Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a growing backlash over his plans to turn Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia into a mosque.The sixth-century Byzantine cathedral served as a mosque for 400 years before it was turned into a museum. More  recently, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985.Throughout the Hagia Sophia’s 1,500-year history, its status has reflected the rise and fall of empires.For nearly a millennium, the Hagia Sophia was eastern Christendom’s greatest church. But in 1453 when Ottoman forces led by Sultan Fatih Mehmet conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, his first act on entering the city was to pray in the cathedral and declare it a mosque.In 1935, the founders of Turkey’s secular state turned the Hagia Sophia from a mosque into a museum as a symbol of modernity. (Dorian Jones/VOA)In 1935, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, turned the building into a museum symbolizing Turkey’s new status as a modern Western-style secular society.  For 80 years, symbols of Islam and Christianity have harmoniously coexisted in this architectural marvel, once the largest building in the Byzantine empire.Now, Erdogan is vowing to turn it back into a mosque.Political interestsThe Hagia Sophia’s reconversion has long been a demand of the most ardent elements of Erdogan’s religious and nationalist base.Last year’s celebration of the Muslim conquest of the city saw hundreds of people praying outside the Hagia Sophia as part of a campaign to convert the building into a mosque.Turkey’s Birlik Foundation says more 2 million people have signed its petition calling for the Hagia Sophia to be made a mosque again.Mehmet Alacaci, chief executive of Turkey’s Birlik Foundation, says the campaign to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque is about reclaiming an important symbol of religious identity. (Dorian Jones/VOA)”The question of its reopening to prayers has been in the heart of Muslims since it was closed to prayers and converted to a museum,” said Mehmet Alacaci, chief trustee of the Birlik Foundation.”The will and bequest of Fatih Sultan Mehmet, who conquered this city, is to have Hagia Sophia as a mosque. And we are in the spirit of taking back this inheritance and property of our ancestors,” he added.Erdogan has long flirted with the Hagia Sophia’s conversion through his nearly 20 years in power, first as a prime minister and then as president.”You know, they changed Hagia Sophia from mosque to museum a while ago. God willing, after the election, we will change Hagia Sophia’s name from museum to mosque,” Erdogan said last year during a campaign rally ahead of  local elections.With the economy hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and the president’s ruling AKP Party poll ratings sliding, Erdogan needs to consolidate his base quickly and appears ready to push ahead with Hagia Sophia’s conversion.Professor Istar Gozaydin, an expert on religion and the state, says the move to convert the Hagia Sophia to a mosque is an effort to consolidate the president’s religious and nationalist base amid sliding support for his AKP Party. (Dorian Jones/VOA)”The AKP is suffering in current times. In order to change the agenda in Turkey, they need a [new] subject to be worked on,” said Istar Gozaydin, a professor and expert on religion and the state. “To convert it into a mosque apparently means something for the grassroots of AKP in Turkey and supporters abroad,”  she said.But the gesture that Erdogan is offering to his base is coming at a high price.Protests”The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque will disappoint millions of Christians around the world,” warned the leader of the 300 million Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.”The Hagia Sophia, which, due to its sacredness, is a vital center where East is embraced with the West, will fracture these two worlds,” he added.Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul,  aware of the delicate situation facing Turkey’s small remaining Orthodox community, usually refrains from openly criticizing Erdogan.The Ecumenical Patriarchate is receiving growing international support in its fight to avert a transformation of the landmark. The United States urged Ankara not to change the Hagia Sophia’s status.”We urge the government of Turkey to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect the faith traditions and diverse history that contributed to the Republic of Turkey, and to ensure it remains accessible to all,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement last Wednesday.Russia, despite its competing interests in Turkey, voiced concerns similar to those of the United States.A nationwide petition calling for the Hagia Sophia to be turned into mosque has been launched. In Sanliurfa, people queue to add their names. (Birlik Foundation)”Hagia Sophia, in addition to its tourism value, has a very deep sacred spiritual value,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week.Protests have also come from the government of neighboring Greece.Erdogan defiantThe Turkish leader has dismissed all international criticism.”Accusations against our country about Hagia Sophia directly target our sovereign rights,” shot back Erdogan last week.A recent opinion poll found most Turkish respondents backed the Hagia Sophia’s conversion. However, the same survey also recorded a larger number of people viewing the issue as an attempt to distract voters from the current economic malaise.There are now growing concerns for the Hagia Sophia’s magnificent interior. Large mosaics depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary and Byzantium rulers adorn the massive walls and ceilings of the onetime cathedral.”It’s not practical, and it’s illogical to convert into a mosque again,” said professor Zeynep Ahunbay, who spent 25 years working on the Hagia Sophia’s restoration and preservation.She alluded to Islam’s traditional ban on divine images.”When you pray, you don’t want to be in the presence of some images, which can be considered like icons, et cetera. It is against the Islamic creed,” she said.”And what will happen? How will [they] be covered during prayers?  Can you imagine a curtain hanging over the mosaics? I think it’s not acceptable.”WATCH: Erdogan Pushes to Reconvert Hagia Sophia into Mosque Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 10 MB480p | 15 MB540p | 20 MB720p | 41 MBOriginal | 227 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioThe judges who sit on Turkey’s high court, who invariably accommodate Erdogan’s wishes, are due in the coming days to rule on whether a conversion of the building would be legal. Turkish newspaper columnists close to Erdogan are predicting the court will decide in the president’s favor.There is a growing expectation in Turkey that it may not be long before Hagia Sophia’s minarets rejoin the chorus of surrounding mosques’ calls to prayer.
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Behidin Piric never had the chance to know his maternal grandfather.In 2009, the St. Louis, Missouri, resident received a phone call from his native Bosnia informing him that his grandfather’s body had been found in a mass grave with his hands tied behind the back with barbed wire. He had two bullet wounds in the back of his head.“I had the task of telling my mother who came home from work that they found her father, so that was a pretty tough thing to do,” said the 27-year-old American student.Piric’s grandfather was one of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians, mostly men,  who were killed in the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian war.“The genocide began in Srebrenica in July of 1995 and was a catastrophic uprooting of multiple generations of Bosnian Muslim families,” said Ida Sefer, president of the Chicago-based Bosnian-American Genocide and Education center, in an e-mail interview with VOA.She said Bosnian Serbs backed by neighboring Serbia used torture, sexual assault, forced impregnation, concentration camps, rape camps, ethnic cleansing and murder against the Bosnian Muslim population in the three years after Bosnia declared its independence from the former state of Yugoslavia in 1992.A woman prays at the memorial cemetery in Potocari, near Srebrenica, July 7, 2020. Over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims perished in 10 days of slaughter after the town was overrun by Serb forces in the closing months of the 1992-95 fratricidal war.The International Criminal Court in The Hague convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to life imprisonment in 2017. Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was convicted in 2016 for his war crimes and role in perpetrating the genocide.Officials from the Serbian Embassy in Washington did not respond to repeated requests for comment.July 11 marks the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Decades later, survivors and other Bosnians still have a difficult time speaking about the calamities they went through.