Iran said Saturday it believes a reinstatement of its 2015 nuclear deal with major world powers is possible but warned that Tehran “will not negotiate forever.””Out of a steadfast commitment to salvage a deal that the U.S. tried to torpedo, Iran has been the most active party in Vienna, proposing most drafts,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Twitter, referring to talks aimed at reviving the nuclear deal.
 
Iran and the United States have been holding indirect talks on reviving the 2015 agreement between Tehran and six powers that imposed restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting international sanctions.US Could Quit Iran Nuclear Deal if Talks Do Not AdvanceBlinken addresses reporters after meeting with French foreign minister 
Then U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the agreement in 2018, but President Joe Biden has been seeking to revive it. Officials on all sides have said there are major issues to resolve before the deal can be reinstated.
 
“Still believe a deal is possible, if the U.S. decides to abandon Trump’s failed legacy. Iran will not negotiate forever,” Khatibzadeh tweeted.
 
The U.N. nuclear watchdog Friday demanded an immediate reply from Iran on whether it would extend a monitoring agreement that expired overnight. An Iranian envoy responded that Tehran was under no obligation to provide an answer.
 
The Vienna talks, which began in April, are now in a pause that had been expected to last until early July, but failure to extend the monitoring accord could throw those negotiations into disarray.
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Investigators were looking Saturday for a motive behind an attack in the German city of Wuerzburg in which a man armed with a long knife killed three people and wounded at least five others.The suspect, a 24-year-old Somali, was shot in the leg by police and arrested after the Friday afternoon attack in the southern city’s downtown area. Police said his life was not in danger and he was being questioned in a hospital.Bavaria’s top security official, Joachim Herrmann, said the suspect had been known to police and had been admitted to a psychiatric unit a few days earlier. He told news agency dpa late Friday that he couldn’t rule out an Islamic extremist motive because one witness had reported hearing the suspect shout “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”The man had lived in Wuerzburg since 2015, most recently in a shelter for the homeless. He apparently did not know the victims. People laid flowers and candles at the scene of the attack.Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and trying to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks.Bavarian governor Markus Soeder praised the “really impressive dedication” of those who tried to stop the man. “Now the circumstances have to be cleared up, the motives,” he said in a statement to reporters in Nuremberg.“All of Bavaria is in mourning today,” said Soeder, who added that he would order flags flown at half-staff in the state. 
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President Ivan Duque said the helicopter he was flying in Friday near the border with Venezuela was hit by gunfire in the first attack against a Colombian head of state in nearly 20 years.No one was injured, and authorities did not say which side of the border the shots came from. Colombia regularly accuses Venezuela of harboring Colombian rebels on its territory.”It is a cowardly attack, where you can see bullet holes in the presidential aircraft,” Duque said in a statement.Duque said he was flying with the defense and interior ministers and the governor of Norte de Santander province, which borders Venezuela, when the helicopter was attacked.Photos released by the president’s office showed the tail and main blade had been hit.Duque said the aircraft’s “safety features” prevented a “lethal” attack.”I have given very clear instructions to the entire security team to go after those who shot at the aircraft,” he said.The U.S., European Union and U.N. mission in Colombia all condemned the attack.The presidential delegation had left the town of Sardinata and was headed to the border city of Cucuta when they came under fire.Duque had attended an event in the Catatumbo region, one of the main coca-growing areas of the country. Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer.Holdouts from the disbanded FARC rebel group, an active guerrilla group called the National Liberation Army (ELN), and other armed bands fight drug trafficking turf wars along the long and porous border with Venezuela.The two countries broke off relations after Duque, a conservative, came to power in 2018. Venezuela is governed by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.The Duque government has repeatedly accused Venezuela of giving refuge to ELN fighters.”We are not frightened by violence or acts of terrorism. Our state is strong and Colombia is strong to confront this kind of threat,” Duque said after the attack on his chopper.The border area has been violent of late.Anger in the streetsOn June 16, a car bomb exploded on a military base in Cucuta, wounding 36 people.The government blamed the ELN, with which it ended peace negotiations in 2019.Those talks started after the government concluded a historic peace accord in 2016 with the much bigger FARC that ended decades of civil war.The last attack against a president in Colombia was a bombing that targeted then leader Alvaro Uribe in 2003.A 20-kilogram bomb hidden in a building near the airport in the southwest city of Neiva exploded prior to the landing of a plane carrying Uribe, who is Duque’s political mentor.The blast killed 15 people and wounded 66. The government blamed the FARC for that attack.Since Duque came to power the country has been enduring its worst outbreak of violence since the peace accord with the FARC.The government accuses armed groups financed with drug money of carrying out massacres in isolated coca-producing regions.With his approval record at rock bottom, Duque is also facing anger in the streets.Tens of thousands of people voiced their discontent on April 28 against a proposed tax hike that they said would hurt the middle class, already suffering economically from the pandemic.The government withdrew the proposal, but the protests morphed into a broader grassroots movement to air gripes about inequality, education and other woes, amid complaints of heavy-handed police action to put down the marches. More than 60 people have died in the unrest.
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The United Nations said 12 German troops and a Belgian soldier serving in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali were wounded Friday in an attack in the country’s restive north.The U.N. mission in the country, MINUSMA, had earlier said that 15 peacekeepers were wounded when a temporary operational base in the Gao region was targeted with a vehicle bomb. Later, it corrected the numbers.German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said three of the soldiers were seriously wounded. She told reporters in Bonn, Germany, that two soldiers were in a stable condition while the third was still undergoing surgery.All of the wounded soldiers were flown by helicopter to Gao, where they were being treated at German, French and Chinese medical facilities, the minister said.”The military operations on site aren’t completed yet,” she said.A German medevac plane will fly to Gao overnight to bring the wounded soldiers back to Germany on Saturday, said Kramp-Karrenbauer.Germany has hundreds of troops taking part in U.N. stabilization and European Union training missions in the West African nation.Mali has been trying to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012.Islamic extremist rebels were forced from power in Mali’s northern cities with the help of a French-led military operation in 2013. However, the insurgents quickly regrouped in the desert and began launching frequent attacks on the Malian army and its allies fighting the insurgency.The extremists have expanded their reach well into central Mali, where their presence has inflamed tensions between ethnic groups in the area. 
