Rescue ships picked up more than 700 people trying to cross the Mediterranean in makeshift vessels this weekend, mainly off the coasts of Libya and Malta, a migrant aid group said Sunday.The latest figures came as United Nations migration officials repeated their calls for a fairer mechanism to share the responsibility of caring for them, rather than leaving it to the Mediterranean countries.SOS Mediterranee said that its vessel, the Ocean Viking, had carried out six operations in international waters since Saturday.  In the last intervention, it rescued 106 people off the Maltese coast after being alerted by German aid group Sea Watch, said the Marseille-based organization.”The youngest survivor rescued in this operation is just 3 months old,” SOS Mediterranee tweeted.Overnight Saturday to Sunday, the Ocean Viking joined vessels from Sea Watch and ResQship, another German group, to help 400 people in difficulty in the central Mediterranean, said the group.They were rescued from a vessel that was taking on water, in what a spokesman for the organization told AFP was a particularly perilous operation.Those who were rescued were shared out between the Ocean Viking and Sea-Watch3.Ocean Viking alone has 555 passengers on board from this weekend’s operations, including at least 28 women, two of whom are pregnant. The organization has yet to determine at which safe port they will be able to leave them.Libya remains one of the main departure points for tens of thousands of migrants hoping to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing, despite the continuing insecurity in the country. Most of them try to reach the Italian coast, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) away.Celine Schmitt, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ French operation, said last month there was an urgent need for an automatic system to share the new arrivals between countries, to ensure them a better reception, and not leave it to Mediterranean countries to assume sole responsibility.”If we look at the central Mediterranean, last year, there were fewer than 50,000 people who arrived,” she said.”It is totally manageable for the European population,” when you consider there are 82 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes, Schmitt said.International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Paul Dillon took a similar position last week.”By advocating for better migration management practices, better migration governance and greater solidarity from EU member states, we can come up with a clear, safe and humane approach to this issue that begins with saving lives at sea,” he said.The central Mediterranean crossing, between Libya and Italy or Malta, is by far the deadliest in the world, according to figures from the IOM.Of the 1,113 deaths recorded in the Mediterranean in the first half of this year, 930 of them were recorded there.Nevertheless, according to the latest IOM figures, increasing numbers of migrants have attempted the crossing this year.
 
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Britain will begin offering a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to 32 million Britons starting in early September, The Telegraph reported Sunday. The shots will be available in as many as 2,000 pharmacies with the goal of getting them into arms by early December.
 
The government has been preparing since at least June, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) called for a plan to offer the third shot to people 70 years old or older, care home residents and those who are vulnerable for health reasons.
 
At least 90% of British adults have received at least one shot, but that rate falls to 60% for those 18-30 years old, government figures show.  
 
To encourage younger adults to get vaccinated before colder weather prompts people to spend more time indoors, the Department of Health and Social Care said that restaurants, food delivery services and ride-hailing apps are offering discounts to persuade people to be vaccinated.
 
“The lifesaving vaccines not only protect you, your loved ones and your community, but they are helping to bring us back together by allowing you to get back to doing the things you’ve missed,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said, according to the Associated Press.
British Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, who tested positive for COVID-19 in December, said he may be suffering its effects after appearing unwell Sunday after finishing second at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
 
“I’ve been fighting all year really with staying healthy after what happened at the end of last year and it’s still, it’s a battle,” the 36-year-old said after seeing a doctor after the race. “I haven’t spoken to anyone about it but I think (the effects of COVID are) lingering. I remember the effects of when I had it and training has been different since then.”
 
In Berlin, thousands marched Sunday to protest pandemic restrictions and about 600 protesters were detained after clashes with police, the AP reported.Police officers scuffle with demonstrators during a protest against government measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, in Berlin, Germany Aug. 1, 2021.While Germany eased many of its restrictions in May, large gatherings remain banned. The number of new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, remain low but are rising. Germany, with a population of 83 million, reported 2,100 new cases Sunday, more than 500 above last Sunday’s number.
 
Since the pandemic began, it has reported 3.8 million cases and 92,000 deaths.  
 
More than 200 employees at two major hospitals in San Francisco, in the western U.S. state of California, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a report Saturday in The New York Times.  
 
Most of the staff members at Zuckerberg San Francisco General and the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center Hospital were fully vaccinated and most of them tested positive for the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus, according to the newspaper.  
 
Only two cases required hospitalization. The hospitalization rate would have been higher without vaccinations, said Dr. Lukejohn Day, Zuckerberg’s chief medical officer.  
 
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Sunday evening there are 198 million cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 4.2 million deaths globally. The U.S. leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases, with 35 million, and 613,174 deaths, according to the university.
 Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Kosovo’s president on Sunday awarded a medal to the late son of U.S. President Joe Biden for his service in building the country’s justice system after war ended more than two decades ago.Beau Biden worked in Kosovo after the 1998-1999 war, helping to train local prosecutors and judges for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The former Delaware attorney general died in 2015 of cancer aged 46.“Beau’s work in Kosovo was heartfelt; he fell in love with the country,” President Biden said in a pre-recorded video message played during the ceremony in Pristina on Sunday.“Beau could see what you could do, Beau could see even then the future that was possible for your proud country. The future that Kosovo had so long been denied,” Biden said.In 2016 Biden, then vice president, unveiled a memorial to his son in Kosovo. A road leading to Camp Bondsteel, home to the 700 American soldiers who still help maintain the fragile peace in Kosovo, was also named after Beau Biden.Naming streets after U.S. officials has become something of a tradition in Kosovo, whose population is mainly ethnic Albanian, and which considers the United States its savior for its support of a 1999 bombing campaign that deprived Serbia of control of Kosovo.Kosovo declared independence in 2008 with Western backing, but Serbia still refuses to recognize it and considers it part of its territory.“What the United States and the American people have done for our country, for our freedom, for our right to exist, goes beyond any partnership currently witnessed in the world. Mr. President, Kosovo is your home too,” said Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani while presenting the award. 
 
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After a slow start, the European Union has now overtaken the United States in vaccinating its citizens against COVID-19. Anti-vaccine resistance remains, including in France, where officials estimate more than 200,000 people joined demonstrations this weekend to protest a mandatory health pass.Brandishing banners proclaiming “freedom” and “pass of shame,” tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Paris and other French cities Saturday against government measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and the disease it causes, COVID-19.While many of the protests were peaceful, several police officers were wounded trying to keep order in Paris. In the southern city of Marseille, demonstrators destroyed a coronavirus testing tent, shouting “assassins” and “collaborators.”The demonstrations marked the third straight weekend of protests and were the biggest so far. Some protesters have worn yellow Stars of David similar to those Jews were forced to wear in the former Nazi Germany — a move slammed by Holocaust survivors. The protesters included members of the far left and far right, and those representing the yellow vest economic justice movement born a few years ago.“We’re protesting the government system that’s been in place for decades,” one protester told French radio, calling new coronavirus measures another example of bad government.Police detain a protester during a demonstration in Paris, France, July 31, 2021. Demonstrators gathered in several cities to protest against the COVID-19 pass, which grants vaccinated individuals greater ease of access to venues.The new policies aim to fight the sharply rising tide of infections, driven by the highly contagious delta variant. Among them: making COVID vaccines mandatory for health workers and requiring health passes showing people have been vaccinated or tested negative for the infection, to gain access to restaurants, movie theaters, trains and tourist venues.President Emmanuel Macron has said he respects the right to protest, but that vaccinations are an essential arm to fight the coronavirus — and that French also have responsibilities along with rights, and civic duties.Unvaccinated people now comprise about 85% of hospitalizations in France, and 78% of COVID-19 linked deaths. But some here are still skeptical or worried about the shot.While supporting the new health pass, conservative lawmaker Philippe Bas told French radio Sunday the government must strengthen public confidence.Like France, Italy has seen protests against vaccines and other measures to curb the pandemic. The public response, however, has been more positive elsewhere in Europe, including in Denmark and Spain.And despite demonstrations here, polls show the majority of French back the health pass. More than half are now fully vaccinated. Macron, who faces reelection next year, has also seen his approval rating rise in recent months over his handling of the pandemic.Some information for this report came from AFP, Reuters, Radio France, Europe 1, France 24, France Television & Le Monde.
 
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Thousands of Turkish firefighters are battling for a fifth day against raging fires that are threatening some of Turkey’s main tourist resorts. Six people have  already died in the fires.A child cries fire, fire, as a family drives through the night trying to escape the surrounding inferno in Turkey’s Marmaris region. The video has gone viral in Turkey.  
Firefighters backed by helicopters are battling raging fires across Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions, home to some of Europe’s most prominent tourist resorts. Record high temperatures and powerful dry winds are hampering their efforts. Authorities have issued evacuation orders for tourists in some resorts. One of the worst-affected areas is Turkey’s Bodrum resort. Bodrum resident Melis Birder spoke to VOA Sunday. “I feel terrible; we are under stress because it’s very hot here,” said Birder. “The one that started in Muscular on the airport road in Bodrum is still spreading; the others have been put down. As the wind is picking up, it’s getting more dangerous again. Some people are very stressed, very sad. On the other hand, I was hearing party music from the shore last night.” An aerial photo shows the destruction caused by wildfires near the Mediterranean coastal town of Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey, July 30, 2021.The fires are dealing a hammer blow to Turkey’s vital tourism industry, still trying to recover from losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many farmers, too, have been devastated by the fires. This farmer, who didn’t want to be identified, in Turkey’s Manavgat region, is traumatized by the experience.    He says, “I don’t care if it’s a car or house burned but look at these animals. They lost their lives; they are my life, these were my beauties, these were my hope,” he adds, “but a calf was born in all this chaos. I took it from the fire. My children wrapped them in their arms. But its mother died.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saturday in a 30-vehicle convoy, visited some of the worst-hit resorts. He declared the region a disaster zone, promising compensation for those who have suffered losses. Authorities are investigating whether some of the more than 100 fires could be arson, and Erdogan gave a chilling warning to any perpetrator. He says, “If you rip our heart out, I swear, we will rip your heart out; if we find such a connection — there are already some indications — we will do whatever it takes.”   The government is facing growing criticism that the country’s fleet of firefighting planes are out of action, relying instead on three rented Russian planes. Erdogan said that more planes had arrived, and more were on the way, from neighboring Ukraine, Russia, and Azerbaijan. Authorities say that most of the more than 100 fires are under control. But some resorts remain under threat, and with temperatures forecast to soar to new record levels in coming days, the fight appears far from over.     
