Mali’s transitional president Bah N’daw, has appointed former Malian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moctar Ouane, as the new Prime Minister of the West-African country.
The appointment on Sunday of a civilian premier was a precondition to the lifting of sanctions imposed on the country by ECOWAS – the West African regional bloc – shortly after the 18 August coup which overthrew former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
ECOWAS had stopped financial flows into Mali and closed its borders in a bid to pressure the military junta that seized power to quickly return the country to civilian rule. The bloc is also seeking the release of all the detainees from last month’s coup.
Transitional government
The country’s transitional President and vice-President were sworn into office on Friday, a little over a month after the coup.
Bah N’Daw – the new President – is a retired colonel and was Mali’s former Defense Minister, while Colonel Assimi Goita, head of the junta that staged the August coup, is the new vice-President.
The new Prime Minister, aged 64, served as Foreign Minister between 2004 and 2011 during the presidency of Amadou Toumani Toure. He also served as Mali’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 2002 and later as a diplomatic adviser to ECOWAS.
The EU Committee of Permanent Representatives approved on Monday without a debate the proposal to broaden the list of blacklisted persons and entities suspected by the European Union of undermining the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent Rikard Jozwiak, the restrictions are related to the construction of the Kerch bridge.
“EU ambassadors have green lighted sanctions against 2 people and 4 companies responsible for the construction of the Kerch bridge. Will be formalized later this week,” he said.
According to Jozwiak, the Council of the European Union will make a related formal decision this week.
Mike Pompeo will visit the Vatican to protest against the imminent renewal of a deal between the Catholic church and China, which the US secretary of state claims endangers its moral authority.
Pope Francis has reportedly declined to meet Pompeo during his visit this week, citing the closeness of the US election. However, such a move is likely to be linked to Pompeo’s recent attacks on the Vatican’s perceived soft-pedalling on China’s human rights record as the two sides prepare to extend a historic agreement signed two years ago.
The details of the deal have never been made public, but it gave the Vatican a say in the appointment of Catholic bishops in China. Pope Francis also recognised eight bishops that had been appointed by Beijing without his approval.
In the past two years, two new bishops have been appointed in China after consultation with the Vatican, and Chinese and Vatican officials met publicly for the first time in seven decades.
Critics claimed the deal was a betrayal of millions of Chinese Catholics, most of whom worship in unregistered churches at enormous personal risk, and would cause irreparable damage to the church’s credibility. “They’re [sending] the flock into the mouths of the wolves,” Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former archbishop of Hong Kong, said at the time.
Since the rapprochement with China, Pope Francis has been notably silent on the country’s violations of human rights. Despite advocating for marginalised and oppressed people all over the world, Francis has failed to use his voice to highlight the incarceration of at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims in prison camps, where they are reported to face starvation, torture, murder, sexual violence, slave labour and forced organ extraction.
Earlier this month, Pompeo, who is on a five-day tour of Greece, Turkey, Croatia and Italy, said the Catholic church should deploy its moral authority against the Chinese Communist party’s crackdowns on religious worship.
The criticism is part of a broader pattern of US attacks on China during Donald Trump’s presidency as relations between the superpowers have reached their lowest point for decades. At the UN general assembly this month, Trump accused China of “unleashing this plague onto the world”, referring to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an article in First Things, a US conservative Catholic magazine, Pompeo wrote: “The Holy See has a unique capacity and duty to focus the world’s attention on human rights violations, especially those perpetrated by totalitarian regimes like Beijing’s. In the late 20th century, the church’s power of moral witness helped inspire those who liberated central and eastern Europe from communism, and those who challenged autocratic and authoritarian regimes in Latin America and East Asia.
“That same power of moral witness should be deployed today with respect to the Chinese Communist party … What the church teaches the world about religious freedom and solidarity should now be forcefully and persistently conveyed by the Vatican in the face of the Chinese Communist party’s relentless efforts to bend all religious communities to the will of the party and its totalitarian program.”
On Twitter he said the party’s “abuse of the faithful has only gotten worse” since the deal was signed. “The Vatican endangers its moral authority, should it renew the deal.”
Pompeo is expected to meet Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, and the archbishop Paul Gallagher, secretary for relations with states.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has pledged to “Sinicise” all religious practise, insisting that it must be “Chinese in orientation”, with the government providing “active guidance to religions”.
Catholicism is a relatively minor religion in China, with an estimated 10-12 million adherents out of a population of 1.4 billion. Catholics are supposed to worship only in churches approved by the state, but many attend unregistered churches under the authority of bishops who are not recognised by the Chinese authorities.
The extension to the Vatican-China deal is expected to be signed next month.
By Jan Strupczewski, John Chalmers, Elizabeth Piper
3 Min Read
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – The European Union and Britain both said a post-Brexit deal was still some way off and differences persisted on Monday over putting in place their earlier divorce deal as they began a decisive week of talks in Brussels.
Slideshow ( 3 images )
Britain left the EU last January and is locked in negotiations on a new trade deal from 2021, as well as on implementing the divorce, as set out in the Withdrawal Agreement, especially on the sensitive Irish border.
EU national leaders will assess the state of play at a summit next month, with a no-deal Brexit still possible.
Negotiations have stumbled over fisheries, fair competition and settling disputes, and Brexit descended into fresh chaos this month when London proposed draft laws that would undermine the earlier agreement.
“The UK’s positions are far apart from what the EU can accept, a deputy head of the bloc’s executive Commission, Maros Sefcovic, said on Monday after talks with Michael Gove, the minister handling the divorce deal.
“We maintain that the bill, if adopted in its current form, would constitute an extremely serious violation of … the Withdrawal Agreement and of international law,” he said, urging speedy progress before he meets Gove again in mid-October.
Gove said the clauses of the Internal Market Bill that undercut the Withdrawal Treaty would remain.
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“We want to make sure that the Withdrawal Agreement is implemented in full,” Gove told reporters. “But those clauses are there, they’re in legislation … And those clauses will remain in that bill.”
TRADE TALKS
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said in London that Britain’s focus was on progress in trade talks.
“Although the last two weeks of informal talks have been relatively positive there remains much to be done,” he said.
“We simply want the standard free trade agreement … we continue to be asked to accept provisions that do not reflect the reality of our status as an independent country.”
Trade talks resume in Brussels on Tuesday. Lasting until Friday morning and also due to cover energy links and transport, they are the final round of negotiations scheduled so far.
EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday are expected to authorise more talks before their next summit on Oct. 15-16. They will then assess whether to try push a deal over the line or prepare for the most damaging Brexit at the end of the year.
The EU says negotiators must seal an agreement by the end of October or early November, to leave time for ratification by the European Parliament and some national parliaments in the EU so that it can take effect from 2021 when Britain’s standstill transition ends after Brexit.
Otherwise, the delicate peace on the island of Ireland as well as an estimated trillion euros worth of annual EU-UK trade would be at risk as the sides would fall back on general World Trade Organization rules that include tariffs and quotas.
Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and William James in London, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alison Williams
The European Union and Britain started a decisive week of talks on Monday on a new trade deal and implementing their divorce agreement before national leaders assess progress or the risk of a no-deal split on Thursday and Friday.
