The United States on Tuesday condemned a Russian court’s decision to sentence the Kremlin’s most outspoken critic, Alexei Navalny, to 3.5 years in prison. State Department officials says the U.S. is reviewing what actions it will take in the matter. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
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COVID-19 testing tents are popping up in the French capital as extensions of local pharmacies that allow people to walk in and get a free COVID screening. More with VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo.  
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Britain launched an emergency program of door-to-door testing in several areas Tuesday following the discovery of hundreds of cases of the coronavirus variant, first identified in South Africa, which scientists say could be more resistant to vaccines.  Mobile testing units were deployed to several regions, including parts of central and suburban London, while firefighter units and volunteers helped to deliver home testing kits and administer door-to-door testing. Local authorities aimed to conduct 80,000 coronavirus tests. By Tuesday morning, 105 cases of the mutation first seen in South Africa were identified in eight districts across Britain. Eleven of those cases did not have any direct link to international travel, suggesting the variant is being transmitted within the community. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kit to a resident, in Goldsworth and St. Johns, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Meanwhile, health authorities announced they are also investigating separate cases of the virus with what they described as worrying new genetic changes. The variants, identified in the cities of Bristol and Liverpool, have the same mutation as the South African variant, called E484K. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged people living in the affected areas to adhere to lockdown rules and stay home. “Our mission must be to stop its spread altogether and break those chains of transmission. … It is imperative that people must stay at home and only leave home where it is absolutely essential,” Hancock told members of parliament Tuesday. People queue at a testing center amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Southport, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Britain is still battling a separate coronavirus mutation, first identified in Kent in southern England in September, which has contributed to a deadly second wave of the pandemic. An estimated 107,000 people have died in Britain within 28 days of testing positive for the virus since the pandemic began. Scientists say the variants appear to be more transmissible. Early indications from trials suggest they may also be more resistant to vaccines. “There has been a couple of observations, one from Novavax and one from Johnson & Johnson, which suggest that their vaccine trials were less successful in South Africa than they were in the United Kingdom and the United States,” Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Britain’s University of Reading, told VOA. “(The mutation) renders antibodies less able to bind to the spike protein of the virus and stop the spike protein acting as a key to gain entrance to our cells.” That could affect people’s immunity to the coronavirus, both for individuals who have had the infection and those who have been vaccinated.  An advertisement board is seen, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.”Even if we roll out a vaccine across the population, getting complete 100 percent coverage will be nigh on impossible,” Clarke said. “And the virus will be put under a selective pressure to accommodate and to favor mutations like this, which render it less susceptible to vaccines, or the actions of vaccines.” Britain also announced Tuesday it had given a first vaccine dose to more than 10 million people, by far the highest in Europe. It is not yet clear, however, if the vaccines are as effective against the new variants and may need to be modified. Health Secretary Hancock said such work was under way. “We’re working with pharmaceutical companies and with the scientists to understand both whether such modifications are needed, where they are needed and how they can be brought to use on the front line as quickly as safely possible.”  Scientists say the emergence of new variants around the world underlines the urgent need to roll out global vaccination programs and suppress transmission, as even fully vaccinated populations could be at risk as the virus continues to mutate. 
 
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Northern Ireland temporarily suspended some inspections at two ports late Monday after threats of violence and increased tensions have been reported in the area. Graffiti was discovered in Belfast describing port staff as “targets.” Staff have also reported suspicious behavior such as people writing down license plate numbers. Police say they are increasing patrols near ports of entry. A police vehicle patrols after threats were made to port workers implementing post-Brexit trade checks in Northern Ireland, at the Port of Larne in County Antrim, Feb. 2, 2021.A spokesman for the European Commission announced Tuesday they had withdrawn European Union staff from the Northern Ireland ports as a safety precaution and condemned the violence. Many pro-British unionists fiercely oppose the new trade barriers introduced between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain as part of the Northern Ireland protocol, a stand-alone deal for the region after Britain left the EU. The protocol was designed to maintain the principles of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland’s open border with Ireland by keeping the region in the British customs territory but also aligned with the EU’s single market for goods. The British-run region remains deeply divided along sectarian lines, even after the 1998 peace deal, with Catholic nationalists aspiring to unification with Ireland and Protestant unionists wanting to remain part of Britain. 
 
