Communist-run Cuba will allow farmers, private traders and food processors to engage in direct wholesale and retail trade, as long as farmers meet government contracts, state media reported Friday.
 
The government will also loosen some price controls and delegate others to local officials’ discretion.
 
The measures do away with the state’s monopoly on produce distribution and sales and are part of a series of policy changes in the sector approved by the Council of Ministers amidst a growing food crisis.
 
Similar market-oriented reforms were adopted by the Communist Party a decade ago after a lengthy popular discussion, then reversed in 2016 with little explanation.
 
Fierce U.S. sanctions led to a dramatic drop in imports of fuel, fertilizer and other agricultural inputs in 2019 and the coronavirus pandemic has further cut into foreign exchange earnings needed to import food and production inputs.
 
Foreign and local experts expect economic growth to decline about 8% this year and trade by 30%.
 
The country imports more than 60% of the food it consumes and a large percentage of agricultural inputs such as fuel, machinery, fertilizer, pesticides and animal feed.
 
Production has stagnated in recent years and it declined dramatically in 2020, though the government has yet to publish any data this year.
 
“In order to guarantee the 30 pounds per capita per month of produce, the country needs some 154,000 tons of agricultural products, be they roots, vegetables or fruits,” Agriculture Minister Rodriguez Rollero said Thursday night on state television upon announcing the measures.
 
“This month we have 100,000 tons,” he said.
 
Produce markets are often poorly stocked and have long lines, as do supermarkets and other food outlets.
 
Viandas, types of starchy vegetables, reached a ceiling of 2.8 million tons in 2016 and 2017, mainly on account of bananas, and then they began to decrease through last year, state media commentator Ariel Terrero recently said during one of his weekly television programs.
 
“And vegetables stagnated at a peak of 2.5 million tons harvested six years ago,” he said. 
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Health officials in Poland reported a record number of coronavirus-related deaths on Friday as the first treatments began for patients at a makeshift hospital in the country’s national stadium. The government reported 445 deaths and 27,086 new infections in its latest report. The caseload was the second highest number of in a single day during the pandemic — second only to Thursday’s total. The figures coincided with the admission of the first patient at a new field hospital located in Warsaw’s National Stadium. The rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases has placed Poland among the 20 most-affected countries in the world.  If the level of infections reaches 70 people per 100,000 or if 30,000 patients are hospitalized, a full national lockdown will take effect, according to the government. The health ministry said the health care system is facing shortages of hospital beds, equipment and medical personnel. The health ministry added that, as of Friday, COVID-19 patients occupied 19,479 of 29,407 available hospital beds and were using 1,703 of 2,238 available ventilators. 
 
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Russia reported 20,582 new COVID cases Friday, a record daily high. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, did not give any details about what steps public health officials would take to curb the uptick.  With more than 1.7 million COVID infections in Russia, only the United States, India and Brazil have more coronavirus cases. India reported more than 47,000 new COVID cases Friday. Anyone traveling from Denmark to Britain must now self-isolate for 14 days. Denmark was removed Friday from Britain’s corridor of travel, following a coronavirus outbreak on mink farms in the Scandanavian country. Denmark has announced it is culling more than 15 million minks in an effort to halt the spread of a mutated form of the coronavirus that has appeared in the minks.
The coronavirus is sweeping across Europe again. England began a four-week lockdown Thursday, while Greece begins a three-week shutdown Saturday.Italy starting is beginning new coronavirus restrictions across the country. In the so-called ‘soft lockdown’ the country has been divided by colors according to risk with set of restrictions differing by color.An aerial view of vehicles queuing at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at the Alliant Energy Center complex, as the coronavirus disease outbreak continues in Madison, Wisconsin, Nov. 5, 2020.US hits another daily record
On Thursday, the United States recorded its highest number of COVID cases since the start of the pandemic – more than 117,000 new infections.  The rapid spread of the virus in the U.S. comes as voters await the final results of the country’s presidential election. The virus is “coming after all of us,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said.  “This virus doesn’t care if we voted for Donald Trump, doesn’t care if we voted for Joe Biden.”The virus in the U.S. is  especially spreading across the Midwest and the so-called Great Plains region that spans large parts of the central and western U.S.  The U.S. has 9.6 million of the world’s 48.6 million cases. 
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Tensions appear to be running high as Bolivia’s president-elect Luis Arce prepares for his inauguration on Sunday.
 
AFP, the French news agency, reports conservative opponents of Arce launched a two-day strike in Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Thursday, protesting alleged electoral fraud.
 
The apparent attempt to create discord is shared by the outgoing administration, which challenged Arce’s guest list for the inauguration.
 
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is expected to attend, although outgoing President Jeanine Anez initially said Maduro would not be invited, but an invitation was reportedly extended to opposition leader Juan Guaido because he is recognized as Venezuela’s leader.
 
It’s unclear if Guaido will attend the ceremony, but former President Evo Morales is expected to return to Boliva a day after the inauguration after a judge revoked an arrest warrant issued last year for him on accusations of sedition and terrorism.
 
Morales was accused of fueling unrest following the coup which led to his resignation last November.
 
