RIYADMEDIA

Just call him Harry.The British prince who is preparing to step back from royal duties would normally be referred to as sir or his royal highness. But as he was introduced to speak about sustainable tourism at an event in Scotland on Wednesday, the Duke of Sussex said the formality no longer was necessary.”He’s made it clear that we are all just to call him Harry,” conference host Ayesha Hazarika said. “So ladies and gentlemen, please give a big, warm Scottish welcome to Harry.”The request reflected the seismic shift under way in the British monarchy.Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, say they will walk away from most royal duties starting March 31, give up public funding and try to become financially independent. The couple, who were named the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their wedding day, have also abandoned plans to use the “SussexRoyal” brand because of U.K. rules governing the use of the word “royal.”Harry spoke at an event for Travalyst, a coalition he founded along with companies such as Booking.com, Skyscanner, Tripadvisor, Trip.com and Visa. The conference in Scotland was a discussion of sustainability in travel, including creating an online scoring system to rate the eco-friendliness of different flights, accommodations and vacation experiences.Harry warned that the growth of tourism is damaging some of the world’s most cherished sites.”If we do not act and in a large part get ahead of the inevitable surge, this massive increase will mean risking more of the world’s most beautiful destinations closed or destroyed, more communities becoming overwhelmed, more beaches shut because of pollution, and animals and wildlife driven from their natural habitat – which has a huge impact on communities and reduces tourism opportunities,” he said.
 
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European governments are readying plans for coping with a possible coronavirus pandemic, despite the fact that the numbers of COVID-19 cases are still small in Europe compared to Asia.Officials in several counties admit that they expect the novel virus, which has infected at least 80,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 3000, to spread and say they are developing plans to cancel sporting events and concerts, reduce public transport services, impose travel restrictions and shutter schools.European Union leaders are still hopeful that member states will refrain from imposing border controls within the Schengen area of visa-free travel, but they acknowledge that the scale of the public health crisis will most likely determine the reaction of national governments.Some public health experts say the time is right to start planning for a pandemic — they suspect there are far more cases in Europe than are known.Britain’s health service is planning to increase testing for COVID-19 and has directed more than one hundred family surgeries and a dozen hospitals to start more testing, even for people who have not traveled to high-risk countries and aren’t displaying any symptoms of the illness. The service says the testing is a bid to establish whether coronavirus is spreading in Britain despite containment efforts. There have been 13 reported cases of COVID-19 in Britain so far.Health officials said that it would “not be wholly unexpected” if the tests found new cases. Britain’s Sun newspaper reported Wednesday that the British government fears 80% of the country’s population could contract the virus, if a pandemic does develop. The newspaper quoted from a government  report called “COVID-19 Reasonable Worst Case Scenario.”“The current planning assumption is that 2-3% of symptomatic cases will result in a fatality,” government officials said in the report. According to the government forecasters infection rates would snowball for two to three months once the virus starts spreading.A British government spokesman told the newspaper all eventualities had to be planned for, but added, “this does not mean we expect it to happen.”With Italy emerging as a new hub for the virus, many neighboring countries say they have little option but to plan for an outbreak, if prevention and containment fails to halt contagion. Health ministers from France, Germany, Italy and the EU Commission committed to keeping frontiers open at a meeting Tuesday as new cases of the virus emerged throughout Europe.Empty tables sit in St. Mark’s square in Venice, Italy. Italy has been scrambling to check the spread of Europe’s first major outbreak of coronavirus amid rapidly rising numbers of infections.“We’re talking about a virus that doesn’t respect borders,” said Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza. Britain’s health minister Matt Hancock said the British government had no plans to halt flights from Italy, which attracts about three million British visitors each year. “If you look at Italy, they stopped all flights from China and they’re now the worst-affected country in Europe,” he said.But whether member states remain united on the border issue remains to be seen. In early February several member governments pressed for restricting entry into the Schengen zone for all travelers from China, but with some countries opposed the move failed on the grounds that such a restriction would make no sense unless all countries acted in harmony.Some EU officials say that if individual countries start imposing restrictions within their own countries on movement, then it would probably be only a matter of time before some European governments start unilaterally to impose temporary controls on their borders with other EU member states.European countries are also making preparations for a severe outbreak of coronavirus within their own borders without regard for what their neighbors are planning. Contingency plans, in some countries include quarantining families when any family member contracts the disease. Switzerland, Austria, Croatia and mainland Spain all recorded their first cases midweek, with most infections stemming from travel to Italy, where nearly a dozen towns in the north of the country have been locked down and isolated to try to prevent a further spread.The World Health Organization has been urging countries to “think the virus is going to show up tomorrow,” warning: “If you don’t think that way, you’re not going to be ready.” The outbreak in Italy, where there are more than 300 cases and eleven people have died, has acted as a wake-up call for neighboring states.France and Croatia have ordered the cancellation of study-abroad programs and are changing train schedules and installing checkpoints. Budapest’s airport is installing thermal cameras in a bid to identify passengers displaying elevated temperatures.Italy’s northern region of Lombardy, which includes the city of Milan, the country’s commercial capital, has reported the vast majority of the more than 300 coronavirus cases confirmed so far by Italian authorities.Businesses and public health experts are moving in some cases faster than governments in urging employees and individuals to consider their travel needs. Nathalie MacDermott, an infectious disease expert at King’s College London, said that anyone planning to travel to Italy or other affected countries should ask: “Am I prepared that, if I go there, when I return, I might have to self-isolate for 14 days? Is my employer or my child’s school aware of that and will that be acceptable to them?”European companies — like their American counterparts — are also drawing up contingency plans for their employees to telework. In Asia the move to teleworking has already started. In Japan last week, the country’s health ministry urged businesses to promote telework and stagger working hours as part of an effort to prevent further spread of the new virus. “We need the understanding of companies to keep the virus from spreading,” health minister Katsunobu Kato said at a press conference. His call came after some major companies and telecommunications operators had already started to instruct employees to work from home. 
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Parts of Northern Italy are on lockdown following an outbreak of the Coronavirus or Covid-19 as it’s known, with at least seven deaths in the region. The sudden outbreaks in recent days, from South Korea to Iran to Italy, have raised fears that the virus – which originated in China – will turn into a global pandemic. Global cases of the virus have passed 80,000. Meanwhile a new report warns that southeast Asian and sub-Saharan African economies could be badly hit, even if there are no outbreaks of the disease there.Northern Italy is the epicentre of Europe’s Coronavirus outbreak. In the regions of Lombardy and Veneto several small towns have been put on lockdown – and 50,000 people have been told to stay at home. Supermarket shelves are emptying of basic goods, even in big cities like Milan.Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged citizens to heed government advice.Conte said, “This discomfort and sacrifice, which for now is intended for 14 days, I hope will prove to be effective to contain the spread of the virus.”But with new cases reported in other Italian regions – and in Spain and Switzerland – health authorities are struggling to contain the virus. Virologist Doctor Sterghios Moschos of Britain’s University of Northumbria says it’s vital people do all they can do to stop its spread.“The containment procedure is there to effectively dampen down the intensity of transmission and stretch it out to prevent an overload in healthcare settings,” Moschos said.Iran is one of the worst-affected nations outside China, with hundreds of infections and more than a dozen confirmed deaths. South Korea is also badly hit and the U.S. government has advised against all non-essential travel there. In China – where the virus first appeared in late December – infections have topped 77,000, with more than 2,500 deaths.“The window of opportunity for stopping this disease from becoming a pandemic is narrowing very fast. We, the entire (medical) community at the moment is anticipating this will eventually develop into a pandemic. However I have to point out that in the past we’ve had similar fears and what has happened is that viruses just died down, die away,” Moschos said.The global economic cost could hit $360 billion, according to a report from the Overseas Development Institute or ODI, which warns sub-Saharan Africa stands to lose $4 billion in export revenue. Oil and copper prices are sharply down – and big exporters to China, such as Angola, are suffering. The ODI says Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the Philippines will be worst hit. Sherilynn Raga is co-author of the report says, “Everyone’s looking back at the SARS impact in 2003. But of course if we look back, China is now four times bigger than during the time of the SARS outbreak and it’s more connected to the world now through global value chains, and the manufacturing sector.”Scientists are racing to produce a vaccine for the virus – with the first human trial scheduled for April.  By then the Covid-19 outbreak could be a full pandemic – with serious consequences for national health systems and the global economy.
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European Union members said Tuesday they are ready to offer Britain a substantial and wide-ranging post-Brexit trade deal, but differences between the two sides are wide — even before they start talks next week.Meeting in Brussels, European ministers set out clear negotiating lines for a future trade deal, beyond which they claim they will not budge.Chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the 27 EU members want a fair and balanced partnership with Britain. But he acknowledged the talks will be difficult — especially given the year-end deadline the U.K. has set to wrap them up.“We are ready to offer a highly ambitious trade deal to the U.K., but the U.K. cannot expect high-quality access to the single market if it is not prepared to accept guarantees that competition remains open and fair — free and fair,” said Barnier.To get the best deal possible, EU members say Britain must adapt to the bloc’s rules and regulations in areas like environmental and working standards. London wants to set its own laws and standards.And while the U.K. reportedly wants a Canada-style free trade agreement with zero tariffs, Barnier dismissed the prospect.“The U.K. will be the EU’s third largest trading partner, almost 10 times bigger than Canada. At the same time, Canada is some 5,000 kilometers away. It’s clear the rules cannot be the same,” he said.EU members also insist the U.K. honor commitments it has already made in Brexit negotiations last year, if it is to get a good deal moving forward.Irish Sea borderHere’s Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney on the question of enforcing the Irish Sea border.“The withdrawal agreement involves significant commitments in the context of Northern Ireland through the Irish protocol that both the EU and the U.K. need to follow through on. If that doesn’t happen, it will damage significantly the prospects of getting even a bare-bones trade agreement,” he said.The first round of post-Brexit negotiations are set to begin in Brussels on Monday, before talks switch to Britain. Barnier said he’ll be providing a progress check in June. 
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decried what he terms the “double standards” employed at the U.N. Human Rights Council in favor of Western democratic values, at the expense of what he calls the legitimate sovereign rights of nations that do not fall within the Western orbit.Lavrov did not hide his disdain Tuesday at the so-called country-specific resolutions adopted by the Council, saying the resolutions had become an increasingly popular pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states.   The Russian foreign minister criticized the imposition of unilateral sanctions often used by Western countries to topple governments.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 25, 2020.”This harmful practice leads to exacerbating confrontation and ultimately restricts the ability of ordinary citizens to exercise their legitimate rights,” he told the Council. “The reliable securing of rights and freedoms is incompatible with double standards. And in this context, one can wonder at the sight that some Western partners, who declare themselves champions of democracy, deliberately turn a blind eye to the outrageous oppression of human rights in the Ukraine.”    Lavrov didn’t offer names, though the European Union, the United States and other countries have imposed sanctions on Russia and the Crimea following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine in February 2014.  The U.N. Human Rights Office reports the war has resulted in the deaths of some 13,000 people, a quarter of them civilians. Another 30,000 people have been injured, and 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine since the start of the conflict and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.Lavrov also lashed out at Western powers for their support and justification of military actions committed by what he called “radical” and “terrorist” groups in Idlib in northwestern Syria.”It is difficult to find any other explanation for calls for peace agreements to be concluded with bandits as we see regarding the situation in Idlib,” he said. “That is not caring for human rights. That is capitulating before terrorists or even encouraging their activities in violation of international treaties and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions.”  Lavrov’s observations come just as the United Nations has warned of a potential bloodbath of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Idlib if Russian-backed Syrian government forces do not stop their indiscriminate carpet-bombing of the region.Lavrov urged the Human Rights Council to resolutely renounce what he called double standards. He said that’s why his government has decided to run for a seat on the 47-member Council for its 2021-2023 term.   Russia lost its bid to become a member in 2016 after a campaign by rights groups over its bombing of Syria.
 
