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Tbilisi, Georgia — Protesters in Georgia have vowed to continue anti-government demonstrations driven largely by the so-called “foreign agent” law that took effect last week.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in the past two months to protest the law, which critics have compared to similar measures in Russia. Many of the demonstrators carry European Union and Georgian flags, while others wave the Ukrainian colors in solidarity with Kyiv following its 2022 invasion by Moscow.

Protesters beaten

Among the most well-known figures at the demonstrations is David Katsarava, a prominent activist who monitors Russian activities in parts of Georgia occupied by Moscow’s forces since its 2008 invasion of the country.

On May 14, Katsarava was detained by Georgian special forces outside parliament. He says he was severely beaten at least five times in detention, suffering extensive injuries including a broken jaw and eye socket. He was released without charge the following day. The government says it is investigating his treatment.

At his home in the suburbs of Tbilisi, Katsarava told VOA that the protests must go on – and he will rejoin them in the coming days.

“We have now the changed reality and we must continue fighting. Georgia has changed and changed its direction to Russia. We must fight until to the end because otherwise if we stop, if we will be scared and we will stay at home, so that will be a finish for free Georgia. And Georgia then becomes Belarus or some branch of Russia or something like this,” he said.

Foreign agent

The new law requires any organization receiving more than 20 percent of its funding from overseas to register as a “foreign agent.” Critics have compared it to Russian legislation and say it is aimed at stifling scrutiny and criticism of the government by media and non-governmental organizations ahead of elections scheduled in October.

The law’s supporters say it is aimed at ensuring transparency.

“It doesn’t make sense why the state budget should be transparent — but any funding from foreign sources should not be transparent in the same way,” said Fridon Injia, an member of parliament with the European Socialists party, which is closely aligned to the ruling Georgian Dream party.

The European Union has warned that the foreign agent law is incompatible with Georgia’s EU membership aspirations. Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on several Georgian lawmakers who supported the legislation.

October elections

The demonstrators insist they will continue their action until the October elections — with the aim of toppling the government, which is led by the Georgian Dream political party and widely seen as increasingly pro-Russian.

Giga Bokeria, chairman of the “European Georgia” party and a member of the government from 2010 until 2013, compared the coming months to the fall of the Soviet Union, when Georgia regained its independence.

“We have elections in October. These protests will continue until then. And our goal will be just like 30 years ago — to achieve a fundamental change. And this fundamental change is to remove the government, which is a proxy of the enemy of our sovereignty [Russia] and enemy of our liberty inside the country.”

EU support

Polls conducted before the foreign agent law took effect suggest around 80 percent of Georgians support EU membership.

At a recent protest outside parliament, many demonstrators vowed to stay on the streets until the election.

“No matter that the law is already in place, we keep on protesting. Because we want that Europe sees our approach and they support us,” said student Elene Ramishvili.

“There’s a big chance that [the government] will try to fake the results of the elections and we’ll have to be ready for the action, in case this happens,” fellow protester Giorgi Japiashvili told VOA.

Katsarava called on Europe and the U.S. to do more. “I would like to appeal to our Western partners and our friends to please support us,” he said. “We need quick support. And without you, we all will lose Georgia as a free country.”
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Thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in recent weeks to protest a new ‘foreign agent’ law, which critics have compared to similar legislation in Russia. The law is now in force – but its opponents have vowed to continue their demonstrations until crucial elections scheduled for later this year. Henry Ridgwell reports from Tbilisi.
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The Hague — A Dutch court will on Wednesday hand down a long-awaited verdict over the 2021 assassination of high-profile crime journalist Peter R. de Vries, a killing that shocked the country.

De Vries was gunned down in broad daylight on a busy Amsterdam street in July 2021, sparking an outpouring of grief and spotlighting the country’s drug gang underworld.

Authorities believe gunmen targeted De Vries, 64, due to his role as advisor to a key witness in the case of drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi.

Police arrested two suspects, identified only as Dutchman Delano G. and Kamil E. from Poland, shortly after the shooting. Prosecutors have called for a life sentence.

Prosecutors believe Delano G. pulled the trigger and Kamil E. drove the getaway car and carried out surveillance prior to the shooting.

Seven men suspected of organizing and facilitating the killing have been added to the trial.

All nine suspects either denied the charges or invoked their right to silence. Hearings have taken place in an extra high security “bunker” at the court in Amsterdam.

A video showing De Vries seriously injured circulated after the attack. Partly because of this, prosecutors charged the suspects with “murder with terrorist intent.”

Thousands of mourners filed past his coffin in Amsterdam following his death, paying respect to a journalist described as a “national hero.”

