Emma Gaya winces with pain as the nurse at her local clinic inserts a swab deep into her nose.Gaya had been suffering from a fever and fears she may have been infected with the coronavirus. Her hometown of Sant Sadurni d’Anoia is one of several in Spain’s northeast Catalonia region to see a rise in infections.The public health clinic is conducting around 25 tests each day and has detected a dozen cases in the past two weeks, a rate considered high by epidemiologists.“It pains me that we could go right back where we started,” Gaya said, fearing she may pass the virus on to her 70-year-old mother. “I think we had done well. Now, I don’t know if we are doing it well.”A healthcare worker uses a swab to collect a sample from a man testing for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 at a primary health care center in Barcelona on Aug. 3, 2020.Following the rise in infections that began more than two weeks ago, Catalonia’s semi-autonomous government reimposed restrictions on some public gatherings. Those measures are slowly being eased, as authorities say infection rates are falling again.That has not stopped several European states from imposing travel restrictions. Britain is enforcing a 14-day quarantine on all people returning from Spain, a painful blow to the already battered Spanish economy. Tourism makes up 12% of Spain’s GDP, and some 18 million Britons visited the country last year.Spain is not alone. Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany are among European nations seeing an uptick in infection rates, as fears grow of a second wave of infections.A sign reading “wearing a mask is mandatory” is seen in a street amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Antwerp, Belgium, July 27, 2020.The city of Antwerp is at the center of Belgium’s outbreak, accounting for roughly half of all new cases. Local officials say the government lifted the nationwide lockdown too soon in May, ignoring localized hot spots like Antwerp.“If you don’t respect physical distancing, this infection spreads around very easily,” said Pierre Van Damme, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Antwerp.“And then again, it (requires) major measures to start controlling it again.”Such measures have been reimposed in three cities in northern Britain, where members of different households are banned from gathering indoors. The government said Friday there are an estimated 4,900 new infections every day across the country.It is vital that governments take swift action to contain these outbreaks, Dr. Peter Drobac of the University of Oxford told VOA on Monday. “If countries are responding, slowing down their reopening, making targeted changes to slow the spread of the virus, hopefully we can keep things in check before it escapes onto that exponential growth pathway.”Customers eat at restaurant next to signs indicating discounts off food, in central London, Aug. 3, 2020.A wider easing of lockdown measures across Britain has been put on hold, with theaters, casinos and bowling alleys among businesses forced to remain closed.“We’re going to have to make difficult choices as societies about the things we value the most,” Drobac said. “If, for example, our priority is to get our kids back in school in September, it may mean that we really don’t want to have people in pubs and indoor restaurants right now.”Germany has also seen an uptick in infections. In Berlin, around 20,000 people gathered Saturday to protest lockdown measures. Authorities are prosecuting the protesting organizers for breaking hygiene and social distancing rules.Meanwhile in some parts of Europe, including Greece and Italy, infection rates remain low, and tourists are returning.“The coronavirus is not something that greatly concerns us,” said Athens resident Thanassis Yanellis, as he prepared to board a ferry at the Port of Piraeus on Saturday bound for the Greek island of Aegina. “We mostly look forward to relaxing and resting.”
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Irish politician and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume has died at 83, his family said Monday.Hume is best known for fashioning an agreement to end violence in his native Northern Ireland. A Catholic leader of the moderate Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) of Northern Ireland, Hume shared the 1998 Nobel with David Trimble, the first minister of Northern Ireland at the time, for their roles securing the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.The agreement ended three decades of violence that left at least 3,500 people dead.Hume was born in 1937 in Northern Ireland’s second city, Derry, or Londonderry to Irish nationalists and British unionists, respectively. Before his political career, he trained for the priesthood and was an advocate of nonviolence throughout his life.Hume saw the decline of the nationalist movement in Northern Ireland and pushed for self-government for the British-ruled province, with input from all parties. He had hoped eventually to achieve a union with the Irish Republic. Though he believed in equal representation in what was then a Protestant-ruled state, he condemned the Irish Republican Army (IRA)’s violent actions.“Ireland is not a romantic dream. It is not a flag. It is 4.5 million people divided into two powerful traditions,” Hume said. “The solution will be found not on the basis of victory for either, but on the basis of agreement and a partnership between both. The real division of Ireland is not a line drawn on the map but in the minds and hearts of its people.”Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson extended his condolences to Hume’s family on Monday, calling the late Nobelist a “political giant.”John Hume was quite simply a political giant. He stood proudly in the tradition that was totally opposed to violence and committed to pursuing his objectives by exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 3, 2020Hume announced his complete retirement from politics on Feb. 4, 2004. His death Monday came after years of ill health, his family acknowledged. 
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Pipe by precious pipe, the organ that once thundered through Notre Dame Cathedral is being taken apart after last year’s devastating fire.The mammoth task of dismantling, cleaning and re-assembling France’s largest musical instrument started Monday and is expected to last nearly four years. It will take six months just to tune the organ, and its music isn’t expected to resound again through the medieval Paris monument until 2024, according to the state agency overseeing Notre Dame’s restoration.Amazingly, the 8,000-pipe organ survived the April 2019 fire that consumed the cathedral’s roof and toppled its spire. But the blaze coated the instrument in toxic lead dust that must now be painstakingly removed.And while the organ didn’t burn, it did suffer damage from a record heatwave last summer and has been affected by other temperature variations it’s been exposed to since the 12th-century cathedral lost its roof, the agency said.Experts started removing the organ’s keyboards Monday and will then take out its pipes in a dismantling process that will last through the end of this year, according to the restoration agency. The pieces will be placed in special containers inside the huge cathedral, where the cleaning and restoration will take place.The general who leads the agency said the organ, which dates from 1733, will next play again on April 16, 2024, marking five years since the fire.President Emmanuel Macron hopes the cathedral can reopen in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. But it’s taken more than a year to clear out dangerous lead residue and scaffolding that had been in place before the fire for a previous renovation effort, and reconstruction of the landmark has yet to begin. 
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Italian Firefighters, civil protection volunteers, and Alpine troops are working around the clock in trying to put out the fires that have engulfed the hundreds of hectares of woodland around the city of L’Aquila in the eastern region of Abruzzo. The fires were still burning for the third day Sunday, after the area was set ablaze by an act of arson. L’Aquila’s Mayor posted a statement on his Facebook page, saying that four Canadair aircraft, three helicopters and more than 150 people were participating in an operation to put the flames under control. Firefighters have also been using drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras to locate the origin of the fires. 
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Just two years after part of Genoa’s Morandi bridge collapsed killing 43 people, a new structure opens in its place Monday, an achievement in stark contrast to stalled infrastructure projects elsewhere in Italy.
 
