Greece and Turkey opened their first direct talks in nearly five years in Istanbul Monday to discuss long-standing maritime disputes in the eastern Mediterranean.Relations between Athens and Ankara were exacerbated in August of last year when Turkey deployed a survey vessel in contested Mediterranean waters and gunboats from the two countries collided.Disputes over energy sources and borders also have threatened to spiral out of control.Greece and Turkey, both members of the NATO military alliance, made insignificant progress in several dozen rounds of talks between 2002 and 2016.The European Union and NATO had pressed hard on Ankara and Athens to sit down at the negotiating table. They agreed early this month to resume talks in Istanbul, with Turkey hoping to improve its relations with the 27-member block.On Saturday, however, Athens expressed willingness to only discuss issues of mutual economic interests and the continental shelf in the eastern Mediterranean, but not issues of “national sovereignty.”  Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his country would approach the talks with optimism but “zero naivety.”  On his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped returning to negotiation table would “herald a new era.”The EU has supported Greece, a member of the group, in its disputes with neighboring Turkey, and threatened sanctions on Turkey, but has postponed imposing them until March of this year.
…

Venezuela’s Juan Guaido is a “privileged interlocutor” but no longer considered interim president, European Union states said in a statement on Monday, sticking by their decision to downgrade his status.The EU’s 27 states had said on Jan. 6 they could no longer legally recognize Guaido as after he lost his position as head of parliament following legislative elections in Venezuela in December, despite the EU not recognizing that vote.Following the disputed re-election of President Nicolas Maduro in 2018, Guaido, as head of parliament, became interim president. Guaido is still seen by the United States and Britain as Venezuela’s rightful leader.The status of interim president gives Guaido access to funds confiscated from Maduro by Western governments, as well as affording him access to top officials and supporting his pro-democracy movement domestically and internationally.The 27 EU members said in a joint statement that he was part of the democratic opposition – despite a resolution by the European Parliament last week for EU governments to maintain Guaido’s position as head of state.”The EU repeats its calls for … the freedom and safety of all political opponents, in particular representatives of the opposition parties elected to the National Assembly of 2015, and especially Juan Guaido,” the statement said following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.The EU considers them to be important actors and privileged interlocutors,” it said, calling for the opposition to unite against the disputed rule of Maduro.The assembly elected in 2015 was held by the opposition, whereas the new assembly is in the hands of Maduro’s allies, after the opposition called on Venezuelans to boycott the vote.Guaido last week thanked the European Parliament for recognizing him as president of the National Assembly, a committee of lawmakers who assert they are the country’s legitimate legislature, arguing the 2020 parliamentary elections were fraudulent.
…

Argentina’s groundbreaking abortion law went into force Sunday under the watchful eyes of women’s groups and government officials, who hope to ensure its full implementation despite opposition from some conservative and church groups.  Argentina became the largest nation in Latin America to legalize elective abortion after its Senate on December 30 passed a law guaranteeing the procedure up to the 14th week of pregnancy and beyond that in cases of rape or when a woman’s health is at risk.  The vote was hailed as a triumph for the South American country’s feminist movement that could pave the way for similar actions across the socially conservative, heavily Roman Catholic region. But Pope Francis had issued a last-minute appeal before the vote and church leaders have criticized the decision. Supporters of the law say they expect lawsuits from anti-abortion groups in Argentina’s conservative provinces and some private health clinics might refuse to carry out the procedure.  “Another huge task lies ahead of us,” said Argentina’s minister of women, gender and diversity, Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, who has acknowledged there will be obstacles to the law’s full implementation across the country.  Gómez Alcorta said a telephone line will be set up “for those who cannot access abortion to communicate.”A smiley pillow sits on a gynecological table at Casa Fusa, a health center that advices women on reproductive issues and performs legal abortions, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Jan. 22, 2021.The Argentine Catholic Church has repudiated the law and conservative doctors’ and lawyers’ groups have urged resistance. Doctors and health professionals can claim conscientious objection to performing abortions but cannot invoke the right if a pregnant woman’s life or health is in danger. A statement signed by the Consortium of Catholic Doctors, the Catholic Lawyers Corporation and other groups called on doctors and lawyers to “resist with nobility, firmness and courage the norm that legalizes the abominable crime of abortion.” The anti-abortion group Unidad Provida also urged doctors, nurses and technicians to fight for their “freedom of conscience” and promised to “accompany them in all the trials that are necessary.”  Under the law, private health centers that do not have doctors willing to carry out abortions must refer women seeking abortions to clinics that will. Any public official or health authority who unjustifiably delays an abortion will be punished with imprisonment from three months to one year. The National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion, an umbrella group for organizations that for years fought for legal abortion, often wearing green scarves at protests, vowed to “continue monitoring compliance with the law.” “We trust the feminist networks that we have built over decades,” said Laura Salomé, one of the movement’s members. A previous abortion bill was voted down by Argentine lawmakers in 2018 by a narrow margin. But in the December vote it was backed by the center-left government, boosted by the so-called “piba” revolution, from the Argentine slang for “girls,” and opinion polls showing opposition had softened. The law’s supporters expect backlash in Argentina’s conservative provinces. In the northern province of Salta, a federal judge this week rejected a measure filed by a former legislator calling for the law to be suspended because the legislative branch had exceeded its powers. Opponents of abortion cite international treaties signed by Argentina pledging to protect life from conception. Gómez Alcorta said criminal charges currently pending against more than 1,500 women and doctors who performed abortions should be lifted. She said the number of women and doctors detained “was not that many,” but didn’t provide a number. “The Ministry of Women is going to carry out its leadership” to end these cases, she said.  While abortion is already allowed in some other parts of Latin America — such as in Uruguay, Cuba and Mexico City — its legalization in Argentina is expected to reverberate across the region, where dangerous clandestine procedures remain the norm a half century after a woman’s right to choose was guaranteed in the U.S. 
…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Sunday he has tested positive for COVID-19 and that the symptoms are mild.Mexico’s president, who has been criticized for his handling of his country’s pandemic, said on his official Twitter account that he is under medical treatment.“I regret to inform you that I am infected with COVID-19,” he tweeted. “The symptoms are mild but I am already under medical treatment. As always, I am optimistic. We will all move forward…”Lamento informarles que estoy contagiado de COVID-19. Los síntomas son leves pero ya estoy en tratamiento médico. Como siempre, soy optimista. Saldremos adelante todos. Me representará la Dra. Olga Sánchez Cordero en las mañaneras para informar como lo hacemos todos los días.— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) January 25, 2021Lopez Obrador, 67, has long been criticized for not setting an example of prevention in public. He has rarely been seen wearing a mask and continued to keep up a busy travel schedule taking commercial flights.He has resisted locking down the economy, noting the devastating effect it would have on so many Mexicans who live day to day.Early in the pandemic, asked how he was protecting Mexico, Lopez Obrador removed two religious amulets from his wallet and proudly showed them off.“The protective shield is the ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’” Lopez Obrador said, reading off the inscription on the amulet, “Stop, enemy, for the Heart of Jesus is with me.”His announcement came shortly after news emerged that he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday about obtaining doses of the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said via Twitter the two leaders would speak about the bilateral relationship and supplying doses of the vaccine.The vaccine has not been approved for use in Mexico, but the government is desperate to fill supply gaps for the Pfizer vaccine. Mexico has given more than 618,000 vaccine doses.Mexico has registered nearly 150,000 COVID-19 deaths and more than 1.7 million infections. Hospitals in the capital have been near capacity for weeks as a surge of cases followed the holiday season. 
 
