Protesters took to the streets of the Russian city of Khabarovsk for the fourth straight weekend on Saturday, angered by the arrest of the region’s popular governor.Sergey Furgal was arrested by federal law enforcement in early July on charges related to multiple murders in 2004 and 2005, before he became governor. He was flown to Moscow where he was ordered jailed for two months. Many people in Russia’s Far Eastern city on the border with China believe the charges leveled against Furgal, and his replacement last week, are politically motivated. Furgal was elected in 2018, defeating a candidate from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s party, United Russia.”What is happening to our governor Sergey Furgal is injustice and the violation of all conceivable human rights, and I can’t remain indifferent to this,” said protester Natalia Smoktunova.Other protesters expressed their indignation with the falling standards of living.”We’ve become fed up with this kind of life,” said Tatiana, another protester, who didn’t give her last name. “We want our children to have everything they need—good schools and a better life, instead of poverty-level salaries and unemployment.”The Kremlin replaced Furgal with a young State Duma deputy, Mikhail Degtiarev, to serve as acting governor of the Khabarovsk region.”Wonderful people live here (in Khabarovsk),” said pensioner protester Nadezhda Svobodnaya. “They’re hard workers who want to work honestly and live with dignity, without being afraid for the future of our children and grandchildren. But everything is being trampled here: dignity and honor and freedom. We live in a civilized world after all. How much longer can we bear this?”Protests in Khabarovsk, a city about 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow, erupted on July 11. Since then, protesters have been demanding the release of Furgal and an open and fair trial for him. 
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The United States is preparing to pull more troops from Germany, days after President Donald Trump criticized the country for being “delinquent” on defense spending.U.S. Africa Command confirmed Friday it is in the early stages of moving its headquarters from the city of Stuttgart, where it has been located since the command was first stood up in 2008.“U.S. Africa Command has been told to plan to move,” its commander, Gen. Stephen Townsend, said in a statement. “While it will likely take several months to develop options, consider locations, and come to a decision, the command has started the process.”U.S. military officials have been looking for months at reducing the approximately 6,000 troops stationed in Africa.  FILE – U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend watches during a tour north of Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2017.“It is important our African partners understand our commitment to them remains strong,” Townsend said in Friday’s statement, adding his command “will continue to work with our African and other partners to address mutual interests.”While a new site for the command headquarters has not yet been chosen, an AFRICOM official told VOA that planners will be looking first to other European countries, and then at moving the command to the U.S.“The team will look at available infrastructure, housing, access to transportation, adequate medical care, and a range of other consideration factors,” said AFRICOM spokesman Col. Chris Karns.“It will be a deliberate and orderly approach and process,” he added, noting, “It was important to let partners as well as personnel and families know that planning is under way.”Africa itself, where the U.S. has long tried to maintain a small military footprint, is not under consideration, officials said.Just how much moving AFRICOM’s headquarters from Stuttgart will cost, and how much money could be saved by using another location, has yet to be determined.Reaction to changesWhile U.S. military officials argue the changes are strategically necessary and will give them more flexibility, German officials have expressed disappointment at the U.S. decision to pull some 12,000 troops from the country.FILE – Norbert Roettgen, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, speaks during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 18, 2020.”Instead of strengthening NATO, the troop withdrawal will weaken the alliance,” Norbert Roettgen, a senior ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.U.S. lawmakers, including some Republicans who often side with Trump, have also raised concerns about the changes, though Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called the moves “sound.”Trump defended the decision to pull troops out of Germany earlier this week, suggesting the U.S. could move troops based with other NATO allies if those countries do not increase defense spending.”We don’t want to be the suckers anymore,” he told reporters Wednesday.But some analysts have raised concerns that moving troops and critical commands from Germany will hurt overall operations.“We get huge benefits from our U.S. military posture in Germany,” said Bradley Bowman, a former adviser to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.“We are able to project U.S. military power into North Africa and the Middle East much more effectively because of our military posture in Germany,” said Bowman, now with the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. 
 
