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Concerns are growing over the reach of the national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong as Britain warned several of its citizens that they could face arrest and extradition to the former British colony. 

China passed the national security law in June 2020 in response to months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong. Beijing claimed the law was necessary to restore order to the territory and, in its words, “protect people’s rights.” Critics say the law curtails basic democratic freedoms and is aimed at suppressing political opposition. Over 140 people have been arrested under the legislation since it was introduced, including opposition lawmakers, activists, journalists and media executives.

 

Among those arrested was opposition activist Andy Li, who was charged with foreign collusion in 2020 after allegedly lobbying foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

Several British citizens were named in the court papers relating to Li’s case. Earlier this month, the British government contacted them to warn they could face arrest and extradition to Hong Kong if they traveled to any country that had an extradition agreement with the Chinese territory.

U.S.-born British citizen Bill Browder was among at least five people contacted by the British Foreign Office. He has successfully campaigned in several countries for Magnitsky sanctions against human rights abusers, named after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian jail in 2009.

Browder told VOA Monday that his involvement stemmed from that lobbying. “Specifically, my name was mentioned because I was having discussions with various people about Magnitsky sanctions against the Hong Kong officials who were involved in this suppression of democracy,” he said. “After alerting me to my name being in the document, the (British) Foreign Office officials pointed out to me that the Chinese national security law doesn’t just apply domestically to residents of Hong Kong; it applies to anyone, anywhere in the world. And I guess the point of their reach out was to alert me to that fact and to the possibility that I may be subject to some type of persecution myself from the Chinese authorities for being involved in these discussions.”

Browder has already faced several attempts by Russia to have him arrested and extradited on fraud charges through Interpol, the global agency that communicates arrest warrants between police forces. Browder says those charges are clearly politically motivated, but he is, nevertheless, limited as to where he can travel.

“I basically contain my travel to what I describe as ‘rule of law’ countries. So, for example, I won’t travel to South Africa, even though I actually own a home in South Africa, because it’s not really considered to be a rule of law country, whereas I would travel to Germany regardless of what treaties they have because I know that a court will not hand me over to Russians or Chinese on politically motivated cases,” Browder said.

China has not commented on the British government’s warnings. More than a dozen countries have extradition agreements with Hong Kong, including India, South Africa and Portugal. Several countries, however, tore up their extradition treaties with Hong Kong following the introduction of the national security law. These include Britain, the United States, Australia, Germany and France.

 

British pro-democracy activist Luke de Pulford, who had also been named in the Hong Kong court papers relating to the prosecution of Andy Li, was approached by the British Foreign Office last week. He told VOA that Britain should stand up to Beijing.

“It’s a really sad indictment and reflection on the U.K.’s cowering before China. We’re now in a situation that having failed to honor their promises to the people of Hong Kong, the U.K. is telling people that they can’t go to third countries because they might end up in prison. They might be extradited to China,” de Pulford recently told VOA.

Under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration signed between Britain and China before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, Beijing promised to maintain the territory’s autonomy under the so-called Basic Law and the principle of “one country, two systems.”

In a statement, the British government told VOA: “The UK will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people. As a co-signatory to the Joint Declaration, we will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, to call out the violation of their freedoms, and to hold China to their international obligations.”
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Concern is growing over the reach of China’s so-called national security law that it recently imposed on Hong Kong. Britain warned several of its citizens that they could face arrest and extradition to the former British colony. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. 

Camera: Henry Ridgwell

 
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A magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocked the Greek island of Crete Monday morning, leaving at least one person dead and several injured.

Across the island, people were reportedly seen running out of buildings and homes, while many older buildings suffered damage.

“The earthquake was strong and was long in duration,” Heraklion Mayor Vassilis Lambrinos told private Antenna television.

Greek authorities dispatched civil engineers around the island to assess damage.

“We are urging people who live in damaged older buildings to remain outdoors. One aftershock can cause a collapse,” seismologist Efthimios Lekkas, who heads Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, told The Associated Press. “We are talking about structures built before 1970. Structures built after 1985 are built to a higher standard that can withstand the effect of an earthquake.”

Crete is a popular tourist destination, and according to reports, the quake did not disrupt international flights to Heraklion, nor did it cause serious damage to hotels.

The only known fatality was in the town of Arkalochori, which is about 30 kilometers outside of Heraklion. A man was reportedly working on the renovation of a chapel when the dome caved in.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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A Canary Islands volcano that has been erupting for over a week fell silent Monday as coastal residents were confined over toxic gas fears when the lava hits the sea.

La Cumbre Vieja, which straddles a southern ridge in La Palma in the Atlantic archipelago, erupted on September 19, spewing out rivers of lava which have slowly crept towards the sea.

But on Monday morning, there was no lava and ash emerging, with the week-long rumble of the eruption fading to silence, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. 

It was not immediately clear whether the eruption had stopped completely or merely paused, as smoke was still emerging from the top. 

“Volcanic activity in La Palma has reduced significantly in the last few hours. We must be very vigilant about how it evolves because the scenario can change quickly,” Madrid’s Institute of Geosciences tweeted. 

“It seems the volcano has entered a phase of decreased activity. We will see how it evolves in the coming hours.”

And the Involcan volcanology institute gave a similar assessment.

“In the last hours, the volcanic tremor has almost disappeared, as well as the… explosive activity,” it tweeted.

Contacted by AFP, Involcan was unable to say whether the eruption had finished or just paused, with a spokesman saying its experts were “evaluating the different scenarios”. 

Overnight, the inhabitants of several coastal areas were ordered to stay at home to avoid harm from the release of toxic gases when the lava finally reaches the sea, a process which has been much slower than initially expected. 

When the molten lava enters the ocean, experts warn it will send clouds of toxic gas into the air, as well as explosions and a fragmentation of the lava, which shoots outwards like bullets. 

The authorities have set up a no-go zone to head off curious onlookers.
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Preliminary results Monday showed Germany’s center-left Social Democrats winning the largest share of the vote in national parliamentary elections as parties battle to see who will succeed outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

The Social Democrats received 25.7% of the vote Sunday, followed by 24.1% for Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union. 

State Governor Armin Laschet of the conservative CDU bloc and outgoing Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats are vying to become the leader of Europe’s biggest national economy as Merkel steps down after 16 years as chancellor.

 

Each said they would be reaching out to smaller parties to try to form a governing coalition with a goal of having a new government in place before the end of the year. 

The top targets for support will be the environmentalist Green party, which finished third with 14.8%, and the pro-business Free Democrats who finished fourth with 11.5%. 

Merkel will remain in office on a caretaker basis until her successor is chosen.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Agence France Presse. 

 
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Iceland briefly celebrated electing a female-majority parliament Sunday, before a recount produced a result just short of that landmark for gender parity in the North Atlantic island nation.

