COVID-19: UK imposes fresh four-week national lockdown

UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a new four-week coronavirus lockdown across England, a dramatic shift in strategy following warnings hospitals would become overwhelmed within weeks under his current system of localised restrictions.

Under the stringent new rules set to come into force from Thursday, people must stay at home except in cases where exemptions apply, such as for work, education or exercise, while all but essential shops will close.

In contrast to the months-long UK-wide lockdown earlier this year, schools, colleges and universities will remain open.

But pubs and restaurants will shut unless serving takeaway food, while all leisure and entertainment venues and non-essential shops will close.

The restrictions are planned to end on December 2.

“Now is the time to take action because there’s no alternative,” Johnson said at a Downing Street news conference after convening his Cabinet earlier in the day to sign off on the plan.

“We have got to be humble in the face of nature. In this country, alas, as in much of Europe, the virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst-case scenario of our scientific advisers,” he added.

The British premier will set out the new measures, which include extending a financial support scheme to help businesses pay furloughed employees for an additional month to December, to parliament on Monday.

Lawmakers will then vote on them on Wednesday.

The ramped-up response came as Britain surpassed one million cases during the global pandemic, after announcing nearly 22,000 new infections on Saturday, and virus hospitalisations climbed by 1,239, the highest daily tally since late April.

The government’s scientific advisors have warned that Covid-19’s prevalence, and resulting hospitalisations and deaths, are rising faster than their most dire predictions.

Flanking Johnson at the announcement, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said that under the current trajectory hospital intensive care units and ventilator capacity could be overwhelmed by early December.

Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said there was the potential for twice as many deaths as during the first wave of the pandemic.

– ‘No apologies’ –

Britain is already among the hardest-hit countries in Europe, with the total Covid-19 related deaths nearing 47,000, after another 326 fatalities were announced.

Some European countries and the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already reimposed partial lockdowns to try to cut their surging rates.

Johnson’s government, which is responsible for health policy in England only, had resisted the move, fearing the economic fallout.

Instead it has persevered with a localised response system that relies on three tiers of Covid-19 alert.

Only at the highest level, imposed in recent weeks on a number of regions and cities in northern and central England, are pubs and bars closed and indoor socialising banned.

Last month, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) recommended a two-week national “circuit-breaker” lockdown over the half-term school holidays this past week, but Johnson rejected the move.

Johnson defended the policy on Saturday, adding: “It’s true that the course of the pandemic has changed and it’s right that the government should change and modulate its response in accordance, and I make absolutely no apologies for that.”

– ‘Very difficult choices’ –

But his critics say that delaying the decision has resulted in the need for an even longer lockdown now.

“Government delay has cost both lives and livelihoods,” London mayor Sadiq Khan, of the main opposition Labour party, wrote on Twitter.

The British premier has also faced stiff opposition to another shutdown from within his own ruling Conservative party, from right-wing newspapers and also scientists and doctors who believe that lockdowns do not work and are too damaging.

One Tory MP, Steve Baker, met Johnson in Downing Street Saturday and afterwards conceded his boss faced “very difficult choices”.

Earlier this year, Johnson — who contracted Covid and was treated in intensive care — was criticised for a slow response to the outbreak, delaying locking down Britain even as the number of positive cases and deaths spiralled across Europe.

He eventually imposed a national lockdown in late March, shutting all non-essential shops and schools, and forcing millions to work from home to cut transmission rates.

The stay-at-home measures were lifted in June as cases dwindled, with Johnson declaring in July the country could see “a more significant return to normality from November… possibly in time for Christmas”.

(AFP)

 

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Tensions high as Ivory Coast votes in presidential polls

At least 30 killed in violence ahead of polls as President Ouattara seeks a third term in office.

 

The UN has urged calm, but the opposition called for a campaign of civil disobedience to stop the vote [Issouf Sanogo/AFP]

Ivory Coast is voting in tense election after an opposition boycott and clashes over President Alassane Ouattara’s contested attempt to secure a third term.

At least 30 people have been killed in pre-election violence, evoking memories of a 2010-11 crisis that killed about 3,000 people.

Polling stations opened at 8am (08:00 GMT) and will close at 6pm (18:00 GMT).