Arce is Morales’ former economic minister, whose background could prove to be critical as Bolivia tries to reboot its economy slowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Greece has ordered a three-week nationwide lockdown to help contain a dramatic resurgence of COVID-19 infections. It is the second shutdown this year after a sudden surge in infections this week.Under restrictions taking effect Saturday, retail businesses will be closed, except for supermarkets, pharmacies and banks.Greeks will need state-authorized permits to venture out of their homes at specific times. While primary schools will remain open, high schools and universities will remain closed, operating by way of online learning sessions.In a nationally televised news conference, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he had no other option than to take aggressive action because the deadly virus was spreading at an alarming rate.It changed dramatically this week, he said. “We saw the contagion rates increasing at a frightening rate in northern Greece, and we saw similar trends emerging.”If these measures were not taken now, he said, then the strain on the health care system would become so great within a few weeks that doctors would have to limit admissions to intensive care units.In the last five days alone, the country has counted 10,000 infections, a fifth of the total number of cases documented since the start of the pandemic here.Greece’s rolling average of daily new cases is just 17 per 100,000 people, compared to 33 in Britain and 68 in France. Mitsotakis warned, though, that Greece had less of a margin to respond.Just out of a 10-year devastating financial crisis, Greece took aggressive action at the start of the pandemic to bolster its anemic health care system, adding much-needed personnel and medical supplies to deal with the health crisis.It managed to keep daily infections down to about a few dozen a day, with a death toll of around 300. Once summer set in and its borders reopened, though, Greeks abandoned all show of social distancing, packing into bars and partying nonstop.The social rebellion was so intense that a movement of deniers mushroomed across the nation, refusing to don masks, let alone acknowledge the existence of the deadly virus.Now Mitsotakis is under fire by politicians across the board, accusing him of mismanaging the health crisis.On Thursday, he seemed apologetic“Perhaps the gravest mistake we made,” he said, “was that we resigned to this sweeping sense of relief that gripped all of us over the summer, that the pandemic was over and that we had been spared.”Government officials anticipate the draconian lockdown will stem the spread of the deadly virus in as soon as a week.Medical experts, though, expect the Greek resurgence to worsen before it will start to recede, and that could well be beyond Christmas and into the new year, when vaccines are anticipated for release.
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 At least 57 people have died from persistent heavy rains causing flooding and landslides across Central America, including Honduras, since Hurricane Eta came ashore in Nicaragua Tuesday,  Eta has been downgraded to a tropical depression, but lingering rains created more flooding from Panama to Guatemala.   President Alejandro Giammattei said nearly 300 Guatemalan homes have been affected and that the rain is expected to continue for two days.  A U.S. Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopter assigned to Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras rescued several people stranded in floodwaters Thursday.    The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eta is forecast to regain tropical storm strength as it moves into the Caribbean Sea on a northerly path toward Cuba and southern Florida.  The center posted an advisory that Belize and western Cuba should be monitoring the storm’s movement.   A tropical storm watch is in effect for the Cayman Islands.    
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The rain-heavy remnants of Hurricane Eta flooded homes from Panama to Guatemala Thursday as the death toll across Central America rose to 57, and aid organizations warned the flooding and mudslides were creating a slow-moving humanitarian disaster across the region.The storm that hit Nicaragua as a mighty Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday had become more of a vast tropical rainstorm, but it was advancing so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America remained on high alert. Forecasters said the now-tropical depression was expected to regather and head toward Cuba and possibly the Gulf of Mexico by early next week.On Thursday afternoon, Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said a water-soaked mountainside in the central part of the country had slid down onto the town of San Cristobal Verapaz, burying homes and leaving at least 25 dead.Two other slides in Huehuetenango had killed at least 12 more, he said. Earlier Thursday, five others had been killed in smaller slides in Guatemala.Giammattei said on that 60% of the eastern city of Puerto Barrios was flooded and 48 more hours of rain was expected.Guatemala’s toll was on top of 13 victims in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. Panamanian authorities reported eight missing.Residents paddle a boat through a flooded street in the aftermath of Hurricane Eta in Planeta, Honduras, Nov. 5, 2020.Eta had sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) Thursday. It was centered 65 miles (100 kilometers) west-northwest of La Ceiba, Honduras.In Honduras, National Police said Thursday that six more bodies had been found, bringing that country’s toll to 13. The bodies of two adults and two children were found after excavations in a mudslide that occurred Wednesday in the township of Gualala, and two boys aged 8 and 11 died in another mudslide in El Níspero.Earlier, residents found the body of a girl buried in a landslide Wednesday in mountains outside the north coast city of Tela. In the same area, a landslide buried a home with a mother and two children inside it, according to Honduras Fire Department spokesman Óscar Triminio. He said there was also a 2-year-old girl killed in Santa Barbara department when she was swept away by floodwaters.Hundreds of residents of San Pedro Sula neighborhoods had to abandon their homes before dawn Thursday when water from the Chamelecon river arrived at their doorsteps.Miguel Angel Beltran, a security guard from the city’s Planeta neighborhood, said his district was lost and many people were missing or drowned.”We rescued my brothers, all the family from a balcony, a three-story building,” he said. “How is it possible that a government has done nothing to warn people.”His family lost everything and had nowhere to go, he said. The few boats rescuing people had no motors and struggled against the current, he said.Marvin Aparicio of Honduras’ emergency management agency said 41 communities have been cut off by washed out roads.Luis Alonso Salas, a 45-year-old construction worker, stood on high ground at a gas station where people who fled their homes picked over a pile of donated clothing.”It was terrible, I lost my whole house, I couldn’t take anything,” he said. At 1 a.m. water was up to his neck. He said others in his neighborhood were still waiting for rescuers in boats from atop their roofs.Maite Matheu, country director for the international humanitarian organization CARE, said Thursday that some 2 million Hondurans could be directly impacted by the storm.”The situation that we are seeing today is very, very alarming,” she said. “Mainly the people and families that need to be evacuated right now. There are dozens of families in some towns in the Sula valley who are on their roofs and are asking to be evacuated.”She said Honduras’ government did not have the capacity to rescue people.Giammattei, Guatemala’s president, said his Honduran counterpart Juan Orlando Hernández requested help, but that blocked roads made it impossible to do so.Matheu said her organization was helping gather information about the most pressing needs across Honduras. The food supply was a real concern, she said. The country’s road network is badly damaged, airports were closed and much of the Sula valley, the country’s most agriculturally productive, was flooded.”The impact on crops is going to be