“We will never heal. Our loss is so huge, so enormous that we will never heal, especially my generation,” said Senada Pargan, a Srebrenica survivor and one of the more than 21,000 Gravestones are lined up at the memorial cemetery in Potocari, near Srebrenica, Bosnia, July 7, 2020.The purpose of the initiative is to record the culture and experiences of Bosnian genocide survivors through interviews, books, letters, and photographs.The Bosnian war was already underway when Piric was born in Srebrenica in 1992. His earliest memory is of leaving Tuzla, the third-largest city in Bosnia, with his parents and brothers after the war ended with the signing of the Dayton Accords by the presidents of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia in November 1995.“I remember being in the back of the U.N. truck and seeing soldiers and a bunch of other people,” he recalled. “After that, I have a lot of memories of the rebuilding of the country – the tensions that were still there in the city where I lived after the war. There was still a lot of religious tension, ethnic tensions.”Piric’s father was wounded during the war when a mine exploded, damaging his legs while he was farming potatoes. Besides his grandfather, Piric also lost his maternal grandmother, an uncle, and “countless cousins.”Like Pargan, he said that he and his parents still cannot heal from the tragic events at Srebrenica even though 25 years have gone by.“When I go back to Srebrenica to the memorial, it’s a strange feeling,” he said. ”There’s a feeling of dread. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I get goose bumps, so it’s difficult.”Retelling the story of Srebrenica to future generations and never forgetting all those who were lost has become a mission for the Bosnian community in the United States, especially as some Bosnian Serb officials continue to deny that a systematic genocide occurred during the war.“Remembering the 8,372 victims and their families during this time is an important part of preventing genocide in the future, meaning uplifting the voices of the survivors,” Sefer said.“Listening to survivor testimonials, reading the stories of their loved ones, humanizing the people who were murdered, is all a part of remembering.”
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Johnny Depp denied assaulting ex-wife Amber Heard on a private Caribbean island and during a furious rampage in Australia in a third day of evidence Thursday in the actor’s libel suit against a U.K. tabloid newspaper that called him a “wife-beater.”
Depp is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the paper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that said he’d physically abused Heard. He strongly denies the allegation.
Under cross-examination by The Sun’s lawyer, Sasha Wass, Depp depicted a volatile relationship with Heard, during a period when he was trying to kick drugs and alcohol, and sometimes lapsing. He said he came to feel he was in a “constant tailspin” but denied being violent.
Depp rejected Heard’s claim that he subjected her to a “three-day ordeal of assaults” in March 2015 in Australia, where Depp was filming the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
“I vehemently deny it and will go as far as to say it’s pedestrian fiction,” he said.
He said his relationship with Heard was a “constant barrage of insults and demeaning footnotes and accusations of things that never happened.”
Depp and Wass sparred over disputed details of the Australia episode, which ended up with the couple’s rented house being trashed and Depp’s fingertip being severed to the bone.
Depp accuses Heard of cutting off his fingertip by throwing a vodka bottle at him. She denies being in the room when the digit was severed.
According to Heard, Depp snorted cocaine, swigged Jack Daniels from the bottle, smashed bottles, screamed at Heard, smashed her head against a refrigerator, threw her against a pingpong table and broke a window.
“These are fabrications,” he said.
He denied taking drugs but agreed that the couple had argued and at one point he “decided to break my sobriety because I didn’t care anymore. I needed to numb myself.”  
Depp agreed with the lawyer that the house was “wrecked” after the couple’s argument. The court was shown photographs of graffiti-covered mirrors, which Depp acknowledged he’d written on by dipping his bloody fingertip in paint.
But he said Heard was responsible for most of the damage to the house.
“That is completely untrue,” Wass said.
“Thank you, but it’s not,” Depp replied.
Wass also alleged that Depp had lashed out at Heard during an attempt to break an addiction to the opioid Roxicodone on his private island in the Bahamas in 2014.  
Wass said that at the time Depp praised Heard’s efforts to help him get clean. The lawyer read from a message Depp sent to Heard’s mother, saying “your daughter has risen far above the nightmarish task of taking care of this poor old junkie” and speaking of her “heroism.”
Heard alleges that Depp became violent towards her. He denied physical violence, but said Heard’s claim that he was “flipping” and “screaming” might be accurate.
“I remember that I was in a great deal of pain and uncontrollable spasms and such. … So flipping could be a word that was correct,” he said.
“I was not in good shape. It was the lowest point I believe I’ve ever been in in my life.”
Depp accused Heard of telling “porkie pies” — slang for lies — about his behavior. He acknowledged striking out at objects, saying it was better than “taking it out on the person that I love.”
Depp has acknowledged that he may have done things he can’t remember while he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. But he denied he could have been physically abusive and not remember it.
“There were blackouts, sure, but in any blackout there are snippets of memory,” Depp said.
The Sun’s defense relies on a total of 14 allegations by Heard of Depp’s violence between 2013 and 2016.
The case is shining a light on the tempestuous relationship between Depp and Heard, who met on the set of the 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary” and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. Heard, a model and actress, filed for divorce the following year and obtained a restraining order against Depp on the grounds of domestic abuse. The divorce was finalized in 2017.
While neither Heard, 34, nor 57-year-old Depp is on trial, the case is a showdown between the former spouses, who accuse each other of being controlling, violent and deceitful during their marriage.
Wass read the court an email to Depp that Heard had composed in 2013 but never sent, saying he was “like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Half of you I love madly, and the other half scares me.”
Depp accused Heard of making up “hoax” abuse claims. He has acknowledged heavy drinking and drug use, but said Heard’s claim that drugs and alcohol made him a monster was “delusional.”
He also denied claims he hit Heard when she laughed at one of his tattoos, dangled her Yorkshire terrier, Pistol, out a car window and threatened to put the dog in a microwave.
Depp acknowledged having a “rather skewed” sense of humor and said the microwave comment was a running joke because the dog was so tiny.
Heard is attending the three-week trial and is expected to give evidence later.
Depp is also suing Heard for $50 million in the U.S. for allegedly defaming him in a Washington Post article about domestic abuse. That case is due to be heard next year. 
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Hospitals treating coronavirus patients in Bolivia’s two largest cities, La Paz and El Alto, are overwhelmed by the demand.La Paz Mayor, Luis Revilla, said, covid hospitals in the city are full. The La Portada hospital is full, emergency is full, as well as the Cotahuma hospital.Revilla said, they are calling for the Sur hospital to be up and running as soon as possible.A protesting nurse in La Paz said the hospital has been overwhelmed for several weeks. Mary Ticona said, “We collapsed about two months ago. We are attending to our people as we can, in stretchers, wheelchairs, however we can attend to them. We have collapsed.”Ticona is urging Bolivia’s national health officials to get involved and make coronavirus tests available for the hospital staff, so they can determine who is infected with the coronavirus.Ticona said, some co-workers are already showing symptoms of the virus, which is still surging in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.So far, Bolivia has confirmed more than 42,000 coronavirus cases and more than 1,500 deaths. 
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The ex-governor of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, Cesar Duarte, who was sought for more than two years on corruption charges, is under arrest in the United States.Mexico’s state prosecutor’s office announced Duarte was taken into custody by U.S Marshals in Miami on Wednesday, and preparations are being made for his extradition.Duarte, who governed the northern border state from 2010 to 2016, is accused of misappropriating at least $52 million in public money.The former state governor is expected in Miami federal court by Saturday for a hearing on the charges against him in Mexico.Duarte is among a dozen former Mexican officials arrested on corruption charges, and the first taken into custody since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018, following an anti-corruption campaign.Duarte’s arrest in the United States occurred as Lopez Obrador was making his first official visit to the U.S. 
