Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pleading to meet U.S. President Joe Biden prior to Biden’s talks in Geneva next week, was rebuffed by the White House on that request but was awarded a consolation phone call on Monday that included an invitation to Washington.”They had the opportunity to talk at some length about all of the issues in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, and President Biden was able to tell President Zelenskiy that he will stand up firmly for Ukraine sovereignty, territorial integrity and its aspirations as we go forward,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told White House reporters.Sullivan also said Biden told the Ukrainian president that “he looks forward to welcoming him to the White House here in Washington this summer after he returns from Europe.”Following the phone call, Zelenskiy said the U.S. president invited him to visit in July.Thank you Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden before their meeting in Kyiv, Nov, 21, 2014.Asked about whether that subject was raised, Sullivan replied to a reporter in the White House briefing room: “In terms of the specifics of what they discussed, I’m going to let the two of them speak for themselves. I’m not going to read out that aspect of the meeting.”In the Axios interview, Zelenskiy, a professional comedian who was elected president in 2019, said he was surprised and disappointed that Biden had not done more to prevent development of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, which is seen by Kyiv as a Kremlin project to eliminate it from the European gas transit system.During the administration of former President Donald Trump, Zelenskiy was in the spotlight because of a phone call in 2019 in which Trump pressured him to investigate Biden and his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine.Trump denied any wrongdoing concerning the call, which led to his first impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress. Trump was subsequently acquitted during the Senate trial. 
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Authorities on Greece’s most popular tourist island, Mykonos, will deploy more than a dozen drones to spot those who defy safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread and resurgence of COVID-19. 
 
The decision, known as “Operation Mykonos,” comes after a string of local so-called  “Corona-parties” organized by entrepreneurs at private villas and estates in recent weeks to bypass safety rules banning the operation of nightclubs. 
 
It also comes as the beleaguered government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scrambles to revive its battered tourism sector, luring foreign travelers — mainly from the United States, Europe, Israel, and Russia —  with the promise of a safe summer holiday stay under the Greek sun. 
 
Foreign travelers are required to abide by local lockdowns, curfews, and safety protocols during their stays. 
 FILE – People gather as the sun sets at the windmills on the Aegean Sea island of Mykonos, Greece, Aug. 16, 2020.Under “Operation Mykonos,” authorities will deploy 15 drones to fly over private villas or establishments in Mykonos that in recent weeks were host to parties packed with hundreds of locals and foreigners. Ten-member strong teams of officers will also be formed to raid the establishments upon notice, arresting and fining the offenders, authorities told VOA. 
 
Fines range between $365 to over $6,000. 
 
Officials tell VOA the measures, coupled with heightened police controls, inspections and added surveillance cameras across Mykonos, will serve as a blueprint for other popular hotspots among foreign travelers. These include Rhodes, Santorini and Paros, according to authorities. 
 
“Illegal parties spell a greater risk of seeing the virus spread, infecting more and more people,” warned Nikos Hardalias, the head of Greece’s Civil Protection Agency, on Sunday. “It spells a spike in COVID cases that can lead to fresh restrictions, leading businesses to shut down, causing major damage to tourist areas.” 
 
“It is high time,” he warned, “for everyone to size up to the challenge and take on full responsibility of their actions.” 
 
On Monday, government spokesman Aristotelia Peloni also criticized the mushrooming “corona-parties” gripping the country, saying she wished “Greece’s youth showed similar zeal and enthusiasm in the state’s nationwide vaccination drive.” 
 
“The country’s freedom,” she said, “can only come through comprehensive immunization.” 
 
Effectively in lockdown since last November, Greece started easing some of its sweeping restrictions, including curfews and travel bans, in mid-May when it re-launched international travel. 
 
The latest crackdown, however, underscores the paradox of what critics call a hasty and ill-thought-out strategy.  FILE – A waiter serves a group of people in a restaurant of Plaka district, as restaurants and cafes in Greece open after six months of lockdown, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Athens, Greece, May 3, 2021.“You can’t say ‘restaurants and bars can open but no music playing in the background to block crowds from gathering,’” said Heracles Zissimopoulos, a leading entrepreneur on the island of Mykonos. “It’s absurd.” 
 
“The government should seriously rethink its policy, and provide locals and tourists with an outlet, instead. Otherwise, these types of parties will be difficult to stop,” he added. 
 
Greece recorded less than 3,000 cases during the country’s first bout with the pandemic. But as tourists streamed in last summer, infections and deaths sky-rocketed, making Greeks apprehensive to foreign travelers. 
 
But with 20 percent of the nation’s domestic output reliant on tourism, Greeks now know they can ill afford to lose a second summer tourism season in a row. 
 FILE – People wait at the reception hall of a COVID-19 vaccination mega center in Athens, Feb. 15, 2021.Under a campaign called “Blue Freedom,” the government wants to vaccinate all 700,000 or so adult residents of Greece’s islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of June, hoping Greece can be included in Britain’s revised green-list of travel nations. All islanders are being offered the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to boost immunization. 
 
As of early June, Mykonos had vaccinated about four in ten of its residents, and Santorini over 50% — among the highest in the country. 
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Spain jumpstarted its summer tourism season on Monday by welcoming vaccinated visitors from most countries as well as European visitors who can prove they are not infected with coronavirus. It also reopened its ports to cruise ship stops.
The move opened borders for the first vacationers from the United States and other countries outside of the European Union that had been banned since March last year, when the pandemic hit global travel.
Matthew Eisenberg, a 22-year-old student, stepped out of Madrid airport’s arrivals lounge in excitment, ready to enjoy the Spanish capital along with two more American friends.  
“We came to Spain the first day we could, because we are very excited to travel here,” Eisenberg said, showing the certificate for the two Moderna jabs he received in February and March.  
The official certificates need to show that visitors were vaccinated at least 14 days before the trip or that they overcame a COVID-19 infection in the past six months, according to a Spanish government order published Saturday.
The certificates can be in Spanish, English, French or German — or their equivalent translations in Spanish, the order said. The vaccines accepted are those approved by Europe’s drug regulator — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — as well as two Chinese vaccines authorized by the World Health Organization, Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The same documents will be valid for visitors from the European Union until the bloc gets together its “Digital Green Certificate” that some have dubbed a vaccine passport for traveling.  
Non-vaccinated travelers from the EU’s 27 countries can also enter Spain now with the negative results of recent antigen tests, which are cheaper and faster than PCR tests for coronavirus.
But Spain is still banning nonessential travelers from Brazil, India and South Africa, where virus variants have been been a major source of concern.
The Spanish government has set a goal of receiving between 14.5 million to 15.5 million visitors between July and September. That’s about 40% of the tourists in the same period of 2019 but twice as many as last summer, when only EU visitors could enter Spain.
Tourism is a major industry that in 2019 accounted for over 12% of Spain’s GDP.
In a setback, many of the British tourists who love Southern Europe’s beaches and are the top spenders among foreign visitors in Spain, aren’t expected in mass yet because they are required to quarantine by British authorities on their return to the U.K.
Manchester resident Randolph Sweeting said that despite the mandatory isolation, his holiday in Mallorca, one of the Mediterranean islands favored by many European tourists, was worth the mandatory self-isolation.
“I was here twice last year and when I went home I had to quarantine on my own for two weeks. So it’s not a problem for me, I’ve done it before,” the 68-year-old said at the Palma de Mallorca airport.
Belén Sanmartín, director of the Melià Calvià Beach Hotel in Mallorca, said that the U.K. government’s decision to keep Spain in its list of high-risk territories was hard to understand in the Balearic Islands, where the infection rate is lower than in Britain.
“It has been a big disappointment because we were ready to receive visitors from the British market, we had done our homework,” Sanmartín said, adding that bookings in her hotel were slowly picking up mostly because of Spanish mainlanders, and German and French tourists.
In another move to boost tourism, Spanish ports opened to cruise ships on Monday, nearly 15 months after they were banned as the first coronavirus outbreaks were detected.
After peaking in late January at nearly 900 new cases per 100,000 residents in 14-days, the coronavirus contagion indicator in Spain has dropped to 117 per 100,000. Still, its descent has stalled in the past days as new infections are spreading among unvaccinated groups.
Spain has counted over 80,000 COVID-19 deaths in the pandemic. 
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Authorities on Greece’s most popular tourist island, Mykonos, will deploy more than a dozen drones to spot those who defy safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread and resurgence of COVID-19. 
 
