Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned Greece to enter talks over disputed eastern Mediterranean territorial claims or face the consequences.
 
“They’re either going to understand the language of politics and diplomacy, or in the field with painful experiences,” he said at a hospital’s opening ceremony in Istanbul.
 
Ankara is currently facing off against Greece and Cyprus over oil and gas exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean. All sides have deployed naval and air forces to assert their competing claims in the region.
 
“They are going to understand that Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear up the immoral maps and documents imposed,” Erdogan added, referring to areas marked by Greece and Cyprus as their economic maritime zones.
 
He stressed that Turkey was “ready for every eventuality and result.”
 
Meanwhile, Turkish media reported that tanks were being moved towards the Greek border. The Cumhuriyet newspaper said 40 tanks were being transported from the Syrian border to Edirne in northwest Turkey and carried photographs of armored vehicles loaded on trucks.
 
There was no immediate official confirmation of the deployment.
 
The president’s comments come after NATO said military officers from Greece and Turkey had begun technical discussions to reduce the risk of armed conflict or accidents.
 
The two NATO allies have been locked for weeks in a tense standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is prospecting the seabed for energy reserves in an area Greece claims as its own continental shelf.
 
Ankara says it has every right to prospect there and accuses Athens of trying to grab an unfair share of maritime resources.
 
Simulated dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter pilots have multiplied over the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. A Turkish and a Greek frigate collided last month, reportedly causing minor damage to the Turkish frigate but no injuries.
 
Erdogan said Turkey had repeatedly expressed its willingness to come to a just agreement.
 
“Our word is sincere,” he said. “The problem is those before us disregard our rights and try to situate themselves above us.”
 
Turkey faces a wide range of opponents in the eastern Mediterranean. France, Italy and the United Arab Emirates have all sent forces to join war games with either Greece or Cyprus in recent weeks. Egypt has signed an energy exploration deal with Athens for the Mediterranean.
 
The EU, which numbers Greece and Cyprus as members, has also threatened possible sanctions against Ankara over its “illegal” actions.
 
This week, the U.S. announced it was easing a 33-year-old arms embargo against ethnically divided Cyprus.
 
The island split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of a union with Greece. Turkey is the only nation to recognize a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence and it maintains more than 35,000 troops in northern Cyprus.
 
The recent crisis is the most serious in Turkish-Greek relations in decades. The neighbors have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over maritime resources in the Aegean.
 
Earlier, Ankara announced joint military exercises with northern Cypriot forces from Sunday to Sept. 10. The air, land and sea drills are held every year. 
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Masked security agents dragged students off the streets and bundled them into vans as new protests broke out against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday on the fourth weekend since his disputed re-election.
 
Up to 30 people were detained for taking part in unsanctioned protests, Russian news agency TASS quoted the Minsk police as saying.  Draped in red-and-white opposition flags, students staged protests in several places in the capital, including outside the Minsk State Linguistic Institute where police had arrested five people on Friday, local media footage showed.
 
Elsewhere masked men dragged away students who had gathered at an eatery in Karl Marx Street in the center of Minsk, while some of the protesters shouted “tribunal!,” according to footage shown by news outlet TUT.BY.
 
Thousands of women later held a separate march through Minsk in the afternoon, shouting “hands off the children” as one of their slogans.
 
A former Soviet collective farm manager, Lukashenko has struggled to contain a wave of mass protests and strikes since he won a sixth term at an election last month that opponents say was rigged. He denies electoral fraud.
 
Lukashenko has previously dismissed the coronavirus pandemic as a “psychosis” that could be tackled by drinking vodka and taking saunas.
 
But on Saturday he appeared to chide the protesters for spreading the disease.
 
“We stagger through the streets, rubbing against each other,” he said at a televised government meeting. “Where’s the social distancing and so on in that? We’re doing everything we can to delay the moment when we say goodbye to this disease. That’s unacceptable.”
 
