Hospitals treating coronavirus patients in Bolivia’s two largest cities, La Paz and El Alto, are overwhelmed by the demand.La Paz Mayor, Luis Revilla, said, covid hospitals in the city are full. The La Portada hospital is full, emergency is full, as well as the Cotahuma hospital.Revilla said, they are calling for the Sur hospital to be up and running as soon as possible.A protesting nurse in La Paz said the hospital has been overwhelmed for several weeks. Mary Ticona said, “We collapsed about two months ago. We are attending to our people as we can, in stretchers, wheelchairs, however we can attend to them. We have collapsed.”Ticona is urging Bolivia’s national health officials to get involved and make coronavirus tests available for the hospital staff, so they can determine who is infected with the coronavirus.Ticona said, some co-workers are already showing symptoms of the virus, which is still surging in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.So far, Bolivia has confirmed more than 42,000 coronavirus cases and more than 1,500 deaths.
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Category Archives: News
worldwide news
Fugitive Mexico Ex-Governor Arrested in US on Corruption Charges
The ex-governor of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, Cesar Duarte, who was sought for more than two years on corruption charges, is under arrest in the United States.Mexico’s state prosecutor’s office announced Duarte was taken into custody by U.S Marshals in Miami on Wednesday, and preparations are being made for his extradition.Duarte, who governed the northern border state from 2010 to 2016, is accused of misappropriating at least $52 million in public money.The former state governor is expected in Miami federal court by Saturday for a hearing on the charges against him in Mexico.Duarte is among a dozen former Mexican officials arrested on corruption charges, and the first taken into custody since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018, following an anti-corruption campaign.Duarte’s arrest in the United States occurred as Lopez Obrador was making his first official visit to the U.S.
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War Crimes Prosecutors to Interview Kosovo President
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci will go to The Hague on Monday to be interviewed by international war crimes prosecutors.Thaci was a top commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought a guerrilla war for independence from Serbia in the late 1990s. He announced his appearance on his Facebook page on Wednesday.A special international court has indicted Thaci and other former fighters for alleged war crimes by the KLA, including murder, kidnapping and torture. Thaci has denied the charges. “While my compatriots as well as me will face international justice with dignity and integrity, I call upon you to stand united in dealing with the challenges that our country is facing,” he said on Facebook. A pretrial judge in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers has yet to decide whether to put Thaci and the others on trial or throw out the case.Thaci has told Kosovars that if he is tried, he will “will immediately resign as your president and face the accusations.”Thaci’s indictment forced the cancellation of last month’s White House peace talks between Kosovar and Serbian leaders. Serbia has refused to recognize an independent Kosovo. NATO peacekeepers remain in Kosovo to prevent tension between the two sides from exploding into violence.
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Trump, Obrador Hail US-Mexico Relationship During Meeting
President Donald Trump welcomed Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Wednesday to the White House, where they discussed trade, the economy and immigration, days after a new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal among the two countries and Canada went into effect.They also remarked on the improved relations between the two countries.FILE – Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives for a news conference in Ottawa, Canada on July 6, 2020.”The relationship between the U.S. and Mexico has never been closer than it is right now,” Trump said in the Rose Garden before the two leaders signed a joint declaration which “recognizes the advancements our two countries have achieved toward a renewed and strengthened partnership.”The U.S. leader, who in the past has made disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants and threatened trade tariffs, called the relations between U.S. and Mexico “outstanding,” adding that he and Lopez Obrador “put the interests of our countries first.”López Obrador responded, saying: “As president of Mexico, instead of remembering the insults and things like that against my country, we have received from you, President Trump, understanding and respect.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to attend the meeting to commemorate USMCA, citing a busy schedule and the inappropriateness of international travel amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Trump said the U.S. is home to 36 million Mexican Americans and that they make up a “big percentage” of small-business owners.”They’re like you — they’re tough negotiators and great businesspeople, Mr. President,” Trump told the Mexican leader.The leftist Mexican president, often referred to by his initials, AMLO, has brushed off domestic criticism for meeting Trump, who is widely disliked in Mexico because of past disparaging remarks about Mexicans and his stance on immigration.Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and U.S. President Donald Trump hold a meeting at the White House, in Washington, July 8, 2020.López Obrador’s government sees this visit as an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of USMCA and has tried to distance the visit from topics related to immigration.“It is very important for us to be launching this new agreement, López Obrador said through a translator. “But I also wanted to be here to thank the people of the United States, its government. And thank you, President Trump, for being increasingly respectful with our Mexican fellow men,” he added.In his remarks, López Obrador quoted George Washington, the first U.S. president, who said, “Nations should not take advantage of the unfortunate condition of other people.” López Obrador said Trump has “followed” Washington’s “wise advice.”Some analysts have noted that Trump has used America’s tremendous economic leverage, including threats of tariffs and even a total border closing, to pressure the Mexican leader on issues of trade and immigration.Mexico functions as a “hinge” between the United States and the asylum-seeker origin countries of Central America, said Maria Fernanda Perez Arguello, associate director at the Atlantic Council. “Immigration from Central America — and the push factors in the countries — is the big elephant in the room between AMLO and Trump,” she said.This is López Obrador’s first meeting with Trump and the second visit to the White House by a foreign leader since the coronavirus shutdown in March. Like Trump, López Obrador has downplayed the risks of the coronavirus and said he has never been tested for the coronavirus because he has no symptoms and will take a test only if the White House requires it.Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said that all members of the Mexican delegation, including the president, were tested for the coronavirus and that the tests were administered by the White House.Speaking to reporters in Mexico City before his departure Tuesday, López Obrador repeatedly said in response to questions about raising issues such as immigration policy that his focus in the talks would be on the trade deal.“It is always important that there be cooperation for development. But now in a circumstance of global economic crisis, this treaty is going to help us a lot. It is very timely,” López Obrador said.He noted the economic challenges facing Mexico, like those in many other countries during the coronavirus pandemic and stressed the need for Mexico to have good relations with its neighbor.The Mexican leader noted the agenda for bilateral talks includes other topics, and on those, his delegation — which includes Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon and Economic Secretary Graciela Márquez Colín — would not take a confrontational approach, but rather try to have a dialogue of understanding with their U.S. counterparts.The USMCA updated the 1990s North American Trade Agreement and was a major policy push for Trump, who cast the former trade deal as harmful to U.S. businesses and workers.The pact includes new laws related to intellectual property protection, the internet, currencies, investment and state-owned enterprises. The new legislation includes more stringent rules on auto manufacturing, e-commerce and labor provisions, but leaves largely unchanged the trade flows among the North American countries valued at $1.2 trillion a year.In addition to private talks between Trump and López Obrador and wider meetings with their advisers, the two leaders attended a dinner Wednesday night with business leaders from both countries.Before going to the White House, López Obrador visited the Lincoln Memorial and a statue of former Mexican President Benito Juárez in Washington.
