The World Health Organization Wednesday declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, with 114 countries confirming cases, while the United States announced a European travel ban and the National Basketball Association said its games are on hold for now.“In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus at the WHO headquarters, March 11, 2020, in Geneva.Tedros warned that the worst is yet to come with the WHO “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of COVID-19 cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries to climb even higher,” he said.Tedros said his organization has “rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” and that countries “can still change the course of this pandemic.”Trump announces new measures U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday night, declaring “the virus will not have a chance against us,” and announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe to the United States, starting Friday. Travel from the United Kingdom is exempt, as are U.S. citizens, legal residents and their immediate families.Trump also announced financial relief for people and businesses affected by the virus.The U.S. State Department issued updated guidance Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel abroad” because of the coronavirus outbreak.Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies at a House committee hearing on preparedness for and response to the coronavirus outbreak on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 11, 2020.There are more than 1,200 confirmed cases in the United States. When there were just 15 cases last month, Trump said that number would soon drop to zero. It has since spread to about 40 of the 50 U.S. states. Thirty-eight people have died.The first confirmed case in Capitol Hill offices was reported Wednesday with a staffer in Senator Maria Cantwell’s office testing positive.“Bottom line, it’s going to get worse,” the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday.Fauci says how much worse depends on the U.S. government’s ability to control the number of travelers coming into the U.S. and local efforts to contain the virus.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $728 million package to fight the virus, much of which will be used to develop a vaccine.Medical staff checks a passenger in a car for the novel coronavirus at the border crossing with Italy in Vrtojba, Slovenia, March 11 , 2020.Europe takes more drastic measures
Some European nations are taking more drastic steps. Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, is under a nationwide lockdown.All museums and schools in Spain are closed. Denmark has also shuttered schools and Britain announced a multibillion-dollar package to boost the country’s health care system and to also help businesses taking an economic hit.Festivals and any kind of event that attracts large crowds and brings people close together have been canceled across much of Europe.Impact on sports players and events
The NBA announced late Wednesday it is suspending its season until further notice after a player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus.That followed a decision earlier by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to play its popular annual “March Madness” basketball tournaments without fans.As of late Wednesday, there were more than 126,000 coronavirus cases in 114 countries and more than 4,600 deaths.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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Governments around the world are responding to the coronavirus pandemic with more and more travel bans as they seek to prevent imported cases while also avoiding or containing the spread of cases within their borders.U.S. President Donald Trump issued a ban on foreign travelers who recently visited Europe’s Schengen Area as he gave a televised speech that also highlighted economic measures his administration is taking.He drew criticism from Democratic leaders who say not enough is being done to accelerate testing of potential cases in the United States, and they have offered legislation that includes free testing and paid leave that would encourage people to stay home from work.WATCH: White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara’s video report.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A man and a girl on a scooter are backdropped by a Lombardy region campaign advertising reading in Italian ‘ Coronavirus let’s stop it together ‘, at the Porta Nuova business district in Milan, March 11, 2020.In addition to travel bans, governments have increasingly turned to restricting public gatherings to go along with advice from public health officials who say such social distancing, along with hand washing and staying home for those who feel sick, can help stop the virus from spreading.The U.S. state of California said late Wednesday that any gathering of more than 250 people should be canceled, and those in smaller groups should stay about two meters apart.The National Basketball Association suspended its season indefinitely after a player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus. The National Basketball Association suspended its season indefinitely after a player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus.  The governing body for collegiate sports in the United States said the popular men’s and women’s basketball championship tournaments would be held with only staff and family members in attendance.The world figure skating championships set to be held next week in Montreal have also been canceled.Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel after the press conference, in Melbourne, Australia, March 12, 2020.In Australia, the Formula One racing series is set to go ahead with its opening event Sunday, despite several team staff members being held in isolation while they await the results of coronavirus tests.  British driver Lewis Hamilton, who has been the top F1 driver in five of the past six seasons, said Thursday he was “very surprised” the race is still on.”It seems that the rest of the world is already reacting a little bit late, but you have seen this morning with Trump shutting down the border to Europe to the States, the NBA suspended, yet Formula One continues to go on,” Hamilton told reporters.Bahrain, host of the second race of the season, has already said it would not allow spectators.
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“Where to find it?” and “Whatever you want” and “What do you need?”These are the names of some of the social media groups catering to thousands of Cubans who are using newly available mobile internet to grapple with shortages of basic goods that are worsening under tougher U.S. sanctions.Armed with internet access on cellphones that came into general use last year, Cubans are forming online chat groups to share tips about where to find dish detergent, chicken, diesel fuel and other scarce essentials. They do so on WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.Claudia Santander, a 21-year-old graphic designer, poses with her mobile phone as others line up to buy goods at the 4 Caminos market in Havana, Cuba, March 11, 2020. Santander administers 10 Whatsapp groups that help others search for necessities.Chat groupsWithout the chat groups, people would have to “spend all day going around the city” looking for things that they need, said Claudia Santander, a graphic designer who administers a dozen WhatsApp groups at no charge.Now, for example, someone can ask about a certain product — toilet paper or milk powder or soap — and another person on the chat might reply within minutes to say which store in Havana, the Cuban capital, is stocking it.“I’ve been able to sort out” diaper and other purchases since joining several social media groups aimed at locating essential items, said Havana resident Laura Vela, who has a young child.Some of the groups have waiting lists of people anxious to get the benefits of being a member. WhatsApp limits group chat sizes to 256 people, while other platforms accept thousands.Inequality worsensShopping through social media is easing life for many on the island, but it may be exacerbating inequality and making things harder for those without internet connections. Moreover, people get discounts on data if they pay with badly needed dollars through companies outside Cuba, meaning those without U.S. currency are at a disadvantage.“A lot of people can’t afford” to buy phone data or a good phone, said Lucia March, a writer. For those who can, she said, “the usefulness is obvious and it’s something that represents, above all, development and also helps open people’s minds a little.”Cuba doesn’t have classified ads in official newspapers. Some businesses offer sales on the internet, but the social media groups help people grapple almost in real time with constant challenges.Cooking oil might vanish from shelves, but then it returns and there is no flour. One day there is no butter and the next there is no cheese. Many people, particularly those not getting information from a social media network, can spend hours fruitlessly searching for household items.US sanctionsCubans have been used to struggling for the basics since the collapse of their benefactors in the Soviet Union decades ago, but the situation deteriorated in 2019 after U.S. President Donald Trump escalated sanctions. The economic woes of Venezuela, a key provider of oil to Cuba, has also hurt the Caribbean country.As a result, there have often been long lines at shops as well as rationing of products. Many people then turned to social media to try to find what they need.Cuba began to provide data for cellphones in December 2018, and now has more than 3 million lines in service.It costs the equivalent of $5 for 400MB and $20 for 2.5GB, although more discounts have become available recently. Average monthly salaries are between $20 and $50, although many people receive remittances from relatives abroad.Paying in dollarsIn recent months, Cuban authorities have started to promote websites that allow people to pay in dollars through Visa and Mastercard for items including flowers, meat, mattresses and air conditioners.Although the use of such websites is not widespread, they could increase inequality between those with access to dollars and foreign credit cards, and those who don’t, or don’t have relatives living abroad who can help them out.Some people have used the internet to campaign on issues such as the abuse of women, or to engage in unofficial journalism, drawing criticism from authorities in the one-party state who have warned against any anti-government activism.Ted Henken, a Latin America expert at Baruch College, City University of New York, said many Cubans use social media for personal or non-political reasons. But he said the use of social media has broader implications for society because it is “much more free, social and spontaneous.”
