El Salvador’s new attorney general announced Friday that he would end the cooperation agreement between his office and an anti-impunity mission from the Organization of American States that was supporting the country’s justice system.Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado, who was named to the post last month by the congress, suggested the move was triggered by the OAS naming former San Salvador Mayor Ernesto Muyshondt as an adviser.Delgado said that he would ask the Foreign Ministry to cancel the agreement and that cooperation with the mission would end in 30 days.”We are open to working with the international community and receiving support in the fight against impunity, but it is not possible to receive this kind of support from an organization that now has the advice of a criminal,” he said.Muyshondt is being prosecuted with others for alleged crimes related to electoral fraud and illegal association for allegedly negotiating payments to the country’s powerful street gangs in exchange for their electoral support in 2014.Muyshondt, who has called his prosecution politically motivated, responded that his appointment as an OAS adviser was an excuse to end the cooperation agreement so the administration of President Nayib Bukele could “continue doing the corruption it has been doing.”The U.S. Embassy said via Twitter that it regretted the announcement.”The fight against corruption is essential and fundamental,” it said. “We are going to continue looking for ways to reduce and combat corruption and impunity.”On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a National Security Study Memorandum that established fighting corruption as a core national security interest.Earlier Friday, the congress passed laws proposed by Bukele that strip the country’s most powerful business association of its right to representation on nearly two dozen autonomous boards that oversee activities ranging from water distribution to airports and seaports.Bukele said via Twitter that he had sent 23 initiatives to the congress to remove the National Private Business Association from the institutions “to put them at the service of the people.”The business association, known by its Spanish initials ANEP, and its president, Javier Simán, are among Bukele’s most outspoken critics.ANEP said in a statement Friday that the changes would “open the door for companies and people with direct conflicts of interest to nominate candidates” to the institutions.The statement said the change would replace “representation of the independent, critical and watchful private sector with obliging, submissive and patronizing voices.”It was just the latest in a series of moves by Bukele and his New Ideas party, which holds a supermajority in the Legislative Assembly, to remove critical voices from government and quasi-governmental positions. 
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The Catholic Church must take responsibility for its role in running many of Canada’s residential schools for Indigenous children, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday, after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at one former school last month.”As a Catholic, I am deeply disappointed by the position the Catholic Church has taken now and over the past many years,” Trudeau told reporters. “We expect the Church to step up and take responsibility for its role in this.”The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops did not respond to a request for comment.Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated about 150,000 children from their homes. Many were subjected to abuse, rape and malnutrition in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide.”Run by the government and church groups, the majority of them Catholic, the schools’ stated aim was to assimilate Indigenous children.The discovery this week of the remains of the children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, which closed in 1978, has reopened old wounds and is fueling outrage about a persistent lack of information and accountability.From 1893-1969, a Catholic congregation called the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate ran the Kamloops school, which was once Canada’s largest.Seeking an apologyOn Friday, Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir, on whose land the Kamloops school still stands, told reporters the nation has not received any records from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate that would help identify the children.”We do want an apology” from the Catholic Church, Casimir said. “A public apology. Not just for us, but for the world.”In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized for the system. Trudeau said many are “wondering why the Catholic Church in Canada is silent.”He added: “Before we have to start taking the Catholic Church to court, I am very hopeful that religious leaders will understand this is something they need to participate in and not hide from.”Trudeau has not directed such pointed comments at the Catholic Church over the residential schools since taking office in 2015.’Unquestionably wrong’On Wednesday, Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller said on Twitter “the Church was unquestionably wrong” and his archdiocese would be transparent with its archives and records regarding residential schools.The Conference said on its website that each diocese is separate and responsible for its own actions.”The Catholic Church as a whole in Canada was not associated with the residential schools, nor was the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops,” it said.Separately, United Nations human rights experts on Friday called on both Canada and the Vatican to further investigate the deaths of the children found in Kamloops.”It is inconceivable that Canada and the Holy See would leave such heinous crimes unaccounted for and without full redress,” they said in a statement.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday set a tough tone for his upcoming summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, accusing Washington of trying to contain Russia and citing its response to the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a manifestation of the West’s double standards.Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that arms control, global conflicts, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change are among the issues he and Biden would discuss at their June 16 summit in Geneva.”We need to find ways of looking for a settlement in our relations, which are at an extremely low level now,” Putin said.”We don’t have any issues with the U.S.,” he continued. “But it has an issue with us. It wants to contain our development and publicly talks about it. Economic restrictions and attempts to influence our country’s domestic politics, relying on forces they consider their allies inside Russia, stem from that.”He voiced hope that the meeting would help ease tensions with Washington. Russia-U.S. ties have sunk to post-Cold War lows over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, accusations of Russian interference in elections in the U.S. and other Western nations and cyberattacks that U.S. officials allege had Russian origins.Putin reiterated that Russia rejects accusations of interfering in U.S. presidential elections, and he spoke critically of the U.S. response to the Capitol attack, which took place as Congress prepared to certify that Biden had defeated then-President Donald Trump in November.”They weren’t just a crowd of robbers and rioters. Those people had come with political demands,” he said.Putin pointed out that the heavy charges against hundreds of participants in the attack were filed even as the U.S. and its allies strongly criticized Belarus’ crackdown on anti-government protests. And he charged that even as the West has criticized Russian authorities for a harsh response to anti-Kremlin demonstrations, protesters in Europe have faced an even tougher police response, with some shot in the eye by what he mockingly called “democratic rubber bullets.”‘Corresponding interests’At a later videoconference with the heads of major international news agencies, Putin said, “I don’t expect any breakthrough results” from the summit with Biden. The United States and Russia have some corresponding interests, he said, “despite certain disagreements. These disagreements are not the result of Russian actions.”In response to a question from Associated Press President and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt, Putin returned to the theme of blaming the United States for poor relations.”We are not taking steps first — I’m talking about the steps that deteriorated our relations. It was not us who introduced sanctions against us, it was the United States who did that on every occasion and even without grounds, just because our country exists,” he said through a translator.He also criticized the United States as being overconfident and drew a parallel with the Soviet Union.”You know what the problem is? I will tell you as a former citizen of the former Soviet Union. What is the problem of empires — they think that they are so powerful that they can afford small errors and mistakes,” he said. “But the number of problems is growing. There comes a time when they can no longer be dealt with. And the United States, with a confident gait, a firm step, is going straight along the path of the Soviet Union.”‘Sheer nonsense’At the earlier session, Putin praised Biden as a “very experienced statesman who has been involved in politics for his entire life … and a very prudent and careful person. I do hope that our meeting will be positive.”He also took time to deride the allegations that Russian hackers targeted a U.S. pipeline and a meat plant — accusations that have clouded the atmosphere before the summit.”I do hope that people would realize that there hasn’t been any malicious Russian activity whatsoever,” he said. “I heard something about the meat plant. It’s sheer nonsense. We all understand it’s just ridiculous. A pipeline? It’s equally absurd.”Putin said “the U.S. special services should track down those ransom seekers. It’s certainly not Russia that would extort money from some company. We don’t deal with chicken or beef. It’s plain ridiculous.”He alleged the hacking accusations were aired by those who try to “provoke new conflicts before our meeting with Biden,” and added that some in the U.S. doubted Russian involvement in the hacks.”It means that inside the American society, media and political class, there are people who want to find ways to repair U.S.-Russian relations,” he said.Thoughts on permafrost, pandemicOn other issues, Putin praised his country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and called for a stronger worldwide response to global warming as he sought to bolster Russia’s international standing.Addressing the forum, Putin lauded the efficiency of Russian-designed vaccines and bemoaned what he described as “politically motivated bans” on their purchase in some countries.Last year, Russia boasted of being the first in the world to authorize a coronavirus vaccine, but it has since moved slowly in giving shots to its population. The slack pace of vaccination has been partly attributed to public skepticism about the vaccines amid controversial signals from authorities.Experts have questioned whether Russia will be able to meet the government target of vaccinating more than 30 million of the country’s 146 million people by mid-June, and nearly 69 million by August.Putin again urged Russians to move quickly to get the shots, and he invited foreigners to Russia to get vaccinated, saying he would instruct the government to facilitate that.He also emphasized the need to strengthen the international response to climate change, noting that melting permafrost has posed a major challenge to Russia’s Arctic regions.”We have entire cities built on permafrost,” he said. “What will happen if it all starts melting?”Putin said pipes have been laid for the first of two lines of the prospective Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, leaving only welding to finalize its construction. He said the second line will follow soon.The U.S. has strongly opposed construction of the Russian pipeline, but the Biden administration opted last month not to punish the German company overseeing the project while announcing new sanctions against Russian companies and ships. The Kremlin has hailed it as a “positive signal” before the Putin-Biden summit.The Russian leader hailed the project as more economically feasible than an existing pipeline via Ukraine, rejecting Ukrainian and Western criticism that it’s designed to rob Kyiv of transit fees.Putin said Russia will continue pumping via Ukraine 40 billion cubic meters of gas a year in line with an existing five-year contract and could continue doing so after it expires if Ukraine shows “goodwill.”Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a tense tug-of-war following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support for separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine.Putin deplored what he described as the U.S. use of the dollar as a political weapon, saying that “its use as an instrument of competition and political struggle has hurt its role as the world reserve currency.”Russia said Thursday it will completely remove the U.S. dollar from its National Wealth Fund and turn the dollar-denominated assets into euros, yuan and gold. Russia long has moved to reduce the dollar’s share in its hard currency reserves as it has faced U.S. sanctions amid tensions with Washington and its allies.
