Athens Thursday denied NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s earlier statement that Greece and Turkey had agreed to “technical talks” to avoid military clashes in the region. The move, critics say, dashes hopes of a breakthrough in rising tension in the eastern Mediterranean.
 
Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas said the NATO chief’s announcement did not correspond to reality. He said a series of conditions must first be met before Athens even begins to consider talks with Ankara.
    
“We want Turkey to abandon its provocative stance and come to the negotiating table with sincere interest. Negotiations cannot be held under threats and blackmail, the spokesman said.
 
Greece, Petsas said, will be neither terrorized or threatened — diplomatic longhand for a Greek ultimatum calling on Turkey to pull back an exploration ship it has sent to the eastern Mediterranean, near a cluster of Greek islands, to search for undersea oil and gas.
 
Escorted by a fleet of Turkish battleships, the Oruc Reis survey vessel has drawn the attention of the entire Greek fleet, which has been watching its every move for over a month now, ready to retaliate if, as the Greek government has said, it attempts to drill in areas of the seabed Greece claims as its own.
 
Turkey rejects the claims, saying islands are not entitled to what is known as an exclusive economic zone.  Ankara instead believes it has the right to explore the oil- and mineral-rich eastern Mediterranean seabed after a recent maritime agreement it concluded with Libya.FILE – Turkey’s exploratory vessel, the Oruc Reis, is seen anchored in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Antalya, Turkey, July 24, 2020.In recent days, the standoff between the two NATO allies has become more heated and ever more dangerous, as the Oruc Reis has moved into the Aegean Sea, nearing a cluster of Greek isles.
 
Analysts, among them Angelos Syrigos, believe the move is a part of a negotiating ploy by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of any potential talks.
 
Turkey has agreed to the negotiations but is ready to come to discussions with a grab bag of sea and territorial claims it is not entitled to by international law, Syrigos says. So, by agreeing to sit down and discuss details related to these disputed areas, it is bound to come out with something it didn’t have in the beginning.That is what Greece wants to avoid, Syrigos added.  
 
Feuds between Greece and Turkey are hardly new. What complicates this one is that the undersea reserves are also being eyed by other countries, many of them neighboring, that have teamed together, isolating Turkey.
 
Erdogan has antagonized many allies and friends with his aggressive behavior in Syria, Libya and at home. Further complicating matters is that Turkey is a member of NATO, but not of the European Union.
 
Germany is currently leading a separate diplomatic effort to defuse the standoff between Greece and Turkey.  
 
Analyst Costantinos Filis advises caution.
 
Either the other side, he says, has gone rogue and Greece should continue to be on full military alert, or this is another negotiating ploy by Erdogan in a bid to skirt potential sanctions the EU may take against Turkey because of its gas explorations.
 
Greece and Turkey nearly went to war 25 years ago in a dispute over uninhabited Aegean islets. Since then, they have lived in an uneasy détente.
 
