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.It was the fourth consecutive day that India has registered more than 75,000 infections.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.In several European cities Saturday demonstrators rallied against restrictions that have been imposed since the COVID-19 outbreak began.Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Berlin to march against mask-wearing and social distancing rules. Police say they arrested about 300 protesters. In London, demonstrators in Trafalgar Square rallied against what they said is the “medical tyranny” that has been placed on them by masks and distancing.A man with a placard reading in German: ‘Watch out! Covidiot’ takes part in a protest against the increasing coronavirus preventative measures in Zurich, Switzerland, Aug. 29, 2020.A few hundred protesters in Paris demonstrated against the capital’s mandatory mask-wearing mandate.In Zurich, about 1,000 demonstrators skeptical of COVID-19 rules called for a “return to freedom.”U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement Saturday night that he is extending the federal cost-sharing for the deployment of the National Guard in Louisiana to help with the state’s response to COVID-19 and to help facilitate the Southern state’s economic recovery.Public health departments throughout the United States are calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse changes the federal agency recently made to its public coronavirus testing guidelines.The Big Cities Health Coalition and the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which represent thousands of local departments, sent a letter Friday to the heads of the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requesting that the agencies reverse a decision to stop testing people who have been exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.The organizations called on the government agencies to reinstate recommendations that people who have been exposed to the virus be tested even if they are asymptomatic.At least 33 states are not following the new CDC guidelines and continue to recommend testing for all people who have been exposed to COVID-19 regardless of symptoms, according to an analysis by Reuters news agency.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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Demonstrators in several European cities Saturday rallied against restrictions that have been imposed since the COVID-19 outbreak.Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Berlin to march against mask-wearing and social distancing rules. Police say they arrested about 300 protesters.In London, demonstrators in Trafalgar Square rallied against what they said is the “medical tyranny” that has been placed on them by masks and distancing.A few hundred protesters in Paris demonstrated against the capital’s mandatory mask-wearing mandate.In Zurich, about 1,000 demonstrators skeptical of COVID-19 rules called for a “return to freedom.”U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement Saturday night that he is extending the federal cost-sharing for the deployment of the National Guard in Louisiana to help with the state’s response to COVID-19 and to help facilitate the Southern state’s economic recovery.Public health departments throughout the United States are calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse changes the federal agency recently made to its public coronavirus testing guidelines.The Big Cities Health Coalition and the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which represent thousands of local departments, sent a letter Friday to the heads of the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requesting that the agencies reverse a decision to stop testing people who have been exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.The organizations called on the government agencies to reinstate recommendations that people who have been exposed to the virus be tested even if they are asymptomatic. At least 33 states are not following the new CDC guidelines and continue to recommend testing for all people who have been exposed to COVID-19 regardless of symptoms, according to an analysis by Reuters news agency. Johns Hopkins University reports there are nearly 25 million COVID-19 cases worldwide. The United States has almost 6 million infections, followed by Brazil with 3.8 million and India with 3.4 million.
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Facebook made a mistake in not removing a militia group’s page earlier this week that called for armed civilians to enter Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid violent protests after police shot Jacob Blake, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.The page for the “Kenosha Guard” violated Facebook’s policies and had been flagged by “a bunch of people,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted Friday on Facebook. The social media giant has in recent weeks adopted new guidelines removing or restricting posts from groups that pose a threat to public safety.Facebook took down the page Wednesday, after an armed civilian allegedly killed two people and wounded a third Tuesday night amid protests in Kenosha that followed the shooting of Blake, who is Black.”It was largely an operational mistake,” Zuckerberg said. “The contractors, the reviewers, who the initial complaints were funneled to, didn’t, basically didn’t pick this up.”Zuckerberg did not apologize for the error and said that so far, Facebook hasn’t found any evidence that Rittenhouse was aware of the Kenosha Guard page or the invitation it posted for armed militia members to go to Kenosha.Facebook is now taking down posts that praise the shooting or shooter, Zuckerberg said. Yet a report Thursday by The Guardian newspaper found examples of support and even fundraising messages still being shared on Facebook and its photo-sharing service, Instagram.Zuckerberg also contrasted the treatment of Blake, who was shot in the back by Kenosha police, and the white 17-year-old now charged in Tuesday’s slayings, Kyle Rittenhouse, who carried an AR-15-style rifle near police without being challenged. Zuckerberg also acknowledged the civil rights demonstration Friday in Washington, D.C.”There’s just a sense that things really aren’t improving at the pace that they should be, and I think that’s really painful, really discouraging,” Zuckerberg said.Zuckerberg also said the company is working on improving its execution, though he did not provide details. He acknowledged that the approaching presidential election would present greater challenges around polarizing content.”There is a real risk and a continued increased risk through the election during this very sensitive and polarized and highly charged time,” he said.
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Dozens of people in Washington and New York City took to the streets Friday afternoon, calling on the U.S. government, the United Nations and countries around the world to do more than condemn the violence against Uighurs, and recognize China’s policies in the northwest region of Xinjiang as a genocide.  The demonstrations came as the ethno-religious minority members mark four years since China stepped up its campaign in Xinjiang, and amid reports that the U.S. government is weighing labeling Beijing’s actions as genocide.  “Tomorrow, August 29, marks the fourth anniversary of Chen Quanguo’s transfer from Tibet to East Turkistan, [the] so-called Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief who was the mastermind behind the building of concentration camps, prisons, Uighur forced labor and high-tech surveillance, the police state as we know it today,” Salih Hudayar, the founder of the Washington-based Uighur organization East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, told VOA.   Uighur demonstrators gather in front of the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., Aug. 28, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Salih Hudayar)Since late 2016, when Chen was appointed as the CCP secretary of Xinjiang, observers estimate that more than 1 million Uighurs have been held in concentration camps while tens of thousands of others have been forced to work in factories around China. Some watchdog groups, among them FILE – A Chinese police officer takes his position by the road near what is officially called a vocational education center in Yining in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, Sept. 4, 2018.Calling the U.S. sanctions against him an “ugly farce and disgusting,” Chen has justified his government’s policies in Xinjiang as a way to establish stability.  “No force can interfere with or stop the stability, development and prosperity of Xinjiang and the solidarity of people of all ethnic groups in the region to march forward. I am full of confidence in a brighter future of Xinjiang,” Chinese state media Xinhua quoted him as saying July 21.   Members of the Uighur diaspora who demonstrated in Washington and New York on Friday told VOA that they still have no way of contacting their family members stranded in Xinjiang, given China’s policy of cutting off the region’s communication to the outside world. Many of the protesters held pictures of their relatives, who they said were taken into concentration camps, and chanted slogans like “China stop Uighur genocide” and “Independence for East Turkistan.”  Many Uighurs call their ancestral homeland East Turkistan, an appellation for the present-day Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, with Urumqi as its capital.   FILE – Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, Sept. 4, 2018.One of the protesters in Washington, Aziz Sulayman, 49, told VOA that his 33-year-old brother Alim Sulayman, 47-year-old brother-in-law Yehya Kurban and 31-year-old cousin Ekram Yarmuhammed were all taken by Chinese authorities in the second half of 2016 and have not been seen since.   “My brother was a dentist, my brother-in-law was a businessman, and my cousin was a graduate from a medical school. They didn’t need any vocational training or reeducation as China lied to the world,” Sulayman said, adding that his communication with his mother and five sisters has also been cut off since late 2016.“I don’t know whether my entire family is still alive or dead. We are here to show the world that what the CCP is committing in our homeland against our loved ones meets the criteria of U.N. Genocide Convention,” Sulayman told VOA.  The U.N. defines genocide as any of several acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” according the U.N. website that lists the acts. U.S officials in the past have criticized the CCP treatment of Uighurs in strongly worded statements. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called it the “stain of the century” and condemned it as “a human rights violation on a scale we have not seen since World War II.”
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Weeklong negotiations in Geneva aimed at drafting a new constitution for Syria have ended with an agreement to meet for further talks at an as yet unspecified date.There was no breakthrough in the complex process of drafting a constitution, a key prelude to forming a post-conflict government in Syria. However, there also was no rancorous breakup.U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen describes the talks in Geneva as challenging. But he says that did not deter the 45-member Constitutional Committee from engaging in substantive negotiations.  As the U.N. mediator and go-between among the members of the committee, he says he found it fascinating to listen to their discussions. “Obviously, there are still very strong disagreements, and my Syrian friends are, of course, never afraid of expressing those disagreements,” Pedersen said. “But I was also extremely pleased to hear the two co-chairs saying very clearly that they thought also there were quite a few areas of commonalities.”   FILE – The first meeting of the new Syrian Constitutional Committee gets under way at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Oct. 30, 2019.The weeklong meeting got off to a rocky start. One day after it began, it was temporarily suspended because four members of the committee had tested positive for COVID-19. The talks resumed after a two-day break when new tests apparently indicated the earlier tests were false positives, although those four members attended the talks virtually after that.Though the week was shorter than anticipated, Pedersen says the delegates were able to build a bit of confidence and trust in each other. “I believe the tone was respectful,” he said. “I also got a clear message both from the co-chairs and from the members that they are keen to meet again, and we will build obviously on what we have discussed so far, and this in my opinion is encouraging.”The U.N. mediator says he will be meeting with the two chairs to decide on the agenda for the next round of talks. He says a date for the next meeting will be set once an agreement on the agenda has been reached.
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The U.N. human rights office is condemning excessive use of force by security guards that killed 22 inmates and injured eight others during a mass escape at a Madagascar jail nearly a week ago.Security forces reportedly opened fire as hundreds of men were trying to escape Sunday from Madagascar’s Farangana prison in the southeast of the country. The attempt largely failed. Out of 380 inmates, only 25 were still on the run Saturday.The U.N. human rights office on Friday described the squalid prison conditions as appalling and a hotbed for the spread of COVID-19.Agency spokesman Rupert Colville said it was the seventh attempted prison escape in the country since the coronavirus pandemic began.He said prisoners were living in fear of being stricken with this deadly disease.”As with many other jails, the conditions at Farafangana are deeply troubling. The prison is overcrowded, conditions are generally unhygienic, the food is poor, and inmates lack proper access to health care. Our office has previously engaged with the authorities to express concerns about conditions in the country’s jails, and the resultant dangers of overcrowding during the pandemic.”Relief of overcrowdingColville said in the early stages of the pandemic, U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet appealed to all countries to reduce overcrowded prison populations.  He said she specifically urged the release of people at risk, including pregnant women, the disabled, the elderly and minors.Colville told VOA that Malagasy authorities were aware of the problematic conditions in their prison system.“The president of Madagascar had embarked on trying to make changes to the prison system, with the main objective of decongesting the prisons. But clearly, more remains to be done,” he said. “And the fact that there have been seven such escapes, and apparently that it happened at the weekend is a factor, because there is less security in the prison on the weekend.”The U.N. human rights office called on the government to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial investigation into the killings and injuries that occurred during the prison escape. It reminded authorities that the use of force must comply with the principles of legality and necessity and that it must be proportional and nondiscriminatory.
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A rally, led by members of Jacob Blake’s family to demand an end to police violence, began Saturday afternoon in the Midwestern U.S. city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, after a night of peaceful protests over the shooting of Blake, an African American man, by a white policeman.Blake’s family and activists organized the rally as National Guard units stood by with orders to prevent the kind of unrest that erupted earlier in the week in response to the shooting.”We are heartbroken and enraged, but we are steadfast in our demand for justice,” Tanya Mclean, a Blake family friend who helped organize the event, said in a statement. She said Blake’s shooting was not an isolated incident.Blake, 29, was shot in the back seven times August 23 in front of witnesses, including Blake’s young children, leaving him partially paralyzed and turning the predominately white city of 100,000 into the latest hot spot in a summer of nationwide protests against charges of police brutality and systemic racism.Investigators have said little about the shooting. But the city’s police union said Blake had a knife and fought with officers even as two efforts to stun him with a Taser were unsuccessful.FILE – A woman hands flowers to a member of the Wisconsin National Guard standing by as people gather for a vigil, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis., Aug. 28, 2020.Arson, vandalism and other acts of violence devastated a largely minority neighborhood of the city Monday night, one day before a teenager, who was seen on video roaming the streets with an assault rifle, fatally shot two demonstrators and wounded a third.Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, surrendered to police Wednesday close to his home in the state of Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. One video taken by protesters appears to show him trying to surrender in Kenosha minutes after the shootings, only to be told to get off the streets as police vehicles passed him by.Rittenhouse has been charged with six criminal counts, including first-degree intentional homicide and unlawful possession of a firearm by a minor. One of his lawyers, Lin Wood, tweeted that Rittenhouse shot the demonstrators in self-defense.Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said earlier in the week that Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake when he was resisting arrest after police responded to a call from a woman who reported her boyfriend had arrived at her home without permission.Kaul also said police later recovered a knife from the floor of the car Blake was leaning on when he was shot. Blake’s lead attorney, Benjamin Crump, said his client was not armed with a knife and did not threaten or provoke the police.The police officers involved in the encounter with Blake have been on administrative leave, pending an investigation by the Wisconsin Justice Department.Governor Tony Evers deployed more Wisconsin National Guard troops earlier in the week to help local law enforcement agencies restore and maintain order.
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President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling party has dismissed as “rubbish” a statement by Western diplomats warning Zimbabwe’s government not to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to stifle citizens’ rights.  The statement was delivered while more than a dozen citizens are in hiding for fear of persecution or prosecution for organizing an anti-government protest.
 
