Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Joe Biden on winning the November U.S. presidential election.The Kremlin said Tuesday that Putin wished Biden “every success” and expressed confidence that the United States and Russia can “help to solve the many problems and challenges facing the world.”Putin added he is “ready for interaction and contact” with Biden.Numerous world leaders have called Biden to offer their congratulations and discuss cooperation with the new U.S. administration that will take office in January.Putin had said he would wait until the U.S. election results were official, which happened Monday with the Electoral College confirming Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump.
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In late October, Farhan and his two sons finished packing up their olive harvest to transport it to the city center of Afrin in northwestern Syria. But before doing so, they pondered the possibilities waiting for them.“Would we be able to sell our olives at a good rate? Would the armed groups impose additional taxes on us?” wondered Farhan, who requested his real name not be revealed for safety reasons.    Farhan, 61, is a Kurdish farmer who owns an olive farm nearly 16 kilometers (10 miles) outside of Afrin, a region controlled by Turkey-backed Syrian militias since 2018. The area is known for its high-quality, abundant olive oil.    “We used to make a good living by cultivating olives,” he told VOA via a messaging app. “But in the past two years, it’s been a real challenge to do our businesses without interference from the armed groups.”  In January 2018, Turkey and its Syrian proxies invaded the Kurdish-majority region to dislodge Kurdish fighters affiliated with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main element within the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).  Afrin SyriaTurkey views the YPG and SDF as extensions of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an outlawed Kurdish rebel group that is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara and Washington.   Western governments and international rights groups have accused Turkish-backed militias of war crimes, including looting and stealing civilian properties in Afrin.   Source of revenue   Experts say Afrin’s olive farms have become a main source of revenue for the various armed groups present in the region.  “There are about 18 million olive trees in the Afrin area,” said Khorshid Alika, a Syrian economist who closely follows developments in northern Syria.   “The militias have been imposing high taxes on local Kurdish farmers,” he told VOA. “Most recently, for example, the armed groups in control of Kakhera village (in Afrin) levied 2,000 olive oil barrels as taxes on the village residents.”  Alika said each barrel of olive oil currently is worth about $30 at the local market, a figure confirmed by Farhan, the farmer.FILE – Farmers pick olives during the harvest season in the western province of Idlib, Syria, November 19, 2015.Mohammed Billo, a journalist from Afrin who now lives in northeastern Syria, says militias that control different parts of Afrin have different ways to benefit from the olive oil production.“In my village, the militias this season seized all the olives belonging to families who have fled their homes and lands following the Turkish invasion,” he said.   “In addition to imposing taxes, the militias also charge farmers at checkpoints for transporting their olive crops,” Billo told VOA.   When Farhan and his sons finally decided to take their harvest to the city, they were stopped at three checkpoints on the road.  “They were manned by different groups, which most of the time they are at odds with each other,” he said, “So this comes at our expense.”      He ended up paying the three checkpoints to have access to the city.   “When we sold the crops, the money was so little that would maybe last for three months only,” Farhan added. “I don’t know how my family will survive for the rest of the year.”  FILE – A Free Syrian Army member inspects goods that were confiscated at a checkpoint during a siege on the Kurdish city of Afrin, in the Aleppo countryside, June 30, 2013.Exporting abroad   Afrin farmers are allowed to sell their oil crops only to either the militias or representatives of Turkey’s Agricultural Credit Cooperatives, according to economist Alika.  “Turkey and its proxies buy olives from local farmers at half the real price, collect them at an oil extraction plant near Afrin, and then export them to Turkey and ultimately the outside world,” he said.  Several news outlets have reported that olive oil produced in Afrin has been seen at stores in Europe and the United States. Turkey’s foreign ministry, agriculture and forestry ministry and Agricultural Credit Cooperatives didn’t respond to VOA’s requests for comment.   ‘Black propaganda’ against Turkey   In November 2019, however, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a parliament session that allegations about stealing Afrin’s olives are “black propaganda” against Turkey.   “The olives in Syria are being reexported via us, and the income from here is being distributed to the landowners. So, there is no theft or anything else. … This olive stealing and other [allegations] are part of this black propaganda,” he said.   A year before Cavusoglu’s comment, Turkey’s minister of agriculture and forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli, told the parliament that 600 tons of olives from Syria’s Afrin had entered the country as of November 2018.   “We do not want revenues to fall into PKK hands,” he said. “We want the revenues from Afrin to come to us. This region is under our hegemony.”   Ali Kenanoglu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), says Afrin’s olive oil has been discussed at the Turkish parliament several times. “When we ask about this issue, they (the ruling AK Party) defend themselves by appealing to nationalist sentiments such as, ‘So what? Instead of falling into the PKK and YPG terrorists, it became for our country’s benefit,’” he said.   “Most of the revenues from these olives are largely transferred to the (Turkish-backed) Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces and used in their financing,” Kenanoglu told VOA. “This has turned into a resource to support the FSA rebels in Syria.”  
