Two South African medics are swapping their medical gear for oars as they train for a risky 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) journey by rowboat through the Arctic Northwest Passage.  If the 14-member team finishes the trip, across the north of Canada to Alaska, they will make history as all attempts to row the icy waters have failed. Franco Puglisi reports from Johannesburg. Camera: Franco Puglisi 
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European markets were in a slump Monday as impatience appeared to be growing among investors with the slow introduction of new COVID-19 vaccines and the slow pace of economic stimulus legislation in the United States.Britain’s benchmark FTSE index was down 0.7% at midday. The CAC 40 in France was 0.4% lower, and Germany’s DAX index was down 0.6%.  Markets in Australia and Asia ended mostly lower earlier Monday. Australia’s S&P/ASX index dropped 0.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell just over one percent, while Shanghai’s Composite index plunged 1.4%. South Korea’s KOSPI lost 0.9%, and Mumbai’s Sensex sank 2.2%.  Asian Markets Mixed Amid Uncertainty Over Direction of Global Economy  Gold, oil trading higher, US markets trading lower in futures markets   Japan’s benchmark Nikkei and Taiwan’s TSEC index both closed up 0.4%.In commodities trading, gold wa selling at $1,792.40, up 0.8%. U.S. crude oil was selling at $59.86 per barrel, up just over one percent, and Brent crude was selling at $63.38, up 0.7%.   All three U.S. indices were trending negatively in futures trading ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street.  
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has denounced the military coup in Myanmar and demanded an immediate return to democratic rule.  Guterres condemned Myanmar’s repressive actions in his opening address to the 46th session of the UN Human rights Council. Guterres departed from his lengthy speech on COVID-19 related violations to blast Myanmar’s military for its takeover of the country’s democratically elected government.  “We see the undermining of democracy, the use of brutal force, arbitrary arrests, repression in all its manifestations,” Guterres said. “Restrictions of civic space.  Attacks on civil society.  Serious violations against minorities with no accountability, including what has rightly been called ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population.  The list goes on.”EU to Impose Sanctions on Myanmar   US Secretary of State to join foreign ministers meeting in Brussels via videoconference   Guterres said coups have no place in our modern world.  He praised the Human Rights Council for its recent and timely focus on this critical situation. The council held an emergency session on the Myanmar crisis on February 12 and demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all detained people, including the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.Over the coming month, the council will examine the human rights records of Myanmar and many other countries accused of gross violations of human rights.   The council will focus on ways in which COVID-19 has accelerated inequalities, setback progress on poverty reduction and deepened discrimination and racism.Guterres said the pandemic has triggered a vicious circle of violations.  He said unscrupulous leaders are using COVID-19 as a pretext to entrench their power and criminalize fundamental freedoms.  He said the virus has spurred resurgent neo-Nazism and white supremacist movements, as well as racially and ethnically motivated terrorism.”The danger of these hate-driven movements is growing by the day.  Let us call them what they are,” Guterres said. “White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats.  They are becoming a transnational threat.  These and other groups have exploited the pandemic to boost their ranks through social polarization and political and cultural manipulation.”   UN Chief Guterres warned these extremist movements represented the number one internal security threat in several countries.  He said global coordinated action was needed to defeat this grave and growing danger.He noted similar global coordinated action was needed to defeat the pandemic, which has killed millions of people and ruined many more lives.
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Leaders as far away as Canada and Western Europe are sending navy ships to the contested South China Sea this year as pushback against Beijing, which they feel has gone too far and begun alarming their citizens, analysts in the region say. French Defense Minister Florence Parly said in early February that France had dispatched an attack submarine to the sea this month. A British defense official said last month the U.K.’s flagship aircraft carrier strike group was ready to enter the waterway. A Royal Canadian Navy warship sailed near the sea in January with a passage through the Taiwan Strait on its way to join exercises nearby with Australian, Japanese and U.S. navies.The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) transits the Taiwan Strait, Nov. 12, 2019, in this photo made available by U.S. Navy.These Western countries claim no sovereignty over the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, which lies more than a continent away from their own territorial waters. But they want to support the United States in resisting unilateral expansion by China, which has sparred with former European colonies and alarmed people in Western countries, scholars say. “I think there’s pretty much unanimity in terms of the French, the Dutch, the U.K. and other countries that what we’re seeing from China is an attempt to revise the order so that power, not a rules-based approach to the region, is the way the region will be governed or managed going forward,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo.  Western countries would resent that management of the sea if it goes against their former colonies or current economic interests in Asia such as access to the sea’s busy cargo shipping lanes, analysts add.  The U.K., for example, is bound by its 1971 Five Power Defense Arrangements to help defend former protectorate Malaysia. Malaysia disputes part of the Chinese claim to about 90% of the South China Sea. The sea stretches from Hong Kong south to the island of Borneo.   British Prime Minister Boris Johnson eventually wants his country to take a stronger role in Asia due to economic and trade links in the region, University of New South Wales Emeritus Professor Carl Thayer said in an e-mailed briefing on Monday. Former French colony Vietnam contests China’s maritime claim including the sea’s Paracel Islands. China controls the Paracel chain today. France still maintains “cultural” and “economic” ties with its former Southeast Asian colonies, Nagy said.FILE – A Vietnamese sinking boat (L) which was rammed and then sunk by Chinese vessels near disputed Paracels Islands, is seen near a Marine Guard ship (R) at Ly Son island of Vietnam’s central Quang Ngai province.A Chinese survey vessel entered into standoffs in April 2020 with Malaysia and Vietnam. All three countries drill aggressively for oil and value the sea’s 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves estimated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.   French armed forces Minister Florence Parly tweeted on February 9 that the submarine made its voyage to “enrich our knowledge of this area and affirm that international law is the only rule that is valid, regardless of the sea where we sail.”  It further showed “striking proof of the capacity of our French Navy to deploy far away and for a long time in connection with our Australian, American and Japanese strategic partners,” she said.   Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan dispute parts of the sea too. Asian governments prize the waterway for its fisheries and undersea fossil fuel reserves. China has taken a lead in the dispute over the past decade by landfilling some of the tiny islets for military infrastructure. Western countries with no claims in the sea have passed ships through as far back as the 1970s as the sovereignty dispute first came into focus. China cites historic usage records to back its activity in the sea despite a 2016 world arbitration court ruling that negated a legal basis for its claims.   Canada, Australia and Western European countries send ships as well to show support for the United States, which has dispatched destroyers to the sea twice this month following regular sailings in 2020, experts believe.  In France’s case, “they just might have notified the U.S. side, and that would be equal to using the submarine passage to indicate indirect support for the United States,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.  Citizens of countries far from Asia would support their missions in the Asian sea because they began paying more attention last year to China as the source of COVID-19, Nagy said. They’re noticing Chinese pressure on India and Taiwan as well as the militarily weaker South China Sea claimants, he said.   Western leaders hope to “create leverage” against China, said Alan Chong, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.    “One way of reading leverage is to ensure that Beijing takes European values and principles of sustaining free and open transit through international waters seriously,” Chong said.   
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Conservationists in Cyprus are urging authorities to expand a hunting ban throughout a coastal salt lake network amid concerns that migrating flamingos could potentially swallow lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.Martin Hellicar, director of Birdlife Cyprus, said flamingos are at risk of ingesting the tiny pellets lying on the lakebed as they feed. Like other birds, flamingos swallow small pebbles to aid digestion, but can’t distinguish between pebbles and the lead pellets.”Last year, we had tens of losses of flamingos,” Hellicar said.  Cyprus is a key stop on the migration path for many types of birds flying from Africa to Europe. The Larnaca Salt Lake, a wetlands network of four lakes, typically welcomes as many as 15,000 flamingos from colder climates to the southern coast of the island nation in the eastern Mediterranean. They stay through the winter and leave in March. Other waterfowl frequenting the lake include ducks, waders and seagulls.Hunting is banned around most of the salt lake, but hunters are still allowed to shoot ducks in the network’s southern tip.The government’s Game and Fauna Service says in the first two months of last year, 96 flamingos were found dead in the Larnaca Salt Lake wetlands as a result of lead poisoning. Cyprus Veterinary Services official Panayiotis Constantinou, who has conducted autopsies on flamingos, said lead from the pellets poisoned the birds.  The high number of deaths is mainly attributed to heavy winter rain two years ago that stirred up the lake sediment and dislodged embedded lead shot.  A sport shooting range near the lake’s northern tip closed nearly 18 years ago and authorities organized a cleanup of lead pellets in the lakebed there.But Hellicar says the cleanup was apparently incomplete. A European Union-funded study is under way to identify where significant amounts of lead pellets remain so they can be removed. Preliminary results of the study showed very high lead levels in the wetland’s southern tip and continued duck hunting there could compound the problem, Hellicar said.  “The problem is pronounced,” he said. “The danger is real for the flamingos and other birds that use the area.”  Cyprus Hunting Federation official Alexandros Loizides disagrees, saying that hunting in a 200-meter northern swath is not a problem because of the limited number of hunters. He said he’s unaware of any flamingo deaths in the area and faults pesticide and fertilizer runoff from nearby farms for creating any pollution problems hurting wildlife.  “I think the effect of hunting there is very small on the specific part of the lake,” Loizides said. “It’d be a shame for hunters to lose the only area where hunting is permitted near wetlands.”  A ban on the use of lead pellets near wetlands has been in force in Cyprus for several years. A similar, EU-wide ban took effect last month, but conservationists believe the laws are not being enforced enough.Pantelis Hadjiyerou, head of the Game and Fauna Service, said it’s less important to ban hunting in the area than to persuade hunters to stop using shells with lead pellets.  “It should be drummed into people that the use of lead pellets is prohibited near wetlands and that only steel pellets are permitted,” Hadjiyerou told The Associated Press.
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Britain’s departure from the European Union, following months of negotiations, has affected trade in many industries; but fishing has been hit particularly hard by the break known as “Brexit.” VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports that some in the business fear for their futures due to an EU ban on the export of live shellfish from Britain.
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Leftist economist Andres Arauz will face conservative Guillermo Lasso in the upcoming second round of Ecuador’s presidential election, officials said Sunday, in a vote marred by fraud allegations and taking place amid a worsening economic crisis.Thirty-six-year-old Arauz won the first round with 32.72 percent of the vote — not enough to win outright.His opponent in the second round will be ex-banker Lasso, who took 19.74 percent to beat left-wing indigenous leader Yaku Perez’ 19.39 percent, according to the final results of the February 7 poll.The runoff will take place on April 11, after the first round results were approved by four out of the five members of the National Electoral Council (CNE) at a meeting that lasted into the early hours of Sunday morning.Perez, a 51-year-old environmental lawyer, had formally submitted a request for a recount in 17 of the country’s 24 provinces, which was suspended on Wednesday.He has alleged there was fraud to keep him out of the run-off after he was narrowly displaced by Lasso from second to third place in the middle of the count.Perez could still mount a legal challenge against the official results.”Today democracy has triumphed, we are going with courage and optimism to this second round,” Lasso said in a statement following the announcement.Incumbent President Lenin Moreno, whose term in office ends on May 24, did not seek reelection.Ideological battleArauz is the protégé of Rafael Correa, a leftist two-time former president currently living in Belgium to evade a conviction for corruption and who remains an influential force in the country.Esteban Nichols, a political scientist at Quito’s Simon Bolivar Andean University, told AFP that Arauz had retained his mentor’s electoral base.”He himself is not the one generating the votes,” he said. “People voted for Correa.”The first round result, he added, sets the scene not just for a battle between left and right, but for a “fight between Correism and anti-Correism.”To win, Lasso will have to “seek alliances with antagonists” — such as supporters of Perez.Running in his third presidential race, free market advocate Lasso has promised to create a million jobs in a year.He would likely stick to the austerity policies adopted by Moreno, who had to rein in spending in exchange for International Monetary Fund loans to bolster the oil-producing country’s faltering dollar-based economy.Ecuador has been mired in debt since the profits of an oil boom during Correa’s presidency dried up under Moreno as the global price of crude crashed.National debt rose from 26 percent of GDP to 44 percent during Moreno’s term.The coronavirus pandemic has increased the pressure on the economy, with some $6.4 billion in losses attributed directly to the health crisis, according to government data. 
 
