U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling on the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan to “end the violence and protect civilians” after nearly a month of intense fighting in the breakaway mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
 
The State Department issued the statement after Pompeo met separately with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan in Washington on Friday.
 
“The secretary also stressed the importance of the sides entering substantive negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to resolve the conflict based on the Helsinki Final Act principles of the non-use or threat of force, territorial integrity, and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples,” said State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus.
 
Mnatsakanyan told VOA the talks were “very good,” as he left the State Department Friday. When asked about a timeline for a cease-fire, he said “we [will] keep working on that.”
 
A group of some two dozen demonstrators, mostly Armenians, were gathered outside the State Department Friday.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 34 MB1080p | 58 MBOriginal | 60 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioThe meeting in Washington was arranged after two failed Russian attempts to broker a cease-fire in the worst outbreak of fighting over the region in more than a quarter-century.
 
Pompeo has joined other global leaders in pushing for an end to the fighting over the disputed territory. But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday he sees no possibility of a diplomatic solution at this stage of the conflict.
 
For his part, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said Armenian forces must withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh to end the fighting, which Russian President Vladimir said may have killed about 5,000 people since the violence erupted.
 
Also Wednesday, Turkey said it will not hesitate to send troops and provide military support to help Azerbaijan if such a request is made. Pompeo has called on other countries not to provide “fuel” for the conflict.
 
Shortly before the meetings in Washington began, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped to collaborate with Russia to resolve the conflict.
 Aram Avetisyan of VOA’s Armenian Service contributed reporting. 
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A political standoff is brewing in the Czech Republic where the health minister has refused to resign after pictures were published of him eating in a Prague restaurant closed under COVID-19 regulations.
 
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis Friday called on Health Minister Roman Prymula to resign after the tabloid Blesk published pictures of Prymula leaving a restaurant late at night and entering a car without a face mask. Both acts appear to violate Health Ministry restrictions on restaurants and mask requirements in most places, including chauffeured cars.
 
But later Friday, Prymula told reporters he did not break any rules and refused to step down. He said he had been invited to the restaurant for meeting with a hospital director and entered the restaurant through a private entrance and wore a mask once he was in his car.
 
Bars and restaurants in the Czech Republic are closed under current regulations designed to at least slow the spread of the virus. Schools, theaters, cinemas, zoos and many other locations are also closed and professional sports competitions have been stopped.
 
The health minister said the prime minster does have the option to fire him. Babis was scheduled to meet with Czech President Milos Zeman, who approves ministerial changes, later Friday to discuss the matter.
 
The controversy comes as the nation is battling the worst resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe. As of Friday, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reports over the past two weeks, the Czech Republic has led the continent with 1,148 cases per 100,000 people. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in Washington Friday with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in a bid to help end nearly a month of intense fighting in the breakaway mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
 
Pompeo invited Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan to meet with him separately at the State Department and said earlier this week he is anxious to hear what they are seeing on the ground.
 
The meeting in Washington was arranged after two failed Russian attempts to broker a cease-fire in the worst outbreak of fighting over the region in more than a quarter-century.
 
Pompeo has joined other global leaders in pushing for an end to the fighting over the disputed territory. But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday he sees no possibility of a diplomatic solution at this stage of the conflict.  
 
For his part, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said Armenian forces must withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh to end the fighting, which Russian President Vladimir said may have killed about 5,000 people since the violence erupted.  
 
Also Wednesday, Turkey said it will not hesitate to send troops and provide military support to help Azerbaijan if such a request is made. Pompeo has called on other countries not to provide “fuel” for the conflict.  
 
Shortly before the meetings in Washington began, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped to collaborate with Russia to resolve the conflict.
 
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Belgian officials Friday announced new COVID-19 restrictions but stopped short of a lockdown to stem the surging rate of infections, which are now averaging more than 10,000 per day.At a news conference in Brussels, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced, among other restrictions, fans are now banned from sports matches; zoos and theme parks will be closed; and limits will be placed on the number of people in cultural spaces. Teleworking remains the rule wherever possible.Belgium had already closed cafes, bars and restaurants and imposed a curfew, and has Europe’s second highest infection rate per capita after the Czech Republic. New infections hit a peak of 10,500 on Thursday.De Croo said Belgium is “pressing the ‘pause’ button” for a few goals, “to ensure that our doctors and hospitals can keep doing their work, that children can continue attending schools and that businesses can continue working while preserving as much as possible the mental health of our population.”Visits at nursing homes have also been limited, but many health experts think the new curtailment won’t be enough to break the contagion chain.Since the pandemic started, the virus has killed 10,588 people in the small nation with 11.5-million inhabitants.The health situation is so dramatic in nine out of 10 Belgium’s provinces that authorities have recently warned intensive care units will hit their capacity by mid-November if new coronavirus cases continue at the same pace.”No rules, no laws can defeat the virus,” said De Croo. “The only ones who can defeat it, it is us and our collective behavior.”To avoid a collapse of the health system, Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke said that the number of beds available in ICUs will be increased to 2,300 while non-urgent operations will be postponed over the next four weeks.De Croo said it is not new rules and regulations that will defeat the virus, but the collective behavior of the people.  He also sent a message of support to business owners and workers affected by the measures who struggle financially and are losing their jobs.”To all the people affected on the economic level be assured that we are putting everything in place to help, we are going through a national crisis, and national crisis requires national solidarity,” he said.
 
