RIYADMEDIA

Marianela Rojas huddles in prayer with her fellow migrants, a tearful respite after trudging across a slow-flowing stretch of the Rio Grande and nearly collapsing onto someone’s backyard lawn, where, seconds before, she stepped on American soil for the first time.
“I won’t say it again,” interrupts a U.S. Border Patrol agent, giving orders in Spanish for Rojas and a dozen others to get into an idling detention van. “Only passports and money in your hands. Everything else — earrings, chains, rings, watches — in your backpacks. Hats and shoelaces too.”
It’s a frequent scene across the U.S.-Mexico border at a time of swelling migration. But these aren’t farmers and low-wage workers from Mexico or Central America, who make up the bulk of those crossing. They’re bankers, doctors and engineers from Venezuela, and they’re arriving in record numbers as they flee turmoil in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves and pandemic-induced pain across South America.
Two days after Rojas crossed, she left detention and rushed to catch a bus out of the Texas town of Del Rio. Between phone calls to loved ones who didn’t know where she was, the 54-year-old recounted fleeing hardship in Venezuela a few years ago, leaving a paid-off home and once-solid career as an elementary school teacher for a fresh start in Ecuador.
But when the little work she found cleaning houses dried up, she decided to uproot again — this time without her children.
“It’s over, it’s all over,” she said into the phone recently, crying as her toddler grandson appeared shirtless on screen. “Everything was perfect. I didn’t stop moving for one second.”
Last month, 7,484 Venezuelans were encountered  by Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border — more than all 14 years for which records exist.
The surprise increase has drawn comparisons to the midcentury influx of Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro’s communist rule. It’s also a harbinger of a new type of migration that has caught the Biden administration off guard: pandemic refugees.
Many of the nearly 17,306 Venezuelans who have crossed the southern border illegally since January had been living for years in other South American countries, part of an exodus of nearly 6 million Venezuelans since President Nicolás Maduro took power in 2013.
While some are government opponents fearing harassment and jailing, the vast majority are escaping long-running economic devastation marked by blackouts and shortages of food and medicine.
With the pandemic still raging in many parts of South America, they have had to relocate again. Increasingly, they’re being joined at the U.S. border by people from the countries they initially fled to — even larger numbers of Ecuadorians and Brazilians have arrived this year — as well as far-flung nations hit hard by the virus, like India and Uzbekistan.
U.S. government data shows that 42% of all families encountered along the border in May hailed from places other than Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — the traditional drivers of migratory trends. That compares with just 8% during the last sharp increase in migration in 2019. The Border Patrol recorded more than 180,000 encounters in May, a two-decade high that includes migrants’ repeated attempts to cross.
Compared with other migrants, Venezuelans garner certain privileges — a reflection of their firmer financial standing, higher education levels and U.S. policies that have failed to remove Maduro but nonetheless made deportation all but impossible.
The vast majority enter the U.S. near Del Rio, a town of 35,000 people, and they don’t try to evade detention but rather turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents to seek asylum.
Like many of the dozens of Venezuelans The Associated Press spoke to this month in Del Rio, 27-year-old Lis Briceno had already migrated once before. After graduating with a degree in petroleum engineering, she couldn’t get hired in the oil fields near her hometown of Maracaibo without declaring her loyalty to Venezuela’s socialist leadership. So she moved to Chile a few years ago, finding work with a technology company.
But as anti-government unrest and the pandemic tanked Chile’s economy, sales plunged and her company shuttered.
Briceno sold what she could — a refrigerator, a telephone, her bed — to raise the $4,000 needed for her journey to the U.S. She filled a backpack and set out with a heart lock amulet she got from a friend to ward off evil spirits.
“I always thought I’d come here on vacation, to visit the places you see in the movies,” Briceno said. “But doing this? Never.”
While Central Americans and others can spend months trekking through the jungle, stowing away on freight trains and sleeping in makeshift camps run by cartels on their way north, most Venezuelans reach the U.S. in as little as four days.
“This is a journey they’re definitely prepared for from a financial standpoint,” said Tiffany Burrow, who runs the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition’s shelter in Del Rio, where migrants can eat, clean up and buy bus tickets to Miami, Houston and other cities with large Venezuelan communities.
They first fly to Mexico City or Cancun, where foreign visitors are down sharply but nearly 45,000 Venezuelans arrived in the first four months of 2021. Smugglers promoting themselves as “travel agencies” have cropped up on Facebook, claiming to offer hassle-free transport to the U.S. in exchange for about $3,000.
“We’re doing things the way they do things here — under the table,” a smuggler said in a voice message a migrant shared with the AP. “You’ll never be alone. Someone will always be with you.”
The steep price includes a guided sendoff from Ciudad Acuna, where the bulk of Venezuelans cross the Rio Grande. The hardscrabble town a few hundred wet steps from Del Rio is attractive to both smugglers and migrants with deeper pockets because it had been largely spared the violence seen elsewhere on the border.
“If you’re a smuggler in the business of moving a commodity — because that’s how they view money, guns, people, drugs and everything they move, as a product — then you want to move it through the safest area possible charging the highest price,” said Austin L. Skero II, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector.
But the number of smugglers caught with weapons has recently increased in the area, and agents who normally hunt down criminals are tied up processing migrants.
The uptick in migrants crossing is “purely a diversion tactic used by the cartels” to carry out crime, Skero said as a group of Haitians carrying young children emerged from a thicket of tall carrizo cane on the riverbank.
Once in the U.S., Venezuelans tend to fare better than other groups. In March, Biden granted Temporary Protected Status to an estimated 320,000 Venezuelans. The designation allows people coming from countries ravaged by war or disaster to work legally in the U.S. and gives protection from deportation.
While new arrivals don’t qualify, Venezuelans requesting asylum — as almost all do — tend to succeed, partly because the U.S. government corroborates reports of political repression. Only 26% of asylum requests from Venezuelans have been denied this year, compared with an 80% rejection rate for asylum-seekers from poorer, violence-plagued countries in Central America, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
“I can write their asylum requests almost by heart,” said Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney in Harlingen, Texas, who has represented over 100 Venezuelans. “These are higher-educated people who can advocate for themselves and tell their story in a chronological, clean way that judges are accustomed to thinking.”
Even Venezuelans facing deportation have hope. The Trump administration broke diplomatic relations with Maduro when it recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful leader in 2019. Air travel is suspended, even charter flights, making removal next to impossible.
Meanwhile, as the migrants leave Del Rio to reconnect with loved ones in the U.S., they are confident that with sacrifice and hard work, they’ll get an opportunity denied them back home.
Briceno said that if she had stayed in Venezuela, she would earn the equivalent of $50 a month — barely enough to scrape by.
“The truth is,” says Briceno, hustling to catch a bus to Houston where her boyfriend landed a well-paying oil industry job, “it’s better to wash toilets here than being an engineer over there.”
…

