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The U.S. military has accused Russia of sending weapons and mercenaries to Libya in an attempt to gain a foothold in the north African country. U.S. Africa Command’s latest accusation against Russia came on July 24, as Libya’s rival camps face off in a battle over the strategic central coastal city of Sirte. The Pentagon released photos that it claims show Russia providing supplies and equipment to the Wagner group, a Russian private military company. Vadim Allen has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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A lawyer for an alleged Rwandan ex-spy chief living in France says his client denies allegations that he was involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.  Aloys Ntiwiragabo is now under investigation by French prosecutors.In an interview with VOA, lawyer Benjamin Chouai said his client Aloys Ntiwiragabo has been living in France for years.One of two lawyers defending Ntiwiragabo, Chouai said French authorities have been fully aware of his client’s whereabouts, since Ntiwiragabo applied for legal status here.French judicial authorities said Saturday they had opened a crimes against humanity probe targeting Ntiwiragabo.The move followed a report by investigative news site Mediapart, which tracked the former intelligence chief and his wife to a suburb of Orleans, about 110 kilometers south of Paris.The former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, or ICTR, once identified Ntiwiragabo as one of the architects of the Rwandan genocide that killed about 800,000 people.But, the AFP news agency reports the ICTR, now succeeded by another mechanism, had long ago dropped an arrest warrant against Ntiwiragabo, as did French and Rwandan authorities.Reports suggest investigators seem to have lost track of him years ago.Lawyer Chouai said his client was not in hiding.He said Ntiwiragabo never hid his real identity in France, and is available now to answer investigators’ questions. His client strongly contests the Mediapart report, Chouai says, and insists he played no role in the genocide.Radio France International reports Ntiwiragabo remained in Rwanda’s military during the genocide but at least initially sided against a key organizer of the killings.Ntiwiragabo also authored a 2018 book offering his version of the broader 1990s Great Lakes conflict, through French publishing house Editions Scribe.The French probe into his actions follows the May arrest in France of another major genocide suspect. Felicien Kabuga was accused of bankrolling the genocide. The 84-year-old had been hiding for years outside Paris and is now appealing his transfer to Arusha, Tanzania to face trial.Alain Gauthier, who heads a French genocide survivors’ group, estimates several dozen other suspects remain at large in France. He denounces the slowness of France’s judicial system.Other alleged suspects include Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the former Rwandan president, whose death helped trigger the genocide. She lives outside of Paris. 
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Greece will this year return 1.4 billion euros to pensioners whose income was slashed during the financial crisis of the past decade, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government made the decision following a top court ruling which said that some pension cuts imposed in 2015-2016 were illegal. Mitsotakis said the one-off payment applies only to main pensions — not supplementary pensions or benefits. The money will be distributed to about 2 million private and public sector pensioners, a government official said. The decision is expected to burden this year’s budget. Greece’s economy is seen shrinking by up to 10 percent this year due a nationwide lockdown the government imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. “This particular cost touches the limits of the country’s fiscal potential,” Mitsotakis told lawmakers. “There is no room for further provisions.” Under the terms of three international bailouts in 2010-2015, Greece cut state pensions several times to reduce spending and make the system viable. The country still has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the eurozone and the health pandemic dashed its hopes for strong growth this year. Its finances are being closely monitored by the country’s international lenders, the European Union and the IMF. 
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced he had tested positive but successfully overcome the novel coronavirus on Tuesday — adding a new twist to a charged presidential election season in the former Soviet republic often called the “last dictatorship in Europe.”Lukashenko, 65, revealed the news during a Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, reacts during a meeting with her supporters in Minsk, Belarus, July 19, 2020.Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky currently sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and a political star by taking direct aim at what she says is Lukashenko’s legacy of repression.“Yes, I was scared at first,” she said in her first televised speech. “I know what depths this government can go to in order to preserve its place. But I am no longer scared.”Protests against the government have been met with brutal police force and arrests of demonstrators and journalists. Since May, more than 1,000 people have been detained by police, according to the Vysna Human Rights Center.Belarusians attend a meeting in support of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, in Hlybokaje, Belarus, July 24, 2020.Tsikhanovskaya says she has ferreted her young children out of the country amid government threats as she has embarked on her campaign.What Virus?But Lukashenko’s announcement that he tested positive for the coronavirus — and breezily survived —- also again highlighted the Belarusian leader’s controversial attitude towards the global pandemic.Indeed, as COVID-19 has infected millions worldwide, Lukashenko has dismissed fear of the virus as mass “psychosis” — a minor health issue he has said could be easily cured with a shot of vodka, a hot sauna, or doing farm work or strenuous exercise.As much of the world shuttered its economies to stamp out the virus, Lukashenko ordered that life in his country go on as usual.Belarus’ national soccer league continued to play throughout the spring.  Schools were opened after a short delay. A mass Victory Day celebration to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany went off as scheduled in May. Participation by government employees was in some cases mandatory.Official statistics show Belarus with nearly 70,000 infections and just over 500 deaths.Government critics argue those figures far underrepresent the real number of cases.“It’s hard to convince someone a disease isn’t scary if it killed your relative. It’s hard to convince someone life is good when you’ve lost your job due because the coronavirus is affecting the global economy,” says Andrej Stryzhak of #ByCovid19, a volunteer group that has emerged to help doctors and hospitals deal with the pandemic.Civil Society SurgeLacking federal support, Belarusian civil society has rallied to address the health crisis.Volunteers have raised money to buy personal protective gear for hospitals and schools. Restaurants have donated food. Hotels provide rooms pro bono to medical workers. Private businesses have contributed funds.That collective activism has now shifted to politics ahead of the August 9th election, with volunteers helping to organize rallies, spread campaign information, and sign up as election monitors for the vote.“The coronavirus has strongly influenced how Belarusians look at the vote,” says Stryzhak of #ByCovid19 in an interview with VOA.“Now people are taking matters into their own hands. Belarus has awakened.”In turn, Lukashenko has claimed nefarious outside forces are staging a street revolution that would inflict chaos on a country of 9 million that he alone has ruled since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.In what some observers saw as an ominous sign, the Belta state news agency reported security services had detained 32 “foreign mercenaries” on Wednesday, without elaborating.
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Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who had COVID-19, said the pandemic lockdown made him feel “humiliated and offended” by depriving him of his freedom to come and go as he wanted.
Bocelli spoke at a panel Monday in a Senate conference room, where he was introduced by right-wing opposition leader Matteo Salvini, who has railed against the government’s stringent measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak.  
The singer’s announcement in May that he had recovered from the virus came weeks after his Easter Sunday performance in Milan’s empty cathedral. At the time, Bocelli said that when he learned on March 10 that he had tested positive, just as the nation was going into lockdown, “I jumped into the pool, I felt well” and had only a slight fever. He apparently was referring to a private pool at his residence, as public gym pools were closed by then.
