Police opened fire on protesters in rioting that erupted in downtown Rotterdam around a demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions late Friday night. The Dutch city’s mayor called it “an orgy of violence.”

Police said that two rioters were hospitalized after being hit by bullets, and investigations were underway to establish if they were shot by police. The condition of the injured rioters was not disclosed.

Officers arrested 51 people, about half of them minors, police said Saturday afternoon. One police officer was hospitalized with a leg injury sustained in the rioting, another was treated by ambulance staff and “countless” others suffered minor injuries.

Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told reporters in the early hours of Saturday morning that “on a number of occasions the police felt it necessary to draw their weapons to defend themselves” as rioters ran rampage through the port city’s central shopping district, setting fires and throwing rocks and fireworks at officers. 

“They shot at protesters, people were injured,” Aboutaleb said. He did not have details about the injuries. Police also fired warning shots.

Police combing through video footage from security cameras expect to make more arrests.

Photos from the scene showed at least one police car in flames and another with a bicycle slammed through its windshield.

Riot police and a water cannon restored calm after midnight.

It was one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the Netherlands since coronavirus restrictions were first imposed last year. In January, rioters also attacked police and set fires on the streets of Rotterdam after a curfew came into force.

Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus condemned the events.

“The riots and extreme violence against police officers, riot police and firefighters last night in Rotterdam are disgusting to see,” he said in a statement.

“Protesting is a great right in our society, but what we saw last night is simply criminal behavior. It has nothing to do with demonstrating,” he added.

Police units from around the country raced to Rotterdam to help bring Friday night’s situation under control. Local media reported that gangs of soccer hooligans were involved in the rioting.

Video from social media shown on Dutch broadcaster NOS appeared to show one person being shot in Rotterdam, but there was no immediate word on what happened.

Police said in a tweet it was “still unclear how and by whom” that person was apparently shot. 

An independent investigation into the shootings by police was opened, as is the case whenever Dutch police use their weapons.

The government has said it wants to introduce a law that would allow businesses to restrict the country’s coronavirus pass system to only people who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 — that would exclude people who test negative.

The country has seen record numbers of infections in recent days, and a new partial lockdown came into force a week ago.

Local political party Leefbaar Rotterdam condemned the violence in a tweet.

“The center of our beautiful city has this evening transformed into a war zone,” it said. “Rotterdam is a city where you can disagree with things that happen, but violence is never, never, the solution.”
…

Guillermo Arránz spends his days in a forest hacking into pine trees to extract what is to him, liquid gold.

Some might see it as lonely and backbreaking work, but to Arránz it brings great satisfaction. He is his own boss and spends his days enjoying nature.

Arranz is one of Spain’s resineros, or resin extractors, whose centuries-old practice involves bleeding trees of their milky sap.

This simple practice has taken on fresh importance as Spain struggles to cope without any natural source of energy. Energy analysts say pine resin might be the new petroleum.

Resin can be used to create plastics, varnishes, glues, tires, rubber, turpentine and food additives – much like petroleum.

With an estimated 18 million hectares of woodland, Spain has the largest amount of forested area in Europe after Sweden and Finland. Along with Portugal, it is the world’s third biggest producer of pine resin after China and Brazil.

Spain has been scrambling to explore alternative energy sources especially after Algeria – Spain’s main gas supplier – shut off natural gas deliveries last month through one of two undersea pipelines because of Algeria’s escalating dispute with Morocco.

The Maghreb-Europe pipeline passes through Morocco on its way to Spain. Flows through a second pipeline, the Medgaz pipeline that travels directly from Algeria to Spain, remained uninterrupted. Spanish officials, however, worried they were insufficient to stave off an energy shortage at a time when Spain is already struggling with skyrocketing fuel costs.

To find other sources of energy for the future, Spain’s government has made promoting renewable energies like solar and wind power a pillar of its policy as the world moves away from fossil fuels.

As part of this scheme, Madrid launched a plan in March to restore the economic potential of its forests.

“We must encourage forests to be well cared for and managed because they are a source of job creation and the livelihoods of millions of people around the the world depends on them,” Teresa Ribera, the third vice-president and Environment minister, said recently.

Blanca Rodriguez-Chaves Mimbrero, a law professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid specializing in the protection of natural resources, especially mountains, waters and coasts, believes Spain is well placed to make most of its pine resin which, she says, is of the highest quality in the world.

“Petroleum of the future”

“The world is looking for ways to replace petroleum which will run out probably by the middle of the century. Resin is one way,” she told VOA. “These living forests which consume emissions can provide renewable resources to substitute petroleum products.”

She notes the sticky, fragrant substance is an ingredient in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, glues, varnishes and is also used in construction.

Rodriguez-Chavez also said the pine resin industry, which only provides work for about 1,000 people at present, could help combat rural depopulation, an issue that has taken center stage in Spanish politics.

The work is intrinsically tied to villages in Castilla y Leon in northern Spain and to a lesser extent in Extremadura in the west of the country.

In the past 50 years, Spain’s countryside has lost 28% of its population, according to the National Statistics Office. Only 15% of its inhabitants live in more than half of the Spanish land area.

