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Seven people, including two prominent social leaders, have been killed in a spate of attacks in northern Colombia, authorities and other sources said Wednesday.The attacks happened Tuesday in the northeastern department of Norte de Santander and Antioquia in the northwest, two of the areas most affected by violence perpetrated by armed groups battling over the lucrative drug-trafficking trade.Human rights activist Jorge Solano was killed when gunmen attacked his home in Ocana, Norte de Santander, the secretary of the local post-conflict and peace organization, Pedro Duran, told AFP.Solano, 61, was known for denouncing corruption and defending the victims of forced disappearances, said Duran.The U.N. Human Rights Council office in Colombia condemned the “murder” and called on authorities to “solve the crime.”In another attack, “renowned leader” Luis Hincapie was killed on his farm in El Penol, Antioquia, by armed men, according to the Twitter account of the local independent ombudsman, Indepaz.Killings in pool hallAlso, in Antioquia, five people were massacred “indiscriminately” in a pool hall in Nechi, the local mayor, Marcos Madera, said.Indepaz has recorded 71 massacres — of three or more people in the same incident — during 2020.Rights activists and social leaders are frequently the victims of the violence.According to the Somos Defensores NGO, 95 social activists were slain in the first half of 2020, a 61% increase ove the same period last year.Despite the historic 2016 peace deal that ended six decades of conflict between authorities and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country has been unable to end the wave of violence linked to drug trafficking.
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The Dec. 7 season premiere at Milan’s La Scala opera house, a gala event that is one of Italy’s cultural highlights, is being canceled after a rash of COVID-19 infections among musicians and chorus members.The theater’s board of directors concluded Wednesday that the status of the pandemic and Italy’s virus-control measures, which include the closure of theaters, did not allow for “achieving a production open to the public and of the level and with the characteristics required” for the premiere.Lucia di Lammermoor had been on the program for the season’s opening. La Scala said the scheduled opening night performance and the shows set for the following days have been postponed.Politicians, business figures and other VIPs traditionally turn out for La Scala’s season premiere, an official holiday in Milan.The opera house reported a week ago that its entire orchestra had been told to quarantine after nine musicians tested positive for the coronavirus. The chorus was put under an earlier quarantine after 18 singers were confirmed to be infected.A government decree issued last month to battle a surge in COVID-19 infections shut down Italy’s theaters, cinemas and concert halls for a few weeks. Starting Thursday, Italian museums will also have to close their doors, at least until Dec. 2.  
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With a deadline looming ever more menacingly, the European Union’s chief negotiator on the post-Brexit trade deal with Britain on Wednesday publicly blamed London for a lack of progress in the two sides’ belated attempt to reach an even rudimentary agreement.”At this stage, there are still too many difficulties remaining on important topics,” Michel Barnier said on his way to brief the envoys of the 27 member states.In a Twitter comment later, Barnier said, “Despite EU efforts to find solutions, very serious divergences remain.”Britain’s Chief negotiator David Frost walks down Downing Street in London, Oct. 19, 2020.Britain’s chief negotiator, David Frost, said he agreed that “wide divergences remain on some key issues.””We continue to work to find solutions that fully respect U.K. sovereignty,” Frost tweeted.Barnier’s comments threw a dampener on optimistic reports that progress was being made at a rapid pace on issues such as fisheries rights, one of three remaining major topics that need a compromise solution if a deal is to be found before Jan. 1, when a transition period in the Brexit divorce proceedings ends.Barnier’s stern words were in complete contradiction to the olive branch he offered London only two weeks ago after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that the EU and Barnier fundamentally had to change tack to continue the negotiations.Both sides have been intensely negotiating since, but, as Barnier pointed out, to little effect.The lack of progress on fisheries and on the need to have common regulatory standards and fair competition to make sure Britain won’t undercut EU businesses has befuddled the negotiating teams for months, as both sides have been trying to strike a trade deal since the U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31.Without a deal, trade between both sides would fundamentally change, and hundreds of thousands of jobs would be threatened on both sides, especially in nations close to Britain such as Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Barnier insisted again Wednesday that the EU “is prepared for all scenarios.”In the trade negotiations, Britain wants to retain as many of the advantages of EU membership as possible without having to live by the bloc’s rules. The EU is insisting on stringent trade regulations to avoid having a giant buccaneering trade partner on its doorstep that could freely undercut the bloc’s state aid, social and environmental standards.After negotiating in Brussels this week, the talks are set to move to London again in the coming days.
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Forecasters say Tropical Storm Eta is moving slowly inland, bringing heavy rains that are producing life-threatening flash floods in parts of Central America.At last report Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center of the storm was about 95 kilometers west of the coastal Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas and moving west at about 13 kilometers per hour. It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 kph.Eta came ashore late Tuesday as a category 2 hurricane after hovering just off the coast of Nicaragua longer than forecasters expected. The Associated Press reports even before it made landfall, heavy rains were responsible for landslides that killed three people.Nicaraguan officials say Eta uprooted trees and damaged buildings as it moved inland.Forecasters expect it to move over northern Nicaragua, and then move across central Honduras through Thursday morning, carrying heavy rains that are likely to create more landslides in higher terrain, along with flash flooding and river flooding.While Eta is expected to weaken as it moves to the west, the system is forecast to emerge over the northwestern Caribbean Sea Friday. Some models suggest it will re-strengthen and head towards Florida in the southeastern United States. 
