They are nurses and doctors, artists, students, construction workers, government employees; black, brown and white; young and old.  Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in big cities and tiny towns in every U.S. state – and even around the world – to protest the killing of George Floyd, who died after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck as he pleaded for air.  They say they are protesting police brutality, but also the systematic racism non-white Americans have experienced since the country’s birth. Many say they marched so that one day, when their children asked what they did at this historic moment, they will be able to say they stood up for justice despite all risks.  Most say they do not support the violence, fires and burglaries that consumed some of the demonstrations, but some understand it: these are desperate acts by desperate people who have been screaming for change for generations into a world unwilling to hear them.  Yet suddenly, for a moment at least, everyone seems to be paying attention.  About half of American adults now say police violence against the public is a “very” or “extremely” serious problem, up from about a third as recently as September last year, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only about 3 in 10 said the same in July 2015, just a few months after Freddie Gray, a black man, died in police custody in Baltimore.Some demonstrators describe losing friends and family to police bullets, and what it feels like to fear the very people sworn to protect you. Their white counterparts say they could no longer let their black neighbors carry this burden alone.  Some describe institutional racism as a pandemic as cruel and deadly as the coronavirus. One white nurse from Oregon who traveled to New York City to work in a COVID unit saw up close how minorities are dying disproportionately from the disease because of underlying health conditions wrought by generational poverty and lack of health care. So after four days working in the ICU, she spent her day off with protesters in the streets of Brooklyn.  The stories of these protesters, several of them told here, are thundering across the country, forcing a reckoning with racism.  THEY'RE SCARED OF US'  Lavel White was a junior in high school, living in public housing in a predominantly black, historically impoverished neighborhood in Louisville, when he turned on the news and saw that a police officer was acquitted for shooting a young black man in the back.  Next time, he thought, it might be me.  The 2004 killing of 19-year-old Michael Newby propelled White to activism. He is now a documentary filmmaker and a community outreach coordinator for the Louisville mayor's office.  Still, he knows that if he got pulled over and made a wrong move, he could die.  He's had his own frightening run-ins with police, treated like a criminal for a broken taillight and another time in a case of mistaken identity. There are the smaller slights, too, like white women clutching their purses when he passes them on the street.  "They fear people's black skin. They're scared of us. They see every black male as a thug, as a criminal," he said. "The vigilantes, the cops. People keep killing us and it's got to stop."  He's been at the protests in his neighborhood almost every night, and worries his neighbors will live with the trauma the rest of their lives: the military truck on city streets, the tear gas, the boom of flashbangs, soldiers with assault rifles, police in riot gear.  He and his wife have a 2-year-old daughter and a son, born just three months ago.  "Just because of the color of his skin, he's going to be set back by the oppression of 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow Laws and injustice, inequalities, racism, he's going to have to walk and live that life," he said.  They want him to grow up tough enough to stand up for his rights and his community.  So they named him Brave.  FATHER FORGIVE THEM’   
Once, when George Jefferson was a college student in California, he rolled up to a party with several friends just as people rushed to leave. Sirens blared.”I hear, ‘Get out of the car,’ and so I swing my door open. I look to my left and there is the barrel of a gun pointed in my face,” said Jefferson, who is 28 and now a fourth-grade teacher in Kansas City, Missouri. “And I am like cold sweating, it’s not visible, but I feel it. My heart is racing. He said, ‘I said don’t get out of the car.’ And at that point I realized I misheard this cop.”He was let off with a stern warning to follow police instructions. But his unease grew after another encounter with police soon afterward, in which a friend was pulled over and forced to sit on the curb. Police said the car’s tag was expired; his friend argued. The advice they got was to file a complaint.”But that didn’t address the feelings and dehumanization that came with it,” Jefferson recalled. His experiences led him to protest, teach his students about race, demand change.In his classroom, he has posted pictures of unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a white officer in 2014 sparked intense protests. He has asked students for their observations, and assigned books, like “One Crazy Summer,” which is set in Oakland, California, in 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.Fred Hampton was one of two Black Panther Party leaders killed in a 1969 police raid in Illinois; in February, Jefferson had his face tattooed on his arm. He plans to add to another tattoo — a line from scripture, Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”  It is a reminder to fight for equality.”That,” he said, “is a life worth living.”THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO PROTEST' 
Even at 36, Jahmal Cole recites the pledge from his preschool graduation: "We the class of 1988, determined to be our best at whatever we say or do, will share a smile and lend a hand to our neighbor ...""It really became the mission statement of my life," says Cole, the founder of a Chicago organization called My Block, My Hood, My City.  He has started a relief fund for small business in low-income neighborhoods damaged in protests. Youth in his organization's mentoring program are helping with the cleanup, sweeping up glass and erasing graffiti.  He'll march. He'll shout and express his anger. But he draws the line at destruction.  "We got residents who gotta go 20 minutes away to get some milk right now," he tells a crowd assembled for a peace rally and food give-away in Chicago's largely African American Chatham neighborhood. Its commercial district was hard hit by looting.  Members of the multiracial crowd nod and clap. Many of them know this man. They've heard his constant push for neighbors to work together to make change.  Cole wants his neighbors to organize.. "Ain't no structure in the gangs, and that's why there's all this shooting. Ain't no structure to the protests, and that's why there's all this looting," he wrote in a column published recently in the Chicago Tribune.  And he wants to build on the momentum. "I want to make sure we're protesting by calling our local officials … by going to the school board," he tells the crowd. "There are other ways to protest."  YOUTH ARE IMPATIENT NOW’ 
Growing up as a black Muslim in the racially and religiously homogeneous state of Utah, Daud Mumin always knew he was treated differently.  He vividly remembers his 15th birthday, when his mother, an immigrant from Somalia, was pulled over for speeding — a routine traffic stop that turned into an hour-long interrogation, spoiling his special dinner.  And he recalls the question that none of his white classmates were asked on the first day of AP French in his junior year: “Are you in the right class?”  The Black Lives Matter movement gave Mumin a place where he felt at home, and the protests around the world since Floyd’s death give him hope that change is coming.  “It’s beautiful to see such large and consistent outcomes and turnouts in these protests,” said Mumin, a 19-year-old college sophomore double majoring in justice studies and communication. “When I was 14 years old, I never thought a world like this would exist.”  But that doesn’t mean he’s not angry and impatient. He wants to see the movement lead to defunding of police departments. His Twitter handle, “Daud hates cops,” shows his resentment.  He said protesters shouldn’t go into demonstrations intentionally trying to cause violence, but also can’t sit back and wait for the government to make things better.  “What is it going to take for us to finally crumble these oppressive systems? If peace is not the answer, then violence has to be,” Mumin said. “America has finally had enough of waiting for action to be taken. The youth are not tired. The youth are impatient now. I think we’re done waiting around and sitting around for justice to come about.”  I FEEL RAGE'   
Becca Cooper traveled from Oregon to New York in early April, taking leave from her job as a critical care flight nurse to help combat the coronavirus pandemic seizing the city.  She walked into an unfair fight -- one afflicting certain communities more than others.  "In the last seven weeks, I've had three white patients," she said. "I'm pretty sure that New York isn't less than 1% white."  "We all read in the newspaper that COVID is disproportionately affecting communities of color. It is so in your face in the ICU."  The experience has highlighted for Cooper frustrations with the health care system -- "I see it every day, and it's devastating." It also fueled her disgust when she watched video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck.  That anger is what brought this white nurse into the streets of Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood last week, where she marched with hundreds of protesters in her light blue medical scrubs.  "I feel rage," she said. "I feel sadness. I feel frustration. I feel disbelief. I became a nurse to save as many lives as possible. I would like to believe that someone who chose to be a law officer, a police officer, would have the same feeling.  "I feel so frustrated. I'm not out here working every day to save as many lives as possible so that police officers can choose to take those lives."  SWEDEN IN SOLIDARITY’   
Aysha Jones lives a world away from the Minneapolis street where George Floyd died — more than 4,200 miles, 6,800 kilometres, in Sweden. But she felt she had to protest.”I became involved out of pure frustration, and the wish to see myself, my kids, my fellow black brothers and sisters around the world having a better life, being equal, being seen as who we are humans,” said Jones, who was born in Gambia.  Her experience with racism was that of a first-generation outsider — she remembers classmates throwing burnt Swedish meatballs at her, considering her worth nothing more.  Many black people who live in Sweden are recent immigrants from Africa – the nation had very few people of color until the past 50 years. Sweden ranks high on equality indexes and prides itself on liberal migration policies, but Jones says bigotry is far from vanquished.”We have had politicians here in Sweden who normally never acknowledge the fact that racism is a structural problem, it is a pandemic just as much as COVID-19,” she said. “Our politicians have the audacity normally to just push it off and say, ‘No, it doesn’t happen here, it happens over there.’ Wherever over there is.”  The nation has strict rules regarding public gatherings amid the COVID-19 pandemic, so Jones helped launch digital protests.  Jones urged people to join a virtual demonstration anchored by a small group of activists and speakers in front of the U.S. embassy in Stockholm, inundating the embassy’s Facebook page with a photo of the Black Lives Matter logo and the words “Sweden in Solidarity.”More than 6,000 people watched the live video stream and over 60,000 participated in the protest in one way or another; in the following days, thousands took to the streets in protest.  Jones, who works full-time and has three young children, is pleased that Black Lives Matter protests have sparked widespread discussions online and in Swedish media, but warns that words alone aren’t enough.  She wants changes in how police are recruited and trained. She wants better laws, and better efforts to ensure the laws are upheld.  “You know, with money comes power,” Jones said. “And that’s something that is being kept from black people, is something that has been kept from black people in centuries. So there is so much to touch upon.”  IT'S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO ME'   
Indigenous Australian Wendy Brookman was incensed with Prime Minister Scott Morrison's reaction to the violent clashes on U.S. streets following George Floyd's death with the comment."Thank goodness," he said, "we live in Australia."The 37-year-old mother of five joined 2,000 people in a peaceful protest in the Australian capital Canberra because she wants police brutality and the high incarceration rate among Aboriginal people put on Australian governments' agenda.It's disrespectful for families who have had to bury loved ones to hear the government gloss over the country's problems, she said.  Indigenous Australians account for 2% of the nation's adult population and 27% of the prison population."Being a mother of five children, it's extremely important for me to make sure that my children are given the same rights as any other child growing up in this day and age," said Brookman, a teacher and women's gym owner.Tens of thousands of demonstrators have joined largely peaceful anti-racism rallies in all of Australia's major cities since Floyd's death. One focus: an Australian police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of a 19-year-old Aboriginal man in November.  The officer, Zachary Rolfe, has pleaded not guilty and said he was defending himself, and has been released on bail to live with family in Canberra. Brookman believes he will be acquitted due to Australia's poor record of convicting police over indigenous homicides."That's unacceptable that we know that he's not going to get convicted," she said. "It's imperative that this is a discussion that's spoken about and not hushed away."STOP KILLING MY FRIENDS’   
Protesting is a passion in Siggy Buchbinder’s family. Her father took part in demonstrations against the Vietnam war in the 1960s, then brought her to her first one in 2003, protesting military action in Iraq. She went on march for women’s rights.  These demonstrations feel different, she said. There are so many young people. The momentum, she said, is building for change.”I think people need to stay in the streets. I think it was working and I think it will continue to work,” Buchbinder said. “Now is not the time to let up. Now is the time to go even harder.”  Even among the many white New Yorkers who joined demonstrations following Floyd’s death, Buchbinder, 27, stands out. She is nearly 6 feet tall and looked even bigger with her arms raised high, holding a sign that read “Stop killing my friends.”  Buchbinder was one of four white graduates in her high school class of 172 in 2011, and says many of her friends are people of color: “It would be wrong to not stand and fight with them.”  She doesn’t lead chants, believing the speaking should be left to black protesters. Nor was she concerned about the curfew that was in effect most of the week. Fear of what the police might do has always been something her friends had to worry about much more than she did.  “I think my friends have always been kind of nervous of the cops,” Buchbinder said. “I think growing up they don’t mess with the cops. They don’t get into situations where they could be in trouble.”  SUPPORTING OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR'   
Around the time George Floyd died, Eileen Huang was asked to write a poem about Chinese people in the U.S. to commemorate a new documentary about Asian Americans on PBS.  What came out, instead, was a searing 1,600-word letter from the incoming Yale university junior to her immigrant elders, pleading with them to understand the massive debt owed to African American civil rights leaders, beseeching them to join a global movement to fight anti-black racism.  "We Asian Americans have long perpetuated anti-Black statements and stereotypes," Huang wrote. "I grew up hearing relatives, family friends, and even my parents make subtle, even explicitly racist comments about the Black community. ... The message was clear: We are the model minority —doctors, lawyers, quiet and obedient overachievers. We have little to do with other people of color; we will even side with White Americans to degrade them."  Huang, 20, grew up in the small and largely white New Jersey township of Holmdel. The oldest of three children born to engineers who moved to the U.S. in the 1990s, she wasn't taught much about the history of black people in America.  It wasn't until college that she learned of the 1982 beating death of Vincent Chin by two white men who thought Chin was Japanese. The men were convicted of manslaughter but sentenced to probation; the judge said the men weren't the kind of people to go to jail.  African American leaders, notably the Rev. Jesse Jackson, marched with Chin's anguished mother, seeking justice.  Huang came to realize Asian Americans owe "everything" to the black Americans who spearheaded the civil rights movement, which led to an end to racist terms like "Oriental" and housing policies that kept them out of white neighborhoods.  "We did not gain the freedom to become comfortablemodel minorities’ by virtue of being better or hardworking, but from years of struggle and support from other marginalized communities,” she wrote.  Her outrage over Floyd’s death pushed her to a protest in Newark, then another in Asbury Park, where a terrified Huang and others faced off with armed police officers in riot gear.  Her letter, posted to a website aimed at Chinese speakers in the U.S., has sparked passionate responses, including many that accuse her of being a traitor and of unfairly painting Chinese in a negative light.  “I’ve also just gotten very sweet (messages) from people saying, ‘My grandmother read this, my Chinese-can’t-speak-English grandmother read this, and she was really touched by it and now she’s supporting Black Lives Matter,'” she says.  I KNEEL WITH Y'ALL'   
The Brooklyn intersection was crammed with thousands of demonstrators, a massive rally to protest police brutality just days after George Floyd died. Police were mixed in with the crowd.  "We implore you! Please!" a protester says with a bullhorn, talking directly to the officers. "Take a knee in solidarity with us."  Assistant Chief Jeff Maddrey did, and so did a line of officers with him. The crowd lit up in a chorus of cheers as he spoke into the bullhorn.  "Real talk," he said to the crowd. "I respect your right to protest. All I'm asking is for you to do it with peace. I kneel with y'all because I don't agree with what happened. Listen, y'all are my brothers and sisters."  Maddrey, who is black, is a veteran officer now in charge of the NYPD's Brooklyn North division, which encompasses a large, diverse swath of the borough. It has seen widespread unrest in the weeks since Floyd's death; the Brooklyn native blames generations of inequality and tension within law enforcement and the community.  "The reason I took a knee was to start bringing about peace and unity and healing between members of the police department and members of the community," he said.  Maddrey said he thinks the NYPD should use this as an opportunity to meet with black community leaders and improve relations.  "I think we just need to increase our positive contacts where, you know, young men, young black men, people of, you know, of all communities to feel safe with their police department," he said.  He stopped short, however, of suggesting specific changes in police training and policy.  "There are things, a lot of things, that the police department can push over to other agencies and should push over to other agencies. And if they take away certain responsibilities that we don't have to do anymore and they're going to fund another agency to do that, then me, personally, I'm not against it," he said.  FINALLY PEOPLE SEEM TO UNDERSTAND’   
Ashley Quinones started protesting months ago. Since her husband was shot and killed by police in Minnesota last September, she’s been to city council meetings and state commissions. She’s protested on street corners, once shutting down streets and a light rail line.  Sometimes others joined her, but mostly she did it by herself. She is no longer alone.  “Finally,” she said. “I’ve been out here for nine months by myself. Now finally people seem to understand what our families are going through.”  Her husband, 30-year-old Brian Quinones-Rosario, who was Puerto Rican, was chased by police for driving erratically. He was shot and killed by officers seconds after getting out of his car; he was carrying a kitchen knife, and officers said he lunged at them.  Authorities alleged he was suicidal and provoked the police to shoot him, The Associated Press previously reported. His wife denies it, and says he was calm in the moments before the shooting. In February, the Hennepin county attorney declined to file charges against the officers and said their use of deadly force was “necessary, proportional, and objectively reasonable.”  But Quinones, who has filed a lawsuit against the cities involved, said they failed to follow their protocol and reacted out of fear, instead of deescalating the situation.  “They are afraid of black and brown bodies,” she said.  “George Floyd is the face of thousands of murders. People are not burning the city down over just George Floyd. He is the straw that broke the camel’s back and opened up the eyes of people who weren’t paying attention to the thousands before him.”  She wants her husband’s case reopened and re-examined, and she believes every other police killing should be, too. She said her white friends now cannot look away: “Now, you see it. What are you going to do about it?”  Since the nationwide protests have erupted, she has joined every day. She was a guest speaker at 15 events in a single week. She had been laid off from a car rental company during the shutdown caused by COVID-19. Now she’s devoting every minute of her life to this cause — even, she said, if it consumes her and she loses everything.  “I will be a homeless, car-less, jobless protester if that’s what it takes because I’m not accepting it. I haven’t accepted it and I’m not accepting it,” she said. “They ruined my life. Overnight everything was gone, and now I have to live with what someone else says my life is.”  EVERYONE THAT I LOVE IS BLACK' 
Tachianna Charpenter grew up in Duquette, Minnesota, a town of less than 100 souls in the mostly white northern region of the state. Charpenter, who is mixed race, said she constantly encountered racism as the only black child in her school.  "As a kid, I vividly remember just coming back from school all the time crying and asking my mom to dye my hair blonde," she said. "I thought that if I had blonde hair, like a lot of the girls in my class, they would be nicer to me."  Classmates would touch her hair to "see if I could feel it." They'd talk about wanting to date a black woman when they got older — "not a black girl like Tachi, a real black girl."  There was the student who whispered "I hate black people" when she was around. And another who spit on her in the fifth grade.  Charpenter moved to St. Paul to start her education at Hamline University in 2017. There, she learned the vocabulary to describe her experiences growing up, words like "microaggressions" and "implicit bias."  In recent weeks, she joined demonstrators in Minneapolis in the wake of Floyd's death. She felt compelled, "first and foremost because I'm black, and everyone that I love is black."  She's 21 now, a special education teaching assistant, and she said she is fighting to ensure that her students will not grow up to protest — and be tear-gassed — for the same issues."Now as an adult and being aware of these things, I intentionally go out of my way to challenge those narratives," she said. "Especially because some of those people see me and say that they look up to me, so I'm hoping that my actions cause them to challenge what they're thinking about."  STILL CRYING THE TEARS OF EMMETT TILL’ 
Growing up black in Napoleonville, Louisiana, known as “Plantation Country,” Janae Jamison attended a predominately white private school. She felt stifled with a fear of not being accepted.  Attending a historically black college helped her find her “voice” — one she says she’s using not just for George Floyd, but for the many black men and women who have been murdered because of their race.And that brought her to rally among the thousands who gathered around Jackson Square in the New Orleans’ French Quarter.  “It’s 401 years of oppression that has led me here,” said Jamison, 30. “It’s 246 years of slavery that has led me here. It’s 89 years of segregation that have led me here. And from 1954 until this day, and 66 years past post-segregation and a black man still has less rights than actual animal. That within the dark of night, it’s still OK for a black man to be racially profiled. … And many black women as well.  “I look at Sandra Bland, and I see myself. I look at Breonna Taylor. I see myself. Atatiana Jefferson – I see myself. So, it’s very important that we say their names and that people realize that it’s just not George Floyd that we are fighting for. We are still crying the tears of Emmett Till. “`BLACK POWER … EXISTS EVERYWHERE’  Nedu Anigbogu’s parents wanted more for their children, and so they immigrated from Nigeria in the 1990s. They raised Nedu and his two older brothers in the San Francisco suburb of El Cerrito.  Today his father is a lawyer and his mother is preparing to take the bar exam. Nedu, now 20, is majoring in cognitive science and plans to work in artificial intelligence.  He recalls his mother taking him and his brothers aside after Trayvon Martin, an African American teen, was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012. She warned them that people will treat them differently, because of their race.  “At first I felt confusion,” he said. “Then there was sad acceptance.”  Anigbogu wants convictions for the police who killed Floyd, as well as Breonna Taylor, an African American emergency medical technician who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police while asleep in her own home. He wants better police training. He wants to end the legal doctrine of qualified immunity that shields police officers from lawsuits.  The incoming senior at the University of California, Berkeley had signed petitions and donated money to the family of George Floyd, but he felt a duty to protest in person. So on June 3, he joined what would become a 10,000-person march through San Francisco’s Mission District.  Someone gave him a horse to ride, so he did.  “To see a black queen on a horse, a black king on a horse, that you’re showing you are rising above it all and that black power exists, and it exists everywhere,” Anigbogu said.  – By Janie Har 
…

