Serena Williams turns 40 in September. Roger Federer hits that milestone the month before. No one knows how many more French Open appearances each will make, and this year’s tournament ended for both on Sunday.Williams fell way behind and could not put together a comeback against a much younger and less-experienced opponent in the fourth round at Roland Garros, losing 6-3, 7-5 to Elena Rybakina, who wasn’t even born when the American made her tournament debut in 1998.Asked whether that might have been her last match at the clay-court major, Williams replied: “Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking about it at all. I’m definitely thinking just about other things, but not about that.”Her defeat came hours after Federer withdrew, saying he needed to let his body recover ahead of Wimbledon after a long third-round victory that ended at nearly 1 a.m. on Sunday.Wimbledon, which Federer has won eight times and Williams seven, begins June 28.”I’m kind of excited to switch surfaces,” Williams said. “Historically I have done pretty well on grass.”She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles; Federer has won 20. They are two of the sport’s greatest and most popular players, so it was quite a blow to the tournament, its TV partners and tennis fans to see both gone from the French Open field one after the other — and a week after Naomi Osaka pulled out, citing a need for a mental health break.Switzerland’s Roger Federer returns a shot to Germany’s Dominik Koepfer during their match on day seven of the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, June 5, 2021.Williams has won the French Open three times. But the American hasn’t been past the fourth round in Paris since she was the runner-up in 2016.Rybakina is a 21-year-old from Kazakhstan who is ranked 22nd. This was just the seventh Grand Slam appearance for Rybakina — and the first time she ever made it past the second round.”When I was small, of course, I was watching her matches on TV. So many Grand Slams,” Rybakina said of Williams.Against Williams, whose right thigh was heavily taped, Rybakina hit big, flat serves. She dealt with, but managed to steady, her nerves. She even produced the occasional return winner off Williams’ speedy serve, breaking her five times, including in the next-to-last game.”I knew that the serve was going to be difficult for me to return. She’s powerful, but I was ready,” Rybakina said. “Then, after few points, I felt … comfortable.”Rybakina said she followed her coach’s strategy of sending shots to Williams’ backhand side and trying to stay away from her forehand.Every time Williams appeared as if she might turn things around, she could not quite get the momentum fully in her favor.Repeatedly one sort of mistake or another undid Williams. She ended up with 19 unforced errors and only 15 winners.  “I’m so close. There is literally a point here, a point there, that could change the whole course of the match,” Williams said. “I’m not winning those points. That, like, literally could just change everything.”Since winning the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant for her most recent major singles title — No. 23 set a record for the professional era — Williams has come close to tying Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24. That includes four runner-up finishes at Grand Slam tournaments, most recently against Bianca Andreescu at the 2019 U.S. Open.But since then, Williams has been beaten twice in semifinals, and once each in the third and fourth rounds. Last year at the French Open, she withdrew before the second round, citing an injured left Achilles.Federer, meanwhile, never had pulled out of a Grand Slam tournament once he had started competing in it until now.
 
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Kamala Harris left Sunday on her first trip as U.S. vice president, visiting Guatemala and Mexico on a mission to try to figure out how to keep the people there and in Honduras and El Salvador from migrating north to the United States.As thousands of migrants try to cross the southwestern U.S. border with Mexico, Harris is looking to reach agreements for more cooperation on border security and economic development to keep people in their home countries even as corruption in the region complicates already difficult issues.Harris, who has little foreign policy experience, was tasked by President Joe Biden to resolve the migration dilemma for the U.S., searching for a way to stem the flow of migrants in a humane way and not allow unfettered access into the U.S.She is meeting with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday. In addition, Harris is meeting community leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs in Guatemala, and while in Mexico, she is participating in a conversation with female entrepreneurs and holding a roundtable with labor workers.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 11 MB480p | 15 MB540p | 21 MB720p | 42 MB1080p | 86 MBOriginal | 606 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioWatch: ‘Kamala Harris Heads to Mexico, Guatemala’ by VOA’s Patsy WidakuswaraAhead of her visits to the two countries, she has emphasized the need for increased employment opportunities and better living conditions. She announced $310 million in U.S. aid to support refugees and deal with food shortages. She also recently won commitments from U.S. companies and organizations to invest in Central American countries to promote economic opportunity and job training.The U.S. also last week said it would send a combined 1.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to Guatemala and Mexico.Harris’s diplomatic outreach has touched off political mockery at home because she has yet to visit the U.S.-Mexico border even though she said she would at some point.At a news conference, some Republicans displayed a milk carton showing Harris with the headline: “MISSING AT THE BORDER.”Over recent years, the U.S. has sent billions of dollars in assistance to Central American countries in hopes of curbing the motivation for residents there to migrate north to the U.S. But so far, the aid has not stemmed the tide of migration as people look to escape crime and poverty in search of a better life in the U.S.Former President Donald Trump adopted get-tough policies at the border to turn back migrants. Biden also is turning back migrants but has allowed unaccompanied children to enter the U.S., unlike Trump. The policy shift combined with a predictable rise in spring migration and the easing of pandemic restrictions at the border, contributed to the arrival of thousands of migrants in recent months, increasing pressure on the Biden administration to resolve the issue.”We have to give people a sense of hope, a sense of hope that help is on the way, a sense of hope that if they stay, things will get better,” Harris said after Biden named her to lead diplomatic efforts in Latin America.The Harris trip got off to a tentative start when her plane leaving Washington was forced to return after 30 minutes by what was described as a “technical issue.” She boarded another plane and left about an hour and a half later.
 
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Turkey’s environment minister pledged on Sunday to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara, using a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick, slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry.Harbors, shorelines and swathes of seawater have been blanketed by the viscous, greyish substance, some of which has sunk below the waves, suffocating life on the seabed.Environment Minister Murat Kurum said Turkey planned to designate the entire Sea of Marmara a protected area, reduce pollution and improve treatment of wastewater from coastal cities and ships, which has helped the sea snot to spread.He also called on local residents, artists and nongovernmental organizations to join what he said would be Turkey’s biggest maritime cleanup operation, starting Tuesday.”Hopefully, together we will protect our Marmara within the framework of a disaster management plan,” Kurum said, speaking from a marine research vessel that has been taking samples of the slimy substance.”We will take all the necessary steps within three years and realize the projects that will save not only the present but also the future together,” he added.Kurum said the measures Turkey planned would reduce nitrogen levels in the sea by 40%, a move he said scientists believed would help restore the waters to their previous state.Scientists say climate change and pollution have contributed to the proliferation of the organic matter, which contains a wide variety of microorganisms and can flourish when nutrient-rich sewage flows into seawater.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the outbreak on untreated water from cities, including Istanbul, home to 16 million people, and vowed to “clear our seas from the mucilage scourge.”   
