Month: July 2021

A man accused of attempting to stab Mali’s interim President Assimi Goita last week has died in hospital while in the custody of security services, the government said in a statement on Sunday.

Goita, a special forces colonel who orchestrated two coups in the last year, escaped unharmed after the assailant tried to stab him during prayers at a mosque in the capital Bamako on Tuesday.

Security agents threw a man into the back of a military pickup truck, video obtained by Reuters showed, as Goita was ringed by bodyguards.

“During the investigations … his state of health deteriorated,” the statement said. He was taken to hospital, where he died, it said.

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of death.

Mali, the theatre of French-supported operations against al Qaeda and Islamic State-linked insurgents for a decade, was thrown into political turmoil after a military junta led by Goita toppled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020.

Goita served as vice-president to transitional leader Bah Ndaw until the latter’s ouster in May.  

 
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After much lobbying, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will not appear on a list of “in danger” World Heritage Sites. Environmentalists call this a “terrible” decision fueled by political pressure. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, sounded new alarms Sunday about the surge in coronavirus cases in the country, especially in regions where people have been resistant to getting vaccinated even as the delta variant spreads rapidly.“We’re going in the wrong direction,” Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “Fifty percent of the country is not vaccinated. That’s a problem.”“We’re putting ourselves in danger,” said Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Joe Biden.In the United States, hospitalizations and deaths are far below their peaks last winter. But the number of new infections has been rising sharply in parts of the country where skepticism about the need to get vaccinated, the safety of the vaccines and resistance to government suggestions to get inoculated remain a potent force.More than 51,000 new infections were recorded in the U.S. on Saturday, a 172% increase over the last two weeks, and more than 250 deaths have been occurring daily in recent weeks.As it stands, the government says more than 162 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, which corresponds to 49% of the country’s population and nearly 60% of adults.But polls have shown that as many as 80% of unvaccinated Americans say they definitely will not get inoculated or are unlikely to, no matter how many officials urge them to get the shots.Many conservative politicians previously had adopted a more cautious approach toward vaccinations or said whether to get inoculated was a matter of personal choice. Now some are voicing their exasperation at those refusing to get vaccinated.Republican Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama said last week of the unvaccinated, “These people are choosing a horrible lifestyle.”Another Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, has long urged vaccinations in his southern state but it still has one of the lowest rates of inoculations. Two adolescents recently died of COVID-19 in his state. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.“These are alarm bells,” he told CNN. Nonetheless, he noted, “Certainly the resistance (to inoculations) has hardened.”Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson shows a chart on vaccination rates at a town hall meeting in Batesville, July 12, 2021.But Hutchinson voiced optimism that the unvaccinated will change their minds. “People can change their resistance,” he said. “That should be our focus.”Fauci said those vaccinated “are highly protected,” including against the delta variant. But the pace of vaccinations has dropped in the U.S. by more than 80% since mid-April.Some cities, including Los Angeles in the West and St. Louis in the middle of the country, have imposed new orders for people to wear masks in public indoor spaces regardless of vaccination status. Other cities are considering similar directives. 
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On this first World Drowning Prevention Day, the World Health Organization offers life-saving solutions to prevent most of the 236,000 estimated deaths from drowning every year.  The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in April establishing this international day to raise awareness of drowning as a serious problem.Summertime has been celebrated in song as the season when the living is easy. On a less celebratory note, summertime in the northern hemisphere also is the peak season for deaths by drowning.Over the past decade, the World Health Organization reports 2.5 million people have died in drowning incidents.  It says more than half of all drowning deaths are among people under age 30, with the highest rates among children under the age of five.David Meddings, a WHO medical officer, said drowning is the second leading cause of death among children and youth under age 19 in wealthy countries such as the United States, Switzerland, and France. He notes, though, drowning disproportionately affects the poor and the marginalized.“The rates for drowning in low- and middle-income countries are three times higher than the rates we observe in higher-income countries.  And so, it is really the populations with the least resources to be able to adapt to the threats around them that are at highest risk for drowning.  The Western Pacific region has the world’s highest drowning rates followed by the African region,” he said.WHO reports more than 90% of drowning deaths occur in rivers, lakes, wells, irrigation canals and even domestic water storage vessels in the poorer countries. It says children and adolescents in rural areas are disproportionately affected.Meddings said national surveys in Africa show most drownings occur among young adult men out on fishing vessels.“For example, there was a study done in Tanzania among lakeside communities that show that the risk of death from drowning exceeded the risk of death in that population for death from HIV, TB or malaria.  So, 80% of deaths occurring in young adult men who are in a sense obligated to go out on fishing vessels that often are inherently unsafe watercraft without advance weather warning and without knowing how to swim,” he said.The report does not include statistics on flood-related mortality, deaths due to water transport mishaps such as capsized ferry boats, or migrant deaths that occur while crossing the perilous Mediterranean Sea.WHO recommends a number of cost-effective life-saving measures. It says children should be taught basic swimming and water safety skills, wells and potentially dangerous water areas should be fenced off, and bystanders should be trained in safe rescue and resuscitation. It says safe boating and ferry regulations should be enforced and calls for flood risk management to be improved. 
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Experts have said that rare footage of an endangered marsupial in outback Australia is a sign that native animals are beginning to recover from years of feral cat predation.Feral cats threaten the survival of over 100 native species in Australia, according to federal environment officials.The opportunistic predators have caused the extinction of some ground-dwelling birds and small to medium-sized mammals.Experts have said they have been a “major cause of decline” for many endangered marsupials, including the bilby, bandicoot, bettong and numbat.In the northern state of Queensland, though, there are signs that some native animals are beginning to recover.At the Astrebla Downs National Park, 1,500 kilometers northwest of Brisbane, 3,000 feral cats have been removed since 2013.Licensed hunters have said that thermal imaging technology, rather than powerful spotlights, have helped them control the wild cat population by making it easier to find them hiding in vegetation.A recent survey in the region revealed a record number of 471 bilbies, one of Australia’s best-known marsupials.Also, for the first time in a decade, researchers managed to film a threatened desert marsupial in outback Queensland in June.“It is called a kowari,” said ecologist John Augusteyn, who shot the footage. “They are a little, tiny carnivorous marsupial that lives in outback, or arid, western Queensland and also down in South Australia. They are a very charismatic little guy. Very fast, very inquisitive.”Ecologists say that decent rainfall has also helped to boost marsupial numbers.Nearly 3 billion animals in Australia were killed or displaced by the devastating “Black Summer” bushfires in 2019 and 2020, according to scientists.They have said that the biggest cause of species decline in Australia is habitat loss. 
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Skateboarding made its historic debut on the Olympic stage early Sunday, with men’s street heats kicking off the sport’s four-day competition under Tokyo’s blazing sun.

