The Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. instead of being rapidly expelled from the country under federal pandemic-related powers that block people from seeking asylum.
 
The groups will determine who is most vulnerable in Mexico, and their criteria has not been made public. It comes as large numbers of people are crossing the southern border and as the government faces intensifying pressure to lift the public health powers instituted by former President Donald Trump and kept in place by President Joe Biden during the coronavirus pandemic.
 
Several members of the consortium spoke to The Associated Press about the criteria and provided details of the system that have not been previously reported. The government is aiming to admit to the country up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups and is agreeing to that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes the Biden administration will have lifted the public health rules, though the government has not committed to that.
 
So far, a total of nearly 800 asylum-seekers have been let in since May 3, and members of the consortium say there is already more demand than they can meet.  
 
The groups have not been publicly identified except for the International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization. The others are London-based Save the Children; two U.S.-based organizations, HIAS and Kids in Need of Defense; and two Mexico-based organizations, Asylum Access and the Institute for Women in Migration, according to two people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release.
 
Asylum Access, which provides services to people seeing asylum in Mexico, characterized its role as minimal.
 
The effort started in El Paso, Texas, and is expanding to Nogales, Arizona.  
A similar but separate mechanism led by the American Civil Liberties Union began in late March and allows 35 families a day into the United States at places along the border. It has no end date.
 
The twin tracks are described by participating organizations as an imperfect transition from so-called Title 42 authority, named for a section of an obscure 1944 public health law that Trump used in March 2020 to effectively end asylum at the Mexican border. With COVID-19 vaccination rates rising, Biden is finding it increasingly difficult to justify the expulsions on public health grounds and faces demands to end it from the U.N. refugee agency and members of his own party and administration.  
 
Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the effort is shrouded in secrecy without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.
 
Some consortium members are concerned that going public may cause their offices in Mexico to be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals.  
 
The consortium was formed after the U.S. government asked the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ office in Mexico for the names of organizations with deep experience and capacity in Mexico, said Sibylla Brodzinsky, a spokeswoman for the U.N. office.
 
“We’ve had long relationships with them and they’re trusted partners,” she said.  
 
The groups say they are merely streamlining the process but that the vulnerable migrants’ cases can come from anywhere.
 
In Nogales, Arizona, the International Rescue Committee is connecting to migrants via social media and smartphones to find candidates. It plans to refer up to 600 people a month to U.S. officials, said Raymundo Tamayo, the group’s director in Mexico.  
 
Special consideration is being given to people who have been in Mexico a long time, need acute medical attention or who have disabilities, are members of the LGBTQ community or are non-Spanish speakers, though each case is being weighed on its unique circumstances, Tamayo said.
 
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said advocacy groups are in “a very difficult position because they need to essentially rank the desperation” of people, but he insisted it was temporary. The government, he said, “cannot farm out the asylum system.”
 
Migration experts not involved in the process have questioned how the groups determine who is eligible.
 
“It has been murky,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who believes the administration is trying to quietly be humane without encouraging more people to come, a balancing act she doubts will succeed.
 
“Setting out clear and accurate information about how and who might get in might lead to fewer migrants making the trip, so there’s not this game of chance that kind of seems to be in place right now,” Bolter said.
 
U.S. border authorities recorded the highest number of encounters with migrants in more than 20 years in April, though many were repeat crossers who had previously been expelled from the country. The number of children crossing the border alone also is hovering at all-time highs.
 
Against that backdrop, some advocates are seeing the makings of the “humane” asylum system that Biden promised during his campaign. Details have been elusive, with administration officials saying they need time.
 
Susana Coreas, who fled El Salvador, was among those identified as vulnerable and allowed into the United States last month. Coreas spent more than a year in Ciudad Juarez waiting to apply for asylum but was barred by the public health order.
 
She and other transgender women refurbished an abandoned hotel to have a safe place to stay after they felt uncomfortable at several shelters in the rough Mexican city.
 
But they continued to have problems. One woman had a knife pointed at her. Another had a gun pulled on her.  
 
