Russia has been treading carefully in its dealings with the Taliban, engaging with them but so far withholding formal recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers.Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aides have been quick to cheer the U.S.-led NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, presenting it as a strategic setback for Washington. But they fear Afghanistan falling apart and being plunged into a protracted civil war, which could allow the country to become a sanctuary once again for jihadists to hatch plots against Russia and its Central Asian allies, according to Western diplomats and analysts.Commenting last week, Putin said NATO’s 20-year intervention had accomplished nothing. “The result is zero, if not to say that it is negative,” he said. Like his Western counterparts, though, the Russian leader appears also to have been surprised by the speed of the collapse of the government of President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban’s sweep of the country. When the Taliban seized Kandahar on August 13, Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said he doubted the Taliban would take control of Kabul any time soon. They seized it within two days.FILE – Russian envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, left, speaks with Taliban representatives prior to their talks in Moscow, May 28, 2019.With Afghanistan right on its doorstep, there are more downsides and risks for Russia from NATO’s departure arguably than there are for the Western powers, and the Kremlin is casting a wary glance south, according to Paul Stronski, who was director for Russia and Central Asia at the U.S. National Security Council from 2012 to 2014. “Russia has been eying the departure of U.S. troops from Afghanistan with schadenfreude. But the Kremlin does not relish the prospect of an unstable Afghanistan,” Stronski wrote in a commentary for the Carnegie Endowment, a think tank in Washington.“Even though Moscow has publicly cheered the removal of U.S. and NATO troops from the region, Russian officials are sober-minded enough to appreciate the downsides of their departure,” he says. “The key question now is whether Moscow is equipped to deal with a combustible situation along its southern flank that is unfolding far more quickly than anyone might have expected,” he added.Midweek, top Russian and Indian security officials met in Delhi to discuss the implications of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. In the subsequent readouts of their talks for the press, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a key Putin adviser, and Indian counterpart Ajit Doval highlighted the security dangers, with their officials saying global militant groups operating from Afghanistan pose a threat to Central Asia and to India. They agreed to deepen counterterrorism cooperation.FILE – Taliban fighters atop Humvee vehicles parade along a road to celebrate the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, in Kandahar, Sept. 1, 2021, following the Taliban’s military takeover of the country.“U.S. withdrawal and Taliban triumph generate an acute security challenge for Russia,” according to Pavel Baev of the Brookings Institution. A former researcher in the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Defense, he says the problem for the Kremlin is the NATO withdrawal “yields no rewards” and presents Moscow with a security “black hole” on its southern flank. Like their Western counterparts, Russian security chiefs are trying to judge whether the Taliban will abide by the promises its leaders made in political talks in Doha, Qatar, to stop Afghanistan once again from turning into a sanctuary for al-Qaida and other global jihadist groups.The Kremlin also is alarmed by the prospects of an increase in opiate drug trafficking, which alone may earn the Taliban $416 million a year, according to a U.N. assessment.Taliban leaders have said they won’t permit any opium poppy cultivation. But with a financial crunch looming for the country — and for the militant group — there are widespread doubts that they will — or can — keep to that promise. Afghanistan is estimated to be responsible for about 80 percent of global opium and heroin supplies.In July, following a string of bilateral talks with the Taliban, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Taliban leadership was “rational.” He added: “They are sane people. They clearly stated that they have no plans to create problems for Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors.”FILE – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, second left, speaks as he attends a conference on Afghanistan with representatives of the Taliban, in Moscow, Russia, Nov. 9, 2018.Baev believes that statement was “an exercise in wishful thinking.” “The best Russian diplomats can hope for is to dissuade the shrewd leadership of the Taliban from launching cross-border attacks northwards,” he says. The Taliban remains proscribed in Russia as a terrorist organization. Its ties with Central Asian jihadists, including Chechen separatists who the Taliban allowed to train in Afghanistan, prompted President Putin in September 2001 to acquiesce regarding the U.S. building military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to facilitate the U.S.-led NATO invasion of Afghanistan. Putin also allowed the U.S.-led coalition to use Russian airspace for the invasion.The Kremlin appears to be readying for the worst, and it has been for some time. In 2012, it signed an agreement with Tajikistan to extend its lease on a military base in Dushanbe until 2042, and in 2016 it started modernizing the base and rearming it, including with armed Orlan-10 drones.Last month, the Russian, Tajik and Uzbek militaries held joint exercises on the Afghan border. Recently, Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu pledged to strengthen military cooperation with the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
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In an interview Thursday, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said there are questions about how the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled, “but we need to first save the lives [of Afghans].”Rama, whose country is temporarily hosting 4,000 Afghan refugees, said that as a NATO member country, Albania has to take its “share of responsibility” to protect those who worked with the organization in Afghanistan.Rama told Mirwais Rahmani of VOA’s Afghan Service that Afghan refugees can stay in Albania for as long as they wish.This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.VOA: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you so much for your time. Albania was one of the first countries that offered to host Afghan refugees. Tell us why.Prime Minister Edi Rama: Because of who we are. We have a very proud history of having built our life in this country for generations based in our first common law, which says that the house of the Albanians belongs to God and the guest. The accurate translation would be the traveler. And then there is a whole explanation of the duty behind the knock at the door of whomever is behind the door and in whatever situation he, she or they are, you have to open the door and you have to offer shelter to the traveler that is lost or needs refuge or needs to be fed or whatever. So, that is first. Second is our history. Our grandparents did something fascinating and thanks to them, Albania became the first and the last European country that had more Jews after the war than before and independent from their religion.And many Jews were saved by being hidden from Muslim armies. Because we have Muslims and Christians here but independent from their religion, Albania was protecting Jews. And then we were like the Afghans 30 years ago. So, it was at that time us demanding help and knocking on others’ doors for shelter.Now it’s the time to give what we got. And finally, I would say that we owe it to our children. Our children need to inherit this attitude, and every generation should cultivate it when the chance is being presented because, God forbid, we become a cynical rich country.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 2 MB480p | 3 MB540p | 3 MB1080p | 9 MBOriginal | 16 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioEdi Rama: Thirty years ago, “it was at that time us demanding help and knocking on others’ doors for shelter. Now it’s the time to give what we got.”VOA: I’m sure you saw the chaos and tragedy in Kabul airport during the last two weeks of August. Many believe it was a result of hasty withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan. What’s your take on this?Rama: As I said and I want to repeat, for sure what happened in the last weeks and what the world saw live from Kabul, from the airport, from the scenes of desperate people losing gravity and falling from the sky will absolutely raise many questions – many questions about our civilization, about our democratic world, about NATO, about the future of NATO and how we should see and shape it. But it’s not the time to enter in this (conversation) until the last person that is in need is saved from whatever the danger might be for him or her in Afghanistan. We should take care of human lives, and then of course, the discussion will follow. But on the other hand, I have to say that, you know, it’s quite hypocritical to put the blame on the United States and on the administration and just wash their hands like Pontius Pilate. After all we have been in this together. Yes, there are questions, of course, and the withdrawal had its problems, and it’s obvious but we need to first save the lives. And the blame on the withdrawal, the whatever mismanagement of the withdrawal, the dramatic episodes of the withdrawal, should not be alibis or should not be instruments to forget the real thing – the lives of people.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 3 MB480p | 4 MB540p | 4 MB1080p | 13 MBOriginal | 22 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioEdi Rama: “The withdrawal had its problems and it’s obvious, but we need to first save the lives.”VOA: I talked to some Afghan evacuees in Albania. Their main concern is the uncertainty surrounding the process of their application. An Afghan evacuee, while thanking your government for the warm hospitality, had a question for you: in case their application or resettlement process takes months or years, will the Albanian government provide them with health services and education opportunities for their children?Rama: Thank you for the question. It’s a very good question. First of all, they should forget months. It will not be months. It will be more than months because the mass of applications and the massive bureaucratic work that has to be done back in the [United] States for so many people that have been parked, as they said, in different places in Europe or elsewhere, is huge. So, it will be more than months. Secondly, we have already decided that we will offer them free health care.The concern of the kids and the young students is a common concern. So, we are working to come up with a plan, we are working to be able to create a network of teachers because we can put them right away in our schools. But it’s in Albanian, and we need to somehow give them some continuity to have their language and English, so we are working on that. And we will not let them, you know, drag in the places they are for more than months without sending those kids to school, without being able to see a future. At the same time, I would invite all of them to think about integrating while waiting – they are great people.VOA: The U.S. might not take in those Afghans who fail security background checks, or their cases are rejected. How will Albania deal with such a scenario? Are you ready to take in those Afghans who will have no other place to go, or is there any alternative solution?Rama: They are at home here. They should feel at home here, and if they want to stay, they are welcome. We will never tell them to leave the country because they don’t fulfill criteria. We’ll never tell them they have to apply for a visa clearance in Albania. We suffered a lot from visa regimes, and we are not going to be now a visa regime country for them, so they are more than welcome to stay.VOA: What’s Albania’s reaction to the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan? Will Albania, as a country that hosts hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghans, recognize a government led by the Taliban?Rama: Albania had its Taliban. They were not Islamic Taliban. They were Marxist and Leninist Taliban. And we saw religion being bombed. We saw God being declared illegal. We saw our own culture of the 20th century being bombed. We saw the jailing of artists, of writers, of play writers. We saw a total lack of freedom of expression. We saw full nationalization, and private property being dumped and being bombed and so many other things that, you know, you have seen in that country. Every comparison has its weakness. So, I’m not going further. But no, we will not be part of any club that will recognize this regime.Let me add this. While I said this, I say also the other thing, that it’s important to build communication, it’s important to talk with that regime. Because for the sake of all that need to be helped, demands it. So, one of the strengths of our Taliban regime was that not only didn’t they want to talk to others, but the others didn’t want to talk to them. So, this is something to be remembered.
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With no masks in sight, buzzing offices and concerts drawing tens of thousands, Denmark on Friday ditches vaccine passports in nightclubs, ending its last COVID-19 curb.The vaccine passports were introduced in March 2021 when Copenhagen slowly started easing restrictions.They were abolished at all venues on Sept. 1, except in nightclubs, where they will be no longer necessary from Friday.”We are definitely at the forefront in Denmark as we have no restrictions, and we are now on the other side of the pandemic thanks to the vaccination rollout,” Ulrik Orum-Petersen, a promoter at event organizer Live Nation, told AFP.On Saturday, a sold-out concert in Copenhagen will welcome 50,000 people, a first in Europe.Already on Sept. 4, Live Nation organized a first open-air festival, aptly named “Back to Live,” which gathered 15,000 people in Copenhagen.”Being in the crowd, singing like before, it almost made me forget COVID and everything we’ve been through these past months,” said Emilie Bendix, 26, a concertgoer.Denmark’s vaccination campaign has gone swiftly, with 73% of the 5.8 million population fully vaccinated, and 96% of those 65 and older.’Aiming for free movement'”We’re aiming for free movement… What will happen now is that the virus will circulate, and it will find the ones who are not vaccinated,” epidemiologist Lone Simonsen told AFP.”Now the virus is no longer a societal threat, thanks to the vaccine,” said Simonsen, who works at the University of Roskilde.According to the World Health Organization, the Scandinavian country has benefitted from public compliance with government guidelines and the COVID-19 strategy adopted.”Like many countries, Denmark has, throughout the pandemic, implemented public health and social measures to reduce transmission. But at the same time it has greatly relied on individuals and communities to comply voluntarily,” said Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe’s emergency officer.With around 500 daily COVID-19 cases and a reproduction rate of 0.7, Danish authorities say they have the virus under control.Health Minister Magnus Heunicke has however vowed that the government would not hesitate to swiftly reimpose restrictions if necessary.Authorities insist that the return to normal life must be coupled with strict hygiene measures and the isolation of sick people.The WHO still considers the global situation critical and has urged caution.”Every country needs to remain vigilant as and when the epidemiological situation changes,” Smallwood said.Denmark has said it will keep a close eye on the number of hospitalizations — just under 130 at the moment — and conduct meticulous sequencing to follow the virus.A third dose has also been available to risk groups since Thursday.Simonsen said the vaccines have so far provided immunity from variants “but if escape variants (resistant to the vaccine) were to appear, we will have to rethink our strategy.”Christian Nedergaard, who owns several restaurants and wine bars in Copenhagen, said that while everyone is happy about the return to normal life, “the situation is still complicated.””The memory of coronavirus will fade very quickly from some people’s minds but not for everyone, and for restaurants this period has for sure been a game-changer,” he said.”The industry needs to think about how to become more resilient.”Travelers entering Denmark must still present either a vaccine passport or a negative PCR test, and masks are mandatory in airports. 
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Britain has approved plans to turn away boats illegally carrying migrants to its shores, deepening a rift with France over how to deal with a surge of people risking their lives by trying to cross the Channel in small dinghies. 
 
