Spaniards demonstrated against the monarchy Saturday as allegations of corruption against former King Juan Carlos, King Felipe’s father, continue to mount.Wearing masks and observing social distancing to adhere to coronavirus restrictions, protesters in Madrid waved Republican flags.”Now more than ever, amid a health crisis, a crisis of the system, we have a head of state who is stealing in front of our faces is even more outrageous than ever,” said Mar Hernandez, a teacher. “We had to come here to prove it.”Felipe had already renounced any inheritance from his father when the corruption allegations surfaced in mid-March. He has also ended Juan Carlos’ palace allowance.“I think that corruption has to be something much more serious, we should all be here today in the first place, all representing our people saying how much more they will continue to steal, and nothing will happen,” said Raquel Boca, a retiree.In June, Spain’s Supreme Court initiated an investigation into the former king’s involvement in a high-speed rail contract with Saudi Arabia after Switzerland’s La Tribune de Geneve newspaper reported Juan Carlos had received $100 million from the late Saudi king.Juan Carlos has repeatedly declined to comment on the allegations. 
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President Donald Trump’s bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from a census tabulation used to determine how many U.S. representatives are apportioned to each state is unworkable and unconstitutional, according to civil rights groups and several American cities and counties suing the administration.“It can’t be done,” Sarah Brannon, managing attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, told VOA, adding that the citizenship determination Trump is mandating would be hard to ascertain and “not very reliable.”Another civil liberties group, Common Cause, filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Trump’s directive, joined by cities in New Jersey and Georgia. Later in the day, Arlington County, Virginia, said it was joining the suit.“The Constitution requires an accurate count of our population every 10 years,” Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey said in a statement. “We must have an accurate count of everyone living in Arlington and refuse to allow this unlawful effort to scare people and suppress the census count of our immigrant community.”Others are applauding the executive order. Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall called it a “victory” for the state.“When the states’ congressional seats and Electoral College votes are divided up, representation should be based on those people who reside in their states and this country lawfully,” Marshall said.The Supreme Court last year blocked the Trump administration from including a citizenship question on the 2020 census.In an executive order issued earlier this week, Trump directed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, to present data as to the number of undocumented people counted by the census. The administration would then exclude the undocumented from each state’s census count for the purpose of determining whether a state loses, gains or retains members in the House of Representatives, a process that occurs every 10 years.The executive order reads: “For the purpose of the reapportionment of Representatives following the 2020 census, it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status under the Immigration and Nationality Act.”The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of citizenship in relation to the census or congressional apportionment, a point underscored by law professor Ilya Somin, who teaches at George Mason University in Virginia.“Section 2 of the 14th amendment specifically says that representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state,” Somin, a self-described libertarian, told VOA. “I think the overwhelming likelihood is the courts will rule against [Trump’s directive] because it is blatantly unconstitutional.”Population subset not countedOn Tuesday, the Trump administration argued the Constitution “does not specifically define which persons must be included for the purposes of apportionment and requires only that representatives be apportioned according to what has long been understood to mean the ‘inhabitants’ of each state.”But Howard University Constitutional Law Professor Steven Jamar told VOA the argument the administration is using deals with a subset of people – such as tourists and business travelers – who, though they might be counted in the census, are not counted for apportionment purposes.“There are some people who are not within the state on the date of the census. They are traveling or they’re out of the country. … There are some people who are just tourists visiting the state from somewhere else. And those people have historically not been counted for apportionment purposes. … they’re generally not even counted in the census because they aren’t resident in the state. But an immigrant, whether they’re documented or not, is residing in the state,” Jamar said.Trump, however, vowed to “collect all of the information we need to conduct an accurate census and to make responsible decisions about public policy, voting rights, and representation in Congress.”Last year the Supreme Court blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question for the first time in 60 years.“It’s not about who can vote. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about whole persons residing in the state. So, the question is really just ‘Who’s living there?’” Jamar said.Conservatives agree with administrationThe Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, agrees with the administration’s directive, adding that Trump acted “firmly within his statutory authority to determine who are the ‘inhabitants’ of a state for purposes of apportionment.”