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The relationship between France and the United States is rarely as far apart as it is now, say experts. As the U.S. presidential election nears, polls show many French are hoping for a reboot under a new leader in the White House, as Lisa Bryant reports for VOA from Paris.
Producer: Henry Hernandez
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Russia and Iran are ramping up attacks on U.S. government networks and computer systems while also amplifying their disinformation campaigns, hoping to rattle the confidence of American voters with less than two weeks until the Nov. 3 presidential election.The warning Thursday from U.S. intelligence and election security officials came less than 24 hours after the director of national intelligence blamed Iran for launching the first sensational attack on the upcoming election, accusing Tehran of being behind thousands of spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters.Thursday’s advisories from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency suggested that the emails, as well as the ability of Russia and Iran to access voter registration information, were just the start of a larger campaign to undermine the U.S. elections.According to the FBI and CISA, the attacks from Russia began in September, targeting dozens of state and local government networks involved in activities ranging from aviation to education.The Russian cyber actor known as Beserk Bear “successfully compromised network infrastructure, and as of October 1, 2020, exfiltrated data from at least two victim servers,” the advisories said.The attackers also managed to obtain credentials that could allow them to move around in the networks, seeking out critical information that they could exploit at a later date, potentially to disrupt the upcoming presidential election.”There may be some risk to elections information housed on SLTT [state, local, tribal and territorial] government networks,” the statement added. “However, the FBI and CISA have no evidence to date that integrity of elections data has been compromised.”Officials refused to share additional details about the Russian exploits, or say which government servers had been compromised, but the independent cyber security firm Mandiant said the Russian behavior appeared to be geared toward the Nov. 3 vote.”Access to these systems could enable disruption or could be an end in itself, allowing the actor to seize on perceptions of election insecurity and undermine the democratic process,” Mandiant Senior Director of Analysis John Hultquist said in a statement.Hultquist added that while there had been at least one attack on an election-related target, “we have no information which suggests these actors are capable or even willing to alter votes.”But while the Russian cyber actors appear content, for the moment, to threaten U.S. election-related networks, the FBI and CISA warned Thursday that Iranian-linked actors appear to be in position to exploit current network vulnerabilities.“These actors have conducted a significant number of intrusions against U.S.-based networks since August 2019,” according to the new advisory, pointing to possible distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks, spear-phishing campaigns and website defacements.“These activities could render these systems temporarily inaccessible to the public or election officials, which could slow, but would not prevent, voting or the reporting of results,” the advisories said.It further warned that Iranian cyber actors have also been expanding their election-related disinformation efforts, “creating fictitious media sites and spoofing legitimate media sites to spread obtained U.S. voter-registration data, anti-American propaganda, and misinformation about voter suppression, voter fraud, and ballot fraud.”The warnings from U.S. security and intelligence officials represent a shift from the cautious, but seemingly more optimistic tone they sounded as recently as last month.”Russia continues to try to influence our elections, primarily through what we would call malign foreign influence … as opposed to what we saw in 2016 where there was also an effort to target election infrastructure,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee Sept. 17.#Election2020-“#Russia continues to try to influence our elections, primarily thru what we would call malign foreign influence” per @FBI’s Wray “As opposed to what we saw in 2016 where there was also an effort to target election infrastructure”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) September 17, 2020But in an interview with Hearst Television two weeks ago, the top U.S. counterintelligence official suggested the threat landscape was changing, saying Russia, Iran and China were actively targeting U.S. election infrastructure.”We are very resilient, and we’ve been very successful in pushing back the majority of these efforts,” National Counterintelligence and Security Center William Evanina said.Evanina confirms to Hearst #Russia#China#Iran have actively targeted US election infrastructure, emails/servers for both the @realDonaldTrump & @JoeBiden campaigns”We are very resilient & we’ve been very successful in pushing back the majority of these efforts”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 8, 2020In the wake of the Iranian email campaign, officials are warning American voters these campaigns by Russia and Iran, are just the start.“The intelligence shared [Wednesday], while alarming, is not surprising,” CISA Director Christopher Krebs said in a statement, adding that the number of actors seeking to meddle is likely to grow.”These are desperate attempts by our adversaries to intimidate or to undermine voter confidence, but Americans can rest assured: thousands of your fellow citizens stand ready to defend your vote, every single day” per @NSAGov’s Imbordino & @US_CYBERCOM’s BrigGen Hartman— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 22, 2020In the meantime, some current and former U.S. officials have expressed a sense of foreboding, noting Russia and Iran may not be done making use of the voter registration data they obtained, and which Iran used in its email campaign.“The reported Iranian acquisition of voter data should be a cause for concern,” said Norman Roule, a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who said Tehran’s efforts show its cyber and influence operations have evolved.“Whether or not this data was publicly available, its acquisition by Iranian actors engaged in these operations indicates that the material will form the basis for future targeting operations,” he said. “If our response becomes an internal debate with little focus on Iran, they will learn that these operations come at little cost.”Another current U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, told VOA there is heightened concern about Tehran’s efforts, warning the Iranian regime appears to still be looking for payback following the drone strike in January that killed Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani.For now, state election officials are urging voters to remain calm and avoid falling for upsetting or sensational claims likely to pop up on social media, whether director by Iran, Russia or anyone else.