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Soccer players in Spain returned to their team’s training camps Wednesday for the first time since the country entered a lockdown nearly two months ago because of the coronavirus pandemic.Players for Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and other clubs started preparing for the return to training this week. They were all expected to be tested for COVID-19 and should be cleared to practice once the results are back. Most clubs are expected to resume practicing by the end of the week.The majority of players did not wear masks or gloves when they arrived, according to Spanish media. Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué and Luis Suárez were among those without masks when they drove into Barcelona’s training center. Antoine Griezmann, Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic did wear masks. Sergi Roberto arrived without a mask but had one on when he left.Real Madrid players Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema arrived without masks, as did most of their teammates.Atlético Madrid posted some photos of its players arriving for tests wearing gloves and masks.Our first team players continue to carry out tests before training resumes.➡ https://t.co/3aipyTKfkX🔴⚪ #AúpaAtletipic.twitter.com/GxXgU1tV9Z— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) May 6, 2020In general, players didn’t stay long at the club facilities, usually less than 30 minutes.Coaches also went to training camps and were tested. Barcelona coach Quique Setién was wearing gloves and a mask when he arrived.The training centers of all clubs were disinfected over the last couple of days. In addition to the players, all members of the coaching staff and other employees involved in training have to be tested for COVID-19 before the practice sessions can resume.The league wants the clubs to test all players daily after they start training.Players will initially practice individually. Smaller group sessions and full squad sessions will be allowed in upcoming weeks. The league sent clubs a protocol with safety guidelines on how to return to practice, detailing all measures that the players and the clubs must adopt.The league wants a training period of about a month before it can restart. It hopes to resume sometime in June with games without fans.Spain this week began easing some of the lockdown measures that were put in place in mid-March. Soccer players have been among the few athletes allowed to return to training facilities.However, players and coaches of Spanish club Eibar released a statement on Tuesday saying they were concerned about playing again amid the pandemic.
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From the marbled halls of Italy to the wheat fields of Kansas, health authorities are increasingly warning that the question isn’t whether a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths will hit, but when — and how badly.  
As more countries and U.S. states chaotically reopen for business — including some where infection rates are still rising — managing future cases is as important as preventing them.
In India, which partly eased its virus lockdown this week, health authorities scrambled Wednesday to contain an outbreak at a massive market. Experts in hard-hit Italy, which just began easing some restrictions, warned lawmakers that a new wave of virus infections and deaths is coming. They urged intensified efforts to identify possible new victims, monitor their symptoms and trace their contacts.
Germany warned of a second and even a third wave, and threatened to re-impose virus restrictions if new cases can’t be contained. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was meeting Wednesday with the country’s 16 governors to discuss further loosening restrictions that have crippled Europe’s largest economy.
“There will be a second wave, but the problem is to which extent. Is it a small wave or a big wave? It’s too early to say,” said Olivier Schwartz, head of the virus and immunity unit at France’s Pasteur Institute.
Many areas are still struggling with the first wave of this pandemic. Brazil for the first time locked down a large city, the capital of Maranhão state. Across the ocean, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa has shot up 42% in the past week and infections are expected to surpass 50,000 on Wednesday.
An Associated Press analysis, meanwhile, found that U.S. infection rates outside the New York City area are in fact rising, notably in rural areas. It found New York’s progress against the virus was overshadowing increasing infections elsewhere.  
“Make no mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community, perhaps even more now than in previous weeks,” said Linda Ochs, director of the Health Department in Shawnee County, Kansas.
The virus is known to have infected more than 3.6 million and killed more than 251,000 people, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins that all experts agree is an undercount due to limited testing, uneven victim criteria and deliberate concealment by some governments.
The U.S. has seen over 71,000 deaths amid its 1.2 million infections, and Europe has endured over 144,000 reported coronavirus deaths. Behind each of those vast numbers is a family in pain.
“Burying both parents at the same time? It’s hard,” said Desmond Tolbert, who lost his mother and father in rural southwest Georgia. Because they had the virus, he couldn’t be with them when they died.
U.S. President Donald Trump, with his eye on being reelected in November, is pushing hard to ease state stay-at-home orders and resuscitate the U.S. economy, which has seen over 30 million workers lose their jobs in less than two months. Trump is expected to wind down the country’s coronavirus task force, possibly within weeks, despite concerns that states aren’t being careful enough as they reopen.
A century ago, the Spanish flu epidemic’s second wave was far deadlier than its first, in part because authorities allowed mass gatherings from Philadelphia to San Francisco.
As Italy’s lockdown eased this week, Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, president of the Superior Institute of Health, urged “a huge investment” of resources to train medical personnel to monitor possible new cases. He said tracing apps — which are being built by dozens of countries and companies and touted as a possible technological solution — aren’t enough to manage future waves of infection.
“We are not out of the epidemic. We are still in it. I don’t want people to think there’s no more risk and we go back to normal,” said Dr. Giovanni Rezza, the head of the institute’s infectious disease department.
In Germany, authorities may reimpose restrictions on any county that reports 50 new cases for every 100,000 inhabitants within the past week.
Lothar Wieler, head of Germany’s national disease control center, said scientists “know with great certainty that there will be a second wave” of infections but said Germany is well-prepared to deal with it. The country has been hailed for testing widely and has suffered four times fewer deaths than Italy or Britain, which both have smaller populations.
Britain has begun recruiting 18,000 people to trace contacts of people infected. British officials acknowledge that they should have done more testing and tracing earlier and could learn from South Korea,  which brought its outbreak under control by rigorously testing, tracing and isolating infected people.
South Africa, which has years of experience tracking HIV and other infections, is already testing and tracing widely. Turkey has an army of 5,800 teams of contact tracers who have tracked down and tested nearly half a million people linked to infected cases. Israel plans to conduct 100,000 antibody tests to determine how widespread the coronavirus outbreak has been and prevent a second wave.
India was concentrated on the immediate drama around the market in the southern city of Chennai, which is now tied to at least 1,000 virus cases. Another 7,000 people connected to the now-shuttered Koyambedu market are being traced and quarantined. Experts are worried about a health catastrophe in a country of 1.3 billion people with an already stressed medical system.
New confirmed daily infections in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. And public health officials warn that the failure to lower the infection rate could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people venture out and businesses reopen.
“The faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost — but the higher the human cost, because the more lives lost,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “That, my friends, is the decision we are really making.”
Trump acknowledged the toll but argued that keeping the U.S. economy closed carries deadly costs of its own, such as drug abuse and suicides.
“I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon,” he said during a visit to Arizona in which he did not don a face mask.
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Former Brazilian Justice Minister Serigo Moro has reportedly told investigators that President Jair Bolsonaro wanted to personally pick the head of the federal police office in Rio de Janeiro to get access to ongoing investigations that involve his sons. Brazilian news outlets said Moro made the allegation during a lengthy deposition last Saturday, according to documents they obtained and published Tuesday. Moro reportedly said the president told him “you have 27 police superintendents. I only want one, in Rio de Janeiro.”  Rio is Bolsonaro’s hometown and where his two sons are prominent politicians:  Flavio, a senator, and Carlos, a Rio city councilman.  Both sons are under investigation for various allegations by local prosecutors and police.   Moro, a popular anti-corruption crusader, abruptly resigned from Bolsonaro’s cabinet last month after the president fired the federal police chief. Moro accused the president of trying to interfere in ongoing investigations, although he did not specify which investigations.   Bolsonaro has denied inappropriate motives for the changes and that he is trying to deflect criminal probes targeting his sons. Bolsonaro’s proposed pick for the Rio de Janeiro police chief was rejected by Brazilian lawmakers.   Brazil’s Supreme Court, which ordered an investigation into Moro’s claims, gave prosecutors permission Tuesday to interview three members of Bolsonaro’s cabinet in connection with the probe. The court rejected Bolsonaro’s first choice to replace the federal police chief due to reports of a longstanding close relationship. 
