The World Health Organization said on Friday it was setting up a new group to trace the origins of the coronavirus, seeking to end what it called “political point scoring” that had hampered investigations.The inability of the WHO to say where and how the virus began spreading has fueled tensions among its members, particularly between China, where COVID-19 cases were first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and the United States.The WHO called for all governments to cooperate to accelerate studies into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and “to depoliticise the situation.”It specified that a new advisory group called the International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens would support “the rapid undertaking” of further studies.”We should work all together. You, me, everyone wants to know the origin of worst pandemic in a century,” WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib said at a U.N. briefing on Friday.Washington on Friday welcomed the WHO plan, noting the “emphasis on scientific-based studies and data driven efforts to find the origins of this pandemic so that we can better detect, prevent and respond to future disease outbreaks.”President Joe Biden in late May ordered aides to find answers on COVID-19 origins and report back in 90 days.In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around the city of Wuhan in January and February said that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal. It said that a leak from a laboratory was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.However, in a documentary broadcast in his native Denmark on Thursday, the WHO mission leader Peter Ben Embarek said that the lab hypothesis merited further study. Ben Embarek could not be reached by Reuters for further comment on Friday.A WHO official said that its statement on advancing the virus origins study bore no relation to those remarks, noting that the Ben Embarek interview was filmed months ago.China said it has never rejected cooperation on tracing COVID-19 origins, state media quoted the country’s vice foreign minister as saying.
…

Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro said his government would not give in to “blackmail or threats” after the United States urged him to make serious efforts toward holding elections if he wants sanctions relief.Washington’s call comes ahead of a Friday meeting in Mexico between representatives of both the leftist government and opposition leader Juan Guaido — considered interim president by the United States — before talks set for August 30 under mediation from Norway.Venezuela is suffering through a crippling economic crisis, exacerbated by a raft of fresh sanctions imposed by Washington following a contested election in 2018.In a state television broadcast, Maduro said his country would go to the talks “autonomously and independently and does not submit to blackmail or threats from the United States government.”Earlier, Maduro said he was seeking an “immediate lifting of all the criminal sanctions” led by the United States, which in 2019 said it no longer considered him the legitimate president after wide allegations of electoral irregularities.State Department spokesman Ned Price said the sanctions were aimed at “promoting accountability” on democracy and human rights.”We’ve also been clear that the Maduro regime can create a path to easing sanctions by allowing Venezuelans to participate in long overdue free and fair presidential, parliamentary and local elections,” Price told reporters.Doing so “requires the Maduro regime to engage in sincere discussions with the opposition — led by, of course, Interim President Juan Guaido — that result in a comprehensive negotiated solution to the Venezuelan crisis,” he said.Guaido is seeking guarantees over electoral conditions as well as the release of political prisoners including Freddy Guevara, who was recently detained.’For our political prisoners’Guaido declared himself Venezuela’s president in 2019 through his position as parliament speaker.The opposition-dominated parliament had claimed Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent, a view shared by the European Union and the United States.Former US president Donald Trump, vowing to crush leftists across the Americas, imposed sweeping sanctions to pressure Maduro including on Venezuela’s key export of oil.But Maduro has withstood the pressure with support from the nation’s military, Russia, China and Cuba despite a crumbling economy that has caused millions to flee.Biden has largely kept in place Trump’s stance on Venezuela while promising a more nuanced approach that relies on US allies.Neither Maduro or Guaido will attend the latest talks, and the government holds most of the cards.In a video retweeted on his official Twitter account, Guaido said: “Today there is unity in Venezuela supporting the possibility of a solution through a comprehensive agreement.” In a later tweet, he wrote: “For our country, for our political prisoners, for the struggle and the sacrifice of thousands, we are going to rise up and move on until we achieve it.”The government and the opposition last held negotiations in Barbados in 2019 that were also mediated by Norway and failed to make a breakthrough.
…

Tropical Depression Fred is producing heavy rains over eastern Cuba, the National Hurricane Center reported early Friday.Fred is moving with maximum sustained winds of 55 kph. The center said Fred is expected to experience “slow strengthening” in the next few days and could become a tropical storm sometime Friday.Fred is expected to move along or just north of eastern and central Cuba through Friday night, forecasters say, and be near the Florida Keys and southern Florida on Saturday. Fred is predicted to be near the west coast of Florida on Sunday.Fred has resulted in tropical storm watches for several areas: the Cuban provinces of Ciego de Avila, Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, and Granma; the Florida Keys west of Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas; and the southwest coast of Florida from Bonita Beach south and east to Ocean Reef including Florida Bay.Fred is expected to produce 2.5-7.5 centimeters of rain over Cuba and the eastern Bahamas, the NHC said, while bringing as much as12.5 centimeters in some locations. In the western Bahamas, Fred is predicted to dump 7.5-12.5 centimeters, with isolated maximum totals of 20.5 centimeters.Through Monday, 7.5-15 centimeters of rain is anticipated across the Keys, the southern and central Florida Peninsula, and north toward the Big Bend of Florida, with isolated maximum totals of 20 centimeters. The NHC said the rainfall could lead to urban, and small-stream flooding, and potentially lead to isolated moderate river flooding.
…

British sprinter CJ Ujah, who won an Olympic silver medal in the 4x100m relay in Tokyo, was Thursday suspended for an alleged anti-doping breach, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced.If the case is proven, then 27-year-old Ujah and the British team will be stripped of the silver they won behind Italy in Japan.The AIU said that Ujah was found to have “presence/use of prohibited substances ostarine and S-23, which are selective androgen receptor modulators (SARM).”They are substances commonly used to build muscle.In his most recent Instagram posting, Ujah wrote: “Stay focused…Because truth is madder than fiction.”As well as Ujah, Bahrain’s 1500m runner Sadik Mikhou, Georgian shotputter Benik Abramyan and Kenyan sprinter Mark Otieno Odhiambo have also been provisionally suspended following adverse tests, the AIU added.”The AIU now awaits the conclusion of the International Testing Agency (ITA) proceedings against the above athletes, which will determine whether any anti-doping rule violations have been committed and what consequences (if any) should be imposed in relation to the Olympic Games,” said a statement.”Any consequences beyond the Olympic Games to be imposed upon the athletes under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules will be determined following the conclusion of the ITA proceedings.” 
…

Six people were killed in a mass shooting in the city of Plymouth in southwestern England on Thursday evening, in an incident described by the British Home Secretary as “shocking.” Two females and three males, including the suspect, died from gunshot wounds at the scene of the incident, the Devon and Cornwall Police said in a statement. Another female died a short time later in the hospital, the police added. Police had earlier described the shooting as a “serious firearms incident” and said the situation was contained. The police added that the incident was not related to terrorism. The United Kingdom has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world, and mass shootings are rare. Sharron Turner, 57, who lives behind the scene of the shooting, told The Times newspaper that a gunman had “kicked in” the front door of a semi-detached house before shooting a young mother and her daughter, who was about 5 years old. Turner said she had been told that the man, who was dressed in black and gray, was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. After the attack, the gunman escaped through a park behind the house and shot two dog walkers, The Times reported. “The incident in Plymouth is shocking, and my thoughts are with those affected,” Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Twitter. Devon and Cornwall Police said they were called to the Keyham area of the city at 6:10 p.m. on Thursday. “Investigations are continuing into the incident, and disruption to the road network in the Keyham area will remain throughout the night,” police said. The South Western Ambulance Service earlier said it had responded to the incident with a significant number of resources, including Hazardous Area Response Teams (HART), multiple ambulances, air ambulances, multiple doctors and senior paramedics. 
 