“Be prepared for foreign efforts aimed at sowing division and undermining the legitimacy of the election,” a coalition of national and state officials said in a statement issued late Thursday. “Be prepared for attempts to confuse or misinform.”“The entire election community stands ready for the task ahead,” they added.NEW: @CISAgov@EACgov@NASSorg@NASEDorg on attacks vs #Election2020″We must remain steadfast…While this year has thrown unprecedented obstacles in our way, the entire election community stands ready for the task ahead & united in our goal to protect our democracy” pic.twitter.com/Go3imyxLgl— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 22, 2020Some experts worry that as Election Day draws near, American voters will be tested like never before.“The really tricky problem is that we’re all in a laboratory right now and we’re being experimented on by different parties,” said John Scott-Railston, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School.”We don’t know what the results will be. They [U.S. adversaries] don’t know what the results will be. But they’re very much learning,” he said.
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Healthy volunteers will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus to try to speed up the development of a vaccine, under plans announced by the British government this week.  The trial will involve healthy volunteers ages 18 to 30. Most coronavirus vaccine trials involve giving volunteers the potential vaccine or a placebo and then waiting until enough of them have been exposed to the virus through their everyday lives. That can take months or years. Britain announced this week it plans to begin the so-called “human challenge” trials in May 2021 to speed up the development of vaccines.  Several young people have already volunteered, among them Danica Marcos, 22, a recent university graduate from London. “So many people [are] struggling right now. I want this pandemic to be over,” Marcos told The Associated Press. “Every day that goes on, more cases are going on, more people are dying. And if this vaccine trial could mean that this period of trauma for the whole world will be over sooner, I want to help. I want to be a part of that.” People walk past a display featuring health advice in the shopping district in central Sheffield, south Yorkshire, Oct. 21, 2020. (AFP)Alastair Fraser-Urqhart, 18, from Stoke-on-Trent said he wanted to contribute to a vaccine.  “Personally, I can’t let this opportunity to do something, to really do something, pass me by when I’m at such low risk than other people,” he said. The British government plans to invest over $43.4 million in the challenge trial. The World Health Organization said it could be significant. “There is a very long history of this for development of a number of vaccines that has been part of what has gone on with, say, the development of the cholera vaccines and the typhoid vaccines,” said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for WHO. Harris also expressed some concerns. “What is critical is that if people are considering this, it must be overseen by an ethics committee, and the volunteers must have full consent, and they must select the volunteers in order to minimize their risk. Because you will be challenging people with a virus that we do not have a treatment for,” Harris said. “So, you must ensure that everybody involved understands exactly what is at stake, must be selected to minimize the risk. The volunteer and you must ensure that informed consent is rigorous, that they really do understand all the risks.” FILE – A passenger in a car receives a novel coronavirus test at a drive-in COVID-19 testing facility set up at the Chessington World of Adventures Resort, in Chessington, southwest of London, Oct. 20, 2020. (AFP)Infections, hospitalizations and deaths from the new coronavirus are rising sharply in many countries around the world. A vaccine remains the best hope of any return to some kind of normality, said Dr. Sterghios Moschos, a microbiologist at the University of Northumbria, who spoke to VOA in a recent interview. “At this point in time, we don’t have a way of stopping transmission,” Moschos said. “And we don’t even have the financial capacity to give multiple antibody treatments, steroids, et cetera, like Donald Trump received, to everybody in the population that needs treatment. The cost is quite large for these kinds of treatments. We don’t have a vaccine. And therefore, as a result, we need to contain the spread of this virus. Not just manage it, contain it.” The initial aim of the British research team will be to discover the smallest amount of virus it takes to cause a COVID-19 infection, using controlled doses of the virus. If approved by regulators and an ethics committee, it is hoped the full challenge trial could begin in May 2021.  
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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed Thursday that the military alliance would establish a space center at the Allied Air Command base in Ramstein, Germany.Speaking in Brussels after a virtual conference of NATO foreign ministers, Stoltenberg confirmed reports regarding the space center made earlier this week by European news agencies.”NATO is determined to keep our cutting edge in all domains,” he said, including “land, sea, air, cyber and space.”During a meeting last December, Stoltenberg declared “space as an operational domain for NATO. And today we took another important step.”In his comments, the NATO chief said the Allied Air Command space center would help to coordinate allied space activities and provide support for NATO missions and operations from space using satellite communications and imagery. Stoltenberg said the center also would help protect NATO-allied space systems by sharing information about potential threats.Stoltenberg has said repeatedly that NATO has no interest in the “militarization” of space. But Thursday, he said threats against NATO allied satellites and space systems were real.“For instance,” he said, “Russia and China are now developing capabilities that can blind, destroy, for instance, satellites, which will have a severe impact on both military and civilian activities on the ground.”Stoltenberg also said NATO foreign ministers expressed concern about Russia’s growing arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles and the importance of Russia and the U.S. extending the new START missile treaty.The secretary-general also called for an immediate cease-fire and cessation of all hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994.The current fighting that started there marks the biggest escalation in the conflict since the war’s end. Stoltenberg called on Turkey to “use its considerable influence in the region to calm tensions.”
