Police have detained former Ecuadorian President Abdala Bucaram for the second time in two months, this time in an organized crime probe.Ecuadorian Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo told a local radio station that Bucaram was arrested at his home in the port city of Guayaquil on Wednesday as part of investigation into whether he is linked to the murder of an Israeli man jailed in a possible COVID-19 medical supply scandal.So far, Bucaram has not been charged in connection to the inmate’s death at the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil on Saturday.In June, Bucaram was detained for a time following a raid on his home in an investigation into the sale of COVID-19 medical supplies to hospitals.Authorities seized thousands of face masks and coronavirus antibody rapid test kits.A gun and artwork were also seized, and Bucaram was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and state-owned sculptures.Bucaram’s three adult sons are being sought in connection with the inquiry into sale of overpriced medical supplies to hospitals.
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Two U.S men charged with selling a bleach-like chemical concoction billed as a cure for COVID-19 and other diseases are under arrest in Colombia.The Associated Press quoted authorities as saying Mark and Joseph Grennon were arrested Tuesday in the beach town of Santa Marta, where the father-and-son team shipped their “Miracle Mineral Solution” to the United States, Colombia and Africa.Prosecutors say seven Americans died from using their product.Mark Grenon, the archbishop of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing in Bradenton, Florida, promoted the substance as a sort of sacrament with healing powers.Grenon ignored a Miami federal judge’s order in April to stop selling the substance, which has been legalized in Bolivia despite opposition from medical experts.Grenon and his three adult sons, including Joseph, are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to violate the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act and criminal contempt.  
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Thousands protested in Belarus for the fourth straight night Wednesday against what they said was the fraudulent election of President Alexander Lukashenko for a sixth term.Demonstrators in Minsk formed human chains to try to block police from approaching.Witnesses said on one street in the capital riot police fired rubber bullets at people who stood on their balconies to cheer the demonstrators.Earlier Wednesday, groups of women also formed human chains and carried bouquets of flowers as police stood by, making no effort to disperse them.Similar demonstrations were held in other Belarusian cities.As many as 6,000 people have been arrested and hundreds injured after police used tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets to break up the nightly marches.They include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Vital Tsyhankou, who was badly beaten by police, the Associated Press reported, along with two independent Belarusian television reporters.People flocked to the jails to look for missing relatives.Lukashenko has said he will not be intimidated.“The core of these so-called protesters are people with a criminal past and (those who are) currently unemployed,” he said Wednesday.European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called for a meeting of foreign ministers Friday to talk about Belarus. He is threatening sanctions against “those responsible for the observed violence, unjustified arrests and falsification of election results.”The Belarusian election commission declared Lukashenko the winner of Sunday’s presidential election with 80 percent of the vote and 10 percent for the only serious challenger, former teacher Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.She entered the race at the last minute after police arrested her husband, an opposition blogger who was planning to run for president.Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania Tuesday for what she said was the safety of her children.Lukashenko has frequently been called Europe’s last dictator because of his suppression of free speech and human rights while showing little tolerance for dissent. He has ruled Belarus since it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.Many of the protesters are also angry at his refusal to take any significant action to fight the coronavirus.Lukashenko has sought to lighten his image as a brutal dictator who cozies up to the Kremlin by seeking closer relations with the European Union and United States.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking about the contentious Belarusian presidential election and the ensuing police crackdown against peaceful protesters, says that “we want good outcomes for the Belarusian people, and we’ll take actions consistent with that.” Pompeo, who earlier condemned the conduct of the election that handed authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth-straight term by a landslide, said in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday with RFE/RL in Prague that “we’ve watched the violence and the aftermath, peaceful protesters being treated in ways that are inconsistent with how they should be treated.” The vote Sunday, which the opposition has called “rigged,” has resulted in three-straight evenings of mass protests marred by police violence and thousands of detentions. Pompeo said that the United States had not yet settled on the appropriate response but would work with Washington’s European partners to determine what action to take. Asked whether the election and its aftermath would affect the future of U.S.-Belarus relations, including the promised delivery of U.S. oil, Pompeo said: “We’re going to have to work through that…we were incredibly troubled by the election and deeply disappointed that it wasn’t more free and more fair.” U.S. troops in Afghanistan Pompeo, who was in Prague at the start of a five-day trip to Europe that will also take him to Slovenia, Austria and Poland, discussed a number of other issues, including allegations that Russia was involved in offering Taliban militants bounties to attack U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; expectations that Washington will seek to extend the U.N. arms embargo against Iran; and the effect violence against protesters in the United States might have on Washington’s image abroad. WATCH: See Mike Pompeo’s entire interviewThe U.S. secretary of state declined to comment on whether he believed U.S. intelligence reports that said Russia had offered money to the Taliban and their proxies in Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers, saying he never commented on U.S. intelligence matters. “What we’ve said is this: If the Russians are offering money to kill Americans or for that matter, other Westerners as well, there will be an enormous price to pay,” Pompeo said. “That’s what I shared with [Russian] Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov. I know our military has talked to their senior leaders as well. We won’t brook that. We won’t tolerate that.”  Last month, in an interview with VOA, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie said the allegations were ” very worrisome, it’s very concerning, but it’s not proven to my satisfaction that it actually occurred.” Regarding the prospect of resistance among European allies to U.S. efforts to extend the expiring arms embargo on Iran indefinitely, Pompeo said it “makes no sense for any European country to support the Iranians being able to have arms.” “I think they recognize it for exactly what it is,” he said of the U.S. proposal, a draft resolution of which is reportedly currently being floated in the 15-member Security Council. “And I hope that they will vote that way at the United Nations. I hope they will see.” “The resolution that we’re going to present is simply asking for a rollover of the extension of the arms embargo,” Pompeo said. “It’s that straightforward.” Asked specifically about the prospect that Iranian allies Russia and China could veto such a proposal, the U.S. secretary of state said: “We’re going to make it come back. We have the right to do it under 2231 and we’re going to do it.” U.N. Resolution 2231 was passed unanimously by the United Nations in 2015, endorsing the Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) The United States withdrew from the deal, which offered sanctions relief to Tehran in exchange for security guarantees aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, in 2018. Russian media pressure  Pompeo also discussed recent efforts by Russia to target foreign media operating there, which the secretary of state earlier warned would “impose new burdensome requirements” on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice Of America. In a statement Monday, Pompeo said that the two U.S.-funded media outlets already faced “significant and undue restrictions” in Russia, and that a recent draft order by Russia’s state media regulator requiring all media registered as “foreign agents” to label their content as such or face fines of up to 5 million rubles ($70,000) had left Washington “deeply concerned.” In Prague on Wednesday, Pompeo said that he believed that “we think we can put real pressure and convince them that the right thing to do is to allow press freedom.” “We’ve condemned it. We’ve also imposed enormous sanctions on Russia for other elements of their malign activity,” Pompeo said. “We hope that the rest of the world will join us in this. We hope that those nations that value the freedom of press, who want independent reporters to be able to ask questions, even if sometimes leaders don’t like them, will join with us.” Asked whether the recent handling of protests against social injustice in the United States, which has included the use of police force against civilians and journalists, had harmed Washington’s image and weakened its moral authority in scolding authoritarian regimes, Pompeo called the question “insulting.”  He said that the “difference between the United States and these authoritarian regimes couldn’t be more clear.” “We have the rule of law, we have the freedom of press, every one of those people gets due process. When we have peaceful protesters, we create the space for them to say their mind, to speak their piece,” he said. “Contrast that with what happens in an authoritarian regime. To even begin to compare them, to somehow suggest that America’s moral authority is challenged by the amazing work that our police forces, our law enforcement people do all across America — I, frankly, just find the question itself incomprehensible and insulting.” VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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As Black Lives Matter protests around the world topple statues and target streets and buildings linked to slavery, banks and businesses are increasingly acknowledging ties to the grim history. But critics say corporate soul-searching is not happening in France.AXA Insurance Company, Banque de France and the maker of Hennessy Cognac have one thing in common, according to a new investigation by France’s Le Monde newspaper: All are tied, directly or indirectly, with slavery.  
 Le Monde reports these are among a number of French corporations that have not acknowledged such links. At a time when companies have become socially and environmentally responsible, the newspaper wrote, why not accept their historical responsibility?  
 
