The cease-fire deal in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib remains in effect Sunday.

The pact is between Turkey, which backs some rebel groups, and Russia, which backs the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey and Russia have reached multiple cease-fire agreements previously in Idlib, but none had been successful.

The fighting in the region since late last year has triggered a massive humanitarian crisis with almost a million people fleeing their homes.

Some of the area’s residents have returned since the cease-fire began last week, only to discover that their homes have been destroyed.

Majd Sammoud, a villager from Sarmin, told the Associated Press his home had been “completely flattened to the ground” and he was not able to retrieve any of his family’s belongings.

Turkey and Russia have also agreed to secure a key highway in the Idlib area with joint patrols, beginning this week.

The announcement came just days after Turkey said it would open its borders, allowing refugees access to Western Europe. Since then, migrants have massed at the Turkish-Greek border, leading to clashes with Greek police.

Turkey hosts more than 3.5 million refugees from Syria.
 

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Six people have died in the collapse of a hotel in the Chinese city of Quanzhou, the Ministry of Emergency Management said Sunday, after state media said the place was being used to quarantine individuals under observation for the coronavirus.

The hotel began to collapse Saturday evening. As of 11:30 a.m. Beijing time Sunday, authorities had retrieved 43 individuals from the site of the collapse, the ministry said.

Of that total, six have been confirmed dead, 36 have been sent to the hospital for care, and one individual has been deemed in need of no medical treatment, according to the ministry’s Weibo post.

Authorities are still searching for 28 people, the ministry added.

According to state media outlet Xinhua, the owner of the building, a man with surname Yang, has been summoned by police.

The building’s first floor had been under renovation at the time of the collapse, the news agency said.

Spread of virus slows

News of the collapse comes as the spread of COVID-19 continues to slow in China.

According to data from China’s National Health Commission (NHC), cases fell by roughly one-half Saturday from the day before.

The agency confirmed 44 new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus at the end of March 7, a decline from 99 the previous day.

The fall comes as Chinese cities gradually relax quarantine measures put in place over a month ago, while authorities keep a close watch on the virus’ spread overseas.

Of the 44 new confirmed cases, 41 were discovered in Wuhan, the origin of the virus’ outbreak and its hotbed.

The remaining three were cases imported from outside mainland China.

Cases originate overseas

This marks the second consecutive day in which all of China’s newly confirmed cases outside of the city of Wuhan originated from overseas. The three cases bring China’s total imported case count to 63.

According to the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, two of the cases found in Beijing originated in Italy and Spain.

As the virus slows its spread in Wuhan, authorities have reacted by closing hospitals built specifically to house its patients.

After the first such closure last week, on Sunday, CCTV reported that operations at a second hospital had been suspended, with its 25 remaining patients now discharged and declared cured.

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Private poultry farms in central Afghanistan’s Bamyan province are thriving and meeting much of the local demand for chicken. Success has led the farmers to explore shipping poultry beyond the province, located west of Kabul. VOA’s Zafar Bamyani recently visited one of the farms and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
 

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Texans are taking the right to vote seriously in 2020, as the secretary of state says a flood of new voters have signed up. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports from El Paso Texas.
 

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China’s exports fell by double digits in January and February as anti-virus controls closed factories, while imports sank by a smaller margin.

Exports tumbled 17.2% from a year earlier to $292.4 billion, a sharp reverse from December’s 7.8% rise, customs data showed Saturday. Imports declined 4% to $299.5 billion, down from the previous month’s 16.3% gain.

Trade was poised for a boost after Beijing and Washington removed punitive tariffs on some of each other’s goods in a trade truce signed in January. But that was offset by Chinese anti-virus controls that shut down much of the world’s second-largest economy in late January.

Exports to the United States plunged 27.7% in January and February to $43 billion, worsening from December’s 12.5% decline. Imports of American goods crept up 2.5% to $17.6 billion, but China still recorded a $25.4 billion trade surplus with the United States.

China’s global trade balance fell to a $7.1 billion deficit for the first two months of the year.