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French President Emmanuel Macron paid a soaring tribute Wednesday to a middle school teacher brutally killed in an Islamic terrorist attack last week, while vowing an all-out fight against radical Islam he said threatened the nation. Seven people, including two teenagers, face possible prosecution.President Macron’s homage to slain history teacher Samuel Paty was broadcast live from the Sorbonne University in Paris — picked deliberately for its symbolism of learning and light.Macron called Paty the kind of teacher people never forget:  a man who was respectful of his students and had read the Muslim holy book, the Quran.Paty –who posthumously received France’s highest Legion of Honor award – had become the face of France, the President said, of the nation’s determination to destroy terrorists and thwart Islamist extremism.Macron’s address was among a number of displays of anger and grief in France after Paty’s gruesome beheading last Friday as he returned home from the Paris-area school where he taught. French prosecutors have charged seven people with the killing.Among them are two teens, part of a group of students who were paid by Paty’s killer to identify him. The assailant, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, was shot dead by police shortly after stabbing and beheading Paty. Officials say Anzorov was apparently motivated by anger after the teacher showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on free expression.Also charged in Paty’s death, France’s anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said, was the father of one of Paty’s students who launched an online hate campaign against the teacher over the cartoons – along with a known Islamist radical who helped with that campaign.This is France’s second terrorist attack in less than a month, and the government’s response has been swift. Police have carried out a number of raids and are vowing to expel more than 250 foreign-born radicals as well as shut down institutions allegedly linked to radical Islam.Among those targeted for dissolution is the Collective Against Islamophobia in France for allegedly supporting the father’s hate campaign against Paty. But the organization’s head, Jawad Bachare, rejected those charges claiming his group was being used as a scapegoat by a government that cannot protect its nation.Many French have responded to these latest attacks with protests and silent marches in defense of free expression and secularism. 
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About midnight Sunday, reporter Shkumbin Kajtazi heard gunshots ring out in Mitrovica, the Kosovan city where he lives.When he went outside, Kajtazi, who works for the news website Reporteri and runs his own outlet Jepi Zë (Give it Voice), found the window of his car shattered by bullets.Reporter Shkumbin Kajtazi said the attack on his car occurred about midnight Sunday, when it was parked in downtown Mitrovica, Kosovo. (Facebook/shkumbinkajtazi)Kajtazi told VOA on Wednesday that he couldn’t pinpoint any specific article that might have led to the attack, but as an investigative journalist and editor at Reporteri and owner of a local news site, “I think responsibility about any article we publish falls on me.”Kosovan Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), leaders of institutions and political parties, and the Association of Journalists of Kosovo all called for a swift investigation.Hoti called on law enforcement to make the investigation a priority and reiterated that press freedom is guaranteed by law and protected.“Attacks on journalists and media are direct attacks on democratic values. Therefore, they will be treated with priority by law enforcement agencies,” Hoti wrote on his Facebook account.His calls were welcomed by U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Philip Kosnett. In a tweet Tuesday, Kosnett said journalists “deserve our respect and protection.”Attacks on journalists are assaults on our shared democratic values. By reporting the truth and holding officials accountable, journalists serve the public. They deserve our respect and protection. I welcome the Prime Minister’s call to swiftly investigate incidents.— Ambassador Philip S. Kosnett (@USAmbKosovo) “When I approached the place where I parked it, I saw that the car was seriously damaged,” reporter Shkumbin Kajtazi wrote on Facebook. He said there were “bullet holes and shells everywhere: in the driver’s seat, ceiling and back.” (Facebook/shkumbinkajtazi)The shooting came months after an attempted arson against Kajtazi. In June, someone tried to set fire to the journalist’s car, but neighbors called the police, according to the media group International Press Association.A suspect was arrested but has not been charged. Kajtazi said a prosecutor told him the suspect confessed and said it was because of the journalist’s work.“It is disturbing that within a period of four months, there have been two attacks against [Kajtazi],” a statement from the Association of Journalists of Kosovo said.  “Every attack on journalists is an attack on the public interest and democracy in the country.”The association described the latest attack as “extremely disturbing and aggravating not only the climate of journalism, but also endangering the lives of our colleagues.”The OSCE also condemned what it called an “act of intimidation.”Ramush Haradinaj, a former prime minister and chair of the ruling coalition partner, Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, said “freedom is not complete without the right to speak.””Those who are trying to present Kosovo as an insecure country, where free speech is violated, through cowardly attacks, must be detected and their very harmful activity for the country must be stopped,” Haradinaj wrote on Facebook. At least one other journalist has been threatened in a separate case this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit.In September, Ermal Panduri, who hosts a political talk show and is managing director of TV station RTV Dukagjini, received dozens of messages via Facebook users, including death threats.  The journalist said the threats started after he criticized the president over a land dispute with Serbia.“If journalists cannot criticize the country’s politics without receiving a torrent of threats to their lives, then the press cannot operate freely in Kosovo,” CPJ program director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said at the time.Physical and verbal threats were listed by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as concerns in Kosovo, alongside cyberattacks on news websites.“Many media in Kosovo are not financially stable, which makes them susceptible to political influence and often results in self-censorship,” RSF said in its 2020 press freedom index. This story originated in VOA’s Albanian Service.
 
