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A storm battered Europe with hurricane-force winds and heavy rains, killing at least seven people and causing severe travel disruptions as it moved eastward across the continent Monday and bore down on Germany.After striking Britain and Ireland on Sunday, the storm moved on, leaving a trail of damage including power cuts for tens of thousands of homes across Europe.A woman and her 15-year-old daughter died in Poland after the storm ripped off the roof of a ski rental equipment building in the mountain resort of Bukowina Tatrzanska and sent it hurtling onto people standing near a ski lift, police said. Three people also were injured in the incident.In Sweden, one man drowned after the boat he and another person were sailing in on the southern lake of Fegen capsized. The victim was washed ashore and later died. The other person is still missing, according to the Aftonbladet daily.Two men, one in the north of Slovenia and another in southern England, also died after their cars were hit by falling trees. And in Germany, a driver died after crashing his truck into a trailer parked by workers clearing storm debris off a highway in the southern state of Hesse.The jib of a crane is seen after it fell onto the roof of Frankfurt Cathedral during a storm, in Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 10, 2020.Police in the Czech Republic said the storm likely was to blame for a car accident that killed the man driving and injured a woman passenger. Investigators think a tree fell on the car, which skidded off the road and and overturned.The number of Czech households without electricity reached 290,000, according to power company CEZ.Britain, which bore the brunt of the storm on Sunday, was assessing the damage and working to get power restored to 20,000 homes. However, for parts of northern England and Scotland, the respite is set to be brief, with forecasts of blizzards and snow.Many parts of the country were mopping up after a month and a half’s rain fell in just 24 hours in some places and rivers burst their banks. Though 360 flood warnings have been removed as the storm moves on, around 75 remain in place across the country.The River Irwell burst its banks in northwest England, prompting authorities to evacuate residents. And in the Scottish town of Hawick, which borders England, a guest house and bistro collapsed into the raging River Teviot. No one was injured.In another dramatic scene, a driver managed to escape unhurt in the early hours of Monday when a car fell nose-first into a sinkhole in a residential street in the town of Brentwood, east of London. Six properties had to be evacuated due to the unstable ground that is said to have been linked to a partially collapsed sewer. The emergency services made the scene safe just before daybreak.The British government said it was offering financial compensation through its emergency Bellwin scheme. Under the scheme, local authorities dealing with the storm can apply to have certain costs reimbursed.Transport authorities were also working hard to clear up the mess. Network Rail, which runs the country’s rail infrastructure, said thousands of engineers had “battled horrendous conditions” after the storm blew trees, sheds, roofs and even trampolines onto the tracks.Ferries were operating across the English Channel after being closed down on Sunday, though P&O Ferries said in a tweet that further disruptions were possible.Airlines operating to and from U.K. airports were still being affected by the storm, with more than 100 flights canceled.”We’re getting in touch with those affected, and have brought in extra customer teams to help them with a range of options including a full refund or an alternative flight between now and Thursday,” British Airways said in a statement.The storm had largely passed through France by midday, though meteorologists warned that the Mediterranean island of Corsica could later see winds as high as 200 kph (124 mph). Up to 130,000 homes stretching from Brittany, in western France, through Normandy and the northern regions were without power Monday morning.In Germany, utility companies were also scrambling to restore power to some 50,000 homes in northern Bavaria, where a top wind of over 160 kph (100 mph) was recorded. The storm resulted in a record amount of electricity being fed into the German grid from wind turbines, equivalent to almost 44 nuclear power plants.Train travel across Europe’s biggest economy was also severely disrupted, leaving many commuters unable to get to work. Deutsche Bahn said Monday it was slowly resuming long-distance rail services in the north of the country but warned travelers to expect further disruptions. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights from German airports.The storm, which was dubbed Sabine in Germany, also led to school closures in several cities and regions, including North Rhine-Westphalia state, where several people were injured by falling branches and toppling trees. Parts of a construction crane fell onto the roof of Frankfurt Cathedral overnight.Even though there were no reported fatalities in Belgium, the storm had an emotional impact in the central town of Zottegem, where a scenic 150-year-old poplar tree was snapped at its roots, before falling and being pulverized on a country road.The tree had been granted protected status by the Flemish regional government and locals now plan to have a special remembrance service on Friday.”The tree meant so much to everyone,” Stefan Fostier, the driving force behind the initiative, told The Associated Press. “It will be a moment to honor the tree.”
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Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Monday he saw no preparations taking place for a promised summit over the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, adding that he had little hope it would make any progress even if it goes ahead.The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met in Paris in December to discuss the long-running Ukraine crisis and agreed to get together again within four months to keep the dialogue open.FILE – Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystayko gestures while speaking to the media during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 10, 2020.”I am confident that when leaders say they will meet in April then they will … what I don’t see though is the preparation,” Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko told reporters during a visit to Italy.”Before the December meeting … (preparations) started half a year beforehand. Now we have two months to go and I have not seen anything prepared. Maybe it will be a much faster process than last time and maybe we will make much more progress. I am sorry, but I doubt it.”The conflict in eastern Ukraine that broke out in 2014 has killed more than 13,000 people, left a large swathe of Ukraine de facto controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, and aggravated the deepest east-west rift since the Cold War.The December summit did not produce the sort of breakthrough some had hoped for, such as an agreement on expanding a cease-fire zone, but it did lead to a prisoner exchange deal.Prystaiko welcomed the subsequent large-scale prisoner swap that took place at the end of last year, but noted that more people had died in continued fighting in January 2020 than in the same month a year earlier.”We haven’t managed to achieve a cease-fire. … But even if we have just an exchange of prisoners, that is a good step for Ukrainians,” he said.
 
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The British government said Monday it is seriously studying the feasibility of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, an audacious idea that has been floated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, said the proposal was being taken seriously and “a range of officials” were studying it.”There is a proper piece of work being undertaken into this idea,” he said. “The PM is ambitious in terms of infrastructure projects.”Johnson has promised to build major new infrastructure to better connect parts of the U.K. in the wake of Britain’s divisive exit from the European Union. He also has vowed to boost regions outside the economically dominant southeast of England.He has mentioned the bridge idea several times, and claimed it would “only cost about 15 billion pounds” ($20 billion).But engineers say spanning the deep and stormy Irish Sea would be difficult. The distance is 12 miles (19 kilometers) at its narrowest; one of the most likely routes for a bridge, between Larne in Northern Ireland and Portpatrick in Scotland, is about 28 miles (45 kilometers).The water is up to 1,000 feet (300 meters) deep and the sea bed holds thousands of unexploded bombs dumped by Britain’s defense ministry after World War II.Johnson has a mixed track record with big projects. As mayor of London between 2008 and 2016 he touted a “Boris Island” airport in the River Thames estuary and a lush “garden bridge” in the middle of the city. Neither was ever built.Ian Firth, a fellow at the Institution of Civil Engineers, said building a Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge had “a huge number of technical challenges” but was probably achievable.”At the end of the day it’s about money,” he said. “Anything is possible if you throw enough money at it.” 
