The Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea on May 29 has been moved from Istanbul to Porto to allow English fans to travel under COVID-19 restrictions, European soccer’s governing body UEFA said on Thursday.
The final was scheduled for Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium, but Turkey was last week put on Britain’s travel ‘red list’, meaning that no English fans would be able to attend the game. It will now be held in FC Porto’s Estadio do Dragao.
UEFA said that each club would receive 6,000 tickets which are expected to go on sale from today. The final capacity for the match has yet to be confirmed.
There had been discussions over moving the final to London’s Wembley Stadium but UEFA said that despite “exhaustive efforts on the part of the (English) Football Association and the authorities, it was not possible to achieve the necessary exemptions from UK quarantine arrangements.”
“I think we can all agree that we hope never to experience a year like the one we have just endured,” said UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
“Fans have had to suffer more than twelve months without the ability to see their teams live and reaching a Champions League final is the pinnacle of club football.
“To deprive those supporters of the chance to see the match in person was not an option and I am delighted that this compromise has been found,” he added.
Portugal was placed on the UK government’s “green list” from May 17, which means fans of the English clubs will be free to travel to the game.
The country is in the last phase of easing a lockdown and expects to lift travel restrictions from May 17.
Turkish Football Federation officials told Reuters on Wednesday they expected to host the 2023 Champions League which would be part of the Republic’s centenary celebrations
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A joyful Pope Francis greeted a group of about 300 faithful in a Vatican courtyard Wednesday as he resumed his in-person weekly general audience with members of the public for the first time in six months. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the pope’s public audiences last year as the pandemic swept through Italy. He instead taped his weekly message in a Vatican library. He attempted to resume them again in September, only to be forced back into the library when infection rates rose in November. Pope Francis holds the weekly general audience while coronavirus disease restrictions are eased at the Vatican, May 12, 2021.The crowd of about 300 cheered as the pope stepped out of a car that drove him into San Damaso Courtyard at the Vatican. He removed his mask and smiled and waved at the social-distanced group, all of whom had their temperatures checked as they entered the area. As he made his way to the front of the courtyard, the pope greeted a baby, signed a book and put on a red knit Filipino hat given to him by an audience member. In his opening remarks, the pope told the audience how happy he was to be back, face to face, with them. “I will tell you something — it is not nice to speak in front of nothing, to a camera. It is not nice,” he said. Later in the day, he held a private audience with German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass. The 84-year-old pope has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as have all residents of the Vatican. 
 
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Twenty-three people remain hospitalized Wednesday in the Russian city of Kazan following a school shooting that killed nine people, seven of whom were children.  The attack occurred Tuesday morning when a gunman opened fire on a school there.”We have lost seven children … four boys and three girls,” Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of the Republic of Tatarstan, told state TV, according to Reuters.Authorities have said all 23 wounded remain in stable condition and at least eight — three adults and five children — will be transferred to Moscow for further treatment.Men carry a coffin with the body of Elvira Ignatieva, a teacher who was killed in a shooting at a school on Tuesday, in Kazan, Russia, May 12, 2021.Russian officials have promised to pay 1 million rubles to each of the families of those killed and said the payments will be wired by the end of day Wednesday.Wednesday was declared a day of mourning in Tatarstan, the region where Kazan is the capital.The attacker has been identified as a 19-year-old and has been arrested. No details were given by authorities regarding a motive.Russian media has said the gunman was a former student at the school, who called himself “a god” on his Telegram messaging account and promised to “kill a large amount of biomass” on the morning of the shooting. Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said on Telegram that the suspect received a permit for a shotgun less than two weeks ago, and the school he targeted had no security besides a panic button.Attacks on schools are rare in Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the head of the country’s National Guard to revise regulations on the types of weapons available for civilian use.  
 
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German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Wednesday the nation is prepared to roll out a digital “immunity app” to show proof of vaccination for Germans by the end of June.
 
Spahn told reporters the digital certificate is designed to allow people to more easily prove they have been vaccinated and travel to different areas and countries. He said all the standards, interfaces and “technical terms” for the certificate have been agreed to, and after regional testing is complete next month, he expects it to be ready for distribution.
 
The health minister said the goal is for the certificate to be compatible with the certification system currently being developed and debated by the European Union.
 
“If we manage to do this for the EU in the coming weeks, then we’ll likely set a global benchmark,” Spahn said, noting that no other countries have agreed to a system at the national level.
 
Tuesday, the European Parliament began discussing how the certificate could be used. While EU officials want it to allow unconditional entry to member states, some members are balking at surrendering the power to control their own borders.  
 
Spahn said the good news is that COVID-19 infection rates have been dropping for all age groups throughout the country and that vaccinations continue at a steady pace, with at least one-third of the German population having received at least one shot and about 10% fully vaccinated.
 
Speaking at the same news briefing, Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases (RKI) President Lothar Wieler told reporters that schoolchildren and young adults remain the group with the highest infection rates, with over 150 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.
 