“The administration must now work diligently to collect and make available the data necessary to support and implement this substantial change, and hopefully this change can be implemented swiftly,” according to a statement.In 2018, the state of Alabama filed litigation against the U.S. Census Bureau and argued the current system of apportioning congressional seats gives an unfair electoral advantage to states with more undocumented immigrants and that Alabamians would likely lose a congressional seat and an Electoral College vote if undocumented immigrants were counted. The lawsuit is currently pending before a federal court.The Pew Research Center in its latest report showed that if unauthorized immigrants were excluded from the apportionment count, California would lose two seats instead of one, Florida would gain one instead of two, and Texas would gain two instead of three. Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio would keep a seat that they would have lost if apportionment were based only on total population change.The report, released Friday, is based on projections of Census Bureau 2019 population estimates.“In addition to these states, 11 more would gain or lose seats based on population change alone, no matter whether unauthorized immigrants are included or excluded,” according to the analysis.Gathering immigration dataThe administration has not disclosed how it would identify undocumented immigrants. The questions in the census questionnaire does not include or require respondents to disclose their immigration status or citizenship status.Terri Ann Lowenthal, a census consultant who once served as the staff director of the former House oversight subcommittee for the census, said all the data available on the undocumented immigrant population are estimates.“We have some sense, right, we do have states that provide benefits to undocumented persons and so they have some administrative data, which give us some sense of the size of the population. But again, having said that, the apportionment formula for seats in Congress is an extraordinarily complex mathematical formula, I always say, that about five mathematicians in the country can explain,” Lowenthal said.She is more concerned about the heightened fear the directive creates in immigrant communities.“I’m concerned that this fear will affect participation in the rest of the census. The census still has to count more than 35 percent of households in this country, in the remaining field operation,” Lowenthal said.This week, the Census Bureau started to visit households that have yet to respond. The bureau has also reported that so far 62 percent of U.S. households had completed their census forms.The first results were due December 31 but because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Census Bureau has delayed fieldwork, and some of these dates have changed. The agency has also asked Congress to extend the legal deadline to publish data.Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democratic politician and voting rights activist, told VOA that people on both sides of the aisle need to worry about this directive because when the population is not accurately counted, everyone suffers. In 2019, Abrams launched a nonprofit to ensure that “hard-to-count” populations are recorded during the 2020 census.Abrams emphasized the lack of legality to gather immigration status data.“The census cannot inquire about the citizenship of any person. It’s not on the form. They can’t ask it out loud. And if you get that question, close the door and call the Census Bureau,” she said. 
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Tunisian President Kais Saied on Saturday designated the interior minister as the new prime minister to succeed Elyes Fakhfakh, who resigned over allegations of a conflict of interest, the presidency said.New Premier Hichem Mechichi pledged to respond to the social and economic demands that have spawned constant protests in the North African country.”I will work to form a government that meets the aspirations of all Tunisians and to respond to their legitimate demands,” Mechichi said.Mechichi, 46, an independent, now has a month to form a government capable of winning a confidence vote in parliament by a simple majority, or the president will dissolve parliament and call for another election.The resignation of Fakhfakh this month rippled through parliament, where parties are seeking a no-confidence motion against Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. A session is scheduled for Thursday.With Saied choosing Mechichi, the result of any vote in parliament for the government is not guaranteed.Mechichi is seen as close to Saied and served as the president’s adviser. 
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Washington has dispatched a special envoy for Afghanistan to press for peace talks between the government and Taliban fighters, with the diplomat scheduled to visit Kabul on a trip with stops in five nations, the U.S. State Department said Saturday.U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad departed on Friday to travel to Doha, Kabul, Islamabad, Oslo and Sofia, the department said in a statement.The United States is drawing down its troops in Afghanistan under an agreement struck in February with the Taliban.The agreement aimed to pave the way for formal peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government, and Khalilzad’s task is to try to bring both sides to the table.Khalilzad plans to press for a deal on prisoner exchanges and a reduction in violence, two issues that have hampered progress toward starting peace talks.”Although significant progress has been made on prisoner exchanges, the issue requires additional effort to fully resolve,” the State Department said in its statement.On Wednesday, Khalilzad condemned an attack by Afghan government forces that killed 45 people, including civilians, in airstrikes against Taliban fighters in a western province bordering Iran.
