The mounting death toll in and around Nagorno-Karabakh will make it harder for outside powers to persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to stand down and return to the negotiating table, fear diplomats and analysts.Up to 1,000 people, including more than 60 civilians, are thought to have been killed so far in renewed fighting over the breakaway enclave, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenians. A ceasefire brokered Saturday by Moscow between the warring sides is only being partly observed, with both sides accusing the other of breaches.The heaviest fighting Monday appeared to be around Hadrut, just south of Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital. But shelling has also been reported in other areas. Azerbaijan said a missile Saturday struck apartment buildings in the city of Ganja, killing nine people, just hours after the truce went into effect. Armenia denied responsibility for the barrage.People carry the coffins of Anar Aliyev and his wife Nurcin Aliyeva, killed in Ganja attack during the fighting over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the city of Shamkir, Azerbaijan, Oct. 12, 2020.Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called the attack on the city “a war crime” and a “gross” violation of the ceasefire, promising “a befitting retaliation.” Nagorno-Karabakh’s military officials counter-charge that Azerbaijani forces shelled Stepanakert and other towns on Monday in violation of the truce.“These deaths radicalize societies and make a stand-down even more politically challenging,” says Laurence Broers of Britain’s Chatham House. “Under sustained bombardment, civilians among both the Armenian population of Nagorn0-Karabakh and the Azerbaijani settlements around the ‘Line of Contact’ are enduring a humanitarian disaster,” he said. “Across the divide a new descent into bitterness and toxic cynicism has taken hold,” he adds.The mountainous enclave, which lies inside Azerbaijan’s borders but enjoys de facto independence and has an Armenian majority, has not seen such heavy clashes since the early 1990s, when as many as 30,000 people lost their lives before a ceasefire largely brokered by Moscow and backed by the U.S. and France left the dispute frozen.The decades-long conflict has seen periodic flare-ups and episodic skirmishes followed by resentful truces. This time, though, Azerbaijan’s president appears determined to secure a breakthrough either by force of arms or at the negotiating table. Azeri frustration has deepened with the lack of diplomatic progress and what they see as neglect of their grievances, say analysts.The renewal of intense fighting has approached for months, say observers, but, distracted by the coronavirus pandemic and other emergencies, world powers overlooked the telltale signs that should have forewarned them.Long-running talks overseen by France, the U.S. and Russia as co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, Minsk Group have languished for years, building up frustration in Baku.Patience Wears ThinAzerbaijanis say they have been patient and that the lack of progress has impacted them far more than Armenia. The 1994 ceasefire has in effect locked Armenia’s hold not only on Nagorno-Karabakh but on seven other Azerbaijani areas bordering the enclave seized by Armenian forces in the 1990s. In all about 20% of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized land is occupied by Armenia.A sniper of Nagorno-Karabakh’s militia observes the land ahead during a military conflict near Hadrut, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Oct. 11, 2020.They complain that U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring Armenian troops to leave all occupied territories have been ignored by officials in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.“Azerbaijan was patient for over a generation,” says Robert Cutler of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, a research institute based in Calgary and Ottawa. “Azerbaijan warned over the years that the use of force would be a last resort if the peace process were exhausted,” Cutler noted in a commentary for Canada’s Hill Times news outlet.The final straw for Baku, he says, appears to have been the public rejection, little noticed outside the region, by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of the basic principles underlining the Minsk peace process to which both sides had agreed.In a speech on August 5 last year, Pashinyan announced “Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia, and that is all.” Cutler dubs that a “verbal annexation,” one driven by Pashinyan’s domestic need to assuage nationalist opinion in his country.“No Armenian politician had said that since the war in the early 1990s, first because it was political dynamite—since the territory was internationally recognized to be part of Azerbaijan—and second because Armenia sought to maintain the fig leaf of independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Armenia proper,” Cutler says.In this grabtaken from a video released by the Armenian Prime Minister Press Service, Oct. 6, 2020, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with army commanders in the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan.In July, Pashinyan also rejected any role in final peace talks for around 800,000 ethnic Azeris who fled the enclave in the 1990s as it was seized by ethnic Armenians and another 200,000 people from Armenia proper.  