French President Emmanuel Macron will reportedly visit Kigali in coming weeks, following a report he commissioned which sheds a harsh light on France’s alleged role in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.If Macron hoped the report would put the controversy over French actions to rest, it now seems to be doing the opposite.Sounds of a Paris ceremony a few years ago, commemorating a new memorial to the roughly 800,000 victims of Rwanda’s genocide.The memorial wasn’t enough to end a dark chapter in French-Rwandan relations. Today, it’s uncertain whether a new report by French historians can do so either.Reactions have been trickling in this week to the so-called Duclert report on France’s role in the genocide.The report, based on two years of research, is named after Vincent Duclert, who headed the fact-finding commission of 14 historians. It found Paris, under former President Francois Mitterrand — who was close to the Hutu-led government that carried out the genocide — bears serious responsibility in the mass slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda between April and July of 1994.But, it concluded there was no evidence France was an accomplice in the killing spree.Historian Duclert told France 24 that Mitterrand was blinded by an effort to extend France’s post-colonial influence in Rwanda, and saw events though an ethnic prism. Mitterrand had close ties with Rwanda’s Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana, whom the report described as racist, corrupt and violent. His death in a helicopter crash unleashed the genocide.The commission’s members were historians, not judges, Duclert said. Although no documents showed France wanted a genocide, it was important to question the country’s blindness and heavy responsibility.France and Rwanda have long traded accusations over the killings. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy earlier conceded France had made mistakes.Now, Rwanda describes the Duclert report a step forward. France’s leading newspaper, Le Monde, called it a “decisive step on the path to truth.”Based on cables, documents and other material from government archives, the roughly 1,000-page report looks at France’s role before and during the genocide — including its controversial military and humanitarian Operation Turquoise. Kigali is expected to shortly release its own report on the genocide.But instead of putting this chapter to rest, the Duclert report has unleashed mixed reactions and soul searching here.France’s former foreign minister Hubert Vedrine, a top Mitterrand aide during the genocide, calls the report important. But in a Radio France International interview, he disputed France was blind to warnings of an impending slaughter. He said the country was just trying to preserve peace.Others said the report doesn’t go far enough. Genocide-era documents are missing or destroyed, they said, and the commission has left many questions unanswered.Survie Association, a French group highly critical of France’s colonial rule, slams it as superficial.Spokesman David Martin: “First what’s needed is a recognition of complicity from France and apologies to the Rwandan people, the Rwandan government. Second there should be trial for people who have taken decisions (during 1994), have assisted in decisions. There are still people who are alive today … It is very important that justice is done.”Martin’s association has filed several judicial complaints related to the genocide. But the process is slow and expensive, he says. He doubts French courts have the appetite to take on the country’s controversial past. 
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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favor of a journalist from RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service who has battled against the handover of her smartphone data to authorities in what the court agreed is an essential defense of a free press and privacy in democratic society. Natalia Sedletska, who hosts the award-winning investigative TV program “Schemes,” has been locked in a three-year effort to protect her phone data from seizure by Ukrainian prosecutors investigating a leak of state secrets nearly four years ago. Natalia Sedletska hosts the award-winning investigative TV program Schemes. (RFE/RL Graphics)The ECHR concluded that Sedletska should be protected from the data search under Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and stressed the importance of protection of sources for a functioning free press. “[T]he court is not convinced that the data access authorization given by the domestic courts was justified by an ‘overriding requirement in the public interest’ and, therefore, necessary in a democratic society,” the decision read. Sedletska turned to the European rights court after a Ukrainian court ruling in 2018 gave authorities unlimited access to 17 months of her smartphone data. Schemes had reported on several investigations involving senior Ukrainian officials, including Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko, during the period in question. Sedletska has argued that the Ukrainian ruling contravened domestic law and Kyiv’s commitments to a free press. Her application to the ECHR sought protection from the seizure of her communications data as such judicial action was not “necessary in a democratic society,” and was grossly disproportionate and not justified by any “overriding requirement in the public interest.” The ECHR agreed and stressed that “the protection of journalistic sources is one of the cornerstones of freedom of the press.” “RFE/RL applauds this ruling, which protects the confidentiality of journalistic communications and sets limits for executive power,” RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in connection with the April 1 decision. “The work of investigative journalists, by its nature, is hard and often dangerous. “Credible investigative journalism cannot be done in an atmosphere of official impunity, and without the certainty that exchanges between source and journalist will remain private.” The prosecutors pressed for access to Sedletska’s phone data in connection with a criminal investigation into the alleged disclosure of state secrets to journalists in 2017 by Artem Sytnyk, director of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. On August 2018, Kyiv’s Pechersk district court approved a request by the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office to allow investigators to review all of Sedletska’s mobile-phone data from a 17-month period. The European Parliament in 2018 passed a resolution expressing “concern” at the Ukrainian ruling and stressing the importance of media freedom and the protection of journalists’ sources. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the watchdog groups Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders have also backed Sedletska’s arguments. “Schemes” is a corruption-focused TV program produced by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service and Ukrainian Public Television. It had a combined audience across its two channels of more than 10 million last year.  
