RIYADMEDIA

Spain has had the world’s highest nursing home death rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Madrid city government documents show officials set rules preventing nursing homes from transferring some residents to hospitals at the time the infection rate peaked.  Now, some people are demanding answers.  Jonathan Spier narrates this report by Alfonso Beato in Barcelona. Camera:Alfonso Beato  Producer: Jonathan Spier 
 
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News media reports President Donald Trump was briefed on Russian bounties awarded to the Taliban for the death of U.S. troops in Afghanistan continued to roil Washington Tuesday. U.S. lawmakers are pushing for answers after the White House said the president was not aware of that intelligence because it had not been verified. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will travel to Washington next week to meet with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced on Twitter Tuesday that Lopez Obrador will spend two days in Washington beginning July 8. Ebrard said further details about the visit will be released later Wednesday. The visit with President Trump will be the first foreign trip for Lopez Obrador since he first took office in December 2018.  He said earlier this week that his trip to the United States will celebrate the start of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which goes into effect Wednesday.  But Lopez Obrador has come under intense criticism for his planned visit with Trump,  who is widely disliked for demonizing Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and criminals when he launched his presidential campaign, as well as his vow to make Mexico pay for building a proposed wall at U.S.-Mexican border. 
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Canada has failed to take back dozens of Canadian citizens detained in Syria for suspected links with the Islamic State (IS) terror group, an international rights watchdog said. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Monday that Canadian authorities have not repatriated any of the estimated 47 Canadians who have been detained in overcrowded camps in northeast Syria. The HRW said during the coronavirus outbreak Canada has repatriated 40,000 Canadian citizens from 100 countries, including 29 from Syria, but has failed to bring back those held in Syrian detention camps. “If Canada can bring home tens of thousands of citizens from around the world in a matter of weeks, surely it can find a way to repatriate fewer than 50 others trapped in horrific conditions in northeast Syria,” Letta Tayler, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW, said in a statement Monday. “The lives of Canadians are on the line, and the time to bring them home is now.” Among those detainees are 26 children, most of whom are under the age of six. Canadian officials say they are aware of Canadian citizens held in northeast Syria and that they are “particularly concerned with cases of Canadian children in Syria.” “Canadian consular officials are actively engaged with Syrian Kurdish authorities to seek information on Canadians in their custody. We continue to monitor the situation very closely,” Barbara Harvey, a spokesperson for Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry, told VOA. Given the security situation on the ground and the current COVID-19 context, Canada’s ability to provide any kind of consular assistance in Syria remains limited, Harvey added. Despite Canada’s security concerns, the HRW report said that dozens of other countries, including the United States, Germany and France, have repatriated their citizens from Syria.  Last week, France took back 10 children of IS fighters who were held in Kurdish-run camps in northeast Syria. Dire conditions There are about 12,000 foreigners held at three camps for displaced people in northeast Syria, including al-Hol Camp where humanitarian groups say they suffer malnutrition and disease. Amarnath Amarasingam, an assistant professor who teaches extremism and terrorism at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, visited al-Hol Camp last year. “Al-Hol can only be described as an urgent humanitarian catastrophe… It’s crowded, it’s dirty, violence breaks out often, and there are just small children everywhere,” he told VOA. Amarasingam said, “Around April 2018, there was definitely contact between Canadian officials and their Kurdish counterparts.” “Canadian officials even spoke to some of the detainees and started paperwork to get them identification documents and so on,” he said, “Then, a month later, the whole process was mysteriously shelved. It’s not clear why, but there has been no new attempt to repatriate Canadians.” Contacted by VOA, Kurdish officials declined to comment on whether there has been recent contact between them and Canadian authorities regarding Canadian citizens held in Syria, including 8 men who are accused of fighting for the Islamic State. But a Canadian official told VOA on a condition of anonymity that, “Investigating, arresting, charging and prosecuting any Canadian involved in terrorism or violent extremism is a priority for the Government of Canada.” Foreign fighters Syrian Kurdish officials have called on countries to take back their detained citizens, cautioning they do not have enough resources to keep IS prisoners and their families indefinitely. In addition to women and children, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has more than 10,000 IS fighters in their custody, including about 2,000 who come from more than 50 countries.  U.S. military officials say their SDF partners in Syria have been overwhelmed to keep IS prisoners. “The global coalition believes that through appropriate international laws and protocols, there should be a final resolution for what happens with the foreign terrorist fighters,” Col. Myles Caggins, spokesman for the anti-IS global coalition, told VOA in a recent interview.  He added that the coalition continues to support the SDF with stipends for the detention center guards and equipment “to make the detention centers safer for the Asayish [Kurdish security forces] who are providing security, as well as safer and more humane treatment  for the detainees.” Over the past few months, there have been several prison break attempts by IS prisoners held in a detention facility in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah. The most recent one was on Monday when a riot took place inside a major IS detention center in the city, triggering a rapid response by SDF fighters and their coalition backers to contain the situation, local news reported. In a congressional testimony in March, General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of United States Central Command, said the best way to alleviate the problem of IS prisoners in Syria is to repatriate them. “While some countries have made efforts to reclaim their foreign fighters, full resolution requires a comprehensive diplomatic and international effort,” Gen. McKenzie said, adding that, “This problem will not go away by ignoring it, and can only be addressed by the international community working together to accept its shared responsibilities.” Local Kurdish authorities have said since the international community doesn’t have concrete plans to repatriate and prosecute IS prisoners in their home countries, they would proceed to try them in local courts in Syria. However, rights groups fear that given the current security situation in Syria, it would be challenging to make sure IS prisoners receive fair trials. “The fact that the Syrian government led by [President Bashar] Assad has little real control over the country and no due process, and SDF territory has a multitude of militias and foreign militaries present, the process of trying detainees in court is convoluted and difficult,” Philippe Nassif, Advocacy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, told VOA. 
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Haiti reopened its two international airports in Port-au-Prince and Cape Haitian, as well as four official border crossings in Anse-a-Pitres, Malpasse, Belladere and Ouanaminthe on Tuesday. President Jovenel Moïse announced the news in a national address.  The airports closed to all nonlocal flights on March 16 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but exceptions were made for some nonlocal flights, including to fly people who were stuck in Haiti back to their home countries.JetBlue Flies American Citizens, Residents Stuck in Haiti Home Passengers boarding flight to Fort Lauderdale told VOA they are not afraid and look forward to returning to Haiti Safety measures  
 