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Four Venezuelans are under arrest in Colombia for their alleged roles in a botched attempt to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power a few months ago.Colombian officials announced Thursday the suspects are accused of arming and training mercenaries who in May invaded Venezuela by boat.The amphibious attacked dubbed “Operation Gideon” was carried out by three former U.S. Special Forces soldiers acting as mercenaries.Venezuelan soldiers arrested former Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry, who were sentenced to 20 years in prison in Venezuela.The third former soldier is back in the United States.  Jordan Goudreau, who operates a Florida security firm, has claimed responsibility for the failed attack. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in the Oval Office on Friday, the White House said in a statement.Trump will attend a signing ceremony and participate in a trilateral meeting afterward, the statement, issued late Thursday, said, but it did not specify what would be signed.After the first day of negotiations on normalizing economic relations, Vučić said that he was presented with a draft agreement which mentioned mutual recognition and that he rejected it.Trump’s special envoy for the peace talks between Kosovo and Serbia, Richard Grenell, took to Twitter saying that it was not true.Not true. https://t.co/oDyaqs7ZvJ— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) September 3, 2020For his part, Hoti did not comment on whether there was such a proposal but stressed that “harmful agreements for Kosovo, unacceptable for Kosovo, have never come and will never come from the White House.”On Thursday evening, after the leaders from Belgrade and Pristina ended the first day of negotiations, Grenell tweeted:It’s been a productive day. I am hopeful.It’s been a productive day. I am hopeful.— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) September 3, 2020Earlier, Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, who is co-hosting the meeting along with Grenell, struck an optimistic tone about the negotiations.O’Brien also thanked the American Financial Corporation for International Development, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the American Export-Import Bank, for joining the talks.“Very good round of discussions this afternoon with the leaders of #Serbia and #Kosovo. They made real progress today. Thanks to @DFCgov, @MCCgov, and @EximBankUS for joining. #EconomicNormalization means jobs for young people. Talks continue tomorrow!” – NSA Robert O’Brien“Very good round of discussions this afternoon with the leaders of #Serbia and #Kosovo. They made real progress today. Thanks to @DFCgov, @MCCgov, and @EximBankUS for joining. #EconomicNormalization means jobs for young people. Talks continue tomorrow!” – NSA Robert O’Brien pic.twitter.com/7usHrh2w2N— NSC (@WHNSC) September 3, 2020After the meeting Friday at the White House, Hoti and Vučić are scheduled to meet separately with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department.Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but the latter has refused to recognize it. Kosovo’s independence also is not recognized by Russia or China.Kosovo’s independence has been recognized, however, by more than 100 members of the United Nations, including the United States, and most of the European Union member states, except for Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Spain.  
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Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party won a decisive victory in Thursday’s general election, retaining power by claiming 49 seats compared to the People’s National Party’s 14 seats in the preliminary tally.The final ballot count from all 63 constituencies will continue Friday.Speaking from the JLP’s headquarters in Kingston, Holness said the opposition leader, Peter Phillips, conceded the election and congratulated him on the landslide victory.The prime minister attempted to strike a unifying tone, urging supporters of the People’s National Party to join in celebrating the country’s victory.He also warned members of his party not to take the citizens for granted after winning the election in which many Jamaican did not participate for various reasons, including fear over the coronavirus.The JLP’s victory marks the first time the party has won consecutive elections in more than 50 years. 
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When Juan José Hincapié opened his small pizza restaurant on his street corner, the 46-year-old achieved his lifelong dream.But after five months of quarantine in Colombia, his dream, like those of many people in this nation still recovering from decades of civil war and cartel violence, is in danger of evaporating.The country is beginning to emerge from one of the world’s longest coronavirus quarantines, which has had devastating effects in regard to poverty, mental health, violence, the economy and small businesses like Hincapié’s.Now, health experts warn it will have to strike a careful balancing to not spiral out of control.Two months ago, Hincapié made a snap decision to transform his restaurant in Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city, into a fruit and vegetable stand. He replaced heavy stoves and tables with plastic bins holding piles of tomatoes, pineapples, potatoes, avocados and other produce.“If we didn’t make that change, we would have had to close because our sales dropped 80% — even more,” he said. “We couldn’t sustain our staff with that.”He watched as neighborhood shops around him shuttered for good, “for rent” signs began to pop up, and a growing number of people walked the streets begging for money from apartments looming above.Unemployment has surged and Colombia’s economy Passengers sit on a bus at the terminal for long-distance travel in Bogota, Colombia, Sept. 1, 2020. Airports, land transport, restaurants, and gyms are reopening in most of Colombia this week.But Colombia, along with other nations with emerging economies in Latin America, faces a set of challenges that makes the pandemic all the more difficult to control.Extending the quarantines pushed poorer and working-class Colombians to the brink in large part by forcing informal workers – street vendors or laborers who survive on day-to-day wages – to go to work or go hungry.At the same time, densely populated cities and ill-equipped medical systems fueled pessimism from the beginning about Colombia’s ability to contain the spread of the virus.As the months went by, the quarantine was lengthened while enforcement grew more flexible and more sporadic. Some cities took a militarized approach, enlisting the help of police to contain the spread, while others experimented with phased lockdowns.The country is now set to begin reopening this month. Hernández worries about the consequences of relaxing measures too early.In Medellín, the government announced it would reopen churches, gyms and motels, including some that charge by the hour, this month. Local leaders in Cartagena, a coastal city popular among tourists, have called for the resumption of international flights.To reopen or not reopenHealth experts warn that the moves could fuel a surge in cases.“We’re at this epidemic peak. If they open too fast, we’re going to have another epidemic peak that’s worse than the first one,” he said.Meanwhile, some of the quarantine’s ripple effects may have longer-term implications.Already, cases of domestic violence have surged, and armed groups have taken advantage of an absence of security forces in key drug routes to wage territorial wars. In recent weeks, rural Colombia has seen a growing wave of massacres, suggesting the country could be reversing significant gains it made over the past two decades in combating drug violence that traumatized generations of Colombians.Regression?A man wears a face mask and shield in the Chorro de Quevedo tourist area in Bogota, Colombia, on Sept. 3, 2020, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.Single mother Nataly Uribe Franco lives with that anxiety every day.The 34-year-old works at a family’s ice cream business, Cremas Doña Alba, in Medellín’s Comuna 13. The neighborhood was once ravaged by violence, but in recent years has become a hub for tourists. That tourism provided a key economic lifeline for many working-class families in the zone.It allowed Uribe Franco’s family to leave their jobs at a plastic bag factory and start their own business. With it, she was able to support herself and two children, now 14 and 16 years old.But that disappeared along with the tourists.“There are weeks and months where we don’t sell a lot, so I have to ask the owner of our house to wait for me to pay rent,” she said. “I’m so stressed, and I try not to stress too much, because that only makes things worse.”Painful futureAnalysts like Ariel Ávila, deputy director of the Colombian research group, the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, say while the country struggles to establish its new normal, the quarantine’s effects will span far beyond it.“The next year is going to be a very tortuous one,” Ávila said, “for the government and all of Colombian society.”Uribe Franco, too, dreads what lies ahead.The family had to cut their staff from 15 to five. Promised government aid never arrived, she said. Food distributions from large companies and NGOs that came at the beginning of the pandemic slowly trickled away. Uribe Franco has watched helplessly as other members of the community go hungry.“People lose hope, they don’t know what to do or how to get out of this,” she said. “With a quarantine so long, you begin to feel hopeless.”  
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is warning that Russia is trying to undermine Americans’ confidence in the security and validity of mail-in voting.In a bulletin labeled “For official use only” circulated Thursday, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis said Russia was “likely to continue amplifying criticism of vote by mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process.”The bulletin said that in mid-August, Russian state media outlets and proxy websites published criticism of widespread mail-in voting, “claiming ineligible voters could receive ballots due to out-of-date voter rolls, leaving a vast amount of ballots unaccounted for and vulnerable to tampering.”It said that since March, Russian outlets also sought to undermine confidence in mail-in voting processes, alleging that they provide “vast opportunities for voter fraud.”The bulletin said Russia is likely to step up trolling by promoting allegations of U.S. election system corruption, failures and “foreign malign interference” to undermine public trust in U.S. elections. It noted that following the Iowa caucuses earlier this year, Russian outlets claimed that the result was “fixed in favor of establishment candidates” and that voting system problems had resulted in “ballot manipulation.”The Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment. Russia has denied interfering in U.S. elections.Adam Schiff, the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the bulletin validated his concern that Russia is seeking to “sow distrust in our democratic process.”By attacking U.S. mail-in ballot integrity, Schiff said, “Russia is echoing destructive and false narratives around vote by mail that President [Donald] Trump and his enablers, including Attorney General [William] Barr, have been aggressively promoting.”Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting, saying in one July 30 Tweet: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
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As France revisits its deadly 2015 wave of jihadist strikes with a major terrorism trial that opened this week, the threat of future attacks remains a clear and present danger here and across the European Union, experts say, even as the region focuses on a very different crisis in COVID-19.On the eve of Wednesday’s opening of the Charlie Hebdo trial, Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin warned that France’s threat level remained “extremely high.”Meanwhile, the EU law enforcement agency Europol described the changing, complex and still potent nature of jihadist and other threats, with coronavirus potentially feeding extremist action.“Groups try to make use of the COVID situation either to enforce their ideology or to call for action,” Europol’s deputy executive director, Wil van Gemert, said in an interview, noting Islamists as well as right-wing groups are profiting from the health crisis.“Our worry is for the future, when we come out of this COVID period with many more people [filling public spaces],” and rising questions and dissatisfaction with government handling of the crisis, van Gemert said.All of this, he added, could lead “to more violence, extremism and potential terrorism.”Laurent Sourisseau, chief editor of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, leaves the courtroom during a break on the opening day of the trial of the 2015 Paris attacks, at Paris courthouse, France, Sept. 2, 2020.Competing headlinesYet in some ways, the kickoff of the January 2015 Paris terrorist attacks trial seemed a throwback to another era.Its arrival jostled against headlines of French schools reopening amid a worrying rise in coronavirus cases and of the government’s $118 billion stimulus plan to reboot France’s COVID-battered economy.Adding to the sense of a page turned, all of the perpetrators of the 2015 attacks on France’s satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket are dead. Instead, 14 people — four in absentia — face charges of providing logistical support in the nearly back-to-back strikes that killed 17 people.FILE – An injured person is transported to an ambulance after a shooting, at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s office, in Paris, Jan. 7, 2015.The 10-week proceedings will also be filmed, a first for a terrorism trial in France, underscoring its historical significance.In November, France will mark the five-year anniversary of the Bataclan attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris. Only one of the suspected assailants remains alive, Salah Abdeslam, 30, with another trial coming up at an unscheduled date.“I think the population’s main worry is COVID-19. Everybody speaks about it, everybody is concerned,” said Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, director of the French Association of Terrorist Victims, AfVT.