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Pressure is growing on the European Union to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after regulators in Britain, the United States and Canada gave the green light in recent days. Coronavirus cases are soaring across the continent, with extended lockdowns announced in Germany and the Netherlands. Henry Ridgwell reports.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell 
 
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An elite Russian intelligence chemical weapons unit trailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny for the past three years, right up until his near-fatal poisoning in August, according to the investigative website Bellingcat. The squad from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), according to Bellingcat, started shadowing Navalny in 2017, shortly after he announced he would stand against President Vladimir Putin in presidential elections.  Members of the unit specializing in toxins and nerve agents followed the activist on more than 30 trips, according to phone records, flight manifests and other documents unearthed by Bellingcat in a joint investigation with CNN, Russia’s The Insider news site and Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. FILE – Cars drive past the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in central Moscow, Russia, November 10, 2015.Navalny is recuperating in Berlin. Western governments say he was poisoned with the deadly Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, the same substance British officials say was employed in an attack in England in 2018 in a bid to kill former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. The European Union has sanctioned FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov and senior Kremlin officials over the attack. FILE – Members of the emergency services in biohazard suits afix a tent over the bench where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found March 4 in critical condition, in Salisbury, southern England, on March 8, 2018.In September, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden gave different reactions to the poisoning.  “It is interesting that everybody is always mentioning Russia,” Trump told reporters at a press briefing. “And I don’t mind you mentioning Russia, but I think probably China at this point is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia.”  Biden, now president-elect, bluntly blamed Navalny’s poisoning on the Moscow government.  “Once again, the Kremlin has used a favorite weapon — an agent from the Novichok class of chemicals — in an effort to silence a political opponent,” he said. “It is the mark of a Russian regime that is so paranoid that it is unwilling to tolerate any criticism or dissent,” he added. Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on August 20. The plane made an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk, where Russian doctors said they found no trace of any toxic substance. After Navalny was transferred to a hospital in Germany following an international outcry, tests in Berlin showed the presence of the nerve agent.  Subsequent tests by French and Swedish laboratories confirmed the German result. In an interview with a German magazine in October, Navalny accused the Kremlin of being behind his poisoning.  “I don’t have any other versions of how the crime was committed,” he said. FILE – German army emergency personnel load into their ambulance the stretcher that was used to transport Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on at Berlin’s Charite hospital, August 22, 2020.The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning. Putin on Friday accused European countries, which have demanded Moscow investigate the poisoning, of refusing to cooperate with Russian authorities or to send detailed information. But Putin also said Navalny’s near-fatal poisoning did not warrant the opening of any criminal investigation in Russia. Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested Navalny may have been poisoned on the plane taking him to Germany, or once he arrived in Berlin. Bellingcat said the FSB unit shadowing the Russian activist comprised six to 10 agents, including medical doctors and toxicologists in their late 30s and 40s, and was commanded by military scientist Stanislav Makshakov. He communicated with senior figures at the FSB before and after Navalny’s trips, cellphone logs suggest. Makshakov is thought to have previously worked at a chemicals institute in the closed town of Shikhany-1. The August incident may not have been the first attempt to poison Navalny. During a trip in July to Kaliningrad, Navalny’s wife, Yulia, fell ill with symptoms consistent with low-dosage poisoning, according to toxicologists. Bellingcat said flight manifests indicate that at least three members of the FSB unit were in the city at the same time as the Navalnys. 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, August 21, 2020.Bellingcat said for the August attack, three FSB officers followed Navalny to Tomsk. At least five more FSB employees supported the mission. Some went on to Omsk, when Navalny was taken to the hospital there in critical condition. Members of the chemical weapons unit communicated with each other throughout the trip, with peaks in phone activity shortly before the poisoning. Bellingcat uses open-source data for its investigations and named the poisoners involved in the nerve-agent attack on Skripal and his daughter in 2018. The British government subsequently identified the same men as being behind the assassination bid. Navalny on Monday uploaded a video comment to YouTube. He said the FSB’s attempt to kill him was an act of “state terrorism.” He said the FSB’s surveillance operation began when he announced he would stand against Putin.  “We now have the villain, the reason, murderers and the murder weapon,” he said. Navalny also described the moment he may have been poisoned. Navalny said he had a cocktail in a hotel restaurant the night before boarding his flight back to Moscow. It was “tasteless,” he said, and stopped drinking it after a couple of sips. 
 
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A narrow 96-kilometer-wide corridor from the Pacific Coast in Chile across the Andes mountain range and into Argentina in South America was treated Monday to views of the final total solar eclipse of 2020. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow that momentarily extinguishes daylight on Earth. Magdalena Nahuelpan, a Mapuche Indigenous girl, looks at a total solar eclipse using special glasses in Carahue, La Araucania, Chile, Dec. 14, 2020.Despite COVID-19 restrictions on travel and movement, thousands of tourists and residents gathered in Chile’s south-central Araucania region, about 800 kilometers south of the capital, Santiago. While heavy rain and clouds obscured the sun itself, the region was nonetheless plunged into darkness for about two minutes and eight seconds.  The Chilean health ministry issued protective eyewear for safe viewing of the eclipse, along with face masks and sanitizer to keep people safe from COVID-19. The weather was better in Argentina, though the path of the eclipse there went through sparsely populated areas of the Patagonia Desert.  The next total solar eclipse will occur over Antarctica on December 4, 2021.  
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British Health Minister Matt Hancock said Monday that a new variant of COVID-19 has been identified in southern Britain, which could explain why infection levels in that area have increased faster than in other areas of the country. Speaking to Parliament, Hancock said the variant was identified in more than a thousand cases of the virus, mostly in the south of the country, but in a total of about 60 different areas. He said similar variants have been identified in other countries, and the British government has alerted the World Health Organization.   The health minister was quick to add there was nothing to suggest this new variant is more virulent or would be resistant to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that is being distributed in Britain. But he said it was even more reason for people to remain vigilant and follow COVID-19 guidelines to make sure the virus does not spread.  Hancock made the announcement as he introduced new COVID-19 restrictions imposed on London and the immediate surrounding area where new infections have been rising “exponentially.”  He said London was moving into the “Tier 3: Very High Alert level.” Under these restrictions, people can only see friends and family who live outside their household in outdoor public places and “in line with the rule of six,” meaning groups must be six people or fewer.  Hancock said restaurants and other hospitality businesses can be open for take-out and deliver only, and residents are advised to avoid unnecessary travel outside their immediate area.
 
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The Trump administration on Monday imposed sanctions on its NATO ally Turkey over its purchase of a Russian air defense system, setting the stage for further confrontation between the two nations as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office. The move comes at a delicate time in relations between Washington and Ankara, which have been at odds for more than a year over Turkey’s acquisition from Russia of the S-400 missile defense system, along with Turkish actions in Syria, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in the eastern Mediterranean.  The U.S. had previously kicked Turkey out of its F-35 stealth fighter development and training program over the purchase, but had taken no further steps despite persistent warnings from American officials who have long complained about the purchase of the S-400, which they say is incompatible with NATO equipment and a potential threat to allied security. “The United States made clear to Turkey at the highest levels and on numerous occasions that its purchase of the S-400 system would endanger the security of U.S. military technology and personnel and provide substantial funds to Russia’s defense sector, as well as Russian access to the Turkish armed forces and defense industry,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. “Turkey nevertheless decided to move ahead with the procurement and testing of the S-400, despite the availability of alternative, NATO-interoperable systems to meet its defense requirements,” he said in a statement. “I urge Turkey to resolve the S-400 problem immediately in coordination with the United States,” he said. “Turkey is a valued Ally and an important regional security partner for the United States, and we seek to continue our decades-long history of productive defense-sector cooperation by removing the obstacle of Turkey’s S-400 possession as soon as possible.” The sanctions target Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries, the country’s military procurement agency, its chief Ismail Demir and three other senior officials. The penalties block any assets the four officials may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar their entry into the U.S. They also include a ban on most export licenses, loans and credits to the agency.  The administration had held off on imposing punitive sanctions outside of the fighter program for months, in part to give Turkish officials time to reconsider deploying it and, some suspect, due to President Donald Trump’s personal relationship with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, in past months Turkey has moved ahead with testing of the system drawing criticism from Congress and others who have demanded the sanctions be imposed under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, which mandates penalties for transactions deemed harmful to U.S. interests. Coming just a month and-a-half before Biden assumes office, the sanctions pose a potential dilemma for the incoming administration, although the president-elect’s team has signaled it is opposed to Turkey’s use of the S-400 and the disunity within NATO it may cause.  Last month, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkey was prepared to discuss with the U.S. its “anxiety” over the interoperability of the S-400s and the F-35s. The U.S. reacted cooly to the suggestion and Pompeo shortly thereafter pointedly did not meet with any Turkish government officials on a visit to Istanbul.  Turkey tested the missile defense system in October for the first time, drawing a condemnation from the Pentagon. Ankara says it was forced to buy the Russian system because the U.S. refused to sell it American-made Patriot missiles. The Turkish government has also pointed to what it considers a double standard, as NATO member Greece uses Russian-made missiles. 
