South Africa on Saturday surpassed 500,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, representing more than 50% of all reported coronavirus infections in Africa’s 54 countries.Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize announced 10,107 new cases Saturday night, bringing the country’s cumulative total to 503,290, including 8,153 deaths.South Africa, with a population of about 58 million, has the fifth-highest number of cases in the world, behind the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India, all countries with significantly higher populations, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the true toll of the pandemic worldwide is much higher than confirmed cases, because of limited testing and other reasons.1 million soon?”Half a million is a significant milestone, because it shows we’ve entered a stage of rapid increases. We may reach 1 million cases very quickly,” said Denis Chopera, a virologist based in Durban. “What we know for sure is that the figures are an underestimate and that this virus will be with us for a long time to come.”South Africa’s Gauteng province — which includes Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, and Pretoria, the capital — is the country’s epicenter with more than 35% of its confirmed cases. Local hospitals have been struggling to cope, and health experts say the country could reach the peak of its outbreak in late August or early September.Cape Town, a city beloved by international tourists at the country’s southern tip, was the first epicenter and reached its peak last month, according to health experts.FILE – Police warn a demonstrator working in the hospitality industry during a protest against lockdown regulations in the streets close to Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, July 24, 2020.South Africa will have multiple peaks across the country, each challenging its different provincial health care systems, said Chopera, executive manager of the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence.”The Western Cape had the first peak and did relatively well. Gauteng is the epicenter now and appears to be coping so far,” he said. “Other provinces, like the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, do not have reputations for well-organized health care systems. They may have serious problems.”South Africa imposed a strict lockdown in April and May that succeeded in slowing the spread of the virus but caused such economic damage that the country began a gradual reopening in June.Recession preceded virusSouth Africa was already in recession before the coronavirus hit, and its unemployment stands at 30%. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has extended grants to the country’s poorest, increased supplies to hospitals and recently accepted a $4.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.Corruption in the country’s pandemic response is a growing problem. On Thursday, the top health official in Gauteng province was forced to step down over corruption allegations related to government contracts for COVID-19 personal protective equipment.Ramaphosa has warned that now, more than ever, South Africa’s persistent problem with widespread graft is endangering people’s lives.
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“Boston Strong” remains a “vibrant” rallying cry more than seven years after the marathon bombing killed three people and injured more than 260 others, a federal appeals court noted as it threw out the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.But even as the ruling opened old wounds, it raised familiar questions about whether Tsarnaev could receive a fair hearing in the city where the bombs exploded — a community that may now be asked to relive unspeakable trauma.The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Friday that jurors were not adequately screened for bias ahead of Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial, describing media attention in the case as “unrivaled in American legal history.”The three-judge panel ordered a new penalty phase — this time with more searching questions for prospective jurors — to decide whether the 27-year-old should be executed.Tsarnaev “will spend his remaining days locked up in prison,” the judges made clear, “with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution.”The Justice Department is expected to appeal. Legal observers predict prosecutors will turn straight to the U.S. Supreme Court without asking for a hearing before the full 1st Circuit. The U.S. government recently resumed federal executions following a 17-year pause and, under President Donald Trump, has pursued capital punishment in an increasing number of cases.’Pro-prosecution'”When it comes to death penalty cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has been much more pro-prosecution than many of the circuit courts,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.Should Friday’s ruling stand, attention will shift to whether an impartial jury can be impaneled in a city still traumatized by the 2013 attack. Tsarnaev’s defense team may renew its request to transfer the case out of Boston, where they have long contended public opinion is immutably slanted.”Everybody in the community understands where ‘Boston Strong’ came from,” Dunham said. “The question will be whether that’s so ingrained in the community that jurors can’t set it aside and fairly determine the outcome of this case.”FILE – In this March 5, 2015, courtroom sketch, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, center, is depicted between defense attorneys