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Champagne is losing its fizz. For months, lockdown put the cork on weddings, dining out, parties and international travel — all key sales components for the French luxury wine marketed for decades as a sparkling must at any celebration. Producers in France’s eastern Champagne region, headquarters of the global industry, say they’ve lost an estimated 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion) in sales for this year, as turnover fell by a third — a hammering unmatched in living memory, and worse than the Great Depression. They expect about 100 million bottles to be languishing unsold in their cellars by the end of the year. “We are experiencing a crisis that we evaluate to be even worse than the Great Depression” of 1929, said Thibaut Le Mailloux of the Champagne Committee, known by its French acronym CIVC, that represents some 16,000 winemakers. Recognizing the urgency of the problem, the CIVC is launching unprecedented damage-limitation measures. Like oil-producing countries, the committee regulates the size of the harvest each year to avoid the kind of excess production that would cause bottle prices to plummet. At a meeting scheduled for Aug. 18, it’s expected to impose a cap so tight that record quantities of grapes will be destroyed or sold to distilleries at discounted prices. The prospect alarms smaller producers, who are more vulnerable than the big houses. Anselme Selosse, of Jacques Selosse Champagnes, called it “an insult to nature” that champagne’s famous grapes might even be destined to produce alcohol for hand sanitizer, as is happening in other wine-producing regions such as Alsace after demand spiked during the pandemic. “We are to destroy (the grapes) and we pay for them to be destroyed,” Selosse said, referring to the industry as a whole. “It’s nothing but a catastrophe.” “Champagne has never lived through anything like this before, even in the World Wars,” Selosse added. “We have never experienced … a sudden one-third fall in sales. Over one hundred million bottles unsold.”Paul Francois Vranken, Director of Vranken-Pommery Monopole speaks during an interview in the Champagne region, east of Paris, July 28, 2020.Major producers such as Vranken-Pommery predict that the crisis could last for years. “It should not be forgotten that (champagne) has lived through every single war,” said Paul-Francois Vranken, founder of Vranken-Pommery Monopole. “But with the other crises, there was a way out. For now, there is no way out — unless we find a vaccine.” Vranken said the very essence of champagne marketing — as a drink quaffed at parties and weddings — needs to be re-evaluated to reflect the new normal: Fewer festivities and a lack of celebratory group events. The new branding strategy for his, and other champagne companies, will seek to highlight the wine’s status as a naturally, and often organically, produced quality drink from a historic French region. “Even if the bars and the nightclubs are closed for five years, we don’t plan on missing out on customers … There will be a very big change to our marketing that highlights the grandeur of our wines,” Vranken said. Selosse, who produces many “natural” champagnes with no added sugar, also hopes the pandemic will encourage thought about future champagne marketing and how the multi-billion dollar industry is restructured. He would like to see a more cooperative side to production, such as “communal wine presses” to help pool the costs for smaller producers. Selosse said adaptability has served champagne well in the past, helping it evolve from a dessert wine in the 19th century to the modern-day dry version named “brut.”  He even thinks — but this is a minority view among producers — the industry could move away from effervescence and be able to produce all sorts of wine, as it did in the past: red, white or still. In fact, literally no fizz.
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The economy of the 19-country eurozone shrank by a devastating 12.1% percent in the April-June period from the quarter before – the largest drop on record – as coronavirus lockdowns shut businesses and hampered consumer spending.Economists say the worst of the downturn is past as many restrictions have eased, but that the recovery will be drawn out and vulnerable to renewed virus outbreaks.
Spain, which along with Italy was among the first to get hit hard by the spread of the virus, suffered the region’s heaviest drop at 18.5%. France, Italy and Portugal also endured steep declines, but no country escaped the impact of the pandemic.  
For the currency union as a whole it was the biggest decline since the records started in 1995. The broader 27-country European Union, not all of whose members use the euro, saw output sag 11.9%.
The decline in Europe compares with a 9.5% quarter-on-quarter drop in the United States, which unlike Europe has not yet been able to get its contagion numbers firmly down yet and whose economic recovery is in doubt.
European governments are countering the recession with massive stimulus measures. EU leaders have agreed on a 750 billion-euro recovery fund backed by common borrowing to support the economy from 2021. National governments have stepped in with loans to keep businesses afloat and wage support programs that pay workers’ salaries while they are furloughed. The European Central Bank is pumping 1.35 trillion euros in newly printed money into the economy, a step which helps keep borrowing costs low.
Those support measures have helped keep unemployment from spiking. The rate rose to 7.8% in June from 7.7% in May. But many job losses will wind up being permanent despite the stimulus.
Major companies such as Lufthansa, Daimler and Airbus have said they will cut thousands of jobs.
Economists say the downturn was concentrated in the months of April and May when lockdowns were most severe. Many restrictive measures have been eased, and business confidence in Germany, the biggest eurozone economy, has ticked up for three straight months.
But the outlook is for a long and uncertain climb back to pre-virus levels that could take until 2022 or longer. Company forecasts for the rest of the year assumed that there is not a renewed outbreak of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Cases have been rising again in several countries as people go on vacations and Britain slapped a 14-day quarantine on travelers returning from Spain.  
Rosie Colthorpe, European economist at Oxford Economics, said the current third quarter was likely to see high growth rates, “but not nearly large enough to make up for the damage.”
“Beyond this initial bounce, the recovery is set to be gradual and uneven,” with pre-virus output regained only by mid-2022, she said, adding that “recent flare-ups of the virus in several European countries risk derailing this recovery.”
The Spanish economic drop was by far the sharpest since the country’s national statistics agency began collecting data. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was meeting later Friday with the leaders of Spain’s regions to discuss how to rebuild the economy and where to deploy billions of euros in European Union aid for recovery.
Germany, the largest of the countries that use the euro, went through a 10.1% decline, the biggest since records started in 1970.  
In France, the startling plunge of 13.8% in April-June was the third consecutive quarter of contraction in France’s worsening recession. The pain has been so damaging to jobs and industries that the government is talking down the possibility of another nationwide lockdown as infections tick upward again. Finance minister Bruno Le Maire called on French people to spend more to help the economy recover.
“All the growth in GDP seen in the 2010-2019 decade has been wiped out in five months,” said Marc Ostwald, chief economist at ADM Investor Services International. In Italy’s case, economists said it wiped out about 30 years of growth.
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A wave of protests sparked by the slaying of a young woman has been sweeping across Turkey as the government considers leaving an international convention that protects women against violence, despite warnings from rights groups about the rising number of killings of women.Last week, police found the strangled and battered body of 27-year-old university student Pinar Gultekin. Local media, citing police sources, said she was buried in a bin encased in concrete, in woodlands in the Aegean province of Mugla.Gultekin’s killing triggered demonstrations across Istanbul and other cities with activists calling attention to reports of rising number of murdered women. At one protest last week in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, women chanted “we want to live,” “end femicides.”In the Aegean port city of Izmir, police broke up a women’s protest and detained several demonstrators.Across social media, women placed videos of their protests. On Instagram, Turkish women are posting black and white images of themselves in protest at Gultekin’s murder, in a campaign that has gone global.”From secular women to conservative women, from working women or not working, women are angry,” said Melek Onder of the Istanbul based campaign group, “We Will Stop Femicide.””But we know that this anger makes women movement in Turkey becoming more powerful and strong,” Onder added. “They are applying to our platform, saying we want to do something, we want to join the protests.”The protests in Turkey come amidst wider international protests against violence against women, much of which is a grassroots organized through social media, including the “me too” movement.The “We Will Stop Femicide” web page records the grim death toll of murdered women, which rises nearly every day. In the first six months of this year, the group says there were 172 femicides, compared to 416 for the whole of 2019.In a tweet, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Gultekin’s killing, but activists complain he has otherwise remained silent.The protests are happening as the Erdogan government faces new criticism over its commitment to gender issues.Erdogan’s ruling AKP party is openly questioning Turkey’s participation the international Istanbul Convention on protecting women against violence.Women march in support of the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women, in Istanbul, Sunday, July 19, 2020.”I say that signing this Istanbul Convention was wrong,” said the AKP’s deputy leader Numan Kurtulmus in a recent television interview.”There are two critical issues in the text of this convention that we should draw attention to that we can never accept. One of them is gender rights; the other is sexual orientation rights,” Kurtulmus added.Turkey’s religious conservative media is backing Kurtulmus, accusing the Convention of undermining the family.The AKP, in its early years in power, introduced sweeping legislation to protect women, culminating in being the first signatory of the 2011 European, “Istanbul Convention.”The Convention was the first legally binding set of guidelines that created “a comprehensive legal framework and approach to combat violence against women,” focusing on preventing domestic violence, protecting victims, and prosecuting accused offenders.But in recent years, critics have accused the government of increasingly backsliding in enforcing the agreement, in a bid to consolidate the ruling party’s religious and conservative voting base. The AKP campaigns vigorously on defending what it says are “traditional family values.”Parliament is expected to soon start discussing Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul convention.”We should evaluate well whether or not to abolish it,” said Devlet Bahceli, leader of the MHP, which is the parliamentary coalition partner of the AKP.Bahceli acknowledges the country is facing a problem, “If we cannot prevent the murder of women, we will all be buried under an avalanche,” he said.Erdogan has yet to weigh in on the future of the Istanbul convention.Opinion polls indicate a majority against withdrawal from the Convention. Pinar Ilkaracan, a veteran women’s rights campaigner who once worked closely with the AKP on gender reform, warns that Erdogan could pay a heavy political price if Turkey withdraws from the Istanbul Convention.”In terms of women murders, there hasn’t been a divide between secular and religious,” she said. “A lot of women have been supporting the AKP government, religious women, and also the women in AKP have written against withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention.” 
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The Italian Senate has voted to lift right-wing Senator Matteo Salvini’s immunity from prosecution, related to his decision last August to not allow 164 migrants to get off a ship in Sicily.Thursday’s vote may clear the way for potential charges against the former interior minister who, during his 14 months in that position, repeatedly denied port entry to ships carrying rescued migrants at sea.Salvini’s policy resulted in several standoffs, forcing ships to remain at sea for weeks before European countries would allow entry to their ports or Italian courts ordered disembarking.For the case from last August, Salvini refused access to the rescue ship Open Arms for three weeks before it was allowed to enter a port on the Italian island of Lampedusa. 
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Relations between Russia and its erstwhile ally Belarus veered into uncharted territory after Belarusian security forces on Wednesday detained more than 30 suspected Russian mercenaries near the capital Minsk — allegedly for trying to disrupt Belarus’ Aug. 9 presidential elections.
 
