Two new wildfires burned uncontrollably outside the Greek capital, Athens, on Monday, forcing nearby villages to evacuate.An area near the town of Lavrio, southeast of Athens, was the first to ignite, as flames fanned by strong winds decimated mountainside vegetation before spreading to pine trees. Three villages were evacuated, while 91 firefighters, six water-dropping planes and six helicopters were deployed to contain the blaze.The raging fire is in danger of spreading to Sounio National Park, which boasts the ancient Temple of Poseidon.A second fire broke out northwest of the capital in Vilia, forcing another three villages to evacuate. Over 240 firefighters were fighting the blaze, along with eight water-dropping planes and nine helicopters, according to The Associated Press.The blazes are the latest in a series of over 500 wildfires to break out in Greece, elongating weeks of devastation that brought the destruction of hundreds of buildings and tens of thousands of acres of land. One volunteer firefighter and an Athens official died as a result of the fires, and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated.The severity of the wildfires was driven by the country’s worst heat wave in decades, during which temperatures topped 45° C (113° F). The record heat wave also sparked uncontrolled fires across Albania, Algeria, Italy, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Russia, Spain and Turkey. The Greek government has been criticized for its lackluster response to the fires and has relied on assistance from the United States, the European Union and Middle Eastern countries to contain them.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized on television last week for “any weaknesses that may have occurred” in his government’s response.”I fully understand the pain of our fellow citizens who saw their homes or property burned,” Mitsotakis said. “Any failures will be identified. And responsibility will be assigned wherever necessary.”The same day, Mitsotakis approved an aid package of 500 million euros ($587 million) to fund reforestation efforts and compensate those who lost homes or property.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
 
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Flooding caused by heavy rains in regions around the Black Sea have left dozens of people dead in Turkey and forced the evacuation of hundreds in southern Russia.The Turkish provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu and Sinop along the Black Sea suffered torrential rains midweek that led to flooding.Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) said the flooding destroyed dozens of homes and several roads and bridges and cut off electricity to hundreds of villages.The death toll from flooding in Turkey rose to at least 57 people, AFAD said Saturday. At least eight people were hospitalized, agency officials said.Speaking late Saturday in Kastamonu, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 15 of the dead had not been identified yet.Across the Black Sea, heavy rains also triggered widespread flooding in southern Russia, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,500 people in the Krasnodar region, including nearly 1,000 children from summer camps, officials there said Saturday.More than 1,400 houses had been flooded following storms and heavy rains that swept the area this week. About 108,000 residents of 11 settlements were left without power, the regional Russian emergency headquarters reported.The Black Sea resort city of Anapa was among the worst affected, officials said. Heavy rain in the region was expected for another two days.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty contributed to this report. Some material also came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The death toll from flooding in Turkey has climbed to at least 44 people, the country’s disaster agency said Saturday.Torrential rains Wednesday triggered flooding in the northern Black Sea region, destroying homes, closing roads, and cutting off electricity to hundreds of villages, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD).Fires Rage in Turkey as Anger Grows over Grounded Firefighting AircraftSome blame government political score-settling for stalling firefighting efforts parts of country burn Authorities said more than 2,200 people had been evacuated and that the search continued for missing residents.The floods are the second natural disaster to strike Turkey this month. Over the past two weeks, emergency crews battled wildfires in southern coastal regions that had been bought under control by the time the flooding began.Scientists blame climate change sparked by the burning of fossil fuels for extreme weather disasters that are expected to occur more frequently as the planet warms.Experts in Turkey maintain, though, that meddling with rivers and faulty construction also has contributed to the heavy damage caused by the floods.The Associated Press and Reuters provided some information for this report.
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A young man who killed five people, including his mother, and then took his own life in Britain’s first mass shooting in more than a decade had complained online about difficulties meeting women and being “beaten down” by life.Police said Friday that the motive for the shootings was unclear but that there were no immediate signs the crime was an act of terrorism or the gunman had connections to extremist groups.They identified the shooter as Jake Davison, 22, and said he had a gun license, but revealed few other details. Witnesses reported that he used a pump-action shotgun, police said, though they wouldn’t confirm what type of weapon it was and whether it was the one Davison was licensed to use.Gun crimes are rare in Britain, which has strict firearm control rules.Police responded to multiple emergency calls made at 6:11 p.m. Thursday, arriving six minutes later at an address in the Keyham neighborhood of Plymouth, England, where Davison had shot and killed his mother, Maxine Davison, 51, also known as Maxine Chapman.According to police accounts, Davison left the house and immediately shot and killed a 3-year-old girl, Sophie Martyn, and her father, Lee Martyn, 43. He then shot and wounded two other people down the street whom police haven’t identified.Police said Davison moved on to a park where he shot Stephen Washington, 59, who died at the scene, and then to a nearby street, where he shot Kate Shepherd, 66. She died later in a hospital.Eyewitnesses reported that Davison shot himself before police arrived. He was licensed last year to use a gun, and police are checking whether he had the license before then.Still collecting informationShaun Sawyer, chief constable for Devon and Cornwall police, told reporters that investigators weren’t sure what Davison’s motive was but did not think extremist ideology prompted the attack.A woman embraces two children during a vigil for the victims of the Keyham mass shooting in Plymouth, England, Aug. 13, 2021.“Let’s see what’s on his hard drive, let’s see what’s on his computer, let’s see what’s on social media,” Sawyer said.“We believe we have an incident that is domestically related that has spilled into the street and seen several people of Plymouth lose their lives in an extraordinarily tragic circumstance,” he added.Davison appeared to post on YouTube under the name Professor Waffle in an account that has now been taken down, replaced by a notice saying it violated the site’s community guidelines. In a final 11-minute clip posted before the killings, “Professor Waffle” talks about how he was “beaten down and defeated by … life.”He talks about struggling to stay motivated at working out and losing weight, working as a scaffolder when he was 17-18, and hinted at his lack of a love life by referring to “people who are incels” — shorthand for “involuntarily celibate.”The “incel” movement justifies violence against women as revenge for men who are rejected as sexual partners, and believes society unjustly denies men sexual or romantic attention. The online subculture has been linked to deadly attacks in California, Florida, and Toronto, Ontario. Davison said that while he wouldn’t describe himself as an “incel,” they are “people similar to me, they’ve had nothing but themselves, and then they’ve socially had it tough.”He compared himself to a businessman struggling to break even despite working long hours but who has a wife and kids supporting him.”Does an incel virgin get that? No,” he said.Britain’s last mass shooting was in 2010, when a taxi driver killed 12 people in Cumbria in northwest England before taking his own life.