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Sunday marked the 77th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of France’s Normandy region. Historians say the months-long battles that followed liberated Europe from Nazi Germany and gave the Allies the upper hand in World War II. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports how survivors marked the day.
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Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his pain over the discovery in Canada of the remains of 215 Indigenous students of church-run boarding schools and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he didn’t offer the apology sought by the Canadian prime minister.Francis, in remarks to faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, also called on the authorities to foster healing but made no reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s insistence, two days earlier, that the Vatican apologize and take responsibility.From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools, the majority of them run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society.The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages.Ground-penetrating radar was used to confirm the remains of the children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, last month. The school was Canada’s largest such facility and was operated by the Catholic Church between 1890 and 1969.”I am following with pain the news that arrives from Canada about the upsetting discovery of the remains of 215 children,” Francis said in his customary Sunday noon remarks to the public.”I join with the Canadian bishops and the entire Catholic Church in Canada in expressing my closeness to the Canadian people traumatized by the shocking news,” Francis said.”This sad discovery adds to the awareness of the sorrows and sufferings of the past,” he added.Trudeau on Friday blasted the church for being “silent” and “not stepping up,” and called on it to formally apologize and to make amends for its prominent role in his nation’s former system of church-run Indigenous boarding schools.He noted that when he met with Francis at the Vatican in 2017, he had asked him to “move forward on apologizing” and on making records available. But, Trudeau said, “we’re still seeing resistance from the church, possibly from the church in Canada.”Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in British Columbia has said her nation wants a public apology from the Catholic Church. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which ran nearly half of Canada’s residential schools, has yet to release any records about the Kamloops school, she also said.Francis’ comments spoke of healing but not of apology.”May the political and religious authorities continue to collaborate with determination to shed light on this sad affair and to commit humbly to a path of reconciliation and healing,” Francis said.”These difficult moments represent a strong call to distance ourselves from the colonial model and from today’s ideological colonizing and to walk side by side in dialogue, in mutual respect and in recognizing rights and cultural values of all the daughters and sons of Canada,” the pope said.”Let’s entrust to the Lord the souls of all those children, deceased in the residential schools of Canada,” the pontiff added. “Let us pray for the families and for the indigenous Canadian communities overcome by sorrow.” Francis then asked the public in the square below his window to join him in silent prayer.Last week, the Vatican spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment about the demands for a formal apology from the pope.On Wednesday, Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller tweeted his “deep apology and profound condolences to the families and communities that have been devastated by this horrific news.” The churchman, who leads Catholics in that British Columbia archdiocese, added that the church was “unquestionably wrong in implementing a government colonialist policy which resulted in devastation for children, families and communities.”The United, Presbyterian and Anglican churches have apologized for their roles in the abuse, as has the Canadian government, which has offered compensation.Among the many recommendations of a government-established Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a papal apology.In 2009, then Pope Benedict XVI met with former students and survivors and told them of his “personal anguish” over their suffering. But his words weren’t described as an apology. 
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Mexicans headed to the polls on Sunday to vote for a new lower house of Congress, state governors and local lawmakers, in a race seen as a referendum on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s policies and efforts to shake up Mexico’s institutions.All 500 seats in the lower house, 15 state governorships and thousands of local leadership positions are up for grabs, with some 93.5 million Mexicans eligible to vote. 
The elections have been tinged by the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine rollout, as well as record criminal violence, with security consultancy Etellekt saying 91 politicians have been killed in this election cycle. Since taking office in 2018 after a landslide victory, Lopez Obrador has expanded the role of the state in the energy industry and radically cut back on the cost of government to channel resources to the poor and his priority infrastructure projects. In the process, he has eroded institutional checks and balances and frequently criticized autonomous bodies, including the Bank of Mexico, prompting critics to sound the alarm about a dangerous centralization of power. Though voters tend to criticize his government’s record on job creation and fighting crime, they are more skeptical of Mexico’s former rulers, now in opposition. Lopez Obrador has also benefited from the vaccine rollout. Recent polls suggest his National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) may lose some of its current 253 seats in the lower house, but is still likely to retain a majority with the help of the allied Green and Labor parties. The Senate is not up for election. That support partly reflects discontent with older parties. To stay on top in the long term, MORENA must improve its record on the economy, officials, lawmakers and voters say. At least one survey pointed to a tight race with the three opposition parties, the center-right National Action Party (PAN), centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), that have forged an electoral alliance nipping at the heels of the MORENA-led coalition.Though the president’s name is not on the ballot, a big win “may embolden Lopez Obrador to pursue more interventionist policies and could open the door to constitutional changes,” said Nikhil Sanghani, Latin America economist at Capital Economics. Sanghani said the president would likely deepen his state-centric policies, especially in the energy sector, in his remaining three years in office. Lopez Obrador has made reversing his predecessor’s opening of the energy sector a top priority and has bolstered state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and national power utility the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), often to the detriment of private enterprise. Duncan Wood of the Washington-based Wilson Center said that Lopez Obrador, who describes his administration as the “Fourth Transformation,” wants to leave a lasting imprint on Mexico’s political landscape. “To leave a lasting legacy means changing the constitution, because if you change the constitution, it’s much more difficult for governments who follow you to change it back,” said Wood, adding the president would likely want to further centralize power in the hands of the executive and federal government over the states. Lopez Obrador has signaled that he has already carried out the core of his legislative agenda, however, and says that only a few major issues are pending for the second half of his administration. By law Lopez Obrador can only serve one term, so keeping or expanding a majority in the lower house is needed to accelerate the “structural economic and social transformation the president has been advocating, and pave the way for a friendly political succession in 2024,” said Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos. In the campaign leading up to Sunday’s election, former President Felipe Calderon, a longstanding adversary of Lopez Obrador, said Mexicans were choosing between “democracy and dictatorship.” Lopez Obrador has repeatedly rejected suggestions that he could turn Mexico into a dictatorship. Calderon, who ruled Mexico for the center-right PAN from 2006 to 2012, said the leftist government of Lopez Obrador had little regard for the constitution or the law. “If we don’t stop this, we’re going directly to where Venezuela is,” he said in an online discussion in May. For his part, Lopez Obrador has accused Calderon of robbing him of the presidency in 2006 and often pillories him as part of a corrupt political system. A loss at the ballot box for MORENA and its allies, though unlikely, could help moderate Lopez Obrador by creating a new check on his power. But it could also prompt a backlash. “It could also bring out Lopez Obrador’s combativeness, and lead to legal challenges against results, more anti-business rhetoric, and increased political polarization,” said Nicholas Watson, managing director of consultancy Teneo. 