The inaugural event marks a turning point for skateboarding, which has its roots in youth street culture and has influenced everything from art to fashion.

The men’s street competition on Sunday will be a star-studded affair, with who’s who of international skating competing.

But all eyes will be on Nyjah Huston of the United States and hometown favorite Yuto Horigome, who will skate on a concrete course designed with rails and benches emblazoned with the five Olympic rings.

By adding skateboarding to its roster, the International Olympic Committee hopes it can tap into its legions of young fans worldwide, who have built skateboarding into a multibillion-dollar industry.

For skating giant Tony Hawk, the sport’s inclusion into the Olympics is long overdue.

Tony Hawk, who is in town to act as a TV commentator, tried out the new waterfront bowl in Ariake this week and said he was surprised it took so long for the Olympics to embrace skateboarding.

“As a kid that was mostly lambasted for my interest in skateboarding, I never imagined it would be part of the Olympic Games,” Hawk wrote below an Instagram video he posted earlier this week.

Skateboarding, though extremely popular in Japan, is still discouraged in most parks and it’s uncommon to see skaters cruising down a street.

Just outside the skate park where the Olympic finals is taking place on Sunday, a poster taped to the exterior white fence banned skateboarding for locals. 
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Jackie Mason, a rabbi-turned-comedian whose feisty brand of standup comedy led him to Catskills nightclubs, West Coast talk shows and Broadway stages, has died. He was 93. 

Mason died Saturday at 6 p.m. ET at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan after being hospitalized for more than two weeks, celebrity lawyer Raul Felder told The Associated Press. 

The irascible Mason was known for his sharp wit and piercing social commentary, often about the differences between Jews and gentiles, men and women and his own inadequacies. His typical style was amused outrage. 

“Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe,” he once joked. Another Mason line was: “Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows, marriage does.” About himself, he once said: “I was so self-conscious, every time football players went into a huddle; I thought they were talking about me.” 

Religious roots

Mason was born Jacob Maza, the son of a rabbi. His three brothers became rabbis. So did Mason, who at one time had congregations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Comedy eventually proved to be a more persistent calling than God.  

