A heat wave in southern Europe, fed by strong hot winds from North Africa, has contributed to the outbreak of wildfires across the Mediterranean, including in Italy, Greece, Spain and Turkey. Firefighters in Italy have been deployed from all regions to battle blazes raging in many areas of the country, destroying thousands of hectares of forests. The high temperatures in southern Italy have prompted health ministry officials to put some areas of the country on red alert, like Sicily. Fires have been raging on the island and in other parts of Italy for days with authorities struggling to contain the fast-spreading blazes that have charred thousands of hectares of forests.Authorities deployed thousands of firefighters and water-dropping planes from across Italy, but due to the scale of the fires, the EU has also had to send in resources.In Sardinia, 20,000 hectares of forests were destroyed, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate. The fires damaged farmland and livestock, businesses and homes, and there is concern about losses to the island’s biodiversity.Christian Solinas, president of the Sardinia region, calls the fires an “unprecedented disaster.”  Residents spoke of apocalyptic scenes.In Sicily, fires are still raging in different areas with the flames having also reached the southern city of Catania on the eastern coast. Here, too, many residents were forced to leave their homes and police had to intervene by sea to save some 200 people stranded at beach resorts because of the fires and heavy smoke. Catania airport had to temporarily close due to the smoke.A view of a fire at Le Capannine beach in Catania, Sicily, Italy, July 30, 2021, in this photo obtained from social media. (Credit: Roberto Viglianisi/via Reuters)Also hard hit is the region of Abruzzo, where flames devoured a pine forest in Pescara, on the Adriatic coast, sending tourists and residents to the hospital after inhaling smoke.Authorities say many of the fires were cause by people and have already made some arrests. Speaking on Italian TV, Pescara mayor Carlo Masci called the events in his area truly dramatic and said those responsible must pay.Masci describes it as an attack on the heart of the city, the green lung of Pescara, its tradition, its history, its roots. The mayor says the blazes developed in various parts and the winds fueled the massive flames. He adds that he had never seen anything like this before and people were practically encircled by the fires.Like in other parts of Italy, Masci said the impact on the local environment was incalculable with the whole area of the Dannunziana Reserve, the city’s large pine forest, destroyed. He said it hurt to see all those skeletons of the trees.
 
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British police have arrested 11 people as part of an investigation into the online racist abuse directed at some of the Black players in the England soccer team following their defeat in last month’s Euro 2020 final.Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were the targets of the abuse after they missed spot-kicks in a penalty shootout with Italy which settled the July 11 final after the game finished as a 1-1 draw.The incident prompted a police investigation and drew wide condemnation from the England captain, manager, royalty, religious leaders and politicians.The UK Football Policing Unit said 207 posts on social media were identified as criminal, of which 123 accounts belong to individuals overseas and 34 from the United Kingdom.”There are people out there who believe they can hide behind a social media profile and get away with posting such abhorrent comments. They need to think again,” Chief Constable Mark Roberts, National Police Chiefs’ Council Football Policing Lead, said in a statement.”We have investigators proactively seeking out abusive comments in connection to the match and, if they meet a criminal threshold, those posting them will be arrested.”Our investigation is continuing at pace and we are grateful for those who have taken time to report racist posts to us.”A Twitter Inc spokesperson said last month they had removed more than 1,000 tweets and permanently suspended a number of accounts, while Facebook Inc said it too had quickly removed abusive comments.
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China has lodged a stern representation with Britain’s BBC about its reporting of the floods in Henan and its statement on how foreign journalists were being treated, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.The head of communications for the BBC World Service declined to comment.The broadcaster had said in a statement last month that the Chinese government should take immediate action to stop attacks that endanger foreign journalists.The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China had said journalists from several media outlets covering the floods were harassed online and by local residents. Some journalists received death threats, it said.”The BBC statement is inverting black and white,” China’s foreign ministry said on its official website.It said the BBC reports on the Henan floods were an attack on the Chinese government, and were “prejudiced,” without giving further details.The death toll from last month’s floods in Henan rose to 302 as of Monday, officials said, triple the figure of 99 that was reported last week, with most of the fatalities reported in the provincial capital, Zhengzhou.
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Britain’s top military commander, General Nick Carter, said Wednesday that Western powers need to retaliate for a suspected Iranian drone strike on an oil tanker, which killed a British security guard and the ship’s Romanian captain — otherwise Tehran will feel emboldened.Speaking to the BBC, Carter, chief of the British Defense Staff, said if a regime of deterrence is not restored in the Gulf, there will be more attacks and a higher risk of “miscalculation” by Iran. “What we need to be doing, fundamentally, is calling out Iran for its very reckless behavior,” he said.FILE – Britain’s Chief of Defense Staff General Nick Carter speaks during a remote press conference, inside 10 Downing Street in central London, April 22, 2020, in this handout image released by 10 Downing Street.Iran has vehemently denied playing any role in the July 29 drone strike on the MV Mercer Street off the coast of Oman. The vessel is Japanese-owned but managed by London-based firm Zodiac Maritime, which in turn is owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. The British government and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden have accused Iran of being behind the deadly drone strike with Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, labeling it “unlawful and callous.”FILE – Britain’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominic Raab walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain, Feb. 3, 2021.Earlier this week, he added, “We believe this attack was deliberate, targeted and a clear violation of international law by Iran. Iran must end such attacks, and vessels must be allowed to navigate freely in accordance with international law.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday there was “no justification for this attack, which follows a pattern of attacks and other belligerent behavior,” adding, the U.S. is “confident” Iran carried out the attack, using multiple drones. The Israeli government Wednesday publicly accused an Iranian military officer, Saeed Ara Jani, of overseeing the strike, alleging Ara Jani heads the Revolutionary Guards’ drone unit. “For the first time ever, I will also expose the man who is directly responsible for the launch of suicide UAVs [unmanned vehicles] — his name is Saeed Ara Jani,” Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.”The UAV command conducted the attack on the Mercer Street. Saeed Ara Jani plans and provides the training and equipment to conduct terror attacks in the region,” Gantz added in a briefing to ambassadors from member states of the U.N. Security Council.Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, described “as totally suspicious the reports of successive security incidents involving vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman” and warned “against any effort to create a vicious atmosphere to pursue certain political goals.”In a tweet, he reaffirmed Iran’s “strong commitment to regional stability & maritime security,” and said, “Iran stands ready to offer assistance in case of any maritime accidents.”The drone strike blasted a hole in the oil tanker’s bridge when the vessel was 159 kilometers from Al Duqm port in Oman, according to British and U.S. officials, who say they are coordinating a possible response to the assault. What form the retaliation will take or when is not clear.FILE – The Liberian-flagged oil tanker Mercer Street is seen off Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 2, 2016.In his interview with the BBC, Carter said, “We have got to restore deterrence because it is behavior like that which leads to escalation, and that could very easily lead to miscalculation and that would be very disastrous for all the peoples of the Gulf and the international community.”Carter’s remarks came as Iranian hijackers were accused of boarding another oil tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday before leaving the vessel 24 hours later, Britain’s Royal Navy reported.Britain is due to raise the issue of the Mercer Street incident formally at a U.N. Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday.  Raab tweeted that the U.K. has written to U.N. Security Council President T.S. Tirimurti, alongside Romania and Liberia, “to raise Iran’s attack on MV Mercer Street.” He added, “The Council must respond to Iran’s destabilizing actions and lack of respect for international law.”Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday said during a Cabinet meeting, “We know, at any rate, how to convey the message to Iran in our own way.”The U.S. State Department initially said the attack involved “one-way explosive UAVs,” otherwise known as suicide drones. Previously, shipping attacks in the Gulf have more often than not involved limpet mines, which can be placed on the hull of a target vessel. The switch in tactics is being seen by Western diplomats and Israeli defense experts as a major escalation in a shadow war between Iran and Israel.Israeli Defense Minister Gantz on Monday accused Iran of intensifying aggression in the Gulf. He told the Knesset, or parliament, that there are ”hundreds of Iranian UAVs in Iran, Yemen, Iraq and other countries.” He added, “We will act to remove any such threat.” 
 
