Thai police summon 5 activists, arrest 1 for protests

August 24, 2020

BANGKOK (AP) — Thai police said Monday that they have issued summonses to five activists who spoke at an anti-government rally in front of army headquarters last month, accusing them of violating a coronavirus emergency decree that prohibits public gatherings.

One of the five was arrested later Monday and charged with six offenses for his part in a rally this month, his lawyer said. The growing protests have emerged as the most serious threat to Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army general whose administration they accuse of incompetence and corruption.

“They are being called in to hear charges as their rally breached the emergency decree," Police Col. Prasopchoke Aiempinij said of the five who were summoned. “No other charges are being considered at the moment.”

Among those called in was Arnon Nampha, a civil rights lawyer who is out on bail after being charged twice following anti-government protests on July 18 and Aug. 3, with accusations including sedition and violating the public assembly ban. He said that he would report to police on Tuesday along with the other activists summoned over a July 20 rally.

Three of the other activists — Panupong Jadnok, Parit Chiwarak and Suwanna Tanlek — are also out on bail after being charged with sedition and other offenses related to the July 18 protest. Panupong, however, was arrested by authorities on Monday for taking part in a protest this month. He was carried away by police while staging a solo demonstration against Prayuth in the eastern province of Rayong, where the prime minister was visiting.

Local news footage showed Panupong holding a placard outside a local market to be visited by Prayuth before plainclothes police surrounded him and carried him to a waiting van. Noraset Nanongtoom, Panupong’s legal representative from the group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, said he was facing six charges related to an Aug. 10 rally at Thammasat University outside Bangkok, where Panupong gave a speech.

The student-led protest movement has declared three core demands: holding new elections, amending the constitution and ending the intimidation of critics of the government. As the army chief in 2014, Prayuth led a coup ousting an elected government. He then served as prime minister in the military regime that succeeded it, and returned as premier after a general election last year. Laws guiding the 2019 election were widely seen as so heavily rigged in Prayuth’s favor that victory was all but guaranteed.

Associated Press writer Busaba Sivasomboon contributed to this report.

Germany raises pressure on Russia in Navalny poisoning probe

September 06, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Germany on Sunday increased the pressure on Russia over the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, warning that a lack of support by Moscow in the investigation could “force” Germany to rethink the fate of a German-Russian gas pipeline project.

“I hope the Russians won't force us to change our position regarding the Nord Stream 2" pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Maas also said “if there won't be an contributions from the Russian side regarding the investigation in the coming days, we will have to consult with our partners.” He did not exclude possible sanctions against Russia, telling the newspaper that such measures should be "pinpointed effectively.” However, Maas also admitted that halting the building of the nearly completed gas pipeline would harm German and European companies as well as Russia.

“Whoever demands this has to be aware of the consequences,” he said. “More than 100 companies from 12 European countries are involved (in the construction), about half of them from Germany.” The German government has come under growing pressure to use the joint German-Russian pipeline project as leverage in getting Russia to provide answers on Navalny. The Nord Stream 2 project would deliver Russian gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea when completed, bypassing Ukraine.

Navalny, a Kremlin critic and corruption investigator, fell ill on a flight to Moscow on Aug. 20 and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk. He has been in an induced coma in a Berlin hospital since he was flown to Germany for treatment on Aug. 22.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called Navalny’s poisoning an attempted murder that aimed to silence one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics and called for a full investigation.

German authorities say tests showed that he had been poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group. British authorities previously identified the nerve agent, developed during the Soviet era, as the poison used to target former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018.

“We have high expectations from the Russians to bring light into this severe crime,” Maas said. “If they have nothing to do with this attack, then it's in their own interest to put the facts on the table.”

France also added pressure on Sunday, suggesting the possibility of sanctions if Moscow fails to quickly respond to European demands for answers about Navalny’s poisoning. “It’s a serious situation. It’s serious firstly because it’s the poisoning of another opposition figure. And it’s serious because the substance that was used, Novichok, is banned,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaking on France Inter radio.

“(The Russians) must now tell us the truth so that we can act accordingly ... When we say quickly, it’s quickly, that’s to say a week, now. It’s a traumatizing event for everyone," he said. Putin’s spokesman has brushed off allegations that the Kremlin was involved in poisoning Navalny and said last week that Germany hadn’t provided Moscow with any evidence about the politician’s condition.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reiterated Moscow's claim Sunday that Germany hadn't provided any evidence since Russia requested it in late August. “Dear Mr. Maas, if the government of the Federal Republic of Germany is sincere in its statements, then it should itself be interested in preparing a response to the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia as soon as possible," Zakharova wrote in a Facebook posting.

Maas rejected that accusation later Sunday, saying Germany had long agreed to Russia's request and had told the country's ambassador to Berlin so last week. “There is no reason why we shouldn't agree to this request and therefore this is another one of their smoke grenades — we have seen several of those during the last days and I'm afraid there will be more in coming days,” Maas told ARD public Television.

Merkel personally offered the country’s assistance in treating Navalny. He’s now in stable condition at Berlin's Charite hospital, but doctors expect a long recovery and haven’t ruled out that the 44-year-old could face long-term effects to his health from the poisoning.

Merkel has previously rejected the idea that the Navalny case be linked to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The U.S. has long opposed the project, which has been increasingly a source of friction between Berlin and Washington. In August, three Republican senators threatened sanctions against an operator of a Baltic Sea port located in Merkel’s parliamentary constituency over its part in Nord Stream 2. The Mukran port is a key staging post for ships involved in its construction.

The U.S. argues the project will endanger European security by making Germany overly dependent on Russian gas. It’s also opposed by Ukraine and Poland, which will be bypassed by the pipeline under the Baltic, as well as some other European nations.

In addition to the security concerns, the U.S. also wants to sell more of its own liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Europe.

John Leicester contributed reporting from Paris, Jim Heintz from Moscow.

Attempts to halt Kremlin critic Navalny have failed so far

September 04, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — All the attempts over the years to stop the work of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have failed — so far. He’s been jailed repeatedly and twice put on trial for embezzlement and fraud. He's been put under house arrest and splashed in the face with green antiseptic, damaging his sight. He was hospitalized last year for a suspected poisoning while in custody. His brother was jailed for over three years on fraud charges.

Now Navalny is in an induced coma in a Berlin hospital after suffering what German authorities say was a poisoning with a chemical nerve agent while the opposition leader and corruption fighter was traveling from Siberia on Aug. 20. The Kremlin has denied involvement, and questioned whether he was poisoned at all.

Initially stunned by the attempt on his life, his supporters soon got back to work on their latest campaign against the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We’ve got more anger and more motivation to work harder in order to, among other things, show the Kremlin that these methods of pressuring the opposition don’t work,” said Lyubov Sobol, one of Navalny’s closest allies.

His top strategist Leonid Volkov said Navalny's team put all their regular work on hold as they arranged his transfer from a hospital in Omsk, where the plane carrying the unconscious activist had made an emergency landing. They publicized his plight for 48 hours, from the moment the plane landed in Omsk to the minute when the medevac plane carrying Navalny took off for Berlin.

“Starting from Sunday, when he was already in Berlin, I firmly told everyone — and everyone understood, of course — that, ’Guys, I’m sorry but we need to get back to our normal work,'” Volkov said. “We’ve got to slog away at Smart Voting.”

The Smart Voting project was launched in 2018 and is designed to oust the Kremlin’s dominant United Russia party — which Navalny has dubbed “the party of crooks and thieves” — from regional governments and legislatures.

The project aims to identify and campaign for candidates who are most likely to beat those backed by the Kremlin in various elections. Last year, the Smart Voting project helped opposition candidates win 20 out of 45 seats on the Moscow city council. This year, Navalny’s team hopes to use it in 31 Russian regions where elections on various levels are scheduled for Sept. 13. In some of those regions, the team put forward its own candidates.

Navalny, 44, has been a thorn in the Kremlin's side even though he is barred from running against Putin because of the 2017 conviction for embezzlement — a charge he says was politically motivated. In public statements, Putin refuses to even speak Navalny's name.

Through his two popular YouTube channels detailing government corruption, Navalny’s reach has spread across the vast country. In 2017, he set up a network of campaign offices in a bid to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election. Even though he was banned from running against Putin, Navalny kept the infrastructure in place.

These regional “headquarters” began their own investigations of graft by local officials and recruited activists, some of whom would later run for office. Navalny believes that ending the dominance of United Russia in regional parliaments and administrations will undermine “the formal mechanism” of Putin’s rule.

After Navalny was hospitalized in Germany, his team used the moment to promote Smart Voting, filling social media with calls to register on the project’s online platform that tells voters which candidates to support in their area. Volkov said the appeals have increased registrations.

On Monday, they released a 40-minute expose of corruption in Novosibirsk, a large city in Siberia where a coalition of over 30 opposition candidates is running for the city council. The video, which has gotten over 4 million views on YouTube, was shot during Navalny’s fateful trip to Siberia.