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Facebook Removes False Accounts Linked to Brazil’s Bolsonaro
Social media giant Facebook said Wednesday that it had removed dozens of accounts linked to supporters or employees of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as part of an investigation into the spread of false news online.Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s head of cybersecurity policy, said in a statement that 73 Facebook and Instagram accounts, 14 pages and one group had been removed. Brazilian courts have been investigating the spread of false news in connection with Bolsonaro.There was no immediate comment from the presidential office about Facebook’s action.Facebook’s executive said the accounts were linked to the Social Liberal Party, which Bolsonaro left last year after winning the 2018 presidential election, and to employees of the president; two of his sons, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro and congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro; and two other lawmakers.”This network consisted of several clusters of connected activity that relied on a combination of duplicate and fake accounts — some of which had been detected and disabled by our automated systems — to evade enforcement, create fictitious personas posing as reporters, post content, and manage pages masquerading as news outlets,” Gleicher said in the statement.He added that some of the content posted by the accounts had already been taken down for community standards violations, including hate speech.Gleicher said about 883,000 accounts followed one or more of the Bolsonaro linked pages and an additional 917,000 followed one of more of the Instagram accounts that were removed.
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Britain In Huawei Dilemma as China Relations Sour
There is growing speculation that Britain may be about to reverse course and ban the Chinese firm Huawei from its rollout of 5G mobile telecoms technology. A move by the United States to ban U.S. companies from selling crucial microchips to Huawei appears to have changed the calculation in London. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Beijing has warned Britain against what it calls ‘making China into an enemy.’Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Serbian President Retracts COVID-19 Curfew After 60 Hurt in Violence
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has retracted his decision to reimpose a coronavirus curfew and has urged people to stop attending anti-government rallies after a violent clash between protesters and police.The president said Wednesday that new measures could still include shortened hours for nightclubs and penalties for those not wearing masks.On Tuesday, Vucic said at a news conference he would implement a curfew Friday, “probably” to run from 6 p.m. until 5 a.m. on July 13. The president added that gatherings would be restricted to five people starting Wednesday, citing a rising number of coronavirus cases in the country and hospitals running at full capacity.Vucic’s backtracking Wednesday came after a protest by thousands Tuesday night outside the parliament building in Belgrade. Police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators, while protesters retaliated by throwing stones and bottles at officers, some chanting for the resignation of the president.The clash left 17 protesters and 43 police injured and 23 protesters arrested, according to police director Vladmir Rebic. More protests were reported Wednesday.Vucic said foreign secret services were behind the protests by “right-wing and pro-fascist demonstrators.” He did not name specific intelligence agencies and stood by the police’s handling of the protests.”We will never allow the destabilization of Serbia from within and abroad,” he said.The president’s critics have accused him of lifting previous lockdown measures to hold parliamentary elections on June 21, which Vucic’s Progressive Party won by a landslide — accusations the president has denied.Critics also blame Vucic for the swell in infection rates, as the government permitted sports matches, religious festivities, parties and private gatherings to resume after lifting state of emergency restrictions on May 6.As of Wednesday afternoon EDT, Serbia had 17,076 reported cases of the coronavirus infection and 341 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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China’s Rival to GPS Navigation Carries Big Risks
After more than 20 years of effort, China completed its satellite navigation system last Tuesday when the last of BeiDou’s 35 satellites reached geostationary orbit.China’s domestically developed BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, designed to rival the U.S.-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), is now offering worldwide coverage, allowing global users to access its high-accuracy positioning, navigation and timing services, which are vital to the modern economy.China’s state media claims the system, formally initiated in 1994, is now being used by more than half of the world’s countries, and that its navigation products have been exported to more than 120 countries.FILE – A GPS station is seen in the Inyo Mountains of California. (Shawn Lawrence/UNAVCO)Like GPS, the services are offered free of charge using public protocols. But technical experts say the differences between the two systems have profound security implications.Security risksAll other global navigation satellite systems — GPS, GLONASS (Russia) and Galileo (EU) — mainly act as beacons, beaming out signals picked up by billions of devices using them to determine their precise position on Earth.BeiDou is a two-way communication system, allowing it to identify the locations of receivers. BeiDou-compatible devices can transmit data back to the satellites, even in text messages of up to 1,200 Chinese characters.”In layman’s terms, you can not only know where you are through BeiDou but also tell others where you are through the system,” China’s state broadcaster CCTV said last month.Such a capability has raised serious security concerns. “All cellular devices, as I understand their function, can be tracked because they continually communicate with towers or satellites,” Dr. Larry Wortzel, a commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), told VOA.”So just as here in the U.S., there are concerns that police or federal agencies can track people by their cellphones. That can happen. The same is true of a cellphone relying on BeiDou, Glonass and Galileo. The question is: Who are you concerned about being tracked by?”FILE – A Long March-3B rocket carrying the Beidou-3 satellite, the last satellite of China’s Beidou Navigation Satellite System, takes off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province, China, June 23, 2020.Legislation passed in Taiwan in 2016 also noted that two-way communication capabilities could be used in cyberattacks. It recommended that government employees should avoid using smartphones that rely on BeiDou for their phone navigation system.In a public report, Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology said that Taiwanese using mobile phones made in the mainland might be providing Beijing with information via embedded malware. “Because the Chinese BeiDou satellite positioning system has two-way information sending and receiving function and malicious programs could be hidden in the navigation chip of the mobile phone, operating system or apps, the use of BeiDou-enabled smartphones could face security risks,” the report stated.The ministry recommended that national defense agencies monitor signals