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France on Monday condemned a bid by Iran to put a satellite in space, urging Tehran to abide by international obligations on its controversial ballistic missile program.”France condemns this launch which calls on technologies used for ballistic missiles and, in particular, intercontinental ballistic missiles,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement after Iran said it “successfully” launched a satellite Sunday but failed to put it into orbit.Recalling Iran’s obligations under a 2018 U.N. Security Council resolution, the ministry added: “Iran’s ballistic program hurts regional stability and affects European security. France calls on Iran to fully respect its international obligations in this matter.” 
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A court in the Russian city of Penza has sentenced seven activists from a group known as “Set'” (the Network) to prison terms of between six years and 18 years on terrorism charges that opposition figures have denounced.On Monday, the Privolzhsky district court found the men, aged between 23 and 30 years, guilty of being members of a terrorist group.Some of the defendants were also found guilty of possessing illegal weapons and explosives, and attempted illegal drug sales.The group members were arrested in October 2017 with the Federal Security Service (FSB) accusing them of creating a terrorist group with cells in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Penza, and Omsk, as well as In neighboring Belarus.Investigators said the group planned to organize a series of explosions in Russia during the presidential election and the World Cup soccer tournament in 2018 “to destabilize the situation” in the country and to organize an armed mutiny.Rights activists have said the case was fabricated. Some of the activists claimed that they were tortured while in custody, but the Investigative Committee rejected the claims.Opposition leader Aleksei Navalny described the sentences as “horrific” in a post on Twitter, saying testimony about an “imaginary terrorist organisation” was “beaten out using torture.””Any minister in the Russian government is 10 times more of a criminal and a threat to society than these guys,” he added.The court called Dmitry Pchelintsev and Ilya Shaursky the group’s leaders and sentenced them to penalties of 18 years and 16 years in prison, respectively.Andrei Chernov was sentenced to 14 years, Maksim Ivankin to 13 years, Mikhail Kulov to 10 years, and Vasily Kuksov to 9 years in prison.Arman Sagynbaev received six years in prison.Before the sentences, Amnesty International called the terror charges “a figment of the Russian security services’ imagination that was fabricated in an attempt to silence these activists.”The London-based human rights watchdog called the case “the latest politically-motivated abuse of the justice system to target young people.”Two other activists initially arrested in the case, Igor Shishkin and Yegor Zorin, made deals with the investigators and testified against the others.Shishkin received 3 1/2 years in prison in January 2019, while the case against Zorin was closed in September 2018.
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Former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has been in exile in Argentina, went to Cuba on Monday for medical treatment, Argentina’s president said.President Alberto Fernandez said that as “nothing impedes him as a political refugee from going to Cuba.”He did not specify what sort of treatment Morales would receive, but the leftist leader has several times turned to Cuba for medical care. In 2017 and 2018, he had surgery there for a nodule on his vocal chords.Morales, who governed Bolivia for nearly 14 years, resigned the presidency in November when the police and army withdrew support after several weeks of demonstrations that erupted over allegations of fraud in the Oct. 20 presidential election. Morales claimed to have won reelection, but the Organization of American States said its audit found serious irregularities in the vote count.
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Supporters of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele gathered on Sunday to press lawmakers to approve a $109 million loan Bukele wants to bolster his plan to better equip police and soldiers in the fight against crime.Bukele, who on Friday warned lawmakers that citizens have the right to “insurrection,” summoned his supporters to congregate outside the legislative building to drum up support for the loan.The president’s move to pressure lawmakers was backed by defense minister René Merino Monroy and police director Mauricio Arriaza Chicas but was questioned by human rights organizations.Invoking an article of the constitution, Bukele said Thursday that his ministers had called on congress to approve the loan immediately.Statement from the US Ambassador to #ElSalvador asking for all to seek consensus and remain calm-amid reports the military has taken over the legislative assembly: https://t.co/mV2KE066UP— Cindy Saine (@cindysaine) February 9, 2020On Sunday, hundreds of Salvadorans responded to Bukele’s call to demonstrate, waiving banners and blowing whistles as soldiers and police officers stood by to protect them, according to a Reuters witness.”We are here because of the insecurity we have in our country, and the lawmakers do not want to recognize that,” said Adelma Campos, a 43-year-old housewife. “They do not want to work for the people who gave them their votes.”Although the murder rate in El Salvador declined steeply last year, authorities continue to battle gangs that control vast territory in the Central American country.The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in a statement on Sunday called for “dialogue and full respect for democratic institutions to guarantee the rule of law, including the independence of the branches of public power.” 
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Trains, flights and ferries have been cancelled and weather warnings issued across the United Kingdom as a storm with hurricane-force winds up to 80 mph (129 kph) batters the region.
At least 10 rail companies in Britain have sent out “do not travel” warnings, and nearly 20 others have told passengers to expect delays as strong winds on Sunday are expected to damage electrical wires and clutter train tracks with broken tree limbs and other debris.
London’s Heathrow Airport and several airlines decided to consolidate flights Sunday to reduce the number that would be cancelled by heavy winds. British Airways was offering to rebook customers for domestic and European flights out of Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports. Virgin Airlines cancelled some flights.
Storm Ciara, named by the Met Office national weather agency, was also supposed to bring heavy rains, prompting the agency to issue 22 emergency flood warnings and 149 flood watch alerts.
The Humber Bridge near Hull in northern England restricted traffic due to the high winds, banning high-sided trucks and camper vehicles.
High waves in the Irish Sea forced ferry companies to cancel several trips.
A 10-k run in London that was expected to draw 25,000 runners was also cancelled.  