<p class="no_name">British cabinet office minister <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Michael+Gove">Michael Gove</a> is set to attend a meeting of the joint committee responsible for implementing the <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_location=Northern+Ireland">Northern Ireland</a> protocol, which his government is threatening to renege on if it does not get its way in negotiations.</p>
<p class="no_name">The three sticking points in talks so far remain the same: fisheries; state aid rules; and governance or dispute resolution.</p>
<p class="no_name">An EU diplomat said however that “the mood music was a bit better” after Mr Gove expressed confidence about securing a trade deal.</p>
<p class="no_name">“It’s high time that negotiations move forward, we need to make progress on issues like the level playing field, fisheries and governance,” the diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.</p>
<aside class="related-articles--instream has-3"/><p class="no_name">“The UK still has to restore trust after the Internal Market Bill escalation.”</p>
<p class="no_name">Mr Gove meets a deputy head of the bloc’s executive Commission, Maros Sefcovic, on Monday in the <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_organisation=Joint+Committee">Joint Committee</a> tasked with implementing the divorce treaty and now looking at the contentious new UK laws.</p>
<p class="no_name">“We are looking forward to continuing our discussions at the Joint Committee and working towards a satisfactory outcome for both sides,” a UK government spokeswoman said.</p>
<p class="no_name">Trade talks headed by the EU’s <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Michel+Barnier">Michel Barnier</a> and the UK’s <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=David+Frost">David Frost</a> resume in <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_location=Brussels">Brussels</a> on Tuesday. Lasting until Friday morning and also due to cover energy cooperation and transport, they are the final round of negotiations scheduled so far.</p>
<p class="no_name">EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday are expected to authorise more negotiations before their next summit on October 15th-16th.</p>
<p class="no_name">The EU says negotiators must seal a deal by the end of October or the first days of November at the latest, to leave enough time for ratification by the <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_organisation=European+Parliament">European Parliament</a> and some national parliaments so a deal can take effect from 2021 when Britain’s post-<a href="/news/world/brexit">Brexit</a> transition ends. </p>
<p class="no_name">- Reuters</p>
The Republican and Democratic election strategies for the next five weeks came into focus this weekend. Both parties hope to galvanize voters by pointing to Judge Amy Coney Barrett, nominated Saturday to fill the Supreme Court seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The first Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for Oct. 12. A final Senate vote could come in late October. But Democrats aren’t likely to make this a battle over the short confirmation process or Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith. Instead, they’re starting to warn about potential outcomes of a supermajority conservative court. On Sunday, Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pointed to a court that could “undo” the Affordable Care Act. Expect to see similar warnings about overturning abortion rights and gay rights.
Republicans will likely remind voters that they’ve delivered on promises of a conservative court. The GOP also has plans to highlight what that court could mean for issues important to social conservative Catholic and evangelical voters – particularly in swing states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
On Sunday, The New York Times reported that President Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and in his first year in the White House. Will that matter to voters? In 2016, when Hillary Clinton speculated that Trump paid no taxes, he replied: “That makes me smart.”
2. Paternity leave, at last. Swiss voters passed a referendum Sunday giving fathers 10 days of paternity leave, the last nation in Western Europe to endorse this benefit. While a wealthy nation, Switzerland has been relatively slow on gender equality issues: wives needed permission from husbands to work outside the home until 1988. Swiss voters also defeated a nationalist party’s proposal to limit the number of European Union citizens allowed to live and work in their country. While Switzerland is not an EU member, it has close economic ties with the bloc.
3. Tensions rise in pipeline region. A decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan reignited Sunday, prompting international calls for a cease-fire. At least 31 people were reported killed in the heaviest clashes between the two ex-Soviet republics since 2016. If fighting continues, it could push up oil and gas prices as the South Caucasus is a corridor for pipelines carrying oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea to world markets. The two countries fought a war in the 1990s, and the latest flare-up prompted a flurry of diplomacy to reduce the new tensions in the conflict between majority Christian Armenia and mainly Muslim Azerbaijan. Russia, the U.S., and the E.U. called for an immediate ceasefire. But another regional power, Turkey, said it would support Azerbaijan.
Brodie Weeding/Pool Photo via AP
Rescue crews work to save pilot whales stranded on a sand bar near Strahan, Tasmania in Australia, on Sept. 22, 2020. About 23 percent of some 470 whales were rescued in what was Australia’s biggest whale beaching.
Look Ahead
Monday, Sept. 28
Human rights prize. Nominees are scheduled to announced for the 2020 Sakharov Prize. The prize honors individuals and groups who have dedicated their lives to the defense of human rights and freedom of thought.
Vote by mail? A Delaware judge is expected to rule on a lawsuit by the state Republican Party challenging a law passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature allowing universal voting by mail in this year’s elections.
Stanley Cup finals. The plucky Dallas Stars are still in the Stanley Cup Finals after forcing a Game 6 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are up 3-2.
Tuesday, Sept. 29
Presidential debate. President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden meet for the first 2020 presidential debate. The six planned 15-minute segments are about the Supreme Court, the pandemic, racial justice and urban crime, the economy, election integrity, and the records of the two candidates. Fox News host Chris Wallace moderates, 9 p.m. E.T. to 10:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 30
Restaurants reopen, New York City allows restaurants to resume indoor seating, at 25 percent capacity.
Thursday, Oct. 1
Another opening. South Africa’s borders are expected to reopen as of October 1. But visitors will not be permitted from countries deemed a high risk.
Saturday, Oct. 3.
German unity celebrated. The 30th anniversary of German reunification – bringing East and West Germany together – marks the end of an era of division and the creation of a stable state in the center of Europe.
Late night comedy returns. The cast of “Saturday Night Live” returns to Studio 8H in New York City for the first time since the coronavirus lockdowns in March. Chris Rock is scheduled to host.
Integrity Watch
Courtesy of James Teagle, Instagram.
British triathlete James Teagle shakes hands with Diego Méntrida after placing third in the Santander Triathlon in Barcelona on Sept. 13.
Diego Méntrida runs with integrity, every step of the way.
In the closing moments of the Santander Triathlon in Barcelona on Sept. 13, British competitor James Teagle took a wrong turn. Running behind him, Mr. Méntrida passed Mr. Teagle and was now in third place in the race. But as he realized what Mr. Teagle had done, he stopped to let him catch up and cross the finish line first. Mr. Teagle finished third in the race, and in gratitude, shook hands with his Spanish competitor.
Word of Mr. Méntrida’s honorable actions spread on social media this past week, drawing widespread praise. He responded matter-of-factly on Instagram:
“A true champion!” responded one follower. “I suppose it just shows massive integrity and great sportsmanship…” Mr. Teagle later told the BBC Breakfast.
The race organizers agreed.
Mr. Méntrida was later awarded honorary third place by the organizers and the same €300 ($349) in prize money as Mr. Teagle, according to Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
Hidden gem
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The main road leading to the Sicilian town of Cassibile is flanked by derelict houses. In days gone by, these stood as elegant mansions with arched entrances and large windows, but during the second world war, they were shot to pieces, never to be restored.
The ruins gape at us, overgrown by stinging nettles and littered with plastic bottles. Through the rubbish, we can see the village of makeshift tents, home to about 300 refugees and migrants.
“Do you speak Norwegian?” A Somali man walks towards us, smiling.
He arrived in Norway as a refugee when he was a minor, he explains. He learned the language, played on the local football team and worked off the books for cash in hand at a restaurant in Oslo. But after his third application for settlement was denied, his lawyer advised him to apply again from Italy. He is optimistic now, he says, and does not want to do anything to jinx his chances. He is engaged to a woman back in Norway and is just waiting for the borders to reopen. That is why he does not want to give us his real name, he explains.
A Gambian man appears as if from nowhere. He looks weary and wary. “It’s a jungle out here,” he tells us. “You have to be strong and make do on your own, because there are no brothers here, only a jungle,” he adds, disappearing again before we have a chance to ask his name.
Six weeks earlier, a month and a half after large parts of Europe had gone into lockdown, myself – a theatre critic with no opening night invitations – and Kyrre Lien – a photojournalist with no commissions – decided to travel from the northernmost fishing village in the world to the southern tip of Sicily. We wanted to find out what remained of the Europe we once took for granted.
Along the highway in northern Norway all public toilets are shut down due to the coronavirus, causing logistical problems for the truck drivers they are built for [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Our journey began at the airport in Alta, 70 degrees north – the closest point to North Cape – to which you can get a direct flight from Oslo.
“I’ve had corona [coronavirus],” the car rental rep informs us. “Caught it when I slept with a Finnish tourist.”
“I thought the Finns had stopped coming,” I say.
“Certainly have,” says the man. “She was one of the last who came before the border closed.”
In the same week that Norway closed its borders, bringing in Home Guard soldiers to patrol them, several local councils started to make up their own rules. In Nordkapp and Alta, for example, anyone arriving from other regions was put into a 14-day quarantine.
The mayors said it was to protect citizens, but the national government argued that they had no mandate to create their own infection control borders. Two minutes before our plane touched down in Alta, the local council repealed the so-called “Southerner quarantine”.
“I’ve upgraded your car,” says the rep. “You have a long way to go.”
Young people sit in their cars in Mosjoen, Norway [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
It is hard to predict what kind of Europe we will encounter. In the spring of 2020, the continent had excess mortality of 160,000, yet it almost feels like we have all been hit separately. In some countries, Europeans took to the streets to protest against infection control measures.
