5G wireless networks are touted as the fastest consumers have yet experienced. But beyond speed, what will the technology mean for different industries? At one incubator in New York, startups are taking 5G beyond the smartphone and building new products on networks that can handle all of their data. Tina Trinh reports.

The U.S. and Guatemala are in talks on a possible “safe third country” deal that would prevent Hondurans and Salvadorans fleeing persecution from seeking asylum in the U.S. The discussions are part of a larger plan aimed at curbing the current Central American migration crisis at the U.S. southern border. But in Guatemala, a history of extreme poverty and violence has led many human rights groups to question the capability of its government to process asylum claims. And some residents worry that their problems at home may get worse if an agreement is reached. VOA’s Ramon Taylor reports.

This report originated with VOA’s Amharic Service. Eskinder Firew reported from Addis Ababa and Mulugeta Atsbeha reported from Mekele, both in Ethiopia. Tsion Tadesse reported from VOA’s headquarters in Washington.

At a memorial service Tuesday, military leaders praised Ethiopia’s slain military chief, Seare Mekonnen, and vowed to restore stability to the shaken country.

“We will continue the struggle that he started,” General Birhanu Jelan, deputy to the slain chief, told more than 1,000 people gathered at Millennium Hall Tuesday morning to pay their respects.

Maasho Seare spoke of his father as “a hero who always believed in Ethiopian unity and worked for tolerance among its people.” 

Seare was shot dead at home Saturday by his bodyguard, who also killed visiting retired Major-General Gezae Abera. Both victims were honored at Tuesday’s service.

Their coffins, each draped with an Ethiopian flag, were arranged at the center of the hall. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Sahle-Work Zewde sat nearby and wept openly during the service, though neither formally addressed the crowd.

The attack on the two military men in Addis followed another deadly attack, hours earlier, on officials in the northern Amhara region’s capital, Bahir Dar. Three were fatally wounded in that assault: Ambachew Mekonnen, the regional leader, along with his adviser and the region’s attorney general. Ambachew was an ally of Abiy.

State television identified the Amhara region’s security chief, Brigadier General Asamnew Tsige, as the mastermind of an attempted coup. Asamnew was captured and killed Monday in Bahir Dar’s Zenzelima neighborhood. State media reported that security forces shot the general dead as he tried to escape.

Saturday’s attacks, which may have been coordinated, are widely seen as a threat to reforms that Abiy has ushered in following his election in April 2018. He has made peace with neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopia’s longtime rival. He also has widened political space, freed political prisoners, lifted press restrictions and encouraged new business investment.

Driver’s account

Isubalew Dres, a driver for Ambachew, told VOA’s Amharic Service in a phone interview that he was at a government guesthouse in Bahir Dar when a handful of armed men in military uniforms showed up. They confiscated security forces’ weapons as well as civilians’ cellphones. Isubalew says he was ordered to get behind the wheel of a government car he usually drove. A military officer got into the passenger seat next to him. At one point, Isubalew glanced up and saw Asamnew on the balcony of the guesthouse, where he has a room.

The passenger ordered Isubalew to drive. Along the way, the passenger was on the phone, addressing the other party as “General.” The passenger repeated what Isubalew believes were orders to take control of police, state media and other institutions. When the car approached the destination – apparently Asamnew’s military training camp – Isubalew saw a kneeling figure being whipped. Isubalew recognized him as Colonel Alebel Amare, an Asamnew deputy. “That’s when I knew things were really bad,” the driver told VOA.

Isubalew said he was able to escape when the militants were distracted by the arrival of a wounded colleague. “Everybody was fussing over him,” said Isubalew, who fled on foot.  

Bodies sent home

After Tuesday service, Abiy saluted the coffins, which were placed in a van and taken to Bole International Airport, AFP reported. The bodies then were flown to Mekele, capital of the Tigray National Regional state from which both men had come.

Regional leaders were at the airport to receive the bodies.

As part of a security crackdown, more than 180 arrests have been made in connection with the attacks, according to the Associated Press. Alebel is among military personnel being investigated, Ethiopia state media have reported. The country’s internet service also has been shuttered for a fourth straight day.

