The US Naval Station at Rota in the south of Spain has often been the target of protests by anti-war activists and environmentalists. But ever since the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged Spain’s tourism industry, it has been a vastly different scenario. Jon Spier narrates this report by Alfonso Beato in Rota. Producer: Rob Raffaele.
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Polish border forces on Wednesday said they were attacked with stones by migrants at the border with Belarus and responded by using water cannons against them.

The Border Guard agency posted video on Twitter showing a water cannon being directed across the border at a group of migrants in a makeshift camp in freezing temperatures.

Polish police said one officer was seriously injured. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital and it is likely his skull was fractured after being hit by an object.

The situation marks an escalation in a tense migration and political border crisis where the lives of thousands of migrants are at stake.

Poland’s Defense Ministry said its soldiers and other border forces were attacked with stones and other objects.

The ministry also said that Belarusian forces tried to destroy fencing along the countries’ common border, while the Interior Ministry posted video apparently showing migrants trying to tear down a fence.

There was no way to independently verify what was happening because a state of emergency in Poland is keeping reporters and human rights workers out of the border area. In Belarus journalists face severe restrictions on their ability to report as well, with only a few present at the border.

At one point Tuesday a Polish independent broadcaster, TVN24, was forced to rely on CNN in order to show a picture of the border not filtered through government authorities.

Poland’s parliament is expected Tuesday to take up a legislative proposal that would regulate the ability of citizens to move in the area of the border with Belarus after the state of emergency ends at this end of this month.

The state of emergency was imposed at the beginning of September as a large number of migrants from the Middle East sought to cross into Poland from Belarus.

The border is also part of the European Union’s eastern border, and the EU accuses the authoritarian regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of fomenting a migration crisis in order to pressure the bloc.

The EU has been putting pressure on airlines to stop transporting Syrians, Iraqis and others to Belarus.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is urging its citizens trapped at the border to return home.

Some 200 Iraqi nationals who arrived in Belarus with the intention of crossing into the EU reached out to the Iraqi embassy in Russia and expressed a desire to return to their homeland, an embassy spokesman told the Interfax agency on Tuesday.

The spokesman added that an evacuation flight will take place on Thursday and all those wishing to return to Iraq are already in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, awaiting the flight. There were no issues with transporting the migrants from the border to Minsk, the diplomat told Interfax, and Belarusian authorities have provided all the necessary assistance.
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Russian officials on Tuesday rejected accusations that they endangered astronauts aboard the International Space Station by conducting a weapons test that created more than 1,500 pieces of space junk.

U.S. officials on Monday accused Russia of destroying an old satellite with a missile in what they called a reckless and irresponsible strike. The debris could do major damage to the space station as it is orbiting at 17,500 mph (28,000 kph).

Astronauts now face four times greater risk than normal, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told The Associated Press.

The test clearly demonstrates that Russia, “despite its claims of opposing the weaponization of outer space, is willing to … imperil the exploration and use of outer space by all nations through its reckless and irresponsible behavior,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos wouldn’t confirm or deny that the strike took place, saying only that “unconditional safety of the crew has been and remains our main priority” in a vague online statement released Tuesday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday confirmed carrying out a test and destroying a defunct satellite that has been in orbit since 1982, but insisted that “the U.S. knows for certain that the resulting fragments, in terms of test time and orbital parameters, did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities” and called remarks by U.S. officials “hypocritical.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also charged that it is “hypocrisy” to say that Russia creates risks for peaceful activities in space.

Once the situation became clear early Monday morning, the four Americans, one German and two Russians on board the International Space Station were ordered to immediately seek shelter in their docked capsules. They spent two hours in the two capsules, finally emerging only to have to close and reopen hatches to the station’s individual labs on every orbit, or 1 1/2 hours, as they passed near or through the debris.

NASA Mission Control said the heightened threat could continue to interrupt the astronauts’ science research and other work. Four of the seven crew members only arrived at the orbiting outpost Thursday night.

A similar weapons test by China in 2007 also resulted in countless pieces of debris. One of those threatened to come dangerously close to the space station last week. While it later was dismissed as a risk, NASA had the station move anyway.

