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Authorities in Brazil say nine people were killed and more than 1,000 others were forced to leave their homes after a cyclone raced across southern Brazil, off the coast of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.Meteorologists said Tuesday’s “extratropical bomb cyclone,” originated in the South Atlantic Ocean.The storm packing nearly 110-kph winds damaged homes across dozens of towns in Santa Catarina.Structures in Florianopolis, the capital of Santa Catarina, suffered the greatest damage.The storm prompted officials in Rio Grande Mdo Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana to issue flood warnings.      
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Top U.S. intelligence officials are set to brief key members of Congress Thursday on what is known — and what is not known — about an alleged Russian plot to pay militants for attacks on American and coalition forces in Afghanistan.The White House confirmed CIA Director Gina Haspel and National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone will meet with members of the so-called Gang of Eight.The meeting will be the first chance for lawmakers to hear directly from veteran intelligence officials about reports that Russia was offering Taliban-linked militants bounties to target and kill U.S. and allied troops.Until now, briefings on the allegations have been led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. representative who was sworn in just over a month ago, along with national security adviser Robert O’Brien and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, both of whom have served in their roles less than a year.The three have repeatedly told lawmakers that information on the alleged Russian bounty program could not be confirmed, defending the decision not to bring the intelligence to the attention of President Donald Trump.”The person who decided early on whether the president should be briefed on this in the Oval, in the Oval intelligence briefing, was a senior career civil servant,” O’Brien told White House reporters earlier on Wednesday. “And she made that decision because she didn’t have confidence in the intelligence that came out.”O’Brien also said the White House was working on potential responses to Russia should additional intelligence lend credibility to the initial reports.”These are important allegations that, if they’re verified, I can guarantee you the president will take strong action” he said. “We’ve been working for several months on options.”But other officials, when pressed, refused to elaborate on what might come next.”I won’t get ahead of the president on action. I also won’t get ahead of the intelligence,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said during a White House briefing, saying the intelligence remained unverified.And Trump himself on Wednesday continued to dismiss the alleged Russian plot as a hoax, first on Twitter and later during an interview with Fox Business News.“No corroborating evidence to back reports.” Department of Defense. Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party. I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020″We never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of that level,” the president said.”The intelligence people, many of them didn’t believe it happened at all,” he added. “I think it’s a hoax based on the newspapers and the Democrats.”New media reports, however, are challenging that assertion.The Reuters news agency, citing four U.S. and European government sources, reported Wednesday that the U.S. had acquired fresh intelligence in recent weeks that lent credibility to the claims Russia was offering Taliban-linked militants bounties to attack U.S. and coalition troops.Current and former Taliban officials have also come forward, claiming that the bounty program was real.“Individual commanders have been receiving money and weapons from Russian intelligence,” Moulani Baghdadi, a Taliban commander from Ghazni, told Business Insider when asked about the bounties. “These are criminal groups that work alongside the mujahedeen and give us a bad reputation.”Mullah Manan Niazi, a onetime spokesman for former Taliban leader Mullah Omar, told The Daily Beast such a program would not be unusual.“The Taliban have been paid by Russian intelligence for attacks on U.S. forces — and on ISIS forces ù in Afghanistan from 2014 up to the present,” he said.U.S. defense and intelligence officials have long been concerned about Russian interference in Afghanistan, complaining repeatedly that Moscow has been providing the Taliban with weapons and training.A new Pentagon report released Wednesday, while making no mention of the alleged bounties, warned Russian involvement is growing.“Russia has politically supported the Taliban to cultivate influence with the group, limit the Western military presence, and encourage counter ISIS [Islamic State terror group] operations, although Russia publicly denies their involvement,” the report said.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday tried to downplay concerns.“The fact that the Russians are engaged in Afghanistan in a way that’s adverse to the United States is nothing new,” he said. “The Russians have been selling small arms that have put Americans at risk there for 10 years. We have objected to it.”“When we see credible information that suggests that the Russians are putting American lives at risk, we’re responding in a way that is serious,” he added.Still, Democratic lawmakers Wednesday continued to express dissatisfaction and frustration with the Trump administration’s handling of the intelligence.“If true, these reports detail an astounding escalation by an already aggressive adversary and the President’s dereliction of his most sacred responsibility to protect the lives of the American people,” Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote in a letter demanding Pompeo testify before Congress.Other Democrats were even more critical.“If this does not count as treason, I don’t know what does,” Democratic Representative Seth Moulton said during a call with reporters Wednesday. “If the most junior officer in the United States military ignores an intelligence report delivered to him or her, as we know this intelligence report was delivered to the commander in chief, then that junior officer would absolutely be in prison.”Despite the lack of agreement on the intelligence about the alleged Russian plot to pay Taliban-linked fighters to attack and kill U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, U.S. officials insist the threat was not taken lightly, and that precautions were put in place. And White House officials said there is no evidence any U.S. troops were harmed.”We always act in the best interest of our troops,” McEnany told reporters late Wednesday.“The Defense Department has said they do not know of any Americans that have been killed in relation to this unverified intelligence that’s currently being assessed,” she added.VOA’s Katherine Gypson and Steve Herman contributed to this story. 
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Voters in Russia have approved a package of constitutional reforms that includes opening the possibility that President Vladimir Putin can remain president until 2036.Opposition officials and independent election observers cast doubts on the legitimacy of the voting, which ended Wednesday, noting among other concerns that turnout seemed artificially high in some areas.“We’ll never recognize this result,” opposition politician Alexei Navalny said.Election officials said the voting was carried out with integrity.The 67-year-old Putin has led Russia either as president or prime minister for more than two decades, and the reforms allow him to run for two more six-year terms after his current term runs out in 2024.With most of the votes counted, election officials said voters had approved the package 78 percent to 21 percent.Putin has said he will decide closer to 2024 as to whether he would run for another term.Also included in the constitutional reforms are protections for pensions and a de facto ban on same-sex marriages.The voting took place over the course of a week so that polling places could minimize crowds due to coronavirus concerns. 
