Books? Hairdressers? Europeans split on lockdown essentials

November 07, 2020

HALLE, Belgium (AP) — The concept of what is essential to keep a society functioning during coronavirus lockdowns is gripping Europe as the pandemic unleashes death, poverty, illness and isolation. Beyond obvious candidates like food stores and pharmacies, some answers in the patchwork of nations and cultures that make up Europe can approach the surreal. An activity or item considered essential in one country can be off-limits across the border just a brief stroll down the road.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that while it might seem fairest to just shut everything down, “it's perhaps not the most practical” solution. “If people are only satisfied when everything possible is shut down, then that’s a view which naturally doesn’t make economic sense,” Merkel said.

That's why Germany is keeping car dealerships open this time, after their closure in the first, spring lockdown hurt the country's huge automobile industry. In Belgium, of course, chocolate shops are staying open.

“Chocolate is very much an essential food around here," said chocolatier Marleen Van Volsem at the Praleen chocolaterie south of Brussels. “It has to be. Because chocolate makes you happy." Happiness would seem no subject to split hairs about. Neither would safety as infection numbers are setting global records. A total of 600,000 confirmed daily cases were reported worldwide for the first time Friday after having reached 500,000 for the first time on Oct. 26.

Yet consider how differently Italy and Britain treat a service that gladdens many a heart. In the country that coined the term “bella figura” — the art of cutting a fine figure — hairdressers are deemed essential.

“Italians really care about their image and about wellness,”″ said Charity Cheah, the Milan-based co-founder of TONI&GUY Italy. “Perhaps psychologically, the government may feel that going to a salon is a moment of release from stress and tension, a moment of self-care, that citizens need.”

But across England people have had to scramble to get their hair done in the last days and hours while they still could, before new pandemic restrictions came into force on Thursday. “The thought of another lockdown and being stuck at home — (people thought) I’m going to throw caution to the wind and I am just going to come in and have my hair done,” said Richard Ward, managing director at the Richard Ward Hair and Metro Spa on London's swank Sloane Square.

And then there are life's finer pleasures. In France, the love of books is unquestioned. No country has more Nobel Prize-winners in Literature, and a book review program on TV like Apostrophes used to be watched by millions every week. But walk the streets of Paris and you will find bookshops closed.

Sylvia Whitman, who runs the famed Shakespeare and Co. bookstore on the Left Bank, seethes at the prospect of giant online platforms gobbling up business while her shop is shuttered. Her sales have dropped 80% since the the spring lockdown.

“I find it really tiring that the bigger you are the more you can ignore laws, you can avoid taxes, you can find loopholes," she said. “The smaller you are, the more expensive and the more complicated things are. “

Across the border in Belgium, books were deemed essential. Even then, Wouter Cajot, owner of the 't Stad Leest in the port of Antwerp finds it a mixed blessing. The lockdown has reduced passing shoppers to a trickle and he will have to decide whether heating and personnel costs make it worth his staying open.

But when essential goods cannot be bought in a store they can still be delivered. “During the first lockdown we had to invent a website in three days and nights," said Cajot, and he got “new logistical equipment — a cargo bike," to the delight of his Antwerp clients who get books delivered within hours of placing their order. “So why order books at an international online giant when the corner bookstore can deliver same-day by bike?"

That's also become a question of government policy. With small shops often forced to suspend operations, and drifting closer to bankruptcy as a result, the door is wide open for supermarket chains and online giants to pounce. Several countries have taken steps to ensure supermarkets during lockdown cannot sell many products that provide the livelihood of closed shops.

It can get very complicated, with some supermarkets forced to tape off sections of their merchandise. In Belgium, Christmas decorations which took weeks to set up may now be hidden from view, since retail stores cannot sell them, as they are deemed non-essential.

“Books and magazines are allowed," said Harry Decraene, manager of a Carrefour department west of Brussels. "DVDs, CDs and games are not allowed. Sewing equipment is allowed, stationery is allowed, garden equipment can be sold. Pots and pans, toys and Christmas supplies are not allowed.”