Anti-satellite missile tests by the U.S. in 2008 and India in 2019 were conducted at much lower altitudes, well below the space station at about 260 miles (420 kilometers.)
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Greece and U.S. tech giant Microsoft have teamed up to digitally revive one of the ancient world’s most sacrosanct sites: the birthplace of the Olympic Games. The ambitious project uses technology to immerse viewers in the world of ancient Olympia. 

The collaboration between Microsoft and the Greek Culture Ministry will allow millions of visitors to immerse themselves in an experience that organizers say brings history to life. 

At a recent news conference in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, Microsoft officials said they used artificial intelligence to map the site, augmenting reality to help restore the sacrosanct location as it might have looked some 2,000 years ago.  

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitostakis attended the launch and said the project would revive Greece’s greatest commodity — its history. 

“Technology is opening up a completely different way of experiencing what our culture is all about. And the project in Olympia is so important because it demonstrates the power of technology to not just look at the site, but also the lives of people, how societies were organized,” Mitostakis said.

Among the 27 monuments being featured are the original Olympic stadium, the temples of Zeus and Hera, and the workshop of the renowned sculptor Phidias. 

Through data provided by Greek archaeologists, the sites are as close as possible to their original forms. In-person visitors are provided with smart glasses at the site so they can get an idea of what the locations would have looked like in ancient times. Visitors also see timelines of how the sites have changed over time, as well as depictions of artifacts from various periods.  

Antigone Papanikolaou of Microsoft explained in a presentation.  

“It’s like passing the flame from the old generations to the next. The fact that we can now go and experience how our predecessors were creating and living and seeing that as it was in ancient Greece, It’s amazing,” Papanikolaou said.

Organizers say people who are not able to visit the site in southern Greece will be able to take a virtual tour using a computer or mobile app. Critics tell The Associated Press that the program will extend “the invasive power” of U.S. tech giants. 

Work on the ambitious project took 18 months, with drones and sensors being used to help map the sites. 

Officials in Greece, a treasure trove of antiquities, say the cultural implications for the country are now endless. 

Some information came from The Associated Press. 
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Belarus appeared to be moving Monday to de-escalate a long-running standoff with Poland and the European Union. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said he is preparing to start repatriating around 4,000 asylum-seekers camped out in freezing temperatures at the border with Poland.

“Active work is underway in this area, to convince people —please, return home,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by state news agency Belta. But he added the caveat: “Nobody wants to go back.”

Poland — as well as Lithuania and Latvia — have been militarizing their borders with Belarus to try to stop record numbers of migrants, mainly from Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, attempting to cross their borders. They accuse Lukashenko of weaponizing human desperation by using asylum-seekers as pawns in reprisal for the EU’s imposing sanctions on Belarus for last year’s disputed elections. The election was widely seen as rigged.

Lukashenko’s remarks came as European Union leaders advanced a raft of new sanctions against Belarus targeting officials, businesses and airlines involved in the organized ferrying of migrants from the Middle East and the Gulf to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

The sanctions package contains two parts targeting migration facilitators and also those accused of human rights abuses inside Belarus, where Lukashenko has overseen a harsh crackdown on protesters challenging the legitimacy of his rule.

Belavia, the Belarusian state-owned airline, is high on the target list and the company’s existing and future aircraft leasing contracts would be impacted. But ahead of the imposition of new EU sanctions, the airline announced it would stop flying travelers from Dubai who have come from several other Middle Eastern countries. Iraq also announced it is planning a repatriation flight Thursday for Iraqis stranded on the Belarusian-Polish border.

Before a meeting in Brussels of EU foreign ministers to discuss fresh sanctions, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said, “Today we are going to approve a new package of sanctions against Belarusian people responsible for what’s happening … and we are going to launch a framework in order to implement other sanctions to other people, airlines, travel agencies and everybody involved on this illegal push of migrants in our borders.”

Migrant crisis

Borrell told reporters he spoke with the Belarusian foreign minister telling him “The situation on the border was completely unacceptable and that humanitarian help was needed.”

Meanwhile, Poland is calling on NATO to intervene in the migrant crisis on the border with Belarus. “It is not enough just for us to publicly express our concern. Now we need concrete steps and the commitment of the entire alliance,” Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Sunday. He said Poland, Lithuania and Latvia may request a meeting under Article 4 of the alliance’s treaty which requires member states to consult when the territorial integrity of another is being compromised.

