The World Health Organization expressed concern Monday about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Indigenous populations in the Americas. Speaking at his regular briefing from agency headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while COVID-19 is a risk for all of the world’s Indigenous people, the agency is deeply concerned about the impact of the virus on Indigenous people in the Americas, the current epicenter of the pandemic. Tedros reports that as of the July 6, more than 70,000 cases have been reported among Indigenous people in the Americas and more than 2,000 deaths. He was specifically concerned about COVID-19 cases among Peru’s Amazonian Nahua people. WHO’s regional Office for the Americas recently published recommendations for preventing and responding to COVID-19 among Indigenous people. The agency is also working with the coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin to step up the fight against the coronavirus. Tedros also stressed the need for contact tracing to keep the coronavirus from spreading in all communities.   “Contact tracing is essential for every country, in every situation,” Tedros said. “It can prevent individual cases from becoming clusters, and clusters turning into community transmission.” As of Monday, WHO reports 14,263,202 confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with 602,244 deaths. The Americas remains the region with the largest total number of cases with 7,517,712. The United States continues to lead the world with 3,618,497 cases. Brazil is second, with 2,074,860 cases.    
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Officials in the Bahamas say that starting Wednesday, it will ban travelers from the United States due to the coronavirus pandemic. Officials say the large increase in COVID-19 cases throughout the United States and other countries is the reason for the ban; however, some international travel will be permitted, although it will be confined to Canada, Britain, and the European Union. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. The ban marks a sudden shift from the Bahamas’ decision three weeks ago to reopen to virtually all international tourism. Those still permitted to travel to the Bahamas under the new requirements must test negative for COVID-19 from an accredited lab 10 or fewer days before traveling, or otherwise quarantine themselves for 14 days. “Regrettably, the situation here at home has already deteriorated since we began the reopening of our domestic economy,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Sunday. “It has deteriorated at an exponential rate since we reopened our international borders.” The prime minister also said, “Our current situation demands decisive action if we are to avoid being overrun and defeated by this virus.” He said these strong actions were being taken to “save lives.” Bahamas’ airline, Bahamasair, is halting all flights to and from the United States. The new travel bans are an attempt to halt the increase of the virus in the Bahamas. According to the Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 dashboard, the Bahamas has 153 confirmed cases with 11 deaths.   “We cannot risk the death of Bahamians and residents. We must be resolved in our collective willingness to save lives,” said Minnis.   
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Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced Friday that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions will be gradually lift starting Saturday.Fernández spoke at an official event, accompanied by Axel Kicillof, governor of Buenos Aires province and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires.”Between July 18 and August 2 we will be trying to return to normal life in this new world, in this different world that requires different care and we will do it gradually,” he said.Fernández warned, however, that the country had not yet won the battle against the coronavirus pandemic that has so far infected more than 110,000 people in Argentina and killed about 2,100.Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta said that the situation in the Argentine capital was encouraging, adding that in the last 25 days the average number of infections remained stable between 900 and 1,000 per day.”We are going to enable activities progressively,” he said. “In terms of work, we are going to reopen shops gradually starting with neighborhood business. We will also open some personal services such as hairdressing salons and some professional activities such as lawyers.”Argentina’s COVID-19 lockdown began on March 20 and has been one of the longest in the region.Lifting the restrictions consists of a six-stage plan, the first of which will cover the next two weeks.Meanwhile, schools remain closed and public transportation will continue to be available to essential workers in the food, safety, and health sectors.
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A Haitian judge sentenced Mexican nationals Juan Jose Avila, 38, and Andres Vargas Flores, 43, to five years in prison Wednesday after convicting them of drug trafficking. The men were also fined 2 million Haitian gourdes each.Avila and Vargas Flores were arrested in November 2019 in Haiti’s southern seaport city of Les Cayes, hours after crash-landing in the rural town of Saint Jean du Sud, about 24 kilometers, or a 45-minute drive, away. The men told local residents who surrounded the plane that they had experienced engine trouble while flying over the region. Inside the plane, local police found weapons, gallons of gasoline and thousands of U.S. dollars.”Both men, pilots by profession, are hereby found guilty of drug trafficking,” pronounced Judge Robert Jourdain, who presided over the case. He said the Haitian government would confiscate their plane.The men were handcuffed, clean shaven, wearing polo shirts and black face masks as they stood in court to hear the verdict.The backstoryIn an interview with VOA Creole shortly after the arrest, the chief prosecutor for Les Cayes, Ronald Richmond, said the men told him they had flown to Haiti from Belize and were headed to Venezuela, where they were instructed to pick up 900 kilos of cocaine that they would then transport to Guatemala.Richmond told VOA the men were working for a Mexican drug trafficker named “Lubo.” They had loaded the plane with gallons of gasoline to avoid having to land to refuel.The prosecutor said the men told him they had been paid $10,000 in cash for expenses. Upon returning to Mexico, they were to receive an additional $150,000 U.S. dollars each.How they got caughtRichmond said the men had used their expense money to pay off some residents who helped them flee the crash scene and brought them to a house in Les Cayes where the pilots could wait for driver who would help them leave the country.Instead, law enforcement was tipped off about their whereabouts and arrived at the house and arrested them just as they were getting ready to leave. The prosecutor declined to identify the informant, saying only the person was a member of their “intelligence network.”Reaction to verdictAfter the verdict was read, Richmond told VOA he is not thrilled with the outcome.”I’m not satisfied,” he said, “because these men came from Mexico. They were picking up 900 kilos of cocaine in Venezuela that they were transporting to Guatemala.“So, five years’ prison time is minor; they should have been sentenced to at least 15 years in prison,” he said.Asked if he intends to appeal the sentence, the prosecutor said he did not.It is unclear where the men will serve their sentences. Human rights activists have expressed concern about the current situation in Haiti’s overcrowded prisons at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is spreading nationwide.The latest figures released by Haiti’s ministry of public health indicate a total of 6,948 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 145 deaths.Matiado Vilme contributed to this story.
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A U.S. federal district court has ruled that California’s coordination with Canada’s Quebec province in a cap and trade carbon emissions market is constitutional, a blow to the Trump administration made public in a filing late on Friday. In October, the Trump administration sued California for entering a climate agreement with Quebec, saying the state had veered out of its lane in linking with a market in another country and had no right to conduct foreign policy. The decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California this week said the Trump administration had “failed to identify a clear and express foreign policy that directly conflicts with California’s cap-and-trade program.” President Donald Trump, a Republican, has pursued a policy of maximizing fossil fuel output while slashing environmental regulations. He intends to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. California, the most populous U.S. state and one of the 10 largest economies in the world, has long positioned itself as a leader on taking action against climate change. It agreed with Quebec in 2013 to link markets that aim to cut emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet. The Trump administration has suffered several major losses in the courts on environmental issues and energy pipelines. This week a federal judge in California blocked the administration’s plan to roll back a rule that would slash methane emissions from oil and gas operations on federal lands. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling on California’s carbon emissions market. Environmentalists cheered the decision. “The federal government should be doing everything in its power to fight climate change, not fighting the states that are leading the way,” said David Pettit, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council   