Bocelli told the conference at the Senate that he resented not being able to leave his home even though he “committed no crime” and revealed, without providing details, that he violated that lockdown restriction.
At the height of lockdown, Italians could only leave home to go to essential jobs, walk dogs or buy food or medicine.  
Dismayed, Health Ministry Undersecretary Pierpaolo Sileri on Tuesday said that perhaps Bocelli “wanted to express the inconvenience of every Italian who, because of lockdown, stayed home.”
“I wouldn’t have said those words, but I imagine he’ll be able to explain it somehow,” Sileri added.
The conference was held on the eve of Premier Giuseppe Conte’s appearance in the Senate, set for later Tuesday, where he was expected to lay out his center-left government’s case for extending a state of emergency for the pandemic, which expires on July 31.
The emergency status allowed Conte to bypass Parliament or even his Cabinet in decreeing a string of measures aimed at slowing the spread of the outbreak in the country where it first emerged in Europe, and would go on to claim more than 35,000 lives.
Bocelli told the conference that at first his children told him to be careful about the virus when he first started having doubts about its severity, “but as time passed, I know lots of people, but I didn’t know anyone who went into intensive care.”
At the worst point of the outbreak, as many as 4,000 people were in intensive care in Italy, a country of 60 million, with several hundred virus-linked deaths on some days.
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Brazil’s decision to seek charges against political cartoonists has been met with derision by experts who say authorities should focus on addressing the issues the artists satirized, including poor policing and a weak pandemic response, instead of trying to silence the media.The government of President Jair Bolsonaro is investigating five cartoonists and one blogger over satirical cartoons that his government alleges violate national security.On June 15, Brazilian Minister of Justice André Mendonça issued a series of tweets calling on federal police and prosecutors to investigate Renato Aroeira for a June 14 illustration that showed Bolsonaro using a paintbrush to transform the Red Cross medical symbol into a swastika.Bolsonaro, who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus, has been widely criticized for sidelining medical experts in Brazil’s handling of the pandemic, which has become the worst in the world outside of the United States.Mendonça also called for an investigation into Ricardo Noblat, a prominent journalist who runs a blog for the Brazilian weekly Veja, for reposting Aroeira’s cartoon on his Twitter feed.  
 
The Justice Ministry says the cartoon violates Article 26 of the National Security Law, which criminalizes slander and defamation of heads of state and allows up to four years in prison.
 
The opposition party, Sustainability Network, requested that the court suspend the investigation.
 
The request was criticized by at least one lawmaker, who argued on Twitter that by associating the president with Nazis, the cartoon had pushed the boundaries of freedom of expression.
 
In a separate case, Folha de São Pauloreported on June 13 that four of its contributing cartoonists – Alberto Benett, Laerte Coutinho, João Montanaro and Claudio Mor – were named in a criminal complaint filed by Defenda PM, a military police association.Defenda PM said the cartoons, published in December 2019, “embarrassed” their members by depicting an incident of police activity that triggered a stampede resulting in civilian deaths.
 
The Ministry of Justice did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.
 
The Brazil embassy in Washington referred VOA to a June 15 tweet by Bolsonaro’s special secretary for social media, which says “false accusation of crime is a crime.”
 
“Noblat and the cartoonist are accusing the president of the very serious crime of Nazism,” a translation of the tweet read. “Unless they prove their accusation, which is impossible, they incur false imputation of crime and will answer for that crime.”FILE – Demonstrators unfurl a banner with a cartoon image of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro with a paintbrush, insinuating he transformed a red cross into a swastika, during an anti-Bolsonaro protest, in Brasilia, Brazil, June 21, 2020.International rights groups condemned the legal action.”A hallmark of strong, secure, legitimate government is its ability to weather the mere lampoons of an impudent cartoonist,” Terry Anderson, executive director of Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI), told VOA. “Evidently Brazil has no such governance.”Deaths by stampedeDefenda PM said the December 2019 Folha de São Paulo cartoons humiliated their members.The cartoons were published in response to a Dec. 1 police chase in Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo’s second-largest slum, in which officers opened fire near a street party of about 5,000 people, triggering a stampede that killed nine.A January report by Rio de Janeiro’s Public Security Institute – a state-government subsidized civic research and community outreach organization – says police were responsible for 43% of all violent deaths in that state in 2019.Reuters last month reported that Brazil omitted complaints of police violence from an annual human rights report, sparking allegations of a cover-up of excessive force by law enforcement.”The criminal complaint filed by Defenda PM, a military police association, against four cartoonists and Folha de São Paulo newspaper, is also an example of the attempt to use the criminal system to intimidate and harass people who express opinions that should be protected in a democracy,” said César Muñoz, Americas senior researcher for U.S.-headquartered Human Rights Watch.”Defenda PM said that their cartoons ’embarrass’ military police officers,” he added. “What should embarrass them is not the cartoons, but the almost daily release of videos and other evidence showing military police using violence against unarmed people and breaking the law.”The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI) echoed that sentiment, expressing concern that Brazil’s top justice officials would invoke national security laws to “defend the President of the Republic from a critical cartoon on his government.””While every citizen has the legal right to seek compensation when he feels his honor has been injured, using the power of the state and a law created during a dark period in the country’s history is disproportionate,” said ABRAJI board member Maria Esperidião, alluding to the National Security Law’s 1969 inception under a Brazilian junta.”The strategy suggests that the real objective was to intimidate the press and restrict freedom of expression,” she said. “Therefore, it gives the impression that the state is using its power against civil society.”Concerns about crackdownAnderson, of the cartoonists network, said the spate of criminal cases – and timing amid the pandemic – represents the realization of long-held concern for members of his organization.COVID-19: The Hit on Press FreedomAmid emergency measures and lockdowns globally, journalists are arrested, attacked or blocked from reporting on COVID-19.”In June we released a statement articulating our fears about irreparable damage to the profession of cartooning during and after the global pandemic, the primary reason being the convenient pretext it provides to authoritarians, populists and nationalists to further lean in to their most repressive impulses,” he added.”Thus far that would seem to be borne out by what is occurring in Brazil, where a beleaguered leader, who all objective observers agree has presided over a disastrous response to COVID-19, now leads an administration that has developed a marked sensitivity to cartoons.”Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
 