Officials told VOA that safety measures are in place to limit vehicular traffic in and around the airport, with special attention paid to passenger pick-up and drop-off zones. Agents will limit the number of passengers around airline check-in counters and security check points. Face masks are mandatory.  “Security agents will accompany passengers going through immigration, where we placed signs indicating where they should stand in adherence with social distancing measures,” Joseph Frantz Sedras, director of equipment for Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, told VOA Creole.   Protective glass barriers are in place at all agent counters, and procedures are in place to keep passenger lines moving forward.  Sedras told VOA that social distancing will be mandated at every step of the departure and arrival process and that security agents will search passengers and their luggage before they reach the immigration area. In addition, counters and equipment will be disinfected often, he said.    “When the passenger reaches the departure lounge, he/she will be allowed to occupy every other seat in accordance with social distancing guidelines,” Sedras said. “These measures will be mandated throughout the departure lounge.”   Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed throughout the airport for passenger and employee use.     COVID-19 infections  Haiti currently has 5,933 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data published by the published health ministry on June 29. That number is an increase of more 1,000 cases since June 20 when the confirmed infection toll stood at 4,916. The current death toll is 105.  Health officials say the hardest-hit regions are the northeast, west and Artibonite departments, but there is speculation that the toll could be higher nationwide, where fear of stigmatization keeps people from seeking medical treatment.Workers with the Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population walk outside of International Airport Toussaint Louverture, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 15, 2020.Diaspora travelTravelers from the Haitian diaspora are essential to the country’s economy, according to Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe. During a visit to the Port-au-Prince airport before its reopening, he told VOA Creole he recognizes their desire to tend to property, as well as attending annual religious festivals.    “I can’t keep them from coming to dance at the festivals. And if the airport in Puerto Plata (Dominican Republic) is open and we are not, Haitians will find a way to get here somehow,” he said.  With regards to the pandemic and its spread, the prime minister said he consulted the country’s top health experts on a timeline but was not given an answer.     “Community transmission is an issue. There are many people who say they have a fever or a cold, they insist it’s not corona(virus). But we know how Haitians are. I guess if I had it, I would say I didn’t, too. So, all we can do is reinforce the security measures and preventative measures already in place,” he said.  Jouthe said hand washing and wearing masks are a necessity, even though they are not always comfortable.  Criticism  
Opposition Sen. Jean Renel Senatus told VOA that he, too, understands there are people who need to travel to Haiti to deal with important matters, but he doubts the government’s information about the current COVID-19 situation.  He also expressed concern about the surge in U.S. cases.   “We’ve heard that cases are spiking in Miami. And most of the planes arriving in Haiti are coming from Miami, Florida,” the senator said. Scheduled flights   Eleven flights are scheduled to arrive in Haiti on July 1, according to FlightRadar24, a website that tracks air traffic worldwide in real time. Among those, five flights from U.S. carriers American Airlines, Spirit and JetBlue departing from Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New York City, are due to arrive between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time.     
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Among the many things that have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic around the world was Croatia’s ambitious agenda for its six-month term at the helm of the European Union, which ended Tuesday.  “Despite all our best original plans, related to promoting a whole set of issues most important for Europe’s security and prosperity … our presidency has ended up being a genuine crisis-management presidency,” said Pjer Simunovic, Croatia’s top diplomat in Washington.  Simunovic said his country took its turn in the rotating office in January with plans to address employment, technology, competitiveness, environment, green energy, EU enlargement, external partnerships, as well as to work toward a smooth and well-regulated Brexit and adoption of the EU’s budget.   Instead, he said in an interview, Croatia’s presidency has been dominated by “virtual meetings replacing the in-person meetings at all levels, and almost everything getting focused on dealing with the immediacy of the multifaceted danger in front to us.” “We all had to plan and execute on the fly,” he added. The role of the EU presidency is to build consensus and facilitate joint decision-making among the bloc’s nearly 30 members, Simunovic said. Toward that end, he credited the member states for working together to bring home more than 500,000 EU citizens who were left stranded by the pandemic around the world. Simunovic said his country – an EU member since 2013 – also advocated strongly for the union to open accession talks with two other countries in its southeastern Europe neighborhood – Albania and North Macedonia. An EU-Western Balkans summit in May confirmed the “EU’s commitment to the region,” he said.  As another example of solidarity within the EU, the ambassador cited ongoing negotiations on financial rescue packages for the member nations most severely hurt by the pandemic. “On top of the first EU relief package, adopted in April, of 500 billion euros, complemented by a banking package facilitating lending, the European Commission proposed, in late May, the second relief package, consisting of 750 billion euros, 500 billion in grants, 250 billions in favorable loans,” he said.   Simunovic described that proposal as “fair, balanced and appropriate,” adding that progress towards an agreement was made at the final EU summit of Croatia’s presidency, including a pledge to finalize an agreement at a summit in July.  Independent analysts also are pleasantly surprised by the EU’s success in responding to the pandemic.“There is some pride along with a sense of shock that Europe has been pulling together,” said Stephen Szabo, a senior fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. But he said the success came only after “a disastrous beginning” in which the member states failed to help the hardest-hit countries, such as Italy.“Still this is only the first stage of what promises to be a long-term crisis,” he said, adding that the economic effects “will be felt for years and will pose a challenge for European solidarity.”Simunovic discussed the concept of “strategic autonomy” as the pandemic forces nations to evaluate the strength of their supply chains. The notion is perfectly understandable, he said, but he believes collaboration among the EU members will be critical going forward.He predicted that ties will be “established and reinforced along the lines of reliability” among what he described as “genuine allies.”Simunovic said Europe stands ready to work alongside the United States to strengthen transatlantic ties and tackle global challenges, including those posed by state actors playing with different rules – Russia and China most prominently among them.”Globalization will not disappear, trade and investment will continue to flow around the world, as it is happening, but there will be more caution, more safeguards,” he said.The ambassador predicted Germany, which assumes the presidency for a six-month term beginning Wednesday, will find itself like Croatia in a continuous “crisis management” mode, with “hard issues remaining to be addressed and resolved.”“We wish our German friends the best of luck, with our full support and great expectations,” he said. “We are in the same boat amidst the rough seas.” 
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Police in Slovakia are investigating after Peter Sabo, a reporter for the news outlet Aktuality, found a bullet in his mailbox.The threat against Sabo comes just over two years after the February 2018 murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak, who worked for the same outlet.Sabo joined Aktuality a few months after the killing, to help continue Kuciak’s investigations. Sabo had recently reported on international tax fraud and drug crimes.  The outlet condemned the threat in an People gather at Slovak National Uprising square for a rally against corruption and to pay tribute to murdered Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, March 9, 2018, in Bratislava, Slovakia.Police said an investigation is under way, the International Federation of Journalists reported. The Slovak Minister of the Interior Roman Mikulec and President of Police Milan Lučansk were informed of the threat, Bárdy told the International Press Institute (IPI).  “This kind of intimidation must be taken seriously,” IPI deputy director Scott Griffen said in a FILE – Suspects in the 2018 slaying of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, are escorted by armed police officers from a courtroom in Pezinok, Slovakia, December 19, 2019.Kuciak had been investigating tax fraud of several businessmen who had connections to Slovak politicians and Kočner. He was shot dead along with his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, in their home in Velka Maca, a village east of the Slovak capital Bratislava.In the weeks after the murder, protests over corruption and the murder led to a series of high-profile resignations including of the prime minister.  Earlier this year, a court sentenced two people for the murder. Kočner is currently on trial accused of ordering the killing. He denies the charge. In a show of solidarity after the murder, Kuciak’s colleagues helped finish his unfinished work, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) founded the “Kocner Library” – an electronic archive made up of files police collected in their investigation into the businessman that journalists can use to further report on corruption.  
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Belgium’s King Philippe expressed regret Tuesday for 75 years of his country’s exploitative rule in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The king spoke on the African country’s 60th anniversary of independence. “I want to express my deepest regret for these past injuries, the pain of which is regularly revived by the discrimination that is still all too present in our societies,” Philippe wrote in a letter to Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi.  FILE – Belgium’s King Philippe, wearing a face mask, walks down a main shopping street in Brussels, May 10, 2020.The statement is the closest a reigning Belgian monarch has come to an apology. The Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960 after 52 years as a colony and 23 years of brutal private ownership under Leopold II. Millions of Congolese died under Belgian rule, which exploited land and people for rubber, copper, diamonds, gold and other natural resources.  
 