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More than 300,000 Hong Kongers are believed to hold Canadian passports, and while Canada has yet to join Britain, Australia and Taiwan in making it easier for Hong Kong residents to immigrate or seek asylum because of a harsh new security law for the partly autonomous Chinese territory, Ottawa is waiting to see how many will show up.The Canadian government has so far not proposed any changes to its immigration policies for Hong Kong residents, but it has joined other countries in their criticisms of the new security law. Ostensibly meant to combat terrorism, separatism and sedition, the new law could be used to criminalize almost all dissent in Hong Kong, its critics say.The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also suspended an extradition treaty between Canada and Hong Kong, The skyline of the business district is silhouetted at sunset in Hong Kong, July 13, 2020.Although it has been just weeks since the new security law took effect on June 30, Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and policy analyst, said some of those who acquired the right to live in Canada in the 1990s or earlier are beginning to look into selling property in Hong Kong to finance the immigration of their children to Canada.“People are making plans to dispose of some property assets that were acquired 30, 40 years years ago, which today are worth a lot more, as capital to bring the child or children to Canada,” he said. “The feeling now is with the introduction of Beijing’s new security law, that the future is brighter in Canada in terms of lifestyle, and long-term goals for the Hong Kongers who do not want to live in an all-China Hong Kong.”But Kurland said he does not expect to see a massive influx from Hong Kong unless the current situation there deteriorates. However, in the short term, he sees more students coming to Canada to study, unless the coronavirus pandemic makes that impossible.Wenran Jiang is an adviser for the Asian Program at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Toronto. Speaking from his Alberta Province home in Edmonton, he said that if the purpose of the new security law is simply to reduce foreign influence in Hong Kong, the flow of immigration across the Pacific may not change much.Jiang said that immigration from Hong Kong, and more recently from mainland China, has given Canada an economic boost, particularly in the Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets.“The immigration from Hong Kong and (in more) recent years from the Chinese mainland have contributed significantly … to both the growth of Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets, among other cities, and the economic contributions are significant,” Jiang said. “But at the same time, we also know after 1997, many of the immigrants from Hong Kong, although they are having the Canadian passports, they do not really invest here or even live here. They go back to Hong Kong.”But now, he said, many of those may come back to Canada to stay if the new security law results in a significant shake-up in Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control in 1997 after 156 years of British rule.One of the early immigrants from Hong Kong was Vancouver talk show host Ken Tung, who came to Canada with his wife in 1980. Since then, Tung said he has seen Hong Kong residents follow him across the Pacific for a host of reasons, most importantly the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and the handover to China in 1997.A frequent critic of the Chinese government and its new security law for Hong Kong, Tung says Canada should speed up the process of granting asylum to those claiming to be hurt by the law.The “government of Canada should open the heart, open the arms to have the background check,” Tung said. “And (it) should accept them as a resident of Canada rather than waiting one and a half years to go through the board, go through our process. I think if this (is for) young people, (there’s) a good chance that they will become a contributing Canadian, too.”  
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More than 300,000 Hong Kongers are believed to hold Canadian passports, and while Canada has yet to join Britain, Australia and Taiwan in making it easier for Hong Kong residents to immigrate or seek asylum because of a harsh new security law for the partly autonomous Chinese territory, Ottawa is waiting to see how many will show up.The Canadian government has so far not proposed any changes to its immigration policies for Hong Kong residents, but it has joined other countries in their criticisms of the new security law. Ostensibly meant to combat terrorism, separatism and sedition, the new law could be used to criminalize almost all dissent in Hong Kong, its critics say.The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also suspended an extradition treaty between Canada and Hong Kong, The skyline of the business district is silhouetted at sunset in Hong Kong, July 13, 2020.Although it has been just weeks since the new security law took effect on June 30, Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and policy analyst, said some of those who acquired the right to live in Canada in the 1990s or earlier are beginning to look into selling property in Hong Kong to finance the immigration of their children to Canada.“People are making plans to dispose of some property assets that were acquired 30, 40 years years ago, which today are worth a lot more, as capital to bring the child or children to Canada,” he said. “The feeling now is with the introduction of Beijing’s new security law, that the future is brighter in Canada in terms of lifestyle, and long-term goals for the Hong Kongers who do not want to live in an all-China Hong Kong.”But Kurland said he does not expect to see a massive influx from Hong Kong unless the current situation there deteriorates. However, in the short term, he sees more students coming to Canada to study, unless the coronavirus pandemic makes that impossible.Wenran Jiang is an adviser for the Asian Program at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Toronto. Speaking from his Alberta Province home in Edmonton, he said that if the purpose of the new security law is simply to reduce foreign influence in Hong Kong, the flow of immigration across the Pacific may not change much.Jiang said that immigration from Hong Kong, and more recently from mainland China, has given Canada an economic boost, particularly in the Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets.“The immigration from Hong Kong and (in more) recent years from the Chinese mainland have contributed significantly … to both the growth of Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets, among other cities, and the economic contributions are significant,” Jiang said. “But at the same time, we also know after 1997, many of the immigrants from Hong Kong, although they are having the Canadian passports, they do not really invest here or even live here. They go back to Hong Kong.”But now, he said, many of those may come back to Canada to stay if the new security law results in a significant shake-up in Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control in 1997 after 156 years of British rule.One of the early immigrants from Hong Kong was Vancouver talk show host Ken Tung, who came to Canada with his wife in 1980. Since then, Tung said he has seen Hong Kong residents follow him across the Pacific for a host of reasons, most importantly the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and the handover to China in 1997.A frequent critic of the Chinese government and its new security law for Hong Kong, Tung says Canada should speed up the process of granting asylum to those claiming to be hurt by the law.The “government of Canada should open the heart, open the arms to have the background check,” Tung said. “And (it) should accept them as a resident of Canada rather than waiting one and a half years to go through the board, go through our process. I think if this (is for) young people, (there’s) a good chance that they will become a contributing Canadian, too.”  