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Kosovo President Hashim Thaci will go to The Hague on Monday to be interviewed by international war crimes prosecutors.Thaci was a top commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought a guerrilla war for independence from Serbia in the late 1990s. He announced his appearance on his Facebook page on Wednesday.A special international court has indicted Thaci and other former fighters for alleged war crimes by the KLA, including murder, kidnapping and torture. Thaci has denied the charges.  “While my compatriots as well as me will face international justice with dignity and integrity, I call upon you to stand united in dealing with the challenges that our country is facing,” he said on Facebook. A pretrial judge in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers has yet to decide whether to put Thaci and the others on trial or throw out the case.Thaci has told Kosovars that if he is tried, he will “will immediately resign as your president and face the accusations.”Thaci’s indictment forced the cancellation of last month’s White House peace talks between Kosovar and Serbian leaders. Serbia has refused to recognize an independent Kosovo. NATO peacekeepers remain in Kosovo to prevent tension between the two sides from exploding into violence.
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President Donald Trump welcomed Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Wednesday to the White House, where they discussed trade, the economy and immigration, days after a new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal among the two countries and Canada went into effect.They also remarked on the improved relations between the two countries.FILE – Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives for a news conference in Ottawa, Canada on July 6, 2020.”The relationship between the U.S. and Mexico has never been closer than it is right now,” Trump said in the Rose Garden before the two leaders signed a joint declaration which “recognizes the advancements our two countries have achieved toward a renewed and strengthened partnership.”The U.S. leader, who in the past has made disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants and threatened trade tariffs, called the relations between U.S. and Mexico “outstanding,” adding that he and Lopez Obrador “put the interests of our countries first.”López Obrador responded, saying: “As president of Mexico, instead of remembering the insults and things like that against my country, we have received from you, President Trump, understanding and respect.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to attend the meeting to commemorate USMCA, citing a busy schedule and the inappropriateness of international travel amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Trump said the U.S. is home to 36 million Mexican Americans and that they make up a “big percentage” of small-business owners.”They’re like you — they’re tough negotiators and great businesspeople, Mr. President,” Trump told the Mexican leader.The leftist Mexican president, often referred to by his initials, AMLO, has brushed off domestic criticism for meeting Trump, who is widely disliked in Mexico because of past disparaging remarks about Mexicans and his stance on immigration.Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and U.S. President Donald Trump hold a meeting at the White House, in Washington, July 8, 2020.López Obrador’s government sees this visit as an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of USMCA and has tried to distance the visit from topics related to immigration.“It is very important for us to be launching this new agreement, López Obrador said through a translator. “But I also wanted to be here to thank the people of the United States, its government. And thank you, President Trump, for being increasingly respectful with our Mexican fellow men,” he added.In his remarks, López Obrador quoted George Washington, the first U.S. president, who said, “Nations should not take advantage of the unfortunate condition of other people.” López Obrador said Trump has “followed” Washington’s “wise advice.”Some analysts have noted that Trump has used America’s tremendous economic leverage, including threats of tariffs and even a total border closing, to pressure the Mexican leader on issues of trade and immigration.Mexico functions as a “hinge” between the United States and the asylum-seeker origin countries of Central America, said Maria Fernanda Perez Arguello, associate director at the Atlantic Council. “Immigration from Central America — and the push factors in the countries — is the big elephant in the room between AMLO and Trump,” she said.This is López Obrador’s first meeting with Trump and the second visit to the White House by a foreign leader since the coronavirus shutdown in March. Like Trump, López Obrador has downplayed the risks of the coronavirus and said he has never been tested for the coronavirus because he has no symptoms and will take a test only if the White House requires it.Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said that all members of the Mexican delegation, including the president, were tested for the coronavirus and that the tests were administered by the White House.Speaking to reporters in Mexico City before his departure Tuesday, López Obrador repeatedly said in response to questions about raising issues such as immigration policy that his focus in the talks would be on the trade deal.“It is always important that there be cooperation for development. But now in a circumstance of global economic crisis, this treaty is going to help us a lot. It is very timely,” López Obrador said.He noted the economic challenges facing Mexico, like those in many other countries during the coronavirus pandemic and stressed the need for Mexico to have good relations with its neighbor.The Mexican leader noted the agenda for bilateral talks includes other topics, and on those, his delegation — which includes Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon and Economic Secretary Graciela Márquez Colín — would not take a confrontational approach, but rather try to have a dialogue of understanding with their U.S. counterparts.The USMCA updated the 1990s North American Trade Agreement and was a major policy push for Trump, who cast the former trade deal as harmful to U.S. businesses and workers.The pact includes new laws related to intellectual property protection, the internet, currencies, investment and state-owned enterprises. The new legislation includes more stringent rules on auto manufacturing, e-commerce and labor provisions, but leaves largely unchanged the trade flows among the North American countries valued at $1.2 trillion a year.In addition to private talks between Trump and López Obrador and wider meetings with their advisers, the two leaders attended a dinner Wednesday night with business leaders from both countries.Before going to the White House, López Obrador visited the Lincoln Memorial and a statue of former Mexican President Benito Juárez in Washington. 
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Social media giant Facebook said Wednesday that it had removed dozens of accounts linked to supporters or employees of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as part of an investigation into the spread of false news online.Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s head of cybersecurity policy, said in a statement that 73 Facebook and Instagram accounts, 14 pages and one group had been removed. Brazilian courts have been investigating the spread of false news in connection with Bolsonaro.There was no immediate comment from the presidential office about Facebook’s action.Facebook’s executive said the accounts were linked to the Social Liberal Party, which Bolsonaro left last year after winning the 2018 presidential election, and to employees of the president; two of his sons, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro and congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro; and two other lawmakers.”This network consisted of several clusters of connected activity that relied on a combination of duplicate and fake accounts — some of which had been detected and disabled by our automated systems — to evade enforcement, create fictitious personas posing as reporters, post content, and manage pages masquerading as news outlets,” Gleicher said in the statement.He added that some of the content posted by the accounts had already been taken down for community standards violations, including hate speech.Gleicher said about 883,000 accounts followed one or more of the Bolsonaro linked pages and an additional 917,000 followed one of more of the Instagram accounts that were removed.