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Turkey’s environment minister pledged on Sunday to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara with a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry.Harbors, shorelines and swathes of seawater have been blanketed by the viscous, greyish substance, some of which has also sunk below the waves, suffocating life on the seabed.”Hopefully, together we will protect our Marmara within the framework of a disaster management plan,” Environment Minister Murat Kurum said, speaking from a marine research vessel which has been taking samples of the slimy substance.”We will take all the necessary steps within 3 years and realize the projects that will save not only the present but also the future together,” Kurum said, adding that he would soon give details of the action plan.Scientists say climate change and pollution have contributed to the proliferation of the organic matter, which contains a wide variety of microorganisms and can flourish when nutrient-rich sewage flows into seawater.President Tayyip Erdogan blamed the outbreak on untreated water from cities including Istanbul, home to 16 million people, and vowed to “clear our seas from the mucilage scourge.” 
 
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The United States will stand with its European allies against Russia, President Joe Biden has promised ahead of the first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin of his administration.   Biden will head to Europe Wednesday and is set to attend both the G-7 and NATO summits as well as holding a high-stakes meeting with the Russian leader in Geneva on June 16.   The summit comes amid the biggest crisis in ties between the two countries in years, with tensions high over a litany of issues including hacking allegations, human rights and claims of election meddling.   In an op-ed for The Washington Post published Saturday, the U.S. president promised to shore up Washington’s “democratic alliances” in the face of multiple crises and mounting threats from Moscow and Beijing.   “We are standing united to address Russia’s challenges to European security, starting with its aggression in Ukraine, and there will be no doubt about the resolve of the United States to defend our democratic values, which we cannot separate from our interests,” he wrote.    “President Putin knows that I will not hesitate to respond to future harmful activities,” he said. “When we meet, I will again underscore the commitment of the United States, Europe and like-minded democracies to stand up for human rights and dignity.”    Since taking office in January, Biden has ramped up pressure on the Kremlin, and his comments likening Putin to a “killer” were met with fierce criticism in Moscow.    But both leaders have expressed hopes that relations can improve, with the Russian president saying Friday he expected a “positive” result from the talks.   Biden in his weekend op-ed also stressed that Washington “does not seek conflict” — pointing to his recent extension of the New START arms reduction treaty as proof of his desire to reduce tensions.   “We want a stable and predictable relationship where we can work with Russia on issues like strategic stability and arms control,” he wrote.    
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When the sun rises over Omaha Beach, revealing vast stretches of wet sand extending toward distant cliffs, one starts to grasp the immensity of the task faced by Allied soldiers on June 6, 1944, landing on the Nazi-occupied Normandy shore.Several ceremonies are scheduled Sunday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the decisive assault that led to the liberation of France and western Europe from Nazi control, and honor those who fell.On D-Day, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. This year on June 6, the beaches stood vast and empty as the sun rose, exactly 77 years since the dawn invasion.For the second year in a row, anniversary commemorations are marked by virus travel restrictions that have prevented veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain, Canada and other Allied countries making the trip to France. Only a few officials were allowed exceptions.Most public events have been canceled, and the official ceremonies are limited to a small number of selected guests and dignitaries.Denis van den Brink, a WWII expert working for the town of Carentan, site of a strategic battle near Utah Beach, acknowledged the “big loss, the big absence is all the veterans who couldn’t travel.”“That really hurts us very much because they are all around 95, 100 years old, and we hope they’re going to last forever. But, you know…” he said.A picture of an unknown soldier is seen on the shore of Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer, Normandy, June 6, 2021 on the eve of 77th anniversary of the assault that helped bring an end to World War II.“At least we remain in a certain spirit of commemoration, which is the most important,” he told The Associated Press.Over the anniversary weekend, many local residents have come out to visit the monuments marking the key moments of the fight and show their gratitude to the soldiers. Dozens of French World War II history enthusiasts, and a few travelers from neighboring European countries, could also be seen in jeeps and military vehicles on the small roads of Normandy.Some reenactors came to Omaha Beach in the early hours of the day to pay tribute to those who fell that day, bringing flowers and American flags.On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.A few kilometers away from Omaha Beach, the British Normandy Memorial is to be inaugurated on Sunday outside the village of Ver-sur-Mer. Visitors stand in awe at the solemnity and serenity of the place providing a spectacular view over Gold Beach and the English Channel.The monument, built under a project launched in 2016, pays tribute to those under British command who died on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy. The names of more than 22,000 men and women, mostly British soldiers, are written on its stone columns.Later Sunday, another ceremony will take place at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, on a bluff overseeing Omaha Beach. Charles Shay, 96, a Penobscot Native American who now lives in Normandy, is expected to be the only veteran present in person.Some other veterans, and families of soldiers, will be able to watch the broadcast on social media.The cemetery contains 9,380 graves, most of them for servicemen who lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. Another 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing.Normandy has more than 20 military cemeteries holding mostly Americans, Germans, French, British, Canadians and Polish troops who took part in the historic battle.  
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Voters in Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls Sunday to elect a new state assembly in what is seen as the last big test for Germany’s political parties before a national election in September.Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union won the last election in the sparsely populated state of 2.2 million five years ago. Recent opinion polls show it faces a strong challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany, which came second in Saxony-Anhalt in 2016.Incumbent governor Reiner Haseloff, a member of Merkel’s CDU, is popular with voters in the state. A strong win would also be seen as a sign that the party’s new leader, Armin Laschet, can hope for support from both conservatives and centrists in this fall’s national election.Alternative for Germany has benefited from anti-government sentiment in the state, which until 1990 was part of communist East Germany. The party has lately campaigned strongly against pandemic restrictions, and its election posters urged voters to demonstrate their “resistance” at the ballot box.The environmentalist Greens, who have been riding high in national polls, aim to reach 10% in Saxony-Anhalt, while the center-left Social Democrats are hoping to stay above that mark. Both have been part of Haseloff’s governing coalition for the past five years.Haseloff has ruled out any cooperation with Alternative for Germany or the ex-communist Left party.Polls indicate the pro-business Free Democrats may enter the state assembly again after missing out five years ago.
