Face masks became compulsory in tourist hotspots in Paris on Monday amid warnings of a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as infections in the world’s worst-hit country the United States topped five million.

The requirement came as France along with much of Western Europe sweltered in a heatwave, with temperatures soaring above 35 degrees Celsius (95 F).

The blistering heat sent crowds flocking to beaches at the weekend despite health warnings about the risk of infection.

In Berlin, thousands of children returned to school on Monday after the summer break, sporting masks which are compulsory in common areas like school courtyards. Schools in some other German regions also reopened, though with differing rules on masks.

“No child forgot their masks this morning, so we see everything is back to normal,” said Domenica Acri, headmistress of the Carl Orff primary school in Berlin.

In Pakistan, all restaurants and parks were allowed to reopen Monday, as well theatres, cinemas and public transport, after the country saw a drop in new cases for several weeks.

‘Anything but second lockdown’

People in Paris aged 11 and over are now required to wear the masks in crowded areas and tourists hotspots.

These include the banks of the Seine River and more than 100 streets in the French capital, including tourist destinations like Montmartre, where the Sacre Coeur basilica is located.

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Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested Monday and led in handcuffs through his newspaper office as police raided the building, part of a sweeping crackdown on dissent since China imposed a security law on the city.

Lai, 71, was among nine people detained on charges including colluding with foreign forces — one of the new national security offences — and fraud in an operation targeting his Next Digital publishing group.

It was the latest police operation against dissidents under the sweeping new law introduced at the end of June.

Two of Lai’s sons were among those detained, a police source told AFP as well as Wilson Li, a former pro-democracy activist who describes himself as a freelance videographer working for Britain’s ITV News.

The most serious national security crimes carry up to life in jail.

Journalists working at Lai’s Apple Daily broadcasted dramatic footage on Facebook of some 200 police officers conducting the raid, and the newspaper’s chief editor Law Wai-kwong demanding a warrant from officers.

Apple’s staff were ordered to leave their seats and line up so police could check their identities as officers conducted searches across the newsroom.

At one point Lai was present, in handcuffs and surrounded by officers.

Police said the search was conducted with a court warrant which was shown to staff.

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The United States on Sunday reached the extraordinary milestone of five million coronavirus cases as President Donald Trump was accused of flouting the constitution by unilaterally extending a virus relief package.

The US has been hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic, recording nearly 163,000 deaths — by far the highest of any country, ahead only of Brazil, which on Saturday became the second country to pass 100,000 deaths.

The global death toll is at least 727,288 since the novel coronavirus emerged in China last December, according to a running tally from official sources compiled by AFP.

Nearly 20 million cases have been registered worldwide — probably reflecting only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

As around much of the globe, the small African country of Malawi on Sunday imposed tight social restrictions to try to contain the disease, shutting all bars and churches, while hot weekend weather drew crowds in Europe to the beach.

In Washington, the new virus relief package — announced by Trump on Saturday after talks between Republican and Democrat lawmakers hit a wall — was “absurdly unconstitutional,” senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi told CNN.

Fellow Democrat and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, appearing on ABC, dismissed Trump’s unilateral measures as “unworkable, weak and far too narrow.”

But with the nation’s economy still struggling to dig itself out of an enormous hole, Democrats appeared skittish about any legal challenge to a relief package they see as seriously inadequate.

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Lebanon’s premier Hassan Diab stepped down Monday amid fury within and outside his government over the deadly Beirut port blast he blamed on the incompetence and corruption of a decades-old ruling class.

“Today we are heeding the people and their demands to hold accountable those responsible for a disaster,” he said in a televised address, blaming a “corrupt” political class that has ruled Lebanon for more than 30 years for the August 4 explosion.

“This is why today I announce the resignation of the government.”

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The summer months traditionally see the release of many of the most anticipated movies of the entire year, but the 2020 coronavirus pandemic brought all those traditions to a screeching halt when movie theaters all over the world had no choice but to close their doors to protect their staff and the public. Christopher Nolan’s long-awaited science fiction thriller Tenet was one of many potential blockbusters put on hold this summer, and the studio — with the support of its award-winning director — chose to keep the anticipation bubbling by delaying the film’s theatrical release rather than settle for an on-demand, digital release.

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The famed filmmaker and screenwriter, who often collaborates with brother Jonathan Nolan, has a deep love for cinema and loves to tell stories with complex — dare we say baffling? — ideas. That may sound like a strange approach, but his films tend to quickly change the minds of doubters. He has ventured into the philosophical and fanciful realm of dreams (Inception), manipulated perceived reality (The Prestige), explored the concept of memory (Memento) and tackled the complexities of identity (The Dark Knight). Interstellar played with the idea of malleable time, and fans can’t wait to see where Tenet and its concept of reversing time will take them next.

Nolan has never been afraid to tell his stories in unconventional ways using everything from inventive narrative structures to astonishing camera work. In a movie-making era dominated by computer generated special effects, green screens and digital filming, he has remained true to his love of celluloid film and practical, camera-based effects that use miniatures and minimal CGI. He prefers filming on location over studio shoots and often uses handheld cameras and documentary-style lighting to create a specific look.

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Guinea’s ruling party on Thursday urged President Alpha Conde to seek a third term in elections due this year, a scenario that has sparked clashes in the West African state.

