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European Union leaders reached a hard-fought deal Friday to cut the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock ahead of a U.N. climate meeting this weekend.Following night-long discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels, the 27 member states approved the EU executive commission’s proposal to toughen the bloc’s intermediate target on the way to climate neutrality by mid-century, after a group of reluctant, coal-reliant countries finally accepted to support the improved goal.Five years after the Paris agreement, the EU wants to be a leader in the fight against global warming. Yet the bloc’s heads of states and governments were unable to agree on the new target the last time they met in October, mainly because of financial concerns by eastern nations about how to fund and handle the green transition.But the long-awaited deal on a massive long-term budget and coronavirus recovery clinched Thursday by EU leaders swung the momentum.Large swaths of the record-high 1.82 trillion-euro package are set to pour into programs and investments designed to help the member states, regions and sectors particularly affected by the green transition, which are in need of a deep economic and social transformation. EU leaders have agreed that 30% of the package should be used to support the transition.
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Thousands of people took to the streets of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, Thursday to participate in a peaceful March for Life in honor of International Human Rights Day.  Protesters marched against kidnapping, murder, rape and countless human rights violations they say happen daily with impunity.  “On International Human Rights Day, we want to send a message to Jovenel Moise (the president of Haiti) that our constitution guarantees our freedom of expression, our right to demand government accountability, the right to demand our rights be safeguarded,” a protester told VOA as he explained why he decided to participate in the march.  Haiti has seen a spike in kidnappings and gang-related crimes that have terrorized citizens of all social classes living the capital.Tires burn in the middle of the street in defiance of a presidential decree which forbids such actions, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 10, 2020. (Renan Toussaint/VOA)”President Jovenel Moise told us we can’t burn tires on the street — well today we showed him we are up to the challenge. We are burning tires right here in front of the national palace, and if he keeps messing with us, we’ll go burn them in front of his home,” said a protester standing near the flames.  “The burning tires represent democracy, freedom, Uncle Sam, no to dictatorship; they represent our opposition to what the president is doing,” another protester told VOA.  “We aren’t hiding behind face masks; we aren’t wearing makeup — we want to show our faces clearly — since we’ve been branded ‘terrorists’ [by the president]. And we’re waiting for those who are coming to arrest these so-called terrorists,” said a protester wearing sunglasses.Moise has been ruling by decree since January 2020 because the parliament is out of session. The terms of two-thirds of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate expired months before the pandemic hit the Caribbean nation in March.Former Senator Antonio Cheramy addresses the protesters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 10, 2020. (Renan Toussaint/VOA)”He doesn’t issue decrees against the people who are raping your children, but he does issue decrees that threaten all the democratic gains we fought hard to attain in 1987. Today, we say no to kidnapping, and we will not surrender to Jovenel’s threats,” the senator told the crowd. “February 7, 2021, is coming. I applaud all Haitians who are out here today, this is a start, and we should keep protesting until life gets back to normal.”  The senator also decried the countless violations of basic human rights.  With regards to his departure date, Moise has insisted he will leave office on February 7, 2022 – five years to the day since he took power. The United Nations, Organization of American States and United States support that timeline. But the date is disputed by some Haitian citizens and opposition politicians who say Moise should step down in February 2021 regardless of whether elections have been held.  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called on the Haitian government to hold elections as soon as possible. Moise responded by naming a provisional electoral council (CEP), which is currently working on organizing a vote.  Former Senator Moïse Jean Charles speaks to protesters during a demonstration in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 10, 2020. (Renan Toussaint/VOA)Former Senator Moise Jean Charles, leader of the Pitit Dessalines opposition party, also joined protesters.  “We don’t have (adequate) hospitals, schools; people don’t have access to food; there are multiple human rights violations happening. We are dealing with insecurity — so we’re out here today to denounce these things,” he told the crowd. “This time we want everyone to know our aim is to overthrow this system of government, which acts with impunity while enjoying support from the (foreign) embassies.”  Senator Moise has been vocal about his opposition to foreign interference in Haiti’s internal affairs, and even organized a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince in November to express his disdain.  When the protesters arrived in front of the Ministry of Justice, they were dispersed by the national police.  National policemen disperse protesters in front of the Ministry of Justice, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 10, 2020. (Renan Toussaint/VOA)December 10 commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948. The landmark document spells out the rights and freedoms all human beings are meant to enjoy.  In Haiti, protesters accuse the government of disrespecting the most basic and sacred right of all, which is the right to life.  
 
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Doctor-assisted suicide has been legally available in Canada since 2016 for individuals whose death is deemed to be “reasonably foreseeable.” Now, a revision of the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Act making its way through Parliament would make the ultimate solution available to others with debilitating illnesses.The change was prompted by a court ruling in the mostly French-speaking province of Quebec that found it was unconstitutional to restrict euthanasia to those facing imminent death. The court said that shortcoming must be corrected by no later than December 18.The current law provides a 10-day waiting period before euthanasia can be administered to someone already near death. The proposed changes would eliminate that provision but add a 90-day waiting period before doctors can assist in the suicide of someone not already facing death.Dr. Thomas Bouchard is a Calgary, Alberta, physician who has long been opposed to Medical Assistance in Dying. Previously, he was involved with the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians and has signed the “MAiD to Mad Declaration,” which contends that under the proposed legislation, “Medical Assistance in Dying becomes Medically Administered Death.”Longer waitHe says the 90-day waiting period is not nearly long enough. He also says the current legislation is reckless, and he is calling for patients to be offered additional alternatives.“So, they seem to be in a rush, and there’s no need for a rush,” he said. “And I think they had a plan for more fulsome discussion with several committees and hearing from stakeholders. But … this is an absolute rush job. And it’s carelessly done. It’s poorly written.”Euthanasia has been a politically charged issue in Canada since the 1990s, when Sue Rodriguez, who was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, took her fight for a doctor-assisted death all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. She lost in a landmark 5-4 decision that was overturned in 2016 to allow terminally ill people to seek medical assistance in ending their lives.Her close friend and one of Canada’s strongest advocates for medical assistance in dying is former Member of Parliament Svend Robinson. In February 1994, he helped Rodriguez find a doctor and was with her when she died with medical assistance. He has not disclosed the name of that doctor and did not face criminal charges.Imperfect, but a key stepHe says objections like Bouchard’s are nothing new. Robinson, who served in the House of Commons for 25 years, argues the proposed legislation may not be perfect, but it is an important step in the right direction.“Those groups have fought us every step of the way. They will continue to fight,” he said. “And I just I wish they would recognize that no one, no one is forcing any of them to make this decision.”But for them to tell people like Sue that they don’t have the right to make this decision for themselves — I just think that’s fundamentally wrong and misguided, and so that opposition will continue, but the government should move forward.”Rodriguez’s lawyer, Chris Considine, has advocated for euthanasia for nearly three decades. He does not call the new legislation reckless but agrees with Bouchard that there first needs to be a full debate in Parliament. In particular, he would like to see stronger provisions on counseling about alternatives for people who are depressed or suffering from disabilities.He said he was concerned because he wasn’t sure there were enough resources available to help people with disabilities “make alternative decisions, have alternative procedures put in place if they’re depressed, et cetera, so they don’t necessarily feel they have to take this particular route.”  He said some people with disabilities had expressed similar misgivings about the legislation.The new legislation has most recently been sent from a committee of Canada’s Senate back down to the House of Commons for further debate. But with the Quebec court’s December 18 deadline fast approaching, there is little time left to improve the bill.