The initial vote count had female candidates winning 33 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament, the Althing, in an election that saw centrist parties make the biggest gains.

Hours later, a recount in western Iceland changed the outcome, leaving female candidates with 30 seats, a tally previously reached at Iceland’s second most recent election, in 2016. Still, at almost 48% of the total, that is the highest percentage for women lawmakers in Europe.

Only a handful of countries, none of them in Europe, have a majority of female lawmakers. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Rwanda leads the world with women making up 61% of its Chamber of Deputies, with Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico at or just over the 50% mark. Worldwide, the organization says just over a quarter of legislators are women.

“The female victory remains the big story of these elections,” politics professor Olafur Hardarson told broadcaster RUV after the recount.

Iceland’s voting system is divided into six regions and the recount in western Iceland was held after questions about the number of ballots cast. The mistakes have not been entirely explained but are thought to be the result of human error.

The three parties in the outgoing coalition government led by Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir won a total of 37 seats in Saturday’s vote, two more than in the last election, and appeared likely to continue in power.

Opinion polls had suggested a victory for left-leaning parties in the unpredictable election, which saw 10 parties competing for seats. But the center-right Independence Party took the largest share of votes, winning 16 seats, seven of them held by women. The centrist Progressive Party celebrated the biggest gain, winning 13 seats, five more than last time.

Before the election, the two parties formed Iceland’s three-party coalition government, together with Jakobsdottir’s Left Green Party. Her party lost several seats, but kept eight, outscoring poll predictions.  

The three ruling parties haven’t announced whether they will work together for another term but given the strong support from voters it appears likely. It will take days, if not weeks, for a new government to be formed and announced.  

Climate change had ranked high on the election agenda in Iceland, a glacier-studded volcanic island nation of about 350,000 people in the North Atlantic. An exceptionally warm summer by Icelandic standards — with 59 days of temperatures above 20 C (68 F) — and shrinking glaciers have helped drive global warming up the political agenda.

But that didn’t appear to have translated into increased support for any of the four left-leaning parties that campaigned to cut carbon emissions by more than Iceland is committed to under the Paris Climate Agreement.
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Switzerland voted by a wide margin to allow same-sex couples to marry in a referendum on Sunday, bringing the Alpine nation into line with many others in western Europe.

Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1% of voters in favor and won a majority in all of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, or states.  

Switzerland’s parliament and the governing Federal Council supported the “Marriage for All” measure. Switzerland has authorized same-sex civil partnerships since 2007.  

Supporters said passage would put same-sex partners on equal legal footing with heterosexual couples by allowing them to adopt children together and facilitating citizenship for same-sex spouses. It would also permit lesbian couples to utilize regulated sperm donation.  

Opponents believe that replacing civil partnerships with full marriage rights would undermine families based on a union between one man and one woman.

At a polling station in Geneva on Sunday, voter Anna Leimgruber said she cast her ballot for the “no” camp because she believed “children would need to have a dad and a mom.”

But Nicolas Dzierlatka, who voted “yes,” said what children need is love.  

“I think what’s important for children is that they are loved and respected — and I think there are children who are not respected or loved in so-called ‘hetero’ couples,” he said.

The campaign has been rife with allegations of unfair tactics, with the opposing sides decrying the ripping down of posters, LGBT hotlines getting flooded with complaints, hostile emails, shouted insults against campaigners and efforts to silence opposing views.  

Switzerland, which has a population of 8.5 million, is traditionally conservative and only extended the right to vote to all its women in 1990.

Most countries in western Europe already recognize same-sex marriage, while most of those in central and eastern Europe don’t allow wedlock involving two men or two women.

Supporters say it could still be months before same-sex couples can get married, mainly because of administrative and legislative procedures.  

Also on Sunday, voters dismissed a proposal spearheaded by left-wing groups to raise taxes on returns from investments and capital such as dividends or income from rental properties in Switzerland as a way to ensure better redistribution and fairer taxation.

Results showed 64.9% voting against it in a country known for its vibrant financial sector and relatively low taxes, and as a haven for many of the world’s richest people. No canton voted in favor.
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The EU and U.S. will this week embark on a tricky effort to deepen ties on tech regulation, but with France resisting the project in the wake of a falling out with Washington over a submarine deal.

High-level talks will begin in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday despite efforts by Paris to delay the meeting in retaliation for a pact among the U.S., Australia and Britain, dubbed AUKUS, that saw Canberra scrap a multibillion-dollar submarine order from France.

The EU-U.S. Trade and Tech Council was set up after a summit in June to look at issues including trying to attune their strategies on regulating internet giants and defend democratic values.  

The council came at the request of the Europeans, who are seeking concrete signs of increased transatlantic cooperation after years of tension under former President Donald Trump, especially over trade.

President Joe Biden’s administration will be represented by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

On the European side, EU executive vice presidents Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis will lead talks.

Vestager, the EU’s tech policy expert, said the talks would attempt to enhance cooperation “in the areas where there is a shared sense of values being two big, old democracies.”

Unspoken in her comments was the rise of China, with Washington understood to be pressing its EU partners to join forces in isolating Beijing on the global stage.

This is being resisted in Europe, where powerful member states France and Germany are reluctant to blindly follow Washington’s increasing assertiveness.

“European officials want to avoid the TTC simply becoming an unproductive exercise at China-bashing,” said former EU trade boss Cecilia Malmstrom and analyst Chad Bown in a paper for the Peterson Institute in Washington.  

The talks in Pittsburgh, a rust-belt city that has grown into a tech hub, are the first installment of the Trade and Tech Council, with another round expected in the spring, Vestager said.

EU diplomats said France sharply criticized the talks at a meeting on Friday, reminding member states that previous attempts to deepen trade ties with Washington led nowhere.

‘No place in a democracy’

Dombrovskis, who is also the EU’s trade commissioner, cautioned that the new effort was not an attempt to clinch a trade deal, with memories still fresh of the failed attempt to strike an ambitious accord during the Obama administration.

The European Commission, which handles trade policy for the EU’s 27 member states, also failed to finalize a smaller scale deal with former U.S. President Donald Trump, beyond a zero-tariff pact on lobsters.

“It’s not like a free trade agreement,” the former Latvian prime minister told reporters. “It’s more about long-term benefits.”  

Dombrovskis pointed to potential cooperation on banning unwanted foreign investments or tackling supply chain problems, such as with microchips.

The talks will be broken into 10 working groups on a wide range of issues, with Vestager looking to find common ground on how to curb Big Brother, such as in preventing excesses in artificial intelligence.

“We do not find that these practices should have a home in a democracy,” she said. “I have a strong feeling that this is something that is really shared with the Americans.”

The talks will take place while both sides remain at loggerheads over the steel and aluminum tariffs that were imposed by Trump, but which Biden has yet to remove.