A Maryland judge has ordered a two-phase trial for man accused of killing five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper one year ago. 

Judge Laura Ripken granted the defense request Tuesday, ruling that part one would determine if Jarrod Ramos is guilty of gunning down the victims inside the newspaper office.

If he is convicted, the second phase would determine if Ramos is not criminally responsible for his crime — the state of Maryland’s version of the insanity defense.

Ramos has already pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible.

Prosecutors want to submit Ramos’ tax records dating back to 2003, saying they will show his mental state and prove he is able to tell right from a criminal action.

The defense plans to argue the tax records are confidential and irrelevant.

Ramos allegedly burst into the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland last year with smoke grenades and a shotgun and barricaded the doors to stop people from escaping.

Five people were killed, including editors and reporters. Police found Ramos hiding under a desk.

Prosecutors say Ramos had a grudge against the newspaper over a story in which he pleaded guilty to harassing a former high school classmate.

He sued the newspaper for libel and lost, but is accused of continuing to send threatening notes and letters.

Illinois became the 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana Tuesday, and the first to do so through its legislature rather than a ballot initiative. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker signed the bill into law after the legislature passed it late last month.

“As the first state in the nation to fully legalize adult-use cannabis through the legislative process, Illinois exemplifies the best of democracy: a bipartisan and deep commitment to better the lives of all of our people,” said Pritzker in a statement Tuesday.

The law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2020. Illinois residents above 21 will be able to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis flower, 5 grams of cannabis concentrate and 500 milligrams of THC, with non-residents able to possess half the amounts.

Those arrested for possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana will have their records automatically expunged, while Pritzker will pardon those convicted for possession. Individuals with convictions for violent crime will not be automatically eligible, though they or an attorney can still file suit to remove convictions.

Illinois estimates that 700,000 people’s records will qualify for expungement. About 300,000 more will be able to file suit for convictions for up to 500 grams of the substance.

“One of the things that we wanted to make sure we accomplished with legalization was ensuring we put social equity at the center and the heart of our efforts,” said state senator Toi Hutchinson in the statement. “[We’re] acknowledging that while we normalize and legalize something that is happening across the country, that we tie the direct nexus to the communities that the prohibition has hurt the most.”

The law also addresses communities disproportionately affected by marijuana criminalization, such as those with higher rates of poverty, unemployment and marijuana-related offenses. Termed “social equity applicants,” prospective dispensary owners from these areas will be offered financial assistance and licensing application benefits. Only state-licensed businesses will be legally able to grow, process and sell the substance.

Revenue from marijuana taxes will also go toward a grant program that will “address the impact of economic disinvestment, violence, and the historical overuse of the criminal justice system,” according to the press release. A further 20% of revenue will go to substance abuse treatment and prevention, as well as mental health care.

Illinois anticipates nearly $60 million in tax revenue and licensing fees in 2020, with that estimate ballooning to over $375 million in tax revenue alone in 2024. Marijuana legalization could provide a much-needed source of income for the state, which is facing a pension-driven deficit of billions of dollars. A report by Pew found that Illinois is one of seven states with less than a week’s worth of operating costs in rainy day funds, while George Mason University ranked the state dead last for fiscal health.

On a federal level, marijuana remains classified as one of six illegal schedule 1 drugs, meaning it’s considered to have significant potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. However, the federal government has remained lax in its enforcement thus far.

In a world first, Facebook has agreed to hand over the identification data of French users suspected of hate speech on its platform to judges, France’s minister for digital affairs Cedric O said on Tuesday.

O, whose father is South Korean, is one of French President Emmanuel Macron’s earliest followers, and has been influential in shaping the president’s thinking on Big Tech as an advisor at the Elysee palace in the first two years of Macron’s presidency.

The decision by the world’s biggest social media network comes after successive meetings between Zuckerberg and Macron, who wants to take a leading role globally on the regulation of hate speech and the spread of false information online.