The new kilometer-long bridge, designed by star architect Renzo Piano, replaces the old motorway viaduct that broke apart in the port city Aug. 14, 2018, in one of Italy’s worst civil disasters in decades.
 
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who will attend the inauguration of the new Genova-San Giorgio viaduct said it would be a “symbol of a new Italy rising up again.”
 
The accident laid bare years of mismanagement and poor maintenance and set off an acrimonious battle between the government and Atlantia’s Autostrade per l’Italia, the private concession holder controlled by the powerful Benetton family that ran the bridge.
 
Several former and current executives of Autostrade and transport ministry officials have been placed under investigation by prosecutors and, after months of wrangling, Atlantia is set to lose control of its lucrative subsidiary.
 
For the mayor of Genoa and state-appointed commissioner for bridge reconstruction, Marco Bucci, the case is both an example of decades-long failures in Italy’s transport infrastructure and a demonstration of what the country is capable of accomplishing.
 
“There’s a feeling of both regret for what happened and pride in the work that’s been done,” he told Reuters. “We’ve worked and shown Italian excellence.”
 
For years, Italy’s economy has suffocated under a mix of poor governance made worse by corruption and a thicket of vested interests and bureaucracy that have stifled innovation and fostered the kind of neglect that led to the bridge disaster.
 
Genoa itself, surrounded by rugged hills that constrain road transport, has seen a motorway bypass project held up for decades.
 
With the coronavirus crisis still unfolding and billions of euros set to come to Italy from Europe’s newly agreed recovery fund, addressing such failures has gained a new urgency.
 
As well as the shocking human toll, the collapse of the Morandi bridge dealt a severe economic blow to Genoa, costing the city an estimated 6 million euros ($7.06 million) a day in lost revenues and additional costs, Bucci said, with freight traffic interrupted for months.
 
Under heavy pressure to address the neglect that caused the disaster, the government pushed through an emergency decree to sweep aside red tape.
 
Between demolishing the remainder of the old structure in February 2019 to opening the new bridge 18 months later, the speed of the project has been breakneck in a country with crumbling roads and tunnels and development plans gathering dust.
 
While the circumstances behind the bridge collapse were unique, much rides on repeating that momentum elsewhere.
 
Trust and clear project goals, two things that have often been lacking in big infrastructure projects, were vital, said Roberto Carpaneto, head of RINA Consulting, who worked with the construction consortium led by Italian infrastructure groups Webuild and Fincantieri.
 