“There was so much anxiety,” Coreas said. “I now feel at peace.”
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A G-7 deal on a minimum corporate tax rate is “within sight,” finance ministers from France, Germany, Italy and Spain said Friday before a meeting of the world’s richest nations.”We have a chance to get multinational businesses to pay their fair share,” France’s Bruno Le Maire, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Italy’s Daniele Franco and Spain’s Nadia Calvino said in The Guardian newspaper.British finance minister Rishi Sunak starts a two-day meeting on Friday with counterparts from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, before a leader summit next week including U.S. President Joe Biden.The spotlight is on ambitious plans for a minimum level of corporate tax, as global powers seek to make multinationals pay their way.”For more than four years, France, Germany, Italy and Spain have been working together to create an international tax system fit for the 21st century,” the four ministers wrote in a joint opinion piece.”It is a saga of many twists and turns. Now it’s time to come to an agreement.”Biden is calling a unified minimum corporate tax rate of 15% in negotiations with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and G-20.”The new US proposal on minimal taxation is an important step in the direction of the proposal initially floated by our countries and taken over by the OECD,” the four ministers added.”The commitment to a minimum effective tax rate of at least 15% is a promising start.”
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A group of traditional chiefs in Namibia said Thursday they have accepted an offer of compensation by Germany and a recognition that the colonial-era massacre of tens of thousands of their people in the early 20th century was genocide.Germany pledged last week to give 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over a 30-year period for projects to help communities of people descended from those killed between 1904 and 1908, when Germany ruled the southern African country. Germany asked the victims for forgiveness, in a statement by Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.The chiefs accepted the offer but said it could still be improved through further negotiations.”We resolved to accept this offer because what is paramount to us is not the amount of money we are getting from the German government but the restoration of our dignity,” said Gerson Katjirua, head of the Ovaherero/OvaMbanderu and Nama Council, which consists of 21 tribal chiefs. “This process was and will never be about making money from the German government.”Other traditional chiefs have rejected the offer, and say they want around 487 billion euros ($590 billion) paid over 40 years, and pension funds for affected communities.Historians say German Gen. Lothar von Trotha, who was sent to what was then German South West Africa to put down an uprising by the Herero people, instructed his troops to wipe out the entire tribe. They say that the majority of the Herero, about 65,000, were killed, as were at least 10,000 Nama people.
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France said Thursday it would suspend joint military operations with Malian forces after the West African country’s second coup in nine months, adding to international pressure for the military junta to return civilians to positions of power.The decision comes after Mali’s military strongman Assimi Goita, who led last year’s coup, ousted the country’s civilian transitional president and prime minister last week.The move sparked diplomatic uproar, prompting the United States to suspend security assistance for Malian security forces and for the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to suspend Mali.France’s armed forces said Thursday that “requirements and red lines have been set by ECOWAS and the African Union to clarify the framework for the political transition in Mali.””While awaiting these guarantees, France has decided to suspend, as a temporary measure, joint military operations with Malian forces and national advisory missions for their benefit,” the ministry said in a statement seen by AFP.”These decisions will be re-evaluated in the coming days in the light of answers provided by the Malian authorities.”Earlier Thursday, the International Organization of La Francophonie, a cooperative body that represents mainly French-speaking states around the world, became the latest organization to suspend Mali.5,100 French troopsBoth Mali and France play key roles in the fight against a bloody insurgency plaguing the Sahel region.France has about 5,100 troops in the Sahel under its Barkhane operation, which spans five countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.The Barkhane force, which was launched after France intervened to fend off an insurgent advance in Mali in 2013, will continue to operate but on its own for the moment, the ministry said.However the French-led Takuba force, launched in March 2020 to enable European special forces to train Mali’s army to fight insurgents, will be suspended.A diplomatic source said last week there was a risk that the new coup could dissuade European countries from joining the force.A military official in Mali said on condition of anonymity that Malian authorities had been informed of France’s suspension.French President Emmanuel Macron at the weekend warned that France would pull its troops out of Mali if it lurches toward radical Islamism following the coup.”Radical Islamism in Mali with our soldiers there? Never,” he told the weekly newspaper The Journal du Dimanche.Drawdown already plannedEven before the latest coup, France had been considering disengaging its troops from the costly and dangerous Sahel mission in the run-up to next year’s presidential election.Macron said in February there would be no troop reduction in the immediate future, but left the door open for reducing the size of France’s force, with plans to be approved this month.”Beyond taking a principled position, one wonders whether this decision is not a way for France to let disengaging with Barkhane enter the narrative,” said Elie Tenenbaum, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations.”In other words,” he said, “is (Mali’s) not respecting the democratic process not a pretext to reduce an arrangement whose days were counted anyways?”Goita had served as vice president since leading a coup last August that removed democratically elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, following mass protests over perceived corruption and the insurgency.After pressure from the 15-nation ECOWAS, the roles of transitional president and prime minister were given to civilians ahead of elections scheduled for February.However on May 24, Goita orchestrated the ouster of President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, raising doubts about his commitment to holding the elections.Goita will be officially inaugurated as Mali’s transitional president on Monday, when a new prime minister is also expected to be nominated. 
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At least two people died early Thursday after a residential building collapsed in a working-class area of Rio de Janeiro.People nearby reported hearing a booming sound, according to Reuters. The collapsed four-story building reportedly also caught fire.More than 100 firefighters responded to the scene in the Rio das Pedras neighborhood, but they were too late to save an adult and child.An aerial view shows a collapsed building in the Rio das Pedras slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 3, 2021.The neighborhood is known to be controlled by organized crime groups reportedly involved in the construction of many substandard buildings.In 2019, in the adjacent neighborhood of Itanhanga, another organized crime-built building collapsed and killed two people, Reuters reported.
 
