Author: Ohart

President Trump is finally getting a bigger, stronger barrier — not along the U.S. southern border with Mexico but in his own front and backyard. The U.S. Secret Service and the National Park Service have teamed up to replace the current White House fence after a series of security breaches, including a 2014 incident when an intruder scaled the fence and made it into the White House before being stopped. VOA’s Dora Mekouar (Meh-kw-are) reports

…

On the occasion of International Women’s Day (March 8), more than 20,000 Cameroon women from rural and urban areas have assembled in the central African state’s capital Yaounde to press for their rights to education and decision making while urging a stop to early marriages and harmful traditional practices.

A group of  women at the central market in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde sing that they, like their peers all over Africa, are longing to be freed from the bondage of strong traditional practices that impede their emancipation and wellbeing. Among them is female activist Emmanuella Mokake of the NGO Cameroon women for Participating in Development. Mokake says her NGO is working to change the perception that women should only bring up babies, carry out domestic chores and work in farms.

“Women and their human rights and women gender equality has never been a war against men because it is normally very misconstrued. Women have realized that they are no more compelled to endure domestic violence because it hampers on their human rights,” she said. “Women are setting out now to say no, enough of this battery. If any man beats a woman, the law under assault and battery clearly handles that.”

Mokake said they were asking Cameroon to ratify the Maputo Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa’ which it signed in 2006 and respect the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, ratified the country in 2005.

The tens of thousands of women gathered Sunday in Yaounde said they were unhappy that strong traditional practices still encourage female genital mutilation and early marriages. Early and forced marriages are prevalent in rural areas where girls as young as 12 are married and widows forced to marry the brother of the deceased husband.

The women gathered Sunday also talked about illiteracy, which remained high among women because many families prefer to send only boys to school and ask the girls to accompany their mothers to the farm before getting married at early ages.

Another issue is that of access to and ownership of land in a country where most men own most of the land and prefer selling or handing it over only to their male children.

The United Nations reports that Cameroon’s laws remain deeply discriminatory towards women and legal reforms are needed to increase protection of women’s human rights. It also states that customary law is applied by traditional rulers, some who still encourage discriminatory practices.

Cameroon law set 15 years as the minimum age for marriage for girls and 18 years for boys.

Women make up 52 percent of the adult population in Cameroon but only 28 percent of them are registered voters, according to Cameroon election management body ELECAM.

Hind Jalal, representative of U.N. Women Cameroon, says women’s participation in decision making will improve the perception some men have about them.   

“We must amend the electoral code to make it strongly and explicitly mentioning gender parity and to push political stakeholders to be more assertive because bringing women in the driving seat will bring prosperity and a better future for Cameroon,” she said.

Marie-Therese Abena Ondou, Cameroon minister of women’s empowerment and the family, says in spite of the challenges, much has been done to respect the issue as there are 58 women in the 180 member lower house of parliament and 36 women are mayors in the country that has over 380 councils.

“Training sessions were carried out to teach them how to sell their [political] programs. Politics was reserved for men and if women have to move forward, they need the support of men,” she said. Women are capable and women have also dared because many of them were not even brave enough to postulate. The environment is not friendly. Tradition has to change. We keep good tradition but we should give up the bad tradition.”

Ondou said the government was taking all necessary measures to improve access to education for women and girls with a particular focus on rural areas and by carrying out public awareness-raising campaigns.

…

McCoy Tyner, the groundbreaking and influential jazz pianist and the last surviving member of the John Coltrane Quartet, has died. He was 81.

Tyner’s family confirmed the death in a statement released on social media Friday. No more details were provided.

“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of jazz legend, Alfred “McCoy” Tyner. McCoy was an inspired musician who devoted his life to his art, his family and his spirituality,” the statement read. “McCoy Tyner’s music and legacy will continue to inspire fans and future talent for generations to come.”

Tyner was born in Philadelphia on December 11, 1938. He eventually met Coltrane and joined him for the 1961 album “My Favorite Things,” a major commercial success that highlighted the remarkable chemistry of the John Coltrane Quartet. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

The quartet would go on to release more revered projects, becoming an internationally renowned group and one of the seminal acts in jazz history.

Tyner eventually found success apart from the John Coltrane Quartet, releasing more than 70 albums. He also won five Grammy Awards.

In 2002, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

…

Over the years, villagers who live near Greece’s border with Turkey got used to seeing small groups of people enter their country illegally. The Greek residents often offered the just-arrived newcomers a bite to eat and directed them to the nearest police or railway station.

But the warm welcomes wore off. When Turkey started channeling thousands of people to Greece, insisting that its ancient regional rival and NATO ally receive them as refugees, the Greek government sealed the border and rushed police and military reinforcements to help hold back the flood.

Greeks in the border region rallied behind the expanding border force, collecting provisions and offering any possible contribution to what is seen as a national effort to stop a Turkish-spurred incursion.

‘We know the crossings’

In several cases, authorities asked villagers familiar with the local terrain to help locate migrants who managed to slip through holes cut in a border fence or to cross the River Evros — Meric in Turkish — that demarcates most of the 212-kilometer border.

“We were born here, we live here, we work here, we know the crossings better than anyone,” Panayiotis Ageladarakis, a community leader in Amorio, a village that lies 300 meters from the river banks.

Other villages also responded to the call for volunteer trackers. Small groups of unarmed men monitor known crossing points after dark.

“We sit at the crossings, and they come,” Ageladarakis told The Associated Press as he drove a pickup truck with a fellow Greek border village resident along a rough track at night. “We keep them there most of the time, call police, and they come and arrest them. Then, it’s a matter for the police. We aren’t interested in where they take them. We just try to help this effort taking place by the army and the police.”

Pitching in

Help for the border units also came from Evros businesses and store owners. Nikos Georgiadis, head of the local restaurant owners association, said his colleagues delivered food and water to units stationed at four points on the border.

“They also asked us for masks and gloves, and we’ll try to find some,” he said.

Ageladarakis said all the migrants he encountered over the past few days were cooperative.

“These people are frightened. Nobody has caused any trouble,” he said.

But the village community leader said that in his view, the people he encountered did not look like they were fleeing wars in their own countries.

“There’s nobody coming from a war,” he said. “None of them are refugees. They’re all illegal migrants and that’s why they’re trying to get into Europe [this way].”

Greek authorities said that out of a the 252 people arrested for illegal entry over the past week as of Friday, 64% were Afghans, 19% Pakistanis, 5% Turks and 4% Syrians. The others were from Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Egypt.

…

Britain is expected to announce next week a new levy on banks and other firms regulated for anti-money laundering to raise up to 100 million pounds ($130 million) to tackle dirty money, the government said Saturday.

London has long attracted corrupt foreign money, especially from Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan, former Soviet states and Asia, and the police estimate that around 100 billion pounds of dirty money is moved through or into Britain each year.