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The World Health Organization Wednesday declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, with 114 countries confirming cases, while the United States announced a European travel ban and the National Basketball Association said its games are on hold for now.“In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus at the WHO headquarters, March 11, 2020, in Geneva.Tedros warned that the worst is yet to come with the WHO “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of COVID-19 cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries to climb even higher,” he said.Tedros said his organization has “rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” and that countries “can still change the course of this pandemic.”U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday night, declaring “the virus will not have a chance against us,” and announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe to the United States, starting Friday. Travel from the United Kingdom is exempt, as are U.S. citizens, legal residents and their immediate families.Trump also announced financial relief for people and businesses affected by the virus.The U.S. State Department issued updated guidance Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel abroad” because of the coronavirus outbreak.Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies at a House committee hearing on preparedness for and response to the coronavirus outbreak on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 11, 2020.There are more than 1,200 confirmed cases in the United States. When there were just 15 cases last month, Trump said that number would soon drop to zero. It has since spread to about 40 of the 50 U.S. states. Thirty-eight people have died.The first confirmed case in Capitol Hill offices was reported Wednesday with a staffer in Senator Maria Cantwell’s office testing positive.“Bottom line, it’s going to get worse,” the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday.Fauci says how much worse depends on the U.S. government’s ability to control the number of travelers coming into the U.S. and local efforts to contain the virus.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $728 million package to fight the virus, much of which will be used to develop a vaccine.Medical staff checks a passenger in a car for the novel coronavirus at the border crossing with Italy in Vrtojba, Slovenia, March 11 , 2020.Some European nations are taking more drastic steps. Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, is under a nationwide lockdown.All museums and schools in Spain are closed. Denmark has also shuttered schools and Britain announced a multibillion-dollar package to boost the country’s health care system and to also help businesses taking an economic hit.Festivals and any kind of event that attracts large crowds and brings people close together have been canceled across much of Europe.The NBA announced late Wednesday it is suspending its season until further notice after a player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus.That followed a decision earlier by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to play its popular annual “March Madness” basketball tournaments without fans.As of late Wednesday, there were more than 126,000 coronavirus cases in 114 countries and more than 4,600 deaths.
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U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) plans to increase U.S. military presence in the Western Hemisphere while taking on funding cuts to partner security programs that help Latin American partners counter drug cartels.In written testimony Wednesday, SOUTHCOM commander Admiral Craig Faller said the U.S. “only enabled the successful interdiction of about 9% of known drug movement” recently in Latin America and the Caribbean.Faller told the House Armed Services Committee that he’d need significant assets to drastically improve that number, including dozens of ships.“Recognizing these complex challenges in our neighborhood, we will see an increase in U.S. military presence in the hemisphere,” Faller said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon after the briefing.Partners vitalThe increase, which is coinciding with a Pentagon review of the command, will include more ships, aircraft and forces, said Faller, who declined to discuss numbers.But the increase will not be enough to fully counter the threats, which is “why it’s so important to get partners in the game,” Faller added.Last year, half of U.S. drug interdictions in the region were enabled by local partner forces, according to SOUTHCOM.The need for more partner nation participation comes as the latest Pentagon budget slashes SOUTHCOM’s partner security program funds by about 20%.”That reduction will mean we’ll have to make some choices and have to defund some programs … that have increased our partners’ ability to do things like counternarcotics,” Faller said Wednesday.He added that the increased military presence would help the U.S. offset short-term losses to security cooperation program funding. But he acknowledged that “there might be some areas where we’ll take risks as we look in the future.”Georgian scolds administrationThe Pentagon’s failure to prioritize the geographic command responsible for counternarcotics operations south of the United States has hurt Americans, Republican Representative Austin Scott of Georgia said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on national security challenges in the Western Hemisphere.”All of the additional money we’ve given [to defense] has been transferred to other priorities and not to the priority that is resulting in more deaths than any other area,” Scott said, adding that the U.S. saw tens of thousands die last year from drug overdoses.Scott scolded administration officials for giving the command “what’s left over” in intelligence and surveillance abilities after fulfilling other regions’ needs.SOUTHCOM’s budget for this year is $1.2 billion, which is 1/14th of what was spent in Afghanistan alone.
 
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The president of France and the king of Spain paid homage Wednesday to victims of terrorism in a special ceremony prompted by attacks that hit both their countries and changed Europe’s security posture.France’s Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia led a ceremony on Trocadero plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower with survivors of terrorist attacks and families of victims.The European Union chose March 11 as a day of continent-wide commemoration of terrorism victims after the Madrid train bombing on March 11, 2004 that killed nearly 200 people and woke Europe up to 21st century threats of Islamic extremism.Macron paid tribute to the victims of a string of attacks in France, starting with shootings in 2012 that killed children at a Jewish school, a rabbi and paratroopers in the Toulouse region.Extremists claiming links to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaida hit France repeatedly in 2015 and 2016. Among their victims: cartoonists at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, shoppers at a kosher market, concert-goers at the Bataclan, diners in Paris cafes, an elderly priest at the altar, holiday revelers on the seaside of Nice, and several police officers.