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Denmark’s parliament Thursday approved a measure that would allow the nation to relocate asylum seekers to an as yet unnamed third country, most likely outside Europe.The measure, proposed by the Social Democrat-led government, was approved on a 70-24 vote, and would allow the nation to transfer asylum seekers to detention centers in partnering countries, where their cases would then be reviewed from those countries.The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, the European Union and several international organizations have criticized the plan, saying it would undermine international cooperation and lacks details on how human rights would be protected.In a statement from Brussels, EU spokesman Adalbert Jahnz said the bloc was carefully analyzing the new law and said it raised concerns about access to protections for refugees and is not possible under EU rules.Speaking to the Associated Press, advocacy and legal aid organization Refugees Welcome spokeswoman Michala Bendixen was more blunt. “This is insane, this is absurd. What it’s all about is that Denmark wants to get rid of refugees. The plan is to scare people away from seeking asylum in Denmark.”The AP reports that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during his election campaign and again in January he envisioned having “zero asylum-seekers” in Denmark.Denmark has yet to reach an agreement with a partner country, but there are negotiations with several candidate countries, mostly likely in Africa. Earlier this year, the government signed a preliminary agreement with Rwanda about immigration and asylum issues.
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The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday unveiled a lineup of films from big-name auteurs — including Wes Anderson, Asghar Farhadi, Mia Hansen-Løve and Sean Penn — for its 74th edition, an in-person, summertime event that aims to make a stirring return in July after being canceled last year because of the pandemic.  Among the films that will be competing for Cannes’ Palme d’Or are the festival opener, “Annette,” by Leox Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard; Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” a film originally set to premiere in Cannes last year with an ensemble cast including Timothée Chalamet; “Red Rocket,” Sean Baker’s follow-up to his acclaimed “The Florida Project”; Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta”; and Sean Penn’s “Flag Day,” in which he stars alongside his daughter, Dylan Penn, as a conman.  Pierre Lescure, president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, artistic director, announced the Cannes’ lineup at the UGC Normandie theater in Paris in  a live-streamed event that was part press conference and part pep rally for world cinema.  “Cinema is not dead. The extraordinary and triumphant return of the audience to movie theaters in France and around the world was the first good news,” said Fremaux. “I hope the film festival will be the second very good news.”  As cinema’s preeminent global stage, the annual French Riviera extravaganza is hoping to make a triumphant comeback when it runs July 6-17 — two months later than its usual May perch. But many things will be different at this year’s festival. Attendees will be masked inside theaters and required to show proof of full vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test. Cannes’ famed red carpet leading up to the stairs of the Palais des Festivals will resume in full, but with tweaks to the traditional pageantry.  “We’re used to kissing one another at the top of the stairs. We will not kiss one another,” said Fremaux.  Still, there are many questions leading up to a Cannes that will unfold just as France is reopening and loosening restrictions. Audience capacity limitations will be removed just five days before the festival opens. Concern over a new virus strain led France last week to institute a seven-day quarantine for travelers arriving from the United Kingdom — a potential blow to the British film industry that regularly decamps to Cannes.  For such an international festival as Cannes, many other travel regulations could pose complications. Fremaux acknowledged some filmmakers may not be able to attend. The movie market that typical runs in tandem with the festival and draws much of the film industry for a week of frenzied deal-making, will be held virtually in late June.  But the Cannes program, while perhaps lacking a Hollywood title as anticipated as Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (an entry in 2019, when Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” won the Palme), was praised as top-class. It includes former Palme d’Or winners Jacques Audiard (“Paris 13th District”) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (“Memoria,” starring Tilda Swinton).  Four of the 24 films in competition are directed by women, a low percentage but one that ties the festival’s previous top mark. That includes new films from Mia Hansen-Løve (“Bergman Island,” with Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps) and Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi.  Cannes has previously refused to play in competition any film that doesn’t have a theatrical release in France, leading to an impasse with Netflix. Though other movie institutions like the Academy Awards have bended theatrical rules during the pandemic, Cannes has not.  Among the standouts playing out of competition, or in Cannes’ new “Cannes Premiere” are: Andrea Arnold’s “Cow”; Todd Haynes’ documentary “The Velvet Underground”; Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater”; and the Oliver Stone documentary “JFK: Through the Looking Glass.”  Spike Lee, who debuted “Do the Right Thing” at Cannes in 1989, will preside over the jury selecting the Palme d’Or winner. He’s the first Black person to ever head the Cannes jury. At the opening ceremony, an honorary Palme will be given to Jodie Foster, who first came to Cannes as a 13-year-old for the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.”Speaking to The Associated Press after the press conference, Fremaux said it will be “the ultimate Cannes.””It will be something special. In five years people will be asking ‘Were you in Cannes in 2021?’ and people would say ‘No I wasn’t.’ ‘Oh you weren’t? That’s a pity. It was really great,'” said Fremaux. “It’s going to be a special Cannes.”
 