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Turkey is poised to introduce drastic measures to control social media platforms.  The proposed legislation is drawing growing international criticism with social media remaining one of the few venues for dissent.  FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech at the Bestepe National Congress and Culture Center in Ankara, July 21, 2020.Infuriated by tweets mocking his son in law and daughter, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared this month, the “immoral [social media] platforms” would be “completely banned or controlled.” Under new legislation set to pass before Eid holidays later this week, the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok will be compelled to open offices in Turkey by requiring them to assign representatives who would be subject to Turkish laws, including tax regulations. “It builds upon and expands upon the current regime of controls,” said Professor Yaman Akdeniz, co-founder of the Freedom of Expression Society, an advocacy group in Istanbul. Until now, the social media giants have resisted Ankara’s demands to open offices in Turkey. But in an innovative approach, proposed legislation uses the threat of ending net neutrality to force compliance. New attempt to control Social media platforms that fail to comply face cuts of up to 95% of their Internet bandwidth, making them unusable. “This is well thought out legislation on the government’s part,” said Akdeniz. Previous attempts by Erdogan to tame social media have failed. Despite over 400,000 web pages banned and thousands of people prosecuted for social media postings, the Internet remains a powerful venue for dissent and independent news.Internet tools like Virtual Private Networks, VPN, and proxies are widely used in Turkey to circumvent website bans. A three-year ban on Wikipedia was so widely flouted the government capitulated and lifted the restrictions. But controlling bandwidth could be more effective than blocking websites. “This will be a very serious restriction which may not be easy to bypass with alternative ways,” said Akdeniz. “Turkey’s attempt to restrict access to social media platforms should not be underestimated.” Turkish authorities usually temporarily cut bandwidth to curtail social media use, in the aftermath of major terror attacks.  In what appears to be a new coordinated approach, the government’s Internet regulators have been stepping up their efforts to curtail the use of VPN and proxies. “A considerable number of VPN services are already blocked from Turkey, and more will be blocked,” said Akdeniz. Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, MHP, the parliamentary coalition partner of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, AKP, called for efforts to be stepped up to end the use of VPN and proxies.  Using tax laws The president’s director of communications, Fahrettin Altun, says the new legislation is about holding the social media giants financially accountable, accusing them of “uncontrollably making profits in our country and continue their operations immune to any tax obligations.” The European Union is also calling on social media companies to be more financially accountable. In a statement released this month, the EU commission unveiled plans “that extends EU tax transparency rules to digital platforms.” But there is growing international concern over Ankara’s plans. “If passed the new law will enable the government to control social media, to get content removed at will, and to arbitrarily target individual users,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. “Social media is a lifeline for many people who use it to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online censorship.” Until now, social media platforms have walked a tightrope by complying with some — but not all — Turkish regulatory authority demands to remove sites and ban users. But under the proposed reforms, failure to comply would result in substantial fines that they would be obliged to pay if they open an office in Turkey. “If the social media platforms decide to establish offices in Turkey,” said Akdeniz, “then they will be compelled to remove the content as well as close down accounts subject to blocking and removal decisions involving defamation as well as other so-called personal rights violations.” Twitter, Facebook, or Tik Tok  have so far commented on the proposed legislation, but analysts believe the companies have plenty of reason to oppose it.  Lucrative market Turkey’s young net-savvy population is seen as a lucrative market for the social media giants. FILE – People wearing face masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus, walk a in popular shopping street, in Ankara, Turkey, June 27, 2020.The growing popularity of social media as an alternative to mainstream media, most of which is under government control, is seen as Erdogan’s primary motivation behind the pending legislation. “Even members of the AKP and MHP constituencies consider social media as their primary source of information,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.  “One of the main reasons Erdogan could make so many mistakes and still stay in power is because he controls the flow of information reaching his entire voting segment, now he realizes those days have gone. People have moved to an alternative medium which he has no control,” added Yesilada. With the Turkish economy hit by the COVID 19 pandemic, recent opinion polls suggest Erdogan’s AKP’s popularity is at historic lows, even though it remains the most popular party with Turkey’s fractured opposition.  The proposed law opens the door to revamping Erdogan’s and his party’s image. “News websites, as well as social media platforms, will be compelled to remove content from their servers and news archives,” said Akdeniz. “The idea behind this is to cleanse AKP’s and the government’s past injustices, corruption, and irregularity allegations.” Yesilada warns that even if the latest reforms succeed, the Turkish leader could yet pay a high price. “We have ample survey evidence that the young generation are hooked to social media, and they already have a poor view of Mr. Erdogan and his politics. Controlling social media will completely turn them off the AKP and Mr. Erdogan.” 
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Johnny Depp’s libel case against a British tabloid that accused him of abusing ex-wife Amber Heard was wrapping up Tuesday after three weeks of court hearings that dissected a toxic celebrity love affair.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the newspaper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, at the High Court in London over an April 2018 article that called him a “wife-beater.”  
In closing arguments, Depp’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said the actor strongly denied “this reputation-destroying, career-ending allegation.”
Once Sherborne is finished, judge Andrew Nicol will retire to sift claim and counterclaim as he considers his verdict. He is expected to hand down his ruling in several weeks.What Is The Judge Deciding?
Neither Depp nor Heard is on trial, though it has been easy to forget that during a case that raked over messy details of the couple’s volatile relationship.
Depp is the claimant in the civil case, NGN and Wootton are the defendants and Heard is their main witness. To defeat Depp’s libel claim, the newspaper must persuade the judge that, on the balance of probabilities, its story was accurate.
NGN’s lawyer, Sasha Wass, said in her summing-up that there was no doubt Depp “regularly and systematically abused his wife” and so the “wife-beater” label was justified.
But Sherborne said The Sun’s article — which urged J.K. Rowling to have Depp fired from the movie version of her book “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them” — gave the false impression Depp had been “tried, convicted and sentenced” for domestic violence.
“Acting as both judge and jury, the defendants plainly and squarely state that Mr. Depp is guilty (of a) series of serious and violent criminal offenses,” he said.What Is In Dispute?
The two sides agree that the relationship between Depp and Heard, which began after they met on the set of 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary,” soured long before they divorced in 2017. Texts, emails and recordings attest to the increasingly bitter relations between Depp, now 57, and the 34-year-old model and actress.
But they disagree completely over who started and escalated their fights.
Depp denies Heard’s claim of 14 separate incidents in which he allegedly hit, slapped and shoved her, pulled her hair and threw bottles at her “like grenades.” The judge was shown photos of Heard with black eyes, red marks on her face and an injured scalp — alleged evidence of Depp’s violence.
Depp said the photos were part of a “dossier” of fake evidence and claimed that Heard hit him, even severing the tip of his finger with a thrown vodka bottle. Under cross-examination Depp admitted headbutting Heard during a tussle, but said it was by accident as he tried to stop her punching him.
Heard acknowledged having a short temper and said she punched Depp once in March 2015. But she said it was to prevent him hitting her sister.What Have We Learned?