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A two-train subway collision in Mexico City killed a male passenger, injured 41 people and disrupted service Wednesday on the bustling metro system serving this megalopolis of over 20 million people.Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said via Twitter that one of the trains apparently reversed into the other by accident the previous night, shortly before midnight.Twenty-five of the injured were treated at the scene, and the other 16 were taken to hospitals, Sheinbaum said. All the injuries were “light to medium” and not life-threatening. Hours later, Sheimbaum’s chief of staff, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, said that only four of the 16 remained in hospitals.She said the cause of the crash was under investigation.Mexico City’s Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, center, leaves Tacubaya metro station, where two trains collided leaving one dead and 41 injured, in Mexico City, March 11, 2020.Metro authorities said the two drivers of the trains were among those hurt.Mexico City Metro director Florencia Serrania said at a news conference that the “black boxes” from both trains, which will provide a “second-by-second” record of what happened, were turned over to the city prosecutor’s office and their information appeared to be intact.Workers had separated the stacked metro cars and were working to clear the track. She said she expected the line to be ready for service Thursday morning.Serrania said the accident occurred 20 minutes before the end of service Tuesday night when one train was headed to the garage to prepare for Wednesday morning service.She added that an international expert had been hired to conduct an independent review of the incident.Images of the accident published in local media showed wrecked subway cars derailed in the Tacubaya underground station, and rescuers carrying people away.Diana Segura Canchola, who was selling sweets from her street stall outside the station on Wednesday, said she was packing up the previous night when she heard a loud bang “as if a transformer had exploded,” followed by a burned odor.Soon people began emerging from the station saying there had been a crash, and about 10 minutes later police, firefighters and ambulances started arriving.”A lot of people came out disoriented, in shock … very frightened by what had happened,” Segura said.Metro personnel remain at the entrance of the Tacubaya station, where two trains collided, in Mexico City, March 11, 2020.The Mexico City Metro system, one of the world’s largest and most transited, has seen at least two serious accidents previously since it opened five decades ago.In 2015, a train failed to brake in time and smashed into another at the Oceania station in the city’s north, injuring 12 people. Authorities later blamed “double human error.”In the most serious incident, two trains collided at the Viaducto station in 1975, killing at least 31 and injuring more than 70, according to the national newspaper El Universal.Tacubaya is a key station for the Metro system, with three of its 12 lines intersecting there, and there were disruptions during the Wednesday morning commute as people formed long lines outside Tacubaya station waiting to board buses.Metro authorities said service on Line 1 would be reduced throughout the day with Tacubaya and a neighboring station out of action and 45 buses deployed to bridge the gap of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).Serrania told Milenio television that about five cars on each train were damaged.Mexico City’s Metro system transported more than 1.6 billion passengers in 2018, according to official figures, or about 4.4 million per day.
 
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PROGRESO, ECUADOR — For years, Dionisio Romero has relied for his livelihood on a magenta-colored dragon fruit that is wildly popular in Asia, planting dozens of the spindly trees at his farm near Ecuador’s Pacific coast.But as the coronavirus wreaks economic havoc worldwide, the 72-year-old farmer has watched demand for his fruit plummet and prices drop to astonishing lows, wiping away much of the profit he might normally expect.“It’s affecting all of the production of pitahaya in Ecuador,” he said on a recent morning from his farm, called Voluntad de Dios, or Will of God. “You don’t want your fruit to grow rotten on the tree so you sell it for whatever price you can.”The virus and its wide-ranging effects on business have Latin America bracing for a downturn that could test the resilience of the beleaguered region’s already ailing economy.China, where the virus emerged, has been making inroads into Latin America over the last two decades. It is now the region’s second-largest trading partner, meaning any economic contraction there will have a ripple effect. Demand for products like Chilean salmon and Argentinian beef have dipped. The prices of all-important commodities like copper and oil have also declined.Countries such as Chile, Peru and Mexico, with export-driven economies, are likely to see the most serious impact, while others like Brazil and Argentina, whose markets are more closed, could be somewhat shielded from the fallout.“This is a cataclysm for our economy,” said Manuel Viera, president of the Camera Minera de Chile, an independent association representing mining interests. “We should have been thinking about the lean years when the price of copper was up.”Trade between China and Latin America soared to $306 billion in 2018, up from just $12 billion at the start of the century. Exports to China now represent nearly 10% of all goods produced and sent for sale abroad.“The region is so dependent on China and Chinese investments, so every country is going to take a hit,” said Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Those more dependent are going to take more of a hit.”There are mounting signs that the entire global economy could sustain a blow, with stocks falling Wednesday as the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic. Oil prices fell Monday by the most in one day since the 1991 Gulf War. The selling stems from fear of the unknown. Many investors are trying to estimate how badly COVID-19 will hurt earnings.Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 121,000 people. Latin America and the Caribbean thus far has had a fairly low caseload, with about 160 people diagnosed across the wide region, though health officials are confirming new cases almost every day and preparing for a wider outbreak.For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The majority of people recover.The economic impact is likely to be felt on several fronts in Latin America: a devaluation of currencies as investors seek refuge in gold and U.S. dollars; a decline in tourism; and dips in demand for exports and prices.In Colombia, flower companies say they’ve redirected fresh cut bouquets originally destined for China to other markets. In Chile, fruit exporters say crops like strawberries languished in Chinese ports as cities were quarantined and prices dropped. Ships carrying salmon slated for China were redirected to Brazil and the United States. In Mexico, there are concerns about interruption of supply chains impacting assembly plants.Goldman Sachs has downgraded its growth forecast for several countries in the region, including Brazil, in part due to the coronavirus. Brazil’s economy grew just 1.1% in 2019, its third straight year of meager activity after a crushing two-year recession.Rubens Ricupero, a Brazilian who was secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development for nearly a decade, said the nation could be somewhat protected by its relatively small degree of integration into world trade. Nonetheless, he said the crash in oil prices Monday would likely be felt in lower export revenues for state-run oil giant Petrobras, among other side effects.“There will be a mixed impact on Brazil, in general damaging,” he said.Calamity in the oil industry could be particularly damaging for nations like Venezuela, which is already teetering on the edge. Venezuela’s oil production was bringing in up to $37 million daily, but the sudden fall of crude prices has cut that to $20 million, estimated Russ Dallen, head of the Miami-based Caracas Capital Markets brokerage.President Nicolas Maduro’s government has been struggling to counter hyperinflation, an economic contraction worse than the U.S. Great Depression and mounting sanctions targeting the country’s flagging oil industry.Ecuador, where the economy was already projected to contract this year, could also be hurt by a sustained drop in oil prices because the country depends on those revenues to have sufficient liquidity, analysts said. Petroleum is the nation’s top export, generating several billion dollars a year for the small Andean nation.“We’re facing a scenario that I wouldn’t say is catastrophic, but is very delicate, very difficult,” President Lenin Moreno said Tuesday, later announcing measures to cut $1.4 billion from the budget.At least one industry in the region is enjoying a bright spot: In Brazil, the 71-year-old Companhia Nacional de Alcool said demand has surged for its hand sanitizer. The company sold more than 1 million units of its most popular brand in February, up from 200,000 bottles during the same month a year before. They have added a second shift with another 20 employees and are weighing whether to start exporting.“Our workers are very engaged in this, working a lot of extra hours,” CEO Leonardo Ferreira said. “They see how concerned their friends and relatives are.”Back at Romero’s farm in Ecuador, the price of his fruit, which usually fetches $2.50 a kilo (2.2 pounds) is now selling for around 80 cents, if he can find a buyer.A lifelong farmer, he said he chose to grow pitahaya over a decade ago because he was intrigued by the nutritional benefits. The fruit comes in magenta or yellow and has a soft but thick exterior with green stems that look like succulents. The inside is filled with a delicate white fruit sprinkled with tiny black seeds.Instead of throwing out the fruit he can’t sell, he has chosen to give it to locals, many of whom had never tried it before. Before the crisis, nearly all his fruit went to the U.S., where it was popular in Asian communities.“We’ve never tried it and it’s delicious!” he said neighbors tell him.Having observed economic rises and falls before, he’s willing to weather the storm.“That’s the life we have, to produce,” he said. “At high prices or low ones.”
