Britain’s education minister said the county should be “incredibly proud” of its history and that should be reflected in the program of study at schools.Speaking to reporters on Friday during the government’s daily briefing on COVID-19, Gavin Williamson said students need to learn about both the positive and negative aspects of the British Empire.“We mustn’t forget that in this nation we have an incredibly rich history, and we should be incredibly proud of our history, because time and time and time again, this country has made a difference and changed things for the better, right around the world,” he said. “And we should, as a nation, be proud of that history and teach our children about it.”Williamson also said “tolerance and respect’’ must be “at the cornerstone” of all British schools.”Tolerance and respect have to be and, I believe are, at the cornerstone of absolutely everything that this country does and teaches in all of our schools, in all of our colleges and in all of our universities, and that’s how it should be,” he said. “And that is what I want to see everyone teaching in schools right across the United Kingdom and in England.’’Williamson’s comments came in the wake of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in many parts of the world following the death of George Floyd, an African American, while in police custody.
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Chinese prosecutors charged two detained Canadians with spying Friday in an apparent bid to step up pressure on Canada to drop a U.S. extradition request for a Huawei executive under house arrest in Vancouver.
Michael Kovrig was charged by Beijing on suspicion of spying for state secrets and intelligence. Michael Spavor was charged in Dandong, a city near the North Korean border, on suspicion of spying for a foreign entity and illegally providing state secrets.
The charges were announced by China’s highest prosecutor’s office in brief social media posts.  
Asked what evidence China had against the two, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said only that each is charged with “secretly gathering state secrets for overseas forces with particularly serious consequences.”
“The facts are clear and the evidence solid and sufficient,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing. Zhao gave no details.
Both men have been held for 18 months. They were detained shortly after the December 2018 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei. The daughter of Huawei’s founder was arrested at the request of U.S. authorities who want her on fraud charges related to trade with Iran.  
A Canadian judge ruled this month that the U.S. extradition case against Meng could proceed to the next stage.  
China has denied any explicit link between her case and the lengthy detention of the two Canadian men, but outside experts see them as tied and Chinese diplomats have strongly implied a connection.  
Meng has been released on bail while her extradition case proceeds in court and is residing in one of her two Vancouver mansions where she is reportedly working on a graduate degree. Kovrig and Spavor are being held at an undisclosed location and up to now, have been denied access to lawyers or family members.
 
China has also sentenced two other Canadians to death and suspended imports of Canadian canola, while saying those moves were also unrelated to Meng’s case.  
Relations between Canada and China are at their lowest point since the Chinese military’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.  
The tensions appear to be causing further harm to Huawei’s reputation in the Americas, with two of Canada’s three major telecommunication companies announcing earlier this month that they’ve decided not to use the Chinese tech giant for their next-generation 5G wireless network.
Bell Canada announced that Sweden-based Ericsson will be its supplier and Telus Corp. later announced that it had also selected Ericsson and Nokia.  
Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies, but has long been seen as a front for spying by China’s military and its highly skilled security services.  
The U.S. has urged Canada to exclude Huawei equipment from their next-generation wireless networks, saying Huawei is legally beholden to the Chinese regime. The United States and Australia have banned Huawei, citing concerns it is an organ of Chinese military intelligence — a charge the company denies.  
Canada’s diplomats in China have been meeting regularly with their detained citizens but there was no immediate comments on the new indictments.
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The Bank of England has apologized for the links some of its past governors had with slavery, as a global anti-racism movement sparked by the death of George Floyd forces many British institutions to confront uncomfortable truths about their pasts.
The central bank called the trade in human beings “an unacceptable part of English history,” and pledged not to display any images of former leaders who had any involvement.
“The bank has commenced a thorough review of its collection of images of former governors and directors, to ensure none with any such involvement in the slave trade remain on display anywhere in the bank,” the institution said in statement.  
The decision comes after two British companies on Thursday promised to financially support projects assisting minorities after being called out for past roles in the slave trade.
Insurance giant Lloyd’s of London and pub chain Greene King made the pledges after media highlighted their inclusion on a University College London database of individuals and companies with ties to the slave trade.
Launched in 2013, the database shows how deeply the tentacles of slavery are woven into modern British society.  
It lists thousands of people who received compensation for loss of their “possessions” when slave ownership was outlawed by Britain in 1833. It reveals that many businesses, buildings and art collections that still exist today were funded by the proceeds of the slave trade.
Those listed on the database include governors and directors of the Bank of England, executives in companies that are still active and forbears of prominent Britons including writer George Orwell and ex-Prime Minister David Cameron.
About 46,000 people were paid a total of 20 million pounds — the equivalent of 40 percent of all annual government spending at the time — after the freeing of slaves in British colonies in the Caribbean, Mauritius and southern Africa.  
Some slave owners were paid vast sums. John Gladstone, father of 19th-century Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, received more than 100,000 pounds in compensation for hundreds of slaves, at a time when skilled workers earned 50 to 75 pounds a year.
But not all the slave owners were ultra-wealthy. Middle-class Britons up and down the country were paid compensation. The loan the government took out to cover the payments was so large that it was not repaid in full until 2015.
Information about the role played by British firms and individuals in slavery has been available on UCL’s database for seven years. But corporate apologies are only coming now that the Black Lives Matter movement has thrust the issue of racial injustice into global prominence.
Keith McClelland, a researcher with UCL’s Legacy of British Slave-ownership project, said many parts of British society had been unwilling to face up to the past.