AXA and the Banque de France could either not be reached or did not immediately respond to VOA.  
 
Bordeaux-based activist Karfa Diallo, who conducts tours of the city’s slave trading past, said he’s not surprised by the silence. His association, Memoires et Partages, has also tried to contact local businesses with similar historical links – with no success.  
 
Luis-Georges Tin, honorary president of Black activist umbrella association CRAN, offers one explanation.  
 
“France is a very arrogant country,” Tin said. “In the elite, most people will tell you, ‘We are the country of human rights. So, why should we apologize when we’re so great?’” 
 
France ended slavery and the slave trade in the 19th century. But there was a time when it was one of Europe’s top slave-trading countries. So was nearby England.  
 
Now, a growing number of prominent British banks and businesses are beginning to acknowledge past links to the slave business. In the United States, too, the Black Lives Matter protests have cast new scrutiny on businesses and places like New York’s Wall Street, which was once a slave market.  
 
Still, French historian Myriam Cottias says she can understand this nation’s corporate silence. It can sometimes be hard to draw clear historical links with French businesses today.  
 
“It’s not clear, even for me, the exact organization from the slavery (times) to the present. And maybe it’s one of the reasons why there’s no acknowledgment or apology.”  
 
Still, activists say France is beginning to face its past in other ways. A slavery museum is to be built in Paris. And a new foundation for the memory of slavery was launched earlier this year. A Banque de France subsidiary is helping to finance it, in what some say is at least an indirect acknowledgment of history.
 
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Officials in Scotland said three people died Wednesday and at least six others were injured when a passenger train derailed near the northeastern city of Stonehaven. The British Transport Police force said officers were notified of the accident about 9:40 a.m. local time. Initial investigators at the scene report the six-car train went off the track about 160 kilometers northeast of Edinburgh, with the locomotive and three cars sliding down an embankment. The full extent of the incident can be seen in aerial video from the scene, with one carriage lying on its side in a hilly, woodland area near the track. The British Broadcasting Company reports the train was traveling from Aberdeen to Glasgow when the derailment occurred. It reports six people were taken to a local hospital following the accident, but their injuries were not believed to be serious. British Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps spoke to reporters Wednesday, saying members of the Rail Accident Investigation Board were on their way to the scene.  It is suspected that a landslide, caused by recent heavy rain in the area, contributed to the wreck. But Shapps stressed that it is still early in the investigation. 
 