In his first budget on Wednesday, finance minister Rishi Sunak is expected to unveil plans for an Economic Crime Levy to generate cash for new technology for law enforcement and to hire more financial investigators.

The levy is likely to come into force in 2022-23 and the Treasury will consult in the spring about which firms will be asked to contribute.

“Criminals will have nowhere left to hide their illicit earnings,” Sunak said in a statement. “We’re going to put more financial investigators and better technology on the front line to fight against money laundering.”

Last year the government and business leaders agreed an Economic Crime Plan to try to better tackle dirty money with improved information sharing and more cash for police to tackle fraudsters and money launderers.

…

As cases of the new coronavirus grow in the U.S., President Trump has been criticized for what some view as inaccurate and misleading statements regarding the coronavirus threat. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks into why some say the president’s unique style of communication is not helpful during a public health crisis.
 

…

The new coronavirus, which has killed nearly 3,400 people worldwide, hit a new milestone Friday with the number of confirmed cases topping 100,000.  As nations prepare for the worst, VOA correspondent Mariama Diablo reports on a new reality with many donning masks and choosing to stay home as markets tumble and large gatherings are canceled.

…

The Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against CNN on Friday for a column about the president and election help from Russia, the third such action against a news organization taken in the past two weeks.

The campaign said a piece by Larry Noble posted last June on the CNN website falsely says that the campaign considered seeking Russia’s help in the 2020 campaign and “decided to leave that option on the table.” It made the complaint in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, where CNN is based.

The lawsuit said the article doesn’t back up Noble’s statement with evidence, and that CNN and Noble had both shown a pattern of bias against Trump.

The network had no comment on the lawsuit, a spokeswoman said.

Earlier this week, the campaign sued The Washington Post for similar opinion pieces that discussed the Trump campaign welcoming Russian help in 2016. A week earlier, The New York Times was the target, for a Max Frankel op-ed suggesting Trump and Russia had an understanding to exchange campaign help for more favorable policies toward the country.

“The Trump campaign is trying to send a message, both to the press and the public, that you criticize the president at your peril,” said Brian Hauss, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

After the lawsuit against the Times, First Amendment lawyer Theodore Boutrous wrote in the Post that the action had little chance of success in court.

“Trump’s lawsuit may be frivolous,” Boutrous wrote. “His intentions are serious and dangerous to us all.”

The Times, Post and CNN have all been frequent targets of Trump’s Twitter attacks against the press. During Trump’s presidency through this week, he’s tweeted about CNN 191 times, with 106 of those tweets containing the word “fake.”

Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign, said the publications had recklessly published false statements and intentionally misled their readers.

“False statements are not protected under the U.S. Constitution,” Ellis said. “Therefore, these suits will have no chilling effect on freedom of the press. If journalists are more accurate in their statements and their reporting, that would be a positive development, but not why these suits were filed.”

The lawsuits make no differentiation between news reporting and editorial pieces. Noble is a CNN contributor and a former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.
His article was published under the “CNN Opinion” banner and includes a note that Noble’s opinions “are solely those of the author.”

The lawsuit claims the article caused damage to the campaign in the “millions of dollars.”

…

Tunisian media are reporting that a suicide bomber on a motorcycle has set off a blast near the U.S. Embassy in the Tunisian capital, Tunis.

The private Radio Mosaique said that five police officers were wounded in the explosion Friday. That report could not be immediately confirmed.

Police taped off the area around the blast site, which was littered with debris. The flag of the United States could be seen fluttering in the background.

Islamic extremists have targeted Tunisia in recent years, killing scores of people.

…

Confused about all the terminology surrounding the coronavirus? These terms and definitions can help.
 
Coronavirus: Starting with the most obvious, this word refers to a family of hundreds of similarly shaped viruses. Under a microscope, they look like round blobs surrounded by spikes, much like the corona, or crown, surrounding the sun. There are seven coronaviruses that can affect people. The common cold is one, as are its more virulent cousins: SARS, severe acute respiratory virus, and MERS, Middle East respiratory virus.
 
COVID-19: This is the disease caused by the coronavirus. The first four letters are taken from the word coronavirus  and then the “d” from disease. The number 19 indicates it started in 2019. The disease is officially named SARS-CoV-2, because it is a respiratory virus, but you will hear people use all of these terms interchangeably.  
 
Cluster: Epidemiologists refer to a group of cases of the same disease or condition in a particular area as a cluster. For example, there may be a cluster of birth defects in places that contain large amounts of toxic chemicals. Where there are clusters of conditions, scientists can investigate and find out the cause. As the numbers of people with a particular disease increase, it could then become an outbreak.
 
Community transmission versus person-to-person spread: Dr. Anthony Fauci with the U.S. National Institutes of Health explains that “community transmission” means the disease is spreading to someone who has not had close contact with an infected person and had not visited a place where the virus is known to be spreading. It’s a mystery until scientists figure out how the disease spreads. Person-to-person spread is just what it sound like – the disease is spread to whose who are in close contact with one another, such as family members.
 
Epidemic, pandemic and outbreak: An outbreak is a sudden surge in the number of people coming down with a particular disease. An epidemic is a very large outbreak that has spread to other regions, countries or continents. A lot of doctors using these terms almost interchangeably. If a disease is called a pandemic, it can’t be controlled, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a lot of people are dying. The last pandemic was in 2009 when a new influenza virus, called H1N1, started in the U.S. and circulated the globe. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 151,000 and 600,000 people died.
 
Fatality rate: The number of people who die from a disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the fatality rate from COVID-19 is around 3.4% and that people over 60 and those with other health problems are far more at risk than those who are younger. Eighty percent of people who get the coronavirus don’t need hospitalization and can recover at home with no problem. SARS had a fatality rate of 9.6%, for MERS, it was 34.4%.
 
Asymptomatic and symptomatic: When someone is asymptomatic, they don’t show any signs of being sick, but they have the virus and can spread it to others. When someone is symptomatic, that person has visible signs of being sick. With COVID-19, that means a cough, fever and difficulty breathing. The intensity of these symptoms vary from person to person, but health experts say the most common way the new coronavirus spreads is between someone who has the disease and is showing the symptoms and another person.
 
Isolation versus quarantine: Isolation means a person, sick or not, stays away from other people. Older adults may want to self-isolate at home for the duration of the coronavirus outbreak. This means they would not go outdoors except when necessary or go to group events. Hospitals may have isolation units to keep infected people away from those who don’t have the virus. Isolation is intended to keep the virus contained or keep a healthy person well.
 
With a quarantine, people who may have been exposed to a virus are prevented from leaving a particular area. China quarantined entire cities as the coronavirus spread. Other countries quarantined their citizens who returned from China. Americans evacuated from Wuhan and cruise ships were housed on military bases while doctors evaluated them for signs of the coronavirus.
 