“The dominant narrative from the 1830s onwards was that the great thing about Britain was that it had abolished the slave trade and then abolished slavery,” he said.  
“And this wasn’t just a narrative being told about Britain at that time. (Former Prime Minister) Gordon Brown (and) David Cameron made speeches saying in the 2000s saying, there is this golden thread of liberty that runs through British history, one component of which was the abolition of slavery. Fine. Except neither of them actually mentioned that behind that was 200 years of slavery.
“It seems to me just incomprehensible that you can laud the abolition of slavery without talking about slavery itself. But that’s what has happened.”
The racial-equality protests that followed Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis have sparked a reassessment of history, with demonstrators in several countries toppling memorials to people who profited from imperialism and the slave trade.
Earlier this month, protesters in the English city of Bristol hauled down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, and dumped it in the city’s harbor. City officials fished it out and plan to put it in a museum, along with placards from the protest.
Oxford University’s Oriel College has recommended the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a Victorian imperialist in southern Africa who made a fortune from mines and endowed Oxford’s Rhodes scholarships for international students.
McClelland said Floyd’s death and its aftermath could bring major change in how Britain faces its past — but it’s too soon to say..
“There are a lot of statements coming from companies about regret,” he said. “Will this make a concrete difference? Ask me in two, three, four, five years’ time. Have they actually done anything rather than say, ‘Oh, well, we’re terribly sorry?’
“We’ll see. I am not entirely optimistic.”
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Rajaai Bourhan is trying to make a life for himself in Spain.Two years ago, he and several other journalists were trapped in southern Syria, as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad moved to take the region. They had a choice: Stay and risk arrest or death or leave in search of safety. Thanks to the help of international organizations, including the press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, 11 journalists were able to flee to Europe last May. “It’s like traveling from planet to planet,” Bourhan told VOA. “Everybody’s nice, as well as smiling. It’s very different from my home.”The Syrians’ experiences are shared in a documentary, “The Last Journalists in Syria,” that CPJ broadcast on June 17.The documentary recounts how CPJ worked with United Nations ambassadors and several countries to find a way to bring the journalists and their families to safety. Bourhan said he was happy to be safe but that he’s had trouble finding a job – an issue that is common for refugee journalists.  Only a third of journalists forced to flee are able to continue their work in a new country, Ignacio Miguel Delgado Culebras, the Middle East and North Africa Representative for CPJ, who helped with the relocation of the journalists, told VOA.He attributed that to factors including language and a lack of connections to news outlets.In the Syrians’ case, the Spanish journalism advocacy organization porCausa connected those who settled in Spain to other journalists in the country and found them a place to live, the group’s journalism coordinator Jose Bautista told VOA.“We try to make their lives a little bit easy,” Bautista said. “They’re already our friends, they’re like brothers.”Delgado said that since relocating, most have had work published in Spanish news outlets or other publications, including The Independent. CPJ is working with Global Voices, an international journalism collective, to run a workshop with the journalists this month to help with decisions about their careers.Bourhan acknowledged the difficulties in staying in journalism, including low pay and having to learn Spanish in a short amount of time. At the moment, he is not working full time — something he attributed in part to the coronavirus pandemic — and he said some of the other journalists have had to wash dishes to earn money.“It’s very hard for a journalist to survive here in Spain,” he said.He and the other journalists experienced many challenges in Syria. They watched as forces led by Assad bombed buildings and killed civilians. They posted videos and updates from their social media pages and were threatened with arrest and murder, one of the journalists, Moussa al-Jamaat, said in CPJ’s documentary.Syria in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the media, with at least 137 journalists killed there since the start of the civil war in 2011, according to CPJ. Now in Spain, the journalists have greater protections. They remain committed to continue telling the stories of what is happening in Syria. Some have freelanced for large publications. “I didn’t just come to Europe to indulge life,” journalist Mohammad Shubaat said in the documentary, translated from Arabic. “My purpose here is to convey the real events unfolding in Syria through our social networks, Spanish TV, newspapers — by any means that we can convey our voice and our pain and the pain of our people.”Bourhan said he is also committed to informing others about what is happening in Syria. When he lived there, he freelanced for The Intercept. Now, he continues to read news from Syria every day and hasn’t given up on reporting. “Journalism is still my world,” he told VOA. “I really couldn’t get out of Syria mentally. My mind’s still in Syria.”CPJ’s Delgado said he was impressed with how quickly the journalists integrated into Spanish society and by their commitment to journalism.“This human quality that they have, it’s amazing. The desire to continue to learn, to develop their skills,” Delgado said. “I’m still in awe by what they have done not only in Syria, taking the risk of being a journalist, which is not easy. But also, now in Spain in a whole different context.”PorCausa’s Bautista said: “At the beginning, I thought they would learn a lot from us today. Today, I think we learned much more from them,” he said. “I am super proud of the way they are fighting such a difficult situation.”
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The seven-member Guyana Elections Commission could get a report from Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield Friday that could move the South American country closer to confirming the results of March presidential and regional elections.The meeting, initially planned for Thursday, was canceled because of a lack of quorum.The commission is to announce the results after its chair, former justice Claudette Singh, receives a report from Lowenfield.A senior official of the main opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic Thursday dismissed an injunction sought by a citizen to prevent the commission from declaring the results. The party claimed victory in the election based on the national recount that ended last week.Preliminary results showed that opposition presidential candidate Irfaan Ali won the recount of votes in March’s presidential election after charges the count had been manipulated.The party also secured a two-seat advantage in the 65-seat National Assembly over President David Granger’s APNU+AFC party.Granger initially claimed victory, even after U.S. and EU observers said the count was flawed.  