Hundreds of small boats have attempted the journey from France to England this year, across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The summer surge happens every year, but it now is larger than normal as alternative routes have been shut down. 
 
Border officials will be trained to force boats away from British waters but will deploy the new tactic only when they deem it safe, a British government official who asked not to be named said on Thursday. 
 
Michael Ellis, Britain’s acting attorney-general, will draw up a legal basis for border officials to deploy the new strategy, the official said. 
 
Home Secretary Priti Patel told French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin that stopping people making their way from France on small boats was her “number one priority.” 
 
Patel had already irritated the French government earlier this week when she indicated Britain could withhold about $75 million (54 million pounds) in funding it had pledged to help stem the flow of migrants. 
 
Darmanin said Britain must honor both maritime law and commitments made to France, which include financial payments to help fund French maritime border patrols. 
 
“France will not accept any practice that goes against maritime law, nor financial blackmail,” the French minister tweeted. 
 
In a letter leaked to British media, Darmanin said forcing boats back toward the French coast would be dangerous and that “safeguarding human lives at sea takes priority over considerations of nationality, status and migratory policy.” 
 
Britain’s Home Office, or interior ministry, said: “We do not routinely comment on maritime operational activity.” 
 
Politically charged 
 
Charities said the plans could be illegal and some British politicians described the idea as unworkable. 
 
Channel Rescue, a citizen patrol group that looks for migrants arriving along the English coast, said international maritime law stipulated that ships have a clear duty to assist those in distress. 
 
Clare Mosely, founder of the Care4Calais charity, which helps migrants, said the plan would put the lives of migrants at risk. “They’re not going to want to be sent back. They absolutely could try and jump overboard,” she said. 
 
Tim Loughton, a member of parliament for the ruling Conservatives, said the tactics would never be used because people would “inevitably” drown. 
 
“Any boat coming up alongside at speed would capsize most of these boats anyway and then we’re looking at people getting into trouble in the water and drowning,” he said. 
 
A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government was exploring a range of safe and legal options to stop the boats. 
 
The number of migrants crossing the Channel in small dinghies has risen this year after the British and French governments clamped down on other forms of illegal entry such as hiding in the back of trucks crossing from ports in France. 
 
The numbers trying to reach Britain in small boats – about 13,000 so far in 2021 – are tiny compared with migrant flows into countries such as Lebanon and Turkey, which host millions of refugees. 
 
But the issue has become a rallying cry for politicians from Johnson’s Conservative Party. Immigration was a central issue in the referendum decision in 2016 to leave the European Union. 
 
France and Britain agreed in July to deploy more police and invest in detection technology to stop Channel crossings. French police have confiscated more dinghies, but they say they cannot completely prevent departures. 
 
British junior Health Minister Helen Whately said the government’s focus was still on discouraging migrants from attempting the journey, rather than turning them back. 
 
Britain’s opposition Labour Party criticised the new approach as putting lives at risk and it said the priority should be to tackle people-smuggling gangs. 
 