“But terrorism is still here,” he added. “Terrorism is still a very big threat.”Moving onFor many ordinary French, events have moved on. There are fears of another COVID lockdown, with the country reporting some of its highest daily cases in months, including more than 7,300 Wednesday alone.A health worker prepares to collect a nasal swab from a person at a COVID-19 testing site in front of the city-hall in Paris, France, Sept. 2, 2020.Debates over race and colonialism are again bubbling over, not only from the spillover of the U.S. Black Lives Matter protests, but also after an article in a right-wing magazine portrayed a Black, African-born lawmaker as a slave. Police are again out in force on the streets, not guarding against potential terrorists or yellow-vest protesters but enforcing compulsory mask requirements.While Europe has reinforced its law enforcement capacity and cooperation against terrorism — seen in strong numbers of thwarted attacks — there is always a chance the pandemic could reprioritize funds and capacity, Europol’s van Gemert said.”We have seen an increase in activities you could call extremist” during the pandemic, he added. “I’m not saying it’s directly linked to terrorism, but there are an extreme field of actors who could turn to violent activities.  “And in general, a weaker economy means a stronger criminal economy,” he added of another coronavirus fallout.Attacks down, but threat remainsStill, the number of attacks is down. Last year, EU member states reported just more than half the number of attempted, foiled or failed attacks, at 119, as in 2015, according to Europol, which publishes annual terrorism assessment reports. Ten people died from terrorist strikes across the region in 2019, compared with 360 four years prior.The Islamic State group and al-Qaida, which claimed various degrees of responsibility in the multiple 2015 Paris attacks, are weakened and splintered, losing former strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Today’s threats are increasingly coming from individual “lone wolves” or small cells, Europol says.FILE – Police officers storm the kosher market where a gunman held several hostages in Paris, France, Jan. 9, 2015.“We know that it will be difficult to organize something like November 13 [Bataclan attacks] — something very organized with many jihadists,” said Denoix de Saint Marc, of AfVT. “But every day we are preventing a new terrorist attack from somewhere.”Both the Islamic State and al-Qaida have also evolved and spread, including southward from the Sahel, where France’s 5,000-plus-man Barkhane anti-terrorist force is stationed. Last month, six French aid workers were killed by armed gunmen in Niger, although responsibility for the attacks remains unclear.Lawyers and security officers arrive at the Paris courthouse for the second day of the 2015 attacks trial in Paris, France, Sept. 3, 2020.On Monday, Interior Minister Darmanin noted more than half of terrorist attacks thwarted since 2013 took place over the last three years, while French anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard estimated a half-dozen had been foiled in recent months alone.“The level of terrorism risk is still high,” Ricard told France-Info radio, noting it came from a mix of sources, including former Islamic State fighters and local threats.France counted among Europe’s biggest exporters of Islamic State fighters, including some believed to be involved in the 2015 attacks.Many are dead, but several dozen are still believed to be in Iraq and Syria, along with their spouses and children. Among them, experts believe, is Hayat Boumedienne, the girlfriend of one of assailants in the January 2015 Paris attacks, and a defendant in the current trial.
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The Turkish police said they have arrested Mahmut Ozden, a major Islamic State (IS) figure in Turkey suspected of planning an attack on the newly converted Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul.“Daesh’s so-called emir of Turkey had been caught and remanded in custody with important plans,” Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in announcing the arrest on Twitter Tuesday, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.Ozden and three others were detained in southern Adana province on August 20. An Istanbul court ordered his official arrest on Monday.According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, Ozden’s arrest came as a result of an operation last month by Istanbul Police Department based on some intelligence that the IS was planning an attack on the Hagia Sophia and several other institutions. During the August 18 operation, police captured a suspected IS member, Huseyin Sagir, in a hotel in Istanbul with an AK-47 and five cartridges.Turkish officials said information discovered during Sagir’s investigation led police to Ozden, who had received orders from high-ranking IS militants through encrypted messaging apps.Interior Minister Soylu said that several digital materials seized by the police during Ozden’s house search indicated that he was planning to carry out his attacks through groups of 10 to 12 people.“Police also seized plans to kidnap politicians and statesmen to take them to Syria and for acts against groups that could harm the Turkish economy,” Soylu said to reporters Tuesday during inspection in Giresun, a city in the Black Sea region recently hit by deadly floods.‘Turkey emir’Turkish local media reported that since 2017 Ozden has been detained at least three times on different charges. He allegedly identified himself as Turkey’s southern province of Adana “emir,” an Islamic title used by IS to refer to its top leaders.Dogu Eroglu, the author of “ISIS Networks: Radicalisation, Organisation, Logistics in Turkey,” said that despite the Turkish government’s claim that Ozden was an IS emir, it remains uncertain whether the title can be applied to the suspected militant.“I can say that the term has been used wrongly in most instances because being the Turkey emir of the Islamic State definitely means some sort of network, hierarchy and a chain of a command structure,” Eroglu said, adding that the group in the past has labeled the entirety of Turkey as a “wilayat” or province with no reference to Adana.In a propaganda video released by Islamic State’s al-Furqan media in April 2019, the terror group’s then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared holding notes referring to Turkey as a “wilayat.” In another propaganda video in July 2019, the group showed a group of militants from “Turkey wilayat” pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi.“Do not think that the swords of the soldiers of the caliphate are far from you or from those who stand on your side,” an IS militant identified as Abu Qatada al-Turki threatened Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.In a report released in June, the International Crisis Group reported that the 16 attacks perpetrated by the IS terror group in Turkey between 2014 and 2017 killed nearly 300 civilians.FILE – Muslims offer their evening prayers outside the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, one of Istanbul’s main tourist attractions in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, July 10, 2020.The group only claimed the 2017 New Year’s shooting attack at Istanbul’s Reina nightclub that killed 39.Berkay Mandiraci, a Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group, told VOA that security measures by Turkish authorities following the 2017 shooting have prevented the militant group from conducting any successful attacks in recent years.“It seems that what is left of ISIS networks now is that they are getting organized in smaller groups of five or six people who may not be connected to each other even,” Mandiraci said, adding that the networks consist mostly of IS Turkish and foreign members who crossed the border from Syria and Iraq.“It is different groups that are in Turkey, and that makes it also very challenging for the security forces because it’s such a large pool of people that they need to track and keep under check,” he said.In a report released by the U.S. Defense Department’s Lead Inspector General last month, U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) called Turkey a major facilitation hub for IS, and a target for high-profile IS attacks. The report said Turkish security forces have increased their counter-IS operations while improving their presence along the border with Syria and Iraq.However, USEUCOM warned that safeguarding the Turkish borders with Iraq and Syria was difficult, allowing IS fighters to continue to move supporters and family members.   
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Novichok, a deadly nerve agent that has left Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a coma and nearly killed a former Russian spy and his daughter in 2018, was the product of a highly secretive Soviet chemical weapons program. Here is a look at the agent and the history of its development. How lethal is Novichok? Novichok, the nerve agent used in the attack that nearly killed former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the English city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018, has been described as much deadlier than any U.S. equivalents. FILE – The forensic tent, covering the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found, is repositioned by officials in protective suits in the center of Salisbury, Britain, March 8, 2018.Just a few milligrams of the odorless liquid — the weight of a snowflake — are enough to kill a person within minutes. The agent could be diluted to the desired concentration and added to food or drink, or applied to surfaces or clothes. Scientists say the nerve agent could remain deadly for a long time — even if a few tiny drops are left in a syringe or impregnated into wood or fabric. In the Salisbury attack, it was sprayed on the front door of Skripal’s house after being smuggled into Britain in a counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume bottle. The Skripals spent weeks in critical condition before recovering, and a local woman died after being exposed to the bottle, which was found by her boyfriend. What do the Russians say about Novichok poisonings?Russia fiercely denied British accusations over the Skripals’ poisoning, accusing London and other Western nations of using the incident to fan an anti-Russian campaign. It has followed the same path of denial in this summer’s Navalny poisoning. German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to media during a statement about latest developments in the case of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2020.German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday called Navalny’s poisoning an attempted murder that aimed to silence one of Putin’s fiercest critics and called for a full investigation, saying “there are very serious questions now that only the Russian government can answer, and must answer.” Russia, however, has demanded that Germany share its data backing up its conclusion that Navalny was poisoned and has called for a joint investigation effort. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, insisted Thursday that “there is no reason to accuse the Russian state” over the poisoning. He said Moscow expects Berlin to provide information that would help a Russian probe into the cause of Navalny’s illness, and that Russia doctors in Siberia, where Navalny was taken after he fell ill on Aug. 20, found no evidence of poisoning. Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, even claimed it can’t be excluded that Navalny’s poisoning was a provocation of Western intelligence agencies. When was Novichok designed?The Soviet program to design a new generation of chemical weapons began in the 1970s to counter the latest U.S. chemical weapons. Soviet leaders wanted the equivalent of U.S. binary weapons — agents made up of relatively harmless components that turn deadly when mixed, making them easier to operate than regular chemical weapons. While Novichok class poisons were highly lethal, the program was only partly successful, as some of the components were as toxic as the military-grade nerve agents. The Soviet leadership eventually lost interest in chemical weapons. Novichok-class agents only were manufactured in lab quantities. Vladimir Uglev, a top scientist in the program, has estimated about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) were made. Is it possible to trace Novichok’s source?Russian experts who have worked on the Novichok class of agents have warned it may never be possible to determine the nerve agent’s origin. FILE – German army emergency personnel load into their ambulance the stretcher that was used to transport Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on at Berlin’s Charite hospital, Aug. 22, 2020.To determine what specific lab produced a given sample of Novichok, it’s necessary to find an identical specimen from the same batch — an impossible task. Facing accusations for the Skripals’s poisoning, Russia has charged that the U.S., Britain and other Western countries had acquired the expertise to make the nerve agent and that the Novichok used in that attack could have come from them. Could it fall into the wrong hands? The main Soviet research center that designed the Novichok-class agents was in Shikhany, a town in southwestern Russia. It was one of the “closed cities” isolated by the KGB. The sprawling facility also housed chemical depots and a military firing range, where nerve agents were tested throughout the Cold War. Some Novichok-related research also was conducted at a main Moscow research center, which shared samples with other labs across the Soviet Union. Despite the U.S. oversight to dismantle Russia’s chemical arsenals after the Soviet collapse, scientists involved in the program said they couldn’t exclude that some lab workers might have been tempted to sell toxic substances amid the economic and political turmoil in the 1990s. Murky status Moscow said in 2017 it completed the destruction of 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons left over from the Soviet era, an effort that spanned two decades under close international oversight. The Novichok-class agents weren’t originally mentioned in the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international document that outlawed chemical weapons. Last year, however, they were added to the list of chemicals that require special verification measures under the treaty’s provisions. The move came after the 2018 Salisbury attack and marked the first time the list had been updated. 
 