…

The extreme heat in the Mediterranean region continued to trigger wildfires, with dozens of people killed in Algeria, Greece, Italy and Turkey in recent days. The weather system, nicknamed “Lucifer,” has unleashed record temperatures, and on Thursday it was moving slowly west toward Spain and Portugal.A weather station near the town of Syracuse in southeast Sicily registered what could be Europe’s highest recorded temperature Wednesday, at 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 F). The record had yet to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization.Fire crews said forests and fields, baked to tinder by the intense heat, were easily ignited by such things as a discarded cigarette or concentration of the sun’s rays by a shard of glass.Horrifying sightAt night, the hills of southeast Sicily were lit up in flames. It was a frightening spectacle for the residents of the ancient mountain villages.“Our small town was really invaded by fire. It is a catastrophe. The entire Calaforno Park and the surrounding area went up in flames,” said Giovanna Licitra, a resident of Giarratana. “We are living through some really sad moments because our land has suffered a very serious loss. And it will take a long time before it returns to its former glory.”Goats are seen at a burn area near Krioneritis village on Evia island, about 181 kilometers north of Athens, Greece, Aug. 12, 2021.On the Greek island of Evia, the air was filled with acrid smoke, frequently punctured by the low-flying sorties of water-dropping aircraft. Fire crews have traveled from across Europe and as far away as Russia and Egypt to help. But for many residents, it was too late.“Today, we have a lot of water-dropping aircraft, but they should have been here from day one. The damage now is too big, unfortunately,” said Dimitris, an island resident.The heat has also triggered huge fires in Algeria, which reportedly have killed at least 69 people. Aid agencies said that more than 600 families had been made homeless.  Algerian Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane visited some of the affected regions Thursday and promised further government help.Scientists said governments should make better preparations for further extreme weather.FILE – A man looks at a forest fire near the village of Larbaa Nath Irathen, near Tizi Ouzou, in the mountainous Kabyle region, 100 kilometers east of Algiers, Aug.11, 2021.“It really is horrific, and unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the heat and humidity deaths which we’re going to see, which we can attribute directly to human-caused climate change,” Ilan Kelman, a professor of disasters and health at University College London, said in an interview with VOA.“When we’re up to this level of 45 degrees [Celsius] and over, when this continues for a while, and when we add humidity, really the only way to get through it unfortunately is indoor cooling,” Kelman said. “And most people do not have that. Many people cannot afford it. And we also have the challenge that even if everyone was given access to it and could afford it or were helped, then that would overload the power system. We would see power outages.”Economic disruptionIn addition to the immediate danger to life, the extreme weather disrupts livelihoods and entire economies, Kelman said.“When it’s too hot to be outside, we are not going to have people tilling the fields,” he added. “We are not going to have people harvesting the crops and sending it to be processed for our supermarket shelves. Construction cannot happen. What do we do about repairs for infrastructure which require people being outdoors” when it’s simply too hot to be out there?The weather system was slowly moving west toward Spain and Portugal. Social workers were checking in on the most vulnerable residents, including the elderly.“Weather phenomena that are generated by climate change contribute to this vulnerability. This calls for more care and attention, and puts them at even more risk,” Madrid social worker Clara Garcia told Reuters.Destroyed cars lie in a street after floods and mudslides in Bozkurt town, Kastamonu province, Turkey, Aug. 12, 2021. Floods triggered by torrential rains battered the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun on Wednesday.Meanwhile in northern Turkey, heavy rains have caused catastrophic flooding in recent days, sweeping away cars and buildings and triggering mudslides — echoing scenes from Germany and Belgium last month.Scientists said it showed the urgency of fighting climate change. But in the short term, they warned that extreme weather was increasingly common and said humanity must adapt as best it can.Some information for this report came from Reuters.
…

North Macedonia’s bid for membership in the European Union was held up for two decades by a dispute with Greece over its name. One painful compromise later, the road forward is being blocked again — this time by Bulgaria in a dispute over language and historical grievances. And Albania, whose EU bid is to be considered in tandem with that of North Macedonia, is collateral damage. Both North Macedonia and Albania had high hopes of moving forward this year, but progress was brought to a halt at a June meeting of the EU’s General Affairs Council, where Bulgaria exercised its veto as an EU member to block the start of accession negotiations with North Macedonia.  Among several cultural and historic grievances, Sofia called for North Macedonia to acknowledge that the language spoken there is derived from Bulgarian. That is a bitter pill for the government in Skopje, which already acceded to the addition of “North” to the country’s name to satisfy the objections of Greece, which has a province named Macedonia. FILE – European Council President Charles Michel, right, speaks with North Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev prior to a meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, May 19, 2021.The government in Skopje said it does not plan on giving up on its EU aspirations and that it will continue to actively seek out a solution. “If there is political will and leadership on the side of Bulgaria, I think we can find a European solution that would be good for Macedonian-Bulgarian friendship, for the European promise to the region, and for North Macedonia. But there is an ‘if,’ because we already did our best,” Nikola Dimitrov, North Macedonia’s vice prime minister for European affairs, said in comments reported by Euronews. In a June 28 statement on its Foreign Ministry website, Bulgaria maintains it is committed to resolving its differences with North Macedonia, but it demands an end to what it describes as the suppression of the rights of people in North Macedonia “who identify themselves as Bulgarians.” Experts in the United States — which supports EU integration of the entire Balkans — warn that the delay in starting accession talks with the two countries is likely to be exploited by Russia and China to increase their influence in the western Balkans.  Balkans expert Edward Joseph, a senior fellow with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, describes the impasse as an extremely serious challenge for the EU and its vision.  “This is an unconscionable blockage and imposition by Bulgaria against North Macedonia. Failure to do this will destabilize the Balkans and represents an opening for Russia and China in the region,” Joseph told VOA’s Macedonian Service.Аll other countries in the EU agree that North Macedonia and its 2 million people are more than ready to join the bloc.    “North Macedonia has done what it has been asked; it has done more than any other country has been asked. And we in the United States, we respect what North Macedonia has done in this compromise, which was a true compromise with Greece,” Joseph said. He argued that Bulgaria is demanding that Macedonians “accept a version of history, a version of who they are — except that version that Bulgarians insist upon is against EU values,” which maintain that members must not bring bilateral issues into the accession process. FILE – Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, May 25, 2021.Bulgaria, for its part, maintains that it sees EU enlargement in the western Balkans as a priority and that it does not object to accession talks with Albania, although at present the bloc is not prepared to discuss the one country without the other. “We are resolute to continue the dialogue with the Republic of North Macedonia,” the statement on its Foreign Ministry website says. “We are committed to finding pragmatic, sustainable and mutually acceptable solutions to the challenges inherited from the past.” Joseph argues that if the EU members are not able to bring sufficient pressure on Bulgaria and North Macedonia to move the process forward, the United States should step in. “Washington has to join with Brussels and with key capitals Berlin, Paris and others, and bring requisite pressure,” he said, noting that U.S. President Joe Biden had himself argued in the 1990s for the Clinton administration to do more to integrate the Balkans with western Europe. Erwan Fouéré, a former EU special representative in North Macedonia, offered a similar assessment. “The Americans are expecting the EU to take assumed leadership. And unfortunately, the EU is not assuming the leadership as it should,” he said. “The situation with Bulgaria and the veto that Bulgaria imposed … undermines the entire EU enlargement agenda. So many promises that have been given to North Macedonia, that have been broken, and this is another one now,” he told VOA Macedonian. Fouéré, currently a senior associate research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said the way forward may require “mediation by a third party, by the Council of Europe or OSCЕ. These are all entities that have experience in resolution of bilateral disputes.”   
 