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A survey of some 300 members of parliament in 19 countries finds cases of human rights violations, including physical abuse, sexual violence, torture and arbitrary arrest of opposition MPs that are on the rise.In a new report, the FILE – Ugandan musician turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, addresses a news conference over the government handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Kampala, Uganda June 15, 2020.For example, Ugandan police have arrested and released opposition figure Bobi Wine multiple times, most recently on Tuesday, when police also allegedly threw tear gas in his car. He has denied planning rallies that could disrupt public order.   The IPU has reviewed the cases of nine Ivorian opposition MPs who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained on charges of causing public disorder and spreading fake news. It says there is no evidence proving their guilt and that the charges appeared to be politically motivated in the run-up to elections held on October 31.     The IPU has been monitoring the situation in Venezuela for a number of years. IPU spokesman Thomas Fitzsimons tells VOA the level of intimidation and threats to which opposition MPs are subjected makes it unlikely that parliamentary elections on December 6 will be free and fair.     “The overwhelming majority of those 134 parliamentarians have been attacked, harassed or otherwise intimidated. As I said they can go from social media abuse to actual physical violence abuse,” he said. “So, there are different scales on the different levels on the scale of intimidation. I would say they are all being threatened in some way or other.”    Fitzsimons says a new case of great concern is that of Joana Mamombe, an opposition MP in Zimbabwe. He says she was detained in May after participating in a public protest to gain more protection for the poor during the coronavirus pandemic.   “But the country was in lockdown, so she was arrested on that pretext. And, in prison, the reports that we heard is that she was allegedly tortured, with violence on a sexual nature as well. So, we are very concerned about that report.”     IPU spokesman Fitzsimons says Mamombe has since been released on bail and reportedly re-arrested. He says the constant intimidation of detention, release and re-arrest is a strategy employed by many state authorities to weaken the opposition and stay in power. There was no reaction from any of the countries mentioned.  
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The death toll in last week’s Aegean Sea earthquake rose to 116 on Wednesday as rescuers in the Turkish city of Izmir finished searching buildings that collapsed in the quake.All but two of the victims were killed in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. Two teenagers died on the Greek island of Samos, which lies south of the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey registered the quake’s magnitude at 7.0, although other agencies recorded it as less severe.Mehmet Gulluoglu, head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, said search and rescue operations had been completed at 17 buildings that fell in Izmir. The rescue operation has been roaring at full tilt since Friday, pulling 107 survivors from the rubble.Of the 1,035 people injured in the quake, 137 remained hospitalized on Wednesday, the agency added.Following a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged not to give up until the final person was recovered. Rescuers’ spirits were raised Tuesday when they pulled a 3-year-old girl from the wreckage of her family home 91 hours after the quake.The tremors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul, as well as in the Greek capital of Athens. Some 1,700 aftershocks followed, 45 of which were greater than 4.0 magnitude.In Izmir, the quake reduced buildings to rubble or saw floors pancake in on themselves. Authorities have detained nine people, including contractors, for questioning over the collapse of six of the buildings.Turkey has a mix of older buildings and new buildings make of cheap or illegal construction that do not withstand earthquakes well. Regulations have been tightened to strengthen or demolish older buildings, and urban renewal is underway in Turkish cities, but experts say it is not happening fast enough. The country sits on top of two major fault lines and earthquakes are frequent.  
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Hurricane Eta continues on a destructive path over the Central American nations of Nicaragua and Honduras hours after making landfall along the Nicaraguan coast. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eta is moving inland over northeastern Nicaragua carrying maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers an hour.  Forecasters are warning of life-threatening storm surges, damaging winds and flash floods over portions of Central America.   Hurricane Eta made landfall Tuesday near the eastern Nicaraguan coastal town of Puerto Cabezas, carrying maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometers an hour, making it a Category 4 storm on the five-level scale that measures a storm’s potential destructiveness.  At least three people have been killed as a result of Eta. A 12-year-girl in Honduras was killed when her home was buried in a landslide, while two miners were killed in a mudslide in Nicaragua.A general view shows a flooded street as Hurricane Eta approaches, in Tela.Forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters – and rainfall throughout Central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely. The storm is expected to move slowly through the region in the coming days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center noted there is considerable uncertainty regarding its path. Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin. In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year nearly two months ahead. 
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Austrian authorities continue to investigate whether more than one attacker was involved in the terrorist shootings in Vienna Monday night that left four people dead and scores wounded.  As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, it’s the latest in a series of terrorist incidents in Europe in recent days.   Camera: Henry Ridgwell   Video editor: Jon Spier
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Britain’s Home secretary announced Tuesday the nation was raising its terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe” following recent terrorist activity in France and Austria.
According to Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence agency, the severe alert means a terrorist attack is highly likely. It is the fourth highest of the nation’s five threat levels.  
Speaking to reporters in London, Home Secretary Priti Patel said MI5’s Joint Terror Analysis Center ((JTAC)) raised the level following a recent knife attack by a radicalized Chechen refugee in Nice, France and the shooting of four people in Vienna late Monday by an armed man identified as a convicted jihadist.
Patel says the alert means people should be on alert but not alarmed. She said the alert is a precautionary measure. Patel adds the public can expect to see the nation’s intelligence and police agencies putting visible protective preventative measures in place across the country.
On her Twitter account earlier, Patel encouraged the public to “continue to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the police.”
 