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European governments are working with the United States on plans to overhaul the World Health Organization, a top health official for a European country said, signaling that Europe shares some of the concerns that led Washington to say it would quit.The European health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing initiatives that are not public, said Britain, France, Germany and Italy were discussing WHO reforms with the United States at the technical level.The aim, the official said, was to ensure WHO’s independence, an apparent reference to allegations that the body was too close to China during its initial response to the coronavirus crisis early this year.”We are discussing ways to separate WHO’s emergency management mechanism from any single country influence,” said the official.Reforms would involve changing the WHO’s funding system to make it more long-term, the official said. The WHO now operates on a two-year budget, which “could hurt WHO’s independence” if it has to raise funds from donor countries in the middle of an emergency, the official said.U.S. President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to China and announced plans to quit and withdraw funding.European countries have occasionally called for reform of the WHO but have generally shielded the organization from the most intense criticism by Washington. In public the European position has usually been that any reform should come only after an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis.Evaluation and reformBut minutes of a videoconference of EU health ministers last week suggested European countries were taking a stronger line and also seeking more European influence at the WHO in future.The German and French ministers told their colleagues “an evaluation and reform of the WHO was needed,” the minutes said.That was stronger wording than in a resolution last month which the EU drafted, and which was adopted by all 192 WHO member countries. That resolution called for an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis, but it stopped short of calling for reforms.The German and French ministers also told their colleagues, “The EU and its MS (member states) should play a bigger role at the global level,” the minutes showed.A spokesperson for the German health ministry said Berlin sought stronger engagement with the WHO ahead of Germany taking over the EU presidency on July 1.A German government source told Reuters the aim of the intervention at the health ministers’ meeting was to encourage debate among EU member states about how to reform the WHO. Asked whether Germany was now pushing for quicker changes, instead of waiting until after the crisis, the official said: “Reforms of international organizations normally take years, not months.”A French health ministry spokesman also said the WHO would be on the agenda of Germany’s presidency of the EU, and Paris would work on it with Berlin. France backed WHO reform, but changes should follow the evaluation of the organization’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, he said.A British government spokesperson said Britain worked with organizations including the WHO “to encourage and support transparency, efficiency and good management.”The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the WHO did not respond to requests for comment.The WHO drew criticism for public praise of China’s efforts to combat the new coronavirus in the early days of the crisis, even as evidence emerged that Chinese officials had silenced whistleblowers.The EU and its governments funded around 11 percent of the WHO’s $5.6 billion budget in the 2018-19 period, and the United States provided more than 15 percent. China covered just 0.2 percent. 
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A sinkhole on a Mexican highway has exposed a water-filled cave teaming with fossils of sea life and rock formations dating as far back as 2.5 million years.Cave explorers are using the large crevasse between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, Quintana Roo, to enter the 60-meter-long cave, where they also uncovered living creatures, including crustaceans.The Mexico Daily News said specialists are now working on a topographic map of the cave.Robert Rojo, a biologist and cave explorer said the cave gets its water from the Caribbean Sea.Rojo also said filling in the sinkhole and closing off the entrance would be tantamount to “ecocide,” a total destruction of the natural environment.Rojo and other experts are working on a detailed report of the cave, with recommendations on how to preserve it.
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Scores of demonstrators in Guatemala are demanding President Alejandro Giammattei ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions, even as the death toll in the Central American nation tops 400.A motorcade of protesters and others on foot rallied outside the Congress in Guatemala City on Thursday, calling on the government to start relaxing restrictions and reopen the economy.Attorney Giovanni Fratti said the government is causing what he called a time bomb situation and that it should reopen the economy immediately, adding that advanced economies such as the United States and Italy, with more COVID-19 cases than Guatemala, are already reopening their economies.The demonstration comes a week after the government said it is considering increasing lockdown restrictions if COVID-19 cases continue rising.Guatemala has reported more than 11,800 cases and more than 430 deaths.   
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Dame Vera Lynn, the woman whose voice boosted British spirits during the darkest days of World War Two, has died at 103.Her family did not give a cause of death when it announced her passing Thursday in East Sussex.Along with Winston Churchill’s, Lynn’s was the most recognized and renowned British voice of World War Two.She was known as the “Forces’ Sweetheart,” serenading Allied soldiers and the British people with such sentimental but optimistic ballads as “We’ll Meet Again,” “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”FILE – Singing star Vera Lynn tries on a lampshade in London, Nov. 30, 1961.She also hosted “Sincerely Yours,” a hugely popular BBC radio show during the war that included messages to British soldiers and sailors overseas and songs she sang at their request.Lynn also toured army camps, entertaining British troops in person.”What they needed was a contact from home,” she said. “I entertained audiences from 2,000 to 6,000. And the boys would just come out of the jungle and sit there for hours waiting until we arrived and then slip back in once we’d left.”Her popularity endured after the war.A decade before the Beatles, her 1952 recording of “Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart” made her the first British singer to top the American record charts.She also found renewed fame when director Stanley Kubrick played her vintage recording of “We’ll Meet Again” near the end of his 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove.”Long after she retired, a 2009 compilation album, “We’ll Meet Again — The Very Best of Vera Lynn,” was a top-selling recording in Britain.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said her “charm and magical voice entranced and uplifted our country in some of our darkest hours. Her voice will live on to lift the hearts of generations to come.”Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth plans to send a personal note of condolence to Lynn’s family. Sir Paul McCartney tweeted that he is “so sad to hear of her passing but at the same time so glad to have met her and experienced first-hand her warm, fun-loving personality. Her voice will sing in my heart forever.”Sir Cliff Richard recalled performing with Lynn on the 50th anniversary of VE Day in 1995, calling her “a great singer, a patriotic woman and a genuine icon.” 
