U.S. Immigration officials are planning to deport to Haiti 13 Haitian nationals who were arrested in Florida along with a U.S. citizen.The U.S. Embassy in Haiti announced the arrests Thursday in a series of tweets posted in English and Haitian Creole.U.S. Immigration authorities arrested 13 Haitian nationals in Florida and processed them for removal. The suspected smuggler was taken into custody. Migrating illegally is dangerous and will prove a #FutileJourney. https://t.co/0uUIrgaZkw— U.S. Embassy Haiti (@USEmbassyHaiti) February 25, 2021″The suspected smuggler was also identified. Both vessels involved in the incident will be seized. An investigation by #DHS partners remains ongoing,” the tweet said.Adam Hoffner of the U.S. Border Patrol Miami Sector said agents responding to “a maritime smuggling event” found seven Haitian males and six females and a U.S. citizen on the shores of Dania Beach at the Cozy Cove Marina.In a joint effort with federal agents, the group was taken into Border Patrol custody.”The Haitian nationals were interviewed and processed for removal proceedings and subsequently turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO),” Hoffner told VOA via email.”The U.S. Border Patrol is investigating this case alongside our Department of Homeland Security (DHS) partners and will seek to prosecute any individuals who are identified as smugglers,” Hoffner said.Two vessels that were determined to be involved in the incident were also seized by U.S. Border Patrol.”We continuously warn migrants about the dangers associated with traveling by sea,” Hoffner said. “Smuggling organizations are not concerned with the safety of the people they are smuggling, rather they continue to put the lives of migrants at risk.”The Biden administration has faced criticism from the Haitian American community in Miami for failing to deliver on promises made during the 2020 election campaign to reverse some of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.On Feb. 24, U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee, indefinitely banned the Biden administration from enforcing a 100-day moratorium on deportations.Biden is proposing changes in the nation’s immigration laws that would allow 11 million people currently living illegally in the United States to be legalized.Haiti Ambassador to the United States Bocchit Edmond called on the Biden administration to work with Congress to find a more permanent solution.”We appreciate the efforts made by the Biden administration to get a 100-day moratorium on deportations. While we respect the last ruling of a federal judge on this issue, we do hope that the Biden administration with the help of the U.S. Congress will find a final resolution to this very sensitive issue impacting a number of Haitians. The human impact should be considered,” Edmond told VOA.
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U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet warns a proliferation of human rights violations around the world is eroding fundamental freedoms and heightening grievances that are destabilizing.Presenting a global update Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva,
Bachelet zipped through a long litany of global offenders. No region was spared. Few countries emerged with clean hands.  
 
She criticized repressive policies in powerful countries such as Russia, which she said enacted new legal provisions late last year that further limited fundamental freedoms.“Existing restrictive laws have continued to be harshly enforced, including during recent demonstrations across the country. On several occasions, police were filmed using unnecessary and disproportionate force against largely peaceful protesters and made thousands of arrests,” she said.
 
Bachelet noted problems in the U.S. with systemic racism. She took the European Union to task for anti-migrant restrictions that put lives in jeopardy. She denounced the shrinking civic space across Southeast Asia, condemning the military coup in Myanmar and death squads in the Philippines.  
 
She condemned corrupt, discriminatory and abusive practices in Venezuela, Honduras and other countries in the Americas that have forced millions of people to flee for their lives. She deplored the terrible suffering of millions of people victimized by conflicts in the Middle East.
 
Specifically, Bachelet expressed concern about alleged abuses committed by all parties in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. She called for a credible investigation into allegations of mass killings, extrajudicial executions, and other attacks on civilians, including sexual violence in the province.
 
“I am also disturbed by reported abductions and forcible returns of Eritrean refugees living in Tigray—some reportedly at the hands of Eritrean forces. At least 15,000 Eritreans who had taken refuge are unaccounted for following the destruction of their shelters. Coupled with growing insecurity in other parts of Ethiopia, the conflict in Tigray could have serious impact on regional stability and human rights,” she said.
 
Bachelet called on the Ugandan government to refrain from using regulations to combat COVID-19 to arrest and detain political opponents and journalists. And, she warned of the dangers posed by apparent official attempts in neighboring Tanzania to deny the reality of COVID-19.
 
“Including measures to criminalize recognition of the pandemic and related information. This could have serious impact on Tanzanians’ right to health. I note reports of pushbacks of hundreds of asylum seekers from Mozambique and the DRC, as well as continued reports of torture, enforced disappearances and forced returns of Burundian refugees,” she said.
 