RKI reports that as of Tuesday, Germany’s national average infection rate was 115 per 100,000 people.
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An independent panel released a report Wednesday saying the coronavirus pandemic was a “preventable disaster,” exacerbated by a slow and weak World Health Organization (WHO) and lack of global political leadership.
The panel, formed to examine the cause of and response to the pandemic, said that while there had been years of warnings about the threat of pandemics, initial signs of the threat from clinicians in Wuhan, China were not acted on. It said coordinated, global leadership was absent, and global tensions undermined efforts by international, multilateral institutions to take cooperative action.  
The panel also concluded that the international threat warning could have been declared at least a week earlier than it was on January 30, 2020.
Close to 160 million cases have been recorded globally, along with more than 3.3 million deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
The independent panel faulted countries worldwide for their “wait and see” approach, rather than enacting aggressive containment strategies that might have slowed or prevented the crisis. The group also criticized restrictive international health laws that hindered the WHO’s response.
The independent panel was formed last year by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the request of the organization’s membership. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark led the panel.
In its final report, the panel made a series of recommendations, such as creating a global health threats council through the United Nations. It would include heads of state, giving the WHO more power and financial independence and have it work with the World Trade Organization with vaccine-producing countries and manufacturers to quickly reach deals to boost the world’s global supply of coronavirus shots.
The panel also suggested that Tedros, WHO’s current director-general, should be limited to a single seven-year term. As it stands, the WHO chief is elected to a five-year term that can be renewed once.
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Paris begins reopening next week, bringing relief to residents missing its long-shuttered shops, museums, theaters and cafes that make France’s iconic capital so special. Not to mention something more basic—easily accessible toilets. Cecile Briand ducks into a small cement building, tucked inside a northern Paris square. The toilet she’s inspecting is a bit dirty, but no nasty surprises—nothing a little tissue can’t fix. Number one advice walking this city: always bring toilet paper.  Briand is a writer and artist. Also possibly this capital’s best resource on restrooms. Her guidebook Ou Faire Pipi a Paris? — or Where to Pee in Paris — is now in its second edition.   She earned her expertise firsthand— spending hours on the streets researching a separate Lonely Planet guide on Paris walks. Discovering its hidden and not-so-hidden toilets, she says, is another way of discovering the city.Briand checks out a restroom in a small square and pronounces it “correct.” (VOA/Lisa Bryant)Some of Briand’s top picks include the 5th-floor restrooms at the Galeries Lafayette department store —over a terrace with a stunning view of the capital. There’s also the red-carpeted Drouot auction house, and Josephine Baker swimming pool on the Seine River.  Lockdown has shuttered these and many other places — like this public library we pass by.  For the desperate — and less choosy — there are always the city’s 435 sanisettes, elegant-looking steel structures that—despite their automatic cleaning— aren’t always so elegant inside.  Peeing in Paris has been problematic long before coronavirus. The city hall has long been at war against what it calls ‘wild pipi’ — mostly by men — in public spaces. Residents and tourists mocked the environmentally friendly urinals it set up a few years ago— and this public service announcement featuring actors singing through toilet seats. Meanwhile, critics recently launched an online campaign hash tagged #saccageaparis, or “trashed Paris,” blaming the municipal government, fairly or unfairly, for unkempt streets.   Pere Lachaise cemetery, the next stop on Briand’s tour, offers a respite from the controversy. It’s here Frederic Chopin, Honore de Balzac, Jim Morrison and many other famous people are buried. Equally important is its restroom in a little chalet. Visitors Elena and Rosa Marie, from the northern city of Reims, are hunting for the entrance.One of the restrooms at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. (VOA/Lisa Bryant)Elena says it’s very complicated spending time outside in big cities these days. Either you hold off peeing, or you stay at home.  The lockdown has brought Briand’s guide more media attention. She’s now waiting to assess its impact on the city’s toilet landscape — before working on the third edition of Where to to Pee in Paris.  
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Under Kremlin orders, the U.S. Embassy has stopped employing Russians, forcing the embassy to cut its consular staff by 75% and limit many of its services. The order went into effect on Wednesday, bringing the sharply deteriorating U.S.-Russia relationship to an intensely personal level. Because of the cuts, the embassy can offer only very limited services, such as considering “life-and-death” visa applications. That leaves Russian businessmen, exchange students and romantic partners adrift because they won’t be able to obtain visas. Even Americans will be unable to register their newborns or renew their passports. For Anastasia Kuznetsova, a 20-year-old engaged to marry a Californian, it’s a crushing blow. She had already spent about two years seeking a fiancee’s visa. The notoriously laborious process for Russians to get U.S. visas had already been slowed by COVID-19. “I felt destroyed, much more depressed than I was before,” said Kuznetsova, who last saw her fiance in January on a trip to Mexico. “We have no idea when it’s going to continue working and if we will be able to see each other even during these years.” Thomas H V Anthony, an American living in Russia, was already frustrated because of a delay in registering the birth of his daughter, a record of the child’s claim to U.S. citizenship. “My expectation was as things get better with the situation with the pandemic, gradually the consulate would open more and more and more,” he said. “It was a big shock to suddenly get an email from them, about two weeks ago, saying effective on the 11th we will no longer be offering any consular services.” For Anthony, this means his daughter, who was born before the pandemic, will not be able to travel to visit her grandparents in the United States in the foreseeable future. The embassy has made no statements on whether it is taking measures to beef up the consular staff with new employees from the United States. Embassy spokespeople could not be reached for clarification on how the mission will handle other jobs also filled by locals, such as security. An order signed last month by President Vladimir Putin called for creating a list of “unfriendly” countries whose missions could be banned from hiring Russians or third-country nationals. The list includes the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Poland and several other European countries, but the United States is the first for which the ban is being enforced. The move followed U.S. sanctions imposed over Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and involvement in the SolarWind hack of federal agencies. Each country expelled 10 of the other’s diplomats. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the ban on local employees is in line with convention. “We rarely employ any local personnel in the country where our diplomatic mission is. And thus we have the full right to transfer this practice onto the regulations which manage the work of the U.S. Embassy and their general consulate in the Russian Federation,” he said last month. Yulia Kukula, a university student who was accepted for a PhD program in sustainable energy at Arizona State University, may have found a laborious and costly way around the problem of getting her visa to attend university. After searching online for advice from others in her situation, Kukula was able to sign up for an interview for a visa at the U.S. consulate in neighboring Kazakhstan. But that’s a 2,300-kilometer (1,400-mile) trip from Moscow, and the interview isn’t until October. The United States once had three other consulates in Russia — in Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg — which somewhat eased the travel burden for people seeking visas. But those consulates have closed or stopped providing visas amid diplomatic spats in recent years, in what Alexis Rodzianko, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, called “a visa war.” That had already placed a burden on the companies in his chamber whose executives needed to travel. “Now it looks like it’s impossible for the indefinite future,” he said. The travel restrictions of the pandemic have shown that videoconferencing can’t entirely replace the in-person contact of business travel, he said. “They’re especially good for people who already know each other and they’re much less effective for people getting to know each other,” he said. He also sees a larger problem if the visa halt lasts for long. He worries that because the U.S. and Russian governments are adversaries, a lack of contacts between people on both sides could lead to “dehumanization,” adding, “which is very dangerous because that’s what you need to fight a war.” Kuznetsova, who had hoped to celebrate her wedding in the United States this year and had even quit her university in Russia in preparation for the move, feels trapped as a small piece in a large geopolitical dispute. “I understand that there can be problems between countries, it’s normal, it’s happened throughout all of history, but it’s not normal to divide people and separate them, especially when it’s families and the lives of people,” she said. 
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Russia has denied involvement in the cyberattack that crippled Colonial Pipeline, a critical artery for almost half of the U.S. East Coast’s fuel supply. While the Biden administration has taken steps to address gasoline shortages, drivers are beginning to see higher prices at the pump. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.  
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Among the many stories of World War Two, Nazi Germany’s Siege of Leningrad —  the Soviet city now known as Russia’s Saint Petersburg —  stands among the most harrowing. It also helped shape the world we live in today, as Charles Maynes reports for VOA, from St. Petersburg.Camera: Ricardo Marquina Montañana
 