In a statement to the Agence France-Presse news agency, Congo Foreign Minister Marie Ntumba Nzeza said the king’s letter was “balm to the heart of the Congolese people. This is a step forward that will boost friendly relations between our nations.” 
 
A spokesman for Tshisekedi had no comment on the letter. But in a TV address on the eve of independence day, the president said Philippe was “searching, just like me, to strengthen the ties between our two countries without denying our common past, but with the goal of preparing a bright and harmonious future.” 
 
Other Congolese activists and scholars said Philippe’s letter, which did not include an explicit apology or mention Leopold II by name, did not go far enough. “It’s not enough to say, ‘I feel regret,'” Lambert Mende, a spokesman for former Congo President Joseph Kabila, told AFP. “People should be willing to repair the damage in terms of investment and compensation with interest. That’s what we expect from our Belgian partners.” 
 
Some have also called for Belgium to return Congolese artifacts, double down on investigations of colonial violence and issue reparations for 75 years of bloody rule.  A bust of Belgium’s King Leopold II is hoisted off of its plinth by a crane as it’s removed from a park in Ghent, Belgium, June 30, 2020.The Belgium city of Ghent took a statue of Leopold II off public display Tuesday, just hours after Philippe’s letter. The city of Antwerp removed another statue of the ruler earlier this month to repair it after anti-racism protesters defaced it with paint, though a spokesman for the city’s mayor said it probably would not be put back. 
 
Burundi and Rwanda, also former Belgian colonies, will celebrate their independence on July 1.Leslie Bonilla contributed to this report. 
 