“Being able to say what was going to happen, when and why allowed us to build this relation of trust,” he said.   
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Protesters took to the street in cities across Russia on Saturday in support of jailed Khabarovsk former governor Sergei Furgal.Russian federal police detained protesters in the cities of Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Moscow.The demonstrations come as thousands of people marched in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk for the fourth weekend Saturday, angered by the arrest of the region’s popular governor and his replacement with a Kremlin favorite.The situation in the Khabarovsk region has become a problem for the Kremlin as demonstrations in support of protesters there are spreading elsewhere in the country.Furgal, 50, a medical doctor by training, was arrested by Russian federal law enforcement in early July on charges related to multiple murders in 2004 and 2005. He was flown to Moscow, where he was ordered jailed for two months and is being held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced Furgal with a young State Duma deputy, Mikhail Degtiarev, with no ties to the region, to serve as acting governor of the Khabarovsk region.Many people in Khabarovsk believe the charges leveled against Furgal, and his replacement last week, are politically motivated. Furgal was elected in 2018, defeating a candidate from Putin’s party, United Russia.Braving the heavy rain beneath umbrellas Saturday, protesters were chanting “Freedom!” and “Putin resign!” outside a government building, while a banner read “Russia without Putin!” At times protesters also chanted “We came here of our own will.”Many in Khabarovsk, a city on the border with China, see the charges against Furgal as unsubstantiated and politically motivated. They are demanding that his trial take place in his home city, not Moscow.Protests in the city, about 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow, erupted July 11. Since then, protesters have been demanding the release of Furgal and an open and fair trial for him. 
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A former Spanish prime minister once described the rock of Gibraltar, which Spain ceded to Britain in 1713, as a stone in the shoe of Anglo-Spanish relations. But Gibraltar currently isn’t the only source of Spanish irritation with the British.Last week’s abrupt decision by London to require Britons returning from vacation in Spain to quarantine for 14 days has angered a Spanish government desperate to salvage something from the wrecked summer tourism season. And it augurs badly for Britain’s ongoing, fraught negotiations with the European Union for a post-Brexit free-trade deal.The two governments have been at loggerheads since Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his advisers abruptly reintroduced the quarantine measures six days ago — to howls of protests not only from the Spanish government but also from Britain’s struggling airlines and Spanish hoteliers trying to stave off bankruptcy.Johnson’s official spokesman warned “no travel is risk-free during this pandemic.” Since then, Luxembourg has been added to Britain’s list of risky countries to visit.The Spanish government has been lobbying Downing Street to change its mind, pointing out that large parts of Spain, including the tourist hotspots of the Canary and Balearic Islands, are safer than Britain and have much lower coronavirus infection rates.In an interview last week with the Telecinco TV network, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his government was “talking with British authorities to try to get them to reconsider.” He said Britain had made an error by lumping all of Spain together and not taking a more clinical and sophisticated regional approach.He noted nearly 65 percent of Spain’s new cases are occurring in two regions — Catalonia in the northeast and neighboring Aragón. Britain’s quarantine requirement is “not well adjusted” to the epidemiological situation, he said. The Spanish point out that other European countries, notably France and Germany, have only advised their citizens against visiting Catalonia.Under relentless pressure from Madrid, the British government says it will review in 10 days’ time the quarantine requirement, which has prompted tens of thousands of would-be vacationers to cancel their travel plans. Low-cost airlines have halted flights to Spain. The review gives some hope to Spain that Britain may reverse its decision.But Britain’s quarantine decision is prompting a fierce backlash on the Iberian Peninsula that risks significant impact on Brexit talks.Spanish ministers are fuming. They were given no warning by London. The Spanish see the move as a stab in the back. Britons account for more than a fifth of the 80 million tourists who visit Spain in average every year. Nearly half a million Britons own vacation homes in Spain. The Spanish tourism association has offered to pay for British travelers to take virus tests in Spain.The dispute is threatening to reignite tensions between the two countries over the fate of Gibraltar, analysts say. Spanish politicians, goaded by the country’s tabloid press, are warning that they won’t do Britain any favors in the deadlocked negotiations over Britain’s relationship with the EU. A key stumbling block in the negotiations is over fishing rights in Britain’s waters.Gibraltar could well be sued to further complicate Brexit negotiations. The current government in Madrid has dropped pushing Spain’s sovereignty claim to Gibraltar, but it might revive it under pressure from Spain’s parliament.Gibraltar is desperate to ensure it will be able to benefit from a free-trade pact, if one is ever concluded, between Britain and the EU. Spain could wield a veto over that happening, shutting Gibraltar out of any easy relationship with the rest of the EU. Spain’s EU Affairs Minister Juan Gonzalez-Barba warned last month, before the current spat, that talks over Gibraltar’s future relationship with Spain and the EU “will not be easy.”And he hinted Spain could revive sovereignty ambitions. Ninety-six percent of Gibraltar’s voters opposed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.Spain’s Iberian neighbor, Portugal, also is in dispute with Britain. Portugal was not included on Britain’s safe-last of countries, which was first published last month. The country’s foreign ministry blasted the exclusion, noting that 28 times more people had died from COVID-19 in Britain than in Portugal. An infuriated António Costa, the prime minister, tweeted a graph illustrating it was safer in the tourist hotspot the Algarve, favored by British sun-seekers, than it was in Britain.While Portugal has enjoyed centuries of good relations with Britain, Anglo-Spanish relations have been more uneasy, stretching back to Tudor times when Henry VIII offended Spain by ditching and humiliating his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. British piracy during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the “Spain Main” off the coastline of the Americas and in the Caribbean Sea set the scene for Spain’s bid to invade England. But the Spanish Armada was defeated by legendary English seadogs like Sir Francis Drake.   
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Thousands of people marched in the Russian far eastern city of Khabarovsk on Saturday for a fourth consecutive weekend in protest at President Vladimir Putin’s handling of a local political crisis.Residents of Khabarovsk, around 3,800 miles (6,110 km) and seven time zones east of Moscow, are unhappy about the July 9 detention of Sergei Furgal, the wider region’s popular governor, who was arrested on murder charges he denies.His detention, which his supporters say was politically motivated, has triggered weeks of street protests, creating a headache for the Kremlin, which is trying to tackle a sharp drop in real incomes as a result of the coronavirus outbreak and keep a lid on unrest as the economy stutters.Sheltering from sporadic rain beneath umbrellas, protesters chanted “Freedom!”One banner read “Russia without Putin” while protesters chanted “Putin resign!” outside a government building.City authorities estimated around 3,500 people had taken part in the march. Some local media put the number above 10,000, but said the crowds were smaller than those of previous weeks.The protests have highlighted anger among some in the far east over what they see as policies emanating from detached Moscow-based authorities who have neglected them for years.”The government doesn’t think of us as people. We’re scum to them,” one female pensioner protester told Reuters.”We live at the edge of the world. This is the richest country … but we live in poverty and we pensioners have to work.”Supporters of Furgal, who is a member of the nationalist LDPR party, say he is being punished for defeating a candidate from the ruling pro-Putin United Russia party in 2018. The Kremlin says Furgal has serious charges to answer.Sustained demonstrations are unusual for Russia’s regions, as is a lack of response from the authorities to break them up.
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Two thirds of British businesses say they are now “fully operational” after the coronavirus lockdown, up from half in June, according to a survey on Sunday.A further 21 percent of the firms, polled in the first half of July by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said they were partly operational with some premises still closed.”With businesses gradually reopening, this month’s data seems to indicate a turning point for the economy,” said Alpesh Paleja, an economist for CBI, one of Britain’s main business lobby groups.But many firms, especially those in consumer-facing sectors, remained in “acute financial distress,” he added.Britain’s lockdown has been slowly lifting since May, with the last major change on July 4, when hotels, pubs and restaurants were allowed to reopen.However, on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was postponing further relaxation, which would have helped some arts and entertainment venues, due to rising cases.Businesses on average said they were operating at 85 percent of usual capacity due to social distancing, compared with 72 percent when a stricter rule generally requiring two meters of distance was in force.Lack of demand from customers continued to be businesses’ most common challenge to resuming normal operations, the CBI said. More than two thirds of firms named it as a barrier to normal operations, down slightly from three quarters in June.The Bank of England is due to set out new quarterly forecasts on Thursday, as different sectors of the economy recover at different rates from the unprecedented economic damage.Whether the main barrier to growth is lack of consumer demand, or businesses’ difficulties meeting it, will be key to the central bank’s decisions on stimulus later this year.  