 
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Seven children stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a Texas immigration facility. Their image was beamed 1,000 miles away to Atlanta, where a judge sat in a largely empty courtroom and contended with glitchy audio.At multiple points, a woman’s voice broke through the audio into the Atlanta courtroom, translating the testimony of an asylum seeker in a separate hearing.The Trump administration this week expanded the use of video hearings for immigrant children, having dozens of them held in Houston appear before a judge based in Atlanta. Advocates believe the effort could portend a nationwide expansion of video courts to process the immigration claims of children in U.S. government custody.While the government would not confirm its plans, advocates warned of a greater burden being placed on detained immigrant children, many of whom are not yet teenagers and don’t have guaranteed access to an attorney.Technical difficulties caused delays and snarled the launch of the hearings in Houston, one of the busiest immigration courts in the nation.Video court hearings already occur for some children held in facilities that are hours away from an immigration court — in parts of Texas, Virginia, New York and Tennessee.But Houston has one of the nation’s largest immigration courts, with hundreds of cases heard weekly and children often appearing before a judge in person.Neither the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, nor the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has custody over 3,650 immigrant children, would answer why the Houston-to-Atlanta pilot was necessary. EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said that using video in general “reduces costs, increases hearing flexibility for backlogged dockets, and generally reduces processing or waiting times for decisions in administrative proceedings, without affecting the integrity of the proceedings.”There were 25,351 immigration court hearings held by video conference in the first 17 days of January, roughly a quarter of the 95,492 for all of 2019, according to government figures obtained by immigration attorney Andrew Free.Most of the children in government custody crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone. Some children in ORR’s custody were sent across the border by their parents in border camps, while others may have been separated from a parent or adult relative due to suspected fraud or neglect.On Monday, the first day of the change, Judge Sirce Owen in Atlanta saw dozens of children via video conference. They included a confused 7-year-old boy with no lawyer, a teenage mother trying to calm her toddler daughter, and a group of kids all dressed in the same green sweaters.In the Atlanta courtroom, against the din of fuzzy audio, the judge pressed on with the group of seven children from a government-run facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, telling them why they were there and explaining their rights.As the audio interference worsened, Owen narrowed her eyes at the screen and said, “We’re hearing some feedback on the microphone.”The audio problems continued as the judge finished with the kids, resetting their hearings for April 20 to give them time to find attorneys.As Owen waited for another group of children to file into the room in Corpus Christi, a female interpreter’s voice came over the speakers in the courtroom, “…and they pointed a gun at me…” before fading to garble.Outside observers are typically prevented from sitting in on asylum testimony to protect the privacy of the person applying. Owen ultimately cut off the video and delayed court for more than an hour so the problem could be fixed.Eventually, Owen got to the children waiting in Houston. One by one, she called up about a dozen children from a facility wearing matching forest-green zip-up sweaters. The children sat at a table next to an attorney from Catholic Charities.Owen’s face was shown on a flat-screen television to the left of the table. But the children instead looked forward at a Spanish-language interpreter.In the courtroom gallery, a teenager waiting for her hearing tried to calm her 2-year-old daughter as the delays mounted. The toddler tapped a toy against the bench and ran up and down the line, gently hitting the knees of other children waiting for their hearings.A 7-year-old boy named Justin appearing from a government-run facility seemed confused when the judge asked him about whether he understood his right to an attorney. Owen explained again slowly and the boy told her he did want more time to find one.Owen saw more than 40 children Monday. She reset some cases to allow the children to find attorneys or to give their attorneys time to prepare. She granted a handful of voluntary departure requests. And she transferred some to the adult docket because they would turn 18 before their next hearing.“Kids are being railroaded through the proceedings,” said Zenobia Lai, vice president of immigration legal services for the Catholic Charities chapter in Houston.“If it’s in person, the judge would be able to catch body language,” she said. “Here, I don’t know if the judge was looking at them at all. I don’t know what she sees.”Judges have been urged to decide children’s cases more quickly and children’s attorneys learned that government-contracted facilities would no longer take children to law offices for meetings, making these cases more difficult to prepare, said Jennifer Podkul of immigrant advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense.Gladis Molina, child advocate program director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, notes that video has been used for children at government-contracted facilities in recent years. In a previous pilot program in Phoenix, children participated in their hearings from the facility while the judge and government attorney were in court about five minutes away, she said.“It almost felt in the courtroom what was happening was the processing of file after file because the kids weren’t there,” she said. “They were just images on a screen as opposed to children whose lives were being impacted by the decision that was being made in court.” 
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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has included pro-Kremlin social-media users, Russia’s communications regulator, and an Iranian state body tackling cybercrime on its list of press freedom’s 20 “worst digital predators” that it says represent a “clear danger for freedom of opinion and expression.”The Paris-based media freedom watchdog unveiled the list ahead of the World Day Against Cybercensorship to be marked on March 12.This list, which RSF says is not exhaustive, includes “state offshoots” and government agencies in authoritarian countries. It also covers private-sector companies specializing in targeted cyberespionage that are based in Western countries such as the United States and Britain.
“The authoritarian strongmen behind predatory activity against press freedom are extending their tentacles into the digital world with the help of armies of accomplices, subordinates, and henchmen who are organized and determined digital predators,” RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said in a statement.
“These accomplices sometimes act from or within democratic countries,” Deloire said, adding that “opposition to despotic regimes also means ensuring that the weapons for suppressing journalism are not delivered to them from abroad.”In Russia and Iran, the “Kremlin’s troll army,” Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor, and the Iranian Cyberspace Supreme Council use digital technology to “spy on and harass” journalists and thereby “jeopardize” people’s ability to get news and information, according to RSF.It said pro-Kremlin actors use social media to spread “false” reports and videos, publish personal information, and attack the reputation of journalists.One of their targets includes Finnish investigative journalist Jessikka Aro, who in a recently published book “shed light on the propaganda they spread about those who denounce their activities.”For instance, Russian journalist Igor Yakovenko and the Moscow-based foreign reporters Isabelle Mandraud and Shaun Walker are “often targeted by this troll army,” according to RSF.Meanwhile, Roskomnadzor has “blocked more than 490,000 websites without warning and without respecting legal procedure and has a secret blacklist of banned sites,” the group said.The government agency’s targets have included Ferghana and other news agencies, investigative sites such as Listok and Grani.ru, and political magazines including ej.ru and mbk.news.Roskomnadzor also “blocks platforms and apps that refuse to store their data on servers in Russia or provide the Russian authorities with keys to decrypt messages,” RSF said, citing the example of the encrypted messaging service ProtonMail, which was partially blocked earlier this year.RSF said the Iranian Cyberspace Supreme Council uses “online selective access and control,” and blocks news websites, platforms, and apps such as Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter to enforce state censorship.Created in 2012 and consisting of senior military and political figures, the council “is constructing a firewall using Internet filtering techniques,” the watchdog said.
