French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped Tuesday while shaking hands across a barrier in a small southeastern French town.
Video from the scene showed Macron striding toward a small crowd of people waiting behind a barrier. According to Reuters, as Macron reached out to shake hands, a man in the crowd shouted “A bas la Macronie” (Down with Macronia) and slapped Macron in the face.#Macron se fait gifler en direct de #Tainpic.twitter.com/tsXdByo22U— ⚜️ (@AlexpLille) June 8, 2021The president was swept away by security, and the man was seized immediately. French news agency Agence France-Presse quoted the local prosecutor’s office as saying two men in their 20s were brought in for questioning. No motive for the slap was provided.
Macron had just finished touring a high school in the village of Tain-l’Hermitage in the Drome region.
He resumed walking the streets and meeting with local residents a short time later.
Later Tuesday, while speaking before the National Assembly in Paris, French Prime Minister Jean Castex told members of Parliament the attack on Macron was an attack on democracy itself.
“Democracy, as you are demonstrating, is about debate, dialogue, the face-off of ideas, the expression of legitimate disagreement, of course. But it can be in no case about violence,” he told lawmakers.
Macron received an outpouring of support from across the French political spectrum. AFP reported that Jean-Luc Melenchon, a far-left leader in Parliament, said he stood “in solidarity with the president,” while far-right politician Marine Le Pen called the slap “unacceptable and profoundly reprehensible in a democracy.”
The president’s office described his tour of southern France as a “listening tour” designed to “get the pulse of the country” as the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering its final stages. Macron is up for reelection next year.
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Month: June 2021
Tigray War Exposes Limits to Abiy’s Promises of Press Freedom
In September 2019, Simon Marks moved to Ethiopia, drawn by the rapid changes following its shift in leadership and declaration of peace with neighboring Eritrea after a war and decades of tensions. Since then, he has reported on the widespread optimism after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the human cost of the war in Tigray.Freelance journalist Simon Marks (Courtesy Photo)But on May 20, Ethiopia expelled Marks from the country. The freelancer, who reports for The New York Times and Voice of America among others, is the latest casualty in what many journalists and rights groups say is a limited tolerance for critical reporting on the Tigray conflict.Since November, the Ethiopian government has been fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, a regional political party that led the country’s ruling coalition for nearly 30 years. The war has displaced tens of thousands of people and left millions in need of humanitarian aid, the United Nations says. Journalists and human rights groups have alleged serious abuses: mass killings, gang rapes, violence. Victims’ accounts predominately blame Ethiopian soldiers, the Amhara regional militias and Eritrean forces fighting in the region. The U.N. human rights chief has said that “serious violations of international law” may have been committed by Ethiopia, Eritrea and the TPLF. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
But rights groups have pointed out that when Abiy faced protests or unrest, he fell back to the same past patterns of arrests and censorship.In 2020, the government adopted a new version of the anti-terror legislation, despite criticism from human rights and free speech advocates.Muthoki Mumo, the sub-Saharan Africa representative for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said earlier optimism has been tempered by a return to old ways.“What we’ve seen,” Mumo said, “is a steady erosion of some of the (progress) made in early 2018.”“The legislative commitments, the commitments to make legislative reforms were still there,” she said. “But then suddenly we started seeing a regression to old styles, old tools of dealing with the media, censoring the media essentially.”Freelance journalist Lucy Kassa (Courtesy Photo)The pressure from the government has driven some local journalists to publish stories without bylines or even to flee. One of those is freelance reporter Lucy Kassa.In February, Freelance journalist Lucy Kassa says her home in Addis Ababa was raided by three armed men dressed in civilian clothes. The aftermath of that raid is seen in this photo from WhatsApp. (Courtesy image)The journalist said she and others are being harassed online and threatened on social media by people accusing them of being TPLF sympathizers, anti-government, fake news and propaganda.All local journalists work in an uncertain environment, but Tigrayan media come under extra scrutiny, Lucy said.“Whether you like it or not, you will be defined by your ethnic background. For Tigrayans, for those who come from Tigrayan ethnic background, the pressure is much worse,” she said.Lucy said the men who came into her home tried to link her ethnicity to her reporting, saying that because she is Tigrayan, she supports the TPLF.Marks also said reporting deemed sympathetic to Tigrayans could lead to accusations of bias.“All of a sudden it makes you a TPLF sympathizer, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.The freelancer added that local reporters risk tougher consequences, including imprisonment.‘Grave message’The erosion of media rights has “accelerated” over the past six months, with arrests of journalists or media workers who help foreign media “and intimidation coming from that regulator,” said Mumo, of CPJ.“It does send one very grave and cohesive message of ‘be careful of what you’re reporting,’” Mumo said.Marks’ expulsion has had an impact on foreign and local journalists, she said, adding that it sends a message: If this can happen to a foreign correspondent, “what could potentially happen to me?”It also makes independent journalism harder.It’s much more difficult to report on a country when you’re not there to see people’s faces, to interview them, to speak with sources in a safe manner, particularly in the context of internet shutdowns,” she told VOA.Marks says the experiences of local journalists make his being expelled relative.“Many others take much bigger risks than I take, especially the local reporters,” he told VOA. “Many have called me since I’ve been deported to say they are fearful that they can no longer really do their job.”The impact, Marks said, will be a lack of information for those who need it.“The spillover effects from something like this, which are going to hurt in the end, is the public’s right to know and hold their leaders accountable,” he said.