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Germany’s defense ministry officially disbanded a company of its Special Forces Command (KSK) on Saturday, following reports that it had been exposed to far-right and neo-Nazi ideology.The move showed how deeply rooted right-wing extremism could be within the German army, some experts said.“The announcement basically acknowledges for the first time that it is not just individual cases in which soldiers show up as right-wing extremists, but that there are right-wing extremist networks in the German Federal Armed Forces,” said Fabian Virchow, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf and director of the Research Unit on Right Wing Extremism.“It shows that this danger has been systematically underestimated in the past by political and military leaders,” Virchow told VOA.German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer made the initial announcement of disbanding the KSK’s 2nd Company July 1 after an investigation into allegations of right-wing activity.Kramp-Karrenbauer said then that the investigation had revealed the KSK was building a “wall of secrecy” around itself with a “toxic leadership culture.”FILE – German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer arrives at a news conference on German armed forces Bundeswehr Special Forces Command (KSK) in Berlin, July 1, 2020.The defense ministry told VOA in a statement that it was doing its best to prevent far-right extremists from penetrating the German armed forces, or Bundeswehr, and to remove them once they have been identified.“Extremism of any kind, whether right wing, left wing or Islamist, has no place in the Bundeswehr, with its more than 250,000 soldiers, civil servants and civilian workers,” a defense ministry spokesman told VOA.He said the country’s Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) was working on about 600 suspected cases of right-wing extremism, including 20 suspected cases pertaining to the KSK.Reform callsDuring the July 1 announcement, Kramp-Karrenbauer said that the analysis of the KSK far-right incidents concluded that the unit must be changed from “the inside out” and that it must be better reintegrated into the Bundeswehr.”We will give the KSK time to press the reset button,” she added, giving the unit an October deadline to make reforms or be dismantled.Her call for reform came a few weeks after a whistleblower within the KSK addressed a 12-page letter to her. The whistleblower alleged that right-wing extremism within the unit was known internally and “collectively ignored or even tolerated.”In January, the MAD counterintelligence unit reportedly said about 500 soldiers in the military were under investigation on suspicion of right-wing extremism.In March, MAD said the number of suspected cases of extremism within the army had risen significantly in 2019, in its first report on the issue.KSK operationsThe KSK was established in 1996 to focus on special operations, including counterterrorism, hostage rescue and intelligence gathering. It currently numbers around 1,100.Its well-equipped members have reportedly served in numerous operations in Europe and elsewhere, including Afghanistan, Mali, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.The KSK is known to be the most secret, elite unit of the German army, with its operations very rarely revealed to the public.According to Virchow of the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, the secrecy makes it hard to know if it is worth having such a unit, adding that “it is unlikely that the KSK will be disbanded as a whole.”Before the KSK, there were several special units within German law enforcement, including a special police unit called GSG 9, and the military, including the navy’s Kampfschwimmer. However, the forces’ operations remained limited, with no major international operations. KSK, on the other hand, has been involved in overseas operations as well.Some experts charge that the KSK’s previous involvement in key international operations means the unit will likely continue to operate in the future, regardless of threats regarding its disbandment.“If Germany … will continue to take part in the U.N. or NATO missions that involve actual fighting, you need a special forces unit,” Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project in Berlin, told VOA.“Disbanding the whole KSK would mean that Germany’s ability to partake in international missions is severely hampered, because you just cannot be in Mali without the KSK,” Schindler added.ConscriptionIn addition to measures to reform the KSK, German officials in recent months have also debated whether to bring back compulsory military service as a way to combat right-wing extremism in the German army ranks.One of the idea’s supporters, Eva Högl, the German parliament’s Bundeswehr overseer, argues that conscription could make it much harder for far-right extremists to establish a base of influence in the army.“It would do the army good if a large part of society does its service for a while,” Högl told newspapers of the Funke Media Group last month.FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin, July 15, 2020.However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Kramp-Karrenbauer are not in favor of reintroducing conscription to the army.Germany suspended conscription in 2011, but it still has volunteer service alongside its professional army members.Kramp-Karrenbauer last Thursday announced that the German army would launch a new volunteer scheme for the army with the motto of “Your year for Germany” in April 2021. The program reportedly will focus on homeland protection.
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Working as a reporter and deputy editor for the Hungarian publication Index was a pinnacle in Szabolcs Panyi’s career as a journalist.From 2013 to 2018, Panyi covered Hungarian politics, uncovered corruption scandals and won numerous awards for his work. People would recognize him on the streets or at protests, shaking his hand. He even saw a government official on TV reading a printout of one of his stories.   “That was the influence Index had,” he told VOA. “Both personally and professionally, it was one of the best parts of my life.”During his time at the news website, Panyi said he never received external pressure that influenced his reporting. But rumors lingered about a “set date” for when the publication would be bought out by a pro-government businessman.”We knew that it was just too popular and powerful to be simply shut down in a very obvious manner,” said Panyi, who now reports for Direkt36, a nonprofit investigative journalism center in Hungary. “So, the government tried to find more covert ways to try to influence Index.”Szabolcs Dull, editor-in-chief of Hungary’s main independent website Index, leaves the newsroom after being sacked in Budapest, July 22, 2020.Fears of outside interference grew last month when editor-in-chief declared that its independence was “in danger” and under threat from “outside interference.”  On July 22, Dull was fired and two days later more than 70 Index staffers and the editorial board resigned in protest — more than half of the publication’s staff. Now, journalists and media freedom advocates worry about the state of press freedom in the country.People take part in a protest for media freedom in Budapest, Hungary, July 24, 2020.Why resign?In an editorial published last month, Dull warned that the editorial staff was in danger and raised concerns over an “organizational overhaul.”  Plans by directors to restructure the staff were framed as a way to cut costs, according to a Facebook group formed by some of the former staff. The journalists, however, said the plans risked compromising editorial standards.  Top editors repeatedly lobbied for assurance of the site’s independence but were given no answers from management.”This is such a strong infringement on the editorial independence of Index.hu that we simply could not accept,” the staffers wrote on the Facebook page.Following changes to parts of its ownership in 2018,  Index started publishing a barometer to alert readers to any potential interference.  Further changes came in March, when businessman Marco Vaszily acquired a 50% stake in the company that sells Index’s advertising.Vaszily is chair of pro-government television outlet, TV2 and was involved in the 2014 takeover of Origo, at the time Hungary’s largest online news site. More than 30 Origo journalists later resigned over what they said was a pro-government shift in editorial content.Laszlo Bodolai, head of the foundation that owns Index, denied the site’s independence was at risk, Reuters reported. He said Dull’s inability to control internal newsroom tensions led to a drop in revenue as advertisers stayed away.   Index did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.Bodoky, from the Hungarian watchdog group, said he wished the employees had stayed with the news outlet. Right now, he said, “the stakes are too high” for journalists to leave independent publications.”I think they left the ship too early,” he said.The full circumstances of the resignations are unclear: the employees have non-disclosure agreements, which can only be waived by the publication’s owner, they wrote on Facebook.One journalist told VOA the agreements were signed recently and were not common in Hungary.  