Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced Friday that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions will be gradually lift starting Saturday.Fernández spoke at an official event, accompanied by Axel Kicillof, governor of Buenos Aires province and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires.”Between July 18 and August 2 we will be trying to return to normal life in this new world, in this different world that requires different care and we will do it gradually,” he said.Fernández warned, however, that the country had not yet won the battle against the coronavirus pandemic that has so far infected more than 110,000 people in Argentina and killed about 2,100.Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta said that the situation in the Argentine capital was encouraging, adding that in the last 25 days the average number of infections remained stable between 900 and 1,000 per day.”We are going to enable activities progressively,” he said. “In terms of work, we are going to reopen shops gradually starting with neighborhood business. We will also open some personal services such as hairdressing salons and some professional activities such as lawyers.”Argentina’s COVID-19 lockdown began on March 20 and has been one of the longest in the region.Lifting the restrictions consists of a six-stage plan, the first of which will cover the next two weeks.Meanwhile, schools remain closed and public transportation will continue to be available to essential workers in the food, safety, and health sectors.
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A Haitian judge sentenced Mexican nationals Juan Jose Avila, 38, and Andres Vargas Flores, 43, to five years in prison Wednesday after convicting them of drug trafficking. The men were also fined 2 million Haitian gourdes each.Avila and Vargas Flores were arrested in November 2019 in Haiti’s southern seaport city of Les Cayes, hours after crash-landing in the rural town of Saint Jean du Sud, about 24 kilometers, or a 45-minute drive, away. The men told local residents who surrounded the plane that they had experienced engine trouble while flying over the region. Inside the plane, local police found weapons, gallons of gasoline and thousands of U.S. dollars.”Both men, pilots by profession, are hereby found guilty of drug trafficking,” pronounced Judge Robert Jourdain, who presided over the case. He said the Haitian government would confiscate their plane.The men were handcuffed, clean shaven, wearing polo shirts and black face masks as they stood in court to hear the verdict.The backstoryIn an interview with VOA Creole shortly after the arrest, the chief prosecutor for Les Cayes, Ronald Richmond, said the men told him they had flown to Haiti from Belize and were headed to Venezuela, where they were instructed to pick up 900 kilos of cocaine that they would then transport to Guatemala.Richmond told VOA the men were working for a Mexican drug trafficker named “Lubo.” They had loaded the plane with gallons of gasoline to avoid having to land to refuel.The prosecutor said the men told him they had been paid $10,000 in cash for expenses. Upon returning to Mexico, they were to receive an additional $150,000 U.S. dollars each.How they got caughtRichmond said the men had used their expense money to pay off some residents who helped them flee the crash scene and brought them to a house in Les Cayes where the pilots could wait for driver who would help them leave the country.Instead, law enforcement was tipped off about their whereabouts and arrived at the house and arrested them just as they were getting ready to leave. The prosecutor declined to identify the informant, saying only the person was a member of their “intelligence network.”Reaction to verdictAfter the verdict was read, Richmond told VOA he is not thrilled with the outcome.”I’m not satisfied,” he said, “because these men came from Mexico. They were picking up 900 kilos of cocaine in Venezuela that they were transporting to Guatemala.“So, five years’ prison time is minor; they should have been sentenced to at least 15 years in prison,” he said.Asked if he intends to appeal the sentence, the prosecutor said he did not.It is unclear where the men will serve their sentences. Human rights activists have expressed concern about the current situation in Haiti’s overcrowded prisons at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is spreading nationwide.The latest figures released by Haiti’s ministry of public health indicate a total of 6,948 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 145 deaths.Matiado Vilme contributed to this story.
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The British government’s decision to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G telecom network beginning in 2027 is only the “opening salvo” of what is to come, according to a leading expert on U.S.-British relations. Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, thinks there is a “higher than 50% chance” that Huawei’s exit date will come two or even three years ahead of the announced date. The same hardline lawmakers in the governing Conservative Party who pushed for the rejection of Huawei consider seven years to be too long a period to completely disengage from the company, Gardiner said in a telephone interview, adding that these lawmakers may be able to push through legislation that would shorten the timeline. He pointed to statements made Tuesday by member of parliament Iain Duncan Smith immediately after the decision to cut Huawei out of the nation’s 5G plans was announced. FILE – Former leader of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party Iain Duncan Smith arrives for a meeting in London, February 4, 2019.“The head of [British Telecom] said ‘seven years, yes, but we can do it in five.’ So now let’s bring it forward to five and make sure it happens quickly; there’s no reason why they can’t,” Duncan Smith said in the House of Commons.  The former cabinet minister also urged the government to remove Huawei equipment from existing 3G and 4G infrastructure to prevent a scenario where the company’s software keeps getting upgraded, posing a continuing threat. “If they’re a risk in 5G, why are they not a risk to us generally?” he asked. Duncan Smith continued his urging with an op-ed the next day, in which he wrote, “Removing Huawei makes sense. Waiting seven years to do it does not.” Much of the concern about Huawei has centered on fears that its technology could be used by China to spy on countries that install it. In his op-ed, Duncan Smith wrote that “the bigger problem is the aggressive behavior of China and its crackdown on dissidents in China and elsewhere. We have become far too dependent on this powerful communist state and the free world needs to come together to resolve this issue.” He added: “End [Huawei’s] involvement earlier, in 2025 at the latest.” Gardiner, who predicted that Britain’s action would influence decision-making in other European capitals, believes the vision put forth by Duncan Smith could very well be realized. The cabinet is expected to introduce legislation, known as the Telecom Security Bill, to legalize the terms guiding the nation’s 5G network. Duncan Smith and “about 60” like-minded lawmakers in the Conservative Party, along with supporters in the opposition Labor Party, could attach amendments to the bill to advance the deadline for British companies to divest from Huawei, he said. Gardiner added that the legislators could set a date as early as 2024, when the next general election is due. Roger Garside, a former British diplomat whose postings included Beijing, told VOA from his home in London that he was “profoundly relieved that the British government is coming to its senses over Huawei.” “There has been a fundamental failure under successive British governments to appreciate the threat posed to our fundamental interests by the [People’s Republic of China]. Now we appear to wakening from that dream state.” Beijing, for its part, says it is “seriously evaluating the situation” before responding to the British decision. Huawei’s executives have denied they are obligated to share information with the Chinese government. Gardiner said British leaders were fully aware of the risk of retaliation when they made their decision, which he sees as a severe blow to both Huawei and its Communist Party backers, especially given “the vast inroads” the company had made in “the upper echelon” of British society and “vast amount of resources” Beijing poured into lobbying for Huawei to remain in Britain. He credits the sea change in British public opinion to a “perfect storm” created by China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its response to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Had Margaret Thatcher, his former boss, “still been with us today, I’m in no doubt she would be standing up to Beijing, standing up for the rights of the people in Hong Kong,” he said. 