“The foundation of Putin’s power is not the State Duma, as one would think. No," Navalny says in the video, stressing the importance of the local elections. “Their main power is in United Russia having a majority in every regional legislature and a majority in every big city council. If (United Russia) loses this majority, the power of the villains melts away immediately,” he says.

From these regional roots, Navalny’s team hopes to go all the way to the State Duma -- Russia’s lower house of parliament -- and deploy the Smart Voting strategy in the 2021 parliamentary election. “It’s a dress rehearsal, a decisive test of strength before the elections to the State Duma,” Volkov said.

Navalny’s ability to mobilize voters next year poses a key challenge for the Kremlin, because those elections will determine who controls the State Duma in 2024. That's when Putin’s current term expires and he is expected to seek re-election, thanks to a reset of his term limits after lawmakers and voters approved changes to Russia's constitution this year. And Putin's approval ratings have fallen recently amid growing public frustration over the declining economy.

The Smart Voting strategy could indeed upend government plans for the new parliament, said Nikolai Petrov, a senior research fellow in Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Program, but he said Navalny’s personal involvement is crucial.

“Navalny is unique because no one but him … has enough authority to consolidate votes for various non-Kremlin forces and ensure defeat of the Kremlin’s candidates,” Petrov said. Still, Navalny has built an organization that goes beyond the appeal of one man. With him jailed so often, his supporters are used to working on their own, as is his network of over 40 regional cells nationwide.

“Navalny was imprisoned for 30 or 50 days last year, and the work didn’t stop. It’s the same now. Yes, of course, it was a shock for us, but we didn’t stop our campaigns,” said Ksenia Fadeyeva, who runs the regional headquarters in the Siberian city of Tomsk and is running for city council.

At the same time, his supporters admit that his charisma and popularity are an asset, even though his anti-corruption campaigns have angered many in power even outside the Kremlin. Tomsk was one of Navalny’s stops on his recent trip to Siberia. Fadeyeva says she was “pleasantly surprised” by how well he is known.

“We walked around the city center, and a lot of people recognized him. To be honest, I didn’t expect that many people to approach (Navalny), say hello, ask for a photo, want to talk,” Fadeyeva said. A 40-minute video exposing corruption in Tomsk was released Thursday by Navalny's team, and in five hours received over 850,000 views.

“We don’t hide that our political organization — vast and sophisticated — is built around a charismatic leader, which is both a strength and a weakness,” Volkov said. “A leaderless protest can’t be beheaded, but it is much harder for a leaderless protest to succeed.”

Volkov admits that hardly anyone on the team has as much “political capital” or could rally people like Navalny, who could come up with “thoughts and ideas that were interesting to a lot of people,” as well as effective forms of communication.

“The Kremlin understands that, and it understands that with ... one horrific criminal act it can try and nullify a significant part of what we’ve done,” he added. In the meantime, there’s no other option but to continue the work.

“You do what you can. We campaign the way we can," Volkov said. "We invest all the resources that we have. And we do what we do.”

Associated Press journalist Alexander Roslyakov contributed.

Putin: Russia stands ready to offer security help to Belarus

August 27, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that he stands ready to send police to Belarus if protests there turn violent, but added in an interview broadcast Thursday that there is no such need now and voiced hope for stabilizing the situation in the neighboring country.

Belarus’ authoritarian president of 26 years, Alexander Lukashenko, is facing weeks of protests against his reelection to a sixth term in the Aug. 9 vote, which the opposition says was rigged. Putin told Russia's state television that Lukashenko has asked him to prepare a Russian law enforcement contingent to deploy to Belarus if necessary.

Putin said that he and Lukashenko have agreed that “there is no such need now, and I hope there won’t be." “We have agreed not to use it until the situation starts spinning out of control and extremist elements acting under the cover of political slogans cross certain borders and engage in banditry and start burning cars, houses and banks or take over administrative buildings,” he said.

In an apparent jab at the West, which has condemned Lukashenko's crackdown on protesters and urged him to launch a dialogue with the opposition, Putin accused unidentified foreign forces of trying to win political advantages from the turmoil in Belarus.

“They want to influence those processes and reach certain decisions, which they think conform with their political interests,” Putin said. Russia sees the neighbor as a key bulwark against Western expansion and an important conduit for Russian energy exports. The two countries have a union agreement envisaging close political, economic and military ties, and Lukashenko has relied on cheap Russian energy and other subsidies to keep Belarus' Soviet-style economy afloat.

Despite the close cooperation, Russia-Belarus relations have often been strained by disputes. Lukashenko frequently has played overtures to the West and accused Moscow of hatching plans to incorporate Belarus.

Just before the election, Belarus arrested 32 private Russian military contractors on charges of planning to stage riots. Belarusian authorities released the men shortly after the vote in a bid to mend ties with the Kremlin amid rising Western criticism.

In the interview, Putin described the incident as a provocation by the Ukrainian and the U.S. spy agencies, charging that they lured the Russians to travel to Belarus by promising them jobs in a third country and made the Belarusian authorities believe they had a mission to destabilize the country.

Seeking Moscow's support, Lukashenko has cast the protests as part of a Western plot to weaken Russia. On Thursday, he accused Belarus' neighbors of open interference in its affairs with a push for new elections in what he described as a “hybrid war” and “diplomatic carnage.” He charged that Poland was harboring plans to take over the Grodno region on the border, saying that it prompted the deployment of additional Belarusian troops to the frontier.

Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki dismissed such claims last week, emphasizing that Poland fully respects Belarus’ sovereignty The United States and the European Union have criticized the Aug. 9 election that extended Lukashenko's rule as neither free nor fair and encouraged Belarusian authorities to engage in a dialogue with the opposition.

The Belarusian leader, who has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist since 1994, has dismissed the protesters as Western puppets and refused to engage in dialogue with the opposition, which is contesting his reelection to a sixth term.

After a brutal crackdown on demonstrators in the first days of post-election protests, when nearly 7,000 people were detained, hundreds were injured and at least three protesters died, the authorities changed tactics and let daily demonstrations go unhindered for nearly two weeks. The government, meanwhile, has maintained pressure on the opposition with threats and selective jailing of its leaders.

On the 19th straight day of protests Thursday, several dozen women stood on the Belarusian capital's main Independence Square with their hands bound to protest the police dispersal of a rally there the previous night.

“Putin must be ashamed, he's promising to add Russian clubs to the Belarusian ones,” said 45-year-old protester Regina Fustovich. “We saw that Putin supports Lukashenko, not the Belarusian people.” Putin defended the Belarusian authorities' response to protests, saying that police in Belarus have shown “restraint.”

He accused Western critics of Belarus of hypocrisy and double standards, pointing at examples of violent police action, such as when “they shoot an unarmed man in the back while his three children were sitting in a car” in an apparent reference to the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake was shot in the back seven times on Sunday as he leaned into his SUV, with three of his children seated inside.

As part of a multi-pronged effort to stifle protest, Belarusian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe against the opposition Coordination Council created to facilitate a transition of power, accusing its members of undermining the country’s security.

Belarusian courts this week have handed 10-day jail sentences to two council members and summoned several others, including Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, for questioning.

Another council member, Maria Kolesnikova, a close associate of the main opposition challenger in the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, was called in for questioning Thursday. “It's part of the pressure on civil society,” she told reporters outside Belarus' Investigative Committee headquarters. “The authorities are refusing to listen to the people.”

The EU ambassadors to Belarus warned Thursday that “prosecution of Coordination Council members on grounds presented by the authorities is unacceptable.” At Thursday's meeting in Berlin, EU foreign ministers are expected to approve a list of 15-20 Belarus officials who would face travel bans in Europe and a freeze on their assets. Lithuania is demanding that 118 people be blacklisted.

In an apparent bid to win time, the Belarusian leader has alternated pressure and threats against protesters with promises of a constitutional reform that could see a new election down the road. Speaking at a meeting with officials Thursday, he said he would welcome discussions on constitutional changes with representatives of factory workers, farmers and students, but ruled out talks with protesters whom he described as “violent thugs who roam the streets and shout that they want a dialogue.”

Vladimir Isachenkov reported from Moscow. Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.

Russia: No signs of crime in Navalny coma case so far

August 27, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities said Thursday they have found no indication so far that opposition leader Alexei Navalny's coma, which his allies and German doctors treating him believe may have been brought about by poisoning, was caused by a criminal act.

A preliminary inquiry launched last week hasn't found any indication of "deliberate criminal acts committed against” Navalny, Russia's Prosecutor General's office said. The statement comes amid growing pressure from the West to investigate the sudden illness of the Kremlin's fiercest critic and authorities' apparent reluctance to do so.

Navalny, an opposition politician and corruption investigator who is a longtime foe of President Vladimir Putin, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Aug. 20 and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

Over the weekend, he was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where doctors found indications of “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system. They are yet to identify a specific substance. Found in some drugs, pesticides and chemical nerve agents, cholinesterase inhibitors act by blocking the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, which transmits signals between nerve cells.