The U.N. human rights chief, in a landmark report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to help end discrimination, violence and systemic racism against people of African descent and “make amends” to them — including through reparations.  
The report from Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic slave trade. It seeks a “transformative” approach to address its continued impact today.  
The report, a year in the making, hopes to build on momentum around the recent, intensified scrutiny worldwide about the blight of racism and its impact on people of African descent as epitomized by the high-profile killings of unarmed Black people in the United States and elsewhere.
“There is today a momentous opportunity to achieve a turning point for racial equality and justice,” the report said.
The report aims to speed up action by countries to end racial injustice; end impunity for rights violations by police; ensure that people of African descent and those who speak out against racism are heard; and face up to past wrongs through accountability and redress.
“I am calling on all states to stop denying — and start dismantling — racism; to end impunity and build trust; to listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to confront past legacies and deliver redress,” Bachelet said in a video statement.  
While broaching the issue of reparation in her most explicit way yet, Bachelet suggested that monetary compensation alone is not enough and would be part of an array of measures to help rectify or make up for the injustices.
“Reparations should not only be equated with financial compensation,” she wrote, adding that it should include restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgement of injustices, apologies, memorialization, educational reforms and “guarantees” that such injustices won’t happen again.
The U.N.-backed Human Rights Council commissioned the report during a special session last year following the murder of Floyd, a Black American who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was sentenced to 22-1/2 years in prison last week.  
Protests erupted after excruciating bystander video showed how Floyd gasped repeatedly, “I can’t breathe!” as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to stop pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck.
The protests against Floyd’s killing and the “momentous” verdict against Chauvin are a “seminal point in the fight against racism,” the report said.
The report was based on discussions with more than 340 people — mostly of African descent — and experts; more than 100 contributions in writing, including from governments; and review of public material, the rights office said.  
It analyzed 190 deaths, mostly in the U.S., to show how law enforcement officers are rarely held accountable for rights violations and crimes against people of African descent, and it noted similar patterns of mistreatment by police across many countries.  
The report ultimately aims to transform those opportunities into a more systemic response by governments to address racism, and not just in the United States — although the injustices and legacy of slavery, racism and violence faced by African Americans was clearly a major theme.
The report also laid out cases, concerns and the situation in roughly 60 countries including Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Colombia and France, among others.
“We could not find a single example of a state that has fully reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for the impacts of the lives of people of African descent today,” Mona Rishmawi, who leads a unit on non-discrimination at the U.N. human rights office, told a news conference. “Our message, therefore, is that this situation is untenable.”
Compensation should be considered at the “collective and the individual level,” she said, while adding that any such process “starts with acknowledgment” of past wrongs and “it’s not one-size-fits-all.” She said countries must look at their own pasts and practices to assess how to proceed.
 
The U.N. report called on countries to make ” amends for centuries of violence and discrimination” such as through “formal acknowledgment and apologies, truth-telling processes and reparations in various forms.”
It also decried the “dehumanization of people of African descent” that was “rooted in false social constructions of race” in the past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes and harmful practices as well as tolerance for racial discrimination, inequality and violence.  
It cited inequalities faced by people of African descent and the “stark socioeconomic and political marginalization” they face in many countries, including unfair access to education, health care, jobs, housing and clean water.
…

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who lost a confidence vote last week, faces a stark choice Monday; call snap elections or resign and trigger the search for a successor. The Social Democrat leader — a master of consensus for some, a dull and visionless party man for others — has had seven days since the confidence vote in which to attempt to secure a parliamentary majority in his favor. Now, barring last-minute success in persuading other parties to create a more stable coalition, his options are very limited.The 63-year-old Lofven, a former welder and union leader with the square build and nose of a boxer, guided the Swedish left back to power in 2014, and then hung on by moving his party closer to the center right after the 2018 elections. He finally fell out with the Left Party propping up his government, becoming the first Swedish government leader to be defeated by a no-confidence vote. The motion of no confidence was filed by the far-right Sweden Democrats, after the Left Party said it was planning such a motion itself in protest of a plan to ease rent controls. On the left,the proposal for “market rents”, that would potentially allow landlords to freely set rents for new apartments, is seen as being at odds with the Swedish social model and a threat to tenants’ rights.The conservative Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats were quick to back the motion, which was passed by 181 MPs in the 349-seat parliament.  Last-ditch efforts to appease the Left Party, which holds 27 seats, failed. Critics have described the constellation as an “unholy alliance” of parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum.After 11 unsuccessful no-confidence votes in modern Swedish political history, Lofven, who has previously distinguished himself by his ability to survive political crises, thus ended up setting an unwanted precedent.Elections or resignation? Any snap poll would be held in addition tothe general election scheduled for September 2022, which would result in two ballots in just over a year. If Lofven opts for fresh elections, they would be the first snap polls in the country since 1958. According to an Ipsos opinion poll published Tuesday, the right and far-right would come out on top in a general election, with a very slim parliamentary majority.If Lofven chooses instead to resign,it will be up to parliamentary speaker Andreas Norlen to open negotiations to find a new prime minister.That could open the way for Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson to assume the office, according to the Expressen daily’s Patrik Kronqvist. The process could also bea slow one. Norlen would have to consult each party before proposing a new PM. The parliamentary speaker would then need to receive backing from 175 deputies for his choice.  If he failed to do so, then it would be back to a general election. 
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets Monday with Pope Francis and other officials at the Vatican, with climate change, human rights and human trafficking among the topics of discussion. The visit comes ahead of an expected October meeting between the pope and U.S. President Joe Biden, who is the second Catholic to lead the United States. Also Monday, Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio co-chair a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS where State Department officials said ministers will discuss maintaining pressure on the militant group in Iraq and Syria while also working to counter affiliates elsewhere in the world. Patrick Worman, acting director of the U.S. Office of the Special Envoy to Defeat ISIS, told reporters a particular focus of the meeting will be “new challenges ISIS is posing in Africa,” particularly West Africa and the Sahel. The United States launched a coalition effort, now involving 83 members, aimed at defeating the Islamic State group in 2014 after the militants seized control of a large area across northern Syria and Iraq, and in 2019 declared the militants had been ousted from their last remaining territory. “ISIS remains a determined enemy,” Worman told reporters.  “There is still much work to do in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS continues to conduct attacks and sow fear among local populations.” Worman said the coalition is working with the Iraqi government, including supporting Iraq’s security forces, to “target remaining ISIS cells, deny ISIS sanctuary, and to eliminate ISIS media, finance, and facilitation networks.” Worman also highlighted a need to help victims of ISIS atrocities, hold those who committed crimes accountable, and to focus on humanitarian efforts. Another meeting Monday focuses specifically on Syria, where in addition to issues related to the Islamic State group, Blinken, De Maio and other ministers will focus on renewing efforts to bring an end to the decade-long conflict in Syria. Humanitarian access, in particular the ability for the United Nations to deliver cross-border aid, will be among the issues Blinken highlights, the State Department said. He is also expected to discuss U.S. support for an immediate cease-fire in Syria. “Stability in Syria, and the greater region, can only be achieved through a political process that represents the will of all Syrians,” Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Joey Hood told reporters.  “We’re committed to working with allies, partners, and the UN to ensure that a durable political solution remains within reach.” Efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict, through a combination of halting the fighting and carrying out a political roadmap endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, have seen little progress in recent years. Hood said the international community “must renew its shared resolve to ensure the protection, dignity, and human rights of the Syrian people.” Blinken is on a multination tour of Europe, which on Tuesday brings him to Matera, Italy for a meeting of G-20 foreign ministers. The agenda for those talks includes the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and equitable economic recovery. 
…