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Mexican officials are trying to identify the gunmen who attacked a drug rehabilitation center in central Mexico on Wednesday, killing at least 24 people and wounding seven others in the town of Irapuato.Pedro Cortes, secretary of public security in Irapuato, told the French News Agency (AFP), the suspects forced the victims to the ground and opened fire before fleeing in a red vehicle.Cortes said the victims were in an unregistered annex of the rehabilitation center, where street level drug dealers are known to seek shelter from drug gangs.In response to the attack, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government would not allow the country “to fall into anarchy and disorder.”The attack occurred northwest of Mexico City, in Guanajuato state, where the Jalisco cartel has been part of a violent turf battle. But it is unclear if Wednesday’s attack is linked to an organized crime group.The La Jornada newspaper said there have been four attacks since December on annexes in Irapuato, where people were abducted, some killed, and a building was set on fire. 
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A showdown that could determine if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will solidify his grip on power is set for early December. The opposition is already rejecting the December 6 poll as a sham, which favors Maduro’s ruling Socialist Party.  Opposition leaders say Maduro is maneuvering to end rival opposition politician Juan Guaido’s leadership of the legislative body.  Guaido is considered Venezuela’s leader by several countries, including the United States, following Maduro’s disputed 2018 re-election. Guaido has also led unsuccessful efforts supported by the  United States to remove Maudro from office. During a televised address Wednesday,  Maduro seemed to reference Guaido, without mentioning his name.  He said,  “Venezuela needs a new National Assembly, legit and constitutional. Maduro then expressed confidence in the outcome of the upcoming vote, saying, he is already   imagining, January 5, 2021, Federal Legislative Palace, the lawmakers elected by the people arrive and a new National Assembly is born.” Maduro also urged voters to turn out in large numbers, and he said election officials assured him they will take measures to ensure a safe voting process amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  
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A modernized U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact took effect Wednesday, ensuring continuity for manufacturers and agriculture, but the threat of disputes is exposing cracks in what was meant to be a stronger North American fortress of competitiveness.As the deal kicks in, the Trump administration is threatening Canada with new aluminum tariffs, and a prominent Mexican labor activist has been jailed, underscoring concerns about crucial labor reforms in the replacement for the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement includes tighter North American content rules for autos, new protections for intellectual property, prohibitions against currency manipulation and new rules on digital commerce that did not exist when NAFTA launched in 1994.Trump had lambasted NAFTA as the “worst trade deal ever made” and repeatedly threatened to end it.Virus-related recessionsUSMCA launches as the coronavirus has all three countries mired in a deep recession, cutting their April goods trade flows — normally about $1.2 trillion annually — to the lowest monthly level in a decade.”The champagne isn’t quite as fizzy as we might have expected — even under the best of circumstances — and there’s trouble coming from all sides,” said Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economics professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “This could be a trade agreement that quickly ends up in dispute and higher trade barriers.”FILE – Workers check screens for faults at an LG flat screen TV assembly plant in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas, March 23, 2017.Issues dogging USMCA include hundreds of legal challenges to Mexico’s new labor law, seeking to ensure that workers can freely organize and unions are granted full collective bargaining rights.A ruling against the law would harm Mexico’s ability to deliver on provisions aimed at ending labor contracts agreed upon without worker consent that are stacked in favor of companies and have kept wages chronically low in Mexico.Tougher labor provisionsDemocrats in the U.S. Congress had insisted on the stronger labor provisions last year before granting approval, prompting a substantial renegotiation of terms first agreed upon in October 2018. The arrest of Mexican labor lawyer Susana Prieto in early June has fueled U.S. unions’ arguments that Mexican workers’ rights are not being sufficiently protected.”I remain very concerned that Mexico is falling short of its commitments to implement the legislative reforms that are the foundation in Mexico for effectively protecting labor rights,” U.S. Representative Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Tuesday, adding that USMCA’s success “truly hinges” on its new labor enforcement mechanism.On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in a FILE – U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 18, 2019.But Lighthizer has also said he will file dispute cases “early and often” to enforce USMCA provisions, citing Mexico’s failure to approve U.S. biotech products.That could lead to increased tariffs on offending goods, such as products from individual factories where labor violations are found. Former USTR general counsel Stephen Vaughn, a legal architect of the Trump administration’s “Section 301″ tariffs on Chinese goods, was appointed on Wednesday to a U.S. roster of panelists to settle state-to-state dispute cases under USMCA.Carlos Vejar, a former Mexican trade negotiator, said it was in the country’s interest to uphold pledges made to strengthen unions and end child labor.”If Mexico isn’t mindful of this, there will be cases against Mexico, and Mexico will lose them,” Vejar said.U.S. national security tariffs on imported steel and aluminum — including from Canada and Mexico — were a major irritant during USMCA negotiations until a deal for exemptions was reached last year. But now, USTR is considering domestic producers’ request to restore the 10% duty on Canadian aluminum to combat a “surge” of imports.Energy sectorAnother source of disputes may be the energy sector, where the main U.S. oil and gas lobby has complained that recent actions by Mexico favoring state oil company Pemex already violate USMCA’s protections for private investors.Canada has also complained about new Mexican rules formally threatening investment in renewable energy.USMCA will put new compliance burdens on the region’s automotive manufacturers as the coronavirus craters consumer spending and auto production. Within three to five years, vehicles’ minimum North American content rises to 75% from 62.5%. Automakers must also produce 40% of their vehicles’ content in “high wage” areas — effectively the United States and Canada.A U.S. International Trade Commission study found this would draw more auto parts production to the United States, but may curb U.S. vehicle assembly and raise prices, limiting consumer choice in cars. The same panel found that after 15 years, the deal would add $68.5 billion annually to U.S. economic output and create 176,000 jobs compared with a NAFTA baseline.