enormous,” Matheu said. The storm’s impact would only increase the pressure on a desperate population to migrate, she added.In Panama, at least eight people were reported missing after flooding and landslides in the province of Chiriqui, which borders Costa Rica.The U.S. National Hurricane Center forecast that parts of Nicaragua and Honduras could receive 15 to 25 inches (380 to 635 millimeters) of rain, with 40 inches (1,000 millimeters) possible in some isolated parts.When what’s left of the storm wobbles back into the Caribbean it will regain some strength and become a tropical storm again, forecasts show.And then Eta is predicted to slowly move toward Cuba and Florida, or at least close enough to Florida for forecasters to warn of 7 inches of rain for South Florida in the next five to seven days. And next week, Eta could even move into the Gulf of Mexico.”Whatever comes out (of Central America) is going to linger awhile,” said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. “I’m not convinced we’re done with Eta.”That’s because what’s left of Eta still has spin, which is hard to kill off, and that should help it reform, said NOAA hurricane and climate scientist Jim Kossin.Once it reforms and heads toward Cuba, it could meander in the area for awhile.”The winds aren’t going to be the problem. The rains are going to be the problem,” Klotzbach said.Eta will be so big, wet and messy that it doesn’t have to make landfall in already rain-soaked South Florida to cause a mess, Klotzbach said.”Slow-moving sprawling ugly tropical storms can certainly pack a precipitation wallop even if it doesn’t make landfall,” Klotzbach said. 
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The 90-year-old leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, was sent to a military hospital in Belgrade this week after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to the church.His hospitalization Wednesday came days after the patriarch led prayers at the funeral of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, Bishop Amfilohije, who died of COVID-19.FILE – A nun kisses Bishop Amfilohije during the liturgy and funeral in the main temple in Podgorica, Montenegro, Nov. 1, 2020. The bishop, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, died after contracting COVID-19.During the funeral at the church in Montenegro, prevention measures were not observed. Mourners did not wear masks. They kissed the body of the bishop as it lay in a coffin and did not keep their distance from one another.A statement from his office said Patriarch Irinej was “without symptoms and is in excellent health.”Serbia and Montenegro have seen a rise in coronavirus cases, and authorities warned the funeral could be a super-spreader event and a public health threat.Many mourners, including a top Montenegro cleric, Bishop Joanikije, reportedly contracted the virus after the funeral. He now suffers from mild pneumonia.Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Montenegrin Prime Minister-designate Zdravko Krivokapic also attended the funeral of Bishop Amfilohije.Bishop Amfilohije was a powerful cleric who did not observe COVID-19 prevention measures such as wearing masks.
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Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, a wartime hero turned politician, was arrested and transferred Thursday to the detention center of the Kosovo Tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, to face charges of war crimes.Thaci had resigned, effective immediately, earlier in the day after learning that the tribunal confirmed a war crimes indictment against him.Thaci and three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are accused of overseeing illegal detention facilities where the movement’s opponents were kept in inhumane conditions, tortured and sometimes killed.Thaci has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He told a news conference in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, that he felt his resignation was necessary “to protect the integrity of the state.”Thaci arrived at Pristina’s military airport in the afternoon and was flown to The Hague, where he was taken into custody by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers.Instability ahead?The move could bring political instability to Kosovo, a young democracy where the 52-year-old former guerrilla became the first prime minister in 2008 and was elected president in 2016.Prosecutors in July said they held Thaci responsible for the killing of nearly 100 civilians during the 1998-99 war when he was a KLA commander who fought the Serbian police and army.Thaci, a U.S.-backed national hero, embarked on his political career after leading the KLA’s battle against forces under the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.Ties with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump deepened in September, when Kosovo and Serbia signed an economic relations deal at the White House.The European Union on Thursday welcomed Thaci’s cooperation with the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, where he is expected to come before a pretrial judge in the coming days.The tribunal was set up in 2015 to handle cases relating to the war that led to Kosovo’s independence from Serbia in 2008. The court is governed by Kosovo law but staffed by international judges and prosecutors.FILE – Hashim Thaci, who then was Kosovo’s president, attends a ceremony of security forces, in Pristina, Kosovo, Dec. 13, 2018.Anger in KosovoMany in Kosovo oppose the war crimes court and see the KLA commanders as heroes.”I think a big injustice is being committed here by putting on trial our liberators,” economist Fejzullah Ibrahimi told Reuters at a market in Pristina.NATO bombed Belgrade in 1999 with U.S. support to halt the killings and expulsions of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo by Serb forces.Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said the indictment against Thaci gave hope to thousands of victims of the war “who have waited for more than two decades to find out the truth about the horrific crimes.”In Belgrade, lawmaker Milovan Drecun, chairman of the Serbian parliamentary committee for Kosovo, said the indictment proved that “establishing the truth about war crimes of the KLA and punishing those responsible is an irreversible process.”In July, Thaci met the prosecutors in The Hague to discuss the allegations against him.Another three Kosovo politicians and former KLA members — Rexhep Selimi, a deputy in the Kosovo parliament; Kadri Veseli, president of Thaci’s Kosovo Democratic Party; and veteran Kosovo politician Jakup Krasniqi — were transferred Wednesday and Thursday to The Hague on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the tribunal said.
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Sweden’s prime minister announced Thursday he has gone into protective self-isolation after a person close to him encountered someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. The country is experiencing an autumn surge of infections. From his Facebook account, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said that on his doctor’s advice, he and his wife, Ulla, were self-isolating, even though they have no symptoms. He said it was “the only responsible thing to do in this situation.”  FILE – Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven speaks during a news conference updating on the coronavirus situation, at the government headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Nov. 3, 2020.Lofven’s announcement came as Sweden’s Public Health Agency reported a record 4,034 new daily infections and five new deaths, putting Sweden’s total deaths at 6,002. In his post, Lofven said the new infections were clearly going in the wrong direction. Early in the pandemic, as other Nordic nations locked down to fight the virus, Sweden drew international attention by keeping schools, gyms and restaurants open and not requiring people to wear masks.  In recent weeks, as infections have risen, the government began implementing limits on the size of social gatherings, patrons in restaurants and on public transportation. They have also encouraged people to work from home if possible. Sweden’s per capita death rate of 0.7 is high compared to Nordic neighbors Norway and Finland, but relatively low next to other nations in Europe. 
 