Miriam Conrad, left, and Judy Clarke during his federal death penalty trial in Boston.Tsarnaev’s case is uniquely complicated in that an entire city — if not the whole country — considered itself the target of the bombing, said George Kendall, an attorney who filed a brief contending it was a mistake to hold the trial in Boston. Prosecutors said Tsarnaev and his brother intended the attack to punish the U.S. for wars in Muslim countries.”This was not just a horrific crime against the individuals who were killed and hurt,” Kendall said in an interview Saturday. “This was an attack on the city of Boston and a deliberate attack on its most cherished tradition.”Robert Bloom, a Boston College law professor who has followed the case for years, said a new penalty phase would force the community to relive the bombing.”My hope is that the government will decide not to put the victims through this again,” Bloom said, noting Tsarnaev had been willing to plead guilty before the trial had the government taken the death penalty off the table.Another trial, or closure?Tsarnaev’s lawyer echoed Bloom in an email to The Associated Press following Friday’s ruling.”It is now up to the government to determine whether to put the victims and Boston through a second trial, or to allow closure to this terrible tragedy by permitting a sentence of life without the possibility of release,” David Patton wrote.Tsarnaev’s attorneys did not dispute his involvement in the attack, but argued he was less culpable than his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gunbattle with police a few days after the bombing.Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 charges — including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction — all but a few of which were upheld in the appellate ruling.The appellate judges differed on whether the case should be moved to another jurisdiction but noted that, “given the sizable passage of time, the venue issue should look quite different the second time around.””Two of the three judges indicated it was not error to have the trial in Boston, so the opinion may actually help keep it in Boston in the future,” said Brian Kelly, a former assistant U.S. attorney known for his prosecution of crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger.Marty Weinberg, a veteran defense attorney, said a second penalty phase would be “made enormously more difficult by the widespread knowledge — particularly in the Boston area — that another jury previously decided upon death.” 
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Lawmakers participating in rare weekend talks on a huge coronavirus relief measure reported progress Saturday, as political pressure mounted to restore a newly expired $600-per-week supplemental unemployment benefit and send funding to help schools reopen.This was the longest meeting we had and it was more productive than the other meetings,'' said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.We’re not close yet, but it was a productive discussion — now each side knows where they’re at.”Schumer spoke alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after meeting for three hours with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.Schumer said the officials would meet Monday and their staffs would meet Sunday.The Democratic duo is eager for an expansive agreement, as are President Donald Trump and top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. But perhaps one-half of Senate Republicans, mostly conservatives and those not facing difficult races this fall, are likely to oppose any deal.Prior talks yielded little progress. The administration is willing to extend the $600 jobless benefit, at least in the short term, but is balking at other Democratic demands like aid for state and local governments, food stamp increases, and assistance to renters and homeowners.Food aid, vote by mailPelosi mentioned food aid and funding for voting by mail after the negotiating session was over. She and Schumer appeared more upbeat than they have after earlier meetings.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, speaks to reporters following a meeting at the Capitol on a COVID-19 relief bill, Aug. 1, 2020, in Washington.We have to get rid of this virus so that we can open our economy, safely open our schools, and to do so in a way that does not give a cut in benefits to American workers, Pelosi said.Mnuchin said restoring the $600 supplemental jobless benefit was critically important to Trump.We're still a long ways apart and I don't want to suggest that a deal is imminent, because it is not, Meadows said afterward. There are still substantial differences, but we did make good progress."The additional jobless benefit officially lapsed Friday, and Democrats have made clear that they will not extend it without securing other relief priorities. Whatever unemployment aid negotiators agree on will be made retroactive — but antiquated state systems are likely to take weeks to restore the benefits.A step backRepublicans in the Senate had been fighting to trim the $600 benefit, saying it must be slashed so that people don't make more in unemployment than they would if they returned to work. But their resolve weakened as the benefit expired, and Trump abruptly undercut their position by signaling he wants to keep the full $600 for now.On Friday, Trump used Twitter to explicitly endorse extending the $600 payment and to criticize Schumer.FILE - People who lost their jobs are reflected in the door of an Arkansas Workforce Center as they wait in line to file for unemployment