In Saturday’s vote, Ouattara’s main challengers will be former President Henri Konan Bedie and ex-Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan.

The opposition leaders called for an election boycott and civil disobedience, though they have not formally withdrawn their candidacies.

The fourth challenger is independent candidate Kouadio Konan Bertin.

Ouattara, 78, was supposed to step aside after his second term to make way for a younger generation, but the sudden death of his chosen successor forced a change in plan.

The Ivorian leader, a former IMF official who has been in power since 2010, says a Constitutional Court ruling approved his third term, allowing him to bypass two-term presidential limits after a 2016 legal reform.

But Bedie and opposition leaders say a third mandate is unconstitutional.

They accuse the electoral commission and the Constitutional Court of favouring the government, making a fair and transparent vote impossible.

The United Nations has urged calm, but the opposition called for a campaign of civil disobedience to stop the vote, stoking fears of more violence in opposition strongholds.

More than 35,000 police and security personnel have been mobilised to secure the election.

The run-up to the polls saw sporadic clashes in the south of the country, mainly between local ethnic groups close to the opposition and Diaolu communities from the north who are seen as loyal to the president.

The country’s political feuds are often closely tied up with its leader’s ethnic identities and regional loyalties.

On Friday, police fired tear gas in the political capital of Yamoussoukro to break up fighting between Diaolu youth and opposition-aligned Baoule communities, according to residents.

Under the constitution, the electoral commission has five days to announce the results.

President Ouattara says a Constitutional Court ruling approved his third term [Legnan Koula/EPA]

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#EndSars shows that Muhammadu Buhari is the biggest threat to Nigeria’s democracy

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari addresses the nation on a live televised broadcast on Oct. 22. (Bayo Omoboriowo/AP)

 

Opinion by Innanoshe R.A.

Innanoshe R.A. is a Nigerian writer, editor, lawyer and activist.

Some things never change in Nigeria. Police and military brutality, the terrible state of governance, the ubiquity of corruption, extreme poverty and inequality, unreliable power supply go in an endless cycle, like the year’s seasons.

Nigerian elections are like gambling. We blindly toss a coin into the air — with no guarantee of what we get. We vote out one corrupt leader for an even more corrupt one. Or, as we like to say, “you go from the frying pan into the fire.”

Take President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, for example. As the first opposition candidate to mount a sweeping defeat of a sitting president in Nigeria, Buhari — a former general and military head of state —rode the coattails of rife anti-government sentiments to victory in 2015. To those who voted for him, he symbolized a potent antidote to the issues plaguing the country. He promised to blindly fight corruption and cronyism. He vowed to strongarm the terrorist group Boko Haram into retreat or surrender. He also declared that he would stabilize Nigeria’s dwindling economy and fix the existing gulf of socioeconomic disparities between Nigeria’s uber-wealthy few and the majority of Nigerians who are abjectly poor. In a campaign tweet two months before his historic win, he swore a solemn vow to Nigerians. “Let me make you this promise today,” Buhari wrote. “We will protect your children. We will protect your wealth. We will make this country work again.”

Today, nearly six years after making that promise, Nigeria has become a relic of what it used to be. Many signs point to Buhari’s failures. He must go.

The streets are raging with violence. Nigerians are under an unprecedented lethal attack by Buhari’s government, which recently killed unarmed citizens protesting against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a brutal and abusive police force in Lagos. The #EndSars movement has become a global phenomenon. After days of denials, the Nigerian army admitted Tuesday that their officers were deployed to the scene of the deadly attack to ensure statewide curfew compliance. The army still denies opening fire.

But perhaps one of the starkest portraits of Buhari’s failures to date are the graphic images and videos on social media that show multitudes of presumably hungry Nigerians fighting tooth and nail to get their hands on bags of rice, flour, noodles, sugar and other food supplies recently discovered in government-owned warehouses full of hoarded covid-19 aid across the country. The food was meant for Nigerians during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, but, like with most things in Nigeria, the politicians decided to reserve it for their own benefit.

