Next month, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, will get under way, setting the climate agenda for decades to come, and ahead of the summit, Western leaders have been scrambling to make promises to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Some economists, however, are warning that in the pledge-making rush, political leaders are making promises they’re unlikely to be able to keep without major economic damage and are not being honest with voters about the huge transformation that’s going to be needed, and the large costs involved, most of which are likely to be shouldered by taxpayers and households.

One hundred and twenty-nine countries and 400 cities have promised to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or before. To meet their goals, policymakers will have to take drastic action and climate action activists hope they will agree on radical plans at the international climate talks in Glasgow next month.

The International Energy Agency has said all new crude oil, natural gas and coal projects will have to be shelved, if the world is to keep the global temperature rise within 2°C compared with the pre-industrial level. Climate scientists say that goal has to be met to stave off the more catastrophic impacts of global warming.

British economist Liam Halligan, among others, questions whether meeting ambitious carbon removal targets are possible without derailing economies already struggling to regain footing in the wake of a pandemic that has disrupted supply chains, roiled energy markets and boosted inflation.

Turbulence on the global energy market, which is seeing the price of natural gas and oil soar, is giving a taste of the wrenching costs consumers and governments will face to make good on net zero promises, he says. “The West will be begging for more fossil fuel while virtue signaling at COP26,” he said in a recent commentary published in the British newspaper, The Telegraph. 

Booming consumer demand for goods as economic recovery gets under way is largely responsible for unprecedented energy price increases, but the start of the transition away from coal and natural gas to renewable power generation sources is also contributing, cautions Halligan.

Last week, Britain’s energy regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, or Ofgem, said 23% of what households are paying now for electricity goes toward energy transition costs. In Britain, electricity prices throughout September were three times higher than at any time in the last decade and households are likely to see their overall energy costs, including what they pay for natural gas heating and fuel for their cars, increase.

Analysts are warning that British households face a winter of higher bills. Britain’s energy industry is also now warning of a rising risk of winter blackouts.

Spain has warned the European Commission that emission reduction measures “may not stand a sustained period of abusive electricity prices.”

Rising prices are coming at a delicate time for governments as they plan to speed their net zero transition to post-fossil energy generation, which they say will eventually see cheaper prices. Consumers and voters, though, won’t see the benefits of cheaper post-fossil energy for some time — now they’re just seeing higher costs caused by the energy squeeze compounded in some cases by carbon and green taxes.

Policymakers face a trade-off between the high upfront cost of moving quickly toward net zero carbon targets, and the long-term damage to economic growth caused by climate change, if they delay action, say analysts.

Earlier this year the research firm Oxford Economics warned about a disorderly and costly transition to a low-carbon future, but it said in a report that the economic impact of future climate change would be worse and would severely impact livelihoods in a large number of countries — some catastrophically so. 

The research firm found that 3 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100 has the potential to reduce the level of global GDP in 2100 by 21%.

Even so, central European countries are already pushing back on European Union plans for a set of new green policies, which will raise consumer bills, and are urging caution. Last week, several of the poorer EU member states, including Poland and Slovakia, opposed proposals put forward by the European Commission to introduce new taxes on polluting fuels and to impose a 2035 deadline to ban the sale of new cars with combustion engines.

Energy prices are expected to rise further in the EU as the cost of carbon permits under the bloc’s carbon emissions trading scheme continues to rise. The rapid rise in energy costs is exacerbating inflation across central Europe.

In September, Poland’s annual inflation rate rose to 5.8%, the highest in two decades, and the country’s central bank last week increased interest rates for the first time in nine years, a move that could retard the country’s post-pandemic recovery.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week blamed EU green policies for energy price increases. “The price projections for the whole green program proved to be a mistake, and that is why Europe is suffering high energy prices,” Orban said in a video post on his Facebook page.

A handful of national leaders have been critical of what they see as a rush to net zero and a failure, they say, to evaluate the costs associated with energy transition.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declined to set net zero emissions or other climate change targets. He’s considering skipping COP26, say Australian officials. 
…

The mynah bird squawks from a new cage in the French ambassador’s sunlit living room in Abu Dhabi, a far cry from its life as the pet of a young Afghan woman who has since found refuge in France. 

Talkative, yellow-beaked “Juji” had a brief star turn on social media, its story of survival amid the frenzied evacuations from Taliban-run Afghanistan striking a chord with a global audience. 

While scenes from the American-led airlift from Kabul after 20 years of war — such as Afghans falling to their deaths after trying to cling to the wheels of a military transport jet — gripped the world, France also was intensely involved in evacuating those who had risked their lives to cooperate with its government over the years.

French Ambassador Xavier Chatel was scrambling to support the efforts at Al-Dhafra air base in the United Arab Emirates. Thousands of Afghan evacuees flooded the base near the UAE capital, along with military bases across the region, to be screened by American, French and other authorities over 12 sweltering days in August.

“There were many exhilarating stories because there were artists, there were musicians, there were people who were so relieved that they could be evacuated,” Chatel told The Associated Press Sunday from his residence overlooking the waters of the Persian Gulf. “But at the same time there was also an outpouring of distress.”

About 2,600 Afghan interpreters, artists, journalists, activists and military contractors squeezed onto flights out of Kabul to Abu Dhabi on their way to Paris with barely enough time to consider all they’d left behind. French authorities had started evacuations around a year ago, with 2,400 people airlifted from Kabul in the months before the fall, Chatel said. 

Amid the chaos at Al-Dhafra, Chatel received a security alert. Officers, on the lookout for al-Qaida and Islamic State extremist threats, had discovered illegal cargo on board. 

A woman no older than 20 appeared, clutching a mystery cardboard box. Packed inside was her beloved pet with clipped wings — the famously chatty mynah, common in its range across Southeast Asia.

But because of sanitary concerns, there was no way she could take the small bird with her to Paris. 

She was in tears, Chatel said. He declined to disclose details about the young woman and her circumstances for privacy reasons, except to say that “she had lost everything. She had lost her country. She had lost her house, she had lost her life.” 

Chatel’s story of what happened next took hold on Twitter last week and turned Juji into a minor sensation, providing an uplifting counterpoint to the economic and humanitarian crises afflicting Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover. 

After receiving detailed instructions about Juji’s dietary preferences — cucumbers, grapes, bread slices and the occasional potato — Chatel decided to adopt the bird, promising he’d take good care of it.

The young woman found the ambassador on Twitter soon after landing in France. Top of her mind upon starting a new life as a refugee was her pet stranded on the Arabian Peninsula.

Chatel replied with videos of Juji snacking on fruit, flitting around its white cage and even learning French from his marble-floored living room. After chirping in Pashto for its first few days in Abu Dhabi, Juji had managed to utter something akin to “Bonjour.” 

“[The young woman] told me something which still remains with me,” Chatel said. “The fact that the bird was still alive and that he was well looked after gave her faith and hope to start again.” 

