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Husband of Woman Detained in Iran Ends 21-day Hunger Strike 

The husband of a British-Iranian woman who has been detained for more than five years in Iran said Saturday that he is ending his hunger strike outside Britain’s Foreign Office after 21 days. 

Richard Ratcliffe has been sleeping in a tent outside the Foreign Office’s main entrance to pressure the British government to secure the release of his wife and other detained British-Iranian nationals. He began his demonstration last month after his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, lost her latest appeal in Iran.

Ratcliffe, who was joined by the couple’s 7-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and several supporters as he announced the end of his hunger strike, thanked the many well-wishers who stopped to talk to him but said the failure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to drop by was “telling.” He added that his wife has requested a phone call from Johnson. 

While no breakthrough happened in the last three weeks, Ratcliffe said his hunger strike had shone a “greater spotlight” on his wife’s case and added pressure on the governments in London and Tehran. 

“I think we’ve stopped the backward movement,” he said.

‘Head held high’

Ratcliffe said he had started to get pains in his feet overnight, and a discussion with a doctor persuaded him to end the hunger strike. He said he planned to go to a hospital to get checked and hopes to be able to eat something after that. 

“I didn’t want to go out in an ambulance,” he said. “I want to walk out with my head held high.” 

Zaghari-Ratcliffe served five years in prison after being taken into custody at Tehran’s airport in April 2016 and convicted of plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government, a charge that she, her supporters and rights groups deny. 

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was employed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, and was arrested as she was returning home to Britain after visiting family. Rights groups accuse Iran of holding dual-nationals as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West, something Tehran denies. 

In May, she was sentenced to an additional year in prison on charges of spreading “propaganda against the system” for having participated in a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009. An appeals court last month upheld the verdict, which includes a one-year travel ban, meaning she wouldn’t be able to leave Iran until 2023. 

Foreign Ministry meeting

Her husband appeared glum after he met Thursday with British foreign minister James Cleverly in the wake of discussions he had with Iranian officials in London. 

Ratcliffe has said his wife is being used as “leverage” by Tehran, specifically with regard to the U.K.’s failure to pay an outstanding 400 million-pound ($540 million) debt to Iran. 

Ratcliffe’s local lawmaker, Tulip Siddiq, said she had secured a parliamentary debate on Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case set for Tuesday with cross-party support. 

“Nazanin knows that so many people are doing what they can to bring her home,” Siddiq said in a tweet. 

Russia’s COVID-19 Deaths Set Daily Record; Total Infections Top 9 Million 

Russia is reporting a new daily record of COVID-19 deaths, while the total number of coronavirus infections during the pandemic in the country has topped 9 million. 

The surge in daily deaths and infections that began in mid-September appeared to plateau over the past week, but the national coronavirus task force said Saturday that a record 1,241 people died from the virus over the past day, two more than the previous record reported on Wednesday.

The task force said 39,256 new infections were recorded, bringing the country’s case total to 9.03 million.

Russia imposed a non-working week in early November, closing many businesses, with the aim of stemming the virus’s surge.

Two bills outlining new restriction measures were introduced in parliament on Friday, with the aim of their taking effect next year. They would restrict access to many public places, as well as domestic and international trains and flights, to those who have been fully vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19 or are medically exempt from vaccination.

The surge in infections and deaths comes amid low vaccination rates, lax public attitudes toward taking precautions and the government’s reluctance to toughen restrictions. Fewer than 40% of Russia’s nearly 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, even though the country approved a domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine months before most of the world.

In total, the coronavirus task force has reported more than 254,000 deaths — by far the highest death toll in Europe. Some experts believe the true figure is even higher. Reports by Russia’s statistical service, Rosstat, that tally coronavirus-linked deaths retroactively reveal much higher mortality: 462,000 people with COVID-19 died between April 2020 and September of this year. 

Russian officials have said the task force only includes deaths for which COVID-19 was the main cause, and uses data from medical facilities. Rosstat uses wider criteria for counting virus-related deaths and takes its numbers from civil registry offices where registering a death is finalized. 

Turkey’s Erdogan Sues Greek Newspaper Over ‘Insulting’ Headline

A Greek newspaper is facing criminal prosecution in Turkey from Turkey’s president, who is said to be insulted by what he perceived to be a vulgar headline. The Greek newspaper is portraying the action as an unprecedented affront to free speech. But it is finding little support from the government in Athens.

It is not the first time that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acted to silence journalists and criticism against him.

But editors of the Greek Dimokratia daily newspaper say they are the first Greek media group in the West to be targeted by the Turkish leader outside his country. They also call the prosecution they face a parody they have no intention of honoring.

Dimitris Rizoulis, managing editor of the Greek daily, says the entire nation should be up in arms over this legal suit. 

With what right, Rizoulis asked, is Erdogan bullying the newspaper, not just the editors and journalists of Dimokratia, but the nation as a whole?  Authorities here should have never taken delivery of the suit, rather sent it back to Erdogan’s office. This is a parody, and Rizoulis says they have no intention of appearing before a Turkish court to give credence to Erdogan’s bid to defy free speech and, most importantly, the political claims he makes in the legal prosecution – claims that go against national interests.

Erdogan’s legal suit against Dimokratia stems from a blistering headline published last September, using a Turkish swearword to lash out at the Turkish leader at the height of a standoff with its NATO ally, Greece, over drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The Turkish prosecution order was relayed to editors of the newspaper this week, sparking public debate.

Greece’s foreign ministry and center-right government have so far chided the paper for its vulgar tone. But they have defended free speech, and officials contacted by VOA say the government would not extradite the paper’s editorial staff to Turkey for trial and potential imprisonment. 

Rizoulis and four others at Dimokratia face up to five years in a Turkish prison if convicted in absentia.

“Up against such a modern dictator,” Rizoulis said, “it is an honor to be considered an enemy and to be sued by Erdogan.”  The European Court of Human rights, he said, has vindicated several journalists, who have lashed out at public officials, calling them all sorts of names, on the grounds that their criticism adds to pluralism and democracy – even if offensive and provocative at times.