Loss for independent newsIndex is the largest independent news outlet in Hungary, accounting for the reach of about half of all of the country’s independent publications. The publication receives more than 1 million viewers every day.Panyi compared the loss of the outlet to Americans losing both the Washington Post and the New York Times.”This is a country of 10 million, which just lost its largest source of independent news,” Panyi said. “It’s a huge blow to media freedom in Hungary.”Independent outlets remain, but they have significantly smaller audiences than Index, Bodoky said. Pro-government news sources are overwhelming the media landscape, he added.”If you are an average person in Hungary and you don’t actively look for critical or independent reporting, then you get the government propaganda,” he said. “You get it on the state-owned television channel, you get it on the commercial radio channels, in the daily papers and so on.”In addition to the lack of independent news outlets, Panyi said another element to the Hungarian media landscape is advertising. When state-owned companies take control over advertising for publications, it can give the state the power to determine which publications get advertising. This forces publications to make a difficult decision.”Editor in chiefs and CEOs have to make the decision whether to accept money from the government, which will eventually save them because there’s a huge hole in their budget,” Panyi said. “But in return, they are cutting deals like they’re not going to report on certain issues regarding the prime minister’s family.”The changes at Index are part of a “moment of alarming symbolism,” according to the Media Freedom Rapid Response consortium of rights groups.  In a letter to the presidents of the European Council and Commission, the group said that independent media in Hungary are under enormous pressure and cited a 2020 Media Pluralism Monitor report that found funds from the European Union, distributed through the prime minister’s office, are used to finance pro-government media. The Center for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom is a research center funded in part by the EU.  The fight to restore press freedom will likely be “a long fight,” Panyi said. But, he added, hope remains. He said Hungarians are still in search of unbiased news and independent journalism.As for the staffers who resigned, they have no immediate plans other than a commitment to independent journalism.  “We sincerely hope that we will manage to stay together, work together, and keep doing what we have been doing for the past 20 years,” the staffers wrote.
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Thousands marched in Berlin on Saturday to protest against measures imposed in Germany to stem the coronavirus pandemic, saying they violated people’s rights and freedoms.The gathering, estimated by police at 17,000, included libertarians, constitutional loyalists and anti-vaccination activists. There was also a small far-right presence with some marchers carrying Germany’s black, white and red imperial flag.Protesters danced and sang ‘We are free people!’ to the tune of rock band Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’. Others marched with placards saying ‘We are making a noise because you are stealing our freedom!’ and ‘Do think! Don’t wear a mask!’.”Our demand is to return to democracy,” said one protester who declined to give his name. “The mask that enslaves us must go.”People – mostly without face masks – attend a demonstration against coronavirus restrictions in Berlin, Aug. 1, 2020.The protests followed a rallying call from Michael Ballweg, an entrepreneur and political outsider who has organized similar rallies in Stuttgart and is running to become mayor of the southwestern city.Police filed a complaint against the organizer for failing to ensure marchers wore masks and kept their distance. Mainstream politicians criticized the protesters, with Social Democrat co-leader Saskia Esken calling them “covidiots”.”They not only endanger our health, they endanger our successes against the pandemic,” tweeted Esken, whose party is Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partner.After Germany’s initial success in curbing the pandemic, infections are rising again. More than 200,000 people have caught COVID-19 and nearly 1,000 have died from it.Most people in Germany have respected measures that include wearing face masks in shops, while the government has just imposed mandatory tests for holidaymakers returning from high-risk areas.But a vocal minority is chafing against the restrictions.”Only a few scientists around the world who follow the government’s lead are heard,” said protester Peter Konz. Those who hold different views “are silenced, censored or discredited as defenders of conspiracy theories”.
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Protesters took to the streets of the Russian city of Khabarovsk for the fourth straight weekend on Saturday, angered by the arrest of the region’s popular governor.Sergey Furgal was arrested by federal law enforcement in early July on charges related to multiple murders in 2004 and 2005, before he became governor. He was flown to Moscow where he was ordered jailed for two months. Many people in Russia’s Far Eastern city on the border with China believe the charges leveled against Furgal, and his replacement last week, are politically motivated. Furgal was elected in 2018, defeating a candidate from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s party, United Russia.”What is happening to our governor Sergey Furgal is injustice and the violation of all conceivable human rights, and I can’t remain indifferent to this,” said protester Natalia Smoktunova.Other protesters expressed their indignation with the falling standards of living.”We’ve become fed up with this kind of life,” said Tatiana, another protester, who didn’t give her last name. “We want our children to have everything they need—good schools and a better life, instead of poverty-level salaries and unemployment.”The Kremlin replaced Furgal with a young State Duma deputy, Mikhail Degtiarev, to serve as acting governor of the Khabarovsk region.”Wonderful people live here (in Khabarovsk),” said pensioner protester Nadezhda Svobodnaya. “They’re hard workers who want to work honestly and live with dignity, without being afraid for the future of our children and grandchildren. But everything is being trampled here: dignity and honor and freedom. We live in a civilized world after all. How much longer can we bear this?”Protests in Khabarovsk, a city about 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow, erupted on July 11. Since then, protesters have been demanding the release of Furgal and an open and fair trial for him. 
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The United States is preparing to pull more troops from Germany, days after President Donald Trump criticized the country for being “delinquent” on defense spending.U.S. Africa Command confirmed Friday it is in the early stages of moving its headquarters from the city of Stuttgart, where it has been located since the command was first stood up in 2008.“U.S. Africa Command has been told to plan to move,” its commander, Gen. Stephen Townsend, said in a statement. “While it will likely take several months to develop options, consider locations, and come to a decision, the command has started the process.”U.S. military officials have been looking for months at reducing the approximately 6,000 troops stationed in Africa.  FILE – U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend watches during a tour north of Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2017.“It is important our African partners understand our commitment to them remains strong,” Townsend said in Friday’s statement, adding his command “will continue to work with our African and other partners to address mutual interests.”While a new site for the command headquarters has not yet been chosen, an AFRICOM official told VOA that planners will be looking first to other European countries, and then at moving the command to the U.S.“The team will look at available infrastructure, housing, access to transportation, adequate medical care, and a range of other consideration factors,” said AFRICOM spokesman Col. Chris Karns.“It will be a deliberate and orderly approach and process,” he added, noting, “It was important to let partners as well as personnel and families know that planning is under way.”Africa itself, where the U.S. has long tried to maintain a small military footprint, is not under consideration, officials said.Just how much moving AFRICOM’s headquarters from Stuttgart will cost, and how much money could be saved by using another location, has yet to be determined.Reaction to changesWhile U.S. military officials argue the changes are strategically necessary and will give them more flexibility, German officials have expressed disappointment at the U.S. decision to pull some 12,000 troops from the country.FILE – Norbert Roettgen, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, speaks during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 18, 2020.”Instead of strengthening NATO, the troop withdrawal will weaken the alliance,” Norbert Roettgen, a senior ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.U.S. lawmakers, including some Republicans who often side with Trump, have also raised concerns about the changes, though Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called the moves “sound.”Trump defended the decision to pull troops out of Germany earlier this week, suggesting the U.S. could move troops based with other NATO allies if those countries do not increase defense spending.”We don’t want to be the suckers anymore,” he told reporters Wednesday.But some analysts have raised concerns that moving troops and critical commands from Germany will hurt overall operations.“We get huge benefits from our U.S. military posture in Germany,” said Bradley Bowman, a former adviser to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.“We are able to project U.S. military power into North Africa and the Middle East much more effectively because of our military posture in Germany,” said Bowman, now with the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. 
 