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appeared in a Moscow court Tuesday to face parole violation charges that could land him up to three-and-a-half years in prison.A sentence for the prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin could trigger more protests, following two weekends of rallies in several Russian cities demanding his release.Blinken Slams Putin for Crackdown on Navalny Supporters US secretary of state also had strong words for Iran and China Navalny was arrested immediately upon arrival in Moscow on Jan. 17 for alleged parole violations after returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Russia.Navalny has accused Putin of ordering Russia’s security services to poison him, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.Several European laboratories have confirmed that Navalny, 44, was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the former Soviet Union.A Russian court recently ruled Navalny must remain in jail, rejecting his appeal against his arrest.  The United States and other Western countries have strongly condemned Navalny’s arrest and demanded his unconditional release.Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service says Navalny violated the probation terms of his suspended sentence from a 2014 money laundering conviction, which he denounced as politically motivated. The service asked the Simonovsky District Court in Moscow to convert his three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence into one that must be served in prison. Navalny’s attorneys have argued that he was rehabilitating in Germany and, therefore, was unable to fully comply with his probation terms. His defense also maintained that due process was repeatedly violated during his arrest.As he sat in a glass cage in the courtroom during Tuesday’s hearing, Navalny said, “I came back to Moscow after I completed the course of treatment.” He added, “What else could I have done?”Navalny’s jailing has sparked very large protests across Russia over the past two weekends, with tens of thousands of people demanding his release and chanting anti-Putin slogans. Police arrested more than 5,700 people during Sunday’s rallies, including more than 1,900 in Moscow, the biggest number in the country since the Soviet era. Most demonstrators were released after being given court summonses and are subject to fines or jail terms of up to 15 days. Several protesters face criminal charges over alleged violence against police. 
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Turkey and Azerbaijan are continuing to deepen ties by starting a major joint military exercise Monday. The display of force comes as some analysts suggest Ankara could be on the verge of a foreign policy pivot away from the Middle East to Central Asia.The 12-day military exercise involves tank divisions, airborne units, and “special forces.” Turkish-made weaponry is also set to play a prominent role.Turkish-made drones were pivotal in Azerbaijan’s defeat in October of Armenian separatist forces, in a battle over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in Azerbaijan.Azerbaijan’s victory is seen as a strategic triumph for Turkey. “Turkey has invested very heavily in the Azeri military,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. The countries have close ethnic ties and define their relationship as “one nation, two states.”FILE – Men holding national flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey stand next to a memorial for people killed in Azerbaijan during the conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, outside the embassy of Azerbaijan in Moscow, Oct. 19, 2020.The speed and decisiveness of Azerbaijan’s military success boosted Turkish influence in the Caucasus, further consolidating close ties between Ankara and Baku.”Turkey is expanding its influence in Caucasia; it will do more so in the future,” said Huseyin Bagci, head of the Ankara-based Foreign Policy Institute.  Bagci suggests Ankara is poised for a shift in foreign policy, saying, “Turkey does not play the card of Islam and Middle East orientation anymore, but now rather more nationalistic, and of Turkish nationalism.”Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has traditionally positioned himself as the defender of global Muslim rights, in particular the Palestinians. Ankara is also a strong backer of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, and Hamas, which is designated by the United States and European Union as a terrorist organization.Much to Israel’s anger and Washington’s dismay, Hamas routinely held meetings in Turkey, and Ankara hosted its leaders. Such moves traditionally played well among Erdogan’s religious voting base.But analysts say Ankara is concerned about the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that saw the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalize ties with Israel last year, with Sudan close behind.FILE – Members of a Turkish forces commando brigade take part in a military parade in which Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev looked on in Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 10, 2020.With reports of other Arab countries, including Turkey’s close ally Qatar, ready to join the Abraham Accords, Bagci says there is awareness in Ankara that Turkey is facing growing isolation in the Middle East.”The Islamic card and talk of Muslim unity for Erdogan doesn’t function anymore, after the Abraham Accords,” said Bagci. “Everybody in Turkey realizes the Arabs fight amongst each other, but they also make peace amongst each another. The Arabs are not the Turks. It’s so simple. The Turkish public is more conscious of this, and the Israelis are the winners.”But other analysts remain cautious of a Turkish shift away from the Middle East and toward the courting of ethnic Turkic Central Asian states. “It’s too early to say, but there are some indications,” said Guvenc.Guvenc points out right-wing political parties in Turkey have broadly followed a philosophy of nationalism and Islam, created by the country’s military rulers of the early 1980s under the banner “Turkish Islamic synthesis.” ”I would say the emphasis on the Turko component of this synthesis would make sense for this government,” said Guvenc.Erdogan’s parliamentary coalition partner, the nationalist MHP, is seen as backing a shift in policy. “With MHP, his coalition partner, Erdogan will play more on Turkish nationalism than the Islamic card,” said Bagci.But any reorientation toward the Caucasus and beyond to Central Asia countries like Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan isn’t without risk.”This will not go down well with Russia, definitely, which considers this region as its sphere of influence,” said Guvenc. “In central Asia, Turkey has already lost the battle and struggle for influence with Russia, and the Chinese are also rising its influence.”Russia thwarted previous efforts by Turkey to project influence across Central Asia. But Zaur Gasimov, an expert on Russia and Central Asia at Germany’s Bonn University, suggests Ankara has a stronger hand. ”Compared with the 1990s and 2000s, Turkey nowadays has much more leverage to influence Central Asian republics using its economy and migration policy just like Russia,” he said.Turkey hosts many migrant workers from across the Central Asian states, helping to develop and strengthen economic and cultural ties.A growing Turkish presence in Central Asia could be welcomed in the region to mitigate Russia’s powerful influence.”For Kazakhstan, the deepening of cooperation with Turkey, for example, could be needed to obtain a sort of balance in its relations with Moscow,” said Gasimov. Gasimov says Kazakh unease over Moscow has been heightened since Russia’s annexation in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimea, a region populated by ethnic Russians.”Kazakhstani elites are concerned about Russian policy towards Ukraine and feel insecure about the northern provinces populated by ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan. Several high-rank Russian politicians claimed Kazakh territory in the recent past,” he added. 
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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday said 105 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have been found in the nation, with 11 of those cases having no links to international travel.Speaking at a Downing Street news briefing, Hancock said health authorities plan to test 80,000 people from areas around the country to isolate and stop the spread of the new variant.”There’s currently no evidence to suggest this variant is any more severe, but we need to come down on it hard, and we will,” he said.A man takes a swab at a test center in Goldsworth Park, as the South African variant of the novel coronavirus is reported in parts of Surrey, in Woking, Britain, Feb. 1, 2021.Hancock said the surge of new testing is targeted on those areas where the variant had been discovered and that every single positive case is being sequenced. He said health officials, in coordination with local authorities, are going door to door to test people in those areas.Hancock also announced on Monday that Britain had now vaccinated 9.2 million people against COVID-19, including 931,204 vaccinations over the weekend. He also announced that Britain has ordered another 40 million doses of a vaccine developed by the French company, Valneva, as the government prepares for the likelihood that repeated vaccinations will be needed to keep the virus in check.The vaccine, which will be made in Scotland, is still undergoing clinical trials and has not been approved by regulators.Britain has seen the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe — with over 106,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University data — but is pushing ahead with one of the world’s quickest vaccine programs. 
 
