with capacity for 25 patients, have warned that COVID-19 coupled with fuel shortages have worsened the situation and acted as a barrier to treatment.

Many parents fear their children are at risk of the deadly respiratory disease if they are hospitalised, said doctor Hazaa Abdallah al-Farah.

"Some people ... won't send their children to hospital any more" due to fears about the virus, he said.

But the true scale of the impact of coronavirus in the Huthi-controlled north of Yemen remains a mystery. The internationally recognised government accuses the rebels of a cover-up.

NGOs and the UN are braced for a catastrophe. UNICEF, the latter's children's agency, has called for $461 million to fund humanitarian work in Yemen and an additional $53 million to fight COVID-19.

Despite the urgent need, only 39 percent of the first sum and just 10 percent of the second have so far been amassed, UNICEF says.

The agency has also sounded the alarm over the reduction to its services on the ground.

In June, the UN raised just $1.35 billion of the $2.41 billion it was aiming to secure for Yemen during a virtual donor conference.

"They die in their homes unable to get to the health centre or hospital or a clinic because of their bad financial situation," said Amin al-Aizari, another doctor at Al-Sabyine.

"They need food," he said. "The children of Yemen die every hour and every minute."

© 2020 AFP

Tie for warmest June globally, Siberia sizzles: EU


Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Siberia and the Arctic Circle are prone to large year-on-year temperature fluctuations, but the persistence of this year's warm spell is very unusual 

MAXIM MARMUR AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

Temperatures soared 10 degrees Celsius above average in June across much of permafrost-laden Siberia, with last month in a dead heat for the warmest June on record globally, the European Union's climate monitoring network said Tuesday.

An Arctic hourly temperature record for the month -- 37 degrees Celsius -- was set on June 21 near Verkhoyansk in northeastern Russia, where a weather station logged a blistering 38C on the same day, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported.

The hourly record -- averaged across 60 minutes -- was one to two degrees above previously registered Arctic highs in 1969 and 1973.


Freakishly warm weather across large swathes of Siberia since January, combined with low soil moisture, have contributed to a resurgence of wildfires that devastated the region last summer, C3S reported.

Both the number and intensity of fires in Siberia and parts of Alaska have increased since mid-June, resulting in the highest carbon emissions for the month -- 59 million tonnes of CO2 -- since records began in 2003.

"Last year was already by far an unusual, and record, summer for fires in the Arctic Circle," said Mark Parrington, senior scientist at the EU's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), warning of "intense activity" in the coming weeks.

Copernicus has said that "zombie" blazes that smouldered through the winter may have reignited.

Globally, June 2020 was more than half a degree Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average for the same month, and on a par with June 2019 as the warmest ever registered.

Siberia and the Arctic Circle are prone to large year-on-year temperature fluctuations, but the persistence of this year's warm spell is very unusual, said C3S director Carlo Buontempo.

- Permafrost 'carbon bomb' -

"What is worrisome is that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world," he said in a statement.

Across the Arctic region, average temperatures have risen by more than two degrees Celsius since the mid-19th century, twice the global average.

Despite lower-than-average temperatures in its western reaches, the whole of Siberia -- larger than the United States and Mexico combined -- was more than 5C above normal for June, according to C3S satellite data.

The softening of once solid permafrost -- stretching across Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada -- has upended indigenous communities and threatens industrial infrastructure, especially in Russia.

A massive diesel spill into rivers near the city of Norilsk, Russia resulted when a tank at a power plant built on melting permafrost collapsed in late May.

"Widespread permafrost thaw is projected for this century," the UN's climate science panel, the IPCC, said in a landmark report last year on the world's cryosphere, or frozen zones.

"The majority of Arctic infrastructure is located in regions where permafrost thaw is projected to intensify by mid-century."

Soils in the permafrost region across Russia, Alaska and Canada hold twice as much carbon -- mostly in the form of methane and CO2 -- as the atmosphere, more than 1.4 trillion tonnes.

One tonne of carbon is equivalent to 3.65 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

© 2020 AFP

'We're next': Hong Kong security law sends chills through Taiwan


Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

A woman in Taipei walks past a billboard promoting democracy for Hong Kong Sam Yeh AFP

Taipei (AFP)

The imposition of a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong has sent chills through Taiwan, deepening fears that Beijing will focus next on seizing the democratic self-ruled island.

China and Taiwan split in 1949 after nationalist forces lost a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists, fleeing to the island which Beijing has since vowed to seize one day, by force if necessary.

"The law makes me dislike China even more," 18-year-old student Sylvia Chang told AFP, walking through National Taiwan University in Taipei.


"They had promised 50 years unchanged for Hong Kong but they are getting all the more heavy-handed... I am worried Hong Kong today could be Taiwan tomorrow."

Over the years China has used a mixture of threats and inducements, including a promise Taiwan could have the "One Country, Two Systems" model that governs Hong Kong, supposedly guaranteeing key civil liberties and a degree of autonomy for 50 years after the city's 1997 handover.

Both Taiwan's two largest political parties long ago rejected the offer, and the new security law has incinerated what little remaining faith many Taiwanese may have had in Beijing's outreach.

Some now fear even transiting through Hong Kong, worried that their social media profiles could see them open to prosecution under the legislation.

The law "makes China look so bad, distancing themselves even further from Hong Kongers, not to mention people across the strait in Taiwan", Alexander Huang, a political analyst at Tamkang University in Taipei, told AFP.

- 'Hong Kong today, Taiwan tomorrow' -

Beijing has taken an especially hard line towards Taiwan since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), ramping up military, economic and diplomatic pressure.