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Jordanian security forces arrested leading members of the opposition-run teachers union Saturday, raided its offices and shut it down for two years, escalating a confrontation with a group that has become a leading source of dissent.Prosecutors charged Nasser Nawasreh, the acting head of the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate, with incitement over a speech to supporters last Wednesday that criticized Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz’s government. State media said other charges related to allegations of financial and administrative wrongdoing.Riot police reinforcements were deployed Saturday near the seat of government in the capital and in other areas where teacher activists were planning protests. Security forces raided the union’s headquarters in Karak.Political opposition is often marginalized in Jordan, but protests have grown in recent years over eroding living standards, corruption and the slow pace of political reforms. Saturday’s crackdown on the union would “only further aggravate political tensions by the government at a time people are choked under hard economic conditions,” said Murad Adailah, head of Islamic Action Front, the largest opposition party.Monthlong strikeThe 100,000-strong union went on strike last year, shutting down schools across Jordan for a month in one of the longest and most disruptive public sector strikes in the country’s history.In recent weeks its leadership has accused the government of failing to honor a deal signed last October that ended the strike.The deal included a 50% pay raise this year, which the government now says is unaffordable because of the economic blow from the coronavirus crisis.Some officials have also accused union leaders of harboring the Islamist opposition’s political agenda. The union says this accusation is part of a government smear campaign.Opposition politicians say the government has been using draconian emergency laws enacted in March at the start of the coronavirus lockdown to limit civil and political rights. Activists have been arrested in recent weeks over comments on social media.
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Peter Green, the dexterous blues guitarist who led the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac in a career shortened by psychedelic drugs and mental illness, has died at 73.A law firm representing his family, Swan Turton, announced the death in a statement Saturday. It said he died peacefully in his sleep? this weekend. A further statement will be issued in the coming days.Green, to some listeners, was the best of the British blues guitarists of the 1960s. B.B. King once said Greenhas the sweetest tone I ever heard. He was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”Green also made a mark as a composer with Albatross,'' and as a songwriter withOh Well” and Black Magic Woman.''  He crashed out of the band in 1971. Even so, Mick Fleetwood said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2017 that Green deserves the lion's share of the credit for the band's success.Peter was asked why did he call the band Fleetwood Mac. He said, Well, you know I thought maybe I'd move on at some point and I wanted Mick and John (McVie) to have a band.' End of story, explaining how generous he was,'' said Fleetwood, who described Green as a standout in an era of great guitar work.Indeed, Green was so fundamental to the band that in its early days it was called Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac.Peter Allen Greenbaum was born on Oct. 29, 1946, in London. The gift of a cheap guitar put the 10-year-old Green on a musical path.He was barely out of his teens when he got his first big break in 1966, replacing Eric Clapton in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers _ initially for just a week in 1965 after Clapton abruptly took off for a Greek holiday. Clapton quit for good soon after and Green was in.In the Bluesbreakers he was reunited with Mick Fleetwood, a former colleague in Peter B's Looners. Mayall added bass player McVie soon after.The three departed the next year, forming the core of the band initially billed as ``Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac featuring (guitarist) Jeremy Spencer.''Fleetwood Mac made its debut at the British Blues and Jazz festival in the summer of 1967, which led to a recording contract, then an eponymous first album in February 1968. The album, which included ``Long Grey Mare'' and three other songs by Green, stayed on the British charts for 13 months.  The band's early albums were heavy blues-rock affairs marked by Green's fluid, evocative guitar style and gravelly vocals. Notable singles included ``Oh Well'' and the Latin-flavored ``Black Magic Woman,'' later a hit for Carlos Santana.But as the band flourished, Green became increasingly erratic, even paranoid. Drugs played a part in his unraveling.On a tour in California, Green became acquainted with Augustus Owsley Stanley III, notorious supplier of powerful LSD to the The Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey, the anti-hero of Tom Wolfe's book ``The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.''  ``He was taking a lot of acid and mescaline around the same time his illness began manifesting itself more and more,'' Fleetwood said in 2015. ``We were oblivious as to what schizophrenia was back in those days but we knew something was amiss.''``Green Manalishi,'' Green's last single for the band, reflected his distress.In an interview with Johnny Black for Mojo magazine, Green said: ``I was dreaming I was dead and I couldn't move, so I fought my way back into my body. I woke up and looked around. It was very dark and I found myself writing a song. It was about money;The Green Manalishi’ is money.”In some of his last appearances with the band, he wore a monk’s robe and a crucifix. Fearing that he had too much money, he tried to persuade other band members to give their earnings to charities.Green left Fleetwood Mac for good in 1971.In his absence, the band’s new line-up, including Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, gained enormous success with a more pop-tinged sound.  