Factories reopen slowly

Manufacturers that make the world’s smartphones, toys and other consumer goods are reopening but say the pace will be dictated by how quickly supply chains start functioning again. Forecasters say industries are unlikely to be back to normal production before at least April.

Until the virus outbreak, Chinese trade had been unexpectedly resilient despite Beijing’s tariff war with President Donald Trump over its technology ambitions and trade surplus. Last year’s exports rose 0.5% over 2018.

Beijing told exporters to pursue other markets in Asia, Europe and Africa after Trump slapped punitive duties on their goods starting in 2018. China retaliated by raising tariffs on American soybeans and other goods.

Some of those penalties were rolled back after the two sides signed a “Phase 1” agreement in January. Washington canceled additional planned tariff hikes and Beijing promised to buy more American farm exports.

Economists warn the truce fails to address contentious U.S.-Chinese disputes that might take years to resolve.

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European Union health ministers held an extraordinary meeting to discuss the latest developments regarding the coronavirus outbreak. The continental bloc is trying to improve its collective response to the coronavirus outbreak, aside from some members’ decision to ban the export of protective equipment such as masks.
 
The last time EU health ministers met, on Feb. 13, no deaths had yet been reported in Europe.  Now there have been more than 110 coronavius fatalities on the continent, according to the latest figures from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC).
 
With confirmed cases being reported daily in Italy and France, some member states are moving unilaterally to protect against the outbreak, but officials say a coordinated approach is most effective.

EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides says each state’s readiness is important but so is acting in coordination.
 
“We need to remain calm, we need to remain focused but the greatest strength that we all have, as an EU is our solidarity. And we need to work together and work closely because it is on this strength that we would be able to overcome these difficulties,” Kyriakides said.
   
Some EU member-states publicly criticized countries that blocked the export of some medical supplies to protect against the coronavirus. Germany has banned the export of face masks and gloves and France has requisitioned all its own supplies.
 
The European commissioner for risk management, Janet Lenarcic, called on countries to consider the interests of all member states in addition to their own.

“Restrictions are possible under the treaty, they can be introduced under certain conditions. However, the commission believes that such measures should be taken in a such way that they would ensure that they would be protective equipment available to all citizens across the European Union on equal footing. We would not favor measures that would favor one member state at the expense of others,” Lenarcic said.
 
Some EU members — notably Italy, where at least 148 people have died as of Thursday — have been hit harder than others and some ministers, like Italy’s Roberto Speranza, called for shared resources.
 
“We don’t have problems at this moment. What we think is that the European level we need a coordination. Not every country, not every region will need masks at the same moment. If we have a European coordination, everyone could give a better solution to the problem with have,” Speranza said.
    
The European Union also increased its research funding by an additional $42 million, which together with the $11 million announced in January, will finance 17 projects involving 136 research teams from across the EU.
 

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Kenyan authorities say one person is dead and 11 others injured after clashes in Somalia this week spilled across the border into Kenya. Now local leaders from Kenyan border areas are demanding action.

Leaders from the region say tensions on the Kenya-Somalia border have been simmering for a while and that Kenya’s national government has failed to pay attention. They voiced their concerns Friday during a press conference in Nairobi. Among them, Ali Roba, governor of the Kenyan border town of Mandera. He spoke of the trouble in Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Jubaland, where the Somali military has been involved in clashes with fighters linked to Ahmed Madobe, president of the Jubaland region.

“Over the last one month, there has been a major fallout between the regional government of Jubaland and the federal government of Somalia,” Roba said. “On Monday, the 2nd of March, the two forces attacked each other with unknown casualties on both sides but left 12 people injured in Mandera town due to stray bullets, where one succumbed to the injuries.”

Officials in Mandera also say a number of people fearing for their safety fled to safer areas because of the violence.  

Also this week, Somali media reported that Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo spoke by phone with Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta regarding security and that they agreed to work together on their common interests. Kenya’s president had accused Somalia of a “flagrant breach” of Kenya’s territorial integrity.

Kenya shares a 682-kilometer border with Somalia and has in the past attempted to secure parts of it by building a fence. There have been concerns that terrorists may take advantage of the porous border.

Roba says the situation along the border has Kenyans questioning whether their government can adequately protect them. He says the government needs to expel people whom he calls “foreigners” from Mandera.