The only problem, said Rizoulis, is that any conviction of Dimokratia’s editorial staff will spell logistical issues. He said he already has been notified that Turkey will place an order with Interpol for the team’s arrest, making international travel difficult.

While NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads over sea and air rights for decades, coming to the brink of war last year over conflicting drilling rights in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.

With tensions brewing anew, though, between the two age-old foes, Dimoktratia says it will not let up on its criticism of the Turkish leader, even if that spells more prosecution orders coming from Erdogan’s office.

COP26: African Youth Demand Rich Nations Fulfill Promises

Several young African climate activists traveled thousands of miles to Glasgow, Scotland, to be part of the COP26 climate summit — and to convey their sense of urgency to world leaders. Henry Ridgwell spoke with some of them about their climate change experiences and what COP26 must deliver to help their communities back home.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell.

Europe Reports 2 Million New COVID Cases

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that Europe remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting 2 million new cases last week, the region’s highest number since the pandemic began. 

At a briefing in Geneva, the WHO chief said the region also reported nearly 27,000 deaths last week, more than half of all COVID-19 deaths worldwide.

Tedros said COVID-19 is surging in countries with lower vaccination rates in Eastern Europe, but also in countries with some of the world’s highest vaccination rates in Western Europe. He said it is a reminder that while vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalization, severe disease and death, they do not replace the need for other precautions.

Tedros said that while vaccines reduced transmission of the coronavirus, they do not fully prevent it.

On the subject of vaccines, the WHO chief once again spoke about the injustices of COVID-19 vaccine inequities and how wealthy nations are neglecting low-income nations in the distribution of the drugs. Tedros said every day, there are six times more boosters administered globally than primary doses in low-income countries. 

He once again urged nations with stockpiled vaccine to donate it to the WHO-managed COVAX global vaccine cooperative to distribute to the developing world. He said that COVAX works when given the chance, having delivered almost 500 million doses to 144 countries and territories. 

Tedros said the majority of countries are prepared to distribute vaccines to their people, but they need the doses. He said there are only two countries that have not started vaccinating their populations — Eritrea and North Korea.

The WHO has set a goal of fully vaccinating 40 percent of the population of every country in the world by the end of this year. 

 

UN Recap: November 7-12, 2021

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. 

UN staffers detained in Ethiopia 

Ethiopia’s federal government detained nearly two dozen of its nationals who work for the United Nations in the capital, Addis Ababa, earlier this week. More than 70 truck drivers contracted to drive humanitarian assistance into the northern Tigray region for the U.N. and international NGOs were also rounded up in the country’s north. The move comes amid reports that the government is targeting ethnic Tigrayans as tensions rise between the government and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

As Diplomatic Efforts Continue, Ethiopian Forces Detain UN Staffers, Truck Drivers 

Tensions simmer on Belarus-Poland border

On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council discussed the situation of migrants who have legally traveled to Belarus from the Middle East and Afghanistan in order to migrate into the European Union. The migrants are now camped on the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, which accuse Moscow and Minsk of weaponizing the migrants. Russia and Belarus deny they are manufacturing a migration crisis.

Western Nations Condemn Belarus at UN Security Council 

Climate negotiations near finish line

Negotiations at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, are slated to conclude Friday with a new deal among countries to stay on course to reach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as stated in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. As we went online, the U.N. Secretary-General was in Glasgow meeting with negotiating groups, as talks continued and could go beyond the Friday evening deadline.

COP26: Draft Climate Deal Published as Negotiations Enter Crucial Final Hours 

News in brief 

— The United States and China, two of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, announced on Wednesday that they have agreed to cooperate on climate action. This was welcome news at the United Nations.

— On Thursday, Sudan’s top military commander appeared to tighten his grip on power, appointing a new governing council that he will lead, two weeks after the military overthrew the joint civilian-military government. Nationwide demonstrations are expected Saturday against the move, prompting calls from the U.N. on Sudanese security forces to exercise restraint. More than a dozen protesters have been killed since the October 25 coup. 

Some good news 

On her 16th birthday in July 2013, Pakistani-born activist Malala Yousafzai made her U.N. debut. The survivor of a shooting attack on her school bus the year before by the Taliban, she gave a captivating speech on the importance of education for all saying, “Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons.” In 2014 she became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 2017 she was named a U.N. Messenger of Peace with a focus on girls’ education. Today she is a 24-year-old Oxford University graduate, and on Tuesday announced she had gotten married. The U.N. Secretary-General’s spokesman said, “We are so happy for her. We wish her and her husband a life of joy and happiness.” 

Quote of note

“Now we have over 22 million people marching toward starvation, of which 8.7 million of those are at famine’s door as we speak.”

— World Food Program chief David Beasley, speaking Thursday on Twitter from Kabul airport on the escalating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. 

What we are watching next week

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations embarks on a 5-day trip to the Middle East. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is the first Cabinet-level official in the Biden administration to go to Israel since the new government was formed in June. She will also go to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leaders, and then on to Jordan. 

Did you know? 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also known by its acronym UNESCO, celebrates its 75th anniversary on Friday. The Paris-based agency was established following the end of World War II. The organization aims to build peace through cooperation in the fields of education, science and the preservation of cultural heritage. 

 

World Has Become Deaf to Plight of the Poor, Pope Says in Assisi

Pope Francis said on Friday that the world had become deaf to the plight of the poor and condemned those who become disproportionately rich while blaming the needy for their own fate.

Francis traveled to Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis, to meet with about 500 poor people before the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor which will be marked on Sunday.

“Often the presence of the poor is seen as being annoying and something to be tolerated. Sometimes we hear it said that those responsible for poverty are the poor themselves,” he said in the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels after poor people, including Afghan refugees, recounted their personal stories.

“The blame is dumped on the shoulders of the poor, adding insult to injury, so as not to make a serious examination of conscience about one’s own actions, about the injustice of some laws and economic measures, about the hypocrisy of those who want to enrich themselves disproportionately,” he said.

Francis, who in 2013 became the first Latin American pope, has made defense of the poor a cornerstone of his pontificate. The former Cardinal Mario Bergoglio is the first pope to take the name Francis, the saint who dedicated most of his life to the poor.