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A Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she faced punishment if she returned to her country departed Japan Wednesday on a flight bound for Austria. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was scheduled to land in Vienna Wednesday afternoon. She is then expected to travel on to Poland, where the government has offered her a humanitarian visa. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted Tuesday on Facebook that he had spoken with Tsimanouskaya and that she should be able to live in Poland without obstacles. Polish authorities granted Tsimanouskaya a humanitarian visa to seek political asylum on Monday after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrives at the Polish embassy in Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 2, 2021. Tsimanouskaya told officials in Tokyo she feared she would not be safe in Belarus from the autocratic government of President Alexander Lukashenko.  “They made it clear that upon return home I would definitely face some form of punishment,” she told The Associated Press in a Tuesday videocall interview. “There were also thinly disguised hints that more would await me.”  Her departure from Tokyo comes days after she provoked backlash in state-run media in Belarus by criticizing how official were managing the Belarusian Olympians. On her Instagram account, Tsimanouskaya said she was put on the country’s 4×400 relay team even though she has never raced in the event.    The Belarus National Olympic Committee has been led for more than 25 years by Lukashenko and his son, Viktor.    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Lukashenko government was trying to force Tsimanouskaya to leave the Games “simply for exercising free speech.” Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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More than 500 firefighters struggled through the night to contain a large forest fire on the outskirts of Athens, which raced into residential areas Tuesday, forcing thousands to flee. It was the worst of 81 wildfires that broke out in Greece over the past 24 hours, amid one of the country’s most intense heatwaves in decades.Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said the fire north of Athens was “very dangerous,” and had been exacerbated by strong winds and tinder-dry conditions thanks to the heat that reached 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area.No severe injuries were reported, and authorities said several buildings had been damaged, but no detailed breakdown was available. The cause of the blaze was unclear.”We continue to fight hour by hour, with our top priority being to save human lives,” Hardalias said. “We will do so all night.””These are crucial hours,” Hardalias said. “Our country is undergoing one of the worst heatwaves of the past 40 years.”The wind dropped later Tuesday, and the regional governor for greater Athens, Giorgos Patoulis, said this could allow the fire to be tamed after water-dropping aircraft resume operations at first light Wednesday.”If the winds don’t grow, it can be brought under control by the early morning so the planes can provide the final solution,” he told state ERT TV.A firefighting plane drops water over a fire near holiday homes in Costa village in the Argolida region, in Southeastern Greece during a developing wild fire, July 20, 2015.The blaze sent a huge cloud of smoke over Athens, prompting multiple evacuations near Tatoi, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) to the north and forcing the partial closure of Greece’s main north-south highway. Residents left their homes in cars and on motorcycles, often clutching pets, heading toward the capital amid a blanket of smoke.One group stopped to help staff from a riding school push their horses into trucks to escape the flames.Fire crews went house to house to ensure that evacuation orders were carried out, and 315 people were escorted to safety after calling for help. Authorities said nobody was listed as missing, and Greek media said six people required treatment for breathing complaints.As the heat wave scorching the eastern Mediterranean intensified, temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in parts of the Greek capital. The extreme weather has fueled deadly wildfires in Turkey and blazes in Italy, Greece, Albania and across the region.Wildfires also raged in other parts of Greece, prompting evacuations of villages in Mani and Vassilitsa in the southern Peloponnese region, as well as on the islands of Evia and Kos, authorities said. A total 40 blazes were raging late Tuesday.The fires prompted Greek basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo to cancel celebrations planned in Athens for the NBA championship he won recently with the Milwaukee Bucks.”We hope there are no victims from these fires, and of course we will postpone today’s celebration,” Antetokounmpo wrote in a tweet.Earlier, authorities closed the Acropolis and other ancient sites during afternoon hours. The site, which is normally open in the summer from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., will have reduced hours through Friday, closing between midday and 5 p.m.A Ch-47D Chinook helicopter is watched by a paddleboarder as it fills up with water while firefighting near Lambiri Beach at Patras on Aug. 1, 2021.The extreme heat, described by authorities as the worst in Greece since 1987, has strained the national power supply and fueled the wildfires.The national grid operator said the power supply to part of the capital was endangered after part of the transmission system, damaged and threatened by the fires, was shut down.Seven water-dropping planes and nine helicopters were involved in the firefighting effort near Athens, including an aircraft leased from Russia. They ceased operations after dark for safety reasons.The Greek Fire Service maintained an alert for most of the country for Tuesday and Wednesday, while public and some private services shifted operating hours to allow for afternoon closures.Hardalias appealed to the public for high vigilance.”Because the heatwave will continue in coming days, please avoid any activity that could spark a fire,” he said.
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The United Nations accused the government of Iraq of the widespread torture of detainees held in the country’s detention centers. A U.N. report covers conditions in the centers from July 1, 2019 to April 30, 2021.Torture and ill treatment are prohibited under international law. Iraq ratified the international convention against Torture in 2011 and since has enacted national laws criminalizing torture.The problem is the government has not implemented the procedural safeguards to prevent torture, and so the practice continues throughout the country. That assessment in a report released Tuesday by the U.N. human rights office and the U.N. assistance mission for Iraq is based on interviews that the authors conducted with 235 people deprived of their liberty.FILE – In this July 18, 2017 file photo, suspected Islamic State members sit inside a small room in a prison south of Mosul, Iraq. In some cells in Iraq, Iran, Syria and other countries in the Middle…U.N. human rights spokeswoman Marta Hurtado says more than half of those interviewed provided accounts of having been tortured or ill-treated while in custody. She says some detainees described beatings by officers with metal pipes, or of being shocked with exposed electrical wires. One inmate, she says, spoke of having his handcuffs hooked on a chain and hung from the ceiling.“The report states that legal procedures designed to bring interrogations and detention under judicial control within 24 hours of the initial arrest are not respected; and access to a lawyer is systematically delayed until after suspects have been interrogated by the security forces,” Hurtado said.Hurtado said torture is used to extract confessions and access to a lawyer is systematically delayed until after suspects have been interrogated by security forces. She said the location of 17 official detention sites remains opaque.“The report also raises concerns that the authorities ignore complaints and signs of torture and says that the systems established to address official complaints appear to be neither fair nor effective,” Hurtado said. “The report also says that the limited accountability for such failures on the part of the authorities suggests acquiescence and tolerance of these practices.”The report calls on Iraqi authorities to put the nation’s anti-torture legal framework fully in line with international human rights law, particularly the United Nations Convention against Torture.Commenting on the report, U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet says the prevention of torture, and not just on paper, would contribute to peace and stability in the long term. Bachelet adds such an outcome is in the interest of the state as well as the victims. 
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Wildfires scorching some of Turkey’s most popular destinations have upended a nascent recovery in the country’s tourism sector hobbled for more than a year by the COVID-19 pandemic.Scenes of happy beachgoers flocking to coastal areas turned nightmarish as fires forced mass-evacuations of tourists and locals alike in cities such as Bodrum and Marmaris.Tuesday marked the seventh consecutive day Turkish firefighters battled the blazes, fueled by abnormally high summer temperatures and strong winds. The fires have been blamed for at least eight deaths and forced numerous residents, many of them farmers, to flee. 10,000 Flee Turkey Wildfires; Greece Power Grid Threatened At least 8 people have been killed in Turkey since Wednesday; EU sends firefighters Beyond physical destruction, the economic impact is already costly.“We are devastated,” said Huseyin Aydin of Bordum Tour, a travel agency that books boating excursions in the Mediterranean Sea. “All the routes for the boat tours have been canceled as of now, and they will also be canceled into next year because all the nature sightseeing parts of our tours are completely burned.”Aydin told VOA his business will have to shift to other tourist ventures or risk shutting completely.
 
