Videoconferencing platform Zoom experienced worldwide outages Monday morning, coinciding with the first day of remote classes for many schools and universities. On its status page, Zoom reported partial outages for its website, meetings and webinars. By Monday afternoon, all systems were reported as operational. Downdetector recorded a spike in issue reports, mostly from North America and western Europe, which peaked at nearly 17,000 complaints at 9 a.m. EST. Lighter areas on Downdetector’s map Monday morning also showed complaints in China, India, Mexico and other countries, although most had faded by the afternoon. The company’s Twitter mentions were flooded with concerned and panicked users, including professors and students. “Please fix the system — we depend on your availability,” wrote Janine M. Ziermann, an assistant professor at Howard University’s College of Medicine in Washington. “Half of my student’s [sic] don’t get emails due to server failure … Zoom seems down … my lecture starts in 43 minutes,” she wrote, alongside an animated image from TV show The Big Bang Theory of a character hyperventilating into a paper bag. Half of my student’s don’t get emails due to server failure … Zoom seems down …
my lecture starts in 43 minutes pic.twitter.com/OY2sPRyx5g
— Janine M. Ziermann, PhD (@JMZiermann) August 24, 2020“My laptop is buzzing, phone melting down,” wrote Florida State University professor Mark Zeigler. “I would cry, but I decided to laugh and have a cup of tea.” So ZOOM is out campus wide. My laptop is buzzing, phone melting down….I would cry, but I decided to laugh and have a cup of tea.
— Mark Zeigler (@fsuzeigler) August 24, 2020Students were quick to make jokes on the widespread outages. “And like clockwork both Zoom and Canvas crash the first morning back to school,” wrote Lauren Gruber, a graduate student at Indiana University, alongside an image of a flaming Elmo figure. The meme is used to denote chaotic situations. “You really, really can’t make this stuff up.” And like clockwork both Zoom and Canvas crash the first morning back to school. You really, really can’t make this stuff up. pic.twitter.com/u3SCCjIliZ
— Lauren Gruber (@GrubersOrch) August 24, 2020Canvas is a program that supports online learning by allowing users to submit homework assignments and view their grades. Zoom announced it was investigating the problems at 8:51 a.m. EST and said by 11:30 a.m. it had rolled out a fix for most users. “Everything should be working properly now!” the company tweeted, offering its “sincere apologies” to customers. Everything should be working properly now! We are continuing to monitor the situation. Thank you all for your patience and our sincere apologies for disrupting your day.
— Zoom (@zoom_us) August 24, 2020Users in California, Mexico and elsewhere replied saying they were still experiencing issues. Others, seemingly students, jokingly asked Zoom to shut down again. Billionaire businessman Eric Yuan started Zoom in 2011, originally under the name Saasbee. By the end of its first month, the California-based company had more than 400,000 users, and by 2017 was valued at $1 billion. The company remained little known outside its base of mostly business users, but when the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020, Zoom saw its usage rates surge. Schools, universities and other organizations took their operations to Zoom, kicking off heightened scrutiny of the software’s security and privacy features, and connections to China. In June, the company acknowledged closing three accounts belonging to U.S.-based Chinese activists after they held a Zoom event to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Axios reported. Zoom has also been plagued by reports of unwanted guests intruding on video meetings, an event so common it has its own name: Zoom-bombing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a press release in March warning the public of the practice after two schools said their online classes were hacked. The widespread crashes Monday morning underscored the problems of online learning, even as schools kick off another year.Students Give Online Learning Low MarksMany call on universities to end the semester early  
…

It’s the end of summer in the US, a time when many families are preparing for the new school year. But with the threat of COVID-19 delaying a return to campuses across the country, preparations this year include trying to make online learning work better for everyone. Matt Dibble has the story
…

Zimbabweans are struggling to get by as, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy was in shambles.  As food insecurity has grown, charities in the capital have opened relief kitchens to provide free meals to thousands, most of them informal traders unable to earn income because of pandemic restrictions.  Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare.VIDEOGRAPHER:  Blessing Chigwenhembe  
PRODUCER:   Marcus Harton
…

