Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the humanitarian crisis in Yemen — as well as U.S. relations with Russia and China — are among his immediate priorities.  VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III said Wednesday he values Germany as a station for U.S. troops, leading to speculation he may reverse a decision by the Trump administration to pull troops out of the country.
 
Austin made the comments in an introductory call to German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. A summary of the call posted to the Defense Department website said Austin “expressed his gratitude to Germany for continuing to serve as a great host for U.S. forces, and expressed his desire for a continued dialogue on U.S. force posture in Germany. “  
 
Last year, then-President Donald Trump ordered the reduction of the U.S. military contingent stationed in Germany by more than 25%, and the Pentagon had been studying how that could be done.
 
The Associated Press reports that in the German Defense Ministry’s readout of the call, Austin “emphasized that Germany is highly valued as a station and that American soldiers feel very comfortable here.” He added that “the U.S. continues to consider its presence in Germany as an important part of joint security.”  
 
About 34,500 U.S. troops are stationed in Germany, which includes key U.S. military facilities like the Ramstein Air Base and the headquarters for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command.
 
The U.S. readout said Austin noted the importance of Germany to the NATO Alliance and expressed his desire for continued consultation.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the humanitarian crisis in Yemen — as well as U.S. relations with Russia and China — are among his immediate priorities.  VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
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Looking through family photographs at his home in Leeds, England, Gordon Bonner, 86, said he was lost in a “hinterland of despair and desolation.” It’s been nine months since Muriel, his wife of 63 years, died from COVID-19. He was called to her bedside for the final moments.“I sat for the next hour and watched Muriel drown in her own body fluids,” Bonner said. “It was the most harrowing experience of my life. And it will haunt me, and I’ll tell you why. Such was her fight for oxygen that she was sucking at the air, and I can still see her face now and her lips formed a perfect circle as if she was sucking through a straw.”The retired army major was not allowed inside the chapel at nearby Rawdon Crematorium for Muriel’s final committal.”We had to stand in the car park, and I had to watch as six strangers came out, unloaded the coffin, took her into the crematorium chapel,” he said. “And the last I saw of her was the tail end of her coffin as the doors closed.”Bonner’s haunting account is one among a horrifying number of stories of loss and grief shared by families across the country.Britain became the first European country Tuesday to report 100,000 coronavirus deaths over the course of the pandemic. A quarter of those have occurred in just the past three weeks as a mutant, more infectious strain of the virus has ripped across the nation.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives a COVID-19 briefing from Downing Street in London, Jan. 27, 2021.It means that Britain now has the highest coronavirus death rate per capita in the world, an unenviable position for a country whose state-funded National Health Service is a source of global pride. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told lawmakers Wednesday that he shared the nation’s grief.“I mourn every death in this pandemic, and we share the grief of all those who have been bereaved,” Johnson said during the weekly prime minister’s questions. “I and the government take full responsibility for all the actions I have taken, we’ve taken during this pandemic to fight this disease and, yes, Mr. Speaker, there will indeed be a time when we must learn the lessons of what has happened, reflect on them and prepare.”He rejected opposition calls for a judicial public inquiry to begin immediately. “I don’t think that moment is now when we are in the throes of fighting this wave of the new variant, when 37,000 people are struggling with COVID in our hospitals,” said Johnson. “And I think what the country wants is for us to come together as a parliament and as politicians and to work to keep the virus under control, Mr. Speaker, as we are, and to continue to roll out the fastest vaccination program in Europe.”Teddy bears sit at tables in the Bap cafe after it was restricted to takeout sales only amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Altrincham, England, Jan. 27, 2021.Johnson announced an extension of school closures in England until at least March 8, alongside the enforced quarantine of travelers arriving from high-risk countries, who will be required to pay for their own accommodation in allocated hotels.Critics say Johnson has done too little, too late. “The prime minister was slow into the first lockdown last March,” opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer told members of parliament Wednesday. “He was slow in getting protective equipment to the front line, slow to protect our care homes, slow on testing and tracing, slow into the second lockdown in the autumn, slow to change the Christmas mixing rules, slow again into this third lockdown.”Failure to prepareProfessor Lawrence Young, an expert on infectious diseases at Britain’s University of Warwick, said years of underinvestment in the National Health Service was partly to blame.“We suffered from not having an adequate public health infrastructure in this country; we didn’t get test, trace and isolate right, and that’s still a big challenge for this country, so keeping a lid on infections by effective testing and tracing and then encouraging people to isolate is really important. And we didn’t get border control right,” Young told VOA.Medical workers move a patient between ambulances outside the Royal London Hospital amid the spread of the coronavirus disease pandemic, London, Jan. 27, 2021.While Britain leads Europe in coronavirus deaths, it is way ahead in its vaccination program. Close to 7 million people have received their first vaccine doses, far more than any other European state. “It should mean that come March time, we’re in a much stronger position in terms of being able to review the current lockdown restrictions,” Young said.Vaccine shortageHowever, there are growing concerns about a vaccine shortage. Pharmaceutical firms AstraZeneca and Pfizer warned the European Union this week of delays as production systems are scaled up to meet demand. The EU has threatened to block exports of vaccines produced in Europe and has demanded transparency from the drug companies over their production and delivery schedules.AstraZeneca said Wednesday that the delay in supplying vaccines to the EU was a result of the bloc’s placing its order for 300 million doses in August, three months after Britain had invested in the vaccine.Meanwhile, the British government’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, warned the public to be prepared for further bad news. “Unfortunately, we are going to see quite a lot more deaths over the next few weeks before the effects of the vaccines begin to be felt,” Whitty told reporters Tuesday.  
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A German survivor of the Holocaust Wednesday urged lawmakers during a special session of the German Parliament to “take care of our country.”Charlotte Knobloch, 88, told lawmakers that the lives of Jews in Germany are still far from normal, nearly eight decades after Nazis murdered 6 million European Jews in the Shoah — another name for the Holocaust.Knobloch also warned of democracy’s fragility and asked lawmakers to protect the achievements of the last decades for Jews and non-Jews and defend Germany against extremists. She said right-wing extremism is the greatest threat of all.Resurgence of Antisemitism Haunts UN Holocaust Memorial CeremonySomber United Nations ceremony in tribute to those who perished in Nazi death camps is dominated by fear that lessons of Holocaust were being lost and forgottenThe session was held to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 76 years after the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland.At one point in her speech, Knobloch addressed members of the hard-right Alternative for Germany political party, Parliament’s largest opposition group with nearly 100 seats. She accused many of the group’s members of “picking up the tradition” of the Nazis.”I tell you — you lost your fight 76 years ago,” Knobloch said. “You will continue to fight for your Germany, and we will keep fighting for our Germany.”Knobloch is the former leader of Germany’s 200,000-strong Jewish community that survived the Holocaust.Also attending the session was Marina Weisband, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who also warned about resurging anti-Semitism in Germany.In the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other officials, Rabbi Shaul Nekrich wrote the last 12 letters of the Sulzbacher Torah Scroll, one of Germany’s oldest torah scrolls.Since 1996, Germany has officially marked Holocaust Remembrance Day every January 27 with a solemn ceremony at the Bundestag, featuring a speech by a survivor and commemorations across the country. 
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A Polish law limiting abortion to cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s health or life is at risk was expected to go into effect Wednesday following an October court decision deeming abortions due to fetal defects illegal. The court’s decision set off protests across the mostly Roman Catholic country. More protests were expected as the law goes into effect. “See you in front of the Constitutional Tribunal today at 6:30 p.m.,” the Women’s Strike protest group, which organized many of the October protests, said on Facebook, according to Bloomberg News. FILE – Police secure the road as demonstrators try to block traffic during a pro-choice protest in the center of Warsaw, Nov. 28, 2020.Opponents of the ruling allege the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) Party, which took power in 2015, influenced the court. The party denies the charge.  “No law-abiding government should respect this ruling,” Borys Budka, leader of Poland’s largest opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform, told reporters, according to Reuters.  Polish President Andrzej Duda said he supports the decision. “I have said it many times, and I have never concealed it, that abortion for so-called eugenic reasons should not be allowed in Poland. I believed and believe that every child has a right to life,” he said in an interview last October with Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.  Legal abortions have reportedly been declining in Poland, as some doctors are refusing to perform the procedure based on religious grounds, Reuters reported. 
 