Exactly why the story was so avidly embraced on social media remains a mystery, Chatel said. But there were no good news days out of Afghanistan during the anguished withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at Kabul airport in late August, killing scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, and those who managed to escape their homes for new lives abroad were grappling with feelings of bewilderment and guilt. With the country’s economy in free fall, ordinary people have struggled to survive.

At Al-Dhafra air base in August, you could see the fear in people’s faces, Chatel said. Children cried at the sound of popping balloons. One woman said she had “forgotten” her parents in a traumatic haze at Kabul airport. Parents arrived with stories of children they’d abandoned. 

Until Chatel can devise a way to reunite Juji with its former owner, he said the black-winged bird remains a reminder to France of those frantic days, and the courage of those embarking on new lives and the emotional toll of so many left behind. 

“In the middle of this,” Chatel said, “in the middle of these hundreds of people arriving here, there was this girl and there was this bird.” 
…

Austria’s new Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg pledged on Monday to work closely with his predecessor Sebastian Kurz, who quit in the face of corruption allegations, fueling opposition assertions that the new leader will simply do Kurz’s bidding.

The Greens, the junior partner to Kurz’s conservatives, had demanded Kurz’s head after he and nine others including senior aides were placed under investigation last week on suspicion of varying degrees of breach of trust, corruption and bribery.

Kurz, who denies wrongdoing, has been the undisputed leader of his party until now and is taking on an additional role as his party’s top lawmaker in parliament. His opponents say he will continue to control policy from those positions and act as “chancellor in the shadows.”

“I believe the accusations that have been made (against Kurz) are false and I am convinced that at the end of the day it will turn out that there was nothing to them,” Schallenberg, a career diplomat who has become a close Kurz ally, said in a statement to media.

“I will of course work very closely… with Sebastian Kurz,” he said in his first public pronouncement after moving from his position as foreign minister.

Schallenberg said he wanted to provide “responsibility and stability” but his remarks did little to appease the opposition.

“My impression is that he intends to do exactly that: go back to business as usual and act as if nothing happened,” the leader of the liberal Neos party, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, calling on Schallenberg to actively fight corruption.

Pulling the strings

Kurz also pushed back against opposition criticism.

“I am not a chancellor in the shadows,” he said on Twitter, pledging to support the government in its work.

Anti-corruption prosecutors say they suspect conservative officials in the Finance Ministry used state funds to pay for manipulated polling and coverage favorable to Kurz to appear in a newspaper starting in 2016, when Kurz was seeking to become party leader. He succeeded and won a parliamentary election the next year with pledges to take a hard line on immigration.

Critics accuse Kurz of overseeing a system or network that flouted rules on issues like party funding and appointments to state jobs in pursuit of power for him and allies. Kurz, who is under investigation separately for perjury, says all accusations are false.

“All opposition parties agree there is no change to the Kurz system. He still has all the strings in his hands and designated Chancellor Schallenberg is part of this Kurz system,” Kai Jan Krainer of the Social Democrats, who was on a parliamentary commission of inquiry that looked into possible corruption under a previous Kurz government, told ORF radio.

At Schallenberg’s swearing-in, President Alexander Van der Bellen said public trust in political institutions had been badly damaged by the investigation and text-messages it revealed that appeared to show Kurz and his allies acting cynically behind the scenes.

“The rearranged government now has a great responsibility not just to successfully continue this government’s projects but also responsibility for restoring the public’s trust in politics,” Van der Bellen said in his speech.

In some of the text-message exchanges, widely reported by Austrian media, Kurz calls a rival an “ass” and appears to instigate coalition deadlock, which he said he wanted to prevent. He expressed regret at the wording of some texts in his resignation speech on Saturday.
…

British police said on Monday they would be taking no further action after conducting a review of evidence relating to sex crime allegations against Queen Elizabeth’s son, Prince Andrew, and the late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein. 

London’s police chief, Cressida Dick, said in August that detectives would look at the allegations for a third time although they would not start an investigation, after Virginia Giuffre filed a U.S. lawsuit accusing the prince of sexual assault, which he has always denied. 

“As a matter of procedure MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) officers reviewed a document released in August 2021 as part of a U.S. civil action,” the police said in a statement on Monday. “This review has concluded, and we are taking no further action.” 

In her civil lawsuit, Giuffre, 38, has accused Andrew of forcing her to have sex when she was underage at the London home of Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. 

She also said Andrew, 61, abused her at Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan, and on Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

The British royal, the ninth in line to the throne, has always denied those allegations or having any relationship with Giuffre. 

He was forced to step down from royal duties over his friendship with Epstein, who committed suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while being held on sex-trafficking charges. 

The Sunday Times had reported this week that London police had spoken to Giuffre regarding her allegations. 

“The Metropolitan Police Service continues to liaise with other law enforcement agencies who lead the investigation into matters related to Jeffrey Epstein,” the police said in their statement. 

Last week, lawyers for Andrew, the queen’s second son, were given permission to examine a confidential 2009 agreement between Epstein and Giuffre, which they hope will absolve him from all liability in the case.  
…

The United States and Britain warned their citizens on Monday to avoid hotels in Afghanistan, days after dozens were killed at a mosque in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group active in Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan. 

The Taliban, which seized power in August and declared an Islamic emirate, are seeking international recognition and assistance to avoid a humanitarian disaster and ease Afghanistan’s economic crisis. 

But, as the hard-line Islamist group transitions from a rebel army to a governing power, they are struggling to contain the threat from the Afghanistan chapter of IS.  

“U.S. citizens who are at or near the Serena Hotel should leave immediately,” the U.S. State Department said, citing “security threats” in the area. 

“In light of the increased risks you are advised not to stay in hotels, particularly in Kabul (such as the Serena Hotel),” Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added. 

Since the Taliban takeover, many foreigners have left Afghanistan, but some journalists and aid workers remain in the capital. 

The well-known Serena, a luxury hotel popular with business travelers and foreign guests, has twice been the target of attacks by the Taliban. 

In 2014, just weeks before the presidential election, four teenage gunmen with pistols hidden in their socks managed to penetrate several layers of security, killing nine people, including an AFP journalist and members of his family. 

In 2008, a suicide bombing left six dead. 

In August, during a chaotic evacuation of foreign nationals and at-risk Afghans, NATO countries issued a chorus of warnings about an imminent threat, telling people to stay away from Kabul airport.  

Hours later, a suicide bomber detonated in a crowd gathered around one of the airport gates, killing scores of civilians and 13 American service members.  

The attack was claimed by IS Khorasan, which has since targeted several Taliban guards and claimed a devastating bomb attack in Kunduz city on Friday that ripped through a mosque during Friday prayers, the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country in August. 
…

Jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike since October 1, needs to be hospitalized, as his condition is worsening, his doctor said Sunday in a television interview.

Saakashvili declared a hunger strike after he was arrested on October 1 and incarcerated in the city of Rustavi, hours after he announced he had returned to Georgia following an eight-year absence.