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A protest about an armed attack that killed seven members of a Kurdish family was held Saturday in the Turkish city of Van in the country’s central Konya province. Relatives of the slain family say the attack Friday was racially motivated.”This was an entirely racist attack,” Abdurrahman Karabulut, the family’s lawyer, told Arti TV.Karabulut and the pro-Kurdish opposition party said the family had been previously targeted for being Kurdish. Gunmen attacked the family in May and the family was worried about being attacked again.Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said calling the attack a racist crime was “a provocation.”The Associated Press reports several people were arrested after the May attack and two suspects remain in custody.Turkish officials say the attack was the result of a lengthy feud between two families.The other family involved in the skirmishes is not Kurdish.VOA Kurdish Service’s Van, Turkey-based stringer Arif Aslan said after Saturday’s protest, police began attacking demonstrators.Aslan told VOA that police attacked him and prevented him from taking any footage of the clashes. The police, Aslan said, told him that his VOA credentials were not acceptable, and Van’s public prosecutor wanted Aslan arrested.By that time, however, Aslan’s lawyer was on the scene and told the police that they did not have the right to obstruct journalists from doing their jobs.  Aslan said he was held on the street for an hour but was not arrested.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 
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The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said.The department said 80% of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four U.S. attorney offices in New York were breached. All told, the Justice Department said, in 27 U.S. attorney offices at least one employee’s email account was compromised during the hacking campaign.The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that it believes the accounts were compromised from May 7 to Dec. 27, 2020. Such a timeframe is notable because the SolarWinds campaign, which infiltrated dozens of private-sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine U.S. government agencies, was first discovered and publicized in mid-December.The Biden administration in April announced sanctions, including the expulsion of Russian diplomats, in response to the SolarWinds hack and Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Russia has denied wrongdoing.Jennifer Rodgers, a lecturer at Columbia Law School, said office emails frequently contained all sorts of sensitive information, including case strategy discussions and names of confidential informants, when she was a federal prosecutor in New York.”I don’t remember ever having someone bring me a document instead of emailing it to me because of security concerns,” she said, noting exceptions for classified materials.The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts confirmed in January that it was also breached, giving the SolarWinds hackers another entry point to steal confidential information like trade secrets, espionage targets, whistleblower reports and arrest warrants.The list of affected offices includes several large and high-profile ones like those in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and the Eastern District of Virginia.The Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, where large numbers of staff were hit, handle some of the most prominent prosecutions in the country.”New York is the financial center of the world and those districts are particularly well known for investigating and prosecuting white-collar crimes and other cases, including investigating people close to the former president,” said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School and a former prosecutor in the Southern District.The department said all victims had been notified and it is working to mitigate “operational, security and privacy risks” caused by the hack. The Justice Department said in January that it had no indication that any classified systems were affected.The Justice Department did not provide additional detail about what kind of information was taken and what impact such a hack may have on ongoing cases. Members of Congress have expressed frustration with the Biden administration for not sharing more information about the impact of the SolarWinds campaign.The Associated Press previously reported that SolarWinds hackers had gained access to email accounts belonging to the then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff, whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries. 
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The wife of Haiti’s assassinated president, seriously wounded in the attack that killed her husband, listened in terror as the gunmen ransacked their home, she said in her first interview since that night.The killers eventually found what they were looking for in President Jovenel Moise’s residence and made cursory efforts on their way out to see if first lady Martine Moise was still alive.”When they left, they thought I was dead,” she told The New York Times in an interview published Friday, weeks after the July 7 assassination that heaped a fresh crisis on the fragile Caribbean nation.She survived and was rushed for emergency treatment to the United States, where she spoke to the newspaper while flanked by security guards, diplomats and family.Moise is left wondering what happened to the 30 to 50 men usually posted to guard her husband at the house. None of those guards were killed, or even wounded.”Only the oligarchs and the system could kill him,” she said.Haitian police have arrested the head of Jovenel Moise’s security, as well as about 20 Colombian mercenaries, over the plot they say was organized by a group of Haitians with foreign ties.Jovenel Moise had been ruling the impoverished and disaster-plagued nation by decree, as gang violence spiked and COVID-19 spread.His widow told the Times that the couple had been asleep when the sound of gunfire woke them.He called his security team for help, but soon the killers were shooting in the bedroom. She was struck in the hand and elbow.As she lay bleeding, her husband dead or dying in the same room, she felt like she was suffocating because her mouth was so full of blood.The killers spoke only Spanish — Haiti’s languages are Creole and French — and were communicating by phone with someone while they carried out the attack.She said she doesn’t know what the assassins took, but that it came from a shelf where her husband kept his files.Martine Moise wants the killers to know she is not afraid and is seriously considering a run for the presidency once she is healthy.”I would like people who did this to be caught, otherwise they will kill every single president who takes power,” she said. “They did it once. They will do it again.”