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Tensions escalated Wednesday between the European Union and the British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca regarding the company’s failure to meet a target to deliver 400 million doses of its COVD-19 vaccine to the regional bloc.The two sides had been scheduled to meet again Wednesday, to further discuss the issue but there are conflicting reports. EU officials had said the company backed out of the meeting and that it had been rescheduled for Thursday, but a company official later issued a statement saying the meeting was going to be held as scheduled Wednesday.
 
The firm had signed a deal with the European Commission to supply 400 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine, which is expected to get EU approval Friday.
 WHO Chief Presses Case Against COVID-19 ‘Vaccine Nationalism’ Tedros says inoculation gap between rich, poor nations grows larger each dayBut last week, AstraZeneca told the EU that due to a production shortfall in the firm’s European plants, the firm will miss its target, while still meeting a separate contract it signed with Britain. EU officials this week said that explanation was inadequate and demanded details on the company’s vaccine production.
 
In an interview late Tuesday with the Italian Newspaper La Repubblica, AstraZeneca CEO Pascale Soriot said Britain had signed its contract three months before the EU and that had given the firm time to iron out “glitches” in British plants. He said they were three months behind in making those fixes at their European plants.
 
Soriot also said that in its agreement with the EU, AstraZeneca would only make its “best effort” to deliver the vaccines. An EU official told the Reuters news agency Wednesday that “best effort” was a standard clause in a contract for a product that does not yet exist.  
 
The official said that the clause means the signee must still show “over all” effort to deliver its product and they would hold the company to its contract.
 