 
Green was confined in a mental hospital in 1977 after an incident with his manager. Testimony in court said Green had asked for money and then threatened to shoot out the windows of the manager’s office.  Green was released later in the year, and married Jane Samuels, a Canadian, in 1978. They had a daughter, Rosebud, and divorced the following year. Green also has a son, Liam Firlej.  Green returned to performing in the 1990s with the Peter Green Splinter Group.  In 1998, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with other past and present members of Fleetwood Mac.
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A rights defender whose detention in Kyrgyzstan became a point of contention between the Central Asian country and the United States has died in jail, his lawyer said Saturday. Ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan — a loyal ally of Russia — tore up a long-running cooperation agreement with the United States after Washington awarded a rights prize to Azimjon Askarov in 2015.The 69-year-old was serving a life sentence for inciting disorder and complicity in the murder of a policeman, allegations which he denied.He was “unable to walk” due to an illness, his lawyer Valeryan Vahitov told AFP by telephone Saturday, following a visit to his client this week.  “No one paid him any attention. The system killed him,” Vahitov said, confirming Askarov had died.  “I brought him melons and watermelons. I told him to eat, to hold himself together, that we all loved him,” Vahitov said of his last visit to Askarov.”He cried. (Askarov) knew that he was dying and no one lifted a finger.”In 2016, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that Askarov’s detention was arbitrary and that he had been tortured in detention.Yet multiple courts in Kyrgyzstan upheld Askarov’s conviction, which dated back to a spate of bloody ethnic violence in 2010. He was from the ethnic Uzbek minority and had a long history of opposing police abuse and torture in his home region of Jalal-Abdad, which was one of the flashpoints of the violence.The clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the south of the impoverished country left hundreds dead and echoed lethal violence between the two groups on the eve of the country’s independence from the Soviet Union. 
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The U.N. refugee agency is increasing efforts to protect tens of thousands of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Brazil and the communities hosting them from the COVID-19 pandemic, which already has claimed nearly 83,000 lives in the country.Brazil is the second worst affected country in the world and the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America. Venezuelans comprise most of the 345,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the country.
 
They have found a safe haven in Brazil from the economic hardship and political oppression in their country but now find themselves at high risk of becoming infected and even dying from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
 
The U.N. refugee agency says the pandemic is disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable. Those include the poorest, indigenous populations and other native communities, as well as refugees. UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch says his agency has been helping local and national authorities prevent the spread of the disease since its onset.
 
“We have been scaling-up our support to help mitigate the threat of the virus among refugees, migrants and the local communities hosting them by providing infrastructure to strengthen the national health system, cash assistance, hygiene items and life-saving information such as informative sessions on preventive measures.,” Baloch said.
 
Baloch says the number of refugees who have contracted the virus is unknown because of the absence of data. He says the UNHCR is aware of at least 19 COVID-19 related deaths among refugees, of whom nine were indigenous Venezuelan refugees.
 
“UNHCR is also addressing rising humanitarian and health needs among refugees living on the streets, and in the overcrowded shelters and unsanitary conditions in the northern regions of Brazil, including in the Amazonas, Roraima and the Para states,” Baloch said.Amazonas state is one of the most affected regions in Brazil. It has more than 92,000 confirmed cases, including more than 3,000 COVID-19-related deaths.
 
Baloch says the UNHCR is expanding its information and preventive campaign in the region in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, He says information sessions are being given in indigenous languages to make sure life-saving messages reach local residents. 