So far, Facebook has cooperated with French justice on matters related to terrorist attacks and violent acts by transferring the IP addresses and other identification data of suspected individuals to French judges who formally demanded it.

Following a meeting between Nick Clegg, Facebook’s head of global affairs, and O last week, the social media company has extended this cooperation to hate speech.

“This is huge news, it means that the judicial process will be able to run normally,” O told Reuters in an interview. “It’s really very important, they’re only doing it for France.”

O, who said he had been in close contact with Clegg over the last few days on the issue, said Facebook’s decision was the result of an ongoing conversation between the internet giant and the French administration.

Since his nomination as minister in March, O has made the fight against hate speech online a key priority through regular contacts with Facebook’s top executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook declined to comment.

Strong signal

“It is a strong signal in terms of regulation,” said Sonia Cisse, a counsel at law firm Linklaters, adding that it was a world first. “Hate speech is no longer considered part of freedom of speech, it’s now on the same level as terrorism.”

With Facebook’s latest move, France is now a clear frontrunner in the quest to regulate big social media outlets, and other platforms might follow suite, Cisse said.

The discussions on how to best regulate tech giants began with a Zuckerberg-Macron meeting last year, followed by a report on tech regulation last month that Facebook’s founder considered could be a blueprint for wider EU regulation.

Facebook had refrained from handing over identification data of people suspected of hate speech because it was not compelled to do so under U.S.-French legal conventions and because it was worried countries without an independent judiciary could abuse it.

France’s parliament, where Macron’s ruling party has a comfortable majority, is debating legislation that would give the new regulator the power to fine tech companies up to 4% of their global revenue if they don’t do enough to remove hateful content from their network.

O also signaled his openness to seeing French startups being snapped up by larger U.S. companies, in a spite of recent measures taken by Macron’s government to bolster anti-takeover rules to protect the country’s strategic companies.

“My only goal is to spur the creation of a lot of companies,” he said. “I have no problem with the fact that some of them are bought by U.S. companies, as long as they don’t have critical technology.”

Too big

The minister is also reluctant to support the idea of breaking up companies like Facebook or Google, whose size, weight on the Internet and financial firepower have turned them into systemic players just as much as big banks.

Facebook has been called a social media monopoly by co-founder Chris Hughes, and calls for a break-up of the group have intensified.

“We cannot impose very tough obligations on Western companies and dismantle them because they are very big, and not do the same thing with Chinese companies that enter the Western market,” he said, referring to groups like Alibaba and Tencent.

A graduate of France’s top business school, HEC, O combines political experience – he was an aide to Dominique Strauss-Khan, like many of the tight group of “Macron Boys” who propelled him to power – and a stint in the private sector, at engine maker Safran.

At the Elysee, he was in charge of advising Macron on the French government’s vast portfolio of stakes in French companies, having to deal with hot corporate sagas such as Renault-Nissan, as well as handling relations with Big Tech.

 

President Donald Trump is still committed to a pressure campaign to force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step aside to make way for opposition leader Juan Guaido, Washington’s envoy for Venezuela said on Tuesday.

The campaign has failed to dislodge Maduro, who has the support of Russia and China. Arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate, Guaido invoked Venezuela’s constitution in January to declare himself interim president with backing from the United States and other Western countries.

Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Venezuela, brushed aside questions over whether Washington had lost interest amid other pressing foreign policy issues such as tensions with Iran and China trade talks.

He also firmly rejected the possibility that Maduro could be part of a unity government in Venezuela. “It is hard to see how he is part of the solution or could be part of a transition government,” Abrams told reporters.

Citing examples that Venezuela remained a priority for the administration, Abrams said Trump raised the topic with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their June 20 meeting. Vice President Mike Pence also traveled to Miami to help send off the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort on a medical mission to South America to help with displaced Venezuelans.

“It is not a sign of uninterest,” said Abrams. “The notion that there is at the highest levels of the government a diminution of interest is just simply false.”

Without elaborating, Abrams said the number of countries which have announced their support for Guaido will soon grow from a current 54 nations.

“There will be a change in that number,” he said.