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Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, Thursday stressed the need for Germany to stock up on COVID-19 vaccine for possible repeat shots next year, and said the nation should do so with or without the rest of the European Union.Spahn made the remarks during a Berlin virtual news briefing on the countries COVID-19 vaccination program and to mark the opening of BioNTech’s plant in Marburg, Germany. He said the new plant provides Germany with an opportunity to plan for the possible need for additional doses of vaccine. Germany’s Merkel Says Europe Needs More Vaccine Independence Chancellor tells German lawmakers Europe must have enough COVID-19 vaccine for Europeans Spahn said at this point no one has been vaccinated for longer than a few months and no one knows how long protection will last, and there may be a need for third and fourth shots next year. He said Germany would be obtaining those vaccine doses on its own if EU members did not see the urgency. The health minister said BioNTech would be a logical source for that vaccine, as opposed to importing vaccine.  He said, “AstraZeneca is due to supply 15 million vaccine doses for Germany in [the second quarter of 2021]; BioNTech plans to supply 40 million doses. That shows that our main component is indeed BioNTech. And with that this factory in Marburg, as the production of BioNTech in general is very important to us in the vaccine campaign.” Spahn also announced it was stepping up its vaccination program, by administering vaccine through doctor offices. He said in the next week, 940,000 doses will be delivered to 35,000 practices around the country. By the end of April, he expects more than three million vaccine doses will be available for doctors to administer. Spahn said the move to allow doctors to deliver vaccine “will not be a big step yet, but it will be an important one,” as it will provide yet another structure through which more people can get vaccinated faster. 
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Mexico is about to legalize marijuana for recreational use, turning the Latin American nation into the world’s largest market for the drug. The move comes after Mexico’s lower house of Congress passed a legalization bill early in March; the country’s Senate is expected to approve a similar measure in coming weeks. Mike O’Sullivan looks at what legalization of the cannabis plant means for Mexico and the United States, the country’s northern neighbor.
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El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on Wednesday that a missing teenager had been found, identifying her as the daughter of Victoria Salazar, who died in Mexico after a Mexican female police officer was seen in a video kneeling on her back.The attorney general’s office of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, where Salazar died, said on Tuesday night that an amber alert had been issued for her daughter, Francela Yaritza Salazar Arriaza, 16. Francela was last seen in the Caribbean tourist resort of Tulum, where her mother was killed.”The oldest daughter of Victoria has been found. She is now in the custody of FGE,” Bukele tweeted, referring to the state attorney general’s office. “She is physically well.”Quintana Roo’s attorney general’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.Salazar’s partner was arrested on Tuesday for abuse of her and her daughters, Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquin said.FILE – Rosibel Emerita Arriaza, the mother of Victoria Esperanza Salazar who died in police custody, talks to the press in Antiguo Cuzcatlan, El Salvador, March 29, 2021.Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador this week said Salazar, 36, had been subject to “brutal treatment and murdered” after her detention on Saturday by four police officers. An autopsy showed Salazar’s neck had been broken.Her death had echoes of the case of George Floyd, an African-American man who died in May as a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck. It sparked outrage on social media and calls by El Salvador’s president for the officers to be punished.”They used excessive force,” her mother, Rosibel Arriaza, told Mexican television network TV Azteca. She noted that her daughter’s death was similar to that of Floyd.Newly released surveillance camera video, published by Mexican newspaper Reforma, showed Salazar looking frightened and holding on to workers in a convenience store just before police arrived at the scene, apparently in the run-up to her death.The Quintana Roo attorney general’s office has opened a homicide investigation into her death, which has led to the arrest of the four officers seen on videos of the incident.