Thousands took part in protests that coincided with the start of the school year on Tuesday. At the Minsk State Linguistic Institute, students sang “Do you hear the people sing,” a protest anthem from the musical “Les Miserables.” 
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A bitter dispute between China and the Czech Republic threatens to affect relations between Europe and Beijing. A delegation from the Czech senate visited Taiwan this week – which China claims as part of its territory. Strongly worded threats from Beijing against the delegation have prompted criticism from EU leaders. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the dispute comes as Europe hardens its language towards China. 
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya appealed to the United Nations on Friday to stop human rights abuses in her country, a month after the results of a disputed presidential election have led to the arrests of thousands of peaceful protesters.“The demands of the nation are simple,” Tsikhanouskaya told an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council by video from Lithuania, to which she fled after the results of the August 9 election were published. “The immediate termination of violence and threats by the regime, immediate release of all political prisoners, and a free and fair election.”Tsikhanouskaya also called on the United Nations to condemn the use of excessive force by the Belarusian security services against protesters; to convene a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council; and to send an international monitoring mission to Belarus to document the situation on the ground.She said there is a single obstacle to the people’s demands being met.“This obstacle is Mr. Lukashenko, a man desperately clinging onto power and refusing to listen to his people and his own state officials,” she said. “A nation cannot and should not be a hostage to one man’s thirst for power. And it won’t.”Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, left, shakes hands with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko prior to their talks in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 3, 2020.President Alexander Lukashenko has kept a tight grip on Belarus for 26 years, and he was declared the winner with more than 80% of the votes. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was his leading opponent in the race. She took the place of her husband, Sergei, a blogger and pro-democracy activist who had presidential aspirations. He was arrested in late May and a criminal case was opened against him, preventing his candidacy.In the months leading up to the election, and escalating afterward,  Lukashenko’s government cracked down on street protests, using excessive force on demonstrators. Thousands were arrested and many reported being tortured in custody. After the election, internet access was severely disrupted for three days and the websites of dozens of influential media and civil society groups were blocked. Foreign journalists could not obtain credentials to cover the vote and some were deported.The election results have been widely viewed as rigged in Lukashenko’s favor and have been rejected by the European Union and the United States, among others. The EU will soon impose sanctions on those responsible for violence, repression and the falsification of election results.The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Belarus is a member, has offered to send a high-level delegation to the capital, Minsk, to facilitate dialogue between the authorities and the opposition. Lukashenko and his supporters have refused to engage.Russia backs Lukashenko, and its deputy U.N. envoy on Friday accused Western nations of seeking “regime change” in Belarus.Valentin Rybakov, then-Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs for Belarus, speaks during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 26, 2016.Belarus’ U.N. ambassador accused the Security Council of abusing its authority by discussing the issue, which he said does not threaten international peace and security.“The future of Belarus will be decided by its own people,” Ambassador Valentin Rybakov said. “Outside interference will never be tolerated by the Belarusian authorities.”The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus argued that rights violations are of interest to the international community, especially when there is a risk of escalating violence.“When a government announces its readiness to use the army against its own citizens in peacetime, when it baselessly accuses its neighbors of interference and aggression, and when it is prepared to sacrifice the sovereignty of the country and the independence of its institutions in order to stay in place at all costs, it is international peace and security that are threatened,” Anais Marin told the meeting.
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China is warning of retaliation in response to a visit to Taiwan by a Czech Senate delegation, saying Senate President Milos Vystrcil crossed a “red-line” and violated the one-China principle under which Beijing asserts sovereignty over the island.As part of the business trip, which ended Friday, Vystrcil delivered a speech in Taiwan’s parliament and met with President Tsai Ing-wen. China said Vystrcil’s visit was an “open provocation,” with Foreign Minister Wang Yi warning that Vystrcil would “pay a heavy price.” The threat led to criticism from European Union leaders. China considers Taiwan a renegade province.Analysts in the Czech Republic say actions taken by China, if any, may include freezing diplomatic ties with Prague, liquidating China-owned stakes in several Czech companies and restricting Prague-bound Chinese tourists.They said such action will have a limited impact on the Czech economy given its low dependence on Beijing, yet, may trigger a concerted response from some other European countries. The government in Prague, led by Czech President Miloš Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis, still favors closer ties to China.Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib speaks during a press conference organized by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei on Sept. 4, 2020.Sanctions?Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib said he had experience with China’s sanctions last year after Taipei became a sister city to Prague. Beijing, in turn, canceled a tour to China by four Prague-based classical orchestras. Hřib described the sanctions as “laughable and pathetic.”Hřib later branded China as “a country filled with hatred” and “an unreliable business partner.”When asked to comment on possible sanctions by China over the visit, the mayor Friday told a media briefing in Taipei that China has broken many of its promises to invest in the Czech Republic and its economic influence in the country remains limited.Citing Czech analysts, he said China contributed to 1% of the Czech Republic’s GDP, 0.42% of all foreign direct investment and 1.5% of Czech’s exports, the latter of which has been declining since 2017.Sets an exampleBrushing aside any harm sanctions may bring, Hřib said the Senate delegation’s visit to Taiwan set an example for many European countries.“This time, the delegation is not just from Prague; there are senators whose constituencies [are] from all over the country. And I believe that this visit will also be [an] inspiration for other countries in the EU,” the mayor said.China enjoyed a trade surplus over the Czech Republic as statistics showed that, in 2019, Chinese imports totaled $26.8 billion, up 3% year-on-year, while Czech exports to China declined 4.5% to $2.5 billion.Czech Senate president Milos Vystrcil, center, and members of the Czech delegation attend a forum on supply chain restructuring in Taipei, Taiwan, Sept. 4, 2020.Bark worse than biteTwo Czech-based analysts, who spoke to VOA also said China has little leverage in the Czech economy.“It’s kind of a bluff because China’s afraid of more countries building relations with Taiwan. So, they wanted to just put everybody off,” Jeremy Garlick, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Economics in Prague, told VOA by phone.“It’s kind of a question — the bark is worse than the bite because I don’t really see what China can really do to the Czech Republic,” he added.Wang’s verbal threats served two purposes, said Richard Turcsányi, director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies at Palacky University in the Czech Republic.“China will apply very harsh rhetoric; we’ve seen that already. [The] Chinese government probably feels that it has to do that for two reasons. One reason is because of domestic nationalist audience. They have to show them that they protect what they see as China’s core interests,” Turcsányi told VOA by phone.“The other reason is to discourage other countries from travelling to Taiwan,” he added.China sells shares?Garlick said China might liquidate its shares in several Czech companies, including a beer brewery, a football club, an airliner and several media outlets; but he said doing so will do little harm to the Czech economy.Those China-owned stakes were reportedly estimated to be worth $1 billion.But that was just one-14th of Taiwan’s accumulated investment in the Czech Republic, according to Dalibor Roháč, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.Turcsányi said China might freeze its diplomatic relations with Prague and cut back on Czech imports as punishment similar to how it had frozen relations with Norway for years and decreased imports of Norwegian salmon, although the Norwegian economy felt little squeezed.Symbolic punishmentOther sanctions such as the cancellation of direct flights between four Chinese cities and Prague and a ban on Czech-bound Chinese tourists or Czech beer imports will also be symbolic, he said.The volume of China-Prague direct flights has lost momentum following the coronavirus pandemic and their escalating tensions while Prague has been overcrowded with tourists in the past five years and may soon cap the number of inbound visitors, the researcher added.
At a routine media briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, Thursday reiterated China’s stance toward the delegation, saying “Vystrcil has openly supported the pro-Taiwan independence forces … But we noticed that the Czech government has drawn a line to distance with him and his behavior doesn’t represent the government’s policy.” Hua called on the Czech government to reverse the delegation’s negative impact.
Both Turcsányi and Garlick, moreover, warned that the delegation’s warm reception in Taiwan and its growing support from countries including Germany, France, Slovak Republic and the U.S., send a warning signal to China.They say China is becoming unpopular among the Europeans — reasons behind recent visits to Europe by Wang.“The opinion in Europe is kind of turning against China on the whole. So, the Chinese leverage in Europe is kind of weak at the moment because the general opinion is China is being too aggressive and too assertive,” Garlick said.Wang’s threats toward the Czech Senate speaker overshadowed his trip aimed at improving relations with European countries, Turcsányi said.“China needs Europe especially now with the U.S. tensions growing. So, I think the Chinese government will try to balance this kind of need to be tough, and then not to risk undermining the relationship with Europe too much,” he said. The United States and China have been embroiled in a trade dispute and have been at odds over other issues that include Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
 
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Serbia and Kosovo have agreed to normalize economic relations, following U.S.-brokered talks that include Serbia moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and Kosovo formally recognizing Israel.
 
U.S. President Donald Trump made the announcement Friday, after meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in the Oval Office earlier in the day.“It took decades because you didn’t have anybody trying to get it done,” said Trump. “There was a lot of fighting and now there’s a lot of love.”
 
Additionally, the president said in a statement, “By focusing on job creation and economic growth, the two countries were able to reach a real breakthrough on economic cooperation across a broad range of issues.”
 
Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but the latter has refused to recognize it. Kosovo’s independence also is not recognized by Russia or China.
 
Serbian President Vucic said Friday President Trump has done a “great job,” praising his commitment to the region and inviting the U.S. leader to visit his country.
 
Kosovan Prime Minister Hoti called the agreement to normalize economic ties a big step forward.
 
After the meeting Friday at the White House, Hoti and Vucic are scheduled to meet separately with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department.Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by more than 100 members of the United Nations, including the United States, and most of the European Union member states, except for Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Spain.VOA White House Bureau chief Steve Herman contributed to this report.
 
