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A Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she faced punishment if she returned to her country departed Japan Wednesday on a flight bound for Austria. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was scheduled to land in Vienna Wednesday afternoon. She is then expected to travel on to Poland, where the government has offered her a humanitarian visa. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted Tuesday on Facebook that he had spoken …
More than 500 firefighters struggled through the night to contain a large forest fire on the outskirts of Athens, which raced into residential areas Tuesday, forcing thousands to flee. It was the worst of 81 wildfires that broke out in Greece over the past 24 hours, amid one of the country’s most intense heatwaves in …
Read more “Thousands Flee Homes Outside Athens as Heat Fuels Wildfires”
The United Nations accused the government of Iraq of the widespread torture of detainees held in the country’s detention centers. A U.N. report covers conditions in the centers from July 1, 2019 to April 30, 2021.Torture and ill treatment are prohibited under international law. Iraq ratified the international convention against Torture in 2011 and since …
Read more “UN Report: Torture Widespread in Iraqi Detention Centers”
A court in Belarus convicted a journalist of insulting the president in messages in a deleted chat group and sentenced him to 1 1/2 years in prison, the Belarusian Association of Journalists said Monday. The verdict in the case against Siarhei Hardziyevich, 50, comes as part of a massive crackdown that Belarusian authorities have unleashed on …
Read more “Belarus Sends Reporter to Prison Over Deleted Chat Messages”
Wildfires scorching some of Turkey’s most popular destinations have upended a nascent recovery in the country’s tourism sector hobbled for more than a year by the COVID-19 pandemic.Scenes of happy beachgoers flocking to coastal areas turned nightmarish as fires forced mass-evacuations of tourists and locals alike in cities such as Bodrum and Marmaris.Tuesday marked the …
Read more “Turkey Wildfires Scorch Recovery in Hobbled Tourism Sector”
France hopes to secure more than $350 million in humanitarian aid for Lebanon’s crisis-battered population at a donors’ conference it co-hosts with the United Nations Wednesday — marking the year anniversary of Beirut’s deadly port blast. International pressure is growing for Lebanon’s fractious parties to unify and push through reforms. Roughly 40 representatives of international …
Read more “Donors’ Conference Aims to Boost Lebanese a Year After Beirut Blast”
The British government’s scientific advisers have raised the prospect of fighting a forever war against the coronavirus saying the eradication of the virus “will be unlikely.” And they warn “there will always be variants.”They hold out the hope that the virus may evolve in such a way that it causes “much less severe disease,” but …
Read more “British Scientists Fear a Forever COVID War, Germany Opts for Booster Shots”
Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said Tuesday she is focused on her safety and seeking refuge in Europe after facing threats from officials at home.“They made it clear that upon return home I would definitely face some form of punishment,” she told The Associated Press in a videocall interview. “There were also thinly disguised hints …
Read more “Belarusian Olympian Says She Faced Punishment at Home”
A Belarusian activist was found dead in a park near his home in Kyiv early on Tuesday, a day after he was reported missing, Ukrainian police said. Vitaly Shishov, who led a Kyiv-based organization that helps Belarusians fleeing persecution, had been reported missing by his partner on Monday after not returning home from a run. Police said …
Read more “Missing Belarusian Activist Found Dead in Kyiv Park”
Huan Huan, a giant panda on loan to France, gave birth to twin cubs very early Monday, according to the Beauval zoo. The twins, born around 1 a.m., are Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi’s second and third cubs, after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017. “The two babies are …
Every day sees more Afghan refugees reach Turkey after a grueling trek across Iran. As far as they’re concerned their journey is far from over — they want to get to the countries of the European Union — for them the Promised Land. But it is a land that is unwilling to accept them and …
Read more “As Taliban Advances, Europe Fears an Afghan Migration Crisis”
A record number of migrants has crossed the English Channel from France to the United Kingdom this year in small boats. The British government is seeking to deter the migrants by making irregular migration a criminal offense.The migrants come from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Most are fleeing conflict or poverty.At its narrowest …