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Britain’s royal family is bracing for a March 7 airing of an American television interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, widely referred to as Harry and Meghan, amid reports that the content is explosive and will make for uncomfortable viewing for the British monarch and senior royals.   The interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey was taped in California, a day before Buckingham Palace announced that the couple have decided not to return to the royal fold. They will continue to live independently in the United States, where they have struck lucrative deals to produce programming for both Netflix and Spotify and launched their own non-profit foundation.   CBS television insiders say the interview will likely widen the gulf between the couple and the royal household. And they warn it will likely go down as the most notorious interview featuring a member of Britain’s storied royal family since Harry’s mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, gave her side of the story in 1995 about the collapse of her marriage to Prince Charles.  It was during the 1995 interview that Diana explained that her husband had maintained an affair with a previous paramour soon after their wedding. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” she said. She also admitted to having affairs herself because of loneliness and the betrayal.   FILE – Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are pictured in this undated handout photo supplied to Reuters, following an announcement that they are expecting their second child.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who is pregnant with their second child, decided a year ago to walk away from their roles as working members of the royal family for a trial period, saying they wanted freedom to pursue their own projects and were aiming to become financially independent, something they have accomplished rapidly.  The pair, who chafed at the strictures of royal life, said they did not desire a complete severing of ties but were hoping for a bespoke half-in-half-out arrangement with Harry maintaining royal patronages and keeping his honorary military titles, including as captain-general of Britain’s Royal Marines. The titles are bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II. FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, pose for a picture at in London, Britain, June 26, 2018. (John Stillwell/Pool via Reuters)Last week, the couple and Buckingham Palace, which was never happy with the bespoke arrangement, reviewed the trial separation and confirmed Friday that Harry and Meghan won’t be returning to royal duties, a decision that makes final the couple’s split from the royal family.  It was also announced that Harry will be giving up his honorary military titles, which friends of the couple say has infuriated him. The statements about finalizing what has become known as Megxit were official in tone, but they also indicated the couple and Buckingham Palace are far apart and that the rift is likely to grow.  “Some will say the Sussexes have just stamped their feet again after they didn’t get what they wanted,” according to the royal correspondent of Britain’s Sky News, Rhiannon Mills. “Others will criticize the royal firm for being too traditional, too old-fashioned and unwilling to work on a compromise with the couple. One thing it has done, which neither side would want, is ramp up the stories of a rift, which will potentially be stoked further by their interview with Oprah,” she added. According to royal reporters, Harry and Meghan did not inform Buckingham Palace that they were taping a television interview while negotiations between the couple and the royal household were ongoing — an omission that has added to alarm. Britain’s “red-top” tabloid newspapers lost no time pivoting Sunday from the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit to Megxit. “Have they no respect?” screamed the front page of Saturday’s Daily Mail. The paper made much of the fact that the final break between the couple and Buckingham Palace coincided with the ill health of Prince Philip, who was admitted to the hospital last week.  FILE – Britain’s Prince Harry (L) and Meghan (2nd R) follow Prince William (C), and Catherine (R) as they depart Westminster Abbey after attending the annual Commonwealth Service in London, March 9, 2020.The Sun reported that Harry’s brother, Prince William, was left “really sad and genuinely shocked” over his brother Harry and Meghan’s “petulant” response to the queen as they officially quit the royal family. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Buckingham Palace lightly dueled in their statements about the meaning of public service. But it is the timing of the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah Winfrey that is prompting worry in Buckingham Palace with courtiers fearful about what the couple will say and how that will rebound on Britain’s 94-year-old monarch. “We don’t need to hear any more from them now,” a palace official told Britain’s The Sunday Times. Harry is sixth in line to Britain’s throne. FILE – Guardsmen escort the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales draped in the Royal Standard, as the cortege passes through crowds gathered along Whitehall.The collapse of his parents’ marriage became ensnared in a media frenzy with the tabloids adding insult to injury as much as they could. Both Charles and Diana, and their staffs, were drawn in, leaking against each other to try to manipulate the press coverage of their tumultuous separation and bitter divorce, say royal commentators.  And that appears to be happening again with households and staffs briefing against each other.  Some of the couple’s friends are worried that the interview with Oprah Winfrey may end up damaging Harry and Meghan. Royal interviews have often backfired. In 2019, the Duke of York, commonly known as Prince Andrew, gave an interview explaining his friendship with the late pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. He thought the encounter had gone well but it resulted in him having to withdraw from public life.  Diana also later said she “deeply regretted” her 1995 interview. The couple’s bid to define a celebrity role for themselves sits badly with the royal family. Palace insiders fear an unleashed “brand Sussex” could eclipse Prince Charles and Prince William. One of the royal family’s uppermost fears is that Harry and Meghan will become increasingly outspoken now they are unmoored from the royal household risking blowback on the British monarchy, “Royals have to act differently from celebrities in order to ensure the standing and longevity of the institution, which relies on public goodwill to survive,” a palace official told VOA recently.  
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COVID-19’s impact on efforts to combat gross human rights violations will be a major focus of the 46th regular session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The four-week session, which starts Monday in Geneva, will be held virtually because of the pandemic.  It will kick off with a three-day high-level segment when nine heads of state and other dignitaries from more than 130 countries will address the U.N. Human Rights Council by video.     U.N. officials say the vast majority of their statements are expected to focus on COVID-19.  The pandemic also will be the theme of a special panel discussion Monday on the fight against racism and discrimination and its exacerbating effects on these efforts.   Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth says the council should examine how various governments have used the pandemic as a pretext to entrench their power by cracking down on the opposition.   He cites the example of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, who seized power for a while to rule by decree without parliamentary legislation. ”Another example was the recent elections in Uganda, where President [Yoweri] Musevani used the pandemic as a pretext to preclude campaigning by his main opponent, Bobi Wine,” he said. “The repeated use of deadly violence, the arrest of people, the repeated arrest, the national beating of Bobi Wine.  You know, many of this just using the pandemic as pretext.”   Special panel discussions will be devoted to issues such as the death penalty, children’s rights, and the rights of people with disabilities.  The human rights records of numerous countries will come under council scrutiny.   A scathing report by U.N. Human Rights chief Michele Bachelet on Sri Lanka’s failure to address past violations and impunity for grave human rights violations will be reviewed.   Other highlights include the examination of Myanmar’s military coup, and continuing violations in countries such as Belarus, Venezuela, Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and North Korea.  The list is long.   U.N. and human rights activists welcome U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to rejoin the council, nearly three years after former President Donald Trump’s administration quit the body.    They say they hope the U.S. will use its muscle on the world stage to promote universal fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. 