A huge banner emblazoned with the face of the Spanish prime minister covered the entire side of a block of flats in Madrid. Bearing more than a passing resemblance to George Orwell’s Big Brother, the image of Pedro Sánchez ordered citizens: Obey! FILE – A demonstrator holds a sign depicting Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez and Deputy PM Pablo Iglesias during a drive-in protest organied by Spain’s far-right party Vox against the government’s handling of COVID-19, May 23, 2020.It was the most eye-catching of many posters and flags criticizing Spain’s left-wing government during recent street demonstrations in cities nationwide. In apparent defiance of lockdown rules that made social distancing mandatory, thousands openly marched in the Spanish capital then in demonstrations that sprung up in other cities. Supporters of right-wing parties were rebelling over the way the Socialist government had imposed a state of emergency on a country unaccustomed to being told what to do. The conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox party asserted that the government used the excuse COVID-19 to ride roughshod the rights enshrined in Spain’s 1978 constitution, the first since democracy returned after the death of longtime ruler General Francisco Franco three years before. 
One of the nations worst hit by COVID-19, Spain in March imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe to contain the epidemic. Some 47 million Spaniards could only leave their homes to buy food, for medical help or for essential work.As Spain prepared to end the state of emergency on June 21, critics said questions remain over how the minority government ran the country in the face of extraordinary circumstances. Police officers ask people to refrain from sitting on the beach in Barcelona, Spain, as sunbathing and recreational swimming are still not allowed, May 20, 2020.Vox has appealed to the country’s constitutional court, claiming the government breached Spaniards’ right to free movement, a basic right under the constitution.“They are using the state of emergency to limit people’s rights,” Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, the Vox parliamentary spokesman, told VOA in an interview. “We supported the government at first, but now we are appealing to the constitutional court saying the government has limited people’s rights to move around the country during the state of emergency,” he said. “We want to make sure this never happens again.” FILE – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is seen on TV screens next to a hand sanitizer during a news conference at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, June 14, 2020. (Javier Barbancho/Pool via Reuters)In fiery exchanges between Sanchez and opposition parties in the Spanish parliament, the prime minister defended the strict lockdown. “Without the state of emergency, hundreds of thousands of people would have died in Spain,” Sanchez told MPs in a debate earlier this month. A spokeswoman for the government said: “The state of emergency, which is a constitutional mechanism, allows the government to restrain the movement of people. This has been key to control the epidemic.” FILE – Coffins with the bodies of victims of coronavirus are stored waiting for burial or cremation at the Collserola morgue in Barcelona, Spain, April 2, 2020.Javier Arbós, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Barcelona, said two fundamental rights were at stake. “The state of emergency is designed to preserve one of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Spanish constitution — the right to life,” he told VOA in an  interview. “However, Vox has appealed to the constitutional court, saying that this breaks another fundamental right in the constitution — the right to free movement. The court must decide if the law is right to impede movement in order to preserve the right to life.” “It is a libertarian argument which is important not just in Spain, but there are similarities to the arguments of President Bolsonaro in Brazil and President Trump in the United States.” On another front, the government faced criticism when then Justice Minister Dolores Delgado was named as state prosecutor in January. The move raised eyebrows among critics because a senior Socialist Cabinet minister had taken up a key position in the judiciary, which is supposedly non-political. Then in May, a senior police officer was sacked during an investigation into the decision by the Spanish government to allow demonstrations (marking International Women’s Day on March 8 and other political rallies) before imposing a state of emergency. Days before, on March 2, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an EU body, warned that large gatherings should be avoided as coronavirus cases mounted. Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, dismissed the head of the Civil Guard command in Madrid, Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos, citing “loss of trust.” The sacking came after the Civil Guard, Spain’s national police, sent a report to a judge about how the government dealt with warnings about allowing 177 public gatherings in the run up to the lockdown. The police report, leaked to Spanish media, concluded that “from 5th March, 2020, there should not have been any demonstrations” due to the health crisis. A judge later decided there was no case, but dismissal of the senior officer prompted a furious political row with right-wing parties that argued it was politically motivated. Grande-Marlaska denied the sacking was politically motivated. Pablo Simón, a politics professor at Carlos III University in Madrid, said the case reflected badly on the government. “It is not that the minister cannot sack a police officer, but the government should take more care about their image. The minister could have sacked the officer before or after the investigation but not during an investigation,” he said. “To do this during a state of emergency was reproachable.”   
…

