About 24 monkeys escaped from a zoo in the town of Loffingen, Germany, and eluded recapture for several hours, local police said Thursday. The Barbary macaques broke out of their enclosure at the Tatzmania wildlife park, police and local media said, about 140 kilometers southwest of Stuttgart, near the border with Switzerland.  People initially spotted the macaques roaming in a pack in part of Loffingen, and while the monkeys are not large or considered dangerous, the public was warned not to approach or attempt to capture them.  Zoo workers finally caught up with the fugitives later in the day as they basked in the sun. “The animals apparently took advantage of the nice weather and spent the afternoon on the edge of a forest near the zoo,” police said. While it was unclear exactly how the macaques escaped, police think construction work at the zoo created an opportunity for the monkeys to slip away. Barbary macaques are native to mountainous areas of North Africa, zoo officials said, and a small but famous population of them live in the British territory of Gibraltar, where they are known as Barbary apes. They are considered endangered because of severe habitat loss. 
 
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Iran and Venezuela have managed to maintain their commercial relationship, despite U.S. sanctions. Cristina Caicedo Smit reports.
 
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The French Open has been delayed by one week because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the governing body of the tennis tournament said Thursday.The French Tennis Federation said first-round matches will now begin on May 30 instead of May 23 because of sharp spikes in coronavirus infections in France. The postponement marks the second year in a row the French Open has been disrupted by the pandemic.The federation postponed last year’s tournament to September and limited daily attendance to 1,000 people.This year’s delay came as hospitals in France struggle to handle the surge in coronavirus cases. The government recently imposed new lockdown restrictions to contain the spikes, including a month-long domestic travel ban and a three-week school closure.The federation said the decision to delay was aimed at ensuring that “as many spectators as possible” would be able to safely attend the event.Federation president Gilles Moreton said public authorities, the governing bodies of global tennis events, broadcasters and other partners were first consulted before announcing the delay.The federation was roundly criticized for postponing last year’s French Open without first consulting with the top men’s and women’s events. 
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Honduran Foreign Minister Lisandro Rosales will lead a delegation to Washington on Friday to seek economic help following two devastating hurricanes that have contributed to increased immigration, Honduran government officials said.Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which struck Honduras two weeks apart around November, flooded vast areas, destroyed homes and caused about $1.8 billion in damages, affecting some 4 million people, Honduran officials said.Rosales’ trip to Washington will focus on aid to address the root causes of immigration, such as the coronavirus pandemic and the hurricanes that have exacerbated poverty, a Honduran presidency source said.”Honduras has raised with U.S. officials the need for help for national reconstruction, especially in areas severely affected by hurricanes Eta and Iota,” the source added.Carlos Madero, the Honduran government’s cabinet coordinator and a member of the delegation, confirmed the trip was due to take place this week, saying “we will have meetings with high-ranking members of the State Department.”The presidency and foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The White House and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are known as the Northern Triangle of Central America. Surging immigration from the region is a major challenge for U.S. President Joe Biden’s new administration.Rosales’ trip to Washington follows a visit this week by U.S. special envoy for the Northern Triangle, Ricardo Zuñiga, to Guatemala and El Salvador — but not Honduras.Zuñiga’s trip has not yielded any major new aid pledges, though he said on Wednesday that the United States would provide $2 million to support anti-corruption efforts in El Salvador.On Tuesday, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it will deploy a disaster response team to the Northern Triangle to address urgent needs of disaster victims but did not mention funding beyond the $112 million previously announced since the storms.Relations between Washington and Honduras have been strained after a U.S. court handed down a life sentence for drug trafficking to the brother of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, whose government has also been accused of embezzling public funds. The government has denied wrongdoing.
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday defended the 2013 ruling that freed one of the drug lords most wanted by U.S. authorities, even though Mexico’s Supreme Court later ruled it was a mistake.Rafael Caro Quintero walked free while serving a 40-year sentence for the torture-murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985 and has since apparently resumed his role as a violent drug trafficker.Caro Quintero is at the top of the DEA’s Most Wanted list, with a $20 million reward for his capture.López Obrador said Wednesday the legal appeal that led to Caro Quintero’s release was “justified” because supposedly no verdict had been handed down against the drug lord after 27 years in jail. López Obrador also depicted a later warrant for his re-arrest as an example of U.S. pressure.”Once he was out, they had to look for him again, because the United States demanded he shouldn’t have been released, but legally the appeal was justified,” López Obrador said.Presidential spokesperson Jesús Ramírez said, “The president was just saying that it was a legal aberration that the judge had not issued a verdict on Mr. Caro Quintero after 27 years … but he was not defending his release.”There was a verdict, but a Mexican appeals court initially decided it had come from the wrong judge.In August 2013, the appeals court overturned Caro Quintero’s 40-year sentence in the killing of Camarena and a Mexican government pilot. The panel argued a state court should have overseen the case, not a federal one, and ordered his immediate release from a maximum-security prison.Mexico’s Supreme Court annulled the order releasing him months later, saying Camarena was a registered U.S. government agent and therefore his killing was a federal crime and had been properly tried. An arrest warrant was issued for Caro Quintero, who has been in hiding since his release.His late-night release angered the U.S. government and surprised Mexican prosecutors, who weren’t notified until hours after it took place.The issue is a thorny one for López Obrador, who has publicly stated that the Mexican government is no longer interested in detaining drug lords. In 2019, López Obrador ordered the release of Ovidio Guzman, a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, to avoid bloodshed.Even if the president was misinformed about why Caro Quintero was released in 2013, more than five years before he took office, it seems to illustrate how little importance the case — or the search for the drug lord — apparently has for the Mexican government, even while it remains a top priority for the United States.Since his release, Caro Quintero has reportedly established alliances with other cartels and has established an operation in the northern state of Sonora, reputedly to wrest territory from Guzman’s sons and the Sinaloa cartel.