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Russians overwhelmingly approved a package of constitutional changes in a nationwide vote, partial results showed Wednesday, allowing President Vladimir Putin to potentially extend his two-decade rule until 2036.With just over 85 percent of ballots counted after the end of seven days of voting, 77.8 percent of voters had supported the reforms, according to election commission figures cited by Russian state agencies.There had been little doubt that voters would back the changes, which Putin announced earlier this year and critics denounced as a maneuver to allow him to stay in the Kremlin for life. FILE – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny speaks during a rally in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 29, 2019.But top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny slammed the results as a “huge lie” that don’t reflect real public opinion.The amendments had been passed weeks ago by Russia’s parliament and copies of the new constitution were already on sale in bookshops, but Putin had said voter approval was essential to give them legitimacy.The reforms include conservative and populist measures — like guaranteed minimum pensions and an effective ban on gay marriage — but crucially for Putin also reset presidential limits allowing him to run twice again after his current six-year term expires in 2024.Turnout as of 2000 GMT was about 65 percent, the election commission said.The Kremlin pulled out all the stops to encourage voting, with polls extended over nearly a week, the last day of voting declared a national holiday and prizes — including apartments, cars and cash — on offer to voters.Initially planned for April 22, the referendum was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic but rescheduled after Putin said the epidemic had peaked and officials began reporting lower numbers of new cases. ‘Stability, security, prosperity’In a final appeal to voters on Tuesday, Putin said the changes were needed to ensure Russia’s future “stability, security, prosperity.”State television showed Putin voting Wednesday at his usual polling station at the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he was handed a ballot by an electoral worker wearing a surgical mask and gloves. Russian President Vladimir Putin shows his passport to a member of a local electoral commission as he arrives to cast his ballot in a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms at a polling station in Moscow, July 1, 2020.Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Putin was not wearing any protective gear.At a polling station in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, 79-year-old Valentina Kungurtseva told AFP she supported the reforms.”For us as pensioners, it’s very important that they will increase our pension every year,” she said.”As long as we have a good president, life will be good,” she said.In the second city, Saint Petersburg, 20-year-old Sergei Goritsvetov said he opposed the reforms but doubted it would make any difference.”I voted against and I hope there will be many of us, but I don’t know what it will change,” he said. “At least I expressed my opinion.” A woman holds a placard reading “No to everlasting Putin” as she protests amendments to the Constitution of Russia on Pushkinskaya Square in downtown Moscow, July 1, 2020.Navalny had said Putin, 67 and in power as president or prime minister since 2000, wants to make himself “president for life” and called for a boycott, calling the vote illegitimate.”We have just watched a show with a planned finale,” he wrote on his blog after polls closed.”Putin will not leave himself,” Navalny wrote, “not until we begin to come out to the streets by the hundreds of thousands, by millions.”The opposition divided and failed to mount a serious campaign, with some voting “no” and others staying home. There were only small protests Wednesday in central Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. Falling approval ratings Golos, an independent election monitor, said it had received hundreds of complaints of violations, including people voting more than once and claims employers were putting pressure on staff to cast ballots.Members of a local electoral commission empty a ballot box at a polling station after a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms in Moscow, July 1, 2020.Election commission chief Ella Pamfilova denied any problems on Wednesday, saying only a couple of violations were confirmed and they would have no effect on the result.Putin’s approval rating has fallen in recent months. It stood at 60 percent in June according to pollster Levada, down 20 points from the months after his reelection in 2018.Analysts say Putin wanted to get the vote over with before Russians — already suffering from several years of falling incomes — are hit by the full economic impact of the pandemic.Putin said in a recent interview that he had not decided whether to run again but suggested that part of the reason for the presidential reset was to allow Russia’s political elite to focus on governing instead of “hunting for possible successors.”
 
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After months of coronavirus restrictions, the European Union began reopening its borders to visitors Wednesday from 14 countries it considers safe. That list does not include the United States, where the virus is resurging in some states. Public health is at stake, but from Paris, the world’s most visited city, Lisa Bryant reports the travel ban also reflects widening transatlantic differences.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday he would tighten controls on social media, days after remarks were made on Twitter about his daughter and son-in-law.“Turkey is not a banana republic,” Erdogan said in a televised address to his party members. “We will snub those who snub this country’s executive and judicial bodies.”Erdogan’s eldest daughter, Esra Erdogan, and his son-in-law, Finance Minister Berat Albayrak reportedly received what were called insulting tweets after the couple announced the birth of their fourth child on social media.Eleven of 19 Twitter users who allegedly insulted Erdogan’s family were detained, Turkish police said in a statement on Wednesday.“Do you understand now why we are against social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Netflix?” Erdogan ask while addressing his party. “These platforms do not suit this nation. We want to shut down, control [them] by bringing [a bill] to parliament as soon as possible.”Rights groups have accused Erdogan of using the coronavirus pandemic as a reason to tighten controls on the media, with only a few independent publications continuing to report on the Turkish president’s handling of the pandemic.Turkey’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, called Twitter a “propaganda machine” after it recently suspended 7,340 accounts. Twitter said the accounts were “employing coordinated inauthentic activity” promoting favorable narratives to Erdogan and his party. 