Israel’s new government on Sunday pledged close cooperation with the United States even as it expressed “serious reservations” about efforts by Washington to rejoin the international pact to restrain Iran’s nuclear program.Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Rome in their first face-to-face meeting since a new coalition government assumed power in the Jewish state, ending the 12-year control by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Ahead of their talks, Lapid acknowledged that “in the past few years, mistakes were made” in relations between the two countries, with Netanyahu closely aligning himself with former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republicans in the U.S. Congress, at times to the exclusion of close ties with Democratic officials.”Israel’s bipartisan standing was hurt,” Lapid said. “We will fix those mistakes together.”The top Israeli diplomat, who under a power-sharing arrangement will become the country’s prime minister in two years following new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, said he has spoken with both Democrats and Republicans since taking office and had “reminded them all that we share America’s most basic, basic values — freedom, democracy, free markets and constant search for peace.”Blinken noted that although the administration of President Joe Biden is five months old and Bennett’s two weeks, “the foundation that we’re working on is one of an enduring partnership, a relationship, friendship between the United States and Israel.”Lapid did not spell out Israel’s objections to the U.S. rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Tehran. The former U.S. leader reimposed economic sanctions on Iran.Biden is seeking to rejoin Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China in the agreement to block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.”Israel has some serious reservations about the Iran nuclear deal that is being put together in Vienna,” Lapid said, adding he would make his country’s objections known privately to the U.S.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in Rome, Italy, June 27, 2021.”We have the same objective,” Blinken said. “Sometimes we differ on the tactics, and we, I think, are very clear and direct to each other when that’s the case and that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.”Blinken and Lapid also discussed Israel’s normalization accords with Gulf Arab states, as well as the need for humanitarian aid to Gaza after nearly two weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in May.Blinken is on a multination trip to Europe. He is also holding several days of meetings with top Italian leaders, Pope Francis, Group of 20 leaders and ministerial-level officials.After being warmly welcomed in France and Germany, Blinken left Paris Sunday for Rome, where, in addition to Lapid, he also met with the Italian foreign minister, United Nations food security agencies and U.S. embassy officials.   On Monday, Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio will co-chair a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, while Blinken also meets with Prime Minister Mario Draghi and President Sergio Mattarella to discuss Syria’s civil war and the humanitarian needs in that country.The State Department says Syria remains a big concern, with tens of thousands of women and children in humanitarian camps subject to security issues as members of the Islamic State terrorist group work to exploit the camps to recruit the next generation of fighters.Also Monday, Blinken goes to Vatican City for meetings with Pope Francis and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister. Among the topics he and Vatican officials are expected to discuss are climate change, human trafficking and debt relief for impoverished countries.  His meeting with the pope comes ahead of an expected October meeting between the pontiff and Biden, the second Catholic U.S. president. 
…

A large, newly restored area of the Colosseum, which used to be the underground backstage of the ancient Roman amphitheater, is now accessible to the public for the first time. Visitors can use a newly constructed wooden walkway to admire the tunnels and chambers under the arena that were used by wild animals and human performers before they joined the action in front of large audiences.A team of more than 80 experts, including archaeologists, engineers and restorers, worked on the Colosseum’s hypogeum for two years. The project was the second phase in a major restoration of the iconic landmark that began in September 2013. Funding was provided by Diego Della Valle’s Tod’s fashion group. At the time, Della Valle pledged 25 million euros for the ambitious and complicated feat.Diego Della Valle, who funded the works at the Colosseum. (Sabina Castelfranco/VOA)Speaking at the opening of the hypogeum, Della Valle expressed satisfaction at what has been achieved so far for a monument that “the whole world loves.” He also praised the decision that allowed the public and private sectors to come together “for a good cause.”Alfonsina Russo, director of the archaeological park of the Colosseum, said “a monument within a monument has now been fully restored and reopened”. She said the restoration of the hypogeum was very complex adding that “each stone here is a witness of everything that occurred under the great arena of the Colosseum from its inauguration in AD 80 to its final performance in AD 523.” Alfonsina Russo, director of the archaeological park of the Colosseum. (Sabina Castelfranco/VOA)Russo said 2,000 years ago this was the heart of the Flavian amphitheater where all the preparations for the shows took place. She added that this was the backstage where gladiators prepared for their challenges and where cages with wild animals were kept for the shows.A new 160-meter wooden walkway for visitors has now been constructed in the hypogeum, which provides access to parts of the monument which were not previously visible.Russo explained that this 15,000-square-meter area was filled with technology advanced for its time, with mobile platforms and wooden elevators that allowed the animals and performer out onto the arena so that they could join the combat action. There was also special water system which filled the arena with water for naval battles, normally for the grand finale of the shows at the Colosseum.Tourists outside Rome’s ancient amphitheater. (Sabina Castelfranco//VOA)In the first phase of the works the northern and southern facades of the Colosseum were cleaned, damaged mortar in arches was replaced and the monument was fitted with new gates. The third phase, soon to be launched, will involve the restoration of galleries, the creation of a completely new visitors’ center and a new lighting system.Another project approved for the Colosseum involves installation of a high-tech retractable stage, expected to be operational by 2023 and which is likely to bring back cultural events and performances. 
…

Classified documents from Britain’s defense ministry containing details about a British warship and Russia’s potential reaction to its passage through the Black Sea have been found at a bus stop in southern England, the BBC reported on Sunday.The BBC said the documents, almost 50 pages in all, were found “in a soggy heap behind a bus stop in Kent early on Tuesday morning” by a member of the public, who wanted to remain anonymous.The Ministry of Defense said it had been informed last week of “an incident in which sensitive defense papers were recovered by a member of the public”. “The department takes the security of information extremely seriously and an investigation has been launched. The employee concerned reported the loss at the time. It would be inappropriate to comment further,” a spokesperson said. The BBC reported that the documents, which included emails and PowerPoint presentations, related to British warship Defender, which sailed through waters off the Crimean peninsula which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014 last week.Russia said on Wednesday it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the ship to chase it out of what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world say belong to Ukraine.It later summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding over what it described as a provocation.Britain rejected Russia’s account of the incident. It said it believed any shots fired were a pre-announced Russian “gunnery exercise”, and that no bombs had been dropped.It confirmed the destroyer had sailed through what it said were Ukrainian waters, describing its path as “innocent passage” in accordance with international law of the sea.The BBC said the documents suggested the ship’s mission was conducted in the expectation that Russia might respond aggressively.”What do we understand about the possible ‘welcome party’…?” asked an official at Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), the UK’s tri-service headquarters at Northwood, according to the BBC.  
…

