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A group of traditional chiefs in Namibia said Thursday they have accepted an offer of compensation by Germany and a recognition that the colonial-era massacre of tens of thousands of their people in the early 20th century was genocide.Germany pledged last week to give 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over a 30-year period for projects to help communities of people descended from those killed between 1904 and 1908, when Germany ruled the southern African country. Germany asked the victims for forgiveness, in a statement by Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.The chiefs accepted the offer but said it could still be improved through further negotiations.”We resolved to accept this offer because what is paramount to us is not the amount of money we are getting from the German government but the restoration of our dignity,” said Gerson Katjirua, head of the Ovaherero/OvaMbanderu and Nama Council, which consists of 21 tribal chiefs. “This process was and will never be about making money from the German government.”Other traditional chiefs have rejected the offer, and say they want around 487 billion euros ($590 billion) paid over 40 years, and pension funds for affected communities.Historians say German Gen. Lothar von Trotha, who was sent to what was then German South West Africa to put down an uprising by the Herero people, instructed his troops to wipe out the entire tribe. They say that the majority of the Herero, about 65,000, were killed, as were at least 10,000 Nama people.
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France said Thursday it would suspend joint military operations with Malian forces after the West African country’s second coup in nine months, adding to international pressure for the military junta to return civilians to positions of power.The decision comes after Mali’s military strongman Assimi Goita, who led last year’s coup, ousted the country’s civilian transitional president and prime minister last week.The move sparked diplomatic uproar, prompting the United States to suspend security assistance for Malian security forces and for the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to suspend Mali.France’s armed forces said Thursday that “requirements and red lines have been set by ECOWAS and the African Union to clarify the framework for the political transition in Mali.””While awaiting these guarantees, France has decided to suspend, as a temporary measure, joint military operations with Malian forces and national advisory missions for their benefit,” the ministry said in a statement seen by AFP.”These decisions will be re-evaluated in the coming days in the light of answers provided by the Malian authorities.”Earlier Thursday, the International Organization of La Francophonie, a cooperative body that represents mainly French-speaking states around the world, became the latest organization to suspend Mali.5,100 French troopsBoth Mali and France play key roles in the fight against a bloody insurgency plaguing the Sahel region.France has about 5,100 troops in the Sahel under its Barkhane operation, which spans five countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.The Barkhane force, which was launched after France intervened to fend off an insurgent advance in Mali in 2013, will continue to operate but on its own for the moment, the ministry said.However the French-led Takuba force, launched in March 2020 to enable European special forces to train Mali’s army to fight insurgents, will be suspended.A diplomatic source said last week there was a risk that the new coup could dissuade European countries from joining the force.A military official in Mali said on condition of anonymity that Malian authorities had been informed of France’s suspension.French President Emmanuel Macron at the weekend warned that France would pull its troops out of Mali if it lurches toward radical Islamism following the coup.”Radical Islamism in Mali with our soldiers there? Never,” he told the weekly newspaper The Journal du Dimanche.Drawdown already plannedEven before the latest coup, France had been considering disengaging its troops from the costly and dangerous Sahel mission in the run-up to next year’s presidential election.Macron said in February there would be no troop reduction in the immediate future, but left the door open for reducing the size of France’s force, with plans to be approved this month.”Beyond taking a principled position, one wonders whether this decision is not a way for France to let disengaging with Barkhane enter the narrative,” said Elie Tenenbaum, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations.”In other words,” he said, “is (Mali’s) not respecting the democratic process not a pretext to reduce an arrangement whose days were counted anyways?”Goita had served as vice president since leading a coup last August that removed democratically elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, following mass protests over perceived corruption and the insurgency.After pressure from the 15-nation ECOWAS, the roles of transitional president and prime minister were given to civilians ahead of elections scheduled for February.However on May 24, Goita orchestrated the ouster of President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, raising doubts about his commitment to holding the elections.Goita will be officially inaugurated as Mali’s transitional president on Monday, when a new prime minister is also expected to be nominated. 
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At least two people died early Thursday after a residential building collapsed in a working-class area of Rio de Janeiro.People nearby reported hearing a booming sound, according to Reuters. The collapsed four-story building reportedly also caught fire.More than 100 firefighters responded to the scene in the Rio das Pedras neighborhood, but they were too late to save an adult and child.An aerial view shows a collapsed building in the Rio das Pedras slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 3, 2021.The neighborhood is known to be controlled by organized crime groups reportedly involved in the construction of many substandard buildings.In 2019, in the adjacent neighborhood of Itanhanga, another organized crime-built building collapsed and killed two people, Reuters reported.
 