‘Narco-state’

De Vries first shot to prominence as an intrepid crime reporter for the daily newspaper De Telegraaf — writing a best-selling book about the 1980s kidnapping of beer millionaire Freddy Heineken.

The book was later turned into a 2015 movie “Kidnapping Freddy Heineken”, starring Anthony Hopkins in the title role.

The celebrity journalist then moved into television, where he ran his own crime program called “Peter R. de Vries, Crime Reporter.”

De Vries won international renown in 2008 after winning an Emmy Award for his coverage of the disappearance of US citizen Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba.

From 2020, he was an advisor and confidant of Nabil B., the main prosecution witness in the case against Taghi, described as the country’s most wanted criminal.

De Vries revealed in 2019 that authorities had informed him he was on a hit-list drawn up by Taghi, who in February received a life sentence over a series of murders committed by his gang.

Nabil B.’s brother Reduan was killed in 2018, and his lawyer Derk Wiersum was shot dead in 2019.

Together with the assassination of De Vries, the three killings together sparked warnings that the country was becoming a “narco-state.”

The threat touched the top levels of Dutch society.

Crown Princess Amalia, the daughter of King Willem-Alexander, was forced to move to Spain for her studies due to fears of an attack from an organized crime group.

Both the royal and Prime Minister Mark Rutte were mentioned in messages by organized crime groups, raising fears of plans to kidnap or attack them.
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At the Group of Seven summit this week, U.S. President Joe Biden will seek agreement on using interest from frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine’s war effort. He will also push for unity in tackling global challenges such as infrastructure funding, artificial intelligence, and Chinese overcapacity in green technologies. However, as White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports, a shift right in the European political landscape could complicate his plans.
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united nations — The United Nation’s secretary-general has included Israel’s military and Hamas on the annual blacklist of perpetrators who harm children.

“I am appalled by the dramatic increase and unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children in the Gaza Strip, Israel and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” Antonio Guterres said in the report, which was sent to U.N. Security Council members on Tuesday but has not yet been published.

The annual Children and Armed Conflict report names and shames those who recruit, kill, maim or abduct children, commit sexual violence against them, deny them humanitarian assistance, or attack schools and hospitals. Guterres’ special representative Virginia Gamba is mandated by the Security Council to work to prevent and end these violations.

In the report, obtained by VOA, the United Nations said it has verified 8,009 grave violations against Israeli and Palestinian children, but the process is ongoing and slow due to the conflict. Of them, 113 were against Israeli children, and the rest were against Palestinian children in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The report says most child casualties in Gaza from October 7 to the end of last year were caused by “the use of explosive weapons in populated areas by Israeli armed and security forces.”

In addition to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad was also listed. Both groups are listed for the first time, accused of killing, maiming and abducting children.

The report covers the period from January to December 2023. Hamas carried out its terror attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering the war that is now in its ninth month. The report covers only the casualties reported or verified in 2023.

This is the first time either Israel or Hamas has been included on the report’s blacklist, despite the killing and maiming of hundreds of children in at least three previous wars in Gaza.

Israel’s armed and security forces are listed for the killing and maiming of children and for attacks on schools and hospitals.

“The inclusion of Israeli forces on the U.N.’s ‘list of shame’ is long overdue and reflects overwhelming evidence of grave violations against children,” Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA in an email.

Israeli officials have expressed outrage at being included on the list, which also includes the Taliban and terror groups al-Qaida and Islamic State.

A U.N. spokesperson said last week that Israel was notified of its inclusion “as a courtesy.” The country promptly sought to get ahead of the report’s publication, dismissing it as more anti-Israel action by the United Nations.

“Today, the U.N. added itself to the blacklist of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday. “The IDF is the most moral army in the world. No delusional U.N. decision will change that.”

His United Nations ambassador went further, publishing the video of part of his phone call with Guterres’ chief of staff.

“I’m utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision of the secretary-general,” Gilad Erdan said in the call on Friday, adding that it would reward Hamas and extend the war.

Russia makes blacklist again

Last year, Russia’s armed forces landed on the blacklist for their war in Ukraine. This year, they remained listed despite a significant drop in the number of violations attributed to them. The United Nations verified the killing of 80 children and the maiming of 339 others attributed to Russian forces and affiliated groups.

A senior U.N. official said a decrease was not enough. Russia must continue this trend for at least a year and also sign a joint action plan with Gamba’s office to be delisted.

No party previously on the list was delisted this year.

Both sides in Sudan conflict make list 

The situation in Sudan, which devolved into brutal violence in April 2023 when two rival generals went to war in a power struggle that continues today, has seen the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces both land on this year’s blacklist.