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With a chaotic and costly no-deal Brexit three weeks away, leaders of both the European Union and United Kingdom saw an ever liklier collapse of trade talks Thursday, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even spoke of a “strong possibility” of failure. Both sides told their citizens to brace for a New Year’s shock, as trade between the U.K. and the European mainland could face its biggest upheaval in almost a half century.  Johnson’s gloomy comments came as negotiators sought to find a belated breakthrough in technical talks, where their leaders failed three times in political discussions over the past week.  Facing a Sunday deadline set after inconclusive talks between EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Johnson on Wednesday night, both sides realized their drawn-out four-year divorce might well end on bad terms.  FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 9, 2020.”I do think we need to be very, very clear: There is now a strong possibility — a strong possibility — that we will have a solution that is much more like an Australian relationship with the EU,” Johnson said, using his phrasing for a no-deal exit. Australia does not have a free trade deal with the 27-nation EU. “That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing,” Johnson added. On the EU side, reactions were equally pessimistic.  “I am a bit more gloomy today, as far as I can hear,” Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said at an EU summit where von der Leyen briefed the 27 leaders on her unsuccessful dinner with Johnson. FILE – Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven speaks during a news conference updating on the coronavirus situation, at the government headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Nov. 3, 2020.”She was not really confident that all difficulties could be resolved,” said David Sassoli, president of the EU parliament that will have to approve any deal brokered.  A cliff-edge departure would threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs and cost tens of billions of dollars in commerce. To prepare for a sudden exit on January 1, the EU on Thursday proposed four contingency measures to make sure that at least air and road traffic would continue as smoothly as possible for the next six months. It also proposed that fishermen should still have access to each other’s waters for up to a year, to limit the commercial damage of a no-deal split. The plans depend on the U.K. offering similar initiatives. The move was indicative of how the EU saw a bad breakup as ever more realistic. FILE – Fishermen empty a fishing net aboard the Boulogne-sur-Mer based trawler “Nicolas Jeremy” in the North Sea, off the coast of northern France, Dec. 7, 2020. French fishermen net a quarter of their northeastern Atlantic catch in British waters.Johnson warned that “yes, now is the time for the public and businesses to get ready for January 1, because, believe me, there’s going to be change either way.” For months now, trade talks have faltered on Britain’s insistence that as a sovereign nation it must not be bound indefinitely to EU rules and regulations — even if it wants to export freely to the bloc. That same steadfastness has marked the EU in preserving its cherished single market and seeking guarantees against a low-regulation neighbor that would be able to undercut its businesses.  After Johnson’s midnight return to London, reactions were equally dim there.  U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Sunday deadline was a “moment of finality” — though he added “you can never say never entirely.”  FILE – British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaks at a press conference at the State Department in Washington, Sept. 16, 2020.In four years of talks on the U.K.’s departure terms and a future trade relationship, such self-imposed deadlines have been broken repeatedly since Britain voted to leave the EU.  January 1 is different because the U.K. has made the 11-month transition since its January 31 official departure legally binding.  “There are big ideological, substantive and policy gaps that need to be bridged,” said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe managing director for the Eurasia Group. “They’re so far apart and the time is so limited now.” A no-deal split would bring tariffs and other barriers that would hurt both sides, although most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half of its trade with the bloc. Months of trade talks have failed to bridge the gaps on three issues — fishing rights, fair-competition rules and the governance of future disputes. While both sides want a deal, they have fundamentally different views of what it entails. The EU fears Britain will slash social and environmental standards and pump state money into U.K. industries, becoming a low-regulation economic rival on the bloc’s doorstep — hence the demand for strict “level playing field” guarantees in exchange for access to its markets. 