“A person has to feel emotionally barren or empty or frustrated in order to become a comedian,” he told The Associated Press in 1987. “I don’t think people who feel comfortable or happy are motivated to become comedians. You’re searching for something and you’re willing to pay a high price to get that attention.” 

Mason started in show business as a social director at a resort in the Catskills. He was the guy who got everybody up to play Simon Says, quiz games or shuffleboard. He told jokes, too. After one season, he was playing clubs throughout the Catskills for better money.  

“Nobody else knew me, but in the mountains, I was a hit,” Mason recalled.  

In 1961, the pint-sized comic got a big break, an appearance on Steve Allen’s weekly television variety show. His success brought him to The Ed Sullivan Show and other programs.  

He was banned for two years from the Sullivan show when he allegedly gave the host the finger when Sullivan signaled to him to wrap up his act during an appearance on Oct. 18, 1964.  

Mason’s act even carried him to Broadway, where he put on several one-man shows, including Freshly Squeezed in 2005, Love Thy Neighbor in 1996 and The World According to Me in 1988, for which he received a special Tony Award. 

“I feel like Ronald Reagan tonight,” Mason joked on Tony night. “He was an actor all his life, knew nothing about politics and became president of the United States. I’m an ex-rabbi who knew nothing about acting and I’m getting a Tony Award.”  

Mason called himself an observer who watched people and learned. From those observations he said he got his jokes and then tried them out on friends. “I’d rather make a fool of myself in front of two people for nothing than a thousand people who paid for a ticket,” he told the AP.  

A reliable presence

His humor could leap from computers and designer coffee to then-Sen. John Kerry, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Donald Trump. He was able to articulate the average Joe’s anger, making the indignities of life seem funny and maybe just a little bit more bearable. 

“I very rarely write anything down. I just think about life a lot and try to put it into phrases that will get a joke,” he said. “I never do a joke that has a point that I don’t believe in. To me, the message and the joke is the same.”  

On TV, Mason was a reliable presence, usually with a cameo on such shows as 30 Rock or The Simpsons or as a reliable guest on late night chat shows. He performed in front of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, and his show Fearless played London’s West End in 2012.  

He portrayed a Jewish ex-pajama salesman in love with an Irish-Catholic widow portrayed by Lynn Redgrave in a series called Chicken Soup in 1989, but it didn’t last. During the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Scottish service hired Mason as a weekly commentator. 

Mason’s humor sometimes went too far, as when he touched off a controversy in New York while campaigning for GOP mayoral candidate Rudolph Giuliani against Democrat David Dinkins, who was Black. Mason had to apologize after saying, among other things, that Jews would vote for Dinkins out of guilt.  

Felder, his longtime friend, told the AP that Mason had a Talmudic outlook on life: “That whatever you would say to him, he would start an argument with you.”  