Bachelet noted people in every region of the world were being left behind and excluded from development and other opportunities as the coronavirus pandemic continued to gather pace. She said building trust and maintaining and expanding freedoms were central to global efforts to contain and crush the coronavirus.
 
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U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet warns a proliferation of human rights violations around the world is eroding fundamental freedoms and heightening grievances that are destabilizing.Presenting a global update Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva,
Bachelet zipped through a long litany of global offenders. No region was spared. Few countries emerged with clean hands.  
 
She criticized repressive policies in powerful countries such as Russia, which she said enacted new legal provisions late last year that further limited fundamental freedoms.“Existing restrictive laws have continued to be harshly enforced, including during recent demonstrations across the country. On several occasions, police were filmed using unnecessary and disproportionate force against largely peaceful protesters and made thousands of arrests,” she said.
 
Bachelet noted problems in the U.S. with systemic racism. She took the European Union to task for anti-migrant restrictions that put lives in jeopardy. She denounced the shrinking civic space across Southeast Asia, condemning the military coup in Myanmar and death squads in the Philippines.  
 
She condemned corrupt, discriminatory and abusive practices in Venezuela, Honduras and other countries in the Americas that have forced millions of people to flee for their lives. She deplored the terrible suffering of millions of people victimized by conflicts in the Middle East.
 
Specifically, Bachelet expressed concern about alleged abuses committed by all parties in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. She called for a credible investigation into allegations of mass killings, extrajudicial executions, and other attacks on civilians, including sexual violence in the province.
 
“I am also disturbed by reported abductions and forcible returns of Eritrean refugees living in Tigray—some reportedly at the hands of Eritrean forces. At least 15,000 Eritreans who had taken refuge are unaccounted for following the destruction of their shelters. Coupled with growing insecurity in other parts of Ethiopia, the conflict in Tigray could have serious impact on regional stability and human rights,” she said.
 
Bachelet called on the Ugandan government to refrain from using regulations to combat COVID-19 to arrest and detain political opponents and journalists. And, she warned of the dangers posed by apparent official attempts in neighboring Tanzania to deny the reality of COVID-19.
 
“Including measures to criminalize recognition of the pandemic and related information. This could have serious impact on Tanzanians’ right to health. I note reports of pushbacks of hundreds of asylum seekers from Mozambique and the DRC, as well as continued reports of torture, enforced disappearances and forced returns of Burundian refugees,” she said.
 
Bachelet noted people in every region of the world were being left behind and excluded from development and other opportunities as the coronavirus pandemic continued to gather pace. She said building trust and maintaining and expanding freedoms were central to global efforts to contain and crush the coronavirus.
 
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Friday took part in a European Union summit to discuss security and defense priorities for the alliance.
Stoltenberg joined European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel at EU headquarters in Brussels where they addressed other EU leaders by videoconference.
Ahead of the meeting, at a news briefing with Michel, Stoltenberg said NATO troops are working with civilian efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to set up military field hospitals, transporting patients and medical equipment, among other efforts. He said their main focus is to ensure a health crisis does not become a security crisis.
But Stoltenberg said, the main role of the alliance is to act as a link between North America and Europe, and he welcomed the strong message from U.S. President Joe Biden regarding his commitment to rebuilding alliances with Europe.  
Michel agreed saying he is “totally convinced” the Biden administration offers a unique opportunity to strengthen the partnership between NATO and the EU.  
At a news briefing following the security meeting, Von der Leyen said cooperation with NATO was a top priority, but, reflecting the views of other key EU members, said the bloc, “as a whole, has more tasks for stabilization and security than the tasks within NATO. And for that, we have to be prepared.”
EU members Germany and France have been pressing for “strategic autonomy” within the bloc, particularly after what they called former U.S. president Donald Trump’s ambiguous attitude towards traditional U.S. European allies. They said they believe Europe has to be able to stand alone.
The French news agency reports a draft of conclusions from Friday’s meeting indicates the bloc’s leadership will reaffirm that “in the face of increased global instability, the EU needs to take more responsibility for its security,” but no concrete new announcements are expected.
 
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The U.S. is expected to release a declassified intelligence report Friday that blames Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 grisly murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident with U.S. citizen children.  
 
Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul Oct. 2, 2018, and was killed by operatives linked to the crown prince. His body was dismembered, and his remains have never been found. Riyadh eventually admitted that Khashoggi was mistakenly killed in what it called a rogue operation but denied the crown prince’s involvement.  
 
The role of the crown prince, often referred to by his initials, MBS, in Khashoggi’s death has been the subject of media reports since late 2018.  
 