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Denmark’s parliament Thursday approved a measure that would allow the nation to relocate asylum seekers to an as yet unnamed third country, most likely outside Europe.The measure, proposed by the Social Democrat-led government, was approved on a 70-24 vote, and would allow the nation to transfer asylum seekers to detention centers in partnering countries, where their cases would then be reviewed from those countries.The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, the European Union and several international organizations have criticized the plan, saying it would undermine international cooperation and lacks details on how human rights would be protected.In a statement from Brussels, EU spokesman Adalbert Jahnz said the bloc was carefully analyzing the new law and said it raised concerns about access to protections for refugees and is not possible under EU rules.Speaking to the Associated Press, advocacy and legal aid organization Refugees Welcome spokeswoman Michala Bendixen was more blunt. “This is insane, this is absurd. What it’s all about is that Denmark wants to get rid of refugees. The plan is to scare people away from seeking asylum in Denmark.”The AP reports that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during his election campaign and again in January he envisioned having “zero asylum-seekers” in Denmark.Denmark has yet to reach an agreement with a partner country, but there are negotiations with several candidate countries, mostly likely in Africa. Earlier this year, the government signed a preliminary agreement with Rwanda about immigration and asylum issues.
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The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday unveiled a lineup of films from big-name auteurs — including Wes Anderson, Asghar Farhadi, Mia Hansen-Løve and Sean Penn — for its 74th edition, an in-person, summertime event that aims to make a stirring return in July after being canceled last year because of the pandemic.  Among the films that will be competing for Cannes’ Palme d’Or are the festival opener, “Annette,” by Leox Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard; Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” a film originally set to premiere in Cannes last year with an ensemble cast including Timothée Chalamet; “Red Rocket,” Sean Baker’s follow-up to his acclaimed “The Florida Project”; Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta”; and Sean Penn’s “Flag Day,” in which he stars alongside his daughter, Dylan Penn, as a conman.  Pierre Lescure, president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, artistic director, announced the Cannes’ lineup at the UGC Normandie theater in Paris in  a live-streamed event that was part press conference and part pep rally for world cinema.  “Cinema is not dead. The extraordinary and triumphant return of the audience to movie theaters in France and around the world was the first good news,” said Fremaux. “I hope the film festival will be the second very good news.”  As cinema’s preeminent global stage, the annual French Riviera extravaganza is hoping to make a triumphant comeback when it runs July 6-17 — two months later than its usual May perch. But many things will be different at this year’s festival. Attendees will be masked inside theaters and required to show proof of full vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test. Cannes’ famed red carpet leading up to the stairs of the Palais des Festivals will resume in full, but with tweaks to the traditional pageantry.  “We’re used to kissing one another at the top of the stairs. We will not kiss one another,” said Fremaux.  Still, there are many questions leading up to a Cannes that will unfold just as France is reopening and loosening restrictions. Audience capacity limitations will be removed just five days before the festival opens. Concern over a new virus strain led France last week to institute a seven-day quarantine for travelers arriving from the United Kingdom — a potential blow to the British film industry that regularly decamps to Cannes.  For such an international festival as Cannes, many other travel regulations could pose complications. Fremaux acknowledged some filmmakers may not be able to attend. The movie market that typical runs in tandem with the festival and draws much of the film industry for a week of frenzied deal-making, will be held virtually in late June.  But the Cannes program, while perhaps lacking a Hollywood title as anticipated as Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (an entry in 2019, when Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” won the Palme), was praised as top-class. It includes former Palme d’Or winners Jacques Audiard (“Paris 13th District”) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (“Memoria,” starring Tilda Swinton).  Four of the 24 films in competition are directed by women, a low percentage but one that ties the festival’s previous top mark. That includes new films from Mia Hansen-Løve (“Bergman Island,” with Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps) and Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi.  Cannes has previously refused to play in competition any film that doesn’t have a theatrical release in France, leading to an impasse with Netflix. Though other movie institutions like the Academy Awards have bended theatrical rules during the pandemic, Cannes has not.  Among the standouts playing out of competition, or in Cannes’ new “Cannes Premiere” are: Andrea Arnold’s “Cow”; Todd Haynes’ documentary “The Velvet Underground”; Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater”; and the Oliver Stone documentary “JFK: Through the Looking Glass.”  Spike Lee, who debuted “Do the Right Thing” at Cannes in 1989, will preside over the jury selecting the Palme d’Or winner. He’s the first Black person to ever head the Cannes jury. At the opening ceremony, an honorary Palme will be given to Jodie Foster, who first came to Cannes as a 13-year-old for the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.”Speaking to The Associated Press after the press conference, Fremaux said it will be “the ultimate Cannes.””It will be something special. In five years people will be asking ‘Were you in Cannes in 2021?’ and people would say ‘No I wasn’t.’ ‘Oh you weren’t? That’s a pity. It was really great,'” said Fremaux. “It’s going to be a special Cannes.”
 