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DNA extracted from remains found in a Bulgarian cave of three people who lived roughly 45,000 years ago is revealing surprises about some of the first Homo sapiens populations to venture into Europe, including extensive interbreeding with Neanderthals and genetic links to present-day East Asians.Scientists said on Wednesday they sequenced the genomes of these three individuals, all males, using DNA obtained from a molar and bone fragments discovered in Bacho Kiro Cave near the town of Dryanovo, as well as one female who lived roughly 35,000 years ago at the same site.Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago and later trekked to other parts of the world, sometimes encountering Neanderthals — close cousins to Homo sapiens — already inhabiting parts of Eurasia. The three Bacho Kiro Cave males represent the oldest securely dated Homo sapiens individuals from Europe.They had 3% to 3.8% Neanderthal DNA and had Neanderthal ancestors about five to seven generations back in their family histories, evidence of interbreeding, said geneticist Mateja Hajdinjak of the Francis Crick Institute in London, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.Interbreeding, known as admixture, between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals before the extinction of Neanderthals sometime after 40,000 years ago has been previously shown, with present-day human populations outside Africa bearing a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA.Bacho Kiro cave BulgariaThe prevalence of this interbreeding and the relationship and power dynamics between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals has been harder to understand, including any role Homo sapiens played in the demise of the Neanderthals. The new study suggests interbreeding was more common than previously known for the first Homo sapiens in Europe.It is an “amazing observation” that all three individuals had Neanderthal ancestors in their recent family history, said geneticist and study co-author Svante Pääbo, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.”This makes it likely that the earliest modern humans frequently mixed with Neanderthals when they met. It may even be the case that part of the reason Neanderthals disappeared is that they were simply absorbed into larger modern human groups. It may be just part of the reason they disappeared, but the data supports such a scenario,” Pääbo said.The researchers detected a genetic contribution among present-day people from the group that included these three, but unexpectedly it was found particularly in East Asia, including China, rather than Europe. This suggested that some people from this group eventually headed east.”This study shifted our previous understanding of early human migrations into Europe in a way that it showed how even the earliest history of modern humans in Europe may have been tumultuous and involved population replacements,” Hajdinjak said.The notion of population replacement was illustrated by the fact that the 35,000-year-old individual from Bacho Kiro Cave belonged to a group genetically unrelated to the site’s earlier inhabitants.Another study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution shed more light on Europe’s early Homo sapiens populations.Scientists sequenced the genome of a Homo sapiens female using DNA extracted from a skull found at a site southwest of Prague in the Czech Republic. She is believed to have lived more than 45,000 years ago, though radiocarbon dating efforts to determine a firm date were unsuccessful.This woman carried 3% Neanderthal ancestry and bore genetic traits suggesting she had dark skin and dark eyes, said geneticist Kay Prüfer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the study’s lead author.”Her skull shows evidence of gnawing by a predator, possibly a hyena,” Prüfer said.Her group, distinct from the one in Bulgaria, appears to have died out without leaving genetic ancestry among modern-day people.
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The number of violent attacks against Jews in the U.S. and Germany rose last year even while anti-Jewish violent incidents decreased elsewhere around the world amid the coronavirus pandemic, an Israeli academic research group reported on Wednesday.In its annual report, the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University identified 119 anti-Jewish violent incidents in the United States last year, up from 111 in 2019. The U.S., home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, has seen a steady rise in anti-Semitic violence in recent years.About 4.2 million American adults identify as Jewish “by religion,” representing 1.8% of the U.S. adult population, according to a 2013 Pew Research estimate. A more inclusive estimate by the American Jewish Year Book in 2019 put the number at 6.9 million.In Germany, with a Jewish population of more than 100,000 Jews, the Kantor Center received reports of 59 violent incidents targeting Jews last year, up from 41 in 2019. The total number of anti-Semitic incidents in German rose by 12% last year, according to the report.In both countries, vandalism accounted for most of the violent incidents, the report said.In most other countries, including Western nations with large Jewish populations such as Australia, Canada, France and Britain, the number of anti-Jewish attacks dropped. The Kantor Center said it received reports of a total of 371 such incidents around the world, down from 456 the previous year.QAnon, Dark NetDina Porat, head of the Kantor Center, said the overall decrease was due to reduced physical encounters during the pandemic. In Germany and the United States, however, stepped up activity by far-right groups such as the QAnon conspiracy movement led to a rise in anti-Semitic violence, she said.“The German extreme right follows the U.S. one in a number of ways, including followers of the QAnon movement, and the use of the Dark Net,” Porat said. “Such a strengthening of the far right was not registered in the U.K., Australia, and in France and Canada.”No one was killed for being Jewish last year, the Kantor Center report said, adding that the number of bodily injuries fell sharply to 107 in 2020 from 170 in 2019. Property damage also fell as many people stayed home during the pandemic, according to the report.This is the Kantor Center’s 27th annual report on anti-Semitism around the globe, according to Porat. It is based on thousands of testimonies submitted by rights organizations and academics in about 35 countries.While anti-Jewish violence declined overall, vandalism of Jewish synagogues, graveyards and Holocaust memorials increased by more than 20% last year, rising from 130 to 159 cases. These sacred places were “closed or unguarded due to the lockdown and therefore easy prey for anti-Semitic vandalism,” the report said.With most people staying home for long stretches during the pandemic, online expressions of anti-Jewish hatred and abuse surged, with Jews and Israelis often blamed for creating and spreading the “judeovirus” — an anti-Semitic wordplay on “coronavirus.”The role of ‘anti-vaxxers’Jews have long been blamed for all manner of evil in the world, said Porat, but the accusation that they created a deadly virus that originated in China for their own profit is graver than anything they’ve experienced before.“When you blame Jews, for instance, for an economic crisis or war or revolution, fine, this we know, but blaming them for this [virus that causes COVID-19], I think, is very serious,” Porat said.Much of the anti-Jewish venom during the pandemic came from opponents of vaccines, with “anti-vaxxers” comparing lockdowns to imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps and describing vaccines as “medical experiments” conducted by the Nazis.“In Germany, where opposition to the vaccines is particularly strong, demonstrators wore a yellow star on their clothes, with the word ‘unvaccinated,’ replacing the word ‘Jew,’ and called Chancellor [Angela] Merkel a Nazi,” the report said.But the accusation that Jews and Israelis created the virus was not limited to anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and Iran, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority, the report said.“It also spread to populations with no well-defined political or ideological identities,” it said.So-called “Zoom bombing” became a favorite tool of anti-Semites during the pandemic. Attackers disrupted Zoom conferences of Jewish synagogues, community centers and students with swastika displays and anti-Semitic presentations.In the U.S., 200 cases of Zoom bombing were recorded, the report said.
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As post-Brexit Britain casts about for new allies and trading partners, interest is growing in a little-noticed proposal for London to join forces with three former colonies in a new globe-spanning network.
 
The still notional alliance would be known by the acronym CANZUK – for its member countries Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – and provide for visa-free travel and economic and defense cooperation among its four members.
 
The logic behind the idea is not immediately obvious. One American foreign policy analyst, when asked for comment, refused at first to believe that the proposed agreement was not a Wikipedia hoax.
 
But Canadian opposition leader Erin O’Toole has incorporated CANZUK into the official platform of his Conservative Party, and a poll this year found that 94% of British parliamentarians would support the free movement of goods among the four countries while 61% support the free movement of people.
 
The scheme is being promoted by an organization named CANZUK International, co-founded by James Skinner, a Welsh-born, American-educated political operative whose resume says he has worked with governments in Florida, Britain and Australia. He now lives in Toronto.
 