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Peruvians face a polarizing choice between right-wing populist Keiko Fujimori and radical leftist Pedro Castillo when they elect a new president Sunday, in a country desperate for a return to normalcy after years of political turbulence.The new leader will need to tackle a country in crisis, suffering from recession and with the worst coronavirus death rate in the world after recording 184,000 mortalities among the 33 million population.And after four presidents in the last three years and with seven of the last 10 of the country’s leaders either having been convicted of or investigated for corruption, Peruvians will look to their next leader to bring an end to the recent turbulence.At the height of the political storm in November last year, Peru had three different presidents in just five days.Two million Peruvians have lost their jobs during the pandemic and nearly a third of the country now lives in poverty, according to official figures.Fujimori, 46, and Castillo, 51, caused a surprise when taking the top two spots in April’s first round of voting.Now voters must decide between their polar opposite economic and political programs.In the most recent poll, Castillo had a narrow 2 percentage points edge but 18% of people remained undecided in a country where voting is obligatory.Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced and jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, represents the neoliberal economic model of tax cuts and boosting private activity to generate jobs.Trade unionist schoolteacher Castillo has pledged to nationalize vital industries, raise taxes, eliminate tax exemptions and increase state regulation.Fujimori’s bastion is the capital Lima, while Castillo’s bulwark is the rural deep interior.”We’re fed up with always being governed by the same people, we want Peru to change,” Martha Huaman, 27, a fruit seller in Tacabamba, in the Cajamarca region where Castillo lives, told AFP.”For us it’s a dream, it’s an awakening, we’re really happy to be with” Castillo, said evangelical priest Victor Cieza Rivera, whose church is attended by the presidential candidate’s wife, Lilia Paredes.Tacabamba and other villages in Cajamarca are full of posters for Castillo, who topped the first round of voting.’I don’t want to vote’Favored by the business sector and middle classes, Fujimori has tried to portray Castillo as a communist threat, warning that Peru would become a new Venezuela or North Korea should he win.Castillo has pointed to the Fujimori family’s history of corruption scandals. Keiko Fujimori is under investigation for accepting illegal campaign funding in her 2011 and 2016 presidential bids and has already spent 16 months in pre-trial detention.Her father is serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity and corruption.For many in Peru this election is about the “lesser of evils.””I don’t even want to vote, neither of them deserve it, but Castillo panics me so I’m going to vote for Fujimori,” said trucker Johnny Samaniego, 51, who lives in Lima.Whoever wins will have a hard time governing as Congress is fragmented. Castillo’s Free Peru is the largest single party, just ahead of Fujimori’s Popular Force, but without a majority.If Fujimori wins “it won’t be easy given the mistrust her name and that of her family generates in many sectors. She’ll have to quickly calm the markets and generate ways to reactivate them,” political scientist Jessica Smith told AFP.If Castillo triumphs, he’ll have to “consolidate a parliamentary majority that will allow him to deliver his ambitious program,” added Smith.But in either case “it will take time to calm the waters because there’s fierce polarization and an atmosphere of social conflict,” analyst Luis Pasaraindico told AFP.Some 160,000 police and soldiers have been deployed to guarantee peace on election day.The 11,400 voting centers will open at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) for 12 hours.Some 25 million people will vote, plus another 1 million from the Peruvian diaspora living in 75 countries around the world.The first results are expected at 11:00 pm on Sunday (0400 GMT Monday).The new president will take office on July 28, replacing centrist interim leader Francisco Sagasti. 
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El Salvador may become the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, President Nayid Bukele announced Saturday, saying he would soon propose a bill that could transform the remittance-dependent economy.The move would make the Central American nation the first in the world to formally accept the cryptocurrency as legal money and would “allow the financial inclusion of thousands of people who are outside the legal economy,” Bukele said.”Next week, I will send to Congress a bill that makes Bitcoin legal money,” the populist leader said during a video message to the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida.The bill aims to create jobs, he said, in a country where “70% of the population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy.”The El Salvador government is yet to give details of the bill, which will require approval from a parliament dominated by the president’s allies.Remittances from Salvadorans working overseas represent a major chunk of the economy — equivalent to roughly 22% of Gross Domestic Product.In 2020, remittances to the country totaled $5.9 billion, according to official reports.According to Bukele, bitcoin represented “the fastest growing way to transfer” those billions of dollars in remittances and to prevent millions from being lost to intermediaries.”Thanks to the use of bitcoin, the amount received by more than a million low-income families increases by several billion dollars every year,” said the president.”This improves life and the future of millions of people.”The cryptocurrency market grew to more than $2.5 trillion in mid-May 2020, according to the Coinmarketcap page, driven by interest from increasingly serious investors from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.But the volatility of bitcoin — currently priced at $36,127 — and its murky legal status has raised questions about whether it could ever replace fiat currency in day-to-day transactions.
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The idyllic image of peaceful Swiss Alpine pastures is being shattered by upcoming votes on pesticides which have sharply divided opinion in rural Switzerland.The Swiss will vote on June 13 on a proposal which, if it passes, would make Switzerland the first country in the world to ban synthetic pesticides.Proponents seek to ban pesticides with non-naturally occurring chemicals — and not only for agriculture but also for public green spaces, private gardens, and even for killing the weeds on railway tracks.The initiative, entitled “For a Switzerland free from synthetic pesticides,” would also ban the import of foodstuffs produced with synthetic pesticides, so as not to put Swiss farmers at a disadvantage.A campaign marked by heated debates boiled over in the western Vaud region when arsonists torched a trailer in a field displaying banners calling for a “No” vote, infuriating farmers.Meanwhile farmers in the “Yes” campaign say they have been the victims of insults, threats and intimidation.Slurry on the ballotUnder Switzerland’s direct democracy system, referendums and popular votes occur every few months at national, regional and local levels.Any topic can be put to a national vote if it gathers 100,000 signatures in the wealthy nation of 8.6 million people.Launched by a committee headed up by a winegrower and a soil biology professor from Neuchatel University, the pesticides initiative gathered 121,307 signatures.A parallel vote is also being held, on an initiative entitled “For clean drinking water and healthy food.”Under the proposal, government subsidies to farms would be limited only to those that do not use pesticides, and to those that do not use antibiotics as a preventative measure, but only to treat sick animals.To limit the amount of slurry (liquid manure) being used on fields — and thereby potentially entering the water system — it would also limit subsidies to only farms that can feed animals with the fodder they produce themselves.Supporters of the initiative, which garnered 113,979 signatures, say taxpayers’ money must not be used to subsidize damage to public health and the environment.Agriculture groups splitLarge agricultural organizations, including the Swiss Farmers’ Union and the Association of Swiss Vegetable Producers, have called for a double “No” vote, deeming the measures too extreme.”We feed you, we get punished,” runs their slogan.Beekeepers want a double “Yes” vote, while the Bio Suisse group of organic producers and gardeners — in a country where organic farming accounts for 15% of all farms — wants a “Yes” vote on pesticides and a “No” vote on the second initiative.It says that despite the second initiative’s good intentions, the fodder limits would make the work of organic farmers all the harder, without resolving the issue of intensive farming — as large farms could simply renounce subsidies and keep big herds.The Swiss government recommends a double “No” vote, warning of the risks to food supply that could see prices soar, to the detriment of lower-income households in a country where the cost of living is already high.’Agriculture must change'”Agriculture must change, we agree on that,” Francis Egger, deputy director of the Swiss Farmers’ Union, told AFP.”There are two times 100,000 people who have signed, so there is a clear message from consumers,” he admitted, adding up the two separate petitions.But these initiatives go “too far,” he said, and risk heavily penalizing Swiss farmers who have already made significant efforts to reduce pesticide use.Antoinette Gilson, a biologist by training and a member of the committee behind the pesticides initiative, insisted: “Our initiative is not directed against farmers.”It aims to ban synthetic pesticides, which are “the most dangerous,” and to which farmers themselves are highly exposed, she said, but not organic pesticides or alternatives that do not contain “toxic chemicals.”Some 107 active ingredients used for bio-pesticides, including sulfur and copper, would still be authorized, as opposed to 383 today.The two initiatives started the campaign with clear leads in the polls but have seen their support levels drop.A poll published on June 2 by the Tamedia press group said the pesticides initiative had 42% support, while the drinking water initiative was running at 41% backing.Rural voters favor rejecting the proposals while urban voters are overwhelmingly in support of them, the survey showed. 
