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Dozens of relatives of the 298 victims of Malaysian Airlines flight 17, shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in 2014, will begin giving testimony on Monday at the murder trial of four fugitive suspects accused of carrying out the attack.The aircraft was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was hit by what international investigators and prosecutors say was a Russian surface-to-air missile.Three Russians and a Ukrainian citizen, all suspected of having key roles in the separatist forces, are on trial for murder. Moscow has refused to extradite those in Russia and denies all responsibility. The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible.The plane crashed in a field in territory held by pro-Russian separatists fighting against Ukrainian forces.The court has scheduled three weeks to hear the relatives speak and will also review around a hundred written statements provided by other family members.Ria van der Steen will be the first of 90 relatives from eight countries who will be allowed to address judges and defense lawyers about the impact of the crash on their lives.After years of collecting evidence, a team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the launcher used to fire the missile belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.The fugitive suspects have been on trial for a year and a half. Only one sent lawyers to represent him so the case is not considered to be entirely tried in absentia under Dutch law.Proceedings moved to a critical stage in June when prosecutors began presenting evidence and will start calling witnesses.
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Hundreds of supporters of two Canadian men being held on what Ottawa says are specious charges marched 7,000 steps through the Canadian capital on Sunday to mark the pair’s 1,000th day of “unjust” detention in China. Similar events in support of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were held elsewhere in Canada and across the world in cities including Brussels, New York, Washington, Seoul and Singapore. “These are unjust detentions,” Kovrig’s wife Vina Nadjibulla told AFP. “These marches are about solidarity with our Michaels, they’re about honoring their strength and resilience and also calling for action to finally break the stalemate, to bring them home and do everything possible to end this injustice,” Nadjibulla said at the start of the rally. The two men were arrested in December 2018 and accused of espionage in what Ottawa has said was retaliation for its detention on a US warrant of a prominent Chinese national, Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. A decision is expected in coming months on whether to send Meng to the United States to face fraud charges related to alleged violations of Iran sanctions by the Chinese tech giant.   Spavor, a businessman, and former diplomat Kovrig went on trial in March. Spavor was handed an 11-year jail sentence just as final arguments in Meng’s extradition trial got underway last month. No decision has been announced in Kovrig’s case.   The seemingly tit-for-tat arrests plunged Ottawa-Beijing relations into a deep freeze, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling the charges against the Michaels “trumped up.”   On Sunday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned what he called “arbitrary detentions” by China. “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Canada and the international community in calling for the PRC to release, immediately and unconditionally, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,” Blinken said in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. ‘A difficult milestone’ The Ottawa rally was attended by Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau and several opposition MPs, as well as the US ambassador to Ottawa. “This is a difficult milestone,” Nadjibulla, holding back tears, told the crowd. “It’s been 1,000 days — the heartbreak, the pain, the injustice is real. The heaviness, I feel it, we all feel it.”   She said her husband had described his ordeal in letters from prison, adding, “One of the things that he does in his windowless, small cell every day is to pace 7,000 steps.” “He walks in circles, 7,000 steps, often holding a book, reading, reciting songs, prayers — five kilometers of courage and contemplation. And today, he will not be alone in that walk. We will accompany him, all of us,” she said. “He knows that this event is happening,” she added. “He knows that we’re with him. That gives him strength.”   Michael Spavor’s brother Paul told reporters his brother “spends a lot of his time reading, meditating, doing yoga.” “One thousand days is a long time,” he said. “Today is just another day, but it’s another day that goes by without our Michaels being back with us.”   
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to Qatar on a trip that will also take him to Germany for talks with important U.S. allies on the situation in Afghanistan. “Departing for Doha, Qatar and Ramstein, Germany where I’ll have the opportunity to thank our Qatari and German friends in-person for the outstanding support they’ve given to safely transit U.S. citizens, Afghans, and other evacuees from Afghanistan,” Blinken tweeted late Sunday. Qatar was a key hub for the massive U.S. airlift out of Kabul and a first point of landing for thousands of Afghan refugees following last month’s Taliban takeover. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is also visiting U.S. allies in the Middle East to thank them for their help in the evacuations from Afghanistan, and with U.S. troops. His stops include Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “I’m on my way to the Gulf to personally thank our partners there for supporting the Afghanistan evacuation effort. Operation ALLIED REFUGE would not have been possible with our friends in the Gulf. Their support saved lives,” Austin tweeted Sunday.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives to board an aircraft from Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Sept. 5, 2021, to travel to Doha, Qatar and Ramstein, Germany.Blinken told reporters Friday that while in Germany he will head to Ramstein U.S. Air Force Base to thank the U.S. troops and meet with Afghan refugees.    Blinken also said he will head a virtual 20-nation ministerial meeting on Afghanistan Wednesday alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. He said the 20 countries “all have a stake in helping to relocate and resettle Afghans and in holding the Taliban to their commitments.” The Taliban have promised to grant safe passage to those Afghans and others who want to leave the country, but many Afghans doubt the reliability of their pledges.  In his remarks Friday, Blinken again defended the U.S. departure from Afghanistan, saying a relatively small number of American citizens remain in the country and the State Department is in active contact with all of them.  He said the U.S. remains committed to helping any American who wants to leave and to helping Special Immigrant Visa candidates and other Afghans who have helped the United States.    The Biden administration has come under criticism from Republican lawmakers, human rights groups and others for its handling of the evacuation from Afghanistan after the Taliban took control in Kabul on August 15. 