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President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown Wednesday in an effort to slow a third wave of COVID-19 infecting his country.Among the lockdown measures, Macron closed all schools for three weeks beginning next Monday.Macron had hoped to avoid a lockdown and the effect it would have on the economy. However, the country’s death toll is nearing 100,000 and it has struggled with a vaccine rollout that has been slower than hoped for. A rise in cases is crippling intensive care units in areas hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.”We will lose control if we do not move now,” he said in a televised address to the nation.He also announced movement restrictions, beginning Saturday, for the whole country for at least a month.In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday that COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States last year, and it boosted the overall U.S. death toll by nearly 16% from the previous year.During the White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters the pandemic trailed only heart disease and cancer last year, accounting for about 378,000 fatalities, or 11% of all deaths in the country last year.Walensky said COVID-19 deaths were highest among Hispanic people, and deaths among ethnic and racial minority groups were more than double the death rate of non-Hispanic white people.Also Wednesday, Pfizer said it had produced 120 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for the U.S.The drugmaker is on track to deliver to the U.S. 200 million doses by the end of May and 300 million doses by the end of July, as it had vowed earlier this year.On Monday, Moderna said it had shipped 100 million doses of its vaccine to the United States. While Johnson & Johnson said it had delivered about 20 million shots to the U.S. in March.However, Johnson & Johnson reported Wednesday that a batch of its COVID-19 vaccine made at a facility in Baltimore, Maryland, had failed quality standards and was unusable. The drugmaker did not give details on what happened to the batch or how many doses were lost.Amazon said Wednesday it plans to have its employees return to the Seattle-area office by fall.The Seattle Times reported Tuesday that the company had told employees it is planning a “return to an office-centric culture as our baseline.”Amazon spokesperson Jose Negrete said the company would not require office workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the office. However, he said Amazon is urging employees and contractors to become vaccinated as soon as they are eligible.Elsewhere Wednesday, European Medicines Agency Executive Director Emer Cooke said the organization has found no scientific evidence to support restrictions on using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.She told a virtual news conference from the drug regulator’s headquarters in Denmark that they stand by the statement they made nearly two weeks ago that the vaccine’s benefits outweigh any risks.The comments come a day after Germany announced it was limiting the vaccine to people 60 years of age and older due to concerns that it may be causing blood clots.Federal and state health authorities cited nearly three dozen cases of blood clots known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in its decision Tuesday, including nine deaths. The country’s medical regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, said all but two of the cases involved women between the ages of 20 and 63.Canada, France and Spain have made similar decisions regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday, affirmed Washington’s support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity “in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” the State Department said in a statement.
 
Ukraine and Russia have been at loggerheads since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and over its support for separatist rebels fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people.
 
Blinken “expressed concern about the security situation in eastern Ukraine and offered condolences on the recent loss of four Ukrainian soldiers,” the statement said.
 
Ukraine’s armed forces said last week that four soldiers were killed in shelling by Russian forces in Donbas, the highest daily death total since a cease-fire agreement was reached last July.
 
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Ruslan Khomchak said on Tuesday Russia was building up armed forces near Ukraine’s borders in a threat to the country’s security.
 
The Kremlin said Wednesday it was concerned about mounting tensions in eastern Ukraine and that it feared Kyiv’s government forces could do something to restart a conflict with pro-Russian separatists. 
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Mexican authorities are searching for the daughter of Salvadoran woman Victoria Salazar, who died after a female police officer was seen in a video kneeling on her back, a case that triggered an outpouring of anger in Mexico. The attorney general’s office of the state of Quintana Roo, where Salazar died, said on Tuesday shortly before midnight that an Amber Alert had been issued for her daughter, 16-year-old Francela Yaritza Salazar Arriaza. Francela was last seen in the Caribbean tourist resort of Tulum, where her mother was killed. Salazar’s partner was arrested on Tuesday for abuse of her and her daughters, Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquin said. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador this week said Salazar, 36, had been subject to “brutal treatment and murdered” after her detention on Saturday by four police officers. An autopsy showed Salazar’s neck had been broken. Her death, which had echoes of the case of George Floyd, an African American man who died in May as a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck, sparked outrage on social media and calls by El Salvador’s president for the officers to be punished. “They used excessive force,” her mother, Rosibel Arriaza, told Mexican television network TV Azteca. She noted that her daughter’s death was similar to that of George Floyd. FILE – Rosibel Emerita Arriaza, the mother of Victoria Esperanza Salazar who died in police custody, talks to the press in Antiguo Cuzcatlan, El Salvador, March 29, 2021.Newly released surveillance camera video, published by Mexican newspaper Reforma, showed Salazar looking frightened and holding on to workers in a convenience store just before police arrived at the scene, apparently in the run-up to her death. The Quintana Roo attorney general’s office has opened a homicide investigation into her death, which has led to the arrest of the four officers seen on videos of the incident. 
 
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Italy says it expelled two Russian diplomats and arrested an Italian navy captain Tuesday for their alleged involvement in espionage. The diplomats were expelled Wednesday, according to news reports. Italian police say the captain and a Russian Embassy official were arrested in a parking lot in Rome and were accused of “serious crimes tied to spying and state security.” Reuters reported that an Italian police official told them the captain was named Walter Biot and that he was accused of passing information in exchange for $5,900.  Italian news agency Ansa reported that some of the documents seized were NATO documents. Italian police said the arrests were the result of a lengthy investigation by national security and military officials. The Russian Embassy in Rome, March 31, 2021.After the arrests, Italy summoned the Russian ambassador, and two Russian officials allegedly involved in the incident were expelled.  Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio characterized the incident as “extremely grave,” Reuters reported. “During the convocation of the Russian ambassador to Italy at the Foreign Ministry, we let him know about the strong protest of the Italian government and notified the immediate expulsion of the two Russian officials involved in this extremely grave affair,” the minister’s Facebook post said, according to CNN. Biot, 54, was reportedly working at the defense ministry in a department charged with developing national security policy and maintaining relations with Italy’s allies, Reuters reported. According to Reuters, Russian news agencies said the two expelled officials worked in the embassy’s military attaché office. They did not say if the person arrested in the parking lot was one of those expelled. Russian news agency Interfax reported that a Russian politician said it would reciprocate for the expulsions. But a Kremlin spokesman downplayed the incident. “At the moment, we do not have information about the reasons and circumstances of this detention,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to CNN. “But in any case, we hope that the very positive and constructive character of Russian-Italian relations will be preserved.” Both Bulgaria and the Netherlands have expelled Russian officials over spying allegations in recent months.  
