At least 50 people on the southwestern island of Kyushu are dead after three days of torrential rains, floods and mudslides. The casualties include 14 residents of a nursing home for the elderly in Kumamoto, the region which has sustained the worst effects of the disaster.  The nursing home was swamped by waters from the nearby Kuma River that overran its embankment, leaving residents who were wheelchair-bound trapped on the ground and unable to reach higher ground. At least a dozen people are missing.  The disaster has washed out bridges and roads, prompting emergency crews to sail down flooded streets on rafts and inflatable boats to rescue residents trapped in their homes. Some residents were also rescued from the rooftops of their inundated homes by helicopter. Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Sunday that more than 40,000 members of the  Self-Defense Force, along with local emergency first responders, were involved in search-and-rescue missions in Kyushu.   More than a million people have been ordered to evacuate the Kyushu region. 
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Widespread violence in the past week in Ethiopia following the shooting death of a popular Oromo singer has killed at least 166 people, officials said Monday. Police said about 2,000 people have been arrested in Oromia Regional State, including some senior political leaders of Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and their supporters, after Hachalu Hundessa was killed June 29 by unidentified attackers. People in other areas of the Oromia region told VOA that unidentified attackers targeted people not of Oromos ethnicity, although some ethnic Oromos were also attacked. The survivors told VOA the attackers, who included gunmen, also burned and stoned some victims. Eyewitnesses told VOA that businesses and private homes had been looted and burned, and historical sites destroyed.Girma Gelan, deputy commissioner of the Federal Police, said 156 people, including 145 civilians and 11 members of the security forces, had been killed since the violence began a week ago.  Getu Argaw, police commissioner of Addis Ababa, said 10 people, including eight civilians and two security force members, had been killed. About 20 victims in Dherra town of Arsi Zone in Oromia, about 115 kilometers (72 miles) east of the capital, Addis Ababa, told VOA they witnessed family members being killed, and their properties burned. The victims and eyewitnesses sought shelter in a church in Dherra. Arsi Zone administrator Jemal Aleyu told VOA that 36 people, including two law enforcement officials, were killed in his region. The killings “should never happen again in a community that lived together for years, and people responsible for the killings and the destruction were under police custody awaiting due process,” Aleyu said.In this image taken from OBN video, the funeral for Ethiopia singer Hachalu Hundessa takes place in Ambo, Ethiopia, Thursday July 2, 2020.Meanwhile, a VOA reporter said relative calm has been restored, and some daily activities have resumed in the Western Oromia towns and villages.  Officials said that while protesters in the area attacked government facilities and some private businesses in the past few days, no ethnic-centered attack nor serious damages to properties have been reported. The officials also said some suspects had been captured and are in custody. Getachew Balcha, Oromia regional government spokesman, and Negussu Tilahun, spokesman for the prime minister’s office, confirmed the attacks in several towns in the Oromia region. They blamed the assaults on “a group that is trying to instigate violence and clashes between two ethnic groups and destabilize the country as a whole.” The government has deployed federal police and defense forces in the hot spot areas, and further killings have been stopped, Balcha and Tilahun said. 
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An Iraqi analyst who was a leading expert on the Islamic State and other armed groups was shot dead in Baghdad on Monday after receiving threats from Iran-backed militias. Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on Hisham al-Hashimi, 47, outside his home in the Zeyouneh area of Baghdad, a family member said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The family member heard five shots fired. Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said al-Hashimi was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Al-Hashimi was a well-connected security analyst who appeared regularly on Iraqi television and whose expertise was sought out by government officials, journalists and researchers. Weeks before his death, al-Hashimi had told confidantes he feared Iran-backed militias were out to get him. Friends had advised him to flee to the northern city of Irbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. He rose to prominence as an expert on the inner workings of IS and even advised the U.S.-led coalition during its yearslong battle with the extremists. After Iraq declared victory over IS in December 2017, he increasingly turned his attention to the Iran-backed militias that helped to defeat IS and now wield considerable power in the country. He was an outspoken critic of some of these groups, which have thousands of heavily armed fighters. Reaction to killingNews of his killing spread quickly, with fellow researchers, journalists and others taking to social media to express their condolences. The head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, expressed shocked at the assassination and said the U.N. strongly denounces the “cowardly act.” In a tweet, she called on the Iraqi government to quickly find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. British Ambassador to Iraq, Stephen Hickey, said he was “devastated and deeply saddened” by the news of al-Hashimi’s death. “Iraq has lost one of its very best – a thoughtful and brave man,” he tweeted. Iraqi researcher Fanar Haddad said al-Hashimi was a “strikingly bright mind and a true gentleman,” calling his death a “major loss and an unforgivable crime.” Asked what al-Hashimi’s death might signify to critical analysts, he said, “Critical voices are liable to be silenced if and when deemed necessary.” Political analyst Ihsan al-Shammari, a colleague of al-Hashimi, said those who killed him wanted to “silence the voices that disagree with their opinion” and blamed the shooting on the proliferation of armed groups in the country. Worrying sign?Many saw his death as a worrying sign as the government struggles to rein in the militias. The Iran-backed groups have been blamed for a spate of recent rocket attacks targeting U.S. interests. Authorities launched a raid last week in which they detained 14 members of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah group in Baghdad, but all but one were released just days later, in what was widely seen as a capitulation by the government. In a statement, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said Iraqi security forces would “spare no effort” in pursuing his killers. “We will work with all our efforts to confine arms to the state, so that no force will rise above the rule of law,” the statement said. In some of his final tweets before he was killed, al-Hashimi lamented the country’s bitter divisions and the corruption plaguing its political system. “The rights, blood and dignity of Iraqis have been lost, and their money gone into the pockets of corrupt politicians,” he tweeted Sunday. 
 