following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Fort Smith, Ark., April 6, 2020.Washington's top power players agree that Congress must pass further relief in the coming days and weeks. At stake beyond the $600-per-week jobless benefit is a fresh $1,200 direct payment to most Americans, and hundreds of billions of dollars in other aid to states, businesses and the poor, among other elements.Democrats hold a strong negotiating hand — exploiting GOP divisions — and they are expected to deliver a necessary trove of votes.The COVID package will be the fifth legislative response to the pandemic and could well be the last one before the November election. The only other must-pass legislation on the agenda is a stopgap spending measure that should advance in September.More flexibilitySince May, Republicans controlling the Senate had kept the relief negotiations on pause, in a strategy aimed at reducing its price tag. But as the pandemic surged back over the summer — and as fractures inside the GOP have eroded the party's negotiating position — Republicans displayed some greater flexibility.Even with signs of progress in the talks, the list of items to negotiate remains daunting.Democrats, for example, are pressing hard for a boost in food stamp benefits. Republicans added $20 billion for agribusinesses but nothing for greater food stamp benefits in their $1 trillion proposal. Meadows played a role in killing an increase in food aid during talks on the $2 trillion relief bill in March.Traditionally we’ve had a partnership between farms and families, and they’ve consistently broken that,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
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Tanzania banned Kenya’s national airline from entering the country effective Saturday, in the latest move in a deepening row triggered by Tanzania’s controversial handling of the coronavirus pandemic.Tanzania said Kenya Airways flights were being banned “on a reciprocal basis” after Kenya decided against including Tanzania in a list of countries whose passengers would be permitted to enter Kenya when commercial flights resumed on 1 August.”Tanzania has noted… its exclusion in the list of countries whose people will be allowed to travel into Kenya,” Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority director general Hamza Johari said in a letter sent to Kenya Airways on Friday.”The Tanzanian government has decided to nullify its approval for Kenya Airways (KQ) flights between Nairobi and Dar/Kilimanjaro/Zanzibar effective August 1, 2020 until further notice,” Johari wrote.”This letter also rescinds all previous arrangements that permit KQ flights into the United Republic of Tanzania.”Kenya Airways chief executive Allan Kilavuka said Saturday he was “saddened” by the letter and hoped the situation would soon be resolved.Tanzania has taken a controversially relaxed approach to tackling the coronavirus pandemic and began reopening the country two months ago.President John Magufuli’s refusal to impose lockdowns or social distancing measures, and to halt the release of figures on infections since late April, has made him a regional outlier and caused concern among Tanzania’s neighbours and the World Health Organization.Magufuli declared Tanzania free of coronavirus in June, thanking God and the prayers of citizens for the disease’s defeat disease.The diplomatic spat between Kenya and Tanzania erupted soon after the outbreak of the pandemic in East Africa, when Kenya blocked Tanzanian truck drivers from entering the country, fearing they would spread the disease.
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Authorities in Iran say they have arrested a leader of a U.S.-based opposition group for alleged involvement in a 2008 mosque attack in Shiraz that killed 14 people and injured more than 200.The Intelligence Ministry said on August 1 that it had detained Jamshid Sharmahd of the little-known, California-based Kingdom Assembly of Iran group.Sharmahd allegedly heads the group’s militant wing, which is called Tondar.Officials said the group is suspected of planning other, unspecified attacks as well.The Iranian state television report did not say when or where Sharmahd had been detained.The Kingdom Assembly of Iran is a monarchist group that seeks to overthrow Iran’s Islamist government.Based on reporting by AP and AFP
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Cambodian authorities have arrested a prominent union leader for allegedly inciting social unrest over border demarcation issues with the neighboring Vietnam, the latest crackdown against opposition voices in the kingdom.Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions and a longtime government critic, was apprehended Friday night at his home. He was taken to court Saturday to hear the charge against him.If found guilty, Chhun face six months to two years imprisonment and a fine up to about $1,000.In July he accused the government of “irregularities” at Cambodia’s eastern border, which, according to him, caused locals to lose farmland.Chhun also gave an interview last week to U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia, in which he discussed the concerns of Cambodian farmers about land infringement by neighboring Vietnam.Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government maintains close relations with Vietnam, a country that help him rise to power after Hanoi invaded Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge regime.Hun Sen’s opponents accuse him of failing to protect Cambodian land. 
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