Tsai views Taiwan as a de facto independent nation and not part of "one China".

But the pressure campaign has done little to endear Taiwan's 23 million people.

In January, Tsai won a second term with a historic landslide and polls consistently show a growing distrust of China.

A record 67 percent now self-identify as "Taiwanese" instead of either Taiwanese-Chinese or Chinese -- a ten percent increase on the year before -- according to a routine poll conducted by the National Chengchi University.

In 1992, that figure was just 18 percent.

In recent decades Taiwan has morphed from a brutal autocracy into one of Asia's most progressive democracies.

Younger Taiwanese tend to be especially wary of its huge authoritarian neighbour.

Social media is filled with messages of support for Hong Kong's democracy movement. Some back Taiwanese independence, or highlight China's rights abuses in regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang.

Wendy Peng, a 26-year-old magazine editor who said she often shared pro-Hong Kong democracy messages on social media, said she would now avoid visiting the city.

"The national security law makes me wonder how far would China go. Right now I don't see a bottom line and there's probably none. I think it's possible they will target Taiwan next," she said.

- Universal jurisdiction -

Peng's fears are not unfounded.

As well as allowing China's security apparatus to set up shop openly in Hong Kong for the first time, Beijing's security law claims universal jurisdiction.

Article 38 says security crimes can be committed anywhere in the world by people of any nationality.

Hong Kong police have made clear that support for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet or Xinjiang independence is now illegal.

University employee Patrick Wu, 31, said he would now avoid even transiting through Hong Kong.

"It's like a blanket law, whatever China wants to define and interpret," he told AFP. "I don't know if the 'Likes' or messages I have left on social media will be prosecutable."

Last week Chen Ming-tong, the minister for Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, accused Beijing of aiming to become a supremely powerful "heavenly empire" by ordering "subjects all over the world" to obey its law.

Lin Fei-fan, deputy secretary-general of the ruling DPP, warned that "regular Taiwanese people" might now face arrest in "manufactured cases" if they went to Hong Kong.

He cited China's jailing of Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-che under the mainland's own subversion laws.

Lee was arrested in 2017 during a trip to the mainland and held incommunicado for months before his eventual fate was made public.

Sung Chen-en, a political commentator and columnist in Taipei, said Beijing's new security law "creates a great uncertainty about what can be said" far beyond Hong Kong's borders.

"If everyone is watching his own expression of opinions, it creates a chilling effect on democracy," he told AFP.

"If everybody is exercising constraint, there is no freedom at all."

© 2020 AFP

Hong Kong police granted sweeping security surveillance powers

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Hong Kong police will be able to conduct a search without a warrant if they deem a threat to national security is 'urgent'

 ISAAC LAWRENCE AFP

Hong Kong (AFP)

Hong Kong's police have been granted vastly expanded powers to conduct warrantless raids and surveillance -- as well as issue internet takedown notices -- under Beijing's new national security law.

The announcement comes as major tech companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were suspending requests from the Hong Kong government and law enforcement authorities for information on users.

The new provisions, disclosed late Monday in a 116-page document, remove much of the judicial oversight that previously governed police surveillance powers.


Officers will be able to conduct a search without a warrant if they deem a threat to national security is "urgent".

The city's police chief has also been granted powers to control and remove online information if there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect the data breaches the national security law.

Police can order internet firms and service providers to remove the information and seize their equipment, with fines and up to one year in jail if they refuse to comply.

The companies are also expected to provide identification records and decryption assistance.

Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam has been given broad oversight over covert surveillance powers for national security cases, including communication interception, according to the document.

The police chief can ask international political organisations -- including those in Taiwan -- to supply information on their activities in Hong Kong including personal data, sources of income and expenditure.

The powers are controversial because Beijing's new national security law has effectively outlawed certain political views in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, such as support for independence or greater autonomy.

Legal experts said the new surveillance powers were broad and lacked proper oversight.

"The new rules are scary, as they grant powers to the police force that are normally guarded by the judiciary," barrister Anson Wong Yu-yat told the South China Morning Post.

"For example, in emergency and special circumstances police do not need a warrant under one rule, but it never explains what it means by special circumstances. They can also ask anyone to delete messages online only because it's 'likely' to be violating the law."

The national security law is the most radical shift in how Hong Kong is run since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.

The content was kept secret until the moment it was imposed on Hong Kong one week ago, bypassing the city's legislature.

It targets crimes under four categories: subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces, and gives China jurisdiction in some especially serious cases.

Legal analysts, critics and many western nations warn the broadly-worded categories criminalise many peaceful dissenting opinions.

Beijing says the law will restore stability after a year of pro-democracy protests.

Hong Kong police granted sweeping security surveillance powers under Beijing's new law

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Police officers escort a prison van which is carrying Tong Ying-kit, the first person charged under the new national security law, as he leaves West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts, in Hong Kong, China July 6, 2020. © REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Hong Kong's police have been granted vastly expanded powers to conduct warrantless raids and surveillance -- as well as issue internet takedown notices -- under Beijing's new national security law.

The announcement comes as major tech companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were suspending requests from the Hong Kong government and law enforcement authorities for information on users.

TikTok said late Monday it is stopping its popular video snippet-sharing app from working in Hong Kong due to "recent events."

TikTok has consistently denied sharing any user data with authorities in China, and was adamant it did not intend to begin to agree to such requests.

The new provisions, disclosed late Monday in a 116-page document, remove much of the judicial oversight that previously governed police surveillance powers.