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German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Germans Monday to abide by strict new lockdown measures to be implemented Wednesday, saying the situation regarding the coronavirus was “bitterly serious.”Steinmeier addressed the nation a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the new measures beginning set to run through January 10, to stop the sharp rise of COVID-19 cases in the country. Merkel and the Germany’s 16 regional governors agreed Sunday to close non-essential businesses and limit private gatherings to no more than five people.In his address, Steinmeier said the restrictions were the severest in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, but the situation was such that, “We cannot avoid drastic measures.”The president said the country had come a long way and urged Germans to work together to overcome the crisis, saying, “We must succeed. And we will succeed.”Germany has been recording steadily higher confirmed cases and deaths in recent weeks. The Robert Koch Institute – the country’s central disease control center – reported 16,362 new cases Monday, and 188 new deaths, bringing the overall death toll to 21,975. Last week, the daily death numbers rose to almost 600 cases in one day.Hospitals across the country had repeatedly warned in recent weeks that they were reaching their limits in caring for COVID-19 patients, and that staffing on intensive care units was becoming a problem.On Monday, 4,552 COVID-19 patients were being treated in intensive care units, 52 percent of them on respirators.Starting Wednesday, schools nationwide will be closed or switch to home schooling; most non-food stores will be shuttered, as will businesses such as hair salons that have so far been allowed to remain open.Restaurant takeout will still be permitted, but no eating or drinking can take place on site.With the exception of Christmas, the number of people allowed to meet indoors will remain restricted to five, not including children under 14.The sale of fireworks traditionally used to celebrate New Year’s will also be banned, as will public outdoor gatherings on New Year’s Eve.
 
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Italy’s Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, lit up the sky overnight Sunday into the predawn hours Monday with bursts of hot lava, some going as high as 100 meters into the air. Etna is on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. Scientists with Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, report there were two eruptive fissures on the southeastern crater of the mountain. Geologists report the mountain has been active on and off for the past two months. The Reuters news agency reported that ash from the eruption covered parts of nearby small Catanian villages between Pedara and Tremestieri Etneo. On Monday morning, cars, streets and balconies were covered in black ash as workers and locals worked to clear it up. Volcanic ash from Mount Etna, which erupted during the night, covers a village road near Catania, Italy, Dec. 14, 2020 in this still image taken from video.The 3,330-meter-high Mount Etna is the second-most active volcano in the world, after Hawaii’s Kilauea. It can burst into spectacular action several times a year, spewing lava and ash high over Sicily.
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Before dawn on December 1, Leonardo de Carvalho Leal prepared to leave his family behind in the Brazilian city of Ponta Grossa, in Parana state. His mother overwhelmed him with goodbyes and gave him a bracelet she said had brought her luck. He fiddled with it on his wrist the entire ride to the airport, unsure when he might see her again.“Maybe I was blaming myself a bit, for leaving so many people vulnerable,” he said in a video interview with The Associated Press, with tears welling as he recalled his departure. “But what I did was right.”Leal and his girlfriend of six years, Mayara Stelle — both 22-year-old law students — this year created a Twitter account with its stated mission to call out Brazilian websites for spreading “hate speech and Fake News” and torpedoing those sites’ advertising revenue. They garnered 410,000 followers, more than the number of residents in their midsize city.
 
They also mustered a legion of enemies. Vitriol poured in, directed toward their account, Sleeping Giants Brazil. Believing their identities are soon to be revealed after a ruling against Twitter, they expect they will be personally targeted, for lawsuits or worse.Fear their families would be caught in the barrage because they had often accessed the account at their parents’ homes, they say, is why they left their lives behind and are choosing to make their identities known to The Associated Press and Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil’s biggest newspaper. The AP observed them accessing and using the Sleeping Giants Brazil account and checked the names they provided against their government-issued identification cards.“Those threats that say, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ or, ‘I’m offering 100,000 reais ($20,000) for the head of the profile’s owner,’ will now be directed at Mayara and Leo,” Stelle said from a city outside Sao Paulo referring to herself and her boyfriend. “This is a decision to protect our families and control exposure to show we’re common people, like anyone else who can have an idea. And that idea can be brilliant, can change things.”This year, Brazil has been awash in misinformation about the pandemic, egged on by dubious claims from President Jair Bolsonaro. It marks the continuation of a digital battle in Latin America’s biggest country, with each side in the polarized nation seeking to portray itself as “owner of the truth,” as an expression in Portuguese goes.Pursuit of Sleeping Giants Brazil is part of a growing trend over the last several years to instrumentalize the judiciary against those who train fire on conservative media outlets, interest groups and Bolsonaro’s administration, according to Taís Gasparian, a law partner who has worked with media and free speech for decades. Often the alleged offenses may be covered by rights of free speech or press freedom. This year, that has included a writer, a cartoonist and a beach volleyball player.