The arrests came in the midst of a charged election season, one that has seen Belarus’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko detain several would-be rivals only to see their wives step up as placeholder candidates.
 
In particular, the candidacy of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky now sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and an unexpected political star attracting large crowds.
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The timing of the Russians’ detention prompted questions of whether the arrests were a pretext for canceling elections or declaring a national emergency.
 
On Thursday, the Belarusian election commission gathered remaining candidates for a meeting and announced that security measures at rallies and mass gatherings would be increased.
 
Belarus’ Investigative Committee also said the detained Russians and two would-be presidential candidates would face joint criminal charges — suggesting Belarusian authorities were trying to exploit the incident for political gain.
 
Lukashenko also appeared in a televised meeting with his Security Council, where he insisted on clarification about the Russians presence from Moscow.
 
“If they’re Russians, then we should reach out immediately to appropriate structures of the Russian Federation, so they explain what’s happening,” said Lukashenko.
 
The Belarusian leader added, “we don’t have any goal to smear a country with whom we’re close.”
 
In related moves, Belarus’ Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Minsk and both countries said they were working to strengthen border controls.
 
Neither the Kremlin nor Russia’s Foreign Ministry has commented on the incident.
 An odd holiday
 
The arrests were first announced by the Belarusian state news agency Belsat, which claimed those arrested were part of a 200 strong paramilitary force that had infiltrated Belarus ahead of the vote.
 
Only the report claimed Belarus security services had discovered 32 of the Russians at a resort outside of Minsk — with the Russians standing out for both their camouflage clothes and un-holiday-like demeanor.People walk past a campaign poster of opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Minsk, Belarus, July 30, 2020.“They did not drink alcohol or visit entertainment facilities and kept to themselves to maintain a low profile,” said the TV report, while adding this was “atypical behavior for Russian tourists.”
 Video showed the men being detained in their underwear with guns and ammunition scattered about.
 
Belarus’s KGB later issued a statement identifying the men as part of the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian mercenary force that journalists have traced to Kremlin proxy battles in east Ukraine, Syria, and portions of Africa.
 
Zahar Prilepin, a renowned Russian novelist who has taken up arms with pro-Russian rebels in fighting in east Ukraine, said in an interview with Russia’s URA.ru news service that he recognized some of the detained men as Wagner fighters. 
 
The Wagner group is allegedly under the control of Evgeny Prigozhin — often referred to as “Putin’s Chef” for securing state food industry contracts in the armed forces and schools.
 
Despite years of mounting evidence, the Kremlin has always denied the paramilitary group’s existence.
 End game theories
 
Though formally allies, relations between Moscow and Minsk have frayed in recent years over a long-stalled reunification effort to create a supra-state.
 
Observers say Lukashenko, in particular, has resisted the union out of fear of playing the lesser figure to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
 
The Kremlin has also expressed displeasure over Lukashenko’s hands-off approach to battling the novel coronavirus —voicing concerns that the virus could spread across the border.
 
The Belarusian leader — who announced on Tuesday that he had been infected but survived the virus without showing symptoms or stopping work — has dismissed fear of the pandemic as “mass psychosis.”
 
In a sign of just how strained relations have become, the Belarusian leader openly accused Russia of trying to foment a street revolution earlier this week.  
It is a charge normally reserved for the United States.
 
Indeed, the primary debate surrounding the arrest episode centered on Lukashenko’s intentions and Moscow’s role.
 
Had Belarus really foiled a plot or was this a staged event ahead of the Aug. 9 vote?
 
Gleb Pavlovsky, a former political advisor to President Putin, said in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio that the size of the Russian force suggested more theater than threat.
 
“I don’t think that Moscow will angrily respond to it, because in these situations the actors are released at the end of the play,” said Pavlovsky.
 
“In other words, after the elections.”
 
