European Union nations say the fish catch quotas they agreed upon for next year means they have made more headway in securing sustainable fishing in their waters — but environmentalists are strongly disputing that claim.EU fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said Wednesday after two days of negotiations that almost 100% of EU fish landings from the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea will come from sustainable sources.After having overfished both regions for years, the EU claims that 2020 will bring in a new era for fisheries.”Next year, the EU member states fleet will fish at the level that will not hinder the regeneration of the stocks,” Sinkevicius said.Environmental groups strongly disagree with that claim. They say EU nations have again put the interests of their fishing industry ahead of the health of their waters. Some cod quotas for next year were cut but fishing for several other species can increase.”The limits agreed by ministers suggest that progress to end overfishing has stalled or even reversed, a disappointing outcome for the year. Overfishing was supposed to become a thing of the past,” said Andrew Clayton of The Pew Charitable Trusts. 
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When the Honduran boy complained of a toothache, Dr. Psyche Calderon asked the obvious question: “When did the pain start?”The answer broke her heart.”When La Mara broke all my teeth and killed all my family,” the 14-year-old said.He said little else about the attack by the infamous Central American gang, La Mara Salvatrucha. Just: “I was the only one that survived.”Calderon is not a therapist, nor a lawyer or a dentist. She is a general practitioner volunteering her time to provide care for Central Americans stuck in Mexico while they try to obtain asylum in the United States. There was little she could do for this teenager.”So I gave him an antibiotic, then went home and cried,” she said.Calderon is part of a movement of health professionals and medical students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that is quietly battling to keep asylum seekers healthy and safe while their lives remain in flux.They try desperately to tend to a need left largely unmet by the governments of both countries. It has thrust volunteer doctors into new and unusual roles where they often have to improvise while working with limited donated medications and equipment and dealing with non-medical issues. Besides giving patients a pill for pain relief, the doctors might need to direct them to legal help for their cases while offering a listening ear as a kind of therapist to a population suffering deep trauma from violence that forced them to flee their homelands.With little training or preparation for this type of medical work, doctors like Calderon are trying to come up with guidelines to better treat migrants with emotional trauma.Tens of thousands of people are stuck in Mexican border cities as their asylum cases wind their way through the U.S. court system under a Trump administration policy that returns them across the border to wait out a decision, rather than allowing them to stay with relatives or sponsors in the United States. Thousands of others wait for their numbers to be called so they can start their claim in a process that meters the number of asylum requests that are submitted to U.S. officials.Many in Tijuana have lived for months at crowded shelters, sleeping on floors, with little access to public health clinics.Along Mexico’s border with Texas, hundreds are living outside in tents made out of garbage bags. Families sleep near piles of human feces and bathe in the Rio Grande, known to be contaminated with E. coli and other bacteria.In the Mexican city of Matamoros, the nonprofit Global Response Management bought flu vaccines from a local pharmacy at roughly $50 a dose to administer. Its volunteers set up sidewalk clinics to treat asylum seekers.The health crisis spans both sides of the border. In the past year, at least three children, detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents, have died from the flu while being held. They include a 16-year-old boy who was seen on security footage writhing in agony on the floor in a U.S. Border Patrol holding cell.Doctors recently protested outside a detention facility in San Diego to pressure the U.S. government to allow them to administer the flu vaccine to migrants for free, but so far Customs and Border Protection has refused, saying it is not equipped to run a vaccination program.Meanwhile, in Tijuana, volunteers like Calderon have been going out to gritty, far-flung neighborhoods to set up pop-up clinics on the weekends at shelters that are rarely visited by Mexico’s public health doctors, if at all.”I shouldn’t be doing this,” Calderon said. “They need to be in another place to be safe. That other place should be taking care of them, or the Mexican government should be taking care of these refugees.”The 34-year-old Tijuana doctor treats addictions in her day job. Her private practice caters to Americans seeking lower-cost medical care across the border who pay in dollars, allowing her to be able to volunteer. She found her new calling in 2018 when thousands of Central Americans poured into Tijuana after crossing Mexico in a caravan.Calderon, who slips in and out of English and Spanish seamlessly in a single sentence, grew up in Tijuana watching the border walls go up. At 11, she participated with her family in protests against California’s Proposition 187 that denied public education and health care to people in the United States illegally. At the age of 17, she shadowed doctors treating Mexicans deported to Tijuana from the U.S.So when the caravan arrived, she reflexively went to the sprawling soccer field where they camped and start treating people. There she met other volunteers, including an emergency room physician from Los Angeles and a medical student from San Diego.When the Mexican government closed down the festering soccer field camp, the volunteers realized the health crisis was not going away. So they joined forces under the Refugee Health Alliance, one of a handful of such groups along the 1,954-mile border.Advocating for what they call “border-less medicine,” they started by organizing pop-up clinics at the shelters on Saturdays and attracting volunteers by word of mouth and through social media postings.A year later, the Refugee Health Alliance has hosted 800 volunteers who have seen more than 9,000 patients; in addition to treatment, they document signs of torture and abuse for asylum cases. Volunteers also see asylum seekers during the week at a clinical space shared with a Mexican nonprofit that treats sex workers and drug addicts.Each Saturday at 9 a.m., the volunteers gather less than a block from the towering border wall in Tijuana.They improvise to overcome barriers. On a Saturday in October, a Chicago doctor who did not know Spanish used Google translate on his iPhone to tell a Guatemalan man and his family that he needed to go to the hospital because he likely had appendicitis. On the other side of the curtain, a Mexican midwife gave a Honduran woman who was eight months pregnant an ultrasound while talking over the mechanical iPhone voice conveying the urgent news about the man’s appendix.The Refugee Health Alliance hopes to open its own clinic next year.On the group’s 52nd consecutive Saturday at the shelters, a 24-year-old San Diego woman who moved to Tijuana to help coordinate the efforts gives volunteers a brief orientation.Celeste Pain, who crosses back to San Diego daily to work at an outlet store, rattles off instructions: Don’t ask about people’s backgrounds, which could trigger traumatic memories, or take photographs. Fill out medical forms that ask for a person’s medical history, their court date and their number in line of those waiting to ask for asylum. Determine when the client will be crossing the border; they likely will be held in U.S. immigration detention centers, which could disrupt their care.The volunteers also are given labels and told to put them on any medication they give to the asylum seekers so U.S. immigration officials will not take the pills away — though they often do, anyway.They head out to the first stop, at the bottom of “Scorpion Canyon.”There they meet Calderon traipsing past barking pit bulls, crowing roosters and pigs, lugging a massive duffel bag down a muddy, trash-strewn road. Two University of Arizona medical students jump in to help.Calderon leads the dozen or so volunteers into a cavernous Christian church that first sheltered Haitians who flocked by the thousands to this border city in 2016. Now the church is filled with scores of tents housing Central Americans.The two dozen volunteers include two pediatricians, a university professor who also practices medicine, medical students from Phoenix and San Francisco, a Stanford University psychology doctorate student who worked with children at refugee camps in Iran, and two sisters from Los Angeles who have relatives in Tijuana.They unfold tables and metal chairs in the congregation hall to set up makeshift examining spaces as giggling children run by. They unpack a half-dozen duffel bags and suitcases bursting with plastic bags filled with asthma inhalers, antibiotics and other prescription drugs. Some medications were brought in by volunteers, including the two sisters who said they were stopped by Mexican customs officials and had to pay up to $100 before being allowed into the country.Calderon works between the church where she sees mostly Central Americans and a neighboring cluster of rooms built out of discarded doors and crates housing several dozen Haitians.”Tenemos tongue depressors?” she asks one of the bilingual volunteers.She sees a woman with a badly healed broken wrist, a girl’s belly covered with scabies, an undernourished pregnant woman, a baby with a cold, a toddler who is underweight, a woman with a swollen check and infected tooth, another with a red, swollen eye.With a warm smile and a pink stethoscope around her neck, she sees patient after patient. She calls dentists, ophthalmologists and other specialists she knows to see if they are willing to see the patients she cannot treat.Meanwhile she teaches the U.S. volunteers how to make do with the limited supplies and traditional equipment, like