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to open the door for foreign nationals to pursue civil rights cases in American courts, declining to revive a lawsuit by a slain Mexican teenager’s family against the U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot him on Mexican soil from across the border in Texas.The court ruled 5-4 to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit against the agent, Jesus Mesa, who shot 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca in the face in the 2010 incident. The family sued in federal court seeking monetary damages, accusing Mesa of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unjustified deadly force and the Fifth Amendment right to due process.
The court, with the five conservative justices in the majority, refused to allow people who are not in the United States at the time of a cross-border incident to file civil rights lawsuits in federal court.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for majority, said the case presented “foreign relations and national security implications” and noted that Congress should decide whether such lawsuits can be permitted, backing the position taken by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The incident took place in June 2010 on the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. Mesa did not face criminal charges, though Mexico condemned the shooting. The family also sued the federal government over the shooting but that was dismissed early in the litigation.
The ruling was issued at a time of high tensions involving the southern border, where Trump is pursuing construction of a wall separating the United States and Mexico.
The dispute hinged on whether the family, despite Hernandez having died on Mexican soil, could seek monetary damages against what they call a “rogue” agent for alleged civil rights violations.
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Every year, around 12 million tons of plastic waste are dumped into the world’s oceans – polluting the water, killing wildlife, and creating microplastics that enter the food chain. Now a group of fishermen in Barcelona, Spain has begun an innovative new project in which they are given financial support to catch plastic. Henry Ridgwell reports
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A tourist hotel in the Canary Islands was placed in quarantine Tuesday after an Italian doctor staying there tested positive for the new coronavirus, evidence that the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe is spreading with vacationing Italians.
The doctor hailed from Italy’s north, which has registered most of Italy’s 283 cases. He was placed in isolation at a clinic in Tenerife. The H10 Adeje Palace hotel was locked down, and its 1,000 tourists prevented from leaving, according to Spanish news media and town officials in Adeje.
The Canary Islands, an archipelago located around 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the African coast, is a popular vacation destination that attracts Europeans year-round. Many Italians are vacationing this week as schools have a mid-winter break.A police officer discusses with a woman as he checks transit to and from the cordoned area in Guardamiglio, Italy, Feb. 25, 2020.The virus also spread via tourists traveling within Italy, as the southern island of Sicily reported a positive case from a woman vacationing from Bergamo, in northern Lombardy. Two cases were also reported in Tuscany, well south of the epicenter.
Croatia, meanwhile, confirmed its first case — in a man who had been to Milan, the capital of Lombardy and Italy’s business hub.
Civil protection officials on Tuesday reported a large jump of cases in Italy, from 222 to 283. Seven people have died, all of them elderly people suffering from other ailments.
Italy has closed schools, museums and theaters and canceled Venice’s Carnival and Roman Catholic Masses in the two regions where clusters have formed — Lombardy and Veneto. Police and soldiers are enforcing quarantines around 10 towns in Lombardy and the epicenter of the Veneto cluster, Vo’Euganeo.
Premier Giuseppe Conte shocked Lombardy officials by taking to task the hospital in Codogno, southeast of Milan, where Italy’s first positive patient went on Feb. 18 with flu-like symptoms. The man was sent home, only to return a short time later with worsening conditions, at which point he was tested for the virus.
Many of Lombardy’s 200-plus positive tests have a traceable connection to the Codogno hospital, including several doctors and nurses, patients and relatives who visited them.
Conte told reporters that the Lombardy cluster grew “because of the hospital management that wasn’t completely proper according to the protocols that are recommended for these cases.”
“This surely contributed to the spread,” he said.
Lombardy’s chief health official, Giulio Gallera, expressed shock at Conte’s remarks and defended the region’s handling of the crisis.
 “It’s offensive. It’s unacceptable,” Gallera said, noting that the man presented none of the main risk factors for the virus — travel to China or contact with an infected person — when he first went to the emergency room.
The man was eventually tested after doctors ascertained from his wife that he had met with someone who had recently returned from China. But officials have excluded that contact as the source of the outbreak since that person tested negative.
As officials worked to get ahead of the spread nationally, the reality of a two-week quarantine was setting in for residents of Italy’s “red zones” — the cluster of 10 towns in Lombardy and Veneto’s tiny Vo’Euganeo where residents were barred from leaving by police and army checkpoints.Tourists are wearing protective masks against coronavirus in Venice, Italy, Feb. 23, 2020. (Sabina Castelfranco/VOA)”The concern is palpable, people are worried, partly because of what they hear on television, information, on social media,” said Davide Passerini, the mayor of Fombio, one of the 10 Lombardy towns under lockdown. “Life is like it is in other isolated villages: Everything is shut, people go out just to do their shopping.”
And they wait to see if they develop symptoms.
Italy initially tested anyone who came into contact with an infected person. But with the numbers growing and some supply issues with test kits, Italy’s national health system has revised its containment strategies.
People who live or have visited the quarantined areas, or who who have been in contact with positive cases, are advised to self-quarantine for two weeks. They are instructed to take their temperatures twice a day, and stay in touch with their doctors or the national health service via an overwhelmed toll-free number.A cyclist talks to police officers controlling movements to and from the cordoned area in Casalpusterlengo, Northern Italy, Feb. 23, 2020.Only if they develop symptoms are they tested, most often by a team performing house calls to prevent hospitals and clinics being overwhelmed by possibly infected patients, said Elia Delmiglio, mayor of Casalpusterlengo, another of the 10 towns in Lombardy’s “red zone.”
 