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A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was deported from the United States and arrived Saturday in his native Germany, where he was being held by police for questioning, authorities said.The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a statement that Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, was sent back to Germany for serving as a guard of a Neuengamme concentration camp subcamp in 1945. The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice.German authorities confirmed Berger arrived Saturday at Frankfurt and was handed over to Hesse state investigators for questioning, the dpa news agency reported.Berger was ordered expelled by a Memphis, Tennessee, court in February 2020.German prosecutors in the city of Celle investigated the possibility of bringing charges against him, but said in December that they had shelved the probe because they had been unable to refute his own account of his service at Neuengamme.Berger admitted to U.S. authorities that he served as a guard at a camp in northwestern Germany, which was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, for a few weeks near the end of the war but said he did not observe any abuse or killings, Celle prosecutors said.Celle prosecutors asked for him to be questioned again upon his return to Germany, however, to determine whether accessory to murder charges could be brought, police said.In recent years, German prosecutors have successfully argued that by helping a death camp or concentration camp function, guards can be found guilty of accessory to murder even if there is no evidence of them participating in a specific killing.According to an ICE statement, Berger served at the subcamp near Meppen, Germany, where prisoners — Russian, Polish, Dutch, Jewish and others — were held in “atrocious” conditions and were worked “to the point of exhaustion and death.”Berger admitted that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping. He also accompanied prisoners on the forced evacuation of the camp that resulted in the deaths of 70 prisoners.Berger has been living in the U.S. since 1959.
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Feeling frustrated and stressed out? Brazilians now have a place to vent their anger and fury in the newly opened “Rage Room.”Inside a warehouse on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, people are able to swing giant hammers at old televisions, computers and printers, demolishing the machines and shattering the glass into tiny pieces.Vanderlei Rodrigues, 42, who opened the business a month ago in Cidade Tiradentes, said he had received a fair number of customers wanting to vent, especially during the pandemic.”I think it was the best moment to be able to set this up here in Cidade Tiradentes, related to everything that people are going through, a lot of anxiety, stress,” he said. The “Rage Room” experience costs $4.64.Wearing protective suits and helmets, participants write issues that bother them on the walls — “ex-girlfriends,” “ex-husbands,” “corruption” and “work.” These words become the targets of their anger.Alexandre de Carvalho, 40, who works in advertising and drives two hours back and forth to work, said with worries about health because of the pandemic, “it’s great to come here and release some adrenaline and pent-up feelings.”Luciana Holanda walks in front of the Rage Room, a place where people can vent their anger on everyday items, such as bottles, broken TV sets and other electronic devices, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb. 19, 2021. Sign reads: “Come break everything.”Luciana Holanda, 35, an unemployed mother of two daughters, said that “with all this accumulated stress, being a mother, having children and not being able to work … it is very good to be able to release some stress and vent. “I am not going to vent my frustrations on my daughters or on anyone, so I really prefer to break things. I love it.”  
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Protesters threw bottles at police, set fire to containers and smashed up shops in Barcelona on Saturday in the fifth night of clashes after a rapper was jailed for glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty in his songs.The nine-month sentence of Pablo Hasel, known for his virulently anti-establishment raps, has sparked a debate over freedom of expression in Spain as well as protests that have at times turned violent.Demonstrators hurled projectiles and flares at police, who fired foam bullets to disperse the crowd, the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan regional police, said on Twitter.About 6,000 demonstrators gathered in the Catalan city, local police said.People loot a Versace store during a protest condemning the arrest of rap singer Pablo Hasél in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 20, 2021.Protesters attacked shops on Barcelona’s most prestigious shopping street, Passeig de Gracia, while newspaper El Pais reported that others had smashed windows in the emblematic Palau de la Musica concert hall.Two people were arrested in Barcelona, local police said.A demonstration in Madrid was peaceful, but in the northern cities of Pamplona and Lleida, police charged protesters.Earlier, Socialist Party President Cristina Narbona condemned the violence that has marked protests over the past four nights.Demonstrators damage the Barcelona Stock Exchange building during a protest condemning the arrest of rap singer Pablo Hasél in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 20, 2021.”We reiterate our strongest condemnation of violence, which cannot be justified as a defense of the freedom of expression,” she said.During the first three nights of demonstrations, police fired tear gas and foam bullets at demonstrators who set fire to trash containers and motorcycles and looted stores. There were also clashes in Madrid and other cities.Officials said four people were injured in Barcelona on Friday after protesters pelted police with projectiles, attacked two banks and set fire to containers. Protesters caused 128,000 euros ($156,000) in damage, the city council said.More than 60 people have been arrested across Catalonia, police said. One woman lost an eye during clashes in Barcelona, triggering calls from politicians to investigate police tactics.Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem was among artists, celebrities and politicians who called for a change in the law covering freedom of expression. The Spanish government announced last week it would scrap prison sentences for offenses involving cases of freedom of speech. 
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Russia said Saturday that its scientists had detected the world’s first case of transmission of the H5N8 strain of avian flu from birds to humans and had alerted the World Health Organization.In televised remarks, the head of Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said scientists at the Vektor laboratory had isolated the strain’s genetic material from seven workers at a poultry farm in southern Russia, where an outbreak was recorded among the birds in December.The workers did not suffer any serious health consequences, she added. They are believed to have caught the virus from poultry on the farm.”Information about the world’s first case of transmission of the avian flu [H5N8] to humans has already been sent to the World Health Organization,” Popova said.There are different subtypes of avian influenza viruses.While the highly contagious strain H5N8 is lethal for birds, it had never before been reported to have spread to humans.Mutations? ‘Time will tell’Popova praised “the important scientific discovery,” saying “time will tell” if the virus can further mutate.”The discovery of these mutations when the virus has not still acquired an ability to transmit from human to human gives us all, the entire world, time to prepare for possible mutations and react in an adequate and timely fashion,” Popova said.The WHO confirmed Saturday that Russia had notified it of the development.”We are in discussion with national authorities to gather more information and assess the public health impact of this event,” a spokesperson said. “If confirmed, this would be the first time H5N8 infects people.”WHO stressed that the Russian workers were asymptomatic and that no onward human-to-human transmission had been reported.People can get infected with avian and swine influenza viruses, such as bird flu subtypes A(H5N1) and A(H7N9) and swine flu subtypes such as A(H1N1).According to the WHO, people usually get infected through direct contact with animals or contaminated environments, and there is no sustained transmission among humans.H5N1 in people can cause severe illness and has a 60% mortality rate.’Tip of the iceberg’Gwenael Vourc’h, head of research at France’s National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, said that influenza viruses are known to evolve “quite quickly” and that there might have been other cases besides those reported in Russia.”This is probably the tip of the iceberg,” she told AFP.Francois Renaud, a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), said, however, that he was “not particularly worried” at this stage.He added that the coronavirus pandemic had taught countries to react quickly to potential health threats.Avian flu has raged in several European countries, including France, where hundreds of thousands of birds have been culled to stop infection.Russia’s Vektor State Virology and Biotechnology Center, which detected the transmission to the poultry farm workers, also developed one of the country’s several coronavirus vaccines.in the Soviet era the lab, located in Koltsovo outside the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, conducted secret biological weapons research.it still stockpiles viruses ranging from Ebola to smallpox.Test kits, vaccineIn televised remarks, Vektor chief Rinat Maksyutov said the lab was ready to begin developing test kits that would help detect potential cases of H5N8 in humans and to begin work on a vaccine.The Soviet Union was a scientific powerhouse and Russia has sought to reclaim a leadership role in vaccine research under President Vladimir Putin.Russia registered coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V in August, months before Western competitors and even before large-scale clinical trials.After initial skepticism in the West, the Lancet journal this month published results showing the Russian vaccine — named after the Soviet-era satellite — to be safe and effective. 
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Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, visited the hospital Saturday where his father Prince Philip is being kept as a precaution after feeling ill, a Reuters photographer at the hospital said.
 