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Europe’s Spring Coldest Since 2013, UN Climate Agency Says
The World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations climate agency, reported Tuesday that Europe saw its coldest March through May since 2013, with temperatures 0.45 C below the 1991-2020 average.During a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis cautioned that Europe’s cool start did not reflect any pause in the world’s climate change problems.In fact, data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service show that the global average temperature for May was 0.26 C higher than the 1991-2020 mean, according to the U.N. News website. Greenhouse Gases Threaten Ocean Ecosystems: WMOThe ocean absorbs around 23 percent of the annual atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide and acts as a buffer against climate changeAlso according to U.N. News: “Temperatures were well above average over western Greenland, north Africa, the Middle East and northern and western Russia while below-average May temperatures were reported over the southern and central United States, parts of northern Canada, south-central Africa, most of India, eastern Russia, and eastern Antarctica.” Nullis said there was also “quite a considerable rise” in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory, an atmospheric monitoring station operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Hawaii.She said, “The fact CO2 does have such a long lifetime in the atmosphere does mean that future generations — and we’re not just talking about one or two, we’re talking about many generations — will be committed to seeing more impacts of climate change.” Nullis warned rising CO2 levels will also have a “very serious impact” on the planet’s oceans, which absorb almost a quarter of CO2 emissions.
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US, Mexico Expand Cooperation on Development Programs in Northern Triangle
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met Tuesday with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City in her continuing effort to curb the surge of migrants to the southwestern U.S. border by bolstering economic conditions in Central America.Harris and Lopez Obrador watched as aides signed a “memorandum of understanding” to “establish a strategic partnership to cooperate on development programs in the Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Tens of thousands of their citizens have left home to trek through Mexico to try to get into the United States in recent months, with more than 178,000 migrants reaching the U.S. border in April, nearly half from Central America.Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media, June 8, 2021, at the Sofitel Mexico City Reforma in Mexico City.Harris, on her first foreign trip as vice president, had a blunt message Monday for Latin American migrants as she visited Guatemala: “Do not come.” She said the U.S. was “not afraid” to enforce its immigration laws and stop people at the border, but U.S. President Joe Biden has allowed unaccompanied migrant children to stay in the United States, unlike former President Doanld Trump, who expelled them.
López Obrador, responding to a shouted question from a reporter whether Mexico was willing to increase its immigration enforcement, said he and Harris “will be touching on that subject, but always addressing the fundamental root causes” of the surge in migrants.Harris, according to her spokeswoman, told the Mexican leader in their private talks that the U.S. will make new efforts to increase economic investment in southern Mexico, including loans for affordable housing.In addition, the U.S. has committed about $130 million over the next three years to support workers and labor reforms. Harris told Lopez Obrador the U.S. would provide more forensic and law enforcement training in Mexico to help resolve more than 82,000 cases of missing persons and disappearances, a key concern for the Mexican leader.After meeting with Lopez Obrador, Harris is talking with female entrepreneurs and holding a roundtable with labor workers.Ricardo Zuniga, U.S. President Joe Biden’s special envoy for the Northern Triangle, speaks with the media in San Salvador, El Salvador on May 12, 2021.Ricardo Zúñiga, U.S. special envoy for the Northern Triangle, told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s meetings that the United States and Mexico “have not had this level of cooperation in Central America before.”
“The main thing is that it’s very important to show that the United States and Mexico are collaborating and trying to improve conditions on the ground among our neighbors because of the importance that the countries in Central America have for both of us,” Zúñiga said. “We’re both destination countries for migration from Central America, and we both have some of the same issues trying to ensure that we have legal paths for migration and temporary labor.”
Harris’s talks in Mexico were similar to those in Guatemala, where she emphasized “the power of hope” along with new efforts to fight corruption.
“I am here because the root causes are my highest priority in terms of addressing the issue, and we need to deal with it, both in terms of the poverty we are seeing, the hunger that we are seeing, the effects of the hurricanes and the extreme climate conditions, what we are seeing in terms of the pandemic,” Harris told reporters.
Harris’ trip is fraught with U.S. political implications, though, as Republicans blame Biden and Harris for the surge in migrants trying to cross the country’s southwestern border with Mexico.Vice President Kamala Harris, right, listens as women speak to her about their businesses during a meeting with Guatemalan women entrepreneurs and innovators at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, June 7, 2021, in Guatemala City.At a news conference in Guatemala City, Harris deflected a question about when she would visit the border, even though she has said she would at some point.
At a recent news conference, some Republicans displayed a milk carton depicting Harris with the headline: “MISSING AT THE BORDER.”
She told NBC in an interview before leaving for Mexico that aside from not visiting the U.S.-Mexican border, she also has not been to Europe as vice president.
“I care about what’s happening at the border,” she said. “I’m in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration. There may be some who think that that is not important, but it is my firm belief that if we care about what’s happening at the border, we better care about the root causes and address them. And so that’s what I’m doing.”
But Harris said that even with her efforts to improve living and economic conditions in Mexico and Central America, “We are not going to see an immediate return. But we’re going to see progress. The real work is going to take time to manifest itself. Will it be worth it? Yes. Will it take some time? Yes.”
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Infection Numbers Continue to Decline, but COVID-19 Response Team Warns About Variants
While coronavirus infection rates and hospitalizations continue to plummet across the United States, the White House COVID-19 Response Team said Tuesday the Delta variant strain of the virus that causes the disease still poses a threat, particularly among the younger population.
During the response team’s regular virtual news briefing, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters the latest daily average of new cases over the past week fell by 30% to 13,277 cases, and 90% since the start of the year. She said it was also the lowest daily average since March of last year.
She said hospitalizations are also down again this week and have fallen by about 83% since the year began. She credited these encouraging numbers to people getting vaccinated and cited a new CDC study released Tuesday showing the effectiveness of the shots.Report: US-Commissioned Study Found Coronavirus Could Have Leaked From Chinese LabWall Street Journal says a California laboratory concluded in 2020 that the theory of the COVID-19 pandemic originating in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan is plausible and deserved further investigation
The White House’s top adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said, however, variant strains of the virus continue to pose a threat — particularly what is known as the Delta variant, originally identified in India.
Fauci said the Delta variant has become the dominant strain in Britain, and most of those cases are in young people.
Fauci said the variant currently accounts for 6% of the new cases in the United States, and he stressed the need to get young people in the U.S. vaccinated to prevent what happened in Britain. He said studies have shown both current COVID-19 vaccines are most effective against the virus once both doses are received.