He said the negotiations should only include ethnic Armenian representatives from Nagorno-Karabakh alongside the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan.Turkish supportAzerbaijan appears now to have the edge militarily, thanks largely to the backing it has from Turkey.Azerbaijan has been modernizing its army since 2016, buying $10 billion worth of arms from overseas in the past few years.Touring the Azeri frontlines, Zaur Shiriyev, a South Caucasus analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, says army morale is high.“More significant advances than those achieved in the last major outbreak of fighting in April 2016 have been made possible by aerial attrition of Armenian land forces using Turkish and Israeli drones,” says Chatham House’s Laurence Broers. “While the situation remains fluid, Azerbaijani forces appear to have succeeded in breaking through the fortified Line of Contact, particularly along the southern flank,” he adds.The advances will likely make it harder for Azerbaijan’s president to settle for a return to the status quo before his offensive. He has now raised the expectations of the million Azeris who fled the enclave and surrounding areas. Aliyev last week said his country will reclaim its lost territory “either via peace or by war.”Zaur Shiriyev says that on his tour he has found among the Azeri soldiers a “sense of determination to fight on,” and among civilians a “very visible lack of support” for the notion of going back to peace talks. 
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Facebook announced Monday that it is updating its hate speech policy and will ban all posts that deny or distort the Jewish Holocaust.Today we’re updating our hate speech policy to ban Holocaust denial.

We’ve long taken down posts that praise hate…Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, October 12, 2020“We’ve long taken down posts that praise hate crimes or mass murder, including the Holocaust,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. Zuckerberg said that with rising anti-Semitism, the company was expanding its policy to prohibit such content. He added, “If people search for the Holocaust on Facebook, we’ll start directing you to authoritative sources to get accurate information.”The announcement follows a #NoDenyingIt campaign by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.The non-profit Anti-Defamation League said on Facebook that it was pleased the social media giant “has finally taken the step we have been asking for nearly a decade: Remove Holocaust denial from their platform.” The ADL also said, “They now need to be transparent and document the steps being taken to keep this hate off the platform.”World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder also welcomed the move, saying that by taking this “critical step,” Facebook is showing it recognizes Holocaust denial for what it truly is – a form of anti-Semitism “and therefore hate speech.”The American Jewish Committee made similar comments, with its CEO, David Harris, calling the decision “profoundly significant.” He said, “There shouldn’t be a sliver of doubt about what the Nazi German regime did, nor should such a mega-platform as Facebook be used by antisemites to peddle their grotesque manipulation of history.”An estimated six million Jews died in the Holocaust.Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, came under fire in 2018 for saying in an interview that while he found Holocaust-denying content deeply offensive, he did not think it should be deleted.“I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust. My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech,” Zuckerberg wrote Monday.The move is the latest in a series of measures taken by Facebook to delete or ban offensive or false information, particularly ahead of the November 3 presidential election in the United States.
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Different ways people are continuing their passion, even during a pandemic.   
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Hundreds of people in northwest Poland have been evacuated for a few days to allow Navy sappers to neutralize a British World War II giant Tallboy bomb resting under a waterway leading to the port of Szczecin.
The 5.4 ton bomb was found in Sept. 2019 during work to deepen the waterway. It’s located on the southern edge of a popular Baltic Sea resort of Swinoujscie, that, like Szczecin, was a busy Nazi Germany military port during the war.
In a defusing project that began Monday and is expected to last for five days, experts will be seeking to neutralize the Tallboy underwater by causing its explosives to burn out in a controlled way.
It is believed to be the first such underwater operation on a Tallboy, which have previously been neutralized on land in Germany, Norway and France.
Because of the risk to their lives, over 750 residents within 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) of the bomb had to evacuate for the duration of the operation and a nearby ferry service was suspended.
The Tallboy bomb was designed by British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis and was used by the Royal Air Force to destroy large Nazi-controlled objects though underground shocks.
