Scottish movie legend Sean Connery, who shot to international stardom as the suave, sexy and sophisticated British agent James Bond and went on to grace the silver screen for four decades, has died aged 90. The BBC and Sky News reported his death on Saturday. “I was heartbroken to learn this morning of the passing of Sir Sean Connery. Our nation today mourns one of her best loved sons,” said Scottish First Minster Nicola Sturgeon. “Sean was a global legend but, first and foremost, he was a patriotic and proud Scot.”
Connery was raised in near poverty in the slums of Edinburgh and worked as a coffin polisher, milkman and lifeguard before his bodybuilding hobby helped launch an acting career that made him one of the world’s biggest stars.
Connery will be remembered first as British agent 007, the character created by novelist Ian Fleming and immortalized by Connery in films starting with “Dr. No” in 1962.
FILE – In this file photo taken on Oct. 22, 1982 British actor Sean Connery is seen during the making of the film “Never say, never again” in Nice.As Bond, his debonair manner and wry humor in foiling flamboyant villains and cavorting with beautiful women belied a darker, violent edge, and he crafted a depth of character that set the standard for those who followed him in the role.
He would introduce himself in the movies with the signature line, “Bond – James Bond.” But Connery was unhappy being defined by the role and once said he “hated that damned James Bond.” Tall and handsome, with a throaty voice to match a sometimes crusty personality, Connery played a series of noteworthy roles besides Bond and won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a tough Chicago cop in “The Untouchables” (1987).
He was 59 when People magazine declared him the “sexiest man alive” in 1989.
Connery was an ardent supporter of Scotland’s independence and had the words “Scotland Forever” tattooed on his arm while serving in the Royal Navy.FILE – Sir Sean Connery, with wife Micheline (R), pose for photographers after he was formally knighted by the Britain’s Queen Elizabeth at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh July 5.When he was knighted at the age of 69 by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth in 2000 at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, he wore full Scottish dress including the green-and-black plaid kilt of his mother’s MacLeod clan.
Became fed up with ‘idiots’
Some noteworthy non-Bond films included director Alfred Hitchcock’s “Marnie” (1964), “The Wind and the Lion” (1975) with Candice Bergen, director John Huston’s “The Man Who Would be King” (1975) with Michael Caine, director Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989) and the Cold War tale “The Hunt for Red October” (1990).
Fans of alternative cinema will always remember him starring as the “Brutal Exterminator” Zed in John Boorman’s mind-bending fantasy epic “Zardoz” (1974), where a heavily mustachioed Connery spent much of the movie running around in a skimpy red loin-cloth, thigh-high leather boots and a pony tail.
Connery retired from movies after disputes with the director of his final outing, the forgettable “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” in 2003.
“I get fed up dealing with idiots,” he said. The Bond franchise was still going strong more than five decades after Connery started it. The lavishly produced movies, packed with high-tech gadgetry and spectacular effects, broke box office records and grossed hundreds of millions of dollars.
After the smashing success of “Dr. No,” more Bond movies followed for Connery in quick succession: “From Russia with Love” (1963), “Goldfinger” (1964), “Thunderball” (1965) and “You Only Live Twice” (1967).
Connery then grew concerned about being typecast and decided to break away. Australian actor George Lazenby succeeded him as Bond in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” in 1969.
But without Connery it lacked what the public wanted and he was lured back in 1971 for “Diamonds Are Forever” with temptations that included a slice of the profits, which he said would go to a Scottish educational trust. He insisted it would be his last time as Bond.
Twelve years later, at age 53, Connery was back as 007 in “Never Say Never Again” (1983), an independent production that enraged his old mentor, producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli.
Preferred beer to martinis
In a 1983 interview, Connery summed up the ideal Bond film as having “marvelous locations, interesting ambiance, good stories, interesting characters — like a detective story with espionage and exotic settings and nice birds.”
Connery was a very different type from Fleming’s Bond character with his impeccable social background, preferring beer to Bond’s vodka martini cocktails that were “shaken not stirred.”
But Connery’s influence helped shape the character in the books as well as the films. He never attempted to disguise his Scottish accent, leading Fleming to give Bond Scottish heritage in the books that were released after Connery’s debut.
Born Thomas Connery on Aug. 25, 1930, he was the elder of two sons of a long-distance truck driver and a mother who worked as a cleaner. He dropped out of school at age 13 and worked in a variety of menial jobs. At 16, two years after World War II ended, Connery was drafted into the Royal Navy, and served three years.
“I grew up with no notion of a career, much less acting,” he once said. “I certainly never have plotted it out. It was all happenstance, really.”
Connery played small parts with theater repertory companies before graduating to films and television. It was his part in a 1959 Disney leprechaun movie, “Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” that helped land the role of Bond. Broccoli, a producer of the Bond films, asked his wife to watch Connery in the Disney movie while he was searching for the right leading actor.
Dana Broccoli said her husband told her he was not sure Connery had sex appeal.
“I saw that face and the way he moved and talked and I said: ‘Cubby, he’s fabulous!'” she said. “He was just perfect, he had star material right there.”
Connery married actress Diane Cilento in 1962. Before divorcing 11 years later, they had a son, Jason, who became an actor. He married French artist Micheline Roquebrune, whom he met playing golf, in 1975.
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Month: October 2020
Former James Bond Actor Sean Connery Dies Aged 90
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
European Observers Evaluate US Election
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Ursula Gacek, head of the election observer mission to the United States from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, cheerfully refers to November 3, the U.S. presidential election, as “E-day.”
Gacek spoke to VOA by phone after the release last week of a report by the elections arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the conditions leading up to election day.
She says 2020 is different than the previous nine elections that OSCE has observed. The United States, a member of the OSCE, invited the European observers after the 2000 presidential election, when the decision about who had won the presidential race went all the way to the Supreme Court before it was decided for George W. Bush over former vice president Al Gore. At the invitation of the U.S. government, OSCE has sent observation teams for every U.S. presidential and midterm election since then.
There’s more than one reason that this year is different. The most obvious, Gacek said, is the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to vastly scale down the number of observers sent to the U.S. Pre-pandemic, the office had planned to send 500. But after the pandemic hit, they scaled back to just 30. FILE – An election worker takes ballots from voters dropping them off at an official ballot drop box at the Miami-Dade County Board of Elections, in Doral, Fla., Oct. 26, 2020.
COVID-19, Gacek said, “has made life difficult for everybody.” It has affected the way campaigns are conducted, the administration of the vote, and the amount of work election administrators must deal with. For voters, it has meant deciding whether to show up on election day, vote in person early, or send a ballot through the mail.
Gacek noted that this year is different in an additional way, in the attention focused on the mechanics of the election — how people cast their ballots and when the ballots will be counted. “Suddenly,” Gacek said, “people are asking, ‘will my vote count?’”
“I think the pressure is on everybody,” Gacek said. “It’s on the hardworking and really very decent election administration people. I have an awful lot of respect for them.”
Gacek’s team arrived in the United States in early October and fanned out across the nation in pairs. Their mission was to talk to election administrators, evaluate media coverage, examine voting technology, and get a sense of the local political atmosphere in the places where their presence is welcomed.
Eighteen U.S. states routinely deny access to OSCE observers. Gacek, who is not connected to the group of lawmakers who were turned away in North Carolina, said observers do not try to go to places where their presence is against the law.
After a month of phone calls, virtual meetings, and in-person visits, Gacek’s team issued what they call an interim report, focused on conditions ahead of the election.