Officers will be able to conduct a search without a warrant if they deem a threat to national security is "urgent".

The city's police chief has also been granted powers to control and remove online information if there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect the data breaches the national security law.

Police can order internet firms and service providers to remove the information and seize their equipment, with fines and up to one year in jail if they refuse to comply.

The companies are also expected to provide identification records and decryption assistance.


🇭🇰🔊🇨🇳Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam says the highly controversial new security las is not all doom and gloom for the city. The newly revealled detail includes sweeping new powers for the police our correspondent @ofarry told me. #HongKong #F24 pic.twitter.com/KRvNXRTlIn— Stuart Norval (@StuartNorval) July 7, 2020

Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam has been given broad oversight over covert surveillance powers for national security cases, including communication interception, according to the document.

The police chief can ask international political organisations -- including those in Taiwan -- to supply information on their activities in Hong Kong including personal data, sources of income and expenditure.

The powers are controversial because Beijing's new national security law has effectively outlawed certain political views in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, such as support for independence or greater autonomy.

Legal experts said the new surveillance powers were broad and lacked proper oversight.

"The new rules are scary, as they grant powers to the police force that are normally guarded by the judiciary," barrister Anson Wong Yu-yat told the South China Morning Post.

"For example, in emergency and special circumstances police do not need a warrant under one rule, but it never explains what it means by special circumstances. They can also ask anyone to delete messages online only because it's 'likely' to be violating the law."

The national security law is the most radical shift in how Hong Kong is run since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.

The content was kept secret until the moment it was imposed on Hong Kong one week ago, bypassing the city's legislature.

It targets crimes under four categories: subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces, and gives China jurisdiction in some especially serious cases.

Legal analysts, critics and many western nations warn the broadly-worded categories criminalise many peaceful dissenting opinions.

Beijing says the law will restore stability after a year of pro-democracy protests.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Hong Kong leader says will 'vigorously implement' security law


Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam denied allegations the security law would stifle freedoms 

ROFLMAO

Anthony WALLACE AFP

Hong Kong (AFP)

Hong Kong's leader Tuesday defended Beijing's new security law for the financial hub, saying it would restore stability and confidence as she vowed to "vigorously implement" the controversial legislation.

Speaking at a press conference a week after China imposed the law on the semi-autonomous city, Chief Executive Carrie Lam combined warnings with assurances to Hong Kong's 7.5 million residents.

"The Hong Kong government will vigorously implement this law," she said. "And I forewarn those radicals not to attempt to violate this law, or cross the red line, because the consequences of breaching this law are very serious."


She denied allegations the law would stifle freedoms and hit out at what she said were "fallacies" written about its impact.

"Surely this is not doom and gloom for Hong Kong," Lam said.

"I'm sure with the passage of time... confidence will grow in 'One Country, Two Systems' and in Hong Kong's future," she added, naming the model that allows Hong Kong to keep certain liberties and autonomy from the mainland.

The national security law is the most radical shift in how Hong Kong is run since the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.

The content was kept secret from Hong Kongers until the moment it was imposed one week ago, bypassing the city's legislature.

It targets crimes under four categories: subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces, and gives China jurisdiction in some especially serious cases.

Legal analysts, critics and many western nations warn the broadly-worded categories criminalise many peaceful dissenting opinions.

The Hong Kong government has made clear that advocating independence or greater autonomy for the city is now illegal, and at least ten arrests have already been made under the new law.

Hong Kongers have scrubbed social media accounts, businesses have taken down protest displays while libraries and schools have removed certain books from their shelves.

Lam rejected suggestions the law had alarmed residents and said the legislation was designed to protect the freedoms of the majority.

"I have not seen widespread fears amongst Hong Kong people in the last week," she said.

"This national security law is actually relatively mild."

Her press conference came hours after the government unveiled vastly expanded powers to conduct warrantless raids and surveillance -- as well as issue internet takedown notices -- under the law.

These rules were announced in a document released after the inaugural meeting on Monday of a new national security commission, which is headed by Beijing's top envoy to the city.

On Tuesday Lam said all future workings of the committee would be kept secret.© 2020 AFP

China censors Hong Kong internet, US tech giants resist
Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Certain political views, slogans and signs became illegal in Hong Kong overnight with the passage of China's new national security law for the city

ISAAC LAWRENCE AFP

Hong Kong (AFP)

China has unveiled new powers to censor Hong Kong's internet and access user data using its feared national security law -- but US tech giants have put up some resistance citing rights concerns.

The online censorship plans were contained in a 116-page government document released on Monday night that also revealed expanded powers for police, allowing warrantless raids and surveillance for some national security investigations.

China imposed the law on semi-autonomous Hong Kong a week ago, targeting subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces -- its wording kept secret until the moment it was enacted.


Despite assurances that only a small number of people would be targeted by the law, the new details show it is the most radical change in Hong Kong's freedoms and rights since Britain handed the city back to China in 1997.

Late Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke out against "Orwellian" moves to censor activists, schools and libraries since the law was enacted.

"Until now, Hong Kong flourished because it allowed free thinking and free speech, under an independent rule of law. No more," Pompeo said.



- Restore stability -

Under its handover deal with the British, Beijing promised to guarantee until at least 2047 certain liberties and autonomy not seen on the authoritarian mainland.

Years of rising concerns that China's ruling Communist Party was steadily eroding those freedoms birthed a popular pro-democracy movement, which led to massive and often violent protests for seven months last year.

China has made no secret of its desire to use the law to crush that democracy movement.