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Turkey claims to have one of the lowest COVID mortality rates in Europe, surpassing many more wealthy countries. But doctors warn complacency could spoil that record.   Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.Camera: Berke Bas, Turkish Ministry of Health Produced by:  Rod James   
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Spain has had the world’s highest nursing home death rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Madrid city government documents show officials set rules preventing nursing homes from transferring some residents to hospitals at the time the infection rate peaked.  Now, some people are demanding answers.  Jonathan Spier narrates this report by Alfonso Beato in Barcelona. Camera:Alfonso Beato  Producer: Jonathan Spier 
 
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News media reports President Donald Trump was briefed on Russian bounties awarded to the Taliban for the death of U.S. troops in Afghanistan continued to roil Washington Tuesday. U.S. lawmakers are pushing for answers after the White House said the president was not aware of that intelligence because it had not been verified. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will travel to Washington next week to meet with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced on Twitter Tuesday that Lopez Obrador will spend two days in Washington beginning July 8. Ebrard said further details about the visit will be released later Wednesday. The visit with President Trump will be the first foreign trip for Lopez Obrador since he first took office in December 2018.  He said earlier this week that his trip to the United States will celebrate the start of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which goes into effect Wednesday.  But Lopez Obrador has come under intense criticism for his planned visit with Trump,  who is widely disliked for demonizing Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and criminals when he launched his presidential campaign, as well as his vow to make Mexico pay for building a proposed wall at U.S.-Mexican border. 
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Canada has failed to take back dozens of Canadian citizens detained in Syria for suspected links with the Islamic State (IS) terror group, an international rights watchdog said. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Monday that Canadian authorities have not repatriated any of the estimated 47 Canadians who have been detained in overcrowded camps in northeast Syria. The HRW said during the coronavirus outbreak Canada has repatriated 40,000 Canadian citizens from 100 countries, including 29 from Syria, but has failed to bring back those held in Syrian detention camps. “If Canada can bring home tens of thousands of citizens from around the world in a matter of weeks, surely it can find a way to repatriate fewer than 50 others trapped in horrific conditions in northeast Syria,” Letta Tayler, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW, said in a statement Monday. “The lives of Canadians are on the line, and the time to bring them home is now.” Among those detainees are 26 children, most of whom are under the age of six. Canadian officials say they are aware of Canadian citizens held in northeast Syria and that they are “particularly concerned with cases of Canadian children in Syria.” “Canadian consular officials are actively engaged with Syrian Kurdish authorities to seek information on Canadians in their custody. We continue to monitor the situation very closely,” Barbara Harvey, a spokesperson for Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry, told VOA. Given the security situation on the ground and the current COVID-19 context, Canada’s ability to provide any kind of consular assistance in Syria remains limited, Harvey added. Despite Canada’s security concerns, the HRW report said that dozens of other countries, including the United States, Germany and France, have repatriated their citizens from Syria.  Last week, France took back 10 children of IS fighters who were held in Kurdish-run camps in northeast Syria. Dire conditions There are about 12,000 foreigners held at three camps for displaced people in northeast Syria, including al-Hol Camp where humanitarian groups say they suffer malnutrition and disease. Amarnath Amarasingam, an assistant professor who teaches extremism and terrorism at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, visited al-Hol Camp last year. “Al-Hol can only be described as an urgent humanitarian catastrophe… It’s crowded, it’s dirty, violence breaks out often, and there are just small children everywhere,” he told VOA. Amarasingam said, “Around April 2018, there was definitely contact between Canadian officials and their Kurdish counterparts.” “Canadian officials even spoke to some of the detainees and started paperwork to get them identification documents and so on,” he said, “Then, a month later, the whole process was mysteriously shelved. It’s not clear why, but there has been no new attempt to repatriate Canadians.” Contacted by VOA, Kurdish officials declined to comment on whether there has been recent contact between them and Canadian authorities regarding Canadian citizens held in Syria, including 8 men who are accused of fighting for the Islamic State. But a Canadian official told VOA on a condition of anonymity that, “Investigating, arresting, charging and prosecuting any Canadian involved in terrorism or violent extremism is a priority for the Government of Canada.” Foreign fighters Syrian Kurdish officials have called on countries to take back their detained citizens, cautioning they do not have enough resources to keep IS prisoners and their families indefinitely. In addition to women and children, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has more than 10,000 IS fighters in their custody, including about 2,000 who come from more than 50 countries.  U.S. military officials say their SDF partners in Syria have been overwhelmed to keep IS prisoners. “The global coalition believes that through appropriate international laws and protocols, there should be a final resolution for what happens with the foreign terrorist fighters,” Col. Myles Caggins, spokesman for the anti-IS global coalition, told VOA in a recent interview.  He added that the coalition continues to support the SDF with stipends for the detention center guards and equipment “to make the detention centers safer for the Asayish [Kurdish security forces] who are providing security, as well as safer and more humane treatment  for the detainees.” Over the past few months, there have been several prison break attempts by IS prisoners held in a detention facility in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah. The most recent one was on Monday when a riot took place inside a major IS detention center in the city, triggering a rapid response by SDF fighters and their coalition backers to contain the situation, local news reported. In a congressional testimony in March, General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of United States Central Command, said the best way to alleviate the problem of IS prisoners in Syria is to repatriate them. “While some countries have made efforts to reclaim their foreign fighters, full resolution requires a comprehensive diplomatic and international effort,” Gen. McKenzie said, adding that, “This problem will not go away by ignoring it, and can only be addressed by the international community working together to accept its shared responsibilities.” Local Kurdish authorities have said since the international community doesn’t have concrete plans to repatriate and prosecute IS prisoners in their home countries, they would proceed to try them in local courts in Syria. However, rights groups fear that given the current security situation in Syria, it would be challenging to make sure IS prisoners receive fair trials. “The fact that the Syrian government led by [President Bashar] Assad has little real control over the country and no due process, and SDF territory has a multitude of militias and foreign militaries present, the process of trying detainees in court is convoluted and difficult,” Philippe Nassif, Advocacy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, told VOA. 