A 63-day strike at Bath Iron Works — against the backdrop of a pandemic in an election year — came to an end Sunday with shipbuilders voting to return to their jobs producing warships for the United States Navy. With the approval of a three-year contract, the 4,300 production workers represented by Machinists Local S6 will begin returning to work on Monday. After falling behind schedule, Bath Iron Works is eager to get caught up on production of destroyers as the U.S. Navy faces growing competition from China and Russia on the high seas. The General Dynamics subsidiary was already more than six months behind schedule before the strike. “We are pleased to welcome back our valued manufacturing employees and get back to the important work of building ships on schedule for the U.S. Navy,” Bath Iron Works said Sunday in a statement. Robert Martinez Jr., the Machinists’ international president, cast the outcome on Sunday in historic terms, saying “this fight for dignity, justice and good Maine jobs will go down in the history books of the Machinists Union.” The shipyard on the Kennebec River is one of the Navy’s largest, and it’s also a major employer in the state with 6,800 workers. The stakes were high for both a company that feared being priced out of competition for Navy contracts and a highly skilled workforce that didn’t want to give up ground to subcontractors. The test of wills ultimately ended with help from a federal mediator. Shipbuilders represented by Machinists Local S6 got most of what they wanted when it came to work rules and maintaining the status quo for hiring of subcontractors, along with the previous proposal’s annual pay raises of 3% for three years. The company got streamlined rules for hiring subcontracting, and a commitment to work together to get back on track. Because of the pandemic, voting on the contract’s approval — unanimously endorsed by the union negotiating committee — took place online and by telephone. Voting began Friday and ending at noon Sunday. The vote was 87% in favor of the contract among those who voted, said Jay Waldeigh, a district union official. “Now that we successfully protected our contract language with respect to subcontracting and seniority, we need to get back to work,” said Local S6 President Chris Wiers. The shipyard builds the workhorse of the Navy fleet, destroyers that have the ability to provide air defense while simultaneously waging war against submarines and surface warships. Destroyers are also one of the few types of warships equipped to withstand a chemical attack. The Navy wants to increase the fleet’s size — something President Donald Trump supports — and Bath Iron Works has said it needs to get back on schedule and lower costs to remain competitive on those contracts. Going into negotiations, the shipyard’s production workers were already angry over past concessions that ultimately still failed to yield contracts on Coast Guard cutters and a new class of Navy frigates. The pandemic in which they were required to remain on the job only added to their feeling that the company didn’t care about them — deemed essential by the Navy, the shipyard continued production despite a union request to shut down for two weeks. Workers were determined enough to strike, despite the loss of company-paid insurance as the coronavirus raged around the country. A giant inflatable, cigar-smoking pig outside the union hall took aim at corporate greed as workers fumed over the hiring of “scab” workers and political leaders got involved. It’s a far cry from the way things were in the past. The strike was the first in 20 years at Bath Iron Works. There was enough trust between management and the union in 1994 that a contract was approved allowing cross-training of workers under a formula called a “High Performance Work Organization.” Then-President Bill Clinton visited the shipyard to praise the collaboration. The company hopes that mediated discussions between the union and the company will help get the relationship back on track. But it’s going to take time. Levi Benner, a shipfitter, said there are hard feelings because management routinely rejects workers’ ideas for improvements. “It’s going to be hard to restore trust. We know what we’re doing. We’ve been building ships for years and years. These guys are geeks. They know their graphs and pie charts, but they don’t know how to build ships,” he said Sunday. In the end, workers and the shipyard must learn how to work together if the company is to successfully compete for contracts against lower-cost competitors, said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute. “Both sides need to understand that their best chance for having a future is to get along with each other,” he said. “The American landscape is littered with the debris of destroyed industries. Most of them made a good product but they’re still gone.” 
…

The U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama – home to “Space Camp” – faced permanent closure as COVID-19 forced the internationally popular science and technology center to turn students and visitors away. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, an online campaign to “Save Space Camp” is providing a lifeline to get through the pandemic. 