 
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Coronavirus infections are ravaging Hungary’s 700,000-strong Roma community, according to personal accounts that suggest multiple deaths in single families are common in an unchecked outbreak fueled by deep distrust of authorities.Data on infections in the community is unavailable but interviews with about a dozen Roma, who often live in cramped and unsanitary conditions, reveal harrowing stories of suffering and death and of huge health care challenges.”Our people are falling like flies,” said Aladar Horvath, a Roma rights advocate who travels widely among the community.When asked by phone to describe the overall situation, he broke down sobbing and said he had learned an hour before that his 35-year-old nephew had died of COVID.Another Roma, Zsanett Bito-Balogh, likened the outbreak in her town of Nagykallo in eastern Hungary to an explosion.”It’s like a bomb went off,” she said.”Just about every family got it. …People you see riding their bikes one week are in hospital the next and you order flowers for their funerals the third.”Bito-Balogh, who herself recovered twice from COVID-19, said that at one point she had 12 family members in hospital. She said she had lost two uncles and her grandmother to the virus in the past month, and a neighbor lost both parents, a cousin and a uncle within weeks.She says she is now rushing to organize in-person registration points for vaccines and plans to have the network up and running in a few weeks.Despite the challenges in persuading many Roma to turn to health authorities for medical care and vaccinations, Roma leaders are urging the government to do more to intervene and tackle what Horvath describes as a humanitarian crisis.Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said vaccinations would be rolled out to Roma but that the community needed to volunteer for their shots.”Once we get to that point, the younger Roma should get in line,” Gulyas said in answer to Reuters questions. The Roma community is predominantly young, which means their vaccinations are scheduled later than for older Hungarians.The government’s chief epidemiologist did not respond to requests for comment.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 11 MB480p | 16 MB540p | 22 MB720p | 46 MB1080p | 89 MBOriginal | 102 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioIn northern Hungary, one of the European Union’s poorest regions, many Roma who live with hardship in the best of times are facing hunger as the coronavirus brings the economy to a halt.Decades of mistrustBarely 9% of Roma want to be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a survey carried out at Hungary’s University of Pecs in January but published here for the first time. It was conducted by Zsuzsanna Kiss, a Roma biologist and professor at Hungary’s University of Pecs.Kiss said the Roma have mistrusted doctors and governments for decades because of perceived discrimination.However, gaining Roma trust is not the only challenge.Hungary’s 6,500 general practitioners are leading the vaccine rollout, but 10% of small GP clinics are shut because there is no doctor to operate them, mostly in areas with high Roma populations, government data shows.Although the government has deployed five “vaccination buses” that tour remote areas, people must first register for inoculations.”The rise in cases (among the Roma) is clearly proportionate to vaccine rejection,” said former Surgeon General Ferenc Falus.”This more infectious virus reaches a population whose immune system has weakened greatly during the winter months. If they go without vaccines for long, it will definitely show in extra infections and fatalities among the Roma.”Hungary currently has the world’s highest weekly per capita death toll, driven by the more contagious variant first detected in Britain, despite a rapid vaccination rollout, data from Johns Hopkins University and the European Union indicates.”We never trusted vaccines much,” said Zoltan Varga, a young Roma also from Nagykallo.