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U.S Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Guatemala and Mexico this week, bringing a message of hope to a region hammered by COVID-19 and which is the source of most of the undocumented migrants seeking entry in the U.S.Harris is taking her first trip abroad as President Joe Biden’s deputy with an eye towards tackling the root causes of migration from the region — one of the thorniest issues facing the White House.”We have to give people a sense of hope, a sense of hope that help is on the way, a sense of hope that if they stay, things will get better,” Harris has said, after Biden tasked her with leading diplomatic efforts on the issue in March.She is set to fly Sunday to Guatemala, where she will meet with President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday before setting off to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday.Harris also has plans to meet with community, labor and business leaders, according to her team.Harris said she hopes to have “very frank and honest discussions” about corruption, crime and violence.Detentions of undocumented travelers, including unaccompanied minors, along the US-Mexico border hit a 15-year record high in April, with nearly 180,000 people intercepted — more than 80% of them coming from Mexico or the so-called Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.Vaccines, TPS, Title 42Donation of coronavirus vaccines by the United States to the region is also expected to be up for discussion.Harris already addressed the subject over the phone with Giammattei and Lopez Obrador on Thursday, just before Biden announced the shipment of a first batch of 6 million doses to be distributed in Central America and the Caribbean through the global Covax program, plus others to be sent directly from Washington to partner countries such as Mexico.For security and democracy expert Rebecca Bill Chavez, “a real commitment” on the number of doses destined for the Northern Triangle would be “one very positive outcome” of Harris’s trip.Another potential topic is the possibility of granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Guatemalans living in the United States, allowing them to work legally.And there could be talk in Mexico of the end of “Title 42,” a Trump-era coronavirus policy allowing the immediate deportation of undocumented migrants — even those who arrive seeking asylum.’A lot tougher’The vice president’s trip to Central America is part of the Biden administration’s promise of a more humane immigration policy — in contrast to the hardline approach taken by his predecessor Donald Trump.But Harris faces challenges even more complicated than the ones Biden dealt with as vice president under Barack Obama, when he himself was charged with handling the same matter.”The conditions have deteriorated dramatically since 2014,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, referring to a worsening economic situation and an increase in violence, both exacerbated by the pandemic.Harris’s work is therefore “a lot tougher,” Shifter said, “because the (country) partners are far more problematic.”The relationship between Washington and El Salvador has been tense since the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, led by the ruling party, fired judges and the attorney general May 1, and after the U.S. labeled members of President Nayib Bukele’s government as corrupt.And Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was implicated of cocaine trafficking in a New York court earlier this year.A group of 18 US Democratic senators wrote a letter to Harris ahead of her trip.”Ensuring stability in Central America directly supports the national interests of the United States,” said the group, led by Foreign Relations Committee head Bob Menendez.The Republican opposition, on the other hand, has accused Biden of creating a “crisis” on the country’s southern border.Congress must still decide whether to approve the $861 million Biden has asked for next year as part of his $4 billion plan to take on the issue of illegal immigration.
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When the leaders of the world’s industrialized nations meet next week in Cornwall, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will ask them to commit to “vaccinate the entire world against coronavirus by the end of 2022,” according to a statement Saturday.”Vaccinating the world by the end of next year would be the single greatest feat in medical history,” Johnson said in a statement. “I’m calling on my fellow G-7 leaders to join us to end this terrible pandemic and pledge we will never allow the devastation wreaked by coronavirus to happen again.”He may run into some pushback from his own country.New cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have dropped dramatically since the United Kingdom began its vaccination campaign. Now nearly 68 million people have received at least one shot and nearly 27 million are fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. That’s 40% of the population.But cases of the Delta variant are on the rise and that could threaten the nation’s progress. As Britain opens up, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Reuters, a rise in cases is expected. The vaccine, he said, has broken the link between rising cases and rising deaths.“But it hasn’t been completely severed yet, and that’s one of the things that we’re watching very carefully,” he added.In China’s Guangzhou city, a port city of more than 13 million people, new restrictions took effect Saturday because of a rise in COVID-19 cases that began in late May.Of the 24 new cases of COVID-19 reported in China on Saturday, 11 were transmitted in Guangzhou province, where the city is located.Authorities had imposed restrictions earlier in the week but sought additional limits on business and social activities. Authorities closed about a dozen subway stops, and the city’s Nansha district ordered restaurants to stop dine-in services and public venues, such as gyms, to temporarily close.A man is admitted at the COVID unit of the Moscoso Puello hospital in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, June 2, 2021, as the country suffers a spike in the number of positive cases.Officials in the districts of Nansha, Huadu and Conghua ordered all residents and any individuals who have traveled through their regions to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Reuters reported.As Afghanistan attempts to beat back a surge in COVID-19 cases, it has received the news that the 3 million doses of vaccines it was expecting from the World Health Organization in April will not arrive until August, according to the Associated Press.Afghan health ministry spokesperson Ghulam Dastagir Nazari told AP that he has approached several embassies for help but has not received any vaccines. “We are in the middle of a crisis,” he said.The war-torn country reported nearly 7,500 new cases in the week ending Saturday, a record, according to Johns Hopkins, and 187 deaths, also a record. The official figures are no doubt an undercount because they include only those in hospitals, while most people who become sick stay home and die there, the AP said.Afghan health officials are blaming the Delta variant, first discovered in India, for its soaring infection rate. Travel to India is unrestricted and many students and those seeking medical care go there, according to the AP.While the government has tried to enforce mask wearing and social distancing, most Afghans resist.”Our people believe it is fake, especially in the countryside,” Dr. Zalmai Rishteen, administrator of the Afghan-Japan Hospital, the only hospital dedicated to COVID-19 patients, told the AP. “Or they are religious and believe God will save them.”About 626,000 Afghans have received one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, with about 145,000 fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins.On Saturday, India’s health ministry reported 120,529 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours period, the lowest daily count of new infections in 58 days. More than 3,000 deaths were also recorded.Johns Hopkins reported Saturday more than 172 million global COVID infections. The U.S. has the most cases with 33.3 million, followed by India with 28.7 million and Brazil with nearly 17 million. 
