Japanese news outlets say Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will seek to succeed Shinzo Abe as the country’s next prime minister.Suga is expected to announce sometime this week that he will seek the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Other candidates expected to vie for the post include former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.Under Japan’s parliamentary system, the ruling party elects the person who will become prime minister, usually the party leader.An opinion poll of the general public taken by Kyodo News shows 34% of those asked want Ishiba to become the next prime minister, with Suga a distant second at 14%. Ishiba unsuccessfully challenged Abe for LDP president in the last intraparty race in 2018.However, analysts say Suga is likely to have more support among the party’s members of parliament and could come out ahead if the voting is restricted to them and the party’s officials.A leadership vote is expected to be held on September 14.Abe unexpectedly announced his resignation last Friday a year before his current term expires, citing the recurrence of ulcerative colitis, which has plagued him for much of his life. The illness forced him to cut short his first tenure as prime minister in 2007 after just one year in office.The 65-year-old Abe just became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister last Monday, breaking the record of his great-uncle, Eisaku Sato, who served 2,798 days from 1964 to 1972. 
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The job losses in Kenya that resulted from the COVID-19 lockdown have also hurt Kenyan artists, who are trying to find different ways to promote their craft and make a living.  Some are using their art to spread health messages about the coronavirus, as Lenny Ruvaga reports from Nairobi.
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President Donald Trump exchanged barbs Sunday with the mayor of Portland, Oregon, less than 24 hours after a man was killed as Black Lives Matter protesters and Trump supporters clashed in the Pacific Northwest city’s streets.At a press conference Sunday afternoon, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler urged protesters not to turn violent or attempt retribution in the wake of Saturday night’s shooting death.The president, apparently watching the broadcast, tweeted his criticism.Ted Wheeler, the wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor of Portland, who has watched great death and destruction of his City during his tenure, thinks this lawless situation should go on forever. Wrong! Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020After Trump called Wheeler, a Democrat, a “fool” and blamed him for the “great death and destruction” in the liberal city, Wheeler, who was visibly angry, addressed Trump through the TV cameras, calling his comments “classic Trump.”“You’ve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create,” Wheeler said to Trump. “What America needs is you to be stopped so we can come back together as one America.”The mayor continued at length, bringing up everything from Trump’s sexist comments about women to his “racist attacks on Black people.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 6 MB480p | 9 MB540p | 12 MB720p | 29 MB1080p | 50 MBOriginal | 56 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioLast week, as he accepted the Republican nomination for president, Trump used Portland as an example of the dystopian future Americans can expect if his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, defeats Trump in the November 3 election.Voters “won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” the president said.But Biden told MSNBC last week that Trump views the street violence “as a political benefit to him. He’s rooting for more violence, not less.”The rally Saturday in support of the president drew hundreds of trucks full of supporters into Portland, some of whom shot paintball guns from the beds of pickup trucks, while protesters on the street threw objects back at them.A police statement said officers heard gunfire and found a white man dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Witnesses said the man was wearing a hat bearing the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Washington state that has previously clashed with protesters.Joey Gibson, the leader of the group, told The Associated Press that he knew the man who died.“I can’t say much right now. All I can do is verify that he was a good friend and a supporter of Patriot Prayer,” Gibson said of the shooting victim in a text exchange.And police are asking anyone with information to come forward.“This violence is completely unacceptable,” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said early Sunday, “and we are working diligently to find and apprehend the individual or individuals responsible.”A top Trump administration official, acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf, on ABC’s “This Week” show blamed the extended violence in Portland on state and local officials for “not allowing law enforcement to do their jobs.”“The violence needs to end,” Wolf said. He said the federal government continues to offer law enforcement assistance to Portland beyond previously sending in troops that subsequently were withdrawn.“They continue to refuse federal assistance to bring this to an end,” Wolf said of Oregon and Portland officials. In Portland, he said “you see exactly how not to protect your city.”“My message to anyone protesting: Please do that peacefully,” Wolf said.Trump retweeted a video showing the caravan of his supporters driving into Portland, calling them “Great Patriots.” On CBS’s “Face the Nation” show, Wolf rejected a suggestion that by applauding the parade of vehicles, Trump heightened tensions.“Absolutely not,” Wolf said.The Portland shooting was the latest incident stemming from racial unrest across the United States as Americans have protested racial injustice and police abuse of minorities following the May 25 death of a Black man, George Floyd, while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota.President Trump on Tuesday is to visit one of those cities, Kenosha, Wisconsin, even though the state’s governor, Tony Evers, has asked him not to come.#Wisconsin governor asks @POTUS not to go to Kenosha on Tuesday. https://t.co/XYim01py5h— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) August 30, 2020On August 23, a white police officer shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back while trying to arrest him in a domestic dispute, spawning several nights of protests, in one of which two people were shot dead and another wounded.A day later, Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old resident in the nearby state of Illinois, who said he was in Kenosha to protect businesses in the street protests, was charged in the killings.“The circumstances of that are still being investigated,” Wolf said.The Homeland Security chief called on local officials to “take early action” to quell street violence.“You can stop this,” he said. “The federal government will provide assistance.” 