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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is urging fellow European leaders to form a common front against what some leaders call “political Islam.”
 
“I expect an end to the misconceived tolerance and for all the nations of Europe to finally realize how dangerous the ideology of political Islam is for our freedom and the European way of life,” Kurz told the German newspaper Die Welt. “The EU must focus much more strongly on the problem of political Islam in the future.”  
 
The idea of forming a common European front against political Islam, first broached by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, is being embraced by other European leaders, including Italy’s foreign minister, who said the European Union should adopt a version of the USA Patriot Act, which gives security agencies greater surveillance powers.
 
Kurz said he will put the issue of political Islam on the agenda of a scheduled EU summit later this month. He said he had talked with Macron and “many other government leaders so that we can coordinate more closely within the EU.”
 
The Austrian chancellor’s comments came in the wake of Monday’s shooting rampage in Vienna where a gunman killed four people, the first major terrorist attack on Austrian soil since 1985.  A military police officer stands guard near the scene of a terrorist attack in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 4, 2020.Austria’s security services are investigating whether the 20-year-old suspect, an Austrian-North Macedonian dual citizen with a previous terror conviction, had ties to Islamist militants in other countries, including Switzerland, where police arrested two people in connection with the Vienna attack. Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter told a local newspaper that the two were “colleagues” of the attacker, and the three men had met face-to-face recently.
 
The wave of attacks carried out by Islamist militants in Paris, Nice, Dresden and Vienna over the past few weeks is raising alarm, with European security officials saying they fear more violence.
 
Islamic State claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack in a statement issued through its Amaq News Agency, along with a video purportedly showing the gunman swearing allegiance to the terror group’s leader.
 
“The enemy, the Islamist terror, wants to split our society,” Kurz said. “But we will give no space to this hatred. Our enemies are not the members of a religious community. These are terrorists. This is not a fight between Christians and Muslims, or Austrians and migrants, but a fight between civilization and barbarity.”
 
Some leaders and countries warn that the stances taken by Kurz and Macron will be used by militants and others to paint Europe as anti-Islam.French President Emmanuel Macron visits the scene of a knife attack at Notre Dame church in Nice, France, Oct. 29, 2020.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been feuding bitterly with Macron over the French president’s recent remarks that Islam is a religion “in crisis.” The French government’s renewal of its support for the right to show caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad has infuriated Ankara. Erdogan has accused Macron of being mentally unstable — an accusation that prompted Paris to recall its ambassador from Turkey.
 