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Like in other countries, the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is plunging many people in Spain into poverty. In this report narrated by Jonathan Spier, Alfonso Beato in Barcelona says migrants – whose numbers are growing in the midst of the health crisis – are among the most vulnerable.PRODUCER: Jon Spier
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Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said Wednesday he supports a corruption probe into former presidents and other administration officials, saying they should testify about what they know.Former chief of state oil firm Pemex, Emilio Lozoya, filed a complaint Tuesday alleging that former president Enrique Pena Nieto and his ex-finance minister, Luis Videgaray, instructed Lozoya to orchestrate payments to Pena Nieto’s 2012 presidential campaign, and buy votes from members of parliament. The attorney general’s office announced that it has opened an investigation based on Lozoya’s complaint. It will also explore allegations that Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which has admitted to involvement in widespread corruption in Latin America, partially funded the bribing scheme. The total sum amounts to an excess of $4 million, said Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero in a video statement. Pena Nieto and Videgaray are also accused of bribing officials to pass an energy reform bill. Lozoya was extradited from Spain last month after evading custody for several months. He was a top administrator on Pena Nieto’s campaign team and ran Pemex from 2012 to 2106. Neither Pena Nieto nor Videgaray have commented on the matter. President Lopez Obrador campaigned on fighting corruption, but has hesitated until now in pursuing former presidents, saying that he does not seek revenge. 
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Just a few months ago, Italy was seen as an example of how NOT to handle the coronavirus. Now Italians are enjoying their summer and learning to live with the virus even though a few hundred new cases are still being reported every day and more young people are being infected. The country’s recovery is underway even though the virus remains a threat.Italians would like to forget March 29 of this year, when the country recorded its highest number of deaths from coronavirus in a single day: 969. That is no easy matter as people recall how Italy’s authorities had to deploy the army to help remove dead bodies.No one in this country believes the virus has been defeated. In fact, most people are only too aware of just how present it continues to be. The daily bulletin of new infections, a few hundred, is a reminder that Covid-19 is still circulating on Italian territory.  Gianni Rezza, Director General of Prevention at Italy’s Ministry of Health, says the number of cases in Italy is on the rise, with more young people being infected.Various clusters are present on Italian territory, he said, and many of them are caused by imported cases. Even though the Italian situation is better than that of other European countries, Rezza added, Italy’s epidemiological situation merits careful attention. He warned that Italians must continue to be cautious in their behavior adding that efforts to contain the virus must focus on quickly identifying new outbreaks.Young Italians are the ones finding it most difficult not to return to their previous lives of gathering with their many friends and going to summer parties and discos.Italy was the first European country to be hit hard by coronavirus and the harsh lockdown experience has led to an understanding now that the only way forward is to live together with the virus until a vaccine is available for the whole population.  Since the country gradually re-opened, Italians have been doing their best to limit the spread of the virus with the only known defenses: social distancing, wearing protective masks and avoiding large gatherings.At the height of the Italian summer, people are now enjoying themselves at the beach. Bars and restaurants have managed to re-open and are making money again. Italy’s economy is slowly picking up after having been severely affected by a two-month lockdown.
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Protests erupted Tuesday for a third straight night in Belarus after the top opposition candidate in Sunday’s presidential election fled the country for her children’s safety.Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya sent a video message to her supporters asking them to forgive her going to Lithuania at this time.“It was a very hard decision to make. I know that many of you will understand me, many others will condemn me, and some will even hate me. But God forbid you ever face the choice that I faced. Children are the main thing in life,” she said.Her supporters say they believe she was forced to read from a prepared text when she told protesters not to confront police and show “respect for the law.”People, some of them ethnic Belarusians, hold a poster reading “Elections without Lukashenka! Freedom for political prisoners” and shout anti-Lukashenko slogans, Aug. 11, 2020.Tsikhanouskaya was the only serious challenger to longtime authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who the election commission says won a sixth term with 80% of the vote to her 10%. She says she will not recognize the results.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Belarus’s election was “not free and fair” and condemned “ongoing violence against protesters and the detention of opposition supporters.”EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also alleges election fraud.Tsikhanouskaya jumped into the race late after her husband, Syarhei, an anti-government blogger and potential opposition candidate, was jailed in May.Belarusian police used rubber bullets and stun grenades against anti-government demonstrators who turned out for the third consecutive night Tuesday.Witnesses report police beating protesters before arresting them and smashing car windows before pulling people out of the vehicles.Earlier Tuesday, people left flowers at a place in Minsk where a demonstrator was killed Monday.Belarusian officials say more than 2,000 people have been arrested since Sunday.The European Union is accusing the Lukashenko’s government of “disproportionate and unacceptable violence” and said it was reviewing its relations with Belarus.Lukashenko has called the protesters criminals and dangerous revolutionaries.Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since it declared independence from Russia in 1991. He has been accused of suppressing free speech, ignoring human rights and showing little tolerance for dissent.
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The World Health Organization said Tuesday said it was holding talks with Russia regarding its recently approved COVID-19 vaccine. Russia on Tuesday became the first country to approve a vaccine for use in tens of thousands of its citizens. In an appearance on Russian television, President Vladimir Putin claimed the vaccine has proven efficient and has passed “all the necessary tests.”  Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government via video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, Aug. 11, 2020. (Sputnik/Aleksey Nikolskyi/Kremlin)He said his own daughter has taken the vaccine and after two shots had a normal temperature and a “high number of antibodies.” The announcement came amidst global skepticism because the vaccine received approval after less than two months of human trials in Russia with a limited number of test subjects. “We are in close contact with Russian health authorities and discussions are ongoing with respect to possible WHO prequalification of the vaccine, but again prequalification of any vaccine includes the rigorous review and assessment of all required safety and efficacy data,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.Jasarevic says he is encouraged by the speed in which possible vaccines are being developed around the world. He said the WHO’s main concern is equitably distributing whatever viable vaccines are developed around the world.  
 