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The U.S. tallied nearly 6 million cases of the coronavirus Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.Four Midwestern states recently reported record one-day increases in new cases: Iowa (about 785), North Dakota (about 375), South Dakota (about 425) and Minnesota (about 1,000), all according to Johns Hopkins data.Meanwhile Montana and Idaho say their numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are also setting records.While the Midwest is the newest coronavirus hot spot, the nation as a whole is seeing declines in deaths, hospitalizations, positivity rates and new cases.The spike of new cases can be traced to large gatherings. In Iowa, the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University are reporting many of the new cases. Both schools are holding some in-person classes. Other infections have been traced to an annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, including 88 cases in South Dakota alone.While the United States has the most recorded infections in the world, it ranks 10th based on cases per capita, with Brazil, Peru and Chile having higher rates of infection, according to a Reuters tally.An activist sits among flags placed near the Washington Monument to memorialize the 180,000 people who have died in from the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington.The United States also has the most deaths in the world at nearly 183,000, but it ranks 11th for deaths per capita, exceeded by Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Peru, according to Reuters.  On Tuesday, French children are to return to their classrooms, but the country’s education minister said Sunday that rising coronavirus infections is putting those plans in jeopardy.France is reporting several thousand new infections every day. With two days to go before classes begin, French doctors are calling for stricter measures, including masks for students as young as 6 and some online schooling.  Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that some classes will remain closed Tuesday, but “as few as possible.”The plan is for French schools to resume classes with masks required all day for everyone 11 and older with some restrictions on movements and gatherings.Other European countries, such as Denmark, and many school districts in the U.S. are fully revamping the school day, with smaller classes, more teachers, more separation between students and classes and a mix of in-class and online learning.India reported 78,761 new coronavirus infections in 24 hours on Sunday, the highest single day rise in the world since the pandemic began, while the county is continuing to open its economy.A health worker takes a nasal swab sample to test for COVID-19 at a state bus station in Ahmedabad, India, Aug. 29, 2020.It was the fourth consecutive day that India has registered more than 75,000 infections.India reports about 1,000 COVID-19 deaths a day. So far, more than 63,000 Indians have died from the disease, the fourth highest in the world.While eight of India’s states contribute nearly 73% of the total infections, the virus is spreading fast in vast rural areas.With a population of 1.4 billion people, India is the third most infected nation in the world, behind the United States and Brazil, with 3.5 million cases and more than 63,000 deaths, according to official statistics provided by the country’s health ministry.Johns Hopkins University reports there are more than 25 million COVID-19 cases worldwide. The United States has almost 6 million infections, followed by Brazil with 3.8 million and India with 3.5 million.