Therapeutics:  Treatments used to help people get over a disease or to prevent them from getting one. There are now treatments for Ebola and HIV. Therapeutics could include drugs and medical devices, or other types of treatments. There are no therapeutics for COVID-19 so doctors treat the symptoms. For example, they provide drugs to reduce a fever or put a patient who is having trouble breathing on oxygen.
 
Anti-viral medicine: Any medicine that fights a virus. Biotech company Gilead Sciences is testing the antiviral drug remdesivir in China as a possible treatment for the new coronavirus. Remdesivir was developed to treat Ebola.
 

…

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign legislation Friday releasing $8.3 billion in emergency spending to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, including money for developing a vaccine.  The legislation passed through the Senate and the House almost unanimously.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said, “In situations like this, I believe no expense should be spared to protect the American people and in crafting this package none was.”

The U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary said Thursday a million test kits for the COVID-19 are expected to arrive this weekend at U.S. labs.  

Alex Azar said the coronavirus tests are shipping from a private manufacturer.

The Trump administration has received criticism about the short supply of test kits.  

Vice President Mike Pence said in Washington state Thursday, “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward,” but added that “real progress” had been made “in the last several days.”

Pence met Thursday with Washington Governor Jay Inslee.  Washington is the site of 11 of the 12 U.S. deaths from the virus.  Most of the deaths in Washington took place in a nursing home near Seattle.

National Nurses United said its members have not been given the resources, supplies, protections and trainings they need to do their jobs properly.  Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said, “It is not a successful strategy to leave nurses and other health care workers unprotected.”  Castillo, who is a registered nurse, said when nurses are quarantined, “We are not only prevented from caring for COVID-19 patients, but we are taken away from caring for cancer patients, cardiac patients and premature babies.”

US states affected

Five U.S. states – Maryland, California, Florida, Washington and Hawaii – have declared states of emergency because of the virus.

Maryland joined the roster Thursday after three Montgomery County residents – a husband and wife in their 70s and a woman in her 50s – were diagnosed with the coronavirus.  All three were reported to have contracted the virus while on an overseas cruise.  Montgomery County is a Maryland suburb located next to Washington, DC.

Colorado has announced its first two cases – a man and a woman – of of the coronavirus.  Both had traveled internationally, but officials say the cases are not related.

U.S. Forces Korea said Friday that one of its workers in South Korea has tested positive for the virus.  She is the seventh USFK employee to test positive for the coronavirus.  Authorities say she is in quarantine at her off-base residence in Cheonan.

Vatican, Cameroon

The Vatican reported its first coronavirus case Friday.  Spokesman Matteo Bruni said its health clinic has been closed for a deep cleaning, but its emergency room remains open.

Cameroon also has its first coronavirus case.  The minister of health said in a statement  Friday the victim is a 58-year-old French male who arrived in Yaounde on February 24.  “The active surveillance put in place by the country since the occurrence of the Covid-19 outbreak has made it possible to detect this case,” the statement said.  The French citizen has been placed in “solitary confinement.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency Thursday, shutting down schools for 30 days and closing the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem after seven coronavirus cases were confirmed in the city. These are the first cases in the Palestinian territories.

Closing the church in the town that worshipers say was Jesus’s birthplace will devastate Bethlehem’s vital tourism industry and comes just weeks before Easter.

China

The threat appears to be waning in China, where the outbreak erupted in December. The WHO said Thursday there are about 17 times as many new cases outside China now than inside China itself.

On Friday, however, China reported that the number of new cases had risen from 139 on Thursday to 143.  

Hundreds of patients are being released from Chinese hospitals and shuttered factories are starting to reopen. But Chinese President Xi Jinping has called off a scheduled state visit to Japan, where Tokyo has declared that all visitors from China and South Korea will be placed under quarantine. South Korea has the largest number of coronavirus cases outside China.

Travel bans

Australia joined China and Iran in banning travel from South Korea.

Indonesia is also restricting travel from parts of South Korea as well as two other hard-hit nations — Iran and Italy. Both of those nations have shut down schools.

The United Nations said the virus has disrupted classes for nearly 300 million students worldwide from preschool through 12th grade. That number does not include colleges that have also been shuttered.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on governments to find a holistic approach in their efforts to stop the spread of the virus.  Michelle Bachelet, who is also a medical doctor, said in a statement Friday that “efforts to combat this virus won’t work unless we approach it holistically, which means taking great care to protect the most vulnerable and neglected people in society, both medically and economically.”

She said the measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus will likely “disproportionately affect women” and that people “who are already barely surviving economically may all too easily be pushed over the edge by measures being adopted to contain the virus.”  

The High Commissioner added, “Being open and transparent is key to empowering and encouraging people to participate in measures designed to protect their own health and that of the wider population, especially when trust in the authorities has been eroded.  It also helps to counter false or misleading information that can do so much harm by fueling fear and prejudice.”  
 
Fake news

President Trump took some heat Thursday from health experts after he told Fox News that the World Health Organization is sending out false information, and he suggested infected patients are safe going to their jobs in offices and stores.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the coronavirus is highly transmissible and that people who are sick must stay home.

Asian markets tumbled again Friday over apprehensions about the virus.

Thursday, global markets took another beating with investors nervous about the coronavirus outbreak and uncertain about exactly which way the situation is going.

Experts say the roller coaster ride in the markets is likely to continue as long COVID-19 spreads to more countries, with investors acting out of fear over where the next state of emergency, quarantine or business shutdown will be declared.

At his daily virus briefing Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus again stressed the seriousness of the virus about which scientists still know little.

“This is not a drill. This is not the time for giving up, this is not a time for excuses,” Tedros said. “Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades, Now is the time to act on those plans.”

As of late Thursday, there were more than 98,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide and at least 3,300 deaths.

…

Countries around the world are taking increasingly stringent measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus that has infected 95,000 people in more than 75 countries, as the number of new cases in China begins to wane.

The World Health Organization said there are about 17 times as many new cases of COVID-19 outside China as there are within its borders.

Australia on Thursday joined China and Iran in banning travel from South Korea, which has more than 6,000 cases, the most outside China.

After banning travel from China, Indonesia announced restrictions on travelers from certain areas of South Korea Iran, Italy. Iran and Italy are the hardest-hit behind China and South Korea.

Iran, with more than 3,500 cases, said schools and universities would remain closed until March 20. Italy, which has reported more than 3,000 confirmed cases, has shut schools and universities until March 15, and is banning spectators at sporting events for the next month.

The United Nations said the virus has to date disrupted the education of nearly 300 million students worldwide from pre-school through 12th grade.

The United Arab Emirates on Thursday advised its citizens and residents not to travel anywhere outside the country during the coronavirus outbreak.

Neighboring Saudi Arabia followed a ban on foreigners entering to participate in pilgrimages to Mecca by adding a new ban on its own citizens and residents of performing the ritual.

Palestinian officials announced the indefinite closure of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, which Christians believe was the birthplace of Jesus.
 