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Russia says it registered the world’s first vaccine for animals against the COVID-19 virus on Wednesday — with government officials hailing an inoculation labeled ‘Carnivac-Cov’ as a victory in the global race to protect both animals and humans from further mutations of the coronavirus.“The clinical trials of Carnivac-Cov, which started last October, involved dogs, cats, Arctic foxes, minks, foxes and other animals,” said  Konstantin Savenkov, Deputy Head of Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s agricultural watchdog agency, in a statement announcing the vaccine.“The results allow us to conclude that the vaccine is harmless and provides high immunity, in such as the animals who were tested developed antibodies to the coronavirus in 100% of cases,” added Savenkov.Savenkov added that the shot currently provided immunity of up to 6 months — and could be in production in the coming weeks.The Russian announcement came just a day after the World Health Organization issued a report exploring the origins of COVID-19 in China.  The WHO study offered no firm conclusions but suggested the most likely source lay in animals — specifically, a bat.The U.S. has expressed reservations about what some US officials believe are the Chinese government’s efforts to skew the report’s findings.Studies have repeatedly documented select cases of COVID-19 infecting both domesticated and captive animals around the globe — including common household pets such as cats and dogs, as well as farmed mink and several animals in zoos.Mutation fearsScientists have raised concerns that the virus could subsequently mutate to other host animals — and eventually circulate back to humans.Last November, Denmark ordered the mass extermination of 15 million mink after a mutated variation of COVID-19 was discovered on more than 200 farms in the region.Danish officials noted the measure was grim necessity after a dozen people were found have been infected by a mutated COVID-19 strain.Rosselkhoznadzor’s Savenkov said the new Russian vaccine was intended primarily to protect household pets and farmed captive animals important to the global economy — as well as the humans in contact with them.“People and animals we live together on one planet and both are in contact with a great number of infections,” said Tatiana Galkina, a lead researcher behind Carnivac-Cov in a promotional video released to Youtube.“Of course in the future, we’re not insured against new viral infections. Therefore science should keep advancing and be a step ahead,” added Galkina, while petting a purring cat.Another video released to social media shows officials administering the vaccine to a plump white mink at a Russian fur farm.В России зарегистрировали первую в мире вакцину для животных от коронавируса
Препарат получил название «Карнивак-Ков». Клинические испытания препарата провели на кошках, собаках, песцах, норках, и лисах. В Россельхознадзоре даже показали, как прививают на примере норок pic.twitter.com/igQQZ38tIZ
— ФедералПресс (@FederalPress) March 31, 2021While the inoculation will face further peer review, Carnivac-Cov appears the latest example of Russia’s flexing its scientific muscle in the global race against the coronavirus pandemic.Last August, President Vladimir Putin claimed his nation was first to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 for humans with its Sputnik V inoculation. The announcement faced heavy skepticism for claiming a Russian victory before standard third phase trials had even begun.Subsequent international reviews later showed the Russian vaccine with an efficacy rate of over 90%.
 
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Italian authorities said Wednesday they have arrested an Italian Navy captain on spying charges after he was allegedly caught giving classified documents to a Russian embassy official in exchange for money. The Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador, Sergey Razov, after the sting operation late Tuesday caught the two in what police said was a “clandestine operation” to exchange the goods. Italy’s Carabinieri paramilitary police said in a statement that the Italian official, who is a frigate captain, had been arrested. The Russian, a member of the Russian armed forces stationed at Moscow’s embassy to Italy, has been detained but his status is “under consideration” given his diplomatic position, the statement said. Italy’s special operations forces in Rome staged the operation “during a clandestine operation between the two, surprising them red-handed immediately after the handing over of classified documents by the Italian official in exchange for a sum of money,” the statement said. The Carabinieri said both were accused of “serious crimes concerning espionage and state security.” The Russian Embassy in Rome confirmed the detention of a diplomat who was part of the military attache’s office but wouldn’t comment on the incident. “In any case, we hope that it wouldn’t affect bilateral ties,” it said in a statement. 
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Germany has limited the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people 60 years of age and older due to concerns that it may be causing blood clots.   Federal and state health authorities cited nearly three-dozen cases of blood clots known as cerebral sinus vein thrombosis in its decision Tuesday, including nine deaths.  The country’s medical regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, says all but two of the cases involved women between the ages of 20 and 63.    The nationwide order was made after several local governments, including Berlin, Munich and the states of Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, had already decided to limit the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to older residents.   Health authorities say younger people who belong to a high-risk category for serious illness from COVID-19 can still get the vaccine, while people 60 and younger who have received the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot can still receive the second shot as planned. About 2.7 million Germans have been inoculated with the vaccine. The decision is likely to further slow down Germany’s already sluggish vaccination campaign, and marks another setback for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which has had a troubled rollout across the world. Several European countries had briefly stopped use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because of similar reports of blood clots, until the  European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Union’s drug approval body, declared the vaccine as safe.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Health Minister Jens Spahn brief the media after a virtual meeting with federal state governors at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, March 30, 2021.Germany’s decision came a day after Canada said it would stop offering the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to people under age 55 because of concerns of serious blood clots, especially among younger women.   Also on Tuesday, the United States and 13 other nations issued a statement raising “shared concerns” about the newly released World Health Organization report on the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19. The statement, released on the U.S. State Department website, as well as the other signatories, said it was essential to express concerns that the international expert study on the source of the virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples. The WHO formally released its report earlier Tuesday, saying while the report presents a comprehensive review of available data, “we have not yet found the source of the virus.”  The team reported difficulties in accessing raw data, among other issues, during its visit to the city of Wuhan, China earlier this year. The researchers also had been forced to wait days before receiving final permission by the Chinese government to enter Wuhan. The joint statement by the United States and others went on to say, “scientific missions like these should be able to do their work under conditions that produce independent and objective recommendations and findings.”  The nations expressed their concerns in the hope of laying “a pathway to a timely, transparent, evidence-based process for the next phase of this study as well as for the next health crisis.” Along with the United States, the statement was signed by the governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, and Slovenia. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday further study and more data are needed to confirm if the virus was spread to humans through the food chain or through wild or farmed animals.   Tedros said that while the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, the matter requires further investigation. WHO team leader Peter Ben Embarek told reporters Tuesday that it is “perfectly possible” COVID-19 cases were circulating as far back as November or October 2019 around Wuhan, earlier than has been documented regarding the spread of the virus. 