"The Hong Kong government will vigorously implement this law," Chief Executive Carrie Lam, the city's Beijing-appointed leader, told reporters on Tuesday.

"And I forewarn those radicals not to attempt to violate this law, or cross the red line, because the consequences of breaching this law are very serious."

With pro-democracy books quickly pulled out of libraries and schools, the government signalled in the document released on Monday night that it would also expect obedience online.

Police were granted powers to control and remove online information if there were "reasonable grounds" to suspect the data breaches the national security law.

Internet firms and service providers can be ordered to remove the information and their equipment can be seized. Executives can also be hit with fines and up to one year in jail if they refuse to comply.

The companies are also expected to provide identification records and decryption assistance.

- Big tech unease -

However the biggest American tech companies offered some resistance.

Facebook, Google and Twitter said Monday they had put a hold on requests by Hong Kong's government or police force for information on users.

Facebook and its popular messaging service WhatsApp would deny requests until it had conducted a review of the law that entailed "formal human rights due diligence and consultations with human rights experts," the company said in a statement.

"We believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and support the right of people to express themselves without fear for their safety or other repercussions," a Facebook spokesman said.

Twitter and Google told AFP that they too would not comply with information requests by Hong Kong authorities in the immediate future.

Twitter told AFP it had "grave concerns regarding both the developing process and the full intention of this law".

Tik Tok, which is owned by Chinese company Byte Dance, announced it was pulling out of Hong Kong altogether.

"In light of recent events, we've decided to stop operations of the TikTok app in Hong Kong," TikTok told AFP.

Tik Tok has become wildly popular amongst youngsters around the world. However many Hong Kongers have distrusted it because of its Chinese ownership.

ByteDance has consistently denied sharing any user data with authorities in China, and was adamant it did not intend to begin to agree to such requests.

In less than a week since the law was enacted, democracy activists and many ordinary people have scrubbed their online profiles of anything that China may deem incriminating.

Police officers will be able to conduct a search without a warrant if they deem a threat to national security is "urgent".

"The new rules are scary, as they grant powers to the police force that are normally guarded by the judiciary," barrister Anson Wong Yu-yat told the South China Morning Post.

© 2020 AF

SHOOTING THE MESSENGER 

Malaysia probes Al Jazeera documentary about migrant arrests
Al Jazeera's documentary about migrant workers angered Malaysian authorities

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

 AL-JAZEERA/AFP/File

Kuala Lumpur (AFP)

Malaysian police said Tuesday they are investigating an Al Jazeera documentary about the arrests of undocumented migrants during the coronavirus lockdown after officials denounced it for damaging the country's image.

The move comes after several activists, journalists and opposition figures have been put under investigation recently in what critics say is a bid to silence dissent.

The documentary by the Qatar-based broadcaster, "Locked Up in Malaysia's Lockdown", focused on the detention of hundreds of migrants found without valid documents in areas under strict lockdowns.


Authorities defended the May arrests as necessary to protect public health, but rights groups warned that putting the foreigners in detention centres could increase the risk of infection.

National police chief Abdul Hamid Bador said an investigation had been launched after complaints were lodged about the 25-minute documentary.

Officials would examine whether the report "contains elements of sedition, or any other offences, under the laws of the country", he told a press conference.

"We will be calling them soon for questioning... We will decide on the charges after we question them."

Al Jazeera, which broadcast the documentary last week, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The programme sparked a backlash online, and ministers have lined up to criticise it -- with Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Monday demanding an apology from Al Jazeera.

He said the broadcaster had "reported incorrect things, accusing us of being racist".

Concerns about worsening freedom of expression have been growing in Malaysia since the collapse of a reformist government in February and the return of a scandal-plagued party to power.

One of the country's leading independent news portals, Malaysiakini, faces contempt of court proceedings next week over reader comments on its site that were critical of the judiciary.

Malaysia is home to large numbers of migrants from poorer countries -- including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar -- who work in industries ranging from manufacturing to agriculture.

© 2020 AFP

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM POISION FOR PROFIT

French firm accused of selling deadly diet pill faces millions in fines as trial ends
Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

French lawyer Martine Verdier (L) uses tissue after washing her hands with hydroalcoholic gel next to French pulmonologist Irene Frachon (R), at Paris' courthouse on June 9, 2020, prior to a hearing of the trial of France's medicines watchdog and pharmaceutical firm Servier on fraud and negligence charges linked to the deaths of hundreds of people who were prescribed a diabetes pill for weight loss despite safety concerns. © Philippe Lopez, AFPText by:NEWS WIRES
4 min

Accused of favoring profits over patients’ lives, French pharmaceutical company Servier Laboratories is facing millions of euros in potential fines and damages after a huge trial involving 6,500 plaintiffs who say the company allowed a diabetes drug to be widely and irresponsibly prescribed as a diet pill — with deadly consequences.
ADVERTISING


The popular drug, called Mediator, became one of France’s biggest modern health scandals, and the trial is wrapping up Monday after more than six months of proceedings targeting both Servier and France’s medicines watchdog. Servier says it didn’t know about the drug’s risks.

The trial was interrupted by another health crisis: the coronavirus, which has prompted new scrutiny of health authorities and of drugs being rushed out as treatments or vaccines.

In the 33 years that Mediator was on the market, it was suspected in 1,000-2,000 deaths among millions who took it as an appetite suppressant, according to a 2010 study. Doctors linked it to heart and lung problems.

One doctor flagged concerns as far back as 1998, and testified that he was bullied into retracting them. Facing questions about the drug's side effects from medical authorities in Switzerland, Spain and Italy, Servier withdrew it from those markets between 1997 and 2004.