The EU’s medical regulatory body, the Europe Medincines Agency was expected to give its approval to the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use by the end of this week.  
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In a first for France, six nongovernmental organizations launched a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the French government for alleged systemic discrimination by police officers carrying out identity checks.The organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, contend that French police use racial profiling in ID checks, targeting Black people and people of Arab descent.They served Prime Minister Jean Castex and France’s interior and justice ministers with formal legal notice of demands for concrete steps and deep law enforcement reforms to ensure that racial profiling does not determine who gets stopped by police.French Police Charged in Beating, Racial Abuse of Black Man Tens of thousands protested Saturday against a security bill, which would restrict the right to publish images of on-duty policeThe lead lawyer in the case, Antoine Lyon-Caen, said that the legal action is not targeting individual police officers but “the system itself that generates, by its rules, habits, culture, a discriminatory practice.””Since the shortcomings of the state (concern) a systemic practice, the response, the reactions, the remedies, the measures must be systemic,” Lyon-Caen said at a news conference with NGOs taking action. They include the Open Society Justice Initiative and three French grassroots groups.The issue of racial profiling by French police has festered for years, including but not only the practice of officers performing identity checks on young people who are often Black or of Arab descent and live in impoverished housing projects.Serving notice is the obligatory first step in a two-stage lawsuit process. The law gives French authorities four months to talk with the NGOs about how they can meet the demands. If the parties behind the lawsuit are left unsatisfied, the case will go to court, according to one of the lawyers, Slim Ben Achour.It’s the first class-action discrimination lawsuit based on color or supposed ethnic origins in France. The NGO’s are employing a little-used 2016 French law that allows associations to take such a legal move.”It’s revolutionary, because we’re going to speak for hundreds of thousands, even a million people.” Ben Achour told The Associated Press in a phone interview. The NGOs are pursuing the class action on behalf of racial minorities who are mostly second- or third-generation French citizens.”The group is brown and Black,” Ben Achour said.The four-month period for reaching a settlement could be prolonged if the talks are making progress, he said.The abuse of identity checks has served for many in France as emblematic of broader alleged racism within police ranks, with critics claiming that misconduct has been left unchecked or whitewashed by authorities.Video of a recent incident posted online drew a response from President Emmanuel Macron, who called racial profiling “unbearable.” Police representatives say officers themselves feel under attack when they show up in suburban housing projects. During a spate of confrontational incidents, officers became trapped and had fireworks and other objects thrown at them.The NGOs are seeking reforms rather than monetary damages, especially changes in the law governing identity checks. They argue the law is too broad and allows for no police accountability because the actions of officers involved cannot be traced, while the stopped individuals are left humiliated and sometimes angry.Among other demands, the organizations want an end to the longstanding practice of gauging police performance by numbers of tickets issued or arrests made, arguing that the benchmarks can encourage baseless identity checks.The lawsuit features some 50 witnesses, both police officers and people subjected to abusive checks, whose accounts are excerpted in the 145-page letters of notice. The NGO’s cite one unnamed person who spoke of undergoing multiple police checks every day for years.A police officer posted in a tough Paris suburb who is not connected with the case told the AP that he is often subjected to ID checks when in civilian clothes.”When I’m not in uniform, I’m a person of color,” said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous in keeping with police rules and due to the sensitive nature of the topic. Police need a legal basis for their actions, “but 80% of the time they do checks (based on) heads” — meaning how a person looks.Omer Mas Capitolin, the head of Community House for Supportive Development, a grassroots NGO taking part in the legal action, called it a “mechanical reflex” for French police to stop non-whites, a practice he said is damaging to the person being checked and ultimately to relations between officers and the members of the public they are expected to protect.”When you’re always checked, it lowers your self-esteem,” and you become a “second-class citizen,” Mas Capitolin said. The “victims are afraid to file complaints in this country even if they know what happened isn’t normal,” he said, because they fear fallout from neighborhood police.He credited the case of George Floyd, the Black American whose died last year in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, with raising consciences and becoming a catalyst for change in France.”These are practices that impact the whole society,” said Issa Coulibaly, the head of Pazapas-Belleville, another organization taking part in the case. Like a downward spiral, profiling hurts youths’ “feeling of belonging” to the life of the nation and “reinforces prejudices of others to this population.”NGOs made clear they are not accusing individual police of being racist.”It’s so much in the culture. They don’t ever think there’s a problem,” said Ben Achour, the lawyer.
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For the first time since his inauguration, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke Tuesday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, expressing concerns about the arrest of dissident Alexei Navalny, Moscow’s cyber-espionage campaign and bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, two senior Biden administration officials said.Biden’s stance appeared to mark another sharp break with that of former President Donald Trump, who often voiced delight at his warm relations with the Kremlin leader. At the same time, according to U.S. accounts of the call, Biden told Putin that Russia and the United States should complete a five-year extension of their nuclear arms control treaty before it expires in early February.There was no immediate readout of the call from Moscow, but Russia reached out to Biden in the first days of his four-year term in the White House. The U.S. leader agreed but only after he had prepared with his staff and had a chance for phone calls with three close Western allies of the U.S. — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.People gather in Pushkin Square during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Jan. 23, 2021. Russian police arrested hundreds of protesters.It was not immediately known how Putin responded to Biden raising contentious issues between the two countries.Biden told reporters Monday that despite disagreements with Moscow, “I find that we can both operate in the mutual self-interest of our countries as a New START agreement and make it clear to Russia that we are very concerned about their behavior, whether it’s Navalny, whether it’s SolarWinds or reports of bounties on heads of Americans in Afghanistan.”Shortly before his call with Putin, Biden spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, reassuring him of the United States’s commitment to the West’s post-World War II military pact that was formed as an alliance against the threat of Russian aggression.During his White House tenure, Trump often quarreled with NATO allies, complaining they were not contributing enough money for their mutual defense.FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the beginning of a their bilateral meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018.The former president was often deferential to Putin, rejecting claims in the U.S. from opposition Democrats that Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help him win — a years-long saga that Trump derisively dismissed as “the Russia hoax.”Last year, Trump also questioned whether Russia was involved in the hack of software manufactured by the U.S. company SolarWinds that breached files at the departments of Commerce, Treasury and Energy.Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the cyberattack, but Trump claimed the attack was being overplayed by the U.S. media and that perhaps China was responsible.Before taking office, Biden said, “I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.”Trump had also dismissed claims that Russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, another issue Biden pressed Putin on.Despite his conciliatory approach to Russia, Trump imposed sanctions on the country, Russian companies and business leaders over various issues, including Moscow’s involvement in Ukraine and attacks on dissidents.The Biden-Putin call followed pro-Navalny protests in more than 100 Russian cities last weekend, with more than 3,700 people arrested across Russia.Navalny is an anti-corruption campaigner and Putin’s fiercest critic. He was arrested January 17 as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering for nearly five months after a nerve-agent poisoning he claims was carried out by Russian agents, an accusation the Kremlin has rejected. 