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The leaders of all three branches of Brazil’s armed forces jointly resigned Tuesday following President Jair Bolsonaro’s replacement of the defense minister, causing widespread apprehension of a military shakeup to serve the president’s political interests. The Defense Ministry reported the resignations – apparently unprecedented since at least the end of military rule 36 years ago – in a statement released without giving reasons. Replacements were not named. But analysts expressed fears the president, increasingly under pressure, was moving to assert greater control over the military. “Since 1985, we haven’t had news of such clear intervention of the president with regard to the armed forces,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo. Bolsonaro, a conservative former army captain who has often praised Brazil’s former period of military dictatorship, has relied heavily on current and former soldiers to staff key Cabinet positions since taking office in January 2019, but Melo said the military itself has so far refrained from politics. “Will this resistance continue? That’s the question,” Melo said. The announcement came after the heads of the army, navy and air force met with the new defense minister, Gen. Walter Souza Braga Netto, on Tuesday morning. Braga Netto’s first statement on the new job showed he is aligned with Bolsonaro’s views for the armed forces. The incoming defense minister, unlike his predecessor, celebrated the 1964-1985 military dictatorship that killed and tortured thousands of Brazilians. “The armed forces ended up assuming the responsibility for pacifying the country, facing the challenges to reorganize it and secure the democratic liberties that today we enjoy,” said Braga Netto, who did not discuss the departure of the military chiefs.”The 1964 movement is part of Brazil’s historic trajectory. And as such the events of that March 31st must be understood and celebrated.” A retired army general who has a relationship with the three commanders as well as with Braga Netto told The Associated Press that “there was an embarrassing circumstance so they all resigned.” He agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, expressing fear of retribution.Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the media at the Alvorada Palace, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Brasilia, Brazil, March 10, 2021.Bolsonaro on Monday carried out a shake-up of top Cabinet positions that was initially seen as a response to demands for a course correction by lawmakers, diplomats and economists, particularly over his handling of the pandemic that has caused more than 300,000 deaths in Brazil. That included the replacement of Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva, who said in his resignation letter that he had preserved the armed forces as state institutions,'' a nod at his effort to keep generals out of politics. Bolsonaro has often bristled at the checks and balances imposed by other branches of government and has attended protests targeting the Supreme Court and Congress. He has also criticized the Supreme Court for upholding local governments' rights to adopt pandemic restrictions that he adamantly opposes, arguing that the economic effects are worse than the disease itself. His recent slide in popularity, and the sudden likelihood that he will face leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the 2022 presidential election, has analysts saying he is looking to the armed forces for support. Retired Gen. Carlos Alberto Santos Cruz, who previously served as Bolsonaro's government secretary, appeared to refer to such concerns when he responded to early rumors of military resignations with a tweet saying,THE ARMED FORCES WON’T GO ON AN ADVENTURE.” Since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985, the armed forces have tried to keep a distance from partisan political quarrels. “The government has to give explanations to the population about the change in the Defense Ministry,” Santos Cruz added. Sen. Katia Abreu, who heads the Senate’s foreign relations commission, said it would be “prudent” that the new defense minister speak to calm the nation down about the impossibility of a military intervention. “I have a conviction that we built a strong democracy. The armed forces are part of the Brazilian state and they have the confidence of all of us,” said Abreu, a right-leaning Bolsonaro critic. Earlier this month, Bolsonaro began mentioning the armed forces in connection with his dispute with state governors and mayors over restrictive measures meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus in Latin America’s largest nation. “My army doesn’t go to the street to force people to stay at home,” Bolsonaro told reporters March 19.  Thomas Traumann, an independent political analyst, told AP that it was the first time in living memory that all leaders of the armed forces had quit simultaneously. “He wants people who will do whatever he wants, and so it is extremely risky,” Traumann said. “He can put the army out to allow people to go to work. So the army would be in his hands, and not in the hands of the generals.” Speaking to supporters outside the presidential palace Tuesday night, Bolsonaro did not discuss the three commanders. When asked about the pandemic restrictions imposed by governors and mayors, the president said he respects the constitution, though he added: “But it has been some time that some authorities are not playing within the limits of the constitution.”  Bolsonaro saw his popularity rise last year, thanks to a generous pandemic welfare aid program. That popularity has dropped since the program ended in December, and there have been renewed protests against him as the nation’s daily death toll surged to the highest in the world. Further clouding the outlook for Bolsonaro is the reemergence of da Silva after a Supreme Court justice annulled two corruption convictions and restored his political rights. Early polls indicate he would be a formidable challenger in next year’s election. In other Cabinet changes, Bolsonaro replaced Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, who was accused by some of impeding the supply of vaccines by making comments seen as insulting to the Chinese and by not aggressively seeking sources.  Earlier this month, Bolsonaro also replaced his health minister, active-duty army Gen. Eduardo Pazuello, the third health minister to leave office since the beginning of the pandemic. Pazuello’s tenure coincided with most of Brazil’s 317,000 COVID-19 deaths. On Tuesday, Brazil’s health ministry said a new daily high of 3,780 deaths related to COVID-19 had been registered in the previous 24 hours. The previous high of 3,650 deaths was recorded Friday. 