The trial has provided an up-close and often unflattering look at Hollywood stardom, revealing details of Depp’s life of wealth, luxury, emotional turmoil and substance abuse.
Mark Stephens, a media lawyer at law firm Howard Kennedy, said the sensational case “has all of the hallmarks of the Roman arena.”
“People will remember this case not for the results, but for the evidence — the rather nasty, gory evidence — that was involved,” he said.
The settings for the disintegrating relationship were as glamorous as the allegations were sordid. The alleged assaults took place on Depp’s private island in the Bahamas, a Los Angeles penthouse, a luxury train and a private jet.
Depp said in the witness box that he had made $650 million since he joined the lucrative “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise — and ended up $100 million in debt after his financial advisers neglected to pay his taxes for 17 years. Friends described Depp as a generous big spender, and he said he’d spent $5 million sending the ashes of his literary hero, drug-fueled journalist Hunter S. Thompson, into space.  
Whichever spouse was to blame, the relationship left a trail of destruction. Damage to a rented house in Australia where the couple had an altercation was estimated at more than $100,000. The couple’s downtown L.A. penthouse was trashed during another argument.
The low point of the relationship, according to Depp, came when excrement was found in a bed at the penthouse. Heard blamed one of the couple’s two Yorkshire terriers, but Depp suspected Heard or one of her friends was to blame.Who Are The Winners And Losers?
British libel law is widely considered to favor claimants over defendants, but Depp could end up a loser even if he wins.
Depp said he sued The Sun because his career had been harmed by Heard’s allegations. But the case has amplified the claims for millions of people around the world, whatever the judge ends up deciding.
“It almost beggars belief that anyone rational has taken this case to court,” Stephens said. “Now, I know that many people say it’s all about vindication. It’s all about proving he’s not a wife beater. But the stakes are very, very high for everybody. And at some level, mud sticks.”
Heard also has had her character questioned and has been accused of fabricating evidence. She was accused by a #MeToo activist, Katherine Kendall, of appropriating a violent rape that happened to Kendall for her own ends.
The most likely winners are Wass and Sherborne, tough lawyers who both made strong cases for their clients. Sherborne also has a starring role in another big celebrity trial — he’s representing the Duchess of Sussex in her lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newspaper over publication of a private letter she sent to her father Thomas Markle.Will The Verdict Be The End Of The Story?
Not likely. Depp is suing Heard for $50 million in Virginia over a Washington Post story about domestic violence. The trial is due to be held next year.
Stephens said that if Depp “loses in London, he’s almost certain to lose that American case. So this is in some ways a dress rehearsal for the second case.”
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Brazilian healthcare workers are urging the International Criminal Court to investigate President Jair Bolsonaro’s government for crimes against humanity for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. A complaint containing evidence statements from unions representing more than one million healthcare workers has been submitted to the Hague-based court. FILE – Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who is infected with COVID-19, wears a protective face mask as he attends a Brazilian flag retreat ceremony outside his official residence the Alvorada Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, July 22, 2020.The unions accuse Bolsonaro’s administration of being “criminally negligent” in its management of the COVID-19 outbreak, jeopardizing the lives of healthcare professionals and the general public. Bolsonaro has been at odds with many of the country’s governors, opposing restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, including stay at home measures. Bolsonaro, who just tested negative for the coronavirus after being infected with the virus for nearly three weeks, has repeatedly said, the restrictions hurt the country’s economy.   Brazil has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Latin America, with more than 2.4 million cases and more than 87,000 deaths. 
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The initial hearing into corruption charges against the former CEO of the Mexican state run petroleum company known as PEMEX, Emilio Lozoya Austin, is set for Tuesday. Lozoya will appear before the judge via video-conference from a hospital where he has been since he was extradited  from Spain last Friday. He was said to be in poor health when he arrived back in Mexico. Lozoya, who headed  Pemex from 2012 to 2016 under Mexico’s former president, Enrique Pena Nieto, is denying charges he took bribes and was involved in money laundering.  Prosecutors say Lozoya asked for and obtained $4 million from Brazilian company Odebrecht, and then moved the cash into the coffers of Nieto’s 2012  election campaign and diverted some of the money for his personal use.  
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Inmates at a prison in central Bolivia staged a rooftop protest Monday, demanding medical services after the deaths of three inmates, including one suspected of having the novel coronavirus. Inmates held up banners calling attention to their plight, including one banner that read, “We want COVID-19 tests.”   A relative of one of the inmates complained that there are no doctors and no medicine.  She said the inmates are dying inside the facility. She implored that authorities cannot let them die, that we are all human beings and we cannot allow the authorities to do this.Inmates protest on the roof of a San Sebastian prison, asking for better medical attention amid the pandemic and to be given the results from previously administered COVID-19 tests, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, July 27, 2020.One inmate said authorities are aware of the deaths of inmates and police. But until today they have not received information about the deaths of other inmates. The demonstrators heightened concerns over their health follows the suspected coronavirus deaths of 23 people in the San Pedro jail in the capital, La Paz.   Officials are reportedly awaiting tests to see if those who died in the La Paz jail were infected with COVID-19. So far, Bolivia has confirmed more than 71,000 coronavirus cases and more than 2,600 deaths. 