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After an urgent meeting of NATO ambassadors on Friday to discuss the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the allies said Russia must fully cooperate in an impartial investigation under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.Speaking to reporters after the meeting in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “Any use of chemical weapons shows a total disrespect for human lives and is an unacceptable breach of international norms and rules.”FILE – Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally in Moscow, Feb. 29, 2020.NATO members agreed that Russia faces serious questions it must answer, Stoltenberg said.The Kremlin has rejected accusations it was behind the sudden illness of the leading Russian opposition politician, one day after a highly anticipated German investigation concluded Navalny had been poisoned by a banned Soviet-produced military-grade nerve agent.The investigation, whose findings were announced Wednesday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, concluded Navalny was recovering in a Berlin hospital from Novichok, a Soviet-era toxin that Merkel said was clearly an attempt on the opposition politician’s life by state-sponsored actors in Russia.FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to media in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2020.”Alexei Navalny was the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group. This poison could be identified unequivocally in tests,” said Merkel.”There are serious questions that only the Russian government can answer.”The Kremlin immediately cast doubt about the diagnosis, maintaining that Russian doctors conducted analyses that showed no signs of the nerve agent — much less poisoning — before Navalny was evacuated to Berlin from a Siberian hospital on August 22.”Before the patient was taken to Germany, in accordance with all international standards, a whole series of tests was done in Russia, and no poisonous substance was found,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, reacting to Merkel’s announcement.”There are no grounds to accuse the Russian state. And we are not inclined to accept any accusations in this respect,” added Peskov.FILE – Police officers stand outside the Charite Mitte Hospital Complex, where Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is receiving medical treatment, in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 24, 2020.Russia’s Foreign Ministry also cast scorn on the report and said its ambassador to Germany had been summoned by German authorities but not presented with evidence.”Where are the facts, where are the formulas, at least some kind of information?” asked the ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, in an interview on Russia’s state-run Channel One.On Friday, the head of Russia’s Interior Ministry, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, argued that he saw no criminality to pursue in the incident. “Where would this criminal even be?” said Kolokoltsev in comments to the Interfax news agency.The minister added, “We see no basis” to investigate.Yet Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, said the mere traces of Novichok established the direct complicity of the Russian leadership.”Novichok means it was Putin. It’s not something that you can pick up at the pharmacy,” FILE – Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) arrive to begin work at the scene of a nerve agent attack on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, Salisbury, Britain, March 21, 2018.The Salisbury poisonings also triggered the expulsion of more than 100 Russian diplomats and additional sanctions by the United States, Britain and other Western allies — a specter that Merkel suggested may be in the offing once again.The chancellor said she had notified EU and NATO partners about the German report and that allies would issue “an appropriate, joint reaction” to Russia.The poisoning also echoed in the U.S. presidential race, with Democratic nominee Joe Biden accusing the Kremlin of an “outrageous and brazen attempt on Mr. Navalny’s life” and President Donald Trump of failing to stand up to Putin.Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has previously expressed concern about Navalny’s condition, and called for an investigation “if the reports prove accurate” about deliberate poisoning.U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said Wednesday, “The United States is deeply troubled by the results released today,” calling Navalny’s poisoning “completely reprehensible.””We will work with allies and the international community to hold those in Russia accountable, wherever the evidence leads, and restrict funds for their malign activities,” Ullyot added.Meanwhile, the lower house of Russia’s parliament is launching its own investigation into Navalny’s illness — arguing the opposition leader was poisoned by Western security services in an effort to blacken Russia’s reputation and, perhaps, derail a key German-Russian gas project. Trump has imposed sanctions on European companies that help Russia complete a key gas pipeline deal to Germany known as Nord Stream 2.There were calls Thursday among German lawmakers to reconsider the deal.Sudden illness Navalny fell ill August 20 during a flight to Moscow from Siberia — forcing the pilot to carry out an emergency landing in the city of Omsk.Within hours, news broke that the opposition leader was in a coma in a local hospital fighting for his life.FILE – An ambulance which is believed to transport Alexei Navalny arrives at the Charite hospital in Berlin, Germany, Aug.22, 2020.Yet Russian doctors initially delayed Navalny’s transfer for care to Berlin — arguing his condition was too fragile for travel, despite the wishes of his family.Navalny’s family and supporters argue the delays were intended to obscure what toxin had felled the opposition leader.In the run-up to the German report, the Kremlin had been arguing there was no basis to even investigate what had caused Navalny’s sudden illness.He is currently receiving treatment at Berlin’s Charite Hospital, where doctors say he remains gravely ill in an artificially induced coma.Navalny has long been a problematic figure for the Kremlin — detailing corruption and excess at the highest levels of the government on his popular YouTube channel.The channel’s mix of investigative journalism and caustic humor has resonated with younger Russians in particular — and made scores of enemies in government and business circles.Navalny also has made no secret of his political ambitions. He tried to run a campaign for president in 2018 that ultimately was undone by a lingering criminal conviction.His supporters — and the European Court of Human Rights — said the charges were filed to keep him out of politics.Despite Navalny’s prominence as a leading Kremlin critic, government officials have an unofficial policy to never mention his name — a tradition the Kremlin spokesman continued even as he fielded questions about the opposition leader’s poisoning.”We’re without a doubt interested in finding out the cause behind what happened,” said Peskov, referring to Navalny merely as “the Berlin patient.”Isabela Cocoli contributed to this report.
 
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Athens Thursday denied NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s earlier statement that Greece and Turkey had agreed to “technical talks” to avoid military clashes in the region. The move, critics say, dashes hopes of a breakthrough in rising tension in the eastern Mediterranean.
 
Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said the NATO chief’s announcement did not correspond to reality. He said a series of conditions must first be met before Athens even begins to consider talks with Ankara.
    
“We want Turkey to abandon its provocative stance and come to the negotiating table with sincere interest. Negotiations cannot be held under threats and blackmail, the spokesman said.
 
Greece, Petsas said, will be neither terrorized or threatened — diplomatic longhand for a Greek ultimatum calling on Turkey to pull back an exploration ship it has sent to the eastern Mediterranean, near a cluster of Greek islands, to search for undersea oil and gas.
 
Escorted by a fleet of Turkish battleships, the Oruc Reis survey vessel has drawn the attention of the entire Greek fleet, which has been watching its every move for over a month now, ready to retaliate if, as the Greek government has said, it attempts to drill in areas of the seabed Greece claims as its own.
 
Turkey rejects the claims, saying islands are not entitled to what is known as an exclusive economic zone.  Ankara instead believes it has the right to explore the oil- and mineral-rich eastern Mediterranean seabed after a recent maritime agreement it concluded with Libya.FILE – Turkey’s exploratory vessel, the Oruc Reis, is seen anchored in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Antalya, Turkey, July 24, 2020.In recent days, the standoff between the two NATO allies has become more heated and ever more dangerous, as the Oruc Reis has moved into the Aegean Sea, nearing a cluster of Greek isles.
 
Analysts, among them Angelos Syrigos, believe the move is a part of a negotiating ploy by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of any potential talks.
 
Turkey has agreed to the negotiations but is ready to come to discussions with a grab bag of sea and territorial claims it is not entitled to by international law, Syrigos says. So, by agreeing to sit down and discuss details related to these disputed areas, it is bound to come out with something it didn’t have in the beginning.That is what Greece wants to avoid, Syrigos added.  
 
Feuds between Greece and Turkey are hardly new. What complicates this one is that the undersea reserves are also being eyed by other countries, many of them neighboring, that have teamed together, isolating Turkey.
 
Erdogan has antagonized many allies and friends with his aggressive behavior in Syria, Libya and at home. Further complicating matters is that Turkey is a member of NATO, but not of the European Union.
 
Germany is currently leading a separate diplomatic effort to defuse the standoff between Greece and Turkey.  
 
Analyst Costantinos Filis advises caution.
 
Either the other side, he says, has gone rogue and Greece should continue to be on full military alert, or this is another negotiating ploy by Erdogan in a bid to skirt potential sanctions the EU may take against Turkey because of its gas explorations.
 
Greece and Turkey nearly went to war 25 years ago in a dispute over uninhabited Aegean islets. Since then, they have lived in an uneasy détente.
 