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Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s brother was sentenced to life in prison by a New York judge Tuesday for large-scale drug trafficking after a trial that implicated the leader of the Central American country. Tony Hernandez, 42, was found guilty in October 2019 on four counts, including conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, possessing machine guns and making false statements. Judge P. Kevin Castel said a life sentence for the former Honduran congressman who trafficked more than 185 tons of cocaine into the United States, some branded with his initials “TH,” was “richly deserved.” Prosecutors had demanded life, stressing that Hernandez had “shown no remorse” and was “a central figure in one of the largest and most violent cocaine trafficking conspiracies in the world.” FILE – Tony Hernandez, brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, arrives for a press conference in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, March 16, 2017.His defense team had called for the mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years. Hernandez, who served as a member of the Honduran Congress from 2014 to 2018, was arrested at a Miami airport in November 2018. During the trial, U.S. prosecutors said President Hernandez had been a “co-conspirator” in his brother’s crimes, although he has not been formally charged by the U.S. judicial system. Government attorneys said the president took millions of dollars in bribes from drug lords, including jailed Mexican kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. President Hernandez has repeatedly denied all allegations of drug trafficking. In a tweet ahead of the sentencing, the president said the news from New York would “be painful” and repeated an allegation that the main witness in the trial had lied. FILE – Honduras’ President Juan Orlando Hernandez arrives for a swearing-in ceremony in Guatemala City, Jan. 14, 2020.Hernandez, a lawyer who came to power in January 2014 and is in his second term, has styled himself as a champion in the fight against drugs. During his brother’s trial, the U.S. government successfully argued that Tony Hernandez was a large-scale drug trafficker who worked from 2004 to 2016 with others in Colombia, Honduras and Mexico to import cocaine into the U.S. by plane, boat and submarine. Hernandez made millions of dollars from the trafficking and used the proceeds to influence three presidential elections, according to U.S. attorneys. The prosecution also said Hernandez was involved in at least two murders of rival drug traffickers in 2011 and 2013. Defense lawyers unsuccessfully questioned the credibility of witnesses, many of them former drug traffickers, some of whom had been convicted of murder. U.S. prosecutors have aggressively pursued current or former Honduran public officials and their relatives over drug trafficking allegations. Earlier this month, a New York jury found Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, an alleged associate of President Hernandez, guilty of drug trafficking. During his trial, U.S. prosecutors said the Honduran leader had helped Fuentes smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States, an allegation the president described as “obvious lies.” Guzman, the former co-leader of Mexico’s feared Sinaloa drug cartel, was convicted in New York in February 2019 of smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana into the United States. 
 
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Turkey’s announcement of new restrictions in the face of surging COVID-19 infections is putting the spotlight on Ankara’s decision to rely almost solely on Chinese vaccines. With those deliveries repeatedly delayed, there is growing suspicion Beijing could be using the vaccines as leverage — as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.Producer: Jon Spier
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The United States and 13 other nations issued a statement Tuesday raising “shared concerns” about the newly released World Health Organization report on the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19.
The statement, released on the U.S. State Department website, as well as the other signatories, said it was essential to express concerns that the international expert study on the source of the virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples.
The WHO formally released its report earlier Tuesday, saying while the report presents a comprehensive review of available data, “we have not yet found the source of the virus.”  The team reported difficulties in accessing raw data, among other issues, during its visit to the city of Wuhan, China, earlier this year.
The researchers also had been forced to wait days before receiving final permission by the Chinese government to enter Wuhan.
The joint statement by the U.S. and others went on to say, “scientific missions like these should be able to do their work under conditions that produce independent and objective recommendations and findings.”  The nations expressed their concerns in the hope of laying “a pathway to a timely, transparent, evidence-based process for the next phase of this study as well as for the next health crises.”
Along with the U.S., the statement was signed by the governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, and Slovenia.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday further study and more data are needed to confirm if the virus was spread to humans through the food chain or through wild or farmed animals.  
Tedros said that while the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, the matter requires further investigation.
WHO team leader Peter Ben Embarek told reporters Tuesday that it is “perfectly possible” COVID-19 cases were circulating as far back as November or October 2019 around Wuhan, earlier than has been documented regarding the spread of the virus.