Saakashvili was convicted in absentia in 2018 for abuse of power during his presidency, charges he says were politically motivated.

He had lived in Ukraine in recent years, but last month announced plans to fly to Georgia for local elections held on October 2, despite facing prison. He said he wanted to help “save the country” amid a protracted political crisis.

Nikoloz Kipshidze, Saakashvili’s doctor, said that he had been discussing his condition with doctors at the prison where he is being held, not far from the capital, Tbilisi.

“I spoke with them for half an hour about how to get through this night. I plan to visit him again tomorrow. We will probably need to transfer him to hospital,” the doctor said on Georgian television.

There was no immediate comment from prison authorities.

This article includes information from Reuters.
…

Beekeepers Mustafa Alti and his son Fehmi were kept busy tending to their hives before wildfires tore through a bucolic region of Turkey that makes most of the world’s prized pine honey.

Now the Altis and generations of other honey farmers in Turkey’s Aegean province of Mugla are scrambling to find additional work and wondering how many decades it might take to get their old lives back on track.

“Our means of existence is from beekeeping, but when the forests burned, our source of income fell,” said Fehmi, 47, next to his mountainside beehives in the fire-ravaged village of Cokek. “I do side jobs, I do some tree felling, that way we manage to make do.”

Nearly 200,000 hectares of forests — more than five times the annual average — were scorched by fires across Turkey this year, turning luscious green coasts popular with tourists into ash.

The summer disaster and an accompanying series of deadly floods made the climate — already weighing heavily on the minds of younger voters — a major issue two years before the next scheduled election.

Signaling a political shift, Turkey’s parliament this week ended a five-year wait and ratified the Paris Agreement on cutting the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming and abnormal weather events.

But the damage has already been done in Mugla, where 80 percent of Turkey’s pine honey is produced.

Turkey as a whole makes 92 percent of the world’s pine honey, meaning supplies of the thick, dark amber may be running low worldwide very soon.

Turkey’s pine honey harvests were already suffering from drought when the wildfires hit, destroying the delicate balance among bees, trees, and the little insects at the heart of the production process.

The honey is made by bees after they collect the sugary secretions of the tiny Basra beetle (Marchalina hellenica), which lives on the sap of pine trees. 

Fehmi hopes the beetles will adapt to younger trees after the fires. But he also accepts that “it will take at least five or 10 years to get our previous income back.”

His father Mustafa agrees, urging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to expand forested areas and plant young trees.

“There’s no fixing a burned house. Can you fix the dead? No. But new trees might come, a new generation,” Mustafa said.

For now, though, the beekeepers are counting their losses and figuring out what comes next.

The president of the Mugla Beekeepers’ Association, Veli Turk, expects his region’s honey production to plunge by up to 95 percent this year.

“There is pretty much no Marmaris honey left,” he said.

“This honey won’t come for another 60 years,” he predicted. “It’s not just Turkey. This honey would go everywhere in the world. It was a blessing. This is really a huge loss.”

Beekeeper Yasar Karayigit, 45, is thinking of switching to a different type of honey to keep his passion — and sole source of income — alive.

“I love beekeeping, but to continue, I’ll have to pursue alternatives,” Karayigit said, mentioning royal jelly (or “bee milk”) and sunflower honey, which involves additional costs.

“But if we love the bees, we have to do this,” the father of three said.

Ismail Atici, head of the Milas district Chamber of Agriculture in Mugla, said the price of pine honey has doubled from last year, threatening to make the popular breakfast food unaffordable for many Turks.

He expects price rises to continue and supplies to become ever scarcer.

“We will get to a point where even if you have money, you won’t be able to find those medicinal plants and medicinal honey,” Atici said.

“It’s going to be very hard to find 100 percent pine honey,” beekeeper Karayigit agreed. “We have had so much loss.”

Looking ahead, the president of the Turkey Beekeepers’ Association, Ziya Sahin, suggests selectively introducing the Basra beetle to new areas of Mugla, expanding coverage from the current 7% to 25% of local pine forests.

“If we conduct transplantation of the beetle from one area to another and continue this for two successive years, we can protect the region’s dominance in the sector,” Sahin said.

“There will be a serious drop in honey production if we don’t do this,” he added, calling this year the “worst” of his 50-year career.

Yet despite the pain and the troubled road ahead, the younger Alti has no plans to quit.

“This is my father’s trade. Because this is passed down from the family, we must continue it,” Fehmi said.
…

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Israel Sunday, meeting with Israeli leaders. She called on Iran to return to negotiations on a new nuclear deal. Under her leadership, Israel and Germany have had close relations including cooperation on Iran and its nuclear program. The visit comes as Iran says it has 120 kilograms of enriched uranium.

The trip marked the eighth time that Germany’s Angela Merkel had traveled to Israel since she became chancellor 16 years ago. And in her last official visit, the Israeli Cabinet held a special session in her honor. Under her leadership, Germany has become Israel’s closest friend in Europe with close cooperation on all issues including Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett used the occasion to warn the world that Iran is moving closer to a nuclear bomb.

He said that Iran’s nuclear program is at its most advanced point ever,” adding, “The world waits, the Iranians delay, and the centrifuges spin.”

Merkel said that Israel’s security will always be important to Germany, no matter who leads Germany. She also urged Iran to return to negotiations on a future nuclear deal. Her visit came as Iranian officials announced they had enriched 120 kilograms of uranium to 20 percent. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The original 2015 agreement among Iran, Germany, China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), provided Iran with relief from sanctions in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

Israel opposed the agreement, saying it could pave the way for Iran to become a nuclear power eventually. And Israeli officials welcomed the 2018 decision by then-U.S. President Donald Trump to leave the deal. Since then, they say, Iran has moved forward on getting a bomb and is closer than ever.  

Chancellor Merkel also visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial.

Merkel said that she considers it a stroke of good fortune given to us by history that after the crimes against humanity that were the Shoah, it has been possible to reset and reestablish relations between Germany and Israel to the extent that we have done.

She said that the situation with Iran is difficult but that without an agreement with Tehran, it will be even more difficult. Merkel’s meeting with Bennett followed talks between the Israeli leader and U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington in August.

Biden has offered to rejoin the deal if Iran returns to full compliance with its nuclear provisions. The U.S. and Iran have held indirect talks about rejoining the accord if Tehran returns to full compliance with its nuclear terms. Talks, however, have stalled.
…

Left-leaning Italian lawmakers and politicians on Sunday called for measures to outlaw pro-fascism groups a day after anti-vaccine protesters, incited by extreme-right leaders, stormed a union office in Rome.

Twelve protesters were either detained or arrested, authorities said Sunday, including Giuliano Castellino, leader of the extreme-right Forza Nuova party. Some 10,000 demonstrators turned out Saturday to express their outrage at a government-imposed requirement that employees have a “Green Pass” to enter their workplaces starting next Friday.

The passes certify that a person has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, recently recovered from the infection or tested negative within two days.