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Britain’s Brexit advocates drool at the idea of another European Union member opting to quit the bloc. And they hedge their bets whether it will be France, Italy or one of the so-called “awkward squad” of Central European countries so often at loggerheads with Brussels.At first glance the prospect of another EU member quitting the bloc — of a Frexit or Italexit —strikes seasoned political observers as unlikely. But Brexiters aren’t the only ones who see a likely nasty clash emerging on the horizon between Brussels and Rome.Current opinion surveys have firebrand populist Matteo Salvini’s Lega party and the national-conservative Fratelli d’Italia consistently polling together around 40 to 42%, enough, with the backing of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s more moderate but much diminished Forza Italia party, to form a governing coalition in the not-too-distant future.And that is unnerving EU officials.Early electionsItaly is not due an election until June 2023 at the latest, but plenty of lawmakers and commentators predict an earlier snap poll, either because the fragile government of national unity overseen by current prime minister, the former European central banker Mario Draghi, falls apart.Or because “Super Mario,” as Draghi is popularly nicknamed, decides to run for the presidency of Italy next year when incumbent Sergio Mattarella steps down. After guiding Italy through an especially politically tempestuous six years, complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, Mattarella, the scion of a storied Sicilian family, has decided it is time to retire.Later this month he turns 80. Recently he told children at an elementary school in Rome, “Mine is a demanding job, but in eight months my assignment ends. I will be able to rest. I am old.”Few believe he can be persuaded to change his mind. The Italian daily newspaper La Stampa noted: “In order to convince the current head of state to remain against his intentions, political calamities of such gravity and magnitude would have to occur that no one could wish for them.”Mattarella’s decision has prompted feverish speculation in Rome that Draghi will throw his hat in the ring, setting in motion the circumstances for a likely early parliamentary contest, whether he wins the presidential election or not.Italy’s political parties are already jockeying for position and making electoral calculations, which are especially complicated given the fragmentation of Italian politics. Twenty-one parties contested the last parliamentary elections in 2018 in a contest that broadly pitched two highly unstable and combustible electoral alliances with ever shifting allegiances and sharp personal animosities. Political commentators say the next election could see even more parties competing for seats and elected lawmakers switch party allegiances.A reduction at the next election in the number of lawmakers, from 630 to 400 deputies in the lower house and from 315 to 200 in the Senate, is adding to the complexity. But based on current opinion data Salvini’s Lega and the Fratelli, led by the 44-year-old Giorgia Meloni, will be the most likely to form a governing coalition.“The balance of forces has been gradually moving in the direction of a fully fledged right-wing coalition,” say Valerio Alfonso Bruno, a senior fellow at the Britain-based Center for Analysis of the Radical Right, and Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, a newspaper columnist, in a research note for the public-policy website Social Europe. Andrea Ungari, a politics professor at Rome’s LUISS University, agrees and estimates a rightwing coalition is set to win more than 51% of votes in the next election.EU officials alarmedDraghi was drafted in by Mattarella as a technocratic prime minister in January when a governing coalition mainly supported by the maverick Five Star Movement, M5S, and center-left Partito Democratico collapsed. He’s being urged publicly by center-left political allies in the Italian capital to forgo his presidential ambitions to avoid risking opening the door to Salvini and Meloni.In Brussels, EU officials say they’re alarmed at the prospects of Lega and the Fratelli governing Italy, fearing plenty of disputes between Brussels and Rome on migration policy, border controls, asylum policies, naval blockades of migrant boats, to name a few hot-button issues.Neither Salvini nor Meloni, who’s angling to become Italy’s first female prime minister, favor Italexit. But they are harshly critical of the EU and becoming more so, with Meloni, a former youth minister, forcing the pace, and Salvini trying to keep up. An EU official complained to VOA: “Meloni only sees Europe as a cash cow for Italy — she wants to milk it while ignoring the rules.”Fratelli d’Italia, co-founded by Meloni in 2012, is the main heir of the post-Second World War Movimento Sociale Italiano, formed by Fascist allies of dictator Benito Mussolini. In 2018 it won just 4% of the national vote, but since then has emerged from the fringes with startling speed.That’s largely thanks, say political observers, to Meloni’s decision to keep her party out of Draghi’s government of national unity, making it the main voice of opposition and transforming Meloni into a possible contender for the overall leadership of the right-wing alliance.Salvini chose to take his party into the government of national unity, fearing electoral repercussions if Lega was unable to influence how the Draghi government allocates $240 billion of EU recovery funds it has been allocated by Brussels. But he refrained from securing a cabinet role, giving him opportunities to be critical of the government, especially over its pandemic curbs. But pollsters say it has allowed Meloni to present herself as ideologically pure and consistent.The surge in support for Meloni’s party has been at Lega’s expense, according to pollsters. And Meloni, a mother of one and a former bartender at one of Rome’s most famous nightclubs, has been calling for a renegotiation of all EU treaties.Ernesto Galli della Loggia, an academic and influential columnist for Corriere della Sera, says it is “probable” Meloni’s party “could soon be the majority party of a center-right government and therefore called to lead the nation.” Writing Tuesday in the newspaper, he dismissed the demonizing of the Fratelli as “fascist,” saying the slogan is too easily evoked to “de-legitimize any position that is unwelcome” to the ruling class.His worry is that the Fratelli is not readying itself to govern, doing the hard thinking and forming the kind of relationships with the bureaucracy that it will need to have to effect change.  
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Central American leaders to tackle corruption, poverty and drug trafficking to improve the lives of their citizens and stem migration to the United States. Blinken made the appeal in Costa Rica, where he met with the region’s leaders, as VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on three Bulgarians and 64 companies linked to them over alleged corruption, including an oligarch accused of planning to create a conduit for Russian political leaders to influence the Bulgarian government.The Treasury Department in a statement called the move its single biggest action targeting graft to date.Bulgaria ranks as the European Union’s most corrupt member state, according to the Transparency International advocacy group. The Balkan country has repeatedly been criticized by the European Commission for failing to root out corruption and place a single high-ranking senior official behind bars for graft.Bulgarian interim Prime Minister Stefan Yanev said he was informed by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland by telephone about the move, part of efforts to effectively combat corruption in Bulgaria.”In our relations with our partners and allies, we have unequivocally shared our conviction that the fight against corruption in all its forms should be our unconditional principled and practical priority,” Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.The move comes ahead of a July 11 snap parliamentary election in Bulgaria and after massive anti-corruption protests in 2020.The Treasury Department said it imposed sanctions on businessman and oligarch Vassil Bozhkov, accusing him of planning to create a channel for Russian leaders to influence the Bulgarian government and bribing government officials.Bozhkov, a gambling tycoon and one of Bulgaria’s richest men, fled the country in 2020 to escape criminal charges, including extortion, tax fraud and influence peddling, among others. He denies any wrongdoing and is now based in Dubai.The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on Delyan Peevski, a Bulgarian businessman and former member of Parliament, and on Ilko Zhelyazkov, a government official who the department said was used by Peevski for conducting bribery schemes.Sanctions also were imposed on 64 companies owned or controlled by Bozhkov and Peevski.The sanctions block the people and companies blacklisted from accessing the U.S. financial system, freezing any of their U.S. assets and barring Americans from dealing with them.The U.S. State Department also designated former Bulgarian officials Alexander Manolev, Petar Haralampiev, Krasimir Tomov, as well as Peevski and Zhelyazkov, over their alleged involvement in corruption, barring them and their families from entering the United States.Peevski sold many of his real estate holdings and media in the past year. Critics at home see him as a powerful behind-the-scenes power broker with strong influence on Bulgaria’s judiciary and political elites.The Treasury Department accused him of using “influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society.”In a statement to the media, Peevski decried his blacklisting. He denied any involvement in corrupt activities and said he plans to take legal action against the sanctions. 
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Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.
 