Seven countries, including the U.S., have urged Mnangagwa to keep the inauguration pledge he made in 2018 to respect human rights.  Western diplomats joined forces in a statement saying their countries would continue to assist Zimbabwe in addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by recurring droughts and the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
“But COVID-19 must not be used as an excuse to restrict citizens’ fundamental freedoms.  Freedom of the press, of opinion, of expression, and of assembly are all universally recognized human rights and are guaranteed by the Zimbabwean constitution. The government also has a responsibility to investigate and prosecute those responsible for violating human rights,” said the seven embassies in their diplomatic message.  
 
Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said Saturday the government would not comment on the group’s statement by the U.S., Germany, Poland, Britain, Canada, Norway and the Netherlands.FILE – Tafadzwa Mugwadi, spokesman for the ruling Zanu PF party, seen here July 21, 2020, in Harare, dismissed concerns by Western diplomats as “rubbish,” saying they had no right to lecture Zimbabwe about human rights. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Tafadzwa Mugwadi, a spokesman for Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, dismissed the statement by Western diplomats.
 
“This is just a piece of rubbish. Nothing new except the usual rhetoric from culpable players whose hand has always been visible as far as disturbances in this country are concerned. Under what circumstances or basis do they have to instruct the government or people of Zimbabwe to stop from blaming them?  How are they immune when they are equally blaming the government? They are blaming a government on whose neck they imposed these illegal sanctions. It’s just a bunch of nonsense,” Mugwadi said.
Zimbabwe’s political opposition and rights groups say Mnangagwa is moving away from his promise not to follow the playbook of his predecessor, long-time leader, the late Robert Mugabe, whose 37-year rule was littered with human rights abuses.
 
The head of Human Rights Watch in southern Africa, Dewa Mavhinga, says the government must investigate the claims instead of dismissing them.Dewa Mavhinga, the southern Africa Director at Human Rights Watch, seen here Aug. 29, 2020, in Harare, says the Zimbabwe government must investigate claims of rights abuses by state agents. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)“This is very important that the Zimbabwe government demonstrates that it respects human rights. Without this demonstration for respect for human rights, all efforts to revive the economy, for international re-engagement, will be wasted because no one wants to do business with a country that does not respect rights, a country that brutalizes its own citizens, a country that looks the other way when there are obvious cases of abductions and torture of citizens by state agents,” Mavhinga said.
   
A hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter is trending on social media, but the government insists there is no crisis.
 
Rights groups and the opposition say the government is looking for a number of pro-democracy activists who are in hiding, saying they fear being arrested for organizing an anti-government protest, which security forces thwarted in July.
 
Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and opposition leaders Jacob Ngaruvhume and Job Sikhala are in prison on charges of stoking violence ahead of the march against poverty and corruption, which was to take place July 31.  
 
Earlier this month, South Africa, which is the current chair of the African Union, sent envoys to engage with both the government of Zimbabwe and relevant stakeholders, to “identify possible ways in which South Africa can assist Zimbabwe.” However, they left after meeting only with President Mnangagwa.
 
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A close ally of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says authorities in Moscow are reluctant to investigate Navalny’s alleged poisoning, because the Kremlin was behind it, despite its denials.
 
Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer at Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and a prominent opposition activist, said in an interview that all the existing evidence points to the Kremlin.
 
“For me, it’s absolutely obvious, I’m not afraid to speak it out loud, that behind the poisoning is exactly the Kremlin,” said Sobol. Simply, nobody else could do it. Again, the method of the poisoning is the sign of that. Neuroparalytic poison is something that you can’t buy at a pharmacy. It’s a combat substance. And because of that, they will not investigate it,” Sobol said.FILE – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, his wife Yulia, right of him, and opposition activist Lyubov Sobol, second from left, take part in a march in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 29, 2020.Navalny’s associates made a request to Russia’s Investigative Committee for authorities to launch a criminal investigation that could lead to charges of an attempted assassination of a public figure, but say they got no response.
 
“They understand that any investigation will lead to the Kremlin,” Sobol said. “They’re not launching a criminal probe because they will have to answer at some point what the results of the investigation of this criminal case are.”
 
Russia’s Prosecutor General office said Thursday the inquiry launched last week did not find any indication of “deliberate criminal acts committed against” Navalny.
 
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said last week he saw no grounds for a criminal investigation before the cause of Navalny’s condition was fully established.  
 
Navalny, a well-known critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a corruption investigator, fell ill August 20 while flying to Moscow from Siberia, prompting an emergency landing in Omsk.
 
