Several thousand people protested Sunday for the independence of Hungary’s University of Theatre and Film Arts following the imposition of a government-appointed board, which they say will undermine its autonomy.The management of the school, which nurtured many of Hungary’s most famous directors and filmmakers, resigned Monday in protest over the changes, which have also prompted several top theater directors to quit their teaching roles.Attendants of the rally formed a chain in the streets of central Budapest before the crowd gathered at a main square outside Parliament, demanding autonomy for the school and freedom for artistic endeavor and education.Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s supporters have long argued that it was time for a shift in culture towards conservative values to end what they call the domination of the arts in Hungary by liberals and left-wingers.”For a university to be able to operate autonomously is the foundation of democracy,” said Marta Barbarics, who attended the rally. “If a university cannot teach in a way as its citizens deem appropriate then there are serious problems, and the leadership of a university does not quit for no reason.” 
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Protesters once again took to the streets of Belarus Sunday, the latest in nearly a month of demonstrations following disupted elections that left longtime president Alexander Lukashenko in power. Tens of thousands took to the streets of Minsk Sunday in numbers comparable to previous weekends, waving red and white opposition flags and chanting slogans. Human rights groups have said at least 70 protesters were detained Sunday. A police barricade with two water cannons is set blocking a street during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 6, 2020.Lukashenko, in power since 1994, claimed victory in elections August 9. Opposition parties, along with the United States and the European Union, say the poll was heavily rigged.     More than 7,000 protesters have been arrested, and widespread evidence of abuse and torture has been reported. At least four people were reported to have died during the demonstrations.  FILE – Belurus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya takes part in an U.N. General Assembly online debate from Vilnius, Lithuania, Sept. 4, 2020.Belarus’ main opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has been in Lithuania since the election for what she says is her own safety. In an interview with VOA, Tsikhanouskaya said she is working to organize new elections despite Lukashenko’s refusal to do so. “Our plan is absolutely clear. It’s organization of new elections, fair and transparent,” she said. 
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President Milos Zeman sought on Sunday to defuse a row with China over a visit by the head of the Czech Senate to Taiwan, calling the speaker’s trip a “boyish provocation”.  
 
Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil grabbed headlines last week when he told Taiwan’s parliament “I am a Taiwanese” in a speech that echoed the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s defiance of communism in Berlin in 1963.   In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, the Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil is presented a medal by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during a meeting in Taipei, Taiwan, Sept. 3, 2020.Vystrcil’s trip did not have the backing of the Czech government, which sets foreign policy, and angered China, which said the Czech speaker would “pay a heavy price” for visiting the democratic island it sees as its own territory.  
 
This prompted Prague to summon China’s ambassador.  
 
Zeman has sought closer business and political ties with China since taking office in 2013, but his efforts have been hit by failed investment plans and have divided politicians.  
 
Zeman said in an interview on broadcaster Prima on Sunday he would stop inviting Vystrcil to meetings of the state’s top foreign policy officials and said his trip could be damaging for firms but that China’s comments were exaggerated.  
 
“I consider it boyish provocation,” Zeman said of the trip.  
 
Prime Minister Andrej Babis said later on the same debate show he would fight to prevent fallout for Czech companies.  
 
The Czech Republic, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan although Taiwan is a large investor in the country.  
 