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EU leaders failed Friday to make headway in negotiations over a massive stimulus plan to breathe life into economies ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, returning to their Brussels hotels shortly before midnight to rest and try again in the morning.Many of the 27 heads declared on arrival for their first face-to-face summit for five months that a deal was crucial to rescue economies in free fall and shore up faith in the European Union, which has lurched for years from crisis to crisis.But officials said a thrifty camp of wealthy northern states led by the Netherlands stood its ground on access to the recovery fund, in the face of opposition from Germany, France, southern nations Italy and Spain, and eastern European states.The proposed sums under discussion include the EU’s 2021-27 budget of more than 1 trillion euros and the recovery fund worth 750 billion euros that will be funneled mostly to Mediterranean coast countries worst affected by the pandemic.Diplomats said the 27 remained at odds over the overall size of the package, the split between grants and repayable loans in the recovery fund and rule-of-law strings attached to it.But the main stumbling block was over vetting procedures to access aid, an EU official said, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte demanding that one country could block payouts from the fund if member states backslide on economic reform.”If they want loans and even grants then I think it’s only logical that I can explain to people in the Netherlands … that in return those reforms have taken place,” Rutte said, estimating the chances for a deal at 50-50.Polish premier Mateusz Morawiecki was even more gloomy.As the leaders broke up for the day, he tweeted that they were divided by a bundle of issues and said it was “highly probable” that they would fail to reach a deal on Saturday or even on Sunday if the summit drags past its scheduled two days.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who celebrated her 66th birthday around the negotiating table in Brussels, was also cautious on chances for an agreement, envisaging “very, very difficult negotiations.”After initial elbow bumps between the leaders – all wearing face masks – and birthday gifts for Merkel and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, tense meetings followed in the evening with Rutte and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.The world is watchingOrban, who critics accuse of stifling the media, academics and NGOs, threatened to veto the entire plan over a mechanism that would freeze out countries that fail to live up to democratic standards.With EU economies deep in recession and immediate relief measures such as short-time work schemes running out, the specter of an autumn of hardship and discontent is looming.The EU is already grappling with the protracted saga of Britain’s exit from the bloc and is bruised by past crises, from the financial meltdown of 2008 to feuds over migration.Another economic shock could expose it to more eurosceptic, nationalist and protectionist forces, and weaken its standing against China, the United States or Russia.”The stakes couldn’t be higher,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “The whole world is watching us.”Despite wrangling over medicines, medical gear, border closures and money, the EU has managed to agree a half-a-trillion-euro scheme to cushion the first hit of the crisis.Mediterranean countries now want the recovery financing to prevent their economies taking on ever-greater burdens of debt.”The big picture is that we are faced with the biggest economic depression since World War Two,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. “We need … an ambitious solution because our citizens expect nothing less from us.” 
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A U.S. federal district court has ruled that California’s coordination with Canada’s Quebec province in a cap and trade carbon emissions market is constitutional, a blow to the Trump administration made public in a filing late on Friday. In October, the Trump administration sued California for entering a climate agreement with Quebec, saying the state had veered out of its lane in linking with a market in another country and had no right to conduct foreign policy. The decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California this week said the Trump administration had “failed to identify a clear and express foreign policy that directly conflicts with California’s cap-and-trade program.” President Donald Trump, a Republican, has pursued a policy of maximizing fossil fuel output while slashing environmental regulations. He intends to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. California, the most populous U.S. state and one of the 10 largest economies in the world, has long positioned itself as a leader on taking action against climate change. It agreed with Quebec in 2013 to link markets that aim to cut emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet. The Trump administration has suffered several major losses in the courts on environmental issues and energy pipelines. This week a federal judge in California blocked the administration’s plan to roll back a rule that would slash methane emissions from oil and gas operations on federal lands. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling on California’s carbon emissions market. Environmentalists cheered the decision. “The federal government should be doing everything in its power to fight climate change, not fighting the states that are leading the way,” said David Pettit, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council   
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Actor and activist Angelina Jolie urged the U.N. Security Council on Friday to fulfill its promise to hold to account perpetrators of sexual violence against children in conflict settings.“I have met child survivors of sexual violence – and domestic violence and trauma and abuse – everywhere,” Jolie said of her 20 years working with the U.N. refugee agency. “There is no continent untouched by these crimes.”She addressed a council session reflecting on the issue, one year after adoption of Resolution 2467, which strengthened prevention through justice and accountability mechanisms, empowered the council to impose sanctions on perpetrators, and opened the way for victims to seek reparations.Jolie gave the example of Yazidi children she had met in northern Iraq. Thousands of their mothers and female relatives have been abducted, enslaved and abused since 2014 by fighters with the Islamic State group. Many are still in captivity.“Many of the children witnessed the murder of their relatives, and the rape of their mothers,” she told the council in a virtual meeting. “One doctor who has provided medical care for hundreds of Yazidi women and girls said that almost every girl she had treated between the ages of 9 and 17 had been raped or subjected to other sexual violence. In some cases, victims were girls under the age of 9.”Specialized care neededShe said the children experience post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, flashbacks and nightmares, yet these “invisible victims” are particularly overlooked when it comes to support services.“What few services there are have been largely focused on women survivors – who have immense trauma and unmet needs of their own,” Jolie said. “The reality is that no one is getting the care they need. But there is a specific lack of dedicated care for children.”Jolie said she has seen these problems in every conflict setting she has visited and urged the international community to step up its funding to address the needs of all survivors.Khin Ohmar, a peace activist from Myanmar, spoke on behalf of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. She said in her country, the military has long used rape as a weapon against ethnic communities.