On the tariffs, Dombrovskis said, “We are engaging very seriously with the U.S., and we are mindful also (of the) timelines, that by December 1, this issue should be solved.”
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In a first in Europe, women hold more than half of the seats in Iceland’s new parliament, final election results showed Sunday.

Of the 63 seats in the Althing, 33 were won by women, or 52 percent, according to projections based on the final results.

No other European country has had more than 50 percent women lawmakers, with Sweden coming closest at 47 percent, according to data compiled by the World Bank.

Five other countries in the world currently have parliaments where women hold at least half the seats, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union: Rwanda (61 percent), Cuba (53 percent), Nicaragua (51 percent) and Mexico and the United Arab Emirates (50 percent).

Unlike some other countries, Iceland does not have legal quotas on female representation in parliament, though some parties do require a minimum number of candidates be women.

Iceland has long been a pioneer in gender equality and women’s rights, and has topped the World Economic Forum’s ranking of most egalitarian countries for the past 12 years.

It offers the same parental leave to both men and women, and its first law on equal pay for men and women dates back to 1961.

Iceland was the first country to elect a woman as president in 1980, and since 2018 it has had a pioneering gender-equal pay law that puts the onus on employers to prove they are paying the same wages to men and women.

Saturday’s election saw the left-right coalition government widen its majority.

However, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir’s Left Green Movement emerged weakened while her right-wing partners posted strong scores, casting doubt over her future as prime minister.
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A contentious campaign comes to a head Sunday as Swiss voters go to the polls to decide on whether same-sex marriage should be allowed.

Earlier this month, thousands of people attended a high-spirited Pride parade in Zurich to support the legalization of same-sex marriage. They held up posters touting “Marriage for All” campaign slogans. They called for passage of the referendum that would grant gay and lesbian partners the same rights as heterosexual couples.

All Western European countries except Switzerland and Italy allow same-sex marriage. Germany and Austria were the last countries to approve such legislation in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Swiss campaigners believe this will improve chances of passing the referendum in this dominantly German-speaking country.

Opinion polls seem to uphold this view. While the gap between the yes and no campaigns has narrowed recently, the polls indicate more than 60% of the electorate support the proposal. The head of the Marriage for all Campaign, Olga Baranova, said she is confident of victory.

“Switzerland is quite a conservative country; we cannot forget it.But we have to say that for the last 20 years, people in Switzerland changed their mind completely on LGBT issues.So now people in Switzerland are ready for the same-sex marriage,” she said.

The Swiss government has endorsed the Marriage for All referendum. However, churches and right-wing political parties in this conservative, rich Alpine country oppose it. They claim legalizing same-sex marriage would undermine traditional family values.

If the proposal becomes law, lesbian and gay couples could adopt children, something they cannot legally do now. It also would grant easier access to sperm donations to lesbian couples who would want to start a family.Opponents say this would deny children their right to a father, as the identity of the sperm donor could not be revealed until the child reaches the age of 18.

Opponents vow they will not abandon this issue if the same-sex referendum passes. They note only 50,000 signatures of Swiss citizens are needed to get any matter on the ballot, in this highly democratized country.
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Germany’s 60 million eligible voters will set their country on a new course in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

The winning lawmakers will decide who will replace the country’s outgoing and popular chancellor, Angela Merkle.

The newly elected politicians will likely have to form a coalition government, meaning it may take some weeks before Merkle’s replacement is announced.

Merkle, the driving force behind Germany’s position as Europe’s leading economy, is stepping down after 16 years in Germany’s top job, in a government led by Merkle’s center-right Christian Democratic Union.

Merkle has been reluctant to throw her support behind any of the leaders of the various political parties who are vying for her job, including her vice chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party.

On Saturday, however, the German leader attended a rally for Armin Laschet, leader of the Christian Democrats.

 
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Iceland’s government was poised to win a majority in Saturday’s election, early results showed, though it remained to be seen if Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir’s left-right coalition would agree to continue in power together.

The three-party coalition has brought Iceland four years of stability after a decade of crises.

Jakobsdottir’s Left-Green Movement, the conservative Independence Party and the center-right Progressive Party were together credited with 38 of 63 seats in parliament, with more than a third of votes counted.

But the Left-Green Movement was seen losing crucial ground to its right-wing partners, putting Jakobsdottir’s future as prime minister — and the coalition itself — in doubt.

“We will have to see how the governmental parties are doing together and how we are doing,” Jakobsdottir told AFP, as the early results showed her party losing one seat in parliament from the 11 it won in 2017.

A clear picture of the political landscape was however only expected to emerge later Sunday when all votes had been counted.

A record nine parties are expected to win seats in the Althing, Iceland’s almost 1,100-year-old parliament, splintering the political landscape more than ever before.

That makes it particularly tricky to predict which parties could ultimately end up forming a coalition.

“I know that the results will be complicated, it will be complicated to form a new government,” Jakobsdottir said.

The largest party looked set to remain the Independence Party, whose leader Bjarni Benediktsson is eyeing the post of prime minister.

It was seen holding on to its 16 seats.

But the election’s big winner appeared to be the center-right Progressive Party, which was seen gaining four seats, to 12.

‘Different opportunities’

“Because there are so many parties, I think there will be a lot of different opportunities to form a government,” Jakobsdottir told AFP earlier in the week.

During her four-year term, Jakobsdottir has introduced a progressive income tax system, increased the social housing budget and extended parental leave for both parents.

Broadly popular, she has also been hailed for her handling of the COVID-19 crisis, with just 33 deaths in the country of 370,000.

But she has also had to make concessions to keep the peace in her coalition.

She said Saturday that if returned to power, her party would focus on the “huge challenges we face to build the economy in a more green and sustainable way,” as well addressing the climate crisis where “we need to do radical things.”

This is only the second time since 2008 that a government has made it to the end of its four-year mandate on the sprawling island.

Deep public distrust of politicians amid repeated scandals sent Icelanders to the polls five times from 2007 to 2017.

‘Free-for-all’

Outgoing Finance Minister Benediktsson is a former prime minister who comes from a family that has long held power on the right.

He has survived several political scandals, including being implicated in the 2016 Panama Papers leak that revealed offshore tax havens, and is standing in his fifth election.

He said he was optimistic after the early results.

“These numbers are good, (it’s a) good start to the evening,” he told public broadcaster RUV.

But there are five other parties all expected to garner around 10-15% of votes which could band together to form various coalitions.

They are the Left-Green Movement, the Progressive Party, the Social Democratic Alliance, the libertarian Pirate Party and the center-right Reform Party. A new Socialist Party is also expected to put in a strong showing.

“There is not a clear alternative to this government. If it falls and they can’t continue, then it’s just a free-for-all to create a new coalition,” political scientist Eirikur Bergmann said. 
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Britain will issue up to 10,500 temporary work visas to truck drivers and poultry workers to ease chronic staff shortages, the government announced Saturday, in a U-turn on post-Brexit immigration policy.