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A thousand deaths a day.Since late May, three months after Brazil’s first reported case of the coronavirus, it has recorded more than 1,000 daily deaths on average in a gruesome plateau that has yet to tilt downward.On Thursday evening, the federal health ministry reported that the country had passed 2 million confirmed cases of virus infections and 76,000 deaths.Even as cases wane somewhat in the biggest and hardest-hit Brazilian cities, the virus is peaking in new locations across the largest country in Latin America.Experts blame denial of the virus’ deadly potential by President Jair Bolsonaro and lack of national coordination combined with scattershot responses by city and state governments, with some reopening earlier than health experts recommended.An interim health minister untrained in the field is presiding over pandemic response. Bolsonaro himself is sick with COVID-19 after repeatedly flouting social distance recommendations and undermining local leaders’ restrictions on activity.Brazil’s roughly 7,000 COVID-19 deaths in each of the last seven weeks is equal to several airplanes packed with Brazilians crashing every day, former health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta told The Associated Press.”People have become callous,” Mandetta said. “When you say, ‘Yesterday there were 1,300 deaths,’ people say, ‘OK, then it didn’t go up. It was 1,300 people the day before, too.'”Brazil’s 2 million-plus cases is second only to the United States, and experts believe the number to be an undercount due to widespread lack of testing. A model created by professors from several Brazilian academic institutions, based on the number of confirmed deaths, estimates Brazil has had 10 million infections.Barbers wear face shields, masks, and gloves for protection amid the COVID-19 pandemic while attending clients on the first day the shop was allowed to reopen, as restrictions ease in Brasilia, Brazil, July 15, 2020.”The virus would have been difficult to stop anyway. But this milestone of 2 million cases, which is very underestimated, shows this could have been different,” said Dr. Adriano Massuda, a health care administration specialist and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Sao Paulo university. “There’s no national strategy for testing, no measures from the top, … too little effort to improve basic care so we find serious cases before they become too serious, no tracking.”The virus has begun reaching cities and states previously spared, offsetting declines elsewhere. The number of deaths has been ebbing in states including Rio de Janeiro and Amazonas, where people were buried in mass graves in the capital, Manaus. In the last two weeks, 10 of Brazil’s 26 states and its Federal District saw increases, with two southern states’ average daily death tolls doubling.Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed COVID-19’s severity, saying strict social distancing measures that sacrifice jobs and income will ultimately be more harmful than the virus itself, and calling on supporters to encourage their local leaders to lift restrictions on activity. Many mayors and governors have struggled to hold the line.In Ribeirao Preto, a city in Sao Paulo state, protesting shopkeepers on Wednesday demanded they be allowed to reopen. They surrounded the mayor’s car as he left City Hall, punching his windows and cursing at him.Campinas, a city of 1.2 million people closer to the state’s capital, adopted quarantine measures early, but succumbed to political pressure and reopened commerce on June 8, said Pedro de Siqueira, a Campinas city councilman. The city center swarmed with shoppers like an overturned anthill, he said in an interview.Two weeks later, the number of COVID-19 deaths had roughly tripled to 253, as did the number of confirmed cases, to 6,324. Intensive-care beds refilled with patients, prompting the mayor to reinstate restrictions on commerce on June 22, but allowing offices and churches to continue operating.”Campinas reopened prematurely and erroneously, supported by the state government,” Siqueira, who is also a public health physician, said at the time. “This reopening was so catastrophic that Campinas had to step back but did so only partially.”Cemetery workers in protective clothing bury three victims of the new coronavirus at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 15, 2020.Since then, Campinas’ number of cases and deaths has doubled once more. On Wednesday, the city extended restrictions until July 30.Daniel Soranz, a researcher at state-run biology institute Fiocruz’s national health school, said Brazil’s center-west that includes the agricultural heartland will be the last region slammed by the virus. And, looking at deaths from severe respiratory insufficiency, it appears Brazil as a whole has begun turning the corner, he said.”By the end of August, we should be at a much better place than today,” Soranz said.In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state with 46 million residents, the number of deaths has stabilized at a level slightly below its peak. At one of the capital’s cemeteries on Wednesday, Michelle Caverni buried her 88-year-old aunt, who died of COVID-19 and also suffered from pulmonary emphysema. The same day a friend of Caverni’s buried her 57-year-old mother. She also died of COVID-19.”Until it knocks at your door, people are indifferent,” said Caverni, 40, a restaurant cook. “Yesterday there were 1,300 deaths from COVID-19. Is that supposed to be few? People are saying that’s just the media. I hear that every day at work.”Most people show only moderate symptoms from COVID-19 and recover. Some, including the elderly or those with longstanding health problems, are more susceptible to severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.Modeling by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that Brazil’s death toll will reach almost 200,000 by November, nearly closing the gap with that of the U.S. The forecast has a wide margin of error.”We will see how this patient known as Brazil will behave until the end of this epidemic,” said Mandetta, who Bolsonaro fired as health minister in April for backing state governors’ quarantine measures.  
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Ivanka Trump on Wednesday defended tweeting a photo of herself holding up a can of Goya beans to buck up a Hispanic-owned business that she says has been unfairly treated, arguing that she has “every right” to publicly express her support. Government watchdogs countered that President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser doesn’t have the right to violate ethics rules that bar government officials from using their public office to endorse specific products or groups. A twitter post shows a photo of Senior Advisor Ivanka Trump holding a can of black beans by Goya Foods, with the company’s slogan in English and Spanish written above, on July 15, 2020 in this screen grab obtained from social media.These groups contend Ivanka Trump’s action also highlights broader concerns about how the president and those around him often blur the line between politics and governing. The White House would be responsible for disciplining Ivanka Trump for any ethics violation but chose not to in a similar case involving White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in 2017. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters accompanying the president to Atlanta on Wednesday that he doubted Ivanka Trump would face any repercussions. Goya became the target of a consumer boycott  after CEO Robert Unanue praised the president at a Hispanic event at the White House last Thursday.  Trump tweeted the next day about his “love” for Goya, and his daughter followed up late Tuesday by tweeting the photo of herself holding a can of Goya black beans with a caption that read, “If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” in English and Spanish. Almost immediately, government watchdogs and social media commentators accused Ivanka Trump of violating ethics rules — an issue that was not addressed in a White House response statement that blamed the news media and the culture of boycotting certain views. “Only the media and the cancel culture movement would criticize Ivanka for showing her personal support for a company that has been unfairly mocked, boycotted and ridiculed for supporting this administration — one that has consistently fought for and delivered for the Hispanic community,” White House spokesperson Carolina Hurley said in an emailed statement.  “Ivanka is proud of this strong, Hispanic-owned business with deep roots in the U.S. and has every right to express her personal support,” Hurley said.  