“That’s why we are asking people to call only when they develop symptoms, so we are not forced to test everyone,” he said. The town — with more than 15,000 inhabitants — doesn’t have a working emergency room, but only a hospital mainly specialized in cancer patients, who are particularly at risk for contracting the virus.
“Local health structures are doing their best, but in some cases they were not ready to face such an emergency,” Delmiglio said.
In another hotbed of the virus outbreak — Veneto’s tiny town of Vo’Euganeo, which has 30 of Veneto’s 38 cases — local authorities were still planning to test all 3,300 residents and 600 acting hospital staff.
 
“I’m being optimistic and I feel well,” said resident Andrea Casalis, as he waited to be tested. “People continue to go out here and talk in the streets, but we try to keep some security distance.”  
 
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The online retailing giant is opening its first cashier-less supermarket, the latest sign that Amazon is serious about shaking up the $800 billion grocery industry.At the new store, opening Tuesday in Seattle, shoppers can grab milk or eggs and walk out without checking out or opening their wallets. Shoppers scan a smartphone app to enter the store. Cameras and sensors track what’s taken off shelves. Items are charged to an Amazon account after leaving.Called Amazon Go Grocery, the new store is an expansion of its 2-year-old chain of Amazon Go convenience stores. At 10,400 square feet, the supermarket is more than five times the size of the smaller stores, and stocks more items beyond the sodas and sandwiches found at Amazon Go. The new market stocks fresh baked bread, blood oranges, butternut squash and other food to whip up dinner or stock the fridge.Amazon is not new to groceries. It made a splash in 2017 when it bought Whole Foods and its 500 stores. It’s also been expanding its online grocery delivery service.An Amazon Prime delivery truck travels on Interstate highway in Virginia. (photo: Diaa Bekheet)But it’s still far behind rival Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, which has more than 4,700 stores. Walmart has also found success with its online grocery service, that lets shoppers buy online and then pickup at stores.Amazon plans to open another type of grocery store in Los Angeles sometime this year, but the company said it won’t use the cashier-less technology at that location and has kept other details under wraps.At the new Seattle store, families can shop together with just one phone scanning everyone in. Anything they grab from the shelf will be added to the tab of the person who signed them in. But shopper’s shouldn’t help a stranger reach something from the top shelf: Amazon warns that grabbing an item for someone else means you’ll be charged for it.While cashier-less stores remove a major annoyance for customers, waiting in long lines to pay, it also takes away parts of supermarket shopping that some customers may miss. There’s no one to bag groceries at Amazon Go Grocery. Instead, Amazon gives out reusable bags so shoppers can fill them as they shop. And there’s no deli counter, butcher or fishmonger. Instead, packaged sliced ham, steaks and salmon fillets are sold in refrigerated shelves.Other retailers and startups have been racing to create similar cashier-less technology. Earlier this month, for example, 7-Eleven said it is testing a cashier-less store inside its Irving, Texas, offices.Amazon declined to say if it plans to open more cashier-less grocery stores. Since it launched its first Amazon Go store in 2018, the Seattle-based company has opened about 25 of them in big cities, such as Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
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The field of candidates hoping to take over leadership of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party narrowed Tuesday, as one top contender announced that he was bowing out of the race to support another in his bid.Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters that it is a pivotal time for Germany and the Christian Democratic Party amid broad global challenges like climate change and migration, and that he hoped his decision to back North Rhine-Westphalia governor Armin Laschet would lead to a quick decision and a clear course.”It is about the future of the country and the future of our party,” he said.The leader of the CDU will be chosen at a special party convention in Berlin on April 25, and would be the presumptive candidate to run for chancellor for Merkel’s conservative bloc in 2021 since Merkel has said she will not run again.Spahn said Laschet’s track record as governor of Germany’s most populous state had convinced him that he was the right choice. Spahn would serve as deputy CDU leader if Laschet is elected.”Armin Laschet has demonstrated, and demonstrates every day in North Rhine-Westphalia, his liberal, social and conservative leadership,” Spahn said.Laschet said despite Germany’s low unemployment rate and current prosperity, there is growing concern over rising rents, climate change, migration, digitalization and other issues, and a rise in “hate and anger” against many groups, including increasing anti-Semitism.”We cannot allow that,” he said.He pledged to work to bridge gaps between older and younger Germans, between people in the former East Germany and West Germany, to push ahead with Germany’s energy plan to end the use of nuclear and coal power in favor of renewable energies, and to work on a European level with other nations so as to be an anchor of stability for Europe.”We need more Europe,” he said.The decision to work together suggests Laschet and Spahn learned a lesson from the internal competition that saw outgoing party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer narrowly elected to succeed Merkel as party leader in 2018. Since then the CDU has had a string of poor showings in state elections and Kramp-Karrenbauer has struggled to establish her authority over the party, leading to her decision earlier this month to step down.Former environment minister Norbert Roettgen, announced last week that he would seek the CDU leadership.The third main contender to replace Kramp-Karrenbauer, former parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz, was expected to announce his candidacy later Tuesday. Merz, who has been in the private sector in recent years, is widely thought to have the support of the conservative side of the CDU.
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Turkish forces have suffered more casualties in the latest round of fighting in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. But despite Russia backing Syrian government forces in the ongoing attacks on Turkish forces, Ankara has refrained from confronting Moscow — a sign, analysts suggest, of the considerable economic leverage Russia retains over Turkey.Officials say a Turkish convoy in Idlib was hit Monday in an airstrike that caused several injuries. During the weekend, a Turkish soldier was killed in another attack, bringing the number of deaths to at least 18 since Turkey sent significant reinforcements to counter a Damascus government offensive against Syria’s last rebel enclave.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Istanbul, Jan. 8, 2020.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, facing growing domestic pressure over the number of casualties in Syria, spoke Friday with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Erdogan described the talks as productive, but analysts say the latest casualties indicate little was achieved in ensuring the safety of Turkish forces.”Putin just doesn’t keep his promises, but we [Turkey] seem to be beholden to him,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of New York-based Global Source Partners.Moscow robustly defends the Damascus government offensive against rebels and accuses Ankara of failing to fulfill a commitment to disarm radical groups in Idlib.  Despite Moscow’s defense of Damascus’ increasing number of deadly attacks on Turkish forces, analysts believe Erdogan is avoiding a confrontation with Putin, maintaining that Turkish-Russian relations remain intact.  Experts say Erdogan is well aware of the significant economic clout Moscow possesses.”Russians do have a lot of leverage over Turkey,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.  “Tomatoes may no longer cross the border,” he added, “along with other fruits and vegetables. Russian charter flights out to Antalya [a Turkish Mediterranean resort] may become rarer or may stop.”Russia is a significant market for Turkish produce, along with Russian tourists being among the most numerous for Turkey’s large tourism industry.  Following Turkey’s 2015 downing of a Russian bomber operating in Syria, Moscow banned Turkish tomato imports and dramatically curtailed Russian tourists as part of significant economic sanctions, eventually forcing Erdogan into apologizing to Putin.  Five thousand tons of Turkish tomatoes are stranded on the Russian border. Officially the Russians cite regulation anomalies, but Ankara sees the delays as Moscow again flexing its economic muscle. Earlier this month, a Turkish ship carrying tomatoes was sent back from Russia.  