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Two stars at the Venice Film Festival, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, have praised the decision by the Berlin festival to award gender-neutral prizes, with Swinton predicting other award ceremonies will follow suit.
Organizers of the Berlin International Film Festival announced last month that they would stop awarding separate acting prizes to men and women starting next year. The best actor and actress Silver Bear prizes will now be replaced by best leading performance and best supporting performance awards.
Swinton, who received a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award at the Venice festival’s opening ceremony, said divisions by gender were a “waste of life.”
“And so I’m really happy to hear that about Berlin,” she told reporters Thursday. “And I think it’s pretty much inevitable that everybody will follow, because it’s just obvious to me.”
Blanchett, president of the Venice jury this year, said she instinctively calls herself an “actor.” She said it’s hard enough “to sit in judgment of other people’s work” and then even harder to break it down further along gender lines.
“I’m of a generation where the word “actress” was used always in a pejorative sense. So I think I claim the other space,” she said. “I think good performances are good performances, no matter the sexual orientation of the performers who are making them.”
The Venice festival has long been criticized for the lack of female directors in its in-competition films, with only four films made by women in the 62 films competing for the Golden Lion award between 2017 and 2019.
This year, the gender parity has improved, with 44% of the in-competition films directed by women.
Swinton was also in Venice to present a short film directed by Pedro Almodovar, “The Human Voice,” about a woman’s emotional response to being left by her lover over the phone.
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Mexican police are seeking the gunmen who stormed a funeral service late Tuesday and opened fire, killing at least eight people and wounding more than a dozen others in the city of Cuernavaca.Interior Minister for Morelos State Pablo Ojeda said according to the initial witness accounts, the gunmen arrived in different vehicles, with weapons that are for the exclusive use of the armed forces.The mass shooting is the latest in a country plagued by drug-related gang violence.Mexico’s murder total reached a record 34,582 last year, more than 1,000 more killings than the previous year.Reuters reports the number of murders in Mexico was up slightly, 1.6%, the first seven months of this year compared to the same period in 2019.  
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Mexican authorities say three people are under arrest after the navy intercepted a speedboat allegedly carrying 2.9 tons of cocaine east of Mahahual, Quintana Roo.The Mexican navy released video of Tuesday’s dramatic high-speed drug bust, during which Mexican Marines were lowered from helicopter onto the speedboat.The navy said, the boat was stopped because it was being driven in an erratic manner at a high speed.Authorities say the drugs were concealed in 74 packages.The military did not reveal details about the origin of the drugs or its expected destination.  
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French President Emmanuel Macron voiced support on Wednesday for a sovereign Iraq and said its main challenges are Islamic State militants and foreign interference in its affairs.France also backs Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s efforts to “normalize” all armed forces, Macron said during a visit to Baghdad, referring to mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite militia groups.”We will remain committed because the battle against Islamic State is ongoing but this has to be in the context of an agreement and protocol that respects Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said at a joint news conference with Kadhimi.Macron’s visit was the first by a Western leader to Iraq since Kadhimi took office in May as the third head of government in a chaotic 10-week period that followed months of unrest in a country exhausted by war with Islamist militants, corruption and economic decay.Kadhimi was appointed to head a government tasked with organizing an early election, a main demand of anti-government protesters who staged months of mass demonstrations last year. He has called one, to be held in June.Iraq has also struggled to cope with the clashing regional interests of its two major allies, the United States and Iran.French officials have said Paris is worried by a resurgence in Iraq of Islamic State militants profiting from political uncertainty and rivalries between Iran and the United States.Islamic State, which once occupied a third of Iraq’s territory, has been largely defeated there but continues to carry out ambushes, assassinations and bombings.French President Emmanuel Macron and Iraq’s President Barham Salih greet each other with an elbow bump as they attend a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 2, 2020.”The war against Islamic State isn’t finished … we will continue to act alongside you in the framework of the anti-Islamic State coalition,” Macron said after meeting Iraqi President Barham Salih.”The second challenge is … the multiple foreign interferences that have been going on for several years.”Macron also discussed energy cooperation with Kadhimi and working together on a nuclear project that could solve Iraq’s chronic electricity shortages as well as French support for building a metro railway in Baghdad. 
 