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Europe’s populists have seen their polling numbers dip since the coronavirus emerged on the continent, but as the economic impact of lockdowns and restrictions starts to be felt in earnest, widening income disparity, they could see a revival, some analysts forecast.  Others argue that won’t happen, if incumbent governments and establishment parties can restore public faith in their competence, cushion lower-income and rural populations from economic misery, and get their countries back on track working again soon.  The populist challenge is dimming, they say, pointing to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s November election loss on the other side of the Atlantic. “One reason is their trademark scorn for expertise, which enthuses a minority of voters but unsettles many more who are worried about their health and livelihoods,” according to Tony Barber, Europe editor of the Financial Times. An elderly visitor receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Cent Quatre cultural center in Paris, France, Feb. 1, 2021.While acknowledging that the populists have not had a “good” pandemic, Matthew Goodwin, a political scientist and visiting fellow at Britain’s Chatham House research group, believes political turbulence generally lies downstream of crises and the Great Lockdown will have seismic effects that are hard to foresee.”Emerging evidence shows it looks fairly certain the Great Lockdown will actually exacerbate divides in our society that began to sharpen a few decades ago, and were then worsened by the Great Recession,” he said. The European Union isn’t helping to head off a possible revival in political populism on the continent, which recruits partly on the basis of euro-skepticism. Logistical missteps and hidebound bureaucracy have marred the EU’s vaccine rollout, prompting rising public frustration with the pace of inoculations and adding to anxiety about a grim northern hemisphere winter ahead. Some commentators see this as a gift for populists with the low-paid, the unskilled and those in insecure jobs hit the hardest by prolonged lockdowns.  The EU’s struggle to secure enough early doses to make headway in the inoculation of the bloc’s 446 million people has put the bloc front and center of widespread anger. Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was framing prematurely the bloc’s vaccine procurement strategy as a “European success story.”  FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks at the end of an EU summit video conference at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 21, 2021.The 62-year-old German, French President Emmanuel Macron’s pick for the top job at the EC, had maintained that Brussels should take the lead in negotiating and procuring vaccine supplies for all 27 member states. She had the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called a halt to negotiations already under way between vaccine developer AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish firm, and Germany’s health minister, along with his counterparts in France, Italy and the Netherlands.  Von der Leyen, supported by Merkel, argued a collective approach would work better as it would avoid vaccine nationalism and competition among member states. Negotiating as a bloc would provide more leverage to haggle over pricing with the pharmaceutical giants.  But an overriding motivation was to show how well the EU could do. That would overshadow the bloc’s lack of solidarity at the start of the pandemic, when calls for help from Italy, the first country to suffer the full force of the virus, were rebuffed, and member states competed for supplies of personal protective equipment and shut borders without consulting each other. Some of the problems in the rollout have been country-specific but there are mounting doubts about the EU’s collective approach to procurement and distribution. Go-it-alone Britain has vaccinated more than 13% of its adults so far while the EU average is barely nudging 2%, with the gap growing. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson walks past waiting patients as he visits a COVID-19 vaccination center in Batley, West Yorkshire, Britain, Feb. 1, 2021.British regulatory authorities were quicker to approve vaccines and signed contracts with manufacturers three months before the EU. As a result, Britain has not been impacted as much as the EU by production delays and difficulties. On January 22, the EU reacted with fury when AstraZeneca disclosed it would have to reduce by around two-thirds doses expected over the next two months because of production difficulties.  “There are no signs that the vaccination rate in the EU is accelerating, unlike in the U.K. and U.S., where daily vaccination rates have increased substantially in the past few weeks,” according to Guntram Wolff, director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based research group. “Part of the explanation is that the EU ordered too few vaccines too late. It was slow to order the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, even when it became the front-runner and its efficacy had been documented.”  The Bruegel director has also faulted the EU for not thinking ahead and crafting a strategy to increase vaccine production by mobilizing other manufacturers to help to do so. He cautioned it is “impossible to say how things would have gone if there had not been joint EU action.” Nonetheless, the EU’s logistical missteps are drawing fire.  FILE – Bavaria’s State Prime Minister Markus Soeder removes his protective mask before a so-called home office summit during the coronavirus pandemic in Munich, Germany, Jan. 13, 2021.Markus Soeder, the premier of the German state of Bavaria, and a contender to succeed Merkel when she quits in September, said the “operational responsibility” for the “more than unsatisfactory” situation rests with Brussels. “The decision was made in what I think is a typical, normal, bureaucratic EU procedure,” he added.  Von der Leyen was the subject of a scathing article Sunday by Germany’s leading magazine Der Spiegel, which said the vaccine rollout “might ultimately turn out to be the greatest disaster of her political career.” With lockdown frustration building — the Netherlands experienced three days of riots last week after the government introduced a nighttime curfew — and with anger building over the snail-like pace of inoculation, populists see a political opening. Some had aligned themselves with anti-vaccine skeptics but are moving away from that position and focusing now on the issue of EU competence.    France’s Marine Le Pen, the euro-skeptic far-right leader, has seen her popularity surge. A poll last week showed her trailing Macron by just 52% to 48%. Macron faces a tough reelection bid next year.  
 
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German pharmaceutical giant Bayer announced Monday it will help a smaller German biomedical company, CureVac, produce its experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the latest drug maker to offer up manufacturing capacity as supplies fall behind demand worldwide.
At a virtual news conference hosted in Berlin Monday by Health Minister Jens Spahn, Bayer’s pharmaceutical chief, Stefan Oelrich, said the company expects to produce 160 million doses of CureVac’s experimental vaccine, which is currently in late-stage testing, in 2022.
Bayer and CureVac reached an agreement last month to work together on a vaccine. Oelrich said Bayer has experience and capacity to expand CureVac’s production capacity.  
CureVac’s vaccine is still in the testing phase, and the company’s CEO, Franz-Werner Haas, said the vaccine his likely to be considered for approval “to produce up to 300 million doses by the end of 2021.”
Given the issues encountered getting vaccine orders filled, Health Minister Spahn said it was in Germany’s – and Europe’s – best interest to have production and development capacities in the region and to support them as best they can – even if the vaccine production is a year out.
 