Charles arrived at the back of the London hospital where Philip, the 99-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth, has spent four nights. Charles was at the hospital for just over half an hour before departing.FILE – Prince Philip is pictured June 9, 2020, at Windsor Castle ahead of his 99th birthday on June 10.Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was admitted to the hospital Tuesday as a precautionary measure after feeling ill with an ailment that is not related to COVID-19. He is expected to remain in the hospital until next week, a royal source said Friday, adding that doctors were acting out of an abundance of caution and the duke remained in good spirits.
Both Philip and the 94-year-old queen received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in January. He spent four nights at the same hospital at the end of 2019 while being treated for a pre-existing condition.
 
Philip is now rarely seen in public. He stepped down from official engagements in August 2017 after completing more than 22,000 solo events and thousands more alongside the queen.
 
A former naval officer renowned for his sometimes brusque manner and humor, Philip married Elizabeth in 1947, five years before she became queen. He is now by far the longest-serving consort of any British monarch.
 
In an apparent tribute to the duke, one of his granddaughters, Princess Eugenie, and her husband Jack Brooksbank said on Saturday they had named their first son August Philip Hawke Brooksbank.
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Every Tuesday evening, Moroccan student Chaimae Irfaq hands out food parcels to dozens of hard-up students in the foyer of her Paris university residence and takes one home for herself.
 
Irfaq arrived in France in October to complete her business studies degree and had expected to work part-time jobs to supplement the 700 euros a month her father gives her.
 
But she said the coronavirus crisis meant there were few jobs going, with bars and restaurants closed and businesses feeling the pinch from COVID-19 restrictions.
 
“If I had work, I wouldn’t need the [handouts],” she said as she volunteered for the charity Les Restos du Coeur (Restaurants of the Heart).
 
In her parcel there is rice, pasta, dairy products, fruit, vegetables and some meat. Once a month, shampoo and sanitary products are added.
 
Students around the world have been hit by a lack of the part-time jobs, including as baristas, waiters and shop workers, many rely on to pay tuition fees, rent and living expenses.
 
