Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told British lawmakers Monday that the social media giant “unquestionably” amplifies online hate. 

In testimony to a parliamentary committee in London, the former Facebook employee echoed what she told U.S. senators earlier this month.

Haugen said the media giant fuels online hate and extremism and does not have any incentive to change its algorithm to promote less divisive content.

She argued that as a result, Facebook may end up sparking more violent unrest around the world.

Haugen said the algorithm Facebook has designed to promote more engagement among users “prioritizes and amplifies divisive and polarizing extreme content” as well as concentrates it. 

Facebook did not respond to Haugen’s testimony Monday. Earlier this month, Haugen addressed a Senate committee and said the company is harmful. Facebook rejected her accusations. 

“The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

Haugen’s testimony comes as a coalition of new organizations Monday began publishing stories on Facebook’s practices based on internal company documents that Haugen secretly copied and made public. 

Haugen is a former Facebook product manager who has turned whistleblower. 

Earlier this month when Haugen addressed U.S. lawmakers, she argued that a federal regulator was needed to oversee large internet companies like Facebook. 

British lawmakers are considering creating such a national regulator as part of a proposed online safety bill. The legislation also proposes fining companies like Facebook up to 10% of their global revenue for any violations of government policies. 

Representatives from Facebook and other social media companies are set to address British lawmakers on Thursday. 

Haugen is scheduled to meet with European Union policymakers in Brussels next month.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
…

“Belfast”, a film drama by acclaimed actor and director Kenneth Branagh, chronicles the beginnings, in 1969, of the thirty-year political and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. Penelope Poulou reports.
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For the world watch section of VOA’s Press Freedom page.

Noted Russian journalist Sergei Reznik, who specializes in anti-corruption investigations, has been added to the Interior Ministry’s wanted list.

Reznik’s name was added to the wanted list over the weekend, local media reported. He is thought to be living outside of Russia.

No details for his placement on the list were provided, though some media reports cited law enforcement sources as saying that Reznik is wanted for the alleged “justification of Nazism.” 

The accusation stems from unspecified social-media posts that appeared on accounts suspected of being connected to him, they added.

In 2013, Reznik, who is from the Rostov region, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of bribery and publicly insulting an official representative of the authorities. Later, he was sentenced to another 18 months in prison after a court found him guilty of false denunciation.

Reznik maintained his innocence and continued to work as an investigative journalist after serving the prison terms.

He says that a total of seven criminal cases have been opened against him with all of the alleged victims being prosecutors, judges, or police officials.

He also claims that over the past year, 15 statements from people in the Krasnodar region were submitted to the police and the prosecutor’s office against him and three of his colleagues.
…

British finance minister Rishi Sunak’s budget this week will include an extra $8.1 billion of spending for the health service over the next few years to drive down waiting lists, the finance ministry said on Sunday.   

The sum comes on top of an $11 billion package announced in September to tackle backlogs built up over the COVID-19 pandemic, the finance ministry said.   

The spending is aimed at increasing what is termed elective activity in the National Health Service (NHS) — such as scans and non-emergency procedures — by 30% by the 2024/25 financial year. 

The increase comprises $3.2 billion for testing services, $2.9 billion to improve the technology behind the health service, and $2 billion to increase bed capacity.   

“This is a game-changing investment in the NHS to make sure we have the right buildings, equipment and systems to get patients the help they need and make sure the NHS is fit for the future,” Sunak said in a statement. 

Sunak is expected to set fairly tight limits for most areas of day-to-day public spending in his budget on Wednesday, which will seek to lower public debt after a record surge in borrowing during the pandemic. 
…

Russians hoping to apply for an immigrant visa to the United States are now required to travel to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, the State Department confirmed Sunday, while blaming restrictions imposed by Moscow.

That development came amid unresolved U.S.-Russian tensions, and tit-for-tat expulsions that earlier led Moscow to limit the number of U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia.

Russia condemned the U.S. visa move and it prompted a heated rejoinder from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

American diplomats, she wrote on the Telegram platform, had long been “destroying” the consular services system in Russia, turning what should be a routine, technical procedure “into a real hell.”