Navalny's allies insist he was deliberately poisoned and say the Kremlin was behind it, accusations that officials denounced as “empty noise.” The Russian doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia have repeatedly contested the German hospital’s conclusion, saying they had ruled out poisoning as a diagnosis and that their tests for cholinesterase inhibitors came back negative.

The politician's team submitted a request to Russia's Investigative Committee, demanding authorities launch a criminal probe on charges of an attempt on the life of a public figure last week, but said they received no response.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday he saw no grounds for a criminal case until the cause of the politician’s condition was fully established. On Thursday, Russian police said they have been conducting a preliminary probe — an inquiry to determine whether a criminal investigation should be launched — to “establish all the circumstances of the incident.”

The announcement about the inquiry came after multiple Western and European officials — including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — called upon Russia to start a full and transparent investigation into Navalny's condition.

On Wednesday night, the politician's illness was discussed in a phone conversation between Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. According to the Kremlin's readout of the call, Putin pointed out that “premature and unfounded accusations” were unacceptable and underscored Russia's “interest in a thorough and objective investigation of all the circumstances of the incident.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Thursday once again urged Moscow to investigate Navalny's condition. “We still expect of Moscow that a contribution be made from there to things being cleared up,” Maas said in Berlin ahead of a meeting with his counterparts from other European Union countries.

"Otherwise, conjecture and speculation will remain that certainly won’t improve relations between Germany and Russia, and also relations between the EU and Russia, but will continue to weigh on them,” he said.

Peskov on Thursday refused to comment on Maas' statement and reiterated that there were no grounds for a criminal investigation. “Nothing has changed in that regard. We still, unfortunately, don't understand what caused the condition the patient is in,” Peskov told reporters.

He added that the inquiry announced by the Interior Ministry had started “in the first days” after Navalny fell ill and is routine police work “always carried out in cases like this.” The Prosecutor General's office, in the meantime, said they reached out to Germany with a request to share their findings and clinical evidence of the alleged poisoning, adding that German law enforcement confirmed their “intention to cooperate.”

Associated Press writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Official: Russian dissident critical, but stable in Germany

August 24, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Russian dissident Alexei Navalny remains in critical but stable condition in a Berlin hospital where he is being treated after a suspected poisoning, a German official said Monday. Dirk Wiese, the German government's coordinator for Eastern European affairs, told public broadcaster ZDF that police posted outside the downtown Charité hospital are there as a precaution while the 44-year-old is undergoing treatment.

“The circumstances of what led to Alexei Navalny's critical condition haven't yet been clarified,” he said. “We expect full transparent and also cooperative clarification, especially from the Russian authorities. And before it is known how this happened, appropriate security precautions are necessary.”

The hospital was expected to release an update later in the day, but Wiese said that Navalny's condition was “currently critical, but stable.” “He is now receiving the best possible treatment,” he said.

Navalny was flown to Germany on Saturday from Siberia after much wrangling over whether he was was stable enough to be transported. After his arrival, hospital spokeswoman Manuela Zingl said the 44-year-old would be undergoing extensive diagnostic tests and that doctors wouldn’t comment on his illness or treatment until they were able to evaluate the results.

On Sunday, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and aide Leonid Volkov visited the Russian opposition leader in the hospital, but didn't speak to reporters. Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital in the city of Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing. His supporters believe that tea he drank was laced with poison — and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and a delay in transferring him to Germany.

Russian doctors on Monday said two laboratories found no poisonous substances in his system. “If we had found poisoning confirmed by something, it would have been much easier for us,” said Anatoly Kalinichecnko, deputy chief doctor of the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, where Navalny was treated.

“But we received a final conclusion from two laboratories that no toxic chemicals that can be considered poisons or by-products of poisons, were found.” The hospital's chief doctor, Alexander Murkhavsky, rejected allegations made by Navalny’s team that doctors in Omsk had been acting in coordination with Russia’s security services.

“We were treating the patient, and we saved him," Murakhovsky said Monday. “There wasn’t and couldn’t be any influence on the patient’s treatment.” He wasn’t able to identify men in plainclothes spotted in the hospital last week who the politician’s allies said were law enforcement and security service agents.

“I can’t say who they were,” Murakhovsky said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week he didn’t know anything about security service operatives being present at the hospital. “We in the presidential administration can hardly be interested in who is present in the office of a chief doctor in a hospital in Omsk,” Peskov said on Friday.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from jail where he was serving a sentence on charges of violating protest regulations. His team also suspected poisoning then. Doctors said he had a severe allergic reaction and sent him back to detention the following day.

Daria Litvinova reported from Moscow.

Russian opposition leader Navalny 'risks his life every day'

August 21, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — As Russia’s most determined and durable opposition figure, Alexei Navalny has employed an astute understanding of social media and an accountant’s ability to wade through financial data, a knack for sardonic humor and fierce resolve in the face of repeated threats.

Navalny, a lawyer by training, earned a reputation as a Kremlin enemy writing about official corruption. His activism expanded to organizing anti-government protests and seeking political office, and over the years he'd experienced frequent jailings, a chemical attack and an unexplained illness.

Now, his family, friends and supporters have a new reason to worry. The 44-year-old opposition remained in grave condition in a Siberian hospital Friday more than a day after he became ill on a flight back to Moscow and fell into a coma. His allies suspect he drank poisoned tea before boarding the plane.

His wife wants him moved to a clinic in Germany that has treated other Russian dissidents. After announcing that they found no poison in Navalny's system, doctors in Siberia refused to authorize the transfer, saying his condition was too unstable.

His suffering is a shock and a worry to supporters who see him as a stalwart n Russia's beleaguered opposition. “Many times I was asked publicly and privately how I can support this terrible Navalny ... I always answered the same way: Alexei Navalny risks his life every day for his beliefs,” Grigory Chkhartishvili, a dissident author noted for detective novels under the pen-name Boris Akunin, said on social media after Navalny's illness was announced..

Navalny began his rise to prominence by focusing on corruption in Russia’s murky mix of politics and business. In 2008, he bought shares in Russian oil and gas companies so he could push for transparency as an activist shareholder.

Navalny’s work to expose corrupt elites had a pocketbook appeal to the Russian people's widespread sense of being cheated. Whether he was writing for his website or running for public office, his target likely better resonated with potential supporters than more abstract goals such democratic ideals and human rights.

Russia’s state-controlled television channels ignored Navalny, but his investigations of dubious contracts and officials' luxurious lifestyles got wide attention through the back channels of YouTube videos and social media posts. The information uncovered by his Fund For Fighting Corruption mostly overrode the reservations Navalny's nationalist streak and his advocacy for the rights of ethnic Russians raised, even in opposition circles.

Navalny also understood the power of a pithy phrase and a potent image. His description of President Vladimir Putin’s power-base United Russia party as “the party of crooks and thieves” attained instant popularity. A lengthy investigation into then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s lavish country getaway boiled down to the property's well-appointed duck house; yellow duck toys soon became a way of deriding the prime minister.

The founder of two opposition political parties, he also also be flippant in the face of difficulty, tweeting sarcastic remarks from police custody or courtrooms on the many occasions he was arrested. In 2017, after an assailant threw green-hued disinfectant in his face, seriously damaging one of his eyes, Navalny joked in a video blog that people were comparing him to comic book character the Hulk.

Navalny frequently was jailed for participating in protests - or sometimes even as he headed to them. Online video reports of protests broadcast from Navalny’s studios sometimes were enlivened by on-camera police raids.

He also faced more serious legal troubles. In 2013, on the day after Navalny had registered as a candidate for Moscow mayor, he was sentenced to five years in prison for an embezzlement conviction. He was accused of stealing timber from a company in a region where he was an adviser to the reformist governor.

But in a hugely surprising move, the prosecutor’s office appealed the sentence hours later. The opposition attributed his release to the massive protests that greeted news of Navalny's imprisonment, but many observers thought it was a calculated move by authorities to make sure the mayoral election two months later carried a tint of legitimacy.

Navalny ended up placing second, an impressive performance against the incumbent mayor with the backing of Putin’s political machine and who was popular among Muscovites for improving the capital’s infrastructure and aesthetics.

The embezzlement conviction was eventually reinstated, and Navalny was convicted, along with his brother Oleg, in another embezzlement case in 2014. His brother received a 3 1/2-year prison sentence, while Navalny's sentence was suspended.

Although he did not get sent to prison, the conviction blocked Navalny from being able to carry out his plans to run against Putin in Russia's 2018 presidential election. His own legal obstacles and the widespread obstruction authorities set before other independent candidates seeking public office led Navalny and his organization to adopt a new strategy for the 2019 Moscow city council elections.

The “Smart Vote” initiative analyzed which candidate in each district appeared to have the best chance of beating United Russia's pick and tried to drum up support for that candidate. The initiative appeared to be a success, with nearly half of the city council seats going to “systemic opposition” candidates, although its effectiveness could not be quantified. Navalny intended to redeploy the same strategy in next year’s national parliament elections.