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Tropical Storm Nana barreled westward Wednesday just off the coast of Honduras on a collision course with the Central American nation of Belize, where thousands of people were stocking up on food, water and construction materials.Long lines stretched through supermarkets and hardware store shelves were nearly bare as Belizeans bought materials to board up windows and doors ahead of Nana’s expected landfall late Wednesday night or early Thursday, possibly as a hurricane.The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that Nana was located about 160 kilometers east-southeast of Belize City with maximum sustained winds of 95 kph. The storm was moving at 24 kph and was expected to strengthen throughout the day.Belize issued a hurricane warning for its coastline. Nana was 80 kilometers north-northwest of the Honduran island of Roatan, a popular tourist destination.Heavy rains were expected in Belize, as well as in northern Honduras and throughout Guatemala as the storm crosses the isthmus Thursday.Local leaders in rural villages in the southernmost district of Toledo were awaiting word from the National Emergency Management Organization to open hurricane shelters.As evening approached, dark clouds hung on the horizon as uneasy residents awaited the storm’s arrival. 
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A Slovak court is expected to rule Thursday on whether an influential businessman ordered the murder of an investigative journalist, in a case that prompted mass street protests and led to the reshaping of the country’s political landscape.The killing of Jan Kuciak, 27, and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova forced then prime minister and longtime leader Robert Fico to step down, and ushered in a new government in March this year whose main election promise was to clean up sleaze.FILE – Demonstrators light up their mobile phones as they attend an anti-government protest rally in reaction to last year’s killing of the investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova in Bratislava, Slovakia, Sept. 20, 2019.The couple were gunned down in their home outside Bratislava in February 2018, in a killing that mirrored the murder in Malta four months earlier of another journalist investigating corruption, Daphne Caruana Galizia.Bringing Kuciak’s killers to justice has been a test of Slovakia’s judicial and political system, long seen as susceptible to corruption.The verdict has been postponed from August, and it is still possible that it may be postponed again after the prosecution asked to present additional evidence.Prosecutors say Slovak entrepreneur Marian Kocner, the subject of Kuciak’s reporting on corruption involving politically connected business people, had ordered the killing of the reporter. Kocner denies the charge.The investigation has forced the resignation of several senior politicians and judicial officials on account of their previous links to Kocner.Prosecutors are seeking a 25-year jail sentence for Kocner and for each of his two co-defendants.FILE- People celebrate the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico as a way out of the political crisis triggered by the slayings of journalist Jan Kuciak, during a rally in Bratislava, Slovakia, March 16, 2018.Two others have already been convicted in the case after admitting guilt. One of them, a former soldier, received 23 years in prison for killing Kuciak and his girlfriend, while a fifth suspect admitted to facilitating the murder and was given a 15-year sentence.Kocner, who is well-known in Slovak business and political circles, has already received a 19-year sentence in a separate case after being convicted of forging 69 million euros in promissory notes.Slovaks’ anger over the killing of Kuciak and his fiancee and perceptions of persistent graft helped to usher in activist lawyer Zuzana Caputova as the country’s president last year. It also opened the way for Igor Matovic’s outsider Ordinary People party to win a February parliamentary election this year, allowing him to become prime minister. 
 