The Spanish government pledged $11.9 billion in March for measures to improve rural business infrastructure to reverse a trend known as España Vaciada – or “Emptied Spain,” which is also the name of a new political party.

The España Vaciada party, could command 15 seats in the 350-seat lower parliamentary chamber at the next general election in 2023, according to a recent poll for El Español, an online newspaper, possibly making its members kingmakers in a highly divided parliament.

Arránz comes from a family of resineros, who passed the knowledge of how to extract the sap down four generations from his great-grandfather.

“The job is hard work. I work eight hours a day from Monday to Friday. But it gives me a sense of freedom and I can be among nature,” he told VOA.

“The beauty of pine resin is it can be used to make many different things but it is renewable. All these trees will grow back.”

Arránz, who is vice-president of the National Resin Collectors Association, works from February to November, collecting the milky white liquid from the pine trees near his village Navas de Oro in Segovia, north of Madrid.

He collects 20,000 kilograms of resin per year but, realizing he is never going to make his fortune at this job, he supplements his income as a forest engineer.

Each kilogram sells for only $1.14 to the local companies that distill it into material usable for commercial use.

Arránz strips away the outer layer of tree bark, before nailing a plate to the trunk and a collection pot is hooked on it.

He then makes diagonal incisions into the bark and “bleeds” the trees before the resin seeps into the pot.

“It is nice to know that I am kind of farming something which is healthy and can also provide an alternative for the future,” Arránz said.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
…

Hundreds of Kurds who had camped along Belarus’ border for weeks were forced to return home Thursday after failing to enter the European Union. At Irbil International Airport, VOA Kurdish stringer Ahmad Zebari interviewed some of the returnees and filed this report narrated by Namo Abdulla.

Producer and camera: Ahmad Zebari.
…

Crowds of rioters in the port city of Rotterdam torched cars and threw rocks at police, who responded with bullets and water cannons, as protests against COVID-19 measures turned violent Friday night. 

“We fired warning shots and there were also direct shots fired because the situation was life-threatening,” police spokesperson Patricia Wessels told Reuters. 

“We know that at least two people were wounded, probably as a result of the warning shots, but we need to investigate the exact causes further,” she said. 

Some people on social media circulated images of someone they said had been shot by police. Police responded that they had seen the footage but did not yet know how the man was wounded. 

Several hundred people had gathered to voice opposition to government plans to restrict access to indoor venues to people who have “corona passes” showing they have been vaccinated or have recovered from an infection. 

The pass is also available to people who have not been vaccinated but have proof of a negative test. 

Police issued an emergency ordinance in Rotterdam, shutting down public transportation and ordering people to go home. Water cannons were deployed and police on horseback worked to disperse the crowds, police said. 

The authorities also called on bystanders and people who recorded images of the riots to send the footage to police for further investigation. 

The Netherlands reimposed some lockdown measures last weekend for an initial three weeks in an effort to slow a resurgence of coronavirus contagion, but daily infections have remained at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic. 

Video posted on social media showed burned out police cars and rioters throwing fireworks and rocks at police.
…

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili agreed on Friday to end a 50-day prison hunger strike that had raised political tensions in the former Soviet republic and drawn expressions of concern from the United States. 

Saakashvili agreed to end his protest after authorities offered to move him to a military hospital from a prison hospital where an independent rights commissioner had said he was being abused by fellow inmates and not receiving appropriate medical treatment. 

Reuters TV footage showed a convoy including two ambulances departing late on Friday from the prison where Saakashvili, 53, had been held in the capital Tbilisi, en route to the military hospital in the town of Gori. 

In a statement quoted by the Sputnik Georgia news service, the former president said he would resume eating after the transfer but would never accept his “illegal detention.” 

Saakashvili was arrested October 1 after returning from exile to rally the opposition on the eve of local elections. He faces six years in prison after being convicted in absentia in 2018 of abusing his office during his 2004-2013 presidency, charges he rejects as politically motivated. 

Georgia’s human rights commissioner said Wednesday that Saakashvili needed to be moved to intensive care to avoid the risk of heart failure, internal bleeding and coma after more than a month and a half on hunger strike. 

Until Friday, he had insisted on being transferred to a civilian hospital. 

Saakashvili took power via a peaceful “Rose Revolution” in 2003 and carried out pro-Western reforms during his term but led Georgia into a disastrous war with Russia. 

His case has drawn thousands of his supporters onto the streets in recent weeks. 

Georgia President Salome Zourabichvili has said Saakashvili will not be pardoned. The United States on Thursday urged Georgia to treat him “fairly and with dignity” and said it was closely following his situation.
…

British Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday said she had banned the Palestinian militant group Hamas, a move that brought the U.K.’s stance on Gaza’s rulers in line with those of the United States and the European Union. 

“Hamas has significant terrorist capability, including access to extensive and sophisticated weaponry, as well as terrorist training facilities,” Patel said in a statement. “That is why today I have acted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety.” 

The organization would be banned under the Terrorism Act, and anyone expressing support for Hamas, flying its flag or arranging meetings for the organization would be in breach of the law, the Home Office confirmed. Patel is expected to present the change to parliament next week. 