In 2019, Nigeria dropped two spots lower than previous years on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index — which prompted Buhari’s administration to denounce the report as “baseless.” Additionally, a damning 2018 World Poverty Clock report said Nigeria, Africa’s wealthiest and largest economy, had overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty in the world. Similarly, youth unemployment has risen in recent years, and now stands at nearly 41 percent. Nigerian public universities have been shut down for the past several months due to the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ strike action. The situation may get even worse for my country. A staggering World Bank simulation suggests that “the dual COVID-19 and oil price crisis could push around 10 million more Nigerians into poverty by 2022.”

These reports and the events of recent weeks have made it abundantly clear for all to see that Buhari has not only failed in keeping to his promises, but he has also, more dangerously, defied rehabilitation from his dictatorial past. He is proving himself the single biggest threat to Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. His hands, and those of his accomplices, are covered with the blood of the young Nigerians like me whose lives, dreams and hopes he cut short for exercising their constitutional rights of assembly and protest.

In support of the recent protests against police brutality and bad governance in Nigeria, I published a manifesto on social media as a suggested framework of the ideological boundaries for the movement. There, I noted that a top-to-bottom leadership change in government and law enforcement agencies is the only path to real change in Nigeria. It seems to me, and possibly to an increasing number of Nigerians, that there cannot be any tangible or long-lasting reform within any sector in Nigeria without replacing leaders and the existing systems and processes.

And perhaps, even more, this is the time to imagine a new Nigeria, that works for all. We need a new Nigeria that protects, defends and holds space for the most vulnerable amongst us — the girl-child, disabled, economically disadvantaged, women, and, yes, the LGBTQ+ community, too. We must also imagine a new national identity, one that is grounded in progressive ideals, such as equality, diversity, unity, justice, loyalty, hard work and selflessness.

Indeed, Buhari and Nigeria’s other useless politicians need to pass the baton of leadership to my generation of Nigerians who have shown a commitment to doing the job and will put the country before themselves. It’s time for Buhari to resign.

 

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Kenya's number of COVID-19 cases raise says Health CS Kagwe

File Photo Image Credit: Twitter(@MOH_Kenya)

 Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Mutahi Kagwe has informed that Kenya on October 30 has recorded its highest number of new COVID-19 infections, according to a news report by Nation.

CS Kagwe has announced in a press conference in Mombasa County that 1,185 new infections have been recorded following the testing of 9,851 samples in the last 24 hours. This raised the country's caseload to 53,797 and the total number of samples tested so far to 687,462.

Mutahi Kagwe has also reported that 17 more patients had succumbed to the virus, raising the death toll in Kenya to 981.

Of all the reported patients in the country, 1,119 had been hospitalized, 41 of them in intensive care units (ICU), and 26 on ventilator support, as of Friday.

Kagwe said 45 were on supplementary oxygen (not in ICU) and 15 in high dependency units (HDU).

He further said 4,440 of them were in the home-based care program and that the youngest of the new patients was 11 months old and the oldest 93. Kenyans numbered 1,145 while the rest were foreigners.

Nairobi remained the county with the highest number of infections - 25,226. Mombasa was second with 4,194 cases, Kiambu third with 3,203, Nakuru fourth with 2,530, and Kajiado fifth with 2,175 cases.

 

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Ex Burundian president Pierre Buyoya rejects his conviction for murder

 Buyoya was accused of the murder of Melchior Ndadaye, who had defeated him to become Burundi's first freely elected president. The former leader dismissed the trial against him as a "sham."

 

Peirre Buyoya at the European UN Headquarters in 2015.

Former Burundian President Pierre Buyoya, who is the current High Representative of the African Union for Mali and the Sahel, "rejected" Wednesday his conviction in absentia in Burundi to life imprisonment for the murder of his predecessor Melchior Ndadaye in 1993.

"We reject these judgements, which can in no way commit us," a statement from him signed by co-defendants says.

"Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the new government has just proved to the world that it follows this line of lawlessness," they said.

Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi's first democratically elected president and the first Hutu to come to power, was assassinated in October 1993 in a military coup that would lead the country into a civil war between the army, dominated by the Tutsi minority, and Hutu rebel groups. It will result in 300,000 deaths until 2006.

Mr. Ndadaye had succeeded Mr. Buyoya, carried by the army in power in 1987 and who became president again in a new coup between 1996 and 2003, before handing over power to Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, under a peace agreement signed in 2000 in Arusha (Tanzania).