His personal doctor and aide said Navalny had drunk black tea at an airport café, which she believed was laced with poison.Last weekend, Navalny was transferred to the Charité Hospital in Berlin, Germany, for an “extensive medical diagnosis.” Doctors there found traces of “cholinesterase inhibitors,” a neuroparalytic substance, in his system. He reportedly remains on a ventilator in a medically-induced coma.  German doctors describe his condition as serious but not life-threatening. 
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday threatened to cut European transit routes through Belarusian territory if sanctions are imposed on his country.Speaking while visiting a dairy factory, Lukashenko said he would block neighboring European countries from shipping goods to Russia over Belarusian territory and divert Belarusian exports now shipped through ports in neighboring EU member Lithuania to other outlets.”If they, Poles and Lithuanians, used to fly through us to China and Russia, now they will fly through the Baltic or through the Black Sea to trade with Russia, and so on, and they can only dream of sanctioned products, those products on which Russia has imposed an embargo,” he said.Lukashenko also said he had ordered half the country’s army to be at combat preparedness and had agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin that troops of both countries could unite against a potential Western threat.“If they (NATO troops) don’t hold still, it’s necessary to use a joint grouping of armed forces, the basis of which is the Belarusian army,” Lukashenko said. “The Russians must support us and follow us.”Lithuania, Poland and Latvia have called for Europe to take stronger action against Lukashenko, in face of a nearly three-week popular uprising since the August 9 election, which the opposition maintains he rigged to prolong his 26-year rule. Lukashenko has denied the accusations.Since the Monday after the election, when Belarusian Central Election Commission declared Lukashenko received over 80% of the votes and opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya about 10%, thousands have taken to the streets demanding Lukashenko’s resignation. Lukashenko has said the protests are encouraged and supported by the West and accused NATO of moving forces near Belarusian borders. The alliance has denied the accusations.  
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Officials in Australia say a large housing development project could be blocked to protect endangered koala bears in one of the fastest-growing parts of Australia’s biggest city. The New South Wales government plans to create a sanctuary in Sydney to preserve the country’s last-remaining disease-free koalas. The animals are listed as vulnerable across New South Wales.Koalas could be extinct in New South Wales within 30 years. That grim warning came from a parliamentary committee in June.The state government said it is determined to save one of Australia’s most recognizable indigenous animals. It is creating a new reserve on Sydney’s suburban fringe to allow koalas to use protected woodland corridors to travel between habitats. One hundred thousand trees also will be planted.“We are here to announce the Georges River Koala National Park,” said Matt Kean, environment minister for New South Wales. “We will be securing 1,885 hectares of koala habitat to ensure that the koala survives in this fortress population forever.”A plan to build hundreds of homes in the area could be vetoed by the state government after scientists found that koalas wouldn’t be properly protected.Kean warned the construction company he may not approve the development plans.“I will not be signing off on the bio-diversity certificate unless your development meets all the recommendations of the chief scientist,” he said.The developer has said that protecting native wildlife was a key consideration, but it has yet to formally respond to the state government.Critics have said the koala sanctuary is not big enough. But Cate Faehrmann, a Greens parliamentarian, believes it is a good start.“It is a welcome first step,” Faehrmann said. “Thank you very much, New South Wales government, for recognizing that this koala colony out in Campbelltown — it is our only chlamydia-free population. It is so important. There is anywhere between 200 and 600 koalas out there that have to be protected. They have recognized this.”Koalas face many threats, including chlamydia – a bacterium that can cause pneumonia and infertility. Bushfires, habitat loss, attacks by dogs and road accidents are also significant threats. But in other parts of southern Australia, officials have said there are too many koalas, and that ‘overabundant’ populations have damaged valuable trees.Also, south of Sydney, a group of koalas rescued from last summer’s devastating bushfires has been released back into the wild. Three of the animals are named after the crew of a U.S. water-bombing aircraft that crashed in Australia in January.  
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As first responders continue a second day of search, rescue and support efforts in southwest Louisiana, a clearer picture of the damage caused by Hurricane Laura is emerging.The state breathed a sigh of relief that the loss of life was not more severe — the death toll is now 11 — but the damage to population centers such as Lake Charles, a city with a population of 80,000, is devastating. Downtown buildings have been demolished, entire neighborhoods left in ruins and almost 900,000 homes and businesses are without power.Residents are trickling in to assess the loss of personal property, but it may be days, weeks or months until many Louisianians can return home for good.Finding temporary housing after a disaster is never easy, but some victims of the storm are saying the coronavirus pandemic has made the situation even more difficult.“My husband and I are both in our 60s,” said Mary Gutowski, a retiree who moved to Lake Charles from Austin, Texas, less than a month ago. “I’ve been in the hospital three times in the last year, and we’re both very worried about being out in crowds and getting the virus. But we couldn’t stay home with a Category 4 hurricane coming at us. What are we supposed to do?” she asked.Flooding surrounds damaged homes Aug. 28, 2020, in Cameron, La., after Hurricane Laura moved through the area Thursday.Gutowski and her husband packed a bag with a few days’ worth of clothes and their face masks and decided to drive north in hopes of sidestepping the worst of the storm. They were able to avoid the most damaging wind and flooding but evacuating their home during a global pandemic has also produced challenges they did not anticipate.Getting out“It’s been a lot of worrying and a lot of crying,” Gutowski told VOA as she fought to hold back tears.She said that when they left their home the day before the storm, they had no place to go. Gutowski and her husband began driving and immediately noticed many gas stations had been shuttered due to coronavirus, as well as a lot of rest stops where they could normally buy supplies or food.“We were lucky to have a full tank of gas before we left or we might not have made it very far,” she said.Typically, during natural disasters, cities set up emergency shelters. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, however, there are fears the virus would spread in such close quarters. Instead, state governments attempted to set aside thousands of hotel rooms across Texas and Louisiana for evacuees. Individuals, however, have reported having a difficult time finding available hotel rooms.“I needed to stay somewhat close for work,” said Ashley Watkins, whose job is related to natural disasters, “and I still ended up hundreds of miles away in Alabama at the nearest pet-friendly hotel.”Watkins said she sent her 6-year-old son to a slightly closer hotel in Texas with her parents and her other siblings.A damaged home is shown Aug. 28, 2020, in Hackberry, La., after Hurricane Laura move through the area Thursday.To make matters worse — in what’s become an all-too-common ritual for southwestern Louisianians over the last two days — she received photos from friends confirming she no longer had a home to go back to.“The house is destroyed down to the frame,” Watkins said. “Most of it ended up in some trees.”Staying safe“Costs are already adding up. I can’t keep paying for lodging like this,” Watkins said.Gutowski and her husband agreed. They said they were finally able to find a hotel attached to a casino in Shreveport, Louisiana, for a few nights.“If I didn’t have a discount from a player’s card, there’s no way I could have afforded this. I’m retired,” Gutowski said.When the Gutowskis arrived at their hotel, they said it was filled to capacity — something unheard of due to coronavirus protocols.Many evacuees said they were afraid to risk their health with so many people around, so they have holed up in their hotel rooms for three straight days.“The only room they could give us was up on the 21st floor and we can’t walk up and down those stairs,” Gutowski said. “You’re only supposed to have four people in the elevator at a time because of the virus, but people don’t follow the rules and they’re putting the rest of us at risk. So we just stay in our room. It’s suffocating.”Next stepsHowever, Gustowski said, her biggest worry is what they’ll do next.Their reservation ends Saturday, and as of Friday afternoon, they didn’t know where they would go. She said they cannot go back to Lake Charles. Fallen trees and other debris have made it impossible for friends to reach their neighborhood and check on the status of the Gutowski home. Every hotel she has called said they are full.Buildings and homes are flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura on Aug. 27, 2020, near Lake Charles, La.“I’ve spent hours trying to get in touch with anyone who can help,” she said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency “said they can’t do anything yet, and I couldn’t get through to the United Way or Red Cross,” she said, “So we’re on our own and we don’t know what to do.”Some affected Louisianians will find family nearby they can stay with until they can go home or rebuild.Watkins said she is hopeful this will be the case for her and her son. First, however, she said she plans to return to Lake Charles this weekend to see the damage to her home herself.Those who can’t afford a hotel and don’t have family to stay with will either remain in their homes — many damaged, and even more without electricity and water — or will head to large emergency shelters that some fear will become coronavirus breeding grounds.Officials hope large-scale screenings will ensure that isn’t the case.“For everything that’s happened to us over the last few days, I still know there are people much worse off than we are,” Gustowski said. “I can’t imagine having to do this with young children or having to try to wait it out in your home without electricity.”Friday evening, the Gustowkis got a little luckier. A hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi, called and said they had a room available for them for at least a couple of weeks.“So that’s where we’ll head tomorrow, then,” she said. “It’s not close and we’d rather not stay in a hotel during a pandemic, but at least we have a place to stay. Relieved is an understatement.”