U.S. President Joe Biden talked with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Thursday.  The White House said that during the call, Biden and Salman “discussed regional security, including the renewed diplomatic efforts led by the United Nations and the United States to end the war in Yemen, and the U.S. commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory as it faces attacks from Iranian-aligned groups.”   
The White House readout of the call noted the recent release of several Saudi-American activists and Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul from custody and affirmed the importance the U.S. places on universal human rights and the rule of law. It did not mention the report on Khashoggi.   
 
The Trump administration rejected demands by lawmakers to release a declassified version of the report as the White House prioritized arms sales to the kingdom and alliance with Riyadh amid rising U.S. tensions with Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran.  
 
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On the eve of the seventh anniversary of the Russian invasion and seizure of Crimea, the United States and European Union have reaffirmed their positions that Crimea belongs to Ukraine.
 
“Russia’s invasion and seizure of Crimea” is “a brazen affront to the modern international order,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “We affirm this basic truth: Crimea is Ukraine,” Blinken said.
 
The U.S. “does not, and will never, recognize Russia’s purported annexation of Crimea,” the statement added.
 
The United States is repeating its call for Russia to immediately end its occupation of Crimea, to release all Ukrainian political prisoners, and return full control of the peninsula to Ukraine.  The U.S. is also calling on Russia to end its “aggression” in eastern Ukraine.
 Until Russia reverses its course regarding Ukraine and Crimea, U.S. sanctions on the country will remain in place, Blinken said.
 
In his capacity as the president of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas reiterated EU’s condemnation of the annexation of Crimea, which it says constitutes a violation of international law.
 
The Council reaffirms its “unequivocal and unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” Maas said in a statement.  
    
The statement calls on Russia “to fully comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights standards, including by granting unimpeded access to regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms, as well as non-governmental human rights organisations, to Crimea and Sevastopol.”
 