Turkey on Monday reiterated its opposition to U.S. sanctions on neighboring Iran, saying the coronavirus pandemic has shown that the world needs greater cooperation and solidarity.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made the comments in Istanbul during a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is the first dignitary to visit Turkey since its outbreak began in March.
“Iran’s stability and peace is important for us,” Cavusoglu said. “We oppose unilateral sanctions. In fact, the pandemic has taught us that the world needs greater cooperation and solidarity.”
Zarif said the U.S. had “tightened the sanctions in order to damage the Iranian economy during the pandemic.” He thanked Turkey for its support.
President Donald Trump imposed heavy sanctions on Iran after he withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers in May 2018. American officials contend Iran is working to obtain nuclear-capable missiles, which the Iranians deny.
Meanwhile, the ministers said the two countries were working toward reopening their border for travelers and plan to restart flights between Turkey and Iran on August 1.  
The border was closed after the coronavirus outbreak, which hit Iran particularly hard. It has since been reopened for trade only.
…

Paris police blamed violent fringe groups for hijacking a peaceful protest by health workers in central Paris on Tuesday, where at least one car was overturned and projectiles were hurled at police lines. 
 
The unrest broke out as thousands of doctors, paramedics and nursing home carers, many dressed in their scrubs and white blouses, had been protesting near the health ministry for better wages and working conditions. 
 
Paris police said anarchist protesters known as “black bloc” were attacking its officers. Several were seen in video footage pushing an overturned car into the middle of a cobbled avenue as others threw missiles at the police. 
 
“Violent individuals do not belong in a peaceful demonstration,” the Paris police prefecture said in a Tweet. 
 
Tear gas swirled over the Invalides esplanade. Some protesters threw glass bottles and stones at the riot police who formed up along one side of the park. Firefighters extinguished one rubbish bin that had been set alight. 
 
At least 16 arrests were made, police said. 
 
The head of the Paris emergency room workers association told BFM TV the protest had been stolen from them: “It’s disgusting,” Patrick Pelloux said. 
 
Health care workers say the coronavirus crisis has laid bare strains that threaten to break public healthcare in France. 
 
Even before the pandemic, health workers participated in nationwide labor unrest late last year. President Emmanuel Macron’s government unveiled emergency plans in November for the sector, including a promise to take on some debt of hospitals, raise health spending and provide bonuses for nurses. 
 
“Our hospitals run like machines, it’s as if we’re workers. We’re no longer there to care,” said one protester who said she earned 1,450 euros a month after 10 years in the job. 
…

British scientists announced Tuesday a major coronavirus breakthrough, saying a cheap, readily-available steroid can prevent deaths from COVID-19. Scientists from Britain’s University of Oxford say in a trial the drug dexamethasone reduced death rates by 35% for patients on ventilators, and by 20% for less immediately critical patients needing oxygen.   
   
Peter Horby, the academic leading the trial, told a Downing Street press conference, “what we saw was really quite remarkable.”  
   
Standing by his side, Prime Minister Boris Johnson lauded the trial, hailing it as the “biggest breakthrough yet” in treating COVID-19.  
   
“I am proud of these British scientists, backed by UK government funding, who have led the first, robust clinical trial anywhere in the world to find a coronavirus treatment proven to reduce the risk of death,” Horby said. Johnson added, “we have taken steps to ensure we have enough supplies, even in the event of a second peak.”  Britain’s Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty attends a remote press conference to update the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic, inside 10 Downing Street in central London on June 10, 2020.The country’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said it is “the most important trial result for COVID-19 so far.” Scientists across the globe have been racing to find treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, which has sickened more than 8 million people and killed more than 430,000.  
   
Dexamethasone is a generic steroid that’s been used for 60 years to reduce inflammation from a range of other conditions, including arthritis and asthma. It is low-cost — in many parts of the world costing just a dollar for a dosage course. Oxford University scientists tested it as part of a collective effort across the world by commercial labs, pharmaceutical companies and universities to existing drugs to see if any can work for the coronavirus.  
   
It is “the only drug that’s so far shown to reduce mortality — and it reduces it significantly,” said Horby.Martin Landray, a colleague, said: “It will save lives, and it will do so at a remarkably low cost.”In the Oxford’s study 2,104 patients were given the drug and 4,321 weren’t with the outcomes being compared. The university enrolled over 11,500 patients overall to test existing drugs, making it by far the biggest clinical trial in the world.  
   