transmitted by BeiDou and warn of any anomalies as soon as possible.A Staff members walk at Xichang Satellite Launch Center, the day before the Beidou-3 satellite, the last satellite of China’s Beidou Navigation Satellite System, was set to launch, in Sichuan province, China, June 15, 2020.Almost 25 years later, BeiDou is now trying to rival GPS’s dominant positions. It has overtaken its U.S. rival in size. At the end of June, there were 35 BeiDou satellites in operation, compared with 31 for GPS.”It brings full autonomy to China in matters of position and navigation services for ground, sea and air transportation means on a global scale,” said Dr. Emmanuel Meneut in a recent report published by a French think tank, the Institute of International Relations.According to a report released last month by a Chinese research firm Qianxun SI, BeiDou’s satellites were observed more frequently than GPS satellites in most parts of the world. The state media Xinhua reported last Friday that BeiDou now has 500 million subscribers for its high-precision positioning services.As an integral part of everyday life, GPS is nearly ubiquitous in the modern economy. The system is also an indispensable asset to U.S. forces at home and deployed around the globe. It provides a substantial military advantage and has been integrated into virtually every facet of military operations. Being overtaken by BeiDou could have potentially enormous implications for both high-tech industry and national security.To promote greater use of the technology, China has sought to incentivize other countries with loans and free services. Beijing signed a roughly 2 billion yuan ($297 million) agreement with Thailand in 2013, making the country the first overseas client of BeiDou. According to a report released last month by a Shanghai-based market research firm, SWS Research, by the end of 2020, at least 1,000 base stations will be built in the 10 ASEAN countries.”Widespread integration of BeiDou across the Belt and Road [a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013] will ostensibly end a member nation’s reliance on the American military-run GPS network,” Heath Sloane, a scholar at the Yenching Academy of Peking University, wrote in The Diplomat in April. “Torn between rival networks, the world may soon be bifurcated into GPS or BeiDou camps.”FILE – A GPS navigation device is held by a U.S. soldier in Kuwait, in this image taken from video.Ironically, the American military says it sometimes uses BeiDou as a backup to GPS.According to General James Holmes, the head of the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command, pilots of the elite U-2 spy plane wear watches that receive satellite navigation coordinates from BeiDou when GPS is jammed. “My U-2 guys fly with a watch now that ties into GPS, but also BeiDou and the Russian [GLONASS] system and the European [Galileo] system so that if somebody jams GPS, they still get the others,” Holmes said March 4 at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington.While China’s 5G networking technology has long been considered a security threat, BeiDou receives little criticism from the U.S. Moreover, the system received much-needed help from Washington in 2017. As Beijing was rapidly developing the system, it faced a problem that only the U.S. could solve: No frequency bands were available.Under the “first come, first served” principle, GPS had occupied most of the spectrum that a global positioning system needs, since the U.S. was the first nation to start broadcasting in those frequencies.China had to obtain permission from Washington before using this limited resource. After three years of negotiations, the two countries agreed in December 2017 to allow BeiDou’s civil signals to be interoperable with GPS. As a result, the three frequency bands that BeiDou satellites use to transmit navigation signals are located adjacent to or even inside GPS frequency bands.’Biggest’ aerospace projectOfficially started in 1994, BeiDou is consistently referenced as “the biggest” aerospace program that China ever undertaken. For the past 2½ years alone, there have been more than 300,000 scientists and engineers from more than 400 research institutions and corporations involved in the program. Along with 5G, BeiDou is called by Beijing “The Two Pillars of a Great Power.”Yang Changfeng, a chief designer of BeiDou, told China’s state broadcaster CCTV last month that China was now “moving from being a major nation in space to becoming a true space power.””The rise of the Chinese GPS BeiDou system is not simply one more positioning service in competition with the U.S. One is a strategic challenge,” Meneut said.
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Brazilian President Bolsonaro ‘Doing Very Well’ Despite Coronavirus Diagnosis
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro says he is “doing very well” one day after testing positive for coronavirus. Bolsonaro tested positive for the disease on Tuesday after spending the weekend in close proximity with government officials, including a mask-free attendance at an Independence Day celebration at the U.S. Embassy. “Be assured that for you the chance of something more serious is close to zero,” Bolsonaro assured citizens during the announcement of his illness on Tuesday. Brazilian President Tests Positive for Coronavirus Jair Bolsonaro previously downplayed risks posed by coronavirus, once telling supporters because of his history of athleticism, he would not worry if he became infectedIn a video posted late Tuesday evening, Bolsonaro drank what he described as his third dose of hydroxochloriquine and seemed to attribute his state of relative health to the drug. Hydroxochloriquine, commonly used to treat malaria, has been touted by both Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump as a treatment for coronavirus. So far little medical evidence has been produced to support their claims; in June, the U.S. National Institutes of Health halted clinical trials of the drug in COVID-19 patients due to lack of sufficient evidence. The World Health Organization also announced on July 4 that their investigation into the treatment’s efficacy would cease, as data does not suggest increased recovery rates for COVID-19 patients. “To those who root against hydroxychloroquine but don’t present alternatives, I hate to say I’m doing very well using it and, thank God, I will still live much longer,” Bolsonaro wrote in a Twitter post on Wednesday.The populist Brazilian president has been known to flout convention. In March, he dismissed concerns about the virus and claimed that his previous experience as an athlete would protect him and has repeatedly refused to wear a mask despite a court order requiring that he do so. Local government and public health officials have encountered several obstacles to enforcing necessary safety precautions. In several cases, such as indoor mask mandates and social distancing enforcement, Bolsonaro has personally intervened and vetoed the legislation. He has claimed such precautionary measures dampen the embattled Brazilian economy. Two health ministers during the pandemic, both trained doctors, were fired by Bolsonaro in recent months and were replaced with an active-duty army general on an interim basis.With 1.6 million confirmed cases and at least 66,000 deaths, Brazil’s death toll trails only that of the United States. The 65-year-old former Army captain said he planned to work via videoconference and sign as few documents as possible during the course of his illness. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez also contracted the virus, although both of them required hospital stays and extra oxygen.