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Book distributors and publishers in Hungary have raised concerns that a decree restricting the sale of LGBTQ-themed books could lead to self-censorship and make such items harder to obtain in smaller towns.The government has ordered shops to sell sealed and wrapped all books aimed at under-18s that are viewed as promoting homosexuality or gender change, or which contain “explicit” depictions of sexuality.It also bans the sale of all such books, whether intended for children or adults, within 200 meters (220 yards) of a school or a church.The decree is part of an anti-LGBTQ drive that has set nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban at loggerheads with rights groups and the European Union.Katalin Gal, head of the Association of Hungarian Book Publishers and Distributors, said more than 100 Hungarian bookshops were within 200 meters of a church or a school, many in small towns.”This is covertly pushing publishers towards self-censorship. If they make it very hard to sell these books, why would they print them at all?” she said on Friday.”It is clear that from now on if I write a book with LGBTQ characters, it will reach a much smaller audience,” said Tibor Racz-Stefan, an author of young adult novels, some of which feature same-sex couples.The order is the first directive spelling out implications of a law passed in June banning materials seen as promoting homosexuality and gender reassignment at schools.Orban, on a pre-election crusade to safeguard what he calls traditional Christian values, says the law is meant to protect children and that their parents should educate them about sexuality.
The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The World Health Organization said on Friday it was setting up a new group to trace the origins of the coronavirus, seeking to end what it called “political point scoring” that had hampered investigations.The inability of the WHO to say where and how the virus began spreading has fueled tensions among its members, particularly between China, where COVID-19 cases were first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and the United States.The WHO called for all governments to cooperate to accelerate studies into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and “to depoliticise the situation.”It specified that a new advisory group called the International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens would support “the rapid undertaking” of further studies.”We should work all together. You, me, everyone wants to know the origin of worst pandemic in a century,” WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib said at a U.N. briefing on Friday.Washington on Friday welcomed the WHO plan, noting the “emphasis on scientific-based studies and data driven efforts to find the origins of this pandemic so that we can better detect, prevent and respond to future disease outbreaks.”President Joe Biden in late May ordered aides to find answers on COVID-19 origins and report back in 90 days.In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around the city of Wuhan in January and February said that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal. It said that a leak from a laboratory was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.However, in a documentary broadcast in his native Denmark on Thursday, the WHO mission leader Peter Ben Embarek said that the lab hypothesis merited further study. Ben Embarek could not be reached by Reuters for further comment on Friday.A WHO official said that its statement on advancing the virus origins study bore no relation to those remarks, noting that the Ben Embarek interview was filmed months ago.China said it has never rejected cooperation on tracing COVID-19 origins, state media quoted the country’s vice foreign minister as saying.
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British sprinter CJ Ujah, who won an Olympic silver medal in the 4x100m relay in Tokyo, was Thursday suspended for an alleged anti-doping breach, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced.If the case is proven, then 27-year-old Ujah and the British team will be stripped of the silver they won behind Italy in Japan.The AIU said that Ujah was found to have “presence/use of prohibited substances ostarine and S-23, which are selective androgen receptor modulators (SARM).”They are substances commonly used to build muscle.In his most recent Instagram posting, Ujah wrote: “Stay focused…Because truth is madder than fiction.”As well as Ujah, Bahrain’s 1500m runner Sadik Mikhou, Georgian shotputter Benik Abramyan and Kenyan sprinter Mark Otieno Odhiambo have also been provisionally suspended following adverse tests, the AIU added.”The AIU now awaits the conclusion of the International Testing Agency (ITA) proceedings against the above athletes, which will determine whether any anti-doping rule violations have been committed and what consequences (if any) should be imposed in relation to the Olympic Games,” said a statement.”Any consequences beyond the Olympic Games to be imposed upon the athletes under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules will be determined following the conclusion of the ITA proceedings.” 
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Six people were killed in a mass shooting in the city of Plymouth in southwestern England on Thursday evening, in an incident described by the British Home Secretary as “shocking.” Two females and three males, including the suspect, died from gunshot wounds at the scene of the incident, the Devon and Cornwall Police said in a statement. Another female died a short time later in the hospital, the police added. Police had earlier described the shooting as a “serious firearms incident” and said the situation was contained. The police added that the incident was not related to terrorism. The United Kingdom has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world, and mass shootings are rare. Sharron Turner, 57, who lives behind the scene of the shooting, told The Times newspaper that a gunman had “kicked in” the front door of a semi-detached house before shooting a young mother and her daughter, who was about 5 years old. Turner said she had been told that the man, who was dressed in black and gray, was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. After the attack, the gunman escaped through a park behind the house and shot two dog walkers, The Times reported. “The incident in Plymouth is shocking, and my thoughts are with those affected,” Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Twitter. Devon and Cornwall Police said they were called to the Keyham area of the city at 6:10 p.m. on Thursday. “Investigations are continuing into the incident, and disruption to the road network in the Keyham area will remain throughout the night,” police said. The South Western Ambulance Service earlier said it had responded to the incident with a significant number of resources, including Hazardous Area Response Teams (HART), multiple ambulances, air ambulances, multiple doctors and senior paramedics. 