The report found a dramatic increase in 2023 in the military recruitment and use of children in Sudan, as well as their killing, maiming and sexual abuse. Attacks on schools and hospitals were also reported.

“I urge all parties to take preventive and mitigating actions to avoid and minimize harm and better protect children, including to refrain from the use of explosive devices,” Guterres said in the report.

The 2023 report verified nearly 33,000 grave violations committed against the world’s children in several countries experiencing conflict — an increase of 21% over the previous year. There were 11,649 confirmed child killings and maimings. Recruitment is again on the rise, after trending downward for the past two years.

Grave violations were reported in countries including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Congo, Myanmar, Somalia and Syria, among others.
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Russia says it is holding more than 6,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war. For many of those released, liberation is the start of a painful process of recovery. From Kyiv, Lesia Bakalets brings the story of one former prisoner of war. Videographer: Vladyslav Smilianets
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Los Angeles — The Rev. James Lawson Jr., an apostle of nonviolent protest who schooled activists to withstand brutal reactions from white authorities as the Civil Rights Movement gained traction, has died, his family said Monday. He was 95.

His family said Lawson died on Sunday after a short illness in Los Angeles, where he spent decades working as a pastor, labor movement organizer and university professor.

Lawson was a close adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who called him “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.”

Lawson met King in 1957, after spending three years in India soaking up knowledge about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s independence movement. King would travel to India himself two years later, but at the time, he had only read about Gandhi in books.

The two Black pastors — both 28 years old — quickly bonded over their enthusiasm for the Indian leader’s ideas, and King urged Lawson to put them into action in the American South.

Lawson soon led workshops in church basements in Nashville, Tennessee, that prepared John Lewis, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry, the Freedom Riders and many others to peacefully withstand vicious responses to their challenges of racist laws and policies.

Lawson’s lessons led Nashville to become the first major city in the South to desegregate its downtown, on May 10, 1960, after hundreds of well-organized students staged lunch-counter sit-ins and boycotts of discriminatory businesses.

Lawson’s particular contribution was to introduce Gandhian principles to people more familiar with biblical teachings, showing how direct action could expose the immorality and fragility of racist white power structures.

Gandhi said “that we persons have the power to resist the racism in our own lives and souls,” Lawson told the AP. “We have the power to make choices and to say no to that wrong. That’s also Jesus.”

Years later, in 1968, it was Lawson who organized the sanitation workers strike that fatefully drew King to Memphis. Lawson said he was at first paralyzed and forever saddened by King’s assassination.

“I thought I would not live beyond 40, myself,” Lawson said. “The imminence of death was a part of the discipline we lived with, but no one as much as King.”

Still, Lawson made it his life’s mission to preach the power of nonviolent direct action.

“I’m still anxious and frustrated,” Lawson said as he marked the 50th anniversary of King’s death with a march in Memphis. “The task is unfinished.”

Civil rights activist Diane Nash was a 21-year-old college student when she began attending Lawson’s Nashville workshops, which she called life-changing.

“His passing constitutes a very great loss,” Nash said. “He bears, I think, more responsibility than any other single person for the civil rights movement of Blacks being nonviolent in this country.”

James Morris Lawson Jr., was born on Sept. 22, 1928, the son and grandson of ministers, and grew up in Massillon, Ohio, where he became ordained himself as a high school senior.

He told The Tennessean that his commitment to nonviolence began in elementary school, when he told his mother that he had slapped a boy who had used a racial slur against him.

“What good did that do, Jimmy?” his mother asked.

That simple question forever changed his life, Lawson said. He became a pacifist, refusing to serve when drafted for the Korean War, and spent a year in prison as a conscientious objector. The Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist group, sponsored his trip to India after he finished a sociology degree.

Gandhi had been assassinated by then, but Lawson met people who had worked with him and explained Gandhi’s concept of “satyagraha,” a relentless pursuit of Truth, which encouraged Indians to peacefully reject British rule. Lawson then saw how the Christian concept of turning the other cheek could be applied in collective actions to challenge morally indefensible laws.

Lawson was a divinity student at Oberlin College in Ohio when King spoke on campus about the Montgomery bus boycott. King told him, “You can’t wait, you need to come on South now,‘” Lawson recalled in an Associated Press interview.

Lawson soon enrolled in theology classes at Vanderbilt University, while leading younger activists through mock protests in which they practiced taking insults without reacting.

The technique swiftly proved its power at lunch counters and movie theaters in Nashville, where on May 10, 1960, businesses agreed to take down the “No Colored” signs that enforced white supremacy.