Lukashenko has half-heartedly denied he has been seeking to needle or blackmail Europe by trying to fuel a migrant crisis, but said he was reacting to foreign pressure. “We are not blackmailing anyone with illegal immigration,” he told journalists in Minsk’s Independence Palace in August. “We’re not threatening anyone. But you have put us in such circumstances that we are forced to react. And we’re reacting,” he said.

In October alone, Poland recorded 15,000 attempted illegal border crossings. Last week, the country’s defense minister tweeted that his government had boosted the number of Polish troops sent to the border to 12,000, up from the 10,000 deployed earlier.

Katarzyna Zdanowicz, a spokesperson for the Polish Border Guard, said Monday that the situation at the border in the Kuznica area was “very tense and very dangerous.” She said migrants had been throwing stones at Polish border guards and “weapons” were being “pointed towards our servicemen” with a flare fired at them. Polish officials say Belarusian guards have been encouraging migrants to trample down obstacles and cut wire fences, handing them bolt-cutters.

In the last few days, several airlines and governments have scrambled to avoid being impacted by EU sanctions. Syria’s Cham Wings Airlines suspended flights between Damascus and Minsk Saturday. Turkey said it will ban Syrian, Yemeni, and Iraqi citizens from boarding flights from Istanbul to Minsk. The Iraqi government suspended direct flights between Iraq and Belarus last week.

But NATO officials and EU diplomats appear less than convinced that Lukashenko is sincere about ending the high-stakes standoff, which they see as part of a broader pattern of provocations ultimately authored and stoked by Moscow.

They point to the Belarusian leader’s comment that the migrants do not want to be repatriated. And they say Belarusian authorities Monday encouraged thousands of migrants sheltering in a migrant camp in the village of Bruzgi to join the throng already on the border by circulating a rumor in the camp that the Polish government was about to open the border.

Polish authorities sent out SMS messages saying the information was a “total lie,” and in the text messages: “Poland won’t let migrants pass to Germany. It will protect its border. Don’t get fooled, don’t try to take any action.”

Poland has accused the Kremlin of pulling Belarusian strings and Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has called on Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to intervene, saying he could bring an end to the migrant crisis with a phone call to his ally Lukashenko, who has also raised the prospects of shutting down a pipeline running through Belarus carrying natural gas to Western Europe from Russia.

Russia

In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin rejected accusations that Russia is stoking the migrant crisis, saying Western powers had “a desire to place their own problems at somebody else’s door. It’s their own fault.”

But Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said the migrant crisis is part of a Kremlin strategy of hybrid warfare. He linked it with a Russian military build-up on the border of Ukraine, which is also prompting alarm in Washington, Kyiv, and European capitals.

“When we see migrants used as a weapon, when we see disinformation used as a weapon, when we see gas used as a weapon, and soldiers and their guns, these are not separate elements,” Ukraine’s top diplomat said in an interview with the Politico.eu website.

After meeting with Kuleba, NATO’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg warned Monday that the Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border has reduced the time the West will have to prepare for any incursion into Ukraine. He said the Western alliance needs to be “realistic” following warnings last week by US intelligence officials that Moscow could be planning a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“We see an unusual concentration of troops, and we know that Russia has been willing to use these types of military capability before to conduct aggressive actions against Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said. Russia has dismissed talk of an invasion as “alarmist” and accuses Western powers of provoking tensions in the region, saying there has been an uptick in military activity by the West, mirroring the European and American claims against it.

Russia’s defense ministry said last week it had scrambled a Sukhoi SU-30 warplane to intercept a British spy plane, a British Boeing RC-135, when it neared Crimea.

Russia assembled around 100,000 troops near the Ukraine border earlier this year, saying they were there for training. Moscow later announced their withdrawal, but Ukraine claims most of the force remained in the region. Western and Ukrainian officials say more Russian units, including elite ones, have been deployed near the border, with some troop movements happening covertly overnight.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that Washington did not immediately know what to make of the massing of tens of thousands of Russian troops along the Ukraine border. “We’ve seen this before. … What does this mean? We don’t know yet, too early to tell,” he said.