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Britain’s Brexit advocates drool at the idea of another European Union member opting to quit the bloc. And they hedge their bets whether it will be France, Italy or one of the so-called “awkward squad” of Central European countries so often at loggerheads with Brussels.At first glance the prospect of another EU member quitting the bloc — of a Frexit or Italexit —strikes seasoned political observers as unlikely. But Brexiters aren’t the only ones who see a likely nasty clash emerging on the horizon between Brussels and Rome.Current opinion surveys have firebrand populist Matteo Salvini’s Lega party and the national-conservative Fratelli d’Italia consistently polling together around 40 to 42%, enough, with the backing of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s more moderate but much diminished Forza Italia party, to form a governing coalition in the not-too-distant future.And that is unnerving EU officials.Early electionsItaly is not due an election until June 2023 at the latest, but plenty of lawmakers and commentators predict an earlier snap poll, either because the fragile government of national unity overseen by current prime minister, the former European central banker Mario Draghi, falls apart.Or because “Super Mario,” as Draghi is popularly nicknamed, decides to run for the presidency of Italy next year when incumbent Sergio Mattarella steps down. After guiding Italy through an especially politically tempestuous six years, complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, Mattarella, the scion of a storied Sicilian family, has decided it is time to retire.Later this month he turns 80. Recently he told children at an elementary school in Rome, “Mine is a demanding job, but in eight months my assignment ends. I will be able to rest. I am old.”Few believe he can be persuaded to change his mind. The Italian daily newspaper La Stampa noted: “In order to convince the current head of state to remain against his intentions, political calamities of such gravity and magnitude would have to occur that no one could wish for them.”Mattarella’s decision has prompted feverish speculation in Rome that Draghi will throw his hat in the ring, setting in motion the circumstances for a likely early parliamentary contest, whether he wins the presidential election or not.Italy’s political parties are already jockeying for position and making electoral calculations, which are especially complicated given the fragmentation of Italian politics. Twenty-one parties contested the last parliamentary elections in 2018 in a contest that broadly pitched two highly unstable and combustible electoral alliances with ever shifting allegiances and sharp personal animosities. Political commentators say the next election could see even more parties competing for seats and elected lawmakers switch party allegiances.A reduction at the next election in the number of lawmakers, from 630 to 400 deputies in the lower house and from 315 to 200 in the Senate, is adding to the complexity. But based on current opinion data Salvini’s Lega and the Fratelli, led by the 44-year-old Giorgia Meloni, will be the most likely to form a governing coalition.“The balance of forces has been gradually moving in the direction of a fully fledged right-wing coalition,” say Valerio Alfonso Bruno, a senior fellow at the Britain-based Center for Analysis of the Radical Right, and Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, a newspaper columnist, in a research note for the public-policy website Social Europe. Andrea Ungari, a politics professor at Rome’s LUISS University, agrees and estimates a rightwing coalition is set to win more than 51% of votes in the next election.EU officials alarmedDraghi was drafted in by Mattarella as a technocratic prime minister in January when a governing coalition mainly supported by the maverick Five Star Movement, M5S, and center-left Partito Democratico collapsed. He’s being urged publicly by center-left political allies in the Italian capital to forgo his presidential ambitions to avoid risking opening the door to Salvini and Meloni.In Brussels, EU officials say they’re alarmed at the prospects of Lega and the Fratelli governing Italy, fearing plenty of disputes between Brussels and Rome on migration policy, border controls, asylum policies, naval blockades of migrant boats, to name a few hot-button issues.Neither Salvini nor Meloni, who’s angling to become Italy’s first female prime minister, favor Italexit. But they are harshly critical of the EU and becoming more so, with Meloni, a former youth minister, forcing the pace, and Salvini trying to keep up. An EU official complained to VOA: “Meloni only sees Europe as a cash cow for Italy — she wants to milk it while ignoring the rules.”Fratelli d’Italia, co-founded by Meloni in 2012, is the main heir of the post-Second World War Movimento Sociale Italiano, formed by Fascist allies of dictator Benito Mussolini. In 2018 it won just 4% of the national vote, but since then has emerged