Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Many Americans embrace falsehoods about critical race theory

By Chris Kahn

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Critical race theory, a once-obscure academic concept that has sparked school board protests and classroom bans in some states, is largely misunderstood among the general public, even by those who say they are familiar with what it teaches about racism in America, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The national opinion survey taken on Monday and Tuesday found that 57% of adults said they were not familiar with the term, also known by its shorthand, CRT, which asserts that racism is woven into the U.S. legal system and ingrained in its primary institutions.

Many of those who said they were familiar with it answered follow-up questions that showed they embraced a variety of misconceptions about critical race theory that have been largely circulating among conservative media outlets.

For example, 22% of those who said they were familiar with critical race theory also think it is taught in most public high schools. It is not.

Thirty-three percent believe it “says that white people are inherently bad or evil” or that “discriminating against white people is the only way to achieve equality.” It does not.

Among respondents who said they were familiar with CRT, only 5% correctly answered all seven true-false questions that the poll asked about the history and teachings of critical race theory. Only 32% correctly answered more than four of the seven questions.

The poll showed that a bipartisan majority of Americans say that high school students should learn about slavery and racism in America. Yet respondents were more opposed to teaching critical race theory, which maintains that the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow racial segregation laws continues to create an uneven playing field for nonwhite Americans.

For example, 78% of adults, including nine in 10 Democrats and seven in 10 Republicans, said they supported teaching high school students about slavery in the United States. Seventy-three percent of adults, including nine in 10 Democrats and six in 10 Republicans, support teaching high school students about racism and its impact on the country.

Still, 36% of Americans said they would support a ban on CRT in public schools. The responses were divided along party lines: a majority of Democrats – 51% – opposed a school ban, while a majority of Republicans – 54% – supported one.

TEACHING BANS

As Americans tackle racial and social injustice after the police killing of George Floyd last year, several Republican-led states including Florida, Georgia and Texas have enacted rules to limit teaching about the role of racism in the United States.

Proponents argue they are protecting students from what they consider to be a divisive ideology and a distortion of history.

But Paula Ioanide, a professor of race and ethnicity studies at Ithaca College in New York, said the public is being fed bad information about the CRT theory from conservative activists hoping to invigorate the Republican base and dissuade teachers from talking about racism in schools.

“This is a manufactured crisis by the political right in response to the Black Lives Matter movement,” Ioanide said. “It’s a proxy for a debate that the country is reckoning with on the right and the left over the degree to which racism is alive and well.”

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,004 adults, including 453 Democrats and 377 Republicans. The results had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.

(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney)

Olympics-Risk of COVID spread is ‘zero’, IOC chief says, amid rising cases

TOKYO (Reuters) -International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said on Thursday there was “zero” risk of Games participants infecting Japanese residents with COVID-19, as cases hit a six-month high in the host city.

Bach said Olympics athletes and delegations had undergone more than 8,000 coronavirus tests, resulting in three positive results. “Risk for the other residents of Olympic village and risk for the Japanese people is zero,” he added.

The three cases have been placed in isolation and their close contacts are also in quarantine, Bach said at the beginning of talks with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto.

Just over a week before the July 23 opening ceremony, Tokyo reported 1,308 new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, its highest daily tally since late January.

Postponed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Summer Olympics have little public support in Japan amid widespread fears about a further spread of the coronavirus.

Critics on Thursday submitted a petition against the Games that has garnered more than 450,000 signatures this month, Japanese media reported.

Organizers have imposed Olympics “bubbles” to prevent further transmissions of COVID-19, but medical experts are worried they might not be sufficiently tight.

COVID-19 CASES EMERGE

A number of infections have emerged among visiting athletes and people involved with the Games.

An Olympic athlete under a 14-day quarantine period has tested positive in Tokyo, the organizing committees’ website reported on Thursday, without disclosing any details about the athlete.

Eight members of the Kenyan women’s rugby team had been classified as close contacts of a passenger on their flight to Tokyo who had tested positive for coronavirus, their squad said.

The athletes had been isolated as a precaution, but had all tested negative on arrival and were expected to link up with the rest of the players at their residential training camp in Kurume on Friday, the team added.

Tokyo entered its fourth state of emergency earlier this week amid a rebound in COVID-19 cases that pushed Games organizers to ban spectators from nearly all venues.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters Japan would take thorough steps to strengthen border controls against the coronavirus.