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British immigration minister Chris Philp said Tuesday he is working with his counterpart in France to finalize a new plan for blocking an illegal migrant route across the English Channel between the two countries.Warmer weather in recent weeks as seen a surge in illegal crossings of the channel, with Britain reporting more than 600 migrants arriving there in the last two weeks. The migrants, some families that include children, have been caught crossing to southern England from makeshift camps in northern France – many navigating one of the world’s busiest shipping routes in overloaded rubber dinghies. Speaking to reporters in Paris, following talks with French government officials, Philp said President Emmanuel Macron’s government agreed the high numbers making the illegal crossing are unacceptable. He said they have a “shared commitment to making sure this route of crossing the channel is made unviable. It is facilitated by ruthless criminal gangs, it puts lives at risk, and it is totally unnecessary.” Appearing with Philp was newly appointed British Clandestine Channel Threat Commander Dan O’Mahoney, who said the European Union’s so-called Dublin Regulation, which establishes regulations for returning illegal immigrants, has made it more difficult to send immigrants home.   Britain has been seeking flexibility on those regulations from the EU since the migration surge began.  Many of the migrants seeking to reach Britain come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria and countries in Africa, fleeing poverty, persecution or war. Some stand a chance of being granted asylum, while others, considered illegal economic migrants, are unlikely to be allowed to remain in Britain. 
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British and French ministers are meeting Tuesday in Paris for urgent talks on the growing migrant crisis in the English Channel. So far this year over four-thousand migrants seeking asylum – mostly from Africa and the Middle East – have attempted the crossing from France to Britain in overcrowded dinghies or makeshift boats, including several hundred in the past few days. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Britain wants to return the migrants to Europe – but its exit from the European Union could make it much harder to shut down the route.PRODUCER: ­­ Jon Spier
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Twice-weekly charter flights of up to 80 people who Italian authorities describe as illegal economic migrants resumed this week from Italy to Tunisia. The flights, part of an Italian-Tunisian agreement, were put on hold during Italy’s COVID-19 lockdown. Italy saw a sharp increase in migration last month that has put a strain on migrant reception centers, particularly in the south of the country.The growing number of illegal immigrants arriving from North Africa concern the Italian authorities, who have had a number of recent meetings with their Tunisian counterparts to address the issue.At the end of July, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said that unless Tunisia took significant measures to rein in the departures, Italy would suspend 6.6 million euro in cooperation funds for Tunisia’s development.After a spike in Tunisian arrivals, Italy’s Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese flew to Tunis at the end of last month.She said that in July, the number of illegal Tunisian migrants reaching Italy increased significantly due to the country’s serious economic crisis. These, she added, are economic migrants who have no right to remain in Italy.Migrants from Tunisia and Lybia arrive onboard an Italian Guardia Costiera (Coast Guard) boat on the Italian Pelagie Island of Lampedusa, Aug. 1, 2020.Italy’s requests included the stepping up of controls along the Tunisian coastline and a resumption of the twice-weekly repatriation flights that were taking place ahead of the COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. More than 4,000 Tunisians have arrived in Italy since the start of this year.Following the pressure applied by the Italian Foreign Ministry, Tunisia agreed to resume the flights and said it would increase patrol teams and surveillance along its coastline in order to stem illegal migration towards Italy.Reception centers in Italy, having to deal with the COVID-19 emergency, have been struggling to cope with the number of migrants, who amount to 14,000 since the start of the year.The reception center in the southern island of Lampedusa again reached its bursting point at the start of this month. The center at Pozzallo in southern Sicily reached a similar point, and migrants began leaving the center.Italian authorities are now testing all migrants who arrive on its shores for coronavirus and have deployed ships off the coast of Sicily and Calabria, where migrants can isolate. After their 14-day quarantine, the migrants will move to a variety of reception centers across Italy. 
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Venezuelans are steadily losing access to cheap basic services from water to cooking gas that have helped them survive economic crisis, forcing many to find creative solutions and adding pressure during the coronavirus quarantine.  
 
Services have long been near-free due to heavy subsidies by the ruling Socialist Party, which has overseen a six-year economic collapse despite Venezuela’s oil wealth.  
 
But as the decay of state-run utilities has led to constant shortages, Venezuelans now have to pay the equivalent of several months’ salary for a few days of water, gas or telephone because private alternatives are priced in dollars.  
 
For those without the money, workaround solutions abound: from wood-burning stoves and long walks to find cellular coverage to improvised pipes for siphoning water off a mountain.  
 Others simply do without.  
 
“Every week, we adjust to what happens,” said Geraldine Escalante, a cook in a coastal area of Vargas state.  
 
She went for a month-and-a-half without water until April, when she paid $20 for a cistern with 2,000 liters (529 gallons) which lasted a week. At other times, she and other residents link hoses between different communities to share water or carry bottles back-and-forth for several kilometers.  
 
Access to running water is particularly crucial to curb the COVID-19 disease, which is running rampant around South America.  
 
The generous oil-financed subsidies begun under late socialist leader Hugo Chavez have gradually disappeared under his successor President Nicolas Maduro. He has eliminated years of price and currency controls amid U.S. sanctions that have further weakened an already foundering economy.  
 
The Information Ministry and state service companies did not reply to requests for comment.  
 ‘Felt like crying’  
 
Yusbel Castro, a community leader in Caracas’ poor west end, was driving around the city trying to find subsidized gas to fill a 20 kg propane tank for less than $1 to fuel stoves at a communal soup kitchen she runs.  
 
But during one recent search in June, she only found black market resellers charging $7, equivalent to more than two months of minimum wage salary.  
 
Unable to afford it, Castro could not cook lunch for the 110 children who rely on the soup kitchen. It frequently serves beans or soups, which cook for longer than other foods and therefore require more gas.  
 
“It would be $14 every six days, and I get paid in bolivars,” she said. “I felt like crying.”  
 