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Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada say investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children, which follows the discovery of 215 bodies at another school last month.The new discovery was at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899-1997 where the Cowessess First Nation is now located, about 135 kilometers east of Regina, the capital of the province of Saskatchewan.Ground-penetrating radar registered 751 ”hits,” indicating at least 600 bodies were buried, said Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess. Some and perhaps most are from over a century ago. The gravesite is believed to hold the bodies of children and adults, and even people from outside the community who attended church there.Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said it is not unusual to find such graves at former residential schools but is always a devastating discovery that reopens old wounds about the forced assimilation of native children at those often-abusive institutions.Many non-Indigenous Canadians were not aware of the extent of the problems at the schools until the remains of 215 children were found last month at what was once the country’s largest such school in British Columbia.What are residential schools?From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, with many never returned to their families.Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which today is the largest Protestant denomination in the country.The Canadian government has admitted its role in a century of isolating native children from their homes, families and cultures, and that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, where students were beaten for speaking their native language. That legacy of abuse and isolation has been cited by native leaders as a cause of alcoholism and drug addiction widely seen on reservations today.Indigenous leaders have called it a form of cultural genocide.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called it “an incredibly harmful government policy that was Canada’s reality for many, many decades and Canadians today are horrified and ashamed of how our country behaved.”He said the policy “forced assimilation” on the children.What’s behind the discovery of the remains?A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up as part of a government apology and settlement, issued a report in 2015 that identified about 3,200 confirmed deaths at schools. While some died of diseases like tuberculosis amid the often-deplorable conditions, it noted that a cause of death for about half of them often was not recorded.The government wanted to keep costs down at the schools, so adequate regulations were never established, the reconciliation commission said.It said the practice at the schools was to not send the bodies home to their communities. Delorme said the graves at the Saskatchewan school were marked at one time, but that the Catholic operators of the facility had removed them.What apologies have been made?Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in Parliament in 2008 for the government’s role. Among the Christian denominations, the Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches also apologized for their roles in the abuse.A papal apology was one of 94 recommendations from the reconciliation commission, but the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for the residential schools.Former Pope Benedict XVI met with some former students and victims in 2009 and told them of his “personal anguish” over their suffering.After last month’s discovery, Pope Francis expressed his pain and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair,” but didn’t offer an apology.Trudeau said Friday he has spoken to Francis personally “to impress upon him how important it is not just that he makes an apology but that he makes an apology to indigenous Canadians on Canadian soil.”Archbishop Don Bolen of the Regina Archdiocese posted a letter on its website this week to the Cowessess First Nation in which he repeated an apology he said he made two years ago.What compensation has been offered?The reconciliation commission was created as part of a $5 billion Canadian ($4 billion U.S.) class action settlement in 2005, the largest in Canadian history.Under the settlement, students who attended the schools were eligible to receive $10,000 Canadian ($8,143 U.S.) for the first school year and $3,000 Canadian ($2,443 U.S.) for every year thereafter. Victims of physical and sexual abuse were eligible for further compensation.Trudeau has said the government will help preserve gravesites and search for unmarked burial grounds at other schools, but he and his ministers have stressed the need for indigenous communities to decide for themselves how they want to proceed.The government previously announced $27 million Canadian ($22 million U.S.) for the effort in what it called a first step. 
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A man armed with a long knife killed three people and injured five others, some seriously, in Germany’s southern city of Wuerzburg on Friday before being shot by police and arrested, authorities said. Police identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Somali man living in Wuerzburg. His life was not in danger from his gunshot wound, they said. Bavaria’s top security official Joachim Herrmann said the injured include a young boy, whose father was probably among the dead. The suspect was in psychiatric treatment before the attack and had been known to police, Herrmann said. There was no immediate word on a possible motive. Emergency services vehicles are seen at the site of a knife attack, in Wuerzburg, Germany, June 25, 2021.Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and trying to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks. A woman who said she had witnessed the incident told German RTL television that the police then stepped in. “He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people,” Julia Runze said. “And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him.” “The police then approached him, and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly.” Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick said officers were alerted around 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) to a knife attack on Barbarossa Square in the center of the city. Würzburg is a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt. Bavaria’s governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack. “We grieve with the victims and their families,” he wrote on Twitter. “A big thank you and respect for the spirited intervention by many citizens, who confronted the suspected attacker in a determined way,” Soeder added. “And also to all first responders for their work at the scene.” Almost five years ago, a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan wounded four people with an ax on a train near Wuerzburg. He then fled and attacked a woman passerby before police shot him dead. 
 