In other places, people put their faith in the authorities despite high mortality rates and few infection control measures. This division does not just span borders, it has gone right into people’s homes. Some argue that the coronavirus is “the biggest con in the world”. Others believe this crisis will change our way of life forever.
It is a three-hour drive from Alta to the fishing village of Skarsvag. In the winter, part of the road was closed several times a week because there was too much snow, making it impossible for tourists to get in and for the 40 inhabitants to get out.
Then a few months later, the coronavirus came. Skarsvag, which previously saw a regular stream of coaches with Chinese, Italian and Russian tourists, suddenly became one of the world’s most isolated villages.
Since 1999, Heidi Ingebrigtsen has run the village’s main attraction, Julehuset (The Christmas House), a small, red cafe that sells hand-knitted Santa Clauses all year round.
“I could make some waffles, but perhaps you’d rather have some cream cake?” she says. Heidi and her husband Kjell take their seats a few metres apart from us in the locked-down Christmas cafe. It smells of coffee, yarn and cream cakes.
‘This is where the world ends,’ says Heidi Ingebrigtsen, bringing a cream cake for her first guests in a while [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Skarsvag subsists on fishing and tourism, and Kjell Ingebrigtsen switched from the first industry to the second. He single-handedly built three holiday homes – replete with saunas, filleting rooms, freezers and sea views – and in the first three seasons holidaymakers arrived from all over the world. A wealthy young Thai man was so taken with the experience that he stayed through Christmas, having cycled all the way from Bangkok.
A famous graffiti artist ended up decorating Kjell’s truck. Fishing enthusiasts from Lithuania, Ukrainians eager to learn filleting and Norwegian multimillionaires booked the holiday homes, all of them more than welcome, until suddenly they were regarded as a threat to the health of the villagers.
Kjell has undergone heart surgery twice and, as such, is classified as high-risk should he catch coronavirus. He faced a dilemma; what matters most, the income from tourism or the danger posed by the virus?
‘My wife and I usually park outside the store. There are so many nice ladies here, but it is a pity they have so much clothing on,’ says Kjell Odin Olsen [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
He offers us a discount on one of the holiday homes, but Kyrre and I have already decided to sleep in our tent wherever possible. It is a way of decreasing the risk of contagion, Kyrre says, and it also helps us to travel on a shoestring. I argue that this may not be the most appropriate night to spend in a tent – with the ground being covered in two metres of snow – but Kyrre does not give in.
He is not the type of person who books into a hotel, he says. Nor does he need a flushing toilet, as he maintains a spade is by far the best solution. “But we’ll need a shower,” I insist. Kyrre groans, dismayed that a stickler for hygiene should embark on a journey across a continent facing its biggest crisis since the second world war. “You’re working, you can’t obsess about your personal hygiene,” he exclaims.
A ferry between Bodo and Lofoten islands in Norway, with seats closed due to coronavirus restrictions [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
I know that wherever I go with Kyrre, anything can happen. Maybe that is why I have been following him like a shadow for eight years now on increasingly audacious projects, like some kind of Sancho Panza of journalism.
“I left the door to Cape Marina unlocked,” says Kjell. “In case you change your minds.”
“Appreciate the offer, but it’s unlikely,” Kyrre replies. “We’ll sleep in the tent.”
The gales grow stronger as the night wears on. It is like the wind is holding its own talk show outside the tent. I could have endured the wind if it had not been for the cold. I stretch. I curl into a ball. I look at my watch and tell myself that everything in life is a matter of time. Cold will turn to warmth, viruses will subside and even nights of gales in the extreme north of our planet will eventually dissipate.
Sweden
As we drive to Sweden, we read news articles about no-social-distancing parties in this outlier country, where state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has acquired such cult status that someone has had his face tattooed onto their bicep. Unlike other European countries, Sweden maintained its faith in herd immunity for a prolonged period of time, but by early May doubts were being raised about its effectiveness.
The border crossing speaks for itself: On the Norwegian side, police officers in high-visibility jackets stop every car, while anyone can drive into Sweden, no questions asked.
“My aunt Ashilld has invited us for breakfast in Helsingborg. She’s meeting up with four friends in a park,” says Kyrre as I am woken by the sun beating down on our tent. We have spent the night on the beach in Falkenberg, in an effort to avoid exposure at campsites.
“Achoo … ” I reply, diving out of the tent. I pace around in circles for a moment, as I often do whenever I succumb to the allergy-induced sneezing fits I have had since I was a baby. More than 90 minutes later, when we arrive at our destination in Helsingborg, I am still sneezing and Kyrre worries his aunt’s friends may pack up their picnic bags and leave out of sheer virus anxiety. But they do not.
I try to detect scared glances from passersby, but none meet my gaze. This is an open-minded country, I say to myself, a nation where fear has not gripped everyone, despite the fact that 81 people died from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours alone.
Tuva Lundberg and Emma Wereck are celebrating the last night of 10th grade in Falkenberg, Sweden; they say their school runs as normal, without extra distance kept between students [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
As in most groups of friends, the women have approached the coronavirus crisis differently. Annette Colin says she went into almost complete isolation and would not let Ashilld Henriksen, who plays in a symphony orchestra and meets lots of people, cross her threshold when she turned up with a cake.
For a while, Annette kept her daughter home from school and had to contain a growing sense of anger at the authorities. “However … I came around to thinking that perhaps their strategy isn’t that stupid after all,” she says. “Now I don’t think it is right to force people into lockdown, and that it’s better to enforce the use of disposable gloves and anti-bacterial handwashes in places where people socialise.”
The friends discuss the parcels they have sent to their grown-up children and their visits to fragile parents in nursing homes. When Annika Lindstrom visits her mother, who suffers from dementia, she sees her through a plexiglas screen, supervised by nurses wearing visors. “She hasn’t missed me, but I miss her. I miss holding my mother’s hand,” she says.
Denmark – Germany – Switzerland
We cross the border to Denmark that afternoon. In a roadside cafe, we tuck into frikadeller, Danish flat meatballs. The outdoor area has been cordoned off, as if a murder had just been committed there. Only a few benches facing the parking lot are available for customers to eat at. Some elderly women blow cigarette smoke in our direction. “You have to eat faster,” Kyrre says. “We have to get to Cologne.”
A restaurant along the highway serves Danish meatballs – but eating out is difficult when half of the tables are closed down [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
A week earlier, a human chain was formed in protest against the lockdown in the German city. Only 250 people turned up, but in other German cities, the demonstrations drew far bigger crowds. In Stuttgart, about 5,000 took to the streets, in Berlin more than 1,000.
The participants – far-right extremists, anarchists and anti-vaccination activists – crossed traditional political divides. The coronavirus crisis has spawned new movements, opposed to lockdown measures and restrictions and headed by social media personalities who claim that the mainstream media are lying. All over Europe, conspiracy theories have spread so fast they have given the virus a run for its money.
Jorn Klisan, Johnny Petersen and Connie Klisan enjoy a warm summer day at Uge campsite in Denmark; Jorn Klisan is not afraid of the coronavirus, but fears that an economic crisis will lead many young people to riot [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Outside a run-down bar in Campione d’Italia, an Italian enclave in the heart of Switzerland, we meet an American couple who claim they have had enough. “This is the biggest con in history,” shouts the man. “I’m a biologist myself, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
They had been intending to travel on to Malaysia, where they planned to enrol their 10-year-old son in a private school, but then the borders closed and, not wanting to return to the US, they found themselves stuck in Campione.
“Viruses spread so fast that if this had been real, you’d have been dead already,” the woman insists.
The couple are convinced that pharmaceutical companies are behind all this, for a simple reason: “In this way, they can profit on the health anxieties of the entire world.”
“What about the dead?” asks Kyrre. The woman shrieks. “They died from other causes, and then the doctors say it was the coronavirus.” Her husband nods. “I know lots of doctors, and none of them dare to tell the truth. The coronavirus is a con.”
Campione d’Italia has been an Italian enclave in Switzerland since medieval times [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Further up in the hills of Campione, a Russian woman called Galina is out with her dog. It is raining so heavily that she has taken shelter in a garage adjacent to the park.