The State Department, for its part, pinned the blame squarely back on Moscow.

“The Russian government’s decision to prohibit the United States from retaining, hiring or contracting Russian or third-country staff severely impacts our ability to provide consular services,” a State Department spokesman said in a statement received by AFP. “The extremely limited number of consular staff in Russia at this time does not allow us to provide routine visa or U.S. citizen services.”

It added: “We realize this is a significant change for visa applicants,” and it cautioned them not to travel to Warsaw before booking an appointment with the embassy there.

The statement recognized that the shift to Warsaw, which took effect this month, was not an “ideal solution.”

It added: “We considered a number of factors including proximity, availability of flights, convenience for applicants… the prevalence of Russian speakers among our locally engaged personnel, and the availability of staff.”

Warsaw is about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Moscow.

On the State Department website, Russia has been added to a short list of countries where “the United States has no consular representation or in which the political or

security situation is tenuous or uncertain enough” to prevent consular staff from processing immigrant visa applications.

Most countries on that list have poor or no direct relations with the U.S., including Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Amid a continuing dispute over how many diplomats each side can post in the other’s country, Russia has placed the U.S. on a list of “unfriendly” countries requiring approval to employ Russian nationals.

Russian applicants for nonimmigrant visas can still apply at any overseas U.S. embassy or consulate so long as they are physically present in that country, the U.S. statement said.

Meantime, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow will be able to process only “diplomatic or official visas.”

Successive rounds of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions by the two countries have left embassies and consulates badly understaffed, playing havoc with normal services.

This was a central subject of talks two weeks ago during a Russia visit by Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, but little progress was announced.
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The spiritual leader of the world’s 200 million Eastern Orthodox Christians was hospitalized Sunday in Washington on the first full day of a planned 12-day U.S. visit and will stay overnight, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America said.

The archdiocese said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was preparing to leave for a service at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in the nation’s capital when he felt unwell “due to the long flight and full schedule of events upon arrival.”

“His doctor advised him to rest and out an abundance of caution” go to George Washington University Hospital “for observation,” according to the archdiocese. Later Sunday, it said the patriarch “is feeling well” and was expected to be released Monday.

Bartholomew, 81, has a broad agenda spanning religious, political and environmental issues. His schedule includes a meeting Monday with President Joe Biden and various ceremonial and interfaith gatherings.

The patriarch is considered first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox hierarchy, which gives him prominence but not the power of a Catholic pope.

Making the latest of several trips to the country during his 30 years in office, Bartholomew is expected to address concerns ranging from a pending restructuring of the American church to his church’s status in his homeland, Turkey.

Bartholomew is scheduled to receive an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame on Thursday in an event highlighting efforts to improve Orthodox-Catholic ties, centuries after the two churches broke decisively in 1054 amid disputes over theology and papal claims of supremacy.

Just as his influence is limited in Turkey, it is also limited in the Eastern Orthodox communion, rooted in eastern Europe and the Middle East with a worldwide diaspora.

Large portions of the communion are in national churches that are independently governed, with the ecumenical patriarch having only symbolic prominence, though he does directly oversee Greek Orthodox and some other jurisdictions.

The Russian Orthodox Church, with about 100 million adherents, has in particular asserted its independence and influence and rejected Bartholomew’s 2019 recognition of the independence of Orthodox churches in Ukraine, where Moscow’s patriarch still claims sovereignty.

In addition to his scheduled meetings with top U.S. officials, Bartholomew also plans to hold a ceremonial door-opening at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine in New York City, which was built to replace a parish church destroyed during the 9/11 attacks, and to memorialize those killed at the nearby World Trade Center. 

A 2017 Pew Research Center report found that there were about 200 million Eastern Orthodox worldwide. It reported about 1.8 million Orthodox in the United States, with nearly half of those Greek Orthodox.
…

Pope Francis on Sunday made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning migrants rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence.”

Francis also waded into a highly contentious political debate in Europe, calling on the international community to find concrete ways to manage the “migratory flows” in the Mediterranean. 