Chinese President Xi Jinping is postponing a visit to Japan scheduled for next month as both countries deal with the outbreak. Both Chinese and Japanese officials said Thursday Xi’s trip would be postponed until a more appropriate time.

China is the center of the outbreak, and while its new cases have dwindled in recent weeks, it has experienced the biggest toll with 3,000 deaths and hits to its economy as officials shut down cities to try to contain the spread.

Japan has seen more than 1,000 cases, many of them involving a cruise ship that spent weeks docked in quarantine in Yokohama.

In the United States, the focus of the outbreak has been on the western states of Washington and California.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency, joining Washington, Florida and Hawaii.

Federal investigators have begun looking into a nursing home near Seattle, Washington, the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S. Most of the 11 fatalities in the U.S. occurred at the Life Care Center in the city of Kirkland.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio said there were two new cases confirmed in the city, and that neither patient is linked to travel or other locals who have been diagnosed.

Princess Cruises said the U.S. Coast Guard will use a helicopter Thursday to drop coronavirus testing kits so that a group of fewer than 100 crew and passengers can be screened while the Grand Princess ship sits off the California coast.

No one will be allowed to leave the ship until those tests come back, a measure being taken after health officials linked two cases to passengers who took a February cruise aboard the ship and later tested positive.  A total of 11 deaths, including one of those passengers, have been reported in the U.S. from the virus.

The U.S. Senate is expected Thursday to pass an $8.3 billion spending bill to tackle the virus, including research on a vaccine, the purchase of test kits and treatments.  Some of the money will also be used to fund international efforts to stop the virus.

The House of Representatives approved the measure Wednesday, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it.

Trump accused the World Health Organization on Wednesday of disseminating erroneous information about COVID-19 and suggested infected patients could be safe going to their jobs.

…

Kenya has accused Somalia of an unwarranted attack on the Kenyan border town of Mandera, in the latest territorial dispute between the neighbors. Kenya and Somalia have long accused each other of encroaching on the other’s territory and Kenya’s remarks come as it faces pressure on the future of its troops fighting al-Shabab militants inside Somalia.

Somali media report that President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo spoke by phone with Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta on the issues regarding security and that they agreed to work together on their common interests.

The conversation took place a day after the Kenyan leader accused the Horn of Africa nation of violating Kenyan borders during a clash along the Kenya-Somalia frontier. Reports say the clash took place in Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Jubaland and involved the Somali military and fighters linked to Ahmed Madobe, president of the Jubaland region.

Mohamed Maalim Mohamud, a senator in the Kenyan town of Mandera, across the border from Jubaland, told VOA tension is still high in the area.

“As of today, I am told there is a buildup of forces from both sides that soldiers of Jubaland are moving freely in our region, in our territory and building up and reinforcing themselves and anytime something can break out; it’s very serious,” he said.

Mohamud also says the people of Mandera are paying the price for the unrest at the border and ongoing tension between the two countries.

“People who live in that part of the town vacated that place and went for safe stay elsewhere in the town. The schools have been closed. So it’s that bad,” he said.

Kenya and Somalia’s relationship has soured in recent months over the fate of Jubaland leader Madobe, who enjoys a good relationship with the government in Nairobi.

The Somali government disputes the Jubaland election of 2019, which gave Madobe another fours years to run the affairs of the state’s Middle Juba, Lower Juba, and Gedo regions.

Professor Chacha Nyaigotti Chacha specializes in diplomacy and international relations at the University of Nairobi. He says both countries need to engage each other directly.  

“For many years, Kenya has been hosting people from Somalia who were fleeing from molestation,” he said. “It’s very difficult for people to differentiate and find a way how they can best deal with the individuals who might be approaching them for discussions and whatever. So the bottom line then is, first of all, to recognize the central quality and the central power in Somalia and for Somalia’s central power also to recognize that Kenya is an independent country. It has borders and it has a government which is functional and therefore anything that happens must always be sanitized and be blessed by the government systems.”

Separately, Kenya is considering withdrawing its troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia after eight years of fighting the Somali militant group al-Shabab. The matter is still being discussed in Kenya’s National Security Council.

“We are safer when our security forces are here to defend the nation from within,” said Caleb Amisi, a legislator who sits on Kenya’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “We went to Somalia as a matter of courtesy to our neighbors, but it was not a conventional war. We were perusing the enemy of our neighboring country. So we believe that we been able to make a milestone in that particular mandate, and it’s high time they come back and secure our territory.”

Kenya sent troops to Somalia in 2011. Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has attacked Kenya for its involvement in supporting the AU mission in Somalia.

…

Clashes have flared up again in northeastern Greece as authorities there try to stem the flow of migrants pouring in from Turkey, after the Turkish government opened its border last week. Greek police have been using tear gas, water cannon, and stun grenades to push back the border crossers, and Turkey is accusing Greek forces of shooting and killing at least four migrants – a charge Greece denies.
 
Greek authorities say they have pushed back more than 30,000 migrants since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would open his country’s borders to western Europe Feb. 28.

His decision follows a deadly airstrike in Syria that killed 33 Turkish soldiers in the region of Idlib, unleashing a fresh deluge of refugees into Turkey.

Erdogan has repeatedly warned the international community that he can no longer continue to shoulder the burden of hosting growing number of migrants. And as Europe is not willing to share that burden, Erdogan says, the Turkish president has opened the borders to allow all asylum seekers then to flee westward.

Greek authorities have made no secret of their resolve and even their use of aggressive tactics to block illegal crossings. But the government in Athens is denying accusations of deadly attacks on migrants – a charge Erdogan himself has made.

Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas categorically denies the allegation, which he said is all part of what he described as a fake news campaign that seems to have no end.

Independent sources have not been able to confirm the alleged shootings.

But the incident is indicative of a massive propaganda war unfolding on both sides of the border.

Since the start of the clashes, Greek media have released footage showing Turkish police appearing to use migrants as human shields and firing stun grenades into Greece.

Greek media have also put out videos showing freshly-released prisoners leading protests from the Turkish side, blaming Erdogan for orchestrating the tension.

Turkish authorities have since then circulated fresh video showing one migrant killed and others injured from rubber bullets fired from the Greek side.

Petsas, who accused Turkey of launching a propaganda campaign, said it is all being carefully organized and choreographed by the Turkish government.

Even so, critics fear some of the urgent measures Greece has now enforced maybe hitting the bounds of international law. These include violent pushbacks of refugees and Athens’ decision to stop processing asylum claims for at least a month.

Human rights watchdogs and critics now fear far-right vigilante groups may exploit the draconian security measures and take the situation into their own hands.

On the island of Lesbos, residents have been blocking migrants’ vessels from docking. And in the north, local and foreign media have documented locals patrolling behind police with rifles in hand, looking for migrants.