a non-digital blood pressure monitor. With no scale, she has learned to calculate weight by lifting babies under their arms. She scurries to a cinder-block room abutting a row of outhouses to find privacy to do a breast exam on a Honduran woman.Eight months have passed since that day she saw the boy with the broken teeth. She still thinks of him. She never saw him again nor learned of his fate.The experience made her a better doctor, she said. Now when Calderon asks about migrants’ pain, she treads carefully: A hurt neck, might be from getting a head smashed in by thieves. A case of acid reflux might stem from anxiety about not being in a safe place.”When you see someone who comes to you with insomnia, with no hope, it’s really hard on us too. What do we say? What do we treat? Is this an illness?” she asks.What’s more, how do doctors treat patients they are unlikely to see more than once?”That’s why we’re trying to write the protocol for mental health, and trying to get experts for refugee medicine to help us out with these questions,” she said.Five hours into this Saturday’s work, Calderon takes a sip from her thermos of water, which bears a sticker of a dog exclaiming: “This is fine.” It’s a stark contrast to what she feels. She always wishes she could do more.But in some ways, it’s a reminder to herself as much as a reassurance to her patients: This is fine, even though it’s not, but it’s what she has to accept given the limitations, the barriers that have created these conditions of mothers, fathers and children living for months as campers using outhouses, water from buckets and spigots and sleeping on cement floors side by side.Calderon learned to accept those limitations after treating the boy with the toothache. She took time off and sought therapy for herself, feeling overwhelmed. Then she took a course to learn how to treat patients who have endured tragedies.”I need to be OK that I did something,” she said. “It’s a thing that all doctors come to understand at some point, right? I hope. We do what we can.” 
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The daughter of jailed Uighur rights activist Ilham Tohti accepted a European Parliament prize on his behalf on Wednesday, urging lawmakers in an address not to be “complicit in the Chinese persecution of the Uighur people.”China has come under increasing international scrutiny for cracking down on the Muslim Uighur minority in its northwesterly Xinjiang region.Tohti, an economist, was jailed for life in China in 2014 on separatism charges that were widely denounced in Western capitals.His daughter, Jewher Ilham, urged politicians, academics and students on Wednesday to protest against the treatment of the Uighurs as she accepted her father’s Sakharov Prize for defense of human rights at the parliament in Strasbourg.Independent German researcher Adrian Zenz, an expert on China’s ethnic policies, estimated in March that 1.5 million Uighurs and other Muslims had been or were being detained in so-called re-education centers in Xinjiang.After Tohti’s prize was announced in October, China said he was “a criminal who was sentenced in accordance with the law by a Chinese court,” and urged that “all sides respect China’s internal affairs and judicial sovereignty and not inflate the arrogance of terrorists.”China has said Xinjiang is under threat from Islamist militants and separatists. It denies mistreatment or mass internment, saying it is simply seeking to end extremism and violence through education.The 50,000 euro ($55,000) Sakharov Prize has been awarded annually since 1988 to individuals and organizations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms.Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives gave initial approval to a bill that would require the U.S. administration to toughen its response to China’s crackdown.In Strasbourg, European Parliament president David Sassoli said: “By awarding this prize, we strongly urge the Chinese government to release Tohti and we call for the respect of minority rights in China.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Guatemala’s outgoing president Jimmy Morales at the White House Tuesday, where the two discussed immigration and trade.Trump called the relationship with Guatemala “tremendous” and praised Morales on the immigration deal where Guatemala agrees to accept migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.”The relationship is very good, it’s a very important country from the standpoint of the border and trade,”  Trump added.In July the Trump administration reached an agreement with the Morales government that will allow U.S. immigration officials to send migrants requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border to Guatemala.The U.S. has signed similar agreements with El Salvador and Honduras, requiring migrants on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in those countries first. U.S. immigration authorities may send migrants back to those countries if they fail to do so, effectively making it almost impossible for migrants from the Northern Triangle countries to seek asylum.The Trump administration has sent the first migrants back to Guatemala in November. According to the Guatemalan government, a total of 24 people have been sent to the country under the program.President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, July 26, 2019. Trump announced that Guatemala is signing an agreement to restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America.”Now they have to take them back, and they take them back with open arms,” said Trump.That may not be the case as Guatemala’s president-elect Alejandro Giammattei who will take office in January has balked at accepting the agreement reached by his predecessor.In August Giammattei said that Guatemala will not be able to hold up its side of the agreement and serve as a “safe third country” for asylum seekers as the country  “does not fulfill the requirements” to be one.The incoming government will have to weigh their options as the Trump administration has made it clear that Guatemala must agree to accept asylum-seekers in order to benefit from a U.S-sponsored regional economic development plan.In October, Mauricio Claver-Carone, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the White House National Security Council said that Guatemala must embrace the safe third country agreement if it hopes to benefit from the economic development plan for Mexico and Central America known as America Crece.Although Giammattei has been critical of the ACA (Asylum Cooperative Agreements), “the prospect of governing a country without U.S. aid may deter him from following through with revoking its implementation,” said Cristobal Ramon, senior policy analyst with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Immigration ProjectRamon said that Giammattei could always threaten to revoke the agreement unless the U.S. agrees to make more aid investments in the country or receive other benefits for Guatemalan nationals like receiving a second package of H-2A visas for Guatemalan farm workers.It’s too early to know if Giammattei would take this route “and if Trump could make these concessions in the face of these threats”  but it’s something that Giammettei could potentially do to bolster the gains Guatemala gets from implementing this agreement, Ramon added.Trump dismissed VOA’s questioning on whether he would withhold aid from the country should Giammattei continue to reject the agreement.”Guatemala is terrific. Guatemala has been terrific,” Trump said.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out Tuesday at Western nations for their lack of support for his so-called Operation Peace Spring, which he launched in October in Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria. Speaking at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Erdogan described the difficulties encountered by the millions of refugees forced to flee war and persecution, and the need for universal solidarity to support them.  The Turkish president, who said his country has welcomed more than 5 million displaced individuals — 3.7 million of them Syrian refugees, criticized the European Union for its lack of financial support and the member nations’ unwillingness to share the burden of welcoming refugees inside their own borders.FILE – Thousands of Syrian refugees cross into Turkey, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, June 14, 2015.Erdogan also criticized Western leaders, whom he said have failed to support his military offensive against the Kurds in northern Syria. He has accused the Kurds of being allied with PKK terrorists in Turkey, and said his reason for launching Operation Peace Spring was to clear a 120-kilometer area in Syria of what he called a terrorist presence.”Let us declare these areas as safe zones,” Erdogan said through an interpreter. “Let us implement resettlement and housing projects altogether. Let us have hospitals. Let us have schools there and let the refugees go back to their motherland peacefully and in a dignified fashion. But nobody seems to be inclined to help us. Why? Because oil is a much more needed commodity.”  President Donald Trump announced in November his decision to post U.S. soldiers in Syria to guard oil fields. The Trump administration previously had been criticized by allies for allowing Turkey’s military assault to go forward by withdrawing U.S. troops allied with the Kurds in the region. The Kurds have called the move a betrayal.Erdogan said he will go ahead with his plans to resettle about 1 million Syrian refugees in this so-called peace zone in northern Syria, despite international criticism. “The YPG and PKK terrorist organizations are attacking civilians, but despite that fact, these areas are now the safest and most stable zones of Syria, which are inhabitable,” Erdogan said. “The Syrian refugees should go back on a voluntary basis, but we know what powers around the world would be disturbed by their resettlement peacefully and in a dignified fashion.”  Western powers and humanitarian organizations have expressed alarm at Turkey’s insistence on relocating the refugees across the border into the area once controlled by the Syrian Kurds. They warn this will lead to enduring ethnic tensions between the two groups, leading to permanent instability in the region.