The short-term visas, to run from next month until late December, come as ministers try to fix a shortfall of drivers and other key workers that has hit fuel supplies and additional industries.

A shortage of tanker drivers has caused long lines at gas stations in recent days, as people ignore government pleas not to panic-buy fuel after some stations closed thanks to the lack of deliveries.

The decision to expand the critical worker visa scheme is a reversal by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government had tightened post-Brexit immigration rules insisting that Britain’s reliance on foreign labor must end.

The government had resisted the move for months, despite an estimated shortage of around 100,000 heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers and warnings from various sectors that supplies would run short.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps nevertheless insisted he was taking action “at the earliest opportunity” and that a broader package of measures announced would ensure pre-Christmas preparations “remain on track.”

“The industries must also play their part with working conditions continuing to improve and the deserved salary increases continuing to be maintained in order for companies to retain new drivers,” he added.

‘Skills boot camps’

The new measures will focus on rapidly expanding the number of new domestic drivers, and include deploying Ministry of Defense driving examiners to help provide thousands of extra tests over the next 12 weeks.

Meanwhile the education ministry and partner agencies will spend millions of pounds training 4,000 people to become HGV drivers, creating new “skills boot camps” to speed up the process.

Nearly 1 million letters will also be sent to all drivers who hold an HGV license, asking any not currently driving to come back to work.

Johnson has been under increasing pressure to act, after the pandemic and Brexit combined to worsen the driver shortage and other crises emerged, including escalating energy prices.

As well as threatening timely fuel supplies, the lack of truck drivers has hit British factories, restaurants and supermarkets in recent weeks and months.

U.S. burger chain McDonald’s ran out of milkshakes and bottled drinks last month, fast-food giant KFC was forced to remove some items from its menu, while restaurant chain Nando’s temporarily shut dozens of outlets because of a lack of chicken.

Supermarkets are also feeling the heat, with frozen-food group Iceland and retail king Tesco warning of Christmas product shortages.

‘It’s ridiculous’

This week it was the turn of the fuel sector, with growing lines of cars clogging the approaches to gas stations following some closures and panic-buying, particularly in southeast England.

Drivers appeared less than reassured Saturday, as lines again formed for fuel.

Mike Davey, 56, had been waiting more than half an hour to fill up at a station run by the supermarket chain Tesco in Kent, southeast of London.

“I just want to get some fuel to get to work. People are just like filling up jerry cans — it’s ridiculous,” he told AFP.

“Maybe they need to bring some army drivers in,” Davey added.

The government has so far resisted calls to deploy soldiers to help deliver gasoline directly.

As part of the measures announced, taxpayers will also help pay for some adult HGV license applications in the next academic year, which can cost thousands of pounds, through an adult education budget fund. 
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Thousands of people demonstrated in cities across Italy on Saturday to support Afghan women and demand continued international pressure on the country’s Taliban leaders to let women participate in the educational and political life of the country. 

Among the groups organizing the protests were members of the Pangea Foundation, which had worked for 20 years on economic development projects for Afghan women before finding itself helping to evacuate them when the Taliban took over.

At the protest Saturday, Pangea supporters had a “P” drawn on their hands. It was the same “P” that Afghan women wrote on their hands to be recognized at the Kabul airport and evacuated during the chaotic weeks as Western nations ended their military missions. 

“We must continue to put pressure so that women can participate not only in education but also in the politics of their country,” Simona Lanzoni, vice president of Pangea, said during the Rome protest. “And then we must continue perhaps the humanitarian evacuations in a specific way, thinking first of all of those women who were not able to enter the airport in August but today are really risking in Afghanistan.”

The event with the slogan “#Nonlasciamolesole (“Let’s not abandon them”) brought thousands out in several Italian cities, where speakers called for a permanent observatory on women’s rights in Afghanistan at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the United Nations.
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Icelanders were voting Saturday in a general election dominated by climate change, with an unprecedented number of political parties likely to win parliamentary seats.

 

Polls suggested there wouldn’t be an outright winner, triggering complex negotiations to build a coalition government.

 

A record nine parties could cross the 5% threshold needed to qualify for seats in Iceland’s parliament, the Althing. Upstart parties include the Socialist Party, which is promising to shorten the workweek and nationalize Iceland’s fishing industry. 

 

High turnout was expected, as one-fifth of eligible voters have already cast absentee ballots.

 

Climate change is high among voters’ concerns in Iceland, a glacier-studded volcanic island nation of about 350,000 people in the North Atlantic. 

 

An exceptionally warm summer by Icelandic standards — 59 days of temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius (68 F) — and shrinking glaciers have helped drive global warming up the political agenda.  

Polls showed strong support for left-leaning parties promising to cut carbon emissions by more than Iceland is already committed to under the Paris climate agreement. The country has pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2040, a decade ahead of most other European nations. 

 

The current government is a coalition of three parties spanning the political spectrum from left to center-right, and led by Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of the Left Green Party. It was formed in 2017 after years of political instability. 

 

Jakobsdottir remains a popular prime minister, but polls suggest her party could fare poorly, ending the ongoing coalition. 

 

“The country is facing big decisions as we turn from the pandemic,” Jakobsdottir said during televised debates on Friday night in which party leaders vowed to end Iceland’s reliance on oil and many wanted to raise taxes on the rich. 
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Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans Saturday to give her would-be successor Armin Laschet their vote to shape Germany’s future, in a last-ditch push to shore up his beleaguered campaign 24 hours before Germans vote.

 

Laschet, 60, has been trailing his Social Democrat challenger Olaf Scholz in the race for the chancellery, although final polls put the gap between them within the margin of error, making the vote one of the most unpredictable in recent years.

 

Merkel had planned to keep a low profile in the election battle as she prepares to bow out of politics after 16 years in power. But she has found herself dragged into the frantic campaign schedule of the unpopular chairman of her party, Laschet.

 

In the last week of the campaign, Merkel took Laschet to her constituency by the Baltic coast and on Friday headlined the closing rally gathering the conservatives’ bigwigs in Munich.

 

Merkel tugged at the heartstrings of Germany’s predominantly older electorate on Friday, calling on them to keep her conservatives in power for the sake of stability — a trademark of Germany.

 

“To keep Germany stable, Armin Laschet must become chancellor, and the CDU and CSU must be the strongest force,” she said.

 

A day before the vote, she travelled to Laschet’s hometown and constituency Aachen, a spa city near Germany’s western border with Belgium and the Netherlands, where he was born and still lives.

 

“It is about your future, the future of your children and the future of your parents,” she said at her last rally before the polls, urging strong mobilization for her conservative alliance.

 

She underlined that climate protection will be a key challenge of the next government  but said this would not be achieved “simply through rules and regulations”.