The decision, known as “Operation Mykonos,” comes after a string of local so-called  “Corona-parties” organized by entrepreneurs at private villas and estates in recent weeks to bypass safety rules banning the operation of nightclubs. 
 
It also comes as the beleaguered government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scrambles to revive its battered tourism sector, luring foreign travelers — mainly from the United States, Europe, Israel, and Russia —  with the promise of a safe summer holiday stay under the Greek sun. 
 
Foreign travelers are required to abide by local lockdowns, curfews, and safety protocols during their stays. 
 FILE – People gather as the sun sets at the windmills on the Aegean Sea island of Mykonos, Greece, Aug. 16, 2020.Under “Operation Mykonos,” authorities will deploy 15 drones to fly over private villas or establishments in Mykonos that in recent weeks were host to parties packed with hundreds of locals and foreigners. Ten-member strong teams of officers will also be formed to raid the establishments upon notice, arresting and fining the offenders, authorities told VOA. 
 
Fines range between $365 to over $6,000. 
 
Officials tell VOA the measures, coupled with heightened police controls, inspections and added surveillance cameras across Mykonos, will serve as a blueprint for other popular hotspots among foreign travelers. These include Rhodes, Santorini and Paros, according to authorities. 
 
“Illegal parties spell a greater risk of seeing the virus spread, infecting more and more people,” warned Nikos Hardalias, the head of Greece’s Civil Protection Agency, on Sunday. “It spells a spike in COVID cases that can lead to fresh restrictions, leading businesses to shut down, causing major damage to tourist areas.” 
 
“It is high time,” he warned, “for everyone to size up to the challenge and take on full responsibility of their actions.” 
 
On Monday, government spokesman Aristotelia Peloni also criticized the mushrooming “corona-parties” gripping the country, saying she wished “Greece’s youth showed similar zeal and enthusiasm in the state’s nationwide vaccination drive.” 
 
“The country’s freedom,” she said, “can only come through comprehensive immunization.” 
 
Effectively in lockdown since last November, Greece started easing some of its sweeping restrictions, including curfews and travel bans, in mid-May when it re-launched international travel. 
 
The latest crackdown, however, underscores the paradox of what critics call a hasty and ill-thought-out strategy.  FILE – A waiter serves a group of people in a restaurant of Plaka district, as restaurants and cafes in Greece open after six months of lockdown, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Athens, Greece, May 3, 2021.“You can’t say ‘restaurants and bars can open but no music playing in the background to block crowds from gathering,’” said Heracles Zissimopoulos, a leading entrepreneur on the island of Mykonos. “It’s absurd.” 
 
“The government should seriously rethink its policy, and provide locals and tourists with an outlet, instead. Otherwise, these types of parties will be difficult to stop,” he added. 
 
Greece recorded less than 3,000 cases during the country’s first bout with the pandemic. But as tourists streamed in last summer, infections and deaths sky-rocketed, making Greeks apprehensive to foreign travelers. 
 
But with 20 percent of the nation’s domestic output reliant on tourism, Greeks now know they can ill afford to lose a second summer tourism season in a row. 
 FILE – People wait at the reception hall of a COVID-19 vaccination mega center in Athens, Feb. 15, 2021.Under a campaign called “Blue Freedom,” the government wants to vaccinate all 700,000 or so adult residents of Greece’s islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of June, hoping Greece can be included in Britain’s revised green-list of travel nations. All islanders are being offered the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to boost immunization. 
 
As of early June, Mykonos had vaccinated about four in ten of its residents, and Santorini over 50% — among the highest in the country. 
…

Serena Williams turns 40 in September. Roger Federer hits that milestone the month before. No one knows how many more French Open appearances each will make, and this year’s tournament ended for both on Sunday.Williams fell way behind and could not put together a comeback against a much younger and less-experienced opponent in the fourth round at Roland Garros, losing 6-3, 7-5 to Elena Rybakina, who wasn’t even born when the American made her tournament debut in 1998.Asked whether that might have been her last match at the clay-court major, Williams replied: “Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking about it at all. I’m definitely thinking just about other things, but not about that.”Her defeat came hours after Federer withdrew, saying he needed to let his body recover ahead of Wimbledon after a long third-round victory that ended at nearly 1 a.m. on Sunday.Wimbledon, which Federer has won eight times and Williams seven, begins June 28.”I’m kind of excited to switch surfaces,” Williams said. “Historically I have done pretty well on grass.”She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles; Federer has won 20. They are two of the sport’s greatest and most popular players, so it was quite a blow to the tournament, its TV partners and tennis fans to see both gone from the French Open field one after the other — and a week after Naomi Osaka pulled out, citing a need for a mental health break.Switzerland’s Roger Federer returns a shot to Germany’s Dominik Koepfer during their match on day seven of the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, June 5, 2021.Williams has won the French Open three times. But the American hasn’t been past the fourth round in Paris since she was the runner-up in 2016.Rybakina is a 21-year-old from Kazakhstan who is ranked 22nd. This was just the seventh Grand Slam appearance for Rybakina — and the first time she ever made it past the second round.”When I was small, of course, I was watching her matches on TV. So many Grand Slams,” Rybakina said of Williams.Against Williams, whose right thigh was heavily taped, Rybakina hit big, flat serves. She dealt with, but managed to steady, her nerves. She even produced the occasional return winner off Williams’ speedy serve, breaking her five times, including in the next-to-last game.”I knew that the serve was going to be difficult for me to return. She’s powerful, but I was ready,” Rybakina said. “Then, after few points, I felt … comfortable.”Rybakina said she followed her coach’s strategy of sending shots to Williams’ backhand side and trying to stay away from her forehand.Every time Williams appeared as if she might turn things around, she could not quite get the momentum fully in her favor.Repeatedly one sort of mistake or another undid Williams. She ended up with 19 unforced errors and only 15 winners.  “I’m so close. There is literally a point here, a point there, that could change the whole course of the match,” Williams said. “I’m not winning those points. That, like, literally could just change everything.”Since winning the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant for her most recent major singles title — No. 23 set a record for the professional era — Williams has come close to tying Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24. That includes four runner-up finishes at Grand Slam tournaments, most recently against Bianca Andreescu at the 2019 U.S. Open.But since then, Williams has been beaten twice in semifinals, and once each in the third and fourth rounds. Last year at the French Open, she withdrew before the second round, citing an injured left Achilles.Federer, meanwhile, never had pulled out of a Grand Slam tournament once he had started competing in it until now.
 
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Turkey’s environment minister pledged on Sunday to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara, using a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick, slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry.Harbors, shorelines and swathes of seawater have been blanketed by the viscous, greyish substance, some of which has sunk below the waves, suffocating life on the seabed.Environment Minister Murat Kurum said Turkey planned to designate the entire Sea of Marmara a protected area, reduce pollution and improve treatment of wastewater from coastal cities and ships, which has helped the sea snot to spread.He also called on local residents, artists and nongovernmental organizations to join what he said would be Turkey’s biggest maritime cleanup operation, starting Tuesday.”Hopefully, together we will protect our Marmara within the framework of a disaster management plan,” Kurum said, speaking from a marine research vessel that has been taking samples of the slimy substance.”We will take all the necessary steps within three years and realize the projects that will save not only the present but also the future together,” he added.Kurum said the measures Turkey planned would reduce nitrogen levels in the sea by 40%, a move he said scientists believed would help restore the waters to their previous state.Scientists say climate change and pollution have contributed to the proliferation of the organic matter, which contains a wide variety of microorganisms and can flourish when nutrient-rich sewage flows into seawater.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the outbreak on untreated water from cities, including Istanbul, home to 16 million people, and vowed to “clear our seas from the mucilage scourge.”   
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Sunday marked the 77th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of France’s Normandy region. Historians say the months-long battles that followed liberated Europe from Nazi Germany and gave the Allies the upper hand in World War II. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports how survivors marked the day.
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Turkey’s environment minister pledged on Sunday to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara with a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry.Harbors, shorelines and swathes of seawater have been blanketed by the viscous, greyish substance, some of which has also sunk below the waves, suffocating life on the seabed.”Hopefully, together we will protect our Marmara within the framework of a disaster management plan,” Environment Minister Murat Kurum said, speaking from a marine research vessel which has been taking samples of the slimy substance.”We will take all the necessary steps within 3 years and realize the projects that will save not only the present but also the future together,” Kurum said, adding that he would soon give details of the action plan.Scientists say climate change and pollution have contributed to the proliferation of the organic matter, which contains a wide variety of microorganisms and can flourish when nutrient-rich sewage flows into seawater.President Tayyip Erdogan blamed the outbreak on untreated water from cities including Istanbul, home to 16 million people, and vowed to “clear our seas from the mucilage scourge.” 
 
