Worst virus fears are realized in poor or war-torn countries

June 29, 2020

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — For months, experts have warned of a potential nightmare scenario: After overwhelming health systems in some of the world’s wealthiest regions, the coronavirus gains a foothold in poor or war-torn countries ill-equipped to contain it and sweeps through the population.

Now some of those fears are being realized. In southern Yemen, health workers are leaving their posts en masse because of a lack of protective equipment, and some hospitals are turning away patients struggling to breathe. In Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, where there is little testing, a mysterious illness resembling COVID-19 is spreading through camps for the internally displaced.

Cases are soaring in India and Pakistan, together home to more than 1.5 billion people and where authorities say nationwide lockdowns are no longer an option because of high poverty. In Latin America, Brazil has a confirmed caseload and death count second only to the United States, and its leader is unwilling to take steps to stem the spread of the virus. Alarming escalations are unfolding in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Panama, even after they imposed early lockdowns.

The first reports of disarray are also emerging from hospitals in South Africa, which has its continent’s most developed economy. Sick patients are lying on beds in corridors as one hospital runs out of space. At another, an emergency morgue was needed to hold more than 700 bodies.

“We are reaping the whirlwind now,” said Francois Venter, a South African health expert at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg. Worldwide, there are 10.1 million confirmed cases and over 502,000 reported deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say both those numbers undercount the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases.

South Africa has more than a third of Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 138,000. It's ahead of other African countries in the pandemic timeline and approaching its peak. So far its facilities have managed to cope, but if they become overwhelmed, it will be a grim forewarning because South Africa’s health system is reputed to be the continent's best.

Most poor countries took action early on. Some, like Uganda, which already had a sophisticated detection system built up during its yearslong battle with viral hemorrhagic fever, have thus far been arguably more successful than the U.S. and other wealthy countries in battling coronavirus.

But since the beginning of the pandemic, poor and conflict-ravaged countries have been at a major disadvantage. The global scramble for protective equipment sent prices soaring. Testing kits have also been hard to come by. Tracking and quarantining patients requires large numbers of health workers.

“It’s all a domino effect,” said Kate White, head of emergencies for Doctors Without Borders. “Whenever you have countries that are economically not as well off as others, then they will be adversely affected.”

Global health experts say testing is key, but months into the pandemic, few developing countries can keep carrying out the tens of thousands of tests every week needed to detect and contain outbreaks.

“The majority of the places that we work in are not able to have that level of testing capacity, and that’s the level that you need to be able to get things really under control,” White said. South Africa leads Africa in testing, but an initially promising program has now been overrun in Cape Town, which alone has more reported cases than any other African country except Egypt. Critical shortages of kits have forced city officials to abandon testing for anyone under 55 unless they have a serious health condition or are in a hospital.

Venter said Cape Town's hospitals are managing to cope “by the skin of their teeth” and now Johannesburg, South Africa's biggest city, is experiencing a surge of infections. He said South Africa's rising cases could easily play out next in “the big cities of Nigeria, Congo, Kenya,” and they “do not have the health resources that we do.”

Lockdowns are likely the most effective safeguard, but they have exacted a heavy toll even on middle-class families in Europe and North America, and are economically devastating in developing countries.

India's lockdown, the world's largest, caused countless migrant workers in major cities to lose their jobs overnight. Fearing hunger, tens of thousands took to the highways by foot to return to their home villages, and many were killed in traffic accidents or died from dehydration.

The government has since set up quarantine facilities and now provides special rail service to get people home safely, but there are concerns the migration has spread the virus to India's rural areas, where the health infrastructure is even weaker.

Poverty has also accelerated the pandemic in Latin America, where millions with informal jobs had to go out and keep working, and then returned to crowded homes where they spread the virus to relatives.

Peru's strict three-month lockdown failed to contain its outbreak, and it now has the world's sixth-highest number of cases in a population of 32 million, according to Johns Hopkins. Intensive care units are nearly 88% occupied and the virus shows no sign of slowing.

“Hospitals are on the verge of collapse,” said epidemiologist Ciro Maguiña, a professor of medicine at Cayetano Heredia University in the capital, Lima. Aid groups faced their own struggles. Doctors Without Borders says the price it pays for masks went up threefold at one point and is still higher than normal. The group also faces obstacles in transporting medical supplies to remote areas as international and domestic flights have been drastically reduced.

The pandemic has caused global hunger to rise to record numbers, the World Food Program warned Monday. The number of hungry people in the 83 countries where it operates could increase to 270 million before the end of 2020 — an 82% increase from before COVID-19 took hold, it said.

Mired in civil war for the past five years, Yemen was already home to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis before the virus hit. Now the Houthi rebels are suppressing all information about an outbreak in the north, and the health system in the government-controlled south is collapsing.

“Coronavirus has invaded our homes, our cities, our countryside,” said Dr. Abdul Rahman al-Azraqi, an internal medicine specialist and former hospital director in the city of Taiz, which is split between the rival forces. He estimates that 90% of Yemeni patients die at home.

“Our hospital doesn’t have any doctors, only a few nurses and administrators. There is effectively no medical treatment.”

Krauss reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg, Emily Schmall in New Delhi, Isabel DeBre in Cairo, Franklin Briceño in Lima, Peru, and Michael Weissenstein in Havana contributed to this report.

Boris Johnson says COVID-19 has been a disaster for Britain

June 29, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged Monday that the coronavirus pandemic has been a “disaster” for Britain, as he announced a spending splurge designed to get the country — and his faltering Conservative government — back on track.

As the U.K. emerges from a three-month lockdown, Johnson has lined up big-money pledges on schools, housing and infrastructure, in an attempt to move on from an outbreak that has left more than 43,000 Britons dead — the worst confirmed death toll in Europe.

“This has been a disaster,” Johnson acknowledged Monday. “Let’s not mince our words. I mean, this has been an absolute nightmare for the country and the country’s gone through a profound shock. “But in those moments, you have the opportunity to change and to do things better,” he told Times Radio. “This is a moment now to give our country the skills, the infrastructure, the long-term investment that we need.”

Johnson promised a “Rooseveltian approach,” invoking the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that helped wrench the United States out of the Great Depression. Johnson's first announcement was 1 billion pounds ($1.25 billion) to build new schools. The British leader plans to unveil a series of other infrastructure projects this week.

Johnson won a large majority in Parliament in December with a promise to rebalance Britain’s London-dominated economy and revive the long-neglected former industrial regions of central and northern England.

Those plans were thrown into turmoil by COVID-19. The U.K.’s official death toll stood Monday at 43,575, the third-highest in the world after the United States and Brazil, and the true figure is likely higher.

“What we’re going to be doing in the next few months, is really doubling down on our initial agenda, which was all about investment ... in infrastructure, in education, in technology, to bring the country together,” he said.

Critics want to know where the money will come from. The economic freeze caused by the pandemic has left Britain facing a deep recession — the Bank of England estimates that the U.K. economy could end the first half of 2020 around 20% smaller than at the start of the year.

The U.K. faces another economic shock at the end of this year when a post-Brexit transition period ends, casting the country out of the 27-nation bloc’s vast single market. Talks with the EU on a new trade deal have bogged down amid wide differences on major issues including fishing rights and competition. If no agreement is struck by the end of the year, the U.K. faces tariffs and other barriers to business with the EU, its biggest trading partner.

Despite the gloomy economic outlook, Johnson said it would be “a mistake” to return to the austerity of previous Conservative governments, which since 2010 have cut public spending in an attempt to lower a national debt that was swollen by the 2008 global financial crisis.

Despite his attempts to turn the page, Johnson, who was hospitalized in intensive care with the coronavirus in April, will likely face a reckoning over his government's handling of the outbreak. Critics accuse the government of being too slow to impose a nationwide lockdown, of failing to get enough protective equipment to medical workers and of botching the launch of a test-and-trace system to control new outbreaks.

Deaths and new infections are now declining, but slowly, and Britain lags behind its European neighbors in reopening society and the economy. In another sign of Johnson’s attempt to regain control, Britain’s top civil servant announced late Sunday he was stepping down. Mark Sedwill is leaving his twin jobs as head of the civil service and national security adviser after reports of disagreements with Johnson’s powerful chief adviser, Dominic Cummings.

Johnson has named David Frost, the government’s EU trade negotiator, to the national security post. The appointment has raised some eyebrows because Frost is a political appointee, rather than a neutral civil servant.

Gus O'Donnell, a former U.K. civil service chief, said political appointees, "are more likely to be subject to group-think, more likely to be yes-men, more likely to say what it is ministers want to hear as opposed to giving good, objective, speaking truth to power which is what it’s all about.”

Opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer said it was “obvious that the prime minister wanted to move (Sedwill) and was determined to do so.” “Why you do so in the middle of a pandemic and a crisis instead of actually focusing on the crisis, is a question the prime minister needs to answer,” he said.

UK city of Leicester sees lockdown tightened on virus spike

June 29, 2020

LONDON (AP) — The British government is reimposing an array of lockdown restrictions, including the closure of schools, in the central city of Leicester after a spike in coronavirus infections. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told lawmakers late Monday after a series of meetings, including one chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that in addition to the school closures, shops that don't sell essential goods, such as food and medicines, will have to shutter themselves again, barely two weeks after they reopened.

He said the government had to take “difficult but important decisions” for the benefit of Leicester's population, which is thought to number around 350,000. “Local action like this is an important tool in our armoury to deal with outbreaks while we get the country back on its feet,” he said.

The re-imposition of lockdown restrictions for Leicester — the biggest local tightening taken by the government — went further than had been anticipated and is likely to prove a cause for concern among the city's highly diverse population and those who were looking to reopen their businesses this Saturday.

While confirming that Leicester won't be joining in the easing of the lockdown this Saturday when pubs and restaurants are due to reopen in England, Hancock said further actions were necessary to get a grip on the local outbreak that's seen the city account for 10% of all positive cases in the country over the past week. Hospital admissions are between six and 10 a day, also higher than in other places, he added.

Hancock said non-essential retailers, such as department stores and electronic retailers, will have to close again from Tuesday, two weeks after they reopened. In addition, he said schools will have to close from Thursday as children have been particularly hit during this outbreak. They will remain open for vulnerable children though. He also said that travel to, from and within the city will have to be curtailed and social distancing rules will be monitored.

“The more people follow the rules, the faster we'll get control of this virus and get Leicester back to normal,” he said. “The virus thrives on social contact and we know reducing social contact controls its spread and precise and targeted actions like these will give the virus nowhere to hide and help us defeat this invisible killer."

The lockdown in Leicester will be reviewed in two weeks. Concerns over Leicester have mounted in recent days following the increase in cases, though there has been some confusion as to the government's intentions following a weekend of mixed messages that appeared to come as a surprise to local officials.

Hancock said the government was providing extra testing capacity in the city and that Leicester's “proud diversity” will be taken into account, notably in the translation of the new guidelines into all relevant languages.

Ahead of the meetings Monday, Leicester’s mayor, Peter Soulsby, said he had yet to be persuaded that the city is faring any worse than other places in England, and sharply criticized the British government over its handling of the situation.

The U.K. has recorded 43,575 coronavirus-related deaths, the highest by far in Europe. The government, which sets the coronavirus response for England, has said it won't hesitate to reimpose lockdown restrictions on a specific region in the event of a local outbreak.

“We are concerned about Leicester, we are concerned about any local outbreak,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said earlier Monday while on a visit to a construction site in London. “I want to stress to people that we are not out of the woods yet.”

World hits coronavirus milestones amid fears worse to come

June 29, 2020

ROME (AP) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday -- 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases -- and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.

“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

“Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are," DeSantis said. South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus. Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school. In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans. “You flattened the curve here in Texas ... but about two weeks ago something changed,” Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in “very different circumstances than the rest of us.”

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that people “have to take ownership” of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00. About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S. The World Health Organization announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world - topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 - roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher. New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now “on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15. During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday. Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw. “It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said. French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to climb to a new high of more than 371,000, including 9,484 deaths, according to figures released Sunday by the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

China on Monday reported a further decline in new confirmed cases, with a total of just 12, including seven cases of domestic transmission in Beijing, where nearly 8.3 million people have now undergone testing in recent weeks. No new deaths were reported Monday, leaving the total at 4,634 among 83,512 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

World leaders, stars unite at event aimed at fighting virus

June 28, 2020

LONDON (AP) — A summit that included a star-studded virtual concert hosted by Dwayne Johnson has raised nearly $7 billion in cash and loan guarantees to assist the poor around the globe whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic.

Global Citizen said its summit with world leaders had raised $1.5 billion to help COVID-19 efforts in poor countries, along with a promise of 250 million doses of a vaccine for those nations if one is successfully developed.

The group said it had secured $5.4 billion in loans and guarantees from the European Commission and the European Investment Bank to support fragile economies worldwide. The event included a Johnson-hosted concert with performances by Jennifer Hudson, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay and Chloe x Halle. Cyrus performed The Beatles’ “Help!” in an empty stadium and Hudson performed “Where Peaceful Waters Flow” from a boat in Chicago.

“The $6.9 billion that was pledged today to support the world’s poorest and most marginalized communities is an incredible next step on our journey out of the COVID-19 era, but there is more still to be done, as no one is safe until everyone is safe," Hugh Evans, CEO of Global Citizen, said after the event Saturday.

“As we fight this virus, we also need to take care of the most vulnerable people and address the challenges they’re facing right now,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during the event. Speakers also included the leaders of New Zealand, El Salvador, Sweden, South Africa and Barbados.

Organizers said the show was not just a fundraiser, but aimed to draw awareness to the disproportionate impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on marginalized communities. French President Emmanuel Macron said shared action was needed to defeat the virus.

“Let’s mobilize, let’s refuse an ‘every man for himself’ approach, let’s continue to move forward together. France and Europe take their responsibility today and will do so tomorrow,” Macron said. Worldwide, nearly 10 million people have been reported infected by the virus, and nearly a half million have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say those figures seriously understate the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases.

About a dozen potential COVID-19 vaccines are in early stages of testing. While some could move into late-stage testing later this year if all goes well, it’s unlikely any would be licensed before early next year at the earliest.

A divided Poland holds presidential vote delayed by pandemic

June 28, 2020

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poles voted in a presidential election Sunday that was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and was taking place amid deep cultural and political divisions in the European Union nation.

President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, was running against 10 other candidates as he sought a second 5-year term. Whether Duda wins or not will determine whether the ruling party keeps its near-monopoly on political power in Poland.

Most recent polls showed that no single candidate was likely to reach the 50% required to avoid a runoff given the crowded field of candidates, all of whom are male. In that case, the two top vote-getters will face each other on July 12.

The vote had been scheduled for May 10 but was postponed in a chaotic political and legal battle as the ruling party pressed to hold it despite the pandemic. Exit polls will be announced immediately after polling stations close Sunday at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT, 3 p.m. EDT). The final official results are expected by late Wednesday.

Polling ahead of Sunday’s vote suggested Duda was the front-runner but might not reach the 50% needed to win outright. Polls also showed that he would have a more difficult time in a runoff given that many opposition votes would be expected to unite against him.

Duda’s strongest challenge comes from the Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, also 48, who is backed by the centrist Civic Platform party. Trzaskowski entered the race late after the May election date was scrapped.

Duda’s once-strong support, bolstered by adulatory coverage in state media, began to slip once virus lockdown restrictions were lifted and other candidates could campaign. Poland has not been as badly hit by the pandemic as many countries in Western Europe, and most people were voting in person, though required to wear masks and observe other hygiene rules. There was also a mail-in voting option, and thousands of voters in some southwestern regions with higher virus infection numbers were required to vote by mail.

As of Sunday, Poland had nearly 34,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its 38 million people, with over 1,400 deaths. Stanislaw Tasiemski, a 69-year-old office worker, joined many others voting early in Warsaw. He cast his ballot for Duda, saying he opposed political “experiments” in a time of crisis.

"In the face of what is happening, stability is needed,” he said. Duda's campaign focused on defending traditional values in the mostly Catholic nation while promising to keep raising living standards to Western European levels. He took a position against same-sex marriage and adoption and denounced the LGBT rights movement as a dangerous “ideology.”

That kind of rhetoric — along with laws that have given the Law and Justice party much greater control over the justice system and the party's harnessing of public media to promote the government's image — have raised concerns among some that Poland is following Hungary in eroding democratic norms established after communism collapsed three decades ago.

On the campaign trail, Trzaskowski promised to keep the ruling party's popular social welfare spending programs while vowing to restore constitutional norms. That message resonated with Iwona Goge, a 79-year-old who voted for Trzaskowski in Warsaw and was encouraged to see so many others voting.

“It's bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said. Other presidential candidates include Szymon Holownia, a TV personality and journalist who had once studied to be a priest. Holownia is unaffiliated with any party and has generated some enthusiasm among those tired of years of bickering between Law and Justice and Civic Platform, the country's two main parties.

Also in the running are a left-wing politician who is Poland’s first openly gay presidential contender, Robert Biedron; the head of an agrarian party, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz; and a lawmaker with the far-right Confederation party, Krzysztof Bosak.

Rafal Niedzielski contributed reporting from Warsaw.