The October 22 report noted the complexities of administering a national election taking place in 50 states that each have different rules and voting equipment. In all, voting administration is handled by some 10,500 jurisdictions across the country. That’s complicated in a regular year — but this year, COVID-19 has also changed the options people have for voting. The voting workarounds devised this year have met no small amount of resistance.
The report notes that more than 365 lawsuits have been filed in 44 states and the District of Columbia over how people can vote and when their votes can be counted.
Complicating things further, the pandemic has resulted in shortages of both funding and personnel. Congress awarded emergency funding to the states in March to help pay for the extraordinary measures being implemented to give people a safe way to vote — but those funds, in the words of the report, “are largely regarded to be insufficient.” Moreover, there is a shortage of experienced poll workers, as many of those who have the most experience also are high-risk because of their age. Many of them are sitting this election out.
Other problems are ongoing.
There are differences among the jurisdictions in voting technologies. Of particular concern are a handful of jurisdictions that use voting machines that do not leave a paper trail, which can cause problems if there’s a need for a recount. There are differences between states in whether people who have been convicted of a crime should be allowed to vote. The observers concluded that some 5.2 million citizens are disenfranchised due to criminal convictions. The report notes that such restrictions disproportionally affect racial minorities.
The ODIHR report says “many” of the observers have voiced serious concern that the legitimacy of the election will be in question because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “repeated allegations of a fraudulent election process,” particularly as it regards mail-in voting. The president has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that widespread use of mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud. He has also claimed that the U.S. Postal Service can’t handle the increased burden of mail-in ballots. FILE – Postal workers load packages in their mail delivery vehicles at the Panorama city post office on Aug. 20, 2020 in the Panorama City section of Los Angeles.The U.S. Postal Service has not supported that statement. However, it did warn voters to request their ballots and return them early, to make sure they arrive in time to be counted.
Election financing also is in question. Gacek’s observers noted that the Federal Election Commission, which regulates campaign spending, cannot make decisions or issue advisory opinions at present because, since July, it has lacked a quorum — meaning at least four out of six available positions filled — to carry out its operations.
After several years of understaffing, the commission has a backlog of hundreds of cases to investigate.
Trump nominated Allen Dickerson last month and Sean Cooksey and Shana Broussard on Wednesday to fill the empty slots, but the three have yet to be confirmed by the Senate — leaving the FEC toothless for Tuesday’s presidential election.
Finally, the report notes that the media landscape is polarized, both in traditional media and on social networks. Despite actions by social network administrators to guard against disinformation, many of the observers said they were still concerned about untruths proliferating online.
With the interim report published, Gacek’s team — along with the rest of the United States — is braced for “E-day.” Gacek’s team will evaluate the vote that day and remain in the United States for about a week longer to observe whatever happens next. Then, from Europe, they will spend the next two months assembling a final report to be released sometime in January —possibly, as Gacek noted, right around the time the U.S. inaugurates the winner of the presidential election.
Whatever the outcome, says Warsaw-based ODIHR spokeswoman Katya Andrusz, the observers’ reporting is meant to be helpful, not critical for the sake of criticism.
“I sometimes get the feeling that people have this image of the observers as . . . going into elections, wagging a finger up and down and saying, you’re not doing it well,” she said in a phone conversation recently, “but that is not the point.”
She said the observation teams always offer to follow up their reporting with a visit back to the country to present the recommendations and help, if requested, with their implementation.
The goal, she said, is to improve the election process for the next time around.
“There is no perfect election,” she said. “We are not there to criticize but to help the countries and the authorities to improve their election processes for the benefit of their citizens.”
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Security Remains High in France After Deadly Knife Attack at Church in Nice
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Security throughout France was high Saturday after this week’s deadly stabbings at a church in Nice as President Emmanuel Macron tried to ease tensions in the country. French leaders have termed Thursday’s incident an Islamist terrorist attack after the perpetrator shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) as he decapitated a woman and killed two others in Notre Dame Basilica in Nice. Thursday’s attack followed the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty earlier this month after the republication of the Prophet Muhammad by the Paris-based satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Macron triggered protests in the Muslim world after the murder of Paty, who showed a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad to his class, by saying France would never renounce its right to caricature. On Saturday, though, Macron sounded a more empathetic tone in an interview with Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera. “I can understand that people could be shocked by the caricatures, but I will never accept that violence can be justified,” Macron said.
Meanwhile, French authorities detained a third man for questioning Saturday in connection with the Islamist knife attack at Notre Dame Basilica in the southern French city of Nice that left three people dead.
The man, a 33-years-old, was present during a police search Friday at the home of a second young Tunisian man suspected of being in contact with the attacker.
France, Tunisia and Italy are jointly investigating to determine the motive of main suspect Ibrahim Issaoui, a 21-year-old Tunisian, and whether he acted alone and whether his act was premeditated.
French police have three people in custody for questioning after they found two telephones on the suspect after the attack.
The first man, age 47, was detained Thursday night after police reviewed surveillance footage and observed the person next to the attacker on the day before the attack.
A second detained subject, 35, suspected of contacting Ibrahim Issaoui, the day before the attack, was arrested Friday.
Macron said earlier in the week he would increase the number of troops deployed to protect schools and churches from 3,000 to 7,000. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, meanwhile, strongly denounced the attacks and remarks Macron made on Oct. 21, when he said Paty “was the victim of a conspiracy of stupidity, hate, lies … hate of the other … hate of what we profoundly are.” “The comments could divide the unity of the world’s religious communities at a time when the world needs unity to curb the COVID-19 pandemic,” Widodo said Saturday during a televised news conference in Jakarta. Tunisian authorities are reportedly investigating whether a group called the Mahdi Organization carried out the attack. The state news agency TAP reported Friday investigators were also trying to determine whether the group exists and that the probe is based on claims of responsibility on social media. Issaoui, who transited Italy last month en route to France, remains in critical condition in a French hospital after being wounded by police as they arrested him. Three people were killed in Thursday’s attack. French anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said a 60-year-old woman was decapitated, and a 55-year-old man, the church sexton, had his throat slit. Forty-four-year-old Brazilian national Simone Barreto Silva was stabbed several times before fleeing to a nearby bistro, where she raised the alarm before succumbing to her wounds. Issaoui was not on Tunisia’s list of suspected militants and was not known to French intelligence services. Ricard said Issaoui arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20 and traveled to Paris on October 9. He said Issaoui was carrying a copy of the Quran. The knife used in the attack was found near him and two other knives not used in the attack were found in a bag that belonged to him. French leaders have termed Thursday’s incident an Islamist terrorist attack and raised the country’s security alert to its highest level.
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Britain Poised to Join France, Germany in Locking Down
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
For weeks, Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has resisted mounting calls to impose a national lockdown as coronavirus cases have risen inexorably, saying that closing the country for a second time this year would be a “disaster.” But the British leader appeared poised Saturday to join his counterparts in France, Germany and Belgium in ordering a nationwide shutdown.
New national lockdown restrictions could be imposed in England as early as next week. Wales announced a lockdown last week, and Scottish leaders say the next few days will be critical for Scotland to avoid a lockdown north of the border with England, too.
The British prime minister met his top Cabinet members Friday to discuss toughening restrictions in light of worsening coronavirus infection rates and rising hospital admissions.
Cabinet ministers had been chorusing all week that another lockdown wasn’t likely, saying a regional tiered strategy they have been following for weeks would work. “We are confident we’ve got the right measures in place — which is not to have a blanket approach,” said Britain’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab.
FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a virtual news conference on the ongoing situation with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Downing Street, London, Oct. 12, 2020.Johnson had previously warned that a second national lockdown would be like checking into “Hotel California” with no end in sight once it had been entered, a riff on a 1977 song by the rock band the Eagles. But “alarming data,” according to government insiders, has shifted his opinion.
Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, warned Downing Street Thursday the coronavirus was out of control and that hospitals are at risk of being overwhelmed.
The government’s main scientific advisory group, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, known as SAGE, also has been cautioning ministers that the pandemic is on course to breach the “reasonable worst-case scenario” it had previously outlined.
Projection modeling had suggested that under a tiered regional lockdown approach, daily infections in England would run at between 12,000 and 13,000. The actual numbers, however, are now running more than four times more, with confirmed daily cases between 43,000 to 74,000.
FILE – A passenger in a car receives a novel coronavirus test at a drive-in COVID-19 testing facility set up at the Chessington World of Adventures Resort, in Chessington, southwest of London, Oct. 20, 2020.Daily COVID-19-related deaths are now approaching 200 in England, twice the level projected under the previous worst case scenario. On Friday, top infectious disease expert and government adviser Jeremy Farrar tweeted that to bring the coronavirus under control “we have to act now.”
He added: “The best time to act was a month ago but these are very tough decisions, which we would all like to avoid. The second-best time is now.”
Opposition politicians and many government advisers had been clamoring for several weeks for a two-week so-called “circuit breaker” lockdown, a brief shutdown. But ministers had opted for a lighter-handed approach that has seen them impose tougher restrictions on regions as flare-ups occur. But earlier this month, Patrick Vallance, the government’s leading scientific officer, had warned publicly he doubted the regional strategy would work to curb rising case numbers.
London University’s Imperial College warned midweek that case numbers have been picking up speed in the south of England to match big jumps in northern England. One of their models projected that about 96,000 people would become infected in England daily without a national lockdown.
Johnson’s U-turn comes just days after Germany, France and Belgium opted to impose national lockdowns.FILE – Waiters are seen inside “La Chicoree” restaurant a few minutes before the start of the late-night curfew introduced as part of coronavirus restrictions, in Lille, France, Oct. 16, 2020.French President Emmanuel Macron said midweek he had to “brutally apply the brakes” and announced the banning of social gatherings, the closure of restaurants and bars, and a prohibition on non-essential travel, with citizens only allowed to leave home for essential work or medical care. “The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Wednesday a lockdown would take effect November 2 and last until November 30, with restaurants and bars only allowed to provide carry out service. Beginning Monday, all theaters, gyms, swimming pools, and movie theaters will be closed. Merkel said Germany’s health system “can still cope” with current cases, but “at this speed of infections it will reach the limits of its capacity within weeks.”
Italy has so far held out from imposing a formal national lockdown, but pandemic rules have been toughened, promoting violent protests in Milan, Turin, Naples and Rome.
On Thursday, European Union leaders pledged to cooperate on the latest lockdowns, hoping to avoid the border closures seen earlier this year when the pandemic first struck the continent. During a three-hour videoconference, the bloc’s 27 heads of state and government also discussed developing plans for the swift manufacture and distribution of vaccines.
“I want to stress that I understand how tired and worried everyone is,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a news conference after the video-conference concluded. “We are all wondering when we will come out of this crisis. But now is the time for patience, for determination and for discipline from all of us, from governments right down to each of us individually,” she added.
The EU has earmarked $257 million to help fund the transfer of COVID-19 patients across borders to help prevent hospital systems in the bloc from being overwhelmed. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 10 million Europeans are now infected with the virus.
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At Least 27 Dead as Powerful Quake Hits Major Turkish City, Greek Islands
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Rescue teams in Turkey working around the clock recovered another body Saturday from the rubble of a collapsed building in Bayrakli district in Izmir struck by a strong earthquake.The quake hit Turkey’s third-largest city and a nearby Greek island on Friday morning, killing at least 27 people and injuring more than 800.Haluk Ozener, director of the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, said that Izmir was the hardest-hit and most-damaged area.Izmir’s Governor Yavuz Selim Kosger said at least 70 people were rescued from the wreckage of four destroyed buildings and from more than 10 other collapsed structures.As the quake hit, residents were seen running into the streets in panic in Izmir, which has a population of 4 million.The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 with an epicenter 13 kilometers north-northeast of Samos and 32 kilometers off the coast of Turkey.The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 7.0. It is common for preliminary magnitudes to differ in the early hours and days after a quake.The quake triggered a surge of water into Izmir’s Seferihisar district.On the nearby Greek island of Samos, a teenage boy and girl were found dead in an area where a wall had collapsed.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said all means necessary would be used to assist rescue efforts.Many of Izmir’s inhabitants, fearing for their safety, were spending the night outside, in parks and open land or in their cars. Soup kitchens have been set up to feed those in need.Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis offered his condolences to Erdogan. The quake comes amid high tensions between the neighbors over disputes over territorial waters, but Mitsotakis tweeted, “Whatever our differences, these are times when our people need to stand together.”Erdogan thanked Mitsotakis and offered assistance, “We are standing with Greece if there is anything we can do for them.”Turkey is no stranger to powerful earthquakes, developing a large pool of expertise in rescue operations.The provincial city of Izmit, close to Istanbul, was devastated by an earthquake in 1999, killing at least 17,000 people. Many of those killed died in collapsed buildings.Since the 1999 quake, stringent building regulations have been introduced, along with a program of strengthening old structures.
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Trump Travels Saturday to Pennsylvania; Biden to Michigan
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
With only three days of campaigning left before Election Day in the United States, both top candidates travel to battleground states Saturday, with Republican President Donald Trump focusing on Pennsylvania while Democratic candidate former Vice President Joe Biden plans events in Michigan.Biden will be campaigning alongside former President Barack Obama for the first time during the campaign. The two will travel to Flint and Detroit on Saturday, part of two days of campaigning to get out the vote in Michigan.In Detroit, they will be joined by singer Stevie Wonder, who will perform at a drive-in rally. Wonder has previously performed at several Democratic events, including for Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012 as well as for Hillary Clinton in 2016.Trump plans to hold four rallies in cities across Pennsylvania on Saturday. The president narrowly won the state in 2016 and is seeking to repeat his performance there. Polls currently show Biden with a slight advantage.Trump told reporters Friday that he is undecided about his election night plans after The New York Times reported he canceled plans to appear at an event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.“We haven’t made a determination,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about his whereabouts on election night. Trump said coronavirus restrictions imposed by the local government in Washington, including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, would be a factor in the decision.“You know, Washington, D.C., is shut down. The mayor has shut it down. So we have a hotel; I don’t know if it’s shut — if you’re allowed to use it or not, but I know the mayor has shut down Washington, D.C. And if that’s the case, we’ll probably stay here or pick another location,” Trump added.On Friday, Trump and Biden both campaigned in the Midwest with Trump traveling to Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while Biden held events in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.Michigan has 16 electoral votes, Minnesota and Wisconsin have 10 each, and Iowa has six.Biden told supporters at a drive-in rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines Friday that the state hit a daily record number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations this week and argued that Trump “has given up” on fighting the virus.Trump told supporters at an outdoor rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, that Biden has predicted a dark winter ahead because of the coronavirus pandemic.“Just what our country needs is a long dark winter and a leader who talks about it,” Trump said.The president said a safe vaccine would be delivered to Americans in a matter of weeks, adding that it will be free because “this wasn’t your fault. This wasn’t anyone’s fault. This was China’s fault.”National polls typically show Biden with a lead of 7 or 8 percentage points over Trump, although the margin is about half that in several key battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome in the Electoral College.According to an average of major polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics, Biden and Trump are virtually tied in the battleground states of Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, while the president trails the former vice president in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.Americans are voting early for Tuesday’s presidential election in unprecedented numbers, a product of strong feelings for or against the two main candidates and a desire to avoid large Election Day crowds at polling stations during the pandemic.More than 82 million people had already voted as of Friday, well above half of the overall 2016 vote count, which was 138.8 million.