 

“For that we need new technological developments, new procedures, researchers, interested people who think about how that can be done, and people who participate,” she said.  

 

Laschet is a “bridge-builder who will get people on board” in shaping Germany to meet those challenges, she said.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people had descended on the streets on Friday urging change and greater climate protection, with a leading activist calling Sunday’s election the vote “of a century”.

 

‘Could backfire’

   

With the clock ticking down to the election, Scholz was also staying close to home at the other end of the country to chase down last votes.

 

Taking questions from voters in his constituency of Potsdam — a city on the outskirts of Berlin famous for its palaces that once housed Prussian kings — Scholz said he was fighting for “a major change in this country, a new government” led by him.  

 

He also gave a glimpse of the future government he hopes to lead, saying that “perhaps it may be enough to, for instance, form a government between the SPD and the Greens”.

 

Scholz, currently finance minister in Merkel’s coalition government, has avoided making mistakes on the campaign trail, and largely won backing as he sold himself as the “continuity candidate” after Merkel in place of Laschet.

 

Described as capable but boring, Scholz has consistently beaten Laschet by wide margins when it comes to popularity.

 

As election day loomed, Laschet’s conservatives were closing the gap, with one poll even putting them just one percentage point behind the SPD’s 26 percent.

 

Laschet went into the race for the chancellery badly bruised by a tough battle for the conservatives’ chancellor candidate nomination.

 

Nevertheless, his party enjoyed a substantial lead ahead of the SPD heading into the summer.

 

But Laschet was seen chuckling behind President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as he paid tribute to victims of deadly floods in July, an image that would drastically turn the mood against him and his party.

 

As polls showed the lead widening for the SPD, the conservatives turned to their greatest asset — the still widely popular Merkel.

 

Yet roping in the chancellor is not without risks, said political analyst Oskar Niedermayer of Berlin’s Free University.

 

“Merkel is still the most well-liked politician. But the joint appearances can become a problem for Laschet because they are then immediately being compared to each other,” he said.

 

“And it could therefore backfire because people could then think that Merkel is more suitable than Laschet.”

 

 
…

Fatima Alzahra Shon thinks neighbors attacked her and her son in their Istanbul apartment building because she is Syrian.  

 

The 32-year-old refugee from Aleppo was confronted on Sept. 1 by a Turkish woman who asked her what she was doing in “our” country. Shon replied, “Who are you to say that to me?” The situation quickly escalated.

 

A man came out of the Turkish woman’s apartment half-dressed, threatening to cut Shon and her family “into pieces,” she recalled. Another neighbor, a woman, joined in, shouting and hitting Shon. The group then pushed her down a flight of stairs. Shon said that when her 10-year-old son, Amr, tried to intervene, he was beaten as well.

Shon said she has no doubt about the motivation for the aggression: “Racism.”

 

Refugees fleeing the long conflict in Syria once were welcomed in neighboring Turkey with open arms, sympathy and compassion for fellow Muslims. But attitudes gradually hardened as the number of newcomers swelled over the past decade.

 

Anti-immigrant sentiment is now nearing a boiling point, fueled by Turkey’s economic woes. With unemployment high and the prices of food and housing skyrocketing, many Turks have turned their frustration toward the country’s roughly 5 million foreign residents, particularly the 3.7 million who fled the civil war in Syria.

 

In August, violence erupted in Ankara, the Turkish capital, as an angry mob vandalized Syrian businesses and homes in response to the deadly stabbing of a Turkish teenager.

 

Turkey hosts the world’s largest refugee population, and many experts say that has come at a cost. Selim Sazak, a visiting international security researcher at Bilkent University in Ankara and an advisor to officials from the opposition IYI Party, compared the arrival of so many refugees to absorbing “a foreign state that’s ethnically, culturally, linguistically dissimilar.”  

 

“Everyone thought that it would be temporary,” Sazak said. “I think it’s only recently that the Turkish population understood that these people are not going back. They are only recently understanding that they have to become neighbors, economic competitors, colleagues with this foreign population.”

 

On a recent visit to Turkey, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi acknowledged that the high number of refugees had created social tensions, especially in the country’s big cities. He urged “donor countries and international organizations to do more to help Turkey.”

 

The prospect of a new influx of refugees following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has reinforced the unreceptive public mood. Videos purporting to show young Afghan men being smuggled into Turkey from Iran caused public outrage and led to calls for the government to safeguard the country’s borders.

 

The government says there are about 300,000 Afghans in Turkey, some of whom hope to continue their journeys to reach Europe.

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who long defended an open-door policy toward refugees, recently recognized the public’s “unease” and vowed not to allow the country to become a “warehouse” for refugees. Erdogan’s government sent soldiers to Turkey’s eastern frontier with Iran to stem the expected flow of Afghans and is speeding up the construction of a border wall.

 

Immigration is expected to become a top campaign topic even though Turkey’s next general election is two years away. Both Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and the nationalist IYI Party have promised to work on creating conditions that would allow the Syrian refugees’ return. waste collection fees foreigners there to propel them to leave.  

 

Following the anti-Syrian violence in the Altindag district of Ankara last month, Umit Ozdag, a right-wing politician who recently formed his own anti-immigrant party, visited the area wheeling an empty suitcase and saying the time has come for the refugees to “start packing.”

 

The riots broke out on Aug. 11, a day after a Turkish teenager was stabbed to death in a fight with a group of young Syrians. Hundreds of people chanting anti-immigrant slogans took to the streets, vandalized Syrian-run shops and hurled rocks at refugees’ homes.

 

A 30-year-old Syrian woman with four children who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said her family locked themselves in their bathroom as an attacker climbed onto their balcony and tried to force the door open. The woman said the episode traumatized her 5-year-old daughter and the girl has trouble sleeping at night.

 

Some shops in the area remain closed, with traces of the disturbance still visible on their dented, metal shutters. Police have deployed multiple vehicles and a water cannon on the streets to prevent a repeat of the turmoil.

 

Syrians are often accused of failing to assimilate in Turkey, a country that has a complex relationship with the Arab world dating back to the Ottoman empire. While majority Muslim like neighboring Arab countries, Turks trace their origins to nomadic warriors from central Asia and Turkish belongs to a different language group than Arabic.

 

Kerem Pasaoglu, a pastry shop owner in Istanbul, said he wants Syrians to go back to their country and is bothered that some shops a street over have signs written in Arabic instead of Turkish.

 

“Just when we said we are getting used to Syrians or they will leave, now the Afghans coming is unfortunately very difficult for us,” he said.

 

Turkey’s foreign minister this month said Turkey is working with the United Nations’ refugee agency to safely return Syrians to their home country.