And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.
 
Researchers examined the temperature and dissolved oxygen — the amount of oxygen in the water — in nearly 400 lakes and found that declines were widespread. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found dissolved oxygen fell 5.5 % in surface waters of these lakes and 18.6% in deep waters.
 
The authors said their findings suggest that warming temperatures and decreased water clarity from human activity are causing the oxygen decline.
 
“Oxygen is one of the best indicators of ecosystem health, and changes in this study reflect a pronounced human footprint,” said co-author Craig E. Williamson, a biology professor at Miami University in Ohio.  
 
That footprint includes warming caused by climate change and decreased water clarity caused in part by runoff from sewage, fertilizer, cars and power plants.
 
Dissolved oxygen losses in Earth’s water systems have been reported before. A 2017 study of oxygen levels in the world’s oceans showed a 2% decline since 1960. But less was known about lakes, which lost two to nine times as much oxygen as oceans, the new study’s authors said.
 
Prior to this study, other researchers had reported on oxygen declines in individual lakes over a long period of time. But none have looked at as many lakes around the world, said Samuel B. Fey, a Reed College biology professor who studies lakes and was not involved in this study.
 
“I think one of the really interesting findings here is that the authors were able to show that there’s this pretty pronounced decline in dissolved oxygen concentrations in both the surface and (deep) parts of the lake,” Fey said.  
 
The deep water drop in oxygen levels is critical for aquatic organisms that are more sensitive to temperature increases, such as cold water fish. During summer months, they depend on cooler temperatures found deeper in the water, but if deep waters are low on oxygen, these organisms can’t survive.
 
“Those are the conditions that sometimes lead to fish kills in water bodies,” said study co-author Kevin C. Rose, a professor of biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “It really means that a lot of habitats for cold water fish could become inhospitable.”
 
Other organisms, Rose said, are more tolerant of warmer temperatures found at the surface level and can get enough oxygen by remaining near the surface, where water meets air.
 
About a quarter of the lakes examined actually showed increasing oxygen in surface waters, which Rose says is a bad sign because it’s likely attributable to increased algal blooms — sudden growth of blue green algae.
 
In these lakes, he said, dissolved oxygen was “very low” in deep waters and was unlivable for many species.
 
And the sediment in such oxygen-starved lakes tends to give off methane, a potent greenhouse gas, research shows.
 
Lakes examined in the new study were in the U.S. or Europe, except for one in Japan and a few in New Zealand. The authors said there was insufficient data to include other parts of the world.
 
Rose said lakes outside the study area probably are experiencing drops in dissolved oxygen, too. The reason, he said, is that warmer temperatures from climate change reduce the ability of oxygen to dissolve in water — its solubility.
 
“We know that most or many places around the planet are warming,” he said. “And so, we would expect to see declining solubility.” 
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The United States is calling on Central American countries to confront corruption and poverty as Washington examines root causes and strategies to manage the flood of migrants at its southern border.
 
