Peru is now mandating that people wear two face masks in places where crowding is possible like commercial buildings. The regulation, aimed at slowing a deadly second wave of the virus, began Monday, and was first reported in Peru’s national newspaper, El Peruano. The paper said a Supreme Decree (#083-2021-PCM) also mandates double masking in malls, grocery stores, shopping arcades, markets and warehouses. Under the new initiative face shields are also recommended along with the double masks. The government still requires people to wear face mask in all public spaces.Additionally, health authorities are conducting intensive epidemiological surveillance to identify any increase in cases of people infected with COVID-19 and responding to the situations.Peru is racing to get people vaccinated as the country’s COVID-19 rates remains among the highest in Latin American, with 1,761,575 confirmed infections and 59,724 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei during a virtual call Monday that the U.S. will give $310 million in humanitarian relief to Central America, her office said, as the region tackles a wave of migration north. Harris, who leads President Joe Biden’s efforts to address the influx of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to the U.S.-Mexico border, met with Giammattei by videoconference, prior to her visit to Central America scheduled for June.  “In light of the dire situation and acute suffering faced by millions of people in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Vice President Harris announced an additional $310 million in US government support for humanitarian relief and to address food insecurity,” a statement from her office said after the meeting. Honduran migrants clash with Guatemalan soldiers in Vado Hondo, Guatemala.It said the two governments will also coordinate law enforcement efforts to tackle criminal organizations whose activities help drive migration and to open migrant resource centers to establish safe, legal migration.  “The United States plans to increase relief to the region, strengthen our cooperation to manage migration in an effective, secure and humane manner,” Harris promised Giammattei. Biden has asked Congress for $861 million to address the causes that drive irregular immigration from Central America, within the framework of his $4 billion plan for the region.  His proposal is included in the budget project for next year that has yet to be discussed and approved by legislators.    More than 172,000 undocumented immigrants, including nearly 19,000 unaccompanied minors, were detained in March at the southern border of the United States, a rise of 71% in a month and the highest level in 15 years.  Most of the migrants come from the three countries of the Central American Northern Triangle. That area, vulnerable to natural disasters, was hit by two devastating hurricanes in November and is struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic and a prolonged drought.  “We want to work with you to address both the acute causes and the root causes (of migration) in a way that gives hope to the people of Guatemala that there will be an opportunity for them if they stay home,” Harris also told Giammattei during the virtual meeting. Giammattei agreed on the need to “create hope” in Guatemala.  “The Guatemalan government wants to be a partner (of the United States) to address … not only poverty but also the many evils that affect us all,” he said.  In addition, the president said he looked forward to Harris’ visit in June. Many migrants in recent weeks say they were given new hope by Biden’s reversal of the hardline immigration policies of his predecessor Donald Trump. Biden to Lift Refugee Cap Next Month, White House SaysPresident initially retained historically low 15,000-person limit set by Trump administrationThe changes include allowing unaccompanied children to stay and be united with relatives living inside the United States. The number of unaccompanied children detained after crossing the border illegally, or trying to sneak through official entry ports, doubled in March from February to 18,890, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
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Last week’s killing of a police worker outside Paris offers a chilling reminder that terrorism has become a grim feature of life in France. Now the country, which has weathered some of Europe’s most horrific terrorist attacks, joins just a handful of nations that are building concrete reminders. The French memorial-museum will be the first devoted not to one specific terrorism incident but to a broader arc of horror over a half-century. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.Camera: Lisa Bryant 
 
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U.S. officials are not yet convinced Russia is making good on its word to de-escalate in Crimea and along its border with Ukraine following a weekslong military buildup, insisting it is “too soon to tell.” The Pentagon on Monday said it appears some Russian troops have pulled back, though the danger remains. “We have seen some departure of some forces away from Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters, adding that the U.S. military is “going to keep watching this very, very closely.” “It’s too soon to tell and to take at face value Russian claims that what they said was an exercise is now over in there and they’re pulling everybody back,” he added. US, West Wary of Russian Claims That Military Buildup Near Ukraine Is OverPentagon says ‘it’s too soon to tell’ whether Moscow’s assurance can be taken at face value U.S. and Western officials have repeatedly raised concern over what they have described as the largest massing of Russian forces since Moscow gave the order to invade and seize the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. European officials last week said that at the height of the latest buildup, more than 100,000 Russian forces had positioned themselves within striking distance of Ukrainian territory. Bigger Than 2014: US Calls Out Russian Military Buildup Along Ukraine BorderThe Pentagon’s assertion that Moscow is massing more forces than it did when it invaded and annexed Crimea follows EU assessment that 150,000 Russian troops are now in the regionIn contrast to U.S. and Western concerns, Russian officials have continually accused Ukraine of being the cause of trouble in the region. On Monday, Russian’s foreign ministry said Russian President Vladimir Putin used a call with French President Emmanuel Macron to highlight Kyiv’s “provocative actions” in eastern Ukraine. ????? Состоялся телефонный разговор Владимира Путина с Президентом Франции Эммануэлем Макроном. Особое внимание уделено внутриукраинскому конфликту. Выражена обеспокоенность в связи с эскалацией напряжённости на Юго-Востоке Украины.? https://t.co/vf8ezliI9Apic.twitter.com/6cI5UhrwDm— МИД России ?? (@MID_RF) April 26, 2021Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced this past Thursday that military exercises involving troops along the border with Ukraine were over and that they would return to their permanent bases by May 1. Later that day, a NATO official told VOA the alliance had taken note of the Russian announcement, adding, “Any steps towards de-escalation by Russia would be important and well overdue.” VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this report.
 