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U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in the Oval Office on Friday, the White House said in a statement.Trump will attend a signing ceremony and participate in a trilateral meeting afterward, the statement, issued late Thursday, said, but it did not specify what would be signed.After the first day of negotiations on normalizing economic relations, Vučić said that he was presented with a draft agreement which mentioned mutual recognition and that he rejected it.Trump’s special envoy for the peace talks between Kosovo and Serbia, Richard Grenell, took to Twitter saying that it was not true.Not true. https://t.co/oDyaqs7ZvJ— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) September 3, 2020For his part, Hoti did not comment on whether there was such a proposal but stressed that “harmful agreements for Kosovo, unacceptable for Kosovo, have never come and will never come from the White House.”On Thursday evening, after the leaders from Belgrade and Pristina ended the first day of negotiations, Grenell tweeted:It’s been a productive day. I am hopeful.It’s been a productive day. I am hopeful.— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) September 3, 2020Earlier, Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, who is co-hosting the meeting along with Grenell, struck an optimistic tone about the negotiations.O’Brien also thanked the American Financial Corporation for International Development, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the American Export-Import Bank, for joining the talks.“Very good round of discussions this afternoon with the leaders of #Serbia and #Kosovo. They made real progress today. Thanks to @DFCgov, @MCCgov, and @EximBankUS for joining. #EconomicNormalization means jobs for young people. Talks continue tomorrow!” – NSA Robert O’Brien“Very good round of discussions this afternoon with the leaders of #Serbia and #Kosovo. They made real progress today. Thanks to @DFCgov, @MCCgov, and @EximBankUS for joining. #EconomicNormalization means jobs for young people. Talks continue tomorrow!” – NSA Robert O’Brien pic.twitter.com/7usHrh2w2N— NSC (@WHNSC) September 3, 2020After the meeting Friday at the White House, Hoti and Vučić are scheduled to meet separately with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department.Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but the latter has refused to recognize it. Kosovo’s independence also is not recognized by Russia or China.Kosovo’s independence has been recognized, however, by more than 100 members of the United Nations, including the United States, and most of the European Union member states, except for Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Spain.  
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is warning that Russia is trying to undermine Americans’ confidence in the security and validity of mail-in voting.In a bulletin labeled “For official use only” circulated Thursday, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis said Russia was “likely to continue amplifying criticism of vote by mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process.”The bulletin said that in mid-August, Russian state media outlets and proxy websites published criticism of widespread mail-in voting, “claiming ineligible voters could receive ballots due to out-of-date voter rolls, leaving a vast amount of ballots unaccounted for and vulnerable to tampering.”It said that since March, Russian outlets also sought to undermine confidence in mail-in voting processes, alleging that they provide “vast opportunities for voter fraud.”The bulletin said Russia is likely to step up trolling by promoting allegations of U.S. election system corruption, failures and “foreign malign interference” to undermine public trust in U.S. elections. It noted that following the Iowa caucuses earlier this year, Russian outlets claimed that the result was “fixed in favor of establishment candidates” and that voting system problems had resulted in “ballot manipulation.”The Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment. Russia has denied interfering in U.S. elections.Adam Schiff, the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the bulletin validated his concern that Russia is seeking to “sow distrust in our democratic process.”By attacking U.S. mail-in ballot integrity, Schiff said, “Russia is echoing destructive and false narratives around vote by mail that President [Donald] Trump and his enablers, including Attorney General [William] Barr, have been aggressively promoting.”Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting, saying in one July 30 Tweet: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
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As France revisits its deadly 2015 wave of jihadist strikes with a major terrorism trial that opened this week, the threat of future attacks remains a clear and present danger here and across the European Union, experts say, even as the region focuses on a very different crisis in COVID-19.On the eve of Wednesday’s opening of the Charlie Hebdo trial, Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin warned that France’s threat level remained “extremely high.”Meanwhile, the EU law enforcement agency Europol described the changing, complex and still potent nature of jihadist and other threats, with coronavirus potentially feeding extremist action.“Groups try to make use of the COVID situation either to enforce their ideology or to call for action,” Europol’s deputy executive director, Wil van Gemert, said in an interview, noting Islamists as well as right-wing groups are profiting from the health crisis.“Our worry is for the future, when we come out of this COVID period with many more people [filling public spaces],” and rising questions and dissatisfaction with government handling of the crisis, van Gemert said.All of this, he added, could lead “to more violence, extremism and potential terrorism.”Laurent Sourisseau, chief editor of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, leaves the courtroom during a break on the opening day of the trial of the 2015 Paris attacks, at Paris courthouse, France, Sept. 2, 2020.Competing headlinesYet in some ways, the kickoff of the January 2015 Paris terrorist attacks trial seemed a throwback to another era.Its arrival jostled against headlines of French schools reopening amid a worrying rise in coronavirus cases and of the government’s $118 billion stimulus plan to reboot France’s COVID-battered economy.Adding to the sense of a page turned, all of the perpetrators of the 2015 attacks on France’s satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket are dead. Instead, 14 people — four in absentia — face charges of providing logistical support in the nearly back-to-back strikes that killed 17 people.FILE – An injured person is transported to an ambulance after a shooting, at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015.The 10-week proceedings will also be filmed, a first for a terrorism trial in France, underscoring its historical significance.In November, France will mark the five-year anniversary of the Bataclan attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris. Only one of the suspected assailants remains alive, Salah Abdeslam, 30, with another trial coming up at an unscheduled date.“I think the population’s main worry is COVID-19. Everybody speaks about it, everybody is concerned,” said Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, director of the French Association of Terrorist Victims, AfVT.“But terrorism is still here,” he added. “Terrorism is still a very big threat.”Moving onFor many ordinary French, events have moved on. There are fears of another COVID lockdown, with the country reporting some of its highest daily cases in months, including more than 7,300 Wednesday alone.A health worker prepares to collect a nasal swab from a person at a COVID-19 testing site in front of the city-hall in Paris, France, Sept. 2, 2020.Debates over race and colonialism are again bubbling over, not only from the spillover of the U.S. Black Lives Matter protests, but also after an article in a right-wing magazine portrayed a Black, African-born lawmaker as a slave. Police are again out in force on the streets, not guarding against potential terrorists or yellow-vest protesters but enforcing compulsory mask requirements.While Europe has reinforced its law enforcement capacity and cooperation against terrorism — seen in strong numbers of thwarted attacks — there is always a chance the pandemic could reprioritize funds and capacity, Europol’s van Gemert said.”We have seen an increase in activities you could call extremist” during the pandemic, he added. “I’m not saying it’s directly linked to terrorism, but there are an extreme field of actors who could turn to violent activities.  “And in general, a weaker economy means a stronger criminal economy,” he added of another coronavirus fallout.Attacks down, but threat remainsStill, the number of attacks is down. Last year, EU member states reported just more than half the number of attempted, foiled or failed attacks, at 119, as in 2015, according to Europol, which publishes annual terrorism assessment reports. Ten people died from terrorist strikes across the region in 2019, compared with 360 four years prior.The Islamic State group and al-Qaida, which claimed various degrees of responsibility in the multiple 2015 Paris attacks, are weakened and splintered, losing former strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Today’s threats are increasingly coming from individual “lone wolves” or small cells, Europol says.FILE – Police officers storm the kosher market where a gunman held several hostages in Paris, France, Jan. 9, 2015.“We know that it will be difficult to organize something like November 13 [Bataclan attacks] — something very organized with many jihadists,” said Denoix de Saint Marc, of AfVT. “But every day we are preventing a new terrorist attack from somewhere.”Both the Islamic State and al-Qaida have also evolved and spread, including southward from the Sahel, where France’s 5,000-plus-man Barkhane anti-terrorist force is stationed. Last month, six French aid workers were killed by armed gunmen in Niger, although responsibility for the attacks remains unclear.Lawyers and security officers arrive at the Paris courthouse for the second day of the 2015 attacks trial in Paris, France, Sept. 3, 2020.On Monday, Interior Minister Darmanin noted more than half of terrorist attacks thwarted since 2013 took place over the last three years, while French anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard estimated a half-dozen had been foiled in recent months alone.“The level of terrorism risk is still high,” Ricard told France-Info radio, noting it came from a mix of sources, including former Islamic State fighters and local threats.France counted among Europe’s biggest exporters of Islamic State fighters, including some believed to be involved in the 2015 attacks.Many are dead, but several dozen are still believed to be in Iraq and Syria, along with their spouses and children. Among them, experts believe, is Hayat Boumedienne, the girlfriend of one of assailants in the January 2015 Paris attacks, and a defendant in the current trial.
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The Turkish police said they have arrested Mahmut Ozden, a major Islamic State (IS) figure in Turkey suspected of planning an attack on the newly converted Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul.“Daesh’s so-called emir of Turkey had been caught and remanded in custody with important plans,” Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in announcing the arrest on Twitter Tuesday, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.Ozden and three others were detained in southern Adana province on August 20. An Istanbul court ordered his official arrest on Monday.According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, Ozden’s arrest came as a result of an operation last month by Istanbul Police Department based on some intelligence that the IS was planning an attack on the Hagia Sophia and several other institutions. During the August 18 operation, police captured a suspected IS member, Huseyin Sagir, in a hotel in Istanbul with an AK-47 and five cartridges.Turkish officials said information discovered during Sagir’s investigation led police to Ozden, who had received orders from high-ranking IS militants through encrypted messaging apps.Interior Minister Soylu said that several digital materials seized by the police during Ozden’s house search indicated that he was planning to carry out his attacks through groups of 10 to 12 people.“Police also seized plans to kidnap politicians and statesmen to take them to Syria and for acts against groups that could harm the Turkish economy,” Soylu said to reporters Tuesday during inspection in Giresun, a city in the Black Sea region recently hit by deadly floods.‘Turkey emir’Turkish local media reported that since 2017 Ozden has been detained at least three times on different charges. He allegedly identified himself as Turkey’s southern province of Adana “emir,” an Islamic title used by IS to refer to its top leaders.Dogu Eroglu, the author of “ISIS Networks: Radicalisation, Organisation, Logistics in Turkey,” said that despite the Turkish government’s claim that Ozden was an IS emir, it remains uncertain whether the title can be applied to the suspected militant.“I can say that the term has been used wrongly in most instances because being the Turkey emir of the Islamic State definitely means some sort of network, hierarchy and a chain of a command structure,” Eroglu said, adding that the group in the past has labeled the entirety of Turkey as a “wilayat” or province with no reference to Adana.In a propaganda video released by Islamic State’s al-Furqan media in April 2019, the terror group’s then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared holding notes referring to Turkey as a “wilayat.” In another propaganda video in July 2019, the group showed a group of militants from “Turkey wilayat” pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi.“Do not think that the swords of the soldiers of the caliphate are far from you or from those who stand on your side,” an IS militant identified as Abu Qatada al-Turki threatened Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.In a report released in June, the International Crisis Group reported that the 16 attacks perpetrated by the IS terror group in Turkey between 2014 and 2017 killed nearly 300 civilians.FILE – Muslims offer their evening prayers outside the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, one of Istanbul’s main tourist attractions in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, July 10, 2020.The group only claimed the 2017 New Year’s shooting attack at Istanbul’s Reina nightclub that killed 39.Berkay Mandiraci, a Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group, told VOA that security measures by Turkish authorities following the 2017 shooting have prevented the militant group from conducting any successful attacks in recent years.“It seems that what is left of ISIS networks now is that they are getting organized in smaller groups of five or six people who may not be connected to each other even,” Mandiraci said, adding that the networks consist mostly of IS Turkish and foreign members who crossed the border from Syria and Iraq.“It is different groups that are in Turkey, and that makes it also very challenging for the security forces because it’s such a large pool of people that they need to track and keep under check,” he said.In a report released by the U.S. Defense Department’s Lead Inspector General last month, U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) called Turkey a major facilitation hub for IS, and a target for high-profile IS attacks. The report said Turkish security forces have increased their counter-IS operations while improving their presence along the border with Syria and Iraq.However, USEUCOM warned that safeguarding the Turkish borders with Iraq and Syria was difficult, allowing IS fighters to continue to move supporters and family members.   
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Novichok, a deadly nerve agent that has left Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a coma and nearly killed a former Russian spy and his daughter in 2018, was the product of a highly secretive Soviet chemical weapons program. Here is a look at the agent and the history of its development. How lethal is Novichok? Novichok, the nerve agent used in the attack that nearly killed former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the English city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018, has been described as much deadlier than any U.S. equivalents. FILE – The forensic tent, covering the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found, is repositioned by officials in protective suits in the center of Salisbury, Britain, March 8, 2018.Just a few milligrams of the odorless liquid — the weight of a snowflake — are enough to kill a person within minutes. The agent could be diluted to the desired concentration and added to food or drink, or applied to surfaces or clothes. Scientists say the nerve agent could remain deadly for a long time — even if a few tiny drops are left in a syringe or impregnated into wood or fabric. In the Salisbury attack, it was sprayed on the front door of Skripal’s house after being smuggled into Britain in a counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume bottle. The Skripals spent weeks in critical condition before recovering, and a local woman died after being exposed to the bottle, which was found by her boyfriend. What do the Russians say about Novichok poisonings?Russia fiercely denied British accusations over the Skripals’ poisoning, accusing London and other Western nations of using the incident to fan an anti-Russian campaign. It has followed the same path of denial in this summer’s Navalny poisoning. German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to media during a statement about latest developments in the case of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2020.German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday called Navalny’s poisoning an attempted murder that aimed to silence one of Putin’s fiercest critics and called for a full investigation, saying “there are very serious questions now that only the Russian government can answer, and must answer.” Russia, however, has demanded that Germany share its data backing up its conclusion that Navalny was poisoned and has called for a joint investigation effort. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, insisted Thursday that “there is no reason to accuse the Russian state” over the poisoning. He said Moscow expects Berlin to provide information that would help a Russian probe into the cause of Navalny’s illness, and that Russia doctors in Siberia, where Navalny was taken after he fell ill on Aug. 20, found no evidence of poisoning. Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, even claimed it can’t be excluded that Navalny’s poisoning was a provocation of Western intelligence agencies. When was Novichok designed?The Soviet program to design a new generation of chemical weapons began in the 1970s to counter the latest U.S. chemical weapons. Soviet leaders wanted the equivalent of U.S. binary weapons — agents made up of relatively harmless components that turn deadly when mixed, making them easier to operate than regular chemical weapons. While Novichok class poisons were highly lethal, the program was only partly successful, as some of the components were as toxic as the military-grade nerve agents. The Soviet leadership eventually lost interest in chemical weapons. Novichok-class agents only were manufactured in lab quantities. Vladimir Uglev, a top scientist in the program, has estimated about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) were made. Is it possible to trace Novichok’s source?Russian experts who have worked on the Novichok class of agents have warned it may never be possible to determine the nerve agent’s origin. FILE – German army emergency personnel load into their ambulance the stretcher that was used to transport Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on at Berlin’s Charite hospital, Aug. 22, 2020.To determine what specific lab produced a given sample of Novichok, it’s necessary to find an identical specimen from the same batch — an impossible task. Facing accusations for the Skripals’s poisoning, Russia has charged that the U.S., Britain and other Western countries had acquired the expertise to make the nerve agent and that the Novichok used in that attack could have come from them. Could it fall into the wrong hands? The main Soviet research center that designed the Novichok-class agents was in Shikhany, a town in southwestern Russia. It was one of the “closed cities” isolated by the KGB. The sprawling facility also housed chemical depots and a military firing range, where nerve agents were tested throughout the Cold War. Some Novichok-related research also was conducted at a main Moscow research center, which shared samples with other labs across the Soviet Union. Despite the U.S. oversight to dismantle Russia’s chemical arsenals after the Soviet collapse, scientists involved in the program said they couldn’t exclude that some lab workers might have been tempted to sell toxic substances amid the economic and political turmoil in the 1990s. Murky status Moscow said in 2017 it completed the destruction of 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons left over from the Soviet era, an effort that spanned two decades under close international oversight. The Novichok-class agents weren’t originally mentioned in the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international document that outlawed chemical weapons. Last year, however, they were added to the list of chemicals that require special verification measures under the treaty’s provisions. The move came after the 2018 Salisbury attack and marked the first time the list had been updated. 
 