 
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The extreme heat in the Mediterranean region continued to trigger wildfires, with dozens of people killed in Algeria, Greece, Italy and Turkey in recent days. The weather system, nicknamed “Lucifer,” has unleashed record temperatures, and on Thursday it was moving slowly west toward Spain and Portugal.A weather station near the town of Syracuse in southeast Sicily registered what could be Europe’s highest recorded temperature Wednesday, at 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 F). The record had yet to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization.Fire crews said forests and fields, baked to tinder by the intense heat, were easily ignited by such things as a discarded cigarette or concentration of the sun’s rays by a shard of glass.Horrifying sightAt night, the hills of southeast Sicily were lit up in flames. It was a frightening spectacle for the residents of the ancient mountain villages.“Our small town was really invaded by fire. It is a catastrophe. The entire Calaforno Park and the surrounding area went up in flames,” said Giovanna Licitra, a resident of Giarratana. “We are living through some really sad moments because our land has suffered a very serious loss. And it will take a long time before it returns to its former glory.”Goats are seen at a burn area near Krioneritis village on Evia island, about 181 kilometers north of Athens, Greece, Aug. 12, 2021.On the Greek island of Evia, the air was filled with acrid smoke, frequently punctured by the low-flying sorties of water-dropping aircraft. Fire crews have traveled from across Europe and as far away as Russia and Egypt to help. But for many residents, it was too late.“Today, we have a lot of water-dropping aircraft, but they should have been here from day one. The damage now is too big, unfortunately,” said Dimitris, an island resident.The heat has also triggered huge fires in Algeria, which reportedly have killed at least 69 people. Aid agencies said that more than 600 families had been made homeless.  Algerian Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane visited some of the affected regions Thursday and promised further government help.Scientists said governments should make better preparations for further extreme weather.FILE – A man looks at a forest fire near the village of Larbaa Nath Irathen, near Tizi Ouzou, in the mountainous Kabyle region, 100 kilometers east of Algiers, Aug.11, 2021.“It really is horrific, and unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the heat and humidity deaths which we’re going to see, which we can attribute directly to human-caused climate change,” Ilan Kelman, a professor of disasters and health at University College London, said in an interview with VOA.“When we’re up to this level of 45 degrees [Celsius] and over, when this continues for a while, and when we add humidity, really the only way to get through it unfortunately is indoor cooling,” Kelman said. “And most people do not have that. Many people cannot afford it. And we also have the challenge that even if everyone was given access to it and could afford it or were helped, then that would overload the power system. We would see power outages.”Economic disruptionIn addition to the immediate danger to life, the extreme weather disrupts livelihoods and entire economies, Kelman said.“When it’s too hot to be outside, we are not going to have people tilling the fields,” he added. “We are not going to have people harvesting the crops and sending it to be processed for our supermarket shelves. Construction cannot happen. What do we do about repairs for infrastructure which require people being outdoors” when it’s simply too hot to be out there?The weather system was slowly moving west toward Spain and Portugal. Social workers were checking in on the most vulnerable residents, including the elderly.“Weather phenomena that are generated by climate change contribute to this vulnerability. This calls for more care and attention, and puts them at even more risk,” Madrid social worker Clara Garcia told Reuters.Destroyed cars lie in a street after floods and mudslides in Bozkurt town, Kastamonu province, Turkey, Aug. 12, 2021. Floods triggered by torrential rains battered the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun on Wednesday.Meanwhile in northern Turkey, heavy rains have caused catastrophic flooding in recent days, sweeping away cars and buildings and triggering mudslides — echoing scenes from Germany and Belgium last month.Scientists said it showed the urgency of fighting climate change. But in the short term, they warned that extreme weather was increasingly common and said humanity must adapt as best it can.Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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North Macedonia’s bid for membership in the European Union was held up for two decades by a dispute with Greece over its name. One painful compromise later, the road forward is being blocked again — this time by Bulgaria in a dispute over language and historical grievances. And Albania, whose EU bid is to be considered in tandem with that of North Macedonia, is collateral damage. Both North Macedonia and Albania had high hopes of moving forward this year, but progress was brought to a halt at a June meeting of the EU’s General Affairs Council, where Bulgaria exercised its veto as an EU member to block the start of accession negotiations with North Macedonia.  Among several cultural and historic grievances, Sofia called for North Macedonia to acknowledge that the language spoken there is derived from Bulgarian. That is a bitter pill for the government in Skopje, which already acceded to the addition of “North” to the country’s name to satisfy the objections of Greece, which has a province named Macedonia. FILE – European Council President Charles Michel, right, speaks with North Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev prior to a meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, May 19, 2021.The government in Skopje said it does not plan on giving up on its EU aspirations and that it will continue to actively seek out a solution. “If there is political will and leadership on the side of Bulgaria, I think we can find a European solution that would be good for Macedonian-Bulgarian friendship, for the European promise to the region, and for North Macedonia. But there is an ‘if,’ because we already did our best,” Nikola Dimitrov, North Macedonia’s vice prime minister for European affairs, said in comments reported by Euronews. In a June 28 statement on its Foreign Ministry website, Bulgaria maintains it is committed to resolving its differences with North Macedonia, but it demands an end to what it describes as the suppression of the rights of people in North Macedonia “who identify themselves as Bulgarians.” Experts in the United States — which supports EU integration of the entire Balkans — warn that the delay in starting accession talks with the two countries is likely to be exploited by Russia and China to increase their influence in the western Balkans.  Balkans expert Edward Joseph, a senior fellow with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, describes the impasse as an extremely serious challenge for the EU and its vision.  “This is an unconscionable blockage and imposition by Bulgaria against North Macedonia. Failure to do this will destabilize the Balkans and represents an opening for Russia and China in the region,” Joseph told VOA’s Macedonian Service.Аll other countries in the EU agree that North Macedonia and its 2 million people are more than ready to join the bloc.    “North Macedonia has done what it has been asked; it has done more than any other country has been asked. And we in the United States, we respect what North Macedonia has done in this compromise, which was a true compromise with Greece,” Joseph said. He argued that Bulgaria is demanding that Macedonians “accept a version of history, a version of who they are — except that version that Bulgarians insist upon is against EU values,” which maintain that members must not bring bilateral issues into the accession process. FILE – Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, May 25, 2021.Bulgaria, for its part, maintains that it sees EU enlargement in the western Balkans as a priority and that it does not object to accession talks with Albania, although at present the bloc is not prepared to discuss the one country without the other. “We are resolute to continue the dialogue with the Republic of North Macedonia,” the statement on its Foreign Ministry website says. “We are committed to finding pragmatic, sustainable and mutually acceptable solutions to the challenges inherited from the past.” Joseph argues that if the EU members are not able to bring sufficient pressure on Bulgaria and North Macedonia to move the process forward, the United States should step in. “Washington has to join with Brussels and with key capitals Berlin, Paris and others, and bring requisite pressure,” he said, noting that U.S. President Joe Biden had himself argued in the 1990s for the Clinton administration to do more to integrate the Balkans with western Europe. Erwan Fouéré, a former EU special representative in North Macedonia, offered a similar assessment. “The Americans are expecting the EU to take assumed leadership. And unfortunately, the EU is not assuming the leadership as it should,” he said. “The situation with Bulgaria and the veto that Bulgaria imposed … undermines the entire EU enlargement agenda. So many promises that have been given to North Macedonia, that have been broken, and this is another one now,” he told VOA Macedonian. Fouéré, currently a senior associate research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said the way forward may require “mediation by a third party, by the Council of Europe or OSCЕ. These are all entities that have experience in resolution of bilateral disputes.”   