On February 27, 2014, masked Russian troops moved in and captured strategic locations in Crimea, as well as Crimean institutions, including the Supreme Council or Crimean Parliament. The council of ministers was dissolved and a new pro-Russian prime minister installed. 
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Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has been sent to a prison outside Moscow to serve his sentence, his lawyer said Thursday, a move that came despite a demand by Europe’s top human rights court for his release.Navalny lawyer Vadim Kobzev did not immediately name the prison where Navalny was sent. Russian news reports have previously indicated that Navalny, who has been held in a maximum-security jail in Moscow, would likely be sent to a facility in western Russia.Navalny, 44, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vociferous foe, was arrested January 17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation and accused Navalny of cooperating with Western intelligence agencies — claims he has ridiculed.Earlier this month, Navalny was sentenced to 2½ years in prison for violating the terms of his probation while convalescing in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated — and which the European Сourt of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled to be unlawful.Large protestsNavalny’s arrest has fueled a wave of protests that have drawn tens of thousands to the streets across Russia. Authorities have detained about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 days.Russian officials have dismissed demands from the United States and the European Union to free Navalny and stop the crackdown on his supporters.Moscow also rejected the ECHR ruling that, citing risks to Navalny’s life in custody, ordered the Russian government to release him. The Russian government has rebuffed the court’s demand as unlawful and “inadmissible” meddling in Russia’s home affairs.Earlier this week, EU foreign ministers agreed to impose new sanctions against Russian officials linked to Navalny’s jailing.Since Navalny’s arrest, Russian officials and state news media have aggressively tried to discredit him, a change from the previous tactic of largely ignoring him.Possible ‘advocacy of hatred’Some of the criticism has emphasized anti-migrant views expressed years ago as he was rising to prominence.Amnesty International this week stripped Navalny of his designation as a “prisoner of conscience” because of those views. “Navalny had, in the past, made comments which may have amounted to advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, violence or hostility,” the organization said in a statement Thursday.The statement denied the move was in response to external pressure, but news reports have suggested Amnesty International was targeted in a coordinated campaign to discredit him.”These were not independently acting activists … these were people who would like to defame Alexey as the most prominent opponent of Mr. Putin,” Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of Navalny’s anti-corruption organization, said in a conference call Thursday.Amnesty International said rescinding the prisoner-of-conscience designation did not change its demand for Navalny to be freed.”There should be no confusion: Nothing Navalny has said in the past justifies his current detention, which is purely politically motivated. Navalny has been arbitrarily detained for exercising his right to freedom of expression, and for this reason, we continue to campaign for his immediate release,” the organization said. 
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The first asylum-seekers from a Mexican border camp that had become a symbol of Trump-era immigration restrictions entered the United States on Thursday under a new policy meant to end the hardships endured by migrants in dangerous border towns. The United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the initial group comprised 27 people who had been living in the makeshift camp in Matamoros opposite Brownsville, Texas. Some residents have lived there for more than a year under former President Donald Trump’s controversial Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for U.S. court hearings. The first group of 27 migrants leave their camp towards the Gateway International Bridge to be processed and seek asylum in the U.S., in Matamoros, Mexico, Feb. 25, 2021.A new process under President Joe Biden will gradually allow thousands of MPP asylum-seekers to await courts’ decisions within the United States. Some migrants last week were permitted to cross into San Ysidro, California. Francisco Gallardo, who runs a migrant shelter in Matamoros and provides humanitarian aid at the camp, welcomed the news that the process had begun in Matamoros, but said it should have come sooner. “It’s good that they are doing it, but unfortunately coming late,” he said. Freezing temperatures at the U.S.-Mexico border had made the Matamoros camp a priority, the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday. Migrants at the camp have struggled to ensure proper hygiene and to protect themselves from organized crime in a state that is one of the most violent in Mexico. “The camp was a space that had multiple risks for the migrants,” said Misael Hernandez, a researcher on migration issues at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Mexico’s migration institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
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After two years of discreet silence about his detention without charges in China, Irish businessman Richard O’Halloran finally spoke up this month. His youngest child was only 5 years old when he traveled to Shanghai in February 2019 on what he expected to be a short business trip, O’Halloran said in an interview with FILE – People hold signs calling for China to release Canadian detainees Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, March 6, 2019.While the case of the “two Michaels” has been widely publicized, O’Halloran’s ordeal was little known until he went public this past week. In the interview, the 45-year-old father of four said his anguish had reached the point that he asked the Chinese judge in charge of his case: “Do you expect that I tell my wife to get on with her life, and for my kids to try and forget about me? Is that what you’re trying to do?” O’Halloran, an executive with the Irish subsidiary of an aviation leasing company, traveled to China to help settle a commercial dispute that resulted in the arrest of his employer on charges of defrauding Chinese investors of some $70 million. While not charged with any crime, O’Halloran has been told he cannot leave China until the money is returned to the investors. The Chinese embassy in Dublin told RTE: “In any country, company representatives have the legal obligation to return the proceeds of crime flowing into the company and related yields to the victims.” The embassy added, “We fully understand Mr. O’Halloran’s family’s anxiety and hope they will advise Mr. O’Halloran to cooperate in a meaningful way with judicial authorities in Shanghai to ensure an early solution to the case.” But O’Halloran argued in his interview that the Chinese legal system is “fundamentally flawed.” “To expect somebody to sign documents in Chinese, to conduct an entire interview in Chinese, without legal representation, is just not correct in my view,” he said. FILE – Winston Lord, then-U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, addresses a press conference in Honolulu, Jan. 25, 1996.The case has attracted the attention of some major China policy experts, including Winston Lord, a former U.S. ambassador to China and assistant secretary of state for East Asia. “I’ve been following the case closely for many months, it’s a very sad, frustrating and cruel case,” Lord said in a phone interview from his home in Manhattan. “This man is a businessman from Ireland, he went to the mainland to try to help the Chinese resolve a case against another Chinese, and he’s been kept in detention — not house arrest, but he can’t leave the country — for two years.”  Lord said China may be hurting its own economic interests by holding O’Halloran. “I already know people who don’t want to be stationed in China, whether it’s pollution, repression, or extreme measures like this,” he said. The detention has also been denounced on the floor of the Irish parliament, where Senator Michael McDowell insisted that “no Chinese citizen would be treated in this way in this country.”Watch: In the #Seanad today I highlighted the ongoing wrongful detention of Richard O’Halloran in China https://t.co/xs8h15ztJ5 via @YouTube— Michael McDowell (@SenatorMcDowell) February 15, 2021″Comparative size of our two countries doesn’t justify wolf diplomacy being deployed against Ireland to try and blackmail this man into doing something unlawful,” he said. McDowell cautioned the Irish government against falling into what he called the three stages of inaction — “the stage which was premature to do anything, the stage which was too sensitive, and the stage which was too late.” 
 
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Burn patients in Haiti who need specialized care had to be transferred, after gang violence erupted near the burn care hospital in Drouillard, a Port-au-Prince neighborhood.Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says the violence is putting its patients at risk. 
 
“Severe burns require highly specialized care, and our Drouillard hospital is Haiti’s only specialized burn care center,” Dr. Alain Ngamba, MSF medical coordinator in Haiti, told VOA via email. “We are concerned about the consequences for patients who would otherwise have been admitted there.”  
 