Confirmed cases hit 10 million; Pence skips campaign rallies

June 28, 2020

ROME (AP) — Worldwide confirmed coronavirus infections hit the 10 million mark Sunday as voters in Poland and France went to the polls for virus-delayed elections. Vice President Mike Pence called off campaign events in Florida and Arizona after surges in infections prompted worries that the U.S. has lost control of its outbreak.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus is still circulating widely in Europe, though not at the exponential rate of growth seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand santizers, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their votes to avoid further contagion.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school. While much of the concern in the U.S. has been on big states like Texas, Arizona and Florida reporting thousands of new cases a day, rural states are also seeing surges of infections, including in Kansas, where livestock outnumber people.

The coronavirus resurgence in the U.S. has drawn concern from abroad. The European Union seems almost certain to bar Americans from traveling to the bloc in the short term as it draws up new travel rules to be announced shortly.

The surges of infections prompted Pence to call off campaign events in Florida and Arizona, though he will still travel to those states and to Texas this week to meet with their Republican governors. Those three governors have come under criticism for aggressively reopening their economies after virus-related lockdowns despite increasing infections in their states.

After confirmed daily infections in the U.S. surged to an all-time high of 40,000 on Friday, Texas and Florida reversed course and closed down bars again. Globally, confirmed COVID-19 cases passed the 10 million mark and confirmed deaths neared half a million, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India having the most cases. The U.S. also has the highest virus death toll in the world at over 125,000. Experts say all those figures significantly undercount the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases. U.S. government experts last week estimated the U.S. alone could have had 10 million cases.

Britain’s government is pledging to support local officials in the central English city of Leicester amid reports that a spike in COVID-19 cases could prompt authorities to lock the city down. So far, Britain has not targeted a specific region for a lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks, in just the last three or four weeks in particular,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told BBC One on Sunday. Pressed on the Leicester lockdown, she added: “With local flare-ups, it is right we have a localized solution in terms of infection control, social distancing, testing and many of the tools ... to control the virus, to stop the spread."

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was postponed amid a chaotic political battle because of the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second 5-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw. “It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said. French voters are choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key races include that for Paris mayor, who will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics. The spread of the virus in France has slowed significantly but is still expected to hurt Sunday’s turnout.

Italy, meanwhile, was honoring its dead with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances, trying to tamp down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive.

Swiss authorities ordered 300 people into quarantine after a so-called “superspreader” outbreak of the new coronavirus at a Zurich nightclub. A man who had been at the Flamingo Club a week ago tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, and five others with him also tested positive.

Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin, meanwhile, tested positive. He was part of a Serbian delegation that attended a Victory Day parade this week in Moscow. Serbia's president met face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it was not clear whether Vulin did so.

Russia on Sunday recorded 6,791 new coronavirus cases, bringing its confirmed infections to over 634,000, the third-highest number in the world after the U.S. and Brazil. In Asia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country must focus on bolstering the economy as it exits lockdowns, even as the number of coronavirus cases still keep on climbing. On Sunday, India reported additional 19,906 confirmed cases, taking its total to nearly 529,000 with 16,095 deaths. The pandemic has exposed wide inequalities in India, with public hospitals being overwhelmed by virus cases while the rich get expert treatment in private hospitals.

No positive cases were found in Beijing’s beauty and barber shops, a sign that the city’s recent outbreak has been brought under control. Beijing officials have temporarily shut a huge wholesale food market where the virus spread widely, reclosed schools and locked down some neighborhoods. Anyone leaving Beijing is required to have a negative virus test.

Tens of millions of Chinese traveled during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival that ended Saturday, with no outbreaks reported immediately.

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

China virus cases stabilize as Italy sees drop in deaths

June 28, 2020

BEIJING (AP) — China has extended COVID-19 tests to newly reopened salons amid a drop in cases, while South Korea continues to face new infections after it eased social distancing rules to lift the economy.

In the U.S., Vice President Mike Pence called off off a planned campaign bus tour in Florida following a surge in confirmed cases there. Hard-hit Italy, meanwhile, registered the lowest day-to-day tally of COVID-19 deaths Saturday in almost three months.

No positive cases were found in Beijing’s beauty and barber shops in a further sign that the city’s recent outbreak has been largely brought under control. Beijing officials have temporarily shut a huge wholesale food market where the virus spread widely, reclosed schools and locked down some neighborhoods. Anyone leaving Beijing is required to have a negative virus test result within the previous seven days.

Tens of millions of Chinese traveled during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival that ended Saturday, with no outbreaks reported immediately. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 40 of the newly reported cases were domestically infected, while 22 others came from overseas. The bulk of the local cases were detected in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, linked to nightclubs, church services, a huge e-commerce warehouse and low-income workers.

In Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing. In contrast, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase.

In a further sign of the impact on the U.S economy, Tyson Foods has announced that 371 employees at its chicken processing plant in the far southwestern corner of Missouri have tested positive for COVID-19.

Pence canceled a planned bus tour in Florida to benefit his and President Donald Trump’s reelection, as state health officials on Saturday reported more than 9,500 new cases, surpassing the previous day’s total by more than 600 confirmed cases. The figures come as officials move to reclose beaches and discourage bar gatherings.

Kansas, Idaho and Oklahoma were also among U.S. states seeing a sharp rise in case. While the rise partly reflects expanded testing, experts say there is ample evidence the scourge is making a comeback, including increasing deaths and hospitalizations in parts of the country and higher percentages of virus tests coming back positive.

According to Italy’s Health Ministry data, there were eight deaths of infected patients since Friday, raising the nation’s known toll in the pandemic to 34,716. There were 175 new cases, bringing the overall count of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country where Europe’s outbreak first exploded to 240,136. In a sign the country was emerging from the crisis, fewer than 100 infected patients were occupying ICU beds nationwide for the first time since the very early days of the outbreak,

European leaders were taking no chances, however. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people in the past week after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive for COVID-19.

Serbia’s government says Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin tested positive for the coronavirus. Known for his highly pro-Russian stance, Vulin was part of Serbia’s delegation led by President Aleksandar Vucic that attended a Victory Day parade this week in Moscow. Vucic met face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it was not clear whether Vulin did so as well.

Britain’s government is expected to scrap a 14-day quarantine requirement that forced people to self-isolate upon returning home from abroad. India’s confirmed coronavirus cases crossed half a million on Saturday with another record 24-hour jump of 18,552 infections.

Egypt has largely reopened. In Cairo, a metropolis of some 20 million people, coffee shops reopened Saturday to receive in-house customers but the smoking of “sheesha” from hookah waterpipes was still on hold.

Deaths in the U.S. are running at about 600 per day, down from a peak of around 2,200 in mid-April. Some experts have expressed doubt that deaths will return to that level because of advances in treatment and because many infections are happening in younger adults, who are more likely than older ones to survive.

The virus is blamed for more than 125,000 deaths and over 2.5 million confirmed infections nationwide in the U.S., by Johns Hopkins’ count. But health officials believe the true number of infections is about 10 times higher. Worldwide, the virus has claimed close to a half-million lives with nearly 10 million cases.

The resurgence in the U.S. has drawn concern from abroad. The European Union seems almost certain to bar Americans in the short term from entering the bloc, which is currently drawing up new travel rules, EU diplomats said.

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

UK police to get tougher on crowds amid pandemic worries

June 27, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Police in the English city of Liverpool have been given more powers to break up crowds after celebrations to mark Liverpool Football Club’s first league title in 30 years led to disorder.

The local move to stop gatherings of more than two people came after the sheer joy of victory, together with warm weather, prompted people to cast off worries about the COVID-19 pandemic and to gather in huge crowds.

Amid the wild celebrations, part of the Liver Building — a local landmark — caught fire. Images circulating on social media appear to show a firework sailing from the crowd and striking the building's balcony before exploding. Four fire engines were dispatched and the blaze was put out, but the extent of the damage is unclear.

The gatherings come amid increasing worries about the unwillingness of the public to follow social distancing rules meant to halt the spread of COVID-19. Exasperated Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said on Twitter that he was "really concerned" about the images he was seeing.

“I appreciate #LFC fans want to celebrate but please, for your own safety, and that of others, go home and celebrate at home,” he said. “Covid-19 is still a major risk and our city has already lost far too many people to the illness."

Under lockdown restrictions in England, groups are limited to six people. Huge gatherings were also reported in London overnight for the third night in a row. Met Police commander Bas Javid told the BBC that the police have been trying to persuade people to go home rather than to arrest them.

“We’re not going to arrest our way out of situations like this, but what I can be clear about is if these situations do descend into chaos and violence and disorder, which is completely unacceptable, we will take a much more thorough and a robust position,” he warned. “It’s the communities that are very, very upset by this, as much as the police are."

Germany cautions virus risk still high as economies restart

June 27, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned Saturday that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over, as regional outbreaks gave rise to fears of a second wave. Two of the largest U.S. states reversed course and reinstated some coronavirus restrictions amid a surge in new infections.