Its advisory board includes Sir Michael Craig-Cooper, a former vice lord lieutenant of Greater London; Dominic Johnson, a prominent financier and former vice chairman of Britain’s governing Conservative Party, and Dominic Johnson, a former senior adviser at the Bank of England. Johnson is currently Windsor herald at the College of Arms, the heraldic authority for most of the Commonwealth.
 
The group’s website identifies its goals as “facilitated migration, free trade and foreign policy coordination” among the four countries in order to forge “a cohesive alliance of nation-states with a truly global outlook.”
 
That leaves plenty of room for proponents of the idea to fill in the details.
 
Canadian member of Parliament Tracy Gray told VOA that CANZUK would “provide an opportunity to recognize each other’s professional and trades credentials, have more flexibility in movement of our citizens and to cooperate on the production of vaccines and PPE.”
 
“CANZUK is an initiative that Canada’s Conservatives are proposing to Canadians,” Gray said. “A Conservative government would establish a working group to facilitate discussions with our potential partners. CANZUK is an exciting proposal that has received support from stakeholders in all potential partner counties.”
 
Skinner said in an interview that the idea is “snowballing in that it’s gaining more and more support from the public. In the next couple of years or so we hope to see CANZUK come to fruition.”
 
He said the current focus of the campaign is on forming parliamentary groups in all four countries to advance the idea.  
 
John Blaxland, an Australian defense expert, sees some logic in closer defense cooperation among the CANZUK nations.
 
“There are already many connections between these four countries – formal, informal, familial, institutional – that make the idea popular for a post-Brexit Britain,” he said in an interview. “Much British training takes place in Canadian field training areas. The Australian connection is particularly helpful for Britain’s re-emergence ‘East of Suez’ and particularly in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”
 
But he also sees obstacles. Not only are the countries separated by vast distances, but they also “are in different circumstances facing different challenges.” Even within his own Asia-Pacific region, he said, “New Zealanders tend to be much more focused on the Pacific than Australia, which for Australians is only one focus.”
 
Another common criticism of CANZUK, Blaxland said, is that all four nations were settled by people of European descent and remain with white majorities.  
 
“There may be an opportunity for an adversary to portray CANZUK as a neo-colonial initiative that’s racially based, and that is something most Australian politicians would be very wary of as that would be potentially politically toxic,” Blaxland said.
 
“The irony is the CANZUK countries are probably the most multicultural, most diverse, most inclusive countries on the planet, and arguably the most successful multicultural countries on the planet.”
 
University of Ottawa professor Srdjan Vucetic said the biggest problem facing the project right now is the lack of detail about potential areas of cooperation.  Beyond that, he said, “The idea that geographic distance no longer matters for trade or human mobility is fanciful. And no ‘pact’ of this kind is possible without bipartisan support.”
 
In Washington, Atlantic Council fellow Ben Judah dismissed any concerns that the proposed alliance would undermine other international alliances.
 
CANZUK “would explicitly reject closing off to the United States or the European Union to get closer to each other,” he said. It “does not come at the expense of other partnerships and trade deals.”
 
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NATO is marking the 72nd anniversary of its founding this week. Henry Ridgwell reports the military alliance faces new challenges – and enduring threats.Producer: Henry Hernandez
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Russia reaffirmed Wednesday it will enhance security cooperation with Pakistan by strengthening the South Asian nation’s “potential” to fight terrorism, which is to include supplying Islamabad with the “relevant military” hardware. “We believe this [cooperation] serves interests of all states of the region,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in the Pakistani capital before concluding his landmark two-day official visit.In his talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Lavrov said the two countries agreed to increase the frequency of their joint military drills and maritime exercises to fight terrorism and piracy.Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, April 7, 2021.Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, April 7, 2021.The chief Russian diplomat last visited Pakistan in 2012, and the ensuing years saw a marked improvement in Moscow’s otherwise strained and mistrustful relations with Islamabad.The distrust stemmed from Islamabad’s decision to side with the U.S.-backed Afghan armed resistance of the 1980s that forced Moscow to withdraw Soviet occupation forces from Afghanistan. Afghan peace Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia and Pakistan are working closely to help in peace-building efforts in neighboring Afghanistan. He said both sides agreed to “further facilitate” a deal through an “inclusive political dialogue to put an end to the civil war” between Afghan’s warring parties in the conflict-torn country.”We are, just like our Pakistani partners, seriously worried about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, and by the rise of terrorist activities and the march of ISIL (an acronym for Islamic State) in north and east of the country,” Lavrov said.Moscow maintains contacts with the Afghan government and the Taliban waging a deadly insurgency against the U.S.-backed Kabul administration.Russia has hosted several Afghan peace meetings in recent months, with envoys of Kabul and the Taliban among the attendees. FILE – Taliban political deputy Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, center, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for an Afghan peace conference in Moscow, Russia, March 18, 2021.The latest gathering happened last month in Moscow, where senior diplomats from the United States, China and Pakistan also were in attendance, together with representatives of the Afghan adversaries. Qureshi, while speaking alongside Lavrov, described the March 18 Moscow meeting as “successful” and said he discussed with his Russian counterpart the possibility of arranging another such conference to further the Afghan peace process.Islamabad traditionally also maintains close ties with the Taliban and has long been accused by Kabul of sheltering insurgent leaders on Pakistani soil.Pakistan rejects the charges and is credited with bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table for peace talks with Washington that culminated in a landmark agreement in February 2020. US-Taliban deal President Joe Biden’s new administration, however, has been reviewing the U.S.-Taliban deal, which requires all American and NATO-led foreign troops to leave Afghanistan by May 1. The reassessment stems from concerns the Taliban have not eased violence, and hostilities will intensify if international forces withdraw from the country in the absence of a political deal between warring Afghans. Biden said last month it will be tough for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by May 1 for logistical reasons, prompting the Taliban to threaten they would resume attacks on foreign troops in the country if Washington fails to honor the deal. Gas pipeline Lavrov and Qureshi both reported Wednesday that construction by Russia of a 1,100-kilometer gas pipeline will begin soon in Pakistan. The pipeline, linking the southern port city of Karachi to the eastern city of Lahore, will cost an estimated $2 billion and is expected to transport up to 12.4 billion cubic meters of gas annually.”We are making necessary efforts to start the construction of the north-south gas pipeline — the flagship project in the energy sector,” the Russian foreign minister said. “We hope that all remaining technical issues will be agreed upon in the very near future.”The project, officials say, will open a fast-growing gas market for Russian energy companies.The steady growth in bilateral ties saw trade between Russia and Pakistan last year hitting an all-time high of $790 million, an increase of 46 percent, mainly due to large supplies of Russian wheat to help Islamabad bridge its domestic shortfalls.FILE – A shipment of Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine arrives at Kosice Airport, Slovakia, March 1, 2021.Qureshi said Islamabad also intends to buy about 5 million doses of the Russian-developed Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to boost Pakistan’s efforts with its recently launched program to inoculate its population against the pandemic. Lavrov said Russia also will look into a request put forward by Pakistan to help the country ultimately manufacture the vaccine. Before departing Pakistan, the Russian foreign minister also met with Prime Minister Imran Khan and the country’s military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa.Khan reaffirmed Pakistan’s resolve to “expeditiously conclude the requisite legal process” for the gas pipeline project and begin work as quickly as possible, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.”Pakistan values its relations with Russia and reciprocates the desire for enhanced bilateral military cooperation,” a military statement quoted Bajwa as telling Lavrov.”We have no hostile designs toward any country and will keep on working toward a cooperative regional framework based on sovereign equality and mutual progress,” the Pakistani army chief asserted. 
 