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There is growing speculation that Britain may be about to reverse course and ban the Chinese firm Huawei from its rollout of 5G mobile telecoms technology.  A move by the United States to ban U.S. companies from selling crucial microchips to Huawei appears to have changed the calculation in London. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Beijing has warned Britain against what it calls ‘making China into an enemy.’Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has retracted his decision to reimpose a coronavirus curfew and has urged people to stop attending anti-government rallies after a violent clash between protesters and police.The president said Wednesday that new measures could still include shortened hours for nightclubs and penalties for those not wearing masks.On Tuesday, Vucic said at a news conference he would implement a curfew Friday, “probably” to run from 6 p.m. until 5 a.m. on July 13. The president added that gatherings would be restricted to five people starting Wednesday, citing a rising number of coronavirus cases in the country and hospitals running at full capacity.Vucic’s backtracking Wednesday came after a protest by thousands Tuesday night outside the parliament building in Belgrade. Police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators, while protesters retaliated by throwing stones and bottles at officers, some chanting for the resignation of the president.The clash left 17 protesters and 43 police injured and 23 protesters arrested, according to police director Vladmir Rebic. More protests were reported Wednesday.Vucic said foreign secret services were behind the protests by “right-wing and pro-fascist demonstrators.” He did not name specific intelligence agencies and stood by the police’s handling of the protests.”We will never allow the destabilization of Serbia from within and abroad,” he said.The president’s critics have accused him of lifting previous lockdown measures to hold parliamentary elections on June 21, which Vucic’s Progressive Party won by a landslide — accusations the president has denied.Critics also blame Vucic for the swell in infection rates, as the government permitted sports matches, religious festivities, parties and private gatherings to resume after lifting state of emergency restrictions on May 6.As of Wednesday afternoon EDT, Serbia had 17,076 reported cases of the coronavirus infection and 341 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro says he is “doing very well” one day after testing positive for coronavirus. Bolsonaro tested positive for the disease on Tuesday after spending the weekend in close proximity with government officials, including a mask-free attendance at an Independence Day celebration at the U.S. Embassy. “Be assured that for you the chance of something more serious is close to zero,” Bolsonaro assured citizens during the announcement of his illness on Tuesday. Brazilian President Tests Positive for Coronavirus Jair Bolsonaro previously downplayed risks posed by coronavirus, once telling supporters because of his history of athleticism, he would not worry if he became infectedIn a video posted late Tuesday evening, Bolsonaro drank what he described as his third dose of hydroxochloriquine and seemed to attribute his state of relative health to the drug. Hydroxochloriquine, commonly used to treat malaria, has been touted by both Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump as a treatment for coronavirus. So far little medical evidence has been produced to support their claims; in June, the U.S. National Institutes of Health halted clinical trials of the drug in COVID-19 patients due to lack of sufficient evidence. The World Health Organization also announced on July 4 that their investigation into the treatment’s efficacy would cease, as data does not suggest increased recovery rates for COVID-19 patients. “To those who root against hydroxychloroquine but don’t present alternatives, I hate to say I’m doing very well using it and, thank God, I will still live much longer,” Bolsonaro wrote in a Twitter post on Wednesday.The populist Brazilian president has been known to flout convention. In March, he dismissed concerns about the virus and claimed that his previous experience as an athlete would protect him and has repeatedly refused to wear a mask despite a court order requiring that he do so. Local government and public health officials have encountered several obstacles to enforcing necessary safety precautions. In several cases, such as indoor mask mandates and social distancing enforcement, Bolsonaro has personally intervened and vetoed the legislation. He has claimed such precautionary measures dampen the embattled Brazilian economy. Two health ministers during the pandemic, both trained doctors, were fired by Bolsonaro in recent months and were replaced with an active-duty army general on an interim basis.With 1.6 million confirmed cases and at least 66,000 deaths, Brazil’s death toll trails only that of the United States. The 65-year-old former Army captain said he planned to work via videoconference and sign as few documents as possible during the course of his illness. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez also contracted the virus, although both of them required hospital stays and extra oxygen.
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Russian journalists have launched a petition demanding treason allegations against a former reporter be made public, fearing the case is bogus and that media are being increasingly persecuted.   Ivan Safronov, a former newspaper journalist working at Russia’s space agency since May, was detained by security agents outside his flat on Tuesday and accused of passing military secrets to the Czech Republic. He denies the charges.   At a closed hearing, the court ordered Safronov to be held in custody for two months. One of his lawyers, Ivan Pavlov, said the hearing was unusual as the state investigator had not presented any evidence. Ivan Safronov stands inside a defendants’ cage before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2020. “Now they’ve taken Ivan Safronov,” read the petition circulated online by journalists at investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta and signed by nearly 7,500 people.   The petition said the case should be declassified and the allegations made public, adding: “Otherwise it’s fake. The evidence is hidden when it is fake.”   The Kremlin noted what it described as some emotional media reactions, but said those outlets had not seen the evidence, which would be reviewed in court. It said it had seen no signs of a campaign of pressure against reporters.   Several journalists were photographed staging one-person pickets in various Russian cities on Wednesday, demanding Safronov be freed. Dozens of people, including journalists, were detained by Moscow police on Tuesday.   On Monday, a court in the city of Pskov found another journalist guilty of justifying terrorism. She denied the charge.   Russian journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva charged with publicly justifying terrorism arrives for a court hearing in Pskov, Russia, July 6, 2020.Mediazona, a private media outlet, wrote that it looked like law enforcement agencies were trying to “force us to stay silent.”   FILE – Pyotr Verzilov gestures during a court hearing in Moscow, July 16, 2018.Police opened a criminal case this week against Mediazona’s publisher, Pyotr Verzilov, for failing to declare dual Canadian citizenship. He is an anti-Kremlin activist.   The U.S. Embassy’s spokeswoman wrote on Twitter it was “starting to look like a concerted campaign against #MediaFreedom.”   “Mind your own business,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday he takes full responsibility for the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, two days after appearing to blame workers in health care facilities for the deaths of residents there.Johnson was responding in parliament to opposition Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer, who quoted the prime minister regarding deaths in British care homes.  Johnson said, “too many care workers did not follow procedures the way they should have.” Starmer said front-line care workers took great offense at the remark and called on Johnson to apologize.The prime minister responded by saying the last thing he wanted to do was blame care workers or for anyone to think he was blaming them and said they have done “an outstanding job.” He said, “When it comes to taking blame, I take full responsibility for what has happened.”Johnson added that no one knew when the pandemic began that COVID-19 would spread asymptomatically the way it does, and procedures changed.Starmer said Johnson’s explanation was not an apology and said by refusing to do so, Johnson “rubs salt in the wound” of the frontline workers he says he admires so much.  Johnson responded by calling for bipartisan measures to invest in and reform Britain’s care home sector.
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More Mexicans have warmed to the idea of closer ties with the United States just as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lines up his first meeting with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, a poll showed on Wednesday.
 
