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The World Health Organization says roughly one in 10 people around the world may have been infected with the coronavirus.  The head of the health emergencies program at the World Health Organization, Michael Ryan, said Monday that the agency’s “best estimates” indicate 10 percent of the world’s population could have contracted the virus.  That estimate, which would amount to more than 760 million people, is more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases in the world and would still leave more than 90 percent of the population susceptible to the virus. Speaking to a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board in Geneva, Ryan said the figures vary between countries but the estimate means “the vast majority of the world remains at risk,” adding that “we are now heading into a difficult period.” The number of confirmed worldwide cases tallied by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center surpassed 35 million Monday, a week after surpassing 1 million coronavirus deaths. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seen outside the BBC headquarters, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in London, October 4, 2020.Several European nations hit their own pandemic milestones with Germany reporting Monday its total confirmed cases exceed 300,000, Britain recording 500,000 cases, and Spain becoming the first European country to surpass 800,000 total coronavirus cases. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought on Monday to play down a failure in his country’s testing data system that did not initially show 16,000 coronavirus test results. “To be frank, I think that the slightly lower numbers that we’d seen didn’t really reflect where we thought that the disease was likely to go,” Johnson said. Also Monday, Britain’s Cineworld, the second-largest movie theater chain in the world, announced it would temporarily close its British and U.S. theaters. Coronavirus lockdown orders and restrictions on group gatherings have badly hurt the movie industry. Cineworld said the move would affect 45,000 jobs.  To address broader job losses in the country’s economy, the British government on Monday launched a new $300 million program aimed at helping people get back to work.  In the United States, about two-thirds of U.S. states reported an increase in new coronavirus cases in the past week, mostly in the West and Midwest, according to data tracked by the Washington Post. The United States has recorded more than 7.4 million cases of coronavirus and nearly 210,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.  A man walks with his family, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020, in the Borough Park neighborhood of New York. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he’s ordering schools in certain New York City neighborhoods closed within a day to slow a flare-up of the coronavirus.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered schools in several coronavirus “hot spots” around the state to close beginning on Tuesday, including parts of the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. U.S. President Donald Trump remained hospitalized Monday after testing positive for COVID-19 last week.  In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that restrictions in the city of Auckland would be lifted Wednesday.  The measures were put in place to stamp out an outbreak in the country’s largest city in August, which threatened to reverse New Zealand’s progress toward eliminating the coronavirus.  In France, starting Tuesday, Paris bars will close for two weeks and restaurants will begin using new sanitary protocols, according to the prime minister’s office.   France on Sunday reported 12,565 new cases of coronavirus, while 893 COVID-19 patients had been admitted into intensive care over the past week.   Iceland’s government announced new coronavirus restrictions Monday following a spike in cases. The government ordered bars, gyms and entertainment venues to close and sharply reduced the number of people allowed to gather in public. In Russia, Moscow’s Ministry of Education announced that city schools would switch to a distance learning format as cases have climbed to more than 10,000 per day in Russia. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced Monday she is self-isolating after attending a meeting last week with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Von der Leyen said she tested negative on Thursday and would be tested again Monday.  