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said two Americans were among so-called “mercenary terrorists” who carried out a failed armed invasion of his country earlier this week. Maduro went on state television Tuesday and showed the passports he claimed belonged to Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who were among 13 men captured in the failed raid that took place Sunday.Maduro accused Berry and Denman of working for Jordan Goudreau, a U.S. military veteran who runs a private Florida-based security firm called Silvercorp USA. Both Berry and Denman are former U.S. Special Forces soldiers, also known as Green Berets.Venezuelan military officials said the attackers were put down and caught as they attempted to sail into the port city of La Guaira from neighboring Colombia. Eight people were killed in the foiled attack. Photos of a group of men lying face down on the ground with their hands tied behind their back was televised Monday in Venezuela.Personal documents are shown by Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (not pictured) after Venezuela’s government said it foiled an attempted incursion by “terrorist mercenaries,” May 4, 2020.Goudreau has acknowledged organizing the operation in a video released on social media. Goudreau has also acknowledged Berry and Denman as being part of the operation, describing the pair as “my guys” in a telephone interview with the Reuters news agency. Nevertheless, U.S. President Donald Trump denied the U.S. government was involved in the failed operation. “We’ll find out. We just heard about it,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about the armed invasion and the Americans’ arrests. “But it has nothing to do with our government.” The Pentagon also denied involvement.”The United States government had nothing to do with what’s happened in Venezuela in the last few days,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told reporters Tuesday. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is denying accusations leveled by Maduro’s government that he hired Silvercorp to carry out the attack.  Maduro’s administration frequently accuses political adversaries of trying to overthrow his government. Critics have dismissed the accusations as an excuse to detain Maduro’s opponents. Maduro has overseen a six-year economic crisis in Venezuela. More than 50 countries, including the United States, have indicated their support for opposition leader Guaido after a disputed election in 2018, but Maduro maintains control of Venezuela’s military. U.S. sanctions are in place against Venezuela.VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report. 
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied any involvement by the U.S. government in what Venezuelan officials have called a failed armed incursion in the South American country that led to the capture of two American “mercenaries.”Trump made the comment to reporters at the White House after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday said authorities there had detained two U.S. citizens working with a U.S. military veteran who has claimed responsibility for a failed armed operation.”We’ll find out. We just heard about it,” Trump said when asked about the incident and the Americans’ arrests. “But it has nothing to do with our government.”Security forces guard the shore area and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela, May 3, 2020.In a state television address, Maduro said authorities arrested 13 “terrorists” on Monday involved in what he described as a plot coordinated with Washington to enter the country via the Caribbean coast and oust him.Eight people were killed during the foiled incursion attempt on Sunday, Venezuelan authorities said.Maduro showed what he said were the U.S. passports and other identification cards belonging to Airan Berry and Luke Denman, whom he said were in custody and had been working with Jordan Goudreau, an American military veteran who leads a Florida-based security company called Silvercorp USA.The State Department did not provide any immediate comment on the alleged arrests. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, had strongly denied any U.S. government role involvement in the incursions.Washington has waged a campaign of economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Venezuela in an effort to oust Maduro, a socialist it accuses of having rigged elections in 2018. Maduro’s government says the United States wants to control Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. 
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Britain’s death toll from the coronavirus has topped 32,000, according to an updated official count released Tuesday, pushing the country past Italy to become the second-most impacted after the United States.The new toll, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and regional health bodies, has not yet been incorporated into the government’s daily figures, which records the current number of deaths as 29,427.That is still higher than Italy, which on Tuesday said it has recorded 29,316 virus fatalities to date, but far short of the U.S. where nearly 69,000 have died in the pandemic.However, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged against trying to make reliable international comparisons. Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaks about the coronavirus pandemic during a remote press conference, May 5, 2020, in this handout image released by 10 Downing Street.”There are different ways of counting deaths … we now publish data that includes all deaths in all settings and not all countries do that,” he said at the daily Downing Street press conference.”Can you reliably know that all countries are measuring in the same way? And it also depends on how good, frankly, countries are in gathering their statistics.”Raab called the lives lost “a massive tragedy” and “something in this country, on this scale, in this way, that we’ve never seen before.”Tuesday’s updated statistics, showing 32,313 total deaths by around April 24, means Britain has probably had the highest official death numbers in Europe for days. ‘Real verdict’The toll has jumped dramatically on several occasions as the ONS — which tallies all deaths — has regularly updated its count.The agency releases figures weekly, covers periods up to two weeks prior and includes coronavirus deaths in care homes and the community.Until late last month, the health ministry’s daily tallies only counted those who died in hospital after having tested positive for COVID-19.Even after it began to include all fatalities with the virus listed on the death certificate, its totals have been far short of the later ONS totals.Deputy Manager Arvette Hattingh and carer Lucy Skidmore, who remain on site with five colleagues, talk to a resident through a window at Fremantle Trust care home, amid the coronavirus pandemic, in Princes Risborough, Britain, May 5, 2020.They have risen dramatically as the extent of the pandemic’s impact on care homes has emerged.Nearly 6,400 people with coronavirus have died in care homes in England alone, with numbers still rising even as the wider outbreak slows.More than 2,000 of those were reported in the last week of April — when Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain was “past the peak.”Meanwhile, the ONS has also recorded a total of around 42,000 “excess deaths” — how many more people have died in total than would normally be expected — in the past five weeks.It suggests Britain’s true death toll from the virus may be even higher.”I don’t think we’ll get a real verdict on how well countries have done until the pandemic is over,” Raab added.Britain, in its seventh week of an economically crippling lockdown, is trying to implement a new contact tracing strategy so it can ease the measures.Johnson is expected to set out his plan to lift the stringent social distancing regime next Sunday, according to media reports. 
 
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Researchers with Switzerland-based blood-screening company Quotient say they have developed a COVID-19 antibody test that will quickly and accurately determine whether test subjects have developed antibodies that would make them immune to the virus.In an interview with French news agency Agence France-Presse, Quotient Chief Executive Officer Franz Walt said the test has been shown to have a 100% sensitivity and 99.8% specificity claim, which would making it one of the most accurate tests for the COVID-19 available. Walt said the test was developed jointly between scientists working in Edinburgh, Scotland, and at Quotient’s headquarters in Switzerland. He said the test runs on an instrument called the Mosaic that can deliver an initial test in 35 minutes, with subsequent results every 24 seconds. After that, up to 3,000 tests per day can be delivered.An accurate antibody test would be valuable tool for ending a lockdown, as it could identify people who could not get the virus and not infect others.The company says the European Union has an interest in its test and the machine that runs it. The BBC reports the company is interested in negotiations with Britain, as well. 
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Europe’s tourism sector has lost out on weeks of revenue because of the coronavirus lockdown. Now that countries are planning to gradually reopen, potential tourists are facing different rules and safety guidelines across the continent.
Jan Nak is newly retired and was planning to camp around Portugal for the month of May with his wife. But due to the coronavirus, the Dutch couple opted to rent a summerhouse in the Netherlands instead. “As we didn’t get ill up until now, and my wife is still working, we said OK, we don’t take any risk and we stay in the Netherlands. And if you travel, you are a danger for another person as well. So, we didn’t want to endanger other people, and [wanted] to protect ourselves. We said, ‘If we can’t go this year, we go next year.’”   Southern and Mediterranean European countries attract millions of tourists like Nak and his wife each year.    A nearly empty Champs Elysees avenue is seen in central Paris, France. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)One of the most popular camping destinations is France. But that country closed all its camping sites on March 17, and the sites are losing out on the profitable spring season, when they usually make about a third of their yearly revenue.   Ge Kusters is the vice president of the French campsite union and manages a camp site in the popular Dordogne area in southwestern France. This region with castles, caves and historical sites attracts more than three million tourists each year.   Normally, Kusters would now be welcoming some of the estimated 10,000 people who visit the site each year. But these days, he is working on a detailed plan on how to safely reopen the grounds.   “The size of a campsite is in acres, not in square meters, so there’s no problem of having distance between the people,” he said. “For the toilet blocks it’s more about hygiene and special rules but that’s not too problematic. I think that in terms of animation that will change also a lot. The big events with concerts and so, that’s probably finished. So, we have to adapt ourselves to a new way of entertaining people.”   Although Britons, Germans and Dutch make up about 40 percent of visitors to France, the others are French nationals. Because of the coronavirus, many people prefer a vacation closer to home to feel safer, but also because each country has its own rules.   Tourists visit the Colosseum, in Rome, March 7, 2020. With the coronavirus emergency deepening in Europe, Italy, a focal point in the contagion, risks falling back into recession as foreign tourists are spooked from visiting its cultural treasures.France and Italy are planning to slowly reopen but won’t allow regional border crossings for now. Germany warns people against foreign travel although Austria hopes to attract German tourists.  Greece, a country that depends on tourism for 20 percent of its GDP, is considering only allowing in tourists who can prove they are not suffering from COVID-19 and have a so-called health passport. FILE – Tourists wearing protective masks watch the Presidential Guards in front of the parliament, in Athens, March 15, 2020.The different guidelines will make it difficult not only for intra-European travel, but also for travelers from outside the continent. A partial lifting of the lockdown will not work, says Tom Jenkins, CEO of the European Tourism Association. “That they’re going to be lifted piecemeal, and in a different way, is of concern. The whole industry as it stands as of March 2020 is geared toward looking after people in real volume with numbers. And if the precondition of any movement is that volume is heavily restricted, then the businesses won’t function,” he said.  The EU Commission is considering boosting the tourism industry by investing money from the EU budget. The sector accounts for 10 percent of the bloc’s GDP, and more than 27 million people work in tourism-related jobs.  