Hamas has political and military wings. Founded in 1987, it opposes the existence of Israel and peace talks, instead advocating “armed resistance” against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. 

Until now Britain had banned only its military arm — the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. 

Hamas political official Sami Abu Zuhri said Britain’s move showed “absolute bias toward the Israeli occupation and is a submission to Israeli blackmail and dictations.” 

In a separate statement, Hamas said, “Resisting occupation by all available means, including armed resistance, is a right granted to people under occupation as stated by the international law.” 

The Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom, which represents President Mahmoud Abbas’ Western-backed Palestinian Authority, also condemned the move. 

Israel lauds move

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett welcomed the decision, saying on Twitter: “Hamas is a terrorist organization, simply put. The ‘political arm’ enables its military activity.” 

Hamas and Israel clashed most recently in a deadly 11-day conflict in May. During the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago, Hamas suicide bombers killed hundreds of Israelis, a campaign publicly backed by its political wing. 

In 2017 Patel was forced to resign as Britain’s international development secretary after she failed to disclose meetings with senior Israeli officials during a private holiday to the country, including then-opposition leader Yair Lapid. 

Lapid, now Israel’s foreign minister, hailed the decision on Hamas as “part of strengthening ties with Britain.” 

Hamas is on the U.S. list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. The European Union also deems it a terrorist movement. 

Based in Gaza, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, defeating its nationalist rival Fatah. It seized military control of Gaza the following year.
…

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced Friday the government will begin a nationwide lockdown Monday and mandate vaccinations for all, making it the first European nation to reimpose COVID-19 measures, as cases throughout the region surge.

At a news conference Friday, Schallenberg said Monday’s lockdown will be reevaluated after 10 days, but they will run a maximum of 20 days, ending automatically December 13. He also announced COVID-19 vaccinations will become mandatory beginning February 1.

The lockdown will include an all-day curfew for the entire country, though schools and kindergartens will remain open. People may leave their homes only for work, school and basic needs, which can include physical exercise or if there is a threat to their health or property.

Schallenberg told reporters substantially increasing vaccination rates “is our only way out of this vicious circle of virus waves and lockdown discussions once and for all. We don’t want a fifth wave, we don’t want a sixth and seventh wave.”

The chancellor said he understands that many people in the country are already vaccinated and also will be subject to the lockdown restrictions, which he blamed on “too many among us have shown a lack of solidarity.”

Despite months of persuasion, he said, the government had not succeeded in convincing enough people to get vaccinated. The latest figures from Europe’s Centers for Disease control show the 64.1% of Austria’s total population is fully vaccinated.

Schallenberg expressed anger at anti-vaccination campaigns that have spread misinformation about the vaccines or promote sham COVID-19 treatments.

“Personally,” he said, “I think it’s irresponsible by certain political forces to exploit this pandemic to divide society and not to put people’s health in the foreground but to endanger it.”

Other European countries also are tightening restrictions as cases surge across the continent.

The government of Hungary, which borders Austria to the east, announced Thursday it is mandating mask-wearing indoors again beginning Saturday.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
…

German health officials said Friday the current COVID-19 situation in the country is a national emergency and called for immediate measures to be taken to mitigate the situation — including lockdowns, even for people who have been vaccinated.

Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases (RKI) reported 52,970 new COVID-19 cases Friday, the third straight day new infections topped 50,000.  The infection incidence rate remains just more than 340 per 100,000.

At a news conference Friday in Berlin, RKI President Lothar Wieler did not hold back his concern, saying, “All of Germany is one big outbreak. This is a nationwide state of emergency. We need to pull the emergency brake.”

Wieler told reporters they estimate there are more than half a million active COVID cases in Germany, the highest number ever recorded. He said among children aged 5-14, the incidence rate is more 700 per 100,000.

At the same news conference, Health Minister Jens Spahn was asked if Germany would consider returning to lockdowns, as neighboring Austria has done to address its own COVID-19 situation. Spahn said, “We shouldn’t rule anything out.”  

Wieler was more emphatic, saying Germany needs to “massively reduce contact to slow down the spread of the virus. This means, for example, staying at home if possible, canceling large events, reducing the number of people at small events, closing down hotspots such as bars and poorly ventilated clubs.”

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Thursday with the governors of Germany’s 16 states, and they agreed to introduce a new threshold linked to the number of hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.

Some states also are considering mandatory vaccinations for some professional groups, such as medical staff and nursing home employees.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
…

Ukraine said Friday that one of its soldiers had been killed by pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, as the West accuses Moscow of a troop build-up near Ukraine.

Kiev’s army has been battling fighters in two breakaway regions bordering Russia since 2014, after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of sending troops and arms across the border to support the separatists — claims Moscow denies.

Kiev’s military said Friday that the separatists had targeted Ukrainian military positions with artillery and mortars.

“As a result of hostilities, one serviceman was fatally wounded,” the military said on Facebook.

Ukraine said on Thursday it was seeking more military aid from its Western allies after they voiced concerns over Russian troop movements along the Ukrainian border.