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A court in Moscow has sentenced former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed to nine years in prison after finding him guilty of assaulting two police officers, a charge that he refused to admit.Judge Dmitry Arnaut of Moscow’s Golovinsky District Court on July 30 also ordered Reed to pay 150,000 rubels ($2,000) to each police officer as compensation for moral damage.The 29-year old man, who is from Texas, traveled to Moscow in May 2019 to study Russian and spend time with his Russian girlfriend, Alina Tsybulnik.On August 15, several days before his trip back to Texas, Reed and his girlfriend attended a party organized by her colleagues. He claims to have no memory of what happened following the party, where he says he was encouraged to drink large quantities of vodka.In a car going home afterward, Reed said he felt unwell, asked the driver to stop, and got out. His girlfriend’s co-worker called police and left the site with another colleague, leaving Tsybulnik alone with Reed.Two police officers arrived at the scene and took Reed in to sober up, telling Tsybulnik to come back in a few hours and pick him up.Tsybulnik told RFE/RL that when she arrived at the police station later, Reed was being questioned, without a lawyer or interpreter present, by two men who introduced themselves as employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB).Tsybulnik was told that her boyfriend was accused of endangering the lives of the policemen who brought him in by yanking the driver’s arm and elbowing another officer who tried to intervene.However, the case against Reed has been marred by inconsistencies. Video evidence reviewed in court appeared to show no evidence that the police vehicle swerved as a result of Reed’s actions, as alleged by the police officers.Speaking before the judge, the officers themselves have claimed to have no memory of key moments in the journey, and have retracted parts of their statements on several occasions or failed to answer simple questions from Reed’s defense team.Reed is one of several American citizens to face trial in Russia in recent years on charges that their families, supporters, and in some cases the U.S. government have said appear trumped up.Last month, another former U.S. Marine, 50-year-old Paul Whelan, was sentenced by a court in Moscow to 16 years in prison for espionage which he, his supporters, and the U.S. government have questioned. 
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The United States is pulling almost 12,000 troops from Germany, following through on President Donald Trump’s call to reduce the U.S. military footprint overseas. While defense department officials say the move will boost American security, critics see the move as punishment for a country Trump has criticized as “delinquent” in NATO defense spending. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Produced by: Bronwyn Benito
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Italy’s coast guard said on Wednesday it had rescued nearly 100 migrants on a “half deflated” dinghy off the coast of Libya after authorities in other countries failed to intervene.The coast guard said the inflatable boat was spotted by aircraft on Tuesday afternoon in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) zone, “without an engine and half deflated.””The Libyan authority responsible for search and rescue activities at sea did not take over the coordination of the rescue operations due to the lack of naval resources,” the coast guard said in a statement.The coast guard then informed Maltese authorities, whose search and rescue zone is close to that of Libya.It said it also alerted Gibraltar, as a supply vessel flying the Gibraltar flag was nine nautical miles from the dinghy, as well as French authorities due to a Total oil platform in the area.France replied there were no French-flagged vessels in the Libyan area of responsibility, it said.”The Italian coast guard, amid the persistent silence of the Maltese and Gibraltar authorities, then took over the coordination of the rescue,” the coast guard said, sending a vessel to rescue the people.The 84 migrants, who included six women and two children, were transferred at dawn on Wednesday from their “almost sunk” dinghy to the Italian ship, which on Wednesday was headed for the island of Lampedusa.The reception center on the island is already overcrowded with migrants who have been arriving daily by the hundreds in recent weeks.More than 300 people, mainly Tunisians, arrived in Lampedusa during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday on board 13 boats.On Monday night, Malta’s coast guard rescued a group of 94 migrants in the Mediterranean, most of whom later tested positive for coronavirus, Malta health authorities said.
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Despite acquiescing to a compromise solution at last week’s rancorous but ultimately successful EU summit, Dutch diplomats are offering no apology for their country’s tough stand on financial assistance to the members worst hit by the global pandemic.Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other leaders of what became known as “the frugal four” argued against a more generous relief offer promoted by France and Germany before settling on a package comprising $460 billion in grants and $424 billion in loans.In an interview with VOA, Andre Haspels, the Netherlands’ ambassador to the United States, maintained that the tough medicine that Dutch officials prescribed for the suffering EU countries was no worse than what his government had delivered to its own citizens.Structural changes sought“Yes, we were seen by some countries as being too strict, too tough,” acknowledged Haspels, who is nearing the one-year mark of his term in Washington. What Rutte was trying to do, he said, was to introduce structural changes so that a house that easily catches fire won’t have to rely on emergency extinguishers.Such reforms can be tough, he acknowledged, revealing during the interview that he was personally affected by some of the Netherlands’ painful reforms.When Haspels joined his nation’s foreign ministry in 1987, he thought he had a clear idea of when he would retire and the pension he would receive. Halfway through his career, Dutch society began coming to grips with the fact that people are living longer while population growth remains low.Andre Haspels, Netherlands ambassador to the United States since August 2019. (Embassy of the Netherlands in the U.S.)Ten years and many arguments and protests later, the nation settled on an arrangement that “trade unions, employers, insurance companies, pension funds” could all accept, Haspels said. The resolution doesn’t mean a dream come true for everyone; instead, it is dream revised for most, including career diplomats.“We’re still in relatively secure positions as government officials,” Haspels said, but they, like everyone else in the country, will have to rely not only on the government, but also on private plans to supplement their retirement.It means “a lot more responsibility for the individual,” he said, admitting that he will get a smaller pension than he had once expected and will have to work until age 67 before he can collect those benefits.On the plus side, the future will be more “sustainable for my children and grandchildren,” said the 58-year-old father of four.Less for grantsHaspels said Dutch representatives at the summit insisted on reducing the amount of pandemic-related relief money issued as grants to less wealthy nations because that was what most Dutch citizens wanted.“Two of our main opposition parties were very much against transferring money to the EU,” he said. Plus, Haspels said, his government saw the summit as an opportunity to discuss some countries’ long-standing promises of reform.However tough Rutte might have sounded in Brussels, most observers credit him for keeping the Netherlands firmly in the EU despite some voices in his country crying for a “Nexit,” fashioned after Brexit.At present, two-thirds of Dutch citizens support continued membership in the EU, but Haspels said euroskeptic sentiments “are always going to be there,” likely in all EU member states. “Even after a country exits, the debate continues,” he said with an eye to the ongoing argument in Britain.
 