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Austrian officials said Tuesday a perpetrator of an attack in Vienna, Austria that killed at least four people and wounded 14 others was a sympathizer of the Islamic State terror group.    “We experienced an attack last night by at least one Islamist terrorist,” Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told reporters.    He said the assailant was armed with an assault rifle and wore a fake suicide vest.  He added in later comments to the Austrian news agency APA that the attacker was convicted last year of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State.   Police shot the assailant dead, and Nehammer said a search was ongoing Tuesday to see if anyone else was involved in the attack.    “At the moment we can’t rule out that there are still other attackers out there. That’s why we are investigating the environment of the attacker and also all of Vienna in order to make sure whether there was just one perpetrator or two,” he said.  After a shooting armed police officers stand on a street at the scene in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 3, 2020.Authorities advised people to stay away from public places and public transport.  Students in Vienna were allowed to miss classes Tuesday.    The shootings took place late Monday at six locations in Vienna, hours before a partial lockdown was due to go into effect due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.  The dead included two men and a woman, while a police officer was among the wounded.    Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said his country “will not be intimidated by terrorists.”  In a series of tweets he also said there is not a dispute between Christians and Muslims or between Austrians and migrants, but rather a struggle between those who believe in peace and those who want war.   Speaking to the Austrian public broadcasting station ORF, Nehammer said all six locations that were attacked were near a central city street that house’s Vienna’s main synagogue.    Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch said on Twitter that it was not clear whether the synagogue and its adjoining offices had been the target of the attack. He said the buildings were closed at the time of the violence.        President Emmanuel Macron of France, which has faced several recent attacks blamed on Muslim extremists, tweeted that the French “share the shock and grief of the Austrian people hit by an attack tonight.””This is our Europe,” he said. “Our enemies must know with whom they are dealing. We will not retreat.”    German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed solidarity with neighboring Austria in a statement Tuesday, saying, “The fight against Islamist terrorism is our common struggle.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States “strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Vienna.” “We express our deepest sympathy to the families of those killed and wounded,” Pompeo said.  “We affirm our support for the police and first responders, and stand in solidarity with the people of Austria.” 
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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is due to come ashore in Nicaragua Tuesday as an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane, bringing life-threatening storm surges, catastrophic winds, flash flooding and landslides to central America.
In its latest report, the National Hurricane Center says Eta was about 45 kilometers southeast of Puerto Cabezas on Nicaragua’s eastern coast. The storm has maximum sustained winds of about 230 kilometers per hour, and was moving to the west-southwest at about six kilometers per hour.
The forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters, and rainfall throughout central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely.
The storm is expected to move slowly through the region over the course of the next several days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center stated there is considerable uncertainty regarding that outcome.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin and doing so at a breakneck pace.  
In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year two months ahead.
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Nicaragua is bracing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the potentially catastrophic hurricane could make landfall early Tuesday, with winds in excess of 248 kilometers per hour.  Thousands of people on Monday began evacuating Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, where a hurricane warning is posted from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi.  The hurricane is located 75 kilometers east of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.  Forecasters warn of flooding and landslides, especially in central and northern Nicaragua and most of Honduras.  Eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica are also expected to get heavy rain. Eta is already impacting life in Honduras. Cancellations are said to be coming in ahead of a five-day national vacation aimed at bolstering tourism and bringing some financial help to the pandemic weary economy.  Eta is the eighth Atlantic storm of the hurricane season, which ends November 30. 
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Several executives of a Dominican Republic gas company, including its owner, were arrested Monday in connection with a fire and explosion at the company’s bottling plant in Santiago last month that killed 11 people, including a newborn in a nearby residence.  Several others were injured when a gas leak ignited at the Coopegas liquefied petroleum gas plant on October 3. Prosecutor say the incident involved the mechanical failure of three safety valves intended to prevent the fire.   The Dominican Today newspaper identified the detained executives as Héctor Ramón Vásquez Sandoval, general manager; Aurilio Concepción, president; Roberto Antonio Polanco, operations manager, and Emilio Yan, manager of the affected station.  The paper said the Coopegas executives are accused of negligence and human failure. In another Coopegas matter, a court magistrate allege the company defrauded the government by operating its 20 stations under the rules of a cooperative to avoid paying taxes. 