…

Rioters set fires in the center of the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven and pelted police with rocks Sunday at a banned demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannons, arresting at least 55 people.Police in the capital of Amsterdam 125 kilometers (78 miles) away also used a water cannon to disperse an outlawed anti-lockdown demonstration on a major square ringed by museums. Video showed police spraying people grouped against a wall of the Van Gogh Museum.It was the worst violence to hit the Netherlands since the pandemic began and the second straight Sunday that police clashed with protesters in Amsterdam. The country has been in a tough lockdown since mid-December that is set to continue at least until Feb. 9. The government beefed up the lockdown with a 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. curfew that went into force Saturday.Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus condemned the violence.”This has nothing to do with demonstrating against corona measures,” Grapperhaus said in a statement. “This is simply criminal behavior; people who deliberately target police, riot police, journalists and other aid workers.”In Eindhoven, south of Amsterdam, a central square near the main railway station was littered with rocks, bicycles and shattered glass. The crowd of hundreds of demonstrators also was believed to include supporters of the anti-immigrant group PEGIDA, which had sought to demonstrate in the city.Eindhoven police said they made at least 55 arrests and warned people to stay away from the city center amid the clashes. Trains to and from the station were halted and local media reported plundering at the station.A woman not involved in the protests was hospitalized after being injured by a police horse, police said.Police said more than 100 people were arrested in Amsterdam.  Dutch media reported unrest in other Dutch towns Sunday night with people protesting the curfew.The violence came a day after anti-curfew rioters torched a coronavirus testing facility in the Dutch fishing village of Urk.Video from Urk, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Amsterdam, showed youths breaking into the coronavirus testing facility near the village’s harbor before it was set ablaze Saturday night.The lockdown was imposed by the Dutch government to rein in the spread of the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.Police said they fined more than 3,600 people nationwide for breaching the curfew that ran from 9 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested 25 people for breaching the curfew or for violence.The police and municipal officials issued a statement Sunday expressing their anger at rioting, “from throwing fireworks and stones to destroying police cars and with the torching of the test location as a deep point.””This is not only unacceptable, but also a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who do all they can at the test center to help people from Urk,” the local authorities said, adding that the curfew would be strictly enforced for the rest of the week.On Sunday, all that remained of the portable testing building was a burned-out shell.
 
…

Estonia’s two biggest political parties clinched a deal Sunday to form a new government to be led by a female prime minister for the first time in the Baltic country’s history, replacing the previous Cabinet that collapsed in a corruption scandal earlier this month.  The party councils of the opposition, center-right Reform Party and the ruling, left-leaning Center Party, voted in favor of joining a Cabinet headed by Reform’s prime minister-designate and chairwoman, Kaja Kallas.Both parties are set to have seven ministerial portfolios in addition to Kallas’ prime minister post in the 15-member government, which would muster a majority in the 101-seat Riigikogu Parliament.A joint statement said the Reform Party and the Center Party “will form a government that will continue to effectively resolve the COVID-19 crisis, keep Estonia forward-looking and develop all areas and regions of our country.”Earlier this month, President Kersti Kaljulaid, who is expected to appoint Kallas’ Cabinet in the next few days, said tackling Estonia’s worsening coronavirus situation and the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic should be an immediate priority for the new government.  Kaljulaid tasked Kallas to form the government as her pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship Reform Party emerged as the winner of Estonia’s March 2019 general election.  Pending approval from lawmakers, Kallas, 43, will become the first female head of government in the history of the small Baltic nation of 1.3 million, which regained its independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.  A lawyer and former European Parliament lawmaker, Kallas is the daughter of Siim Kallas, one of the Reform Party’s creators, a former prime minister and a former European Union commissioner.  Kaja Kallas took the reins at the Reform Party in 2018 as its first female chair. Her first Cabinet will see women in other key positions too as Reform’s Keit Pentus-Rosimannus takes over the finance minister post and diplomat Eva-Maria Liimets becomes the foreign minister.  The government formation marks the second such attempt for Kallas in less than two years as she failed to bring about a Reform Party-led government after the 2019 election. That paved the way for the archrival Center Party and its leader, Juri Ratas, to form a three-party coalition without the Reform Party.Ratas and his Cabinet resigned on Jan. 13 over a scandal involving a key official at his Center Party suspected of accepting a private donation for the party in exchange for a political favor on a real estate development at the harbor district of the capital, Tallinn.  Ratas’ government, which took office in April 2019, was shaky from the start as the coalition included the populist EKRE, the nation’s third-largest party, which runs on a nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda.  The strong rhetoric of the EKRE leaders, Mart Helme and his son Martin Helme, created several embarrassing situations for Ratas’ government with public statements that were seen as insulting to Estonia’s international allies and tarnishing the country’s image, and which brought the government to the brink of collapse at least twice.Kallas rejected including EKRE members in her Cabinet, citing considerable differences in values. Reform Party defines itself on its website as “the leader of the liberal worldview in Estonia.”Kallas acknowledged earlier to Estonian media that her Cabinet would embark on a diplomatic mission to regain trust among the country’s allies and assure them of Estonia’s new political course.Estonia has been a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004.
 
…

Honeybees in Bolivia’s mountains are in trouble. Their natural habitat is disappearing, being replaced by an environment they cannot call home. One couple in one of the country’s forest regions is fighting to save them. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

Hundreds of people remained behind bars in Russia Sunday, a day after they were arrested for joining nationwide street protests demanding the release of jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. Navalny was detained a week ago upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he spent the last several months recovering from a nearly fatal poisoning attack he blames on the Russian government, which denies the charge. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.
 