“It’s the face masks that kill,” she tells us. “People inhale dangerous gases and drop like flies. The coronavirus is a lie. The media won’t write about it, but I can read it online. And think for myself.”
She looks at us in anticipation, as if she has just given us some groundbreaking news, something we have never heard before. But we have, because these stories take on a momentum of their own, across national borders and political perspectives. In the current climate, conspiracy theories appear more unifying than any customs union.
In Campione d’Italia, Russians, Americans and Italians have found an exclusive haven in the heart of Switzerland. Two days earlier, however, we had visited another international micro society: the primaeval Hambach Forest outside Cologne.
Anarchists in Hambacher Wald, Germany built houses in treetops and founded a micro society with inhabitants from all over the world [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
For eight years, it has been occupied by anarchists, after one of Germany’s largest coal mining companies cleared parts of the ancient forest to open a mine. The anarchists built houses in the tops of the remaining trees and founded a new society with inhabitants from all over the world.
Aware that the police could raid the forest at any moment, they had set up roadblocks and built watchtowers. Here, they took it in turns to keep guard, they learned to climb from tree to tree, took on aliases and developed strategies for the day when the police might come to demolish their camp.
One day in September 2018, that is exactly what happened. Police stormed the forest and chopped down 50 of the trees with houses in them. The police operation went on for days, and did not end until a journalist who had been living in the forest and making a documentary about the activists fell out of a tree and died.
For eight years, Hambacher Wald has been occupied by anarchists, after one of Germany’s largest coal mining companies cleared parts of the ancient forest to open a mine [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Eighteen months later, politicians in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen did a U-turn: the forest would be left standing. However, the activists kept occupying it, and felt little sense of joy or relief at the decision.
“Previously we had a goal, but suddenly we had nothing left to fight for,” says our companion in the forest, a luthier in his 40s. He calls himself Nemo, after the captain in Jules Vernes’ book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Nemo tells us that they were traumatised after the raid on the forest and that the political turnaround only provoked them. “We know that the forest won’t survive anyway, because the excavations have gone too far. The trees will rot on their roots.”
It is seven in the morning, but Nemo has not slept. He has been keeping watch by the camp, as he is afraid other occupants will steal, or to put it in his words: “It is interesting to see what is going on when people think you are sleeping.”
‘We know that the forest won’t survive anyway, because the excavations have gone too far. The trees will rot on their roots,’ says activist Nemo [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The coronavirus crisis has also divided the group. Some think the anti-lockdown demonstrations in Cologne were carried out by far-right extremists who must be fought; others believe the restrictions are an attack on people’s freedoms.
Nemo says he changed his view of the world when he started reading alternative media. In the end, he decided that he could not participate in mainstream society any longer and moved into the forest two years ago. He sees similarities with the way the coronavirus crisis has played out.
“People who have a different opinion than the authorities are called conspiracy theorists or extreme right-wing populists, while the mainstream media and politicians clamp down on anyone harbouring an alternate view,” he says, adding: “More than 20,000 people die from flu every year. We never read that in the papers.”
“Do you believe in the conspiracy theories?” I ask Nemo.
He hesitates. “I think the truth lies somewhere in between,” he concludes.
A mural in Cologne, Germany; the country’s coronavirus transmission rate soared after a massive outbreak at a meat plant, and restrictions were imposed in parts of the country [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
France
It is all in the Bible or the Quran, just look it up, we are repeatedly told by believers we meet on our journey from the North Cape to Sicily. There will be more bad years to come, they add, but as long as you keep the faith, you will be alright.
We drive to an evangelical superchurch in Mulhouse, a French city close to the borders with Germany and Switzerland, to which a cluster of 2,500 cases was traced following a service in February. Seventeen of the infected people reportedly died. The church started to receive threats, and is now surrounded by high fences and surveillance cameras.
An evangelical megachurch in Mulhouse, France began receiving threats after a cluster of 2,500 coronavirus cases were traced to it [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
At a nearby park, we meet one of the churchgoers. Moses Esombi is originally from South Africa, but moved to France after getting caught up in gang violence. “In South Africa, you always watch your back,” he says.
Christian Open Door Church was his favourite church. He liked the atmosphere there, and the preaching, he says. But then his friends and family started to cough.
“My mentor, I call him uncle, got really ill. It was hard to find a hospital that would take him in. I don’t know why it was so hard,” Esombi reflects.
Two boys ride scooters in Mulhouse, France [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
I have read neither the Bible nor the Quran, but I have read Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague, in which he describes an outbreak of the plague in the Algerian town of Oran. In the second part of the book, Father Paneloux holds a sermon during the epidemic: “The hour has struck for taking thought. You fondly imagine it was enough to visit God on Sundays, and thus you make free of your weekdays. You believed some brief formalities, some bendings of the knee would recompense Him well enough for your criminal indifference. But God is not mocked.”
During our journey, we hear similar speeches. In Kristiansand, at the southern tip of Norway, we attend a digital service of an independent church. The preacher says that God is like a king; he is seen as symbolic, but has in fact got the power to be something more. It is up to the individual to make God the head of government, he says, not just someone to seek during the good times. When we ask the preacher if the coronavirus is the will of God, he replies: “God knows what’s happening.”
The small city of Soultz-Haut-Rhin in France wakes up to another day of the coronavirus pandemic [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Italy
We spend our first night in Italy on the grounds of a monastery. I had tried to find a cheap campsite close to the Swiss border, and La Famiglia appeared to be one of few that was still open.
In the darkness, we glimpse caravans parked up for the winter. There is nothing more lonely than a garden full of empty caravans, I think, as rain batters my face. In the distance, I see an umbrella. I assume it is a nun. “You can sleep in the party tent,” she says, pointing at a covered square.
“It’s raining so heavily that I wouldn’t recommend you put up your tent on the grass.”
She clears her throat and takes out a forehead thermometer, which in the dark resembles a futuristic gun. “32.4,” she reads. Her eyes are smiling. “If that was right, you would have been dead already.”
People wear face masks in Codogno, Italy; the country has been one of the worst affected by the coronavirus [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The next morning, we get her name, Rosella Bertoglio, and it turns out that she is not a nun after all, but a teacher. After her husband died from a genetic disease, she moved to the monastery with her daughters. Now her daughters have grown up, and she has retired, but she says: “The monastery is like my family, and I want to live with my family.”
Every morning the residents of La Famiglia attend a service in the local church in Malnate, before live-streaming two prayer meetings from the monastery. “We pray for the sick and those who have died,” Rosella says.
During the past three months, about 60 people have died from COVID-19 in the small village, according to the monastery.
The religious community La Famiglia runs a camping site; here a sister – who is also head of camping – shares baby photos after taking the two journalists to a morning service in Malnate, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
There are three women living in the monastery, which used to be a wealthy family’s mansion, but only one of them is a nun. She has been here since 1984. She serves us espressos accompanied by a bag of M&Ms.
“You could read the Bible from cover to cover without finding any answers at all. Maybe you don’t know how to read, what to look for,” Rosella tells us in broken English.
I ask if she has found any answers.
She laughs – a warm, drawn-out giggle. Then she suddenly turns serious. “In the Bible, you can find everything that happens in people’s lives,” she says.
When we move on to Pisa, Kyrre agrees to stay in a hotel for a night, as long as he can choose which one.
From inside the Royal Victoria Hotel, we hear the sounds of the street: high heels on cobblestones, subdued giggles, students rushing past. The Royal Victoria Hotel has survived two world wars and an unknown number of financial crises. The American aviator Charles Lindbergh stayed here between flights, as did the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen between expeditions. Other notable guests have included Benito Mussolini, Charles Dickens, Theodore Roosevelt and Alexandre Dumas. They may not have had much else in common, but they all passed through the Art Nouveau doors, ascended the creaky stairs and booked into airy rooms with a view of the old town.
Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened at the end of May after being shut for three months; guards are prepared with face masks, face shields and metal detectors as tourists visit the historic tower [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
At the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the rooms stood empty, but then the locals started moving in. “This was the only place you could get an espresso,” Eugenia Chauvie, the receptionist, explains. “You had to book a room first, but we dropped the prices. For a while, we only charged 30 euros a night.”
The Royal Victoria Hotel turned into the house of the lonely, those who did not want to sit isolated in their flats. “Loneliness is ugly,” Eugenia reflects as she tells us her story in the dark, empty reception.