France was voting in the second round of regional elections on Sunday after a first round that saw a drubbing for President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, disappointment for Marine Le Pen’s far-right and record low turnout.    For some observers, the outcome of the June 20 first round raised doubts over whether the 2022 presidential election would come down to a duel between Macron and Le Pen in a run-off long seen as the most likely scenario.  French President Emmanuel Macron shows his passport at a polling station during the first round of French regional and departmental elections, in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, June 20, 2021. (Reuters/Christian Hartmann/Pool)The first-round results marked a boost for the traditional right-wing The Republicans as well as the Socialist Party, who have been squeezed after the centrist Macron surged into power in 2017 with his brand-new Republic on the Move (LREM) party.   Analysts warn against too much extrapolation onto a nationwide scale from the results of the regional elections, which choose the heads of France’s 13 mainland regions from Brittany in the northwest to the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur (PACA) region in the southeast.   But there was cross-party concern over the turnout for last week’s polls, which were shunned by 66.72 percent of voters — a record in modern France.   “What we are seeing is the culmination of a disconnection between voters and the political class,” said Jessica Sainty, politics lecturer at Avignon University, while acknowledging the COVID-19 crisis also played a role in high abstention rate.   The woeful turnout prompted a debate over how to improve participation, with several figures including government spokesman Gabriel Attal suggesting electronic voting could help in future.   According to a poll published Thursday, just 36 percent of voters plan to cast their ballots on Sunday. “France is sulking,” the Le Parisien newspaper said.   Far-right eyes breakthrough The first-round results put Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) ahead in just one region, PACA, a major disappointment after polls showed a possible breakthrough in several areas.   FILE – President of the French far-right party Rassemblement National (National Rally) and MP Marine Le Pen gives a press conference, in Paris, March 9, 2021.One of the most closely watched races on Sunday will be whether RN candidate Thierry Mariani can defeat his right-wing rival Renaud Muselier in the region.    Gaining control of a region for the first time would be a huge boost for Le Pen as she seeks to convince voters that the RN — which she has reformed and rebranded since taking over from her firebrand father Jean-Marie — is a serious party of power.    Muselier could be helped by the withdrawal of left-wing candidates in a repeat of the “Republican Front” seen in past presidential elections to block the far-right.   “The idea of a victory for Mariani — even if it is far from being probable — would show that the RN can almost triumph alone over the coalition of all the others and head the powerful executive of a modern region,” said Jerome Sainte-Marie, president of the Pollingvox Institute.   Mariani has been accused by critics of being an admirer of authoritarians like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Prime Minister Jean Castex warned last week that a Mariani victory would be “very serious” for the country.    The RN also came up short in the Ile-de-France region that includes Paris, where its 25-year-old rising star Jordan Bardella failed to trouble right-wing incumbent Valerie Pecresse, who is now expected to easily win the second round.   ‘Lacks local presence’  The first-round results made even more unpalatable reading for Macron and his LREM, confirming the party’s failure to put down local and regional roots despite controlling the presidency and lower house of parliament.   Despite sending several ministers to campaign and Macron himself embarking on a nationwide tour — that saw him slapped by an onlooker at one point — in some regions LREM did not muster the required 10 percent to make round two.   “2022: What if it wasn’t them?” asked the headline in the left-wing Liberation newspaper over a picture of Macron and Le Pen.   LREM has almost no chance of winning control of a single region and is currently just number five among political parties in France.   The Socialists are expected to pick up some regions, partly due to support from the far-left France Unbowed party.   “LREM lacks a local presence, but in 2017 that did not prevent them from winning the presidential and legislative elections,” said Sainty.   Voting began at 8:00 am (0600 GMT) on Sunday, with the last polling stations due to close 12 hours later.  
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s multination trip to Europe takes him to Italy Sunday for several days of meetings with top Italian leaders, Pope Francis, Group of 20 leaders and ministerial-level officials.After being warmly welcomed in France and Germany, Blinken left Paris on Sunday for Rome, where he meets with the Italian foreign minister, United Nations food security agencies and U.S. Embassy officials. He will also meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio will co-chair a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Rome on Monday, when he also meets with Prime Minister Mario Draghi and President Sergio Mattarella to discuss the Syrian civil war and the humanitarian needs in that country. The State Department says Syria remains a big concern, with tens of thousands of women and children in humanitarian camps subject to security issues as members of the Islamic State terrorist group work to exploit the camps to recruit the next generation of fighters.Also Monday, Blinken goes to Vatican City for meetings with Pope Francis and Archbishop Paul Gallagher. Among the topics he and Vatican officials are expected to discuss are climate change, human trafficking and debt relief for impoverished countries.His meeting with the pope comes ahead of an expected October meeting between the pontiff and U.S. President Joe Biden, the second Catholic U.S. president.At a recent conference, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops voted to draft a statement on Communion that may rebuke Catholic political figures, including Biden, who defend abortion rights but personally oppose the practice.During his visit to Paris on Friday, Blinken warned that the absence of an interim agreement to monitor Iran’s nuclear activities could prompt the U.S. to abandon efforts to rejoin a nuclear deal.“We’ll see if we can bridge the differences, but they’re real, and we have to — we have to be able to bridge them,” Blinken said at a briefing in Paris after meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian.“I would tell you that with regard to the [International Atomic Energy Agency], this remains a serious concern, a concern that we’ve communicated to Iran, and it needs to be … resolved.” Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, accompanied by Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Mathias Cormann, of Australia, speaks at the OECD headquarters in Paris, June 25, 2021.The top U.S. diplomat arrived in France from Germany, where on Thursday he and German leaders said the U.S. and Germany were partnering to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism, an effort the secretary of state said will “ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it.”Speaking at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Blinken said Holocaust denial and antisemitism go hand in hand with homophobia, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination, and have become “a rallying cry for those who seek to tear down our democracies.”The top U.S. diplomat also met Thursday with Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba on the heels of an international conference focused on supporting Libya’s transition to a permanent, stable government.Wednesday’s conference, hosted by Germany and the United Nations, included officials from 17 countries and reinforced support for national elections in Libya scheduled for late December.Libya has experienced political instability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi from power.  Rival governments operated in separate parts of the country for years before a cease-fire deal in October that included a demand for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave Libya within 90 days.This report includes information from Reuters and AFP.   
…

Argentine prosecutors will on Monday question Diego Maradona’s personal physician, implicated with six other medical professionals in having neglected the ailing football icon in his final days.The appearance of Leopoldo Luque, 39, will close a two-week process of interrogating the seven, who appeared one-by-one to state their case.A judge will next decide whether to order a trial, in a process that could take years. The suspects risk between eight and 25 years in jail if found guilty.The seven were placed under investigation for manslaughter after a board of experts looking into Maradona’s death found he had received inadequate care and was abandoned to his fate for a “prolonged, agonizing period.”The sporting legend died of a heart attack last November at the age of 60, weeks after undergoing brain surgery for a blood clot.An investigation was opened following a complaint filed by two of Maradona’s five children against neurosurgeon Luque, whom they blame for their father’s deterioration after the operation.A panel of 20 medical experts convened by Argentina’s public prosecutor said last month that Maradona’s treatment was rife with “deficiencies and irregularities” and the medical team had left his survival “to fate.”The panel concluded he “would have had a better chance of survival” with adequate treatment in an appropriate medical facility.Instead, he died alone in his bed in a rented house in an exclusive Buenos Aires neighborhood where he was receiving home care.’I did my best’Luque has repeatedly denied guilt, and recently said “I’m proud of what I did,” to assist the patient, who he described as his friend.”I did my best. I offered Diego everything I could: some things he accepted, others not,” he said.The doctor is seeking a dismissal of the case and says Maradona had been depressed in his final days.”I know that the (coronavirus) quarantine hit him very hard,” Luque has said.He could on Monday decline to respond to questions and submit a written statement instead.Last week, a lawyer for co-accused nurse Dahiana Madrid, 36, told prosecutors the doctors in charge had “killed Diego.””In the end, there were many warning signs that Maradona was going to die, give or take a day. And none of the doctors did anything to prevent it,” attorney Rodolfo Baque said at the time.The other five people under suspicion are nurse Ricardo Almiron, 37; nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, 40; medical coordinator Nancy Forlini, 52; psychologist Carlos Diaz, 29; and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, 36.All have denied responsibility for Maradona’s death.Cosachov, who appeared before prosecutors on Friday, denied that the psychiatric medicine she had prescribed could have contributed to Maradona’s heart condition.Maradona had battled cocaine and alcohol addictions for years.The former Boca Juniors, Barcelona and Napoli star was suffering from liver, kidney and cardiovascular disorders when he died.Maradona is an idol to millions of Argentines after he inspired the South American country to only their second World Cup triumph in 1986.His death shocked fans around the world, and tens of thousands queued to file past his coffin, draped in the Argentine flag, at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires amid three days of national mourning. 
…