“The horrific accounts of Rohingya women during the 2016 and 2017 so-called ‘clearance operations’ remain urgent, shocking and unique in their ferocity,” she said. “They are also representative of the military’s pattern of using gender-based violence in their campaigns against other ethnic communities, including the Kachin, Shan, Ta’ang and Rakhine.”She said grave international crimes continue to be committed in Myanmar, and she urged the council to refer the file to the International Criminal Court, as domestic accountability is not possible.Sexual violence a tactic of warThe U.N. secretary-general’s envoy on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, said sexual violence is a tactic of war and a tool of political repression, used to dehumanize, destabilize and forcibly displace populations. It includes rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization and forced marriage.“This is a crime that shreds the very fabric that binds communities together, leaving social cohesion and safety nets threadbare,” Patten told the council.She said the U.N. documented nearly 3,000 cases last year of conflict-related sexual violence but noted it is a crime that is underreported because of fear of reprisals and stigmatization. Nearly 90% of attacks targeted women and girls; 848 were on children. Hundreds of cases also targeted men, boys and LGBTQI persons.She noted that many victims are still seeking justice and support years later.“In post-conflict contexts, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, survivors of sexual violence are still fighting to realize their rights and status as legitimate victims of war, in order to access reparations and redress,” Patten said.She urged the council to enforce its resolution and show perpetrators that there are consequences for violating it.
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British World War II veteran Captain Tom Moore, who became a national hero and international celebrity in April when he raised $41 million for Britain’s National Health service, received a knighthood Friday during a ceremony at Windsor Castle. While the ceremony was held in private, pictures released from the event show a broadly smiling Queen Elizabeth using a sword that belonged to her father to bestow the honor on Moore on the grounds outside the castle.Captain Sir Thomas Moore poses for the media after receiving his knighthood from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, during a ceremony at Windsor Castle in Windsor, England, July 17, 2020.While the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the postponement of other official ceremonies schedule for June and July, a special exception was made for Moore. The COVID-19 disease is caused by the coronavirus. Moore received the honor after he started an online pledge drive to raise money for the National Health Service charities during the peak of the country’s COVID outbreak. He sought to complete 100 lengths of his garden, using his walker, before his 100th birthday in April. The pledges exceeded his expectations. His efforts touched people in Britain and beyond as it provided a heart-warming distraction from the adversity of the pandemic, prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to nominate Moore for the award. Moore, who has been made an honorary colonel and an honorary member of the England cricket team, said Friday he was “overwhelmed” by honor.  
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More than 300,000 Hong Kongers are believed to hold Canadian passports, and while Canada has yet to join Britain, Australia and Taiwan in making it easier for Hong Kong residents to immigrate or seek asylum because of a harsh new security law for the partly autonomous Chinese territory, Ottawa is waiting to see how many will show up.The Canadian government has so far not proposed any changes to its immigration policies for Hong Kong residents, but it has joined other countries in their criticisms of the new security law. Ostensibly meant to combat terrorism, separatism and sedition, the new law could be used to criminalize almost all dissent in Hong Kong, its critics say.The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also suspended an extradition treaty between Canada and Hong Kong, The skyline of the business district is silhouetted at sunset in Hong Kong, July 13, 2020.Although it has been just weeks since the new security law took effect on June 30, Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and policy analyst, said some of those who acquired the right to live in Canada in the 1990s or earlier are beginning to look into selling property in Hong Kong to finance the immigration of their children to Canada.“People are making plans to dispose of some property assets that were acquired 30, 40 years years ago, which today are worth a lot more, as capital to bring the child or children to Canada,” he said. “The feeling now is with the introduction of Beijing’s new security law, that the future is brighter in Canada in terms of lifestyle, and long-term goals for the Hong Kongers who do not want to live in an all-China Hong Kong.”But Kurland said he does not expect to see a massive influx from Hong Kong unless the current situation there deteriorates. However, in the short term, he sees more students coming to Canada to study, unless the coronavirus pandemic makes that impossible.Wenran Jiang is an adviser for the Asian Program at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Toronto. Speaking from his Alberta Province home in Edmonton, he said that if the purpose of the new security law is simply to reduce foreign influence in Hong Kong, the flow of immigration across the Pacific may not change much.Jiang said that immigration from Hong Kong, and more recently from mainland China, has given Canada an economic boost, particularly in the Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets.“The immigration from Hong Kong and (in more) recent years from the Chinese mainland have contributed significantly … to both the growth of Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets, among other cities, and the economic contributions are significant,” Jiang said. “But at the same time, we also know after 1997, many of the immigrants from Hong Kong, although they are having the Canadian passports, they do not really invest here or even live here. They go back to Hong Kong.”But now, he said, many of those may come back to Canada to stay if the new security law results in a significant shake-up in Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control in 1997 after 156 years of British rule.One of the early immigrants from Hong Kong was Vancouver talk show host Ken Tung, who came to Canada with his wife in 1980. Since then, Tung said he has seen Hong Kong residents follow him across the Pacific for a host of reasons, most importantly the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and the handover to China in 1997.A frequent critic of the Chinese government and its new security law for Hong Kong, Tung says Canada should speed up the process of granting asylum to those claiming to be hurt by the law.The “government of Canada should open the heart, open the arms to have the background check,” Tung said. “And (it) should accept them as a resident of Canada rather than waiting one and a half years to go through the board, go through our process. I think if this (is for) young people, (there’s) a good chance that they will become a contributing Canadian, too.”  