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On the first day of its summit in Brussels, the 27-member European Union failed to agree to terms for proposed an EU-Russia summit, and sharply debated Hungary’s new LGBT legislation.
 
The Russia summit, proposed by France and Germany, was opposed by most eastern European nations, which felt such face-to-face discussions would appear to be rewarding Russian President Vladimir Putin for recent aggressive actions, such as cyberattacks or amassing troops on Ukraine’s border.
Talking to reporters ahead of day two of the summit in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed regret her fellow EU members could not come to an agreement on terms for such a summit, which she argued was necessary to address issues with Russia. But she said the EU members established what conditions and prerequisites must be met before a future summit could take place.
Merkel said the most important thing was for the bloc to act together, rather than individual states acting on their own.  
In his comments to reporters, French President Emmanuel Macron agreed, saying that unity among member states is what’s most importance. But he also questioned why the eastern European nations did not express similar objections to U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with Putin earlier this month.
Both Merkel and Macron said most EU members let Hungary know their objections to the recently approved legislation banning depictions interpreted to “promote” homosexuality or gender fluidity to any person under the age of 18. Merkel said the EU members let Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, know that the legislation goes against European values.
Macron said the legislation is an example of certain European states being pulled by “models of society, political models, that are contrary to our values.” He said it was important member states work through those differences.  
Merkel also said she has warned member states of the rise of the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.  The variant spreads more quickly and can lead to more severe symptoms. She said it is on the rise in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and if left unchecked, it could stifle the recovery from the pandemic. She urged nations to step up their vaccination programs.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Friday that the absence of an interim agreement to monitor Iran’s nuclear activities could prompt the United States to abandon efforts to rejoin a nuclear deal. “This remains a serious concern,” Blinken said at a news conference in Paris. “The concern has been communicated to Iran and needs to be resolved.”The International Atomic Energy Agency has said a three-month interim monitoring agreement reached on Feb. 21 expired Thursday after it was extended by one month. The agency said it is negotiating with Tehran on a second extension. Blinken, who is visiting Paris as part of a multi-nation European tour, acknowledged the U.S. could eventually decide not to rejoin the agreement if negotiations in Vienna continue without progress.’There will come a point, yes, where it will be very hard to return back to the standards set by the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action),” a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and major powers to curb its uranium enrichment program in exchange for lifting sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations. Negotiating parties have held talks for six weeks, and a sixth round of indirect talks ended last Sunday with major issues still unresolved. Iran Says Nuclear Talks to be Adjourned for Consultations in Capitals It was unclear when formal negotiations would resumeFrench Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian underscored Blinken’s warning, saying at the Paris news conference Friday it is up to Iran to move the talks forward. “We’re waiting for Iranian authorities to take the final difficult decisions to allow for the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal,” he said.  Blinken meets with French President Emmanuel Macron later Friday. The top U.S. diplomat arrived in France from Germany, where on Thursday he and German leaders said the U.S. and Germany were partnering to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism, an effort the secretary of state said will “ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it.”  Speaking at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Blinken said Holocaust denial and antisemitism go hand in hand with homophobia, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination, and have become “a rallying cry for those who seek to tear down our democracies.” US, Germany Launch Effort to Counter Holocaust Denial US Secretary of State Tony Blinken says partnership will ‘ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it’ Earlier Thursday in Berlin, the secretary of state and Libyan interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba held talks on the heels of an international conference focused on supporting Libya’s transition to a permanent, stable government.  Wednesday’s conference, hosted by Germany and the United Nations, included officials from 17 countries and reinforced support for national elections in Libya scheduled for late December.  Libya Conference Focuses on Elections, Security Attendees agree on the need to support December vote and for foreign fighters to leave the countryA senior U.S. State Department official told reporters Wednesday that the elections are important “not just to legitimize a long-term, credible Libyan government,” but also to help achieve the goal of carrying out an existing call for all foreign fighters to leave the country.  Libya has experienced political instability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi from power.  Rival governments operated in separate parts of the country for years before a cease-fire deal in October that included a demand for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave Libya within 90 days.     At a news conference following Wednesday’s conference, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush said there was progress toward the exit of the foreign fighters and that “hopefully within the coming days mercenaries from both sides are going to be withdrawn.”  A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters that achieving that goal is an important step that now “has to be made operational.”  Defeating Islamic State will be the focus of a conference co-hosted by Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio in Rome. The top U.S. diplomat will also participate in a ministerial meeting in Italy to discuss Syria and the humanitarian needs in that country.     Blinken is also scheduled to visit the Vatican, where Reeker said the agenda includes combating climate change and human trafficking. This report includes information from Reuters and AFP.
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Airlines and holiday providers on Friday expressed frustration with the U.K.’s plans to ease travel restrictions, saying uncertainty about how and when the new rules will be implemented make it difficult for people to book summer vacations.
The government on Thursday expanded its “green list” of safe travel destinations, allowing people to visit without having to self-isolate for 10 days after returning to Britain. However, all but one of the new additions were also placed on a watchlist, meaning the quarantine requirement may be re-imposed at short notice.
Transportation authorities also said they intend to relax travel restrictions by allowing fully vaccinated travelers to visit higher-risk destinations, including the U.S. and most of the European Union, without having to self-isolate. They expect to implement this change “later in the summer.”
“The U.K. has already fallen behind the EU’s reopening, and a continued overly cautious approach will further impact economic recovery and the 500,000 U.K. jobs that are at stake,” said Shai Weiss, chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, which offers mainly long-haul flights to destinations such as New York, Los Angeles and Barbados.
Airlines and hospitality companies have pressured the government to ease travel restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19 following the U.K.’s successful vaccination program. The pandemic has devastated Britain’s travel industry, with the number of people flying through London’s Heathrow Airport, the nation’s busiest, plunging 73% last year.
The government has created a traffic light system to manage the reopening of air travel.
Destinations with low levels of COVID-19 and high levels of vaccination are placed on the “green list,” which allows pleasure trips and doesn’t require self-isolation on return to Britain. Only essential travel is permitted to “amber list” countries, but travelers must self-isolate for 10 days when they return home. The government has banned most travel to destinations on the “red list,” and anyone arriving from one of these countries faces a 10-day quarantine in a government-approved hotel at their own expense.
The lists are updated every three weeks.
The Department for Transport said Thursday night that the expansion of the green list and plans to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated travelers were the result of the successful vaccination program. Almost 61% of U.K. adults are fully vaccinated, and 83% have received at least one dose.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said caution was still required.
“It won’t be quite like it was in 2019 and the old days, but we are moving in a positive direction,” Shapps told Sky News.
Public health authorities are concerned about the possibility that travelers may spread potentially more dangerous variants of COVID-19 to the U.K. from countries with low vaccination rates. The delta variant, first identified in India, has already become the dominant version of the virus in Britain.  
Regardless of U.K. policy, officials in the European Union are considering imposing a quarantine on British travelers because of their concerns about the delta variant which is 40% to 60% more transmissible than previous versions of COVID-19. In minutes released from government meetings earlier this month, experts said the delta variant also may be linked to a higher risk of hospitalization, although “numbers are still small” and there is no evidence the variant is more deadly.  
Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of the Unite union, said the government needs to change its approach to provide greater certainty for the travel industry and consumers.
“The traffic light system is simply not fit for purpose,” she said. “It is impossible for a multibillion-pound industry to make plans for the future when the rug can be pulled from under them every three weeks.”
The government on Thursday added more than a dozen countries and territories to its green list, including the popular holiday destinations of Malta, Madeira and the Balearic Islands. All of the destinations except Malta were placed the watch list.
The changes, which take effect at 4 a.m. June 30, will expand the green list to 27 countries and territories.
The newly added countries are: Malta, Madeira, the Balearic Islands, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Antigua, Barbuda, Dominica, Barbados and Grenada.
Britain also added six countries to the red list, including the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Uganda. That brings the number of countries covered to 56.
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The Champlain Towers South drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast, some for a night, some to live. A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America.
They were among the nearly 100 people who remained missing Friday morning, a day after the 12-story building collapsed into rubble early Thursday. Much of the Champlain’s beach side sheared off for unknown reasons, pancaking into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30 feet (10 meters) high.
Only one person had been confirmed dead, but officials feared that number could skyrocket. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
“These are very difficult times, and things are going to get more difficult as we move forward,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said.Rescue workers look through the rubble where a wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed, June 24, 2021, in the Surfside area of Miami.Fire Rescue personnel and others worked through the night in hopes of finding survivors.  
State Sen. Jason Pizzo of Miami Beach told the Miami Herald he watched as tactical teams of six worked early Friday to pull bodies from the rubble. He said he saw one body taken in a yellow body bag and another that was marked. They were taken to a homicide unit tent that was set up along the beach.
Many people remained at the reunification center set up near the collapse site early Friday morning, awaiting results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
Officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined.
Video of the collapse showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
About half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse.Part of a building is shown after a partial collapse, June 24, 2021, in Surfside, Fla.Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb northwest of Miami. A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor. Televisions. Computers. Chairs.
Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez and their 6-year-old daughter, Sofia, had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez.
Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nuñez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from a COVID-19 resurgence in Argentina and its strict lockdowns. They had worked hard to adopt Sofia, Fernandez said.
“Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” Fernandez said. “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.”People wait for news at a family reunification center, after a wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed, June 24, 2021, in the Surfside area of Miami.They weren’t the only South Americans missing. Foreign ministries and consulates of four countries said 22 nationals were missing in the collapse: nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay.
The Paraguayans  included Sophia López Moreira — the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo and sister-in-law of President Mario Abdo Benítez — and her family.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing.
Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miami-area elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam. They lived on the third floor.
“Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,'” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe.
“They were also such happy, joyful people. He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother,” Smukler said. “Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity. It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”
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A rare tornado struck along the Czech Republic’s southern border on Thursday evening, destroying parts of some towns as strong storms swept through the area and injured at least 150 people, emergency services and media reported.A Czech Television meteorologist said the tornado, reported in towns around Hodonin, along the Austrian border and 270 kilometers southeast of Prague, may have reached F3-F4 levels, with winds hitting 267-322 kph in the latter level.That would make it the strongest in the central European country’s modern history and the first tornado since 2018.Photos on social media and news websites showed houses and some churches with destroyed roofs, broken windows, and fallen trees and destroyed cars along streets after the storms hit.BREAKING: Tornado causes major damage in the Czech Republic pic.twitter.com/TdSm87Z4gG— BNO News (@BNONews) June 24, 2021A spokesperson for the South Moravia region’s ambulance service told CTK news agency up to 150 people were injured.Czech TV reported around seven small towns were “massively” damaged, citing an emergency services spokesperson. An official of one municipality, Hrusky, said half of the town was practically leveled to the ground.Interior Minister Jan Hamacek wrote on Twitter the situation in the area was serious and all emergency services units were at work. Search and rescue teams were also headed to the towns. 
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Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada said Thursday that investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children — a discovery that follows last month’s report of 215 bodies found at another school.The bodies were discovered at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899-1997 where the Cowessess First Nation is now located, about 135 kilometers east of Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.A search with ground-penetrating radar resulted in 751 “hits,” indicating that at least 600 bodies were buried in the area, said Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess. The radar operators have said their results could have a margin of error of 10%.”We want to make sure when we tell our story that we’re not trying to make numbers sound bigger than they are,” Delorme said. “I like to say over 600, just to be assured.”He said the search continues, the radar hits will be assessed by a technical team and the numbers will be verified in coming weeks.The graves had been marked at one time, Delorme said, but the Roman Catholic Church that had operated the school removed the markers.’My heart breaks’On Twitter, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “terribly saddened” to learn of the latest discovery.”My heart breaks for the Cowessess First Nation following the discovery of Indigenous children buried at the former Marieval Residential School,” he said. ”We will tell the truth about these injustices.”Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the entire province mourns the discovery of the unmarked graves.Don Bolen, Archbishop of Regina, posted a letter to the Cowessess First Nation on the archdiocese’s website.”The news is overwhelming and I can only imagine the pain and waves of emotion that you and your people are experiencing right now,” Bolen wrote.Bolen said that two years ago, he apologized to the Cowessess people for the “failures and sins of Church leaders in the past.””I know that apologies seem a very small step as the weight of past suffering comes into greater light, but I extend that apology again, and pledge to do what we can to turn that apology into meaningful concrete acts — including assisting in accessing information that will help to provide names and information about those buried in unmarked graves,” he said.’We learned how to not like who we were’Florence Sparvier, 80, said she attended the Marieval Indian Residential School.”The nuns were very mean to us,” she said. “We had to learn how to be Roman Catholic. We couldn’t say our own little blessings.”Nuns at the school were “condemning about our people,” and the pain inflicted continues generations later, Sparvier said.”We learned how to not like who we were,” she said. “That has gone on and it’s still going on.”Last month the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.Following that discovery, Pope Francis expressed his pain over the discovery and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he didn’t offer the apology sought by First Nations and by the Canadian government.”An apology is one stage in the way of a healing journey,” Delorme said.”This was a crime against humanity, an assault on First Nations,” said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations in Saskatchewan. He said he expects more graves will be found on residential school grounds across Canada.”We will not stop until we find all the bodies,” he said.From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools, the majority of them run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society.The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages. 