 
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In Istanbul, a 36-year-old woman is a one-person traveling medical unit treating some of Turkey’s most vulnerable refugees at a time when, for many people, hospitals are not an option. Some refugees do not have their papers in order. Others cannot afford care or fear getting the coronavirus at a hospital. In Istanbul, VOA’s Heather Murdock reports about one woman’s mission to do good.Camera: Heather Murdock   Contributor: Shadi Turk 
 
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The U.N. refugee agency reports more than nine million people were newly displaced by persecution and conflict in 2019, bringing the total number of forcibly displaced around the world to a record-breaking 79.5 million people.  These unprecedented figures appear in the agency’s annual FILE – A refugee camp is seen on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey, near Atma, April 19, 2020.The U.N. refugee agency considers this a matter of great concern.  It notes most of the nearly 80 million uprooted are displaced inside their own countries, while 29.6 million are refugees, who have sought asylum in other countries.   Despite commonly held perceptions, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, says most refugees do not seek asylum in richer countries, but flee to nearby countries.  He says 85 percent are being hosted by poor developing countries.   The UNHCR chief says only five countries generate 68 percent of the world’s refugees.   “Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar.  You know what this means.  If crises in these countries were solved, 68 percent of the global forced displacement would probably be on its way to being solved,” he said. FILE – Congolese families, who fled from Democratic Republic of, prepare meals at United Nations High Commission for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Kyangwali refugee settlement camp, Uganda, Mar. 19, 2018.Grandi says conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s Sahel region, Yemen and Syria account for most of the nine million newly displaced last year.  He says he is particularly worried about the dramatic drop in the number of refugees who are able to return home or find countries of resettlement.     In the 1990s, he notes an average 1.5 million refugees were able to return home each year.  This number, he says, has now declined to fewer than 400,000 a year. “This, of course, is a sign of the persistence of conflicts, the emergence of new conflicts, the inability, the paralysis of the international community, including institutions like the Security Council to address these conflicts, to bring them to an end and to create conditions for refugees and displaced people to return home,” he said.  The report notes the number of refugees resettled in third countries has fallen to 107,000 last year from a high of 163,000 in 2016.  U.S. resettlement figures have declined dramatically.  Canada now has replaced the United States as the biggest receiving country.   Information in the Global Trends report does not include the likely impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on asylum.  But High Commissioner Grandi notes 164 countries have totally or partially closed their borders because of the pandemic.  This, he says has put a brake on people’s ability to cross borders in search of international protection.   
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Confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths have been soaring in Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico.  But the region faces another obstacle: lockdowns have already taken a massive toll on its very large informal economy as laborers, street vendors and domestic workers struggle to survive through the shutdown.  Megan Janetsky reports from Medellín, Colombia.Camera: Megan Janetsky  Produced by:  Barry Unger  
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The Russian government has lifted a ban on Telegram two years after it announced attempts to restrict access to the encrypted instant-messaging app, the country’s communications regulator said Thursday.“As agreed with the Prosecutor General’s office, Roskomnadzor withdraws the demand to restrict access to the Telegram messenger,” the federal communications watchdog said in a statement.Roskomnadzor began blocking the popular app in accordance with a 2018 court order that demanded the messaging service be restricted because of its alleged use by Islamic State terrorists.Pavel Durov, the app’s Russian-born founder, was ordered to hand over the app’s encryption codes but refused, citing violations of user privacy.But even top-tier officials such as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov continued using the app after its developers adjusted the code to slip past Roskomnadzor’s cybersecurity barriers.Its widespread use has continued, and even coronavirus task force operations in many Russian regions use Telegram for daily updates.Roskomnadzor on Thursday said it was prepared to lift restrictions because Durov, who has been living in self-imposed exile since 2014, was prepared to cooperate with Russian government counterterrorism efforts to combat extremism on the platform.Islamic State terrorists behind the November 2015 Paris attacks, which claimed 130 lives, used the app’s public channels to spread propaganda and other related content. The app shut the channels down after the attack.Telegram’s developers say that they have since increased their ability to spot and delete extremist content on the app without compromising user privacy.The Kremlin took note of Roskomnadzor’s decision and the reasoning for it, the Tass news agency reported, quoting Kremlin spokesman Peskov.Founded in 2013, Telegram now has an estimated 30 million users in Russia — nearly 20% of the population.Some information for this report came from AP and Reuters.
 
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A new coronavirus outbreak in Beijing saw a decline in daily cases Thursday while the United States increased pressure on China’s leaders to reveal what they know about the pandemic.
The outbreak first detected at a wholesale market in the capital last week has infected at least 158 people in China’s biggest resurgence since the initial outbreak was brought under control in March. The city reported 21 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, down from 31 on Wednesday.