After being warmly welcomed in France and Germany, Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Italy on Sunday to meet with top Italian leaders and the pope and to take part in ministerial level meetings on Syria and defeating Islamic State fighters and attending a G-20 meeting. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Paris.
Camera: Bronwyn Benito
…

In a blaze of publicity, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid a foundation stone close to Istanbul, starting the construction of a 45-kilometer canal linking the Black and Marmara seas. Erdogan declared the project would usher in a new era for Istanbul and for Turkey.“This going to be a brand-new page in Turkey’s development. On the path to this development, we will leap forward,” he said, adding, “This will save Istanbul’s Bosphorus waterway.”The canal will provide an alternative route from the Bosphorus, which cuts through Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul, and is one of the world’s busiest waterways.Erdogan said the channel would offer a more efficient, faster and safer passage. But this month, Istanbul’s opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, voiced alarm.”I am sweating when I talk about this channel, because I can feel this is a nightmare, I can feel it deep inside,” he said. “Because I listened to tens of briefings from the scientists who are all warning against it.”The mayor warned that the project threatens the city’s water supplies and risks wider environmental consequences in the region’s delicate balance of interconnected seas.Marine biologist Cemal Saydam, contending that the government was ignoring the scientists, said such concerns were well-founded.“If you are connecting two marine bodies, you have to ask the opinion of marine scientists, which they have not done,” Saydam said. “Scientifically, it’s going to devastate the Sea of Marmara for sure, and it’s going to devastate the Black Sea for sure, and it’s going to change the whole water budget of the Mediterranean Sea, as well, because there are interconnected seas.“Riot police prevent protesters from marching to the scene where Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends the groundbreaking ceremony of Sazlidere Bridge over the planned route of Kanal Istanbul, in Istanbul, Turkey, June 26, 2021.The government dismisses such warnings, claiming it has carried out the necessary research. But most of Turkey’s leading banks are refusing to finance the canal, with an estimated cost of up to $65 billion, citing international commitments to support only environmentally sustainable projects.The canal also is a point of tension with Russia. Erdogan has said the canal is not covered by the 1936 International Montreux Convention. The convention limits foreign warships’ size and their access to the Black Sea to 21 days.Moscow considers the convention vital to limiting NATO’s naval presence and maintaining the sea as its sphere of influence. NATO-Russian tensions have been rising since Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory in early 2014.While questions remain over whether the funds exist to complete the canal, Zaur Gasimov of Germany’s Bonn University said Ankara sees the project as a bargaining chip with Moscow.“That would open certain leverage for Ankara,” Gasimov said. “That would open a new field for the negotiation between Moscow and Ankara, and that gives new possibilities for Ankara to promote its interests in its interaction with Russia.”Analysts say the importance of access to the Black Sea is likely to grow in coming years, as NATO-Russia tensions escalate over Ukraine.Next week, the United States is scheduled to carry out a major naval exercise with Ukraine in the Black Sea.
…

Thousands of Peruvians supporting socialist Pedro Castillo and right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori took to the streets Saturday amid swirling uncertainty over the result of a tight June 6 presidential election that has been held up by legal challenges.Castillo supporters marched in downtown Lima toward Plaza San Martín, a block from the headquarters of the electoral jury, with giant banners and photos of the socialist candidate, calling for his apparent election win to be confirmed.A few blocks away, thousands of others supporting Fujimori paraded with Peruvian flags and banners that read “no to fraud,” arriving at the Plaza Bolognesi, where a stage had been set up ahead of the expected arrival of the conservative.Castillo holds a slender 44,000-vote lead over Fujimori with all ballots counted. But his right-wing rival has sought to disqualify votes, largely in rural areas that backed the leftist, making claims of fraud with little evidence.Castillo’s Free Peru party has denied the allegations of fraud while international election observers have said the vote was carried out cleanly. The U.S. State Department described the process as a “model of democracy.”A supporter wears a shirt with an image of Peru’s presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori that reads, “Always with you,” in Lima, Peru, June 26, 2021.In Fujimori’s march were members of various right and center-right parties, as well as retired military personnel who have backed her fraud claims. Many had banners saying “no to communism,” a criticism they often aim at Castillo.In the rival camp, many wore the same wide-brimmed hats Castillo has used in the campaign. Some wore outfits from the country’s Andean regions and danced, while others carried whips as used by rural “ronderos,” or civil police.Castillo, 51, a former elementary school teacher and the son of peasant farmers, plans to redraft the country’s constitution to give the state a more active role in the economy and take a larger share of profits from mining companies.The already tense election process was plunged into disarray this week after one of the four magistrates on the jury reviewing contested ballots quit after clashing with the other officials over requests to nullify votes.Replacement sworn inOn Saturday the electoral jury swore in a replacement to allow the process to restart, key to restoring stability in the copper-rich Andean nation, which has been rattled by the tight vote.”Electoral justice cannot be paralyzed or blocked, much less in this phase of the process,” said the president of the National Elections Jury, Jorge Salas. “These interruptive arts will not prosper.”The election jury will restart its work reviewing contested ballots Monday, a spokeswoman for the body said. It must complete the review before an official result can be announced.The polarized election has deeply divided Peruvians, with poorer rural voters rallying behind Castillo and wealthier urban voters from Lima supporting Fujimori, the daughter of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori.The demonstrations came despite calls from health authorities to avoid crowds, with the country battling the most deadly per capita COVID-19 outbreak in the world.
…