The scientists said for patients on mechanical ventilation, it can reduce the risk of death from 40% to 28%. And for those being given supplemental needing oxygen, it can reduce fatalities from 25 to 20%. The Oxford scientists say if dexamethasone had been used sooner in Britain, it could have saved about 5,000 of the more than 40,000 Britons who so far have died of COVID-19.  
   
They say hospital patients should be given it without delay but cautioned it doesn’t seem to help people with milder coronavirus symptoms and who are not having breathing problems.  
   
“The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients,” said Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health.  
   
The only other drug proven so far to show some benefits with severely ill patients is remdesivir, an anti-viral drug created to fight Ebola, which can reduce the duration of bad coronavirus symptoms from 15 to 11 days.Oxford’s findings have not yet been peer-reviewed and the researchers are “now working to publish the full details as soon as possible.”     
…

Workers are preparing the Eiffel Tower for reopening next week, after the coronavirus pandemic led to the iconic Paris landmark’s longest closure since World War Two. France’s tourism industry is opening back up, but the 324-meter tall wrought-iron tower won’t immediately welcome visitors the way it did before the country went into lockdown in March. Only limited numbers of people will be allowed in when the Eiffel Tower opens again on June 25. Elevators to the top will be out of service, at least at first, and only the first and second floors will be accessible to the public. “At first, only visits by the stairs will be available,” Victoria Klahr, the spokeswoman for the tower’s management, said Tuesday.  Everyone over 11 years old will be required to wear face masks, and crowd control measures will be in place. “We are optimistic that visitor numbers will pick up, even if it will likely be local tourists who visit the monument in the first weeks,” Klahr said. The tower’s director told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he hopes access will be back to normal by August. A stringent cleaning operation is in place and will continue daily from next week. “There is a new protocol,” said Eiffel Tower hygiene consultant Alain Miralles. “The day cleaning teams will be able to clean all the points of contact every two hours, from the opening of the site to its closing.”Visitor stairs are demarcated with social distancing stickers during a presentation of the security measures at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, June 16, 2020. The Eiffel Tower will partially reopen on June 25.Tourists planning trips to the City of Light are advised to book tickets to visit the Eiffel Tower online once the ticket office reopens Thursday. Paris tourism officials have expressed muted optimism about the city’s reemergence as a travel destination. Since confinement measures were imposed in March, tourism levels have dropped by about 80% compared with the same month in previous years, they said. “To visit Paris now is quite exceptional, as we of course don’t have many visitors and we don’t expect this summer to be at the same level as previous ones,” Corinne Menegaux, the director of Paris’s businesses and tourism office, told The AP. Hotel owners are also keen to welcome visitors again, if realistic about the challenges ahead – and the competition among European countries to draw tourists back in the coronavirus era.  “Everyone is Europe is looking to draw the European clientele. The Italians want to bring in the French, the Germans want to attract the Danes,” said Serge Cachan, president of France’s Astotel Group. He pointed out the plexiglass protections in the reception area of one of his hotels and arrows to ensure social distancing. He welcomed the French president’s Sunday decision to let Paris restaurants reopen earlier than planned. “Without restaurants, there is no conviviality, there is no tourism, there are no clients in hotels,” he said in an interview.  
…

Throughout France, long-dead slave traders live on in French port cities like Nantes, Bordeaux and La Rochelle, where streets bear their names. Statues and schools still bear the monikers of Joseph Gallieni, a military commander who quelled rebellions in former colonies, and Jules Ferry, who is lauded for founding the secular school system, but who also believed in superior races.  Here, as in Europe’s other former colonial powers, police violence, #BlackLivesMatter protests and toppled Confederate monuments in the United States are sparking attacks on colonial-era relics and soul searching in France –including how the country should move forward.  Some, including former socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, want the names of at least some controversial historical figures to be scrubbed from streets and monuments, or to at least add contextual plaques. Others believe doing so offers a dishonest take on history — and still others claim today’s French should not have to apologize for their forebears.  “With the slavery debate again out in the open in the U.S., it seems to me that militant groups are taking the opportunity to open it in France,” said historian Nicole Bacharan.  “Despite very different pasts, both countries are confronted with the key question of ‘do we have the right or not to revisit history?’” Bacharan added. “And I think we do.”  National conversation If questions about France’s colonial and slave trading legacy are not new, they have catapulted into the national conversation in recent days, amid swelling protests against police violence and accusations of discrimination against minorities.FILE – A demonstrator clenches her fist as she stands on a statue on the Place de la Republique during a rally against racism in Paris, June 9, 2020.Last week, activists tried to steal a 19th century African pole from Paris’ Quai Branly Museum, with the apparent intent of returning it to Africa.  And even before George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, protesters in the French overseas territory of Martinique attacked a pair of statues of 19th century abolitionist Victor Schoelcher – who was also a staunch supporter of colonialism.  More recently, ex-prime minister Ayrault waded into the debate, calling buildings named after 17th century French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert to be rebaptized.  “Maybe we should say he wasn’t just a great economy minister, but also the minister of colonialism and the minister of the Black Code,” Ayrault said in an interview with French radio, referring to the code that regulated conditions for slavery in former French colonies.  But Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron flatly rejected editing or obscuring the colonial-era monikers.  “The Republic will not wipe away any trace or any name from its history,” Macron said in a televised address. “It will not forget any of its works. It will not take down any of its statues but lucidly look at our history and our memory together.”  The debates and protests are mirrored in other European countries with colonial pasts.  In Belgium, protesters burned and daubed in blood red a statue of King Leopold II, who oversaw the brutal rule of the then-Belgian Congo, which he treated as his personal property.  Leopold’s grand-niece, Princess Esmeralda, has called for an official Belgian apology on colonization.  In Britain, where protesters toppled a slave trader statue in Bristol, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the country cannot “edit or censor history.” Yet Johnson has also sparked anger, including in Africa, for downplaying Britain’s past and role in the slave trade, as a member of parliament in 2002.   Yet both countries, along with the Netherlands and soon, Germany, have national museums dedicated to their colonial histories. France does not. FILE – The statue of French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who served as Finance minister from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV, sits in front of the French National Assembly in Paris, June 10, 2020.Addressing France’s past  Still, perhaps more than many of his French predecessors, President Macron has taken steps to address France’s colonial past. As presidential candidate in 2017, he sparked controversy for calling France’s colonization of Algeria a “crime against humanity.” More recently, he announced France would return looted artifacts to former African colonies that request them. “I belong to a generation which was not that of colonization,” Macron said in a visit to Abidjan last December, following an announcement that another colonial symbol — the West African CFA franc currency — would be transformed into the Eco. But now, Macron’s thumbs down to removing colonial-era names from edifices and streets has sparked sharp divisions.  “He’s shutting the discussion,” said Karfa Diallo, the Senegalese head of Bordeaux-based association of Memoires et Partages (Memories and Sharing), which has fought for greater awareness of the city’s darker legacy as a former slave trading port. “The government is absent from the debate. It doesn’t realize the … anger that’s mounting worldwide.”  On the other side of the debate, former far-right lawmaker Marion Marechal rejected any links to the colonial past in the recent deaths of African American Floyd and Frenchman Adama Traore, who was killed in police custody in 2016. “I don’t have to apologize as a white French woman,” she tweeted recently.  For others, remembering the past, with all its blemishes, is essential.  “Removing names from roads for the symbolism in some cases is important,” said prominent historian Pascale Blanchard in an interview with France Info radio. But others should be left alone, Blanchard said, with explanatory plaques added instead.  “We can’t make history without a trace, without patrimony, without an archive,” he said.   
…

The U.N. General Assembly will hold its first major vote Wednesday since the coronavirus pandemic forced United Nations headquarters to essentially shut down in mid-March. Member states will hold an election for five seats on the powerful 15-member Security Council.  The annual event normally draws hundreds of diplomats to the assembly hall in a collegial atmosphere, where candidate countries hand out small treat bags with national goodies to promote their candidacy, capping off months of campaigning and parties to raise their profiles. FILE – Flags fly outside the United Nations headquarters in New York.U.N. headquarters is in the heart of New York City, which has been one of the hardest-hit places globally by COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The complex closed in mid-March to all but a few hundred essential personnel who could not perform their duties from home. Since then, the secretary-general has held virtual news conferences, the Security Council has taken its public meetings online, and the United Nations, like many individuals and businesses, has had to navigate an evolving reality, which included the cancellation of events promoting candidacies. “The pandemic initially upset the candidates’ campaign plans in March and April, but they have got back to lobbying via phone and Zoom as the vote approaches,” said Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group and a longtime U.N. watcher. ”Justin Trudeau and other leaders have been popping up in webinars and placing calls to wavering leaders.” FILE – Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, speaks at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14, 2020.Trudeau is Canada’s prime minister, and his government is running in a tight race with Ireland and Norway for two available seats in the regional group dedicated to Western Europe “and others.” Canada lost its last bid for a seat in 2010 and has a lot on the line. Both Ireland and Norway are popular contenders. The European Union’s 27-strong bloc will be behind Ireland, especially as it seeks to maintain its influence on the council. With permanent council member Britain now no longer part of the bloc, it has lost one influential seat and could see its current hold on four seats cut in half as Belgium and Germany complete their two-year terms and exit the council at the end of the year, leaving France and Estonia. Norway is not an EU member but has a solid reputation in multilateral diplomacy and conflict resolution. “Norway is a strong candidate, and has emphasized diplomatic experience mediating in Colombia, Venezuela and the Middle East,” Gowan noted. In the other contested race, Djibouti and Kenya are competing for a single seat in the African Group. Typically, the African bloc rotates seats among its sub-regions and presents one agreed-upon candidate. This year it is East Africa’s turn, but there was initially a lack of consensus on who should run. Kenya subsequently received the endorsement of the African Union’s Permanent Representatives Council, but Djibouti has challenged the PRC’s authority to make the endorsement and has continued with its bid. Mexico is the candidate from the Latin America and the Caribbean bloc, and India for Asia-Pacific. Both are running uncontested. Member states cast secret ballots and candidate countries must win a two-thirds majority of votes to succeed, even if running unopposed. The current General Assembly president will oversee the proceedings. Diplomats will also vote simultaneously for members of the social and economic council and to approve the uncontested bid for the next president of the General Assembly. On Wednesday, diplomats will vote in person during designated time slots in the assembly hall to respect social distancing and guidelines prohibiting large gatherings. Several rounds of voting are often needed to settle contested races. “The new voting process will be quite onerous, and diplomats will not be happy if they have to troop in and out of headquarters for repeated rounds of ballots,” Gowan predicted. The countries running for the Security Council are looking to replace exiting members Belgium, Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa. The winners will take up their two-year terms on Jan. 1, 2021.  
 