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The head of Germany’s disease control institute said Tuesday the rate of new COVID-19 infections in that country continues to drop but says a second – or even third wave of infections is likely.Robert Koch Institute President Lothar Wieler spoke with reporters in a virtual briefing in Berlin saying in the last few days, only 700 to 1,600 new cases per day were reported, showing the rate of increase continues to fall, which he called “very good news.”  The head of the Robert Koch Institute Lothar Wieler, addresses a news conference on the coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease in Berlin, Germany, April 28, 2020.Wieler said Germany’s current reproduction rate – the number of people infected by one person with the coronavirus – is at 0.71, less than one to one.  But he warned it is the nature of a virus in a pandemic to stay active until 60 to 70 percent of the population has been infected.  That is why he says there is “a large degree of certainty among scientists that there will be a second wave. And many also assume that there will be a third wave.”Wieler said Germany will be much better prepared for a second wave, depending on how strong it is. He said they are developing a smart phone application to help with “contact tracing” – tracing those people who have been in contact with a person who has tested positive for the virus – that will be helpful in the controlling the spread of the virus.Germany is in the process of loosening some social and economic restrictions it put in place in March to control the spread of the coronavirus. 
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Venezuelan authorities have detained two U.S. citizens working with a U.S. military veteran who has claimed responsibility for a failed armed incursion into the oil producing country, President Nicolas Maduro said Monday. In a state television address, Maduro said authorities arrested 13 “terrorists” on Monday allegedly involved in a plot he said was coordinated with Washington to enter the American country via the Caribbean coast and oust him. Eight people were killed during the foiled incursion attempt on Sunday, Venezuelan authorities said. Maduro showed what he said were the U.S. passports and other identification cards belonging to Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who he said were in custody and had been working with Jordan Goudreau, an American military veteran who leads a Florida-based security company called Silvercorp USA. “They were playing Rambo. They were playing hero,” Maduro said, adding that Venezuelan authorities had caught wind of the plot before its execution. Security forces guard the shore area and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela, May 3, 2020.Goudreau, who identified himself as an organizer of the invasion on Sunday, told Reuters on Monday that Berry and Denman were also involved. “They’re working with me. Those are my guys,” he said by telephone. The State Department did not provide any immediate comment on the alleged arrests. U.S. officials have strongly denied any U.S. government involvement in the incursions. A person familiar with the matter said the two U.S. citizens were captured on Monday in a second-day roundup of accomplices and were believed to be in the custody of Venezuelan military intelligence. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the details came from contacts with Venezuelan security forces. FILE – Leader of Venezuela’s political opposition Juan Guaido talks to a journalist during an interview with Associated Press in Brussels, Jan. 22, 2020.Opposition leader Juan Guaido cast doubt on the government’s  version of Sunday’s events, insisting Maduro is seeking to distract from other problems in recent days including a deadly prison riot and a violent gang battle in Caracas. Guaido’s communications team on Monday denied media reports that Guaido had hired Silvercorp to remove Maduro by force,  adding the opposition leader and his allies “have no relationship with or responsibility for the actions of the company Silvercorp.” In a statement on Monday evening, Guaido’s team said: “We demand the human rights … of the people captured in recent hours be respected.” Washington has imposed tough economic sanctions against Venezuela in an effort to oust Maduro, whom it accuses of having rigged elections in 2018. Maduro’s government says the United States wants to control Venezuela’s massive oil reserves.   ‘Attack against our fatherland’  Monday’s arrests come after Maduro’s government on Sunday said mercenaries had attempted to enter the South American country on speed boats from neighboring Colombia, saying eight people had been killed and two detained. Later on Sunday, Goudreau released a video identifying himself as an organizer of the invasion, alongside dissident Venezuelan military officer Javier Nieto. Goudreau said in the video that fighters on the ground continued to carry out operations in different parts of the country. He identified one of the fighters as “Commander Sequea,” which appeared to be a reference to Antonio Sequea, who was identified on Monday by state television as one of the people arrested. Silvercorp’s website describes Goudreau as a “highly decorated Special Forces Iraq and Afghanistan veteran.” A Venezuelan state television anchor on Monday showed photos of men laid out on the ground with their hands behind their backs, adding that the group was traveling near the town of Chuao area in central Aragua state. The group was “caught by popular force, by fishermen,” the anchor said. Cabello posted a video of men in black with balaclavas pulling a shirtless man from a helicopter, whom they identified as part of the group captured. “Without a doubt, the imperialists directed this attack against our fatherland,” Cabello said on Twitter, in reference to the U.S. government. A U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said the U.S. government had no involvement with the incident. Another source familiar with U.S. intelligence analysis and reporting also said that U.S. agencies have nothing to do with any military incursions in Venezuela. 
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With Turkey battling COVID-19, Turks are turning to a traditional custom to contain the virus: sweet smelling cologne, known as “kolonya”.  With its high alcoholic content, cologne is widely accepted as useful in killing the coronavirus on people’s hands. From major producers to local chemists, all are working to keep up with the surge in demand. Ziya Melih Sezer, 89 years old, is perhaps Istanbul’s oldest chemist. His profession keeps him exempt from the nationwide lockdown on people over 65. Donning a chic beret, Sezer continues to open his pharmacy to serve the local people, like his family has done for more than century.  Family pharmacy certificates dating back before the Turkish republic attribute to the Sezer’s family serving Istanbul for more than a century. (D. Jones/VOA)On the wall of his store hangs his family’s pharmacy qualifications written in Ottoman script dating back before the Turkish Republic.  Sezer recalls previous health crises to hit Istanbul. The typhus epidemic during World War Two was denied by authorities who dismissed the outbreak as malicious propaganda, he says. Cholera, in 1973, was “terrible,” with people fleeing the districts hit by the waterborne disease. But the coronavirus is the greatest challenge, he says “Nothing like this happened. Nothing like this panic,” Sezer said. “I haven’t heard such rate of deaths, never seen anything like that. People are collapsing and dying like a house of cards.” According to Turkish healthy ministry figures, over 3,000 people have died from the disease, with more than 60% of those deaths in Istanbul.  Distinct lemon scentIstanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition CHP, suggests the death rate is probably much higher. The government vehemently denies Imamoglu’s accusation. Chemist Ziya Melih Sezer, every week for decades, prepares cologne, which is now in high demand as a way of sterilizing hands to prevent COVID’s spreading. (D. Jones/VOA)In a tiny back room, Sezer, in his small way, is helping to battle the virus. For decades he, like many chemists, produces cologne, carefully mixing fragrances with alcohol. In a large pestle and mortar, he pounds the ingredients that give the cologne its distinct lemon scent so loved by Turks. Sezer then, with a steady hand, carefully mixes in the alcohol, which he says is so effective in killing the coronavirus on people’s hands. As the virus spreads across Turkey and with it a growing awareness to regularly sterilize hands, demand for cologne has surged.  “At the beginning of the coronavirus, there was a real high demand,” Sezer said. “For a short while, there was a shortage of ingredients.” Part of Turkish lifeCologne, for more than a century, is a part of the fabric of Turkish life.  “Still cologne is a very important tradition in Turkey,” said Mehmet Muderrisoglu, owner of Rebul Pharmacy. His son Kerim runs the family firm Atelier Rebul, one of Turkey’s most prominent cologne producers. Traditional lemon-scented cologne is an essential part of Turkish culture. But its 80% alcohol content means it’s effective in sterilizing hands, becoming an important part of the country’s battle to contain COVID. (D. Jones/VOA)”There are few traditions when you visit an office or a house. One. You are offered a cup of tea, two a lokum (sweet), and three, when you enter the house the first thing they would give you, is to distribute cologne. This is the fragrant lemon cologne, and it is (also) good for disinfecting,” Muderrisoglu added. “I don’t think another society has that much consumption of cologne as the Turkish society,” said Professor Istar Gozaydin, an expert on religion and the Turkish State. Professor Istar Gozaydin says the widespread use of cologne in turkey is apart of Turkish identity. (VOA/D. Jones)Enduring popularity Gozaydin says Turkey being a predominantly Muslim country in part, explains cologne’s enduring popularity. “Cleanliness is a very important part of Turkishness, probably has to do with its religious identity, which is Islam, that demands washing before praying fives a day.”  “However, among Muslim societies, the Turkish one is quite unique. Cleanliness among Turks extends to washing oneself only with running water is an example, or to be obsessed with washing oneself after deification, washing oneself after sex. Yes, it has to do with identity, and the widespread use of cologne is a part of this culture of cleanliness,” added Gozaydin. Cologne came to Turkey from Europe in the 19th century. A Frenchman founded Atelier Rebul, which is at the forefront of meeting the surging demand.   “The first week was a boom. It was a very booming subject because everybody was running behind the cologne,” said Muderrisoglu, admitting they initially struggled to keep up with demand as people stocked up.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyMuderrisoglu, says they are now on top of demand, with calm starting to return to the market, “Now it is decreasing to normal.” But cologne’s sterilizing qualities are now demanded not only in Turkey. “Now we are exporting to Europe a lot. Previously cologne was never accepted in the European market. But now the European market is an important market for the cologne industry.” Fortunately, the surge in demand coincides with Atelier Rebul, opening a new factory that will triple production. Meaning there should be plenty of cologne to go round. 