With less than a month to go, U.S. President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70% of the U.S. to have at least one dose of vaccine by July 4th may be in jeopardy. The Washington Post reported Monday that vaccination rates have fallen below one million a day, a significant decline from the peak of 3.4 million per day in April.
White House COVID Response Team Coordinator Andy Slavitt said the administration is doing all it can to encourage people to get vaccinated, particularly minority communities, including opening pop-up vaccination centers requiring no appointment, and coordinating efforts through community centers and faith-based organizations.
Slavitt was hosting his last news briefing, as he is leaving the White House effective Wednesday.
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Aqua Gym Rides Wave of Enthusiasm on Senegal Beach
A seaside aqua fitness workout isn’t just about exercise, water, sun and sea breezes. It also provides a way to recover from injury and to find camaraderie, as Allison Lékogo Fernandes discovered, filing this report from Senegal.Camera: Mbaye Ndir
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Journalists Who Fled Myanmar Find Third-Country Refuge
Three journalists from military-ruled Myanmar who were convicted of illegal entry after they fled to Thailand have been sent to a third country where they are safe, their employer said Monday.The three staff members of the Democratic Voice of Burma, better known as DVB, were arrested on May 9 in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai along with two other people from Myanmar described as activists. On May 28, they each were fined $128 (4,000 baht) and sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment, suspended for a year.Rights groups and journalists’ associations had urged Thai authorities not to send them back to Myanmar, where it was feared their safety would be at risk from the authorities. Thailand’s government has relatively cordial relations with Myanmar’s military regime.Myanmar’s junta seized power in February by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and has attempted to crush widespread opposition to its takeover with a brutal crackdown that has left hundreds dead. The junta has tried to silence independent news media by withdrawing their licenses and by arresting journalists.All five people convicted in Chiang Mai of illegal entry left Thailand recently for the third country, DVB’s executive director and chief editor, Aye Chan Naing, said in an emailed statement. Without elaborating, he said he could not mention where they had been sent “as the entire case remains very sensitive.”
He expressed gratitude to “everyone in Thailand and around the world that helped to make their safe passage possible and for campaigning for a positive outcome,” and he said the employees would resume their duties in the near future after “recovering from their ordeal.”At least two other DVB journalists have been sentenced to prison for their reporting. DVB, an independent broadcast and online news agency, was among five local media outlets that were banned in March from broadcasting or publishing after their licenses were canceled. Like other banned media outlets, it continued operating.According to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, about 90 journalists have been arrested since the takeover, with more than half still in detention, and 33 in hiding. Those still being held include two U.S. citizens, Danny Fenster and Nathan Maung, who worked for Myanmar media.Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has had contact with Maung in detention but has not yet had consular access to Fenster. “We are pressing this in every way that we can,” Blinken said in congressional testimony Monday in Washington.He reiterated the U.S. was working on trying to bring the detained journalists home.Fenster, the managing editor of the news and business magazine Frontier Myanmar, was detained at the Yangon airport while trying to head to the Detroit area to see his family.Maung is editor in chief of the Myanmar news website Kamayut Media. New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, citing accounts in Myanmar media, said Maung was arrested in March.
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France’s Macron Slapped During Walkabout
French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped in the face on Tuesday by a man in a crowd of onlookers while on a walkabout in southern France, video of the incident showed.Macron’s security entourage quickly intervened to pull the man to the ground and move Macron away from him. Two people were arrested in connection with the incident, broadcasters BFM TV and RMC radio reported.#Macron se fait gifler en direct de #Tainpic.twitter.com/tsXdByo22U— ⚜️ (@AlexpLille) June 8, 2021French Prime Minister Jean Castex said the incident was an affront to democracy.The incident took place while Macron was on a visit to the Drome region in south-eastern France, where he met restaurateurs and students to talk about how life is returning to normal after the COVID-19 epidemic.In video circulating on social media, Macron, dressed in shirt sleeves, could be seen walking towards a crowd of well-wishers who were behind a metal barrier.The French president reached out his hand to greet one man, in a green T-Shirt, with glasses and a face mask.The man could be heard shouting out “Down with Macronia” (“A Bas La Macronie”) and then he delivered a slap to Macron’s face.Two of Macron’s security detail tackled the man in the green T-shirt, while another ushered Macron away. But Macron remained in the vicinity of the crowd for a few more seconds, and appeared to be talking to someone on the other side of the barriers.The presidential administration said there had been an attempt to strike Macron, but declined further comment.The identify of the man who slapped Macron, and his motives, were unclear. While slapping the president, he could be heard shouting “Montjoie Saint Denis,” which was the battle cry of the French armies when the country was still a monarchy.
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Report: US-Commissioned Study Found Coronavirus Could Have Leaked From Chinese Lab
The Wall Street Journal says a report issued by a U.S. government laboratory last year concluded that a theory that the COVID-19 pandemic originated due to a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan is plausible and deserved further investigation.The classified report, prepared in May 2020 by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, was used by the U.S. State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic’s origins during the final months of the Trump administration.The Journal said Lawrence Livermore has considerable expertise on biological issues, and drew its assessment on genomic analysis of the version of the SARS virus which causes COVID-19.U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered the national intelligence community to investigate the origins of the virus. Intelligence agencies are considering whether COVID-19 was triggered by a laboratory accident or emerged from human contact with an infected animal.In other news, Agence France Presse is reporting that China has approved emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine for children as young as three years old, making it the first country to offer the vaccine to young children.A spokesperson for Chinese-based pharmaceutical company Sinovac told AFP its vaccine has been approved for emergency use for children between three and 17 years old. But the spokesperson did not confirm when the shots would be administered to the age group, saying the schedule will be decided by the National Health Commission “according to China’s current epidemic prevention and control needs and vaccine supply.”The company has completed early phase trials of the vaccine in children and adolescents, with results to be published shortly in the Lancet scientific journal, the spokesman added.