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One hundred and eight prominent members of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP went on trial in the capital, Ankara, Monday in connection with violent nationwide protests in 2014 that left 37 people dead.The protests were against the government’s failure to militarily intervene as the Islamic State was poised to overrun the predominantly Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, on Turkey’s border.Speaking outside the courthouse Monday, HDP co-chair Mithat Sancar said the trial is politically motivated.”The party official called this a case of revenge which he said is the product of the defeats that the HDP has made the government suffer,” Sancar said.Ankara accuses the YPG Syrian Kurdish fighters defending Kobane of being terrorists no different from Islamic State militants.The government is vigorously defending the prosecution, claiming the defendants have to be held to account for the deaths in the 2014 unrest.But Emma Sinclair Webb of the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the case is part of an alarming trend.This is an entirely political trial as so many trials in Turkey are these days. This is part of a contentious effort to deplete the HDP to criminalize it,” Sinclair Webb said. “Basically evidence is based on political speeches and there is just no compelling credible evidence to pursue this case.”The defendants face life sentences on charges of murder, insurrection and inciting terrorism. Among those on trial is the HDP’s two former leaders, who are already in jail.The ruling AK Party accuses the HDP of being linked to the Kurdish rebel group the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish state, a charge the party denies. Columnist Sezin Oney of the Duvar news portal said the future of the party is now in doubt.”Probably the beginning of the end of the HDP, AK party officials have on various instances have mentioned their intention is to wipe out the HDP for good so it can’t make a comeback,” Oney said.Dozens of elected HDP mayors are already in jail, and advocates fear that prosecutors could be preparing what is designed to be a fatal blow to Turkey’s second-largest opposition party. 
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Thirty-seven percent of surveyed countries are still experiencing disruptions in vaccinating children against deadly diseases like measles compared to 2020 levels, according to a press release from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The disruptions stem from the COVID-19 pandemic, the groups say.
They also say 60 lifesaving campaigns are currently “postponed in 50 countries, putting around 228 million people — mostly children — at risk for measles, yellow fever and polio.”  
As the world marks World Immunization Week 2021, which takes place in the last week of April, the groups are calling for countries to increase investments in vaccines.
The groups say investment could save 50 million lives by 2030.
“If we’re to avoid multiple outbreaks of life-threatening diseases like measles, yellow fever and diphtheria, we must ensure routine vaccination services are protected in every country in the world,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Measles outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Yemen, according to the groups. They added that further outbreaks were likely as children are not vaccinated.
“As COVID-19 vaccines are at the forefront of everyone’s minds, it is more critical than ever that children maintain access to other lifesaving vaccines to prevent devastating outbreaks of preventable diseases that have started to spread alongside the pandemic,” said David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada. “We must sustain this energy on vaccine rollout to also help children catch up on their measles, polio and other vaccines. Lost ground means lost lives.”
UNICEF said it delivered 2.01 billion vaccines in 2020 compared to 2.29 billion in 2019.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could be finding himself cornered over opposition claims that his government $128 billion squandered in defending Turkey’s currency, the lira.Throughout Turkey, giant banners emblazoned with the words “where is the $128 billion?” hang from party offices of the main opposition, People’s Republican Party, CHP.  Advertising trucks and vans carry images asking the same question, along with posters on billboards across the country, some with just the words “$128 billion Where?”In Istanbul, the governor ordered the banners taken down, claiming they violated COVID restrictions. Video of the police taking down the huge posters in the middle of the night went viral on social media, only fueling more interest.The CHP has countered by simply using the number 128, which has become synonymous with demands for accounting of the lost billions of dollars.Meral Aksener, the firebrand leader of the opposition Good Party, iyi, joined in the assault on the government, “Turkey has become the land of disappearance under the great illusionist Erdoğan,” quipped Aksener in an address to her parliamentary party deputies this month.”Vaccines are missing,” and “128 Billion USD and the Minister of Powerpoint (referring to former Finance Minister Berat Albayrak) who lost the money is also missing,” she said, referring to opposition claims that more than one million imported COVID vaccines are unaccounted for – a claim the government denies. Albayrak, Erdogan’s son-in-law, has not been seen public since reports said he was forced to quit in November.Under the finance minister’s two-year stewardship, billions of Turkey’s foreign currency reserves were used to prop up the currency, as he confounded economic orthodoxy of keeping interest rates low, despite rising inflation.A man is reflected at a foreign currency board in a currency exchange shop, in Istanbul, Turkey, March 22, 2021.Albayrak followed Erdogan’s unorthodox view that low-interest rates reduce inflation rather than the widely held belief that high rates are needed to tame rising prices.Analysts warn the growing controversy over the opposition’s slogan, “What happened to $128 billion,” is threatening to engulf Erdogan.”The question drives Mr. Erdogan furious because it is essentially an assault on the integrity of his son-in-law Mr. Berat Albayrak,” said political consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “It also implies AKP cronies might have absconded with part of Central Bank F/X sales.”Economic hardship caused by the COVID pandemic, with rising unemployment and inflation, mean that questions over missing billions of dollars are striking a chord in the country. In recent weeks, the question “What happened to 128 billion” has been among the top three search questions on Google in Turkey.  Erdogan on Wednesday accused the opposition of carrying out a campaign of “lies.””This money was not gifted to anyone or wasted,” Erdogan told members of his ruling parliamentary. “It simply changed hands and went to economic actors… and a large part of it has returned to the central bank,” he added.