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French President Emmanuel Macron paid a soaring tribute to slain history teacher Samuel Paty during a national commemoration Wednesday at Paris’ Sorbonne University, describing him as incarnating values of tolerance and learning, and describing in bleak terms the threat of radical Islam.“We will not renounce cartoons,” said Macron, in reference to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that Paty used in a class on secular values — and which authorities said led to his beheading by an Islamist terrorist.“Samuel Paty was killed because the Islamists want our future,” the president said, adding, “they will never have it.”The ceremony, marked by a moment of silence and the posthumous bestowal on Paty of France’s highest Legion of Honor award, capped an outpouring of grief and anger over Paty’s death near the Paris-area school where he worked.Paty’s death has shaken the nation partly for its sheer brutality, but also because it attacked what many French consider sacrosanct — the nation’s public schools as hubs of critical thinking and free expression, along with its staunch creed of laicité, or secularism.Yet, along with flowers, marches and tributes — including mass rallies in major cities that have gathered tens of thousands — the country is witnessing a fractured response to its latest terrorist attack, which mixes calls for war against Islamist extremism with fears the country may be taking its secular ethos too far.“There is a political culture that has problems with Islam, and that is laicité,” said sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, a specialist on radical Islam. “And laicité is a major problem.”Prophet Muhammad cartoonsPaty was killed going home from school last Friday in apparent retaliation for showing the controversial cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad to his students, during a class on free expression. Authorities said seven people, including two minors, would appear before an anti-terrorism judge.French anti-terrorist state prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard holds a press conference, Oct. 21, 2020, in Paris.At a press conference Wednesday, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Ricard said Paty’s killer, Chechen immigrant Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, gave students at Paty’s school, in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, money in exchange for identifying the teacher.Two accepted, and Anzorov followed and killed Paty after class, posting his gruesome act on social media. Shortly after, police shot dead Anzorov, an ethnic Chechen who had received asylum and later resident status in France.The assailant apparently was motivated by a social media campaign against the teacher for showing the controversial cartoons. The campaign had been launched by a disgruntled parent, although the man’s daughter apparently never attended the free-expression class.Both the parent and an alleged Islamist militant, who helped spread the social media campaign against Paty, are among those appearing before an anti-terror judge.  Also appearing are the two students, aged 14 and 15, who told investigators Anzorov said he intended to humiliate and hit Paty, but not kill him.Government crackdownFrench authorities have riposted swiftly to the killing, announcing the expulsion of more than 250 alleged Islamist radicals of foreign origin. They also launched dozens of raids on suspect groups this week, shuttering one mosque and vowing to dissolve several organizations allegedly linked to extremism.Among them is the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, or CCIF, an NGO that receives state funding, but which critics say is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier this week, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin denounced it as an “enemy of the republic,” accusing it of backing the disgruntled father’s fatwa or ruling against Paty — a claim CCIF head Jawad Bachare rejects.Residents applaud after observing a minute of silence for slain history teacher Samuel Paty, Oct.21, 2020, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, southwestern France.“The government has not been able to protect its population and it needs someone to blame — and it’s us,” Bachare said in a phone interview, describing the CCIF as apolitical and nonreligious.The father had approached the CCIF for legal support, he added, but the group had advised him to immediately remove his social media postings while it investigated his complaints.Paty’s killing was the second terrorist incident here in less than a month. An earlier stabbing in Paris that severely wounded two people also was triggered by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Together with an ongoing trial over the 2015 attacks on the satirical newspaper, they are again putting in the spotlight France’s Muslim community, which is Western Europe’s largest.Prominent Muslim leaders have rushed to denounce the attacks, even as they worry Muslims may be unfairly stigmatized.”This is the moment, and we support our president and our government and the minister of the interior to really go and fight Islamism, to really go and look for them in their cellars, on their websites, where they hide,” said Paris-area Imam Hassen Chalghoumi during a ceremony commemorating Paty.Secularism at stakeMembers of France’s far right and several center-right leaders say the government has not gone far enough.”Since terrorism is an act of war, it needs wartime legislation” against radical Islam, said far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen, demanding broader changes, including further curbs on immigration.Macron’s centrist government plans to unveil so-called anti-separatism legislation in early December, which is expected to largely focus on radical Islam.“Laicité is the cement of a united France,” Macron said, announcing the bill last month. But others suggest laicité — or at least the official interpretation of it — is part of the problem. From banning Muslim burkinis on beaches to religious symbols in schools, it is feeding divisions, they warn, and paradoxically risks pushing some conservative Muslims to extremism.Khosrokhavar describes conducting multiple interviews with middle-class French Muslim men, many of whom said they were not particularly religious.Pedestrians walk along Marseille’s Old Port as the town hall is lit up in the French Tricolor to honor slain teacher Samuel Paty, Oct. 21, 2020.“The majority are deeply alienated, because they are targeted by this laicité, which becomes a symbol of neocolonial rule and a denial of their dignity,” he said.Teachers on the linePaty’s death also has shaken the country’s educational establishment. In rallies and commemorations, teachers have turned out en masse, brandishing banners defending free expression. In interviews, they describe tensions teaching laicité  to an increasingly diverse student body, especially those of Muslim origin.“There is a penetration of a religiosity that increasingly structures students and feeds a radical vision,” Iannis Roder, a history teacher in the heavily immigrant Seine-Saint-Denis region outside Paris, told French radio. “It manifests itself in really basic things, like some students refusing to listen to music during Ramadan.”Another Seine-Saint-Denis high school teacher told VOA that teaching tolerance takes time.“Tackling free expression by showing images of the Prophet [Muhammad] — you have to weigh the consequences,” said the teacher, who declined to be identified as she had not received authorization from her school to speak to the media.Instead, she opts for a less confrontational approach, taking her mostly Muslim students on school outings to Holocaust memorials and other sites — and drawing links with their own backgrounds. Slowly, she said, the lessons sink in.“The old students return to coach the youngsters,” she said. “It makes a really big difference.”
 