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Leaders of the BRICS nations discussed Afghanistan at a virtual summit Thursday, with participants underscoring the importance of preventing terrorists from using Afghan soil to stage attacks on other countries.  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted the five-nation group that comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The talks come weeks after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan led to a geopolitical shift in Asia. Russian President Vladimir Putin, China’s President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro joined Modi for the online summit. Speaking at the opening of the summit, Putin said the withdrawal of the United States and its allies from Afghanistan “has led to a new crisis” and the “entire international community will have to clear up the mess as a result.” He said the situation stemmed from “irresponsible attempts to impose alien values from outside and this intention to build so-called democracy” without taking into account historical features and traditions resulting in “destabilization and chaos.” In wrapping up the summit, the BRICS nations called for “refraining from violence and settling the situation by peaceful means to ensure stability in the country.”  Afghanistan is of major concern to three of the five countries in the group – Russia, India and China. Putin said the country should not become a threat to its neighbors or a source of terrorism and drug trafficking.  In late August, the U.S. completed a withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan to end a 20-year war.  Observers say China and Russia will use the opportunity to step into the void left by the U.S., although Moscow is wary of the Islamist ideology of the Taliban and the threat posed by foreign militant groups to Central Asia.India’s concern   New Delhi, meanwhile, finds itself isolated with the takeover by the Taliban, which has long been an anti-India group. New Delhi has emphasized that its main concern is about Afghan territory being used by terror groups that target India such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.   The group adopted what it called a Counter Terrorism Action Plan and said in its declaration, “We stress the need to contribute to fostering an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue so as to ensure stability, civil peace, law and order in the country.” The statement also emphasized the need to address the humanitarian situation and to uphold human rights, including those of children, women and minorities.  The summit, held for a second year in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, expressed “regret” at the glaring inequity in access to vaccines, especially for the most vulnerable populations, and highlighted the need for access to affordable shots for the world’s poorest. The declaration also said cooperation on the study of the origins of the coronavirus is an important aspect of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus causes COVID-19. The BRICS group was formed to enhance cooperation among the world’s major emerging economies, which account for 40% of the global population and 25% of global gross domestic product. Their first summit was held in 2009.  
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Teams working on two continents have marked similar milestones in their respective efforts to tap an energy source key to the fight against climate change: They’ve each produced very impressive magnets.  On Thursday, scientists at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France took delivery of the first part of a massive magnet so strong its American manufacturer claims it can lift an aircraft carrier.Almost 20 meters (about 60 feet) tall and more than 4 meters (14 feet) in diameter when fully assembled, the magnet is a crucial component in the attempt by 35 nations to master nuclear fusion.Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists and a private company announced separately this week that they, too, have hit a milestone with the successful test of the world’s strongest high-temperature superconducting magnet that may allow the team to leapfrog ITER in the race to build a “sun on earth.”Unlike existing fission reactors that produce radioactive waste and sometimes catastrophic meltdowns, proponents of fusion say it offers a clean and virtually limitless supply of energy. If, that is, scientists and engineers can figure out how to harness it — they have been working on the problem for nearly a century.Rather than splitting atoms, fusion mimics a process that occurs naturally in stars to meld two hydrogen atoms together and produce a helium atom — as well as a whole lot of energy.Achieving fusion requires unimaginable amounts of heat and pressure. One approach to achieving that is to turn the hydrogen into an electrically charged gas, or plasma, which is then controlled in a donut-shaped vacuum chamber.This is done with the help of powerful superconducting magnets such as the “central solenoid” that General Atomics began shipping from San Diego to France this summer.Scientists say ITER is now 75% complete and they aim to fire up the reactor by early 2026.”Each completion of a major first-of-a-kind component — such as the central solenoid’s first module — increases our confidence that we can complete the complex engineering of the full machine,” said ITER’s spokesman Laban Coblentz.The goal is to produce 10 times more energy by 2035 than is required to heat up the plasma, thereby proving that fusion technology is viable.Among those hoping to beat them to the prize is the team in Massachusetts, which said it has managed to create magnetic field twice that of ITER’s with a magnet about 40 times smaller.The scientists from MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems said they may have a device ready for everyday use in the early 2030s.”This was designed to be commercial,” said MIT Vice President Maria Zuber, a prominent physicist. “This was not designed to be a science experiment.”While not designed to produce electricity itself, ITER would also serve as the blueprint for similar but more sophisticated reactors if it is successful.  Proponents of the project argue that even if it fails, the countries involved will have mastered technical skills that can be used in other fields, from particle physics to designing advanced materials capable of withstanding the heat of the sun.All nations contributing to the project — including the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, South Korea and much of Europe — share in the $20 billion cost and benefit jointly from the scientific results and intellectual property generated.The central solenoid is just one of 12 large U.S. contributions to ITER, each of which is built by American companies, with funds allocated by Congress going toward U.S. jobs.”Having the first module safely delivered to the ITER facility is such a triumph because every part of the manufacturing process had to be designed from the ground up,” said John Smith, director of engineering and projects at General Atomics.The company spent years developing new technologies and methods to make and move the magnet parts, including coils weighing 250,000 pounds, across their facility and then around the globe.”The engineering know-how that was established during this period is going to be invaluable for future projects of this scale,” Smith said.”The goal of ITER is to prove that fusion can be a viable and economically practical source of energy, but we are already looking ahead at what comes next,” he added. “That’s going to be key to making fusion work commercially, and we now have a good idea of what needs to happen to get there.”Betting on nuclear energy — first fission and then fusion — is still the world’s best chance to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, said Frederick Bordry, who oversaw the design and construction of another fiendishly complex scientific machine, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.”When we speak about the cost of ITER, it’s peanuts in comparison with the impact of climate change,” he said. “We will have to have the money for it.”
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The next nine months will determine the fate of 20 people on trial for the 2015 terror attacks in Paris. Of the ten-man team believed to have carried out the coordinated assault, just one is still alive. Salah Abdeslam was among the 14 suspects in court on Wednesday, the first day of the trial that could see him imprisoned for life. Six are still wanted.There was tight security as the accused arrived at the Paris courthouse for the start of the nine-month trial.Twenty people are charged in connection with the series of attacks on November 13th, 2015, that left 130 people dead and more than 350 injured.Six are still on the run, or possibly dead, and will be tried in absentia.Fourteen of them are in court – including the man believed to be the sole survivor of the 10-man cell that carried out the attacks.Salah Abdeslam fled to Belgium, abandoning his suicide vest. He was finally arrested there four months later.In court at the start of proceedings Wednesday, when asked to state his name, Abdeslam replied that there was only one god, Allah, and that he had forsaken all to become a fighter for the Islamic State group.ISIS claimed responsibility for planning and carrying out the attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, the Stade de France football stadium, and several cafes and restaurants in eastern Paris.Lawyer Victor Edou, representing eight survivors from the Bataclan, says it was very hard for his clients to hear Abdeslam’s words.“It was very violent, very difficult for them to take,” he said, adding that they know the next nine months will not be easy.But the survivors and families of the victims hope the lengthy proceedings will provide them with some answers.FILE – Medics stand by victims in a Paris restaurant, Nov. 13, 2015.It has taken six years for this case to come to trial.In part because, as ISIS carried out more attacks – in Nice, Brussels, Barcelona and elsewhere – it became clear to investigators that there were links between the different cells. Several of those on trial in Paris also face trial in relation to the deadly bombings in Brussels in March 2016.The sheer scale of this case also meant it took more time to prepare.Some 18,00 people are civil participants in the case – they include the survivors and families of the victims.More than 330 lawyers are involved, and there 542 tomes of legal documents.The high-security courtroom was specially constructed for this trial; and there are severe restrictions on who has access.The proceedings are being filmed for posterity and are transmitted live to several rooms in the courthouse for the overflow of journalists and participants.The accused face a range of charges including murder, attempted murder, providing guns and money, and terrorist conspiracy.They face up to life in prison. 
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Russia’s parliamentary elections in less than two weeks’ time are shaping up to be the least free since Vladimir Putin came to power 21 years ago, warn opposition leaders and independent election observers. Polling data suggests that just 26% of Russians are ready to vote for the ruling United Russia Party in parliamentary elections on September 19 — its lowest rating since 2008. Nonetheless few Putin opponents doubt United Russia will win the elections handsomely, thanks to ballot-rigging, the silencing of Putin critics, the barring of independent candidates, voter intimidation and cash handouts to voters. “The thinly veiled bribery of voters, all sorts of manipulations, mobilizing administrative [resources] and persecution of the critics of the regime — these are the election tactics of Putin and his party in 2021,” according to Fyodor Krashennikov, an opposition political commentator. Krashennikov recently left Russia for Europe, joining an exodus of opposition figures who say they’re being chased out by a crackdown on dissent, which has seen dozens of independent media outlets and civic groups forced to shut after being designated “foreign agents” or extremist organizations in a ramping up of repression up ahead of the elections.  FILE – Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny gestures during a hearing on his charges for defamation in the Babuskinsky District Court in Moscow, Russia, in this photo taken from a footage provided by the Babuskinsky District Court, Feb. 16, 2021.Alexei Navalny, the most well-known Putin critic, has been in jail since January on old fraud charges, which he and some Western governments see as politically motivated. His nationwide political organization, accused by the Kremlin of being extremist, has been dismantled. Other Putin critics have been blocked from standing as candidates for the Russian Duma, including former lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov, who fled Russia in June fearing he would face criminal charges if he didn’t.  ‘A hardcore autocracy’ 
  