from the fringes with startling speed.That’s largely thanks, say political observers, to Meloni’s decision to keep her party out of Draghi’s government of national unity, making it the main voice of opposition and transforming Meloni into a possible contender for the overall leadership of the right-wing alliance.Salvini chose to take his party into the government of national unity, fearing electoral repercussions if Lega was unable to influence how the Draghi government allocates $240 billion of EU recovery funds it has been allocated by Brussels. But he refrained from securing a cabinet role, giving him opportunities to be critical of the government, especially over its pandemic curbs. But pollsters say it has allowed Meloni to present herself as ideologically pure and consistent.The surge in support for Meloni’s party has been at Lega’s expense, according to pollsters. And Meloni, a mother of one and a former bartender at one of Rome’s most famous nightclubs, has been calling for a renegotiation of all EU treaties.Ernesto Galli della Loggia, an academic and influential columnist for Corriere della Sera, says it is “probable” Meloni’s party “could soon be the majority party of a center-right government and therefore called to lead the nation.” Writing Tuesday in the newspaper, he dismissed the demonizing of the Fratelli as “fascist,” saying the slogan is too easily evoked to “de-legitimize any position that is unwelcome” to the ruling class.His worry is that the Fratelli is not readying itself to govern, doing the hard thinking and forming the kind of relationships with the bureaucracy that it will need to have to effect change.  
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Central American leaders to tackle corruption, poverty and drug trafficking to improve the lives of their citizens and stem migration to the United States. Blinken made the appeal in Costa Rica, where he met with the region’s leaders, as VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on three Bulgarians and 64 companies linked to them over alleged corruption, including an oligarch accused of planning to create a conduit for Russian political leaders to influence the Bulgarian government.The Treasury Department in a statement called the move its single biggest action targeting graft to date.Bulgaria ranks as the European Union’s most corrupt member state, according to the Transparency International advocacy group. The Balkan country has repeatedly been criticized by the European Commission for failing to root out corruption and place a single high-ranking senior official behind bars for graft.Bulgarian interim Prime Minister Stefan Yanev said he was informed by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland by telephone about the move, part of efforts to effectively combat corruption in Bulgaria.”In our relations with our partners and allies, we have unequivocally shared our conviction that the fight against corruption in all its forms should be our unconditional principled and practical priority,” Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.The move comes ahead of a July 11 snap parliamentary election in Bulgaria and after massive anti-corruption protests in 2020.The Treasury Department said it imposed sanctions on businessman and oligarch Vassil Bozhkov, accusing him of planning to create a channel for Russian leaders to influence the Bulgarian government and bribing government officials.Bozhkov, a gambling tycoon and one of Bulgaria’s richest men, fled the country in 2020 to escape criminal charges, including extortion, tax fraud and influence peddling, among others. He denies any wrongdoing and is now based in Dubai.The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on Delyan Peevski, a Bulgarian businessman and former member of Parliament, and on Ilko Zhelyazkov, a government official who the department said was used by Peevski for conducting bribery schemes.Sanctions also were imposed on 64 companies owned or controlled by Bozhkov and Peevski.The sanctions block the people and companies blacklisted from accessing the U.S. financial system, freezing any of their U.S. assets and barring Americans from dealing with them.The U.S. State Department also designated former Bulgarian officials Alexander Manolev, Petar Haralampiev, Krasimir Tomov, as well as Peevski and Zhelyazkov, over their alleged involvement in corruption, barring them and their families from entering the United States.Peevski sold many of his real estate holdings and media in the past year. Critics at home see him as a powerful behind-the-scenes power broker with strong influence on Bulgaria’s judiciary and political elites.The Treasury Department accused him of using “influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society.”In a statement to the media, Peevski decried his blacklisting. He denied any involvement in corrupt activities and said he plans to take legal action against the sanctions. 
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Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.
 