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The U.S. Senate’s confirmation of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has raised hope on the other side of the Atlantic. Yellen said the U.S. administration remains committed to working to resolve digital taxation disputes, a remark that Europeans are reading optimistically.In this file photo taken on Dec. 1, 2020, Janet Yellen speaks during a cabinet announcement event at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware.Overall, Yellen explained that the new administration supports the call for tech companies to pay more taxes, a statement that won praise from French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who spoke at the World Economic Forum.“I think it is very good news that the new Secretary for the Treasury Janet Yellen just explained that she was open about the idea of thinking about a new international taxation with the two pillars: First of all, digital taxation and, of course, also a minimum taxation on corporate tax,” Le Maire said. “I think we are on the right track. There is a possibility of finding an agreement on this new international taxation system by the end of this spring 2021.”German Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz addresses a press conference following talks via video conference with Germany’s state premiers in Berlin on Dec. 13, 2020.The comments echoed those by German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. He told Reuters on Tuesday he hopes an international agreement on digital taxation will happen by summer.Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are dubbed as GAFA in France by those who criticize what they say are the multinationals’ longstanding avoidance of European taxes.For years, former U.S. president Donald Trump had opposed any proposal to tax the tech giants.The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) hosted the international talks over digital taxation. Members postponed a deadline for an agreement into 2021 after the U.S. pulled out of talks in June last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.The French finance minister said it is a matter of fairness.“The winners of the economic crisis are the digital giants,” Le Maire said. “How can you explain to some sectors that have been severely hit by the crisis and that are paying their due level of taxes that the digital giants will not have to pay the same amount of taxes? This is unfair and also inefficient from a financial point of view.”Last October, the OECD warned that tensions over a digital tax could trigger a trade war that could wipe out one percent of global growth every year.
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Britain’s health department reported Tuesday the nation’s death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 100,000 people.  
In a televised news briefing from his office, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “It’s hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic, the years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended, and for so many relatives the missed chance, even to say goodbye,”   
The health department said more than 100,000 Britons have died within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test. The government figures show Britain has the fifth highest death toll globally and reported a further 1,631 deaths and 20,089 cases on Tuesday.  
Britain is the fifth country in the world to record 100,000 virus-related deaths, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, and is by far the smallest in terms of population.
The U.S. has recorded more than 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, the world’s highest total, but its population of about 330 million is about five times Britain’s. Worldwide, more than 2.1 million people have died from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Britain is speeding up its vaccine distribution with more than 6.8 million people receiving their first dose of vaccine and more than 472,000 receiving both doses as of Monday.
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Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, resigned Tuesday after weeks of turmoil in his ruling coalition, leaving Italy rudderless as it battles the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
He tendered his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella, the effective head of state in in Italy. Through his general secretary, who formally announced the resignation, Mattarella invited Conte to stay on in a caretaker capacity pending discussions on what happens next.
Mattarella’s office says the president will begin consultations with party leaders late Wednesday to determine the next steps.
Conte lost his absolute majority in Italy’s Senate, despite winning two votes of confidence in parliament last week.
The defection of a crucial ally, former premier Matteo Renzi, greatly stymied the government’s ability to effectively manage the pandemic and its effect on the country’s already weak economy.
For 15 months, Conte headed the European country in collaboration with its largest party in parliament, the 5-star Movement, and Matteo Salvini’s League party. But bickering led to the withdrawal of Salvini after he failed to win the premiership and that first government collapsed.
President Mattarella has reiterated the need for strong leadership as the country grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic and a weak economy.  
Italy has the fourth-highest number of infections in Europe, at more than 2.4 million, and the second-highest number of deaths, at more than 85,000, behind Great Britain, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Mattarella could decide to find someone else to form the coalition he needs in parliament. He also has the option to dissolve parliament paving the way for fresh elections two years early, according to the Associated Press.
Another former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who heads a centrist opposition party, could supply crucial support for the next government.
In a statement, Berlusconi called for a “new government that would represent substantial unity of the country in a moment of emergency.” The statement also suggested early elections.
But Conte still enjoys support from the Democratic Party, which is lobbying for a reappointment despite the inability to work with the 5-Star Movement.
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Police and protesters in the Netherlands clashed for a third consecutive night Monday after the government imposed a curfew to slow the spread of COVID-19.
At least 150 people were arrested across the country Monday as protests turned to rioting with demonstrators in some areas setting fires, throwing rocks and looting stores.
In the city of Rotterdam, police responded with tear gas and similar scenes played out in Amsterdam, where water cannons were used on rioters. Unrest was reported in smaller municipalities as well, including Haarlem, Geleen and Den Bosch. Officials say 10 police officers were injured in Rotterdam.
The protests began Saturday after the government imposed the first curfew since World War II.  Officials took the action following a warning by the National Institute for Health (RIVM) regarding a new wave of infections due to a more easily transmissible variant strain of the coronavirus, originally identified in Britain.  
But many argued the steps were not necessary as the nation has seen steady overall declines in new infections over the last several weeks.
Monday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned what he called the “criminal violence” “What we saw has nothing to do with fighting for freedom. We didn’t take all these measures for fun, we did so because we are fighting against the virus and it’s the virus which is actually robbing our freedom.”
Schools and non-essential shops in the Netherlands have been closed since mid-December, following the closure of bars and restaurants two months earlier.
More than 966,000 confirmed cases and 13,600 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the Netherlands since the start of the pandemic.
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Despite making up just 0.1% of Britain’s economy, fishing played an outsized role in the brinkmanship leading up to December’s Brexit agreement between London and Brussels.  
 