“Everyone is wondering, what’s Putin going to do? I think he loves it when we ask those questions,” said David Kramer, who was assistant secretary of state in the administration of George W. Bush. He said the Kremlin thrives on discomfiting the West by being unpredictable. 
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Germany’s capital, Berlin, joined several German states Monday in limiting access to restaurants, cinemas, museums and concert venues to only people who have been vaccinated or recently recovered, as new COVID-19 cases continue to surge. 

The country’s infectious disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, reported Monday that the country’s number of new cases per 100,000 residents in the past seven days climbed to 303, the first time the rate climbed over 300 since the pandemic began. The record comes just one week since an unprecedented jump to over 200 new cases per 100,000 residents. 

Only 67.5% of the German population is fully vaccinated. The highly contagious delta variant has run rampant through the unvaccinated population as the temperature drops and people stay indoors. 

The German parliament is scheduled to vote Thursday on a new legal framework for COVID-19 restrictions drawn up by the three parties expected to make up the nation’s next ruling coalition — the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Free Democrats. The plans are reportedly being strengthened to allow for more strict contact restrictions than originally planned.

The coalition, which hopes to finalize its formation and take office early next month, is also expected to introduce a vaccine mandate in some areas, a step that officials have so far resisted.

Reports say the new laws will give Germany’s 16 states a series of options they can apply individually, given that the infection rate varies greatly across the country. Higher rates have been detected in regions with the lowest vaccination rates, namely eastern and southern Germany. 

 
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The British government Monday announced Monday an expansion of the nation’s COVID-19 booster shot program to people ages 40 and up, to fight off a potential winter surge of the deadly disease.

Until now, only British residents ages 50 and up, those clinically vulnerable because of underlying conditions, and frontline health workers were eligible for booster shots. But at a news briefing in London, the chairman of Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, Wei Shen Lin, announced the extension to those ages 40 and up who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months.

He said, as with the original booster program, either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines can be used as the booster dose, regardless of the type of vaccine originally received.

The committee also recommended a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for young people between the ages of 16 and 18. In August, the committee had advised only one dose of the vaccine for people of that age group, but would review the data, and were anticipating that a second dose may well be advised. Monday, the committee chairman said that was “indeed the case.” 

The chief executive of Britain’s drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Dr. June Raine, said they had closely monitored the use of the vaccines in people under 18, and their use raised no additional safety issues specific to this age group. 

Speaking via video conference, British Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the data so far showed that adults over age 60 who have received the booster were achieving over 90% protection against symptomatic illness and he expected protection against hospitalization and death to be even higher. 

He said if the booster program is successful and participation numbers are high, it would “massively reduce the worry about hospitalization and death due to COVID at Christmas and for the rest of this winter, for literally millions of people.” 

 
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Britain Monday raised its terror threat level from substantial to severe following an explosion Sunday in a taxi outside a hospital in the city of Liverpool,  Interior Minister Priti Patel announced.

A severe level means a terror attack is “highly likely.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson also chaired an emergency meeting in response to the incident.

Authorities told reporters that the passenger in the taxi was carrying an improvised explosive device and asked to be taken to the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, but that a motive or what caused the device to explode was not clear.

The passenger died in the blast, and police said Monday they believe they know his identity.

Since the explosion, police have arrested four other men in connection with the investigation.

The explosion injured the taxi driver, who received medical treatment but has been released. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised an agreement by nearly 200 countries to boost efforts to combat climate change, while expressing disappointment the result of a U.N. climate conference was not stronger. 

“We can lobby, we can cajole, we can encourage, but we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do,” Johnson said at a Sunday news conference. “It’s ultimately their decision to make and they must stand by it.” 

Johnson told reporters the agreement reached at the conclusion of the two-week summit in Glasgow was “truly historic” and represented the “death knell for coal power” with pledges to phase down the use of coal.

He said that even with disagreement about the extent and speed of actions to try to limit global warming in the coming decades, “the world is undeniably heading in the right direction.” 

Patricia Espinosa, the U.N.’s climate secretary, told the Associated Press that solving a challenge such as climate change cannot be done in one conference, but that the Glasgow meeting achieved a “very positive result in the sense that it gives us very clear guidance on what we need to do in the coming years.” 

“I think that what we are seeing in the text is that for the first time we’re talking about coal and subsidies to fossil fuels in the context of our process on climate change. And I think that’s a good step forward,” Espinosa said. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and the Agence France-Presse.  
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Bulgaria’s new centrist political party was seen winning parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to four exit polls, increasing chances of an end to a political deadlock in the European Union’s poorest member state.