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The U.S. military has accused Russia of sending weapons and mercenaries to Libya in an attempt to gain a foothold in the north African country. U.S. Africa Command’s latest accusation against Russia came on July 24, as Libya’s rival camps face off in a battle over the strategic central coastal city of Sirte. The Pentagon released photos that it claims show Russia providing supplies and equipment to the Wagner group, a Russian private military company. Vadim Allen has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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A lawyer for an alleged Rwandan ex-spy chief living in France says his client denies allegations that he was involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.  Aloys Ntiwiragabo is now under investigation by French prosecutors.In an interview with VOA, lawyer Benjamin Chouai said his client Aloys Ntiwiragabo has been living in France for years.One of two lawyers defending Ntiwiragabo, Chouai said French authorities have been fully aware of his client’s whereabouts, since Ntiwiragabo applied for legal status here.French judicial authorities said Saturday they had opened a crimes against humanity probe targeting Ntiwiragabo.The move followed a report by investigative news site Mediapart, which tracked the former intelligence chief and his wife to a suburb of Orleans, about 110 kilometers south of Paris.The former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, or ICTR, once identified Ntiwiragabo as one of the architects of the Rwandan genocide that killed about 800,000 people.But, the AFP news agency reports the ICTR, now succeeded by another mechanism, had long ago dropped an arrest warrant against Ntiwiragabo, as did French and Rwandan authorities.Reports suggest investigators seem to have lost track of him years ago.Lawyer Chouai said his client was not in hiding.He said Ntiwiragabo never hid his real identity in France, and is available now to answer investigators’ questions. His client strongly contests the Mediapart report, Chouai says, and insists he played no role in the genocide.Radio France International reports Ntiwiragabo remained in Rwanda’s military during the genocide but at least initially sided against a key organizer of the killings.Ntiwiragabo also authored a 2018 book offering his version of the broader 1990s Great Lakes conflict, through French publishing house Editions Scribe.The French probe into his actions follows the May arrest in France of another major genocide suspect. Felicien Kabuga was accused of bankrolling the genocide. The 84-year-old had been hiding for years outside Paris and is now appealing his transfer to Arusha, Tanzania to face trial.Alain Gauthier, who heads a French genocide survivors’ group, estimates several dozen other suspects remain at large in France. He denounces the slowness of France’s judicial system.Other alleged suspects include Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the former Rwandan president, whose death helped trigger the genocide. She lives outside of Paris. 
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Greece will this year return 1.4 billion euros to pensioners whose income was slashed during the financial crisis of the past decade, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government made the decision following a top court ruling which said that some pension cuts imposed in 2015-2016 were illegal. Mitsotakis said the one-off payment applies only to main pensions — not supplementary pensions or benefits. The money will be distributed to about 2 million private and public sector pensioners, a government official said. The decision is expected to burden this year’s budget. Greece’s economy is seen shrinking by up to 10 percent this year due a nationwide lockdown the government imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. “This particular cost touches the limits of the country’s fiscal potential,” Mitsotakis told lawmakers. “There is no room for further provisions.” Under the terms of three international bailouts in 2010-2015, Greece cut state pensions several times to reduce spending and make the system viable. The country still has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the eurozone and the health pandemic dashed its hopes for strong growth this year. Its finances are being closely monitored by the country’s international lenders, the European Union and the IMF. 
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced he had tested positive but successfully overcome the novel coronavirus on Tuesday — adding a new twist to a charged presidential election season in the former Soviet republic often called the “last dictatorship in Europe.”Lukashenko, 65, revealed the news during a Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, reacts during a meeting with her supporters in Minsk, Belarus, July 19, 2020.Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky currently sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and a political star by taking direct aim at what she says is Lukashenko’s legacy of repression.“Yes, I was scared at first,” she said in her first televised speech. “I know what depths this government can go to in order to preserve its place. But I am no longer scared.”Protests against the government have been met with brutal police force and arrests of demonstrators and journalists. Since May, more than 1,000 people have been detained by police, according to the Vysna Human Rights Center.Belarusians attend a meeting in support of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, in Hlybokaje, Belarus, July 24, 2020.Tsikhanovskaya says she has ferreted her young children out of the country amid government threats as she has embarked on her campaign.What Virus?But Lukashenko’s announcement that he tested positive for the coronavirus — and breezily survived —- also again highlighted the Belarusian leader’s controversial attitude towards the global pandemic.Indeed, as COVID-19 has infected millions worldwide, Lukashenko has dismissed fear of the virus as mass “psychosis” — a minor health issue he has said could be easily cured with a shot of vodka, a hot sauna, or doing farm work or strenuous exercise.As much of the world shuttered its economies to stamp out the virus, Lukashenko ordered that life in his country go on as usual.Belarus’ national soccer league continued to play throughout the spring.  Schools were opened after a short delay. A mass Victory Day celebration to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany went off as scheduled in May. Participation by government employees was in some cases mandatory.Official statistics show Belarus with nearly 70,000 infections and just over 500 deaths.Government critics argue those figures far underrepresent the real number of cases.“It’s hard to convince someone a disease isn’t scary if it killed your relative. It’s hard to convince someone life is good when you’ve lost your job due because the coronavirus is affecting the global economy,” says Andrej Stryzhak of #ByCovid19, a volunteer group that has emerged to help doctors and hospitals deal with the pandemic.Civil Society SurgeLacking federal support, Belarusian civil society has rallied to address the health crisis.Volunteers have raised money to buy personal protective gear for hospitals and schools. Restaurants have donated food. Hotels provide rooms pro bono to medical workers. Private businesses have contributed funds.That collective activism has now shifted to politics ahead of the August 9th election, with volunteers helping to organize rallies, spread campaign information, and sign up as election monitors for the vote.“The coronavirus has strongly influenced how Belarusians look at the vote,” says Stryzhak of #ByCovid19 in an interview with VOA.“Now people are taking matters into their own hands. Belarus has awakened.”In turn, Lukashenko has claimed nefarious outside forces are staging a street revolution that would inflict chaos on a country of 9 million that he alone has ruled since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.In what some observers saw as an ominous sign, the Belta state news agency reported security services had detained 32 “foreign mercenaries” on Wednesday, without elaborating.
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Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who had COVID-19, said the pandemic lockdown made him feel “humiliated and offended” by depriving him of his freedom to come and go as he wanted.
Bocelli spoke at a panel Monday in a Senate conference room, where he was introduced by right-wing opposition leader Matteo Salvini, who has railed against the government’s stringent measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak.  
The singer’s announcement in May that he had recovered from the virus came weeks after his Easter Sunday performance in Milan’s empty cathedral. At the time, Bocelli said that when he learned on March 10 that he had tested positive, just as the nation was going into lockdown, “I jumped into the pool, I felt well” and had only a slight fever. He apparently was referring to a private pool at his residence, as public gym pools were closed by then.
Bocelli told the conference at the Senate that he resented not being able to leave his home even though he “committed no crime” and revealed, without providing details, that he violated that lockdown restriction.
At the height of lockdown, Italians could only leave home to go to essential jobs, walk dogs or buy food or medicine.  
Dismayed, Health Ministry Undersecretary Pierpaolo Sileri on Tuesday said that perhaps Bocelli “wanted to express the inconvenience of every Italian who, because of lockdown, stayed home.”
“I wouldn’t have said those words, but I imagine he’ll be able to explain it somehow,” Sileri added.
The conference was held on the eve of Premier Giuseppe Conte’s appearance in the Senate, set for later Tuesday, where he was expected to lay out his center-left government’s case for extending a state of emergency for the pandemic, which expires on July 31.