Military defector

Abrams said he hoped to meet with Manuel Cristopher, a Venezuelan general who turned against Maduro, who is now in the United States.

“He is in the U.S. and he is a free man. I would like to talk to him myself, and I assume other U.S. officials would like to because he quite obviously … has a lot of interesting things to say about the Maduro regime and about life in
Venezuela,” Abrams said.

Abrams said the administration “did not bring” Cristopher to the United States, but added: “We’re happy he is here, makes it easier to have more conversations with him.”

Maduro has accused Cristopher, who was the head of the South American country’s Sebin intelligence service, of conspiring to help Guaido’s uprising by releasing opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was under a house arrest enforced by Sebin.

 

A Saudi military spokesman says the country’s special forces have captured the leader of the Islamic State group’s branch in Yemen during a raid on a house that was under surveillance.

Spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition at war in Yemen, Col. Turki al-Maliki, says the June 3 operation lasted just 10 minutes and resulted in the arrest of Yemen’s IS leader, known by his moniker as Abu Osama Al-Muhajir, along with the group’s chief financial operator in Yemen and other suspects who were not named.

The statement did not say where the men are now being held nor where in Yemen the raid occurred.

Al-Maliki said in Tuesday’s statement the raid, in cooperation with Yemeni forces, also led to the confiscation of weapons, ammunition, laptops, cash and communication equipment.

 

Palestinians burned effigies of President Trump and marched a donkey pasted over with images of Gulf royals in the West Bank on Tuesday, as the U.S. prepares to open its conference in Bahrain, which focuses on the economic portion of the White House’s long-awaited plan for Mideast peace.

At this week’s conference, the Trump administration hopes to draw pledges from business leaders and wealthy Gulf states to fund its economic plan, which calls for $50 billion of investment and infrastructure projects in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring Arab countries.

“Palestine is not for sale!” protesters chanted as they filled the streets of major West Bank cities. “From Bahrain to Saudi Arabia we are not tempted by your millions!”

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan and various Gulf states have sent finance officials to the workshop. The White House says it did not invite Israeli representatives, so as to keep the event “apolitical.” The Palestinian Authority, for its part, has rejected the plan and wants nothing to do with the conference, arguing that an economic proposal cannot pre-empt a political resolution that addresses its long-standing demand for statehood.

Thousands across the West Bank held up signs saying “Down with the Bahrain conference!” and “Do not sell the Palestinian cause and erase our identity.”

Scattered clashes erupted as demonstrators hurled stones at Israeli soldiers, who fired back tear gas and rubber-tipped bullets to disperse the crowds. In the northern city of Nablus, protesters hanged an effigy of President Trump from a column. In Bethlehem, the protesters’ donkey took center stage, its backside covered with the crossed-out faces of Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who are viewed as supporting the White House’s efforts.

Multiple Palestinian factions, including the Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers, have called for continued mass rallies across the West Bank Gaza to coincide with the conference, set to begin Tuesday night.

In Gaza, stores and public institutions shuttered Tuesday in observance of a general strike.

A black-and-white banner calling for a strike replaced the usually illuminated billboard over the central Omar al-Mukhtar street in Gaza City.

Residents of the impoverished territory, where unemployment exceeds 50%, voiced opposition to the Trump team’s ambitious proposal, which envisions health, education and public works projects but does not deal with the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank or blockade of Gaza.

“We don’t need money. We are not hungry for bread. We are hungry for dignity,” said Gaza physician Said Jadba.

“They are selling the remainder of the Palestinian cause,” said Gaza City resident Abu Atef Ellaw. “This will never pass.”

In Beirut, Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinians took part in a protest orchestrated by Hamas outside the U.N. headquarters, chanting against the economic workshop and the possible naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon.

Some 175,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, and consider the right of return to their ancestral lands in what is now Israel a part of any future resolution to the conflict. Despite 70 years in the country, Palestinians continue to live under harsh conditions, confined to squalid camps and deprived of basic rights afforded to Lebanese citizens.