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Thousands of Hungarians, some holding banners declaring “Treason,” protested Saturday against a Chinese university’s plans to open a campus in Budapest.Liberal opponents of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban accuse him of cozying up to China and fear the campus could undercut the quality of higher education and help Beijing increase its influence in Hungary and the European Union.”I do not agree with our country’s strengthening feudal relationship with China,” Patrik, 22, a student who declined to give his full name, said at the protest in the Hungarian capital.He said funds should be used “to improve our own universities instead of building a Chinese one.”The government signed an agreement with Shanghai-based Fudan University in April on building the campus at a site in Budapest where a dormitory village for Hungarian students had previously been planned.The government has said Fudan is a world-class institution, and the campus would “allow students to learn from the best.”‘Political hysteria’MTI news agency quoted Tamas Schanda, a deputy government minister, as saying Saturday’s protest was unnecessary and dismissing “political hysteria” based on unfounded gossip and media reports.Opposition politicians and economists have criticized what they say will be the high costs of the project and a lack of transparency. Budapest’s mayor opposes the plan.”Fidesz is selling out wholesale the housing of Hungarian students, and their future, just so it can bring the elite university of China’s dictatorship into the country,” the organizers of Saturday’s protest said on Facebook.Beijing said this week that “a few Hungarian politicians” were trying to grab attention and obstruct cooperation between China and Hungary.Orban has built cordial ties with China, Russia and other illiberal governments, while locking horns with Western allies by curbing the independence of scientific research, the judiciary and media.He faces a unified opposition for the first time since assuming power in 2010 before a parliamentary election due in 2022.
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Sunday marks the 77th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed in Normandy, France, to help liberate Europe from German forces and turn the course of World War II.The June 6, 1944, operation was the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving land, sea and air forces.Nearly 160,000 troops took part in the landing, including those from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.The anniversary of the landmark day usually draws thousands of visitors to Normandy, but for a second year, the celebrations have been scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic.A veteran’s memoriesIn Carentan, France, Charles Shay, 96, commemorated the anniversary at a ceremony Saturday, the only U.S. veteran there. Shay was 19 and a U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach, according to The Associated Press. The Penobscot Native American from Maine now lives in Normandy, and said he lost “many good friends” there.On Friday, the U.S. military honored retired Master Sergeant Shay during a small ceremony on Omaha Beach in Normandy, according to the Stars and Stripes newspaper.World War II history enthusiasts parade in WWII vehicles in Ouistreham, Normandy, June, 5 2021, on the eve of 77th anniversary of the assault that helped end World War II.With D-Day veterans now mostly in their mid-90s or older, there are likely only a few hundred veterans still alive, said April Cheek-Messier, the president of the U.S. National D-Day Memorial Foundation.”If you think about the fact that there are 16 million who served during World War II, there are only around 325,000 World War II veterans still living today, and of that, a very small percentage would be D-Day veterans, and we don’t know the exact number, but you can imagine they would probably only be in a few hundred,” Cheek-Messier told Fox News.Only one veteran now remains from the French commando unit that joined U.S, British, Canadian and other Allied troops in storming Normandy’s code-named beaches, the AP reported.World War II history enthusiasts parade in WWII vehicles in Ouistreham, Normandy, June 5, 2021, on the eve of 77th anniversary of the assault that helped end the war.With most of France still under strict travel restrictions for international visitors, the tourists who usually flock to Normandy to mark the D-Day anniversary will be few this year.U.S. Army Colonel Kevin Sharp and three other U.S. military officers from the 101st Airborne Division — the same division that took part in the D-Day operations — were given special, last-minute permission to attend Friday’s commemorations in Carentan.The U.S. military “really values the legacy of the soldiers and the paratroopers who came before us,” he told the AP. “It was important enough to send a small representation here to ensure that our appreciation for their sacrifices is made known.”‘They remember’Tourism may be restricted, but local residents are coming out in greater numbers, the AP said.”In France, people who remember these men, they kept them close to their heart,” Shay said. “And they remember what they did for them. And I don’t think the French people will ever forget.”By contrast, two years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump joined French President Emmanuel Macron, along with tens of thousands of international visitors, to pay their respects to D-Day soldiers on the 75th anniversary of the landing.The French government announced Friday that it planned to open its borders to foreign tourists on June 9, using a color-coded system. The new rules allow vaccinated travelers from Europe and the United States to enter the country without having to be tested for COVID-19.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Greece has lashed out at Turkey, warning it will push for sanctions against its neighbor if it continues with what it calls “hostile” and “provocative threats.” The warning from Athens comes as the leaders of the two NATO allies, age-old foes, prepare to meet in an effort to accelerate talks aimed at easing growing tension in the past year over energy rights in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Seas. Chances of a breakthrough look bleak.It was this remark by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that raised critical eyebrows in Athens.He said Turkey was ready to defend territories once held by the Ottomans …and that a recent string of military exercises in the Aegean Sea had Greece… an “enemy” state as he put it …both scared and worried of Turkey’s capabilities to do so.Echoing that threat, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar later called on Greece to uphold international agreements and scrap missiles and military apparatus deployed on a string of Greek islands in the Aegean, situated just miles off Turkey’s Western Coast.Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias rebuffed the demand with a stiff warning.He said Greece has long supported Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. But if Ankara failed to tone down what he called its “hostile” actions and “provocative” rhetoric, then Athens was ready to renew its call for EU sanctions against its neighbor state and NATO ally.Greece, Turkey Resume Talks on Maritime Disputes in Mediterranean Under Pressure from EU and NATO Talks between Athens and Ankara broke down in 2016 after 12 years of insignificant progress Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads for decades, challenging each other’s sea and air rights to the Aegean. But as massive oil and gas reserves have been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean in recent years, the two foes have clashed over their rights to explore and tap those energy reserves.The standoff has been so intense that both sides came to the brink of war last year when a pair of Greek and Turkish frigates nearly collided in a dangerous chase over drilling rights in disputed parts of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas that divide the two countries.As tensions flared dangerously at the time, the U.S. State Department intervened to push the two sides to the negotiating table to ease the energy standoff. Washington remains involved in the process, but the talks so far have yielded little result.Still, in a recent visit here by Turkey’s foreign minister, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis agreed to meet with Erdogan to try and jump start the peace talks. The high-level meeting is scheduled for June 14, on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels.”What we are seeing in the last weeks in a sort of kinetic energy from both sides to talk to each other. So, they are prepared to talk to each other at the highest political level. But this does not mean that the talks will yield results.  This is a completely different story because the differences are existing, they are diachronic and the demands from both sides are contradictory. So, while I am optimistic that both sides are prepared to defuse tensions, I don’t believe they are chances of solving the problems themselves.”Even so, other experts concede, keeping both sides engaged in the peace process may be enough to buy precious time, keeping tempers down and pushing back the chances of an accident that could spark a potential war and serious rift within the NATO military alliance.