Just 3 in 10 Venezuelans in May could obtain gas at regulated prices while only 1 in 10 received running water, according to data from the non-profit watchdog Venezuelan Observatory of Public Services (OVSP).  
 
While water costs less than a dollar per month at subsidized rates, cisterns can cost $100.  
 
Service interruptions now affect both wealthy neighborhoods and the slums. “The crisis in public services has put the poor and rich on equal footing” in that respect, said economist Luis Pedro Espana during a presentation of a demographic study last month that showed poverty reached 65% of households.  
 
“That is the paradox of the Venezuelan state: it remains powerful in social control but is fading away as a provider of public goods and services,” added Asdrubal Oliveros, head of the local Ecoanalitica consultancy, to Reuters.  
 ‘Finding Solutions’  
 
A group of Caracas residents in June built a system to use water accumulated at a stalled tunnel construction project near the El Avila mountain bordering Caracas.  
 
They used 1,300 meters of hoses for the network and the residents contributed 10 dollars each to buy parts.  
 
“We can’t spend our whole lives complaining,” said Wilfredo Moscoso, one of the project’s leaders. “We are finding solutions.”  
 
In some places, Venezuelans have to walk for kilometers to find a cellular signal.  
 
“The only one way I manage to get even a bit of coverage is when I get up on the roof of the house,” said Jose Atacho, a pharmacy manager in the western city of Punto Fijo, who has lines with three different operators to improve the odds.  
 
Working and studying from home during coronavirus quarantine while struggling with faulty connections has led families to rely on pricey mobile phone data services.  
 
In some cases, residents pay up to $30 per month for additional services, compared with the notoriously faulty state-provided internet that costs $2 per month.  
 