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The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has called for urgent action to stop female genital mutilation, child marriage and other harmful practices carried out against millions of women and girls around the world each year.UNFPA made that call as it presented its State of the World Population report from UN headquarters in Geneva Monday. The report was embargoed until Tuesday.UNFPA Director Mónica Ferro told journalists the report cites at lease 19 practice against girls and women girls that have been universally denounced as human rights violations – from breast ironing to virginity testing.  Ferro said the study was also groundbreaking in that it treats these practices as human rights violations. The study indicates that every day, hundreds of thousands of girls around the world are subjected to practices that harm them physically or psychologically – with the full knowledge and consent of their families and communities.Ferro said the three widespread practices that cause harm are genital mutilation, child marriage and preference for male children.  Genital mutilation is the removal or partial removal of all external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Ferro said this year, 4.1 million girls around the world are at risk for genital mutilation.The report also estimates that some 33,000 girls under the age of 18 are forced into marriage, often to men much older than them. And report says, because of gender-bias towards males, extreme neglect of female children has led 140 million “missing” females world-wide.While Ferro reports the “tide is turning,” with more laws being pass to prevent these abuses and traditional practitioners are changing their ways, she says the COVID-19 pandemic could reverse some of that progress.  Ferro said pandemic-related lockdowns have separated woman from medical and domestic-issue-related caregivers, and cases of violence against women could surge. She said “We cannot slow down the pace.” of addressing these issues.
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For two months, the Malta-flagged oil tanker Alkimos has been quietly floating off the Gulf Coast of Texas, undisturbed by the high-stakes legal fight playing out in a federal courtroom as a result of American sanctions on Venezuela.
The commercial dispute, which hasn’t been previously reported, has all the drama of a pirate movie: a precious cargo, clandestine sea maneuvers and accusations of a high seas heist.
It pits Evangelos Marinakis, one of Greece’s most powerful businessmen and owner of its most successful soccer club, Olympiakos, against a fellow shipping magnate from Venezuela, Wilmer Ruperti, who has a long history of helping the country’s socialist leaders.
Round one appears to have favored Marinakis, whose Piraeus-based Capital Ship Management Corp, operates the Alkimos. On Wednesday, federal marshals in Houston are scheduled to auction off the ship’s’ cargo: 100,266 barrels of high octane gasoline estimated to be worth more than $5 million. The auction is in response to Judge Lynn Hughes’ order seizing the cargo, which he said would’ve likely ended up in Venezuela, while arbitration over a $1.7 million lien continues.  
“This clearly demonstrates that sanctions work,” said Russ Dallen, who closely monitors maritime traffic as the head of Miami-based Caracas Capital Markets. “But although this shipowner appears to have done the right thing, there are lots of other unscrupulous cockroaches in the shipping industry that won’t hesitate to do business with Venezuela.”
The U.S. has been trying for months to cut off fuel shipments to and from Venezuela, hoping to accelerate Nicolás Maduro’s downfall by depriving him of the oil income that is the lifeblood of the socialist country. But so far the biggest losers have been regular Venezuelans, who are forced to wait in line for days to fill up their cars due to a lack of domestically-refined gasoline.  
To date, the Trump administration has sanctioned more than 50 vessels found violating sanctions. This month it added five Iranian captains to a list of individuals blocked from doing business with the U.S. after Maduro leaned on his fellow anti-American ally to deliver gasoline that skittish commodity traders are increasingly unwilling to supply Venezuela.  
The Alkimos’ saga, which was pieced together from court filings reviewed by The Associated Press, began innocently enough. In late March, the Chinese-built carrier, which measures 156 meters (480 feet), was docked in Panama when it was hired to deliver the gasoline to Aruba.  
But almost immediately something seemed off.
The shipping instructions indicated the cargo would be transferred at sea to another ship that had been visiting Venezuelan ports exclusively for the past year. And payent for the freight was wired from a third party, a company called Ultra Travel, which was purportedly based in Montenegro.
Moreover, ES Euroshipping AG, the Swiss-registered company that chartered the Alkimos, was owned by Ruperti, a businessman connected to Venezuela’s government.  
In 2002, Ruperti chartered a fleet of Russian tankers to help then President Hugo Chávez break a months’ long strike at the state-run oil company PDVSA. Now, he was trying come to the rescue again.
In March, a separate Swiss company he controls billed PDVSA for a 12 million euros advance with which he planned to purchase up to 250,000 barrels of the same 95-octane gasoline he hired the Alkimos to transport, according to a copy of the invoice obtained by the AP. To get around the U.S. sanctions, the company opened a bank account in euros and rubles at Moscow-based Derzhava Bank.
The Alkimos tanker is owned by Brujo Finance Company, a company registered in the Marshall Islands. But its operator, whose name and corporate logo is painted on the ship, is Capital Ship Management, which operates a fleet of 54 tankers.  
Capital’s chairman, Marinakis, is the owner of football clubs Olympiakos in Greece and Nottingham Forest in England.  
In 2018, prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation against him for drug trafficking stemming from the record seizure of 2.1 tons of heroin aboard one of his vessels. He has strongly denied the charges, saying they were an attempt by the leftist government at the time to silence dissent. In the past, he also faced match-fixing charges but was later cleared.
Marinakis did not respond to a request to comment made through his website and Capital.
While the arbitration between the two shipping magnates is likely to take months, U.S. officials see the case as a sign that sanctions on Venezuela are increasingly effective.
In May, the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury and the U.S. Coast Guard issued an advisory warning the maritime industry that such ship to ship transfers of the sort the Alkimos was being asked to perform are frequently used to evade sanctions. While the report focuses on Iran, North Korea and Syria—not Venezuela—it urges shippers to enhance due diligence and sanctions compliance practices to avoid running afoul of U.S. regulations
“The global shipping community is moving out of doing business with Venezuela,” Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration’s special representative for Venezuela, told the AP. “The most reputable firms, including the largest Greek shipping companies, have been cooperative and have shown that they value their reputations and their global businesses.”  
In the case of the Alkimos, its owners suspected something was amiss. So its lawyers pressed ES Euroshipping for additional information, pointing out that the contract contained a “sanctions clause” giving the shipowner “absolute discretion” to refuse to carry out any trade that it deems exposes it, or its crew, to U.S. sanctions.
“Just to be clear in advance. Owner WILL NOT participate in any illegal trading,” according to an email sent March 31 by the shipowner’s broker.
Despite its misgivings, the ship departed Panama on April 9 — days after the AP reported that Ruperti had started purchasing oil in what he would later describe as a “humanitarian work” that didn’t violate the U.S. sanctions.
“I am 100% sure that I am doing this legally and that I am complying with the rules and obligations,” he told the AP in an April interview. He declined to comment when contacted this week about the seized cargo.
 