“The situation taking shape in Mandera County is that of eroded public trust in their own government as a result of neglect, misplaced priorities, putting the interest of the external region over and above that of its own citizens,” he said. “We refuse to accept that the interests of other external entities supersedes that of our population. We therefore demand that our government expel these foreign forces from Mandera with immediate effect.”

Regional leaders also asked the national government for humanitarian help for the hundreds of internally displaced persons.

Meanwhile, Kenya is considering pulling out of the African Union mission in Somalia after eight years of fighting the Somali militant group al-Shabab. The al-Qaida-linked group has attacked Kenya for its involvement in supporting the AU mission in Somalia. Kenya has also hosted thousands of Somali refugees who fled civil war in their country. 

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An ongoing dispute in Guinea-Bissau over December presidential election results, is casting a military shadow over the West African country. After rival parties both inaugurated different presidents, troops this week occupied the Supreme Court building and shut down state broadcasters, raising concerns of a possible coup.

Guinea-Bissau’s military is occupying the Supreme Court and other government buildings, and state media has been shut down as the two main political parties compete for power.    

The military this week oversaw the placement of ministers appointed by opposition Madem G15 party leader Umaro Cissoko Embalo, who won a surprise victory in December’s presidential election.

The electoral commission says Embalo won the December 29 polls with around 54% of the vote.   But, the long-ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) has alleged fraud and misdeeds.   

“We are not okay with the results that were given, he says, because we think there were a lot of irregularities in the electoral process,” Ansoumane Sanha, director of Cabinet for the president of parliament, which is dominated by the PAIGC, told VOA.   

When the ruling party sought to challenge the election results for the third time at the Supreme Court, the military moved in.

Embalo held a hasty inauguration ceremony last week in a privately-owned hotel that used to be a Portuguese military base.

The military then went to the homes of the existing government of Aristides Gomes and confiscated the keys to government cars.  

Gomes spoke to journalists about the incident on Sunday in his living room.

“I was clearly threatened,” he said, adding, “it’s a bad sign.”

The ruling-party-led National Assembly countered on Friday by inaugurating its member and president of parliament Cipriano Cassama as interim president.

But Cassama stepped down on Sunday, citing alleged threats to himself and his family.

“I have no security,” he said. “I decided to take this decision to avoid the confrontation of the two sides, he says, and to avoid war.”

Despite the military and political maneuvering, analysts argue Embalo is the legal president.   

“After the elections that everyone called the most transparent elections, free elections, everyone, even the international community, the situation is that there was no reason for PAIGC to go to the Supreme Court,” said Amadu Djamanca, the executive secretary of the Guinea-Bissau Observatory of Democracy and Governance.

But the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called Embalo’s swearing-in of his government as “outside of the law.”   

Defense Minister for Gomes’ ousted government Luis Melo said he fears the situation may get worse.   

“I think there needs to be an urgent intervention,” he said.

The U.N. Security Council called on all parties in Guinea-Bissau Thursday to respect legal and constitutional frameworks.    

The U.N. statement expressed support for a mediation team from ECOWAS, which is expected to meet with the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Commission.   

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U.S. federal agents will begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of immigrants who enter the United States illegally and are held in custody, launching a sharp expansion of a genetic marker collection program created by Congress more than a decade ago, officials announced late Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security had long exempted immigrants from a 2005 law that requires the collection of DNA samples from “individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted or from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States.”   

But the Justice Department last August proposed a rule change to eliminate one of four Obama-era exemptions given to immigrants whose DNA samples could not be collected because of a lack of resources.  

The new rule, which goes into effect on Monday, will allow agents to collect DNA from immigrants who cross the border illegally and are held at immigration detention facilities around the country. In fiscal year 2019, Customs and Border Patrol reported nearly 860,000 illegal border crossings.  

Documented immigrants and immigrants held at sea or at ports of entry will not be affected.  

The DNA records collected from detained immigrants will be relayed to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for entry into its Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database,  which is used by local and federal law enforcement agents to link violent crimes.    