And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.
 
Researchers examined the temperature and dissolved oxygen — the amount of oxygen in the water — in nearly 400 lakes and found that declines were widespread. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found dissolved oxygen fell 5.5 % in surface waters of these lakes and 18.6% in deep waters.
 
The authors said their findings suggest that warming temperatures and decreased water clarity from human activity are causing the oxygen decline.
 
“Oxygen is one of the best indicators of ecosystem health, and changes in this study reflect a pronounced human footprint,” said co-author Craig E. Williamson, a biology professor at Miami University in Ohio.  
 
That footprint includes warming caused by climate change and decreased water clarity caused in part by runoff from sewage, fertilizer, cars and power plants.
 
Dissolved oxygen losses in Earth’s water systems have been reported before. A 2017 study of oxygen levels in the world’s oceans showed a 2% decline since 1960. But less was known about lakes, which lost two to nine times as much oxygen as oceans, the new study’s authors said.
 
Prior to this study, other researchers had reported on oxygen declines in individual lakes over a long period of time. But none have looked at as many lakes around the world, said Samuel B. Fey, a Reed College biology professor who studies lakes and was not involved in this study.
 
“I think one of the really interesting findings here is that the authors were able to show that there’s this pretty pronounced decline in dissolved oxygen concentrations in both the surface and (deep) parts of the lake,” Fey said.  
 
The deep water drop in oxygen levels is critical for aquatic organisms that are more sensitive to temperature increases, such as cold water fish. During summer months, they depend on cooler temperatures found deeper in the water, but if deep waters are low on oxygen, these organisms can’t survive.
 
“Those are the conditions that sometimes lead to fish kills in water bodies,” said study co-author Kevin C. Rose, a professor of biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “It really means that a lot of habitats for cold water fish could become inhospitable.”
 
Other organisms, Rose said, are more tolerant of warmer temperatures found at the surface level and can get enough oxygen by remaining near the surface, where water meets air.
 
About a quarter of the lakes examined actually showed increasing oxygen in surface waters, which Rose says is a bad sign because it’s likely attributable to increased algal blooms — sudden growth of blue green algae.
 
In these lakes, he said, dissolved oxygen was “very low” in deep waters and was unlivable for many species.
 
And the sediment in such oxygen-starved lakes tends to give off methane, a potent greenhouse gas, research shows.
 
Lakes examined in the new study were in the U.S. or Europe, except for one in Japan and a few in New Zealand. The authors said there was insufficient data to include other parts of the world.
 
Rose said lakes outside the study area probably are experiencing drops in dissolved oxygen, too. The reason, he said, is that warmer temperatures from climate change reduce the ability of oxygen to dissolve in water — its solubility.
 
“We know that most or many places around the planet are warming,” he said. “And so, we would expect to see declining solubility.” 
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The United States is calling on Central American countries to confront corruption and poverty as Washington examines root causes and strategies to manage the flood of migrants at its southern border.
 
Wednesday in Costa Rica, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard discussed “a variety of issues to promote the prosperity and security” in the region.The top U.S. diplomat thanked Ebrard “for the Mexican government’s continued collaboration on addressing the root causes of irregular migration in the region.”Both also “discussed progress toward addressing COVID-19 and economic recovery, as well as issues related to regional democracy and governance, and security,” according to the U.S. State Department.Blinken embarked on his first in-person trip to the Western Hemisphere this week when he traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica.U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stands by as President Joe Biden delivers remarks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, June 2, 2021.The top U.S. diplomat’s trip comes ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ upcoming visit to Guatemala and Mexico.Harris has been tapped by U.S. President Joe Biden to lead diplomatic efforts in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to address the underlying causes of migration in hopes of halting the flow of Central American migrants to the U.S.Some experts see Blinken’s visit to Costa Rica as laying the foundation for a successful visit by Harris.“The U.S. is also looking for cooperation on immigration, and we’re more likely to get that cooperation when governments see the carrot of a broad-based economic integration program,” said Professor Richard Feinberg, who teaches international political economy at the University of California, San Diego.Feinberg suggested including Caribbean Basin countries in the U.S. “transportation networks” and “economic integration,” as Biden is eyeing large expenditures on infrastructure, roads, ports and airports in the U.S.COVID vaccinesBlinken’s trip to the region also comes as China actively positions itself as the dominating provider of COVID-19 vaccinations in Latin America. FILE – Refrigerated containers with supplies to produce China’s Sinovac vaccines against the coronavirus disease arrive at Sao Paulo International Airport in Guarulhos, Brazil, April 19, 2021.As countries in Latin America continue to get doses, three Chinese vaccines — CanSino, Sinopharm, and Sinovac — are reaching wider distribution in the region.  The U.S. has announced its goal to ship 80 million vaccine doses abroad by the end of June. Blinken said Biden will detail this global distribution plan, possibly as early as Thursday.  
 
“In a few short days — in fact, possibly as early as tomorrow — the president is going to announce in more detail the plan that he has put together to push out 80 million vaccines around the world that we have at our disposal,” Blinken said Wednesday during his remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
A day before, the top U.S. diplomat pledged no political strings would be attached when providing U.S. vaccines to other countries.“Among other things, we will focus on equity — on the equitable distribution of vaccines. We’ll focus on science. We’ll work in coordination with COVAX. And we will distribute vaccines without political requirements of those receiving them,” Blinken said during a joint press conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado on Tuesday.
 