City officials said close contacts of market workers, visitors and other connections were being traced to locate all possible cases as quickly as possible, with testing and prevention measures being taken.
At a meeting in Hawaii with a top Chinese diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged China to reveal all it knows about the pandemic.
Pompeo “stressed the need for full transparency and information sharing to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and prevent future outbreaks,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement about his meeting with the Communist Party’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi.
Pompeo has joined President Donald Trump in criticizing China’s response to the outbreak, including giving credence to a theory that the virus may have emerged from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan.
The World Health Organization last month bowed to calls from most of its member states to investigate how it managed the response to the virus, but the evaluation would stop short of looking into the origins of the virus. China maintains that controlling the virus’s spread should be given priority.
China is also being called on to relieve the virus’ financial consequences in Africa.  
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed Chinese leader Xi Jinping during an online China-Africa summit. He reminded China that African nations are seeking significant debt relief as they battle the pandemic.  
African nations have called for a two-year suspension of debt payments and other relief that would allow them to focus resources on the health crisis. But China, Africa’s biggest creditor, has not indicated it will offer a sweeping solution and experts say it will focus instead on bilateral arrangements with countries.
Ramaphosa urged China to offer more relief or propose alternatives, warning that “the worst is still to come” for Africa in the pandemic.  
Xi in his speech said he hopes the international community, “especially developed countries and multilateral financial institutions, will act more forcefully on debt relief and suspension for Africa.”
The virus has infected more than 8.3 million people since it emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. More than 448,000 people have died from COVID-19, according to a Johns Hopkins tally of official data. Both numbers are believed to be deeply undercounted due to limited testing and other factors.
The United States has the most cases and deaths by far, with 2.1 million people infected and more than 117,000 dead. Americans have wrestled with deep emotional divides between those who support lockdowns and restrictions like wearing masks to stop the spread of the virus and those who believe such measures infringe on personal freedoms.
Other countries were confronting politicized debates and growing infections.
India recorded its highest one-day increase of 12,281 cases, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected imposing a new lockdown, saying the country has to think about further unlocking the economy.  
Turkish authorities made masks mandatory in three major cities following an uptick in cases since the country allowed the reopening of many businesses.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was hospitalized with COVID-19 and pneumonia as the country struggles under the pandemic’s strain and cases rise sharply in the capital. Mexico’s cases continued to increase at near-record levels with few signs of a decrease, even as the economy starts reopening.
More than a week after New Zealand declared itself virus-free, the country has confirmed three new cases. The South Pacific country appears to have eliminated community transmission of the virus, but officials confirmed a man arriving from Pakistan tested positive after earlier confirming cases in two women returning from Britain.
While air travel is a concern about transmission of the virus as economies reopen, two Australian universities are planning a charter flight for likely the first foreign students to return to Australian campuses.  
Australian National University and Canberra University expect to fly 350 students from Singapore in late July. The students would go into hotel quarantine on arrival.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison supported the universities’ plan, which would be a pilot program for reopening Australia’s lucrative education sector.
“I’m looking to get our economy as close as back to normal as we possibly can and to push the envelope in every possible area,” Morrison told reporters.
But China, which is Australia’s largest source of foreign students, providing 200,000 last year, has warned its citizens to stay away from the country because of the risk of pandemic-related racism. China opposes Australia’s calls for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the pandemic.
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When Rafaela Matos saw police helicopters over her favela and heard gunshots, she fell to her knees and asked God to protect her son, João Pedro. Then she called the boy to make sure he was OK.  
“Be calm,” João Pedro wrote back, explaining that he was at his aunt’s house and everything was fine, Rafaela told The Associated Press. Minutes after he sent the message, police burst in and shot the 14-year-old in the stomach with a high-caliber rifle at close range.  
João Pedro Matos Pinto was one of more than 600 people killed by police in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the first months of this year. That’s almost double the number of people killed by police over the same period in the entire U.S., which has 20 times Rio’s population. Like João Pedro, most of those killed in Rio were black or biracial and lived in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, or favelas.WATCH:  Which countries spend the most on policing?Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 3 MB480p | 4 MB540p | 5 MB720p | 11 MB1080p | 20 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAs the Black Lives Matter movement brings hundreds of thousands to the streets around the world, demonstrators outraged by João Pedro’s death one month ago have been organizing the largest anti-police brutality demonstrations in years on the streets of Rio.
Still, the protests are nowhere near the size and public impact of other countries. To protesters, their struggle to gain momentum in the country where more than half the population is black or biracial, with a police violence problem that far overshadows other nations, is evidence of the depth of racism and complacence.
“They kill teenager after teenager in their homes every day. We’re here because we need to be,” 19-year-old civil engineering student João Gabriel Moreira said at a June 10 protest in Duque de Caxias, a poor city in the Rio metropolitan area. He said he had never protested anything before this year.
“Kill a young black man in a favela, it’s seen as normal — he must be a drug dealer,” Moreira said. “Racism has always been veiled in Brazil. That’s why so few of us are here. If Brazil had racial consciousness, this street would be filled.”
Rio de Janeiro police initially said they were pursuing a criminal in a joint operation by civil, military and federal police officers when they shot João Pedro on May 18. There was no sign of illegal activity at the house in the Salgueiro complex of favelas, according to Eduardo Benones, a federal prosecutor investigating the operation.
João Pedro’s father, Neilton Pinto, was serving up fish at a bayside kiosk when he heard the choppers. By the time he reached the scene, police had already taken the teen’s body away, he said, sitting beside Rafaela for an interview just before the one-month anniversary of the incident.