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Peruvian opposition politician Keiko Fujimori is out of prison and back home after her attorney argued she was at risk of contracting the coronavirus because of underlying health problems, including arrhythmia. Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, was admitted to the Chorrillos women’s jail in January for her alleged ties to a corruption scandal involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Prosecutors investigating her for alleged money laundering are attempting to have her release revoked.   Fujimori had spent 13 months in custody when a judge added 15 months of detention. Other inmates in Peru have staged fiery protests, demanding better health conditions after hundreds of inmates became infected with the virus and at least 30 others died. In late April, nine inmates were shot dead during a prison riot in Lima. Peru has confirmed 42,534 coronavirus infections and 1,286 deaths, the second hardest hit country in Latin America behind Brazil. 
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Hundreds of demonstrators in Honduras blocked roadways to prevent funeral processions carrying COVID-19 victims to cemeteries in their towns.Protesters from nearly two dozen communities placed stones and tree branches across a highway east of the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Monday to prevent victims of COVID-19 from being buried in their towns. They say their concern is that family members of the deceased, who may themselves be infected, could bring the infection with them when they come to the local areas.Protester Evelia Oliva lashed out at President Juan Orlando Hernández, saying”We do not want him to send people to be buried into this cemetery because they are infected people. And here we have a lot of families and we do not want to get infected just because of him.”Deputy Minister of Health Roberto Cosenza said authorities will better inform the citizens about how the virus is spread and implement security measures to allow burials.Honduras has reported just over 1,000 coronavirus cases and 82 deaths.
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Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Monday denied having anything to do with an ex-Green Beret who claimed responsibility for a deadly beach invasion aimed at arresting socialist leader Nicolás Maduro. The government, meanwhile, said it has mobilized more than 25,000 troops to hunt for other rebel cells. Guaidó said in a statement that he has “no relationship nor responsibility for any actions” taken by the U.S. war veteran, Jordan Goudreau, who repeated assertions that Guaidó had a contract with his security company, though he said he was paid only a tiny share of the amount agreed upon. That claim could pose a danger for Guaidó, who has been harassed but not arrested in the year since he declared himself Venezuela’s legitimate leader, a role recognized by the U.S. and some 60 other nations. FILE – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a news conference at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, March 12, 2020.The three-time Bronze Star U.S. combat veteran claims to have helped organize a seaborne raid from Colombia early Sunday on the Venezuelan coast, which the government said it foiled, killing eight insurgents and arresting two others. He said the operation had received no aid from Guaidó or the U.S. or Colombian governments. Goudreau said by telephone Monday that 52 other fighters — including two U.S. veterans — had infiltrated Venezuelan territory and were in the first stage of a mission to recruit members of the security forces to join their cause. “That’s going to take time,” Goudreau told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “The ultimate goal has never changed — it’s to liberate Venezuela.” The government’s chief of strategic operations, Adm. Remigio Ceballos, announced that more than 25,000 soldiers were mounting search operations to ensure the country is free of “mercenaries and paramilitaries.”Venezuelan authorities said Monday they arrested another eight accused “mercenaries” in a coastal town and showed images on state TV of several unidentified men handcuffed and lying prone in a street. One video depicted security forces handling a man authorities identified as Venezuelan National Guardsman Capt. Antonio Sequea, who participated in a barracks revolt against Maduro a year ago. Goudreau had identified Sequea as a commander working with him on the ground in Venezuela.  “Venezuela holds the governments of Donald Trump and Colombia’s Ivan Duque responsible for the unknown and dangerous consequences of this provocative mercenary aggression,” Maduro’s government said in a letter to the international community.  Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab gives a press conference regarding what the government calls a failed attack over the weekend aimed at overthrowing President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, May 4, 2020.The AP was unable to verify either the government’s or Goudreau’s version of events. Opposition politicians and U.S. authorities issued statements suggesting Maduro’s allies had fabricated the assault. Officials have not released the full identities of those they say were killed or detained, though they identified one of the fallen as a man involved with Goudreau’s training camp in Colombia. An AP investigation published Friday found that Goudreau had been working with a retired Venezuelan army general — who now faces U.S. narcotics charges — to train dozens of deserters from Venezuela’s security forces at secret camps inside neighboring Colombia. The goal was to mount a cross-border raid that would end in Maduro’s arrest.  But the ragtag group lacked funding and U.S. government support. It also appears to have been penetrated by Maduro’s extensive Cuban-backed intelligence network.  Goudreau and retired Venezuelan Capt. Javier Nieto, who both live in Florida, issued a video late Sunday claiming they had organized the mission to detain Maduro that they call “Operation Gideon.” Goudreau, wearing a New York Yankees cap, spoke in English. Goudreau said Monday he’s talking with wealthy donors around the world to raise money for the second phase of the mission and hopes to raise a force of up to 5,000, he said.  “I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about people’s careers,” he said. “I care about my men on the ground right now who are in the most dangerous phase of the operation. I’m trying to get financial support in order to save their lives and to help them be successful.” Goudreau, 43, said 52 of his men were still on the ground and cells were being activated inside Venezuela. He said he hoped to join the rebels soon. There was no outward sign of fighting in the capital or elsewhere on Monday. Contract, recordingIn an interview late Sunday, Goudreau gave Miami-based journalist Patricia Poleo what he said was an eight-page contract signed by Guaidó and two political advisers in Miami in October for $213 million. The alleged “general services” contract doesn’t specify what work his company, Silvercorp USA, was to undertake. He also released via Poleo a four-minute audio recording, made on a hidden cellphone, of the moment when he purportedly signed the contract as Guaidó participated by videoconference. In the recording, a person he claims is Guaido can be heard giving vague encouragement in broken English but not discussing any military plans. “Let’s get to work!” said the man who is purportedly Guaido.  The AP was unable to confirm the veracity of the recording. Goudreau said Monday he received no more than an initial $50,000 payment from the Guaidó team and instead the Venezuelan soldiers he was advising had to scrounge for donations from Venezuelan migrants driving for car share service Uber in Colombia. Colombian officials, for their part, denied any involvement in Goudreau’s operation and in March announced their had seized weapons that had been destined for Venezuela. Venezuelan officials insisted that both Colombia and the U.S. were backing the operation and on Sunday, socialist party chief Diosdado Cabello said that one of the captured insurgents claimed to be an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — an agency that has accused many members of the government of involvement in drug trafficking. Both U.S. and Colombian officials dismissed the Venezuelan allegations. 