Given the state of emergency in the host city, the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee said it would bar public access to the capital’s waterfront area and asked the public to refrain from visiting the Olympic flame platform.

The waterfront area, dubbed Tokyo Waterfront City, was supposed to feature “cool spots, rest areas and dining spaces” and be open to spectators and non-ticket holders, according to organizers.

Some of the sponsor booths may be operated on a restricted-access basis during the Games, a committee spokesperson told reporters.

A decision of whether to allow public access to the area during the Paralympic Games will be taken after the Olympics have ended, the spokesperson said.

(Reporting by Eimi Yamamitsu, Ju-min Park Editing by Michael Perry, Mark Heinrich and Andrew Heavens)

Thousands of Dutch urged to leave their homes as rivers flood

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Thousands of people in the south of the Netherlands on Thursday were urged to leave their houses quickly to escape floods as rivers were on the brink of bursting their banks.

Several towns and villages along the Meuse river in the province of Limburg strongly advised people to seek refuge until at least Friday afternoon, as there was a large chance that their home would be flooded in the coming hours.

Water levels on the Meuse and the Rur reached record levels on Thursday, surpassing the levels that led to large floods in 1993 and 1995, local authorities said.

In Valkenburg, in the far south of Limburg, close to the Belgian and German border, floods had already engulfed the town center, forcing the evacuation of several nursing homes and destroying at least one bridge.

Drone footage showed brown water coursing over car parks and parkland. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visited Valkenburg on Thursday evening to show their support.

Scores of houses have been flooded in the province, where hundreds of soldiers have been sent to help fight the rising waters.

But with no casualties reported, the situation so far is much less severe than in neighboring Germany where dozens of people have died and others were missing on Thursday as rivers burst their banks and swept away homes.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Alison Williams)

WTO chief seeks to wrap up fish talks as developing countries cry foul

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -The head of the World Trade Organization on Thursday expressed optimism about clinching a long-awaited deal to stop overfishing, but some developing states criticized the draft agreement and India called parts of it “unjust.”

The virtual conference in Geneva – the first meeting of WTO trade ministers since 2017 – is hoping to wrap up 20 years of talks and set out rules to curb harmful subsidies that lead to overfishing.

The global trade body has not reached a multilateral deal in years and Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took office in March, said at the start of the conference that it would be a “litmus test” of the WTO’s ability to do so.

“I believe that we are all genuinely committed, but a shift of mindset is necessary for us to bridge the final gaps that continue to separate members,” she said at the WTO headquarters in Geneva.

The eight-page draft deal lists a range of subsidy bans, with some conditions for exemptions for poorer countries that are yet to be finalized by negotiators.

But several ministers expressed reservations – pointing to a gulf between wealthier countries and some developing states that want to build up their fleets with the help of subsidies.

“Clearly, it will lead to capacity constraints for developing countries, while advanced nations will continue to grant subsidies,” Indian trade minister Piyush Goyal said on one part of the text. “This is unequal, unfair, unjust.”

Pakistan described the draft as “regressive and unbalanced.” The African group, seen by many as losing out from subsidies which allow big industrial fleets to compete in its waters, said that “significant gaps on core issues” remained.

One delegate from a wealthy country described some of the criticisms as “obstructionist.” “The major fault line is still special and differential treatment,” they told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Several delegates said India’s strong stance might be about seeking a trade-off in separate WTO negotiations on a patent waiver for COVID-19 drugs which some wealthy countries oppose.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the draft had “significant shortcomings.” “WTO members must ask whether the current negotiating text reflects the best we can do after 20 years,” she said.

China – the top subsidizer accounting for about 21% of the $35.4 billion in handouts globally according to a 2019 study  – appeared to offer one key concession.

In a hint that China might forego at least some exemptions for itself, Commerce minister Wang Wentao said that they should be “mainly provided for poor and vulnerable artisanal fishers” in developing and least developed countries.

The European Union was upbeat, saying the draft formed the basis of a potential agreement.

Negotiators got close to a deal at the last WTO ministerial conference in 2017 but the talks collapsed, with some observers blaming developing countries who sought big exemptions.

Any deal needs all 164 parties to approve it by consensus.

(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Andrew Heavens)

As COVID wards fill again, Spanish doctor warns young they’re vulnerable

By Nacho Doce

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A week ago, the COVID-19 hospital ward in Barcelona where doctor Inmaculada Lopez Montesinos works had just a few patients.