…

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he isn’t blaming President Donald Trump for the coronavirus outbreak, but he does blame him for “walking away” from the crisis.  “The idea of saying that this is going to go away, that some miracle is going to happen is unrealistic,” Biden said, adding that Trump has repeatedly promoted “crazy” treatments and “hasn’t listened to the scientists.”  Biden and his vice presidential running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, spoke to ABC News television in an interview broadcast Sunday night. It was their first joint interview since teaming up for the Democratic ticket.  The interview was conducted last Friday, the day after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention.  On Sunday evening, Trump announced he had helped to end a regulatory logjam and prompted the federal Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency authorization of so-called convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Trump called it a “powerful therapy” with “an incredible rate of success, although government scientists said the treatment needs further study.Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar speaks during a media briefing in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House, Aug. 23, 2020, in Washington.On Monday, Republicans begin their national convention to nominate Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for a second term. Trump and his supporters are certain to cite the FDA emergency authorization of the treatment, which uses antibodies from the blood of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to treat the disease in others, as a prime example of Trump’s leadership in fighting the pandemic.  Biden said that if elected president, he would follow the advice of public health experts, including shutting down the nation’s economy again if that is what it takes to stem the coronavirus pandemic. “I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives. We cannot get the country moving until we control the virus,” Biden said. He also called on governors to require the wearing of face masks. To those who refuse to wear masks, Biden said, “give me a break.” He called the wearing of masks a patriotic responsibility for Americans to protect their neighbors by not passing along the virus. Biden said the president hasn’t listened to public health experts and scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and instead has suggested people do “crazy things” like consuming disinfectant to kill the coronavirus. Biden said he has been pleading with the president to devise a national plan, saying Trump has no notion how to reach Americans.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden watch fireworks during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 20, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del.Harris dismissed as a “distraction” any talk about the sharp words she had with Biden during one of the Democratic presidential debates over the matter of school busing. She said Biden understands that Black families own only one-tenth of the wealth that whites do, and that Blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as whites.  Harris and Biden also downplayed differences they had on issues such as health care. Harris supported a Medicare-for-all type insurance system while Biden, who as his vice president helped President Barack Obama enact the Affordable Care Act, wants to add a public option to the existing private insurance markets. “We both believe that health care is a right, not a privilege,” Biden said. Harris said she would be honored to serve as Biden’s vice president and says the call to be his running mate was a “surreal” moment. Biden said he did not feel pressure to choose a Black woman to run with him but added that women make up 51% of the country’s population and that “the government should look like the people, look like the country.” When questioned about whether a 78-year-old man is mentally prepared to become president of the United States – and possibly serve until he is 86 years old — Biden said, “watch me.” 
…

A federal judge on Sunday ordered a stay in President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign’s lawsuit seeking to ban drop boxes and other changes to Pennsylvania’s mail-balloting procedures.The Nov. 3 election promises to be the nation’s largest test of voting by mail and the two major parties are locked in numerous lawsuits that will shape how millions of Americans vote this autumn.The Republican president has repeatedly and without evidence said that an increase in mail-in ballots would lead to a surge in fraud, although Americans have long voted by mail.Drop boxes have taken on new urgency after cost-cutting measures at the U.S. Postal Service slowed mail delivery nationwide.In Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill is recommending that voters return their ballots via drop box rather than through the mail for the November election, after receiving reports that some ballots mailed a week before the state’s Aug. 11 nominating contests arrived too late to be counted.Three-quarters of ballots in that August primary were cast absentee, she said, up from roughly 4% in prior years. Merrill, a Democrat, said the state’s 200 newly installed drop boxes had proven a safe and popular option.”I do not understand why people think they’re such a problem,” Merrill said. “They’re more secure than mailboxes.”Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has defended Pennsylvania’s use of drop boxes, arguing they are legal and essential, particularly in the age of the coronavirus.Wolf’s state, which Trump won by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, is considered essential to his reelection effort.J. Nicholas Ranjan, U.S district judge for western Pennsylvania appointed by Trump, said the federal case brought by the Trump campaign would not move forward until similar lawsuits in state courts are completed or unless they are delayed.Justin Clark, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, said the judge’s decision recognized that the issue touched on both state and constitutional issues.”The federal court is simply going to reserve its judgment on this in the hopes that the state court will resolve these serious issues and guarantee that every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted—once,” Clark said.The Trump campaign is seeking to ban ballot drop boxes, which were deployed in the state’s most recent primary and that allow voters to submit absentee ballots and bypass the U.S. Postal Service.The campaign argues the drop boxes were not explicitly authorized in a bipartisan bill passed by the state legislature last year that expanded the state’s mail-balloting procedures.The suit also wants the residency requirement for poll watchers lifted, so that any Pennsylvania voter could serve in that function at any polling location in the state.“The Court will apply the brakes to this lawsuit and allow the Pennsylvania state courts to weigh in and interpret the state statutes that undergird Plaintiffs’ federal-constitutional claims,” Ranjan said.The Trump campaign says the ballot drop box invites fraud. The federal judge asked the campaign to provide evidence of actual fraud, but the campaign declined, arguing it did not have to do so in order to win the case.