The half-dozen charities distributing food in Paris say the number of students seeking help has jumped since the government put France back under lockdown and then a nightly curfew late last year. Tens of thousands of food parcels are handed out each week in the greater Paris region alone and it is a similar situation elsewhere, they say.
 
The government has extended a publicly funded scheme providing one-euro meals to those on grants and made it available to all students.
 
Irfaq said she arrived in Paris dreaming of enriching encounters in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Instead, she has been left following lectures online from the confines of her small room.
 
“To be honest, during the whole week, I’m just waiting for Tuesday to come around. It changes my routine a bit,” she said.
 
The combination of remote-learning and curfew, which runs from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., was taking a heavy toll on the mental well-being of her and her friends, Irfaq said.
 
Three in every four French students felt alone some or all of the time, one opinion poll showed last month.
 
Students have protested a government they say has abandoned them. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal this week said the poorest students had received emergency grants, money had been released for psychological counselling and the president wanted all students to be able to attend lectures in person one day a week.
 
Irfaq said the COVID-19 crisis had sapped her of energy and motivation.
 
“Now, when I see my friends, they are depressed and feel lonely,” she said. “Even when we are together, we feel lonely and anxious.”
 
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The 518-year-old Mona Lisa has seen many things in her life on a wall, but rarely this: Almost four months with no Louvre visitors.
 
As she stares out through bulletproof glass into the silent Salle des Etats, in what was once the world’s most-visited museum, her celebrated smile could almost denote relief.  
 
A bit further on, the white marble Venus de Milo is for once free of her girdle of picture-snapping visitors.
 
It’s uncertain when the Paris museum will reopen, after being closed on Oct. 30 in line with the French government’s virus containment measures. But those lucky enough to get in benefit from a rare private look at collections covering 9,000 years of human history — with plenty of space to breathe.  
 
That’s normally sorely lacking in a museum that’s blighted by its own success: Before the pandemic, staff walked out complaining they couldn’t handle the overcrowding, with up to 30,000-40,000 visitors a day.
 
The forced closure has also granted museum officials a golden opportunity to carry out long-overdue refurbishments that were simply not possible with nearly 10 million visitors a year.  
 
Unlike the first lockdown, which brought all Louvre activities to a halt, the second has seen some 250 of the museum employees remain fully operational.
 
An army of curators, restorers and workers are cleaning sculptures, reordering artifacts, checking inventories, reorganizing entrances and conducting restorations, including in the Egyptian Wing and the Grande Galerie, the museum’s largest hall that is being fully renovated.
 
“We’re taking advantage of the museum’s closure to carry out a number of major works, speed up maintenance operations and start repair works that are difficult to schedule when the museum is operating normally,” Laurent le Guedart, the Louvre’s Architectural Heritage and Gardens Director told AP from inside the Grande Galerie.
 
As le Guedart spoke, restorers were standing atop scaffolds taking scientific probes of the walls in preparation for a planned restoration, travelling back to the 18th century through layer after layer of paint.  
 
Around the corner the sound of carpenters taking up floorboards was faintly audible. They were putting in the cables for a new security system.  
 
Previously, these jobs could only be done on a Tuesday, the Louvre’s only closed day in the week. Now hammers are tapping, machines drilling and brushes scrubbing to a full week schedule, slowed down only slightly by social distancing measures.
 
In total, ten large-scale projects that were on hold since last March are underway — and progressing fast.  
 
This includes works in the Etruscan and Italian Halls, and the gilded Salon Carre. A major restoration of the ancient Egyptian tomb chapel of Akhethotep from 2400BC is also underway.  
 
“When the museum reopens, everything will be perfect for its visitors — this Sleeping Beauty will have had the time to powder her nose,” said Elisabeth Antoine-Konig, Artifacts Department Curator. “Visitors will be happy to see again these now well-lit rooms with polished floors and remodeled display cases.”
 
Initially, only visitors with pre-booked reservations will be granted entry in line with virus safety precautions.
 
Those who cannot wait are still able to see the Louvre’s treasure trove of art in virtual tours online.
 