India reported more than 18,000 new cases, pushing its cumulative total over the half-million mark, the fourth highest globally behind the U.S., Brazil and Russia. Elsewhere, Egypt and Britain said they would ease virus controls, while China and South Korea battled smaller outbreaks in their capitals.

Merkel said in her weekly video podcast that getting Europe's economy back on track is her primary goal as Germany takes over the rotating European Union presidency next week, but stressed that everyone shared a “joint responsibility” in following social distancing, mask and hygiene rules as lockdown rules are relaxed.

German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people last week after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive for COVID-19, in an attempt to prevent the outbreak from spreading across the area.

Germany has recorded nearly 195,000 coronavirus infections and only around 9,000 deaths, with more than 177,000 recoveries, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. “The risk posed by the virus is still serious,” Merkel said. “It's easy to forget because Germany has gotten through the crisis well so far, but that doesn't mean we are protected, that the risk has been averted; that is not the case, as is demonstrated by these regional outbreaks.”

Fans of Germany's Schalke soccer club planned to demonstrate later in the day at the stadium against chairman Clemens Toennies, one of whose companies owns the slaughterhouse where the outbreak began. Workplace and living conditions for migrant workers employed at the facility have come into focus after the outbreak.

In the U.S., the daily number of confirmed infections surged to an all-time high of 45,300 on Friday, eclipsing the previous high of 40,000 set the previous day, according to Johns Hopkins. Newly reported cases per day have risen on average about 60% over the past two weeks, according to an Associated Press analysis.

While the rise partly reflects expanded testing, experts say there is ample evidence the scourge is making a comeback, including rising deaths and hospitalizations in parts of the country and higher percentages of virus tests coming back positive.

About 600 people are dying every day from the coronavirus in the U.S., down from a peak of around 2,200 in mid-April. Some experts doubt that deaths will return to that level, because of advances in treatment and prevention and because younger adults are more likely than older ones to survive.

The virus is blamed for about 125,000 deaths and nearly 2.5 million confirmed infections nationwide in the U.S., by Johns Hopkins’ count. But health officials believe the true number of infections is about 10 times higher. Worldwide, the virus has claimed close to a half-million lives with nearly 10 million cases.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all bars closed, and Florida banned alcohol at such establishments. They joined a small but growing number of states that are either backtracking or putting any further reopening of their economies on hold because of a comeback by the virus, mostly in the country’s South and West.

Health experts have said a disturbingly large number of cases are being seen among young people who are going out again, often without wearing masks or observing other social-distancing rules. “It is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars,” Abbott said.

The Republican governor, who had pursued one of the most aggressive reopening schedules of any state, also scaled back restaurant capacity and said outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people would need approval from local officials.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez in Florida’s Miami-Dade County announced Friday night that he would close beaches over the Fourth of July weekend. He said cracking down on recreational activities is prudent given the growing number of infections among young adults.

Florida’s agency that regulates bars acted after the daily number of new confirmed cases neared 9,000, almost doubling the record set just two days earlier. Colleen Corbett, a 30-year-old bartender at two places in Tampa, said that she was disappointed and worried about being unemployed again, but that the restrictions are the right move. Most customers were not wearing masks, she said.

“It was like they forgot there was a pandemic or just stopped caring,” Corbett said. Elsewhere, Britain was expected to scrap a 14-day quarantine requirement for people returning from abroad in a bid to make summer vacation travel possible. Only travelers from “red’’ zones, places with a high level of COVID-19, will be told to self-isolate. A full list of countries, due to be published next week, is likely to give Spain, Greece and France a green light.

Egypt on Saturday lifted many restrictions put in place against the coronavirus pandemic, reopening cafes, clubs, gyms and theaters after more than three months of closure, despite a continued upward trend in new infections.

Authorities in other countries were taking a more cautious approach, with the Indian city of Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, announcing a new two-week lockdown starting Monday, with night curfews and weekend lockdowns in the rest of the state. India added 18,552 cases in the past 24 hours, raising its total to 508,953. The death toll reached 15,685.

China saw an uptick in cases, one day after authorities said they expect an outbreak in Beijing to be brought under control in the near future. The National Health Commission reported 17 new cases in the nation's capital, the most in a week, among 21 nationwide.

South Korea, where a resurgence in the past month threatens to erase the country’s earlier success, reported 51 new cases, including 35 in the Seoul metropolitan area. Officials, worried about the fragile economy, have resisted calls to reimpose restrictions eased in April.

Australia braced for more imported cases as citizens return home. About 300 people were due to arrive this weekend from Mumbai, India, with others expected to follow from South America and Indonesia. One state heath official said he is preparing for 5% to 10% of the returnees to be infected, based on arrivals from Indonesia in other states.

Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

Virus taking stronger hold in US, other populated countries

June 26, 2020

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — While China moved closer to containing a fresh outbreak in Beijing, the coronavirus took a stronger hold elsewhere, including the United States, where surging infections across southern states have highlighted the risks of reopening economies without effective treatment or vaccines.

Another record daily increase in India on Friday pushed the country’s caseload toward half a million, and other countries with large populations like Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico grappled with large caseloads and strained health care systems.

South Africa, which accounts for about half of the infections on the African continent with 118,375, reported a record 6,579 new cases, as transmissions increase after it loosened what had been one of the world’s strictest lockdowns earlier this month.

Mexico reported some of its highest 24-hours counts so far with 6,104 new cases and 736 additional deaths, as its treasury secretary began isolating at home after a positive test. In China, where the pandemic originated in December, authorities have mobilized resources for mass testing and locked down parts of Beijing this month due to an outbreak that has infected 260 people. The 11 new cases reported in the capital Friday continued a downward trend that suggests transmissions have been largely brought under control.

The United States, which counts the most infections in the world, is seeing daily jumps in COVID-19 cases nearing the peak reached during late April. Arizona's 3,056 additional infections reported Thursday was the fourth day in a week with a increase over 3,000. Transmissions have spiked following Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s decision to lift stay-home restrictions in May.

Twenty-three percent of tests conducted in the state over the past seven days has been positive, nearly triple the national average, and a record 415 patients were on ventilators. The numbers “continue to go in the wrong direction,” said Ducey, who confirmed that the state has postponed further efforts to reopen.

He pushed back against reporters’ questions about his position on the use of masks and his attendance at President Donald Trump’s campaign event held indoors this week at a Phoenix church. Many of the 3,000 people who attended did not wear face coverings.

Mississippi announced a record 1,092 new cases of coronavirus, the second time this week its daily count reached new highs. After making one of the most aggressive pushes in the nation to reopen, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has put off lifting any more restrictions and reimposed a ban on elective surgeries in some places to preserve hospital space.

The United States reported 34,500 COVID-19 cases Wednesday, slightly fewer than the day before but still near the high of 36,400 reached April 24, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The daily average has climbed by more than 50% over the past two weeks, an Associated Press analysis found. The true numbers are probably much higher because of limited testing and other factors. Deaths tolls have dropped even as the number of infections have increased, possibly reflecting better medical treatments and better efforts to prevent infections among the most vulnerable like nursing home residents. A rising proportion of cases in the U.S. are among younger people, who are more likely than their elders to survive a bout with COVID-19.

“This is still serious,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but “we’re in a different situation today than we were in March or April.” India, which has the world's second-largest population, has seen regular record daily increases. The 24-hour spike of 17,296 new infections reported Friday raised the national caseload past 490,000, including 15,301 fatalities. Indian Railways delayed the resumption of regular train services by more than a month, until Aug. 12.

In India and in neighboring Pakistan, government leaders have resisted new restrictions, citing economic concerns. The world's fourth-most populous country, Indonesia, passed 50,000 cases on Thursday, with at least 2,620 deaths, the highest number of cases and fatalities in Southeast Asia. That’s up from just two positive cases in early March.

President Joko Widodo said his administration wants Indonesia’s economy back on track but safe from the virus, and started the country’s reopening earlier this month. The government says the pandemic is expected to raise the nation's poverty rate to 10.2%.

A comeback of the virus is also erasing hard-won gains in South Korea, which reported 39 newly confirmed cases on Friday, mostly from the densely populated capital area that had escaped the worst of the country’s outbreak in February and March. There’s criticism that authorities, concerned about a fragile economy, were too quick to ease social distancing guidelines and reopen schools starting in May.

Australia on Friday reported 37 new cases of the coronavirus, including 30 in Victoria state, where health authorities are scrambling to contain an outbreak. Authorities said they tested 20,000 people in Melbourne suburbs as they went door-to-door in their attempts to stamp out the virus.