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British rock band Led Zeppelin on Monday effectively won a long-running legal battle over claims it stole the opening guitar riff from its signature 1971 song Stairway to Heaven. The band, one of the best-selling rock acts of all time, was handed victory after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning that a March 2020 decision by a U.S. appeals court in Led Zeppelin’s favor will stand. Lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused in the six-year-long case of lifting the riff — one of the best-known openings in rock music — from a song called “Taurus,” written by the late Randy Wolfe of the U.S. band, Spirit. Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, drowned in 1997, and the case was brought by a trustee for his estate. It has been one of the music industry’s most closely watched copyright cases, potentially exposing Plant and Page to millions of dollars in damages. Led Zeppelin was the opening act for Spirit on a U.S. tour in 1968, but Page testified in a 2016 jury trial in Los Angeles that he had not heard Taurus until recently. The Los Angeles jury found the riff they were accused of stealing was not intrinsically similar to the opening chords of Stairway to Heaven. Francis Malofiy, who represented Wolfe’s estate, said on Monday that Led Zeppelin “won on a technicality” and said that the lawsuit had accomplished its goal. “Today, the world knows that 1. Randy California wrote the introduction to Stairway to Heaven; 2. Led Zeppelin are the greatest art thieves of all time; and 3. Courts are as imperfect as rock stars,” Malofiy said in a statement. Led Zeppelin has yet to comment on the conclusion of the case. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday there would be “tough times ahead” for businesses, as another international company announced it was suspending operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Johnson spoke with reporters as it was announced that Cineworld will temporarily close 127 theaters in Britain and 536 theaters in its U.S. Regal movie theater chain following news that the latest James Bond film will be postponed again.The closings will affect 40,000 employees in the United States and 5,000 in Britain.Johnson, while encouraging people to support their local movies theaters, said that despite government efforts to support jobs impacted by the pandemic, “clearly there are going to be tough times ahead.” He encouraged people to support their local movie houses that observe COVID-safe practices. Johnson also acknowledged that more than 15,000 coronavirus cases had been missed and not been transferred into the computer database due to a technical glitch. He said the cases, which were all positive between Sept. 25 and Oct. 2, and their contacts had been identified once the error was discovered.Johnson said the current infection rate in Britain was “pretty much where we thought we were,” and the next few days would tell whether the extra restrictions put in place in several parts of the country were working.He said if people followed the measures put in place in their areas, the so-called “rule of six” — limiting gatherings to six or less — self-isolation following contact, masks and hand-washing, he had “no doubt that we will be able to get on top of it, as indeed we did earlier this year.””This is all very much in our hands collectively,” he said.
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French authorities placed the Paris region on maximum virus alert on Monday, banning festive gatherings and requiring all bars to close but allowing restaurants to remain open, as numbers of infections increased rapidly.
Paris police prefect Didier Lallement announced the new restrictions would apply at least for the next two weeks.
“We are continuously adapting to the reality of the virus. We are taking measures to slow down (its spread),” he said.
French authorities consider bars to be major infection hot spots because patrons don’t respect social distancing rules as much as they do at restaurants.
Starting on Tuesday, bars will be closed in Paris and its suburbs. Student parties and all other festive and family events in establishments open to the public will be banned.
Restaurants will remain open under strict conditions. They include a minimum one-meter (three-foot) distance between each table, groups limited to six people instead of 10 previously, and a request to register customers’ names and phone numbers to help alert those who may have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus .
Indoor sport facilities, including swimming pools, will only be open to children aged under 18. Gyms are already closed.
Cinemas, theaters and museums will remain open with strict sanitary rules, but fairs and professional shows won’t be allowed.
Authorities have maintained the limit of 1,000 spectators per day at big sports events, allowing the Roland-Garros tennis tournament to continue as planned this week.
The director of the Regional Health Authority, Aurelien Rousseau, said about 3,500 new cases of infection are confirmed on average each day in the Paris region, and 36% of ICU beds in the area are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
The alert has already been raised to the maximum level for 12 days in the southern city of Marseille and nearby Aix-en-Provence, as well as the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean.
Authorities ordered the shutdown of all public venues, including bars and restaurants in these areas, which prompted several demonstrations from angry business owners in Marseille.
On Monday, local authorities announced restaurants in Marseille and Aix-en-Provence would reopen on condition they respect the same restrictions as in Paris.
French health authorities reported on Saturday 16,972 new cases of infection, the highest daily number since the country began widespread testing.