He is survived by his wife, producer Jyll Rosenfeld, and a daughter, Sheba. 
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Tens of thousands of people protested in Australia, France, Italy and Greece on Saturday, sparking clashes with police as they railed against COVID-19 measures and government sanctions against the unvaccinated aimed at prodding more people into getting their shots.Dozens of protesters were arrested after an unauthorized march in Sydney, with the city’s police minister calling those who took part “morons.”Organizers had dubbed the protest a freedom rally. Attendees carried signs and banners reading “Wake up Australia” and “Drain the Swamp.”In France, where police deployed tear gas and a water cannon against some protesters, an estimated 160,000 took to the streets in nationwide protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s health pass that will drastically curtail access to restaurants and public spaces for unvaccinated people.’Don’t touch our children'”Freedom, freedom,” chanted demonstrators in France, carrying placards denouncing “Macron, Tyrant,” “Big Pharma shackles freedom” or saying “No to the pass of shame.”The demonstrations highlight the conflict globally between the advice of the World Health Organization and other public health agencies and people who for one reason or another refuse to be vaccinated.In Indonesia and the United Kingdom, governments have eased pandemic restrictions even in the face of surging cases of coronavirus infection.Meanwhile, around 5,000 people demonstrated in Athens, carrying placards touting slogans such as, “Don’t touch our children,” according to an AFP journalist at the scene.Thousands of people protested in at least 80 cities across Italy as Rome tries to slow an upturn in COVID-19 infections. Most were not wearing masks.The Green Pass, an extension of the EU’s digital COVID certificate, will be required starting Aug. 6 for anyone who wants to enter cinemas, museums, indoor swimming pools or sports stadiums, or eat indoors at restaurants.It will serve as proof bearers have either been vaccinated, undergone a recent negative COVID-19 test, or recovered from a coronavirus infection.The decision Thursday to make the pass mandatory for many activities saw a boom in vaccine bookings, up 200% in Italy’s smaller regions, according to COVID-19 emergency chief Francesco Figliuolo.Half of Australia in lockdownEarlier in Sydney, demonstrators pelted officers with potted plants and bottles of water as they defied a monthlong stay-at-home order, a day after authorities suggested the restrictions could remain in place until October.New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was “utterly disgusted” by the protesters whose “selfish actions have compromised the safety of all of us.”Police said they issued nearly 100 fines and arrested 57 people.In Melbourne, six people were arrested. police said.New South Wales Police Minister David Elliott said a team of detectives would be scouring footage to identify and charge as many people as possible in the coming days.”Sydney isn’t immune from morons,” he said.Sydney, a city of more than 5 million people, is struggling to contain an outbreak of the delta variant, first identified in India and now spreading globally.After escaping much of the early pandemic unscathed, about half of Australia’s 25 million people are now in lockdown across several cities.There is growing anger at the restrictions and the conservative government’s failure to provide adequate vaccine supplies.Just 11% of the population is fully vaccinated.Harder to put off shotsIn France, as elsewhere in Europe, the government is making it harder for reluctant citizens to put off getting their shots.Legislation now being considered by lawmakers will make vaccinations compulsory for certain professions, while the controversial health pass will severely restrict social life for holdouts starting at the end of this month.There were signs the tougher measures announced on July 13 were having the desired effect: 48% of the population were fully vaccinated as of Friday, up 8 percentage points from July 10.While more than three-quarters of French people backed Macron’s measures, according to a July 13 Elabe poll for BFMTV, a sizeable and vocal minority do not.Elodie, 34, a care assistant at a Strasbourg nursing home, denounced “the blackmail of caregivers who were at the front line” during the first wave and who are now threatened” with “no more pay” and even being fired.”They’ve been lying to us since the beginning,” she said. 
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Scores of wildfires raging across forest and scrubland in the Western United States have belched so much smoke that it is helping an army of firefighters gain ground on the nation’s biggest blaze, Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, by blocking sunlight, officials said Saturday.

Both the National Weather Service and officials with the Oregon Department of Forestry said smoke in the lower atmosphere coming from California wildfires has floated over the Bootleg Fire, which has scorched more than 401,000 acres in Oregon about 402 kilometers (250 miles) south of Portland.

“It’s called ‘smoke shading’ and it’s basically put a lid on the lower atmosphere for now, blocking sunlight and creating cooler, more stable surface conditions,” said Eric Schoening, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

The phenomenon is unpredictable, and the area is still under red-flag warnings this weekend from the weather service, which said the Pacific Northwest may experience high temperatures and wind gusts that can fan the flames and spread hot sparks and embers.

More difficulty for aircraft

Schoening said the weather is a mixed bag in terms of helping firefighters.

Marcus Kauffman, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said the drawback of the smoke shade is that it makes it harder to fly planes and helicopters that drop water and chemical fire suppressants, even “while it helps the teams on the ground.”

More than 2,000 firefighters and support crews had contained about 42% of the fire by Saturday, although the fire jumped containment lines the night before, he said.

“We lost 1,600 acres last night,” Kauffman said.

The Bootleg Fire is one of more than 80 large active wildfires in 13 states that have charred about 526,090 hectares (1.3 million acres) in recent weeks, an area larger than Delaware, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

The smoke, even as it provides some help to Oregon firefighters, has recently been carried by the jet stream and other air currents as far as the Northeastern cities of New York and Boston, where some residents have felt the air contamination in their eyes, noses and lungs.
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The world champion U.S. women’s water polo squad began its quest for a third straight Olympic gold medal Saturday by storming into the record books with a 25-4 humbling of hosts Japan at the Tatsumi Water Polo Center.

But the U.S. record for most goals scored in a single match at the Olympics stood just a few hours before being overhauled by reigning European champion Spain, which crushed South Africa 29-4 to lay down a marker of its own.

Teenager Elena Ruiz, making her Olympic debut at age 16, led Spain in scoring with five goals, while nine of her teammates also were on target.

Japan, which like South Africa is playing in its first Olympics, started brightly against the U.S. and even drew level at 3-3, but was outpowered and outclassed once its opponents settled into the match.

“We got off to a rocky start, especially defensively,” said U.S. captain Maggie Steffens, who scored five goals. “The Olympics gives you extra bit of energy and excitement and it was nice to see our team recover and take a deep breath.”