Camera: Ricardo Marquina
…

Dutch police said Saturday they had arrested the alleged leader of an Asian drug syndicate who is listed as one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives and has been compared to Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian national, was detained Friday at the request of Australian police, who led an investigation that found his organization dominates the $70 billion-a-year Asia-Pacific drug trade, Dutch police spokesman Thomas Aling said.Tse is expected to be extradited after appearing before a judge, Aling said, adding that his arrest by national police took place without incident at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.”He was already on the most-wanted list and he was detained based on intelligence we received,” Aling said.Dutch police were unable to provide details about the legal proceedings and it was not clear if Tse had a lawyer.Tse, an ex-convict who formerly lived in Toronto, has moved between Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years, according to counternarcotics officers from four countries and documents previously reviewed by Reuters.”Tse Chi Lop is in the league of ‘El Chapo’ or maybe Pablo Escobar,” Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told Reuters in 2019, referring to Latin America’s most notorious drug lords.The syndicate he is suspected of running is known to its members as “The Company.” Law enforcers also refer to it as “Sam Gor” — or Brother Number Three in Cantonese — after one of Tse’s nicknames, Reuters reported at the time.It was unable to contact Tse for comment on the report.The Australian Federal Police (AFP), which has taken the lead in a sprawling investigation into the criminal organization, identified Tse as “the senior leader of the Sam Gor syndicate.”The group has “been connected with or directly involved in at least 13 cases” of drug trafficking since January 2015, the documents showed.
…

Portugal held a presidential election Sunday, with the moderate incumbent candidate strongly favored to earn a second five-year term as a devastating COVID-19 surge grips the European Union nation. The head of state in Portugal has no legislative powers, which lie with parliament and the government, but is an influential voice in the running of the country. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, 72, is regarded as the clear front-runner among seven candidates. He is an affable law professor and former television personality who as president has consistently had an approval rating of 60% or more. To win, a candidate must capture more than 50% of the vote. But a severe surge in coronavirus infections in recent days could keep the turnout low and perhaps lead to a Feb. 14 runoff between the two top candidates. Portugal has the world’s highest rates of new daily infections and deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, and the public health system is under huge strain. Authorities have increased the number of polling stations and allowed for early voting to reduce crowding on election day. In other precautions, voters were asked to bring their own pens and disinfectant to polling stations. Everyone voting wore a mask and kept a safe distance from each other. Prime Minister António Costa, in a tweet, urged people to turn out for the ballot, saying that “unprecedented planning” had gone into ensuring that the vote can take place safely. With the country in lockdown, the election campaign featured none of the usual flag-waving rallies but restrictions on movement were lifted for polling day. Among the incumbent’s six challengers, right-wing populist André Ventura has attracted curiosity as the first extremist to break into Portuguese mainstream politics. Ventura, 37, could conceivably place second, likely far behind Rebelo de Sousa but drawing a level of support that until recently was unthinkable. That development has unsettled national politics. Rebelo de Sousa, a former leader of the center-right Social Democratic Party, has worked closely with the center-left minority Socialist government, supporting its pandemic efforts. He also has endeared himself to the Portuguese with his easygoing style. Photographs taken by passers-by of him in public places, such as one last year of him standing in line at a supermarket wearing sneakers and shorts, routinely go viral. Portugal has 10.8 million registered voters, some 1.5 million of them living abroad. Exit polls were to be published Sunday night, with most results expected by midnight. Every Portuguese president since 1976, when universal suffrage was introduced following the departure of a dictatorship, has been returned for a second term. No woman or member of an ethnic minority has ever held the post. 
…

The unrelenting increase in COVID-19 infections in Spain following the holiday season is again straining hospitals, threatening the mental health of doctors and nurses who have been at the forefront of the pandemic for nearly a year.In Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, the critical care capacity has more than doubled and is nearly full, with 80% of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients.“There are young people of 20-something-years-old and older people of 80-years-old, all the age groups,” said Dr. Joan Ramon Masclans, who heads the ICU. “This is very difficult, and it is one patient after another.”Even though authorities allowed gatherings of up to 10 people for Christmas and New Year celebrations, Masclans chose not to join his family and spent the holidays at home with his partner.“We did it to preserve our health and the health of others. And when you see that this isn’t being done (by others) it causes significant anger, added to the fatigue,” he said.A study released this month by Hospital del Mar looking at the impact of the spring’s COVID-19 surge on more than 9,000 health workers across Spain found that at least 28% suffered major depression. That is six times higher than the rate in the general population before the pandemic, said Dr. Jordi Alonso, one of the chief researchers.In addition, the study found that nearly half of participants had a high risk of anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks or substance- and alcohol-abuse problems.Spanish health care workers are far from the only ones to have suffered psychologically from the pandemic. In China, the levels of mental disorders among doctors and nurses were even higher, with 50% reporting depression, 45% reporting anxiety and 34% reporting insomnia, according to the World Health Organization.In the U.K., a survey released last week by the Royal College of Physicians found that 64% of doctors reported feeling tired or exhausted. One in four sought out mental health support.“It is pretty awful at the moment in the world of medicine,” Dr. Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said in a statement accompanying the study. “Hospital admissions are at the highest-ever level, staff are exhausted, and although there is light at the end of the tunnel, that light seems a long way away.”Dr. Aleix Carmona, a third-year anesthesiology resident in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, didn’t have much ICU experience before the pandemic hit. But as surgeries were cancelled, Carmona was summoned to the ICU at the Moisès Broggi hospital outside Barcelona to fight a virus the world knew very little about.“In the beginning, we had a lot of adrenaline. We were very frightened, but we had a lot of energy,” Carmona recalled. He plowed through the first weeks of the pandemic without having much time to process the unprecedented battle that was unfolding.It wasn’t until after the second month that he began feeling the toll of seeing first-hand how people were slowly dying as they ran out of breath. He pondered what to tell patients before intubating them. His initial reaction had always been to reassure them, tell them it would be alright. But in some cases, he knew that wasn’t true.“I started having difficulty sleeping and a feeling of anxiety before each shift,” Carmona said, adding that he would return home after 12 hours feeling like he had been beaten up.For a while he could only sleep with the help of medication. Some colleagues started taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. What really helped Carmona, though, was a support group at his hospital, where his co-workers unloaded the experiences they had bottled up inside.But not everyone joined the group. For many, asking for help would make them seem unfit for the job.“In our profession, we can handle a lot,” said David Oliver, a spokesman for the Catalonia chapter of the SATSE union of nurses. “We don’t want to take time off because we know we will add to the workload of our colleagues.”The most affected group of health care workers, according to the study, were nurse’s aides and nurses, who are overwhelmingly women and often immigrants. They spent more time with dying COVID-19 patients, faced poor working conditions and salaries and feared infecting family members.Desirée Ruiz is the nurse supervisor at Hospital del Mar’s critical care unit. Some nurses on her team have asked to take time off work, unable to cope with the constant stress and all the deaths.To prevent infections, patients are rarely allowed family visits, adding to their dependency on nurses. Delivering a patient’s last wishes or words to relatives on the phone is especially challenging, Ruiz said.“This is very hard for … people who are holding the hand of these patients, even though they know they will end up dying,” she said.Ruiz, who organizes the nurses’ shifts and makes sure the ICU is always staffed adequately, is finding it harder and harder to do so.Unlike in the summer, when the number of cases fell and health workers were encouraged to take holidays, doctors and nurses have been working incessantly since the fall, when virus cases picked up again.The latest resurgence has nearly doubled the number of daily cases seen in November, and Spain now has the third highest COVID-19 infection rate in Europe and the fourth-highest death toll, with more than 55,400 confirmed fatalities.But unlike many European countries, including neighboring Portugal, the Spanish health minister has for now ruled out the possibility of a new lockdown, relying instead on less drastic restrictions that aren’t as damaging to the economy but take longer to decrease the rate of infections.Alonso fears the latest surge of virus patients could be as detrimental to the mental health of medical staff as the shock of the pandemic’s first months.“If we want to be cared for adequately, we also need to take care of the health care workers, who have suffered and are still suffering,” he said. 
…