But the Moscow city council races may have foretold even worse troubles for Navalny. While jailed last summer for taking part in a pre-election protest against the exclusion of many independent candidates, Navalny became ill and was taken to a hospital.

The official version was that he had suffered an allergic reaction. His supporters and some doctors said at the time that poisoning appeared to be a more likely explanation.

Russian doctors refuse Navalny's transfer to Germany

August 21, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Doctors in the Siberian city of Omsk refused to authorize the transfer of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny to a German hospital, his spokeswoman said Friday. Navalny remains in a coma in intensive care after a suspected poisoning his allies link to his political activity.

“The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Family’s decision to transfer him is not enough,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted. Omsk is about 4,200 kilometers (2,500 miles) east of Berlin, roughly a six-hour flight.

The 44-year-old Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. His team says an plane with all the necessary equipment is ready to take Navalny to a German clinic.

Navalny’s ally Ivan Zhdanov said Friday that police found “a very dangerous substance” in Navalny’s system, but officials refuse to disclose which substance it is. Yarmysh also said in her tweet that “the ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life."

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

The most prominent member of Russia’s opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running. He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russia’s Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the region’s governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

NATO says Turkey, Greece agree to talks; Athens denies deal

September 03, 2020

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — NATO's chief said Thursday that alliance members Greece and Turkey have agreed to start “technical talks” to reduce the risks of military “incidents and accidents” in the eastern Mediterranean, where the two are locked in a tense standoff over offshore energy rights.

But Athens quickly denied any such agreement, saying neighboring Turkey must first withdraw its ships from the area where it is carrying out gas and oil prospecting. Ankara, on the other hand, said it backs NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s initiative for military and technical talks and called on Greece to do the same.

Relations between the historic regional rivals have hit their worst point in 46 years — when their militaries briefly fought in Cyprus — after Ankara sent a research vessel, escorted by warships, in July into waters claimed by Greece and Cyprus. Turkey says it has every right to prospect there.

Greece placed its armed forces on alert and sent its own warships to the area, between the islands of Crete and Cyprus and Turkey’s southern coast, while simulated dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter pilots have multiplied over the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.

Stoltenberg announced the possible diplomatic opening on NATO's website Thursday, the same day Turkey announced that Russia plans live-fire naval exercises this month in the eastern Mediterranean. “Following my discussions with Greek and Turkish leaders, the two Allies have agreed to enter into technical talks at NATO to establish mechanisms for military de-confliction, to reduce the risk of incidents and accidents in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Stoltenberg said.

He added that “Greece and Turkey are valued Allies, and NATO is an important platform for consultations on all issues that affect our shared security.” A Greek official told The Associated Press that talk of “alleged technical talks” at NATO “does not correspond with reality.”

“De-escalation would only be achieved with the immediate withdrawal of all Turkish ships from the Greek continental shelf,” he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to comment on the record.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Turkey was ready for a dialogue to resolve disputes. “We would like to take this opportunity to remind that our country is ready for a dialogue with Greece, without preconditions, in order to find permanent solutions that are just and fair to all issues between us within the framework of international law,” the statement read.

Germany has already launched a diplomatic effort for Ankara and Athens to engage in talks. Both insist they want to talk, but each on its own terms. It is rare for members of NATO to require “de-confliction mechanisms” to avoid collisions or exchanges of fire. While often at loggerheads, the alliance has often urged Russia to continue to use military dialogue to avoid “incidents and accidents,” mostly between war planes or ships.

Still, it’s not the first time that Turkey has appeared close to a confrontation with one of its allies. On June 10, the French frigate Courbet was illuminated by the targeting radar of a Turkish warship that was escorting a Tanzanian-flagged cargo vessel. The French navy, acting on NATO intelligence, suspected the cargo ship was violating the arms embargo on Libya.

Turkish officials said a NATO probe into the incident was “inconclusive.” NATO has not made its findings public. Earlier, Turkey announced the Russian naval exercises in a navigational notice that said they would take place Sept. 8-22 and Sept. 17-25 in areas where the Turkish energy exploration is being carried out. Greek and Turkish armed forces held their own exercises in the same area last month.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the exercises, which Turkey announced after the United States said it was partially lifting a 33-year-old arms embargo against ethnically divided Cyprus.

It's unclear why NATO-member Turkey announced such drills on Russia's behalf, but the two countries have in recent years significantly strengthened their military, political and economic ties. They are coordinating closely on their military presence in Syria, while Turkey has purchased Russia's advanced S-400 missiles and has broken ground on a Russian-built nuclear power plant on its southern coast.

Russia maintains a sizable naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean and regularly conducts naval maneuvers there. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone on Thursday. Germany currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency and has been trying to informally mediate the offshore prospecting dispute.

The European Union has threatened sanctions against Turkey to force it to end its exploration activities in the area. A statement from Erdogan’s office said the Turkish leader wants an arrangement in which resources in the Mediterranean are shared “fairly” and complained that Greece, Cyprus and the countries backing them were the ones escalating tensions.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Thursday took aim at France, which joined Greece and Cyprus for military exercises in the region, accusing it of bullying. Greece is reportedly considering a major arms purchase from France that would include around 20 Rafale fighter jets and two frigates.

Greece and Turkey, who are divided on an slew of issues, including territorial disputes in the Aegean, have come to the brink of war three times since the 1970s. In 1974, Turkey invaded and occupied a third of Cyprus following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. The result, the breakaway Turkish-Cypriot north of the island of Cyprus, is only recognized by Turkey.

Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser reported this story in Ankara, Turkey, and AP writer Nicholas Paphitis reported from Athens, Greece. AP writers Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

Belarus blocks news websites amid large protests

August 22, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Authorities in Belarus have blocked an array of news media websites reporting on the country shaken by two weeks of protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said Saturday that more than 20 sites had been blocked, including those of U.S.-funded Radio Liberty and Belsat, a Polish-funded satellite TV channel focusing on Belarus.

On Friday, the state publishing house stopped printing top independent newspapers the Narodnaya Volya and Komsomolskaya Pravda, citing equipment malfunction. Protests unprecedented in Belarus for their size and duration broke out after the Aug. 9 presidential election in which official results handed Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Protesters allege the results were manipulated and are calling for Lukashenko to resign.

Police responded harshly in the first days of the protests, arresting some 7,000 people, beating many of them. But the protests have widened their scope, with strikes called at some of the country's main factories.

In an enormous show of defiance, an estimated 200,000 protesters rallied last Sunday in the capital, Minsk. Lukashenko's main election challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, called for another march this Sunday.

“We are closer than ever to our dream,” she said in a video message from Lithuania, where she took refuge after the election. Public shows of support for Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, have been comparatively modest. A rally in Minsk last Sunday attracted about a quarter as many people as the protest march. On Saturday, only about 25 people showed up for a bicycle ride meant to show support for the president.

Lukashenko in turn alleges that the protests are inspired by unnamed Western forces and that NATO is deploying forces near Belarus' western border. The alliance firmly denies that claim. On Saturday, Lukashenko renewed the allegation during a visit to a military exercise in the Grodno region, near the borders of Poland and Lithuania.

“You see that they are already dragging an ‘alternative president’ here,” he said, referring to Tsikhanouskaya. "Military support is evident — the movement of NATO troops to the borders. Authorities on Friday threatened demonstrators with criminal charges in a bid to stop the protests. Investigators also summoned several opposition activists for questioning as part of a criminal probe into a council they created with the goal of coordinating a transition of power for the former Soviet republic of 9.5 million.

Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.

Indian, Chinese defense ministers meet amid border tensions

September 05, 2020

NEW DELHI (AP) — The defense ministers from India and China have met in the Russian capital as the two sides try to lower tensions along their disputed border in the eastern Ladakh region, where a June clash killed 20 Indian soldiers.

At the meeting Friday with China's Gen. Wei Fenghe, India's Rajnath Singh said that "the current situation should be handled responsibly and neither side should take any further action that could either complicate the situation or escalate matters in the border areas," the Indian defense ministry said in a statement.

Singh also said that amassing of large number of Chinese troops, their aggressive behavior and attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo were in violation of existing bilateral agreements, according to the statement.

It was the first high-level direct contact between the two sides since the standoff erupted months ago in the Karakorum mountains. The foreign ministers and other officials of the two countries have been speaking over the phone since the standoff started in May.

The ministers met on the sidelines of a gathering of the defense chiefs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The body comprises China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Krgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India's External Affairs Ministry said the meeting took place at the Chinese defense minister's request. “Peace and security in the region demands a climate of trust, non-aggression, peaceful resolution of differences and respect for international rules,” Singh said at the meeting.

Wei told Singh the sides should “cool down” the situation and “maintain peace and tranquility,” the Chinese Ministry of Defense said on its website. However, it said responsibility for the tensions “lies completely with India.”