“Internet shutdowns are increasingly used to contain and suppress waves of street protests, and to restrict the transmission and circulation of independent information regarded as ‘counter-revolutionary’ or ‘subversive’ in nature,” it added.
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The conviction of the only man ever found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing has been referred for an appeal to Scotland’s High Court, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said on Wednesday.Pam Am flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 en route from London to New York, an attack that killed 270 people, mostly Americans on their way home for Christmas.In 2001, Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was jailed for life after being found guilty of carrying out the attack. He died in Libya in 2012 after being released three years earlier by Scotland’s government on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of terminal cancer.Chairman of the Commission Bill Matthews said it was the second time they had reviewed Megrahi’s conviction. “We note that since our last review further information has become available, including within the public domain, which the Commission has now been able to consider and assess,” he said in a statement.”I am satisfied that the matter is now returning to the appropriate forum – the appeal court – to consider fully all of the issues raised in our statement of reasons.”
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Governments around the world are trying to take steps to address the ever-changing outbreak of a new coronavirus, which since December has infected more than 118,000 people and killed about 4,300 in 114 countries.The virus, known officially as COVID-19, first emerged in China, where health officials Wednesday reported 24 new cases.People wait in a queue to get temperature check before entering a bank in Beijing, March 11, 2020.While the increase represents a sustained decline from the height of the outbreak in China, the country where the government puts cities on lockdown to prevent inter-community spread is now dealing with an increase in the number of cases arriving from other nations.That prompted officials in Beijing to order anyone arriving to go into a 14-day quarantine.Italy follows China’s playbook Italy has followed China’s playbook after becoming a secondary center of the outbreak with more than 10,000 reported cases so far and cases in numerous other countries linked to people who traveled from Italy.  Italians were under a second day of a nationwide lockdown Wednesday with people only able to move around for urgent health and work reasons.Officials in the United States are showing increased concern as the number of cases there surpassed 1,000.  Medics transport a patient through heavy rain into an ambulance at Life Care Center of Kirkland, the long-term care facility linked to several confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, in Kirkland, Washington, March 7, 2020.US outbreak pockets
There are pockets of outbreaks in the western state of Washington, where the governor is expected to announce a ban on gatherings of more than 250 people, and across the country in New York where that state’s governor is instituting an isolation zone around a community with more than 100 reported cases.Most people who contract the new coronavirus experience mild or moderate symptoms, but some, mainly older people and those with existing health problems, are at risk for more serious illness.The World Health Organization recommends people wash their hands, avoid touching their face, maintain distance from anyone who is coughing or sneezing, and stay home if they feel ill.Recommendations to avoid large gatherings of people have led to numerous event cancellations around the globe.Police officers wearing masks patrol an empty St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, March 11, 2020.Vatican live-streams mass
Pope Francis gave a live-streamed mass from inside the Vatican on Wednesday, and the Vatican’s representative in East Timor said the pope would not be making an expected trip there later this year.A Premier League match between British football clubs Manchester City and Arsenal set for Wednesday night was postponed after several Arsenal players and staff members went into self-quarantine linked to contact with the owner of another club who tested positive for the virus.Popular Coachella festival canceled
In the United States, organizers of the Coachella music festival moved the April event to October.  And a Sunday debate between Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will go on without anyone in attendance.
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Venezuelan police used tear gas to break up an anti-government demonstration in Caracas called for by opposition leader Juan Guaido Tuesday.Thousands of protesters gathered in the Venezuelan capital to march on the National Assembly, which was taken over in January by lawmakers of President Nicolas Maduro’s ruling Socialist Party.  The marchers advanced only a few blocks before their path was blocked by riot police.  Some of the protesters responded by hurling stones at the police.Shortly after the failed march, officers with a special police unit raided a Caracas hotel and arrested three opposition lawmakers who were staying there.  Two of them were later released, but a third, Renzo Prieto, remained in custody.Guaido organized the march in an effort to revive the street protests against President Maduro that erupted in 2019 after he used his post as president of the National Assembly to declare himself Venezuela’s legitimate interim president, claiming that Maduro’s re-election the year before was illegitimate.  The United States and nearly 60 other countries have recognized Guaido as the country’s rightful leader, but Maduro continues to cling to power.More than four million Venezuelans have fled the oil-rich country as it has slid from prosperity into economic ruin, complete with rising poverty and soaring inflation.The protests were held on the same day as Michele Bachelet, the United Nations human rights commissioner, denounced Maduro’s government in a scathing report to the U.N. Human Rights Council Tuesday.  Bachelet told the council that opponents of the Maduro government are in a particularly difficult and dangerous situation.  
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Australia’s High Court opened a two-day hearing Wednesday on Cardinal George Pell’s last-ditch appeal of his convictions on sexually assaulting two teenage choirboys.The 78-year-old Pell was convicted in December 2018 on charges that he molested the boys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick Cathedral in 1996 while serving as archbishop of the Melbourne diocese.  He was sentenced exactly one year ago this month to six years in prison.  Pell’s lawyers went to the High Court after the Victoria Court of Appeals rejected his appeal last August by a vote of 2-1 vote.  Defense attorney Bret Walker is arguing that it was implausible that the alleged assault even happened because it supposedly took place in a busy area of the crowded cathedral, unlike other sexual assault cases.  Walker is also arguing that the Victoria appeals court incorrectly put the burden of proof on Pell to prove his innocence, rather than place it on the prosecution to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.The seven-member High Court could decide to either accept or reject Pell’s appeal, or send it back down to the Victoria Court of Appeals.  Pell is the the highest-ranking Catholic official convicted in connection with the global child sexual abuse scandal that has embroiled the church for three decades.  At the time of his conviction, he had taken a leave of absence as a member of the Vatican’s Council of Cardinals, who serve as Pope Francis’s cabinet and inner circle of advisers.  He had also served as the Vatican’s treasurer and economic minister.  Only one of the alleged victims came forward to tell authorities what happened; the other died in 2014 of a drug overdose having never spoken of the alleged assault. A lawyer for the father of the late choirboy says if the High Court rules in Pell’s favor and allows him “to walk free from jail, our client says he will lose all faith in our legal system.”