Ivanka Trump sent the tweet from a personal Twitter account that does double duty chronicling her work on various White House initiatives.  Trump himself appeared to back up his daughter Wednesday by posting a photo on his Instagram account showing him in the Oval Office in front of various Goya products arrayed on his desk. As president, Trump is exempt from many of the rules that federal workers must follow. Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, said on Twitter that the tweets and photos amounted to “an official campaign by the Trump administration to support Goya, making it all the more clear that Ivanka’s tweet was a violation of the misuse of position regulations.” Shaub left government in 2017 after clashing with the Trump administration over ethics rules. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said the rules are clear. “The ethics rules for executive branch employees say that you can’t use your official position to promote a private business,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of CREW. “It’s pretty clear that the context in which this came out is that Goya had been supportive of the Trump administration and the Trump administration was being supportive of Goya.” Craig Holman, the Capitol Hill lobbyist for Public Citizen, said the episode was reminiscent of a 2017 incident when, during a nationally broadcast cable TV interview, Conway urged Trump supporters to buy Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories after Nordstrom dropped the fashion line. The White House later said Conway had been “counseled” about her comments.  Holman argued that Ivanka Trump’s action was less of a mistake given the Conway incident. “They decided to violate federal law thinking that it will benefit them politically,” he said. Trump is looking to improve his standing with Latino voters before November’s election. He won the votes of about 3 in 10 Latino voters in 2016. Meadows defended Ivanka Trump. “I don’t know from my standpoint I see this as a huge promotion of Goya Foods as much as it is expressing appreciation for someone who is willing to show great political courage,” the White House chief of staff said.  The president often blurs the lines between politics and governing. President Donald speaks during an event on American infrastructure at UPS Hapeville Airport Hub, in Atlanta, July 15, 2020.Trump used a speech Wednesday at a UPS facility in Atlanta on environmental permitting to rail against allowing mail-in voting for the November election and against Democratic rival Joe Biden. He also used a Tuesday news conference in the White House Rose Garden,  where presidents traditionally have refrained from politics, to lash out at Biden. Last year, Trump floated the idea of hosting a 2020 summit of world leaders at his private, for-profit golf club near Miami, but backed down after a bipartisan outcry over the conflict of interest.  Separately Wednesday, CREW filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, against Meadows. The group alleges that Meadows violated the Hatch Act during recent television interviews in which he advocated for Trump and against Biden. The Hatch Act prohibits government officials from using their positions to influence political campaigns. The Office of Special Counsel said it could not comment beyond acknowledging receipt of the complaint. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. 
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Peru resumed all flights within the country after restricting operations for four months to slow the spread of the coronavirus.Ronny Vasquez, an air passenger at Jorge Chávez airport in Lima, was disappointed with Wednesday’s restart.He said although many people wore masks, authorities failed to make sure people were social distancing.Passenger Berenice Corbero said she got out of line because people were not staying a healthy distance apart to avoid possible infection.Transport operations also resumed on the Amazon River on Wednesday.Additionally, the government restarted bus travel in all but seven regions where coronavirus cases are still rising.Peru has confirmed more than 330,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 12,200 deaths.The country has the second-highest total of coronavirus cases in Latin America after Brazil. 
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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro remained in self-isolation Thursday, a day after announcing he tested positive for coronavirus for a second time.Speaking to reporters outside his official residence, the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Bolsanaro said he will take another test in the coming days with the hopes of resuming some activity.Bolsonaro insisted that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has helped him to deal with the virus, despite scientists saying there was no medical evidence to support its effectiveness.Since the start of the outbreak four months ago, Bolsanaro has downplayed the seriousness of the epidemic, criticizing Brazilian governors for imposing restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.Bolsonaro’s opposition is further highlighted because Brazil is the second-worst hit country in the world, only behind the United States.Brazil is nearing 2 million cases of the coronavirus and more than 75,000 deaths.
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Emilio Lozoya, the former CEO of Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, who faces charges of money laundering and accepting bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, could be extradited to Mexico from a Spanish jail as early as Thursday. Lozoya, who last led Pemex just over four years ago, was a fugitive on the run until his arrest in the Spanish town of Malaga in late February on an outstanding arrest warrant from Mexico. Lozoya, who was close to former President Enrique Peña Nieto, decided to return voluntarily to Mexico and cooperate with prosecutors in cases against him for alleged corruption. Mexico sent a plane to Spain to transport Lozoya because of the restrictions on commercial flights due to   the coronavirus pandemic. 
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The Venezuelan government has done little to clamp down on the violent, brutal behavior of criminal groups who control mining in a region largely inhabited by indigenous communities, according to a U.N. report submitted Wednesday. The U.N. Human Rights Office noted that internal migration to the Arco Minero del Orinoco region has increased dramatically in the last few years because of the country’s economic crisis, and miners’ need to feed themselves and their families makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation.U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif said the groups who control the mines impose their own rules on workers through violence and extortion, which includes child labor, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and exposure to hazardous conditions and diseases, including mercury contamination.FILE – A miner descends into an underground gold mine in El Callao, Bolivar state, Venezuela, March 1, 2017.The report said miners, some as young as 9 years old, work 12-hour shifts under dangerous conditions without protection. Workers pay 10 to 20 percent of their earnings to the criminal groups and another 15 to 30 percent to the mill owners who extract the gold from the rocks. Lack of transparency makes it difficult to know what, if anything, the Venezuelan government has done to regulate mining activity and curb illegal operations, Al-Nashif said. “Despite the considerable presence of military and security forces inside the Arco Minero region, and efforts to tackle criminal activities, authorities have yet to fully comply with their obligation under international law to investigate and sanction violations of human rights related to mining operations,” she said.  Venezuela’s Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Jorge Valero, rejected the report, saying his government was not asked for any input in compiling it.He said his country faces challenges, but blamed most of those on restrictions and sanctions imposed on his government by the United States. Those sanctions target Venezuelan industries such as petroleum, gold mining, and banking — for what U.S. President Donald Trump has said is the Nicolas Maduro government’s record of human rights abuses. These include the arbitrary arrest and detention of Venezuelan citizens.  Amnesty International’s report last year said Venezuela continued to experience an unprecedented human rights crisis, listing extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions and excessive use of force against government critics. 
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Some gold, diamond and bauxite mines in the Venezuelan Amazon are largely controlled by criminal gangs who exploit, beat and even kill workers, a United Nations investigation has found.
 