Social media videos have in recent days shown Russia moving troops, tanks and missiles towards the Ukrainian border, raising concerns over an escalation in the conflict.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week voiced fresh concern about Russian troop movements and warned Moscow against any possible invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin for his part said Thursday that the West is “escalating” the Ukraine conflict by holding drills in the Black Sea and flying bombers near its borders.

After an uptick in violence at the beginning of the year, Russia massed around 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders in the spring, raising fears of a major escalation in the conflict.

Russia later announced a pullback but both Ukraine and its ally the United States said at the time the withdrawal was limited.

The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people.
…

Officials in Belarus have cleared a refugee camp on the Poland-Belarus border where thousands of refugees had hunkered down in the hope of entering the European Union via Poland.

Approximately 2,000 refugees, many of them Middle Eastern, were moved Thursday into a large warehouse, enabling them to escape the freezing cold of the outdoor makeshift encampment.

European Union countries have been watching the developments at the Poland-Belarus border, anxious about the prospect of several thousand migrants entering within their borders.

Meanwhile, several hundred refugees decided Thursday to give up their hope of entering the EU and decided, instead, to take an Iraqi government repatriation flight to Irbil, in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
…

A nonbinary pronoun added to an esteemed French dictionary has ignited a fierce linguistic squabble in the country. 

Le Petit Robert introduced the word “iel” — an amalgamation of “il” (he) and “elle” (she) — to its online edition last month. While the term is gaining currency among young people, it is still far from being widely used, or even understood, by many French speakers. 

Though at first the change went mostly unnoticed, boisterous debate broke out this week in a nation that prides itself on its human rights tradition but that also fiercely protects its cultural heritage from foreign meddling. In one camp are the traditionalists, including some political leaders, who criticize the move as a sign that France is lurching toward an American-style “woke” ideology. In the other is a new generation of citizens who embrace nonbinary as the norm. 

“It is very important that dictionaries include the ‘iel’ pronoun in their referencing as it reflects how the use of the term is now well accepted,” said Dorah Simon Claude, 32, a doctoral student who identifies as “iel.” 

“It is,” Claude added, “also a way of confronting the Academie Francaise that stays in its conservative corner and continues to ignore and scorn users of the French language.” 

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer is not in the same camp. He went to Twitter on Wednesday to say that “inclusive writing is not the future of the French language.” The 56-year-old former law professor warned that schoolchildren should not use “iel” as a valid term despite its inclusion in Le Robert, seen as a linguistic authority on French since 1967. 

Francois Jolivet, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, also made his distaste plain. Nonbinary pronouns are, he suggested, a worrying sign that France is embracing a “woke” ideology. 

Jolivet wrote a letter to the bastion of French language, the 400-year-old Academie Francaise, claiming that Le Robert’s “solitary campaign is an obvious ideological intrusion that undermines our common language and its influence.”

The general director of Le Robert editions, Charles Bimbenet, jumped to the dictionary’s defense Wednesday in a statement. Far from dictating which terms should be used, he said, Le Petit Robert was elucidating the word’s meaning, now that it is growing in currency nationwide. 

Since “the meaning of the word ‘iel’ cannot be understood by reading it alone,” Bimbenet said, “it seemed useful to us to specify its meaning for those who encounter it, whether they wish to use it or … reject it.” 

“Robert’s mission is to observe and report on the evolution of a changing and diverse French language,” he said. 

Warning on neutrality

In 2017, the Academie Francaise warned that moves to make French more gender neutral would create “a disunited language, with disparate expression, that can create confusion verging on illegibility.” 

Gendered languages like French are seen as a particular hurdle for advocates of nonbinary terms as all nouns are categorized as either masculine or feminine, unlike in English. 

Not all European countries are moving at the same speed as France. In Greece, where all nouns have not two, but three possible genders, there is no official nonbinary pronoun, but groups who support them suggest using “it.” 

In Spain, after Carmen Calvo, a former deputy prime minister and affirmed feminist, asked the Royal Spanish Academy to advise on the use of inclusive language in the Constitution, its reply the next year was crystal clear: “Inclusive language” means “the use of the masculine to refer to men and women.”
…

The leader of a Cuban dissident group who left the island for Spain said Thursday that the communist government was “behaving like an abusive husband” toward its people.

Activist and playwright Yunior Garcia Aguilera arrived Wednesday in Madrid with his wife, Dayana Prieto, two days after police surrounded his house in Havana to stop him from taking part in a national protest planned by an opposition group, which is demanding the release of imprisoned dissidents and greater freedoms for Cubans.

Leaders of Archipelago, the opposition organization, had announced it would stage a “Civic March for Change,” a mass demonstration Monday that the Cuban government described as “counter-revolutionary” and said was part of a U.S. interventionist plan.

At a news conference Thursday in Madrid, Garcia said, “The relationship between the Cuban government and the people is like a marriage which has failed. The government is behaving like an abusive husband to the people.”

“This is a dictatorship and brutal tyranny,” he said.

Harassment

On the eve of the planned demonstration, police and government supporters surrounded the home of Garcia and other activists and independent journalists to prevent them from leaving.