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Russian leader Vladimir Putin threw his weight behind proposals to amend Russia’s current constitutional cap on presidential term limits — a move that opens the door to Putin, 67, staying in power far beyond the end of his current and, in theory, final term in 2024.Under the proposed changes, which Putin insisted would need backing by an upcoming nationwide referendum, as well as the approval of Russia’s Constitutional Court, the Russian leader would be eligible to run for two more terms in office, possibly extending his 20-year Kremlin rule through 2036.“The proposal to remove restrictions for any person, including the incumbent president … would be possible, but on one condition: if the Constitutional Court gives an official ruling that such an amendment would not contradict the principles and norms of the constitution,” Putin said in addressing the proposal before lawmakers in the Duma on Tuesday.Putin framed the move as injecting stability into Russia’s uncertain political future — in effect, suggesting that by staying in power, he could lead Russia toward a day when change in power through elections would be possible.”I am certain that a time would come when the supreme presidential power in Russia would not be so personified, will not be tied to a certain single person,” Putin said.“We are done with revolutions in Russia,” he added.A legendary cosmonaut, a new mission?The proposed constitutional reforms were the latest in a series of moves that appear to provide Putin with options as he confronts the end of his fourth and final term in office.Indeed, the announcement came as lawmakers in the Duma debated additional constitutional reforms first proposed by Putin amid a surprise government shakeup last January. Those proposals included a newly empowered parliament, prime minister’s post and Security Council — all measures that suggested Putin was envisioning a possible new role from which to wield influence beyond the end of his presidency.Yet today’s announcement signaled that at least some in the Kremlin had united around a simpler plan: Putin would stay right where he is.The roll out was highly choreographed.First, lawmaker Valentina Tereshkova, a legendary Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space, took to the Duma lectern, to say that lawmakers’ recent constitutional debates had failed to take into account Russians’ true wishes: that Putin remain in power.Moreover, Tereshkova said impending new changes to the constitution afforded the president the right to “reset to zero” the number of terms already served.Next, Vyachaslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, informed journalists that Putin had heard the news and was on his way to the Duma to address the idea.Soon, Putin was before lawmakers agreeing that the “return to zero” option was indeed possible, provided it passed muster during a national vote scheduled for an April 22 referendum and received the subsequent backing of the Constitutional Court.The Duma quickly approved the measure.Opposition replyKremlin critics had few, if any, illusions of the road ahead.“The fact that Putin was never going to leave — we’ve always known. That he didn’t make any clever moves, and instead stupidly just took another term — now that’s a bit of a surprise,” Leonid Volkov, chief strategist of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, wrote in a post to Facebook.“The current constitution guarantees that I can definitely participate in presidential elections, and that Putin definitely cannot,” Navalny said in a tweet, noting the Kremlin had banned him from participating in elections despite rulings to the contrary by the European Court for Human Rights.Как интересно получается.Действующая конституция гарантирует, что я точно могу участвовать в президентских выборах, а Путин – точно не может.На практике же, я выиграл два суда в ЕСПЧ и всё равно не могу.А Путин был у власти 20 лет, но всё равно пойдёт на первый срок.— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 10, 2020″Yet Putin has been in power for 20 years and all the same is headed for his first term,” Navalny said, in taking a swipe at the “return to zero” argument.While members of the opposition pushed for supporters to protest the move, the calls were immediately hamstrung by another crisis: the coronavirus.Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that all public gatherings of more than 5,000 people were banned until at least April 10 over fears of the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Yet government critics were quick to question the timing of the decision, with many noting that tens of thousands had taken to the streets in 2012, when Putin stretched constitutional norms to return to the Kremlin for a third term in office.For the time being, critics were left to take part in smaller protests against Putin’s new power move, with a reported 100 people taking part in rotating single-picket demonstrations in order to not run afoul of Russia’s punitive freedom of assembly laws.Cue the jokes onlineSocial media churned with grim jokes on the news, parodying a week that, in addition to Putin’s announcement and concerns over coronavirus, saw the ruble collapse amid an oil pricing war with Saudi Arabia.“You read the news about the government coup, and in fear you want to hug somebody,” wrote one Facebook user. “Then you remember about coronavirus. And you think, better instead to head to see a therapist. And then you remember about the value of the ruble.”“Due to the quarantine, they’ve forbidden Putin to leave his post,” photojournalist Dave Frenkel jokes in a post on Twitter.Из-за карантина Путину запретят покидать президентский пост— Dave Frenkel (@merr1k) March 10, 2020“Putin said that he’s not against zeroing out his presidential terms,” Russian blogger Ruslan Usachev wrote in another tweet. “Now, all those who were born under President Putin, have a chance to die under President Putin.”Indeed, should Putin remain healthy and retain public support, Russians faced the prospect of Putin remaining in power well into his 80s.Yet the Russian leader said his country’s ultimate goal was to get to a place where “people in power can be changed regularly,” an argument that some political observers suspected was tightly bound to Putin’s own political reign.“I hope that by 2036, (Putin) will somehow convince the population that democracy is better than a dictatorship,” Vladimir Inozemtsev, director of the Center for Post-Industrial Society Studies, in a blog post dripping with sarcasm.“Learning quicker, it seems, is unlikely to happen,” Inozemtsev said.
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Italian streets are empty after the government extends a clampdown across the entire country in a bid to slow Europe’s worst outbreak of the coronavirus. Elsewhere, Lebanon records its first casualty from the virus while guests at a Canary Islands hotel celebrate the end of a two-week lockdown. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more.
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As thousands of migrants continue to mass on the Turkey-Greece border, there were few signs of a breakthrough in emergency talks between Turkey and the European Union Monday.  Meanwhile five EU member states, Germany, Finland, France, Luxembourg and Portugal, agreed to take in unaccompanied migrant children who are stuck in Greece, though the numbers are unclear.Ankara encouraged migrants to head to the Greek border last week, accusing the EU of failing to keep to the promises it made in a 2016 deal struck at the height of the European refugee crisis. Turkey is hosting around 4 million migrants, many of them escaping the war in Syria. However, critics say most of those trying to cross into Greece are not from Syria and accuse Turkey of weaponizing migrants to blackmail Europe.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A child walks next to tents in a migrant camp set up near the Turkish-Greek border in Pazarkule, Edirne region, Turkey, March 10, 2020.For migrants stuck on the border, including thousands of children, the misery continues. Many are sleeping in the open or in makeshift camps. Greece has stepped up security across the land and sea borders and anyone caught trying to breach the frontier is turned back.  A few do manage to get through and are quickly arrested. It’s not yet clear if they will be returned to Turkey or be allowed to remain on Greek soil, after Athens announced it will not accept any asylum applications for at least the next month.    Back home, Turkey’s president continues to ramp up the rhetoric for his domestic audience.Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, in Brussels, Belgium, March 9, 2020.“Aren’t women and their children suffering the most among the refugees swarming to land and sea borders, hoping to go to Europe?” President Erdogan told supporters at a rally Sunday in Istanbul. “And what is the West doing about this? Is the West’s heart breaking over all of this? No. Is it raising its voice? No.”Meanwhile the United Nations has voiced concern over the vulnerability of the migrant population to the COVID-19 virus outbreak. A team from the U.N. refugee agency is visiting camps along the Greek border to advise on hygiene and transmission prevention.