Just as toys would seem essential for children, petanque — France's traditional outdoors game that involves mostly elderly players tossing metal balls with leisurely accuracy — might be considered a must for the country's retirees.

There is nothing quite like the petanque grounds of the Provencal village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where the likes of actors Yves Montand and Lino Ventura would click their balls on the dirt. Now they're deserted, as the government opined that petanque is not essential.

“It’s a leisure activity, we can do without it,” said Sandrine Leonard, who manages the local tourism information center. Now that dead leaves provide the color the sun usually does, “it’s more a period to stay quietly at home, to do some cooking. We spend less time outdoors. Hence the importance of having a good book.”

But wait! Bookshops are closed.

John Leicester and Oleg Cetinic contributed from Paris, Virginia Mayo from Antwerp, Belgium, Sam Petrequin from Brussels, Frank Jordans from Berlin, Colleen Barry from Milan.

Italy shuts down 4 regions as Europe tries lighter lockdowns

November 06, 2020

MILAN (AP) — Luxury fashion boutiques, jewelry shops and most of Milan's flagship department stores were shuttered Friday, as the center of Italy’s vibrant financial capital fell into a gray quiet on the first day of a partial lockdown in four regions aimed at stopping the coronavirus's resurgence.

The new restrictions — which led to closures of a patchwork of nonessential businesses — allow a great deal more freedom than Italy’s near-total 10-week lockdown that started in March, but nonetheless brought recriminations from regional governments that feel unfairly targeted. In particular, the south, which was largely spared in the spring, chafed the most, despite concerns that its weaker health care system was especially vulnerable.

Italy's move echoes those in many parts of Europe, where infections are rising again, but governments have been reluctant to impose the kind of nationwide shutdowns they did in the spring because of the terrible economic damage they did. For instance, many European countries have opted to keep schools open — making work easier for parents — while shutting bars and restaurants and many shops.

Even the lighter restrictions this time around, however, are drawing stiff criticism — especially in countries like Britain and Italy where they have exacerbated regional tensions. Under Italy's complicated 21-point formula, the northern regions of Lombardy, Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta and the southern region of Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot, faced increased restrictions for the next 15 days, including the closure of all nonessential stores, take-out only for bars and restaurants, distance learning for students 12 and over and a ban on leaving hometowns except for work, health or other serious reasons.

Sicily and Puglia, two other southern regions, fell into a second tier of restrictions, while the rest of the country maintained more freedom of movement but with a 10 p.m. curfew and restaurants closings at 6 p.m.

In Rome, Italy’s health minister faced Parliament to defend the government’s handling of the new phase of the crisis amid concerns the government has too often bypassed lawmakers during the pandemic.

“In a great country like Italy, this cannot be the field of a political battle,” Roberto Speranza said, noting that the criteria being applied had been in place since April without dissent. “I say this with all my strength and from my heart: Enough. Don’t fuel polemics.”

Speranza said the lockdowns were a necessity as the number of confirmed infections skyrockets and deaths reach highs not seen since the spring. The restrictions took effect the day Italy hit a new all-time high of single-day confirmed infections — 37,809 — and registered the highest number of deaths — 446 — since spring. Lombardy's latest caseload surged to nearly 10,000, accounting for more than 25% of Italy's new confirmed infections on Friday.

"Maybe people are getting used to seeing 400 dead. That number would have people petrified in front of their TV sets. Now people seem more indifferent,’’ Luca Zerbini, a lawyer drinking a take-out cup of coffee near the Duomo cathedral.

In Calabria, the governor vowed to fight the restrictions. And some mayors in the Lombardy in cities that suffered in the first lockdown but are less hard-hit now have pushed for restrictions to vary by province and not by the larger category of region.

Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, rejected such differential treatment within regions, which share a common health care system. “I invite Milanese to stay home as much as possible in these very difficult days,'' Sala said Friday.

All was quiet in the city, where even the lines that usually form in front of popular takeaway sandwich shops — still allowed to be open — were nowhere to be seen. The hodgepodge of shops considered “necessary” includes hairdressers, cosmetic and perfume stores, florists, and sweet shops alongside grocery stores — but not ice cream parlors or pastry shops. That created the odd situation where the flagship Rinascente department store was open only to customers wanting to access the ground floor for cosmetics, the 7th-floor food court or the penthouse hair salon.