Garcia said Thursday that the Cuban government had cut his telephone and access to social media.

“My house is watched continually by people. They left doves with their heads cut off outside my house to put me off taking part in the demonstration,” he told journalists.

Garcia contends the Cuban government allowed him to leave the country only so that he would not become “a symbol of resistance.”

“The regime needed to silence me, to convert me into a non-person,” he told reporters.

He said he had come to Spain so he could be free to speak out against the Cuban government.

“All I have is my voice. I could not stay silent. That is why I came to Spain,” he said, adding that he wanted to return to the island in the future.

Archipelago blamed the failure of the demonstration on government coercion.

It said there were “more than 100 activists under arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, acts of repudiation, violence, threats, coercion and hate speech.”

Garcia said fear of reprisals had prevented people from joining the demonstration Monday.

“The problem is the fear, but we have social media, which they cannot control,” he said.

Call for condemnation of oppression

Garcia said the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba had helped the communist government, which he asserted used it for propaganda purposes.

He speculated that if opinion polls were allowed, however, they would show that the government has lost the support of the people.

He called on the international community to condemn what he said was repression in his home country.

“What is important is that the international community stops looking the other way,” Garcia said.

After Archipelago said it had been unable to contact Garcia, he reported on his Facebook page Wednesday that he had left Cuba and was in Spain with his wife.

While the protests were suppressed in Havana, Cuban expatriates were in the streets in Mexico City and other cities across Latin America in solidarity with their compatriots.

‘Absolute failure’

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said that Cuban opposition groups had failed in their efforts to organize Monday’s demonstration.

“It is clear that what I called a failed operation — a political communication operation organized and financed by the United States government with millionaire funds and the use of internal agents — was an absolute failure,” Rodriguez said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.

“I wish they [the United States] would allow Americans their freedom to travel and that they could come to Cuba and see the reality firsthand and discover the deception to which they are frequently subjected, with the aim of sustaining an obsolete, genocidal policy that violates human rights and international law and causes suffering among the Cuban people,” he added.

The arrival of Garcia in the Spanish capital means the Cuban dissident movement has largely moved to Madrid in much the same way as opposition leaders from Venezuela have done.

Venezuelan dissident Leopoldo Lopez has made Madrid his home since making a dramatic exit from Venezuela in 2020. He was living in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas before making a dash for Colombia, from which he headed to Spain.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
…

The G-7 group of nations condemned what it called the Belarus government’s “orchestration of irregular migration across its borders” Thursday, as neighboring Poland reported new attempts to cross its border.

“We call on the regime to cease immediately its aggressive and exploitative campaign in order to prevent further deaths and suffering,” the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States said in a joint statement. “International organizations need to be provided with immediate and unhindered access to deliver humanitarian assistance.”

European countries accuse Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko of pushing thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, to cross the border illegally in retaliation for European Union sanctions punishing Belarus for cracking down on pro-democracy protesters. Belarus has denied orchestrating the gathering of migrants at the border.

The G-7 said Thursday that Belarus is trying to “deflect attention” from its violations of international law and human rights. The statement expressed solidarity with Poland as well as two other neighbors of Belarus-Lithuania and Latvia.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said China’s hypersonic missile test over the summer drew “concerns” about Beijing’s growing capability, but he said he did not compare it to Russia’s launching of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in the 1950s.

“Those are terms that I wouldn’t use, I don’t personally use,” Austin replied Wednesday to reporters asking whether the July 27 launch was a “Sputnik moment.”

Austin called China the U.S. military’s “pacing challenge” but added that the U.S. was focused on “robust capability across the board” rather than one specific capability such as hypersonic weapons.

Even though the Chinese weapon missed its target by several kilometers, according to the Financial Times, the test marked the first time any country had sent a hypersonic weapon fully around the Earth. Hypersonic weapons travel at more than five times the speed of sound and are incredibly difficult to track.

China has denied it carried out a hypersonic missile test, saying it was testing a reusable spacecraft.

In an interview with CBS News that aired this week, General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, struck a more forceful tone when discussing the hypersonic test.

“It’s a very significant capability that has the potential to change a lot of things,” Hyten said.

Asked if he would compare the Chinese test to Sputnik, Hyten replied that “from a technology perspective, it’s pretty impressive.”

“But Sputnik created a sense of urgency in the United States,” the second highest ranking general said. “The test on July 27 did not create that sense of urgency. I think it probably should create a sense of urgency.”

China has already deployed one medium-range hypersonic weapon, according to Hyten, while the U.S. is still years away from fielding its first one.

Last month, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also called the Chinese test “very concerning.”

“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention,” Milley said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

Russia-Ukraine tensions

Earlier in the Pentagon briefing Wednesday, Austin called on Russia to be more transparent about its troop buildup on the border of Ukraine.

“We’re not sure exactly what Mr. [Vladimir] Putin [Russia’s president] is up to, but these movements certainly have our attention,” he said.

In early November, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said about 90,000 Russian troops were close to the border and in rebel-controlled areas in Ukraine’s east.

A buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine earlier this year heightened tensions with the West. Russian officials said the troops had been deployed for training to counter security threats posed by nearby NATO forces.

Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has since been supporting a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s east.
…

Poland is dealing with a huge migrant crisis as thousands try to enter its territory from Belarus. Polish authorities have created an exclusion zone and do not allow volunteers to help migrants who reach European Union soil. Jamie Dettmer narrates this report by correspondent Ricardo Marquina from the Polish town of Michalowo near the border with Belarus.
…

Dozens of Armenian soldiers have been captured or gone missing following the latest clashes on the border with Azerbaijan, officials in Yerevan said on November 17.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said on the morning of November 17 that seven of its soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded in renewed fighting on the shared border that erupted on November 16.

According to a statement by Armenia’s Defense Ministry, 13 Armenian soldiers were captured by Azerbaijani forces and another 24 Armenian servicemen have gone missing and that their fate remains unknown.

The statement added that one Armenian soldier was killed in the fighting, which Yerevan says has stopped following talks with Moscow.

Both sides blamed each other for starting the latest conflict amid tensions between the two former Soviet nations that have simmered since a six-week war last year over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan said its forces prevented “large-scale provocations” by Armenian forces in the Kalbacar and Lachin districts bordering Armenia.

In turn, Armenia’s Defense Ministry accused Azerbaijani soldiers of shooting at its positions along the border, using artillery, armored vehicles, and guns.

Later on November 16, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that hostilities on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border had ceased after a cease-fire was reached with Moscow’s mediation. Armenia confirmed that report.

The situation along the border has been tense since the two South Caucasus nations fought a 44-day war over Nagorno-Karabakh last year that killed at least 6,500 people and ended with a cease-fire that granted Azerbaijan control of parts of the region as well as adjacent territories occupied by Armenians.

The breakaway region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist war in 1994.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington was “troubled” by the reports of the fighting. In a tweet on November 17, Blinken called on both sides to engage “directly and constructively to resolve all outstanding issues, including border demarcation.”

On November 16, the European Union also urged the two sides to show restraint.

Calling for “urgent de-escalation and [a] full cease-fire,” the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, described the situation in the region as “challenging.”

“The EU is committed to work with partners to overcome tensions for a prosperous and stable South Caucasus,” Michel wrote on Twitter.

Some information for this story came from the Associated Press.
…

Migrants in a makeshift camp on the western border of Belarus are being taken away by bus, a Polish government official was quoted as saying Wednesday.

Thousands of migrants, primarily from the Middle East, have been stuck in the camp since Nov. 8. Most are escaping conflict and instability at home for opportunities in Germany or other countries in western Europe. 

On Tuesday, Polish security forces along the border fired water cannons and tear gas at stone-throwing migrants, after Poland accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government of providing smoke grenades and other weapons to the migrants. 

But on Wednesday, a Polish deputy interior minister, Maciej Wasik, reportedly said tensions had deescalated and that the camp, which is now closed, had fewer people. 

“I have received information that Lukashenko has provided the first buses which migrants are boarding and leaving,” Wasik said, according to The Associated Press. “The camp site near Kuznica is slowly emptying.” 

The Associated Press reported Wasik’s information is hard to verify because of restrictions on journalists on both sides of the Belarusian-Polish border. 

The Belarusian state news agency Belta reported that migrants were being sheltered inside a logistics center at the border. 

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak warned Wednesday in an interview with Poland’s Radio Jedynka the crisis at the border could last months or even years, according to Agence France-Presse. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 

 
…

The World Health Organization says Europe is once again the epicenter of the pandemic. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the latest wave of infections is casting a shadow over recent signs that European economies were rebounding.
…

Turkish authorities arrested businessman Samir Handal, a suspect “of great interest” in the July assassination of Haiti’s president, according to Haitian Foreign Minister Claude Joseph. 

The Monday arrest is the latest in a globe-trotting effort to round up Jovenel Moïse’s killers as Haiti contends with political instability, fuel shortages, gang violence and hunger made worse by a deadly August earthquake. 

Turkey’s state-run media reported Handal was being held in Istanbul after court officials issued a 40-day custody order, according to The Associated Press. Handal, who has been identified as a Haitian national by several media outlets, was arrested after his flight touched down in Istanbul during layover on a flight from the United States to Jordan. 

Joseph tweeted that he had spoken by phone with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, late Monday after Handal’s arrest. Joseph gave no more details about whether Haiti will seek Handal’s extradition.

In an interview with The Miami Herald, Joseph called Handal’s arrest a “huge step” in the investigation of Moïse’s death. He said Haiti passed an arrest warrant to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry before Handal’s flight arrived in Istanbul, rounding out an Interpol Red notice issued Sunday. 

“I myself am more than determined to do justice to the president and make sure that it’s rendered to his allies, his family and more importantly, the country,” Joseph told The Miami Herald. “When we render justice to the president, we render it to the whole nation.” 