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The sole surviving member of the terror cell that massacred 130 people in Paris in November 20 was a pot-smoking party man who dabbled in petty crime before falling in thrall to the Islamic State group. All eyes will be on Salah Abdeslam on Wednesday when he goes on trial in Paris along with 19 others over the worst terror attack in France’s history. But those hoping that the so-called 10th man of the Islamic State attacks will tell all about what drove him to be part of the macabre plot risk being disappointed. Since his arrest after a massive four-month manhunt that ended in a shootout with police in Belgium, Abdeslam has maintained near-total silence on his role in the bloodshed.   Nine other gunmen and suicide bombers died in the carnage, including Abdeslam’s brother Brahim, who blew himself up in a bar.  Like Brahim he was equipped with a suicide belt, but he did not activate the device, which was found in a rubbish bin in southern Paris several days after the killings. The 31-year-old, who has French citizenship but grew up in Belgium, is accused of playing a key logistical role in the attacks. He drove the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade de France to their destination.  Abdeslam also rented cars and hideouts and drove across Europe in the months before the attacks to collect jihadists who had slipped into the continent unnoticed among masses of migrants. He told police shortly after his arrest that he too had been primed to carry out a suicide attack at Stade de France, one of six venues targeted in the Paris attacks, but that he had backed out at the last minute.   Investigators have cast doubt on that claim, saying they believe he was intent on seeing through his mission but was hamstrung by a faulty explosive belt. Whatever the outcome of the trial he is likely to spend many years behind bars, being just three years into a 20-year sentence for attempted murder over the firefight with Belgian police. One of the world’s most-wanted suspects spent the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks eating fries and chatting with two unsuspecting teenagers in the stairwell of a Paris high-rise while waiting to be driven across the border to Belgium. It was only when his mugshot was released by police days later that the pair realized the man who was looking over their shoulder at a news item about the attacks was one of the chief suspects.  In the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, where he grew up, Abdeslam was known for his bad-boy lifestyle of petty crime, smoking weed and gambling. An inveterate clubber, he also had a reputation as a womanizer.   His multiple brushes with the law included a conviction for attempted robbery in 2010 with a childhood friend, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the Paris attacks who was shot dead by French police in a siege a week later. Abdeslam, who grew up in a family of five children, worked as a technician for the Brussels tram network but was fired for skipping work in 2011. In later years, he spent much of his time hanging out in a cafe run by Brahim. Friends of the brothers say they became hooked on the Islamic State after the Sunni radical group proclaimed a caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014. They say they stopped drinking, showed a new-found interest in Islam and huddled with other would-be jihadists to imbibe IS propaganda.   In February 2015, Belgian police summoned Salah Abdeslam to discuss Abaaoud who had appeared in a gruesome video from Syria, showing him driving a pick-up truck that was dragging mutilated bodies to a mass grave.  “Apart from the jihad, he’s a good guy,” said Abdeslam, who claimed to oppose IS thinking despite having also shown interest in traveling to Syria. His rare public utterances since his arrest have shown he remains wedded to Islamist ideology. At his Belgian trial in 2018 he rejected the court’s legitimacy saying he trusted only “in Allah.” During questioning by a French magistrate in 2018 he justified terror attacks on France saying: “Muslims defend themselves against those who attack them.” An unrepentant Abdeslam is also believed to be the author of a letter found by Belgian police on a computer in 2016, in which he declared he “would have liked to be among the martyrs” and is ready to “finish the job.” His former Belgian lawyer, Sven Mary, was scathing about his client in a newspaper interview in 2016, although this is disputed by his lawyer in the current trial, Olivia Ronen. “He has the intelligence of an empty ashtray. He’s extraordinarily vacuous,” Mary said. “I asked him if he had read the Koran, and he replied that he had researched it on the internet,” Mary said. 
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Brazil’s World Cup qualifying match against Argentina was dramatically suspended shortly after it began Sunday as controversy over COVID-19 protocols erupted.The match at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena between the two giants of South American football came to a halt when a group of Brazilian public health officials came onto the pitch, triggering a melee involving team staff and players.Argentina’s players trudged off the pitch to the locker room as the furor raged. Argentina captain Lionel Messi later re-emerged from the tunnel without his team shirt on as confusion swept around the stadium.The stunning intervention came just hours after Brazil’s health authorities said four players in Argentina’s squad based in England should be placed in “immediate quarantine” for breaching COVID-19 protocols.According to Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), Premier League players Giovani Lo Celso (Tottenham), Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa) and Cristian Romero (Tottenham) provided “false information” upon their entry to Brazil.Romero, Lo Celso and Martinez were all in the Argentina starting lineup that kicked off Sunday’s game, triggering the intervention onto the field of officials wearing ANVISA shirts.The four Premier League players were accused of failing to disclose that they had spent time in the United Kingdom in the 14 days prior to their arrival.”We got to this point because everything that ANVISA directed, from the first moment, was not fulfilled,” ANVISA director Antonio Barra Torres said on Brazilian television.”(The four players) were directed to remain isolated while awaiting deportation, but they did not comply. They went to the stadium and they entered the field, in a series of breaches,” the official added.A government order dating from June 23 prohibits the entry into Brazilian territory of any foreign person from the United Kingdom, India or South Africa, to prevent the spread of variants of the coronavirus.”ANVISA considers that this situation represents a serious health risk and recommends that the local health authorities (of Sao Paulo) order the immediate quarantine of the players, who are prohibited from taking part in any activity and from remaining on Brazilian territory,” the agency said in a statement earlier Sunday.ANVISA said Brazil’s Federal Police had been notified so that “the necessary measures are taken immediately.”Brazilian website Globoesporte said the Argentina Football Association (AFA) could request an exceptional authorization from authorities in Sao Paulo to allow the players to take the field against Brazil.The controversy comes after nine Brazilians based in the Premier League failed to travel to South America following objections from their clubs.