In Europe, the official in charge of Spain’s response to COVID-19 says imported infections are a growing source of concern as the continent readies to welcome more visitors. Epidemiologist Fernando Simón said Thursday that 54 people who had contracted the disease in the past week have been linked to recently arrived visitors in Spain. He suggested that controls should be strict and that regional and local governments should be ready to apply localized isolation to avoid spreading the disease.

In Paris, the Eiffel Tower reopened to visitors after its longest peacetime closure of 104 days.

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

Some states pause reopening as virus cases near record high

June 26, 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — The coronavirus crisis deepened in Arizona on Thursday, and the governor of Texas began to backtrack after making one of the most aggressive pushes in the nation to reopen, as the daily number of confirmed cases across the U.S. closed in on the peak reached during the dark days of late April.

While greatly expanded testing probably accounts for some of the increase, experts say other measures indicate the virus is making a comeback. Daily deaths, hospitalizations and the percentage of tests that are coming back positive also have been rising over the past few weeks in parts of the country, mostly in the South and West.

In Arizona, 23% of tests conducted over the past seven days have been positive, nearly triple the national average, and a record 415 patients were on ventilators. Mississippi saw its daily count of confirmed cases reach record highs twice this week.

“It's not a joke. Really bad things are going to happen,” said Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi's health officer. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas put off lifting any more restrictions and reimposed a ban on elective surgeries in some places to preserve hospital space after the number of patients statewide more than doubled in two weeks. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona also said further efforts to reopen are on hold as cases surge. Sandwiched between the two, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, worried about rising numbers and the risks posed by her neighbors, declaring, “We’re on hold.”

“The last thing we want to do as a state is go backwards and close down businesses,” Abbott said. The U.S. reported 34,500 COVID-19 cases Wednesday, slightly fewer than the day before but still near the high of 36,400 reached April 24, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The daily average has climbed by more than 50% over the past two weeks, an Associated Press analysis found. The true numbers are probably much higher because of limited testing and other factors.

Whether the rise in cases translates into an equally dire surge in deaths across the U.S. will depend on a number of factors, experts said, most crucially whether government officials make the right decisions. Deaths per day nationwide are around 600 after peaking at about 2,200 in mid-April.

“It is possible, if we play our cards badly and make a lot of mistakes, to get back to that level. But if we are smart, there’s no reason to get to 2,200 deaths a day,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute.

The nation's daily death toll has actually dropped markedly over the past few weeks even as cases climbed, a phenomenon experts said may reflect the advent of treatments, better efforts to prevent infections at nursing homes and a rising proportion of cases among younger people, who are more likely than their elders to survive a bout with COVID-19.

“This is still serious,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but “we’re in a different situation today than we were in March or April.” Several states set single-day case records this week, including Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas and Oklahoma. Florida reported over 5,000 new cases for a second day in a row.

Mississippi's Dobbs blamed a failure to wear masks and observe other social-distancing practices. “I’m afraid it’s going to take some kind of catastrophe for people to pay attention,” he said. “We are giving away those hard-fought gains for silly stuff.”

Tom Rohlk, a 62-year-old grocery store worker from Overland Park, Kansas, complained that young people sometimes act as if they don't care: “It seems like it’s time to party.” The U.S. has greatly ramped up testing in the past few months, and it is now presumably finding many less-serious cases that would have gone undetected earlier in the outbreak, when testing was limited and often focused on sicker people.

But there are other more clear-cut warning signs, including a rising number of deaths per day in states such as Arizona and Alabama. The numbers “continue to go in the wrong direction,” Ducey said. “We can expect our numbers will be worse next week and the week after.”

The number of confirmed infections, in itself, is a poor measure of the outbreak. CDC officials, relying on blood tests, estimated Thursday that 20 million Americans have been infected. That is about 6% percent of the population and roughly 10 times the 2.3 million confirmed cases.

Officials have long known that many cases have been missed because of testing gaps and a lack of symptoms in some infected people. Worldwide, over 9.5 million people have been confirmed infected, and nearly a half-million have died, including over 124,000 in the U.S., the world's highest toll, by Johns Hopkins’ count.

While some states impose new restrictions or pause their reopenings, some businesses also are backing off. Disney delayed its mid-July reopening of Disneyland. As politicians try to strike a balance between public health and the economy, the government reported that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week declined slightly to 1.48 million, indicating layoffs are slowing but still painfully high.

Elsewhere around the world, Paris' Eiffel Tower reopened to visitors after its longest peacetime closure: 104 days. With hospitals overwhelmed in New Delhi, Indian troops provided care in railroad cars converted to medical wards.

Johnson reported from Washington state. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

After waves of COVID deaths, care homes face legal reckoning

June 26, 2020

PARIS (AP) — The muffled, gagging sounds in the background of the phone call filled Monette Hayoun with dread. Was her severely disabled 85-year-old brother, Meyer, choking on his food? Was he slowly suffocating like the Holocaust survivor who died a few months earlier in another of the care home’s bedrooms, a chunk of breakfast baguette lodged in his throat?

Meyer Haiun died the next day, one of the more than 14,000 deaths that tore through care homes for France’s most vulnerable older adults when they were sealed off to visitors during the coronavirus’ peak.

Three months on, the questions plague Monette: How did her brother die? Did he suffer? And, most gnawing of all, who is responsible? “All the questions that I have about Meyer, maybe the truth isn’t as bad as what I imagine,” she says. Still, she adds, “You cannot help but imagine the worst.”

As families flock back to nursing homes that first reopened to limited visits in April and more widely this month, thousands no longer have mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings to hug and to hold.

Grieving families across the country are increasingly turning to lawyers to try to determine why almost half of France’s nearly 30,000 COVID-19 deaths hit residents of nursing homes, scything through the generations that came of age after World War I and helped rebuild the country.

Many homes had few, even no deaths. But others are emerging with their reputations in tatters, having lost scores in their care. Because COVID-19 proved particularly deadly for older adults, nursing homes across the globe quickly found themselves on the pandemic’s front lines. In the United States, nursing home residents account for nearly 1 in 10 of all coronavirus cases and more than a quarter of the deaths. In Europe, care home residents account from one-third to nearly two-thirds of the dead in many countries.

To stave off infections, many homes sealed themselves off. In France, the government closed access March 11, six days before putting the entire country in lockdown. But by then, the coronavirus already was starting to take its toll.

A fat yellow file of complaints on the desk of Paris lawyer Fabien Arakelian is one measure of the fury of families determined to get answers. The first complaint he filed targeted a home that he says lost 40 of its 109 residents; the pile has only grown since.

Arakelian himself lost his grandfather in a nursing home before the pandemic. “Unlike these families, I was lucky enough to be able to accompany him to the end, give him a final kiss, say a final goodbye. They didn’t get that, and it can never be given back to them,” he says. “That’s why I am fighting.”

An urgent need for answers is driving Olivia Mokiejewski. Among them: Why did the care-home worker she saw sitting next to her 96-year-old grandmother when they video-chatted during lockdown not wear a mask or gloves and also pass the phone from one person to the next without disinfecting it?

Her grandmother, Hermine Bideaux, was rushed to the hospital 11 days later, after her worried granddaughter asked a family friend who is a doctor to visit her. He found her barely conscious, feverish and severely dehydrated. Diagnosed in the hospital with COVID-19, she died April 4.

Mokiejewski has filed a manslaughter and endangerment suit accusing the Korian Bel Air home on the southwest outskirts of Paris of failing to prevent the spread of the disease. That was followed by a suit brought by the niece of an 89-year-old who sat with Mokiejewski’s grandmother during the video call and who died two days after her.

Signaling that the accusations warrant looking into, Paris-region prosecutors have accepted both complaints and five others like them and turned them over to police investigators. Korian, a market leader in the industry, says the residence isn’t at fault.

“The staff fought daily, day and night, to protect the residents with a lot of courage and lots of devotion,” said Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for the home. Arakelian’s latest suit was filed this week on behalf of Monette Hayoun, alleging manslaughter and endangerment in the March 26 death of her brother in the Amaraggi Residence in Paris.

The director at Amaraggi, reached by telephone, said she did not want to be quoted. The charitable foundation that manages the home did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. In emails to residents’ families, managers had acknowledged at least 19 deaths among its 80 residents.

On the sliding scale used in France to measure dependency, Meyer had been graded GIR 1, reserved for people who require continual care. When Amaraggi closed its doors in March, Monette told her two other brothers that Meyer would not survive without his daily visits from two external assistants the family had hired to keep him fed and hydrated.

One of his brothers, Robert, says the home’s doctor called the afternoon of Meyer’s death to say he suspected he was falling sick himself with COVID-19 and was leaving, but promised to first put Meyer on an intravenous drip to keep him from becoming dehydrated.