Many Brexit supporters saw regaining control of the country’s sovereign waters as totemic. A month since the agreement was signed, many fishermen say they feel betrayed.   
 
Under the deal, a quarter of European boats’ fishing rights in British waters will be transferred to British boats over the next five years.
 
That is not good enough, said Phil Mitchell, skipper of the 23-meter-long trawler Govenek of Ladram, which operates from Newlyn Harbor in Cornwall, England. He believes many fishermen feel they were exploited by the “Leave” campaign.
 
“They were happy to use us for their campaign, and when push comes to shove, we’ve had the shove, and we’ve been dumped on from a great height,” Mitchell said.
 
Mitchell said Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised Britain would regain full control of its waters.
 
“The fact now is that we’re worse off than before Brexit because it’s all written in that we won’t be able to get (control of fishing rights) back. And it’s just a travesty. Boris, the betrayer, has completely sold us down the river,” he added.
 
Nearly half of the fish caught by British boats is exported to the European Union, a trade worth over $1.8 billion in 2019. Brexit has brought new border checks, paperwork and costs.FILE – Fishing boats are moored at the South Pier of Bridlington Harbor fishing port in Bridlington, Dec. 11, 2020.Allan Miller runs AM Shellfish from Aberdeen, Scotland, another hub of Britain’s fish industry. He said delivery times of live brown crab, lobster and prawns to Europe had doubled, meaning lower prices, while some of the product does not survive the increased journey time.  
 
Miller was one of several seafood exporters to stage a protest outside Parliament in London this month, using articulated trucks to block traffic around Westminster.
 
“Live shellfish, it’s got a sell-by date. It’s alive or dead,” Miller said. “Unless the government does something, a lot of these businesses will be out of here. They’ll be finished.”  
 