 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reshuffled his Cabinet on Monday amid intense pressure to sack his foreign relations minister whose tenure has been characterized by an anti-globalism bent that made him a lightning rod for critics. In addition to replacing foreign minister Ernesto Araújo, the president shifted three other ministers into new positions — chief of staff, defense minister and attorney general. His announcement on Twitter said he also named a new justice and public security minister and government secretary. The statement did not provide any reasons for the changes. The shake-up underscores recent turmoil for Bolsonaro, who has seen his approval ratings slide this year.  The president in mid-March replaced the health minister whose tenure coincided with most of Brazil’s 314,000 COVID-19 deaths and became the target of fierce criticism. In February, Bolsonaro tapped an army general to take over state-run oil behemoth Petrobras, seeking to appeal to his constituency of truck drivers who had threatened to strike over fuel price increases.  Araújo had most recently faced fierce criticism and calls to resign for comments and actions that his opponents said had impeded faster access to coronavirus vaccines.  FILE – Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo delivers a statement to members of the media at the Department of State in Washington, Sept. 13, 2019.Senate insistence became too overpowering for Bolsonaro to withstand, said Maurício Santoro, professor of political science and international relations at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro.”The vaccine issue was the spark that lit the fire,” Santoro said. “The general context is Araújo failed in all the most important tasks he had to do as a minister. Brazil is facing bad political dialogue with its biggest trade partners — China, the U.S., the EU and Argentina — all for different reasons. Araújo is being replaced by Carlos França, who is likewise a career diplomat. Unlike Araújo, França isn’t a follower of far-right ideologue Olavo de Carvalho, the newspaper O Globo reported. He is an adviser to Bolsonaro and former ceremonial chief at the presidential palace and is considered to be pragmatic rather than ideological.  By contrast, Araújo has denied climate change, which he has called a leftist dogma, and made comments perceived as critical of China, Brazil’s biggest trading partner. In just more than two years, he repeatedly dismayed foreign policy veterans by breaking with Brazil’s tradition of multilateralism and adopting policy based on ideology, particularly aligning with the U.S. during the Trump administration.  On Saturday, a group of 300 diplomats published a letter saying Araújo had tarnished Brazil’s image abroad and demanded his removal, according to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. Brazil was one of the last countries in the world to recognize U.S. President Joe Biden’s election victory, and Araújo declined to attend his inauguration. Instead, he took a vacation.  Santoro, the professor, said Araújo’s climate change position was an impediment to Brazil dealing with the U.S. and Europe on curbing Amazon deforestation. That issue has been the focus of European governments and many foreign investors, and Biden has said he intends to prioritize the issue. Early in the pandemic, Araújo wrote on a personal blog that globalists were seeking to use the coronavirus as a means to subvert liberal democracy and market economics in order to install communism and enslave humans. He made other comments that angered China. Clamor for the minister’s resignation grew as Brazil’s COVID-19 death toll surged this year and the nation suffered delays in getting active ingredients needed to bottle vaccines, mostly from China. Slow arrival was widely speculated to be political retribution by the Asian power, although both Araújo and Chinese authorities in Brazil claimed technical reasons. “When the country needed Araújo and the foreign relations ministry to operate to guarantee what we needed to vaccinate people, they kept playing at highly ideological foreign policy,” said Hussein Kalout, formerly Brazil’s special secretary for strategic affairs and now a research scholar at Harvard University. Aráujo defended his ministry’s actions for nearly five hours before a Senate hearing last week. Center-right Sen. Tasso Jereissati told the minister that he no longer had the standing to remain in the post and that his exit would end the help end the crisis. 
 
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The number of child migrants passing through the perilous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama has risen dramatically, the U.N. child welfare agency said Monday.  Underage migrants made up only about 2% of those using the jungle corridor in 2017. In 2020, children made up 25% of the migrants making the hard trek on foot, UNICEF’s report said.  The Darien Gap is a 60-mile (97-kilometer) stretch of roadless jungle that provides the only land route north out of South America. There is little food or shelter on the weeklong trek and bandits and wild animals prey on migrants. FILE – Aerial view of La Penita indigenous village, Darien province, Panama, May 23, 2019. Migrants cross the border between Colombia and Panama through the Darien Gap on their way to the United States.Most migrants making the hike are from Haiti or Cuba, with smaller numbers from African nations, such as Cameroon and Congo, and South Asian countries, such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. “I have seen women coming out of the jungle with babies in their arms after walking for more than seven days without water, food or any type of protection,” said Jean Gough, the UNICEF regional director who made a two-day trip to the zone. “These families go beyond their limits and put their lives at risk, often without realizing the risks they are taking,” Gough said. The risks for children are particularly serious. “The migrants who get trapped there (in the jungle) are exposed to many threats, including death,” the U.N. report said. “In this context, women, especially pregnant women, girls, children and adolescents, are the most vulnerable.” While 109 children made the journey in 2017, that swelled to 3,956 in 2019. The coronavirus pandemic and travel restriction reduced both adult and child numbers in 2020, with the latter falling to 1,653. Over the last four years, a total of at least 46,500 migrants had made the trek, and in total for those years they included 6,240 minors. “The socioeconomic repercussion of the COVID-19 pandemic, together with violence, racism, unemployment and extreme climate events will probably increase poverty and lead more families to migrate north in the coming months,” the report added. The U.S. government has been facing an increase in the number of unaccompanied minors and families with children arriving at its southern border in recent months. Last week there were about 18,000 unaccompanied children in government custody. 
 
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