Venezuelan security and military forces fail to prevent crimes and have participated in some violence against miners, the U.N. human rights office said in a report on Wednesday.
 
“Authorities should take immediate steps to end labor and sexual exploitation, child labor and human trafficking, and should dismantle criminal groups controlling mining activities,” Michelle Bachelet, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.
 
Her deputy Nada Al-Nashif presented the findings, on the area known as the Orinoco Mining Arc, to the Human Rights Council saying: “According to first-hand accounts received by the Office, a large portion of mining activities remain under the control of organized criminal or armed elements that impose their own rules through violence and extortion.”
 
Venezuela’s ambassador, Jorge Valero, rejected the report in a speech that did not specifically mention mining.
 
“It is clear that there is manipulation and double standards at play here with a view to try to attack a sovereign state and expose it,” Valero told the Geneva forum.
 
The U.N. report said that 149 people were reported to have died in or around the mines from March 2016 to 2020, with security forces implicated in half of the incidents, adding that the government had not replied to its request for information.
 
“According to accounts received … bodies of miners are often thrown into old mining pits used as clandestine graves,” the report said.
 
The miners, who include young children, lack employment contracts and are exposed to mercury contamination and malaria, the report said.
 
It called for the government of President Nicolas Maduro to regularize mining activities and ensure that they meet international legal and environmental standards.
 
Created by a government decree in 2016, the area of some 42,800 square miles (111,000 sq km) in the Venezuelan Amazon is equivalent to 12 per cent of national territory.
 
Gold, diamonds, coltan, iron and bauxite are mined.
 
Venezuela’s central bank has not published data on gold and mineral exports since 2018, the report said.
 
The Maduro government has supported small-scale mining since 2016 to bring in revenue amid an economic crisis. Operations have expanded as the United States has increased sanctions.
 
Criminal groups have become more active since concessions for foreign mining companies were terminated in 2011, the report said.
  