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India has toughened trade rules for neighboring countries in a move seen aimed at China, as a dispute along their Himalayan borders plunges ties between the Asian giants to their lowest point in decades.In fresh rules issued this week, India said companies from countries with which it shares land borders would need political and security clearances from the foreign and interior ministries to bid for government contracts.The government said the move was meant to “strengthen the defense of India and national security.”While the rules do not name China, the new curbs will impact Chinese companies looking to invest in infrastructure projects in India, according to trade experts.“It is large projects which will be affected. These are big ticket investments,” points out Biswajit Dhar, a trade analyst and professor of economics at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “India depends a lot on China for such projects.”It is the latest in a series of measures aimed at Chinese investment in India as New Delhi reevaluates its economic ties with Beijing.Last month, India banned 59 mostly Chinese apps, including the hugely popular TikTok, in what federal minister Ravi Shankar Prasad described as a “digital strike” meant to safeguard people’s data.In April, the government announced that it would screen foreign investment from countries with which it shares a land border.While these measures will have very limited impact on China’s much bigger economy, they will put a roadblock on a trade relationship that blossomed for years and made China India’s second-biggest trading partner.But even as New Delhi tries to wean itself from dependence on Beijing, the deteriorating economic ties will come at a cost, since China has a large footprint in projects from infrastructure to technology.“The big question is, you are going to deny China entry into India’s infrastructure projects.Would anyone else step in and who would that be?” points out Dhar. “If you look at the bigger picture, it is China which has the deep pockets in terms of making investments and supplying equipment.”As India tries to reduce its dependence on Beijing, it is calling on American companies to increase investment in sectors such as technology, energy, defense and space.At the “India Ideas Summit” held online by the U.S India Business Council earlier this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the “the rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust.”At the same forum, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said India had a chance to move “supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies and others.”“India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many countries around the world, including the United States,” Pompeo said.Calls for closer ties with the United States have been growing since India’s military confrontation with China.New Delhi and Beijing have deployed thousands of soldiers along their undemarcated borders in the eastern Ladakh state where a clash killed 20 Indian soldiers in June.Talks are continuing to defuse the standoff but efforts at disengagement have made only limited progress so far. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a BBC television interview Friday that “in the first few weeks and months” of the coronavirus outbreak his government did not understand the intricacies of the virus.Johnson said “probably, the single thing that we didn’t see at the beginning was the extent to which it was being transmitted asymptomatically from person to person.”“There are things that we need to learn about how we handled it in the early stages,” said Johnson, a recovered COVID-19 patient.“Maybe there were things we could have done differently,” he said.Britain has nearly 300,000 infections according to Johns Hopkins University, and almost 46,000 deaths from the virus.Simple decisions that are made every day in nonpandemic times — such as where to go, what to do and whom to see — have become “life and death” choices during the outbreak, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned during a briefing in Geneva.”It may not be your life, but your choices could be the difference between life and death for someone you love or for a complete stranger,” he said.A child wearing a protective face mask, stands in line to receive a free meal in the Peronia neighborhood of Villa Nueva, Guatemala, July 24, 2020.Tedros also pushed back on the remarks U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made this week, saying Tedros had been “bought” by China, causing the deaths of people in the coronavirus outbreak.”WHO will not be distracted by these comments and we don’t want the international community to be distracted. The biggest threat we face continues to be the politicization of the pandemic. Politics and partisanship have made things worse,” the WHO chief said.On Friday, the WHO reported that worldwide infections grew by 284,196 in 24 hours.  WHO also said the global death count rose by 9,753 — the most in one day since April 30.Vietnam has imposed a ban on the import of wildlife and wildlife products.  The ban also prohibits markets from selling the products.  The measure is designed to avoid the outbreak of another pandemic.  The coronavirus outbreak is widely believed to have originated in a wildlife market in China.The top U.S. infectious disease expert called on U.S. states with a resurgence of COVID-19 infections to pause their reopening plans to prevent the further spread of the ailment caused by the novel coronavirus.In an interview Friday with The Washington Post, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said states may not necessarily have to go all the way back to a complete shutdown but added, “You certainly have to call a pause and maybe even a backing up a bit.”Fauci also said that for the other states, “Please take a look at the example of what happens when you open in a way that might be too quickly.” He said, “Everybody should be trying to reopen America again,” but that it should be done in accordance with set guidelines.Fauci also said during the interview he and his family have been receiving death threats and have a security detail assigned to protect them.The U.S. continues to lead the world with COVID infections with 4.1 million cases, followed by Brazil with 2.2 million and India with 1.3 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking cases around the world. There are more than 15.7 million global COVID-19 infections, according to Hopkins, and more than 639,000 deaths.In California, eight prisoners on San Quentin’s death row have died.  The outbreak has taken up residence in the prison population.  Joe Garcia, a prisoner who is also a staff member of the San Quentin News and an editorial liaison for the Prison Journalism Project, has penned an opinion piece for The Washington Post entitled “Inside San Quentin prison, you sit and wait until COVID-19 comes for you.”The head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said he expects the coronavirus will have a huge impact on migration for years to come.Jagan Chapagain told the French news agency Agence France-Presse that “people will feel compelled to move” when borders open because of lost livelihoods and food insecurity.        