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The Russian general prosecutor’s office said Monday that that it supports a request by the federal prison system to impose a jail term on opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, instead of a suspended sentence. Navalny faces the possibility of a 3.5-year prison sentence over charges he violated the parole terms of a 2014 suspended sentence the European Court of Human Rights later deemed baseless. Navalny is being held in pre-trial detention for 30 days for alleged parole violations upon his return to Russia from Germany in mid-January, following a lengthy recuperation from a near-lethal poisoning attack the opposition politician has blamed on the government of President Vladimir Putin.   The Kremlin denied involvement but refused to investigate the assassination attempt, citing a lack of evidence.   Thousands protested in cities across Russia on Sunday, defying threats of arrest by the government for a second straight weekend, demanding Navalny’s release. As of late Sunday, independent monitoring groups reported well more than 5,000 arrests, including Navalny’s wife, Yulia, during protests the government saw as “unauthorized.”Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, arrives at a court building in Moscow, Feb. 1, 2021.About a week ago, thousands of Russians took to the streets protesting Navalny’s detention and Russian police made about 4,000 arrests nationwide.  The United States and its European allies have condemned Navalny’s detention and the aggressive Russian government response against demonstrators, prompting Kremlin countercharges of Western interference in its internal affairs.  Moscow closed    In Moscow, authorities closed most of the city center on the snowy Sunday morning — making it all but impossible for protesters to gather at a chosen spot outside the headquarters of the Federal Security Services (FSB).   As a result, protest organizers issued a last-minute change of location — launching a chain of events in which Navalny’s allies issued instructions through social media, demonstrators trudged through snow in search of a crowd, and the government dispersed scores of riot police to stop them.  The dispersed nature of the demonstrations made assessing the scale of the event all but impossible.   At one point, several thousand people were seen gathered outside several Moscow metro stations.   Later, a column of several thousand was seen marching toward Matrosskaya Tishina — the jail where Navalny is currently being held.  Elsewhere — everywhere it seemed — demonstrators were looking at their social media feeds for instructions or asking those they came across: “Where is everyone heading now?” Rally to demand the release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Berlin, Jan. 31, 2020.Each time, authorities had police or riot police in place to make arrests and deflect the crowd’s movement.     At several points throughout the day and in different locations, detained protesters simply waited for new police buses to arrive.   The ones already on site were filled beyond capacity.    The decision to close everything from metro stations to streets and businesses throughout the center of Russia’s capital was seen by some as evidence of the protests’ growing power.   “I’m 65 and I’ve never seen Moscow shut down like this,” said Sergey, a pensioner, in an interview with VOA. “The city has been occupied by troops.”   Crackdowns    There were signs that — having been caught off guard by the scale of recent demonstrations — authorities were cracking down in advance.   Several activists were arrested and given short sentences for “anti-social” behavior this past week.   Criminal cases were launched against nearly two dozen protesters who now face the prospect of lengthy prison sentences. Rally in support of Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Jan. 31, 2021.In addition, several high-profile journalists were detained on the grounds they had promoted the rally on social media.  Meanwhile, state enterprises ranging from government-affiliated corporations to universities discouraged attendance at the protests.    “Our school administration told us if we came, we’d never find a decent job with a decent salary and might have troubles finishing school,” said Anastasia, a student at a Moscow university, in an interview with VOA a short distance away from massed riot police.  Her friend Ekaterina said they had made peace with their decision.   “Our constitution allows us to gather peacefully. No one has a right to detain us but if I am, so be it.”   Authorities also put pressure on Navalny allies — placing the opposition leader’s brother Oleg and dozens of associates from the Navalny-led Anti-Corruption Foundation under house arrest.    They were charged with promoting an illegal protest last week that authorized deemed a health risk due to the coronavirus.   Public health concerns, however, were undermined by a near simultaneous decision by Moscow to lift remaining restrictions on bars and nightclubs.  In a separate move, Russia placed Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief strategist, on an international wanted list. Volkov who currently resides in Europe, was charged in absentia with urging underaged Russians to violate public gathering restrictions and risk legal penalties — a key talking point in Russian state media’s effort to undermine Navalny’s appeal.  Navalny supporters maintain that they will keep up the pressure on authorities to release the opposition politician.     
They’ve announced another protest for February, when Navalny is scheduled to appear in a court hearing that may determine the terms of his confinement.   
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The Russian general prosecutor’s office said Monday that that it supports a request by the federal prison system to impose a jail term on opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, instead of a suspended sentence. Navalny faces the possibility of a 3.5-year prison sentence over charges he violated the parole terms of a 2014 suspended sentence the European Court of Human Rights later deemed baseless. Navalny is being held in pre-trial detention for 30 days for alleged parole violations upon his return to Russia from Germany in mid-January, following a lengthy recuperation from a near-lethal poisoning attack the opposition politician has blamed on the government of President Vladimir Putin.   The Kremlin denied involvement but refused to investigate the assassination attempt, citing a lack of evidence.   Thousands protested in cities across Russia on Sunday, defying threats of arrest by the government for a second straight weekend, demanding Navalny’s release. As of late Sunday, independent monitoring groups reported well more than 5,000 arrests, including Navalny’s wife, Yulia, during protests the government saw as “unauthorized.”Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, arrives at a court building in Moscow, Feb. 1, 2021.About a week ago, thousands of Russians took to the streets protesting Navalny’s detention and Russian police made about 4,000 arrests nationwide.  The United States and its European allies have condemned Navalny’s detention and the aggressive Russian government response against demonstrators, prompting Kremlin countercharges of Western interference in its internal affairs.  Moscow closed    In Moscow, authorities closed most of the city center on the snowy morning on Sunday — making it all but impossible for protesters to gather at a chosen spot outside the headquarters of the Federal Security Services (FSB).   As a result, protest organizers issued a last-minute change of location — launching a chain of events in which Navalny’s allies issued instructions through social media, demonstrators trudged through snow in search of a crowd, and the government dispersed scores of riot police to stop them.  The dispersed nature of the demonstrations made assessing the scale of the event all but impossible.   At one point, several thousand people were seen gathered outside several Moscow metro stations.   Later, a column of several thousand was seen marching toward Matrosskaya Tishina — the jail where Navalny is currently being held.  Elsewhere — everywhere it seemed — demonstrators were looking at their social media feeds for instructions or asking those they came across: “Where is everyone heading now?” Rally to demand the release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Berlin, Jan. 31, 2020.Each time, authorities had police or riot police in place to make arrests and deflect the crowd’s movement.     At several points throughout the day and in different locations, detained protesters simply waited for new police buses to arrive.   The ones already on site were filled beyond capacity.    The decision to close everything from metro stations to streets and businesses throughout the center of Russia’s capital was seen by some as evidence of the protests’ growing power.   “I’m 65 and I’ve never seen Moscow shut down like this,” said Sergey, a pensioner, in an interview with VOA. “The city has been occupied by troops.”   Crackdowns    There were signs that — having been caught off guard by the scale of recent demonstrations — authorities were cracking down in advance.   Several activists were arrested and given short sentences for “anti-social” behavior this past week.   Criminal cases were launched against nearly two dozen protesters who now face the prospect of lengthy prison sentences. Rally in support of Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Jan. 31, 2021.In addition, several high-profile journalists were detained on the grounds they had promoted the rally on social media.  Meanwhile, state enterprises ranging from government-affiliated corporations to universities discouraged attendance at the protests.    “Our school administration told us if we came, we’d never find a decent job with a decent salary and might have troubles finishing school,” said Anastasia, a student at a Moscow university, in an interview with VOA a short distance away from massed riot police.  Her friend Ekaterina said they had made peace with their decision.   “Our constitution allows us to gather peacefully. No one has a right to detain us but if I am, so be it.”   Authorities also put pressure on Navalny allies — placing the opposition leader’s brother Oleg and dozens of associates from the Navalny-led Anti-Corruption Foundation under house arrest.    They were charged with promoting an illegal protest last week that authorized deemed a health risk due to the coronavirus.   Public health concerns, however, were undermined by a near simultaneous decision by Moscow to lift remaining restrictions on bars and nightclubs.  In a separate move, Russia placed Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief strategist, on an international wanted list. Volkov who currently resides in Europe, was charged in absentia with urging underaged Russians to violate public gathering restrictions and risk legal penalties — a key talking point in Russian state media’s effort to undermine Navalny’s appeal.  Navalny supporters maintain that they will keep up the pressure on authorities to release the opposition politician.     
They’ve announced another protest for February, when Navalny is scheduled to appear in a court hearing that may determine the terms of his confinement.   
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Thousands of protesters faced off with police in riot gear in Vienna Sunday at the site of a banned far-right demonstration against coronavirus restrictions.Vienna police banned numerous protests planned for this weekend, including one on Sunday by the far-right Freedom Party, on the grounds that protesters have generally failed to observe rules on social distancing and often not worn face masks.Since December 26, Austria has been in its third national lockdown, with non-essential shops and many other businesses closed and their staff unable to work.The opposition Freedom Party has denounced various restrictions as “corona madness” and its leaders have sent mixed messages on issues such as vaccinations.Freedom Party deputy leader Herbert Kickl on Saturday accused the conservative-led government of banning criticism in general. He urged his supporters to go on a walk in the capital instead of attending the banned protest, and to “articulate their displeasure peacefully.”The affiliation of many of Sunday’s protesters was not immediately clear.Some of them, however, expressed support for the Freedom Party, and many opposed conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, chanting — often without wearing masks — and waving banners saying “Kurz must go.” Many carried Austrian flags.The crowd, which police estimated at 5,000, gathered on a square in central Vienna across the central ring road from the former imperial palace as well as from the offices of Kurz and President Alexander Van der Bellen.Rows of police in riot gear and face masks prevented the crowd from marching down the ring road.After riots in the Netherlands apparently set off by the introduction of a nighttime curfew, Austrian police avoided escalation despite having ordered the crowd to disperse, and the atmosphere was tense but peaceful.A Reuters witness saw police make some arrests and estimated the size of the protests at thousands. Police confirmed arrests had been made without giving numbers. 
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Thousands of protesters faced off with police in riot gear in Vienna Sunday at the site of a banned far-right demonstration against coronavirus restrictions.Vienna police banned numerous protests planned for this weekend, including one on Sunday by the far-right Freedom Party, on the grounds that protesters have generally failed to observe rules on social distancing and often not worn face masks.Since December 26, Austria has been in its third national lockdown, with non-essential shops and many other businesses closed and their staff unable to work.The opposition Freedom Party has denounced various restrictions as “corona madness” and its leaders have sent mixed messages on issues such as vaccinations.Freedom Party deputy leader Herbert Kickl on Saturday accused the conservative-led government of banning criticism in general. He urged his supporters to go on a walk in the capital instead of attending the banned protest, and to “articulate their displeasure peacefully.”The affiliation of many of Sunday’s protesters was not immediately clear.Some of them, however, expressed support for the Freedom Party, and many opposed conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, chanting — often without wearing masks — and waving banners saying “Kurz must go.” Many carried Austrian flags.The crowd, which police estimated at 5,000, gathered on a square in central Vienna across the central ring road from the former imperial palace as well as from the offices of Kurz and President Alexander Van der Bellen.Rows of police in riot gear and face masks prevented the crowd from marching down the ring road.After riots in the Netherlands apparently set off by the introduction of a nighttime curfew, Austrian police avoided escalation despite having ordered the crowd to disperse, and the atmosphere was tense but peaceful.A Reuters witness saw police make some arrests and estimated the size of the protests at thousands. Police confirmed arrests had been made without giving numbers. 
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Millions of Hong Kong residents who seek to leave the territory amid a new national security law imposed by China are now able to apply to live and work in Britain.  
 