En route to Aruba, the back and forth continued—and the Alkimos’ owners grew more suspicious. The rendezvous point with the other ship, the Beauty One, was located in the open seas—50 miles west of Aruba off the northern coastline of Venezuela—rather than an area designated by Aruban authorities for ship-to-ship fuel transfers. Further, the supervisor of the risky procedure, ATM Marine Services, were unknown to the ship’s owners, without even a web page to identify it. No agents had been appointed to coordinate with Aruban authorities.  
“URGENT responses to the above are requested. The matter is most serious,” the Alkimos’ broker wrote shortly before its schedule arrival off Aruba on April 11.
Throughout the ordeal, tanker rates were surging — something that ES Euroshipping contends was driving the shipowner’s rush to unload its cargo and move on to the next job. With the world economy shutting down due to the COVID crisis, there was a glut of fuel being produced. The mammoth oil carriers, which in some cases saw their daily rates jump 10-fold, were suddenly in demand as floating storage devices even as crude prices were crashing.
After two deadlines to provide alternate voyage orders passed, the Alkimos turned around on April 26 and headed to Houston. But it first advised ES Euroshipping that it would seek a lien on the cargo for $1.7 million to compensate for losses, including $500,000 in fees it racked up being adrift for so long.  
ES Euroshipping contends Capital Ship Management and the ship’s owners stole the cargo and is seeking damages worth $2.3 million. In court filings, attorney Michael Volkov said that that after much stonewalling by the ship owner, which refused to accept its assurances there was no sanctions risk, Euroshipping did provide alternate instructions — to take the cargo first to the Bahamas and then Trinidad.  
But Ruperti’s company claims its instruction were nonetheless ignored and accused the ship owner of setting off on an illegal, 7-day voyage to Houston to find a favorable jurisdiction to legalize its “theft” when much closer ports existed for the parties — none of the U.S. nationals — to litigate their competing breach of contract claims. It also accused Alkimos of fleeing Aruban waters without notifying the harbormaster, leaving behind $11,500 in fines and fees for the unauthorized departure.  
“Brujo is but a pirate who plundered cargo at sea, fled the Aruban authorities without proper authorization, diverted its vessel to a port in this District, and then deceived this Court,” Volkov said in a May 29 filing.
Ruperti appears to have some powerful backers of his own. On May 1, Hans Hertell, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, wrote a letter to Ryan Patrick, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Texas, calling on prosecutors to open a criminal probe against the shipowners.  
“We were simply astounded to learn that the Vessel Owners had so brazenly stolen and converted our clients’ cargo in this manner,” according to the letter.
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In Russia, a second effort is underway to hold a weeklong national vote to change the country’s constitution. The Kremlin was forced to scuttle an earlier April vote amid the outbreak of the coronavirus. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.VIDEOGRAPHER: Ricardo Marquina  
PRODUCER: Henry Hernandez 
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Saying it is not too soon to begin planning for the post-COVID-19 economy, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Tuesday pledged to invest more than $17 billion in the country’s education system and $6.13 billion for infrastructure investment. Speaking at Dudley College of Technology in central Britain, Johnson acknowledged it might seem premature to discuss a post-COVID future in light of recent surges of the virus in the nation and elsewhere in the world. But he maintained that Britons cannot continue to be “prisoners of this crisis.” Comparing his plan to former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs of the 1930’s designed to lift the United States out of the Great Depression, Johnson pledged to “build, build, build” and speed up government plans for new schools, hospitals and road repair. Johnson renewed a campaign pledge to build 40 new hospitals in Britain, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock releasing the list of new buildings in the next few days. He also pledged to continue and step up funding for the National Health Service and “fix the problems of social care that every government has flunked for the past 30 years.” Noting the economic downturn driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson said, “We must work fast, because we know that people are worried about their jobs and their businesses.” As Johnson spoke of the post-COVID economy, the reality of the pandemic was evident in the British city of Leicester, where a spike in coronavirus infections prompted the government to reinstate a lockdown. All the city’s schools and non-essential shops were forced to close, fewer than two weeks after they had been allowed to reopen. 
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Bahamas Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis strongly urged citizens against non-essential travel to countries where COVID-19 cases are spiking, including the United States, which is a primary tourism market for the Bahamas. During a national address Monday, Minnis told Bahamians, “I beg you. I implore you to stay at home. If you must fly, visit our Family Islands.” The Prime Minister’s plea comes as the Bahamas reopens its borders on Wednesday since closing in March because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Minnis said people traveling to the Bahamas must show they tested negative for the coronavirus within the past seven days starting July 7. He said people caught not wearing face mask face a $200 and or one month in jail. The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) will head a new COVID-19 Enforcement Unit to ensure compliance with and enforcement of emergency orders. The Bahamas has confirmed more than 100 cases and 11 deaths. 
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US lawmakers called for an immediate investigation Monday into news reports that Russia had offered bounties to Taliban-backed militants for the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The White House denied reports U.S. President Donald Trump had been briefed on those bounties, saying they had not been fully verified by the U.S. intelligence community. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the fallout in Washington. 
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has given the European Union’s ambassador in Caracas 72 hours to leave the country. Maduro’s order on Monday came not long after the EU slapped sanctions on officials close to the socialist leader.  Maduro was also apparently angered EU leaders backed Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president. Maduro said the European Union is bending to whims of U.S President Donald Trump, who like the EU support a democratic transition in Venezuela that does not include Maduro. Despite dozens of countries backing Guaido as Venezuela’s leader, Maduro remains in charge with control over the military and international support from allies including China, Russia, Iran and Cuba.  The European Union’s sanctions on dozens of Venezuelans also includes a travel ban and it freezes assets.  
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A Parisian court Monday found former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon guilty of using public money to pay his wife more than $1 million for work she never performed.Fillon was sentenced to five years in prison — three years suspended — and fined more than $423,000. He is also barred from running for public office for 10 years. His wife, Penelope, was convicted as an accomplice. She was given a three-year suspended sentence and was also fined more than $423,000. Both are free pending appeal, which their lawyers say they will do.  ”Naturally, this decision, which is not fair, is going to be appealed. … The ludicrous conditions under which this investigation was triggered, the scandalous conditions in which the discovery was opened, the surprising conditions in which the investigation was then run,” Fillion’s attorney Antonin Levy said. Penelope Fillion’s attorney, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, says prosecutors failed to determine whether her activities were simply traditional help and support a politician’s wife gives her husband.  She said her duties included writing reports about local issues, reading mail, preparing speeches and meeting with voters — work she said allowed her to have a flexible schedule and still raise her children.  Prosecutors argued that there was little evidence that Penelope Fillion ever worked and said her salary was excessive.  Fillion’s lawyers argued that the state cannot interfere with how a politician sets up his office.  The scandal broke shortly before the 2017 French presidential election where Fillon went from being the front-runner to finishing in third place.
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In the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody in the U.S. city of Minneapolis, the passionate debate has spread to France, sparking protests against alleged police brutality and racism. French policemen rebuke the criticism as unfair.For the past few weeks, protesters in France have been demanding police reforms and the end an alleged police immunity.  Their protests have met strong resistance from the security forces and their unions.  Officers have been organizing counter-protests, throwing their handcuffs on the ground as a sign of anger and what they see as a lack of support by the government.At one of those demonstrations – on the Champs-Elysées in Paris – a French police officer declined to give his name.He believes police officers are stigmatized in France and he feels the need to speak out because, he says, the police are not racist. He says the other big issues that should be addressed are the chokehold technique and what he says is the lack of consideration of police officers. He says that five years ago (during the 2015 Paris attacks) French policemen were considered as heroes and now – he says – they would be nobody.Chokehold banThe chokehold is a controversial technique that the French government wanted to ban in order to show it has zero tolerance for racism and violence among its security forces. Facing a backlash from policemen and women, the authorities have backtracked. Instead, the government has ruled this technique will no longer be taught to police officers and prison staff, but the leadership stopped short of imposing a total ban.Besides this important victory for them, policemen argue that they are being abandoned by the state. Police unions have been organizing frequent rallies to pressure the government.The protests show how difficult it is to carry out a thorough reform of the police sector.But Human rights advocates say the protests show France, and the world, have no choice. Cecile Coudriou, is president of Amnesty International in France. “We think it is a sign that what we really need in France is a global reform, not only one measure or the other but a true revision of the doctrine itself, based on de-escalation because law and enforcement is too often based on repression, use of force before trying to rely on dialogue, communication and de-escalation,” said Coudriou.In a further attempt to quell police officers’ discontent, France said it was widening the testing of tasers. French Interior minister Christophe Castaner pledged unconditional support for the rank and file.He explains that only security forces have the authority to use legitimate force, that it is only they who defend democratic order. That, he says, is the core of their missions and they need to accomplish it with restraint and exemplarity.  Castaner says French policemen should work without fear when they perform their duty according to the rules.A police watchdog in France says it received almost 1,500 complaints against officers last year – half of them for alleged violence.
 