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The U.N. refugee agency is sharply critical of a new Danish law, which aims to rid itself of asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution by transferring responsibilities for their care to third countries.Amendments to the Danish Aliens Act were approved June 3 by parliament. They go into effect if Denmark reaches an agreement with a third country to take the asylum seekers off its hands, while their cases are being processed.The U.N. refugee agency expresses alarm at that prospect and says it has repeatedly raised its concerns and objections to the Danish government. UNHCR spokesman Babar Balloch says the forcible transfer of asylum seekers and the abdication of Denmark’s responsibility for the asylum process risks weakening international protections for vulnerable refugees.“UNHCR strongly opposes efforts that seek to externalize or outsource asylum and international protection obligations to other countries. Such efforts to evade responsibility run counter to the letter and spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention,” Balloch said.The Danish government says it has not yet found any third countries willing to accept asylum seekers, but it is in negotiation with several candidate countries.Over the past five decades, the UNHCR has helped some 50 million refugees start a new life. Currently, the agency cares for 26 million refugees in all regions of the world. Nearly 90 percent of the world’s refugees live in developing or in the least-developed countries.Balloch says the UNHCR is extremely concerned that a wealthy country, such as Denmark, appears to be unwilling to share those responsibilities.“Plans to externalize asylum processing and protection of refugees to a third country … seriously risk setting in motion a process of gradual erosion of the international protection system, which has withstood the test of time over the past 70 years, and for which we have to have a collective responsibility to safeguard,” Balloch said. UNHCR officials say they will continue to discuss the issue with Danish authorities and seek to find practical ways forward. They urge the Danish government to uphold its international commitments today as it has done in the past.
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Armin Laschet, who hopes to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor, has been compared to a traditional child’s toy – a wooden figure on a round base that, when touched, wobbles but stays upright. Allies and foes alike are watching to see how close Laschet comes to the tipping over when voters turn out Sunday for a regional election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The election is a significant test for the 60-year-old the ruling Christian Democratic Union has chosen as its candidate for chancellor in national elections scheduled for September. Saxony-Anhalt’s capital, Magdeburg, is the burial place of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, and there are already commentators suggesting it may come to be seen as the site where Laschet’s ambitions to become Germany’s next chancellor were first buried. National elections are not “won in the East; they can, however, be lost in the East,” a CDU regional leader, Mario Voigt, said recently.A poor showing for the CDU in Sunday’s election would add to the doubts of many party stalwarts who question whether Laschet, chief minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, was the right choice as their national candidate. Many, especially on the right of the party, thought the more charismatic Markus Söder, the 54-year-old leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, would have been a better electoral champion, offering a greater chance of a victory in September than Laschet, a cautious centrist politician, who is seen as a Merkel retread. The CDU recorded its biggest opinion poll slump after Laschet was picked in April as the party’s nominee for chancellor.FILE – Armin Laschet, chairman of the German Christian Democratic Union, CDU, addresses the media during a news conference at the party’s headquarters in Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021.In sparsely populated and de-industrialized Saxony-Anhalt, Germany’s poorest state, the nationalist conservative Alternative für Deutschland party is chasing the CDU hard in opinion polls. The pandemic has not been kind to the AfD, which entered the German parliament for the first time in 2017, and its support has gotten stuck at around 11% of the vote nationally. However, the party has remained competitive in the poor states of the former communist East Germany, including Saxony-Anhalt, considered an AfD stronghold. One pollster, INSA, has put the AfD a percentage point OK? ahead of the CDU. In the runup to voting, Laschet has focused on keeping traditional conservative CDU voters in line and appealing to centrists. Some on the CDU’s right wing in the state want Laschet to permit them to form a power-sharing governing arrangement with the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt after Sunday’s election to avoid having to enter a coalition government with the Greens and the Social Democrats.However, Laschet has been reaffirming a sharp demarcation between the CDU and Germany’s far-right party.“One thing is clear to me, any rapprochement with the AfD cannot be made with the CDU. Anyone who does that can leave the CDU,” Laschet told reporters with the Funke media group and the French newspaper Ouest-France.The fear in the CDU is that a poor showing Sunday will add to the headwind Laschet is facing as he heads toward the federal poll in four months.“German politicians have learned OK? to be jumpy about winds of change, especially when they blow from the five Länder [states] that once made up communist East Germany,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller of the Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank. “So the fact that the small state of Saxony-Anhalt holds a bellwether election on Sunday — the last state poll before the national vote on September 26 — is causing some headaches in Berlin,” she added.Since German reunification, Saxony-Anhalt has seen its population shrink by a quarter. As the population shrank the far right has become stronger in the state. A right-wing extremist attacked a synagogue city of Halle, last year, killing two. After the attack, Germany’s security agencies placed the AfD’s regional branch under surveillance for “anti-democratic” tendencies.If center-right voters defect to the AfD in large numbers — or just fail to turn out — it will amplify the voices of Laschet’s critics, who want the party to move further right to undercut the AfD nationally. For Laschet the challenge as September approaches is to find a solution to a big electoral dilemma — how to beat the Greens in the west of the country while also vanquishing the AfD in states like Saxony-Anhalt.“We cannot want a radical right-wing party to be the strongest party in a German state legislature, so what happens in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday is something that should concern all democrats,” Laschet told Deutschlandfunk radio midweek.Later during a campaign stop in Dessau, he said, “There’s a lot at stake in this election. Everybody should go vote. Otherwise, there will be a rude awakening on Monday.”Pollsters say the signs are that Germans are ready for major political change and the problem is Laschet is seen as a figure from the past.Many voters have reservations about Laschet, according to Manfred Güllner, the head of Geran polling company FORSA. “He still looks a bit old-fashioned, and the voters still don’t see a clear course,” he told local reporters.Laschet has experienced plenty of setbacks in his political career — defeats run through his rise to the top of German politics. After serving just four years in the Bundestag, he lost a reelection bid in 1998, and he was defeated in 2010 for the CDU chairmanship in North Rhine-Westphalia. Like the toy, though, he has gyrated, but always managed to stay upright.