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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth delivered the official Opening of Parliament speech Tuesday, her first ceremonial appearance since the death of her husband, Prince Philip.The speech, traditionally a large-scale event full of pageantry in which the queen opens the new parliament, was scaled back considerably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the queen wearing a day dress instead of the usual robes and crown.The queen presented Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s agenda, focusing on economic recovery and development in a post-pandemic Britain. Johnson’s Conservative majority party made gains in regional elections late last week and is expected to press that advantage by pushing through reforms sidelined by the pandemic in the past year.  The queen outlined several bills the government hopes to pass during the next year on everything from job creation and strengthening the National Health Service to stripping back post-Brexit bureaucracy.In a speech prepared by Johnson’s cabinet the queen said, “My government’s priority is to deliver a national recovery from the pandemic that makes the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before.”The queen said the government will balance opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom, supporting jobs, businesses and economic growth and addressing the impact of the pandemic on public services.”Much of Tuesday’s “Queen’s Speech” comprised policies and proposals already offered, prompting the opposition Labour Party to challenge the government to turn its “rhetoric into reality.”While Johnson solidified his majority in parliament, last week’s elections also brought him problems in Scotland. There, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s ruling party won a pro-independence vote majority, and she told him Saturday that is not a question of “if, but when” Scotland will hold another referendum on independence from Britain.
 