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during his ruling party’s congress in Ankara, March 24, 2021. (Credit: Turkish Presidency)But the president caused alarm in the financial markets when he said 165 rather than 128 billion had been used defending the currency and that he would support such a policy again if needed. The Turkish lira plummeted after the comments.”Erdogan is now saying $165 billion (were) used in two years to defend the lira. That is a huge sum spent on a failed FX intervention strategy,” tweeted Timothy Ash, a senior Emerging Market Analyst of Blue Ray Investments. “I cannot think of another country that wasted such huge sums on a failed defense of the lira. Disastrous,” he added.Falling approval ratingMany analysts see Turkey’s economic woes as the main factor behind Erdogan and his AKP Party’s slide in opinion polls. For the first time, the party’s support, according to polls, has fallen below 30%.Observers say Erdogan’s struggle to contain the 128 campaign indicates a far broader problem facing the president. Having dominated Turkish politics for nearly two decades, they say he now appears to be heading into enemy territory.”For the first time, the AK Party is obliged to a defensive strategy, and because it does not know how to play, it responds with kick and slap to every attack,” said veteran pollster Bekir Agirdir of the Konda polling company.The 128 campaign, using both traditional and modern means of communication and its slick presentation, is also a sign that Erdogan is facing a galvanized and effective opposition that appears to have a finger on the nation’s pulse.”The economic conditions in the country are getting harder, the government seems to be losing the grip of the pandemic, and to be honest, the opposition is playing tough,” wrote political columnist Murat Yetkin for the website Yetkin Report. 
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Russia is considering using convicts to expand a railway line in the far east, a government document showed, as Moscow faces migrant labor shortages due to COVID-19.Restrictions linked to the pandemic have prompted many migrant workers to leave Russia and authorities have warned construction projects could be slowed down.Russia has already brought in soldiers to build a segment of its Baikal-Amur Mainline railway (BAM) in the far east to transport more coal and metal to ports for export to Asia.It is now also considering convict laborers to work on the line which is being expanded as part of a more than 6 trillion rouble ($79 billion) plan to upgrade and construct infrastructure.A document drawn up by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin’s office ordered the transport ministry, the Federal Penitentiary Service and Russian Railways, the state company that runs the vast national rail network, to assess the feasibility of using convicts to build railways.The document, first reported by Kommersant newspaper and reviewed by Reuters on Monday, ordered the three bodies to assess the possibility of using convicts to work on the construction of railway infrastructure on the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian railways by May 14.Russian Railways and the transport ministry declined to comment.A spokesman for Khusnullin did not immediately comment. The government and prison service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Prisoners from the Soviet Union’s vast GULAG labor camp system were used in the 1930s to build portions of BAM and develop large swathes of Siberia.
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A top European Union official said Sunday that Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 should be able to travel to Europe by summer, easing existing travel restrictions.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told The New York Times that the union’s 27 members would accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by the European Medicines Agency. The agency has approved the three vaccines used in the United States.”The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines,” von der Leyen said. “This will enable free movement and travel to the European Union.”She did not say when travel could resume. The EU largely shut down nonessential travel more than a year ago.European Union countries agreed this month to launch COVID-19 travel passes that would permit people who have been vaccinated against the disease, recovered from an infection or have tested negative to travel more easily.
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A leading contender to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor this fall has called for “dialogue and toughness” toward China when it comes to defending democratic values and human rights.Annalena Baerbock, the environmentalist Greens’ candidate for chancellorship, told the weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that Europe should use its economic might to block Chinese goods made with forced labor and avoid communications technologies that endanger European security.”We are currently in a competition between systems: authoritarian powers versus liberal democracies,” she said in an interview published Sunday.Baerbock cited China’s investment in infrastructure and energy grids through Central Asia to Europe as “brutal power politics.””We Europeans mustn’t kid ourselves,” she said, adding that the 27-nation European Union needs to act accordingly to defend its values, such as by using a recent investment accord between Brussels and Beijing to address more strongly the issue of China putting its Uyghur minority into forced labor.Baerbock, a graduate in international law, also took aim at Russia, in particular its support for rebel groups in Ukraine and the recent massing of Russian troops along Ukraine’s border.She backed Ukraine’s right to apply for membership in NATO and the EU but said “the most important thing right now is to increase the pressure on Russia so that the Minsk accord is adhered to.” That accord seeks to peacefully end the conflict in eastern Ukraine with Russia-backed rebels that has left at least 14,000 dead since 2014.Against the backdrop of Moscow’s aggressive behavior, Baerbock criticized the German government’s support for an underwater pipeline bringing Russian natural gas to Germany.  “I would have long withdrawn political support for Nord Stream 2,” she said.The Greens have called for closer cooperation with the United States to defend liberal values worldwide, but Baerbock suggested that the goal of having NATO members spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense should be revisited in light of the pressing need to invest large sums to curb climate change. She also suggested Europe’s defense contribution could also come in the form of a cybersecurity center.”A blanket 2% goal, on the other hand, won’t achieve greater security,” she said.The Greens emerged from the pacifist and environmental movements of the 1970s and 1980s, but in recent years have backed limited military deployments abroad, provided they are tied to U.N. resolutions.Baerbock said the future of U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in Europe could be raised again as part of the disarmament negotiations between Moscow and Washington.  A poll published Sunday by weekly Bild am Sonntag put the Greens narrowly ahead of Merkel’s center-right Union bloc.Germans will elect a new parliament September 26 that will then choose who should become the country’s next chancellor. Merkel is not running for a fifth term.The survey, conducted by polling firm Kantar, found 28% of respondents planned to vote for the Greens, against 27% for the Union bloc. The center-left Social Democrats are expected to receive about 13% support while the far-right Alternative for Germany would get 10%. The poll of 1,225 voters found the pro-business Free Democrats would receive 9% and the Left party would get 7% of the vote.
 