“I express my closeness to the thousands of migrants, refugees and others in need of protection in Libya,” Francis said. “I never forget you, I hear your cries and I pray for you.” 

Even as the pontiff appealed for changes of migrant policy and of heart in his remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square, hundreds of migrants were either at sea in the central Mediterranean awaiting a port after rescue or recently coming ashore in Sicily or the Italian mainland after setting sail from Libya or Turkey, according to authorities.

“So many of these men, women and children are subject to inhumane violence,” he added. “Yet again I ask the international community to keep the promises to search for common, concrete and lasting solutions to manage the migratory flows in Libya and in all the Mediterranean.”

“How they suffer, those who are sent back” after rescue at sea, the pope said. Detention facilities in Libya, he said “are true concentration camps.” 

“We need to stop sending back [migrants] to unsafe countries and to give priority to the saving of human lives at sea with protocols of rescue and predictable disembarking, to guarantee them dignified conditions of life, alternatives to detention, regular paths of migration and access to asylum procedures,” Francis said. 

U.N. refugee agency officials and human rights organizations have long denounced the conditions of detention centers for migrants in Libya, citing practices of beatings, rape and other forms of torture and insufficient food. Migrants endure weeks and months of those conditions, awaiting passage in unseaworthy rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats arranged by human traffickers. 

Hours after the pope’s appeal, the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said that its rescue ship, Geo Barents, reached a rubber boat that was taking on water, with the sea buffeted by strong winds and waves up to three meters (10 feet) high. It tweeted that “we managed to rescue all the 71 people on board.” 

The group thanked the charity group Alarm Phone for signaling that the boat crowded with migrants was in distressed. 

Earlier, Geo Barents, then with 296 migrants aboard its rescue ship, was awaiting permission in waters off Malta to disembark. Six migrants tested positive for COVID-19, but because of the crowded conditions aboard, it was difficult to keep them sufficiently distant from the others, Doctors Without Borders said. 

In Sicily, a ship operated by the German charity Sea-Watch, with 406 rescued migrants aboard, was granted permission to enter port. But Sea-Watch said that a rescue vessel operated by a Spanish charity, with 105 migrants aboard, has been awaiting a port assignment to disembark them for four days.

While hundreds of thousands of migrants have departed in traffickers’ boats for European shores in recent years and set foot on Sicily or nearby Italian islands, many reach the Italian mainland.

Red Cross officials in Roccella Ionica, a town on the coast of the “toe” of the Italian peninsula said on Sunday that about 700 migrants, some of them from Afghanistan, reached the Calabrian coast in recent days on boats that apparently departed from Turkey.

Authorities said so far this year, about 3,400 migrants had reached Roccella Ionica, a town of 6,000 people, compared to 480 in all of 2019. The migrants who arrived in the last several days were being housed in tent shelters, RAI state television said.

Italy and Malta have come under criticism by human rights advocates for leaving migrants aboard crowded rescue boats before assigning them a safe port.

The Libyan coast guard, which has been trained and equipped by Italy, has also been criticized for rescuing migrants in Libyan waters and then returning them to land where the detention centers awaited them.

On Friday, Doctors Without Borders tweeted that crew aboard the Geo Barents had “witnessed an interception” by the Libyan coast guard and that the migrants “”will be forcibly taken to dangerous detention facilities and exposed to violence and exploitation.”

With rising popularity of right-wing, anti-migrant parties in Italy in recent years, the Italian government has been under increasing domestic political pressure to crack down on illegal immigration.

Italy and Malta have lobbied theirs European Union partner countries, mainly in vain, to take in some of those rescued at sea. 
…

Turkey is facing diplomatic pushback after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the expulsion of 10 ambassadors, including U.S. Ambassador David M. Satterfield, after they called for the release of a jailed civil society leader.

The Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway all issued statements saying they remained committed to defending human rights in Turkey, while the United States and Germany said they were seeking clarification. The countries are among 10 whose ambassadors Erdogan Saturday declared persona non grata, a diplomatic term used to expel a person.

The Turkish president condemned the ambassadors for their rare joint statement calling for the release of the Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala, a move Erdogan condemned as interference in Turkey’s affairs. 