Elsewhere in the country, things look less grim.Tourists visit the 150A.D Roman temple dedicated to Apollo the Greek and Roman god of music, harmony and light, in Antalya, southern Turkey, June 20, 2021In Istanbul, crowds of tourists can be seen strolling the streets after the Turkish government lifted almost all pandemic-related restrictions to boost economic activity and stimulate the country’s vital tourism sector.
 
“It’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience,” said Tania Nel, a resident of Qatar who has spent almost a month traveling Turkey.“It was a country that I could enter easily, with just a PCR [COVID test], and obtain a visa for online. I’ve always wanted to see Turkey and, with other countries being closed, it seemed like a very obvious choice,” she told VOA. “Things being comparatively cheap here also meant I could stay longer and see quite a lot of regions in the country.”Turkey sought to remain an international tourist destination throughout the pandemic, requiring only a negative COVID-19 test to enter the country and exempting foreigners from some restrictions, such as curfews and travel limitations within the country. Nel said ease of access drew her to Turkey.“I had originally planned to travel to South Africa in July to see my family, but they experienced a spike in cases and stricter restrictions, hence the decision to come to Turkey,” Nel said, who is originally from Cape Town, South Africa.Lagging recoveryTurkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism says incoming foreigners in June of this year barely topped 2 million, less than half the total recorded in June 2019 which saw over 5 million foreign visitors.That hits especially hard in Turkey, where tourism is a key contributor to the national economy. The Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation describes Turkey’s tourism economy as “one of Turkey’s most dynamic and fastest growing sectors,” accounting for more than two million jobs and more than 7% of total employment.Arriving tourists report receiving especially warm greetings by cash-strapped hospitality workers.“They welcomed all tourists like royalty,” Nel said.
 
Low tourism levels have capped the economic stimulation usually expected during the summer. Many businesses report continued and intense financial hardship.“We are in a really hard time economically at the moment,” said Turgay Karahan, who owns two gift shops in an area of Istanbul frequented by tourists.Foreign tourists visit Buyukada, the largest of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara, off Istanbul, Turkey, July 14, 2021. 
A lack of customers forced Karahan to let employees go and work longer hours for a fraction of pre-pandemic earnings.
 
“We’re working more but we’re also earning less. Most of the money we make is spent on taxes and rent. Therefore, as an employer I am in a very hard spot,” Karahan told VOA.Numerous cafes, restaurants, and bars in Istanbul and elsewhere have permanently closed since the pandemic first struck.  
 
Karahan spoke wistfully of the throngs of tourists that used to pack into his gift shops.“In the past, Turks felt like foreigners on this street because so many international tourists were here. Before the pandemic, you’d see tourists from England, Germany, France, Italy all crowding the streets in the summer. Nowadays, it’s not like this at all,” he said.  
 Lost earningsThe financial pain is also felt by Kuzey Yucehan, who owns a restaurant around the corner from Galata Tower, a top Istanbul tourist attraction.Staff at Kuzey Yucehan’s restaurant Art Smyrna are seen setting up freshly repainted tables to attract customers during an otherwise sluggish summer tourism season in Istanbul (VOA/ Salim Fayeq) 
“For months we were only operating for takeaway [orders], but the business that brought was not sustainable. Because of that, we have many problems with making ends meet and being profitable,” Yucehan told VOA, adding that many businesses have had to fend for themselves.
 