…

Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients.  
Results were announced Tuesday and researchers said they would publish them soon. The study is a large, strict test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to get the drug and compared them with 4,321 patients getting only usual care.
The drug was given either orally or through an IV. After 28 days, it had reduced deaths by 35% in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20% in those only needing supplemental oxygen. It did not appear to help less ill patients.
“This is an extremely welcome result,” one study leader, Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, said in a statement. “The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
Even though the drug only helps in severe cases, “countless lives will be saved globally,” said Nick Cammack of Wellcome, a British charity that supports science research.
“Dexamethasone must now be rolled out and accessed by thousands of critically ill patients around the world,” said Cammack, who had no role in the study. “It is highly affordable, easy to make, can be scaled up quickly and only needs a small dosage.”
Steroid drugs reduce inflammation, which sometimes develops in COVID-19 patients as the immune system overreacts to fight the infection. This overreaction can prove fatal, so doctors have been testing steroids and other anti-inflammatory drugs in such patients. The World Health Organization advises against using steroids earlier in the course of illness because they can slow the time until patients clear the virus.  
Researchers estimated that the drug would prevent one death for every eight patients treated while on breathing machines and one for every 25 patients on extra oxygen alone.
This is the same study that earlier this month showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was not working against the coronavirus. The study enrolled more than 11,000 patients in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who were given either standard of care or that plus one of several treatments: dexamethasone; the HIV combo drug lopinavir-ritonavir, the antibiotic azithromycin; the anti-inflammatory drug tocilizumab; or plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 that contains antibodies to fight the virus.
Research is continuing on the other treatments. The research is funded by government health agencies in the United Kingdom and private donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
…

During Europe’s migrant crisis of 2015, European Union member states promised to accept 160,000 asylum seekers in two years, of which the Spanish government pledged to receive nearly 18,000.  Five years later, Spain has given asylum to only two thousand people — held back in part by opposition from some Spaniards who say the kingdom already has too many migrants — many of them from Africa. Alfonso Beato filed this report from Barcelona, narrated by Jonathan Spier.Camera: Alfonso BeatoProduced by: Jon Spier 
…

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests that have erupted across the world in recent weeks have reinvigorated demands in Europe for statues of slave traders and colonial figures to be removed. A memorial to Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University is the focal point of protests in Britain. As VOA’s Henry Ridgwell reports from London, racial tensions are resurfacing as counter-protestors also take to the streets.Camera: Henry Ridgwell
…

Less than a week after France banned police chokeholds, the government responded to growing officer discontent by announcing it would test stun guns for wider use, adding to the ranks of European law enforcement agencies that have recently adopted the weapons that many in the U.S. equate with excess police violence.
For Johny Louise, it felt as though the 22 seconds of Taser pulses that led to his son’s death counted for nothing.  
“They need more death so that one day they understand, but it will be more pointless deaths and sufferings for families,” Louise said.  
Gendarmes in Orléans responding to a drunken brawl tried to arrest his son, Loïc. One of the officers, Noham Cardoso, fired his Taser for the first time, hitting Loïc Louise in the chest with the twin darts and jolting him for a full 17 seconds, rather than the usual 5-second cycle, then hitting him again less than a minute later with another 5 seconds, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press. Loïc Louis, who was black, passed out and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
Cardoso was charged last year with involuntary homicide in the Nov. 3, 2013, death. He has said Loïc Louise was aggressive and appeared ready to attack.
The officer’s lawyer, Ludovic de Villèle, can’t fathom why France would replace an immobilization technique with a weapon. He said it would make more sense to invent another technique to replace the banned chokehold.  
“It’s a bad sign to say, ‘You can’t strangle, but here are Tasers for you to use,'” de Villèle said.  
But Tasers, or other stun guns, are increasingly the weapon of choice for European law enforcement as they have been for years in the United States. In Atlanta, just hours after the French announcement on Friday, a seemingly routine sobriety check outside a Wendy’s restaurant ended in gunshots after Rayshard Brooks grabbed a Taser from officers and ran.  
The killing of the 27-year-old black man in an encounter with two white officers late Friday rekindled fiery protests in Atlanta and prompted the police chief’s resignation. One of the officers was fired.  
Axon, the company that makes Tasers, has made a big push outside the United States in recent years and agencies in the Netherlands and Italy recently expanded use of stun guns, following the path of Britain, where use has increased steadily since they were introduced in 2003.
Stun guns are in limited but increasing use in France already. The number of discharges increased from 1,400 in 2017 to 2,349 in 2019. According to the French police oversight agency, stun guns killed one person last year and three suffered severe injuries. After France said it would abandon the chokehold last week, police across the country staged scattered protests, saying they felt abandoned by the government.  
Police in England and Wales discharged Tasers 2,700 times over the 12 months ending in March 2019, according to government statistics, which also showed black people were more likely than white ones to have stun guns used on them.
Britain’s Independent Office for Police Conduct said last month that there were growing concerns “about its disproportionate use against black men and those with mental health issues.”
British rapper Wretch 32 posted video last week of his 62-year-old father being hit by a Taser in his London home during a police raid in April. The Metropolitan Police force said a review found no indication of misconduct, but London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for an urgent investigation by the police watchdog.
According to Amnesty International, at least 18 people in Britain have died after a stun gun was discharged on them by police, but in many cases it was not determined that the weapon caused the death. The human rights group has said at least 500 people died after being hit by stun guns between 2001 and 2012 in the United States.
Italy’s government approved using Tasers in January after a two-year trial and opened a bidding process to purchase nearly 4,500 stun guns to be divided among various law enforcement agencies. Police chief Franco Gabrielli said in March that the next phase would involve a period of training and “operational experimentation” in a half-dozen cities.
“The administration is certainly attentive to guaranteeing that the security of our personnel is first, obviously without causing damage to the people who might find themselves on the other side,” Gabrielli told reporters outside a Genoa hospital where he had gone to visit two police officers who were recovering after being injured in a shootout.
The Netherlands began issuing stun guns to police in 2017 and is training 17,000 of the force’s 40,000 officers. But far fewer of the weapons are on order and they will not be part of an officer’s standard equipment.
There are about 15,000 stun guns in France, which has a total police and gendarme force of around 240,000. In the United States, by contrast, more than three-quarters of officers carry the weapons as standard issue, according to William Terrill, a professor of criminal justice at Arizona State University. Axon says it has standing relationships with 95% of American law enforcement agencies.
Terrill said training must come before widespread distribution of Tasers, which are sold as a way to protect officers from aggressive suspects while avoiding deadly force.
“It’s almost asking a police department to make an unfair choice in many respects,” he said. “By articulating it that way, it’s almost saying I value my officers’ safety more than the community’s safety.”
For Loïc Louise’s family, from the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, it was a weapon used far too easily on someone with dark skin.
His father does not believe all gendarmes are racist but “some use their uniform to do whatever they please,” said Johny Louise. “And my son paid for it.” 
…

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered two Czech diplomats to leave the country in a quid pro quo response to Prague’s expulsion of Russian diplomats amid tensions rooted in differences over history.The ministry said it summoned the Czech ambassador Monday to announce the move, saying the two diplomats must leave Russia by Wednesday.Earlier this month, the Czech government ordered two Russian diplomats to leave the country. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the nation’s spy agency has discovered that one of them had spread false information about a Russian assassin arriving to allegedly target Czech politicians.The alleged assassination plot surfaced in April when a magazine reported that Czech intelligence services suspected that a Russian who arrived in Prague on a diplomatic passport was sent to poison Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and Prague 6 district mayor Ondrej Kolar with a potent toxin.  Kolar, Hrib and the mayor of Prague’s Reporyje district, Pavel Novotny, all consequently received police protection.Moscow has dismissed the allegation as baseless. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ridiculed the claims published in the magazine, saying the notion that Czech authorities spotted a Russian man equipped with ricin and let him through didn’t make sense.The three politicians had been involved in actions that previously angered Russia.  In February, a Prague square in front of the Russian Embassy was renamed after slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, with Hrib unveiling the new nameplate.  In April, Kolar’s district removed a statue of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Konev, whose armies completed the liberation of Prague from Nazi occupation. The statue’s removal caused outrage in Russia, which has angrily lashed out at any attempts to diminish the nation’s decisive role in defeating the Nazis.Novotny provoked Moscow’s ire with plans to build a monument to the soldiers of Gen. Andrei Vlasov’s army. Over 300 of them died when they helped the Czech uprising against Nazi rule and contributed to Prague’s liberation. Their role is controversial for Russia, however, because they previously fought against the Red Army alongside Nazi troops. 
…