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Saturday off the coast of Antarctica, with authorities issuing a tsunami warning for Chile’s Eduardo Frei base on the frigid continent, emergency officials said.The quake struck at 8:36 p.m. local time (2336 GMT) about 210 kilometers east of the base at a depth of 10 kilometers, Chile’s National Emergency Office (Onemi) said, urging evacuation from “the beach area of the Antarctic” ahead of a possible tsunami.The Chilean air force’s base is the country’s largest in Antarctica and includes a village, hospital, school, bank, post office and chapel.The maximum population in summer is 150 people, and the average population in winter is 80.An unrelated 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck near Santiago on Saturday night, but Onemi said no significant damage or impact was reported.Chile is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. An 8.8 magnitude temblor in Concepcion on February 27, 2010, left more than 500 dead.The country suffered the most powerful earthquake ever recorded 60 years ago — measuring 9.6 magnitude — in Valdivia. 
…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made clear to President Joe Biden on Saturday that he’s eager to forge a new U.S.-Britain trade deal.Johnson’s push for a deal came during a wide-ranging call between the two leaders that touched on the global response to the coronavirus pandemic as well as the Biden administration’s announcement this week that the U.S. would rejoin the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization, according to a statement from Downing Street.A new trade agreement between the allies is a higher priority for Johnson than it is for Biden. Britain regained control over its national trade policy at the start of the month following the end of a post-Brexit transition period.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that the administration had no timeline for forging a new trade deal because Biden’s attention was largely focused on getting the coronavirus pandemic under control and pressing Congress to pass the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.The call with Johnson was at least Biden’s third call with a foreign counterpart since Friday. The president spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday evening.Aid to halt immigrationOn Saturday, Lopez Obrador said Biden told him the U.S. would send $4 billion to help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States.López Obrador said that during their Friday call, the two discussed immigration and the need to address the root causes of why people migrate. Mexico has stopped recent attempts by caravans of Central American migrants to cross Mexico.FILE – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his daily news conference at the presidential palace in Mexico City, Dec. 18, 2020.Biden’s call with López Obrador came at a tense moment, days after the Mexican president accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating drug trafficking charges against the country’s former defense secretary.But López Obrador said in a statement Friday that the conversation with Biden was “friendly and respectful.”Biden’s call to Trudeau came after the Canadian prime minister this week publicly expressed disappointment at Biden’s decision to issue an executive order halting construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The long-disputed project was projected to carry about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands of Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.Biden told Trudeau that by issuing the order he was following through on a campaign pledge, a senior Canadian government official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.The White House said in a statement that Biden acknowledged Trudeau’s disappointment with his Keystone decision.’Perfect alignment’ is rareTrudeau told reporters before the call Friday that he wouldn’t allow his differences with Biden over the project to become a source of tension in the U.S.-Canada relationship.FILE – Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a news conference in Ottawa, July 13, 2020.”It’s not always going to be perfect alignment with the United States,” Trudeau said. “That’s the case with any given president, but we’re in a situation where we are much more aligned on values and focus. I am very much looking forward to working with President Biden.”Biden and Trudeau also discussed the prospects of Canada being supplied with the COVID-19 vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, according to a second senior Canadian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.Canada has been getting all of its Pfizer doses from a Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium, but Pfizer has informed Canada it won’t get any doses next week and will get 50% less than expected over the next three weeks. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has publicly asked Biden to share a million doses made at Pfizer’s Michigan facility.The U.S. federal government has an agreement with Pfizer in which the first 100 million doses of the vaccine produced in the U.S. will be owned by the U.S. government and will be distributed in the U.S.The two leaders also spoke broadly about trade, defense and climate issues. Trudeau also raised the cases of two Canadians imprisoned in China in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Huawei executive, who was apprehended in Canada on a U.S. extradition request, according to the prime minister’s office.  
…

