Turkey claims to have one of the lowest COVID mortality rates in Europe, surpassing many more wealthy countries. But doctors warn complacency could spoil that record.   Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.Camera: Berke Bas, Turkish Ministry of Health Produced by:  Rod James   
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Spain has had the world’s highest nursing home death rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Madrid city government documents show officials set rules preventing nursing homes from transferring some residents to hospitals at the time the infection rate peaked.  Now, some people are demanding answers.  Jonathan Spier narrates this report by Alfonso Beato in Barcelona. Camera: Alfonso Beato, Produced by: Jon Spier 
 
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Parts of Australia’s second biggest city, Melbourne, are to go back into COVID-19 lockdown Wednesday following a surge in cases. Authorities have said 36 suburbs have had an “unacceptably high” number of new infections detected in the past few days.Australia has had 7,834 confirmed coronavirus cases.  104 people have died. With 73 infections, Victoria has accounted for almost all of the national tally of new COVID-19 cases in the past 24-hours.   Failures in the hotel quarantine program are being blamed.   Travelers returning to Australia from overseas face a mandatory 14-days in isolation. The state government has said that breaches in security have been linked to the spread of the disease in parts of Melbourne.  Health officials have said the surge in infections was ‘heart breaking.’More than 300,000 people will face legally-enforceable restrictions on their movement as dozens of suburbs are once again placed into lockdown.    The Victoria premier Daniel Andrews is warning that the pandemic “will not be over for a long time” and says strict lockdown measures are needed. “The chief health officer has advised me to reimpose restrictions, so they will be stay at home orders and they will run for four weeks.  There will only be four reasons that you are permitted to leave your house and only if you really have to; for work or school,  for care or care-giving, for daily exercise, for food and other essentials,” Andrews said.Fines of about $1,000 could be imposed if residents leave their homes without good reason.  They are also banned from traveling to neighboring New South Wales.  Anyone from a virus hotspot in Melbourne who tries to cross the border in defiance of public health orders could face a fine of almost US $7,500 or up to six months’ in prison.      Disease control measures in New South Wales are being eased.  Museums, libraries and some cinemas can now reopen, while more passengers are allowed on public transport.  Queensland is also planning to reopen its borders to other Australian jurisdictions in 10 days’ time, although travellers from Victoria will face restrictions. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump says he will veto an annual bill appropriating money for the Defense Department if the measure includes a requirement for renaming U.S. military installations that honor the Confederate States of America. His latest rejection of the move came in a late Tuesday tweet in which he repeated his frequent slur against Senator Elizabeth Warren. “I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!”People gather around the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., June 20, 2020. The global civil unrest ignited by Floyd’s death has left many Americans questioning their country’s racist past.The Senate Armed Services Committee gave bipartisan approval in a 25-2 vote on Warren’s amendment last month. It calls for the Pentagon to act within three years to identify and rename any base, street, aircraft, weapon or other “asset” commemorating the Confederacy, a group of states that wanted to preserve slavery and seceded from the country before losing the 1860s Civil War. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy have all signaled they are open to renaming the bases. Among the installations named after Confederate military figures are Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, Fort Hood and Fort Pickett. The issue re-emerged amid nationwide protests following the death in police custody of African-American George Floyd.  Protests in multiple cities have targeted monuments to Confederate figures and led to some being removed, including one of Jefferson Davis, the president of the confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia, and one honoring top general Robert E. Lee in Montgomery, Alabama. The popular NASCAR racing series also banned the display of the Confederate flag at its events. 
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An Iranian Christian convert sent into internal exile by Iran’s government after it jailed him for six years for his peaceful evangelism has criticized his banishment as a form of harassment.  Iranian authorities had ordered 33-year-old Ebrahim Firoozi into exile in the southeastern town of Rask in Sistan and Baluchistan province last November, leaving him about 1,600 kilometers from his home in the Tehran suburb of Robat Karim. He had been released from Rajaei-Shahr prison near Tehran in October at the conclusion of a six-year prison term for Christian evangelical activities designated as national security offenses in the Islamist-ruled nation.  Before his detention and trial in 2013, Firoozi had served a half-year in prison for proselytizing in 2011.   Firoozi’s 2013 sentence included two years of internal exile at the conclusion of his prison term. An Iranian court extended his period of banishment by 11 months in March as punishment for making a brief departure from Rask in December 2019 to deal with family affairs in Hamedan, where he was born a Muslim in 1987. The court accused Firoozi of violating the terms of his internal exile by taking an unauthorized leave of absence that lasted several days. He later told overseas Christian organizations that he had sought permission for the trip and proceeded after receiving no response from authorities.  Firoozi made the trip to Hamedan to resolve issues related to the death of his mother in December 2018 while he was in prison, he told the groups.  In a Thursday phone interview with VOA Persian, Firoozi criticized Iran’s government for sending activists such as himself into internal exile, saying it does so in order to legally harass citizens who reject its agenda once they have left prison.  The former prisoner of conscience described the conditions of his internal exile in Rask, a town of about 1,000, as tough. “Rask has no hospital and only one pharmacy that lacks essential drugs. If you get sick, there is no place to go,” he said.  Firoozi said he is barred from leaving Rask’s boundaries and must report to a local police station every 24 hours. He said five other former prisoners also have been exiled to the town.  