About three hours later, the doctor called again: A nurse had found Meyer dead in his room. Robert says that when he asked about the drip, “He told me, `I gave the order but I don’t know if it was done.’”

Already, the difficulty of gaining information has evidenced itself: Only on May 4, after repeated pleas from relatives, did managers disclose that 19 residents had died, saying they previously withheld that information because “it appeared to us to be particularly worry-inducing and harmful to communicate this data to the families.”

The family of the 82-year-old Holocaust survivor who choked to death last September has chosen not to file suit, dissuaded by the prospect of taking on the home’s operator -- the Casip-Cojasor Foundation, headed by Eric de Rothschild, a scion of Europe’s most famous banking dynasty.

But Monette Hayoun cannot let go: She feels she betrayed the promise she made to their mother that she would always protect her brother. A week after Meyer’s death, the family received a brief email from Amaraggi’s chief nurse saying: “He didn’t call out for anyone and didn’t leave a message.”

That was no comfort for his family: Meyer barely spoke, and he could not write.

Pandemic takes a bite, Chuck E. Cheese files for bankruptcy

June 26, 2020

(AP) Chuck E. Cheese - where kids could be kids while parents nursed headaches - is filing for bankruptcy protection. The 43-year-old chain, which drew kids with pizza, video games and a singing mouse mascot, was struggling even before the coronavirus pandemic. But it said the prolonged closure of many outlets due to coronavirus restrictions led to Thursday's Chapter 11 filing.

CEC Entertainment Inc. has reopened 266 of its 555 company-operated Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza restaurants as restrictions ease, but it's unclear how willing parents will be to host birthday parties and other gatherings. The Irving, Texas-based company said it will continue to reopen locations and offer carryout and delivery while it negotiates with debt and lease holders.

CEC and its franchisees operate 734 restaurants in 47 states and 16 countries. Franchised locations aren't included in the bankruptcy filing, the company said. CEC listed nearly $2 billion in debt and $1.7 billion in assets in its bankruptcy petition, which was filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in southern Texas.

“The Chapter 11 process will allow us to strengthen our financial structure as we recover from what has undoubtedly been the most challenging event in our company’s history” said CEO David McKillips in a prepared statement.

The restaurant industry has been devastated by the coronavirus. Transactions at U.S. family dining restaurants plummeted more than 80% in mid-April, the height of the pandemic in the U.S., according to The NPD Group, a data and consulting firm.

Orlando-based FoodFirst Global Restaurants, which owns the Brio Tuscan Grille and Bravo Cucina Italiana Italian restaurant chains, filed for bankruptcy protection in April. BarFly Ventures, which owns HopCat and other bars in the Midwest, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

Chuck E. Cheese got its start in 1977, when Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell opened Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre in San Jose, California. The restaurant featured a cast of animatronic characters led by Chuck E. Cheese, a plucky rat in a bowler hat that was later rebranded as a mouse. “Where a kid can be a kid,” the chain promised in its tag line.

But in recent years the chain has struggled. Newer competitors like Dave and Buster's offered bigger venues, while trampoline parks like Launch and AirTime offered party alternatives. In 2014, CEC was bought by private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Under Apollo, it remodeled stores, introduced updated technology like gaming cards and revamped its menu, adding coffee drinks and premium beer and wine. It also refocused advertising to appeal more directly to parents.

In 2019, the chain's same-store sales - or sales at venues open at least a year - were up 3%. They rose in January of this year but began falling in February and March. The pandemic was a final straw, hammering restaurants like Chuck E. Cheese that relied on dine-in traffic and weren't set up to do takeout.

At one point, perhaps recognizing its disadvantage, some Chuck E Cheese locations began offering food delivery on apps like Grubhub under the alias “Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings.” Kevin Schimpf, a senior manager of industry research for the restaurant consulting firm Technomic, said Chuck E. Cheese is saddled with large stores and an abundance of high-touch surfaces at a time when many people may have mixed emotions about parties.

“Chuck E. Cheese will certainly not be the last pandemic-inflicted bankruptcy, but it will definitely be one of the most interesting to follow,” he said.

Beijing sees drop in virus cases as Brazil passes 1 million

June 20, 2020

BEIJING (AP) — China’s capital recorded a further drop in coronavirus cases amid tightened containment measures while Brazil surpassed more than 1 million confirmed infections, second only to the United States.

Officials reported 22 new cases in Beijing on Saturday, along with five others elsewhere in China. There are no new deaths and 308 people remain hospitalized for treatment. South Korea recorded 67 new cases, the largest 24-hour increase in about three weeks. Most of them come from the densely populated Seoul area, where about half of the country’s 51 million people reside. Many cases have been linked to exposure in nightlife outlets.

The head of the World Health Organization said Friday the pandemic is “accelerating” and that more than 150,000 cases were reported the day before — the highest single-day number so far. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva that nearly half of the newly reported cases were from the Americas, with significant numbers from South Asia and the Middle East.

Brazil’s Health Ministry said the total number of cases had risen to by more than 50,000 from the previous day. President Jair Bolsonaro still downplays the risks of the virus after nearly 50,000 fatalities in three months. He says the impact of social isolation on Brazil’s economy can be more deadly.

The new coronavirus has infected more than 8.5 million people worldwide and killed more than 454,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual number is thought to be much higher because many cases are asymptomatic or go untested.

South Africa and Ethiopia say they are recommending the limited use of the commonly available drug dexamethasone for all COVID-19 patients on ventilators or supplementary oxygen. South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said “this breakthrough is excellent news for us and we are especially fortunate that it came as we are preparing for our upcoming surge” in cases. South Africa has about 30% of the virus cases on the African continent, or more than 87,000.

French authorities are keeping a close eye on signs of an accelerating spread of the coronavirus in Normandy, a region that’s until now been spared the worst of the outbreak that has hit Paris and the east of France particularly hard.

Britain lowered its coronavirus threat level one notch, becoming the latest country to claim it’s getting a national outbreak under control. Meanwhile, Germany reported the country’s highest daily increase in virus cases in a month after managing to contain its outbreak better than comparable large European nations.

The emergencies chief of the World Health Organization has confirmed that China shared coronavirus sequences from its latest outbreak with the global community and says it appears the virus was imported to Beijing from strains circulating in Europe.

At a press briefing on Friday, Dr. Michael Ryan noted that “strains and viruses have moved around the world” throughout the pandemic. Ryan said that many viruses in New York “were of European origin” but that doesn’t mean Europe necessarily was the original source.

He says analysis of the genetic sequences so far suggests that the virus spread to people in China from other humans instead of jumping from animals directly into humans.

Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.

UN refugee agency fears for displaced Venezuelans amid COVID

June 18, 2020

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the U.N. refugee agency says he is “very worried” about the impact of the new coronavirus in Latin America, where millions of Venezuelans have fled upheaval at home and could face hardship abroad among lockdowns and other restrictive measures to fight the pandemic.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said 164 countries have either partially or totally closed their borders to fight COVID-19, the disease that can be caused by the virus. Many people who flee abroad rely on the “informal economy” often involving day work — activities at risk as host governments ratchet up lockdowns.

“Of course, it is good that countries are taking these measures of prudence” against the virus, Grandi said. “Unfortunately, COVID that has been able to cause the entire world to grind to a halt has not been able to stop wars, conflicts, violence, discrimination.”

“People are still fleeing their countries to seek refuge, to seek protection. This needs to be considered,” he added, appealing to governments. The impact could be especially stark for 3.7 million Venezuelans abroad, the world's second-largest nationality of refugees after the 6.6 million Syrians displaced by their country's war. The Americas have become the world's epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

“One region about which we’re very worried is, of course, Latin America and South America and in particular where countries host many millions of Venezuelans,” Grandi said in an interview. “They are particularly hit by COVID."

The comments came as UNHCR issued its annual “Global Trends” report, which found that the number of asylum-seekers, internally displaced people and refugees shot up by nearly 9 million people last year — the biggest rise in its records — to 79.5 million people, accounting for 1% of all humanity, amid conflict, repression and upheaval.

UNHCR chalked up the surge to a new way of counting people displaced from Venezuela and a “worrying” new displacement in the persistent trouble spots of Congo, the Sahel region of Africa, Yemen and Syria, which alone accounted for more than 13 million of those people on the move.

While the total figure of people facing forced displacement rose from 70.8 million at the end of 2018, some 11 million people were “newly displaced” last year, with poorer countries among those most affected.

UNHCR says forced displacement has nearly doubled from 41 million people in 2010, and five countries — Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar — are the source of nearly two-thirds of people displaced abroad.

Grandi also noted about 30% to 40% of the world’s refugee population lived in camps. He said COVID-19 hasn't affected “in dramatic numbers” camps like those in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh — a country that has taken in nearly a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing from Myanmar — or in Africa.