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Russian Journalists Fear Growing Media Persecution After Treason Arrest
Russian journalists have launched a petition demanding treason allegations against a former reporter be made public, fearing the case is bogus and that media are being increasingly persecuted. Ivan Safronov, a former newspaper journalist working at Russia’s space agency since May, was detained by security agents outside his flat on Tuesday and accused of passing military secrets to the Czech Republic. He denies the charges. At a closed hearing, the court ordered Safronov to be held in custody for two months. One of his lawyers, Ivan Pavlov, said the hearing was unusual as the state investigator had not presented any evidence. Ivan Safronov stands inside a defendants’ cage before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2020. “Now they’ve taken Ivan Safronov,” read the petition circulated online by journalists at investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta and signed by nearly 7,500 people. The petition said the case should be declassified and the allegations made public, adding: “Otherwise it’s fake. The evidence is hidden when it is fake.” The Kremlin noted what it described as some emotional media reactions, but said those outlets had not seen the evidence, which would be reviewed in court. It said it had seen no signs of a campaign of pressure against reporters. Several journalists were photographed staging one-person pickets in various Russian cities on Wednesday, demanding Safronov be freed. Dozens of people, including journalists, were detained by Moscow police on Tuesday. On Monday, a court in the city of Pskov found another journalist guilty of justifying terrorism. She denied the charge. Russian journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva charged with publicly justifying terrorism arrives for a court hearing in Pskov, Russia, July 6, 2020.Mediazona, a private media outlet, wrote that it looked like law enforcement agencies were trying to “force us to stay silent.” FILE – Pyotr Verzilov gestures during a court hearing in Moscow, July 16, 2018.Police opened a criminal case this week against Mediazona’s publisher, Pyotr Verzilov, for failing to declare dual Canadian citizenship. He is an anti-Kremlin activist. The U.S. Embassy’s spokeswoman wrote on Twitter it was “starting to look like a concerted campaign against #MediaFreedom.” “Mind your own business,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded.
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British Prime Minister Takes Responsibility for COVID-19 Response
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday he takes full responsibility for the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, two days after appearing to blame workers in health care facilities for the deaths of residents there.Johnson was responding in parliament to opposition Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer, who quoted the prime minister regarding deaths in British care homes. Johnson said, “too many care workers did not follow procedures the way they should have.” Starmer said front-line care workers took great offense at the remark and called on Johnson to apologize.The prime minister responded by saying the last thing he wanted to do was blame care workers or for anyone to think he was blaming them and said they have done “an outstanding job.” He said, “When it comes to taking blame, I take full responsibility for what has happened.”Johnson added that no one knew when the pandemic began that COVID-19 would spread asymptomatically the way it does, and procedures changed.Starmer said Johnson’s explanation was not an apology and said by refusing to do so, Johnson “rubs salt in the wound” of the frontline workers he says he admires so much. Johnson responded by calling for bipartisan measures to invest in and reform Britain’s care home sector.
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Facebook Civil Rights Audit: ‘Serious Setbacks’ Mar Progress
A two-year audit of Facebook’s civil rights record found “serious setbacks” that have marred the social network’s progress on matters such as hate speech, misinformation and bias.
Facebook hired the audit’s leader, former American Civil Liberties Union executive Laura Murphy, in May 2018 to assess its performance on vital social issues. Its 100-page report released Wednesday outlines a “seesaw of progress and setbacks” at the company on everything from bias in Facebook’s algorithms to its content moderation, advertising practices and treatment of voter suppression.
The audit recommends that Facebook build a “civil rights infrastructure” into every aspect of the company, as well as a “stronger interpretation” of existing voter suppression policies and more concrete action on algorithmic bias. Those suggestions are not binding, and there is no formal system in place to hold Facebook accountable for any of the audit’s findings.
“While the audit process has been meaningful, and has led to some significant improvements in the platform, we have also watched the company make painful decisions over the last nine months with real world consequences that are serious setbacks for civil rights,” the audit report states.
Those include Facebook’s decision to exempt politicians from fact-checking, even when President Donald Trump posted false information about voting by mail. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has cited a commitment to free speech as a reason for allowing such posts to remain on the platform, even though the company has rules in place against voter suppression it could have used to take down — or at least add warning labels to — Trump’s posts.
Last month, Facebook announced it would begin labeling rule-breaking posts — even from politicians — going forward. But it is not clear if Trump’s previous controversial posts would have gotten the alert. The problem, critics have long said, is not so much about Facebook’s rules as how it enforces them.
“When you elevate free expression as your highest value, other values take a back seat,” Murphy told The Associated Press. The politician exemption, she said, “elevates the speech of people who are already powerful and disadvantages people who are not.”
More than 900 companies have joined an advertising boycott of Facebook to protest its handling of hate speech and misinformation.
Civil rights leaders who met virtually with Zuckerberg and other Facebook leaders Tuesday expressed skepticism that recommendations from the audit would ever be implemented, noting that past suggestions in previous reports had gone overlooked.
“What we get is recommendations that they end up not implementing,” said Rashad Robinson, the executive director of Color for Change, one of several civil rights nonprofits leading an organized boycott of Facebook advertising.
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Poll: Most Mexicans Want Closer Mexico-US Relations
More Mexicans have warmed to the idea of closer ties with the United States just as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lines up his first meeting with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, a poll showed on Wednesday.
A June 30-July 1 survey of 407 people by Mexican polling firm Parametria showed that 52% of respondents said Mexico should “be closer to” the United States, significantly up from 36% two years ago, when the leftist Lopez Obrador was first elected.
Lopez Obrador is visiting the White House, days after the start of a new regional trade deal, in his first trip outside Mexico since taking office 19 months ago.
His meeting carries risks because Trump has been highly unpopular south of the border since he described Mexican migrants and rapists and drug runners during his 2015-2016 campaign for the U.S. presidency.
Pessimism over Trump that set in when he took office still pervades: the Parametria poll showed 87% of respondents held a negative view of Trump, with only 10% of the opposite opinion.
Although Lopez Obrador has tried to avoid conflict with Trump, the latter has frequently pressured Mexico over trade and migration. Trump has also repeatedly said he will stick to a campaign promise to make Mexico pay for his planned border wall.