Now it is full and the Hospital del Mar has opened two extra floors for such patients as a surge in infection driven by the more contagious Delta variant rips through Spain’s mostly younger, unvaccinated population.

Although mortality is much lower than in earlier waves of the pandemic, Lopez Montesinos said hospitals like hers were under growing pressure. She attributes this sudden jump in cases to a lifting of restrictions across Spain over the past few months, a rise in tourism and students’ summer break.

“All this has been an explosive cocktail that has led us to this fifth wave that has surprised us in mid-July,” the 34-year-old told Reuters, pleading for people to avoid crowds, keep social interactions to a minimum and use face masks.

Facing Spain’s highest 14-day infection rate of 1,068 cases per 100,000 people, more than double the national average, regional authorities in Catalonia, where Barcelona is located, said on Wednesday they would reimpose a curfew on 158 municipalities.

Lopez Montesinos said the typical patient she was seeing was aged 40 or below, did not have pre-existing conditions and was either unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated.

The doctor is not the only one with the words of warning.

Wearing an oxygen mask, Cesar Lopez, a 35-year-old Barcelona businessman, said that before being admitted to the hospital two weeks ago he felt so bad he even thought of leaving a farewell note to his family.

“I would like to tell you that this is something very serious … I also thought that it could be just a cold or a flu but you have to take this really seriously, get vaccinated, think about others,” he said.

“Unfortunately there will be lots of people who won’t be able to tell this tale.”

(Reporting by Nacho Doce, Writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Alison Williams)

Biden sees U.S. child tax credit as ‘giant step’ to counter poverty

By Andrea Shalal and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Some 35 million American families have started receiving their first monthly payout from the U.S. government in an expanded income-support program that President Joe Biden said on Thursday could help end child poverty.

Under the Child Tax Credit program that was broadened under Biden’s COVID-19 stimulus, eligible families collect an initial monthly payment of up to $300 for each child under six years old and up to $250 for each older child.

Payouts made to families, covering nearly 60 million eligible children, totaled about $15 billion for July. The payments are automatic for many U.S. taxpayers, while others need to sign up.

Biden wants to extend expanded, monthly benefits for years to come as part of a $3.5 trillion spending plan being considered by Senate Democrats, who expect strong Republican opposition to the full bill.

“It’s our effort to make another giant step toward ending child poverty in America,” Biden said in a speech. “This can be life changing for so many families.”

The Child Tax Credit is being likened to a universal basic income for children, although it has income limits. It is expected to help people meet monthly expenses from rent to food and daycare.

The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University estimates the expansion can reduce the U.S. child poverty rate by up to 45%.

Critics say the expanded credit is expensive and may discourage people from working. Some experts say it may not reach some of the poorest Americans who are not in the tax system.

The Democrat-backed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 legislation known as the American Rescue Plan enacted in March increased how much is paid to families under the program.

The law made half of the tax credit for the 2021 tax year payable in advance by the Internal Revenue Service in monthly installments from July through December this year.

Biden proposed making the monthly advance payments permanent and maintaining expanded benefits through 2025 at least.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Edmund Blair)

Officials, Taliban strike ceasefire deal in western Afghanistan, says provincial governor

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Orooj Hakimi

KABUL (Reuters) -Government officials in a western Afghan province said on Thursday they had negotiated “an indefinite ceasefire” with the Taliban to prevent further attacks on the capital of the province.

The move came after fighters from the Islamist group secured complete control over all the districts in Badghis province, reflecting wider gains by the Taliban over territory and infrastructure in the weeks since U.S. President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops by Sept. 11.

“Ten tribal elders had taken the responsibility of ceasefire, so they first talked to the Taliban, and then talked to the local government and both sides reached a ceasefire,” the provincial governor, Husamuddin Shams, told Reuters.

The Taliban reached an agreement with the tribal elders to move to the outskirts of Qala-e-Naw, the capital of Badghis, Shams said.

A spokesman for the Taliban denied they had agreed to a ceasefire but said they had left the city to avoid civilian casualties.

“Qala-e-Naw is the only city in Afghanistan where the Taliban announced a ceasefire,” said Abdul Aziz Bek, the head of the provincial council in Badghis.

Afghan officials in the capital, Kabul, were not available to comment.