Political wrangling prevented opponents of former Premier Boyko Borissov from building a government after the previous two elections in April and July. Bulgarians have grown tired of the impasse, which was seen hampering the country’s economic prospects amid a rise in COVID-19 cases overwhelming hospitals.

The new centrist anti-graft party, We Continue The Change, was seen leading with about 26% of the vote, new exit polls by Alpha Research, Gallup International, Market Links and Trend showed. The pollsters saw Borissov’s center-right GERB party in second with about 23-24%.

Market Links said the new party got 26.5% support. Gallup International also sees the new party ahead with 26.3%.

“Bulgaria is headed onto a new path,” centrist party leader Kiril Petkov told reporters, saying the party understood the responsibility to forge a working government.

Analysts said the new party looked better positioned to seal a coalition with the support of two small anti-corruption groupings and the Socialists. But they said tough talks lie ahead.

Petkov promised to be open to dialog and compromises but said his party would not step back from plans to overhaul the judiciary and clamp down on corruption. He said replacing the chief prosecutor and bolstering the anti-corruption agency would be the key issues in coalition talks.

In the presidential vote also held on Sunday, incumbent Rumen Radev, a harsh critic of Borissov, was seen winning around 50% support in the first-round vote and looked poised to win a runoff for the largely ceremonial post on Nov. 21.  

The close poll results on Sunday underscore deep political divisions after a decade-long rule by Borissov, 62, a former bodyguard of late Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov. “The question remains if all GERB’s opponents would stick to their pledges to avoid supporting GERB for a government. If that is the case, we will be facing a four-party coalition,” political analyst Daniel Smilov said.

The election coincides with high energy costs and anger at widespread corruption in Bulgaria. While new COVID-19 cases are dropping from a record high, hospitals are still overwhelmed and the death rate remains one of the highest in the EU.

We Continue the Change was set up by Harvard-educated entrepreneurs Petkov and Assen Vassilev in September.

“We are promising zero corruption. This is what we are going after. No small tolerance, nothing, zero,” Petkov told Reuters.

The exit polls also showed an ultranationalist party, Revival, which strongly opposes COVID-19 restrictions, crossing the 4% threshold for entering parliament.

Voter turnout was at a record low, about 25.5%, three hours before polls closed, data from the electoral commission showed. Partial official results are due after midnight.
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British police arrested three men under terrorism laws Sunday after a car exploded outside a hospital in Liverpool, killing one man and injuring another.

Counter-terrorism police said the three men, whose ages ranged from 21 to 29, were detained in the Kensington area of the northwest England city under the Terrorism Act.

Police also cordoned off another residential street in the city. They did not disclose details of the operation.

Police were called to reports of a blast involving a taxi at Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Sunday morning. Photos showed a vehicle in flames near the hospital’s main entrance.

Merseyside Police said in a statement that the vehicle, a taxi, “pulled up at the hospital shortly before the explosion occurred. Work is still going on to establish what has happened and could take some time before we are in a position to confirm anything.”

The male passenger of the car died and the driver was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The explosion occurred just before 11 a.m. on Remembrance Sunday, the time people across Britain pause in memory of those killed in wars.

Police said the explosion had not been declared a terrorist attack and they were keeping an open mind about the cause, but counterterrorism police were leading the investigation. 

Britain’s interior minister, Home Secretary Priti Patel, said she was “being kept regularly updated on the awful incident.”

The Liverpool Women’s Hospital said it immediately restricted visiting access until further notice and diverted patients to other hospitals “where possible.”

Fire services said they extinguished the car fire rapidly, and a person had left the car before the fire “developed to the extent that it did.”
…

ith the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, or COP 26, now over, countries are looking to begin funding a global counterattack on rising temperatures on Earth. Meanwhile, scientists in Denmark are searching for clues to our warming planet’s future by studying ice from the past. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more
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More than 600 migrants, many of them Egyptians, arrived in southern Italy over the past 24 hours, officials said on Sunday, defying stormy winter seas in search of a better life in Europe. 