Under Guinea’s constitution, presidents may only serve two terms.

Conde, 82, was elected president in 2010 and again in 2015. But this year he pushed through a revamped constitution that opponents say was crafted to reset the term counter, enabling him to run again.

His Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) party announced that it wanted Conde to run again at a convention in the capital Conakry.

Party members are issuing a “plea to President Alpha Conde to accept the will of the people to be the RPG’s sole candidate,” MP Diakagbe Kaba told delegates.

The president has yet to formally respond to the request. He has previously said that “the party will decide” who goes forward to the poll.

Guinea’s electoral commission has proposed the presidential election be held on October 18, but Conde has yet to sign off on a date.

Thursday’s announcement is likely to incense Guinea’s embattled opposition, which has staged mass rallies since October against the possibility of Conde running for a third term.

Security forces in the former French colony repeatedly cracked down on the protests, in which several dozen civilians were killed.

Opposition figures also attempted to organise a boycott of the referendum in March, but the vote went ahead despite protests.

According to the official results, the constitution was approved by 91.59 percent of those voting, with a turnout of 61 percent

Conde is a former opposition figure himself who was jailed under Guinea’s previous iron-fisted regimes.

Hopes of a new political dawn flowered when Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010, but critics say he has become increasingly authoritarian.

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Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara’s decision to run for a third term in October’s presidential election triggered outrage on Friday among opposition and civil society groups, who labelled it a “coup” that risked tipping the country into chaos.

Ouattara, in power since 2010, said in March that he would not run for re-election, which the opposition has strongly maintained he was unable to do anyway because the constitution limits presidents to two terms.

But the race was turned on its head by the sudden death of prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly — seen as Ouattara’s anointed successor — from a heart attack in July.

The shock news ramped up the volatility for the tense October 31 vote, which takes place in the shadow cast by political violence following 2010’s election in which around 3,000 people died.

Ouattara said on Thursday that he would run after all, citing “a case of force majeure” after the death of his ruling RHDP party’s candidate Coulibaly “left a void”.

The constitution limits presidents to two five-year terms.

But a new constitution was adopted in 2016, which Ouattara and his supporters argue reset the clock, allowing him to run again — an interpretation strongly contested by the opposition.

Assoa Adou, the general secretary of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), one of the country’s two main opposition parties, said: “Alassane Ouattara cannot in any case stand in the election. His own experts have said so.”

‘Organised state coup’

N’Goran Djedri of the West African country’s largest opposition party PDCI said Ouattara “is not above the law”.

“The people of Ivory Coast must demand the exact application of the 2016 constitution, which stipulates in article 183 that the legislation currently in force remains applicable.”

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At least five soldiers were killed and five were wounded on Sunday in twin attacks blamed on jihadists in central Mali, army and local sources said.

A military convoy was ambushed en route from the village of Goma-Coura to Diabaly town, a local elected official told AFP while requesting anonymity.

He said four pickup trucks and an armoured vehicle were missing after the attack.

Simultaneously, a camp at Goma-Coura came under artillery fire, the army said in a statement posted on its Twitter account, which also reported the ambush.

Some vehicles were destroyed, it said, adding that casualties on the “enemy” side were not yet known.

An ambush on a military convoy blamed on jihadists, also in central Mali, left 24 soldiers dead on June 15.

Jihadists unleashed a revolt in northern Mali in 2012 that has since spread to the centre of the poor Sahel country and to Burkina Faso and Niger despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops.

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Almost one million people have been infected with COVID-19 in Africa, according to data from the Africa Centre Control (CDC).

The agency said as of Sunday, August 2, 2020, the 55-nation Africa Union (AU) has 944,450 infections from the virus.

Despite the rising infections from COVID-19,  more than half of those who contracted the virus – 602,578 – have recovered, the data further revealed.

However,  about 19,920 persons have died from complications from the pandemic.

A region-by-region breakdown of the disease, indicates that Southern Africa has the highest number of COVID-19 cases – 526, 870 – out of which 8, 642 have death and 352, 233 recoveries.

Central Africa remains the least infected region on the continent having reported 48, 897 cases, 941 deaths and 34, 212 recovered persons.

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Sixteen-year-old Linnet covers her face bashfully, mumbling into her hands as she recounts how she met the young man who bought her fries and gave her money, before leaving her pregnant and facing even greater poverty than before.

She is one of thousands of teenagers who fall pregnant every year in Kenya, a problem experts fear is worsening during the coronavirus pandemic, with some girls pushed into transactional sex to survive while others have more sex as they stay home from school.

Shortly before the pandemic hit Kenya in March, Linnet’s farmer parents in western Busia sent her to Nairobi to find a job as they could no longer afford her school fees.

She moved in with her sister, her sister’s husband — the sole breadwinner — and their two small children in a tiny corrugated-iron room in the Kibera slum.

Food was scarce and the advances of the 22-year-old boda-boda (motorbike taxi) rider, and the luxuries he offered, were hard to resist.

“He would buy me some fries, shoes and also give me some money,” said Linnet, her dress of brightly-coloured flowers stretched tight against her four-month pregnant belly.

She said she had asked him to wear a condom, but he had removed it during intercourse. He has demanded she terminate the pregnancy, and the romance has dissipated.

“I am too young to be pregnant and now I am going to be a mother to a kid,” she said.

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