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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021 Democracy Cases surge in Peru is in countries under siege A bright Brexit eyesore that relied on

Steven Levitsky China’s shots Alberto Vergara Outbreaks among nations with high vaccination rates OPINION stall Beijing’s diplomacy “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” That’s what President Donald Trump BY SUI-LEE WEE told Georgia’s top elections official long after he had clearly lost re-election. Mr. Mongolia promised its people a “Covid- Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 U.S. free summer.” Bahrain said there would election failed. But his tactics, as Anne be a “return to normal life.” The tiny is- Applebaum recently observed in The land nation of the Seychelles aimed to Atlantic, have inspired anti-democratic jump-start its economy. politicians around the world. Nowhere All three put their faith, at least in is that more clear than in Peru. part, in easily accessible Chinese-made On June 6, Peru held its most polar- vaccines, which would allow them to roll ized presidential runoff election in 30 out ambitious inoculation programs years. The election pitted Keiko Fuji- when much of the world was going with- mori, a daughter of the former dictator out. Alberto Fujimori, against Pedro But instead of freedom from the co- Castillo, a leftist provincial teacher and ronavirus, all three countries are now union leader. Ms. Fujimori’s party, battling a surge in infections. Fuerza Popular (Popular Force), has China kicked off its vaccine diplo- long been implicated in corrupt and macy campaign last year by pledging to authoritarian practices, and Mr. Castil- provide a shot that would be safe and ef- lo’s party, Perú Libre fective at preventing severe cases of If Pedro (Free Peru), is Covid-19. Less certain at the time was Castillo is openly Marxist. how successful it and other vaccines Both candidates would be at curbing transmission. denied victory, have dubious demo- Now, examples from several coun- it could trigger cratic credentials. tries suggest that the Chinese vaccines widespread Ms. Fujimori may not be very effective at preventing unrest and end framed her cam- the spread of the virus, particularly the the country’s paign as a fight PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES new variants. The experiences of those democratic against commu- The Sevington Inland Border Facility, a 24-hour truck lot in Mersham, England, will serve as a checkpoint for goods in Britain. Floodlights fill the sky at night, to locals’ chagrin. countries lay bare a harsh reality facing experiment. nism, telling voters a postpandemic world: The degree of re- that Mr. Castillo covery may depend on which vaccines would convert Peru governments give to their people. into another Vene- A floodlit parking lot has an English village grumbling, In Mongolia, Bahrain, the Seychelles zuela — a strategy that won over many and Chile, 50 percent to 68 percent of the middle-class voters in Lima and other but views on the split with the E.U. have not wavered populations have been fully inoculated, coastal cities. Meanwhile, Mr. Castillo outpacing the United States, according appealed to poor voters in rural areas MERSHAM, ENGLAND At present the Sevington Inland Bor- to Our World in Data, a data tracking who felt ignored by the Lima-centered der Facility is mainly used for Covid-19 project. All four ranked among the top 10 political elite and were deeply dissatis- testing of truck drivers headed to countries with the worst Covid out- fied with the status quo. BY STEPHEN CASTLE France, according to Paul Bartlett, a breaks as recently as last week, accord- With 100 percent of votes counted, Mr. Conservative Party representative on ing to data from The New York Times. Castillo won by a razor-thin margin of Since work began on a post-Brexit bor- the Kent County Council. That should And all four are mostly using shots about 44,000 votes out of nearly 19 der checkpoint, villagers nearby have change in the fall, however, when Brit- made by two Chinese vaccine makers, million. But Ms. Fujimori has refused to complained of construction noise, a ain is scheduled to start introducing Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech. accept defeat, baselessly claiming the cloud of dust, damage to their homes, checks on incoming goods including “If the vaccines are sufficiently good, election was fraudulent. Peru’s electoral unsavory refuse and giant trucks blast- food and animal products. we should not see this pattern,” said Jin authorities have found no evidence of ing their horns at night and getting Currently, the site, which covers 66 Dongyan, a virologist at the University fraud, and there is no reason to doubt stranded on tiny rural roads. acres, is around half as busy as ex- of Hong Kong. “The Chinese have a re- their independence. International But the real problem starts like clock- pected, but already there are problems. sponsibility to remedy this.” observers and election experts have work each evening when hundreds of “Of about 1,000 lorries a day coming Scientists don’t know for certain why also concluded that the election was floodlights from the giant parking lot il- into the Inland Border Facility there are some countries with relatively high in- clean. Nevertheless, the Fujimori camp luminate the skyline so much that, on two or three lorries a week trying to ac- oculation rates are suffering new out- has begun what amounts to an electoral one recent night, a dramatic bolt of sum- cess it through an unauthorized route: breaks. Variants, social controls that are coup attempt, pushing Peru’s democra- mer lightning looked like a faint flicker. every time that happens it causes angst eased too quickly and careless behavior cy to the brink of collapse. Five years after Britons voted to and aggravation,” said Mr. Bartlett, who after only the first of a two-shot regimen Rather than find votes for herself, like leave the European Union, the after- added that some truck drivers who had are possibilities. But the breakthrough Mr. Trump sought to do, Ms. Fujimori is shocks are still being registered. But few relieved themselves inside their cabs infections could have lasting conse- trying to make her opponent’s votes parts of the country have felt its impact had discarded bottles filled with urine. quences. disappear. A team of lawyers sent to more than this corner of England close Liz Wright, a Green Party councilor, has decried the pollution connected to the truck lot, “It happens, I don’t understand it,” he In the United States, about 45 percent hunt for irregularities in Mr. Castillo’s to its Channel ports and the white cliffs which replaced “wildflowers, wildlife and trees.” But she still supports Brexit. said, “why chuck it out of the window of the population is fully vaccinated, rural strongholds uncovered 802 elec- of Dover, where a majority voted for when you know you can walk it to a mostly with doses made by Pfizer-BioN- tion records each containing 200 to 300 Brexit. bin?” Tech and Moderna. Cases have dropped votes, which they sought to have an- When Britain was inside the Euro- “For people living nearby it’s an abso- nored, he said. Yet, so polarized is the If Britain were experiencing any 94 percent over six months. nulled based on minor technical irregu- pean Union, the trucks that flowed lute catastrophe with the night sky com- debate over an issue that divided the widespread “Bregret” — regret about Israel provided shots from Pfizer and larities. In total, Ms. Fujimori seeks to ceaselessly to and from France did so pletely lit up. Honestly, it’s like country, that Mr. Fletcher thinks few supporting Brexit — this should be the has the second-highest vaccination rate LEVITSKY, PAGE 10 with few checks. But Brexit has brought Heathrow Airport,” said Geoffrey minds have changed on Brexit. place to find it given the litany of com- in the world, after the Seychelles. The a blizzard of red tape, requiring the gov- Fletcher, chairman of the parish council “I have not met anybody who has said plaints. number of new daily confirmed Covid-19 The New York Times publishes opinion ernment to build the checkpoint nick- at Mersham (pronounced “Merzam”). they would vote differently,” said Mr. Yet opposition to the border check- cases per million in Israel is now 4.95. from a wide range of perspectives in named the “Farage garage,” a reference Consultation on the 24-hour truck Fletcher, a Brexit voter, over coffee at point has been muted because the land In the Seychelles, which relied mostly hopes of promoting constructive debate to the pro-Brexit campaigner Nigel parking lot had been minimal and sug- his home, a former farmhouse that dates had been earmarked for development, on Sinopharm, that number is more about consequential questions. Farage. gestions on how to limit problems ig- partly from the 15th century. BREXIT, PAGE 2 COVID, PAGE 7