That patchwork reflects efforts to balance slowing the virus's spread with protecting the battered economy — and it can be seen across Europe. Many fear that businesses that suffered in the spring won't survive new restrictions this time around.

In France, bookshops have been shut, and Paris’ landmark English-language store Shakespeare and Company appealed to readers for support. And it got it, receiving 5,000 online orders in one week, compared with the usual 100.

But even as politicians keep a wary eye on the economy, they are also concerned about pressure on their strained health systems. Luca Zaia, governor of the northern Italian region of Veneto region, said that the deaths in his region were mostly among people over 70 while most infections were among the young, underlining the necessity for people to observe new rules even in one of the regions with the lightest restrictions.

“We are entering the most critical phase,’’ Zaia said, noting that if the situation worsens they will have to halt other medical procedures to find beds for COVID-19 patients. Germany’s health minister has warned of hard times ahead unless the country can “break” the rising trajectory of coronavirus cases, which has doubled the number of patients in intensive care in just 10 days and set a new record of over 21,500 new confirmed cases on Friday.

And the French government is supplying quick virus tests to nursing homes around the country and to the nation’s biggest airport, Paris’ Charles de Gaulle. The tests are cheap and fast, but experts say they are also less accurate than the standard ones. Nursing homes in France, Spain and other European countries saw tremendous numbers of deaths in the first surge.

“The second wave is here, and it is violent,” French Health Minister Olivier Veran warned Thursday night, while urging people to respect a partial national lockdown. In Denmark, meanwhile, more than a quarter-million people were put on lockdown in a northern region where a mutated variation of the coronavirus infected a mink farm. Although there was no evidence the mutation posed a threat to people, Danish authorities were taking no chances and ordered millions of the animals to be killed.

Pandemic heaps new fears and trauma on war-scarred Bosnians

November 06, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Memories of the Bosnian War are shaping Zdenka Sutalo's perception of the coronavirus. The 58-year-old unemployed woman attends group therapy sessions to work through the trauma of the 1992-95 conflict. As a young woman in Sarajevo, she endured bombardment, hunger, electricity shortages and was forced to break off her university studies for good. Today she sometimes has to be reminded to see the novel virus as a serious risk.

“The war was my most difficult experience in life,” she said after a recent therapy session that included painting pinecones and exercising in a Sarajevo park with others. “As for the pandemic, the world survived plague and cholera and those are now just water under the bridge.”

As coronavirus cases surge in Bosnia, the pandemic is heaping more trouble on an impoverished nation that has never recovered economically or psychologically from a war that killed 100,000 people and forced 2.2 million from their homes.

Bosnian health authorities estimate that about half of the the Balkan nation's nearly 3.5 million people have suffered some degree of trauma resulting from the war. Mental health professionals fear that the pandemic will now exacerbate mental health problems and other health risks, and are speaking of a surge of new patients coming into their practices in recent months.

Tihana Majstorovic, a Sarajevo psychologist who led the pinecone-painting session, said the war experience was leading some Bosnians to downplay the threat of the pandemic, increasing the risk of its spread.

“People who survived the war perceive danger differently. Often, if they are not hungry, cold or have mortars exploding over their heads, they do not feel they are in danger,” said Majstorovic, who works for Menssana, a non-governmental mental health group in Sarajevo.

It has made them prone to “downplaying the threat, to behaving less responsibly than they should," Majstorovic said. “It is not at all a healthy mechanism for adapting to a world threatened by an invisible virus.”

Remzija Setic, a clinical psychologist, said he, too, sees war survivors “recklesslessly” downplaying the risks of the virus. But he also has patients who are suffering from heightened anxiety because some aspects of living through this pandemic are reminiscent of the war: being trapped indoors, seeing public spaces as dangerous, concern over getting food and separation from family and friends.

On top of that, pandemic fatigue is setting in. Setic said he is sees a growing number of people, including many without diagnosed mental disorders, who complain of extreme irritability and physical exhaustion. That fatigue is also leading some young Bosnians without memory of the war to be cavalier about the risk of a virus that has infected nearly 56,000 people and killed more than 1,350 in the country.