Asked if he was worried that getting Chinese vaccines would come with certain conditions, Alvarado said there should be “no strings attached.”“Our condition is that those vaccines that we buy or receive as donations should be qualified by a strict agency,” he said.In May, the United States said it would share an additional 20 million coronavirus vaccine doses with other countries, in addition to the 60 million it has already committed. Officials said the U.S. will distribute according to need and not to curry favor.US to Distribute 80 Million Vaccine Doses Globally, on Basis of Need  Sharing is caring: US distribution of vaccines is, president says, a case of ‘the fundamental decency of American people’  Blinken also attended a regional meeting of the Central American foreign ministers held Tuesday under the auspices of the Central American Integration System, where collaborating on migration challenges, combating the COVID-19 pandemic, improving economic growth, as well as reinforcing democratic institutions, were said to be high on the agenda.VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
 
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U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this month the harboring of cyber attackers like those believed to have targeted meatpacking giant JBS, the White House said Wednesday.
 
Press secretary Jen Psaki also told reporters at the White House that Biden “has launched a rapid strategic review” of the attack that affected JBS operations in Australia and North America.
 
Biden will meet with his Russian counterpart in Geneva on June 16 as tensions between the two world powers have escalated over election meddling, human rights and Russian aggression toward Ukraine.Meat Producer JBS Back Online After Cyberattack White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says JBS told administration it received a random ransomware demand from a criminal organization likely based in Russia 
A U.S. subsidiary of the Brazilian meat processor told the U.S. government it received a ransom demand in the cyberattack it believes originated in Russia, deputy White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.  
 
“The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” Jean-Pierre said.
 
JBS, meanwhile, says it has made “significant progress” in resolving a cyberattack that affected its operations in North America and Australia.
 
JBS USA’s CEO, Andre Nogueira, said he expected “the vast majority of our beef, pork, poultry and prepared food plants” to be operational Wednesday.
 
“Our systems are coming back online and we are not sparing any resources to fight this threat. We have cybersecurity plans in place to address these types of issues and we are successfully executing those plans,” Nogueira said in a statement.
 
JBS said its Canadian beef facility had already resumed production, and that the attack did not impact its operations in Mexico or Britain.
 
The company also said it was not aware of customer, supplier or employee data being compromised.
 
“I want to personally thank the White House, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Australian and Canadian governments for their assistance over the last two days,” Nogueira said.
 
Australian Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said plants in New South Wales and Victoria states were back operating on a limited basis Wednesday, and that JBS hoped to resume work in Queensland state on Thursday.
 
Littleproud also said Australian officials would be meeting Wednesday with U.S. officials to discuss the situation.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson each expressed support Wednesday for a strong response against Belarus for its actions in arresting an opposition journalist. Speaking at a joint news conference at the prime minister’s residence, Stoltenberg said forcing the landing of a civilian aircraft and arresting a journalist on the plane, as Belarus did last month, was a violation of international norms and rules. He called for the immediate release of Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend. Stoltenberg said he welcomes sanctions imposed by Britain, the European Union and other allies. Johnson added that the important thing now is to see that those sanctions are fully implemented and perhaps stepped up even further. Johnson called the incident “appalling and outrageous,” adding that it was important the allies stand together in protest. NATO’s 30 allies released a two-paragraph statement on Wednesday but did not include any punitive steps that Baltic allies and Poland had urged. Stoltenberg said the issue is sure to be discussed during a NATO summit scheduled for June 14 in Brussels.  
 
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A massive and long-awaited new translation of Mein Kampf — peppered with scholarly commentary to explain Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s disjointed, hate-filled manifesto — has been released in France. The project has been controversial, but supporters say it could serve as a warning against rising acts of hate and antisemitism today.The book is a recast translation of Mein Kampf,  or My Struggle, Hitler’s 1925 manifesto detailing how he became antisemitic, his ideology and his plans for Germany. The recast is 1,000 pages and costs more than $120. Adolf Hitler’s name and face do not appear on its plain white cover. The new edition by French publisher Fayard — titled Putting Evil in Context: A Critical Edition of Mein Kampf — does not aim to be a bestseller. French bookstores cannot stock copies, which are available by order only. All proceeds will go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.  Historian Christian Ingrao, part of the academic team involved in the Fayard edition, told French radio the book aims to desacralize Hitler’s work that has attracted a kind of fetishism. It aims to offer an unvarnished take on the Nazi leader’s writing, which Ingrao and others say is repetitive, rambling and riddled with mistakes. Translator Olivier Mannoni called Hitler’s manifesto an “incoherent soup.” The translation is accompanied by lengthy historians’ notes and annotations that make up most of the book.  Germany and Poland have published similar scholarly translations in recent years.  In France, the first edition of Mein Kampf came out in 1934, and attempted to improve on Hitler’s writing. By that time he was chancellor of Germany, where his book had become a bestseller. Hitler’s rule saw Europe plunged into World War II — and the Holocaust that killed roughly six million Jews, including more than 70,000 from France.  Today, antisemitism is again on the rise across Europe, watchdog groups say. So is the far right. While printed copies of Mein Kampf have stagnated worldwide, digital editions have surged in recent years, although publishers point to a mix of reasons. Last year, Amazon banned most editions of the book from its site. Ninety-six-year-old Holocaust survivor Ginette Kolinka speaks to French school groups about her memories. She told French radio she never read Mein Kampf — mostly, she says, because she had other books to read. But she says young people need to read everything — good and bad — to form opinions for themselves, and eventually understand tolerance.  The Fayard translation project has been controversial. A few years ago, far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon called it “morally unacceptable.” Since then, it has been endorsed by several prominent Jewish figures, including Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld.  France’s Grand Rabbi, Haim Korsia, told VOA that Klarsfeld’s support for the translation shaped his own views. His argument: You can’t reproach the world for not having read Hitler’s writings nearly a century ago — which forecast the horror the Nazi leader was preparing — and then tell people today not to read this new translation, which could help prevent hatred, prejudice and antisemitism from reappearing.  
 