Cries of “Giuliano! Giuliano!” rose from the crowd Saturday. Castellino, who due to past violence has been banned from demonstrations in Rome, was allegedly one of the Forza Nuova members who exhorted supporters to storm the national headquarters of the CGIL labor confederation. Labor unions in Italy have supported the Green Passes to make workplaces safer for employees.

Scores of demonstrators used sticks, metal bars and rolled-up Italian flags to force their way inside and trash the place.

Later, hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police as they tried to reach the square outside Chigi Palace, home to the premier’s office and near the Italian parliament.

“The assault on CGIL headquarters and the attempt to repeat that at Chigi Palace leaves one shocked,” wrote l’eco del sud.it, a southern Italian news website.

After the storming of the union headquarters, demonstrators then headed down Rome’s Via Veneto, a boulevard that winds past the U.S. embassy. As a precaution, Italian security officials decided to usher Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Speaker of the House, out of a nearby church where she had been attending Mass, her office said Sunday.

Earlier Saturday, Pelosi had a private audience at the Vatican with Pope Francis.

Dozens of protesters on Saturday night also stormed the emergency room at the Umberto I Polyclinic, where a demonstrator had been taken after feeling ill, and it took hours to remove them, hospital officials said. Gov. Nicola Zingaretti of Lazio, the region including Rome, said the culprits appeared to have participated in the anti-vaccine protests.

In the melee at the clinic, a nurse was struck in the head by a bottle and two police officers suffered bruises, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

Among those calling for the outlawing of pro-fascism groups was Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s former premier and the new leader of the populist 5-Star Movement.

“We cannot accept these manifestations of thuggery,” Conte said.

The Italian Constitution bans any recreation of fascist parties, following the demise of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship before and during World War II.

Conte spoke to reporters outside the GCIL headquarters, where hundreds of supporters demonstrated Sunday in solidarity. Similar demonstrations drew supporters in Florence, Bologna and Milan.

A Democratic Party lawmaker, Emanuele Fiano, said he’ll present a motion in parliament on Monday pressing Premier Mario Draghi’s government to outlaw by decree Forza Nuova and similar movements.
…

A Russian plane crashed over the Tatarstan region Sunday, killing 16 people and injuring seven, the emergencies ministry said.

The L-410 Turbolet plane crashed with 23 people on board, including a group of parachute jumpers, around 9:23 a.m. local time near the town of Menzelinsk, the ministry said, adding that seven people had been rescued from the debris. 

All seven are hospitalized, with one “in very serious condition.”

The L-410 is a twin-engine short-range transport aircraft.

Although Russia has improved aviation safety standards in recent years, crashes, especially of aging planes, in remote regions, are not uncommon.

One Antonov transport plane, model An-26 crashed last month, killing six people. Another crashed in Kamchatka in July, killing all 28 people on board.

Some information for this report comes from Reuters and AFP. 

 
…

Britain will tell the European Union again next week that “significant change” to the Northern Ireland protocol is vital for the restoration of genuinely good relations between London and Brussels.

The protocol was part of the Brexit divorce settlement Prime Minister Boris Johnson negotiated with the EU, but London has said it must be rewritten less than a year after it took effect because of the barriers businesses face when importing British goods into the province.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic, who oversees post-Brexit relations with Britain, said Thursday that the EU’s executive would finalize measures next week aimed at resolving post-Brexit trading issues in Northern Ireland by the end of the year or early 2022.

But Sefcovic reiterated that he would not renegotiate the protocol and that solutions would have to be found within the terms of a deal designed to keep an open border between Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland.

The European Commission’s measures are expected to be presented Wednesday.

Use of Article 16

Britain’s Brexit Minister David Frost is to give a speech to the diplomatic community in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, on Tuesday. He is expected to say endless negotiation is not an option and that London will need to use the Article 16 safeguard mechanism if solutions cannot be agreed upon rapidly, according to extracts of his speech released by his office Saturday.

Article 16 allows either side to take unilateral action if the protocol is deemed to have a negative impact.

“No one should be in any doubt about the seriousness of the situation. … The EU now needs to show ambition and willingness to tackle the fundamental issues at the heart of the protocol head on,” the speech transcript said.

Frost is also expected to signal a desire to free the protocol from the oversight of European judges.

“The role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland and the consequent inability of the U.K. government to implement the very sensitive arrangements in the protocol in a reasonable way has created a deep imbalance in the way the protocol operates,” the transcript said. “Without new arrangements in this area the protocol will never have the support it needs to survive.” 

Reacting to publication of Frost’s stance on the ECJ, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the British government had created a new “red line” barrier to progress that it knows the EU cannot move on.
…

When Russian regulators approved the country’s own coronavirus vaccine, it was a moment of national pride, and the Pavlov family was among those who rushed to take the injection. But international health authorities have not yet given their blessing to the Sputnik V shot.

So when the family from Rostov-on-Don wanted to visit the West, they looked for a vaccine that would allow them to travel freely, a quest that brought them to Serbia, where hundreds of Russian citizens have flocked in recent weeks to receive Western-approved COVID-19 shots.

Serbia, which is not a member of the European Union, is a convenient choice for vaccine-seeking Russians because they can enter the allied Balkan nation without visas and because it offers a wide choice of Western-made shots. Organized tours for Russians have soared, and they can be spotted in the capital, Belgrade, at hotels, restaurants, bars and vaccination clinics.

“We took the Pfizer vaccine because we want to travel around the world,” Nadezhda Pavlova, 54, said after receiving the vaccine last weekend at a sprawling Belgrade vaccination center.

Her husband, Vitaly Pavlov, 55, said he wanted “the whole world to be open to us rather than just a few countries.”

Vaccination tours

Vaccination tour packages for Russians seeking shots endorsed by the World Health Organization appeared on the market in mid-September, according to Russia’s Association of Tour Operators.

Maya Lomidze, the group’s executive director, said prices start at $300-$700, depending on what’s included.

Lauded by Russian President Vladimir Putin as world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V emerged in August 2020 and has been approved in some 70 countries, including Serbia. But the WHO has said global approval is still under review after citing issues at a production plant a few months ago.

On Friday, a top World Health Organization official said legal issues holding up the review of Sputnik V were “about to be sorted out,” a step that could relaunch the process toward emergency use authorization.

Other hurdles remain for the Russian application, including a lack of full scientific information and inspections of manufacturing sites, said Dr. Mariangela Simao, a WHO assistant director-general.

Apart from the WHO, Sputnik V is also awaiting approval from the European Medicines Agency before all travel limitations can be lifted for people vaccinated with the Russian formula.

Getting into Europe

The long wait has frustrated many Russians, so when the WHO announced yet another delay in September, they started looking for solutions elsewhere.

“People don’t want to wait; people need to be able to get into Europe for various personal reasons,” explained Anna Filatovskaya, Russky Express tour agency spokeswoman in Moscow. “Some have relatives. Some have business, some study, some work. Some simply want to go to Europe because they miss it.”