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In Brussels, European Union leaders are holding their first face-to-face summit in months on two key issues that will shape the bloc in the years ahead— a massive coronavirus economic recovery plan and its next multi-year budget. But differences, especially over the fund, remain sharp. Many are downplaying chances of striking a deal this time around.Face masks firmly on, the 27 European heads of state started early on talks scheduled to end Saturday. But in a sign of the difficult negotiations ahead — and in hopes of a deal this weekend — Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said he had brought extra clothing should the meetings be extended by another day.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, acknowledged differences remained very wide. Merkel says she is not certain an agreement will be reached at this summit.Germany and France, the EU’s most powerful members, have teamed up to support a proposed $857 billion fund of grants and loans to reboot coronavirus-hit economies–especially those of southern European countries like Italy and Spain.But four northern countries are reluctant to offer non-repayable grants—and want strict governance criteria. Here’s Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands—considered to toe the hardest line among the so-called “Frugal Four,” meaning his country, along with Austria, Sweden and Denmark.European Union leaders during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, July 17, 2020.“If the South is needing help from other countries to cope with the crisis — I understand that because there is limited scope to deal with that financially themselves — then I think it is only reasonable for us to ask for a clear commitment to reforms. And if then, loans have to be converted to a certain extent to grants, then reforms are even more crucial — and the absolutely guarantee that they have taken place.”Italy’s economy minister, Giovanni Tria, told an Italian newspaper his country would fight any changes to the current recovery fund proposal. Still, many leaders and experts have voiced optimism a compromise will be reached — possibly later this month.Also up for discussion is the EU’s next seven-year budget.French President Emmanuel Macron called for more solidarity and ambition among leaders to tackle the post-coronavirus recovery. He said the coming hours would be decisive — adding he was optimistic, but prudent of a positive outcome.For Germany’s Merkel, currently the bloc’s longest-serving leader and staunchly pro-EU one, a successful outcome may be particularly important. Merkel steps down next year, and analysts say she has an eye on her legacy. She also turned 66 on Friday, and Luxembourg’s Bettel said a deal on the recovery fund would be a great birthday present. 
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Assa Traoré has been fighting for justice ever since her brother Adama died in the custody of French police on his 24th birthday four years ago. And she’s determined to keep fighting until “the end,” she says: until someone is convicted for his death.
But recently, her goal has grown larger. She’s now at the forefront of a new movement for Black rights, to wipe out systemic racism in policing and to challenge France’s official vision of itself as a colorblind society.
“We became soldiers in spite of ourselves,” Assa Traoré, whose family is of Malian origin, told The Associated Press this week. “There’s a movement today. We call it the Adama generation, these people who are not afraid anymore, and these youth who will not shut up.”
The 35-year-old, who gave up her job as a special education teacher in a small Paris suburb to lead a movement demanding justice for her brother, has renewed purpose since George Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police.
“George Floyd is our brother here in France, too,” Traoré said in an interview ahead of a demonstration Saturday marking the anniversary of Adama’s death — her speech determined, her energy palpable. “When you see George Floyd’s death, you imagine the death of my brother Adama Traoré.”
It is not the first time that France has reckoned with its colonial history and relationship with its Black and North African citizens. Deaths involving police often lead to protests, most memorably in the form of nationwide unrest in 2005 sparked by the deaths of two boys who were electrocuted while hiding in an electric substation after fleeing police.
But now France is seeing a growing pushback against police violence, and against racism that many activists say is exacerbated by the country’s official doctrine of colorblindness, which encourages immigrants to integrate and bans the government from collecting census data on race.
While four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest have been charged — including one with murder who is behind bars — no one has been charged in Adama Traoré’s death. It wasn’t filmed, and the cause of death is still the subject of fierce debate.  
On July 19, 2016, police approached Adama and his brother for an identity check in the town of Beaumont-sur-Oise north of Paris, where the large family grew up. Adama fled on a bike because he didn’t have his ID. Gendarmes caught up with him and arrested him. Within hours he was declared dead.  
One gendarme initially said three officers jumped on Traoré to pin him down, according to early police reports. The gendarme later denied any of them pinned him down.  
The exact cause of death is not even clear. A dozen court-ordered medical reports found various cardiac diseases were responsible. The Traoré family countered those with an independent autopsy and medical reports pointing to asphyxiation instead. The case is still under investigation, and lawyers for the officers deny police were at fault.
In her quest for justice for her brother, Assa Traoré has met with families of those who died at the hands of police, toured struggling French suburbs where most of the population is immigrant or non-white, and organized activists across racial, geographical and economic lines.
In June, as France was reopening from virus lockdown and videos of Floyd’s killing circulated around the world, she rallied tens of thousands of protesters to call attention to French racial minorities’ own problems with police.