There were conflicting reports on Thursday about who was in control of a major trading town on the border with Pakistan. The Spin Boldak-Chaman border post is the second most important crossing on the Pakistan border and a major source of revenue for the Western-backed government in Kabul.

A senior Afghan government official said on Thursday security forces had retaken control of the town hours after the Taliban seized it on Wednesday.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed that and said his forces still held it.

“It is merely propaganda and a baseless claim by the Kabul administration,” he told Reuters.

The defense ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Pakistan, worried about a spillover of fighting, has shut its side of the Spin Boldak-Chaman border, which lies on the main commercial artery between the second Afghan city of Kandahar and Pakistani ports.

CLASHES HAVE INTENSIFIED

Clashes between the Taliban and government forces have intensified as U.S.-led international forces have been withdrawing. The Taliban have captured several districts and border crossings in the north and west.

The government has accused the Taliban of destroying hundreds of government buildings in 29 of the country’s 34 provinces. The Taliban deny accusations of extensive destruction by their fighters.

A senior Afghan government official in Kabul, Nader Nadery, said the security forces were working to push back Taliban fighters and regain control over 190 districts.

The deteriorating security situation has raised fears of a new Afghan refugee crisis. President Ashraf Ghani met regional leaders in Uzbekistan on Thursday and Pakistan said it would host a conference of senior Afghan leaders in an effort to find solutions.

Diplomatic efforts have focused on pushing the rival Afghan sides to make progress towards a ceasefire.

Pakistan was for years accused of backing the Taliban with the aim of blocking the influence of its old rival India in Afghanistan. But Pakistan denied that and now says it wants to encourage negotiations to ensure a peaceful outcome.

Pakistani information minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Twitter that Pakistan was arranging more talks and that important leaders including former President Hamid Karzai, who remains an influential figure, had been invited.

Chaudhry said Taliban leaders would not be attending as Pakistan was holding separate talks with them.

Karzai and some top Afghan political leaders are expected to fly to Qatar this weekend for talks with members of the Taliban who have an office in the capital, Doha.

The Islamist militants ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until they were ousted in 2001, weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. They have fought since to expel foreign forces and topple the government in Kabul.

(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in Kabul, Writing by Gibran Peshimam, Rupam Jain, Editing by Robert Birsel)

‘God help the country’: Hariri abandons bid to form Lebanese government

By Maha El Dahan and Laila Bassam

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanese politician Saad al-Hariri abandoned his effort to form a new government on Thursday, dimming hopes of a cabinet being agreed any time soon to start rescuing the country from financial meltdown.

Hariri was designated in October to put together a government following the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s cabinet in the wake of the catastrophic Beirut port explosion. Lebanon’s deeply divided politicians have failed to agree despite fears of social unrest over worsening living conditions.

“It is clear we will not be able to agree with his Excellency the President,” Hariri told reporters after meeting President Michel Aoun for barely 20 minutes.

“That is why I excuse myself from government formation and God help the country.”

Lebanon is suffering an economic depression the World Bank has described as one of the most severe in modern history. Its currency has lost more than 90% of its value in less than two years, leading to spiraling poverty and crippling shortages.

Hariri’s decision marks the culmination of months of conflict over cabinet posts between him and Aoun, the Maronite Christian head of state who is allied to the Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah.

There is no obvious alternative for the post, which must be filled by a Sunni Muslim in Lebanon’s sectarian system.

Barring significant changes in the political landscape, politicians and analysts say it now seems very difficult for a government to be formed before parliamentary elections next year, leaving Diab in a caretaker capacity.

Western governments have been piling pressure on Lebanese politicians to form a government that can set about reforming the corrupt state, threatening sanctions and saying financial support will not flow before reforms begin.

Earlier this month, Diab warned that Lebanon was days away from a social explosion, underscoring concerns about social unrest in a country that was shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.

Hariri said Aoun had requested fundamental changes to a cabinet line-up he had presented to him on Wednesday. Aoun had told Hariri that they would not be able to agree, Hariri said.

There was no immediate comment from the presidency.

Hariri was designated to form the new government in October. Diab continues in a caretaker capacity.

Aoun will be required to consult MPs over who to designate as a new premier. But analysts doubt that any Sunni politician of standing would accept the role without Hariri’s blessing.

The most influential Sunni politician in Lebanon, Hariri is backed by Lebanon’s Sunni religious establishment and, while his support from Sunni led-Saudi Arabia waned in recent years, he is still backed by other Sunni Arab-led states, including Egypt.