Italy has seen a sharp increase in boat migrants in recent weeks and the latest mass arrivals will put further pressure on Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government to secure an agreement with European Union partners over how to deal with the influx. 

Coastguards rescued some 300 men and boys overnight who were packed on a fishing boat off the southern toe of Italy. The group, almost all Egyptians, were brought ashore to the nearby port of Roccella Jonica. 

Hours later, some 212 mainly Egyptian and Syrian migrants were taken off a second boat and brought to Roccella Jonica. 

Further to the south, 113 migrants, including at least eight women, reached the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in two different landings. Local media said some of the newcomers were Tunisian. 

As of Nov. 12, 57,833 migrants have reached Italy so far this year against 31,213 in the same period of 2020 and just 9,944 in 2019. 

Right-wing parties have accused the Interior Ministry of not doing enough to stem the flow. 

Speaking after a conference on Libya on Friday, Draghi urged greater coordination with Europe to resolve the problem. 

“What is certain, however, is that these continuous landings in Italy are making the situation unsustainable,” he told reporters, standing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 
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A Greek prosecutor has launched an urgent investigation into criminal organizations supplying fake vaccination certificates, both domestically and from neighboring states, mainly from Balkan countries. The probe comes as COVID-19 infections surge anew in Greece, mainly in the country’s northern areas bordering the Balkans, where fake vaccination certificates have become a hot commodity.

It is shocking testimony like this one from a Greek woman who refuses to get vaccinated, that have authorities scrambling to catch scammers operating across this European Union nation.

Keeping her back to the camera and her identity hidden, she told a local television broadcaster she is desperately seeking dodgy doctors or health care staff to get a fake vaccination certificate at whatever the cost.

She has been calling up doctors in Athens, she said, explaining her refusal to participate in the government’s vaccination program and need, as she called it, to resort to such steps because she has no other means of operating freely in the country.

All health care officials she has contacted so far, she said, have refused her bids. They are scared.

Greece’s center-right government only recently ordered all health care staff, public and private, nationwide, to be vaccinated or face steep fines and job loss.

An investigation launched by Greece’s Division of Internal Affairs, an anticorruption unit within the police, however, has so far found at least 10 areas across the country, providing a deluge of fake certifications through questionable health care providers.

That could explain, experts told VOA, why COVID-19 infections here have rocketed in recent weeks, placing Greece, once a near-COVID-19-free country, now among the most infected within the EU, along with Belgium, Poland, Holland, Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria.

It is not just dodgy healthcare providers in Greece fanning the scam, though. Organized criminal networks, as authorities call them, are operating through the dark web, providing anti-vaccine Greeks with forged EU vaccine passes issued from Bulgaria for up to $350. 

The dubbed voice of this middleman as released on state media here explains.

He said his links in Bulgaria notify him and he leads those interested up to the capital of Sofia, where they go to specific doctors, give their details, pay and leave with the European certificate without having been jabbed, adding that he alone has sent more than 100 people there.

Most certificates, investigators say, show recipients receiving the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is not traceable in laboratory tests. 

The rise in fake vaccines certificates has dominated Greece’s north, areas that border Bulgaria, sending COVID-19 infection rates to record levels, straining the state health care system anew. 

Demand for fake certificates has surged as the government in Athens has imposed sweeping restrictions, allowing only the vaccinated to enter state buildings, banks, restaurants and shopping centers. 

Faced with what authorities call an epidemic of fake certificates, police have boosted inspections at the borders and imposed stiff fines of almost $6,000on those caught with them. 

Apart from Greece, several other EU countries have seen a surge in similar illegal activities. Earlier this month, in fact, EU authorities launched a massive investigation after detecting the COVID-19 Digital Certificates gateway had been hacked.
…

Austria is placing millions of people not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in lockdown as of Monday to deal with a surge in infections to record levels, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said on Sunday.

Europe has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic again, prompting some governments to consider re-imposing unpopular lockdowns.

Roughly 65% of Austria’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, which is one of the lowest rates in western Europe. Many Austrians are skeptical about vaccines, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom Party, the third biggest in parliament.

While the Netherlands is dealing with its surge in infections by imposing a partial lockdown that applies to all, Austria’s conservative-led government says it wants to avoid imposing further restrictions on those who are fully vaccinated.