“They just wanted someone to talk to,” she says of the Italians who called to cancel their reservations. “They talked and talked, because when Italians are scared, they talk even more than usual.”
For a long time, she was the only one on duty, and she did everything herself: maintenance work, making the beds, cooking breakfast, serving the hotel owner, attending the reception desk – and listening to those who wanted to talk. She was hired two days before the lockdown began, and had to keep the hotel running as other staff were furloughed.
At first, she was happy to have a job to go to, but then she started thinking: “This could be dangerous.”
Many of the rooms were filled by travellers who came to the hospital in Pisa for cancer treatment. What if any of them had COVID-19?
As she walked home at night, she realised the gravity of the situation. It felt like the anxiety was embedded in the cobblestones, she thought; as if new and unfamiliar sounds had replaced those of parties and couples flirting by the river. She hated the new sounds. This was supposed to be a city of students, parties, youngsters and drunks, not of wind that whispered to you as you walked through dark, empty streets.
Eugenia Chauvie sits outside on a wall in Pisa, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
It took the virus a few weeks to reach Pisa. At first, the city’s inhabitants thought the whole thing was just something that happened to other people.
“It felt like everything was so far away,” Eugenia recalls. “We thought – it’s just in the north of Italy. Whoops, it’s in Tuscany, but not here in Pisa. And then, it’s come to Pisa, but OK, not to my part of town. Then it suddenly arrives at your doorstep.”
She needs a cigarette, she says. As we stand outside smoking, we can hear that the wind has stopped whispering. People have reclaimed the streets.
We cross the rest of Italy in two days, while arguing about whether to stop in picturesque towns for ice cream or to just keep going. I want gelato. Kyrre wants to get to Sicily as quickly as possible.
The atmosphere inside the car is starting to fume like an overheated engine.
“If we follow your instincts, we will never get anywhere,” Kyrre says.
On the ferry to Sicily, it is mandatory to wear a mask and keep distance, however many of the passengers still light their cigarettes [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Sicily
Our last stop is a grave one: the makeshift camp in Cassibile.
Here, nothing much has changed during the crisis. People kept going to work on Sicilian tomato farms, even when the camp’s crackling TV reported increasing numbers of dead in Italy. Most of the refugees and migrants here had bigger problems to attend to. Then they realised that, with bureaucratic offices shut down because of the pandemic, their visa applications probably would not be processed this year either. Their dreams would be on hold – indefinitely.
“It’s not fair. Other people have been granted settlement in two years, while I’ve been waiting for eight,” says a Gambian man we meet late at night, sitting on a discarded sofa. He does not want to tell us his name.
I wonder whether this was the Europe the people here had imagined when they boarded dinghies to reach it. When I ask them, I get various versions of “no”. Their greatest fear is that their families back home will get to know that the promised land is a rubbish dump, that dad’s job infuses him with a pervasive smell that clings to his clothes, hair and skin.
Another Gambian man, who asks not to give his name, says that they are treated like animals because they are Black, and that a poor, white person would have been given shelter in his country, were the roles reversed. “But that’s the way of the jungle. You’ve got to be strong to survive,” he reflects.
Some of the men point out a spot where we can put up our tent. It is in the religious part of the camp, just beside the makeshift mosque.
About 300 migrants and refugees, most of them from African countries, live in a makeshift camp in Cassibile, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The Somali man who is planning to get married in Norway once he is able to return, asks if we are going to drive back to Oslo.
“Do you have a big car?” he inquires.
We tell him it is very small, because we know that if we put him in the back seat, we most likely will not make it back to Oslo. Border controls are strict, and we only have one press pass each.
Most of those who live in the makeshift camp in Cassibile stay for a couple of months while working in the agriculture industry; when the season ends, they head to other parts of Italy and live in similar camps [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The next morning, we pack up our tent at sunrise. Kyrre wants to take pictures at dawn, before the camp rises. It is his only chance to get pictures of anything here, because the inhabitants do not want to have their photos taken.
An intoxicated man walks over to us. “Why are you taking pictures of us?” he asks. “People are sleeping. People want to be left alone. Go. Go. Go.”
The makeshift camp in Cassibile, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
We leave and drive to the southernmost part of Sicily. There are no people in the streets, only the two of us. The sun is low and the ocean quiet. Is this it, I wonder. I feel no sense of a community, of us being together in something bigger. I just feel emptiness.
“Let’s go home,” I tell Kyrre.
He puts “Oslo” into the GPS, and turns the car around.
A beach in Sicily, and the end of the journalists’ journey [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
“We have no time to wait. Biodiversity loss, nature loss, it is at an unprecedented level in the history of mankind”, Elizabeth Mrema, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, told UN News in the SDG Media Zone. “We’re the most dangerous species in global history.”
The Convention on Biological Diversity is an international treaty agreed to at the UN Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992. It has three goals: the conservation of biological diversity; the sustainable use of nature; and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic science.
Biodiversity targets
If you look at the scorecard, like a school report, the highest is below 30 per cent of the progress … Not one Aichi Target will be fully met – Elizabeth Mrema
Under the CBD, countries in 2010 agreed to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets – a group of 20 goals to conserve biodiversity that range from preserving species, to reducing deforestation by 2020. Aichi’s goals are to biodiversity what the Paris climate accord is to global warming.
Countries had until this year to reach the targets, and then move on to create a post-2020 global biodiversity framework. But despite some progress, the targets – which range from stopping species from extinction to cutting pollution and preserving forests – were not achieved.
“If you look at the scorecard, like a school report, the highest is below 30 per cent of the progress”, Ms. Mrema said. “Not one Aichi Target will be fully met, so that, by itself, of the 20 targets, 10 years, we have failed.”
Discussions are now underway for a new framework that builds on those “quote unquote failures”, said Ms. Mrema.
The document is still in the early stage, being reviewed in informal consultations, but needs to be ready for adoption at the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in China in 2021.
One of the major differences between the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the post-2020 framework will be implementation. After Aichi, some countries had to create national strategies to act on the targets. Those are now in place.
Coral Reef Image Bank/Tracey Jen
A sea turtle glides over the reef in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
Taking action now
“We are not calling for reinventing the wheel, so basically implementation should be able to begin immediately,” Ms. Mrema said.
The new framework will also include resources such as technology transfer and capacity building, which were not considered priorities at Aichi.
To create momentum for this new way of living with nature, the President of the UN General Assembly will convene the Summit on Biodiversity this Wednesday, where world leaders are expected to declare their countries’ commitments to nature and a post-2020 biodiversity framework.
“They are not going to say, ‘We will continue a path of destruction.’ They are going to say, ‘We will get on a path of sustainability’,” said Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
Ms. Andersen, speaking alongside Ms. Mrema in the SDG Media Zone, outlined other voices that will be heard this week in the General Assembly Hall, and in so-called leaders’ dialogue sessions that will focus on sustainable development and on science and technology.
Youthful energy
“Just like in the climate movement, and then the Climate Action Summit, we saw that the energy that the young people bring in, into the room, onto the street, over dinner tables, back at home, into the classroom, and eventually into the voting booth”, Ms. Andersen said about the inclusion of young people in the week’s discussions. “That is an energy that we want to see also for nature and biodiversity.”
She highlighted the voice of indigenous peoples, calling them “environmental defenders”, “stalwarts of nature” and “holders of knowledge” whose “voice, in the UN and beyond, is irrepressible and critical.”
The week will include participation from the private sector and highlight an awareness among participants of agriculture and how to more effectively incentive farming in line with preserving biodiversity.
Mark Anderson
Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor). The Asian and southern African populations are partially migratory, with many making regular movements from their breeding sites inland to coastal wetlands when not breeding.
Changing agriculture
“We all eat, so we all have to understand that eating is important,” Ms. Andersen said. “But our agricultural practices need to change for the better, and so that means that big agriculture has a to-do item on its list in terms of how we do that, and policymakers have a to-do item in helping them shift.”
While these senior UN officials hope for strong participation from a variety of groups, the most important voice is strong commitments from heads of State who have the ability to direct policy change.
“It’s time for action. And understanding, therefore, that the heads of State now what they will say will really matter, because future generations will judge them,” Ms. Anderson said, echoing Ms. Mrema.