Serbia, a fellow-Orthodox Christian and Slavic nation, offers the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Chinese Sinopharm shots. By popular demand, Russian tourist agencies are now also offering tours to Croatia, where tourists can receive the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, without the need to return for a second dose.

“For Serbia, the demand has been growing like an avalanche,” Filatovskaya said. “It’s as if all our company is doing these days is selling tours for Serbia.”

The Balkan nation introduced vaccination for foreigners in August, when the vaccination drive inside the country slowed after reaching around 50% of the adult population. Official Serbian government data shows that nearly 160,000 foreign citizens so far have been vaccinated in the country, but it is unclear how many are Russians.

In Russia, the country’s vaccination rate has been low. By this week, almost 33% of Russia’s 146 million people have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 29% were fully vaccinated. Apart from Sputnik V and a one-dose version known as Sputnik Light, Russia has also used two other domestically designed vaccines that have not been internationally approved.

Amid low vaccination rates and reluctance by the authorities to reimpose restrictive measures, both Russia and Serbia have seen COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations reach record levels in the past weeks.

The daily coronavirus death toll in Russia topped 900 for a second straight day on Thursday, a day after reaching a record 929. In Serbia, the daily death toll of 50 people is the highest in months in the country of 7 million that so far has confirmed nearly 1 million cases of infection.

Pavlova said the “double protection” offered by the Pfizer booster shots would allow the family “to not only travel around the world, but also to see our loved ones without fear.”

Since the vaccine tours exploded in popularity about a month ago, they have provided welcome business for Serbian tour operators devastated by the pandemic in an already weak economy. The owner of BTS Kompas travel agency in Belgrade, Predrag Tesic, said they are booked well in advance.

“It started modestly at first, but day by day numbers have grown nicely,” Tesic said.

He explained that his agency organizes everything, from airport transport to accommodations and translation and other help at vaccination points. When they return for another dose in three weeks, the Russian guests also are offered brief tours to some of popular sites in Serbia. 
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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Saturday that he planned to step down in an effort to defuse a government crisis triggered by prosecutors’ announcement that he is a target of a corruption investigation.

Kurz, 35, said he had proposed that Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg replace him. But Kurz himself will remain in politics: He said he would become the head of his conservative Austrian People’s Party’s parliamentary group.

Kurz’s party had closed ranks behind him after the prosecutors’ announcement on Wednesday. But its junior coalition partner, the Greens, said Friday that Kurz couldn’t remain as chancellor and demanded that his party nominate an “irreproachable person” to replace him.

Opposition leaders had called for Kurz to go and planned to bring a no-confidence motion against him Tuesday in parliament.

“What we need now are stable conditions,” Kurz told reporters in Vienna. “So, in order to resolve the stalemate, I want to make way to prevent chaos and ensure stability.” 

Kurz and his close associates are accused of trying to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly reports in the media, financed with public money. Kurz, who became the People’s Party leader and then chancellor in 2017, has denied wrongdoing and until Saturday made clear he planned to stay on.

In Saturday’s statement, he insisted again that the accusations against him “are false and I will be able to clear this up — I am deeply convinced of that.”

Kurz said he would keep his party’s leadership as well as becoming its parliamentary group leader.

Kurz’s first coalition with the far-right Freedom Party collapsed in 2019. The chancellor pulled the plug after a video surfaced showing the Freedom Party’s leader at the time, Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
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Red-hot lava Saturday engulfed the land Jose Roberto Sanchez inherited from his parents, and lightning flashed around the rim of the volcano that has been erupting on the Spanish island of La Palma for almost three weeks.

There were 37 seismic movements Saturday, with the largest measuring 4.1, the Spanish National Geological Institute said, but La Palma’s airport reopened after being closed since Thursday because of ash, Spanish air traffic operator Aena said. All other Canary Islands airports were open.

The magma streaming down the hillside from the Cumbre Vieja volcano destroyed at least four village buildings, some of nearly 1,150 buildings and surrounding land destroyed since the volcano began erupting on September 19.

“The memories of my parents, the inheritance I had there, It’s all gone,” Sanchez told Reuters of the land his parents owned in Todoque in the west of the island.

Nearly 500 hectares affected

Lava has engulfed 493 hectares (1,218 acres) of land, Miguel Ãngel Morcuende, technical director of the Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca) organization, said.

Some people, like Clara Maria, 70, who also lives in Todoque, have so far escaped the impact. “The lava has not yet reached my house. [It] was 50 years of sacrifice, stone by stone we built it. I have hope and faith that it will be saved,” she said.

About 6,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on La Palma, which has about 83,000 inhabitants.

Lightning flashes were seen near the eruption early Saturday. A study published in 2016 by the journal Geophysical Research Letters found lightning can be produced during volcanic eruptions because the collision of ash particles creates an electrical charge.

Airlines flying to the Canary Islands were advised to load extra fuel in case planes had to change course or delay landing because of ash, said a spokesman for Enaire, which controls navigation in Spanish airspace.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that his country will return 26 African artworks — royal thrones, ceremonial altars, revered statues — to Benin later this month, part of France’s long-promised plans to give back artwork taken from Africa during the colonial era.

Discussions have been under way for years on returning the artworks from the 19th century Dahomey Kingdom. Called the “Abomey Treasures,” they currently are held in the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. The museum, near the Eiffel Tower, holds thousands of works from former French colonies.

Macron said the 26 pieces will be given back at the end of October, “because to restitute these works to Africa is to give African young people access to their culture.” It remains unclear when exactly they will arrive in Benin.

“We need to be honest with ourselves. There was colonial pillage, it’s absolutely true,” Macron told a group of African cultural figures at an Africa-France gathering in the southern city of Montpellier. He noted other works already were returned to Senegal and Benin, and the restitution of art to Ivory Coast is planned.

Cameroon-born art curator Koyo Kouoh pressed Macron for more efforts to right past wrongs.

“Our imagination was violated,” she said.

“Africa has been married to France in a forced marriage for at least 500 years,” Kouoh said. “The work (on mending relations) that should have been done for decades wasn’t done…It’s not possible that we find ourselves here in 2021.”

A sweeping 2018 report commissioned by Macron recommended that French museums give back works that were taken without consent, estimating that up to 90% of African art is located outside the continent. Some other European countries are making similar efforts.

Three years later, few artworks have been returned. To facilitate the repatriation of the Abomey Treasures, France’s parliament passed a law in December 2020 allowing the state to hand the works over and giving it up to one year to do so.

The Africa-France meeting Friday was frank and occasionally heated. Macron, who is trying to craft a new French strategy for Africa. met with hundreds of African entrepreneurs, cultural leaders and young people. 

Speakers from Nigeria, Chad, Guinea and beyond had a long list of demands for France: reparations for colonial crimes, withdrawal of French troops, investment that bypasses corrupt governments and a tougher stance toward African dictatorships.

Macron defended France’s military presence in Mali and other countries in the Sahel region as necessary to keep terrorists at bay, and he refused to apologize for the past.