In his March interview with California-based Iranian Christian group Hovsepian Ministries, Firoozi said he decided to convert to Christianity after discovering online videos about the faith and studying a bible when he was living in Tehran in his early 20s. He said he knew he could get into trouble with Iran’s Islamist authorities for sharing his knowledge and love of the faith with other Iranians, but was determined to continue doing so because he believed he was doing nothing wrong.  Firoozi said that during his years of detention, Iranian judges offered him freedom or reduced prison time in return for renouncing Christianity, but he refused to contemplate such a step.  Speaking to London-based Iranian Christian rights group Article 18 in April, Firoozi said he had been treated well and even offered housing by Rask’s predominantly Sunni Muslim community.  “As soon as it became known that I was only there because of my beliefs, these dear people accepted me as a guest on the first night,” he said.  Iran prohibits its Muslim citizens from converting to another religion. Muslims make up 99.4% of Iran’s 84 million people, according to U.S. government estimates. Iran’s refusal to recognize the Christianity of converts means it only recognizes two main categories of Christians. One category is Armenian and Assyrian Christians whose presence in Iran predates Islam, and the other is citizens who can prove they or their families were Christian before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Iran’s post-1979 constitution recognizes Christians as one of only three authorized religious minorities, along with Jews and Zoroastrians. It requires members of these minorities to register as such but bars converts from doing so. As a result, Iranian converts long have been denied the same rights as recognized members of Christian communities. The U.S. State Department’s latest annual report on religious freedom in Iran, published earlier this month, cited human rights activists as saying Tehran continued to target Christian converts last year with arbitrary arrests, physical abuse and other forms of harsh treatment. This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Mehdi Jedinia of VOA’s Extremism Watch Desk contributed. Click here for the original Persian version of the story.  
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Haiti reopened its two international airports in Port-au-Prince and Cape Haitian, as well as four official border crossings in Anse-a-Pitres, Malpasse, Belladere and Ouanaminthe on Tuesday. President Jovenel Moïse announced the news in a national address.  The airports closed to all nonlocal flights on March 16 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but exceptions were made for some nonlocal flights, including to fly people who were stuck in Haiti back to their home countries.JetBlue Flies American Citizens, Residents Stuck in Haiti Home Passengers boarding flight to Fort Lauderdale told VOA they are not afraid and look forward to returning to Haiti Safety measures  
 
Officials told VOA that safety measures are in place to limit vehicular traffic in and around the airport, with special attention paid to passenger pick-up and drop-off zones. Agents will limit the number of passengers around airline check-in counters and security check points. Face masks are mandatory.  “Security agents will accompany passengers going through immigration, where we placed signs indicating where they should stand in adherence with social distancing measures,” Joseph Frantz Sedras, director of equipment for Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, told VOA Creole.   Protective glass barriers are in place at all agent counters, and procedures are in place to keep passenger lines moving forward.  Sedras told VOA that social distancing will be mandated at every step of the departure and arrival process and that security agents will search passengers and their luggage before they reach the immigration area. In addition, counters and equipment will be disinfected often, he said.    “When the passenger reaches the departure lounge, he/she will be allowed to occupy every other seat in accordance with social distancing guidelines,” Sedras said. “These measures will be mandated throughout the departure lounge.”   Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed throughout the airport for passenger and employee use.     COVID-19 infections  Haiti currently has 5,933 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data published by the published health ministry on June 29. That number is an increase of more 1,000 cases since June 20 when the confirmed infection toll stood at 4,916. The current death toll is 105.  Health officials say the hardest-hit regions are the northeast, west and Artibonite departments, but there is speculation that the toll could be higher nationwide, where fear of stigmatization keeps people from seeking medical treatment.Workers with the Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population walk outside of International Airport Toussaint Louverture, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 15, 2020.Diaspora travelTravelers from the Haitian diaspora are essential to the country’s economy, according to Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe. During a visit to the Port-au-Prince airport before its reopening, he told VOA Creole he recognizes their desire to tend to property, as well as attending annual religious festivals.    “I can’t keep them from coming to dance at the festivals. And if the airport in Puerto Plata (Dominican Republic) is open and we are not, Haitians will find a way to get here somehow,” he said.  With regards to the pandemic and its spread, the prime minister said he consulted the country’s top health experts on a timeline but was not given an answer.     “Community transmission is an issue. There are many people who say they have a fever or a cold, they insist it’s not corona(virus). But we know how Haitians are. I guess if I had it, I would say I didn’t, too. So, all we can do is reinforce the security measures and preventative measures already in place,” he said.  Jouthe said hand washing and wearing masks are a necessity, even though they are not always comfortable.  Criticism  
Opposition Sen. Jean Renel Senatus told VOA that he, too, understands there are people who need to travel to Haiti to deal with important matters, but he doubts the government’s information about the current COVID-19 situation.  He also expressed concern about the surge in U.S. cases.   “We’ve heard that cases are spiking in Miami. And most of the planes arriving in Haiti are coming from Miami, Florida,” the senator said. Scheduled flights   Eleven flights are scheduled to arrive in Haiti on July 1, according to FlightRadar24, a website that tracks air traffic worldwide in real time. Among those, five flights from U.S. carriers American Airlines, Spirit and JetBlue departing from Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New York City, are due to arrive between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time.     
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