“We have to change everything, this systemic racism, we need to break it,” Traoré said. She called for banning dangerous techniques that police use to immobilize people that “overwhelmingly kill Black, Arabs and non-whites.”
She also thinks France needs to scrap the police oversight agencies, which are currently composed of police themselves, in favor of independent bodies.
In 2016, France’s top official for defending citizens’ rights reported that Black and Arab French people were 20 times more likely to be stopped by police than others were. In 2020, Jacques Toubon published a study detailing systemic racism in the Paris police. The government has pledged to root out racism in police forces but blames the problem on a few bad apples.  
Traoré has built bridges with other social movements — like the yellow vest one against economic injustice and the climate crisis movement.
“It’s been four years of going to every poor neighborhood in France,” Traoré said. “We’ve been in the most remote places in France, in small villages, it’s been four years of alliances with domestic workers, undocumented people, yellow vests, climate groups.”
This Saturday’s march was organized with climate activists under the slogan: “We want to breathe.”
“Today the fight for Adama Traoré does not belong to the Traoré family anymore,” Traoré said. “It’s representative of a big unease and dysfunction of the French state, so it’s a struggle we take on together.”
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The leaders of the European Union hold their first face-to-face summit in five months on Friday, but the reunion seems unlikely to bridge their divide over a post-virus economic rescue plan.Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel turns 66 on the day that she and her 26 colleagues return to Brussels, not to celebrate but to test whether in-person negotiations can answer a 750-billion-euro question.The EU has been plunged into a historic economic crunch by the coronavirus crisis, and EU officials have drawn up plans for a huge stimulus package to lead their countries out of lockdown.But a determined band of northern capitals, led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Netherlands, are holding out against doling out cash to their southern neighbors without strict conditions attached.Friday’s talks are expected to run into Saturday and perhaps even Sunday, but few here are confident of a breakthrough, despite the tight timetable, so another summit may well follow later this month.’A deal is essential’Summit host Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, has tried to create a sense of momentum after previous coronavirus-era videoconferences served only to underline the leaders’ differences.”Finding agreement will require hard work and political will on the part of all. Now is the time. A deal is essential,” he wrote in his letter inviting the leaders back to Brussels.”We will need to find workable solutions and come to an agreement, for the greater benefit of our citizens.”But optimism was in short supply as the leaders gathered in the Belgian capital, some arriving early on the eve of the summit to hold private discussions ahead of the main event.European diplomats said the Netherlands would continue to insist that member states retain the right to veto any joint borrowing by the European Union to finance loans to members.And they want any loans or grants to come with strict conditions attached to ensure that heavily indebted countries like Spain and Italy carry out reforms, under European Commission oversight.This is furiously opposed by the south. Both Michel and Merkel, whose country has just taken on the rolling six-month presidency of the EU, will struggle to broker any compromise.”We’re open to reaching an arrangement this weekend, but if there won’t be an agreement, we are open to more negotiations later on,” Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said on Wednesday.Loans or grants?The Netherlands has emerged as the most likely hold out, but Rutte’s position is backed to varying degrees by fellow members of the so-called “Frugal Four” — Sweden, Denmark and Austria.Michel’s draft plan foresees a 750-billion-euro recovery package, made up of 250 billion in loans and 500 billion in grants and subsidies that would not have to be repaid by the recipient member states.The Frugals oppose grants and want any loans to come with conditions attached.This package is in addition to the planned 1,074 billion-euro seven-year EU budget from 2021 to 2027 that the leaders must also agree in the coming weeks or months.”An agreement is not at all guaranteed. On the contrary, there remain large differences to get over,” a senior European official admitted.Aside from the governance of the recovery package, the leaders may also clash over efforts to make EU budget support contingent on member states respecting the rule of law.Hungary and Poland, which have been targeted by the European Commission over their alleged drift into authoritarianism, will fight to stop such a rule being written into the budget.  
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More than 300,000 Hong Kongers are believed to hold Canadian passports, and while Canada has yet to join Britain, Australia and Taiwan in making it easier for Hong Kong residents to immigrate or seek asylum because of a harsh new security law for the partly autonomous Chinese territory, Ottawa is waiting to see how many will show up.The Canadian government has so far not proposed any changes to its immigration policies for Hong Kong residents, but it has joined other countries in their criticisms of the new security law. Ostensibly meant to combat terrorism, separatism and sedition, the new law could be used to criminalize almost all dissent in Hong Kong, its critics say.The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also suspended an extradition treaty between Canada and Hong Kong, The skyline of the business district is silhouetted at sunset in Hong Kong, July 13, 2020.Although it has been just weeks since the new security law took effect on June 30, Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and policy analyst, said some of those who acquired the right to live in Canada in the 1990s or earlier are beginning to look into selling property in Hong Kong to finance the immigration of their children to Canada.“People are making plans to dispose of some property assets that were acquired 30, 40 years years ago, which today are worth a lot more, as capital to bring the child or children to Canada,” he said. “The feeling now is with the introduction of Beijing’s new security law, that the future is brighter in Canada in terms of lifestyle, and long-term goals for the Hong Kongers who do not want to live in an all-China Hong Kong.”But Kurland said he does not expect to see a massive influx from Hong Kong unless the current situation there deteriorates. However, in the short term, he sees more students coming to Canada to study, unless the coronavirus pandemic makes that impossible.Wenran Jiang is an adviser for the Asian Program at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Toronto. Speaking from his Alberta Province home in Edmonton, he said that if the purpose of the new security law is simply to reduce foreign influence in Hong Kong, the flow of immigration across the Pacific may not change much.Jiang said that immigration from Hong Kong, and more recently from mainland China, has given Canada an economic boost, particularly in the Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets.“The immigration from Hong Kong and (in more) recent years from the Chinese mainland have contributed significantly … to both the growth of Vancouver and Toronto real estate markets, among other cities, and the economic contributions are significant,” Jiang said. “But at the same time, we also know after 1997, many of the immigrants from Hong Kong, although they are having the Canadian passports, they do not really invest here or even live here. They go back to Hong Kong.”But now, he said, many of those may come back to Canada to stay if the new security law results in a significant shake-up in Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control in 1997 after 156 years of British rule.One of the early immigrants from Hong Kong was Vancouver talk show host Ken Tung, who came to Canada with his wife in 1980. Since then, Tung said he has seen Hong Kong residents follow him across the Pacific for a host of reasons, most importantly the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and the handover to China in 1997.A frequent critic of the Chinese government and its new security law for Hong Kong, Tung says Canada should speed up the process of granting asylum to those claiming to be hurt by the law.The “government of Canada should open the heart, open the arms to have the background check,” Tung said. “And (it) should accept them as a resident of Canada rather than waiting one and a half years to go through the board, go through our process. I think if this (is for) young people, (there’s) a good chance that they will become a contributing Canadian, too.”  