The emergency status allowed Conte to bypass Parliament or even his Cabinet in decreeing a string of measures aimed at slowing the spread of the outbreak in the country where it first emerged in Europe, and would go on to claim more than 35,000 lives.
Bocelli told the conference that at first his children told him to be careful about the virus when he first started having doubts about its severity, “but as time passed, I know lots of people, but I didn’t know anyone who went into intensive care.”
At the worst point of the outbreak, as many as 4,000 people were in intensive care in Italy, a country of 60 million, with several hundred virus-linked deaths on some days.
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Turkey is poised to introduce drastic measures to control social media platforms.  The proposed legislation is drawing growing international criticism with social media remaining one of the few venues for dissent.  FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech at the Bestepe National Congress and Culture Center in Ankara, July 21, 2020.Infuriated by tweets mocking his son in law and daughter, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared this month, the “immoral [social media] platforms” would be “completely banned or controlled.” Under new legislation set to pass before Eid holidays later this week, the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok will be compelled to open offices in Turkey by requiring them to assign representatives who would be subject to Turkish laws, including tax regulations. “It builds upon and expands upon the current regime of controls,” said Professor Yaman Akdeniz, co-founder of the Freedom of Expression Society, an advocacy group in Istanbul. Until now, the social media giants have resisted Ankara’s demands to open offices in Turkey. But in an innovative approach, proposed legislation uses the threat of ending net neutrality to force compliance. New attempt to control Social media platforms that fail to comply face cuts of up to 95% of their Internet bandwidth, making them unusable. “This is well thought out legislation on the government’s part,” said Akdeniz. Previous attempts by Erdogan to tame social media have failed. Despite over 400,000 web pages banned and thousands of people prosecuted for social media postings, the Internet remains a powerful venue for dissent and independent news.Internet tools like Virtual Private Networks, VPN, and proxies are widely used in Turkey to circumvent website bans. A three-year ban on Wikipedia was so widely flouted the government capitulated and lifted the restrictions. But controlling bandwidth could be more effective than blocking websites. “This will be a very serious restriction which may not be easy to bypass with alternative ways,” said Akdeniz. “Turkey’s attempt to restrict access to social media platforms should not be underestimated.” Turkish authorities usually temporarily cut bandwidth to curtail social media use, in the aftermath of major terror attacks.  In what appears to be a new coordinated approach, the government’s Internet regulators have been stepping up their efforts to curtail the use of VPN and proxies. “A considerable number of VPN services are already blocked from Turkey, and more will be blocked,” said Akdeniz. Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, MHP, the parliamentary coalition partner of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, AKP, called for efforts to be stepped up to end the use of VPN and proxies.  Using tax laws The president’s director of communications, Fahrettin Altun, says the new legislation is about holding the social media giants financially accountable, accusing them of “uncontrollably making profits in our country and continue their operations immune to any tax obligations.” The European Union is also calling on social media companies to be more financially accountable. In a statement released this month, the EU commission unveiled plans “that extends EU tax transparency rules to digital platforms.” But there is growing international concern over Ankara’s plans. “If passed the new law will enable the government to control social media, to get content removed at will, and to arbitrarily target individual users,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. “Social media is a lifeline for many people who use it to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online censorship.” Until now, social media platforms have walked a tightrope by complying with some — but not all — Turkish regulatory authority demands to remove sites and ban users. But under the proposed reforms, failure to comply would result in substantial fines that they would be obliged to pay if they open an office in Turkey. “If the social media platforms decide to establish offices in Turkey,” said Akdeniz, “then they will be compelled to remove the content as well as close down accounts subject to blocking and removal decisions involving defamation as well as other so-called personal rights violations.” Twitter, Facebook, or Tik Tok  have so far commented on the proposed legislation, but analysts believe the companies have plenty of reason to oppose it.  Lucrative market Turkey’s young net-savvy population is seen as a lucrative market for the social media giants. FILE – People wearing face masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus, walk a in popular shopping street, in Ankara, Turkey, June 27, 2020.The growing popularity of social media as an alternative to mainstream media, most of which is under government control, is seen as Erdogan’s primary motivation behind the pending legislation. “Even members of the AKP and MHP constituencies consider social media as their primary source of information,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.  “One of the main reasons Erdogan could make so many mistakes and still stay in power is because he controls the flow of information reaching his entire voting segment, now he realizes those days have gone. People have moved to an alternative medium which he has no control,” added Yesilada. With the Turkish economy hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, recent opinion polls suggest Erdogan’s AKP’s popularity is at historic lows, even though it remains the most popular party with Turkey’s fractured opposition.  The proposed law opens the door to revamping Erdogan’s and his party’s image. “News websites, as well as social media platforms, will be compelled to remove content from their servers and news archives,” said Akdeniz. “The idea behind this is to cleanse AKP’s and the government’s past injustices, corruption, and irregularity allegations.” Yesilada warns that even if the latest reforms succeed, the Turkish leader could yet pay a high price. “We have ample survey evidence that the young generation are hooked to social media, and they already have a poor view of Mr. Erdogan and his politics. Controlling social media will completely turn them off the AKP and Mr. Erdogan.” 
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Johnny Depp’s libel case against a British tabloid that accused him of abusing ex-wife Amber Heard was wrapping up Tuesday after three weeks of court hearings that dissected a toxic celebrity love affair.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the newspaper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, at the High Court in London over an April 2018 article that called him a “wife-beater.”  
In closing arguments, Depp’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said the actor strongly denied “this reputation-destroying, career-ending allegation.”
Once Sherborne is finished, judge Andrew Nicol will retire to sift claim and counterclaim as he considers his verdict. He is expected to hand down his ruling in several weeks.What Is The Judge Deciding?
Neither Depp nor Heard is on trial, though it has been easy to forget that during a case that raked over messy details of the couple’s volatile relationship.
Depp is the claimant in the civil case, NGN and Wootton are the defendants and Heard is their main witness. To defeat Depp’s libel claim, the newspaper must persuade the judge that, on the balance of probabilities, its story was accurate.
NGN’s lawyer, Sasha Wass, said in her summing-up that there was no doubt Depp “regularly and systematically abused his wife” and so the “wife-beater” label was justified.
But Sherborne said The Sun’s article — which urged J.K. Rowling to have Depp fired from the movie version of her book “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them” — gave the false impression Depp had been “tried, convicted and sentenced” for domestic violence.
“Acting as both judge and jury, the defendants plainly and squarely state that Mr. Depp is guilty (of a) series of serious and violent criminal offenses,” he said.What Is In Dispute?
The two sides agree that the relationship between Depp and Heard, which began after they met on the set of 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary,” soured long before they divorced in 2017. Texts, emails and recordings attest to the increasingly bitter relations between Depp, now 57, and the 34-year-old model and actress.
But they disagree completely over who started and escalated their fights.
Depp denies Heard’s claim of 14 separate incidents in which he allegedly hit, slapped and shoved her, pulled her hair and threw bottles at her “like grenades.” The judge was shown photos of Heard with black eyes, red marks on her face and an injured scalp — alleged evidence of Depp’s violence.
Depp said the photos were part of a “dossier” of fake evidence and claimed that Heard hit him, even severing the tip of his finger with a thrown vodka bottle. Under cross-examination Depp admitted headbutting Heard during a tussle, but said it was by accident as he tried to stop her punching him.
Heard acknowledged having a short temper and said she punched Depp once in March 2015. But she said it was to prevent him hitting her sister.What Have We Learned?
The trial has provided an up-close and often unflattering look at Hollywood stardom, revealing details of Depp’s life of wealth, luxury, emotional turmoil and substance abuse.
