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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed Friday that the Trump administration would not waver in its support for Ukraine and denied charges at the heart of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Pompeo met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday and denied allegations that vital military aid and a White House visit were conditioned on a probe into former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.
“It’s just simply not the case. We will find the right time, we will find the appropriate opportunity (for the visit),” Pompeo said at a press conference after a meeting with Zelenskiy.
Pompeo is the highest-ranking American official to visit Ukraine since the impeachment process began last year. That process started with revelations about a July 25 phone call between Zelenskiy and Trump.
Zelenskiy said the impeachment had not had a negative effect on U.S.-Ukraine relations and thanked the Trump administration for its financial and military support that impeachment prosecutors say the president withheld in order to extract a personal favor from Ukraine.
Pompeo’s meetings in Kyiv come as t he GOP-majority Senate prepared to vote  on whether to hear witnesses who could shed further light on Trump’s actions toward Ukraine. The vote appeared likely to fail, however, as a key Republican said he would vote against allowing new testimony, boosting odds the Senate will vote to acquit in a matter of days.
A senior U.S. official in the meeting said Pompeo and Zelenskiy mainly discussed investment and infrastructure and that there was no talk of impeachment or corruption investigations. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
At a press conference after the meeting, Pompeo assured Zelenskiy of Washington’s unwavering support.
“The United States understands that Ukraine is an important country. It’s not just the geographic heart of Europe, it’s a bulwark between freedom and authoritarianism in eastern Europe. It’s fields feed the European continent and its pipelines keep Europe warm in the winter,” he said.
Zelenskiy, in turn, expressed hope that the U.S. would more actively participate in resolving a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 14,000 people in the past five years. Zelenskiy also said he still wanted to meet Trump in DC as long it would be productive. “I am ready to go tomorrow,” he said.
In addition to Zelenskiy, Pompeo is meeting Ukraine’s prime, foreign and defense ministers as well as civic leaders, and touring several Ukrainian Orthodox churches.
Trump is accused of obstructing Congress and abuse of office for withholding a White House meeting with Zelenskiy and critical military aid to the country in exchange for an investigation into Biden, a political rival, and his son, Hunter.
Ukraine has been an unwilling star in the impeachment proceedings, eager for good relations with Trump as it depends heavily on U.S. support to defend itself from Russian-backed separatists. Trump, who has still not granted Zelenskiy the White House meeting he craves, has offered that support to some degree. Although the military assistance was put on hold, it was eventually released after a whistleblower complaint brought the July 25 call to light. The Trump administration has also supplied Ukraine with lethal defense equipment, including Javelin anti-tank weapons.
Pompeo has stressed the importance of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, a sentiment long shared by Republicans and Democrats who see the former Soviet republic as a bulwark against Russian ambitions. But it’s a view that now has partisan overtones, with Democrats arguing that withholding aid from such a critical ally for political purposes is an impeachable offense.
The Senate is to vote on hearing impeachment witnesses later Friday. Democrats want to hear from former national security adviser John Bolton, whose forthcoming book reportedly says that Trump withheld the aid in exchange for a public pledge of a probe into the Bidens. That would back witnesses who testified before the House impeachment inquiry.
Ukraine has been a delicate subject for Pompeo, who last weekend  lashed out at a National Public Radio reporter for asking why he has not publicly defended the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. She was removed from her post after unsubstantiated allegations were made against her by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani.
Pompeo has been criticized for not publicly supporting Yovanovitch, her now-departed successor as chief of the Kyiv embassy, William Taylor, and other diplomats who testified before House impeachment investigators. Yovanovitch and Taylor have been attacked by Trump supporters and, in some cases, have been accused of disloyalty.
In the NPR interview, Pompeo took umbrage when asked if he owed Yovanovitch an apology, and maintained that he had defended all of his employees. In an angry encounter after the interview, he also questioned if Americans actually cared about Ukraine, according to NPR.
That comment prompted Taylor and Pompeo’s former special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who also testified to the impeachment panel, to write opinion pieces discussing the importance of the country to U.S. national security and why Pompeo should be explaining its role to Americans as their top diplomat.
Pompeo brushed aside his reported comment, telling reporters aboard his plane that “of course, the American people care about the people of Ukraine” and said his message to American diplomats in Ukraine would be the same he gives to those at other embassies.
“The message is very similar to every embassy that I get a chance to talk to when I travel,” he said. “I almost always meet with the team and tell them how much we love them, appreciate them, appreciate their family members and their sacrifice.”
He said he would “talk about the important work that the United States and Ukraine will continue to do together to fight corruption inside of that country and to ensure that America provides the support that the Ukrainian people need to ensure that they have a free and independent nation.”
Pompeo twice postponed earlier planned trips to Ukraine, most recently in early January when developments with Iran forced him to cancel. Pompeo said he plans to discuss the issue of corruption but demurred when asked if he would specifically raise the Bidens or the energy company Burisma, for which Hunter Biden worked.
“I don’t want to talk about particular individuals. It’s not worth it,” he told reporters. “It’s a long list in Ukraine of corrupt individuals and a long history there. And President Zelenskiy has told us he’s committed to it. The actions he’s taken so far demonstrate that, and I look forward to having a conversation about that with him as well.”
Pompeo traveled to Kyiv  from London, which was the first stop on a trip to Europe and Central Asia that will also take him to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. 
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Surrounded by the millions of monarch butterflies that Mexican environmental activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez fought to protect until his mysterious death, relatives and friends paid tribute to him Thursday.Gomez Gonzalez’s sudden disappearance two weeks ago had sparked an outcry in Mexico, an increasingly violent country where activists are routinely threatened, harmed or killed as a result of their work.Gomez Gonzalez, who worked passionately to protect a Mexican forest where monarch butterflies spend the winter, suffered head trauma as well as drowning, authorities announced Thursday night, potentially adding weight to the fears that he was murdered.Rebeca Valencia Gonzalez holds a picture of her husband, environmental activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez, in their home in Ocampo, Michoacan state, Mexico, Jan. 30, 2020.Even before the announcement, relatives of Gomez Gonzalez speculated his death wasn’t accidental.“Something strange is happening, because they’re finishing off all the activists, the people who are doing something for society,” the dead man’s brother, Amado Gomez, said Thursday at the funeral.Gomez Gonzalez’s body was discovered Wednesday in a holding pond near the mountain forest reserve that he had long protected. Michoacan state prosecutors said that an initial review indicated a drowning and found no signs of trauma, but their latest statement said more detailed autopsy results produced evidence of a head injury.Authorities gave no other information on the injury and did not say how it might have been inflicted. They said an investigation continued.Grinding poverty and gang violence fuel twin threats to the butterfly reserve — illegal logging and encroaching plantations of avocados. The latter is the only legal crop that provides a decent income in this region.Gomez Gonzalez had spent a decade working as an activist, though he became best known for posting mesmerizing videos of the black and orange insects on social media, urging Mexicans to treasure the El Rosario reserve, a world heritage site.Mourners pray around the coffin of environmental activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez at his wake in Ocampo, Michoacan state, Mexico, Jan. 30, 2020. The cause of the anti-logging activist’s death is under investigation.His brother said Gomez Gonzalez, an engineer, was so compelled to do something after the number of butterflies dropped dramatically that he eventually gave up his job to work on projects aimed at protecting them.“This was his passion,” his brother said. “He loved promoting the butterflies, filming them, researching them.”He also worked to persuade about 260 fellow communal land owners that they should replant trees on land cleared for corn plots. By local accounts, he managed to reforest about 150 hectares (370 acres) of previously cleared land.Like other places in the world, increasingly scarce water also plays a role in the conflict. Gomez Gonzalez and other communal land owners had asked the nearby town of Angangueo for payments in return for water they receive from clear mountain streams that survive only because the forests are protected.“A lot of the communal landowners fear that with his death, the forests are finished,” Amado Gomez said.“I would like to ask the authorities to do their job and do more to protect activists like my brother, because lately in Mexico a lot of activists have died,” he said. “With his death, not only my family lost a loved one; but the whole world, and the monarch butterfly and the forests lost, too.”Workers prepare a grave in the cemetery where environmental activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez was to be buried in Ocampo, Michoacan state, Mexico, Jan. 30, 2020.London-based Global Witness counted 15 killings of environmental activists in Mexico in 2017 and 14 in 2018. In an October 2019 report, Amnesty International said that 12 had been killed in the first nine months of that year.Millions of monarchs come to the forests of Michoacan and other nearby areas after making the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) migration from the United States and Canada. 
They need healthy tree cover to protect them from rain and cold weather.Reuters contributed to this report.
 