Erdogan said, “They will know and understand Turkey. The day they do not know and understand Turkey, they will leave.” 

Kavala is one of Turkey’s most prominent civil society supporters and a critic of Erdogan. He is accused of seeking to overthrow Erdogan by funding the 2016 coup attempt and 2013 civil unrest. He’s been in jail for four years but he has not been convicted and denies all charges against him.

The Turkish president claims he is defending Turkey’s independence, a stance some observers say plays well with his nationalist voting base — presidential elections have to be held by 2023. Political columnist Ilhan Uzgel of Duvar News portal says Erdogan could be using tough diplomacy to divert public attention from a plummeting currency and looming economic crisis.  

“Erdogan is losing his popularity because the economic conditions are terrible. But if Erdogan has problems with the United States, it works for the nationalist voters. He may accuse the opposition they are cooperating with foreign powers and the CIA and Washington to topple him,” he said. 

None of the 10 ambassadors have so far received formal notification they have been declared persona non grata. Observers say it remains to be seen whether Erdogan is ready to carry out the diplomatic expulsions, a move that could further exacerbate the country’s financial woes and isolation from its traditional Western allies.

 
…

One rape victim was asked by Paris police what she wore that day, and why she didn’t struggle more. Another woman was forced to fondle herself to demonstrate a sexual assault to a skeptical police officer. 

They are among thousands of French women who have denounced in a new online campaign the shocking response of police officers victim-blaming them or mishandling their complaints as they reported sexual abuse.

The hashtag #DoublePeine (#DoubleSentencing) was launched last month by Anna Toumazoff after she learned that a 19-year-old woman who filed a rape complaint in the southern city of Montpellier was asked by police in graphic terms whether she experienced pleasure during the assault. 

The hashtag quickly went viral, with women describing similar experiences in Montpellier and other police stations across France. French women’s rights group NousToutes counted at least 30,000 accounts of mistreatment in tweets and other messages sent on social media and on a specific website.

Despite recent training programs for French police and growing awareness around violence against women, activists say authorities must do more to face up to the gravity of sex crimes, and to eradicate discrimination against victims. 

Addressing the national issue last week, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, “there are questions that cannot be asked to women when they come to file a complaint.”

“It’s not up to the police officer to say whether there was domestic violence or not, that’s up to the judge to do it,” he added. 

He also announced an internal investigation at the Montpellier police station. 

The prefect of the region of Montpellier had previously condemned in a statement what he called “defamatory comments” against officers. He denounced “false information” and “lies” aiming at discrediting police action.

Toumazoff denied launching an anti-police campaign, saying the hashtag aims at urging the government to act.

“By letting incompetent and dangerous officers working in police stations, (authorities) expose the whole profession to shame,” she told The Associated Press. She said the victim mentioned in her initial tweet does not wish to speak publicly while her rape complaint is under investigation. 

The Montpellier regional branch of powerful police union Alliance argued that officers are just doing their jobs. “While police officers understand the victims’ distress, the establishment of the truth requires us to ask ‘embarrassing’ questions,” it said. 

A 37-year-old Parisian woman told the AP about her experience at a police station after she was assaulted this year by a man living near her home, who had previously harassed her in the street.

Once, he blocked her path and pressed her against a wall, touching her belly and her breast and threatening to kill her, she recalled. 

The woman described arriving scared and crying at the police station, where officers welcomed her “very kindly.”

But then, she said, the officer in charge of filing the complaint did not write down her description of the assault, so she refused to sign the document.

“I had to tell it all again,” she said. The officer asked if she was certain that the abuser wanted to touch her breast. 

“I had to make the gesture so that he sees that it was not another part of the body,” she said. “Making me repeat and … mime the gesture in front of a wall, that’s humiliating. I found it very degrading. I felt I was like a puppet.” 

The case is still ongoing. Police suggested a change of apartment to move away from her abuser, she said.

Another Parisian woman, aged 25, said she was left “traumatized” by the police treatment after she had been raped by her ex-boyfriend in 2016. 

When she filed her initial complaint, the police officer, who had received special training, “explained to me why he was asking all these questions, he was in a spirit of kindness,” she remembers. “I felt rather safe and that he believed me.” 