Mr. Buyoya was convicted of "attack against the head of state, attack against the authority of the state and attack tending to bring about massacre and devastation", according to the text which only contains the operative part (conviction and sentence) of the decision handed down by the Supreme Court.

The name of Pierre Buyoya had already been cited in connection with this assassination, without the beginning of any proof being provided.

Eighteen senior military and civilian officials close to the former head of state were sentenced to the same sentence, three others to 20 years in prison for "complicity" in the same crimes and only one, the former transitional Prime Minister, Antoine Nduwayo, was acquitted.

Only five defendants, four retired Tutsi high-ranking officers and a serving police general, Ildephonse Mushwabure, were present at the trial.

According to Mr. Buyoya, the trial was conducted "in violation of the Arusha Accords" and was neither "fair" nor "equitable" as the rights of the defence were allegedly violated.

 

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Outrage in Nigeria after peaceful protesters shot at: Today's follow-up news

For days now, Nigeria has been wretched by protests. The unrest continues as the government of Nigeria is yet to find a long lasting solution to the call of the protesters. 

World widely, many know Nigeria as a terrorized country. Also the country is overwhelmed by criminal acts and brutalities mostly committed by the federal special anti-robbery squad  (SARS).This last, caused the current protest in Nigeria. 

Sad enough, the protest is now becoming bloody as several protesters are hunted down by the Nigerian military force. Details......

Unrest spreads in Lagos a day after witnesses and rights groups say soldiers opened fire at a crowd protesting against police brutality.

 

 

People demonstrate on the street to protest against police brutality, in Lagos, Nigeria [Sunday Alamba/AP]

Unrest spread in Lagos on Wednesday, a day after witnesses and rights groups said army soldiers opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters defying a curfew during demonstrations against police brutality in Nigeria’s largest city.

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said one person has died at a hospital following the shooting, but it was unclear if the person was a protester. He said 30 people were injured.

Amnesty International said it was investigating “credible but disturbing evidence of excessive use of force occasioning deaths of protesters” at the Lekki toll plaza in Lagos.

Videos showed men in uniform opening fire on demonstrators in Lagos. Nigeria’s military, however, denied responsibility for the Lekki shootings, posting a tweet that labelled several reports as fake news.

Rwandan genocide suspect Kabuga to be sent to The Hague

Felician Kabuga, 84, is likely spend several months in The Hague and be brought before an international judge.

 

UN prosecutors accuse the former tea and coffee tycoon of bankrolling and importing huge numbers of machetes for ethnic Hutu militias who killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda during a 100-day period in 1994 [File: Benoit Tessier/Reuters]

A United Nations judge on Wednesday ordered that Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga, who has been in a French jail since May, be sent to a detention unit in The Hague out of health considerations amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision means that Kabuga, 84, is likely to spend at least several months in The Hague and be brought before an international judge there for an initial appearance in his war crimes case, rather than in Arusha, Tanzania as originally planned.

“I hereby amend the arrest warrant and order of transfer,” Arusha-based judge Iain Bonomy said, ordering the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals “to modify Kabuga’s conditions of detention to allow for his detention there”.

“I consider that there are exceptional circumstances and that it would be in the interests of justice” to have Kabuga sent to The Hague, Bonomy said in a written decision from Arusha.

Kabuga, a Hutu businessman and once one of Rwanda’s wealthiest people, was indicted in 1997 on seven criminal counts including genocide.

UN prosecutors accuse the former tea and coffee tycoon of bankrolling and importing huge numbers of machetes for ethnic Hutu militias who killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda during a 100-day period in 1994.

Kabuga, who has yet to appear before the UN court, dismissed accusations against him as “lies” during French extradition hearings.

It had been uncertain where exactly Kabuga would be sent after France’s top civil court ruled on September 30 he could be turned over to the UN custody in Arusha, Tanzania.

Former UN tribunals for war crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia have been rolled over into a successor court that has dual offices in The Hague, Netherlands, and Arusha.

Bonomy’s order said the court has yet to receive Kabuga’s medical files, and that the relatively short distance between Paris and The Hague meant Kabuga’s transfer there would pose “far less risk”.

He said the date of Kabuga’s initial appearance is not certain due in part for a need for him to be quarantined for 10 days after arrival.