“Not one inch of Chinese territory can be lost,” the Ministry of Defense said. India's Defense Ministry said in a tweet that Singh conveyed to his Chinese counterpart that "the two sides should continue their discussions, including through diplomatic and military channels, to ensure complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquility along the LAC (Line of Actual Control) at the earliest.”

The tweet came as local Indian and Chinese military commanders met for a sixth straight day Saturday at a border post to iron out differences in the Chushul area in Ladakh, where new flash points emerged last week, said a top military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. He did not provide any details.

The disputed 3,500-kilometer (2,175-mile) border between the world's two most populous countries stretches from the Ladakh region in the north to the Indian state of Sikkim. The latest standoff is over portions of a pristine landscape that boasts the world’s highest landing strip and a glacier that feeds one of the largest irrigation systems in the world.

Both sides accuse the other of provocative behavior including crossing into each other's territory this week, and both have vowed to protect their territorial integrity. India’s army chief, Gen. M.M. Naravane, visited the region Thursday and Friday and met with soldiers deployed in difficult terrain above 4,300 meters (14,000 feet), the Indian Ministry of Defense said.

India said its soldiers thwarted movements by China’s military last weekend. China accused Indian troops of crossing established lines of control. The two nations fought a border war in 1962 that spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce. Since then, troops have guarded the undefined border area, occasionally brawling. They have agreed not to attack each other with firearms.

Rival soldiers brawled in May and June with clubs, stones and their fists, leaving 20 Indian soldiers dead. China reported no casualties. Both sides have pledged to safeguard their territory but also try to end the standoff, which has dramatically changed the India-China relationship. Several rounds of military and diplomatic talks on the crisis have been unsuccessful.

This story has been corrected to remove the reference to Chinese casualties.

Associated Press writer Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed to this report.

Pandemic turns summer into European tourism's leanest season

September 06, 2020

BRUGES, Belgium (AP) — Bruges mayor Dirk De fauw first realized something was desperately wrong with European tourism when on a brisk March morning he crossed the Burg square in front of the Gothic city hall and there was nothing but silence.

“There are always people. Always," De fauw said. That morning? “Nothing. Nobody is on that large square" at the heart of one of Europe's most picturesque cities, he said. Six months later, as Europe's leanest tourist summer season in recent history is starting to draw to a close, COVID-19 is yet to loosen its suffocating grip on the continent.

If anything the pandemic might tighten it over the coming months, with losses piling up in the tens of billions of euros across the 27-nation European Union, and the continent's vaunted government support and social security system under increasing strain to prop up the sector.

The upheaval so far, the bloc's executive European Commission said, shows that “revenue losses during the first half of 2020 for hotels, restaurants, tour operators, long distance train operators and airlines were roughly 85-90%." No country has been exempt in an area spanning from Greece's beaches to the trattorias in Rome and the museums of Paris.

And even now, the European Commission told The Associated Press, “bookings for September and October remain abnormally low," as dire as 10% of capacity in Bruges. It dents hopes that a brief uptick in business in July would be a harbinger of something more permanent.

Over the summer, though, came fresh spikes in COVID-19 contamination, especially in Spain and France, new restrictive measures and regional color codes that spelled disaster for local tourism when they turn red.

It left the European tourism industry relying on hope more than anything else. That was evident on a late summer's day in Bruges, when usually throngs of American, Asian and European tourists stroll along the cobblestone streets below the city's gabled houses, bringing annual visits to over 8 million in the city of 110,000.

“The swans have it all to themselves," muttered Michiel Michielsens as he slowed his boat behind a bank of swans on a city canal. On a normal day — not like the one when he had 114 customers instead of 1,200 — tourists instead of birds would rule the waters. Now a boat could be seen showing a single couple around instead of its normal load of 40 people.

For tourists who can live with wearing masks for hours, there are some advantages. In Bruges, it extends to the city's famed museums, where the medieval Flemish Primitives take center stage. Instead of craning over other tourists flashing smartphones, any visitor could now be alone for minutes on end to study in detail one of Jan Van Eyck's most famous pictures “Our Lady with the Child Jesus, St. George, St. Donaas and canon van der Paele.”

All this is bittersweet to museum officials though. Across Europe, just about all have had to close for months early this year, and the outlook is bleak. Attendance has now slumped to a quarter of what it was in 2019 at Bruges museums. But during the uptick in July “we had 50%."

“So it’s declining gradually. Every month we see the numbers declining," said Jonathan Nowakowski, the business director of Bruges Museums. “I can tell you that we’re looking at losses of 3.4 to 4 million euros this year," despite expectations being high in a Van Eyck memorial year with special exhibits.

“We had we thought we would have had huge numbers of visitors," he said. It all quickly trickles down to hotels, restaurants, shops and the survival of families. For those who own the building it is more manageable than for those who rent a building. With reservations down for the next months, some hotels will just close down, knowing the costs will never match the puny revenue. Others are using the low winter rates in summer.

A great many put staff on temporary unemployment, and they acknowledge government aid has been a help. But they fear that will whittle down soon, despite the 750-billion-euro ($888 billion) recovery fund that EU recently agreed to.

“In the next few months, we will see a lot of places that will go bankrupt. A lot of people will be unemployed,” said Luc Broes, co-owner of the hotel-restaurant Duc de Bourgogne, which overlooks a canal.

Social protection, he said, only goes so far. “We also have to pay our rent for the building. We also have to pay all the staff. We have to pay the insurances. We have to — we are not protected. In the moment we can’t pay anymore, we will go bankrupt as well," Broes said.

Despite the 19th-century novel “Bruges-La-Morte” ("Bruges, the Dead City") that turned the city into a metaphor of melancholy and decay, there is a steadfast conviction that people can turn this around — that tourism will survive.

A special EU summit is October will examine how to reinvigorate and reform tourism. Unsure how long the pandemic will last, Bruges has decided to forego any blockbuster exhibits. Instead, it will center on local artists, including a photographer tasked with showing the solitude that COVID-19 has brought to the city.

The question of whether there will be more lockdowns, nationwide restrictions or limits on international travel still haunts everyone. The European Union has seen nearly 141,000 confirmed virus-related deaths in the pandemic, and Europe as a whole, including Britain and Russia, has seen over 212,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Renowned chocolatier Dominique Persoone was lucky to survive on a big local fan base so he could do without the big cruise ship crowds that come and buy his chocolates from his shop by the cathedral.

“The hardest thing is that you don’t know what the future will bring. We don’t know how it’s gonna be in September, October, when the real chocolate season starts. Then it’s Halloween, Santa Claus, Christmas."

Now, winter and more uncertainty beckons. “We thought we were safe and we had a wonderful life. And, now, this is happening," Persoone said.

Spanish doctors hope beach trips can help ICU virus patients

September 05, 2020

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — After nearly two months of being sedated and connected to IV lines in a hospital's intensive care unit, Francisco Espana took a moment to fill his ailing lungs with fresh air at a Barcelona beachfront.

Lying on a hospital bed at the beach promenade and surrounded by a doctor and three nurses who constantly monitored his vital signs, Espana briefly closed his eyes and absorbed as much sunshine as possible.

“It’s one of the best days I remember," he said. A medical team at the Hospital del Mar — the Hospital of the Seas — is seeing if short trips to the beach just across the street can help COVID-19 patients after long and sometimes traumatic ICU stays.

Dr. Judith Marín says it is part of a program to “humanize” ICUs that the group had been experimenting with for two years before the coronavirus hit Spain. The strict isolation protocols that have had to be adopted since mid-March undid months of efforts to integrate ICU patients with professionals in the rest of the hospital, the doctor said.

In April, the hospital was operating several additional ICU wards and expanded its normal capacity of 18 patients to 67. “It was a big blow, coping with scarce resources and with a big emotional toll among the medical workers. We had to roll back all this great work that we had been doing in the field of therapeutic care," Marín said. “We were suddenly reverting to the old habits of keeping relatives away from their loved ones. And it's really hard to convey bad news over a phone call.”

Since restarting the program in early June, doctors said that even 10 minutes at the beach seems to improve a patient's well-being. The team wants to take this anecdotal evidence further, and see whether such outdoor trips can help in the mid- and long-term recovery of COVID-19 patients.

Spain managed to bring down its infection curve with a strict three-month lockdown that ended June 21. But the country now leads Europe's new wave of infections, with a surge that has brought to the total number of cases to nearly half a million. At least 29,400 people have died in Spain.

“It’s important to keep in mind the emotional well-being of patients and to try to work on it in the early stages of the recovery,” added Marín. For Espana, who works in a local market and has a passion for music, his memories of 52 days in intensive care are “cloudy."

“They say I’ve overcome something really big. I am starting to realize that I should be very happy," the man known to his friends as “Paco” said as joggers and passers-by were attracted by the sight of a hospital bed under the boulevard's palm trees beside the Mediterranean.

“The Paco we said goodbye to was in a very bad state. He couldn’t talk and he could hardly breathe, he was choking,” said Xavi Matute, a longtime friend who was with Espana when an ambulance brought him to the hospital.