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Authorities said Saturday that 10 suspects had been detained in the killing of seven people from an ethnic Kurdish family in Turkey’s central Konya province.The members of the Dedeoglu family were killed in a brutal gun attack Friday. Officials said they had not yet apprehended the gunman. A statement from the Konya prosecutor’s office said initial evidence pointed to an ongoing fight between two families who lived in the same area.But the family’s lawyer and the pro-Kurdish opposition party said the killings were ethnically motivated. After an attack in May, one member of the family — who was among Friday’s victims — told reporters that they were being harassed and attacked for being Kurdish.Lawyer Abdurrahman Karabulut said family members had worried they would be attacked again.Years of frictionThe prosecutor’s office said in a statement that enmity between the two families dated to 2010. Two fights in 2021 led to investigations; two people remain in custody because of those probes, but other suspects were released. The statement rejected the claim of a racially motivated attack.There were few details given about those arrested, but media reports said the other family was not Kurdish.The co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the ethnic Kurdish family members were killed because of hate speech and linked it to a rise in what he called racist attacks. Mithat Sancar accused the government of targeting the HDP and Kurds in general.Media reports said the family’s house was set on fire after the attack.Turkey has been fighting a Kurdish insurgency since 1984 and the conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including civilians targeted by car bombs in 2016 and 2017 that were blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The decadeslong conflict has also included discriminatory state policies and an ethnically charged atmosphere. Kurds are Turkey’s second-largest ethnic group.Interior minister Suleyman Soylu said allegations that the killings were ethnically motivated were a provocation against the country’s unity.
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Greenland’s ice sheet has experienced a “massive melting event” during a heat wave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers.Since Wednesday, the ice sheet covering the vast Arctic territory has melted by about 8 billion tons a day, twice its normal average rate during summer, reported the Polar Portal website, which is run by Danish researchers.The Danish Meteorological Institute reported temperatures of more than 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit), more than twice the normal average summer temperature, in northern Greenland.And Nerlerit Inaat airport in the northeast of the territory recorded 23.4 degrees C (74.1 F) on Thursday — the highest recorded there since records began.With the heat wave affecting most of Greenland that day, the Polar Portal website reported a “massive melting event” involving enough water “to cover Florida with two inches of water” (five centimeters).The largest melt of the Greenland ice sheet still dates to the summer of 2019.The area where the melting took place this time, though, is larger than two years ago, the website added.The Greenland ice sheet is the second-largest mass of freshwater ice on the planet with nearly 1.8 million square kilometers (695,000 square miles), second only to Antarctica.The melting of the ice sheets started in 1990 and has accelerated since 2000. The mass loss in recent years is approximately four times greater than it was before 2000, according to the researchers at Polar Portal.One European study published in January said ocean levels would rise between 10 and 18 centimeters by 2100 — or 60 percent faster than previously estimated — at the rate at which the Greenland ice sheet was now melting.The Greenland ice sheet, if completely melted, would raise the ocean levels by six to seven meters.But with a relatively cool start to the Greenland summer, with snowfalls and rains, the retreat of the ice sheet so far for 2021 remains within the historical norm, according to Polar Portal. The melting period extends from June to early September.
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Panicked tourists in Turkey hurried to the seashore to wait for rescue boats Saturday after being told to evacuate some hotels in the Aegean resort of Bodrum because of the dangers posed by nearby wildfires, Turkish media reported.Coast guard units were leading the operation and authorities asked private boats and yachts to assist in evacuation efforts from the sea as new wildfires erupted. Video showed plumes of smoke and fire enveloping a hill close to the seashore.The death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate.The minister of agriculture and forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli, said Saturday that 91 of the 101 fires that broke out amid strong winds and scorching heat had been brought under control. Neighborhoods affected by fire in five provinces were declared disaster zones by Turkey’s emergency and disaster authority.Government assistancePresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan inspected some damage Saturday from a helicopter.Speaking from the town of Manavgat, Erdogan announced that the Turkish government would cover the rents for people affected by fire and rebuild their homes. He said taxes, social security and credit payments would be postponed for those affected and small businesses would be offered credit with zero interest.”We cannot do anything beyond wishing the mercy of God for the lives we have lost, but we can replace everything that was burned,” he said.A man watches wildfires in Kacarlar village near the Mediterranean coastal town of Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey, July 31, 2021.Erdogan said the number of planes fighting the fires had been increased from six to 13, including planes from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, and that thousands of Turkish personnel, as well as dozens of helicopters and drones, were assisting the firefighting efforts.At least five people have died from the fires in Manavgat and one died in Marmaris. Both towns are Mediterranean tourist destinations. Tourism is an important source of revenue for Turkey, and business owners were hoping this summer would be much better than last year, when pandemic travel restrictions caused tourism to plummet.Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 400 people affected by the fires in Manavgat were treated at hospitals and released, while 10 others were still hospitalized for fire injuries. In Marmaris, 159 people were treated at a hospital and one person was still undergoing treatment for burns.In southern Hatay province, flames jumped into populated areas but later apparently were brought under control.Common occurrencesWildfires are common in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions during the arid summer months. Turkey has blamed some previous forest fires on arson or outlawed Kurdish militants. Erdogan said Saturday that authorities were investigating the possibility of “sabotage” causing fires.Meanwhile, a heat wave across southern Europe, fed by hot air from Africa, has led to wildfires across the Mediterranean.Firefighters on the Italian island of Sicily battled dozens of blazes Saturday fueled by high temperatures, prompting the region’s governor to request assistance from Rome. Some 150 people trapped in two seaside areas in the city of Catania were evacuated late Friday by sea, where they were picked up by rubber dinghies and transferred to Coast Guard boats.Temperatures in Greece and nearby countries in southeast Europe are expected to climb to 42 degrees Celsius (more than 107 Fahrenheit) Monday in many cities and towns.