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The advert on an elevator door at Washington’s Dulles airport read: “Say Hi And Smile At Your Fellow Travelers. It’s Good for Everyone.” That’s easier said than done when you are wearing a mask – and there are no other travelers in sight! I am used to flying a lot. Because of work, sometimes several times a month. I am seldom anxious. There have been the odd anxiety-inducing trips, mainly into war-torn countries. A flight on a wave-hopping small turboprop from Malta into Libya’s Tripoli wasn’t much fun. But I can confide that I was unusually anxious last week taking a flight to London. In fact, the flight turned out to be one of the smoothest transatlantic trips I have taken in 40 years — mainly thanks to the lack of ‘fellow travelers.’ The normally bustling Dulles airport was empty. There were just three other international flights departing the airport on the night I flew out. There were only four other people checking in at the same time as me. Security was a breeze. The normally bustling Dulles Airport was forlorn. “There were just three other international flights departing the airport on the night I flew out.” (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)But there was something forlorn about the airport. Only two small stores were open. The lounges were shuttered. And the few other passengers around were keen to steer very clear of each other. I didn’t have to worry about space between me and others on the Airbus — there were only 30 to 40 passengers on the no-frills flight. Oh, the joy of being able to stretch out. Shouting over masks“We were shouted at for wearing masks. This is why the situation in the U.S. is so dire,” Alex Crawford of Britain’s Sky News explained in a recent broadcast. British broadcasters have been reporting obsessively on the resistance to wearing masks in America. The BBC asked in a recent report: “Why is there a U.S. backlash to masks?” “Many protesters across the States have been pictured defying social distancing guidance without masks or face coverings,” reported Ritu Prasad. “This is in marked contrast to other countries,” she added. And would those counties include Britain — or, to be more precise, England, where Sky News and the BBC are headquartered? Not at all, as I discovered, after arriving in London last week. I had been expecting, when I left Heathrow Airport, to see a masked England. But masks were less in evidence than in the United States. I’d flown from West Virginia, a state not noted for a warm embrace of face-coverings. The governor, Jim Justice, only recently made masks compulsory for shoppers. But even before the gubernatorial instruction, I’d estimate around 70 percent used their own initiative and covered up. Most local stores long ago asked customers to wear masks. But at a large Sainsbury’s supermarket in an affluent suburb of Britain’s capital, only a handful of shoppers had face-coverings. And just one store assistant who might as well not have bothered, since she was only half-covering her mouth and her nose not all.  On Friday, mask-wearing for shoppers became mandatory in England’s stores; Scotland ordered everyone to cover up weeks ago. Whether the English do observe the mask rule will be interesting to watch. Supermarket chains Sainsbury’s and Asda have announced they won’t enforce the rule — and police forces say they have insufficient manpower. Not much different from US A recent report by London University’s Imperial College and the YouGov pollsters noted: “Britons are uniquely reluctant to wear face masks, given the level of fear around COVID-19 and the number of cases in the country.” They found just 37 percent of people were wearing masks before the mask order came into effect. I asked a Sainsbury’s employee on the eve of the new rule whether she planned to wear a mask. “I am not sure. Anyway I can’t,” she said. “Why not?” I asked. “Cos I don’t like them,” she replied. On Saturday, after the rule came into effect, the locals appeared to be observing the mask rule in the picture-postcard Berkshire village of Cookham, along the River Thames. “We are a well-behaved lot around here,” said Sandy, a barista at Mr. Cooper’s Coffee House. But she told me she’d seen earlier voluble disagreements about wearing masks outside a Tesco supermarket in Maidenhead, a nearby town. Mask-wearing has also divided Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s cabinet. And that has not helped to get the message across that face-coverings can prevent transmission of the coronavirus, as a series of studies have shown. For those interested, some links here:This stretch of the Thames was described by Jerome K. Jerome, a nineteenth century English writer, as “the sweetest stretch of all the river.” (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)Hardly surprisingly, people are escaping to the countryside as well as flocking to England’s rivers, trying to leave the coronavirus muddle behind them.The Thames flows by Cookham and Maidenhead. Jerome K. Jerome, a 19th century English writer, described this part of the Thames as “the sweetest stretch of all the river.” In his book “Three Men in a Boat,” a sentimental account of a two-week boating trip with friends, the author complains, though, that, “as a rule on the river, the wind is always dead against you whatever way you go.” “It is against you in the morning, when you start for a day’s trip, and you pull a long distance, thinking how easy it will be to come back with the sail. Then, after tea, the wind veers round, and you have to pull hard in its teeth all the way home.” That could serve as a metaphor for the coronavirus pandemic. But then, as Jerome adds: “This world is only a probation, and man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”  
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Austria’s tourism industry received a blow after 53 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed since last week in the popular resort town of St. Wolfgang. The lakeside resort shortened bar opening hours after a coronavirus outbreak was detected on Friday. The local tourism office said at least 50 of those new cases were seasonal workers from abroad in the hospitality industry. In an interview Monday, Health Minister Christine Haberlander said more than 1,000 additional COVID-19 tests were conducted by the Austrian authorities in St. Wolfgang. The provincial government said guests who stayed in town from July 15 will be informed about the outbreak. Tourism officials say news of the outbreak already caused many to cancel hotel reservations over the weekend. Two of the hotels there have closed. Many of the town’s businesses reportedly are worried that visitors will stay away for the rest of the season. St. Wolfgang, situated on Wolfgangsee Lake, one of Austria’s best-known lakes, was once a favorite vacation spot of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.  Austria’s coronavirus outbreak has been relatively limited compared to other Western European countries. It has recorded 20,510 cases and 713 deaths, though infections have accelerated in the past month. 
 
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A Brooklyn man who told French police investigators that he killed his wife by stabbing her twice during an argument has been charged with her murder, a prosecutor said Monday. The French-American, identified in French media reports as Billy Kruger, told investigators that he acted in self-defense, Marie-Agnès Joly, a prosecutor in the southwest city of Narbonne, told The Associated Press. Kruger was placed under formal investigation Sunday on a preliminary charge of aggravated murder and ordered held in jail, pending a possible trial. The body of his wife, 52-year-old Laure Bardina-Kruger, was found Friday in Peyriac-de-Mer, on the Mediterranean coast, south of Narbonne. The couple lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he is a diving instructor and she worked as a teacher, Joly said. The couple had a holiday home in Peyriac-de-Mer, and police found the wife’s body hidden in the storm drain nearby. The husband was detained Friday as he was preparing to fly from Toulouse, bound for Jakarta, the prosecutor said. The couple had been expected to fly out together. The wife’s parents raised the alarm after they were unable to reach the couple by phone ahead of the flight. Police sent to the couple’s home found that the wife’s belongings were still there. They then learned that the husband had checked into the flight alone. He was arrested in the boarding zone of the airport. During police questioning, the man said he stabbed his wife twice, the prosecutor said. He said they’d been arguing and he put forward “a vague” explanation of self-defense, she said. The investigation is continuing.  
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging citizens to exercise and shed weight, saying he has done so since his recovery earlier this year from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.  The prime minister’s office introduced a “Better Health” campaign Monday and released a video of himself walking his dog and talking up the benefits of regular exercise.Johnson said at the peak of his illness, when he was taken into the intensive care unit to be treated for COVID-19, he was way overweight. Since he returned from the hospital, Johnson said he started running, which has become easier for him and that he has lost more than six kilograms.Johnson’s advice comes after a recent report from Public Health England showing the overweight and obese are at greater risk for severe illness and of death from COVID-19.  The prime minister said losing weight and becoming fit would also protect the National Health Service from becoming overwhelmed with patients.Johnson said he doesn’t want to be excessively “bossy or nannying” about losing weight, because he understands the struggles many people have with doing so. He said he just wants to be helpful.  As part of the “Better Health” campaign, Johnson’s government will fight the “obesity time bomb” by banning advertising of junk food before 9.00 p.m., ending “buy one get one free” deals and putting calories on menus.  Government data show more than 60% of British citizens are overweight as is one in three children. The data indicate overweight children are five times more likely to become overweight adults.Losing weight is hard but with some small changes we can all feel fitter and healthier.If we all do our bit, we can reduce our health risks and protect ourselves against coronavirus – as well as taking pressure off the NHS. Our Better Health Strategy https://t.co/WdazXhuhRNpic.twitter.com/KZhW8p17FJ— Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) July 27, 2020 
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St. Bernards are known for helping to rescue distressed travelers in the mountains, but the tables were turned Sunday in northern England. Sixteen volunteers from the Wasdale mountain rescue team took turns carrying Daisy, a 55 kilogram St Bernard, from England’s highest peak, Scafell Pike. The mountain rescue team spent nearly five hours rescuing Daisy, who had collapsed Friday evening while descending the mountain with her owners.  Rescue workers said Daisy was displaying signs of pain in her rear legs and was refusing to move. After consulting with a veterinarian’s office, they administered some pain relief and adjusted their stretcher, which is designed for humans, to be more dog friendly. They also packed a few treats to help settle her down. “Having team members with their own pampered pooches at home, and also our much-adored search dog Jess, we recognize the distress that both an animal can feel and also that of their owners,” the team said. They said Daisy was recovering from her ordeal. Scafell Pike, 978 meters (3,209 feet) above sea level, is in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria.  The Wasdale Mountain Rescue team relies on donations to fund their mountain safety efforts. 