…

The Turkish capital, Ankara, has been hit with a night of violence against Syrian refugees. Turkey currently hosts over four million refugees, and with more coming from Afghanistan and there are growing fears of rising social tensions.Hundreds of people attacked the homes of Syrians Wednesday in Altindag, a suburb of Ankara. Syrian shops were also targeted, with an angry mob looting the contents. The violence was triggered by the killing of a local Turkish youth, allegedly by Syrians.Turkey Faces Dilemma as Afghan Refugees Start Arriving Ankara is extending border wall with Iran as analysts warn of rising social and political tensions if more Afghan refugees enter TurkeyPolice tried to intervene, calling for people to return to their homes, but to no avail, as the violence continued for many hours. Unconfirmed reports say people traveled across the city to join the attacks. No official figures have been given on injuries. Altindag, a suburban electoral stronghold of the ruling AKP party, is home to many Syrian refugees, who had fled Syria’s civil war. A local shop owner, who did not want to be identified, said people’s patience over the refugees is running out.Let them go back. They are everywhere here, left-right center.  He adds, I am only one of three Turkish shop owners left here. Turkey opened its doors to millions fleeing the decade-long Syrian civil war. But political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners says there is growing discontent over the government’s refugee policy, which is likely to be exacerbated by increasing numbers of Afghans fleeing the Taliban arriving in Turkey.”There are not only 3.6 million Syrians; there are at least two thousand Iranians, half-million Iraqis, an unknown number of Africans who came through tourists visas,” Yesilada said. “Now Afghanis, along with other Central Asian nations, are coming, and they are virtually stealing jobs because they work for half the minimum wage, they don’t complain, they stage strikes, so not only in Istanbul and other industrialized cities but also many Anatolian towns, they are favored for manual jobs and agricultural jobs. This is a huge problem; all polls show regardless of political party, Turks want them to go back.”Main opposition politician Kemal Kilicdaroglu declared last month Syrian refugees would be returned within two years of his party coming to power. Wednesday night Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said measures were being taken to control any surge in Afghan refugees.Erdogan said, at the border with Iran or Iraq, walls on the frontiers are rising significantly right now. These walls are to prevent illegal migration to our country.Turkey is constructing border walls and fences along its entire Iranian and Iraqi frontiers. Those barriers are predicted to be tested as observers warn of a potential exodus of Afghans if the Taliban take power.
…

The French call it La Manche, or the sleeve, while the more proprietorial British refer to the narrow arm of the Atlantic separating England’s southern coast from the northern coast of France as the English Channel. At its narrowest point it is just 33 kilometers, but when it comes to the state of Anglo-French relations these days it might as well be as wide as an ocean.For weeks now the British have been trying to arrange sit-down talks between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, but to no avail. British diplomats say Paris won’t agree to a date for a bilateral summit. Their French counterparts say they doubt a sit-down between the two leaders would accomplish anything. FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson and France’s President Emmanuel Macron attend a bilateral meeting during G-7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, Britain, June 12, 2021. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via Reuters)The last time the pair met was at the annual G-7 summit of advanced nations held in Cornwall in June and it led to a bruising dispute over cross-border rules for Northern Ireland, which is treated differently under the terms of the Brexit agreement. Johnson wants a renegotiation.A British claim that the French leader told Johnson that Northern Ireland was not part of the same country as the United Kingdom anymore, drew anger in Britain and fury in Paris, where French officials said Macron’s remark was taken out of context.As The Times newspaper put it last week, with a twist of British understatement: “The entente cordiale seems less than cordial nowadays.”The Entente Cordiale was a set of agreements signed in 1904 between Britain and France, which marked a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations after decades of rivalry in a scramble for African colonies. Now the British accuse the French of “crossing the street to pick a fight every day,” and the French countercharge the British are trying to wiggle out of the divorce agreement they struck with the EU and of not keeping their word.Some former British diplomats agree there might be little point in a Johnson-Macron face-to-face. “The bilateral rows are more numerous and more public than at any time since the major rift over Iraq in 2003. Some level of trust has to be rebuilt before a summit would be worthwhile,” tweeted Peter Rickets, a retired senior diplomat and former chairman of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee under Prime Minister Tony Blair.In some Western defense and foreign-policy circles frustration is rising about the Anglo-French antagonism. “A strong Europe and indeed a liberal Europe cannot be built without Britain,” Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, wrote last week.“So, the success of post-Brexit Britain is a key French interest, just as a strong liberal France is a key British interest. The needs of European defense, together with the overriding need to preserve a liberal order in France and in Europe, make it imperative that the current mésentente [disagreement] be replaced with a new entente cordiale,” he added.Bogdanor blames the French more for the deterioration, arguing Macron sees Brexit “not in geopolitical terms but primarily as an opportunity for French financial and business interests,” and accuses him of trying to marginalize Britain. French observers see Britain as the culprit and maintain Johnson and his ministers resort to criticism of France for domestic political reasons.  FILE – Trucks queue on the A16 highway to enter the Channel tunnel in Calais, northern France, Dec. 17, 2020.Since formally departing the European Union more than year ago — and in the years of ill-tempered negotiations between Brussels and London leading up to Brexit — hardly a week has gone by without the British and French sniping at each other, squabbling that’s amplified by Britain’s notoriously Francophobe tabloid press and France’s equally patriotic media.In his New Year address in January, Macron assured Britain that France would remain a “friend and ally” despite Brexit but slammed the British decision to leave the bloc as one born from “lies and false promises.”  FILE – French fishermen block trucks carrying UK-landed fish to protest for the slow issuance of licenses to fish inside British waters, at the fishing port in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, Apr. 23, 2021.This year alone the countries have clashed over post-Brexit fishing rights for French trawlers off the coast of Britain’s Channel Islands. Johnson deployed Royal Navy vessels to the area as Paris threatened to cut off electricity to the island of Jersey. France responded by sending patrol ships to protect French trawlers.And the two have bickered over cross-Channel migration with London accusing French authorities of not doing enough to stop migrants and asylum-seekers — more than 10,000 a year this year so far — crossing La Manche in dinghies and small boats.Migrants who launched from the coast of northern France cross the English Channel in an inflatable boat near Dover, Britain, Aug. 4, 2021.The pair clashed also over supplies of the Covid vaccine made by Astrazeneca, a British-Swedish company, with the French left fuming at the Johnson government’s frequent readiness to compare the speed of the vaccine rollout earlier in the year in Britain with the much slower inoculation programs in France and the rest of Europe.British pandemic travel rules that singled out travelers from France, until last week, and were stricter than those coming from other EU countries, were slammed as unjustified by Paris. 
…