Handal joins more than 40 suspects in custody around the world for Moïse’s killing, including former Colombian military officer Mario Palacios Palacios, who is being held in Jamaica, and several Haitian police officers. Among the people Haitian authorities have linked to the assassination plot are Venezuelan businessman Antonio Intriago, Haitian American James Solages, former Haitian Senator John Joël Joseph and a group of U.S.-trained former Colombian soldiers. 

It’s unclear whether Handal will be extradited to Haiti, where authorities believe he met with suspected mastermind Christian Emmanuel Sanon to plan Moïse’s assassination, Reuters reports. Haitian police found Handal’s name on three Palestinian passports and seven Haitian passports stowed in Sanon’s home. 

President Moïse was killed at his home in the early hours of July 7. Haitian authorities allege Sanon hired Intriago’s Florida-based security company, CTU Security, to help carry out the politically motivated attack in Port-au-Prince. Sanon aspired to take over the presidency, according to Haitian police. The two Haitian Americans implicated in the plot claim they were hired only as interpreters; they, like some of the former Colombian soldiers, said they expected to arrest, not kill, the Haitian president. 

In August, only five weeks after the president’s death, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 2,200 people. Haiti has struggled to recover amid political instability sparked by Moïse’s killing, leading to gang rule that has kept the Caribbean country from receiving much-needed humanitarian aid. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
…

Polish forces at the border with Belarus used water cannons and tear gas Tuesday against stone-throwing migrants, as Warsaw accused Belarusian authorities of giving smoke grenades and other weapons to those trying to cross the frontier. 

The events marked an escalation in the crisis on the European Union’s eastern border, where the West has accused President Alexander Lukashenko of using the migrants as pawns to destabilize the 27-nation bloc in retaliation for its sanctions on his authoritarian regime. Belarus denies orchestrating the crisis. 

The Poland Border Guard agency posted video on Twitter showing water being sprayed across the border at a group of migrants who threw debris, and the Defense Ministry also said tear gas was used against the attackers. Polish authorities said nine of its forces were injured — seven policemen, one soldier and a female border guard. 

About 2,000 migrants were at the frontier in makeshift camps in freezing weather, but only about 100 were believed to be involved in attacking the Polish forces at the crossing near Kuźnica, said Border Guard spokeswoman Anna Michalska. The crossing has been closed since last week. 

Police spokesman Mariusz Ciarka later said the migrants there had been “pacified.” He also said the attackers had been given smoke grenades by the Belarusians and threw stones at the Polish police, with the events monitored by the Belarusian services using a drone. The Polish Defense Ministry also said Belarus gave some migrants flash-bang grenades. 

Belarus’ State Border Guard Committee and the Foreign Ministry said they would investigate Poland’s actions.

“These are considered violent actions against individuals who are on the territory of another country,” committee spokesman Anton Bychkovsky was quoted as saying by Belarus’ state news agency Belta. 

Lukashenko on Tuesday again rejected accusations of engineering the crisis and said his government has deported about 5,000 illegal migrants from Belarus this fall. 

On Tuesday, Lukashenko said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed Monday by phone that neither Belarus nor the EU would benefit from an escalation of the crisis. He said he proposed a resolution but did not elaborate, adding that Merkel is discussing it with other EU leaders. 

Some of the migrants have children with them at the border in their desperate bid to reach the EU. Most are fleeing conflict, poverty and instability in the Middle East and elsewhere. At least 11 deaths have been reported in recent weeks as the weather has turned colder, and they are trapped in the dank forest between the forces of the two countries. 

While some have managed to get into the EU before Poland, Lithuania and Latvia bolstered their borders, passage appears to be much harder now. 

Poland has taken a tough stand against the migrants’ illegal entry, reinforcing the border with riot police and troops, rolling out razor wire, and making plans to build a tall steel barrier. The Polish approach has largely met with approval from other EU nations, who want to stop another wave of migration. 

But Poland also has been criticized by human rights groups and others for pushing migrants back into Belarus and not allowing them to apply for asylum. 

“It’s very clear that if you see what’s been happening to this group of people — that their own specific concerns, their particular dignity and their rights — have not been treated with the respect that they should have,” said U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq. “And that is why we want them to be able to speak for themselves and to be heard. We don’t want these people to be instrumentalized and used as pawns in the disputes involving the countries.” 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Poland’s actions “violate all conceivable norms of international humanitarian law and other agreements of the international community.” 

Warsaw says Moscow bears some responsibility for the border crisis, given its strong support for Belarus. The Russian government has denied responsibility. 

Events at the border have been difficult to verify independently. Poland has imposed a state of emergency, which bars reporters and human rights workers from the area. In Belarus, journalists face severe restrictions on their ability to report. 

The EU has been pressuring airlines to stop carrying Syrians, Iraqis and others to Belarus, and the efforts were having some effect. A Beirut travel agency said flights from the Lebanese capital to Minsk had been stopped for now. A Tuesday evening flight by Belarusian carrier Belavia was shown as canceled on the airport’s website. 

Iraq urged its citizens at the border to return home. About 200 Iraqis in Belarus hoping to travel to the EU have contacted the Iraqi Embassy in Russia about returning home, an embassy spokesman told the Interfax agency. The spokesman said an evacuation flight will leave Thursday from Minsk, and Belarusian authorities have helped bring migrants back from the border. 