Johnson insists the problems will be ironed out.
 
“Insofar as there are problems at the moment caused by teething problems, people not filling in the right forms or misunderstandings. And when it’s not people’s fault, of course, we’re going to compensate and to help out. And funds have been put in place to do that,” Johnson told reporters January 18. “But be in no doubt that there are great opportunities for fishermen across the whole of the U.K. to take advantage of the spectacular marine wealth of the United Kingdom. … There is scope for fishermen, fishing communities, fishers across the U.K. to take advantage of the increase in quota,” Johnson added.
 
It is not just fish that are floundering. Other sectors are warning of significant disruption. New tax rules have prompted some European retailers to stop selling to British customers, while some shipping firms have paused their cross-Channel operations.
Edward Velasco, British import manager at the pan-European fruit and vegetable supplier Rodanto, said problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic have been compounded.
 
“We’ve had the added challenge of Brexit and the added documentation that requires hauliers have an extra cost in coming here. They don’t know if the drivers are going to get back within a certain amount of time. If they’re not, if the wheels are not moving, they’re losing money. And ultimately, so are we,” Velasco told Reuters news agency.FILE – Trucks bound for Britain wait on the access ramp to the Channel Tunnel in Calais, northern France, before leaving for England, Dec. 17, 2020.Supermarkets in Northern Ireland have faced shortages owing to extra checks on goods shipped from mainland Britain. So, is it teething troubles, or an inevitable consequence of Britain’s decision to quit the European Union?
“It depends which sector you’re talking about, whether these are teething problems or they are structural and endemic to the consequences of having signed the EU-U.K. Free Trade Agreement,” said analyst Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands.  
 
“Where I think there are teething problems is in the issue, let’s say, of small-order transports. So, this question of ‘groupage’ that hauliers are now facing, where they have to sign forms for every single shoebox or crate that is in their container, I think those things can be simplified,” Korteweg told VOA.
 
He added, “Where I don’t think we’re currently facing teething problems — and things are much more structural — is, for instance, in the health and sanitary, and phytosanitary and food safety checks, for instance, with fish exports. Because that is the consequence of leaving the Single Market, that there is now a regulatory border.”  
 
Britain insists Brexit will offer economic opportunities outside the EU. Its strategy was given a boost this week as Japanese carmaker Nissan pledged to keep building cars in Britain and invest millions of dollars building a new factory to make batteries for electric vehicles.  
 
From 2027, all British and European carmakers will have to source batteries from either Britain or the EU or face tariffs on their exports.
 
“Brexit gives us the competitive advantage not only within the United Kingdom but outside the United Kingdom, also,” Nissan’s Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta said Thursday following the announcement.
 
The government hopes other companies will soon follow Nissan’s lead and invest in its vision of a “Global Britain.” But a month on from the signing of the EU-U.K. Free Trade Agreement, many businesses say Brexit has so far brought extra costs and little benefit.
 
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World leaders gathered virtually Monday for the Climate Adaption Summit, an online meeting hosted by the Netherlands with hopes of developing practical solutions and funding for dealing with climate change between now and 2030.The online program featured leaders from around the world, including China’s Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders. Representing the United States was former Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been appointed by President Joe Biden to be Washington’s new special climate envoy. Kerry told the group the Biden administration has made fighting climate change a top priority and said the U.S. is proud to be back as a leader on the issue.“We have a president now, thank God, who leads, tells the truth and is seized by this issue,” Kerry said. “And President Biden knows that we have to mobilize in unprecedented ways to meet a challenge that is fast accelerating. And he knows we have limited time to get it under control.”Kerry said that is the reason Biden immediately rejoined the Paris climate agreement that former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from formally last November. Trump originally announced the U.S. was pulling out of the agreement in 2017, but United Nations regulations prevented it from being official until November. Biden rejoined the agreement on his first day in office. As secretary of state under former President Barack Obama in 2015, Kerry helped negotiate the original agreement, bringing China to the table at the U.N. climate conference in Paris.
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Pirates who seized 15 sailors when they stormed a Turkish-crewed container ship in the Gulf of Guinea two days ago have not yet made contact with authorities, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Monday.An Azeri sailor was killed when armed attackers boarded the vessel, which was headed to Cape Town from Lagos, and abducted 15 Turkish sailors.”We have not yet received word from the pirates,” foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara.Turkey was in contact with officials in Gabon, where he said the Liberian-flagged container ship Mozart had docked with its remaining crew, and with authorities in neighboring countries.Echoing comments by President Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s transport minister said the government was working to ensure the swift release of the sailors.”We will rescue our citizens from the hands of these bandits and reunite them with their families as soon as possible,” Adil Karaismailoglu said.The ship was attacked 160 km (100 miles) off Sao Tome island on Saturday, maritime reports showed.Pirates in the Gulf, which borders more than a dozen countries, kidnapped 130 sailors in 22 incidents last year, accounting for all but five of those seized worldwide, according to an International Maritime Bureau report.The attack on the Mozart could raise international pressure on Nigeria to do more to protect shippers, who have called for tougher action in recent weeks, analysts said.
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Greece and Turkey opened their first direct talks in nearly five years in Istanbul Monday to discuss long-standing maritime disputes in the eastern Mediterranean.Relations between Athens and Ankara were exacerbated in August of last year when Turkey deployed a survey vessel in contested Mediterranean waters and gunboats from the two countries collided.Disputes over energy sources and borders also have threatened to spiral out of control.Greece and Turkey, both members of the NATO military alliance, made insignificant progress in several dozen rounds of talks between 2002 and 2016.The European Union and NATO had pressed hard on Ankara and Athens to sit down at the negotiating table. They agreed early this month to resume talks in Istanbul, with Turkey hoping to improve its relations with the 27-member block.On Saturday, however, Athens expressed willingness to only discuss issues of mutual economic interests and the continental shelf in the eastern Mediterranean, but not issues of “national sovereignty.”  Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his country would approach the talks with optimism but “zero naivety.”  On his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped returning to negotiation table would “herald a new era.”The EU has supported Greece, a member of the group, in its disputes with neighboring Turkey, and threatened sanctions on Turkey, but has postponed imposing them until March of this year.
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Rioters set fires in the center of the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven and pelted police with rocks Sunday at a banned demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannons, arresting at least 55 people.Police in the capital of Amsterdam 125 kilometers (78 miles) away also used a water cannon to disperse an outlawed anti-lockdown demonstration on a major square ringed by museums. Video showed police spraying people grouped against a wall of the Van Gogh Museum.It was the worst violence to hit the Netherlands since the pandemic began and the second straight Sunday that police clashed with protesters in Amsterdam. The country has been in a tough lockdown since mid-December that is set to continue at least until Feb. 9. The government beefed up the lockdown with a 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. curfew that went into force Saturday.Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus condemned the violence.”This has nothing to do with demonstrating against corona measures,” Grapperhaus said in a statement. “This is simply criminal behavior; people who deliberately target police, riot police, journalists and other aid workers.”In Eindhoven, south of Amsterdam, a central square near the main railway station was littered with rocks, bicycles and shattered glass. The crowd of hundreds of demonstrators also was believed to include supporters of the anti-immigrant group PEGIDA, which had sought to demonstrate in the city.Eindhoven police said they made at least 55 arrests and warned people to stay away from the city center amid the clashes. Trains to and from the station were halted and local media reported plundering at the station.A woman not involved in the protests was hospitalized after being injured by a police horse, police said.Police said more than 100 people were arrested in Amsterdam.  Dutch media reported unrest in other Dutch towns Sunday night with people protesting the curfew.The violence came a day after anti-curfew rioters torched a coronavirus testing facility in the Dutch fishing village of Urk.Video from Urk, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Amsterdam, showed youths breaking into the coronavirus testing facility near the village’s harbor before it was set ablaze Saturday night.The lockdown was imposed by the Dutch government to rein in the spread of the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.Police said they fined more than 3,600 people nationwide for breaching the curfew that ran from 9 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested 25 people for breaching the curfew or for violence.The police and municipal officials issued a statement Sunday expressing their anger at rioting, “from throwing fireworks and stones to destroying police cars and with the torching of the test location as a deep point.””This is not only unacceptable, but also a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who do all they can at the test center to help people from Urk,” the local authorities said, adding that the curfew would be strictly enforced for the rest of the week.On Sunday, all that remained of the portable testing building was a burned-out shell.
 