Britain’s Health Minister Matt Hancock quit Saturday after he was caught breaking COVID-19 rules by kissing and embracing an aide in his office, enraging colleagues and the public who have been living under lockdown.Hancock, 42, wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign after The Sun newspaper published photos on Friday of the married minister embracing a woman whom he had appointed to a taxpayer-funded role to scrutinize the performance of his department.Hancock has been at the center of the government’s fight against the pandemic, routinely appearing on television and radio to tell people to follow the strict rules to contain the virus.His departure means Johnson will have to appoint a new minister to take on the huge department that is responsible for overseeing the health service and tackling the virus, at a time when cases have started to rise again.Johnson said Friday that he had accepted an apology from the minister and considered the matter to be closed, but Hancock faced rising pressure to quit.”We owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down as I have done by breaching the guidance,” Hancock said in his letter.Johnson expresses gratitudeJohnson said in reply that he was sorry to receive it. “You should be immensely proud of your service,” he wrote. “I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.”The Sun showed Hancock kissing the aide in his office last month, at a time when it was against the rules for people to have intimate contact with others  outside their households.The opposition Labor Party also questioned whether he had broken the ministerial code: the woman, a longtime friend of Hancock’s, was appointed as a nonexecutive director, on a taxpayer-funded salary, to oversee the running of his department.Labor leader Keir Starmer said on Twitter that Hancock was right to resign. “But Boris Johnson should have sacked him.”With 128,000 deaths, Britain has one of the highest official death tolls from COVID-19 in the world and Hancock, in the post for almost three years, had been heavily criticized for his initial handling of the pandemic.Johnson’s Conservative government has been boosted by a rapid rollout of the vaccine program, however, with 84% of adults having one dose and 61% having both, well ahead of most other countries.
…

Iran said Saturday it believes a reinstatement of its 2015 nuclear deal with major world powers is possible but warned that Tehran “will not negotiate forever.””Out of a steadfast commitment to salvage a deal that the U.S. tried to torpedo, Iran has been the most active party in Vienna, proposing most drafts,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Twitter, referring to talks aimed at reviving the nuclear deal.
 
Iran and the United States have been holding indirect talks on reviving the 2015 agreement between Tehran and six powers that imposed restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting international sanctions.US Could Quit Iran Nuclear Deal if Talks Do Not AdvanceBlinken addresses reporters after meeting with French foreign minister 
Then U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the agreement in 2018, but President Joe Biden has been seeking to revive it. Officials on all sides have said there are major issues to resolve before the deal can be reinstated.
 
“Still believe a deal is possible, if the U.S. decides to abandon Trump’s failed legacy. Iran will not negotiate forever,” Khatibzadeh tweeted.
 
The U.N. nuclear watchdog Friday demanded an immediate reply from Iran on whether it would extend a monitoring agreement that expired overnight. An Iranian envoy responded that Tehran was under no obligation to provide an answer.
 
The Vienna talks, which began in April, are now in a pause that had been expected to last until early July, but failure to extend the monitoring accord could throw those negotiations into disarray.
…

Investigators were looking Saturday for a motive behind an attack in the German city of Wuerzburg in which a man armed with a long knife killed three people and wounded at least five others.The suspect, a 24-year-old Somali, was shot in the leg by police and arrested after the Friday afternoon attack in the southern city’s downtown area. Police said his life was not in danger and he was being questioned in a hospital.Bavaria’s top security official, Joachim Herrmann, said the suspect had been known to police and had been admitted to a psychiatric unit a few days earlier. He told news agency dpa late Friday that he couldn’t rule out an Islamic extremist motive because one witness had reported hearing the suspect shout “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”The man had lived in Wuerzburg since 2015, most recently in a shelter for the homeless. He apparently did not know the victims. People laid flowers and candles at the scene of the attack.Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and trying to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks.Bavarian governor Markus Soeder praised the “really impressive dedication” of those who tried to stop the man. “Now the circumstances have to be cleared up, the motives,” he said in a statement to reporters in Nuremberg.“All of Bavaria is in mourning today,” said Soeder, who added that he would order flags flown at half-staff in the state. 
…

President Ivan Duque said the helicopter he was flying in Friday near the border with Venezuela was hit by gunfire in the first attack against a Colombian head of state in nearly 20 years.No one was injured, and authorities did not say which side of the border the shots came from. Colombia regularly accuses Venezuela of harboring Colombian rebels on its territory.”It is a cowardly attack, where you can see bullet holes in the presidential aircraft,” Duque said in a statement.Duque said he was flying with the defense and interior ministers and the governor of Norte de Santander province, which borders Venezuela, when the helicopter was attacked.Photos released by the president’s office showed the tail and main blade had been hit.Duque said the aircraft’s “safety features” prevented a “lethal” attack.”I have given very clear instructions to the entire security team to go after those who shot at the aircraft,” he said.The U.S., European Union and U.N. mission in Colombia all condemned the attack.The presidential delegation had left the town of Sardinata and was headed to the border city of Cucuta when they came under fire.Duque had attended an event in the Catatumbo region, one of the main coca-growing areas of the country. Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer.Holdouts from the disbanded FARC rebel group, an active guerrilla group called the National Liberation Army (ELN), and other armed bands fight drug trafficking turf wars along the long and porous border with Venezuela.The two countries broke off relations after Duque, a conservative, came to power in 2018. Venezuela is governed by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.The Duque government has repeatedly accused Venezuela of giving refuge to ELN fighters.”We are not frightened by violence or acts of terrorism. Our state is strong and Colombia is strong to confront this kind of threat,” Duque said after the attack on his chopper.The border area has been violent of late.Anger in the streetsOn June 16, a car bomb exploded on a military base in Cucuta, wounding 36 people.The government blamed the ELN, with which it ended peace negotiations in 2019.Those talks started after the government concluded a historic peace accord in 2016 with the much bigger FARC that ended decades of civil war.The last attack against a president in Colombia was a bombing that targeted then leader Alvaro Uribe in 2003.A 20-kilogram bomb hidden in a building near the airport in the southwest city of Neiva exploded prior to the landing of a plane carrying Uribe, who is Duque’s political mentor.The blast killed 15 people and wounded 66. The government blamed the FARC for that attack.Since Duque came to power the country has been enduring its worst outbreak of violence since the peace accord with the FARC.The government accuses armed groups financed with drug money of carrying out massacres in isolated coca-producing regions.With his approval record at rock bottom, Duque is also facing anger in the streets.Tens of thousands of people voiced their discontent on April 28 against a proposed tax hike that they said would hurt the middle class, already suffering economically from the pandemic.The government withdrew the proposal, but the protests morphed into a broader grassroots movement to air gripes about inequality, education and other woes, amid complaints of heavy-handed police action to put down the marches. More than 60 people have died in the unrest.
…

The United Nations said 12 German troops and a Belgian soldier serving in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali were wounded Friday in an attack in the country’s restive north.The U.N. mission in the country, MINUSMA, had earlier said that 15 peacekeepers were wounded when a temporary operational base in the Gao region was targeted with a vehicle bomb. Later, it corrected the numbers.German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said three of the soldiers were seriously wounded. She told reporters in Bonn, Germany, that two soldiers were in a stable condition while the third was still undergoing surgery.All of the wounded soldiers were flown by helicopter to Gao, where they were being treated at German, French and Chinese medical facilities, the minister said.”The military operations on site aren’t completed yet,” she said.A German medevac plane will fly to Gao overnight to bring the wounded soldiers back to Germany on Saturday, said Kramp-Karrenbauer.Germany has hundreds of troops taking part in U.N. stabilization and European Union training missions in the West African nation.Mali has been trying to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012.Islamic extremist rebels were forced from power in Mali’s northern cities with the help of a French-led military operation in 2013. However, the insurgents quickly regrouped in the desert and began launching frequent attacks on the Malian army and its allies fighting the insurgency.The extremists have expanded their reach well into central Mali, where their presence has inflamed tensions between ethnic groups in the area. 
…

Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada say investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children, which follows the discovery of 215 bodies at another school last month.The new discovery was at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899-1997 where the Cowessess First Nation is now located, about 135 kilometers east of Regina, the capital of the province of Saskatchewan.Ground-penetrating radar registered 751 ”hits,” indicating at least 600 bodies were buried, said Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess. Some and perhaps most are from over a century ago. The gravesite is believed to hold the bodies of children and adults, and even people from outside the community who attended church there.Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said it is not unusual to find such graves at former residential schools but is always a devastating discovery that reopens old wounds about the forced assimilation of native children at those often-abusive institutions.Many non-Indigenous Canadians were not aware of the extent of the problems at the schools until the remains of 215 children were found last month at what was once the country’s largest such school in British Columbia.What are residential schools?From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, with many never returned to their families.Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which today is the largest Protestant denomination in the country.The Canadian government has admitted its role in a century of isolating native children from their homes, families and cultures, and that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, where students were beaten for speaking their native language. That legacy of abuse and isolation has been cited by native leaders as a cause of alcoholism and drug addiction widely seen on reservations today.Indigenous leaders have called it a form of cultural genocide.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called it “an incredibly harmful government policy that was Canada’s reality for many, many decades and Canadians today are horrified and ashamed of how our country behaved.”He said the policy “forced assimilation” on the children.What’s behind the discovery of the remains?A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up as part of a government apology and settlement, issued a report in 2015 that identified about 3,200 confirmed deaths at schools. While some died of diseases like tuberculosis amid the often-deplorable conditions, it noted that a cause of death for about half of them often was not recorded.The government wanted to keep costs down at the schools, so adequate regulations were never established, the reconciliation commission said.It said the practice at the schools was to not send the bodies home to their communities. Delorme said the graves at the Saskatchewan school were marked at one time, but that the Catholic operators of the facility had removed them.What apologies have been made?Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in Parliament in 2008 for the government’s role. Among the Christian denominations, the Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches also apologized for their roles in the abuse.A papal apology was one of 94 recommendations from the reconciliation commission, but the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for the residential schools.Former Pope Benedict XVI met with some former students and victims in 2009 and told them of his “personal anguish” over their suffering.After last month’s discovery, Pope Francis expressed his pain and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair,” but didn’t offer an apology.Trudeau said Friday he has spoken to Francis personally “to impress upon him how important it is not just that he makes an apology but that he makes an apology to indigenous Canadians on Canadian soil.”Archbishop Don Bolen of the Regina Archdiocese posted a letter on its website this week to the Cowessess First Nation in which he repeated an apology he said he made two years ago.What compensation has been offered?The reconciliation commission was created as part of a $5 billion Canadian ($4 billion U.S.) class action settlement in 2005, the largest in Canadian history.Under the settlement, students who attended the schools were eligible to receive $10,000 Canadian ($8,143 U.S.) for the first school year and $3,000 Canadian ($2,443 U.S.) for every year thereafter. Victims of physical and sexual abuse were eligible for further compensation.Trudeau has said the government will help preserve gravesites and search for unmarked burial grounds at other schools, but he and his ministers have stressed the need for indigenous communities to decide for themselves how they want to proceed.The government previously announced $27 million Canadian ($22 million U.S.) for the effort in what it called a first step. 
…

A man armed with a long knife killed three people and injured five others, some seriously, in Germany’s southern city of Wuerzburg on Friday before being shot by police and arrested, authorities said. Police identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Somali man living in Wuerzburg. His life was not in danger from his gunshot wound, they said. Bavaria’s top security official Joachim Herrmann said the injured include a young boy, whose father was probably among the dead. The suspect was in psychiatric treatment before the attack and had been known to police, Herrmann said. There was no immediate word on a possible motive. Emergency services vehicles are seen at the site of a knife attack, in Wuerzburg, Germany, June 25, 2021.Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and trying to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks. A woman who said she had witnessed the incident told German RTL television that the police then stepped in. “He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people,” Julia Runze said. “And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him.” “The police then approached him, and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly.” Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick said officers were alerted around 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) to a knife attack on Barbarossa Square in the center of the city. Würzburg is a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt. Bavaria’s governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack. “We grieve with the victims and their families,” he wrote on Twitter. “A big thank you and respect for the spirited intervention by many citizens, who confronted the suspected attacker in a determined way,” Soeder added. “And also to all first responders for their work at the scene.” Almost five years ago, a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan wounded four people with an ax on a train near Wuerzburg. He then fled and attacked a woman passerby before police shot him dead. 
 
…

On the first day of its summit in Brussels, the 27-member European Union failed to agree to terms for proposed an EU-Russia summit, and sharply debated Hungary’s new LGBT legislation.
 
The Russia summit, proposed by France and Germany, was opposed by most eastern European nations, which felt such face-to-face discussions would appear to be rewarding Russian President Vladimir Putin for recent aggressive actions, such as cyberattacks or amassing troops on Ukraine’s border.
Talking to reporters ahead of day two of the summit in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed regret her fellow EU members could not come to an agreement on terms for such a summit, which she argued was necessary to address issues with Russia. But she said the EU members established what conditions and prerequisites must be met before a future summit could take place.
Merkel said the most important thing was for the bloc to act together, rather than individual states acting on their own.  
In his comments to reporters, French President Emmanuel Macron agreed, saying that unity among member states is what’s most importance. But he also questioned why the eastern European nations did not express similar objections to U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with Putin earlier this month.
Both Merkel and Macron said most EU members let Hungary know their objections to the recently approved legislation banning depictions interpreted to “promote” homosexuality or gender fluidity to any person under the age of 18. Merkel said the EU members let Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, know that the legislation goes against European values.
Macron said the legislation is an example of certain European states being pulled by “models of society, political models, that are contrary to our values.” He said it was important member states work through those differences.  
Merkel also said she has warned member states of the rise of the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.  The variant spreads more quickly and can lead to more severe symptoms. She said it is on the rise in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and if left unchecked, it could stifle the recovery from the pandemic. She urged nations to step up their vaccination programs.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Friday that the absence of an interim agreement to monitor Iran’s nuclear activities could prompt the United States to abandon efforts to rejoin a nuclear deal. “This remains a serious concern,” Blinken said at a news conference in Paris. “The concern has been communicated to Iran and needs to be resolved.”The International Atomic Energy Agency has said a three-month interim monitoring agreement reached on Feb. 21 expired Thursday after it was extended by one month. The agency said it is negotiating with Tehran on a second extension. Blinken, who is visiting Paris as part of a multi-nation European tour, acknowledged the U.S. could eventually decide not to rejoin the agreement if negotiations in Vienna continue without progress.’There will come a point, yes, where it will be very hard to return back to the standards set by the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action),” a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and major powers to curb its uranium enrichment program in exchange for lifting sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations. Negotiating parties have held talks for six weeks, and a sixth round of indirect talks ended last Sunday with major issues still unresolved. Iran Says Nuclear Talks to be Adjourned for Consultations in Capitals It was unclear when formal negotiations would resumeFrench Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian underscored Blinken’s warning, saying at the Paris news conference Friday it is up to Iran to move the talks forward. “We’re waiting for Iranian authorities to take the final difficult decisions to allow for the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal,” he said.  Blinken meets with French President Emmanuel Macron later Friday. The top U.S. diplomat arrived in France from Germany, where on Thursday he and German leaders said the U.S. and Germany were partnering to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism, an effort the secretary of state said will “ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it.”  Speaking at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Blinken said Holocaust denial and antisemitism go hand in hand with homophobia, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination, and have become “a rallying cry for those who seek to tear down our democracies.” US, Germany Launch Effort to Counter Holocaust Denial US Secretary of State Tony Blinken says partnership will ‘ensure that current and future generations learn about the Holocaust and also learn from it’ Earlier Thursday in Berlin, the secretary of state and Libyan interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba held talks on the heels of an international conference focused on supporting Libya’s transition to a permanent, stable government.  Wednesday’s conference, hosted by Germany and the United Nations, included officials from 17 countries and reinforced support for national elections in Libya scheduled for late December.  Libya Conference Focuses on Elections, Security Attendees agree on the need to support December vote and for foreign fighters to leave the countryA senior U.S. State Department official told reporters Wednesday that the elections are important “not just to legitimize a long-term, credible Libyan government,” but also to help achieve the goal of carrying out an existing call for all foreign fighters to leave the country.  Libya has experienced political instability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi from power.  Rival governments operated in separate parts of the country for years before a cease-fire deal in October that included a demand for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave Libya within 90 days.     At a news conference following Wednesday’s conference, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush said there was progress toward the exit of the foreign fighters and that “hopefully within the coming days mercenaries from both sides are going to be withdrawn.”  A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters that achieving that goal is an important step that now “has to be made operational.”  Defeating Islamic State will be the focus of a conference co-hosted by Blinken and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio in Rome. The top U.S. diplomat will also participate in a ministerial meeting in Italy to discuss Syria and the humanitarian needs in that country.     Blinken is also scheduled to visit the Vatican, where Reeker said the agenda includes combating climate change and human trafficking. This report includes information from Reuters and AFP.
…