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Russian authorities Thursday pardoned and released an American-Israeli citizen jailed on drug charges, in a gesture timed with a visit by embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Moscow intended to focus on a new U.S.-backed peace plan for the Middle East.Naama Issachar, 27, a native of New Jersey who had moved to Israel, was serving 7½ years in prison for drug possession after border guards found 9 grams of hash in her bag during a changeover at a Moscow airport on her way from India to Israel.While the case instantly became a cause celebre in Israel — widely seen as an overly harsh sentence for a minor crime — it was only recently that Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled her release was imminent.“Everything will be OK,” Putin told Issachar’s mother, Yaffa, during a sideline meeting in Israel last week to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of a key Nazi death camp in World War II.Yet the timing of Putin’s decision to grant a pardon was riven with political implications.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, walk with Naama Issachar and her mother, Yaffa, after Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Naama a pardon, at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Jan. 30, 2020.Netanyahu visitIssachar’s release comes as Netanyahu is locked in a bitter yearlong struggle to maintain his hold on power while facing charges of criminal corruption. The Israeli leader was formally charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust by prosecutors this week.It also follows the White House’s unveiling of a new peace plan for the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict that U.S. President Donald Trump has controversially billed as “the deal of the century.”Israel’s Netanyahu has enthusiastically endorsed the proposal. The Palestinian leadership has rejected the deal outright.While Putin has yet to personally weigh in on the American proposal, initial reactions in Moscow underscored how the Kremlin is eager to build on its recent rise as a key power broker in Mideast regional politics.“We confirm our readiness to further constructive work towards the collective strengthening of efforts towards a complete resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in underscoring Russia’ delicate balance of alliances throughout the region.Situational leverageFrom the beginning, Issachar was seen as a bargaining chip in a larger political game involving Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv.Her initial arrest came as Russia was seeking extradition of Aleksei Burkov, an alleged Russian hacker accused of computer fraud by the U.S. government.Israel ultimately chose to turn over Burkov to U.S. authorities last November — a decision that seemed to have soured any chance of Issachar’s early release.Indeed, even among the celebrations of Issachar’s freedom Thursday, questions lingered: What might have prompted the exchange now? What changed? And what had Putin gained?For it was undoubtedly a boon to Netanyahu’s latest reelection bid, with Israelis headed to the polls again March 2 after three previous votes that ended in stalemate.Netanyahu thanked Putin for a “swift” decision to free Issachar. Further underlining the political timing of the pardon, Issachar joined Netanyahu on his government plane back to Israel.“We’re excited to see you. Now we go back home,” Netanyahu told the former prisoner, in a video posted to his official Twitter account.❤️?? pic.twitter.com/58UZwWaje3— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 30, 2020Back in Israel, media pundits suggested Netanyahu had secured Issachar’s release by granting Russia ownership of a Jerusalem site of importance to the Russian Orthodox Church, a key base of support for the Russian president.Fueling curiosity, the Kremlin released a statement in which Putin suggested the lead Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem had played a role, passing along a letter from Issachar’s mother.Meanwhile, in Russia, attention focused on the Kremlin leader’s other justifications for Issachar’s release.“She hadn’t even crossed the Russian border,” said Putin, a reference to the fact the small amount of hashish had been discovered while she was in an International airport transit zone.Despite the Kremlin insisting Issachar admit her guilt to gain pardon, the Russian leader seemed to back her lawyers view that no crime had actually been committed.“And so, was it a violation of the law or no?” political commentator Arkady Dubnov asked in a post to Facebook. К вопросу о милосердии президента РФ