“Since I left Russia in 2014, it is absolutely shocking how many businesspeople, academics, journalists, politicians, lawyers, NGOs leaders I used to know there who are now dead, in prison, or in exile. Simply shocking,” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, tweeted Tuesday. “You never know who they are coming for next,” says Maria Snegovaya, a visiting scholar at America’s George Washington University. She argued in a recent podcast discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council, a New York-based think tank, that 2021 will mark the year when Russia shifted into becoming “a hardcore autocracy.” She believes the mounting crackdown on dissent — which has escalated since the near-fatal poisoning last year of Alexei Navalny and protests against his jailing — is a Kremlin reaction to rising unhappiness with Putin’s government.  FILE – Riot police detain a man during a rally in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 31, 2021. 
“Discontent runs across the political spectrum and there are way fewer supporters of the regime,” she says. Although she cautions that the anti-Putin opposition is fragmented in terms of political affiliation and shouldn’t be seen automatically as translating into support for liberal democratic ideas.Russians will vote in elections held between September 17-19 for the State Duma — the lower house of the Russian Parliament — as well as for several regional heads and municipal governments. A view of a poster announcing the upcoming Russian parliamentary and local elections in front of the building of the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament, in Moscow on Sept. 8, 2021.State-owned or state-controlled Russian media outlets have been dismissing claims about a rigged poll, saying it is a Western-inspired campaign to discredit Russia’s elections and that fake news will soar as voting day approaches. A group of Kremlin-friendly experts, the Independent Public Monitoring, predicted in a report Wednesday that over the next few days there will be a rise in fake news stories about public-sector workers being compelled or bribed into voting for United Russia. “There will be extensive speculation about allegedly unequal rules of electioneering, as well as the persecution of opposition candidates,” the authors of the report told TASS, the Russian state-owned news agency. “In their opinion, provocations and information attacks will enjoy concerted support from Western journalists, politicians and government officials. When the election campaign is over, the West will refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the new State Duma and make vigorous attempts to trigger protests inside Russia,” TASS reported.But an opinion poll published Wednesday by the state funded VTsIOM pollster suggested 14% of all employees working at industrial plants in Russia have been pressured by their bosses to register to vote and more than half of respondents to the survey said their managers had raised the elections with them.  
 
European Union officials say that the sudden wave of Russia state-owned media reports about a Western conspiracy is a preemptive exercise to try to tarnish any criticism of the Kremlin. “By inventing sinister ‘Western’ plots and provocations, the pro-Kremlin media and pundits willfully ignore and obscure the dark reality on the ground: reprisals against critics and elimination of political opposition with methods that range from cold-blooded to bizarre, censorship and restriction of media freedoms,” according to the EU’s External Action Service.  FILE – A participant takes a selfie in front of a banner during a congress of the political party Yabloko in Moscow, Russia, April 3, 2021. A banner reads: ‘Yabloko is changing.’Bizarre tactics have included running spoiler candidates against the few remaining independent candidates in a bid to sow confusion. In St. Petersburg, Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the liberal opposition Yabloko party and a longtime Kremlin critic, complained Sunday that two of his opponents for a seat in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly have adopted his name and altered their appearance to look like him in order to reduce his votes.“At each election for many years now we say that these were the dirtiest and most dishonest elections ever, and then at the next ones we repeat the same phrase,” Vishnevsky said. Election observers The absence of election monitors is also alarming opposition politicians. Last month, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, announced it will not send observers to Russia’s elections for the first time in nearly three decades because of “major limitations” imposed by Russian authorities on the mission. “We very much regret that our observation of the forthcoming elections in Russia will not be possible,” said Matteo Mecacci of the OSCE in an August statement. “But the ability to independently determine the number of observers necessary for us to observe effectively and credibly is essential to all international observation. The insistence of the Russian authorities on limiting the number of observers we could send without any clear pandemic-related restrictions has unfortunately made today’s step unavoidable,” he added.Russia’s main nationwide vote monitoring group, Golos, was also labeled a month ahead of the parliamentary elections as a ‘foreign agent’ by the Kremlin and although it has vowed to continue its work there are fears it could be prohibited from conducting election monitoring.Vote monitors fear that there will be even more opportunities to rig election results without their presence. They also note that the authorities in six major regions and in Moscow have been encouraging Russians to vote online. Electronic voting in Russia has increased in recent years but in 2020 in a plebiscite on constitutional amendment, serious anomalies emerged in the online voting in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod Oblast with more people voting than were registered, in one precinct by 217%.Residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, the Moscow-backed breakaway oblasts in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, are also being allowed — and urged — by Russian authorities to vote in these elections.People hold Russia’s national flag and flags of it’s ruling United Russia party, during a rally at war memorial complex Savur-Mohyla, marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Donbas region from the Nazi occupation,  outside the rebel-held city of Donetsk, Ukraine, Sept. 8, 2021. More than 600,000 residents of the oblasts hold Russian passports, and they are seen by the Kremlin as “additional reserves of loyal voters,” according to Russian commentator Konstantin Skorkin.It is the first time they will be allowed to vote in Duma elections. Last year, Russian passport-holders in Donetsk and Luhansk were permitted to vote in the plebiscite amending the Russian constitution to allow Putin to run again for two more presidential terms. They were bused over the border and voted in the Russian region of Rostov, but only 14,000 did so. This time they will be able to vote online. 
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Turkey is voicing caution over Afghanistan’s interim government as it continues talks with the Taliban on restarting air traffic at the Kabul airport.Turkey was among the first countries calling for talks and engagement with the Taliban after it swept to power last month. But the Taliban’s announcement of an interim government this week saw Turkish President Recep Tayyip calling for a cautious approach.”As you know, right now, it’s hard to call it permanent, but an interim cabinet has been announced,” Erdogan said Tuesday.  He said, “We don’t know how long this interim cabinet will last. All we have to do is to follow this process carefully.”Those Fleeing Afghanistan Struggle to Survive in TurkeyVOA reporters meet people who say the Taliban are killing government workers and other ‘enemies’ as they take over areas of Afghanistan But Erdogan said talks between the Taliban and Qatar on restarting full operations at the Kabul airport were making progress although he warned key issues remained unresolved. On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Taliban’s insistence on being the one to provide the airport’s security remains a key obstacle.Cavusoglu said, “the Taliban or Afghan forces could ensure security outside the airport. But inside,” he said, “there should be a security company trusted by the international community”. He added that “Otherwise, even if airlines, including Turkish Airlines, are keen to fly there, insurance companies would not allow it.”Despite Turkey’s participation in NATO’s twenty-year-long military presence in Afghanistan, the Taliban reached out to Ankara with calls to put the airport back into operation. Turkey is NATO’s only Muslim member, and it shares historical ties with Afghanistan.  Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow of the European Council, says Ankara says believes hese factors could help Turkey play a key role in Afghanistan.Taliban Tells Turkey Continued Troop Presence in Afghanistan Is ‘Unacceptable’Taliban spokesman tells VOA it will view Turkish troops as invaders and a violation of the deal with US”They will want to see as if they can position Turkey as a diplomatic conduit, as a diplomatic sort of go-between, between western countries and the Taliban,” said Aydintasbas.The reopening of the Kabul airport is key for European countries and the United States in efforts to evacuate their citizens who are still in Afghanistan as well as Afghan nationals who once worked for NATO and western embassies.After meeting his Turkish counterpart, German foreign minister Heiko Maas underlined Turkey’s importance in efforts to reopen the airport, offering to help finance the operation. But retired Turkish ambassador Selim Kuneralp says Ankara must deal delicately with the Taliban.”It seems to me they would be a risk in appearing to be too close to the Taliban to be their protectors, so to speak, in the eyes of the West, not just the United States but the European Union too,” said Kuneralp. “If you appear to be close to them, then you would be painted with the same brush.”Ankara’s cautious approach to the new Afghan government and Turkish calls calling for scrutiny of the Taliban’s treatment of women and ethnic minorities could be signs of a growing awareness of Turkey’s need to remain aligned with its Western allies over Afghanistan.
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Twenty people linked to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in France went on trial in Paris Wednesday in proceedings expected to last nine months.Six defendants are being charged in absentia. Reports say five of the six are presumed dead in Iraq or Syria. Nine Islamic State terrorists, mostly from France and Belgium, left a trail of horror in a multi-pronged attack at the national stadium, various bars and restaurants and at a concert at the Bataclan Theater. A total of 130 people were killed, 90 of them at the concert hall. At least 490 people were injured.A 10th member of the terror cell and the only one still alive, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in Brussels four months after the November 13, 2015, strikes. He is accused of helping the others.  In his court appearance, Abdeslam, 31, called himself an “Islamic State soldier.” When asked what his profession was, he said, “I gave up my job to become an Islamic State soldier.”This courtroom sketch shows Salah Abdeslam (R), the prime suspect in the November 2015 Paris attacks, and co-defendants Mohamed Amri (L) and Mohamed Abrini (C) on Sept. 8, 2021, the first day of the trial of the November 2015 Paris attacks.Even though most of the alleged perpetrators are dead, some hope the trial will bring closure to the families of the victims.”This trial is really an important step for the victims, those who have been wounded or injured, and those who lost members of their families,” Michael Dantinne, professor of criminology at the University of Liege, told France 24.  He added that “it is only a step in the recovery process of the victims” and that “it won’t have any magical effect.”  The trial is being held in a specially constructed court in Paris and described as the biggest in France’s modern day legal history. Some information in this report comes from the Associated Press, AFP and the Reuters news agency. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas are hosting talks Wednesday with a group of partners and allies to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, including efforts to continue the flow of humanitarian aid to the country after the Taliban’s takeover. A U.S. State Department official said ahead of the ministerial meeting that one theme of the discussion would be seeing if the Taliban lives up to its commitments and the expectations of the international community.U.S. Secretary of State Blinken speaks to members of the U.S. embassy and Mission Afghanistan in Doha, Sep. 7, 2021.Before traveling to Germany, Blinken stressed during a visit to Qatar that the United States and others are calling on the Taliban to follow through on its pledge to allow anyone with valid travel documents to leave Afghanistan if they choose to do so. The issue has been a focus since the United States withdrew from Afghanistan at the end of August, ending a two-decade military presence and a final effort to evacuate thousands of people from the country. Many people who wanted to leave Afghanistan were unable to do so before the U.S. withdrawal. The State Department said Wednesday’s meeting would also likely involve discussion of counterterrorism issues and upholding basic human rights in Afghanistan. 
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Twenty people linked to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in France are going on trial in Paris Wednesday in proceedings expected to last nine months.  Six defendants are being charged in absentia. Reports say five of the six are presumed dead in Iraq or Syria.  Nine Islamic State terrorists, mostly from France and Belgium, left a trail of horror in a multi-pronged attack at the national stadium, various bars and restaurants and at a concert at the Bataclan Theater. A total of 130 people were killed, 90 of them at the concert hall. At least 490 people were injured.A 10th member of the terror cell and the only one still alive, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in Brussels four months after the November 13, 2015, strikes. He is accused of helping the others.”This trial is really an important step for the victims, those who have been wounded or injured, and those who lost members of their families,” Michael Dantinne, professor of criminology at the University of Liege, told France 24.He added that “it is only a step in the recovery process of the victims” and that “it won’t have any magical effect.”The trial will be held in a specially constructed court in Paris and is described as the biggest in France’s modern day legal history.Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and AFP.
 