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Two stars at the Venice Film Festival, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, have praised the decision by the Berlin festival to award gender-neutral prizes, with Swinton predicting other award ceremonies will follow suit.
Organizers of the Berlin International Film Festival announced last month that they would stop awarding separate acting prizes to men and women starting next year. The best actor and actress Silver Bear prizes will now be replaced by best leading performance and best supporting performance awards.
Swinton, who received a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award at the Venice festival’s opening ceremony, said divisions by gender were a “waste of life.”
“And so I’m really happy to hear that about Berlin,” she told reporters Thursday. “And I think it’s pretty much inevitable that everybody will follow, because it’s just obvious to me.”
Blanchett, president of the Venice jury this year, said she instinctively calls herself an “actor.” She said it’s hard enough “to sit in judgment of other people’s work” and then even harder to break it down further along gender lines.
“I’m of a generation where the word “actress” was used always in a pejorative sense. So I think I claim the other space,” she said. “I think good performances are good performances, no matter the sexual orientation of the performers who are making them.”
The Venice festival has long been criticized for the lack of female directors in its in-competition films, with only four films made by women in the 62 films competing for the Golden Lion award between 2017 and 2019.
This year, the gender parity has improved, with 44% of the in-competition films directed by women.
Swinton was also in Venice to present a short film directed by Pedro Almodovar, “The Human Voice,” about a woman’s emotional response to being left by her lover over the phone.
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French President Emmanuel Macron voiced support on Wednesday for a sovereign Iraq and said its main challenges are Islamic State militants and foreign interference in its affairs.France also backs Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s efforts to “normalize” all armed forces, Macron said during a visit to Baghdad, referring to mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite militia groups.”We will remain committed because the battle against Islamic State is ongoing but this has to be in the context of an agreement and protocol that respects Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said at a joint news conference with Kadhimi.Macron’s visit was the first by a Western leader to Iraq since Kadhimi took office in May as the third head of government in a chaotic 10-week period that followed months of unrest in a country exhausted by war with Islamist militants, corruption and economic decay.Kadhimi was appointed to head a government tasked with organizing an early election, a main demand of anti-government protesters who staged months of mass demonstrations last year. He has called one, to be held in June.Iraq has also struggled to cope with the clashing regional interests of its two major allies, the United States and Iran.French officials have said Paris is worried by a resurgence in Iraq of Islamic State militants profiting from political uncertainty and rivalries between Iran and the United States.Islamic State, which once occupied a third of Iraq’s territory, has been largely defeated there but continues to carry out ambushes, assassinations and bombings.French President Emmanuel Macron and Iraq’s President Barham Salih greet each other with an elbow bump as they attend a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 2, 2020.”The war against Islamic State isn’t finished … we will continue to act alongside you in the framework of the anti-Islamic State coalition,” Macron said after meeting Iraqi President Barham Salih.”The second challenge is … the multiple foreign interferences that have been going on for several years.”Macron also discussed energy cooperation with Kadhimi and working together on a nuclear project that could solve Iraq’s chronic electricity shortages as well as French support for building a metro railway in Baghdad. 
 