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Thousands of Children Separated from Parents Under Trump’s Zero-Tolerance Policy ID’d
The Biden administration has identified more than 3,900 children who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy.Officials said Tuesday its Family Reunification Task Force identified 3,913 children, almost all of whom were separated from July 1, 2017 to the end of Trump’s presidency in January.The task force report provides one of the most detailed accounts of a policy that was widely denounced.Although the task force said it identified “nearly all” the children, it also said it would review an additional 1,723 cases that would raise the total closer to the American Civil Liberty Union’s tally of 5,636.The difference appears to be primarily due to a federal court decision in the Pacific coast U.S. city of San Diego that omitted 1,723 children for reasons unrelated to Trump’s zero-tolerance policy.The task force said it would also seek to verify if children were separated during the first six months of Trump’s presidency, which began in January 2017. That period was not included in the ACLU lawsuit.The Biden administration has promised to reunite children who are still separated from their parents, but the pace has so far been slow.
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Internet Outage Hits Major Websites
A number of major websites could not be reached early Tuesday because of an outage at the cloud services company Fastly.The affected sites included news agencies CNN, The Guardian and The New York Times, streaming platform Twitch, and the British government website. All were back online within a period of hours.The outage also forced CNN’s website offline in the Asian cities of Hong Kong and Singapore. There was little mention of the outage on social media platforms in China, where most foreign media websites are permanently blocked.About an hour after acknowledging the problem, Fastly said, “The issue has been identified, and a fix has been applied.”The company said a service configuration issue caused the disruptions, suggesting it was an internal glitch.Based in San Francisco, California, Fastly is a content-delivery network that provides cloud computing servers to many popular internet sites.The servers store images, video and other content in various places around the world to be closer to users. Closer proximity to the servers enables users to access content more quickly.The outage occurred about a month after a cyberattack caused the largest fuel pipeline operator in the United States to stop operating for six days.
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UN Court to Rule on Bosnia War Crimes Appeal
U.N. judges are set to rule Tuesday on former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic’s appeal of his 2017 conviction for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mladic, 78, was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of leading the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, and of terror and unlawful attacks against civilians in Sarajevo during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. Mladic maintains his innocence. His lawyers argued that his conviction was based on what they say were legal and factual mistakes, and that he should be acquitted or re-tried because others were responsible for atrocities. Prosecutors have also appealed Mladic’s acquittal on another genocide charge related to the conflict. In 2016, Mladic’s political chief Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of similar charges and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for masterminding atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces. A United Nations court later increased Karadzic’s term to life in prison in 2019.Karadzic Appeals Sentence, Gets More Time in Prison
A United Nations court has increased the sentence to life in prison for convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic, after hearing his appeal of the original sentence.Karadzic, 73, was in court in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday appealing his original sentence of 40 years for organizing mass killings in the Bosnian War, which lasted from 1992 to 1995. He was also appealing his 2016 convictions of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, for ordering the July 1995 mass killing of 8…
Dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia” Mladic and Karadzic are accused of taking part during the war that claimed the lives of about 100,000 people.
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N. Korean Leader Kim Jong-un Discussed Economic Policy with Senior Advisors
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gathered his senior advisors Monday to discuss his economic policies ahead of a key meeting of the North’s ruling party. State-owned Korean Central News Agency released a statement and said Kim laid out a plan to usher in “tangible change in stabilizing” the state economy and people’s living conditions. The statement did not provide any specifics of Kim Jong Un’s plans. The ruling Workers’ Party powerful Central Committee is set to meet in early June to review overall state affairs for the first half of 2021 and to determine what measures to enact to solve pending economic issues. According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, an unnamed official in the South’s Unification Ministry says Monday’s meeting marked the first time the North has held such a consultative meeting under the current leader. North Korea’s economy has been crippled by decades of mismanagement, U.S.-led economic sanctions over the North’s nuclear weapons program, and strict border controls it imposed at the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The secretive regime has yet to confirm any COVID-19 cases.
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More than 200 Suspects Arrested Across Australia in Crackdown on Organized Crime
More than 200 people were arrested in Australia Tuesday as part of a major crackdown on an organized crime ring that stretches across several continents. A joint three-year operation called Operation Ironside conducted by the Australian Federal Police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation involved the monitoring of a once-secret encrypted app called ANOM which was popular with members of organized crime. Agents uncovered vast information while monitoring the site about the global illicit drug trade across Asia, South America and the Middle East and Australia, as well as 20 plots to commit murder. Australian officials announced Tuesday in Sydney that 224 people were arrested the day before on a total of 526 charges in each state. More than 4,000 Australian federal, state and local police officers also seized nearly four metric tons of drugs, more than 100 weapons and nearly $35 million in cash during the nationwide raids. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Operation Ironside delivered “a heavy blow” that will “echo around organized crime around the world.” “This is a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history,” Morrison said. In neighboring New Zealand, 35 people were arrested Tuesday as part of Operation Ironside.