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In March, one of the world’s biggest container ships became stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal, creating a commercial logjam and spikes in the cost of oil. At a training facility in France, mariners are learning how to avoid a similar predicament.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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A fifth person is being held for questioning in the stabbing death late last week of a police employee outside Paris, France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said Sunday. He noted the assailant, a Tunisian national, viewed videos glorifying jihad, or Muslim holy war, and may have visited to a Muslim prayer hall before the attack.AAnti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard confirmed reports that Tunisian Jamel Gorchene consulted videos on his cell phone extolling martyrdom and jihad, minutes before stabbing a 49-year-old police worker and mother of two Friday in the quiet town of Rambouillet, 60 kilometers from Paris.
 
Speaking at a press conference, Ricard recounted in detail Gorchene’s actions leading up to the attack that took place at a police station. Ricard said cameras captured Gorchene passing the station in Rambouillet several times on a scooter. They also captured him heading toward a Muslim prayer hall, but there were no images of him actually going inside. Ricard said police later found a Quran and Muslim prayer rug in Gorchene’s scooter.  
 
Ricard said on Friday afternoon, Gorchene headed to the police station as his victim left the building. He appeared to have consulted the phone videos just before sprinting after the worker as she reentered the precinct. Witnesses said he cried Allahu Akbhar, or God is great, in Arabic, as he stabbed her in the abdomen and throat. Ricard says police shot Gorchene dead after Gorchene refused to put down his knife. Police officers secure the area where an attacker stabbed a female police worker, in Rambouillet, near Paris, France, April 23, 2021.Police have detained several people, including Gorchene’s father, two cousins and a couple who sheltered the 36-year-old assailant in another Paris-area town. The father told French investigators his son had adopted a rigorous form of Islam. Ricard said Gorchene also consulted psychiatric services at a hospital but didn’t appear to need treatment.
The prosecutor said Gorchene’s Facebook page appears to show a slow change from religious ideology to embracing violence. He said Gorchene registered support, for example, for the assailant who beheaded school teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb last October after Paty showed his class cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider the images blasphemous.
Ricard said France is working with investigators in Tunisia, where Gorchene returned to visit family near the coastal city of Sousse earlier this year. Ricard said Gorchene received French working papers last year as a delivery man but appeared to have lived illegally in France for a long period before that.  
Authorities are looking for other possible suspects or accomplices in the killing.
Tunisia was among the biggest exporters of jihadists to places like Syria and Libya a few years ago. Tunisian authorities have condemned the Rambouillet attack. 
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin unveils new legislation Wednesday to reinforce the fight against terrorism here. In an interview published Sunday, Darmanin called it France’s biggest threat, with 575 suspected radicals expelled from the country since 2017.  
 