The U.S. economic plan’s large sums for Jordan and Lebanon, countries with substantial Palestinian refugee populations, have raised fears that the Trump administration aims to have Palestinian refugees absorbed into these nations, rather than allow them to someday return to Israel — one of the most sensitive issues in the conflict.

Mahfouz Monawar, head of international relations for the Islamic Jihad group in Lebanon said: “Today the Palestinian people are saying clearly that the deal of the century with all its components and today with what is going in Manama workshop do not represent the Palestinians.”

“We as Palestinian resistance factions will be unified to confront this deal until … the vanishing of the occupation from the Palestinian territories,” he added.

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, deputy Hamas representative in Lebanon, said the protest represents the Palestinian commitment to the right of return.

Rising sea levels could threaten the very existence of Miami and much of the rest of south Florida, and Democrats are facing calls to confront climate change squarely during this week’s presidential debates in the low-lying city.
 
The City of Miami has a $400 million bond program to finance climate change resiliency projects, including $192 million for seawalls, pumps and similar projects. Miami Beach has already begun spending up to $500 million to raise roads, install pumps and do similar work over five years.
 
Those huge price tags are just one reason why many think it’s vital that climate change take center stage at the debates Wednesday and Thursday.
 
Nearly all of the candidates have offered significant climate change plans.
 

 

 

Senior U.S. officials say they are already busy buttressing the nation’s defenses against foreign interference for the 2020 presidential election. Only they admit the public may be kept in the dark about attacks and intrusions.

Intelligence and election security officials have warned repeatedly that Russia, among other state and nonstate actors, remains intent on disrupting the upcoming elections and that the Kremlin may even have gone easy on the U.S. during the 2016 midterm elections, seeing the ability to impact the 2020 presidential race as the bigger prize.

At the same time, election and security officials have come under increased scrutiny for failing to reveal the size and scope of Russia’s efforts to hack into voter databases and other critical systems.

In April, special counsel Robert Mueller released his report into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as well as allegations of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

Florida representatives

In May, two U.S. representatives from Florida, Republican Michael Waltz and Democrat Stephanie Murphy, wrote to the FBI and Justice Department, demanding a classified briefing on the extent of Russia’s exploits after the Mueller report indicated Moscow managed to infiltrate critical systems in at least one county during the 2016 presidential election.

“Florida voters have the right to know the extent to which foreign actors may have breached our state’s election security systems, and what the federal government is doing to prevent it from happening again,” Murphy said in a statement.

Senior Trump administration officials, however, cautioned Monday they may decide to keep information like that from the public.

“There are hard choices to be made,” one official told reporters while briefing them on efforts to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.

“The ultimate question is going to be whether the federal or national interests in doing so — publicly disclosing it — outweigh any counter veiling consideration,” the official added.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials said the ability to disclose information can often be limited by the need to protect the sources and methods that discovered the attacks or intrusions in the first place.

Impact on victims

There are also concerns about the impact on the victims.

“Victims who work with the FBI do so because they trust that we’ll protect and handle their information appropriately,” a senior law enforcement official said. “For example, the majority of technical information that we were able to give election officials during the 2016 time frame was initiated from this type of trusted outreach.”

In cases involving foreign influence campaigns, the decision to make them public can be even more difficult.

“Disclosing a foreign influence operation might do more harm than good because it might draw more attention to an operation that would otherwise go unnoticed,” the senior administration official said.

A senior intelligence official agreed that in some cases, the less said, the better.

“It’s less about highlighting for the public that there might be a problem,” the official said. “We actually want to stop it from happening, whether we do that through cyber channels or diplomatic channels or other operations.”

2020 campaign

With the 2020 presidential campaign getting under way, intelligence agencies, along with the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, have set about briefing the candidates and making them aware of the resources available should their campaign come under attack.

There are also increased efforts to reach out to U.S. state and local officials to make sure they have the information they need to protect their voter databases and election systems from attacks.

Officials said there have even been ongoing discussions with the private sector, both those that provide voting machines and other election infrastructure, as well as with social media companies.