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As thousands of migrants continue to mass on the Turkey-Greece border, there were few signs of a breakthrough in emergency talks between Ankara and Brussels Monday. Turkey is hosting around four million migrants, many of them escaping the war in Syria. But critics say accuse Turkey of weaponizing the migrants to blackmail Europe. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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The United States has offered to sell Turkey its Patriot missile defense system if Ankara promises not to operate a rival Russian system, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, in what he called a significant softening in Washington’s position.Two Turkish officials told Reuters that Turkey was evaluating the U.S. offer but that Ankara had not changed its plans for the Russian S-400 systems, which it has said it will start to activate next month.Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, March 2, 2020.In Washington, the Pentagon said that U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper had not changed his position on the issue, which was: “Turkey is not going to receive a Patriot battery unless it returns the S-400.”NATO allies Turkey and the United States have been at odds over Ankara’s purchase last year of the S-400s, which Washington says are incompatible with the alliance’s defense systems.Turkey asks for PatriotsAfter heavy fighting in northwestern Syria’s Idlib region this year Turkey asked Washington to deploy Patriots along its border with Syria for protection but the United States said Turkey cannot have both the S-400s and the Patriots.Speaking to reporters on his return flight from Brussels, Erdogan said Ankara had told Washington to deploy Patriot systems to Turkey and that it was ready to purchase the systems from the United States as well.”We made this offer to the United States on the Patriot: If you are going to give us Patriots, then do it. We can also buy Patriots from you,” he said.”They also softened significantly on this S-400 issue. They are now at the point of ‘promise us you won’t make the S-400s operational’,” Erdogan added.FILE – First parts of a Russian S-400 missile defense system are unloaded from a Russian plane near Ankara, Turkey, July 12, 2019.U.S. offers supportPrevious talks between Turkey and the United States on the purchase of the Patriots have collapsed over a host of issues, from the S-400s to Ankara’s dissatisfaction with Washington’s terms. Turkey has said it will only agree to an offer if it includes technology transfer and joint production terms.While ties between Ankara and Washington have been strained, the United States has offered support for its ally as it battles to stop Russia-backed Syrian government advances in Idlib. But U.S. officials said on Tuesday Ankara had to clarify its position on the S-400s for their security ties to advance.U.S. special representative for Syria James Jeffrey and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield told reporters on a conference call from Brussels that Washington was discussing with NATO what support it can offer Turkey militarily.Jeffrey also said they had considered possible responses should Russia and the Syrian government break a ceasefire in Idlib, officials said.NATO help for TurkeyHe suggested other NATO states could individually or as an alliance provide military support to help Turkey. But he ruled out sending ground troops and said there still needed to be a resolution to the S-400 issue for the security relationship to move forward.”You can forget ground troops. Turkey has demonstrated that it and its opposition forces are more than capable of holding ground on their own,” Jeffrey said. “The issue is the situation in the air and it’s what we are looking at,” he said.Washington did not believe that Russia and Syrian had any interest in a permanent ceasefire in Idlib, he said.”They are out to get a military victory in Syria and our goal is to make it difficult for them to do that,” Jeffrey said.”Our goal is … to make them think twice. If they ignore our warnings and preparations and move forward, then we will react as rapidly as possible in consultation with our NATO and European allies on what the package of sanctions and other reactions will be.”Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he addresses his ruling party members, in Ankara, Turkey, March 2, 2020.Position “Unchanged”While Erdogan has frequently referred to the S-400 purchase as a “done deal” and said Turkey will not turn back from it, he did not repeat that stance in his comments on Tuesday. Turkish officials, however, said Turkey’s position remained unchanged.”The United States has once again brought up the Patriot offer. The United States’ previous strong stance isn’t the case anymore. They are approaching Turkey more empathetically now,” a senior official said.”The core condition is that the S-400s are not activated, or in other words that they are not unboxed. This offer is being evaluated, but there is no change of stance on the S-400s,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity said.A separate Turkish official told Reuters the latest offer byWashington also include Turkey’s return to the F-35 stealth fighter jet program, which Turkey was involved in both as manufacturer of plane parts and customer for the jets.After Ankara bought the S-400s, Washington suspended its involvement in the program and threatened sanctions.”There is a U.S. offer for Patriots, but this offer includes the F-35s,” the Turkish official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Air defense systems can be purchased, but Turkey’s conditions are clear: there has to be issues like the know-how transfer and joint production.”Turkey has said it plans to activate the S-400s it received from Russia in April. The United States has warned that such a move will trigger U.S. sanctions, though Ankara has repeatedly said good ties between Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump may be able to avert this.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is standing by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, despite escalating tensions between them over Syria.Erdogan confirmed Tuesday his commitment to activate Russia’s S-400 missile system, claiming Washington’s “position regarding the S-400 has toned down significantly.”In a telephone press briefing Tuesday with James Jeffrey, U.S. special representative for Syria engagement, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield said the Russian missile system was at odds with Turkey’s NATO partnership.”It is incompatible with Turkey’s role as a NATO partner, and it would produce serious consequences with respect to the U.S. CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act),” Satterfield said, warning that Congress could impose sanctions in the “not-distant future.”In the face of Washington’s threats, Erdogan pledged this month to activate the system in April.Ankara’s S-400 purchase violates the CAATSA, which forbids the acquisition of advanced Russian military systems.FILE – First parts of a Russian S-400 missile defense system are unloaded from a Russian plane near Ankara, Turkey, July 12, 2019.Washington initially threatened to sanction Turkey on the delivery of the S-400. But in a widely interpreted gesture to Ankara, the threat of sanctions were instead linked to the activation of the missile system.  Erdogan’s determination to go ahead and activate the system is likely to be a blow to Washington’s efforts to improve ties with its NATO ally.Ankara’s deepening relationship with Moscow is causing alarm with Turkey’s western allies. However, recent rising Turkish-Russian tensions over Syria are fueling speculation of Turkey pivoting back to the West.  “Turkey is getting stronger with the American support, militarily and psychologically,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.”Turkey never left the West, from the very beginning. Turkey will stay with the West. All these appearances with Russia are periodical and not permanent, and this period is probably, in general terms, over, and Turkey will return to the West, said Bagci.While Ankara and Moscow back rival sides in the Syrian civil war, they have been cooperating to end the conflict. But that cooperation started to break down over Idlib, Syria’s last rebel stronghold. Last month, Turkish troops intervened to back rebels faced with being overrun by Russian-backed Syrian government forces.  An explosion is seen following Russian airstrikes on the village of al-Bara in the southern part of Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.Earlier this month, Erdogan went to Moscow to hammer out an Idlib cease-fire agreement with Putin. In a widely reported snub, Putin kept Erdogan waiting in front of TV cameras before his meeting.  Observers, along with western diplomats, are warning that the cease-fire is also likely to be a temporary affair.”We don’t believe they (Damascus and Moscow) have any interest in a permanent cease-fire in Idlib,” Jeffrey said. “They are out to get a military victory in all of Syria. Our goal is to make it very difficult for them to do that by a variety of diplomatic, military and other actions.”  But Erdogan is showing little signs of abandoning his relationship with Putin.”Erdogan is not ready to give up on the Turkish-Russian relations and his very personal relationship with Vladimir Putin,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.”In the end, it is not Turkey so much, but Erdogan who appears reliant on Moscow,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “This suggests that even when extremely vital national interests, such as the defense of Idlib, are at stake, Erdogan prioritizes his anti-Western ideology to optimal policymaking.”But it’s Washington’s reluctance to back its words of support with action and willingness to confront Moscow that other analysts explain Erdogan’s reticence to pivot away from Moscow.  “There has been a reluctance on the part of both the United States and NATO to commit militarily in Syria,” Aydintasbas said. “So, while Turkey has ample political support with politicians and officials lining up to criticize Russia and praise Turkey for its work, in Syria, there is no substantial military backing nor any desire to get involved in the Syrian war or confront Russia, in order to create a safe zone in Syria.”Erdogan is seeking to create a safe zone in Idlib protected by a no-fly zone. The zone would provide a sanctuary to rebels and their families, averting a new exodus of refugees into Turkey.A Turkish military convoy is seen moving through eastern Idlib province, Syria, Feb. 28, 2020, a day after 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in the province in an airstike by Syrian government forces.Washington backs the idea but remains ambiguous over what support it’s prepared to give.”We are looking at ways to assist Turkey. That’s why we are here,” said Jeffrey. “Everything is on the table. We will see what happens next and what our allies are willing to put on the table, and will see what the United States can do to support them.”But observers claim a broader lack of trust between Ankara and Washington is also an obstacle to improving ties. The U.S.-led war against Islamic State relies on supporting the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia designated by Turkey as terrorists.”Hopes of Turkey pivoting back to the United States are definitely misplaced, because for Erdogan and Ankara, the U.S. position in particular in relations (to) the YPG is unacceptable. It’s an anathema for Ankara,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who is now an analyst for Mediascope.Ankara’s suspicions of Washington’s motives continue to corrode relations. Turkish prosecutors are still filing cases over the 2016 failed coup that accuse America of being involved.Analysts suggest such mistrust will likely mean Erdogan will continue to look to Moscow. 