People walk in central Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue, the main shopping road of Istanbul, Aug. 22, 2018.Last year’s record numbers of Russian tourists helped to contribute to a historically high number of visitors to Turkey, surging to 45 million in 2019 from 39 million in the previous year.Tourism is a labor-intensive industry, as well as a critical source of foreign currency, vital, analysts say, to support a lira that increasingly is under pressure.The Turkish economy is still struggling to recover from a currency crash of 2018, with sluggish growth and youth unemployment running at around 25%. Analysts suggest Erdogan will be reluctant to risk a new economic war with Moscow.Energy, however, is where Moscow can especially inflict pain on Ankara.”Turkey is engaged in the construction of a Russian nuclear power station due to come on stream in 2023,” said Mehmet Ogutcu, chairman of the London Energy Club. “Turkey is already buying through Russia’s Blue Stream [pipeline] almost 16 bcm [billion cubic meters] of gas. There are two other projects from Russia.  “Turkey wants to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, which is running at 52% because we have experienced Turkey shooting down a Russian plane; this was a cold shower. What if Russia cuts off supply during winter?” asked Ogutcu.  Ankara is taking steps to reduce its dependence on Russia’s energy by seeking alternative gas supplies. Turkey is increasing its capacity to receive and store liquid natural gas. Last year saw record amounts of LNG imported by Turkey, much of it from the United States.  Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, attends the opening ceremony of Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, a key pipeline that will carry natural gas from Azerbaijan’s gas fields to Turkish markets.Rising Russian-Turkish tensions are putting the spotlight on the number and nature of energy deals Ankara agreed to with Moscow. With Turkey paying among the highest gas prices in the world, criticism is growing that the deals greatly favor Russia. At the same time, Ankara has committed to buying gas it doesn’t need.”We don’t need that gas; look at Turkish gas consumption. It’s been declining for three years,” said Yesilada. “We just agreed to get 4 billion new cubic meters per annum plus 6 billion from Tanap [a pipeline from Azerbaijan]. We are suddenly stuck with 10 billion cubic meters of gas at the same time our gas power stations are all going bankrupt due to lack of demand and high gas prices.”In the next two years, several long-term Russian gas contracts are due for renewal. Their renewal is seen as an opportunity for Ankara to rebalance its relationship with Moscow.”I think the Turks are quite aware of the fact that they depend heavily on Russian gas and that it has to be at a manageable level,” said Ogutcu.”There is an asymmetric relationship between Russia and Turkey, that Turkey does whatever Russia wants. But there needs to be a change, a rebalancing of the relationship. The renewing of the contracts will be one step,” he added.
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Haiti’s government canceled Mardi Gras celebrations Sunday in the capital, Port-au-Prince, in the aftermath of a gunfight between protesting off-duty national police officers and members of the army that left two dead. At least two others were wounded.”In order to avoid a bloodbath, the government would like to inform the Haitian people and Carnival revelers that we have decided to cancel Carnival festivities in Port-au-Prince,” said a statement sent to local journalists by presidential press secretary Eddy Jackson Alexis.  The unsigned statement, stamped with a government seal and sent through WhatsApp, also included an appeal for calm.  Sunday’s protest turned violent when off-duty police officers, allegedly angry over the firings last week of their colleagues and the coordinator of the union effort, faced off with members of the armed forces near the National Palace.  The Haitian Armed Forces condemned the gunfight Monday.”We bitterly deplore these acts,” a statement sent to reporters said, “which can only be the work of individuals who want to destroy their own country.”The protesting officers issued their own press statement condemning the violence, which they blamed on “bad actors.””The National Police Union (SPNH) condemns not only the violence, but also the fact that these actions were conducted by people of ill will, pretending to be police officers and aiming to discredit the legitimate effort to unionize the force,” the statement said.Burning tires block a main thoroughfare in the Lalue neighborhood of Port au Prince, Haiti, Feb. 24, 2020. (Matiado Vilme/VOA Creole)Members of the National Police Force, PNH, have been protesting in Port-au-Prince and other major cities on a weekly basis since last year, demanding that they be allowed to form a union.They say they cannot afford to live on $19,000 Haitian gourdes (about $200) a year, and decry that they have no health or life insurance.Last week, angry protesters burned down some of the wooden stands on the Carnival route after officials fired five of their colleagues involved in the unionizing effort. The officers told VOA Creole they should not be counted on to provide security during Carnival if their commanding officers don’t care enough about them to allow them to form a union.  In the lead-up to Carnival, many residents expressed concern about whether there were adequate security measures in place to protect those participating in the popular annual event. “It’s important that when there is a problem, officials address it and try to understand what’s behind it and take measures to resolve it,” government lawyer Camille Leblanc told VOA Creole.   He said although the police have the right to ask for a union, they should not use violence to do so.”We cannot accept a society where people with weapons try to impose their point of view on the nation,” Leblanc said.Police responseAbelson Gros Negre, spokesperson for the police union movement, rejected the accusation that police were responsible for the violence.”We distance ourselves from all violence and malfeasance being done. We are not behind it. Our focus is forming a union to protect the rights of our police officers, which is our constitutional guarantee,” Negre said.  The police are asking officials to rescind their decision to fire five officers last week — among them Yannick Joseph, coordinator of the union movement. In Port-au-Prince on Monday was a familiar, unwelcome sight — makeshift roadblocks and burning tires.”We support the police officers, and we stand by them,” a resident told VOA Creole. “We’re waiting for (President) Jovenel Moise to leave, and we also don’t support the army. We don’t recognize its existence,”But other residents said they were tired of the protests.”Over the past three months, look at how many people have lost their jobs. They (protesters) couldn’t even wait another two months! They’re back at it in the streets. It’s demoralizing,” a visibly frustrated man told VOA Creole. “Haitian people open your eyes. This isn’t being done for the good of the country. I don’t even believe there’s a police problem.”Normil Rameau, director-general of Haiti’s National Police Force, talks to reporters in Port au Prince, Haiti, Feb. 24, 2020. (Matiado Vilme/VOA Creole)During a midday press conference Monday, Normil Rameau, director-general of the national police force, called the protest “illegitimate.””I came from the heart of the police force, just like every other police officer. Therefore, every officer’s problem is the problem of the director-general,” Rameau said. “By the same token, the commanding officers of the force also share this burden. I want the men and women of the police force to know their demands are simply illegitimate. That is why, since I was charged with leading the police force, I have addressed their demands with central command officials who have started working on improving their living and working conditions.”Rameau called on protesters to avoid “infiltrators,” and reminded them that the force is mandated to remain nonpartisan.”Our preference and allegiance is to protect the Haitian people, to (adhere to) the laws of the republic and (respect) the regulations of the national police force,” Rameau said.He vowed to restore law and order across the nation as soon as possible, and offered condolences to the fallen officers’ families.Support from MoiseMoise tweeted Sunday that he is committed to continuing to support the PNH.”Every day that passes, the police should become stronger, more professional. When the police force is more professional, the people reap the benefits. That is why I’m gifting the institution several new armored vehicles to use during their operations.”  Moise also tweeted that he had given orders to increase the line of credit available for police officers, as well as the limit on their debit cards.It is unclear whether Carnival festivities will go on as planned in the northern cities of Cape Haitian and Gonaives.
 