A June 30-July 1 survey of 407 people by Mexican polling firm Parametria showed that 52% of respondents said Mexico should “be closer to” the United States, significantly up from 36% two years ago, when the leftist Lopez Obrador was first elected.
 
Lopez Obrador is visiting the White House, days after the start of a new regional trade deal, in his first trip outside Mexico since taking office 19 months ago.
 
His meeting carries risks because Trump has been highly unpopular south of the border since he described Mexican migrants and rapists and drug runners during his 2015-2016 campaign for the U.S. presidency.
 
Pessimism over Trump that set in when he took office still pervades: the Parametria poll showed 87% of respondents held a negative view of Trump, with only 10% of the opposite opinion.
 
Although Lopez Obrador has tried to avoid conflict with Trump, the latter has frequently pressured Mexico over trade and migration. Trump has also repeatedly said he will stick to a campaign promise to make Mexico pay for his planned border wall.
 
Of the people surveyed, significantly more expected the meeting of the presidents to help the United States.
 
Some 78% thought it would benefit the United States, with only 49% taking that view for Mexico. Some 35% said it would harm Mexico, while just 14% said that for the United States.
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The extradition case of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech firm Huawei, is winding its way through the Canadian legal system. For Meng, it means confinement to her Vancouver mansions and conferences with high-priced lawyers. For two Canadians, it means more uncertainty and more time in a Chinese jail. Throw in a U.S. presidential election and a rift in Canada-Chinese trade relations and it creates the makings of an international soap opera.If all goes according to schedule, the actual extradition hearing for Meng will start on April 23. Before that, she faces multiple court dates in front of the Supreme Court of the province of British Columbia and the Federal Court of Canada.The U.S. Justice Department is seeking her extradition from Vancouver on allegations of helping a Huawei subsidiary break U.S. sanctions against doing business in Iran. The daughter of Chinese technology giant Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Meng was arrested at Vancouver International Airport while in transit to a connecting flight to Mexico on December 1, 2018.That means the actual extradition hearing may take place more than 28 months after her arrest.Intensely watching the proceedings is Vancouver immigration lawyer and policy analyst Richard Kurland, who does not represent any party in the case.He said for a person like Meng, the case is actually not taking a long time.“It’s not slow,” Kurland said. “This is the typical, average, garden-variety vanilla extradition case processing times. I’m aware of at least three other extradition cases that required eight to 10 years to finish. So the Canadian extradition process does take about eight to 10 years when someone has the resources to dig their heels in and take advantage of every procedural possibility in the extradition case.”Kurland added that for those who lack Meng’s financial means – she has the resources of a giant company like Huawei and her father is said to be worth over $1 billion – the extradition process can be rather abrupt.“If you don’t have financial resources, the road is short,” he said. “Typically, in the overwhelming majority of cases, extradition from beginning to end is a matter of days, if not a short number of months.”’The two Mikes’Not long after Meng’s arrest, two Canadian citizens, now commonly referred to as “the two Mikes” – Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — were detained in China. Spavor, who specialized in travel from the People’s Republic of China and North Korea, and Kovrig, a former diplomat who works with a nonprofit research organization, live most the time in China. They were initially accused of “endangering Chinese security” but were not formally charged until June of this year. Spavor is facing charges of spying and transmitting secrets outside of China. Kovrig is facing charges of spying on Chinese state secrets for other countries.In the past, both men have been denied legal counsel or the ability to see family members and have only been granted infrequent visits by Canadian diplomatic staff in China.One former Canadian diplomat who used to visit Canadians in Chinese prisons is Colin Robertson, currently vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. One of his many diplomatic postings was in Hong Kong, from where he often traveled to China.He said conditions in such facilities are usually deplorable. While Meng is out on bail and lives in her choice of her two Vancouver mansions, the two Michaels are not so lucky. And Kovrig’s former diplomatic career is also an issue.“But certainly in the case of Kovrig, the Chinese were questioning him about his activities as a Canadian diplomat, day after day, hour after hour, which is in total violation of his privileges, and privileges of diplomats which Chinese diplomats also enjoy,” Robertson said. “Under the Vienna conventions, which take back to 1815.”Canada-China trade issuesRobertson said the relationship between Canada and China is at its lowest point since modern diplomatic relations were established under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, over 50 years ago. He said that has led to a number of trade complaints.“And the Chinese continue to find things, more recently seafood and now looking at lumber, that are just basically trade harassment,” Robertson said. “And my own view is, I think we needed to be, we needed a more muscular response earlier on when they started going, because we just basically, Prime Minister [Trudeau] seemed to kind of turn the other cheek and just take this barrage of words which is straight out of the Chinese playbook. All this language that they use about irrefutable proof terms of the so-called crimes of the two Michaels, and the accusations of racism, white supremacy, and double standard — we’re not the first country they’ve applied this to.”A public opinion survey at the end of June by the Angus Reid Institute found that over 72 percent of Canadians backed Trudeau’s refusal to stop the extradition hearing and send Meng back to China in exchange for the two Michaels. Trudeau said doing so would set a dangerous precedent and that he would let the Canadian justice system, instead of politics, take care of the matter.Before that actual extradition hearing next April, Meng and her lawyers will spend the summer months tied up in legal maneuvers.The next scheduled federal court date is July 16. Defense lawyers are trying to get more information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the country’s spy agency, that they claim can help Meng. Canada’s attorney general says that information needs to remain secret for reasons of national security.Defense claims rights violationsMeng’s lawyers are also alleging that U.S. and Canadian authorities improperly conspired to open a criminal investigation when Meng initially arrived at Vancouver’s airport. She was held for several hours, had her computers and cellphones seized, and was questioned at length. Meng’s lawyers say that instead, Canadian authorities should have simply taken her into custody on the existing arrest warrants. Not doing so, the defense says, violated her basic legal rights.Her lawyers are also claiming that the United States deliberately misled the court to get the legal proceedings underway. Hearings to secure documents and evidence for these arguments will be held in the British Columbia Supreme Court on August 17.As the summer turns into fall, a week in September has been set aside for Meng’s legal team to present evidence regarding the accuracy of the information in the U.S. charges filed in New York that instigated the extradition process.On February 16 of next year, there will be a hearing, scheduled to last three weeks, regarding Meng’s arrest and alleged interference by U.S. President Donald Trump. Shortly after the arrest, Trump remarked that the charges against Meng could be used as a bargaining chip in the ongoing U.S.-China trade negotiations.Assuming that none of the decisions arising from all these hearings is appealed, the court will move to the actual extradition hearing in April.Ironically, if the court does find Meng should be extradited and she loses all appeals, the Canadian legal extradition process does become political. Canada’s attorney general, who is also justice minister, would then have to decide whether or not to sign the extradition papers. 