Stephania Haralabidis also scored five, while Madeline Musselman and Aria Fischer chipped in with four apiece for the Americans, who have dominated women’s water polo in the past few years.

Five other U.S. players got on the scoresheet as the match quickly descended into a drubbing.

“We’re human, and we get nervous just like everyone else,” U.S. coach Adam Krikorian said in response to a question on his team’s slow start.

“It’s the first game of the Olympics and those jitters aren’t going to go away for us or for any other team. Sometimes it just gets us, but once we settled down, we were much better.”

US tough in goal

Miku Koide scored twice for Japan, including her country’s first women’s water polo goal at the Olympics, with Yumi Arima and Eruna Ura also on target for the hosts.

But U.S. goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson was in scintillating form, saving 15 of the 19 shots she faced and shutting out the Japanese offense completely in the second and fourth quarters as her team made a dream start in Group B.

Australia also started with a win, beating Canada 8-5 in Group A, with driver Bronte Halligan the pick of the Aussie players with three goals in her Olympic debut.

The Russian Olympic Committee team, who won bronze in Rio five years ago, was locked in a fiercely physical battle with China in the day’s final match, but held on to win 18-17, with captain Ekaterina Prokofyeva helping her team snatch victory with two late goals.
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Forty-five percent of the Americans who have not been inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines say they definitely do not have any plans to get the shots, according to a new poll.Another 35% are a little less sure and say they will probably not get the vaccines, the survey, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said.Meanwhile, 3% of those polled said they would definitely get the shots, while 16% say they would probably get the vaccines.In addition, 64% of the unvaccinated Americans who participated in the survey told the pollsters that they had little to no confidence that the vaccines are effective against the COVID-19 variants, including the highly transmissible delta variant. Eighty-six percent of those vaccinated believe the vaccines work.U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky recently called the current U.S. surge in cases “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” because nearly all current patients and those who have recently died from the coronavirus are unvaccinated.Kay Ivey, the governor of Alabama, says it is “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for the current surge in cases.  The Republican governor said the vaccines are “the greatest weapon we have to fight COVID.” She said the unvaccinated “are letting us down.”The European Union’s main drug regulator has given its nod for the use of the Moderna vaccine for use in children 12-17 years old.  The Moderna vaccine is already authorized for people 18 and older.  The European Medicines Agency said in a statement that the protocol for the use of the vaccine with children would be the same as with adults — “two injections in the muscles of the upper arm, four weeks apart.”  The European Commission must give the final approval.Thousands of people have staged an anti-lockdown rally in Sydney, Australia, in defiance of the city’s stay-home order to curb a COVID-19 outbreak. The Associated Press reported that “mounted police and riot officers” were on the scene and several demonstrators were arrested. AP reported that New South Wales police said the demonstration was a breach of public health orders.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday that there are more than 193 million confirmed global COVID cases with more than 4 million deaths.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press. 
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More than 100 people have died and tens of thousands have been evacuated, Indian officials say, after India’s Maharashtra state was bombarded by monsoon rains, causing flooding and landslides.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he is “anguished by the loss of lives.”

Authorities say India’s military has been dispatched to help rescue crews look for survivors.