Mark Stephens, a media lawyer at law firm Howard Kennedy, said the sensational case “has all of the hallmarks of the Roman arena.”
“People will remember this case not for the results, but for the evidence — the rather nasty, gory evidence — that was involved,” he said.
The settings for the disintegrating relationship were as glamorous as the allegations were sordid. The alleged assaults took place on Depp’s private island in the Bahamas, a Los Angeles penthouse, a luxury train and a private jet.
Depp said in the witness box that he had made $650 million since he joined the lucrative “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise — and ended up $100 million in debt after his financial advisers neglected to pay his taxes for 17 years. Friends described Depp as a generous big spender, and he said he’d spent $5 million sending the ashes of his literary hero, drug-fueled journalist Hunter S. Thompson, into space.  
Whichever spouse was to blame, the relationship left a trail of destruction. Damage to a rented house in Australia where the couple had an altercation was estimated at more than $100,000. The couple’s downtown L.A. penthouse was trashed during another argument.
The low point of the relationship, according to Depp, came when excrement was found in a bed at the penthouse. Heard blamed one of the couple’s two Yorkshire terriers, but Depp suspected Heard or one of her friends was to blame.Who Are The Winners And Losers?
British libel law is widely considered to favor claimants over defendants, but Depp could end up a loser even if he wins.
Depp said he sued The Sun because his career had been harmed by Heard’s allegations. But the case has amplified the claims for millions of people around the world, whatever the judge ends up deciding.
“It almost beggars belief that anyone rational has taken this case to court,” Stephens said. “Now, I know that many people say it’s all about vindication. It’s all about proving he’s not a wife beater. But the stakes are very, very high for everybody. And at some level, mud sticks.”
Heard also has had her character questioned and has been accused of fabricating evidence. She was accused by a #MeToo activist, Katherine Kendall, of appropriating a violent rape that happened to Kendall for her own ends.
The most likely winners are Wass and Sherborne, tough lawyers who both made strong cases for their clients. Sherborne also has a starring role in another big celebrity trial — he’s representing the Duchess of Sussex in her lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newspaper over publication of a private letter she sent to her father Thomas Markle.Will The Verdict Be The End Of The Story?
Not likely. Depp is suing Heard for $50 million in Virginia over a Washington Post story about domestic violence. The trial is due to be held next year.
Stephens said that if Depp “loses in London, he’s almost certain to lose that American case. So this is in some ways a dress rehearsal for the second case.”
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The advert on an elevator door at Washington’s Dulles airport read: “Say Hi And Smile At Your Fellow Travelers. It’s Good for Everyone.” That’s easier said than done when you are wearing a mask – and there are no other travelers in sight! I am used to flying a lot. Because of work, sometimes several times a month. I am seldom anxious. There have been the odd anxiety-inducing trips, mainly into war-torn countries. A flight on a wave-hopping small turboprop from Malta into Libya’s Tripoli wasn’t much fun. But I can confide that I was unusually anxious last week taking a flight to London. In fact, the flight turned out to be one of the smoothest transatlantic trips I have taken in 40 years — mainly thanks to the lack of ‘fellow travelers.’ The normally bustling Dulles airport was empty. There were just three other international flights departing the airport on the night I flew out. There were only four other people checking in at the same time as me. Security was a breeze. The normally bustling Dulles Airport was forlorn. “There were just three other international flights departing the airport on the night I flew out.” (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)But there was something forlorn about the airport. Only two small stores were open. The lounges were shuttered. And the few other passengers around were keen to steer very clear of each other. I didn’t have to worry about space between me and others on the Airbus — there were only 30 to 40 passengers on the no-frills flight. Oh, the joy of being able to stretch out. Shouting over masks“We were shouted at for wearing masks. This is why the situation in the U.S. is so dire,” Alex Crawford of Britain’s Sky News explained in a recent broadcast. British broadcasters have been reporting obsessively on the resistance to wearing masks in America. The BBC asked in a recent report: “Why is there a U.S. backlash to masks?” “Many protesters across the States have been pictured defying social distancing guidance without masks or face coverings,” reported Ritu Prasad. “This is in marked contrast to other countries,” she added. And would those counties include Britain — or, to be more precise, England, where Sky News and the BBC are headquartered? Not at all, as I discovered, after arriving in London last week. I had been expecting, when I left Heathrow Airport, to see a masked England. But masks were less in evidence than in the United States. I’d flown from West Virginia, a state not noted for a warm embrace of face-coverings. The governor, Jim Justice, only recently made masks compulsory for shoppers. But even before the gubernatorial instruction, I’d estimate around 70 percent used their own initiative and covered up. Most local stores long ago asked customers to wear masks. But at a large Sainsbury’s supermarket in an affluent suburb of Britain’s capital, only a handful of shoppers had face-coverings. And just one store assistant who might as well not have bothered, since she was only half-covering her mouth and her nose not all.  On Friday, mask-wearing for shoppers became mandatory in England’s stores; Scotland ordered everyone to cover up weeks ago. Whether the English do observe the mask rule will be interesting to watch. Supermarket chains Sainsbury’s and Asda have announced they won’t enforce the rule — and police forces say they have insufficient manpower. Not much different from US A recent report by London University’s Imperial College and the YouGov pollsters noted: “Britons are uniquely reluctant to wear face masks, given the level of fear around COVID-19 and the number of cases in the country.” They found just 37 percent of people were wearing masks before the mask order came into effect. I asked a Sainsbury’s employee on the eve of the new rule whether she planned to wear a mask. “I am not sure. Anyway I can’t,” she said. “Why not?” I asked. “Cos I don’t like them,” she replied. On Saturday, after the rule came into effect, the locals appeared to be observing the mask rule in the picture-postcard Berkshire village of Cookham, along the River Thames. “We are a well-behaved lot around here,” said Sandy, a barista at Mr. Cooper’s Coffee House. But she told me she’d seen earlier voluble disagreements about wearing masks outside a Tesco supermarket in Maidenhead, a nearby town. Mask-wearing has also divided Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s cabinet. And that has not helped to get the message across that face-coverings can prevent transmission of the coronavirus, as a series of studies have shown. For those interested, some links here:This stretch of the Thames was described by Jerome K. Jerome, a nineteenth century English writer, as “the sweetest stretch of all the river.” (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)Hardly surprisingly, people are escaping to the countryside as well as flocking to England’s rivers, trying to leave the coronavirus muddle behind them.The Thames flows by Cookham and Maidenhead. Jerome K. Jerome, a 19th century English writer, described this part of the Thames as “the sweetest stretch of all the river.” In his book “Three Men in a Boat,” a sentimental account of a two-week boating trip with friends, the author complains, though, that, “as a rule on the river, the wind is always dead against you whatever way you go.” “It is against you in the morning, when you start for a day’s trip, and you pull a long distance, thinking how easy it will be to come back with the sail. Then, after tea, the wind veers round, and you have to pull hard in its teeth all the way home.” That could serve as a metaphor for the coronavirus pandemic. But then, as Jerome adds: “This world is only a probation, and man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”  
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Austria’s tourism industry received a blow after 53 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed since last week in the popular resort town of St. Wolfgang. The lakeside resort shortened bar opening hours after a coronavirus outbreak was detected on Friday. The local tourism office said at least 50 of those new cases were seasonal workers from abroad in the hospitality industry. In an interview Monday, Health Minister Christine Haberlander said more than 1,000 additional COVID-19 tests were conducted by the Austrian authorities in St. Wolfgang. The provincial government said guests who stayed in town from July 15 will be informed about the outbreak. Tourism officials say news of the outbreak already caused many to cancel hotel reservations over the weekend. Two of the hotels there have closed. Many of the town’s businesses reportedly are worried that visitors will stay away for the rest of the season. St. Wolfgang, situated on Wolfgangsee Lake, one of Austria’s best-known lakes, was once a favorite vacation spot of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.  Austria’s coronavirus outbreak has been relatively limited compared to other Western European countries. It has recorded 20,510 cases and 713 deaths, though infections have accelerated in the past month. 
 