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Haiti reopened its two international airports in Port-au-Prince and Cape Haitian, as well as four official border crossings in Anse-a-Pitres, Malpasse, Belladere and Ouanaminthe on Tuesday. President Jovenel Moïse announced the news in a national address.  The airports closed to all nonlocal flights on March 16 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but exceptions were made for some nonlocal flights, including to fly people who were stuck in Haiti back to their home countries.JetBlue Flies American Citizens, Residents Stuck in Haiti Home Passengers boarding flight to Fort Lauderdale told VOA they are not afraid and look forward to returning to Haiti Safety measures  
 
Officials told VOA that safety measures are in place to limit vehicular traffic in and around the airport, with special attention paid to passenger pick-up and drop-off zones. Agents will limit the number of passengers around airline check-in counters and security check points. Face masks are mandatory.  “Security agents will accompany passengers going through immigration, where we placed signs indicating where they should stand in adherence with social distancing measures,” Joseph Frantz Sedras, director of equipment for Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, told VOA Creole.   Protective glass barriers are in place at all agent counters, and procedures are in place to keep passenger lines moving forward.  Sedras told VOA that social distancing will be mandated at every step of the departure and arrival process and that security agents will search passengers and their luggage before they reach the immigration area. In addition, counters and equipment will be disinfected often, he said.    “When the passenger reaches the departure lounge, he/she will be allowed to occupy every other seat in accordance with social distancing guidelines,” Sedras said. “These measures will be mandated throughout the departure lounge.”   Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed throughout the airport for passenger and employee use.     COVID-19 infections  Haiti currently has 5,933 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data published by the published health ministry on June 29. That number is an increase of more 1,000 cases since June 20 when the confirmed infection toll stood at 4,916. The current death toll is 105.  Health officials say the hardest-hit regions are the northeast, west and Artibonite departments, but there is speculation that the toll could be higher nationwide, where fear of stigmatization keeps people from seeking medical treatment.Workers with the Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population walk outside of International Airport Toussaint Louverture, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 15, 2020.Diaspora travelTravelers from the Haitian diaspora are essential to the country’s economy, according to Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe. During a visit to the Port-au-Prince airport before its reopening, he told VOA Creole he recognizes their desire to tend to property, as well as attending annual religious festivals.    “I can’t keep them from coming to dance at the festivals. And if the airport in Puerto Plata (Dominican Republic) is open and we are not, Haitians will find a way to get here somehow,” he said.  With regards to the pandemic and its spread, the prime minister said he consulted the country’s top health experts on a timeline but was not given an answer.     “Community transmission is an issue. There are many people who say they have a fever or a cold, they insist it’s not corona(virus). But we know how Haitians are. I guess if I had it, I would say I didn’t, too. So, all we can do is reinforce the security measures and preventative measures already in place,” he said.  Jouthe said hand washing and wearing masks are a necessity, even though they are not always comfortable.  Criticism  
Opposition Sen. Jean Renel Senatus told VOA that he, too, understands there are people who need to travel to Haiti to deal with important matters, but he doubts the government’s information about the current COVID-19 situation.  He also expressed concern about the surge in U.S. cases.   “We’ve heard that cases are spiking in Miami. And most of the planes arriving in Haiti are coming from Miami, Florida,” the senator said. Scheduled flights   Eleven flights are scheduled to arrive in Haiti on July 1, according to FlightRadar24, a website that tracks air traffic worldwide in real time. Among those, five flights from U.S. carriers American Airlines, Spirit and JetBlue departing from Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New York City, are due to arrive between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time.     
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Among the many things that have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic around the world was Croatia’s ambitious agenda for its six-month term at the helm of the European Union, which ended Tuesday.  “Despite all our best original plans, related to promoting a whole set of issues most important for Europe’s security and prosperity … our presidency has ended up being a genuine crisis-management presidency,” said Pjer Simunovic, Croatia’s top diplomat in Washington.  Simunovic said his country took its turn in the rotating office in January with plans to address employment, technology, competitiveness, environment, green energy, EU enlargement, external partnerships, as well as to work toward a smooth and well-regulated Brexit and adoption of the EU’s budget.   Instead, he said in an interview, Croatia’s presidency has been dominated by “virtual meetings replacing the in-person meetings at all levels, and almost everything getting focused on dealing with the immediacy of the multifaceted danger in front to us.” “We all had to plan and execute on the fly,” he added. The role of the EU presidency is to build consensus and facilitate joint decision-making among the bloc’s nearly 30 members, Simunovic said. Toward that end, he credited the member states for working together to bring home more than 500,000 EU citizens who were left stranded by the pandemic around the world. Simunovic said his country – an EU member since 2013 – also advocated strongly for the union to open accession talks with two other countries in its southeastern Europe neighborhood – Albania and North Macedonia. An EU-Western Balkans summit in May confirmed the “EU’s commitment to the region,” he said.  As another example of solidarity within the EU, the ambassador cited ongoing negotiations on financial rescue packages for the member nations most severely hurt by the pandemic. “On top of the first EU relief package, adopted in April, of 500 billion euros, complemented by a banking package facilitating lending, the European Commission proposed, in late May, the second relief package, consisting of 750 billion euros, 500 billion in grants, 250 billions in favorable loans,” he said.   Simunovic described that proposal as “fair, balanced and appropriate,” adding that progress towards an agreement was made at the final EU summit of Croatia’s presidency, including a pledge to finalize an agreement at a summit in July.  Independent analysts also are pleasantly surprised by the EU’s success in responding to the pandemic.“There is some pride along with a sense of shock that Europe has been pulling together,” said Stephen Szabo, a senior fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. But he said the success came only after “a disastrous beginning” in which the member states failed to help the hardest-hit countries, such as Italy.“Still this is only the first stage of what promises to be a long-term crisis,” he said, adding that the economic effects “will be felt for years and will pose a challenge for European solidarity.”Simunovic discussed the concept of “strategic autonomy” as the pandemic forces nations to evaluate the strength of their supply chains. The notion is perfectly understandable, he said, but he believes collaboration among the EU members will be critical going forward.He predicted that ties will be “established and reinforced along the lines of reliability” among what he described as “genuine allies.”Simunovic said Europe stands ready to work alongside the United States to strengthen transatlantic ties and tackle global challenges, including those posed by state actors playing with different rules – Russia and China most prominently among them.”Globalization will not disappear, trade and investment will continue to flow around the world, as it is happening, but there will be more caution, more safeguards,” he said.The ambassador predicted Germany, which assumes the presidency for a six-month term beginning Wednesday, will find itself like Croatia in a continuous “crisis management” mode, with “hard issues remaining to be addressed and resolved.”“We wish our German friends the best of luck, with our full support and great expectations,” he said. “We are in the same boat amidst the rough seas.” 