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Antimatter.It’s not just the stuff of science fiction.  The physicists working at CERN – officially the European Organization for Nuclear Research – create it almost every day as part of their efforts to find out what the universe is made of and how it works. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN is a consortium of 23 countries and includes scientists and workers from many more.Their research lab is a ring-shaped underground tunnel, 27 kilometers around, that crisscrosses the border between Switzerland and France. In the tunnel lies the Large Hadron Collider, where protons – one of the building blocks of atoms – are made to crash into one another with incredible force, creating, among other elements, antimatter. But just because physicists can make antimatter doesn’t mean they understand everything about it yet. Antimatter is as old as the universe, part of its original creation, in an event often referred to as the “Big Bang.” Ludivine Ceard, physicist with the CMS Collaboration, gestures at the Compace Muon Solinoid – one of the experiments at CERN, in Geneva, looking for the tiniest particles of matter. (Courtesy Robert Gumm.)Ludivine Ceard, a physicist with CERN, discussed one of the theories behind the research.“We have this theory that says that right after the Big Bang, there was creation in equal amount between matter and antimatter,” she said.“In principle, if the difference between the two is only the charge, they should have just recombined and left nothing but radiation; however, we are here. I’m talking with you right now. So it means that at some point, matter took over the antimatter, and this must be because there are some differences between matter and antimatter that we don’t know about,” Ceard said.Searching for those differences is one of the tasks for the people at the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, one of four main experiment sites around the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.  A muon is one of the so-called elementary particles, one with no smaller components. It is similar to an electron, but heavier. And while it is very, very tiny, the machine built to study it is large. A CMS staff member walking near the structure when VOA visited was dwarfed by the apparatus designed to study the muon.A cutaway illustration of the tube carrying the proton beams around the Large Hadron collider. The tube has been removed for maintenance. (Courtesy Robert Gumm)To create muons and antimatter, packets of protons race around a circular track in the LHC in two beams, one traveling clockwise and one counterclockwise near the speed of light. When the physicists are ready, the beams are focused and made to collide at just the right spot. Rende Steerenberg heads the group in charge of seeing those collisions happen. “On either end of the experiments we will switch on focusing magnets so that the beam squeezes into a small dimension and therefore the probability of collision increases,” he said.Even so, with 100 billion protons in a packet moving in one direction, and another 100 billion protons moving the other way, only 50 protons are likely to collide.Right now, the probability of a collision is zero – because the collider and the experiments around it are in the midst of a two-year shutdown for maintenance and upgrades – which happens every three years. You might think that would leave the scientists feeling frustrated, but you would be wrong. Patricia McBride, physicist with Fermilab, and deputy spokesperson of the CMS Collaboration in Geneva. (Courtesy Robert Gumm)The deputy spokesperson of the CMS Collaboration, Patricia McBride from Fermilab in the U.S., says what we might think of as down time is anything but.“I would say that for us it’s an opportunity. It’s also one of the busiest times for us because not only are we looking at the data that we’ve collected from the LHC from the last two rounds, but we’re looking at ways of making the detector better, repairing things, putting in new detectors, and preparing for the future runs which the experiment will be running until we hope till 2035,” she said.The collider was built in 10 years. Shortly after going into operation, it immediately made its predecessor, the Tevatron, a circular collider at the United States’ Fermilab in Illinois, obsolete. The Tevatron shut down in September 2011, not long after the LHC created its first particle collisions. But the researchers at Fermilab weren’t devastated by their eclipse. In fact, they helped build the new collider, and when it opened, they presented the new team with a baton – like those used in relay races – to symbolize the continuation of their research efforts. The CMS collaboration includes some 4,000 Scientists from more than 50 countries from across Europe, India, China, South Korea, Egypt, other parts of the Middle East and Russia.The discoveries and developments made at CERN are already helping to transform fields as diverse as nuclear waste disposal, medical testing, detection of art forgeries and efforts to disrupt financial markets. Technologies developed for CERN are also finding uses in optimizing farm irrigation, in creating sensors that detect water pollution, and in speeding up machine learning, to create better software for self-driving vehicles. And while the scientists love when the experiments confirm their predictions, they also love it when things don’t turn out as expected – because that might be saying something very fundamental about antimatter – and how the universe is put together. 
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is in Washington for meetings Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump days after a new trade deal among the two countries and Canada went into effect.Speaking to reporters in Mexico City before his departure Tuesday, López Obrador repeatedly said in response to questions about raising other issues such as immigration policy that his focus in the talks would be on the trade deal.“It is always important that there be cooperation for development, but now in a circumstance of global economic crisis this treaty is going to help us a lot, it is very timely,” López Obrador said.He noted the economic challenges facing Mexico, like many other countries, during the coronavirus pandemic and stressed the need for Mexico to have good relations with its neighbor.The Mexican leaders noted the agenda for bilateral talks does include other topics, and on those his delegation, which includes Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon and Economic Secretary Graciela Márquez Colín, will not take a confrontational approach, but rather try to have a dialogue of understanding with their U.S. counterparts.Trump, in brief comments ahead of the López Obrador’s visit, said the two will have “quite a meeting.”“He’s a good man. He’s a friend of mine. And we have a great relationship with Mexico,” Trump said.The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement updated the 1990s North American Trade Agreement and was a major policy push of Trump, who cast the former trade deal as harmful to U.S. businesses and workers.The pact includes new laws related to intellectual property protection, the internet, currencies, investment and state-owned enterprises. The new legislation includes more stringent rules on auto manufacturing, e-commerce and labor provisions, but leaves largely unchanged the trade flows among the North American countries valued at $1.2 trillion a year.In addition to private talks between Trump and López Obrador and wider meetings with their advisers, the two leaders will also take part in a dinner Wednesday night with business leaders from both countries.The Mexican foreign ministry said before going to the White House, López Obrador will make visits to the Lincoln Memorial and a statue of former Mexican President Benito Juárez in Washington. 
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There are growing calls for Britain to also enact sanctions against human rights abusers in China, after the first such measures were imposed against dozens of individuals from Russia and Saudi Arabia. The first so-called ‘Magnitsky’ sanctions were announced Monday following years of campaigning by friends and family of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer killed in 2009. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the British capital is a center for global finance and travel – so campaigners hope the sanctions will have a substantial impact.Camera: Henry Ridgwell   
 