Britain began taking applications Sunday from Hong Kong residents who wish to relocate and travel under what is known as a British National Overseas, or BNO, passport.  
 
The policy gives Hong Kong residents the ability to move to Britain, with a pathway to citizenship after five years.British Home Secretary Priti Patel tweeted:
 
“The Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa is now open for applications. BNO citizens have the choice to live, work and study in the U.K. – free to build new lives. This is a proud day in our strong historic relationship as we honour our promise to the people of Hong Kong.”The reaction in Beijing was swift. Only hours after London released the details of the application process on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters during a regular press conference in Beijing, “China will no longer recognize the BN(O) passport as a valid travel document or for identification, and we reserve the right to take further actions.”
 
The editorial of Chinese state-affiliated media Global Times criticized Britain’s decision, dismissing any significant effects an exodus in Hong Kong would create for China, while criticizing London as being a puppet for the United States amid an escalation in tensions between Washington and Beijing.After Hong Kong was transferred back to China from Britain in 1997, Beijing promised Hong Kong would retain a “high degree of autonomy” until 2047 under a “one country, two systems” agreement.  
 
After anti-government protests in 2019, Beijing wanted to bring stability to the city and therefore implemented a national security law for Hong Kong that came into effect on June 30, 2020. It prohibits secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and its details can be widely interpreted. Protests have stopped while activists and lawmakers have been arrested, jailed or fled into political exile.
Critics say the law violates China’s commitment to allow Hong Kong to keep its limited freedoms. 
In response, the British government announced BNO holders would have their privileges expanded. The previous rules for the BNO only allowed holders to visit Britain for six months, with no right to work or settle there.A British National Overseas passport (BNO) and a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China passport are pictured in Hong Kong, Jan. 29, 2021.About 5.4 million residents are eligible for the offer, including dependents of BNOs and 18- to 23-year-olds with at least one BNO parent. The British government estimates at least 300,000 people are expected to take up the offer.A senior lawyer, based in Hong Kong for decades, believes the national security law is responsible for “mass emigration” happening in Hong Kong now.
The lawyer asked not to be named amid fears of breaching the security law.
 
“We’re not just talking about the expat communities who have decided to relocate, there is mass emigration by families who are going off to Canada, Australia, the U.K. These are not people on bail for any criminal offenses, these people don’t have any further confidence in Hong Kong, and they don’t want their kids brought up here,” the lawyer said.VOA spoke to several Hong Kong residents who are making the move via the BNO policy.
 
“I’m leaving Hong Kong because I see the government is intimidating us, “said Renee Yau, a marketing professional in her 40s.
 
“The arrest of the 50-plus individuals because of their participation in the primaries poll is horrible. It is almost like declaring any election result that is unfavorable to the authorities is suspicious of criminal behavior,” she said.
 
“Twenty years ago, when we talked about Hong Kong to foreigners, we could say we had freedom of expression and economic freedom. But in the past few months, our freedom and rights are being taken away every day. At least it is not illegal to say what we like and don’t like about the U.K.,” she said.
 
“I knew I’d take the offer ever since the U.K. first announced the route. Initially, I thought I’d move in the next one to three years, but now I think I’d move within three months,” Yau added.Vince Leung, a 37-year-old architect in Hong Kong, said he has been thinking about relocating since 2019, and the accumulation of changes in the city has made him decide to leave.
 
“The implication of the National Security Law, the postponed of the Legislative Council Elections, Beijing and Hong Kong government’s suppression of speech, publication and demonstration in 2020 … we are losing freedom in every aspect,” Leung told VOA.
 
Leung added he’s “not surprised” Beijing will not recognize the Sino-British Joint Declaration regarding Hong Kong’s status since the handover. According to Leung, Beijing does not consider the agreement to be valid.  Olivis, a 35-year-old sales professional working in Hong Kong, is worried about how the security law can be used by the authorities to determine what is an offense.
 
“It made me worry that I will never know when I violate the law and being arrested. Even I put on a yellow mask, (or I’m) wearing a black shirt, I would be stared (at) by police,” she said.
 
The media sales executive admits she’ll never return to Hong Kong to live after taking the BNO offer.
 
“The city is dying. Political instability and great change. There’s no more democracy, justice and freedom of speech, but more ridiculous rules and policies,” she added.
 
As of 5 p.m. local time Sunday, those eligible for the BNO could begin to apply online and then arrange an appointment at a local visa application center. As of February 23, eligible BNO holders who hold a biometric passport will be able to complete their applications using an app.
 
For five years the visa stay will be $343 per person — or $247 for a 30-month stay — and there is an immigration health surcharge of up to $855 every year.
 