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Austrian officials said Tuesday the perpetrator of an attack in Vienna, Austria that killed at least three people and wounded 15 others was a sympathizer of the Islamic State terror group. “We experienced an attack last night by at least one Islamist terrorist,” Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told reporters. He said the assailant was armed with an assault rifle and wore a fake suicide vest. Police shot the assailant dead, and Nehammer said a search was ongoing Tuesday to see if anyone else was involved in the attack. “At the moment we can’t rule out that there are still other attackers out there. That’s why we are investigating the environment of the attacker and also all of Vienna in order to make sure whether there was just one perpetrator or two,” he said. After a shooting armed police officers stand on a street at the scene in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 3, 2020.Authorities advised people to stay away from public places and public transport.  Students in Vienna were allowed to miss classes Tuesday. The shootings took place late Monday at six locations in Vienna, hours before a partial lockdown was due to go into effect due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.  The dead included two men and a woman, while a police officer was among the wounded. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described the shootings as a “repulsive terrorist attack.”    He said the attackers had “prepared professionally” and “were very well equipped with automatic weapons.”    Speaking to the Austrian public broadcasting station ORF, Nehammer said all six locations that were attacked were near a central city street that house’s Vienna’s main synagogue.      Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch said on Twitter that it was not clear whether the synagogue and its adjoining offices had been the target of the attack. He said the buildings were closed at the time of the violence.     President Emmanuel Macron of France, which has faced several recent attacks blamed on Muslim extremists, tweeted that the French “share the shock and grief of the Austrian people hit by an attack tonight.”       “This is our Europe,” he said. “Our enemies must know with whom they are dealing. We will not retreat.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed solidarity with neighboring Austria in a statement Tuesday, saying, “The fight against Islamist terrorism is our common struggle.” 
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Nicaragua is bracing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the potentially catastrophic hurricane could make landfall early Tuesday, with winds in excess of 248 kilometers per hour.  Thousands of people on Monday began evacuating Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, where a hurricane warning is posted from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi.  The hurricane is located 75 kilometers east of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.  Forecasters warn of flooding and landslides, especially in central and northern Nicaragua and most of Honduras.  Eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica are also expected to get heavy rain. Eta is already impacting life in Honduras. Cancellations are said to be coming in ahead of a five-day national vacation aimed at bolstering tourism and bringing some financial help to the pandemic weary economy.  Eta is the eighth Atlantic storm of the hurricane season, which ends November 30. 
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Peru’s Congress on Monday approved a motion to initiate a process to remove President Martín Vizcarra from office over corruption allegations, a month and a half after he survived an earlier impeachment trial.Lawmakers approved the measure in a 60-40 vote with 18 abstentions. Vizcarra is set to present his defense before Congress on November 9, with another vote to follow.The move to oust Vizcarra follows media reports that the president allegedly accepted bribes of about 2.3 million soles ($637,000) from two companies that won public works tenders when he was the governor of the southern region of Moquegua. Vizcarra has denied the allegations.Several legislators during the debate said the allegations were serious enough to warrant a trial.”It is the least we should do,” said legislator Diethell Columbus, of the right-wing Popular Force Party of former presidential candidate and Vizcarra political adversary Keiko Fujimori.Peru´s president, who took office in 2018 and is constitutionally barred from seeking a new term, said some lawmakers are seeking only to generate “chaos and disorder” by pushing impeachment just months ahead of a presidential election slated for April 11.”There is absolutely no proof of the charges,” Vizcarra told reporters earlier Monday. “An impeachment trial destabilizes the country.”Vizcarra, who does not have his own party representation in the legislature and whose term ends in July, survived an ouster attempt on September 18 amid political tensions and an economic recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Only 32 of Congress’s 130 members voted to remove him.The political turbulence in copper giant Peru comes as the country surpassed 900,000 coronavirus cases and more than 34,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, with one of the highest fatality rates per capita in the world.
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Britain is set to go into lockdown for a second time Thursday amid a surge in coronavirus infections, with over 20,000 new cases reported daily.  It’s the latest European country to impose strict measures, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell    Producer: Luis da Costa