Tens of thousands of supporters of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny thronged the streets of Russia on Saturday, defying warnings from authorities that those attending faced police arrest and additional health risks because of the coronavirus.The protests were called for by Navalny after he was jailed upon his return to Russia last weekend from Germany, where he’d been recovering from a poisoning attack that nearly killed him last August.Independent monitoring group OVD-Info reported about 3,200 arrests as of 1:45 a.m. Sunday Moscow time, including Navalny’s wife, Yulia, and his aide, politician Lyubov Sobol. Several dozen journalists were also detained.Yulia Navalnaya confirmed her arrest in Moscow in an Instagram post created from inside a police van, apologizing for the look of her posting.FILE – Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.“Sorry for poor quality. Very bad light in a paddy wagon,” she wrote Saturday.Thousands of Navalny’s supporters were in the streets of more than 60 Russian cities to demand the Kremlin critic’s immediate release, defying the measures taken by police to break up the protests, which they have declared illegal.In Moscow, thousands of masked protesters gathered in the city’s central Pushkin Square with shouts of “Let him go!” and “Alexei! Alexei!”Demonstrators also held signs that read “Freedom for Navalny” and “I’m not afraid.””If they arrest me, well, OK, I’ll miss a day or two of work,” said Dmitry, 55, in an interview with VOA.”I’m here thinking of my children and their futures. Because I absolutely don’t like what’s happening now in our country these days,” he added.Law enforcement officers stand in front of participants during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Kazan, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.Many of the demonstrators were in their 20s and some even in their teens — a fact government officials have seized on, accusing Navalny of luring minors into harm’s way.“I’ve known only one president my whole life and I’m tired of him,” said Ksenia, 24, in explaining why she’d come.“I didn’t come out for Navalny. I came out for me,” said Daria, 17, a high school senior.  “I want my country to change.”Crowds also overflowed onto the surrounding side streets and along the city’s main Tverskaya thoroughfare.Drivers blared their horns in a near constant drone of support for the demonstrators.Most out on the streets appeared peaceful. Yet, toward evening, some protesters were seen pelting OMON riot police units and a car belonging to the Federal Security Services (FSB) with snowballs. The driver reportedly was injured after being hit in the eye.Nearby, a smoke grenade had been lobbed into the area, apparently from a demonstrator, filling the air with an acrid smell.Throughout the day, various witness videos posted to social media showed riot police roughly detaining protesters, in some cases beating demonstrators with batons. There were reports of multiple injuries.Riot police detain a young woman during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Pushkin square in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021. Russian police made thousands of arrests in nationwide protests.Dozens of Navalny supporters were arrested during a standoff outside Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison where Navalny was being held.In one graphic scene in St. Petersburg, an OMON riot trooper was filmed kicking a woman in the stomach — sending her sprawling after she asked about the arrest of another demonstrator.Russia’s state RIA-Novosti news service reported 39 policemen had received minor injuries during the day.Navalny’s national reachThe turnout provided further evidence that Navalny has built a national presence across the country, despite a near total ban on coverage in state media.Indeed, Navalny’s popularity has grown largely based on a savvy social media campaign and online video investigations that purport to uncover corruption among the Kremlin elite.Even this week, with Navalny in prison, his team released a lengthy video online that alleges discovery of a lavish palace secretly built for President Vladimir Putin.Despite denials from the Kremlin of the investigation’s veracity, the film quickly garnered 70 million views.Ahead of Saturday’s rally, police rounded up key Navalny associates from his field offices and sentenced them to prison stays ranging from nine to 28 days.Law enforcement officers stand guard during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.Earlier this week, a judge sentenced Navalny to 30 days in prison pending charges of violating parole while recovering abroad.The hearing was held in a makeshift courtroom inside the police station, proceedings Navalny labeled as “beyond the height of lawlessness” before calling for Russias to take to the streets in response.“The way they arrested him was against our constitution,” said Ilya, 23, a demonstrator in Moscow. “If they can do it to a person like Navalny — with millions of followers online — they can do it to us.”Despite the large turnout, however, it was unclear whether demonstrators had made any progress on their central demand for Navalny’s release.The opposition leader’s chief strategist announced a follow-up protest would be held again next weekend.“If enough of us come out, then they’ll have to let him go,” said Yuri, 22, who was passing out small Russian flags on Pushkin Square in Moscow.“We’re the real patriots of our country. Not those who steal from the people,” he added.Wayne Lee contributed to this report.  
…

Tens of thousands of supporters of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny thronged the streets of Russia on Saturday, defying warnings from authorities that those attending faced police arrest and additional health risks because of the coronavirus.The protests were called for by Navalny after he was jailed upon his return to Russia last weekend from Germany, where he’d been recovering from a poisoning attack that nearly killed him last August.Independent monitoring group OVD-Info reported more than 2,700 arrests as of Saturday night, including Navalny’s wife, Yulia, and his aide, politician Lyubov Sobol. Several dozen journalists were also detained.Yulia Navalnaya confirmed her arrest in Moscow in an Instagram post created from inside a police van, apologizing for the look of her posting.FILE – Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.“Sorry for poor quality. Very bad light in a paddy wagon,” she wrote Saturday.Thousands of Navalny’s supporters were in the streets of more than 60 Russian cities to demand the Kremlin critic’s immediate release, defying the measures taken by police to break up the protests, which they have declared illegal.In Moscow, thousands of masked protesters gathered in the city’s central Pushkin Square with shouts of “Let him go!” and “Alexei! Alexei!”Demonstrators also held signs that read “Freedom for Navalny” and “I’m not afraid.””If they arrest me, well, OK, I’ll miss a day or two of work,” said Dmitry, 55, in an interview with VOA.”I’m here thinking of my children and their futures. Because I absolutely don’t like what’s happening now in our country these days,” he added.Law enforcement officers stand in front of participants during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Kazan, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.Many of the demonstrators were in their 20s and some even in their teens — a fact government officials have seized on, accusing Navalny of luring minors into harm’s way.“I’ve known only one president my whole life and I’m tired of him,” said Ksenia, 24, in explaining why she’d come.“I didn’t come out for Navalny. I came out for me,” said Daria, 17, a high school senior.  “I want my country to change.”Crowds also overflowed onto the surrounding side streets and along the city’s main Tverskaya thoroughfare.Drivers blared their horns in a near constant drone of support for the demonstrators.Most out on the streets appeared peaceful. Yet, toward evening, some protesters were seen pelting OMON riot police units and a car belonging to the Federal Security Services (FSB) with snowballs. The driver reportedly was injured after being hit in the eye.Nearby, a smoke grenade had been lobbed into the area, apparently from a demonstrator, filling the air with an acrid smell.Throughout the day, various witness videos posted to social media showed riot police roughly detaining protesters, in some cases beating demonstrators with batons. There were reports of multiple injuries.Riot police detain a young woman during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Pushkin square in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021. Russian police made thousands of arrests in nationwide protests.Dozens of Navalny supporters were arrested during a standoff outside Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison where Navalny was being held.In one graphic scene in St. Petersburg, an OMON riot trooper was filmed kicking a woman in the stomach — sending her sprawling after she asked about the arrest of another demonstrator.Russia’s state RIA-Novosti news service reported 39 policemen had received minor injuries during the day.Navalny’s national reachThe turnout provided further evidence that Navalny has built a national presence across the country, despite a near total ban on coverage in state media.Indeed, Navalny’s popularity has grown largely based on a savvy social media campaign and online video investigations that purport to uncover corruption among the Kremlin elite.Even this week, with Navalny in prison, his team released a lengthy video online that alleges discovery of a lavish palace secretly built for President Vladimir Putin.Despite denials from the Kremlin of the investigation’s veracity, the film quickly garnered 70 million views.Ahead of Saturday’s rally, police rounded up key Navalny associates from his field offices and sentenced them to prison stays ranging from nine to 28 days.Law enforcement officers stand guard during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.Earlier this week, a judge sentenced Navalny to 30 days in prison pending charges of violating parole while recovering abroad.The hearing was held in a makeshift courtroom inside the police station, proceedings Navalny labeled as “beyond the height of lawlessness” before calling for Russias to take to the streets in response.“The way they arrested him was against our constitution,” said Ilya, 23, a demonstrator in Moscow. “If they can do it to a person like Navalny — with millions of followers online — they can do it to us.”Despite the large turnout, however, it was unclear whether demonstrators had made any progress on their central demand for Navalny’s release.The opposition leader’s chief strategist announced a follow-up protest would be held again next weekend.“If enough of us come out, then they’ll have to let him go,” said Yuri, 22, who was passing out small Russian flags on Pushkin Square in Moscow.“We’re the real patriots of our country. Not those who steal from the people,” he added.Wayne Lee contributed to this report. 
…