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Halloween 2020: Some Fun with Death and Fear, Anyone?
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
The setting: a rolling patch of Pennsylvania farmland, about 15 miles from the little town where “Night of the Living Dead” was filmed. The moment: Halloween season 2020, a moonlit Friday night.She strides up to the hayride, then beckons you to the dimly lit tent behind her. Her eyes are hollow. “Blood” streaks her nurse’s uniform. Across her forehead is a deep, oozing wound.”This is the corona tent,” she says. “I’m Nurse Ratched. We’re gonna test you all for the corona.”This is Cheeseman Fright Farm, one of those stylish Halloween attractions that emerge from the shadows in the United States of America when the leaves start falling and the days grow shorter.On this night, it is the place to be: By 8:45 p.m., a line 400 strong — some wearing face masks, some not — waits, at $20 a pop, to be carted off into the darkness and have creatures in various states of decay leap out at them for the better part of an hour.Good fun? Other years, sure. But this year — this 2020 of pandemic and uncertainty and racial injustice and sometimes violent unrest and unthinkable political divisions?In a year when fear and death have commandeered front-row seats in American life and more than 225,000 are dead from COVID, what does it mean to encounter the holiday whose existence hinges on turning those things into entertainment? What happens when 2020 and Halloween collide? Can being scared — under certain, controlled conditions — still be fun?A jack-o’-lantern is part of a Halloween display in front of an Upper East Side home on Oct. 30, 2020, in New York City.There’s precedent. In 1931, when the Great Depression was at its height and American society seemed fragile, Universal Studios uncorked its first iconic horror films, delivering up Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster.In the 1950s, when American life felt finite, with nuclear menace from without and subversive threats from within, science fiction produced “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “The Thing From Another World.”But usually the fear Americans have chased is different than — though certainly related to — the fear in our lives.”We have to process all this unpleasant cultural stuff. But it’s easier to do when you’re not looking at it too directly,” says David J. Skal, who chronicles the American fascination with horror and is the author of “Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. “I hope there is some kind of catharsis that comes out of Halloween this year.”The question is, with so many Americans affected by this year’s events, is that the kind of release people seek?”If you’ve been directly impacted by serious illness or loss, we’ve heard from people that this isn’t something that appeals to them this year,” says Matt Hayden, co-owner of Terror Town, an Old West-themed horror village in Williamsburg, Ohio.That’s not the majority. Hayden reports record attendance this year, people who want to swap that dull, pounding fear for something cinematic. “They can come to places like this,” he says, “and separate themselves from this year and what it’s been.”Even beyond COVID, there’s enough fear and death to go around. Among the year’s scares: What will happen on Election Day? What will happen to the republic AFTER Election Day?A skull and spiderwebs are part of a Halloween display in front of an Upper East Side home on Oct. 30, 2020, in New York City.Then there’s the racial reckoning fueled by centuries of fear and death visited unto Black people in America — and renewed by 2020’s convulsive events. As The Root wrote in October 2016, “Every day is Halloween for Black people.”The HBO show Lovecraft Country, which ended its first season this month, played on that notion with a blend of fantastical horror and the ugly real-life terror of racism in 1950s America. The show got, instinctually, what Americans are absorbing in 2020: What we’ve been trained by Hollywood and Halloween to see as frightening might pale when compared to what’s around daily life’s next corner.Are your finances uncertain? Unemployment might be your horror. Pre-existing health condition? As daunting as a murderer in a hockey mask. And if you are a young Black man who gets pulled over by police, the fear could be as dreadful as any seven-eyed monster with 3-inch teeth.Esther Jones, dean of the faculty at Clark University in Massachusetts, studies medical ethics, speculative fiction and African American literature. To her, 2020’s blurred lines are part of what’s making this Halloween unusual.”Halloween, for one night, you know it’s coming. You’re going to immerse yourself in this fear and this release. And the next day you’re back to normal,” Jones says. But 2020 “has turned over the rock. It’s removed the mask,” she says. “Everything that we thought was so strong and resilient and would not change is changing in front of our very eyes.”So right now, what do zombie mannequins in the supermarket foyer and hands clawing out from front-yard Halloween graves in the suburbs really give us?Perhaps the fear itself isn’t what provides the release. Maybe it’s that the fear, consumed in bite-sized doses, comes to a measurable end. And when it does conclude, no matter what the rest of the world is dishing out, turns out you’re still fine after all. You’ve made it. Or, at least, you can pretend you have.”The notion of survival — that we come out on the other side of this — has perhaps changed, but perhaps come out stronger,” Jones says. But “if there’s no end in sight for it, how do we exist with this threat?”Back in 1968, that original “Night of the Living Dead” ended with the hero — a Black man — surviving the flesh eaters only to be shot by a police posse. Then came “Dawn of the Dead” and “Day of the Dead.” Halloween will come and go, but those other horrors — they don’t end when the sun comes up the next morning.
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Can I Post a Photo of My Ballot?
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
In response to increased social media messages on how, where and when to vote in the U.S. general election, voters are posting proof that they cast their ballots.Whether it is a photo of the ballot showing who someone voted for, or a selfie of the voter, an increase in mail-in and early voting amid the pandemic means more voters are posting their ballot selfies the week ahead of the election.Whether these photos are legally allowed differs by state.According to data from Ballotpedia, as of September, 25 states and the District of Columbia allow ballot selfies — photos of a completed ballot or a picture of a voter inside the polling place.Because the popularity of ballot selfies rose in the past decade, most state laws govern whether photos can be taken inside polling places. But there are no clear rules on whether an absentee ballot can be photographed.In West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Delaware and Arizona, photography and/or cellphones are banned at polling places. In 2016, pop star Justin Timberlake deleted a photo of himself casting his vote in Tennessee after learning it was prohibited by a 2015 state law.In Maryland and Iowa, rules banning photography in polling places specifically state that photos of mail-in ballots are allowed.But many states argue that photography of a ballot or in a voting place violates the promise of a “secret ballot.”The secret ballot has long been perceived as an integral part of the U.S. democratic system, protecting voters from criticism or peer pressure and allowing them to fulfill their democratic privilege in private.Additionally, some states have argued that documentation of ballots could promote an uptick in voter fraud and buying votes — allowing companies or individuals to force paid voters to give confirmation that they completed their vote.In 2014, New Hampshire banned photos of ballots, citing the potential of vote-buying or influence. But the Supreme Court upheld a decision by a lower court in 2017 that the law violated free speech laws. Today, New Hampshire is one of the 25 states in which no laws govern how you document your voting process.Proponents of documenting the voting process have said it encourages fellow citizens to exercise their right to vote. In response to this, several states have encouraged alternate ways for citizens to share their voting process.The state of Georgia has promoted a “Post the Peach” campaign, encouraging citizens to post photos of their “I Voted” stickers, which in Georgia feature the state’s signature fruit. A similar #GoVoteTN initiative in Tennessee encourages voters to pose next to an “I Voted” sign.Celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Lizzo have posted videos of themselves dropping their completed ballots in a designated drop box, without revealing the ballot itself.Category: Ballot Drop Off Realness pic.twitter.com/3cYeStflOH— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) October 27, 2020
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Hundreds of Romanians Form Human Chain on Fifth Anniversary of Deadly Fire
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
On the steps of a Bucharest court on Friday, Adrian Albu pointed to his sister among the pictures of the 65 people who died in a nightclub fire five years ago, triggering mass protests across Romania at a culture of graft and lack of accountability.Hundreds of people wearing protective masks and standing 4 meters apart lit candles and formed a socially distanced human chain between the site of the former Colectiv club and the Bucharest Court of Appeals where the trial against those responsible is still taking place.”We should know who is guilty and people should know that the same thing can happen again at any moment and we are as unprepared now as we were then,” said Albu, 43, who survived the fire but lost both his sister and his cousin.The fire broke out when fireworks used during a concert by rock band Goodbye to Gravity ignited non-fireproofed insulation foam, triggering a stampede toward the single-door exit.Prosecutors have shown the club’s owners allowed it to fill beyond capacity and that Bucharest officials gave it an operating license while safety inspectors allowed it to run despite knowing it did not have a fire safety permit.A trial resulted in preliminary prison sentences last year, but the decision is on appeal.Badly burned patients were treated in improper conditions in Romanian hospitals, where many contracted infections that are still hampering their recovery.On Friday, centrist President Klaus Iohannis signed into law a bill that covers all future medical expenses of those injured at Colectiv. Albu said the legislation does not account for hundreds of non-Colectiv burn victims Romania records every year.Romania, which has one of the European Union’s least developed health care infrastructures, currently has one of the EU’s highest coronavirus death rates.”Change must start with us citizens,” said Marian Raduna, one of the human chain organizers. “We are the ones who tolerate corruption cases and incompetent authorities, and, sadly, we forget quickly.”