…

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the U.S. presidential race Wednesday, the day after former Vice President Joe Biden scored key victories in several of the Super Tuesday primaries. Biden’s dramatic political comeback has reshaped the Democratic primary battle into a two-man race between himself and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington on where the race is headed.

…

Most of the openly LGBT+ candidates competing in this week’s Super Tuesday elections won their races, campaigners said, showing acceptance and momentum building among the nation’s largest-ever field of gay and trans people running for office.

At least 28 LGBT+ candidates won primary races to become their political party’s nominee in the November election, according to the Victory Fund, a nonpartisan group that supports lesbian, gay, bi and trans candidates.

Fourteen U.S. states on Tuesday held political primary contests, most closely watched as the Democratic Party chooses its nominee to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election.

Lower-echelon party contests included the mayoral race in San Diego, California, where openly gay candidate Todd Gloria  finished first in the city’s primary, and in southwestern Texas, where Gina Ortiz Jones won the Democratic Party nod in her bid to be the first openly LGBT+ member of the U.S. Congress from Texas.

In all, 38 Victory Fund candidates were on ballots on Tuesday. Of those, 28 won and three races remained too close to call.

“We are building toward a rainbow revolution in November, with historic LGBTQ candidates running in parts of the country and for levels of government that we never have before,” said Annise Parker, head of the LGBTQ Victory Fund in an emailed statement.

“We are rewriting the rules on electability and embracing the fact that America is ready to elect LGBTQ candidates up and down the ballot.”

More than 730 openly LGBT+ candidates are running for elective office nationwide this year, the largest number ever, according to the Victory Fund.

Political experts said credit was due to Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate to make a competitive run for the U.S. presidency.

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a relative unknown narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, the first measure of the Democratic Party’s nominating process in February, and followed with a close second in New Hampshire’s primary.

But his early momentum did not hold, and Buttigieg dropped out of the race on Sunday.

“There’s one very obvious reason here: The candidacy of Pete Buttigieg has inspired more LGBTQ people to run for office,” Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“There’s a greater acceptance of the LGBT community among the public and a willingness to vote for LGBTQ candidates in many parts of the country.”

Also, efforts to trim LGBT+ rights by the Trump administration, such as banning trans people from serving openly in the military and proposing that firms with federal contracts be allowed not to hire gay and trans workers on religious grounds, gave momentum to LGBT+ candidates, experts said.

“The mainstream position now is one of acceptance for LGBT people and the challenger position is for those who don’t,” said Susan Burgess, a political science professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

“And that’s huge,” she said.

According to an exit poll conducted in 12 of the 14 states by NBC News, one in 10 voters identified as LGBT+.

This year’s field of LGBT+ candidates follows a historic 161 openly gay or trans candidates winning office in 2018 out of 225 candidates endorsed by the Victory Fund.

…

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to Moscow on Thursday for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at de-escalating tensions between the armies of Turkey, a NATO member, and Russia, a nuclear superpower, in Syria’s war-torn Idlib province. 

While nominally partners in a fight against terrorism in the region, Moscow and Ankara have been cast on a seemingly unavoidable collision course in Idlib — the territory in northwest Syria where Russia is helping its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, wipe out one of the last bastions of opposition to his rule. 

Turkey, along with Western governments, accuses the Syrian government of carrying out a bombing campaign with Russian support that has provoked a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a million civilians fleeing the fighting for the Syria-Turkey border.    

The siege has also met with forceful pushback from Ankara because it opposes Assad’s rule. In response, Turkey has launched a military campaign intended to protect what it says are largely anti-Assad rebels, not terrorists, in the Idlib stronghold.   

During his briefing with reporters Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia hoped for a compromise with Erdogan, despite those differences.   

“We expect to reach a common understanding on the crisis, the cause of the crisis, the harmful effects of the crisis, and arrive at a set of necessary joint measures,” Peskov said.    

In turn, Erdogan has indicated he expects to negotiate a cease-fire with Putin over Idlib, despite vowing that a recent spate of Turkish attacks against Syrian government targets were “only the beginning” of revenge for the deaths of several dozen Turkish soldiers in Syrian bombing raids last week.    

Injecting more uncertainty ahead of the talks was Assad.  

In an interview with the Kremlin-backed Rossiya-24 channel, the Syrian leader said his forces would finish the operation in Idlib before moving on to mop up remaining pockets of resistance.    

“I’ve said many times that Idlib, from a military point of view, is a steppingstone, and they put all their forces to stop its liberation so we can’t proceed to the east,” Assad said, accusing Turkey and its NATO alliance partner, the United States, of trying to thwart his inevitable military progress.   

The art of diplomacy  

On the eve of the Putin-Erdogan summit, events surrounding the Idlib battlefield continued to churn unpredictably, a sign that all sides were trying to increase bargaining positions ahead of the talks.  

On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Turkey had violated earlier negotiated agreements with Moscow, accusing Ankara of providing direct military aid to terrorist groups in Idlib who routinely fire on Russia’s main base in the region.   

Russia also seized the strategic town of Saraqeb from Turkish-backed rebels, a move that according to Russian media reports put Russian soldiers in the immediate line of fire from Turkish forces. No injuries were reported.   

Multiple reports also suggested Russia had beefed up its naval presence by dispatching a fourth warship to the region. 

Meanwhile, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov insisted that Western reports of mass refugee flows and a humanitarian crisis along the Turkey-Syria border were overblown and reflected “fake concern” over the issue.   

Turkey, Konashenkov argued, had instead been intentionally pushing refugees from other countries toward Europe to try to gain concessions and backing from the European Union in Ankara’s standoff with Moscow.   

‘Tsar vs. sultan’ 

Russia entered the Syrian civil war in 2015, aiding Assad in what the Kremlin insisted was an anti-terrorist campaign against Islamic State, and what Western powers have billed as a ruthless effort to root out opposition to Assad’s rule.   

For a time, Moscow and Ankara papered over those differences, choosing to focus on a common enemy in Islamic State, which had carried out terrorist attacks in both countries, killing scores of people. Later deals involving trade, energy and oil also helped their alliance.   

Yet the standoff over Assad has always been at the core of the relationship between Putin and Erdogan, which Russian media have billed as ‘”the tsar vs. the sultan.” 

Analysts in Moscow see a dangerous game in which Russia’s ambitions to become a Middle East power broker through Syria have bumped into Turkey’s ascension as a key regional player. 

“For Turkey, it’s about its own internal stability, and of course, huge ambitions,” Alexey Malashenko, chief researcher at the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, told VOA in an interview.  

“But the presence of Russia in the south of Syria proves once again that Russia is still a power. If there’s no Assad, Russia’s not in Syria, and we’re not in the Middle East.” 

The facts of war   

Despite its role as a Middle East powerbroker, Russia’s presence has struggled to stem recent fighting between Damascus and Ankara. 

Turkey said Syrian government airstrikes killed 54 Turkish soldiers in February alone, including 33 airstrikes in Idlib last week.  