The one in Swinoujscie was probably used in April 1945 on the Nazi German battleship Luetzow. Experts from the 12 Division of Balers in Wolin have currently no explanation of why it did not explode then.
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Scientists in Australia have discovered that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can survive on solid common surfaces for as long as 28 days. In a study published Monday in Virology Journal, researchers at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), Australia’s national science agency, found the SARS-COV-2 virus was “extremely robust,” surviving on smooth surfaces at 20 degrees Celsius, compared to the flu virus, which lasts for 17 days in the same circumstances. The scientists at CSIRO also found the SARS-COV-2 virus stopped being infectious after about 24 hours at 40 degrees Celsius.  The scientists at CSIRO found the novel coronavirus can survive on such common surfaces as paper banknotes, glass and stainless steel.   In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to unveil a new coronavirus alert system for the country during a speech in Parliament Monday. Instead of a blanket nationwide lockdown, the government’s new system designates areas as medium, high and very high risk. Under the first tier, areas with relatively low infection rates will have limited restrictions on restaurants and bars, with the restrictions gradually tightening up to the third tier, when restaurants and bars will be forced to close.Commuters walk across London Bridge during the morning rush hour towards the offices in the financial district of the City of London in London, Monday, Oct. 12, 2020.The new system is being implemented as Britain reaches what a spokesman for Prime Minister Johnson described as “a critical juncture.”  The nation is experiencing a dramatic surge of new COVID-19 cases, especially in the northern cities of Liverpool, Merseyside, Manchester and Newcastle. Britain has 42,825 COVID-19 deaths, one of the highest numbers in Europe, including 65 on Sunday. More than 37.4 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, including 1,075,942 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracking project.  India officially topped 7 million total COVID-19 infections on Sunday, second only to the United States, which has 7.7 million confirmed cases.  India’s health ministry also reported 918 new COVID-19 deaths, bringing the country’s total fatality rate to 108,334.   Health authorities in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao will test all nine million of its citizens after reporting nine new coronavirus cases on Sunday, all of them linked to a hospital that treats infected travelers from overseas.  The new cases include four confirmed infections and five asymptomatic cases, making them the first recorded locally transmitted asymptomatic infections in China since September 24, according to Bloomberg news service. 
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Aboriginal groups have spoken of their “grief” at an Australian parliamentary inquiry into the destruction by a mining company of sacred sites dating back 46,000 years. In May, Rio Tinto, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, destroyed two ancient rock shelters at the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia’s Pilbara region as part of a new development, despite fierce opposition from indigenous groups. Indigenous groups say they are “in mourning at the desecration of our sacred site” at the Juukan Gorge. It was blown up by Rio Tinto in pursuit of high-grade iron ore despite protests by community leaders. Aboriginal  witnesses have told a parliamentary committee that Aboriginal culture is “undervalued in Australia”.   The ancient rock shelters destroyed in May were considered some of the country’s most significant archaeological research areas.       Greg McIntyre is a land rights expert and says tougher laws are needed. “Governments at both state and federal level need to be actively engaged in this and to take a different view about the juxtaposition between economic benefit and Australia’s heritage. Heritage has been a very poor second cousin for decades now,” McIntyre said.Aboriginal Australians consider the land to be the mother of creation, connecting them to their past, present and future. An indigenous elder said his people felt “immense grief and guilt” at their failure to protect such a sanctified site at the Juukan Gorge that dated back tens of thousands of years.   Rio Tinto has apologized and is scheduled to give evidence to the inquiry later this week. Three senior Rio executives were forced to quit last month after the scandal. New heritage laws are being drafted in the state of Western Australia to give indigenous groups a greater say in the protection of their land under the proposals.  In the past, some have agreed to sacrifice sacred sites to help their impoverished communities receive a share in mining revenue.    The parliamentary inquiry is due to hand down its report in early December.   
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Національна акціонерна компанія «Нафтогаз України» інформує 12 жовтня, що отримала офіційне повідомлення від члена наглядової ради Амоса Хохштайна про припинення його повноважень як незалежного директора.