Civil liberties groups sharply criticized the new rule, saying it targets a segment of the U.S. population that already feels vulnerable amid a broader crackdown on illegal immigrants.   The American Civil Liberties Union called it a “xenophobic program.”

“Collecting the genetic blueprints of people in immigration detention doesn’t make us safer — it makes it easier for the government to attack immigrant communities, and brings us one step closer to the government knocking on all of our doors demanding our DNA under the same flawed justification that we may one day commit a crime,” Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.  

Collecting the genetic blueprints of people in immigration detention doesn’t make us safer — it makes it easier for the government to attack immigrant communities and, eventually, to demand ALL of our DNA. https://t.co/VcWslAyPcq

— ACLU (@ACLU) March 6, 2020

Seeking to allay concerns raised by the move, a DOJ official said in a press call with reporters late Thursday that the DNA would not be used by immigration officials.

“The collection of this DNA is only for the purpose of the FBI’s CODIS database, it’s not for any other purpose,” the official said speaking on condition of anonymity.  

Other Justice Department officials said the will help law enforcement agents identify criminals.

“Today’s rule assists federal agencies in implementing longstanding aspects of our immigration laws as passed by bipartisan majorities of Congress,” Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen said  in a statement. “Its implementation will help to enforce federal law with the use of science.”

Congress passed the DNA Fingerprint Act in 2005.   The Justice  Department’s latest action came after an anonymous whistleblower complained to a government watchdog  last year that customs and border patrol agents had long evaded the law as a result of the exemption.   The watchdog, Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner, found that “CBP’s noncompliance with the law has allowed criminal detainees to walk free.”

“Given the significant public safety and law enforcement implications at issue, I urge CBP to immediately reconsider its position and initiate DNA collection from criminal detainees,” Kerner wrote in a letter to the White House.   

The new DNA collections will vastly expand the FBI lab’s database.  The Justice Department says the lab has the capacity to handle the additional records from DHS and to scale up to meet additional demand. 

A DHS officials said the agency has been collecting DNA samples from immigrants under a pilot program launched in January.  Under a separate three-month pilot program rolled out last year, immigration agents collected DNA samples from immigrants at the U.S. Mexico border.  The- acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan later claimed that the agency had uncovered dozens of cases of false parental claims using DNA testing.  

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Kenya has set up more than 100 hospital beds in preparation for possible coronavirus cases. The east African nation has assured its citizens health workers are well prepared to stop the spread of the virus, athough Kenya has not reported any confirmed cases.

Speaking to reporters after visiting the Mbagathi Hospital in central Nairobi, Kenya’s health minister, Mutahi Kagwe, said his country is prepared to combat coronavirus.

“We have trained over 1,100 health workers, we have deployed them in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and other areas. We are also sensitizing and cascading this training all the way to the community levels. We have procured sufficient personal protective equipment,” Kagwe said.

Mbagathi Hospital has set up 120 beds for potential cases in the country.

Evans Kamuri, the head of the biggest hospital in the country, Kenyatta National Hospital, assured Kenyans the facility is well-equipped to treat patients who test positive for the coronavirus.

“The facility has all the equipment you need, from a sick patient up to ICU. We also have ventilators, monitors, refrigerators. We have infusion pumps. Even we can actually run the patient in a remote. We also have diagnostic facilities. We have X-rays, We have a mobile ultrasound. We also have a lab…so basically, we have put all the structures in place,” Kamuri said.

Kenya has not reported any coronavirus cases as yet. South Africa is the latest country on the continent to detect the virus. Six other African countries have reported confirmed cases.

The virus’ slow arrival to Africa has given governments more time to set up testing and treatment centers, with the help of the World Health Organization and other groups.

According to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the number of coronavirus cases has reached 100,000 worldwide. With 80 percent reported in China, the death toll has surpassed 3,200.

The virus is believed to have emanated from an outdoor food market in the city of Wuhan, China, and spread person to person.

Some Kenyans who are ill from other diseases are worried about visiting a hospital set up to treat possible coronavirus patients, but Acting Director General of Health Patrick Amoth assured the public the coronavirus facility would operate independently.