Turkish forces responded by shooting down three Syrian government warplanes and striking a military airport deep inside Syrian territory, which killed what Turkey said were over 100 Assad regime loyalists.    

“We said that we would avenge the death of our martyrs,” Erdogan said this week. “By destroying the regime’s warplanes and tanks, we are making it pay a very heavy price.” 

As casualties mounted on both sides, analysts in Moscow openly questioned whether Russia could assert pressure to stop the fighting, even if it wanted to.  

“Of course, Russia has a certain degree of influence on Damascus. But you could also look it at from another angle — that it’s Russia who is trapped,” Alexey Khlebnikov, a Middle East and North Africa expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, said in an interview. “It cannot say to Damascus, ‘If you don’t do this, we’ll withdraw our forces and leave.’ It won’t happen.” 

The implication? Despite any agreements between Putin and Erdogan in Thursday’s meeting, Assad may not follow the script. 
 

…

Chinese President Xi Jinping likes to travel big. His visit to Myanmar in January — the first for a Chinese leader in almost two decades — was no exception, capped off with no less than 33 bilateral agreements.

China, Myanmar Sign Dozens of Infrastructure Deals

Deals reached as Myanmar faces global criticism for targeting minority Rohingya Muslims

However, the number alone overstates things. Some of the “agreements” merely saw Xi’s entourage hand over feasibility studies for proposed projects. Many are not new. The number does, however, underscore the ever-tighter orbit Myanmar has been tracing around its giant neighbor since a detente with the West hit reverse over a massacre of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority in 2017.

Crucially, a few of the deals advance China’s plans to turn Myanmar into a secure new route to the Indian Ocean, valuable to Beijing for strategic and economic reasons.

Whether China’s coming spending splurge spells boom or bust for threadbare Myanmar — and peace or more war for its restive fringes — remains a worry.

A pair of Chinese-built oil and gas pipelines already bisect Myanmar, from Kyaukphyu on the country’s Bay of Bengal coastline to its border with China’s landlocked Yunnan province. As part of Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor would add a rail link to the route, an industrial park along their shared border and — most critically, and controversially — a deep sea port at Kyaukphyu to anchor it all.

“For China I think it’s very important. This plays into their need to build new economic corridors that can sustain the landlocked Chinese interior … Yunnan province being quite a sort of backward province in terms of its development,” said Hervé Lemahieu, director of the Asian Power and Diplomacy Program at Australia’s Lowy Institute, a research group.

“And it’s important as well in terms of the fact that they want access, direct access to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean via a route that bypasses the choke point of the Malacca Strait. So that’s another kind of key strategic concern.”

Nearly a third of the world’s seaborne trade passes through the strait connecting the Indian Ocean to the hotly contested South China Sea — including some 80% of China’s energy imports. The narrow waterway, which the U.S. Navy regularly patrols, would be easy to cut off in the event of a fight.

“The other big objective is to try to get neighboring Southeast Asian economies more closely integrated into the Chinese economy, particularly that of the less developed Chinese interior. That’s what they’re doing in Laos and Thailand with an extended rail network. In Myanmar, that is being done with the corridor projects and deep sea port,” Lemahieu said.

Jonathan Hillman, who heads the Reconnecting Asia Project at the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the billions of investment dollars the corridor projects come with will inevitably ratchet up China’s political influence in Myanmar.

He’s more skeptical of predictions that the corridor will solve China’s so-called Malacca Strait dilemma.

“When you look at the volumes of energy the corridor could carry, it doesn’t really do much to reduce China’s dependence on energy supplies through the Malacca Strait. A lot of analysts have rushed to conclude this is a brilliant geo-strategic undertaking without looking closely at whether it will actually impact energy flows,” he said.

However, Kyaukphyu will complement the other deep sea ports China is developing elsewhere around the Indian Ocean to go along with its growing commercial and military presence there.

A military base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa is well placed to defend China’s energy shipments from the Middle East. Other Indian Ocean powers are also eyeing its commercial ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka with growing suspicion for their potential as additional outposts for China’s navy.

Analysts see little similar potential for Kyaukphyu for now.

Like a growing number of other countries wrapped up in China’s grand Belt and Road Initiative plans, Myanmar has been pushing back against projects that risk drowning it in debt.

Lemahieu said much of Xi’s visit in January was “damage control” for China’s past missteps and that his trip “sets things back on track.”

China, Myanmar past relations

The Kyaukphyu port project had stalled after Myanmar’s 2015 elections saw the military relinquish some power to a quasi-civilian government effectively under former opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Receptive to growing fears that the $7.2 billion price tag could land Myanmar in a debt trap, Myanmar’s government convinced China to keep the cost of the port’s first phase to $1.3 billion and double Myanmar’s stake in the project to 30%. Some of the deals Xi signed on his visit make the new terms official.

In 2010, even Myanmar’s military regime was pressured by popular protest to suspend Beijing’s plans for a massive hydropower dam at Myitsone, the poster child of local fears of China’s growing influence in Myanmar. China is keen to start work, but the dam remains a touchy subject for Myanmar and conspicuously missed mention in all official accounts of Xi’s visit.

Myanmar’s success scaling back the cost of the Kyaukphyu port has eased fears of a debt trap. However, Hillman said a persistent shroud of secrecy around Belt and Road Initiative projects and myopic thinking about their viability mean debt risks remain real.

China already holds nearly half of the roughly $10 billion Myanmar currently owes other countries; its share is only expected to grow as Belt and Road Initiative projects progress.

Decades of Chinese investment in Myanmar under the military regime have made most of the country wary of Beijing’s intentions, said Khin Khin Kyaw Kyee, who heads the China desk at the Institute of Strategy and Policy, a research group in Myanmar.

“Local communities, they are not the beneficiaries,” she said. “They have to bear all the burdens of these investments, such as land confiscations or the loss of livelihoods. So we usually associate this kinds of big Chinese investment with negative impact on them.”

China has also undercut promises of a windfall of new Belt and Road Initiative jobs for locals by having imported its own labor force for past projects, she added.

What worries some just as much or more is the impact the projects may have on Myanmar’s fragile peace process.

Myanmar’s military has been waging war with an ever-evolving cast of ethnic armed groups on the country’s edges for six decades. Some operate as little more than armed gangs. Others, vying for autonomy from a central government they accuse of ignoring minority rights, have carved out pockets of self-rule. The corridor cuts straight through a swath of northeastern Myanmar just across from China where ethnic Kachin, Shan and Ta’ang rebels are all active.

Illicit border trade in timber, gems and much else has helped sustain the strongest of these rebel armies, giving China substantial sway over which way the peace talks turn.

Lemahieu said China’s growing involvement in Myanmar’s peace process at the same time as its economic clout in the country is once again growing is raising concerns that Beijing wants to monopolize the role of broker, shutting other countries out.