But it took an independent investigation by another worried French doctor before the company suspended sales in its main market in France in 2009. It wasn't sold in the U.S.

'Deadly poison'

“There are men and women who put a deadly poison on the market,” the whistleblower, Dr. Irene Frachon, told the court. She published a book detailing her findings, and her efforts were profiled in a 2016 film, “The Girl from Brest.”

Servier is accused of manslaughter, involuntary injury, fraud, influence trading and other charges. Investigating magistrates concluded that Servier for decades covered up Mediator’s effects on patients. The national medicines agency is suspected of colluding in masking its dangers.

Lawyers for Servier argued that the company wasn't aware of the risks associated with Mediator before 2009, and said the company never pretended it was a diet pill. They argued for acquittal.

Prosecutors asked last week for nearly 15 million euros (around $16.9 million) in fines for Servier, and a three-year prison sentence and 278,000-euro fine for the only surviving Servier executive accused of involvement, Dr. Jean-Philippe Seta.

In addition, the 6,500 plaintiffs want a total of 1 billion euros in damages.

Lisa Boussinot, whose mother died after taking Mediator, wants more — she wants the company’s labs shut down. She said she wants a strong signal “that shows that our justice system protects us" from powerful companies that don't brook criticism.

Prosecutor Anne Le Guilcher asked for a fine of 200,000 euros against the French medicines agency, accusing it of failing to take adequate measures to protect patients and of being too close to Servier.

The agency, since reformed and renamed, is accused of manslaughter by negligence and causing unintentional harm. The agency's lawyers said it acknowledged some responsibility but said Servier misled medical authorities.

Also on trial are 12 representatives of the pharma giant and the medicines agency.

“Patient safety was not at the heart of Servier’s policy,” the prosecutor told the court last week, saying the drug should have been withdrawn in the 1990s. “The firm was only interested in money.”

The central witness in the extensive trial was Frachon, a pulmonologist in the western city of Brest who investigated Mediator's effects after treating an obese patient in 2007 who later died.

“What I did was not a scientific feat, it was just a clinical trial. As I did not have the correct information from Servier, I turned into an investigator, “ Frachon said. She maintains that Servier knew about problems with the drug since 1993.

After she spoke out, she said, “One of the drug agency experts said to me, you’re going to pay for this. He wanted to punish me ... Servier’s pressure was omnipresent. I become persona non-grata in many scientific events.”

She wasn’t the first to ask questions about Mediator.

In 1998, Dr. Georges Chiche, a cardiologist in Marseille, received an overweight colleague with heart problems who had been prescribing himself Mediator for weight loss.

Chiche filed a report expressing his concerns, and testified that two people from Servier pressured him to withdraw it. Then, Chiche told the court, a former professor told him the same thing, calling his report shoddy “nonsense.”

“After that, I didn’t report again,” he said.

He later learned that his former professor had organized jazz festivals paid for by Servier.

The company's CEO and founder, Jacques Servier, was indicted early in the legal process but died in 2014.


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The exceptional trial was spread across five rooms at the Paris courthouse, connected by video link, and nearly 400 lawyers were working the case.

It’s expected to take several months to reach a verdict, expected early next year.

(AP)

Climate change blamed for surge in India's deadly lightning strikesIssued on: 06/07/2020  

 

Lightning strikes have killed 147 people in the last ten days in the north Indian state of Bihar local authorities said Sunday July 5, 2020. © AFP / FRANCE 24
Text by:FRANCE 24
Video by:Sam BALL

Lightning strikes have killed 147 people in just ten days in the north Indian state of Bihar, local authorities said Sunday, an unprecedented surge in deaths caused by lightning that has been blamed on climate change.
The latest deaths bring the number of those killed by lightning in the state to around 215 since late March, already surpassing the total number of deaths for the whole of last year.

Lightning strikes are common in India during the monsoon season but the season in Bihar, which typically runs from June to September, has only just begun and authorities have warned of more thunderstorms to come.

The deadly trend has been blamed on rising temperatures caused by climate change.

Elevated heat and excessive moisture are causing large-scale instability in the atmosphere, fuelling thunder and lightning storms, Bihar agrometeorologist Abdus Sattar told AFP.

The last decade was the hottest on record in India, with temperatures averaging 0.36 degrees above normal. The rising temperatures have been linked to increasingly frequent heatwaves followed by delayed but more intense monsoons.

A report last year from India’s Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council warned the changing weather patterns are making deadly lightning strikes “the new normal” in many parts of the country.

US lawmakers, ALL DEMOCRATS,press Colombia on killings of rights activists

Issued on: 06/07/2020

Women take part in a protest against violence in Medellin, Colombia, 

in June 2020 JOAQUIN SARMIENTO AFP/File
WITH THE DISBANDING OF FARC ALL VIOLENCE IS STATE VIOLENCE

INCLUDING DEATH SQUADS AND RIGHT WING MILITIAS
Washington (AFP)

Nearly 100 Democratic lawmakers on Monday urged President Donald Trump's administration to press Colombia over attacks on rights activists and warned that US assistance should not contribute to surveillance.

A UN report earlier this year found that 108 human rights defenders were killed last year in Colombia, with activists of indigenous and African descent hit especially hard.

"Colombia is now the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders," the 94 members of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

They called for pressure on conservative President Ivan Duque, a close US ally, to "stop this tragedy."