Weather forecasters say the rains are expected to continue for a few more days.
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On the eve of the funeral for slain Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, host Carol Castiel and assistant producer at the Current Affairs Desk, Sydney Sherry, speak with Haiti expert Georges Fauriol, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and fellow at the Caribbean Policy Consortium, about the chaos following Moïse’s assassination, the breakdown of democratic institutions in Haiti, and the power struggle that ensued over who would become Haiti’s next leader. What does this crisis reveal about the state of affairs in Haiti, and is the international community, Washington in particular, playing a constructive role in Haiti’s political rehabilitation?
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The United States says it is buying 200 million more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to anticipate future needs, including the possibility of booster shots as well as doses for children under 12 if regulators approve its use.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday the additional doses would be delivered between this fall and spring of next year.She said the Biden administration is “going to prepare for every contingency” and wants to have “maximum flexibility” to deal with future possibilities.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any COVID-19 vaccine for children under 12, but drugmakers have been testing their vaccines’ efficacy and safety in that age group.Health officials have begun to discuss the possibility of booster shots, but so far have said that Americans who are fully vaccinated do not need them at this time.In Europe, regulators Friday recommended approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for 12- to 17-year-olds. The European Medicines Agency has already approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use by teens.The approval paves the way for the European Commission and individual European governments to follow suit and allow the vaccine for teens.In another development Friday, the World Health Organization called for all countries to work together to investigate the origins of COVID-19, a day after China rejected plans by the WHO for another investigation.WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said another investigation is not about “politics” or a “blame game.” He said it is “about basically a requirement we all have to try to understand how the pathogen came into the human population.”The top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, called Friday for a congressional investigation into the origins of COVID-19, saying he has more evidence that the virus was leaked from a Chinese laboratory.China has repeatedly rejected that theory.Commuters crowd a bus promoting the use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 23, 2021.The vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, Zeng Yixin, said Thursday the WHO’s proposal to reopen its investigation into a Chinese lab leak as the source of the global outbreak lacked “respect for common sense and an arrogant attitude toward science.” He said China “can’t possibly accept such a plan.”An investigation China and the WHO conducted earlier this year concluded it was “extremely unlikely” that a Wuhan lab leak was the source of the virus. Some international experts say, however, that Chinese scientists wielded too much influence in determining the results of the investigation.In Japan on Friday, after a one-year pandemic delay, the Tokyo Olympics formally opened.The event is being held amid tens of thousands of empty seats in Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, with only about 900 dignitaries and other officials attending because of COVID-19 precautions.The Japanese public is broadly opposed to holding the Games, fearing they will worsen Japan’s already deteriorating pandemic situation.In New Zealand, officials announced the suspension of the country’s quarantine-free travel arrangement with Australia, as that country struggles to bring an outbreak of the highly contagious delta variant under control.“This is not a decision we have taken lightly, but it is the right decision to keep New Zealanders safe,” the country’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said Friday.India’s health ministry said Friday it had recorded more than 35,000 new COVID-19 cases and 483 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.In the United States, some local health officials recommended reinstituting mask mandates because of the spread of the delta variant. Washington state’s top epidemiologist, Dr. Scott Lindquist, recommended that everyone wear a mask in crowded indoor places regardless of whether they have been vaccinated.Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards on Friday cited increasing hospitalizations across the state in encouraging people to wear masks indoors if they could not socially distance.According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, worldwide cases of COVID-19 have reached nearly 193.2 million. Global deaths stand at 4.14 million.
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On this edition of Encounter, Ambassador Michelle Gavin, senior fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Ambassador to Botswana, and Frans Cronje, CEO of the Johannesburg-based Institute of Race Relations, analyze with host Carol Castiel the political, economic and social situation in South Africa following the arrest and detention of former South African president Jacob Zuma given the protests, looting and violence which this incident triggered.  How did the celebrated multiracial democracy led by Nelson Mandela reach this critical juncture point, and what does the future hold for South Africa? 
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The funeral of Haiti’s assassinated president, Jovenel Moise, was disrupted Friday by tear gas used on nearby protesters as well as sounds of gunfire, prompting U.S. officials to leave before the end of the ceremony.

Hundreds of protesters gathered Friday outside the site of the state funeral in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, burning barricades and shouting loudly, causing police to fire tear gas. Protesters were calling for justice for the July 7 assassination of Moise.

Media reports said smoke billowed into the private compound where the funeral was taking place.

There were no reports that anyone attending the funeral was injured.

The funeral was held amid heavy security. Reuters news agency reported that police formed protective cordons around Haitian officials who attended the ceremony.

The U.S. delegation, led by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left before Moise’s widow spoke.

“The Presidential Delegation to the funeral of President Moise is safe and accounted for, and those traveling from Washington, D.C., have arrived safely back in the United States,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

Thomas-Greenfield said Friday on Twitter, “We urge everyone to express themselves peacefully and refrain from violence.”

She said, “The Haitian people deserve democracy, stability, security and prosperity, and we stand with them in this time of crisis.”

Once the funeral ended, protesters threw rocks at a caravan of Haitian authorities and journalists as they were leaving, according to The Associated Press.

Moise was shot and killed in a pre-dawn attack at his private residence in a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince. His wife, Martine Moise, was injured during the attack and received treatment at a Miami, Florida, hospital. She returned to Haiti last week to help plan and attend the funeral of her husband.

The funeral came days after Prime Minister Ariel Henry took power in Haiti after receiving support from key international diplomats.

Henry had been designated prime minister by Moise but had not been sworn in because of Moise’s assassination. He has vowed to form a consensus government until elections can be held.

Thomas-Greenfield called on Henry to create conditions for legislative and presidential elections “as soon as feasible,” in remarks when the U.S. delegation arrived in Cap-Haitien.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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