Wednesday in Costa Rica, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard discussed “a variety of issues to promote the prosperity and security” in the region.The top U.S. diplomat thanked Ebrard “for the Mexican government’s continued collaboration on addressing the root causes of irregular migration in the region.”Both also “discussed progress toward addressing COVID-19 and economic recovery, as well as issues related to regional democracy and governance, and security,” according to the U.S. State Department.Blinken embarked on his first in-person trip to the Western Hemisphere this week when he traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica.U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stands by as President Joe Biden delivers remarks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, June 2, 2021.The top U.S. diplomat’s trip comes ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ upcoming visit to Guatemala and Mexico.Harris has been tapped by U.S. President Joe Biden to lead diplomatic efforts in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to address the underlying causes of migration in hopes of halting the flow of Central American migrants to the U.S.Some experts see Blinken’s visit to Costa Rica as laying the foundation for a successful visit by Harris.“The U.S. is also looking for cooperation on immigration, and we’re more likely to get that cooperation when governments see the carrot of a broad-based economic integration program,” said Professor Richard Feinberg, who teaches international political economy at the University of California, San Diego.Feinberg suggested including Caribbean Basin countries in the U.S. “transportation networks” and “economic integration,” as Biden is eyeing large expenditures on infrastructure, roads, ports and airports in the U.S.COVID vaccinesBlinken’s trip to the region also comes as China actively positions itself as the dominating provider of COVID-19 vaccinations in Latin America. FILE – Refrigerated containers with supplies to produce China’s Sinovac vaccines against the coronavirus disease arrive at Sao Paulo International Airport in Guarulhos, Brazil, April 19, 2021.As countries in Latin America continue to get doses, three Chinese vaccines — CanSino, Sinopharm, and Sinovac — are reaching wider distribution in the region.  The U.S. has announced its goal to ship 80 million vaccine doses abroad by the end of June. Blinken said Biden will detail this global distribution plan, possibly as early as Thursday.  
 
“In a few short days — in fact, possibly as early as tomorrow — the president is going to announce in more detail the plan that he has put together to push out 80 million vaccines around the world that we have at our disposal,” Blinken said Wednesday during his remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
A day before, the top U.S. diplomat pledged no political strings would be attached when providing U.S. vaccines to other countries.“Among other things, we will focus on equity — on the equitable distribution of vaccines. We’ll focus on science. We’ll work in coordination with COVAX. And we will distribute vaccines without political requirements of those receiving them,” Blinken said during a joint press conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado on Tuesday.
 
Asked if he was worried that getting Chinese vaccines would come with certain conditions, Alvarado said there should be “no strings attached.”“Our condition is that those vaccines that we buy or receive as donations should be qualified by a strict agency,” he said.In May, the United States said it would share an additional 20 million coronavirus vaccine doses with other countries, in addition to the 60 million it has already committed. Officials said the U.S. will distribute according to need and not to curry favor.US to Distribute 80 Million Vaccine Doses Globally, on Basis of Need  Sharing is caring: US distribution of vaccines is, president says, a case of ‘the fundamental decency of American people’  Blinken also attended a regional meeting of the Central American foreign ministers held Tuesday under the auspices of the Central American Integration System, where collaborating on migration challenges, combating the COVID-19 pandemic, improving economic growth, as well as reinforcing democratic institutions, were said to be high on the agenda.VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
 
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U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this month the harboring of cyber attackers like those believed to have targeted meatpacking giant JBS, the White House said Wednesday.
 
Press secretary Jen Psaki also told reporters at the White House that Biden “has launched a rapid strategic review” of the attack that affected JBS operations in Australia and North America.
 
Biden will meet with his Russian counterpart in Geneva on June 16 as tensions between the two world powers have escalated over election meddling, human rights and Russian aggression toward Ukraine.Meat Producer JBS Back Online After Cyberattack White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says JBS told administration it received a random ransomware demand from a criminal organization likely based in Russia 
A U.S. subsidiary of the Brazilian meat processor told the U.S. government it received a ransom demand in the cyberattack it believes originated in Russia, deputy White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.  
 
“The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” Jean-Pierre said.
 
JBS, meanwhile, says it has made “significant progress” in resolving a cyberattack that affected its operations in North America and Australia.
 
JBS USA’s CEO, Andre Nogueira, said he expected “the vast majority of our beef, pork, poultry and prepared food plants” to be operational Wednesday.
 
“Our systems are coming back online and we are not sparing any resources to fight this threat. We have cybersecurity plans in place to address these types of issues and we are successfully executing those plans,” Nogueira said in a statement.
 
JBS said its Canadian beef facility had already resumed production, and that the attack did not impact its operations in Mexico or Britain.
 
The company also said it was not aware of customer, supplier or employee data being compromised.
 
“I want to personally thank the White House, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Australian and Canadian governments for their assistance over the last two days,” Nogueira said.
 
Australian Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said plants in New South Wales and Victoria states were back operating on a limited basis Wednesday, and that JBS hoped to resume work in Queensland state on Thursday.
 
Littleproud also said Australian officials would be meeting Wednesday with U.S. officials to discuss the situation.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson each expressed support Wednesday for a strong response against Belarus for its actions in arresting an opposition journalist. Speaking at a joint news conference at the prime minister’s residence, Stoltenberg said forcing the landing of a civilian aircraft and arresting a journalist on the plane, as Belarus did last month, was a violation of international norms and rules. He called for the immediate release of Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend. Stoltenberg said he welcomes sanctions imposed by Britain, the European Union and other allies. Johnson added that the important thing now is to see that those sanctions are fully implemented and perhaps stepped up even further. Johnson called the incident “appalling and outrageous,” adding that it was important the allies stand together in protest. NATO’s 30 allies released a two-paragraph statement on Wednesday but did not include any punitive steps that Baltic allies and Poland had urged. Stoltenberg said the issue is sure to be discussed during a NATO summit scheduled for June 14 in Brussels.  
 