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Champagne is losing its fizz. For months, lockdown put the cork on weddings, dining out, parties and international travel — all key sales components for the French luxury wine marketed for decades as a sparkling must at any celebration. Producers in France’s eastern Champagne region, headquarters of the global industry, say they’ve lost an estimated 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion) in sales for this year, as turnover fell by a third — a hammering unmatched in living memory, and worse than the Great Depression. They expect about 100 million bottles to be languishing unsold in their cellars by the end of the year. “We are experiencing a crisis that we evaluate to be even worse than the Great Depression” of 1929, said Thibaut Le Mailloux of the Champagne Committee, known by its French acronym CIVC, that represents some 16,000 winemakers. Recognizing the urgency of the problem, the CIVC is launching unprecedented damage-limitation measures. Like oil-producing countries, the committee regulates the size of the harvest each year to avoid the kind of excess production that would cause bottle prices to plummet. At a meeting scheduled for Aug. 18, it’s expected to impose a cap so tight that record quantities of grapes will be destroyed or sold to distilleries at discounted prices. The prospect alarms smaller producers, who are more vulnerable than the big houses. Anselme Selosse, of Jacques Selosse Champagnes, called it “an insult to nature” that champagne’s famous grapes might even be destined to produce alcohol for hand sanitizer, as is happening in other wine-producing regions such as Alsace after demand spiked during the pandemic. “We are to destroy (the grapes) and we pay for them to be destroyed,” Selosse said, referring to the industry as a whole. “It’s nothing but a catastrophe.” “Champagne has never lived through anything like this before, even in the World Wars,” Selosse added. “We have never experienced … a sudden one-third fall in sales. Over one hundred million bottles unsold.”Paul Francois Vranken, Director of Vranken-Pommery Monopole speaks during an interview in the Champagne region, east of Paris, July 28, 2020.Major producers such as Vranken-Pommery predict that the crisis could last for years. “It should not be forgotten that (champagne) has lived through every single war,” said Paul-Francois Vranken, founder of Vranken-Pommery Monopole. “But with the other crises, there was a way out. For now, there is no way out — unless we find a vaccine.” Vranken said the very essence of champagne marketing — as a drink quaffed at parties and weddings — needs to be re-evaluated to reflect the new normal: Fewer festivities and a lack of celebratory group events. The new branding strategy for his, and other champagne companies, will seek to highlight the wine’s status as a naturally, and often organically, produced quality drink from a historic French region. “Even if the bars and the nightclubs are closed for five years, we don’t plan on missing out on customers … There will be a very big change to our marketing that highlights the grandeur of our wines,” Vranken said. Selosse, who produces many “natural” champagnes with no added sugar, also hopes the pandemic will encourage thought about future champagne marketing and how the multi-billion dollar industry is restructured. He would like to see a more cooperative side to production, such as “communal wine presses” to help pool the costs for smaller producers. Selosse said adaptability has served champagne well in the past, helping it evolve from a dessert wine in the 19th century to the modern-day dry version named “brut.”  He even thinks — but this is a minority view among producers — the industry could move away from effervescence and be able to produce all sorts of wine, as it did in the past: red, white or still. In fact, literally no fizz.
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The economy of the 19-country eurozone shrank by a devastating 12.1% percent in the April-June period from the quarter before – the largest drop on record – as coronavirus lockdowns shut businesses and hampered consumer spending.Economists say the worst of the downturn is past as many restrictions have eased, but that the recovery will be drawn out and vulnerable to renewed virus outbreaks.
Spain, which along with Italy was among the first to get hit hard by the spread of the virus, suffered the region’s heaviest drop at 18.5%. France, Italy and Portugal also endured steep declines, but no country escaped the impact of the pandemic.  
For the currency union as a whole it was the biggest decline since the records started in 1995. The broader 27-country European Union, not all of whose members use the euro, saw output sag 11.9%.
The decline in Europe compares with a 9.5% quarter-on-quarter drop in the United States, which unlike Europe has not yet been able to get its contagion numbers firmly down yet and whose economic recovery is in doubt.
European governments are countering the recession with massive stimulus measures. EU leaders have agreed on a 750 billion-euro recovery fund backed by common borrowing to support the economy from 2021. National governments have stepped in with loans to keep businesses afloat and wage support programs that pay workers’ salaries while they are furloughed. The European Central Bank is pumping 1.35 trillion euros in newly printed money into the economy, a step which helps keep borrowing costs low.
Those support measures have helped keep unemployment from spiking. The rate rose to 7.8% in June from 7.7% in May. But many job losses will wind up being permanent despite the stimulus.
Major companies such as Lufthansa, Daimler and Airbus have said they will cut thousands of jobs.
Economists say the downturn was concentrated in the months of April and May when lockdowns were most severe. Many restrictive measures have been eased, and business confidence in Germany, the biggest eurozone economy, has ticked up for three straight months.
But the outlook is for a long and uncertain climb back to pre-virus levels that could take until 2022 or longer. Company forecasts for the rest of the year assumed that there is not a renewed outbreak of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Cases have been rising again in several countries as people go on vacations and Britain slapped a 14-day quarantine on travelers returning from Spain.  
Rosie Colthorpe, European economist at Oxford Economics, said the current third quarter was likely to see high growth rates, “but not nearly large enough to make up for the damage.”
“Beyond this initial bounce, the recovery is set to be gradual and uneven,” with pre-virus output regained only by mid-2022, she said, adding that “recent flare-ups of the virus in several European countries risk derailing this recovery.”
The Spanish economic drop was by far the sharpest since the country’s national statistics agency began collecting data. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was meeting later Friday with the leaders of Spain’s regions to discuss how to rebuild the economy and where to deploy billions of euros in European Union aid for recovery.
Germany, the largest of the countries that use the euro, went through a 10.1% decline, the biggest since records started in 1970.  
In France, the startling plunge of 13.8% in April-June was the third consecutive quarter of contraction in France’s worsening recession. The pain has been so damaging to jobs and industries that the government is talking down the possibility of another nationwide lockdown as infections tick upward again. Finance minister Bruno Le Maire called on French people to spend more to help the economy recover.
“All the growth in GDP seen in the 2010-2019 decade has been wiped out in five months,” said Marc Ostwald, chief economist at ADM Investor Services International. In Italy’s case, economists said it wiped out about 30 years of growth.
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A wave of protests sparked by the slaying of a young woman has been sweeping across Turkey as the government considers leaving an international convention that protects women against violence, despite warnings from rights groups about the rising number of killings of women.Last week, police found the strangled and battered body of 27-year-old university student Pinar Gultekin. Local media, citing police sources, said she was buried in a bin encased in concrete, in woodlands in the Aegean province of Mugla.Gultekin’s killing triggered demonstrations across Istanbul and other cities with activists calling attention to reports of rising number of murdered women. At one protest last week in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, women chanted “we want to live,” “end femicides.”In the Aegean port city of Izmir, police broke up a women’s protest and detained several demonstrators.Across social media, women placed videos of their protests. On Instagram, Turkish women are posting black and white images of themselves in protest at Gultekin’s murder, in a campaign that has gone global.”From secular women to conservative women, from working women or not working, women are angry,” said Melek Onder of the Istanbul based campaign group, “We Will Stop Femicide.””But we know that this anger makes women movement in Turkey becoming more powerful and strong,” Onder added. “They are applying to our platform, saying we want to do something, we want to join the protests.”The protests in Turkey come amidst wider international protests against violence against women, much of which is a grassroots organized through social media, including the “me too” movement.The “We Will Stop Femicide” web page records the grim death toll of murdered women, which rises nearly every day. In the first six months of this year, the group says there were 172 femicides, compared to 416 for the whole of 2019.In a tweet, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Gultekin’s killing, but activists complain he has otherwise remained silent.The protests are happening as the Erdogan government faces new criticism over its commitment to gender issues.Erdogan’s ruling AKP party is openly questioning Turkey’s participation the international Istanbul Convention on protecting women against violence.Women march in support of the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women, in Istanbul, Sunday, July 19, 2020.”I say that signing this Istanbul Convention was wrong,” said the AKP’s deputy leader Numan Kurtulmus in a recent television interview.”There are two critical issues in the text of this convention that we should draw attention to that we can never accept. One of them is gender rights; the other is sexual orientation rights,” Kurtulmus added.Turkey’s religious conservative media is backing Kurtulmus, accusing the Convention of undermining the family.The AKP, in its early years in power, introduced sweeping legislation to protect women, culminating in being the first signatory of the 2011 European, “Istanbul Convention.”The Convention was the first legally binding set of guidelines that created “a comprehensive legal framework and approach to combat violence against women,” focusing on preventing domestic violence, protecting victims, and prosecuting accused offenders.But in recent years, critics have accused the government of increasingly backsliding in enforcing the agreement, in a bid to consolidate the ruling party’s religious and conservative voting base. The AKP campaigns vigorously on defending what it says are “traditional family values.”Parliament is expected to soon start discussing Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul convention.”We should evaluate well whether or not to abolish it,” said Devlet Bahceli, leader of the MHP, which is the parliamentary coalition partner of the AKP.Bahceli acknowledges the country is facing a problem, “If we cannot prevent the murder of women, we will all be buried under an avalanche,” he said.Erdogan has yet to weigh in on the future of the Istanbul convention.Opinion polls indicate a majority against withdrawal from the Convention. Pinar Ilkaracan, a veteran women’s rights campaigner who once worked closely with the AKP on gender reform, warns that Erdogan could pay a heavy political price if Turkey withdraws from the Istanbul Convention.”In terms of women murders, there hasn’t been a divide between secular and religious,” she said. “A lot of women have been supporting the AKP government, religious women, and also the women in AKP have written against withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention.” 
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The Italian Senate has voted to lift right-wing Senator Matteo Salvini’s immunity from prosecution, related to his decision last August to not allow 164 migrants to get off a ship in Sicily.Thursday’s vote may clear the way for potential charges against the former interior minister who, during his 14 months in that position, repeatedly denied port entry to ships carrying rescued migrants at sea.Salvini’s policy resulted in several standoffs, forcing ships to remain at sea for weeks before European countries would allow entry to their ports or Italian courts ordered disembarking.For the case from last August, Salvini refused access to the rescue ship Open Arms for three weeks before it was allowed to enter a port on the Italian island of Lampedusa. 
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Relations between Russia and its erstwhile ally Belarus veered into uncharted territory after Belarusian security forces on Wednesday detained more than 30 suspected Russian mercenaries near the capital Minsk — allegedly for trying to disrupt Belarus’ Aug. 9 presidential elections.
 