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Thousands of Hong Kongers have already made the sometimes painful decision to leave behind their hometown and move to Britain since Beijing imposed a strict national security law on the Chinese territory last summer. Their numbers are expected to swell to the hundreds of thousands. Some are leaving because they fear punishment for supporting the pro-democracy protests that swept the former British colony in 2019. Others say China’s encroachment on their way of life and civil liberties has become unbearable, and they want to seek a better future for their children abroad. Most say they don’t plan to ever go back. The moves are expected to accelerate now that 5 million Hong Kongers are eligible to apply for visas to Britain, allowing them to live, work and study there and eventually apply to become British citizens. Applications for the British National Overseas visa officially opened Sunday, though many have already arrived on British soil to get a head start. FILE – A British National Overseas passports (BNO) and a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China passport are pictured in Hong Kong, Friday, Jan. 29, 2021.Britain’s government said some 7,000 people with British National Overseas passports — a travel document that Hong Kongers could apply for before the city was handed over to Chinese control in 1997 — have arrived since July on the previously allowed six month visa. It estimates that over 300,000 people will take up the offer of extended residency rights in the next five years. “Before the announcement of the BN(O) visa in July, we didn’t have many enquiries about U.K. immigration, maybe less than 10 a month,” said Andrew Lo, founder of Anlex Immigration Consultants in Hong Kong. “Now we receive about 10 to 15 calls a day asking about it.” Mike, a photojournalist, said he plans to apply for the visa and move to Leeds with his wife and young daughter in April. His motivation to leave Hong Kong came after the city’s political situation deteriorated following the anti-government protests and he realized that the city’s police force was not politically neutral. The police have been criticized by pro-democracy supporters for brutality and the use of excessive violence. Mike said moving to Britain was important as he believed the education system in Hong Kong will be affected by the political situation and it will be better for his daughter to study in the U.K. Mike agreed to speak on the condition that he only be identified by his first name out of fear of official retaliation. Lo said that with the new visa, the barrier to entry to move to the U.K. becomes extremely low, with no language or education qualification requirements. British National Overseas passport holders need to prove that they have enough money to support themselves for six months and prove that they are clear of tuberculosis, according to the U.K. government. Currently, Lo assists three to four families a week in their move to the U.K. About 60% of those are families with young children, while the remaining are young couples or young professionals. Cindy, a Hong Kong businesswoman and the mother of two young children, arrived in London last week. In Hong Kong she had a comfortable lifestyle. She owned several properties with her husband and the business she ran was going well. But she made up her mind to leave it all behind as she felt that the city’s freedoms and liberties were eroding and she wanted to ensure a good future for her kids. Cindy, who spoke on the condition she only be identified by her first name out of concern of official retaliation, said it was important to move quickly as she feared Beijing would soon move to halt the exodus. FILE – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson takes questions in parliament in London, Britain, Jan. 20, 2021 in this still image taken from a video.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week the visa offer shows Britain is honoring its “profound ties of history” with Hong Kong, which was handed over to China on the understanding that it would retain its Western-style freedoms and much of its political autonomy not seen on mainland China. Beijing said Friday it will no longer recognize the British National Overseas passport as a travel document or form of identification, and criticized Britain’s citizenship offer as a move that “seriously infringed” on China’s sovereignty. It was unclear what effect the announcement would have because many Hong Kongers carry multiple passports. Beijing drastically hardened its stance on Hong Kong after the 2019 protests turned violent and plunged the city into a months-long crisis. Since the security law’s enactment, dozens of pro-democracy activists have been arrested, and the movement’s young leaders have either been jailed or fled abroad. Because the new law broadly defined acts of subversion, secession, foreign collusion and terrorism, many in Hong Kong fear that expressing any form of political opposition — even posting messages on social media — could land them in trouble. “This is a really unique emigration wave — some people haven’t had time to actually visit the country they’re relocating to. Many have no experience of living abroad,” said Miriam Lo, who runs Excelsior UK, a relocation agency. “And because of the pandemic, they couldn’t even come over to view a home before deciding to buy.”  
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Britain will next week formally apply to join a trans-Pacific trading bloc of 11 countries, with negotiations set to start later this year, the government has said.Since leaving the European Union, Britain has made clear its desire to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which removes most tariffs between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.”One year after our departure for the EU we are forging new partnerships that will bring enormous economic benefits for the people of Britain,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.Trade minister Liz Truss told Times Radio: “On Monday I am putting in the letter of intent” and that she expected formal negotiations will start in the spring.Reuters reported on Thursday that Britain will not publish an assessment of the economic benefits of CPTPP membership before requesting to join it – contrary to earlier promises.Previous government economic analyses of Brexit have pointed to small boosts to economic output from additional trade deals.The government said joining CPTPP would remove tariffs on food and drink and cars, while helping to boost the technology and services sectors.”Applying to be the first new country to join the CPTPP demonstrates our ambition to do business on the best terms with our friends and partners all over the world and be an enthusiastic champion of global free trade,” Johnson said. 
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The abstract figures of naked women gyrating to the rhythms of a five-piece band had shocked many people almost 60 years ago as they eyed the artwork for the first time on the walls of a popular restaurant-nightclub in Cyprus.   The valuable and very rare concrete relief by Christoforos Savva, Cyprus’ most avant-garde artist of the 1960s, had lain hidden for decades in the underground recesses of the Perroquet nightclub in abandoned Varosha — an inaccessible ghost town that had been under Turkish military control since a 1974 war ethnically cleaved the island nation.   But with Varosha’s controversial partial opening last November, the artwork has again come to light following a report by local newspaper Politis. Now, the man who says he commissioned the art from Savva is asking authorities for help to have it removed and transported to the country’s national gallery for all to see.   Former Perroquet owner Avgerinos Nikitas, 93, a Greek Cypriot, has appealed to a committee composed of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots that’s tasked with protecting Cyprus’ cultural treasures on both sides of the divide to help remove the 13 sections.   “In return, I pledge to cede these pieces to the National Collection as a small contribution to Christoforos Savva’s huge body of work,” Nikitas said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, addressed to the committee as well as Cyprus’ education ministry.   But the whole venture could be derailed as the Greek Cypriot family that owns the Esperia Tower hotel that hosted the Perroquet club insist that the artwork legally belongs to them. They say they won’t allow their “private property” to be removed and transferred and are warning of legal action.   Speaking on behalf of his family, Panayiotis Constantinou told the AP that their lawyer has advised them that the hotel, the club and everything inside it belongs to the family, regardless of the Savva artwork’s cultural value.   “We respect and value culture, but this is private property about which we haven’t been asked anything about removing it, and on top of that, someone else lays claim to it,” Constantinou said.   Art historians credit Savva as one of the most influential artists of the time who brought the country’s inward-looking, traditionalist art world into modernity in the years immediately after Cyprus gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960.   A painter and sculptor, Savva shifted away from the established, representational art styles by encompassing influences like cubism, which he picked up during his stays in London and Paris through the 1950s, into his voluminous artwork. He died in 1968.   “Savva was an innovator who always sought to break new ground and challenge the conservative times in which he lived,” said Andre Zivanari, director of the Point Center for Contemporary Art.   