MSF says the eruption of gunfire on February 23 sent staff members running for cover on hospital grounds. That’s when it was decided to relocate 21 patients to an MSF hospital in the Tabarre neighborhood of Haiti’s capital, once the shooting stopped. No staff or patients were injured during the violence, MSF told VOA.  
 Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres burns hospital in Drouillard, Haiti. (Photo: Lunos Saint Brave/MSF)Outpatient services for burn patients had been transferred out of Drouillard since February 13, after a first wave of gang violence. For now, only the emergency department of the hospital is open, but it is functioning at a reduced capacity and limited to accepting only life-threatening cases, MSF says. 
 
“The situation around our hospital in Drouillard has deteriorated, for patients and for staff,” Aline Serin, MSF head of mission in Haiti, said in a statement. “Faced with the recurrence of this violence, we have decided to move patients from our burn center and outpatient services to our trauma hospital in Tabarre, in order to ensure the protection of staff, the safety of our patients and continuity of their care.”  
 
MSF’s Drouillard location employs about 250 staff — a mix of Haitian and international MSF employees. Originally set up as a trauma center in 2011 to treat victims of violence, road accidents or burns, the hospital shifted its focus to specialized burn care in 2014.  
 
After the COVID-19 pandemic hit Haiti in March 2020, the Drouillard hospital temporarily shifted to treating COVID-19 patients between May and August. After August, the hospital reshifted its focus to burn care.  
 
“We are still working to set up an operating theater in our Tabarre hospital for our existing burns patients,” Ngamba told VOA. “We already treat trauma patients at our Tabarre hospital, so this does not leave many more places for burns patients. Currently we do not have the capacity to admit new patients with severe burns.”  
 MSF staff transfer burn patients out of Drouillard hospital to Tabarre trauma center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Photo: Avra Fialas/MSF)Gang violence has been a concern not only for Haitian authorities but also the international community, which raised the issue at a February 22 United Nations Security Council meeting.   
 
“We urge Haitian authorities to redouble their efforts to investigate and prosecute violent crime,” said Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the Acting Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.  
 
France’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Nathalie Broadhurst, also criticized Haiti’s government for lack of progress on curbing gang violence. 
 
“I ask this question straightforwardly: How is it possible today that Jimmy Cherizier [notorious Haitian gang leader] is still walking free?” Broadhurst said. “The fight against impunity must be the priority of the authorities.” 
 
Responding to the criticism, Haitian President Jovenel Moise cited progress in dismantling gangs and reducing violence in his speech to the U.N. Security Council. 
 
“Of 102 existing gangs, the government has dismantled 64 and is working to quickly to reestablish security,” he said. 
 