Of the people surveyed, significantly more expected the meeting of the presidents to help the United States.
Some 78% thought it would benefit the United States, with only 49% taking that view for Mexico. Some 35% said it would harm Mexico, while just 14% said that for the United States.
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Canadian Justice Grinds Slowly for Detained Huawei Executive
The extradition case of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech firm Huawei, is winding its way through the Canadian legal system. For Meng, it means confinement to her Vancouver mansions and conferences with high-priced lawyers. For two Canadians, it means more uncertainty and more time in a Chinese jail. Throw in a U.S. presidential election and a rift in Canada-Chinese trade relations and it creates the makings of an international soap opera.If all goes according to schedule, the actual extradition hearing for Meng will start on April 23. Before that, she faces multiple court dates in front of the Supreme Court of the province of British Columbia and the Federal Court of Canada.The U.S. Justice Department is seeking her extradition from Vancouver on allegations of helping a Huawei subsidiary break U.S. sanctions against doing business in Iran. The daughter of Chinese technology giant Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Meng was arrested at Vancouver International Airport while in transit to a connecting flight to Mexico on December 1, 2018.That means the actual extradition hearing may take place more than 28 months after her arrest.Intensely watching the proceedings is Vancouver immigration lawyer and policy analyst Richard Kurland, who does not represent any party in the case.He said for a person like Meng, the case is actually not taking a long time.“It’s not slow,” Kurland said. “This is the typical, average, garden-variety vanilla extradition case processing times. I’m aware of at least three other extradition cases that required eight to 10 years to finish. So the Canadian extradition process does take about eight to 10 years when someone has the resources to dig their heels in and take advantage of every procedural possibility in the extradition case.”Kurland added that for those who lack Meng’s financial means – she has the resources of a giant company like Huawei and her father is said to be worth over $1 billion – the extradition process can be rather abrupt.“If you don’t have financial resources, the road is short,” he said. “Typically, in the overwhelming majority of cases, extradition from beginning to end is a matter of days, if not a short number of months.”’The two Mikes’Not long after Meng’s arrest, two Canadian citizens, now commonly referred to as “the two Mikes” – Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — were detained in China. Spavor, who specialized in travel from the People’s Republic of China and North Korea, and Kovrig, a former diplomat who works with a nonprofit research organization, live most the time in China. They were initially accused of “endangering Chinese security” but were not formally charged until June of this year. Spavor is facing charges of spying and transmitting secrets outside of China. Kovrig is facing charges of spying on Chinese state secrets for other countries.In the past, both men have been denied legal counsel or the ability to see family members and have only been granted infrequent visits by Canadian diplomatic staff in China.One former Canadian diplomat who used to visit Canadians in Chinese prisons is Colin Robertson, currently vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. One of his many diplomatic postings was in Hong Kong, from where he often traveled to China.He said conditions in such facilities are usually deplorable. While Meng is out on bail and lives in her choice of her two Vancouver mansions, the two Michaels are not so lucky. And Kovrig’s former diplomatic career is also an issue.“But certainly in the case of Kovrig, the Chinese were questioning him about his activities as a Canadian diplomat, day after day, hour after hour, which is in total violation of his privileges, and privileges of diplomats which Chinese diplomats also enjoy,” Robertson said. “Under the Vienna conventions, which take back to 1815.”Canada-China trade issuesRobertson said the relationship between Canada and China is at its lowest point since modern diplomatic relations were established under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, over 50 years ago. He said that has led to a number of trade complaints.“And the Chinese continue to find things, more recently seafood and now looking at lumber, that are just basically trade harassment,” Robertson said. “And my own view is, I think we needed to be, we needed a more muscular response earlier on when they started going, because we just basically, Prime Minister [Trudeau] seemed to kind of turn the other cheek and just take this barrage of words which is straight out of the Chinese playbook. All this language that they use about irrefutable proof terms of the so-called crimes of the two Michaels, and the accusations of racism, white supremacy, and double standard — we’re not the first country they’ve applied this to.”A public opinion survey at the end of June by the Angus Reid Institute found that over 72 percent of Canadians backed Trudeau’s refusal to stop the extradition hearing and send Meng back to China in exchange for the two Michaels. Trudeau said doing so would set a dangerous precedent and that he would let the Canadian justice system, instead of politics, take care of the matter.Before that actual extradition hearing next April, Meng and her lawyers will spend the summer months tied up in legal maneuvers.The next scheduled federal court date is July 16. Defense lawyers are trying to get more information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the country’s spy agency, that they claim can help Meng. Canada’s attorney general says that information needs to remain secret for reasons of national security.Defense claims rights violationsMeng’s lawyers are also alleging that U.S. and Canadian authorities improperly conspired to open a criminal investigation when Meng initially arrived at Vancouver’s airport. She was held for several hours, had her computers and cellphones seized, and was questioned at length. Meng’s lawyers say that instead, Canadian authorities should have simply taken her into custody on the existing arrest warrants. Not doing so, the defense says, violated her basic legal rights.Her lawyers are also claiming that the United States deliberately misled the court to get the legal proceedings underway. Hearings to secure documents and evidence for these arguments will be held in the British Columbia Supreme Court on August 17.As the summer turns into fall, a week in September has been set aside for Meng’s legal team to present evidence regarding the accuracy of the information in the U.S. charges filed in New York that instigated the extradition process.On February 16 of next year, there will be a hearing, scheduled to last three weeks, regarding Meng’s arrest and alleged interference by U.S. President Donald Trump. Shortly after the arrest, Trump remarked that the charges against Meng could be used as a bargaining chip in the ongoing U.S.-China trade negotiations.Assuming that none of the decisions arising from all these hearings is appealed, the court will move to the actual extradition hearing in April.Ironically, if the court does find Meng should be extradited and she loses all appeals, the Canadian legal extradition process does become political. Canada’s attorney general, who is also justice minister, would then have to decide whether or not to sign the extradition papers.
