Monday August 17 top news briefs
Hello! My name is Renca. I will sub for Alex this week as he is taking time off. Today is Monday, August 17th. Ready for our top news?
Belarus protests and demands new presidential election
A large crowd of protesters gathered in Minsk, Belarus yesterday to demand a new presidential election after long time President Alexander Lukashenko was reelected.
President Lukashenko has been the president for the last 26 years. He was reelected last week and protestors said it was rigged.
Lukashenko’s main opposition candidate was Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. The country’s Central Election Commission said that Lukashenko won by 80% and Tikhanovskaya in second by 10%.
She has fled to Lithuania to join her children. She mentioned in a video statement that documentation at polling places showed that she had support of the majority of voters. She said that she won support from 60% to 70%.
The people who are protesting are teachers, liberals, students, factory workers, etc. There are tweets and other reports that says the protests have been peaceful, but there is a severe problem with police brutality. So far 6,700 people have been arrested, at least 250 people were injured, and two have died.
Amnesty International article posted saying that the police has been treating people with “torture and other ill-treatment such as threatening to rape.”
Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the massive arrests were clearly a violation of international human rights standards.
This recent Friday, EU foreign ministers affirmed their support for the protestors and they also said they do not accept the election results as they consider them to be falsified.
Of the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement that they strongly condemn the violence against protestors and did not support that the Belarus government decided to shut down the internet to hinder the citizens of Belarus to share information about the election and other things.
President Lukashenko spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice over this weekend and it seems that Putin said that Russia is ready to provide more security assistance in Belarus.
The protests now are growing in number and has become the largest in the history of Belarus. We will keep an eye on this and keep you posted.
People in Madrid protests against government for masks
Yesterday, in Madrid, Spain, hundreds of people rallied to protest against the government about the mandatory order of wearing masks and other restrictions. People gathered at the Plaza Colon, shouted out “freedom”, and held up signs such as “The virus does not exist” and “masks kill.”
One protestor commented that this protestor believes the governments around the world are exaggerating the number of infections to take away people’s freedom and continue to trick people with talks of outbreaks.
This protest happened two days after the government announced new restrictions including closures of clubs and no smoking in public areas.
Madrid is not the only one as U.K. did have a protest in London last month. U.K.’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that people will be fined up to 100 pounds ($125) if they do not wear masks in supermarkets and shops.
Dust storm hits Phoenix, Arizona
Yesterday a large “wall of dust” storm hit Phoenix, Arizona for several hours. Some areas outside got isolated storms of rain and lightning.
One deaf woman, Kim Minard, who lives in Phoenix, filmed her experience and posted on Facebook. We asked her permission if we could share it with you too.
(video)
Kim: Look! Yes it is a dust storm!
During a dust storm, there is little chance of rain. The rain is happening in the northern part. A friend told me that some light rain was happening like the New River area. A dust storm this big has not happened lately. There was one a long time ago, but this is a big one.
Kim: Oh, I can feel the wind now. Yikes, I better go in now.
Renca: Wow, you can see the storm coming. Thank you Kim for sharing your experience.
I read some other tweets from people who lived in Phoenix explaining that when the dust “wall” hit, people driving had to pull over for a while because nothing was visible. More than 300 people in Surprise lost power.
That’s all for now. See you tomorrow. Stay with the light.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/20/uk/london-face-mask-protest-gbr-intl/index.html