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Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims, some in masks and gloves, flooded Iraq’s Karbala on Sunday to mark Ashoura, in one of the largest religious gatherings of the coronavirus era.Ashoura, on the 10th day of the mourning month of Muharram, commemorates the killing of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Hussein at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD — the defining moment of Islam’s confessional schism.Typically, millions of Shiites from around the world flock to the holy city’s golden-domed shrine where Hussein’s remains are buried, to pray and cry, shoulder-to-shoulder.But with coronavirus numbers spiking across the globe, this year’s commemoration has been subdued.”Honestly, this year is nothing like the millions-strong commemorations of other years,” said Fadel Hakim, who was out early in the streets around the shrine, a blue medical mask cupping his chin.  “It stands out because there are so few people.”  Shiite Muslim worshippers light candles outside the shrine of Imam Hussein during the festival of Ashoura in Karbala, Iraq, Aug. 30, 2020.Small clusters of pilgrims gathered in the vast courtyards outside the shrine, wearing the customary black mourning clothes along with less traditional masks and gloves.  To be allowed in, people had their temperatures taken at gray gates resembling metal detectors.Inside, signs indicated the required distance between worshippers as they pray and nylon sheets prevented people from kissing the walls, a traditional sign of reverence.Praying for a ‘miracle’But in the enclave where Imam Hussein is buried, pilgrims pressed their unmasked faces up against the ornate grille separating them from the mausoleum.  Many visitors were crying or sniffling, wiping their faces with bare hands, gestures which could help the virus spread.Despite directives by Iraq’s health ministry to keep apart, worshippers stood in tight-knit circles to vigorously beat their chests, self-flagellate or make small incisions on their foreheads as signs of grief at Hussein’s death.They put on a dramatic re-enactment of his killing at the hands of Sunni Caliph Yazid’s forces, then sprinted towards the shrine in the famed “Tuwairij run”.Some wore masks as they jogged under disinfectant mists, but otherwise no protective measures were taken.  Last year, a stampede broke out in Karbala that left at least 31 dead and dozens more wounded.”This year will prove to the whole world that a pilgrimage to the Imam Hussein shrine is like a miracle. God willing, there won’t be any new coronavirus cases,” said Mohammad Abdulamir, a mask-less pilgrim.  Karbala governor Nassif al-Khitabi defended the safety measures put in place and hailed Sunday as a “success.””Tens of thousands of pilgrims attended,” he told journalists, or about 65 percent of the normal volume.Authorities in Iraq, other Shiite-majority countries and the United Nations urged people to mark Ashoura at home.Neighbouring Iran, which usually sends tens of thousands of pilgrims to Karbala, is the hardest-hit Middle Eastern country with over 21,000 coronavirus deaths.It broadcast religious rituals on state television and even Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prayed alone, according to images published by his office.In Sunni-majority Morocco, Ashoura is controversially marked as a celebration, not a day of mourning.Efforts to get worshippers to stay home, however, ended in riots that wounded more than two dozen police officers and led to over 100 arrests.   ‘An inferno’Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported a fall in new virus cases but security remained a top concern, as Ashoura has often been tainted by mass violence targeting Shiites.In the southern port city of Karachi, an estimated 10,000 took part in the largest ceremony, many flagellating their bare backs using multiple blades at once while a heavy security presence kept close watch.”It’s not possible that anyone would be infected with the virus,” said Israr Hussain Shah, a Shiite devotee in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.  “Rather people come to heal and protect themselves, whether that’s a virus of faith or a sickness,” he said.In many Shiite-majority countries, authorities have long urged their faithful to donate blood instead of self-flagellating.This year, Bahrain implemented tougher screening at their blood drive, with health workers meticulously disinfecting the site.  Organisers also swapped their traditional free food distribution with door-to-door delivery instead.In crisis-hit Lebanon, which has seen a severe coronavirus spike this month, powerful Shiite movements Hezbollah and Amal scrapped large Ashoura processions, although a parade was held in the southern town of Nabatiyeh.Iraq has the second-highest regional toll with close to 7,000 deaths.That kept Abu Ali home in the packed Baghdad district of Sadr City this Ashoura.”My children, grandchildren and I go to Karbala every year, but this year we were afraid of corona,” he said.”Imam Hussein wouldn’t want us to throw ourselves into an inferno.”