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Cutting-Edge Doctor’s Office Features Tech, Wearables
A new type of doctor’s office claims to use the latest tech and wearables to provide cutting-edge preventative health. Deana Mitchell gets a tour.Camera: Deana Mitchell
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Massive Machines Search for Smallest Pieces of Universe
Antimatter.It’s not just the stuff of science fiction. The physicists working at CERN – officially the European Organization for Nuclear Research – create it almost every day as part of their efforts to find out what the universe is made of and how it works. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN is a consortium of 23 countries and includes scientists and workers from many more.Their research lab is a ring-shaped underground tunnel, 27 kilometers around, that crisscrosses the border between Switzerland and France. In the tunnel lies the Large Hadron Collider, where protons – one of the building blocks of atoms – are made to crash into one another with incredible force, creating, among other elements, antimatter. But just because physicists can make antimatter doesn’t mean they understand everything about it yet. Antimatter is as old as the universe, part of its original creation, in an event often referred to as the “Big Bang.” Ludivine Ceard, physicist with the CMS Collaboration, gestures at the Compace Muon Solinoid – one of the experiments at CERN, in Geneva, looking for the tiniest particles of matter. (Courtesy Robert Gumm.)Ludivine Ceard, a physicist with CERN, discussed one of the theories behind the research.“We have this theory that says that right after the Big Bang, there was creation in equal amount between matter and antimatter,” she said.“In principle, if the difference between the two is only the charge, they should have just recombined and left nothing but radiation; however, we are here. I’m talking with you right now. So it means that at some point, matter took over the antimatter, and this must be because there are some differences between matter and antimatter that we don’t know about,” Ceard said.Searching for those differences is one of the tasks for the people at the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, one of four main experiment sites around the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. A muon is one of the so-called elementary particles, one with no smaller components. It is similar to an electron, but heavier. And while it is very, very tiny, the machine built to study it is large. A CMS staff member walking near the structure when VOA visited was dwarfed by the apparatus designed to study the muon.A cutaway illustration of the tube carrying the proton beams around the Large Hadron collider. The tube has been removed for maintenance. (Courtesy Robert Gumm)To create muons and antimatter, packets of protons race around a circular track in the LHC in two beams, one traveling clockwise and one counterclockwise near the speed of light. When the physicists are ready, the beams are focused and made to collide at just the right spot. Rende Steerenberg heads the group in charge of seeing those collisions happen. “On either end of the experiments we will switch on focusing magnets so that the beam squeezes into a small dimension and therefore the probability of collision increases,” he said.Even so, with 100 billion protons in a packet moving in one direction, and another 100 billion protons moving the other way, only 50 protons are likely to collide.Right now, the probability of a collision is zero – because the collider and the experiments around it are in the midst of a two-year shutdown for maintenance and upgrades – which happens every three years. You might think that would leave the scientists feeling frustrated, but you would be wrong. Patricia McBride, physicist with Fermilab, and deputy spokesperson of the CMS Collaboration in Geneva. (Courtesy Robert Gumm)The deputy spokesperson of the CMS Collaboration, Patricia McBride from Fermilab in the U.S., says what we might think of as down time is anything but.“I would say that for us it’s an opportunity. It’s also one of the busiest times for us because not only are we looking at the data that we’ve collected from the LHC from the last two rounds, but we’re looking at ways of making the detector better, repairing things, putting in new detectors, and preparing for the future runs which the experiment will be running until we hope till 2035,” she said.The collider was built in 10 years. Shortly after going into operation, it immediately made its predecessor, the Tevatron, a circular collider at the United States’ Fermilab in Illinois, obsolete. The Tevatron shut down in September 2011, not long after the LHC created its first particle collisions. But the researchers at Fermilab weren’t devastated by their eclipse. In fact, they helped build the new collider, and when it opened, they presented the new team with a baton – like those used in relay races – to symbolize the continuation of their research efforts. The CMS collaboration includes some 4,000 Scientists from more than 50 countries from across Europe, India, China, South Korea, Egypt, other parts of the Middle East and Russia.The discoveries and developments made at CERN are already helping to transform fields as diverse as nuclear waste disposal, medical testing, detection of art forgeries and efforts to disrupt financial markets. Technologies developed for CERN are also finding uses in optimizing farm irrigation, in creating sensors that detect water pollution, and in speeding up machine learning, to create better software for self-driving vehicles. And while the scientists love when the experiments confirm their predictions, they also love it when things don’t turn out as expected – because that might be saying something very fundamental about antimatter – and how the universe is put together.
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Mexican President Visits US With Focus on Trade
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is in Washington for meetings Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump days after a new trade deal among the two countries and Canada went into effect.Speaking to reporters in Mexico City before his departure Tuesday, López Obrador repeatedly said in response to questions about raising other issues such as immigration policy that his focus in the talks would be on the trade deal.“It is always important that there be cooperation for development, but now in a circumstance of global economic crisis this treaty is going to help us a lot, it is very timely,” López Obrador said.He noted the economic challenges facing Mexico, like many other countries, during the coronavirus pandemic and stressed the need for Mexico to have good relations with its neighbor.The Mexican leaders noted the agenda for bilateral talks does include other topics, and on those his delegation, which includes Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon and Economic Secretary Graciela Márquez Colín, will not take a confrontational approach, but rather try to have a dialogue of understanding with their U.S. counterparts.Trump, in brief comments ahead of the López Obrador’s visit, said the two will have “quite a meeting.”“He’s a good man. He’s a friend of mine. And we have a great relationship with Mexico,” Trump said.The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement updated the 1990s North American Trade Agreement and was a major policy push of Trump, who cast the former trade deal as harmful to U.S. businesses and workers.The pact includes new laws related to intellectual property protection, the internet, currencies, investment and state-owned enterprises. The new legislation includes more stringent rules on auto manufacturing, e-commerce and labor provisions, but leaves largely unchanged the trade flows among the North American countries valued at $1.2 trillion a year.In addition to private talks between Trump and López Obrador and wider meetings with their advisers, the two leaders will also take part in a dinner Wednesday night with business leaders from both countries.The Mexican foreign ministry said before going to the White House, López Obrador will make visits to the Lincoln Memorial and a statue of former Mexican President Benito Juárez in Washington.
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Britain Sanctions Russian, Saudi Officials; Is China Next Target?