 
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African governments and refugee activists hope a ground-breaking refugee forum will deliver much-needed funding and voice to a region whose challenges are often eclipsed by more headline-grabbing crises.Two decades ago, John Bolinga fled his hometown of Goma, in Democratic Republic of Congo’s restive northeast.”Rebels came and attacked our home so my father was shot dead. So I had to run to Uganda,” Bolinga said.He started out destitute, but eventually launched his own NGO in Kampala, which today helps women and children who like himself, were uprooted by violence.He is sharing his story in Geneva, where countries are meeting for a first-ever global refugee forum. Here and elsewhere, Bolinga says, giving refugees a voice and active role in decisions that affect their lives is critical.”The challenge is if refugees feel they’re not welcomed,” Bolinaa said, “and also the root causes which is making refugees to flee their countries is not tackled, there is going to be a crisis.”Africa is a leading exporter of refugees. They count among the millions making perilous journeys across the Sahara and Mediterranean for a better life in Europe … which often isn’t realized. But Africa also shelters more than one-quarter of the world’s displaced people.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during the UNHCR – Global Refugee Forum at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Dec. 17, 2019.Critics note that some African countries severely restrict refugees’ opportunities. Still these nations are opening doors that others slam shut.”African governments continue to carry the extra responsibility on behalf of all of us, in hosting refugees in keeping borders open,” Ambassador Mohamed Abdi Affey said.The official is Horn of Africa special envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which is hosting this forum.”While we appreciate more spotlight and attention to other refugee cases like Syria and Yemen, Affey said. “… the ones in the Horn of Africa particularly, the ones who have been with us for 30 years, risk being forgotten.”Those demands join broader calls here for wealthy nations and the private sector to do more for poorer countries that together host more than 80%  of the world’s refugees.It’s coming from countries like Ethiopia, which hosts roughly one million refugees from 26 nations. Fisseha Meseret Kindie is director of humanitarian assistance and development at Ethiopia’s Agency for Refugees and Returnees.“We are in shortage of finance, we cannot help them. And shortage of money,” Kindie said. “And we need the support from the international community at large.”Some feel the page may be turning here in Geneva. Cameroon representative Tirlamo Norbert Wirnkar from Cameroon, which hosts more than 400,000 refugees, is optimistic this meeting will make a difference.”We are really hopeful that pledges are going to be made on both sides — by the international community and host countries,” Wirnkar said. 
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The U.S. this week deported a German man convicted in the high-profile killings of his girlfriend’s parents 35 years ago, in a crime that stunned a Virginia community and prompted decades of media obsession.Jens Soering, 53, flew from a Washington, D.C.-area airport to Frankfurt on Monday, according to FILE – Elizabeth Haysom is seen in an undated photo provided by the Virginia Department of Corrections.He served two life sentences for the first-degree murders in 1985 of Nancy and Derek Haysom, whose daughter Elizabeth attended the University of Virginia with Soering at the time. Both were found nearly decapitated in their Virginia home.The young couple led police on an international chase after the killings and were arrested in London in 1986. Soering fought extradition on the grounds that the U.S. allowed for the death penalty in certain cases, but in 1990, capitulated to authorities.Virginia authorities released him last month, on the condition that he be taken into immigration custody immediately.Soering, the son of a German diplomat, told a reporter in 2011 that Elizabeth Haysom committed the double murder; but he “decided to lie and to cover (…) up” the crime by taking the blame, thinking that if he were returned to Germany, he would only spend a decade in prison at the most. “I loved Elizabeth and I believed that the only way I could save her life from the electric chair was for me to take the blame, and that I personally really faced no more than a few years in a German prison,” Soering testified at the time.He was convicted of first-degree murder in 1990.Elizabeth Haysom pleaded guilty to being an accessory in her parents’ stabbing deaths. She remains in prison in Virginia and must be released by 2032, if she is not paroled before.Motives given at varying times during the trial and in the years since included disapproval of the young couple’s relationship by the Haysom family, and allegations of abuse against Elizabeth.