The Netherlands is one of Europe’s COVID-19 hotspots, while Tanzania’s president has said its coronavirus outbreak is over. However, the country has been criticised by the World Health Organization (WHO), accused of not sharing enough data.

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Yahoo Groups to shut down Dec 15

 

Yahoo has announced plans to shut down Yahoo Groups from December 15 over a steady decline in usage.

 

Verizon, which bought Yahoo in 2017, announced the decision on Tuesday, marking the end of the road for one of the largest message board systems on the Web of its time.

 

“Yahoo Groups has seen a steady decline in usage over the last several years. Over that same period, we’ve witnessed unprecedented levels of engagement across our properties as customers seek out premium, trustworthy content,” the company said in a message sent to users.

 

“While these decisions are never easy, we must sometimes make difficult decisions regarding products that no longer fit our long-term strategy as we hone our focus on other areas of the business”.

 

The Yahoo Groups service was launched in 2001 and could not complete against new platforms like Reddit, Google Groups and Facebook Groups.

 

On October 12, the creation of new groups will be disabled and on December 15, people will no longer be able to send and receive emails from Yahoo Groups.

 

"The website will no longer be accessible too. Yahoo Mail will continue to function normally.

 

“The emails you have sent and received will remain in your email, though beginning December 15 messages will not be sent or received from your group members. If you try to email your group after December 15, your message will not be delivered and you will receive a failure notification,” the company added.

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When ISIS attacks Vatican, ‘you would wish I was elected President’ – Trump blasts Pope Francis

 

US President, Donald Trump has replied Pope Francis, who earlier criticized him and described him as non-Christian.

Trump responded to the criticism at a campaign rally in Kiawah Island, S.C., warning the pontiff about the Islamic State, who he said “their primary goal is to get to the Vatican.”

“If and when the Vatican is attacked,” he said, “the pope would only wish and have prayed that Donald Trump would have been elected President.”

 

The President had earlier in his speech, said, “I like the pope.”

Before the Catholic pontiff arrived at the Mexican border, President Trump had frowned on the visit, describing Francis as a politician and accused him of acting at the behest of the Mexican government.

Trump, a Presbyterian, has been trying to make inroads among evangelical voters as he seeks reelection come November.

 

When asked about Trump’s comments, Francis laughed, saying, “Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as ‘animal politicus’.

“So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people.”

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Trump Back In Oval Office, Six Days After Positive Coronavirus Test

A US Marine stands guard outside the West Wing, indicating that US President Donald Trump is in the Oval Office, at the White House in Washington, DC, October 7, 2020. – President Donald Trump has been free of Covid-19 symptoms for 24 hours and has not had a fever in four days, his doctor said October 7, 2020. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

US President Donald Trump returned to work in the Oval Office Wednesday, six days after testing COVID-19 positive, the White House said.

Trump spokesman Brian Morgenstern said the president was being briefed on economic stimulus negotiations and the progress of Hurricane Delta towards the US Gulf Coast.

The behavior of the president — who was hospitalized on Friday with Covid-19 and discharged on Monday — is under scrutiny as the number of positive cases continues to rise among people working at the White House.

His exit from the hospital, like much of his handling of the pandemic that has killed over 210,000 people in the US, sparked controversy.

Just after stepping off a helicopter at the White House, he climbed the stairs of his residence and pulled off his face mask.

“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” he urged Americans in his homecoming speech, referring to the virus.

By Wednesday, his doctors reported the president had been free of COVID-19 symptoms for 24 hours and has not had a fever in four days.

“The president this morning says ‘I feel great,'” doctor Sean Conley said in a brief update.

Trump has vowed to return to campaigning shortly and to participate in the second presidential debate against opponent Joe Biden in Miami on October 15.

The president is confronted by dire polling numbers ahead of the November 3 election, which comes as the economy struggles to recover from COVID shutdowns that have left countless families and businesses struggling.

 

-AFP

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Policeman Charged In Death Of George Floyd Released On Bail

 

 

These images taken on May 25, 2020, from a video courtesy of Darnella Frazier via Facebook, shows Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin during the arrest of George Floyd. Darnella Frazier / Facebook/Darnella Frazier / AFP

The police officer charged with killing George Floyd, the African American whose death sparked a mass protest movement, was released from a Minnesota jail on Wednesday on $1 million bail.