The arrests came in the midst of a charged election season, one that has seen Belarus’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko detain several would-be rivals only to see their wives step up as placeholder candidates.
 
In particular, the candidacy of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky now sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and an unexpected political star attracting large crowds.
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The timing of the Russians’ detention prompted questions of whether the arrests were a pretext for canceling elections or declaring a national emergency.
 
On Thursday, the Belarusian election commission gathered remaining candidates for a meeting and announced that security measures at rallies and mass gatherings would be increased.
 
Belarus’ Investigative Committee also said the detained Russians and two would-be presidential candidates would face joint criminal charges — suggesting Belarusian authorities were trying to exploit the incident for political gain.
 
Lukashenko also appeared in a televised meeting with his Security Council, where he insisted on clarification about the Russians presence from Moscow.
 
“If they’re Russians, then we should reach out immediately to appropriate structures of the Russian Federation, so they explain what’s happening,” said Lukashenko.
 
The Belarusian leader added, “we don’t have any goal to smear a country with whom we’re close.”
 
In related moves, Belarus’ Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Minsk and both countries said they were working to strengthen border controls.
 
Neither the Kremlin nor Russia’s Foreign Ministry has commented on the incident.
 An odd holiday
 
The arrests were first announced by the Belarusian state news agency Belsat, which claimed those arrested were part of a 200 strong paramilitary force that had infiltrated Belarus ahead of the vote.
 
Only the report claimed Belarus security services had discovered 32 of the Russians at a resort outside of Minsk — with the Russians standing out for both their camouflage clothes and un-holiday-like demeanor.People walk past a campaign poster of opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Minsk, Belarus, July 30, 2020.“They did not drink alcohol or visit entertainment facilities and kept to themselves to maintain a low profile,” said the TV report, while adding this was “atypical behavior for Russian tourists.”
 Video showed the men being detained in their underwear with guns and ammunition scattered about.
 
Belarus’s KGB later issued a statement identifying the men as part of the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian mercenary force that journalists have traced to Kremlin proxy battles in east Ukraine, Syria, and portions of Africa.
 
Zahar Prilepin, a renowned Russian novelist who has taken up arms with pro-Russian rebels in fighting in east Ukraine, said in an interview with Russia’s URA.ru news service that he recognized some of the detained men as Wagner fighters. 
 
The Wagner group is allegedly under the control of Evgeny Prigozhin — often referred to as “Putin’s Chef” for securing state food industry contracts in the armed forces and schools.
 
Despite years of mounting evidence, the Kremlin has always denied the paramilitary group’s existence.
 End game theories
 
Though formally allies, relations between Moscow and Minsk have frayed in recent years over a long-stalled reunification effort to create a supra-state.
 
Observers say Lukashenko, in particular, has resisted the union out of fear of playing the lesser figure to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
 
The Kremlin has also expressed displeasure over Lukashenko’s hands-off approach to battling the novel coronavirus —voicing concerns that the virus could spread across the border.
 
The Belarusian leader — who announced on Tuesday that he had been infected but survived the virus without showing symptoms or stopping work — has dismissed fear of the pandemic as “mass psychosis.”
 
In a sign of just how strained relations have become, the Belarusian leader openly accused Russia of trying to foment a street revolution earlier this week.  
It is a charge normally reserved for the United States.
 
Indeed, the primary debate surrounding the arrest episode centered on Lukashenko’s intentions and Moscow’s role.
 
Had Belarus really foiled a plot or was this a staged event ahead of the Aug. 9 vote?
 
Gleb Pavlovsky, a former political advisor to President Putin, said in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio that the size of the Russian force suggested more theater than threat.
 
“I don’t think that Moscow will angrily respond to it, because in these situations the actors are released at the end of the play,” said Pavlovsky.
 
“In other words, after the elections.”
 