The governments of Panama and Colombia agreed Wednesday to impose a daily limit on the number of migrants passing through the thickly jungled and roadless Darien Gap on the two countries’ border.The plan aims to limit crossings to 650 migrants per day in August and 500 in September. Migrants, mainly Cubans and Haitians, use jungle paths to travel from South America to Panama, in a bid to reach Mexico and then the U.S. border. Some people from Venezuela, Africa and Southern Asia also use the route.So far this year, Panama estimates more than 50,000 migrants have come through the dangerous Darien route, about double the number in 2018. Officials say about 16% of them are children or youths.The director of Panama’s immigration service, Samira Gozaine, said the agreement will bring improvements.“This is very positive for us, because Panama has seen days in which we get as many as 1,500 or 2,000 migrants entering in one day,” Gozaine. “One week, we got as many as 10,000.”An estimated 15,000 migrants are currently en route through Colombia heading for Panama.The agreement was reached during a teleconference between officials from Panama and Colombia, in which representatives of Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Peru also participated.The two countries said they will also cooperate to prosecute criminal gangs that rob migrants and traffic drugs through the largely roadless area.It remains to be seen how effective the agreement will be. The two countries’ efforts may lead some migrants to hike through even more difficult terrain.At present, the most common migrant route runs from the Ecuadorian border through Colombia to the town of Necocli, where ferries carry people across the Gulf of Uraba to the even smaller border town of Capurgana, Colombia. From there, they head into the Darien Gap.There has been a sharp rebound in the number of migrants from last year, when pandemic restrictions reduced mobility for locals and migrants alike.Panama and Colombia have depicted the limits as an attempt to ensure the migrants’ safety.The goal is to set “a number of migrants that can be received in a safe manner on the Panamanian side,” Panama’s foreign minister, Erika Mouynes, said last week during a visit to the area.Her Colombian counterpart, Marta Lucía Ramírez de Rincón, who also made the visit, echoed that concern, and added that ideally, they do not “want them to pass through Darien, where we know there are so many risks.”Recent rains have made the crossing even more dangerous.“It is a really worrisome situation, because if crossing the jungle during the dry season was dangerous, it is even more dangerous now,” said Santiago Paz, who works in the area for the U.N. International Organization for Migration. 
…

A helicopter carrying tourists plunged into a deep volcanic crater lake on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east Thursday, and rescuers were searching in the lake for up to eight people missing, officials said. At least eight others reportedly survived.The helicopter crashed in the Kronotsky nature reserve, and the regional administration said workers were searching for survivors in Kurile Lake, which was formed in a volcano caldera and crater.Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 13 tourists and three crew members were aboard the Mi-8 helicopter and eight people survived, according to the state RIA Novosti news agency. It said two of them were heavily injured.The Interfax news agency, however, cited officials as saying the helicopter was carrying three crew members and 14 tourists when it went down in deep fog. Interfax initially quoted regional officials as saying that nine people, including two pilots, survived the crash, but later reported that only eight survivors were found while the search for the others is continuing.The varying numbers could not be immediately reconciled. The reports did not list the nationalities of the tourists but said that most of them were from Moscow and St. Petersburg.Regional prosecutors were investigating a possible violation of flight safety rules.The helicopter reportedly is lying at a depth of about 100 meters in Kurile Lake, which is up to 316 meters deep with an area of 77 square kilometers.The helicopter, manufactured during the Soviet era 37 years ago, was operated by Vityaz-Aero, a local private carrier. Its director said it had recently undergone maintenance and was in good shape.The Mi-8 is a two-engine helicopter designed in the 1960s. It has been used widely in Russia, ex-Soviet countries and many other nations.The area where the crash occurred can only be reached by helicopters and the fog was complicating rescue efforts, the RIA Novosti reported. Several local emergency workers, including three divers, were conducting rescue efforts, it said.Kamchatka, the pristine peninsula which is home to numerous volcanoes is known for its rugged beauty and rich wildlife. The Kronotsky reserve, which has Russia’s only geyser basin, is a major tourist attraction on Kamchatka and helicopters regularly carry tourists there.Quickly changing weather often makes flights risky. Last month, an An-26 passenger plane crashed on Kamchatka while approaching an airport in bad weather, killing all 28 people on board.Russian news reports said Vityaz-Aero is half-owned by Igor Redkin, a millionaire businessman who is a member of the Kamchatka regional legislature. Redkin was placed under house arrest earlier this week after he shot and killed a man who was rummaging in a garbage bin. Redkin said the shooting was accidental after he mistook the victim for a bear.There are an estimated 20,000 bears on Kamchatka, and they occasionally roam into settlements looking for food. 
…

After all the turmoil of the last week, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya finally feels safe. The Belarusian Olympic sprinter who found refuge in Poland to avoid punishment at home after criticizing team officials at the Tokyo Games says she now hopes to focus on how to keep up a world-class running career. Speaking in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press at the Olympic Center in Warsaw, the 24-year-old runner said she has already asked Polish officials to help her resume training. “Life changed in one day, and now we are starting it from scratch in a new country,” she said, speaking with her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, by her side. “We are planning to stay in Poland and continue our careers here.”  “We have turned to the Ministry of Sports, turned to the Polish athletics national team, with issues regarding a coach, a group and a place where I can train and many other issues regarding the continuation of my sports career here in Poland,” she said. She emphasized that she and her 25-year-old husband, an athletics trainer who also has been her coach, feel that it would be a waste to abandon an online training program they launched in Belarus. “We had so many ideas. We planned it to a tiny detail,” Tsimanouskaya said. “We have put a lot of time and effort in it, and we would like to keep it going.” Tsimanouskaya said she and her husband feel secure in Poland, where they arrived separately last week on humanitarian visas.  “We are definitely safe now because we are under protection,” she said. The runner recalled the harrowing, confusing moments when she sought Japanese police help at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, when she was being forced by Belarus officials to leave the Summer Games early and return home. “They didn’t understand first what happened to me,” the runner said of the police. “They thought that I was unwell or lost something. And then I wrote that I was being forcibly taken out of the country and I don’t want that to happen.” She used her phone to translate the desperate plea for help after her grandmother warned her not to return to Belarus. The drama began after Tsimanouskaya criticized her team officials, saying on Instagram that she was put in the 4×400 relay even though she had never run in the event. She was then barred from competing in the 200-meter race that she expected to run in and told to pack her bags. At home, the standoff set off a massive backlash in state-run media, deepening Tsimanouskaya’s fears that she would face reprisals if she returned. When she used Google apps to translate her plea to Japanese police, a suspicious Belarusian official asked what was going on. She told him she forgot something at the Olympic Village and needed to return.  Tsimanouskaya described the feeling of safety she finally had after Japanese police took her away from team officials. “I think I already felt secure at the airport when I was with the police,” she said. “I realized that I turned to the police, they are protecting me and my life isn’t in danger. I was being constantly escorted. I felt nervous, and sometimes my hands were trembling, but I wouldn’t say that I felt unsafe. The only place which would be unsafe for me is Belarus.” The standoff again drew global attention to the repressive environment in Belarus, where authorities have unleashed a relentless crackdown on dissent following President Alexander Lukashenko’s being handed a sixth term after the August 9, 2020, presidential vote that the opposition and the West saw as rigged. Huge protests rocked Belarus, and authorities responded by arresting more than 35,000 people and beating thousands. They have ramped up the clampdown in recent months, raiding hundreds of offices and homes of independent journalists, activists and all those deemed unloyal. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years, has denounced his opponents as Western stooges. Asked about Tsimanouskaya at a marathon news conference Monday, he claimed that “she wouldn’t have done it herself if she hadn’t been manipulated.” Tsimanouskaya said she had been apolitical before the standoff at the Tokyo Games and deliberately refrained from signing petitions challenging the authorities, fearing that would bring harm to her husband and her parents. She said she had problems with sports officials after posting a message against violence on Instagram and was told she would face dismissal from the country’s national team if she did it again. After the airport standoff, her husband said they decided to move to Poland after talking to their parents. “After consulting with them, we decided that it’s dangerous to return to Belarus at the moment,” he said. “And we decided that I will follow my wife to support her in a new country and build a sports career in Poland. You know, I was more worried for my wife than myself. I believed that they could use me to hurt her somehow.” Tsimanouskaya and Zdanevich said they badly miss their parents but talk to them on Zoom and hope they could visit Poland someday. They had to leave their dog and cat at their apartment in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, since Zdanevich had to flee quickly, so they asked neighbors and friends to take care of them.  The runner also hopes to sort out a problem with eBay that annulled all bids when she tried to auction a silver medal she has from 2019 to raise money to help Belarusian athletes punished for their political views.  “I was deprived of a chance to take part in the Olympic Games in my event and (eBay) effectively denied me an opportunity to help athletes,” Tsimanouskaya said, voicing hope that the company will correct its mistake and allow her to auction her medal. And she hopes that Belarus will one day become a democracy. “I hope that a time will come soon when Belarus could be free, and people will have freedom of speech,” she said. 
…