In the western city of Maracaibo, Argenis Linares paid for a satellite internet service and charges people several dollars per month for access. “Some neighbors asked me, especially the friends of my kids, to do their homework,” he said. “Two are in a tough situation and they just pay what they can.”
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The 17-second YouTube video mimicking Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ever shifting guidance on the coronavirus pandemic has attracted tens of thousands of views.”So we are saying don’t go to work, go to work, don’t take public transport, go to work, don’t go to work, stay indoors if you can, go to work, don’t go to work, go outside, don’t go outside,” deadpans Matt Lucas, one of the country’s best known comics and famous for the BBC comedy series Little Britain.pic.twitter.com/k6Sr4Iac15
— MATT LUCAS (@RealMattLucas) Tourists wearing face masks walk by a COVID-19 information sign in downtown Nice as France reinforces mask-wearing as a part of efforts to curb the resurgence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) across the country, in Nice, France August 11, 2020.DisagreementsPart of the problem lies with differences of opinion between scientists and politicians. They share a common foe — namely, the virus — but government leaders have other pressing factors to take into consideration, like keeping economies going and reducing as much as they can the damage to jobs, businesses and livelihoods. “The populace has been, as ministers constantly acknowledge, extraordinarily forbearing through this on-again, off-again suspension of life as we know it. But — you can feel it in the air — the good will is running out,” according to Janet Daley, a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, a newspaper that is often a booster of the Johnson government.”There should be consistency and an appearance of agreement between all members of the government [and its official policy advisers] at all times,” she says. That has been lacking, especially when ministers have over-promised in a bid to lift flagging spirits. Several times the government has been upbeat with medical claims about transformative tests or treatments only to have had to back down subsequently, say analysts.Britain’s health minister, Matt Hancock, has prompted the dismay of even his own cabinet colleagues with boosterish claims. In April, he announced a contact-tracing app would be ready in England by mid-May, but it is still not functioning properly. He also announced that antibody tests would be a game-changer, but that has not been the case.Johnson, too, has repeatedly thrown hostages to fortune, say his critics. Among other things he promised to set up a “world-class” testing and contact tracing system, but it has not shaped up to be as efficient as Germany’s, and several frustrated local authorities in England have started their own contact-tracing frameworks, despairing that the central government’s will ever work smoothly. Customers eat at restaurant in central London, Aug. 3, 2020, next to signs indicating a discount off food. Restaurant discount meals “Eat out to help out” is a government run program.Politics and scienceLast month, the British leader announced an easing of restrictions, including to the delight of the country’s tabloid press the reopening of pubs. He promised “We’ll be back to normal by Christmas.” That earned a collective reproof from current and former scientific advisers to the government. They have struck far more pessimistic notes with the current chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, telling a parliamentary committee that another strict lockdown might be necessary when the winter months start drawing in. This month the British government has had to reimpose lockdowns on cities, including Manchester, and towns in north-west England, impacting more than four million people. Martin McKee, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has warned there has been too much “wishful thinking” by politicians and civil servants. But Johnson is not alone among European leaders in trying to strike a balance between being too gloomy, which risks public despondency, or being too optimistic, which leads to greater frustration when raised expectations are later dashed. Too much optimism and populations start sliding away from observing the rules. Too gloomy, and it is hard to persuade people to go back to work or shop. Actors and actresses of State Theatre of North Greece wearing masks perform Aristophanes’ Comedy ‘The Birds’ at the ancient theater of Epidaurus, Aug. 7, 2020.Greece’s government has announced additional restrictions because of a flare-up of coronavirus cases and a jump in the number of critically ill people in the country. Government ministers say much of the problem can be traced to foreign tourists. On Sunday, Greece announced 203 new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing its total to 5,623, with an overall death toll of 212. All events with standing customers or spectators have been ordered canceled across the country. Bars, restaurants and cafes will have to shut from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. in several locations, including popular tourist destinations, including Mykonos and Santorini. Tourists are not the only source of new cases. Impatient young Greeks eager to socialize and to party are another cause of anxiety for Greek ministers. This week health minister Vassilis Kikilias appealed to the young to wear masks and maintain social distance. “Once more I appeal to young people and to citizens who are not adhering to personal protective measures to consider their responsibility toward vulnerable groups, our other citizens and toward the country,” he said.Youthful impetuosity is a problem across Europe, most of the rise in cases is being seen in the younger age groups, especially among people in their twenties and thirties. Many of the newly infected are suspected of contracting the virus at beach gatherings and illegal raves. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is launching a weeklong trip to central Europe with a stop Tuesday in the Czech Republic where he is scheduled to give a speech and have a dinner meeting with Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek. Pompeo is also set to visit a museum commemorating the U.S. role in liberating the region during World War 2. The top U.S. diplomat’s trip comes as the Trump administration looks to confront Russian and Chinese economic and geopolitical competition in Europe.    Pompeo is traveling to Prague and Pilsen in the Czech Republic; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Vienna, Austria; and Warsaw, Poland, from Aug. 11 to Aug. 15.    He will become the first secretary of state since 2011 to visit Slovenia, where he will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology as Washington is countering risks posed by communist China’s “infiltration into high-tech networks” in the region.  The trip comes as the Pentagon prepares to move forward with a plan to pull almost 12,000 troops from Germany and redeploy part of the U.S. forces to Poland and other NATO nations, raising concerns at home and in Europe even as senior officials defend it as a strategic necessity.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 9 MB480p | 13 MB540p | 16 MB720p | 34 MB1080p | 67 MBOriginal | 81 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioThumbnailThu, 07/30/2020 – 00:32Mary MooneyMedia Duration00:02:50SummaryThe United States is pulling almost 12,000 troops from Germany, following through on President Donald Trump’s call to reduce the U.S. military footprint overseas. While defense department officials say the move will boost American security, critics see the move as punishment for a country Trump has criticized as “delinquent” in NATO defense spending. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Produced by: Bronwyn BenitoRights RestrictedOffUS Pulling Almost 12,000 Troops From Germany US military leaders describe the move as ‘strategic,’ but President Trump says he wants the troops out of Germany because ‘we don’t want to be the suckers anymore’ Ambassador Philip Reeker, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said Pompeo will discuss with his counterparts the just-completed U.S.-Poland Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that “provides a framework” to further strengthen “the broad transatlantic security.”      The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, top left, arrives with his wife Susan Pompeo, top right, at the airport in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020.”We have been very dedicated to helping those countries find alternate sources so that they can diversify from Russia,” said Reeker.  Russia has previously defended the project as economically feasible.   The U.S. has been warning about the security risks of Russian energy export pipelines, in particular Nord Stream 2. U.S. officials said if completed, these projects would undermine European security and strengthen Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to coerce the U.S.’s European partners and allies.Czech Republic      In Prague, Pompeo will meet with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis to discuss nuclear energy cooperation and the Three Seas Initiative, a political platform to promote connectivity among nations in central and eastern Europe by supporting infrastructure, energy and digital interconnectivity projects.      The initiative gets its name from the three seas that border the region: the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas.  On Wednesday, Pompeo is set to deliver a speech at the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on bilateral ties and foreign policy.Americký ministr zahraničních věcí @SecPompeo ve středu 12. 8. v českém Senátu přednese veřejný projev a bude s předsedou @Vystrcil_Milos jednat o společných zájmech v zahraničně-politických otázkách. pic.twitter.com/ySOKmD9ftd— Senát Parlamentu ČR (@SenatCZ) August 7, 2020SloveniaIn Ljubljana, Pompeo will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology with Slovenian Foreign Minister Anže Logar.  Over the past year, European countries, including Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic, have signed agreements with the U.S., pledging that 5G suppliers would not be subject to control by a foreign government without independent judicial review, which effectively excludes Chinese firms.    Slovenia will join those countries in the so-called “5G Clean Networks” to use only trusted vendors to secure critical telecommunications, cloud, data analytics, and mobile apps.      Reeker told VOA it is “a reflection of the shared dedication to protecting privacy” and cybersecurity.    AustriaIn Vienna, the U.S.-Austria Strategic Partnership and growing trade relationship will be high on the agenda in Pompeo’s meetings with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg.    Austria hosts the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations in charge of monitoring Iran’s adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal from which the U.S. has withdrawn.    Pompeo will also hold talks with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, as Washington is calling on other members of the U.N. Security Council to indefinitely extend an arms embargo on Iran that is set to expire on Oct. 18. Poland In Warsaw, the chief U.S. diplomat will have talks with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz on deepening defense ties, recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, securing 5G networks, and improving regional energy and infrastructure through the Three Seas Initiative. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.      Pompeo will also meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, who visited the White House in late June.    Poland sees Nord Stream 2, which would double Russia’s gas export capacity via the Baltic Sea, as a threat to Europe’s energy security.  “In our view, it is paying with European money for Mr. (Vladimir) Putin’s weapons, and we don’t like it,” Morawiecki said during a recent webinar hosted by the Atlantic Council.    Morawiecki said Poland, as “the most pro-European and most pro-American country” in Europe, is strengthening the transatlantic alliance.    Last month, the State Department said people making investments or engaging in activities related to Nord Stream 2, including pipe-laying vessels and engineering service in the deployment of the pipelines, could face U.S. sanctions.     “It’s a clear warning to companies: aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects will not be tolerated,” said Pompeo during a July 15 press conference.    “Let me be clear. These aren’t commercial projects. They are the Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies,” Pompeo said. 