“Although in the media the government presented themselves as helpful and generous toward businesses in Turkey, we did not receive any financial relief as an independent business,” Yucehan said. “We hope that COVID passes and the world will get back to normal soon.”This report includes some information from Reuters.
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A court in Belarus convicted a journalist of insulting the president in messages in a deleted chat group and sentenced him to 1 1/2 years in prison, the Belarusian Association of Journalists said Monday. The verdict in the case against Siarhei Hardziyevich, 50, comes as part of a massive crackdown that Belarusian authorities have unleashed on independent media and human rights activists. Hardziyevich on Monday was found guilty of insulting the president and slandering police officers, according to the association. The court sentenced him to a prison term and a $1,600 fine. The charges against the journalist from Drahichyn, a city 300 kilometers (185 miles) southwest of Belarus’ capital of Minsk, were brought over messages in a chat group on the messaging app Viber which was deleted last year. Hardziyevich, who worked for a popular regional news outlet, The First Region, has maintained his innocence. His defense team demanded the charges be dropped due to a lack of evidence and because the crime was impossible to establish. “I have nothing to do with these crimes, I don’t consider myself guilty,” Hardziyevich said in his address to the court before the verdict. The Viasna human rights center declared Hardziyevich a political prisoner. Belarusian authorities have ramped up the pressure against non-governmental organizations and independent media in recent weeks, conducting more than 200 raids of offices and apartments of activists and journalists in July alone, according to Viasna.Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to continue what he called a “mopping-up operation” against civil society activists whom he has denounced as “bandits and foreign agents.”Lukashenko faced months of protests triggered by his being awarded a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that the opposition and the West saw as rigged. He responded to demonstrations with a massive crackdown that saw more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police.
A total of 29 Belarusian journalists remain in custody either awaiting trial or serving their sentences.
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France hopes to secure more than $350 million in humanitarian aid for Lebanon’s crisis-battered population at a donors’ conference it co-hosts with the United Nations Wednesday — marking the year anniversary of Beirut’s deadly port blast. International pressure is growing for Lebanon’s fractious parties to unify and push through reforms.  Roughly 40 representatives of international institutions and heads of state were expected at this video conference, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Jordan’s King Abdullah.    FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron attends a donor teleconference with other world leaders concerning the situation in Lebanon following the Beirut blast, in Fort de Bregancon in Bormes-les-Mimosas, France, Aug. 9, 2020.It marks the third international meeting Paris has hosted this past year to support ordinary Lebanese, struggling under deepening poverty and spiraling inflation and unemployment. The World Bank calls Lebanon’s political and financial crisis since 2019 the world’s worst since the mid-19th century.    Co-hosted by the U.N. Wednesday’s virtual talks come exactly a year after the massive explosion of fertilizer stocked at Beirut’s port, which killed more than 200 people, injured thousands and devastated big chunks of the capital.    International frustration is growing over Lebanon’s squabbling political parties. Lebanon’s new prime-minister-designate, billionaire businessman Najib Mikati, said he was unable to form a new government before the blast anniversary. His predecessor, Saad Hariri, gave up efforts to do so.    FILE – Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, speaks to journalists after his meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, July 26, 2021.Hasni Abidi, international relations professor at the University of Geneva, said France and other donor nations cannot invest in Lebanon in a sustainable way so long as there is no government willing to engage in real reforms demanded by the international community.   Apparently to ramp up pressure on Lebanon’s parties, the European Union announced it had adopted a legal framework for sanctioning individuals and entities seen as undermining the country’s rule of law and democracy.      Before the EU framework was announced, a European Union spokeswoman said it was too soon to talk about specifics in terms of sanctions.  Former colonial power France has played a leading role in mobilizing international backing for struggling Lebanese and in prodding the country’s politicians.FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron, center, visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug.6, 2020.French President Emmanuel Macron was the first foreign leader to visit Beirut after the 2020 blast. Days later, he held a first international funding conference — and another, this past June, to support Lebanon’s financially strapped army.    Some critics suggest France has little to show for its efforts thus far and should have imposed tough sanctions against Lebanon’s political elite early on. Others say it is up to Lebanon’s politicians to act. Otherwise, they say, there is little the international community can do.      Sources: AFP, Reuters, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, AP, ESSEC-French business school webinar.   
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A Belarusian activist was found dead in a park near his home in Kyiv early on Tuesday, a day after he was reported missing, Ukrainian police said. Vitaly Shishov, who led a Kyiv-based organization that helps Belarusians fleeing persecution, had been reported missing by his partner on Monday after not returning home from a run. Police said they had launched a criminal case for suspected murder but would investigate all possibilities including murder disguised as suicide. “Belarusian citizen Vitaly Shishov, who disappeared yesterday in Kyiv, was found hanged today in one of Kyiv’s parks, not far from his place of residence,” the police statement said. Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania have become havens for Belarusians during a crackdown by President Alexander Lukashenko following a disputed election last year. Shishov led the Belarusian House in Ukraine (BDU) group, which helps Belarusians find accommodation, jobs and legal advice, according to its website. The organization said on Monday it was not able to contact Shishov. It said Shishov had left his residence at 9 a.m. and was supposed to have returned an hour later. The Belarusian authorities have characterized anti-government protesters as criminals or violent revolutionaries backed by the West and described the actions of law enforcement agencies as adequate and necessary. 
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Huan Huan, a giant panda on loan to France, gave birth to twin cubs very early Monday, according to the Beauval zoo.  The twins, born around 1 a.m., are Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi’s second and third cubs, after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017. “The two babies are pink. They are perfectly healthy. They look big enough. They are magnificent,” said Rodolphe Delord, president of ZooParc de Beauval in Saint-Aignan, central France. WATCH: Using Pandas for DiplomacySorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 16 MB480p | 23 MB540p | 33 MB720p | 74 MB1080p | 134 MBOriginal | 725 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioPanda reproduction, in captivity or in the wild, is notoriously difficult. Experts say few pandas get in the mood or even know what to do when they do.  Further complicating matters, the window for conception is small since female pandas are in heat only once a year for about 24-48 hours. Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi — the star attractions at Beauval — thrilled zoo officials in March when they managed to make “contact,” as they put it, eight times in a weekend. Veterinarians also carried out an artificial insemination, just to be sure. Huan Huan’s first cub, Yuan Meng, now weighs more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and is to be sent this year to China, where there are an estimated 1,800 giant pandas living in the wild and another 500 in captivity. Huan Huan’s newborns will not be named for 100 days, with Peng Liyuan — the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping — set to choose what they will be called, the zoo said.  
 