…

Calling it “a truly historic announcement,” U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday hailed a federal government emergency authorization for use of convalescent blood plasma that he declared would “save countless lives” of coronavirus patients.  Trump and his health secretary, Alex Azar, at a briefing for reporters, noted a 35% decrease in mortality among those younger than 80 who were not on a respirator, a month after receiving the treatment early in the course of their disease.“We dream in drug development of something like a 35% mortality reduction,” Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said alongside the president. “This is a major advance in the treatment of patients.”White House: ‘Breakthrough’ Coming for Coronavirus Treatment Trump to make announcement Sunday night after prodding researchers to act faster on vaccine testing Convalescent blood plasma comes from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and is rich in antibodies. It has been used to treat tens of thousands of COVID-19 patients in the U.S.Just before the president’s comment, the Food and Drug Administration announced it has authorized –- but technically not fully approved — the use of blood plasma containing antibodies from patients who have recovered from COVID-19.That announcement came a day after Trump, on Twitter, declared that “The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics.”  In his tweet he said: “Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!”Trump was referring to the date of the presidential election in which he faces former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party nominee.  The commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Hahn, told reporters that the agency had determined that the blood plasma treatment was worth granting the emergency authorization following an analysis of 20,000 of the 70,000 patients who had received the treatment, as well as based on other studies.  A “35% improvement in survival is a pretty substantial clinical benefit,” he added. “We’ve seen a great deal of demand for this from doctors around the country.”  Plasma treatment has been used safely against other diseases, including Ebola and  diphtheria, but scientists — including some who work for the U.S. government — are more cautious about it as a treatment for the coronavirus, saying the results are mixed and there is no proof yet that it works against COVID-19.  After Trump was asked by a reporter about somewhat contradictory language that he and Hahn had expressed about blood plasma’s efficacy, the president –- who had called the plasma treatment “very effective” — ended the 18-minute news conference after taking only three questions.  A spokesman for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, said in a statement that Trump shows an unwillingness to listen to medical experts, and that “breakthroughs require the collection of data” to ensure safety and efficacy of treatments.”This process is necessary to ensure our safety and to ensure that a treatment isn’t worse than the disease,” said the spokesman, Ben Corb. “I am deeply concerned by this action and concerned about the timing.”The announcement was made on the eve of the Republican party’s national convention which will formally renominate Trump for president.  Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s first FDA commissioner, on Sunday, appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program, said that plasma is “probably beneficial” for coronavirus patients, while noting the concerns about the lack of evidence.”I think some people wanted to see more rigorous data to ground that decision,” Gottlieb said.Notably absent from Sunday’s news conference held by the president: the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is a member of the White House coronavirus task force.  Fauci was among those who intervened to halt an FDA emergency use authorization, the New York Times reported last week. Fauci and others, according to the newspaper, argued that the emerging data on the treatment was too weak,Trump, mindful of accusations from Biden and other Democrats that he has bungled the handling of the coronavirus in the United States, has often said that treatment for the infectious disease is nearing and has contended that the virus will simply disappear.Numerous U.S. health experts have said that a COVID-19 vaccine will not be available before the end of the year or into early 2021 and then only if tests on the efficacy of the vaccine now starting in several countries, including the United States, prove successful.The coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly 177,000 people in the United States and infected about 5.7 million — more than in any other country.