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Police in Slovakia are investigating after Peter Sabo, a reporter for the news outlet Aktuality, found a bullet in his mailbox.The threat against Sabo comes just over two years after the February 2018 murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak, who worked for the same outlet.Sabo joined Aktuality a few months after the killing, to help continue Kuciak’s investigations. Sabo had recently reported on international tax fraud and drug crimes.  The outlet condemned the threat in an People gather at Slovak National Uprising square for a rally against corruption and to pay tribute to murdered Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, March 9, 2018, in Bratislava, Slovakia.Police said an investigation is under way, the International Federation of Journalists reported. The Slovak Minister of the Interior Roman Mikulec and President of Police Milan Lučansk were informed of the threat, Bárdy told the International Press Institute (IPI).  “This kind of intimidation must be taken seriously,” IPI deputy director Scott Griffen said in a FILE – Suspects in the 2018 slaying of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, are escorted by armed police officers from a courtroom in Pezinok, Slovakia, December 19, 2019.Kuciak had been investigating tax fraud of several businessmen who had connections to Slovak politicians and Kočner. He was shot dead along with his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, in their home in Velka Maca, a village east of the Slovak capital Bratislava.In the weeks after the murder, protests over corruption and the murder led to a series of high-profile resignations including of the prime minister.  Earlier this year, a court sentenced two people for the murder. Kočner is currently on trial accused of ordering the killing. He denies the charge. In a show of solidarity after the murder, Kuciak’s colleagues helped finish his unfinished work, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) founded the “Kocner Library” – an electronic archive made up of files police collected in their investigation into the businessman that journalists can use to further report on corruption.  
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Belgium’s King Philippe expressed regret Tuesday for 75 years of his country’s exploitative rule in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The king spoke on the African country’s 60th anniversary of independence. “I want to express my deepest regret for these past injuries, the pain of which is regularly revived by the discrimination that is still all too present in our societies,” Philippe wrote in a letter to Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi.  FILE – Belgium’s King Philippe, wearing a face mask, walks down a main shopping street in Brussels, May 10, 2020.The statement is the closest a reigning Belgian monarch has come to an apology. The Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960 after 52 years as a colony and 23 years of brutal private ownership under Leopold II. Millions of Congolese died under Belgian rule, which exploited land and people for rubber, copper, diamonds, gold and other natural resources.  
 
In a statement to the Agence France-Presse news agency, Congo Foreign Minister Marie Ntumba Nzeza said the king’s letter was “balm to the heart of the Congolese people. This is a step forward that will boost friendly relations between our nations.” 
 
A spokesman for Tshisekedi had no comment on the letter. But in a TV address on the eve of independence day, the president said Philippe was “searching, just like me, to strengthen the ties between our two countries without denying our common past, but with the goal of preparing a bright and harmonious future.” 
 
Other Congolese activists and scholars said Philippe’s letter, which did not include an explicit apology or mention Leopold II by name, did not go far enough. “It’s not enough to say, ‘I feel regret,'” Lambert Mende, a spokesman for former Congo President Joseph Kabila, told AFP. “People should be willing to repair the damage in terms of investment and compensation with interest. That’s what we expect from our Belgian partners.” 
 
Some have also called for Belgium to return Congolese artifacts, double down on investigations of colonial violence and issue reparations for 75 years of bloody rule.  A bust of Belgium’s King Leopold II is hoisted off of its plinth by a crane as it’s removed from a park in Ghent, Belgium, June 30, 2020.The Belgium city of Ghent took a statue of Leopold II off public display Tuesday, just hours after Philippe’s letter. The city of Antwerp removed another statue of the ruler earlier this month to repair it after anti-racism protesters defaced it with paint, though a spokesman for the city’s mayor said it probably would not be put back. 
 
Burundi and Rwanda, also former Belgian colonies, will celebrate their independence on July 1.Leslie Bonilla contributed to this report. 