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Every day sees more Afghan refugees reach Turkey after a grueling trek across Iran. As far as they’re concerned their journey is far from over — they want to get to the countries of the European Union — for them the Promised Land.
But it is a land that is unwilling to accept them and is making plans to deter them from arriving.
Around 2,000 Afghans a day are entering Turkey, and migration experts expect the numbers to surge as the Taliban seizes control of more of Afghanistan.
The Taliban is currently besieging three major cities in south and west Afghanistan to add to the rapid rural gains it has made in recent weeks in the wake of the decision by the Biden administration to withdraw US troops from the country. Almost all NATO troops will be gone by September. Few observers believe the Afghan government will be able to hold out and last week a Pentagon watchdog warned that the country’s government will likely face an “existential crisis.”
The Afghans making their way through Iran to Turkey are voting with their feet, fearful of what a Taliban future of strict Islamic rule will hold for them. Most arriving at the Turkish borders are single men, and many are uneducated, but hope to secure settlement in Europe and for their families to join them later, say migration groups.An Afghan migrant eats outside a bus terminal, as he and others struggle to find buses to take them to western Turkish cities, after crossing the Turkey-Iran border in April 11, 2018.Turkey the GatekeeperEuropean leaders are preparing for a new migration crisis and are negotiating another multi-year migration deal with Turkey to get Ankara to block Afghan and other asylum-seekers from heading their way. It would be a renewal of a five-year deal struck in 2016 that saw the EU pay Ankara billions of dollars to curb irregular migration towards Europe, improve the living conditions of refugees in Turkey, and foster legal migration through official resettlement schemes.
“The 2016 agreement had a significant impact on limiting the number of arrivals” in the EU, according to Daniele Albanese of Caritas Italiana, a non-profit and the charitable arm of the Italian Bishops Conference. “While nearly 861.630 people reached Greece in 2015, that number dropped to 36, 310 the following year,” she noted in a commentary for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, a think tank.
But she warns that a “political approach that does not take into consideration the needs of the refugee population deserving a better life is far from a long-term, durable solution.”Afghans wait inside the passport office in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 30, 2021.No repeat of 2015For now, though, European governments are focused on the short-terms and are in no mood to see a return to the open-doors migration policy of 2015, one that in its wake roiled the continent’s politics and fueled the rise of populist nationalist parties. “Post-U.S. Afghanistan poses a severe migration problem, and we expect a rising number of people attempting to flee the Taliban,” a senior EU diplomat told VOA.
Around a million asylum-seekers from the Mideast, most of them Syrians, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa arrived and settled in Europe in 2015-2016.
Asked last month at a press conference whether Germany should welcome Afghan refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the architect of the 2015 open-doors policy, replied: “We cannot solve all of these problems by taking everyone in.” She called instead for political negotiations so “people can live as peacefully as possible in the country.”
Greek authorities are reporting that Afghans now make up the largest share of asylum-seekers who manage to navigate the Aegean from Turkey. Austria last week announced it is to deploy additional soldiers to its borders with Slovenia and Hungary so as to increase the number of border guards by 40 percent. The country’s interior minister Karl Nehammer said at a news conference that EU migration policies have proven ineffective against irregular migrants, and he said Austrian immigration authorities have already apprehended 15,768 migrants attempting to cross illegally the Austrian border this year, compared to 21,700 for the whole of 2020.
“In Austria we have one of the biggest Afghan communities in the whole of Europe,” Nehammer said. “It cannot be the case that Austria and Germany have to solve the Afghanistan problem for the EU,” Nehammer added.
Despite the advance of the Taliban, European countries have been continuing with deportations of Afghan asylum-seekers — only Finland, Sweden and Norway have announced temporary suspensions of forced returns to Afghanistan.
Turkey is already hosting anywhere from an estimated 200,000 to 600,000 Afghans and – unlike the more than three million Syrian refugees living in Turkey – they have few legal rights of protection and no access to public services. Turkish opposition parties have been seizing on migration as an issue to try to outmaneuver President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and last month jumped on remarks by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz that Turkey is “a more suitable place” for Afghans than his or other western European countries.
On Sunday, Devlet Bahçeli, chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP, told the Türkgün newspaper “there should be a limit on asylum seekers from going and settling wherever they want without the control [of authorities].”“It’s understood that an influx of refugees will reach our borders in the risky and dangerous period ahead. We must be on the alert,” he added.  
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A record number of migrants has crossed the English Channel from France to the United Kingdom this year in small boats. The British government is seeking to deter the migrants by making irregular migration a criminal offense.The migrants come from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Most are fleeing conflict or poverty.At its narrowest point, the English Channel is 30 kilometers wide. The migrants usually travel in overloaded inflatable dinghies across the busiest shipping lane in the world. British and French intelligence services say the crossings are coordinated by networks of people smugglers, who charge about $3,000 per person.French police patrol the coastline to intercept migrants, but say the coastline is too vast to prevent all departures. Once inside British waters, the migrants must be taken ashore under international law.A man thought to be a migrant who made the crossing from France is escorted along a walkway past dinghies after disembarking from a British border force vessel in Dover, south east England, July 22, 2021.A record 430 people made the crossing in a single day last month. The total for 2021 so far stands at around 8,500, according to data from PA Media, formerly the Press Association, that was collated from government statistics. That number is higher than all of 2020, when 8,461 people made the crossing.Speaking in parliament last month, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the government would take action to stop the migration.“We’re seeing right now is effectively people trafficking, smugglers, criminal gangs exploiting our asylum system to bring in economic migrants and people that, quite frankly, are circumventing our legal migration routes, coming to our country illegally,” she told lawmakers last month.“This is an evolving situation. The numbers of migrants attempting these crossings from France have increased considerably,” she said.The spike in arrivals has embroiled Britain’s revered sea rescue charity, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), into the controversy. Critics accuse the charity of providing a “taxi service” to Britain. The RNLI has defended its actions.“When our lifeboats launch, we operate under international maritime law, which states we are permitted, and indeed obligated, to enter all waters regardless of territories for search and rescue purposes. And when it comes to rescuing those people attempting to cross the channel, we do not question why they got into trouble, who they are or where they come from. All we need to know is that they need our help,” RNLI chief executive Mark Dowie said in a statement last month.A group of people thought to be migrants crossing from France, come ashore aboard the local lifeboat at Dungeness, southern England, July 20, 2021.The government argues that the migrants should seek asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive, rather than traveling to Britain. Its proposed legislation would sentence migrants who enter Britain without permission up to four years in prison.Bridget Chapman of Kent Refugee Action Network, a charity that supports migrants arriving across the English Channel, said retribution won’t deter the migrants.“It flies in the face of international law, you know. The Geneva Convention states that people have a right to seek asylum, and it can be in a country of their choosing. It feels very deliberately punitive. It feels like saber rattling. It feels like a lot of tough talk to make people feel that the U.K. is not a welcoming place. The fact is that that’s not going to stop people from coming,” she told VOA.A committee of British lawmakers last week condemned the living conditions for newly arrived migrants in the port of Dover. During a visit to a migrant reception center, women with babies and very young children were seen sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor.Meanwhile, Britain has given France $75 million to beef up policing of the northern French coastline to try to intercept migrants, on top of the $39 million it gave last year.France has called for the European Union to conduct reconnaissance flights over the English Channel.
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Polish authorities on Monday granted a humanitarian visa to a Belarusian Olympic sprinter in Tokyo to seek political asylum in Poland after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.The runner, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, told officials in Tokyo she feared she would not be safe in Belarus from the autocratic government of President Alexander Lukashenko. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz confirmed late Monday on Twitter that the athlete had been granted the visa.An activist group said it had bought Tsimanouskaya a plane ticket for a Wednesday flight to Warsaw.The political drama unfolded after Tsimanouskaya criticized how officials were managing the Belarusian Olympians, provoking a backlash in state-run media back home, where the government often cracks down on critics.The Belarus National Olympic Committee has been led for more than 25 years by Lukashenko and his son, Viktor.On her Instagram account, Tsimanouskaya said she was put on the country’s 4×400 relay team even though she has never raced in the event.Belarusian officials apparently took Tsimanouskaya to the Tokyo airport but she refused to board a flight for Istanbul and instead approached police for help.”I was put under pressure, and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent,” the 24-year-old runner said in a filmed message posted on social media.Later, late Monday afternoon local time, she was taken to the Polish embassy in an unmarked silver van and stepped out with her official team luggage. Two women, one carrying the red and white flag considered the symbol of opposition in Belarus, came to the gates to support her.Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya is escorted by police officers at Haneda international airport in Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 1, 2021.Tsimanouskaya told a Reuters reporter via Telegram that the Belarusian head coach showed up at her room on Sunday at the athletes’ village and told her she had to return home.”The head coach came over to me and said there had been an order from above to remove me,” she wrote in the message. “At 5 (pm) they came my room and told me to pack and they took me to the airport.”But Tsimanouskaya refused to board and sought the protection of Japanese police at the airport.Belarus was widely condemned by Western governments in May when it diverted a passenger jet carrying an opposition activist and his girlfriend that was flying over the country and forced it to land. Given the reports in the Belarusian media about Tsimanouskaya’s complaints about the management of the country’s team, she said she feared for her safety if she returned home.”The campaign was quite serious and that was a clear signal that her life would be in danger in Belarus,” Alexander Opeikin, a spokesman for the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, told the Associated Press.Through the years, athletes from authoritarian nations have often sought political asylum in other countries while they were competing at the quadrennial summer Olympics or other global sporting events. It happened frequently during the Cold War but also at Olympic Games since then.(This report includes material from the Associated Press and Reuters.)  
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Rescue ships picked up more than 700 people trying to cross the Mediterranean in makeshift vessels this weekend, mainly off the coasts of Libya and Malta, a migrant aid group said Sunday.The latest figures came as United Nations migration officials repeated their calls for a fairer mechanism to share the responsibility of caring for them, rather than leaving it to the Mediterranean countries.SOS Mediterranee said that its vessel, the Ocean Viking, had carried out six operations in international waters since Saturday.  In the last intervention, it rescued 106 people off the Maltese coast after being alerted by German aid group Sea Watch, said the Marseille-based organization.”The youngest survivor rescued in this operation is just 3 months old,” SOS Mediterranee tweeted.Overnight Saturday to Sunday, the Ocean Viking joined vessels from Sea Watch and ResQship, another German group, to help 400 people in difficulty in the central Mediterranean, said the group.They were rescued from a vessel that was taking on water, in what a spokesman for the organization told AFP was a particularly perilous operation.Those who were rescued were shared out between the Ocean Viking and Sea-Watch3.Ocean Viking alone has 555 passengers on board from this weekend’s operations, including at least 28 women, two of whom are pregnant. The organization has yet to determine at which safe port they will be able to leave them.Libya remains one of the main departure points for tens of thousands of migrants hoping to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing, despite the continuing insecurity in the country. Most of them try to reach the Italian coast, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) away.Celine Schmitt, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ French operation, said last month there was an urgent need for an automatic system to share the new arrivals between countries, to ensure them a better reception, and not leave it to Mediterranean countries to assume sole responsibility.”If we look at the central Mediterranean, last year, there were fewer than 50,000 people who arrived,” she said.”It is totally manageable for the European population,” when you consider there are 82 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes, Schmitt said.International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Paul Dillon took a similar position last week.”By advocating for better migration management practices, better migration governance and greater solidarity from EU member states, we can come up with a clear, safe and humane approach to this issue that begins with saving lives at sea,” he said.The central Mediterranean crossing, between Libya and Italy or Malta, is by far the deadliest in the world, according to figures from the IOM.Of the 1,113 deaths recorded in the Mediterranean in the first half of this year, 930 of them were recorded there.Nevertheless, according to the latest IOM figures, increasing numbers of migrants have attempted the crossing this year.
 