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Thousands of people protested France’s special virus pass by marching through Paris and other French cities on Saturday. Most demonstrations were peaceful but some in Paris clashed with riot police, who fired tear gas.About 3,000 security forces deployed around the French capital for a third weekend of protests against the pass that will be needed soon to enter restaurants and other places. Paris police took up posts along the Champs-Elysees to guard the famed avenue.With virus infections spiking and hospitalizations rising, French lawmakers have passed a bill requiring the pass in most places as of August 9. Polls show a majority of French support the pass, but some are adamantly opposed. The pass requires a vaccination or a quick negative test or proof of a recent recovery from COVID-19 and mandates vaccine shots for all health care workers by mid-September.For anti-pass demonstrators, liberty was the slogan of the day.Hager Ameur, a 37-year-old nurse, said she resigned from her job, accusing the government of using a form of blackmail.”I think that we mustn’t be told what to do,” she told The Associated Press, adding that French medical workers during the first wave of COVID-19 were quite mistreated. “And now, suddenly we are told that if we don’t get vaccinated it is our fault that people are contaminated. I think it is sickening.”Tensions flared in front of the famed Moulin Rouge nightclub in northern Paris during what appeared to be the largest demonstration. Lines of police faced down protesters in up-close confrontations during the march. Police used their fists on several occasions.Protesters attend a demonstration called by the “yellow vest” movement against France’s restrictions, including a compulsory health pass, to fight the COVID-19 outbreak, in Paris, July 31, 2021.Tear gas, water cannon, injuriesAs marchers headed eastward and some pelted police with objects, police fired tear gas into the crowds, and plumes of smoke filled the sky. A male protester was seen with a bleeding head and a police officer was carried away by colleagues. Three officers were injured, the French press quoted police as saying. Police, again responding to rowdy crowds, also turned a water cannon on protesters as the march ended at the Bastille.A calmer march was led by the former top lieutenant of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who left to form his own small anti-EU party. But Florian Philippot’s new cause, against the virus pass, seems far more popular. His contingent of hundreds marched Saturday to the Health Ministry.Among those not present this week was Francois Asselineau, leader of another tiny anti-EU party, the Popular Republican Union, and an ardent campaigner against the health pass, who came down with COVID-19. In a video on his party’s website, Asselineau, who was not hospitalized, called on people to denounce the “absurd, unjust and totally liberty-killing” health pass.French authorities are implementing the health pass because the highly contagious delta variant is making strong inroads. More than 24,000 new daily cases were confirmed Friday night, compared with just a few thousand cases a day at the start of the month.The government announcement that the health pass would take effect August 9 has driven many unvaccinated French to sign up for inoculations so their social lives won’t be shut down during the summer holiday season. Vaccinations are now available at a wide variety of places, including some beaches. More than 52% of the French population has been vaccinated.About 112,000 people have died of the virus in France since the start of the pandemic.
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France secured a comfortable win over Iran in Olympic men’s basketball on Saturday to qualify for the quarterfinals and remain undefeated in the preliminary round.Real Madrid’s Thomas Heurtel led with 16 points in France’s 79-62 victory at the Saitama Super Arena, north of Tokyo. They swept their opponents in Group A, including a shock defeat of Team USA on Sunday, the first Olympic loss for the Americans since 2004.”The focus really was more about us and trying things out,” Evan Fournier, who plays for the NBA’s Boston Celtics, said about France’s decisive win. Despite his team’s dominant showing so far, he wouldn’t speculate on medal odds.”Quarter-final first. Focus on that,” he said. “Too many times we’ve beaten very, very good teams and we lost in the semi-final, so no more of that.”The men’s quarterfinals are Tuesday.Iran finished 0-3 in the group stage. Arsalan Kazemi lamented that the travel restrictions imposed on Iran affected their performance.”We cannot really get out of Iran for any good friendly game,” he said at a press conference. “For Olympic preparation, we could have gone to a lot of different countries like other teams and played like 10, 11, 12 good games, and would have come here and would have competed differently.”The United States bounced back with a win over Iran earlier this week and will face the Czech Republic later on Saturday.Team USA has historically been the team to beat at basketball, with a 139-6 record and 15 gold medals since 1936. But as the sport has grown in popularity around the globe, many national teams can field teams with NBA experience, and the U.S.’s talent advantage has shrunk.Before losing to France at these Games, the United States dropped two straight exhibition games this month, including a defeat to world 22nd-ranked Nigeria. 
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Two lakes in a far-flung coastal region of Patagonia, in Argentina, have turned fluorescent pink, an as-of-yet unexplained phenomena that local environmentalists fear could be harmful and caused by industrial contamination.The lakes, located near an industrial park on the outskirts of the Argentine city of Trelew, sprawl across a dusty, desertlike plain and are largely undeveloped. Officials with the municipality of Trelew recently discovered a truck dumping waste in the watershed, according to posts made by the city on social media.Authorities gave conflicting views to local media, however, on whether the sudden change in color of the lakes was harmful. Environmentalists were more concerned.Local activist Pablo Lada, a member of Argentina’s National Ecological Network (RENACE), told Reuters in an interview that the pink color could potentially be the result of a dye typically used to give prawns raised nearby their typically rose-colored hue.”I think that the pink lagoon uncovered a … lack of treatment of this waste that has become a big problem,” Lada said.Local and regional environmental officials are investigating the cause and potential damage to the lakes but have yet to arrive at any conclusions. 