Macron has repeatedly voiced his support for freedom of expression following the killing of teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb last month. Paty was beheaded by a militant after showing cartoons from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to his students in a lesson about free speech.
 
Erdogan has urged a boycott of French products, as a backlash has mounted against Macron in the Muslim world. Retailers in the Gulf and Jordan have announced boycotts of French products.
 
France on Thursday condemned what it said were “declarations of violence” by Erdogan and raised the possibility of the EU imposing new sanctions on Ankara.  
 
“There are now declarations of violence, even hatred, which are regularly posted by President Erdogan, which are unacceptable,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.
He added, “There are means of pressure. There is an agenda of possible sanctions.”Tribute flowers are stacked outside the school where slain history teacher Samuel Paty was working, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris, France, Oct. 17, 2020.Macron underlined Wednesday he wants to target “Islamist separatism, never Islam,” and said he is not “stigmatizing French Muslims.”  
 
“I will not allow anybody to claim that France or its government is fostering racism against Muslims,” he said in a letter published in Britain’s Financial Times.  
 
Rallies have taken place in Bangladesh, Indonesia and other Muslim countries against Macron. Around 50,000 protesters took part in a demonstration in Bangladesh Monday, with some burning effigies of the French leader. In Jakarta, 2,000 Indonesians protested outside the French embassy, chanting, “No defamation of the Prophet Muhammad.”
 
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Wednesday that Europe needed to take “measures that can prevent tragedies such as those in Nice and Vienna.” On his Facebook page he added, “In the face of this, Europe and Italy itself cannot continue with just words.”  
 
Di Maio said Europe should implement tighter controls on mosques and take bolder steps to curb illegal immigration.
 
On Thursday, Italy announced it will step up border checks because of the latest attacks in Europe. Like other European countries, including Britain, authorities in Rome have upgraded their terrorism threat level to high. British security officials say they fear the attacks in Nice and Vienna might encourage other militants.
 
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People in London packed pubs and bars late Wednesday for one last drink before all of England shutdown for one month in an attempt to halt a surge in COVID-19 infections.
 
Streets in London’s Soho neighborhood were blocked so pubs could put out tables for outdoor seating, but that appeared to be the only indication the city was in the midst of a pandemic. People sat shoulder to shoulder or stood arm-in-arm, and the only masks in sight were on the policemen standing by to make sure the revelry did not get out of hand.
 
One man told a reporter the scene felt like a bittersweet New Year’s Eve atmosphere — festive, but with the knowledge it would all be ending.  
 
London and the rest of England began the shutdown at 1:00 am Thursday to combat a surge in new infections that scientists said could, if unchecked, cause more deaths than a first wave that forced a three-month lockdown earlier this year.  On Wednesday, the United Kingdom reported 492 deaths from the virus, the most reported since mid-May.
 
The nation has the biggest official death toll in Europe from COVID-19 and is grappling with more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day. Scientists warned the “worst-case” scenario of 80,000 dead could be exceeded without action.  
Under the lockdown, all non-essential businesses in England will be closed and people will be asked to work from home if possible until at least December 2nd. Masks and social distancing will be mandatory when venturing out.
 
The rest of the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have their own lockdown policies and enacted tougher health restrictions last month. 
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Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has confirmed that he has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
 
Thaci told a news conference on Thursday that, because of the indictment, he was following through on a pledge to resign from his position.
 
Thaci was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), an ethnic Albanian guerrilla group that fought against Belgrade’s security forces in the 1998-99 war.
 
A Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) has accused Thaci and other suspects of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders,” as well as the “enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.”
 
The alleged crimes involved “hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents,” according to the SPO.
 