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An uneasy calm pervades Chad’s capital N’Djamena since Friday’s funeral for President Idriss Deby, who ruled the central African country for more than 30 years. Civilians say handing over power to Deby’s 37-year-old son to lead a transitional military council for 18 months is undemocratic.Inoussa Labarang, 37,  feeds his 27 chickens at his residence in Farcha, a neighborhood in Chad’s capital N’Djamena. Labarang says he expected to sell two chickens to raise money and buy millet to feed his family for at least three days.  But no customer has come since the country’s long-serving President Idriss Deby was killed during a clash with rebels, he said.  Fear has gripped the city.  Labarang has a second job as a security guard for shop at night, where he earns $40 each month.  The additional income helps him feed his wife and five children.  From the little he earns, he gives his wife $10 to buy and sell groundnuts to generate more income.  He is struggling, but he said his country should be wealthy. He believes the issue is with governance, pointing squarely at the leadership of the late President Deby, saying that he has given Chad’s wealth to an elite circle of family and friends.  He is one of many in the country who believe that the transition and appointment of the late president’s son during this period is unconstitutional.  Labarang supports opposition political parties and rebels who are asking the transitional military council created after Deby’s death to leave power.  According to Chad’s Constitution, the speaker of the parliament must take over when a sitting president dies before elections can be held, he said.  Before he was killed, provisional results showed that Deby won re-election for a sixth term in office. On April 20, the day of Deby’s death, Chad’s military announced on state media the creation of an 18-month transitional military council led by General Mahamat Idriss Deby, the 37-year-old son of the late president. Chad’s Interim President Faces Power StruggleRebels and opposition challenge General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, 37, who has taken control after the death of his father, longtime President Idriss Deby ItnoA rebel force known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad or FACT, released a statement vowing to take the capital and depose the 37-year-old. Following threats from rebels and the opposition, the transitional military council deployed troops to protect N’Djamena, activist Fundjoul Abdoul of Chad’s Rights Watch said.  The transitional military council, Abdoul said, also declared a curfew in N’Djamena and is restricting movement of people in the city of over a million people.  “There is total confusion in the whole country. There is a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “People are afraid to go out and the town has been virtually militarized. Chad does not know what future is being reserved for them. The opposition is not yet satisfied. The rebels too are threatening, so there is fear.” Chad’s state radio and TV have been broadcasting messages from Mahamat Idriss Deby calling for peace. In the message the new leader says he is open to dialogue.He says he is very thankful for the support a majority of Chadians and friendly nations, especially France, have given his family since President Idriss Deby’s death. He says his father worked tirelessly for peace, reconciliation and the unity of Chad.
Idriss Deby always encouraged dialogue, he said, as a solution to all forms of crisis. He says with the support of Idriss Deby’s family and the Chadian people, he will continue to defend his father’s ideology that is loved by most Chadians. Deby was a key ally of France in the fight against jihadist groups across West Africa including Boko Haram, which has destabilized the parts of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.  French President Emmanuel Macron and the son of the late Chadian president Idriss Deby, general Mahamat Idriss Deby, attend the state funeral for the late Chadian president Idriss Deby in N’Djamena, Apr. 23, 2021.French President Emmanuel Macron who visited N’Djamena to attend Deby’s funeral said his country will not allow Chad to become destabilized. Chad’s civil society groups plan to hold a public demonstration Tuesday, demanding the dissolution of the transitional military council.  In a statement, Max Loalngar,  one of the leaders of a civil society coalition called Coordination of Citizen Actions, accused France and regional allies of undemocratically backing the fallen president’s son to take power. The group said Chad is not a monarchy.  
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Voters in Albania cast ballots in parliamentary elections on Sunday after a bitter campaign by the two main political parties amid the coronavirus pandemic.More than 1,800 candidates who represent 12 political parties as well as electoral coalitions and independents, were competing for the 140 seats parliament.Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party is seeking a third term while the opposition Democratic Party of Lulzim Basha is seeking a return to power.  The vote at about 5,200 polling stations was being watched closely by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, and many embassies in Albania.“We hope that every Albanian citizen goes and votes, free of fear, free of interference,” U.S. Ambassador Yuri Kim said at a polling station in the northern city of Shkodra. “This is your day,” Kim said.Albanian President Ilir Meta, who cast his ballot shortly after voting began, called on his people to go out and vote not only to exercise their constitutional right, but also to do so as a patriotic act.“The whole world has its eyes on Albania,” Meta said, adding, “Only the good progress of this process means that the Europe Union will open the road for Albania’s membership.”Although in a politicly neutral role as president, Meta has recently accused the Rama government of concentrating the legislative, administrative and judicial powers in his hands, while running a “kleptocratic regime” that has delayed Albania’s membership in EU.The results are not expected until Tuesday. 
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Victor Guevara knows people his age have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in many countries. His own relatives in Houston have been inoculated.But the 72-year-old Honduran lawyer, like so many others in his country, is still waiting. And increasingly, he is wondering why the United States is not doing more to help, particularly as the American vaccine supply begins to outpace demand and doses that have been approved for use elsewhere in the world, but not in the U.S., sit idle.“We live in a state of defenselessness on every level,” Guevara said of the situation in his Central American homeland.Honduras has obtained a paltry 59,000 vaccine doses for its 10 million people. Similar gaps in vaccine access are found across Africa, where just 36 million doses have been acquired for the continent’s 1.3 billion people, as well as in parts of Asia.In the United States, more than one-fourth of the population — nearly 90 million people — has been fully vaccinated and supplies are so robust that some states are turning down planned shipments from the federal government.This stark access gap is prompting increased calls across the world for the U.S. to start shipping vaccine supplies to poorer countries. That is creating an early test for President Joe Biden, who has pledged to restore American leadership on the world stage and prove to wary nations that the U.S. is a reliable partner after years of retrenchment during the Trump administration.J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, said that as the U.S. moves from vaccine scarcity to abundance, it has an opportunity to “shape the outcomes dramatically in this next phase because of the assets we have.”Biden, who took office in January as the virus was raging in the U.S., has responded cautiously to calls for help from abroad.He has focused