“During the past seven to eight months, our population in general has grown exhausted out of an abundance of information, so they are starting to resist,” Setic said. In some ways, Bosnia is better equipped than some other countries to handle the challenges.

Because of the trauma from the war, the past-quarter century of recovery has included creating psychological support networks for a traumatized population. Thanks in part to initially abundant financial support from Western governments and international organizations, some 70 community-based mental health centers were established throughout the country.

“It is a fact that we have a lot of relevant experience ... and that we’ve learned many lessons that we could share,” said Goran Cerkez, the assistant health minister in the larger of Bosnia’s two highly autonomous regions.

Cerkez, who led a post-war effort to reform Bosnia’s mental health care system, noted that people from the neighboring nations of Serbia and Croatia — also born from the bloody breakup of ex-Yugoslavia — have been calling Bosnian hotlines set up to help people deal with pandemic-related stress.

Based on his experiences, he expects the psychological impact of the coronavirus pandemic, both in his country and globally, to be longer and more severe than its immediate medical impact. “Many (collective) traumatic experiences have some things in common," Cerkez said. “They produce a sense of hopelessness and insecurity, a sense of uncertainty because it is impossible to predict how long they will last.”

Greece imposes lockdown to avoid worst at hospitals

November 05, 2020

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — With a surge in coronavirus cases straining health systems in many European countries, Greece announced a nationwide lockdown Thursday in the hopes of stemming a rising tide of patients before its hospitals come under “unbearable” pressure.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that he acted before infection rates reached the levels seen in many neighboring countries because, after years of financial crises that have damaged its health system, it couldn't afford to wait as long to impose restrictions as others had.

“We must stop this wave,” Mitsotakis said. “I chose once again to take drastic measures sooner rather than later.” Before the outbreak, Greece had one of the lowest rates of intensive-care beds per capita in Europe. It has since doubled the number to 1,013. But, of the 348 beds dedicated to coronavirus cases, only 128 remain unoccupied.

It's unlikely that number would've been enough to cope with what Mitsotakis said could be 1,000 new hospital admissions over the next 10 days, of which about 150 would likely have required ICU treatment.

On Wednesday, Greece announced a record 18 daily deaths and 2,646 new cases bringing the total confirmed cases to just under 47,000 and deaths to 673 in this country of nearly 11 million. Greece's rolling average of daily new cases is just over 17 per 100,000 people, as compared to 33 in the United Kingdom, about 47 in Italy and 68 in France. But the prime minister warned Greece also had less margin to respond.

Countries across Europe have imposed tighter restrictions in recent days, but some experts felt those measures were too slow in coming. Britain's own lockdown kicked in Thursday, shuttering restaurants, hairdressers and clothing stores until at least Dec. 2. The lockdown decision was an about-face for the government, which had earlier advocated a targeted regional response to the pandemic.

Italy, too, has held off on a nationwide closure, but the government announced that four regions will be put under “red-zone” lockdown for at least two weeks starting Friday, with severe limits imposed when people can leave home. Germany and France have also put some kind of shutdown into effect over the past week.

In Greece, Mitsotakis explained that he acted relatively earlier than others because he could not take the risk of waiting to see whether the effects of measures taken recently would work. “It could be the case that the measures would have worked, but if they didn’t, then in 15 days the pressure that would have been exerted on the health system would be unbearable,” he said. “That is something that, I will say it again, I can in no way allow.”

The lockdown takes effect at daybreak on Saturday across the country and will last until the end of the month. People will only be allowed to leave their homes for work, physical exercise and medical reasons — and only after sending a text message to authorities.

Shops will shut, although supermarkets and other food stores will remain open. Restaurants will operate on a delivery-only basis. The measures mirror Greece's spring lockdown that was credited with keeping the number of infections, deaths and serious COVID-19-related illnesses low.

The main difference this time around is that that kindergartens, primary schools and all grades in special education schools will remain open. High schools will operate by remote learning. Borders will remain open, but anyone arriving from abroad will have to have proof of a negative coronavirus test, Civil Protection Deputy Minister Nikos Hardalias said.