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Saying Spain showed “strong resolve” that “changed the course” of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said while paying tribute to the onetime COVID-19 hot spot for reversing “the trajectory of the outbreak.”WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday that “Spain has shown that with political leadership and action, backed by community support, that the coronavirus can be controlled, no matter at what stage virus transmission is at in a country. … From being greatly challenged, Spain has reversed the trajectory of the outbreak.”In late March and early April, Spain was reporting as many as 10,000 new cases a day.Tedros gave credit to both the Spanish government and people for adhering to tough restrictions including what the WHO says has been robust surveillance, testing, contact tracing, treatment and isolation.While hailing the success, Tedros also remembered the Spaniards and others worldwide felled by COVID-19 and warned that it remains a threat even where the emergency appeared to have abated.The coronavirus shows no sign of easing in Brazil, where the health ministry is reporting more than 2 million cases and more than 1,000 deaths a day.Brazilian health experts blame the federal government for the high toll.“The virus would have been difficult to stop anyway. But this milestone of 2 million cases, which is very underestimated, shows this could have been different,” said Dr. Adriano Massuda, a health care professor at Sao Paulo’s Getulio Vargas Foundation university. “There’s no national strategy for testing, no measures from the top … too little effort to improve basic care so we find serious cases before they become too serious, no tracking.”A health worker disinfects empty coffins that will be used to take the bodies of recently deceased residents of the San Jose nursing home in Cochabamba, Bolivia, July 16, 2020.Although the number of cases appears to be ebbing in some of the larger Brazilian cities, it is now starting to hit places that had been spared.Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who spent months minimizing COVID-19 as “a little flu,” has tested positive for the virus twice on the last two weeks.Bolsonaro has encouraged businesses to reopen and pushed local leaders to ease restrictions, saying the lockdowns and other measures are costing Brazilians their jobs.The government says lockdowns aimed at combating the spread of the virus have forced nearly 523,000 Brazilian businesses to temporarily or permanently close their doors in the first two weeks of June.Brazil trails only the United States in the number of cases and deaths. The A man is seen through a display of fun face masks for sale at a roadside stall in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 16, 2020.The country’s two largest brick-and-mortar retailers – Walmart and Kroger – announced the policy earlier this week.Without a national mandate from the White House to wear face coverings in public, it is up to states, cities and businesses to come up with their own policies.“To be clear, we’re not asking our store employees to play the role of enforcer,” CVS executive Jon Roberts says. “What we are asking is that customers help protect themselves and those around them by listening to the experts and heeding the call to wear a face covering.”Another trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has proved to be ineffective as an early treatment for mild cases of COVID-19, researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine have concluded.“There is not convincing evidence that hydroxychloroquine can either prevent COVID-19 after exposure or reduce illness severity after developing early symptoms,” said Caleb Skipper, lead author of the study. “While disappointing, these results are consistent with an emerging body of literature that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t convey a substantial clinical benefit in people diagnosed with COVID-19, despite its activity against the coronavirus in a test tube.”President Donald Trump hyped hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment early in the pandemic and said he took the drug himself. He has tested negative for the coronavirus.After initially approving it as an emergency treatment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reversed itself after doctors warned of potentially deadly side effects.The National Football League’s Players Association says 72 NFL players had tested positive for the coronavirus as of earlier this week.Team training camps are set to open July 28 with the first games of the season scheduled to be played September 10.Baseball, soccer, hockey, and basketball teams plan to resume or open their shortened seasons within weeks.But the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has said it is impossible to predict if NFL teams can play a full 16-game season.Former TV game show host Chuck Woolery, who tweeted late Sunday that “everybody is lying” about COVID-19, including doctors and the media, now says the coronavirus is real after announcing that his son has the disease.Woolery says he feels for “those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones.”In his Sunday tweet, Woolery said that the news about the coronavirus is “all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”Trump retweeted it.Woolery was the original host of the TV game shows “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection,” and “Greed” and has since become a conservative activist.  