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The death toll in Italy from the coronavirus outbreak stands at seven with more than 200 cases confirmed. At least 10 towns in the north are in lockdown mode and the army is ensuring no one enters of leaves them during a quarantine period.Italian authorities are working around the clock putting in place unprecedented measures in an effort to curb the surge in coronavirus cases. In at least six regions in Italy’s industrial north, schools and universities are closed. People have been told to stay away from their offices and remain indoors as much as possible.Theaters and museums have also been closed as have bars and discos. Venice carnival events have been cut short for the first time ever.Tourists are wearing protective masks against coronavirus in Venice, Italy, Feb. 23, 2020. (S. Castelfranco/VOA)Authorities have banned all demonstrations and public gatherings, including sporting events and church services as Italy deals with the biggest outbreak in Europe. The head of Italy’s civil defense department, Andrea Borrelli, said authorities were surprised by how fast the virus has spread. He said a plan is in place to house people who have contracted the virus and for those in quarantine.
Borrelli says thousands of beds are available throughout the national territory and that army barracks and hotels have been made available. He also says extra food and medical supplies will be taken to the towns in lockdown in northern Italy.Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says residents in affected towns could face weeks in lockdown.In Milan over the weekend, many residents raided supermarkets, leaving empty shelves, fearing they would not be able to go to the shops. The Lombardy region is Italy’s hardest hit region and streets are deserted. Many people have been told to stay home and work from there. Those who venture out have been wearing surgical masks. One vendor outside a Milan railway station said he was selling the masks for $11 each.University students in affected areas were unable to sit for their exams.
This student says she had three exams this week and all of them have been canceled. The student says she does not know when she will be able to take them.According to the student, the Milan mayor said for the moment, colleges will be closed for a week but that this closure could be extended to a fortnight or more.Italians have been told to avoid traveling to affected areas. At the airports, passengers are being checked for symptoms of the virus with heat sensors. Some regional train lines have canceled service, but fast trains between the major cities are still operating normally.
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Germany’s center-right CDU said Monday it would choose a new leader at a special congress on April 25, as the crisis-racked party hopes to halt a slide in the polls and end speculation about who could succeed veteran Chancellor Angela Merkel.Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has been in turmoil after her heir apparent, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, resigned as party leader this month over her supposed failure to stop regional MPs from cooperating with the far right.Speaking after talks with party grandees in Berlin, Kramp-Karrenbauer said they had agreed to hold an extraordinary congress to elect the next leader of the CDU, a party that has dominated politics in Germany for 70 years.The winner is then also expected to be the CDU’s candidate for the chancellery in a general election set for 2021, when Merkel plans to bow out after 14 years at the helm of Europe’s top economy.Kramp-Karrenbauer, widely known as “AKK,” told reporters the leadership vote would send “a very clear signal,” adding: “It answers the question of who will be the CDU’s candidate for the chancellery.”For the first time, AKK also named the four party members expected to throw their hat in the ring, confirming widespread media speculation.They include Merkel’s longtime rival Friedrich Merz, popular with the CDU’s more conservative factions, and the centrist state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia Armin Laschet.Monday’s top-level talks in Berlin came a day after the CDU suffered its second-worst result ever in a regional election, coming third in Hamburg with just 11.5 percent of the vote.The party is also engulfed in an internal debate as to how it should position itself against the extremes of right and left that have reshaped Germany’s political landscape.Far-right crisisAfter barely a year as head of the party, AKK announced her resignation on February 10 after regional lawmakers in the eastern state of Thuringia voted with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), defying an edict from Berlin not to ally with the extremes.It was another sign that the defense minister had failed to stamp her authority on the CDU and become a credible candidate to succeed Merkel, who according to polls is still Germany’s most popular politician.But AKK’s downfall also laid bare the challenge for her potential successor: how to make their mark while Merkel remains chancellor.”The CDU is a party in the stranglehold of a lame-duck leader,” the Bild newspaper wrote.The next chancellor candidate “must first of all pull the CDU back from the abyss, otherwise they can forget about winning the next election,” it added.In the starting blocks are two politicians who promise to break with Merkel’s centrist course and lead the CDU rightwards, in a bid to win back voters from AfD.While the pro-business Merz recently described her fourth government as “abysmal,” young Health Minister Jens Spahn is a rising party star.Facing them are two centrist candidates: Merkel loyalist Laschet who wants Germany to take a leading role in closer EU integration and Norbert Roettgen, a former environment minister dismissed by Merkel in 2012.’Self-destruction’
The choice of leader will set the tone for the future of the party as polls highlight the urgent need for action, with only 27 percent saying they would back the CDU, ahead of 23 percent for the Greens and 14 percent for the far right.Beyond the high-profile personalities, the conservatives also need to clarify what they stand for in an increasingly splintered political landscape that hinders stable majorities, be it in Berlin or the 16 state parliaments.Top of the list is whether the CDU will stick to its rigid policy of refusing to cooperate with either the far right or the far left, an increasingly difficult position to maintain.Thuringia is a textbook case, as last year’s regional elections produced no clear governing majority following a surge by the AfD.CDU state lawmakers voted with the far right, breaching a historic political taboo, to install a liberal state premier.But after a nationwide outcry, the regional CDU retreated — only to be publicly rebuked by Berlin chiefs for its plan to “tolerate” a minority government led by radical-left successors of the one-party state in communist East Germany.Der Spiegel magazine labeled the CDU’s zig-zagging as “self-destruction” by “a party without direction or a strategic center.”
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The U.S. government began outlining its extradition case against Julian Assange in a London court on Monday, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder is not a free-speech champion but an “ordinary” criminal who put many lives at risk with his secret-spilling.
U.S. authorities want to try Assange on espionage charges that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison over the 2010 publication of hundreds of thousands of secret military documents and diplomatic cables. Assange argues he was acting as a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection.
Lawyer James Lewis, representing the U.S. government, called WikiLeaks’ 2010 document deluge “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”
“Reporting or journalism is not an excuse for criminal activities or a license to break ordinary criminal laws,” he said.
Dozens of Assange supporters protested outside the high-security courthouse,chanting and setting off a horn as District Judge Vanessa Baraitser began hearing the case. Just before the lunch break, Assange complained that he was having difficulty concentrating and called the noise from outside “not helpful.”
Assange, 48, watched proceedings from the dock in the courtroom at Woolwich Crown Court — brought there from Belmarsh Prison next door, where he has been imprisoned for 10 months. He spoke to confirm his name and date ofbirth. He nodded towards reporters before taking his seat.
The extradition hearing follows years of subterfuge, diplomatic dispute and legal drama that have led the Australian computer expert from fame as an international secret-spiller through self-imposed exile inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to incarceration in a maximum-security British prison.
Assange has been indicted in the U.S. on 18 charges over the publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password and hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange says the leaked documents exposed U.S. military wrongdoing. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
But Lewis said Assange was guilty of “straightforward” criminal activity in trying to hack the computer. And he said WikiLeaks’ activities created a “grave and imminent risk” to U.S. intelligence sources in war zones, who were named in the documents.
 “What Mr. Assange seeks to defend by free speech is not the publication of the classified materials, but he seeks to defend the publication of sources — the names of people who put themselves at risk to assist the U.S. and its allies,“ the lawyer said.
Lewis said some informants who had been assisting the Americans had to be relocated after the leak, and others “subsequently disappeared.”
He said it wasn’t the role of the British court to determine whether Assange was guilty.
“This is an extradition hearing, not a trial,” he said. “The guilt or innocence of Mr. Assange will be determined at trial in the United States, not in this court.”
Journalism organizations and civil liberties groups including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders say the charges against Assange set a chilling precedent for freedom of the press.
Among the supporters outside court was fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who wore a headband with the word “angel” on it and said she was “the angel of democracy.”
 “It is not a crime to publish American war crimes,” she said. “It’s in the public interest, it is democracy, that he is allowed to do this.”
Assange’s legal saga began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. He refused to go to Stockholm, saying he feared extradition or illegal rendition to the United States or the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In 2012, Assange sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of U.K. and Swedish authorities.
For seven years Assange led an isolated and increasingly surreal existence in the tiny embassy, which occupies an apartment in an upscale block near the ritzy Harrod’s department store. The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for jumping bail in 2012.
Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November because so much time had elapsed, but Assange remains in London’s Belmarsh Prison as he awaits a decision on the U.S. extradition request.
For his supporters around the world, Assange remains a hero. But many others are critical of the way WikiLeaks has published classified documents without redacting details that could endanger individuals. WikiLeaks has also been accused of serving as a conduit for Russian misinformation, and Assange has alienated some supporters by dallying with populist politicians including Brexit-promoter Nigel Farage.
An end to the saga could still be years away. After a week of opening arguments, the extradition case is due to break until May, when the two sides will lay out their evidence. The judge isn’t expected to rule until several months after that, with the losing side likely to appeal.
If the courts approve extradition, the British government will have the final say.
The case comes at delicate time for trans-Atlantic relations. The U.K. has left the European Union and is keen to strike a trade deal with the U.S.  
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A hearing on the United States request for the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange opened in London Monday.A judge at Woolwich Crown Court is hearing arguments from lawyers representing U.S. that has leveled 17 charges on espionage and one of computer hacking.If found guilty, the 48-year-old detained Australian would face a maximum sentence of 175 years behind bars.The charges are related to WikiLeaks release of classified materials from State Department and the Pentagon detailing the U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as cables sent to State Department officials from U.S. embassies in various countries, and information provided from government agents and individuals who cooperated with the United States.Assange’s supporters, among which are many celebrities from the realm of music to fashion, have argued that his prosecution has been political and personal from the start, and have demanded his release.Journalism organizations have rallied in support of Assange, calling the charges against him an assault on freedom of the press.Assange spent seven years in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and after his eviction from there, British authorities sent him to a maximum-security prison in 2019.Assange was first arrested in 2010 in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault.