The lockdown comes just ahead of the crucial Christmas shopping season, and Mitsotakis announced additional measures to buoy the economy. He said workers suspended from their jobs will receive an 800-euro ($950) stipend — 300 euros more than what the government doled out in the spring. Mitsotakis also announced an extension of unemployment benefits.

Greek Finance Minister Christos Staikouras outlined other measures, with a total cost of 3.3 billion euros ($3.9 billion). They include the extension of payment deadlines for taxes and loans. Staikouras said measures taken to tackle the pandemic so far in Greece amount to more than 6% of gross domestic product.

Greece's lockdown comes as daily infection rates in other European countries kept setting new records. Germany, which this week enacted a monthlong partial lockdown, recorded nearly 20,000 new coronavirus cases in one day Thursday, its highest level yet.

Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic also registered new daily coronavirus infection records on Thursday. “The situation is quickly changing from difficult to catastrophic. The outbreak is unfolding at the speed of a hurricane,” Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, France is considering tightening a monthlong partial lockdown to stop fast-rising virus hospitalizations and deaths. Despite signs that the country's infection rate is starting to dip, it remains very high. More disconcertingly, COVID-19 patients now occupy more than 80% of France’s ICU beds, according to the public health agency, a proportion that is still rising quickly.

Paris hospitals are at 92% capacity with 1,050 COVID patients in intensive care and another 600 patients in ICU with other ailments, Paris region health service chief Aurelien Rousseau told public broadcaster France-Info on Thursday.

“There is unprecedented pressure, on hospitals and medics,” Rousseau said. “We have reached the alert level, because to manage, every day we have to cancel a bit more activity” like pre-programmed surgeries.

Hadjicostis reported from Nicosia, Cyprus.

North Korea declares war on smoking

NOV. 5, 2020

By Thomas Maresca

SEOUL, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- North Korea banned smoking in public places in order to create "more cultured and hygienic living environments," state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday.

The law, which was introduced at a meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly on Wednesday, prohibits smoking in places such as theaters, health facilities and restaurants and on public transportation.

The anti-smoking regulations aim to protect lives and health "by tightening the legal and social controls on the production and sale of cigarettes and on smoking," KCNA said. The report added that the law includes penalties for violations, which were not specified.

North Korea has high rates of smoking, with more than 46% of men counted as smokers, according to a 2019 report from the World Health Organization. Smoking among women is virtually nonexistent, however.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is known to be a smoker and is frequently seen holding a cigarette when making public appearances. He was filmed taking a smoke break at a railway station in Nanning, China, last year on his way to a second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi.

Cigarettes have also been reported to be widely used as a form of currency and for bribing officials in the North, which remains under heavy international sanctions. A pack of cigarettes can cost up to $20.

North Korea faces a number of public health challenges, including chronic malnutrition and high incidences of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Average life expectancy is 72.1 years, according to the World Bank, more than 11 years less than in neighboring South Korea.

Pyongyang continues to say that North Korea has no confirmed cases of COVID-19, although experts outside the country have raised doubts about the claim.

The Supreme People's Assembly meeting also introduced a new enterprise law stipulating that businesses must be "labor-, energy-, cost- and land-saving," while employees should be "patriotic working people who regard the spirit of economy as part of their mental qualities," KCNA reported.

Source: United Press International (UPI).

Link: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/11/05/North-Korea-declares-war-on-smoking/3991604564191/.

Four Italian regions, including Milan, put under lockdown

November 05, 2020

ROME (AP) — Four Italian regions are being put under “red-zone” lockdown, with severe limits imposed on the circumstances under which people can leave home, Premier Giuseppe Conte announced on Wednesday night.

What he called "very stringent” restrictions begin on Friday for Lombardy, Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta in the north, and for Calabria, which forms the southern toe of the Italian peninsula. The lockdown is aimed at tamping down a surge in COVID-19 infections and preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed with cases. Lasting at least two weeks, it will involve some 16.5 million of Italy’s 60 million residents and include the country's financial capital, Milan.