 
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The Turkish capital, Ankara, has been hit with a night of violence against Syrian refugees. Turkey currently hosts over four million refugees, and with more coming from Afghanistan and there are growing fears of rising social tensions.Hundreds of people attacked the homes of Syrians Wednesday in Altindag, a suburb of Ankara. Syrian shops were also targeted, with an angry mob looting the contents. The violence was triggered by the killing of a local Turkish youth, allegedly by Syrians.Turkey Faces Dilemma as Afghan Refugees Start Arriving Ankara is extending border wall with Iran as analysts warn of rising social and political tensions if more Afghan refugees enter TurkeyPolice tried to intervene, calling for people to return to their homes, but to no avail, as the violence continued for many hours. Unconfirmed reports say people traveled across the city to join the attacks. No official figures have been given on injuries. Altindag, a suburban electoral stronghold of the ruling AKP party, is home to many Syrian refugees, who had fled Syria’s civil war. A local shop owner, who did not want to be identified, said people’s patience over the refugees is running out.Let them go back. They are everywhere here, left-right center.  He adds, I am only one of three Turkish shop owners left here. Turkey opened its doors to millions fleeing the decade-long Syrian civil war. But political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners says there is growing discontent over the government’s refugee policy, which is likely to be exacerbated by increasing numbers of Afghans fleeing the Taliban arriving in Turkey.”There are not only 3.6 million Syrians; there are at least two thousand Iranians, half-million Iraqis, an unknown number of Africans who came through tourists visas,” Yesilada said. “Now Afghanis, along with other Central Asian nations, are coming, and they are virtually stealing jobs because they work for half the minimum wage, they don’t complain, they stage strikes, so not only in Istanbul and other industrialized cities but also many Anatolian towns, they are favored for manual jobs and agricultural jobs. This is a huge problem; all polls show regardless of political party, Turks want them to go back.”Main opposition politician Kemal Kilicdaroglu declared last month Syrian refugees would be returned within two years of his party coming to power. Wednesday night Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said measures were being taken to control any surge in Afghan refugees.Erdogan said, at the border with Iran or Iraq, walls on the frontiers are rising significantly right now. These walls are to prevent illegal migration to our country.Turkey is constructing border walls and fences along its entire Iranian and Iraqi frontiers. Those barriers are predicted to be tested as observers warn of a potential exodus of Afghans if the Taliban take power.
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The French call it La Manche, or the sleeve, while the more proprietorial British refer to the narrow arm of the Atlantic separating England’s southern coast from the northern coast of France as the English Channel. At its narrowest point it is just 33 kilometers, but when it comes to the state of Anglo-French relations these days it might as well be as wide as an ocean.For weeks now the British have been trying to arrange sit-down talks between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, but to no avail. British diplomats say Paris won’t agree to a date for a bilateral summit. Their French counterparts say they doubt a sit-down between the two leaders would accomplish anything. FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson and France’s President Emmanuel Macron attend a bilateral meeting during G-7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, Britain, June 12, 2021. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via Reuters)The last time the pair met was at the annual G-7 summit of advanced nations held in Cornwall in June and it led to a bruising dispute over cross-border rules for Northern Ireland, which is treated differently under the terms of the Brexit agreement. Johnson wants a renegotiation.A British claim that the French leader told Johnson that Northern Ireland was not part of the same country as the United Kingdom anymore, drew anger in Britain and fury in Paris, where French officials said Macron’s remark was taken out of context.As The Times newspaper put it last week, with a twist of British understatement: “The entente cordiale seems less than cordial nowadays.”The Entente Cordiale was a set of agreements signed in 1904 between Britain and France, which marked a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations after decades of rivalry in a scramble for African colonies. Now the British accuse the French of “crossing the street to pick a fight every day,” and the French countercharge the British are trying to wiggle out of the divorce agreement they struck with the EU and of not keeping their word.Some former British diplomats agree there might be little point in a Johnson-Macron face-to-face. “The bilateral rows are more numerous and more public than at any time since the major rift over Iraq in 2003. Some level of trust has to be rebuilt before a summit would be worthwhile,” tweeted Peter Rickets, a retired senior diplomat and former chairman of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee under Prime Minister Tony Blair.In some Western defense and foreign-policy circles frustration is rising about the Anglo-French antagonism. “A strong Europe and indeed a liberal Europe cannot be built without Britain,” Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, wrote last week.“So, the success of post-Brexit Britain is a key French interest, just as a strong liberal France is a key British interest. The needs of European defense, together with the overriding need to preserve a liberal order in France and in Europe, make it imperative that the current mésentente [disagreement] be replaced with a new entente cordiale,” he added.Bogdanor blames the French more for the deterioration, arguing Macron sees Brexit “not in geopolitical terms but primarily as an opportunity for French financial and business interests,” and accuses him of trying to marginalize Britain. French observers see Britain as the culprit and maintain Johnson and his ministers resort to criticism of France for domestic political reasons.  FILE – Trucks queue on the A16 highway to enter the Channel tunnel in Calais, northern France, Dec. 17, 2020.Since formally departing the European Union more than year ago — and in the years of ill-tempered negotiations between Brussels and London leading up to Brexit — hardly a week has gone by without the British and French sniping at each other, squabbling that’s amplified by Britain’s notoriously Francophobe tabloid press and France’s equally patriotic media.In his New Year address in January, Macron assured Britain that France would remain a “friend and ally” despite Brexit but slammed the British decision to leave the bloc as one born from “lies and false promises.”  FILE – French fishermen block trucks carrying UK-landed fish to protest for the slow issuance of licenses to fish inside British waters, at the fishing port in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, Apr. 23, 2021.This year alone the countries have clashed over post-Brexit fishing rights for French trawlers off the coast of Britain’s Channel Islands. Johnson deployed Royal Navy vessels to the area as Paris threatened to cut off electricity to the island of Jersey. France responded by sending patrol ships to protect French trawlers.And the two have bickered over cross-Channel migration with London accusing French authorities of not doing enough to stop migrants and asylum-seekers — more than 10,000 a year this year so far — crossing La Manche in dinghies and small boats.Migrants who launched from the coast of northern France cross the English Channel in an inflatable boat near Dover, Britain, Aug. 4, 2021.The pair clashed also over supplies of the Covid vaccine made by Astrazeneca, a British-Swedish company, with the French left fuming at the Johnson government’s frequent readiness to compare the speed of the vaccine rollout earlier in the year in Britain with the much slower inoculation programs in France and the rest of Europe.British pandemic travel rules that singled out travelers from France, until last week, and were stricter than those coming from other EU countries, were slammed as unjustified by Paris. 