the bulk of his administration’s vaccinations efforts at home. He kept in place an agreement struck by the Trump administration requiring drugmakers that got U.S. aid in developing or expanding vaccine manufacturing to sell their first doses produced in the country to the U.S. government. The U.S. has also used the Defense Production Act to secure vital supplies for the production of vaccine, a move that has blocked the export of some supplies outside the country.White House aides have argued that Biden’s cautious approach to promises around vaccine supply and delivery was validated in the wake of manufacturing issues with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the subsequent safety “pause” to investigate a handful of reported blood clots. In addition, officials say they need to maintain reserves in the U.S. to vaccinate teenagers and younger children once safety studies for those age groups are completed and if booster shots should be required later.The White House is aware that the rest of the world is watching. Last month, the U.S. shared 4 million vaccine doses with neighboring Canada and Mexico, and this past week, Biden said those countries would be targets for additional supplies. He also said countries in Central America could receive U.S. vaccination help, though officials have not detailed any specific plans.The lack of U.S. vaccine assistance around the world has created an opportunity for China and Russia, which have promised millions of doses of domestically produced shots to other countries, though there have been production delays that have hampered the delivery of some supplies. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said this month that China opposes “vaccine nationalism” and that vaccines should become a global public good.Norma Gonzalez, 68, waits for results after she was tested for the COVID-19 virus, in a Red Cross laboratory in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, April 23, 2021.Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute and a vaccinologist, said wealthy countries have a stake in the success of vaccination efforts in other corners of the world.“Beyond the moral obligation, the problem is that if there is not going to be control of the epidemic globally, this may ultimately backfire for these rich countries, if in areas where vaccines are not available variants emerge against which the vaccines might not work,” Hanekom said.The U.S. has also faced criticism that it is not only hoarding its own stockpiles, but also blocking other countries from accessing vaccines, including through its use of the law that gives Washington broad authority to direct private companies to meet the needs of the national defense.Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest maker of vaccines and a critical supplier of the U.N.-backed COVAX facility, asked Biden on Twitter on April 16 to lift the U.S. embargo on exporting raw materials needed to make the jabs.India is battling the world’s fastest pace of spreading infections. Its government has blocked vaccine exports for several months to better meet needs at home, exacerbating the difficulty of poor countries to access vaccine.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ 2020 annual report also raised eyebrows for a section titled “Combatting malign influences in the Americas,” which said the U.S. had convinced Brazil to not buy the Russian shot.The U.S. Embassy denied exerting any pressure regarding vaccines approved by Brazil’s health regulator, which has not yet signed off on Sputnik V. Since March 13, Brazil has been trying to negotiate supply of U.S. surplus vaccines for itself, according to the foreign ministry.There are also concerns that the U.S. might link vaccine sharing to other diplomatic efforts. Washington’s loan of 2.7 million doses of AstraZeneca’s shots to Mexico last month came on the same day Mexico announced it was restricting crossings at its southern border, an effort that could help decrease the number of migrants seeking entry into the United States.A retired doctor from the public health system stands in a line as he waits to be inoculated with the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, as part of a vaccination campaign in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, April 23, 2021.Those sort of parallel tracks of diplomacy will be closely watched as the Biden administration decides with whom to share its surplus vaccine, particularly in Central America, home to many countries where migrant families and unaccompanied children are trying to make their way to the U.S.“What we would hope to avoid is any perception that increased access to lifesaving vaccines in Central America is in exchange for increased tightening of border security,” said Maureen Meyer, vice president for programs at the Washington Office on Latin America.As the wait for vaccines continues in Honduras, desperation is growing.Last week, a private business group announced it would try to buy 1.5 million vaccine doses to help government efforts, though it was unclear how it might obtain them. In March, authorities in Mexico seized 5,700 doses of purported Russian vaccines found in false bottoms of ice chests aboard a private plane bound for Honduras. The company owner who chartered the plane said he was trying to obtain vaccines for his employees and their families. The vaccine’s Russian distributor said the vaccines were fake.Lilian Tilbeth Hernández Banegas, 46, was infected with COVID-19 in late November and spent 13 days in a Tegucigalpa hospital. The first days she struggled to breathe and thought she would die.The experience has made the mother of three more anxious about the virus and more diligent about avoiding it. The pandemic rocked her family’s finances. Her husband sells used cars but has not made a sale in more than four months.“I want to vaccinate myself, my family to be vaccinated, because my husband and my children go out to work, but it’s frustrating that the vaccines don’t arrive,” Hernández said.There is plenty of blame to go around, said Marco Tulio Medina, coordinator of the COVID-19 committee at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, noting his own government’s lackadaisical approach and the ferocity of the vaccine marketplace. But the wealthy can do more.“There’s a lack of humanism on the part of the rich countries,” he said. “They’re acting in an egotistical way, thinking of themselves and not of the world.”
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England’s football authorities have joined forces to announce a social media boycott next weekend in response to continued online racist abuse of players.The boycott will take place across a full fixture program in the men’s and women’s professional game from 3 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) on Friday to 11.59 p.m. on May 3.Clubs across the Premier League, English Football League, Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship will switch off their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to emphasize that social media companies must do more to eradicate online hate.“Racist behavior of any form is unacceptable and the appalling abuse we are seeing players receive on social media platforms cannot be allowed to continue,” Premier League CEO Richard Masters said in a statement.“The Premier League and our clubs stand alongside football in staging this boycott to highlight the urgent need for social media companies to do more in eliminating racial hatred.“We will not stop challenging social media companies and want to see significant improvements in their policies and processes to tackle online discriminatory abuse on their platforms.”A host of players at Premier League clubs have been targeted in the past few months, including Manchester United’s Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, Liverpool’s Trent-Alexander Arnold and Sadio Mane, and Chelsea’s Reece James.Championship (second tier) sides Birmingham City and Swansea City and Scottish champions Rangers recently held weeklong boycotts following a spate of racial attacks on their players.Former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry said last month he was removing himself from social media because of racism and bullying, while Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has handed over control of his accounts to an anti-cyberbullying charity.In February, English football bodies sent an open letter to Facebook and Twitter, urging blocking and swift takedowns of offensive posts, as well as an improved verification process for users.Facebook-owned Instagram has announced new measures and Twitter vowed to continue its efforts after acting on more than 700 cases of abuse related to soccer in Britain in 2019.