The country, one of the hardest hit in Europe, has reported 32,230 virus-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
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Germany’s foreign minister met with the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Monday to discuss the future relations of the 27-member group with Britain after a transition period ends on December 31, 2020.  After several delays, the British Parliament finally ratified the withdrawal agreement and Britain left the EU on January 31, 2019.  Standing alongside Michel Barnier, Heiko Maas told reporters at a news conference in Berlin that the coronavirus pandemic has made the process to reach a post-Brexit trade deal even more urgent. “The stakes may be even higher now than they were a year ago. The corona[virus] pandemic has made the talks even more difficult, but it has also made an agreement even more urgent,” he said.Maas, however, said that the intention is to have a good, long-term partnership with Britain. “Our door remains open for a close and ambitious partnership with Great Britain. That is and will remain our goal,” he said.  Both officials thanked one another for the opportunity to discuss the post-Brexit road forward.    The head of the EU and Britain’s prime minister each told their chief negotiators Saturday to work “intensively” for reaching a post-Brexit trade deal before time runs out in a matter of weeks.   
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Police in Minsk, Belarus used water cannon to disperse crowds as protests against President Alexander Lukashenko continued for the ninth straight Sunday. An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of the capital Sunday.Since the longtime president claimed victory in a contested election August 9, protesters have regularly taken to the streets demanding his resignation and the release of political prisoners.Lukashenko maintains he won the poll in a landslide — garnering 80% of all ballots — despite widespread claims at home and abroad the vote was heavily rigged to keep him in power.For Belarus Protesters, Battle is for Long HaulDemonstrations intensified after an embattled Lukashenko was secretly sworn in for yet another term, but protesters realize the end may not come soonOver the weekend, Belarus canceled the accreditation of all foreign journalists.Late last week, the European Union imposed sanctions on about 40 Belarusian officials accused of falsifying the election results and cracking down on the subsequent protests. Lukashenko was not on the list.Public anger has stewed over the crackdown in the wake of the protests that have seen more than 7,500 arrests and police violence against demonstrators.Hundreds have emerged from police custody with bruises and tales of torture at the hands of Lukashenko’s security agents.Lukashenko has said the protests are encouraged and supported by the West and accused NATO of moving forces near Belarusian borders. The alliance has denied the accusations.
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Seven bodies were found in a region straddling the French-Italian border near Nice on Sunday after torrential rains swept houses and roads away, officials in both countries said.Five of the bodies were discovered in northwestern Italy, including four washed up on the shore between the towns of Ventimiglia and Santo Stefano al Mare, near the French frontier. Some of the corpses might have been swept down the coast from France.Two more were found in France, including a shepherd found by an Italian search and rescue team. The other body was found in a vehicle that had been swept away by flash-flooding in the village of Saint-Martin-Vésubie.It brings to nine the number of people found dead after fierce rains and howling gales lashed the border area on Friday. French firefighters said another 21 people were missing, eight of them known to be as a direct result of the storm.The bad weather caused millions of euros in damage, with several road bridges swept away in Italy, and streets in some towns littered with debris, mud and overturned cars.Officials in the Piedmont region reported a record 630 mm (24.8 inches) of rain in 24 hours in Sambughetto, near Switzerland, more than half its annual average rainfall.In Limone Piemonte, a three-story house was swept off its foundations and into a river. In the nearby village of Tanaro, floodwaters destroyed the local cemetery, sweeping away dozens of coffins.In France, almost 1,000 firefighters were drafted into the Alpes-Maritimes region to look for the missing and re-establish communications. More than two dozen primary and secondary schools in the area are closed until further notice, local authorities said.Up to 500 mm (19.5 inches) of rain fell in less than 10 hours, a volume not seen since records began, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Saturday.
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The South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia has voted to remain part of France, election authorities announced. Officials said 53.26% of more than 180,000 registered voters rejected independence in a referendum Sunday. At least 80% of eligible voters went to the polls. In a tweet, French President Emmanuel Macron called the vote a “mark of confidence in the Republic.”  “Together we will build the New Caledonia of tomorrow,” he wrote. Les Calédoniens ont confirmé leur souhait de maintenir la Nouvelle-Calédonie dans la France. C’est une marque de confiance dans la République. J’entends aussi la voix de ceux qu’anime la volonté de l’indépendance. Nous construirons tous ensemble la Nouvelle-Calédonie de demain.— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 4, 2020New Caledonia’s economy is supported by about $1.5 billion in French subsidies each year and many have said they fear the economy will collapse without those payments.   While the territory already enjoys a large degree of autonomy, it does heavily rely on France for some matters, including defense and education.   The referendum is part of a process that started in 1988 to end years of violence between the supporters and opponents of independence from France. A decade later, a deal was reached to have the independence vote in 2018. Although voters said “no” to independence two years ago, the deal allowed for two more referendums to be held by 2022.   Under colonial rule, the territory’s indigenous Kanaks had been confined to reserves and excluded from much of the island’s economy.   Political analysts say the Kanaks tend to back independence, while the descendants of European settlers lean toward maintaining the connection to France.  