"We urge you, Mr. Secretary, to ensure that all agencies of the United States speak with one clear voice to condemn these ever escalating murders," said the letter spearheaded by Representatives Jim McGovern and Mark Pocan, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The lawmakers called for the United States "to press the Duque administration to take the necessary steps to identify and prosecute the intellectual authors of these crimes and dismantle the criminal structures that protect them."

They also warned they were watching the nature of US aid, which amounts to $528 million in the current fiscal year, after accounts that Colombian intelligence has spied on activists and journalists.

US financial help must not "assist, aid or abet such illegal surveillance, now or in the future," they wrote.

Colombia in 2016 signed a landmark peace agreement with FARC rebels that end a half-century of conflict.

But security remains dangerously lax in impoverished areas formerly controlled by the rebels as they lay down their arms.

The lawmakers said that illegal arms groups were filling a vacuum amid the COVID-19 pandemic, "further increasing the vulnerability of targeted rights defenders and local leaders."

© 2020 AFP

Lockdown in Colombia leads to spike in domestic violence
WOMEN / CORONAVIRUS - 07/06/2020   

Screen grab of a video showing a man violently abusing a woman in Puerto Wilches, Colombia. The video was posted online on June 27.
Across Colombia people reacted in horror to two videos that circulated widely on social media in June, showing men violently abusing women. But the videos were just the tip of the iceberg: Statistics show a sharp increase in domestic violence since the country went into lockdown, making it even harder for women to escape or report abuse.

The first video shows a man entering a home and dragging a woman out by her hair and then, still gripping her hair, spinning her around him several times, her back on the ground. You can hear the woman screaming. When she eventually gets up, starts to hit her. The video was filmed in Puerto Wilches, in the northern Colombian department of Santander, and was posted online on June 27.

No sé cómo y por qué pasan estas cosas. Qué Ira ????
Esto fue en Santander. pic.twitter.com/p7oIl7THAo La Paz, Dijo Colombianito.???? ???????? ???? (@LaPazColombiani) June 27, 2020

This video was posted online on June 27.

People were shocked by the abuser’s violence. They also expressed anger that the person filming the scene did not intervene. A few days later, local authorities announced that the man in the video had been jailed and that he had had previous domestic violence convictions.

A few days before the video emerged, another video showing domestic violence circulated widely on social media in Colombia. This video, filmed in Pueblo Bello in the northern Colombian department of Cesar, shows a man sitting on the side of the road next to a parked car, holding a struggling woman across his knees.

???????????????????? ????????????????????????????????
Autoridades en Pueblo Bello, - Cesar ayuden a esta mujer victima de su marido, quien es un locutor de radio Edgardo José Carreño Pavajeau de esta región. @gobcesar @FiscaliaCol @DefensoriaCol @SismaMujer #NoMasFeminicidios pic.twitter.com/d4LXpfaYE3 Fiallo-Arake Nancy ???????????????????????????????????????????????? (@NancyFiallo) June 23, 2020
This video was posted online on June 23.
The office of the attorney general opened an investigation after the video was posted online and the authorities later said the man, a radio journalist, had been detained. According to a local media outlet, the woman was in a relationship with her abuser and did not want to speak out against him. But the police arrested him based on testimony by friends and family, the video and a photo of the woman with an injury to her face.

Increase in reports of domestic violence

Most domestic violence is not caught on camera, but such incidents have been on the rise since the country went into lockdown on March 25 in an attempt to limit the spread of Covid-19.

On June 26, Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez said that calls to a special hotline (155) for victims of domestic violence were up 150 percent from the same period last year. Ramírez added that calls reporting domestic violence to the traditional emergency number (123, for police, fire department, etc.) also increased by about 39 percent during lockdown.

However, the Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal reported that at least 8,972 women were victims of domestic or sexual violence and 164 were killed between March 25 and June 23, 2020, which represents a decrease from the same period last year. But a close analysis of these numbers reveals a gradual increase in reports of violence in the weeks following lockdown. For example, statistics show that at least 1,241 women were victims of domestic violence during the first month of lockdown but that the number rose to 1,859 the next month.

"Incidents of violence against women during lockdown have been vastly underreported”
Carlos Fernando Galván Becerra works at the Organización Feminina Popular, a women’s rights organization based in Magdalena, northern Colombia.

We think that incidents of violence against women during the pandemic have been vastly underreported, firstly, because many women don’t report their abusers, especially because lockdown makes this process even more complicated than usual (even though lockdown restrictions have been loosened these past few months).

Lockdown makes it more difficult for women to leave the house. And while women can theoretically report domestic violence online or by calling a special number, this is not always possible. Many homes in Colombia don’t have internet access. And it isn’t easy to make a phone call reporting abuse if you live under the same roof with your abuser.

Moreover, if a woman lives with her abuser and she has to return to the home after reporting him, there is the risk that he might become even more violent if he finds out. This is especially dangerous because when women report domestic violence, institutions rarely respond immediately. There are also very few shelters where women can go stay.

“With Covid-19, help for victims of domestic violence is not really a priority”

This increase in violence can be explained by the fact that confinement can cause immense stress. Aside from physical violence, we’ve also recorded an increase in psychological violence.

Right now, the authorities are focused on the fight against Covid-19, so help for victims of domestic violence is not really a priority. Not to mention that there is historic, structural violence against women in Colombia.
In early May, an initiative called #ElTrapoAvisa (#ClothAlert) was launched to encourage victims of domestic violence to hang up a black piece of cloth in their window to indicate that they need help.



A similar initiative encouraged families who were going hungry to hang a piece of red cloth in their window to indicate that they needed food.