 
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With Turkey battling COVID-19, Turks are turning to a traditional custom to contain the virus: sweet smelling cologne.  With its high alcoholic content, cologne is widely accepted as useful in killing the coronavirus on people’s hands. From major producers to local chemists, all are working to keep up with the surge in demand. Ziya Melih Sezer, 89 years old, is perhaps Istanbul’s oldest chemist. His profession keeps him exempt from the nationwide lockdown on people over 65. Donning a chic beret, Sezer continues to open his pharmacy to serve the local people, like his family has done for more than century.  Family pharmacy certificates dating back before the Turkish republic attribute to the Sezer’s family serving Istanbul for more than a century. (D. Jones/VOA)On the wall of his store hangs his family’s pharmacy qualifications written in Ottoman script dating back before the Turkish Republic.  Sezer recalls previous health crises to hit Istanbul. The typhus epidemic during World War Two was denied by authorities who dismissed the outbreak as malicious propaganda, he says. Cholera, in 1973, was “terrible,” with people fleeing the districts hit by the waterborne disease. But the coronavirus is the greatest challenge, he says “Nothing like this happened. Nothing like this panic,” Sezer said. “I haven’t heard such rate of deaths, never seen anything like that. People are collapsing and dying like a house of cards.” According to Turkish healthy ministry figures, over 3,000 people have died from the disease, with more than 60% of those deaths in Istanbul.  Distinct lemon scentIstanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition CHP, suggests the death rate is probably much higher. The government vehemently denies Imamoglu’s accusation. Chemist Ziya Melih Sezer, every week for decades, prepares cologne, which is now in high demand as a way of sterilizing hands to prevent COVID’s spreading. (D. Jones/VOA)In a tiny back room, Sezer, in his small way, is helping to battle the virus. For decades he, like many chemists, produces cologne, carefully mixing fragrances with alcohol. In a large pestle and mortar, he pounds the ingredients that give the cologne its distinct lemon scent so loved by Turks. Sezer then, with a steady hand, carefully mixes in the alcohol, which he says is so effective in killing the coronavirus on people’s hands. As the virus spreads across Turkey and with it a growing awareness to regularly sterilize hands, demand for cologne has surged.  “At the beginning of the coronavirus, there was a real high demand,” Sezer said. “For a short while, there was a shortage of ingredients.” Part of Turkish lifeCologne, for more than a century, is a part of the fabric of Turkish life.  “Still cologne is a very important tradition in Turkey,” said Mehmet Muderrisoglu, owner of Rebul Pharmacy. His son Kerim runs the family firm Atelier Rebul, one of Turkey’s most prominent cologne producers. Traditional lemon-scented cologne is an essential part of Turkish culture. But its 80% alcohol content means it’s effective in sterilizing hands, becoming an important part of the country’s battle to contain COVID. (D. Jones/VOA)”There are few traditions when you visit an office or a house. One. You are offered a cup of tea, two a lokum (sweet), and three, when you enter the house the first thing they would give you, is to distribute cologne. This is the fragrant lemon cologne, and it is (also) good for disinfecting,” Muderrisoglu added. “I don’t think another society has that much consumption of cologne as the Turkish society,” said Professor Istar Gozaydin, an expert on religion and the Turkish State. Enduring popularity Gozaydin says Turkey being a predominantly Muslim country in part, explains cologne’s enduring popularity. “Cleanliness is a very important part of Turkishness, probably has to do with its religious identity, which is Islam, that demands washing before praying fives a day.”  “However, among Muslim societies, the Turkish one is quite unique. Cleanliness among Turks extends to washing oneself only with running water is an example, or to be obsessed with washing oneself after deification, washing oneself after sex. Yes, it has to do with identity, and the widespread use of cologne is a part of this culture of cleanliness,” added Gozaydin. Cologne came to Turkey from Europe in the 19th century. A Frenchman founded Atelier Rebul, which is at the forefront of meeting the surging demand.   “The first week was a boom. It was a very booming subject because everybody was running behind the cologne,” said Muderrisoglu, admitting they initially struggled to keep up with demand as people stocked up.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyMuderrisoglu, says they are now on top of demand, with calm starting to return to the market, “Now it is decreasing to normal.” But cologne’s sterilizing qualities are now demanded not only in Turkey. “Now we are exporting to Europe a lot. Previously cologne was never accepted in the European market. But now the European market is an important market for the cologne industry.” Fortunately, the surge in demand coincides with Atelier Rebul, opening a new factory that will triple production. Meaning there should be plenty of cologne to go round. 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday picked a new head of the federal police following a Supreme Court decision to block his effort to appoint a family friend — a tactical retreat a day after he and supporters threatened the court in anti-democratic protests. The new appointment showed Bolsonaro moving quickly to install a trusted appointee to the top law enforcement role as mounting investigations and his lax handling of the COVID-19 pandemic erode his popularity and feed talk of impeachment. The government’s official gazette said Bolsonaro had tapped as federal police chief Rolando Alexandre de Souza, who had worked as a close aide to his original choice, Alexandre Ramagem, at Brazil’s intelligence agency Abin. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro shakes hands with the new head of the federal police Rolando Alexandre de Souza at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, May 4, 2020.Bolsonaro dismissed as “gossip” accusations by former Justice Minister Sergio Moro that the president had tried to interfere in sensitive investigations by naming Ramagem, a friend of his sons, as top cop. Moro, a popular figure in Brazil’s anti-corruption efforts who locked up scores of businessmen and politicians as a judge, testified to prosecutors and police on Saturday as part of an investigation authorized by the Supreme Court. The former minister’s evidence against Bolsonaro included recordings of conversations with the president, a person with knowledge of his deposition told Reuters. Moro told investigators that army generals in Bolsonaro’s Cabinet, two of them active duty officers, witnessed the president’s pressure on the federal police and could confirm his accounts, said the source, requesting anonymity to speak freely. Moro could not be reached immediately for comment. Moro’s resignation and allegations 10 days ago set off the most serious political crisis Bolsonaro has faced in office, compounded by criticism for playing down a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 7,000 people in Brazil. Approval ratingsA record low 27% of Brazilians consider the government “good” or “great,” while those considering it “bad” or “awful” jumped 7 percentage points in a week to 49%, showed a telephone survey by pollster Ipespe commissioned by XP Investimentos. Another survey published over the weekend, run by pollster IDEIA Big Data via mobile app, showed the government’s approval rating fell 8 percentage points in a week to 22% as disapproval shot up to a record 47%. Those polls, conducted from Tuesday to Thursday, suggested that the impact of the crisis may have grown over the course of last week, after a Monday telephone poll by veteran pollster Datafolha showed Bolsonaro’s support holding firm. The far-right president came under fire again on Sunday for attacking Congress and the Supreme Court in a speech to hundreds of supporters who were calling for military rule in Brazil and an end to coronavirus quarantine measures. Bolsonaro said at the rally outside the presidential palace that he had Brazil’s armed forces behind him and he was losing patience with “interference” in his agenda. FILE – Supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro shout slogans during a protest against his former Minister of Justice Sergio Moro and the Supreme Court, in front of the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 3, 2020.Yet, the Defense Ministry cast doubt on Bolsonaro’s claim in a rare statement on Monday. The government body said the armed forces were on the side of democracy, the separation of powers and of Brazil’s constitution, The statement also denounced attacks on journalists, after at least three photographers were attacked during the Sunday rally. House Speaker Rodrigo Maia said Bolsonaro was out of line and called on Brazilian institutions to defend democracy. “In Brazil, unfortunately, we are fighting against coronavirus and the virus of extremism,” Maia tweeted. Former allies in Congress have joined a growing chorus in Brasilia calling for a debate on impeachment of Bolsonaro, a move with the support of about half of Brazilians, according to the most recent Datafolha survey. Last week’s XP poll surveyed 1,000 people, with a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points up or down. The IDEIA survey polled 1,609 people, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points in either direction.  
 
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With the number of coronavirus infections continuing to rise in Turkey, the country is – like many others – anxiously awaiting a vaccine. Until one comes, many Turks are turning to an old tradition: perfume. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones reports.
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Migrants returning from the United States were once considered heroes in Guatemala, where the money they send back to their hometowns is a mainstay of the economy.  
But since the coronavirus pandemic hit, migrants in town after town have been mistreated, run off or threatened by neighbors who fear they will bring the virus back with them from the United States.  
Similar mistreatment is being reported across Latin America and the Caribbean. In Haiti, police are guarding a hotel full of quarantined deportees from the U.S. — partly to prevent them from escaping and partly to stop attacks from neighbors frightened of the coronavirus.  
For immigrants already shaken by the Trump administration’s hard line on deportation, mistreatment at home is a further blow, and a disturbing illustration of how the pandemic is upending longstanding social norms in unexpected ways across the world.  
Vanessa Díaz said her mother heard rumors that neighbors were organizing to keep her from reaching her home in the northern province of Petén after she was deported back to Guatemala on a flight from the United States.
Díaz had to run inside with her 7-year-old son and hide when she arrived.  
“When we arrived my mother said, ‘Get out of the car and run into the house.’ She was afraid they were going to do something to us,” Díaz recalled.
The Guatemalan government says at least 100 migrants deported from the United States between late March and mid-April have tested positive for COVID-19. Even those who, like Díaz, are not infected — she was placed in quarantine at home for two weeks after arriving last month on flight where nobody tested positive — carry the stigma.  