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Gunmen have opened fire at six locations in Austria’s capital, Vienna, killing at least one person and injuring 15 others in what Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described as a “repulsive terrorist attack.”  Kurz told Austrian broadcaster ORF that several gunmen were still on the loose. Police have cordoned off a large area of central Vienna and are engaged in a hunt for the shooters.   Police said on Twitter Monday evening that residents of Vienna should “KEEP AWAY from all public places or public transport.”   Police said that in addition to one bystander being killed, one of the attackers has been shot dead by police. A police officer is among the injured.   The attack took place shortly after 8 p.m. Monday and came hours before a partial lockdown was due to go into effect due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.   Kurz said, “We are victims of a despicable terror attack in the federal capital that is still ongoing.” He said the attackers had “prepared professionally” and “were very well equipped with automatic weapons.”  Police officers stay in position at stairs named “Theodor Herzl Stiege” near a synagogue after gunshots were heard, in Vienna, November 2, 2020.Speaking to ORF, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said all six locations that were attacked were near a central city street that houses Vienna’s main synagogue.    Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch said on Twitter that it was not clear whether the synagogue and its adjoining offices had been the target of the attack. He said the buildings were closed at the time of the violence.   Unverified videos circulating on social media showed gunmen walking through the streets of Vienna, apparently shooting at people at random.  Interior Minister Nehammer said the army has been tasked with protecting key sites in the capital so that police can focus on pursuing the gunmen.  President Emmanuel Macron of France, which has faced several recent attacks blamed on Muslim extremists, tweeted that the French “share the shock and grief of the Austrian people hit by an attack tonight.”  “This is our Europe,” he said. “Our enemies must know with whom they are dealing. We will not retreat.”   
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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is strengthening in the southern Caribbean and could become a major hurricane soon.
In its most recent report, the National Hurricane Center says Eta is about 265 kilometers east-northeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua and moving west at about 17 kilometers per hour. It has maximum sustained winds of about 150 kilometers per hour, making it a strong Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale by which hurricane strength is measured.
The hurricane center is expecting the storm to rapidly intensify over the next 24 hours, saying the system could become a major Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches Nicaragua early Tuesday.  
The forecasters say the storm’s current track will take in further inland over Central America over the next several days. It is expected to move slowly and could bring 35- to 63 centimeters of rain and life-threatening flash flooding conditions to Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala by the end of the week. Landslides are possible in higher elevations.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying a record set in 2005. That year — as was the case this year — the hurricane center ran out of names in the conventional alphabet and had to resort to the Greek alphabet. This is the first year any storm was named Eta.
The hurricane season ends at the end of November.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says new coronavirus restrictions that took effect Monday were implemented because the country has seen “exponential growth” in cases in recent weeks, and officials are facing an acute emergency in the nation’s hospitals.
Speaking to reporters in Berlin following a Cabinet meeting on the virus Monday, Merkel said the Robert Koch Institute, which monitors public health, reported 12,097 new cases in the country, raising the overall number to 545,027 currently.  
Merkel said the daily rate is triple what the rate was two weeks ago and five times more than in the middle of October. She said the number of intensive care patients has doubled in the last 10 days from 1,030 to 2,061. The chancellor said the new measures reflect an effort to reduce contact among people to slow the spread of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.
The new lockdown includes the closing of restaurants, gyms and theaters. Merkel said the lockdown’s success will not be determined by the regulations but by how well they are followed. She said if people follow the rules, and the lockdown measures reduce the spread of infections over the month of November, the more freedoms they might have in December during the Christmas holiday.
Merkel said there will still be restrictions but added, “It’s going to be a Christmas under coronavirus conditions, but it shouldn’t be a lonely Christmas.”
A reporter asked Merkel how important it was for U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration to listen to the science when it comes to the pandemic. She refused to answer, given that it was the day before the U.S. presidential election; but, she added that given her own training as a physicist, “I, of course, value scientific advice highly and follow it.” 
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Former National Security Agency contractor-turned whistleblower Edward Snowden says he and his wife will apply for Russian citizenship, in addition to their current status as American citizens.  The request marks the latest chapter in Edward Snowden’s often secretive life in Russia, as Charles Maynes reports from Moscow.Videographer: Ricardo Marquina, Producer: Marcus Harton
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The Vatican says Pope Francis’ comments on gay civil unions were taken out of context in a documentary that spliced together parts of an old interview, but still confirmed Francis’ belief that gay couples should enjoy legal protections.  
 