Thaci has denied involvement in any war crimes.
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Chile will host a third set of clinical trials for a vaccine against the coronavirus.President Sebastian Pinera announced Wednesday, AstraZeneca’s trial would follow a U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson trial that is already underway and a third by China’s Sinovac, whose first vaccine doses arrived in Chile on Wednesday.Pinera said Sinovac laboratory is going to conduct trials jointly with the Catholic University and the Milenio Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy.AstraZeneca is developing its COVID-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford.Pinera said Chile has been working for several months to ensure that Chileans have access to coronavirus vaccines.Pinera hopes to first make the vaccine available to the groups most at risk in the first few months of next year.
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Brazilian prosecutors are charging President Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Flavio, with corruption during his tenure as a state lawmaker.Rio de Janeiro’s state prosecutors accuse Flavio Bolsonaro of embezzlement, money laundering and operating a criminal enterprise from 2007 to 2018, when he allegedly took money from his staffers’ salaries when he was a Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker.Flavio and 16 others, including his former driver, Fabricio Queiroz, are implicated in the alleged scheme.Investigators reportedly began their probe into the money siphoning scheme in 2018, when auditors spotted unusual transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars into an account held by Queiroz.In an Instagram post, Flavio denied any wrongdoing, suggesting that the charges could be politically motivated because his father has previously campaigned on an anti-corruption platform.By late Wednesday, President Bolsanaro had not spoken publicly about the accusations against his son.
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The recent repatriation of an Islamic State (IS) woman and four children from the Kurdish-controlled al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria is being applauded as an important step by Albania to deal with its citizens abroad who have been affiliated with the terror group.Some observers say they are expecting a long journey ahead for the country as it addresses the rehabilitation of IS families and their reentry into society.“Although modest in size, this transfer signals Albania’s shift toward a proactive approach for the repatriation of its citizens, especially children and women,” Adrian Shtuni, a Washington-based security and radicalization expert, told VOA.Roughly 13,500 foreign women and children are among about 70,000 IS families held by the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, according to a report in April by the Crisis Group. Researchers in Albania say at least 70 members of the group hold Albanian citizenship.Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said last week that he was in Beirut to bring home from Syria a 41-year-old woman, Floresha Rasha; her three children – Amar, Emel and Hatixhe Rasha; and another minor, Endri Dumani. The five Albanians were evacuated from the al-Hol camp in a process mediated by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.Mark Ghraib, Albania’s honorary consul in Beirut, said the Albanians had been given medical checkups and provided with proper care. Authorities have not disclosed many details about the health of the evacuees but said Floresha Rasha uses a wheelchair because of “severe injuries” and will need immediate surgery upon her arrival in Tirana.Floresha Rasha will face investigation to determine if she was involved in any terrorist attacks during her seven years in Syria, according to the Albanian Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution. The four children, however, do not have any criminal liability under Albanian law because of their age.FILE – A man, suspected of having collaborated with the Islamic State group, is greeted by family members upon his release from the Kurdish-run Alaya prison in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, on Oct. 15, 2020.Complex operationKurdish authorities repeatedly have called on countries to repatriate their citizens, saying imprisoned IS fighters and their families are a burden on their limited resources.Albanian Interior Minister Sander Lleshaj said in September that the return of the Albanian adults would face legal challenges because “they are considered the losing side of an armed battle.” He said the government was on track, though, to bring home 28 children.The government in Tirana first planned to repatriate dozens of its citizens in August 2019. But Albanian State Minister Elisa Spiropali subsequently announced the process was suspended because of the changing geopolitical situation in Syria following Turkey’s military operations and the partial withdrawal of U.S. troops in October 2019.The halt prompted a protest in September by relatives of the IS children, who said the government had to put more effort into bringing home minors who are citizens.Following the protest, Lleshaj went to Beirut to discuss with his Lebanese counterparts the possible repatriation of children and women from the camps“For children, we are trying to save them from that hell,” Lleshaj told Albania’s national Top Channel in September.Rights groups describe al-Hol camp as “massively” crowded and unsanitary. Doctors Without Borders FILE – Two women, center, reportedly wives of Islamic State group fighters, wait with other women and children at the al-Hol camp in al-Hasakah governorate in northeastern Syria, Feb. 7, 2019.Mironova also added that another motivation for these women who prefer to stay is to raise their children in the camp, which they consider an Islamic land, thinking that their countries do not have Islamic practices.Some may not seek returnSimilarly, Adrian Shtuni says the assumption that all of the Albanian women being held in the camp are eager to return home may not be accurate.“Substantiated media reports that a number of Albanian women went into hiding to evade repatriation point to a less well-understood aspect of the reality in camps,” Shtuni told VOA.“This highlights once more that though repatriation in itself is a complex effort, it is only the beginning of a long-term process of rehabilitation from trauma and violent extremism required to prepare returnees for reentry into mainstream society,” Shtuni added.Rama in the past has said his Cabinet is well-prepared to hold IS adult members accountable, and to prepare for the return of the brainwashed children into society.In a news conference last week, Rama announced his government rehabilitation program for children was being assisted by the children’s relatives and was equipped with the necessary care, psychologists, teachers and doctors.“The progress of these children will be monitored. Work will be done step by step to integrate them into the social structures, based on the opinion that will be given by doctors and psychologists,” Rama added.More than 100 Albanians are reported to have joined the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, alongside other ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and North Macedonia. The U.S. State Department’s 2019 Country Report on Terrorism determined the terrorism threat in Albania came mainly from foreign fighters returning from Iraq and Syria, along with Albanian youth being radicalized to terrorism.VOA’s Albanian Service contributed to this report.