 
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At midday on Dec. 17, 2014, the sound of church bells echoed in Havana as presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced that the United States and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations and end nearly 60 decades of hostility.Five years later, it feels almost as if that historic moment never happened, Cubans said in interviews in the capital Tuesday.President Donald Trump has spent roughly as much time undoing detente as Obama spent constructing it, and relations between the two countries are at one of their lowest points since the end of the Cold War.Trump has cut back U.S. visits to Cuba — barring cruise ships, flights to most cities and unguided educational travel — the most popular form of American trip to Cuba.The U.S. Embassy in Havana has been reduced to skeleton staffing after diplomats reported a string of health problems whose source remains a mystery. The closure of the embassy’s visa section, and end of special five-year visas for Cubans this year, means travel to the U.S. has become near-impossible for many Cubans who used to fly regularly to South Florida to see family and buy supplies for businesses.The Cuban economy is stagnant, with tourism numbers flat and aid from Venezuela far below its historic peak as Cuba’s oil-rich chief ally fights through its own long crisis.U.S. President Barack Obama, right, and Cuban President Raul Castro shake hands before a bilateral meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Sept. 29, 2015.In 2014, Obama and Castro’s announcement felt like the end of a dark era for Cuba and the start of something positive and new, people said in Havana. Now, the two years of detente under Obama feel like a temporary break in a long history of tension and struggle that has no end in sight, they said.“There was hope, thinking that there would be an opening with Obama,” said Alfredo Pinera, a 37-year-old construction worker. “And with Trump, it’s like a child’s dream, gone up in smoke.”Pinera works in Mexico, and returns to Cuba regularly to see his wife and sons, ages 16, 11, and 9. He said he hoped that the end of hostilities with the U.S. would bring a better life for him, his family and the entire country.“I felt good,” he said. “There was hope for improvement, for change in this country, economically, politically, socially.”He said he and his family were surviving in the hard times, which were far from the depths of the post-Soviet “Special Period” of the 1990s. But he said the optimism they felt five years ago had suffered a heavy blow.“All of those hopes that so many Cubans went crashing to the round,” said Pinera as he sat on a curb connecting his phone to a public WiFi access point outside the baseball stadium where Obama and Castro watched an exhibition game during the U.S. president’s historic 2016 visit to Havana.The Cuban government celebrated Tuesday as the anniversary of the return of three of five Cuban agents arrested as they carried out infiltration of anti-Castro emigre groups. The swap of the agents for U.S. contractor Alan Gross and a jailed spy was an essential precursor to the re-establishment of relations, but the larger context was barely mentioned in Cuban state media on Tuesday.President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Paraguay’s President Mario Abdo Benitez in the Oval Office of the White House, Dec. 13, 2019, in Washington.The Trump administration says it is trying to cut off the flow of cash and oil to the Cuban economy in order to force the communist government to end its support for Venezuela.Carlos Fernández de Cossio, the director of U.S. affairs for the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said some influential interests in the United States were working to end diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, and the island’s government was prepared.“I don’t think there will be a break-off in relations, frankly I don’t know if that will happen. I do know that there’s a group of powerful people that have that intention,” he said. “Cuba can’t be taken by surprise by that reality if it occurs.”Elizabeth Alfonso, 21, left school after she got pregnant at 14. She has spent the last six years raising her son and working as a waitress in a state cafeteria and maid in other Cubans’ homes.Still a child herself when Obama and Castro made their announcement, she has only vague memories of the two years of improved relations, but she knows things felt better.“I thought things would get better. That’s what everybody thought,” said Alfonso, who sat in a park near the U.S. Embassy, waiting to start her shift as a maid in a nearby home.She said she planned to return to school next year to get the equivalent of a high-school diploma, but had few hopes for improvement in Cuba. Many of her friends and relatives want to leave the country, she said, but that had become far more difficult due to Obama’s ending of near-automatic residency for Cuban immigrants and Trump’s increased deportations of people who once were guaranteed entry at the border.Alfonso said she was waiting for the return of a cousin who crossed Mexico to get to the southern U.S. border but was detained and is awaiting deportation.Antoin Ugartez, a 42-year-old father of three who rents a three-wheeled covered scooter known as a Cocotaxi from a state-run agency, said the post-Trump decline in tourism had hit him hard.Detente, he said, “was a great step forward for Cuban society. Things developed and you started to see different perspectives, a different vision of economic improvement for your family, the conditions you live in.”Now, he said, “I barely make enough to put food on the table.”
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Victims of a 2018 shooting rampage in Toronto that left two dead and 13 injured are suing the American maker of the pistol used in the attack, holding it responsible for not making guns safer.The class action, according to court documents obtained Tuesday by AFP, alleges that Smith and Wesson knew that its M&P 40 handgun “was an ultra-hazardous product.”And it should have known that the weapon might end up being stolen and used to harm or kill innocent people, the suit claims.Yet the company chose not to incorporate safety features such as fingerprint recognition to prevent unauthorized users, it alleges.The class action, which must still be certified, is seeking Can$150 million (US$115 million) in damages.FILE – Handguns are displayed at the Smith & Wesson booth at the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 19, 2016.Lead plaintiffs Samantha Price and Skye McLeod said in a statement of claim that they’d gone out for ice cream with friends on the evening of July 22, 2018, when they were confronted by a man opening fire on Toronto’s bustling Danforth Avenue.Price was struck by a bullet, but survived. McLeod was injured while fleeing. Their friend Reese Fallon, 18, and 10-year-old Julianna Kozis were shot dead.After an exchange of gunfire with police, the shooter took his own life.Police still don’t know how he obtained the gun, which had been reported stolen from a Saskatchewan shop in 2015.But the lawsuit notes that Smith and Wesson was aware that “more than 200,000 firearms” like the one used in the Danforth shooting “were stolen from their owners every year in the United States.”The company had agreed in 2000 to incorporate smart gun technologies in new models by March 2003 to address this.The deal, however, collapsed after the United States passed a law in 2005 shielding gun manufacturers and dealers from liability when crimes are committed with their products.The shield does not apply in Canada.Remington, Smith and Wesson lawsuitsIn March, a Connecticut court ruled that U.S. gunmaker Remington can be sued over the 2012 massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school in which one of its weapons was used to kill 20 children and six staffers.That lawsuit alleges that Remington is culpable because it knowingly marketed a military grade weapon that is “grossly unsuited” for civilian use yet had become the gun most used in mass shootings.In the Canadian case, the plaintiffs say Smith and Wesson should have included safety technology in its .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol, which was made available for sale in Canada starting in 2013, “so as to avoid, prevent or deter substantial and foreseeable harm.”Manufacturers have claimed that the technology is expensive and impractical.Patrick McLeod, the father of one of the Danforth victims and a former police officer, disagrees.”I can look at my iPhone and it unlocks. Meanwhile, we’re selling semi-automatic handguns that have no safety devices on them at all,” he told the Globe and Mail.
 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation this week increasing fines and penalties against so-called “foreign agents” working in mass media — part of a broader spate of Russian laws that have targeted foreign media, NGOs, and other perceived enemies at home.  The latest measure strengthens a controversial law signed earlier this month that expanded the foreign agent label beyond media outlets to individuals — making journalists, bloggers and online news consumers potential new targets. The laws have been criticized by human rights groups as a government weapon to restrict free speech, but are lauded by Kremlin loyalists as essential to protecting Russian sovereignty in the face of what they argue is routine foreign interference. The foreign agent media law now requires those who work for suspect media outlets to label any published materials as “made by a foreign agent,” and personally submit to regular audits and inspections of their work and finances.Less clear, until now, were the penalties for violations.FILE – Law enforcement officers detain a local Reuters journalist during an opposition rally, in Moscow, Russia, July 27, 2019.Under the new terms approved by Putin, a series of graduated fines takes hold against media companies and their employees. Initial violations would now mean up to $800 in fines for individuals; $1,600 for management and officials; and up to $16,000 in fines for media companies. Repeat offenders over the course of a year face even stiffer penalties, including $1,600 in fines or up to 15 days in prison for individuals; $3,200 for management; and $80,000 docked from media companies pending compliance.  With Putin’s signature, the law goes into effect Feb. 1, 2020. The new restrictions appear aimed primarily at journalists and individuals working for media organizations officially designated as foreign agents by Russia’s Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry.    In practice, the law appears to target employees of a small handful of U.S. government-funded media, including Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and jointly produced projects such as Current Time TV, which was added to the foreign agents registry in 2017.The blacklist of foreign agents, seen here in a screenshot from the Russian Justice Ministry’s website, shows Voice of America (1), Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (7) and Current Time (5) among others.At the time, Russian officials said the move was merely a response to the inclusion of the Kremlin’s RT America Network on a U.S. foreign agent registry earlier that same year.   Yet critics of the new laws say their concerns go beyond targeting of U.S. media.   Observers note that the law’s vague wording puts average Russian citizens who share suspect content online and receive any income from foreign sources at risk of being snared.  The law will “become a strong tool to silence opposition voices,” wrote Human Rights Watch in an article expressing concern over the measure in advance of its passage.  “Bloggers have an important role in informing public opinion in Russia, and this is an attempt to control this inconvenient source of information.”In recent months, the Russian government has levied a spate of spiraling fines against NGOs and opposition activists under the foreign agent designation. While some organizations have collapsed from the financial pressure, others have successfully turned to crowdsourcing to pay off fines and continue work.  