https://echo.msk.ru/blog/dubnov/2579662-echo/

Пресс-служба Кремля опубликовала…Posted by Аркадий Дубнов on Thursday, January 30, 2020Meanwhile, there remained little clarity over Putin’s views on President Trump’s grand bargain aimed at settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the supposed reason for the trip.“In the end, who cares about this small stuff,” joked Matvei Ganapolsky, a commentator on the Echo of Moscow radio.He then stated the obvious.“Issachar needed to be freed, because she had become a drag on Russian-Israeli relations,” Ganapolsky said.
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An important financial operator for the Sinaloa Cartel and two other inmates facing extradition to the United States who escaped from a Mexico City prison were driven out of the penitentiary in a jail transport van, city officials said Thursday.The escape is feeding a debate over a judicial system that critics say is being manipulated to criminals’ advantage. Video of Wednesday’s escape show it occurred at 5:50 a.m. and yet supervisors were not alerted until 8 a.m.Officials in Mexico’s capital say city jails are not the appropriate facilities for high-value prisoners and that judges are allowing inmates to manipulate the system to be transferred to or remain in lower-security lockups.Mexico City Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said that at the end of the jail’s second shift, when a headcount is supposed to be taken at 7:45 a.m., the report was that nothing was amiss. The alarm was not raised until the next shift came on at 8 a.m.Ulises Lara, spokesman for the capital’s prosecutor’s office, said the preliminary investigation suggested eight jail workers did not follow procedures and thus allowed the escape.Icela Rodriguez said the jail’s director and head of security had been dismissed.FILE – Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a navy hanger in Mexico City, Mexico, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014.High-value escapeeThe biggest name among the escapees was Victor Manuel Felix Beltran, who was designated by the U.S. Treasury in 2015 under the Kingpin Act. The designation described him as a “high-ranking Sinaloa Cartel trafficker, who operates from Culiacan and Guadalajara.” It noted that he was the son of drug trafficker Victor Felix Felix, who moved cocaine and laundered money for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.The Mexico City prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Luis Fernando Meza Gonzalez and Yael Osuna Navarro were the other two escapees.Icela Rodriguez said the men’s cells were unlocked and they cut through a bar to drop down to a common area. They used wire cutters to cut through fencing at the top of a wall and drop into an outdoor jail yard. Then they used a ladder to scale a wall, cut through the wire at the top and get into a vehicle on the other side. The vehicle was still within the prison’s security perimeter and when it went through a guarded exit it was not opened as required by procedures.The guards driving the van had orders to transport another prisoner to a hospital and city surveillance cameras show the van driving to the hospital. However, they did not capture the moment in which the prisoners got out of the van, she said.Prisoners pick the prisonThe escape brought renewed attention to the issue of legal maneuvers that prisoners have employed to be in the penitentiary they desire.Felix Beltran entered the jail on Mexico City’s south side on Oct. 28, 2017, and was transferred to the maximum security Altiplano prison in Mexico state six days later, two years after Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped it through a tunnel.But on Nov. 9, 2018, a federal judge ordered that Felix Beltran be returned to Mexico City jail, said Icela Rodriguez.On Thursday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador recognized that the issue of prisoners blocking transfers was a problem.“They need to look at the issue of the appeals,” Lopez Obrador said. “There are hundreds of appeals like this, they don’t want to be moved to other prisons because they dominate inside or have communication with the outside.” He said the judiciary was looking into it.Challenging legal reformsMexico is engaged in a heated debate over whether changes are needed in legal reforms that gave more protections to suspects.Mexican prosecutors have complained the system is too lenient, and leaked copies of proposed reforms included less stringent limits on questionable evidence.But the judicial reforms also allowed inmates to file appeals against being transferred to other prisons, and in recent years authorities have blamed those appeals — and judges who grant them — for prison escapes, and deadly prison riots. Dangerous gang leaders have won court orders for transfers back to medium-security prisons that can’t safely hold them.That was the case in a 2016 riot at a prison in northern Mexico state of Nuevo Leon in which 49 prisoners died.Nuevo Leon Gov. Jaime Rodriguez said judicial reforms have given inmates greater ability to appeal transfer orders that could send them farther from their hometowns. The 2016 riot was alleged sparked by a member of the infamous Zetas drug cartel, Juan Pedro Zaldivar Farias, who had successfully fought to be moved to Topo Chico, and a rival gang leader at the prison had also won a similar appeal against transferring him elsewhere.“Basically this is creating the conflicts in the prisons,” Rodriguez said.Lopez Obrador and other officials have also criticized corruption in the judiciary branch that, along with lenient laws and ill-equipped prosecutors, have contributed to freeing suspects or allowing them to be transferred to less-secure prisons.On Wednesday, the federal judiciary council, an oversight body, announced the 6-month suspension of a federal judge who is being investigated an almost surreal allegations of malfeasance.The council said the judge is accused of employing family members in his court, sexually harassing workers, threatening to kill one who refused to resign, and using court employees to launder money and perform personal services like cooking, cleaning and driving him around.
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An hour’s train ride from the European Union’s headquarters, where the bloc’s British lawmakers and staffers packed up to leave, businesswoman Meriela Masson pondered Brexit during a quick smoke outside her Paris office.Parisian businesswoman Meriela Masson says she hasn’t had time to think of Brexit. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)”Unfortunately, I don’t have time to think of it,” Masson said of Britain’s departure from the EU, which becomes reality at midnight Friday in Brussels. “I don’t follow the news regarding Brexit, so I have no clue what to think about it.”If Britain’s departure from the EU amounts to a political earthquake in Brussels, the aftershock is less intense in other European capitals.Europeans feel sadness, but they are also watching Brexit unfold with “a sort of fatigue,” said analyst Elvire Fabry of the Jacques Delores Institute, a Paris research group.”It was more perceived as a deep political crisis within the U.K., than a real negotiation between the U.K. and EU,” she said, as the protracted talks wound out.  Now, as Europe moves from saying goodbye to Britain to carving out a new and potentially rocky post-Brexit relationship, ordinary Europeans face many unknowns.   Student Adolphine Nsimba exits a Paris M&S food store, one of Britain’s many marks on Europe. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Will fishermen and farmers lose out on a lucrative British market? Will drivers and passengers be stuck in unending customs lines?”I hope it won’t penalize France,” said student Adolphine Nsimba, 25, as she exited an M&S food market in Paris — another sign of Britain’s imprint on Europe, along with craft beer and afternoon tea. “I have friends and family in England, and I don’t want to apply for a visa to go there.”Outside the Gare du Nord station, where London-bound Eurostar trains depart every 30 minutes, truck driver Pierre Weillart voiced similar fears. He spends many workdays moving refrigerated goods by road through the Channel Tunnel to Britain.”We’re worried about customs,” he said. “It could lose a lot of time.”Soul-searchingBrexit is also sparking soul-searching among some Europeans about what is broken in a political and economic union born from the ashes of World War II.”We European decision-makers must realize that if an increasing number of our fellow citizens have turned their back on the European project, it’s for a reason,” said Philippe Lamberts, an EU Greens Party lawmaker from Belgium. “It’s because many believe that too often, policies adopted at the European level have served the few rather than the many.”A Paris kiosok bears a magazine cover bidding farewell to Britain. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Lamberts’ remarks came as the European Parliament voted to formally approve Brexit on Wednesday. As many lamented Britain’s departure from the bloc, euroskeptic parties cheered it on. “Brexit is the victory of the common people against multinational corporations, special interests and other elites,” populist Finns Party lawmaker Laura Huhtasaari said. “The 2020s is the decade where the national state makes the ultimate comeback in Europe.”Euroskeptic parties gained ground during last year’s European Parliament elections. In France, the far-right National Rally party led the overall vote with 23%, ahead of the ruling Centrist Party of President Emmanuel Macron.  A comeback for Europe?Pro-EU parties still won the majority of votes, and overall turnout hit a record high of more than 50%. Promises of a French-style Frexit or Italexit in Italy have faded.Analyst Elvire Fabry of the Jacques Delors Institute, named after a former European Commission president whose photo is to her left, says there is a feeling of fatigue regarding Brexit. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)”All the parties that are really critical toward the EU have changed their strategy a little,” Fabry said. “Instead of calling for a similar move out of the EU, they now want to change the EU from the inside.”Recent polls also show an uptick in citizen support. A 2019 Eurobarometer survey found Europeans view the bloc in a more positive light than at any other point in the last decade.”Brexit is a failure of Britain, not the European Union,” former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said.  Others see it as a failure of both.  Fabry, for one, disagrees. She believes Brexit has delivered a powerful and positive message that might prove useful for other tricky negotiations, including with China and the United States.”We happened to see a new kind of cohesion among the Europeans,” she said, describing the unity in Brexit negotiations that member states have not found on issues like immigration and defense. “We were expecting divisions and increasing criticism of the EU — but on the contrary.”
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A U.S. law firm that was hired for $12.5 million by a top official in Nicolas Maduro’s government has decided to dump the controversial Venezuelan client amid a major outcry by critics who accused it of carrying water for a socialist “dictator,” The Associated Press has learned.The AP reported Monday that Foley & Lardner had agreed to represent Maduro’s Inspector General Reinaldo Munoz. Filings with the Justice Department showed Foley & Lardner, which has offices in Washington, in turn paid $2 million to hire influential lobbyist Robert Stryk to help its client ease U.S. sanctions on Maduro’s government and engage the Trump administration in direct talks.Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott immediately decried the move, saying in a letter to the firm that he would urge his Senate colleagues to follow his lead and boycott the firm until it cut ties with the “dangerous dictator.”Three people familiar with the matter said Thursday that Foley was withdrawing from the case. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.Foley’s communications director, Dan Farrell, declined to comment.“I hope the last few days will serve as a lesson to any other lobbying firms, consultants or organizations that if you support Maduro and his gang of thugs I won’t stay quiet,” Scott said in an emailed statement to AP.A senior Venezuelan government official said the reversal wouldn’t discourage the Maduro government from seeking honest dialogue with the Trump administration. The official spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.The outreach by Maduro’s government came as criticism has also been directed at U.S. support for opposition leader Juan Guaido, whom the U.S. and about 60 other nations recognize as Venezuela’s rightful president.A year into the U.S.-backed campaign to oust Maduro, the embattled leader has successfully beaten back a coup attempt, mass protests and punishing U.S. sanctions that have cut off his government’s access to Western banks.Randy Brinson, a conservative activist from Alabama who has teamed up recently with an evangelical Venezuelan pastor to deliver humanitarian aid to the country, said regular Venezuelans would suffer the consequences of possible dialogue with Maduro being stymied.“It is unfortunate that the outreach has become so politicized,” said Brinson.Brinson said he met with Munoz on two occasions recently and considers him an “invaluable” ally in the humanitarian relief effort brokered between the Maduro government and pastor Javier Bertucci, a former presidential candidate.Stryk, a winemaker and former Republican aide who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Yountville, California, is one of the top lobbyists in Trump’s Washington.A former unpaid Trump campaign adviser on the West Coast, his firm, Sonoran Policy Group, had no reported lobbying from 2013 to 2016 but has billed more than $10.5 million to foreign clients since the start of 2017.Like Venezuela, many of the clients have bruised reputations in Washington or are under U.S. sanctions, such as the governments of Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior, which signed a $5.4 million contract in May 2017.Munoz’s contract with Foley, for a flat fee of $12.5 million, extended until May 10. Stryk’s share of the deal, as a consultant, was $2 million.Foley said in its filing that it received slightly more than $3 million in initial payments on behalf of Munoz from what appear to be two Hong Kong-registered companies. Its work was also to include discussions with officials at the U.S. Treasury Department and other U.S. agencies regarding sanctions against the Maduro government.  
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The border was drawn in 1921, splitting communities and sometimes property, as the British government sought to create a home for the majority Protestant population of Northern Ireland at a time when the largely Catholic Republic of Ireland won its independence.Today, that 310-mile (500-kilometer) frontier is largely invisible. The only way motorists know they have crossed into Northern Ireland is from the speed limit signs, which use miles per hour measurements, rather than the metric system used in the south. Keen observers might notice a slight change in the pavement as well.As Brexit takes effect Friday, residents on both sides of the border are concerned about protecting the relative peace and prosperity after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. That accord helped end three decades of sectarian violence between paramilitary groups that wanted to reunify Ireland and those who insisted the six counties of Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK.FILE – Lisa Partridge, 28, who grew up with the Protestant Loyal Orange Institution, is reflected in a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at the Orange Hall, in Portadown, Northern Ireland, Dec. 19, 2019.Lisa Partridge, a 28-year-old tour operator raised in a British military family, remembers how it was “completely normal to check under the family car for a bomb every morning before you went to school.””Nobody would want to go back to that life,” she said.Central to the deal was the fact that both the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland were EU members, which allowed authorities to tear down hated border posts that had slowed the passage of people and goods as police and soldiers tried to halt the flow of arms and militants. With the end of onerous border controls, trade flowed freely between north and south spurring economic development in both communities.The British and Irish governments have promised to preserve those gains, but people on both sides of the border are concerned that Brexit may re-ignite tensions.”Who’s to know what way it’s going to go?” said Gary Ferguson, 27, as he milked the cows on his father’s farm. “It’ll make us or break us.”Signs of the conflict, known here as “The Troubles,” are still evident, even if rust and moss have softened their hard edges.In the village of Belcoo in Northern Ireland, an old railway bridge blown up by the British army sits partially submerged in the river that separates Northern Ireland from the town of Blacklion in the Irish Republic. An old customs post splits the small village of Pettigo between north and south. In Belfast, “peace walls” still seek to prevent violence by separating Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods.FILE – An old railway bridge blown up by the British Army in the 1970s is partially submerged in the Belcoo River that separates Northern Ireland from the town of Blacklion, Republic of Ireland, Dec. 23, 2019.To ensure there would be no hard border between north and south, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to different rules for trade between Northern Ireland and the EU than those that apply to the rest of the UK.Unionists see this as weakening the ties between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., raising concerns that the reunification of Ireland is now more likely.In Portadown, the Protestant Orange Order still holds weekly protests to assert its British identity.”This is Britain. (It) says so on the map,” said David Reid, 33, walking in Belfast with his 1-year-old son in the shadow of a peace wall that separates his Protestant community from a Catholic one. “Me personally, it just doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you’re down in Ireland.”On the other side of the border in Castlefinn, in Ireland’s County Donegal, Tom Murray runs three pharmacies and says his primary goal is to protect the economic gains of the last two decades.FILE – Pharmacist Tom Murray, 46, stocks shelves at his pharmacy in Castlefinn, Ireland, just over the border from Northern Ireland, Dec. 23, 2019.”I think Ireland should always be a united country and should be free of the shackles of Britain,” said Murray, 46. “But at the same time, we have to accept that there’s 1 million people living a mile away who identify as British. I think we have to protect their identity, their culture, their Britishness every bit as much as we have to protect my Irishness. Otherwise it just won’t work.”Gerry Storey, 83, of the Holy Family Boxing Club in Belfast has been working to bridge the divide by bringing Protestant and Catholic youths together in the boxing ring.”When you come in here, you don’t talk politics. You don’t swear. And there’s no football jerseys,” Storey said. “In here everybody is treated fairly and squarely. And it doesn’t care who or what you are.”Ferguson, a fifth-generation Protestant dairy farmer in Stewartstown, Northern Ireland, agrees: “Irish, British, it doesn’t matter.””As long as the farming stays OK, that’s all,” he said. “And no wars start.”
 