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Pope Francis is urging people in Italy to follow the latest strict measures imposed by authorities to curb the spread of the coronavirus. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more.
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A former senior commander of ethnic Albanian separatist fighters in Kosovo’s 1998-1999 war who was also the country’s former Parliament speaker was arrested Wednesday and taken to a special court in the Netherlands for war crimes, his lawyer said.Jakup Krasniqi, 69, was arrested by policemen of the European Union rule of law mission (EULEX) at his house in Negrovc village, 34 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital, Pristina, according to lawyer Valon Hasani. Krasniqi was taken to The Hague.”The indictment has been confirmed, and it is expected that a hearing before the special chambers will be scheduled very soon,” Hasani said, without giving details of the charges.Krasniqi is the second former fighter of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, to be taken to The Hague Kosovo Specialist Chambers court after Salih Mustafa in September.Another ex-KLA commander, Rexhep Selimi, 49, said he had been charged, without giving details, and will go to The Hague on Thursday.”I have known how to, and always will, defend the freedom of the people, the state of Kosovo, the glorious KLA,” said Selimi, one of the KLA founders.Selimi is a lawmaker with the main opposition Self-Determination Movement Party and has been interior minister and head of the military academy.The court and an associated Special Prosecutor’s Office were established five years ago following a 2011 report by the Council of Europe, a human rights body, that included allegations that KLA fighters trafficked human organs taken from prisoners and killed Serbs and fellow ethnic Albanians. The court is mandated to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo, or linked to the Kosovo conflict, from 1998-2000. The Kosovo government said it was closely following EULEX activities concerning Krasniqi, adding that the country’s institutions and citizens have always respected the mission’s decisions.Prosecutors in The Hague also have issued an indictment against Kosovar President Hashim Thaci, former parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli, and others for crimes that include murder, enforced disappearances, persecution and torture. It is not clear whether a pre-trial judge has confirmed those indictments, though the six-month period to do that is over. Both men have denied committing any war crimes.Two leaders of the Kosovar war veterans’ association, Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj, also were arrested in September and transferred to The Hague, accused of allegedly endangering potential witnesses in war crimes cases the court is investigating by releasing their names publicly.The war for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia left more than 10,000 people dead – most of them ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. More than 1,600 people remain unaccounted for. The fighting ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign against Serbian troops.Kosovo, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move recognized by many Western nations but not by Serbia or its allies Russia and China. 
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Seven people, including two prominent social leaders, have been killed in a spate of attacks in northern Colombia, authorities and other sources said Wednesday.The attacks happened Tuesday in the northeastern department of Norte de Santander and Antioquia in the northwest, two of the areas most affected by violence perpetrated by armed groups battling over the lucrative drug-trafficking trade.Human rights activist Jorge Solano was killed when gunmen attacked his home in Ocana, Norte de Santander, the secretary of the local post-conflict and peace organization, Pedro Duran, told AFP.Solano, 61, was known for denouncing corruption and defending the victims of forced disappearances, said Duran.The U.N. Human Rights Council office in Colombia condemned the “murder” and called on authorities to “solve the crime.”In another attack, “renowned leader” Luis Hincapie was killed on his farm in El Penol, Antioquia, by armed men, according to the Twitter account of the local independent ombudsman, Indepaz.Killings in pool hallAlso, in Antioquia, five people were massacred “indiscriminately” in a pool hall in Nechi, the local mayor, Marcos Madera, said.Indepaz has recorded 71 massacres — of three or more people in the same incident — during 2020.Rights activists and social leaders are frequently the victims of the violence.According to the Somos Defensores NGO, 95 social activists were slain in the first half of 2020, a 61% increase ove the same period last year.Despite the historic 2016 peace deal that ended six decades of conflict between authorities and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country has been unable to end the wave of violence linked to drug trafficking.
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The Dec. 7 season premiere at Milan’s La Scala opera house, a gala event that is one of Italy’s cultural highlights, is being canceled after a rash of COVID-19 infections among musicians and chorus members.The theater’s board of directors concluded Wednesday that the status of the pandemic and Italy’s virus-control measures, which include the closure of theaters, did not allow for “achieving a production open to the public and of the level and with the characteristics required” for the premiere.Lucia di Lammermoor had been on the program for the season’s opening. La Scala said the scheduled opening night performance and the shows set for the following days have been postponed.Politicians, business figures and other VIPs traditionally turn out for La Scala’s season premiere, an official holiday in Milan.The opera house reported a week ago that its entire orchestra had been told to quarantine after nine musicians tested positive for the coronavirus. The chorus was put under an earlier quarantine after 18 singers were confirmed to be infected.A government decree issued last month to battle a surge in COVID-19 infections shut down Italy’s theaters, cinemas and concert halls for a few weeks. Starting Thursday, Italian museums will also have to close their doors, at least until Dec. 2.  