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Dutch police announced Tuesday they arrested six men after discovering shipping containers that had been converted into a makeshift prison and sound-proofed “torture chamber.”  In their statement, officials said they discovered seven converted sea shipping containers in a warehouse in Wouwse Plantage, a small village in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, close to the border with Belgium.  Law enforcement authorities released video Tuesday showing a special police unit opening the shipping containers to reveal a specially rigged dentists’ chair, along with tools that included pliers, scalpels and handcuffs.  Police say the discoveries were originally made last month after investigating leads generated by data from encrypted telephones used by criminals that were cracked recently by French police. Detectives in Britain and the Netherlands have already arrested hundreds of suspects based on the encrypted messages.The police said they were tipped off by messages from an EncroChat phone that included photos of the container and dentist’s chair with belts attached to the arm and foot supports. They arrested six men June 22, on suspicion of crimes including planning kidnappings and serious assault.  The messages called the warehouse the “treatment room” and the “ebi,” a reference to a top security Dutch prison. Police said the messages also revealed identities of potential victims, who were warned and went into hiding.Dutch authorities said last week that their investigation, codenamed 26Lemont, based on millions of messages from the EncroChat phones, had led to the arrest of more than 100 suspects and the seizure of more than 8,000 kilograms of cocaine and 1,200 kilograms of crystal meth, as well as the dismantling of 19 synthetic drug labs and the seizure of dozens of firearms.
 