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not particularly wish for the Brexit transition period to end without a new trade deal in place but believes that Britain could live with such an outcome, he said on Sunday.   With the Dec. 31 expiry of the transition period fast approaching, Johnson and the head of the EU’s executive, Ursula von der Leyen, agreed in a phone call on Saturday to step up negotiations on a post-Brexit deal.   “I think it’s there to be done,” Johnson said during an interview on BBC television.   “Alas, there are some difficult issues that need to be fixed, and there’s no question that the EU needs to understand that we’re utterly serious about needing to control our own laws and our own regulations, and similarly they need to understand that the repatriation of the UK’s fisheries … is very important.”   Asked whether he was worried about the potential impact of a no-deal situation in the middle of the COVID pandemic, Johnson said: “I don’t want the Australian WTO-type outcome, particularly, but we can more than live with it.   “I think the people of this country have had enough … of being told that this will be impossible or intolerable. I think we can prosper mightily under those circumstances.”   The government last week told importers and exporters they would have to complete extra paperwork whether there was a deal or not and that a lack of preparation on their part could lead to 100 km queues of trucks.   That prompted accusations from the opposition that ministers were setting up industry to take the blame for any chaos that might follow a botched Brexit.   The EU says that any deal must be sealed by the end of October, or in the first days of November at the latest, to leave enough time for ratification by the bloc before the end of the year.   More trade talks are due in London next week and in Brussels the following week before the 27 national EU leaders meet over Oct. 15-16 to assess progress. London has also said it wants clarity by Oct. 15 on whether a deal is possible or not.   An estimated trillion euros ($1.17 trillion) of annual trade would be at stake if they fail to reach an agreement. ($1 = 0.8537 euros)      
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Pope Francis said on Sunday that the COVID-19 pandemic was the latest crisis to prove that market forces alone and “trickle-down” economic policies had failed to produce the social benefits their proponents claim.In an encyclical on the theme of human fraternity, Francis also said private property cannot be considered an absolute right in all cases where some lived extravagantly while others had nothing.Called “Fratelli Tutti” (Brothers All), the encyclical’s title prompted criticism for not using inclusive language after it was announced last month.In Italian, Fratelli means brothers but it is also used to mean brothers and sisters. The Vatican said it was taken from the “Admonitions”, or guidelines, written by St Francis of Assisi in the 13th century to his followers and could not be changed.The pope says in the first line of the 86-page encyclical that St. Francis had “addressed his brothers and sisters” that way. In the document, he uses the term “men and women” 15 times and speaks several times about defending the rights and dignity of women.Encyclicals are the most authoritative form of papal writing, but they are not infallible.The encyclical, which Francis signed in Assisi on Saturday, covers topics such as fraternity, immigration, the rich-poor gap, economic and social injustices, healthcare imbalances and the widening political polarization in many countries.The pope took direct aim at trickle-down economics, the theory favored by conservatives that tax breaks and other incentives for big business and the wealthy eventually will benefit the rest of society through investment and job creation.”There were those who would have had us believe that freedom of the market was sufficient to keep everything secure (after the pandemic hit),” he wrote.Francis denounced “this dogma of neo-liberal faith” that resorts to “the magic theories of ‘spillover’ or ‘trickle’ … as the only solution to societal problems”. A good economic policy, he said, “makes it possible for jobs to be created and not cut.”‘Empire of money’The 2007-2008 financial crisis was a missed opportunity for change, instead producing “increased freedom for the truly powerful, who always find a way to escape unscathed”. Society must confront “the destructive effects of the empire of money.”Francis repeated past calls for redistribution of wealth to help the poorest and for fairer access to natural resources by all.”The right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods,” he said.A Vatican official said the pope was referring to those with massive wealth. The pope wrote that the belief of early Christians – “that if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it” – was still valid.Those with much must “administer it for the good of all” and rich nations are obliged to share wealth with poor ones. But he said he was “certainly not proposing an authoritarian and abstract universalism.”Some ultra-traditionalist Catholics have accused Francis of secretly backing a perceived plot for a “One-World Government,” a debunked conspiracy theory. Without naming countries or people, Francis condemned politicians who “seek popularity by appealing to the basest and most selfish inclinations” or who enact policies of “hatred and fear towards other nations.”Addressing racism, a key issue in the United States following the Black Lives Matter movement, Francis said: “Racism is a virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting.”He repeated calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the death penalty, positions which have been assailed by conservative Catholics, particularly in the United States. 