Barring very few exceptions, no one will be able to leave or enter the “red zone” regions. People there must stay home, except to go to work or shop for essentials. They can also exercise near their homes and while wearing masks.

After days of consultations with regional governors, Health Minister Roberto Speranza decided which regions received the “red-zone” designation. “I know that these choices will mean sacrifices and difficulties, but they are the only way to bend the (contagion) curve," he said in a statement. “United, we can do it.”

Barber shops and hair salons can stay open, although other non-essential shops in the “red zone” must close. Less severe restrictions on movement were decided for southern Sicily and Puglia, where people will be able to leave their homes, but can't travel between towns or regions, and cafes and restaurants can only do takeout and delivery.

While classrooms are open in the rest of Italy except for high schools, which must do remote instructions, in the “red zone,” only nursery, elementary and the first year of middle-school will still have in-class instruction.

The latest crackdown was supposed to start on Thursday, but Conte said it will begin instead on Friday to allow time to organize. Designations will be reviewed every two weeks. He added that previously announced nationwide measures, like museum closures and an overnight curfew, would also start a day later, on Friday, and last until Dec. 3.

Conte promised that later this week his center-left government would approve more funds to aid businesses crippled by the latest closures.

Retail therapy, last pints: England readies for new lockdown

November 05, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Last-minute shoppers in England came out in force Wednesday and thirsty drinkers enjoyed their final freshly poured pints in a pub for the next month before Britain joins swaths of Europe in a coronavirus lockdown designed to save its health care system from being overwhelmed.

All non-essential venues — which in England includes pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, golf courses, gyms, swimming pools, entertainment places and stores selling items like books, clothing and sneakers — must close Thursday until at least Dec. 2. That order came after a sudden change of course last weekend by Britain's government, which had for weeks been advocating a targeted regional response to the pandemic instead of another national lockdown.

Unlike the U.K.'s spring lockdown, schools and universities in England are remaining open this time, as are construction sites and factories. In London's Soho nightlife district, large crowds packed bars and pubs as many took the opportunity to have a drink with friends for the last time before restrictions begin.

“For me it was making the most of the last night I can go back to my community and have a night out,” said Phoebe Koor, 27. “I’ve got so many friends that work in hospitality and my heart is absolutely breaking for them that they’re not going to have a job.”

With time running out to get things sorted before the lockdown takes effect, many shops and hair salons extended their hours and reported brisk customer traffic on the last day. London hairdresser Richard Ward said his team of around 100 will have worked through 1,400 customers in the three working days since the British government announced the England-wide lockdown. Still, that boost didn't make up for a 25% weekly loss in income this year as a result of coronavirus restrictions already in place.

“The staff are working back to back, all days off have been canceled, all holidays have been canceled,” Ward said. "When you have high overheads like we have here, it’s a numbers game, and you have to take a lot of money in order to pay all these people and pay all the overheads.”

Fears about a devastating economic impact of the monthlong shutdown prompted some lawmakers from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party to vote against approving the lockdown in Parliament on Wednesday. Still, Johnson easily won the vote as most opposition lawmakers backed the move.

“I don’t think any government would want to impose these measures lightly, or any parliament would want to impose these measures lightly on the people of this country,” Johnson said. England’s lockdown follows similar restrictions elsewhere in the U.K., which recorded another 492 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, the highest daily number since May. Overall, the U.K. has Europe's highest official virus-related death toll: 47,742.

It also follows fresh restrictions across the continent amid evidence that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 — and subsequently dying — is increasing, The World Health Organization said European countries recorded a 46% increase in virus deaths compared with the previous week and were responsible for about half the 1.7 million cases reported around the world last week.

In recent days, many European nations — including Belgium, Russia, France, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and the U.K. — have reported their highest daily virus death tolls in months, and sometimes ever. The pandemic has already caused more than 1.2 million confirmed deaths — over 270,000 of them in Europe, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the true toll, due to missed cases and limited testing, is much higher.

Italy, which suffered badly during the first wave of the pandemic, is facing new curbs on freedom of movement from Thursday, including a nationwide overnight curfew and high schools placed on full-time distance learning.