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New research shows that coronavirus vaccines not only offer protection against infection and serious illness – but may also help prevent so-called ‘long COVID’, where symptoms can last for weeks or months. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell   
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Four years ago, newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron called for Europe to build “the capacity to act autonomously” in security matters so that the continent would be less dependent on the United States and could decide to act without U.S. backing. Most European leaders derided Macron’s idea as far-fetched. “Illusions of European strategic autonomy must come to an end,” said Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s defense minister.But in the wake of the U.S.-led withdrawal from Afghanistan, her position has shifted. It is time to make “the European Union a strategic player to be reckoned with,” she announced last week in a commentary for the Atlantic Council, a New York-based think tank. She isn’t alone in rethinking the future of the transatlantic security arrangement. Europe’s opinion pages have been full of columns from politicians and security advisers advocating for the continent to become more independent militarily and less dependent on Washington. European leaders have been decrying President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as precipitous and complain Washington did not consult sufficiently with NATO allies.  Armin Laschet, a contender to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor, said last month: “We’re standing before an epochal change.”Even traditionally pro-American British politicians like Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and a key partner for the United States in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, questions the reliability of the U.S. as a defense partner. On Monday he said Britain should strengthen its defense partnership with Europe to combat threats. In the U.S. there is “now an overwhelming political constraint on military interventions,” which represents a serious challenge to Britain and NATO, he said, in a speech to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks that precipitated the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.Strategic autonomyHowever, there is little agreement in Europe about what strategic autonomy should mean and what Europe should do with it.,  The 27 member states of the EU have clashed repeatedly over foreign policy, from relations with Russia to whether China is an adversary or competitor. Central European leaders are especially nervous about loosening any defense ties with Washington and remain unconvinced they could rely on the Western Europeans in a confrontation with Russia.And skeptics question whether Europe is really prepared to spend what it would take to become a serious stand-alone strategic player, especially as they struggle with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
 NATO Calls on Russia to Be Transparent With Military Exercises According to a tally by NATO Review, an allied magazine, Russia deployed between 60,000 and 70,000 troops in Zapad-2017 but only declared 12,700 personnel 
On average, European Union countries spend around 1.2 percent of their GDP on defense. Russia spends 4.3 percent while the U.S. spends 3.4 percent. But in a recent debate in the House of Commons, Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative lawmaker and chair of the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said the lesson he drew from the Afghanistan withdrawal was the need to help reinvigorate Britain’s European NATO partners and “to make sure that we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, but that we can work together.”Changes needed?  
 