>> READ ON THE OBSERVERS: Out of work and hungry, Colombians protest during Covid-19 lockdown

In late June, the Colombian vice president announced that new measures would be introduced to fight the epidemic of violence against women. Colombian women’s rights organizations have consistently highlighted major failures in terms of prevention, care for victims and the response of the judicial system to these matters.

Article by Chloé Lauvergnier

Fewer medical graduates from Muslim countries entering US in Trump-era

CUTTING NOSE TO SPITE FACEIssued on: 06/07/2020 - 

Members of the New York Immigration Coalition hold a news conference in Foley Square, to talk about the US Supreme Court decision to uphold US President Donald Trump's Muslim ban, in June 2018 Don EMMERT AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

The number of foreign medical graduates from Muslim-majority countries coming to the US to become doctors has declined by 15 percent under the Trump administration, exacerbating shortages in America's physician workforce, a study said Monday.
International medical graduates represent about a quarter of practicing doctors in the United States, with countries like Pakistan, Egypt and Iran historically providing the bulk from Islamic nations.

Overall, citizens from Muslim-majority nations made up 4.5 percent of the US physician workforce in 2019.


The number of graduates from these countries applying for certification in the United States rose from 2009-2015, peaking at 4,244, before falling steadily to 3,604 in 2018 -- a decline of 15 percent.

The study appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association, and was led John Boulet, vice president of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates that oversees the certification process.

Boulet and colleagues said that recent US policies, such as the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries "affect the inflow of IMGs International Medical Graduates) by restricting travel to the country for citizens from specific nations."

They added: "Even a perceived immigration ban could affect who chooses to complete the requirements for... certification" while potential difficulty obtaining a visa could dissuade the program directors of medical residencies from making a job offer.

The US demand for physicians has long outstripped supply for a variety of reasons, from population growth and aging, to a federal cap on funding for residency training.

As a result, the US could see a shortage of as many as 122,000 doctors by the year 2032, according to a 2019 report by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Some economists also argue that the short supply of doctors has led to a surge in their wages; costs that are eventually passed down to patients.

"To the extent that citizens from some countries no longer seek residency positions in the US, gaps in the physician workforce could widen," the authors said.

The attractiveness of the United States as a destination may have also waned in comparison to other countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Britain, the authors wrote.
© 2020 AFP

US says foreign students must leave if classes go fully online due to Covid-19

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Students and pedestrians walk through the Yard at Harvard University, after the school asked its students not to return to campus after Spring Break and said it would move to virtual instruction for graduate and undergraduate classes, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., March 10, 2020. © REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Text by:NEWS WIRES


The United States said Monday it would not allow foreign students to remain in the country if all of their classes are moved online in the fall because of the coronavirus crisis

"Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States," US Immigration and Custom Enforcement said in a statement.

"Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status," ICE said.

"If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings."

ICE said the State Department "will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States."

F-1 students pursue academic coursework and M-1 students pursue "vocational coursework," according to ICE.

Most US colleges and universities have not yet announced their plans for the fall semester.

A number of schools are looking at a hybrid model of in-person and online instruction but some, including Harvard University, have said all classes will be conducted online.

Harvard said 40 percent of undergraduates would be allowed to return to campus but their instruction would be online.

There were more than one million international students in the United States for the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE).

That accounted for 5.5 percent of the total US higher education population, the IIE said, and international students contributed $44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018.

The largest number of international students came from China, followed by India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
(AFP)

Dalai Lama channels 'Inner World' in album to mark 85th birthday



Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

The Dalai Lama, shown here in 1996, has put out a music album to mark his 85th birthday David HANCOCK AFP/File

New Delhi (AFP)

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama launched an assault on the music charts on Monday by releasing his first album to mark his 85th birthday.

"Inner World", in which the Dalai Lama chants meditations and Buddhist sayings, was inspired by New Zealand follower Junelle Kunin who spent five years working on the project after persuading him to take part.

The Dalai Lama went to her home in Auckland three times and she recorded some sessions at his residence in Dharamsala in India, where the Tibetan government in exile is based.

"He had a clear vision with this work and has been very committed to it," Kunin, who produced the music with her husband Abraham, told the Radio New Zealand programme Nine to Noon.

"It's not a religious project although they are mantras. It's really just a work to try and benefit people. So I thought about what we need day-to-day -- courage and healing and wisdom and so forth so that's the path we went down."

The Dalai Lama has won the Nobel Peace prize, is the best-selling author of a number of books and has been depicted in a number of Hollywood movies, but his involvement with music has been rare.

He appeared at the Glastonbury rock festival in England five years ago with US rock singer Patti Smith when she sang for his 80th birthday.

On a video to promote the album, the Dalai Lama was asked why he had agreed to take part, and answers: "I can say the very purpose of my life is to serve as much as I can."

Lobsang Sangay, president of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala, said he hoped the album would "contribute in calming minds and nerves" of many people as the coronavirus pandemic rages around the world.

He also said the Dalai Lama was making the most of the lockdown and treating it like a "vacation of sorts".

"The lockdown is very good for him. He can now go into retreat, go through all his scriptures and daily prayers... He is a spiritual in heart. He is getting the needed rest, he is 85 years old," Sangay told AFP.

Hollywood star Richard Gere, British pop singer Annie Lennox and comedian Russell Brand were among international celebrities to join special birthday greetings in a video on Facebook.