 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Libya as Ankara prepares for the possible deployment of soldiers to the war-torn country.
  
Moscow sought to put a positive spin on Tuesday’s telephone call, the second on Libya in a week. “Russia supports all efforts by individual countries in terms of finding a solution to the [Libyan] crisis,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.Ankara appears to have taken Moscow by surprise when Erdogan last month signed a security agreement with Libya’s head of the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez al-Sarraj, in Istanbul.FILE – Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj leaves after an international conference on Libya at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 29, 2018.Under the agreement, the Tripoli-based government can invite Turkish forces to deploy in Libya. According to local media reports, Ankara is preparing a rapid action force for possible deployment. Erdogan repeatedly said this month he is ready to consider any Libyan request for military assistance.Erdogan said he was reacting to the presence of “Russian Wagner mercenaries,” a private security force run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close links to the Kremlin.”I wish that the matter of [General Khalifa] Haftar would not create a new Syria in our relations with Russia,” Erdogan said in a television interview earlier this month.Haftar is the de facto leader of eastern Libya and is seeking to overthrow the GNA.FILE – Khalifa Haftar, center, the military commander who dominates eastern Libya, leaves after an international conference on Libya at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 29, 2018.Despite differences Ankara and Moscow have about Libya, analysts suggest Putin and Erdogan are experienced in managing conflicting agendas. While Turkey and Russia back rival sides in the Syrian civil war, the two countries continue to cooperate in Syria.”We have to make a distinction between Turkish-Russian relations, and Turkish-Russian relations in the Middle East,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.”In the Middle East, Turkish-Russian relations will remain conflictual with different views. Bilaterally it will not be a problem. But in the long run, it will be a problem, and this compartmentalizing is not sustainable as their interests don’t converge.”Turkey, GNA dealOn Monday, Turkey’s foreign affairs parliamentary committee ratified the deal with the GNA, allowing it to move to a full parliamentary vote.The main opposition CHP strongly opposes the idea of sending forces to Libya. “What are we in Libya for? For what were we in the Syrian marsh? The government has to take lessons from what happened in the Syrian marsh,” the CHP leader, Kemal Kilicadaroglu, said in an interview with the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper published Monday.Turkish forces currently are deployed in Syria, fighting a Syrian Kurdish militia, and some analysts question whether the Turkish forces could become overextended.Libya, however, has become strategically important to Ankara. Along with a security agreement with GNA, a second memorandum of understanding was signed that gave Turkey control over a large swathe of the eastern Mediterranean around Libya.FILE – A Turkish drilling vessel is escorted by Turkish Navy frigate TCG Gemlik in the eastern Mediterranean Sea off Cyprus, Aug. 6, 2019.”With this move, Turkey took the board in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey showed that it was a playmaker in the region,” said Turkey’s special envoy to Libya, Emrullah Isler. He called the security agreement a “game-changer,” adding, “this is a step we have taken against those who were unfair to Turkey.”Ankara is currently competing with several Mediterranean countries in a scramble for the vast energy reserves that are believed to be there. Greece, Cyprus and France have criticized Turkey’s Libya agreements.Concern over Turkish forcesAnalysts warn Turkey is facing a precarious situation in Libya. “In Libya, we have three different governments recognized by different countries. But the government that Turkey is backing is facing defeat by General Haftar, which will change many things,” said Bagci.Several Middle Eastern countries involved in Libya are voicing concern over the prospect of Turkish forces deploying to the war-torn country. But former Turkish ambassador Mithat Rende says such concerns are likely to be dismissed by Ankara.”Egypt is totally engaged, and is supporting one side. The Saudis and Emirates supporting one of the sides, and so many others, so everyone can support their side in Libya, but if Turkey supports a side, it’s hell. Ankara has an agreement with the legitimate government,” Rende said.Some analysts caution that Ankara’s hand could well be forced in Libya, with Haftar announcing last week his intention to overrun Tripoli and oust the GNA.   “Troops would be ready to protect democracy and popular will against attempts to establish a [Haftar] military dictatorship,” said Turkey’s special envoy Isler.
 
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The first woman to be elected mayor of Colombia’s capital city has married her partner in a private civil ceremony before taking office.Claudia Lopez announced her wedding to Angelica Lozano Monday evening by sharing an enthusiastic message and several photographs on social media.”On my way to the happiest moment of my life!” Lopez wrote on Twitter.The incoming mayor of Bogota, who takes office in January, thanked her bride for “loving me always” and promised “to honor and love” her the rest of their days. Photographs show the pair dressed in white, holding a simple bouquet of flowers and smiling.The couple’s union has become a rallying cause among supporters promoting LGBT rights in the traditionally conservative, Catholic country – though Colombia has permitted gay marriage since a landmark Constitutional Court ruling in 2016.Lozano told Colombia’s BLU Radio that the couple has tried to marry previously but their schedules made organizing a wedding complicated.”We told ourselves, `We have to do it now or another four years will pass by,” Lozano said. “Because Claudia’s priority the next four years will be her job.”When she is sworn into office, Lopez will become the first openly lesbian mayor of a capital city in Latin America, a region slowly advancing in improving LGBT rights but where long-standing cultural biases and inequality remain barriers.Lopez has been making waves in Colombia for years, starting from her days as an analyst shedding light on corruption in the highest echelons of power. In her personal life, she’s been equally upfront and transparent, sharing a passionate kiss with Lozano as the election results came in during the October vote for Bogota mayor.Few details about the ceremony were released, but Lopez said their white pant suits were crafted by Colombian designer Angel Yanez.”Thank you life for this marvelous year!” Lopez hailed on social media. “I graduated with my doctorate, won mayoral office and married the love of my life!” 
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Netflix is seeing rapid subscriber growth in regions including Asia and Latin America as it girds for tougher competition in the streaming market, newly detailed figures show.In a regulatory filing this week, Netflix offered the first detailed look at its finances from various regions around the world.The figures showed nearly 14.5 million subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region at the end of September, representing growth of more than 50 percent over the previous 12 months.The region including Europe, the Middle East and Africa had some 47 million paid subscribers, up 40 percent year-over-year, in the largest segment outside North America.Latin America included some 29 million subscribers, a rise of 22 percent over the past year, Netflix said in the filing.North America is the largest market for Netflix with some 67 million subscribers but growth over the past year was just 6.5 percent.Netflix is the leader in streaming television, operating in some 190 countries, but it is facing new offerings from deep-pocketed rivals including Disney, Apple, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and AT&T’s WarnerMedia. 