Months later she was summoned to another police station, located in the same street where her attacker was living. Feeling very anxious at the idea of potentially seeing him, she said she was talked to as if she was “stupid” and “a liar.” 

Police asked what she was wearing that day, why it was different from when she was having consensual sex with him, how she could argue she was surprised if he was wearing a condom, she recalled. An officer told her, “I don’t understand why you did not struggle more.” 

The complaint was closed without follow-up due to lack of evidence. The young woman described the police response as very difficult to live through, with a “huge impact” on her private life and almost leading her to giving up her studies. 

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they are victims of sexual assault. 

Speaking to lawmakers at the National Assembly, the interior minister acknowledged things “can still be improved” on the matter across France. 

The government has set the goal of having at least one specially trained officer in each police station for dealing with domestic violence and sexual abuse. An annual survey led by national statistics institute INSEE shows that currently only 10% of victims in these cases file a formal complaint.

The #doublepeine movement comes after the shocking killing earlier this year of a woman who was shot and set on fire in the street by her estranged husband. One of the officers who had taken her domestic abuse complaint a few months earlier had recently been convicted of domestic violence himself. 

Darmanin promised that officers definitively convicted for such acts won’t be allowed to be in contact with the public anymore. 

Women have been raising the alarm for years, Toumazoff said, denouncing announcements by politicians not followed by action. 

“When there are urgent situations, like terror attacks, they can do things because it’s urgent,” she said. “It’s the same here. Women’s lives are at stake. It’s urgent every day.” 
…

Uzbekistan votes in a presidential election on Sunday in which incumbent President Shavkat Mirziyoyev faces no genuine opposition and is almost certain to win a second term.

Mirziyoyev’s predicted victory will allow him to deepen his largely successful reform campaign and likely lead to Uzbekistan opening up further to foreign trade and investment – while retaining a highly centralized political system.

The 64-year-old leader has rebuilt the resource-rich country’s ties with both Russia and the West which had become strained under his predecessor Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s first post-independence president.

Mirziyoyev has also reined in the powerful security services and oversaw a release of a number of political prisoners who had ended up behind bars due to Karimov’s zero-tolerance approach towards dissent.

Still, there are no real opposition parties in the mostly Muslim nation of 34 million and the four candidates running against Mirziyoyev have been nominated by parties which support the president.

Mirziyoyev’s has pledged to cut poverty through rapid economic growth and gradually decentralize decision-making by devolving some powers to district councils.

Due to COVID-19 concerns, voters are required to wear masks and observe social distancing at polling stations staffed with medical workers. Polls are set to close at 8pm local time (1500 GMT) and preliminary results are due on Monday.
…

Tens of thousands of supporters of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his right-wing government marched in Budapest on Saturday in a demonstration of unity behind the populist leader’s contentious policies that have led to challenges to his power both in Hungary and the European Union. 

The rally was dubbed a “Peace March” and participants gathered along the western bank of the Danube River and departed across Liberty Bridge, winding through downtown Budapest toward the site of a rare public speech that Orban delivered to his supporters. 

Orban painted a dark picture of what Hungarians could expect if he is defeated in a national election scheduled for next spring, expected to be the most serious challenge to his power since he took office in 2010.

Orban enumerated his government’s economic achievements, and blasted Hungary’s previous socialist government which he accused of leading the country to financial ruin. 

“It took us years to rectify the destruction of the left wing,” Orban said. “The socialists and their leader have remained hanging around our necks.” 

The march was organized by nongovernmental organization Civil Unity Forum, an active promoter of the policies of Orban’s Fidesz party, which has dominated Hungary’s parliament with a two-thirds majority since 2010.

The group’s chairman, Laszlo Csizmadia, told The Associated Press before the march departed that the event was meant to demonstrate Hungary’s sovereignty to the EU, which he said had “undeservedly” attacked Hungary in recent attempts to reign in what the bloc sees as democratic backsliding.

“We think that we have a right to state our opinions in the long term in the European Union,” Csizmadia said. 