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Serbia is seeking to further strengthen its armed forces by purchasing more warplanes, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Sunday. Vucic made the statement while visiting an army tank brigade in Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia’s autonomous province of Vojvodina. “We cannot keep track of the gifts and donations that certain NATO counties in the neighborhood are getting from the United States, Germany and other countries and therefore we must fight alone to preserve the peace alone and to preserve our future alone,” Vucic said. Vucic did not specify what warplanes Belgrade plans to buy but said the intention is the safety of his country and the stability and peace in the Balkan region. “We, as a military neutral country, want to preserve our military neutrality, which means that we look after our sky alone, to look after our country alone. We will invest money and I believe that we, by not wanting to participate in any sort of race, will always be able to guarantee safety, stability but also peace,” Vucic continued. Pro-government media reported that Serbia had officially asked the United States for 20 fighter-bombers, but Washington had not responded to the request.  The report, however, speculated that in case of a U.S. refusal, Serbia was likely to purchase “Sukhoi-25” attack aircraft from Russia. “The Americans, Turks and Germans are taking care of their beloved child,” Vucic said, referring to Kosovo. He said Washington had recently equipped Kosovo’s security forces with armored vehicles. Although claiming Serbia’s military neutrality, Belgrade has recently received a sophisticated anti-aircraft system from Russia, including fighter jets, attack helicopters, and armored vehicles. Serbia has also obtained military drones from another ally, China. The U.S. has said that it would impose sanctions against Serbia if Moscow sends more arms to the country, which could threaten the security of neighboring NATO members. 
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Many Roman Catholic churches in Mexico City, including its main cathedral, celebrated the first Mass Sunday after three months of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Restrictions, however, are still in place, including mandatory face masks, shortened services, and church occupancy not more than 20%. “We are filled with joy to be able to receive our faithful and to be with them at this time when it has been so hard for them not to participate in the celebrations,” Auxiliary Bishop Salvador Gonzalez Morales said. Observing the sanitary measures to protect themselves from COVID-19, parishioners were nevertheless happy to attend Mass. “I felt very happy because I had been wanting to come for a long time and I couldn’t.  The Church wasn’t open. And now I was very pleased to be able to visit the Blessed Sacrament, to talk to him,” Maria Juana Flores, a church attendee, said. Another parishioner felt spiritually empowered to be able to go to church. “Peace and quiet. The spirit, one receives a spiritual force that lifts us up, right?” Hugo Perez, a church attendee, said. Mexican federal authorities left the decision on opening places of worship to state governments and city councils. The Mexican clergy has been hit hard by the coronavirus, with 46 priests, six deacons and three nuns dead as of July 15, according to data provided by the Catholic Multimedia Center of Mexico. The country now has over 385,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 43,000 deaths. 
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is blaming the surge in coronavirus cases in Arizona, Florida and Texas on two conservative-leaning newspapers – The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. Cuomo told reporters Sunday that the infection rate in New York – the nation’s former COVID-19 epicenter – is low because of what he says was an “intelligent, phased reopening.” He said what both papers have recommended for the rest of the country has proved to be a failure. “The Wall Street Journal, New York Post — they continue to beat a horse that is dead. …‘The infection rate is low; reopen faster,’” Cuomo said. “Florida listened to the New York Post. Texas listened to the Wall Street Journal. Arizona listened to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. That was wrong. That was wrong.” Cuomo said 500 people tested positive and three died Saturday in New York while the new cases in Florida, Texas and Arizona number in the thousands.  A New York Post editorial Sunday night blamed Cuomo’s administration for an order in March that nursing homes accept patients even if they have COVID-19, a policy the newspaper called “nuts” and possibly responsible for needless deaths. “If we’re annoying him that much, it means one thing — he knows we’re right,” the paper said. Florida reported another 9,300 COVID-19 cases Sunday, moving it into second place among U.S. states with the highest number of cases. California, the most populous U.S. state, is on top; New York is third followed by Texas.  Health experts blame the leap in the number of cases on businesses and public attractions reopening too soon and not enough people wearing masks and social distancing.Health care workers take information from people in line at a walk-up COVID-19 testing site during the coronavirus pandemic, in Miami Beach, Fla., July 17, 2020.The manager of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins postponed his team’s return to Florida by one day, meaning instead of being able to practice for the team’s opening home game against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday, the Marlins will arrive at the ballpark just hours before the game.  Several Marlins players who tested positive for COVID-19 are in quarantine in Philadelphia. “There’s nothing we can really do,” Marlins pitcher Robert Dugger said. “It’s out of our control. We just do the best we can with the masks and social distancing and all that, and hope for the best.”  Baseball opened its 2020 season last week, three months late, and will play 60 games instead of the usual 162. Fans are, for now, not allowed in the ballparks.  Spain is safe for tourists, it said Sunday, rebuking Britain for imposing a two-week quarantine on all travelers entering the country from Spain because of the coronavirus pandemic.  “Spain is safe, it is safe for Spaniards, it is safe for tourists,” Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters. She said Spain would try to persuade Britain to exclude the Balearic and Canary Islands from the quarantine measure, contending that the prevalence of the virus in the two popular travel destinations was much lower than in Britain itself. A year ago, Britons made up about a fifth of foreign visitors to Spain, meaning the British quarantine could deal a blow to the Mediterranean country’s efforts to jump start its economy after months of lockdown because of the virus. But the number of COVID-19 cases has risen in Spain in the last few weeks, prompting Britain to announce late Saturday it was taking Spain off its safe-travel list. Hours later, the quarantine took effect. It immediately upset travelers, with one British tourist saying, “Everyone is panicking.” South Africa reported 12,000 new coronavirus cases Sunday. Its response to the pandemic, however, is being hampered by corruption allegations surrounding its $26 billion economic relief package. An investigation is under way.  South Africa has the fifth largest number of COVID-19 infections in the world, with more than 434,000 cases.   The U.S. has the most cases at 4.2 million, followed by Brazil with 2.3 million, India with 1.3 million, and Russia with more than 800,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. 