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Argentinian judicial authorities seeking to prosecute officials suspected of covering up Iran’s alleged role in a 1994 Buenos Aires terrorist attack have suffered another setback with the death of a judge who led the legal battle against those officials.Judge Claudio Bonadio, head of Argentina’s No.11 Federal Criminal and Correctional Court, died Tuesday at the age of 64, after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor last year.Bonadio had spent years building a case against Argentinian officials who approved a controversial 2013 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran. He had gathered evidence alleging the MOU was part of an illicit deal for Buenos Aires to shield Iranian suspects in the 1994 attack from justice in return for securing oil and other economic benefits from Tehran.FILE – People hold up pictures of the victims of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center on the 21st anniversary of the terror attack in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 17, 2015.The July 18, 1994, suicide car bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association Jewish community center in the Argentine capital killed 85 people. It remains Latin America’s deadliest terrorist attack.In the following years, Argentinian judicial authorities accused Lebanese militant group Hezbollah of carrying out the attack on the order of Iranian officials. Iran and Hezbollah have denied involvement and refused to send any suspects named by Argentina to stand trial there.Bonadio had taken up the investigation of the Argentinian officials who approved the MOU with Iran after an earlier setback in the case: the January 2015 death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.Nisman had initiated the investigation of the MOU approved by then-Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and was hours away from presenting his evidence of a cover-up to the Argentinian Congress when he was found dead in his home of a gunshot to the head. Kirchner said he committed suicide, but a 2017 report by the Argentine National Gendarmerie, a domestic security force, said he had been murdered. Nisman’s death remains an unresolved legal matter in Argentina.Kirchner, who served two terms as president from 2007 to 2015, returned to high office as Argentinian vice president in December, winning election as the running mate of President Alberto Fernández (no relation) after she served two years as a senator.FILE – Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman speaks with journalists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 29, 2013. Picture taken May 29, 2013. Nisman was found dead hours before presenting evidence of a cover-up in the 1994 AMIA bombing.The 2013 MOU with Iran had called for a bilateral commission to conduct a new joint investigation of the AMIA bombing, years after Argentinian judicial authorities had issued arrest warrants and secured Interpol red notices asking for international help in detaining and extraditing the Hezbollah militants and Iranian officials wanted in connection with the attack.Argentinian critics of the MOU, incensed by Nisman’s allegations that it was part of a cover-up, succeeded in getting a court to rule it unconstitutional in 2015 and it was never implemented.Bonadio, who continued Nisman’s work on the MOU case after the prosecutor’s death, had charged Kirchner and her aides with treason and obstruction of justice in 2017. He also had been pursuing multiple corruption cases against the former president in recent years in relation to her presidential tenure.Kirchner consistently has denied wrongdoing and accused the judge of waging a personal vendetta against her.Bonadio had last worked Dec. 30, after which he had taken vacation in January, his secretary Mónica Mica told VOA by phone. Sometime before Dec. 30, he had handed the central part of the MOU case to the No. 8 Criminal Federal Tribunal, judicial official Rodriguez Varela confirmed, also in a VOA phone interview. The tribunal is a body that decides, after analyzing the investigating judge’s evidence, whether to hold a trial and issue a verdict.However, a legal dispute about witness testimony in the MOU case continued into last month, FILE – Argentina’s new President Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner smile after they take the oath of office at the Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 10, 2019.Bonadio’s death also could embolden plans by Kirchner and President Fernández to reform the computerized lottery system that assigns judges to cases involving political figures.“We were suspicious and wondered why all the cases involving Kirchner ended up in Bonadio’s hands,” Dalbón said. “We believe the process of assigning a case to a judge should be public and transparent. This will be one of the reforms of President Fernández.”Benjamin Gedan, director of the Argentina Project at Washington’s Wilson Center, told VOA Persian the Argentinian judiciary has had long-running problems with political interference and corruption under governments of all political parties.“I think efforts to reform the judiciary are necessary,” Gedan said. “But it’s hard not to think that the motivation is to guarantee impunity for members of the Kirchner/Fernández administration.”It is not clear what impact the judge’s death will have on the new Argentinian government’s approach to bringing the Iranian and Hezbollah suspects in the AMIA bombing to trial.FILE – Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri and his wife, Juliana Awada, react during a rally in support of Macri, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 7, 2019. He lost to opposition candidate Alberto Fernandez.The prior administration of Mauricio Macri, who served as president from 2015 to 2019, had called on Iran to cooperate with Argentina on the issue and had appealed to other countries to detain any suspects who entered their territories.“The new government is seeking to reverse each and every positive step that has been taken to bring a measure of justice to the victims of the AMIA bombing and their families. It would be a travesty of justice for Argentina if these efforts were to succeed,” FDD’s Dershowitz said.“Personally, I am skeptical about the AMIA case,” Dalbón said. “Cases that last longer that 20 years very rarely can reach the truth. Slow justice is not justice.”  This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. It was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Latin America Division.
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Switzerland on Sunday voted strongly in favor of a new law against homophobia in a referendum despite opposition from the populist right wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), according to a projection.The projection published by GFS Bern polling and research group found that 62 percent had voted in favor of the reform, with a margin of error of three percent.The new law will widen existing legislation against discrimination or incitement to hatred on ethnic or religious grounds to include sexual orientation.”This is a historic day,” Mathias Reynard, a lawmaker from the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland who initiated the reform, told Swiss channel RTS 1.”It gives a signal which is magnificent for everyone and for anyone who has been a victim of discrimination,” he said.The change was passed by the Swiss parliament in 2018 but critics, who believe it will end up censoring free speech, had forced a referendum on the issue.Eric Bertinat, an SVP local lawmaker in Geneva, told AFP before the vote that he believed the law was “part of an LGBT plan to slowly move towards same-sex marriage and medically assisted reproduction” for gay couples.Marc Frueh, head of the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU), a small party based on Christian values, said after the projection: “I accept defeat.””We will keep a close eye on how the law is implemented by the courts,” he told RTS 1.All of Switzerland’s major parties except the SVP, the biggest political force in parliament, support the law.Rights campaigner Jean-Pierre Sigrist, founder of an association of gay teachers, had said before the referendum that the new law might have stopped him getting beaten up outside a bar in Geneva four decades ago.”And maybe I would not have been laughed at when I went to the police,” the 71-year-old told AFP, adding that he hoped the reform would help to counter a resurgence of intolerance against gay people.Sigrist said he supported freedom of expression, “but not the freedom to say anything at all.”‘No to Special Rights!’Under the new law, homophobic comments made in a family setting or among friends would not be criminalized.But publicly denigrating or discriminating against someone for being gay or inciting hatred against that person in text, speech, images or gestures, would be banned.The government has said it will still be possible to have opinionated debates on issues such as same-sex marriage, and the new law does not ban jokes — however off-color.”Incitement to hatred needs to reach a certain level of intensity in order to be considered criminal in Switzerland,” Alexandre Curchod, a media lawyer, told AFP.But he admitted that there could be exceptions “if it can be shown that, under the cover of artistic production or joking, someone is in fact engaging in incitement.”Gay rights campaigners were divided over the legislation.A group called “No to Special Rights!” is opposed, arguing that the gay community does not need special protection. 