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As COVID-19 infection rates begin to drop in the region, European Union ministers met in Brussels Tuesday in hopes of reaching an agreement on a “green certificate” travel pass designed to make it easier for fully vaccinated tourists to travel in the continent in time for the summer vacation season.  
The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, first suggested the plan earlier this year, patterned after the so-called “Green Pass” issued in Israel that allows vaccinated people access to certain venues or events.  
In Europe, the commission suggested the certificates would allow EU residents who can prove they have been vaccinated, as well as those who tested negative for the virus or have proof they recovered from it, to move freely around the continent.
The EU parliament wants the COVID-19 certificates to allow easy travel, without member states imposing extra restrictions on certificate holders such as quarantines, tests or self-isolation measures. But border control is something member nations see as a sovereign right, leaving the initiative with hurdles to overcome.  
Speaking to reporters before their meeting, German Europe Minister Michael Roth said solving the issue is “of the utmost importance.” He said, “This is not just important for a few. It is important for all of us because it’s a symbol that means we are able to act together and to send a clear signal for freedom of movement and for mobility in the European Union.”
Roths’s French counterpart, Clement Beaune, expressed confidence a solution can be reached on the travel issue. He said, though, EU coordination in the fight against COVID-19 is essential before summer begins.  
The European Commission predicts about 70 percent of the EU adult population will be vaccinated by the end of the summer. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reports as of Tuesday, almost 32 percent of adults in the EU have received at least one dose of vaccine.
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Former top European Union official Michel Barnier, who led the bloc’s fraught Brexit negotiations, says immigration to France should stop for three to five years and the Schengen system of free movement between member states needs reexamination.  The French politician, who according to some French media outlets is considering challenging Emmanuel Macron in next year’s presidential election, says immigration in the EU is “not working” and that the bloc’s external borders have become a “sieve.” FILE – Kurdish migrants gather to organize their attempt to cross the French border in Claviere, Susa Valley, Alps Region, north-western Italy, Apr. 22, 2021.His remarks, made to a French television station Tuesday, are likely to be seized on by nationalist populists in central and southern European countries that have been increasingly critical of the Schengen system of free movement between member states on the grounds that the bloc’s external borders are porous.  The former French foreign minister told France Television, “I try to look at the problems as they are, in the way the French people live them every day and to find solutions and I think that effectively we need to take some time over three to five years and suspend immigration.” He added: “I’m not talking about students, I’m not talking about refugees who must be treated with humanity and strength, but we need to rebuild the whole process. We need to talk to our neighbors, about the Schengen Agreement, we possibly need to put in stricter border controls.” FILE – A street sign marks the beginning of Schengen zone, Luxembourg, Jan. 27, 2016.He said that it might be necessary to renegotiate Schengen rules and reintroduce cross-border controls for EU citizens. Central European populist leaders, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, have long railed against Schengen, arguing that the absence of strict enforcement of the EU’s external borders has been facilitating a migration crisis.Orban and other Central European populists have declined to participate in EU migrant-burden sharing plan for asylum seekers, largely from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, who have landed on the coasts of southern Europe to be redistributed across the bloc.FILE – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Italy’s League party leader Matteo Salvini pose for a picture after a news conference following their meeting in Budapest, Hungary, Apr. 1, 2021.“If you are willing to repatriate immigrants, we will try to help with repatriation,” Orban said at one summit. “Shared distribution, not. Shared repatriation would be very good.” He rejected the idea migration can lead to cultural enrichment, arguing integration fails and warned migration brings “public safety problems.” Barnier, in his Tuesday comments, also touched on security concerns, saying there are “links” between immigration and “terrorist networks that infiltrate migrational flows.” He cited human trafficking as a major concern, too. The end of bordless travel? The free movement Schengen zone is seen by Europhiles and those backing deeper EU political and economic integration as crucial. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has argued that the bloc’s “linchpin” is a “fully functioning Schengen.”  Barnier, too, was a strong advocate of Schengen and during Brexit negotiations he emphasized that the single market’s “four freedoms” — free movement of goods, capital and people and the freedom to establish and provide services — are indivisible. “Cherry picking is not an option,” he warned at the start of Brexit negotiations in 2016.His remarks Tuesday prompted lively tweets with the chief foreign correspondent of Britain’s Financial Times noting a Brexit “irony.” “If the EU had allowed much milder restrictions on free movement of people, Brexit would probably never have happened,” he noted. Some commentators suggested French presidential ambitions may be behind Barnier’s skepticism about Schengen.   FILE – Migrants and refugees cross the border between Hungary and Austria, near Nickelsdorf, Austria, Sept. 10, 2015.Since leaving the EU bureaucracy in February, the 70-year-old Barnier, a former EU commissioner, has leveled a string of criticisms on how the bloc is functioning and has published a diary of his time as the chief Brexit negotiator. While highly critical of the British government and Britain’s decision to relinquish EU membership, he has warned that, although an “unlikely event,” other member states could decide to quit, saying, “less bureaucracy, more democracy” is needed in Brussels. Last week, he told another French channel, “In Brussels and Paris alike, it is urgent that we demonstrate the added value of the European project. Maybe — and it’s a suggestion I’m making for the upcoming French presidency next year — there will be a need to assess each European competency and policy to see which ones still have an added value and which ones don’t have that anymore. Where competencies ought to be given back to states.” British politician Nigel Farage, a key Brexit figure, joked in response on Twitter that Barnier, who for years has been seen as a europhile hero, is becoming a “euroskeptic.”  EU member states broke with Brussels last year over border controls, which they imposed unilaterally because of the pandemic. EU officials told national governments that they shouldn’t close borders or stop the free movement of people within the Schengen zone without group agreement.  They were ignored. FILE – German police officers guard a closed bridge at the French-German border at the river Rhine in Kehl, Germany, March 16, 2020. German government allowed only restricted access from France to Germany.Some politicians argued last year that the Schengen system of borderless travel may never be fully restored after the coronavirus has been suppressed or run its course. Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region, one of Italy’s worst-hit areas, told reporters last year that Europe’s borderless zone was “disappearing as we speak.  Schengen no longer exists,” he said. “It will be remembered only in the history books,” he predicted.  
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A rocket attack on a Turkish military supply convoy in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province has killed one soldier and wounded four others, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. Turkish forces retaliated to the attack by firing on targets they identified in the region, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. It did not elaborate or say who was responsible for the attack late Monday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said a roadside bomb exploded when a Turkish convoy of seven vehicles was passing on a road between the border crossing point of Bab al-Hawa and the Syrian border village of Kfar Lousin. The Observatory said one of the vehicles suffered a direct hit. Ambulances, it said, rushed to the areas to evacuate Turkish troops who suffered injuries. It added that Turkish troops cordoned off the area for some time preventing people from reaching it. Last year, Turkey and Russia reached a cease-fire agreement that stopped a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive on Idlib – the last major rebel stronghold in Syria. Despite sporadic violations, the agreement has held since then. Russia is the Syrian government’s main military ally, while Turkey has backed the Syrian opposition.
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Seven children were shot and killed at a school in southwest Russia Tuesday, Russian officials said.At least one teacher was also killed in the incident in the city of Kazan, capital of the Tartarstan republic, located more than 800 kilometers east of Moscow.  Four boys and three girls were among those killed.  Initial reports from state-owned RIA news agency said 11 students had been killed. News reports say some students were able to escape the building during the attack.  Authorities say at least 21 others were wounded, including at least a dozen children.  Several emergency vehicles were deployed to the school.  Rustam Minnikhanov, the governor of Tartarstan, told reporters a 19-year-old man he described as a “terrorist” has been arrested in the shooting.  Mass shootings are a rare event in Russia.  The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin has ordered a review of gun control laws in the aftermath of Tuesday’s deadly shooting. 