Matute was back on Friday to greet his friend. The warm rendezvous was followed by a quick update on everything Espana had missed, including the latest soccer developments: Real Madrid’s win of the Spanish League and Barcelona’s debacle, first with a shameful 8-2 loss that disqualified the team in the Champions League and then an unraveling drama over the future of its greatest star, Leo Messi.

For the 60-year-old Espana, the trip to the beach was a good sign. “Let's see if they now let me get a beer at the hospital cafeteria," he joked before returning to the ICU.

Associated Press writer Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed.

Aide: Berlusconi, with COVID, now in hospital as precaution

September 04, 2020

ROME (AP) — Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who has history of heart and other medical problems, was admitted to a Milan hospital early Friday as a precaution to monitor his coronavirus infection, a top aide said.

Sen. Lucia Ronzulli told RAI state TV Friday morning that the media mogul, 83, who tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the week, was doing well. She said he was undergoing “precautionary monitoring” of his infection.

"He passed the night well,'' she said. State radio later said Berlusconi was admitted to San Raffaele hospital, where his private doctor is based, shortly after midnight. Sky TG24, reporting from outside the hospital, said Berlusconi had the “beginnings of pneumonia” and was given an oxygen mask to aid breathing. Italian media have stressed Berlusconi isn’t in intensive care. Sky also said he arrived by private car, walked into the hospital, where he had a CT scan early Friday shortly after arrival.

On Thursday, Berlusconi, speaking in a strong but somewhat nasal voice from his estate on the outskirts of Milan, told his supporters he no longer had fever or pain. Italian media have said two of his adult children also were recently diagnosed with COVID-19 and are self-isolating.

“Unfortunately this isn't a cold,'' La Stampa newspaper said he told the daily on Thursday. ”Now it touches me — but not only me, but also my family — I realize more than ever how grave" the pandemic is.

"I'm aware of how much sorrow it has sowed in so many families, of how much pain it has caused so many people. I think of all those who aren't here any more, I think of those who lost their loved ones,'' the Turin daily quoted Berlusconi as saying.

He was further quoted as saying that earlier in the week, beside fever, he had muscle and bone pain, "but it passed.” COVID-19 can be worrisome in people with other medical conditions, and Berlusconi has a history of serious medical problems. In 1997, he successfully battled prostate cancer, including by surgery. In 2006, he had heart tests at San Raffaele after fainting during a speech. A few weeks later he was fitted with a pacemaker at a U.S. hospital.

He also has had bowel surgery for an obstruction and suffered an inflammatory eye condition in the past. Berlusconi spent some of his summer vacation at his seaside villa on Sardinia's Emerald Coast. Many of Italy's recent cases of COVID-19 have been linked to clusters in people who vacationed on Sardinia.

According to Italian media, at the urging of family members, he spent a few weeks at another one of his villas, in France, early in Italy's COVID-19 outbreak, which was particularly devastating in Lombardy, where Berlusconi's home and business empire is based.

On Thursday, the three-time former premier vowed to keep campaigning in upcoming regional elections in Italy for the center-right party, Forza Italia, that he created more than 25 years ago. The party has steadily lost popularity with voters in recent years as Berlusconi battled legal problems linked to his media business and his famed ‘’bunga bunga parties."

After being convicted of tax fraud in 2013, he had to surrender his Senate seat. He is currently a lawmaker in the European Parliament.

Hands up, masks on: High school students face whole new year

September 03, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Henry Holness said he had to sleep on it. Having found out just two days ago that he had secured a place at his first choice of high school, the 11-year-old and his parents clearly had a big decision to make.

A day later, he decided to accept the offer from Kingsdale Foundation School in southeast London, joining about 400 other seventh-grade children embarking on the next — and perhaps most crucial — period in their learning, as many schools in England on Thursday restarted in-class lessons.

“It was really a lot of fun, and it was really great to see so many people again,” said the soccer-mad Holness. Like countless others, he has been hungry for more human contact over the past few months during the coronavirus lockdown.

“Though COVID has clearly added complications to starting back at school, it's important for Henry and all the other kids to get back into a normal routine,” said his mother, Liz Holness. The coronavirus pandemic requires a lot from schools, which were closed in March as part of the lockdown imposed by the British government and are slowly reopening through next week.

One-way travel systems, hand sanitizing stations, temperature checks and the donning of face masks in communal areas such as corridors and stairwells are just some of the changes. Like all schools, Kingsdale has had to re-imagine how it safely delivers education in the coronavirus era.

No easy task, especially since Britain's Conservative government has offered meandering or contradictory advice about how best to tame the pandemic that has killed at least 41,600 people in the country, the worst virus death toll in Europe.

Kingsdale, a turnaround school that is now consistently rated as outstanding and considered one of the British capital's best, is welcoming back students in stages over the coming days, starting with the Year 7 students on Thursday. It won't be until the middle of next week that the school will be bouncing to the rhythm of its 2,000 or so students.

It will be a very different school experience though, with students kept to their own year bubbles in order to limit interactions. Start times and lunch breaks will also be staggered. “Necessity is indeed the mother of invention,” said Christine Matheson, the deputy headteacher at Kingsdale. “We believe we will be even better than we were before, despite having to overcome the logistical complexities of implementing a completely new timetable structure, social distancing, accelerated programmes of study for recovery and much-needed structured well-being packages.”

Many students were taking the changes in stride and have opted to wear masks in the classroom even though they're not required. “It felt fine going back to school, I didn't really think about corona," said Eddie Favell, also 11, after his first day at Kingsdale. “We have been wearing masks for so long now it is starting to feel normal.”

After six months being stuck at home, the reopening of all schools is clearly the single most important easing of the country's lockdown and one that can trigger other changes, such as encouraging more parents back into the office.

For parents and children, just being able to disconnect from each other for a few hours is a reward in itself. “I think both children and parents really need it," said Sophie Favell, Eddie's mum. “I am sure there will be issues and maybe local lockdowns along the way, but the schools all want the best for the pupils and as parents we have to do our best to support them.”

Afghans return to games, parks, weddings despite virus fears

September 03, 2020

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — When the bowling alley reopened, Zohal Bayat was eager to get back to the lanes. For four long months amid Afghanistan’s coronavirus, it and other recreational facilities had been closed. So that meant Bayat, a member of the country’s national women’s bowling team, had been unable to practice,

On top of that, Bayat was at one point struck with COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. She spent more than 20 days in isolation, with fever, shortness of breath and coughing. Her father was infected as well, but now both are well.

“I am so excited,” the 25-year-old Bayat said, as she practiced at the Friend’s Café, her favorite alley. Still, she only comes on weekdays. Weekends are too crowded, as young people pack the place, which also features pool tables, music and the café itself. “I will continue to exercise,” said Bayat, who also plays basketball. “But I am afraid of the second wave of the virus.”

Desperate for relief from endless war combined with the pandemic, Afghans are rushing back to public recreation as the government eases the lockdown it imposed to fight the coronavirus. Since mid-July, Afghans can once again frequent parks, swimming pools and gyms, shop in malls and celebrate marriages in wedding halls. Universities and private schools have reopened, and at government schools, the 11th and 12th grades have restarted.

Few wear masks or take other precaution — and authorities are left trying to remind the public of the danger of a second wave of the pandemic. So far, the official figures have not shown new cases spiking since the easing of the lockdown, with a steady average of around 50 to 70 a day the past month. According to Health Ministry figures, Afghanistan has recorded over 38,200 cases of the virus so far, including 1,409 deaths.

But the real numbers are likely far higher, and the depth of the tragedy is far greater than people understand, said Mohammad Yaqoub Haidari, the provincial governor for the capital Kabul and head of the committee to fight COVID-19.

He told The Associated Press that in Kabul alone, close to 8,000 people have died due to the virus. At the peak, his teams were dealing with 200 to 700 deaths per day, especially during the months of May and June, and dozens of new graveyards have been made to take in the increased dead, he said.

There is no doubt the virus is still circulating. Haidari estimated that 53% of the capital’s population of more than 4 million people have been infected. Afghanistan’s fractured health care system makes the virus even more difficult to control. More than 2,700 medical workers, including 40 at the Afghan-Japan hospital, one of two hospitals in Kabul that handle virus patients, have contracted the virus, according to the Health Ministry. The ministry said 72 health care workers have died across the country.

Still, after months of lockdown, Kabul’s residents have been relieved to finally get out. Thousands have been going to the capital’s City Park, where the amusement park has reopened as well. The park restaurant is built out of an old passenger jet, and children rush excitedly to sit in the plane seats inside.

Obaidullah Rasouly came on a recent weekend with his two kids, his first outing to the park in months. He was happy to be there — but also worried. He wore a mask while few others in the crowded park did.

“Unfortunately, our country did not implement the lockdown effectively, and now that it has been lifted, people are failing to take the appropriate precautions.” The 30-year-old said as his children played on the slides.