Американський бізнесмен та колишній дипломат працював в Наглядовій раді з 2017 року. Серед причин рішення він назвав «посилення протидії процесу реформування ринку газу та процесам трансформації «Нафтогазу» в незалежну ефективну компанію», ідеться в повідомленні. Амос Хохштайн також закликав уряд України продовжити курс на забезпечення незалежності наглядових рад в Україні як запобіжника від повернення корупційних схем минулого.

«За останні три роки ми досягли значного прогресу. Група «Нафтогаз» перетворилася зі збиткової компанії на генератора доходу для державного бюджету. Ми привели компанію у відповідність до правил ЄС та завершили відокремлення оператора газотранспортної системи відкрито та прозоро. Багаторічна боротьба за те, щоб покласти край непрозорій системі ПСО (покладання спеціальних обов’язків – ред.), нарешті була виграна. Більше того, «Нафтогаз» переміг російський «Газпром» в арбітражному процесі на суму 5 мільярдів доларів. Це було правильне рішення з далекосяжними наслідками, як фінансовими, так і геополітичними», – сказав Хохштайн, коментуючи результати роботи компанії.

Голова правління «Нафтогазу» Андрій Коболєв подякував Амосу Хохштайну за спільну роботу.

Минулого тижня голова правління НАК «Нафтогаз України» Андрій Коболєв підтвердив, що проти керівництва компанії порушена кримінальна справа.

Також державна аудиторська служба надіслала матеріали ревізії НАК «Нафтогаз України» до Головного управління контррозвідки СБУ.

В акті ревізії, який був надісланий СБУ, йдеться про масштабні порушення та неефективні управлінські рішення, що «можуть свідчити про вчинення кримінального правопорушення, які призвели або можуть призвести до втрат фінансових і матеріальних ресурсів на 176,190 млрд гривень, у тому числі фінансових порушень, що призвели до втрат – 75,486 млрд гривень».
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The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Miami Heat 106-93 Sunday night to capture the National Basketball Association Championship. LeBron James led the Lakers with 28 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists on his way to being named the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player. James has now won championships with three different teams, and the Lakers have tied the Boston Celtics with a league record 17 overall titles. Miami pushed the best-of-7 series to six games despite dealing with injuries to some of its key players, including Bam Adebayo, who missed two games.Los Angels Lakers fans celebrate after the Lakers defeated the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to win the NBA Championship, Oct. 11, 2020.Sunday night’s contest was in little doubt after Los Angeles built a 64-36 lead at halftime. The Heat battled back in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Lakers 35-19, but the late charge was not enough. Los Angeles dedicated its season to former star Kobe Bryant who died in a helicopter crash in January. Players league-wide also endured a four-and-a-half-month layoff due to the coronavirus before returning to play at the end of July.  The NBA successfully employed a bubble strategy of having players live and play at a single site in Florida in order to prevent infections. The start date for the next NBA season, which during a normal year would have begun this month, has not yet been set. 
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The Trump administration on Sunday called on Congress to pass a stripped-down coronavirus relief bill using leftover funds from an expired small-business loan program, as negotiations on a broader package ran into resistance. The administration proposal, which Democrats dismissed as inadequate, was the latest twist in on-again, off-again talks to try to secure more stimulus, as the economy struggles to recover from coronavirus-related shutdowns that threw millions of Americans out of work. In a letter to lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said they would continue to talk to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to try to reach agreement on a comprehensive bill. But they said Congress should “immediately vote” on legislation to enable the use of the unused Paycheck Protection Program funds, which total around $130 billion. “The all or nothing approach is an unacceptable response to the American people,” they wrote. A spokesman for Pelosi, the lead Democratic negotiator, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representative Nita Lowey, the Democratic chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, rejected the administration’s offer in a statement later Sunday as “woefully inadequate.” “We can only reopen our economy and set the foundation for a strong recovery if we support state and local governments on the frontline of this crisis,” Lowey said in a statement. White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern told reporters the unused funds would be used to reopen the Payroll Protection Program, which expired earlier this year, to “allow businesses to continue to use it to keep their employees employed.” President Donald Trump on Friday offered a $1.8 trillion coronavirus relief package in talks with Pelosi after urging his team on Twitter to “go big” — moving closer to Pelosi’s $2.2 trillion proposal. That came days after Trump abruptly called off negotiations until after the Nov. 3 election in which he is seeking re-election. Trump’s reversal and higher offer drew criticism from Senate Republicans, some of whom are uneasy about the national debt and whether a deal would cost Republicans votes next month. Federal Reserve officials have urged Congress to be aggressive. The head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank said the recovery had “flattened out,” indicating the need for further stimulus. “A lot of people are suffering. A lot of small businesses are suffering,” Minneapolis Fed chief Neel Kashkari said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Republicans would eventually come around. “I think if an agreement can be reached, they will go along with it,” he said, adding there would be “further efforts of negotiation” on a package this week. 