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A court in Moscow has sentenced former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed to nine years in prison after finding him guilty of assaulting two police officers, a charge that he refused to admit.Judge Dmitry Arnaut of Moscow’s Golovinsky District Court on July 30 also ordered Reed to pay 150,000 rubels ($2,000) to each police officer as compensation for moral damage.The 29-year old man, who is from Texas, traveled to Moscow in May 2019 to study Russian and spend time with his Russian girlfriend, Alina Tsybulnik.On August 15, several days before his trip back to Texas, Reed and his girlfriend attended a party organized by her colleagues. He claims to have no memory of what happened following the party, where he says he was encouraged to drink large quantities of vodka.In a car going home afterward, Reed said he felt unwell, asked the driver to stop, and got out. His girlfriend’s co-worker called police and left the site with another colleague, leaving Tsybulnik alone with Reed.Two police officers arrived at the scene and took Reed in to sober up, telling Tsybulnik to come back in a few hours and pick him up.Tsybulnik told RFE/RL that when she arrived at the police station later, Reed was being questioned, without a lawyer or interpreter present, by two men who introduced themselves as employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB).Tsybulnik was told that her boyfriend was accused of endangering the lives of the policemen who brought him in by yanking the driver’s arm and elbowing another officer who tried to intervene.However, the case against Reed has been marred by inconsistencies. Video evidence reviewed in court appeared to show no evidence that the police vehicle swerved as a result of Reed’s actions, as alleged by the police officers.Speaking before the judge, the officers themselves have claimed to have no memory of key moments in the journey, and have retracted parts of their statements on several occasions or failed to answer simple questions from Reed’s defense team.Reed is one of several American citizens to face trial in Russia in recent years on charges that their families, supporters, and in some cases the U.S. government have said appear trumped up.Last month, another former U.S. Marine, 50-year-old Paul Whelan, was sentenced by a court in Moscow to 16 years in prison for espionage which he, his supporters, and the U.S. government have questioned. 
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The United States is pulling almost 12,000 troops from Germany, following through on President Donald Trump’s call to reduce the U.S. military footprint overseas. While defense department officials say the move will boost American security, critics see the move as punishment for a country Trump has criticized as “delinquent” in NATO defense spending. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Produced by: Bronwyn Benito
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Italy’s coast guard said on Wednesday it had rescued nearly 100 migrants on a “half deflated” dinghy off the coast of Libya after authorities in other countries failed to intervene.The coast guard said the inflatable boat was spotted by aircraft on Tuesday afternoon in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) zone, “without an engine and half deflated.””The Libyan authority responsible for search and rescue activities at sea did not take over the coordination of the rescue operations due to the lack of naval resources,” the coast guard said in a statement.The coast guard then informed Maltese authorities, whose search and rescue zone is close to that of Libya.It said it also alerted Gibraltar, as a supply vessel flying the Gibraltar flag was nine nautical miles from the dinghy, as well as French authorities due to a Total oil platform in the area.France replied there were no French-flagged vessels in the Libyan area of responsibility, it said.”The Italian coast guard, amid the persistent silence of the Maltese and Gibraltar authorities, then took over the coordination of the rescue,” the coast guard said, sending a vessel to rescue the people.The 84 migrants, who included six women and two children, were transferred at dawn on Wednesday from their “almost sunk” dinghy to the Italian ship, which on Wednesday was headed for the island of Lampedusa.The reception center on the island is already overcrowded with migrants who have been arriving daily by the hundreds in recent weeks.More than 300 people, mainly Tunisians, arrived in Lampedusa during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday on board 13 boats.On Monday night, Malta’s coast guard rescued a group of 94 migrants in the Mediterranean, most of whom later tested positive for coronavirus, Malta health authorities said.
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Despite acquiescing to a compromise solution at last week’s rancorous but ultimately successful EU summit, Dutch diplomats are offering no apology for their country’s tough stand on financial assistance to the members worst hit by the global pandemic.Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other leaders of what became known as “the frugal four” argued against a more generous relief offer promoted by France and Germany before settling on a package comprising $460 billion in grants and $424 billion in loans.In an interview with VOA, Andre Haspels, the Netherlands’ ambassador to the United States, maintained that the tough medicine that Dutch officials prescribed for the suffering EU countries was no worse than what his government had delivered to its own citizens.Structural changes sought“Yes, we were seen by some countries as being too strict, too tough,” acknowledged Haspels, who is nearing the one-year mark of his term in Washington. What Rutte was trying to do, he said, was to introduce structural changes so that a house that easily catches fire won’t have to rely on emergency extinguishers.Such reforms can be tough, he acknowledged, revealing during the interview that he was personally affected by some of the Netherlands’ painful reforms.When Haspels joined his nation’s foreign ministry in 1987, he thought he had a clear idea of when he would retire and the pension he would receive. Halfway through his career, Dutch society began coming to grips with the fact that people are living longer while population growth remains low.Andre Haspels, Netherlands ambassador to the United States since August 2019. (Embassy of the Netherlands in the U.S.)Ten years and many arguments and protests later, the nation settled on an arrangement that “trade unions, employers, insurance companies, pension funds” could all accept, Haspels said. The resolution doesn’t mean a dream come true for everyone; instead, it is dream revised for most, including career diplomats.“We’re still in relatively secure positions as government officials,” Haspels said, but they, like everyone else in the country, will have to rely not only on the government, but also on private plans to supplement their retirement.It means “a lot more responsibility for the individual,” he said, admitting that he will get a smaller pension than he had once expected and will have to work until age 67 before he can collect those benefits.On the plus side, the future will be more “sustainable for my children and grandchildren,” said the 58-year-old father of four.Less for grantsHaspels said Dutch representatives at the summit insisted on reducing the amount of pandemic-related relief money issued as grants to less wealthy nations because that was what most Dutch citizens wanted.“Two of our main opposition parties were very much against transferring money to the EU,” he said. Plus, Haspels said, his government saw the summit as an opportunity to discuss some countries’ long-standing promises of reform.However tough Rutte might have sounded in Brussels, most observers credit him for keeping the Netherlands firmly in the EU despite some voices in his country crying for a “Nexit,” fashioned after Brexit.At present, two-thirds of Dutch citizens support continued membership in the EU, but Haspels said euroskeptic sentiments “are always going to be there,” likely in all EU member states. “Even after a country exits, the debate continues,” he said with an eye to the ongoing argument in Britain.
 
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The U.S. military has accused Russia of sending weapons and mercenaries to Libya in an attempt to gain a foothold in the north African country. U.S. Africa Command’s latest accusation against Russia came on July 24, as Libya’s rival camps face off in a battle over the strategic central coastal city of Sirte. The Pentagon released photos that it claims show Russia providing supplies and equipment to the Wagner group, a Russian private military company. Vadim Allen has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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