The wife of opposition leader Alexei Navalny is among hundreds of Nalvany supporters Russian police have arrested Saturday during protests across the country.Yulia Navalnaya confirmed her arrest in Moscow in an Instagram post created from inside a police van, apologizing for the look of her posting. “Sorry for poor quality. Very bad light in a paddy wagon,” she wrote Saturday.FILE – Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.Thousands of Navalny’s supporters were in the streets of more than 60 Russian cities Saturday to demand the Kremlin critic’s immediate release, defying the measures taken by police to break up the protests, which they have declared illegal.The protests started in the Far East and Siberia, including Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Chita, with thousands of participants, according to Navalny supporters.In Khabarovsk, a Russian city on the border with China, about 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow, pro-Navalny protesters clashed with police trying to prevent the gathering.Law enforcement officers stand guard during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.The nationwide protests are the first organized by Navalny’s supporters since he returned from Germany, where he was recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent. He was arrested immediately on his arrival in Moscow.Navalny has openly accused President Vladimir Putin of ordering Russia’s security services to carry out the poisoning, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.The United States and other Western countries have strongly condemned Navalny’s arrest and demanded his unconditional release.
…

Five members of the U.S. House of Representatives Friday urged President Joe Biden’s administration to confront what they said is a growing threat from Russia against Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.“We urge the Biden administration to engage the Russian government immediately” on the matter, the five – Democratic Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, senior committee Republican Michael McCaul, Democrat Marcy Kaptur, Republican Adam Kinzinger, and Democrat William Keating — wrote in a letter to Biden.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded news organization, is facing multimillion-dollar fines and possible criminal charges against its employees after Russia accused it of violating the country’s foreign agents law. New amendments to the law require media organizations that receive foreign funding to label all their content as being produced by a “foreign agent.”The House members noted that RFE/RL journalists have refused to label their content as such “for fear it will discredit their work.”They urged the Biden administration to immediately make clear to the Russian government that “these restrictions on RFE/RL, its affiliates and its staff are unacceptable and, in particular, that exposing RFE/RL’s staff to criminal liability will be met with serious consequences.”The lawmakers also called for the Biden administration to consider sanctions against Russian officials as well as to demand greater reciprocity between the conditions that “Western outlets like RFE/RL face inside Russia and those faced by Russian state-run outlets, such as Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, here in the United States.”Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent organization of the Voice of America. Critics say the new Russian laws targeting foreign agents have been arbitrarily applied to target Russian civil society organizations, human rights defenders, and political activists.The Europe and Central Asia program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Gulnoza Said, said in a statement last week that the Russian law is being used to “censure journalists and harass and threaten media organizations.” Amnesty International said the law would “drastically limit and damage the work not only of civil society organizations that receive funds from outside Russia but many other groups as well.”
…

Russian police are arresting supporters of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as they take to the streets of more than 60 Russian cities Saturday to demand the Kremlin critic’s immediate release, defying the measures taken by police to break up the protests, which they have declared illegal.The protests started in the Far East and Siberia, including Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Chita, with thousands of participants, according to Navalny supporters.In Khabarovsk, a Russian city on the border with China, about 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow, pro-Navalny protesters clashed with police trying to prevent the gathering.Navalny’s associates in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia have already been detained in anticipation of the rallies.Police have warned opposition supporters against protesting and independent journalists against covering them.Russian universities have told students not to attend the pro-Navalny rallies, some threatening them with disciplinary action, including expulsion.The nationwide protests are the first organized by Navalny’s supporters since he returned from Germany, where he was recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent. He was arrested immediately on his arrival in Moscow.Navalny has openly accused President Vladimir Putin of ordering Russia’s security services to carry out the poisoning, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.The United States and other Western countries have strongly condemned Navalny’s arrest and demanded his unconditional release.
…