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A man who tried to steal an original copy of the 1215 Magna Carta, considered to be one of the most important documents in the history of democracy, from an English cathedral was found guilty Thursday of criminal damage and attempted theft.Mark Royden, 47, had denied smashing a glass box housing the priceless manuscript in Salisbury Cathedral in southern England in 2018.Salisbury Crown Court heard he had set off a fire alarm in the cathedral cloisters before stunning visitors by hitting the glass case with a hammer, causing three holes in it and damage estimated at 14,000 pounds ($18,400).Failing to break through the safety glass, he tried to run out of the cathedral but was grabbed by maintenance workers and visitors, including an American tourist.The parchment, one of only four original copies still surviving, was not damaged.A key manuscript in English history, the Magna Carta is a charter of citizens’ rights curbing the arbitrary power of medieval kings which among other things guaranteed the right to a fair trial.King John agreed to place his seal on the document in June 1215 at Runnymede near Windsor, west of London, as a means of ending an uprising by rebel barons.Prosecutors said when questioned by police Royden had appeared to question the authenticity of the document.”The historical importance of the Magna Carta in establishing the right to justice cannot be overstated – which is somewhat ironic given Mark Royden’s repeated denials of his crime in the face of overwhelming evidence,” said Rob Welling of the Crown Prosecution Service.”Had he succeeded in taking it, Royden would have deprived the nation of what is said to be the most beautiful surviving copy from 1215.”Royden was released on bail and will be sentenced at a later date. The charter is back on display in Salisbury cathedral.
 
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The Perla family of El Salvador has slipped into a daily rhythm in Mexico while they wait for the U.S. to decide whether to grant them asylum.A modest home has replaced the tent they lived in at a migrant shelter. Their 7- and 5-year-old boys are in their second year of public school, and their third son is about to celebrate his second birthday in Tijuana.They were among the first migrants sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy that dramatically reshaped the scene at the U.S.-Mexico border by returning migrants to Mexico to wait out their U.S. asylum process.The practice initially targeted Central Americans but has expanded to other nationalities, excluding Mexicans, who are exempt. The Homeland Security Department said Wednesday that it started making Brazilians wait in Mexico.Today, a year after the policy began, many other migrants have given up and gone back to the home countries they fled.Others, like the Perlas, became entrenched in Mexican life.The system known as the Migrant Protection Protocols helped change Washington’s relationship with Mexico and made the neighbor a key ally in President Donald Trump’s efforts to turn away a surge of asylum seekers.The Perlas are faring better than most of the roughly 60,000 asylum-seekers, many of whom live in fear of being robbed, assaulted, raped or killed. Human Rights First, a group critical of the policy, has documented 816 public reports of violent crimes against those who were returned to Mexico.In this June 19, 2019, photo, Juan Carlos Perla, left, embraces his wife, Ruth Aracely Montoya in the entrance to their home in Tijuana, Mexico.Late last year, the body of a Salvadoran father of two was found dismembered in Tijuana. A Salvadoran woman was kidnapped into prostitution in Ciudad Juarez.Rapid expansion of the policy was key to a June agreement between the U.S. and Mexico that led Trump to suspend his threat of tariff increases. The Republican president said at the time that Mexico was doing more than Democrats to address illegal immigration.American officials praised President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s government last week after security forces repelled a caravan of Honduran migrants on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.“Mexico continues to be a true partner in addressing this regional crisis,” Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said on Twitter.U.S. border authorities say the policy has contributed to a sharp drop in illegal crossings, though legal challenges could modify or even block it. Immigration judges hear cases in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, while other asylum-seekers report to tent courts in the Texas cities of Laredo and Brownsville, where they are connected to judges by video.This month, judges in El Paso began hearing cases of people who were returned to Mexico through Nogales, Arizona, the last major corridor for illegal crossings where the policy hadn’t been adopted. This has forced migrants to traverse dangerous sections of Mexico and travel hundreds of miles to make court appearances.Richard Boren, a teacher, accompanied two Guatemalan women and their four children, ages 4 to 16, across an international bridge to their El Paso hearing. The Guatemalans traveled 13 hours by bus from the Arizona border.“I was really worried about them,” said Boren, 62, who met them after they were returned to Mexico through Arizona and reconnected with them for their first hearing.Of nearly 30,000 cases decided through December, only 187, or fewer than 1%, of asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico won their cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Lack of legal representation helps explain why. Fewer than 5% have lawyers.In this July 10, 2019, photo, Nahum Perla studies a map with his younger brother, Carlos Isai Perla, as their father, Juan Carlos Perla, right, gets ready to make the journey from their home in Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego for an asylum hearing.Juan Carlos Perla, 37, said all five legal-services agencies that U.S. authorities say provide free representation in San Diego declined to represent him. Many attorneys refuse to represent clients in Mexico.The Perlas abandoned their small bakery in El Salvador’s capital for Mexico in December 2018, arriving during a small window when the Mexican government issued one-year humanitarian visas with permission to work. The family told U.S. immigration authorities that they could not pay extortion fees to gangs in San Salvador.“We were told that if we did not pay the last two months, the next time they would come to our house not to beat us but to kill us,” Ruth Aracely Monroy, 26, Perla’s partner and mother to their children, told U.S. officials, according to a transcript. “We left to save our lives.”After bouncing around migrant shelters in Tijuana, they found a rental house for the equivalent of $65 a month an hour’s drive from downtown, where factories on the city’s east side give way to dairy farms and hillsides dotted with olive trees. The older boys walk one block to school in a densely packed neighborhood of concrete-block homes with satellite dishes on the roofs.Perla is grateful to be in Mexico, but grinding fear about the future has taken its toll on his health. “I am the driving force that keeps them from having to suffer from hunger,” he says.Monroy’s sister, brother-in-law and their children fled El Salvador and became neighbors in June. Their first court date was in December in San Diego.Perla earned enough at a factory that makes wood pallets to pay monthly rent with barely a week’s work, but he lost his job when his work permit expired. While he waits on a renewal, he scrapes by as a street vendor.The family appears to face long odds of winning asylum, especially without a lawyer. The grant rate for Salvadoran asylum-seekers is 18%, and cases involving gang violence can be among the most difficult.The family plans to take its chances and if they lose, try to return to Tijuana to live. Their sixth, and possibly final, hearing in San Diego is scheduled for March 26.“Mexico has been very kind,” Perla said.
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As Europe’s political establishment bids farewell to Britain and its EU membership with a mix of sorrow and some jubilation, many Europeans are not paying much attention this latest chapter of the very long process popularly known as “Brexit.” Lisa Bryant took the pulse of some Parisians, and filed this report for VOA from the French capital.
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In an effort to contain the coronavirus, Wuhan, the Chinese city of about 11 million people, has locked down thousands of foreigners, including African students, most on scholarships. They are now trapped in the city where the virus was first detected and continues to spread.Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Njomo arrived in Wuhan city last September.
He applied for a competitive scholarship to study administrative management and was awarded it after several attempts.
The new coronavirus emerged just when he was settling in at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. The WhatsApp group for Kenyan students in China stopped talking about academics, and started checking on each other and sharing information about the disease.
He says the death toll kept rising and before he knew it, the city was under lockdown.  He says he and his colleagues are afraid to circulate in the city.
“Some of them are very scared here in their rooms, like the whole day they remain indoors,” he said. “Those are the directions we have been given by the authorities here, to avoid much interaction.  If you pay much attention on that [the death toll], I don’t know what will happen to you because there is so much information from different people.  The more you listen to them, the more you pay attention, the more scared you become.”People wearing face masks walk down a deserted street in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province, Jan. 28, 2020.Njomo and his colleagues spoke to VOA via a WhatsApp call from a room they said they shared.
Some countries have started evacuating their many thousands of citizens stranded in Wuhan. Njomo and other Kenyans are still not sure of their fate but are hopeful.
“If a situation comes that we can be evacuated from Wuhan to a safer place, everybody will accept that. Maybe somewhere like the embassy, somewhere like Beijing is ok.  It’s not that far from Wuhan to Beijing, but I don’t know what plans our ambassador has for us,” he said.
John (not his real name), a final year student of engineering at Huazhong University, was meant to come home in the next couple of months.He questions Kenya’s capacity to deal with the virus if it made its way to the country and said he preferred they stay in China.”Of course everyone would love to go back home, but again you look at where your home is, and you are also not sure of your status regarding the disease,” he said. “To me, I think its better just to stay here and ensure that I am safe wherever I am because you might go back home and take it to everyone and as you know, at home, facilities are not that good to handle the situation.”Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says 85 Kenyans are stuck in Wuhan.
In a press statement, the ministry said the Kenyan Embassy in Beijing is in touch with the Kenyan citizens who have been affected by the lockdown in Wuhan.FILE – Kenya Airways planes are seen parked at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport near Nairobi, Kenya, Nov. 6, 2019.The Foreign Ministry warned Kenyans not to travel to China unless it was absolutely necessary.  
As some airlines suspended flights to China, Kenya Airways, the national carrier, said it will not suspend its flights to China.  The announcement came just after Kenyan Ambassador to China Sarah Serem called on the airline to stop flights to the country until the virus is contained.
At a briefing for journalists this week, Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director John Nkengasong said that if the virus makes its way to African countries, it would be hard to contain.
“The surveillance system is as good as the health system in member states, and we all know that we are at very different levels of strength in the member states. Some countries have very strong surveillance systems, some have weak surveillance systems and some, we are working with them to strengthen their systems there,” he said.Kenya reported Tuesday the first suspected case of coronavirus infection in January. The Ministry of Health said Thursday it sent samples to South Africa for further tests.
Sudan, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast are the other African countries that reported suspected cases.
 