 
Sleeping Giants Brazil followed the playbook of its U.S. predecessor, which after Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory alerted companies to the fact their ads were appearing on websites including Breitbart News, a platform that critics have repeatedly accused of running racist, xenophobic and sexist content. Companies’ ads were often automatically placed through Google, and they decamped en masse upon learning of the risk to their brands. Video that surfaced in mid-2019 showed Breitbart’s former executive chairman Steve Bannon saying Sleeping Giants had cost the organization 90% of its ad revenue.The number of Sleeping Giants Brazil’s followers surpassed that of the U.S. handle as it toppled one ad after another. A top target was Jornal da Cidade Online, a conservative website based in southern Brazil. The site’s content has repeatedly been debunked by fact-checking organizations, and a preliminary technical report shows “it is one of the big disseminators of false news in our country,” said lawmaker Lídice da Mata, the rapporteur of Congress’ ongoing investigation into misinformation, in a written response to AP questions.Scores of advertisers in Brazil — among them Dell, McDonald’s, Facebook and Domino’s Pizza — have responded publicly to alerts from Sleeping Giants Brazil and likeminded Twitter users about their ads appearing on Jornal da Cidade, saying that they would remove them because of the site’s content or already had. State-run Bank of Brazil did the same, prompting a swift rebuke from Bolsonaro’s son and his communications secretary, who said on Twitter that independent journalism is important.Jornal da Cidade claimed reputational and financial damages and sued Twitter, demanding the platform turn over data associated with the Sleeping Giants Brazil account that could identify its users. Twitter last week provided the court with the account’s I.P. addresses, according to a person with knowledge of the case, who isn’t authorized to speak publicly. Twitter said in an emailed statement that it “vigorously fought this case through several different appeals” and will continue to defend free speech and privacy rights.Jornal da Cidade’s editor José Tolentino declined an interview request and referred the AP to the law office representing him. His lawyer Simone Custódio declined an interview request, didn’t answer questions sent by email about the case, instead saying they will await the right time to comment publicly in observance of their client’s best interests.“The cowardly attacks against Jornal da Cidade Online hide people, businesses and entities that certainly act in their desired attempt to install left-wing radicalism in Brazil or other even more sordid interests,” read an editorial it published on Dec. 4. The site has repeatedly denied spreading misinformation.Danilo Doneda, a lawyer who specializes in data protection, told the AP that Brazilians are guaranteed freedom of expression, but the constitution has the peculiarity of prohibiting anonymity. Doneda, a member of the government’s newly formed data protection council, likens Sleeping Giants Brazil to the pen name of an author known to his or her publisher.“Twitter can gather the elements, technically, to reach these people, so it’s a pseudonym, not anonymity,” Doneda said.Others have faced legal repercussions using their names.Writer J.P. Cuenca has been hit with more than 140 lawsuits in 21 Brazilian states since he composed a tweet in June, according to his lawyer, Fernando Hideo. The tweet, which appeared to call for violence against Bolsonaro and evangelical pastors, was a Brazilian spin on a historical quotation.Federal police interrogated cartoonist Renato Aroeira in July after depicting Bolsonaro as transforming a red cross representing hospitals into a swastika; the president had recently called on his social media followers to enter hospitals and film whether they were in fact overburdened with COVID-19 patients. And beach volleyball player Carol Solberg shouted “Out, Bolsonaro!” during an on-court interview on Sept. 20 in Rio de Janeiro state; a sports court warned her she could face a fine of up to $20,000 and a six-game suspension if she spoke out again.Polarization has taken root since Brazil’s sprawling Car Wash investigation that kicked off in 2014 and exposed rampant corruption, followed by President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. The reason was violation of Brazil’s budget laws, but her Workers’ Party ascribed removal to political motives.Into that political divide strode Bolsonaro, a fringe lawmaker claiming he would restore law and order to the beleaguered nation, put God and country above all else, loosen gun controls and banish left-wing politics.His 2018 campaign was turbocharged by social media and messaging app WhatsApp. Media reported that executives had bankrolled blast messages on WhatsApp — much of which contained content deemed false by fact-checkers — and in doing so potentially broke campaign finance laws. It spurred Congress to launch its investigation into misinformation spread before the election.One of the businessmen named in a story was Luciano Hang, a Bolsonaro booster and department store tycoon with a penchant for wearing bright green suits with yellow ties — the colors of Brazil’s flag. He denied the assertions and sued the story author Patrícia Campos Mello, one of the nation’s more prominent journalists, and Folha de S.Paulo. A judge this month ruled in his favor and ordered payment of 100,000 reais. The paper and Campos Mello will appeal to a higher court, according to Gasparian, the lawyer representing them.Throughout, Bolsonaro has denigrated mainstream media, often calling them “fake news.” In February, he repeated a debunked, sexually charged allegation about Campos Mello, who last year won the International Press Freedom Award after coverage of his campaign.Sympathetic conservative websites have consistently cheered him on. One is Jornal da Cidade, which the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) characterized as a pro-Bolsonaro site. Its editorial stance is explicit in its suit against Twitter, saying editor Tolentino has sought “to highlight the current federal administration’s fight to govern the country, despite the groundless accusations it is suffering publicly.”When Leal and Stelle successfully petitioned Dell to remove its ads from Jornal da Cidade, Tolentino published a text saying Sleeping Giants’ followers were “all frustrated, spiteful, criminal and envious leftists,” and that his site receives more than one million visits daily. It has 1.5 million followers on Facebook, where its posts about COVID-19 significantly outperformed those from traditional media outlets, particularly ones politicizing the health crisis, according to a DFRLab report in May.Sleeping Giants Brazil targeted Jornal da Cidade early on, Stelle said, because of its coronavirus-related content. That has included touting chloroquine to fight COVID-19, an anti-malarial drug that Bolsonaro trumpeted despite a growing body of evidence that it is ineffective against the disease. In April, Congress extended its probe to investigate misinformation about the pandemic.The site published a story with the headline: “A catastrophic analysis about the vaccines against the Chinese virus: ‘They interfere directly in genetic material.’” It was debunked by two separate fact-checking groups, Agencia Lupa and Comprova, but not before racking up 191,000 interactions on Facebook. Jornal da Cidade replaced the story with a correction, which has garnered less than 3% as many interactions.And ahead of this year’s municipal elections, Jornal da Cidade hosted six of the ten most-shared links on Facebook that encouraged Brazilians to believe in ballot fraud and election manipulation, according to a study published Nov. 10 by the department of public policy analysis at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university.Cristina Tardáguila, associate director of the International Fact-Checking Network and founder of Agencia Lupa, said Sleeping Giants Brazil was naive in not providing transparency and focusing efforts on one side of the political spectrum, which hurt credibility and handed ammunition to opponents.“There was a certain naivete in thinking they’d be carried on the shoulders of the people, but Brazilians are ultra-polarized,” Tardáguila said. “Half the people wanted to do that, but half wanted to kill them, destroy them.”She added she worried that the judiciary didn’t take into account the very real physical risk that the account’s administrators could face. The AP reviewed more than 10 physical threats made publicly on Twitter. Jornal da Cidade hasn’t incited any violence against them.Leal and Stelle aren’t sticking around to see if threats are mere bluster from keyboard warriors. They’re moving to their new home — the location of which they declined to disclose — where they intend to keep working.Da Mata, rapporteur for Congress’ investigation, called Sleeping Giants Brazil “truly important work, an initiative that helps combat disinformation as a whole.”Jornal da Cidade is just one of the sites Sleeping Giants Brazil went after. Congresswoman Carla Zambelli, a close ally of Bolsonaro’s, in August called on everyone who was targeted to sue for civil and criminal charges.Leal and Stelle say they know their struggle is only beginning.“We tried to prepare as much as possible for this. We’re betting everything on this project,” Leal said. “Demonetization of fake news means dealing with the worst of the internet: racists, xenophobes, and so on. From the moment you take the money away from these people, they never forget.” 