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A helicopter carrying tourists plunged into a deep volcanic crater lake on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east Thursday, and rescuers were searching in the lake for up to eight people missing, officials said. At least eight others reportedly survived.The helicopter crashed in the Kronotsky nature reserve, and the regional administration said workers were searching for survivors in Kurile Lake, which was formed in a volcano caldera and crater.Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 13 tourists and three crew members were aboard the Mi-8 helicopter and eight people survived, according to the state RIA Novosti news agency. It said two of them were heavily injured.The Interfax news agency, however, cited officials as saying the helicopter was carrying three crew members and 14 tourists when it went down in deep fog. Interfax initially quoted regional officials as saying that nine people, including two pilots, survived the crash, but later reported that only eight survivors were found while the search for the others is continuing.The varying numbers could not be immediately reconciled. The reports did not list the nationalities of the tourists but said that most of them were from Moscow and St. Petersburg.Regional prosecutors were investigating a possible violation of flight safety rules.The helicopter reportedly is lying at a depth of about 100 meters in Kurile Lake, which is up to 316 meters deep with an area of 77 square kilometers.The helicopter, manufactured during the Soviet era 37 years ago, was operated by Vityaz-Aero, a local private carrier. Its director said it had recently undergone maintenance and was in good shape.The Mi-8 is a two-engine helicopter designed in the 1960s. It has been used widely in Russia, ex-Soviet countries and many other nations.The area where the crash occurred can only be reached by helicopters and the fog was complicating rescue efforts, the RIA Novosti reported. Several local emergency workers, including three divers, were conducting rescue efforts, it said.Kamchatka, the pristine peninsula which is home to numerous volcanoes is known for its rugged beauty and rich wildlife. The Kronotsky reserve, which has Russia’s only geyser basin, is a major tourist attraction on Kamchatka and helicopters regularly carry tourists there.Quickly changing weather often makes flights risky. Last month, an An-26 passenger plane crashed on Kamchatka while approaching an airport in bad weather, killing all 28 people on board.Russian news reports said Vityaz-Aero is half-owned by Igor Redkin, a millionaire businessman who is a member of the Kamchatka regional legislature. Redkin was placed under house arrest earlier this week after he shot and killed a man who was rummaging in a garbage bin. Redkin said the shooting was accidental after he mistook the victim for a bear.There are an estimated 20,000 bears on Kamchatka, and they occasionally roam into settlements looking for food. 
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After all the turmoil of the last week, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya finally feels safe. The Belarusian Olympic sprinter who found refuge in Poland to avoid punishment at home after criticizing team officials at the Tokyo Games says she now hopes to focus on how to keep up a world-class running career. Speaking in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press at the Olympic Center in Warsaw, the 24-year-old runner said she has already asked Polish officials to help her resume training. “Life changed in one day, and now we are starting it from scratch in a new country,” she said, speaking with her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, by her side. “We are planning to stay in Poland and continue our careers here.”  “We have turned to the Ministry of Sports, turned to the Polish athletics national team, with issues regarding a coach, a group and a place where I can train and many other issues regarding the continuation of my sports career here in Poland,” she said. She emphasized that she and her 25-year-old husband, an athletics trainer who also has been her coach, feel that it would be a waste to abandon an online training program they launched in Belarus. “We had so many ideas. We planned it to a tiny detail,” Tsimanouskaya said. “We have put a lot of time and effort in it, and we would like to keep it going.” Tsimanouskaya said she and her husband feel secure in Poland, where they arrived separately last week on humanitarian visas.  “We are definitely safe now because we are under protection,” she said. The runner recalled the harrowing, confusing moments when she sought Japanese police help at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, when she was being forced by Belarus officials to leave the Summer Games early and return home. “They didn’t understand first what happened to me,” the runner said of the police. “They thought that I was unwell or lost something. And then I wrote that I was being forcibly taken out of the country and I don’t want that to happen.” She used her phone to translate the desperate plea for help after her grandmother warned her not to return to Belarus. The drama began after Tsimanouskaya criticized her team officials, saying on Instagram that she was put in the 4×400 relay even though she had never run in the event. She was then barred from competing in the 200-meter race that she expected to run in and told to pack her bags. At home, the standoff set off a massive backlash in state-run media, deepening Tsimanouskaya’s fears that she would face reprisals if she returned. When she used Google apps to translate her plea to Japanese police, a suspicious Belarusian official asked what was going on. She told him she forgot something at the Olympic Village and needed to return.  Tsimanouskaya described the feeling of safety she finally had after Japanese police took her away from team officials. “I think I already felt secure at the airport when I was with the police,” she said. “I realized that I turned to the police, they are protecting me and my life isn’t in danger. I was being constantly escorted. I felt nervous, and sometimes my hands were trembling, but I wouldn’t say that I felt unsafe. The only place which would be unsafe for me is Belarus.” The standoff again drew global attention to the repressive environment in Belarus, where authorities have unleashed a relentless crackdown on dissent following President Alexander Lukashenko’s being handed a sixth term after the August 9, 2020, presidential vote that the opposition and the West saw as rigged. Huge protests rocked Belarus, and authorities responded by arresting more than 35,000 people and beating thousands. They have ramped up the clampdown in recent months, raiding hundreds of offices and homes of independent journalists, activists and all those deemed unloyal. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years, has denounced his opponents as Western stooges. Asked about Tsimanouskaya at a marathon news conference Monday, he claimed that “she wouldn’t have done it herself if she hadn’t been manipulated.” Tsimanouskaya said she had been apolitical before the standoff at the Tokyo Games and deliberately refrained from signing petitions challenging the authorities, fearing that would bring harm to her husband and her parents. She said she had problems with sports officials after posting a message against violence on Instagram and was told she would face dismissal from the country’s national team if she did it again. After the airport standoff, her husband said they decided to move to Poland after talking to their parents. “After consulting with them, we decided that it’s dangerous to return to Belarus at the moment,” he said. “And we decided that I will follow my wife to support her in a new country and build a sports career in Poland. You know, I was more worried for my wife than myself. I believed that they could use me to hurt her somehow.” Tsimanouskaya and Zdanevich said they badly miss their parents but talk to them on Zoom and hope they could visit Poland someday. They had to leave their dog and cat at their apartment in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, since Zdanevich had to flee quickly, so they asked neighbors and friends to take care of them.  The runner also hopes to sort out a problem with eBay that annulled all bids when she tried to auction a silver medal she has from 2019 to raise money to help Belarusian athletes punished for their political views.  “I was deprived of a chance to take part in the Olympic Games in my event and (eBay) effectively denied me an opportunity to help athletes,” Tsimanouskaya said, voicing hope that the company will correct its mistake and allow her to auction her medal. And she hopes that Belarus will one day become a democracy. “I hope that a time will come soon when Belarus could be free, and people will have freedom of speech,” she said. 