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Russia and China are waging a “digital war” with fake news and disinformation to undermine democracy in Europe, and the European Union must develop tools to fight back, a top EU official said Thursday.European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova, who leads efforts to preserve democratic principles across the bloc, said the two countries have “weaponized information” and won’t back down until Europe stands up to them.”There are specific external actors, namely Russia and increasingly China, that are actively using disinformation and related interference tactics to undermine European democracy,” Jourova told a conference of disinformation experts and policymakers in Brussels.The two countries “will feel comfortable doing so until we demonstrate that we will not tolerate this aggression and interference,” she said.She said that “digital war” is a favored method of Russia and China because “they see that it’s efficient, it’s cheap, and I am not naive enough to believe that some talk will discourage them from doing that.”Jourova cited as examples the fake news reports from Russia surrounding the shooting down of a Malaysian airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 and in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury, England in 2018.Europe must find the best way to “defend ourselves and our territory and use the most efficient tools to do that,” including funding and new policies, she said.Experts at Thursday’s conference said Russia’s aim is to sow confusion and to undermine western organizations like the EU and NATO, while China uses more subtle methods, combined with a lot of money, to persuade decision-makers and influence policy. 
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European countries on Thursday stepped up efforts to contain the virus infecting central China, sending a plane to evacuate hundreds of Europeans from the country and halting even more flights to China. Italian authorities kept some 7,000 people on a cruise ship while they checked for a possible infection.An A380 plane took off from a former military airport at Beja, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Lisbon carrying just its pilots and crew.Captain Antonios Efthymiou said the flight was going first to Paris, to pick up a team of doctors and extra crew, before heading to Hanoi and then China. He told Portuguese media it would bring back about 350 Europeans. He said the crew would take special medical precautions but did not elaborate on them.Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said the flight was coordinated between European Union countries and Chinese authorities.China has reported 170 deaths and at least 7,800 infections from the virus that emerged in the central city of Wuhan. More people have now been infected by this coronavirus in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. Sports, transport and cultural events have been cancelled across the country, and over 50 million people are under a government lockdown in central China.In Europe, there have been 10 confirmed cases of the virus: five in France, four in Germany and one in Finland.Italian health authorities, meanwhile, were screening 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew aboard a cruise ship docked north of Rome after a passenger from Macao came down with flu-like symptoms, officials said Thursday.The Costa Crociere cruise line said the 54-year-old woman and her partner, who has no symptoms, were immediately put into isolation Wednesday and the case reported to Italian maritime authorities. Passengers of the Costa Smeralda were being kept on board Thursday pending checks to determine the type of virus.The ship had sailed from Mallorca, Spain, to Civitavecchia on a weeklong Mediterranean cruise but no passengers were allowed off for a planned walk in sunny Rome on Thursday.”All the planned mechanisms were activated. Health authorities are on board, doing checks,” Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Vincenzo Leone said at the port of Civitavecchia. “The situation is under control. There’s a security cordon on the dock.”The Czech Republic, meanwhile, announced it was stopping issuing visas to Chinese citizens due to the outbreak. More than 600,000 Chinese tourists are estimated to have visited the Czech Republic last year, especially its old-world capital city of Prague.On the retail front, Swedish furniture and home goods retailer IKEA announced all its stores in mainland China would remain closed to protect its customers and staff from the outbreak. The stores are a favorite haunt of Chinese city dwellers both for shopping and for hanging out.Scandinavian Airlines announced it was halting all its flights to Beijing and Shanghai due to the virus beginning Friday until Feb. 9th. SAS, which has 12 regular weekly flights from Scandinavia to China, said Thursday that ”the safety of our passengers and employees is our highest priority.”Spain’s Iberia national airline halted the three return flights a week it runs between Madrid and Shanghai because of the virus, a move it said would continue through the month of February.Those announcements followed earlier moves to halt or reduce flights to China by other European airlines, including British Airways, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Air France and KLM. 
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The European Parliament gave the green light for Britain’s departure from the European Union Wednesday evening, hours before Brexit becomes reality. The vote was overwhelming, 621 to 49, but it was an emotional departure.After being part of some sort of a European union for nearly half a century, it took only a few seconds for Britain to see its departure overwhelmingly approved by the European Parliament.The next step promises to be difficult, as Britain negotiates its future relationship the EU, especially on trade matters. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had this message for London:“It’s very clear the tradeoff is simple: The more united the United Kingdom does commit to uphold our standards for social protection and workers’ rights, our guarantees for the environment and other standards and rules ensuring fair competition, the closer and better the access to the single market,” she said.Emotional splitBut many lawmakers stuck to the emotional part of the split.“To all of you, I will say that I will miss you,” a French lawmaker said. “The EU will not be the same without you. My deep feeling is there is no good Brexit.”“If the British people ever decide to come back, our arms will be open,” a Spanish lawmaker said.Others warned that Britain’s departure should spark soul-searching about what is broken with the EU.“We European decisionmakers must realize that an increasing number of fellow citizens have turned their backs against the European projects, it’s for a reason,” a Belgian lawmaker said. “It’s because many believe that too often policies adopted at the European level have served the few rather than the many.”Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage along with other MEPs wave British flags ahead of a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement at the European Parliament in Brussels, Jan. 29, 2020.Leave vs RemainFor British Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and other populist lawmakers, it was a time for victory.“We love Europe, we just hate the European Union. … I’m hoping this begins the end of this project. It’s a bad project,” he said.But Britain’s Remain camp at the EU parliament vowed they would be back. Among them, Aileen McLeod, of the pro-independence Scottish National Party.  “Scotland is a European nation,” she said. “And I look forward to an independent Scotland rejoining the EU, and we will, soon…”Britain’s last day as an EU member is Friday. The British flag will be lowered at EU institutions. But in many ways, the farewell — with EU lawmakers locking arms and singing an old Scottish song — has already happened.
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European diplomats are sounding an upbeat note about coming trade talks with the United States, seemingly unfazed by President Donald Trump’s tough talk and tariff threats aimed at securing new concessions from the European Union.“When we fight, we make headlines,” said Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation in the United States, at a reception at his Washington residence last week. “But when we work together, we make history.”Trump set an ominous tone for the negotiations, which the Americans hope to conclude this year, during his Jan. 21 appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Noting a hard-won trade deal that settled only some of his country’s trade issues with Beijing, Trump suggested it will be even “more difficult to do business [with the EU] than China.”In his public remarks on the issue, Trump has focused on traditional areas of trade, including agriculture and automobiles, with repeated threats to boost tariffs on European vehicles.But the Europeans appear to likely to try to convince the Americans that the key to progress for the two traditional allies lies in closer cooperation in areas of high tech and cybersecurity.At his reception, Lambrinidis said there is “no question” the development of Artificial Intelligence will change the world as we know it. But he said the Western democracies should work together to develop the technology in ways that ensure it cannot be used for authoritarian purposes, as China is doing to control the Muslim Uighurs in its Xinjiang province.”Will Americans and Europeans get together and work on that, or will we miss the opportunity?” he asked.FILE – EU commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan arrives for the inaugural meeting of the college of commissioners, Dec. 4, 2019, at the European commission headquarters in Brussels.Guarding new frontiersPhil Hogan, the EU’s newly-minted trade commissioner, sounded a similar note in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington earlier this month.Calling the 2020s “a pivotal moment in time,” Hogan said the West faces “profound challenges, many of which are totally new,” and which could “shape, divide and diminish us” if the U.S. and the EU fail to address those challenges together.Trade politics has ceased to be “exclusively about trade,” Hogan said, arguing it has become “a proxy for security, technology, geopolitics and more.”“In particular,” he said, “trade has become a tool in the global struggle for technological supremacy.”Lambrinidis reminded his audience that the EU remains the largest source of foreign investment to the United States and that American companies place roughly 60% of their own foreign investment in Europe, reflecting their confidence in the EU’s open, free markets.FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he holds a news conference at the 50th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2020.The European Green DealAddressing another potential sore point in U.S.-EU relations, Lambrinidis defended Europe’s efforts to deal with climate change, and in particular the so-called European Green Deal, an ambitious program aimed at making the continent carbon-neutral by 2050.Trump was largely dismissive of such efforts at Davos, saying, “We must reject the perennial prophets of doom … [who] always demand the same thing — absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives.”But Lambrinidis cited the example of a plastic spoon, which he said takes five seconds to make and is used on average for five minutes, but takes five centuries to decompose. “How can you say we’re crazy, that this doesn’t matter?” he asked.The EU’s green agenda “will – with certainty – pose an enormous challenge” to the global trading system, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a native of Denmark and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.”But I actually think that is a price worth paying for,” he wrote in response to emailed questions from VOA. While free trade is about “maximizing efficiency and wealth creation,” he wrote, “climate change is about living on the planet as we know it.” 
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Britain’s departure from the European Union was backed by European lawmakers Wednesday, after a debate that mixed warm words of love with hard-headed warnings to the country not to seek too many concessions during upcoming trade talks on a future relationship.
    