 
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John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89.Le Carre died Saturday in Cornwall, southwest England, Saturday after a short illness, his literary agency, Curtis Brown, said Sunday. The death was not related to COVID-19.In such classics as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Honorable Schoolboy,” Le Carre combined terse but lyrical prose with the kind of complexity expected in literary fiction. His books grappled with betrayal, moral compromise and the psychological toll of a secret life. In the quiet, watchful spymaster George Smiley, he created one of 20th-century fiction’s iconic characters — a decent man at the heart of a web of deceit.For le Carre, the world of espionage was a “metaphor for the human condition.”Born David Cornwell, le Carre worked for Britain’s intelligence service before turning his experience into fiction in works including “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.””I’m not part of the literary bureaucracy if you like that categorizes everybody: Romantic, Thriller, Serious,” le Carre told The Associated Press in 2008. “I just go with what I want to write about and the characters. I don’t announce this to myself as a thriller or an entertainment.”I think all that is pretty silly stuff. It’s easier for booksellers and critics, but I don’t buy that categorization. I mean, what’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities?’ — a thriller?”His other works included “Smiley’s People,” “The Russia House” and, in 2017, the likely Smiley farewell, “A Legacy of Spies.” Many novels were adapted for film and television, notably the 1965 productions of “Smiley’s People’ and “Tinker, Tailor” featuring Alec Guinness as Smiley.Le Carre was drawn to espionage by an upbringing that was superficially conventional but secretly tumultuous.Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, southwest England, on Oct. 19, 1931, he appeared to have a standard upper-middle-class education: the private Sherborne School, a year studying German literature at the University of Bern, compulsory military service in Austria — where his tasks involved interrogating Eastern Bloc defectors — and a degree in modern languages at Oxford University.It was an illusion: his father, Ronnie Cornwell, was a con man who was an associate of gangsters and spent time in jail for insurance fraud. His mother left the family when David was 5; he didn’t meet her again until he was 21.It was a childhood of uncertainty and extremes: one minute limousines and champagne, the next eviction from the family’s latest accommodation. It bred insecurity, an acute awareness of the gap between surface and reality — and a familiarity with secrecy that would serve him well in his future profession.  “These were very early experiences, actually, of clandestine survival,” le Carre said in 1996. “The whole world was enemy territory.”  After university, which was interrupted by his father’s bankruptcy, he taught at the prestigious boarding school Eton before joining the foreign service.  Officially a diplomat, he was in fact an operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 — he’d started as a student at Oxford — and then its overseas counterpart MI6, serving in Germany, then on the Cold War front line, under the cover of second secretary at the British Embassy.  His first three novels were written while he was a spy, and his employers required him to publish under a pseudonym. He remained “le Carre” for his entire career. He said he chose the name — square in French — simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it.  “Call for the Dead” appeared in 1961 and “A Murder of Quality” in 1962. Then in 1963 came “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” a tale of an agent forced to carry out one last, risky operation in divided Berlin. It raised one of the author’s recurring themes — the blurring of moral lines that is part and parcel of espionage, and the difficulty of distinguishing good guys from bad. Le Carre said it was written at one of the darkest points of the Cold War, just after the building of the Berlin Wall, at a time when he and his colleagues feared nuclear war might be imminent.  “So I wrote a book in great heat which said, ‘a plague on both your houses,'” le Carre told the BBC in 2000.It was immediately hailed as a classic and allowed him to quit the intelligence service to become a full-time writer.  His depictions of life in the clubby, grubby, ethically tarnished world of “The Circus” — the books’ code-name for MI6 — were the antithesis of Ian Fleming’s suave action-hero James Bond and won le Carre a critical respect that eluded Fleming.  Smiley appeared in le Carre’s first two novels and in the trilogy of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy,” “The Honorable Schoolboy,” and “Smiley’s People.”  Le Carre said the character was based on John Bingham — an MI5 agent who wrote spy thrillers and encouraged le Carre’s literary career — and the ecclesiastical historian Vivian Green, the chaplain of his school and later his Oxford college, “who became effectively my confessor and godfather.” The more than 20 novels touched on the sordid realities of spycraft but le Carre always maintained there was a kind of nobility in the profession. He said in his day spies had seen themselves “almost as people with a priestly calling to tell the truth.””We didn’t shape it or mold it. We were there, we thought, to speak truth to power.”  
“The Perfect Spy,” his most autobiographical book, looks at the formation of a spy in the character of Magnus Pym, a boy whose criminal father and unsettled upbringing bear a strong resemblance to le Carre’s own. His writing continued unabated after the Cold War ended and the front lines of the espionage wars shifted. Le Carre said in 1990 that the fall of the Berlin Wall had come as a relief.  “For me, it was absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I was sick of writing about the Cold War. The cheap joke was to say, ‘Poor old le Carre, he’s run out of material; they’ve taken his wall away.’ The spy story has only to pack up its bags and go where the action is.”  That turned out to be everywhere. “The Tailor of Panama” was set in Central America. “The Constant Gardener,” which was turned into a film starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, was about the pharmaceutical industry’s machinations in Africa.  “A Most Wanted Man,” published in 2008, looked at extraordinary rendition and the war on terror. “Our Kind of Traitor,” released in 2010, took in Russian crime syndicates and the murky machinations of the financial sector.  In 1954, le Carre married Alison Sharp, with whom he had three sons before they divorced in 1971. In 1972 he married Valerie Eustace, with whom he had a son, the novelist Nick Harkaway.  Although he had a home in London, le Carre spent much of his time near Land’s End, England’s southwestern most tip, in a clifftop house overlooking the sea. He was, he said, a humanist but not an optimist.  “Humanity — that’s what we rely on. If only we could see it expressed in our institutional forms, we would have hope then,” he told the AP. “I think the humanity will always be there. I think it will always be defeated.”