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US, Mexico to Expand Cooperation Development Programs in Northern Triangle
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says she will discuss Mexico’s role in the region as she meets with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City on Tuesday as part of her trip focused on addressing a rise in migration to the southern U.S. border. Speaking to reporters late Monday, Harris mentioned the close partnership between the neighboring countries and said Tuesday’s agenda would also include economic engagement and cooperation regarding COVID-19 vaccines. U.S. officials said Harris and López Obrador will witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding regarding cooperation on development programs in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Ricardo Zúñiga, U.S. special envoy for the Northern Triangle, told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s meetings the United States and Mexico “have not had this level of cooperation in Central America before.” “The main thing is that it’s very important to show that the United States and Mexico are collaborating and trying to improve conditions on the ground among our neighbors because of the importance that the countries in Central America have for both of us,” Zúñiga said. “We’re both destination countries for migration from Central America, and we both have some of the same issues trying to ensure that we have legal paths for migration and temporary labor.” While in Mexico City, Harris will hold talks with entrepreneurs and labor leaders as well. She carried out a similar schedule Monday in Guatemala, where she emphasized “the power of hope” along with new efforts to fight corruption and persuade Latin Americans to stay home rather than attempt the dangerous migration north to the United States. “I am here because the root causes are my highest priority in terms of addressing the issue, and we need to deal with it, both in terms of the poverty we are seeing, the hunger that we are seeing, the effects of the hurricanes and the extreme climate conditions, what we are seeing in terms of the pandemic,” Harris told reporters. In her first foreign trip as the U.S. second in command, Harris said at a news conference in Guatemala City that Latin Americans “don’t want to leave the country where they grew up.” But she said people in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, along with Mexico, need economic development that promises a better life than trying to move to the United States. Vice President Kamala Harris and Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei pose for an official photograph, June 7, 2021, at the National Palace in Guatemala City.Harris said that “help is on the way,” with Washington aid and private investments encouraged by the U.S. government in agriculture, housing and businesses. “We have reason to believe we can have an impact,” she said. But Harris also sent a warning to Guatemalans: “Do not come” to the United States. “We’re not afraid to enforce our laws and borders,” she said. Harris held what she described as “very frank, very candid” talks with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei about corruption in his country, pressing the need for “a strong court system” and civil governance. Shortly after she met with the Guatemalan leader, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in Washington the creation of a law enforcement task force aimed at fighting human trafficking and smuggling groups in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries. “We are creating this task force to address corruption, to address human smuggling — doing the work to make sure certain progress be made if we are going to attract investment,” Harris said. She said the task force would combine resources from the Justice, State and Treasury departments. At the news conference, Giammattei blamed drug traffickers for corruption. He said the United States and Guatemala agreed to create a “very simple process” through visas to permit regular migration to the United States, and that the two countries would prioritize family reunifications. He also announced a new processing center for migrants sent back from Mexico and the United States. Besides meeting with Giammattei, Harris participated in a roundtable with Guatemalan community and civil society leaders and then met with young innovators and entrepreneurs, including several female entrepreneurs. “This afternoon, I got to see what students in Guatemala are working on in the lab — and hear about how local entrepreneurs are growing their local economies. Around the world, innovators and entrepreneurs create economic opportunity. We must support them,” Harris tweeted late Monday. Harris’ trip is fraught with U.S. political implications, with Republicans blaming President Joe Biden and Harris for the surge in migrants trying to cross the country’s southwestern border with Mexico. In the most recent count, U.S. border agents faced 178,000 migrants at the border in April, 44% of them from Central America. At her news conference, Harris deflected a question about when she would visit the border, even though she has said she would at some point. At a recent news conference, some Republicans displayed a milk carton depicting Harris with the headline: “MISSING AT THE BORDER.” When asked about Republican criticism that she is not doing enough, Harris said Monday that she is focused on stemming migration as “opposed to grand gestures.” Biden has tasked Harris with leading the effort to address the root causes behind the increase in the number of migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border. Ahead of her trip, Harris announced $310 million in U.S. aid to support refugees and deal with food shortages. She also recently won commitments from U.S. companies and organizations to invest in Central American countries to promote economic opportunity and job training. The United States also said last week it would send 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to Guatemala and 1 million to Mexico.
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US Republicans Vow to Oppose Yellen’s G-7 Tax Deal, Casting Doubt on Its Future
Several top U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday rejected Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s G-7 deal to impose a global minimum corporate tax and allow more countries to tax big multinational firms, raising questions about the United States’ ability to implement a broader global agreement. The opposition from Republicans may push President Joe Biden to attempt to use budget procedures to pass the initiatives with only Democratic votes. It left lawyers and tax experts in Washington wondering whether it could get done without crafting a new international treaty, which requires approval by a two-thirds majority in the evenly split 100-member Senate. “It’s wrong for the United States,” Republican Senator John Barrasso said of the tax deal struck Saturday by finance ministers from the G-7 wealthy democracies. “I think it’s going to be anti-competitive, anti-U.S., harmful for us as we try to continue to grow the economy and certainly at a time when we’re coming out of a pandemic,” Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Republican Conference, told reporters at the U.S. Capitol. Landmark deal In the landmark agreement, G-7 finance ministers agreed to pursue a global minimum tax rate of at least 15% and to allow market countries to tax up to 20% of the excess profits — above a 10% margin — of about 100 large high-profit companies. Yellen said the “significant, unprecedented commitment” would end what she called a race to the bottom on global taxation. In exchange, G-7 countries agreed to end digital services taxes, but the timing for that is dependent on the new rules being implemented. The deal could pave the way for broader buy-in by G-20 countries and some 140 economies participating in international negotiations over how to tax large technology firms such as Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. All are expected to be included in the new broader mechanism, which is targeted for a final international agreement in October. Republican Senator Pat Toomey said the deal would drain tax revenues away from the U.S. Treasury to other countries, adding that he hoped some Democrats would be unwilling “to subject the American economy to this kind of misery.” “There will be no Republican support for this, and they’ll have to do this on a party-line vote. That needs to fail,” Toomey told Fox Business Network. Treaty or not Daniel Bunn, an international tax expert at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank in Washington, said he believed that establishing new taxing rights on 100 multinational firms would require a new tax treaty. The U.S. Constitution gives the president the right to make international treaties “if two-thirds of Senators present concur.” U.S. participation in some international treaties has been hampered by domestic partisan divides in which a president approves the deals, but Congress does not ratify them. Manal Corwin, head of KPMG’s Washington National Tax Practice and a former U.S. Treasury official, said Yellen’s G-7 deal could be done through legislation that overrides existing bilateral tax treaties, using a simple majority as part of budget reconciliation procedures. With Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking vote, Democrats control 51 votes in the Senate but cannot afford to lose any Democratic votes. ‘A lot of heavy lifting’ Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, when asked how much can be done with the budget reconciliation procedures and what would require a supermajority vote, said: “Those are all questions that lawyers are now immersed in.” Wyden, who chairs the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, told reporters that deterring the use of tax-haven countries and ensuring minimum levels of corporate taxation were “in the long-term interest of American workers.” “There’s a lot of heavy lifting to do here,” Wyden added. “It’s going to take a number of months, that’s for sure.” Toomey, who sits on the Finance Committee, said he believed Democrats could push through the tax changes with only Democratic votes, without a treaty, but added that would require the United States to “surrender” and agree not to oppose changes imposed by other countries.