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Arriving in a military helicopter, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro was inaugurated in the state’s old capital on Sunday amid clashes between police and protesters who oppose continued Serb influence in the tiny Balkan nation.Hospital officials in the city of Cetinje said at least 60 people were injured, including 30 police officers, in clashes that saw police launch tear gas against the demonstrators, who hurled rocks and bottles at them and fired gunshots into the air. At least 15 people were arrested.Sunday’s inauguration ceremony angered opponents of the Serbian church in Montenegro, which declared independence from neighboring Serbia in 2006. Since Montenegro split from Serbia, pro-independence Montenegrins have advocated for a recognized Orthodox Christian church that is separate from the Serbian one.Evading road blockades set up by the demonstrators, the new head of the Serbian church in Montenegro, Metropolitan Joanikije, arrived in Cetinje by a helicopter along with the Serbian Patriarch Porfirije. TV footage showed the priests being led into the Cetinje monastery by heavily armed riot police holding a bulletproof blanket to shield them.Patriarch Porfirije later wrote on Instagram that he was happy that the inauguration was held but added that he was “horrified by the fact” that someone near the monastery wanted to prevent the ceremony “with a sniper rifle.” The claim could not be immediately independently verified.The demonstrators set up barriers with trash bins, tires and large rocks to try to prevent church and state dignitaries from coming to the inauguration. Chanting, “This is Not Serbia!” and “This is Montenegro!,” many of the protesters spent the night at the barriers amid reports that police were sending reinforcements to break through the blockade. Tires at one blockade were set on fire.Montenegrins remain deeply divided over their country’s ties with neighboring Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is the nation’s dominant religious institution. Around 30% of Montenegro’s 620,000 people consider themselves Serb.Metropolitan Joanikije said after the ceremony that “the divisions have been artificially created and we have done all in our power to help remove them, but that will take a lot of time.”In a clear demonstration of the sharp political divide in Montenegro, President Milo Djukanovic, the architect of the state’s independence from Serbia, visited Cetinje while the current pro-Serb Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic went to Podgorica to welcome the Serbian patriarch.While Krivokapic branded the protests as “an attempted terrorist act,” Djukanovic said the protesters in Cetinje were guarding national interests against the alleged bid by the much larger Serbia to impose its influence in Montenegro through the church.Djukanovic accused the current Montenegrin government of “ruthlessly serving imperial interests of (Serbia) and the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is a striking fist of Serbian nationalism, all against Montenegro.”Montenegro’s previous authorities led the country to independence from Serbia and defied Russia to join NATO in 2017. Montenegro also is seeking to become a European Union member.In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic, who has been accused by the opposition in Montenegro of meddling in its internal affairs in conjunction with Russia, congratulated Joanikije on his inauguration and praised the government for going ahead with the ceremony despite the clashes.”Cetinje is a town where some 90% of the people are against the Serbian Orthodox Church, where there is hate towards everyone who is not Montenegrin,” Vucic said in Belgrade. “This is not a real hate, it’s hate that is induced by certain politicians in Montenegro, so it was quite logical to expect what happened there.”The U.S. government urged all sides “to urgently de-escalate the situation.”  “Religious freedom and the freedom of expression, including to peacefully assemble, must be respected,” the U.S. embassy said.Joanikije’s predecessor as church leader in Montenegro, Amfilohije, died in October after contracting COVID-19.
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The new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro was inaugurated on Sunday, arriving by helicopter under the protection of police who dispersed protesters with tear gas. The decision to anoint Bishop Joanikije as the new Metropolitan of Montenegro at the historic monastery of Cetinje has aggravated ethnic tension in the tiny Balkan state. Protesters had blocked roads since Saturday in a bid to prevent access to the small town, both the headquarters of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) and a symbol of sovereignty for some Montenegrins. Montenegro broke away from Serbia in 2006, but a third of its 620,000 inhabitants identify as Serbs and some deny Montenegro should be a separate entity. The SPC is the dominant religion in the small state but its opponents accuse it of serving Belgrade’s interests. And the government that assumed power at the end of 2020 is accused by its opponents of being too close to the church. According to images released by the SPC, Joanikije and Patriarch Porfirije were dropped off by helicopter on the monastery’s lawn and rushed in under the sound of bells. ‘Defending our dignit’ 
A security perimeter had been set up by police around the 15th century building to protect the brief enthronement ceremony. Police fired tear gas and sound bombs to clear the protesters from the monastery. On Saturday, thousands of protesters used cars or piled up rocks to block roads, with many spending the night huddled around fires set to keep warm, an AFP correspondent said. “I am here to show my love for the country,” said one protester, Saska Brajovic, 50. “We are not asking for anything from anyone else, but we are dismissed by the occupying Serbian Church. We are here defending our dignity.” The protesters are backed by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of President Milo Djukanovic. Serbian Orthodox Church’s patriarch Porfirije (R) and bishop Joanikije walk through the crowd in front of the Orthodox cathedral in Podgorica, Sept. 4, 2021, to celebrate and show support for enthronement of new bishop of Serbian Orthodox Church.The president accused neighboring Serbia and the SPC of “dismissing Montenegro and Montenegrins, as well as the integrity” of his country. Djukanovic had been eager to curb the SPC’s clout in Montenegro and build up an independent Orthodox church. ‘Benefits and privileges’  
But in August 2020 elections the DPS lost — for the first time in three decades — to an opposition bloc led by SPC allies. Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic, who is close to the Serbian Orthodox Church, has accused Djukanovic of having deliberately stoked the recent tensions for political purposes. Krivokapic called on Montenegrins “not to give in to the manipulation” of those willing to risk conflict “in order to keep their benefits and privileges.”The monastery, where Montenegrin leaders sat for centuries until the end of World War I, is considered by SPC opponents the property of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which remains a small minority and is not recognized by the Orthodox world. Metropolitan Joanikije was named to his new post in May, after the death of his predecessor Metropolitan Amfilohije from COVID-19. The protesters abandoned the blockades as the enthronement ceremony began. 
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Germany’s center-left chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz wants to lead Europe’s largest economy in a coalition government with the left-leaning Greens, though polls suggest he will need support of a third party to reach a stable majority in parliament.Scholz and his Social Democrats (SPD) have opened up a five-point lead over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives ahead of a Sept. 26 national election that promises multiple coalition options and unusually complicated negotiations.”I would like to govern together with the Greens,” Scholz told Tagesspiegel newspaper on Sunday, adding that the policy proposals of both parties had a lot of overlaps.The SPD and the Greens both want to hike the national minimum wage to 12 euros per hour from 9.60 euros, increase taxes for the super rich and accelerate the shift towards renewable energy to meet climate goals. Both also favor closer European integration.With Merkel planning to stand down after the election, the slide of her conservative bloc under their top candidate Armin Laschet marks a remarkable fall after 16 years in office and four straight national election victories. In an effort to reboot his flagging campaign, Laschet on Friday presented a diverse “team of the future” and attacked Scholz for not ruling out a coalition with the far-left Linke party. Conservatives say such a red-green-red coalition would mean a big lurch away from Germany’s centrist mainstream. Scholz dismissed the accusations and distanced himself from the Linke which he called not fit for government as long as the party did not clearly commit itself to the NATO military alliance, the transatlantic partnership with the United States and solid public finances.”These requirements are non-negotiable,” Scholz said.The latest Insa poll for Bild am Sonntag put Scholz’ SPD at 25% and Laschet’s CDU/CSU bloc at 20%. The Greens stood at 16, the business-friendly FDP at 13%, the far-right AfD at 12% and the Linke at 7%.This means that Scholz’s favored coalition with the Greens would not get enough votes and need support of the CDU/CSU, the FDP or the Linke. All parties are ruling out a coalition with the far-right AfD. 