“The assistant mayor was going around egging people on, because they wanted to kick me and my son out of my house,” Díaz said.
The fear hasn’t subsided; Díaz’s mother must shop for food for them all, because her daughter doesn’t dare venture out. The mother has filed a complaint with police, because she’s afraid neighbors might yet attack the house.
“I am afraid. The police came to the house and left their phone number, so we can call them” if there’s any trouble, Diaz said. But reason and the threat of legal action appear to mean little. “I have a document that says I do not have the disease,” Díaz said, referring to a letter given to her by the Public Health Ministry when she was sent home to self-quarantine.
Díaz left Guatemala on Feb. 14 and was caught entering the U.S. two weeks later. She and her son spent more than a month in detention in Texas before they were deported.  
The treatment of returning migrants by their own countrymen has become a matter of concern for President Alejandro Giammattei, who issued an appeal last month to stop the harassment.
“A few months ago, many people were happy to get their remittances checks,” Giammattei said, referring to the money migrants send back to their home country. “Now, the person who sent those checks is treated like a criminal.”
He stressed that through steps like quarantines and health checks, authorities are trying to guarantee that returning migrants are free of the virus.  
But on social media, videos have been posted of angry residents chasing fellow Guatemalans deported from Mexico who had escaped from a shelter in the western city of Quetzaltenango where they were supposed to be in quarantine, even though there have been no coronavirus cases among migrants deported from Mexico.  
And when one migrant deported from the United States who tested positive for the virus left a hospital in Guatemala City where he was supposed to remain in isolation, the persecution was almost immediate. The local radio station Sonora es la Noticias identified the man by name, posted photos of him and asked citizens to find him; comments on social media quickly turned brutal, with some suggesting the man should be killed. A judge eventually ordered his arrest because he could infect others, but he remains at large.
More than 680 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Guatemala, including those deported from the U.S., and at least 17 have died. Both figures are considered significant under counts because testing has been so limited.
Ursula Roldan, director of the Institute for Research on Global and Territorial Dynamics at Rafael Landívar University, said the government hasn’t set up shelters for returning migrants or carried out public education programs in their hometowns.
“The migrants aren’t to blame. They have made so many sacrifices on their journey, they have sustained the economy of this country,” Roldan said.
Roldan also blamed the U.S. government for deporting people with the virus, and of fostering anti-immigrant sentiments.
“Unfortunately, the tone regarding the migrants gets more aggressive when there are official statements, like for example when President Donald Trump depicts migrants as a danger in his speeches,” Roldan said.
The Roman Catholic Bishops Council has issued public calls to respect migrants, saying the situation “breaks our hearts.”
“How is it possible that both the governments of the United States and Mexico continue to deport people, during a crisis that has exposed the precarious nature of our health care system and a lack of effective strategies to contain the pandemic?” the council said in a statement.
“The example being set by both governments before the whole world is that they do not have the slightest sense of humanity,” it said, while not sparing criticism of Guatemalan society, too.
“This isn’t about finding fault with others, when we here in Guatemala are witnessing the lack of solidarity in those towns that haven’t allowed their fellow Guatemalans to return,” the council said. “When they sent money home, people congratulated them and praised them. Now, when they are deported, without a dollar in their pocket, they are rejected and suffer discrimination.”  
Meanwhile, Díaz is faced with the prospect of finding a job in a hostile town, penniless after her failed bid to reach the United States.
Asked what she would do after her quarantine ended Saturday, Díaz said: “Look for work.”
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A former Green Beret has taken responsibility for what he claimed was a failed attack Sunday aimed at overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and that the socialist government said ended with eight dead.
Jordan Goudreau’s comments in an interview with an exiled Venezuelan journalist capped a bizarre day that started with reports of a predawn amphibious raid near the South American country’s heavily guarded capital.
An AP investigation published Friday found that Goudreau had been working with a retired Venezuelan army general now facing U.S. narcotics charges to train dozens of deserters from Venezuela’s security forces at secret camps inside neighboring Colombia. The goal was to mount a cross-border raid that would end in Maduro’s arrest.  
But from the outset the ragtag army lacked funding and U.S. government support, all but guaranteeing defeat against Maduro’s sizable-if-demoralized military. It also appears to have been penetrated by Maduro’s extensive Cuban-backed intelligence network.  
Both Goudreau and retired Venezuelan Capt. Javier Nieto declined to speak to the AP on Sunday when contacted after posting a video from an undisclosed location saying they had launched an anti-Maduro putsch called “Operation Gideon.” Both men live in Florida.  
“A daring amphibious raid was launched from the border of Colombia deep into the heart of Caracas,” Goudreau, in a New York Yankees ball cap, said in the video standing next to Nieto who was dressed in armored vest with a rolled-up Venezuelan flag pinned to his shoulder. “Our units have been activated in the south, west and east of Venezuela.”  
Goudreau said 60 of his men were still on the ground and calls were being activated inside Venezuela, some of them fighting under the command of Venezuelan National Guardsman Capt. Antonio Sequea, who participated in a barracks revolt against Maduro a year ago.  
None of their claims of an ongoing operation could be independently verified. But Goudreau said he hoped to join the rebels soon and invited Venezuelans and Maduro’s troops to join the would-be insurgency although there was no sign of any fighting in the capital or elsewhere as night fell.  
In an interview later with Miami-based journalist Patricia Poleo, he provided a contradictory account of his activities and the support he claims to have once had — and then lost — from Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader recognized as Venezuela’s interim president by the U.S. and some 60 countries.
He provided to Poleo what he said was an 8-page contract signed by Guaidó and two political advisers in Miami in October for $213 million. The alleged “general services” contract doesn’t specify what work his company, Silvercorp USA, was to undertake.
He also released via Poleo a four-minute audio recording, made on a hidden cellphone, in the moment when he purportedly signed the contract as Guaidó participated via videoconference. In the recording, a person he claims is Guaido can be heard giving vague encouragement in broken English but not discussing any military plans.
“Let’s get to work!,” said the man who is purportedly Guaido.  
The AP was unable to confirm the veracity of the recording.
There was no immediate comment from Guaidó on Goudreau’s claim that the two had signed a contract. Previously, Guaidó has said he hadn’t signed any contract for a military incursion.
Goudreau said he never received a penny from the Guaidó team and instead the Venezuelan soldiers he was advising had to scrounge for donations from Venezuelan migrants driving for car share service Uber in Colombia.
“It’s almost like crowdfunded the liberating of a country,” he said.
Goudreau said everything he did was legal but in any case he’s prepared to pay the cost for anything he did if it saves the lives of Venezuelans trying to restore their democracy.  
“I’ve been a freedom fighter my whole life. This is all I know,” said Goudreau, who is a decorated three-time Bronze Star recipient for courage in deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a special forces medic.  
Asked about why his troops would land at one of Venezuela’s most fortified coastlines — some 20 miles from Caracas next to the country’s biggest airport — he cited the example set by Alexander the Great, who had “struck deep into the heart of the enemy” at the Battle of Guagamela.  
The government’s claims that it had foiled a beach landing Sunday triggered a frenzy of confusing claims and counterclaims about the alleged plot. While Maduro’s allies said it had been backed by Guaidó, Colombia and the U.S., the opposition accused Maduro of fabricating the whole episode to distract attention from the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis.
“Those who assume they can attack the institutional framework in Venezuela will have to assume the consequences of their action,” said socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, adding that one of two captured insurgents claimed to be an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Authorities said they found Peruvian documents, high-caliber weapons, satellite phones, uniforms and helmets adorned with the U.S. flag.
Both U.S. and Colombian officials dismissed the Venezuelan allegations.
“We have little reason to believe anything that comes out of the former regime,” said a State Department spokesperson, referring to Maduro’s government. “The Maduro regime has been consistent in its use of misinformation in order to shift focus from its mismanagement of Venezuela.”
Venezuela has been in a deepening political and economic crisis under Maduro’s rule. Crumbling public services such as running water, electricity and medical care have driven nearly 5 million to migrate.
The United States has led a campaign to oust Maduro, increasing pressure in recent weeks by indicting the socialist leader as a drug trafficker and offering a $15 million reward for his arrest. The U.S. also has increased stiff sanctions.  
In addition to U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure, Maduro’s government has faced several small-scale military threats, including an attempt to assassinate Maduro with a drone in 2018 and Guaidó’s call for a military uprising a year ago.
Cabello linked Sunday’s attack to key players in the alleged plot led by Goudreau and Ret. Maj. Gen. Cliver Alcala, who is now in U.S. custody awaiting trial after being indicted alongside Maduro on narcoterrorist charges. One of the men he said was killed, nicknamed “the Panther,” had been identified as involved in obtaining weapons for the covert force in Colombia.