Amid the outbreak, UNHCR has stepped up its “cash transfer” programs that put money directly in the pockets of displaced people. Grandi says 65 countries now benefit from such programs, “and we have added 40 countries in just the last few months.”

Rights activists say Danes unaware of racism in their nation

July 02, 2020

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Rights activists on Thursday accused Danish officials of being unable to recognize racism after authorities said the killing of a biracial man by two white men was not racially motivated.

“In Denmark, white people are colorblind. They cannot see that racism exists. That is embarrassing,”said Jette Moeller, head of the Danish chapter of SOS-Racism, an international association. “Of course, racism exists (in Denmark). We know that. It has been documented for years,” said Mira Chandhok Skadegaard, an assistant professor at Aalborg University in northern Denmark.

A biracial man was killed last month on a Danish Baltic Sea island. The Danish police, prosecutor, a defense lawyer and a white friend of the victim all say a personal relationship that went wrong between the victim and the perpetrators was the reason for the slaying, not racism.

The 28-year-old victim, who had Danish and African roots, was found on the island of Bornholm on June 23. Two white brothers in their 20s whom the victim reportedly knew have been detained until July 22 on suspicion of murder. None have been named by authorities.

Speculation that the killing could be racially motivated began after it emerged that the victim's death bore some similarities to that of George Floyd, a Black man who died May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes even as Floyd pleaded for air. Floyd’s death has sparked protests around the world demanding racial justice and condemning police brutality.

The Danish chapter of Black Lives Matter wrote on Facebook that “two brothers committed a racial murder on Bornholm” and posted a photo of a swastika tattoo, claiming it was on one suspect’s leg. “Let a judge decide” whether the slaying was racially motivated, Moeller told The Associated Press in an interview. “But it should be investigated as a racially motivated crime. Knowing those who killed him doesn’t rule out it could include some racial elements.”

Activists like Moeller see a pattern of denial in Denmark, which they attribute to rising anti-immigrant attitudes in the Nordic country. She also points out that Denmark's freedom of expression should not be used to denigrate people, and the miss-use of that right has previously brought the Scandinavian country of 10 million into the crosshairs of Muslims around the world.

“Racism is about the effect it has on other people ... One cannot use the liberty of expression as an excuse to taunt others, like Rasmus Paludan does by burning copies of the Quran,” she said. For months, Paludan, a far-right provocateur, has been touring the country and tossing copies of the Islamic holy book in the air before burning them before immigrants. This has sometimes led to brief confrontations between onlookers and police who have been protecting Paludan.

Last month, Paludan was convicted of racism, among other things, with a court ruling that “his statements were derogatory and degrading toward a population group.” He was given a three-month prison sentence, of which two were suspended, and his licence to practice law was suspended in part for three years. He has appealed the sentence.

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons showing the Prophet Muhammad. This caused wide outrage among Muslims, who generally hold that any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemous and prompted often violent protests in Muslim countries. The newspaper — one of Denmark’s largest — said it had wanted to test whether cartoonists would apply self-censorship when asked to portray Muhammad. No Danish laws were violated with the cartoons’ publication.

It was the same daily that in January published a cartoon with the Chinese flag with what resembles viruses instead of the normal stars, sparking China's anger. In both cases, the Danish right to freedom of speech was invoked.

In 2017, a 16-year-old Afghan boy was set on fire by four schoolmates but race was ruled out as factor. The four teenagers were found guilty of gross violence and the Afghan boy survived with burns on his legs and chest.

A 2018 report by the European Union pointed out that hate crimes in Denmark had quadrupled over 11 years, from 35 reported cases in 2007 to 140 cases in 2016. In Europe, “Denmark belongs to the tough group,” Moeller told the AP. “I believe that we’re on the right track as we start to discuss it, address it.”

She noted that a racial justice demonstration in Copenhagen on June 7 drew at least 15,000 people. Chandhok Skadegaard, who has been studying discrimination for decades, said Danes “are far behind when it comes to recognizing racism in our society. Sweden is several steps ahead of Denmark ... as is Norway, and Finland and England.”

“People tend to not report discrimination, because they find it is not acknowledged or taken seriously by the authorities,” she said. In 2016, Denmark made international headlines when a law was passed requiring asylum-seekers to hand over valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner ($1,500), to help cover housing and food costs while their cases were being processed. Although the center-right government behind the move said it was in line with rules for unemployed Danes seeking benefits, critics denounced the law as inhumane.

Still, the law has not been changed under Denmark's present Social Democratic government.

Museum or mosque? Turkey debates iconic Hagia Sofia's status

July 01, 2020

ISTANBUL (AP) — In its more than 1,400-year existence, the majestic domed structure of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has served as the Byzantine Empire’s main cathedral, a mosque under the Ottoman Empire and a museum under modern Turkey, attracting millions of tourists each year.

The 6th-century building is now at the center of a heated debate between nationalist, conservative and religious groups who are pressing for it to be reconverted back into a mosque and those who believe the UNESCO World Heritage site should remain a museum, underscoring Istanbul’s status as a bridge between continents and cultures.

On Thursday, Turkey’s Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, begins reviewing a request by a group devoted to reverting Hagia Sophia into a mosque. They are pressing to annul a 1934 decision by the Council of Ministers, led by secular Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, that turned the historic structure into a museum. A decision could come later Thursday or within two weeks, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads an Islamic-oriented party, has previously spoken about possibly changing Hagia Sophia’s status to a mosque but has said his government would await the Council of State’s decision.

Analysts believe that Erdogan — a populist, polarizing leader who in nearly two decades in office has frequently blamed Turkey’s secular elites for the country’s problems — is using the Hagia Sophia debate to consolidate his conservative base and to distract attention from Turkey's substantial economic woes.

“This is not just a debate about a building,” said Soner Cagaptay, Turkey analyst for the Washington Institute. “Ataturk established Hagia Sophia as a museum to underline his vision of secularizing Turkey. And nearly 100 years later, Erdogan is trying to do the opposite.”

”(Erdogan) feels the pressure of popular support dwindling and therefore he wants to use issues that he hopes will remobilize his right-wing base around nativist, populist, anti-elitist topics,” said Cagaptay, author of the book “Erdogan’s Empire.”

Built under Byzantine Emperor Justinian, Hagia Sophia was the main seat of the Eastern Orthodox church for centuries, where emperors were crowned amidst ornate marble and mosaic decorations. Four minarets were added to the terracotta-hued structure with cascading domes and the building was turned into an imperial mosque following the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople — the city that is now Istanbul.

The building opened its doors as a museum in 1935, a year after the Council of Ministers’ decision. Islamist groups, however, regard the symbolic structure as a legacy of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror and strongly object to its status as a museum. Large crowds have gathered outside Hagia Sophia on the May 31 anniversary of the city’s conquest to pray and demand that it be restored as a place of Muslim worship.

In the past few years, Turkey has been allowing readings from the Quran inside Hagia Sophia and Erdogan himself has recited prayers there. This year, he oversaw by video conference the recital of the “prayer of conquest” on the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest.

On Tuesday, Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, considered the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, noted that Hagia Sophia had served as a place of worship for Christians for 900 years and for Muslims for 500 years.

“As a museum, Hagia Sophia can function as a place and symbol of encounter, dialogue and peaceful coexistence of peoples and cultures, mutual understand and solidarity between Christianity and Islam,” he said.

Bartholomew added: “the potential conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque will turn millions of Christians across the world against Islam.” Greece also strongly objects to attempts to change Hagia Sophia into a mosque, arguing that its designation as a historic monument must be maintained.

“I hope that President Erdogan does not proceed with something that will deeply hurt Turkey,” Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said. “This monument has endured many things and it will always return, but Turkey’s image will take a severe blow.”

Turkish media reports say the government was considering the possibility of keeping Hagia Sophia open to tourists even if it were turned into a mosque. That status would be similar to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, which sits right across from Hagia Sophia and functions both as a house of worship and a tourist spot.

Hurriyet and other media have reported that Hagia Sophia could be reconverted into a mosque by a public holiday on July 15, when the country marks the fourth anniversary of the foiling of an attempted coup.

Cagaptay, the analyst said, the Hagia Sophia issue would likely have a “temporary impact in keeping Erdogan’s base with him.” “(But) if he does not deliver economic growth, I can’t see him winning elections as he did in the past,” Cagaptay said.

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed.

Women taken from African mothers by Belgium now want redress

July 01, 2020

NEDER-OVER-HEEMBEEK, Belgium (AP) — Monique Bitu Bingi was only 4 years old when she was taken from her family in Belgian Congo and locked up in a religious mission run by Catholic nuns. Her friend Lea Tavares Mujinga was even younger the day her mother was forced to give her up: just a 2-year-old toddler.