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Turkish exporters are being shut out of Middle Eastern markets because of growing pushback by Saudi Arabia and Egypt in response to what some describe as Turkey’s aggressive foreign policy. But with a COVID-ravaged economy, Ankara is looking for a diplomatic reset, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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The head of the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) has warned that 270 million people face starvation around the globe. WFP Executive Director David Beasley spoke Thursday at a ceremony held virtually as he accepted the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the agency.“This Nobel Peace Prize is more than a thank you. It is a call to action,” Beasley said. “Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching toward starvation.” He also said, “Out of that 270 million, 30 million depend on us 100% for their survival.”Instead of the traditional Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Beasley accepted the prize in Rome, headquarters of the WFP. He said the world had the wealth and resources to tackle global hunger.“We stand at what may be the most ironic moment in modern history. On the one hand, after a century of massive strides in eliminating extreme poverty, today those 270 million of our neighbors are on the brink of starvation. That’s more than the entire population of western Europe. On the other hand, there’s $400 trillion of wealth in our world today. Even at the height of the COVID pandemic, in just 90 days an additional $2.7 trillion of wealth was created and we only need $5 billion to save 30 million lives from famine. What am I missing here?” Beasley said.In 2019, the WFP provided assistance to almost 100 million people in 88 countries. The Norwegian Nobel committee said in addition to combating hunger, the WFP had contributed to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected places and was a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict over its 60-year history.The WFP’s regional director for Eastern Africa, Michael Dunford, said the organization was delighted to win the prize after a tough year.“This has been a tremendous boost,” Dunford said. “2020 as you know has been one of the most difficult years. COVID has been yet another shock in addition to some of the worst flooding in eastern Africa, in addition to a locust plague of biblical proportions, and unfortunately, and this is the biggest concern, conflict and insecurity in so many of the countries that we’re operating in.”Dunford says the prize is a tribute to the WFP staff who risk their lives “…working in some of the most difficult locations in the world, in sub-offices deep in the field, be it either in Somalia or in South Sudan. And really, people who have to put their lives on the line to be able to support people who cannot feed themselves.”The World Food Program has also coordinated medical logistics during the coronavirus pandemic. The WFP executive director warned that a failure by the international community to address the needs of those affected by the outbreak would cause what he called a “hunger pandemic” that would dwarf the death toll caused by the virus.WFP staff are expected to travel to Oslo at a later stage to deliver the traditional Nobel lecture. The remaining Nobel awards for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics have also been moved online.The ceremonies are held annually on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his will. 
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Spanish officials say at least two people are dead and 17 others injured after a fire broke out in an abandoned warehouse believed to be occupied by squatters just north of Barcelona.Firefighters and emergency services officials in the city of Badalona say the fire broke out late Wednesday in the warehouse in an industrial area. It was brought under control early Thursday, but firefighters were trying to stabilize the three-story structure before conducting a thorough search, for fear it would collapse.Emergency responders say they could account for about 60 people who had been in the building at the time but say many more fled on their own. It was believed more than 100 squatters occupied the building and were asleep when the fire started. The cause is not known, but one of the survivors told a Spanish newspaper he believed a candle was responsible.Badalona Mayor Xavier Garcia Albiol told reporters at the scene the building had been known to be occupied by squatters for years. Local and regional media reports say many of the squatters were undocumented immigrants from Africa.Badalona is a large, coastal Barcelona suburb of about 220,000, the fourth-largest city in Spain’s Catalonia region.
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Britain’s Conservatives say the left and liberals dominate the arts, museums, broadcasting and the universities, turning them into political echo chambers. They mean to reverse that, fearing they are being outflanked in a broader cultural war roiling the country, one that has only been inflamed by rancorous divisions over Brexit and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.The latest furious skirmish has focused on an unlikely target — the country’s National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. The storied charity manages around 300 stately homes and castles as well as other places of historic interest acquired over the years from impoverished aristocratic families.Among them Chartwell in Kent, the country home of Winston Churchill for four decades, Cliveden, the home to a Prince of Wales, two dukes, an Earl, and finally the Astor family, and the water-meadow along the River Thames at Runnymede, west of London, the site of the signing in 1215 of the Magna Carta, which an assembly of rebellious English barons forced on King John.FILE – “Cliveden” the thames side Mansion of Lord and Lady Astor at Taplow, Bucks, England on July 22, 1938.Castle Ward in Northern Ireland, another National Trust property, was one of the backdrops for the filming of the blockbuster TV series Game of Thrones.And until recently the National Trust, founded in the late nineteenth century and funded by the government and from the subscriptions of members, was synonymous with genteel afternoon teas, strolls in ornate gardens in period settings and quiet family days-out, all far from the cut-and-thrust of political controversy.Troubled historyBut that changed when in September the National Trust published a weighty report detailing the historical links of 93 properties with the slave trade and British imperial rule.The inclusion of Churchill’s home Chartwell drew the ire especially of the country’s culture minister Oliver Dowden and other ruling Conservatives.FILE – The Churchill family turns out in force to welcome former President Harry S. Truman and first lady Bess Truman to Chartwell, the former British Prime Minister’s English countryside estate,June 24, 1956.Churchill’s role as minister for the colonies in the 1920s, his participation in the partition of Ireland as well as his decision as wartime prime minister to limit aid to Bengal during a disastrous 1943 famine were all cited in the report. None of that quieted the outcry from Conservatives, nor their anger that the home of the Victorian-era author Rudyard Kipling was listed because “the British Empire was a central theme and context of his literary output.”“Churchill is one of Britain’s greatest heroes,” Dowden complained. “He rallied the free world to defeat fascism. It will surprise and disappoint people that the National Trust appears to be making him a subject of criticism and controversy,” he added.Other Conservatives criticized the conflation of slavery with colonialism, saying it revealed the political motivations of the National Trust and was an effort to defame and diminish towering historical figures and great families and to rewrite British history.In its report exploring how the previous owners of the properties profited from slavery and were involved in colonial expansion, or oversaw British imperial rule across a swathe of the globe, the National Trust noted: “These histories are sometimes very painful and difficult to consider. They make us question our assumptions about the past, and yet they can also deepen and enrich our understanding.”PoliticsThe charity’s executives insist they are not taking partisan political sides and that the information about how foreign conquest and slavery profits enriched plantation-owning families and imperial overlords, allowing them to build stately homes and lavishly furnish them, can be utilized for education purposes.They want visitors to the properties to get a fuller, more accurate history, not a sanitized version, they say.Historian Peter Mitchell, a research fellow at Britain’s Sussex University, agrees. He has praised the trust for trying to contextualize, explain and for asking uncomfortable questions. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, he said: “The treatment the National Trust has received for daring to understand its mission as to help us understand history, rather than supply us with fantasy, is a warning to all historians.”But Conservative critics say the National Trust should focus on the upkeep of the buildings and land it manages. The battle has raged on for months now.This week, Common Sense, a group of more than 60 Conservative lawmakers, revealed it is seeking a meeting with Britain’s charity commissioner, to discuss the charitable status of organizations which they claim have “denigrated British history and heritage,” including the National Trust. The group argues charities are being hijacked by “elitist bourgeois liberals colored by cultural Marxist dogma, colloquially known as the ‘woke agenda.’”The request for a meeting follows a recent warning by the commissioner, Tina Stowell, a Conservative peer, that those “tempted to use charities as another front on which to wage broader political struggles should be careful.”On campusConservative cultural warriors are also targeting Britain’s public universities, which they see as bastions of the left and they criticized a recent report by the universities’ representative body, UK’s universities, calling for an end to “curricula that are based on Eurocentric, typically white voices.” They have fulminated, too, against the so-called no-platforming of controversial speakers, generally Conservatives, at some universities, who find themselves barred from speaking because of their views.Britain’s Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden outside Downing Street in London, Britain, Nov. 4, 2020.In the past few weeks the culture minister, Oliver Dowden, has warned a London museum it might lose state funding, if it removes a statue of a merchant and slave trader from its grounds. And the Department for Education has instructed schools not to teach pupils about “extreme political stances” such as the “desire to overthrow capitalism,” and to refrain from teaching “victim narratives that are harmful to British society.”Some Conservative commentators have called for even more forward-leaning action. Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley has urged the ruling Conservatives to “march through the cultural institutions,” saying it should use the “purse strings” to change the cultural political balance.But some Conservative lawmakers worry that cultural warfare can be carried too far and that it carries electoral risks, limiting its utility as a political strategy. Polling data suggests older Britons do worry about the country turning more multicultural and remain fearful of a dilution of what they see as British identity. But younger votes don’t.Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself has been cautious. In his speech to a virtual conference of Conservative party members in October, he devoted little time to the culture wars, limiting his remarks to a short passage criticizing those who “want to pull statues down, to rewrite the history of our country … to make it look more politically correct.” A full-scale, no-holds-barred culture war would undermine the image of a “global Britain,” which Johnson has been promoting.Easier this year, he considered appointing two highly Conservative journalists, Charles Moore, a biographer of Margaret Thatcher, and Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail tabloid, to chair respectively the BBC and the country’s broadcasting regulator, only to back down.
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Britain’s foreign minister said Thursday that negotiations on a trade deal with the European Union will reach a “moment of finality” this weekend, with both sides assessing chances of an agreement as slim.Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Sunday deadline set by Britain and the EU for a decision was final, though he added, “You can never say never entirely.”European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a three-hour dinner meeting Wednesday in hope of unblocking stalled talks but came away saying the gaps between them were large.“We understand each other’s positions. They remain far apart,” von der Leyen said.They told their negotiators to keep talking but set Sunday as decision day.Without a deal, the bloc and Britain face a tumultuous no-deal split at the end of the month, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in losses.Britain left the EU on Jan. 31 but remains in its economic structures until the end of the year. That means a serious economic rupture on Jan. 1 that could be chaotic if there is no trade agreement. A no-deal split would bring tariffs and other barriers that would hurt both sides, although most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half of its trade with the bloc.Months of trade talks have failed to bridge the gaps on three issues: fishing rights, fair-competition rules and the governance of future disputes.While both sides want a deal, they have fundamentally different views of what it entails. The EU fears Britain will slash social and environmental standards and pump state money into U.K. industries, becoming a low-regulation economic rival on the bloc’s doorstep — hence the demand for strict “level playing field” guarantees in exchange for access to its markets.The U.K. government sees Brexit as about sovereignty and “taking back control” of the country’s laws, borders and waters. It claims the EU is trying to bind Britain to the bloc’s rules indefinitely.
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Nearly two years after two crashes that left hundreds of people dead, the Boeing 737 Max carried a flight of passengers Wednesday. It was the first time the model has been used on a commercial flight since the March 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 that killed 157 people. In October 2018, the same type of aircraft, used on Lion Air Flight 610, crashed in Indonesia killing 189 people. Wednesday’s flight, operated by Brazil’s Gol airlines, carried passengers between the Brazilian cities of Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre, according to data from Flightradar24. The country decided to resume flights on the plane, which was grounded worldwide in 2019, shortly after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration gave the aircraft the go-ahead. American Airlines is expected to begin flights on the 737 Max later this month, Reuters reported. 
 
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British health officials are warning that people with a “significant history” of allergic reactions should not receive the new coronavirus vaccine that was rolled out in a mass vaccination program Tuesday, pending investigation of two adverse reactions. Britain is the first western country to begin the mass vaccinations, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell   Produced by: Henry Hernandez 
 
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Scientists are watching a giant iceberg in the southern Atlantic Ocean saying it appears to be on a collision course with South Georgia Island and could devastate wildlife there, including penguins, seals and albatross.   
 
Britain’s Royal Air Force, or RAF, Tuesday released video taken by an aircraft that flew last week over the 4,200-square-kilometer iceberg — roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware — and known as A68a. In the video, cracks and fissures can be seen on its surface, with a number of smaller ice chunks floating nearby.   
 
The British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, reports the iceberg is now within 150 kilometers of the British Overseas Territory.
 
Researchers have spent weeks watching the iceberg on its potential collision course with the remote island off the coast of South America. A68a is about the same size as the island itself and has been floating in its general direction for more than three years since breaking off from the Antarctic peninsula in July of 2017.
 
Scientists with the British Antarctic Survey believe the iceberg is about 200 meters thick — relatively thin for an iceberg of its size — which would allow it to get close to the island before becoming stuck. Scientists fear it could crush marine life on the sea floor, and block penguins and seals off from their normal forage routes to feed their young. They say it could be there for as long as 10 years.
 
British officials say it could also be an obstacle to government ships conducting fishery patrols and surveillance around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.   
 
The Antarctic Survey says a collision is still uncertain, as the currents could carry the iceberg past the island.
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Players have taken a knee, unfurled slogans and demanded tougher action only to find soccer — their working environment — remains infected with racism.
The tipping point might just have come, with elite players in Paris taking the extraordinary step of refusing to continue playing.
At the end of a year of striking gestures against racial injustice and discrimination, the Champions League produced one of soccer’s most powerful shows of solidarity against racism on Tuesday when players from Paris Saint-Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir left the field and didn’t return.