 
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U.S. National Security Council officials met Saturday at the White House to discuss reports that a “sophisticated hacking group,” believed to be working for Russia, has infiltrated the country’s Department of the Treasury and other government agencies and stolen information related to internet and telecommunications policymaking.According to Reuters, three of the people familiar with the investigation said Russia is believed to be behind the attack.Two of the people said the breaches are related to a disclosed hack on FireEye, a U.S. cybersecurity company with government contracts.”The United States government is aware of these reports, and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said.The Reuters news agency, which first reported the breach, said U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that hackers used similar means to break into other government agencies besides Treasury.Later Sunday, the Commerce Department confirmed one of its agencies was breached.  “We have asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate, and we cannot comment further at this time,” a statement from the department said.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Homeland Security Department, was led until recently by Christopher Krebs, who was fired by President Donald Trump. Krebs has not been replaced.  He was dismissed after he said the November national election was “the most secure in American history,” angering Trump who has claimed, without evidence, that voting and vote-count irregularities led to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over him.Several federal agencies are investigating, and the extent of the intrusion is not known. 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered a Christmas lockdown amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases in the country.Under new emergency measures, which will last from December 16 until January 10, all schools and non-essential shops across Germany are to close and bars and restaurants will remain shut.In a bid to deter outside gatherings during the period, the sale of fireworks is banned and so, too, drinking alcohol in public. The only concession for Christmas is that up to 10 people will be allowed to meet indoors — currently a maximum of five people from two different households is allowed to gather in homes.Religious events in churches, synagogues and mosques may take place, if strict hygiene rules are observed, but communal singing is banned.“I would have wished for lighter measures. But due to Christmas shopping, the number of social contacts has risen considerably,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin after a meeting of federal and state leaders. “There is an urgent need to take action,” she added.People stand around a mulled wine to-go stand at a Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz square, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Berlin, Germany, Dec.10, 2020.Infection rates have hit record levels in Germany in the past few days and the country now has the 12th highest number of cases in the world.More than 20,000 new cases were reported by authorities Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 1,320,716, and 21,787 Germans have died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. The country’s intensive care unit capacity is at a critical level, and doctors say that only five- to 10 percent of intensive care beds are available in some parts of the country.Germany’s Finance Ministry announced it was planning further support for businesses and workers impacted by the lockdown, saying, “Companies, the self-employed and freelancers who are affected by closures from December 16 will receive financial support.”Germany isn’t alone in struggling to suppress transmissions and in some European countries, criticism is mounting of governments for failing to prevent a second pandemic wave. In Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who was praised for his decisiveness in battling the first coronavirus wave earlier this year, is being accused of pursuing an “amateurish” approach this time round.A nurse tends to a patient inside a COVID-19 intensive care unit of the Tor Vergata Polyclinic Hospital in Rome, Italy, Dec. 13, 2020.According to an official tally, Italy is nearing 64,000 deaths from COVID, overtaking Britain, which for weeks has held the lead position in European fatalities. The World Health Organization says Italy is now registering 1,036 deaths per million residents, the second highest after Peru.Conte held back from ordering a second national lockdown as the second wave started in September — despite appeals from some regional governors. In March, he imposed a tough 10-week lockdown, which tamed the first wave.The Italian leader has now ratcheted up restrictions for the Christmas period, but some epidemiologists say the move has been too late. Italian microbiologist Andrea Crisanti said, “Italy’s first wave was bad luck but the second wave unforgivable A sign of poor management and amateurish preparation.”Since September, Italy has recorded more than 28,000 COVID deaths.Matteo Villa, an analyst at the Institute for International Political Studies, Italy’s oldest research institution, specializing in political and international affairs, said the government dithered and failed to prepare the health system in between waves. “If you can act sooner, even a bit lighter in the measures, they work better than acting harshly a bit later or too late,” he said.Conte’s poll ratings are now sliding, and his coalition government is being buffeted by desertions and squabbles over the disbursement of recovery funds from the European Union. Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister, has threatened to collapse the coalition government, which also features the populist Five Star movement as well as the Democratic Party, Italy’s main center-left party, by withholding the backing of his centrist Italia Viva party.Earlier this month, many European governments looked poised to ease coronavirus restrictions for the Christmas period, despite warnings from medical scientists.Gabriele Vinzi, 3, and his brother Samuele Vinzi, 4, react along with their parents as they receive a call via Zoom by a man dressed as Santa Claus, amid theCOVID-19 pandemic, in Rome, Italy, Dec. 8, 2020.They came under mounting public pressure to salvage something of the holiday spirit and they grappled with how far they should go in easing lockdowns or lifting curfews, fearing that having a merry Christmas will likely mean suffering a miserable new year. Now most are heading in the opposite direction with tighter restrictions.Last week, the French prime minister announced he would still lift the country’s lockdown on Tuesday as planned but retain some strict restrictions and impose some new ones for Christmas because of worrying health data. Jean Castex had hoped to lift many more rules but said the virus is not letting him. A new 8 p.m. curfew is being imposed.“We are not yet at the end of the second wave, and we won’t be at the goal we set of 5,000 new cases per day,” he said, adding, “We know that the gatherings over the holidays present a risk.”We need to keep our guard up, stay vigilant,” Castex said.  
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Security forces in Belarus have detained dozens of people as opposition demonstrators staged scattered marches and rallies in Minsk and other cities to pressure strongman leader Alexander  Lukashenko to make political concessions. Human rights group Vyasna said that nearly 180 people were detained during the protests on December 13, with most of the arrests reported in Minsk. According to local news outlet Nasha Niva, more than 120 marches took places across the country, with numbers at each rally ranging from dozens to several hundred. Some protesters marched in outlying residential areas of Minsk, waving white-and-red flags, a symbol of the opposition, and chanting “Long live Belarus.” The demonstrations came as opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was scheduled to appear at events in Germany, as part of her efforts to rally international support for Belarus’s beleaguered opposition. The country has been roiled by unprecedented political opposition since early August when Lukashenko was declared victor of a presidential election that opposition leaders said was flawed. Activists have defied often violent police tactics and organized weeks of demonstrations and rallies. Still, the only hints of concession that Lukashenko has shown are suggestions he has made about drafting a new constitution. In contrast to past weekend demonstration, Minsk authorities did not shutter the subway system on December 13, and no major Internet disruptions were reported. Many of Belarus’s opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, including Tsikhanouskaya, who says she won the August election. Tsikhanouskaya, who now lives in exile in neighboring Lithuania, hailed protesters who had gathered “despite repressions, violence and cold. “They resist Lukashenko’s regime because the people of Belarus want to live in a democratic and free country,” she said in a post to Twitter. The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenko as the winner of the vote. The European Union imposed sanctions on Lukashenko and his allies citing election rigging and a violent police crackdown.  
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U.N. agencies are calling for greater protection for Venezuelan refugees and migrants fleeing economic hardship and persecution.   Venezuelans are often in danger upon arrival in other nations.Many of the 4.6 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants across Latin America and the Caribbean face multiple risks due to COVID-19, crime and human trafficking, impoverishment and other threats.  The U.N. refugee agency says Venezuelans most at risk are those fleeing increasingly desperate conditions in their country.  Field assessments indicate approximately 500 to 700 people leave Venezuela every day. Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says borders across the region remain closed, forcing refugees to use routes where they are threatened by armed groups, smugglers and traffickers.    “This exposes them to heightened risk of violence, exploitation, and trafficking having been faced with theft, extortion, violence and abuse in transit and border zones, during their journey to safety,” he said. “As conditions inside Venezuela continue to deteriorate, many arrive in Colombia weak and in a state of poor nutrition, having faced impoverishment and hardship for many months.”   The International Organization for Migration says that COVID-19 has hit Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the region particularly hard.  IOM spokeswoman, Angela Wells says the economic and social impact of the pandemic has been devastating for both the Venezuelans and the 17 countries where they are now. “The pressures due to the COVID-19 mobility restrictions and consequent socio-economic decline have been compounded by the difficulties they face in regularizing their situations in host countries and fewer opportunities to pursue regular migration pathways,” she said.  “Decreased economic opportunities have put refugees and migrants at greater risk of eviction and hunger while xenophobia and discrimination toward this population have been on the rise.”   Under the so-called Quito process, which works to help and protect Venezuelan refugees and migrants, Latin American and Caribbean countries coordinate efforts to allow them to reach countries of asylum more safely. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had set Sunday as the deadline for reaching an accord. But they agreed there was too much at stake in reaching a deal to end talks. “Despite the exhaustion after almost a year of negotiations and despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over, we both think it is responsible at this point in time to go the extra mile,” von der Leyen said. Negotiations continued at the EU headquarters in Brussels. At stake is Britain’s quest for zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the EU’s single market. Stumbling blocks include fishing rights and penalties Britain would face for violating the EU’s fair competition rules. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said early Sunday on Sky News TV, “We want to be treated like any other independent self-respecting democracy. If the EU can accept that at a political level, then there’s every reason to be confident but there is still, I think, a long way to go.” FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 9, 2020.A British source at the talks said Johnson “will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the UK will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time.” A no-deal Brexit would be economically disruptive in Britain, across Europe and beyond.        