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Sudan, US Sign Agreement Restoring Sudan’s Sovereign Immunity
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Sudan and the United States signed an agreement to restore the African country’s sovereign immunity, the Sudanese Ministry of Justice said Friday.The ministry said in a statement the agreement would settle cases brought against Sudan in U.S. courts, including for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, for which Sudan has agreed to pay $335 million to victims.The deal is part of a U.S. pledge to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. The designation goes back to Sudan’s toppled Islamist ruler Omar al-Bashir, when Washington believed the country was supporting militant groups.President Donald Trump said this month that the United States would remove Sudan from the list as soon as Khartoum set aside the $335 million it has agreed to pay to American victims of militant attacks and their families.To avoid new lawsuits, Sudan needed its sovereign immunity restored, which it lost as a designated sponsor of terrorism.The designation makes it difficult for its transitional government to access urgently needed debt relief and foreign financing as it fights an economic crisis.Sudan has agreed, under U.S. pressure, to normalize ties with Israel, making Khartoum the third Arab government after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish relations with Israel in the last two months.
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Thousands in Warsaw Join Biggest Protest so far Against Abortion Ruling
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Tens of thousands of Poles joined a march Friday in Warsaw, the biggest in nine days of protests against a ruling by the country’s top court last week that amounted to a near-total ban on abortion in the predominantly Catholic nation.Defying strict rules that restrict gatherings to five people during the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrators walked through central Warsaw streets carrying black umbrellas, a symbol of abortion rights protests in Poland, and banners that read “I think, I feel, I decide” or “God is a woman.”Military police, some in riot gear, lined the streets as the demonstration began.Organizers and the city of Warsaw said some 100,000 people took part, one of the largest protest gatherings in years, following a Constitutional Court ruling on Oct. 22 outlawing abortions because of fetal defects. It ended the most common of the few legal grounds left for abortion in Poland and set the country further apart from Europe’s mainstream.Daily protests have taken place across the country in the past week and have turned into an outpouring of anger against five years of nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) rule and the Roman Catholic church, which is an ally of the government.Far-right groups which support the court ruling also turned out in small gatherings in Warsaw on Friday, and TV footage showed police clashing with them to keep one group away from the protesters.The leader of the abortion rights movement in Poland, Marta Lempart, told activists to report any attacks and to resist any threats of prosecution or fines for taking part. “We are doing nothing wrong by protesting and going out on the streets,” she told a news conference.After the ruling goes into effect, women will only be able to terminate a pregnancy legally in the case of rape, incest or a threat to their health.Dancing on tramsIn an effort to ease tensions, President Andrzej Duda proposed legislation on Friday reintroducing the possibility of terminating a pregnancy due to fetal abnormalities, although only limited to defects that are immediately life-threatening.Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pledged lawmakers would proceed with the legislation quickly, but demonstrators were unimpressed.”This is an attempt to soften the situation for PiS, but no sane person should fall for it,” activist and leftist lawmaker Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus told Reuters.The government has accused demonstrators of risking the lives of the elderly by defying strict pandemic rules against large gatherings. Poland reported a daily record of more than 21,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.Health Minister Adam Niedzielski drew comparisons between the Polish protest and the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, saying demonstrations across the United States caused an “escalation” of the pandemic.Public health experts say there has yet to be conclusive evidence of large-scale spread from the U.S. events.Five women were charged with organizing an illegal protest which attracted 850 people in the town of Police on Thursday, officials said.The Roman Catholic Church has said that while it opposes abortion, it did not push the government or the court to increase restrictions.PiS, however, has sought to instill more traditional and Catholic values in public life, ending state funding for in vitro fertilization, introducing more patriotic themes into school curricula and funding church programs.It has also launched a crackdown on LGBT rights and a reform of the judiciary the European Union says subverts the rule law. PiS says it seeks to protect traditional Polish values against damaging western liberalism.Opinion polls have shown its support falling sharply in recent weeks.
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Trump Suspends Duty-free Access for $817 Million in Thai Imports
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Thailand’s duty-free privileges for some $817 million in exports to the United States will be revoked starting Dec. 30, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday, citing a lack of progress in opening the Thai market to U.S. pork products.The suspension of the Generalized System of Preferences access follows a suspension earlier this year on about $1.3 billion worth imports from Thailand, which once had such privileges for about $4.4 billion in exports to the United States.The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said the list of products includes auto parts, electrical products, dried produce, tools and aluminum kitchenware.Trump’s letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing the move, released by the White House, follows more than two years of negotiations with Thailand over issues ranging from access to Thailand’s markets for U.S. goods and inadequate labor rights in the country.”I have determined that Thailand has not assured the United States that Thailand will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets,” Trump wrote to Pelosi.GSP is a 1970s-era program of U.S. trade preferences for developing economies aimed at improving workers’ rights and market access.USTR also announced that it had closed other GSP eligibility reviews with no loss of benefits for Georgia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan. It also said new GSP reviews were opened for Eritrea based on concerns about workers’ rights.
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Pope Francis Focused on Fighting Vatican Corruption
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Pope Francis said he is focused on fighting corruption in the Catholic Church, despite the challenges.”I know I have to do it (fight corruption), I was called to do it, but it will be the Lord to decide if I did well or not. Sincerely, I am not very optimistic,” he said during an interview Friday with Italian news agency AdnKronos.Pope Francis also said he is not deterred by criticisms in whatever area, noting he takes them “on board because it can lead to self-examination.” He added he will not let himself be “dragged down by every non-positive thing written about the pope.”In 2013, Pope Francis was elected by cardinals on a mandate to clean up the Vatican’s finances, after a series of corruption scandals.Last month, Francis fired a former top Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, for alleged embezzlement in the purchase of a luxury London building for the Vatican. Becciu has denied all accusations.A former worker of Becciu, 39-year-old Cecilia Marogna, was released Friday after spending at least two weeks in jail. Marogna is awaiting a judge’s decision on extradition from the Vatican.Francis says he is worried the “cases of malfeasance, of betrayals” hurt believers of the Catholic faith.