President Joe Biden’s special envoy for Haiti, Ambassador Daniel Foote, met virtually with Haitian civil society representatives and politicians Wednesday.  “The special envoy looks forward to hearing ideas and solutions from the group to help their country move beyond its current challenges,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.  Foote’s meeting made headline news in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, earlier this week.    The U.S. diplomatic effort to resolve the political void exacerbated by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7 was the subject of a bipartisan letter Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez sent to Biden on Monday.  “We implore your administration, in coordination with international partners, to engage in a diplomatic effort with a broad range of democratic actors across Haitian society to build the consensus and confidence needed to hold credible presidential and parliamentary elections,” the senators wrote, noting that the United States has “an important role” to play in helping Haiti overcome Moise’s death.  In an interview with VOA Creole on Monday, former Haitian Senator Jerry Tardieu said that although there is an element of skepticism among the opposition, most agree that inclusive, credible and honest elections are needed to move the country forward.     “There is unity,” Tardieu said, “because when I listen to Ann Avan, FND (National Front for Democracy), Tet Ansanm, when I listen to OPL (Struggling People’s Organization), Fusion (of Haitian Social Democrats), Unite (Unity), Veye Yo, Verite (Truth), the Democratic and Popular Sector (of opposition parties), they are all saying the same thing. That means we know what we need to participate in elections. Our differences are small, and I believe that as long as we put Haiti ahead of our personal ambitions, we can easily and quickly agree on a political agreement.”   The U.S. senators’ letter also calls on Biden to assist Haiti in the investigation of the Moise slaying.Haiti holds funeral for assassinated President Jovenel Moise in Cap-Haitien, Aug. 7, 2021.”We urge your administration to assist the Haitian authorities as they investigate this brutal attack and to cooperate with international partners to ensure justice and accountability for all individuals involved,” the letter states.     VOA asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki Wednesday if President Biden has responded to the letter.   “I’m not sure we’ve seen that letter. I’m not familiar with it,” Psaki responded.   Haitian National Police spokesperson Marie Michel Verrier told reporters police have made 44 arrests so far and seized weapons, ammunition and cash in both U.S. and Haitian currencies.    “Forty-four people have been questioned during our investigation. Among them are 18 Colombians, four Haitian Americans and 22 Haitians,” Verrier said during a Monday press conference. “Among these 22 Haitians are 20 police officers.”     Moise was killed at his private residence in a luxury suburb of Port-au-Prince in the early morning hours of July 7. His wife, Martine, was gravely injured and transferred to a Miami, Florida, hospital where she was treated.   The Moise case has now been turned over to the Justice Ministry, the national police said. Judge Mathieu Chanlatte will oversee the case, the dean of the Civilian Court of Port-au-Prince announced Monday. Security has been tightened for the judge, the court said.   Juan Gonzalez, the U.S. National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere, told VOA in July that a team of eight FBI agents were on the ground in Haiti, assisting with the investigation into the slaying of President Moise.     “A number of officials from the Department of Homeland Security are helping on everything from tracing the weapons to the body armor and the cellphones that were being used and [doing] everything possible to get to the bottom of who was involved and who is responsible for the assassination,” Gonzalez said.   Haiti Foreign Minister Claude Joseph sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week, requesting an international inquiry into Moise’s assassination.     “I would like to highlight the limitations, weaknesses and lack of experience of the Haitian judicial system in handling cases of such complexity, which have resulted in serious doubts about the capacity, on one hand, to justly carry out this investigation and, on the other hand, to find and bring to justice to those responsible,” the letter, written in French, said.    U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told VOA the secretary-general received the letter but had not yet responded.   “We’ve received the letter … which asked for assistance into the investigation of the assassination of President Jovenel and the prosecution of those who are responsible. We’re taking a look at the letter, and that letter will be answered,” Dujarric told VOA.  He said the U.N. mission in Haiti currently has four police advisers working with the National Police Inspector General and the Judicial Police.     As for an international tribunal, which is part of Haiti’s request, Dujarric said one of the U.N.’s legislative bodies would make that decision.     “Those (requests) would have to go through competent legislative bodies of the U.N., as we’ve seen them in the past for other various incidents around the world, be it the Security Council, the Human Rights Council or others,” he told VOA.   Jacquelin Belizaire, State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine, White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara, United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer and VOA Spanish White House correspondent Jorge Agobian contributed to this report.
…

A senior executive for Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies committed fraud because of what she said during a meeting with a bank official, and what she did not say, a Canadian government lawyer told an extradition hearing Wednesday.Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder and the company’s chief financial officer, at Vancouver’s airport in late 2018. The U.S. wants her extradited to face fraud charges. Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise.The U.S. accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It says Meng, 49, committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.The lengthy extradition proceeding is entering a phase which involves arguments over the U.S. government’s request to extradite Meng.Justice Department lawyer Robert Frater said the case against Meng is “about dishonest commercial dealings.”Meng met with an HSBC executive after a series of news stories connected Huawei with Skycom.”Ms. Meng’s statements (during the meeting) were dishonest because of what she did say and because of what she did not say,” Frater said.Meng told the bank official that Huawei “was not engaged in any activity that may cause HSBC to run afoul of U.S. sanction law,” Frater said.She also said Huawei was rigorous in its sanction compliance and demanded the same of any partners working in Iran.”The truth is, Huawei was in full control of Skycom,” Frater said. “Skycom is Huawei.”“The dishonesty was partly through painting a picture of distance through what Ms. Meng did say and neglecting to disclose the true nature of the relationship by omission. What we have here are sins of both commission and omission,” Frater said.Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes asked Frater why a large bank like HSBC would rely on the word of one person.Frater said Meng was important because she was Huawei’s CFO.Holmes wondered if it was Meng’s responsibility to explain risk to HSBC.”She is the one that gives them the information which they can assess the risk,” Frater said. “The message she is convening to them is you are at not risk at all because we are complying with all sanctions.”FILE – In this Aug. 31, 2020, photo, an employee wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus stands inside a Huawei flagship store in Beijing.Under further questioning from Holmes, Frater said some business could legally be done with Iran, and it was part of Meng’s job to know what the restrictions were.The judge also asked if Meng assured the bank there was no risk of sanction violations, wouldn’t they assume Huawei had control of Skycom.Frater said the message Meng sent was that Huawei “didn’t work with bad people.”Meng, who attended court wearing a face mask and an electronic monitoring device on her ankle, followed the proceedings through a translator.Holmes isn’t expected to rule on Meng’s extradition until later in the year. Whatever her decision, it will likely be appealed.Meng’s lawyers have denied any dishonesty on her part. They also argue HSBC was not placed at any risk and the charges against her are politically motivated.China’s government has criticized the arrest as part of U.S. efforts to hamper its technology development. Huawei, a maker of network equipment and smartphones, is China’s first global tech brand and is at the center of U.S.-Chinese tension over technology and the security of information systems.On Tuesday, a Chinese court sentenced Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for spying. Spavor and fellow Canadian Michael Kovrig were arrested in December 2018 in apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest.Spavor was sentenced by a court in Dandong, about 340 kilometers east of Beijing on the North Korean border. The government has released few details other than to accuse Spavor of passing along sensitive information to Kovrig, beginning in 2017. Both have been held in isolation and have little contact with Canadian diplomats.Earlier in the week, the Higher People’s Court of Liaoning province in the northeast rejected an appeal by Canadian Robert Schellenberg, whose 15-year prison term on drug smuggling charges was increased to death in January 2019 following Meng’s arrest.Meng remains free on bail in Vancouver and is living in a mansion.Canada and other countries, including Australia and the Philippines, face trade boycotts and other Chinese pressure in disputes with Beijing over human rights, the coronavirus and control of the South China Sea.China has tried to pressure Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government by imposing restrictions on imports of canola seed oil and other products from Canada.Meanwhile, Beijing is blocking imports of Australian wheat, wine and other products after its government called for an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.
…