But he acknowledged that France has a “responsibility and duty” to Africa because of its role in the slave trade and other colonial-era wrongs. Noting that more than 7 million French people have a family link to Africa, Macron said France cannot build its future unless it “assumes its Africanness.”
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United Nations monitors have found a significant rise in casualties in eastern Ukraine since Russia-backed separatists ended a cease-fire agreement with the government in Kyiv earlier this year. The findings are part of a report by the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The report covers human rights developments in Ukraine from February to the end of July of this year. It found 15 civilians have been killed and 47 injured since fighting escalated in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.  It noted that the number constituted a 51% increase over the previous six months.

U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif said U.N. monitors have documented 13 cases of arbitrary detention related to the conflict between government forces and rebels in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. She added that 11 remain in detention.

“Both self-proclaimed republics issued decrees, in March and April, establishing the forced recruitment of 400 men into armed groups. Another decree issued on October 1 established the recruitment of a further 500 men. This exposes male civilians to involuntary lethal danger, stripping them of the protection afforded to civilians by international humanitarian law, and opens them to the risk of criminal prosecution,” Al-Nashif said.

The report says an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship prevails in territory controlled by the separatist rebels. It underscores that the self-proclaimed republics continue to restrict freedom of religion, especially that of evangelical Christians.

Al-Nashif said that the government of Ukraine also has a checkered human rights record. As an example she cited 22 documented cases of threats and attacks against journalists, human rights defenders, LGBTI people and national minorities among others.

“Hate speech was also directed against Roma, LGBTI persons, women, persons with disabilities and people perceived to have pro-Russian views. It is imperative that the authorities effectively investigate each such incident, fully acknowledging any bias motives,” Al Nashif said.

The U.N. monitoring mission accused Russia of multiple violations of civil liberties and fair trial rights in the Crimean Peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014. The report documents cases of torture and ill-treatment against Ukrainian citizens in Crimea.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Yevheniia Filipenko, said millions of Ukrainians living in de facto Russian-occupied territories continue to be deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms. She also criticized efforts by Russia to legitimize its annexation of Crimea.  
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Russia’s state statistics service reported nearly 50,000 coronavirus deaths in the country in August, taking the toll since the beginning of the pandemic to over 400,000, nearly double the official government figure.

Rosstat released its figures late Friday, reporting that 49,389 people died from COVID-19 in August, a figure much higher than 24,661, the government tally for the same month.

Overall, Rosstat says around 418,000 people have died in Russia since the pandemic began. This nearly doubles the official total death toll of 214,000 published by the Russian coronavirus task force earlier Friday.

Russian officials explained the discrepancy, saying COVID-19 deaths are counted differently by the two agencies. The government coronavirus task force counts only fatalities for which an autopsy confirms COVID-19 as the primary cause of death, while Rosstat uses a broader definition for deaths linked to the virus.

In other developments Friday, the World Health Organization announced it has established and released the first standardized clinical definition of what is commonly known as “long COVID” to help boost treatment for sufferers.

Speaking virtually to reporters from the agency’s Geneva headquarters, WHO Head of Clinical Management Janet Diaz said the definition was agreed on after global consultations with health officials.

She said the condition, in which symptoms of the illness persist well beyond what is commonly experienced, is usually referred to as “post COVID.” Moreover, it occurs in people who have had confirmed or probable new coronavirus infections, “usually three months on from the onset of the COVID-19, with symptoms that last for at least two months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis.”

Those symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction, she said, but there also are others that generally have an adverse effect on everyday functioning. Diaz said that until now, a lack of clarity among health care professionals about the condition has complicated efforts in advancing research and treatment.

In the United States, officials said they would accept the use by international travelers of any COVID-19 vaccine authorized by U.S. regulators or the WHO. Last month, the White House announced that it would lift travel restrictions on people from 33 countries who show proof of vaccination. Officials did not say at that time which vaccines would be accepted, however.

The Associated Press reports that the number of Americans getting COVID-19 vaccines has reached a three-month high, averaging 1 million per day, as more employers mandate the shots and some Americans seek boosters. That figure is almost double the level for mid-July but still well below last spring, according to the AP.

Meanwhile, a senior White House official announced Friday that the U.S. government is shipping more than 1.8 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines — a donation that will be executed through the WHO-managed COVAX vaccine cooperative. The doses will arrive in two shipments, probably Sunday and Monday, according to the official.

U.S. drugmaker Moderna announced earlier Friday it was planning to deliver another 1 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to low-income countries next year. In a message posted to the company’s website, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said the company was investing to expand its capacity to deliver the additional doses.

The disclosure is part of what Bancel describes as his company’s five-pillar strategy to ensure low-income countries get access to the company’s vaccine. The plan includes not enforcing its vaccine patents, expanding its production capacity worldwide, and working with the United States and others to distribute their surplus doses of vaccine.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 

 
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“It’s worse than a plague,” said Pedro Antonio Sanchez, fuming over the volcanic grit coating his bananas, the main source of wealth on the Canaries’ island of La Palma.

“It’s worse than a pest or disease because it scratches [the fruit],” said Sanchez, gesturing at the black sandy deposits that have rained down since the volcano erupted on September 19.

The volcano has caused major damage to banana plantations in La Palma, the second-largest producer in the Atlantic Canary Islands, where the crop accounts for 50 of the island’s economy, industry figures show. 

Once the ash lands on the bananas, it is almost impossible to remove.

And it causes further damage in the handling, transport and packing, with the huge bunches, which are known as “pineapples” and can weigh up to 70 kilos (150 pounds), carried on the shoulders.

“You have to blast it off with water or something — to be honest, I don’t know how to do it,” said Sanchez, 60, who owns a small plantation. “When the dew forms overnight, it really makes the grit stick, and in the morning it just won’t come off.”

Can’t be sold

The skin blackens in the form of a scratch but nothing like the brownish-black markings that show the fruit is ripe.

And although the banana is perfect, it is rejected and cannot be sold.

“European quality regulations ban the sale of bananas with more than four square centimeters of scratches per fruit, even if they are perfect inside and can be eaten without risk,” said Esther Dominguez of ASPROCAN, which represents banana producers in the Canary Islands.

The volcano’s eruption has predominantly hurt the Aridane valley on the western flank of La Palma, although the problem caused by volcanic ash and grit has affected a much wider area. 

“It is not just the Aridane valley, because the wind changes direction and ash is blown all over. So 100 percent of the island is affected,” Juan Vicente Rodriguez Leal, head of the Covalle agricultural cooperative, told AFP. 

“So we are going to have a significant loss of at least one year’s crop,” he said, estimating losses of “around 120 to 130 million euros [$140 to $150 million].” 

The plantations are also suffering from a lack of water after the lava destroyed the area’s irrigation pipeline.

Bananas need a lot of water and the current shortage “is the biggest threat,” Sanchez said.