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Some are calling it an historic moment for France’s Greens party, others for the environmental movement in general. The Greens went from controlling just one major French city — Grenoble — to capturing a string of other large and mid-sized towns, including Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg and Besançon.  “What changed this election, the most important idea is ecology,” said Maud Lelievre a spokeswoman for Les Eco Maires, a group of environmentally minded local officials across France. She believes coronavirus and the lockdown helped reshape people’s priorities.   Lelievre said it’s more important for people,  for climate, for biodiversity, for food.    But turnout was low, with just 40% of France’s electorate casting ballots.   Greens party lawmaker Yannick Jadot hailed the victory, saying the environment and solidarity drove the vote. He said he hoped President Emmanuel Macron got the message.  The vote was indeed a blow for President Macron, who faces re-election in two years. His young, centrist Republic on the Move party has yet to gain a strong local foothold. Critics say Macron has failed to deliver on his environmental promises, including fighting climate change.  On Monday, Macron promised nearly $17 billion in new climate-related financing. He is also expected to reshuffle his cabinet in the coming days. That might include ousting his popular prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who scored one of the government’s rare victories in being elected mayor of the northern city of Le Havre.  In Paris, Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo won by a wide margin, with support from the Greens. Hidalgo’s push to make the capital bike and pedestrian friendly has been divisive — but it seems to have paid off.  France’s far right National Rally party scored one major victory, winning control of the southern city of Perpignan.
 