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The United States said Friday it has laid off nearly 200 local staffers working for its diplomatic missions in Russia ahead of an August 1 deadline set by the Kremlin for their dismissal. The move is the latest in a series of measures taken by both sides that have strained U.S.-Russia relations. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the layoffs are regrettable and something the U.S. had hoped to avert, despite a sharp deterioration in ties between Moscow and Washington, which show few signs of improvement.  FILE – Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the State Department in Washington, July 12, 2021.”These unfortunate measures will severely impact the U.S. mission to Russia’s operations, potentially including the safety of our personnel as well as our ability to engage in diplomacy with the Russian government,” Blinken said in a statement. “Although we regret the actions of the Russian government forcing a reduction in our services and operations, the United States will follow through on our commitments while continuing to pursue a predictable and stable relationship with Russia,” he said.  The Russian Foreign Ministry was silent on the matter, and the Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a query. Russia earlier this year announced a ban on almost all non-American staff at the embassy in Moscow and consulates in Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok. That came in response to U.S. expulsions of Russian diplomats and tit-for-tat closures of numerous diplomatic facilities in each country. Those expulsions and closures came in the context of U.S. sanctions imposed over Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, and the arrest of opposition figure Alexey Navalny and crackdown on his supporters, as well as involvement in the SolarWind hack of U.S. federal agencies. All are activities that Russia has denied. After the announcement of the ban, the embassy suspended routine consular services and since May has been processing immigrant visas only in the case of life-or-death emergencies.  The suspension of consular services has also left Russian businessmen, exchange students and romantic partners adrift because they are no longer able to obtain U.S. visas in Russia.  Still, the U.S. had been cautiously optimistic that the Russian decision might be reversed at last month’s meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva. But those hopes evaporated even after the two sides resumed strategic arms control talks this week. FILE – U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meet at Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2021.Thus, Friday’s announcement sealed the employment fate of 182 locally employed staffers who worked as office and clerical staff, drivers and contractors at the U.S. facilities. Only security guards who work outside the gates of the compounds were exempted from the ban.  “The United States is immensely grateful for the tireless dedication and commitment of our locally employed staff and contractors at U.S. Mission Russia,” Blinken said. “We thank them for their contributions to the overall operations and their work to improve relations between our two countries. Their dedication, expertise and friendship have been a mainstay of Mission Russia for decades.”We value our deep connection to the Russian people,” Blinken added. “Our people-to-people relationships are the bedrock of our bilateral relations.” 
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The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Cuba’s police force and two of its leaders following recent protests on the island against the communist government.U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday before meeting with Cuban American leaders at the White House that more sanctions were coming “unless there is some drastic change in Cuba, which I don’t anticipate.”Biden also said he had directed the Treasury and State departments to report to him within a month on how to allow Americans to send remittance payments to Cubans.U.S. officials said the administration was working to find ways to permit remittances that would not benefit the Cuban government.Earlier Friday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced the latest sanctions on Cuba, saying they were a reaction to “actions to suppress peaceful, pro-democratic protests in Cuba that began on July 11.”Large demonstrationsThousands of Cubans took to the streets on that Sunday in the largest demonstrations against the Cuban government in decades. The demonstrators were protesting shortages of basic goods, power outages, restrictions on civil liberties and the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.“The Treasury Department will continue to designate and call out by name those who facilitate the Cuban regime’s involvement in serious human rights abuse,” Andrea Gacki, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. “Today’s action serves to further hold accountable those responsible for suppressing the Cuban people’s calls for freedom and respect for human rights.”U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Cuban American leaders in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, July 30, 2021.The sanctions target the Cuban interior ministry’s national police force as well as the force’s director, Oscar Callejas Valcarce, and deputy director, Eddy Sierra Arias.Cuban American leaders have been urging the Biden administration to do more to support to the Cuban protesters.Among those who were at the meeting Friday with Biden were Yotuel Romero, one of the authors of “Patria y Vida,” a song that has become the anthem for the protesters. Also present were L. Felice Gorordo, the CEO of eMerge Americas; Ana Sofia Pelaez, the founder of the Miami Freedom Project; and former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz.Internet accessU.S. officials say the Biden administration is also looking into ways to provide internet access to the Cuban people. Internet service was cut off at one point during the July 11 protest.Last week, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister, Álvaro López Miera, and an interior ministry special forces unit.In addition to the sanctions imposed Friday, the Office of Foreign Assets Control continues to enforce the Cuba sanctions program, which is the most comprehensive sanctions program administered by the office, the office’s statement said.Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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The United Nations warns global hunger is increasing and urgent action is needed to stave off famine and death over coming months in nearly two dozen unstable, violence-prone countries.A report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program said more than a half-million people are experiencing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity and 41 million are at risk of famine.The report from the WFP and FAO focuses on the particularly serious situation in 23 so-called hunger hot spots.  Most of those countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, with others in Central America, Asia and the Middle East.Patrick Jacqueson, FAO officer in charge of the Geneva office, said acute hunger is set to increase in those countries over the next four months without urgent, scaled-up humanitarian assistance.“Conflict continues to be the primary driver for the largest share of people facing acute food insecurity,” Jacqueson said. “Closely associated with conflict are humanitarian access constraints, which remain significant, compounding food insecurity. Weather extremes and climate variability are likely to affect several parts of the world during the outlook period.”The report said dry conditions are likely to affect Haiti, Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the “Dry Corridor” in Guatemala, while above-average rainfall and flooding are forecast in South Sudan, central and eastern Sahel, and Gulf of Guinea countries.400,000 face starvation in TigrayThe report highlighted the perilous situation in Ethiopia and Madagascar, the world’s newest highest-alert hunger hot spots.Annalisa Conte, WFP Geneva Office director, said the aggravation of conflict in recent months is having a catastrophic impact on the food security of the Tigrayan population in Ethiopia.  She warned that more than 400,000 people would face starvation if they did not receive sufficient humanitarian aid.“If we move to Madagascar, Madagascar is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years,” Conte said. “On top of that, economic decline largely caused by COVID. As a result, 1.3 million people are currently facing the acute food insecurity.”The FAO and WFP said fighting, blockades that cut off lifesaving aid to families on the verge of famine, and a lack of funding were hampering efforts to provide emergency food aid to millions of desperate people.The agencies said families who rely on humanitarian aid to survive were hanging by a thread. They noted that most of those on the verge of famine in the 23 hot spots were farmers and must receive help to resume food production.  That, they said, will allow them to feed themselves and become self-sufficient.