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Turkey’s decision to convert the ancient Hagia Sophia monument back into a mosque has sparked a war of words between Athens and Ankara. However, as Greece intensifies its diplomatic scramble to slap sanctions on Turkey, Greek businesses have launched a campaign to boycott goods and services from the neighboring country.Vassilis Korkidis, a leading representative of commerce in Greece, is blunt about the need, as he puts it, to strike back at Turkey.We recognize the ongoing works and efforts of the government to counter the recasting of Hagia Sophia, he said. However, until that materializes into something concrete, Korkidis said, Greek businesses should waste no time in boycotting trade with their Turkish partners.Even on a personal level, he says, consumers should follow suit. They can do so immediately, he said, boycotting Turkish goods, which bear the numbers 868 and 869 on the barcodes of imported products.Despite age-old animosity between the two countries, trade relations have grown substantially in recent years. Greece’s annual exports to Turkey total about $1.6 billion, significantly more than the $1.2 billion in imports from Turkey.Whether Greeks will heed the trade boycott remains unclear, especially as the economy here has been thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic.However, the anger, sadness and resentment toward the Hagia Sophia recast weighs heavily in this largely Eastern Orthodox country — so much in fact, that experts say any short-lived trade gain is offset by bigger losses.In this Presidential Press Office handout picture, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends Friday prayers at Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul, July 24, 2020.Korkidis explained, “We may enjoy a generous trade surplus, he says, but when you factor in the resources that Greece has to pull together to fend off continued flows of illegal migration from Turkey, and the huge military costs now racking up to safeguard against Turkish provocations — well all of that wipes out any semblance of a surplus.”The issue of Hagia Sophia is just the latest of a string of crises Greece is facing from its fellow NATO member, Turkey. Relations have been aggravated for years over land and sea rights in the Aegean, as well as thousands of illegal migrants continuing to stream into Greece from Turkey. In recent weeks, also, tensions have soared as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to begin drilling for oil and gas in waters Greece considers its own. Greek business associations say they are already reaching out to partner organizations across Europe to institute build an even broader boycott against Turkey.It is clear that the West is becoming increasingly unnerved by the actions of Turkey, Korkidis said. It is high time, he said, that Erdogan’s government stops using cultural issues to advance its political agenda.The trade boycott is just one of many grassroots movements and protests, swelling in Greece.On Sunday, alone, church bells tolled anew across the nation while tens of thousands of people packed into houses of prayer, singing hymns in honor of the Hagia Sophia, the seat of Eastern Christianity for about a thousand years before Ottoman Turks conquered its host city, then known as Constantinople.Protesters burn a Turkish national flag outside of a church during a gathering in Thessaloniki, July 24, 2020, against turning the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to a mosque after serving for more than 80 years as museum.In more worrying signs, though, teams of far-right nationalists fanned out across a city in northern Greece, torching a Turkish flag. The Greek government condemned the move. Still, it stoked nationalist and patriotic passions with a fresh round stinging remarks against the country’s age-old foe by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.He said Turkey is a troublemaker threatening peace and security in the region, he says, but we have shown, that we can defend our borders, the European Union’s frontiers.Greece believes the Hagia Sophia conversion is part of a bigger plan by Turkey to reassert itself as a regional and energy superpower.Turkey says Greece is significantly overreacting. Even so, Greece insists it is not taking any chances, keeping its forces on code-red alert, ready to wage war if further provoked on any front. 
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The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is warning that unlawful and arbitrary incarceration of refugees and asylum seekers is putting them and the general public at heightened risk of COVID-19. The U.N. refugee agency is calling for their urgent and immediate release.Some countries are reportedly using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to lock up refugees and asylum seekers for longer periods of time.  The U.N. agency says refugees are fleeing war and persecution. It says they are not criminals and should not be detained without due legal process.   The agency says refugees and asylum seekers often are forced to live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.  It says social distancing in these settings is impossible and access to medical care and clean water is limited.    UNHCR spokesman Charlie Yaxley tells VOA the risk of a catastrophic outbreak of COVID-19 in one of these detention centers is great and could jeopardize public health. “Should somebody become infected with the virus, it could potentially spread quickly amongst the other detainees, but also amongst those who work and guard the centers themselves and therefore potentially risking further spreading even outside the centers,” he said.  The UNHCR says unlawful detention of refugees is not restricted to countries in conflict, such as Libya.  It says it also is widely used as an administrative procedure in all regions — in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.     Yaxley says the detention of refugees should be a measure of last resort, adding that children should never be held in immigration detention.  He says this can never be considered to be in the child’s best interest.     The UNHCR, he says, is calling for the immediate release of all children from detention as well as for refugees and asylum seekers being arbitrarily or unlawfully detained.   “We believe that releasing asylum seekers from detention is in the public health interest, not only of the United States, but for all countries… The detention of adults should only take place in exceptional circumstances and the detention of children, irrespective of their immigration status, should never happen at all,” he said.    The UNHCR urges governments to expand and implement community-based alternatives to detention, including other options for newly arriving refugees and asylum seekers.     It says detention center conditions should be improved while alternatives are being prepared.  It adds the UNHCR should continue to have access to asylum seekers and refugees held in these locations.  
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Britain’s Prince Harry took offence at what he thought was Prince William’s “snobbishness” when he advised his brother to “take as much time as you need to get to know this girl” when he was dating Meghan Markle, a new book says.Harry and his wife, Meghan, have distanced themselves from the book called “Finding Freedom,” saying they were not interviewed for the biography being serialized by The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers and made no contributions to it.The book documents, citing sources, a time when Harry and Meghan were dating and William wanted to make sure the American actress had the right intentions, The Sunday Times said.”Don’t feel you need to rush this,” William told Harry, according to sources cited by the book. “Take as much time as you need to get to know this girl.”The Sunday Times said Harry heard a tone of snobbishness in the last two words, “this girl”, and that Harry no longer felt he needed looking after.The couple and their son, Archie, now live in Los Angeles after they stepped down from their royal roles in March to forge new careers. In January they announced plans to lead a more independent life and to finance it themselves. Harry and Meghan married in May 2018 in a wedding heralded at the time as infusing a blast of Hollywood glamour and modernity into the British monarchy and which made them one of the world’s biggest celebrity couples. 