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Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany Mustapha Adib is poised to be designated prime minister on Monday after winning the support of major parties to form a new government facing a crippling financial crisis and the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion.Adib is set to be designated just ahead of a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, who is center stage in international efforts to press Lebanese politicians to address a crisis seen as the worst since the 1975-90 civil war.The previous government led by Hassan Diab quit on Aug. 10 over the port blast in which a massive amount of unsafely stored chemicals detonated.The post of prime minister must go to a Sunni Muslim in Lebanon’s sectarian system. Adib’s candidacy won vital political backing on Sunday from former prime ministers including Saad al-Hariri, who heads the biggest Sunni party, the Future Movement.President Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, is to meet with the parliamentary blocs on Monday in the official consultations to designate the new premier. He is required to nominate the candidate with biggest level of support among MPs.Lebanon’s dominant Shi’ite parties, the Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, will both name Adib at the consultations, a senior Shi’ite source said.The Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a political ally of Hezbollah which was founded by Aoun and is led today by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, will do the same, Bassil told Reuters.Adib has a doctorate in law and political science and previously served as an adviser to Najib Mikati, a former prime minister. He has served as ambassador to Germany since 2013.Once designated, the process of forming a new government will get underway. Until a new administration is agreed, the Diab government continues in a caretaker capacity.Lebanon’s financial crisis is seen as the biggest threat to its stability since the civil war. The currency has lost as much as 80% of its value since October and savers have been locked out their deposits in a paralyzed banking system. Poverty and unemployment have soared.Lebanon launched talks with the International Monetary Fund in May, after defaulting on its huge debt, aiming to secure financial support but these have stalled amid divisions on the Lebanese side over the scale of losses in the financial system.
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Malawi president Lazarus Chakwera has asked men in Malawi to strictly follow COVID-19 preventive measures.In his weekly national address, Saturday Chakwera said government statistics indicate that more men in the country are infected with the virus than women. Chakwera said this is largely because of the reckless behavior of many men in Malawi in observing measures aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19. President Chakwera said such an attitude defeats efforts to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
Chakwera said he is deeply concerned that most men in Malawi feel they are very strong and cannot contract the coronavirus. “I am not concerned over this because I am a man, no. But the pandemic has shown that more people who are infected with coronavirus are men because in every 10 confirmed cases, seven of them are men,”  he said.FILE – Malawi Congress Party supporters celebrate Lazarus Chakwera’s win the country’s historic presidential election rerun in Blantyre, Malawi, June 27, 2020. (Lameck Masina/VOA)Recent statistics from the Public Health Institute of Malawi also show that 64 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases are men.    Chakwera has therefore sent a special appeal to men in Malawi to start strictly observing measures against spread of COVID-19 which include the wearing of face coverings, washing hands with soap or applying hand sanitizers and observing social distance. Chakwera says “On behalf of all men, I should say all women should be reminding us men to follow these preventive measures because what we want is to successfully fight this pandemic to build the COVID-free new Malawi nation,” he said. Social commentator Humphreys Mvula told VOA that men in the country are at higher risk of contracting coronavirus because they are more libelous than women.   He says a large number of men in Malawi usually frequent drinking joints and are too adventurous despite the COVID- 19 threat. “Our women on the other hand conservatism in Malawians women is great. Generally whatever the age a Malawian woman will go from work to home; will go from school to home; will go from a specific undertaking back home. And they are also very fearful, look; most of them are more God fearing than men,” he said.   Dorothy Ngoma, a public health expert and a health rights campaigner in Malawi, spoke to VOA on the matter. “More men tend to smoke so their lungs are weaker,” she said. “They drink a lot more and also when they are sick or they have a fever if it’s not serious, it’s mild, they will still go to work unless they are very, very sick they cannot get up. As opposed to women, when women are sick, they say it loud that they are not feeling well, they will seek treatment and they will stay home.”   Ngoma said there is a need to put measures in place that would help men strictly follow COVID-19 preventive measures.   These measures, she says should include imposing an instant fine on those found ignoring the guidelines.   
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The U.N. migration agency reports Insecurity and flash flooding is upending the lives of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the Lake Chad Basin.  