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Chilean President Sebastian Piñera is hoping his second economic stimulus package proposal to help middle-class citizens impacted by the coronavirus lockdown gets the full backing of the Congress.  His initial $1.5 billion proposal failed to generate enough support from the Chilean Congress last week. In a televised speech, Pinera said his latest proposal delivers financial contributions directly to the middle class. Piñera’s new stimulus package also has credit extensions, rent subsidies and loans to help pay for college.  Piñera hopes his proposal will counter an initiative by the opposition that would allow pensioners to withdraw 10 percent of their savings from a total of 200,000 dollars in Chile’s Pension Funds Administrator.  The opposition argues Piñera’s proposal is costly and would burden the middle class with unnecessary debt. 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s self-isolation with the coronavirus does not appear to be affording him any sympathy from protesters calling for his resignation. Demonstrators, who are upset over Bolsonaro’s response to the outbreak, placed crosses representing COVID-19 victims outside the Brazilian Congress in the capital, Brasilia, on Tuesday. Protesters, including members of trade unions, Indigenous people and LGBT activists, delivered a petition to Congress calling for his impeachment.  Bolsonaro has been widely criticized for downplaying the impact of the pandemic.  Indigenous leader Kretan Kaingang said demonstrators also wanted to honor warriors who died during the pandemic.  Brazil has confirmed more than 74,000 deaths, the second-highest in the world behind the United States.  So far, nearly two million people have been infected with the coronavirus in Brazil.  
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Ada Gutierrez has thought about returning to Venezuela every single day since Colombia went into quarantine in late March.Gutierrez, one of 5 million people who have fled crisis-stricken Venezuela, has spent months of quarantine in Colombia selling candy on the streets of Medellín, the country’s second biggest city.If she is lucky, she can scrape together enough money each night for her and her and her 18-month-old daughter to split a hotel room with other Venezuelan families. If not, the two sleep on the streets.“Just like all the Venezuelans around here, we have slept on the street,” she said, outside a station delivering parcels of food to migrants.“If we have to, we do not eat for the entire day to pay for our room. Our reality here is living day-to-day, sleeping in the streets and going hungry,” said Gutierrez.Life in limboAs Latin America emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic, Gutierrez said she wants to return home to Venezuela just as 81,000 other Venezuelans had done by the end of  June, according to Colombia’s border control agency.Gutierrez is among 30,000 Venezuelans that Colombian authorities say are in limbo on the Colombian side of the border.Their choice is stay in Colombia and struggle to survive through the lockdown or go home to a situation of uncertainty.At the beginning of the pandemic, migrants walked hundreds of miles back to the Venezuelan border. Others returned by buses facilitated by Colombia, the biggest receiver of the exodus – now eager to send them home.When they arrive at the border, migrants describe a brutal, sometimes months-long process before they can return home, packed into facilities by Venezuelan authorities with hundreds of other migrants, sleeping on cement floors and often eating little more than undercooked eggs and corn cakes known as arepas.FearThe return would be too harsh for her baby, Eva, to go through, Gutierrez said. Other vulnerable populations – families, the elderly, and migrants living with disabilities or medical conditions – have echoed Gutierrez’ fears. So day after day, she has opted to stay, hoping that at the end of the day, she and Eva will have food, a place to sleep and enough luck to not get infected.In recent weeks, the Venezuelan government has placed a limit on migrants crossing back to Venezuela, only letting 400 of its citizens cross the land border three times a week.This comes despite President Nicolas Maduro’s calls for Venezuelans to return home at the beginning of the pandemic, announcing over state television that returnees would be treated with “love and affection.”Now, more than 30,000 migrants are stuck waiting in Colombia alone, many in makeshift camps in big cities like Medellín and Bogota. The Colombian government said that the process to return could now take up to 6 months.Venezuelan migrants attempting to return to their country due to the COVID-19 pandemic remain in makeshift camps at the Simon Bolivar International Bridge in Cucuta, Colombia, July 7, 2020.As cases jump across the region, aid providers like Arles Pereda, president of COLVENZ, the Colony of Venezuelans in Colombia nonprofit group, warn that those camps could become hotbeds for contagion.“There is a very, very high possibility of an outbreak,” Pereda said. “We have had a lot of luck because that still has not happened,” he said. but it has been very tense because with this invisible enemy, we do not know when it is going to attack.”Pereda’s organization once provided a safety net to migrants arriving to Medellín. Now, they distribute boxes of food to families starving in months of quarantine and try to connect Venezuelans wanting to return with local governments.COVID-19 time bombDespite low testing rates, Colombia has reported 150,445 confirmed cases and 5,634 deaths as of July 14. Venezuela has reported 9,707 cases and 93 deaths, but observers say the Maduro government is drastically undercounting cases.An employee of the Ministry of Health talks to a man who will undergo a rapid test for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Bogota, Colombia, July 1, 2020.In a Reuters interview last month, Colombian President Iván Duque described  Venezuela as public health “time bomb.”The exodus from Venezuela has ballooned in recent years as the South American country’s economic and political spiral accelerates, compounding its medical and energy crises.  In a report last year, the Council on Foreign Relations said 3.3 million Venezuelans – 10% of Venezuela’s population –  had fled in a four-year period starting in 2015.Gutierrez left two years ago to give birth to her daughter in Colombia because Venezuelan hospitals were already collapsed and maternal and infant mortalities have skyrocketed.A member of the National Police Action Force uses a megaphone, telling people to return home due to the government-ordered lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, in Caracas, Venezuela, July 2, 2020.The mass-migration to countries like Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile is set to surpass Syria’s as the biggest migration in the world, yet Venezuelan migrants only receive pennies on the dollar in international aid compared to their Syrian counterparts.Pereda and Gimena Sanchez, Andes director for the Washington Office on Latin America, WOLA, say resources were already insufficient before the pandemic hit. The needs are only heightened as migrants lose their jobs, are kicked out of their homes and face rising xenophobia.Sanchez said the pandemic is likely to transform the exodus and leave more migrants like the Gutierrez family vulnerable.Exodus changing direction“They cannot transit like they used to,” she said. “What you are going to see is more and more people becoming stuck or going back-and-forth.”While Colombia was once largely a transit country, regional restrictions and instability will push migrants to increasingly stay on Colombian territory, she said. As the crisis stretches on, Sanchez said there will be more of an ebb-and-flow from Venezuela as waves of crises strike, turning migration from a one-directional exodus to more of a pendulum of flows between the two countries.That could be devastating for Colombia, which is still struggling to emerge from decades of an internal conflict that already displaced nearly 8 million of its own citizens.Gutierrez takes it one day at time. As she sees it, she has no other choice.“I’m scared, but I have to go out to the streets every single day and search for a way to feed ourselves,” she said, “because that’s how we stay alive.” 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has self-quarantined nearly a week after testing positive for the new coronavirus, is scheduled to take another COVID-19 test on Tuesday. Speaking by phone with CNN on Monday, outside his official residence at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said, he expects to get the results within a few hours, adding he feels well, but cannot stand being in isolation. Since the start of the outbreak four months ago, Bolsonaro has downplayed the seriousness of the epidemic, criticizing Brazilian governors for imposing restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. President Bolsonaro’s opposition is further highlighted because Brazil is the second-worst hit country in the world, only behind the United States. Brazil has confirmed more than1.8 million cases of the coronavirus and more than 72,800 deaths. 