Police never took João Pedro to a hospital and his family began a frantic search. Rafaela, 36, received a glimmer of hope when she saw on her phone that her son’s WhatsApp was active.
“Hi … ,” she wrote. “Hi … Hi … Hi … Talk to me …”
No response came from whomever was using João Pedro’s phone. But a campaign swept across social media and his body was tracked down the next day, inside a police forensic institute.  
“Good people live in the favela, people with families, who plan on growing in this life,” Neilton, 40, said. “I’m sure if this were in wealthy areas, police wouldn’t act this way, breaking down the house of someone good.”  
Benones’ investigation seeks to hold the Brazilian state responsible for João Pedro’s death, alleging it occurred in the context of institutional racism. All depositions and eyewitness accounts Benones has reviewed indicate João Pedro and others present posed no threat to officers on the scene, he said.  
“Why didn’t police directors or whoever see that we’re in a pandemic, so obviously a place that’s already densely populated would be even more densely populated with kids? That’s predictable,” Benones said. “You can’t say it’s racism of that police officer, but a practice of police forces not taking care when dealing with the black population. And if something happens, it’s seen as collateral damage.”  
Rio police killed a record 1,814 people in 2019, according to official data — triple the number five years earlier. The 2020 death toll is on track for a repeat.  
Both President Jair Bolsonaro and Rio state Gov. Wilson Witzel won election in 2018 with campaigns that emphasized law and order, and both have said police should be able to kill criminals with almost no legal constraints.  
At a June 11 protest in Niteroi, another city in Rio’s metro area, Bruna Mozer told how her son Marcos gave up on school and fell in with drug traffickers in his favela. Even though he surrendered when police found him with a walkie-talkie in 2018, officers executed him, she said. Marcos would have been 18 this year.  
“Every day more mothers, victims of state violence, join our groups,” said Mozer.  
Rio’s civil police said in an e-mailed statement that it is investigating the circumstances surrounding João Pedro’s death and that three officers have been suspended. Rio’s military police didn’t respond to multiple requests seeking comment.  
Brazil’s Supreme Court on June 5 banned police operations in favelas until the coronavirus pandemic ends, in response to outrage over João Pedro’s death.  
His life had been divided between home, school, church and the mall, his father said. He got good grades and wanted to study law. He told his dad he would make him proud.
When Neilton lost his job, João Pedro entered public school, only to find it lacking teachers and classes. Rafaela got him into the private school where she teaches.  
His parents said they never talked to João Pedro about racism. Nor did they ever participate in protests, but they joined one on June 7. Rafaela said hearing João Pedro’s name become a rallying cry has lightened their emotional load a bit.  
“I never participated in events against racism or policing, never got involved with those things. Today we’re living something we didn’t expect, something that arrives and knocks on the door,” Rafaela said. “With this repercussion, we saw João Pedro wasn’t the first, and he also wasn’t the last.” 
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A Serbian opposition leader whose group is boycotting the country’s parliamentary election says taking part in the vote amid the coronaviorus pandemic and without free media in the Balkan country would only legitimize what he called a “hoax vote.”
Dragan Djilas, the leader of the pro-boycott Union for Serbia coalition, told The Associated Press that Sunday’s vote is being held despite health risks and a lack of democratic standards for the campaign.
Most of the main opposition parties will boycott the vote because of what they say is Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s iron grip on the country’s media and the electoral process, as well as potential coronavirus infection hazards at voting stations.
The boycott means Vucic’s right-wing Serbian Progressive party will emerge as an overwhelming winner and continue its eight years of political dominance. Vucic and his allies have denounced the boycott, saying it includes parties that would not get enough votes even to make it into Serbia’s 250-seat parliament. All the seats are up for grabs. Vucic’s party now has by far the most seats in parliament with 104. The next are his allied Socialists with 22.
Although Serbia is facing a spike in new coronavirus cases, the populist leader claims the virus spread is under control and that masks will be made available for voters at polling stations.
 
Serbia went from having very strict lockdown measures to a near-total lifting of the government’s emergency rules in early June. Opponents say Vucic eased the restrictions so he could hold the election, which originally was scheduled for April and cancelled because of the pandemic, in order to cement his grip on power.
“At the start the COVID-19 pandemic, our president said all will be OK if we take a shot of brandy every day,” Djilas said Wednesday in an interview. “And then he introduced the toughest possible lockdown measures, including an 84-hour curfew. Those older than 65 were kept indoors for 35 days.”
“Then the measures were lifted as if nothing has happened. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
Serbia is now seeing an infection spike after mass gatherings were allowed without people being instructed to keep social distance or wear masks.  
On June 1, Serbia had 18 new virus cases. On Wednesday, there were 96. Many peg the surge to the mass gatherings that have been allowed, including a soccer match in Belgrade that was attended by 20,000 people — the largest gathering in Europe in recent months. Other nations such as Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain have had soccer clubs play in empty stadiums.
“What led to the boycott by most of the opposition is the fact that we in reality have no elections,” Djilas said. “For democratic elections, you have to have conditions for people to hear something different and freely express themselves.”
“Not a single of those conditions has been met,” said Djilas, who is a frequent target of smear campaigns by the pro-government tabloids. “Media is not only closed for us, but it is used to attack people who think differently.”