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A Moscow court Saturday rejected opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s appeal of a three-year prison sentence for allegedly violating the parole terms of a 2014 suspended sentence on embezzlement charges.Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent critic, maintains that the case against him is politically motivated. He asked the judge to order his release, referring to a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that the case was baseless and ordering Russia to free him. Moscow dismissed that request as unlawful.The appeal court judge, Dmitry Balashov, however, decided to count the six weeks of Navalny’s house arrest as time served. Navalny will serve the rest of the sentence, just over 2½ years, in a penal colony.Later Saturday, Navalny is also scheduled to appear in court in a defamation case, for allegedly slandering a World War II veteran. If convicted, he would face a fine or community service.Navalny was arrested Jan. 17 upon his return to Moscow from Germany following a lengthy recuperation from a near-lethal poisoning attack he and Western nations have blamed on the government of President Vladimir Putin.Russian authorities have denied any involvement in the incident, and have refused to investigate the assassination attempt, citing a lack of evidence.Navalny’s detention has prompted thousands of his supporters to take to the streets across Russia to demand his immediate release. Russian police have arrested several thousand protesters.The United States and its European allies have condemned Navalny’s detention and the aggressive Russian response against demonstrators.   
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The Kremlin’s most prominent opponent, Alexey Navalny, faces two court decisions Saturday that could seal a judge’s ruling to jail him for several years, after he returned to Russia following a poisoning attack.A Moscow court is due to rule on Navalny’s appeal of a decision this month to imprison him for nearly three years for violating the terms of a suspended sentence on embezzlement charges.But if Navalny wins his appeal Saturday, his victory could be short-lived.Prosecutors in a separate trial have called for him to be fined the equivalent of $13,000 for calling a World War II veteran a “traitor” on Twitter last year, with a verdict also expected Saturday.They have also asked Navalny, 44, to be jailed on the same fraud conviction, saying his tweet referencing the veteran was posted during the probation period for the suspended sentence.Backers see bid to silence himSupporters of the outspoken opposition figure say the rulings and several other cases against him are a pretext to silence his corruption exposes and quash his political ambitions.He was given the nearly three-year sentence on February 2 for breaching parole terms of an embezzlement conviction while in Germany recovering from the poisoning.That ruling stemmed from a suspended sentence he was given in 2014 for embezzlement, a ruling the European Court of Human Rights deemed arbitrary.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with government members via a videoconference at Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, Jan. 28, 2021.The 94-year-old veteran at the center of the defamation trial appeared in a video that was derided by Navalny for promoting constitutional reforms that passed last year and could allow President Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036.A series of theatrical hearings in the case ended Tuesday with Navalny asking if the judge could recommend a recipe for pickles, since it is “pointless to talk about the law” with her.Putin came under pressure to release Navalny when he was detained upon arrival at a Moscow airport in January.The arrest sparked large protests across the county that saw more than 10,000 people detained, while the European Union threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia.Europe’s rights court ruled this week that Russia must immediately release Navalny, in a motion swiftly brushed off by the Kremlin.Navalny’s allies believe Russia’s noncompliance with the ruling could lead to its expulsion from the Council of Europe and exacerbate a crisis in Moscow’s ties with Europe that began with the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.Meeting with EU ministersEU member Lithuania’s foreign ministry said Friday that a group of EU foreign ministers would meet with two top Navalny aides in Brussels on Sunday.Navalny aides in talks with EU representatives this month urged the bloc to hit people close to Putin with sanctions.Another Moscow court this week rejected Navalny’s appeal of a fine of 3.3 million rubles (36,825 euros, $44,649) that he was ordered to pay a catering company in another defamation lawsuit.Those charges were levied at the opposition figure by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because his company Concord catered for the Kremlin.The 59-year-old businessman, who is under U.S. and European sanctions, has two pending cases against Navalny that will be considered in March. 
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Group of Seven leaders, who control a little under half of the world’s economy, on Friday sought to look beyond the COVID-19 pandemic toward rebuilding their battered economies with free trade and to countering China’s “non-market oriented” policies.
 
U.S. President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi debuted at the G-7 virtual leaders’ meeting, which was chaired by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
 
The leaders called for stronger defenses against a future pandemic, including exploring a global health treaty, but the focus was on a green recovery — on the same day that the United States rejoined the Paris climate agreement.
 
“Jobs and growth is what we’re going to need after this pandemic,” Johnson told the opening of the meeting.
 
An official communique said the G-7 would champion open economies, “data free flow with trust” and work on “a modernized, freer and fairer rules-based multilateral trading system.”
 
After Facebook cut news feeds in Australia, French President Emmanuel Macron raised the role social media platforms should have in preserving freedom of speech and how to regulate them, a French official said Friday.
 
G-7 leaders also supported the commitment of Japan to hold the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 this summer.
 
In a clear reference to China, they said they “will consult with each other on collective approaches to address non-market-oriented policies and practices.”
 
But the tone of the G-7 was distinctly cooperative and collective — as Biden tried to project a message of re-engagement with the world and with global institutions after four years of Donald Trump’s “America First” policies.
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed 2.4 million people, tipped the global economy into its worst peacetime slump since the Great Depression and upended normal life for billions.Britian’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson hosts a virtual meeting of G-7 world leaders, at Downing Street in London, Feb. 19, 2021. ‘Mute Angela’
 
Even at the virtual top table of world politics, the “mute curse,” which has stilted video calls for millions of businesses and families over the past months of COVID-19 lockdown, struck.
 
As Johnson began the meeting, a German voice suddenly interrupted him.
 
“Can you hear us Angela,” Johnson quipped to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, chuckling. “I think you need to mute.”
 
Johnson also claimed that Biden had “nicked” — British slang for stolen — his slogan “build back better,” though Johnson said that he himself had probably stolen it from somewhere else.
 
Once the mute problems were over, leaders pledged billions of dollars to COVAX, a coronavirus vaccination program for poorer countries.
 
“COVID-19 shows that the world needs stronger defenses against future risks to global health security,” the G-7 said. “We will continue to support our economies to protect jobs and support a strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive recovery.”
 
Though Biden has cast China as the “most serious competitor” of the United States, China was mentioned only once in the communiques.
 
Johnson said the G-7— as “like-minded liberal free-trading democracies” — stood together on issues such as condemnation of the coup in Myanmar and the detention of Alexei Navalny in Russia.
 
The G-7 of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada has a combined gross domestic product of about $40 trillion — a bit less than half of the global economy.
 
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Ahead of France’s 2022 presidential election, the government says it will seek to modify electoral laws to allow early voting on electronic machines. But the proposal is meeting backlash from the opposition.    
 
With the topic looming large among lawmakers, political parties in the Senate were clashing this week over the latest draft amendment by the government to modify electoral laws.  
 
The government says it wants to allow early voting on electronic machines up to five days before Election Day to increase voter participation.The political opposition says there’s no need to change the law on such short notice.
 
Stephane Le Rudulier, a conservative senator with the Republican Party, says he opposes the possibility of voters casting their ballots before Election Day because he thinks that voters could miss important updates or breaking news that might change their vote and therefore voters would not be equals. And that, he thinks, would deny legitimacy to any elected candidates.
 
In a Thursday night vote, the proposal was massively rejected by 321 senators. Only 23 senators loyal to President Emmanuel Macron’s party voted in favor.  
 
But that does not mean that the idea of early voting is not popular among French politicians.Patrick Kanner, a Socialist Party senator, describes abstention as a bad poison for any democracy that favors populism and far right movements. He says he supports any initiative to improve voter participation, and sees regular voting, early voting and voting by mail like in the United States as modern tools in the electoral process.
 