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Ousmann Umar knows only too well how tough it is for migrants from Africa to reach Europe. Dumped in the Sahara by trafficking gangs when he was only 13, he believed he would share the fate of other migrants whose bodies lay strewn on the route northwards. Unlike the others, he survived, not just the desert but every step of a five-year odyssey from Ghana to Spain. Thirteen years later, the son of a traditional healer is now a businessman in Barcelona with a master’s degree from one of the world’s top business schools. On the face of it, he seems a poster boy for young Africans dreaming of a life in Europe. Instead, Umar, 30, has made it his mission to persuade Africans to stay at home rather than follow in his footsteps, insisting the emotional cost is too high. As Spain currently pushes for a joint European Union migration policy, the number of illegal immigrants who reached the country by land or sea between January and June fell by 31% compared with the same period in 2019. About 7,744 people made it to Spain during that time, compared with 11,316 in 2019. Traffickers switched routes from the Mediterranean to moving people from Mauritania in West Africa to the Canary Islands, a precarious 100-kilometer journey. Some 80% of all the 120,000 applications for asylum in Spain come from Latin American countries, principally from Venezuela and Colombia. Latin Americans  favored? Migrants from Africa and other parts of the world have claimed they are at a disadvantage in comparison with those who arrive from South or Central America. The reality, it seems, is more complicated. FILE – Venezuelan refugees, 8-month pregnant Stephanie Paez and her partner Kervin Leiva, hang clothes to dry outside their bungalow in La Ciguena holiday complex amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Arganda del Rey, Spain, April 3, 2020.Umar shares the view that it is easier for Latin Americans to reach the Promised Land and attain the hallowed status of residency. “It seems much easier for them to get legal residence here than some Africans because of the colonial links with Spain,” he told VOA. “I am from Ghana, which was a British colony, so for instance it would be easier for me to gain legal status in the UK.” However, he said the system itself made it very hard for anyone to establish themselves in Spain. “What you need is to be living in the same place for three years and to have a work contract for a year and then the Spanish are almost forced to grant you residence,” Umar said. “It is a mad system which forces people, wherever they are from, to live illegally in utter poverty in the hope they can get residency. It can apply to either Africans or Latin Americans,” he said.  Umar set up a charity, Nasco Feeding Minds, to buy computers for 19 schools in Ghana. He works with banks and other businesses, giving inspirational speeches and other European countries. After a torturous route through Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, he eventually made it on a flimsy boat to the Canary Islands. From there, he ended up in Barcelona. After two years living rough, Umar got help from by a Spanish family who supported him through school. “I would not wish it on anyone,” he confides. Nuria Díaz, spokeswoman for CEAR, the Spanish Commission for Refugees, an NGO in Madrid, said getting to Spain was far harder for African or Asian migrants than for Latin Americans. Red Cross members take the temperature of a migrant before disembarking from a Spanish coast guard vessel in the port of Arguineguin on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, May 17, 2020.“The practicality of it is with the European Union policy of trying to bar migration right now because of coronavirus, it is very difficult for these migrants to arrive via the Mediterranean. In comparison, Latin Americans can get to Spain by air, but they are still facing barriers because of the virus,” she in an interview with VOA. “Normally, in many cases, they do not need a visa because of reciprocal agreements between Spain and their governments.” Onshore, equal treatment Díaz added: “However, once they are here, the law is equal for all. Only 5% of those who apply for asylum get it. Last year, there was a waiting list of 120,000 and it normally takes up to 18 months for your case to be considered.” Judith Tabares, a lawyer who specializes in migration cases, says the ability of migrants to secure legal residence in Spain differs from case to case. “In theory it would be easy to say that it is easier for Latin Americans than Africans but in reality that is not the case,” she told VOA. Venezuelan residents in Spain gather at the QW Bar in Madrid, Spain, May 15, 2018. Picture taken May 15, 2018.“One migrant from an African country may have a relative living here which can help them while someone from Venezuela may still struggle to get legal status after years.” A spokesman for Spanish immigration ministry said: “The process of asylum is equal for all. All migrants when they arrive in Spain are treated the same, wherever they come from.”   
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has self-quarantined nearly a week after testing positive for the new coronavirus, is scheduled to take another COVID-19 test on Tuesday. Speaking by phone with CNN on Monday, outside his official residence at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said, he expects to get the results within a few hours, adding he feels well, but cannot stand being in isolation. Since the start of the outbreak four months ago, Bolsonaro has downplayed the seriousness of the epidemic, criticizing Brazilian governors for imposing restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. President Bolsonaro’s opposition is further highlighted because Brazil is the second-worst hit country in the world, only behind the United States. Brazil has confirmed more than1.8 million cases of the coronavirus and more than 72,800 deaths. 
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Mexico announced it’s considering an offer of $120 million in cash plus medical equipment from an unnamed entity to buy a luxury equipped presidential airplane. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been trying sell off the plane of his predecessor, former President Enrique Pena Nieto, since taking office in late 2018 on a campaign pledge of fugal spending.  López Obrador has been flying commercial airlines, citing the presidential plane to be an extravagance, with its presidential suite. Experts say the 787 Boeing jet, which initially cost $200 million, will be hard to off load because it would be difficult to reconfigure into a regular passenger jet. In an effort to boost the value of the presidential plane, the government is separately conducting a raffle, with winners getting cash prizes. 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized on Monday for taking part in a Cabinet decision to use a charity he and his family have worked with to administer a $900 million ($663.4 million) student grant program.Trudeau, 48, is facing a third investigation for conflict of interest in a little over three years after his government tapped WE Charity Canada on June 25 to manage the program. The charity backed out about a week after the contract was announced. “I made a mistake in not recusing myself immediately from the discussions, given our family’s history, and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” Trudeau said at a news conference. It is the second time in less than a year that the prime minister has apologized publicly for his actions in a live, nationally televised news conference. The first time was in September after decades-old images of him in blackface emerged. “I was very aware that members of my family had worked with and contributed to the WE organization, but I was unaware of the details of their remuneration,” Trudeau said. WE Charity disclosed last week that from 2016-2020 it paid honoraria to Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, amounting to C$250,000 for speaking at some 28 events, while his brother, Alexandre, received about C$32,000. Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, have regularly participated in WE Charity events, and Gregoire Trudeau hosts a podcast on the charity’s website for which she is not paid. Also on Monday, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, whose daughter works at WE Charity, offered a similar apology. “I will recuse myself from any future discussions related to WE,” Morneau said. The grant program, meant to help students struggling to find summer jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been stymied by the controversy, and the government is now looking for a different way to administer it.  
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Several companies that certify vessels are seaworthy and ship insurers have withdrawn services to tankers involved in the Venezuelan oil trade as the United States targets the maritime industry to tighten sanctions on the Latin American country.U.S. sanctions have driven Venezuela’s oil exports to their lowest levels in nearly 80 years, starving President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government of its main source of revenue and leaving authorities short of cash for essential imports such as food and medicine.The sanctions are part of U.S. efforts to weaken Maduro’s grip on power after Washington and other Western democracies accused him of rigging a 2018 reelection vote. Despite the country’s economic collapse, Maduro has held on and frustrated the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.Maduro’s government says the United States is trying to seize Venezuela’s oil and calls the U.S. measures illegal persecution that heap suffering on the Venezuelan people.Washington has homed in on the maritime industry in recent months in efforts to better enforce sanctions on the oil trade and isolate Caracas, Washington’s special envoy on Venezuela Elliott Abrams told Reuters.”What you will see is most shipowners and insurance and captains are simply going to turn away from Venezuela,” Abrams told Reuters in an interview.”It’s just not worth the hassle or the risk for them.”The United States is pressuring shipping companies, insurers, certifiers and flag states that register vessels, he said.Ship classification societies, which certify safety and environmental standards for vessels, are feeling the heat for the first time.The