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French President Emmanuel Macron Monday pledged nearly $17 billion in new funding for environmental programs one day after his party was soundly defeated in local elections across France. At a news conference with Citizens’ Climate Council in Paris, Macron said he would move faster on environment-friendly policymaking and that he was ready to call a referendum on revising the constitution to include climate aims if parliament allowed it. Macron was responding to the climate council’s environmental propositions as France’s Green party — officially known as Europe Ecology  – The Greens (EELV) — stunned Macron and France in Sunday’s vote when it won control of large cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, often in alliance with leftist allies.  The Greens’ victories in towns and cities put Macron under pressure to act on the environment. While supporting many of their proposals, Macron told the climate council he disagreed with its call for a four percent tax on dividends to help finance new greener policies, saying such a levy would discourage investments. He said a bill will be drafted and presented to lawmakers by the end of the summer to advance France’s ecological transition goals. Macron’s ruling party emerged from Sunday’s elections without a single victory in a big city, an outcome that leaves the president without a local power base as he eyes a re-election bid in 2022. Macron set up the Citizens’ Climate Council in the wake of “yellow vest” protests, which erupted over an increase in diesel taxes but turned into a wider rebellion against the president and his pro-business reform agenda.   
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The European Union is edging toward finalizing a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter Europe again in coming days, with Americans almost certain to be excluded in the short term due to the number of U.S. coronavirus cases.
Spain’s foreign minister said that the list — which is likely to be made public Tuesday — could contain 15 countries that are not EU members and whose citizens would be allowed to visit from July 1.
EU envoys in Brussels worked over the weekend to narrow down the exact criteria for countries to be included, mostly centered on their ability to manage the spread of the disease. Importantly, the countries are also expected to drop any travel restrictions they have imposed on European citizens.
The number of confirmed cases in the United States has surged over the past week, and President Donald Trump also suspended the entry of all people from Europe’s ID check-free travel zone in a decree in March, making it highly unlikely that U.S. citizens would qualify.
Infection rates in Brazil, Russia and India are high, too, and their nationals are also unlikely to make the cut.
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya said the EU is considering whether to accept travelers from China if Beijing lifts restrictions on European citizens. Morocco is another possibility, although its government doesn’t plan to open borders until July 10.
She said she wasn’t aware of pressure from the United States for the EU to reopen travel to its nationals, adding that countries have been chosen according to their coronavirus statistics — whether similar or not to that in the EU — trends of contagion and how reliable their data is.
“This is not an exercise to be nice or unfriendly to other countries, this is an exercise of self-responsibility,” she told Spain’s Cadena SER radio on Monday.
The safe country list would be reviewed every 14 days, with new countries being added and some possibly dropping off, depending on how the spread of the disease is being managed.
More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe annually, and any delay would be a further blow to virus-ravaged economies and tourism sectors on both sides of the Atlantic.
Around 10 million Europeans are thought to cross the Atlantic for vacations and business each year.
The 27 EU nations and four other countries that are part of Europe’s “Schengen area” — a 26-nation bloc where goods and people move freely without document checks — appear on track to reopen borders between each other from Wednesday.
Once that happens and the green light is given, restrictions on nonessential travel to Europe from the outside world, which were imposed in March to halt new virus cases from entering, would gradually be lifted.
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For months, experts have warned of a potential nightmare scenario: After overwhelming health systems in some of the world’s wealthiest regions, the coronavirus gains a foothold in poor or war-torn countries ill-equipped to contain it and sweeps through the population. Now some of those fears are being realized. In southern Yemen, health workers are leaving their posts en masse because of a lack of protective equipment, and some hospitals are turning away patients struggling to breathe. In Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, where there is little testing capacity, a mysterious illness resembling COVID-19 is spreading through camps for the internally displaced. FILE – people enquire about their relatives from a health worker at a COVID designated hospital in New Delhi, India, June 10, 2020.Cases are soaring in India and Pakistan, together home to more than 1.5 billion people and where authorities say nationwide lockdowns are no longer an option because of high poverty. Latin America
In Latin America, Brazil has a confirmed caseload and death count second only to the United States, and its leader is unwilling to take steps to stem the spread of the virus. Alarming escalations are unfolding in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Panama, even after they imposed early lockdowns. The first reports of disarray are also emerging from hospitals in South Africa, which has its continent’s most developed economy. Sick patients are lying on beds in corridors as one hospital runs out of space. At another, an emergency morgue was needed to hold more than 700 bodies. “We are reaping the whirlwind now,” said Francois Venter, a South African health expert at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg. Worldwide, there are 10 million confirmed cases and over 500,000 reported deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University of government reports. Experts say both those numbers are serious undercounts of the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases. FILE – A student is screened as schools begin to reopen after the coronavirus disease lockdown in Langa township in Cape Town, South Africa, June 8, 2020.Africa
South Africa has more than a third of Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19. It’s ahead of other African countries in the pandemic timeline and approaching its peak. If its facilities break under the strain, it will be a grim forewarning because South Africa’s health system is reputed to be the continent’s best. Most poor countries took action early on. Some, like Uganda, which already had a sophisticated detection system built up during its yearslong battle with viral hemorrhagic fever, have thus far been arguably more successful than the U.S. and other wealthy countries in battling coronavirus. But since the beginning of the pandemic, poor and conflict-ravaged countries have generally been at a major disadvantage, and they remain so. The global scramble for protective equipment sent prices soaring. Testing kits have also been hard to come by. Tracking and quarantining patients requires large numbers of health workers. “It’s all a domino effect,” said Kate White, head of emergencies for Doctors Without Borders. “Whenever you have countries that are economically not as well off as others, then they will be adversely affected.” Global health experts say testing is key, but months into the pandemic, few developing countries can keep carrying out the tens of thousands of tests every week that are needed to detect and contain outbreaks. “The majority of the places that we work in are not able to have that level of testing capacity, and that’s the level that you need to be able to get things really under control,” White said. South Africa leads Africa in testing, but an initially promising program has now been overrun in Cape Town, which alone has more reported cases than any other African country except Egypt. Critical shortages of kits have forced city officials to abandon testing anyone for under 55 unless they have a serious health condition or are in a hospital. Venter said a Cape Town-like surge could easily play out next in “the big cities of Nigeria, Congo, Kenya,” and they “do not have the health resources that we do.” Lockdowns are likely the most effective safeguard, but they have exacted a heavy toll even on middle-class families in Europe and North America and are economically devastating in developing countries. India
India’s lockdown, the world’s largest, caused countless migrant workers in major cities to lose their jobs overnight. Fearing hunger, thousands took to the highways by foot to return to their home villages, and many were killed in traffic accidents or died from dehydration. The government has since set up quarantine facilities and now provides special rail service to get people home safely, but there are concerns the migration has already spread the virus to India’s rural areas, where the health infrastructure is even weaker. Poverty has also accelerated the pandemic in Latin America, where millions with informal jobs had to go out and keep working, and then returned to crowded homes where they spread the virus to relatives. FILE – Portraits of people who died of the COVID-19, are seen inside the Cathedral, in Lima, Peru, June 13, 2020.Peru’s strict three-month lockdown failed to contain its outbreak, and it now has the world’s sixth-highest number of cases in a population of 32 million, according to Johns Hopkins. Intensive care units are nearly 88% occupied, and the virus shows no sign of slowing. “Hospitals are on the verge of collapse,” said epidemiologist Ciro Maguiña, a professor of medicine at Cayetano Heredia University in the capital, Lima. Aid groups have tried to help, but they have faced their own struggles. Doctors Without Borders says the price it pays for masks went up threefold at one point and is still higher than normal. The group also faces obstacles in transporting medical supplies to remote areas as international and domestic flights have been drastically reduced. And as wealthy donor countries struggle with their own outbreaks, there are concerns they will cut back on humanitarian aid. Mired in civil war for the past five years, Yemen was already home to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis before the virus hit. Now the Houthi rebels are suppressing all information about an outbreak in the north, and the health system in the government-controlled south is collapsing. “Coronavirus has invaded our homes, our cities, our countryside,” said Dr. Abdul Rahman al-Azraqi, an internal medicine specialist and former hospital director in the city of Taiz, which is split between the rival forces. He estimates that 90% of Yemeni patients die at home. “Our hospital doesn’t have any doctors, only a few nurses and administrators. There is effectively no medical treatment.”   
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When a nine-year old girl, the daughter of an unemployed hotel chambermaid fainted from hunger at a bakery shop on the island Rhodes this week, shockwaves were felt across the country. Several media outlets broke into scheduled programming to report the incident, while leading government ministers were left glued to their television sets, gripped by harrowing tale. Thanassis Stamoulis, president of the association of hotel employees in Rhodes explains. 
 