“It is time to give a voice back to the poor because their requests have fallen on deaf ears for too long. It is time for eyes to open to see the state of inequality in which so many families live,” Francis said.

“It is time to again be scandalized by the reality of children who are starving, reduced to slavery, tossed around by the waters as they risk drowning, innocent victims of all kinds of violence,” he said.

He called for the creation of more jobs and an end to violence against women “so they are respected and not treated as merchandise.”

Qadery Abdul Razaq, an elderly man who fled Afghanistan with his wife after the fall of Kabul because they had worked for the Italian military, broke down into tears as he told the pope how the Taliban had killed one of his sons.

He asked for help from the pope and the Italian government to get his four remaining children out of the country.

Turkey Halts Flights for Some Mideast Citizens to EU’s Door

Turkey’s Civil Aviation Authority said Friday that the country is halting airline ticket sales to Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni citizens wanting to travel to Belarus, which in recent months became a route for migrants and refugees trying to enter the European Union.

EU leaders have put increasing pressure on airlines to stop bringing people from the Middle East to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, from where asylum-seekers seeking better lives have traveled by car to the EU’s doorstep.

Thousands have managed to cross illegally into EU member nations Poland, Lithuania and Latvia since the summer, though many others have also been kept from entering or pushed back.

Among them are Iraqi Kurds and Syrians fleeing conflict, persecution or poverty. Many aim to reach Germany or other western European countries, sometimes to reunite with relatives already settled there.

In a brief statement posted on Twitter, Turkey’s aviation authority said its decision to halt ticket sales was valid until further notice.

Citing the Turkish decision, Belarusian airline Belavia said it also would not transport citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen on its Istanbul-Minsk flights starting Friday. Belavia said in a statement that it planned to reimburse the cost of already purchased tickets.

The EU said it also has received confirmation that Iraqi Airlines will not resume flights to Minsk.

EU and Polish officials have accused the longtime leader of Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, of facilitating illegal border crossings in retaliation for sanctions the EU imposed on his government for its brutal crackdown on dissent following Lukashenko’s disputed reelection last year.

German federal police reported Wednesday that 1,246 unauthorized entries to Germany “with a connection to Belarus” had been recorded in the first nine days of November. In all, there have been 9,087 such entries so far this year, German police said.

Polish authorities said a large number of people remain just across the border in neighboring Belarus and Polish border guards continue to rebuff attempts to enter Poland illegally each day.

There are now hundreds of people, among them families with children, staying in makeshift camps on the Belarusian side of the border. Attempts to cross have become increasingly dangerous as Poland fortifies its side of the border and pushes people back. Temperatures at the Poland-Belarus border drop to below freezing at night.

A Polish official said the country’s ongoing conflict with Belarus’ government is not expected to deescalate in the coming days. Paweł Soloch, the head of the National Security Bureau, said Poland was facing a “a psychological, hybrid war, waged consciously by centers that want to weaken or even ultimately destroy our country.”

Poland’s Border Guards said in the previous day they recorded 223 attempts to illegally cross the Polish border from Belarus, fewer than earlier in the week.

Poland’s Defense Ministry said one group crossed a fence at the village of Kuznica but were stopped by officials. The ministry posted a video which it said showed the incident.

The Border Guards agency posted another video on Twitter which it said shows Belarusian personnel using a green laser at the border.

“We assume that these were attempts to blind our officers and soldiers patrolling the border,” the post said.

The information was impossible to verify. Independent journalists face limits to their reporting in Belarus, and a state of emergency in Poland’s border zone prevents media from entering the area.

Germany Reports Record Daily High of 50,000 New COVID Infections

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday people have a duty to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine as a way of protecting not only themselves, but others as well.

She made the comments in a virtual conversation with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

COVID-19 cases are soaring in Germany. A record high daily count of 50,000 new infections were reported Thursday. A week ago, the daily tally was 33,000 new cases.

“The virus is still among us and threatens the health of its citizens,” German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday.

German officials are meeting next week to discuss way to combat the COVID-19 surge.

 

Saudi Purchase of English Soccer Team Sparks Debate About Premier League

Fans of England’s Crystal Palace soccer club were in a taunting mood. They unfurled a banner in the stands at the team’s stadium in south London during a match against Newcastle United, mocking their rivals’ new owner — the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who was portrayed wielding a blood-stained scimitar.

The banner included a mock-up of the pseudo-categories the Palace fans suggested English football authorities require of owners of the country’s top soccer teams. The requirements included terrorism, beheadings, civil rights abuses and murder, and they were ticked off on a clipboard in the banner under the heading “Premier League Owners Test.”

Following complaints about racism, Britain’s Metropolitan Police launched an investigation, saying in a statement, “Any allegations of racist abuse will be taken very seriously.” This month police announced they don’t intend to pursue any prosecutions. “Following an assessment, officers have concluded that no offenses have been committed. No further action will be taken,” the police said in a press statement.

But the $415 million purchase of Newcastle United in October by a Saudi Arabia-led consortium has drawn fire and is fueling a wider debate about England’s premier soccer league, which is not only the richest and most-watched league in the world of football but also seemingly a magnet for oligarchs, authoritarian regimes and autocrats, say critics.

Two of the Premier League’s 20 teams — Manchester City and now Newcastle — are owned by authoritarian regimes. Two others — Chelsea and Wolverhampton Wanders — are owned by oligarchs with links to autocratic regimes. And another, Southampton, is owned by a Chinese businessman whose eventually successful bid for the team was held up as English football authorities probed bribery and corruption allegations lodged against him in China.

Some sponsorship tie-ups have also raised eyebrows. Earlier this year Arsenal signed an extension on a partnership deal with the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) which will see the club earn $55 million between now and 2025 for a “Visit Rwanda” logo on the left sleeve of the players.

The country’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has come under mounting criticism from international rights campaigners for threatening those who criticize the party.  Human Rights Watch has documented from local sources “arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture in official and unofficial detention facilities.”