The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved Britain’s departure terms from the EU, the final major decision in the four-year Brexit saga. The vote was 621 to 49 in favor of the Brexit deal that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson negotiated with the other 27 EU leaders in the fall of last year.
    
While backing Britain’s departure in the wake of the country’s vote to leave in a referendum in June 2016,  EU countries are already preparing for the possibility that talks on a new trade deal with Britain could collapse by the end of the year, and no-deal contingency planning for a chaotic end to the transition period is necessary.
    
After Britain’s departure on Friday, the U.K. will remain within the EU’s economic arrangements until the end of the year though it won’t have a say in policy as it will not be a member of the EU anymore.
    
“We will always love you and you will never be far,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on a day when some legislators were moved to tears.
    
Britain is the first country to leave the EU and for many in Europe its official departure at 11 p.m. London time on Friday, Jan. 31 is a moment of enormous sadness and reduces the number in the bloc to 27.
    
The parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said that “this vote is not an adieu,adding that it isonly an au revoir.”
    
With only two days to spare, legislators approved the withdrawal agreement that will end the 47-year membership of Britain. At the same time, the vote cut the 73 U.K. parliamentarians from the 751-seat legislature where die-hard Brexiteers have been a disruptive force for years.
    
“That’s it. It’s all over,” said Nigel Farage, who has campaigned for Brexit for two decades. On departing the scene, the man who arguably did more than anyone else to move the country to vote for Brexit waved Britain’s Union Flag.
    
Now, negotiations move on how to cooperate in the future. Britain is seeking to thrash out a comprehensive trade deal within 11 months.
    
That timetable is viewed as ambitious by many observers of trade discussions, which can often drag on for years.
   
 “We will not yield to any pressure,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. “The priority is to define, in the short, medium and long term the interests of the European Union and to preserve them.”
    
The EU has said such a timespan is far too short and fears remain that a chaotic exit, averted this week, might still happen at the end of the year if the transition ends without any agreement in place.
   
 “The urgency of the 11 months of the calendar should in no way lead us to rush, to accept compromises that would hurt our interests,” said Macron’s Europe minister, Amelie de Monchalin.  “A trade accord is an agreement that lasts for several decades and we should ensure that we always put fundamental issues of content before calendar issues.’’   
 
Even though the European Commission’s task force, led by Michel Barnier, is negotiating on the EU’s behalf, the impact of major nations like France and Germany on those talks is important.
    
De Montchalin said that unless Britain asks to extend the transition period before the summer, both sides will be facing a cliff-edge scenario by the end of the year where borders could be closed, tariffs imposed and rules changed overnight, to the detriment of smooth trade.
   
“That’s why we had long discussions this morning on the need to prepare for such a scenario, through contingency measures that we have to keep active to be ready for all eventual scenarios,” de Montchalin said in Paris.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a rare warning to Moscow to rein in the Syrian government’s Idlib offensive. The capture of a critical town Wednesday by regime forces is stoking fears in Ankara of a new exodus of refugees into Turkey.Erdogan, returning from a three-day tour of Africa, accused Moscow of reneging on agreements on Syria and issued an ultimatum.
    
“We have waited until now, but from this point, we are going to take our own action. This is not a threat, but our expectation is that Russia will give the regime the necessary warning,” said Erdogan.The warning came as Syrian government forces captured the rebel-held town of Marat al-Numan. The government offensive, backed by Russian air power, is advancing deeper into Idlib province, the last bastion of rebel forces and home to 3 million people.Erdogan claims the offensive violates last year’s agreement, hammered out with Moscow to protect the province. But Moscow insists the attack is targeting only terrorists, which the deal allows.  FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference ahead of a visit to Algeria, at Ataturk airport in Istanbul, Turkey, January 26, 2020.”Russia tells us they fight against terrorism. Who are terrorists? The people fighting to defend their own lands?” Erdogan said Wednesday, dismissing Moscow claims.Underlining Ankara’s stance, a large convoy of Turkish forces entered Idlib on Tuesday to reinforce its military presence. Under an agreement with Moscow, Turkey has 12 observation posts to monitor a de-escalation zone aimed at preventing hostilities between the rebels and Syrian forces.”Without the Russian air force, Turkey could easily take out the Assad forces,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “They don’t have the stamina or forces to resist a well-armed and trained army backed by the Syrian militia.”Experts warn Turkish forces in Syria are vulnerable, however, given the lack of air support, with Russian anti-aircraft missiles controlling Syrian airspace.Differing interestsAnkara also has memories of the economic pain Moscow inflicted on Turkey through sanctions, following the 2015 downing of a Russian bomber by a Turkish fighter jet.”Turkey is stuck; this is the problem. Russia is the key for Turkey to resolving Syria because Ankara can’t risk a military confrontation,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.”But I think Putin and Erdogan’s interpretations of interests are differing more than before, and it’s not a good development [for Ankara].”FILE – People walk past destruction by government airstrikes in the town of Ariha, in Idlib province, Syria, Jan. 15, 2020.While Ankara and Moscow back rival sides in the Syrian civil war, they have been working together to resolve the conflict — a cooperation that is providing the basis of a deeper rapprochement between the countries.   
    