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British Prime Boris Johnson pushed back again Wednesday on opposition efforts to implement a two-week “circuit-breaker” nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus cases in the country.In the House of Commons, Opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer said Johnson’s regional three-tiered alert system has not been working and that more drastic measures need to be put in place.The system, implemented more than a week ago, classifies regions of the country as medium, high or very high virus risk, based on their levels of new cases. In the highest risk areas, pubs are closed, residents from one household are barred from mixing with another, and travel in and out of the area is discouraged.An information on COVID-19 sign is seen during stricter restrictions due to the coronavirus disease outbreak in Sheffield, Britain, Oct. 21, 2020. (Reuters)Starmer said infection rates continue to surge — locking some regions in the northeast, especially, into Tier Three, while moving others from Tier Two to Three — indicating to him that none of the measures is working. He said the measures are “the worst of both worlds,” causing “significant economic harm without getting the virus sufficiently under control” to lift the restrictions.Starmer accused Johnson of having no exit strategy for the government’s plan and said there is a clear choice: weeks of prolonged agony under the tiered system, or a two-week, nationwide “circuit breaker” lockdown. He noted that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each had announced either lockdowns or near-lockdowns beginning Friday.Johnson defended the government’s localized approach as balanced and “commonsensical,” and he said the “circuit breaker” method being touted by Starmer would bring, with schools and businesses closed, economic as well as psychological and emotional damage to the people of Britain.Johnson’s government Tuesday imposed Tier Three restrictions on greater Manchester, Britain’s second-largest urban area, after failing to reach agreement with local authorities on financial support for businesses and employees affected by the lockdown. 
 