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One of every three people in Venezuela is struggling to put enough food on the table to meet minimum nutrition requirements as the nation’s severe economic contraction and political upheaval persists, according to a study published Sunday by the U.N. World Food Program.A nationwide survey based on data from 8,375 questionnaires reveals a startling picture of the large number of Venezuelans surviving off a diet consisting largely of tubers and beans as hyperinflation renders many salaries worthless.A total of 9.3 million people – roughly one-third of the population – are moderately or severely food insecure, said the World Food Program’s study, which was conducted at the invitation of the Venezuelan government. Food insecurity is defined as an individual being unable to meet basic dietary needs.The study describes food insecurity as a nationwide concern, though certain states like Delta Amacuro, Amazonas and Falcon had especially high levels. Even in more prosperous regions, one in five people are estimated to be food insecure.“The reality of this report shows the gravity of the social, economic and political crisis in our country,” said Miguel Pizarro, a Venezuelan opposition leader.Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been largely reluctant in recent years to invite international organizations to provide assessments of the nation’s humanitarian ordeal, though the World Food Program said it was granted “full independence” and collected data throughout the country “without any impediment or obstruction.”“WFP looks forward to a continuation of its dialogue with the Venezuelan government and discussions that will focus on the way forward to provide assistance for those who are food insecure,” the agency said in a statement.There was no immediate response to the findings by Maduro’s government.The survey found that 74% of families have adopted “food-related coping strategies,” such as reducing the variety and quality of food they eat. Sixty percent of households reported cutting portion sizes in meals, 33% said they had accepted food as payment for work and 20% reported selling family assets to cover basic needs.The issue appears to be one that is less about the availability of food and more about the difficulty in obtaining it. Seven in 10 reported that food could always be found but said it is difficult to purchase because of high prices. Thirty-seven percent reported they had lost their job or business as a result of Venezuela’s severe economic contraction.Venezuela has been in the throes of a political and humanitarian crisis that has led over 4.5 million people to flee in recent years. Maduro has managed to keep his grip on power despite a push by opposition leader Juan Guaidó to remove him from office and mounting U.S. sanctions.Maduro frequently blames the Trump administration for his nation’s woes, and his government has urged the International Criminal Court to open an investigation, alleging that the financial sanctions are causing suffering and even death. The nation’s struggles to feed citizens and provide adequate medical care predate U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan government.In addition to food, the survey also looked at interruptions in access to electricity and water, finding that four in 10 households experience daily power cuts. Four in 10 also reported recurrent interruptions in water service, further complicating daily life.Noting that the survey was done in July through September, Carolina Fernández, a Venezuelan rights advocate who works with vulnerable women, said she believes the situation has deteriorated even more. While it was once possible for many families to survive off remittances sent by relatives abroad, she said, that has become more difficult as much of the economy is dollarized and prices rise.“Now it’s not enough to have one person living abroad,” she said.Fernández said food insecurity is likely to have an enduring impact on a generation of young Venezuelans going hungry during formative years.“We’re talking about children who are going to have long-term problems because they’re not eating adequately,” she said.Those who are going hungry include people like Yonni Gutiérrez, 56, who was standing outside a restaurant that sells roasted chickens in Caracas on Sunday.The unemployed man approached the restaurant’s front door whenever a customer left with a bag of food, hoping they might share something. He said he previously had been able to scrape by helping unload trucks at a market, but the business that employed him closed.“Sometimes, with a little luck, I get something good,” he said of his restaurant stakeout.
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China’s leader said Sunday the new coronavirus epidemic is the communist country’s largest-ever public health emergency, but other nations were also increasingly under pressure from the deadly outbreak’s relentless global march.Italy and Iran began introducing the sort of containment measures previously seen only in China, which has put tens of millions of people under lockdown in Hubei province, the outbreak’s epicenter.Italy reported a third death while cases spiked and the country’s Venice carnival closed early.Tourists are wearing protective masks against coronavirus in Venice, Italy, Feb. 23, 2020. (S. Castelfranco/VOA)Iran’s confirmed death toll rose to eight, prompting travel bans from neighboring countries.The virus has so far killed more than 2,400 people, with about 80,000 infected globally, though China remains by far the worst hit.President Xi Jinping said the epidemic was the “largest public health emergency” since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.”This is a crisis for us and it is a big test,” he said during remarks carried by state television.In a rare admission, at a meeting to coordinate the fight against the virus, Xi added that China must learn from “obvious shortcomings exposed” during its response.The World Health Organization (WHO) has praised Beijing for its handling of the epidemic, but China has been criticized at home for silencing early warnings from a whistleblower doctor who later died from the virus.South Korea said it was raising its alert to the highest level, after the number of infections nearly tripled over the weekend to 602.  Workers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant at a market in the southeastern city of Daegu, South Korea, as a preventive measure after the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.The country now has the most infections outside of China, apart from the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan.South Korea reported three deaths on Sunday, taking the countrywide fatality toll to five. The Yonhap news agency later reported a sixth death.Around half of South Korea’s cases have been linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus sect in the southern city of Daegu, where thousands of members have been quarantined or asked to stay at home.Police checkpointsItaly’s cases spiked to 152 on Sunday, including three deaths.Virus panic crept onto catwalks, leading to the cancellation of some runway shows at Milan Fashion Week. Others were held behind closed doors and livestreamed.Most cases are confined to the northern town of Codogno, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) southeast of Milan.  More than 50,000 people in about a dozen northern Italian towns have been told to stay home, and police set up checkpoints to enforce a blockade.Austrian railways said traffic on a major route to Italy through the Brenner Pass would be suspended, after a train was stopped because of two suspected cases of the virus.Neighboring Slovenia asked vacationers returning from ski resorts in northern Italy to be particularly vigilant for symptoms.Italy became the first European country to report one of its nationals died from the virus on Friday.Two more fatalities came over the weekend but Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged people “not to give in to panic”, and asked them to follow the advice of health authorities.”The rapid increase in reported cases in Italy over the past two days is of concern,” World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.Not all reported cases seem to have clear epidemiological links, such as travel history to China or contact with a confirmed case, Jasarevic added.”At this stage, we need to focus on limiting further human to human transmission.”Iran ordered the closure of schools, universities and cultural centers across 14 provinces following eight deaths — the most outside East Asia.The outbreak in the Islamic Republic surfaced Wednesday and quickly grew to 43 confirmed infections, a sudden rise that prompted regional travel restrictions.Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian said his country will close its border with Iran and suspend flights.Like the Italian leader, he, too, said there is no reason to panic.But Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at Britain’s University of East Anglia, said the situation in Iran has “major implications” for the Middle East.”It is unlikely that Iran will have the resources and facilities to adequately identify cases and adequately manage them if case numbers are large,” Hunter said.Pakistan and Turkey announced the closure of land crossings with Iran while Afghanistan said it was suspending travel to the country.Japan criticizedThe outbreak in China remains concentrated in the city of Wuhan — locked down one month ago — where the virus is believed to have emanated from a live animal market in December.China’s infection rate has slowed, but flip-flopping over counting methods has sown confusion over its data.There also was growing concern over the difficulty of detecting the virus.Japan on Sunday confirmed a woman who tested negative and disembarked from the virus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship later tested positive.Similarly in Israel, authorities confirmed that a second Israeli citizen who returned from the ship had tested positive. They were among 11 Israelis allowed off the ship and flown home after initially testing negative.Japan has been criticized over its handling of cases aboard the vessel quarantined off Yokohama.A third passenger died Sunday, Japan’s health ministry said, without specifying if it was as a result of the virus.Four Britons who returned from the Diamond Princess on Saturday also tested positive for the COVID-19 illness, the NHS health service said.
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Pope Francis has cautioned against “unfair” solutions aimed at ending the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.In a speech Sunday during a visit to the Italian southern port city of Bari to reflect on peace in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Francis lamented the many areas of war and conflict, including in the Middle East and Northern Africa.Francis spoke of “the still unresolved conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, with the danger of not fair solutions, and, thus, presaging new crises.”The pope didn’t cite any specific proposals.A new U.S. peace plan would let Israel annex all of its settlements along with the strategic Jordan Valley. It would give the Palestinians limited autonomy in several chunks of territory with a capital on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but only if they meet stringent conditions.In the same speech, Francis took a swipe at populist politics. “It scares me when I hear some speeches by some leaders of the new forms of popularism,” he said. He also lamented that waves of refugees fleeing conflicts, climate change consequences and other adversity are “depicted as an invasion.”Among the prelates gathered for his speech in Bari’s Pontifical Basilica of St. Nicholas were churchmen from the Balkans, Jerusalem and Algeria. 
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More than 130 people have contracted the coronavirus in Italy, the majority in the north of the country. Italy, which has confirmed at least two coronavirus deaths, has the highest number of cases in Europe. With an emergency decree, the Italian government has adopted special powers to deal with the situation. Strict measures have been adopted in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.Military police wearing surgical masks are guarding the nearly a dozen northern Italian towns that are on lockdown following an outbreak of coronavirus. The towns have a combined population of about 50,000. The police were deployed to ensure no one enters or leaves the towns that have been sealed and placed under quarantine.A cyclist talks to police officers controlling movements to and from the cordoned area in Casalpusterlengo, Northern Italy, Feb. 23, 2020.Most of Italy’s coronavirus cases are in the wealthy industrial north of the country, in the regions of Lombardy and Veneto. To deal with this emergency, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte explained the government’s decisions.He said an emergency decree was approved immediately that gives special powers to the government in order to be able to safeguard in the best possible way the health of Italians.Very strict measures were adopted in the two most affected regions in Italy on Sunday including closure of schools, universities, cinemas and museums for at least one week. No public gatherings or church services will be permitted to take place and four Serie A soccer games were postponed.Tourists are wearing protective masks against coronavirus in Venice, Italy, Feb. 23, 2020. (S. Castelfranco/VOA)In Venice, checks were being carried out at the airport on all arriving passengers and leaflets handed out with an emergency number for the health ministry and a list of precautions to take. Authorities canceled all carnival events from Sunday.The governor of the Veneto  region Luca Zaia confirmed two elderly people had contracted the virus in Venice and were hospitalized.In Milan, Giorgio Armani was holding his womenswear fashion show behind closed doors as a precaution. Italian designer Laura Biagiotti canceled her show.Italian health officials are struggling to figure out how the outbreak began. Very early on the Italian government took measures against the coronavirus including the suspension of all incoming and outgoing flights from China.  
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Serbia has received a sophisticated anti-aircraft system from Russia, despite possible U.S. sanctions against the Balkan state, which is formally seeking European Union membership.Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the pro-government TV Prva on Sunday that the Pantsir S1 air-defense system was purchased after suggestions from Russian President Vladimir Putin.”Buy Pantsir, it showed its best efficiency in Syria,” Vucic quoted Putin as saying during one of their recent, frequent meetings.”This anti-aircraft system is very efficient for targeting drones which are becoming crucial in modern warfare,” Vucic said.Despite seeking to join the EU, Serbia under Vucic’s populist leadership has strengthened close political and military ties with its Slavic ally Russia.Serbia has pledged to stay out of NATO and refused to join Western sanctions against Russia for its policies in Ukraine.Russia’s arming of Serbia is watched with unease in the West amid growing tensions in the Balkans which went through a devastating civil war in the 1990s. NATO intervened in Serbia to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999.U.S. officials have openly spoken about introducing sanctions against Serbia in case Moscow sells more arms to the country, especially with weapons that could jeopardize the security of neighboring NATO-member states.Vucic said he hoped there would be no sanctions because he has spoken openly about the Pantsir purchase. He said he believed the sanctions threat was focused on possible purchase of the S-400 anti-aircraft systems that have a much larger range and are more offensive weapons.The delivery on Saturday of two of the purchased six Russian missile systems comes just days after Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, visited Belgrade where he declared that the military cooperation between the two states has reached a “fundamentally” new level.Pantsir is a rapid-fire missile system intended for defense against cruise missiles, drones and low flying aircraft with a range of about 20 kilometers (12 miles). 
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Bus drivers in Moscow kept their WhatsApp group chat buzzing with questions this week about what to do if they spotted passengers who might be from China riding with them in the Russian capital.”Some Asian-looking [people] have just got on. Probably Chinese. Should I call [the police]?” one driver messaged his peers. “How do I figure out if they’re Chinese? Should I ask them?” a colleague wondered.
    