United States is pressuring classifiers to establish whether vessels have violated sanctions regulations and to withdraw certification if so, as a way to tighten sanctions further, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.Without certification, a vessel and its cargo become uninsured. Ship owners would also be in breach of commercial contracts which require certificates to be maintained. In addition, port authorities can refuse entry or detain a ship.London-headquartered Lloyd’s Register (LR), one of the world’s leading ship classifiers, said it had withdrawn services from eight tankers that were involved in trade with Venezuela.”In accordance with our program for complying with sanctions’ laws, where we become aware of vessels operating in breach of relevant sanctions laws, LR classification has been withdrawn,” a Lloyd’s Register spokeswoman said.Abrams said the pressure on the maritime industry was working.”We have had a number of shippers that come to us and say, ‘We just had our insurance company withdraw the insurance, and the ship is on the high seas and we’ve got to get to port. Could you give us a license for one week?'” Abrams said.In June, the United States designated six shipping companies — two of them based in Greece – and six tankers they owned for participating in proscribed Venezuelan trade.Another leading ship classifier, Hamburg-headquartered DNV GL Maritime, said it had suspended services for three of those vessels in June.The company resumed services when the United States removed those vessels from the list of sanctioned entities after the shipping companies that own and operate the vessels agreed to cease trade with Venezuela.Chilling effectThe United States has threatened sanctions on any company involved in the oil trade with Venezuela, and that has had a chilling effect even on trade permitted under sanctions.Some oil companies are refusing to charter vessels that have called at Venezuelan ports in the past year, even if the voyage was exempt from sanctions.”The shipping sector has been at the receiving end of U.S. action on Venezuela and it has caused much uncertainty as no one knows who will be next,” one shipping industry source said.Insurers are also in a bind. They have been conservative in their interpretation of U.S. sanctions to avoid any potential violations, said Mike Salthouse, chairman of the sanctions sub-committee with the International Group association. The group represents companies that insure about 90% of the world’s commercial shipping.”If there is ambiguity as to what is lawful and what is unlawful it makes it almost impossible for an insurer to say whether someone has cover or not,” he said.Even after ships and companies are removed from the sanctions list, they may face difficulties, Salthouse said.”The stigma associated with a designation may last some time,” he said.Oil majors, for example, may review relationships with companies that own or manage vessels that the United States had designated and then removed to avoid any possible problems with other vessels, he said.’Real threat’Venezuela is on the list of high-risk areas set by officials from London’s insurance market.”If a vessel sails to Venezuela they have to notify the underwriter and it may be that the underwriter will not be able to cover them,” said Neil Roberts, head of marine underwriting at Lloyd’s Market Association, which represents the interests of all underwriting businesses in London’s Lloyd’s market.The industry faces “the direct and real threat of having its trade stopped by a watchful U.S. administration because of an inadvertent infringement,” he said.”This risk alone is enough to fuel the multiplication of compliance checks.”Some of the biggest global flag registries including Panama and Liberia are also looking more closely at ships that were involved in Venezuela trading as they come under U.S. pressure to withdraw registration for ships violating sanctions.Maritime lawyers in Panama said its registry is fining vessels that do not comply with the U.S. maritime guidance issued in May. The registry is mostly de-flagging vessels targeted by multilateral sanctions rather than unilateral U.S. sanctions, the lawyers said.Officials at Liberia’s registry did not respond to requests for comment.U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a former investor in shipping, helped craft the strategy targeting the maritime sector, sources said.A Commerce Department spokesperson acknowledged Ross had worked with other government agencies “to determine how to best hold accountable those who are evading U.S. sanctions” on Venezuela.Abrams vowed to keep up the pressure.”There are people who don’t cooperate … We’ll go after the ship, the ship owner, the ship captain.” 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent his first week in isolation doing the things he’d scoffed at for months: wearing a face mask and practicing social distancing.Bolsonaro, who said Tuesday he had tested positive for the coronavirus, is taking the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine. On Saturday, his wife said her test and those of her two daughters came back negative.Bolsonaro, who said his symptoms are aches, fever and malaise, has a new routine of virtual meetings and Facebook live broadcasts spent in the company of a few aides who had previously tested positive. Not so long ago Bolsonaro was attending rallies and going out to mix and mingle.“I’m sorry I can’t interact with you here. Not even next week will it be possible, because I think I will not yet be completely free of the virus, so I will not have anyone on my side here,” Bolsonaro said on his weekly Facebook broadcast Thursday.Brazil, with 1,071 new deaths Saturday, has a total of nearly 71,500 deaths and 1.9 million confirmed cases. The South American nation trails only the United States in cases and deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.Worldwide, there are more than 12.6 million confirmed cases and more than 560,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.In Iran on Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani said the nation’s economy must stay open despite a rise in the number of coronavirus infections. He called for a ban on large gatherings, such as at weddings and wakes, to limit the spread of the virus.Iran reported Saturday that in the previous 24 hours, there had been 2,397 new COVID-19 cases and 188 deaths related to the virus, for a more than 255,000 confirmed cases and a death toll of more than 12,600. The country, which has a population of more than 80 million, ranks ninth globally in the number of cases and deaths due to the coronavirus.“We must ban ceremonies and gatherings all over the country, whether it be wakes, weddings or parties,” Rouhani said, according to a Reuters report. Shortly after he spoke, Tehran police closed all wedding and mourning venues until further notice, the wire service reported.Also Saturday, in India, Biocon, an Indian biopharmaceutical company, told Reuters it had received regulatory approval for its drug Itolizumab to be used in India on coronavirus-infected patients suffering from moderate to severe respiratory distress.Itolizumab also is used to cure the skin disease psoriasis.India, with a population of nearly 1.4 billion people, has recorded 820,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and a death toll of 22,000.In Australia, Victoria’s capital city of Melbourne has begun a six-week lockdown because of a spike in coronavirus cases.“Nobody is enjoying being locked at home. It is frustrating, it is challenging, but the strategy will be successful if we all play our part,” Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria state, said Saturday.Victoria reported 216 new cases Saturday, down from 288 Friday.“We will see more and more additional cases,” Andrews said. “This is going to be with us for months and months.”Australia’s seven other states and territories reported 11 new cases Saturday.Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, warned that the pandemic is worsening in the U.S. because the country lacks a coherent strategy to contain the virus.“As a country, when we compare ourselves to other countries, I don’t think you can say we are doing great. I mean, we’re just not,” Fauci said in a recent interview.Fauci suggested earlier this week that states struggling to combat the virus “should seriously look at shutting down,” despite state efforts to reopen in order to revive their economies.Dozens of U.S. Marines have been infected on the Japanese island of Okinawa, officials said. They said the U.S. military asked that the exact figure not be released.“We now have strong doubts that the U.S. military has taken adequate disease prevention measures,” Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters.On Saturday, the United States reported more than 66,000 new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the latest in a string of record-breaking days.The U.S. remains the hardest-hit country, with about one-quarter of all confirmed infections and fatalities worldwide. As of late Saturday, more than 3.2 million people in the U.S. had contracted the virus and more than 134,000 had died from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University.On Saturday, Disney World in the Southern U.S. state of Florida opened to tourists after nearly four months, with guidelines in place to help prevent spreading the coronavirus.Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom reopened Saturday; Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will open next week.Among the many guidelines put in place: a mandatory mask rule, social distancing required; guests will not be allowed to hop between parks; and the popular daily fireworks shows and parades have been suspended to help limit drawing large crowds.  
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