But as chronic insecurity continues in Port-au-Prince, MSF is calling for the respect of health facilities so that patients and staff can access them.  
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Months of lockdowns and pandemic restrictions are taking their toll on Europeans, with many chafing at the prolonged limitations on public life. With vaccine distribution now starting to pick up after a sluggish start in most countries, calls are mounting for an easing of restrictions.Britain is first up, with pressure building for easing after a blisteringly fast rollout of its inoculation program that’s already seen one in three adults in the country receive at least one vaccine dose.In a race against a faster-spreading variant of the virus, more than 18 million people in Britain have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, fueling demands for a speedy end to the country’s lockdown, the third since the pandemic emerged.The ruling Conservatives hope the success of the largest mass vaccination program in the country’s history will erase public memories of the missteps and reversals of last year, which saw ill-disguised clashes between the government, lawmakers and medical advisers. There were more than two dozen abrupt U-turns in policy.But a Conservative popularity bounce risks being lost amid squabbling about when and how quickly pandemic restrictions are lifted, according to lawmakers and analysts. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Monday that his government would take a “cautious” approach to easing a national lockdown, with restrictions lifted every few weeks so the impact can be judged.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a vial of Astra Zeneca coronavirus vaccine during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination center in Orpington, England, Feb. 15, 2021.The prime minister told lawmakers this week that England is going to start “reclaiming our freedoms” with the goal of removing all legal limits on people’s social contact set to end by June 21. His road map for relaxing the country’s lockdown will see schools reopen on March 8 and some outdoor restrictions lifted three weeks later.Hugs could be allowed in May, he said.For some, the planned relaxation is too fast; for others, too slow. And Johnson’s party is becoming restive. Influential Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker lamented the slow pace of relaxation, saying it “will be a hammer blow for aviation, for pubs, for restaurants, hotels, gyms and pools, the arts and the establishment.”Nearly 70,000 finesAnd many Britons are straining at the leash with breaches of pandemic restrictions rising steeply since last month. Police have handed out in the past year nearly 70,000 fines to people for breaking lockdown rules, according to government data, but of those, more than a third were issued since January 17 of this year.Elsewhere in Europe, relaxation seems a distant dream, but public impatience is mounting with the slow vaccination campaigns, which are likely to have electoral consequences.In the Czech Republic, where infections are surging, Prime Minister Andrej Babis has been criticized for sending inconsistent signals about when coronavirus measures will be lifted.FILE – A man wearing a face mask to guard against coronavirus transmission walks across the medieval Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic, Feb. 25, 2021.The country’s parliament has moved to restrict Babis’ powers to tighten restrictions, and the opposition coalition now has overtaken the ruling party in the opinion polls, suggesting voters are losing faith in the government.Despite the fact that the country’s two-week infection rate is three times the EU average and its death rate of 174 people per million is among the worst in Europe, Babis’ government started to loosen a few pandemic restrictions, only to backtrack as health experts denounced the move.Rastislav Maďar, head of the University of Ostrava’s Institute of Epidemiology, told Politico EU, “Many people are fed up and tired of the political games, and now refuse to respect obligatory lockdown rules.”Some relaxationPartly as a result of public pressure, governments in Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark have all tweaked their restrictions to allow some letup on lockdowns.Starting March 1, high school children in Holland will have at least one day in the classroom. Hairdressers and other so-called contact professions can reopen on March 3. Teenagers and adults up to age 27 can play team sports outside. But a nighttime curfew, which triggered several days of riots when introduced, will remain.Denmark, which has been under a lockdown since December, is lifting some restrictions that will see the retail sector reopen. Older school students are expected to be allowed to return to classrooms in regions with low infection rates.FILE – Carabinieri officers patrol an access road to Bollate, in the outskirts of Milan, Italy, Feb. 18, 2021. Italy’s Lombardy region asked the national government Feb. 25 to send more vaccines north to help stem a surge of new COVID cases.And in Italy, high school students are now returning to class, the first time since October, and bars and restaurants in some regions are being allowed again to serve customers at tables and counters until dusk. But a nationwide nighttime curfew remains and travel among Italy’s 20 regions is restricted.In other European countries, lockdowns and severe restrictions are remaining. Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Germany and France aren’t ready for any serious easing. In Germany, the government is coming under increasing pressure to present the public with a road map out of the coronavirus crisis amid growing anger over the snail-paced vaccination campaign.’We envy you’Only 6% of Germans have received at least one shot so far, compared with about 33% of Britons. That huge disparity prompted Bild Zeitung, a major tabloid newspaper, to splash across its front page Wednesday: “Dear Britons, We envy you!” The paper went on to ask, “When will we be as far as the British are?”The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been rebuffing calls for a major relaxation of lockdown rules, saying there has to be a significant reduction in the incidence rate to under 35 per 100,000 first. It currently stands at about 60 per 100,000.At a Tuesday meeting with lawmakers from her ruling Christian Democratic party, Merkel said she understood “the valid desire for an opening up,” but that could be done safely only in “four stages of opening, without a yo-yo effect.”  
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Sweden’s national weather service, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) Thursday reported a new national high temperature for February — 16.8 degrees Celsius.The SMHI confirmed the record on its Twitter account, attributing the high temperatures to the föhnvind, a warm, dry wind that traditionally comes out of the mountains.Record temperatures were also reported Thursday in Poland where Makow Podhalanski hit 21.7 degrees Celsius, and in Slovakia, where the southwestern city of Hurbanovo reported a high of 20.8 Celsius.Winter Weather Hits Parts of Europe, From Poland to Turkey Temperatures dropped to minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 Fahrenheit) in some Polish areas overnight, the coldest night in 11 yearsThursday’s records come as western and central Europe is seeing something of a winter heat wave, with records falling earlier in the week in the Czech Republic, Austria, and in Germany, where on Monday, Hamburg hit 21.1 degrees Celsius — the warmest temperature recorded there in any winter month. Some of the records that fell this week had stood for more than a century.The heat wave comes two weeks after western and central Europe saw a frigid blast of winter, with heavy snowfalls in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. Washington Post meteorologist Matthew Cappucci says the region has seen the wild swing in temperatures thanks to a seesaw effect in the jet stream that earlier in the month brought freezing air down from the pole, and this week brought warm air from the south, including dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa.
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Workers from Latin America are already among the lowest paid in Britain. Now, advocates say the pandemic has left nearly half of them without a job, creating what some are warning is a new migrant crisis in Europe.  For VOA, Joana Ramiro reports from London.
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The World Health Organization said Thursday that one in 10 COVID-19 patients experience persistent ill health 12 weeks after having had the virus and urged health authorities to take their situation seriously.
At a virtual news conference Thursday, WHO’s Europe division released a policy brief that documents how different countries in the region have responded to patients who suffer long-term COVID-19 symptoms.
WHO European director Hans Kluge said so-called “long COVID” can bring symptoms that include severe fatigue, chest pain, heart inflammation, headache, forgetfulness, depression, loss of smell, recurrent fever, diarrhea and ringing in the ears. 
 