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When the son of famed civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. took to the stage in Washington on Friday – 57 years after his father’s famous “I Have a Dream” address – he stepped aside for yet another King.“I am so honored to be here,” Martin Luther King III said while standing at the Lincoln Memorial. “But before I say something, I want you to hear from the future of our nation.”Wearing a bright teal headband and a black-and-white dress, 12-year-old Yolanda Renee King adjusted the microphone lower and glanced sideways at her father, smiling nervously.The younger King launched into her second major address to thousands of marchers in the U.S. capital. Her first was two years ago, at a rally against gun violence, organized by high school survivors of a mass shooting that drew hundreds of thousands to Washington.“Two years ago, at the March for Our Lives, I said, ‘Spread the word! Have you heard all across the nation, we’re going to be a great generation!’” Yolanda recalled. She called on young activists to be “the generation that dismantles systemic racism once and for all, now and forever.”Friday’s protest follows months of national unrest in response to recent deaths of Black Americans that are being questioned as racist. George Floyd died while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May. More recently, Jacob Blake was shot by police August 23 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In between, have been months of domestic and international protests.Floyd cried out as a police officer knelt on his neck, “I can’t breathe,” echoing Eric Garner, who died in New York City in 2014, gasping the same words.Friday’s Get Your Knee Off Our Necks Commitment March on Washington was organized largely by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the civil rights organization he founded in 1991, the National Action Network.But the event was a passing of the baton for some youth activists.“We are the great dreams of our grandparents, great grandparents and all our ancestors,” Yolanda said. “We stand and march for love, and we will fulfill my grandfather’s dream.”Sakira Coleman, the 23-year old co-founder of the activist group Until Freedom, told the BBC that she would attend Friday’s march, 57 years after her grandmother participated in the original march on Washington.People walk on Pennsylvania Avenue during the March on Washington, Aug. 28, 2020, on the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.“Being a part of something so historical in the present day, it does feel like those people who have been marching and fighting for so long are passing the mantle down to us,” Coleman said in a video published Thursday.Columbia University alum Nialah Edari, 25, is a co-founder of the activist group Freedom March NYC. At 15, she was already Midwest youth director for Sharpton’s National Action Network.“These movements have always been intergenerational,” Edari told the crowd Friday.“John Lewis was 23 years old when he marched,” she said, referencing the civil rights leader and congressman who died in July. Lewis was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march.Chelsea Miller, co-founder of Freedom March NYC with Edari, warned the crowd against underestimating youth activists.“We may be young, but we are a force,” said Miller, 23, also a Columbia graduate. “We may be young, but we stand on the shoulders of giants. We may be young, but we are organized, we are strategized, and we will show up in November to the polls, and we will let them know that we are not going anywhere.”March speakers young and old advocated for the passage of a voting rights act named after Lewis, alongside policing legislation named for Floyd. Speakers also called on attendees to vote in the November presidential election that pits President Donald Trump against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.Republican youth leaders criticized demonstrations Thursday evening in which protesters cornered Republican Senator Rand Paul.“They’re just peacefully protesting” screams the leftist media as a Senator is chased back to his hotel. pic.twitter.com/mwPEwXqDOF— Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) August 28, 2020“These violent protestors [sic] you saw harassing @realDonaldTrump supporters leaving the White House last night didn’t want answers,” tweeted youth group Students for Trump on Friday. “They want compliance and obedience. We will never bend the knee to the mob.”These violent protestors you saw harassing @realDonaldTrump supporters leaving the White House last night didn’t want answers. They want compliance and obedience.We will never bend the knee to the mob.— Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) August 28, 2020Thousands of people attended the peaceful march Friday, with many young activists among them.Mother Jones senior fellow Matt Cohen tweeted an image of demonstrator Hailee, 13, who carried a sign with an image of herself from seven years ago at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.“Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been marching, and it’s a shame to have to march for the same reasons again and again,” Hailee told Cohen.Hailee, 13, from Glen Burnie, Md. holds up a sign of herself as a little girl at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, seven years ago. “Ever since I was a little girl i’ve been marching and it’s a shame to have to march for the same reasons again and again,” she says. pic.twitter.com/Osn3bSisa8— Matt Cohen (@Matt_D_Cohen) August 28, 2020Until Freedom activist Coleman, like Hailee, appeared to anticipate a long-term movement.“We may not see justice and what that looks like in our generation, but we still fight regardless,” she said. 
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In Syria, a society dominated by men, a group of women entrepreneurs has opened a small produce market in Amuda, a town in the northeastern part of the country.  The market, entirely run by women, represents a challenge to what is normally a male-dominated economic activity. VOA’s Zana Omer visited the market and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.Videographer: Zana Omer.
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is still in an induced coma from a suspected poisoning but his condition is stable and his symptoms are improving, the German doctors treating him said Friday. Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator  who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Aug 20 and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.  Last weekend, he was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where doctors found indications of “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system.  FILE – German army emergency personnel load into their ambulance the stretcher that was used to transport Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on at Berlin’s Charite hospital, Aug. 22, 2020.Found in some drugs, pesticides and chemical nerve agents, cholinesterase inhibitors block the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, that transmits signals between nerve cells. Navalny, 44, is being treated with the antidote atropine. Charité said “there has been some improvement in the symptoms caused by the inhibition of cholinesterase activity.” “While his condition remains serious, there is no immediate danger to his life,” the hospital said. “However, due to the severity of the patient’s poisoning, it remains too early to gauge potential long-term effects.” FILE – Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where her husband is receiving medical treatment, in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.Navalny’s wife Yulia has been visiting him regularly at the hospital and Charité said physicians remain in close contact with her. Navalny’s allies insist he was deliberately poisoned and say the Kremlin was behind it, accusations that Russian officials rejected as “empty noise.”  Western experts have cautioned that it is far too early to draw any conclusions about what may have caused Navalny’s condition, but note that Novichok, the Soviet-era nerve agent used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain, was a cholinesterase inhibitor.  The Russian doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia have repeatedly contested the German hospital’s conclusion, saying they had ruled out poisoning as a diagnosis and that their tests for cholinesterase inhibitors came back negative.  Help from GermanyNavalny was brought to Germany for treatment after Chancellor Angela Merkel personally offered the possibility of him being treated in Berlin. “We have an obligation to do everything so that this can be cleared up,” Merkel told reporters at her annual summer news conference on Friday. “It was right and good that Germany said we were prepared … to take in Mr. Navalny. And now we will try to get this cleared up with the possibilities we have, which are indeed limited.” When there is more clarity about what happened, Germany will try to ensure a “European reaction” to the case, Merkel said. She cited the poisonings of Skripal and his daughter two years ago, which prompted many European countries to expel Russian diplomats and vice-versa. Calls to investigateFollowing a meeting in Berlin with his counterparts from 26 European Union countries, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said forcefully that Russia had an obligation to carry out a thorough investigation, something many countries have called for. FILE – Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally, in Moscow, Feb. 29, 2020.”Russia must contribute more to clearing up the Navalny case, and the investigations that we expect must not remain a fig leaf,” Maas told reporters. “The background to this act must be investigated comprehensively and transparently, and those responsible — directly and indirectly —brought to account.” So far, Russian authorities appear reluctant to investigate the politician’s condition. Navalny’s team submitted a request last week to Russia’s Investigative Committee, demanding authorities launch a criminal probe on charges of an attempt on the life of a public figure and attempted murder, but said there was no reaction.  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he saw no grounds for a criminal case until the cause of the politician’s condition was fully established. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office said Thursday that a preliminary inquiry launched last week hasn’t found any indication of “deliberate criminal acts committed against” Navalny. Growing supportThe dissident’s supporters are not surprised at the Kremlin’s reaction. “They understand that any investigation will lead to the Kremlin,” Lyubov Sobol, a prominent opposition politician and one of Navalny’s closest allies, told The Associated Press on Friday. “They’re not launching a criminal probe … because they will have to answer at some point what the results of the investigation are.”FILE – Russian opposition activist Lyubov Sobol speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia, Aug. 15, 2019.Sobol says while Navalny’s condition hasn’t prompted big protests in Russia, it has stirred the outrage brewing there. “I saw a lot of comments from well-known public figures in Russia who have never spoken out for Alexei Navalny before, (but now) spoke their minds and said that this was outrageous, it shouldn’t be this way,” Sobol said. “It’s a turning point.” Even with their leader in the hospital, Navalny’s team continues its work on corruption investigations and regional election campaigns in Moscow and dozens of other regions. Navalny’s most recent project, Smart Voting, identifies candidates that are most likely to beat those from Putin’s United Russia party and his supporters actively campaign for them.  According to Sobol, the team is used to working in his absence — frequently arrested, Navalny has spent more than a year in jail in recent years.  “So we know how to work without direct orders from Navalny. We understand what we need to do,” Sobol said.  
 