Savva’s work reflected the joie de vivre of Varosha, which at the time was Cyprus’ most progressive, popular tourist resort — a favorite with visitors from Europe and beyond, said Yiannis Toumazis, an art history professor and a Greek Cypriot member of the committee on culture.   That all changed in the summer of 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Turkish armed forces took over an empty Varosha and kept it virtually sealed off until last November, when breakaway Turkish Cypriot authorities re-opened a stretch of beach to the public.   The move caused much consternation among the suburb’s Greek Cypriot residents and protests from the island’s internationally recognized government amid concerns that the Turkish Cypriot north’s hardline leadership aimed to place the entire area under its control.   Cyprus’ former first lady and cultural committee co-chair Androulla Vassiliou told the AP that the body would look at bringing the reliefs to the island’s southern part, once new Turkish Cypriot members are appointed.   The previous Turkish Cypriot committee members collectively resigned last December for what they said was a divergence of views with the new Turkish Cypriot leadership over its aim to steer talks to resolve Cyprus’ division away from a federation-based arrangement.   The reclamation of artwork that disappeared amid the confusion of war isn’t without precedent. Last February, the culture committee successfully engineered the return of 219 paintings — including some of the most significant works produced by Greek Cypriot artists — that were thought lost or stolen in the north.   In return, Turkish Cypriots received rare archival footage from state broadcaster CyBC of Turkish Cypriot cultural and sporting events dating from 1955 to the early 1960s. The swap was hailed as a tangible way of bolstering trust among Greek and Turkish Cypriots.   Toumazis said the return of Savva’s reliefs would be another trust-boosting milestone, but better still would be if people could return to their properties in Varosha.   “It would be nice if people themselves returned to what they owned, rather than having any artwork being transferred to them,” he said. 
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Russian police detained at least 500 protesters Sunday, as supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny started to take to the streets for a second weekend.Defying arrests and criminal probes, the first protests took place in Siberia and Russia’s Far East, including the port city of Vladivostok.Navalny associates called again for nationwide demonstrations ahead of his trial, to start Tuesday.More than 250 of the arrests preceded an expected rally in Moscow, where demonstrations are usually the largest.Moscow police announced the closure of seven metro stations and have restricted the movement of pedestrians to downtown.Authorities have also ordered some restaurants and shops in the city center closed and above-ground transportation diverted.Navalny was arrested immediately upon his return to Russia in mid-January, ending a nearly five-month recovery in Germany from a poisoning attack he suffered while traveling in Siberia in August.The United States and the European Union have strongly condemned Navalny’s arrest and hundreds of arrests made last week and called for their immediate release. 
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Britain’s focus is on “collaboration” with the European Union on vaccines, the country’s vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi told The Sunday Telegraph, after a showdown between the two sides over vaccine exports.Zahawi told the newspaper in an interview that Britain’s focus was on collaborating with the bloc and that the country had tried to help Brussels with its vaccine supply problems and would continue to do so.  The EU had on Friday attempted to restrict some exports of COVID-19 vaccines by invoking an emergency Brexit clause before reversing part of its announcement within hours.   
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Scientists with the World Health Organization’s team investigating the source of the coronavirus that has infected more than 102 million people worldwide and killed more than 2.2 million have visited one of the hospitals in Wuhan, China, that treated some of the first patients.Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans said on Twitter that the stories she’d heard at Jinyintan hospital were “quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.”Just back from visit at Jinyintan hospital, that specialised in infectious diseases and was designated for treatment of the first cases in Wuhan. Stories quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.— Marion Koopmans (@MarionKoopmans) A woman wearing a face mask walks past a closed souvenir shop near Berlin’s famed tourist magnet Checkpoint Charlie, Jan. 29, 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic.Travelers from several European and African nations — Brazil, Britain, Eswatini, Ireland, Lesotho, Portugal and South Africa — will not be allowed into Germany. However, German residents traveling from those countries will be granted entry, even if they test positive for the coronavirus virus.Fourteen University of Michigan students were in quarantine after being diagnosed with the British variant of the virus. One of the students was reported to have traveled to Britain over the winter break.Health officials in South Carolina said they had detected two cases of the South African COVID-19 variant, the first cases in the United States.The U.S. remained the country with the most cases at more than 26 million, followed by India with 10.7 million and Brazil with 9.1 million, Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center said Saturday.The Pentagon on Saturday announced it would delay a plan to vaccinate the 40 prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying it needed to “review force protection protocols,” John Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a tweet.  No Guantanamo detainees have been vaccinated. We’re pausing the plan to move forward, as we review force protection protocols. We remain committed to our obligations to keep our troops safe.— John Kirby (@PentagonPresSec) January 30, 2021The Pentagon has said it intends to vaccinate all the personnel who work at the detention center, or about 1,500 people. At that time, the vaccine will also be offered to the prisoners, none of whom has received a vaccination yet.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that as of Saturday morning, nearly 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been distributed in the U.S. and nearly 30 million had been administered.The CDC said 24 million people had received one or more doses, and 5.3 million people had received a first dose.The total included both the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.   
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Activists gathered Saturday in Paris to support people exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, after a French court examined the case of a French-Vietnamese woman who sued 14 companies that produced and sold the powerful defoliant dioxin used by U.S. troops.Former journalist Tran To Nga, 78, described in a book how she was exposed to Agent Orange in 1966, when she was a member of the Vietnamese Communists, or Viet Cong, who fought against South Vietnam and the United States.”Because of that, I lost one child due to heart defects. I have two other daughters who were born with malformations. And my grandchildren, too,” she told The Associated Press.In 2014 in France, she sued firms that produced and sold Agent Orange, including U.S. multinational companies Dow Chemical and Monsanto, now owned by German giant Bayer.Tran is seeking damages for her multiple health problems, including cancer, and those of her children in legal proceedings that could be the first to provide compensation to a Vietnamese victim, according to an alliance of nongovernmental organizations backing her case.So far only military veterans from the U.S. and other countries involved in the war have won compensation. The justice system in France allows citizens to sue over events that took place abroad.Backed by the NGO alliance Collectif Vietnam Dioxine, which called for Saturday’s gathering at Trocadero Plaza, Tran’s legal action is aimed at gaining recognition for civilians harmed by Agent Orange and the damage the herbicide did to the environment.U.S. forces used Agent Orange to defoliate Vietnamese jungles and to destroy Viet Cong crops during the war.Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed roughly 11 million gallons of the chemical agent across large swaths of southern Vietnam. Dioxin stays in the soil and in the sediment at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations. It can enter the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.Vietnam says as many as 4 million of its citizens were exposed to the herbicide and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses from it, including the children of people who were exposed during the war.”That’s where lies the crime, the tragedy, because with Agent Orange, it doesn’t stop. It is passed on from one generation to the next,” Tran said.The court in Evry, a southern suburb of Paris, heard Tran’s case Monday.Bayer argues any legal responsibility for Tran’s claims should belong to the United States, saying in a statement that the Agent Orange was made “under the sole management of the U.S. government for exclusively military purposes.”Tran’s lawyers argued that the U.S. government had not requisitioned the chemical but secured it from the companies through a bidding process.The court’s ruling is scheduled to be given May 10.