It’s good to finally give people freedom of movement, he said. “but they should use protective kits, or at least wear masks.” At the amusement park, with its Ferris wheel and bumper cars, workers clean the machines three to five times a day, its director Habibullah Esmati said. Attendance is down from before the pandemic, both because of coronavirus worries and the security situation, he said.

He sees the reopening as a way to ease people’s stress from the outbreak. “If we can provide a place for entertainment, that is a help to people,” he said. But what many Afghans have looked forward the most to reopening are wedding halls. Marriages were virtually put on hold during the lockdown because wedding parties — whether at halls or at home — were banned.

That pent-up demand means reopened wedding halls are now fully booked every night. That means gatherings that can pack with thousands of people into a hall, presenting a significant risk of transmission of the virus.

Mohammad Nader Qarghayi, director of the Kabul Wedding Halls Association, insisted that halls will reclose voluntarily if there are signs of a new spike in cases. “This is our country; we live here, and we service the people. The lives of our people are so much more important than our business,” he said.

Still, at the other Cafés and blowing centers, university students who had come to bowl had mixed feelings. Several said they were happy to have the chance to relax once more. But if a second wave strikes, said 20-year-old Ahmad Sohail, “reopening of recreational places, given the circumstances, could be very dangerous.”

Detroit turns island park into COVID-19 memorial garden

September 01, 2020

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit island park was transformed Monday into a drive-thru COVID-19 victims memorial as policy makers across the U.S. moved forward with plans to reopen schools and public spaces. Hearses led processions around Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River, where more than 900 large photos of local coronavirus victims provided by relatives were turned into posters and staked into the ground.

As the death toll continued to rise around the world, officials announced plans to bring children back to school in Rhode Island, allow diners back inside New Jersey restaurants and let fans watch football inside an Iowa college stadium.

New COVID-19 cases were linked to travelers on vacation in Europe and the head of the World Health Organization cautioned against opening societies too quickly. Nearly 1,000 inmates at a Tennessee prison tested positive.

More than 847,000 people worldwide have perished from the virus and more than 25.3 million have contracted it, according to Johns Hopkins University — figures experts say understate the true toll due to limited testing, missed mild cases and other factors.

DETROIT COVID VICTIMS

The pictures in the Detroit park showed those who died of COVID-19 during better times: Darrin Adams at his college graduation; Daniel Aldape catching a fish; Shirley Frank with an Elvis impersonator; and Veronica Davis crossing the finish line at a race.

They had “dreams and plans and a story,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said at the park. “They weren’t finished yet.” Detroit’s director of arts and culture, Rochelle Riley, said officials hope the memorial will “wake people up to the devastating effect of the pandemic” and also “bring some peace to families whose loved ones didn’t have the funerals they deserved.”

LABOR DAY

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, said Labor Day weekend will be key in determining whether the U.S. gets a “running start” at containing the coronavirus this fall.

Fauci said Monday he has a “great deal of faith in the American people” to wash their hands, practice social distancing, wear masks, avoid crowds, and congregate outside during the weekend celebrations.

He said it’s important to avoid a surge in coronavirus cases like those seen after the Memorial Day and July 4th holidays.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

President Donald Trump’s new pandemic adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas said he believes college football should be played this year even though many universities have canceled all fall sports.

Atlas, appearing with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday in Tallahassee, said stadiums have plenty of room for distancing. “The communities of college towns depend on these activities,” Atlas said.

Iowa State said it will allow about 25,000 season-ticket holders to attend that team's opener in Ames against Louisiana-Lafayette on Sept. 12 , despite rising COVID-19 numbers in Iowa. Iowa State Athletic director Jamie Pollard told fans in a letter that they will be required to wear face coverings and that tailgating will be banned. Pollard asked that fans respect others’ wishes for distancing.

The decision came as Iowa continues to struggle with the virus spreading in several counties.

BACK TO SCHOOL

In Rhode Island, all but two public school districts have been given the go-ahead to resume in-person classes when schools reopen in two weeks.

Only Providence and the Providence suburb of Central Falls did not meet metrics required for reopening. The two cities have had the state's highest coronavirus infection rates. Gov. Gina Raimondo said reopening schools is not risk-free but that she expects children will return to the classroom.

COLLEGE CLOSING

In Northern California, California State University, Chico has switched to online the limited number of in-person classes it was offering. The move came after at least 30 people tested positive for the coronavirus three days after the fall semester started.

University President Gayle Hutchinson said students in campus housing must leave by the weekend.

RESTAURANTS OPENING

In New Jersey, indoor dining with limited capacity will resume at restaurants Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy announced.

Restaurants will be allowed 25% capacity under the new rules, which includes maintaining social distancing between tables.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS

The United Nations chief said the pandemic has deepened inequality between men and women and reversed “decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality and women’s rights.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during a virtual town hall meeting on Monday that 70 to 90 per cent of healthcare workers are women but only 30 percent have decision-making roles, He also said the pandemic has also impacted physical and mental health, education, and employment.

“Today, millions of teenage girls around the world are out of school, and there are alarming reports of an increase in teenage pregnancies in some countries,” he said. “We know from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa that when teenage girls leave school, they may never return.”

TENNESSEE PRISON OUTBREAK

Nearly 1,000 inmates at a Tennessee prison have tested positive for COVID-19, corrections officials said. Officials tested 1,410 inmates at South Central Correctional Facility late last week after several inmates and staff began showed symptons, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement.

As of late Monday afternoon, 974 of the inmates had tested positive while another 189 results were pending for the prisoners housed at the lockup run by private prison company Corecivic, the statement said.

FEDERAL PRISON VISITS

The federal Bureau of Prisons will begin allowing inmates to have visitors again in October, nearly seven months after visits were suspended at the 122 federal prisons across the U.S., according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The visitation plan — detailed in a memo to senior bureau officials on Monday — instructed wardens to “immediately begin developing local procedures to reinstate social visiting.” Social visiting is scheduled to begin no later than Oct. 3. Physical contact will be prohibited, according to the memo.

Inmates and visitors would be required to wear face coverings and visitors would have their temperatures taken and would be questioned about whether they have shown any coronavirus-related symptoms.

EUROPE VACATION INFECTIONS

British authorities said 16 coronavirus cases have been linked to a flight that brought U.K. tourists back from Greece. All people who were aboard have been told to isolate themselves for two weeks. Public Health Wales said it was contacting nearly 200 people who were on the Tui flight from the Greek island of Zante to Cardiff, Wales, last Tuesday.

Gwen Lowe of Public Health Wales said 30 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed over the last week among people who returned from Zante on several flights and that the number is expected to rise. In Italy, the popular holiday destination of Sardinia had experienced a handful or fewer cases for weeks. But with clusters of infections linked to crowded discos or holiday-goers’ parties on the Mediterranean island, Sardinia registered 79 new infections on Monday.

Associated Press journalists from around the globe contributed to this report.

Venice reclaims spotlight as 1st COVID-era film fest opens

September 01, 2020

ROME (AP) — Venice is reclaiming its place as a top cultural destination with the opening of the Venice Film Festival — the first major in-person cinema showcase of the coronavirus era after Cannes canceled and other international festivals opted to go mostly online this year.

But don’t be fooled. The 77th edition of the world’s oldest film festival will look nothing like its predecessors. The public will be barred from the red carpet, Hollywood stars and films will be largely absent and face masks will be required indoors and out as the festival opens Wednesday.

Those strict measures are evidence of the hard line Venice and the surrounding Veneto region took to contain the virus when it first emerged in the lagoon city in late February. Unlike neighboring Lombardy, which became the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe, Veneto largely kept the virus under control with early local lockdowns and broad testing once the virus was widespread.

La Biennale chief Robert Cicutto said the decision to hold the festival at all was an important sign of rebirth for Venice and the film industry, and said the experience on the Lido will serve as a “laboratory” for future cultural gatherings.

“It will be an experiment on the ground of how to confront an important event” in the COVID era, he said in presenting this year’s Venice lineup. The Sept. 2-12 festival marks Italy’s return to the art world stage after it became the first country in the West to be slammed by COVID. Even Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible 7,” in Venice at the time for three weeks of filming, had to pull out.

Italy’s strict 10-week lockdown largely tamed the virus, but infections are now rebounding after summer vacations. Health authorities are scrambling to test passengers at airports and seaports to try to identify imported cases before they can spread.

Guests to the glamorous film festival are not exempt. If they arrive from outside Europe’s open-border Schengen area, they will be tested upon arrival. Other measures to limit contagion include reserved seats, spaced apart, for all screenings and a requirement to wear masks even during screenings and outdoors.

“Clearly we have to abide by anti-COVID measures,” said Paola Mar, Venice’s culture chief. “Each of us has a personal responsibility. And if all of us do our jobs, we can limit the harm.” But she said the show must go on, given the importance of the film festival and the Biennale’s other longer-term cultural contributions to Venice’s economy, which depends almost entirely on tourism.