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A massive and long-awaited new translation of Mein Kampf — peppered with scholarly commentary to explain Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s disjointed, hate-filled manifesto — has been released in France. The project has been controversial, but supporters say it could serve as a warning against rising acts of hate and antisemitism today.The book is a recast translation of Mein Kampf,  or My Struggle, Hitler’s 1925 manifesto detailing how he became antisemitic, his ideology and his plans for Germany. The recast is 1,000 pages and costs more than $120. Adolf Hitler’s name and face do not appear on its plain white cover. The new edition by French publisher Fayard — titled Putting Evil in Context: A Critical Edition of Mein Kampf — does not aim to be a bestseller. French bookstores cannot stock copies, which are available by order only. All proceeds will go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.  Historian Christian Ingrao, part of the academic team involved in the Fayard edition, told French radio the book aims to desacralize Hitler’s work that has attracted a kind of fetishism. It aims to offer an unvarnished take on the Nazi leader’s writing, which Ingrao and others say is repetitive, rambling and riddled with mistakes. Translator Olivier Mannoni called Hitler’s manifesto an “incoherent soup.” The translation is accompanied by lengthy historians’ notes and annotations that make up most of the book.  Germany and Poland have published similar scholarly translations in recent years.  In France, the first edition of Mein Kampf came out in 1934, and attempted to improve on Hitler’s writing. By that time he was chancellor of Germany, where his book had become a bestseller. Hitler’s rule saw Europe plunged into World War II — and the Holocaust that killed roughly six million Jews, including more than 70,000 from France.  Today, antisemitism is again on the rise across Europe, watchdog groups say. So is the far right. While printed copies of Mein Kampf have stagnated worldwide, digital editions have surged in recent years, although publishers point to a mix of reasons. Last year, Amazon banned most editions of the book from its site. Ninety-six-year-old Holocaust survivor Ginette Kolinka speaks to French school groups about her memories. She told French radio she never read Mein Kampf — mostly, she says, because she had other books to read. But she says young people need to read everything — good and bad — to form opinions for themselves, and eventually understand tolerance.  The Fayard translation project has been controversial. A few years ago, far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon called it “morally unacceptable.” Since then, it has been endorsed by several prominent Jewish figures, including Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld.  France’s Grand Rabbi, Haim Korsia, told VOA that Klarsfeld’s support for the translation shaped his own views. His argument: You can’t reproach the world for not having read Hitler’s writings nearly a century ago — which forecast the horror the Nazi leader was preparing — and then tell people today not to read this new translation, which could help prevent hatred, prejudice and antisemitism from reappearing.  
 
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An Istanbul prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday it launched an investigation into the murder of a Turkish Cypriot journalist 25 years ago, after a mob leader said last month the killing was ordered by a former Turkish minister.
 
Convicted gang leader Sedat Peker’s uncorroborated allegations on YouTube of extrajudicial killings in the 1990s have placed the unsolved murders of hundreds of people during that decade back on the agenda in Turkey.
 
In a video viewed by 17 million Turks, Peker said he tasked his brother to kill journalist Kutlu Adali in 1996 upon the orders of a former minister.
 
Peker said his brother Atilla was not able to carry out the killing, although Adali was shot dead shortly afterwards in July 1996.
 
Atilla Peker was briefly detained nine days ago, a few hours after his brother’s video was released.
 
Istanbul Anadolu prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that it had launched a new investigation into Adali’s murder based on an application for the probe by Atilla Peker that “included various claims”.
 
It said efforts were being made to obtain information and documents from Turkish Cypriot judicial authorities regarding the killing, in addition to collecting potential evidence in Turkey.
 
It said a detailed statement would be taken from Atilla Peker.
 
An initial investigation at the time of Adali’s murder did not uncover who was responsible. The European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey in 2005 for a failure to carry out an “adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing”.
 
Sedat Peker, 49, rose to prominence in the 1990s as a gangland figure and was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2007 for crimes including forming and leading a criminal gang.
 
He has said he is now in Dubai, although Reuters has not been able to verify his whereabouts. The eight videos he has so far uploaded have been viewed more than 70 million times in total.
 
Peker’s accusations against current and former government officials also include rape, drug trafficking and covert arms deliveries.
 