Amnesty International has criticized the Saudi buyout of Newcastle, saying the deal is “a clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human rights record with the glamour of top-flight football.”

In February, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in Istanbul while visiting the Saudi consulate there and his body was cut up. In the report, the agencies alleged the prince approved a plan to either “capture or kill” Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia rejected the report, calling it “negative, false and unacceptable.

Premier League officials say that they received assurances that the Saudi authorities will not be involved in the day-to-day running of Newcastle.

But Amnesty UK’s chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, told reporters, “Instead of allowing those implicated in serious human rights violations to walk into English football simply because they have deep pockets, we’ve urged the Premier League to change their owners’ and directors’ test to address human rights issues.”

The rights group wants a new human rights-compliant test to be at the heart of approving bids for clubs.

England’s football supporters tend to be ambivalent about foreign owners buying their beloved clubs — often critical when a takeover deal is first announced but then delighted when the funding from deep pockets powers their team to success.

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, bought Manchester City in 2008 and since then is estimated to have spent nearly $3 billion on buying top-flight players and coaching staff. Under his majority ownership the team has won the Premier League five times.

Newcastle fans, though, had no hesitation in celebrating the purchase of their team, which has had little success in recent years and is currently second from last in the league. Chelsea, owned by Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin, is on top of the league currently, with Manchester City second.  As with Manchester City, so with Chelsea — under Abramovich’s ownership the team has been turned into a football Goliath.

Fans at Newcastle’s St James’ Park Stadium, in northeast England, were jubilant when the Saudi deal was announced last month, saying they hoped it would mark a turnaround for the club. Fans waved Saudi flags and donned mock Saudi-style ghutras (headscarves).  

Lawmaker John Nicolson, a member of the British parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee, condemned the scenes during a panel hearing shortly after the deal was made public. During a committee hearing he said, “I’m trying to imagine what it must be like to be Jamal Khashoggi’s widow, when her husband has been chopped up and murdered. And she sees numpties (silly people) dancing around in cod-Arabic dresses outside Newcastle United.”

New Czech Government Expected to Take Tougher Line on China, Russia 

The mix of parties now working to form the next Czech government spans the spectrum from conservative to liberal, but all appear to share a commitment to the democratic principles espoused by founding President Vaclav Havel. And that, says a former Havel aide, could be bad news for China and Russia.

Havel, the erudite playwright whose writings and dissident activities helped undermine communism in Europe, “would be quite pleased” with the state of his country following last month’s parliamentary election, said Jiri Pehe, who advised the former Czech president in the late 1990s. Havel died in 2011.

The election unseated populist billionaire Andrej Babis as prime minister and left his coalition partners, the Social Democrats and the Communist Party, out of parliament altogether. Babis formally submitted his resignation to President Milos Zeman on Thursday, clearing the way for Petr Fiala, head of the Civic Democratic Party and a leading figure in the winning five-party coalition, to begin forming a new government. 

 

Pehe says he expects the incoming coalition, despite its philosophical differences, to adopt a foreign policy that aligns with the strongly pro-human rights, pro-democratic ideals of his former boss.

“At least for the next four years,” Beijing and Moscow will not have as easy a time as they did in recent years, he told VOA in an interview. 

 

A foretaste of what may lie ahead was provided last year in a high-profile visit to Taiwan led by Senate President Milos Vystrcil, a longtime member of Fiala’s center-right Civic Democratic Party, known by its Czech acronym of ODS.

“Prior to my trip, I was aware that my decision to visit Taiwan was not supported by the highest constitutional representatives of the Czech Republic,” Vystrcil told VOA in an interview. Among the critics of the visit was Zeman, whose warm relationship with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping has been lauded by the Chinese Embassy in Prague.

But, Vystrcil said through a translator, “In the end, as a politician, you are supposed to do what you think is best for your country. It is also about what is good for the countries around us. I reached the conclusion that it is in the interest of both the Czech Republic as well as Taiwan that I visit Taiwan.” 

Vystrcil was joined on the trip by Czech lawmakers and politicians, including Zdenek Hrib, the mayor of Prague and a member of the left-leaning Pirate Party, also part of the incoming coalition. He and Vystrcil were famously photographed together enjoying a beer at a Czech-styled pub in Taipei, foreshadowing the left-right coalition that would emerge from last month’s elections. 

Beijing also has reason to worry about Jan Lipavsky, another Pirates Party member, who is seen as a candidate to lead the Czech Foreign Ministry. In an essay published as the coronavirus was taking off in March 2020, Lipavsky warned of the “propaganda panda” and predicted that China would seek to deny any responsibility for the worldwide spread of COVID-19.

He also denounced “Chinese and Russian clientelism” as an attack on Czech democracy.

If the new Czech government does turn its back on China and Russia, it is likely to find support for its positions even among members of the defeated coalition. 

Among those sharing a skeptical view of the two authoritarian powers is Tomas Petricek, the former Czech foreign minister and an unsuccessful candidate in this year’s contest for the leadership of the Social Democrats.

Known to have opposed Zeman’s plan to have Russian companies bid for a key nuclear power project, Petricek also sees Beijing as being on a path irreconcilable with his own nation’s democratic ideals.

“You can say I’m against Beijing,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with VOA from Prague.

Democracy, Petricek pointed out, is an intrinsic part of the Social Democratic Party, and he saw no reason why the party would want to sit on the fence when it comes to which camp with which the country should align itself. The fact that the party was seen as ambiguous on this critical issue led to its defeat in the nationwide legislative elections, he said, a view shared by Pehe, Havel’s former aide.

Petricek said he has taken note of the nationalistic tone of the Chinese government’s recent rhetoric; he considers that — along with its aggressiveness abroad and repression at home — a contradiction of the principles of social democratic parties and the supposed ideals of communist parties.

Taiwan’s robust democracy, on the other hand, “negates” Beijing’s claim that Chinese people and society can only be governed by a single-party regime “somewhere between authoritarianism and totalitarianism,” Petricek said. 

Western Nations Condemn Belarus at UN Security Council 

The United States and European members of the U.N. Security Council condemned Belarus on Thursday for what they called the “cynical instrumentalization of migrants,” as tensions simmered along the Polish-Belarusian border.