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Mexican voters will go to the polls Sunday to elect candidates for thousands of local offices, and in a country where elections have a tradition of violence, journalists will be in the crosshairs.“We know that when there’s so much violence, journalists who cover these elections, they can become targets, too,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).In April, the U.S.-based rights group went so far as to publish a “journalists safety kit” just for the Mexico elections, citing harassment, online bullying and assassination. Five journalists were killed in 2020; one was shot and killed in May, and another survived a knife attack.Mexico emerged as Guadalupe Severo, the wife of slain journalist Julio Valdivia, is embraced during his wake inside their home in Tezonapa, Veracruz, Mexico, Sept. 10, 2020. Valdivia’s decapitated body was found five miles from Tezonapa a day earlier.The journalists had all been involved in investigating or working on reports of high-level official corruption, or government involvement in human rights abuses. Targets received text messages with personal and sexual taunts and kidnapping warnings, among other threats.More recently, on March 23, 2021, in the state of Baja California, investigative reporter Dianeth Perez Arreola received a letter from a special prosecutor for electoral crimes.The letter ordered her to remove online content with references to a female political candidate and warned Perez Arreola not to publish details about the candidate that “denigrate or degrade a woman.”’Absurd’ allegationsPerez Arreola had published a video alleging that the candidate used her position in the Sonora governor’s office to enrich herself. Perez Arreola faces arrest or fines if she refuses to comply with the letter, according to an account by CPJ.“The allegations are absurd, as none of the videos were about [the candidate’s] personal life, and none of them contained any content that would be degrading to her as a woman,” Perez Arreola said to CPJ.Given the gang violence and government corruption in Mexico, journalists often don’t know where threats are coming from. That makes it hard to take precautions.“Even if measures are taken to stay safe, they are an illusion. When someone is a clear target, there is no army to protect anyone,” said Aguilar Perez.Still, Hootsen said journalists can create their own mutual safety net.“When reporting on the election, try to check in with your colleagues. Try to make sure that people know where you are, what you’re doing, and make sure that you know who to call when you get into trouble,” Hootsen said.Despite the risks, Aguilar Perez takes solace in the belief that Mexicans still respect and respond to journalism that holds politicians accountable for their actions.“The only thing that still weighs on Mexican politics is the public claim of citizens,” he said. “In my case, the support of citizens and fellow media has been the most important factor.”
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Have European Union restrictions on travelers from the U.S., Britain and some other major nations become politicized? The chief executive of Wizz Air, the Budapest-based low-cost airline, thinks so.“I think the European Union as such has broken down completely,” József Váradi told CNBC this week. “We have failed to come up with unified measures and an orchestrated approach dealing with the situation, and it has become incredibly overpoliticized.”He’s not alone in expressing frustration. Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, a rival Dublin-headquartered discount airline, has urged politicians to recognize “it’s time that we got on with our lives.” Ryanair last month posted the biggest annual loss in the company’s 35-year history, because of COVID-19 travel restrictions and lockdowns wiping out air traffic. This turned the company’s previous year’s $1.24 billion profit into a $990 million loss in the 12 months to March 31.The EU decision Thursday to urge member states to maintain a prohibition on tourists and other nonessential travelers from the U.S. and Britain, among other non-EU countries, has left many in Europe’s commercial aviation and hospitality sectors fuming about what they view as the laggardly pace of easing travel restrictions for tourists.European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, June 2, 2021. The European Union unveiled Wednesday plans to revamp Europe’s ID-check free travel area.Lack of uniformityThey say the European Commission is being overcautious, and they also are impatient with the lack of uniformity among member states about reopening their countries to tourists this Northern Hemisphere summer. Most national governments have been implementing the EC’s tight travel recommendations, but others in the past few weeks have not, further complicating journeys into the bloc from outside, especially for those unable to take direct flights to their destinations.Some member states have also been imposing curbs on travel from other EU countries, turning the bloc and the once borderless Schengen Area into a complicated puzzle of rules and requirements.Italy, Portugal and Greece, member states