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A thousand deaths a day.Since late May, three months after Brazil’s first reported case of the coronavirus, it has recorded more than 1,000 daily deaths on average in a gruesome plateau that has yet to tilt downward.On Thursday evening, the federal health ministry reported that the country had passed 2 million confirmed cases of virus infections and 76,000 deaths.Even as cases wane somewhat in the biggest and hardest-hit Brazilian cities, the virus is peaking in new locations across the largest country in Latin America.Experts blame denial of the virus’ deadly potential by President Jair Bolsonaro and lack of national coordination combined with scattershot responses by city and state governments, with some reopening earlier than health experts recommended.An interim health minister untrained in the field is presiding over pandemic response. Bolsonaro himself is sick with COVID-19 after repeatedly flouting social distance recommendations and undermining local leaders’ restrictions on activity.Brazil’s roughly 7,000 COVID-19 deaths in each of the last seven weeks is equal to several airplanes packed with Brazilians crashing every day, former health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta told The Associated Press.”People have become callous,” Mandetta said. “When you say, ‘Yesterday there were 1,300 deaths,’ people say, ‘OK, then it didn’t go up. It was 1,300 people the day before, too.'”Brazil’s 2 million-plus cases is second only to the United States, and experts believe the number to be an undercount due to widespread lack of testing. A model created by professors from several Brazilian academic institutions, based on the number of confirmed deaths, estimates Brazil has had 10 million infections.Barbers wear face shields, masks, and gloves for protection amid the COVID-19 pandemic while attending clients on the first day the shop was allowed to reopen, as restrictions ease in Brasilia, Brazil, July 15, 2020.”The virus would have been difficult to stop anyway. But this milestone of 2 million cases, which is very underestimated, shows this could have been different,” said Dr. Adriano Massuda, a health care administration specialist and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Sao Paulo university. “There’s no national strategy for testing, no measures from the top, … too little effort to improve basic care so we find serious cases before they become too serious, no tracking.”The virus has begun reaching cities and states previously spared, offsetting declines elsewhere. The number of deaths has been ebbing in states including Rio de Janeiro and Amazonas, where people were buried in mass graves in the capital, Manaus. In the last two weeks, 10 of Brazil’s 26 states and its Federal District saw increases, with two southern states’ average daily death tolls doubling.Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed COVID-19’s severity, saying strict social distancing measures that sacrifice jobs and income will ultimately be more harmful than the virus itself, and calling on supporters to encourage their local leaders to lift restrictions on activity. Many mayors and governors have struggled to hold the line.In Ribeirao Preto, a city in Sao Paulo state, protesting shopkeepers on Wednesday demanded they be allowed to reopen. They surrounded the mayor’s car as he left City Hall, punching his windows and cursing at him.Campinas, a city of 1.2 million people closer to the state’s capital, adopted quarantine measures early, but succumbed to political pressure and reopened commerce on June 8, said Pedro de Siqueira, a Campinas city councilman. The city center swarmed with shoppers like an overturned anthill, he said in an interview.Two weeks later, the number of COVID-19 deaths had roughly tripled to 253, as did the number of confirmed cases, to 6,324. Intensive-care beds refilled with patients, prompting the mayor to reinstate restrictions on commerce on June 22, but allowing offices and churches to continue operating.”Campinas reopened prematurely and erroneously, supported by the state government,” Siqueira, who is also a public health physician, said at the time. “This reopening was so catastrophic that Campinas had to step back but did so only partially.”Cemetery workers in protective clothing bury three victims of the new coronavirus at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 15, 2020.Since then, Campinas’ number of cases and deaths has doubled once more. On Wednesday, the city extended restrictions until July 30.Daniel Soranz, a researcher at state-run biology institute Fiocruz’s national health school, said Brazil’s center-west that includes the agricultural heartland will be the last region slammed by the virus. And, looking at deaths from severe respiratory insufficiency, it appears Brazil as a whole has begun turning the corner, he said.”By the end of August, we should be at a much better place than today,” Soranz said.In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state with 46 million residents, the number of deaths has stabilized at a level slightly below its peak. At one of the capital’s cemeteries on Wednesday, Michelle Caverni buried her 88-year-old aunt, who died of COVID-19 and also suffered from pulmonary emphysema. The same day a friend of Caverni’s buried her 57-year-old mother. She also died of COVID-19.”Until it knocks at your door, people are indifferent,” said Caverni, 40, a restaurant cook. “Yesterday there were 1,300 deaths from COVID-19. Is that supposed to be few? People are saying that’s just the media. I hear that every day at work.”Most people show only moderate symptoms from COVID-19 and recover. Some, including the elderly or those with longstanding health problems, are more susceptible to severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.Modeling by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that Brazil’s death toll will reach almost 200,000 by November, nearly closing the gap with that of the U.S. The forecast has a wide margin of error.”We will see how this patient known as Brazil will behave until the end of this epidemic,” said Mandetta, who Bolsonaro fired as health minister in April for backing state governors’ quarantine measures.  