Airlines and holiday providers on Friday expressed frustration with the U.K.’s plans to ease travel restrictions, saying uncertainty about how and when the new rules will be implemented make it difficult for people to book summer vacations.
The government on Thursday expanded its “green list” of safe travel destinations, allowing people to visit without having to self-isolate for 10 days after returning to Britain. However, all but one of the new additions were also placed on a watchlist, meaning the quarantine requirement may be re-imposed at short notice.
Transportation authorities also said they intend to relax travel restrictions by allowing fully vaccinated travelers to visit higher-risk destinations, including the U.S. and most of the European Union, without having to self-isolate. They expect to implement this change “later in the summer.”
“The U.K. has already fallen behind the EU’s reopening, and a continued overly cautious approach will further impact economic recovery and the 500,000 U.K. jobs that are at stake,” said Shai Weiss, chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, which offers mainly long-haul flights to destinations such as New York, Los Angeles and Barbados.
Airlines and hospitality companies have pressured the government to ease travel restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19 following the U.K.’s successful vaccination program. The pandemic has devastated Britain’s travel industry, with the number of people flying through London’s Heathrow Airport, the nation’s busiest, plunging 73% last year.
The government has created a traffic light system to manage the reopening of air travel.
Destinations with low levels of COVID-19 and high levels of vaccination are placed on the “green list,” which allows pleasure trips and doesn’t require self-isolation on return to Britain. Only essential travel is permitted to “amber list” countries, but travelers must self-isolate for 10 days when they return home. The government has banned most travel to destinations on the “red list,” and anyone arriving from one of these countries faces a 10-day quarantine in a government-approved hotel at their own expense.
The lists are updated every three weeks.
The Department for Transport said Thursday night that the expansion of the green list and plans to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated travelers were the result of the successful vaccination program. Almost 61% of U.K. adults are fully vaccinated, and 83% have received at least one dose.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said caution was still required.
“It won’t be quite like it was in 2019 and the old days, but we are moving in a positive direction,” Shapps told Sky News.
Public health authorities are concerned about the possibility that travelers may spread potentially more dangerous variants of COVID-19 to the U.K. from countries with low vaccination rates. The delta variant, first identified in India, has already become the dominant version of the virus in Britain.  
Regardless of U.K. policy, officials in the European Union are considering imposing a quarantine on British travelers because of their concerns about the delta variant which is 40% to 60% more transmissible than previous versions of COVID-19. In minutes released from government meetings earlier this month, experts said the delta variant also may be linked to a higher risk of hospitalization, although “numbers are still small” and there is no evidence the variant is more deadly.  
Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of the Unite union, said the government needs to change its approach to provide greater certainty for the travel industry and consumers.
“The traffic light system is simply not fit for purpose,” she said. “It is impossible for a multibillion-pound industry to make plans for the future when the rug can be pulled from under them every three weeks.”
The government on Thursday added more than a dozen countries and territories to its green list, including the popular holiday destinations of Malta, Madeira and the Balearic Islands. All of the destinations except Malta were placed the watch list.
The changes, which take effect at 4 a.m. June 30, will expand the green list to 27 countries and territories.
The newly added countries are: Malta, Madeira, the Balearic Islands, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Antigua, Barbuda, Dominica, Barbados and Grenada.
Britain also added six countries to the red list, including the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Uganda. That brings the number of countries covered to 56.
…

The Champlain Towers South drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast, some for a night, some to live. A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America.
They were among the nearly 100 people who remained missing Friday morning, a day after the 12-story building collapsed into rubble early Thursday. Much of the Champlain’s beach side sheared off for unknown reasons, pancaking into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30 feet (10 meters) high.
Only one person had been confirmed dead, but officials feared that number could skyrocket. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
“These are very difficult times, and things are going to get more difficult as we move forward,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said.Rescue workers look through the rubble where a wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed, June 24, 2021, in the Surfside area of Miami.Fire Rescue personnel and others worked through the night in hopes of finding survivors.  
State Sen. Jason Pizzo of Miami Beach told the Miami Herald he watched as tactical teams of six worked early Friday to pull bodies from the rubble. He said he saw one body taken in a yellow body bag and another that was marked. They were taken to a homicide unit tent that was set up along the beach.
Many people remained at the reunification center set up near the collapse site early Friday morning, awaiting results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
Officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined.
Video of the collapse showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
About half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse.Part of a building is shown after a partial collapse, June 24, 2021, in Surfside, Fla.Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb northwest of Miami. A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor. Televisions. Computers. Chairs.
Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez and their 6-year-old daughter, Sofia, had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez.
Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nuñez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from a COVID-19 resurgence in Argentina and its strict lockdowns. They had worked hard to adopt Sofia, Fernandez said.
“Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” Fernandez said. “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.”People wait for news at a family reunification center, after a wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed, June 24, 2021, in the Surfside area of Miami.They weren’t the only South Americans missing. Foreign ministries and consulates of four countries said 22 nationals were missing in the collapse: nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay.
The Paraguayans  included Sophia López Moreira — the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo and sister-in-law of President Mario Abdo Benítez — and her family.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing.
Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miami-area elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam. They lived on the third floor.
“Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,'” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe.
“They were also such happy, joyful people. He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother,” Smukler said. “Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity. It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”
…