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Estonia’s two biggest political parties clinched a deal Sunday to form a new government to be led by a female prime minister for the first time in the Baltic country’s history, replacing the previous Cabinet that collapsed in a corruption scandal earlier this month.  The party councils of the opposition, center-right Reform Party and the ruling, left-leaning Center Party, voted in favor of joining a Cabinet headed by Reform’s prime minister-designate and chairwoman, Kaja Kallas.Both parties are set to have seven ministerial portfolios in addition to Kallas’ prime minister post in the 15-member government, which would muster a majority in the 101-seat Riigikogu Parliament.A joint statement said the Reform Party and the Center Party “will form a government that will continue to effectively resolve the COVID-19 crisis, keep Estonia forward-looking and develop all areas and regions of our country.”Earlier this month, President Kersti Kaljulaid, who is expected to appoint Kallas’ Cabinet in the next few days, said tackling Estonia’s worsening coronavirus situation and the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic should be an immediate priority for the new government.  Kaljulaid tasked Kallas to form the government as her pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship Reform Party emerged as the winner of Estonia’s March 2019 general election.  Pending approval from lawmakers, Kallas, 43, will become the first female head of government in the history of the small Baltic nation of 1.3 million, which regained its independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.  A lawyer and former European Parliament lawmaker, Kallas is the daughter of Siim Kallas, one of the Reform Party’s creators, a former prime minister and a former European Union commissioner.  Kaja Kallas took the reins at the Reform Party in 2018 as its first female chair. Her first Cabinet will see women in other key positions too as Reform’s Keit Pentus-Rosimannus takes over the finance minister post and diplomat Eva-Maria Liimets becomes the foreign minister.  The government formation marks the second such attempt for Kallas in less than two years as she failed to bring about a Reform Party-led government after the 2019 election. That paved the way for the archrival Center Party and its leader, Juri Ratas, to form a three-party coalition without the Reform Party.Ratas and his Cabinet resigned on Jan. 13 over a scandal involving a key official at his Center Party suspected of accepting a private donation for the party in exchange for a political favor on a real estate development at the harbor district of the capital, Tallinn.  Ratas’ government, which took office in April 2019, was shaky from the start as the coalition included the populist EKRE, the nation’s third-largest party, which runs on a nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda.  The strong rhetoric of the EKRE leaders, Mart Helme and his son Martin Helme, created several embarrassing situations for Ratas’ government with public statements that were seen as insulting to Estonia’s international allies and tarnishing the country’s image, and which brought the government to the brink of collapse at least twice.Kallas rejected including EKRE members in her Cabinet, citing considerable differences in values. Reform Party defines itself on its website as “the leader of the liberal worldview in Estonia.”Kallas acknowledged earlier to Estonian media that her Cabinet would embark on a diplomatic mission to regain trust among the country’s allies and assure them of Estonia’s new political course.Estonia has been a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004.
 
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Hundreds of people remained behind bars in Russia Sunday, a day after they were arrested for joining nationwide street protests demanding the release of jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. Navalny was detained a week ago upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he spent the last several months recovering from a nearly fatal poisoning attack he blames on the Russian government, which denies the charge. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.
 