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The United States will stand with its European allies against Russia, President Joe Biden has promised ahead of the first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin of his administration.   Biden will head to Europe Wednesday and is set to attend both the G-7 and NATO summits as well as holding a high-stakes meeting with the Russian leader in Geneva on June 16.   The summit comes amid the biggest crisis in ties between the two countries in years, with tensions high over a litany of issues including hacking allegations, human rights and claims of election meddling.   In an op-ed for The Washington Post published Saturday, the U.S. president promised to shore up Washington’s “democratic alliances” in the face of multiple crises and mounting threats from Moscow and Beijing.   “We are standing united to address Russia’s challenges to European security, starting with its aggression in Ukraine, and there will be no doubt about the resolve of the United States to defend our democratic values, which we cannot separate from our interests,” he wrote.    “President Putin knows that I will not hesitate to respond to future harmful activities,” he said. “When we meet, I will again underscore the commitment of the United States, Europe and like-minded democracies to stand up for human rights and dignity.”    Since taking office in January, Biden has ramped up pressure on the Kremlin, and his comments likening Putin to a “killer” were met with fierce criticism in Moscow.    But both leaders have expressed hopes that relations can improve, with the Russian president saying Friday he expected a “positive” result from the talks.   Biden in his weekend op-ed also stressed that Washington “does not seek conflict” — pointing to his recent extension of the New START arms reduction treaty as proof of his desire to reduce tensions.   “We want a stable and predictable relationship where we can work with Russia on issues like strategic stability and arms control,” he wrote.    
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When the sun rises over Omaha Beach, revealing vast stretches of wet sand extending toward distant cliffs, one starts to grasp the immensity of the task faced by Allied soldiers on June 6, 1944, landing on the Nazi-occupied Normandy shore.Several ceremonies are scheduled Sunday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the decisive assault that led to the liberation of France and western Europe from Nazi control, and honor those who fell.On D-Day, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. This year on June 6, the beaches stood vast and empty as the sun rose, exactly 77 years since the dawn invasion.For the second year in a row, anniversary commemorations are marked by virus travel restrictions that have prevented veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain, Canada and other Allied countries making the trip to France. Only a few officials were allowed exceptions.Most public events have been canceled, and the official ceremonies are limited to a small number of selected guests and dignitaries.Denis van den Brink, a WWII expert working for the town of Carentan, site of a strategic battle near Utah Beach, acknowledged the “big loss, the big absence is all the veterans who couldn’t travel.”“That really hurts us very much because they are all around 95, 100 years old, and we hope they’re going to last forever. But, you know…” he said.A picture of an unknown soldier is seen on the shore of Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer, Normandy, June 6, 2021 on the eve of 77th anniversary of the assault that helped bring an end to World War II.“At least we remain in a certain spirit of commemoration, which is the most important,” he told The Associated Press.Over the anniversary weekend, many local residents have come out to visit the monuments marking the key moments of the fight and show their gratitude to the soldiers. Dozens of French World War II history enthusiasts, and a few travelers from neighboring European countries, could also be seen in jeeps and military vehicles on the small roads of Normandy.Some reenactors came to Omaha Beach in the early hours of the day to pay tribute to those who fell that day, bringing flowers and American flags.On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.A few kilometers away from Omaha Beach, the British Normandy Memorial is to be inaugurated on Sunday outside the village of Ver-sur-Mer. Visitors stand in awe at the solemnity and serenity of the place providing a spectacular view over Gold Beach and the English Channel.The monument, built under a project launched in 2016, pays tribute to those under British command who died on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy. The names of more than 22,000 men and women, mostly British soldiers, are written on its stone columns.Later Sunday, another ceremony will take place at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, on a bluff overseeing Omaha Beach. Charles Shay, 96, a Penobscot Native American who now lives in Normandy, is expected to be the only veteran present in person.Some other veterans, and families of soldiers, will be able to watch the broadcast on social media.The cemetery contains 9,380 graves, most of them for servicemen who lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. Another 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing.Normandy has more than 20 military cemeteries holding mostly Americans, Germans, French, British, Canadians and Polish troops who took part in the historic battle.  
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Voters in Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls Sunday to elect a new state assembly in what is seen as the last big test for Germany’s political parties before a national election in September.Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union won the last election in the sparsely populated state of 2.2 million five years ago. Recent opinion polls show it faces a strong challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany, which came second in Saxony-Anhalt in 2016.Incumbent governor Reiner Haseloff, a member of Merkel’s CDU, is popular with voters in the state. A strong win would also be seen as a sign that the party’s new leader, Armin Laschet, can hope for support from both conservatives and centrists in this fall’s national election.Alternative for Germany has benefited from anti-government sentiment in the state, which until 1990 was part of communist East Germany. The party has lately campaigned strongly against pandemic restrictions, and its election posters urged voters to demonstrate their “resistance” at the ballot box.The environmentalist Greens, who have been riding high in national polls, aim to reach 10% in Saxony-Anhalt, while the center-left Social Democrats are hoping to stay above that mark. Both have been part of Haseloff’s governing coalition for the past five years.Haseloff has ruled out any cooperation with Alternative for Germany or the ex-communist Left party.Polls indicate the pro-business Free Democrats may enter the state assembly again after missing out five years ago.
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The idyllic image of peaceful Swiss Alpine pastures is being shattered by upcoming votes on pesticides which have sharply divided opinion in rural Switzerland.The Swiss will vote on June 13 on a proposal which, if it passes, would make Switzerland the first country in the world to ban synthetic pesticides.Proponents seek to ban pesticides with non-naturally occurring chemicals — and not only for agriculture but also for public green spaces, private gardens, and even for killing the weeds on railway tracks.The initiative, entitled “For a Switzerland free from synthetic pesticides,” would also ban the import of foodstuffs produced with synthetic pesticides, so as not to put Swiss farmers at a disadvantage.A campaign marked by heated debates boiled over in the western Vaud region when arsonists torched a trailer in a field displaying banners calling for a “No” vote, infuriating farmers.Meanwhile farmers in the “Yes” campaign say they have been the victims of insults, threats and intimidation.Slurry on the ballotUnder Switzerland’s direct democracy system, referendums and popular votes occur every few months at national, regional and local levels.Any topic can be put to a national vote if it gathers 100,000 signatures in the wealthy nation of 8.6 million people.Launched by a committee headed up by a winegrower and a soil biology professor from Neuchatel University, the pesticides initiative gathered 121,307 signatures.A parallel vote is also being held, on an initiative entitled “For clean drinking water and healthy food.”Under the proposal, government subsidies to farms would be limited only to those that do not use pesticides, and to those that do not use antibiotics as a preventative measure, but only to treat sick animals.To limit the amount of slurry (liquid manure) being used on fields — and thereby potentially entering the water system — it would also limit subsidies to only farms that can feed animals with the fodder they produce themselves.Supporters of the initiative, which garnered 113,979 signatures, say taxpayers’ money must not be used to subsidize damage to public health and the environment.Agriculture groups splitLarge agricultural organizations, including the Swiss Farmers’ Union and the Association of Swiss Vegetable Producers, have called for a double “No” vote, deeming the measures too extreme.”We feed you, we get punished,” runs their slogan.Beekeepers want a double “Yes” vote, while the Bio Suisse group of organic producers and gardeners — in a country where organic farming accounts for 15% of all farms — wants a “Yes” vote on pesticides and a “No” vote on the second initiative.It says that despite the second initiative’s good intentions, the fodder limits would make the work of organic farmers all the harder, without resolving the issue of intensive farming — as large farms could simply renounce subsidies and keep big herds.The Swiss government recommends a double “No” vote, warning of the risks to food supply that could see prices soar, to the detriment of lower-income households in a country where the cost of living is already high.’Agriculture must change'”Agriculture must change, we agree on that,” Francis Egger, deputy director of the Swiss Farmers’ Union, told AFP.”There are two times 100,000 people who have signed, so there is a clear message from consumers,” he admitted, adding up the two separate petitions.But these initiatives go “too far,” he said, and risk heavily penalizing Swiss farmers who have already made significant efforts to reduce pesticide use.Antoinette Gilson, a biologist by training and a member of the committee behind the pesticides initiative, insisted: “Our initiative is not directed against farmers.”It aims to ban synthetic pesticides, which are “the most dangerous,” and to which farmers themselves are highly exposed, she said, but not organic pesticides or alternatives that do not contain “toxic chemicals.”Some 107 active ingredients used for bio-pesticides, including sulfur and copper, would still be authorized, as opposed to 383 today.The two initiatives started the campaign with clear leads in the polls but have seen their support levels drop.A poll published on June 2 by the Tamedia press group said the pesticides initiative had 42% support, while the drinking water initiative was running at 41% backing.Rural voters favor rejecting the proposals while urban voters are overwhelmingly in support of them, the survey showed. 