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Droves of Venezuelans blaming President Nicolás Maduro for their country’s collapse voiced their frustrations Saturday in a creative protest days after legislative elections they boycotted as fraudulent.In the so-called “people’s consultation,” U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó urged Venezuelans at home and around the world to register their ire through cellphone apps. Others visited makeshift polling stations in cities across Venezuela and in other Latin American nations, the U.S. and Europe.“Hope has been mobilized in Venezuela,” Guaidó said shortly before the results were announced. “We must underscore a heroic people who mobilized throughout the country and the world in defense of their rights.”Opposition leaders reported that nearly 6.5 million people responded to the survey. The Associated Press could not independently verify the validity of the figures, and even some opposition election experts questioned the number.The opposition’s report said more than 3.2 million participated in person within Venezuela and nearly 850,000 visited centers outside the country, while more than 2.5 million sent in their responses digitally.The survey asked whether people want to end Maduro’s rule and hold fresh presidential and legislative elections, and also seek even greater pressure from international allies to make it happen.Though the event had no legal force, opposition leaders said the survey would unify the foes of Maduro. That includes the 5 million Venezuelans who have fled the nation’s hyperinflation and lack of basic services such as reliable running water, electricity and gasoline, they said.Mirla De Lorenzo, a bank employee, visited a center in her Caracas neighborhood to participate, saying she would take any opportunity to express herself if there was any chance it could bring international attention to Venezuela’s plight and trigger an end to Maduro’s rule.“We’re definitely tired of this situation that’s brought us nothing but poverty,” she said, adding that her daughter moved to Spain and her sister migrated to Chile, among relatives who have fled the crisis.The consultation came days after Maduro’s ruling socialist party declared victory in congressional elections that Guaidó’s coalition boycotted, arguing the vote was a fraud. The United States and European Union are among nations and regional bodies that rejected the elections as undemocratic.A supporter of President Nicolas Maduro performs a wheelie on his motorbike during a rally during on the same day the opposition organized a people’s consultation, in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 12, 2020.Guaidó, acting as the National Assembly’s leader, proclaimed himself interim president in early 2019, arguing that Maduro was an illegitimate leader because his most popular challengers were barred from running in the presidential election the previous year.Guaidó quickly won broad support at home among energized supporters who flooded the streets as well as the backing of leaders in dozens of nations, including the U.S. The Trump administration took the lead, imposing sanctions on Maduro, dozens of his political allies and the state-run oil firm PDVSA. The U.S. Justice Department also unveiled an indictment of Maduro charging him with being a “narcoterrorist,” and offered a $15 million reward for his arrest.Nearly two years later, however, Maduro remains in power with control of the military and international allies including Iran, Russia, China, Tukey and Cuba.On Jan. 5, the term of the current opposition-dominated National Assembly ends and Maduro’s political allies take over the last governmental body not controlled by the president’s socialist party. Guaidó and his political allies vow to continue fighting.The U.S. ambassador for Venezuela, James Story, praised the opposition’s survey from Colombia’s capital, where he has worked since the U.S. and Venezuela broke diplomatic relations and the U.S. closed its embassy in Caracas.“We’re proud to see the people of Venezuela in the street voting for their right to democracy, justice, liberty,” Story tweeted. “Their voices have been heard. Democracy must return to Venezuela.”Maduro’s ruling party staged a celebration in the historic center of Caracas on Saturday to mark the victories of their National Assembly candidates, including Maduro’s wife and son. Politicians gave speeches condemning the domestic opposition and U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Salsa music played and people danced.A political talk show on state television Saturday night featured a segment mocking the referendum by showing cellphone videos said to have been recorded by people who drove by survey centers in cities across the nation.“There’s nobody, absolutely nobody,” one unidentified driver said. “Look there’s four people standing around talking nonsense.”
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A soft snow fell as a clutch of visitors equipped with a Geiger counter wandered through the ghostly Ukrainian town of Pripyat, frozen in time since the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.More than three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster forced thousands to evacuate, there is an influx of visitors to the area that has spurred officials to seek official status from UNESCO.”The Chernobyl zone is already a world-famous landmark,” guide Maksym Polivko told AFP during a tour on a recent frosty day.”But today this area has no official status,” the 38-year-old said of the exclusion zone where flourishing wildlife is taking over deserted Soviet-era tower blocks, shops and official buildings.That could change under the government initiative to have the area included on the UNESCO heritage list alongside landmarks like India’s Taj Mahal or Stonehenge in England.Officials hope recognition from the U.N.’s culture agency will boost the site as a tourist attraction and in turn bolster efforts to preserve aging buildings nearby.The explosion in the fourth reactor at the nuclear power plant in April 1986 left swathes of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus badly contaminated and led to the creation of the exclusion zone roughly the size of Luxembourg.Ukrainian authorities say it may not be safe for humans to live in the exclusion zone for another 24,000 years. Meanwhile, it has become a haven for wildlife with elk and deer roaming nearby forests.Dozens of villages and towns populated by hundreds of thousands of people were abandoned after the disaster, yet more than 100 elderly people live in the area despite the radiation threat.In Pripyat, a ghost town not far from the Chernobyl plant, rooms in eerie residential blocks are piled with belongings of former residents.’The time has come’Polivko said he hoped the upgraded status would encourage officials to act more responsibly to preserve the crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure surrounding the plant.”All these objects here require some repair,” he said.It was a sentiment echoed by Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, who described the recent influx of tourists from home and abroad as evidence of Chernobyl’s importance “not only to Ukrainians, but of all mankind.”A record number of 124,000 tourists visited last year, including 100,000 foreigners following the release of the hugely popular Chernobyl television series in 2019.Tkachenko said obtaining UNESCO status could promote the exclusion zone as “a place of memory” that would warn against a repeat nuclear disaster.”The area may and should be open to visitors, but it should be more than just an adventure destination for explorers,” Tkachenko told AFP.The government is set to propose specific objects in the zone as a heritage site before March, but a final decision could come as late as 2023.After the explosion in 1986, the three other reactors at Chernobyl continued to generate electricity until the station finally closed in 2000. Ukraine will mark the 20th anniversary of the closure Tuesday.Tkachenko said the effort to secure UNESCO status was a new priority after work on a giant protective dome over the fourth reactor was completed in 2016.With the site now safe for 100 years, he said he hoped world heritage status would boost visitor numbers to 1 million a year.It’s a figure that would require an overhaul of the local infrastructure and overwhelm a lone souvenir kiosk on the site selling trinkets such as mugs and clothing adorned with nuclear fallout signs.”Before, everyone was busy with the cover,” Tkachenko said of the timing of the heritage initiative.”The time has come to do this.”