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Indigenous groups urged world leaders on Sunday to back a new target to protect 80% of the Amazon basin by 2025, saying bold action was needed to stop deforestation pushing the Earth’s largest rainforest beyond a point of no return.Amazonian delegates launched their campaign at a nine-day conference in Marseille, where several thousand officials, scientists and campaigners are laying the groundwork for United Nations talks on biodiversity in the Chinese city of Kunming next year.”We invite the global community to join us to reverse the destruction of our home and by doing so safeguard the future of the planet,” José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, lead coordinator for COICA, which represents Indigenous groups in nine Amazon-basin nations, told Reuters.Just under 50% of the Amazon basin is currently under some form of official protection or indigenous stewardship, according to research published last year.But pressure from ranching, mining and oil exploration is growing. In Brazil, home to 60% of the biome, deforestation has surged since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, reaching a 12-year high last year and drawing an international outcry.The Amazon basin as a whole has lost 18% of its original forest cover while another 17% has been degraded, according to a landmark study released in July by the Science Panel for the Amazon, based on research by 200 scientists.If deforestation reaches 20%-25%, it could tip the Amazon into a death spiral in which it dries out and becomes savanna, according to Brazilian earth system scientist Carlos Nobre.The Marseille gathering is the latest “World Conservation Congress,” an event held every four years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a forum convening governments, civil society and researchers.COICA wants the congress to endorse its “Amazonia80x2025” declaration to give the proposal a greater chance of gaining traction in Kunming, where governments are due to discuss targets to protect biodiversity over the next decade. 
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The biggest trial in France’s modern legal history begins on Wednesday over the November 2015 attacks on Paris that saw 130 people slaughtered at bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall.The suicide bombing and gun assault by three teams of jihadists, later claimed by the Islamic State group, was France’s worst post-war atrocity.A purpose-built facility at the historic court of justice on the Ile de la Cite in central Paris will host the trial, with 14 of the 20 defendants present, including the only surviving attacker, Salah Abdeslam.”Everyone has their own expectations, but we know that this is an important milestone for our future lives,” said Arthur Denouveaux, a survivor of the Bataclan music venue attack and president of the Life for Paris victims’ association.The trial over the traumatic jihadist killings, which were planned from Syria, is on a scale unmatched in recent times.It will last nine months until late May 2022, with 145 days for hearings involving about 330 lawyers, 300 victims and former president Francois Hollande who will testify in November.The case file runs to a million pages in 542 volumes, measuring 53 meters across.Security alertSurviving gunman Abdeslam, a Belgium-born French Moroccan, fled the scene of the carnage after abandoning his suicide belt, which investigators found to be defective.Abdeslam, now 31, was later captured in Brussels, hiding in a building close to his family home, after four months on the run.He has resolutely refused to cooperate with the French investigation and remained largely silent throughout a separate trial in Belgium in 2018 that saw him declare only that he put his “trust in Allah” and that the court was biased.A major question is whether he will speak at his scheduled testimony in mid-January 2022.Another focus of the trial will be on how the squad of killers managed to come undetected into France, allegedly using the flow of migrants from Islamic State-controlled regions of Syria as cover.Fourteen of the accused — who face a range of charges from providing logistical support, to planning and weapons offences — are expected to be present in court.Six more suspects are being tried in absentia. Five of them are presumed dead, mainly in air strikes in Syria, including French jihadist brothers Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain.The alleged coordinator, Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed by French police northeast of Paris five days after the attacks.Crossed from SyriaThe horror was unleashed late on the night of Nov. 13 when jihadists set off suicide belts outside the Stade de France stadium where President Hollande was in the crowd watching France play Germany at football.A single person was killed there, 63-year-old Portuguese driver Manuel Colaco Dias.A group of Islamist gunmen, including Abdeslam’s brother Brahim, then indiscriminately opened fire from a car on half a dozen restaurants in the trendy 10th and 11th districts of the capital which were packed with people winding down on the balmy autumn evening.The massacre culminated at the Bataclan music venue where Californian group Eagles of Death Metal were performing to a packed house.Three jihadists stormed in as the band was playing the number Kiss the Devil. A total of 90 people lost their lives there.Hollande, facing another terror crisis just 10 months after gunmen attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, ordered borders closed and declared a state of emergency, a first since the Algerian War more than half a century earlier.’Step forwards’The trial is also expected to lay bare the enduring psychological wounds of survivors, the 350 who were injured and families who lost loved ones, who will give five weeks of testimony starting on Sept. 28.”I have to attend. I will surely suffer but it is a step forwards,” said Cristina Garrido, a 60-year-old Spaniard who lost her son Juan Alberto at the Bataclan. “What I want is for (the defendants) to hear the pain they left us with,” she told AFP in Madrid.Abdeslam’s defense, led by lawyer Olivia Ronen, 31, has said that while the trial will be filled with emotions, the “judiciary must keep its distance if it does not want to lose sight of the principles that underpin our state of law.”Under current scheduling, the verdict is due to be read out on May 24 and 25, 2022.The only comparable precedent for the trial is the one for the January 2015 attacks against the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly and a Jewish supermarket, which opened in September 2020.Three attacks carried out by “lone wolf” young radical Islamists, including the Oct. 16 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, shook France as that trial was ongoing.    
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A top Venezuelan official signaled on Saturday that talks between the government and the opposition aimed at resolving the country’s long-standing political crisis have yielded “partial agreements.”The opposition is hoping to use the talks being held in Mexico City to secure guarantees of free and fair regional elections to be held in the fall, while the government of Nicolas Maduro wants to ease international sanctions on his economically crippled nation.”We have been working mainly on partial agreements, especially those related to serving the people of Venezuela,” parliament speaker Jorge Rodriguez, who was leading the government delegation, told reporters.But officials provided no information on the nature of the agreements and a source in the opposition delegation told AFP that “so far nothing has been agreed.”The talks, mediated by Norway and hosted by Mexico, aim to resolve the crisis that has marked Maduro’s eight-year rule.The negotiations have a seven-point agenda including easing sanctions, political rights and electoral guarantees — but not the departure of Maduro, accused by the opposition of fraudulent reelection in 2018.The government is “very attentive” to all the economic guarantees that have been “wrested, blocked, stolen, withdrawn from the people of Venezuela,” said Rodriguez, adding that Maduro seeks a partial if not total lifting of sanctions in exchange for concessions to the opposition.The main opposition alliance headed by Juan Guaido reversed course this week when it announced that it would end a three-year election boycott and take part in mayoral and gubernatorial polls in November.Speaking before the start of the negotiations, the head of the opposition delegation Gerardo Blyde expressed hope that the talks “will seek to alleviate the crisis, but the crisis comes from very serious basic problems, from a model which failed in Venezuela and which does not recognize the democratic order and the constitutional order.”He added that it’s “a process which is beginning, which is hard, complex.”Neither Maduro nor Guaido, who is considered president by about 60 countries, was due to personally attend the closed-door talks, which were scheduled to run until Monday.”We are in Mexico looking for a national salvation agreement to respond to the emergency, obtain the conditions for free and fair elections and the rescue of our democracy,” Guaido tweeted.Previous rounds of similar negotiations held in recent years have failed to resolve the crisis. 