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Trial Begins for Professor Accused of Hiding Ties to China
A jury trial began Monday in the case of a University of Tennessee professor charged with hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving research grants from the federal government.The trial in Knoxville federal court is scheduled to continue Tuesday.Anming Hu, an associate professor in the department of mechanical, aerospace and biomedical engineering at the university’s flagship Knoxville campus, was charged in February 2020 with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements.After the indictment was announced, the university said Hu had been suspended and that school officials had cooperated with authorities.Hu has pleaded not guilty. In a court filing, Hu’s attorney, Philip Lomonaco, said the Department of Justice “wanted a feather in its cap with an economic espionage case, so they ignored the facts and the law, destroyed the career of a professor with three PhDs in nanotechnology and now expects the court to follow their narrative.”The charges are part of a broader Justice Department crackdown against university researchers who conceal their ties to Chinese institutions, with a Harvard chemistry professor arrested in the past on similar charges. Federal officials have also asserted that Beijing is intent on stealing intellectual property from America’s colleges and universities, and have actively been warning schools to be on alert against espionage attempts.Prosecutors say Hu defrauded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by failing to disclose the fact that he was also a professor at the Beijing University of Technology in China. Under federal law, NASA cannot fund or give grant money to Chinese-owned companies or universities.According to the indictment, as the University of Tennessee was preparing a proposal on Hu’s behalf for a NASA-funded project, Hu provided false assurances to the school that he was not part of any business collaboration involving China.In addition, prosecutors say, a curriculum vitae that Hu submitted when he applied for a tenured faculty position with the university omitted any affiliation with the Beijing university.The indictment said Hu sent emails stating he was a professor at the Beijing school and taught special seminars for graduate students in laser engineering. Hu knowingly caused the Tennessee university to falsely certify to NASA and the agency’s contractors that the university was complying with the funding restriction, the indictment said.”NASA would not have awarded NASA-funded projects to Hu,” the indictment said.NASA wired UT nearly $60,000 in 2016 and 2017 for a project involving the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, the indictment said. NASA would pay another $50,000 in 2019 for a project involving the Marshall Space Flight Center, the indictment said.
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Kenya Looks to Maintain Zero Rhino Poaching Record
Kenya’s Wildlife Service says for the first time in 21 years not a single rhinoceros was poached in the country’s national parks in 2020. To maintain the progress, it is conducting the first ever wildlife census and placing mobile container housing in parks for rangers. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Robert Lutta
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German Military Solves Alcohol Problem in Afghanistan
The German Defense Ministry said Monday it had been forced to deal with an unexpected problem regarding their troops in Afghanistan — a surplus of beer. At a news briefing in Berlin on Monday, Defense Ministry spokeswoman Christina Routsi explained that Germany’s troops in Afghanistan had been permitted to consume alcohol at times and in limited quantities. Soldiers were allowed two cans of beer — or the equivalent in other beverages — per day. But Germany’s commander of its armed forces in Afghanistan, citing a high enemy threat level, banned all consumption of alcohol. Routsi said this created a problem for the German military, as there was already a large quantity of alcohol in the country for the troops. She said under the stationing agreement between Germany and Afghanistan, the import of alcohol into the country is prohibited, with the exception of Camp Marmal, the German base in Afghanistan. Alcohol cannot be sold in Afghanistan, due to local religious restrictions, or destroyed for environmental reasons. Routsi said the military had to hire a civilian contractor to take the 22,600 liters of alcohol — including almost 60,000 cans of beer — out of the country ahead of the German troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan as the NATO mission in the country ends in the coming months. The German army said the contractor will sell the beer elsewhere, which should cover the cost of transporting it out of Afghanistan.
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US Highlights Commitment to Women’s Reproductive Rights
The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations met Monday with the head of the U.N. Population Fund in the first such high-level engagement in more than four years.The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield highlighted the resumption of extensive support to the organization, which provides life-saving health care to millions of women and girls around the world.“I’m delighted to announce the resumption of U.S. humanitarian funding for UNFPA, including support for the Rohingya refugee crisis, Afghanistan, Sudan and those fleeing the Tigray region,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted after the meeting. To mark our renewed commitment to @UNFPA, I met today with Executive Director Natalia Kanem. I’m delighted to announce the resumption of U.S. humanitarian funding for UNFPA, including support for the Rohingya refugee crisis, Afghanistan, Sudan and those fleeing the Tigray region. pic.twitter.com/aMJ9cAbgpL— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) June 7, 2021In April 2017, the Trump administration withdrew funding to UNFPA, saying it “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization” in China. For decades, China had a “one-child policy” for couples, which it revised in 2016 to a “two-child policy.” The country had been accused of using forced sterilization and abortions to enforce the restrictions. Last week, it relaxed the policy further, saying it would allow families to have up to three children, due to decreasing birth rates.The United Nations rejected the Trump administration’s accusation, but that did not persuade Washington to restore the nearly $76 million the U.S. contributed to the agency’s core operating budget. It was also the beginning of what many Western diplomats and activists said was the former Republican administration’s war on women’s health and reproductive rights at the United Nations.Since taking office in January, the Biden administration has offered the agency nearly $31 million toward its core operating budget. Washington has also resumed funding UNFPA’s humanitarian activities, including $2.6 million for the Rohingya refugee crisis and nearly $1.2 million for Ethiopian refugees in Sudan fleeing the conflict in the Tigray Region. The U.S. is also contributing nearly $1.5 million for international protection issues in Afghanistan and $1.3 million to assist Sudan in improving the response to gender-based violence for internally displaced persons and vulnerable communities.In 2015, UNFPA received $979 million in total contributions for its work in more than 150 countries. The United States provided nearly $76 million to the fund’s core budget and specific programs and initiatives, making it one of the top international donors.