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Powerful Quake in Aegean Sea Leaves 6 Dead; Buildings Toppled in Turkey, Greece
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Officials in Greece and Turkey say rescue efforts are continuing into the night after a powerful earth struck Friday in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 14 people and injuring hundreds amid collapsed buildings and flooding caused by a minor tsunami.
Video clips showed several damaged buildings, some partially or completely collapsed, as emergency services attended the scene.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency reported12 people died, one due to drowning, while 419 people were injured.
On the Greek island of Samos two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were found dead in an area where a wall had collapsed. Haluk Ozener, director of the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, reported a small tsunami struck the Seferihisar district south of Izmir, the city in western Turkey that was the worst affected.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said search and rescue operations continued at 17 collapsed or damaged buildings. Izmir’s governor said 70 people had been rescued from under the rubble.
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 with an epicenter 13 kilometers north-northeast of Samos and 32 kilometers off the coast of Turkey. The United States Geological Survey put the magnitude at 7.0. It is common for preliminary magnitudes to differ in the early hours and days after a quake.
Multiple aftershocks struck the region.
Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said three injured people were pulled from the wreckage of a building in Izmir. Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer told CNN Turk that about 20 buildings collapsed. The city is the third largest in Turkey with about 4.5 million residents.
Media reports say the quake was felt as far away as Britain and Bulgaria.
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‘Our Heart Breaks’: South Digs Out From Zeta’s Wrath
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Trees on top of buses and cars. Roofs ripped off homes. Boats pushed onto the highway by surging seawater. Hundreds of thousands of people left in the dark.The remnants of Hurricane Zeta were far from land over the Atlantic on Friday, but people across the South were still digging out from the powerful storm that killed six people.The wind effects of Zeta, which came ashore in Cocodrie, Louisiana, and barreled northeast, were felt all the way from the Gulf Coast to southern New Jersey. At the height of the outages, as many as 2.6 million people were without power across seven states from Louisiana to Virginia. Utility crews were out assessing the damage and fixing it.In Louisiana, one of the hardest hit areas was Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans. Governor John Bel Edwards called the damage there “catastrophic” and ordered the Louisiana National Guard to fly in soldiers to assist with search-and-rescue efforts.Dodie Vegas, who with her husband owns Bridge Side Marina on Grand Isle, said damage was minimal at their waterside complex of cabins, campgrounds and docking facilities, but the rest of the island wasn’t so lucky.”As far as you can see, going down the island, the power lines are cracked in half,” she said by phone Thursday after riding out the storm with family. She described torn-off roofs and scattered debris: “The middle of the island looks like a bomb was dropped.”Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers survey levee damage along Grand Isle, La., Oct. 30, 2020. Gov. John Bel Edwards says the damage from Hurricane Zeta was “catastrophic” in Grand Isle, a barrier island community south of New Orleans.FatalitiesA man was electrocuted in New Orleans, and four people died in Alabama and Georgia when trees fell on homes, authorities said, including two people who were pinned to their bed. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a man drowned when he was trapped in rising seawater.Officials repeatedly stressed that the risks were not over — pointing out that fatalities often come after a storm has passed, from things like breathing toxic generator fumes or being electrocuted by downed power lines.Zeta was the 27th named storm of a historically busy year, with more than a month left in the Atlantic hurricane season. It set a new record as the 11th named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. in a single season, well beyond the nine that hit in 1916. And the coronavirus pandemic has only made things more difficult for evacuees.”Our heart breaks because this has been a tough, tough year,” said Edwards, whose state has taken the brunt of the hurricanes.Every storm is different, and with Zeta the biggest threat was its winds. The hurricane intensified quickly and was just shy of a major, Category 3 storm when it hit the Louisiana coast.The howling gale toppled trees and knocked limbs off stately oaks in New Orleans, and in Mississippi the storm surge whipped up by the winds tossed a shrimping boat into a front yard.Olivia Mancing and Zachery Quale talk outside Flora Gallery and Coffee Shop near a downed tree in the street after Hurricane Zeta swept through New Orleans, Oct. 29, 2020.Trees block roadsMayor Sheldon Day of Thomasville, Alabama, said hundreds of trees fell in roads and on homes, while some gas station canopies blew over.”At one point, every major thoroughfare was blocked by trees,” Day said.Many people were still assessing the damage.Keith Forrest of Bridge City, Louisiana, was launching a boat with his nephew in Lafitte, Louisiana, on Thursday to try to get to his fishing camp.”I got a phone call because the roof blew off one camp,” Forrest said.With just a few days until the November 3 election, there were concerns about whether the storm would affect voters’ ability to get to the polls.Far fewer early voters showed up after the storm in Pascagoula, Mississippi, a court clerk said, and power failures in two Georgia counties disrupted voting. In Louisiana, getting power back to polling centers was a priority, as was letting voters know quickly if there were any changes to locations come Tuesday.In Georgia, a group of civil rights organizations asked the governor to extend early voting hours Friday.A collapsed building is seen after Hurricane Zeta swept through New Orleans, Oct. 29, 2020.No electricity, no workIn the remote area of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, commercial fisherman Acy Cooper said his boats survived the storm. But without electricity, he feared operations could be shut down as long as two weeks.”Without no lights, none of the docks can work,” he said. “Everything’s automated now — the scales and the conveyors.”The heightened storm activity has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms.And as bad as the 2020 hurricane season has been, it isn’t over. Forecasters said disturbed air off the northern coast of South America could become a tropical depression and head toward Nicaragua by early next week — a forecast not lost on Louisiana’s governor.”Let’s not pray it on anybody else,” Edwards said. “Let’s just pray it away from us.”
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US Coronavirus Cases Set to Reach 9 Million
Posted by Worldcrew On 31/10/2020
Coronavirus infections in the U.S. are poised to reach 9 million Friday after daily cases in the country on Thursday reached a record high 88,521, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The 9 million milestone in the U.S. is set to be reached just 15 days after the total number of infections reached 8 million.
Dozens of U.S. states set records Thursday for new infections in a single day, including the midwestern states of Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, according to Hopkins. Record daily highs were also reported in Texas, California and Florida.
The rising tide of new coronavirus cases worldwide is forcing leaders to consider new lockdown measures to contain an increase in infections.
British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said in an interview with BBC television Friday a national lockdown in his country is not inevitable to prevent the further spread of the disease, adding that a localized approach would be efficient if rules for each area were strictly observed.
Raab’s statment followed announcements by leaders of France and Germany earlier in the week to impose new lockdowns.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide monthlong lockdown that will take effect Friday. Macron said restaurants, bars, cafes and other nonessential businesses will be closed, while citizens will be allowed to leave their homes only for work, shopping and doctor appointments.
Officials in Paris said people eager to escape the effects of the new lockdown created traffic jams Thursday evening with a total length of 730 kilometers.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a set of similar measures in her own monthlong lockdown which takes effect Monday. In addition to restaurants and bars, all gyms, theaters and opera houses will be shut down under Merkel’s order, while the majority of businesses, shops and hair salons will be allowed to remain open.
Schools in both nations will remain open during their respective lockdowns.
The restrictions were announced by Macron and Merkel as both nations struggle with a record number of new COVID-19 cases almost every day.
France and Germany joined several other European nations that have been forced to impose a new set of restrictions to deal with a second and growing wave of the virus as the cold weather season approaches in the Northern Hemisphere.
Ukraine reported Friday a record 8,312 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours, up from the October 23 high of 7,517, with total infections at 378,729. The deaths also jumped by a record 173, for a toll of 7,041.
In Japan, the health ministry said Friday that the coronavirus cases topped 100,000, nine months after the first case was reported in mid-January. Japan has more than 1,700 deaths.