The policy brief says available data shows about one in four people with COVID-19 show symptoms about a month after testing positive, while one in 10 experience symptoms after 12 weeks.
Kluge said, “The sufferers of post-COVID conditions need to be heard if we are to understand the long-term consequences and recovery from COVID-19.” He said it is important for policymakers to consider such long-term patients as part of the response to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.  
Kluge added long-term sufferers are a priority for the WHO and should be for every health authority.
Kluge also said there were fewer than one million new COVID-19 cases in Europe for the second consecutive week as transmission continues to slow. He said new cases have declined by almost half since the beginning of the year, which he credited to countries that have implemented new measures to slow transmission.
But Kluge warned that COVID-19 continues to spread at very high rates across Europe, with two variants of concern continuing to displace other variants.
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Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, is worth almost nothing these days. That’s forced the country’s citizens to figure out new ways to put food on their tables. Adriana Nunez Rabascall reports this story narrated by Cristina Smit.
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A Serbian court has sentenced a former mayor to four years in prison for ordering an arson attack on the home of an investigative journalist.In a trial that lasted nearly two years, a court Tuesday found Dragoljub Simonovic guilty of ordering the December 2018 attack on Milan Jovanovic, a reporter for the news website Zig Info. Simonovic, a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), was mayor of Grocka, a municipality near the capital, Belgrade, at the time of the attack.”I hope that this verdict will be the harbinger of more media freedom in Serbia,” Jovanovic told reporters outside the court, adding that he was satisfied with the ruling.Jovanovic and his wife were at home at the time of the attack and had to escape through a window after Molotov cocktails were thrown through a window, according to reports at the time. The journalist suffered smoke inhalation, Milan Jovanovic in front of his burned home, in Belgrade, Serbia, December 2018.Jovanovic said he believed he was targeted for investigating cases of corruption and graft allegedly linked to the mayor.A man accused of carrying out the attack, Aleksandar Marinkovic, was sentenced in absentia by the court.The verdict was a rare case of justice being secured for journalists in a region where press freedoms are withering. Hostile rhetoric, sometimes from politicians, a lack of independence in media regulatory bodies, online attacks on journalists and weak mechanisms to support news associations are among the obstacles for media in the Balkans.Serbia’s ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has also worsened in the past four years, dropping three places in 2020, according to data compiled by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. (RSF)Significant rulingInternational media rights groups welcomed Tuesday’s court ruling.Milan Jovanovic’s burned vehicle and garage, in Belgrade, Serbia, December 2018. (RFE/RL)The conviction of a mastermind was significant in the fight against impunity in attacks on the press, Pavol Szalai, head of the European Union and Balkans desk at RSF, told VOA Serbian.“The arson attack against the home of Milan Jovanovic is an emblematic case for press freedom not only in Serbia, but also in the whole Balkans,” Szalai said, adding that the region was “plagued by impunity” regarding crimes against the media.“When RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire met the Serbian president in 2019, Aleksandar Vucic committed to healing this disease. Today’s verdict is the beginning of the healing process; it is the beginning of the end of impunity for crimes committed against journalists in Serbia,” Szalai said.Noting that Jovanovic and his wife could have been killed in the attack, the media watchdog representative said that RSF would monitor the appeal hearings closely, adding that it was “crucial” that the verdict be confirmed.“Europe is still traumatized by last year’s acquittal of the alleged mastermind of the assassination of Jan Kuciak in Slovakia. If the perpetrators of the attack against Milan Jovanovic are definitively condemned, it will be an important measure to protect the physical security journalists.” Szalai said.Marian Kocner, a powerful businessman in Slovakia, was acquitted last year of involvement in the 2018 slaying of investigative journalist Kuciak. He denied any role in the killing.Milan Jovanovic’s burned vehicle, in Belgrade, Serbia, December 2018. (RFE/RL)The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also welcomed the sentencing.