Orban also took aim at the EU, saying that Brussels had conducted a sustained attack on Hungary over its economic and immigration policies that have put his government at odds with the bloc’s leaders.

“Dozens of prime ministers have attacked Hungary. We are still here, but who can remember even their names?” he said.

Laszlo Csendes came to the march from Veszprem, a city 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Budapest. He said Orban’s performance since 2010 had led to Hungarians “prospering” and an improvement in economic conditions.

“There are new jobs, you’ve just got to look around,” Csendes said. “There’s money for everything, and for everyone.” 

Orban’s staunchly anti-immigration government faces increasing pressure both in Hungary and internationally. The EU, of which Hungary is a member, is considering imposing financial penalties on the country over concerns that Orban has eroded democratic institutions and the rule of law in pursuit of what he calls an “illiberal democracy.”

At home, Hungary’s six largest opposition parties have vowed to put aside ideological differences and form a coalition to challenge Orban’s party in upcoming elections.

The parties argue the unity strategy is the only way to overcome a media environment dominated by government-aligned outlets and an electoral system unilaterally authored and passed by Fidesz which they say gives the ruling party an unfair advantage.

The six-party opposition coalition concluded a primary race last week where voters elected independent candidate Peter Marki-Zay to be Orban’s challenger for prime minister on the unity ticket. A self-described conservative Christian, Marki-Zay has argued he can appeal both to Hungary’s liberal voters and disaffected Fidesz supporters.

At a joint demonstration of the opposition parties which drew several thousand supporters on Saturday, Marki-Zay told the AP that he would lead the coalition in doing away with corruption, crackdowns on the media and abuse of government institutions he says has occurred under Orban’s rule.

“Our basic goals for all of us, left and right, is for Hungary to be a democracy, to be governed by the rule of law in a market economy and as part of the European Union,” Marki-Zay said. 

But some participants in the pro-government Peace March, many holding signs critical of the opposition movement, expressed anger at the coalition’s ambitions to defeat Orban’s government.

“I don’t think they are able to govern, they don’t have any concepts,” said Judit Nemeth, a marcher from Budapest. “They only have one goal, to oust Orban, who I think is Europe’s best politician.”
…

Exhausted and trapped in a cold, “cruel” forest, Lebanese barber Ali Abd Alwareth said he regretted his weeklong bid to enter the European Union via the Belarus-Poland border. 

“It’s miserable. Something that you don’t wish for your worst enemy. … A nightmare,” the soft-spoken 24-year-old with Crohn’s disease told AFP.

Sitting cross-legged on a bed of pine needles and dead leaves near the border town of Kleszczele in eastern Poland, Abd Alwareth described being a ping-pong ball for the guards. 

“I tried crossing like five, six times, and every time I got caught and deported back to the border” by Poland, he said in English. 

‘Die here or in Poland’ 

The Belarusian side meanwhile refused to let him return to Minsk to fly home. 

Abd Alwareth said security forces told him: “You have only two choices: either you die here or you die in Poland. That’s it.” 

One of thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, who have tried to penetrate the 400-kilometer (250-mile) border since August, Abd Alwareth said he left the financial crisis in Lebanon in search of a better life. 

The whole journey from his home region of Bekaa cost $4,000 and involved help from a Minsk-based company he found on social media.

The EU suspects Belarus is masterminding the unprecedented influx of migrants into Poland as a form of retaliation against EU sanctions, but the regime has put the blame on the West. 

People in the forest 

Poland has sent thousands of troops, built a razor-wire fence and implemented a three-month state of emergency that bans journalists and charity workers along the immediate border area. 

A group of Polish mothers rallied near the border on Saturday to protest the pushbacks. 

“We feel for the people in the forest,” said Sylwia Chorazy, one of a couple hundred protesters at the border guard facility in Michalowo, eastern Poland. 

“My sons asked me this morning, ‘Mum, what if we too had to spend the night in the woods?’ It’s sad, incredibly sad,” she told AFP. 

During his grueling time in the woods, Abd Alwareth said he drank water off of leaves, was too cold to sleep, and was once hit on the head by either the Polish army or police. 