“That’s obviously a domestic matter for Myanmar, but it’s also a real vulnerability for Myanmar and for the central government,” he said.

Kyaw Kyee said many in Myanmar are hoping that China’s interests in protecting its corridor through the country will convince it to use its leverage to tamp down the violence, if not necessarily end it. She worries about a scenario wherein Chinese companies working on different Belt and Road Initiative projects hire competing local armies for security, keeping them armed and dangerous.

“Overall I think China would maintain some kind of stability along the border,” she said. “But … stability does not equal to peace.”

…

Wednesday, the nonprofit group, Freedom House, releases its annual report on freedom and the state of democracy around the world.  Continuing a 14-year trend, some of the findings are discouraging.  As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, the group says individual freedoms and democratic systems are under attack.

…

Governments around the world are stepping up efforts to combat the coronavirus that so far has infected at least 90,000 people and killed more than 3,100. In Japan, the prime minister has ordered schools to close until spring break, as South Korea, Italy, Iran and other nations are mobilizing forces and equipment to begin disinfection operations. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.

…

The southern US state of Texas is preparing for a possible coronavirus outbreak – and reaching out to neighbors on both sides of the US-Mexico border. A task force of public agencies and private groups from Texas, the neighboring state of New Mexico and the Mexican State of Chihuahua are sharing data and coordinating medical response protocols to handle any patients suspected of infection. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports from the border city of El Paso

…

Iran’s supreme leader put the Islamic Republic’s armed forces on alert Tuesday to assist health officials in combating the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the deadliest outside of China, that authorities say has killed 77 people.
    
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s decision was announced after state media broadcast images of the 80-year-old leader planting a tree wearing disposable gloves ahead of Iran’s upcoming arbor day, showing how concern about the virus now reaches up to the top of the country’s Shiite theocracy. Iranian media reported that 23 members of parliament now had the virus, as did the head of the country’s emergency services.
    
“Whatever helps public health and prevents the spread of the disease is good and what helps to spread it is sin” Khamenei said, who has not worn gloves at past arbor day plantings.
    
After downplaying the coronavirus as recently as last week, Iranian authorities said Tuesday they had plans to potentially mobilize 300,000 soldiers and volunteers to confront the virus. It wasn’t clear if Khamenei’s order would set them in motion helping sanitize streets, direct traffic and track possible contacts those ill with the virus had with others, as initially suggested.
    
There are now over 2,530 cases of the new coronavirus across the Mideast. Of those outside Iran in the region, most link back to the Islamic Republic.
    
Yet experts worry Iran’s percentage of deaths to infections, now around 3.3%, is much higher than other countries, suggesting the number of infections in Iran may be far greater than current figures show.
    
Iran stands alone in how the virus has affected its government, even compared to hard-hit China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
    
The death of Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi on Monday  makes him the highest-ranking official within Iran’s leadership to be killed by the virus. State media referred to him as a confidant of Khamenei.
    
The virus earlier killed Hadi Khosroshahi, Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican, as well as a recently elected member of parliament.
    
Those sick include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as “Sister Mary,” the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Also sick is Iraj Harirchi, the head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who tried to downplay the virus before falling ill.
    
On Tuesday, lawmaker Abdolreza Mesri told Iranian state television’s Young Journalists Club program that 23 members of parliament had the coronavirus. He urged all lawmakers to avoid the public.
   
 “These people have a close relationship with the people and they carry different viruses from different parts of the country, which may create a new virus, so we recommend the lawmakers to cut off their relationship with the public for now,” Mesri said.
    
The semiofficial ILNA and Tasnim news agencies in Iran also reported that Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of the country’s emergency services, had come down with the new illness. They offered no other immediate details.
    
An activist group also said Tuesday that Wikipedia’s Farsi-language website appeared to be disrupted in Iran after a close confidant to the supreme leader died of the new coronavirus.
    
The advocacy group NetBlocks linked Mirmohammadi’s death to the disruption, though Iranian officials and its state media did not immediately acknowledge it. Authorities face increasing criticism from the Iranian public over the outbreak amid concerns the number of cases from the virus may be higher than currently reported.
    
NetBlocks described the disruption to accessing Farsi Wikipedia as being nationwide, saying its technical testing suggests the online encyclopedia is being blocked by the same mechanism used to block Twitter and Facebook. Those social media websites have been banned since Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election and Green Movement protests.
    
Some Iranians said they couldn’t access Wikipedia’s Farsi website since Monday night. Others said they could, including through the site’s mobile-friendly pages.
    
“The new restrictions come as Iran faces a growing crisis following the loss of senior state figures to coronavirus and a spate of criticism and misinformation have spread through social media,” NetBlocks said in its analysis.
    
The Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the volunteer-edited encyclopedia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NetBlocks previously reported internet disruptions affecting Iran in recent days and users across the Islamic Republic have reported problems.
    
The disruption raises fears of Iran potentially shutting off the internet entirely again, as it did for a week during economic protests in November. Iran separately has created its own so-called “halal” net of government-approved websites.
    
Meanwhile Tuesday, the Middle East’s largest airline, Emirates, said it had to reduce or ground flights due to the new virus. Because of the slowdown, the government-owned carrier has asked its employees to take paid and even unpaid leave for up to a month at a time. Emirates’ operates out of Dubai, the world’s busiest for international travel.
    
“We have been tested before and Emirates will come out stronger,” Chief Operating Officer Adel Al-Redha said.
    
The world’s largest airline trade association, IATA, says Mideast carriers have already lost around $100 million in revenue due to a drop in ticket sales because of disruptions caused by the virus.

…

A powerful tornado struck the southeastern U.S. city of Nashville, Tennessee and surrounding areas early Tuesday morning, killing at least seven people and causing extensive damage.

Video captured the tornado moving through downtown accompanied by occasional flashes of lightning, turning buildings to rubble.  Emergency officials say they responded to reports of at least 40 structure collapses throughout Nashville. Officials opened several emergency shelters to house residents who were forced out of their homes, one of them a farmer’s market on the outskirts of downtown.  The city’s schools were shut down Tuesday.

The tornado also destroyed several hangars at a small municipal airport in west Nashville as it made its way into downtown.   At least two of the deaths occurred in Nashville.

The tornado first hit near the small town of Camden, located about 160 kilometers west of Nashville, killing one person.  Additional people were killed when the twister moved into the small city of Cookeville, located nearly 140 kilometers east of the state’s capital.

Political observers say the tornado is likely to affect voting in Tennessee, which is one of 14 states that are part of the so-called “Super Tuesday” primary.

…

The deadly coronavirus spread to new countries Monday, even as the number of new cases at the epicenter of the illness in China dropped to their lowest level in six weeks and hundreds of patients were released from hospitals.