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Turkish authorities have arrested a mayor from Turkey’s main opposition party over his alleged links to a U.S.-based Muslim cleric, the state-run news agency reported Tuesday. Separately, c lose to 200 people were detained in other police operations.Anadolu Agency said Burak Oguz, the mayor of the Aegean coastal town of Urla, was arrested late Monday for alleged ties to Fethullah Gulen’s network. Gulen is blamed by Ankara for a failed coup attempt in 2016.Oguz, who was elected in local elections in March, is the first mayor from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, to be arrested on terror charges. At least 14 elected mayors belonging to Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party have previously been detained for alleged ties to outlawed Kurdish rebels. The party denies terror charges and says the arrests are politically motivated aimed at weakening its hold in Turkey’s southeast.The CHP condemned Oguz’s arrest and denied the accusation of links to Gulen, saying the network had no “chance of serving within the CHP.””We condemn the use of the justice [system] to remove those who were elected,” said CHP provincial head, Deniz Yucel.FILE – Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, denies involvement in the coup attempt.Separately, authorities detained 171 people on suspicion of links to Gulen’s network in simultaneous raids in the capital, Ankara, Anadolu reported. Those detained are suspected of using a messaging app that Turkey says was used by coup plotters to communicate with each other. Meanwhile, prosecutors issued detention warrants for 18 Health Ministry personnel, including 10 doctors, the agency reported. At least 10 of the suspects were detained Tuesday.On July 15, 2016, a group of officers attempted a coup to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some 250 people were killed and more than 2,000 were injured during the failed attempt.Some 77,000 people have been arrested and around 130,000 others, including military personnel, have been dismissed from state jobs in an ongoing government crackdown on Gulen’s network since the coup.Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, denies involvement in the coup attempt. 
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Spanish police retrieved a body from a boat off the southern coast on Tuesday, the eighth migrant killed at sea in a 24-hour period while trying to reach the country.The boat was spotted in the western Mediterranean off the coast of the southern region of Andalusia before dawn and 47 survivors — 30 men and 17 men — were taken to the port of Motril, a spokesman for Spain’s Guardia Civil police force said.A Moroccan coastguard vessel had earlier retrieved seven bodies and rescued 70 migrants after they got into difficulty in the Alboran Sea in the western Mediterranean, a Moroccan military source said.The survivors, including 10 women and a baby, were found in a “very poor state” and were taken for medical treatment in Nador in northern Morocco, the source added.The boat capsized carrying around 100 migrants headed towards Spain, according to Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, which added that 24 people were still missing. Over 98,000 people have reached Europe by sea this year, including around 25,000 who arrived in Spain, according to the International Organization for Migration.More than 1,200 migrants have died or are missing at sea after attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year, UN figures show.
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A three-day summit on tackling the world’s refugee crisis got under way Monday in Geneva, Switzerland. Thousands of delegates — including around 100 government ministers — are attending the United Nations’ Global Refugee Forum to discuss how to help the tens of millions of people who have been forced to flee their homes, many through conflict. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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They keep on coming — fleeing the killing fields of war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa, escaping the random violence of vicious drug gangs in Central America, and running from repressive regimes in Asia.A world in crisis means more refugees, and the trend lines are not promising.There are now more than 70 million refugees and displaced people around the world — nearly 26 million outside the borders of their own countries, according to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees.Speaking ahead of the UNHCR’s first Global Refugee Forum, which formally started Monday in Geneva, U.N. officials say they expect those numbers will climb when they have concluded the final troubling tally for 2019.FILE – Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, speaks during a news conference in Bogota, Colombia, Oct. 6, 2018.Opening the forum, Filippo Grandi, UNHCR’s top official, said the three-day meeting needs to see “very concrete commitments” made by governments, businesses and relief organizations.”The purpose of this meeting, this conference, is not just to talk but to rally international support for countries hosting refugees in a spirit and with the objective of sharing the burden more equitably,” Grandi said.Organized in cooperation with Switzerland, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Germany, Pakistan and Turkey, the forum’s goal is to strengthen international support for refugees by dividing up responsibility between nations to ease pressures on so-called “front-line countries” — those who are receiving the greatest numbers of refugees — and to outline clear markers for what should be expected in terms of improving access to education and jobs, and providing protection for the displaced until they can return safely to their homes.’Solutions and opportunities’The organizers have promised bold new measures, including ways of enhancing refugee self-reliance and a sense of inclusion. The UNCHR hopes additional countries and other international agencies and charities, as well as faith organizations and private sector businesses, will declare their commitment to improve the plight of refugees. And U.N. officials hope to start engineering legal and diplomatic adjustments that will help refugees integrate better in their temporary homes.The forum comes a year after the U.N. General Assembly agreed that governments need to establish a more predictable and equitable approach to the treatment of refugees. Some hope the Geneva gathering will later be seen as an inflection point, thanks to the pooling together of ideas by heads of state, government ministers, business leaders, humanitarians and refugees themselves.FILE – Kelly Clements, UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner, speaks during a session at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa at the King Hussein Convention Center at the Dead Sea, May 20, 2017.”We are at the end of a decade that has been more than tumultuous in terms of levels of displacement,” U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Kelly Clements told AFP in an interview. “We see the need for states, for international organizations, for the private sector (to help explore) how the international community can better help to respond.”On Monday, representatives from Zambia showcased some of their innovative approaches to help refugees find work or resume their education by having their previous education attainment and qualifications recognized. UNESCO is drawing on the Zambian experience to develop an international qualifications passport.”This will help people who possess the knowledge but don’t possess the papers,” said Muhammed, a Syrian refugee living in Germany who spoke Monday at the forum. “There is a lot of potential amongst refugees that is being unused. There are brilliant minds available that these passports can unlock.”Similar pilot projects to Zambia’s are set to be rolled out in 2020 in Iraq and Colombia.Also at the forum on Monday, which attracted around 3,000 participants, seven African countries showcased their regional and coordinated efforts to find long-term solutions to ease the plight of refugees in the Horn of Africa.”It may be a region of great displacement, but (it) has also become a region of solutions and opportunities,” Grandi said.Detention campsBut following a decade in which the number of refugees and the displaced have reached unprecedented proportions, overcoming donor fatigue could be difficult. Pledges may well be made, but the money and aid may not necessarily be forthcoming, warn some analysts.A bigger challenge will come with the idea of greater burden-sharing between countries. The forum coincides with another flare-up between European Union countries over the sharing of responsibility for the continent’s refugee influx, with Greece announcing controversial plans to build closed detention camps for migrants and refugees to cope with a new surge of asylum-seekers.FILE – Refugees and migrants arrive at the port of Thessaloniki, northern Greece, Sept. 2, 2019.Humanitarian organizations have denounced the planned camps as “prisons,” saying they go in the opposite direction from the Geneva forum with its emphasis on fostering inclusion for asylum-seekers.”I made it clear to the (Greek) government that UNHCR policy is against detaining asylum-seekers … seeking asylum is not a crime,” Grandi told Greek officials during a visit to Athens last month.Since coming into office in July, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has mounted a series of appeals to EU member states to demonstrate greater solidarity with the front-line states of southern Europe.Most disturbing for Athens is that the latest surge is not slowing, despite stormy winter weather. Rickety boats laden with refugees seeking safety or a better economic life are continuing to land on Greek shores.In September, 10,551 newcomers arrived in Greece, the highest in a single month since the EU struck a deal with Turkey to curb migrant flows at the height of Syria’s civil war in 2016.Now, Greece’s center-right government, which was elected on a tough law-and-order platform, is under domestic pressure to make good on its electoral promise to pursue a deterrence and deportation approach toward asylum-seekers.Last week, Mitsotakis told top EU officials that his country had “reached its limits.””This is not a Greek-Turkish problem,” he told officials during a visit to Athens. “It’s an issue that affects the European Union as a whole, and we are looking forward to your help, as well as a firm European policy, to address it.”Burden-sharingEU countries have struggled for years to agree to a firm policy on burden-sharing, with stiff resistance to every plan coming from the Visegrád countries of Central Europe, led by Hungary.The countries have adamantly declined to take in asylum-seekers who landed in Italy, Greece or Spain. Part of the issue is a continuing dispute about who should be considered a refugee, and who should be counted as an economic migrant.FILE – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban talks to the media in Budapest, Hungary, Oct. 13, 2019.Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban argues that by welcoming asylum-seekers, Europe acts as a magnet for them, and the continent risks being swamped and its security compromised.  Orban and other opponents of burden-sharing also maintain that previous international treaties stipulate that war refugees should seek sanctuary in the first safe third country they reach, and that the responsibility lies with front-line states.Forum organizers are determined to keep major policy differences in the background in Geneva. That may be difficult, especially with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acting as one of the co-hosts of the forum.Turkey hosts more than 3 million Syrian refugees, and Erdogan has been accused of “weaponizing” refugees for political and economic purposes with his plans to resettle them in Kurdish areas of northern Syria.Speaking before his arrival in Geneva, a combative Erdogan warned that Turkey “can no longer carry this burden alone.”He complained that Turkey had only received half of the $6 billion in aid the EU promised in 2016 for Turkish efforts to stanch the influx of Mideast refugees into Europe.”Whenever we meet, they say that it is about to come. But nothing has come yet,” Erdogan said.
 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 16 signed amendments to the Administrative Violations Code that allow hefty fines for violating the controversial law on “foreign agents,” which critics say is used to muzzle dissent and discourage the free exchange of ideas and a free press.According to the changes, individuals who violate the law more than twice in a 12-month period will have to pay a fine of up to 10,000 rubles ($159) for the first violation, and up to 100,000 rubles ($1,590) or 15 days in jail for repeat violations.Organizations will be obliged to pay a penalty of up to 1 million rubles ($15,900) for the first violation, and up to 5 million rubles ($79,500) for subsequent violations of the law.The amendments were approved by lawmakers earlier this month.Two weeks earlier, Putin signed into law a bill that gives authorities the power to label reporters who work for organizations officially listed as foreign agents as foreign agents themselves.The tag will be applied to individuals who collaborate with foreign media outlets and receive financial or other material support from them.Russia passed the original foreign agent law — which requires all NGOs receiving foreign funding to register — in 2012 following a major wave of anti-government protests. Putin blamed Western influence and money for those protests.Critics of the law say it stigmatizes organizations with the designation and would do the same to journalists if they are labeled as foreign agents.RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said on December 4 that the law ratchets up pressure on hundreds of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) correspondents in Russia who provide one of the few remaining alternatives to Kremlin-controlled news.Last month, Russia’s Justice Ministry listed RFE/RL’s Sever.Realii website as a “foreign agent,” saying the decision was based on conclusions made by the parliamentary committee on an investigation into meddling in the country’s internal affairs.In December 2017, the Justice Ministry listed Current Time TV, several RFE/RL services and projects, such as its Russian Service, Tatar-Bashkir Service, Sibir.Realii, Idel.Realii, Factograph, Kavkaz Realii, and Krym.Realii, as well as the Voice of America, as “foreign mass media performing the functions of a foreign agent.”Russian officials have said the law is a “symmetrical response” after Russia’s state-funded channel RT — which U.S. authorities accuse of spreading propaganda — was required to register its U.S. operating unit under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).U.S. officials have said the action is not symmetrical, arguing that the U.S. and Russian laws differ and that Russia uses its “foreign agent” legislation to silence dissent and discourage the free exchange of ideas.Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based rights group, in 2017 called the law “devastating” for local NGOs, saying more than a dozen had been forced to close their doors.With reporting by TASS and Meduza.
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Sharing the cockpit of a helicopter on sizzling tarmac, French and British air force chiefs vowed to pursue the joint fight against jihadists in the heart of the Sahel even as the shadow of Brexit looms over their countries.”We’ve got a long, fabulous history of working alongside each other, and I don’t expect anything to change anytime soon,” Royal Air Force (RAF) Chief of Air Staff Mike Wigston told AFP on a visit to the city of Gao with French counterpart Philippe Lavigne.”If anything, we are going to work stronger together,” he said.Backed by 100 British personnel, France has a 4,500-strong Sahel force supporting national armies struggling with a seven-year-old jihadist revolt.Thousands of civilians have been killed, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.The two generals this weekend visited Mali, Niger and Chad, which with Burkina Faso and Mauritania form the so-called G5 Sahel, an anti-terror force.Wigston said Mali and its neighbors were “the front line of instability.”The priority of the Sahel deployment “is to stamp out the violent extremism which is making people’s lives a misery,” he said.”But there is a wider security issue here which affects Europe and the potential for this instability and the conflict in this region to spill into Europe… so we are also here to protect Europe.”What next?Britain is set to leave the European Union by January 31 following a general election that gave the pro-Brexit Conservative party a large majority.France sent troops into Mali in 2013 to help drive back Islamist insurgents who had seized the north of the country.But attacks have continued since then, and the conflict has since spread to the country’s center as well as to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.France’s Operation Barkhane remains in place to train and support poorly equipped local forces, but at a hefty cost that France’s EU allies have only partially eased.Britain and France signed a defense cooperation pact in London in 2010 — and both sides have repeatedly said it will not be affected by Brexit.FILE – A Royal Air Force Chinook flies over London during the Service of Commemoration – Afghanistan, at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, March 13, 2015.Since July 2018, London has contributed three heavy-lift Chinook helicopters to France’s Sahel fight. They have clocked up some 1,600 hours of flying time to date, transporting about 11,000 personnel and 800 tonnes of freight.The twin-rotor helicopters can haul nearly four tonnes of supplies and more than 30 troops at a time — a vital contribution in a region where road access to frontline troops is long and dangerous, with a high risk of mines and militia attacks.The helicopter support “allows us to devote ourselves to air combat missions while our British comrades provide logistics, refuelling and troop transport,” said Loic, who heads France’s Barkhane air combat group in Mali.In line with French military security protocol, the colonel can be identified only by his first name.Without the British help, he said, “we would be forced to assign other helicopters or resort to slower, riskier, road convoys.”‘With or without Brexit’Fighters on the ground say the Chinooks have been invaluable.French President Emmanuel Macron pays his respect in front of the flag-draped coffins of the thirteen French soldiers killed in Mali, during a ceremony at the Hotel National des Invalides in Paris, Dec. 2, 2019.They were deployed to help out last month when two French army helicopters crashed in Mali, killing all 13 on board and bringing to 41 the number of French troops killed in the Sahel region since 2013.”For us, it would be a real plus if this [Chinook] capacity remained beyond the summer of 2020,” the current deadline for the British deployment, Colonel Loic said.For his part, Wigston said: “I absolutely understand how vital this asset is to Barkhane, I will transmit (the message) to the political authorities in London.”Aside from Barkhane, London has announced the deployment of 250 troops to the Sahel for three years from 2020 as part of the United Nations’ MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Mali.Lavigne insisted that broader military cooperation would continue “with or without Brexit”.”Our air forces are quite similar, they have the same operating capacities and expertise, and tomorrow we will continue to work together to bring security,” he said.       