La Palma has long suffered from water shortages. It has no rivers, lakes or reservoirs, so the island gets its water from underground aquifers or rain collected by pine trees and transferred to the ground.

Bananas “need a lot of irrigation every seven days. Now we’re irrigating every 15 days to save water, and although they’re not going to dry out, the fruit feels the impact,” Sanchez said.

A third of Canaries’ crop 

In 2020, La Palma produced 148,000 metric tons of bananas, or 34.5% of the Canaries’ overall crop, ASPROCAN figures show.

In terms of production, it is second only to Tenerife, which is three times larger.

One-tenth of La Palma’s 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) is dedicated to agriculture, of which 43% is planted in bananas, according to the Biosphere Reserve of La Palma. 

More than 80% of the banana plantations in the Canaries are modest plots of less than 2.5 acres (one hectare), with many farmers living hand to mouth.

Although Sanchez enjoys the work, he’s had enough of living on the bread line.

“There are months when you bring in 1,000 euros ($1,150) or a bit more, but it’s normally less,” sometimes even as little as 300 euros, he said.

“It just doesn’t make me feel like working.”
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European ministers expressed concern Friday over the growing number of migrants illegally crossing from Belarus into several Baltic states, saying Minsk is intentionally facilitating their crossing to politically destabilize those countries and distract from human rights abuses at home by the Lukashenko regime. 

“They have been luring thousands of third-country nationals to Belarus, issuing them tourist visas, bringing them to the European Union-Belarus border and forcing them to illegally cross to neighboring countries,” Estonian Foreign Minister Eva-Maria Liimets told a virtual informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council that her nation organized.

“The objective of the authorities of Belarus with this hybrid action and manipulation of human beings has been to destabilize its neighboring countries and divert attention from increasing human rights violations in Belarus,” Liimets said.

Minsk denied the accusation.

“Belarus did not orchestrate the refugee crisis on its western borders,” Belarusian Ambassador Valentin Rybakov told the meeting. “Belarus did not violate its obligations towards refugees who seek asylum in Western countries.”

Rybakov said Minsk is willing to cooperate with international organizations to resolve the situation.

The migrants, many of them from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran, seek asylum when they reach European Union member states. 

Their journeys are not without peril. In September, the International Organization for Migration said four migrants died near the border between Poland and Belarus. At least two of them appeared to have died of hypothermia, raising additional concerns for the safety of migrants as winter approaches.

The IOM expressed concern that migrants were being turned back at EU borders, leaving groups of people stranded for weeks without assistance. 

European and especially Baltic ministers blamed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for repression in his own country and accused him of manufacturing a new migration crisis. 

After a contested election in August 2020, which Western nations said was rigged in his favor, Lukashenko tightened his nearly 30-year grip on power, cracking down on protesters, activists, human rights defenders and journalists in Belarus. 

The head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in New York, Ilze Brands Kehris, told the meeting that the office had received reports of more than 800 people being jailed for political opinions.

She said that in September, 103 people were convicted in what appeared to be “politically motivated criminal cases,” and at least 20 journalists and media workers remained in detention. 

“According to civil society sources, by the end of September, at least 275 civil society organizations had been closed down or were in the process of being liquidated by the authorities,” she noted. 

“These individuals who appear to be stranded along the border are human beings and must not be abused as political instruments or bargaining chips,” she said of the migrants. 

The flow of migrants picked up after the European Union sanctioned Minsk for forcing a commercial airliner flying over its territory in May to land. The authorities arrested a Belarusian opposition blogger and his girlfriend who were on board. 

“The regime is conducting a hybrid attack,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said. He compared the Lukashenko regime to human traffickers and organized criminals and accused them of financially profiting from their scheme. 

“This is a clear retaliation for us being decisive in our support of Belarusian civil society and for giving shelter and protection to the Belarusian people demanding free and fair elections in their country,” Rinkevics said. 

“According to many testimonies of migrants caught in Poland, on their way to the Polish border they are forced to pay bribes, their documents are taken away, and sometimes, finally, they are forced to illegally cross the border into the EU countries,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz said. 

Lithuania has also seen an influx of migrants. Vice Minister Mantas Adoménas said Minsk must be held to account. 

“It is time for the international community to give a strong response to deteriorating human rights situation in Belarus,” Adoménas said. 

“As long as the regime in Belarus refuses to respect its international obligations and commitments, undermines the peace and security of Europe, and continues to repress and abuse its own people, we will not bend on sanctions, nor will we lessen our calls for accountability,” said U.S. envoy Richard Mills. 

Russia accused Western nations of “double standards” in picking on Belarus. Deputy U.N. envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy said the West had failed to topple Lukashenko in a “color revolution” in Belarus – a reference to Ukraine’s “orange revolution” – and this was essentially their way of distracting from their failure.

China said illegal migration was not a new issue for Europe, and that Belarus as a country of transit and destination, was no less a “victim” than its neighbors. 
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Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov of Novaya Gazeta and Philippine journalist Maria Ressa of Rappler have been named the recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize — a move press freedom advocates hope will shine light on the threats to a global free press. Esha Sarai has more. Tommy Walker contributed.
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Surrounded by a group of men wielding axes, Romanian filmmaker Mihai Dragolea was sure he was going to die.

The filmmaker, part of the independent Vagabond Film production company, was with his colleague Radu Mocanu as well as Tiberiu Bosutar, a former timber worker turned environmental activist, in a remote forested area in Romania last month for a documentary on illegal logging. 

While the film crew was working in the woods, a group of 10 to 20 men, carrying axes and bats, approached. Dragolea said someone yelled, “Stop the camera. We’re going to kill you.” Another man broke their car key so they could not escape. 

The men beat Dragolea, Mocanu and Bosutar and destroyed equipment in an assault that media and environmental rights analysts say shows the dangers of investigating illegal activities that harm the environment.

“Covering the environment can be incredibly dangerous, especially in places where natural resources are a major source of a country’s revenue,” Meaghan Parker, executive director of the Society of Environmental Journalists, told VOA. 

Dragolea described the attack as “organized.” The group had been filming in Romania’s Suceava County — a region whose forest has been rapidly disappearing over the past 20 years. 

“I was sure we were going to die,” Dragolea told VOA. “If you see axes coming towards you, that’s a message.” 

Dragolea managed to escape the beating by jumping into a ravine, where he called emergency services.

Mocanu was beaten and suffered memory loss. Bosutar was also beaten, and the attackers forced him to remove his clothing in an attempt to humiliate him.

Dragolea credits the police for arriving at the remote forest area in about 30 minutes and saving them from more serious harm.  

‘Timber mafia’

Romania is home to one of the largest old-growth forests in Europe, and its multibillion-dollar logging industry is a major source of the country’s revenue.

With the gradual collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, starting in the late 1980s, timber became a private industry in Romania. It drives the economy, providing profits to private forestry companies and jobs for workers.