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Military clashes between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan continued Thursday, further raising tensions between Turkey and Russia, which back opposing sides in the conflict.   The fighting erupted after a day of calm that had raised hopes of an end to the confrontation. At least 16 people have been killed since clashes started Sunday. What sparked the latest violence was not clear, but the two sides have blamed the other for the trouble. The two former Soviet Republics have been at odds for decades over Azerbaijan’s breakaway, predominantly ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In the 1990s, Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over the disputed territory. Armenian servicemen transport used tires in the back of a truck to fortify their positions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border near the village of Movses on July 15, 2020.According to the Reuters news agency, Armenia’s defense ministry accuses Azerbaijan’s army of moving positions and using people in one village as human shields. Azerbaijan denies the allegation and has made similar accusations against Armenia. The latest clashes indirectly pit Turkey against Russia. Turkey backs Azerbaijan, while Russia supports Armenia. “Turkey will never hesitate to stand against any attack on the rights and lands of Azerbaijan,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday. Erdogan suggested a wider conspiracy lay behind the latest fighting.  “This is not a border violation and conflict but a deliberate attack on Azerbaijan. Undoubtedly this attack shows Armenia is punching above its weight.” Turkish pro-government media have been quick to accuse Moscow of encouraging Armenia to attack Azerbaijan, albeit without substantiating the allegation. Moscow dismisses such accusations, with Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov on Tuesday calling for restraint on both sides and offering Russian mediation. Ankara and Moscow are already involved in proxy confrontations by backing rival sides in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars.  “Armenia and Azerbaijan are faced with the challenge of becoming the next spot, like Syria and Libya. The Russian military is already deployed in the region,” said Zaur Gasimov, a Russia expert at the University of Bonn.  “Turkey is the only player in the [Caucasus] region representing to a certain extent Western values and interests, and can prevent domination by Russia and Iran,” Gasimov added. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2nd right, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, 2nd left, along with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, right and Bulgaria’s PM Boyko Borisov left, symbolically open the TurkStream pipeline, Jan. 8, 2020.Energy interests Where the latest fighting between Armenian and Azeri forces is occurring is in itself cause for suspicion among observers.  “The location is very strange,” said Gasimov, referring to Azerbaijan’s remote Tovuz region, adding, “Normally fighting occurs in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.”The Tovuz region is close to Azerbaijan’s crucial South Caucasia pipeline. The SCP channels natural gas to Turkey’s TANAP pipeline and is a key component of Ankara’s efforts to decrease its dependence on Russian energy. “Turkey is heavily dependent on Russia for gas supplies,” said Mehmet Ogutcu of the London Energy Club policy group.  “Turkey is paying almost twice the price of EU buyers for [Russia’s] Gazprom gas,” Gasimov said.  “Turkey is now trying to reduce its intake from Russia,” he added. “Azeri gas is coming through TANAP (pipeline), which is cheaper than Russian gas that Turkey is buying. Turkey depends on 98% of its gas on imports and 92% on oil. It’s a national security issue.” Azerbaijan, one of the major oil suppliers to the European Union, is Turkey’s biggest foreign investor — mostly in the energy sector. The Azeri-Turkish partnership could deepen further as a new opportunity arises in 2021, when a major gas deal between Turkey and Russia is up for renewal. The 25-year-old deal has obliged Turkey to buy a set amount of Russian gas annually, ensuring Russia’s dominance of the Turkish energy market.  “With the contract coming to an end, Turkey will use this opportunity to rebalance its energy relations with Russia,” said Ogutcu. Russian concerns  Leaders in Russia worry their country is losing ground in Turkey’s energy market.  “Russian-Turkish talks in April on gas prices ended without success,” Gasimov said. “Azerbaijan, Iran, and Qatar are set to become as prominent as Russia as gas providers [in Turkey].” Analysts say Ankara’s energy diversification efforts play favorably for the U.S. administration.  Washington has been intensively lobbying its European allies to curtail energy cooperation with Russia as part of the Trump administration efforts to curb the Kremlin’s economic leverage over Europe. The United States is also threatening sanctions over Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline serving Germany and TurkStream, opened in January by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. administration officials say both pipelines violate the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017.   FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaks during a news conference at the State Department, July 1, 2020, in Washington.In remarks Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the two projects as “the Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies” that he said “ultimately undermine transatlantic security.” “It is a clear warning to the companies aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects. Get out now, or risk the consequences,” Pompeo said.  The rift between Turkey and Russia has coincided with a rapprochement between Ankara and Washington, but analysts are not rushing to declare an end to the Russian-Turkish partnership.   While Ankara seeks to reduce its dependence on Russia’s energy, both Erdogan and Putin are aware of a mutual dependency between the two countries. “Turkish-Russian relations are not based only on Russian gas,” said Ogutcu.  “It’s a package. You have a [Russian] nuclear energy plant being (built) in Turkey, you have a security issue in Syria. Turkish construction exports to Russia and Russian tourists coming to Turkey,” Ogutcu said.  As some observers see it, Moscow is likely to avoid a rupture with Ankara and they warn the latest tensions in the Caucasus could be a message to Turkey that there is a cost to rebalancing ties with Russia. 
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The political future of Russian President Vladimir Putin would seem to be secure. A constitutional referendum in Russia ending July first gave the longtime leader a new mandate to stay in power for 16 more years. But in the days that have followed the vote, Russia’s security services have launched a series of arrests and detentions against perceived government opponents. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.VIDEOGRAPHER: Ricardo Marquina,
PRODUCER: Rod James
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Britain’s foreign ministry said Thursday Russia sought to interfere in Britain’s 2019 general election by illicitly acquiring sensitive documents relating to a planned free trade agreement with the United States and leaking them online.
 
In a statement submitted to the British House of Commons, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “It is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 General Election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked Government documents.”
 
Raab said the documents relating to the British-U.S. trade deal were “illicitly acquired before the 2019 General Election and disseminated online via the social media platform Reddit.”
 
Raab said their investigation found that when the documents made little impact, further attempts were made to promote illicitly obtained material online before the election. He said Britain reserves the right to respond with appropriate measures in the future.
 
Russia’s Foreign Ministry declined requests for immediate comment but said it would respond later Thursday. President Vladimir Putin has laughed off similar allegations in the past.
 
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Britain, Canada and the United States have accused Russia of trying to steal COVID-19 information from academic and pharmaceutical institutions.Britain’s National Cyber Security Center announced Thursday in coordination with the U.S. and Canada the attempts to steal vaccine and treatment research is being conducted by the hacking group APT29, which is said to be part of the Russian intelligence community.The NCSC said the hacking group, also known as Cozy Bear, is continuing its attacks with spear-phishing, custom malware and a variety of other tools and techniques.The U.S. and Britain said two months ago that networks of hackers were targeting organizations worldwide that were responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not explicitly link the efforts to Russia.U.S. intelligence agencies widely suspect that Cozy Bear hacked Democratic Party computers before the 2016 election, with the intent of helping President Donald Trump win the election. 
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