of the Schengen Area, and Croatia, an EU member, have all been ignoring Brussels and have been cautiously opening their tourist-dependent countries to travelers, including from the U.S. and Britain, which have vaccinated more of their populations than the EU. Italy started to ease travel restrictions on Americans and Britons in mid-May, although quarantines often still apply. Americans can travel on COVID-19-safe flights to Italy, which require multiple coronavirus tests.American and British travelers are crucial for the European tourist industry. Americans made more than 36 million trips to Europe in 2019. The total number of tourist visits by U.K. residents to the European Union reached 67 million the same year.EC keeps a listThe EC has a “white list” of countries with low infection rates comprising Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Travelers from those countries, regardless of their reasons for journeys, are welcome, as far as the EC is concerned. Japan was added to the list at midweek. China also is on the white list, subject to reciprocity by the Chinese government.The 27 EU member states have been debating for months ways to make travel easier, both within the bloc and from outside, and the EC has recommended all member states starting July 1 lift restrictions on travelers who were fully vaccinated at least 14 days before their arrival in the EU.FILE – German police check arriving passengers for a negative coronavirus test in Frankfurt, March 30, 2021. The European Commission proposed April 29 issuing “Digital Green Certificates” to EU residents to facilitate travel in the bloc by summer.By July 1, the EU’s Digital COVID-19 certificate is meant to be up and running across the bloc, allowing border authorities to verify the coronavirus status of travelers — whether they have been vaccinated, had a recent negative test or have proof of recovery from coronavirus infection. Seven countries, including tourist-dependent Greece and Croatia, already have started rolling out so-called vaccine passports much earlier than planned.“Europeans should enjoy a safe and relaxing summer,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday. “As vaccination progresses, we propose to gradually ease travel measures in a coordinated way with our common tool: the EU Digital COVID Certificate.”But some in Europe’s travel industry have doubts that everything will go smoothly next month, even when many restrictions are due to be eased. Olivier Jankovec, director-general of Airports Council International Europe, a trade association, worries there will be a lack of consistency in travel rules across the bloc and says the EC and national governments don’t understand how challenging reopening will be for airports and airlines. Jankovec says the EU and member states are underestimating what will happen when tourism does pick up.Airport ‘chaos’ feared“The level of both uncertainty and complexity in planning for the restart is just mind-blowing for now,” Jankovec said in a statement. “With each passing day, the prospect of travelers enduring widespread chaos at airports this summer is becoming more real. We urgently need governments to step up planning on the full range of issues involved — and work more closely with airports and airlines.”FILE – Travelers, wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, walk along the departure hall of the Zaventem international airport in Brussels, Jan. 22, 2021.His trade association has warned that air passengers risk spending hours at airports in July and August because of multiple and diverse COVID-19 checks.Some British lawmakers have expressed suspicions the EU has not added Britain to the white list because of post-Brexit political grievances. Last month, Brussels eased its COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people criteria from 25 to 75 and Britain meets the EU target. But EU officials say they are concerned about an increase in infections in Britain from a more transmissible coronavirus variant first discovered in India, hence the decision to exclude the U.K.The Biden administration has not yet lifted a ban on travelers wishing to visit the United States from the 27 European Union member states and the United Kingdom, but officials have indicated that could soon change.Meanwhile, Britain also has faced criticism from southern European countries for failing to include them on its meager “green list” of safe-for-travel countries. Portugal’s foreign ministry said it couldn’t “understand the logic” of Britain’s midweek switch of Portugal from green to amber.The move means any Britons who travel to Portugal will have to take two tests upon their return and self-isolate at home for 10 days, which will deter tourists. “Portugal is continuing its easing of its lockdown, prudently and gradually, with clear rules for the safety of those who reside here or visit us,” Portugal’s foreign ministry tweeted Thursday.British officials, like their EU counterparts, say they are guided in their decision by the scientific advice they are receiving. The U.S. has not lifted its restrictions on travel from Europe for non-U.S. citizens or residents, but officials in Washington have told VOA that is under review.