There are growing calls for Britain to also enact sanctions against human rights abusers in China, after the first such measures were imposed against dozens of individuals from Russia and Saudi Arabia. The first so-called ‘Magnitsky’ sanctions were announced Monday following years of campaigning by friends and family of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer killed in 2009. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the British capital is a center for global finance and travel – so campaigners hope the sanctions will have a substantial impact.Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Dutch Police Arrest 6 Men After Discovery of ‘Torture Chambers’
Dutch police announced Tuesday they arrested six men after discovering shipping containers that had been converted into a makeshift prison and sound-proofed “torture chamber.” In their statement, officials said they discovered seven converted sea shipping containers in a warehouse in Wouwse Plantage, a small village in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, close to the border with Belgium. Law enforcement authorities released video Tuesday showing a special police unit opening the shipping containers to reveal a specially rigged dentists’ chair, along with tools that included pliers, scalpels and handcuffs. Police say the discoveries were originally made last month after investigating leads generated by data from encrypted telephones used by criminals that were cracked recently by French police. Detectives in Britain and the Netherlands have already arrested hundreds of suspects based on the encrypted messages.The police said they were tipped off by messages from an EncroChat phone that included photos of the container and dentist’s chair with belts attached to the arm and foot supports. They arrested six men June 22, on suspicion of crimes including planning kidnappings and serious assault. The messages called the warehouse the “treatment room” and the “ebi,” a reference to a top security Dutch prison. Police said the messages also revealed identities of potential victims, who were warned and went into hiding.Dutch authorities said last week that their investigation, codenamed 26Lemont, based on millions of messages from the EncroChat phones, had led to the arrest of more than 100 suspects and the seizure of more than 8,000 kilograms of cocaine and 1,200 kilograms of crystal meth, as well as the dismantling of 19 synthetic drug labs and the seizure of dozens of firearms.
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Can Europeans Handle a Spike in COVID-19 Cases?
The United States is not the only country watching anxiously as coronavirus cases spike.Britain is poised to shutter individual towns in the event of a rise in confirmed cases. And the government has already locked down the English town of Leicester, where textile factories may be behind an alarming jump in infections, just as the rest of the country celebrated the easing of restrictions.Serbia reimposed a lockdown Friday as cases began to mount. Last month, neighboring Croatia reinstituted mandatory two-week self-isolation for travelers arriving from other Balkan countries. Bulgaria extended its state of emergency until July 15 and has made mask-wearing mandatory inside stores and public buildings.Deputy Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos, right, greets the 25 unaccompanied refugee children as they prepare to board a plane to Lisbon, Portugal at Athens International Airport, July 7, 2020.Following new outbreaks, Portugal renewed coronavirus restrictions on the capital, Lisbon, and the Spanish government has moved quickly with restrictions on parts of northeast Spain to try to tamp down local spikes.Some government officials say the biggest problem is persuading the public to observe social distancing rules and wearing masks. The easing of lockdowns and the reopening of economies do not mean caution should be jettisoned, they say. Underlining their appeals for people to remain cautious and vigilant is an exasperation with egregious recklessness, prompting officials in some countries to question whether their citizens have the discipline or sense of civic responsibility to be trusted.In Britain, police expressed their frustration with maskless crowds converging outside bars and restaurants in some towns, including in central London. Last Saturday, the first day that bars reopened in England after the coronavirus shutdown, police described the close-quarters drinking and shoulder-to-shoulder socializing as “absolute madness.”“A predictably busy night confirmed what we knew, alcohol and social distancing is not a good combination,” tweeted John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales.Sgt. Richard Cooke of the West Midlands police tweeted, “Just got home after a long shift, late shift peppered with pub fights, domestic violence & drunken, drugged up fools. If today was anything to go by the second wave won’t be long in the making!”People sit and drink, outside a pub on the south bank of river Thames, as the capital is set to reopen after the lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, in London, July 4, 2020.Rafal Liszewski, a store manager in the London district of Soho, told reporters that on Saturday, “Everything got out of control. And by 8 to 9 p.m., it was a proper street party, with people dancing and drinking. Barely anyone was wearing masks, and nobody respected social distancing,” he said. Liszewski added, “To be honest, with that many people on one street, it was physically impossible” (to social distance).Beaches have also seen swarms of people. In the English coastal town of Bournemouth, Mayor Vikki Slade said recently she was “absolutely appalled at the scenes witnessed on our beaches.”Britain has not been alone in seeing months of lockdown giving way to impromptu parties, illicit raves and illegal parties, hastily organized on social media and held in parks and industrial estates. In Portugal, a ban in Lisbon on gatherings of more than five people was instituted amid reports of illicit parties attracting thousands of young revelers. Portugal had been hailed as one of Europe’s coronavirus success stories. The government’s swift response was credited with keeping the country’s death toll to well under 2,000. But in recent weeks, cases have soared. Parties have proven fertile for the virus — 76 new cases were linked to a birthday celebration in The Algarve.“After doing everything right, we’re not going to ruin it now,” Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa said, as he banned drinking in public places and prohibited restaurants from serving alcohol after 8 p.m. Germany, France and Spain have all been worried about block parties and raves.Visitors watch oil on canvas of 1807 entitled Le Sacre de Napoleon by Jacques Louis David, at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, July 6, 2020.The World Health Organization warned that around 30 European countries have reported new case surges in the past two weeks, and epidemiologists said the trajectory is alarming in 11 countries.Spanish officials, who recently fined Belgium’s Prince Joachim $11,700 after he broke the country’s quarantine rules to attend a party in southern Spain, fear that people will not be able to resist the allure of the country’s ingrained culture of summer fiestas — as hundreds did recently in a spontaneous gathering in the Menorcan city of Ciutadella to mark the day of local Saint Joan.Along with officials, infectious disease experts blame signs of a resurgence on the negligence of the public, with too many people ignoring orders to wear masks and keep their distance. But critics in several European countries fault officials, saying governments have been giving mixed signals in their eagerness to restart economies and end lockdowns, and have issued at times contradictory and confused instructions. They say governments seem to be positioning themselves to blame the public for a coronavirus resurgence.David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, has criticized the lockdown easing as over-hasty. “We need to look at the fastest route out of COVID-19, and that is not the current route,” he said.