But it has also been susceptible to corruption and crime allegedly tied to the government. In 2020, the European Union, saying Romania was not doing enough to tackle illegal logging or assess environmental impact, started a sanctions process.

VOA’s call and email to the Romanian Embassy in Washington went unanswered. 

Romania’s so-called “timber mafia” has taken to protecting its interests through violent attacks against forest rangers, activists and journalists, according to the European Center for Press and Media Freedom. 

Since 2014, at least 650 forest rangers have been attacked and six deaths have been recorded, according to reports. Additionally, dozens of journalists and activists have been attacked, the center said. 

“This has been brewing for 30 years and the wood-mafia have become so strong that they are almost impervious,” Dragolea told VOA. 

Covering logging and other environmental issues can sometimes draw journalists into other risky beats such as organized crime and corruption.

“With money comes opportunities for corruption and crime,” said Parker, from the Society for Environmental Journalists. “[They] are not just environmental reporters. They’re business reporters. They’re crime reporters. They’re corruption reporters. And that puts them often at great risk because they are dealing with people who will want to make sure they don’t investigate that corruption or that crime by using physical violence and murder.” 

Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu publicly condemned the attack against Dragolea and his team, and authorities have arrested suspects in the case.

But such action is rare, said Laurens Hueting, senior advocacy officer at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.  

“People aren’t being held accountable. There’s very weak investigation, very weak prosecution,” Hueting said. “It sends that signal that this is tolerated, this is okay, you can get away with this.” 

Bucharest charged 11 people with “hitting and other violence” in connection with the assault, which Dragolea believes is too lenient. 

“They didn’t mention anything about the destroyed equipment, humiliation, torture or attempt at one’s life. Because if one charges at you with an ax, that’s attempted murder,” Dragolea said. The journalist estimates about 8,000 euros worth of recording equipment was destroyed in the attack.

Dragolea and Bosutar returned to the forest a week after the attack to capture footage of unauthorized cutting and plan to continue filming their documentary. “We do not want to quit and succumb,” Dragolea told VOA.  

 
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French President Emmanuel Macron faced the frustration of young people from across Africa on Friday over a range of issues, including migration and the vestiges of colonialism, at a summit aiming to turn the page with the continent.

Billed as a chance to prove France’s commitment in particular to young Africans, the Africa-France summit gathering some 3,000 business leaders, artists and athletes in the southern city of Montpellier was largely dominated by the region’s crises.

“I can no longer stand to see African youths dying in the sea” trying to reach Europe, a woman told Macron as he visited the dozens of round tables at the vast Sud de France arena overlooking the Mediterranean.

A young Guinean urged him to “support the transition” after the military coup that deposed the West African country’s long-time president Alpha Conde last month.

Sibila Saminatou Ouedraogo, a Burkina Faso participant at the conference, said that African nations — many of them former French colonies — still labored under a “relationship of dependency” towards France that was holding back their development.

More than 1,000 youths were at the gathering which, though dubbed a “summit” by the French hosts, pointedly excluded leaders other than Macron.

‘System of humiliation’

The French president will later debate with 12 young people chosen by the Cameroon intellectual Achille Mbembe, who was tasked with organizing the meeting.

“We hope that Montpellier will mark a fresh start — that people listen to Africa and African youths, which have things to say to the world and France,” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute.

But the meeting also comes as many youths in particular have bristled at Macron’s decision to slash visas to Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians in a dispute on illegal immigration.

Mehdi Alioua, a political science professor in Rabat, denounced “a collective punishment” and a “system of humiliation” — sparking fierce applause.

“We’re stuck between condescending language from the West that want to educate Africans, and language from our governments claiming that the West wants to impose its values,” said Habiba Issa Moussa, a Nigerian studying in France.

Expectations are high that Macron will announce concrete steps such as those proposed by Mbembe, which include a fund for promoting democratic initiatives or increased opportunities for students to study abroad.

In a report given to the president this week, Mbembe said France was failing to recognize “new movements and political and culture experiments” underway in several countries.

After arriving in Montpellier, Macron said 26 artworks and other prized artefacts stolen by French colonial forces from Benin a century ago would be returned this month as promised.
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The United States and the European Union have honored the memory of a Russian investigative journalist slain 15 years ago by demanding that Moscow bring to justice those who ordered her killing and praising the independent journalists continuing her legacy under Kremlin pressure.

In one of two statements issued Thursday, the 15th anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya’s killing, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized what he called “continued impunity for those who ordered [her] murder,” saying it undermined Russia’s freedom of speech, press freedom and broader human rights.

“We urge that all of those involved in her murder be identified and held accountable for their crimes,” he said.

EU foreign affairs spokesperson Peter Stano said the 27-nation bloc “call[s] on the Russian government to ensure that all those responsible for Anna Politkovskaya’s assassination are brought to justice through an open and transparent judicial process.” He also noted a 2018 judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that said Moscow had not done enough to find those who ordered her killing, even after convicting several people who carried it out.

Politkovskaya was shot to death in an elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006. The 48-year-old investigative reporter for Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta had been an outspoken critic of Russia’s longtime president, Vladimir Putin.

She gained prominence for her coverage of human rights violations committed during Russia’s war with separatists in its constituent republic of Chechnya in the 2000s.

Her killing coincided with an intensification of a Kremlin crackdown on freedoms of speech and the press in Russia, recalled Jeffrey Trimble, an Ohio State University political science lecturer who had been a senior manager at VOA sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at the time.

“It was the year, for instance, that the Voice of America and RFE/RL lost almost all of their local rebroadcasting partners in Russia,” Trimble told VOA in a Wednesday interview.

Both Blinken and Stano noted in their statements that Russia’s press freedoms have recently weakened further, with the government designating many independent journalists as “foreign agents” or “undesirable.” They said the U.S. and the EU will stand in solidarity with those journalists in the face of such pressure.

Speaking to Russian reporters Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said finding the mastermind of contract killings was a difficult and lengthy process. He said the “inevitability of punishment” for such crimes was of major importance to Moscow.

In 2014, a Moscow court convicted four Chechens, one of whom was the gunman, of involvement in the Politkovskaya killing. A former Moscow police officer also was convicted of being an accomplice.

Novaya Gazeta published an article Wednesday, noting that under Russia’s statute of limitations, the killing’s mastermind would not face punishment more than 15 years after the crime was committed unless a court extended the period. It vowed to push the government to revive its investigation and identify the mastermind.

The newspaper also posted on its website a nearly two-hour documentary with findings from its own investigation into the killing.

“Even with the crackdown on independent journalism in Russia, creative and brave journalists are finding a way to cooperate and work with their international colleagues,” Trimble said. “I hope that Russian journalists who continue to investigate this [killing], together with international journalists who have other resources, can produce information that will force the Russian authorities to take more definitive action to solve this crime,” he added.

This article originated in VOA’s Russian Service. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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A Russian film crew blasts into space on a moviemaking history mission, an American actor known for playing a space explorer gets the chance to see the real deal, and more. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more on the Week in Space.
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