Paris is rediscovering its joie de vivre, as cafes and restaurants reopen for the first time since the fast-spreading coronavirus forced them to close their doors on March 14. Many customers seemed to shrug off masks and social distancing as they streamed back to their neighborhood bistros for a morning espresso or a three-course lunch Monday, free to resume their lifestyles by a surprise announcement from the French president himself. “We will rediscover … the art of living, our taste for freedom,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation Sunday night, citing progress in fighting the virus. “We will rediscover France.” After two months of being totally shut down as part of France’s strict virus lockdown measures, restaurants outside the Paris region opened earlier this month. Since June 2, Paris cafes have been allowed to serve people outside but not open their doors. Before Macron’s speech, the full reopening wasn’t expected until later this month. People have lunch at the restaurant Les Ambassades in Paris, on June 15, 2020, as cafes and restaurants are allowed to serve customers inside, as well as on terraces.At the Café Des Anges in the heart of the Bastille neighborhood of Paris, customers seemed happy to reconnect and talked about the need to remain careful — yet almost no one wore a mask. France has the world’s fifth-highest recorded toll from the virus, at 29,410 dead. “It’s like a renaissance, but with caution,” said customer Marie-Elisabeth Vilaine. The reopening Monday caught many restaurant owners off guard — just like the abrupt closure three months ago, when the prime minister announced at 8 p.m. on a Saturday that all the country’s restaurants had to shut down by midnight.  Paris seemed especially depressing as restaurants, the lifeblood of the city, stood shuttered, chairs stacked against the windows, menus gathering dust. Waiters work at the terrace of a cafe in Paris, on June 15, 2020, one day after French president announced the reopening of dining rooms of Parisian cafes and restaurants, starting today.After three months of losses, some restaurateurs fear it will take a long time for business to come back. Some French restaurants are experimenting with plastic barriers and air-filtration systems to soothe fears. The risk of a second wave of infections remains real, notably after new virus clusters in some countries and U.S. states were traced back to reopened restaurants or other sites. Cafe des Anges manager Virgile Grunberg — who makes his staff wear masks — said he’s lost hundreds of thousands of euros because of the closure, but has hope for a recovery because he has a loyal clientele. “People have missed this, because they come in every morning before work, have a little coffee and a discussion,” he told The Associated Press. “It’s part of Paris.” But he acknowledged that “it’s very hard to get people who are sitting at the bar to respect social distancing … if they want to be together, it’s going to be hard to prevent them from doing so.”  One essential ingredient is still absent from French streets: tourists. Wervicq-Sud Mayor David Heiremans (France) (L), French State Secretary Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (2L), and Wervik Mayor Youro Casier (Belgium) (C) are pictured during the symbolic reopening of the border between Belgium and France, on June 15, 2020.France threw open its borders to other European countries Monday, as did several of its neighbors, in hopes of luring some visitors back. But tourists from the U.S., Asia and other continents won’t be allowed back until at least July 1, and French authorities could re-impose restrictions in the case of new infections.  British tourists, so close just across the Channel, face a 14-day quarantine when they enter France now. Paris cafe customer Thierry Lanternier welcomed the further easing of virus rules, saying, “Let’s just hope it lasts.”   
…

Asian markets plummeted Monday due to growing fears that a second wave of coronavirus cases will prompt a new round of government lockdowns. Tokyo’s Nikkei index lost 3.4% at its closing bell, with both the Hang Seng in Hong Kong and Sydney’s S&P/ASX indices both down 2.1% in late afternoon trading.   Elsewhere in Asia, Seoul’s KOSPI index had lost a staggering 4.7%, while the Sensex in Mumbai was down 2.1% and Taiwan’s TSEC index was down 1%.   European markets are also getting off on the wrong foot Monday.  London’s FTSE index is off 2%, while both the CAC-40 in Paris and the DAX index in Frankfurt are trending  down 2.5%. Oil markets are also taking a beating Monday, with U.S. crude selling at $34.71 per barrel, down 4.2%, and Brent crude, the international benchmark, down $37.53 per barrel, down 3.1%. In stock futures trading, the Dow Jones plunged 800 points, or 3.1%, the S&P 500 was down 2.7%, and the Nasdaq is 2.2% lower.   After sustaining historic losses as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and brought the global economy to a virtual standstill earlier this year, global markets have rallied since March as governments imposed emergency stimulus measures and steadily reopened their economies as the spread of the virus appeared to subside. 
…

The statue of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square is now boarded up.  In the Dorset town of Poole on England’s southern coast police are mounting a 24-hour guard on a statue commemorating Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the Scouts movement and briefly an admirer Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf, once describing it as a “wonderful book.” In east London last week, just days before ugly clashes erupted in the British capital between far right activists and supporters of Black Lives Matters, workmen hastily removed a statue memorializing Robert Milligan, an eighteenth-century merchant, who on his death owned 526 slaves laboring on sugar plantations in Jamaica. Anti-racist campaigners in Britain have a burgeoning hit list of statues they want removed, triggering a new front in a culture war that risks future violent street tussles.  Most Britons pay little heed when rushing past monuments lionizing some of the great men of Britain’s past — from national leaders like Churchill to grand merchants and city fathers like Milligan.  William Shakespeare, the country’s great playwright and poet, once described public statuary as “unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.” He bragged that his words would outlast statues of great men, mocking, “Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.” He may be right.  Britain’s public statues — many erected at the height of the British empire between 1830 to 1914 — have become a tumultuous flashpoint, which on Saturday spilled violently on to the streets of London in running skirmishes between bottle-throwing far right agitators, baton-wielding police and Black Lives Matters protesters, all under the watchful eye of Admiral Horatio Nelson from atop his column in Trafalgar Square.  Nelson, the preeminent British admiral during the Napoleonic era, himself once wrote in defense of the Jamaican slave trade. Anger at the past Far right activists said they had come to protect statues in the capital from being toppled — as happened during anti-racist protests earlier this month to a monument in Bristol commemorating Edward Colston. Jubilant protesters dragged Colston’s bronze statue from its plinth and chucked it in the harbor, in scenes more reminiscent of the 2003 toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad or the removal of monuments to Lenin and Stalin witnessed at the end of the Soviet era.   In a dramatic gesture mirroring what happened to Floyd, one protester placed his knee on Colston’s bronze throat before the statute was rolled to the harbor wall.FILE – The statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston falls into the water after protesters pulled it down during a protest against racial inequality, in Bristol, Britain, June 7, 2020.A 17th century merchant and great municipal benefactor, who founded schools and alms-houses in Bristol, Colston’s wealth was derived from the transatlantic slave trade. His trading company is estimated to have transported around 84,000 African men, women and children, with 19,000 dying on the ships transporting them from the coast of Africa to the plantations of the Caribbean and the Americas.For supporters of Black Lives Matters, galvanized by protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a black man who was suffocated by a white policeman in Minneapolis in Minnesota on May 25, the statues are terrible reminders of a dark imperial past Britain refuses to fully acknowledge.  Until it does, they say, racial inequality and prejudice will persist.  The statues to men like Colston and Milligan are hurtful, they say, and offensive to the descendants of slaves in the city of Bristol. “The crowd who saw to it that Colston fell were of all races, but some were the descendants of the enslaved black and brown Bristolians whose ancestors were chained to the decks of Colston’s ships,” historian David Olusoga wrote in the Guardian. He added: “Whatever is said over the next few days, this was not an attack on history. This is history. It is one of those rare historic moments whose arrival means things can never go back to how they were.” For others, a matter of pride For self-declared patriots, the statues representing the past should be celebrated — and defended.  Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, a far-right group, told Saturday the ranks of his supporters, some drawn from from the fan clubs of professional soccer teams: “I’m here today because for two consecutive weekends our monuments and memorials have been trashed by left-wing thugs. We’re here today with one pure mission: to defend our memorials.”  Hundreds of people also turned out in other British cities, including Glasgow, Belfast and Newcastle, claiming to safeguard historic statues and war memorials from harm. Dennis Smith, who turned out to protect statues, told reporters, “If it wasn’t for people like Winston Churchill, we wouldn’t be here today speaking English. We would be speaking German and there wouldn’t be any black people around either.”  A week ago Churchill’s monument in Parliament Square was vandalized with a protester daubing on it that Britain’s wartime leader “was a racist.”Police officers stand in front of the Winston Churchill statue during a rally in Parliament Square in London, Tuesday, June 9, 2020. The rally is to commemorate George Floyd whose private funeral takes place in the US on Tuesday.Historical revisionism British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted Friday that defacing the statue was “absurd and shameful,” adding that Churchill “was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial.” He added: “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations.”  He noted: “They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults.” Johnson and his ministers are now talking about introducing legislation that would make it a criminal offense to desecrate historic and war memorials with a maximum ten-year prison sentence. That might help to safeguard the monuments, but it is unlikely to silence the debate about some of them, which is featuring not just activists but journalists, politicians, historians, and Oxford and Cambridge colleges, too, in heated exchanges about their future and how best to teach history. “Pulling down statues is nothing new, nor is the changing of street names and even those of cities and countries,” says historian James Holland. Writing for Sky News, he said: “It has happened time and again through history. Most of us in the West cheered when the swastikas were blown up in 1945, or when the statues of Lenin and Stalin were pulled down, or even that of Saddam Hussein.” The comparison, though, with Nazi and Communist leaders incurs the wrath of others. They acknowledge there are some clear-cut cases like the slave-traders Colston and Millington, which should have been consigned long ago to museums, but statue-defenders say the criticism of other historical figures lacks nuance and that arguments for the removal of their statues risks editing and censoring the past.  On Saturday Chris Patten, the chancellor of the University of Oxford, defended the statue of Cecil Rhodes on the facade of Oriel College, telling students who are campaigning for its removal they should be prepared to embrace freedom of thought or “think about being educated elsewhere.”  He said that they are simplifying the facts about Rhodes. A British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa in the late nineteenth century, Rhodes was an ardent advocate of British imperialism, describing the Anglo-Saxon race as “the first race in the world.” His defenders point out that he created Oxford’s famous Rhodes Scholarships, requiring that “no student shall be qualified or disqualified for election to a Scholarship on grounds of his race.” The focus on Rhodes is unfortunate, Patten said, noting that Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president after the end of apartheid, endorsed the Rhodes scholarships. “There is something facile and narcissistic about parading your moral superiority over someone who died more than a century ago simply because he upheld the values of his own age, according to newspaper columnist Daniel Hannan, who concedes Rhodes was not a saint.  Winston Churchill’s grandson, Nicholas Soames, says the vandalism of his grandfather’s statue was “sad to see.” He acknowledges Churchill’s views of black people, Indians and women’s rights are “unpalatable to many people nowadays,” but he notes his grandfather came of age in a “different era” and “at the end of the day, Churchill saved this country. He was one of the greatest leaders this country has ever seen. He was a great defender of liberty and democracy.”  His legacy should be assessed “as a whole,” he says. For some who are sympathetic to the call for statue removals, there is danger in moving too fast and of failing to appreciate that most historical figures were flawed personalities.  Times columnist Janice Turner says previous generations did not think too hard about the sources of Britain’s historical mercantile wealth. “Today’s young are citizens of a diverse Britain, more likely to have a friend of another race. For white teenagers now, descendants of slaves sit next to them in class, score for their football team,” she says.  But she warned that while “the youthful fire of demonstrators can achieve real change” they should “pause for reflection before the far right exploit it.” A culture war, she fears, “threatens to become a street battle. Which is what a nihilist minority on each side want.” 
…