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Turkey has dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the breakaway north of ethnically divided island nation of Cyprus amid tensions over offshore oil and gas exploration, Turkey’s state-run media said Monday.The Anadolu news agency said the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone took off from an airbase in Dalaman, Turkey, and touched down Monday at the airport in Gecitkale — known as Lefkoniko in Greek, on Cyprus.Kudret Ozersay, foreign minister of the self-declared Turkish Cypriot state, told reporters Sunday that the Turkish deployment would be limited to unarmed drones as there was “no need” for armed ones.Earlier, Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Ersin Tatar said there was an “urgent need” to address the security concerns of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots in the eastern Mediterranean.It’s unclear what the drones will be specifically tasked to do.Cyprus Defense Minister Savvas Angelides called the move an “additional factor contributing to instability” in the region, hurting efforts aimed at reunifying the country.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week that Ankara could use its military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.Cavusoglu said Turkey “has the right to prevent” any unauthorized drilling in waters that it says fall within its own continental shelf.Turkey doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state and asserts that 44% of the island nation’s exclusive economic zone are its own.Part of the area that Turkey claims it has rights to are waters where Cyprus has exclusive economic rights and where companies including ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni are licensed by the Cypriot government to jointly carry out drilling.Cyprus’ government spokesman Kyriakos Koushios told state broadcaster CyBC on Sunday that Turkish warships told an Israeli research vessel to leave “disputed” waters off Cyprus last month.Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the north, where it keeps more than 35,000 troops.Earlier this year, Turkey dispatched warship-escorted drill ships to conduct exploratory gas drilling inside Cyprus’ economic zone, including in an area where Eni and Total are licensed to drill. Ankara said it’s acting to protect its interests and those of Turkish Cypriots to the area’s energy reserves.Last year, Turkish warships physically blocked a drill ship that was scheduled to carry out exploratory drilling on behalf of Eni in waters southeast of Cyprus.The European Union has leveled sanctions against Turkey over its drilling activities off EU member Cyprus.Last week, EU leaders rejected a deal that Turkey signed with Libya’s U.N.-recognized government that delineates the two countries’ maritime borders. Ankara says the deal gives it exclusive rights to a large swath of the eastern Mediterranean. 
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A U.N. tribunal will hear arguments in March in the appeal of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, convicted of genocide and war crimes committed in Bosnia’s 1990s civil war.Mladic, once dubbed the Butcher of Bosnia, was sentenced to life behind bars in November 2017 for his role in the Balkans war, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre — Europe’s worst bloodshed since World War II.About 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million others displaced in the 1992-95 war, which erupted as communal rivalries tore Yugoslavia apart after the fall of communism.Both prosecution and defense have appealed against the verdict, which found 77-year-old Mladic guilty on 10 counts including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and deportation.Judges at the U.N.’s International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague ordered that the hearings would take place on March 17-18.In one of its final judgments, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted the brazen ex-commander of genocide in certain municipalities, a fact which now forms the bulk of the prosecution’s appeal.Judges had said “ruthless” Bosnian Serb forces under Mladic’s command carried out “mass executions” and showed “little or no respect for human life or dignity”.The crimes were “amongst the most heinous known to humankind”, the judge said when handing down the sentence.At Srebrenica, Bosnian Serb forces overran UN peacekeepers before slaughtering almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys and dumping their bodies into mass graves.Mladic was among the top leaders to face international justice over the Balkans wars — along with former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.They were accused of forming a “joint criminal enterprise” to create a Greater Serbia by ridding the territory of Bosnian Muslims and non-Serbs.Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague in March 2006, suffering a heart attack before his trial had finished.Karadzic was convicted of genocide in 2016 for the Srebrenica massacre and other atrocities during the war and sentenced to 40 years.After an appeal, judges increased his sentence to life, saying the initial term had underestimated the “sheer scale and systematic cruelty” of his crimes. 
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A Mexican foreign ministry undersecretary says he did not negotiate a trade deal that would allow up to five U.S. labor inspectors into Mexico.Jesus Seade posted in several tweets that there is a simple reason labor inspectors would not be allowed into Mexico.  Mexican law prohibits it, Seade said.Last Tuesday, Mexico, the U.S., and Canada signed a revised United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Mexico’s Senate ratified the new deal two days later.When legislation to implement the trade deal was introduced in the U.S. Congress, it contained language proposing the posting of up to five labor attaches to monitor Mexican labor reforms.Seade quickly objected with “surprise and concern” and announced a trip to Washington.His Mexican critics said that he and others in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration had overlooked something in the new deal and had approved the pact too hastily.But Seade said there was nothing in the ratified trade package that authorized the posting of U.S. labor inspectors in Mexico.  “It is a very good agreement for Mexico,” Seade said.  “That’s why the U.S. needs ‘extras’ to sell it internally that were not part of the package.” 
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The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is holding a first-ever forum in an effort to drum up international support for tens of millions of people displaced by war, poverty, repression and other woes. The Global Refugee Forum, taking place December 16-18 in Geneva, will seek to gather leaders from governments, business and civil society to work together to find solutions for the unprecedented number of people — more than 70 million, according to the U.N. — displaced in their home countries or abroad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Human remains discovered last month at a farm outside the city of Guadalajara have been confirmed as belonging to at least 50 people, authorities in Mexico’s west-central state of Jalisco reported.Jalisco state prosecutors said recovery work at the farm in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, which began Nov. 22 after the initial discovery, concluded Friday as experts determined there was no more evidence to be gathered from the scene.The office said in a Saturday statement that there was a “preliminary” indication that the remains corresponded to 50 individuals.Prosecutors said they had identified 13 people so far — 12 male and one female, all of whom were previously listed as missing.The state forensic sciences institute will seek to determine the sex of the rest and cause of death.The investigation continues, with the goal of identifying more victims as well as “those responsible for this crime which gravely harms society,” the statement said.The state is home to Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s bloodiest and most ruthless drug cartels.In July, Jalisco prosecutors announced 21 bodies had been found in excavations in the yard of a house near Guadalajara. In May, authorities discovered the remains of at least 34 people at two separate properties in the state.Such clandestine burial sites are frequently used by criminals to dispose of bodies.At least 40,000 people have disappeared since Mexico’s drug war began in 2006. 
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