Lawrence Freedman, the influential emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, suspects the surge in talk about European strategic autonomy, though, is a knee-jerk reaction to what Armin Laschet has described as the “biggest NATO debacle” since the founding of the alliance.“It is always tempting but usually unwise to draw large geopolitical conclusions from specific events, however dramatic and distressing,” he noted in a commentary for The Times of London this week.The United States’ core strategic alliances in Europe and even Asia have weathered plenty of setbacks and disputes in the past, he said.“These alliances were built up over decades and remain in place. They have survived past disagreements and are unlikely to be set aside because the Biden administration mishandled the final withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan,” he added. “The post-mortems on the withdrawal from Afghanistan will most likely conclude that there is no need to make any fundamental policy changes,” he added.Afghan Pullout Hurt Biden Politically, but for How LongExperts are divided on whether the scenes of chaos in Kabul over the past two weeks will have an impact when the 2022 mid-term elections take place  
European interventions with no or little U.S. military support have not fared well. In July Macron announced that France’s anti-jihadist intervention in the volatile Sahel region, involving over 5,000 troops and launched by his predecessor in office, will end next year. The French leader has for years tried to persuade European allies to help shoulder more of the burden of the anti-terror fight in the Sahel, but to no avail. Britain, Denmark, and Sweden provided helicopter capabilities for air-mobility but little else from other European countries aside from some symbolic deployments emerged. In almost a pre-echo of Biden’s reasons for withdrawing from Afghanistan, Macron said: “We cannot secure certain areas because some states simply refuse to assume their duties. Otherwise, it is an endless task.” He added that the “long-term presence” of French troops “cannot be a substitute” for nation states handling their own affairs.Some diplomats suggest the current surge in talk about strategic autonomy will diminish as the shock of withdrawal wears off. They suggest much of the criticism should be seen as displacement activity, a way of coping with antagonistic urges. “They feel bad about leaving [Afghanistan] but they are also relieved to be out of a forever war they know couldn’t be won,” a European envoy in Brussels suggested to VOA. He asked not to be identified for this story.Other diplomats think the transatlantic security bonds will remain tight, but it will take some time for recovery from what they admit was a disorderly withdrawal.It is going to take quite a long time for the West as a whole — because it is a Western failure, a Western disaster, this is not just the UK and the U.S. — to recover from all this, to recover our reputation,” Kim Darroch, former British ambassador to the U.S. and the EU, told the BBC last month. The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, though, says the withdrawal has offered “an opportunity for us to discuss the European Union as a geopolitical actor,” he said. “But this will require unity, in small things and in big things,” he told reporters in Brussels this week.Oxford University historian Timothy Garton Ash agrees. In an interview Tuesday he told the broadcaster Euronews: “President Joe Biden has made the case for what all Europeans are talking about, namely strategic autonomy and European sovereignty.”However, Ash, an advocate for European strategic autonomy, lamented that European powers missed the chance to show what they could do. “There were 2,500 American troops stabilizing Afghanistan. France and Britain alone have 10,000 troops and a rapid reaction force. Why didn’t we have a European conversation about what we could have done about it?”
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans Tuesday to fulfill a election promise to grapple with the rocketing cost of the long-term care needed by Britain’s growing older population. To do it, he appears set to break another election vow: not to raise taxes. Johnson is scheduled to tell Parliament how his Conservative government will raise billions to fund the care millions of Britons need in the final years of their lives. That burden currently falls largely on individuals, who often have to deplete their savings or sell their homes to pay for care. One in seven people ends up paying more than 100,000 pounds ($138,000), according to the government, which calls the cost of care “catastrophic and often unpredictable.” Meanwhile, funding care for the poor who can’t afford it is placing a growing burden on overstretched local authorities. Johnson has been tight-lipped about his plans, which are being unveiled to the Cabinet on Tuesday morning before he makes a statement in the House of Commons. But the prime minister said late Monday he would “not duck the tough decisions needed.” He is expected to announce an increase in National Insurance payments made by working-age people to fund care and the broader National Health Service, which has been put under immense strain by the coronavirus pandemic. That would break the firm promise in Johnson’s 2019 election platform not to hike personal taxes. Breaking promises is hardly novel for politicians, but those enshrined in British parties’ election manifestos have long been considered binding on governments. Johnson’s rumored plan has alarmed many Conservative lawmakers — both because it involves breaking a firm election commitment, and because the burden would fall on working-age people and not retirees. Jake Berry, one of a crop of Conservative lawmakers representing northern England seats won from the Labour Party with promises of investment and new jobs, said the proposed plan would help affluent, older voters at the expense of younger, poorer ones. And William Hague, a former Conservative leader, said breaking an election promise would be a “loss of credibility when making future election commitments, a blurring of the distinction between Tory and Labour philosophies, a recruiting cry for fringe parties on the right, and an impression given to the world that the U.K. is heading for higher taxes.” Attempts to reform the care system have stymied British governments. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, campaigned in a 2017 election on a plan to cut benefits to retirees and change the way they pay for long-term care. The idea was quickly dubbed a “dementia tax” by opponents, and May ended up losing her majority in Parliament. 
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Swedish police said Monday they had arrested two women linked to Islamic State after they flew back from Syria, as media reported that one was being investigated for war crimes. Stockholm police spokesman Ola Osterling said the prosecutor leading the investigation into the two women had ordered their arrest. “We executed that decision when the plane arrived in Stockholm in the afternoon,” Osterling told AFP. A third woman had been taken in for questioning, he added. A statement Monday from the Prosecution Authority said multiple investigations were underway against men and women returning from areas that had been controlled by Islamic State. “The international crimes that are relevant for people returning from IS-controlled areas are war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity,” public prosecutor Reena Devgun said in the statement. “Sweden has an international commitment to investigate and prosecute these crimes,” she added. The Prosecution Authority added that it could not comment on individual cases or the number of investigations underway. But public broadcaster SVT reported that at least one of the women arrested was being investigated for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. SVT also reported that the women who had returned Monday had been staying in camps in northern Syria but were deported after Kurdish authorities decided they did not have enough evidence to prosecute them. 
 
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Britain said Monday it is postponing the start of post-Brexit border checks on goods going to Northern Ireland, as it seeks breathing space in its tense standoff with the European Union over trade rules. Brexit Minister David Frost said the government would continue to trade “on the current basis,” maintaining grace periods that the U.K. gave itself after splitting from the EU’s economic embrace at the end of 2020. He did not set a new end date for the grace periods, some of which had been set to finish on September 30. Frost said the standstill would “provide space for potential further discussions” with the EU over the two sides’ deep differences on the Brexit divorce agreement. U.K.-EU relations have soured over trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that has a land border with the 27-nation bloc. The divorce deal the two sides struck before Britain’s departure means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.  FILE – Lorries and cars disembark from a ferry arriving from Scotland at the P&O ferry terminal in the port at Larne on the north coast of Northern Ireland, Jan. 1, 2021.The regulations are intended to prevent goods from Britain entering the EU’s tariff-free single market while keeping an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But the checks have angered Northern Ireland’s British unionists, who say they amount to a border in the Irish Sea and weaken Northern Ireland’s ties with the rest of the U.K.  One of the deferred measures, which had been set to take effect October 1, would ban chilled meats such as sausages from England, Scotland and Wales from going to Northern Ireland. The “sausage war” has been the highest-profile element of the U.K.-EU dispute, raising fears that Northern Ireland supermarkets may not be able to sell British sausages, a breakfast staple. The trade tensions have destabilized Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance and raised tensions with the EU, which is calling for Britain to implement the deal it agreed to, and with the U.K. government, which says the rules need fundamental reform.  Britain’s Conservative government is seeking to remove most checks, replacing them with a “light touch” system in which only goods at risk of entering the EU would be inspected.  Frost warned last week that the U.K. and the EU risked entering a long period of “cold mistrust” unless issues around the agreement were resolved. The U.K.’s previous unilateral extension of the grace period angered the EU, which responded by launching legal action. The bloc has since put that action on hold, and the two sides have taken tentative steps to cool the situation. Monday’s announcement by Britain was made with the advance knowledge of the bloc. Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he expected the EU would agree to an extension of the grace periods in order to allow for “deep and meaningful” talks with Britain. 
 
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Russian authorities on Monday blocked a website of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny that instructed supporters how to vote out candidates from the ruling party in polls later this month.   In a statement to AFP, state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said that access to the website votesmart.appspot.com had been blocked in Russia “because it is being used to continue the work… of an extremist organization.”   FILE – A woman crosses the road behind election campaign billboards in Moscow, Aug. 27, 2021.Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on September 17-19, with nearly all vocal Kremlin critics including Navalny’s allies barred from running.   Navalny, 45, has this year seen his organizations declared “extremist” and banned, while his top aides have fled the country.   After barely surviving a poisoning with nerve agent Novichok last summer, Navalny was jailed in February in what supporters say is punishment for seeking to challenge President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade hold on power.   FILE – A still image from CCTV footage published by Life.Ru shows what is said to be jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny speaking with a prison guard at the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov, Russia, in this image released Apr. 2, 2021.Roskomnadzor earlier barred access to dozens of websites linked to Navalny, including his main site navalny.com.   Last week the media regulator also urged Google and Apple to remove an app dedicated to Navalny’s “Smart Voting” campaign from their app stores, but they have yet to respond.   The “Smart Voting” tactic has led the increasingly unpopular United Russia party, currently polling at less than 30%, to lose a number of seats in recent local elections. 
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Four alleged members of an Irish crime gang and five other defendants went on trial Monday in France accused of trafficking rhino horn and ivory to markets in east Asia. French prosecutors started a probe in 2015 after police discovered several elephant tusks and 32,800 euros ($38,900) in cash in a BMW during a random roadway traffic inspection. Prosecutors say the occupants of the car, who claimed they were antique dealers, were members of the Rathkeale Rovers, an Irish crime gang with roots in the Irish Traveller community. The nine defendants on trial in the town of Rennes, which include alleged traders of Chinese and Vietnamese origin, face up to 10 years in jail and heavy fines, although two of those charged are on the run. “We’re hoping for heavy sentences including fines to dissuade people from taking part in smuggling activities which encourage the cruelty of poaching,” Charlotte Nithart, head of French anti-poaching charity Robin des Bois, told AFP.  Nithart, who was in court as an observer, said that the case files and the first day of hearings underlined how Europe, and European auction houses, played a role in supplying east Asia with horns and tusks. “What you can see in the intercepted telephone records is that the supply comes from lots of different towns in France and around Europe. The networks are well structured,” she added. Many of the objects are old ornaments and antiques, but the seizures by police of several tusks that are less than 20 years old suggest that recently poached animal parts are also being traded. As part of their investigation, French police also found that tusks and rhino horns were being turned into powder, flakes, and other objects on French soil before being exported to Vietnam and China. Vietnamese defendant David Ta, a 51-year-old owner of an export company in the Paris region, denied illegally trafficking protected animals, despite the discovery of 14 tusks on a pallet at his home. “I’m a collector. It’s a passion,” he told the court. Four suspected members of the Rathkeale Rovers — Tom Greene, Richard O’Riley, Edward Gammel, and Daniel MacCarthy — are accused of supplying horns and tusks to exporters in France with links to China and Vietnam. An exceptionally large horn weighing nearly 15 kilos seized from the gang during the investigation would have earned around $15 million once processed at Asian market prices at the time, according to the Robin des Bois group. The organized crime group from the Limerick region of western Ireland “have many activities, but what is of interest to us is their speciality in trading rhino horns,” Nithart said. They have been linked to thefts from museums and private collections. There were suspicions they had been involved in the shocking 2017 killing of a white rhino in Thoiry zoo outside Paris. The animal’s horn was hacked off in a grisly overnight raid. The Rathkeale Rovers were the target of a joint investigation by European police in 2010 that led to 31 people being arrested, including for the theft of rhino horns, according to the Europol police agency’s website. Two members were arrested in the United States in 2010 after paying undercover investigators in Colorado about $17,000 for four black rhino horns. 
 