Well-placed geographically and politically between America and Europe, Britain has long marketed itself as the diplomatic bridge linking the two continents.Most British prime ministers since World War Two have reached for the metaphor at some time or other to describe what they saw as Britain’s essential and aggrandizing function in transatlantic relations.When Europeans in 2001 were assailing President George W. Bush for his foreign policy plans, including pulling the U.S. out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, Britain’s then-leader, Tony Blair, emphasized his desire to “build bridges of understanding between the U.S. and Europe.”Britain’s role as a useful intermediary traditionally has been welcomed in Washington, although the role has often been resented in European capitals stretching back to the time of Charles De Gaulle, the French leader who blocked Britain from joining the then European Common Market, partly because he feared Britain would act as America’s agent inside the bloc.Post-Brexit and Joe Biden’s foreign policy team is likely to have to switch roles and act as a diplomatic bridge for Britain to an estranged European continent, say analysts.“I think you will see a concerted effort by the Biden team to engage London with Brussels, Berlin and Paris,” says Damon Wilson, executive vice president at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington.A former senior director for European Affairs at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration, Wilson says Biden’s foreign policy advisers will likely decide that to maintain coherence in the transatlantic alliance they will have to make sure “London is at the table with Brussels and the other main Western powers.”Britain’s messy departure from the European Union, which saw more than four years of bruising, and sometimes petty, haggling, has left Britain’s relations with its European neighbors in tatters. They are hardly in the mood to accept Britain as an American emissary.And since Britain and its erstwhile 27 partners struck a final Brexit deal last month, defining, at least in the midterm, Britain’s trade relations with the EU, ill-feeling has persisted.This week a diplomatic row broke out between London and Brussels over the status of the bloc’s ambassador in London with Britain’s Foreign Office withholding full diplomatic recognition to the envoy on the grounds that the EU is not a sovereign state but an international body.That breaks with the practice of 142 other countries that grant full privileges to the bloc’s diplomats. Infuriated EU officials have dubbed Britain’s move “petty.”British policymakers remain highly anxious about the future of Anglo-American relations post-Brexit, and now post-Trump. Britain’s Boris Johnson at one time saw himself and Donald Trump as kindred spirits. Trump dubbed Johnson as “Britain Trump.”Special relationshipProximity to U.S. power enhances British power — hence Britain’s perennial eagerness to maintain the much-vaunted “special relationship” between London and Washington. Some observers say Britain has shown such an over-eagerness to engage that it could be construed as a sign of weakness, even desperation.The fear in London is that the Biden administration will relegate Britain, seeing Germany and France as the more important transatlantic partners. President Biden’s key foreign policy advisers, including his nominee to be the new U.S. secretary of state, Tony Blinken, a Francophone and Francophile who was raised in Paris, and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, were disparaging of Brexit, viewing it as a strategic mistake by the British and one that would diminish Britain’s usefulness to the United States.Like Barack Obama, who openly backed Britain’s remaining in the EU, Biden also disapproved of Brexit. In a speech in Dublin the day after the 2016 Brexit referendum, Biden condemned “reactionary politicians and demagogues” for Brexit, adding, “We’d have preferred a different outcome.” Some former British diplomats have worried that Brexit “chickens will come home to roost” with a Biden administration.President Biden himself has shown little liking in the past for Johnson, describing the British leader at a fundraiser during the primary race for the Democratic nomination “a physical and emotional clone of the president [Trump].”Biden is said to have taken as much offense as Obama over a newspaper column Johnson wrote many years ago when he was mayor of London in which he accused Obama of being “part-Kenyan” and harboring an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire.”That column was written in response to Obama’s moving a bust of the great British wartime Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Trump returned the bust where George W. Bush had placed it, and Biden has now followed Obama’s example.Johnson’s tune is different this time. In a statement, Downing Street said: “The Oval Office is the president’s private office, and it’s up to the president to decorate it as he wishes.”The fears of Britain’s ruling Conservatives about how Anglo-American relations may unfold under a Biden administration were partly assuaged in November when Biden, after his election win, chose to phone Johnson ahead of talking with France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel. “Special relationship maintained as Johnson is first on Joe Biden’s call list,” The Times of London exhaled on its front page.But British fears have not been banished completely. “The incoming administration of Joe Biden will seek to heal America’s relations with allies in Europe and Asia,” Robin Niblett, director of Britain’s Chatham House, wrote in a commentary. “But Brexit Britain will have to fight its way to the table on many of the most important transatlantic issues, with the EU now the U.S.’s main counterpart,” he added.The British may be over-anxious, though, according to some analysts. A key policy aim of the new U.S. administration is to steady democracies roiled by unprecedented domestic political turmoil and challenged by authoritarian powers. Biden has said he wants to convene a global summit of democracies to forge common goals. Victoria Nuland, a veteran diplomat slated for a top job at the State Department, recently said: “It’s time to stand up and defend it [democracy].”The Biden administration appears to be in no mood to leave any democracy behind.Speaking in December at an event in Washington, and before her pick to rejoin the State Department, Nuland said in her concluding remarks: “It’s going to be very, very important for all of us to relink hands with the U.K. and ensure that London stays a strong global player and is well docked into the U.S.-EU conversation, the democracy conversation, and is really the global Britain that they have said they want to be.”The Atlantic Council’s Damon Wilson says under the Biden administration “there will be a big and dramatic change when it comes to relations with Berlin and a very big emphasis on Berlin.” “Germany will have a more prominent place in consultations,” he adds.But Wilson, who knows the Biden aides well, doesn’t see that as necessary coming at the expense of Britain. “The UK is going to be valuable because it will be quicker, it will be more nimble” compared to the EU and Brussels. “You work with the British because they can move fast, they can do things and that expediency will make Britain still relevant,” he adds.Biden aides presented “strong and compelling cases about why Brexit would not be in American interests, but they won’t hold Brexit against the British,” he says.
…

Former Haitian opposition Senator Nenel Cassy was freed Friday, hours after he was arrested in Miragoane, a town on Haiti’s west coast, on orders of President Jovenel Moise.Cassy, who represented former President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party in parliament and is a native of the region, had traveled to Miragoane on Thursday to seek the release of political activists who had been arrested during an anti-government protest earlier in the day. They were charged with committing “flagrant delinquent acts” but were released with Cassy.”What happened yesterday is unfathomable; even under the Duvalier regime this was never done,” the former senator said in recounting his ordeal for reporters during a press conference on Friday.”The attorney general arrived at the police station where lawyer Andre (Michel) and I were talking to the departmental director. Two policemen were present, and Andre was asking them to release the activists. When he (Jean Ernest Muscadin, the attorney general for Miragoane) arrived, he said, ‘We’re going to arrest the senator.’ He said, ‘The president of the republic has asked me to arrest Senator Cassy.’ When I asked him, ‘Which president? Jovenel?’ He responded, “Yes, Jovenel said I must arrest you today,’” Cassy said.The former senator said when he asked Muscadin what he was to be charged with, he was told, “This is an order from the president.””He (the attorney general) told me tremendous pressure had been exerted by the president to make the arrest and he (Moise) threatened to fire him if he didn’t do it,” Cassy said. “‘If I went against the order, I’d have to flee the country,’ he told me.”Cassy said the attorney general then handcuffed him.Muscadin, during an interview on a Haitian radio show, confirmed that Moise had asked him to arrest Cassy.No commentMoise has not commented on the arrest. But in a Jan. 18 speech, Moise warned his political opponents that the country’s new intelligence agency was keeping watch and that any “vagabonds” found to be handing out money to encourage people to protest would face consequences.News of Cassy’s arrest spread quickly on social media, sparking outrage from Haitians and the diaspora. VOA Creole reporters said they saw tires burning on some streets of the capital and that makeshift barricades were erected, including in front of the police station where Cassy was being held.Meanwhile, opposition politicians, who tend to disagree on most topics, rallied to support the senator, calling on Moise to rescind the arrest order.”Senator Nenel Cassy has just been arrested in Miragoane at the office of the director of the police department in accordance with an order from President Jovenel Moise,” lawyer and opposition leader Andre Michel tweeted from Miragoane. “The battle for the respect of the constitution must be sped up. Unacceptable. Shut down the country.”Le Sénateur Nenel Cassy vient d’être arrêté à Miragoane au bureau du Directeur départemental de la Police, conformément aux instructions du Président Jovenel Moise. La bataille pour le respect de la constitution doit prendre sa vitesse de croisière. Inacceptable!! Bloke peyi a .— Me. André Michel (@avokapepla) Senator Youri Latortue says the opposition stands united against President Jovenel Moise, Jan. 22, 2021. (Matiado Vilme/VOA)During his press conference Friday, Cassy decried the harassment he and his family have endured at the hands of the Moise government.”My security guards were arrested and released after six months because they couldn’t find anything to charge them with. They arrested my mother a few days ago in Miragoane, they shot at me, they arrested me, the country has become a living hell for me under the PHTK government (Pati Ayisyen Tet Kale – President Moise’s ruling party),” Cassy said.In the past, the opposition leader, who has frequently participated in anti-government protests, has criticized Moise for not curbing crime, addressing the economic crisis or human rights abuses and for ruling by decree. On Wednesday, he joined a group of peaceful protesters near the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince to call on the new Biden administration not to support the Moise government and to demand Moise resign on Feb. 7.Pressure from US, international communityIn 2020, Haiti faced increased pressure from the Trump administration, the Organization of American States and the United Nations to hold elections as soon as possible. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Joe Biden had promised Haitians and Haitian Americans that he would work with Haiti’s government to hold elections as soon as possible.A few days before the Christmas holiday, a joint statement issued by Representatives Andy Levin, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Gregory Meeks, incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Albio Sires, chair of the Western Hemisphere civilian security and trade subcommittee, said they were watching events unfold in Haiti with “growing concern.”“Haitian President Jovenel Moise is pursuing an increasingly authoritarian course of action, issuing a series of recent decrees that include creating an extraconstitutional domestic ‘intelligence’ force,” the statement said. “His latest actions are reminiscent of past anti-democratic abuses the Haitian people have endured, including the run-up to the Duvalier dictatorship. We will not stand idly by while Haiti devolves into chaos.”Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, expressed outrage about the statement in an exclusive interview with VOA in December.“It saddens us to see democratic officials call for a transitional government. We don’t think that going through a transition again will help Haiti,” Edmond said.The ambassador questioned the feasibility of the January 2021 timeframe suggested by the U.S. to hold elections. He told VOA the Moise government believes an overhaul of the current constitution is necessary first and that there are plans to hold a referendum on that in spring 2021.“I think we have already met them in the middle,” Edmond told VOA. “We have agreed to elections. President Moise has done his job in naming an electoral council. We are working on possible calendars to submit now.”Haiti’s presidential and legislative elections are now scheduled for September 2021.In the meantime, the newly reinvigorated and united opposition vows to keep protesting in the streets to demand Moise respect the constitution and step down on Feb. 7.  
…