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Protesters Demand Justice on Second Anniversary of Deadly Crackdown
Thousands of Sudanese civilians held rallies in Khartoum on the second anniversary of the military’s bloody crackdown on a huge pro-democracy sit-in, demanding justice for their loved ones killed during and after the June 3, 2019, crackdown. Some said they are tired of hearing promises from government officials after nothing has been done and no one has been brought to justice.Waleed Ihab of Omdurman said that ever since security forces shot him in the leg during the crackdown, he has suffered in pain and has received no compensation from the government.He told South Sudan in Focus that the transitional government is weak and should hand over power to others.”This government doesn’t represent us anymore. That is why we are demanding for them to leave. Justice has not been served for our loved ones and the ongoing deteriorating economy in the country. They are unable to solve anything,” Ihab said.Sudanese protesters march in the capital Khartoum, on June 3, 2021, during a demonstration calling for justice for protesters killed during anti-government demonstrations two years ago.The military’s crackdown on the sit-in in Khartoum and other protests around the country occurred several weeks after the military ousted longtime President Omar al-Bashir. At least 120 people were killed, and dozens of others were wounded.Last month, Sudanese soldiers killed two peaceful protesters and wounded 37 others who were commemorating the same event on the 29th day of the fasting month of Ramadan.Zainab Abdeen said her family was traumatized after security forces shot and killed her brother Osman Abdeen on the day of the sit-in. She said family members tried pursuing the case in local courts but have been disappointed in Sudan’s justice system. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, may be their only avenue for justice, she said.”We are tired of this situation, and we are now planning to seek international intervention,” Abdeen told South Sudan in Focus.Protester Najat Yousif Hamid, 20, cradled a picture of her older brother Hamad, who was killed by security forces in 2019 in Khartoum.Hamid said the government has failed to achieve the objectives of the revolution.”Freedom has not yet been achieved. We don’t see justice and the country has not experienced any peace. Since they stayed in power for two years and did nothing about these issues, they must go,” Hamid told South Sudan in Focus.Nabil Adeeb, who heads a Sudanese investigative panel looking into the crackdown, said that two years after the crimes were committed, his office still lacks the necessary technical and human resources it needs to complete the investigation.”We need technical assistance with the criminal laboratory for verification. We need to review the video footage and audio from that day. We also need expertise in exhuming graves and the specialized tools for that, and we need to examine the bodies to know the cause and time of death,” Adeeb told South Sudan in Focus.Chapter 2 of Sudan’s constitutional charter states that the government must “form a national independent investigation committee … to conduct a transparent, detailed investigation of violations committed on June 3rd, 2019, and events and incidents where violations of the rights and dignity of civilians and military citizens were committed.”The investigation is complex, involving multiple crimes that include killings, rapes and aggravated assaults, and some security agencies have not been cooperative, Adeeb said.”The economic situation is not good right now, so not all the necessary resources can be availed,” Adeeb said.In a Thursday statement, the Washington-based think tank Freedom House said it “stands in solidarity with the victims and survivors of the June 3rd massacre” and called for the “prompt conclusion” to the investigation, which it said should be shared with the public.Freedom House adviser Quscondy Abdulshafi says a lack of resources is not a strong reason for what he calls the “failure” of Adeeb’s team to deliver justice.”The event was documented by different media, including … aired live by Al-Jazeera TV with a hidden camera, so this is a very well-documented crime that happened in front of millions,” Abdulshafi told VOA. The military’s lack of cooperation is a “strong obstacle” to achieving justice, he said.The head of Sudan’s sovereign council, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, “are solely responsible,” Abdulshafi said, as they were in charge of “the whole security sector” when the attack happened.He said Adeeb must communicate openly and transparently to the Sudanese people about how the investigation is going and report the names of those who are obstructing it.Despite a few incidents of violence and the use of tear gas, Thursday’s protests were mostly peaceful, according to Abdulshafi.
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Harris Emphasizes ‘Power of Hope’ to Keep Latin Americans from Migrating to US
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized “the power of hope” Monday, along with new efforts to fight corruption to persuade Latin Americans to stay home rather than attempt the dangerous migration north to the United States. In her first foreign trip as the U.S. second in command, Harris said at a news conference in Guatemala City that Latin Americans “don’t want to leave the country where they grew up.” But she said people in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, along with Mexico, need economic development that promises a better life than trying to move to the U.S. Harris said “help is on the way” with Washington aid and private investments encouraged by the U.S. government in agriculture, housing and businesses. “We have reason to believe we can have an impact,” she said. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei wave as they pose for a photo on a balcony at the Palacio Nacional de la Cultura, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, June 7, 2021.But Harris warned Guatemalans, “Do not come” to the U.S. “We’re not afraid to enforce our laws and borders,” she declared. Harris held what she described as “very frank, very candid” talks with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei about corruption in his country, pressing the need for “a strong court system” and civil governance. Shortly after she met with the Guatemalan leader, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in Washington the creation of a law enforcement task force aimed at fighting human trafficking and smuggling groups in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries. “We are creating this task force to address corruption, to address human smuggling — doing the work to make sure certain progress be made if we are going to attract investment,” Harris said. At the news conference, Giammattei blamed drug traffickers for corruption. He said the U.S. and Guatemala agreed to create a “very simple process” through visas to permit regular migration to the U.S., and that the two countries would prioritize family reunifications. Vice President Kamala Harris attends a meeting with community leaders, at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, in Guatemala City, June 7, 2021.Besides meeting with Giammattei, Harris participated in a roundtable with Guatemalan community and civil society leaders, and then met with young innovators and entrepreneurs, including several female entrepreneurs. On Tuesday, she is holding talks with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City and also meeting with entrepreneurs and labor leaders. Harris’ trip is fraught with U.S. political implications, with Republicans blaming President Joe Biden and Harris for the surge in migrants trying to cross the country’s southwestern border with Mexico. In the most recent count, U.S. border agents faced 178,000 migrants at the border in April, 44% of them from Central America. At her news conference, Harris deflected a question about when she would visit the border, even though she has said she would at some point. At a recent news conference, some Republicans displayed a milk carton depicting Harris with the headline: “MISSING AT THE BORDER.” Biden has tasked Harris with leading the effort to address the root causes behind the increase in the number of migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border. Administration officials highlighted corruption as a major factor behind the migration and private companies avoiding expanding their investments in Central America. “For us, it’s a direct correlation between corruption and people arriving on our southwest border,” one official said. Ahead of her trip, Harris announced $310 million in U.S. aid to support refugees and deal with food shortages. She also recently won commitments from U.S. companies and organizations to invest in Central American countries to promote economic opportunity and job training. The U.S. also last week said it would send 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to Guatemala and a million to Mexico.