Camera: Ricardo Marquina
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Dutch police said Saturday they had arrested the alleged leader of an Asian drug syndicate who is listed as one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives and has been compared to Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian national, was detained Friday at the request of Australian police, who led an investigation that found his organization dominates the $70 billion-a-year Asia-Pacific drug trade, Dutch police spokesman Thomas Aling said.Tse is expected to be extradited after appearing before a judge, Aling said, adding that his arrest by national police took place without incident at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.”He was already on the most-wanted list and he was detained based on intelligence we received,” Aling said.Dutch police were unable to provide details about the legal proceedings and it was not clear if Tse had a lawyer.Tse, an ex-convict who formerly lived in Toronto, has moved between Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years, according to counternarcotics officers from four countries and documents previously reviewed by Reuters.”Tse Chi Lop is in the league of ‘El Chapo’ or maybe Pablo Escobar,” Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told Reuters in 2019, referring to Latin America’s most notorious drug lords.The syndicate he is suspected of running is known to its members as “The Company.” Law enforcers also refer to it as “Sam Gor” — or Brother Number Three in Cantonese — after one of Tse’s nicknames, Reuters reported at the time.It was unable to contact Tse for comment on the report.The Australian Federal Police (AFP), which has taken the lead in a sprawling investigation into the criminal organization, identified Tse as “the senior leader of the Sam Gor syndicate.”The group has “been connected with or directly involved in at least 13 cases” of drug trafficking since January 2015, the documents showed.
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Portugal held a presidential election Sunday, with the moderate incumbent candidate strongly favored to earn a second five-year term as a devastating COVID-19 surge grips the European Union nation. The head of state in Portugal has no legislative powers, which lie with parliament and the government, but is an influential voice in the running of the country. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, 72, is regarded as the clear front-runner among seven candidates. He is an affable law professor and former television personality who as president has consistently had an approval rating of 60% or more. To win, a candidate must capture more than 50% of the vote. But a severe surge in coronavirus infections in recent days could keep the turnout low and perhaps lead to a Feb. 14 runoff between the two top candidates. Portugal has the world’s highest rates of new daily infections and deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, and the public health system is under huge strain. Authorities have increased the number of polling stations and allowed for early voting to reduce crowding on election day. In other precautions, voters were asked to bring their own pens and disinfectant to polling stations. Everyone voting wore a mask and kept a safe distance from each other. Prime Minister António Costa, in a tweet, urged people to turn out for the ballot, saying that “unprecedented planning” had gone into ensuring that the vote can take place safely. With the country in lockdown, the election campaign featured none of the usual flag-waving rallies but restrictions on movement were lifted for polling day. Among the incumbent’s six challengers, right-wing populist André Ventura has attracted curiosity as the first extremist to break into Portuguese mainstream politics. Ventura, 37, could conceivably place second, likely far behind Rebelo de Sousa but drawing a level of support that until recently was unthinkable. That development has unsettled national politics. Rebelo de Sousa, a former leader of the center-right Social Democratic Party, has worked closely with the center-left minority Socialist government, supporting its pandemic efforts. He also has endeared himself to the Portuguese with his easygoing style. Photographs taken by passers-by of him in public places, such as one last year of him standing in line at a supermarket wearing sneakers and shorts, routinely go viral. Portugal has 10.8 million registered voters, some 1.5 million of them living abroad. Exit polls were to be published Sunday night, with most results expected by midnight. Every Portuguese president since 1976, when universal suffrage was introduced following the departure of a dictatorship, has been returned for a second term. No woman or member of an ethnic minority has ever held the post. 
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The unrelenting increase in COVID-19 infections in Spain following the holiday season is again straining hospitals, threatening the mental health of doctors and nurses who have been at the forefront of the pandemic for nearly a year.In Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, the critical care capacity has more than doubled and is nearly full, with 80% of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients.“There are young people of 20-something-years-old and older people of 80-years-old, all the age groups,” said Dr. Joan Ramon Masclans, who heads the ICU. “This is very difficult, and it is one patient after another.”Even though authorities allowed gatherings of up to 10 people for Christmas and New Year celebrations, Masclans chose not to join his family and spent the holidays at home with his partner.“We did it to preserve our health and the health of others. And when you see that this isn’t being done (by others) it causes significant anger, added to the fatigue,” he said.A study released this month by Hospital del Mar looking at the impact of the spring’s COVID-19 surge on more than 9,000 health workers across Spain found that at least 28% suffered major depression. That is six times higher than the rate in the general population before the pandemic, said Dr. Jordi Alonso, one of the chief researchers.In addition, the study found that nearly half of participants had a high risk of anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks or substance- and alcohol-abuse problems.Spanish health care workers are far from the only ones to have suffered psychologically from the pandemic. In China, the levels of mental disorders among doctors and nurses were even higher, with 50% reporting depression, 45% reporting anxiety and 34% reporting insomnia, according to the World Health Organization.In the U.K., a survey released last week by the Royal College of Physicians found that 64% of doctors reported feeling tired or exhausted. One in four sought out mental health support.“It is pretty awful at the moment in the world of medicine,” Dr. Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said in a statement accompanying the study. “Hospital admissions are at the highest-ever level, staff are exhausted, and although there is light at the end of the tunnel, that light seems a long way away.”Dr. Aleix Carmona, a third-year anesthesiology resident in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, didn’t have much ICU experience before the pandemic hit. But as surgeries were cancelled, Carmona was summoned to the ICU at the Moisès Broggi hospital outside Barcelona to fight a virus the world knew very little about.“In the beginning, we had a lot of adrenaline. We were very frightened, but we had a lot of energy,” Carmona recalled. He plowed through the first weeks of the pandemic without having much time to process the unprecedented battle that was unfolding.It wasn’t until after the second month that he began feeling the toll of seeing first-hand how people were slowly dying as they ran out of breath. He pondered what to tell patients before intubating them. His initial reaction had always been to reassure them, tell them it would be alright. But in some cases, he knew that wasn’t true.“I started having difficulty sleeping and a feeling of anxiety before each shift,” Carmona said, adding that he would return home after 12 hours feeling like he had been beaten up.For a while he could only sleep with the help of medication. Some colleagues started taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. What really helped Carmona, though, was a support group at his hospital, where his co-workers unloaded the experiences they had bottled up inside.But not everyone joined the group. For many, asking for help would make them seem unfit for the job.“In our profession, we can handle a lot,” said David Oliver, a spokesman for the Catalonia chapter of the SATSE union of nurses. “We don’t want to take time off because we know we will add to the workload of our colleagues.”The most affected group of health care workers, according to the study, were nurse’s aides and nurses, who are overwhelmingly women and often immigrants. They spent more time with dying COVID-19 patients, faced poor working conditions and salaries and feared infecting family members.Desirée Ruiz is the nurse supervisor at Hospital del Mar’s critical care unit. Some nurses on her team have asked to take time off work, unable to cope with the constant stress and all the deaths.To prevent infections, patients are rarely allowed family visits, adding to their dependency on nurses. Delivering a patient’s last wishes or words to relatives on the phone is especially challenging, Ruiz said.“This is very hard for … people who are holding the hand of these patients, even though they know they will end up dying,” she said.Ruiz, who organizes the nurses’ shifts and makes sure the ICU is always staffed adequately, is finding it harder and harder to do so.Unlike in the summer, when the number of cases fell and health workers were encouraged to take holidays, doctors and nurses have been working incessantly since the fall, when virus cases picked up again.The latest resurgence has nearly doubled the number of daily cases seen in November, and Spain now has the third highest COVID-19 infection rate in Europe and the fourth-highest death toll, with more than 55,400 confirmed fatalities.But unlike many European countries, including neighboring Portugal, the Spanish health minister has for now ruled out the possibility of a new lockdown, relying instead on less drastic restrictions that aren’t as damaging to the economy but take longer to decrease the rate of infections.Alonso fears the latest surge of virus patients could be as detrimental to the mental health of medical staff as the shock of the pandemic’s first months.“If we want to be cared for adequately, we also need to take care of the health care workers, who have suffered and are still suffering,” he said. 
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Tens of thousands of supporters of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny thronged the streets of Russia on Saturday, defying warnings from authorities that those attending faced police arrest and additional health risks because of the coronavirus.The protests were called for by Navalny after he was jailed upon his return to Russia last weekend from Germany, where he’d been recovering from a poisoning attack that nearly killed him last August.Independent monitoring group OVD-Info reported about 3,200 arrests as of 1:45 a.m. Sunday Moscow time, including Navalny’s wife, Yulia, and his aide, politician Lyubov Sobol. Several dozen journalists were also detained.Yulia Navalnaya confirmed her arrest in Moscow in an Instagram post created from inside a police van, apologizing for the look of her posting.FILE – Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.“Sorry for poor quality. Very bad light in a paddy wagon,” she wrote Saturday.Thousands of Navalny’s supporters were in the streets of more than 60 Russian cities to demand the Kremlin critic’s immediate release, defying the measures taken by police to break up the protests, which they have declared illegal.In Moscow, thousands of masked protesters gathered in the city’s central Pushkin Square with shouts of “Let him go!” and “Alexei! Alexei!”Demonstrators also held signs that read “Freedom for Navalny” and “I’m not afraid.””If they arrest me, well, OK, I’ll miss a day or two of work,” said Dmitry, 55, in an interview with VOA.”I’m here thinking of my children and their futures. Because I absolutely don’t like what’s happening now in our country these days,” he added.Law enforcement officers stand in front of participants during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Kazan, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.Many of the demonstrators were in their 20s and some even in their teens — a fact government officials have seized on, accusing Navalny of luring minors into harm’s way.“I’ve known only one president my whole life and I’m tired of him,” said Ksenia, 24, in explaining why she’d come.“I didn’t come out for Navalny. I came out for me,” said Daria, 17, a high school senior.  “I want my country to change.”Crowds also overflowed onto the surrounding side streets and along the city’s main Tverskaya thoroughfare.Drivers blared their horns in a near constant drone of support for the demonstrators.Most out on the streets appeared peaceful. Yet, toward evening, some protesters were seen pelting OMON riot police units and a car belonging to the Federal Security Services (FSB) with snowballs. The driver reportedly was injured after being hit in the eye.Nearby, a smoke grenade had been lobbed into the area, apparently from a demonstrator, filling the air with an acrid smell.Throughout the day, various witness videos posted to social media showed riot police roughly detaining protesters, in some cases beating demonstrators with batons. There were reports of multiple injuries.Riot police detain a young woman during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Pushkin square in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021. Russian police made thousands of arrests in nationwide protests.Dozens of Navalny supporters were arrested during a standoff outside Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison where Navalny was being held.In one graphic scene in St. Petersburg, an OMON riot trooper was filmed kicking a woman in the stomach — sending her sprawling after she asked about the arrest of another demonstrator.Russia’s state RIA-Novosti news service reported 39 policemen had received minor injuries during the day.Navalny’s national reachThe turnout provided further evidence that Navalny has built a national presence across the country, despite a near total ban on coverage in state media.Indeed, Navalny’s popularity has grown largely based on a savvy social media campaign and online video investigations that purport to uncover corruption among the Kremlin elite.Even this week, with Navalny in prison, his team released a lengthy video online that alleges discovery of a lavish palace secretly built for President Vladimir Putin.Despite denials from the Kremlin of the investigation’s veracity, the film quickly garnered 70 million views.Ahead of Saturday’s rally, police rounded up key Navalny associates from his field offices and sentenced them to prison stays ranging from nine to 28 days.Law enforcement officers stand guard during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.Earlier this week, a judge sentenced Navalny to 30 days in prison pending charges of violating parole while recovering abroad.The hearing was held in a makeshift courtroom inside the police station, proceedings Navalny labeled as “beyond the height of lawlessness” before calling for Russias to take to the streets in response.“The way they arrested him was against our constitution,” said Ilya, 23, a demonstrator in Moscow. “If they can do it to a person like Navalny — with millions of followers online — they can do it to us.”Despite the large turnout, however, it was unclear whether demonstrators had made any progress on their central demand for Navalny’s release.The opposition leader’s chief strategist announced a follow-up protest would be held again next weekend.“If enough of us come out, then they’ll have to let him go,” said Yuri, 22, who was passing out small Russian flags on Pushkin Square in Moscow.“We’re the real patriots of our country. Not those who steal from the people,” he added.Wayne Lee contributed to this report.  
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