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Russian police have issued a strong warning against participating in protests planned for Sunday to call for the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent foe.The warning came amid detentions of Navalny associates and opposition journalists and a police plan to restrict movement Sunday in the center of Moscow.Navalny was arrested January 17 after flying back to Russia from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning. His detention sparked nationwide protests one week ago in about 100 cities; nearly 4,000 people were reported arrested.The next demonstration in Moscow is planned for Lubyanka Square. The Federal Security Service, which Navalny claims arranged to have him poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent on behalf of the Kremlin, is headquartered in the square. The Russian government has denied a role in the 44-year-old’s poisoning.A Russian Rosguardia (National Guard) soldier stands at a central avenue in front of a restaurant promoter, a day before a planned protest in St. Petersburg, Russia, Jan. 30, 2021.The city police department said much of central Moscow from Red Square to Lubyanka would have pedestrian restrictions and that seven subway stations in the vicinity would be closed Sunday. Restaurants in the area also are to be closed, and the iconic GUM department store on Red Square said it would open only in the evening.Russian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk cited the coronavirus pandemic in a Saturday warning against protests. She said participants found in violation of epidemiological regulations could face criminal charges.The January 23 protests in support of Navalny were the largest and most widespread seen in Russia in many years, and authorities sought to prevent a repeat. Police conducted a series of raids this week at apartments and offices of Navalny’s family, associates and anti-corruption organization.Oleg Navalny, brother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained for allegedly breaching COVID-19 safety restrictions, stands inside a defendant dock as he attends a court hearing in Moscow, Russia Jan. 29, 2021.His brother Oleg, top aide Lyubov Sobol and three other people were put under two-month house arrest Friday, as part of a criminal probe into alleged violations of coronavirus regulations during last weekend’s protests.Sergei Smirnov, editor of the Mediazona news site that was founded by members of the Pussy Riot punk collective, was detained by police Saturday as he was leaving his home. No charges against him were announced.Navalny fell into a coma August 20 while on a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow. He was transferred to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he had been exposed to the Novichok nerve agent.Russian authorities have refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that he was poisoned.FILE – Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is escorted out of a police station on Jan. 18, 2021, in Khimki, outside Moscow, following a court ruling that ordered him jailed for 30 days.Navalny was arrested when he returned to Russia on the ground that his months recovering in Germany violated terms of a suspended sentence he received in a 2014 conviction for fraud and money laundering, a case that he says was politically motivated.Just after the arrest, Navalny’s team released a two-hour video on his YouTube channel about a lavish Black Sea residence purportedly built for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The property features amenities like an “aqua-discotheque,” a hookah lounge equipped for watching pole dancing and a casino. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times and inspired a stream of sarcastic jokes on the internet.Putin has said that neither he nor any of his close relatives owns the property, and the Kremlin has insisted it has no relation to the president even though it’s protected by the federal bodyguard agency FSO, which provides security for top government officials.Russian state television later aired a report from the compound that showed it under construction and included an interview with an engineer who claimed the building would be a luxury hotel.On Saturday, construction magnate Arkady Rotenberg, a close Putin associate and his occasional judo sparring partner, claimed he owned the property.   
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Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has nominated Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya for the Nobel Peace Prize, two sources with knowledge of the matter said Saturday.Nauseda nominated the activist, who has been living in Lithuania since fleeing her homeland in the wake of a disputed August 9 presidential election, to show his support for the Belarusian democratic movement and its demand for free elections, one of the sources said.Months of mass protests erupted in Belarus after President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory over Tsikhanouskaya in the poll. Thousands of protesters were rounded up and nearly all opposition political figures were driven into exile or jailed.A former teacher, Tsikhanouskaya ran for president after her husband, an opposition blogger with political ambitions, was detained ahead of the election. From her Vilnius office she has demanded that Lukashenko stand down, free jailed protesters and hold free elections.Last week she urged the European Union and the United States to be “braver and stronger” in their actions to help end Lukashenko’s rule.Nominations for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are to close January 31 and the winner is scheduled to be announced in November. Thousands of people can make nominations for the award, including members of national parliaments, former laureates and leading academics.Last year’s winner was the U.N. World Food Program. 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a mask-wearing mandate late Friday to apply on all forms of public transportation, part of the U.S. effort to combat the spread of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease. The order, which goes into effect Monday (at 11:59 p.m. EST, 4:59 GMT Tuesday), requires people to wear masks “while boarding, disembarking, and traveling on any conveyance into or within the United States,” and “at any transportation hub that provides transportation within the United States.”The order said: “”Requiring masks on our transportation systems will protect Americans and provide confidence that we can once again travel safely even during this pandemic.” Also Friday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed an extension to an order that was scheduled to expire Sunday concerning evictions for failure to pay rent or mortgage payments. The CDC director said in a statement, “The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a historic threat to our nation’s health. Despite extensive mitigation efforts, COVID-19 continues to spread in America at a concerning pace. The pandemic has also exacerbated underlying issues of housing insecurity for many Americans. Keeping people in their homes and out of congregate settings, like shelters, is a key step in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.”As the number of COVID-19 infections continues to climb and highly contagious variants of the virus have emerged, some countries are imposing new travel restrictions. A man walks on an empty Promenade des Anglais during a nationwide curfew, from 6 p.m to 6 a.m, due to restrictions against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Nice, France, Jan. 29, 2021.France is prohibiting all travel to and from non-European Union countries.  Under the new policy beginning Sunday, travelers from EU countries seeking entry into France will have to provide evidence of a negative coronavirus test. Travelers from several European and African nations — Brazil, Britian, Eswatini, Ireland, Lesotho, Portugal, and South Africa – will not be allowed into Germany.   However, German residents traveling from those countries will be granted entry, even if they test positive for the coronavirus virus.  Fourteen University of Michigan students are in quarantine after being diagnosed with the British variant of the virus.  One of the students is reported to have traveled to Britain over the winter break. Health officials in South Carolina say they have detected two cases of the South African COVID-19 variant, the first cases in the United States.Johnson & Johnson One-dose Vaccine 66% Successful US pharmaceutical maker calls vaccine 85% effective in preventing serious illness U.S. pharmaceutical and medical device maker Johnson & Johnson says after a global trial, the COVID-19 vaccine it has developed is 66% effective in preventing infection.The one-dose vaccine, which was developed by the company’s Belgian subsidiary, Janssen, appears to be 85% effective in preventing serious illness, even against the South African variant.Of the 44,000 people who participated in the trial in the U.S., South Africa and Brazil, no one who was given the vaccine died, the company said.The U.S. has agreed to buy 100 million doses of the vaccine with an option to buy 200 million more, according to the company.The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the fourth vaccine approved to fight the pandemic.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Saturday that there are more than 102 million global COVID-19 cases.  The U.S. remains the location with the most cases at 25.9 million, followed by India with 10.7 million and Brazil with 9.1 million.
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