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Talks to warm relations between the European Union and Turkey in the Turkish capital, Ankara, got off to an awkward start Tuesday when one of the EU leaders – the only woman in the room – was left without a chair.
 
In video of the meeting, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Europe Council President Charles Michel are seen being greeted warmly by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as they arrived for the talks.  
 
The two leaders were then led into an ornate meeting room, where the three stood side by side and posed for pictures. But when it came time to sit, there were only two chairs, in which the two men sat. On the video, von der Leyen can be heard saying “Hmm” or “Ehm,” and was offered a seat on a couch to the side of other two leaders.
 
A former German defense minister, von der Leyen leads the European Commission. Michel, a former Belgian prime minister, leads the bloc’s executive wing and represents the leaders of the 27 individual member nations of the EU in negotiations. They are equals in rank and status.
 
The incident did not go unnoticed. From his Twitter account, German European Parliament Member Sergey Lagodinsky referenced von der Leyen’s non-verbal reaction, writing “’Ehm’ is the new term for ‘that’s not how EU-Turkey relationship should be,’” followed by the hashtags “#GiveHerASeat #EU #Turkey #womensrights.”  
 
Lagodinsky is chairman of the legislature’s delegation to a joint EU-Turkish parliamentary committee.
 
Dutch EU parliament member Sophie in ‘t Veld on her Twitter account, posted a picture of previous EU meetings in which the leaders, all men, were seated next to one another, in equivalent chairs. She said, “And it wasn’t a coincidence. It was deliberate.” She also questions why Michel took his seat without a word or gesture to von der Leyen.
 
Von der Leyen herself did not directly reference the incident following the talks, only expressing concern about Turkey’s record on human rights, particularly women’s rights.   
 
But during an EU Commission briefing Wednesday in Brussels, spokesman Eric Mamer said the commission president was surprised. He said she should have been offered the same seating arrangement as the other two leaders. But he was quick to add that von der Leyen “chose to prioritize substance over questions of form or protocol.”
 
Tuesday’s talks were intended to improve relations between Turkey and the EU that have been strained since a coup attempt in 2016 prompted a crackdown on civil rights in the country.
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European Council President Charles Michel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for talks on a reset in relations. After meeting Erdogan in Ankara, Michel spoke to reporters about the EU’s deep concern over human rights in Turkey.“The rule of law and respect of fundamental rights are core values of the European Union, and we shared with President Erdogan our deep worries on the latest developments in Turkey in this respect, in particular on the freedom of speech and the targeting of political parties and media,” Michel said. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a joint news conference with EU Council President Charles Michel after talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara, Turkey, April 6, 2021.State prosecutors last month opened a closure case against Turkey’s second-largest opposition party. While Ankara withdrew in April from the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty that legally protects women.  Emma Sinclair of the New York based Human Rights Watch has been calling for a tougher stance by the EU. “The EU has to start believing in its own capacity to speak out on what is going on and to look at the crisis to actually condemn what’s going on in much stronger terms,” Sinclair said. But Michel and von der Leyen did welcome Turkey’s talks with EU member Greece to resolve territorial disputes over the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, which are believed to have vast energy reserves. The EU officials said talks with Turkey would start on modernizing a customs union agreement, a key Ankara demand.  FILE – Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis sails in the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 12, 2018.Sinan Ulgen of the Istanbul-based Edam research institute says the custom union talks will give the EU new leverage, which is important as Turkey’s EU membership bid is all but dead. “The accession track has remained stalled, dormant and dysfunctional in the last few years and the EU has very little leverage given that there are very few avenues of positive engagement,” Ulgen said. The EU officials also said they expect Turkey to fully honor its commitment to a migration deal, including accepting migrants and refugees back from Greece. Ankara is pressing for more EU funds to help accommodate nearly four million Syrian refugees, a demand that von der Leyen said the European Union was ready to consider. 
 