“The walk off by both Basaksehir and PSG together lays down a marker in Europe,” Piara Powar, executive director of the anti-discrimination Fare network, told The Associated Press. “Many players are fed up with half measures to tackle racism and are more prepared than ever to exercise their right to stop a match.”
The flashpoint came 14 minutes into the game when the fourth official — Sebastian Coltescu of Romania — was accused of using a racial term to identify Basaksehir assistant coach Pierre Webo before sending him off for his conduct on the sidelines. Webo is Black.
“You are racist,” Basaksehir coach Okan Buruk said to Coltescu.
An enraged Webo demanded an explanation from Coltescu, repeating at least six times: “Why you say negro?”
The exchanges were broadcast live around the world from soccer’s biggest club competition.
“Why when you mention a Black guy, you have to say ‘This Black guy?'” asked Basaksehir substitute Demba Ba, who is Black.
The Fare network helps UEFA prosecute discriminatory acts like Tuesday’s incident at the Parc des Princes.
“Our colleagues at the Romanian state anti-discrimination organization have confirmed it is racist in Romanian to refer to a player by using his race as an identifier,” Powar said. “There is no ambiguity. This incident shows the need for much better training of match officials. Unintentional racism is still racism.”
Racism at soccer games has typically come from the stands, but matches in countries such as France are being played without fans because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The high-profile incidents tend to highlight the inadequate responses, like in the Portuguese league in February.
Porto striker Moussa Marega tried to walk off the field after being the target of racist abuse from fans in a game against Guimarães and demanded to be substituted. But he faced attempts by his own teammates and opposing players to prevent him from leaving the field.
The referee then gave Marega a yellow card for refusing to continue in the game — the type of action that dissuades players from walking off.
The Romanian referee who was in charge of the game in Paris on Tuesday — Ovidiu Hategan — was in the same role for the 2013 Champions League game when Manchester City player Yaya Toure complained about the lack of action against monkey noises he heard from CSKA Moscow fans.
“If officials cannot set the standards by their own behavior,” Powar said, “they cannot be relied on to deal with racism on the pitch or in the stands.”
Referees have often been criticized for not leading players off the field, instead leaving them to take the decision themselves. England’s national team decided to continue playing a game in Montenegro last year after Callum Hudson-Odoi and Danny Rose were targeted with monkey chants.
The Champions League game in Paris will resume on Wednesday with a new refereeing team.
“The players walking off is a step in the right direction,” former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand said on Britain’s BT Sport television. “But it can’t just be left to them.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel Tuesday called for tougher COVID-19 restrictions as the nation set daily record for deaths from the virus and infection numbers continue to rise.Speaking in the Bundestag – the lower house of the German parliament – a sometimes-emotional Merkel told lawmakers the nation was in a decisive period of fighting the pandemic, with the second wave far more demanding than the first.  Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases reported Wednesday 590 deaths related to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours – more than 100 higher than the week-old previous record – and 20,815 new daily infections, compared with 17,270 a week earlier.Chinese-made COVID-19 Vaccine Nearly 90% Effective, UAE Says Gulf Arab state participated in late-stage clinical trial of vaccine developed by state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm Germany is gradually moving toward a tighter lockdown, at least for a limited period after Christmas, as new coronavirus cases remain high and continue climbing.  
This despite a partial shutdown that started in early November, in hopes of allowing a more normal Christmas holiday.While families will be allowed to gather for Christmas, Merkel is calling for all but the most essential shops to close from Christmas Eve until at least January 10, and for people to work from home and schools to remain closed during that time as well.The idea is to use the festive period to keep people at home and break the chain of infections. Merkel emphatically urged people to limit their social contacts whenever possible.  She said, “If we have too many contacts before Christmas and it ends up being the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we’d really have failed.”Merkel has consistently advocated decisive action but has often had to move more slowly because, in highly decentralized Germany, the country’s 16 state governments are responsible for imposing and lifting restrictions.Germany managed to avoid the high number of infections and grim death tolls seen in other large European nations early in the pandemic and continues to have a much lower overall fatality rate than countries such as Britain, France and Spain.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson heads to Brussels on Wednesday for dinner with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a last ditch attempt to avoid a tumultuous Brexit without a trade deal in three weeks’ time.With growing fears of a chaotic no-deal finale to the five-year Brexit crisis when the United Kingdom finally leaves the EU’s orbit on Dec. 31, the dinner is being cast as a chance to unlock the stalled trade talks.A British government source stressed that a deal may not be possible, as did EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Ireland also signalled it was pessimistic about a deal.”The EU has to move,” Michael Gove, a senior minister in Johnson’s government dealing with Brexit issues, told Times Radio.While Gove refused to give odds on a deal, he said that often a one-on-one meeting between leaders could result in a breakthrough.”It is often around the table, when you have two political principals one-on-one, that you can often find a way through,” Gove told the BBC.Failure to secure a deal would snarl borders, shock financial markets and sow chaos through supply chains across Europe and beyond as the world faces the vast economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.The British pound was flat against the dollar at around 1.3369, after three straight days of losses. It stands around 1% off 2-1/2 year highs hit at the end of last week. Overnight implied volatility — a measure of expected price swings — rose to a new 8-1/2 month high of close to 25%.
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Deforestation has wiped out 8% of the Amazon rainforest in just 18 years, according to a study released Tuesday. The swath of land destroyed between 2000 and 2018 is the size of Spain, according to a study by Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG). “The Amazon is far more threatened than it was eight years ago,” RAISG said in a statement. The organization’s last map tracking deterioration of the forest was published in 2012. FILE – An employee uses heavy machinery to stack logs at the Serra Mansa logging and sawmill company, in Moraes Almeida district, Itaituba, Para state, Brazil, in the Amazon rainforest, Sept. 12, 2019.The current map, a collaboration between 10 organizations, shows 513,016 square kilometers of the rainforest have been lost since 2000. According to the report, the latest data shows a turn for the worse. While rates of deforestation declined between 2003 and 2010, logging, farming, ranching, mining and infrastructure projects in the past decade have negatively affected the Amazon.Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has encouraged development in the Amazon rainforest and loosened enforcement of environmental laws. “In 2018 alone, 31,269 square kilometers of forest were destroyed across the Amazon region, the worst annual deforestation since 2003,” the RAISG study says. The destruction of mature tropical forests is a massive hit to biodiversity and is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Resources Institute, the research and advocacy group that oversees Global Forest Watch.  Because forests are massive sponges of carbon dioxide, reversing their loss would play an outsize role in fighting climate change.Forest Losses Increased in 2019 to Third-Largest This Century Indonesia, Columbia offer glimmers of hope in the bad news The RAISG study comes days before the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, in which 195 countries agreed to measures that would limit world production of CO2 emissions. In a controversial move, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2017. 