…

A major flood in Turkey’s northern Black Sea region killed four people, including a soldier, while 11 others have gone missing, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Sunday, August 23, as authorities carried out cleaning and rescue operations. Footage from the northern province of Giresun showed floods destroying homes, shops, vehicles and blocking several roads. It showed cars, which had been dragged along by the floods, buried in mud. Speaking alongside Soylu, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said rainfall in Giresun had exceeded averages for the month of August by 1.5 times. In a statement, the Turkish presidency said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had ordered the use of all state resources to ensure that the damage is repaired. (Reuters) 
…

In previously undisclosed recordings, Maryanne Trump Barry, a former U.S. appellate court judge, voices a withering, highly critical assessment of her younger brother, President Donald Trump.“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary Trump, who recently published a top-selling book condemning the president’s outlook on life as she watched it in family gatherings during his formative years.“He has no principles. None. None,” the now-83-year-old Barry said of her brother, the U.S. leader, during 15 hours of taped conversations that her niece secretly recorded.The Washington Post, which released some of the recordings in a story Saturday night, said it sought comment about the tapes from Barry and White House officials on Friday and Saturday. The paper reported that it did not receive a response.  After the Post published the account of Barry’s views of her brother, the president said in a statement late Saturday, “Every day it’s something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and I’ll continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before!”FILE – President Donald Trump listens during a White House meeting in Washington, July 9, 2020.White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was dismissive of the accusations on the “Fox News Sunday” show, saying, “Another day, another political attack.”The recording disclosed by the Post referred to a time earlier in the Trump presidency when he sought to halt thousands of undocumented immigrants from entering the United States from across the Mexican border and for a while separated children from their parents.“I mean, my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this,” Barry said.The retired judge said how appalled she was at how her brother acted as president.“His … tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy s**t.”She lamented “what they’re doing with kids at the border” and surmised that her brother “hasn’t read my immigration opinions” in court cases.In one instance, she berated an immigration judge for failing to treat an asylum applicant with respect.“What has he read?” Mary Trump asked her aunt about the president. “No. He doesn’t read,” Barry responded.At another point in the recording reported by the newspaper, Barry said to her niece, “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”Mary Trump, 55, told the Post recently that her uncle is unfit to be president and she plans to do “everything in my power” to elect Democrat Joe Biden.Mary Trump’s father, Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981 of an alcohol-related illness when she was 16. In her book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” she says Donald Trump and his father mistreated her father.A spokesman for Mary Trump, Chris Bastardi, said that she began taping conversations with Barry in 2018 after concluding that her Trump relatives had lied about the value of the family estate two decades earlier when Fred Trump Sr., the president’s father and family patriarch, died. During a legal battle over her inheritance, she at first was set to receive far less than she expected, but the dispute was settled privately in 2001.
…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he has accepted a proposal to extend budget negotiations, preventing the government from collapsing and plunging the country into a new election.In a nationally televised address, Netanyahu said that now was not the time to drag the country into an unwanted election.”Now is the time for unity. Not for elections,” he said.Netanyahu and his rival and coalition partner, Benny Gantz, had faced a Monday night deadline to agree on a budget. Otherwise, the government would have collapsed and automatically triggered a new vote, the fourth parliamentary elections in less than two years.Netanyahu said that following a historic agreement to establish official relations with the United Arab Emirates, and with the country struggling with a coronavirus outbreak, he felt it was wrong to go to elections.  He said he accepted a compromise that would give the sides an additional 100 days to reach a budget deal, and in the meantime direct spending to struggling areas of the economy and society.His announcement came after Israeli lawmakers spent much of the day unsuccessfully trying to agree on a compromise.The current political crisis pitting the prime minister against rival-turned-partner Gantz is ostensibly over the country’s national budget.  But the crisis has deeper roots in the troubled partnership between Netanyahu and Gantz, economic troubles stemming from the country’s coronavirus outbreak and the prime minister’s ongoing corruption trial. Critics accuse Netanyahu of using the budget battle to force a new election in hopes of securing a friendlier parliament that could help solve his legal troubles.After three deadlocked elections, Netanyahu and Gantz reached a power-sharing agreement in April to form a government to address the virus crisis. As part of their coalition deal, Netanyahu’s Likud party and Gantz’s Blue and White agreed to pass a two-year budget.  But Netanyahu has insisted on passing a budget to cover only the remainder of 2020, saying it will provide immediate assistance to the economy. Gantz is adamant that the government honor its agreement and pass one for 2020 and 2021. Their disagreement has again brought the country to the brink of political meltdown.  The Knesset, or parliament, must pass the legislation in two rounds of voting in parliament before Monday night’s deadline.But pushing back the deadline would only kick the budget crisis down the road. The two parties are at loggerheads over several key issues — including judicial appointments and the annexation of West Bank settlements — and the government has been beset by infighting. Gantz also complained that Netanyahu left him and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in the dark about the deal announced earlier this month to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates.  If the budget deadline is not deferred, and new elections are triggered, it would plunge the country into political chaos during a deep economic and public health crisis and while the prime minister is on trial for corruption.Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. His criminal trial began in June, but he has refused to step down from office and denies any wrongdoing.At the same time, Israel has recorded more than 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 800 deaths. Unemployment remains over 20% despite the government’s reopening of the economy in May, following a more than month-long lockdown.Netanyahu has faced intense criticism over his government’s handling of the crisis, and the largest sustained protests against his rule in nearly a decade. On Saturday, an estimated 10,000 people took part in a weekly protest outside the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem, calling on Netanyahu to resign.  Nonetheless, recent polls indicate Netanyahu would score a sizable victory if snap elections were held. By dissolving the government, Netanyahu would avoid giving Gantz the premiership in November 2021 as required by the coalition agreement.  Netanyahu appears determined to remain prime minister — and therefore not legally obligated to resign while under indictment — through the duration of his trial, which is expected to last several years.