Guaidó accused Maduro’s government of seizing on the incident to draw the world’s attention away from the country’s problems.  
“Of course, there are patriotic members of the military willing to fight for Venezuela,” Guaidó said. “But it’s clear that what happened in Vargas is another distraction ploy.”
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Governments across Europe are facing a coronavirus-related revolt from the elderly, who are pushing back on plans that would see their home-confinement prolonged as restrictions on other age groups are slowly relaxed. Seniors say a prolonged “gray lockdown” amounts to age discrimination and will probably cut their lives short anyway, regardless of the coronavirus.They have support from some doctors, who warn of the “impact” lockdowns are having on the “physical and mental health” of the elderly.In Britain, where all those aged 70 and over, regardless of their health, have been classified as “clinically vulnerable” and told to stay at home, the British Medical Association (BMA) has urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to include the elderly in any plans for easing the coronavirus lockdown in the coming weeks. Home confinement is damaging the mental health of seniors, they say.FILE – Elderly people wait for a Sainsburys supermarket to open as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Hertford, Britain, March 19, 2020.Age alone should not determine people’s ability to resume aspects of their daily lives when the government begins easing the overall lockdown restrictions in the coming weeks, the BMA says.In a statement, the BMA said, “A blanket ban on any section of the population being prohibited from lockdown easing would be discriminatory and unacceptable.” The doctors’ association acknowledged the government should ensure that “those at highest risk from infection are protected,” but added, “This needs to be based on individual risk that would apply at all ages rather than an arbitrary age of 60 or 70.”Muir Gray, professor of primary health care at Britain’s Oxford University, has warned of  a “de-conditioning syndrome,” in which reduced physical and mental activity “increases the risk of dementia and frailty.”Those at greatest risk to the coronavirus are the over-70s, but the elderly say they should be allowed to make their own risk assessments as other age groups are slowly released from confinement.FILE – Stanley Johnson, father of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaks at an event on climate change, in London, Oct. 9, 2019.”It should be up to us to determine our own risk, and judge whether we can finally see our children and grandchildren again,” according to commentator Magnus Linklater.As debate rages in Britain over the future of the elderly, Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley, has entered the fray, saying he hopes his son will end restrictions on seniors in time for his 80th birthday in August as he hopes to join an expedition to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for a charity.”I am rather hoping they will ease the restrictions in time,” the elder Johnson said.FranceAfter a pushback from the elderly in France, President Emmanuel Macron assured seniors his government will try to avoid setting separate rules for older people as the easing of the coronavirus confinement unfolds. The French president was forced to offer the concession when a backlash mounted after his top scientific adviser, Jean-François Delfraissy, said home confinement should continue for people over the age of 65 for the foreseeable future.”The President has followed the growing debate about the situation for elderly citizens,” the Elysee palace said in a statement last month. “He does not want there to be any discrimination among citizens after May 11 in the context of a gradual easing of confinement measures, and will appeal to people’s individual responsibility.”FILE – Marguerite Mouille, 94, gestures while her visiting daughter takes a photo at the Kaisesberg nursing home, eastern France, April 21, 2020.Generational tensions The debate is underscoring generational tensions in Europe. As countries started to lock down in March and April, governments appealed to cross-generational solidarity, arguing that the young had a duty to abide by restrictions in order to shield the most-at-risk groups, those with underlying health conditions, the old and frail.While many, if not most, people, both young and old, have responded to the appeals, there have been signs of generational friction — as well as complaints by both sides. Some youngsters bristled at lockdowns and flouted restrictions, with especially rebellious ones disobeying the rules on social distancing. Some held “lockdown parties” and “end of world” drinking sessions, joking on social media sites that the pandemic was the perfect opportunity for the removal of the baby boomer generation. Baby boomers are generally thought to have been born between 1946 and 1964.Millennials (born between 1981 and the mid-’90s) and youngsters from Generation Z (born between the mid-’90s and 2015), have also complained that they will be the ones who will have to bear the brunt of the economic costs of the coronavirus, rather than the old, much as what happened after the 2008 crash. State pensions in most European countries after the financial crash were shielded for the elderly and increased in line with inflation; austerity measures hit youngsters harder, their advocates say.FILE – Reinier Sijpkens performs classical music on his music boat for elderly people confined to their nursing home because of the coronavirus, in Heemstede, Netherlands, April 27, 2020.The elderly have said that they too suffered after 2008 with low returns on their savings — as they are suffering now. Nonetheless, there have been mounting calls for the huge economic cost of the pandemic emergency measures to be shared equally between old and young in the years ahead.”Quite rightly, society is making sacrifices to protect its elderly right now. There is a clear case for intergenerational reciprocation when it comes to meeting the fiscal costs of the crisis in the years ahead,” said Scott Corfe of the Social Market Foundation, a research group based in London.While some youngsters, who are less at risk from the coronavirus, have earned the ire of government officials and scientists for blithely flouting coronavirus restrictions, there have also been complaints of some seniors not observing lockdown rules, especially in central Europe, where pensioners have crowded markets. Romanian authorities cracked down on pensioners, ordering those aged over 65 only to venture from their homes between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. unless seeking urgent medical care.Craig Turp, the editor of Emerging Europe, a news site, suggested that the more carefree attitude of central Europe’s elderly had much to do with the history they have experienced.”War, deportation, poverty, dictatorship and revolution: They harden the spirit, darken the soul.” He went on to write, “For anyone who has lived through them, why would an invisible threat such as coronavirus pose any concern at all?”  
 
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As the coronavirus scythed through nursing homes, cutting a deadly path, Valerie Martin vowed to herself that the story would be different in the home she runs in France.  The action she took to stop the virus from infecting and killing the vulnerable older adults in her care was both drastic and effective: Martin and her staff locked themselves in with the 106 residents.  For 47 days and nights, staff and residents of the Vilanova nursing home on the outskirts of the east-central city of Lyon waited out the coronavirus storm together, while COVID-19 killed tens of thousands of people in other homes across Europe, including more than 9,000 in France. “I said, ‘No. Not mine. My residents still have so much to live for,'” Martin said in an interview. “I don’t want this virus to kill them when they have been through so much.”  On Monday, Martin and 12 colleagues who stayed in the home for the full duration ended their quarantine with hugs of celebration and singing, and with an uplifting victory: Coronavirus tests conducted on the residents and staff all came back negative. The caregivers, who nicknamed themselves “the happily confined,” left in a convoy of cars, joyously honking horns and heading for reunions with families, pets and homes.  “We succeeded,” Martin said. “Every day, every hour, was a win.”  While COVID-19 killed people by the dozens at some other homes, Martin said there were just four deaths at Vilanova during their lockdown and that none appears to have been linked to the virus. The average age of residents at the home is 87 and the deaths were not unexpected, she said.  Because staff and residents were locked in together, Vilanova didn’t have to confine people to their rooms like other homes to shield them from the risk of infection brought in from outside. That spared residents the loneliness that has been agonizing for others. Vilanova allowed residents to continue to mingle and to get fresh air outside.May Day in France: Virtual Protests and Little to CelebrateThe coronavirus pandemic has battered the country’s economy and jobs, leaving workers anxious about the futureThe son of a 95-year-old resident described the staff as “a fantastic team,” saying they saved his mother by shielding her from the virus and keeping her spirits up, even holding celebrations for her birthday on April 17. Gilles Barret said the home’s daily Facebook posts of news, photos and videos also were “such a comfort.”  “It saved lives,” he said. “Perfect, perfect. I tip my hat to them.”  Martin said she didn’t want their residents to feel like “prisoners” and that it wouldn’t have felt right to her had she continued to come and go from the home while depriving them of their liberty during France’s lockdown, in place since March 17. Residents were confined to their rooms for two days at the beginning while staffers gave the home a thorough cleaning, and that proved “a catastrophe,” Martin said. “In two days, we already saw people who started no longer wanting to eat, people who didn’t want to get up, people who said, ‘Why are you washing me? It’s pointless,'” she said, In all, 29 of the 50 staff volunteered to stay, bringing pillows, sleeping bags and clothes on March 18 for what they initially thought might be a three-week stay but which they subsequently opted to extend. Other staff came from outside to help and were kept apart from residents and made to wear masks and take other protective measures to prevent infections. The carers slept on mattresses on the floor. Martin slept in her office. One of the volunteers left a 10-month-old baby at home. The team tallied the days on a blackboard marked: “Always together with heart.”  “It was tough,” said caregiver Vanessa Robert. But there were also moments of “total joy, getting together in the evenings, fooling around, tossing water bombs at each other.”  Martin said her top priority now is to console her estranged cat, Fanta. And one of the weirdest moments of the lockdown was climbing back into her car and hearing the same tune on the CD player — Limp Bizkit’s “Mission Impossible” soundtrack — that she had been listening to when she parked seven weeks earlier. “It was a bit like entering a holiday camp,” she said. “Living a lockdown with 130 people is extremely rewarding.”