The U.S. Treasury inspector general says he will look into why the Trump administration decided to scrap plans to put escaped slave turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the move last month, saying the change is because of “counterfeiting issues.”

But Democratic Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said he is not satisfied with Mnuchin’s vague explanation, saying it lacked credibility.

He asked the Treasury’s watchdog to investigate the circumstances “including any involvement by the White House.”

“There are no women, there are no people of color on our paper currency today even though they make up a significant majority of our population,” Schumer said.

The redesigned bill was to have entered circulation next year, but Mnuchin said it will be put off until 2028. It is also unclear whether Tubman will still be on the new bill when it is finally rolled out.

He said the “imagery feature” (who will appear on the bill) will not be a matter until long after he and U.S. President Donald Trump are out of office.

The $20 bill currently features a picture of 19th century U.S. President Andrew Jackson. Jackson owned slaves and forced Native Americans out of their ancestral lands in the southeastern U.S. leading to the deaths of thousands of Indians. 

The move to replace Jackson, preferably with a historically-important woman, was announced during the Obama administration. 

Tubman was chosen from an online poll of Americans.

President Trump is said to be an admirer of Andrew Jackson — not because of Jackson’s racism — but because Trump regards him as a populist and anti-establishment. 

Trump called replacing Jackson with Tubman “pure political correctness” and proposed putting Tubman on the $2 bill, which is rarely printed. 

Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland as a young woman and returned to the southern U.S. to help other slaves escape and to work as a union government spy during the Civil War.

She was thought to be in her early 90s when she died in 1913.

A notorious Italian Mafia boss has escaped from a prison in Uruguay where he was awaiting extradition to Italy. 

Rocco Morabito and three other inmates got out of  the National Institute of Rehabilitation in Montevideo “through the roof,” the Uruguayan interior ministry said Monday.  

The fugitives made their way to a nearby farm and robbed its owner, the ministry statement said. 

A member of the Ndrangheta or Calabrian cartel, Morabito has been one of Italy’s most-wanted fugitives since 1994. He was arrested in Uruguay in 2017 after more than 20 years on the run.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison by an Italian court, Prosecutors say Morabito was instrumental in drug trafficking operations between South America and Milan. 

“It’s disconcerting and serious that a criminal like Rocco Morabito, a boss of Ndrangheta, has  managed to escape from an Uruguay prison while waiting to be extradited to Italy,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Twitter. “I’m making two pledges: shedding full light on the escape, asking for immediate explanations from the Montevideo government, and chasing Morabito, wherever he is, to throw him in prison as he deserves.”

When he was arrested, Morabito had been living a life of luxury under a false Brazilian identity with fake Portuguese passports.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday which he calls a “groundbreaking action” that will increase the “quality, affordability, and fairness” in the U.S. healthcare system.

The order would require hospitals to disclose prices up front showing what patients can expect to pay for services in a manner Trump says will be “clear, straightforward, and accessible.”

This also means patients must be told at the beginning how much they can expect to pay out-of-pocket for deductibles and co-pays.

Trump says patients would be able to find another doctor if their first choice is too high.

“We believe the American people have a right to know the price of services before they go to visit the doctor,” he said.

The president complained that for decades, insurance companies, lobbyists, and special interests have not been transparent in disclosing the real costs of medical procedures to patients, often leaving them with huge bills and unexpected costs.

“This lack of price transparency has enriched industry giants greatly, costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars a year.”

Trump says he has seen such bills as $800 for saline, $6,000 for simple drug tests, and more than $17,000 to stitch a wound.

He also said prices can vary greatly between doctors and hospital in the same city for the same procedure.

But because of the complex process of writing the rules for the president’s executive order, it could be years before patients see any changes or price lists at their local hospitals.

Unable to send disease fighters to help battle one of the deadliest Ebola outbreaks in history, U.S. health officials are turning to basketball hall of famer Dikembe Mutombo for help.
 
Mutombo, regarded as one of the greatest defensive players in NBA history and a well-known philanthropist in his native Congo, recorded radio and video spots designed to persuade people to take precautions and get care that might stop the disease’s spread.
 