 

While the security situation has stabilized in many parts of Syria after a decade of war, forced conscription, indiscriminate detentions and forced disappearances continue to be reported. Earlier this month, Amnesty International said some Syrian refugees who returned home were subjected to detention, disappearance and torture at the hands of Syrian security forces, proving that going back to any part of the country is unsafe.

 

Shon said police in Istanbul showed little sympathy when she reported the attack by her neighbors. She said officers kept her at the station for hours, while the male neighbor who threatened and beat her was able to leave after giving a brief statement.

 

Shon fled Aleppo in 2012, when the city became a battleground between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters. She said the father of her children drowned while trying to make it to Europe. Now, she wonders whether Turkey is the right place for her and her children.

 

“I think of my children’s future. I try to support them in any way I can, but they have a lot of psychological issues now and I don’t know how to help them overcome it,” she said. “I don’t have the power anymore. I’m very tired.

 
…

Young climate activists from Greta Thunberg’s Friday for Future movement resumed mass street protests on Friday for the first time since the pandemic began, demanding drastic action from global leaders ahead of U.N. climate talks in November.

From Nairobi to Washington, marchers — including Thunberg, who joined protests in Berlin — carried placards and homemade banners during the demonstrations, which drew fewer protesters than before COVID-19 in most cities.

“It’s slightly disappointing there are less people than there used to be, but people will come back. The problem is not going away,” said Erin Brodrick, 17, one of about 250 protesters in London’s Parliament Square.

Before the pandemic, the square often overflowed with activists during larger Friday marches.

Brodrick said young people “feel really scared about the future of the planet” as they see climate change impacts strengthen and emissions continue to rise, despite a raft of political promises to slash them.

But because underage protesters cannot vote, “what else can I do but come out here?” she said, wielding a green “Planet Over Politics” sign.

In Barcelona, about 200 youth activists, children and parents joined a protest around a cloth depicting the Earth, showing their support for a court action launched in June aimed at forcing the Spanish government to boost its climate policy.

Gathered in the Catalan capital’s main square, they also demanded a stop to a planned expansion of Barcelona’s airport.

Filip Frey, a 23-year-old Polish activist studying engineering in Barcelona, said younger people will be the ones who pay for the selfish actions of politicians who “only care about their publicity, their money, their power.”

“We are just furious and angry,” he said, urging society as a whole to join the youth protests. “If we don’t do anything, nothing will change and we will just burn or drown.”

‘Not being heard’

In Nairobi, where about 30 activists in green-and-white T-shirts gathered in a central park, many said there was little evidence politicians were listening to their pleas to work faster to cut emissions and curb climate risks.

“Young people have been speaking up for years now and there is a lot of impatience … We want to begin seeing governments taking rapid action,” said Elizabeth Wathuti, head of campaigns for the Wangari Maathai Foundation, a local environmental group.

“We’ve been speaking out about this, but our voices are not being heard,” she said, adding that “we’re the ones that have to live with the consequences of the inaction.”

Patricia Kombo, another activist, said one aim of the protest was to push politicians to commit to more aggressive action on climate change ahead of the upcoming international COP26 U.N. climate negotiations in Glasgow, starting Oct. 31.

“We’ve had a lot of climate talks but what we get is empty promises. We want real climate action at COP26 because we can’t wait any longer,” she said as activists waved signs saying, “Stand up for climate justice” and “Later is too late.”

Protesters gathered in Washington said they were pushing for a comprehensive $3.5 trillion national U.S. climate bill and an immediate transition to green energy, said Magnolia Mead, one of the organizers.

Jamie Minden, 18, a student at Washington’s American University, said the movement’s return to large-scale protests was crucial to keeping up pressure for climate action.

“It is so critical to get back out in the streets – it’s not the same online,” she said. Street protests “get a lot more attention.”

Activist Shelby Grace Tucker, 14, who had come to the protest from Baltimore, said getting back on the streets felt “really empowering” and was a way for younger people – who might not otherwise be able to garner attention, to “still make a difference.”

Merging movements

To weather the pandemic, Fridays for Future largely moved online, with education programs and other events, though small groups continued to protest on the streets.

But the group also used the time to try to broaden the movement and coordinate its work with social pushes on other issues including race.

Sasha Langeveldt, 24, a Black Fridays for Future activist now working for the Friends of the Earth nonprofit, said that as activists grew older the movement needed to focus more on turning protesters into voters.

Langeveldt said young people were increasingly taking climate action into their own hands as well, citing an online green jobs summit in London she is helping organize in October. “We want to show politicians things can actually change,” she said.

Rowan Riley, 29, a London architect at the protest, agreed, saying he was now part of the London Energy Transformation Initiative, working on changing building design and regulation with climate change and renewable energy in mind. “We have to find other ways to influence things. It’s not always about the numbers at protests,” he said.

Carrying a “Grandparents and Elders” flag at the London march, Pat Farrington, 78, said she wanted to see governments “take everything more seriously.”

That should include training more young people for green jobs like installing insulation or solar panels, and doing more to help the public understand the potential economic benefits of a climate-smart transition.

“Right now, people say, ‘I can’t afford a posh electric car,’ and they feel their pockets are being picked,” she said. 

 

 
…

Fresh volcanic eruptions in Spain’s Canary Islands prompted the cancellation of flights, airport authorities said Friday, the first since the Cumbre Vieja volcano came to life again.

New evacuations were also ordered as large explosions and new openings were reported at the volcano on La Palma island on Friday.

A large cloud of thick, black ash spewed into the air, forcing several airlines to call off flights.

La Palma had six inter-island flights scheduled for Friday operated by Binter, Canaryfly and Air Europa, while the national carrier Iberia had a single service from Madrid to the mainland. All were scrapped.

They were the first flights to be cancelled since the volcano erupted on Sunday.

“It is not yet possible to say when we can resume flights,” Spanish carrier Binter said on Twitter.

Authorities also ordered new evacuations, adding to the 6,100 people already forced to leave to area this week, including 400 tourists.

The compulsory evacuation order was issued in parts of El Paso town on La Palma island “given the increased risk for the population due to the current eruptive episode,” the regional government said.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Program, the lava has so far destroyed 390 buildings and covered more than 180 hectares of land.

Video footage from the civil guard showed a garden in the area completely covered in thick ash.

Visiting the island, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced La Palma would be declared a zone affected by a catastrophe” which opens financial aid to residents.

Toxic gas fears

The speed of the lava flowing from the mouth of the volcano has steadily slowed in recent days, and experts are hoping it will not reach the coast.

If the molten lava pours into the sea, experts fear it will generate clouds of toxic gas into the air, also affecting the marine environment.

Authorities set up a no-go zone this week to head off curious onlookers.

No casualties have been reported so far but the damage to land and property has been enormous, with the Canaries regional head Angel Victor Torres estimating the cost at well over $470 million.

The eruption on La Palma, home to 85,000 people, was the first in 50 years.