Analysts suggest that, given the alarm in NATO of Turkey’s deepening ties with Russia, Moscow has a powerful incentive for containing bilateral tensions.”The different approaches towards the regime of [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad of Moscow and Ankara is a real challenge,” said Zaur Gasimov, a Russian expert at the University of Bonn. “But due to certain dynamics in the region of the Middle East, the importance of intensive cooperation between Russia and Turkey is still much more important than any sort of confrontation for Moscow.”Moscow appears to be trying to play down tensions over Idlib.”Russia is committed to the strict implementation of its obligations undertaken in Syria,” said a Russian foreign ministry statement Wednesday in reaction to Erdogan’s criticisms.Syrian refugeesHowever, the fate of the rebel-held city of Idlib is seen as a red line for Ankara.  “My impression is that he [Assad] wants to lay siege to Idlib city, and that’s where the real headache starts for Ankara,” said Yesilada. “Because there are already a half-million refugees huddled on our border, and if Idlib comes under attack, another half-million goes to border.”Syrians drive through the city of al-Mastouma, in Idlib province, as they flee a government offensive, Jan. 28, 2020.Turkey has been hosting more than 3.5 million Syrians, with its “open-door policy” to those seeking refuge from the civil war. But Erdogan is warning his country cannot take any more refugees.  Ankara claims the cost of hosting Syrians is more than $40 billion. Mounting public discontent is cited as the driver behind the defeats suffered by Erdogan’s AKP in last year’s local elections. The prospect of a new exodus from Idlib could be politically fatal for the Turkish president.”All the polls show a deep distaste for Syrians, given the economic difficulties in Turkey,” said Yesilada. “They drive the wages down; there are social problems. If you take another half-a-million refugees in or try to feed them across the border in Syria, it’s going to be a major blow to Erdogan’s popularity, which is already sinking, because his open-door policy has completely backfired.”At this month’s opening ceremony in Istanbul of a new Russian natural gas pipeline, Erdogan described Russian relations as “strategic.” But the deepening crisis in Idlib is likely to add to increasing questions over the price of that relationship.”Turkey needs Russia desperately in Syria. Without Russian cooperation, Idlib cannot be solved. But this relationship is not one of equals. There is a significant imbalance, the more this goes on, the more the question can be asked what is Turkey getting out of this,” said Turkish analyst Mehmet Ogutcu of the London Energy Club.
 
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The United Nations has been hacked.An internal confidential document from the United Nations, leaked to The New Humanitarian and seen by The Associated Press, says that dozens of servers were “compromised” at offices in Geneva and Vienna.Those include the U.N. human rights office, which has often been a lightning rod of criticism from autocratic governments for its calling-out of rights abuses.One U.N. official told the AP that the hack, which was first detected over the summer, appeared “sophisticated” and that the extent of the damage remains unclear, especially in terms of personal, secret or compromising information that may have been stolen. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to speak freely about the episode, said systems have since been reinforced.The level of sophistication was so high that it was possible a state-backed actor might have been behind it, the official said.There were conflicting accounts about the significance of the incursion.“We were hacked,” U.N. human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville. “We face daily attempts to get into our computer systems. This time, they managed, but it did not get very far. Nothing confidential was compromised.”The breach, at least at the human rights office, appears to have been limited to the so-called active directory – including a staff list and details like e-mail addresses – but not access to passwords. No domain administration’s account was compromised, officials said.The United Nations headquarters in New York as well as the U.N.’s sprawling Palais des Nations compound in Geneva, its European headquarters, did not immediately respond to questions from the AP about the incident.Sensitive information at the human rights office about possible war criminals in the Syrian conflict and perpetrators of Myanmar’s crackdown against Rohingya Muslims were not compromised, because it is held in extremely secure conditions, the official said.The internal document from the U.N. Office of Information and Technology said 42 servers were “compromised” and another 25 were deemed “suspicious,” nearly all at the sprawling United Nations offices in Geneva and Vienna. Three of the “compromised” servers belonged to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is located across town from the main U.N. office in Geneva, and two were used by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe.Technicians at the United Nations office in Geneva, the world body’s European hub, on at least two occasions worked through weekends in recent months to isolate the local U.N. data center from the Internet, re-write passwords and ensure the systems were clean.The hack comes amid rising concerns about computer or mobile phone vulnerabilities, both for large organizations like governments and the U.N. as well as for individuals and businesses.Last week, U.N. human rights experts asked the U.S. government to investigate a suspected Saudi hack that may have siphoned data from the personal smartphone of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post, in 2018. On Tuesday, the New York Times’s bureau chief in Beirut, Ben Hubbard, said technology researchers suspected an attempted intrusion into his phone around the same time.The United Nations, and its human rights office, is particularly sensitive, and could be a tempting target. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and her predecessors have called out, denounced and criticized alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and less severe rights violations and abuses in places as diverse as Syria and Saudi Arabia.Dozens of independent human rights experts who work with the U.N. human rights office have greater leeway – and fewer political and financial ties to the governments that fund the United Nations and make up its membership – to denounce alleged rights abuses.Jake Williams, CEO of data firm Rendition Infosec and former U.S. government hacker, said of the U.N. report: “The intrusion definitely looks like espionage.”He noted that accounts from three different domains were compromised. “This, coupled with the relatively small number of infected machines, is highly suggestive of espionage,” he said after viewing the report.“The attackers have a goal in mind and are deploying malware to machines that they believe serve some purpose for them,” he added.The U.N. document highlights a vulnerability in the software program Microsoft Sharepoint, which could have been used for the hack.Matt Suiche, a French entrepreneur based in Dubai who founded cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, said that based on the report from September: “It is impossible to know if it was a targeted attack or just some random internet scan for vulnerable SharePoints.”But the U.N. official, speaking to The Associated Press on Tuesday, said that since then, the intrusion appeared sophisticated.“It’s as if someone were walking in the sand, and swept up their tracks with a broom afterward,” the official said. “There’s not even a trace of a clean-up.”
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The BBC said on Wednesday it will cut around 450 jobs from its news division as part of an 80 million pound savings drive and modernization program.The corporation said it would reorganize its newsroom along a “story-led” model where staff will be assigned to stories and not attached to individual programs.
“We need to reshape BBC News for the next decade in a way which saves substantial amounts of money,” said Fran Unsworth, director of News and Current Affairs. “We are spending too much of our resources on traditional linear broadcasting and not enough on digital.”
  
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A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba on Tuesday, shaking a vast area from Mexico to Florida and beyond, but there were no reports of casualties or heavy damage.
    
The quake was centered 139 kilometers (86 miles) northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 140 kilometers (87 miles) west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It hit at 2:10 p.m. (1910 GMT) and the epicenter was a relatively shallow 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the surface.
    
Dr. Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba’s National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported on the island.
    
The Cayman Islands were rocked by several of the strong aftershocks that followed in the area, including one measured at magnitude 6.1. Water was cut off to much of Grand Cayman Island, and public schools were canceled for Wednesday.
    
Gov. Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez of Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, which is home to Cancun, Tulum and other popular beach resorts, said the earthquake was felt in multiple parts of the low-lying Caribbean state but there were no reports of damage or injuries.
    
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned that the quake could generate waves 1 to 3 feet above normal in Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Honduras, Mexico and Belize, but issued a later message saying the danger had passed.
    
The quake was felt strongly in Santiago, the largest city in eastern Cuba, said Belkis Guerrero, who works in a Roman Catholic cultural center in the center of Santiago.
    
“We were all sitting and we felt the chairs move,’ she said. “We heard the noise of everything moving around.”
    
She said there was no apparent damage in the heart of the colonial city.
    
“It felt very strong but it doesn’t look like anything happened, “she told The Associated Press.
    It was also felt a little farther east at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the southeastern coast of the island. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damages, said J. Overton, a spokesman for the installation, which has a total population of about 6,000 people.
    
Several South Florida buildings were evacuated as a precaution, according to city of Miami and Miami-Dade County officials. No injuries or road closures were reported. No shaking was felt at the Hard Rock stadium in Miami Gardens, which will host the Super Bowl on Sunday.
    
In the Cayman Islands, the quake left cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from cracked mains. There were no reports of injuries or more severe damage, said Kevin Morales, editor-in-chief of the Cayman Compass newspaper.
    
The islands experience so few earthquakes that newsroom staff were puzzled when it hit, he said.
    
“It was just like a big dump truck was rolling past,” Morales said. “Then it continued and got more intense.”
    
Dr. Stenette Davis, a psychiatrist at a Cayman Islands hospital, said he saw manhole covers blown off by the force of the quake, and sewage exploding into the street, but no more serious damage.
    
Claude Diedrick, 71, who owns a fencing business in Montego Bay, said he was sitting in his vehicle reading when the earth began to sway.
    
“It felt to me like I was on a bridge and like there were two or three heavy trucks and the bridge was rocking but there were no trucks,” he said.
    
He said he had seen no damage around his home in northern Jamaica.
    