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Europe’s airlines, hoteliers and tour operators fear abrupt changes to coronavirus travel rules by governments are killing their chances to salvage something of a wrecked vacation season.The British government’s sudden decision Saturday to add Spain to its list of “at-risk” countries, forcing tens of thousands of Britons already holidaying in Spain to quarantine for 14 days on their return and upending plans for tens of thousands of others scheduling vacations, has dealt a massive blow to hopes that the travel industry might be able to recoup some of its massive losses from the pandemic.Britain and its European neighbors only recently lifted bans on overseas travel for leisure in a bid to return to some semblance of normality. They had come under fierce lobbying by the continent’s desperate airlines and travel firms to do so.“This is going to cause absolute chaos for travel firms as they are at peak season now,” said travel consultant Paul Charles.“The timings could not be worse. With departures this weekend, there are about to be 2 million Brits in Spain. It is the last thing travel companies want to see because of the sheer volume of holidaymakers affected. And it will be a huge blow to people there, who will now have to quarantine, or those about to fly on holiday,” he added.Britain isn’t alone in opting for caution. Saturday also saw Ireland omit Britain from a list of “safe” countries, telling its citizens it should be avoided for all but essential travel. France has issued a warning about travel to Spain. The French government has not closed the border with Spain, but a French official told VOA that Paris is considering the possibility.Norway, too, is advising against travel to Spain.The sudden moves are likely to deter travelers generally from risking trips to other countries because of the chance of new restrictions being imposed with little warning.A couple kisses as they sit by the sea in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, July 25, 2020.That point was underscored by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who tweeted, “This reinforces the point that these matters are subject to change at short notice and so my advice is to be cautious about non-essential foreign travel.”Almost 40 countries worldwide have reported record single-day increases in coronavirus infections during the past week, and fears of an imminent second wave of the pandemic in Europe are also mounting.The British government’s Spain decision came without warning, catching out the country’s own transport minister, Grant Shapps, who’s vacationing in Spain with his family. British officials say they had no option but to add Spain to the red list following a significant coronavirus spike in the Mediterranean country. Spain recorded an additional 2,255 new cases Friday, following 2,615 on Thursday.Spanish authorities say they have identified 281 active outbreaks with a third of them triggered by social or family gatherings. Nightclubs have also been identified as hot spots. Spanish officials are warning of a possible second wave of infections, with the northeast region of Catalonia the worst affected. Catalonia has closed nightlife down for two weeks.However, major towns away from the northeast are also seeing surges in confirmed cases. The Murcia region sealed off 30,000 people in the town of Totana on Thursday, barring anyone from entering or leaving after 55 people tested positive following a nightclub visit. Restrictions have also been tightened in Zaragoza and Pamplona.“We have important outbreaks. It could be a second wave. We’ll have to see what happens in the next few weeks,” said Maria José Sierra, Spain’s deputy emergency health director.“Protecting public health is our absolute priority and we have taken this decision to limit any potential spread to the UK,” Britain’s Department of Transport said in a statement. “We’ve always been clear that we would act immediately to remove a country [from quarantine exemptions list] where necessary,” it added.People gather outdoors at dusk on a viewpoint in Barcelona, Spain, July 25, 2020.Airlines and travel businesses are reacting, though, with anger. British Airways said the change “cannot fail to have an impact on an already troubled aviation industry.”EasyJet, one of Europe’s biggest airlines, said, “We are disappointed that the Government has decided to impose a quarantine requirement for those traveling from the whole of Spain since the increased occurrence of Coronavirus is regional rather than nationwide.”Moreover, Britain’s Airport Operators Association said it would “further damage what is already a fragile restart of the aviation sector which continues to face the biggest challenge in its history.”British airline bosses and their counterparts say that the abruptness of the decision will chill vacation travel as a whole across the continent, with holidaymakers fearful of rule changes being announced while they are vacationing.“This level of uncertainty and confusion is damaging for business,” said Andrew Flintham, managing director of TUI, Britain’s biggest tour operator. TUI announced it will cancel all reservations for Spain, saying it “won’t take customers on holiday” if they were required to quarantine on their return.Lois Stothard, from South Yorkshire, told the BBC she had booked a vacation in the Spanish town of Seville and was due to fly Sunday with her boyfriend but would now have to cancel.“I’m a key worker — I’m a teacher — and my boyfriend has work commitments, so we cannot quarantine for 14 days when we return. We can’t get any money back and to change, the company want double what I’ve already paid in fees. I’m very disappointed and upset as we’re packed and ready to go,” she said.Some travel experts say the decision to add Spain to the red list should have been made sooner and well before the weekend.“Why on earth was this decision not taken 48 hours ago, when it was clear there was a problem with Spain, and before tens of thousands of UK holidaymakers flew out on Friday as the summer holidays started?” asked Rory Boland, editor of the travel magazine Which?Anxiety is mounting across Europe that it could soon be back in the eye of the coronavirus storm. Officials say young people have been lowering their guard after lockdowns were lifted.“We have canceled out much of the progress accomplished during the first weeks of exit from lockdown,” the French health ministry said.Alarmed French officials say some of the young people testing positive for the virus have been failing to self-isolate.There are also worries in the Italian region of Lazio, which includes Rome.  Regional officials warned last week that there could be a second lockdown after coronavirus cases began to rise again. Authorities warned that restrictions to curb the spread of the virus may be reintroduced if infections continue to climb. There were 17 new cases confirmed last Sunday, with 10 among people returning to the country from overseas.Lazio’s health commissioner, Alessio D’Amato, urged people to wear masks in public spaces as instructed.“I appeal for the use of masks, otherwise, we’ll have to close down again. We can’t turn back and waste all the efforts done until now,” he said.       
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The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has expressed its regret over Saturday’s death of Kyrgyz human rights defender Azimjan Askarov in prison.“Today, we grieve together with Azimjan’s family and all who knew him,” the organization said in a statement.Askarov, a long-standing partner of ODIHR, had for many years prior to his arrest, documented “police abuse and brutality in his native Kyrgyzstan,” the statement said.The office had been calling for Askarov’s release since he was first arrested in 2010.ODIHR and many other observers of his trials in 2010 and 2011, had noted serious violations of “fair trial standards and the failure of the authorities to address the intimidation of defense witnesses and lawyers or follow up on visible signs of torture,” the statement said.Just two months ago, ODIHR objected the decision of Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court to uphold the life sentence imposed on Askarov in 2010.“It is unfortunate that the Kyrgyz authorities did not use the opportunity open to them to restore justice,” ODIHR said.ODIHR Director Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir had said in a statement in May: “I call on the authorities of Kyrgyzstan to implement the UN Human Rights Committee decision and free Mr. Askarov, in line with the country’s international human rights obligations.”    
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