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With a deadline looming ever more menacingly, the European Union’s chief negotiator on the post-Brexit trade deal with Britain on Wednesday publicly blamed London for a lack of progress in the two sides’ belated attempt to reach an even rudimentary agreement.”At this stage, there are still too many difficulties remaining on important topics,” Michel Barnier said on his way to brief the envoys of the 27 member states.In a Twitter comment later, Barnier said, “Despite EU efforts to find solutions, very serious divergences remain.”Britain’s Chief negotiator David Frost walks down Downing Street in London, Oct. 19, 2020.Britain’s chief negotiator, David Frost, said he agreed that “wide divergences remain on some key issues.””We continue to work to find solutions that fully respect U.K. sovereignty,” Frost tweeted.Barnier’s comments threw a dampener on optimistic reports that progress was being made at a rapid pace on issues such as fisheries rights, one of three remaining major topics that need a compromise solution if a deal is to be found before Jan. 1, when a transition period in the Brexit divorce proceedings ends.Barnier’s stern words were in complete contradiction to the olive branch he offered London only two weeks ago after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that the EU and Barnier fundamentally had to change tack to continue the negotiations.Both sides have been intensely negotiating since, but, as Barnier pointed out, to little effect.The lack of progress on fisheries and on the need to have common regulatory standards and fair competition to make sure Britain won’t undercut EU businesses has befuddled the negotiating teams for months, as both sides have been trying to strike a trade deal since the U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31.Without a deal, trade between both sides would fundamentally change, and hundreds of thousands of jobs would be threatened on both sides, especially in nations close to Britain such as Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Barnier insisted again Wednesday that the EU “is prepared for all scenarios.”In the trade negotiations, Britain wants to retain as many of the advantages of EU membership as possible without having to live by the bloc’s rules. The EU is insisting on stringent trade regulations to avoid having a giant buccaneering trade partner on its doorstep that could freely undercut the bloc’s state aid, social and environmental standards.After negotiating in Brussels this week, the talks are set to move to London again in the coming days.
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Forecasters say Tropical Storm Eta is moving slowly inland, bringing heavy rains that are producing life-threatening flash floods in parts of Central America.At last report Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center of the storm was about 95 kilometers west of the coastal Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas and moving west at about 13 kilometers per hour. It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 kph.Eta came ashore late Tuesday as a category 2 hurricane after hovering just off the coast of Nicaragua longer than forecasters expected. The Associated Press reports even before it made landfall, heavy rains were responsible for landslides that killed three people.Nicaraguan officials say Eta uprooted trees and damaged buildings as it moved inland.Forecasters expect it to move over northern Nicaragua, and then move across central Honduras through Thursday morning, carrying heavy rains that are likely to create more landslides in higher terrain, along with flash flooding and river flooding.While Eta is expected to weaken as it moves to the west, the system is forecast to emerge over the northwestern Caribbean Sea Friday. Some models suggest it will re-strengthen and head towards Florida in the southeastern United States. 
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A survey of some 300 members of parliament in 19 countries finds cases of human rights violations, including physical abuse, sexual violence, torture and arbitrary arrest of opposition MPs that are on the rise.In a new report, the FILE – Ugandan musician turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, addresses a news conference over the government handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Kampala, Uganda June 15, 2020.For example, Ugandan police have arrested and released opposition figure Bobi Wine multiple times, most recently on Tuesday, when police also allegedly threw tear gas in his car. He has denied planning rallies that could disrupt public order.   The IPU has reviewed the cases of nine Ivorian opposition MPs who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained on charges of causing public disorder and spreading fake news. It says there is no evidence proving their guilt and that the charges appeared to be politically motivated in the run-up to elections held on October 31.     The IPU has been monitoring the situation in Venezuela for a number of years. IPU spokesman Thomas Fitzsimons tells VOA the level of intimidation and threats to which opposition MPs are subjected makes it unlikely that parliamentary elections on December 6 will be free and fair.     “The overwhelming majority of those 134 parliamentarians have been attacked, harassed or otherwise intimidated. As I said they can go from social media abuse to actual physical violence abuse,” he said. “So, there are different scales on the different levels on the scale of intimidation. I would say they are all being threatened in some way or other.”    Fitzsimons says a new case of great concern is that of Joana Mamombe, an opposition MP in Zimbabwe. He says she was detained in May after participating in a public protest to gain more protection for the poor during the coronavirus pandemic.   “But the country was in lockdown, so she was arrested on that pretext. And, in prison, the reports that we heard is that she was allegedly tortured, with violence on a sexual nature as well. So, we are very concerned about that report.”     IPU spokesman Fitzsimons says Mamombe has since been released on bail and reportedly re-arrested. He says the constant intimidation of detention, release and re-arrest is a strategy employed by many state authorities to weaken the opposition and stay in power. There was no reaction from any of the countries mentioned.  
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The death toll in last week’s Aegean Sea earthquake rose to 116 on Wednesday as rescuers in the Turkish city of Izmir finished searching buildings that collapsed in the quake.All but two of the victims were killed in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. Two teenagers died on the Greek island of Samos, which lies south of the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey registered the quake’s magnitude at 7.0, although other agencies recorded it as less severe.Mehmet Gulluoglu, head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, said search and rescue operations had been completed at 17 buildings that fell in Izmir. The rescue operation has been roaring at full tilt since Friday, pulling 107 survivors from the rubble.Of the 1,035 people injured in the quake, 137 remained hospitalized on Wednesday, the agency added.Following a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged not to give up until the final person was recovered. Rescuers’ spirits were raised Tuesday when they pulled a 3-year-old girl from the wreckage of her family home 91 hours after the quake.The tremors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul, as well as in the Greek capital of Athens. Some 1,700 aftershocks followed, 45 of which were greater than 4.0 magnitude.In Izmir, the quake reduced buildings to rubble or saw floors pancake in on themselves. Authorities have detained nine people, including contractors, for questioning over the collapse of six of the buildings.Turkey has a mix of older buildings and new buildings make of cheap or illegal construction that do not withstand earthquakes well. Regulations have been tightened to strengthen or demolish older buildings, and urban renewal is underway in Turkish cities, but experts say it is not happening fast enough. The country sits on top of two major fault lines and earthquakes are frequent.  
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