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Firefighters continued to battle raging wildfires in southern Turkey Friday that have killed at least four people and forced the evacuation of villages and hotels.More than 70 wildfires broke out this week in Turkey’s Mediterranean and southern Aegean region and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that crews were still trying to contain them in 14 locations after bringing 57 other wildfires under control since Wednesday. Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said the uncontained wildfires were in six provinces and vowed to hold accountable anyone found to be responsible for starting them. Authorities said Thursday that investigations into the fires had begun.The mayor of the Turkish resort town of Marmaris said he could not dismiss the possibility of “sabotage” as the cause of a mountainside fire that threatened holiday homes and hotels on Thursday.Erdogan said a plane from Azerbaijan would join planes from Russia and Ukraine to battle the fires, adding “with the arrival of the planes, we are turning in a positive direction.”In addition to at least five planes, the Turkish president said 45 helicopters, drones and nearly 1,100 firefighting vehicles are involved in the effort.Wildfires are common in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions during the dry summer season, but arson or Kurdish militants have been blamed for some previous forest fires.
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The Association of Journalists of El Salvador is warning about increased assaults on the press. For VOA, Claudia Zaldaña reports from San Salvador. 
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Amazon.com Inc has been hit with a record $886.6 million (746 million euros) European Union fine for processing personal data in violation of the bloc’s GDPR rules, as privacy regulators take a more aggressive position on enforcement.The Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) imposed the fine on Amazon in a July 16 decision, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing on Friday.Amazon will appeal the fine, according to a company spokesperson. The e-commerce giant said in the filing it believed CNPD’s decision was without merit.CNPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, requires companies to seek people’s consent before using their personal data or face steep fines.Globally, regulatory scrutiny of tech giants has been increasing following a string of scandals over privacy and misinformation, as well as complaints from some businesses that they abuse their market power.Alphabet’s Google, Facebook Inc, Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp have drawn heightened scrutiny in Europe.In December, France’s data privacy watchdog handed out its biggest ever fine of 100 million euros ($118.82 million) to Google for breaching the nation’s rules on online advertising trackers.
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Britain’s transportation minister Friday defended the country’s decision to continue quarantine requirements on fully vaccinated French visitors, saying they do not want to take chances on thwarting their COVID-19 vaccination program.In an interview, Transport Minister Grant Shapps said Britain does not want to take chances with the progress of its vaccination program. He said the presence of the beta variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which was originally identified in South Africa, and now in France has prompted Britain to exercise caution.Shapps was responding to comments made Thursday by French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune, who called Britain’s policy “discriminatory and incomprehensible.”  Britain, on Wednesday, had announced it was lifting the quarantine requirement on fully vaccinated travelers from the United States and the European Union, except for France.Beaune argued the beta strain accounted for fewer than 5% of COVID-19 cases in France, and mostly occurred in overseas territories from where relatively few people travelled to Britain.In his interview Friday, Shapp insisted the beta variant has not just been limited to far away French island territories but has also been an issue in northern France. But he added that he has been in discussions with his French counterpart, Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari.  They agree that every country must look at the data and follow the science.  
Shapp said that is what they are doing right now – looking at the latest data on where the beta variant is going. He said the plan right now is to review the decision on France next week. 