Though exhausted and devastated, he said he understood that the border guards “are doing their job. They are protecting their country. We are illegal.” 

Aid from activists

On Friday, Abd Alwareth and his Syrian walking companions managed to get in touch with Polish activists, who met them in the forest with warm clothes and food as well as offering support when the guards arrived. 

His fate up in the air, Abd Alwareth hopes to receive asylum in Poland, or at the very least, to return to Lebanon. 

“OK, you don’t want me here, you don’t want me in Belarus. Just deport me back home. That’s all I’m asking for,” he said. 

“What is happening in the forest is cruel. … I feel like a puppet. It was my decision, I came this way, but not to be treated like this,” he added. 

“I refuse to die at the border. I just want to see my mum.” 
…

Italy’s right-wing former interior minister, Matteo Salvini, went on trial Saturday charged with kidnapping for refusing in 2019 to allow a Spanish migrant rescue ship to dock in Sicily, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.  

It is the first trial to go ahead against Salvini for his actions preventing migrant landings while he served as interior minister from 2018-2019 in an uneasy coalition between the populist 5-Star Movement and his right-wing League.  

Salvini was present for the opening day of the trial in Palermo, Sicily, which included procedural requests like witness lists. Among those being summoned is American actor Richard Gere, who visited the migrants aboard the Open Arms after seeing their plight while on a family vacation in Italy.  

“It is surreal undergoing a trial because I did my job. I feel sorry because, I mean, tell me, how serious can be a trial where Richard Gere will come from Hollywood to testify about my career,” Salvini said.  

Salvini was present for the opening day of the trial in Palermo, Sicily, which was expected to deal mostly with procedural requests. He has insisted he was fulfilling his duty by refusing entry to the Open Arms rescue ship, and the 147 people it had saved in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya.  

Salvini took a hard line on migrant arrivals, blocking ships and pushing for Europe to take some of the burden off Italy.  

Prosecutors accuse Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for refusing to allow the ship into port for days in August 2019. During the nearly three-week standoff, some migrants threw themselves overboard in desperation and the captain pleaded for a safe, nearby port. Some migrants were taken to land for humanitarian or health reasons, while the remaining 83 were eventually allowed to disembark in Lampedusa.  

“We expect justice for the unnecessary suffering that all the people had in those 20 days,” said the head of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, Oscar Camps. 

A court in Catania, Sicily, earlier this year decided not to try Salvini in a similar case, for keeping 116 migrants on board an Italian coast guard ship at sea for five days, also in 2019.
…

Russia reported a record number of COVID-19 deaths Saturday for the fifth straight day as the country prepares for a week-long workplace shutdown and the reimposition of a partial lockdown in next week.

A record high 1,075 coronavirus deaths were reported by Russia’s national coronavirus task force over the past 24 hours, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began, boosting the country’s death toll to 229,528, the highest by far in Europe.

Daily coronavirus deaths in Russia have been surging for weeks because of sluggish vaccination rates, casual attitudes toward precautionary measures and the government’s hesitancy to tighten restrictions. The task force said only about one-third of Russia’s 146 million people have been vaccinated, straining the country’s health system.

Putin said earlier this week that employees would observe “non-working days” from October 30 to November 7, during which they would still receive salaries. He said the period, in which four of the seven days are state holidays, could start earlier or be extended in certain regions.

The rollout of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in Namibia was postponed Saturday by the country’s health ministry after the vaccine’s regulator in neighboring South Africa raised concerns about its safety for people at risk of HIV.

The regulator said it would not approve an emergency use application for the vaccine at this time because some studies suggest that the delivery system known as a vector used to inoculate people with the Sputnik V vaccine can cause men to be more susceptible to HIV.

The vaccine’s manufacturer, Gamaleya Research Institute, said Namibia’s postponement was not based on scientific evidence.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists said Friday the risks of inoculating children 5 to 11 years old against COVID-19 are far less than the risk of rare cases of heart inflammation, called myocarditis.

The announcement comes as a panel of outside experts is expected to vote on Tuesday whether to recommend FDA approval of the vaccine for the young age group.