Afghan clothes and Iranian SIM cards litter fields under the mountains that stand between Turkey and the Iranian border. A wisp of smoke rises out of what was a small fire, abandoned many hours before.  As the Taliban swept through villages and cities in Afghanistan over the past few months, families have fled in droves, many traveling across Iran and into Turkey.  In the past, this route was flooded with refugees trying to get to Europe to seek safety and freedom. Now it’s packed with people making a last-ditch effort to stay alive in Turkey, where they find no humanitarian aid and run the risk of being arrested and deported. Abdul Tawab, 16, fled Afghanistan after his uncle, a lawyer in a government court, was killed by the Taliban, Aug. 11, 2021, in Van, Turkey. (Claire Thomas/VOA)We meet 16-year-old Abdul Tawab outside the park where he sleeps in central Van, a city famous among tourists for its massive lake and among refugees for its proximity to the Iranian border.  Tawab arrived in Turkey two weeks ago, hoping to go to Istanbul to find a job. But like so many other men and boys in the park, he is now out of money and stuck here in Van. Tawab says he is afraid he will be arrested if he draws attention to himself outside, so we walk a zigzag path through the markets until he feels safe at a table upstairs in a café.  In Afghanistan, Tawab supported five siblings and his parents on his carpenter’s salary, which was about $1 a day. He left home after the Taliban had stormed into his village and riddled his uncle with bullets, killing the well-loved father of nine. “He didn’t care if people were rich or poor,” Tawab says. “He liked everyone, and everyone liked him.” Taliban fighters on motorcycles later wrapped his uncle’s body in barbed wire and deposited it in a field, Tawab says. Refugees say the militants will execute anyone who is associated with the Afghanistan government or foreign organizations, or anyone identified as Hazara, a Shiite ethnic group and the country’s largest religious minority. Saranwal Nadir, Tawab’s uncle, was a lawyer in a government court. “We found him in the field,” Tawab says. “His body was lying in puddles of water and blood.”  Crisis beginning Turkey already hosts 3.7 million refugees, more than any other country in the world. But frustration among the population is growing, and many believe this crisis is only beginning.  Garments traditional in Afghanistan and Pakistan are found in an area where refugees hide out in when they first enter Turkey, Aug. 11, 2021, in Van, Turkey. (Claire Thomas/VOA)Twitter in Turkey is alight with rumors about incoming people from Afghanistan. Some say the refugees are increasing crime rates or depressing wages. Another commonly heard complaint is that they are mostly young men, as evidenced by videos online. Young men from Afghanistan say the women and children are mostly in safe houses, hidden from cameras by the same smugglers who kicked the men out onto the streets, sometimes to be rounded up and deported. When the United States fully pulls out of Afghanistan, the borders may be even more packed with people trying to get into Turkey, a relatively safe country that has a history of taking in refugees, says Mahmut Kaçan, a lawyer and the coordinator for the Asylum and Migration Commission of the Van Bar Association.  But once in Turkey, there is no clear path to establishing legal status and no organizations at all to support families in need of food or shelter. The United Nations’ refugee agency no longer processes asylum claims in Turkey, and claims through government offices can take years.  “They are living in limbo in Turkey,” Kaçan says.  Taliban takeover Up at least four flights of sloping concrete stairs, in a two-bedroom apartment in Van, two families from Afghanistan, 12 people in all, say they are afraid to go outside. Inside, the apartment is barren, with almost no furniture and only a few plastic bags of clothes and bedding.  Two families, 12 people total, live in this unfurnished apartment in Van, Turkey, after fleeing Afghanistan, Aug. 10, 2021. (Claire Thomas/VOA)The adults go out only when they think they may find work. But after a month in Turkey, none of them have had any luck. The rent here is less than $70 a month, and the families say they already sold all their belongings to pay smugglers $1,000 per person, roughly the minimum cost to get from Kabul to Van. They borrowed rent money last month and do not know how they will manage in the future.  But as soon as the U.S. announced it would be pulling out, says Saeed Sanaye Sadet, one of the apartment residents, he knew he would never be safe at home again, because he used to work for an American company. We point out that the Taliban have taken over vast swaths of Afghanistan in recent months, but not all of it, and the capital, Kabul, is still held by the government. But Sadet says the fall of the country feels inevitable.  “It’s already happening,” he scoffs, when we ask why he is so sure. Women and girls On the edge of a graveyard in Van, rows of shallow graves cover the bodies of people who died attempting to flee to Turkey.  Many were among the 61 refugees killed in a shipwreck on Lake Van last year. Other graves are identified only by the border-area location where the body was found.  As we drive away from the graveyard, Mohammad Mahdi Sultani, a journalist from Afghanistan who is working with us as a guide and translator, says people have been risking their lives for a long time to escape Afghanistan, which has been at war since the 2001 U.S. invasion.  But the reason people are fleeing is shifting as the Taliban gain ground, he says. His uncle fled his village for Iran because he has two daughters, 19 and 21. When the Taliban came in, they demanded that families place flags outside their houses to indicate whether there were any unwed women or girls inside. Leena Sadet, pictured Aug. 10, 2021, in Van, Turkey, had been a language teacher in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over her area, prompting her to flee the country. (Claire Thomas/VOA)”They say (the Taliban) will marry them,” Sultani says, meaning, by force.  In the crowded apartment up the stairs, Leena Sadet, Saeed Sadet’s wife, says she remembers her mom’s blue burqa from her childhood, when Taliban law forced all women to leave their jobs and go outside only fully covered.  “The same thing will happen if they are in power,” Leena Sadet says. “The women won’t work, and the girls will not go to school.” Mohammad Mahdi Sultani contributed to this report.
…