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Argentinian judicial authorities seeking to prosecute officials suspected of covering up Iran’s alleged role in a 1994 Buenos Aires terrorist attack have suffered another setback with the death of a judge who led the legal battle against those officials.Judge Claudio Bonadio, head of Argentina’s No.11 Federal Criminal and Correctional Court, died Tuesday at the age of 64, after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor last year.Bonadio had spent years building a case against Argentinian officials who approved a controversial 2013 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran. He had gathered evidence alleging the MOU was part of an illicit deal for Buenos Aires to shield Iranian suspects in the 1994 attack from justice in return for securing oil and other economic benefits from Tehran.FILE – People hold up pictures of the victims of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center on the 21st anniversary of the terror attack in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 17, 2015.The July 18, 1994, suicide car bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association Jewish community center in the Argentine capital killed 85 people. It remains Latin America’s deadliest terrorist attack.In the following years, Argentinian judicial authorities accused Lebanese militant group Hezbollah of carrying out the attack on the order of Iranian officials. Iran and Hezbollah have denied involvement and refused to send any suspects named by Argentina to stand trial there.Bonadio had taken up the investigation of the Argentinian officials who approved the MOU with Iran after an earlier setback in the case: the January 2015 death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.Nisman had initiated the investigation of the MOU approved by then-Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and was hours away from presenting his evidence of a cover-up to the Argentinian Congress when he was found dead in his home of a gunshot to the head. Kirchner said he committed suicide, but a 2017 report by the Argentine National Gendarmerie, a domestic security force, said he had been murdered. Nisman’s death remains an unresolved legal matter in Argentina.Kirchner, who served two terms as president from 2007 to 2015, returned to high office as Argentinian vice president in December, winning election as the running mate of President Alberto Fernández (no relation) after she served two years as a senator.FILE – Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman speaks with journalists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 29, 2013. Picture taken May 29, 2013. Nisman was found dead hours before presenting evidence of a cover-up in the 1994 AMIA bombing.The 2013 MOU with Iran had called for a bilateral commission to conduct a new joint investigation of the AMIA bombing, years after Argentinian judicial authorities had issued arrest warrants and secured Interpol red notices asking for international help in detaining and extraditing the Hezbollah militants and Iranian officials wanted in connection with the attack.Argentinian critics of the MOU, incensed by Nisman’s allegations that it was part of a cover-up, succeeded in getting a court to rule it unconstitutional in 2015 and it was never implemented.Bonadio, who continued Nisman’s work on the MOU case after the prosecutor’s death, had charged Kirchner and her aides with treason and obstruction of justice in 2017. He also had been pursuing multiple corruption cases against the former president in recent years in relation to her presidential tenure.Kirchner consistently has denied wrongdoing and accused the judge of waging a personal vendetta against her.Bonadio had last worked Dec. 30, after which he had taken vacation in January, his secretary Mónica Mica told VOA by phone. Sometime before Dec. 30, he had handed the central part of the MOU case to the No. 8 Criminal Federal Tribunal, judicial official Rodriguez Varela confirmed, also in a VOA phone interview. The tribunal is a body that decides, after analyzing the investigating judge’s evidence, whether to hold a trial and issue a verdict.However, a legal dispute about witness testimony in the MOU case continued into last month, FILE – Argentina’s new President Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner smile after they take the oath of office at the Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 10, 2019.Bonadio’s death also could embolden plans by Kirchner and President Fernández to reform the computerized lottery system that assigns judges to cases involving political figures.“We were suspicious and wondered why all the cases involving Kirchner ended up in Bonadio’s hands,” Dalbón said. “We believe the process of assigning a case to a judge should be public and transparent. This will be one of the reforms of President Fernández.”Benjamin Gedan, director of the Argentina Project at Washington’s Wilson Center, told VOA Persian the Argentinian judiciary has had long-running problems with political interference and corruption under governments of all political parties.“I think efforts to reform the judiciary are necessary,” Gedan said. “But it’s hard not to think that the motivation is to guarantee impunity for members of the Kirchner/Fernández administration.”It is not clear what impact the judge’s death will have on the new Argentinian government’s approach to bringing the Iranian and Hezbollah suspects in the AMIA bombing to trial.FILE – Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri and his wife, Juliana Awada, react during a rally in support of Macri, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 7, 2019. He lost to opposition candidate Alberto Fernandez.The prior administration of Mauricio Macri, who served as president from 2015 to 2019, had called on Iran to cooperate with Argentina on the issue and had appealed to other countries to detain any suspects who entered their territories.“The new government is seeking to reverse each and every positive step that has been taken to bring a measure of justice to the victims of the AMIA bombing and their families. It would be a travesty of justice for Argentina if these efforts were to succeed,” FDD’s Dershowitz said.“Personally, I am skeptical about the AMIA case,” Dalbón said. “Cases that last longer that 20 years very rarely can reach the truth. Slow justice is not justice.”  This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. It was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Latin America Division.
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Ukraine’s president has asked Pope Francis for help in securing the release of prisoners of war held by Russia and by Russia-backed separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskiy made the request after a meeting Saturday with the pontiff at the Vatican. “[The pope] does everything possible to achieve peace and harmony throughout the world,” Zelenskiy said in a tweet after their meeting. “I asked for help with the release of Ukrainians captured in Donbas, Crimea and Russia,” he said. Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. A month later, fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine, and the conflict has since killed more than 13,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Since being elected in May 2019, Zelenskiy has overseen two major swaps of prisoners with Russia and the separatist fighters it backs in eastern Ukraine. Pope Francis, the 83-year-old head of the Roman Catholic Church, has several times voiced hope for an end to the conflict. Francis offered a prayer ahead of the key summit involving Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris in December 2019. The pope also called for peace in eastern Ukraine in his Christmas message. The overwhelming majority of observant Ukrainians are Orthodox Christian; only a small percentage consider themselves Roman Catholic. However, Greek or Eastern Rite Catholics are the second-largest Christian denomination in the country and recognize the pope as their spiritual leader. Medal for ZelenskiyDuring the photo session of the meeting, which was open to reporters, Francis gave Zelenskiy a medal of St. Martin of Tours and said he hoped the saint “will protect your people from war.” Zelenskiy arrived in Italy on Friday, when he met with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Talks in Rome were reported to focus on Vitaliy Markiv, a Ukrainian national guardsman sentenced in 2019 by an Italian court to 24 years in prison for his role in the deaths of an Italian photojournalist and his translator during fighting near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk in 2014. 