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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it is “concerned” that authorities in Zimbabwe may be using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to clamp down on citizens’ freedoms. This week, police arrested a prominent investigative journalist and an opposition leader, accusing them of inciting public violence.Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and politician Jacob Ngarivhume have been jailed since Monday on allegations of inciting public violence — through social media — ahead of a planned July 31 government corruption protest. Both men have denied the charges.In Geneva on Friday, OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell said Zimbabweans have a right to protest corruption or anything else.“Merely calling for a peaceful protest or participating in a peaceful protest is an exercise of recognized human rights,” she said. “We are also concerned at reports of police using force to disperse and arrest nurses and health workers for infringing lockdown restrictions as they were trying to protest for better salaries and conditions of work… While recognizing the government’s efforts to contain the pandemic, it is important to remind the authorities that any lockdown measures and restrictions should be necessary, proportionate and time-limited, and enforced humanely without resorting to unnecessary or excessive force.”Late Friday, Chin’ono was denied bail by the Magistrate Courts, one day after the courts denied bail to Ngarivhume. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said it would appeal the rulings to the High Court next week.Earlier in the week, bail hearings for Chin’ono and Ngarivhume were cut short on two consecutive days. Officials said they wanted to leave early to ensure they comply with a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed in Harare on Wednesday as part of new restrictions to contain the coronavirus.Beatrice Mtetwa of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who is representing Chin’ono, was not amused.“We find this extremely frustrating because constitutional rights like the right to liberty have now been suspended through failure to make appropriate arrangements,” she said. “Surely, they should make arrangements such as bail to take staff home so that constitutionally guaranteed rights like liberty are not unnecessarily infringed. It’s extremely frustrating. It makes a mockery of the need to come to court within 48 hours. It makes a mockery of the requirement that bail (application) be heard urgently.”Announcing the curfew, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said he was aware that some rights would be infringed upon. But Mtetwa was not convinced.“If you want to make excuses for trampling on people’s rights, you are absolutely free to do so but it is not what the constitution provides for,” she said. “Bail matters are always heard on an urgent basis. You can sit right into the night as long as you make arrangements to take the court staff home. So, it cannot be an excuse that the president has decreed. The president has no power to suspend constitutional rights.”Getting into a waiting prison vehicle Friday, Chin’ono had this to say to waiting reporters:“We are being persecuted for talking about corruption and we won’t be bowed.” Asked about his spirits, he said, “I am fine.”Nick Mangwana, the secretary of Zimbabwe’s ministry of information, did not answer phone calls from VOA. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration continued to make the case Friday for schools to reopen for the academic year, saying schools and teachers are “essential” despite a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases.”It is our firm belief that our schools are essential places of business, if you will, that our teachers are essential personnel,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a news briefing Friday.When asked why Trump is canceling the Republican convention but is encouraging schools to open, McEnany said children are “not affected in the same way as adults” and that “we can make precautions and take measures to protect” children.Several studies have suggested that children are less likely to become infected by the coronavirus than adults and are more likely to have milder symptoms.However, Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told the television program Today on Friday that it was “still an open question” on how quickly young children can spread the virus. She also said that children with underlying health conditions can “suffer terrible consequences” if they become infected.U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said during a talk Friday at Marian University in Indianapolis that “opening up our schools again is the best thing for our kids.”“It’s also the best thing for working families,” he added, arguing that having children return to classrooms is a necessary step to seeing more parents return to their jobs.Presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Friday told the ABC television affiliate in Phoenix that Trump “just wants to order schools to open because he’s afraid if he doesn’t, it will hurt his reelection chances.”On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that school leaders and local officials take into account the virus’ rate of transmission in their area in deciding when to reopen schools. It recommended that students return to in-person learning if there is minimal or moderate spread in an area. 