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A U.S. federal judge has ruled in favor of Michael Pack, the chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, in a lawsuit over Pack’s decision to fire the heads of government-funded international news agencies. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell denied a request to reverse Pack’s decision to replace the agency heads, saying the decision belongs “at the ballot box” rather than in court.  The judge ruled last week that the suit filed on behalf of the Open Technology Fund, a nonprofit corporation that supports global internet freedom technologies, had “fallen short of making the requisite showings.” The fund had argued that Pack did not have the legal authority to dismiss Libby Liu, the chief executive of Open Technology, or fire the chiefs of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Pack, who took control of USAGM last month, also oversees Voice of America, but the lawsuit pertains to Pack’s dismissals of the heads of the USAGM entities, not his oversight of VOA.Pack is the first Senate-confirmed CEO of USAGM following a major overhaul of the agency’s leadership structure that Congress approved in late 2016 and former President Barack Obama signed into law. The changes gave expansive new powers to the CEO over all of the U.S. government-funded civilian broadcasters, including the power to set budgets and terminate funding for agencies the CEO no longer sees as effective. FILE – Michael Pack, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, is seen at his confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, September 19, 2019. Pack’s nomination was confirmed June 4, 2020.Howell noted, “Congress has decided to concentrate unilateral power in the USAGM CEO, and the Court cannot override that determination.” The lawsuit by the Open Technology Fund argued that the agencies of USAGM are protected from political interference by a “strict ‘firewall’ embodied in statutes, regulations, and binding contract provisions.” The suit contended that Pack’s actions “constitute the most egregious breach of that firewall in history.” Howell said, “Pack’s actions have global ramifications, and plaintiffs in this case have expressed deep concerns that his tenure as USAGM CEO will damage the independence and integrity of U.S.-sponsored international broadcasting efforts.”  However, Howell said, “If Pack’s actions turn out to be misguided, his appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate points to where the accountability rests: at the ballot box.” In an email last month to VOA’s hundreds of broadcasters, editors, writers and support staff, Pack pledged to uphold the government’s mandated independence from outside political interference over VOA. However, some outside watchdogs and news organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have voiced fears about Pack’s willingness to resist political pressure, citing his record as a conservative filmmaker and associate of former Trump chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon. Pack told the Washington Examiner last month that the reason he fired the four agency heads was to create a fresh start and said “it is not atypical to do that” at the beginning of an administration. “It was my view that on day one, by changing senior leadership, I could create this change,” he said.  Pack said he is seeking to “bring objectivity and balance” to the programs run by the USAGM. “All I’m trying to do is bring the agency back in keeping with its mission,” he said. 
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Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has eased the restrictions put in place in early March to contain the spread of the coronavirus. In a nationwide address Monday, the president said this will be a phased reopening meant to strike a balance between containing the virus and sustaining the country’s economic life. A man walks along a railway line as a commuter train approaches, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Kibera slums, in Nairobi, Kenya, July 6, 2020.RestrictionsSome of previous measures remain in place. Restrictions on political and social gatherings, together with a dusk-to-dawn nationwide curfew that was put in place in March, will continue for another 30 days, Kenyatta said. He said places of worship can open but are limited to a maximum of 100 people inside, with events not lasting more than one hour. Congregants must be between ages 13 to 58 and have no underlying medical conditions.  However, the president said local air travel will resume Wednesday, while international air travel will restart August 1. ‘Shared responsibility’Kenyatta said his intention for the country was to “reopen and to remain open,” encouraging Kenyans to exercise “shared and civic responsibility” to ensure success. “But history has taught us that the COVID crisis is not the first health disaster with such enormous economic challenges,” he said. “There were many more before this one.  However, those who overcame previous disasters and finished on top, began by first changing their mindsets. Put differently, it is not enough for the government to pump resources into the economy using stimulus instruments, as we have done. Such efforts will go to waste if the people do not co-create solutions with the government.” Kenyatta said he believes the path to recovery will be rocky and uneven, but ultimately can be navigated.   
 