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UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has refused to rule out a ban from next season’s Champions League for all 12 clubs involved in trying to set up a breakaway European Super League.But Ceferin also told Britain’s Mail on Sunday that the six English clubs — Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United — deserve greater leniency as they were the first to back out.He said their stance was in contrast to that of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus, ridiculed by Ceferin as “the ones who feel that Earth is flat and… think the Super League still exists.”In the space of 48 hours beginning last Sunday, UEFA, aided by fans and politicians, quelled a mutiny by English, Spanish and Italian clubs attempting to form a quasi-closed tournament designed to supplant the existing Champions League.Nine clubs, including all six in England, subsequently withdrew.But Ceferin, who thanked British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his opposition to the Super League, said disciplinary action remained an option for UEFA, European football’s governing body.”Everyone has to take consequences for what they did and we cannot pretend nothing happened,” he warned.However, the Slovenian lawyer, elected UEFA president in 2016, added: “But for me it’s a clear difference between the English clubs and the other six. They pulled out first, they admitted they made a mistake. You have to have some greatness to say: ‘I was wrong.'””But everyone will be held responsible. In what way, we will see,” he said.The irony is that UEFA were on the brink of enacting changes that would have entrenched the position of many of the established Champions League powers behind the Super League.But Ceferin said he was open to dropping the two extra Champions League spots in an expanded competition that were meant to be reserved for clubs based on their historic record.
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Three Ukrainian television channels linked to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin were blocked from broadcasting on Google’s YouTube on Saturday, the Ukrainian government said, following its request to YouTube to have the channels taken down.The YouTube channels of ZiK, 112 Ukraine and NewsOne did not play their content and instead showed a blank screen with a message saying the channel was not available.”We are pleased such an influential American company is willing to cooperate when it concerns issues of Ukrainian national security and Russian disinformation,” Ukraine’s embassy to Washington said in a tweet.YouTube did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.The move comes after weeks of tensions between Kyiv and Moscow over the conflict in eastern Ukraine and a Russian troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders that had alarmed Ukraine’s Western backers and the NATO military alliance.Russia said it began withdrawing its troops on Friday.Backed by the United States, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government blocked the three channels from airing on Ukrainian television in February, accusing them of being instruments of Russian propaganda and partly financed by Russia.The government also asked YouTube to shut down the channels on its platform.The listed owner of the channels is Taras Kozak, a lawmaker from the Opposition Platform — For Life party.Kozak is an associate of Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent opposition figure who says Putin is godfather to his daughter. The Kremlin has said its contacts with Medvedchuk represent Russia’s efforts to maintain ties with “the Russian world.”Medvedchuk and Kozak did not respond to requests for comment, but Kozak and Medvedchuk have both previously described the crackdown on the channels as illegal.Medvedchuk earlier this year told Reuters the clampdown was designed to silence criticism of Zelenskiy’s political blunders, saying Zelenskiy was “infuriated” by what the TV channels reported.Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko on Saturday thanked YouTube for the ban, calling the channels “part of Russia’s propaganda war against Ukraine.”
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Armenians in the Middle East, in modern-day Armenia and in other parts of the world on Saturday marked the 106th anniversary of the beginning of what historians call the Armenian genocide.Hundreds gathered at the Armenian Patriarchate north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, for the observance. The head of the Armenian Orthodox Church of Cilicia, Aram I, delivered a eulogy for the victims. Paul Haidostian, president of Haigazian University in Beirut, told VOA he attended the three-hour memorial service, in which the patriarch expressed his thanks to U.S. President Joe Biden for recognizing the mass killings of Armenians as genocide.Historians say an estimated 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Empire — the predecessor to modern-day Turkey — between 1915 and 1923.The genocide, said Haidostian, officially began with the arrests of leading Armenian political figures and intellectuals in the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, in 1915.”The reason they mention April 24 [is] symbolic, in a way, because in Constantinople a few hundred leaders and politicians — Armenian leaders and intellectuals — were arrested and deported and killed, and then it was followed by systematic attacks all over the country,” he said.Country’s character changedHaidostian added that “the end result was that Armenians were either killed or kicked out of their historic lands … basically changing the character of eastern Turkey and Anatolia … and leaving a very different country with a totally different people.”The large Armenian community in Aleppo, Syria, commemorated the mass killings, while a marching band paraded through the streets of the city and waved burning torches as dusk fell over the region. Armenians also marked the event in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the mostly Armenian town of Kessab, near the Turkish border.People line up to lay flowers at the monument to the victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks, to commemorate the 106th anniversary of the massacre, in Yerevan, Armenia, April 24, 2021.Demetrios Orologas, a Greek writer living in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, told VOA that Armenians paid tribute at the genocide memorial, laying wreaths and playing music to honor the victims.Parts of Orologas’ own Greek family were also expelled from the formerly Greek city of Smyrna, which Kemal Ataturk, a military leader who became the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, burned in 1923. Orologas’ mother and her family were forced into exile in Greece after the calamity.”Not only the event was terrible, but also the wars that came after … [my family] became refugees, they became outcasts, they lost their homes, they lost their fortunes and they lived for years under a regime that was not friendly to them,” he said.Biden officially recognized the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide in a statement Saturday, 106 years to the day after the first Armenians were killed.
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U.S. President Joe Biden recognized Saturday the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
 