 
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Human rights abusers will face asset freezes and travel bans under new legislation adopted by the European Union. The so-called Magnitsky laws would target those involved in crimes ranging from genocide to torture and arbitrary detentions. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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The World Health Organization is calling on governments around the world to ensure their citizens have resources and tools to help them give up tobacco smoking as it launches a yearlong campaign aimed at helping 100 million people quit.The campaign, Commit to Quit, is focusing on 22 countries including the United States, and it officially got under way Tuesday ahead of World No Tobacco Day 2021, in May.A WHO statement said the Commit to Quit campaign is aimed at creating “healthier environments that are conducive” for people who want to give up smoking.The WHO hopes to capitalize on users who have decided to quit since the novel coronavirus pandemic began by creating communities of peer quitters, according to the statement.FILE – Bystanders look a replica of human skeleton smoking cigarette during an awareness rally on occasion of the “World No-Tobacco Day,” in Chennai, India, May 31, 2019.Earlier this year, the WHO warned that tobacco users are at high risk of dying from COVID-19.About 780 million tobacco users say they want to quit, but just 30% have access to resources that can help them do so.Director of Health Promotion Dr. Ruediger Krech said global health authorities must take full advantage of the millions of people who want to quit. He urged governments to “invest in services to help them be successful,” and “divest from the tobacco industry and their interests.”The WHO is employing digital tools such as the Quit Challenge on Whatsapp to provide social support. Also, the WHO’s 24/7 digital health worker to help people quit tobacco is available in English and soon will add five other languages.The campaign is encouraging initiatives such as “strong tobacco cessation policies; increasing access to cessation services and raising awareness of tobacco industry tactics.” Tobacco is a major risk factor for noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and diabetes. Moreover, people living with these conditions are more vulnerable to severe COVID-19.“Smoking kills 8 million people a year, but if users need more motivation to kick the habit, the pandemic provides the right incentive,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted.
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Human rights abusers will face asset freezes and travel bans under new legislation adopted by the European Union.The so-called Magnitsky laws, officially titled the EU Human Rights Global Sanctions Regime, would target those accused of crimes including genocide, torture, assassination and arbitrary detentions.The European Union officially adopts the legislation on December 10 — World Human Rights Day.Bill Browder, a financier at Hermitage Capital Management who has campaigned for similar legislation in countries around the world, said getting Europe on board is a major milestone.FILE – A woman holds a placard with a portrait of Sergei Magnitsky during an unauthorized rally in central Moscow December 15, 2012. The placard reads “Died fighting a system of thievery.”“You have 27 countries, and a number of these countries are countries that dictators and kleptocrats like to visit. They go to the south of France. They go to Sardinia. They go to Spain,” Browder told VOA.“So, there’s something there that they really covet. And so, if these laws, if the EU Magnitsky Act actually is implemented and implemented widely, I think it could have a dramatic impact on the behavior of human rights violators around the world.”The United States, Britain and Canada already have Magnitsky laws. They are named after Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian jail in 2009 after uncovering a $230 million tax fraud by state officials. He had been beaten by prison guards and denied medical treatment.Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is pictured at Charite hospital in Berlin, Oct. 15, 2020.“The main question we should ask ourselves is why are these people poisoning, killing and fabricating elections? And the answer is very, very simple: money. So, the European Union should target the money and Russian oligarchs, not just old oligarchs, but also new ones like this circle of Mr. Putin,” Navalny told MEPs November 27.Russian President Vladimir Putin denies involvement in Navalny’s poisoning.In addition to those responsible for Magnitsky’s death, there are numerous obvious targets for Europe’s new Magnitsky laws, said Browder.“The killers of [Washington Post columnist] Jamal Khashoggi, the … 19 Saudis, plus [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed Bin Salman, should be added to this list. The Chinese officials involved in the Uighur genocide. The Chinese officials involved in the Hong Kong repression. The Lukashenko regime. The Burmese officials involved in the Rohingya genocide. Just to name a few.”Critics say it is still possible for individual EU member states to veto any measures proposed under the new law, and countries with warmer ties to the Kremlin such as Hungary and Cyprus could block any sanctions.