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Five British nationals including a child have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus at a French mountain village, and health officials said they were checking who else might have been exposed, including at local schools. In total, 11 people, including the five who tested positive, have been hospitalized in southeastern France and were being examined, the French health ministry said  Saturday, adding that none was in serious condition. The group of Britons included holidaymakers and a family currently residing in the Alpine village and ski resort, Les Contamines-Montjoie. They shared neighboring apartments in a chalet and temporarily hosted a British man believed to have contracted the virus at a business congress in Singapore before his short visit to France in late January, the ministry added. Two schools will be shut next week for checks, regional health official Jean-Yves Grall said, after it emerged that the 9-year-old who tested positive had attended lessons and French classes in different establishments. Two other children were also part of the group of 11 now in hospitals in the cities of Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Grenoble, and they had been schooled in the area, too, according to Etienne Jacquet, mayor of Les Contamines-Montjoie. Some parents in the village, nestled in the mountains close to the Mont Blanc peak and the Swiss city of Geneva, said Saturday that they had received little information so far and were being cautious. “Our children were meant to go to a concert tonight. We took the decision not to take them to not expose other people,” said Beatrice Louvier, adding that her 10-year-old daughter was in the same classroom as one of the three British children. Peak ski seasonThe cases coincide with one of the busiest periods of the ski season for area resorts, as schools in the Paris region begin midterm holidays. British schools will also be on midterm break later this month. Health officials said they were trying to determine who had come into prolonged and close contact with the British group. Several tourists who had just arrived in Les Contamines-Montjoui brushed off the risks and said they would see through their holidays. “The percentage chance of getting infected is not really high,” said Frenchman Stanislas Des Courtis, who was visiting with his two teenage sons. “The ski area is big, and there are not so many places where [people] can gather here all together.” But local resident Catherine Davout, who helps manage flat rentals in the area, said she had already had several cancellations. Business meeting The new cases emerged after authorities began to retrace the travels of a British man who has been confirmed by Britain to have contracted the virus, French health officials said. They had formed “a cluster, a grouping around one original case,” according to Health Minister Agnes Buzyn, who identified the person as a Briton who had returned from Singapore and stayed in France between January 24 and 28. The French government said Singaporean authorities were looking into a business congress that took place in a hotel there on January 20-23 and was attended by 94 foreigners, including the British man at the center of the Alpine cases. As of Saturday, Singapore had 40 cases of the virus. Of the 11 total cases in France, earlier ones include an 80-year-old Chinese man in a serious condition, while the others have shown signs of improvement, according to medical officials. The epidemic began in Wuhan, China, and the vast majority of cases have been in China. 
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Syrian government forces captured new areas from insurgents in their efforts to control a key highway in the northwest Saturday, as Turkey sent more reinforcements into the war-torn country, state media and opposition activists said.The weekslong government offensive has created a humanitarian crisis with about 600,000 people fleeing their homes in Syria’s last rebel stronghold since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations.Rebels control much of Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Aleppo region that is home to some 3 million people — many of them displaced from other parts of Syria.The Syrian offensive appears aimed for now at securing a strategic highway in rebel-controlled territory, as opposed to an all-out campaign to retake the entire province, including the city of Idlib, the densely populated provincial capital.“Our aim is to clear the highway and evict terrorists from it,” a Syrian commander on the ground told state TV. He was referring to the M5 highway, which links the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said government forces still have 30 kilometers (18 miles) of the highway to clear before it comes under full control of the army for the first time since 2012.Syrian state TV reported Saturday that government forces captured four villages in Aleppo province near the highway. It added that Syrian troops and demining experts have cleared explosives and mines from the recently captured town of Saraqeb that sits on an intersection where the M5 meets with the M4 highway, linking Syria’s coast with the country’s east.Syrian state media and the Observatory later reported that government forces captured the village of al-Eis and its strategic hill just east of the M5.The new push came as Turkey, a main backer of the opposition, sent more reinforcements into Idlib, according to the Observatory and Idlib-based media activist Taher al-Omar who is embedded with militants.The Observatory said a convoy consisting of 430 vehicles entered Syria since Friday night, raising the number of vehicles that entered Syria since last weekend to well over 1,000.A rare clash on Feb. 3, between Turkish troops and Syrian soldiers left seven Turkish soldiers and a Turkish civilian dead as well as 13 Syrian troops.On Friday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry warned the army would respond “even more forcefully” to any attack on Turkish observation posts in the area, adding: “Our observation posts will continue carrying out duties.”The violence has also raised tensions between Russia and Turkey, which have been working together to secure cease-fires and political talks, despite backing opposite sides of the conflict.