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Mosques across Turkey broadcast prayers Monday in support of Palestinians injured in violent confrontations with Israeli police in Jerusalem. The unrest, which coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, comes amid the possible eviction of Palestinians from east Jerusalem homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers.Also Monday, hundreds of people, many waving Palestinian flags, massed in front of Israel’s consulate in Istanbul in protest of Israeli police actions around the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. Witnesses reported Israeli security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades at Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom threw rocks at police.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during an event in Ankara, May 8, 2021. In a speech late Saturday, Erdogan, strongly condemned violence in Jerusalem.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communication chief, Fahrettin Altun, Monday tweeted, “It’s time to stop Israel’s heinous and cruel attacks.”His comments come two days after Erdogan denounced Israel.”Israel, the cruel terrorist state, attacks the Muslims in Jerusalem, whose only concern is to protect their homes and their sacred values, in a savage manner devoid of ethics,” Erdogan said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel “will continue to maintain freedom of worship for all faiths, but we will not allow violent disturbances.” The Israeli leader told a cabinet meeting that he had met with security officials and vowed to “enforce law and order decisively and responsibly.” Ankara had been looking to repair strained relations with Israel as part of a broader strategy to end its regional isolation. Both countries withdrew ambassadors in 2018 over Israel’s crackdown on protests by Palestinians.Relations also soured in 2010 after Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-owned ship that was part of a flotilla trying to break an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nine pro-Palestinian activists aboard were killed.Turkish presidential adviser Mesut Casin, while condemning the recent violence, says a reset in bilateral ties is still possible but says Washington needs to act.”This is unacceptable during the prayers of the Muslims in the very important religious time, during the Ramazan (Ramadan); it is an unacceptable situation,” Casin said. “So the radical groups do not want to normalize Turkey-Israel relations. However, Turkey-Israel economic relations are in good condition; why we not do change to normalize diplomatic relations. This depends also on a little bit of Washington to control some of the unlawful actions.”  The United States has voiced concern over the violence in Israel, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking by phone Sunday with Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat, according to the White House. A statement said Sullivan expressed the Biden administration’s commitment to Israel’s security and to supporting peace and stability throughout the Middle East.
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European and Chinese leaders are urging swift ratification of the trade deal they agreed to in December, after tensions over accusations of human rights abuses in China delayed approval of the deal by European Union lawmakers.  The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) took seven years of negotiations and was finally agreed to in principle December 30, 2020, following a virtual summit between EU and Chinese leaders. Europe said it was the most ambitious trade deal China had ever undertaken with a third party.  However, EU Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said last week that efforts to get the deal ratified by lawmakers in the European Parliament had been halted.  FILE – European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis speaks at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, March 10, 2021.“We have … for the moment suspended some efforts to raise political awareness on the part of the commission, because it is clear that in the current situation, with the EU sanctions against China and the Chinese counter-sanctions, including against members of the European Parliament, the environment is not conducive to the ratification of the agreement,” Dombrovskis told Agence France-Presse on May 4.  The suspension follows tit-for-tat sanctions imposed over China’s treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province.  The United States, along with several other Western states, has described the treatment of the Uyghur population as genocide. Washington imposed sanctions on several Beijing officials in March. Officials had also voiced reservations over the China-EU trade deal.  The EU followed days later with its own measures, targeting four Chinese officials linked to Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang.  China retaliated by sanctioning five lawmakers in the European Parliament — the very body tasked with approving the trade deal — said Alicia García-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, who spoke to VOA from Hong Kong.  “At the end of the day, the ratification happens at the European Parliament. So, in a way, the target of the sanctions was somehow too involved in the decision to ratify,” García-Herrero said.  She added that tensions between China and Europe over Xinjiang and the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong mean ratification of the trade deal looks unlikely anytime soon. Beijing denies any persecution of the Uyghur population and has urged Western nations to stop interfering in what it calls the “internal affairs” of Hong Kong.  Market expansionAnalysts say the CAI could benefit German carmakers who already have a strong presence in China and are looking to expand the production and sales of electric vehicles.  FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel takes her seat during the weekly cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, May 5, 2021.Speaking May 5, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the trade deal should not be abandoned.  “Despite all the difficulties that we will certainly encounter in ratification, it is nevertheless a very important initiative that opens up greater reciprocity in access to our reciprocal markets,” Merkel told reporters.  The agreement was meant to open China’s huge market to European companies and provide greater transparency. From the beginning, many in Europe saw the deal as deeply flawed, García-Herrero said.  “Every single piece of market access that Europe was getting, when you read the details, it’s not actually as big,” she said.  Garcia-Herrero added that the investment deal is a key part of China’s expansion plans.  “Europe is kind of the one and only big developed economic area where China can still buy companies,” she said.  Beijing is pushing Europe to ratify the agreement.  “The China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment aims to be mutually beneficial, to be beneficial to China, to (the) European Union and to the world,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters last Thursday. “China is willing to communicate and cooperate with (the) EU to promote the realization of the deal as early as possible, to benefit people from both sides and to positively signal to the international community that China supports maintaining an open economy.”   Meanwhile, the EU has unveiled separate plans to block foreign companies that are supported by state subsidies from buying European businesses or bidding for public contracts. Analysts say that would impact Chinese state-backed companies looking to expand in Europe.   
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One of Britain’s most wanted fugitives, a 35-year-old suspected of involvement in a plot to traffic huge quantities of cocaine, has been arrested in Dubai, authorities said Sunday. Michael Paul Moogan, from Liverpool, had been on the run for eight years since a raid on a Rotterdam cafe that is suspected of being a front for meetings between drug traffickers and cartels. The cafe was “central to a plot to bring hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the U.K. every week,” Dubai police said in a statement. Moogan used different identities to elude capture and entered the emirate under a false name and nationality.  After he was tracked down, he was put under surveillance before being taken into custody April 21.  “This arrest is the result of years of investigation involving a range of law enforcement partners in the U.K., Europe and Middle East,” Nikki Holland, director of investigations at the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA), said in a statement. The NCA said it had targeted Moogan and his associates over suspicions they were involved in plans to import drugs from Latin America to the European Union.  Its investigators linked Moogan and two other British men to Rotterdam’s Café de Ketel, which was open to the public but could only be entered via a security system. At the time of the raid, only one of the men, Robert Hamilton, a 71-year-old from Manchester, could be found, it said. He was jailed for eight years in 2014.  “The other man, Robert Gerard, 57, from Liverpool, handed himself in to the NCA after three years on the run, claiming the pressure was too much,” the NCA said, adding that Gerard was sentenced to 14 years. “We are extremely grateful to those partners for their assistance in ensuring Moogan now faces justice,” Holland said. “He will be returned to the United Kingdom to face trial.”