In its annual report published in April, human rights watchdog Freedom House listed Serbia among “hybrid regimes” in which power is based on authoritarianism and can no longer be considered a democratic state. Serbian officials have vehemently rejected the report, saying it’s based on wrong research and criteria.
European Parliament members Tanja Fajon and Vladimir Bilcik, who before the vote tried to negotiate election conditions between Vucic and the opposition, said in a statement they are saddened by the boycott and urged voters to follow health and security measures on election day.
Djilas said in Serbia there will be no change without pressure on Vucic from the West.
“We don’t expect them to topple Vucic, we only want them to create conditions for free and fair elections.”
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The president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, is said to be in good condition after being admitted to a military hospital for pneumonia on Wednesday, a day after revealing he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19. A health agency spokesman said Wednesday that Hernández was receiving intravenous medicine. Hernandez said late Tuesday, his wife had not showing any symptoms. The president said he began feeling discomfort over weekend. The health agency spokesman said two presidential aides also tested positive for the coronavirus, but their status was not immediately clear. President Hernandez’s health challenge comes as some hospitals in Honduras are being strained by the rise in coronavirus cases, which the country confirmed has reached 10,000 infections and 330 deaths. The World Health Organization considers Latin America the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 1.5 million coronavirus cases and more than 70,000 deaths linked to the disease. 
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Four countries were elected to two-year terms on the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday in the first major vote held at the world body amid the coronavirus pandemic.India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway will join the council on January 1 for the rotating term. But a decision on who will occupy a seat representing Africa will go to a second round of voting Thursday, as neither of the contenders, Kenya and Djibouti, captured the necessary two-thirds majority.The vote was held in a sparsely populated General Assembly Hall. In mid-March, the United Nations essentially shut down its New York headquarters as the coronavirus spread across the metropolis. The city began its very limited first phase of reopening June 8, but that does not include large gatherings like the hundreds of diplomats who would normally flock to the building to cast their votes.At the assembly hall on Wednesday, life in a COVID-19 world was on full display. Diplomats wearing face masks came one by one to fill in their secret ballots, deposit them and leave. Instead of everyone gathering and casting votes simultaneously, the process took much of the day. There were no people socializing, no goodie bags from candidate countries and definitely no kisses on the cheek.In the final months and weeks leading up to the vote, there were none of the parties and special events that candidate countries love to put on to raise their profiles and garner votes.Council seats are allocated according to regional blocs. In the group known as “Western Europe and Others,” Canada, Ireland and Norway were contesting two available seats.With a two-thirds majority of 128 votes needed, Ireland and Norway both squeaked by with 128 and 130 votes respectively. For a second consecutive time, Canada lost its bid for a seat. But it garnered 108 votes, putting it within respectable reach of that needed majority.Ireland’s win means the European Union will hold three seats on the 15-nation council.“The race between Canada, Ireland and Norway has felt a little surreal for all involved,” said Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group. “All three are well-established friends of the United Nations, and they have sometimes struggled to distinguish themselves from one another. The irony is that all three states would happily vote for each other under any other circumstances.”Mexico was the candidate from the Latin America and the Caribbean bloc, and India for Asia-Pacific. Both ran uncontested and won overwhelming majorities.Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign minister, welcomed his country’s 187 votes on Twitter, saying, “Great recognition to our country around the world. Congratulations!!!!”Tengo el honor de informar que México ha sido electo por 187 votos miembro del Consejo de Seguridad de la Organizacion de las Naciones Unidas. Gran reconocimiento a nuestro país en todo el mundo. Enhorabuena!!!!— Marcelo Ebrard C. (@m_ebrard) June 17, 2020Just a day before the vote, a clash between Indian and Chinese troops along a remote Himalayan border in Eastern Ladakh left 20 Indian soldiers dead.“India may see its term in the council as an opportunity to push back against China, which has been insisting on council debates over New Delhi’s behavior in Kashmir,” Gowan said. “After the tensions in Ladakh, Indian-Chinese relations in the council could be sparky.”Member States elect India to the non-permanent seat of the Security Council for the term 2021-22 with overwhelming support.India gets 184 out of the 192 valid votes polled. pic.twitter.com/Vd43CN41cY— India at UN, NY (@IndiaUNNewYork) June 17, 2020It was the race between East African nations Djibouti and Kenya that gave the day some unexpected drama. Kenya received 113 votes, Djibouti 78 – neither sufficient to achieve the two-thirds majority of 128. A second round of voting will take place Thursday morning.The newly elected countries will replace exiting council members Belgium, Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa. They will join current nonpermanent members Estonia, Niger, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam, and permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
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Colombian President Ivan Duque said he will use the full force of the military to bring to justice the drug gang that killed at least six soldiers and wounded eight of them during an ambush, near the country’s jungle region.Authorities said Wednesday’s attack on the army unit occurred as soldiers were conducting an offensive against drug trafficking in a rural area known as San Juan de Lozada, Caqueta.Duque called the fallen soldiers “heroes.”Separately, Duque on Wednesday hailed a new United Nations report that showed a 9 percent decrease in the illegal coca leaf plantations in Colombia in 2019 from the previous year.Still, Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer. 