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When the leaders of the world’s industrialized nations meet next week in Cornwall, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will ask them to commit to “vaccinate the entire world against coronavirus by the end of 2022,” according to a statement Saturday.”Vaccinating the world by the end of next year would be the single greatest feat in medical history,” Johnson said in a statement. “I’m calling on my fellow G-7 leaders to join us to end this terrible pandemic and pledge we will never allow the devastation wreaked by coronavirus to happen again.”He may run into some pushback from his own country.New cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have dropped dramatically since the United Kingdom began its vaccination campaign. Now nearly 68 million people have received at least one shot and nearly 27 million are fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. That’s 40% of the population.But cases of the Delta variant are on the rise and that could threaten the nation’s progress. As Britain opens up, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Reuters, a rise in cases is expected. The vaccine, he said, has broken the link between rising cases and rising deaths.“But it hasn’t been completely severed yet, and that’s one of the things that we’re watching very carefully,” he added.In China’s Guangzhou city, a port city of more than 13 million people, new restrictions took effect Saturday because of a rise in COVID-19 cases that began in late May.Of the 24 new cases of COVID-19 reported in China on Saturday, 11 were transmitted in Guangzhou province, where the city is located.Authorities had imposed restrictions earlier in the week but sought additional limits on business and social activities. Authorities closed about a dozen subway stops, and the city’s Nansha district ordered restaurants to stop dine-in services and public venues, such as gyms, to temporarily close.A man is admitted at the COVID unit of the Moscoso Puello hospital in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, June 2, 2021, as the country suffers a spike in the number of positive cases.Officials in the districts of Nansha, Huadu and Conghua ordered all residents and any individuals who have traveled through their regions to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Reuters reported.As Afghanistan attempts to beat back a surge in COVID-19 cases, it has received the news that the 3 million doses of vaccines it was expecting from the World Health Organization in April will not arrive until August, according to the Associated Press.Afghan health ministry spokesperson Ghulam Dastagir Nazari told AP that he has approached several embassies for help but has not received any vaccines. “We are in the middle of a crisis,” he said.The war-torn country reported nearly 7,500 new cases in the week ending Saturday, a record, according to Johns Hopkins, and 187 deaths, also a record. The official figures are no doubt an undercount because they include only those in hospitals, while most people who become sick stay home and die there, the AP said.Afghan health officials are blaming the Delta variant, first discovered in India, for its soaring infection rate. Travel to India is unrestricted and many students and those seeking medical care go there, according to the AP.While the government has tried to enforce mask wearing and social distancing, most Afghans resist.”Our people believe it is fake, especially in the countryside,” Dr. Zalmai Rishteen, administrator of the Afghan-Japan Hospital, the only hospital dedicated to COVID-19 patients, told the AP. “Or they are religious and believe God will save them.”About 626,000 Afghans have received one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, with about 145,000 fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins.On Saturday, India’s health ministry reported 120,529 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours period, the lowest daily count of new infections in 58 days. More than 3,000 deaths were also recorded.Johns Hopkins reported Saturday more than 172 million global COVID infections. The U.S. has the most cases with 33.3 million, followed by India with 28.7 million and Brazil with nearly 17 million. 
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Thousands of Hungarians, some holding banners declaring “Treason,” protested Saturday against a Chinese university’s plans to open a campus in Budapest.Liberal opponents of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban accuse him of cozying up to China and fear the campus could undercut the quality of higher education and help Beijing increase its influence in Hungary and the European Union.”I do not agree with our country’s strengthening feudal relationship with China,” Patrik, 22, a student who declined to give his full name, said at the protest in the Hungarian capital.He said funds should be used “to improve our own universities instead of building a Chinese one.”The government signed an agreement with Shanghai-based Fudan University in April on building the campus at a site in Budapest where a dormitory village for Hungarian students had previously been planned.The government has said Fudan is a world-class institution, and the campus would “allow students to learn from the best.”‘Political hysteria’MTI news agency quoted Tamas Schanda, a deputy government minister, as saying Saturday’s protest was unnecessary and dismissing “political hysteria” based on unfounded gossip and media reports.Opposition politicians and economists have criticized what they say will be the high costs of the project and a lack of transparency. Budapest’s mayor opposes the plan.”Fidesz is selling out wholesale the housing of Hungarian students, and their future, just so it can bring the elite university of China’s dictatorship into the country,” the organizers of Saturday’s protest said on Facebook.Beijing said this week that “a few Hungarian politicians” were trying to grab attention and obstruct cooperation between China and Hungary.Orban has built cordial ties with China, Russia and other illiberal governments, while locking horns with Western allies by curbing the independence of scientific research, the judiciary and media.He faces a unified opposition for the first time since assuming power in 2010 before a parliamentary election due in 2022.
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Sunday marks the 77th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed in Normandy, France, to help liberate Europe from German forces and turn the course of World War II.The June 6, 1944, operation was the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving land, sea and air forces.Nearly 160,000 troops took part in the landing, including those from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.The anniversary of the landmark day usually draws thousands of visitors to Normandy, but for a second year, the celebrations have been scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic.A veteran’s memoriesIn Carentan, France, Charles Shay, 96, commemorated the anniversary at a ceremony Saturday, the only U.S. veteran there. Shay was 19 and a U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach, according to The Associated Press. The Penobscot Native American from Maine now lives in Normandy, and said he lost “many good friends” there.On Friday, the U.S. military honored retired Master Sergeant Shay during a small ceremony on Omaha Beach in Normandy, according to the Stars and Stripes newspaper.World War II history enthusiasts parade in WWII vehicles in Ouistreham, Normandy, June, 5 2021, on the eve of 77th anniversary of the assault that helped end World War II.With D-Day veterans now mostly in their mid-90s or older, there are likely only a few hundred veterans still alive, said April Cheek-Messier, the president of the U.S. National D-Day Memorial Foundation.”If you think about the fact that there are 16 million who served during World War II, there are only around 325,000 World War II veterans still living today, and of that, a very small percentage would be D-Day veterans, and we don’t know the exact number, but you can imagine they would probably only be in a few hundred,” Cheek-Messier told Fox News.Only one veteran now remains from the French commando unit that joined U.S, British, Canadian and other Allied troops in storming Normandy’s code-named beaches, the AP reported.World War II history enthusiasts parade in WWII vehicles in Ouistreham, Normandy, June 5, 2021, on the eve of 77th anniversary of the assault that helped end the war.With most of France still under strict travel restrictions for international visitors, the tourists who usually flock to Normandy to mark the D-Day anniversary will be few this year.U.S. Army Colonel Kevin Sharp and three other U.S. military officers from the 101st Airborne Division — the same division that took part in the D-Day operations — were given special, last-minute permission to attend Friday’s commemorations in Carentan.The U.S. military “really values the legacy of the soldiers and the paratroopers who came before us,” he told the AP. “It was important enough to send a small representation here to ensure that our appreciation for their sacrifices is made known.”‘They remember’Tourism may be restricted, but local residents are coming out in greater numbers, the AP said.”In France, people who remember these men, they kept them close to their heart,” Shay said. “And they remember what they did for them. And I don’t think the French people will ever forget.”By contrast, two years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump joined French President Emmanuel Macron, along with tens of thousands of international visitors, to pay their respects to D-Day soldiers on the 75th anniversary of the landing.The French government announced Friday that it planned to open its borders to foreign tourists on June 9, using a color-coded system. The new rules allow vaccinated travelers from Europe and the United States to enter the country without having to be tested for COVID-19.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Greece has lashed out at Turkey, warning it will push for sanctions against its neighbor if it continues with what it calls “hostile” and “provocative threats.” The warning from Athens comes as the leaders of the two NATO allies, age-old foes, prepare to meet in an effort to accelerate talks aimed at easing growing tension in the past year over energy rights in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Seas. Chances of a breakthrough look bleak.It was this remark by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that raised critical eyebrows in Athens.He said Turkey was ready to defend territories once held by the Ottomans …and that a recent string of military exercises in the Aegean Sea had Greece… an “enemy” state as he put it …both scared and worried of Turkey’s capabilities to do so.Echoing that threat, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar later called on Greece to uphold international agreements and scrap missiles and military apparatus deployed on a string of Greek islands in the Aegean, situated just miles off Turkey’s Western Coast.Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias rebuffed the demand with a stiff warning.He said Greece has long supported Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. But if Ankara failed to tone down what he called its “hostile” actions and “provocative” rhetoric, then Athens was ready to renew its call for EU sanctions against its neighbor state and NATO ally.Greece, Turkey Resume Talks on Maritime Disputes in Mediterranean Under Pressure from EU and NATO Talks between Athens and Ankara broke down in 2016 after 12 years of insignificant progress Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads for decades, challenging each other’s sea and air rights to the Aegean. But as massive oil and gas reserves have been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean in recent years, the two foes have clashed over their rights to explore and tap those energy reserves.The standoff has been so intense that both sides came to the brink of war last year when a pair of Greek and Turkish frigates nearly collided in a dangerous chase over drilling rights in disputed parts of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas that divide the two countries.As tensions flared dangerously at the time, the U.S. State Department intervened to push the two sides to the negotiating table to ease the energy standoff. Washington remains involved in the process, but the talks so far have yielded little result.Still, in a recent visit here by Turkey’s foreign minister, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis agreed to meet with Erdogan to try and jump start the peace talks. The high-level meeting is scheduled for June 14, on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels.”What we are seeing in the last weeks in a sort of kinetic energy from both sides to talk to each other. So, they are prepared to talk to each other at the highest political level. But this does not mean that the talks will yield results.  This is a completely different story because the differences are existing, they are diachronic and the demands from both sides are contradictory. So, while I am optimistic that both sides are prepared to defuse tensions, I don’t believe they are chances of solving the problems themselves.”Even so, other experts concede, keeping both sides engaged in the peace process may be enough to buy precious time, keeping tempers down and pushing back the chances of an accident that could spark a potential war and serious rift within the NATO military alliance.
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The U.N. refugee agency is sharply critical of a new Danish law, which aims to rid itself of asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution by transferring responsibilities for their care to third countries.Amendments to the Danish Aliens Act were approved June 3 by parliament. They go into effect if Denmark reaches an agreement with a third country to take the asylum seekers off its hands, while their cases are being processed.The U.N. refugee agency expresses alarm at that prospect and says it has repeatedly raised its concerns and objections to the Danish government. UNHCR spokesman Babar Balloch says the forcible transfer of asylum seekers and the abdication of Denmark’s responsibility for the asylum process risks weakening international protections for vulnerable refugees.“UNHCR strongly opposes efforts that seek to externalize or outsource asylum and international protection obligations to other countries. Such efforts to evade responsibility run counter to the letter and spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention,” Balloch said.The Danish government says it has not yet found any third countries willing to accept asylum seekers, but it is in negotiation with several candidate countries.Over the past five decades, the UNHCR has helped some 50 million refugees start a new life. Currently, the agency cares for 26 million refugees in all regions of the world. Nearly 90 percent of the world’s refugees live in developing or in the least-developed countries.Balloch says the UNHCR is extremely concerned that a wealthy country, such as Denmark, appears to be unwilling to share those responsibilities.“Plans to externalize asylum processing and protection of refugees to a third country … seriously risk setting in motion a process of gradual erosion of the international protection system, which has withstood the test of time over the past 70 years, and for which we have to have a collective responsibility to safeguard,” Balloch said. UNHCR officials say they will continue to discuss the issue with Danish authorities and seek to find practical ways forward. They urge the Danish government to uphold its international commitments today as it has done in the past.
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Armin Laschet, who hopes to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor, has been compared to a traditional child’s toy – a wooden figure on a round base that, when touched, wobbles but stays upright. Allies and foes alike are watching to see how close Laschet comes to the tipping over when voters turn out Sunday for a regional election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The election is a significant test for the 60-year-old the ruling Christian Democratic Union has chosen as its candidate for chancellor in national elections scheduled for September. Saxony-Anhalt’s capital, Magdeburg, is the burial place of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, and there are already commentators suggesting it may come to be seen as the site where Laschet’s ambitions to become Germany’s next chancellor were first buried. National elections are not “won in the East; they can, however, be lost in the East,” a CDU regional leader, Mario Voigt, said recently.A poor showing for the CDU in Sunday’s election would add to the doubts of many party stalwarts who question whether Laschet, chief minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, was the right choice as their national candidate. Many, especially on the right of the party, thought the more charismatic Markus Söder, the 54-year-old leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, would have been a better electoral champion, offering a greater chance of a victory in September than Laschet, a cautious centrist politician, who is seen as a Merkel retread. The CDU recorded its biggest opinion poll slump after Laschet was picked in April as the party’s nominee for chancellor.FILE – Armin Laschet, chairman of the German Christian Democratic Union, CDU, addresses the media during a news conference at the party’s headquarters in Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021.In sparsely populated and de-industrialized Saxony-Anhalt, Germany’s poorest state, the nationalist conservative Alternative für Deutschland party is chasing the CDU hard in opinion polls. The pandemic has not been kind to the AfD, which entered the German parliament for the first time in 2017, and its support has gotten stuck at around 11% of the vote nationally. However, the party has remained competitive in the poor states of the former communist East Germany, including Saxony-Anhalt, considered an AfD stronghold. One pollster, INSA, has put the AfD a percentage point OK? ahead of the CDU. In the runup to voting, Laschet has focused on keeping traditional conservative CDU voters in line and appealing to centrists. Some on the CDU’s right wing in the state want Laschet to permit them to form a power-sharing governing arrangement with the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt after Sunday’s election to avoid having to enter a coalition government with the Greens and the Social Democrats.However, Laschet has been reaffirming a sharp demarcation between the CDU and Germany’s far-right party.“One thing is clear to me, any rapprochement with the AfD cannot be made with the CDU. Anyone who does that can leave the CDU,” Laschet told reporters with the Funke media group and the French newspaper Ouest-France.The fear in the CDU is that a poor showing Sunday will add to the headwind Laschet is facing as he heads toward the federal poll in four months.“German politicians have learned OK? to be jumpy about winds of change, especially when they blow from the five Länder [states] that once made up communist East Germany,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller of the Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank. “So the fact that the small state of Saxony-Anhalt holds a bellwether election on Sunday — the last state poll before the national vote on September 26 — is causing some headaches in Berlin,” she added.Since German reunification, Saxony-Anhalt has seen its population shrink by a quarter. As the population shrank the far right has become stronger in the state. A right-wing extremist attacked a synagogue city of Halle, last year, killing two. After the attack, Germany’s security agencies placed the AfD’s regional branch under surveillance for “anti-democratic” tendencies.If center-right voters defect to the AfD in large numbers — or just fail to turn out — it will amplify the voices of Laschet’s critics, who want the party to move further right to undercut the AfD nationally. For Laschet the challenge as September approaches is to find a solution to a big electoral dilemma — how to beat the Greens in the west of the country while also vanquishing the AfD in states like Saxony-Anhalt.“We cannot want a radical right-wing party to be the strongest party in a German state legislature, so what happens in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday is something that should concern all democrats,” Laschet told Deutschlandfunk radio midweek.Later during a campaign stop in Dessau, he said, “There’s a lot at stake in this election. Everybody should go vote. Otherwise, there will be a rude awakening on Monday.”Pollsters say the signs are that Germans are ready for major political change and the problem is Laschet is seen as a figure from the past.Many voters have reservations about Laschet, according to Manfred Güllner, the head of Geran polling company FORSA. “He still looks a bit old-fashioned, and the voters still don’t see a clear course,” he told local reporters.Laschet has experienced plenty of setbacks in his political career — defeats run through his rise to the top of German politics. After serving just four years in the Bundestag, he lost a reelection bid in 1998, and he was defeated in 2010 for the CDU chairmanship in North Rhine-Westphalia. Like the toy, though, he has gyrated, but always managed to stay upright.