The country is expected to be carved into three zones of contagion with corresponding restrictions on movement, commercial activities and school openings. Travel restrictions will prohibit anyone from entering or leaving a hard-hit region and restaurants and shops will close, except for supermarkets and pharmacies.

The northern region of Lombardy, which bore the brunt of the pandemic earlier this year, is reeling under another surge, especially in its financial capital, Milan, and is expected to face harsher restrictions.

Earlier restrictions appeared, in some locations, to be producing results. Belgium said Wednesday that new infections and hospital admissions have started to stabilize after measures like closing pubs and restaurants were introduced weeks ago.

“The high-speed train is slowing down,” said virologist Steven Van Gucht of the Sciensano government health group. Van Gucht said it was important that people don't let their guard down in a country that has been recording around 1,750 cases per 100,000 people, triple the rates in Italy, Spain or the U.K.

“Let there be no doubt that the tough rules need to be maintained,” he said. In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said there were signs that closing bars and restaurants was working but that further curbs were needed. Beginning Wednesday night, Dutch cinemas, theaters, museums and pools will be closed.

“It’s not going too bad but certainly not good enough," Rutte told the country. “The infection numbers have to go down quicker.” Pope Francis also urged people to be “very attentive” to the measures to prevent coronavirus infections as he switched his weekly general audience Wednesday back to his private library and livestreamed the event. The move seeks to better protect the 83-year-old pope after someone at a recent public audience tested positive.

Not all countries are taking the lockdown route. Russia has shunned a second lockdown, insisting its health care system is able to cope with the recent surge. Still, Russia on Wednesday reported 19,768 new infections and 389 new deaths — both records.

Associated Press writers around Europe contributed to this report.

Europe tightens restrictions as UK, Germany widen testing

November 03, 2020

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — New coronavirus restrictions took effect Tuesday in Austria and Greece, while Germany and the U.K. announced plans to expand testing for the virus as European nations battled rapidly increasing infections and hospitalizations that strained their health care systems.

The moves followed a partial shutdown that Germany began Monday and tighter rules in Italy, Kosovo and Croatia. Residents in England are also expected to face a near-total lockdown beginning Thursday, with an exception to keep schools and universities open.

Nations are scrambling to get ahead of the virus that has rampaged across the globe, causing more than 1.2 million deaths — more than 270,000 of them in Europe, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

In Britain, the government plans to try out a new COVID-19 testing program in Liverpool, offering regular testing to anyone living and working in the city of 500,000 in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

“These more advanced tests will help identify infectious individuals who are not displaying symptoms ... so they can self-isolate and prevent the virus from spreading,” the Department of Health said.

The trial in Liverpool, which has one of the highest infection rates in England with more than 410 cases per 100,000 people, is seen as a test of how Britain might roll out mass testing across the country.

Germany said it is bulk-buying millions of antigen tests, which produce rapid results, to avoid banning visitors to nursing homes and preventing the anguish to residents and their relatives that such isolation had caused in the spring. Nursing homes will receive up to 20 free monthly tests per resident, which can be used to test patients, staff and visiting relatives who might be unwitting carriers of COVID-19.

The antigen tests look for specific protein on the virus, but experts had said in the spring that they were less accurate than the standard PCR test, which can detect even traces of the virus. Greece imposed a lockdown on its second largest city, Thessaloniki, and the neighboring northern province of Serres from Tuesday morning. Residents can only leave their homes for specific reasons and after notifying authorities by text.

Non-essential domestic and international flights to Thessaloniki were cancelled and retail stores, restaurants, gyms, churches and entertainment venues were ordered to shut for the two-week lockdown. Primary and junior high schools remained open, but the final grades of high school and universities were being taught online.

Lighter restrictions took effect in the Greek capital, Athens, where restaurants, bars, cafes, gyms, museums and entertainment venues shut down for two weeks. Only individual sports are allowed outdoors.

Nationwide, the Greek government imposed a night-time curfew from midnight to 5 a.m., and made the wearing of masks outdoors compulsory. New restrictions also came into effect in Austria, hours after an attack on people in Vienna enjoying the last few hours before bars and restaurants closed left five dead, including the attacker.