 
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Iran and world powers held what they described as “constructive” talks on Tuesday and agreed to form working groups to discuss the sanctions Washington might lift and the nuclear curbs Tehran might observe as they try to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.European intermediaries have started shuttling between Iranian and U.S. officials in Vienna as they seek to bring both countries back into compliance with the accord, which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs to its nuclear program.Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, prompting Iran to steadily overstep the accord’s limits on its nuclear program designed to make it harder to develop an atomic bomb — an ambition Tehran denies.Tuesday’s talks included a meeting of the remaining parties to the original deal — Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — in a group called the Joint Commission, chaired by the European Union. The United States did not attend.Protestors of an Iranian opposition group are sent away near the Grand Hotel Wien where closed-door nuclear talks with Iran take place in Vienna, Austria, April 6, 2021.While neither Washington nor Tehran say they expect any quick breakthroughs from the talks, both they and the EU described the early exchanges in positive terms.”Constructive Joint Commission meeting. There’s unity and ambition for a joint diplomatic process with two expert groups on nuclear implementation and sanctions lifting,” EU chief coordinator Enrique Mora said on Twitter.”I will intensify separate contacts here in Vienna with all relevant parties, including US,” he added.The two expert-level groups have been given the task of marrying lists of sanctions that the United States could lift with nuclear obligations Iran should meet, and reporting back on Friday, when the Joint Commission will meet again.”The talks in Vienna were constructive … our next meeting will be on Friday,” Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state television.”It is a welcome step, it is a constructive step, it is a potentially useful step,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington, even as he repeated the U.S. expectation that the indirect talks would be “difficult.”A resolution of the nuclear issue could help ease tensions in the Middle East, notably between Iran and Israel, as well as with U.S. Sunni Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, who fear the possibility of Shi’ite Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.In a possible sign of such strains, an Iranian cargo ship came under attack in the Red Sea, Al Arabiya TV reported, citing unnamed sources, and semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim said the vessel was targeted by a limpet mine.Al Arabiya cited its sources as saying the ship was attacked off Eritrea and was affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards but gave no evidence to support the assertion.Speaking on condition of anonymity, U.S. officials told Reuters the United States did not carry out such an attack.
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The United States reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity Tuesday but stopped short of publicly backing Kyiv’s call for a quicker path to membership in NATO. “We’ve long been discussing that aspiration with Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters when asked about Ukraine’s latest push to join the Western military alliance. “We are strong supporters of them,” she added. “But that is a decision for NATO to make.” Ukraine, along with the U.S. and other Western allies, has been expressing growing concern about Russian troop movements in recent days along the Ukrainian border that some see as an attempt to intimidate Kyiv. In calls earlier Tuesday with both NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the alliance to send Moscow a message by allowing Ukraine to finally join. “Reforms alone will not stop Russia,” Zelenskiy tweeted following the call with Stoltenberg. “@NATO is the only way to end the war in #Donbas,” he said, referring to the region in eastern Ukraine, parts of which are held by Russian-backed separatists. “Ukraine’s MAP (Membership Action Plan) will be a real signal for Russia,” Zelenskiy added. U.S. defense officials Tuesday declined comment on Ukraine’s request for NATO membership, though they expressed continued concern about Russia’s actions. “We continue to see Russian forces arrayed along the border with Ukraine, in Crimea specifically, more toward the southeast,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters, calling the Russian movements concerning. “We call on Russia to make their intentions more clear as to what they’re doing with this array of forces along the border,” Kirby said.  “We continue to call for the cease-fires that were called for by the Minsk Agreement … and to bring the temperature down,” he said. Ukraine says shelling by pro-Russian forces in Donbas has killed 24 soldiers this year and eight in just the past two weeks. Russia has denied that its military movements pose a threat to Ukraine. During a visit to India Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described recent statements by Kyiv as worrisome and said Russia had reached out to other European countries. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also accused Kyiv of seeking to further destabilize the situation. “So far we’re not seeing an intention by the Ukrainian side to somehow calm down and move away from belligerent topics,” Peskov said. The separatists in Donbas have been fighting with Ukrainian forces since Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. The U.S. and other Western countries accuse Russia of arming the separatists and of sending Russian troops to aid their efforts. Information from Reuters was used in this report. 
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov began a two-day official visit Tuesday to Pakistan amid growing diplomatic, economic, and military ties between the two countries. 
 
Pakistani and Russian officials said Lavrov’s delegation-level talks with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also will focus on ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the war in neighboring Afghanistan. 
 
Qureshi received the chief Russian diplomat and his delegation at the military base outside Islamabad, where the two leaders also held an initial interaction. 
 
“Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with Russia and the relationship is gradually expanding,” a post-meeting statement quoted the Pakistani foreign minister as telling the visitor. 
 
Additionally, Lavrov, accompanied by Russian presidential envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, is scheduled to hold meetings with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and the country’s military leadership. 
 
“There are plans to conduct a detailed discussion on the current status of bilateral relations and their development prospects, including opportunities for further strengthening trade, economic and counterterrorism cooperation,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a pre-visit statement. 
 
Foreign Minister Lavrov last visited Islamabad in 2012, and the ensuing years saw a marked improvement in Russia’s otherwise strained and mistrustful relations with Pakistan. 
 
The distrust stemmed from Islamabad’s decision to side with the United States-backed Afghan armed resistance of the 1980s that forced Moscow to withdraw Soviet occupation forces from Afghanistan. 
 
Bilateral trade between Russia and Pakistan last year hit an all-time high of $790 million, an increase of 46 percent, mainly due to large supplies of Russian wheat to help Islamabad bridge its domestic shortfalls. 
 
Officials said both countries are working closely to increase business partnerships in the energy sector to open a fast-growing gas market for Russian energy companies. 
 
Moscow and Islamabad signed an agreement in 2015 to build a 1,100-km pipeline in Pakistan linking the port of Karachi to the city of Lahore to transport 1.6 billion cubic meters of gas per day. 
 
Russian and Pakistani officials say negotiations on the multi-billion dollar “flagship project” are ongoing “with a view to an early start of its practical implementation.” 
 
The Russian foreign minister is visiting the region as a May 1 deadline approaches for American forces to exit Afghanistan in line with an agreement Washington signed with the Taliban insurgency in February 2020. 
 
Lavrov landed in Pakistan after visiting India, where he stressed the need for the inclusion of the Taliban in any political settlement to end the civil war in Afghanistan. 
 
“Any other way that foresees the exclusion of any group from this process will not deliver an implementable and sustainable peace agreement,” Lavrov told reporters in New Delhi before leaving for Islamabad. 
 
Last month, Moscow hosted an Afghanistan conference, where representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban, along with senior Chinese, U.S. and Pakistani diplomats, explored ways to push Afghan peace efforts. 
 
President Joe Biden’s administration is reviewing the deal with the Taliban and has also intensified efforts to push the two Afghan adversaries to urgently resume peace talks and negotiate a power-sharing deal. 
 
Biden said last month it will be tough for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by May 1 for logistical reasons. 
 
On Monday, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the president is continuing to consult internally with his national security team and U.S. partners and allies on the way forward. 
 
“Well, he set the expectation it will be tough for a full withdrawal, for logistical reasons, by that timeline. And that certainly has—also something that we’ve conveyed clearly to our partners as well,” Psaki said when asked whether U.S. troops were expected to remain in Afghanistan beyond the May deadline. 
 
The Taliban repeatedly has urged Washington to abide by the mutually agreed upon timeline and withdraw all foreign forces from the country. The insurgent group has threatened to resume attacks on U.S. and allied forces if the U.S. fails to honor the deadline. 
 
The U.S.-Taliban deal binds the insurgents to immediately halt attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan. 
 
Pakistan and Russia both maintain close contacts with the Taliban. 
 
Afghan officials accuse Islamabad of sheltering insurgents and helping them militarily, charges Pakistani officials reject and take credit instead of facilitating the signing of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal.  
 