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The wedding ceremony and reception in February 2013 was a glitzy three-day affair at a ski resort near St. Petersburg, Russia.  The happy newlyweds were Yekaterina Tikhonova, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s youngest daughter, and Kirill Shamalov, the son of one of the Russian leader’s oldest friends. Among the wedding gifts received shortly after the nuptials was a sizable stake in petrochemical giant Sibur.   According to leaked emails unearthed by Russian investigative outlet iStories, a partner of the international investigative consortium Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Putin’s new son-in-law was able to buy petrochemical shares worth nearly $400 million for just $100.  The disclosure has prompted a wave of criticism from anti-corruption campaigners, who say the sweetheart deal is another example of Kremlin nepotism and how the Putin family and their associates and friends have enriched themselves during the Russian leader’s two-decade-long time in office.  “It’s simple,” tweeted Alexei Navalny, an opposition politician and anti-corruption activist. “Putin’s daughter gets married and the newlyweds receive the present of $380m.”After marrying Tikhonova, Shamalov bought the 3.8% stake in Sibur through a web of offshore companies, according to the investigation. In 2008, Shamalov become one of Sibur’s vice presidents.In a press statement, Dmitry Konov, head of Sibur’s board of directors, said, “The conditions for the sale of the shares in the deal were no different from those for a number of other managers. There were no exclusive conditions for KN Shamalov.” (KN are the first letters of Shamalov’s first name and patronymic)  In remarks to the RBC News website Tuesday, Konov said the real cost of the stake was far higher, including salary forfeited as part of the share acquisition deal and other unspecified conditions.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks with Chairman of the Management Board of the Sibur company Dmitry Konov as they visit a plant in Tobolsk, Russia, Dec. 1, 2020. (Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via Reuters)Private emails secured through a massive data breach also suggest the newlyweds went on a spending spree — buying a luxury mansion near Putin’s country residence on the outskirts of Moscow and a villa in the French resort of Biarritz. The furnishings were expensive — one carpet cost $65,000; some Japanese books cost $7,000, and a spa, around $350,000, according to the emails.  Kirill is the son of Nikolai Shamalov, a millionaire businessman who in the 1990s co-founded with Putin the Ozero community, a lakeside gated dacha (country house) cooperative near St. Petersburg. Many members of the Ozero cooperative assumed top positions in the Russian government and businesses after Putin became Russia’s president.A year after his marriage to Tikhonova, the younger Shamalov secured a large loan from Kremlin-linked Gazprombank to buy an even larger 17% stake in Sibur, making him Russia’s youngest billionaire at the age of 32. His brother was deputy chairman at Gazprombank at the time the loan was granted. He and Tikhonova divorced in 2018.Shamalov was among the officials and close associates of the Putin family who were sanctioned by Washington for alleged “malign” activities by Russia, including meddling in U.S. elections.Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov dismissed reports Tuesday about the “wedding gift.”“We still refrain from commenting on such publications,” he told reporters. “These rumors often have nothing to do with reality.”  Peskov dubbed the reports a smear campaign and said media investigations into Putin’s family are “lies that are unable to reach their goal.”  Reports of alleged financial enrichment by the Putin family and their associates have escalated in the past few months. One recent story alleged that former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who is reportedly Putin’s girlfriend, received a $10 million annual salary on her appointment as head of a pro-Kremlin media outlet. She had no previous media or management experience.  OCCRP said deciding to publish the email was a difficult decision.  “In the first place, the authenticity of documents received from an unknown party may be in question. To verify the Shamalov archive, the emails were first structured and indexed by OCCRP’s data analysts. Reporters from IStories then spent nearly a year verifying them,” the outlet said.The email cache included more than 10,000 messages written and exchanged from 2003 to 2020. The emails cast light, OCCRP reporters said, on how the children and grandchildren of Putin associates and friends from St. Petersburg are amassing their wealth and power.  But what was accumulated was also lost. Following his divorce to Tikhonova, Shamalov reportedly gave up most of his Sibur shares. 
 
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Researchers at Britain’s Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca published a study Tuesday showing their COVID-19 vaccine candidate to be “safe and effective” at fighting the virus.The peer-reviewed study was published Tuesday in the British medical journal The Lancet. The data showed the drug had an overall efficacy rate of 70.4%, higher than the 50% minimum set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Andrew Pollard speaks during a virtual press conference inside 10 Downing Street in London on Nov. 23, 2020.In an interview with reporters, Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said the difference in efficacy rates among the vaccines currently being reviewed will make little difference in the long term. He said what is important is getting vaccines to people and that they are protected.Pollard said the best way to do that is to have multiple vaccines available.“I think we have to not worry about these individual percentages. The important thing is who’s vaccinated, not people who are unvaccinated and waiting for a particular product. Personally, I’d be happy with any of these in my arm.”Pollard said that is why accessibility is a priority for Oxford/AstraZeneca. Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, their vaccine does not need to be kept at sub-freezing temperatures.He said even as regulators scrutinize the data concerning the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, it is already in production.“Manufacturing is happening in all corners of the world, and to make sure that if we do have products which can be used, that they can then be distributed where they’re needed using fridge temperatures to get them to the most vulnerable people in our societies.”
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Britain has vaccinated its first citizen against the COVID-19 virus.Ninety-year-old nursing home resident Margaret Keenan received the first of two doses of a vaccine jointly developed by U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.  The vaccination campaign, dubbed “V-Day” by Health Secretary Mark Hancock, began nearly a week after the government’s medical regulatory agency granted emergency approval for the vaccine, making Britain the first western nation ready to begin mass inoculations.The approval came weeks after Pfizer announced the vaccine had been shown to be more than 90% effective after its final clinical trial.Keenan, who will turn 91 next week, is among the thousands of nursing home residents and their caregivers, along with staffers with Britain’s National Health Service, that have been prioritized by officials to receive the first shots.Britain Makes Final Preparations for First Round of COVID-19 VaccinationsInitial batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine arrived in Britain Sunday, ahead of Tuesday’s first round of inoculations for health care workers and the elderly Britain received 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine Sunday, the first of a total of 40 million it purchased from Pfizer.  Great Britain has a population of more than 66 million people. Delivery of the vaccine is complicated by the fact that it must be stored in super-cold refrigerators at temperatures below 70 degrees Celsius.Britain has recorded more than 61,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, one of the world’s hardest-hit countries and the worst affected country in Europe.The start of the coronavirus vaccination campaign in Britain comes as many other nations inch closer and closer to beginning their own inoculation efforts.The South Korean government announced Tuesday that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is one of a handful it has secured for its 44 million people.  The Health Ministry says it has pre-ordered 64 million doses of vaccines under development by Pfizer, British-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and U.S.-based drug makers Johnson & Johnson and Moderna, for 34 million South Koreans.Seoul says another 10 million people will receive vaccines developed by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and secured through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, the joint project between the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, an organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries.Feds Passed Up Chance to Lock in More Pfizer Vaccine Doses Pfizer’s vaccine is expected to be endorsed as soon as this week, with delivery of 100 million doses — enough for 50 million Americans — expected in coming monthsCanada announced Monday it would receive its first doses of the same vaccine by the end of December.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that up to 249,000 doses of the vaccine would arrive this month, and 3 million are slated to be delivered early next year. Canada has a population of more than 37 million people.But as many countries prepare to inoculate their populations, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against mandatory vaccinations.While WHO officials are urging governments to persuade their citizens to get vaccinated, public health experts warn that a mandate may not be the right approach.”I think all of us who work in public health would rather avoid that as a means for getting people vaccinated,” WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual press conference Monday.  The world has more than 67.6 million total COVID-19 cases, including more than 1.5 million deaths. The United States leads the world in both categories, with 14.9 million total cases and more than 283,700 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.  