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Afghan clothes and Iranian SIM cards litter fields under the mountains that stand between Turkey and the Iranian border. A wisp of smoke rises out of what was a small fire, abandoned many hours before.  As the Taliban swept through villages and cities in Afghanistan over the past few months, families have fled in droves, many traveling across Iran and into Turkey.  In the past, this route was flooded with refugees trying to get to Europe to seek safety and freedom. Now it’s packed with people making a last-ditch effort to stay alive in Turkey, where they find no humanitarian aid and run the risk of being arrested and deported. Abdul Tawab, 16, fled Afghanistan after his uncle, a lawyer in a government court, was killed by the Taliban, Aug. 11, 2021, in Van, Turkey. (Claire Thomas/VOA)We meet 16-year-old Abdul Tawab outside the park where he sleeps in central Van, a city famous among tourists for its massive lake and among refugees for its proximity to the Iranian border.  Tawab arrived in Turkey two weeks ago, hoping to go to Istanbul to find a job. But like so many other men and boys in the park, he is now out of money and stuck here in Van. Tawab says he is afraid he will be arrested if he draws attention to himself outside, so we walk a zigzag path through the markets until he feels safe at a table upstairs in a café.  In Afghanistan, Tawab supported five siblings and his parents on his carpenter’s salary, which was about $1 a day. He left home after the Taliban had stormed into his village and riddled his uncle with bullets, killing the well-loved father of nine. “He didn’t care if people were rich or poor,” Tawab says. “He liked everyone, and everyone liked him.” Taliban fighters on motorcycles later wrapped his uncle’s body in barbed wire and deposited it in a field, Tawab says. Refugees say the militants will execute anyone who is associated with the Afghanistan government or foreign organizations, or anyone identified as Hazara, a Shiite ethnic group and the country’s largest religious minority. Saranwal Nadir, Tawab’s uncle, was a lawyer in a government court. “We found him in the field,” Tawab says. “His body was lying in puddles of water and blood.”  Crisis beginning Turkey already hosts 3.7 million refugees, more than any other country in the world. But frustration among the population is growing, and many believe this crisis is only beginning.  Garments traditional in Afghanistan and Pakistan are found in an area where refugees hide out in when they first enter Turkey, Aug. 11, 2021, in Van, Turkey. (Claire Thomas/VOA)Twitter in Turkey is alight with rumors about incoming people from Afghanistan. Some say the refugees are increasing crime rates or depressing wages. Another commonly heard complaint is that they are mostly young men, as evidenced by videos online. Young men from Afghanistan say the women and children are mostly in safe houses, hidden from cameras by the same smugglers who kicked the men out onto the streets, sometimes to be rounded up and deported. When the United States fully pulls out of Afghanistan, the borders may be even more packed with people trying to get into Turkey, a relatively safe country that has a history of taking in refugees, says Mahmut Kaçan, a lawyer and the coordinator for the Asylum and Migration Commission of the Van Bar Association.  But once in Turkey, there is no clear path to establishing legal status and no organizations at all to support families in need of food or shelter. The United Nations’ refugee agency no longer processes asylum claims in Turkey, and claims through government offices can take years.  “They are living in limbo in Turkey,” Kaçan says.  Taliban takeover Up at least four flights of sloping concrete stairs, in a two-bedroom apartment in Van, two families from Afghanistan, 12 people in all, say they are afraid to go outside. Inside, the apartment is barren, with almost no furniture and only a few plastic bags of clothes and bedding.  Two families, 12 people total, live in this unfurnished apartment in Van, Turkey, after fleeing Afghanistan, Aug. 10, 2021. (Claire Thomas/VOA)The adults go out only when they think they may find work. But after a month in Turkey, none of them have had any luck. The rent here is less than $70 a month, and the families say they already sold all their belongings to pay smugglers $1,000 per person, roughly the minimum cost to get from Kabul to Van. They borrowed rent money last month and do not know how they will manage in the future.  But as soon as the U.S. announced it would be pulling out, says Saeed Sanaye Sadet, one of the apartment residents, he knew he would never be safe at home again, because he used to work for an American company. We point out that the Taliban have taken over vast swaths of Afghanistan in recent months, but not all of it, and the capital, Kabul, is still held by the government. But Sadet says the fall of the country feels inevitable.  “It’s already happening,” he scoffs, when we ask why he is so sure. Women and girls On the edge of a graveyard in Van, rows of shallow graves cover the bodies of people who died attempting to flee to Turkey.  Many were among the 61 refugees killed in a shipwreck on Lake Van last year. Other graves are identified only by the border-area location where the body was found.  As we drive away from the graveyard, Mohammad Mahdi Sultani, a journalist from Afghanistan who is working with us as a guide and translator, says people have been risking their lives for a long time to escape Afghanistan, which has been at war since the 2001 U.S. invasion.  But the reason people are fleeing is shifting as the Taliban gain ground, he says. His uncle fled his village for Iran because he has two daughters, 19 and 21. When the Taliban came in, they demanded that families place flags outside their houses to indicate whether there were any unwed women or girls inside. Leena Sadet, pictured Aug. 10, 2021, in Van, Turkey, had been a language teacher in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over her area, prompting her to flee the country. (Claire Thomas/VOA)”They say (the Taliban) will marry them,” Sultani says, meaning, by force.  In the crowded apartment up the stairs, Leena Sadet, Saeed Sadet’s wife, says she remembers her mom’s blue burqa from her childhood, when Taliban law forced all women to leave their jobs and go outside only fully covered.  “The same thing will happen if they are in power,” Leena Sadet says. “The women won’t work, and the girls will not go to school.” Mohammad Mahdi Sultani contributed to this report.
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German authorities said Wednesday that they had arrested a British citizen and accused him of spying for Russia while working at the British Embassy in Berlin.The man, identified only as David S., is suspected of passing documents to Russia for money since at least November. He reportedly worked as a local hire.The British government confirmed the arrest but said in a statement it would “not be appropriate to comment further as there is an ongoing police investigation.”German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger said the German government was monitoring the incident.”We take the indications that the intelligence activity of the arrested man was carried out on behalf of a Russian intelligence service very seriously,” Burger said. “Spying on a close ally on German soil is not something we can accept.”Officials with the Russian Embassy had no comment on the case, according to Interfax.The man was scheduled to appear Wednesday at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny faces a new charge that a non-profit organization he created encouraged Russians to break the law.The charge, which was announced Wednesday by Russia’s Investigative Committee, is punishable by up to three years in prison.The committee says Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption group encouraged Russians to “perform unlawful acts” by encouraging Russians to participate in unauthorized protests in January.Russia Opens Criminal Case Into 2 Navalny Allies They are accused of raising funds for organizations deemed by the authorities as ‘extremist’  
Navalny, 45, is currently serving a two-and-a-half year sentence on a 2014 embezzlement conviction. He was arrested in January when he returned to Russia from Germany where he was recovering from what he said was a nerve agent attack by the Kremlin. Russian officials deny his allegation. In June, Navalny’s foundation was outlawed as “extremist,” and authorities blocked multiple websites run by his network, charging them with distributing propaganda. Two of Navalny’s top allies, Ivan Zhdanov and Leonid Volkov, are facing criminal investigations. Navalny’s allies say the crackdowns are intended to weaken the opposition in the runup to the September 19 parliamentary elections. 