Pakistan still hosts several million Afghan refugees and has long blamed the displaced population for serving as hiding place for Taliban fighters.
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Haiti does not have a single vaccine to offer its more than 11 million people over a year after the pandemic began, raising concerns among health experts that the well-being of Haitians is being pushed aside as violence and political instability across the country deepen.So far, Haiti is slated to receive only 756,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through a United Nations program aimed at ensuring the neediest countries get COVID-19 shots. The free doses were scheduled to arrive in May at the latest, but delays are expected because Haiti missed a deadline and the key Indian manufacturer is now prioritizing an increase in domestic demand.
“Haiti has only recently completed some of the essential documentation that are prerequisites for processing of a shipping order,” said Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a Geneva-based public-private partnership that is co-managing the U.N.-backed COVAX effort.
The country also didn’t apply for a pilot program in which it would have received some of its allotted doses early, according to the Pan American Health Organization. However, a spokeswoman commended its other pandemic efforts, including reinforcing hospital preparedness.
Meanwhile, a human rights research center cited in a new U.S. State Department report found Haiti’s government misappropriated more than $1 million worth of coronavirus aid. The report also accused government officials of spending $34 million in the “greatest opacity,” bypassing an agency charged with approving state contracts.
Lauré Adrien, general director of Haiti’s Health Ministry, blamed the vaccine delay on scrutiny of the AstraZeneca shots and concerns that the country lacks the necessary infrastructure to ensure proper vaccine storage, adding that his agency prefers a single-dose vaccine. AstraZeneca requires two doses.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have excellent conservation facilities,” he said. “We wanted to be sure that we had all the parameters under control before we received vaccine stocks.”
Adrien also noted all the money his agency received has been properly spent, but said he could not speak for other agencies. A presidential spokesman did not return calls for comment.
Many poorer countries have experienced long waits in getting COVAX vaccines as richer countries snapped up supplies, though most have received at least an initial shipment. Some took matters into their own hands, securing shots through donations and private deals.
Haiti’s lack of vaccines comes as it reports more than 12,700 cases and 250 deaths, numbers that experts believe are underreported.
Perceptions also remain a big challenge.In this March 14, 2020 file photo, boxes of rum are stacked as a duty free employee wears a mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic while working at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.While face masks remain mandatory at Haiti businesses, airport closures and curfews have long since been lifted, and other precautions are rare.
“People don’t really believe in the coronavirus,” said Esther Racine, a 26-year-old mother of two boys whose father died in the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
Racine once worked as a maid but began selling face masks at the beginning of the pandemic, making brisk business with some 800 sales a month. Now, she barely sells 200.
“Look around,” she said, waving at a maskless crowd bustling around her in downtown Port-au-Prince. The only customers nowadays are those who need a mask to enter a nearby grocery store, she said, adding that Haitians have other problems on their mind: “People worry more about violence than the virus.”
Ongoing protests and a spike in kidnappings and gang-related killings have some wondering how any vaccine will be administered given the lack of stability coupled with a growing number of people afraid to leave their homes.
Many also fear being inoculated, despite educational campaigns. In addition, some officials have raised concern about the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has recently come under scrutiny in Europe after a very small number of people who received it developed unusual blood clots.
“We can receive the vaccine and then discover with a heavy heart that the stocks expired a couple of months later because no one wanted to be vaccinated,” Adrien said.
Among those in Haiti who say they will not be vaccinated is Dorcelus Perkin, a brick factory owner. On a recent morning, the 60-year-old supervised more than a dozen employees working outdoors. No one was wearing any personal protective equipment.
“We can’t wear masks in the sun. We would be suffocating,” he said, adding that the sun kills the virus, something scientists have not proven.
Perkin also credited drinking a traditional green tea mixed with salt every day for his good health: “I believe more in these remedies than the vaccines. I don’t know what’s in the inside of these vaccines.”
International groups are behind most of the resources and educational campaigns related to COVID-19 in Haiti, with the Pan American Health Organization providing the government 500 test kits, along with instruction on lab diagnosis and virus detection. It also supplied thermometers, PPE and other items including megaphones and batteries as workers fanned out into rural areas. In addition, PAHO trained more than 2,800 health workers in Haiti and met with community leaders including Voodoo priests and traditional birth attendants to share information about protective measures and treatment centers.
In May 2020, the organization’s director said she was particularly concerned about the effects of a potential large-scale outbreak given Haiti’s frail health care system and the fact that many live in overcrowded households and lack access to clean water. But perplexed experts say that anticipated outbreak has not happened.
“It’s a surprise to a lot of people,” said Aline Serin, head of mission in Haiti for the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres. “For the moment, there is not enough research and documentation to explain why some countries were less affected by severe COVID-19 cases.”
Meanwhile, it’s unclear exactly when the country’s first vaccines, via COVAX, will arrive.
Haiti is among 92 low-income countries expected to receive them. It’s also among dozens that will be affected by last week’s announcement of a suspension of deliveries in March and April of doses made for the program by the Serum Institute of India – the world’s largest vaccine maker – amid a spike of coronavirus cases in India.
When the shots do become available, experts acknowledge it will be a struggle to get them into arms.
They would have to convince Haitians like Duperval Germain, a 55-year-old carpenter who said neither he nor his children will be getting a vaccine. He worries about falling ill from it and not being able to receive proper medical care.
“All these heads of state who have been here, any time they get sick, they all fly out of here,” he said. “If we get sick, where would we go? They can keep (the vaccines) to themselves. Use it in places that need it. Haiti doesn’t need the vaccine.”
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Norwegian coast guard officials said Tuesday the 12-member crew of a Dutch cargo ship that was adrift and in danger of capsizing in rough seas has been rescued off the coast of Norway.Crew members onboard the Eemslift Hendrika raised an alert in the North Sea on Monday, prompting the coast guard to launch a helicopter operation to evacuate the vessel.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 35 MB1080p | 59 MBOriginal | 60 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioCoast guard video shows rescuers airlifting the crew from the ship as it was battered by waves of up to 15 meters in height. Some crew members were seen being airlifted from the sea, while others were rescued from the ship’s deck. While the crew is safe, the coast guard told Norwegian Public Radio that the 111-meter Netherlands-registered ship had lost power in its main engine and was now drifting toward land. The vessel is carrying smaller yachts, and officials fear a fuel oil spill if the ship capsizes and sinks. 
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France’s role before and during the 1994 Rwandan genocide was a “monumental failure” that the country must acknowledge, the lead author of a report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron said, as the country is about to open its archives from this period to the public.The report, published in March, concluded that French authorities remained blind to the preparations for genocide as they supported the “racist” and “violent” government of then-Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and then reacted too slowly in appreciating the extent of the killings. But it cleared them of complicity in the slaughter that left over 800,000 people dead, mainly ethnic Tutsis and the Hutus who tried to protect them.Macron’s decision to commission the report — and open the archives to the public — are part of his efforts to more fully confront the French role in the genocide and to improve relations with Rwanda, including making April 7, the day the massacre began, a day of commemoration. While long overdue, the moves may finally help the two countries reconcile.Historian Vincent Duclert, who led the commission that studied France’s actions in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, told The Associated Press that “for 30 years, the debate on Rwanda was full of lies, violence, manipulations, threats of trials. That was a suffocating atmosphere.”Duclert said it was important to acknowledge France’s role for what it was: a “monumental failure.””Now we must speak the truth,” he added. “And that truth will allow, we hope, (France) to get a dialogue and a reconciliation with Rwanda and Africa.”Macron said in a statement that the report marks “a major step forward” toward understanding France’s actions in Rwanda.About 8,000 archive documents that the commission examined for two years, including some that were previously classified, will be made accessible to the general public starting Wednesday, the 27th anniversary of the start of the killings.  Duclert said documents — mostly from the French presidency and the prime minister’s office — show how then-President Francois Mitterrand and the small group of diplomats and military officials surrounding him shared views inherited from colonial times, including the desire to maintain influence on a French-speaking country, that led them to keep supporting Habyarimana despite warning signs, including through delivery of weapons and military training in the years prior to the genocide.”Instead of ultimately supporting the democratization and peace in Rwanda, the French authorities in Rwanda supported the ethnicization, the radicalization of (Habyarimana’s) government,” stressed.FILE – Historian and Commission chief on France’s role in 1994’s Rwandan genocide, Vincent Duclert, right, presents a report to French President Emmanuel Macron, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, March 26, 2021.France was “not complicit in the criminal act of genocide,” he said, but “its action contributed to strengthening (the genocide’s) mechanisms.””And that’s an enormous intellectual responsibility,” he said.  The report also criticized France’s “passive policy” in April and May 1994, at the height of the genocide.  That was a “terrible lost opportunity,” Duclert noted. “In 1994, there was a possibility to stop the genocide … and it did not happen. France and the world bear a considerable guilt.”Eventually they did step in. Operation Turquoise, a French-led military intervention backed by the U.N., started on June 22.Duclert said that France’s “blindness must be questioned and, maybe, brought to trial,” though he insisted it was not the commission’s role to suggest charges.The report was welcomed as an important step by activists who had long hoped France would officially acknowledge its responsibilities in the genocide. On a visit to Rwanda in 2010, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted that his country had made “errors of judgment” and “political errors” regarding the genocide — but the report may allow Macron to go further.  Dafroza Gauthier, a Rwandan who lost more than 80 members of her family in the mass killing, welcomed it as a “a great document against genocide denial.””For 27 years, or longer, we were in a kind of fog,” said Gauthier, who with her husband, Alain, founded the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda, a French-based group that seeks the prosecution of alleged perpetrators of the genocide. “The report is clearly stating things.”There also may be a shift in the attitude of Rwandan authorities, who welcomed the report in a brief statement but have given no detailed response. They said the conclusions of their own report, to be released soon, “will complement and enrich” it.  That’s different from Rwanda’s firm assertions of French complicity as recently as 2017. Relations between the two countries, strained for years since the genocide, have improved under Macron’s presidency.Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan long wanted for his alleged role in supplying machetes to the killers, was arrested outside Paris last May.And in July an appeals court in Paris upheld a decision to end a years-long investigation  into the plane crash that killed Habyarimana and set off the genocide. That probe aggravated Rwanda’s government because it targeted several people close to President Paul Kagame for their alleged role, charges they denied.It now appears Rwandan authorities will accept “the olive branch” from Paris, said Dismas Nkunda, head of the watchdog group Atrocities Watch Africa who covered the genocide as a journalist.  “Maybe they’re saying, ‘The past is the past. Let’s move on,'” he said of Rwandan authorities.  The Gauthiers said the report and access to the archives may also help activists in their efforts to bring people involved in the genocide to justice — including potentially French officials who served at the time.There have been three Rwandan nationals convicted of genocide so far in France, they stressed. Four others are expected to go on trial. That’s out of about 30 complaints against Rwandan nationals living in France that their group has filed with authorities.  That’s still “very few” compared to the more than 100 alleged perpetrators who are believed to live on French territory, they said.
 