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More than 1,200 migrants in several decrepit, overcrowded fishing boats on Sunday reached a tiny Italian island in a span of 12 hours, as human traffickers exploited calm seas and warm weather to launch multiple vessels, the mayor said. The first of the migrants arrived at 5 a.m., Lampedusa Mayor Salvatore Martello told Sky TG24 TV at 5 p.m. It was the biggest number of migrants to come ashore this year in a single day at an Italian port. “I’ve said all you need is a day of good weather to see (all) these boats,” Martello said. He appealed to Premier Mario Draghi to put migration on the agenda even as the government is heavily focused on guiding Italy’s economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. By late afternoon, at least nine boats full of migrants disembarked on the island, which has an initial processing center for migrants coming ashore and requesting asylum. Italian news reports said Italian coast guard and customs police boats escorted the vessels to Lampedusa after they were spotted in the Mediterranean a few kilometers offshore. The island, which lives off tourism and fishing, is closer to northern Africa than to the Italian mainland. A newspaper in Sicily, Il Giornale di Sicilia, said they arrived on wooden or metal boats. Many the migrants were reported to be from Bangladesh and Tunisia. Most of those reaching Lampedusa were men, but there were some women and children, including a newborn, the newspaper said.  Late spring, when weather is generally good, has seen Libya-based migrant traffickers launch many unseaworthy vessels toward European shores. In recent years there have been surges in the number of migrant arrivals, either being rescued at sea, escorted by military vessels or sailing unassisted directly to Italian shores when seas are calm. In recent years, a few thousand migrants rescued at sea arrived in one day.  Right-wing leader Matteo Salvini, whose anti-migrant League party is part of Draghi’s coalition government, pressed Draghi to take action. “A meeting with Draghi is needed, with millions of Italians in difficulty we can’t think about thousands of clandestine” migrants, Salvini tweeted. He added that some 12,000 migrants have arrived so far this year, many in recent weeks. The last few governments before Draghi have insisted, largely in vain, that fellow European Union nations take in more of the migrants that step ashore in Italy. Many of the migrants, including those rescued at sea by charity boats, cargo ships or military vessels in the waters north of Libya, are economic migrants who are unlikely to be granted asylum.  Because Italy has so few repatriation agreements with countries whose citizens seek asylum, many of the migrants wind up staying in Europe, some of them heading north from Italy to other countries.
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The leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, has vowed to start the push for a second referendum on Scottish independence as her party made major gains in elections this weekend for Scotland’s devolved Parliament, but fell short by one seat of securing an overall majority. Sturgeon is wasting no time in laying down the gauntlet to London. She told Britain’s ruling Conservatives not to pick a fight with the Scots and not to seek to obstruct an independence referendum she aims to hold before the end of 2023. Hailing the election result as “historic,” and highlighting the fact that the SNP had won more votes and a higher share votes cast than any party since Scottish devolution in 1999, she said, “To any Westminster politician who tries to stand in the way of that, I would say you’re not picking a fight with the SNP, you’re picking a fight with the democratic wishes of the Scottish people. “The only people who can decide the future of Scotland,” she added, “are the Scottish people, and no Westminster politician can or should stand in the way of that.” Election staff members count votes for the Scottish parliamentary election at a counting center in Glasgow, Scotland, May 8, 2021.Despite failing to secure an overall parliamentary majority, Sturgeon can count on the backing of the Scottish Greens, which will give her control of 72 seats in the 129-seat parliament, sufficient to pass legislation authorizing an independence plebiscite.  The Scottish Parliament oversees public services, education and policing north of the English border, but has no powers over defense and foreign affairs issues. Scots voted in 1997 to transfer some powers from the British Parliament in London. The stage is now set for a monumental struggle between Edinburgh and London, one that could herald the breakup of the United Kingdom, which itself would have untold international repercussions for Britain, politicians and analysts say. Buoyed by his own election triumph in local and regional government elections in England in which his ruling Conservatives routed the main opposition Labour Party in northern England and the Midlands, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for a summit with the leaders of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, saying the United Kingdom is “best served when we work together.” Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at Jacksons Wharf Marina in Hartlepool following local elections, Britain, May 7, 2021.Johnson has consistently expressed uncompromising opposition to holding yet another referendum on Scottish independence. The last plebiscite was held in 2014 when 55% voted to remain part of the U.K. Scotland remains evenly split now on the central issue of secession, according to opinion polls, although a slim majority in most recent surveys appear to back breaking away. Brexit — Britain’s exit from the European Union — is seen as a key driver of support for the SNP. The Scots (and Northern Irish) never wanted to leave the EU and voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum to stay in the bloc, in Scotland’s case overwhelmingly by 62% to 30%. Sturgeon has used Brexit to argue that Scotland should get another opportunity to hold a plebiscite on independence, nicknamed Indyref2. Earlier this year Johnson said there should be a 40-year gap between the first and a second Scottish independence referendum — similar to the interval between British referendums on Europe in 1975 and 2016.  “Referendums in my experience, direct experience, in this country are not particularly jolly events,” he told the BBC. “They don’t have a notably unifying force in the national mood, they should be only once-in-a-generation,” he added. FILE – A Yes campaign sign for the Scottish independence referendum stands backdropped by Edinburgh Castle, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Sept. 18, 2014.The British parliament would have to endorse holding another referendum, according to constitutional lawyers. However, the SNP is exploring legal avenues, and a prolonged struggle in the courts and acrimonious political tussle is in the offing. The SNP has steered clear of suggesting it would call a wildcat referendum along the lines of what Catalonian separatists did in Spain in 2017, which triggered a violent standoff between Madrid and Barcelona. Nationalists currently recognize that a nonlegal vote could easily be sabotaged by a boycott campaign the British government would almost certainly mount that would call on union-supporting Scots to ignore the vote. Nonetheless, Britain seems likely to be thrust into another time-consuming and energy-sapping political and constitutional fight just as it is trying to plot a new diplomatic and trade course for itself in the wake of Brexit, analysts and U.S. diplomats say.  U.S. officials say privately they are concerned with the prospect of Britain, a key foreign-policy and defense ally, being preoccupied by more domestic upheaval. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is banking on London to assist it in strengthening Western democracy.  There are also Washington worries about the implications for Britain in the event that Scotland does break away. A diminished Britain might struggle to keep its permanent U.N. Security Council seat and there are major questions about what would happen to Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines, based in Scotland. Opponents of Scottish independence are seizing on the SNP’s failure to win an outright parliamentary majority to argue against Sturgeon’s aim of holding a second independence referendum. “Her failure to win an overall majority reduces her ability to claim a mandate for a second independence referendum,” argued Sunday Times columnist Alex Massie. “The SNP has won another battle, but the war goes on and the path to a fresh plebiscite on the national question is neither clear nor easy,” he wrote. “The SNP strategy,” he added, “is clear and built for the long term: depict Boris Johnson as an ‘overlord’ and the unionist parties as ‘democracy deniers’ frustrating the manifest preferences of the Scottish people. This is, the nationalists suggest, less an argument about the merits of independence than one about basic democratic principles.” Speaking on Britain’s Sky News, Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, would not say whether the British government would challenge in the courts a move by the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum in court.  “We are not going to go there. It’s not an issue for the moment,” he said. He said there are more important priorities for the U.K. “The priority for politicians has to be the recovery from the pandemic,” he said, adding, “instead of concentrating on the things that divide, let’s concentrate on the things that unite.” 
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  Russia showed off its military might with parades across the country on Sunday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. President Vladimir Putin reviewed the main Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square, featuring some 12,000 troops, nearly 200 pieces of military hardware, and aircraft and helicopter flyovers. Putin watched the display with Soviet war veterans from a review platform. Since coming to power two decades ago, Putin has sought either as president or prime minister to restore symbols of the Soviet and Russian past to boost patriotism. Russian President Putin takes part in a commemoration ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Victory Day, in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2021. (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via Reuters)Putin, during his address on the 76th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, vowed that Russia will defend its national interests and denounced what he asserted was the return of “Russophobia.” “We will firmly defend our national interests to ensure the safety of our people,” Putin said. This year’s parade comes as the ruling United Russia party faces parliamentary elections in September, with polls showing declining support for the pro-Kremlin party to 27 percent. 
 