Chad’s Lake Province borders Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.  The region has been under repeated attacks by multiple armed groups since 2015 forcing millions of people to flee.   The International Organization for Migration reports more than 360,000 people in this part of Chad are forcibly displaced.  IOM spokesman, Paul Dillon says new figures show a 22 percent increase in the number of people who have fled their homes since April.  This, he says, means that over half of the region’s population now is considered displaced because of the protracted insurgency.  “Recurrent security attacks and incursions by non-state armed groups since the beginning of the year prompted the Chadian Government in March to declare the departments of Fouli and Kaya, two of Lake Chad’s borderlands departments as war zones,” he said. “Complicating the forced displacement in response to the security issues, the Lake Region is experiencing the highest rainfall in nearly 30 years.”   IOM reports flash flooding of villages and fields have prompted nearly 12,000 people to flee between August 8 and 16, one of the highest numbers it has ever recorded in such a short period.    Dillon calls this a worrying trend as the displacement keeps recurring with increasing frequency.  He says people are facing a double security and environmental crisis amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. “Three-quarters of the displaced persons IOM identified live in displacement sites, most of which are made from straw and metal structures,” he said. “Many of them sleep in the open without adequate protection from the ongoing, continuing bad weather, with limited access to amenities such as water, hygiene installations, health services and COVID-19 protective equipment.”  IOM is providing emergency humanitarian aid to thousands of vulnerable people, including temporary or semi-permanent shelters, and non-food items including hygiene kits, sleeping mats and basic cooking equipment.   The agency says it also is involved in a range of peacebuilding, community stabilization and recovery activities. 
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The U.N. refugee agency says tens of thousands of Nicaraguan refugees and asylum-seekers in Costa Rica are going hungry because COVID-19 restrictions have eliminated job opportunities.More than 81,000 Nicaraguans have sought international protection in Costa Rica from rights violations and political persecution in Nicaragua. Before the pandemic, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports, most of the refugees and asylum-seekers could find work to support themselves.This situation has changed dramatically for the worse because of lockdowns and other restrictions imposed to curb the impact of COVID-19. The UNHCR reports more than three-quarters of Nicaragua’s refugee population is going hungry as a direct consequence of these measures.UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said forcibly displaced Latin Americans largely depend on the informal economy to earn a living.  These jobs, she said, have essentially dried up because of COVID-19.  She said most of these families now eat only two meals a day.“Only 59% of refugee families in Costa Rica are reporting steady work-related income streams as of the end of July.  And, this is a staggering decrease from 93% before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.  So, this now leaves many also at risk of eviction and homelessness.  A fifth of Nicaraguan refugees surveyed in Costa Rica said they now do not know where they will live in the next month,” she said.A recent survey of 21% of Nicaraguan refugees and asylum-seekers indicates at least one member of their households is thinking of returning to Nicaragua because they cannot make a living.  Mantoo told VOA more than 3,000 asylum claims in Costa Rica, most from Nicaraguans also have been withdrawn.“Families are reporting that they are considering these returns back to Nicaragua where maybe what is driving them is this pressing socioeconomic condition—the desperation, the hardship, the poverty that they are enduring …That is just the data that we have and it points as part of the bigger picture that we are seeing—sort of a pressing humanitarian situation there for refugees driving premature returns, but also affecting day-to-day lives,” she said.  Mantoo said the UNHCR is stepping up cash assistance programs throughout Central America to support vulnerable forcibly displaced people.  In face of the worsening situation in Costa Rica, she said her agency and its partners are working with the government to support asylum-seekers and refugees who cannot return to Nicaragua. 
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Montenegrins vote Sunday in parliamentary elections, choosing between the path toward EU membership, led by the long-ruling pro-Western party, or closer ties with Serbia and Russia advocated by a coalition of opposition groups.The elections are being held as a dispute over a religious property law opposed by the influential Serbian Orthodox Church brews.The church argues the law permits Montenegro to confiscate its property in efforts to create a separate Montenegrin church, the government has denied the claim.The main pro-Serb and -Russian opposition alliance, For the Future of Montenegro, backs the church.Polls predict the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, a strong Western ally, in power for about 30 years, will finish first but may not have the votes to form a government alone.Montenegro under the DPS and Djukanovic, broke with Serbia and Russia to join NATO in 2017, after declaring independence from Serbia in 2006.Internally, DPS and Djukanovic, have faced accusations of an autocratic rule, as well as of widespread graft and criminal links.Some 540,000 Montenegrins are eligible to vote in the Balkan country for the 81-seat Skupstina, or Assembly.
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