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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2020

EMPTY SEATS AT RALLYA SPUTTERING RESTARTTO TRUMP’S CAMPAIGNPAGE 6 | WORLD

Of all the schemes that have siphonedresources from Latin American coun-tries fighting the coronavirus, the bodybag conspiracy might be the mostbrazen.

Last month, prosecutors in Ecuadorannounced they had identified a crimi-nal ring that had colluded with health of-ficials to win a contract selling bodybags to hospitals at 13 times the realprice.

Then one of the men implicated, Dan-iel Salcedo, fled Ecuador in a small planethat crashed in Peru. Mr. Salcedo is nowrecovering in the custody of the Ecua-dor police.

Even as Latin America has emergedas an epicenter of the pandemic, withdeaths and infections soaring, efforts tocontain the crisis have been under-mined by a litany of corruption scan-dals.

Dozens of public officials and local en-trepreneurs stand accused of exploitingthe crisis for personal enrichment bypeddling influence to price-gouge hospi-

tals and governments for medical sup-plies, including masks, sanitizer andventilators. Some of the gear has beenso flawed that it was rendered uselessand may have contributed to even moresickness and death.

“People are dying in the streets be-cause the hospital system collapsed,”said Diana Salazar, Ecuador’s attorney

general. “To profit from the pain of oth-ers, with all these people who are losingtheir loved ones — it’s immoral.”

Investigations into fraud havereached the highest levels of govern-ment. The former Bolivian health min-ister is under house arrest, awaitingtrial on corruption charges after theministry paid an intermediary millions

more than the going rate for 170 ventila-tors — which didn’t work properly.

In Brazil, the nation with the second-highest number of coronavirus deaths,after the United States, exceeding onemillion reported cases as of Friday, gov-ernment officials in at least seven statesare under investigation on suspicion ofmisusing more than $200 million in pub-lic funds during the crisis.

In Colombia, the inspector general isinvestigating reports that more than 100political campaign donors received lu-crative contracts to provide emergencysupplies during the pandemic.

Peru’s police chief and interior min-ister resigned after their subordinatesbought diluted sanitizer and flimsy facemasks for police officers, who then be-gan dying of infections from the virus atalarming rates.

Prosecutors are investigating linksbetween police officials and the suppli-ers of the equipment to determinewhether they colluded to defraud thegovernment, according to Omar Tello,the head of anti-corruption investiga-tors in the prosecutor’s office.

Armillón Escalante, a police officer inLima, said that he and his colleagueshad been given paper-thin masks andgloves that broke immediately.

“We didn’t really have any protec-tion,” he said. Mr. Escalante was enforc-LATIN AMERICA, PAGE 4

Preying on pandemic chaosPolice officers clearing a market in Lima, Peru. Peruvian officers began dying of infections from the coronavirus at alarming rates after they were issued flimsy face masks.

RODRIGO ABD/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A wave of corruption is following the virus as it devastates Latin America

BY NATALIE KITROEFFAND MITRA TAJ

A forensic investigator disinfecting a body bag holding the remains of a man who col-lapsed on the street and died from from the coronavirus last month in Quito, Ecuador.

DOLORES OCHOA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The vast Stone Age tomb mounds in thevalley of the River Boyne, about 25 milesnorth of Dublin, are so impressive thatthe area has been called the Irish Valleyof the Kings. And a new analysis of an-cient human DNA from Newgrange, themost famous of the mounds in Ireland,suggests that the ancient Irish mayhave had more than monumental gravemarkers in common with the pharaohs.

A team of Irish geneticists and ar-chaeologists reported last week that aman whose cremated remains were in-terred at the very heart of Newgrangewas the product of a first-degree inces-tuous union, either between parent andchild, or brother and sister. The finding,combined with other genetic and ar-chaeological evidence, suggests that thepeople who built these mounds lived in a

hierarchical society with a ruling elitewhose members considered themselvesso close to divine that like the Egyptianpharaohs, they could break the ultimatetaboos.

In Ireland, more than 5,000 years agopeople farmed and raised cattle. Butthey were also moved, like their contem-poraries throughout Europe, to createstunning monuments to the dead, somewith precise astronomical orientations.Stonehenge, a later megalith in thesame broad tradition as Newgrange, isfamous for its alignment to the summerand winter solstice. The central under-ground room at Newgrange is built sothat as the sun rises around the time ofthe winter solstice it illuminates thewhole chamber through what is called aroof box.