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Committing to the pilgrim’s path has for centuries been a source of renewal for those willing to put their lives on hold and spend days, weeks or even months crossing Spain along the Camino de Santiago, a journey that takes hikers to the reported burial place of the apostle St. James.But after a year of being kept off the Way of St. James due to pandemic-related travel restrictions, soul-searchers hoping to heal wounds left by the coronavirus are once again strapping on backpacks and following trails marked with a seashell emblem to the shrine in the city of Santiago de Compostela.Some travelers taking to the Camino are like Laura Ferrón, whose marriage ended during Spain’s lockdown and who fears she might lose her job because the bank she works for plans massive layoffs. She and two lifelong friends flew from their homes in Spain’s North Africa enclave of Ceuta to spend a week walking the final 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the pilgrimage route.“This helps you let it all go. This pandemic has taught us to give more importance to what we have and to take a good long look at yourself,” Ferrón, 33, said while resting on a climb near Arzúa. The village in the green hills of northwest Spain is about two days away from the medieval cathedral in Santiago that is the traditional ending point.The Camino de Santiago is actually a series of paths that fan out beyond the Iberian Peninsula and spread across Europe. Whichever route one takes, they all end at the Santiago’s baroque cathedral, where believers can visit what is said to be the tomb of James, the apostle who, according to Catholic tradition, brought Christianity to Spain and Portugal.The pilgrimage has its roots in the alleged discovery of the tomb in the 9th century. Pilgrims have come to Santiago for a millennium, but the number of both believers and non-believers making the trip boomed in recent decades after regional authorities revived the route. It is now supported by a wide network of religious and civic organizations and served by public and private hostels at prices for all pocketbooks.Over 340,000 people from all over the world walked “El Camino” in 2019. Only 50,000 walked it last year, when Spain blocked both foreign and domestic travel except for during the summer months.Before a state of emergency that limited travel between Spain’s regions ended on May 9, only a handful of Spanish pilgrims were arriving in Santiago each day and registering with the Pilgrim’s Reception Office to receive their official credential for having completed the pilgrimage. Now that travel is again permitted, more people from Spain and elsewhere in Europe are walking the ancient path, although many of the hostels that cater to pilgrims them are still closed. A few hundred arrive in Santiago each day, compared to the several thousand exhausted pilgrims swinging their walking sticks along the city’s cobblestone streets during a typical summer.Spain’s Health Ministry has reported the deaths of over 79,000 people from COVID-19. As it did around the world, the disease took its biggest toll on the country’s oldest residents.“For old people, one year of pandemic has felt like five,” Naty Arias, 81, said while walking the Camino with her 84-year-old husband and two of their daughters. “And like my husband says, we don’t have that much time left anyway, so we have to make the most of it.”The numbers of pilgrims arriving in Santiago over the next year-and-a-half will be boosted after Pope Francis extended the 2021 holy year dedicated to St. James through 2022. For Roman Catholics who take part in the pilgrimage, walking it during a Jubilee Year gives them the chance to receive the plenary indulgence, which grants them the full remission of the temporal punishment for their sins. The last Jubilee Year for the trail was in 2010.Santiago Archbishop Julián Barrio said he is cautiously optimistic that some 300,000 pilgrims could turn out this year, if the pace of Spain’s vaccination program and the health situation worldwide continues to improve. He expects many to come seeking solace from the pain of the pandemic.“The Way of St. James, in this sense, can help us. It is a space that helps us recover our inner peace, our stability, our spirit, which without doubt we all need, given the difficulties that we have in facing the pain and the ravages of the pandemic that sometimes leave us speechless,” Barrio told The Associated Press.Daniel Sarto, 67, joined three friends on the trail, looking to relax after months of stress from seeing his Barcelona-based trade show company bring in zero revenue.“It has been a very, very, very hard year. Psychologically, it is very sad constantly thinking that this is going nowhere, about what will happen to our employees,” Sarto said. “This is a relief being here, without a doubt. My wife told me that I had to get out of the house. I had to come.”Mental health experts agree that the pilgrimage can lead to emotional healing for both faithful Roman Catholics and the large number of non-Catholics who are drawn to make one. Dr. Albert Feliu, a health psychologist and lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said preliminary results from a survey of 100 pilgrims point to a reduction of stress and depression that surpass those seen after regular vacations.The survey was part of a multi-year study of the benefits of walking the Camino de Santiago being done by clinical researchers from universities in Spain and Brazil. Manu Mariño, the director of Quietud Mindfulness Center in Santiago, is also involved in the research. He has gone on the pilgrimage 24 times.“The Way of St. James is a very good place to help us realize that suffering forms part of life, and that our suffering depends on how we relate to what we are experiencing,” Mariño said. “You learn to live with just what is necessary, which means exactly what you can carry in a backpack.”Vladimir Vala, a 25-year-old university graduate in business, came to Spain to walk for three weeks before returning to the Czech Republic to get married. For Vala, the pandemic has one positive facet among all the misery, that he feels dovetails with the experience of walking, mostly by himself, day after day through the countryside. “People were alone, and they had to face themselves (during the pandemic),” Vala said after visiting the cathedral. “And I think the Camino is (about) facing yourself in its meaning. So, it comes together really close. It’s beautiful and hard.”The newly divorced Ferrón had a similar assessment.“The trail is good for your mental health because all this can drive anyone crazy, being locked up, the fear, the psychosis,” she said. “Some climbs are really hard, but at the end of the day you reach your goal and then you have the reward of a cold beer, which is divine.”
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