Many Czech companies operate in or export to China, the world’s second-largest economy. The richest Czech Petr Kellner’s Home Credit is a major consumer lender in China while the country is also the largest single market for Skoda Auto, the Czech car unit of Volkswagen.    
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Facebook on Saturday blocked live broadcasts from a bedridden, chronically ill man who appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron for a medically assisted death and who wanted to show what he expects will be a painful end to his life after he announced that he was stopping all food and drink.Prostrate on his bed, Alain Cocq posted video of himself Friday after taking what he said would be his last liquid meal.”I know the days ahead are going to be very difficult,” he said. “But I have taken my decision and I am serene.In a letter this week, which Cocq also posted, Macron said that French law forbade him from granting his request for the “right to leave with dignity,” with a medically assisted death.”With emotion, I respect your approach because it speaks to the very intimate relationship that each of us builds with the end of our life and our death,” Macron said in the letter dated Thursday, sent after one of his aides spoke at length with Cocq by telephone in August.But Macron added that “because I am not above the law, I am not in a position to grant your request.”In a handwritten addition at the end, Macron signed off the letter with the words, “With all of my personal support and my profound respect.”French media have reported that Cocq, a 57-year-old former plumber, suffers from a long-term and incurable degenerative illness. He says that he has lived in great pain for 34 years and that after multiple operations, he prefers to die. In his Facebook post on Friday evening, he said the alternative would be “the degradation of my body.””I am going to stop hydrating myself when I turn off the lights,” he said. “Given my general condition, it’s likely to be quick, which is what I hope for, because I’m not a masochist.”He said he would keep taking painkillers.”The path to my deliverance is starting and, believe me, I am happy about it,” he said. “To those I won’t see again, I say goodbye. Such is life.”Cocq had planned to subsequently broadcast live the end of his life that he expects will follow within days of his decision to stop all food, liquids and medicines. But a message Saturday on Cocq’s account said that Facebook has blocked him from posting videos until Tuesday.Facebook confirmed that it had blocked Cocq’s live broadcasts.”Our hearts go out to Alain Cocq and those who are affected by this sad situation,” it said in a statement. “While we respect his decision to draw attention to this complex and difficult issue, based on the guidance of experts, we have taken steps to keep Alain from broadcasting live, as we do not allow the depiction of suicide attempts.” 
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In the pubs of Dunmore in the west of Ireland, the Guinness glasses gather dust and the kegs are stacked dormant. Among the locals, a sober mood has taken hold.The lengthy coronavirus shutdown of pubs in Ireland has hit the 3,000 or so people in the village and surrounding area particularly hard.Five out of its six village pubs have been shut since March, depriving the community of institutions that act as pillars of rural life.Publican Joe Sheridan unbolts the door of Walsh’s Bar in the County Galway village.”They drink their pints along counters like that with their peers to discuss politics, to discuss the news of the day, to understand what’s going on in their own life,” he told AFP.”I have people that would confide in me here in the bar that may not necessarily say to their GP [doctor] what’s going on with them,” he said.With bars shut, “you can see the people carrying the woes of life on their faces,” said Sheridan, a seventh-generation publican.Inside his wood-paneled pub, he finds a pile of unopened mail and the musty smell of inactivity.Walls are jammed with group photos, sports memorabilia and dusty bottles.It is testament to the pub’s fluid role as community hall, museum and an understated sort of group catharsis in the village.”The lights are going out in rural Ireland,” he said.Publican Joe Sheridan is pictured at his closed pub, Walsh’s Bar, in the rural village of Dunmore, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2020.Dry spellIrish pubs shut on March 16 as the nation braced for the coronavirus, which has so far claimed 1,777 lives.After a 15-week hibernation, those serving food were permitted to reopen.But so-called “wet pubs” serving drink only remained shut, with the government repeatedly pushing back reopening.Restrictions are to expire on September 13 in what the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland has called the “longest lockdown in the EU.”Industry bodies estimate that around half of the republic’s 7,000 pubs are still shuttered.”The vast majority of these pubs are small rural outlets run by families who are on first-name terms with their customers,” said Vintners Federation of Ireland chief Padraig Cribben in July.In rural Ireland, pubs have a particular character. They are modestly sized, humbly decorated and staffed by friends and family.Many are not equipped for restaurant food service.One Dunmore pub has reopened under government guidelines by pairing with a local takeaway to provide sit-in meals.The closed Thomas Byrne bar is pictured in the rural village of Dunmore, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2020.’Meitheal’With population flight, a declining agriculture industry and scant alternative social outlets, pubs in rural Ireland play a role that is hard to overstate.Many people in the countryside still eat their main daily meal at lunchtime, reserving a stretch of uninterrupted evening for the pub.Historically, pubs have acted as hardware stores, grocery shops and drapers, filling the void of state infrastructure with small business and mutual aid.In Dunmore, three pubs still act as undertakers when regulars die, organizing the funeral and arranging for fellow drinkers to dig the grave.”It’s the thing of a ‘meitheal,’ ” Sheridan said. “It’s an Irish word for a group coming together to work voluntarily.”But the lockdown is “messing with traditions that have been built up over generations,” he said.Dunmore village, nested in improbably green fields laced by gray stone walls, is home to just 600.An outsider may think its six pubs existed in fierce competition. But Sheridan views them each as nodes in an ecosystem of support with subtly different vibes and navigated by locals according to need and preference.Alcohol seems almost besides the point.”It’s nearly like the jungle grapevine,” said the 49-year-old, who also serves as a councilor for the center-right Fianna Fail party currently in government.”The public house acts as a conduit for communities.”While rural decline is nothing new, coronavirus closures are “throwing petrol on the fire,” he said.An estate agent’s board reads “Public House For Sale” above the closed-down Tery’s bar in the rural village of Dunmore, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2020.Moths and light bulbsHomes scattered outside Dunmore are now where Sheridan’s customers, many of them older, single men, spend time siloed alone.Days are broken up by sprawling countryside walks — with slim chance of social interaction — and the clockwork visit of the postman.”Here you have nothing to look at but the light bulb, like a moth,” said Brendan Jordan, 51.His three or four weekly visits to the pub gave respite from the care he gives his disabled sister.”They are segregating us out here in the countryside and nobody cares,” said bachelor farmer John Hussey, 52.”They have everything killed in the rural areas.”
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Six Belarusian journalists detained earlier this week while covering an anti-government protest in Minsk were sentenced to three days in jail, as authorities continued their crackdown on dissent and media freedom following a disputed election that gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth-straight term.
 