The befuddlement reflected in screenshots of the group exchanges seen by The Associated Press had a common source — instructions from Moscow’s public transit operator Wednesday for drivers to call a dispatcher if Chinese nationals boarded their buses, Russian media reported.
    
A leaked email that the media reports said was sent by the state-owned transportation company Mosgortrans told dispatchers who took such calls to notify the police. The email, which the company immediately described on Twitter as fake, carried a one-word subject line: coronavirus.
    
Since the outbreak of the new virus that has infected more than 76,000 people and killed more than 2,300 in mainland China, Russia has reported two cases. Both patients, Chinese nationals hospitalized in Siberia, recovered quickly. Russian authorities nevertheless are going to significant — some argue discriminatory — lengths to keep the virus from resurfacing and spreading.
    
Moscow officials ordered police raids of hotels, dormitories, apartment buildings and businesses to track down the shrinking number of Chinese people remaining in the city. They also authorized the use of facial recognition technology to find those suspected of evading a 14-day self-quarantine period upon their arrival in Russia.
    
“Conducting raids is an unpleasant task, but it is necessary, for the potential carriers of the virus as well,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement outlining various methods to find and track Chinese people the city approved as a virus prevention strategy.
    
The effort to identify Chinese citizens on public transportation applies not only to buses, but underground trains and street trams in Moscow, Russian media reported Wednesday.
    
Metro workers were instructed to stop riders from China and ask them to fill out questionnaires asking why they were in Russia and whether they observed the two-week quarantine, the reports said. The forms also ask respondents for their health condition and the address of where they are were staying.
    
In Yekaterinburg, a city located 1,790 kilometers (1,112 miles) away from Moscow in the Urals Mountains, members of the local Chinese community also are under watch. Self-styled Cossack patrols in the city hand out medical masks along with strong recommendations to visit a health clinic to Chinese residents.
    
Human rights advocates have condemned the targeting of Chinese nationals as racial profiling, not an effective epidemic control strategy.
    
“Prevention of any serious virus, be it a flu or the new coronavirus, should involve a proper information campaign and not discrimination of other people,” said Alyona Popova, an activist engaged in a year-long court challenge of Moscow’s use of facial recognition technology.
    
The containment measures in the capital came as the Russian government instituted an indefinite ban on Chinese nationals entering the country that could block up to 90% of travelers coming to Russia from China. Weeks before, Russia shut down the country’s long land border with China, suspended all trains and most flights between the two countries.
    
The Moscow Metro confirmed to The Associated Press that the underground system was “actively monitoring the stations” and has a protocol in place for dealing with people who have recently returned from the People’s Republic of China.
    
“We ask to see their documents and to show us documents [proving] that if they have recently returned from the People’s Republic of China, they have undergone a two-week quarantine period,” Yulia Temnikova, Moscow Metro’s deputy chief of client and passenger services, said.
    
If an individual does not show proof of completing the quarantine, Metro workers ask the person to fill out the form and call an ambulance, Temnikova said.
    
Bus and tram drivers contacted their labor union about the instructions to look for Chinese nationals and report them to the dispatch center. The drivers were outraged and didn’t know what to do, Public Transport Workers Union chairman Yuri Dashkov said.
    
“So he saw a Chinese national, and then what?” Dashkov said. “How can he ascertain that he saw a Chinese national, or a Vietnamese national, or a Japanese, or [someone from the Russian region of] Yakutia?”
     