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Belgium has arrested and charged three men suspected of involvement in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.A spokesperson for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement Saturday that the three had been “charged with serious human rights abuses.”Eric Van Duyse said two had been arrested Tuesday in Brussels and the third had been arrested Wednesday in Hainault province.Van Duyse did not give any details about the suspects but said that their identities had been verified with the help of testimony from witnesses in Rwanda.He said one of the men is under electronic surveillance and the other two are in detention.Van Duyse said whether the men will be tried will depend on information compiled by the investigating magistrate and the prosecutor’s office.The arrests were first reported Friday by the Belgian weekly magazine Le Vif.About 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and some moderate Hutus, were killed in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.The U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indicted more than 90 people and tried 80 of them before it ceased operation in 2015.Since 2001, Belgium has held five trials for Rwandans implicated in the killings, giving prison terms up to 20 years.A Belgian court found former senior Rwandan official Fabien Neretse guilty of genocide in December and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
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Iran has temporarily released French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah, who has been in jail after being convicted of security breaches, her lawyer said Saturday on Twitter.”Fariba Adelkhah has come out [of prison] on leave with an electronic ankle bracelet,” Saeid Dehghan said in a tweet, without giving any other details of the release.There was no immediate official statement on the case from Iran’s judiciary.France had in June demanded that Adelkhah, 61, an anthropologist held since 2019, be released immediately, saying her detention was harming trust between the two countries.Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals in recent years, mostly on espionage charges.In March, Iran granted temporary release to British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, along with thousands of other prisoners, following concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in prisons.In March, Iran and France exchanged prisoners: academic Roland Marchal for engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad.Since then, however, there had been little sign that Adelkhah would be released. She was sentenced in May to six years in prison on security-related charges.Relations between France and Iran have improved over the last year but remain tense because of Iran’s nuclear activities, its ballistic missile program and regional activities.
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Heavy fighting continued between Armenia and Azerbaijan forces Saturday in the conflict over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, officials from both countries said.Armenian and Azerbaijani forces seemingly ignored calls this week by the U.S., France and Russia for an immediate cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian breakaway province inside Azerbaijan.Armenian Defense Ministry officials said they had repelled a large attack by Azerbaijan along the front line and shot down three planes.Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry denied any planes being shot down and said Armenian personnel had shelled civilian territory.Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said his forces had taken control Saturday of the strategic village of Madagiz.The attacks took place after Stepanakert, the regional capital, came under fire by Azeri forces, media reports said.The fighting has killed at least 150 people on both sides in the turbulent South Caucasus region since fighting began September 27, the two countries said.Azerbaijan’s president has demanded the withdrawal of Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh as the only way to end the fighting.Both sides previously had dismissed the demands for a truce in the disputed region, where fighting has escalated in recent days to levels not seen since the 1990s.Armenian separatists seized Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan in a bloody war in the 1990s that killed an estimated 30,000 people.Talks to resolve the conflict have been halted since a 1994 cease-fire agreement among Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh.Peace efforts in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, mediated by the Minsk Group, composed of the United States, France and Russia, collapsed in 2010.
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