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The United States is not the only country watching anxiously as coronavirus cases spike.Britain is poised to shutter individual towns in the event of a rise in confirmed cases. And the government has already locked down the English town of Leicester, where textile factories may be behind an alarming jump in infections, just as the rest of the country celebrated the easing of restrictions.Serbia reimposed a lockdown Friday as cases began to mount. Last month, neighboring Croatia reinstituted mandatory two-week self-isolation for travelers arriving from other Balkan countries. Bulgaria extended its state of emergency until July 15 and has made mask-wearing mandatory inside stores and public buildings.Deputy Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos, right, greets the 25 unaccompanied refugee children as they prepare to board a plane to Lisbon, Portugal at Athens International Airport, July 7, 2020.Following new outbreaks, Portugal renewed coronavirus restrictions on the capital, Lisbon, and the Spanish government has moved quickly with restrictions on parts of northeast Spain to try to tamp down local spikes.Some government officials say the biggest problem is persuading the public to observe social distancing rules and wearing masks. The easing of lockdowns and the reopening of economies do not mean caution should be jettisoned, they say.  Underlining their appeals for people to remain cautious and vigilant is an exasperation with egregious recklessness, prompting officials in some countries to question whether their citizens have the discipline or sense of civic responsibility to be trusted.In Britain, police expressed their frustration with maskless crowds converging outside bars and restaurants in some towns, including in central London. Last Saturday, the first day that bars reopened in England after the coronavirus shutdown, police described the close-quarters drinking and shoulder-to-shoulder socializing as “absolute madness.”“A predictably busy night confirmed what we knew, alcohol and social distancing is not a good combination,” tweeted John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales.Sgt. Richard Cooke of the West Midlands police tweeted, “Just got home after a long shift, late shift peppered with pub fights, domestic violence & drunken, drugged up fools. If today was anything to go by the second wave won’t be long in the making!”People sit and drink, outside a pub on the south bank of river Thames, as the capital is set to reopen after the lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, in London, July 4, 2020.Rafal Liszewski, a store manager in the London district of Soho, told reporters that on Saturday, “Everything got out of control. And by 8 to 9 p.m., it was a proper street party, with people dancing and drinking. Barely anyone was wearing masks, and nobody respected social distancing,” he said. Liszewski added, “To be honest, with that many people on one street, it was physically impossible” (to social distance).Beaches have also seen swarms of people. In the English coastal town of Bournemouth, Mayor Vikki Slade said recently she was “absolutely appalled at the scenes witnessed on our beaches.”Britain has not been alone in seeing months of lockdown giving way to impromptu parties, illicit raves and illegal parties, hastily organized on social media and held in parks and industrial estates. In Portugal, a ban in Lisbon on gatherings of more than five people was instituted amid reports of illicit parties attracting thousands of young revelers. Portugal had been hailed as one of Europe’s coronavirus success stories. The government’s swift response was credited with keeping the country’s death toll to well under 2,000. But in recent weeks, cases have soared. Parties have proven fertile for the virus — 76 new cases were linked to a birthday celebration in The Algarve.“After doing everything right, we’re not going to ruin it now,” Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa said, as he banned drinking in public places and prohibited restaurants from serving alcohol after 8 p.m. Germany, France and Spain have all been worried about block parties and raves.Visitors watch oil on canvas of 1807 entitled Le Sacre de Napoleon by Jacques Louis David, at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, July 6, 2020.The World Health Organization warned that around 30 European countries have reported new case surges in the past two weeks, and epidemiologists said the trajectory is alarming in 11 countries.Spanish officials, who recently fined Belgium’s Prince Joachim $11,700 after he broke the country’s quarantine rules to attend a party in southern Spain, fear that people will not be able to resist the allure of the country’s ingrained culture of summer fiestas — as hundreds did recently in a spontaneous gathering in the Menorcan city of Ciutadella to mark the day of local Saint Joan.Along with officials, infectious disease experts blame signs of a resurgence on the negligence of the public, with too many people ignoring orders to wear masks and keep their distance. But critics in several European countries fault officials, saying governments have been giving mixed signals in their eagerness to restart economies and end lockdowns, and have issued at times contradictory and confused instructions. They say governments seem to be positioning themselves to blame the public for a coronavirus resurgence.David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, has criticized the lockdown easing as over-hasty. “We need to look at the fastest route out of COVID-19, and that is not the current route,” he said. 
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Doctors in Brazil say an experimental treatment given to a man known as the Sao Paulo Patient may have cured him of HIV.  
 
The man, who was subjected to intensive anti-retroviral drug therapy with the purpose of removing all traces of the AIDS virus from his body, shows no signs of the virus after more than a year since he stopped receiving the treatment.
 
In an interview with The Associated Press, the patient said he was “very moved, because it’s something that millions of people want. It’s a gift of life, a second chance to live.”
 
The only other two known cases of HIV cures have been through bone marrow transplants, which gave patients new immune systems that were better equipped to respond to the virus.  
 
Bone marrow transplants are prohibitively expensive, though, and they come with life-threatening side effects, leading experts to disregard them as a viable option.
 
Although the treatment the Sao Paulo Patient received appears to be a much better alternative, he represents only a single case that requires more research and experimentation.  
 
“These are exciting findings but they’re very preliminary,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an AIDS expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “This has happened to one person, and one person only.”
 
Gandhi noted the four others in the same experiment did not respond similarly to the treatment.
 
If the Sao Paulo Patient’s case can be shown to work on a broader spectrum, it would be a huge breakthrough, as people with HIV currently are forced to stay on a treatment plan for the rest of their lives.  
 
HIV is difficult to treat because it lies dormant for long periods of time, during which it cannot be eliminated by medicines or the body’s normal immune response. Patients must stay on drugs to keep the virus dormant and prevent it from becoming active again. 
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