Mexico’s National Seismological Service reported that the quake was felt in five states including as far away as Veracruz, on the country’s Gulf Coast.
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An Istanbul court has defied the European Court of Human Rights, ruling in favor of the continued detention of prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala. In December, the European Court demanded the immediate release of Kavala, who is on trial for sedition.Kavala and 15 other civil society activists are accused of supporting anti-government protests in 2013 against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now president.  The protest action came to be known as the Gezi movement, named after an Istanbul park where the unrest started. Prosecutors are calling for life imprisonment without parole.The ECHR condemned the case, calling for an end to Kavala’s more than two years in prison and describing it as “arbitrary” and “politically motivated.”The Istanbul court ruled Tuesday the ECHR decision was provisional because Ankara was appealing the verdict and that Kavala should remain in jail.”The court’s decision is flawed because the European Court ruling was clear in its call for Kavala’s immediate release,” said Emma Sinclair Webb, Turkey researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.”We saw multiple signs of how unfair this trial is,” said Webb, speaking after attending Tuesday’s court hearing. “The lawyers for Kavala raised many objections to the way witness evidence is used in this case. The court turns a deaf ear to all objections. It’s a shocking indication that once again, Turkey’s judiciary seems to be under heavy pressure of the executive.”Tuesday’s court hearing was marred by chaos, with Kavala’s lawyers challenging the judge’s decision to hear some witnesses without their presence, prompting the lawyers to walk out of the room.  Ankara strongly rejects the ECHR verdict, maintaining that the judiciary is independent. But observers note the case has strong political undertones.  Three months ahead of Kavala’s prosecution, Erdogan accused him of “financing terrorists” and that Kavala was a representative for “that famous Jew [George Soros,] who tries to divide and tear up nations.” Erdogan did not elaborate on the comments about George Soros, who is an international philanthropist.Erdogan’s allegations against Kavala resemble the prosecution case against the jailed activist.Kavala is a pivotal figure in Turkey, using his wealth to help develop the country’s fledgling civil society after a 1980 military coup.
 
“Osman Kavala is very prominent within the civil society in this country,” said Sinan Gokcen, Turkey representative of Swedish-based Civil Rights Defenders. “He is not a man of antagonism; he is a man of preaching dialogue, a man of building bridges.”FILE – Lawyers for jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala hold a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 31, 2018.Gokcen works to support Turkish human rights defenders and says Kavala’s prosecution has far-reaching repercussions for civic society.”It means that they [the Turkish government] can detain any member of civil society in Turkey regardless of what this person is defending or advocating and can keep this person as long as they want despite any legal mechanism. We feel unprotected. In a way, we feel powerless to end such a situation. We feel powerless and intimidated,” added Gokcen.Turkey is in the grip of a legal crackdown following a 2016 failed coup blamed by the president on dissident military elements with links to Turkish-Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in the United States and is a staunch opponent of Erdogan.Hundreds of journalists, human rights defenders and members of the wider Turkish civic society have been prosecuted and jailed. The government says it is defending democracy, but critics argue the crackdown is more about silencing critics.Human Rights Watch Monday called on the United Nations to review Turkey’s “human rights crisis and the dramatic erosion of its rule of law framework.” On Tuesday, Turkey faced its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.Ankara claims it remains committed to human rights and cites its plans to introduce a package of legal reforms. But critics cite the ongoing prosecutions as evidence of the government’s real intentions.”The huge number of journalists, politicians, and perceived government critics in prison and on trial flies in the face of the Turkish government’s public statements about the state of human rights in the country,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.With the U.N. having few tools to sanction Turkey, the European Union is seen as offering the best hope by human rights advocates of applying pressure on Ankara.Turkey’s EU membership bid is already frozen, in part due to human rights concerns. But Ankara is seeking to extend a customs union, along with visa-free travel for its citizens with the EU.  “It’s time all European countries should be speaking out very loud and clear on cases like this [Kavala],” said Sinclair-Webb.But even high-profile cases like Kavala’s have seen Brussels offer only muted criticism of Ankara. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Istanbul Friday for talks with Erdogan saw little criticism of Turkey’s human rights record. Instead, discussions focused on Ankara’s recent deployment of soldiers to Libya and the upholding of an EU-Turkish agreement controlling migrants entering Europe.”There are many issues to talk about with Turkey,” said Sinclair Webb. “Syria, Libya, Turkey, hosting so many refugees from Syria, and this often takes priority over Turkey’s domestic human rights crisis. This means there isn’t sufficient clarity on cases like this. What we are seeing is Turkey defying Europe’s human rights court.”
 
Some analysts suggest Brussels could yet be lobbying behind the scenes for Kavala’s release, tying Ankara’s calls for extra financial assistance for refugees to gestures on human rights. 
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A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba on Tuesday, shaking a vast area from Mexico to Florida and beyond, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or heavy damage.The quake was centered 139 kilometers (86 miles) northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 140 kilometers (87 miles) west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It hit at 2:10 p.m. (1910 GMT) and the epicenter was a relatively shallow 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the surface.Dr. Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba’s National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported.The quake was felt strongly in Santiago, the largest city in eastern Cuba, said Belkis Guerrero, who works in a Roman Catholic cultural center in the center of Santiago.”We were all sitting and we felt the chairs move,” she said. “We heard the noise of everything moving around.”She said there was no apparent damage in the heart of the colonial city.”It felt very strong but it doesn’t look like anything happened,” she told The Associated Press.It was also felt a little farther east at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the southeastern coast of the island. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damages, said J. Overton, a spokesman for the installation, which has a total population of about 6,000 people.Several South Florida buildings were evacuated as a precaujtion, according to city of Miami and Miami-Dade County officials. No injuries or road closures had been reported.The quake also hit the Cayman Islands, leaving cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from cracked mains. There were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or more severe damage, said Kevin Morales, editor-in-chief of the Cayman Compass newspaper.Witness reportsThe islands experience so few earthquakes that newsroom staff were puzzled when it hit, he said.”It was just like a big dump truck was rolling past,” Morales said. “Then it continued and got more intense.”Dr. Stenette Davis, a psychiatrist at a Cayman Islands hospital, said she saw manhole covers blown off by the force of the quake, and sewage exploding into the street, but no more serious damage.Claude Diedrick, 71, who owns a fencing business in Montego Bay, said he was sitting in his vehicle reading when the earth began to sway.”It felt to me like I was on a bridge and like there were two or three heavy trucks and the bridge was rocking but there were no trucks,” he said.He said he had seen no damage around his home in northern Jamaica.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake could generate waves 1 to 3 feet above normal in Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Honduras, Mexico and Belize.The USGS initially reported the magnitude at 7.3.
 
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In a groundbreaking case in France, energy giant Total is being sued for allegedly failing to adequately fight climate change.The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by environmental groups and local authorities who feel it has potential global implications.The legal action against Total will be the first use of a 2017 French law to sue for climate inaction. The legislation requires major French companies to draft so-called “vigilance plans” to prevent environmental damage, among other areas. The plaintiffs said Total has not done so when it comes to climate change.  “We’re filing a lawsuit against them because they’re still not making the energy transition necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” said Paul Mougeolle, who represents Notre Affaire a Tous, an environmental NGO that has filed a separate climate action case against the French government.  “Total has 1% of greenhouse gases worldwide — more than the carbon footprint of France,” Mougeolle said. “So, we think Total has a special responsibility towards this energy transition.”Fourteen local authorities and five civil society groups have joined the Total lawsuit, which reflects a broader grass-roots uprising on climate in Europe and elsewhere.  This alliance said companies that contribute to climate change should help pay the price for mitigating it and dealing with the consequences.France’s central Val de Loire region is part of the lawsuit.Regional councilor Benoit Faucheaux describes last summer’s devastating drought, which dried up rivers in his region of central France. Experts said climate change will make such droughts longer, more frequent and more devastating.  “We hope Total will change its business model, that it will shift from that situation where it produces energy and fossil energies (to) another model where they are involved in energy transition,” Faucheaux said.Sebastien Mabile of Seattle Advocates law group, which has taken on the case, is uncertain about its chances — because it’s a legal first. But if it succeeds, he said, its impact could be big.  “Because Total … operates in 130 countries,” Mabile said. “So, this case can have implications all over the world, such as the U.S., Africa, in all of the oil and gas basins.”Total faces a separate but somewhat similar lawsuit for allegedly failing to plan for potential human and environmental impacts of an Ugandan oil project. The company did not respond VOA’s requests for comment.
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The U.S. Geological Survey says a powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake has struck south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica.
It was centered 125 kilometers north-northwest of Lucea, Jamaica, and hit at 2:10 p.m. (1910 GMT) Tuesday. The epicenter was a relatively shallow 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the surface.
It’s not immediately clear if there are damage or injuries.
The USGS initially reported the magnitude at 7.3.
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