German authorities said Wednesday that they had arrested a British citizen and accused him of spying for Russia while working at the British Embassy in Berlin.The man, identified only as David S., is suspected of passing documents to Russia for money since at least November. He reportedly worked as a local hire.The British government confirmed the arrest but said in a statement it would “not be appropriate to comment further as there is an ongoing police investigation.”German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger said the German government was monitoring the incident.”We take the indications that the intelligence activity of the arrested man was carried out on behalf of a Russian intelligence service very seriously,” Burger said. “Spying on a close ally on German soil is not something we can accept.”Officials with the Russian Embassy had no comment on the case, according to Interfax.The man was scheduled to appear Wednesday at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny faces a new charge that a non-profit organization he created encouraged Russians to break the law.The charge, which was announced Wednesday by Russia’s Investigative Committee, is punishable by up to three years in prison.The committee says Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption group encouraged Russians to “perform unlawful acts” by encouraging Russians to participate in unauthorized protests in January.Russia Opens Criminal Case Into 2 Navalny Allies They are accused of raising funds for organizations deemed by the authorities as ‘extremist’  
Navalny, 45, is currently serving a two-and-a-half year sentence on a 2014 embezzlement conviction. He was arrested in January when he returned to Russia from Germany where he was recovering from what he said was a nerve agent attack by the Kremlin. Russian officials deny his allegation. In June, Navalny’s foundation was outlawed as “extremist,” and authorities blocked multiple websites run by his network, charging them with distributing propaganda. Two of Navalny’s top allies, Ivan Zhdanov and Leonid Volkov, are facing criminal investigations. Navalny’s allies say the crackdowns are intended to weaken the opposition in the runup to the September 19 parliamentary elections. 
…

The Austrian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday protested the detention of two journalists who were working in Belarus for Austria’s national broadcaster ORF.ORF correspondent Carola Schneider and her camera operator were detained Monday in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and taken to a police station.The broadcaster cited a Belarusian human rights group as saying that plainclothes police officers stopped the two journalists while they were interviewing a local resident. The pair were later released, ORF said.Austria’s Foreign Ministry called the police action “completely unacceptable.””We immediately lodged a protest,” the ministry said on Twitter. “Correspondents must be able to work unhindered and media freedom must always be ensured.”Independent media outlets and journalists have come under pressure in Belarus since the reelection of the country’s authoritarian president a year ago triggered mass protests.
…

Forecasters with the U.S. National Hurricane Center say Tropical Storm Fred, the sixth storm of the hurricane season, has formed in the Caribbean Sea and is expected to move near the Dominican Republic and Haiti Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and the possibility of flooding and mudslides.In its latest report, the hurricane center said the storm was positioned about 190 kilometers east-southeast of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and moving west-northwest toward the island nation at about 26 km/ph.  Its maximum sustained winds were about 65 km/ph.Tropical storm warnings have been posted for the Dominican Republic and parts of Haiti. The storm is expected to bring five to 10 centimeters of rain, with as much as 15 cms in isolated areas. The rain is likely to cause flooding in some areas and mudslides are possible.On its current track, the hurricane center says the storm could threaten the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas by Thursday and move north of the northern coast of central Cuba Friday.Forecasters say some weakening is likely Wednesday as the storm moves over the island of Hispaniola – where the Dominican Republic and Haiti are located. They say some restrengthening should occur after the system moves away from the island, but it may be slow to regain intensity. The hurricane center says, as usual, there is significant uncertainty on the storm’s intensity two to three days from now. 
…

Half-a-dozen European Union countries have told Brussels they want to continue deporting Afghan migrants whose asylum-applications are denied — despite the Taliban’s recent military successes, including overrunning eight of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals in the past week. EU officials told reporters during a briefing Tuesday that they found it inconceivable any EU member states would want to continue with deportations while conflict is raging in Afghanistan and as the Taliban is making major inroads in the wake of the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from the country. But the EU says it is up to the member states what they do, adding to confusion over who has final authority — member states or the European Commission.“Given the context, it is hard to imagine that we would conduct forced return operations for the moment,” an EU official in Brussels said, adding that the continent isn’t facing an imminent major influx of Afghan migrants.Six EU countries sent a joint letter August 5 to the European Commission warning against halting non-voluntary returns of Afghan migrants, arguing any suspension of deportations would act as a migration magnet and “motivate even more Afghan citizens to leave their home for the EU.”Germany, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece signed the letter. “We would like to highlight the urgent need to perform returns, both voluntary and non-voluntary, to Afghanistan,” the interior ministers of the six countries wrote in their collective letter to the Commission. “Stopping returns sends the wrong signal,” they added. FILE – Afghans who were deported from Germany arrive at Kabul International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 15, 2016. 
About 1,200 Afghans have been deported from the EU this year — 1,000 agreed to go voluntarily but 200 or had to be forced to go, according to EU officials. Last month, the Afghan government called on European nations to stop deportations, saying it could not cope while also trying to fight the Taliban.Earlier this month the European Court of Human Rights told Austria not to proceed with the expulsion of an Afghan national until at least later in August because of a “risk of irreparable harm” to the asylum-seeker. Austria announced this month it will deploy additional soldiers to its borders with Slovenia and Hungary, boosting the number of its border guards by 40%.European leaders are fearful of a new migration crisis impacting the continent and are negotiating another multi-year migration deal with Turkey to get Ankara to block Afghan and other asylum-seekers from heading their way.FILE – A Turkish-flagged passenger boat carrying migrants to be returned to Turkey leaves the port of Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos, April 8, 2016.It would be a renewal of a five-year deal struck in 2016 that saw the EU pay Ankara billions of dollars to curb irregular Europe-bound migration, improve the living conditions of refugees in Turkey, and foster legal migration through official resettlement schemes.Around 2,000 Afghans a day are entering Turkey, and migration experts expect the numbers to surge as the Taliban seizes control of more of Afghanistan.  FILE – German policemen register refugees at the rail station in Freilassing, southern Germany, Sept. 14, 2015, before they take them away in busses.Asked last month at a press conference whether Germany should welcome Afghan refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the architect of the 2015 open-doors policy that saw around a million asylum-seekers settle in Europe, replied: “We cannot solve all of these problems by taking everyone in.” She called instead for political negotiations so “people can live as peacefully as possible in the country.”The head of the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, Antonio Vitorino, issued a statement Tuesday saying he’s “extremely concerned by the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan — particularly the impact on mobile and displaced populations, including returnees.” He said around 5 million Afghans are already displaced internally. Internally displaced Afghan families, who fled from Kunduz and Takhar province due to battles between Taliban and Afghan security forces, sit in a field in Kabul, Aug. 9, 2021. 
Greek authorities say Afghans now make up the largest share of asylum-seekers who manage to navigate the Aegean from Turkey.Speaking later Tuesday, Adalbert Jahnz, a European Commission spokesman, said each member state would need “to make an individual assessment of whether the return is possible in a specific set of circumstances, that needs to take into account the principles, notably the principle of rule of law and other fundamental rights.”He stressed: “It’s not something that the EU specifically regulates.”Critics, though, are accusing Brussels of being inconsistent in what it claims authority over when it comes to migration. Last week, the Commission was accused of playing post-Brexit politics by sabotaging a bilateral deal being negotiated between London and Paris. The proposed agreement would see France take back migrants who had tried to enter Britain from France by crossing the English Channel on small boats and dinghies. FILE – Migrants who launched from the coast of northern France cross the English Channel in an inflatable boat near Dover, Britain, Aug. 4, 2021.Priti Patel, Britain’s interior minister, and French counterpart Gérald Darmanin inked an initial agreement supporting “the idea of a UK-EU readmission agreement to mutual advantage in terms of deterring illegal migration, protecting the vulnerable, and tackling the criminal gangs.” More than 10,000 asylum-seekers have crossed the Channel so far this year.But the EU has scotched the deal progressing saying any agreement governing migrants is not a matter for the governments of individual member states to decide but for the bloc as a whole.Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.  
…