Archaeologists have long wonderedwhat kind of society built such a struc-ture, which they think must have had rit-ual or spiritual significance. If, as thenew findings indicate, it was a societythat honored the product of an incestu-ous union by interring his remains at theIRISH, PAGE 2

In ancient Ireland, an echo of EgyptEvidence of incest suggestsa people ruled by elites, like other ancient societies

BY JAMES GORMAN

At sunrise during the winter solstice, light illuminates the central underground cham-ber of Newgrange, a 5,500-year-old Irish tomb in the valley of the River Boyne.

KEN WILLIAMS

The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.

To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya-hu, it’s a “historic opportunity”: thechance to annex large stretches of theoccupied West Bank that right-wing Is-raelis have long coveted, possibly givingthe country a permanent eastern borderfor the first time.

Annexation would also cement hisplace in history, carving out a perma-nent legacy for Israel’s longest-servingleader. And although he has not dis-closed the scope of his plan, he haspromised to move forward with it assoon as July 1.

But as that date nears, respected for-mer Israeli military, intelligence anddiplomatic officials are denouncing anyunilateral annexation as a grave risk toIsrael’s security.

Imposing Israeli sovereignty on terri-tory the Palestinians have counted onfor a future state could ignite a new up-rising on the West Bank, these expertswarn. Neighboring Jordan could be de-stabilized. Israel’s move would bebroadly denounced as illegal, poten-tially leading to international isolation.

And the resulting furor, they say,could distract from efforts to intensifypressure on the country Mr. Netanyahuhas long portrayed as the greatestthreat facing Israel and the world: Iran.

“In the military, you learn at the low-est level to focus on the main effort,” saidAmos Gilead, a retired major general inmilitary intelligence who was also an en-voy to the Arab world. “To be unitedwith the Arabs against Iran is an unbe-lievable advantage,” he said. Instead, hesaid, “We will unite the whole worldagainst us.”

Already, Arab leaders have warnedthat annexation would threaten Israel’sprogress in forging ties with their coun-tries, in part over their common adver-sary in Tehran — progress that Mr. Ne-tanyahu has brandished as proof of hisstatesmanship.

The Trump administration supportsannexation in principle, and severalAmericans, including Ambassador Da-vid Friedman, are part of the joint Is-raeli-American committee that is se-cretly mapping Israel’s new borders.

But annexation is fueling consterna-tion among Democrats in Congress andis opposed by the party’s presumptivepresidential nominee, Joseph R. BidenJr., all of whom favor a negotiated solu-tion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr. Netanyahu has not responded tothe criticism publicly. “The less I sayabout this now, the greater our chancesof achieving the best result,” he has said.ISRAEL, PAGE 4

Warnings grow withinIsrael overannexationJERUSALEM

Experts fear destabilizationof Jordan, a new uprisingand diplomatic isolation

BY DAVID M. HALBFINGERAND ADAM RASGON

Since cities came to exist 5,000 yearsago, epidemics have shaped their fate.

Plagues weakened the Roman Em-pire and may have helped bring itdown. The sewers that cleaned up afilthy London in the 19th century werebuilt in direct response to a choleraoutbreak. Many of the great urbanparks, including Central Park in NewYork City, were similarly planned afterepidemics, to provide more open space.

Today, the coronavirus pandemic, inall its horror, opens the prospect ofsweeping urban change. Cities sud-denly see the possibility of correctingtheir greatest mistake of the 20thcentury, the surrender of too muchpublic space to the automobile.

Cities need to seize this moment andmove at lightning speed. We need to

find a better bal-ance between thecars on our streetsand the bicyclistsand pedestrianswho have, for dec-ades, been ne-glected and pushedto the margins.

All over theworld, forward-looking cities largeand small havealready jumped

into action. In Medellin, the innovativeColombian city nestled in the Andes,workers are seizing traffic lanes andslapping down yellow paint to signify achange: Cars have been evicted andthe lanes are now reserved for bicy-clists. In Kampala, the capital ofUganda, the authorities have closedstreets, encouraged cycling, and spedthe construction of new bike lanes andwalkways. In European cities, “coronacycleways” have become the newnorm.

In New York, the city has respondedto community demands by pledging toset aside 100 miles of roads in the nextfew weeks for people on foot or bike,largely closing the streets to trafficduring daylight hours. Letting peopledine at tables in the middle of the roadmay help in the salvation of New Yorkrestaurants. Across the country inOakland, Calif., the city has decided toclose nearly 10 percent of its streets.And in the middle of the country, Kan-sas City, Mo., was one of the first tolimit traffic and turn parking spots intomini-parks to extend restaurant serv-ice.

This is a golden moment for themovement known as tactical urbanism.More than 200 cities have already

Take back the streets from the carJustin GillisHeather Thompson

OPINION

With peoplehunkereddown at home,cities shouldact quickly tofind a betterbalance withpedestriansand cyclists.

GILLIS, PAGE 11

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