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A Ukrainian hacker was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a notorious cybercrime group that stole millions of credit and debit card details from across the United States, the Department of Justice said Thursday.Andrii Kolpakov, 33, was also ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, the department said in a press release.Kolpakov’s lawyer, Vadim Glozman, said his client was disappointed with the sentence but respected the judge’s decision.He said Kolpakov — who has already spent three years in custody after being apprehended by police in Spain in 2018 — planned to return to Ukraine after serving out the remainder of his sentence.Kolpakov was sentenced in the Western District of Washington. Glozman said that his client was currently in custody in Washington state.Kolpakov’s gang — dubbed “FIN7” — is among the most prolific cybercriminal enterprises in existence. A memo drawn up by U.S. prosecutors said that “no hacking group epitomizes the industrialization of cybercrime better,” alleging that the gang had over 70 people organized into discrete departments and teams, including a unit devoted to crafting malicious software and another unit composed of hackers who exploited victims’ machines.For cover, FIN7 masqueraded as a cybersecurity company called “Combi Security,” which claimed to be involved in penetration testing.Prosecutors say Kolpakov worked for FIN7 from at least April 2016 until his arrest in June 2018 and rose to become a midlevel manager directing “a small team of hackers” tasked with breaching victims’ computer systems and training new recruits to use FIN7’s malicious tools.
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One of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders warned this week he was launching a revolution against the country’s business and political elites, signaling a likely further escalation of violence in the impoverished Caribbean nation. Violence has spiked in Haiti’s capital in recent weeks to what the United Nations has called “unprecedented levels” as rival groups battle with one another or the police for control of the streets, displacing thousands and worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis. Jimmy Cherizier, alias Barbecue, a former police officer, heads the so-called G9 federation of nine gangs formed last year. Surrounded by gang members wielding machetes and guns, he gave a statement to local media outlets in the slum of La Saline on Wednesday, saying the G9 had become a revolutionary force to deliver Haiti from the opposition, the government and the Haitian bourgeoisie. FILE – A protester holds a sign with a message to stop supporting gangs during a protest in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 10, 2020.Human rights activists say Cherizier is actually not targeting the government but the opposition. The government has not publicly commented on his statements and was not immediately available for comment. A suspect in several massacres of citizens in recent years, among other crimes for which he was sanctioned late last year by the United States, Cherizier depicts himself as a community leader filling the void left by weak institutions. Cherizier said his gang members sparked the looting at multiple stores in Port-au-Prince last week, and the broader population followed suit because they were hungry. “It is your money which is in banks, stores, supermarkets and dealerships, so go and get what is rightfully yours,” he said in comments that went viral on social media in Haiti. Armed groups have become increasingly powerful in Haiti in recent years due to political unrest, growing poverty and a sense of impunity, say rights organizations such as the nonprofit Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research. FILE – Internally displaced people sit inside a shelter at the Center Sportif of Carrefour in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 8, 2021, in this handout released June 15, 2021, by UNHaiti.The presidential and legislative elections slated for later this year could be a factor in the recent uptick in violence committed by gangs often linked to local politicians, they say. Haiti’s police are not equipped to deal with gang members who have acquired ever-more sophisticated weapons, partly financed by kidnappings for ransom. Many officers have died in confrontations with armed bandits in recent months, including one in a fight with Cherizier last weekend, according to the police. The violence is exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in a country in which nearly half the population is facing “high acute” food insecurity, according to the United Nations, and coronavirus infections are surging. The president of Haiti’s supreme court died from COVID-19 on Wednesday even as the country has yet to start its vaccination campaign. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said earlier this month the displacements were “creating a host of secondary issues, such as the disruption of community-level social functioning … forced school closures, loss of livelihoods and a general fear among the affected populations.” 
 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in France, his latest stop in a multination tour, where he will meet Friday with President Emmanuel Macron, following up on U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent meetings with allies in the region to boost transatlantic relations. “During this trip to engage with the United States’ oldest ally, Secretary Blinken will emphasize the importance of maintaining transatlantic cooperation, addressing our joint response to the ongoing health crisis, tackling the climate crisis, and highlighting the strength of our long-standing bilateral partnership,” the State Department said Thursday in a statement. France’s President Emmanuel Macron addresses the media as he arrives on the first day of the EU summit at the European Council Building in Brussels, Belgium, June 24, 2021.France continues to be “a steadfast partner in the fight against terrorism,” the State Department said, adding the two countries “agree on the need to hold Russia accountable for its aggressive and destabilizing activities, including in Ukraine.” The U.S. and France collaborate on issues like “human rights, economic coercion and corruption” to counter the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to “erode the values and institutions that undergird the rules-based international order.” The U.S. “will continue to work with France in implementing climate finance to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy to achieve net-zero emissions by midcentury,” said the State Department. Earlier Thursday while in Berlin, Blinken said the United States and Germany are partnering to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism, an effort the secretary of state said would “ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it.” Media cover U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas as they talk inside the Holocaust Memorial, in Berlin, Germany, June 24, 2021.Speaking at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Blinken said Holocaust denial and antisemitism go hand in hand with homophobia, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination, and have become “a rallying cry for those who seek to tear down our democracies.” “That’s why we have to find innovative ways to bring the history of the Holocaust to life, not only to understand the past, but also to guide our present and to shape our future,” the top U.S. diplomat said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and German Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas are served beers as they arrive to speak at a youth outreach event at the Clarchens Ballhaus in Berlin, June 24, 2021.He and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas signed a document on the partnership. Blinken said the two governments would work to strengthen education and counter denial and distortion, helping public servants and young people understand the Holocaust and antisemitism in depth and to feel a responsibility to stop atrocities. “This dialogue will help us remember all that can be lost, but also help us to see all that we can save if we choose — if we choose — to stand up rather than stand by,” said Blinken. Libya talks Earlier on Thursday, Blinken and Libyan interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba held talks in Berlin following an international conference focused on supporting Libya’s transition to a permanent, stable government.  Wednesday’s conference, hosted by Germany and the United Nations, included officials from 17 countries and reinforced support for national elections in Libya scheduled for late December.  A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters Wednesday that the elections are important “not just to legitimize a long-term, credible Libyan government,” but also to help achieve the goal of carrying out an existing call for all foreign fighters to leave the country.  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, speaks as he meets with Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba, right, at the Berlin Marriott Hotel in Berlin, Germany, June 24, 2021.An official statement from conference attendees said that “all foreign forces and mercenaries need to be withdrawn from Libya without delay,” but on that point Turkey noted its reservations.  The senior State Department official said Turkey sees its personnel in Libya acting as trainers based on an agreement it had with a previous interim government, the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord.  Libya has experienced political instability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi from power. Rival governments operated in separate parts of the country for years before a cease-fire deal in October that included a demand for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave Libya within 90 days.     At a news conference following Wednesday’s conference, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush said there was progress toward the exit of the foreign fighters and that “hopefully within the coming days mercenaries from both sides are going to be withdrawn.”  Defeating Islamic State will be the focus of an upcoming conference co-hosted by Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio in Rome. The top U.S. diplomat will also participate in a ministerial meeting in Italy to discuss Syria and the humanitarian needs in that country.     Blinken is also scheduled to visit the Vatican, where Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, said the agenda includes combating climate change and human trafficking. 
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A fatal attack by a gunman on a provincial office of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party is stoking fears of growing political violence against opposition parties. For VOA, Dorian Jones report from Istanbul.Produced by: Rod James   
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Germany’s Green party was riding high in opinion polls until recently, but signs are now emerging of voters worrying how climate-action policies could impact their livelihoods and lives.  
 