Born from a white settler father and a Black mother — and despised because of their biracial heritage — both girls were seized from their mothers and separated from their African roots by Belgian authorities that ruled over the area from 1908-1960.

During colonial times, they, like thousands of other biracial children known as “métis,” were taken away and raised in Belgian institutions as the colonial power promoted a strict separation of white and Black people and systematically tried to prevent interracial unions.

At the St. Vincent de Paul sisters' mission, they went through years of deprivation and abuse that have left indelible scars. “We have been destroyed, both morally and psychologically,” Bitu Bingi told The Associated Press on Monday, the eve of the 60th anniversary of Congo’s independence on June 30, 1960. “We have lost our identities. Excuses are not enough.”

Now in their 70s, Bitu Bingi and Tavares Mujinga want reparations. Along with three other biracial women born between 1945 and 1950 in the African country, they have filed a lawsuit in Brussels targeting the Belgian state for crimes against humanity.

Their complaint comes amid growing demands that Belgium reassess its colonial past. In the wake of protests against racial inequality in the United States, several statues of King Leopold II, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s colonial rule, have been vandalized and a petition has demanded that Belgium remove all of his statues.

Last year, the Belgian government apologized for the state’s role in taking thousands of babies from their African mothers. And for the first time in the country’s history, a reigning king expressed regret Tuesday for the violence carried out by the former colonial power. In a letter to Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, Belgium’s King Philippe conveyed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” and “suffering and humiliation” inflicted on Belgian Congo.

Bitu Bingi, Tavares Mujinga and the three other women now live in Belgium and France after emigrating from Congo and have requested compensation of 50,000 euros ($55,000) each but are are also seeking broad reparations for all children seized from their mothers and placed in institutions during the colonial era.

“There were official documents from the administration, it’s a state crime that was organized by the Belgian colonial administration,” said Christophe Marchand, a lawyer representing the women. Tavares Mujinga said she was taken away from her family while her father, a Portuguese man who worked in the cotton industry, had left the country for a holiday. Bitu Bingi's father worked for the Belgian administration.

According to legal documents, in all five cases the fathers did not exercise parental authority and the Belgian administration threatened the children’s Congolese families with reprisals if they refused to let them go.

Time has passed since the five women were forced to cut ties with their relatives, but the trauma they went through has never been fully addressed, and their pain remains immense. None of them have ever received psychological assistance.

“When we talk about it, we cry," Noelle Verbeeken, one of the five plaintiffs, told the AP on the outskirts of Brussels. “We have no identity. We don't know where we come from. ... We are nothing. Just the ‘children of sin,'" Verbeeken said, quoting the expression used to describe the children when they arrived at the religious mission in the Congolese town of Katende. There, Tavares Mujinga was reunited with her older brother, who had been seized a few years earlier.

The women lived in the mission with 20 other biracial children and Black orphans in very harsh conditions. Bitu Bingi recalls that food was scarce, and rare were the days when she could properly wash.

“We did not know how chicken tasted. And one of the doors of our dormitory was overlooking the morgue," she said. The girls did receive an education. Tavares Mujinga, who went on to marry a Belgian airplane pilot, became a primary teacher while Verbeeken studied Greek humanities and became a nurse.

“They wanted to make nuns out of us. We had other plans," Bitu Bingi said. The women's traumatic journey took a turn for the worse several months after independence, when they and the other children were abandoned by both the Belgian authorities and the Catholic Church. The nuns and other mission personnel were evacuated amid political upheaval and the children were left on their own.

“There was no room for us,” Bitu Bingi said, recalling mutilated bodies around the mission during the post-independence unrest. She doesn't dwell on the sexual abuse and rape by Congolese militia fighters after the nuns left that is described in the lawsuit, which says the militiamen sent to the abandoned mission to look after the young girls molested them instead. Bitu Bingi was only 11.

To this day, she says she can’t help but think of the militia trucks whenever she hears the sound of a truck engine. She found solace during a trip to South America decades later after finding out that her father had emigrated to Argentina to start a new life. She traveled there and finally met that branch of her family, a trip she said eased her suffering.

“My father was already dead, but I received a warm welcome," she said. Bitu Bingi and the women she calls “sisters” now hope their lawsuit will lead Belgium to finally recognize its responsibility in their suffering and in the pain of the thousands of other children who were snatched away.

“What we expect, and what they expect, is a reparation law, a strong decision,” said Jehosheba Bennett, another lawyer for the women. “Telling the stories of what happened during the colonization is really important, because now there is not much awareness about this.”

Germany takes EU hot seat with big challenges, expectations

June 30, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Germany, the European Union’s biggest economic power, is taking over the rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc amid massive challenges and huge expectations as the continent grapples with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Berlin's six months in the EU hot seat will likely be Chancellor Angela Merkel’s last big turn on the international stage.

Germany's time at the EU helm, which starts Wednesday, is bookended by landmark moments for the bloc. At the beginning, the bloc will seek agreement on a huge package to pull its stricken economy out of the coronavirus crisis, and on its future budget. At the end, former member Britain’s definitive departure from the EU’s single market is expected -- with or without an agreement. In between, the EU must grapple with how to handle an increasingly assertive China and prepare for whatever happens in the U.S. presidential election in November.

Berlin, which will chair meetings of the 27 EU countries' ministers, will have to help prevent new rifts emerging as the damage from the pandemic becomes clearer and worries linger about a possible second wave of infections. Europe as a whole has seen over 190,000 confirmed virus-related deaths in the pandemic — nearly 40% of the world’s officially reported deaths — and is emerging from lockdowns in many countries that weighed severely on their economies.

Germany's motto for its presidency is “together for Europe’s recovery.” Merkel told the German parliament recently that “we must not allow the pandemic to lead to the economic prospects of the EU member states drifting apart."

“The anti-democratic forces, the radical, authoritarian movements, are just waiting for economic crises to misuse them politically,” she added. “They are just waiting to stoke social fears and spread insecurity. Working for sustainable development in all regions of Europe is also a political instrument against populists and radicals.”

Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in May proposed creating a one-time 500 billion-euro ($561 billion) recovery fund that would be filled through shared EU borrowing. That is a big step for Germany, breaking with its long-standing opposition to any kind of joint borrowing.

The EU's executive Commission expanded on the proposal, putting forward plans for a 750 billion-euro fund made up mostly of grants. It faces resistance from countries dubbed the “Frugal Four” — Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden — that oppose grants and are reluctant to give money away without strings attached.

It will be up to Germany to help find a quick agreement, ideally when EU leaders meet July 17-18 for their first in-person summit in months, on both the recovery fund and the EU's budget for seven years starting Jan. 1.

“Our task will be to work as an honest broker for compromises and solutions among the member states,” Merkel said in a weekend video message. “That isn't always easy,” she added with characteristic understatement.

Germany's turn follows a rough ride for Croatia, the EU's newest member, which held the presidency as countries responded to the explosion of COVID-19 infections in March with uncoordinated border closures and other restrictions.

Merkel, 65, who plans to step down when her fourth term ends next year, certainly has the necessary experience of banging heads together. She already led Germany through an EU presidency once, in 2007.

Since then, she has steered her country and influenced EU policymaking through the global financial crisis, the eurozone debt crisis, the 2015 migrant crisis and now the coronavirus crisis. Germany's medical and economic response to the pandemic has won plaudits, boosting Merkel's popularity and giving a sense of unity to a coalition government that previously was known for its infighting.

“We are lucky that the Germans are taking over in these difficult times,” said senior European Parliament lawmaker Philippe Lamberts, a Green party member from Belgium. "Hopefully, they will exert maximum pressure to get an agreement.”

“Germany’s presidency will be defined by the success or the failure of the recovery plan," he said. Still, Berlin and the EU have other matters on their plate. Relations with China are a key issue at a time of rising concern over trade tensions, human rights and the fate of Hong Kong. An EU-China summit that was to be held in Leipzig in September was postponed because of the pandemic, but there are hopes it could still happen this year.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called Monday for the summit to be rescheduled “as soon as possible” and said it's “indispensable for Europe to speak with a single voice to China.” He said the cornerstones of the German presidency will be “solidarity and sovereignty." He pointed to a need for Europe to analyse its “strategic dependencies," for example on medicines made in China and India and on others for information technology. And Merkel has promised to put climate protection high on the agenda.

But Germany doesn't expect to find a solution for everything in the coming six months. While Germany may have the clout to help nudge negotiations for a deal on future relations with Britain along, those talks are firmly in the domain of the European Commission and Berlin doesn’t plan to get involved in shaping the details.

“No one thinks that these problems we have at the moment can really be solved in half a year, but Germany is a very big EU country with a really very strong diplomatic service and has the strength and will ... to move forward the European agenda,” Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations think-tank in Berlin, told NDR television. “And that is very, very important.”