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Washington has agreed to prolong a set of temporary migration protections that allow immigrants from six countries to live in the United States, officials said Monday. The so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for some citizens of El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras and Nepal was extended by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until at least October 2021. TPS allows some foreigners whose home countries experience a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event to remain in the United States and apply for work permits. The status must be renewed periodically in six- to 18-month intervals by the secretary of Homeland Security. TPS has been in the crosshairs of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration in recent months as it seeks to scale back humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were scheduled to be expelled from the United States in early March after a wind-down period. The extension is part of an agreement between the administration and plaintiffs in related lawsuits not to terminate the protections as the lawsuits filter through the U.S. court system. Democratic President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to protect enrollees from being returned to unsafe countries. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. FILE – Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez answers questions from the Associated Press, August 13, 2019, as he leaves a meeting of the Organization of American States, in Washington.Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said the extension would cover about 44,000 of the storm-ravaged Central American country’s citizens living in the United States. He said he discussed the extension on a visit to Washington last week. “In the United States, during the meeting with the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (Chad Wolf), they told us that the TPS that was going to end in January will be extended,” Hernandez said on national television. Hondurans living in the United States have had access to TPS since the accord was brokered after Hurricane Mitch wreaked havoc on the impoverished Central American country in 1998. Guatemala has also requested extended TPS protection for its citizens.  
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Former members of Spain’s armed forces have published an open letter accusing the country’s Socialist-led minority government of threatening national unity.  The letter signed by 271 officers, including two former lieutenant generals and an admiral, coincided Sunday with the country’s Constitution Day, which marked the 42nd anniversary of a 1978 referendum and was seen as an important step in Spain’s transition to democracy following the end of the longtime rule of Gen. Francisco Franco, who died in 1975. The letter’s publication came just days after dozens of retired air force officers were discovered to have discussed fomenting a coup. In a private chat forum on WhatsApp, they bemoaned the death of Franco, who they dubbed “the irreplaceable one.” The plotters agreed the only remedy for Spain would be “to shoot 26 million” people, but they decided eventually it was not viable. Defense Minister Margarita Robles asked prosecutors to launch a criminal investigation into the WhatsApp group. FILE – Former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, center, is seen at a ceremony in Burgos, Spain, November 20, 1938.Officers who signed Sunday’s letter distanced themselves from the social media conspirators but echoed many of their complaints about the political direction being taken by Spain. They warned of the “deterioration of our democracy.”  They upbraided the government led by Pedro Sánchez for making concessions to jailed Catalan separatists, saying that the “unity of Spain is in danger.” They accused the government of “granting favors” to unnamed “terrorists,” showing “a lack of respect for the victims.”  The signatories, led by Lt. Gen. Emilio Pérez Alamán, emphasized their fealty to the monarchy and noted that despite being retired, the oath they took while on active duty to defend the territorial integrity of Spain remains alive for them. Spanish politicians have been downplaying the dissent from retired military officers. Before Sunday’s letter, and in reference to the WhatsApp group, Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias dismissed their discussions as nostalgia for Franco’s dictatorship.  “What these already retired gentlemen of a certain age say doesn’t represent a threat of any kind,” he told Spanish TV. He added that the officers are failing to understand that they are “making more Spaniards feel republican.” FILE – A man holds a depiction of the late Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco as people gather outside Mingorrubio’s cemetery, on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain, October 24, 2019.Iglesias is the leader of the leftist Podemos Party, a member of the Socialist-led government that has had to rely on the support of Basque and Catalan separatist lawmakers. Many officers and those on Spain’s far right have been increasingly infuriated by the Sánchez government. They were angered by ministers’ decision last year to remove Franco’s body from the Valley of the Fallen, a Catholic basilica and monumental memorial built by the late dictator, to a nondescript cemetery. During a brief reburial ceremony, Franco’s grandson draped his grandfather’s coffin in the nationalist flag, despite being barred from doing so by the government. In September, the government announced plans to ban organizations that glorify the dictator’s legacy, saying the prohibition is necessary to help the country come to terms with its past and the Spanish civil war of the 1930s, that was triggered by a military coup. Sunday’s letter is the third from military quarters criticizing the government. Two previous letters — the first signed by 39 retired air force officers, and the second by 73 former members of the army — were addressed to King Felipe and to the European Parliament, respectively. Two years ago, 1,000 retired members of Spain’s armed forces signed a document expressing their support for Franco and the 1936 coup he led. FILE – Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right party Vox, walks to give his speech as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks on during a no-confidence motion against the government at parliament in Madrid, Spain, October 22, 2020.Spain’s chief of the defense staff, Gen. Miguel Villarroya Vilalta, said last week that the WhatsApp group of conspirators and the frequent complaints of retired officers are “damaging the image of the armed forces.”  “The opinions of these individuals cannot be construed as representative of the community that they were once a part of but should be viewed as the opinions of private citizens who have the right to express their views, but not to award themselves representation rights that they do not possess,” he said in a press statement issued last week.  “As military personnel,” he added, “we take an oath promising to defend the constitution, which guides all our actions. One of the consequences of that commitment is the political neutrality of our armed forces.” Legal experts say that the request by Spain’s defense minister for prosecutors to open an investigation into the WhatsApp group is unlikely to get far, as the remarks were part of private conversations, albeit online. If the officers were still on active duty, they could have been discharged for inappropriate conduct. Lt. Col. José Ignacio Domínguez, one of the participants in the WhatsApp chat group, told a radio network last week that “there began to be talk (in the chat group) about the possibility of a military uprising supported by the king.” But the group members finally concluded it was not feasible. 
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