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Refugees in Turkey seeking new lives by crossing the eastern Mediterranean to Greece are increasingly subject to being robbed, beaten or even abandoned at sea. Encouraged to make the trip by Turkey, refugees — many from Syria — report they are being expelled by Greek authorities after they reach Greek territory. Heather Murdock reports from Istanbul.     
Camera: Heather Murdock  Produced by: Jon Spier 
 
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Germany said Wednesday that tests performed on specimens taken from Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny showed the presence of the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. A special German military laboratory had shown proof of “a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement. FILE – Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally in Moscow, Feb. 29, 2020.Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20 and, after an emergency landing, at first was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk before later being flown for treatment and tests at a Berlin hospital. The 44-year-old Navalny is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critics and an anti-corruption activist. The Kremlin has denied claims by Navalny’s allies in Russia that authorities poisoned him, calling it “empty noise.” Russian doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia contested the German hospital’s conclusion, saying they had ruled out poisoning and that their tests for poisonous substances came back negative. Novichok is the same nerve agent that was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain in 2018. Seibert said the German government will inform the European Union and NATO about its Navalny test results and consult with them on “an appropriate joint response.” 
 
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Fourteen alleged associates of two jihadist terrorists went on trial Wednesday in Paris for allegedly helping them carry out deadly attacks in 2015, including one on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.   The attack on the magazine’s offices was the first in a series of incidents over three days in January 2015, marking the beginning of a surge in violence by Islamic State in Europe. Seventeen people were killed. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi went on a rampage in the magazine’s offices on January 7, shooting 12 people to death in the name of al-Qaida before fleeing. The magazine had published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad years before.  A man looks at a painting by French street artist Christian Guemy, a.k.a. C215, in tribute to the members of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo attack by jihadist gunmen in January 2015, in Paris, Sept. 2, 2020.Two days later, on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, Amedy Coulibaly, a Malian-French man, attacked the Hyper Cacher supermarket, killing four hostages in the name of Islamic State as the Kouachi brothers seized control of a printing office outside Paris. The attackers were killed that day during police raids. Coulibaly was later found to be responsible for the random death of a policewoman the previous day. Lassana Bathily, who saved hostages during the attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, arrives for the opening of the trial of the 2015 Paris attacks, at a Paris courthouse, France, Sept. 2, 2020.A separate network of French and Belgian fighters for Islamic State attacked Paris later in 2015, killing 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall, the national stadium, and in bars and restaurants. The suspects on trial are accused of helping with the logistics of the January attacks, including buying weapons and cars. Most of the suspects said they believed they were helping to plan an ordinary crime. As the trial opened under tight security, nearby newsstands sold the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo, which includes reprints of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad cited by the gunmen who murdered members of the magazine’s editorial staff. 
 