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France has declared a public health state of emergency, a move that has restaurant owners worried they could be forced to shut down again and ultimately go out of business. Elhame Lecoeur reports from Paris.
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People in Ukraine are closely following the U.S. presidential election given America’s strategic importance to the country and campaign allegations of corruption linked to Ukraine.  Henry Ridgwell reports.Videographer: Eugene Risunkov
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Spain this week will become the first European country to report one million coronavirus cases since the pandemic started.   Despite bringing in one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, experts say that Spain has reached this grim milestone because the pandemic has exposed some deep flaws in its health system and model of government. At the start of the week, the country had reached 974,449 reported COVID-19 cases nationwide and the figure was likely to reach the million mark by the weekend.  Some six million Spaniards — about 13% of the population of 47 million — are now living under some kind of restrictions to try to curb a second wave. FILE – A worker wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus prepares to close a bar at 10 p.m. due to new measures against COVID-19, in Pamplona, northern Spain, Oct. 17, 2020. (AP)However, tensions soon flared between the desire of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to keep in charge of the pandemic and some conservative-run regions whose priority was keeping the economy alive and avoiding another lockdown despite rising infection rates. This reached its peak after the central government and the right-wing Madrid regional government spent weeks sparring over how to halt a rising contagion rate in the Spanish capital. Sánchez insisted on following the advice of health experts who recommended a partial lockdown of the entire city and eight outlying towns while Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Madrid regional leader who is on the hard-right of the conservative People’s Party, said the measures would destroy the economy. As the disagreement dragged on, Madrid’s contagion rate rose to over 730 cases per 100,000 in the previous 14 days, the second highest in Europe after the tiny state of Andorra, according to World Health Organization data. Eventually, Sanchez’s patience snapped and the government imposed a partial lockdown, only for Ayuso to concede defeat ungracefully by trying to fight the measure in the Constitutional Court but failing. Since the lockdown came into force on October 9, the rate has dropped to 509 cases per 100,000 but it still accounts for a third of all contagions in Spain. Madrid’s Emergency Service UVI-8 unit’s members push a stretcher with a patient at Clinico San Carlos hospital amid the coronavirus outbreak in Madrid, Spain, Oct. 19, 2020. (Reuters)Imposing any curfew in Madrid will depend on whether an agreement is reached with the opposition, but in Spain’s fractious political environment, the People’s Party, the far-right Vox, which control 140 seats in the parliament between them, are likely to oppose such a move. “The health crisis has demonstrated the weaknesses of our system of de-centralized system,” Lluis Orriols, professor of politics at the Carlos III University in Madrid, told VOA in an interview. “There are countries where the regions lead and they are more devolved. The problem here is that of confrontation and there are no mechanisms of cooperation between the institutions.” Manuel Fernández, owner of Restaurante Braseria Los Olivos in Malgrat de Mar, a town 56 kilometers north of Barcelona, has been fined $70,839 for refusing to abide by restrictions imposed by authorities in Catalonia in which bars and restaurants can only serve takeaways.  His protest is an example of rising frustration with a political class who are not focusing on implementing the correct measures to combat COVID-19.  “Restaurants are not spreading this disease. We have abided by all their restrictions in the past and we are going out of business. I am no communist but someone needs to make a point: It is the politicians who should sort out their priorities, not crush normal people,” he told VOA. Alex Arenas, an expert in public health at the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona near Barcelona who advises the Catalan regional government, blamed Spain’s current position on the early lifting of lockdown, the lack of track-and-trace systems, pressure on a depleted health system and the false perception that the crisis was under control in the summer. “The political polarization has been dire as we have seen, for example, between the government and Madrid. These party battles represent a loss of precious time in terms of the anticipating and taking action against the pandemic,” he told VOA. “It results in a lack of confidence among the public in what measures we need to adopt.” 
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The U.S. and Russia signaled their willingness Tuesday to reach a new deal on nuclear arms control by working toward a freeze on warhead arsenals for a year past the February expiration of the current weapons pact.
 