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A Brooklyn man who told French police investigators that he killed his wife by stabbing her twice during an argument has been charged with her murder, a prosecutor said Monday. The French-American, identified in French media reports as Billy Kruger, told investigators that he acted in self-defense, Marie-Agnès Joly, a prosecutor in the southwest city of Narbonne, told The Associated Press. Kruger was placed under formal investigation Sunday on a preliminary charge of aggravated murder and ordered held in jail, pending a possible trial. The body of his wife, 52-year-old Laure Bardina-Kruger, was found Friday in Peyriac-de-Mer, on the Mediterranean coast, south of Narbonne. The couple lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he is a diving instructor and she worked as a teacher, Joly said. The couple had a holiday home in Peyriac-de-Mer, and police found the wife’s body hidden in the storm drain nearby. The husband was detained Friday as he was preparing to fly from Toulouse, bound for Jakarta, the prosecutor said. The couple had been expected to fly out together. The wife’s parents raised the alarm after they were unable to reach the couple by phone ahead of the flight. Police sent to the couple’s home found that the wife’s belongings were still there. They then learned that the husband had checked into the flight alone. He was arrested in the boarding zone of the airport. During police questioning, the man said he stabbed his wife twice, the prosecutor said. He said they’d been arguing and he put forward “a vague” explanation of self-defense, she said. The investigation is continuing.  
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging citizens to exercise and shed weight, saying he has done so since his recovery earlier this year from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.  The prime minister’s office introduced a “Better Health” campaign Monday and released a video of himself walking his dog and talking up the benefits of regular exercise.Johnson said at the peak of his illness, when he was taken into the intensive care unit to be treated for COVID-19, he was way overweight. Since he returned from the hospital, Johnson said he started running, which has become easier for him and that he has lost more than six kilograms.Johnson’s advice comes after a recent report from Public Health England showing the overweight and obese are at greater risk for severe illness and of death from COVID-19.  The prime minister said losing weight and becoming fit would also protect the National Health Service from becoming overwhelmed with patients.Johnson said he doesn’t want to be excessively “bossy or nannying” about losing weight, because he understands the struggles many people have with doing so. He said he just wants to be helpful.  As part of the “Better Health” campaign, Johnson’s government will fight the “obesity time bomb” by banning advertising of junk food before 9.00 p.m., ending “buy one get one free” deals and putting calories on menus.  Government data show more than 60% of British citizens are overweight as is one in three children. The data indicate overweight children are five times more likely to become overweight adults.Losing weight is hard but with some small changes we can all feel fitter and healthier.If we all do our bit, we can reduce our health risks and protect ourselves against coronavirus – as well as taking pressure off the NHS. Our Better Health Strategy https://t.co/WdazXhuhRNpic.twitter.com/KZhW8p17FJ— Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) July 27, 2020 
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St. Bernards are known for helping to rescue distressed travelers in the mountains, but the tables were turned Sunday in northern England. Sixteen volunteers from the Wasdale mountain rescue team took turns carrying Daisy, a 55 kilogram St Bernard, from England’s highest peak, Scafell Pike. The mountain rescue team spent nearly five hours rescuing Daisy, who had collapsed Friday evening while descending the mountain with her owners.  Rescue workers said Daisy was displaying signs of pain in her rear legs and was refusing to move. After consulting with a veterinarian’s office, they administered some pain relief and adjusted their stretcher, which is designed for humans, to be more dog friendly. They also packed a few treats to help settle her down. “Having team members with their own pampered pooches at home, and also our much-adored search dog Jess, we recognize the distress that both an animal can feel and also that of their owners,” the team said. They said Daisy was recovering from her ordeal. Scafell Pike, 978 meters (3,209 feet) above sea level, is in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria.  The Wasdale Mountain Rescue team relies on donations to fund their mountain safety efforts. 
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Serbia is seeking to further strengthen its armed forces by purchasing more warplanes, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Sunday. Vucic made the statement while visiting an army tank brigade in Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia’s autonomous province of Vojvodina. “We cannot keep track of the gifts and donations that certain NATO counties in the neighborhood are getting from the United States, Germany and other countries and therefore we must fight alone to preserve the peace alone and to preserve our future alone,” Vucic said. Vucic did not specify what warplanes Belgrade plans to buy but said the intention is the safety of his country and the stability and peace in the Balkan region. “We, as a military neutral country, want to preserve our military neutrality, which means that we look after our sky alone, to look after our country alone. We will invest money and I believe that we, by not wanting to participate in any sort of race, will always be able to guarantee safety, stability but also peace,” Vucic continued. Pro-government media reported that Serbia had officially asked the United States for 20 fighter-bombers, but Washington had not responded to the request.  The report, however, speculated that in case of a U.S. refusal, Serbia was likely to purchase “Sukhoi-25” attack aircraft from Russia. “The Americans, Turks and Germans are taking care of their beloved child,” Vucic said, referring to Kosovo. He said Washington had recently equipped Kosovo’s security forces with armored vehicles. Although claiming Serbia’s military neutrality, Belgrade has recently received a sophisticated anti-aircraft system from Russia, including fighter jets, attack helicopters, and armored vehicles. Serbia has also obtained military drones from another ally, China. The U.S. has said that it would impose sanctions against Serbia if Moscow sends more arms to the country, which could threaten the security of neighboring NATO members. 
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