Dashkov showed the AP a photo of the email that officials at Mosgortrans were said to have sent out. He also showed three photos of on-bus electronic displays reading, “If Chinese nationals are discovered in the carriage, inform the dispatcher.”
    
The AP was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the email and the photos. Dashkov shared screenshots of what appeared to be a genuine bus drivers’ group chat in WhatsApp.
    
While Moscow public transit operator Mosgortrans dismissed the email as phony on its official Twitter account Wednesday, the company told the AP in a statement two days later that it does “conduct monitoring” and “sends data to the medics when necessary.”
    
Mosgortrans referred additional questions to the detailed statement from Moscow’s mayor, who on Friday acknowledged the sharp focus on Chinese people in the city’s virus-control plan.
    
Officials ordered everyone arriving from China to isolate themselves for two weeks, and those who skip the quarantine step will be identified through video surveillance and facial recognition technology, Sobyanin said. The systems give authorities the ability to “constantly control compliance with the protocol,” he said in the statement.
    
The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the city’s containment approach and the accusation that it’s discriminatory. But rights activist Popova insists the facial recognition program is unlawful whether the searches are seeking Russian or Chinese faces.
    
“We have a constitutional right to privacy, and citizens of [other countries] have it according to foreign and international legal norms,” she said.
    
Temnikova from the Moscow Metro rejected accusations of racial profiling. Subway workers “mainly look at the passenger’s [health] condition,” she said, and approach “people who need help.”
    
Addressing identification questions like the ones that worried the bus drivers, Temnikova said it should be “clear who could have arrived from China” because “it is obvious.”
    
The Cossacks of Yekaterinburg — men in conservative, often pro-Kremlin groups claiming to be successors of the proud guards who policed the Russian Empire’s frontiers — took fighting the virus into their own hands three weeks ago. They also have a system of sorts for deciding who needs a face mask and advice to see a medical professional.
    
“Mainly [we approach] people from China because it is from them that the coronavirus came. They are the main source,” Igor Gorbunov, elder of the Ural Volunteer Cossack Corps, told the AP during one such patrol Friday.
    
“But not only them,” Gorbunov continued. “There are different nationalities, there are many people of Asian appearance, and they seem to be vulnerable to this disease, the coronavirus, because it is them who are most often affected. Europeans are not yet affected much.”
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When dancer Camila Prins entered Sao Paulo’s Carnival parade grounds, a costume of feathers clinging to her sinuous body, she fulfilled a dream of feminine beauty nearly three decades old.Prins says she first realized she wanted to be a woman at a Carnival party at age 11, when, like the other boys, she was allowed to dress like a girl as part of the burlesque festivities. Now, in the final minutes of Saturday, she became the first transgender woman to lead the drum section of a top samba school in either of the renowned Carnival parades put on in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.Prins, 40, was hand-picked to be “godmother” of the Colorado do Bras samba school’s drum section, an iconic role fought over by dozens of models and TV celebrities. Her duty was to dance infectiously for 65 minutes in front of the drummers, using her legs to drive their rhythm while judges assessed the school’s parade.“Gorgeous women wanted to be here. I’m very excited because this shows we can be anywhere. We can be godmother of the drummers, we can be owners of a samba school,” Prins told The Associated Press before the parade. “Soon they will see many other transgender girls, who will find it easier than I did.”Transgender godmother Camila Prins from the Colorado do Bras samba school performs during a Carnival parade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb. 23, 2020. Prins fulfilled a dream nearly three decades old.Samba league’s bold decisionColorado do Bras, which rose to Sao Paulo’s top samba league only two years ago, made a bold decision in picking Prins for the role, despite Brazil’s Carnival being a party at which few things have never been tried.Transgender people remain something of a taboo among Brazilians, even in Sao Paulo, the country’s most cosmopolitan city and host to the world’s largest gay pride parade. Brazil has more killings of transvestites and transgender people than any country in the world. In 2019, 124 were killed, 21 of them in Sao Paulo state.As godmother of the drum section, Prins teamed up with a drum queen who has a similar role, and together they worked to dazzle fans in the Sambadrome bleachers with their beauty and sex appeal. Prins said she was counting on her penetrating brown eyes, long blond hair, strong legs, open smile and imposing breasts to help win points from the judges.Colorado do Bras finished the 2019 parade in 11th place, only two spots above the cutoff for being relegated back to a lower league. Directors of the samba school decided to try for something different this year, since the group has fewer resources than richer samba schools. Its floats and costumes were clearly less luxurious than the main challengers for the title.Camila Prins sits in a chair as she has her makeup done before performing for Colorado do Bras samba school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb. 22, 2020. Her costume is ready on a nearby bed.A new normalKeila Simpson, president of Brazil’s National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals, was happy Prins secured her prominent Carnival role, and said their community aims to make cases like hers the new normal.“We have to be proud of Camila and hope her symbolic message allows us to think of reducing violence against trans people. Why can people celebrate her at the Sambadrome while trans people on the street are subject to violence?” Simpson said. “We don’t have data, but there are many violent cases against us during Carnival. Because there’s more of us outside, there’s more attacks.”Sao Paulo is trying to root out persecution of LGBT people during Carnival, and this year set up 20 tents spread among major street parties to handle cases of violence against the community. Psychologists, police officers and social workers are on hand until Wednesday for revelers who are victimized.English teacher Alessandra Salvador, a transgender woman who encouraged revelers to come to the city hall tent at the LGBT street party Minhoqueens, said she was excited by Prins’ selection.“I don’t even watch parades that much, but this year I will when she is on,” Salvador said. “It is good to see one of us being talked up. We don’t get it so often. If we don’t get that in Carnival, we won’t get it anywhere else.”Long road to big leaguesIt’s been a long road for Prins to reach the big leagues. She has worked as a professional dancer for 20 years and, though she lives in a small town in Switzerland with her husband, practices her steps at home all year and listens to samba incessantly. As Carnival nears, she splits her dance routine with ab workouts and squats at a gym, then makes her annual return to Brazil.Prins’ first time dancing as a samba school’s godmother came in 2018, in the second division of Sao Paulo’s Carnival league. And it wasn’t easy.“Many people turned their backs, because they thought I shouldn’t be there. They thought it was a role for a woman,” Prins said. “Little by little I won them over with a lot of respect and true dancing.”Prins said her friends in Switzerland feared for her because of the increase in violence against transgender people, and because of the rise of far-right political groups in Brazil. She said she was worried about an increase in hateful comments aimed at LGBT people since President Jair Bolsonaro took office Jan. 1, 2019, but she planned to keep her smile and march on.Just before midnight, when Colorado do Bras finally started its parade, a TV Globo reporter approached a tearful Prins in front of her drummers. She was already the most talked about of all 2,200 members of the samba school, even more than eight young topless women dressed as “goddesses of the sea.” “I feel so blessed this is happening. I came here to hold my banner and dance samba to the face of prejudice, for all the LGBT community,” she said. “Trans girls, I am sure your day will come, too. I am just the first, many more of you will follow.”
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Eight people were killed in Turkey in a magnitude 5.7 earthquake that struck western Iran early Sunday morning, Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu said.The quake centered on the Iranian city of Khoy and affected villages in the Turkish province of Van.Soylu told a news conference in Ankara that three children and four adults were killed in Turkey’s Baskule district. He later said another person had died.Some of the wounded remain trapped under the debris of fallen buildings, he added.Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at least 21 people had been injured, including eight who are in a critical condition.Emergency teams have been sent to the remote mountainous region.Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the earthquake affected 43 villages in the mountainous Qotour area. It reported some residents were injured but didn’t say any were in critical condition.According to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC), the quake struck at 9:22 a.m. local time (0552GMT) at a depth of 5 kilometers (3 miles).A man carries a wounded boy to an ambulance after an earthquake hit villages in Baskale town in Van province, Turkey, at the border with Iran, Feb. 23, 2020.The region has a history of powerful earthquakes. Last month a quake centered on the eastern Turkish city of Elazig killed more than 40 people.Turkish broadcaster NTV showed images of locals and soldiers digging through the rubble of collapsed buildings as families fearing further tremors sat in snowy streets. The EMSC reported several aftershocks that measured up to magnitude 3.9.The effects of the quake hit four villages in Van. Six of the fatalities occurred in Ozpinar village, where Soylu said search and rescue teams had arrived.
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