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Cyborgs, trolls and bots can fill the internet with lies and half-truths. Understanding them is key to learning how misinformation spreads online.As the 2016 election showed, social media is increasingly used to amplify false claims and divide Americans over hot-button issues including race and immigration. Researchers who study misinformation predict it will get worse leading up to this year’s presidential vote. Here’s a guide to understanding the problem:MISINFORMATION VS. DISINFORMATIONPolitical misinformation has been around since before the printing press, but the internet has allowed falsehoods, conspiracy theories and exaggerations to spread faster and farther than ever.Misinformation is defined as any false information, regardless of intent, including honest mistakes or misunderstandings of the facts. Disinformation, on the other hand, typically refers to misinformation created and spread intentionally as a way to confuse or mislead.Misinformation and disinformation can appear in political ads or social media posts. They can include fake news stories or doctored videos. One egregious example of disinformation from last year was a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that was slowed down to make her sound as if she were slurring her words.Research indicates that false claims spread more easily than accurate ones, possibly because they are crafted to grab attention.Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed more than 126,000 stories, some true and some false, that were tweeted millions of times from 2006 through the end of 2016. They found that misleading or incorrect stories traveled six times faster — and reached more people.Online misinformation has been blamed for deepening America’s political polarization and contributing to distrust in government. The risks were highlighted in 2016 when Russian trolls created fake accounts to spread and amplify social media posts about controversial issues.WAR OF THE BOTS AND CYBORGSThe disposable foot soldiers in this digital conflict are bots. In the social media context, these autonomous programs can run accounts to spread content without human involvement.Many are harmless, tweeting out random poems or pet photos. But others are up to no good and designed to resemble actual users.One study by researchers at the University of Southern California analyzed election-related tweets sent in September and October 2016 and found that 1 in 5 were sent by a bot. The Pew Research Center concluded in a 2018 study that accounts suspected of being bots are responsible for as many as two-thirds of all tweets that link to popular websites.While flesh-and-blood Twitter users will often post a few times a day, about a variety of subjects, the most obvious bots will tweet hundreds of times a day, day and night, and often only on a specific topic. They are more likely to repost content rather than create something original.And then there’s the cyborg, a kind of hybrid account that combines a bot’s tirelessness with human subtlety. Cyborg accounts are those in which a human periodically takes over a bot account to respond to other users and to post original content. They are more expensive and time consuming to operate, but they don’t give themselves away as robots.“You can get a lot from a bot, but maybe it’s not the best quality,” said Emilio Ferrara, a data science researcher at the University of Southern California who co-wrote the study on Twitter bots. “The problem with cyborgs is they are much harder to catch and detect.”SPOT THE BOTSBots can be hard to spot, even for the best researchers.“We have 12 ways that we spot a bot, and if we hit seven or eight of them we have pretty high confidence,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that studies connections between social media, cybersecurity and government.Nonetheless, Brookie recalled the case of a Twitter account from Brazil that was posting almost constantly — sometimes once per minute — and displayed other bot-like characteristics. And yet, “It was a little grandma, who said, ‘This is me!’”Their prevalence and the difficulty of identifying them has made bots into a kind of digital bogeyman and transformed the term into an insult, used to dismiss other social media users with different opinions.Michael Watsey, a 43-year-old New Jersey man who often tweets his support for President Donald Trump, said he has been repeatedly called a Russian bot by people he argues with online. The accusations prompted Twitter to temporarily suspend his account more than once, forcing him to verify he is a human.“All I’m trying to do is uses my First Amendment right to free speech,” he said. “It’s crazy that it’s come to this.”TROLLS AND SOCK PUPPETSThe word troll once referred to beasts of Scandinavian mythology who hid under bridges and attacked travelers. Now it also refers to people who post online to provoke others, sometimes for their own amusement and sometimes as part of a coordinated campaign.Sock puppets are another oddly named denizen of social media, in this case a type of imposter account. While some users may use anonymous accounts simply to avoid identifying themselves, sock-puppet accounts are used by the owner to attack their critics or praise themselves. In October, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney acknowledged operating a secret Twitter account under the name “Pierre Delecto,” which he used to defend himself against criticism.FAKED VIDEOS: DEEP, CHEAP AND SHALLOWDeepfakes are videos that have been digitally created with artificial intelligence or machine learning to make it appear something happened that did not. They are seen as an emerging threat, as improvements in video editing software make it possible for tricksters to create increasingly realistic footage of, say, former President Barack Obama delivering a speech he never made, in a setting he never visited. They are expensive and difficult to create — especially in a convincing way.Facebook announced last month that it would ban deepfake videos — with exceptions for satire. Beginning in March, Twitter will prohibit doctored videos, photography and audio recordings “likely to cause harm.” Material that is manipulated but isn’t necessarily harmful may get a warning label. And YouTube bans “deceptive uses of manipulated media” that could pose serious risk of harm.By contrast, shallowfakes, cheapfakes or dumbfakes are videos that have been doctored using more basic techniques, such as slowing down or speeding up footage or cutting it.Examples include a doctored video posted by Britain’s Conservative Party before December’s U.K. election that made it seem like a Labour Party official was struggling to respond to a question about Brexit.Because they’re easy and inexpensive to make, cheapfakes can be every bit as dangerous as their fancier cousin, the deepfake.“Deepfakes are getting more realistic and easier to do,” said John Pavlik, a journalism professor at Rutgers University who studies how technology and the internet are changing communication habits. “But you don’t have to have special software to make these simpler ones.”Researchers who study Americans’ changing media habits recommend that people turn to a variety of sources and perspectives for their news, use critical thinking when evaluating information on social media, and think twice about reposting viral claims. Otherwise, they say, misinformation will continue to flow, and users will continue to spread it.“The only solution,” Ferrara said, “is education.” 
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Sam Mewis scored a pair of goals to help lead a dominant United States to a 4-0 rout over Mexico Friday, clinching a spot in the 2020 Olympics.FIFA’s No. 1 ranked women’s team, the U.S. women played up to their lofty status as they blasted Mexico in the semi-finals of the CONCACAF women’s Olympic qualifying championship.The U.S. advanced to Sunday’s final against Canada, also Tokyo-bound after defeating Costa Rica 1-0 in a tight match earlier in the day.The Americans had no such challenge in their home tilt at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.Rose Lavelle gave the team an early advantage with a goal in the fifth minute, while Mewis netted her first in the 14th.Mexico could do little to make an impression as the U.S. controlled possession.Mewis added her second score in the 67th minute, and Christen Press completed the scoring six minutes later.The U.S., now on a 27-match unbeaten streak, are keen to make amends for a quarter-final at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.Canada defeats Costa RicaFor Canada, Jordyn Huitema’s second-half strike earned the win over Costa Rica.Canada dominated possession in a frustrating opening half but lacked inspiration in the attacking zone, managing a single shot on target.The Canadians continued to press after the break and were finally rewarded in the 72nd minute when Huitema hit the post from close range but then coolly slotted the rebound into the back of the net for her seventh of the tournament.“I think the first thing I said to the team was, that’s my luck for 2020,” said Huitema. “I said that’s all of it right there that it came off the post and right back to my foot.”Eighth-ranked Canada, bronze medal winners at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, have won all four of their matches and head to Sunday’s final against the U.S. having yet to concede a goal.
