 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines. New York teachers demand safe schools before reopening, warn of strikes. Zambian Socialist Party Secretary-General Cosmos Mali, released from detention. Rafael Correa announces his bid for vice presidency of Ecuador via an exile. And second, Algerian journalist said to face prosecution over alleged involvement in the Iraq movement. The United Federation of Teachers has demanded that the New York City administration chalk out a comprehensive safety protocol for students, educators and staff before reopening schools next month. In a statement given out by UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Wednesday, the union said that if that city administration does not ensure safe classrooms, they are prepared to approach the court or even go on strike. Addressing the press, Mulgrew also stated that the union is prepared to face penalties that can be imposed on striking public employees under the Taylor Act. The UFT's demands include voluntary testing for all those who enter classes, adequate physical distancing measures, a dedicated team of contact tracers, a full-time nurse for every school and guarantees of implementing all these on time. The ultimatum by the unions comes very close to the scheduled reopening of schools is the mix of virtual and in-person instructions. The UFT stated that over 750,000 students and adults must be tested before the classes begin on September 10th. Noting this, the union insisted that it is next to impossible for the city to reopen schools with all the necessary safety precautions in the proposed time. New York City is the largest school district in the country, serving over 1.1 million children. We now go to Zambia, where the Secretary General of the Socialist Party of Zambia, Dr. Cosmos Musmali, who was detained while participating in a meeting with part-workers on Thursday, was released a few hours later. Dr. Musmali, along with nearly 30 party workers, was arrested reportedly for violating charges of, reportedly for violating prohibitions against the public gatherings under COVID-19. Following the arrest, the party's president, Fred Membe, said that these charges don't make sense legally or otherwise. With parliamentary elections set to begin in less than a month, he drew attention to the unequal playground on which the opposition is contesting against the ruling party. Zambian journalist Sheikh Jifuwait told People's Dispatch that COVID-19 related prohibitions have become a convenient tool for the government to stifle the opposition ahead of the polls, while the ruling party continues with large-scale mobilizations. He pointed out that this was not even a public gathering, but a meeting with party workers. Ever since his inception in 2019, the Socialist Party has been subjected to harassment in the form of raids, arrests, denial of permission to hold gatherings, etc. In our next story, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa officially announced his candidacy for the vice presidency in the upcoming elections. Correa will accompany presidential candidate Andres Arauz for the presidential election scheduled on February 7th. The Arauz-Correa presidential candidate was presented by a new political movement called the Union of Hope or the UNES. 35-year-old Andres Arauz is an economist and he has served the country in various sports under Correa's presidency, including his director of the Central MAG between 2011 and 2013. The UNES is a coalition of left-wing groups and progressive forces, including political parties such as the Social Commitment Force and the Democratic Center, along with several social movements and trade unions, among others. Correa's candidacy is uncertain due to an ongoing prosecution against him and an arrest order over allegations of corruption. Earlier this month, his lawyers filed an appeal before the court of cessation, so the sentence is not yet final. A recent reform on electoral laws establishes that in order to stand in elections, participants must present their candidature in person in the country. Last week, the National Electoral Council enabled online registration of candidacy due to the pandemic. The election body stressed that applicants must appear in a non-delegable and very personal way to confirm the nomination which is open to interpretation. It remains to be seen whether Correa, who is now in exile in Belgium, can file his nomination by appearing before the Ecuadorian institutions in Belgium. His candidacy, if qualified, could grant him immunity from imprisonment and prosecution until after the elections. Algerian journalist Abdul Karim Zegilesh is soon to stand trial on charges of undermining national unity. He faces three years in prison. Activists say he is being targeted for supporting the country's Iraq movement, which has been demanding reforms. The prosecution also accused Zegilesh of subverting the personality of the president. He is the director of Radio Sarbakin, an online radio network located on the city of Constantine. He has been held in pretrial detention since June 23rd. His offices in radio stations were also raided by security forces last year, resulting in the authorities confiscating equipment and documents. Post the raid, the radio station has suspended operations and hasn't presumed broadcasting yet. Zegilesh has been hounded by authorities for his political activism as well as for his radio channel that has been critical of the government. He was previously also targeted during the regime of President Abdul Aziz Buttafleka. Last month, Khalid Rarani was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the court on similar charges. Targeting of the Iraq movement is continued despite the new government's promises when it was elected. Rabir, thank you for joining us. So to begin with, of course, the numbers are as alarming as usual because yesterday's numbers were over 69,000, which makes India the highest in terms of new cases. And that to 21,000 new cases more than the country next in line, which is Brazil. So could you talk a bit about what these uncontrolled numbers indicate? Is it spreading to new areas? Or is what are the trends? You see, one thing is clear about India. The trend has been consistently the same. We have been adding a certain percentage of figures every week. And if you go by that, our rate of growth has been consistent at the level that our doubling rate will be between 20 to 25 days. And if you go back past 90 days to 120 days, you will find the doubling rate of 20 to 25 days has held constant over this period. So we have absolutely no control over the epidemic. It has not exploded in the sense that it has not doubled every five days or every 10 days, which is what it was doing initially. But nevertheless, this means that the rate of growth, if it is consistent, that means another 25 days, we will be double what we are in terms of numbers, which means we'll be not only number two, we'll be going near what the US figures are. US, if you see, the doubling rate is now something between 45 to 50 days. Though it is also varying. Sometimes it goes up and sometimes it comes down. So it's not the US's in that sense showing a consistent rate of growth. So India is in a bad state in this sense. And we also see the number of deaths are also quite significantly high. In the sense that death rate is also constant, and sometimes we are number one, sometimes you are number two, sometimes you are number three, but we are really moving in the first three in terms of number of new deaths that we are talking about, not total deaths. Our total figures alone, we'll come to that in a minute. So those are the basic broad criteria that you can see. And also let's be very clear, we are talking about identified cases. How many cases we are identifying? Roughly about eight to 10% of the test prove positive. Now the WHO has given guidelines which says it should be less than 5%. So this is not a low figure either. So even in that sense, we are not catching all the people who are infected. And the set of prevalence studies seem to show that. So we'll come back to that as well in a minute. So looking at now the death rate, which is what Government of India is now talking about, it's given up the argument that it can control the pandemic. It's given out how much help the lockdown provided. Now that we are in a lockdown lifting mode, that's what at least the jingle on our telephone says. So, and we can see it physically that the lockdown has not been disappeared, but we have also seen large numbers of people congregating together. The mask use is not so significant. So all the ingredients of increasing figures are there. The only saving race in schools and colleges have not been opened. The cinema halls have not been opened, but the places of worship are also open. And even the gyms we are talking of opening and hotels we are talking of opening. The restaurants are still closed. So some respite on those counts, but we have to see how the governments move on that. The argument seems to be, let's live with the epidemic and let's revive the economy. They don't seem to understand that the economy will not revive as long as the epidemic continues. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with major news developments from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.