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A surge of coronavirus cases across Cuba prompted authorities to re-impose some restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus, including closing beaches, restaurants, bars and restricting travel across the island and prohibiting international flights.  Cuba confirmed the majority of the 93 new cases are in the capital, Havana.The jump in COVID-19 cases represents the highest daily total since the pandemic was first detected on the island in March. Cuba’s newest restrictions come after the government had begun relaxing restrictions because the cases of the coronavirus had leveled off. Authorities say the latest restrictions will not impact grocery stores or government services. Cuba has confirmed more than 3,000 cases of COVID-19, and at least 88 deaths. 
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Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley announced Monday night his ruling People’s National Movement party won the general elections. Speaking to a gathering of supporters in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Rowley said, the PNM won 22 of the 41 seats at stake in the elections. Rowley said the other major party, the United National Congress (UNC), won the remaining 19 seats. The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) is expected to announce the official results Tuesday.  A victory in the election will extend Rowley’s five-year tenure as prime minister. Voters from the twin-republic said corruption and the coronavirus pandemic were major issues of concern. Politics in Trinidad and Tobago is largely divided along ethnic lines, with supporters of African descent aligned with the PNM. The UNC is a favorite among people of Indian descent. 
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More than 20 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide as of Monday night, and Spain has overtaken Britain for the highest number of cases in Western Europe. Partly to blame, some Spanish health experts say, is that the government doesn’t have enough qualified contract tracers.  “Some regions have not understood that this was the key in the months after the lockdown and in the long term,” said Ildefonso Hernandez Aguado, a public health professor at Alicante’s Miguel Hernandez University.  He also blamed Spanish society for its eagerness to celebrate holidays and other events with large gatherings, saying, “This is a country that doesn’t understand holding a celebration or taking a holiday if you’re not going to share them.” The government defended its response.  “Appropriate measures are being taken to control the pandemic in coordination” with the regions, the government said in a statement, after experts questioned its policies. “The data shows that we are being very active in tracking and detecting the virus.” According to Johns Hopkins University, Spain has nearly 323,000 COVID-19 cases while Britain has recorded 313,000. More than 28,000 people have died from the disease in Spain and more than 46,000 have died in Britain.  Spain, one of the world’s hot spots early in the pandemic before imposing strict lockdowns and other measures, has seen a surge in the number of cases since lifting most measures instituted to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which causes COIVD-19. From an average daily infections tally of 132 cases in June, Spain has counted some 1,500 per day in the first 10 days of August.People wearing face masks wait their turn to be called for a PCR test for the COVID-19 at Vilafranca del Penedes in the Barcelona province, Spain, August 10, 2020.Both Spain and the Britain trail the United States in the number of COVID-19 cases — more than 5 million – and deaths – 163,000. Florida, one of the U.S.’s hardest hit states, broke its own record last week for the number of coronavirus hospitalizations, The Orlando Sentinel newspaper reports. Hospitals throughout Florida admitted 3,355 COVID-19 patients between August 2 and August 9. Florida has counted 536,961 cases and 8,408 deaths cases since the beginning of the pandemic, trailing only California, which has 568,000 confirmed cases and 10,378 deaths.  Medical officials in Florida blamed Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying he was more interested in gaining favor with President Donald Trump than taking measures such a statewide requirement for wearing face masks. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association have reported a large increase in the number of children sickened by the coronavirus last month. Nearly 100,000 youngsters became ill in the last two weeks of July. A woman with her children, wearing face masks amid the spread of the new coronavirus, wait at a health center in the Juan Diaz neighborhood, an area with high contagion levels of COVID-19, in Panama City, July 16, 2020.The coronavirus is relatively mild in children, but they can still pass the virus to older people, including the elderly who are much more susceptible, according to doctors. New Jersey police broke up a house party over the weekend where nearly 300 people were celebrating. The state has limited the number of people allowed to gather indoors to 25. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy lashed out at the crowds packing bars in the state’s beach towns. The governor has criticized what he calls “knucklehead behavior” by those who won’t wear masks or practice social distancing for a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state. Nearly 50 public health officials across the U.S. have either been fired or quit since April under pressure from politicians and others resisting their calls for coronavirus restrictions, according to the Associated Press news service. Some of those officials said had been threatened with violence for advocating for lockdowns and masks.  Others were simply burned out. The former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, calls the number of experts quitting their jobs “stunning.”  “The overall tone toward public health in the U.S. is so hostile that it has kind of emboldened people to make these attacks,” Frieden said. The latest to give up their positions are senior government health experts in California and New York City.  President Trump threw his support behind playing the college football season despite COVID-19. “The student-athletes have been working too hard for their season to be cancelled,” he tweeted Monday. Some large schools have canceled their seasons while others have not yet decided what they will do. Nebraska’s Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who is a former president of Midland University, says the season should go on.  “This is a moment for leadership. These young men need a season. Please don’t cancel college football,” the senator said. Spanish actor Antonio Banderas spent his 60th birthday Monday in quarantine after announcing he has the coronavirus.  “I would like to add that I am relatively well, just a little more tired than usual and hoping to recover as soon as possible following medical instructions that I hope will allow me to overcome the infection that I and so many people in the world are suffering from,” he wrote on Instagram.  He says he plans to spend his time in recovery reading and writing. 
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Belarus says longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko has been overwhelmingly reelected in a race that was supposed to have been the leader’s most serious electoral challenge since coming to power in the mid-1990’s.  But with the opposition rejecting the results amid charges of vote rigging, protests and clashes with state security forces have erupted.   From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.Camera:  Ricardo Marquina   Produced by: Rob Raffael
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarks on a weeklong trip to central Europe on Monday, as the United States looks to confront Russian and Chinese economic and geopolitical competition in Europe. The top U.S. diplomat is traveling to Prague and Pilsen in the Czech Republic; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Vienna, Austria; and Warsaw, Poland, from August 11 to 15. Pompeo will become the first secretary of state since 2011 to visit Slovenia, where he will sign a Joint Declaration on 5G technology as Washington is countering risks posed by communist China’s “infiltration into high-tech networks” in the region. The trip comes as the Pentagon prepares to move forward with a plan to pull almost 12,000 troops from Germany and redeploy part of the U.S. forces to Poland and other NATO nations, raising concerns at home and in Europe even as senior officials defend it as a strategic necessity.Ambassador Philip Reeker, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said Pompeo will discuss with his counterparts the just-completed U.S.-Poland Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that “provides a framework” to further strengthen “the broad transatlantic security.”   The FILE – A worker puts a cap to a pipe at the construction site of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near the town of Kingisepp, Leningrad region, Russia, June 5, 2019.Russia has previously defended the project as economically feasible.  The U.S. has been warning about the security risks of Russian energy export pipelines, in particular Nord Stream 2. U.S. officials said if completed, these projects would undermine European security and strengthen Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to coerce the U.S.’s European partners and allies.Czech RepublicIn Prague, Pompeo will meet with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis to discuss nuclear energy cooperation and the Three Seas Initiative, a political platform to promote connectivity among nations in central and eastern Europe by supporting infrastructure, energy and digital interconnectivity projects.   The initiative gets its name from the three seas that border the region: the Baltic, Black and Adriatic. On Wednesday, Pompeo is set to deliver a speech at the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on bilateral ties and foreign policy.   Americký ministr zahraničních věcí FILE – Poland’s President Andrzej Duda listens to U.S. President Donald Trump during a joint news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, June 24, 2020.Poland sees Nord Stream 2, which would double Russia’s gas export capacity via the Baltic Sea, as a threat to Europe’s energy security. “In our view, it is paying with European money for Mr. (Vladimir) Putin’s weapons, and we don’t like it,” Morawiecki said during a recent webinar hosted by the Atlantic Council.  Morawiecki said Poland, as “the most pro-European and most pro-American country” in Europe, is strengthening the transatlantic alliance. Last month, the State Department said people making investments or engaging in activities related to Nord Stream 2, including pipe-laying vessels and engineering service in the deployment of the pipelines, could face U.S. sanctions. “It’s a clear warning to companies: aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects will not be tolerated,” said Pompeo during a July 15 press conference.   “Let me be clear. These aren’t commercial projects. They are the Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies,” Pompeo said. 
 