The Vatican secretariat of state issued guidance to ambassadors to explain the uproar that Francis’ comments created following the Oct. 21 premiere of the film “Francesco,” at the Rome Film Festival. The Vatican nuncio to Mexico, Archbishop Franco Coppola, posted the unsigned guidance on his Facebook page Sunday.  
 
In it, the Vatican confirmed that Francis was referring to his position in 2010 when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and strongly opposed moves to allow same-sex marriage. Instead, he favored extending legal protections to gay couples under what is understood in Argentina as a civil union law.  
 
While Francis was known to have taken that position privately, he had never articulated his support while as pope. As a result, the comments made headlines, primarily because the Vatican’s doctrine office in 2003 issued a document prohibiting such endorsement. The document, signed by Francis’ predecessor as pope, says the church’s support for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
 
The recent uproar gained even more attention because it turned out director Evgeny Afineevsky misled journalists by claiming Francis had made the comments to him in a new interview. A week before the premiere, when he was asked about the civil union comments, Afineevsky told The Associated Press that he had two on-camera interviews with the pope. In comments to journalists after the premiere, he claimed that the civil union footage came from an interview with the pope with a translator present.  
 
It turned out, Francis’ comments were taken from a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa that were never broadcast. The Vatican hasn’t confirmed or denied reports by sources in Mexico that the Vatican cut the quote from the footage it provided to Televisa after the interview, which was filmed with Vatican cameras.  
 
Afineevsky apparently was given access to the original, uncut footage in the Vatican archives.  
 
The guidance issued by the secretariat of state doesn’t address the issue of the cut quote or the fact that it came from the Televisa interview. It says only that it was from a 2019 interview and that the comments used in the documentary spliced together parts of two different responses in a way that removed crucial context.  
 
“More than a year ago, during an interview, Pope Francis answered two different questions at two different times that, in the aforementioned documentary, were edited and published as a single answer without proper contextualization, which has led to confusion,” said the guidance posted by Coppola.  
 
In the film, Afineevsky recounts the story of Andrea Rubera, a married gay Catholic who wrote Francis asking for his advice about bringing into the church his three young children with his husband.  
 
It was an anguished question, given that the Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The church also holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman, and as a result, gay marriage is unacceptable.  
 
In the end, Rubera recounts how Francis urged him to approach his parish transparently and bring the children up in the faith, which he did. After the anecdote ends, the film cuts to Francis’ comments from the Televisa interview.  
 
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”  
 
Francis’ comments about gays having the right to be in a family referred to parents with gay children, and the need for them to not kick their children out or discriminate against them, the Vatican guidance said.  
 
Francis was not endorsing the right of gay couples to adopt children, even though the placement of the quote right after Rubera told his story made it seem that Francis was.  
 