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Goodbye lockdown, hello smartphone.
As governments race to develop mobile tracing apps to help contain infections, attention is turning to how officials will ensure users’ privacy. The debate is especially urgent in Europe, which has been one of the hardest-hit regions in the world, with nearly 140,000 people killed by COVID-19.
The use of monitoring technology, however, may evoke bitter memories of massive surveillance by totalitarian authorities in much of the continent.  
The European Union has in recent years led the way globally to protect people’s digital privacy, introducing strict laws for tech companies and web sites that collect personal information. Academics and civil liberties activists are now pushing for greater personal data protection in the new apps as well.  
Here’s a look at the issues.Why an App?
European authorities, under pressure to ease lockdown restrictions in place for months in some countries, want to make sure infections don’t rise once confinements end. One method is to trace who infected people come into contact with and inform them of potential exposure so they can self-isolate. Traditional methods involving in-person interviews of patients are time consuming and labor intensive, so countries want an automated solution in the form of smartphone contact tracing apps. But there are fears that new tech tracking tools are a gateway to expanded surveillance.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyEuropean Standards
Intrusive digital tools employed by Asian governments that successfully contained their virus outbreaks won’t withstand scrutiny in Europe. Residents of the EU cherish their privacy rights so compulsory apps, like South Korea’s, which alerts authorities if users leave their home, or location tracking wristbands, like those used by Hong Kong, just won’t fly.
The contact-tracing solution gaining the most attention involves using low energy Bluetooth signals on mobile phones to anonymously track users who come into extended contact with each other. Officials in western democracies say the apps must be voluntary.  Rival Designs
The battle in Europe has centered on competing systems for Bluetooth apps. One German-led project, Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, or PEPP-PT, which received early backing from 130 researchers, involves data uploaded to a central server. However, some academics grew concerned about the project’s risks and threw their support behind a competing Swiss-led project, Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing, or DP3T.
Privacy advocates support a decentralized system because anonymous data is kept only on devices. Some governments are backing the centralized model because it could provide more data to aid decisionmaking, but nearly 600 scientists from more than two dozen countries have signed an open letter warning this could, “via mission creep, result in systems which would allow unprecedented surveillance of society at large.”
Apple and Google waded into the fray by backing the decentralized approach as they unveiled a joint effort to develop virus-fighting digital tools. The tech giants are releasing a software interface so public health agencies can integrate their apps with iPhone and Android operating systems, and plan to release their own apps later.
The EU’s executive Commission warned that a fragmented approach to tracing apps hurt the fight against the virus and called for coordination as it unveiled a digital “toolbox” for member countries to build their apps with.Beyond Borders
The approach Europe chooses will have wider implications beyond the practical level of developing tracing apps that work across borders, including the many found in the EU.
“How we do this, what safeguards we put in, what fundamental rights we look very carefully at,” will influence other places, said Michael Veale, a lecture in digital rights at University College London who’s working on the DP3T project. “Countries do look to Europe and campaigners look to Europe,” and will expect the continent to take an approach that preserves privacy, he said.Country by Country
European countries have started embracing the decentralized approach, including Austria, Estonia, Switzerland, and Ireland. Germany and Italy are also adopting it, changing tack after initially planning to use the centralized model.
But there are notable exceptions, raising the risk different apps won’t be able to talk to each other when users cross Europe’s borders.  
EU member France wants its own centralized system but is in a standoff with Apple over a technical hurdle that prevents its system from being used with iOS. The government’s digital minister wants it ready for testing in “real conditions” by May 11 but a legislative debate on the app was delayed after scientists and researchers warned of surveillance risks.  
Some non EU-members are going their own way. Norway rolled out one of the earliest – and most invasive – apps, Smittestopp, which uses both GPS and Bluetooth to collect data and uploads it to central servers every hour.
Britain rejected the system Apple and Google are developing because it would take too long, said Matthew Gould, CEO of the National Health Service’s digital unit overseeing its development. The British app is weeks away from being “technically ready” for deployment, he told a Parliamentary committee.
Later versions of the app would let users upload an anonymized list of people they’ve been in contact with and location data, to help draw a “social graph” of how the virus spreads through contact, Gould said.
Those comments set off alarm bells among British scientists and researchers, who warned last week in an  open letter against going too far by creating a data collection tool. “With access to the social graph, a bad actor (state, private sector, or hacker) could spy on citizens’ real-world activities,” they wrote.  
Despite announcing plans to back European initiatives or develop its own app, Spain’s intricate plan for rolling back one of the world’s strictest confinements doesn’t include a tracing app at all. The health minister said the country will use apps when they are ready but only if they “provide value added” and not simply because other countries are using them.
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A watchdog group is calling on democratic nations to prevent the election of Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia to the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council, saying their abysmal human rights records disqualify them from membership.   U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2019.The U.N. General Assembly will elect 15 new members to the U.N. Human Rights Council in October.  U.N. Watch, an independent group that monitors the United Nations, says it would be a travesty and outrage to permit Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia — three repressive, authoritarian regimes — to join this body.  Executive Director of U.N. Watch, Hillel Neuer, says governments that systematically deny basic freedoms to their own people are in no position to judge the human rights records of others. “No one is saying that every member of the Human Rights Council has to be perfect.  Obviously, there are no perfect countries.  But to choose some of the worst governments is not a strategy and it is completely contrary to the official criteria declared at the founding of the Human Rights Council and which continues to govern the elections.”   The resolution that was adopted when the Council was created in 2006 obliges members to uphold the promotion and protection of human rights. It also warns nations that commit gross human rights could be suspended.  It has been applied only once against Libya in 2010 following the violent crackdown on protestors by the late dictator Muammar Gadhafi. Neuer tells VOA the Council is a political body and for many countries, politics too often trump human rights as their guiding principle.  He says more than 50 percent of Council members are not full democracies. “Because of the membership of those countries, a large part of the work, of the proper work of the Council never gets done.  So, for example, countries like China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Turkey have never been condemned for violations of human rights.”  U.N. human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, says running for a seat on the Council is not a cost-free exercise.  He tells VOA any member State with a poor human rights record will find itself scrutinized.“There is a bit of a price to pay actually,” he said.  “It doesn’t mean by getting on the Council you get a free ride.  If anything, it is a little bit the other way around because you get more attention put on you… Their voting patterns and what they say in debates and so on will be subject to scrutiny and will be subject to criticism, you know, if they are elected as are all States.”   Colville says Council members are held up against the high human rights standards set by the General Assembly.  He says there are examples in the past of States who have withdrawn their candidacy for a seat on the Council after receiving a barrage of criticism.   He notes the process has a long way to run before the election is held and anything could happen before then.     
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Every morning a white horse named Jenny is seen strolling freely through her Frankfurt neighborhood.  Her owners, Anna and Werner Weischedel, say the 25-year-old, free-roaming Arabian mare, is brightening up the coronavirus lockdown for many people in the Fechenheim area of Frankfurt-am-Main.  “She goes wherever she wants, she has no limits. She can travel further away than we can, because we have travel restrictions at the moment. Jenny has ‘Corona-Freedom’, everything is allowed,” Werner said.For more than a decade Jenny has roamed solo through the town, taking the high street or trotting along the tram line to a nearby field nibbling for hours on patches of grass. “People seem to notice her more because they have more time. A lot of passers-by stroke her, maybe because they are missing some human contact,” Anna said. “Everyone knows her, no matter where she goes. People always greet her nicely, especially now in times of coronavirus, they are happy to have someone to cuddle. People have to stay apart from each other, but Jenny sometimes has 10 children around her. Adults too come out of the tram and hug or pet her,” Werner said.Germany, like many other countries, has closed schools, playgrounds and many businesses to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It has slowly begun to ease some lockdown measures, but people are urged to observe social distances and limit their social interactions. But the guidelines do not apply when it comes to interacting with Jenny and people can still snuggle with her. Since residents have in the past called the police to report an unaccompanied horse, Jenny wears a note around her neck that reads: “I haven’t run away, I’m just out for a walk.” 
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