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An Istanbul prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday it launched an investigation into the murder of a Turkish Cypriot journalist 25 years ago, after a mob leader said last month the killing was ordered by a former Turkish minister.
 
Convicted gang leader Sedat Peker’s uncorroborated allegations on YouTube of extrajudicial killings in the 1990s have placed the unsolved murders of hundreds of people during that decade back on the agenda in Turkey.
 
In a video viewed by 17 million Turks, Peker said he tasked his brother to kill journalist Kutlu Adali in 1996 upon the orders of a former minister.
 
Peker said his brother Atilla was not able to carry out the killing, although Adali was shot dead shortly afterwards in July 1996.
 
Atilla Peker was briefly detained nine days ago, a few hours after his brother’s video was released.
 
Istanbul Anadolu prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that it had launched a new investigation into Adali’s murder based on an application for the probe by Atilla Peker that “included various claims”.
 
It said efforts were being made to obtain information and documents from Turkish Cypriot judicial authorities regarding the killing, in addition to collecting potential evidence in Turkey.
 
It said a detailed statement would be taken from Atilla Peker.
 
An initial investigation at the time of Adali’s murder did not uncover who was responsible. The European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey in 2005 for a failure to carry out an “adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing”.
 
Sedat Peker, 49, rose to prominence in the 1990s as a gangland figure and was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2007 for crimes including forming and leading a criminal gang.
 
He has said he is now in Dubai, although Reuters has not been able to verify his whereabouts. The eight videos he has so far uploaded have been viewed more than 70 million times in total.
 
Peker’s accusations against current and former government officials also include rape, drug trafficking and covert arms deliveries.
 
President Tayyip Erdogan and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, one of the people Peker has targeted so far, have strongly rejected the accusations. Soylu said the accusations were a plot against the country. 
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On Tuesday, Italy lifted restrictions on indoor dining, Germany downgraded the coronavirus risk level from very high to high, and Israel lifted almost all pandemic restrictions. More from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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Greece, Germany and five other European Union nations introduced a vaccination certificate system for travelers on Tuesday, weeks ahead of the July 1 rollout of the program across the 27-nation bloc.The other countries starting early were Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia and Poland, according to the European Commission.Greece, which depends heavily on tourism, has been pressing for the commonly recognized certificate that uses a QR code with advanced security features. The certificates are being issued to people who are fully vaccinated, as well as those who have already contracted the virus and developed antibodies, and others who have had a PCR test within the last 72 hours.The documents will have both digital and paper forms. They’ll be free of charge, distributed in the national language plus English and be valid in all the bloc’s countries.”EU citizens are looking forward to traveling again, and they want to do so safely. Having an EU certificate is a crucial step on the way,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said.Greece’s digital governance minister, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said easier travel will open up within the EU as nations adopt the new verification standard.”What will happen is that countries will stop issuing certificates using their own convention and adopt the common convention. That will simplify things considerably, because you can imagine the number of bilateral agreements that would otherwise need to be worked out,” Pierrakakis told private Skai television.Kyriakides said in the next few weeks, all EU nations need to “fully finalize their national systems to issue, store and verify certificates so the system is functioning in time for the holiday season.”Countries will be allowed to add extra vaccines to their individual entry list, including those that have not been formally approved for use across the EU.The EU Commission believes that people who are vaccinated should no longer have to be tested or put into quarantines, regardless of where they are traveling to or from, starting 14 days after receiving their second shot. Member countries, however, have not yet endorsed that recommendation.
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