I cracked Zodiac killer code, French sleuth says

ARGENTEUIL, FRANCE ’70s, he thought, “Why not me?” The ciphers had long baffled cryptog- raphers, law enforcement agents and amateur sleuths obsessed with the un- Business consultant claims identified serial killer with a penchant to have solved 50-year-old for ciphers. Half a century of unsuccess- ful research had led many to believe that KARA SWISHER DOESN’T mystery that stymied police the identity of the Zodiac killer would DO EASY INTERVIEWS. forever remain a mystery. Numerous BY CONSTANT MÉHEUT sleuths have claimed to have figured out the mystery through various techniques Fayçal Ziraoui loves a good challenge. over the decades, but have had their the- As a teenager, he designed 3-D anima- ories debunked. tions. In 2018, he completed an Ironman But two weeks after embarking on his race. More recently, he developed virtu- quest, Mr. Ziraoui said, he had cracked al reality software that allows people to the two remaining ciphers — including experience life in a space capsule. one revealing the killer’s identity — by “I’ve never set limits on what I can using an encryption key that came to learn,” Mr. Ziraoui, a 38-year-old light only in December and creative A new Opinion podcast French-Moroccan business consultant, code-cracking techniques. about power. said in an interview at his home in the In excitement, he began posting mes- Paris suburb of Argenteuil. sages and videos online on some of the nytimes.com/sway And so, when Mr. Ziraoui stumbled dozens of forums called things like “The across an article in a French magazine Zodiac Killer — Unsolved & Unforgot- in December saying that no one had ten” where tens of thousands of amateur ever solved two ciphers attributed to the JAMES HILL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES keyboard sleuths track and debate de- Zodiac killer, who terrorized the San Fayçal Ziraoui believes he has deciphered two codes that the Zodiac serial killer used to tails of one of the most notorious serial Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s and taunt the police and news media in California in the 1960s and ’70s. ZODIAC, PAGE 2

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