…

On the third anniversary of a mass exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh, prospects look bleak for about 1 million members of the Muslim minority from Myanmar living in bamboo and plastic shelters in refugee camps.Two attempts to get a repatriation process going, in 2018 and 2019, failed as the refugees refused to go back to Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and considered outsiders, fearing violence.Some take the dangerous option of traveling with people-smugglers by boat to Southeast Asia. Scores of people have been killed in recent years as their over-crowded rickety boats have capsized or run out of water and food.But even that perilous route is getting more difficult now as countries like Malaysia shut their borders, threatening to push boats back out to sea, to protect jobs and resources amid novel coronavirus lockdowns.Some Rohingya are clinging to the hope of a third option – resettlement in a rich country.”I just pray and hope that one day my family will be settled in a Western country,” said Mohammed Nur, who lives in a refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district neighboring Myanmar.Nur was on a short-list for resettlement under an earlier program.But Bangladesh, which has for decades given refuge to waves of Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar, ended the resettlement program in 2010 out of fear it would become a hub for refugees seeking to move to the West.Nur lives in hope the program will be revived and has even put off marriage because he worries a bigger family would see him dropped from the list.”I’m 29 now but still not married as I don’t want to expand my family,” he said.Whether a resettlement program gets going or not depends on Bangladesh.Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner told Reuters the focus was on repatriation but his agency was ready to work to resettle refugees in other countries if his government decided to resume the program.Talukder said it was up to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to request the resumption of resettlement, then his government would decide.”If the government takes the decision, we’re ready to implement it,” the commissioner, Mahbub Alam Talukder, said.From 2006 to 2010, the program saw 920 Rohingya resettled in countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States.Bangladesh’s foreign minister and the ministry’s secretary did not respond to requests for comment.’Third-country pathways’The UNHCR said it was in “continuous dialog” with the Bangladesh government over the Rohingya.”We continue to pursue durable solutions for the Rohingya refugees including repatriation in safety and dignity when conditions allow, as well as through third-country pathways for those with the most acute vulnerabilities, if this option becomes available,” UNHCR spokeswoman Louise Donovan said.Before the program was suspended, the UNHCR had identified about 1,000 people for relocation, based on medical grounds or for reasons of family reunifications.The suspension left those people in limbo, some after they borrowed and even packed their bags in preparation for their move.”We dreamt of a better life when we got selected to be resettled in the UK,” said Mohammed Ismail, 32, who fled to Bangladesh when he was only eight. “But my poor luck, we never could fly.”Ismail and several others on the list with their families said they had heard nothing about the possibility of resettlement in recent years.But even if Bangladesh were to agree to resume the program, it won’t be easy for Rohingya to start new lives in the West.H.T. Imam, a political adviser to Bangladesh’s prime minister, has in the past called the resettlement process unrealistic because of the reluctance of European countries and the United States to take Muslim refugees.He declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.The UNHCR said globally resettlements had decreased significantly over the past few years, from a peak of more than 126,000 in 2016 that it was involved in, to about 64,000 last year. 
…