And the old political tactic by traditional parties of labeling the Greens as a nagging, didactic “prohibition party” is beginning to resonate once again.  
 
Christian Democrat leader Armin Laschet has been quick to seize on the Greens’ call for a hike in gas prices, accusing them of wanting to punish poor motorists and of being too ready to ignore the needs of less-well-off Germans living in the countryside and small towns.
 
The Greens are falling back in the opinion polls just weeks after overtaking Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives to become momentarily the most popular party in Germany. In May, the Greens surged past the Social Democrats to capture second place in European parliamentary elections, fueling their hopes of pulling off an era-defining performance in Germany’s September elections and even of securing the chancellorship in a coalition government.
 
But their popularity is dipping, prompting some commentators to question whether Germans are ready to be as green as the Greens, despite a recent poll.
 
And the party is not being helped by new questions over the professional ethics of their co-leader, Annalena Baerbock, also the party’s candidate for chancellor in September, say commentators.  
 
“It’s an embarrassing series of mistakes,” according to columnist Silke Mertins, writing for German daily Die Tageszeitung, a paper sympathetic to the Greens.  
 
“It is highly unprofessional that the Greens did not put their candidate through their paces in order to find precisely such errors and to know their weak points. What did the campaign team think that the competition was throwing cotton balls?” he said. He added: “The Greens were widely praised for their professional approach.  Now it turns out, however, that this praise was premature.”  
 
The Greens’ opponents have been quick to try to capitalize on the missteps. CDU federal vice-president Thomas Strobl has reproached Baerbock for undermining her own moral standards. He said it is surprising that Baerbock forgot to report the additional party income.  “That is very difficult to reconcile,” he said.FILE – Germany’s Green party co-chair, Annalena Baerbock, a candidate for chancellor, gives an interview before her party’s federal delegates’ conference, in Berlin, Germany, June 10, 2021.Baerbock was forced also to acknowledge breaking parliamentary rules by failing to declare thousands of euros she received from her party in addition to her salary as a federal lawmaker. The lapses have allowed critics to cast doubt on whether the 40-year-old is ready for the highest office.
 
The impact has been immediate — Baerbock’s popularity has plummeted by 12% and she is now trailing the CDU’s Laschet, who only weeks ago was seen as a weak and lackluster candidate for the chancellorship. The latest monthly opinion survey by polling institute INSA puts the Greens’ voter support at 20%, well behind the CDU’s 28%.
 
The Greens fared poorly in a recent regional election in the impoverished eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the Greens secured just under 6% of the vote — much less than forecast. The CDU did much better than predicted.  
 
Nonetheless earlier this month at a digital Green party conference, where members formally endorsed her as their chancellor candidate, Baerbock declared: “For the first time in decades, real change is in the air.” And she says she remains optimistic that the country is ready for a shake-up after Angela Merkel.  
 
Merkel announced in October 2018 that she would be stepping down as chancellor in 2021. She has served as chancellor since 2005 and her decision followed a series of election reversals for the CDU. “After the pandemic, the focus must be on revitalizing this country together,” Baerbock said.
 
At the conference she and co-leader Robert Habeck managed to see off quietly rebellious members who wanted even more ambitious climate-action goals and much higher carbon dioxide emission pricing and taxes. FILE – North Rhine-Westphalia’s State Premier Armin Laschet, a candidate for chancellor of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, speaks at the regional CDU assembly in Duesseldorf, Germany, June 5, 2021.Habeck and Baerbock, who took over as party leaders in 2018, have been credited for maturing green policies, making them more business friendly, and for transforming the party from being an insignificant, impractical fringe player into a front-rank sophisticated political force. They have been helped by voters placing climate action high on the list of political priorities, according to polling data. The Greens are in coalition governments in 12 of Germany’s 16 state parliaments, seven of them alongside the Christian Democrats.
 
And party members are keen to win greater political power. “I have never seen the Greens this hungry to shape Germany’s future. After nearly sixteen years of sitting on the opposition benches, they are determined to take the chancellor’s office,” Roderick Kefferpütz, a German Green strategist, wrote in a commentary for the Atlantic Council, a New York-based think tank.  
 