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Committing to the pilgrim’s path has for centuries been a source of renewal for those willing to put their lives on hold and spend days, weeks or even months crossing Spain along the Camino de Santiago, a journey that takes hikers to the reported burial place of the apostle St. James.But after a year of being kept off the Way of St. James due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, soul-searchers hoping to heal wounds left by the coronavirus are once again strapping on backpacks and following trails marked with a seashell emblem to the shrine in the city of Santiago de Compostela.Some travelers taking to the Camino are like Laura Ferrón, whose marriage ended during Spain’s lockdown and who fears she might lose her job because the bank she works for plans massive layoffs. She and two lifelong friends flew from their homes in Spain’s North Africa enclave of Ceuta to spend a week walking the final 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the pilgrimage route.“This helps you let it all go. This pandemic has taught us to give more importance to what we have and to take a good long look at yourself,” Ferrón, 33, said while resting on a climb near Arzúa. The village in the green hills of northwest Spain is about two days away from the medieval cathedral in Santiago that is the traditional ending point.The Camino de Santiago is actually a series of paths that fan out beyond the Iberian Peninsula and spread across Europe. Whichever route one takes, they all end at the Santiago’s baroque cathedral, where believers can visit what is said to be the tomb of James, the apostle who, according to Catholic tradition, brought Christianity to Spain and Portugal.The pilgrimage has its roots in the alleged discovery of the tomb in the 9th century. Pilgrims have come to Santiago for a millennium, but the number of both believers and non-believers making the trip boomed in recent decades after regional authorities revived the route. It is now supported by a wide network of religious and civic organizations and served by public and private hostels at prices for all pocketbooks.Over 340,000 people from all over the world walked “El Camino” in 2019. Only 50,000 walked it last year, when Spain blocked both foreign and domestic travel except for during the summer months.Before a state of emergency that limited travel between Spain’s regions ended on May 9, only a handful of Spanish pilgrims were arriving in Santiago each day and registering with the Pilgrim’s Reception Office to receive their official credential for having completed the pilgrimage. Now that travel is again permitted, more people from Spain and elsewhere in Europe are walking the ancient path, although many of the hostels that cater to pilgrims them are still closed. A few hundred arrive in Santiago each day, compared to the several thousand exhausted pilgrims swinging their walking sticks along the city’s cobblestone streets during a typical summer.Spain’s Health Ministry has reported the deaths of over 79,000 people from COVID-19. As it did around the world, the disease took its biggest toll on the country’s oldest residents.“For old people, one year of pandemic has felt like five,” Naty Arias, 81, said while walking the Camino with her 84-year-old husband and two of their daughters. “And like my husband says, we don’t have that much time left anyway, so we have to make the most of it.”The numbers of pilgrims arriving in Santiago over the next year-and-a-half will be boosted after Pope Francis extended the 2021 holy year dedicated to St. James through 2022. For Roman Catholics who take part in the pilgrimage, walking it during a Jubilee Year gives them the chance to receive the plenary indulgence, which grants them the full remission of the temporal punishment for their sins. The last Jubilee Year for the trail was in 2010.Santiago Archbishop Julián Barrio said he is cautiously optimistic that some 300,000 pilgrims could turn out this year, if the pace of Spain’s vaccination program and the health situation worldwide continues to improve. He expects many to come seeking solace from the pain of the pandemic.“The Way of St. James, in this sense, can help us. It is a space that helps us recover our inner peace, our stability, our spirit, which without doubt we all need, given the difficulties that we have in facing the pain and the ravages of the pandemic that sometimes leave us speechless,” Barrio told The Associated Press.Daniel Sarto, 67, joined three friends on the trail, looking to relax after months of stress from seeing his Barcelona-based trade show company bring in zero revenue.“It has been a very, very, very hard year. Psychologically, it is very sad constantly thinking that this is going nowhere, about what will happen to our employees,” Sarto said. “This is a relief being here, without a doubt. My wife told me that I had to get out of the house. I had to come.”Mental health experts agree that the pilgrimage can lead to emotional healing for both faithful Roman Catholics and the large number of non-Catholics who are drawn to make one. Dr. Albert Feliu, a health psychologist and lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said preliminary results from a survey of 100 pilgrims point to a reduction of stress and depression that surpass those seen after regular vacations.The survey was part of a multi-year study of the benefits of walking the Camino de Santiago being done by clinical researchers from universities in Spain and Brazil. Manu Mariño, the director of Quietud Mindfulness Center in Santiago, is also involved in the research. He has gone on the pilgrimage 24 times.“The Way of St. James is a very good place to help us realize that suffering forms part of life, and that our suffering depends on how we relate to what we are experiencing,” Mariño said. “You learn to live with just what is necessary, which means exactly what you can carry in a backpack.”Vladimir Vala, a 25-year-old university graduate in business, came to Spain to walk for three weeks before returning to the Czech Republic to get married. For Vala, the pandemic has one positive facet among all the misery, that he feels dovetails with the experience of walking, mostly by himself, day after day through the countryside. “People were alone, and they had to face themselves (during the pandemic),” Vala said after visiting the cathedral. “And I think the Camino is (about) facing yourself in its meaning. So, it comes together really close. It’s beautiful and hard.”The newly divorced Ferrón had a similar assessment.“The trail is good for your mental health because all this can drive anyone crazy, being locked up, the fear, the psychosis,” she said. “Some climbs are really hard, but at the end of the day you reach your goal and then you have the reward of a cold beer, which is divine.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday set a tough tone for his upcoming summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, accusing Washington of trying to contain Russia and citing its response to the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a manifestation of the West’s double standards.Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that arms control, global conflicts, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change are among the issues he and Biden would discuss at their June 16 summit in Geneva.”We need to find ways of looking for a settlement in our relations, which are at an extremely low level now,” Putin said.”We don’t have any issues with the U.S.,” he continued. “But it has an issue with us. It wants to contain our development and publicly talks about it. Economic restrictions and attempts to influence our country’s domestic politics, relying on forces they consider their allies inside Russia, stem from that.”He voiced hope that the meeting would help ease tensions with Washington. Russia-U.S. ties have sunk to post-Cold War lows over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, accusations of Russian interference in elections in the U.S. and other Western nations and cyberattacks that U.S. officials allege had Russian origins.Putin reiterated that Russia rejects accusations of interfering in U.S. presidential elections, and he spoke critically of the U.S. response to the Capitol attack, which took place as Congress prepared to certify that Biden had defeated then-President Donald Trump in November.”They weren’t just a crowd of robbers and rioters. Those people had come with political demands,” he said.Putin pointed out that the heavy charges against hundreds of participants in the attack were filed even as the U.S. and its allies strongly criticized Belarus’ crackdown on anti-government protests. And he charged that even as the West has criticized Russian authorities for a harsh response to anti-Kremlin demonstrations, protesters in Europe have faced an even tougher police response, with some shot in the eye by what he mockingly called “democratic rubber bullets.”‘Corresponding interests’At a later videoconference with the heads of major international news agencies, Putin said, “I don’t expect any breakthrough results” from the summit with Biden. The United States and Russia have some corresponding interests, he said, “despite certain disagreements. These disagreements are not the result of Russian actions.”In response to a question from Associated Press President and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, Putin returned to the theme of blaming the United States for poor relations.”We are not taking steps first — I’m talking about the steps that deteriorated our relations. It was not us who introduced sanctions against us, it was the United States who did that on every occasion and even without grounds, just because our country exists,” he said through a translator.He also criticized the United States as being overconfident and drew a parallel with the Soviet Union.”You know what the problem is? I will tell you as a former citizen of the former Soviet Union. What is the problem of empires — they think that they are so powerful that they can afford small errors and mistakes,” he said. “But the number of problems is growing. There comes a time when they can no longer be dealt with. And the United States, with a confident gait, a firm step, is going straight along the path of the Soviet Union.”‘Sheer nonsense’At the earlier session, Putin praised Biden as a “very experienced statesman who has been involved in politics for his entire life … and a very prudent and careful person. I do hope that our meeting will be positive.”He also took time to deride the allegations that Russian hackers targeted a U.S. pipeline and a meat plant — accusations that have clouded the atmosphere before the summit.”I do hope that people would realize that there hasn’t been any malicious Russian activity whatsoever,” he said. “I heard something about the meat plant. It’s sheer nonsense. We all understand it’s just ridiculous. A pipeline? It’s equally absurd.”Putin said “the U.S. special services should track down those ransom seekers. It’s certainly not Russia that would extort money from some company. We don’t deal with chicken or beef. It’s plain ridiculous.”He alleged the hacking accusations were aired by those who try to “provoke new conflicts before our meeting with Biden,” and added that some in the U.S. doubted Russian involvement in the hacks.”It means that inside the American society, media and political class, there are people who want to find ways to repair U.S.