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Biden Invites Ukrainian Leader to White House
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pleading to meet U.S. President Joe Biden prior to Biden’s talks in Geneva next week, was rebuffed by the White House on that request but was awarded a consolation phone call on Monday that included an invitation to Washington.”They had the opportunity to talk at some length about all of the issues in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, and President Biden was able to tell President Zelenskiy that he will stand up firmly for Ukraine sovereignty, territorial integrity and its aspirations as we go forward,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told White House reporters.Sullivan also said Biden told the Ukrainian president that “he looks forward to welcoming him to the White House here in Washington this summer after he returns from Europe.”Following the phone call, Zelenskiy said the U.S. president invited him to visit in July.Thank you Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden before their meeting in Kyiv, Nov, 21, 2014.Asked about whether that subject was raised, Sullivan replied to a reporter in the White House briefing room: “In terms of the specifics of what they discussed, I’m going to let the two of them speak for themselves. I’m not going to read out that aspect of the meeting.”In the Axios interview, Zelenskiy, a professional comedian who was elected president in 2019, said he was surprised and disappointed that Biden had not done more to prevent development of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, which is seen by Kyiv as a Kremlin project to eliminate it from the European gas transit system.During the administration of former President Donald Trump, Zelenskiy was in the spotlight because of a phone call in 2019 in which Trump pressured him to investigate Biden and his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine.Trump denied any wrongdoing concerning the call, which led to his first impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress. Trump was subsequently acquitted during the Senate trial.
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Greece Deploys Drones to Stop Partygoers From Breaching COVID Rules
Authorities on Greece’s most popular tourist island, Mykonos, will deploy more than a dozen drones to spot those who defy safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread and resurgence of COVID-19.
The decision, known as “Operation Mykonos,” comes after a string of local so-called “Corona-parties” organized by entrepreneurs at private villas and estates in recent weeks to bypass safety rules banning the operation of nightclubs.
It also comes as the beleaguered government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scrambles to revive its battered tourism sector, luring foreign travelers — mainly from the United States, Europe, Israel, and Russia — with the promise of a safe summer holiday stay under the Greek sun.
Foreign travelers are required to abide by local lockdowns, curfews, and safety protocols during their stays.
FILE – People gather as the sun sets at the windmills on the Aegean Sea island of Mykonos, Greece, Aug. 16, 2020.Under “Operation Mykonos,” authorities will deploy 15 drones to fly over private villas or establishments in Mykonos that in recent weeks were host to parties packed with hundreds of locals and foreigners. Ten-member strong teams of officers will also be formed to raid the establishments upon notice, arresting and fining the offenders, authorities told VOA.
Fines range between $365 to over $6,000.
Officials tell VOA the measures, coupled with heightened police controls, inspections and added surveillance cameras across Mykonos, will serve as a blueprint for other popular hotspots among foreign travelers. These include Rhodes, Santorini and Paros, according to authorities.
“Illegal parties spell a greater risk of seeing the virus spread, infecting more and more people,” warned Nikos Hardalias, the head of Greece’s Civil Protection Agency, on Sunday. “It spells a spike in COVID cases that can lead to fresh restrictions, leading businesses to shut down, causing major damage to tourist areas.”
“It is high time,” he warned, “for everyone to size up to the challenge and take on full responsibility of their actions.”
On Monday, government spokesman Aristotelia Peloni also criticized the mushrooming “corona-parties” gripping the country, saying she wished “Greece’s youth showed similar zeal and enthusiasm in the state’s nationwide vaccination drive.”
“The country’s freedom,” she said, “can only come through comprehensive immunization.”
Effectively in lockdown since last November, Greece started easing some of its sweeping restrictions, including curfews and travel bans, in mid-May when it re-launched international travel.
The latest crackdown, however, underscores the paradox of what critics call a hasty and ill-thought-out strategy. FILE – A waiter serves a group of people in a restaurant of Plaka district, as restaurants and cafes in Greece open after six months of lockdown, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Athens, Greece, May 3, 2021.“You can’t say ‘restaurants and bars can open but no music playing in the background to block crowds from gathering,’” said Heracles Zissimopoulos, a leading entrepreneur on the island of Mykonos. “It’s absurd.”
“The government should seriously rethink its policy, and provide locals and tourists with an outlet, instead. Otherwise, these types of parties will be difficult to stop,” he added.
Greece recorded less than 3,000 cases during the country’s first bout with the pandemic. But as tourists streamed in last summer, infections and deaths sky-rocketed, making Greeks apprehensive to foreign travelers.
But with 20 percent of the nation’s domestic output reliant on tourism, Greeks now know they can ill afford to lose a second summer tourism season in a row.
FILE – People wait at the reception hall of a COVID-19 vaccination mega center in Athens, Feb. 15, 2021.Under a campaign called “Blue Freedom,” the government wants to vaccinate all 700,000 or so adult residents of Greece’s islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of June, hoping Greece can be included in Britain’s revised green-list of travel nations. All islanders are being offered the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to boost immunization.
As of early June, Mykonos had vaccinated about four in ten of its residents, and Santorini over 50% — among the highest in the country.
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