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The former hurricane known as Laura has so far been the most intense and dangerous storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, according to the U.N.’s weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization.Laura is now just a tropical depression, spreading heavy rain and thunderstorms across the east-central United States, forecasters said. But as the storm crossed the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week, it strengthened from a Category 1 hurricane to a Category 4 in less than 24 hours. Forecasters recorded wind speeds as high as 240 kph.As Laura came ashore early Thursday in southern Louisiana, the National Hurricane Service was predicting an “unsurvivable storm surge.” That didn’t materialize, but damaging winds and heavy rains did. The system destroyed property, downed trees and led to power outages throughout the state. The WMO said that since Laura began moving through the Caribbean last week, it had caused more than 20 deaths, most in Haiti.FILE – Benjamin Luna helps recover items from the children’s wing of the First Pentecostal Church that was destroyed by Hurricane Laura, Aug. 27, 2020, in Orange, Texas.Speaking from U.N. headquarters in Geneva, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis said Laura had now generated more accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, the metric used to measure storm intensity and duration, than the four other storms in August combined. Nullis said there was still a long way to go this year. The Atlantic hurricane season began in June and ends in November.Nullis said climatologists predict that strong storms – in the Category 4-to-Category 5 range of hurricane intensity – will become more common, primarily because of global warming.Citing laws of physics, Nullis said, “Storms feed on warm water; higher water temperatures mean higher sea levels, which in turn increase the risk of flooding during high tides, and so the circle goes on.”
 