“We must raise the vaccination rate. It is shamefully low,” Schallenberg told a news conference announcing the new measure after a video call with the governors of Austria’s nine provinces.

Those aged 12 and under will be exempt from the lockdown, under which the unvaccinated can only leave their homes for a limited number of reasons like going to work or shopping for essentials, Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein told the news conference, adding that it would initially last 10 days.

Many officials, including within Schallenberg’s conservative party and the police, have expressed doubts such a lockdown can be properly enforced since it applies to only part of the population. Schallenberg and Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said, however, that there will be thorough checks by the police. 
…

Nearly 200 countries signed the Glasgow Climate Pact at the end of the COP26 summit Saturday, pledging to speed up action on tackling climate change. However, last minute pressure from China and India saw key pledges on phasing out fossil fuels watered down. Henry Ridgwell reports from the summit.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
…

Polish police said Saturday that the body of a young Syrian man was found in the woods near the border with Belarus, the latest victim in a political standoff at the European Union’s eastern border.

The regime in Minsk has for months been encouraging illegal migration across its border into the EU nations of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. All three countries are reinforcing their frontiers, seeking to block the newly opened migration route, and the situation is growing more dangerous as winter approaches.

Polish police said the body of a Syrian man about 20 years old was found a day earlier near the village of Wólka Terechowska. They said the exact cause of death could not be determined and that an autopsy would be performed.

It brings the death toll to at least nine reported victims in the migration encouraged by Belarus’ longtime President Alexander Lukashenko.

Many of the migrants are from Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere in the Middle East, people seeking to flee conflict and hopelessness for the prospect of better lives in Europe.

The crisis is creating another point of tension between the West and Belarus, and by extension with its closest ally: Russia.

Though Russia this week sent nuclear-capable strategic bombers and paratroopers to patrol over Belarus in a show of support, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied allegations of being involved in creating the flow of migrants to Europe.

“I want everyone to know that we have nothing to do with it. Everyone is trying to impose any responsibility on us for any reason and for no reason at all,” Putin said in excerpts released Saturday of an interview with state television that is to be broadcast in full Sunday.

He said that no Russian aviation companies carry the migrants to Belarus, and also lashed out at the West as a root cause for the crisis, with military operations in Iraq and elsewhere that have led to continued conflict in the region.

A large number of migrants are in a makeshift camp on the Belarusian side of the border in frigid conditions. Polish authorities report daily attempts by the migrants to breach the border.

The situation shows no signs of ending soon. Belarusian state news agency Belta reported that Lukashenko on Saturday ordered the military to set up tents at the border where food and other humanitarian aid can be gathered and distributed to the migrants.

Poland’s Border Guards agency on Saturday morning said, Belarusian soldiers began destroying a temporary border barrier near the Polish village of Czeremcha and used laser beams to blind Polish security services.

Many of the reported incidents at the border are very hard 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.

The state of emergency ends Nov. 30, and the Polish government said Saturday that it is working on a plan to let journalists again report from the border area with the permission of the Border Guards.

The Polish military reported that a soldier on duty at the border died Saturday in an accident. The soldier was not in direct contact with migrants, and a military statement said the accident involved the “firing of a service weapon.”

After the large migration into Europe in 2015, Europe has been reinforcing its borders to discourage the arrival of more migrants and refugees. Still, every year, tens of thousands try to get in, embarking on dangerous and sometimes deadly journeys by sea and land.

Since the summer, thousands have been lured by what appeared to be a new and easier way to slip into Europe, through Belarus.

The EU accuses Lukashenko of creating the artificial route in order to retaliate for sanctions against his regime imposed after an election in 2020 widely viewed as flawed and a harsh crackdown on internal dissent that followed.

The restrictions were toughened in May after a passenger jet flying from Greece to Lithuania was diverted by Belarus to Minsk, where authorities arrested dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich. The EU called it air piracy, barred Belarusian carriers from its skies and cut imports of the country’s top commodities, including petroleum products and potash, an ingredient in fertilizer.

A furious Lukashenko shot back by saying he would no longer abide by an agreement to stem illegal migration, arguing that the EU sanctions deprived his government of funds needed to contain flows of migrants. Planes carrying migrants from Iraq, Syria and other countries began arriving in Belarus. 
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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. 
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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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. 

 
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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. 

 
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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.
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