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Hundreds of protesters continue to camp out at New York’s City Hall demanding massive budget cuts to the police department. The movement to “defund the police” was ignited by the death of George Floyd, an African American, in the custody of white police officers in late May in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death has become a flashpoint in a larger debate about policing and race. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports.
Videographer: Celia Mendoza
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Tourists are back in Italy – a country that a few months ago was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, suffering nearly 35,000 deaths.European Union borders have re-opened to tourists from a list of countries without the need to quarantine.  But the United States is not on that list – much to the dismay of businesses in Italy.  With the tourism industry accounting for 13 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product, the Italian economy – already battered by the COVID-19 pandemic – is expected to suffer significant losses without American tourists who are also the biggest spenders.Since the country began reopening its borders June 3, European travelers were the first to return and then starting last week, those from a number of non-EU nations followed. However, American tourists – the second largest group of visitors to Italy after the Germans – are still barred from entering the country, except for urgent reasons.
 
Today, the few American visitors seen in Italy often have a story to tell. Colleen Hewson, a retiree from the U.S. city of Detroit, and her husband came in March to visit the ruins at Pompeii only to find it closed due to the pandemic. They were caught in Italy’s lockdown, stayed, and were among the first to reenter the archeological site when it reopened at the end of May.
 
“We’re here on a vacation for our 30th (wedding) anniversary staying at an Airbnb (vacation home rental) with a local and he was nice enough to accommodate us until the lockdown was over and the ruins have opened,” Colleen Hewson said.Italy’s Amalfi CoastItaly’s Amalfi Coast is among areas affected by the absence of usually big-spending American tourists 
Expensive hotels popular with Americans such as in the Amalfi Coast area are bracing themselves for big losses this vacation season. Some have partially reopened, while others not at all.  
 
Fifteen million Americans visit Europe each year, many of them during the summer. Their absence is a huge blow since they account for ten percent of Europe’s overall economy.
 
The EU’s decision to exclude travelers from certain nations, including the United States, is based on infection rates. Other major countries whose tourists are barred include Brazil and Russia. Citizens of Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea are allowed in.
 
Last week, five American tourists made the news when they were denied entry to Sardinia, another favorite destination with Americans. They were forced to leave Cagliari airport after flying into the Mediterranean island on a private jet.  
 
The Italian government says 5.6 million Americans visit Italy every year, with July being their preferred month of travel. Aside from the more common destinations like Rome, Venice, Florence and Milan, many flock to the sea resorts like the Amalfi Coast and the major islands of Sardinia and Sicily – where the food and culture are named as the biggest draw.  
 