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Nationwide electoral restrictions are now in effect in Peru, leading up to Sunday’s general elections. The National Elections Board said media outlets face fines up to $118,900 if they violate a ban on disseminating or publishing voting intention surveys, according to the state run Andina News Agency. On Thursday, the last day candidates are allowed to campaign, anyone holding political meetings or demonstrations could face jail time from three months to two years. Popular Action party presidential candidate Yonhy Lescano dances while campaigning at the Caqueta market in Lima, Peru, April 5, 2021.Candidates or their supporters will not be allowed to participate in any type of political messaging, including interviews, starting on Friday. Violators face a fine no greater than $118,900 and a prison sentence of at least two years. Voters are heading to the polls Sunday to choose the country’s next president and congressional representatives, with Peru still struggling to control the spread of COVID-19 virus, which has killed just under 52,877 people, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center. Presidential candidate George Forsyth of the National Victory party announced Sunday that he contracted COVID-19 while campaigning. Forsyth said in a video message that after four days he was feeling a bit beaten, the Associated Press reported.  The latest polls show Forsyth is second only to Yonhy Lescano of the Popular Action party in the field of 18 candidates. The winner of Sunday’s elections, will replace President Francisco Sagasti, who took office after his predecessor, Martin Vizcarra, was impeached during an investigation on corruption allegations. 
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Steam and lava spurted Monday from a new fissure at an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle. The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 500 meters (550 yards) long and about a kilometer (around a half-mile) from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley.  The Icelandic Department of Emergency Management announced an immediate evacuation of the area. It said there was no imminent danger to life because of the site’s distance from popular hiking paths. The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the new volcanic activity wasn’t expected to affect traffic at nearby Keflavik Airport. The long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland flared to life March 20 after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded in the area in the past three weeks. It was the area’s first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.People watch as lava flows from an eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland late on March 24, 2021.The volcano’s proximity to Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away, has brought a steady stream of tourists to the area, even with the country in partial lockdown to combat the coronavirus. Around 30,000 people have visited the area since the eruption began, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board. Live footage from the area showed small spouts of lava coming from the new fissure. Geophysicist Magnus Gudmundsson said the volcanic eruption could be moving north from its original location. “We now see less lava coming from the two original craters,” he told The Associated Press. “This could be the beginning of second stage.” Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages one volcanic eruption every four to five years. The last one was at Holuhraun in 2014, when a fissure eruption spread lava the size of Manhattan over the interior highland region.  In 2010, ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano shut down much international air travel for several days. 
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Venezuela has created a special military unit for an area on its border with Colombia that has been the center of clashes between troops and illegal armed groups since last month, the defense minister said Monday. Thousands of civilians have been displaced by combat with fighters that the government of President Nicolas Maduro calls terrorists. General Vladimir Padrino said a temporary unit called an Integrated Operational Defense Zone, or ZODI, will operate in several municipalities of Apure state, where the clashes have taken place. “We are not going to allow any type of force, be it conventional, irregular, criminal, drug trafficker, etcetera, to come to Venezuelan territory to commit crimes,” Padrino said in a televised statement. Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano told El Tiempo newspaper over the weekend that Maduro’s government had become entangled in fights between different groups of the former FARC guerrillas and was in drug trafficking cahoots with some. FILE – Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano, center, gestures to a police officer in Soacha, outskirts of Bogota, March 12, 2021.Meetings had been held between the Venezuelan armed forces and dissident allies to coordinate an offensive against other ex-FARC, he said. “The objective of the operations there is not the protection of the border, it’s the protection of the drug trafficking business,” Molano told the newspaper. Venezuela denies any links to Colombian guerrillas or drug trafficking groups. Officials in recent weeks have talked about clashes with “irregular groups” without providing additional information about them. Venezuela’s military maintains standing ZODI units for each of its 23 states and the capital, Caracas. Padrino said eight soldiers had been killed in the fighting, while 34 soldiers had been injured, nine members of the armed groups had been killed, and 33 people were being prosecuted by the military justice system. Opposition critics say the fighters include dissident FARC guerrillas who reject a 2016 peace deal with the Colombian government. 
 