“It was the first major successful campaign to pull the signs down,” and it created a template for the sit-ins that began spreading across the South, Lawson said.

Lawson was called on to organize what became the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which sought to organize the spontaneous efforts of tens of thousands of students who began challenging Jim Crow laws across the South.

Angry segregationists got Lawson expelled from Vanderbilt, but he said he never harbored hard feelings about the university, where he returned as a distinguished visiting professor in 2006, and eventually donated a significant portion of his papers.

Lawson earned that theology degree at Boston University and became a Methodist pastor in Memphis, where his wife Dorothy Wood Lawson worked as an NAACP organizer. They moved several years later to Los Angeles, where Lawson led the Holman United Methodist Church and taught at California State University, Northridge and the University of California, Los Angeles. They raised three sons, John, Morris and Seth. 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Lawson taught Southern California activists and organizers “and helped shape the civil rights and labor movement locally just as he did nationally.”

“Today Los Angeles joins the state, country and world in mourning the loss of a civil rights leader whose critical leadership, teachings, and mentorship confronted and crippled centuries of systemic oppression, racism and injustice,” Bass said in a statement.

Lawson remained active into his 90s, urging younger generations to leverage their power.

Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, called Lawson “the ultimate preacher, prophet, and activist.”

“In his senior years, I was privileged to spend time with him at his church in Los Angeles,” Sharpton said. “He would sit in his office and tell me inside stories of the battles of the 1950’s and 1960’s that he Dr. King and others engaged in. Lawson helped to change this nation — thank God the nation never changed him.”

Eulogizing the late Rep. John Lewis last year, he recalled how the young man he trained in Nashville grew lonely marches into multitudes, paving the way for major civil rights legislation.

“If we would honor and celebrate John Lewis’ life, let us then re-commit our souls, our hearts, our minds, our bodies and our strength to the continuing journey to dismantle the wrong in our midst,” Lawson said.
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phoenix — Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and Donald Trump attorney, was processed Monday in the criminal case over the effort to overturn Trump’s Arizona election loss to Joe Biden, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said. 

The sheriff’s office provided a mug shot but no other details. The office of the clerk of the Superior Court for Maricopa County said Giuliani posted bond of $10,000 in cash. 

“Mayor Rudy Giuliani — the most effective federal prosecutor in U.S. history — will be fully vindicated,” said his spokesperson, Ted Goodman. “This is yet another example of partisan actors weaponizing the criminal justice system to interfere with the 2024 presidential election through outlandish charges against President Trump and anyone willing to take on the permanent Washington political class.” 

Giuliani pleaded not guilty in May to nine felony charges stemming from his alleged role in the fake electors effort. He is among 18 people indicted in the Arizona case, including Trump attorneys John Eastman, Christina Bobb and Jenna Ellis. 

Former Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump 2020 Election Day operations director Michael Roman pleaded not guilty Friday in Phoenix to nine felony charges for their alleged roles in the scheme. 

The indictment alleges Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. 

Other states where criminal charges have been filed related to the fake electors scheme are Michigan, Nevada and Georgia.
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WASHINGTON — A closely watched Alzheimer’s drug from Eli Lilly won the backing of federal health advisers Monday, setting the stage for the treatment’s expected approval for people with mild dementia caused by the brain-robbing disease. 

Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously that the drug’s ability to slow the disease outweighs its risks, including side effects like brain swelling and bleeding that will have to be monitored. 

“I thought the evidence was very strong in the trial showing the effectiveness of the drug,” said panel member Dean Follmann, a National Institutes of Health statistician. 

The FDA will make the final decision on approval later this year. If the agency agrees with the panel’s recommendation, the drug, donanemab, would only be the second Alzheimer’s drug cleared in the U.S. that’s been shown to convincingly slow cognitive decline and memory problems due to Alzheimer’s. The FDA approved a similar infused drug, Leqembi, from Japanese drugmaker Eisai last year. 

The slowdown seen with both drugs amounts to several months and experts disagree on whether patients or their loved ones will be able to detect the difference. 

But Lilly’s approach to studying its once-a-month treatment prompted questions from FDA reviewers. 

Patients in the company’s study were grouped based on their levels of a brain protein,  

called tau, that predicts severity of cognitive problems. That led the FDA to question whether patients might need to be screened via brain scans for tau before getting the drug. But most panelists thought there was enough evidence of the drug’s benefit to prescribe it broadly, without screening for the protein. 

“Imposing a requirement for tau imaging is not necessary and would raise serious practical and access concerns to the treatment,” said Dr. Thomas Montine of Stanford University, who chaired the panel and summarized its opinion. 