“We … condemn the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and well-being have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations,” Estonian Ambassador Sven Jürgenson said on behalf of seven Western nations.

The flow of migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan rose sharply after the European Union imposed sanctions on Minsk for forcing a commercial airliner flying over its territory in May to land. The authorities arrested a Belarusian opposition blogger and his girlfriend, who were on board.

Now thousands of migrants who have traveled legally to Belarus face an uncertain fate and freezing temperatures along the border with Poland.

On Tuesday, Poland closed a border crossing with Belarus after migrants tried to break through.

European and Baltic nations accuse Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of luring the migrants to his country and then facilitating their travel to the border in order to send them into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. The migrants apply for asylum when they reach EU member states.

“This tactic is unacceptable and calls for a strong international reaction and cooperation in order to hold Belarus accountable,” Jürgenson said. “It demonstrates how the Lukashenko regime has become a threat to regional stability.”

“Of course, there is a game of shifting blame now by European Union,” Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told reporters. “They want to picture Belarus, and sometimes even Russia, as perpetrators of this crisis.”

Moscow is Minsk’s closest ally.

Polyanskiy said Minsk has neither economic nor political reasons to prevent the migrants from continuing onward.

“They have no reasons to send them back to the countries where they came from,” he said. “That would be a total violation of any international conventions.”

Fearing it could become a new front in the crisis, Ukraine, which is not an EU member, will send another 8,500 troops and police officers, plus 15 helicopters, to guard its border with Belarus, Reuters reported Thursday.

De-escalation calls

The United Nations has called for de-escalation at the Belarus-Poland border.

“I am appalled that large numbers of migrants and refugees continue to be left in a desperate situation in near-freezing temperatures at the Belarus-Poland border,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Wednesday. “I urge the states involved to take immediate steps to de-escalate and resolve this intolerable situation in line with their obligations under international human rights law and refugee law.”

The U.N. refugee and migration agencies have repeatedly said that using migrants and refugees as political tools is deplorable and must stop.

“With several tragic deaths recorded in the border area in recent weeks, UNHCR [U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees) and IOM [International Organization for Migration] remind states of the imperative to prevent further loss of life and ensure the humane treatment of migrants and refugees as the highest priority,” the agencies said in a joint statement Tuesday.

The European Union, meanwhile, is considering imposing new sanctions on Belarus.​

Some information for this report came from Reuters.

Witnesses at Iran Tribunal Describe Lost Children, Injuries, Abuses 

Witnesses, human rights lawyers, international prosecutors and academics gathered Thursday in London for the second day of the Iran Atrocities Tribunal to investigate how mostly peaceful protests turned violent two years ago.

Iranian security forces killed hundreds and arrested thousands of people who were demonstrating against a sudden spike in fuel prices in mid-November 2019. The Iranian government raised the subsidized price of gasoline by 50%, angering Iranians facing high unemployment, inflation and heavy U.S. sanctions.

Appearing virtually and in person at a conference hall in Westminster, the witnesses described in detail the deadly crackdown by authorities two years ago. Some spoke live, others via taped testimonies, with many wearing masks and sunglasses to conceal their identities for fear of reprisals by the Iranian government against family members.

Some showed photos of dead children. One woman, grasping a picture of her son with his own children, asked during the opening session Wednesday whom she could turn to without help from Iranian courts.

“I don’t know what to do and where to go,” she said. “In this world, isn’t there anyone who can hear my cries?”

Former police officer testifies

Thursday’s session featured a former Iranian police officer — identified only as “Witness 195” — who recalled intelligence agents “spraying the protesters with bullets.” Another person, “Witness 366,” showed X-rays of bullets lodged near his lungs.

The tribunal is organized by civil society groups Justice for Iran, Iran Human Rights and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty) and will hear evidence from more than 160 witnesses over four days but carries no legal standing.

As the tribunal proceeds, Amnesty International called Thursday for the international community to listen carefully.

“The hearings at the International People’s Tribunal on Iran’s Atrocities of November 2019 are crucial for ensuring that these atrocities do not fade into memory,” Heba Morayef, the human rights organization’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. “Crucially, the tribunal must spur U.N. member states into action.”

Raha Bahreini, an Amnesty International researcher and human rights lawyer, said during Thursday’s session that many protesters were sexually assaulted, tortured and executed by Iranian forces two years ago.

On its website, the Iran Atrocities Tribunal, also known as the Aban Tribunal, says its panelists will determine whether Iranian security forces violated international law and will identify perpetrators after proceedings wrap up November 14. Their findings will be released in early 2022.

24 more victims

Amnesty International also updated its list of people killed in the crackdown. It added 24 newly identified names to the database, which now lists 323 Iranians killed in protests across the country November 15-19, 2019.

One of these victims was Pejman Gholipour Malati, an 18-year-old shot in Tehran. His mother, Mahboubeh Ramazani, spoke at Wednesday’s tribunal via recorded video, surrounded by decorations to mark her son’s 20th birthday.

“We want justice. Hear our cries,” she said. “Tell us who killed our children. … We lost our loved ones in our own homeland.”

Ramazani’s camera panned to a neatly made bed: “My son’s empty bed that I see every day,” she said. Then black pants hanging from a door: “Clothes of Pejman I hanged here, in case he returns one day.” A red box crossed with white ribbon: “My son’s bloody clothes are in that box. They’d removed them in the hospital. There were holes in them.”

Harris Calls for Nations to Join in Fighting Financial Inequality 

Extreme poverty and extreme wealth are growing around the world, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told leaders Thursday at the Paris Peace Forum.

“By virtually every measure, the gaps have grown. We face a dramatic rise in inequality, and we must meet this moment,” she said, adding that no nation could fix these challenges alone.

“We must agree that these growing gaps are unacceptable, and we must agree to work together to address them,” she added, according to Agence France-Presse.

The forum, which opened Thursday in person and virtually, brought together about 30 heads of state, along with chief executives, nongovernmental organizations and others, to discuss global issues such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and digital transition.