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began posting the spots Monday on its YouTube channel and on the agency’s website . Officials are trying to get radio and TV stations in the Democratic Republic of Congo to air them.

 More than 2,200 people have been reported ill — and about 1,500 have died — since an Ebola outbreak was declared in August in eastern Congo. It is the second deadliest outbreak of the lethal virus, which jumps from person to person quickly through close contact with bodily fluids.
 
Rebel attacks and community resistance have hurt Ebola response work in Congo. A World Health Organization doctor was killed in April, health centers have been attacked and armed groups have repeatedly threatened health workers. Because of safety concerns, the U.S. State Department last year ordered CDC disease specialists to stay out of the outbreak areas.
 
Mutombo, who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s intending to pursue a medical degree, told The Associated Press he understands where the distrust comes from.
 
“Someone who doesn’t look like you, who doesn’t think like you, who is not from your village, who is from other places, just walk to your village with a nice beautiful white truck and telling you … ‘inject this chemical into your body to protect you from this deadly virus.’ That’s where there’s a fight. This is where we’re having a conflict,” he said.
 
“How do you that build trust? That’s the big problem we’re having in the Congo,” he said. “I believe as a son of Congo, I think my voice can be heard. Because everyone in the country knows my commitment to the humanity and the health.”
 
The idea for the PSA was sparked in February when Mutombo, a member of the CDC Foundation’s governing board who lives in Atlanta, was talking with Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC’s director.
 
“We are deeply appreciative of his interest to try to get accurate information to the community,” Redfield said.
 
Mutombo, who turns 53 on Tuesday, previously did public service announcements focused on polio and yellow fever. A dozen years ago, his foundation established a 300-bed hospital on the outskirts of his hometown of Kinshasa.
 
The new spots were recorded in Kiswahili, French and Lingala. They talk about recognizing the early signs of Ebola, early treatment and prevention measures.

Zimbabwe made its interim currency the country’s sole legal tender on Monday, ending a decade of dollarization and taking a another step towards relaunching the Zimbabwean dollar.

The central bank also hiked its overnight lending rate to 50% from 15% as a part of a set of measures to protect the RTGS dollar introduced in February.

“The march towards full currency reform is part of our transitional stabilization program,” Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said in a video posted on Twitter. “This move is really beginning to restore full monetary
policy.”

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who replaced longtime leader Robert Mugabe after an army coup in November 2017, is trying to repair an economy ruined by hyperinflation and a long succession of failed economic interventions.

But a hoped-for economic turnaround is yet to materialize, and many Zimbabweans are distrustful of Mnangagwa’s promises.

Mnangagwa’s government last month agreed a staff-monitored program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whereby the fund will help Zimbabwe implement coherent economic policies.

Analysts are skeptical that the latest currency reforms will be a quick fix for the deep problems that have constrained economic growth in the southern African country.

“Zimbabwe will have to show results before people are convinced,” said Jee-A Van Der Linde, an economist at South Africa-based NKC African Economics.

Van Der Linde said banning the use of currencies such as the U.S. dollar and South African rand could create panic since Zimbabwe did not have large foreign-currency reserves to back the RTGS dollar.

There was nothing standing in the way of the Zimbabwean central bank printing money as it had done in the past, he added.

The central bank said in a statement on Monday that it had put in place letters of credit worth $330 million to secure imports for important goods such as fuel.

It would also try to boost liquidity on the interbank forex market by removing a cap on margins for banks and making sure that more than 50% of the foreign currency that Zimbabwean companies have to surrender ends up on the interbank market.

Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after years of hyperinflation had destroyed trust in the local unit.

Mnangagwa said this month that Zimbabwe must reintroduce its own currency by the end of the year.

The IMF has said Zimbabwe should quickly allow the RTGS dollar to float freely, allow exporters to sell dollars at the interbank rate rather than surrender them to the central bank, and raise interest rates to curb inflation.

The RTGS dollar has been hitting new lows on the black market in recent days.

It was trading between 11 and 12 against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial market on Monday versus a level of around 6 on the official interbank market.