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A Slovak court is expected to rule Thursday on whether an influential businessman ordered the murder of an investigative journalist, in a case that prompted mass street protests and led to the reshaping of the country’s political landscape.The killing of Jan Kuciak, 27, and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova forced then prime minister and longtime leader Robert Fico to step down, and ushered in a new government in March this year whose main election promise was to clean up sleaze.FILE – Demonstrators light up their mobile phones as they attend an anti-government protest rally in reaction to last year’s killing of the investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova in Bratislava, Slovakia, Sept. 20, 2019.The couple were gunned down in their home outside Bratislava in February 2018, in a killing that mirrored the murder in Malta four months earlier of another journalist investigating corruption, Daphne Caruana Galizia.Bringing Kuciak’s killers to justice has been a test of Slovakia’s judicial and political system, long seen as susceptible to corruption.The verdict has been postponed from August, and it is still possible that it may be postponed again after the prosecution asked to present additional evidence.Prosecutors say Slovak entrepreneur Marian Kocner, the subject of Kuciak’s reporting on corruption involving politically connected business people, had ordered the killing of the reporter. Kocner denies the charge.The investigation has forced the resignation of several senior politicians and judicial officials on account of their previous links to Kocner.Prosecutors are seeking a 25-year jail sentence for Kocner and for each of his two co-defendants.FILE- People celebrate the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico as a way out of the political crisis triggered by the slayings of journalist Jan Kuciak, during a rally in Bratislava, Slovakia, March 16, 2018.Two others have already been convicted in the case after admitting guilt. One of them, a former soldier, received 23 years in prison for killing Kuciak and his girlfriend, while a fifth suspect admitted to facilitating the murder and was given a 15-year sentence.Kocner, who is well-known in Slovak business and political circles, has already received a 19-year sentence in a separate case after being convicted of forging 69 million euros in promissory notes.Slovaks’ anger over the killing of Kuciak and his fiancee and perceptions of persistent graft helped to usher in activist lawyer Zuzana Caputova as the country’s president last year. It also opened the way for Igor Matovic’s outsider Ordinary People party to win a February parliamentary election this year, allowing him to become prime minister. 
 
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Refugees in Turkey seeking new lives by crossing the eastern Mediterranean to Greece are increasingly subject to being robbed, beaten or even abandoned at sea. Encouraged to make the trip by Turkey, refugees — many from Syria — report they are being expelled by Greek authorities after they reach Greek territory. Heather Murdock reports from Istanbul.     
Camera: Heather Murdock  Produced by: Jon Spier 
 
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Germany said Wednesday that tests performed on specimens taken from Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny showed the presence of the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. A special German military laboratory had shown proof of “a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement. FILE – Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally in Moscow, Feb. 29, 2020.Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20 and, after an emergency landing, at first was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk before later being flown for treatment and tests at a Berlin hospital. The 44-year-old Navalny is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critics and an anti-corruption activist. The Kremlin has denied claims by Navalny’s allies in Russia that authorities poisoned him, calling it “empty noise.” Russian doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia contested the German hospital’s conclusion, saying they had ruled out poisoning and that their tests for poisonous substances came back negative. Novichok is the same nerve agent that was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain in 2018. Seibert said the German government will inform the European Union and NATO about its Navalny test results and consult with them on “an appropriate joint response.” 
 
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Fourteen alleged associates of two jihadist terrorists went on trial Wednesday in Paris for allegedly helping them carry out deadly attacks in 2015, including one on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.   The attack on the magazine’s offices was the first in a series of incidents over three days in January 2015, marking the beginning of a surge in violence by Islamic State in Europe. Seventeen people were killed. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi went on a rampage in the magazine’s offices on January 7, shooting 12 people to death in the name of al-Qaida before fleeing. The magazine had published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad years before.  A man looks at a painting by French street artist Christian Guemy, a.k.a. C215, in tribute to the members of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo attack by jihadist gunmen in January 2015, in Paris, Sept. 2, 2020.Two days later, on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, Amedy Coulibaly, a Malian-French man, attacked the Hyper Cacher supermarket, killing four hostages in the name of Islamic State as the Kouachi brothers seized control of a printing office outside Paris. The attackers were killed that day during police raids. Coulibaly was later found to be responsible for the random death of a policewoman the previous day. Lassana Bathily, who saved hostages during the attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, arrives for the opening of the trial of the 2015 Paris attacks, at a Paris courthouse, France, Sept. 2, 2020.A separate network of French and Belgian fighters for Islamic State attacked Paris later in 2015, killing 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall, the national stadium, and in bars and restaurants. The suspects on trial are accused of helping with the logistics of the January attacks, including buying weapons and cars. Most of the suspects said they believed they were helping to plan an ordinary crime. As the trial opened under tight security, nearby newsstands sold the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo, which includes reprints of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad cited by the gunmen who murdered members of the magazine’s editorial staff. 
 