The verdicts came just ahead of a scheduled address by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the self-exiled presidential candidate who has become a leader of the Belarusian opposition, to the U.N. Security Council later on September 4.
 
The journalists were covering a student rally demanding the resignation of Lukashenko on September 1 when they were detained by police near the Dinamo district stadium.
 
A district court in the capital sentenced the journalists to three days’ administrative arrest after finding them guilty of participating in an illegal rally, an accusation they denied.
 
They were later released having already served their terms while in pretrial detention.
 
The reporters work for the Belarusian independent news website Tut.by, the local Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi daily, and the independent news agency BelaPAN.
 
Hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets across Belarus to protest the “rigged” results of the August 9 vote.Belarus Opposition Leader Appeals to UN to Stop Human Rights Abuses in Her CountrySviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tells UN that ‘a nation cannot and should not be a hostage to one man’s thirst for power’The protesters are calling on the 66-year-old Belarusian leader to step down after 26 years in power, release all political prisoners, and hold free and fair elections.
 
The authorities have tried to halt the protest movement with threats and the prosecution of protesters, political activists, and journalists covering the demonstrations.
 
On September 4, police detained several student protesters gathered inside the Minsk State Linguistic Institute. A witness said the students started singing the French national anthem La Marseillaise, which contains words about the fight against tyranny, when riot police entered the building and dragged the students away.
 
Officials at the institute had warned students it would call in the police unless they halted their protests.
 
Those detained were later released from police custody after reportedly being charged with taking part in illegal rallies.
 
The Interior Ministry earlier said that a total of 26 people were detained during protests in Minsk on September 3 for violating the law on public events, adding that seven of them will remain in pretrial detention.
 
A photographer working for the news outlet Tut.by., Zmitser Brushko, was detained for a few hours and charged with petty hooliganism for allegedly pushing a police officer.
 
The crackdown on protests, strikes, and the media has drawn condemnation from human rights groups, media freedom watchdogs, and the international community.
 
On September 3, Britain and Canada said in a joint statement to the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that they were “extremely concerned” by the treatment of journalists and independent media in Belarus.
 
“Though the strain faced by independent media has been made evident before, during, and after the presidential elections, in the past week Belarusian authorities have made greater moves to hinder the free press,” the statement said, adding that more than 70 independent news websites had been blocked.
 
About 50 journalists were detained on August 27-28 for accreditation checks and some foreign reporters were subsequently deported and banned from Belarus for five years, it also noted.
 
At least 17 journalists, including four from RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, had their accreditations revoked. 
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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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