If the agency authorizes emergency immunization, the shots could be available in the United States in early November.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent advisory committee takes up the issue on November 2 and 3.

U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, on Friday released data showing their COVID-19 vaccine is safe and 90.7% effective at preventing symptomatic infections in children 5 to 11 years old.

Pfizer said the trial was conducted among 2,268 children between the ages of 5 and 11 who were given two shots of a 10-microgram dose of the vaccine, a third of the dose given to those 12 and older.

In anticipation of the emergency approval, the White House this week announced plans to deliver enough of the children’s doses of the vaccine to all 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 currently living in the U.S.

Meanwhile in Britain, government scientific adviser Stephen Reicher warned Saturday that the country was “dilly-dallying into lockdown” and called for stronger measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, as the rate of new infections continued to mount. 

His warning came one day after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson continued to dismiss calls for renewed COVID-19 restrictions, saying there is nothing to indicate those moves will be necessary in the coming months, despite the fact Britain is currently seeing a dramatic surge in COVID-19 infections.

Speaking to reporters while touring a London vaccination facility, Johnson said the current surge in infections is high, but still within the parameters experts predicted.

Johnson encouraged people to get vaccinated if they had not already done so, and for those eligible to get a booster vaccination. The British government has approved booster shots for everyone over 50.

With an average of more than 47,000 infections daily, up 18% from the previous week, the World Health Organization reported Friday week that Britain has among the highest number of daily new infections in Europe, the only part of the world that saw an increase in new cases last week.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

 
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Forty-six countries and the European Union have adopted a legally binding mechanism under the so-called Aarhus Convention to protect environmental defenders who risk abuse and harm because of their activism.

The Aarhus Convention was adopted in 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. It is the only global legally binding treaty linking environmental and human rights concerns.  

However, U.N. officials say many of the rights guaranteed under the treaty are being violated.  In recent years, UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova says there have been many reports of these rights not being honored.

“We have seen an increasing trend of environmental defenders living under the threat of retaliation and in the fear for their lives, especially in cases where they speak out against spatial planning and large-scale infrastructural projects.… No one should live in fear for standing up for their environment and where they live,” Algayerova said.   

The UNECE says environmental defenders have been threatened, harassed, intimidated, and even killed because of protest actions against the construction of a dangerous dam, harmful agricultural practices and other environmentally destructive projects.

The new agreement establishes a post for a special rapporteur on environmental defenders. The official will be able to provide a rapid response to alleged violations as stipulated under the Aarhus Convention.

Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor says the creation of this rapid response mechanism could be of enormous benefit to environmental defenders.

“As I outlined in my report to the Human Rights Council earlier this year, 50% of the human rights defenders killed, as recorded by OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) in 2019, had been working with communities around issues of land, environment, in business activity, poverty and lives of indigenous people, Afro-descendants and other minorities,” Lawlor said.

A report by Global Witness last year found of the more than 300 human rights defenders who were killed, 70% were environmental defenders.

The new agreement outlines the various tools available to the special rapporteur for resolving complaints and protecting environmental defenders quickly and effectively.  They include issuing immediate protection measures, using diplomatic channels, releasing public statements, and bringing urgent cases to relevant human rights bodies for action.  
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Russian and Chinese warships held their first joint patrols in the Western part of the Pacific Ocean on October 17-23, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Moscow and Beijing, which staged naval cooperation drills in the Sea of Japan earlier in October, have cultivated closer military and diplomatic ties in recent years at a time when their relations with the West have soured.

The naval maneuvers have been closely watched by Japan which said earlier this week that a group of 10 vessels from China and Russia sailed through the Tsugaru Strait separating Japan’s main island and its northern island of Hokkaido.

“The group of ships passed through the Tsugaru Strait for the first time as part of the patrol,” Russia’s defense ministry said in the statement. The strait is regarded as international waters.

“The tasks of the patrols were the demonstration of the Russian and Chinese state flags, maintaining of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, and guardianship of the subjects of maritime economic activities of the two countries,” the ministry added.
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US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrapped his trip to Europe Friday at the conclusion of the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels, with a focus on China and Afghanistan. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports.
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