Monday sees more reopenings in France, Britain, Greece and other locations, while China is reimposing some coronavirus restrictions after dozens of new cases in Beijing. Restaurant owners in Paris are able join those in the rest of the country by opening their doors for patrons to eat inside.  Travelers from other European countries can also travel to France again as countries open their borders to travelers from other parts of the continent. “We must relaunch our economy,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. In Britain, non-essential shops are opening again Monday, as are places of worship for individual prayer, and recreation sites such as drive-in movie theaters and zoos.  People will still need to observe social distancing rules and the government is advising the use of facemasks when people are inside. On Britain’s public transit, Monday brought new orders for mandatory face coverings. Greece opened the international airport in is second largest city, Thessaloniki, to EU travelers, and the country’s museums reopened after a three-month shutdown.People visit the Pnyx Hill in Athens overlooking the ancient Acropolis on May 29, 2020 as Greece eases lockdown measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 (the novel coronavirus).China reported 49 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, the majority linked to a wholesale market in Beijing, prompting authorities to reimpose some social isolation restrictions and suspend plans to restart some classes. Many areas around the world have struggled with the decision about when and how quickly to relax measures put in place to slow the spread of the virus that has infected 7.9 million people worldwide and killed at least 433,000. The governor of New York state, the hardest-hit area of the United States, expressed his concerns Sunday about complaints local authorities and businesses are not properly enforcing restrictions, leading to large gatherings with poor social distancing and few people wearing masks. “If you have large gatherings of people who are not socially distanced, who are not wearing masks, you will have an increased spread in the virus,” Cuomo said.  “It may not come for a period of time, but it will come. And once it comes, it’s too late. Now you’re back up in a spike situation and it’s going to take you weeks of extraordinary effort to bring it down.” Turkey’s health minister also expressed concerns about his country’s efforts, saying Turkey is “moving away from the target” with more than 1,500 new confirmed cases in one day.  It was the highest such figure for Turkey since June 3. 
…

During the coming week, the U.N. Human Rights Council will be faced with many important issues left hanging when its 43rd session was suspended in March because of COVID-19.  The meeting, which opens Monday, will employ a so-called hybrid approach, with a mix of both real and virtual presentations.To ensure the safety of participants during this time of coronavirus, U.N. officials say social distancing measures will be strictly enforced.  Delegations will have a reduced number of representatives attending the session and hundreds of side events by nongovernmental organizations will not take place on U.N. premises.Presentation of reports and interactive dialogues on human rights issues will involve experts who are either physically present or speaking by video conference.  Countries that will come under review include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Ukraine, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Central African Republic.One of the highlights of the weeklong meeting will be an urgent debate on institutionalized racism in the United States underlined by the killing of African American George Floyd while in police custody.Geneva director of Human Rights Watch John Fisher calls this a moment of reckoning for the United States.  He said the event will likely be used by some countries to advance their own agendas.“We are also very concerned that China is seeking to exploit this moment of global chaos and the disarray within the U.S. to crack down on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong … And, we are calling upon states to take this moment to bring more attention to Hong Kong, as I mentioned.  We feel this is a time when China will be watching the international response, and, if that response is muted, will feel emboldened to go even further down the track,” he said.A year ago, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callemard, presented her report on the killing of Saudi columnist for the Washington Post Jamal Khashoggi, which she claimed was by agents of the Saudi government.  While this issue is not formally on the council agenda, Fisher believes it should be given renewed attention.“In addition to, of course the murder of Khashoggi, while a number of women human rights defenders have been released from prison, a number remain.  There are still allegations of torture.  They still face criminal charges …There continues to be use of the death penalty, flogging, a crackdown on dissent, new waves of arrests,” he said. At the end of the week, the council will take action on decisions and the adoption of more than 40 resolutions.  They include recommendations on improving human rights in countries such as Libya, Iran, Nicaragua, South Sudan, and Myanmar. 
  
…

After more than a year of thinly-veiled threats to start pulling U.S. troops out of Germany unless Berlin increases its defense spending, President Donald Trump appears to be proceeding with a hardball approach, planning to cut the U.S. military contingent by more than 25%.About 34,500 American troops are stationed in Germany — 50,000 including civilian Department of Defense employees — and the plan Trump reportedly signed off on last week envisions reducing active-duty personnel to 25,000 by September, with further cuts possible.But as details of the still-unannounced plan trickle out, there’s growing concerns it will do more to harm the U.S.’s own global military readiness and the NATO alliance than punish Germany.The decision was not discussed with Germany or other NATO members, and Congress was not officially informed — prompting a letter from 22 Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee urging a rethink.“The threats posed by Russia have not lessened, and we believe that signs of a weakened U.S. commitment to NATO will encourage further Russian aggression and opportunism,” Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas wrote in a letter to Trump with his colleagues. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed Trump’s move as “another favor” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.But Richard Grenell, who resigned as U.S. ambassador to Germany two weeks ago, told Germany’s Bild newspaper that “nobody should be surprised that Donald Trump is withdrawing troops.”Grenell, who declined to comment for this article, said he and others had been pushing for Germany to increase its defense spending and had talked about troop withdrawals since last summer.“Donald Trump was very clear we want to bring troops home,” he said, adding: “there’s still going to be 25,000 American troops in Germany.”The suggestion that removing troops will punish Germany, however, overlooks the fact that American troops are no longer primarily there for the country’s defense, said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who commanded U.S. Army Europe from 2014 until 2017.Gone are the days when hundreds of thousands of American troops were ready to fight in the streets of Berlin or rush into the strategic Fulda Gap, through which Soviet armor was poised to push into West Germany during the Cold War.“The troops and capabilities that the U.S. has deployed in Europe are not there to specifically defend Germany, they are part of our contribution to overall collective stability and security in Europe,” said Hodges, now a strategic expert with the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based institute.American facilities include Ramstein Air Base, a critical hub for operations in the Mideast and Africa and headquarters to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa; the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which has saved the lives of countless Americans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the Stuttgart headquarters of both the U.S. European Command and the U.S. Africa Command. There’s also the Wiesbaden headquarters of U.S. Army Europe, the Spangdahlem F-16 fighter base and the Grafenwoehr Training Area, NATO’s largest training facility in Europe.Hodges said the facilities are a critical part of America’s global military footprint.“What’s lost in all this is the benefit to the United States of having forward deployed capabilities that we can use not only for deterrence … but for employment elsewhere,” he said. “The base in Ramstein is not there for the U.S. to defend Europe. It’s there as a forward base for us to be able to fly into Africa, the Middle East.”Trump indicated last summer that he was thinking of moving some troops from Germany to Poland, telling Poland’s President Andrzej Duda during an Oval Office meeting: “Germany is not living up to what they’re supposed to be doing with respect to NATO, and Poland is.”Duda has been trying to woo more American forces, even suggesting Poland would contribute over $2 billion to create a permanent U.S. base — which he said could be named “Fort Trump.” In the current plan, at least some Germany-based troops are expected to be shifted to Poland.Following Trump’s comments last June, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher tweeted Aug. 8 that “Poland meets its 2% of GDP spending obligation towards NATO. Germany does not. We would welcome American troops in Germany to come to Poland.”Grenell then tweeted: “it is offensive to assume that the U.S. taxpayers will continue to pay for more than 50,000 Americans in #Germany, but the Germans get to spend their surplus on #domestic programs.”In response, Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated Germany’s commitment to “work toward” the 2% NATO defense spending benchmark — a goal it hopes to meet in 2031.“There is a lot invested here, and I think that we, in very friendly talks, will naturally always continue to heartily welcome these American soldiers, and there are also good reasons for them to be stationed here,” she said.NATO members agreed at a 2014 summit to “aim to move toward” spending 2% of GDP on defense. Since then, the year Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, overall NATO defense spending has grown annually.Since his election in 2016, Trump has pushed for the 2% as a hard target, and repeatedly singled out Germany as a major offender, though many others are also below the goal.NATO figures put Germany’s estimated defense spending for 2019 at 1.4%, and Poland’s at 2%. In dollar terms, however, Germany committed nearly $54 billion last year — NATO’s third-largest budget after the U.S. and Britain — while Poland spent slightly less than $12 billion.Germany does need to spend more, Hodges said, but U.S. and NATO interests would be better served if Washington pushed Berlin to spend on broader military needs, like transportation infrastructure, cyber protection and air defense, that would be easier for Merkel’s government to justify to a largely pacifist population.“We don’t need more German tanks, we need more German trains,” he said. “Why not be a little bit more strategic and think about what the alliance really needs from Germany?” 
…