European countries, meanwhile, are calling on the global community to grant the World Health Organization greater authority to independently investigate outbreaks after the pandemic exposed the agency’s deficiencies.
After European Union ministers met to discuss the matter, German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday that countries should give the agency more political and financial support.
The WHO does not have the authority to independently investigate epidemics, forcing it to rely on countries to approve their lists of suggested experts and to abide by the agendas developed by them.
As of Friday, there are more than 45 million total coronavirus cases worldwide, including over 1.18 million COVID-19 deaths. India has reached the milestone of over 8 million cases, second only to the U.S.
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At Least 4 Dead After Powerful Earthquake Hits Turkey
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
Officials in Turkey say at least four people are dead in western Izmir province following a powerful earthquake that struck Friday along the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos. From his Twitter account, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca reported that four people were killed in Izmir and 120 were injured. He said 38 ambulances, two ambulance helicopters and 35 medical rescue teams were working in the province. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 with an epicenter 13 kilometers north-northeast of Samos and 32 kilometers off the coast of Turkey. The United States Geological Survey put the magnitude at 7.0. It is common for preliminary magnitudes to differ in the early hours and days after a quake. Multiple aftershocks struck the region. Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said three injured people were pulled from the wreckage of a building in Izmir. Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer told CNN Turk that about 20 buildings collapsed. The city is the third largest in Turkey with about 4.5 million residents. Turkey’s interior minister said there were small cracks in some buildings in six other provinces.Some damage also was reported to buildings and roads on Samos, an island in the eastern Aegean Sea. The director of the hospital in Samos said four people were treated there for light injuries.Greek public television said the quake also caused a mini-tsunami on Samos, damaging buildings. Video taken at the scene showed boats pushed up onto city streets. Media reports say the quake was felt as far away as Britain and Bulgaria.
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2nd Suspect Held After Deadly Knife Attack at French Church
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
Police in France have detained a second suspect in connection with Thursday’s deadly knife attack at a church in the city of Nice. The suspect is a 47-year-old man believed to have been in contact with the attacker the night before the attack at Notre Dame Basilica, according to a judicial official, who was not authorized to be publicly named. In Tunisia, authorities are reportedly investigating whether a group called the Mahdi Organization carried out the attack. The state news agency TAP reported Friday investigators were also trying to determine whether the group exists and that the probe is based on claims of responsibility on social media. A picture of Brahim al-Aouissaoui, who is suspected by French police and Tunisian security officials of carrying out Thursday’s attack in Nice, is seen in this undated photo provided by his family on Oct. 30, 2020.Authorities have identified the attacker as a Tunisian national, 21-year-old Ibrahim Issaoui. He was shot and seriously wounded by police Thursday and remained hospitalized Friday in life-threatening condition. Three people were killed in Thursday’s attack. French anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said a 60-year-old woman and a 55-year-old man had their throats slit, while a 44-year-old woman was stabbed several times. Brazilian media identified the stabbing victim as a Brazilian national, Simone Barreto Silva. Ricard said she was able to flee the church but died after collapsing at a nearby restaurant. Issaoui was not on Tunisia’s list of suspected militants and was not known to French intelligence services. Ricard said Issaoui arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20 and traveled to Paris on October 9.He said Issaoui was carrying a copy of the Quran. The knife used in the attack was found near him and two other knives not used in the attack were found in a bag that belonged to him. French leaders have termed Thursday’s incident an Islamist terrorist attack and raised the country’s security alert to its highest level. President Emmanuel Macron said he would increase the number of troops deployed to protect schools and churches from 3,000 to 7,000. He vowed the country will not give in to any terrorism.
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French Terror Suspect Entered Europe Through Italian Port, Italy Says
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
Italy’s interior minister confirmed Friday the Tunisian man who killed three people in an attack on worshippers at a church in Nice had passed through Italy on his way to France.
At a news conference in Rome, Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said Ibrahim Issaoui disembarked from a migrant boat on Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa on September 20 and was given a repatriation order to leave Italy on October 9.
Lamorgese gave no further details on what if any action was taken to act on the repatriation order or if Issaoui complied with the order.
Under current agreements with Italy, Tunisia agrees to take back a maximum of 80 nationals a week. New arrivals are invariably handed expulsion papers but are almost never detained until a flight home can be organized. Instead, many move swiftly out of Italy, often heading to France, which has a large Tunisian community.
French soldiers, part of France’s national security alert system “Sentinelle”, patrol near the Cathedral in Arras as France has raised the security alert for French territory to the highest level after the knife attack in the city of Nice, France.The Italian interior minister said Issaoui was not flagged by either Tunisian authorities or by intelligence agencies.
Lamorgese has come under fire in Italy by right-wing politicians who say she bears some responsibility for the killings in France for not preventing Issaoui from entering Europe. The interior minister called on Italian political parties “to take a break” from political infighting and to show solidarity with the French people.
Police investigating the gruesome attack had a second suspect in custody Friday. France recently heightened its security alert amid religious and geopolitical tensions around cartoons mocking the Muslim prophet.
French authorities say Issaoui was seriously wounded by police and hospitalized in life-threatening condition.
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As Anger Rises, Thousands of Muslims Protest French Cartoons
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
Thousands of Muslims in Pakistan poured out of prayer services to join anti-France protests on Friday, as the French president’s vow to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to roil the Muslim world.
An estimated 2,000 worshippers celebrating the Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, took to the streets in the eastern city of Lahore. Crowds led by Islamic parties chanted anti-France slogans, raised banners and clogged major roads en route to a Sufi shrine. Dozens of people furiously stomped on French flags and cried for the boycott of French products. In Multan, a city in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, thousands burned an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron and demanded that Pakistan sever ties with France.
More gatherings were planned for later Friday in Pakistan, including the capital, Islamabad, where police were out in force to prevent possible demonstrations outside the French Embassy. The atmosphere was tense as police positioned shipping containers to block the roads.
Other protests, largely organized by Islamists, are expected across the region, including in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
In Afghanistan, members of the Islamist party Hezb-i-Islami set the French flag ablaze. Its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, warned Macron that if he doesn’t “control the situation, we are going to a third world war and Europe will be responsible.”
The protests come amid rising tensions between France and Muslim-majority nations, which flared up earlier this month when a young Muslim beheaded a French schoolteacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
Those images, republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial for the deadly 2015 attack against the publication, have stirred the ire of Muslims across the world who consider depictions of the prophet blasphemous.
A series of attacks that French authorities have attributed to Muslim extremism ensued. On Thursday, a knife-wielding Tunisian man carrying a copy of the Quran killed three people at a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice. That same day, a Saudi man stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard at the French consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, prompting France to urge its citizens there to be on “high alert.”
Over the past week, protests and calls to boycott French products have spread rapidly from Bangladesh to Pakistan to Kuwait. Social media has been pulsing with anti-France hashtags. Muslim leaders, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in particular, have loudly criticized France for what they see as the government’s provocative and anti-Muslim stance.
Thursday’s attack in Nice also drew condemnations from leaders of countries that had voiced outrage over the caricatures, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt.
In a Friday sermon aired live on Egyptian state TV, the country’s minister of religious endowments appeared to denounce any violent retaliation for the cartoons.
“Love of the prophet cannot be expressed by killing, sabotaging or responding to evil with evil,” said Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa, addressing dozens of worshippers at a mosque in Egypt’s Delta province of Daqahleya.