Restrictions on travel from the U.S. to Europe have meant that Hollywood films, which often use Venice as a springboard for other festivals and ultimately the Oscars, are essentially no-shows this year.

That means no sightings of Venice regulars George Clooney and Brad Pitt arriving by water taxi, no red carpet photo ops with Lady Gaga, who premiered “A Star is Born" here, or Joaquin Phoenix, whose “Joker” won Venice’s top prize, the Golden Lion, last year before going on to Oscar glory.

This year’s slightly reduced lineup still contains in-competition films from a variety of countries, but will be a mostly European affair. Italian films are well represented, including the first Italian opening-night film in years, the out-of-competition family drama “Lacci” by Daniele Luchetti.

Two Italian documentaries filmed during lockdown are making their debuts: Andrea Segre’s “Molecules,” a haunting study of an empty, ethereal Venice, premieres as the festival’s pre-opening film Tuesday. And director Luca Guadagnino, whose documentary about Italian shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo is an official out-of-competition film, offered up a last-minute short “Fiori, Fiori, Fiori!,” about reconnecting with his childhood friends in Sicily during the lockdown.

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar is premiering his first-ever English-language film, “The Human Voice,” which he filmed and edited in the weeks after Spain’s lockdown ended. The short film, an adaptation of the Jean Cocteau play of the same name, stars Tilda Swinton, who will be picking up a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement award in Venice this year.

Cate Blanchett heads the main jury, which added Matt Dillon at the last minute after Romanian director Cristi Puiu pulled out. But other A-list celebrities are largely staying away. Venice itself still has a long way to go to recover from the economic devastation of a pandemic, the halt to cruise ship stops and a lockdown on a city beloved by the jet-set.

All this happened after Venice was already brought to its knees by the historic “acqua alta” floods last November, which raised deep questions about how Italy's lagoon city will function as climate change and rising sea levels grow to be increasing threats.

“The city hasn’t worked since November,” said gondolier Maurizio Carlotto. “There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. The hotels that are open are half-empty. You look at the restaurants at night, they’re empty.”

“To relaunch Venice, and tourism in general, we need this virus to end,” he said, looking out at an eerily empty canal. “They have to find the antidote.”

Visual journalist Brian Hendrie contributed from Venice.

Russia's virus cases exceed 1 million, globally 4th highest

September 01, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's tally of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Tuesday as authorities reported 4,729 new cases. With a total of 1,000,048 reported cases, Russia has the fourth largest caseload in the world after the U.S., Brazil and India. Over 815,000 people have so far recovered, authorities said, and more than 17,000 have died.

Experts say the true toll of the pandemic is much higher than all reported figures, due to limited testing, missed mild cases and concealment of cases by some governments, among other factors. As of Tuesday, Russia has lifted most lockdown restrictions in the majority of the country’s regions.

Last month, Russian authorities announced approval of the first ever COVID-19 vaccine — a move that Western experts met with skepticism and unease as the shots were only tested on a few dozen people. Last week, officials announced starting advanced trials of the vaccine among 40,000 people.

It remains unclear whether vaccination of risk groups — such as doctors and teachers — announced earlier this year will be part of the trials or carried out in parallel. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month one of his daughters had already been vaccinated.

True size of prehistoric mega-shark finally revealed

Swansea UK (SPX)
Sep 04, 2020

A new study led by Swansea University and the University of Bristol has revealed the size of the legendary giant shark Megalodon, including fins that are as large as an adult human.

There is a grim fascination in determining the size of the largest sharks, but this can be difficult for fossil forms where teeth are often all that remain.

Today, the most fearsome living shark is the Great White, at over six metres (20 feet) long, which bites with a force of two tonnes.

Its fossil relative, the big tooth shark Megalodon, star of Hollywood movies, lived from 23 to around three million years ago, was over twice the length of a Great White and had a bite force of more than ten tonnes.

The fossils of the Megalodon are mostly huge triangular cutting teeth bigger than a human hand.

Jack Cooper and colleagues from Swansea University and the University of Bristol used a number of mathematical methods to pin down the size and proportions of this monster, by making close comparisons to a diversity of living relatives with ecological and physiological similarities to Megalodon.

The project was supervised by shark expert Dr Catalina Pimiento from Swansea University and Professor Mike Benton, a palaeontologist at the University of Bristol. Dr Humberto Ferron from Bristol also collaborated.

Jack Cooper, who will now start his PhD at Swansea University said: "I have always been mad about sharks. As an undergraduate, I have worked and dived with Great Whites in South Africa - protected by a steel cage of course. It's that sense of danger, but also that sharks are such beautiful and well-adapted animals, that makes them so attractive to study.

"Megalodon was actually the very animal that inspired me to pursue palaeontology in the first place at just six years old, so I was over the moon to get a chance to study it.

"This was my dream project. But to study the whole animal is difficult considering that all we really have are lots of isolated teeth."

Previously the fossil shark, known formally as Otodus megalodon, was only compared with the Great White. Jack and his colleagues, for the first time, expanded this analysis to include five modern sharks.

Dr Catalina Pimiento said: "Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the Great White but is equally related to other macropredatory sharks such as the Makos, Salmon shark and Porbeagle shark, as well as the Great white. We pooled detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about Megalodon."

Professor Benton added: "Before we could do anything, we had to test whether these five modern sharks changed proportions as they grew up. If, for example, they had been like humans, where babies have big heads and short legs, we would have had some difficulties in projecting the adult proportions for such a huge extinct shark.

"But we were surprised, and relieved, to discover that in fact that the babies of all these modern predatory sharks start out as little adults, and they don't change in proportion as they get larger."

Jack Cooper added: "This means we could simply take the growth curves of the five modern forms and project the overall shape as they get larger and larger - right up to a body length of 16 metres."

The results suggest that a 16-metre-long Otodus megalodon likely had a head round 4.65 metres long, a dorsal fin approximately 1.62 metres tall and a tail around 3.85 metres high.

This means an adult human could stand on the back of this shark and would be about the same height as the dorsal fin.

The reconstruction of the size of Megalodon body parts represents a fundamental step towards a better understanding of the physiology of this giant, and the intrinsic factors that may have made it prone to extinction.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/True_size_of_prehistoric_mega_shark_finally_revealed_999.html.

Palau invites US military to build bases as China seeks regional clout

By Bernadette Carreon
Koror, Palau (AFP)
Sept 4, 2020

The tiny Pacific nation of Palau has urged the United States military to build bases on its territory -- which lies in a region where Washington is pushing back against growing Chinese influence.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper visited the island nation last week and accused Beijing of "ongoing destabilizing activities" in the Pacific.

Palau President Tommy Remengesau later revealed he told Esper the US military was welcome to build facilities in his country, an archipelago about 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) east of the Philippines.

"Palau's request to the US military remains simple -- build joint-use facilities, then come and use them regularly," he said in a letter to the US defense chief that his office released this week.

The note, addressed to Esper and marked "by hand delivery, Koror. Palau," said the nation of 22,000 was open to hosting land bases, port facilities and airfields for the US military.

Remengesau also suggested a US Coast Guard presence in Palau to help patrol its vast marine reserve, which covers an area of ocean the size of Spain and is difficult for the tiny nation to monitor.

While Palau is an independent nation, it has no military and the US is responsible for its defense under an agreement with Washington called the Compact of Free Association.

Under the deal, the US military has access to the islands, although it currently has no troops permanently stationed there.

"We should use the mechanisms of the Compact to establish a regular US military presence in Palau," Remengesau said.

"The US military's right to establish defense sites in the Republic of Palau has been under-utilized for the entire duration of the Compact."

- 'Predatory economics' -

He said bases in Palau would not only increase US military preparedness but also help the local economy, which is struggling as the Covid-19 pandemic has halted tourism, its main industry.

Palau was the scene of bloody fighting between US and Japanese forces in World War II but Washington focused on bases in the Philippines and Guam after the war.

A US military radar facility is planned for Palau but construction has been suspended because of the pandemic, with the island nation keen to retain its virus-free status.

In addition to its close US ties, Palau is also one of Taiwan's four remaining allies in the Pacific and only 15 worldwide.

China, which sees Taiwan as part of its territory, has set about trying to win over Taipei's allies in the Pacific, persuading the Solomon Islands and Kiribati to switch sides last year.

Palau has refused, prompting Beijing to effectively ban its tourists from visiting the country in 2018.

While not naming China directly, Remengesau told Esper "destabilising actors have already stepped forward to take advantage" of the virus-related economic crises that small island nations were experiencing.

"Mr. Secretary, it has been a great relief to hear you, and other top US officials, recognize the complex reality of Indo-Pacific security -- which is as threatened by predatory economics as it is by military aggression," he wrote.

During Esper's visit last week, which lasted barely three hours, Remengesau said China was offering cheap loans to island nations to win their loyalty.

"That has an impact on how people view the relationship with those who help them," he said.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Palau_invites_US_military_to_build_bases_as_China_seeks_regional_clout_999.html.