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U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is set to tell senators at her confirmation hearing starting Monday that courts “should not try” to make policy and should leave that to American presidents and Congress.In an advance release of her opening statement, Barrett lays out a strict interpretation of the high court’s role, saying it is “not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life.”Instead, she says, “The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people. The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try.”Noteworthy Legal Opinions from Trump’s Supreme Court Pick BarrettAmy Coney Barrett has served as a federal appeals court judge since 2017The 48-year-old, staunch conservative, President Donald Trump’s third nominee to the nine-member court, is facing four days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.The Republican-controlled Senate, over vocal opposition from Democrats, is pushing to confirm her lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court by the end of October, just days before Trump faces Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election for a new four-year White House term. Republicans say they have the voted to confirm Barrett. If so, it would be one of the shortest approval processes on record and the closest ever to a presidential election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing to see Barrett confirmed before the election while his party still holds the Senate and the White House, something that could change with the election.Democrats oppose Barrett’s nomination to the court for several reasons, including the future of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama heath care law that Trump wants to repeal.“President Trump has been trying to throw out the Affordable Care Act for four years. Republicans have been trying to end it for a decade,” Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement. “She has a written track record of disagreeing with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act.” Democrats also worry about precedent, or deference to past court decisions. Barrett has listed rulings she considers above reversal. However, Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion and the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage are not among those rulingsMillions of people have already cast early ballots, and Democrats say the nomination should be made by the new president early next year after either Trump or Biden is inaugurated in January.Republicans blocked hearings for former President Barack Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, eight months ahead of the 2016 presidential election, but have pushed ahead with Barrett’s nomination much closer to a national vote. Democrats Say Republicans Rushing Barrett Supreme Court NominationRepublicans likely have enough votes to confirm judge to nation’s highest court Barrett’s confirmation would cement a 6-3 conservative ideological edge on the court that could shape American law for decades on such crucial issues as health care, abortion and gay rights, immigration and gun restrictions. She would replace a liberal jurist, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Referring to Ginsburg in her statement, Barrett says, “No one will ever take her place.”But Barrett, now a federal appellate court judge and law professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, held out the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a strict constitutionalist, as her mentor, a jurist who adhered to the words in the U.S. Constitution when it was adopted.Barrett says Scalia was “devoted to his family, resolute in his beliefs, and fearless of criticism.”A devoted Catholic, Barrett speaks extensively of her family, a husband and seven children, in the statement and says she will never let the law define her identity.Her remarks are expected to come late Monday after opening statements by senators on the Judiciary Committee, followed by two days of lawmakers questioning Barrett and another day for testimony by advocates and opponents of her nomination.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States, told CNN Sunday that his comments were taken “out of context” in a campaign ad for President Donald Trump.Fauci said the ad, released Saturday as Trump recovers from the coronavirus, was made without his consent.”In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials,” Fauci said in a statement to CNN.The 30-second ad features what appears to be an edited clip of Fauci saying, “I can’t imagine that…anybody could be doing more,” after a narrator discusses the Trump administration’s efforts to fight the pandemic.  The quote appears to come from an interview with Fox News in March. During the interview, Fauci said at the time, “We’ve never had a threat like this. The coordinated response has been…there are a number of adjectives to describe it — impressive, I think is one of them. We’re talking about all hands on deck. I, as one of many people on a team, I’m not the only person.”“Since the beginning that we even recognized what this was,” he continued, “I have been devoting almost full time on this. I’m down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. It’s every single day. So, I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.”Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh responded to Fauci’s comments about the ad, telling CNN, “These are Dr. Fauci’s own words. The video is from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci was praising the work of the Trump Administration. The words spoken are accurate, and directly from Dr. Fauci’s mouth.”More than 214,640 Americans have died of the coronavirus in the United States, according to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center. It also notes that more than 7.7 million people in the U.S. are infected.There was no immediate response to the ad controversy from the Biden campaign. Biden for his part, has been critical of the president’s handling of the pandemic. Biden recently told NBC News he would urge governors, mayors and county executives to use their power to require the wearing of masks in those jurisdictions. He has previously called for a national mask mandate.Trump in the past has faced criticism for misleading information in ads and on social media. In May, Trump threatened action against social media platform Twitter after the site tagged a pair of his tweets with a fact-check warning. Twitter does not need any government licenses to operate as do radio or television stations.Trump Threatens Action Against TwitterPresident lashes out at social media platform after it put fact-check alert on pair of his tweets about mail-in ballots  
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Dozens of protesters in Belarus were arrested Sunday during the 10th straight weekend of demonstrations against longtime authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.Since the president claimed victory in a disputed August 9 election, protesters have regularly taken to the streets demanding his resignation and the release of political prisoners.Belarus Protesters Face Physical, Social Repression Activists say those who have come out against Lukashenko’s decades-old grip on power are living physical and social repressionVideos from the latest demonstration show security forces using water cannon and batons to disperse crowds. Minsk police said they detained “several dozen” people.The clashes follow an unusual meeting between Lukashenko and jailed opposition leaders Saturday. “The goal of the president was to hear everyone’s opinion,” his office said of the visit. Lukashenko’s main opposition candidate in the election, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, is now based in Lithuania after fleeing Belarus for her safety.Lukashenko maintains he won the poll in a landslide — garnering 80% of all ballots — despite widespread claims at home and abroad the vote was heavily rigged to keep him in power. He has been in office for 26 years.Public anger has stewed over the crackdown in the wake of the protests that have seen more than 7,500 arrests and police violence against demonstrators.Hundreds have emerged from police custody with bruises and tales of torture at the hands of Lukashenko’s security agents.Lukashenko has said the protests are encouraged and supported by the West and accused NATO of moving forces near Belarusian borders. The alliance has denied the accusations.
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More than a week after testing positive for the coronavirus, U.S. President Donald Trump described himself Sunday as being “in very good shape” and said he was no longer taking any medication. “I beat this crazy, horrible China virus,” Trump said in a telephone interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” show. “It seems like I’m immune, maybe a long time, a short time, maybe a lifetime.” Trump said he had a “protective glow” after being treated with several medications during a four-day hospital stay and after returning to the White House last week. But he was not asked by interviewer Maria Bartiromo whether he has definitively tested negative for the virus that has now killed around 214,599 people in the United States and infected more than 7.7 million Americans. A short time after the television interview, Trump said on Twitter that he had received “A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday,” adding erroneously, “That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know!!!”A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) A crowd of President Donald Trump supporters gather on the South Lawn to listen to Trump speak, Oct. 10, 2020, in Washington.As he resumes campaigning, Trump is in a precarious political position, facing the prospect of becoming only the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose election to a second term. According to aggregations of a wide range of national surveys, Biden has surged to a 10-percentage-point lead over Trump, although Biden’s edge is roughly half that in battleground states that are likely to decide the election.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden arrives to speak at United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 951 in Grand Rapids, Mich., Oct. 2, 2020.One new poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News said Biden is ahead nationally among likely voters by a 54%-42% margin. The fivethirtyeight.com political web site said that its most recent 40,000 computerized simulations of the election show Biden winning 86 out of 100 times.     
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