Russia’s relations with the West have also nosedived over everything from the fate of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny to the conflict in Ukraine. 
 
In recent weeks, the United States and Russia have expelled each other’s diplomats in a series of retaliatory moves, while Moscow and EU member states been involved in similar tit-for-tat diplomatic disputes. 
 
The military parades come after Russia recently deployed more than 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and in annexed Crimea. The buildup prompted alarm in Western capitals over Moscow’s intentions amid an uptick in fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east. 
 
Russia has since withdrawn most of the troops but left behind some military equipment and continues to conduct naval exercises in the Black Sea. 
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President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for bringing France out of the pandemic aren’t just about resuscitating long-closed restaurants, boutiques and museums. They are also about preparing his possible campaign for a second term.A year before the next presidential election, Macron is focusing on saving jobs and reviving the pandemic-battered French economy as his country inches out of its third partial lockdown.The centrist president’s ability to meet the challenge will be significant for his political future and for France — which is among the world’s worst-hit nations with the fourth-highest number of reported COVID-19 cases and the eighth-highest death toll at more than 106,000.While he has not officially declared his candidacy, Macron has made comments suggesting he intends to seek reelection. And he has pushed recent legislation on issues that potential rivals on the right and the left hold dear, from security to climate change.Pollsters suggest Macron, who four years ago became the youngest president in French history, has a good chance of winning the presidency again in 2022 despite his government’s oft-criticized management of the pandemic and earlier challenges to his policies, from activists protesting what they see as social and economic injustice to unions angry over retirement reforms.An Existential Choice? France’s Communist Party Eyes Presidential Race Leader Fabien Roussel says he wants to offer a program of hope  The coronavirus reopening strategy Macron unveiled this month calls for most restrictions on public life to be lifted June 30, when half of France’s population is expected to have received at least one vaccine shot. With up to 3 million people in France getting vaccinated each week, the government plans to allow outdoor areas of restaurants and cafes, as well as museums and nonessential shops, to resume operating on May 19.In an interview with French media, Macron said he would visit France’s regions over the summer “to feel the pulse of the country” and to engage with people in a mass consultation aimed at “turning the page of that moment in the nation’s life.”“No individual destiny is worthwhile without a collective project,” he said, giving the latest hint about a potential reelection bid.At the moment, all opinion polls show Macron and Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader he beat in a presidential runoff election in 2017, again reaching the runoff next year. The polls also forecast that Macron would defeat National Rally leader Le Pen again, though by a smaller margin.Macron, 43, a former economy minister under his predecessor, Socialist President Francois Hollande, has characterized his policies as transcending traditional left-right divides. He was elected on a promise to make the French economy more competitive while preserving the country’s welfare system.Macron’s government includes major figures previously belonging to conservative party The Republicans, including his prime minister and the finance and interior ministers.French politics expert Luc Rouban, a senior researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research. said the president’s immediate goal “is to show he is still able to continue implementing his project, which has more or less been stopped by the health crisis.”Macron’s recent priorities demonstrate he also is trying to attract voters from the moderate right and the moderate left, the same ones who helped him win the first time, Rouban said.Macron is “undermining the field of The Republicans by strengthening security laws, taking measures to protect the French against terrorism, reinforcing security also in urban areas, increasing police and justice staff,” he said.At the same time, Macron needs to show he is addressing inequality, economic mobility and other social justice issues that are important to France’s left wing, Rouban said.Last month, the president decided to do away with France’s elite graduate school for future leaders, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration. He said his alma mater would be replaced with a more egalitarian institution.In the French newspapers interview, Macron also praised the country’s benefits for low-income workers, who since 2019 have received up to 100 additional euros ($120) per month.Macron’s public image appears to have partially recovered from drubbing it took at the height of the “yellow vest” movement, which started in late 2018 to oppose a fuel tax and grew into a weekly anti-government protest targeting alleged social and economic injustice. At the time, critics angry over Macron eliminating a wealth tax labeled him the “president of the rich.”But Macron’s popularity in recent months has remained relatively stable, with an approval rating between 30% and 46%, higher than his predecessors Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy had after four years in office.Frédéric Dabi, deputy director-general of the polling organization IFOP, said Macron’s support appears “very solid.” Polls show his policies are satisfying most of his 2017 supporters, and 30% to 50% of voters from the traditional right- and left-wing parties.During the virus crisis, Macron applied a “whatever it takes” strategy based on state intervention to save jobs and businesses, including a massive partial unemployment program and subsidized child care leave. The government also approved a two-year 100 billion-euro ($120 billion) rescue plan to revive the economy.Macron promised there would be no tax increases to repay the debt, which soared last year to 115.7% of gross domestic product.Despite strong opposition from unions about planned changes to the pension system and unemployment benefits, he has pledged to keep reforming “until the last quarter of hour” of his five-year term, which runs out in May 2022.Recent polls show no strong rival emerging so far from mainstream French parties amid divisions on both the right and the left. But at this stage, the field remains wide open.As Macron himself proved in 2017, when he shot from a wild-card candidate to the presidency in less than four months, anything could happen in the next year.