“Were we going to be the leaders that stood and let species and nature disappear? So that your grandchild or mine, will not see that magnificent animal or that incredible flower or the very being of ecosystem that supports us? It’s not small. It’s very, very big, because it is the future [of] food security, because it is the future of peace, because it is the future of humanity as we understand it.”
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) subsidiary Google is under fire in the European Union for failing to alter its business practices even after it was fined, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
What Happened: A study commissioned by 25 shopping sites that looked at 10.5 billion clicks indicated that less than one percent of traffic through Google Shopping is being directed to rival sites such as Kelkoo and Idealo, according to FT.
The study, undertaken by Lademann & Associates, is the first such comprehensive empirical research that shows that Google still undermines competition, Thomas Hoppner, a lawyer advising the companies, told FT.
The analysis was reportedly conducted three years after Google made changes to its shopping search after the European Commission fined it $2.7 billion for favoring its own comparison shopping service and “demoting those of competitors.”
Olivier Guersent, who heads the EU’s Competition department, said officials were seeing “positive developments” after Google made changes in its shopping search.
Why It Matters: Hoppner alleged that Google’s main search results, a key source of traffic, remain unaffected by the changes. He claimed the remedy deployed by the Sundar Pichai-led company “has not improved the competitive situation at all.”
Google is contesting the fine and the European General Court’s decision is expected at the end of the year, FT noted.
In July, the Google parent was hit with a record $5.1 billion fine from the EU after the bloc alleged that it had used its Android operating system to establish the dominance of its own search engine.
The Mountain View, California-based company is also trying to fend off an antitrust investigation from the EU into its $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit Inc (NYSE: FIT).
Price Action: Alphabet Class A shares closed almost 1.1% higher at $1,439.06 on Friday. On the same day, the company’s Class C shares closed almost 1.2% higher at $1,444.96.
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Good morning.
We’re covering the takeaways from more than two decades of President Trump’s tax returns, the global death toll from the coronavirus and the death of a man who ate one to two large bags of black licorice a day for three weeks.
Image
President Trump and the Manhattan district attorney have been locked in a legal battle over the president’s tax returns for more than a year.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Trump’s tax returns show years of tax avoidance
In 2016, the year Donald Trump won the presidency, he paid $750 in federal income taxes. The following year, he paid another $750. And in 10 of the previous 15 years, he paid no income taxes at all — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
Response: Mr. Trump denied wrongdoing and attacked the I.R.S. in response to questions about the investigation, which he dismissed as “fake news.”
Timeline: Our interactive timeline charts the ebbs and flows of Mr. Trump’s finances, including huge losses, looming financial threats and a large, contested refund from the I.R.S. that could cost him more than $100 million.
In brief: Key findings from the investigation include the $70,000 spent on hairstyling, the 20 percent of income set aside across nearly all his projects for unexplained “consulting fees” and how his unprofitable companies help reduce his tax bill.
Editor’s note: “We are publishing this report because we believe citizens should understand as much as possible about their leaders and representatives,” writes Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times. “Every president since the mid-1970s has made his tax information public.”
A coronavirus victim laid to rest in New Delhi on Sunday. Credit…Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
One million people have died from the coronavirus
The world is likely to pass a painful milestone in the coming 24 hours: more than one million deaths from Covid-19. India, the world’s second-most populous nation, leads in daily virus-related deaths. The U.S. is second, with Brazil and Mexico third and fourth. These four countries account for more than half the world’s total deaths from the virus.
As of this writing, at least 994,457 people have died, nearly 32 million people have been sickened, and the virus has been detected in nearly every country, according to a Times database. The World Health Organization said on Friday that the death toll could double if countries did not uniformly work to suppress the virus’s spread.
With seasons changing, some countries that were hit hard by the virus in the spring and summer are beginning to shed lockdown policies, raising fears of future surges. In Europe, second waves of infections have already hit Britain, Spain and France.
The French Open tennis tournament began in Paris despite a recent spike in coronavirus cases that restricted spectators on the grounds to 1,000 per day.
In Madrid, about 1,000 protesters took to the streets on Sunday to demand an end to a partial lockdown imposed by the regional government.
Without further restrictions, Britain could end up “caught in a cycle of epidemic waves,” a member of the government’s scientific advisory board warned.
A memorial at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris after the 2015 attack. Credit…Robert Deyrail/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Heart-wrenching testimony from survivors in Paris
In a Paris courthouse last week, survivors and families of the four victims of an attack on a kosher supermarket in January 2015 relayed their memories of the terrifying assault and how it left their personal lives in tatters. More than a dozen people are on trial, many facing charges of aiding the assailant, the Islamic extremist Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed after security forces stormed the grocery.
Because of the attacks, “no Jew in France can go to the synagogue or drop off their children at school without thinking that they are a target,” Francis Kalifat, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, told the court. “This trial must also be the trial of an anti-Semitism that kills.”
Charlie Hebdo: The 2015 attacks came just days after the massacre of cartoonists and journalists at the offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. On Friday, two additional people were stabbed outside the former Paris office of the newspaper. A suspect in the stabbing has confessed, saying that his attack was directed at the publication because it had reprinted cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
If you have some time, this is worth it
How Amazon won over Italy — finally
Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
Hampered by a lack of widespread broadband, an older population unused to shopping online and poor infrastructure for delivering packages, Amazon had long struggled to make inroads in Italy. But the country’s early, biting lockdown at the start of the pandemic has changed the equation for many Italians — possibly permanently.
Child labor: With schools closed because of the pandemic, children are taking illegal and often dangerous jobs in India and other developing countries, potentially rolling back years of progress in social mobility and public health.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Fighting broke out on Sunday on the long-disputed border of the breakaway province between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and quickly escalated to the largest clash since 2016. The neighboring countries described the events as “war.”
Uighurs: Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, described his policies in the autonomous region of Xinjiang as a “totally correct” success and vowed to do more to imprint Chinese national identity “deep in the soul” of Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities.
Paternity leave: Switzerland is the last country in Western Europe to adopt a law mandating paternity leave, beating back strong conservative opposition to the proposal.
Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Snapshot: Above at the White House, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, the 48-year-old judge’s almost uniformly conservative voting record suggests she would move the court to the right, potentially changing the right to abortion in the U.S.
Lives lived: The game-changing French chef Pierre Troisgros, whose unpretentious approach to seasonal cooking earned him fans, plaudits and Michelin stars, died at 92 on Wednesday at his home in Le Coteau, France.
Licorice: A new scientific journal article explores the death of a 54-year-old man from Massachusetts, who died after eating one to two large bags of black licorice a day for three weeks, eventually resulting in cardiac arrest.
What we’re reading: “In this powerful piece,” Marc Lacey, our National editor writes, “the Los Angeles Times reporter Greg Braxton confronts a former editor about a remark that has bothered him for nearly 30 years.”
Now, a break from the news
Credit…Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Read: Daniel Kraus’s “They Threw Us Away” and “Saucy,” by Cynthia Kadohata, are among a new crop of children’s books helping to revive the genre of richly illustrated novels.
Listen: The latest playlist from our pop critics features some sass and swing from Jennifer Lopez and Maluma, and Wizkid, an Afrobeats luminary from Nigeria.
It’s the start of a new week. Take some time to explore new ideas from our At Home collection on what to read, cook, watch and do while staying safe at home.
And now for the Back Story on …
Frame by frame: Inside our video investigations
Since the killing of George Floyd in May, The Times’s visual investigations unit has examined several cases involving police violence or scenes of protest in the U.S. The team of reporters, editors and producers tries to provide a more complete picture of an event. Our Times Insider series took a look at how they do it.
“Often there’s one video from these incidents that goes extremely viral for a variety of reasons: It’s intense, it’s graphic, it’s emotional for a lot of people. But very often, those single videos that go viral don’t tell the whole story of what happened,” said Haley Willis, a video producer on the team who worked on the report detailing the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.
The visual investigations team uses original recordings, explores open sources like social media, analyzes and authenticates audio components of a recording, reviews incident reports and applies traditional methods of tracking down sources and mapping out timelines.
Credit…By The New York Times. Image: Brendan Gutenschwager, via Storyful
For the team, achieving accuracy is always a must. But at a time when these viral events can quickly become politicized, another priority is presenting the information in a way that’s tonally sensitive and responsible.