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A study published this week offers evidence regarding how water originated on Earth, and the clues come from some of the oldest rocks in the solar system. Earth’s abundance of water makes it unique in the solar system, but scientists have never been sure how it got here. Some believed the water – or chemical compounds that make up water – was here all along, embedded in the original rock that formed the Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.  A piece of an enstatite chondrite meteorite, which contains about 0.5 weight percent of water, is seen in this undated handout obtained Aug. 27, 2020, courtesy of Laurette Piani and Christine Fieni from the Museum of Natural History in Paris.But other scientists studying models of where Earth exists in the solar system think it should have formed as a dry planet, suggesting the water came from somewhere else. A study, published Thursday in the journal Science, looks at the composition of samples of enstatite chondrite meteorites — a rare, ancient form of meteorite believed to have been formed very early in the life of the solar system.Scientists had previously dismissed these space rocks as the source of Earth’s water because they were exposed to the heat and radiation of the young sun early in their formation, making them, the scientists thought, too dry to carry water. Instead, astronomers theorize water came to Earth later in its formation, through carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, which came from the outer solar system, where water was more abundant. In the new study, researchers measured the amount of hydrogen, the primary element in water, in 13 samples of enstatite chondrite meteorites. Their analysis revealed these meteorites carry a lot more hydrogen than previously believed. So much hydrogen, that the study’s authors say they believe the ancient meteorites can account for least three times the amount of water in Earth’s present-day oceans. Therefore, they maintain, Earth’s water may have come from the very space rocks that formed the planet. 
 