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The European Union announced Friday it is banning all flights from Belarus from flying over EU airspace and denying them access to all EU airports. In a statement, EU officials said all EU member states will be required to deny permission to land in, take off from or overfly their territories to any aircraft operated by Belarusian air carriers, including as a marketing carrier. The ban will take effect at midnight Friday, Central European Time. FILE – In this handout photo released by European Radio for Belarus, Belarus journalist Raman Pratasevich poses for a photo in front of euroradio.fm sign in Minsk, Belarus, Nov. 17, 2019.The move comes in response to the May 23 incident in which Belarus scrambled a fighter jet to order the forced landing of an Irish Ryanair commercial airliner that was traversing Belarusian airspace en route to Lithuainia. Belarus officials took opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich off the plane and have held him ever since. The regional air traffic agency Eurocontrol reports about 400 civilian planes usually take routes over Belarus. Several European airlines including Lufthansa, SAS and Air France have already announced they would stop flying over its airspace. Pratasevich appeared on Belarus state television Thursday, tearfully confessing to his role in anti-government protest in an interview that the opposition said was made under duress. In the interview, Pratasevich admitted to plotting to topple President Alexander Lukashenko by organizing “riots” and recanted earlier criticism of the veteran leader. Lukashenko’s office did not immediately respond to accusations of coercion. 
 
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A British-led aircraft carrier group voyage that will take the HMS Queen Elizabeth to the disputed South China Sea would push Beijing further into an angry defensive position, analysts believe.The 65,000-ton aircraft carrier with more than 30 aircraft plans to visit the Asian waterway for military drills with the U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces, British media outlets say. The ships set sail in May for a world journey of seven months, the Royal Navy said on its website without specifying when it would reach the South China Sea. A Dutch frigate and an American destroyer have joined the group.China will see the voyage as a sign that Western allies are marshaling forces against it, experts say. Chinese officials claim 90% of the sea as China’s, citing historic usage records. Militarily weaker Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam claim all or parts of the same sea, overlapping Chinese claimed waters.As China builds up islands in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer, resource-rich sea for military installations and expands its navy, Western countries have been sending ships over the past half year as a warning against that expansion and a gesture of support for the smaller claimants.French, British Ships to Sail Disputed Asian Sea, Rile China

        British and French warships will sail to the disputed South China Sea in a display of naval strength that may satisfy domestic audiences but ruffle the waterway’s major stakeholder, China, and lead to more militarization, analysts say.Vessels from the two European naval powers, which have no South China Sea claims of their own, will use the event to justify military spending at home, experts say. 

“I think the Chinese will be upset,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo. Chinese officials will say the voyage reflects a “Cold War mentality” and a “containment mentality” aimed at China, he said.“It will reaffirm their view that the United States is now clearly intent on stopping China’s rise and preventing China’s development, but the reality is the U.K. has limited resources it can lend to the region and it’s more symbolic than a tangible increase,” he said.US Adding Air Power to Naval Operations in Disputed South China Sea Beijing is watching as Washington reportedly sends B-52s, reconnaissance aircraft and at least one Marine Corps plane to a sea China claims as its own China regularly protests U.S. Navy voyages into the sea, 10 of which took place last year following another 10 in 2019. China sometimes follows up with military drills. The U.K. and the United States are close allies.The Beijing government cannot “forget” that Britain once colonized parts of China, including Hong Kong, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant diplomacy and international relations professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.China’s reaction to the voyage will hinge on time the U.K. spends in the sea, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan.“It really depends on the U.K.’s efforts, whether it can actually present itself in the region on a regular basis,” Yang said.Welcomed in Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asian maritime claimants will welcome the British voyage, though careful to spin their support in a way to avoid upsetting China, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Much of Southeast Asia counts China as a top trading partner. Malaysia and Singapore, as former British colonies, though, have particularly strong ties to the U.K., Oh said.“I think we have the same attitude as the British, namely we don’t want to unduly upset China because, whether we like it or not, China is our largest trading partner,” said Oh, who is Malaysian. “But at the same time, it is important to also show to Chinese that we are not retreating from our claims of sovereignty.” Power projectionBritish officials for their part hope to “project strong relations” around maritime Asia following their break from the European Union, Nagy said. He tips the country to work more closely in the future with Japan and the United States on Indo-Pacific issues where they disagree with China.The HMS Queen Elizabeth group will visit 40 nations, including Japan, over its course of 48,152 kilometers, according to a Royal Navy statement on May 22.U.K. Carrier Strike Group Commander, Commodore Steve Moorhouse, called the voyage the “most important peacetime deployment in a generation,” according to the navy’s statement.
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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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