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U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun says Washington and its European partners will continue to press Belarusian authorities to free political prisoners, end violence against protesters, and allow citizens to choose their government through a free and fair election.Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL by telephone on September 1 following a European tour that brought him to Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, and Austria last week, Biegun also warned that a Russian military intervention in Belarus would have a “very negative” impact on Moscow’s ties with the United States and European countries.“You, the people of Belarus, have reminded us how important democracy and freedom are. We are in awe of the courage that you have shown, and we wish you the very best,” he said, vowing that the United States and its international partners “will work as closely as possible to ensure that you have the right to select your own government through a free and fair election under independent observation that is guaranteed to you by the Belarusian Constitution and by relevant international documents.”“Please know that you have the support of the world as you advance your goals toward that end.”WATCH: VOA Interview with Belarus opposition leaderSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 13 MB480p | 18 MB540p | 23 MB720p | 55 MB720p | 66 MBOriginal | 978 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioBelarusian Opposition Leader Rejects Western HelpBiegun’s comments came as President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is showing no signs of giving in to hundreds of thousands of citizens who have taken to the streets across Belarus since the results of the August 9 presidential election were published.Lukashenka, who has kept a tight grip on Belarus for 26 years, was declared the winner of the vote, which was widely viewed as rigged in his favor, with just above 80 percent of the ballots.The demonstrators want the 66-year-old Belarusian leader to step down, release all political prisoners, and hold new elections.Western criticismThe United States and the European Union have criticized the vote as neither free nor fair and have called on the government to begin a dialogue with the opposition.“We don’t see any progress at all” in the crisis, Biegun told RFE/RL, adding that the United States and the international community “will continue to press the Belarusian government” to meet its obligations under the charter of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.“Our basic demands are the immediate release of the unjustly detained…[and] an end the violence against protesters,” he said.Amid Western condemnation of the post-election crackdown, Russian officials have backed Lukashenka and condemned what they said were attempts from abroad to take advantage of unrest in the former Soviet republic.Russian President Vladimir Putin last week announced that a contingent of Russian security forces was prepared to deploy to Belarus in the event of “looting” by demonstrators.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met his Belarusian counterpart in Moscow on September 2, has claimed that “no one is making a secret of the fact that this is about geopolitics, the fight for the post-Soviet space.”However, Biegun told RFE/RL that the United States has “never seen Belarus as a contest between East and West, nor do we see it in that manner now.”“This is a contest between the Belarusian leader and his own people. And we’re trying to work with our partners to keep this at the front of this,” he said.Biegun also said he had told Russian officials during his visit to Moscow that “while we did not seek or see this as a geopolitical contest, there would be substantial consequences for the relationship between Russia and the United States, between Russia and Europe” in the event of a deployment of Russian forces to Belarus.“The last four years has been very challenging for U.S.-Russian relations, but it is possible that it could be worse. And one of the things that would limit the ability of any president, regardless of the outcome of [the U.S. presidential election in November], in developing a more cooperative relationship with Russia, in any sphere, would be direct Russian intervention in Belarus.” 
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The shaky video taken with a mobile phone shows sunbathers on a beach in Gran Canaria gazing out to sea at the boat heads to land. A coast guard vessel, Salvamar Menkalinan, races to reach the 49 migrants crammed into one fragile boat. Meanwhile, tourists amuse themselves on jet-skis. Two very different worlds collide as African migrants get their first sight of the Europe they have risked their lives to reach. Once, these precarious dinghies were a rare sight in the Canary Islands. Now they are an almost daily occurrence.  Traffickers have switched routes, moving their human cargo along the dangerous route between western Africa to Spain’s archipelago in the Atlantic instead of across the Mediterranean to the southern coast of the country’s mainland.  So far this year, there has been a 520% rise in migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands compared with the same period in 2019, with 3,448 migrants reaching the seven islands up until August 15, according to the Spanish government figures. In comparison, there was a 26.6% decrease in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Spain this year compared with the same period in 2019, year, with 10,716 arriving in Europe compared to 14,597 last year. The more perilous Atlantic route has claimed its toll. A total of 239 migrants have died trying to reach the Canaries between January 1 and August 19, compared to 210 during all of last year, and 43 in 2018, according to the International Organization for Migration, IOM. “It is the grim toll which the sea takes. This is a very dangerous route,” Maria Greco, of the migrant rights group Entre Mares, told VOA in an interview. “The longest route is between Africa and the island of Fuerteventura which can involve a journey up to five days at sea.” Traffickers Innovate Traffickers have lowered their prices from around $2,377 to about $951. The boats depart not only from Morocco and Mauritania, the two nations closest to the archipelago, but also from Senegal and Gambia, over 1,000 kilometers further south. Most migrants attempting the crossing come from Africa’s Sahel region and Western Africa, Greco said.African migrants wait to be assisted by crew members of the Louise Michel and Astral rescue vessels, after being located sailing adrift on an overcrowded rubber boat, 70 miles southwest Malta, in the Central Mediterranean sea, Aug. 29, 2020.But some arrivals have originated from as far away as South Sudan and the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, she added. The change in routes owes nothing to the way the COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries to close their borders and is due more to international politics, says Ms. Greco. She believes governments play a “macabre game” by influencing how the traffickers work. “The route to the Canary Islands is not new. In September last year, Frontex (the EU frontier security force) noted that the route was changing. Investments by Spain and other EU countries in countries like Morocco – where the migrants had come from – has meant these countries have tightened security. It has forced the traffickers to go elsewhere.” The decision of Morocco to move migrants away from its north shore in September 2019 to prevent them from setting off in dinghies or even toy boats towards Spain proved crucial, Txema Santana, of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid, CEAR, said. Anti-Migration Measures Anxious to halt the tide of migrants arriving on Spanish beaches, the European Union paid Morocco $463 million to support reforms including border management – shorthand for aid for clamping down on migrant departures. Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said at the time: “Morocco has long been an essential partner of the European Union with which we share borders and aspirations. “Faced with shared challenges, the time has come to give new impetus to our relationship through deeper and more diversified cooperation, including towards Africa, in order to link our futures and bring our peoples closer together.” Morocco completed its side of the deal and moved migrants away from its northern shore in September to the south of the country. Similar deals had been struck between the European Union and Libya and Turkey, which have also served as launching pads for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. “If you move them away from the north, you push them south. And the Canaries are in the south,” Santana said. “The south of Morocco is near the Western Sahara and Mauritania – two places where the migrants can get on boats to leave for the Canary Islands.” One migrant dies for every 16 who reach the archipelago alive, Mr Santana estimates. “People set off on packed, shaky boats which are driven by people without experience,” he said. Migrants who arrive in the islands are tested for COVID-19 and anyone found to be infected must quarantine. However, Santana said that migrants can wait up to six months for their asylum cases to be considered and, meanwhile, have to live in cramped, unhygienic conditions. “I don’t see any indication that the situation will change quickly,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Spanish government said, “We are processing cases as fast as we can be we have seen a large surge in cases recently.” The Canary Islands have been a hotspot for migrants before — in 2006, some 30,000 migrants managed to reach the archipelago before stepped-up Spanish patrols then slowed the pace. At the time, Spain struck a deal with African countries that were the source of these migrants, promising financial aid in return for development programs which made it less attractive for them to leave their home countries. In an unusual move, Madrid opened its only police station on foreign soil, posting five officers permanently in Mauritania to halt the flow of migrants. Together, both measures halted the surge of migrants to the Canary Islands – until now.  
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The United States and Mexico plan to hold talks within 90 days to discuss U.S. concerns that imports of Mexican fruits and vegetables could be harming U.S. farmers. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s office announced Tuesday the United States wants to specifically look at imports of strawberries, bell peppers and other seasonal perishable goods, and that the review could lead to the imposition of tariffs. “President Trump recognizes the challenges faced by American farmers and is committed to promoting and securing fair trade and a level playing field for all American producers,” Lighthizer said in a statement. Mexico’s economy ministry committed to participating in the talks and, in a statement, said it wants to “find mutually satisfactory solutions to the concerns raised by the agricultural industry of both countries.” Mexico also said it would seek to “defend the preferential access of Mexican agricultural exports to the United States.” The two countries, along with Canada, began a new trade deal called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement two months ago, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement that had governed trade in the region for 26 years. 
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Thrill-seeking swimmers in Hungary recently challenged the fast-flowing waters of the Danube at an event aimed at encouraging Hungarians to take advantage of Budapest’s parks and waterways. Organizers see the event as a way to literally bring sports enthusiasts to the Hungarian capital.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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After a pandemic hiatus, more than a thousand mask-wearing Extinction Rebellion climate activists marched back onto London’s streets Tuesday, calling for swifter action to halt global warming as a huge contingent of police looked on. With Britain’s Parliament returning to work this week after a summer recess, protesters blocked the square in front of the building and called for legislators to take up a proposed climate and ecological emergency bill. It aims to expand Britain’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 to cover so-far excluded sectors such as international shipping and air travel, and for actions toward the goal to be faster and determined by a citizens’ assembly. “The important thing is having the government admit they’re too slow. Right now they’re not taking responsibility,” said Reece Evans, 24, an Extinction Rebellion activist and actor who held a placard reading, “Back the Bill.” Extinction Rebellion climate activists sit in the road and meditate in front of a line of police officers outside of Parliament during a “peaceful disruption” of British Parliament in London, Sept. 1, 2020.Holly Cullen-Davies said she wanted Parliament “to take climate change to the top of the agenda”, while her two young children drew with colored chalks on the pavement. Cullen-Davies said she had joined the grassroots movement in March, as the coronavirus lockdown began and planet-warming emissions temporarily crashed with economies on hold worldwide, showing how rapidly change could happen. “I thought if the world can stop for COVID, it can stop for climate change,” she said. Many activists said they thought the return to street protests, despite the ongoing pandemic, was justified because of fast-growing climate risks and because the movement was taking sufficient precautions to prevent spread of the virus. Nearly all of the activists at Parliament Square in London on Tuesday wore face masks, while simultaneous demonstrations in Cardiff and Manchester were planned to allow protesters to take part closer to home, organizers said. An Extinction Rebellion climate activist holds a placard during a “peaceful disruption” of British Parliament, in Manchester, England, Sept. 1, 2020.”COVID is likely to go on another couple of years and we don’t have that much time,” said Angie Nicholas, a child psychiatrist in green medical scrubs. “We’re super-aware of COVID – but climate and ecological threats are an emergency too,” she added. Chris Newman, a doctor and spokesman for Doctors for Extinction Rebellion, said the situation was comparable to a medic handling a patient with two serious problems. “You can’t just address one problem,” he said in a speech to the crowd in Parliament Square, with many listeners waving colored flags with Extinction Rebellion’s hourglass symbol or carrying homemade placards. Rows of police in yellow vests flanked the protest, and more than 70 police vans were parked nearby in a show of force as Extinction Rebellion – which last year blocked major roads and bridges, causing widespread disruption – resumed its actions. Police said 90 climate activists had been arrested in London as protesters blocked streets in violation of a police order. Police officers detain a priest protesting during a “peaceful disruption” of British Parliament, at Parliament Square in London, Sept. 1, 2020.”The reason we have implemented these conditions is that we know these protests may result in serious disruption to local businesses, commuters and our communities and residents, which I will not tolerate,” Metropolitan Police commander Jane Connors said in a statement Monday. But an Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman said the police had rowed back on restrictions that initially appeared to ban protests anywhere in the city except at Parliament Square, after lawyers for the group filed a letter saying it would dispute them. ‘Frustrating’ Activists said they were glad to be back on the streets after months of waiting for conditions to be safe enough. “It’s wonderful to feel the energy again and try to hold the government to account,” said Grace Onions, 52, who took part in the group’s large-scale protests in 2019. Increasingly clear evidence of climate-related disasters, from floods to droughts, made it urgent to keep up pressure on governments, she added. Marion Phillips, 73, said she was disappointed the UK government was giving stimulus funds to spark a coronavirus recovery without requiring recipients such as airlines to cut emissions, in line with its net-zero goal. “It’s been very frustrating these few months,” she said. Tuesday’s protests were the start of 10 days of action around Britain, organizers said. “I don’t know if it will be effective, but if we’re not doing this, then we’re guaranteed to lose,” said Nathan Nuckhir, 27, a furloughed jobs coach for people with disabilities on his first “nonessential” outing since the lockdown. “There are fewer of us, but it doesn’t change what we have to do,” he said. “I hope as a world we’ll get hold of this virus and more people can come out to join.” 
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French President Emmanuel Macron has given Lebanese politicians three months to take concrete steps to rebuild the country, or face sanctions and lose out on crucial aid.Macron has been central to international efforts to help Lebanon recover from a deep-rooted economic and political crisis arising from decades of mismanagement and corruption, a persistent pandemic, and a deadly explosion in capital city Beirut last month.
 