Many Zimbabweans complain that goods and services are still priced in other currencies.

While more than 80% of Zimbabweans earn RTGS dollars, goods ranging from bricks to groceries have their prices pegged in U.S. dollars.

Inflation raced to 97.85% in May, eroding salaries and savings and causing Zimbabweans to fear a return to the hyperinflation era a decade ago.

BBC executive Ann Sarnoff was named chief of Warner Bros. on Monday, making her the first woman to head the movie studio in its 96-year history. Her appointment follows the departure in March of Kevin Tsujihara, who stepped down after misconduct allegations. 

WarnerMedia chief executive John Stankey announced Sarnoff’s hiring, concluding a three-month search for one of Hollywood’s most prized posts. Many had expected WarnerMedia to turn to an experienced film executive like movie-division head Toby Emmerich, who was part of the interim committee running the studio after Tsujihara’s departure, Disney veteran Anne Sweeney or former Fox chief Stacey Snider. 

Surprise move

But to surprise of much of the industry, WarnerMedia turned to Sarnoff, who has worked primarily in television. Sarnoff, who takes over as chief executive and chair of Warner Bros., is currently president of BBC Studios Americas. She has previously been a top TV executive at Viacom and with the WNBA. 

“She brings a consistent and proven track record of innovation, creativity and business results to lead an incredibly successful studio to its next chapter of growth,” said Stankey. “Ann has shown the ability to innovate and grow revenues and has embraced the evolution taking place in our industry.”

In March, Tsujihara stepped down following claims that he promised roles to an actress with whom he was having an affair. Tsujihara, whose attorney denied that Tsujihara had any direct role in the woman’s hiring, said he was departing to avoid being a distraction.

Awkward time

The rupture came at an awkward time for WarnerMedia, which has just expanded Tsujihara’s role at the global conglomerate. AT&T last year acquired Time Warner Inc., which was renamed WarnerMedia, and the company is planning to a launch a streaming service later this year.

In Warner Bros., Sarnoff takes over one of the most storied studios in Hollywood. In recent years, the Walt Disney Co. has surpassed Warner Bros. as the market leader, sliding Warner Bros. to an increasingly distant second. The studio this year has continued the turnaround of its DC Comics films with “Shazam!”though its big summer movie, “Godzilla: King of Monsters,” has underperformed.

 

Live-ammunition drills the Serbian military is holding with Russian and Belarusian troops show Belgrade has allies in any future war in the Balkans, Serbia’s defense minister said Monday.

Aleksandar Vulin said the joint Slavic Brotherhood military maneuvers Serbia is hosting this month demonstrate “we are no longer alone.”

“We have friends,” Vulin said in a statement. “That horrible moment in our history when we were all alone will never repeat again.”

Vulin was referring to the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Serbia. The bombing stopped a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists and civilians, while Russia remained largely on the sidelines.

Serbia is seeking European Union membership, but has also been sliding toward Russian influence. Moscow supplies arms and warplanes for the Serbian armed forces, triggering worry among Serbia’s neighbors, which are either NATO allies or are seeking to become members of the Western military alliance.

Belarus, Russia and Serbia have conducted the Slavic Brotherhood drills for several years. The ones underway in Serbia started earlier this month. Taking part are more than 200 troops from Russian elite Airborne Forces, about 300 from Serbia and 60 from Belarus, as well as some 50 combat vehicles, according the Russian Defense Ministry.

“The Serbian army is being armed and trained, that’s why the drills such as the Slavic Brotherhood are so important to us,” said Vulin, who is known for his staunchly pro-Russia stands.

“These drills are not only about the military practice. This is a meeting of brotherly nations, those who understand each other, those who love each other,” he said.

Tensions recently have increased in the Balkans, with Serbia and Kosovo accusing each other of undermining efforts at reconciliation.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008. The former Serbian province is recognized by the U.S. and most other Western states, but not by Serbia, Russia or China.

While claiming military neutrality, Serbia has been an active member of NATO’s Membership For Peace outreach program.