-Russian relations,” he said.Thoughts on permafrost, pandemicOn other issues, Putin praised his country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and called for a stronger worldwide response to global warming as he sought to bolster Russia’s international standing.Addressing the forum, Putin lauded the efficiency of Russian-designed vaccines and bemoaned what he described as “politically motivated bans” on their purchase in some countries.Last year, Russia boasted of being the first in the world to authorize a coronavirus vaccine, but it has since moved slowly in giving shots to its population. The slack pace of vaccination has been partly attributed to public skepticism about the vaccines amid controversial signals from authorities.Experts have questioned whether Russia will be able to meet the government target of vaccinating more than 30 million of the country’s 146 million people by mid-June, and nearly 69 million by August.Putin again urged Russians to move quickly to get the shots, and he invited foreigners to Russia to get vaccinated, saying he would instruct the government to facilitate that.He also emphasized the need to strengthen the international response to climate change, noting that melting permafrost has posed a major challenge to Russia’s Arctic regions.”We have entire cities built on permafrost,” he said. “What will happen if it all starts melting?”Putin said pipes have been laid for the first of two lines of the prospective Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, leaving only welding to finalize its construction. He said the second line will follow soon.The U.S. has strongly opposed construction of the Russian pipeline, but the Biden administration opted last month not to punish the German company overseeing the project while announcing new sanctions against Russian companies and ships. The Kremlin has hailed it as a “positive signal” before the Putin-Biden summit.The Russian leader hailed the project as more economically feasible than an existing pipeline via Ukraine, rejecting Ukrainian and Western criticism that it’s designed to rob Kyiv of transit fees.Putin said Russia will continue pumping via Ukraine 40 billion cubic meters of gas a year in line with an existing five-year contract and could continue doing so after it expires if Ukraine shows “goodwill.”Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a tense tug-of-war following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support for separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine.Putin deplored what he described as the U.S. use of the dollar as a political weapon, saying that “its use as an instrument of competition and political struggle has hurt its role as the world reserve currency.”Russia said Thursday it will completely remove the U.S. dollar from its National Wealth Fund and turn the dollar-denominated assets into euros, yuan and gold. Russia long has moved to reduce the dollar’s share in its hard currency reserves as it has faced U.S. sanctions amid tensions with Washington and its allies.
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Have European Union restrictions on travelers from the U.S., Britain and some other major nations become politicized? The chief executive of Wizz Air, the Budapest-based low-cost airline, thinks so.“I think the European Union as such has broken down completely,” József Váradi told CNBC this week. “We have failed to come up with unified measures and an orchestrated approach dealing with the situation, and it has become incredibly overpoliticized.”He’s not alone in expressing frustration. Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, a rival Dublin-headquartered discount airline, has urged politicians to recognize “it’s time that we got on with our lives.” Ryanair last month posted the biggest annual loss in the company’s 35-year history, because of COVID-19 travel restrictions and lockdowns wiping out air traffic. This turned the company’s previous year’s $1.24 billion profit into a $990 million loss in the 12 months to March 31.The EU decision Thursday to urge member states to maintain a prohibition on tourists and other nonessential travelers from the U.S. and Britain, among other non-EU countries, has left many in Europe’s commercial aviation and hospitality sectors fuming about what they view as the laggardly pace of easing travel restrictions for tourists.European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, June 2, 2021. The European Union unveiled Wednesday plans to revamp Europe’s ID-check free travel area.Lack of uniformityThey say the European Commission is being overcautious, and they also are impatient with the lack of uniformity among member states about reopening their countries to tourists this Northern Hemisphere summer. Most national governments have been implementing the EC’s tight travel recommendations, but others in the past few weeks have not, further complicating journeys into the bloc from outside, especially for those unable to take direct flights to their destinations.Some member states have also been imposing curbs on travel from other EU countries, turning the bloc and the once borderless Schengen Area into a complicated puzzle of rules and requirements.Italy, Portugal and Greece, member states of the Schengen Area, and Croatia, an EU member, have all been ignoring Brussels and have been cautiously opening their tourist-dependent countries to travelers, including from the U.S. and Britain, which have vaccinated more of their populations than the EU. Italy started to ease travel restrictions on Americans and Britons in mid-May, although quarantines often still apply. Americans can travel on COVID-19-safe flights to Italy, which require multiple coronavirus tests.American and British travelers are crucial for the European tourist industry. Americans made more than 36 million trips to Europe in 2019. The total number of tourist visits by U.K. residents to the European Union reached 67 million the same year.EC keeps a listThe EC has a “white list” of countries with low infection rates comprising Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Travelers from those countries, regardless of their reasons for journeys, are welcome, as far as the EC is concerned. Japan was added to the list at midweek. China also is on the white list, subject to reciprocity by the Chinese government.The 27 EU member states have been debating for months ways to make travel easier, both within the bloc and from outside, and the EC has recommended all member states starting July 1 lift restrictions on travelers who were fully vaccinated at least 14 days before their arrival in the EU.FILE – German police check arriving passengers for a negative coronavirus test in Frankfurt, March 30, 2021. The European Commission proposed April 29 issuing “Digital Green Certificates” to EU residents to facilitate travel in the bloc by summer.By July 1, the EU’s Digital COVID-19 certificate is meant to be up and running across the bloc, allowing border authorities to verify the coronavirus status of travelers — whether they have been vaccinated, had a recent negative test or have proof of recovery from coronavirus infection. Seven countries, including tourist-dependent Greece and Croatia, already have started rolling out so-called vaccine passports much earlier than planned.“Europeans should enjoy a safe and relaxing summer,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday. “As vaccination progresses, we propose to gradually ease travel measures in a coordinated way with our common tool: the EU Digital COVID Certificate.”But some in Europe’s travel industry have doubts that everything will go smoothly next month, even when many restrictions are due to be eased. Olivier Jankovec, director-general of Airports Council International Europe, a trade association, worries there will be a lack of consistency in travel rules across the bloc and says the EC and national governments don’t understand how challenging reopening will be for airports and airlines. Jankovec says the EU and member states are underestimating what will happen when tourism does pick up.Airport ‘chaos’ feared“The level of both uncertainty and complexity in planning for the restart is just mind-blowing for now,” Jankovec said in a statement. “With each passing day, the prospect of travelers enduring widespread chaos at airports this summer is becoming more real. We urgently need governments to step up planning on the full range of issues involved — and work more closely with airports and airlines.”FILE – Travelers, wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, walk along the departure hall of the Zaventem international airport in Brussels, Jan. 22, 2021.His trade association has warned that air passengers risk spending hours at airports in July and August because of multiple and diverse COVID-19 checks.Some British lawmakers have expressed suspicions the EU has not added Britain to the white list because of post-Brexit political grievances. Last month, Brussels eased its COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people criteria from 25 to 75 and Britain meets the EU target. But EU officials say they are concerned about an increase in infections in Britain from a more transmissible coronavirus variant first discovered in India, hence the decision to exclude the U.K.The Biden administration has not yet lifted a ban on travelers wishing to visit the United States from the 27 European Union member states and the United Kingdom, but officials have indicated that could soon change.Meanwhile, Britain also has faced criticism from southern European countries for failing to include them on its meager “green list” of safe-for-travel countries. Portugal’s foreign ministry said it couldn’t “understand the logic” of Britain’s midweek switch of Portugal from green to amber.The move means any Britons who travel to Portugal will have to take two tests upon their return and self-isolate at home for 10 days, which will deter tourists. “Portugal is continuing its easing of its lockdown, prudently and gradually, with clear rules for the safety of those who reside here or visit us,” Portugal’s foreign ministry tweeted Thursday.British officials, like their EU counterparts, say they are guided in their decision by the scientific advice they are receiving. The U.S. has not lifted its restrictions on travel from Europe for non-U.S. citizens or residents, but officials in Washington have told VOA that is under review.
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The European Union announced Friday it is banning all flights from Belarus from flying over EU airspace and denying them access to all EU airports. In a statement, EU officials said all EU member states will be required to deny permission to land in, take off from or overfly their territories to any aircraft operated by Belarusian air carriers, including as a marketing carrier. The ban will take effect at midnight Friday, Central European Time. FILE – In this handout photo released by European Radio for Belarus, Belarus journalist Raman Pratasevich poses for a photo in front of euroradio.fm sign in Minsk, Belarus, Nov. 17, 2019.The move comes in response to the May 23 incident in which Belarus scrambled a fighter jet to order the forced landing of an Irish Ryanair commercial airliner that was traversing Belarusian airspace en route to Lithuainia. Belarus officials took opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich off the plane and have held him ever since. The regional air traffic agency Eurocontrol reports about 400 civilian planes usually take routes over Belarus. Several European airlines including Lufthansa, SAS and Air France have already announced they would stop flying over its airspace. Pratasevich appeared on Belarus state television Thursday, tearfully confessing to his role in anti-government protest in an interview that the opposition said was made under duress. In the interview, Pratasevich admitted to plotting to topple President Alexander Lukashenko by organizing “riots” and recanted earlier criticism of the veteran leader. Lukashenko’s office did not immediately respond to accusations of coercion. 
 