Russia proposed extending the accord for the New START arms-control treaty, with the U.S. State Department hours later saying it appreciated Russia’s “willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control.”
 
The State Department said the U.S. “is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same.”
 
Moscow said it was “ready, together with the United States, to make a political commitment to ‘freeze’ the number of nuclear warheads held by the parties” through February 2022 while a new treaty is negotiated.  
 
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed in 2010 and imposes limits on the two countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals. It can be extended for five years, which Moscow has said it is ready to do without preconditions.
 
The possible extension of the pact — even by a year — would mark a rare improvement in bilateral relations between the two countries on arms control.
 
The White House already had withdrawn from other arms-control treaties with Moscow, accusing the Kremlin of violating them and claiming the agreements benefited Russia more than the United States. This included the Cold War-era Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and it unilaterally exited Open Skies, a pact that permitted the two countries to conduct reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory.
 
Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger in the Nov. 3 presidential election, supports extending New START “to use that as a foundation for new arms-control arrangements.”  
 
Biden has said the treaty, which was negotiated when he was vice president under President Barack Obama, is an “anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia.”
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Since 1994, Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus under a system of tight control inherited from the former Soviet Union and largely dependent on Russia.  His opponents denounce Lukashenko as repressive and want him out, while his supporters point to Belarus’ record of stability and low unemployment as reasons for him to stay.  Jonathan Spier narrates this report by Ricardo Marquina in Minsk.Producer: Henry Hernandez 
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A Danish man serving a life sentence for the torture and murder of a Swedish journalist aboard his homemade submarine was apprehended Tuesday after escaping from prison.Danish police said Peter Madsen was caught shortly after escaping from a prison in suburban Copenhagen. The tabloid Ekstra Bladet posted a video of Madsen after his capture near the prison.Madsen was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 in Copenhagen for killing Swedish journalist Kim Wall after he lured Wall aboard his submarine in 2017 with the promise of an interview. Madsen dismembered Wall’s body and dumped it into the sea.Madsen, who denies killing Wall, lost an appeal shortly after apologizing to the journalist’s family. Madsen claims she accidently died inside the submarine but acknowledged he tossed her body parts into the Baltic Sea.Life sentences in Denmark typically mean serving 16 years in prison, but convicts can be jailed longer if authorities determine they would pose a threat to society if released. 
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The British government is supporting human trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine in which healthy human subjects will be infected with the virus to accelerate the process.The tests will be conducted by Imperial College London as part of a partnership between government, laboratory and trial services company hVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.The government is providing $43.5 million to fund the project, which, if approved by regulators and an ethics committee, would start in January with results expected by May 2021.Researchers say they are seeking recruits between the ages of 18 and 30 with no previous history or symptoms of COVID-19 and no underlying health conditions or adverse factors. They say in the initial phase of the testing, their goal would be to discover the least amount of the virus it takes to infect a person.Once that phase is complete, the researchers say they would study how the vaccine works in the body to stop or prevent COVID-19 and investigate possible treatments.The risk for the volunteers is that at the time of their infection, there will be no known cure. The Imperial College lead researcher on the project, Dr. Chris Chiu, insists the safety of the volunteers is the number one priority.  He said while no study like this is risk free, but scientists would work as hard as possible to limit the risks.The upside, Chiu says, is that these so-called “human challenge studies” can increase understanding of a virus like COVID-19 in unique ways and accelerate the development of treatments and vaccines. 
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Protests against the monarchy have spread in Spain and polls show the nation is divided over whether it should be abolished. Alfonso Beato has more from Barcelona in this story narrated by Jonathan Spier. 
Camera: Alfonso Beato  Produced by: Jon Spier
 
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France’s Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into a wide range of hate speech following the beheading of a history teacher last week. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that 80 instances of hate speech online had been investigated since Friday’s attack and that 51 French Muslim organizations would be probed, as well. “Not a minute of respite for enemies of the republic,” Darmanin wrote Monday on Twitter. Pas une minute de répit pour les ennemis de la République.👉+ de 80 enquêtes ouvertes pour haine en ligne suite à l’attentat de vendredi.👉 51 structures associatives verront toute la semaine des visites des services de l’Etat et plusieurs d’entres elles seront dissoutes. pic.twitter.com/r7F8UOTHJH— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) October 19, 2020The comments follow a weekend of countrywide rallies defending free speech and secularism in France after middle school teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded Friday near his school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.Latest Terror Attack in France Sparks Anger, Fear Some believe free expression and France’s secularist creed are on the line  A national commemoration in honor of Paty takes place Wednesday. Among the groups being investigated by the French government is the Anti-Islamophobia collective (CCIF), a group that tracks anti-Muslim attacks. Darmanin called the group an “enemy of the state.” CCIF, which expressed condolences for Paty’s family and all teachers on social media, accused Darmanin of slander. Nearly a dozen people are being held for questioning in Paty’s killing, which took place as he returned home from class. They include the family of the suspect, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee identified by officials as Abdoullakh A., who police shot and killed shortly after he allegedly stabbed and decapitated his victim.  
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Officials in Wales announced Monday they will impose a two-week “firebreak” lockdown effective Friday, requiring all but essential workers to stay at home to combat an accelerating second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford announced the move at a news conference, saying the lockdown will be in effect from Friday to November 9. During that time, everyone in Wales will be required to stay at home, except for the most critical workers. He said that that means people will be working from home wherever possible. Referring to the lockdown as a “firebreak,” Drakeford said it “is the shortest we can make it but that means that it will have to be sharp and deep in order to have the impact we need it to have on the virus.”   Drakeford said that while he understood that people were tired of COVID-19 restrictions, the imposition of rules was essential as critical care units were already full.  All non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourist businesses will have to close in Wales. Places of worship will also close for regular service. Last week, Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)recommended a similar break for all of Britain, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected it in favor of his regional three-tiered “alert” system approach.  Britain recorded 16,982 new daily cases of COVID-19 in the space of 24 hours, according to government data issued on Sunday, up from 16,717 the previous day. Wales recorded 950 cases, up from just 400 per day at the start of the month.    
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Protests against the monarchy have spread in Spain and polls show the nation is divided about whether it should be abolished, as Alfonso Beato reports from Barcelona in this story narrated by Jonathan Spier. Camera: Alfonso Beato   
Producer:  Jon Spie
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Finland’s Nokia has been selected by NASA to build the first cellular network on the moon, the company said on Monday.
 
The lunar network will be part of the U.S. space agency’s efforts to return humans to the moon by 2024 and build long-term settlements there under its Artemis program.
 
Nokia said the first wireless broadband communications system in space would be built on the lunar surface in late 2022, before humans make it back there.
 
The Finnish company will partner with Texas-based private space craft design firm Intuitive Machines to deliver the network equipment to the moon on their lunar lander.
 
After delivery, the network will configure itself and establish the first LTE (Long-Term Evolution) communications system on the moon, Nokia said. “The network will provide critical communication capabilities for many different data-transmission applications, including vital command and control functions, remote control of lunar rovers, real-time navigation and streaming of high definition video,” Nokia said.
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