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Britain will begin offering a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to 32 million Britons starting in early September, The Telegraph reported Sunday. The shots will be available in as many as 2,000 pharmacies with the goal of getting them into arms by early December.
 
The government has been preparing since at least June, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) called for a plan to offer the third shot to people 70 years old or older, care home residents and those who are vulnerable for health reasons.
 
At least 90% of British adults have received at least one shot, but that rate falls to 60% for those 18-30 years old, government figures show.  
 
To encourage younger adults to get vaccinated before colder weather prompts people to spend more time indoors, the Department of Health and Social Care said that restaurants, food delivery services and ride-hailing apps are offering discounts to persuade people to be vaccinated.
 
“The lifesaving vaccines not only protect you, your loved ones and your community, but they are helping to bring us back together by allowing you to get back to doing the things you’ve missed,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said, according to the Associated Press.
British Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, who tested positive for COVID-19 in December, said he may be suffering its effects after appearing unwell Sunday after finishing second at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
 
“I’ve been fighting all year really with staying healthy after what happened at the end of last year and it’s still, it’s a battle,” the 36-year-old said after seeing a doctor after the race. “I haven’t spoken to anyone about it but I think (the effects of COVID are) lingering. I remember the effects of when I had it and training has been different since then.”
 
In Berlin, thousands marched Sunday to protest pandemic restrictions and about 600 protesters were detained after clashes with police, the AP reported.Police officers scuffle with demonstrators during a protest against government measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, in Berlin, Germany Aug. 1, 2021.While Germany eased many of its restrictions in May, large gatherings remain banned. The number of new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, remain low but are rising. Germany, with a population of 83 million, reported 2,100 new cases Sunday, more than 500 above last Sunday’s number.
 
Since the pandemic began, it has reported 3.8 million cases and 92,000 deaths.  
 
More than 200 employees at two major hospitals in San Francisco, in the western U.S. state of California, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a report Saturday in The New York Times.  
 
Most of the staff members at Zuckerberg San Francisco General and the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center Hospital were fully vaccinated and most of them tested positive for the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus, according to the newspaper.  
 
Only two cases required hospitalization. The hospitalization rate would have been higher without vaccinations, said Dr. Lukejohn Day, Zuckerberg’s chief medical officer.  
 