London’s Heathrow Airport welcomed fully vaccinated travelers arriving from the United States and most parts of the European Union Monday, the first day they could do so without going into quarantine.Heathrow Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye called lifting quarantine rules “a milestone,” saying it has allowed families to reunite that have been kept apart by the …
Read more “Britain’s Heathrow Airport Opens to Vaccinated International Travelers”
Polish authorities on Monday granted a humanitarian visa to a Belarusian Olympic sprinter in Tokyo to seek political asylum in Poland after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.The runner, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, told officials in Tokyo she feared she would not be safe in …
Read more “Poland Grants Humanitarian Visa to Belarusian Olympian”
A record number of migrants has crossed the English Channel this year from France to Britain in small boats. The British government is aiming to deter the migrants by making it a criminal offense to arrive in the country without permission, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London. Camera: Henry Ridgwell …
A record-breaking heat wave across southeastern Europe has fueled deadly wildfires in Turkey as well Greece and Italy and threatened the national power grid in Greece.Firefighters from the European Union arrived in Turkey on Monday where they joined local volunteers in fighting deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day, The fires have been …
Read more “Heat Wave in Southern Europe Spawns Wildfires in Turkey, Italy, Greece”
Britain will begin offering a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to 32 million Britons starting in early September, The Telegraph reported Sunday. The shots will be available in as many as 2,000 pharmacies with the goal of getting them into arms by early December. The government has been preparing since at least June, …
Read more “Britain to Offer COVID-19 Booster Shots This Fall”
Rescue ships picked up more than 700 people trying to cross the Mediterranean in makeshift vessels this weekend, mainly off the coasts of Libya and Malta, a migrant aid group said Sunday.The latest figures came as United Nations migration officials repeated their calls for a fairer mechanism to share the responsibility of caring for them, …
Read more “More Than 700 Saved From Mediterranean This Weekend, Aid Group Says”
Kosovo’s president on Sunday awarded a medal to the late son of U.S. President Joe Biden for his service in building the country’s justice system after war ended more than two decades ago.Beau Biden worked in Kosovo after the 1998-1999 war, helping to train local prosecutors and judges for the Organization for Security and Co-operation …
Read more “Kosovo Honors Beau Biden, Late Son of US President”
After a slow start, the European Union has now overtaken the United States in vaccinating its citizens against COVID-19. Anti-vaccine resistance remains, including in France, where officials estimate more than 200,000 people joined demonstrations this weekend to protest a mandatory health pass.Brandishing banners proclaiming “freedom” and “pass of shame,” tens of thousands of people demonstrated …
Read more “Protests Swell in France Over COVID Measures as Cases Rise”
Thousands of Turkish firefighters are battling for a fifth day against raging fires that are threatening some of Turkey’s main tourist resorts. Six people have already died in the fires.A child cries fire, fire, as a family drives through the night trying to escape the surrounding inferno in Turkey’s Marmaris region. The video has gone …
Read more “Turkey Battles Raging Fires as People Count the Cost”
A protest about an armed attack that killed seven members of a Kurdish family was held Saturday in the Turkish city of Van in the country’s central Konya province. Relatives of the slain family say the attack Friday was racially motivated.”This was an entirely racist attack,” Abdurrahman Karabulut, the family’s lawyer, told Arti TV.Karabulut and …
Read more “Turkish Demonstrators Protest Brutal Slaying of Kurdish Family”
The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said.The department said 80% of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four U.S. attorney offices in New York were breached. All told, …
Read more “Russians Hacked Federal Prosecutors, US Justice Department Says”
Thousands of people protested France’s special virus pass by marching through Paris and other French cities on Saturday. Most demonstrations were peaceful but some in Paris clashed with riot police, who fired tear gas.About 3,000 security forces deployed around the French capital for a third weekend of protests against the pass that will be needed …
Read more “Virus Pass Protesters March in France, Clash With Police in Paris “