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Trade talks between Britain and the European Union continued into the night Saturday ahead of the latest make-or-break deadline, as the Royal Navy readied armed ships to patrol U.K. fishing waters in case of a no-deal Brexit.Negotiations in Brussels were to continue Sunday, the day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen have set as a deadline to decide whether any trade deal is still possible.”Talks are continuing overnight, but as things stand the offer on the table from the EU remains unacceptable,” a U.K. government source said. “The prime minister will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: Any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the U.K. will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time.”A senior EU source, echoing von der Leyen’s words Friday, said: “The defense of the single market is a red line for the European Union. What we have proposed to the United Kingdom respects British sovereignty. It could be the basis for an agreement.”Four 80-meter (260-feet) British ships have been placed on standby, part of increased contingency planning on both sides of the English Channel, and evoking memories of the Cod Wars with Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic in the 1960s and ’70s.Johnson said on Friday it was “very, very likely” the talks would fail, and that Britain would revert to World Trade Organization (WTO) terms with its largest single trading partner.European leaders have also been told the chances of a deal are slim, with both sides at loggerheads over rules to govern fair competition and fishing rights in British territorial waters.FILE – Trucks queue along the A16 motorway to board ferries to reach England, near Calais, France, Dec. 9, 2020. British-EU trade talks were teetering Dec. 12, 2020.Deal or no deal, Britain will leave the EU single market and customs union on the evening of December 31, more than four years after a landmark referendum on membership of the bloc.’Robust enforcement’As the talks limped on, hardline pro-Brexit Conservative MPs sought assurances from Johnson that the navy should be deployed to protect British waters.Lawmaker Daniel Kawczynski said it would help “prevent illegal French fishing” when EU access ends, stoking nationalist fervor but sparking criticism even within the Tory ranks.But another Conservative, Tom Tugendhat, chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, tweeted in French that the whole process posed “a real and present risk of poisoning relations” between France and Britain.And Tobias Ellwood, a former British army captain who now heads Parliament’s defense select committee, said confrontations in the channel would only be welcomed by Britain’s enemies.”We’re facing the prospect of our overstretched Royal Navy squaring up to a close NATO ally over fishing rights,” he told BBC radio. “This isn’t the Elizabethan times anymore. It’s global Britain,” he added, referring to the country’s new post-EU foreign policy.”We need to be building alliances, not breaking them apart,” he added.The river-class patrol vessels of the Fishery Protection Squadron — the Royal Navy’s oldest front-line squadron with a history dating back more than 500 years — already enforce U.K. and EU fisheries law.The Ministry of Defense confirmed it has conducted “extensive planning and preparation” for a range of post-Brexit scenarios from January 1 and has 14,000 personnel on standby to help with the transition.Planning difficultiesWTO terms would mean tariffs and quotas, driving up prices for businesses and consumers, and the reintroduction of border checks for the first time in decades.That has already raised the prospect of heavy traffic clogging roads leading to seaports in southern and southeast England, as bureaucracy lengthens waiting times for imports and exports.Transport companies have also warned that EU member Ireland could see import volumes shrink in the event of new customs procedures for goods routed through Britain.”As an industry we’re looking to plan ahead but there’s so many unknowns it becomes difficult,” said Road Haulage Association director Martin Reid.
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Mexico approved the emergency use of a coronavirus vaccine late Friday, bringing to six the number of countries that are inoculating or plan to inoculate with shots produced by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.Britain, Bahrain, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United States have also approved the vaccine.Mexican Assistant Health Secretary and epidemiologist Hugo Lopez-Gatell called the vaccine approval “a reason for hope.” Reuters reports Mexico signed an agreement with Pfizer to acquire 34 million doses of the vaccine, with the first batch expected later this month.Mexico has recorded 1.2 million COVID-19 cases and 113,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.The vaccine’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Friday came as the United States topped 295,000 fatalities from COVID-19, the world’s highest death toll, according to Johns Hopkins University, which calculates the United States has had 15.8 million of the world’s more than 71 million COVID infections.Hospitalizations are at record levels in America’s most populous state, California. Los Angeles County reported its highest-ever daily number for new COVID-19 cases at more than 12,000 earlier this week. A public health official said the county is “on a very dangerous track to seeing unprecedented and catastrophic suffering and death … if we can’t stop the surge.”Meanwhile, the World Health Organization and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies signed an agreement, the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) Initiative, on Friday to strengthen the delivery of emergency medical and health services during humanitarian crises.“We are very committed to working together with WHO to provide quality emergency health services that communities desperately need in times of crisis.” said IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain.India said early Saturday that it recorded 30,000 new cases in the past 24 hours. The South Asian nation follows the U.S. in the number of COVID cases with 9.8 million infections. Brazil comes in third with more than 6 million COVID infections.
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Brazil, which is second to the U.S. in deaths from COVID-19 and third in the world in positive cases, is approaching 180,000 deaths as it suffers through its second wave of the disease caused by the coronavirus.In the past day, more than 53,000 cases and 770 deaths have been reported, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Since the start of the pandemic, Brazil has recorded more than 6.7 million cases.Brazil, with a population of 212 million, is entering its summer, when beaches fill with weekend crowds.”The situation is likely to worsen with the summer, because people will move around more, without any control, most of the restriction measures having already been lifted,” Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at the Fiocruz institute, told AFP.The coronavirus crisis in the U.S. continued to intensify Friday, as more than 2,700 people died of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins data, down from the record toll of 3,124 set Wednesday. The country’s deaths now stand at more than 292,000, the most in the world.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Friday the emergency use of a vaccine produced by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.An FDA advisory panel voted to recommend approval of the vaccine late Thursday.And the U.S. purchased 100 million more doses of another vaccine, one by Moderna. Friday’s agreement brings the number of Moderna doses to 200 million, enough shots for 100 million people. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two shots.”Securing another 100 million doses from Moderna by June 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio of vaccines,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.With the U.S. on the verge of its inoculation program, human rights group Amnesty International’s director of economic and social justice issued a warning. Steve Cockburn told The New York Times, “Rich countries have clear human rights obligations not only to refrain from actions that could harm access to vaccines elsewhere, but also to cooperate and provide assistance to countries that need it.”The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center said Friday night there are 70 million coronavirus infections worldwide, with nearly 1.6 million deaths.The U.S. continues to lead the world in the number of cases with more than 15.8 million infections, followed by India with almost 9.8 million and Brazil with nearly 6.8 million.
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