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El Salvador’s top court has ruled that the country’s president can serve two consecutive terms, opening the door for Nayib Bukele to stand for reelection in 2024 and sparking condemnation from the U.S. government.The ruling was handed down late on Friday by judges appointed by lawmakers from Bukele’s ruling party in May after they had removed the previous justices, a step that drew strong criticism from the United States and other foreign powers.The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador on Saturday slammed the judges’ ruling as unconstitutional and a blow to bilateral ties.The constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to enable a president who had not been in office “in the immediately preceding period to participate in the electoral contest for a second occasion.”The electoral tribunal said in a brief statement on Saturday that it would follow the court’s instructions.In recent years, the relaxing of presidential terms limits in parts of Latin America has stirred concerns among Western officials about a gradual erosion of democracy.American officials are also concerned about what they see as signs of authoritarianism under Bukele, who last year sent troops into Congress to pressure lawmakers into approving legislation, and who has withdrawn from U.S.-backed anti-corruption accords.Bukele has pushed back against accusations of authoritarianism, arguing he is cleaning up the country.His government has readied constitutional changes that aim to extend the presidential term to six years from five, and include the possibility of revoking the president’s mandate, among other steps.That has yet to go to the Central American country’s Congress, which Bukele’s party and its allies control.Bukele, a popular but divisive 40-year-old president, has not commented on the court’s ruling.In 2014, the court ruled that presidents would have to wait 10 years after leaving office to be reelected.Speaking to reporters at the U.S. embassy on the edge of the capital San Salvador on Saturday evening, U.S. charge d’affaires Jean Manes decried the court’s decision, saying that allowing immediate reelection was “clearly contrary to the Salvadoran constitution.”Manes said the decision was a direct result of the replacement of the court’s judges with Bukele loyalists, arguing it was part of strategy to “undermine judicial independence” and eliminate counterweights to executive power.”This decline in democracy damages the bilateral relationship between the United States and El Salvador, and the relationship that we’ve had for decades and want to maintain,” she said.Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, also chided the court, saying on Twitter that El Salvador was heading down a path taken by Nicaragua and Honduras in allowing presidents to be reelected.”Democracy in El Salvador is on the edge of the abyss,” said Vivanco, a critic of Bukele. 
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Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter, has suspended beef exports to China, its No. 1 customer, after confirming two cases of “atypical” mad cow disease in two separate domestic meat plants, the agriculture ministry said Saturday.The suspension, which is part of an animal health pact agreed upon between China and Brazil and is designed to allow Beijing time to take stock of the problem, begins immediately, the ministry said in a statement. China will decide when to begin importing again, it added.The suspension is a major blow for Brazilian farmers: China and Hong Kong buy more than half of Brazil’s beef exports.The cases were identified in meat plants in the states of Mato Grosso and Minas Gerais, the ministry said. It said they were the fourth and fifth cases of “atypical” mad cow disease that have been detected in Brazil in 23 years.It said “atypical” mad cow disease develops spontaneously and is not related to eating contaminated foods. Brazil has never had a case of “classic” mad cow disease, it said.The two cases were confirmed Friday after samples were sent to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) lab in Alberta, Canada, the ministry said. The OIE had subsequently been informed of the two cases, in compliance with international norms, the ministry said.The ministry said there was no risk to animal or human health.Brazil’s government said it was hopeful the suspension would be lifted quickly. The country’s powerful agribusiness sector is one of the main drivers of its long-lagging economy. China is Brazil’s top trade partner, and it buys vast quantities of its commodities.
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The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, is calling on the United States and other nations to end COVID-19 border restrictions that keep Central American refugees from seeking asylum.
   
Forced displacement within Central America and Mexico has been soaring over the last five years. The United Nations refugee agency says factors, including chronic violence and insecurity, climate change and natural disasters have forced people to flee their homes in growing numbers.
 
UNHCR spokeswoman Aikaterini Kitidi told VOA the effects of COVID-19 and Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which struck the region with devastating force last year, have triggered further large-scale displacement.   
 
In particular, she said these disasters have created great economic hardship for women and children who have lost their source of income and have difficulty obtaining basic services.   
    
“As a result, such people are forcibly displaced, and they are compelled many times to embark to even further dangerous onward journeys.  What they are exposed to are smugglers, traffickers, and to other risks like, for example, sexual exploitation, abuse, or even murder,” she said.   
    
Kitidi said a staggering 1 million people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have been forced to flee their homes, creating an unprecedented displacement crisis in the region.
 
Due to public health COVID-19 travel restrictions, she said Central American refugees face extreme difficulties in obtaining protections they need in countries of asylum.  She said the UNHCR has appealed to the U.S. government to end the Title 42 public health-related asylum restrictions.  
    
“Under which we see the ports of entry to the United States remaining closed to most asylum seekers with exemptions for some categories of populations with vulnerabilities. And we have asked for the expulsions that are occurring of these people to stop and for the right to claim asylum in the United States to be restored,” she said.   
    
Kitidi said all countries in the region have agreed to share the responsibility to provide protection for those fleeing danger and persecution. She added that discussions are continuing with regional authorities in the hopes they will live up to their agreement. 