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Hundreds of demonstrators gathered around the White House for a “noise demonstration and dance party” in an attempt to drown out President Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
 
And later, a crowd enveloped U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as he left the convention, yelling for him to say the name of police shooting victim Breonna Taylor, who was killed in his state, but there was no indication the protesters were the same.
 
“I hope you hear us, Trump,” the leader of the popular local band TOB shouted near the site of Trump’s speech. The band blared Go-Go music, a distinctive D.C. variant on funk, as it moved in the direction of the White House, where Trump delivered his acceptance speech to a crowd of more 1,500 people on the South Lawn.
 
One protester held up a sign, “Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue” — the street where the White House is located.  
 
There was no indication that Trump heard the protesters, but there were a few points when a mix of sirens, music and blowhorns could be heard in the background and spectators in the back turned to see where the sounds were coming from.
 
Acknowledging the coronavirus pandemic, the demonstrators wore masks but there was no social distancing.  
 
“Make some noise if you want to drown out Trump,” protest organizer Justin Johnson said.
 
After the convention concluded, there were skirmishes as protesters yelled and threw water bottles at police at the historic St. John’s Church near Black Lives Matter Plaza. There were some arrests.
 
Video posted online showed dozens of people confronting Senator Paul and his wife, who were flanked by police officers, on a street after midnight. Protesters shouted “No Justice, No Peace” and “Say Her Name” before one appears to briefly clash with an officer, pushing him and his bike backward, sending the officer into Paul’s shoulder.
 
Paul later tweeted that he had been “attacked” by a “crazed mob” a block from the White House. The senator and his wife kept walking and did not appear to have been touched by any of the protesters or to have suffered any injuries.
 
Videos showed other attendees also being confronted by protesters after leaving Trump’s event.
 
There was a robust police presence, but the noise demonstration outside the White House was generally peaceful. There was a moment of levity at the end.
 
“You guys gotta get some rhythm,” a protester told Secret Service officers.
 
“Would you have rhythm if you were wearing 30 pounds of gear,” one responded.
 
The demonstration was significantly smaller than the protests that rocked the nation’s capital this past spring after George Floyd died at police hands in Minneapolis.  
 
Floyd’s family and the families of other Black Americans who were victims of police violence were expected to participate Friday in a commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington that is being led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III.  
 
Before Trump spoke, there was a brief standoff between police and demonstrators, who shouted anti-police slogans. “Free the people, fight the power,” they chanted. Nearby protesters set up a small guillotine, with the District of Columbia flag as the blade.  
 
Lafayette Park, a traditional site of demonstrations across from the White House, was sealed off and there were some street closures.  
 
The groups ShutdownDC and Long-Live Go-Go had put out word in advance about the planned “noise demonstration and dance party” to coincide with Trump’s speech.  
 
“We’ll be at the White House on Thursday to drown out (Trump’s) racist rhetoric with another vision for the future of our country,” the groups said in a statement.
 
A longtime D.C. signature sound, Go-Go music emerged last year as a battle anthem for activists fighting fast-moving gentrification in the nation’s capital. The music has been a regular presence in recent protests against racial injustice and rolling Go-Go trucks with live bands have appeared frequently at the epicenter of the protests, which was renamed by the city as Black Lives Matter Plaza.
  
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