The leaders of France, Italy, Argentina, Jordan, Morocco and other nations joined with Amazon, Google and YouTube, Meta, Microsoft, Snapchat and Twitter to call for better protection of children online. The U.S. is joining the call, made in 2018, to improve security and better regulate cyberspace, Harris announced.

Harris also will represent the United States at a summit Friday on Libya ahead of that country’s elections next month.

Earlier Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris to commemorate Armistice Day, while Harris observed the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.

The event marked the 1918 agreement between Allied powers and Germany to end their fighting in World War I. A White House official said the ceremony was an opportunity to honor the French and American soldiers who died in the conflict.

It followed a Wednesday visit by Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, to Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial outside Paris, where they took part in a wreath-laying ceremony in observance of Armistice Day and Thursday’s Veterans Day holiday in the United States.  The site honors American service members killed in both world wars and holds the remains of nearly 1,600 Americans.

Harris is visiting France as part of an effort to improve soured relations between the longtime allies.  Both she and Macron described the opportunities for cooperation and the start of a “new era” as they spoke to reporters before meeting Wednesday at Elysee Palace.

“I look forward to the next few days where we’ll continue to work together and renew the focus that we’ve always had on our partnership and the benefit to the people of France and the people of the United States and the people of the world,” Harris said.

Symone Sanders, senior adviser and chief spokesperson for Harris, said in a statement that Macron and Harris discussed cooperation on transatlantic security, space exploration and preparing for future pandemics.

Relations between France and the United States plunged in September when Australia scrapped a $65 billion deal to buy traditional submarines from France in favor of an agreement in which Australia will build nuclear subs with the help of the United States and Britain.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

Germany’s Presumptive Next Leader Forecasts Improved Financial Picture

German Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the presumptive leader of the next government, presented an updated financial forecast Thursday indicating increased revenues for future government projects.

At a news conference in Berlin, Scholz said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent “fourth wave” of new infections and the worldwide supply chain problems, Germany’s tax revenue over the next few years would be higher than the estimates made in May.

Scholz said the new revenue forecast showed all levels of government collecting about $205 billion more in revenue through 2025 than the earlier prediction. He credited the higher-than-expected revenue to “a robust labor market.”

Scholz’s Social Democratic Party won the most seats in September’s parliamentary elections, but because it does not control more than 50% of parliament, it is in negotiations with the third- and fourth-place finishing parties, the environmentalist Greens and pro-business Free Democrats, to form a coalition government.

When asked how the power-sharing negotiations were going, Scholz said he was optimistic.

“I see very concrete things going on, and the observations I had are that a lot of things have come together. Everything still left to discuss is not so difficult that it cannot be overcome,” he said.

Scholz said this new forecast meant the next government could “work sensibly,” though he cautioned there were still financial burdens from the pandemic.

He identified investments in mitigating climate change and upgrading Germany’s public sector computer and internet infrastructure as two of his priorities.​

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Annual German Carnival in Cologne Underway Despite Surging COVID Cases

Germany’s carnival season, a series of festivals among German Catholics, began Thursday but under strict COVID-19 restrictions, because of a surge in new infections in the nation.

Costumed revelers in the western city of Cologne had to line up Thursday to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccinations before they could start the outdoor celebrations. Last year’s festivals were canceled altogether because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The carnivals are being held despite the fact Germany is undergoing a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, setting a record Wednesday for the number of daily infections.

And while the vaccine requirement was strictly enforced, the streets of Cologne were filled with people, side by side, without masks.

Thursday’s celebrations began with a somewhat ominous sign – designated so-called prince for the Cologne carnival, Sven Oleff, had tested positive for COVID-19 the previous day, a breakthrough case since he is fully vaccinated. The festival committee said he showed no symptoms and was feeling well.

The German celebrations – which Germans refer to as the “fifth season” – is a series of festivals celebrated originally by Catholics, primarily in Germany’s Rhineland region. They feature music, food and alcoholic beverages, and they run until Ash Wednesday in February – or the beginning of the Lenten season of fasting and reflection.

Ukraine to Deploy Troops, Helicopters to Guard Belarus Border

Ukraine will deploy another 8,500 troops and police officers, and 15 helicopters, to guard its border with Belarus, aiming to prevent possible attempts by migrants to breach the frontier, the Ukrainian interior minister said on Thursday.

The European Union has accused Belarus of encouraging migrants to come to its territory then pushing thousands of them to cross into Poland and other neighboring EU states in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Minsk.

While not an EU member, Ukraine is wary of becoming another front in the migrant crisis.

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said the new forces would include 3,000 border guard servicemen, 3,500 servicemen of the National Guard and 2,000 police officers.

“Aviation [from] the interior ministry will also be on duty, in particular 15 helicopters, which will ensure mobility and, if necessary, will transfer our forces to the border,” he said.

Monastyrskiy said earlier on Thursday that Ukrainian border guards, police and the national guard would hold drills on the border with Belarus.

“In order to counter the potential crisis with migrants, we will involve all five structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs without exception,” the minister was quoted as saying in the statement.

Monastyrskiy said the latest actions would deter migrants from entering Ukraine, but the former Soviet republic needed to radically re-equip its border with neighboring Russia and Belarus in order to avoid similar problems in the future.

Study: Bots Used to Manipulate Social Media in Favor of European Super League 

Hundreds of bots and thousands of fake accounts run by “troll farms” tried to manipulate social media debates in favor of the European Super League (ESL) after the project was announced last April, according to a study from a Spanish digital consultancy. 

The study from Pandemia Digital, which was first published by Spanish news outlet El Confidencial, said several fake Twitter accounts amplified pro-ESL and anti-UEFA content in the 72 hours following the project’s announcement. 

Twelve clubs signed up to the breakaway ESL project, only for it to unravel when all six English sides plus Inter Milan, AC Milan and Atletico Madrid withdrew, leaving Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid as its only remaining members. 

Unlike in the Champions League, where teams have to qualify through their domestic league, the founding Super League teams guaranteed themselves a place in the new competition every year. 

The study said that more than two million tweets were published from 272,000 accounts about the Super League in those 72 hours, the great majority against the ESL. 