President Tayyip Erdogan and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, one of the people Peker has targeted so far, have strongly rejected the accusations. Soylu said the accusations were a plot against the country. 
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On Tuesday, Italy lifted restrictions on indoor dining, Germany downgraded the coronavirus risk level from very high to high, and Israel lifted almost all pandemic restrictions. More from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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Greece, Germany and five other European Union nations introduced a vaccination certificate system for travelers on Tuesday, weeks ahead of the July 1 rollout of the program across the 27-nation bloc.The other countries starting early were Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia and Poland, according to the European Commission.Greece, which depends heavily on tourism, has been pressing for the commonly recognized certificate that uses a QR code with advanced security features. The certificates are being issued to people who are fully vaccinated, as well as those who have already contracted the virus and developed antibodies, and others who have had a PCR test within the last 72 hours.The documents will have both digital and paper forms. They’ll be free of charge, distributed in the national language plus English and be valid in all the bloc’s countries.”EU citizens are looking forward to traveling again, and they want to do so safely. Having an EU certificate is a crucial step on the way,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said.Greece’s digital governance minister, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said easier travel will open up within the EU as nations adopt the new verification standard.”What will happen is that countries will stop issuing certificates using their own convention and adopt the common convention. That will simplify things considerably, because you can imagine the number of bilateral agreements that would otherwise need to be worked out,” Pierrakakis told private Skai television.Kyriakides said in the next few weeks, all EU nations need to “fully finalize their national systems to issue, store and verify certificates so the system is functioning in time for the holiday season.”Countries will be allowed to add extra vaccines to their individual entry list, including those that have not been formally approved for use across the EU.The EU Commission believes that people who are vaccinated should no longer have to be tested or put into quarantines, regardless of where they are traveling to or from, starting 14 days after receiving their second shot. Member countries, however, have not yet endorsed that recommendation.
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On Tuesday, Italy lifted restrictions on indoor dining, Germany downgraded the coronavirus risk level from very high to high, and Israel lifted almost all pandemic restrictions. More from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Central American governments to do more to help contain illegal immigration and voiced concerns about the health of local democracy and human rights during a visit to the region on Tuesday. Speaking at a joint news conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado, Blinken said the United States wanted to hear from its partners in the region about their shared commitment to managing migratory pressures. “Good governance is crucial for confronting the challenges and seizing the opportunities of this moment, and yet we meet at a moment when democracy and human rights are being undermined in many parts of the region,” Blinken told reporters. Blinken cited erosion of judicial independence, crackdowns on independent media and NGOs, as well as the suppression of anti-corruption efforts to illustrate his point, noting that the United States had also suffered its own setbacks. U.S. President Joe Biden has been under pressure to reduce a sharp increase in undocumented immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office in January. Regional cooperation to address the issue was now more important than ever, said Blinken, who traveled to Costa Rica to hold talks with leaders from Central America and Mexico. Many immigrants stopped at the U.S. border are from three violent and impoverished Central American countries, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which Washington has pledged aid in return for commitments to improve local governance. That drive has been clouded by concern about graft, cronyism, signs of authoritarianism and efforts to block the appointment of judges with track records of tackling corruption. The United States has promised to help poorer countries in the fight against COVID-19 with vaccines, and Blinken said the government would in the next week or so set out plans for how millions of doses would be distributed. 
 
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The Belarusian democratic opposition and some Western governments are calling for harsher sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime following the forced diversion in late May of an international airliner to arrest a Belarusian dissident blogger on board. Analysts warn if there is not a strong response, other authoritarian governments around the world might resort to the same tactic to arrest dissidents. VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka has more.Produced by: Ihar Tsikhanenka  
 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday laid flowers at a makeshift memorial in front of parliament for 215 Indigenous students whose remains were discovered last week at a former boarding school.The grim find came last week at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the largest of a network of boarding schools set up in the late 19th century to forcibly assimilate the country’s Indigenous peoples.Trudeau observed several minutes of silence and knelt before the heaps of children’s shoes and toys left at the Centennial Flame in Ottawa, before speaking briefly with an Indigenous passerby.’Every child matters’Among the tributes at the memorial were messages of condolence, along with one that read: “Every child matters.”Marking the start of National Indigenous History Month, Trudeau later tweeted: “This is a painful reminder of what took place at residential schools and the impacts still felt today. We cannot hide from this.”Residential schools were a reality — a tragedy that existed in our country — and we have to own up to it,” he wrote.”We all have a role to play in dismantling systemic inequalities and discrimination – it starts with acknowledging the truth about these past wrongs … and honoring the heritage, cultures, and traditions of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples.”Take-note debateA take-note debate was to be held in parliament later Tuesday, allowing the government to solicit lawmakers’ views on future Indigenous policies.The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc tribe in the western province of British Columbia announced last week it had used ground-penetrating radar to confirm the remains of the 215 students who attended the school near the city of Kamloops.It was operated by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Canadian government from 1890 to 1969, before Ottawa took over its administration and closed it a decade later.On Monday, Trudeau expressed Canada’s grievance while pledging “concrete actions” in support of Indigenous communities left traumatized by the news.Some 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis youngsters in total were forcibly enrolled in the boarding schools, where students were physically and sexually abused by headmasters and teachers who stripped them of their culture and language.At least 4,100 died, according to a truth and reconciliation commission, which estimated the actual toll was much higher. 
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European Union government and Parliament negotiators reached a deal Tuesday on rules that will force large multinational companies to disclose how much revenue and tax they pay in the 27-nation bloc and how much they pay in countries considered tax havens by the EU. The new law, proposed by the European Commission in 2016, is part of the EU’s efforts to fight tax avoidance by large international companies at a time when the EU badly needs cash to finance an economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the new law, multinational corporations with a turnover of more than $916 million annually in two consecutive years will have to declare profits, tax and number of employees in EU countries and in countries on the EU list of noncooperative jurisdictions. But data on tax paid in other countries outside the EU and not on the tax havens blacklist will only be given in aggregated form, as EU governments did not want to agree to a more detailed country-by-country breakdown. The Oxfam charity group criticized that, saying many of the world’s tax havens were not on the EU list of noncooperative jurisdictions and therefore would avoid scrutiny. “Transparency for only the 27 EU member states and the 21 currently blacklisted or greylisted jurisdictions means keeping corporate secrecy for over three out of four of the world’s nearly 200 countries,” the Oxfam charity group said. “EU legislators have granted multinational corporations plenty of opportunities to continue dodging taxes in secrecy by shifting their profits to tax havens outside the EU, like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland,” Oxfam’s tax expert Chiara Putaturo said. She said the deal also offered companies a reporting exemption for commercially sensitive information for five years, providing a way to avoid disclosure, and noted the large turnover requirement would exclude up to 90% of multinationals. But some members of the European Parliament who negotiated the deal said it would still help make the tax system fairer. “These tax transparency measures will help to ensure that multinational companies pay their fair share and can bring some fairness to how they operate,” said Ernest Urtasun, Greens MEP of the Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee. According to the Tax Justice Network think tank, EU countries are responsible for 36% of tax lost globally to corporate tax abuse, costing countries worldwide over $154 billion every year as profits are shifted to low tax jurisdictions like Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The text of the agreement must now go through formal adoption in two European Parliament committees and the Parliament’s plenary, and in the Council of EU governments. 
 