Derek Chauvin, who was videorecorded pressing his knee to handcuffed Floyd’s neck during an arrest in May until Floyd went limp, is charged with second and third degree murder and manslaughter.

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office posted a notice of his release after more than four months in jail, after Chauvin was able to post the hefty bond.

The 44-year-old former Minneapolis police officer, who has since been sacked, is to face trial in March 2021 along with three other now ex-police officers over Floyd’s death, which triggered the largest US anti-racism movement since the 1960s.

The other three, Thomas Lane, Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, who either stood by or participated holding Floyd down when he was killed, are charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Floyd’s death on May 25 became a symbol of what many say is systemic racism and abuse of African Americans by police, and sparked protests across the country that continue under the banner of “Black Lives Matter.”

Prosecutors called the death, which came after Floyd was detained for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill, “vicious, brutal, and dehumanizing.”

All four defendants say the decision to restrain Floyd was reasonably justified, and have also cited coroner evidence that drugs found in his system may have been the primary cause of death.

The officers were all fired one day after Floyd’s death, reflecting the growing seriousness with which US cities are beginning to take police abuse allegations.

 

 

-AFP

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Nigerian rapper, Olawale Hassan, jailed for rape in UK

A Nigerian rapper based in the United Kingdom, Olawale Hassan popularly known as Goldie 1, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping a woman.

 

According to BBC.com, the 33-year-old, who lives at Falcon Avenue, Grays, Essex, attacked the victim in Southend in 2017 after claiming he was a music producer, officers said.

 

However, during his trial, he denied the three counts of rape and one charge of assault by penetration.

 

Essex Police has described him as "manipulative and calculated".

 

Detective Constable Victoria De'ath, of the force, praised the woman, in her 20s, for her "courage" in reporting the attack.

 

It was gathered that Hassan targeted the woman while she was out with a friend in February 2017. She turned down his requests for her number and to accompany him to his hotel room before he promised to get her home safely after her friend left.

 

Instead, he parked his car on the seafront and locked its doors when she tried to flee before attacking her. He later took her home where she called the police.

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We Need To Unite Against ‘Forces Of Darkness’ Destroying America - Biden

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks about the coronavirus outbreak, at the Hotel Du Pont March 12, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Health officials say 11,000 people have been tested for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S. Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

White House hopeful Joe Biden warned on Tuesday that “the forces of darkness” are dividing Americans, saying that as president he would strive to “end the hate and fear” consuming the nation.

In a speech at an outdoor site overlooking the hallowed Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, the Democratic challenger to President Donald Trump in November’s election condemned the rise of white nationalism and said the country needed to unite.

“The forces of darkness, the forces of division, the forces of yesterday are pulling us apart, holding us down and holding us back,” Biden said in a speech near where president Abraham Lincoln delivered his inspirational Gettysburg Address during a cemetery dedication here in 1863.

“We cannot and will not allow extremists and white supremacists to overturn the America of Lincoln and (abolitionists) Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, to overturn the America that has been a haven and a home for everyone no matter their background,” Biden added.

The 77-year-old former vice president who leads in polling four weeks from election day did not mention Trump’s name, but his remarks served as a clear rebuke of a Republican president whose relentless rhetoric has raised tensions nationwide.

The Democrat’s speech, attended by a small contingent of Biden supporters abiding by social distancing rules, notably came one week after Trump, who has branded himself a “law and order” president, failed to directly condemn white nationalism during their contentious debate in Cleveland.

“I do not believe we have to choose between law and order and racial justice in America. We can have both,” Biden said.

But he stressed that “as president… I will send a clear unequivocal message to the entire nation: There is no place for hate in America. It will be given no license, it will be given no oxygen, it will be given no safe harbour.”

His speech was intended to serve as a call for unity after months of bitter divisions, but he also said he was “concerned” about what he sees today.

“The country is in a dangerous place, our trust in each other is ebbing, hope seems elusive,” and politics is no longer a forum for mediating differences but a battleground for “total, unrelenting partisan warfare,” he said.

The veteran Democrat repeatedly invoked the language of Lincoln in his speech, saying “there’s no more fitting place than here today, in Gettysburg, to talk about the cost of division.”