To counter accusations of being a party that wants to spoil lifestyles and upset livelihoods, the co-leaders frequently stress that the party is one of “Freiheit nicht Vorschrift” — freedom not regulation. But that has not stopped their political opponents from labeling them sticklers for tighter regulations.  
 
As with other European Green parties, Germany’s Greens face an electoral dilemma. By proposing higher green taxes and measures that will make transportation, energy, and home heating more expensive, helping to shift the economy away from dependency on fossil fuels, they risk prompting a backlash, largely from middle-class and lower-income workers, as well as pensioners who can ill afford to bear the expense. But tempering green policies risks alienating climate-action activists and young urban supporters.
 
Whoever forms the next government in Germany will have no choice but to press on with climate-action measures. In April, Germany’s highest court ruled that a 2019 federal law mandating that the country reduces carbon emissions to nearly zero by 2050 does not go far enough. “The provisions irreversibly offload major emission reduction burdens on to periods after 2030” and on those who are now young, the court decided.  
 
The law has to be revised by the end of next year, front loading cuts in emissions. Laschet has pledged to do so. Unveiling this week, the election manifesto of the CDU and its sister Bavarian party, the Christian Social Union, he said: “We combine consistent climate protection with economic strength and social security.”
 
The group set out brand goals to invest in technologies, from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to hydrogen and solar power, while promoting growth. But the bloc leaders also said climate policies to reduce levels of carbon dioxide “must be economical” and they ruled out higher fuel taxes, bans on diesel cars and flights and speed restrictions on highways, saying climate-neutral policies can be achieved through technological innovation.  
 
“You can do green politics without the Greens,” Markus Söder, Bavarian state premier and CSU leader said.
 