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Sunday evening there are 198 million cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 4.2 million deaths globally. The U.S. leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases, with 35 million, and 613,174 deaths, according to the university.
 Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Kosovo’s president on Sunday awarded a medal to the late son of U.S. President Joe Biden for his service in building the country’s justice system after war ended more than two decades ago.Beau Biden worked in Kosovo after the 1998-1999 war, helping to train local prosecutors and judges for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The former Delaware attorney general died in 2015 of cancer aged 46.“Beau’s work in Kosovo was heartfelt; he fell in love with the country,” President Biden said in a pre-recorded video message played during the ceremony in Pristina on Sunday.“Beau could see what you could do, Beau could see even then the future that was possible for your proud country. The future that Kosovo had so long been denied,” Biden said.In 2016 Biden, then vice president, unveiled a memorial to his son in Kosovo. A road leading to Camp Bondsteel, home to the 700 American soldiers who still help maintain the fragile peace in Kosovo, was also named after Beau Biden.Naming streets after U.S. officials has become something of a tradition in Kosovo, whose population is mainly ethnic Albanian, and which considers the United States its savior for its support of a 1999 bombing campaign that deprived Serbia of control of Kosovo.Kosovo declared independence in 2008 with Western backing, but Serbia still refuses to recognize it and considers it part of its territory.“What the United States and the American people have done for our country, for our freedom, for our right to exist, goes beyond any partnership currently witnessed in the world. Mr. President, Kosovo is your home too,” said Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani while presenting the award. 
 
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After a slow start, the European Union has now overtaken the United States in vaccinating its citizens against COVID-19. Anti-vaccine resistance remains, including in France, where officials estimate more than 200,000 people joined demonstrations this weekend to protest a mandatory health pass.Brandishing banners proclaiming “freedom” and “pass of shame,” tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Paris and other French cities Saturday against government measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and the disease it causes, COVID-19.While many of the protests were peaceful, several police officers were wounded trying to keep order in Paris. In the southern city of Marseille, demonstrators destroyed a coronavirus testing tent, shouting “assassins” and “collaborators.”The demonstrations marked the third straight weekend of protests and were the biggest so far. Some protesters have worn yellow Stars of David similar to those Jews were forced to wear in the former Nazi Germany — a move slammed by Holocaust survivors. The protesters included members of the far left and far right, and those representing the yellow vest economic justice movement born a few years ago.“We’re protesting the government system that’s been in place for decades,” one protester told French radio, calling new coronavirus measures another example of bad government.Police detain a protester during a demonstration in Paris, France, July 31, 2021. Demonstrators gathered in several cities to protest against the COVID-19 pass, which grants vaccinated individuals greater ease of access to venues.The new policies aim to fight the sharply rising tide of infections, driven by the highly contagious delta variant. Among them: making COVID vaccines mandatory for health workers and requiring health passes showing people have been vaccinated or tested negative for the infection, to gain access to restaurants, movie theaters, trains and tourist venues.President Emmanuel Macron has said he respects the right to protest, but that vaccinations are an essential arm to fight the coronavirus — and that French also have responsibilities along with rights, and civic duties.Unvaccinated people now comprise about 85% of hospitalizations in France, and 78% of COVID-19 linked deaths. But some here are still skeptical or worried about the shot.While supporting the new health pass, conservative lawmaker Philippe Bas told French radio Sunday the government must strengthen public confidence.Like France, Italy has seen protests against vaccines and other measures to curb the pandemic. The public response, however, has been more positive elsewhere in Europe, including in Denmark and Spain.And despite demonstrations here, polls show the majority of French back the health pass. More than half are now fully vaccinated. Macron, who faces reelection next year, has also seen his approval rating rise in recent months over his handling of the pandemic.Some information for this report came from AFP, Reuters, Radio France, Europe 1, France 24, France Television & Le Monde.
 