Ports remain closed in Italy, but the end of lockdown measures, combined with favorable weather conditions, have authorities concerned that a new wave of immigrant arrivals is imminent. Intelligence sources have said more than 20,000 migrants are ready to depart from North Africa.Arrivals of migrants on Italian shores never really stopped during the months of lockdown imposed because of the coronavirus, but ports were closed as Italy declared them unsafe, and NGO vessels stopped patrolling the Mediterranean because of the emergency. Nonetheless, according to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 6,000 migrants have already reached Italy this year compared to 2,000 for all of last year.Now, with the numbers of new coronavirus infections decreasing day by day and no longer such a concern, fears are mounting that the number of migrants that will soon take to the seas for Italy from North Africa will increase dramatically. Good weather and calm seas during the summer will also make it easier for traffickers to make the crossings.Charity vessels have resumed patrolling the Mediterranean to try to provide assistance to migrants in difficulty. The Mare Jonio ship of the Italian NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans set sail this week from the Sicilian port of Trapani on its eighth mission.The Mare Jonio’s spokesperson said the vessel was headed to the central Mediterranean to monitor and denounce the violations of human rights that continue to take place. She added that they know they will be encountering war refugees and victims of torture who are left to die at sea.In the latest tragedy at sea, the bodies of more than 60 dead African migrants were recovered this week after their vessel sank after leaving Tunisia and heading to Italy. The United Nations Refugee Agency says that so far this year the number of sea departures from Tunisia to Europe has increased fourfold.
…

Ukrainian officials on Saturday said they were offered $5 million in bribes to end a probe into energy company Burisma’s founder, but said there was no connection to former board member Hunter Biden, whose father is running for the U.S. presidency.The Ukrainian company was thrust into the global spotlight last year in the impeachment inquiry into whether U.S. President Donald Trump improperly pressured Kyiv into opening a case against former Vice President Joe Biden, his rival in the November election race, and Biden’s son.Artem Sytnyk, head of Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau (NABU), said three people had been detained, including one current and former tax official, over the bribe offer.The money was the largest cash bribe ever seized in the country, NABU said. It was put on display during a press briefing, brought by masked men in see-through plastic bags.Founder now abroadBurisma said in a statement it had nothing to do with the matter. It did not respond to a request for comment from the company’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, a former ecology minister now living abroad.“Let’s put an end to this once and for all. Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding,” Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of anti-corruption investigations at the prosecution service, told Saturday’s briefing.The bribe related to a case of embezzling state money given to a bank, officials said. Some $5 million was offered to anti-corruption officials and a further $1 million was intended for an official acting as a middleman, Sytnyk said.The suspects were in a hurry to pay the bribe because they wanted to end the case against Zlochevsky in time for his birthday on Sunday, “to close the criminal proceedings and ensure the return of Mr. Zlochevsky to Ukraine,” he said.No evidence of Biden wrongdoing foundThe country’s former prosecutor general told Reuters in June that an audit he commissioned while in office of thousands of old case files had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden while he worked for Burisma.Hunter Biden joined Burisma in 2014, one of several high-profile names to join what the private company said was an attempt to strengthen corporate governance.His role has been attacked as corrupt without evidence by Trump and congressional Republicans in Washington. The Bidens deny any wrongdoing, and Democrats said Trump was trying to help his re-election prospects.
…

Some members of Poland’s government on Friday denied a Reuters report saying talks over a U.S.-Polish defense deal known as Fort Trump were crumbling amid disputes over how to fund the deployment of additional U.S troops and where to garrison them.“This is fake news,” Krzysztof Szczerski, a top aide to the Polish president, told public radio on Friday.The U.S. ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, reacting on Twitter to the report, said negotiations remained on track.“President Trump @POTUS & @Prezydentpl Duda’s vision for increased US presence in Poland will be even greater than originally outlined. Announcement coming soon.”Mosbacher and the U.S. Embassy in Poland were not immediately available for comment to elaborate on the timing of the announcement and what the new plans would look like.A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an email to Reuters on Saturday that talks were productive and on track.A spokesperson for Reuters said the company stood behind its reporting which accurately reflected the situation at the time.Reuters was unable on Friday to determine what fresh efforts, if any, had been made since Wednesday’s report to advance the negotiations and resolve major outstanding issues such as funding.A year ago, Polish President Andrzej Duda and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed that an additional 1,000 U.S. troops would be stationed in Poland. Six locations were shortlisted for the troops when Vice President Mike Pence visited Warsaw in September.The Reuters report published on Wednesday cited government officials in Washington and Warsaw saying they still could not agree where the troops should be stationed, and how much of the multibillion-dollar deployment Warsaw should fund.In that story, Polish deputy foreign minister Pawel Jablonski told Reuters complex issues remained to be ironed out. “There’s the question of financing, of the placement, of legal rights, under what principles these soldiers will function here,” he said.“I do think we will come to a final decision, but this will still take some time.”But Poland’s defense minister said the deal was going ahead.“We are currently agreeing the last details and discussions are taking place in a good atmosphere,” Mariusz Blaszczak said in a tweet on Thursday. 
…

Chanting “We are culture,” matadores and bullfighting supporters demonstrated on Saturday across Spain, seeking government support for the sector after the coronavirus pandemic halted its season.Major festivals such as Sevilla’s April Fair and Pamplona’s San Fermin in July have been canceled, and bulls have been sent from ranches straight to the slaughterhouse. The shutdown could deal a fatal blow to a controversial spectacle that has struggled for survival in recent decades.“The COVID-19 crisis has had an enormous impact … It has reduced almost by 100 percent the scheduled events for the year and all the families that live off bullfighting have been too affected,” said Juan de Castilla, 25, a Colombian bullfighter at a protest in the central city of Guadalajara.There were also protests on Saturday in Seville, Madrid and Barcelona, among other cities.Several hundred masked people marched in Guadalajara, waving Spanish flags with bull figures and holding banners in support of the traditionally emblematic Spanish spectacle.The Spanish government has allowed bullfights to resume but with only half occupancy and a limit of 800 attendees in regions with lesser lockdown restrictions.“We have come to proclaim that the bullfighting world is important for society, Spain and Guadalajara,” said Jesus Romero, 58.He said bullfights, also known as “corridas,” should resume soon since Spain is gradually lifting its lockdown — one of the strictest in Europe. The country has now contained the coronavirus spread, which has killed over 27,000 people.Although the big festivals still draw crowds, public interest in bullfighting has dwindled considerably.Over 56 percent of people were against bullfighting, 24.7 percent in favor and 18.9 percent indifferent in a poll published last year by news website El Espanol. Support was significantly higher among conservative voters, it showed. 
…

The French praised the altruism of their prized textile and luxury goods companies when production facilities got diverted from churning out the latest fashions to making cloth masks designed to protect the general public from the coronavirus.Now, the companies that helped France avoid a feared shortage of virus-filtering face wear for everyday use say they need help unloading a surplus of 20 million masks. They asked the French government for assistance promoting and finding buyers for the unsold output of the industry’s national effort.Hundreds of textile and clothing manufacturers answered the government’s call for millions of masks superior to homemade versions. President Emmanuel Macron last month sported a military-tested model embroidered with the tri-color national flag to advertise the “Made in France” masks.Yet within weeks, demand dried up for the domestically produced masks that sold for a few euros at supermarkets and pharmacies or were available in bulk for free distribution by businesses and local governments. Manufacturers and the government acknowledged that many suppliers and consumers still opted for cheaper disposable face masks from Asia.“We are faced with a lot of competition” from countries with lower labor costs, said Thomas Delise, owner of Chanteclair, the knitwear manufacturer behind the mask Macron wore during a school visit last month.In this June 12, 2020 photo, director Thomas Delise gestures in Chanteclair Hosiery, a French knitwear clothing manufacturer in Saint Pouange, east of Paris, that began making masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus.In an interview with The Associated Press at his factory southeast of Paris, he called for trade barriers to large imports, and coordination within Europe to buy Europe-made masks.Guillaume Gibault, founder of trendy underwear brand Le Slip Francais (The French Brief), sees the slump as a marketing and distribution problem. The washable, specially engineered masks produced by his company and others saw “a very strong and immediate demand” before the excess accessories piled up in warehouses and factories.“Not everyone necessarily knew about what was available around them, and the public didn’t necessarily know where or what to buy,” he told French public radio service RFI.Some textile companies complained that the French government was slow to validate their masks as effective in filtering out small particles, which slowed their ability to get to market before people were allowed to start emerging from their homes and needed masks in stores or on public transportation.A group of industry representatives got time with two junior government ministers this week to discuss the surplus masks, as well as broader concerns about the health of fashion, textiles and luxury goods makers amid the economic fallout of the pandemic and in the long term.After the meeting, the ministers pledged the government’s help to spread the word to distributors, local governments and other potential customers about the environmental and employment benefits of the French masks and finding buyers at home and abroad for the surplus stock.In this June 12, 2020 photo, an employee walks by fabric cut to produce face protection masks in Chanteclair Hosiery, a French knitwear clothing manufacturer, in Saint Pouange, east of Paris.Agnes Pannier-Runacher, state secretary to France’s economy minister, told French broadcaster RTL that the government’s objective “is to convince large buyers to switch from single-use masks to reusable washable textile masks.” Gibault and French Textile Industry Union President Yves Dubief agreed to lead the mission.“In a few weeks, the French textile industry has managed to mobilize and redirect its productive apparatus on our territory in order to provide the French durable textile masks with guaranteed filtration in sufficient quantities,” Pannier-Runacher said. “This impressive effort is to be commended. It must now be long term and be given support.”The French Textile Industry Union was the first to sound the alarm in early June on this problem of surplus.“The demand was such that no one had anticipated such a brutal halt. But in the textile industry, once launched, production does not stop with a snap of the fingers,” Dubief told French magazine Challenges.Some French companies were disgruntled because it was the French government that urged many of them to get into mask-making and to increase capacity so the country would produce 5 million masks a day that could be sold or given to the general public, local governments and corporations by mid-May.The mask surplus is especially painful because France was so short of any kind of masks early in the pandemic that some nursing home and medical staff had no face protection at all. Those mask shortages are central to several lawsuits against the government of a country that has seen nearly 30,000 virus deaths.The French government said this week that part of the joint industry-government mission will be to help cloth mask-makers adjust “production capacities to collective needs in masks over the next few months.”At his textile factory, Delise said: “We don’t know how the pandemic will evolve. We don’t know which instructions the government will give, we don’t know what kind of equipment the professionals will want. So today, yes, we have a surplus stock of 600,000 masks and it obviously has an impact on my company.” 
…