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The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is deploring the violent, escalating attacks against political opponents of the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Michelle Bachelet presented an oral update of the situation in Venezuela to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva Tuesday.Bachelet said the human rights situation in Venezuela has worsened since she last reported on conditions in that country in December. She said opponents of the Maduro government are in a particularly difficult and dangerous situation.  As political tensions increase, Bachelet said, so does violence against opposition members of parliament and other dissidents by security forces and government supporters. She said several parliament members have been arrested.FILE – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet speaks at a session of the Human Rights Council, at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 27, 2020.“My office has also documented acts of aggression against members of the political opposition, protesters and journalists. And, the security forces did not act to prevent such acts of aggression.… We have also registered cases of seizures targeting political parties and NGOs.  These acts of aggression are usually accompanied by a rhetoric that stigmatizes, exposes and discredits the victims, and justifies violence,” the U.N. human rights chief said.Bachelet, a former president of Chile, said she is also concerned about pending legislation to sanction human rights organizations that receive funding from abroad.  Other causes for alarm, she said, are growing restrictions on the freedom of trade unions, whose leaders often face arbitrary detention. She added her office receives allegations that some people under arrest have been subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.At the same time, Bachelet criticized economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s airline, Conviasa, as well as the country’s oil industry. She said they deprive the government of money to spend on social programs, which most hurts the impoverished general population.Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Jorge Valero Briceno, criticized the high commissioner’s presentation as lacking balance. But he noted the necessity of maintaining a dialogue with her office and said his country welcomes its technical assistance.But Briceno reserved the full blast of his ire for what he calls the war-mongering administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.  He said the U.S. president’s threats to blockade and even militarily invade his country undermine the security, economy and human rights of the Venezuelan people. 
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Airlines are slashing flights and freezing hiring as they experience a sharp drop in bookings and a rise in cancellations in the face of the spreading coronavirus.Delta Air Lines said Tuesday that travel demand has fallen so badly in the past week that it expects one-third of seats to be empty this month on flights within the United States — previously the market most immune to virus fallout.Business travelers are grounded as meetings and conferences are being canceled. Leisure travelers are scared.Normally airlines try to lure reluctant customers by discounting fares, but that won’t work in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.“If you are scared of flying, you are probably scared at any price,” said Delta President Glen Hauenstein.Delta, the world’s biggest airline by revenue, said it will cut international flights by 20% to 25% and reduce U.S. flying by 10% to 15%, roughly matching cuts previously announced by United Airlines. CEO Ed Bastian said the airline is “prepared to do more” if the outbreak grows.A Delta Air Lines plane is taking off at Reagan Washington National Airport outside Washington, D.C. (Photo by Diaa Bekheet)The airline is cutting spending, including putting a freeze on hiring, delaying voluntary pension contributions and suspending share buybacks.American Airlines announced it will cut international flying by 10% this summer and reduce U.S. flying by 7.5% in April. It has delayed training of new pilots and flight attendants.United said it has arranged $2 billion in additional bank borrowing to preserve financial flexibility — raising liquidity from $6 billion to $8 billion.The airlines are also evaluating their assets — planes, engines, spare parts and other items — to determine what could be used as collateral for more borrowing, if that is needed.The demand drop-off that began in Asia picked up steam in the U.S. about two weeks ago, when the virus spread outside Asia, notably to Italy. It has been felt equally among business and leisure travelers.Hauenstein said demand has fallen more sharply on the West Coast — Washington state and California have suffered larger outbreaks — than on the East Coast. He said younger people have been more willing to keep flying; people over 55 less willing.The virus appears to be most dangerous among older people. The Associated Press reported this week that the White House overruled a plan by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend that older and physically weak Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new virus, according to a federal official.American’s CEO, Doug Parker, said the largest decline has been in tickets within seven days of departure, which are often bought by business travelers.“That is absolutely driven by U.S. corporations putting in place travel advisories and travel restrictions and canceling travel,” he said. “Once we get to the point where corporate America is ready to travel again, that will come back.”Airlines have been waiving change fees and touting stepped-up cleaning of airplane cabins to make passengers feel more comfortable about flying.Delta, United, American and most international carriers have suspended flights to China, where the outbreak began and has infected the most people.U.S. airline officials have expressed steadfast confidence that they can manage their way through the outbreak.Airline stocks have been among the hardest hit during the market sell-off of the last few weeks.Since mid-February, shares of American have lost more than half their value, United’s stock has fallen more than 40% and Delta and Southwest Airlines more than 25%. They rallied slightly in trading Tuesday morning.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin says he agrees with a proposed constitutional amendment allowing him to seek another term in office, but only if it is approved by the Constitutional Court.”In principle, this option would be possible, but on one condition — if the constitutional court gives an official ruling that such an amendment would not contradict the principles and main provisions of the constitution,” Putin said on Tuesday while speaking to parliament’s lower house, the State Duma.Currently, the constitution allows for a president to serve two consecutive six-year terms.Putin’s current presidential term, his second consecutive one, ends in 2024.However, Valentina Tereshkova, a lawmaker from the United Russia party, proposed earlier in the day a constitutional amendment that would reset Putin’s presidential term count back to zero because of sweeping changes to the constitution currently being debated. 
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