© 2020 AFP

'Devil Went Down to Georgia' country star Charlie Daniels dies

THE DEVIL YOU SAY, HOPE CHARLIE TOOK HIS FIDDLE DOWN WITH HIM
PROVING THAT NOT ALL LONG HAIRS WERE HIPPIES 
SOME GREW THEIR HAIR LONG TO COVER THEIR RED NECKS

Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

New York (AFP)

Charlie Daniels, a musical force who melded country music and southern rock, showcasing his blistering fiddle skills on hits like "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," died Monday. He was 83 years old.

The Country Music Hall of Fame musician died following a hemorrhagic stroke in Tennessee, a statement on his website said.

Originally a session musician who worked with icons including Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen, Daniels made his name as leader of the Charlie Daniels Band, a country-rock group that hosted the Volunteer Jam annual music festival.

An outspoken persona who waffled between patriotic and countercultural bents, Daniels' intrepid attitude was on full display in his best known hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," which hit number one on the country charts and jumped into the top ten pop songs.

The uptempo but growling bluegrass song recounts a fiddle player's musical duel with Satan after wagering his soul -- and playing well enough to keep it -- a song hearkening to historical associations tying fiddle-playing to dark arts and sin.

The rollicking hit won Daniels a Grammy in 1979.

The singer long backed veterans' causes and was also a staunch supporter of the National Rifle Association.

He favored Jimmy Carter, a Georgian, and played the former Democratic president's inauguration ball. Later in life he called former president Barack Obama a "fresh-faced, flower-child president (with) his weak-kneed, Ivy League friends."

Daniels often sounded off his opinions on his website in a section entitled "Soap Box," with a final post celebrating the United States' Independence Day on July 3.

Late last month on the site he skewered protestors marching for anti-racist causes and against police brutality, railing against the demonstrations as a "revolutionary street battle... funded and lead by socialist factions."

"Gun sales are through the roof and America is locked and loaded to protect their families and their neighborhoods," Daniels wrote.

HERE IS MY FAVORITE VERSION OF THE SONG BY EDMONTON'S OWN THE KUBASONICS
THE INSTRUMENT THEY REFER TO IS NOT A VIOLIN OR FIDDLE BUT A UKRAINIAN INSTRUMENT

Tsymbaly - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Tsymbaly

The tsymbaly (Ukrainian: цимбали) is the Ukrainian version of the hammer dulcimer. It is a chordophone made up of a trapezoidal box with metal (steel or bronze) strings strung across it. The tsymbaly is played by striking two beaters against the strings.

US judge temporarily closes controversial oil pipeline

Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

Protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline raged for months in North Dakota in 2016 Robyn BECK AFP/File

New York (AFP)

A US judge on Monday ordered the closure, at least temporarily, of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been the subject of dispute and massive protest for years by Native American tribes and environmental groups.

Activists protested and blocked construction of the controversial $3.8-billion, 1,172-mile oil pipeline for months in 2016, objecting to the route connecting the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota to a distribution center in Illinois.

Washington-based federal judge James E. Boasberg ruled the pipeline falls far short of environmental standards, particularly when it comes to preventing oil spills.

In his 24-page order, he suspended an operating permit granted by the US Army Corps of Engineers to the company Energy Transfer to build a portion of the pipeline under Lake Oahe that stretches from South Dakota into North Dakota in the Northwest United States.

"Fearing severe environmental consequences, American Indian tribes on nearby reservations have sought for several years to invalidate federal permits allowing the Dakota Access Pipeline to carry oil under the lake," Boasberg wrote.

"Today they finally achieve that goal -- at least for the time being."

The ruling means the pipeline must be emptied of oil by August 5 while the Army Corps of Engineers prepares an environmental impact statement -- a step that it had forgone in approving the pipeline.

The ruling is a setback for President Donald Trump, who relaunched the Dakota Access Pipeline shortly after taking office in January 2017, alongside the Keystone XL, another controversial oil pipeline.

Both projects had been frozen under his predecessor Barack Obama.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe sued over Trump's decision, claiming the pipeline threatened their drinking water and degraded sacred sites.

In a statement to AFP, Energy Transfer said it would ask the court to stay the decision, or appeal Monday's ruling.

"We believe that the ruling issued this morning from Judge Boasberg is not supported by the law or the facts of the case," spokeswoman Lisa Coleman said.

"Furthermore, we believe that Judge Boasberg has exceeded his authority in ordering the shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been safely operating for more than three years."

Brazil's Bolsonaro dilutes face mask law again
Issued on: 06/07/2020

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, whose image can be seen on this person's face mask, has further diluted a law mandating such masks in his country as it struggles with the coronavirus pandemic CARL DE SOUZA AFP/File

Brasília (AFP)

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday made more changes to weaken a law requiring the wearing of face masks in public places in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

On Friday, the far right president had already watered down the bill by vetoing several articles, including ones requiring employers to supply face masks for their staff and another mandating that public authorities should provide face coverings for "economically vulnerable people."

Now he has also vetoed articles requiring masks be worn in prisons and another obliging businesses to provide information on how to wear masks properly.

Some states have already made the wearing of masks mandatory, but this was the first such law on a national level.

Since the beginning of the virus outbreak, Bolsonaro has minimized the risks of what he initially called "a little flu" and flouted social distancing rules and containment measures, such as wearing a mask in public.

Brazil is the second worst-hit country in the world in the pandemic, with almost 65,000 deaths and more than 1.6 million cases.

On Saturday, Bolsonaro published photos on social media in which he is seen without a face mask at a lunch with the US ambassador and several ministers celebrating the US independence day.

Since he was in a private residence he did not break the new law -- but that didn't spare him an avalanche of criticism on social media for not providing a good example.