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U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun says Washington and its European partners will continue to press Belarusian authorities to free political prisoners, end violence against protesters, and allow citizens to choose their government through a free and fair election.Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL by telephone on September 1 following a European tour that brought him to Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, and Austria last week, Biegun also warned that a Russian military intervention in Belarus would have a “very negative” impact on Moscow’s ties with the United States and European countries.“You, the people of Belarus, have reminded us how important democracy and freedom are. We are in awe of the courage that you have shown, and we wish you the very best,” he said, vowing that the United States and its international partners “will work as closely as possible to ensure that you have the right to select your own government through a free and fair election under independent observation that is guaranteed to you by the Belarusian Constitution and by relevant international documents.”“Please know that you have the support of the world as you advance your goals toward that end.”WATCH: VOA Interview with Belarus opposition leaderSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 13 MB480p | 18 MB540p | 23 MB720p | 55 MB720p | 66 MBOriginal | 978 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioBelarusian Opposition Leader Rejects Western HelpBiegun’s comments came as President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is showing no signs of giving in to hundreds of thousands of citizens who have taken to the streets across Belarus since the results of the August 9 presidential election were published.Lukashenka, who has kept a tight grip on Belarus for 26 years, was declared the winner of the vote, which was widely viewed as rigged in his favor, with just above 80 percent of the ballots.The demonstrators want the 66-year-old Belarusian leader to step down, release all political prisoners, and hold new elections.Western criticismThe United States and the European Union have criticized the vote as neither free nor fair and have called on the government to begin a dialogue with the opposition.“We don’t see any progress at all” in the crisis, Biegun told RFE/RL, adding that the United States and the international community “will continue to press the Belarusian government” to meet its obligations under the charter of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.“Our basic demands are the immediate release of the unjustly detained…[and] an end the violence against protesters,” he said.Amid Western condemnation of the post-election crackdown, Russian officials have backed Lukashenka and condemned what they said were attempts from abroad to take advantage of unrest in the former Soviet republic.Russian President Vladimir Putin last week announced that a contingent of Russian security forces was prepared to deploy to Belarus in the event of “looting” by demonstrators.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met his Belarusian counterpart in Moscow on September 2, has claimed that “no one is making a secret of the fact that this is about geopolitics, the fight for the post-Soviet space.”However, Biegun told RFE/RL that the United States has “never seen Belarus as a contest between East and West, nor do we see it in that manner now.”“This is a contest between the Belarusian leader and his own people. And we’re trying to work with our partners to keep this at the front of this,” he said.Biegun also said he had told Russian officials during his visit to Moscow that “while we did not seek or see this as a geopolitical contest, there would be substantial consequences for the relationship between Russia and the United States, between Russia and Europe” in the event of a deployment of Russian forces to Belarus.“The last four years has been very challenging for U.S.-Russian relations, but it is possible that it could be worse. And one of the things that would limit the ability of any president, regardless of the outcome of [the U.S. presidential election in November], in developing a more cooperative relationship with Russia, in any sphere, would be direct Russian intervention in Belarus.” 
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The shaky video taken with a mobile phone shows sunbathers on a beach in Gran Canaria gazing out to sea at the boat heads to land. A coast guard vessel, Salvamar Menkalinan, races to reach the 49 migrants crammed into one fragile boat. Meanwhile, tourists amuse themselves on jet-skis. Two very different worlds collide as African migrants get their first sight of the Europe they have risked their lives to reach. Once, these precarious dinghies were a rare sight in the Canary Islands. Now they are an almost daily occurrence.  Traffickers have switched routes, moving their human cargo along the dangerous route between western Africa to Spain’s archipelago in the Atlantic instead of across the Mediterranean to the southern coast of the country’s mainland.  So far this year, there has been a 520% rise in migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands compared with the same period in 2019, with 3,448 migrants reaching the seven islands up until August 15, according to the Spanish government figures. In comparison, there was a 26.6% decrease in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Spain this year compared with the same period in 2019, year, with 10,716 arriving in Europe compared to 14,597 last year. The more perilous Atlantic route has claimed its toll. A total of 239 migrants have died trying to reach the Canaries between January 1 and August 19, compared to 210 during all of last year, and 43 in 2018, according to the International Organization for Migration, IOM. “It is the grim toll which the sea takes. This is a very dangerous route,” Maria Greco, of the migrant rights group Entre Mares, told VOA in an interview. “The longest route is between Africa and the island of Fuerteventura which can involve a journey up to five days at sea.” Traffickers Innovate Traffickers have lowered their prices from around $2,377 to about $951. The boats depart not only from Morocco and Mauritania, the two nations closest to the archipelago, but also from Senegal and Gambia, over 1,000 kilometers further south. Most migrants attempting the crossing come from Africa’s Sahel region and Western Africa, Greco said.African migrants wait to be assisted by crew members of the Louise Michel and Astral rescue vessels, after being located sailing adrift on an overcrowded rubber boat, 70 miles southwest Malta, in the Central Mediterranean sea, Aug. 29, 2020.But some arrivals have originated from as far away as South Sudan and the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, she added. The change in routes owes nothing to the way the COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to close their borders and is due more to international politics, says Ms. Greco. She believes governments play a “macabre game” by influencing how the traffickers work. “The route to the Canary Islands is not new. In September last year, Frontex (the EU frontier security force) noted that the route was changing. Investments by Spain and other EU countries in countries like Morocco – where the migrants had come from – has meant these countries have tightened security. It has forced the traffickers to go elsewhere.” The decision of Morocco to move migrants away from its north shore in September 2019 to prevent them from setting off in dinghies or even toy boats towards Spain proved crucial, Txema Santana, of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid, CEAR, said. Anti-Migration Measures Anxious to halt the tide of migrants arriving on Spanish beaches, the European Union paid Morocco $463 million to support reforms including border management – shorthand for aid for clamping down on migrant departures. Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said at the time: “Morocco has long been an essential partner of the European Union with which we share borders and aspirations. “Faced with shared challenges, the time has come to give new impetus to our relationship through deeper and more diversified cooperation, including towards Africa, in order to link our futures and bring our peoples closer together.” Morocco completed its side of the deal and moved migrants away from its northern shore in September to the south of the country. Similar deals had been struck between the European Union and Libya and Turkey, which have also served as launching pads for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. “If you move them away from the north, you push them south. And the Canaries are in the south,” Santana said. “The south of Morocco is near the Western Sahara and Mauritania – two places where the migrants can get on boats to leave for the Canary Islands.” One migrant dies for every 16 who reach the archipelago alive, Mr Santana estimates. “People set off on packed, shaky boats which are driven by people without experience,” he said. Migrants who arrive in the islands are tested for COVID-19 and anyone found to be infected must quarantine. However, Santana said that migrants can wait up to six months for their asylum cases to be considered and, meanwhile, have to live in cramped, unhygienic conditions. “I don’t see any indication that the situation will change quickly,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Spanish government said, “We are processing cases as fast as we can be we have seen a large surge in cases recently.” The Canary Islands have been a hotspot for migrants before — in 2006, some 30,000 migrants managed to reach the archipelago before stepped-up Spanish patrols then slowed the pace. At the time, Spain struck a deal with African countries that were the source of these migrants, promising financial aid in return for development programs which made it less attractive for them to leave their home countries. In an unusual move, Madrid opened its only police station on foreign soil, posting five officers permanently in Mauritania to halt the flow of migrants. Together, both measures halted the surge of migrants to the Canary Islands – until now.  
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Thrill-seeking swimmers in Hungary recently challenged the fast-flowing waters of the Danube at an event aimed at encouraging Hungarians to take advantage of Budapest’s parks and waterways. Organizers see the event as a way to literally bring sports enthusiasts to the Hungarian capital.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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After a pandemic hiatus, more than a thousand mask-wearing Extinction Rebellion climate activists marched back onto London’s streets Tuesday, calling for swifter action to halt global warming as a huge contingent of police looked on. With Britain’s Parliament returning to work this week after a summer recess, protesters blocked the square in front of the building and called for legislators to take up a proposed climate and ecological emergency bill. It aims to expand Britain’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 to cover so-far excluded sectors such as international shipping and air travel, and for actions toward the goal to be faster and determined by a citizens’ assembly. “The important thing is having the government admit they’re too slow. Right now they’re not taking responsibility,” said Reece Evans, 24, an Extinction Rebellion activist and actor who held a placard reading, “Back the Bill.” Extinction Rebellion climate activists sit in the road and meditate in front of a line of police officers outside of Parliament during a “peaceful disruption” of British Parliament in London, Sept. 1, 2020.Holly Cullen-Davies said she wanted Parliament “to take climate change to the top of the agenda”, while her two young children drew with colored chalks on the pavement. Cullen-Davies said she had joined the grassroots movement in March, as the coronavirus lockdown began and planet-warming emissions temporarily crashed with economies on hold worldwide, showing how rapidly change could happen. “I thought if the world can stop for COVID, it can stop for climate change,” she said. Many activists said they thought the return to street protests, despite the ongoing pandemic, was justified because of fast-growing climate risks and because the movement was taking sufficient precautions to prevent spread of the virus. Nearly all of the activists at Parliament Square in London on Tuesday wore face masks, while simultaneous demonstrations in Cardiff and Manchester were planned to allow protesters to take part closer to home, organizers said. An Extinction Rebellion climate activist holds a placard during a “peaceful disruption” of British Parliament, in Manchester, England, Sept. 1, 2020.”COVID is likely to go on another couple of years and we don’t have that much time,” said Angie Nicholas, a child psychiatrist in green medical scrubs. “We’re super-aware of COVID – but climate and ecological threats are an emergency too,” she added. Chris Newman, a doctor and spokesman for Doctors for Extinction Rebellion, said the situation was comparable to a medic handling a patient with two serious problems. “You can’t just address one problem,” he said in a speech to the crowd in Parliament Square, with many listeners waving colored flags with Extinction Rebellion’s hourglass symbol or carrying homemade placards. Rows of police in yellow vests flanked the protest, and more than 70 police vans were parked nearby in a show of force as Extinction Rebellion – which last year blocked major roads and bridges, causing widespread disruption – resumed its actions. Police said 90 climate activists had been arrested in London as protesters blocked streets in violation of a police order. Police officers detain a priest protesting during a “peaceful disruption” of British Parliament, at Parliament Square in London, Sept. 1, 2020.”The reason we have implemented these conditions is that we know these protests may result in serious disruption to local businesses, commuters and our communities and residents, which I will not tolerate,” Metropolitan Police commander Jane Connors said in a statement Monday. But an Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman said the police had rowed back on restrictions that initially appeared to ban protests anywhere in the city except at Parliament Square, after lawyers for the group filed a letter saying it would dispute them. ‘Frustrating’ Activists said they were glad to be back on the streets after months of waiting for conditions to be safe enough. “It’s wonderful to feel the energy again and try to hold the government to account,” said Grace Onions, 52, who took part in the group’s large-scale protests in 2019. Increasingly clear evidence of climate-related disasters, from floods to droughts, made it urgent to keep up pressure on governments, she added. Marion Phillips, 73, said she was disappointed the UK government was giving stimulus funds to spark a coronavirus recovery without requiring recipients such as airlines to cut emissions, in line with its net-zero goal. “It’s been very frustrating these few months,” she said. Tuesday’s protests were the start of 10 days of action around Britain, organizers said. “I don’t know if it will be effective, but if we’re not doing this, then we’re guaranteed to lose,” said Nathan Nuckhir, 27, a furloughed jobs coach for people with disabilities on his first “nonessential” outing since the lockdown. “There are fewer of us, but it doesn’t change what we have to do,” he said. “I hope as a world we’ll get hold of this virus and more people can come out to join.” 
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French President Emmanuel Macron has given Lebanese politicians three months to take concrete steps to rebuild the country, or face sanctions and lose out on crucial aid.Macron has been central to international efforts to help Lebanon recover from a deep-rooted economic and political crisis arising from decades of mismanagement and corruption, a persistent pandemic, and a deadly explosion in capital city Beirut last month.
 