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Brazil Man May Be Cured of HIV
Doctors in Brazil say an experimental treatment given to a man known as the Sao Paulo Patient may have cured him of HIV.
The man, who was subjected to intensive anti-retroviral drug therapy with the purpose of removing all traces of the AIDS virus from his body, shows no signs of the virus after more than a year since he stopped receiving the treatment.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the patient said he was “very moved, because it’s something that millions of people want. It’s a gift of life, a second chance to live.”
The only other two known cases of HIV cures have been through bone marrow transplants, which gave patients new immune systems that were better equipped to respond to the virus.
Bone marrow transplants are prohibitively expensive, though, and they come with life-threatening side effects, leading experts to disregard them as a viable option.
Although the treatment the Sao Paulo Patient received appears to be a much better alternative, he represents only a single case that requires more research and experimentation.
“These are exciting findings but they’re very preliminary,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an AIDS expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “This has happened to one person, and one person only.”
Gandhi noted the four others in the same experiment did not respond similarly to the treatment.
If the Sao Paulo Patient’s case can be shown to work on a broader spectrum, it would be a huge breakthrough, as people with HIV currently are forced to stay on a treatment plan for the rest of their lives.
HIV is difficult to treat because it lies dormant for long periods of time, during which it cannot be eliminated by medicines or the body’s normal immune response. Patients must stay on drugs to keep the virus dormant and prevent it from becoming active again.
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Mexican President to Meet Trump on First Official Visit to Washington
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is due to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on his first official visit to Washington Wednesday, pending the results of his coronavirus test. Lopez Obrador said, he will announce the results of his test on Tuesday and will undergo another test when arriving in the U.S. if it’s part of the protocol. The White House said in a statement that both leaders will recognize the historic United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which took effect on July 1. The Mexican leader said, his visit to Washington is important because the agreement aims to create jobs in North America at a time when the pandemic has crippled many of the world’s economies. Some political observers urged Lopez Obrador to reject the White House invitation, citing Trump’s characterization of some Mexicans as criminals during his 2016 campaign and his promotion of a border wall. Meantime, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau turned down the White House invitation, but Lopez Obrador said, Trudeau has agreed to visit him in Mexico.
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France’s New Government Takes Office at Tough Time
France’s newly appointed government gets down to work this week facing big challenges, including coronavirus and the economic crisis — not to mention general elections in less than two years.
The new government takes office just over a week after President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move party fared poorly in the second round of local elections. France’s new prime minister Jean Castex arrives at the Elysee Palace for the weekly cabinet meeting, in Paris, July 7, 2020.Heading it is Prime Minister Jean Castex, a little known former mayor from the Pyrenees. He earned the title of “Mr. Deconfinement” after managing France’s emergence from the coronavirus lockdown. He replaces the popular Edouard Philippe, a possible challenger to Macron in the next election. “President Macron has one goal: to fight the recession, to transform the country, to be in a better shape than now for the next presidential election,” said Ulysse Gosset, a political commentator for France’s BFMTV.“The job of the new prime minister is to execute the orders from Macron,” added Gosset. “He has to deal with the crisis. And no more. Macron doesn’t want a prime minister who could be a competitor like former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was.”
Making more waves is the new interior minister, Gerard Darmanin. At 35, he’s the youngest interior minister of France’s Fifth Republic. He takes over at a time when the police force is demoralized and faces allegations of racism and brutality. Newly appointed French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin arrives to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, July 7, 2020.Darmanin himself faces a preliminary investigation into a rape accusation, which Macron’s office says didn’t pose an obstacle to his appointment. Police unions have offered a muted reaction to their new boss. But some feminists protested in front of the Elysee presidential palace. New Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti is also controversial. He’s earned a reputation as a pugnacious lawyer defending Corsican nationalists, African politicians and Wikileaks founder Julien Assange. One judges union leader slammed his appointment as a “declaration of war” against the judiciary. Macron’s reshuffled government faces heavy pressure to take environmental action after the Greens Party surged in municipal elections.Barbara Pompili, newly appointed French Minister for the Ecological Transition, arrives to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, July 7, 2020.The new minister for ecological transition, Barbara Pompili, co-founded an environmental party, and was a former secretary of state for biodiversity. But she isn’t a big name, and she’ll face close scrutiny in how she handles emissions reduction and other green goals.
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Russian Court Fines Coronavirus-Denying Rebel Monk
A Russian court on Tuesday fined a coronavirus-denying monk who has challenged Kremlin lockdown orders for spreading false information about the pandemic.The court in the Ural Mountains region ordered Father Sergiy to pay 90,000 rubles ($1,250). The 65-year-old monk, who has attracted nationwide attention by urging followers to disobey church leadership and ignore church closures during the pandemic, didn’t attend the court hearing.On Friday, a Russian Orthodox Church panel in Yekaterinburg ruled to defrock Father Sergiy for breaking monastic rules. He didn’t show up at the session and dismissed the verdict, urging his backers to come to defend the Sredneuralsk women’s monastery where he has holed up since last month.In Friday’s video posted by his supporters, Father Sergiy denounced President Vladimir Putin as a “traitor to the Motherland” serving a Satanic “world government” and dismissed Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill and other top clerics as “heretics” who must be “thrown out.”Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin wasn’t following developments regarding the rebel monk. When contagion engulfed Russia, Father Sergiy declared the coronavirus non-existent and denounced government efforts to stem the outbreak as “Satan’s electronic camp.” The monk has described the vaccines being developed against COVID-19 as part of a global plot to control the masses via chips.He urged believers to disobey the closure of churches during the nationwide lockdown. Orthodox churches across Russia were closed on April 13 amid a quick rise in COVID-19 cases and were allowed to reopen in early June as authorities eased restrictions.The church banned the monk from ministry in April, but he has continued preaching and last month took charge of the monastery outside Yekaterinburg that he had founded years ago. Dozens of burly volunteers, including veterans of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, helped enforce his rules, while the prioress and several nuns have left.The police visited the monastery last month a day after Father Sergiy took over, but found no violations of public order. Facing stiff resistance by his supporters, church officials have appeared indecisive, lacking the means to enforce their ruling and evict the rebellious monk by force.
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