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has been moved to a sick ward after complaining of a cough and temperature, the Izvestia newspaper reported Monday. Earlier Monday, Navalny said in an Instagram post that a third prisoner in his quarters had been sent to the hospital with suspected tuberculosis. In the post, Navalny said prison doctors had officially diagnosed him with a “severe cough” and a temperature of 38.1 degrees Celsius, which indicates a slight fever. Navalny, 44, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, is currently incarcerated in Penal Colony No. 2, about 100 kilometers from Moscow, which is known as one of the toughest penitentiaries in Russia. FILE – A general view shows Penal Colony No. 2, where opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who was sentenced this month on parole violations, supposedly serves his jail term, in the town of Pokrov, Russia, Feb. 28, 2021.Navalny said his prison unit consists of 15 people, three of whom have been hospitalized with suspected tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects the lungs and is spread from person to person through tiny droplets released into the air mainly through coughing and sneezing. It has largely been eradicated in developed countries, and a person with a healthy immune system often successfully fights it. In his Monday post, Navalny said his prison unit had been malnourished with clay-like porridge and frozen potatoes. He is currently on a hunger strike to demand better conditions. Malnutrition and weight loss undermine an immune system’s ability to fight tuberculosis. Navalny had previously complained of acute back and leg pain, and his guards not allowing him to sleep. Navalny criticized recent news reports by state-owned media that he is serving in a prison with comfortable conditions. He invited state media correspondents to spend the night in his prison with tuberculosis-infected cellmates. Russian police arrested Navalny in January upon his return from Germany on charges of violating his parole, sparking large-scale protests. The anti-corruption fighter had been recuperating in Berlin for several months after being poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent. Navalny has accused agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service of attempting to assassinate him with the poison. A Moscow court in February found him guilty of violating the terms of his parole from an older embezzlement case that is widely considered to be politically motivated. His suspended 3-and-a-half-year sentence was converted into jail time, though the court reduced that amount to 2-and-a-half years for time already served in detention. Navalny’s imprisonment has drawn a chorus of international criticism, with the United States and its allies demanding his unconditional release and vowing to continue to hold those responsible for his poisoning to account. 
 
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The United States, finding reports of Russian military movements on Ukraine’s border credible, asked Moscow to explain the “provocations” and is ready to engage on the situation, the U.S. State Department said Monday. The reported Russian troop buildup and movements bordering eastern Ukraine have become the latest point of tension in icy U.S.-Russian relations less than three months after U.S. President Joe Biden took office. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a news briefing that the United States would be concerned by any effort by Moscow to intimidate Ukraine, whether it occurred on Russian territory or within Ukraine. He declined to say whether the United States believed Russia was preparing to invade the neighboring former Soviet republic. Later Monday, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters that the United States is “open to engagement with Moscow” on the situation, describing as credible reports of Russian troop movements on Ukraine’s border and Crimea, the peninsula seized by Russia in 2014. The movements, the spokesperson said, were preceded by violations of a July 2020 cease-fire that killed four Ukrainian soldiers and wounded four others. “We call on Russia to refrain from escalatory actions,” the spokesperson said. FILE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a news briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 12, 2020.The comments followed a telephone call Friday in which Biden reassured his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, of “unwavering support” in Ukraine’s confrontation with Russia-backed separatists holding parts of the country’s eastern Donbas region. Russia on Monday denied that Russian military movements posed a threat to Ukraine and dismissed fears of a buildup, even as it warned that it would respond to new Ukrainian sanctions against Russian companies. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that “recent escalations of Russian aggression and escalation in eastern Ukraine” is “something we’re watching closely.” Biden’s call with Zelenskiy came after the NATO alliance expressed concern over what it said was a large Russian military buildup on Russia’s side of the border with eastern Ukraine. “We’ve asked Russia for an explanation of these provocations,” Price said. “But more importantly, what we have signaled with our Ukrainian partners is a message of reassurance.” Pressed on whether the United States viewed troop movements on Russia’s side of the border as intimidation of Ukraine, Price responded, “Of course, the Russians have for quite some time sought to intimidate and bully their neighbors.” Ukraine, Western countries and NATO accuse Russia of sending troops and heavy weapons to prop up proxies who seized a swath of the eastern Donbas region in 2014. Moscow says it provides only humanitarian and political support to the separatists. 
 
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Russia Monday backed off a threat to block Twitter inside the country but said it will continue to slow down the social media site until mid-May.The move comes as the state media watchdog, Roskomnazdor, said Twitter has been removing banned content more quickly. It had said Twitter failed to remove content encouraging child suicide, pornography and content about drug use.Roskomnazdor said it took into account “the decision made by Twitter for the first time to change the principles and speed of its own moderation service in Russia, and the removal of a significant part of the prohibited content,” according to a statement.Still, the agency said Twitter took, on average, 81 hours to remove flagged content. Russian laws require that such content be removed within 24 hours after notification.Twitter now has until May 15 to come into “full compliance” with Russian law, the agency said.Roskomnazdor announced March 10 that it would slow Twitter and threatened to block it completely.Twitter said it has been in contact with Roskomnazdor.“It was a productive discussion about how we can both work to ensure that reports of such illegal content are dealt with expeditiously,” Twitter said in a statement.Twitter maintained it has a zero-tolerance policy for child exploitation, and content encouraging suicide and unlawful behavior.In addition to potentially harmful content, Russian officials have been critical of social media’s role in fueling protests. In January, tens of thousands of Russians participated in protests calling for the release of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny.Officials said social media platforms were used to encourage children to participate in the demonstrations.The Russian government has been threatening Twitter and Facebook for years with shutdowns, but never followed through.  
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