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A court in Belarus on Monday sentenced two leading opposition activists to lengthy prison terms, the latest move in the relentless crackdown Belarusian authorities have unleashed on dissent in the wake of last year’s anti-government protests.     Maria Kolesnikova, a top member of the opposition Coordination Council, has been in custody since her arrest last September. A court in Minsk found her guilty of conspiring to seize power, creating an extremist organization and calling for actions damaging state security and sentenced her to 11 years in prison.      FILE – Maxim Znak, Belarus’ opposition activist and lawyer of Maria Kolesnikova, attends a court hearing in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 4, 2021.Lawyer Maxim Znak, another leading member of the Coordination Council who faced the same charges, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.      Kolesnikova, who helped coordinate monthslong opposition protests that erupted after an August 2020 presidential vote, resisted authorities’ attempts to force her to leave the country.      Kolesnikova and Znak stood trial behind closed doors, with their families only allowed to be present at the sentencing hearing on Monday.      “For many, Maria has become an example of resilience and the fight between good and evil. I’m proud of her,” Kolesnikova’s father, Alexander, told The Associated Press on Monday. “It’s not a verdict, but rather the revenge of the authorities.” Belarus was shaken by months of protests fueled by President Alexander Lukashenko’s being awarded a sixth term after the August 2020 presidential vote that the opposition and the West denounced as a sham. He responded to the demonstrations with a massive crackdown that saw more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police. Kolesnikova, 39, has emerged as a key opposition activist, appearing at political rallies and fearlessly walking up to lines of riot police and making her signature gesture – a heart formed by her hands.     Kolesnikova spent years playing flute in the nation’s philharmonic orchestra after graduating from a conservatory in Minsk and studying Baroque music in Germany.     In 2020, she headed the campaign of Viktor Babariko, the head of a Russian-owned bank who made a bid to challenge Lukashenko but was barred from the race after being jailed on money laundering and tax evasion charges that he dismissed as political. Babariko was sentenced to 14 years in prison two months ago.      FILE – Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya speaks during her news conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)Kolesnikova then joined forces with former English teacher Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was running in place of her jailed husband Sergei, an opposition blogger, as the main candidate standing against Lukashenko, and Veronika Tsepkalo, wife of another potential top contender who had fled the country fearing arrest.     The three appeared together at colorful campaign events that were in stark contrast to Lukashenko’s Soviet-style gatherings.      In September 2020, as Belarus was shaken by mass protests, the largest of which drew up to 200,000 people, KGB agents drove Kolesnikova to the border between Belarus and Ukraine in an attempt to expel her from the country. In the neutral zone between the two countries, Kolesnikova managed to rip up her passport, broke out of the car and walked back into Belarus, where she was immediately arrested.      Just before the start of her trial last month, Kolesnikova said in a note from prison that authorities offered to release her from custody if she asks for a pardon and gives a repentant interview to state media. She insisted that she was innocent and rejected the offer. 
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Four years ago, European leaders chided then U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on America’s southern border with Mexico. “We have a history and a tradition that we celebrate when walls are brought down and bridges are built,” admonished Federica Mogherini, then the EU’s foreign policy chief.  
 
But Europe now is accelerating its own wall-building for fear of future migration crises.  Afghan migrants hide from security forces in a tunnel under train tracks after crossing illegally into Turkey from Iran, near Tatvan in Bitlis province, Turkey, Aug. 23, 2021. 
In the near-term European Union governments are worried about an influx of Afghans and are hoping to persuade Afghanistan’s near neighbors to corral those fleeing the Taliban. 
  
The U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has warned that up to 500,000 Afghans could flee their homeland by the end of the year. EU officials say they are considering spending a billion euros to induce Afghanistan’s neighbors to act as gatekeepers. But Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan appear reluctant and have warned they are only prepared to serve as transit countries for Afghan asylum-seekers. Saturday Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said a potential refugee wave toward Europe must not take place. Recently French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe should “anticipate and protect itself from a wave of migrants” from Afghanistan.  
 
That counsel is being heeded by other European national leaders eager to stop Afghan refugees from entering Europe en masse, thereby hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2015-16 migration crisis, when more than a million asylum-seekers from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia entered Europe, roiling European politics and fueling the rise of populist nationalist parties. FILE – Migrants stand in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia, Sept.15, 2015.Last week at an emergency meeting in Brussels the interior ministers of the 27 EU member-states agreed “to act jointly to prevent the recurrence of uncontrolled, large-scale, illegal migration movements faced in the past.”   The prospects of more Afghan refugees appearing on their borders has acted as a spur for Central European, Baltic and Balkan states to complete planned walls and to erect more razor-wire fences. Greece last month completed a 40-kilometer wall along its land border with Turkey and installed an automated surveillance system to try to prevent asylum seekers from reaching Europe.  FILE – A policeman patrols alongside a steel wall at Evros River, near the village of Poros, at the Greek -Turkish border, Greece, May 21, 2021.“We cannot wait, passively, for the possible impact,” Greece’s citizen protection minister, Michalis Chrisochoidis, said announcing the completion of the project. “Our borders will remain safe and inviolable,” he added. Asylum-seekers from Afghanistan have made up 45% of recent arrivals to the Greek Islands this year, according to figures from the U.N. refugee agency. 
  
In an interview Monday with Politico.eu, a news site, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson played down the determination of member states to keep the doors firmly bolted, saying she is convening a high-level resettlement forum later this month where member states, Britain, the U.S. and Canada will discuss commitments to resettle specific numbers of Afghan refugees.  
 
“Of course, it’s voluntary but I expect them to step up,” she said. But several states, including Greece, Austria and Hungary, have already said they won’t.  FILE – Migrants and refugees cross the border between Hungary and Austria, near Nickelsdorf, Austria, Sept. 10, 2015. 
On Saturday, the EU’s migration commissioner, Margaritis Schinas noted the bloc’s external borders are much stronger now than they were when the continent was rocked by the 2015-16 migration influx, prompting a wave of wall building.  EU member states have collectively constructed more than 1,000 kilometers of border walls or barbed-wire fences in recent years.Each day sees more wall building. In the 1990s there were just two  walls built, by 2017 that jumped to 15. Spain, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Lithuania and Poland have all in recent years completed new external walls.  FILE – Bulgarian border police personnel stand next to a barbed wire wall fence erected on the Bulgaria-Turkey border near the town of Lesovo, on Sept. 14, 2016.France, Slovenia and Austria have even built border walls since 2015 along parts of their shared borders with other EU countries.  
 
Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have been frantically wall-building and militarizing their borders with Belarus to stop record numbers of migrants, mainly from Iraq, crossing their borders.Poland Could Declare State of Emergency at Belarus Border Poland refuses entry to migrants, claiming Belarus is using them as political weapons They accuse Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating migrant crossings as a form of “hybrid warfare” against the EU for imposing sanctions in the wake of last year’s disputed elections, which were widely seen as rigged. 
  
At a press conference last month, Lukashenko denied Belarus was seeking to blackmail Europe by trying to create a migrant crisis, but said he was reacting to foreign pressure.“We are not blackmailing anyone with illegal immigration,” he told journalists in Minsk’s Independence Palace. “We’re not threatening anyone. But you have put us in such circumstances that we are forced to react. And we’re reacting,” he said. 
  
But it isn’t only the weaponization of migrants by EU foes or the more immediate turmoil in Afghanistan that’s caught the attention of worried EU policymakers and national leaders. A series of recent studies suggest that Europe will see much larger migration challenges in the coming decades.  Migrants wait to disembark from a Spanish coast guard vessel in the port of Arguineguin, in the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, Sept. 1, 2021. 
In a paper published earlier this year, researchers at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies warned that between now and 2030, climate change and conflict and political dysfunction in the EU’s neighboring regions, alongside massive population growth in Africa, will inevitably lead to a substantial increase in the numbers of people trying to migrate to the EU. 
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Dozens of relatives of the 298 victims of Malaysian Airlines flight 17, shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in 2014, will begin giving testimony on Monday at the murder trial of four fugitive suspects accused of carrying out the attack.The aircraft was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was hit by what international investigators and prosecutors say was a Russian surface-to-air missile.Three Russians and a Ukrainian citizen, all suspected of having key roles in the separatist forces, are on trial for murder. Moscow has refused to extradite those in Russia and denies all responsibility. The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible.The plane crashed in a field in territory held by pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukrainian forces.The court has scheduled three weeks to hear the relatives speak and will also review around a hundred written statements provided by other family members.Ria van der Steen will be the first of 90 relatives from eight countries who will be allowed to address judges and defense lawyers about the impact of the crash on their lives.After years of collecting evidence, a team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the launcher used to fire the missile belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.The fugitive suspects have been on trial for a year and a half. Only one sent lawyers to represent him so the case is not considered to be entirely tried in absentia under Dutch law.Proceedings moved to a critical stage in June when prosecutors began presenting evidence and will start calling witnesses.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to Qatar on a trip that will also take him to Germany for talks with important U.S. allies on the situation in Afghanistan. “Departing for Doha, Qatar and Ramstein, Germany where I’ll have the opportunity to thank our Qatari and German friends in-person for the outstanding support they’ve given to safely transit U.S. citizens, Afghans, and other evacuees from Afghanistan,” Blinken tweeted late Sunday. Qatar was a key hub for the massive U.S. airlift out of Kabul and a first point of landing for thousands of Afghan refugees following last month’s Taliban takeover. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is also visiting U.S. allies in the Middle East to thank them for their help in the evacuations from Afghanistan, and with U.S. troops. His stops include Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “I’m on my way to the Gulf to personally thank our partners there for supporting the Afghanistan evacuation effort. Operation ALLIED REFUGE would not have been possible with our friends in the Gulf. Their support saved lives,” Austin tweeted Sunday.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives to board an aircraft from Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Sept. 5, 2021, to travel to Doha, Qatar and Ramstein, Germany.Blinken told reporters Friday that while in Germany he will head to Ramstein U.S. Air Force Base to thank the U.S. troops and meet with Afghan refugees.    Blinken also said he will head a virtual 20-nation ministerial meeting on Afghanistan Wednesday alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. He said the 20 countries “all have a stake in helping to relocate and resettle Afghans and in holding the Taliban to their commitments.” The Taliban have promised to grant safe passage to those Afghans and others who want to leave the country, but many Afghans doubt the reliability of their pledges.  In his remarks Friday, Blinken again defended the U.S. departure from Afghanistan, saying a relatively small number of American citizens remain in the country and the State Department is in active contact with all of them.  He said the U.S. remains committed to helping any American who wants to leave and to helping Special Immigrant Visa candidates and other Afghans who have helped the United States.    The Biden administration has come under criticism from Republican lawmakers, human rights groups and others for its handling of the evacuation from Afghanistan after the Taliban took control in Kabul on August 15. 
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The sole surviving member of the terror cell that massacred 130 people in Paris in November 20 was a pot-smoking party man who dabbled in petty crime before falling in thrall to the Islamic State group. All eyes will be on Salah Abdeslam on Wednesday when he goes on trial in Paris along with 19 others over the worst terror attack in France’s history. But those hoping that the so-called 10th man of the Islamic State attacks will tell all about what drove him to be part of the macabre plot risk being disappointed. Since his arrest after a massive four-month manhunt that ended in a shootout with police in Belgium, Abdeslam has maintained near-total silence on his role in the bloodshed.   Nine other gunmen and suicide bombers died in the carnage, including Abdeslam’s brother Brahim, who blew himself up in a bar.  Like Brahim he was equipped with a suicide belt, but he did not activate the device, which was found in a rubbish bin in southern Paris several days after the killings. The 31-year-old, who has French citizenship but grew up in Belgium, is accused of playing a key logistical role in the attacks. He drove the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade de France to their destination.  Abdeslam also rented cars and hideouts and drove across Europe in the months before the attacks to collect jihadists who had slipped into the continent unnoticed among masses of migrants. He told police shortly after his arrest that he too had been primed to carry out a suicide attack at Stade de France, one of six venues targeted in the Paris attacks, but that he had backed out at the last minute.   Investigators have cast doubt on that claim, saying they believe he was intent on seeing through his mission but was hamstrung by a faulty explosive belt. Whatever the outcome of the trial he is likely to spend many years behind bars, being just three years into a 20-year sentence for attempted murder over the firefight with Belgian police. One of the world’s most-wanted suspects spent the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks eating fries and chatting with two unsuspecting teenagers in the stairwell of a Paris high-rise while waiting to be driven across the border to Belgium. It was only when his mugshot was released by police days later that the pair realized the man who was looking over their shoulder at a news item about the attacks was one of the chief suspects.  In the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, where he grew up, Abdeslam was known for his bad-boy lifestyle of petty crime, smoking weed and gambling. An inveterate clubber, he also had a reputation as a womanizer.   His multiple brushes with the law included a conviction for attempted robbery in 2010 with a childhood friend, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the Paris attacks who was shot dead by French police in a siege a week later. Abdeslam, who grew up in a family of five children, worked as a technician for the Brussels tram network but was fired for skipping work in 2011. In later years, he spent much of his time hanging out in a cafe run by Brahim. Friends of the brothers say they became hooked on the Islamic State after the Sunni radical group proclaimed a caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014. They say they stopped drinking, showed a new-found interest in Islam and huddled with other would-be jihadists to imbibe IS propaganda.   In February 2015, Belgian police summoned Salah Abdeslam to discuss Abaaoud who had appeared in a gruesome video from Syria, showing him driving a pick-up truck that was dragging mutilated bodies to a mass grave.  “Apart from the jihad, he’s a good guy,” said Abdeslam, who claimed to oppose IS thinking despite having also shown interest in traveling to Syria. His rare public utterances since his arrest have shown he remains wedded to Islamist ideology. At his Belgian trial in 2018 he rejected the court’s legitimacy saying he trusted only “in Allah.” During questioning by a French magistrate in 2018 he justified terror attacks on France saying: “Muslims defend themselves against those who attack them.” An unrepentant Abdeslam is also believed to be the author of a letter found by Belgian police on a computer in 2016, in which he declared he “would have liked to be among the martyrs” and is ready to “finish the job.” His former Belgian lawyer, Sven Mary, was scathing about his client in a newspaper interview in 2016, although this is disputed by his lawyer in the current trial, Olivia Ronen. “He has the intelligence of an empty ashtray. He’s extraordinarily vacuous,” Mary said. “I asked him if he had read the Koran, and he replied that he had researched it on the internet,” Mary said. 
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