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A Belarusian opposition activist stabbed himself in the throat with a pen during a court hearing in Minsk on Tuesday to protest what he claimed were threats from authorities to arrest his family members and friends if he did not plead guilty to organizing protests against the country’s authoritarian ruler, President Alexander Lukashenko.Footage from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty showed Stsiapan Latypau lying limp on a bench in the defendant’s cage after his self-inflicted wounding as guards tended to him.The video showed him being carried unconscious from the courthouse on a stretcher, his neck wrapped in a white cloth, and put into an ambulance.The Viasna human rights center in Belarus said Latypau was put into an induced coma. His lawyer declined to comment on his condition.Before he stabbed himself, Latypau climbed on the bench in the cage and claimed investigators had told him, “If I don’t plead guilty, they will open criminal cases against my family and neighbors.”Latypau has been held since September 2020 on various charges, including accusations that he staged actions violating the public order in last summer’s vast protests against Lukashenko. The street demonstrations occurred after the strongman claimed a sixth presidential election victory with 80% of the vote.If convicted, Latypau faces up to 10 years in prison.Latypau’s apparent attempted suicide is the latest incident with links to protests against Lukashenko. Last week, an opposition politician died in prison under unclear circumstances, while a teenager under investigation for protesting committed suicide by throwing himself from a 16-story building. “This is the result of state terror, repressions, torture in Belarus,” wrote Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition leader. “We must stop it immediately!” Many governments, except Russia, a close ally of Belarus, condemned Lukashenko last month after he diverted a Ryanair jetliner flying over Belarus and carrying Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian activist who had fled the country in 2019 and had since lived in exile.Pratasevich and his companion, Sofia Sapega, were arrested when the flight landed in Minsk on the purported claim of a bomb aboard the aircraft, although no explosive was found.In response, European countries stopped flying over Belarus, depriving Minsk of overflight revenue, and blocked flights by Belavia, the Belarusian state air carrier, from landing in European cities.Lukashenko met with Russian President Vladimir Putin late last week to shore up support with his government’s key foreign ally. On Tuesday, Lukashenko announced Belarus would soon open direct flights with Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, although Western governments do not recognize Moscow’s claim to the territory. 
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The World Health Organization has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine for adults 18 and older.
 
The U.N. health agency approved a vaccine Tuesday made by Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company. It was the second time the WHO approved a vaccine made by a Chinese company on an emergency basis.  
 
The WHO said data submitted by Sinovac indicated that two doses of the vaccine prevented symptoms from developing in just over half of those who received vaccinations. The agency also said it could not estimate the efficacy of the vaccine in people over 60 because few people in that age group participated in trials.
 
The WHO’s decision makes another vaccine available for use in poorer countries through COVAX, an international program that distributes vaccines to developing nations, many of them impoverished.
 
But COVAX’s distribution efforts have been slowed after its largest vaccine supplier in India said it was forced to stop supplying vaccines until the end of the year because of sharp rises in infections in the country.
 
Last month, the agency approved for emergency use a vaccine made by Sinopharm, a Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company. Other vaccines approved on an emergency basis by the WHO were manufactured by AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer-BioNTech.
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns the United States and countries in the Caribbean and Central America to be prepared for what is expected to be another above-normal Atlantic hurricane season.The outlook for this year’s hurricane season, which began Tuesday, is grim. Last year’s record-breaking season had 30 named tropical storms, including 19 hurricanes, six of them major.The WMO says the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be less active, with between 13 and 20 named storms, of which six to 10 could become hurricanes.WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis says the coming season is likely to be particularly difficult for countries, such as those in Central America, that are still recovering from last year’s devastating storms.“Emergency managers are obviously very concerned that if another tropical storm or hurricane does impact, this will have serious consequences. It only takes one hurricane to make landfall in a season to wipe out years of social and economic development.” she said.Nullis says climate change has an influence on seasonal storms, which are increasing in intensity and frequency. She says carbon dioxide concentrations remain at record high levels and will continue to drive global warming.“All naturally occurring climate events now take place in the context of climate change, which is increasing global temperatures. As we know, it is exacerbating extreme weather and it is impacting seasonal rainfall patterns,” Nullis said.While 2021 got off to a relatively cool start, Nullis cautioned against believing that there is a pause in climate change. She noted that the WMO predicts a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record, dislodging 2016 from its top ranking. Globally averaged temperatures in 2016 were 0.99 degrees Celsius warmer than the mid-20th century mean.The Atlantic hurricane season ends November 30. 
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