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Walmart Pulls Firearms, Ammunition from US Store Floors as Civil Unrest Flares
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
Walmart Inc removed firearms and ammunition from U.S. store floors this week to protect customers and employees as tensions across the country have been rising, the world’s largest retailer said on Thursday.The move comes days before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3, with many worried that the result could be contested or spark violence.”We have seen some isolated civil unrest and as we have done on several occasions over the last few years, we have moved our firearms and ammunition off the sales floor as a precaution for the safety of our associates and customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said. The company does not have a date for when it will place the guns and ammunition back on the shelves, he added.The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer, which sells firearms in approximately half of its more than 5,000 U.S. stores, will still sell the items upon request, it said.Retailers have been on edge after people earlier this year smashed windows, stole merchandise and, at times, set stores ablaze in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Portland and other U.S. cities. In an another trend that has fed concern, gun sales in the United States this year have reached record highs, and more first-time buyers have purchased firearms recent months.In June, Walmart pulled firearms and ammunition from some U.S. sales stores amid nationwide protests over the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, while in police custody in late May.Last year, the retailer stopped selling ammunition for handguns and some assault-style rifles in all its U.S. stores.It has also in the past called for a strengthening of background checks for gun buyers and action to take guns out of the hands of those who pose a risk of violence.Shares of the retailer were trading roughly flat after the bell.
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Trump, Biden Head to Battleground States Friday
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
With just a few days until voters cast the last ballots in the U.S. presidential election, the top candidates are focusing their campaign efforts Friday in four midwestern battleground states. President Donald Trump will campaign in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while former Vice President Joe Biden will campaign in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.Michigan has 16 electoral votes, Minnesota and Wisconsin have 10 each, and Iowa 6.WATCH: Blue states and Red states Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden greets suporters at a drive-in, Get Out the Vote campaign stop in Tampa, Florida, Oct. 29, 2020.Biden slams Trump over ‘super spreader events’
Biden criticized President Trump for holding packed rallies amid the coronavirus pandemic where most attendees are not wearing masks, calling them ”super spreader events.” The president is “spreading more than just coronavirus. He’s spreading division and discord,” Biden said at a second drive-in rally later in the day in Tampa that was cut short by a rain shower. Trump, addressing a large crowd in a stadium parking lot in Tampa, again predicted heavy Republican voter turnout — “a great red wave” — on November 3. “We’re going to win this election so big. You watch,” the president predicted. Trump had been scheduled to hold another rally later Thursday in North Carolina, but because of “very bad weather,” including high winds, the event was postponed until Monday, he told reporters.U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a campaign rally outside Raymond James Stadium, in Tampa, Florida, Oct. 29, 2020.Trump touts coronavirus vaccine
Trump, in his speech in Tampa, also said the country would have a vaccine for COVID-19 “in a few weeks,” promising that “seniors will be first in line to have it.” In Florida, people over the age of 65 this year could comprise about a third of those voting for president. In every election since 1996, the winner of Florida has won the presidency. The winner there earns 29 of the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the election. According to an Unprecedented early voting numbers
More than 80 million people had already voted as of Thursday, well above half of the overall 2016 vote count, which was 138.8 million. About two-thirds of America’s early voters have mailed in or dropped off their ballots, and the rest voted in person at polling places throughout the country. Biden voted Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware, while Trump cast his ballot Saturday at a library in West Palm Beach, Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago resort. Voting experts say voter turnout for the contest between the Republican Trump and Democratic challenger Biden could be the highest percentage of the electorate since 1908, when 65% of the country’s eligible voters cast ballots.
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Rising New Tide of COVID-19 Cases Worldwide Force Leaders to Consider New Lockdowns
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
A rising tide of new coronavirus cases worldwide is forcing leaders to consider new lockdown measures to contain an increase in infections.
British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said in an interview with BBC television Friday a national lockdown in his country is not inevitable to prevent the further spread of the disease, adding that a localized approach would be efficient if rules for each area were strictly observed.
Raab’s statment followed announcements by leaders of France and Germany earlier in the week to impose new lockdowns.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide monthlong lockdown that will take effect Friday. Macron said restaurants, bars, cafes and other nonessential businesses will be closed, while citizens will only be allowed to leave their homes for work, shopping and doctor appointments.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a debate about German government’s policies to combat the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19 disease at the parliament Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. (Photo/Markus Schreiber)German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a set of similar measures in her own month-long lockdown which takes effect Monday. In addition to restaurants and bars, all gyms, theaters and opera houses will be shut down under Merkel’s order, while the majority of businesses, shops and hair salons will be allowed to remain open.
Schools in both nations will remain open during their respective lockdowns.
The restrictions were announced by Macron and Merkel as both nations struggle with a record number of new COVID-19 cases practically every day.
France and Germany joined several other European nations that have been forced to impose a new set of restrictions to deal with a second and growing wave of the virus as the cold weather season approaches in the Northern Hemisphere.
Ukraine reported Friday a record 8,312 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours, up from the October 23 high of 7,517, with total infections at 378,729. The deaths also jumped by a record 173, for a toll of 7,041.
In Japan, the health ministry said Friday that the coronavirus cases topped 100,000, nine months after the first case was reported in mid-January. Japan has more than 1,700 deaths.
As of early Friday, there are more than 45 million total COVID-19 cases worldwide, including over 1.18 million deaths. India has reached the milestone of over 8 million total novel coronavirus cases, second only to the United States, with 8.94 million total confirmed cases.
As the effort to develop a safe and effective vaccine continues, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said it would ensure that everyone in the United States will be able to be inoculated free of charge.
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California Voters to Decide Gig Economy’s Fate
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
Voters in California are deciding on an initiative that would keep people who work in the so-called gig economy as independent contractors, not employees. Michelle Quinn reports.
Camera: Matt Dibble and Deana Mitchell Producer: Matt Dibble
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Pompeo Calls on Indonesia to Speak Up on China’s Uighur Persecution
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Indonesian leaders to speak up about the condition of ethnic Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. Pompeo made the comment Thursday as he delivered a religious freedom speech during his visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Promises Action as Allies Sound Alarm Over Reform Rollback
Posted by Worldcrew On 30/10/2020
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy promised swift action on Thursday and warned Ukraine could lose international aid and support after a Constitutional Court this week ruled to abolish some anti-corruption laws. The court said it saw as excessive the punishment set for false information on officials’ asset declarations and struck down some critical powers of the key anti-graft body NAZK, which in turn said the court had destroyed the anti-corruption system. Ukraine’s patchy performance on reforms and tackling entrenched corruption has derailed a $5 billion program agreed in June with the International Monetary Fund at a time its economy is in sharp downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic. FILE – The International Monetary Fund logo is seen in Washington, April 21, 2017.The European Union’s delegation to Kyiv warned that its financial assistance was tied to Ukraine’s performance on corruption. A further deterioration could threaten Ukraine’s prized visa-free access to the EU countries, a member of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has warned. “We will not have money. We will not have support. Projects on which agreement was reached will be canceled, as well as World Bank support. We will have a big hole in the budget,” Zelenskiy said in a statement. “The recent decisions of the [court] undermine trust in Ukraine, outrage Ukrainians,” he said in a separate post on Twitter, adding that he wanted new legislation introduced as soon as possible to rectify the situation. The United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union have backed Ukraine with aid and sanctions on Russia after the 2014 Maidan street protests that ousted a Kremlin-backed leader but have repeatedly pressed Kyiv to quicken the pace of reforms. “The G-7 ambassadors are alarmed by efforts to undo the anti-corruption reforms that followed the Revolution of Dignity,” a statement said. “Too much progress has been made, Ukraine must not go back to the past.” In a separate statement, the EU said the court decision “calls into question a number of international commitments which Ukraine assumed in relation to its international partners, including the EU.”
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