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The Austrian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday protested the detention of two journalists who were working in Belarus for Austria’s national broadcaster ORF.ORF correspondent Carola Schneider and her camera operator were detained Monday in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and taken to a police station.The broadcaster cited a Belarusian human rights group as saying that plainclothes police officers stopped the two journalists while they were interviewing a local resident. The pair were later released, ORF said.Austria’s Foreign Ministry called the police action “completely unacceptable.””We immediately lodged a protest,” the ministry said on Twitter. “Correspondents must be able to work unhindered and media freedom must always be ensured.”Independent media outlets and journalists have come under pressure in Belarus since the reelection of the country’s authoritarian president a year ago triggered mass protests.
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Half-a-dozen European Union countries have told Brussels they want to continue deporting Afghan migrants whose asylum-applications are denied — despite the Taliban’s recent military successes, including overrunning eight of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals in the past week. EU officials told reporters during a briefing Tuesday that they found it inconceivable any EU member states would want to continue with deportations while conflict is raging in Afghanistan and as the Taliban is making major inroads in the wake of the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from the country. But the EU says it is up to the member states what they do, adding to confusion over who has final authority — member states or the European Commission.“Given the context, it is hard to imagine that we would conduct forced return operations for the moment,” an EU official in Brussels said, adding that the continent isn’t facing an imminent major influx of Afghan migrants.Six EU countries sent a joint letter August 5 to the European Commission warning against halting non-voluntary returns of Afghan migrants, arguing any suspension of deportations would act as a migration magnet and “motivate even more Afghan citizens to leave their home for the EU.”Germany, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece signed the letter. “We would like to highlight the urgent need to perform returns, both voluntary and non-voluntary, to Afghanistan,” the interior ministers of the six countries wrote in their collective letter to the Commission. “Stopping returns sends the wrong signal,” they added. FILE – Afghans who were deported from Germany arrive at Kabul International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 15, 2016. 
About 1,200 Afghans have been deported from the EU this year — 1,000 agreed to go voluntarily but 200 or had to be forced to go, according to EU officials. Last month, the Afghan government called on European nations to stop deportations, saying it could not cope while also trying to fight the Taliban.Earlier this month the European Court of Human Rights told Austria not to proceed with the expulsion of an Afghan national until at least later in August because of a “risk of irreparable harm” to the asylum-seeker. Austria announced this month it will deploy additional soldiers to its borders with Slovenia and Hungary, boosting the number of its border guards by 40%.European leaders are fearful of a new migration crisis impacting the continent and are negotiating another multi-year migration deal with Turkey to get Ankara to block Afghan and other asylum-seekers from heading their way.FILE – A Turkish-flagged passenger boat carrying migrants to be returned to Turkey leaves the port of Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos, April 8, 2016.It would be a renewal of a five-year deal struck in 2016 that saw the EU pay Ankara billions of dollars to curb irregular Europe-bound migration, improve the living conditions of refugees in Turkey, and foster legal migration through official resettlement schemes.Around 2,000 Afghans a day are entering Turkey, and migration experts expect the numbers to surge as the Taliban seizes control of more of Afghanistan.  FILE – German policemen register refugees at the rail station in Freilassing, southern Germany, Sept. 14, 2015, before they take them away in busses.Asked last month at a press conference whether Germany should welcome Afghan refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the architect of the 2015 open-doors policy that saw around a million asylum-seekers settle in Europe, replied: “We cannot solve all of these problems by taking everyone in.” She called instead for political negotiations so “people can live as peacefully as possible in the country.”The head of the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, Antonio Vitorino, issued a statement Tuesday saying he’s “extremely concerned by the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan — particularly the impact on mobile and displaced populations, including returnees.” He said around 5 million Afghans are already displaced internally. Internally displaced Afghan families, who fled from Kunduz and Takhar province due to battles between Taliban and Afghan security forces, sit in a field in Kabul, Aug. 9, 2021. 
Greek authorities say Afghans now make up the largest share of asylum-seekers who manage to navigate the Aegean from Turkey.Speaking later Tuesday, Adalbert Jahnz, a European Commission spokesman, said each member state would need “to make an individual assessment of whether the return is possible in a specific set of circumstances, that needs to take into account the principles, notably the principle of rule of law and other fundamental rights.”He stressed: “It’s not something that the EU specifically regulates.”Critics, though, are accusing Brussels of being inconsistent in what it claims authority over when it comes to migration. Last week, the Commission was accused of playing post-Brexit politics by sabotaging a bilateral deal being negotiated between London and Paris. The proposed agreement would see France take back migrants who had tried to enter Britain from France by crossing the English Channel on small boats and dinghies. FILE – Migrants who launched from the coast of northern France cross the English Channel in an inflatable boat near Dover, Britain, Aug. 4, 2021.Priti Patel, Britain’s interior minister, and French counterpart Gérald Darmanin inked an initial agreement supporting “the idea of a UK-EU readmission agreement to mutual advantage in terms of deterring illegal migration, protecting the vulnerable, and tackling the criminal gangs.” More than 10,000 asylum-seekers have crossed the Channel so far this year.But the EU has scotched the deal progressing saying any agreement governing migrants is not a matter for the governments of individual member states to decide but for the bloc as a whole.Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.  
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Massive forest fires have gripped Greece for more than a week. The government has come under fierce criticism for failing to heed warnings of wildfires amid a protracted heat wave affecting not just Greece but the Balkans and southern Europe.Some of the nearly 600 wildfires that have sparked across Greece, have been brought under control. But fresh ones flared on the island of Evia and in the Peloponnese, adding to the 62 evacuation orders authorities issued over the past week across the country. Several mayors criticized a lack of aerial support in fighting the fires, despite the government’s assurances earlier this year that it had set aside ample resources. But even before the fires began, environmental experts had warned of the pending danger Those experts, including Costas Synolakis, a professor of natural hazards management, say the government in Athens has yet to grasp the extent of the threat of climate change.“I think politicians are simply not prepared for the scale of devastation. Politicians need to start understanding that if we do not act, this is the new normal and perhaps it is already too late,” Synolakis said. “What we need to do is stabilize the climate so that we do not see anything worse than what we see now.” The warning follows Monday’s nationally televised address by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “The destruction in Evia and elsewhere blackens everyone’s hearts.… And I first of all, apologize for any shortcomings shown by the state in its response,” Mitsotakis said.  Mitsotakis pledged more than 500 million dollars to fund rebuilding, reforesting and compensation and said special inquiries would be set up to determine what went wrong and who should be held accountable. Greece is not alone. It is suffering under the worst heat wave since 1987. The heat and drought, both linked to climate change, are fueling fires across Europe, from Turkey and Italy to Russia’s Siberia. Greece has struggled to contain the hundreds of wildfires that have turned pristine pine forests into ash and forced about 60,000 people to flee. The government has said its main priority has been to save and protect lives. More than 49,000 hectares have burned on Evia alone, according to European Union data. Hundreds of firefighters, among them soldiers, mountain rangers and volunteers from across Greece, Europe and the U.S. are fighting the blazes and watching for flare-ups. At least three people have been arrested on suspicion of arson, but no charges yet have been filed. 