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Among the cranes and containers of the port of Rotterdam is a surreal sight: a herd of cows peacefully feeding on board what calls itself the world’s first floating farm.In the low-lying Netherlands where land is scarce and climate change is a daily threat, the three-story glass and steel platform aims to show the “future of breeding”.The buoyant bovines live on the top floor, while their milk is turned into cheese, yogurt and butter on the middle level, and the cheese is matured at the bottom.”The world is under pressure,” says Minke van Wingerden, 60, who runs the farm with her husband Peter.”We want the farm to be as durable and self-sufficient as possible.”The cows are a sharp contrast to the huge ships and the smoke from the refineries of Europe’s biggest seaport, which accounts for 13.5 percent of the country’s emissions.With their floating farm, which opened in 2019, Peter and Minke say they wanted to “bring the countryside into the town”, boost consumer awareness and create agricultural space.The Dutch are no strangers to advanced farming methods, using a network of huge greenhouses in particular to become the world’s second biggest agricultural exporter after the United States.But that has come at a cost.The buoyant bovines live on the top floor, while their milk is turned into cheese, yogurt and butter on the middle level, and the cheese is matured at the bottom.’Moves with the tide’The Netherlands is one of Europe’s largest per capita emitters of climate change gases and faces a major problem with agricultural emissions, particularly in the dairy sector which produces large amounts of methane from cows.Those emissions in turn fuel the rising waters that threaten to swamp the country, a third of which lies below sea-level, and further reduce the land in one of the most densely populated nations on Earth.The floating farm therefore aims to keep its cows’ feet dry in both the long-term, by being sustainable, and the short-term, by, well, floating.”We are on the water, so the farm moves with the tide — we rise and fall up to two meters. So in case of flooding, we can continue to produce,” says Minke van Wingerden.In terms of sustainability, the farm’s cows are fed on a mixture of food including grapes from a foodbank, grain from a local brewery, and grass from local golf courses and from Rotterdam’s famed Feyenoord football club — saving on waste as well as the emissions that would be required to create commercial feed for the animals.Their manure is turned into garden pellets — a process that helps further cut emissions by reducing methane — and their urine is purified and recycled into drinking water for the cows, whose stable is lined with dozens of solar panels that produce enough electricity for the farm’s needs.’Cows don’t get seasick’The farm is run by a salaried farmer but the red and white cows, from the Dutch-German Meuse-Rhin-Yssel breed, are milked by robots.The cheeses, yogurts and pellets are sold at a roadside shop alongside fare from local producers.The products are also sold to restaurants in town by electric vehicles.”I was immediately seduced by the concept,” says Bram den Braber, 67, one of 40 volunteers at the farm, as he fills bottles of milk behind the counter of the store.”It’s not blood running through my veins, it’s milk.”The idea of the farm is also to make farming “more agreeable, interesting and sexy”, and not just to be environmentally friendly, says Minke van Wingerden.When she and her husband first approached port authorities with the idea to build a floating farm, they said “are you nuts?”, she recalls.But the farm is set to turn a profit for the first time at the end of 2021, with consumers apparently ready to pay the 1.80 euro ($2.12) a liter for milk produced there, compared to around one euro at a supermarket.They are also aiming to build a second floating farm to grow vegetables, and to export their idea, with a project already under way in the island nation of Singapore.Most importantly, while farming goes greener, the animals don’t.”No, the cows don’t get seasick,” says van Wingerden. “The water moves only a little bit, it’s like you were on a cruise ship.”
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Some cities in Brazil are providing booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, even though most people have yet to receive their second jabs, in a sign of the concern in the country over the highly contagious delta variant.Rio de Janeiro, currently Brazil’s epicenter for the variant and home to one of its largest elderly populations, began administering the boosters Wednesday. Northeastern cities Salvador and Sao Luis started on Monday, and the most populous city of Sao Paulo will begin Sept. 6. The rest of the nation will follow the next week.France, Israel, China and Chile are among those countries giving boosters to some of their older citizens, but more people in those countries are fully vaccinated than the 30% who have gotten two shots in Brazil. A U.S. plan to start delivery of booster shots by Sept. 20 for most Americans is facing complications that could delay third doses for those who received the Moderna vaccine, administration officials said Friday.About nine out of 10 Brazilians have been vaccinated already or plan to be, according to pollster Datafolha. Most have gotten their first shot but not their second.Brazil’s cases and deaths have been falling for two months, with 621 deaths reported in the seven days through Sept. 2 — far below April’s peak of more than 3,000 reported deaths over a seven-day period. Older Brazilians have expressed concern about the efficacy of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine against the delta variant, prompting authorities to offer the booster shots.Diana dos Santos, 71, received two shots of the Sinovac vaccine even after President Jair Bolsonaro spent months publicly criticizing it. Dos Santos, who lives Rio’s low-income Maré neighborhood, is diabetic and was hospitalized for a heart condition. She refuses to leave home until she gets her booster.“I can’t go out like before and I’m still afraid of all of this,” dos Santos said. “I will feel safer (with a booster).”Because of the variant, some experts say the government should slow the rollout of boosters and focus on distributing second doses. Delta is the most contagious variant identified, and many studies have suggested that one dose doesn’t protect against it.Two shots provide strong protection, with nearly all hospitalizations and deaths among the unvaccinated.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist and professor at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, said pushing boosters at this early stage recalls the lack of concern given the gamma variant that overwhelmed Amazonian city Manaus earlier this year, only to feed a new wave nationwide. Brazil has seen more than 580,000 deaths from COVID-19, making it home to world’s eighth-highest toll on a per capita basis.Elderly residents wait for a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, during a booster shot campaign for the elderly in long-term care institutions, at Casa de Repouso Laco de Ouro nursing home, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2021.“It seems we’re in the same movie, repeating the same errors,” Maciel said. “It’s only a matter of time until what’s happening in Rio leads to a greater number of more serious cases in the rest of the country.”The delta variant already is dominant in Rio de Janeiro state, detected in 86% of the samples collected from COVID-19 patients, according to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Intensive care units have reached full capacity in eight municipalities, although only a small rise in deaths have been recorded so far.Authorities in Sao Paulo state expect a similar scenario within weeks. It registered its first confirmed death from the delta variant on Tuesday, a 74-year-old woman who had received two Sinovac shots.Globally, doubts have plagued Chinese vaccines, especially as the delta variant has gained hold in many countries. Chinese officials have maintained the vaccine protects against delta, particularly preventing hospitalizations and severe cases.Still, Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Aug. 25 that people aged 70 or older or who have a weak immune system will be eligible for a third dose, starting Sept. 15 — preferably with the Pfizer vaccine. He said that people over 18 will have received their first doses by then, although he didn’t address their vulnerability to the delta variant without a second shot.He also criticized governors and mayors who sought to deliver booster shots earlier, saying it could lead to vaccine shortages.Carla Domingues, former coordinator of Brazil’s national immunization program, agrees with the need to provide the elderly boosters, but not for people aged 70 and up right away. Shots should first go to nursing homes and people who are bed-ridden, she said, then people 80 and above, with the age slowly decreasing as supply allows.“Certainly, there will be problems with shortage, because there won’t be enough vaccine,” Domingues said.Japan and South Korea both wrestled with slow vaccine rollouts, and under half their populations are fully vaccinated; their governments are only planning booster shots in the fourth quarter of this year. Malaysia also is considering boosters, but Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the priority is those who haven’t received a first dose.Aloysio Zaluar, 84, is injected with a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a booster shot campaign for elderly residents in long-term care institutions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 1, 2021.Thailand began giving booster shots even as most people wait to be vaccinated — but only for health and front-line workers who received two Sinovac shots. The decision came after a nurse died of COVID-19 in July.Russia, Hungary and Serbia also are giving boosters, although there has been a lack of demand in those countries for the initial shots amid abundant supplies.In addition to doubts over boosters, the issue is sensitive due to implications for global vaccine distribution. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for a moratorium on boosters “to allow those countries that are furthest behind to catch up.”Epidemiologist Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, which advocates for expanding global vaccine access, said in an interview there is no doubt about the need for two jabs, but she sees no scientific or moral justification for a third.“Authorities giving a third dose are prioritizing protection against light disease instead of shielding people in poor countries from death,” said Garrett, who is Brazilian. “That is shameful, immoral, and this vaccine inequity must end.”That doesn’t sway 97-year-old Maria Menezes, who wants to spend time outside her home where she has lived for the last seven decades in Rio’s western region. Her two daughters say Menezes wants to a booster shot.“She asked us to take her for the third vaccine,” said daughter Cristina França, 38. “It will be important to beef up her immunity to reduce her risks. Her life won’t change much after the third dose, because she is more frail now, but she would live with more calm.”