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The protests that shook Cuba earlier this month started spontaneously and spread rapidly on social media, providing a clear demonstration of the challenges the new technologies pose to authoritarian governments.On July 11, that the midday calm was broken by the appearance of the first images showing hundreds of people demanding freedom, vaccines, medicines and food. In almost real time, they spread from profile to profile, on Facebook and Instagram.“There was a group of people, Cubans, gathered in a park in San Antonio de los Baños, everything was very confusing,” says Norges Rodríguez, co-founder of the YucaByte project, which works to promote the development of information-sharing technologies in Cuba.Rodríguez tells VOA that he quickly began to share the videos with his more than 15,000 followers.Within hours, journalists José Ignacio Martínez and Daniel González Oliva – collaborators in the creation of the Diario de Cuba digital portal – had sent VOA videos of some of the demonstrations, which had quickly spread to the streets of Havana.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 4 MB480p | 6 MB540p | 8 MB720p | 23 MB1080p | 36 MBOriginal | 63 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioVideo of anti-government protestors in San Antonio de los Baños (José Ignacio Martínez / Daniel González Oliva “Diario de Cuba”) 
Videos began to emerge of other protests: one in Arroyo Naranjo, a municipality in the Southern part of Havana;Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 2 MB480p | 2 MB540p | 3 MB720p | 9 MB1080p | 13 MBOriginal | 25 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioProtestor on foot and on motor scooters protesting in Arroyo Naranja, a southern Municipality of Havana. (José Ignacio Martínez / Daniel González Oliva “Diario de Cuba”) 
and another from Central Havana.   Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 4 MB480p | 5 MB540p | 8 MB720p | 22 MB720p | 34 MBOriginal | 33 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioMasked demonstrators in Central Havana protesting poor economic conditions and the government’s slow response to the COVID Crisis. (José Ignacio Martínez / Daniel González Oliva “Diario de Cuba”)Those videos and others like them went viral, prompting the Cuban government to cut internet access a day after the protests began.The official version of events broadcast in Cuba showed the arrival of President Miguel Díaz-Canel to San Antonio de los Baños in Artemias province. The president called the protesters “confused,” blamed the worsening of the crisis on the U.S. government embargo, and said discordant voices had no place in the state media.Some of the online profiles of people who initially uploaded video from the protests have disappeared, says Rodríguez. The original video with the first Facebook Live from San Antonio is no longer on social media. He says he is unable to find some of the first videos that were published by Yoan de la Cruz and Samantha Regalado.Sources contacted by VOA report there is pressure from Cuban authorities to remove any mention of support for the protesters from social media platforms, and some pressure to persuade residents’ relatives abroad to do the same.”There was something contained in the Cubans after so many years of deprivation, of all kinds: economic and also freedom in general, and that day it exploded,” says Rodríguez. “It came at a time when the country has one of the most critical situations, probably in its most recent history.”A challenge and an alternativeSeven years after it was founded, the independent newspaper 14ymedio saw the opportunity to cover an unprecedented event in the history of Cuba – a massive protest that ran from one end of the island to the other.Yoani Sánchez, author of the Generación Y blog and today’s news director of 14ymedio, told VOA that the hashtag #11J popped up on Twitter and was “… a mixture of informative enthusiasm, adrenaline, but also with many difficulties and pressure.”As the Internet outages spread, the unauthorized journalists trying to report what they were seeing began turning to older technologies, by dictating over phone lines and transcribing what they were learning about protests, complaints and arrests.Sánchez says his reporters are feeling the heat from the Cuban government. Luz Escobar, one of his regular reporters, has been under police siege for two weeks, Sánchez told VOA. She says state security forces surround the vicinity of her home and do not allow her to go out.Right now, Sánchez says, “police operations continue, where, for example, taking a photo or a small video in the streets can get you a fine, an arrest and even a physical attack against our reporters.”Citizen reportersThe Cuban entrepreneur Saily González, or Saily de Amarillo as she is known to some, is the owner of the Amarillo B&B hostel in Santa Clara. Since the protests began, she has published daily videos on her social media discussing the Cuban situation and inviting her followers to debate.“Seeing that San Antonio de los Baños was on the street was one of the most exciting moments of my life,” recalls González. That Sunday, she exchanged messages with her employees and friends on WhatsApp and Telegram encouraging them to join the protests.She tells VOA that she has received numerous messages of support. In the week after the protests started, she gained more than 2,000 followers on her Instagram account, she said with some amazement.She does not trust the official media, controlled by the Communist Party of Cuba, and says many Cubans agree with her. “Cuba is not blind. We have access to all the true information,” she says, referring to independent Cuban news outlets, such as El Toque, 14yMedio and Periodismo de Barrio.For the work team at the independent publication El Toque, the days after #11J marked “a complicated moment in time.” The first week was spent “trying to make sense of it and understand the magnitude,” explains its director, José Jasan Nieves.One of his efforts was “to maintain the narrative of the importance, the scope, the legitimacy of these protests, countering a government narrative that wants to minimize them, label them as vandalism and downplay their importance and value,” he told VOA.Official reactionsBoth the official media and senior state officials, including the president, have described the protests as riots and many of the protesters as “confused revolutionaries.”But in an unusual move, the president did offer some self-criticism. For the first time, he acknowledged the shortcomings in the country, the neglect of vulnerable sectors and the lack of opportunities for young people.Driven by the speed with which news spreads on social media, the independent media, citizen journalists and Internet users created a unique moment on July 11.Journalist Boris González Arenas, a Havana resident and contributor to the Diario de Cuba portal, told VOA that this moment has allowed the independent press to be seen as “a magnificently organized phenomenon in Cuba” and one which “has had the ability to reflect what is happening, which is very big.”For Arenas, this opportunity showed that there is a population that has “accepted the challenge of making themselves visible by reflecting what was happening.” 
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