“It’s a risky bet I’m making, I am aware of it,” Macron told Politico in an interview Monday night. “I am putting the only thing I have on the table: my political capital.”
 
Macron was in the Middle Eastern country, a former French protectorate, for the second time since the August 4 blast that destroyed much of its main port, a lifeline for a country heavily reliant on food imports.
 
Macron told Politico the next three months are “fundamental” to the process of making real change and forming a government in Lebanon. He said he wanted Lebanese political party leaders to make credible commitments to that end, including a concrete schedule for introducing changes and a parliamentary election within “six to 12 months.”  
 
Macron said he would make “demanding” follow-ups on Lebanese political leaders. If the responses were found lacking, he threatened sanctions on the country’s ruling class, and said he would withhold critical aid, pledged at a 2018 donor conference in Paris, until donors are satisfied.  
 
Lebanese politicians hastily agreed Monday on a new prime minister, Mustapha Adib, hours before Macron’s arrival, but after weeks of French pressure. The country’s previous government resigned in the aftermath of the Beirut explosion.
 
Macron said he was not personally involved in decision-making and was instead pushing for change by visiting Lebanon often and threatening to impose sanctions or withhold aid.An anti-government protester uses a tennis racket to return a tear gas canister towards riot police during a protest near Parliament Square, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 1, 2020.”I don’t know him, I didn’t choose him, and it’s not my job to interfere or approve,” said Macron about Adib, Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany since 2013, who called for immediate reforms.
 
“It’s time for work to dovetail efforts and join hands, to restore hope among the Lebanese,” Adib told reporters Monday, according to Al Jazeera. “By the grace of God Almighty, we hope we will be successful in selecting professionals with proven expertise and efficiency to implement the necessary financial and economic reforms.”
 
Macron told reporters Monday he would host an international conference in mid-October on helping Lebanon, Reuters reported.
 
Macron also called Tuesday while in Beirut for an audit of the Lebanese banking system.
 
“Today everything is blocked, and Lebanon can no longer finance itself, so there needs to be an audit,” he said. “There is likely money that has been diverted. So, we need to know the truth of the numbers and then that judicial actions are taken.”
 
Lebanon contracted New York-based company Alvarez & Marsal in July to conduct a forensic audit of the central bank’s accounts. The country also contracted two other companies, KPMG and Oliver Wyman, for traditional audits.  
 
Macron said he would work with Lebanon’s leaders to “create the necessary conditions for reconstruction and stability,” in an Arabic-language tweet Monday.أقول للبنانيين إنكم كأخوة للفرنسيين. وكما وعدتكم، فها أنا أعودُ إلى بيروت لاستعراض المستجدّات بشأن المساعدات الطارئة وللعمل سوياً على تهيئة الظروف اللازمة لإعادة الإعمار والاستقرار.— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 31, 2020 
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