“Today once again, we are a house divided. But that, my friends, can no longer be,” Biden said.

-AFP

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90 killed as Syrian fighters, ISIS clash

 

Clashes in the Syrian Desert between pro-government forces and holdouts of the Islamic State group have killed at least 90 combatants this month, a war monitor said on Wednesday.

 

Russian aircraft carried out strikes in support of their Syrian regime ally, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The clashes broke out in two separate areas of the vast desert that separates the Orontes valley in the west from the Euphrates valley in the east.

 

The government side lost 41 dead, the jihadists 49, the Britain-based war monitor said.

 

At least 10 government loyalists and 13 IS jihadists were killed over the past 24 hours alone, Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said.

 

"IS is trying to prove that it is still strong," he added.

 

Mobile IS units have remained active in the Syrian Desert, known in Arabic as the Badia, since the jihadists lost the last shred of its self-proclaimed caliphate in March last year.

 

September clashes killed 13 pro-government fighters and 15 jihadists, while in early July 20 pro-government fighters and 31 jihadists were killed over two days.

 

In August, IS claimed an attack, presumably mounted from the desert, that killed a Russian general near the Euphrates valley city of Deir Ezzor.

 

AFP

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Hundreds Evacuated As French Villages Dig Out From Flooding

 

Men stand on a slab of retaining wall concrete at the edge of the River Roya after heavy rains and floods hit Breil-sur-Roya, a French village close to the Italian border, where houses were buried in mud and turned-over cars were stuck in the riverbed on October 5, 2020. (Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP)

Rescue workers evacuated hundreds of people Monday from villages hammered by flash flooding in southeast France over the weekend, with the death toll expected to rise as searches continue for survivors.

Two people died after storms dumped huge amounts of rain that turned streams into churning torrents that swept away cars, houses and bridges in the French Alps north of Nice.

But the authorities said eight people had disappeared, in many cases after witnesses reported seeing them carried away by the floodwaters, while 13 others have not been heard from since Friday.

Italian authorities also said two people died, including a volunteer firefighter on a rescue operation Saturday.

Meteorologist Luca Mercalli told the Fatto Quotidiano daily Monday that in Limone Piemonte and the Roya Valley “some 600 millimetres of rain fell in fewer than 24 hours. Half the annual average rainfall in just one day.”

“I’ve lost everything. My house, 25 metres long (80 feet), was engulfed by the Vesubie river,” said Alain Brucy, 63, as trucks carrying water, baby food, toilet paper and other essentials arrived in Roquebilliere, a French village near the Italian border.

“The priority is to evacuate those who want to leave this war zone they’ve been living in for the past two days,” the government’s top regional official, Bernard Gonzalez, told AFP, saying some areas looked as if they had been “bombarded.”

Around 400 people have been evacuated by helicopter so far, he said.

Gonzalez also said four bodies found on a beach in Liguria, Italy, on Sunday most likely came from cemeteries swept away when rivers overran their banks.

“These are not recent deaths… but old corpses,” he said.

Officials have declared the region a natural disaster zone, and President Emmanuel Macron is expected to tour the area this week.

– ‘Doing what they can’ –

Electricity and phone service remains down across much of the region, and officials have closed off access to hikers and climbers so that mountain rescue teams can focus on the search for victims.

In the hard-hit Roya valley, several villages remained completely cut off after roads collapsed or were torn up by the floods, or were blocked by fallen trees or rocks and other debris.

Scores of tractors have been deployed to help the villages dig out, including several brought in by French army regiments.

“They’ve been at it since this morning, and they’re doing what they can but you see that ladder over there — that’s where the bridge was washed away,” said Josiane Osanga, 78, in the village of Breil-sur-Roya.

Nearby, residents used a bow and arrow to construct a makeshift zipline for sending over medicine and other items to houses trapped on the far side of the river.

Emergency generators are also being deployed “so we can end this isolation that is very difficult to bear and that makes it much harder to organise the necessary help,” said Philippe Pradal, president of the Nice metropolitan area.

Officials were also transferring nursing home residents and hospital patients from several villages and towns.

“In Fontan, they found a generator and everyone is sharing their food” until new supplies can be brought in, said Alexandra Valetta-Ardisson, a local lawmaker.

AFP

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