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Thousands of Turkish firefighters are battling for a fifth day against raging fires that are threatening some of Turkey’s main tourist resorts. Six people have  already died in the fires.A child cries fire, fire, as a family drives through the night trying to escape the surrounding inferno in Turkey’s Marmaris region. The video has gone viral in Turkey.  
Firefighters backed by helicopters are battling raging fires across Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions, home to some of Europe’s most prominent tourist resorts. Record high temperatures and powerful dry winds are hampering their efforts. Authorities have issued evacuation orders for tourists in some resorts. One of the worst-affected areas is Turkey’s Bodrum resort. Bodrum resident Melis Birder spoke to VOA Sunday. “I feel terrible; we are under stress because it’s very hot here,” said Birder. “The one that started in Muscular on the airport road in Bodrum is still spreading; the others have been put down. As the wind is picking up, it’s getting more dangerous again. Some people are very stressed, very sad. On the other hand, I was hearing party music from the shore last night.” An aerial photo shows the destruction caused by wildfires near the Mediterranean coastal town of Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey, July 30, 2021.The fires are dealing a hammer blow to Turkey’s vital tourism industry, still trying to recover from losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many farmers, too, have been devastated by the fires. This farmer, who didn’t want to be identified, in Turkey’s Manavgat region, is traumatized by the experience.    He says, “I don’t care if it’s a car or house burned but look at these animals. They lost their lives; they are my life, these were my beauties, these were my hope,” he adds, “but a calf was born in all this chaos. I took it from the fire. My children wrapped them in their arms. But its mother died.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saturday in a 30-vehicle convoy, visited some of the worst-hit resorts. He declared the region a disaster zone, promising compensation for those who have suffered losses. Authorities are investigating whether some of the more than 100 fires could be arson, and Erdogan gave a chilling warning to any perpetrator. He says, “If you rip our heart out, I swear, we will rip your heart out; if we find such a connection — there are already some indications — we will do whatever it takes.”   The government is facing growing criticism that the country’s fleet of firefighting planes are out of action, relying instead on three rented Russian planes. Erdogan said that more planes had arrived, and more were on the way, from neighboring Ukraine, Russia, and Azerbaijan. Authorities say that most of the more than 100 fires are under control. But some resorts remain under threat, and with temperatures forecast to soar to new record levels in coming days, the fight appears far from over.     
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A protest about an armed attack that killed seven members of a Kurdish family was held Saturday in the Turkish city of Van in the country’s central Konya province. Relatives of the slain family say the attack Friday was racially motivated.”This was an entirely racist attack,” Abdurrahman Karabulut, the family’s lawyer, told Arti TV.Karabulut and the pro-Kurdish opposition party said the family had been previously targeted for being Kurdish. Gunmen attacked the family in May and the family was worried about being attacked again.Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said calling the attack a racist crime was “a provocation.”The Associated Press reports several people were arrested after the May attack and two suspects remain in custody.Turkish officials say the attack was the result of a lengthy feud between two families.The other family involved in the skirmishes is not Kurdish.VOA Kurdish Service’s Van, Turkey-based stringer Arif Aslan said after Saturday’s protest, police began attacking demonstrators.Aslan told VOA that police attacked him and prevented him from taking any footage of the clashes. The police, Aslan said, told him that his VOA credentials were not acceptable, and Van’s public prosecutor wanted Aslan arrested.By that time, however, Aslan’s lawyer was on the scene and told the police that they did not have the right to obstruct journalists from doing their jobs.  Aslan said he was held on the street for an hour but was not arrested.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 
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The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said.The department said 80% of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four U.S. attorney offices in New York were breached. All told, the Justice Department said, in 27 U.S. attorney offices at least one employee’s email account was compromised during the hacking campaign.The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that it believes the accounts were compromised from May 7 to Dec. 27, 2020. Such a timeframe is notable because the SolarWinds campaign, which infiltrated dozens of private-sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine U.S. government agencies, was first discovered and publicized in mid-December.The Biden administration in April announced sanctions, including the expulsion of Russian diplomats, in response to the SolarWinds hack and Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Russia has denied wrongdoing.Jennifer Rodgers, a lecturer at Columbia Law School, said office emails frequently contained all sorts of sensitive information, including case strategy discussions and names of confidential informants, when she was a federal prosecutor in New York.”I don’t remember ever having someone bring me a document instead of emailing it to me because of security concerns,” she said, noting exceptions for classified materials.The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts confirmed in January that it was also breached, giving the SolarWinds hackers another entry point to steal confidential information like trade secrets, espionage targets, whistleblower reports and arrest warrants.The list of affected offices includes several large and high-profile ones like those in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and the Eastern District of Virginia.The Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, where large numbers of staff were hit, handle some of the most prominent prosecutions in the country.”New York is the financial center of the world and those districts are particularly well known for investigating and prosecuting white-collar crimes and other cases, including investigating people close to the former president,” said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School and a former prosecutor in the Southern District.The department said all victims had been notified and it is working to mitigate “operational, security and privacy risks” caused by the hack. The Justice Department said in January that it had no indication that any classified systems were affected.The Justice Department did not provide additional detail about what kind of information was taken and what impact such a hack may have on ongoing cases. Members of Congress have expressed frustration with the Biden administration for not sharing more information about the impact of the SolarWinds campaign.The Associated Press previously reported that SolarWinds hackers had gained access to email accounts belonging to the then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff, whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries. 
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Authorities said Saturday that 10 suspects had been detained in the killing of seven people from an ethnic Kurdish family in Turkey’s central Konya province.The members of the Dedeoglu family were killed in a brutal gun attack Friday. Officials said they had not yet apprehended the gunman. A statement from the Konya prosecutor’s office said initial evidence pointed to an ongoing fight between two families who lived in the same area.But the family’s lawyer and the pro-Kurdish opposition party said the killings were ethnically motivated. After an attack in May, one member of the family — who was among Friday’s victims — told reporters that they were being harassed and attacked for being Kurdish.Lawyer Abdurrahman Karabulut said family members had worried they would be attacked again.Years of frictionThe prosecutor’s office said in a statement that enmity between the two families dated to 2010. Two fights in 2021 led to investigations; two people remain in custody because of those probes, but other suspects were released. The statement rejected the claim of a racially motivated attack.There were few details given about those arrested, but media reports said the other family was not Kurdish.The co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the ethnic Kurdish family members were killed because of hate speech and linked it to a rise in what he called racist attacks. Mithat Sancar accused the government of targeting the HDP and Kurds in general.Media reports said the family’s house was set on fire after the attack.Turkey has been fighting a Kurdish insurgency since 1984 and the conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including civilians targeted by car bombs in 2016 and 2017 that were blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The decadeslong conflict has also included discriminatory state policies and an ethnically charged atmosphere. Kurds are Turkey’s second-largest ethnic group.Interior minister Suleyman Soylu said allegations that the killings were ethnically motivated were a provocation against the country’s unity.
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Panicked tourists in Turkey hurried to the seashore to wait for rescue boats Saturday after being told to evacuate some hotels in the Aegean resort of Bodrum because of the dangers posed by nearby wildfires, Turkish media reported.Coast guard units were leading the operation and authorities asked private boats and yachts to assist in evacuation efforts from the sea as new wildfires erupted. Video showed plumes of smoke and fire enveloping a hill close to the seashore.The death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate.The minister of agriculture and forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli, said Saturday that 91 of the 101 fires that broke out amid strong winds and scorching heat had been brought under control. Neighborhoods affected by fire in five provinces were declared disaster zones by Turkey’s emergency and disaster authority.Government assistancePresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan inspected some damage Saturday from a helicopter.Speaking from the town of Manavgat, Erdogan announced that the Turkish government would cover the rents for people affected by fire and rebuild their homes. He said taxes, social security and credit payments would be postponed for those affected and small businesses would be offered credit with zero interest.”We cannot do anything beyond wishing the mercy of God for the lives we have lost, but we can replace everything that was burned,” he said.A man watches wildfires in Kacarlar village near the Mediterranean coastal town of Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey, July 31, 2021.Erdogan said the number of planes fighting the fires had been increased from six to 13, including planes from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, and that thousands of Turkish personnel, as well as dozens of helicopters and drones, were assisting the firefighting efforts.At least five people have died from the fires in Manavgat and one died in Marmaris. Both towns are Mediterranean tourist destinations. Tourism is an important source of revenue for Turkey, and business owners were hoping this summer would be much better than last year, when pandemic travel restrictions caused tourism to plummet.Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 400 people affected by the fires in Manavgat were treated at hospitals and released, while 10 others were still hospitalized for fire injuries. In Marmaris, 159 people were treated at a hospital and one person was still undergoing treatment for burns.In southern Hatay province, flames jumped into populated areas but later apparently were brought under control.Common occurrencesWildfires are common in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions during the arid summer months. Turkey has blamed some previous forest fires on arson or outlawed Kurdish militants. Erdogan said Saturday that authorities were investigating the possibility of “sabotage” causing fires.Meanwhile, a heat wave across southern Europe, fed by hot air from Africa, has led to wildfires across the Mediterranean.Firefighters on the Italian island of Sicily battled dozens of blazes Saturday fueled by high temperatures, prompting the region’s governor to request assistance from Rome. Some 150 people trapped in two seaside areas in the city of Catania were evacuated late Friday by sea, where they were picked up by rubber dinghies and transferred to Coast Guard boats.Temperatures in Greece and nearby countries in southeast Europe are expected to climb to 42 degrees Celsius (more than 107 Fahrenheit) Monday in many cities and towns.
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