Biden’s recognition of the mass killings fulfills a campaign promise and came on the same day that Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was observed in Armenia and by the Armenian diaspora.
 
“Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” Biden said in a statement. “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today.”
 
During his campaign for president last year, Biden said he would “support a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide and will make universal human rights a top priority.”
 
In a letter Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 100 members of the U.S. House of Representatives urged Biden to become the first U.S. president to recognize the killings as genocide.
 
“The shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end,” the lawmakers wrote.  
 
“We urge you to follow through on your commitments and speak the truth.”
 
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week that Biden’s recognition of the killings as genocide would harm relations between the NATO allies.  
 
Cavusoglu said Saturday in a statement that Biden’s recognition “distorts the historical facts, will never be accepted in the conscience of the Turkish people, and will open a deep wound that undermines our mutual trust and friendship.”
“We call on the U.S. President to correct this grave mistake, which serves no purpose other than to satisfy certain political circles, and to support the efforts aiming to establish a practice of peaceful coexistence in the region, especially among the Turkish and Armenian nations, instead of serving the agenda of those circles that try to foment enmity from history,” Cavusoglu added.
 
Historians say an estimated 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Empire — the predecessor to modern-day Turkey — between 1915 and 1923.
 
Armenians say they were purposely targeted for extermination through starvation, forced labor, deportation, death marches, and outright massacres.
 
Turkey denies a genocide or any deliberate plan to wipe out the Armenians. It says many of the victims were casualties of the war or murdered by Russians. Turkey also says the number of Armenians killed was far fewer than the usually accepted figure of 1.5 million.  
 
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