“We have ensured that this place is totally isolated from the rest of our facility and when we were taking you around it was only the windows were like that because there was no patient in the facility. Once we have an individual case, the necessary measures we are going to put in place is totally different,” Amoth said.

Kenyan officials said they have been preventing the virus’ arrival by screening those entering the country.

The World Health Organization has called on countries around the world to start testing its citizens for the coronavirus and report the number of people infected.

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A London court ruled Thursday that the ruler of Dubai had instilled fear in his estranged wife and had choreographed the kidnapping of their two young daughters.

At the end of 2018, Britain’s High Court said, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, 70, began a campaign of intimidation against his ex-wife, Princess Haya, 45, daughter of late King Hussein of Jordan. The princess had become the sheikh’s second official wife and bore him two daughters, Jalila, 12, and Zayed, 8.

In April 2019, Princess Haya escaped with her children to Britain, fearing her husband’s threats. High Court of London Judge Andrew McFarlane said the sheikh’s actions were meant “to threaten, intimidate, mistreat and oppress with a total disregard for the rule of law.”

By May 2019, Princess Haya had requested that her daughters be made wards of the British court in order to deflect the legal actions Sheikh Mohammed was conducting to try to get the children returned to him in Dubai. He eventually dropped his legal bid to stop the court from issuing Princess Haya a fact-finding judgment.

Though Princess Haya is Sheikh Mohammed’s second wife, the sheikh has had multiple unofficial marriages and a total of 25 children.

Another daughter, Latifa, 35, tried to escape her father twice, in June 2002 and February 2018. Both times, she was forcibly brought back to Dubai and her father’s custody to be held prisoner.

“[Shamsa] has been deprived of her liberty for much if not all of the past two decades,” McFarlane said regarding another one of Sheikh Mohammed’s daughters, who was abducted from Cambridge at age 19. She is now 38 and no investigation has been approved to look into her disappearance.

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The United States is accusing Russia of opening up its entire disinformation playbook to prey on growing fears about the spread of the coronavirus.

Moscow’s effort, underway for weeks, according to officials, includes the use of state-run media outlets, fake news websites and “swarms” of fake online personas to churn out fabricated information in at least five languages.  

“We’ve been watching the narratives that are being pushed out — false narratives around coronavirus,” Lea Gabrielle, coordinator for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), told lawmakers Thursday. “We saw the entire ecosystem of Russian disinformation at play.”

Gabrielle declined to go into detail about the Russian disinformation efforts, saying she did not want to risk giving them any credence.

Bill Gates?

But other officials have said the Russian disinformation operation centers on three narratives — that the coronavirus is actually a bioweapon; that the CIA created the virus to hurt China; and that the virus is somehow the brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Multiple requests to the Russian Embassy in Washington for comment went unanswered. But Russia has repeatedly denied other U.S. allegations regarding disinformation campaigns, such as charges Moscow has repeatedly sought to meddle in U.S. elections.

Gabrielle said the GEC has been working with the State Department’s public diplomacy wing to try to expose and counter Moscow’s efforts, but cautioned it has not been easy.

“There’s a lot of disinformation,” she told lawmakers. “It’s not just about the individual platforms. It’s the overall, big picture that we’re seeing develop and how adversaries are using the social media landscape. … I hope that all actors will act in the most responsible manner to support people who are scared around the world in the midst of this crisis.”

Social media companies don’t agree

Making the situation more challenging, some social media companies say they have yet to find evidence on their own of a massive Russian coronavirus influence operation.

“At present, we’re not seeing significant coordinated platform manipulation efforts,” Twitter posted in a blog Wednesday. “However, we will remain vigilant and have invested substantially in our proactive abilities.”

When contacted by VOA, Twitter confirmed it had been in contact with the GEC and has now been briefed, in broad strokes, on the center’s findings.

Queries to Facebook went unanswered.

As for the Kremlin’s coronavirus campaign, U.S. officials believe Russia is getting what it wants.

“The fact is that many audiences around the world do believe these lies,” Jani Vujica, the GEC’s  director of analytics and research, told an audience in Washington last month about the coronavirus crisis. “For some, it reinforces their views of the West. For others, it shapes these views.”

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