The pope’s comments about gay civil unions came from a different part of the Televisa interview and included several caveats that were not included in the film.  
 
In the Televisa interview, Francis made clear he was explaining his position about the unique case in Buenos Aires 10 years ago, as opposed to Rubera’s situation or gay marriage as a whole.  
 
In the Televisa interview, Francis also insisted that he always maintained Catholic doctrine and said there was an “incongruenza” for the Catholic Church as far as “homosexual marriage” is concerned.  
 
The documentary eliminated that context.
 
The Televisa footage is available online, and includes an awkward cut right after Francis spoke about the “incongruity” of homosexual marriage. Presumably, that is where he segued into his position as archbishop in favoring extending legal protections to gay couples.  
Neither the Vatican nor Afineevsky have responded to repeated questions about the cut quote or its origin. Francis is known to hunker down in silence when controversy mounts.
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Belarus’s human rights record is in the spotlight as the U.N. Human Rights Council begins its Universal Periodic Review of nations’ rights records. Belarus has come under intense criticism for its crackdown on demonstrators who have challenged the outcome of last August’s presidential elections.This is the third time since the review process began in 2008 that Belarus’s human rights record has come under scrutiny. The meeting was aimed at taking stock of developments that have occurred in the country since the previous reviews.  The head of the Belarus delegation was unable to prevent nations attending the meeting from fixating on the violent events, which followed August’s allegedly rigged presidential elections.  Belarus’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Yuri Ambrazevich, said his government has spoken publicly on this subject several times. The ambassador spoke through an interpreter.“In that connection, I would like to appeal to all participants today not to turn the UPR on Belarus only into a discussion of the post-election events…Belarus wishes, has the will and has the necessary instruments itself peacefully to restore civility in society on the basis of a balance of interests of our society as a whole,” said  Ambrazevich.Belarus Police Fire Warning Shots, Detain ProtestersPolice in Belarus fired warning shots into the air and detained protesters in Minsk, Sunday November 1. The United Nations reports more than 10,000 people have been arrested, thousands severely beaten, and hundreds tortured by state agents.Ambassador Ambrazevich tried to turn the focus of the debate onto the improvements being made in all areas of public life. He cited progress in gender equality, in the protection of vulnerable people, of the disabled and special provisions to help mothers and their children. Ambrazevich touted his country’s public health system, saying it provided free medical care for all. Countries nevertheless were not dissuaded from expressing concerns about Belarus’s repression of peaceful demonstrators and what those nations cited as ongoing violations of human rights.  The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Andrew Bremberg, called the August 9 presidential elections fraudulent. He denounced the ongoing use of violence, intimidation and repression of the Belarusian people.“The United States recommends that Belarus: One, immediately cease its brutal crackdown against the Belarusian people, including threats to use lethal force against peaceful protesters and employment of severe abuses against detainees, and hold those responsible accountable,” said Bremerg. “Two, immediately release all political prisoners and those detained for participation in election-related protests.”   Besides its detractors, Belarus also had a number of supporters. Countries such as China, Syria and Venezuela praised what they said was Belarus’s promotion and protection of human rights. Those countries applauded what they said were the political rights and democratic freedoms enjoyed by its people.  They condemned efforts to destabilize the country and told the international community to stop interfering in the internal affairs of Belarus in the name of human rights.
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Rescue teams in Turkey pulled two girls out alive Monday from under the rubble of their collapsed apartment buildings, three days after a strong earthquake centered in the Aegean Sea rocked Turkey and Greece.Fourteen-year-old Idil Sirin was removed from the wreckage after being trapped for some 58 hours.Seven hours later, rescuers pulled out 3-year-old Elif Perincek, whose mother and two sisters had been rescued two days earlier. At Least 51 Dead in Turkey, Greek Islands EarthquakeHundreds injured, buildings destroyed and collapsedThe child, who spent 65 hours in the wreckage of her collapsed apartment, became the 106th person rescued alive, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.At least 80 people have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured by the earthquake that toppled buildings in the Turkish city of İzmir and created sea surges on at least two Greek islands, where two school children lost their lives.The U.S. Geological Survey rated the earthquake 7.0, while Istanbul’s Kandilli Institute and Turkey’s emergency management agency gave 6.9 and 6.6 measures respectively.The deadly earthquake originated from a 250-kilometer fault line off the coast of the Greek island of Samos, streaming across the Aegean Sea that divides Turkey and Greece. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.
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