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Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Wednesday that he would welcome any efforts by Washington to use its influence on Turkey to help fashion a truce in Libya, where Ankara and Moscow are backing opposing sides and appear to be at increasing odds.Turkey dismissed last week an Egyptian-backed cease-fire offered on behalf of General Khalifa Haftar. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu scoffed that the general only wanted a truce because he was now losing on the battlefield. He said that as far as Ankara was concerned, the cease-fire initiative, broached by Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, another Haftar backer, was “stillborn.”The Moscow-backed renegade warlord’s eastern-based forces last month had to lift their 14-month siege of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, following a massive, game-changing increase in military support by Turkey for the internationally recognized Government of National Accord, or GNA.Lavrov and Russia’s defense minister canceled on short notice a planned visit Sunday to Turkey to try to thrash out a cease-fire deal. Some Western diplomats interpret Lavrov’s appeal to Washington, an about-turn by Russia’s foreign minister, who in the past has criticized any Western involvement in Libya, as a sign of mounting exasperation in Moscow over the reversal of Haftar’s fortunes on the battlefield.FILE – Libyan militia commander General Khalifa Haftar, top center, listens to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, bottom center, during their meeting in Moscow, Russia, Aug. 14, 2017.The GNA is now threatening to move into Haftar’s eastern territory, and it is pressing home an assault on the coastal city of Sirte, located between Tripoli and Benghazi, the general’s stronghold.As the Libyan conflict rages, more foreign actors have been drawn into the fighting between the U.N.-recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj and forces loyal to Haftar, who has the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Russia and to a lesser extent France.But Russia and Turkey have emerged as the key arbiters in Libya — much as they have in Syria — with reputation, clout, and potential oil and commercial deals at stake.Balancing actForging postwar futures for either country that balance the interests of both Moscow and Ankara is proving highly elusive — and is not being helped by the capricious nature of their clients in both countries.In Libya’s case, Moscow is thought to have doubted the wisdom of Haftar’s decision to launch a military offensive on Tripoli.The latest phase of the long-running turmoil in Libya that followed the 2011 ouster of then-dictator Moammar Gadhafi has seen accusations of grave human rights violations leveled against both sides.The United Nations raised the alarm Tuesday about the mistreatment of a large group of Egyptian migrant workers in Libya by GNA forces after graphic footage emerged on social media showing militiamen abusing scores of the workers captured in the western city of Tarhuna, 90 kilometers from Tripoli.A member of security forces affiliated with the Libyan Government of National Accord’s Interior Ministry stands at the reported site of a mass grave in Tarhuna, about 65 kilometers southeast of Tripoli, June 11, 2020.Last week, 11 grisly mass graves also were discovered in Tarhuna, following the withdrawal from the town by Haftar’s forces, including an estimated 2,500 Russian mercenaries deployed in Libya by the Kremlin-tied Wagner Group. More than 150 bodies, including women and children, were exhumed, prompting widespread calls for the United Nations to instruct the International Criminal Court to investigate.Analysts say it is unclear what Russia considers a territorial red line, which if crossed could see Moscow upping the military ante and dispatching more “mercenaries” to Libya to match Turkey’s mercenaries recruited from rebel militias in northern Syria. “Where is the line, the line Moscow won’t tolerate the GNA crossing? Is it Sirte? It isn’t clear,” said Sergey Sukhankin, an analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a think tank in Washington.’Frozen conflict’Speaking during a round-table discussion hosted by the Jamestown Foundation on the prospects of peace in Libya, Sukhankin said, “Russia is not interested in an ultimate victory of either side” in Libya, including a win for Haftar. “If either [warring] party gains a military victory in Libya, Russia could be sidelined or marginalized,” he said.Moscow’s interest is in a “frozen conflict,” he and other observers said, which would allow it to remain a “meaningful player” in a partitioned Libya.But the GNA appears keen to press home its military advantage, and al-Serraj has talked of the importance to fight “for the whole of the homeland.”Smelling the chance of victory, it may be impossible for the GNA to resist the temptation to go farther east than Sirte, according to Jalel Harchaoui, an analyst at the Clingendael Institute, an international affairs policy group in The Hague. “The Turkish military command feels it has the momentum,” he said.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 5, 2020.That risks a rupture between Moscow and Ankara. Both have been careful in the past to contain their rivalries in Syria and Libya within an adversarial partnership. Harchaoui said that with Russia and Turkey, “what we have are two states that indeed are acting as rivals in various spaces, whether it is Syria or Libya, but, at the same time, they are too realistic to forget that the connections that link them are vulnerable.” They avoid full-blown enmity, oscillating between “clear, visible coordination” and “slippages, incidents and accidents.”When it comes to coordination to avoid mishaps, analysts and Western diplomats highlight the withdrawal from Tarhuna last month by roughly 2,000 Russian fighters, a key militia in Haftar’s army, and their redeployment to the nearby town of Bani Walid. They were unmolested as they moved by Turkish drones and GNA militiamen and their Syrian mercenaries.New US-Turkish era?Lavrov’s appeal Wednesday to Washington for assistance in negotiating a cease-fire in Libya came just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump. The Turkish leader said they agreed on “some issues” related to Libya. “A new era between Turkey and the U.S. may start after our phone call,” Erdogan said in an interview with the state broadcaster TRT, without offering any details.The risks of escalation as fighting rages around Sirte are mounting, diplomats say, especially if GNA seeks to occupy oilfields east of Sirte, or tries to capture an airbase at Jufra.  According to U.S. Africa Command officers, Russia last month dispatched to Libya a dozen advanced MiG-29 warplanes from an air base in Russia. Africom officials said the planes transited through Syria, where they were repainted to hide their Russian markings.
 
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