 
…

Threats by the leader of the Serb-majority Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, to break his mini-state away from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country shakily balanced between Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs, is adding to growing regional and international dismay at unfolding developments in the Balkans.

Dodik’s threats combined with a major rearmament program by neighboring Serbia are fueling concerns the Balkans could be heading for conflict.

Serbia started negotiating last month with Israel about buying anti-tank missiles and some European Union officials suspect Belgrade may be in the process of reaching out to Ankara to discuss buying the type of Turkish-made armed drones used with devastating effect by Azerbaijan in its recent clash with Armenia.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says his Balkan neighbors shouldn’t be alarmed about the rearming, which he casts as an updating of his country’s armed forces, and says Belgrade has no offensive intentions. Earlier this year, he said: “Everyone is rearming and we will also rearm. If everyone else, does it, we must too.”

Alarm rising

But Serbia’s neighbors are unsettled by the rearmament program, which has seen Belgrade increase its defense spending by 70% since 2015, and by what they see as Vucic’s increasing nationalist rhetoric.

Belgrade has also provided strong political backing for Dodik.

Last week Christian Schmidt, the specially appointed High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, warned the U.N. Security Council that the war-scarred Balkans is facing its biggest threat since the ethnic cleansing and wars of the early 1990s. “The prospects of further division and conflict are very real,” he said.

And he urged the international community to curb any threatened separatist actions by Bosnian Serbs.

Alarm is also rising in Western European capitals, with officials noting that Vucic’s arms purchases have served to deepen Serbia’s relations with China and Russia, which is sympathetic to Dodik’s ambitions to separate his mini-state and have it join Serbia.

Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has placed the Balkans on the agenda for next month’s meeting of NATO’s foreign ministers in Riga, according to British officials. Germany has been pressing fellow EU member states to prepare sanctions against Dodik. Heiko Maas, German foreign minister, said Saturday that Berlin wants to see “individual measures against those who question the territorial integrity” of Bosnia.

Maas added: “We will not be able to accept the continuation of this irresponsible policy without taking action.” He accused Republika Srpska of “actively working to destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole state.”

A former British foreign minister, William Hague, warned Tuesday: “History has shown many times that we neglect the western Balkans at our peril.” He said: “For years, the leader of the Serb-majority Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has been undermining the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina with active Russian and Serbian support,” he wrote in a commentary for The Times newspaper. “In recent weeks the situation has become grave. Dodik is coming close to secession from Bosnia,” he added.

Unresolved disputes

He and others fear unresolved disputes from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and simmering tensions between Croatia, which has also been rearming, and Serbia are jeopardizing stability in the Western Balkans. The Balkan disputes also include disagreements over the status of Kosovo, the former Serbian province, which declared independence in 2008 after a war that killed more than 13,000 people, mainly ethnic Albanians.

EU-brokered talks aimed at normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo restarted recently but a cross-border dispute in September prompted by Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti decision not to recognize Serbian automobile license plates saw Belgrade deploy tanks to its border with Kosovo and Vucic announce economic and political sanctions against the former Serb province.

The Serb leader urged the international community to intervene and warned if it didn’t “we will know how to protect our country, there is no doubt about it.” Hundreds of Kosovo Serbs closed a key border road and Kosovo officials dispatched extra police units.

But it is Dodik’s secession talk that is of the most immediate worry for Western powers, say U.S. and European diplomats. They fear that if Dodik tries to tear Bosnia apart it would risk triggering a new Balkans conflict that could all too easily reignite disputes between Serbia and Croatia as well as between Serbia and Kosovo, plunging the Western Balkans into a replay of the vicious inter-ethnic wars that erupted on the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The 1995 U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords set up the multi-ethnic state of Bosnia as an international protectorate with complex power-sharing constitutional arrangements among the three principal ethnic groups that make it up. It has two semi-autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republika Srpska but Dodik has threatened to pull out of Bosnia’s state-level institutions, including the army and has been militarizing his police which could serve as a reconstituted ethnic Bosnian Serb armed force. He has also said he wants to set up a separate judiciary.

The 62-year-old Dodik last month warned he will speed up his secession plans, if Western sanctions are imposed on him, telling Gabriel Escobar, a U.S. envoy, “F*** the sanctions,” according to a leaked transcript of the meeting. “If you want to talk to me, then stop threatening me,” he told Escobar.

Dodik has warned that any NATO military intervention aimed at preventing him from breaking up Bosnia will be opposed by his “friends,” seen as a reference to the rearmed Serbia and Russia. Vucic appeared last month to rein in Dodik, saying, “It is important to preserve peace and show that Republika Srpska is not the source of the problem, but that we are all ready to talk in the region.”

But he added Serbia will not join in any sanctions against Republika Srpska. 
…

The US Naval Station at Rota in the south of Spain has often been the target of protests by anti-war activists and environmentalists. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged Spain’s tourism industry, it has been a vastly different scenario. Jon Spier narrates this report by Alfonso Beato in Rota. Producer: Rob Raffaele.
…