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Ireland began voting in a general election Saturday, with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar hoping to secure a new term on the back of Brexit but voters likely to judge him more on his domestic record.Polls opened across the country at 0700 GMT, although a small number of islands off the west coast voted Friday to allow for rough seas that could disrupt the transport of ballots by boat.About 3.3 million people are eligible to vote to elect 159 members of the Dail, the lower chamber of parliament in Dublin.Varadkar’s Fine Gael party has been in power since 2016 but polling suggests they are trailing center-right rivals Fianna Fail and republicans Sinn Fein.On Monday, Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA paramilitary group, were out in front with 25%, Fianna Fail with 23% and Fine Gael with 20%.“This election is wide open,” Varadkar said at his final campaign stop in the western town of Ennis on Friday. “It’s a three horse race, three parties, all within shouting distance of each other.”A ‘Brexit election’Varadkar launched his campaign after successfully helping to broker a deal cushioning Britain’s EU exit, Jan. 31, by avoiding a hard border with British-run Northern Ireland.An open frontier was a key requirement of the 1998 peace agreement that largely ended three decades of violence over British rule in the north, which left more than 3,000 dead.Varadkar has warned voters that Brexit is “not done yet,” as London prepares for talks with Brussels to secure a longer-term trade deal in record time before the end of this year.Failure to do so could present an “existential threat” to the Irish economy, he said.But experts suggest he may have miscalculated the public mood with surveys indicating Brexit was a low concern among the electorate.Issues closer to homeOther parties have hammered Fine Gael over failings in health care, housing and homelessness. Varadkar acknowledged he understood that Friday.“You want us over the next three years to focus on issues like health and housing with the same passion and intensity that we’ve focused on Brexit in the past three years,” he said.Varadkar is Ireland’s first mixed race and openly gay premier who has come to represent a more socially progressive Ireland after years of dominance by the Roman Catholic church.But despite Brexit, and landmark votes to overturn strict abortion laws and introduce same-sex marriage, some predict he could be on his way out.“Varadkar is young, he’s gay, he looks like part of the new Ireland,” Eunan O’Halpin, of Trinity College Dublin, told AFP. “Yet his personal popularity appears to have dipped, and that of his party has dipped very significantly.”NegotiationsPolls close at 2200 GMT and votes start being counted at 0900 GMT Sunday.A three-way race led by left-wing Sinn Fein is a new dynamic for the Republic, where governments have been historically dominated by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.Since 2016 Fianna Fail have propped up Fine Gael in government with a confidence and supply arrangement that could implicate them in the perceived failings of the government.“(Young people) blame the current government and coalition of parties in government for this mess,” said O’Halpin about the housing shortage.Despite its opinion poll lead, Sinn Fein, which wants to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic, is only fielding 42 candidates and cannot form a majority government even if they all win.Both Varadkar and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin are adamant they will not form a coalition with Mary Lou McDonald’s party.On Friday, Martin said Sinn Fein, which was once led by Gerry Adams, “have not cleaned themselves from their bloody past.”“The only party who can lead an alternative government is Fianna Fail,” he said in his home city of Cork.
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Photographer  Olivier Toscani made a career out of provocative advertising campaigns for Benetton, the Italian clothing maker famed for its colorful knitwear. But that decades-long relationship has been severed after Toscani outraged relatives of victims in the deadly 2018 Genoa bridge collapse. Toscani told RAI television this week, “Who cares about a bridge collapse?He was responding to a public flap over a photograph of founding members of the Sardines political protest movement alongside key members of the Benetton family, which controls the company that maintained the bridge. The president of the committee to remember the 43 people who died August 14, 2018, in the Morandi Bridge collapse called the remarks “inopportune and confused.'' `'It could be that [Toscani] travels by helicopter and using a bridge is for commoners,'' Egle Possetti said. `'Unfortunately, many Italians travel over bridges every day, and unfortunately some people will remain forever under ‘that bridge,' certainly not due to some stray lightning strike. Forty-three innocent deaths count little for him, but for us they were everything.'' 'Deeply pained'Toscani apologized in an interview with La Repubblica published Thursday.I am sorry. More: I am ashamed to apologize. I am humanly destroyed and deeply pained.” But the damage was done. Benetton said in a statement Thursday that the group “completely disassociates itself from Mr. Toscani’s remarks and acknowledges the impossibility of continuing the professional relationship with its creative director.” It added that chairman Luciano Benetton “and the entire company renew their sincere closeness to the families of the victims and to all those who have been involved in this terrible tragedy.” The Benetton family, as controlling stakeholder in the Autostrade highway company that maintained the Morandi bridge, has been embattled ever since the accident as the government squabbles over whether to revoke its agreement to operate thousands of kilometers of Italian toll highways. So the photo showing the founders of the Sardines movement alongside the Benettons was widely criticized as a misstep by the less than three-month-old group. Since its founding in November, the group has mobilized tens of thousands to protest the growing popularity of right-wing leader Matteo Salvini. The leaders said their appearance in the photo, at the Benetton cultural center Fabrica, had been “naive.” 
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Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has gotten a boost after a four-day visit to Washington where he met with President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials. It’s been a year since the United States and other Western nations threw their support behind Guaido with little success in pushing Nicolas Maduro from power. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari reports on Guaido’s latest diplomacy push to gain new momentum for his opposition movement
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The European commissioner for human rights urged Moscow Friday to investigate a violent assault on a journalist and a lawyer in Russia’s province of Chechnya.Elena Milashina, from the independent Novaya Gazeta, said she and Marina Dubrovina, a lawyer accompanying her on a trip to Chechnya, were pushed and beaten by a dozen people in the lobby of their hotel late Thursday. Milashina long has exposed human rights violations in Chechnya.The regional branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry in Chechnya said it was looking into the incident.The Kremlin has relied on Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov to keep the North Caucasus region stable after two devastating separatist wars. International rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s feared security forces of extrajudicial killings, torture and abductions of dissenters.The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović on Friday condemned the assault on the journalist and the lawyer as “the latest of a series of worrying attacks on human rights defenders and critics” in Chechnya.Mijatović noted that “ the climate of hostility against independent civil society activists, human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists in Chechnya is often fomented by virulent and threatening speech of political leaders, including at the highest levels” of the regional leadership.She urged the Russian authorities to “urgently reverse this unacceptable situation and uphold their obligations to ensure that human rights defenders can work safely and freely.” Mijatović emphasized that those responsible for the assault must be punished.