The last eruption on the island came in 1971 when another part of the same volcanic range — a vent known as Teneguia — erupted on the southern side of the island.

Two decades earlier, the Nambroque vent erupted in 1949.

 
…

A potential deal to bring as many as 1,000 Russian mercenaries to Mali is likely to further destabilize the country, according to senior U.S. officials who are urging the interim government to instead focus on elections.

Word of the not-yet-finalized deal, with Russia’s Wagner Group, has already rankled some French and European officials. And it now appears to be drawing increased attention from the United States, itself wary of Russian efforts across Africa.

“We continue to be concerned about the rise … of malign influences on the continent,” a senior administration official said Friday in response to a question from VOA about the potential deal with Moscow.

“We don’t think looking to outside forces to provide security is the way forward,” the official said.

“That is not how to best start down the road to true stability,” the official added, stressing the need to move ahead with a transition to a “fully elected, democratic government.”

The comments came just days after Mali celebrated its independence, with an estimated 3,000 people taking to the streets of Bamako to protest Western anger over the deal with Russia, some of them calling concerns about the tentative agreement “foreign meddling.”

The deal, first reported by Reuters, would pay Wagner $10.8 million a month to train Mali’s military and provide security for senior officials.

Malian authorities have also been increasingly vocal in expressing displeasure with the U.S. and France, which announced in June that it would bring home about 2,000 counterterrorism forces it had in Mali and neighboring countries.

“If partners have decided to leave certain areas, if they decide to leave tomorrow — what do we do?” Prime Minister Choguel Maiga asked in remarks posted on the country’s Le Jalon news site. “Should we not have a plan B?”

In a possible effort to ease such concerns, the U.S. sent the commander of U.S. forces for Africa, General Stephen Townsend, to Mali on Thursday, where he and other U.S. officials met with Malian transitional President Assimi Goita and Defense Minister Sadio Camara.

“Malian and international partner forces have shed blood together while fighting against the terrorists that threaten innocent civilians in Mali and the Sahel,” Townsend said in a statement Friday, following the visit.

“We want to continue this long-standing partnership,” he added.

Following France’s announcement that it would be reducing its counterterrorism forces in Mali and the Sahel, the Pentagon said it would continue to “assist building partner capacity” in the region.

And recent meetings of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS have focused on stopping the spread of the Islamic State and other terror groups in Africa, and in Mali in particular.

However, while U.S. AFRICOM is working with a number of partners in West Africa and the Sahel, security assistance to Mali itself has been limited, under U.S. law, because of the coup.

Much of the concern focuses on IS-Greater Sahara, which is thought to have at least several hundred fighters in the region, and on the al-Qaida-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, also known as JNIM.

U.S. and European military officials have also long expressed concerns about Russian involvement in Africa, warning of the corrosive influence of mercenaries with the Wagner Group, who are often perceived to be doing the Kremlin’s dirty work.

“They are everywhere,” Vice Admiral Hervé Bléjean, director-general of the European Union Military Staff, told a forum this past June. “They bring nothing to the country except immediate security answers, maybe, at the price of committing a lot of … violations of human rights and atrocities.”

On Friday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters the presence of Wagner Group mercenaries in Mali would be “a red line for us.”

“It would have immediate consequences on our cooperation [with Russia] on many other issues,” he added. 

VOA’s Bambara Service and Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
…

Namibian activists and opposition members stormed parliament this week over a deal with Germany to atone for a colonial genocide more than a century ago.

Opposition lawmakers also called for a renegotiation of the deal, in which Germany has agreed to fund about $1.3 billion in development projects over 30 years to redress land taken and tens of thousands killed from 1904 to 1908. Critics said the amount was insufficient.

Activist Sima Luipert vowed legal action if the Namibian parliament approved a bill accepting the deal. She said the deal, which the Namibian and German governments reached in May, violated the participation and informed consent rights of the ethnic Ovaherero and Nama peoples.

Hundreds gather

Luipert was one of about 300 protesters at the Namibian parliament Tuesday objecting to the bill. Some in the group jumped over gates to voice their opposition.

The Landless People’s Movement, which led the protest, said it wanted to ensure opposition to the bill was heard. Group spokesman Eneas Emvula said, “Part of the people that walked this long journey to parliament, from Katutura, alongside Independence Avenue, are actually members of parliament and leaders of the opposition political parties within parliament.”

Namibian Vice President Nangolo Mbumba said everyone has a right to protest. But he also underscored that opponents of the deal who wanted direct compensation would not get it.

“People thought because this is a genocide negotiation issue, the descendants of those communities, the victims, they would now be compensated individually,” Mbumba said. “The Jewish people were being compensated as survivors; so are the Mau Maus. We are talking after 117 years, if you count from 1904. It is four generations already.”

Supporters say the agreement, which took years to negotiate, is acceptable for an atrocity committed by a Germany that existed before World War I.

 
…

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet reported the human rights situation in Belarus continues to worsen, as President Alexander Lukashenko stiffens repressive measures to quell dissent.

The High Commissioner has submitted her latest update on Belarus to the U.N. Human Rights Council.  

This latest report examines alleged human rights violations in Belarus since May 2020. Bachelet said the government has refused to cooperate or grant access to U.N. experts to undertake their probe, so all information has been gathered remotely. 

She called the findings very disheartening. 

“I am deeply concerned by increasingly severe restrictions on civic space and fundamental freedoms, including continuing patterns of police raids against civil society organizations and independent media, and the arrests and criminal prosecutions of human rights activists and journalists on what routinely appear to be politically motivated charges,” Bachelet said.

The report noted more than 650 people currently are imprisoned because of their opinions. Last year, it said, nearly 500 journalists and media professionals were detained, with at least 68 subjected to ill treatment. Journalist Raman Pratasevich is among 27 journalists who remain in detention. He was arrested in May after his flight from Greece to Lithuania was diverted by Belarus authorities to the capital Minsk. 

Bachelet said she is alarmed by persistent allegations of widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of protesters who have been arbitrarily arrested. She said even children have been subjected to abuse while in detention and at least four protesters have died in police custody. 

“Gender-based violence in detention also continues to be of serious concern,” Bachelet said. “The Office has received reports of sexual violence committed by law enforcement officials, primarily, but not exclusively, against women and girls. These include reports of sexual assault, threats of sexual assault, psychological violence, and sexual harassment against both women and men.” 

Bachelet said thousands of people have fled to neighboring countries in search of asylum since the 2020 presidential election. 

Belarus Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Yuri Ambrazevich, said the report is full of baseless statements and accusations. He said the experts have ignored his government’s position. 

He questions the authority of the Council to act as a court and judge his country’s actions. He said the mandate issued to the experts to examine his country’s human rights situation has no legitimacy. 