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Firefighters in Greece continue to battle wildfires as officials defend their response amid unusually high temperatures and dry conditions. “We handled an operationally unique situation, with 586 fires in eight days during the worst weather conditions we’ve seen in 40 years,” Greece’s civil protection chief Nikos Hardalias said at a Tuesday news conference. “Never was there such a combination of adverse factors in the history of the fire service.” The government has pledged $586 million in aid to help those affected by the fires, including a massive blaze on Evia island that has been burning for more than a week. More than 900 firefighters have been working to bring the Evia fire under control. Wildfires in Greece are part of a wave of fires in many countries in Europe and across the Mediterranean in Algeria. The European Union has mobilized fire crews to help with blazes in Greece, Albania, Italy, Turkey and North Macedonia. The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) has also mapped active fires in several other countries, including Spain, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine and Germany. An EFFIS map showed 334,515 hectares had burned this year as of Tuesday. That figure has more than doubled since July 22. It is also twice the average at this point in the year compared with data from 2008 to 2020. In Algeria, officials said wildfires there have killed at least 42 people, including 25 soldiers. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted Tuesday that the soldiers who died were martyrs who saved the lives of 100 people. The government has blamed arsonists for igniting the fires. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, AFP and Reuters. 
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Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has filed a lawsuit against Britain’s Prince Andrew, alleging he raped and sexually abused her several times when she was 17 years old.Andrew, who is Queen Elizabeth II’s second son and ninth in line to the British throne, has consistently denied the accusations and has said he does not recall ever meeting Giuffre.In the civil lawsuit filed Monday at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Virginia Giuffre, now 38, said the prince sexually abused her on multiple occasions during visits arranged by Epstein, who committed suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019.FILE – Britain’s Prince Andrew leaves St. Mary the Virgin church in Hillington, near royal Sandringham estate, in Norfolk, Jan. 19, 2020.”I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me,” Giuffre said in a statement. “The powerful and rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but to reclaim one’s life by speaking out and demanding justice.”She claims the abuse took place at Epstein’s New York mansion, at his property in the Caribbean, and at the London apartment belonging to Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.Giuffre’s lawyers filed the civil lawsuit under New York’s Child Victims Act. The timing is significant, said Richard Fitzwilliams, a London-based royal analyst and commentator.”Under that law, she was a minor at the time. There’s a statute of limitations that would apply to any charges if they were not brought very shortly this month,” Fitzwilliams told VOA.U.S. law enforcement is conducting separate investigations into Epstein’s crimes and his accomplices who allegedly helped to groom and traffic women and girls.”In international law, you have to take any criminal cases first before any civil case,” said Mark Stephens, a British attorney specializing in international law. “So, I think it’s almost a racing certainty that this case filed by Virginia Giuffre to preserve her rights will actually be stayed until the outcome of the law enforcement investigations in the United States, and only then will it have an opportunity to go forward. But the best form of defense that Prince Andrew’s lawyers have got is to delay, to obfuscate, to effectively argue over legal technicalities,” Stephens told The Associated Press.Andrew has consistently denied the claims. As a member of the royal family, he is entitled to immunity from prosecution, Stephens said.”But, of course, I think the case is calculated by Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers to ensure that maximum public pressure is put on him not to invoke his right to crown immunity.”Andrew stepped back from royal duties in 2019 following an interview with the BBC in which he strongly rejected the accusations made against him. The interview was widely seen as a public relations disaster. He has offered to help U.S. investigators, Fitzwilliams said.”There is some sort of standoff on this issue, whether or not he is prepared, as he said he would, to cooperate with the FBI in their attempts to know more about Epstein’s accomplices. The facts are, so far as has been reported, that the FBI would appear to want some form of face-to-face interview, and it may well be that Andrew has offered some form of written interview,” Fitzwilliams said.Maxwell is scheduled to stand trial in New York later this year, charged with procuring and trafficking underage girls. She has denied the charges.”She was a close friend of Andrew’s. If anything were to emerge then that we don’t know, that would bring further embarrassment,” Fitzwilliams told VOA.Meanwhile, it was announced Monday that a fund to compensate Epstein’s victims has paid out more than $121 million to 138 people.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press. 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday Germany has fallen behind other European countries in its COVID-19 vaccination efforts, and with new infections on the rise, the government must take steps to speed up the program or run the risk of seeing its health care system overwhelmed.Merkel spoke to reporters Tuesday following a meeting with Germany’s 16 state governors. She said they are all in agreement that the federal, state and local governments must promote vaccinations and make them easy to obtain.German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin on Aug. 10, 2021.The German chancellor encouraged all who have been vaccinated to promote vaccination to their friends, families and social groups.Merkel also announced the government would stop paying for COVID-19 testing beginning October 11 as an incentive to get vaccinated. At the same time, Germany will begin requiring proof of vaccination, a negative test or proof of recovery to access venues such as restaurants, cinemas and gyms in areas where infection rates rise above a certain threshold.Merkel said the country has sufficient vaccines for its population — more than half is already fully immunized — and that studies have shown them to be effective in preventing severe cases of COVID-19 and highly infectious variants, such as the delta strain.The German leader said those who prefer testing rather than getting vaccinated will have to pay for it after October 11.”Those who were vaccinated no longer have to get a test, and those who are vaccinated surely will be treated differently to those who are not vaccinated should the infection rate rise further,” Merkel said. “But we can’t allow our health system to be overburdened. We simply can’t take responsibility for that.”Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.  
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Recent weeks have seen a spate of police raids on independent media companies and the homes of journalists in Russia, as part of an intensifying crackdown. Kremlin-critical media face fines, arrests, and violence. Some journalists are relocating to other countries to avoid an increasingly hostile environment.
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