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Cuban authorities on Friday launched a national campaign to vaccinate children ages 2-18 against COVID-19, a prerequisite set by the communist government for schools to reopen amid a spike in infections.Children 12 and older will be the first to receive one of the two domestically produced vaccines, Abdala and Soberana, followed by younger kids.Schools have mostly been closed in Cuba since March 2020, and students have been following lessons on television. With the school year starting Monday, they will continue learning remotely until all eligible children are vaccinated.Laura Lantigua, 17, got the first of three injections at Saul Delgado high school in the Cuban capital, Havana.”I always wanted to be vaccinated,” Lantigua told AFP. She said that doctors measured her blood pressure and temperature before giving her the shot, then told her to wait for an hour to ensure she didn’t have any side effects.”I felt normal, fine,” Lantigua said.Late Friday, the Medicines Regulatory Agency (Cecmed) announced that it authorized the emergency use of the Soberana 2 vaccine for minors between the ages of 2 and 18.The composition of Cuban vaccines, which are not recognized by the World Health Organization, is based on a recombinant protein, the same technique used by the U.S. company Novavax.With the delta variant spreading across the island of 11.2 million, the country’s health care system has been pushed to the brink.Of the 5,300 novel coronavirus deaths recorded since the outbreak started, nearly half were in August, as were almost a third of all reported cases.The government said it plans to gradually reopen schools for in-person instruction in October after the vaccination campaign among children is completed.
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Europe’s top human rights body on Friday called on Greece’s parliament to withdraw articles included in draft legislation that would impose heavy penalties on nongovernmental organizations that carry out unsanctioned rescue operations of migrants at sea. The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said in a statement that the proposed changes would “seriously hinder the life-saving work” carried out by NGOs. Greece’s center-right government has toughened border controls since taking office two years ago and has promised additional restrictions in response to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. Under draft legislation currently being debated in parliament, members of charities involved in rescue operations conducted without coast guard permission could be jailed for up to a year and fined 1,000 euros ($1,190), with the NGOs facing additional fines. Lesbos and other Greek islands close to the coast of Turkey were the main entry point for refugees and migrants into the European Union during mass displacements in 2015 and 2016 largely caused by wars in Syria and Iraq. Speaking at a security summit in Slovenia earlier this week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed support for a decision by EU home affairs ministers to seek cooperation with countries in the region “to prevent illegal migration from” Afghanistan. “I think what happened in 2015 was a mistake. We acknowledge it openly. We (must) address the need to support refugees closer to the source of the problem, which is Afghanistan,” Mitsotakis said. 
 
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On August 24, 1991, Ukraine announced its independence from the Soviet Union, and in the next few months, the international community — country by country — recognized Ukraine as an independent sovereign state. But the foundation of this shift had been laid at the United Nations headquarters about a year earlier. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Iryna Solomko   
 
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Turkey is stepping up a border security barrier with Iran, primarily to thwart a possible large influx of refugees from entering Afghanistan. Yet for many refugees, the wall, trenches and barbed wire are just more obstacles they say they have no choice but to overcome. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from Van, Tatvan and the Turkish border with Iran.Camera: Yan Boechat. Contributing: Mohammad Mahdi Sultani.
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European Union defense ministers discussed Thursday how to better respond to future crises following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, including the creation of a rapid response force.As they met in Slovenia to discuss lessons learned from the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan, Germany proposed that willing coalition members be enabled to create a rapid deployment military force of 5,000 troops to respond to crises, with less reliance on the United States.EU efforts to develop a rapid reaction force have been dormant for more than a decade. But the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan have forced the 27-nation bloc to revisit the issue.The proposal to establish a 5,000-member force was first raised in May during a review of the bloc’s overall strategy. EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell said at Thursday’s meeting he hoped a plan would be finalized by November.The EU’s overall strategy is expected to be finalized next year.“It’s clear that the need for more European defense has never been as much as evident as today after the events in Afghanistan,” Borrell said. “Sometimes, something happens that pushes the history. It creates a breakthrough, and I think the Afghanistan events of this summer are one of these cases,” Borrell added.The Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan and the rushed aerial evacuations of tens of thousands of people after the U.S. decision to pull out troops have exposed the EU’s reliance on the U.S. While EU troops were on the sidelines during the evacuation, the U.S. supported European countries in efforts to evacuate their citizens and troops.