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The U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan said Friday that violence in the war-torn country had lately been “too high,” but that fatalities among Afghan government security forces battling the Taliban insurgency had dropped 35 percent to 40 percent compared with the same period in 2019.Zalmay Khalilzad, the special representative for Afghan reconciliation, also noted that no American or coalition solider had been killed by the Taliban since the United States FILE – Newly freed Taliban prisoners sit at Pul-i-Charkhi prison, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 26, 2020.Khalilzad said Friday that he was pleased to see the Afghan government had released more than 4,400 insurgent prisoners out of the promised 5,000 in its custody. In turn, the Taliban have released 861 from the objective of 1,000 Afghan forces, he added.“Most of the distance has been traveled in this difficult road but the last mile remains very challenging,” the U.S. envoy said. He added that Washington was committed to working with both sides to help complete the prisoner release so that intra-Afghan negotiations could begin.Khalilzad spoke a day after the Taliban announced that if the prisoner swap is concluded before the Muslim festival of Eid ul Adha starting July 31, the insurgent group was ready to engage in intra-Afghan talks immediately after the three-day festivities.600 still heldBut the Afghan government has refused to free a last set of about 600 insurgent prisoners, saying they were involved in serious crimes, including killing innocent Afghans. The Taliban have denounced the charges as baseless, saying Kabul is using “lame excuses” to delay the peace process.Washington has also repeatedly urged the Afghan leadership to wind up the prisoner swap to pave the way for the peace talks. The Taliban have ruled out participation in the talks until all their 5,000 prisoners are set free.Khalilzad said that the United States has been delivering on its commitments since signing the agreement with the Taliban and has been reducing the number of U.S. forces to the level of 8,600 personnel, as well as vacating five bases in Afghanistan.The remaining American troops and their coalition partners are required to withdraw by July 2021.“But the withdrawal is very much conditions-based and we will see whether the Taliban honor their commitments, because our decisions, our commitments, are contingent on their commitment,” Khalilzad said.He elaborated that, among other commitments, the Taliban are required to prevent transnational terrorists from using insurgent-held Afghan territory for attacks against the U.S. and its allies. The insurgents, he added, have also committed to participate in the intra-Afghan talks and agree on “a comprehensive permanent cease-fire.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed four executive orders aimed at lowering the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs, as he faces an uphill reelection battle and criticism over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has previously proposed most of the changes made by the executive orders he signed Friday, but this was the first time they had made it into signed executive orders. One order would allow for the legal importation of cheaper prescription drugs from countries like Canada, while another would require discounts from drug companies now captured by middlemen to be passed on to patients, Trump said. Another measure seeks to lower insulin costs, while a fourth, which may not be implemented if talks with drug companies are successful, would require Medicare to purchase drugs at the same price that other countries pay, Trump said. Executives of top drug companies have requested a meeting to discuss how they can lower drug prices, the president said. “We will see what those discussions indicate, but the agency is prepared to move forward,” said Medicare chief Seema Verma. Pharmaceutical industry weighs inThe orders received swift pushback from the pharmaceutical industry. The move was “a reckless distraction that impedes our ability to respond to the current pandemic – and those we could face in the future,” the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said in a statement. Wall Street analysts were skeptical that the orders would have much effect on drugmakers and said they could prove difficult to implement in practice. “We believe they are likely geared more towards deriving campaign talking points rather than producing tangible, material effects,” Brian Abrahams, a biotech analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said in a note. Shares of several drugmakers ticked up as Trump outlined the plan, recovering some of the day’s losses. Congress not on boardTrump repeatedly has called for lowering the cost of prescription drugs, but Congress has not yet passed a major drug price reform. Many of the administration’s past efforts to cut drug prices, including its plan to force insurers and other health care payers to pass rebates on to patients, have stalled amid industry pushback. “Reviving a rebate reform proposal now does not address the underlying flaws – that it will drastically increase Medicare premiums for America’s seniors and most vulnerable,” the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, whose members negotiate rebates for health care payers with drugmakers, said in a statement. Paying the rebates directly to seniors in the form of discounts could cut their drug costs by as much as $30 billion, or as much as 30%, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a Friday press call. Trump is under fire for surging coronavirus cases in the United States and beset by decreasing poll numbers ahead of November 3 elections. On Friday, he also said that the White House would propose a health care bill soon but offered few details. Drugmakers often negotiate rebates or discounts on their list prices in exchange for favorable treatment from insurers. As a result, insurers and covered patients rarely pay the full list price of a drug. 
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