 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup where we bring you some of the top stories from across the globe. Let's take a look at today's headlines. Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion in historic ruling. Palestinian security officers face charges for the killing of Nizar Banat. Mass protests against her Bolsonaro head across 200 cities in Brazil. Morocco holds elections as demands for political reforms continue and in the video section take a look at the necessary changes required in the public health response to COVID-19. Mexico's Supreme Court has ruled that criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional. The landmark ruling was issued in relation to an abortion law. In the Cuiwala state, the measure punished people for having an abortion with up to three years in prison including in cases of rape. The 10 judges present in the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the law was unconstitutional on September 7th, while the decision itself is limited to Cuiwala. It has established obligatory criteria for all judges. This has paved the way for the legalization of abortion care across Mexico. It will also set a precedent for dozens of people currently imprisoned for having an abortion. An estimated 750,000 to 1 million clandestine abortions are performed in Mexico every year. According to L-Pays, at least one third lead to some kind of medical complication. Currently, abortions are legal up to 12 weeks in Mexico City, Ozaca, Hidalgo and work crews. Tuesday's ruling was followed by a demonstration in the state of Cuiwala, activists are now pushing for the complete legalization of voluntary abortion services. 14 officers from the Palestinian Security Services will be charged for the custodial killing of Nizar Manat. He died after an arrest raid at his home in Hebron on the occupied West Bank in the occupied West Bank on June 24th. Manat's relatives stated that he was badly beaten using metal bars and dragged away. An autopsy revealed injuries on his head, neck, chest, hands and legs. The PAs Independent Commission for Human Rights said that the wounds indicated an unnatural death. Manat had been a prominent critic of the Palestinian Authority government led by Mahmoud Abbas. His death sparked weeks of protests which were met with a violent crackdown by PA forces. Several activists and protesters were also arrested. The Manat family's lawyer told Middle East Thai that the assassination case had been referred to the military court. The family's request for the trial to be public has also been granted. The indictments include beating, leading to death with premeditated murder, use of torture and disobeying military orders. However, no indictments have been issued for higher-level officials such as those who issued the arrest warrant. Manat's family has said that they have no confidence that the PA will deliver justice. They have called for an international probe into the killing. Brazil witnessed another round of protests against President Hir Bolsonaro on Tuesday. The Fora Bolsonaro campaign estimated that 300,000 people took to the streets across 200 cities. September 7th also marked the country's independence day. The protests against Bolsonaro coincided with rallies organized by his supporters. The far-right leader had instructed his followers to march to Brasilia. Bolsonaro previously called the march a counter coup. He also targeted the Supreme Court during the rallies in the capital and São Paulo. We are not going to deliver our freedom to them. We are not going to deliver and not even give up our fight and our dreams. We are going to the end. Nearly 18 million people were eligible to vote in Morocco's parliamentary elections on September 8th. This is the country's third election since the constitution was adopted in 2011. This followed the country's February 20th movement demanding a democratic system. Protesters demanded an end to corruption and the separation of powers in the constitution that was introduced did not change the major powers given to the king. The monarch retained extensive judicial, legislative and administrative powers. The protest movement rejected the constitution and Morocco has witnessed low election turnouts since then. People have also pointed to continued corruption in the series of neoliberal austerity measures adopted by the state. The committee appointed by the king has also presented a new development agenda. The Bandar Network has also pointed to a decline in democratic freedoms including the targeting of opposition movements. Eight leaders on a democratic way organization were arrested during protests demanding democratization. The left-wing group had been mobilizing in several areas and called for a boycott of the election. It has argued that the elections are under control of the interior ministry and the king still holds sweeping powers. Several news and media outlets have also stopped publishing prominent journalists have been arrested and tried on allegations of human trafficking and assault. Rights groups argue that these have been used as a tool by the state to target independent journalists. And for a final story we look at a recent study on mask wearing to contain the spread of COVID-19. The research was led by professors from the Yale and Stanford universities in the US. It was conducted across 600 villages in Bangladesh, covering over 340,000 people over a period of five months. Researchers rolled out programs to distribute free masks and promote their usage. They found that mask wearing increased by 30% among the people encouraged to use them. Research has also reported an 11.9% decrease in symptomatic COVID-19 symptoms. Given that vaccine doses access still remains highly unequal, measures such as masking are important. While we have been planning and arguing about public health facilities for severely ill COVID-19 people, while we have been arguing about vaccine accessibility and so on and so forth, the one thing that none of us have argued about with any traction in public discourse is shouldn't the public health system in India begin be providing masks for use by financially underprivileged people in communities? And shouldn't those masks have supply chains of their own setup which are sustainable, which are biodegradable, which are reusable? All of these boxes can be checked. It's not that technologies are not available for this. It is that we've spent a year and a half with no traction about mask as a public health intervention from the state. And I think that this study underlines the pressing need. Let me make an additional science-based point. We all talk about variants. We all keep pointing out discussions about whether vaccines of one generation are going to be useful and to what degree in protecting against variants of the next generation. Masks are independent of variants. And yet we have not planned a durable public health policy intervention that incorporates mask distribution. Across the world, all scientific communities have said this. Vaccines are never going to provide 100% protection. Nothing is going to provide 100% protection. All vaccines currently provide more than 90% protection, quite surprisingly, robust protection against serious illness and death, even from the current variants, current crop of variants. There is no guarantee that this is going to continue into the future. But suddenly new generation vaccines are being developed and will be distributed. But the reality is vaccinated communities do not completely stop transmission of the virus. They slow it down, they reduce it, they do not halt it completely. As the Bangladesh US study points out for masks, masks again reduce transmission and are therefore a very useful, low-cost intervention, but they do not eradicate it. All of these COVID-appropriate policies and individual choices that we are talking about all provide incremental control over this rate of spread, the numbers hospitalized, and the strain that the public health system is put under. None of these eradicates or eliminates the disease. And therefore all of these become matters for the long term, become policy choices for the long term, and therefore the durability of these policies and the sustainability of these choices, such as with vaccine accessibility, such as with mask accessibility, become major issues for us to keep in mind. Again and again we've discussed this issue and I bring it up again. We need to get out of dealing with COVID-19 policies in the immediate acute crisis mode and think about them over the long term. And this is all we have for this episode of the International Daily Roundup. For more such stories and videos visit our website peoplecispatch.org, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for watching.