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An Italian judge murdered by the mafia in Sicily takes a step towards sainthood Sunday, almost three decades after being declared a martyr by pope John Paul II.The beatification of Rosario Livatino will take place in the cathedral in Agrigento, the Sicilian town near where he was gunned down aged 38 on September 21, 1990.In a preface to a new book about the judge, Pope Francis hailed him as a “righteous man who knew he did not deserve that unjust death”.An undated photo obtained from Italian news agency Ansa shows Italian judge Rosario Livatino.Livatino, who prayed in church every day before going to court, had been involved in a mass trial against mafioso and was about to launch a new case when he died.He was found in a ditch by the roadside a few miles from his home. He had refused armed protection.Many of his notes were later found to be marked STD, for “sub tutela Dei”, a Latin invocation meaning “under the protection of God” which judges of the Middle Ages used before taking official decisions.The notes also showed he asked God’s forgiveness for the risks his work exposed his parents to, once he learned that the bosses of the Cosa Nostra had him in their sights.When John Paul II visited Livatino’s parents in 1993, he said the judge was “a martyr for justice and indirectly for the faith”.Under Church law, if martyrdom is established, then beatification — the penultimate accolade before canonization — moves ahead quickly without the proof of miracles required of other candidates for sainthood.The two mafia members who killed Livatino, identified by a man who drove past at the moment of the crime, were given life sentences.’Blasphemous’Livatino was one of the first investigating magistrates in Italy who moved to seize assets belonging to the mafia, according to Luigi Ciotti, a priest known for his own fight against organized crime.”He understood that would lead to a weakening of the clans, their loss of control and also of social control,” Ciotti wrote in another biography of the murdered judge.Today, a cooperative of young people bears Livatino’s name and cultivates land confiscated from the Sicilian mafia.Less than two years after Livatino’s death, anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were also murdered by the mob. Since he was elected pope in 2013, Francis has spoken out repeatedly against organized crime groups. In an open-air mass in Sicily in September 2018, during a trip to honor a priest killed by the mafia 25 years earlier, the Argentine pontiff condemned those who belong to the mafia as “blasphemous”.”You can’t believe in God and belong to the mafia,” he said.His impassioned plea echoed the words of John Paul II who, during his May 1993 trip to the island, had also called on mobsters to abandon crime, and urged Sicilians to revolt against the mafia. 
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Pro-independence parties won a majority in Scotland’s parliament on Saturday, paving the way to a high-stakes political, legal and constitutional battle with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the future of the United Kingdom.Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the result meant she would push ahead with plans for a second independence referendum once the COVID-19 pandemic was over, adding that it would be absurd and outrageous if Johnson were to try to ignore the democratic will of the people.”There is simply no democratic justification whatsoever for Boris Johnson, or indeed for anyone else, seeking to block the right of the people of Scotland to choose our own future,” Sturgeon said.”It is the will of the country,” she added after her Scottish National Party (SNP) was returned for a fourth consecutive term in office.The British government argues Johnson must give approval for any referendum and he has repeatedly made clear he would refuse. He has said it would be irresponsible to hold one now, pointing out that Scots had backed staying in the United Kingdom in a “once in a generation” poll in 2014.The election outcome is likely to be a bitter clash between the Scottish government in Edinburgh and Johnson’s United Kingdom-wide administration in London, with Scotland’s 314-year union with England and Wales at stake.The nationalists argue that they have democratic authority on their side; the British government says the law is on its side. It is likely the final decision on a referendum will be settled in the courts.’Irresponsible and reckless'”I think a referendum in the current context is irresponsible and reckless,” Johnson told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.Alister Jack, the U.K. government’s Scotland minister, said dealing with the coronavirus crisis and the vaccine rollout should be the priority.”We must not allow ourselves to be distracted — COVID recovery must be the sole priority of Scotland’s two governments,” he said.FILE – The Scotland-England border is shown at Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Scotland, May 4, 2021.The SNP had been hopeful of winning an outright majority, which would have strengthened its call for a secession vote, but it looked set to fall one seat short of the 65 required in the 129-seat Scottish parliament, partly because of an electoral system that helps smaller parties.Pro-union supporters argue that the SNP’s failure to get a majority has made it easier for Johnson to rebut its argument that it has a mandate for a referendum.However, the Scottish Greens, who have promised to support a referendum, picked up eight seats, meaning overall there will be a comfortable pro-independence majority in the Scottish assembly.Divided about plebisciteScottish politics has been diverging from other parts of the United Kingdom for some time, but Scots remain divided over holding another independence plebiscite.However, Britain’s exit from the European Union,  opposed by a majority of Scots; a perception that Sturgeon’s government has handled the COVID-19 crisis well; and antipathy to Johnson’s Conservative government in London have all bolstered support for the independence movement.Scots voted 55%-45% in 2014 to remain part of the United Kingdom, and polls suggest a second referendum would be too close to call.Sturgeon said her first task was dealing with the pandemic and the SNP has indicated that a referendum is unlikely until 2023. But she said any legal challenge by Johnson’s government to a vote would show a total disregard for Scottish democracy.”The absurdity and outrageous nature of a Westminster government potentially going to court to overturn Scottish democracy, I can’t think of a more colorful argument for Scottish independence than that myself,” she said.
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Seven people died Saturday in two avalanches in the French Alps, according to authorities who had warned Friday of the instability of the snowpack because of warmer temperatures.The first fatal slide was triggered late in the morning in the town of Valloire in the sector of the Col du Galibier at 2,642 meters above sea level. Four people, aged 42 to 76 and from the surroundings of Grenoble, were killed.Two groups of hikers, composed of three and two people, were swept away and only one of them survived, found in good health by the emergency services.Six soldiers from the High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM), two helicopters and two avalanche dogs had been hired to search for the victims.The second avalanche occurred around 2 p.m. in the Mont Pourri sector, which rises to 3,779 meters in the Vanoise massif, on the other side of the department. Three people died, according to the prefecture.The authorities had warned Friday that the risk of avalanches was “particularly high” this weekend, as temperatures have softened after heavy snowfall on the mountains in recent days.”With weather like today’s, it’s tempting to go out in the mountains, but it’s also extremely tricky,” Valloire Mayor Jean-Pierre Rougeaux told AFP by phone.Five people had already died Monday in two avalanches in Isère and in the Hautes-Alpes.Since the start of the 2020-21 season, before the avalanches on Saturday, 28 people had already died in similar conditions, according to the National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches (Anena), which publishes each year of accident statistics.
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