“The verdict is a strong signal from Serbian authorities that acts of violence against journalists will not remain unpunished,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said in a statement forwarded to VOA. “Fighting impunity for such acts is an important step toward preventing further attacks, and it is especially welcome in Serbia where threats, intimidation and acts of violence against journalists are not unprecedented.”Journalist safetySerbia is under pressure to improve press freedom and safety for journalists as part of its steps toward joining the European Union. In its 2020 country report, the European Commission said “cases of threats, intimidation and violence against journalists are still a source of serious concern” in Serbia.Szalai, from RSF, said the country needs to address several issues, including securing justice in crimes against the media and ending verbal assaults and threats, including those from state officials.”Perpetrators of crimes committed against journalists must be swiftly condemned, regardless if they are state officials or not,” Szalai said, adding, “The editorial independence of the public media must be granted, and economic and institutional pressures on the private media’s editorial independence must stop.”Szalai said that law enforcement should also investigate evidence of crime and corruption exposed by reporters. “All these changes would not only contribute to improving media freedom, but also accelerate Serbia’s integration to the EU,” he said.This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from AFP.   
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After 3½ years of living inside a Missouri church to avoid deportation, Honduran immigrant Alex Garcia finally stepped outside Wednesday, following a promise from President Joe Biden’s administration to let him be.Garcia, a married father of five, was slated for removal from the U.S. in 2017, the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration. Days before he would have been deported, Christ Church United Church of Christ in the St. Louis suburb of Maplewood offered sanctuary.Sara John of the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America said Garcia’s decision to leave the church came after Immigration and Customs Enforcement declared that he was no longer a deportation priority, and that the agency would not pursue his detention or removal.Garcia, in a statement, said he was separated from living with his family for 1,252 days. A crowd of about 100 people cheered as he and his family left the church Wednesday.”We are not done yet,” Garcia said. “There is still so much work that has to be done and I look forward to being able to join you all out there in the community and continue to fight for my permanent protection.”In his first weeks as president, Biden has signed several executive orders on immigration issues that undo his predecessor’s policies, though several Republican members of Congress are pushing legal challenges.Myrna Orozco, organizing coordinator at Church World Service, said 33 immigrants remain inside churches across the U.S., a number that should continue to drop.”We expect it to change in the next couple of weeks as we get more clarity from ICE or [immigrants] get a decision on their cases,” Orozco said.Others emergeOthers who have emerged from sanctuary since Biden took office include Jose Chicas, a 55-year-old El Salvador native, who left a church-owned house in Durham, North Carolina, on January 22. Saheeda Nadeem, 65, of Pakistan, left a Kalamazoo, Michigan, church this month. Edith Espinal, a native of Mexico, left an Ohio church after more than three years.In Maplewood, Pastor Becky Turner said Garcia has become a valued part of the church family.”The hearts of all of us at Christ Church are overflowing today,” Turner said. “God has answered our prayers for Alex Garcia to live freely, without the threat of being separated from his family.”Garcia’s exit came just two days after U.S. Representative Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat, announced she was sponsoring a private bill seeking permanent residency for Garcia. Bush said Wednesday that she would still push the bill forward.”ICE has promised not to deport Alex, and we will stop at nothing to ensure that they keep their promise,” Bush said in a statement.Garcia fled extreme poverty and violence in Honduras, his advocates have said. After entering the U.S. in 2004, he hopped a train that he thought was headed for Houston, but instead ended up in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, a town of about 17,000 residents in the southeastern corner of the state.He landed a job and met his wife, Carly, a U.S. citizen, and for more than a decade they lived quietly with their blended family.In 2015, Garcia accompanied his sister to an immigration office for a check-in in Kansas City, Missouri, where officials realized Garcia was in the country illegally. He received two one-year reprieves during Barack Obama’s administration. 
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German customs authorities Wednesday announced the largest seizure of cocaine in European history, more than 23 tons discovered in two raids this month at ports in Hamburg, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium.German customs official Rene Matchke told reporters the 28-year-old owner of a Dutch import company was arrested Wednesday in the Netherlands, where police say both shipments were bound.  German officers had first discovered 16 tons of cocaine hidden in containers from Paraguay at the port of Hamburg February 12, following a tip from a Netherlands-based company. German and Dutch investigations led the officials Sunday to seize another 7.2 tons of cocaine at the port of Antwerp.German and Dutch police confirm the two shipments account for the largest amount of cocaine confiscated in a criminal investigation, and one of the top five in the world.  German customs officials say the investigation is ongoing and that they do not believe the man who was arrested acted alone. They say the drug haul would have been worth billions of dollars.
 
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