Following the announcement, the Lebanese currency weakened further on the parallel market, where dollars changed hands at more than 20,000 pounds, compared to around 19,000 earlier this morning, a dealer said.

(Reporting By Beirut Bureau, writing by Maha El Dahan/Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra and Philippa Fletcher)

Child diseases on rise as COVID-19 slows routine vaccinations -U.N.

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly 23 million children missed out on routine vaccinations last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the highest number in more than a decade, fueling outbreaks of measles, polio and other preventable diseases, U.N. agencies said on Thursday.

Measles, one of the world’s most contagious diseases, can be fatal to children under the age of five, especially in African and Asian countries with weak health systems, according to the World Health Organization. Polio can cripple a child for life.

The gap in global vaccination coverage has set up a “perfect storm,” leaving more children vulnerable to infectious pathogens just as many countries ease COVID-19 restrictions, the WHO and U.N. Children’s Fund said in an annual report.

Ten countries, led by India and Nigeria, account for the bulk of the 22.7 million children left unvaccinated or under-vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP) in 2020 – 3.7 million more than in 2019 and the most since 2009, it said regarding a key indicator of childhood vaccination rates.

“Large and disruptive” outbreaks of measles have been recorded in hotspots including Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia and Yemen, the report added.

Some 22.3 million children missed their first dose of measles vaccine last year – although there was probably substantial overlap with those lacking DTP coverage – for the lowest coverage against the killer disease since 2010, it said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major backsliding on childhood vaccination, taking us back more than a decade,” Kate O’Brien, WHO director of immunization, told a news briefing.

There has been an “alarming increase” in “zero dose” children – those missing out on any vaccination – which rose to 17.1 million last year from 13.6 million, said Ephrem Lemango, UNICEF chief of immunization. Many live in war-torn countries or slums, he said.

Sixty-six countries postponed at least one immunization campaign against preventable diseases, although some including Mexico have begun catch-up programs, the report said.

“In 2021 we have potentially a perfect storm about to happen and we don’t want to get to that perfect storm to be ringing the alarm bell. We are ringing it now,” O’Brien said.

The WHO has urged countries not to lift public health and social distancing measures prematurely as they begin to emerge from the pandemic, she said.

“But if that is happening – and as it is happening – we are going to see more and more transmission of the pathogens that are otherwise vaccine preventable pathogens.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Thousands of flamingos die in drought in central Turkey

By Mert Ozkan

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Thousands of baby flamingos have died at Turkey’s Lake Tuz in the past two weeks from a drought that environmentalists said was the result of climate change and agricultural irrigation methods.

Drone footage of the large saline lake in Turkey’s central province of Konya showed dead flaminglets lying partially buried in dried mud. Lake Tuz is home to a flamingo colony where up to 10,000 flaminglets are born every year.

Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli said around 1,000 birds were thought to have died but denied that agriculture was to blame.

“With less water and increased concentration ratio in the water, we observed deaths of flaminglets that were unable to fly,” he said.

“I want to stress that there is no direct or indirect connection between this incident and the wells in the area or the agricultural irrigation.”

Pakdemirli said “the necessary measures” had been taken, without elaborating.

In 2000, Lake Tuz was declared a specially protected area, a designation that aims to protect biological diversity, natural and cultural resources.

Environmentalists blame farming practices along with climate change for the drought, which saw demand for water in the area outstrip supply by 30 percent last year, according to a report published by Turkish environmental foundation TEMA.

In 2020, the annual water reserve in central province of Konya’s close basin was 4.5 billion cubic meters, while the consumption reached 6.5 billion cubic meters, TEMA found.

Environmentalist and wildlife photographer Fahri Tunc said water supplies from a canal which feeds Lake Tuz were being redirected for farming.

“This is the irrigation canal that comes from Konya. It needs to deliver water to Lake Tuz. As you can see, the water is not coming through. It stopped,” environmentalist and wildlife photographer Fahri Tunc said.

Tunc said only 5,000 eggs had hatched in the colony this year and most of the chicks had died for lack of water on the partially dried lake.

“It is a sin we are all committing,” Tunc said.

President of the Turkish NGO the Nature Association Dicle Tuba Kilic said the only way to prevent mass flamingo deaths is to change the agricultural irrigation methods in region.

Lake Tuz (Salt Lake) is one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world.

(Writing by Yesim Dikmen; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)