“We never want to just show something graphic just to show it,” said Whitney Hurst, a senior producer. “We always want to be able to bring the analysis to the table that can really push the story forward.”
The utmost responsibility of each investigation, Ms. Hurst said, isto uncover and convey the facts — whether thattakes a few hours, a few days or even a few months — and to present the findings in a visual way that offers insight into that news.
More often than not, Ms. Willis said, the responses to their workhave a common thread: “I thought I knew what happened. But I didn’t.”
That’s it for this morning’s briefing. See you tomorrow.
— Natasha
Thank you To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on the push to reform policing in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Piece of soap” (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The word “pornomime” — a neologism meaning a mime that acts out sexual scenarios — first appeared in The Times on Sunday, according to the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said. • The Times put together useful information for Americans voting from abroad in the Nov. 3 election.
The appeal will send the case to Europe’s highest court where a final decision will be made.
The case focuses on whether a deal made between Apple and Irish tax authorities was illegal, with the EC alleging that the deal granted Apple €13 billion in unlawful tax advantages.
The EU’s second-highest court disagreed with these allegations, however, ruling in July that there was not enough evidence to demonstrate that the tech giant broke EU competition rules.
“The General Court annuls the contested decision because the Commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage for the purposes of Article 107(1) TFEU,” the judgment [PDF] said.
In announcing the appeal, the commission said it believed the General Court had made a “number of errors of law” when making its judgment.
“We have to continue to use all tools at our disposal to ensure companies pay their fair share of tax. Otherwise, the public purse and citizens are deprived of funds for much-needed investments — the need for which is even more acute now to support Europe’s economic recovery,” European Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
"If Member States give certain multinational companies tax advantages not available to their rivals, this harms fair competition in the European Union in breach of State aid rules," Vestager added.
The EC originally made these allegations against Apple back in 2016, after a two-year investigation had found that Ireland issued two tax rulings to “substantially and artificially” lower Apple’s tax bills.
The deal allegedly saw Apple attribute all profits from two of its incorporated companies to a “head office” in Ireland, which had no employees and “could not have generated such profits”, the EC said at the time.
Zurich, Sep 28 (IANS) Swiss voters have rejected a proposal to end an accord with the EU allowing the free movement of people.
With all referendum votes counted, nearly 62 per cent said they wanted to keep free movement, while 38 per cent were against, the BBC reported.
Switzerland is not a member of the EU but has a series of interdependent treaties with Brussels which allow it to access to Europe’s free trade area.
The move to rein in immigration was proposed by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), but opposed by the government.
A similar initiative to introduce quotas on immigrants from the EU to Switzerland narrowly passed in a 2014 referendum, damaging Swiss-EU relations.
Swiss people are given a direct say in their own affairs under the country’s system of direct democracy. They are regularly invited to vote on various issues in national or regional referendums.
Supporters of the anti-free movement plan said it would allow Switzerland to control its borders and select only the immigrants it wants.
Opponents argued it would plunge a healthy economy into recession at an uncertain time and deprive hundreds of thousands of Swiss citizens of their freedom to live and work across Europe.
A landlocked country that has observed neutrality for centuries, Switzerland has over time veered between seeking closer engagement with the EU, and preferring a more isolationist course.
Sunday’s referendum could have forced the Swiss government to unilaterally void its free movement agreement with the EU by invoking a so-called guillotine clause.
This clause would have impacted other bilateral deals on transport, research and trade with the EU, disrupting economic activity.
The president of the right-wing SVP, Marco Chiesa, conceded that his campaign had struggled to garner enough support for a proposal which was opposed by the government, parliament and tradio unions.
Given that opposition, Chiesa framed the campaign as a “fight between David and Goliath”. “But we will continue to fight for the country and take back control of immigration,” he said.
Opponents of the proposal said the result was an expression of Swiss support for open, bilateral relations with the EU. They said voters were worried about the economic cost of ending free movement during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The bilateral path is the right one for Switzerland and for the EU,” Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter told reporters. “The Swiss people have confirmed this path again today”.
“Today is a great day for the relations between the European Union and Switzerland,” tweeted European Council President Charles Michel. “The Swiss people have spoken & sent a clear message: together we have a great future ahead of us.”
South African church leaders heard that corruption in their country kills when they organized for a campaign against the latest version of pillaging during the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The South African Council of Churches organized a nationwide campaign against corruption during September, Heritage Month in their country.
It is under the banner “Corruption is not our heritage” which highlights the human and monetary costs of corruption involving government officials and people in the private sector.
“People often speak about corruption is an abstract matter of rands [dollars] and cents, or irregular expenditure,” said University of Pretoria political science lecturer Dr. Sithembile Mbete in a webinar organized by the SACC on Sept. 9 to launch the campaign.
“And people have died because of the COVID-19 disease from having incorrect personal protective equipment and other issues that are related to the kind of corruption that we’ve seen around this issue.
“So, this isn’t just a high-level political issue but something about how we live as a society and whether people survive living in South Africa,” said Mbete, who moderated the session.
CREATING A FUTURE
Ziphozihle Siwa, presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and president of the South African Council of Churches led prayers at the beginning of the webinar.
“We pray Oh Lord that we use this time as we create a future. We know that future may be created by the actions of each and every citizen of this country,” he said.
Before the campaign began, Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town had addressed the nation’s president and other leaders about pandemic corruption.
“Mr. President, this is not only stealing. It is annihilating the very lives of the poorest; it is almost genocidal in effect.
“Corrupt bigwigs who have joined your party, not to serve the common good but to enrich themselves, act with impunity – their attitudes are debilitating, life-drenching.”
Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, cited Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former South African Anglican leader Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu writing on the humanity-based philosophy of “ubuntu.”
“We know we belong in a greater whole diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, and others are tortured or oppressed — in this case, by COVID corruption and greed,” said Mpumlwana.
Also speaking at the webinar was South Africa’s auditor general, Kimi Makwetu.
He had released a scathing report earlier revealing that in some cases personal protective equipment was bought for five times more than the price the national treasury had advised.
Makwetu’s report had tracked the spending of 500 billion rands ($26 billion) equivalent to 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
“A lot of the effort that we put into this on the detection side of things has revealed a number of frightening findings that require to be followed up very quickly,” he said at a press conference.
‘ONLY SPENT MONEY HAS VALUE’
Mbete quoted the auditor general’s words at the webinar that the money in the national coffers, “does not have value until it is spent on the people for whom it is intended.”
Prof. William Gumede, a Witwatersrand University governance assistant professor, said, “I understand these gangsters; I grew up with gangs in the Cape Flats,” a crime-and poverty-ridden area of Cape Town.
“Real gangsters are setting up political parties, so we need to have a tightening of the rules for people who set up these political parties and for people who get elected.”
Gumede noted, “We need to bar companies found guilty of corrupt practices,” and their actions need to be made public.
At the end of the webinar, Mbete said, “I hope to take this as a real clarion call for us to build the kind of South Africa, that we intended to in 1994,” when Nelson Mandela became president of the country. The future is defined by justice and a better life for all of us.”
SACC leader Bishop Mpumlwana on Sept. 15 launched the nationwide silent prayers campaign against corruption in all South Africa’s nine provinces
“We are calling it a ‘performance of silence’ because the churches are speechless at this level of revolting fraud,” said Mpumlwana.
The campaign followed the moral call against COVID-19 corruption issued on Aug. 7, by a group of six organizations who call themselves the Moral Call Collective.
The collective is made up of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, Foundation for Human Rights, Nelson Mandela Foundation, and South African Council of Churches.
“We are saying as the churches, and active citizens, that we refuse for our nation’s culture and heritage to be one of stealing, and defrauding of public resources,” said Mpumlwana.
“Corruption, especially this blatant looting of COVID-19 funds that has been reported, is criminal and continues to cost us lives and livelihoods as a country.”
September 27, 2020 (KHARTOUM) – The European Union and the World Bank Saturday signed a partnership agreement to manage $110 million to fund Sudan Family Support Programme (SFSP) provided by the European countries.
This European support is critical for the Sudanese government to implement tough economic reforms including the end of commodities subsidies which would affect poor families.