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Greece’s entire armed forces are on emergency alert Monday following Turkey’s decision to send a vessel to explore potential drilling sites off the coast of two Greek islands in the southeast Aegean Sea. The escalation comes after Greece and Egypt signed a maritime deal blocking Turkish access to the Eastern Mediterranean — a move that has enraged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leading him to flex his country’s muscle in a long-running territorial tussle.Defense ministry officials denied that reservists had been called up overnight as a result of the brewing crisis.Still, the same sources tell VOA that Greece’s entire military apparatus is on red alert, monitoring Turkey’s movements after the neighboring state launched naval drills east and south of the islands of Rhodes and Kastellorizo in the southeast Aegean Sea over the weekend.The drills include live fire, and most worrying for Greece, Ankara on Monday also sent out the vessel Oruc Reis to survey the continental shelf in an area in the Eastern Mediterranean, which both Greece and Turkey consider their own.While both NATO allies, the two neighboring countries have been challenging each other’s air and sea rights in the region for decades.FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel wears a protective face mask as she arrives for the continuation of an EU summit meeting in Brussels, Belgium, July 20, 2020.The two countries came to the brink of war more than 20 years ago. Just last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in on a fresh territorial tussle between the two, convincing Erdogan to back off from sending the Oruc Reis on a similar expedition in the same region.Both sides agreed to a moratorium, promising to refrain from any hostile action until sitting down at a negotiating table later this month to try and sort out differences.But in the past week, Greece has angered Turkey with what Ankara has billed a breach of the moratorium — a maritime agreement that Athens secretly clinched with Egypt, limiting Ankara’s influence and energy designs in the region.As a result, Erdogan ordered out the Oruc Reis, sending it on its initial expedition escorted by Turkish battleships, which Ankara has said it will use if Greece makes any attempt to block the vessel from its course.On Monday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis chaired an urgent meeting of his national security council. A terse announcement issued after the hourlong meeting said officials had assessed the situation and reviewed Greece’s response to any Turkish provocation, as they put it.Since then, Mitsotakis has also briefed leading European officials, and he is due to speak to the Secretary-General of NATO, insisting, as his advisers tell VOA, that the U.S.-led military alliance weigh in against Turkey. FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan talks to the media in Istanbul, Turkey, Aug 7, 2020.Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, meantime, says Greece remains ready to sit down and talk with Turkey.”We understand that Turkey has called off the talks. But I am surprised it has done so,” Dendias said. “Maybe it is the result of some inexplicable rage. We can only hope it comes back to its senses.”The stakes are high, and Greece has warned it will use force to block any Turkish encroachment of its sea and land rights.Experts like Costantinos Filis expect the crisis to escalate before it eases to any show of rapprochement.”I expect the tension to grow in the coming days. But ultimately, the fate of the feeble Turkish economy will weigh in on any final decision Erdogan will take,” Filis said. If Erdogan feels Europeans are serious about their threats to retaliate, then he will probably think twice about making any risky moves. Then again, Filis says, Erdogan is extremely unpredictable, and if he feels he is cornered, he may ultimately go for a daring move to cater to his domestic audience alone.EU leaders already have threatened Turkey with economic sanctions. 
 
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