In the era of COVID-19, with sanitary measures and social distancing, the debate is open in France to adapt electoral laws to avoid long crowds at polling stations. However, the latest U.S. election and its failure to get fast results in some states set a bad example and hurt public opinion.
 
Jean-Claude Beaujour, a lawyer and vice-president of the France-Ameriques association, says the French want to keep the process simple.
     
“French voters are always concerned with limiting any risk of fraud. There is always the question of the transit of paper ballot. The recent American debate on election fraud has strengthened the feeling the French have about having the most simple and reliable electoral mechanism,” said Beaujour.
 
The French government could revisit its plan to modify the electoral law later this year.
  
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Buckingham Palace confirmed Friday that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, will not be returning to royal duties, and Harry will give up his honorary military titles — a decision that makes formal, and final, the couple’s split from the royal family.When Harry and Meghan stepped away from full-time royal life in early 2020, it was agreed the situation would be reviewed after a year.Now it has, and the palace said in a statement that the couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have verified “they will not be returning as working members of The Royal Family. “It said Queen Elizabeth II had spoken to Harry and confirmed “that in stepping away from the work of the Royal Family, it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.”The palace said Harry’s appointment as captain general of the Royal Marines and titles with other military groups would revert to the queen before being distributed to other members of the family.Harry, who served in the British army for a decade and has a close bond with the military, founded the Invictus Games competition for wounded troops.”While all are saddened by their decision, the Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family,” the palace statement said.American actress Meghan Markle, a former star of the TV legal drama “Suits,” married Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son, Archie, was born a year later.In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They live in Santa Barbara, California and are expecting their second child.They recently announced that they will speak to Oprah Winfrey in a TV special to be broadcast next month.A spokesperson for the couple hit back at suggestions that Meghan and Harry were not devoted to duty.”As evidenced by their work over the past year, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain committed to their duty and service to the U.K. and around the world, and have offered their continued support to the organizations they have represented regardless of official role,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.” 
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The United States on Friday officially rejoined the 2015 Paris Agreement, reversing a Trump administration decision to leave the climate pact aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.“The Paris Agreement is an unprecedented framework for global action — we know because we helped design it and make it a reality,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement. “Its purpose is both simple and expansive: to help us all avoid catastrophic planetary warming and to build resilience around the world to the impacts from climate change we already see.”In 2017, then-president Donald Trump announced the U.S. would pull out of the landmark agreement, saying it was in the United States’ “economic interest to do so.” But terms for leaving the accord meant it did not go into effect until Nov. 4, 2020 – one day after the U.S. presidential election won by Joe Biden.On Jan. 20, shortly after being sworn-in, President Biden signed a stack of executive orders, including the instrument to re-join the Paris Agreement. It was sent to the United Nations, where treaties and agreements are “deposited” with the secretary-general, and now, after a 30-day wait, the U.S. officially becomes a party to the agreement once again.FILE – President Joe Biden signs a series of executive orders, in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Jan. 28, 2021.The 2015 Paris agreement, signed by virtually every country in the world, aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and limit the planet’s temperature increase during this century to 2 degrees Celsius, while working to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees.
 
Speaking a day before Washington’s official return, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the U.S. decision “strengthens global action” on mitigating global warming.
 
“President Biden’s commitment to net zero emissions means that countries producing now two-thirds of global carbon pollution are pursuing the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050,” Guterres said.Currently, the United States is not on track to meet its Paris pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025.
 
President Biden has pledged to take robust action to meet those goals. He appointed former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry – who helped negotiate the Paris deal in 2015 – as the first-ever presidential envoy on climate and made him a part of his National Security Council.Today’s the day. We’re officially back in the Paris Agreement – again part of the global climate effort. No country can fight this fight on its own. We look forward to a productive year and a successful #COP26 in Glasgow. #GoodToBeBack— Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry (@ClimateEnvoy) February 19, 2021Kerry will join the U.N. chief on Friday for an event to mark the U.S. return to the pact.Biden has also said his administration will hold a Leaders’ Climate Summit on Earth Day, April 22, as part of its climate diplomacy. 
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Investigations are now under way into the Peruvian coronavirus vaccination scandal, in which hundreds of people, many well-connected, were given shots although they did not participate in trials for the Sinopharm vaccine to determine its efficacy.Heath Minister Oscar Ugarte said 3,200 vaccines were given, including 1,200 that went to the Chinese Embassy. He said of the other 2,000 doses, investigators are looking into where they are and who was vaccinated.The state-run Andina news agency reported Peru’s Congress also launched a committee to investigate the scandal, amid a public uproar over how privileged people were able to jump ahead of front-line health workers for vaccinations.Fernando Carbone, the head of the commission investigating those benefiting from the shots is guaranteeing impartiality in the probe, with a threat of sanctions against those involved.Carbone spoke publicly about not being compromised after the Peruvian Medical College called for him to step aside, citing his association with former Health Minister Pilar Mazetti, who was among those improperly receiving vaccinations.Peru’s foreign minister Elizabeth Astete resigned Sunday after revealing she had received the vaccine before health care personnel.The public anger over the scandal has been exacerbated by Peru having one of the highest coronavirus tallies in Latin America, with more than 1.2 million infections and more than 44,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
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Venezuela began its immunization program against the COVID-19 virus by vaccinating front-line health care personnel Thursday, less than a week after receiving the first batch of 100,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V.”Fortunately, the strategic cooperation between Russia and Venezuela has allowed us to have access to one of the best vaccines in the world, with an efficacy of 91.6%,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said.Venezuela participated in trials of the Sputnik V vaccine trials before signing a purchase agreement with Russia in December.The Latin American country hopes to begin vaccinating the general public in April.Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said officials aim to vaccinate 70% of the population this year in order to achieve herd immunity.Venezuela has so far confirmed more than 134,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,297 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
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