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A British-led aircraft carrier group voyage that will take the HMS Queen Elizabeth to the disputed South China Sea would push Beijing further into an angry defensive position, analysts believe.The 65,000-ton aircraft carrier with more than 30 aircraft plans to visit the Asian waterway for military drills with the U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces, British media outlets say. The ships set sail in May for a world journey of seven months, the Royal Navy said on its website without specifying when it would reach the South China Sea. A Dutch frigate and an American destroyer have joined the group.China will see the voyage as a sign that Western allies are marshaling forces against it, experts say. Chinese officials claim 90% of the sea as China’s, citing historic usage records. Militarily weaker Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam claim all or parts of the same sea, overlapping Chinese claimed waters.As China builds up islands in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer, resource-rich sea for military installations and expands its navy, Western countries have been sending ships over the past half year as a warning against that expansion and a gesture of support for the smaller claimants.French, British Ships to Sail Disputed Asian Sea, Rile China

        British and French warships will sail to the disputed South China Sea in a display of naval strength that may satisfy domestic audiences but ruffle the waterway’s major stakeholder, China, and lead to more militarization, analysts say.Vessels from the two European naval powers, which have no South China Sea claims of their own, will use the event to justify military spending at home, experts say. 

“I think the Chinese will be upset,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo. Chinese officials will say the voyage reflects a “Cold War mentality” and a “containment mentality” aimed at China, he said.“It will reaffirm their view that the United States is now clearly intent on stopping China’s rise and preventing China’s development, but the reality is the U.K. has limited resources it can lend to the region and it’s more symbolic than a tangible increase,” he said.US Adding Air Power to Naval Operations in Disputed South China Sea Beijing is watching as Washington reportedly sends B-52s, reconnaissance aircraft and at least one Marine Corps plane to a sea China claims as its own China regularly protests U.S. Navy voyages into the sea, 10 of which took place last year following another 10 in 2019. China sometimes follows up with military drills. The U.K. and the United States are close allies.The Beijing government cannot “forget” that Britain once colonized parts of China, including Hong Kong, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant diplomacy and international relations professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.China’s reaction to the voyage will hinge on time the U.K. spends in the sea, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan.“It really depends on the U.K.’s efforts, whether it can actually present itself in the region on a regular basis,” Yang said.Welcomed in Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asian maritime claimants will welcome the British voyage, though careful to spin their support in a way to avoid upsetting China, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Much of Southeast Asia counts China as a top trading partner. Malaysia and Singapore, as former British colonies, though, have particularly strong ties to the U.K., Oh said.“I think we have the same attitude as the British, namely we don’t want to unduly upset China because, whether we like it or not, China is our largest trading partner,” said Oh, who is Malaysian. “But at the same time, it is important to also show to Chinese that we are not retreating from our claims of sovereignty.” Power projectionBritish officials for their part hope to “project strong relations” around maritime Asia following their break from the European Union, Nagy said. He tips the country to work more closely in the future with Japan and the United States on Indo-Pacific issues where they disagree with China.The HMS Queen Elizabeth group will visit 40 nations, including Japan, over its course of 48,152 kilometers, according to a Royal Navy statement on May 22.U.K. Carrier Strike Group Commander, Commodore Steve Moorhouse, called the voyage the “most important peacetime deployment in a generation,” according to the navy’s statement.
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A G-7 deal on a minimum corporate tax rate is “within sight,” finance ministers from France, Germany, Italy and Spain said Friday before a meeting of the world’s richest nations.”We have a chance to get multinational businesses to pay their fair share,” France’s Bruno Le Maire, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Italy’s Daniele Franco and Spain’s Nadia Calvino said in The Guardian newspaper.British finance minister Rishi Sunak starts a two-day meeting on Friday with counterparts from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, before a leader summit next week including U.S. President Joe Biden.The spotlight is on ambitious plans for a minimum level of corporate tax, as global powers seek to make multinationals pay their way.”For more than four years, France, Germany, Italy and Spain have been working together to create an international tax system fit for the 21st century,” the four ministers wrote in a joint opinion piece.”It is a saga of many twists and turns. Now it’s time to come to an agreement.”Biden is calling a unified minimum corporate tax rate of 15% in negotiations with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and G-20.”The new US proposal on minimal taxation is an important step in the direction of the proposal initially floated by our countries and taken over by the OECD,” the four ministers added.”The commitment to a minimum effective tax rate of at least 15% is a promising start.”
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