Four people-smugglers convicted of killing 39 people from Vietnam who died in the back of a container truck as it was shipped to England were sentenced Friday to between 13 and 27 years in prison.The victims, between the ages of 15 and 44, were found in October 2019 inside a refrigerated container that had traveled by ferry from Belgium to the eastern England port of Purfleet. The migrants had paid people-smugglers thousands of dollars to take them on risky journeys to what they hoped would be better lives abroad.Instead, Judge Nigel Sweeney said, “all died in what must have been an excruciatingly painful death” by suffocation in the airtight container.These photos released Jan. 22, 2021, by Essex police show, from left, Ronan Hughes, Gheorghe Nica, Maurice Robinson and Eamonn Harrison, all sentenced to prison in the deaths in England of 39 Vietnamese migrants in 2019.The judge sentenced Romanian mechanic Gheorghe Nica, 43, described by prosecutors as the smuggling ringleader, to 27 years. Northern Irish truck driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, who drove the container to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, received an 18-year sentence.Trucker Maurice Robinson, 26, who picked the container up in England, was sentenced to 13 years and 4 months in prison, while haulage company boss Ronan Hughes, 41, was jailed for 20 years.Nica and Harrison were convicted last month after a 10-week trial. Hughes and Robinson had pleaded guilty of people-smuggling and manslaughter.Three other members of the gang received shorter sentences.Prosecutors said all the suspects were part of a gang that charged about 13,000 pounds ($17,000) per person to transport migrants in trailers through the Channel Tunnel or by boat.Sweeney said it was “a sophisticated, long-running and profitable” criminal conspiracy.Migrants’ last momentsJurors heard harrowing evidence about the final hours of the victims, who tried to call Vietnam’s emergency number to summon help as air in the container ran out. When they couldn’t get a mobile phone signal, some recorded goodbye messages to their families.The trapped migrants — who included a bricklayer, a restaurant worker, a nail bar technician, a budding beautician and a university graduate — used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof of the refrigerated container, but only dented it.Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Stoten, the senior investigating officer on the case, said the victims “left behind families, memories and homes, in the pursuit of a false promise of something better.””Instead, they died, in an unimaginable way, because of the utter greed of these criminals,” he said. 
…

There is some evidence that a new coronavirus variant first identified in southeast England carries a higher risk of death than the original strain, the British government’s chief scientific adviser said Friday — though he stressed that the data is uncertain. Patrick Vallance told a news conference that “there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant.”  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A person receives the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine at an NHS vaccination center in York, Britain, Jan. 22, 2021.But Vallance stressed that “the evidence is not yet strong” and more research is needed. In contrast to that uncertainty, he said, there is growing confidence that the variant is more easily passed on than the original coronavirus strain. He said it appears to be between 30% and 70% more transmissible.  Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19, said studies were under way to look at the transmission and severity of new virus variants. She said so far “they haven’t seen an increase in severity” but that more transmission could lead to “an overburdened health care system” and thus more deaths. The evidence for the new variant being more deadly is in a paper prepared by a group of scientists that advises the government on new respiratory viruses, based on several studies. Paul Hunter, professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said “the conclusion about this probable increased lethality comes from analyses made by several different groups, though working with essentially the same data.” “There is quite a bit of difference in the estimated increased risk of death between the different analyses, though most but not all show increased risk of death,” he said. A man wearing a protective mask walks along a queue for vaccinations at Lord’s Cricket Ground, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, in London, Britain, Jan. 22, 2021.Ian Jones, professor of Virology at the University of Reading, said “the data is limited and the conclusions preliminary. However, an increased case fatality rate is certainly possible with a virus that has upped its game in transmission.” British officials say they are confident that the vaccines that have been authorized for use against COVID-19 will be effective against the new strain identified in the country. But Vallance said scientists are concerned that variants identified in Brazil and South Africa could be more resistant to vaccines, adding that more research needs to be done. Travel restrictionsConcerns about newly identified variants have triggered a spate of new travel restrictions around the world. Many countries have closed their borders to travelers from Britain, and Great Britain has halted flights from Brazil and South Africa. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there could be further restrictions. “We may need to go further to protect our borders,” he said. Britain has recorded over 96,000 deaths among people who tested positive for the coronavirus, the highest confirmed total in Europe. The country is currently in a lockdown in an attempt to slow the latest surge of the coronavirus outbreak. Pubs, restaurants, entertainment venues and many shops are closed, and people are required to stay largely at home. No end in sightThe number of new infections has begun to fall, but deaths remain high, averaging more than 1,000 a day, and the number of hospitalized patients is 80% higher than at the first peak of the pandemic in the spring. Johnson, who has often been accused of giving overly optimistic predictions about relaxing coronavirus restrictions, sounded gloomy. “We will have to live with coronavirus in one way or another for a long while to come,” he said, adding that “it’s an open question” when measures could be eased. “At this stage you’ve got to be very, very cautious indeed,” he said. Vallance agreed. “I don’t think this virus is going anywhere,” he said. “It’s going to be around, probably, forever.” 
 
…

After months of high seas tensions with Turkish and Greek warships facing off against one another over territorial disputes, the two nations now are set to resume talks Monday, after a nearly five-year hiatus. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
Camera: Berke Bas  Produced by: Berke Bas, Rod James 
 
…