 
…

Exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was awaiting a court hearing in Italy Friday following his arrest four years after fleeing Spain over an independence referendum that Madrid ruled illegal.

The member of the European Parliament, who has been based in Belgium since late 2017, was detained Thursday in the Sardinian town of Alghero while on his way to a cultural festival, aides said.

The 58-year-old is wanted by Madrid on charges of sedition for his attempts to lead a Catalan breakaway from Spain in October 2017, and Italian judges must now decide whether he should be extradited.

“It’s clear that Carles Puigdemont must be brought to justice and stand trial,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday, after the former Catalan leader spent the night in an Italian jail.

Puigdemont’s lawyers insist there is no basis for his arrest, however, and say they have a “very solid” legal case.

“The first thing is to resolve his personal situation which means whether he remains in custody, whether he gets bail, or whether there is any condition for his release,” Brussels-based lawyer Gonzalo Boye told AFP.

“Then at a later stage, there will be a discussion where they will enter into the grounds [for the alleged offense]” — notably whether the arrest warrant was valid.  

Calls for his release

Puigdemont’s arrest drew a sharp rebuke from the Catalan government, with leader Pere Aragones demanding his “immediate release” and saying he would travel to Sardinia to “stand by” the former regional leader.  

It also comes at a sensitive time, nine days after the left-leaning Spanish government and regional Catalan authorities resumed negotiations to find a solution to Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Ahead of Friday’s hearing, supporters gathered outside the court in Sassari, a city in the northwest of Sardinia, with one holding up a large Catalan independence flag.  

And in Catalonia’s regional capital Barcelona, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Italian consulate, some holding makeshift signs reading “Freedom” in Catalan over Puigdemont’s picture.

Others shouted “Free our president” in Italian and waved Catalan independence flags.

The October 2017 referendum was staged by Catalonia’s separatist regional government despite a ban by Madrid and the process was marred by police violence.

Several weeks later, the separatists issued a short-lived declaration of independence, triggering a huge political crisis with Spain during which Puigdemont and several others fled abroad.  

Madrid swiftly moved to prosecute those Catalan separatists that stayed behind, handing nine of them long jail terms.  

Although they were all pardoned earlier this year, Madrid still wants Puigdemont and several others to face justice over the secession bid.  

In March, the European Parliament rescinded immunity for Puigdemont and two other pro-independence MEPs, a decision that was upheld in July by the EU’s General Court.

The European Parliament’s decision is being appealed, though, and a final ruling by the EU court has yet to be made.

“Somebody misled the [EU] General Court to lift the precautionary measures,” Boye told AFP.

‘Persecution’  

Aragones, a more moderate separatist who took over as Catalan leader earlier this year, said the only solution to the region’s political crisis was “self-determination.”

“In the face of persecution and judicial repression, our strongest condemnation. It has to stop,” he wrote on Twitter.

And Quim Torra, who had taken over after Puigdemont fled, said his extradition to Spain would be “catastrophic” and urged pro-independence activists to be “on high alert.”

Meanwhile, the Catalan National Assembly, the region’s biggest grassroots separatist movement, has called people to protest over Puigdemont’s “illegal detention.”

Many rallies have been scheduled Friday night, with another major gathering planned for midday on Sunday.  

Besides Puigdemont, former Catalan regional ministers Toni Comin and Clara Ponsati also are wanted in Spain on allegations of sedition.

Madrid said it would respect the decision of the Italian courts.

“This government has respect for all judicial proceedings whether opened in Spain, in Europe or in this case in Italy, and will comply with any judicial decisions that may be taken,” Sanchez said.  

The Italian government said it would not get involved. “The procedure is entirely left to the judicial authorities,” a justice ministry statement said.
…

Britain is gradually easing COVID-19 travel restrictions among African countries on its so-called red list at highest risk of spreading coronavirus. However, South Africa remains on the list, despite a decline in infections. The status is taking a toll on South African tourism and people wanting to visit their families in Britain.

Lynne Philip hasn’t seen her son and two grandchildren, who live in England, in four years.

The 70-year-old Johannesburg resident had a flight booked to visit them last year when the pandemic struck, canceling all travel.

Now, she’s fully vaccinated with two Pfizer shots and desperate to go.

But Philip says Britain’s “red list” designation for South Africa is making it impossible.

“I can’t afford to go into quarantine there. Timewise it’s going to be a problem. It cuts too much into your travel, into your visiting time. We do speak on Zoom, but it’s not the same. I just would like to be able to see my family,” she said.

Philip is not alone. Over 29,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling on British lawmakers to ease travel restrictions for South Africans — with many describing anguish over family separation.

The UK Embassy in South Africa reiterated the decision this week, saying it remains concerned about the presence of the beta variant and “its potential ability to circumvent vaccines.”

But Dr. Michelle Groome, with South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, says that rationale is at odds with the science.

“This doesn’t make any sense at all, because delta is now making up, I think it’s in excess of 96% of our sequences at the moment, and so beta is really not a concern at all. I don’t see that there’s any difference between us and say, Kenya or India or anyone else that has now been taken off the ‘red list.’”

Africa’s Centres for Disease Control is also calling on the United Kingdom to review its position.

The center says immunized Africans, who are receiving the same vaccines as people in Europe, should be recognized equally.

While the United States has restricted entry for South Africans, the White House announced earlier this week that it will lift that rule for those who are fully vaccinated beginning in November.

Several European countries have already made that shift.

Ina Gouws, a political scientist at the University of the Free State, says it’s hard not to read Britain’s restrictions as political.

“There is reason to think that the region is being treated differently. When there are no  clear answers based in fact, speculations start to happen, and that can be dangerous and certainly not good for diplomatic relations. The messaging is one, then, of prejudice. And it is not upon our diplomatic channels to ascertain why this is,” Gouws said.

Dr. Groome says barring vaccinated travelers also sends the wrong message to the public about the effectiveness of vaccines.

“We are trying very hard to promote vaccines in our country, and as with many countries are, you know, struggling a little bit with that faction who are hesitant to receive the vaccines. And in this case, you know, then it makes people question as to as to why, perhaps with the vaccines that we’re giving are not as good as those being used elsewhere, which is obviously not correct,” Groom said.

The economic toll of the “red list” has also been crippling because the UK is the biggest source of tourists for South Africa.

David Frost, chief executive of South Africa’s inbound tourism association, says the disappearance of British travelers is costing the country $1.7 million a day.

“We’ve got a precious conservation base, which is one of the world’s best that is under total threat, because there’s no income, there’s no money for anti-poaching activities. One in seven South Africans is putting food on the table because of tourism. And when tourism suffers, that means the people don’t eat,” Frost said.

South Africa’s international relations minister, Naledi Pandoor, has echoed those concerns and is appealing to British officials to have the decision reversed.

Frost says he hopes the added political push will pay off when the UK reviews its “red list” in coming weeks.
…