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The alleged rape of three American women by Afghan migrants is prompting a public examination of Spain’s legal system, with media commentators and politicians debating the veracity of the charges and the competency of Spanish authorities to handle the case appropriately.The Spanish press has delved into intimate details of the case, including speculation that the women – three sisters from the Midwestern state of Ohio aged 18, 20 and 23 — contrived the sexual assault to claim on their travel insurance. Reports have even cited disclosures by hospital examiners that the youngest of the three sisters was a virgin before her encounter with the alleged rapist.The United States, meanwhile, is advising other Americans to take precautions against sexual assault and warning about the legal handling of sexual assault cases in Spain. “U.S. citizen victims of sexual assault in Spain can find it very difficult to navigate the local criminal justice system, which differs significantly from the U.S. system,” said an advisory issued by the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. It specifically warned American female students to “take precautions against sexual assault during their stay in Spain.”FILE – Activists protest in Barcelona, Spain, June 21, 2018. A Spanish court triggered a new wave of outrage Oct. 31, 2019, by acquitting five men of gang rape and instead finding them guilty of a lesser charge of sexual abuse.Spain’s interior ministry says that while the number of rape cases has risen from fewer than 1,000 in 2016 to some 1,400 in 2019, the total remains well below that in most other European countries. Reported sexual assaults in France, by contrast, rose from 16,000 to 52,000 over the same period, according to the French government.A U.S. Embassy official told VOA that most rape cases in Spain go unreported because of the inadequate treatment that victims receive from police, health authorities and the legal system.While 34 sexual assaults against American women were reported during 2019, the official said many more cases go unreported, adding that a major American university with one of the largest exchange programs in Spain received complaints of sexual violence on an average of once per week.The three sisters, all college students, have accused Afghan refugees of violently forcing them into sexual intercourse on New Year’s Eve in the city of Murcia.The accused men, who have been released since their arrest days after the incident, claim the sex acts were consensual. Their lawyer has filed charges of “false accusation” against the women claiming inconsistencies in their police testimonies.U.S. Embassy spokesman Adam Lenert said the way in which rape victims are questioned in Spain is outdated and tends to put the burden of doubt on the victim. The first questions police asked the three women concerned what clothes they wore and whether they had consumed alcohol or drugs before they met their alleged rapists at a bar. They were also asked about travel insurance, which is mandatory for U.S. students in most exchange programs.Those practices persist despite a growing feminist movement, led in some instances by top officials of the ruling Socialist government, which has greatly raised consciousness about sexual violence. “Spain has become highly sensitized on matters concerning rape and sexual harassment,” said news anchor Antonio Jimenez, who led a round-table discussion about the U.S. travel advisory on his nightly talk show on one of Spain’s main television channels.At least two recent gang rape cases triggered mass protests by women’s groups, which have argued for stiffer jail terms for the perpetrators, who have become known as “wolf packs.”Right-wing groups have further politicized the issue, with some conservative leaders blaming the problem on the rising tide of immigrants from Muslim countries. Speaking before the congress two weeks ago, VOX party leader Santiago Abascal criticized the leniency extended to the Afghan rape suspects as an example of how immigrants receive special consideration.Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right party VOX, waves to supporters during a rally in protest against the new coalition government led by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, at Cibeles Square in Madrid, Spain, Jan. 12, 2020.There is concern that as the case of the three Ohio sisters gets entangled in Spain’s politics and complex legal system, it may become increasingly difficult to get a clear verdict or trial.Defense lawyer Melecio Castaño, said on television that evidence suggests the women and their alleged attackers had a “cordial farewell” on the morning after their encounter and that cell phone records indicate that one of the women subsequently called one of the men.Sources close to the women’s legal counsel say that text messages sent to one of the alleged attackers were placed at the request of police in an effort to locate him.Under Spanish law it’s necessary for the victims to appear before the court in order to “ratify” their charges. The Americans have left Spain and might be hesitant to return due to the way in which they have been treated, U.S. Embassy officials say.
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A gritty tale set in France’s disenfranchised suburbs, or banlieues, ranks among the finalists for the best foreign language film at Sunday’s Academy Awards in Los Angeles. However, Les Miserables has also unleashed a debate about what has changed in France and what has not.  For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from the Paris suburb of Montfermeil
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Britain is set for another royal wedding. Buckingham Palace announced Friday that Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter Princess Beatrice will marry in London on May 29.The palace says 31-year-old Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 37, will wed in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace. The chapel was the location for the wedding of Beatrice’s great-great-great-great grandmother Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in 1840.The queen will host a reception afterwards at Buckingham Palace.
Beatrice, the elder daughter of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, announced her engagement to real estate entrepreneur Mozzi last year. He is a Briton descended from a noble Italian family.The father of the bride quit public royal duties in November amid an outcry over his friendship with the convicted U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in August.An American woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, says she had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest, starting when she was 17. The FBI wants to question the prince as part of its Epstein investigation, but a U.S. prosecutor said last month that Andrew had been uncooperative.The prince denies wrongdoing.Beatrice’s younger sister, Princess Eugenie, married Jack Brooksbank at Windsor Castle in 2018.
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Russian authorities have added more than 200 Jehovah’s Witnesses to a register of extremists and terrorists, the organization said in a statement Friday.The latest move in a crackdown on the religious group effectively cuts the believers off from the country’s financial system, because being on list leads to one’s bank accounts being frozen and to severe restrictions on any financial transactions.Russia officially banned Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017 and declared the group an extremist organization. The Kremlin has actively used vaguely worded extremism laws to crack down on opposition activists and religious minorities.Since then, hundreds of members have been subjected to raids, arrests and prosecution. Twenty-four members of the organization have been convicted, nine of whom have been sentenced to prison, and more than 300 people are currently under criminal investigation.Most of the blacklisted believers have not been convicted yet but are under investigation, the Jehovah’s Witnesses said.Jarrod Lopes, a spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses world headquarters in the United States, said Friday that Russian authorities are “vilifying Jehovah’s Witnesses, crippling them from caring for their basic needs.”“Clearly, Russia has effectively reinstated its darkest period of history by relentlessly persecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses, as did its intolerant Soviet predecessors,” Lopes said.Thousands on registerThe register, available on the website of Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial intelligence agency, currently contains more than 9,500 names. It doesn’t state a person’s affiliation with an organization. The Associated Press was able to identify at least two dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses on the list.Rosfinmonitoring officials would neither confirm nor deny blacklisting Jehovah’s Witnesses to The Associated Press, saying that they add people to the register based on the information law enforcement provides them.The crackdown on members of the group continues despite a promise by Russian President Vladimir Putin to look into “this complete nonsense.”“Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians, too, so I don’t quite understand why persecute them,” Putin said at a meeting with the Presidential Council for Human Rights in 2018.
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