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The fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi told a Turkish court July 3 that the Washington Post columnist was lured to his death at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul through “a great betrayal and deception,” and she asked that all persons responsible for his killing be brought to justice. Hatice Cengiz spoke at the opening of the trial in absentia of two former aides of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and 18 other Saudi nationals who were charged in Turkey for Khashoggi’s grisly slaying.  The journalist’s 2018 killing at the consulate sparked international condemnation and cast a cloud of suspicion over the prince. FILE – In this Nov. 2, 2018, photo, a video image of Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, picured below, is displayed during a memorial event in Washington, Oct. 2, 2018.The 20 Saudi defendants all left Turkey, and Saudi Arabia rejected Turkish demands for their extradition. Some of the men were put on trial in Riyadh behind closed doors. The proceedings were widely criticized as a whitewash. Khashoggi’s family members later announced they had forgiven his killers. The trial in Turkey is being closely watched for possible new information or evidence from the killing, including the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains.  FILE – A still image taken from CCTV video and obtained by TRT World claims to show Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, highlighted in a red circle by the source, as he arrives at Saudi Arabia’s Consulate in Istanbul, Oct. 2, 2018.Khashoggi, who was a United States resident, had walked into his country’s consulate on Oct. 2, 2018, for an appointment to pick up documents that would allow him to marry his Turkish fiancee. He never walked out. “He was called [to the consulate] with great betrayal and deception,” the state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Cengiz as testifying. Hatice Cengiz leaves the Justice Palace in Istanbul, July 3, 2020.”I am making a complaint about everyone who knew about the incident and about everyone who gave the order,” said Cengiz, who waited for Khashoggi outside the Istanbul consulate when he went there to obtain the documents and alerted authorities when he failed to come out.  Yasin Aktay, a prominent politician from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party and a friend of Khashoggi’s, told the court that the slain journalist felt safe in Turkey despite reports of “operations by Saudis against dissidents abroad.” Aktay also testified that he alerted Turkey’s intelligence chief, among other officials, after Khashoggi failed to emerge from the consulate after five hours. He said the intelligence chief responded, “I wish he hadn’t gone in,” according to Anadolu.  The court also heard testimony from six local Turkish employees of the Saudi Consulate. Five of them said they did not see Khashoggi,. One said he had a brief conversation with the journalist when Khashoggi first entered the building but did not see him again after that. The trial was adjourned until Nov. 24 to await several actions, including an Interpol response to correspondence concerning Turkish requests for the suspects’ arrests, Anadolu reported. Turkish prosecutors have demanded that the defendants be sentenced to life terms in prison, if convicted.  The Turkish prosecutors have charged the prince’s former advisers, Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Asiri, with “instigating a premeditated murder with the intent of [causing] torment through fiendish instinct.” Prosecutors are also seeking life prison sentences for 18 other Saudi nationals charged with carrying out “a premeditated murder with the intent of [causing] torment through fiendish instincts.” A team of 15 Saudi agents had flown to Turkey to meet Khashoggi inside the consulate. They included a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers and individuals who worked for the crown prince’s office.  Turkish officials allege Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw. Turkey, a rival of Saudi Arabia, apparently had the Saudi Consulate bugged and has shared audio of the killing with the CIA, among others. Prior to his killing, Khashoggi had written critically of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in columns for The Washington Post.  Saudi Arabia had initially offered shifting accounts about Khashoggi’s disappearance. As international pressure mounted because of the Turkish leaks, the kingdom eventually settled on the explanation that he was killed by rogue officials in a brawl.  Turkish prosecutors say the suspects “acted in consensus from the beginning in line with the decision of taking the victim back to Saudi Arabia and of killing him if he did not agree.” Riyadh had insisted that the kingdom’s courts are the correct place for the suspects to be tried and put 11 people on trial over the killing. In December, five people were sentenced to death while three others were found guilty of covering up the crime and were sentenced to a combined 24 years in prison.  During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in May, Khashoggi’s son announced that the family pardoned the killers, giving legal reprieve to the five government agents who were sentenced to death.  
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Authorities in Australia are shutting down the border between the country’s two most populous states due a spike in COVID-19 cases in the city of Melbourne. Officials in the southern states of Victoria and New South Wales say the border will be closed indefinitely beginning midnight local time Tuesday.   The border closure is prompted by a record 127 new coronavirus cases in Melbourne, home to over 5 million people and the capital of Victoria state. The outbreak has prompted Melbourne officials to enforce stay-at-home orders in at least 30  neighborhoods, and to impose a “hard” lockdown of nine public housing towers, home to over 3,000 residents, where 23 COVID-19 cases have been detected among 12 households.   Police have been deployed outside the entrances of the public housing towers to enforce the lockdown, which was imposed without the residents being notified, leaving many without essential supplies. The complete lockdown will be in effect until at least Friday.  “It is the smart call, the right call at this time, given the significant challenges we face in containing this virus,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters.   
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Tokyo voters rewarded Governor Yuriko Koike for her handling of the coronavirus outbreak by re-electing her to a second term Sunday. Koike, who easily defeated 22 challengers, used her victory speech to offer a pledge to prepare the city for “a second wave” of COVID-19 and to ensure the Summer Olympic Games that were postponed until next year will be safe and secure, while also scaled back in scope and cost.    But Koike faces a growing reluctance among the public to stage the Games next year. The 67-year-old Koike became the Japanese capital city’s first female elected leader in 2016 and has often been touted as a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been widely criticized for bungling the central government’s response to the pandemic.   
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