 
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The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has called for urgent action to stop female genital mutilation, child marriage and other harmful practices carried out against millions of women and girls around the world each year.UNFPA made that call as it presented its State of the World Population report from UN headquarters in Geneva Monday. The report was embargoed until Tuesday.UNFPA Director Mónica Ferro told journalists the report cites at lease 19 practice against girls and women girls that have been universally denounced as human rights violations – from breast ironing to virginity testing.  Ferro said the study was also groundbreaking in that it treats these practices as human rights violations. The study indicates that every day, hundreds of thousands of girls around the world are subjected to practices that harm them physically or psychologically – with the full knowledge and consent of their families and communities.Ferro said the three widespread practices that cause harm are genital mutilation, child marriage and preference for male children.  Genital mutilation is the removal or partial removal of all external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Ferro said this year, 4.1 million girls around the world are at risk for genital mutilation.The report also estimates that some 33,000 girls under the age of 18 are forced into marriage, often to men much older than them. And report says, because of gender-bias towards males, extreme neglect of female children has led 140 million “missing” females world-wide.While Ferro reports the “tide is turning,” with more laws being pass to prevent these abuses and traditional practitioners are changing their ways, she says the COVID-19 pandemic could reverse some of that progress.  Ferro said pandemic-related lockdowns have separated woman from medical and domestic-issue-related caregivers, and cases of violence against women could surge. She said “We cannot slow down the pace.” of addressing these issues.
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For two months, the Malta-flagged oil tanker Alkimos has been quietly floating off the Gulf Coast of Texas, undisturbed by the high-stakes legal fight playing out in a federal courtroom as a result of American sanctions on Venezuela.
The commercial dispute, which hasn’t been previously reported, has all the drama of a pirate movie: a precious cargo, clandestine sea maneuvers and accusations of a high seas heist.
It pits Evangelos Marinakis, one of Greece’s most powerful businessmen and owner of its most successful soccer club, Olympiakos, against a fellow shipping magnate from Venezuela, Wilmer Ruperti, who has a long history of helping the country’s socialist leaders.
Round one appears to have favored Marinakis, whose Piraeus-based Capital Ship Management Corp, operates the Alkimos. On Wednesday, federal marshals in Houston are scheduled to auction off the ship’s’ cargo: 100,266 barrels of high octane gasoline estimated to be worth more than $5 million. The auction is in response to Judge Lynn Hughes’ order seizing the cargo, which he said would’ve likely ended up in Venezuela, while arbitration over a $1.7 million lien continues.  
“This clearly demonstrates that sanctions work,” said Russ Dallen, who closely monitors maritime traffic as the head of Miami-based Caracas Capital Markets. “But although this shipowner appears to have done the right thing, there are lots of other unscrupulous cockroaches in the shipping industry that won’t hesitate to do business with Venezuela.”
The U.S. has been trying for months to cut off fuel shipments to and from Venezuela, hoping to accelerate Nicolás Maduro’s downfall by depriving him of the oil income that is the lifeblood of the socialist country. But so far the biggest losers have been regular Venezuelans, who are forced to wait in line for days to fill up their cars due to a lack of domestically-refined gasoline.  
To date, the Trump administration has sanctioned more than 50 vessels found violating sanctions. This month it added five Iranian captains to a list of individuals blocked from doing business with the U.S. after Maduro leaned on his fellow anti-American ally to deliver gasoline that skittish commodity traders are increasingly unwilling to supply Venezuela.  
The Alkimos’ saga, which was pieced together from court filings reviewed by The Associated Press, began innocently enough. In late March, the Chinese-built carrier, which measures 156 meters (480 feet), was docked in Panama when it was hired to deliver the gasoline to Aruba.  
But almost immediately something seemed off.
The shipping instructions indicated the cargo would be transferred at sea to another ship that had been visiting Venezuelan ports exclusively for the past year. And payent for the freight was wired from a third party, a company called Ultra Travel, which was purportedly based in Montenegro.
Moreover, ES Euroshipping AG, the Swiss-registered company that chartered the Alkimos, was owned by Ruperti, a businessman connected to Venezuela’s government.  
In 2002, Ruperti chartered a fleet of Russian tankers to help then President Hugo Chávez break a months’ long strike at the state-run oil company PDVSA. Now, he was trying come to the rescue again.
In March, a separate Swiss company he controls billed PDVSA for a 12 million euros advance with which he planned to purchase up to 250,000 barrels of the same 95-octane gasoline he hired the Alkimos to transport, according to a copy of the invoice obtained by the AP. To get around the U.S. sanctions, the company opened a bank account in euros and rubles at Moscow-based Derzhava Bank.
The Alkimos tanker is owned by Brujo Finance Company, a company registered in the Marshall Islands. But its operator, whose name and corporate logo is painted on the ship, is Capital Ship Management, which operates a fleet of 54 tankers.  
Capital’s chairman, Marinakis, is the owner of football clubs Olympiakos in Greece and Nottingham Forest in England.  
In 2018, prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation against him for drug trafficking stemming from the record seizure of 2.1 tons of heroin aboard one of his vessels. He has strongly denied the charges, saying they were an attempt by the leftist government at the time to silence dissent. In the past, he also faced match-fixing charges but was later cleared.
Marinakis did not respond to a request to comment made through his website and Capital.
While the arbitration between the two shipping magnates is likely to take months, U.S. officials see the case as a sign that sanctions on Venezuela are increasingly effective.
In May, the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury and the U.S. Coast Guard issued an advisory warning the maritime industry that such ship to ship transfers of the sort the Alkimos was being asked to perform are frequently used to evade sanctions. While the report focuses on Iran, North Korea and Syria—not Venezuela—it urges shippers to enhance due diligence and sanctions compliance practices to avoid running afoul of U.S. regulations
“The global shipping community is moving out of doing business with Venezuela,” Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration’s special representative for Venezuela, told the AP. “The most reputable firms, including the largest Greek shipping companies, have been cooperative and have shown that they value their reputations and their global businesses.”  
In the case of the Alkimos, its owners suspected something was amiss. So its lawyers pressed ES Euroshipping for additional information, pointing out that the contract contained a “sanctions clause” giving the shipowner “absolute discretion” to refuse to carry out any trade that it deems exposes it, or its crew, to U.S. sanctions.