The World Health Organization reported nearly nine times more cases outside China than inside the country, with new reports of the outbreak in New York, Berlin and Moscow. The death toll surpassed 3,000, including two in the U.S., and the number of people affected in 60 nations rose to more than 89,000.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, said the number of new coronavirus cases reported in China continues to decline in the latest world-wide assessment, down to 206, the lowest total since January 22. 

“We are in unchartered territory,” Tedros said. “We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures.”

The spread of coronavirus impacted people throughout the world. Millions of Japanese schoolchildren are being held out of class for four weeks, contaminated Israelis were forced to vote in Monday’s presidential election at special polling places and thousands of tourists were turned away from the shuttered Louvre in Paris, the world’s most popular art gallery.

In Germany, it’s common for people to greet each other with handshakes. But when German Chancellor Angela Merkel showed up for a meeting with migrant groups, her interior minister, Horst Seehofer, rebuffed her as she stretched out her hand for a greeting.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris warned that the global economy could shrink for the first three months of the year for the first time since the 2008 world-wide recession.

“Global economic prospects remain subdued and very uncertain,” the agency said. OECD lowered its 2020 global growth forecast by half a percentage point to 2.4%, which would be the weakest advance since the height of the downturn in 2008.

U.S. manufacturing slowed again in February, the Institute for Supply Management said, as the global supply chain was impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

But key stock exchanges in the U.S., Europe and Asia advanced Monday, recovering a small portion of last week’s losses, when the value of stocks were battered by coronavirus fears. Key exchanges in the U.S. were up by more than 2% in mid-day trading.

In the U.S., President Donald Trump and his coronavirus task force were set to meet at the White House with executives of major drug companies about the possibility of advancing work on the development of a vaccine for coronavirus. The drug industry has said that such a cure is up to 18 months away.

Trump claimed credit for limiting the effects of coronavirus in the U.S.

“I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended,” he said. “Saved many lives. Dems were working the Impeachment Hoax. They didn’t have a clue! Now they are fear mongering. Be calm & vigilant!”

I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives. Dems were working the Impeachment Hoax. They didn’t have a clue! Now they are fear mongering. Be calm & vigilant!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2020

On Wednesday, top U.S. officials are meeting with airline and cruise ship executives about their plight with the spread of coronavirus cutting discretionary travel.

South Korea reported about 600 new cases Monday, while the leader of a religious group linked to a majority of cases there apologized. Officials have asked prosecutors to consider murder charges against the group’s leadership for failing to cooperate with government efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

The United States has about 80 confirmed cases, including the second death reported late Sunday in the western state of Washington. Health officials said the virus may have been circulating undetected among the community for weeks.

Monday brought the first two reported cases in Indonesia, with health officials saying they had links to an infected Japanese national.

Italy has been the hardest-hit nation in Europe and saw its number of cases surge to about 1,700 on Sunday. Officials there said they expected that number to rise.

WHO says the majority of the coronavirus patients are adults with symptoms that include fever, dry cough and shortness of breath.

It says 80% experience mild illness, 14% severe disease and 5% of those infected with the virus become critically ill. WHO says those who experience the most severe cases are people older than age 60 and who have other health problems.

…

Iranian authorities uncovered a stash of hoarded medical supplies including millions of gloves as deaths from its coronavirus epidemic hit 66 including a senior official.

A World Health Organization (WHO) technical team flew into Tehran to help with the response in the country with the most deaths outside China, where the flu-like disease originated.

Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi announced on state television 523 new infections and 12 new deaths, giving a total of 1,501 cases and 66 fatalities.

Among the dead was Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a member of the Expediency Council, intended to resolve disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, a governmental body that vets electoral candidates among other duties, Tasnim news agency said.

Several other senior officials have been infected including Masoumeh Ebtekar, the vice president for women and family
affairs, and Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi.

Government spokesman Ali Rabiei said a closure of schools announced on Saturday would continue through the end of this week, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The hoarded supplies, including 28 million medical gloves, were found in two warehouses in Kahrizak, a town about 25 km south of Tehran, a Revolutionary Guards commander, Hassan Hassanzadeh, told the Fars news agency.

Pharmacies are short of gloves and other supplies.

Anyone found hoarding medical supplies will be dealt with harshly, Iran’s judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday, according to Mizan, the news site of the judiciary.

“Show no mercy to hoarders of medicine and medical supplies,” Raisi said in a message to prosecutors.

During its week-long visit, the four-person WHO team is to meet health officials and visit facilities and laboratories dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.

Several countries in the region have reported coronavirus infections in people who have visited Iran. These include
Kuwait, whose Health Ministry on Monday reported 10 new cases in the last 24 hours, all of whom had been in Iran.

Qatar’s Health Ministry said on Monday that four more people had been diagnosed with coronavirus, among a group who were evacuated by the government on a private plane from Iran on Feb. 27. That raised total cases in Qatar to seven.

The United Arab Emirates sent a shipment of medical supplies, including gloves and surgical masks, to Iran on Monday, state news agency WAM reported.

…

The Chinese government has “weaponized” visas as part of a stepped-up campaign of pressure on foreign journalists operating in the country, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said in a report on Monday.

China last month revoked the visas of three Wall Street Journal reporters in Beijing after the newspaper declined to apologize for a column with a headline calling China the “real sick man of Asia.” Another reporter with the paper had to leave last year after China declined to renew his visa.

“Since 2013, when Xi Jinping’s ascension to power was completed, China has forced out nine foreign journalists, either through outright expulsion or by non-renewal of visas. The FCCC fears that China is preparing to expel more journalists,” the group said, citing responses from 114 reporters to a survey.

“Chinese authorities are using visas as weapons against the foreign press like never before, expanding their deployment of a long-time intimidation tactic as working conditions for foreign journalists in China markedly deteriorated in 2019,” it said.

Zhao Lijian, spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said the FCCC report was “inappropriate” and that China does not recognize the organization.

“There are over 600 foreign journalists stationed in China and they don’t need to worry about their reporting in China as long as they observe Chinese laws and regulations,” he told a regular media briefing.

Beijing has previously strongly denied accusations the government is limiting press freedoms for foreign reporters. It has also criticized foreign media coverage of issues like the treatment of minority Uighurs in Xinjiang, protests in Hong Kong and China’s senior leadership, calling it biased.

The FCCC said that for a second year running, none of the respondents to the survey said reporting conditions in China had improved, with 82% saying they had experienced interference, harassment or violence while out reporting.

A quarter of respondents also said they had received visas of less than 12 months. China-based foreign reporters typically receive one-year visas and have to renew them annually.

“As China reaches new heights of economic influence, it has shown a growing willingness to use its considerable state power to suppress factual reporting that does not fit with the global image it seeks to present,” the report said.

“As scrutiny is intensifying toward China, it is more important than ever for foreign media to have freedom to report and cover the country,” the report added.

“The ability for foreign journalists to be based in China without impediment is crucial for quality international news coverage about the country.”

Some Reuters journalists are members of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

…