The young girl was in line, he says, waiting to get some bread. But she collapsed from starvation. This, unfortunately, is the grim reality here on the island of Rhodes, Stamoulis says. But it is just a small example of the human toll this crisis is exacting on society. With its breathtaking vistas, sandy beaches and spectacular medieval architecture, Rhodes has long been a top vacation destination. Last year alone, the island attracted more than two million British, German and American tourists. But today, weeks into Greece’s tourism relaunch, not a single hotel has managed to open, inflicting huge losses and devastating despair across the local community according to Stamoulis. 
 
The scenes that are unravelling here are like we are emerging from a war, he says. Every day people gather at a main square selling their personal possessions to make some money. Rhodes is dead. Almost all shops are closed. There is just no business at all. Everything is dead. 
 
For a country heavily reliant on tourism, such scenes of despair could spell another recession for Greece, just years after it managed to steer out of an exhausting 10-year financial crisis. In a recent report, the country’s central bank said travel revenue was down by 99 percent in April. And this after, travel to Greece had dropped by more than 50 percent between January and March the previous year. The government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis says it is confident that some losses can be recovered with the re-opening of travel. But even Yiannis Retsos, the head of Greece’s Tourism Confederation, the umbrella agency guiding the country’s top industry is pessimistic. 
 
At this point, he said, I’ll be surprised if tourism revenues exceed four to five billion euros. 
 
That’s just a fraction of the nearly 18 billion euros the country raked in from tourism last year, providing jobs to one in five workers here. 
 
From the start of the pandemic, the government injected more than 10 billion euros into the economy to keep businesses operating, mainly in the tourism trade. But that appears to be too little. Finance Minister Christos Staikouras recently announced that the government expected the country to suffer a contraction of 8% of gross domestic product in 2020 with a whopping 16% downturn in the second quarter of the year. Greece had originally expected its economy to grow by nearly three percent this year and workers like the now unemployed chambermaid in Rhodes had hoped for better rather than tougher times. 
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Poland’s presidential election appears headed for a runoff after no candidate appears to have won a majority of votes needed for an outright victory.Exit polls Sunday gave right-wing President Andrzej Duda 42% of the ballots cast and centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski 30% of the votes. Television personality Szymon Holownia had 13%.  Election observers say they do not expect the final results later this week to change, meaning the top two candidates will face off in a second round July 12.Duda’s nationalist Law and Justice Party is hoping to be able to extend its majority in parliament and implement conservative social, judicial and immigration policies that many other in the European Union have criticized as anti-democratic.They include Duda’s pledge to ban gay rights classes in schools. He has called homosexuality worse than communism.  Trzaskowski, of the Civic Platform party, campaigned on promises to preserve the ruling party’s popular welfare programs but said he would block any legislation he says would be unconstitutional. He also says he would restore good relations with the European Union.  The coronavirus outbreak forced a nearly two-month delay in the election.Observers say the postponement hurt Duda who had looked as if he would cruise to a first-round victory. But his popularity in the polls slipped after the Civic Platform party replaced a much less popular candidate with Trzaskowski and other candidates were allowed to get out and campaign more when COVID-19 restrictions were eased.
 
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France President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party received a drubbing Sunday in municipal elections, as the Greens celebrated victories in several big cities after a surge in support.Macron had hoped the elections would help anchor his young party in towns and cities across France, including Paris, ahead of an anticipated 2022 reelection bid.But aides had more recently been playing down expectations, and the sweeping wins by the Greens, who in some cities joined forces with leftist allies, may compel Macron to reshuffle his government to win back disenfranchised left-wing voters.In a rare bright spot for Macron, his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, won his bid to become mayor of the northern port city of Le Havre. Although the French constitution allows Philippe to name someone to act as mayor while he remains prime minister, his win deepens questions over his job as premier.’Green wave’
Exit polls showed the Greens winning in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, building on the momentum created by their strong performance in France in last year’s European Parliament elections.Yannick Jadot, a European Parliament lawmaker from the Europe Ecology – The Greens, hailed an historic victory.”It’s an incredible green wave,” he said.In Paris, the biggest prize of all, the incumbent Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo celebrated victory after a shambolic campaign by Macron’s camp.France’s 35,000 mayors set policy on issues from urban planning to education and the environment. While local factors typically drive voter choices, they give the electorate an opportunity to support or punish a president midmandate.”We have a government that is completely disconnected from reality,” said Naouel, a voter in Paris’ 9th district who said she was backing the center-right opposition candidate.In Perpignan, Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) claimed victory, the first time the protectionist, anti-EU party has taken control of a town with a population of more than 100,000 people.Reshuffle?In this second round of voting, turnout was low and people wore masks because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The first round was held just days before Macron imposed one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns in mid-March.Turnout was just 40.5%, interior ministry data showed.The weak performance of Macron’s La Republique en Marche will prompt much soul-searching for the president, who in the run-up to the vote said he wanted to reinvent his presidency with two years left in his mandate.Early in his presidency, Macron’s left-wing opponents derided him as a ‘president of the rich’ as he eased taxes on companies and relaxed worker protections as he enacted reforms to liberalize France’s regulation-choked economy.The reforms were bearing fruit: growth was robust among euro zone peers and stubbornly high unemployment was falling.But the past three years have been mired in social unrest and the pandemic’s impact is reversing some of Macron’s hard-fought gains, as disillusion among the leftist faction of his party grows. 
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