“Just to be clear in advance. Owner WILL NOT participate in any illegal trading,” according to an email sent March 31 by the shipowner’s broker.
Despite its misgivings, the ship departed Panama on April 9 — days after the AP reported that Ruperti had started purchasing oil in what he would later describe as a “humanitarian work” that didn’t violate the U.S. sanctions.
“I am 100% sure that I am doing this legally and that I am complying with the rules and obligations,” he told the AP in an April interview. He declined to comment when contacted this week about the seized cargo.
 
En route to Aruba, the back and forth continued—and the Alkimos’ owners grew more suspicious. The rendezvous point with the other ship, the Beauty One, was located in the open seas—50 miles west of Aruba off the northern coastline of Venezuela—rather than an area designated by Aruban authorities for ship-to-ship fuel transfers. Further, the supervisor of the risky procedure, ATM Marine Services, were unknown to the ship’s owners, without even a web page to identify it. No agents had been appointed to coordinate with Aruban authorities.  
“URGENT responses to the above are requested. The matter is most serious,” the Alkimos’ broker wrote shortly before its schedule arrival off Aruba on April 11.
Throughout the ordeal, tanker rates were surging — something that ES Euroshipping contends was driving the shipowner’s rush to unload its cargo and move on to the next job. With the world economy shutting down due to the COVID crisis, there was a glut of fuel being produced. The mammoth oil carriers, which in some cases saw their daily rates jump 10-fold, were suddenly in demand as floating storage devices even as crude prices were crashing.
After two deadlines to provide alternate voyage orders passed, the Alkimos turned around on April 26 and headed to Houston. But it first advised ES Euroshipping that it would seek a lien on the cargo for $1.7 million to compensate for losses, including $500,000 in fees it racked up being adrift for so long.  
ES Euroshipping contends Capital Ship Management and the ship’s owners stole the cargo and is seeking damages worth $2.3 million. In court filings, attorney Michael Volkov said that that after much stonewalling by the ship owner, which refused to accept its assurances there was no sanctions risk, Euroshipping did provide alternate instructions — to take the cargo first to the Bahamas and then Trinidad.  
But Ruperti’s company claims its instruction were nonetheless ignored and accused the ship owner of setting off on an illegal, 7-day voyage to Houston to find a favorable jurisdiction to legalize its “theft” when much closer ports existed for the parties — none of the U.S. nationals — to litigate their competing breach of contract claims. It also accused Alkimos of fleeing Aruban waters without notifying the harbormaster, leaving behind $11,500 in fines and fees for the unauthorized departure.  
“Brujo is but a pirate who plundered cargo at sea, fled the Aruban authorities without proper authorization, diverted its vessel to a port in this District, and then deceived this Court,” Volkov said in a May 29 filing.
Ruperti appears to have some powerful backers of his own. On May 1, Hans Hertell, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, wrote a letter to Ryan Patrick, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Texas, calling on prosecutors to open a criminal probe against the shipowners.  
“We were simply astounded to learn that the Vessel Owners had so brazenly stolen and converted our clients’ cargo in this manner,” according to the letter.
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In Russia, a second effort is underway to hold a weeklong national vote to change the country’s constitution. The Kremlin was forced to scuttle an earlier April vote amid the outbreak of the coronavirus. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.VIDEOGRAPHER: Ricardo Marquina  
PRODUCER: Henry Hernandez 
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Saying it is not too soon to begin planning for the post-COVID-19 economy, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Tuesday pledged to invest more than $17 billion in the country’s education system and $6.13 billion for infrastructure investment. Speaking at Dudley College of Technology in central Britain, Johnson acknowledged it might seem premature to discuss a post-COVID future in light of recent surges of the virus in the nation and elsewhere in the world. But he maintained that Britons cannot continue to be “prisoners of this crisis.” Comparing his plan to former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs of the 1930’s designed to lift the United States out of the Great Depression, Johnson pledged to “build, build, build” and speed up government plans for new schools, hospitals and road repair. Johnson renewed a campaign pledge to build 40 new hospitals in Britain, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock releasing the list of new buildings in the next few days. He also pledged to continue and step up funding for the National Health Service and “fix the problems of social care that every government has flunked for the past 30 years.” Noting the economic downturn driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson said, “We must work fast, because we know that people are worried about their jobs and their businesses.” As Johnson spoke of the post-COVID economy, the reality of the pandemic was evident in the British city of Leicester, where a spike in coronavirus infections prompted the government to reinstate a lockdown. All the city’s schools and non-essential shops were forced to close, fewer than two weeks after they had been allowed to reopen. 
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Bahamas Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis strongly urged citizens against non-essential travel to countries where COVID-19 cases are spiking, including the United States, which is a primary tourism market for the Bahamas. During a national address Monday, Minnis told Bahamians, “I beg you. I implore you to stay at home. If you must fly, visit our Family Islands.” The Prime Minister’s plea comes as the Bahamas reopens its borders on Wednesday since closing in March because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Minnis said people traveling to the Bahamas must show they tested negative for the coronavirus within the past seven days starting July 7. He said people caught not wearing face mask face a $200 and or one month in jail. The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) will head a new COVID-19 Enforcement Unit to ensure compliance with and enforcement of emergency orders. The Bahamas has confirmed more than 100 cases and 11 deaths. 
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US lawmakers called for an immediate investigation Monday into news reports that Russia had offered bounties to Taliban-backed militants for the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The White House denied reports U.S. President Donald Trump had been briefed on those bounties, saying they had not been fully verified by the U.S. intelligence community. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the fallout in Washington. 
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