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The Taliban on Thursday briefly detained a former British soldier who was trying to evacuate overland 50 Afghan employees and 350 of their relatives, according to British media reports.  Ben Slater says he launched his own evacuation bid after British officials failed to approve visas in time for his staff, consisting mainly of women, to be airlifted out of Afghanistan last week.The Taliban interrogated him for several hours but then released him, telling him he could cross the border with one assistant, but the rest of his staff had to remain in Afghanistan as none of them had British visas, he told British reporters.”It’s a complete disaster, really. It’s disgusting. It’s beyond horrible,” Slater, chairman of a string of Kabul-based NGOs, told Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper. He and his employees spent two days at a hotel near a border checkpoint before he was detained and interrogated about members of his staff. Slater said he was also questioned about why some of the single women in his party were staying in the hotel without husbands.FILE – People gather at the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after U.S troops withdrawal, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 31, 2021.A former soldier in Britain’s Royal Military Police, the 37-year-old Slater has been publicly highly critical of Britain’s Foreign Ministry for failing to approve visas in time for his staff to be airlifted out of Afghanistan last month. Slater said Thursday that he had kept British officials informed of his escape plan and asked in advance for them to facilitate a border crossing.Midweek, before leaving Kabul, he told British reporters, “It’s going to be a long trip, and I am hoping on the other end that the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] have got our visas sorted, or at least have spoken to the foreign affairs ministry in our destination country to allow access for our vulnerable staff.” Growing anger toward RaabSlater’s failed bid to get his staff out of Afghanistan is adding to a political furor in London over last month’s airlift operations by the British government, with pressure mounting on the country’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to resign. Critics, including the chairs of the British Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committees, have accused Raab of a lack of preparation for the crisis.Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaks during a press conference in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2021.He remained on a family vacation in the Mediterranean as the government of then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani collapsed and the Taliban neared Kabul.”Dominic Raab should have resigned three times by now: for staying on the beach, for his department’s dismal failure to respond to thousands of cases of Afghans trying to get out of the country, and for the fact that potentially thousands of Afghans who helped our soldiers are now left stranded,” the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said in a statement Wednesday.Britain managed to airlift 17,000 people out of Afghanistan, 8,000 of them Afghans. Since the airlift concluded last week, British officials have suggested about 9,000 Afghans at risk of Taliban reprisals remained in the country, along with 100 to 200 British nationals, some dual citizens. Opposition parties and some lawmakers from Britain’s ruling Conservatives estimate the number is much higher, and Raab acknowledged Wednesday he couldn’t give a “definitive” figure for the number of Afghans eligible to be resettled in Britain because they worked for British security forces. More than 5,000 emails from Afghans to the British Foreign Office are still to be read, he conceded when questioned in the House of Commons. Afghan refugeesSlater’s failed bid to cross a land border with his staff also is adding to fears that the Taliban won’t keep promises made this week to Western leaders to allow Afghans to leave the country unhindered and unharmed. Taliban leaders have said Afghans who have passports and visas will be able to leave when commercial flights resume but have said little about Afghans leaving overland.Britain dispatched one of its top diplomats, Simon Gass, to Doha on Monday for face-to-face talks with Taliban leaders about securing safe passage for British nationals and at-risk Afghans who remain in Afghanistan. Gass chairs Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Canadian diplomats also have met with the Taliban in Qatar to discuss issues of safe passage. Neighboring countries have largely closed their borders. All the neighboring states remain reluctant to open their borders and have little appetite to see an influx of refugees. Pakistan already hosts 1.4 million documented Afghan refugees, and Iran 780,000. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans also are believed to live in both countries, and in recent years, both Iran and Pakistan have increased deportations.The U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has urged Afghanistan’s neighbors to reopen their borders. “We’ve been intensifying our calls over the last week to neighboring countries to keep their borders open because of the gravity of the situation, and if any Afghans are unable to reach safety, that risks lives,” Kathryn Mahoney, UNHCR’s global spokesperson, told VOA this week.Taliban fighters wave as they patrol in a convoy along a street in Kabul on Sept. 2, 2021.UNHCR officials note 3.5 million Afghans are already displaced from their homes in Afghanistan, and worry that drought, rising unemployment and a banking collapse in that country could drive hundreds of thousands of people to the borders. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have indicated they are ready to serve as transit countries for Afghan refugees but also have said they don’t want large permanent settlements. Officials in Dushanbe and Tashkent say they don’t have the economic resources to cope. They also fear complicating their relations with Afghanistan’s new rulers, say Western diplomats. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported the Uzbeks are pressing Washington to transport out of Uzbekistan a group of Afghan military pilots who fled to Tashkent. Uzbekistan remains closed, according to the country’s Foreign Ministry. Tajikistan may allow some entry after the country’s Independence Day celebration on September 20. After a five-hour meeting, interior ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states agreed Tuesday that the bloc should offer financial support for Afghanistan’s neighbors to manage the refugee crisis at their borders. There was no confirmation about how much money the bloc is considering, but privately officials say the number being considered is 1 billion euros. EU national leaders, as well as the European Commission, are fearful the continent could see a massive influx of Afghan refugees and a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis that roiled Europe politically and fueled the rise of populist nationalist parties. The refugees came not only from Syria but Iraq, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa. The offer of large payments to Afghanistan’s neighbors would be modeled on the agreement the EU struck with Turkey in 2016 to shelter refugees, while at the same time helping to block them from traveling to EU countries.   It isn’t clear whether Afghanistan’s neighbors will accept such a deal. Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, appeared scornful Wednesday of the EU’s plan. “We house over 4 million Afghan refugees, this when the conversation in the West is about five more refugees is too many,” he told European broadcasters. He has been urging Western powers to engage politically with the Taliban and offer them financial support to prevent a refugee crisis. 
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The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has issued a report saying that based on current evidence, there is no urgent need for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots and the public health focus should remain on getting initial vaccinations to eligible European citizens.The report added additional doses should be considered for those individuals with compromised immune systems who did not respond adequately to their initial dose or doses.But the report says the available current evidence regarding the “real world” effectiveness and duration of protection provided by all the vaccines authorized for use in the European Union shows they are highly protective against COVID-19-related hospitalization, severe disease and death. COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus.The report also noted that European nations should consider what administering boosters might do regarding the availability of vaccines for nations outside the EU, which continue to struggle with obtaining and administering enough initial doses for their populations.France Wednesday became the first EU nation to start administering booster shots to people over 65, and to those with underlying health conditions as a guard against the delta variant of the coronavirus. Spanish health authorities are considering similar action.(Some information in this report come from the Associated Press.) 
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he clandestine sea route from the coasts of Senegal to Spain is a dangerous voyage for thousands of migrants. For those who make it, what awaits them is a life outside the law and the stigma of being called an illegal immigrant. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona.Camera: Alfonso Beato
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