President Jair Bolsonaro suffered a major defeat in Congress when Brazilian lawmakers did not adopt his proposal to require printed receipts from some electronic ballot boxes.  Bolsonaro has insisted printed receipts are needed to avoid fraud, without providing any evidence that Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to cheating. His allies needed 308 votes to pass the proposed constitutional change, but got only 229 Tuesday night.  The opposition, however, also fell short of its goal of rebuffing the president with an overwhelming majority but got only 218 votes. Earlier in the day, dozens of military vehicles and hundreds of soldiers paraded past the presidential palace as Bolsonaro looked on, then continued past the congressional building and Defense Ministry. The military vehicles left the city at night. Brazilian Navy tanks pass next flags with the image of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro at the Esplanade of Ministries after a military parade in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 10, 2021.The navy issued a statement saying the convoy had been planned long before the congressional vote. But it was announced only on Monday and critics said it looked like an attempt to intimidate opponents of a president who has often praised the country’s past military dictatorship. Military parades in the capital are usually limited to independence day events. Tuesday’s procession was described as a ceremonial invitation for Bolsonaro to attend annual navy exercises that are held in a town outside the capital. Critics contend Bolsonaro is trying to sow doubt among his passionate supporters about the 2022 election results, setting the stage for potential conflicts similar to those spawned by then U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud in the United States. Bolsonaro has repeatedly insulted Luis Roberto Barroso, a Supreme Court justice who is president of Brazil’s electoral court, accusing him of working to benefit former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has been leading in the polls for next year’s election. The measure voted on Tuesday was a watered-down version of an initial proposal to adopt printouts at all of the nation’s voting ballot boxes. That measure was rejected last week by a congressional committee. Electoral authorities and even many of Bolsonaro’s political allies opposed the proposal, saying it would attack a nonexistent problem and could create opportunities for vote buying. Cláudio Couto, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said Tuesday’s rejection marked the biggest legislative defeat for Bolsonaro. “The administration is getting more frail in every aspect. It suffers in polls, it is investigated in the Senate inquiry on the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chances that Bolsonaro is not reelected are getting bigger,” Couto said. “By insisting in today’s proposal to solve a problem that does not exist, Bolsonaro has made this defeat to be important.” The call for a vote appeared to be a bid by lower house Speaker Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally, to settle the dispute for good and ease tensions. On Monday, Lira called the military exercise taking place the same day as the vote a “tragic coincidence.” “We hope that this subject is finally ended in the lower house,” Lira said after the vote. Juan Gonzalez, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters Monday that Biden administration officials were “very candid” speaking last week with Bolsonaro about elections, particularly in light of parallels with what has happened in the U.S. 
…

Massive forest fires have gripped Greece for more than a week. The government has come under fierce criticism for failing to heed warnings of wildfires amid a protracted heat wave affecting not just Greece but the Balkans and southern Europe.Some of the nearly 600 wildfires that have sparked across Greece, have been brought under control. But fresh ones flared on the island of Evia and in the Peloponnese, adding to the 62 evacuation orders authorities issued over the past week across the country. Several mayors criticized a lack of aerial support in fighting the fires, despite the government’s assurances earlier this year that it had set aside ample resources. But even before the fires began, environmental experts had warned of the pending danger Those experts, including Costas Synolakis, a professor of natural hazards management, say the government in Athens has yet to grasp the extent of the threat of climate change.“I think politicians are simply not prepared for the scale of devastation. Politicians need to start understanding that if we do not act, this is the new normal and perhaps it is already too late,” Synolakis said. “What we need to do is stabilize the climate so that we do not see anything worse than what we see now.” The warning follows Monday’s nationally televised address by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “The destruction in Evia and elsewhere blackens everyone’s hearts.… And I first of all, apologize for any shortcomings shown by the state in its response,” Mitsotakis said.  Mitsotakis pledged more than 500 million dollars to fund rebuilding, reforesting and compensation and said special inquiries would be set up to determine what went wrong and who should be held accountable. Greece is not alone. It is suffering under the worst heat wave since 1987. The heat and drought, both linked to climate change, are fueling fires across Europe, from Turkey and Italy to Russia’s Siberia. Greece has struggled to contain the hundreds of wildfires that have turned pristine pine forests into ash and forced about 60,000 people to flee. The government has said its main priority has been to save and protect lives. More than 49,000 hectares have burned on Evia alone, according to European Union data. Hundreds of firefighters, among them soldiers, mountain rangers and volunteers from across Greece, Europe and the U.S. are fighting the blazes and watching for flare-ups. At least three people have been arrested on suspicion of arson, but no charges yet have been filed. 
…

Firefighters in Greece continue to battle wildfires as officials defend their response amid unusually high temperatures and dry conditions. “We handled an operationally unique situation, with 586 fires in eight days during the worst weather conditions we’ve seen in 40 years,” Greece’s civil protection chief Nikos Hardalias said at a Tuesday news conference. “Never was there such a combination of adverse factors in the history of the fire service.” The government has pledged $586 million in aid to help those affected by the fires, including a massive blaze on Evia island that has been burning for more than a week. More than 900 firefighters have been working to bring the Evia fire under control. Wildfires in Greece are part of a wave of fires in many countries in Europe and across the Mediterranean in Algeria. The European Union has mobilized fire crews to help with blazes in Greece, Albania, Italy, Turkey and North Macedonia. The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) has also mapped active fires in several other countries, including Spain, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine and Germany. An EFFIS map showed 334,515 hectares had burned this year as of Tuesday. That figure has more than doubled since July 22. It is also twice the average at this point in the year compared with data from 2008 to 2020. In Algeria, officials said wildfires there have killed at least 42 people, including 25 soldiers. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted Tuesday that the soldiers who died were martyrs who saved the lives of 100 people. The government has blamed arsonists for igniting the fires. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, AFP and Reuters. 
…

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the 11 year prison sentence handed down by a Chinese court to businessman Michael Spavor is “absolutely unacceptable and unjust.” A court in the northeastern city of Dandong convicted Spavor Wednesday on a charge of espionage. The verdict came nearly six months after Spavor’s one-day, closed-door trial that even Canadian diplomats were prevented from attending.   In his written statement, Trudeau condemned the “lack of transparency in the legal process, and a trial that did not satisfy even the minimum standards required by international law.” A statement on the court’s website said Spavor will be deported as part of his sentence, but did not say when that would happen. Spavor was arrested in December 2018, just days after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies, in Vancouver, British Columbia, on a U.S. warrant.   The arrest of Spavor and another Canadian, former diplomat Michael Kovrig, that same month triggered accusations from Ottawa that the two men were arrested in retaliation for Meng’s arrest.  Spavor’s verdict comes a day after a Chinese court upheld a death sentence for another Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was convicted in 2018 for trafficking methamphetamine. Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison, but his sentence was changed during a one-day retrial in 2019, shortly after Meng’s arrest.   Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver as she fights the extradition warrant from the U.S. As chief financial officer of Huawei — one of the world’s largest manufacturers of smartphones — Meng is accused of lying to U.S. officials about Huawei’s business in Iran, which is under U.S. sanctions.    The U.S. has also warned other countries against using Huawei-built products, suspecting the Chinese government of installing spyware in them.      Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and AFP.  
…