At a high level, Lilly’s results mirrored those of Leqembi, with both medications showing a modest slowing of cognitive problems in patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s. The Indianapolis-based company conducted a 1,700-patient study showing patients who received monthly IV infusions of its drug declined about 35% more slowly than those who got a placebo treatment. 

The FDA had been widely expected to approve the drug in March. But instead, the agency said it would ask its panel of neurology experts to publicly review the company’s data, an unexpected delay that surprised analysts and investors. 

Several unusual approaches in how Lilly tested its drug led to the meeting. 

One change was measuring patients’ tau — and excluding patients with very low or no levels of the protein. But panelists said there was enough data from other measures to feel confident that nearly all patients could benefit from the drug, regardless of their levels. 

In another key difference, Lilly studied taking patients off its drug when they reached very low levels of amyloid, a sticky brain plaque that’s a contributor to Alzheimer’s. 

Lilly scientists suggested stopping treatment is a key advantage for its drug, which could reduce side effects and costs. But FDA staff said Lilly provided little data supporting the optimal time to stop or how quickly patients might need to restart treatment. 

Despite those questions, many panelists thought the possibility of stopping doses held promise. 

“It’s a huge cost savings for the society, we’re talking about expensive treatment, expensive surveillance,” said Dr. Tanya Simuni of Northwestern University. She and other experts said patients would need to be tracked and tested to see how they fare and whether they need to resume treatment. 

The main safety issue with donanemab was brain swelling and bleeding, a problem common to all amyloid-targeting drugs. Most cases identified in Lilly’s trial were mild. 

Three deaths in the donanemab study were linked to the drug, according to the FDA, all involving brain swelling or bleeding. One of the deaths was caused by a stroke, a life-threatening complication that occurs more frequently among Alzheimer’s patients. 

The FDA’s panel agreed those risks could be addressed by warning labels and education for doctors and medical scans to identify patients at greater risk of stroke.
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Brussels — A court in Brussels on Monday sentenced a 65-year-old Belgian-Rwandan man to 25 years in prison for murder and rape committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  

Emmanuel Nkunduwimye was found guilty of war crimes and genocide for a series of murders as well as the rape of a Tutsi woman. 

Nkunduwimye, who was first arrested in Belgium in 2011, owned a garage in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in April 1994 when the genocide began. The garage was part of a complex of buildings that was the scene of massacres perpetrated by Interahamwe militiamen.  

Nkunduwimye was close to several militia leaders – including Georges Rutaganda, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and died in 2010. 

The jury at the trial in Brussels found the accused assisted the militia “with full knowledge of the facts.”  

“He could not have been unaware of the abuses committed there,” the sentencing said, according to Belga news agency.  

During the trial, Nkunduwimye was formally identified by the woman he raped, who came to testify in private at the hearing. 

Nkunduwimye denied the accusations and his defense called for his acquittal, arguing in particular that the prosecution’s evidence was unreliable. 

Prosecutors at the trial, which began in April, had requested a sentence of 30 years in jail.  

The genocide in Rwanda, which took place between April and July 1994, claimed at least 800,000 lives, according to the U.N. The victims were mainly members of the Tutsi minority, but also included moderate Hutus.  

The trial of Nkunduwimye was the seventh such trial to be held in Belgium since 2001 involving alleged crimes committed during the genocide. 

Belgium – which controlled Rwanda during the colonial period – can prosecute alleged genocidaires because its court recognizes universal jurisdiction for crimes under international humanitarian law committed outside the country. 

In the most recent trial, Seraphin Twahirwa was sentenced in December 2023 to life imprisonment for dozens of murders and rapes perpetrated by himself or the Interahamwe militiamen under his authority in Kigali between April and July 1994.
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MOSCOW — Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said it has rescinded the accreditation of a correspondent for Austria’s public broadcaster ORF and told her to leave the country in response to Austria’s expulsion of a journalist for Russian state news agency Tass. 

The ministry said in a statement that Maria Knips-Witting was ordered to hand over her accreditation and instructed to leave “in the near future.” Knips-Witting had been based in Moscow since January, according to ORF’s website. 

The order was in response to Austria’s removal of Tass correspondent Ivan Popov’s accreditation six weeks ago, the ministry said. 

It was the latest action against foreign journalists in Russia. 

Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich was arrested nearly 15 months ago on charges of espionage and remains in jail awaiting trial. U.S.-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was taken into custody in October 2023 for failing to register as a “foreign agent.” 

Eva Hartog, a Dutch journalist working for Politico, was denied a renewal of her visa in August 2023. In March, Xavier Colas of Spanish newspaper El Mundo said he was forced to leave the country when authorities denied him a new visa.
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