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Authorities in Spain say that a judge has ordered an autopsy on the remains of John McAfee, the gun-loving antivirus pioneer, cryptocurrency promoter and occasional politician who died in a cell pending extradition to the United States for allegedly evading millions in unpaid taxes.
A court spokeswoman for the Catalonia region said Thursday that a forensic team would need to perform toxicology tests on McAfee’s body to determine the cause of death and that results could take “days or weeks.”
Authorities have said that everything at the scene indicated that the 75-year-old tycoon killed himself.  
The judicial investigation is being handled by a court in Martorell, a town northwest of Barcelona with jurisdiction over the prison where McAfee died. The spokeswoman wasn’t authorized to be identified by name in media reports.
McAfee’s Spanish lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the entrepreneur’s death had come as a surprise to his wife and other relatives, adding he would seek to get “to the bottom” of his client’s death.
“This has been like pouring cold water on the family and on his defense team,” Villalba told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Nobody expected it, he had not said goodbye.”
Although Villalba said that he had no evidence of any foul play, he blamed the death on “the cruelty of the system” for keeping a 75-year-old behind bars for economic and not blood-related crimes after judges refused to release him on bail.
“We had managed to nullify seven of the 10 counts he was accused of and even so he was still that dangerous person who could be fleeing Spain if he was released?” the lawyer said. “He was a world eminence, where could he hide?”
Spain’s National Court on Monday ruled that McAfee should be extradited to the U.S. to face charges for evading more than $4 million in the fiscal years 2016 to 2018. The judge dropped seven of the 10 counts in the initial indictment.
Villalba said that McAfee had learned about the ruling shortly after on Monday and that his death on Wednesday didn’t come in the heat of the moment. He also said that the legal team had been preparing with him an appeal to avoid being extradited.
A penitentiary source told AP that McAfee was sharing a cell in the Brians 2 jail where he had been put in preventive detention since he was arrested in October last year on a U.S. warrant, but that at the moment of his death he had been alone.
Prosecutors in Tennessee accused McAfee of failing to report income from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consulting work, earnings made in speaking engagements and for selling the rights to his life story for a documentary. The criminal charges carried a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
The British-born entrepreneur led an eccentric life after selling his stake in the antivirus software company named after him in the early 1990s. He twice made long-shot runs for the U.S. presidency.
McAfee often professed his love for drugs and guns in public remarks. And some of his actions landed him in legal trouble beyond Tennessee, from Central America to the Caribbean. In 2012, he was sought for questioning in connection with the murder of his neighbor in Belize, but was never charged with a crime.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday there is a likely association between two COVID-19 vaccines and a rare heart condition in boys and young men. The federal health agency said more than 1,200 people who had received either the PfizerBioNTech or Moderna vaccines developed myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. The condition was more prominent in men than women, and was detected more after the second dose than the first.   The CDC said the side effects, which include fatigue and chest pain, have been mild and that the vast majority of those diagnosed with myocarditis have fully recovered.  The agency concluded that despite the “likely association” between the two vaccines and myocarditis, the benefits of receiving the vaccine far outweigh the risks.   FILE – Health care workers prepare doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine before administering them to staffers of Japan’s supermarket group Aeon at the company’s shopping mall in Chiba, Japan, June 21, 2021.Both the Pfizer and Moderna two-shot vaccines were developed using messenger RNA, which is a single-stranded RNA molecule that is complementary to one of the DNA strands of a gene, according to the FILE – Health workers treat a COVID-19 patient at the emergency unit of a field hospital set up to treat COVID patients in Ribeirao Pires, greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil, April 13, 2021.A White House official said “scientific teams and legal and regulatory authorities” from both nations collaborated to secure the arrangement. Brazil has posted 507,109 COVID-19 deaths, second only behind the United States, which has 602,837, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.    
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The United States and Germany are partnering to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism, an effort U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said will “ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it.”Speaking Thursday at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Blinken said Holocaust denial and antisemitism go hand in hand with homophobia, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination, and have become “a rallying cry for those who seek to tear down our democracies.”“That’s why we have to find innovative ways to bring the history of the Holocaust to life, not only to understand the past, but also to guide our present and to shape our future,” Blinken said.He and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas signed a document on the partnership. Blinken said the two governments would work to strengthen education and counter denial and distortion, helping public servants and young people understand the Holocaust and antisemitism in depth and to feel a responsibility to stop atrocities.“This dialogue will help us remember all that can be lost, but also help us to see all that we can save if we choose — if we choose — to stand up rather than stand by,” Blinken said.Libya conferenceEarlier Thursday, Blinken and Libyan interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba held talks in Berlin on the heels of an international conference focused on supporting Libya’s transition to a permanent, stable government. “I’m so pleased to have this opportunity to see you, to see the foreign minister, to see your delegation, especially after the very good, good day we had yesterday, which I think demonstrated again the very strong support on the part of the international community, the United Nations for Libya, for a strong, positive future as a unified, independent, stable country without any foreign interference,” Blinken said at the start of Thursday’s meeting. Wednesday’s conference, hosted by Germany and the United Nations, included officials from 17 countries and reinforced support for national elections in Libya scheduled for late December.   A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters Wednesday that the elections are important “not just to legitimize a long-term, credible Libyan government,” but also to help achieve the goal of carrying out an existing call for all foreign fighters to leave the country. “A fully empowered, legitimate Libyan government will be in a much stronger position to turn to some of these foreign actors and say, ‘Thank you very much, it’s our country now and we’d like to be the ones to define the security cooperation relationships that we’re going to have and not have them imposed on us,’” the official said.  An official statement from conference attendees said, “all foreign forces and mercenaries need to be withdrawn from Libya without delay,” but on that point Turkey noted its reservations. The senior State Department official said Turkey sees its personnel in Libya acting as trainers based on an agreement it had with a previous interim government, the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord. Libya has experienced political instability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi from power.  Rival governments operated in separate parts of the country for years before a cease-fire deal in October that included a demand for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave Libya within 90 days.     ‘Real world’ solution
At a news conference following Wednesday’s conference, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush said there was progress toward the exit of the foreign fighters and that “hopefully within the coming days mercenaries from both sides are going to be withdrawn.”  A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters that achieving that goal is an important step that now “has to be made operational.” “There’s a process here, and saying, ‘All means all and they all leave tonight – why haven’t they left tonight?  Will they leave tomorrow night?’ is not, frankly, a realistic approach in a real-world situation such as Libya,” the official said.   Next stop France, then Italy
Blinken is on a multi-nation tour that next brings him to France to meet with President Emmanuel Macron, following up on U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent meetings with allies in the region to boost transatlantic relations.“This is really an opportunity for Secretary Blinken to reiterate the president’s message and speak with our oldest ally about areas of cooperation, including global security, again, recovery from the pandemic, and repairing and modernizing our alliances,” Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters Monday.     Defeating Islamic State will be the focus of a conference co-hosted by Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio in Rome. The top U.S. diplomat will also participate in a ministerial meeting in Italy to discuss Syria and the humanitarian needs in that country.            Blinken is also scheduled to visit the Vatican, where Reeker said the agenda includes combating climate change and human trafficking.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to visit the U.S.-Mexico border Friday as part of her effort to curb the surge in migrants attempting to enter the United States, while examining the root causes of migration from Central America.Her office said Wednesday that Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas would accompany her to El Paso, Texas, one of the main migrant entry points.Harris visited Guatemala and Mexico earlier this month, pointedly telling migrants “do not come” to the U.S.But thousands of migrants from those two countries, along with those from Honduras and El Salvador, have been making the trek to the border, many on foot, trying to escaping poverty and crime in their homelands, they say.U.S. border agents are facing the biggest number of undocumented migrants in two decades. They apprehended more than 180,000 at the border in May, mostly single adults. The figure was up slightly from the 170,000-plus numbers in both March and April.Most of the migrants are coming from Latin America, but many also are from Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and some African nations.The surge has grown since President Joe Biden and Harris took office in January, with Biden saying he was adopting what he called a more humane stance on migration than that of the Trump administration. Biden picked Harris to oversee efforts to curb the migration by addressing the root causes in Latin America for people to leave their homelands.Wall construction stopsBiden has ended construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall, and unlike his predecessor, who expelled the migrants to their home countries, he is allowing unaccompanied children to enter the U.S. But like Trump, Biden is refusing to allow families and single adults to enter.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the average daily number of children in its custody has now dropped to 640. U.S. health authorities are holding another 16,200 migrant children, though, while the government attempts to place them with relatives already living in the U.S. or with vetted caregivers.Republicans have blamed Biden for the border surge. Before meeting with Harris in early June, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei also told CBS News that when Biden took office, “the very next day, the coyotes were here organizing groups of children to take them to the United States.”Harris faced frequent questions on her foreign trip, her first as the U.S. second-in-command, about why she had not visited the border. Frustrated at the questions, she told NBC News she also had not visited Europe since taking office.Opposition Republicans have criticized her lack of a visit to crowded migrant holding facilities at the border, at one point posting a mock-up of a milk carton with her picture that was captioned “Missing at the border.” 
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday slammed an anti-LGBT measure passed by Hungary’s Parliament as “a shame” that goes against the fundamental values of the European Union. FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks in Ankara, Turkey, April 6, 2021.The bill, approved last week by Hungary’s right-wing ruling coalition in Parliament, would ban any educational programs, advertisements, books, movies or television programs depicting homosexuality or other gender minorities in a positive light. All except one right-wing opposition party boycotted the vote. The ruling party defends the legislation, saying it is designed to prevent pedophilia. But human rights groups say it will be used to harass and stigmatize Hungarian citizens based on sexual orientation and gender identities. Speaking to reporters in Brussels, von der Leyen said the Hungarian bill clearly discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation. She has asked commissioners of the EU’s executive branch to write a letter to Hungarian officials expressing the commission’s concerns before the bill enters into force. Von der Leyen said this is a matter of fundamental human rights, and she “will use all the powers of the commission to ensure that the rights of all EU citizens are guaranteed, whoever you are and wherever you live.” 
 
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