“It’s a risky bet I’m making, I am aware of it,” Macron told Politico in an interview Monday night. “I am putting the only thing I have on the table: my political capital.”
 
Macron was in the Middle Eastern country, a former French protectorate, for the second time since the August 4 blast that destroyed much of its main port, a lifeline for a country heavily reliant on food imports.
 
Macron told Politico the next three months are “fundamental” to the process of making real change and forming a government in Lebanon. He said he wanted Lebanese political party leaders to make credible commitments to that end, including a concrete schedule for introducing changes and a parliamentary election within “six to 12 months.”  
 
Macron said he would make “demanding” follow-ups on Lebanese political leaders. If the responses were found lacking, he threatened sanctions on the country’s ruling class, and said he would withhold critical aid, pledged at a 2018 donor conference in Paris, until donors are satisfied.  
 
Lebanese politicians hastily agreed Monday on a new prime minister, Mustapha Adib, hours before Macron’s arrival, but after weeks of French pressure. The country’s previous government resigned in the aftermath of the Beirut explosion.
 
Macron said he was not personally involved in decision-making and was instead pushing for change by visiting Lebanon often and threatening to impose sanctions or withhold aid.An anti-government protester uses a tennis racket to return a tear gas canister towards riot police during a protest near Parliament Square, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 1, 2020.”I don’t know him, I didn’t choose him, and it’s not my job to interfere or approve,” said Macron about Adib, Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany since 2013, who called for immediate reforms.
 
“It’s time for work to dovetail efforts and join hands, to restore hope among the Lebanese,” Adib told reporters Monday, according to Al Jazeera. “By the grace of God Almighty, we hope we will be successful in selecting professionals with proven expertise and efficiency to implement the necessary financial and economic reforms.”
 
Macron told reporters Monday he would host an international conference in mid-October on helping Lebanon, Reuters reported.
 
Macron also called Tuesday while in Beirut for an audit of the Lebanese banking system.
 
“Today everything is blocked, and Lebanon can no longer finance itself, so there needs to be an audit,” he said. “There is likely money that has been diverted. So, we need to know the truth of the numbers and then that judicial actions are taken.”
 
Lebanon contracted New York-based company Alvarez & Marsal in July to conduct a forensic audit of the central bank’s accounts. The country also contracted two other companies, KPMG and Oliver Wyman, for traditional audits.  
 
Macron said he would work with Lebanon’s leaders to “create the necessary conditions for reconstruction and stability,” in an Arabic-language tweet Monday.أقول للبنانيين إنكم كأخوة للفرنسيين. وكما وعدتكم، فها أنا أعودُ إلى بيروت لاستعراض المستجدّات بشأن المساعدات الطارئة وللعمل سوياً على تهيئة الظروف اللازمة لإعادة الإعمار والاستقرار.— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 31, 2020 
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