However, the fake social media accounts published more than 10 tweets per second and were mostly located in Spain and Arabic countries, the study said.

One hashtag supporting Real Madrid president Florentino Perez (#EstamosContigoPresi) appeared in 18,000 tweets posted by 7,000 accounts, most of them recently created with no followers. 

The study said that there were 3,600 tweets published in a few hours with the exact same sentence: “The super league is a good idea and will revolutionize football.” 

A ‘troll farm’ is a coordinated effort to manipulate public discourse using fake accounts. A ‘bot’ is a software program that performs automated, repetitive, pre-defined tasks. 

They operate much faster than human users and are often used to gain control over a narrative in social media, creating fake trending topics. 

Rights Groups’ Tribunal on Iran’s 2019 Protests Crackdown in London Renews Accountability Calls

Iran is facing renewed scrutiny for its deadly suppression of nationwide protests in 2019, as a London tribunal organized by rights groups began hearing testimony Wednesday from relatives of those killed and others regarding alleged crimes committed in the crackdown.  

The event known as an international people’s tribunal opened in London’s Church House conference center. Its goal is to investigate alleged Iranian atrocities, including the alleged killing by security forces of hundreds of protesters and wounding of thousands more during the November 2019 protests.  

A panel of human rights law and international relations experts from Britain, Indonesia, Libya, South Africa and the United States led the first day of the tribunal, scheduled to last until Sunday. The hearings are organized by three rights groups including London-based Justice for Iran, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights and Paris-based Together against the Death Penalty.  

In a TV interview with VOA Persian from the venue, the tribunal’s co-counsel Hamid Sabi said the panelists will hear statements from about 160 witnesses vetted by him and fellow co-counsel Regina Paulose during the five-day event.

The counsels’ role is to gather evidence from the witnesses and provide it to tribunal panelists. 

“We gave priority [to getting statements from] families whose loved ones were killed, wounded or imprisoned,” Sabi said. “We also prioritized testimony from eyewitnesses to the crackdown,” he added.  

Iran’s government sparked the nationwide demonstrations on November 15, 2019, by ordering a 50% increase in the subsidized price of gasoline, further straining the finances of Iranians facing high unemployment and inflation in a shrinking economy under heavy U.S. sanctions. Rights activists have said Iranian security forces killed hundreds of people and arrested thousands more while crushing the mostly peaceful protests, in which some people also damaged public buildings and businesses. 

In Iran’s only acknowledgement of the scale of the killings to date, then-Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told state television in May 2020 that the death toll was around 200. 

Nahid Shirpisheh, whose 27-year-old son, Pouya Bakhtiari, was killed by a gunshot to the head while protesting in the northern city of Karaj, spoke to the panel by video from Iran. Shirpisheh said she and members of her family have been repeatedly intimidated and detained by Iranian authorities in retaliation for publicly campaigning for justice for Pouya. She said her ex-husband and Pouya’s father, Manouchehr Bakhtiari, is currently in prison for his activism.  

Iranian rights activist Masih Alinejad, host of VOA Persian’s Tablet TV program, testified in person at the tribunal. She said she also heard from sources in Iran that authorities have been harassing relatives of slain protesters, including by making them bury their loved ones in remote places.  

At the start of Monday’s hearing, the panelists said they had sent letters to 133 Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing them of grave human rights violations and crimes against humanity in suppressing the 2019 protests. The letters invited the officials to present evidence in their defense but no responses were received, the panelists said.

A VOA reporter in London visited the Iranian consulate in the city’s Kensington district Tuesday, seeking comment about the tribunal. The reporter identified himself as affiliated with VOA and asked for a comment after an Iranian consulate staffer opened the door. A male staff member would not respond and escorted the reporter out.

Holly Dagres, a London-based Iran analyst for the Atlantic Council, told VOA it was notable that Iranians provided live video testimony to the tribunal from inside Iran at the risk of angering the Iranian government. 

“It demonstrates just how desperate the families of the victims are to have their voices heard, as they seek accountability and justice, that they are willing to risk their own safety, especially with the Islamic Republic actively trying to silence them,” she said.  

Amnesty International, which is based in London, was to present its latest findings about Iran’s crackdown on the November 2019 protests to the tribunal Thursday. The group’s Middle East and North Africa director, Heba Morayef, said in a statement provided to VOA Wednesday that the tribunal is a crucial step toward ending impunity for the Iranian perpetrators of the alleged atrocities.  

“Crucially, the tribunal must spur U.N. member states into action, both at the current session of the U.N. General Assembly and the next session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, to pave the way for the accountability that is so desperately needed,” Morayef said.  

Jason Brodsky, policy director for U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, said in a VOA interview that the international community has not taken action on the issue because it is too focused on trying to revive restraints on Iran’s nuclear program under a 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers. The United States and Iran have said they are seeking a mutual return to compliance with the deal after Washington withdrew from it in 2018 under the administration of former President Donald Trump and Iran retaliated by openly violating constraints on its nuclear activities a year later.  

“The international community spends most of its time chasing after Iranian diplomats on the nuclear deal, but it does not spend a lot of time on the stories that we heard today and that we’ll be hearing in the coming days. And that has to change,” Brodsky said, noting that Iran’s deputy foreign minister and lead nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kan was scheduled to be in London on Thursday for talks with British officials.  

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has said it is willing to ease some U.S. sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran restoring full compliance with measures designed to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Tehran has denied seeking nuclear arms under cover of a civilian energy program.  

Brodsky said U.S. offers to ease sanctions on Iran, whose leaders have been accused by the tribunal of committing crimes against humanity, send a “mixed and concerning message” about Biden’s pledge to also prioritize human rights in his foreign policy.   

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a VOA request for comment about whether the tribunal will influence the U.S. to tighten human rights-related sanctions on Iran.  

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here for the original Persian version of the story. Ramin Haghjoo reported from London. Some of the information for this story came from Reuters.  

Macron, Harris to Commemorate Armistice Day

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is joining French President Emmanuel Macron at a ceremony Thursday in Paris to commemorate Armistice Day. 

The ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe marks the 1918 agreement between Allied powers and Germany to end their fighting in World War I. 

It follows a Wednesday visit by Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, to Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial outside of Paris where they took part in a wreath-laying ceremony in observance of Armistice Day and Thursday’s Veterans Day holiday in the United States.  The site honors American service members killed in both world wars and holds the remains of nearly 1,600 Americans. 

Harris is visiting France as part of an effort to improve soured relations between the two longtime allies.  Both she and Macron described the opportunities for cooperation and the start of a “new era” as they spoke to reporters before meeting Wednesday at Elysee Palace.

“I look forward to the next few days where we’ll continue to work together and renew the focus that we’ve always had on our partnership and the benefit to the people of France and the people of the United States and the people of the world,” Harris said. 

Symone Sanders, senior and adviser and chief spokesperson for Harris, said in a statement that Macron and Harris discussed cooperation on transatlantic security, space exploration and preparing for future pandemics. 

Harris is set to speak Thursday at the Paris Peace Forum and represent the United States at a summit Friday on Libya ahead of that country’s elections next month.   

Relations between the France and the United States plunged to a historic low in September when Australia scrapped a $65 billion deal to buy traditional submarines from France in favor of an agreement in which Australia will build nuclear subs with the help of the United States and Britain. 

Blinken Warns Russia Against ‘Serious Mistake’ of Invading Ukraine

Ukraine’s foreign minister has held strategic security talks in Washington with the U.S. secretary of state. The meeting comes as Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reports that about 90,000 Russian troops have been positioned along their common border and in rebel-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.

Camera: VOA Ukraine Service. Contributing: Ostap Yarysh.

WHO: Europe Continues to Lead World in COVID Cases, Deaths 

The World Health Organization said in its weekly epidemiological COVID-19 update that Europe again was leading the world in percentages of new cases and deaths from the disease.

The WHO said the number of new cases in Europe rose by 7% last week and the number of deaths rose by 10%. Africa was the only other region to report an increase in new cases.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday called for an urgent meeting with state governors after the nation’s Robert Koch Institute for Infectious diseases reported a record number of COVID-19 cases for a single day.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told the DPA news agency the disease was “spreading dramatically” and said a “quick and unified response” was required.

Seibert said Merkel was conducting talks with ministers, regional governments and likely future coalition parties.

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, acknowledged the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Europe during a Wednesday news briefing in Brussels. Spokeswoman Dana Spinant described the situation as “complex” and “rapidly changing,” adding that member states were discussing next steps to be taken.

Bulgaria seeks help

It was also announced that Bulgaria on Wednesday activated the European bloc’s civil protection mechanism, an emergency designation in which member states request assistance with disasters or other emergencies.

Bulgaria, which reported 334 COVID-19 patient deaths on Tuesday — the country’s highest daily toll since the start of the pandemic — requested oxygen devices, patient monitors and hospital beds.

In the U.S., drugmaker Pfizer on Tuesday filed a request with the Food and Drug Administration to make booster shots of its COVID-19 vaccine available to all U.S. adults 18 or older. The request cited a new clinical trial involving 10,000 volunteers who had each received a third injection of the two-dose vaccine, which it developed in collaboration with Germany-based BioNTech. Pfizer said preliminary results showed the third shot boosted a person’s protection against the virus to about 95%.

The request came weeks after the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized third shots of the Pfizer vaccine for Americans 65 and older, adults at high risk of severe illness and front-line workers such as teachers, health care workers and others whose jobs place them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19.

The Pfizer booster shot is available for people regardless of whether they initially received the two-shot Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which offers less protection than either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 

21 People Survive Turkey Building Collapse

Authorities in Turkey say they arrested a shop owner and two employees Wednesday, one day after the collapse of a commercial building that trapped several people. The private DHA news agency reported that those arrested are suspected of having conducted unauthorized renovations. An investigation is continuing by local authorities in the city of Malatya in central Turkey.

At the time of the collapse on Tuesday, about 20 people were inside the two-story building, which housed a coffee shop and other retail businesses, according to the Associated Press.

Turkish emergency agencies said they sent 260 personnel to the site to search for people trapped under the rubble and rescue them. Local authorities said workers helped 13 people escape. They were taken to area hospitals for treatment. Others reportedly were able to find their way out on their own.

The state-run Anadolu News Agency reported Wednesday that the suspects were hospitalized for injuries sustained in the collapse. Two of them received medical treatment in intensive care but were not in critical condition, the news service reported.

DHA News reported that authorities accused the suspects of illegal changes to the building that might have resulted in its structural failure.

A survivor told Anadolu that a wall fell on him but he was able to escape with two friends.

According to Sky News, the building was on a busy street in Malatya, a city of 450,000 about 500 kilometers east of Ankara. The incident reportedly occurred shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, while people were shopping on their way home from work.

Emergency service agencies concluded their operations late Tuesday after determining that no one remained under the building debris, Anadolu reported.

Workers have begun using excavators to clear the site.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Sky News 

EU Court Rejects Google’s Appeal of $2.8 Billion Fine

The European Union’s General Court has rejected Google’s appeal of a $2.8 billion European Commission fine for giving its own shopping suggestions an illegal advantage in search results.

The commission fined the American technology giant in 2017 for wrongfully directing visitors to its Google Shopping service at the expense of smaller European competitors.

The General Court ruled that it “largely dismisses” Google’s appeal and is upholding the fine after “finding that Google abused its dominant position by favoring its own comparison-shopping service over competing” services.

Google, which is also appealing two other EU antitrust penalties totaling $9.5 billion, said in a statement it amended its practices in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s decision.

“Our approach has worked successfully for more than three years, generating billions of clicks for more than 700 comparison shopping services,” the statement said.

Earlier this year, the commission launched antitrust probes into whether Google and Facebook are suppressing competition in the classified and digital advertising sectors. The commission is also investigating Apple over payments and Amazon, another U.S. tech giant, over concerns it is unfairly competing with independent retailers on its platform with its own products.

Google said it has not decided whether to appeal Wednesday’s ruling in the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court.

Some information in this report also came from The Associated Press and Reuters.