“The signed agreement allocates a total amount of EUR 92.9 million (USD 110 million) to the Sudan Transition and Recovery Support (STARS) Multi-Donor Trust Fund administered and managed by the World Bank,” said a statement released by the EU office in Khartoum.
The trust fund is the primary financing mechanism for the government-led and implemented Sudan Family Support Program.
At the occasion, the ambassadors of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden also announced their support, summing up to $78.2 million USD, bringing the total Team Europe contribution to the SFSP to $186.6 million.
The Sweden Ambassador said in a tweet after the signing ceremony that her country signed bilateral support to the programme of almost $25 million, through the World Bank.
The signing ceremony was held at the Prime Minister’s Office in the presence of Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, the Ministers of Labour and Social Development, Culture and Information, the Acting Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, European Ambassadors and UN officials.
The agreement was signed by Ambassador of the European Union to Sudan, Robert van den Dool and Ousmane Dione, Country Director for Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan of the World Bank.
Hamdok commended the efforts made by the World Bank, the exemplary cooperation with the EU and its member states and the steps in following on the pledges made in the Berlin Conference.
Today’s ceremony marks “an important step in enabling the civilian-led Transitional Government to provide the much-needed assistance to the most vulnerable Sudanese as the cabinet accelerates its urgent economic reforms,” he said.
For his part, EU Ambassador Robert van den Dool said that the European Union is making good on its pledge at the Berlin conference in June 2020, to support the transitional government in its efforts to launch economic reforms.
“Together with the contributions announced today by EU member states, we have also shown that this Team Europe Approach allows us to join forces very effectively with our partners to make an even bigger difference for Sudan and its people,” den Dool added.
He also, disclosed that the European Union has also helped in triggering the World Bank to consider contributing substantially with resources which will be decided by its Board in the coming days.
The Sudan Family Support Programme is led and implemented by the Sudanese government. The Programme is being implemented by the Ministries of Finance and Economic Planning, Labour and Social Development, and Interior, along with other relevant agencies, and will be executed by the Digital Economy Agency.
The pilot phase is being launched in October 2020 and the program will be gradually scaled up over the next few months, starting with the states of Khartoum, Red Sea, South Darfur and Kassala.
The second phase will roll out to the other most affected states.
According to news reports, at least 16 people have been killed along the line of contact in the worst fighting between the two former Soviet Republics in four years.
Secretary-General @antonioguterres voices extreme concern over the fresh resumption of hostilities along the line of contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, calling on the sides to immediately stop fighting.
“He condemns the use of force and regrets the loss of life and the toll on the civilian population”, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.
This latest skirmish between the two countries, which fought a war in the 1990s as the Soviet Union was dissolving, has heightened fears of instability in the South Caucasus, a region that provides crucial transit routes for gas and oil to world markets.
Both States have declared martial law and Armenia ordered the total mobilization of its military, according to media reports.
“The Secretary-General strongly calls on the sides to immediately stop fighting, de-escalate tensions and return to meaningful negotiations without delay”, Mr. Dujarric said, adding that the UN chief would be speaking to both the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia.
Back and forth
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of carrying out early morning air and artillery attacks on the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The two fought a six-year war over the region until a 1994 truce, but over the years, both countries have blamed the other for ceasefire violations in the enclave and along the border, including in July.
In recent months, more than a dozen soldiers and civilians have been killed in the struggle.
Mr. Dujarric underscored that the Secretary-General reiterated his “full support” for the important role of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs and urged the sides to “work closely with them for an urgent resumption of dialogue without preconditions”.
AMMAN — Jordan on Sunday signed a soft loan agreement and a memorandum of understanding worth 700 million euros, according to a Planning Ministry statement.
The financing granted by the EU, at a total value of 700 million euros, will be disbursed to the Kingdom in three batches, the first, at a value of 250 million euros, is expected in October, while the second 250-million euro batch, will be granted during the first-quarter of 2021, after achieving the related indicators of the second tranche.
The third installment of 200 million euros is also expected during 2021, to be disbursed after the completion of the related indicators of the third batch.
Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Wissam Rabadi and Central Bank of Jordan Governor Ziad Fariz signed the agreements.
Rabadi said that the soft financing would be provided on “very lenient terms”, at a competitive interest rate and a long repayment period of an average of 15 years.
He added that such processes would require the European Commission to borrow from the international capital markets, on behalf of the European Union, to provide assistance to its partners, at the same rate of interest set on the day of the issuance of bonds or on the date of receipt of the bank loan, according to the statement.
He stressed that the concessional funding and the memo will support a range of reforms adopted by Jordan in priority areas, including public finances, through measures to develop the electronic billing system for sectors or professions, and the adoption of regulations to enforce the Public-Private Partnership Act, increase transparency and efficiency of public investment projects through the establishment of a national register for investment projects.
They will also contribute in “increasing transparency and efficiency in the public procurement system” through operating the electronic bidding system, along with reforms aimed at reducing water waste and introducing smart metres, among other goals, the statement said.
The European Council and Parliament approved a 500-million-euro soft loan to Jordan in January 2020, which was raised by 200 million euros in May 2020 in response to measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the total amount to 700 million euros.
The European Union is one of Jordan’s main donors, as its assistance has contributed in the implementation of programmes and projects in important sectors, as well as providing support to the public budget, besides allowing Jordan to address the economic cost of hosting Syrian refugees, as well as addressing the repercussions of the coronavirus epidemic.
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The EU Committee of Permanent Representatives approved on Monday without a debate the proposal to broaden the list of blacklisted persons and entities suspected by the European Union of undermining the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
Along the highway in northern Norway all public toilets are shut down due to the coronavirus, causing logistical problems for the truck drivers they are built for [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Young people sit in their cars in Mosjoen, Norway [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
‘This is where the world ends,’ says Heidi Ingebrigtsen, bringing a cream cake for her first guests in a while [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
‘My wife and I usually park outside the store. There are so many nice ladies here, but it is a pity they have so much clothing on,’ says Kjell Odin Olsen [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
A ferry between Bodo and Lofoten islands in Norway, with seats closed due to coronavirus restrictions [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Tuva Lundberg and Emma Wereck are celebrating the last night of 10th grade in Falkenberg, Sweden; they say their school runs as normal, without extra distance kept between students [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
A restaurant along the highway serves Danish meatballs – but eating out is difficult when half of the tables are closed down [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Jorn Klisan, Johnny Petersen and Connie Klisan enjoy a warm summer day at Uge campsite in Denmark; Jorn Klisan is not afraid of the coronavirus, but fears that an economic crisis will lead many young people to riot [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Campione d’Italia has been an Italian enclave in Switzerland since medieval times [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Anarchists in Hambacher Wald, Germany built houses in treetops and founded a micro society with inhabitants from all over the world [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
For eight years, Hambacher Wald has been occupied by anarchists, after one of Germany’s largest coal mining companies cleared parts of the ancient forest to open a mine [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
‘We know that the forest won’t survive anyway, because the excavations have gone too far. The trees will rot on their roots,’ says activist Nemo [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
A mural in Cologne, Germany; the country’s coronavirus transmission rate soared after a massive outbreak at a meat plant, and restrictions were imposed in parts of the country [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
An evangelical megachurch in Mulhouse, France began receiving threats after a cluster of 2,500 coronavirus cases were traced to it [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Two boys ride scooters in Mulhouse, France [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The small city of Soultz-Haut-Rhin in France wakes up to another day of the coronavirus pandemic [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
People wear face masks in Codogno, Italy; the country has been one of the worst affected by the coronavirus [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The religious community La Famiglia runs a camping site; here a sister – who is also head of camping – shares baby photos after taking the two journalists to a morning service in Malnate, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened at the end of May after being shut for three months; guards are prepared with face masks, face shields and metal detectors as tourists visit the historic tower [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Eugenia Chauvie sits outside on a wall in Pisa, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
On the ferry to Sicily, it is mandatory to wear a mask and keep distance, however many of the passengers still light their cigarettes [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
About 300 migrants and refugees, most of them from African countries, live in a makeshift camp in Cassibile, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
Most of those who live in the makeshift camp in Cassibile stay for a couple of months while working in the agriculture industry; when the season ends, they head to other parts of Italy and live in similar camps [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
The makeshift camp in Cassibile, Italy [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
A beach in Sicily, and the end of the journalists’ journey [Kyrre Lien/Al Jazeera]