Until the end of the month in Austria, restaurants and bars can operate only for deliveries and takeout, while cultural, sports and leisure activities have been cancelled. Non-essential stores will remain open, but residents are asked to stay home between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

In France, a government decree published Tuesday laid out new rules for what are considered “essential” items allowed to be sold during a month-long lockdown. French supermarkets are banned from selling flowers and books, but can still sell baby care, personal hygiene, grooming and household cleaning products.

Supermarkets were sealing off aisles or taking products off shelves based on the new rules, which came after small businesses like florists and bookstores complained that they were being unfairly punished because they were forced to close down.

Instead of allowing small businesses to reopen, the French prime minister ordered big supermarkets to stop selling non-essential goods. Critics have said the measure will encourage more people to turn to Amazon instead.

France reported 410 virus-related deaths in hospital in a single day Monday, the highest one-day rise since April. The country is reporting tens of thousands of new infections per day, and COVID-19 patients now occupy 73% of the country's intensive care beds, a rapidly rising proportion that prompted the government to impose the new lockdown.

Associated Press writers around Europe contributed to this report.

Germany starts 'wave-breaker' shutdown as Europe locks down

November 02, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Several European countries are tightening restrictions this week, starting with a partial shutdown Monday in Germany, as authorities across the continent scramble to slow a rapid rise in coronavirus infections that threatens to overwhelm their health care systems.

Britain and Austria will follow suit later in the week, closing restaurants, bars and many leisure activities. Italy, Greece and Kosovo also announced new measures. In some places, the new rules — which vary in strictness — are prompting violent protests by people frustrated at once again having to forgo freedoms.

But in many, experts are saying they should have come weeks ago — a reflection of the increasingly difficult balance many countries are struggling to strike between controlling the virus and boosting already damaged economies.

“We are aware of the frustration, the sense of loss, the tiredness of citizens, also of the anger which is being manifested in these days, by citizens who find themselves living with new limits to their personal freedom,’’ said Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte, as he defended his government's decision to order new measures.

Restrictions have been slowly ramping up for weeks in many European countries, but virus cases have continued to rise. There was a sign of hope from hard-hit Belgium, however, where a leading virologist said that “the high-speed train is somewhat easing up.”

Overall, Europe has seen more than 270,000 confirmed virus-related deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say case and death figures understate the true toll of the pandemic due to missed cases, limited testing and other reasons.

In Germany, restaurants, bars, theaters, cinemas, gyms and other leisure facilities closed in a four-week “wave-breaker” shutdown that seeks to force daily new infections back down to manageable levels. Germans have been asked not to travel, and hotels are barred from accommodating tourists.

In a worrying sign for a country long praised for its testing and tracing abilities, German officials say they can't track the source of three-quarters of new coronavirus cases. Health Minister Jens Spahn, who himself caught the virus, says he doesn't know where he was infected.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care has doubled in 10 days, and the government couldn't stand by and watch. “The virus punishes half-heartedness,” she said of the new restrictions, telling Germans that “everyone has it in their own hands” to make them a success.

“We will do try to do everything politically so that this is limited to November,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin. But she stressed that “we are very much dependent on the majority of people simply being sensible and playing along, and so saving others' lives.”

The new restrictions are still milder than the ones Germany imposed in the first phase of the pandemic in March and April. This time, schools, nonessential shops and hairdressers are staying open. Officials will review the situation after two weeks.

England is headed for a tougher lockdown starting Thursday, with nonessential shops and hairdressers closing for a month and people allowed to leave home for only a short list of reasons including exercise. Travel is also discouraged.

The lockdown is supposed to end on Dec. 2, but minister Michael Gove told Sky News on Sunday that couldn't be guaranteed "with a virus this malignant, and with its capacity to move so quickly.” The plan, which needs lawmakers' approval, is facing resistance from parts of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's own Conservative Party, which worries about its economic impact. Still, passage is virtually assured because of backing from the opposition Labour Party.

Austria is also introducing new restrictions this week. Starting Tuesday and until the end of November, restaurants and bars are being closed — except for deliveries and takeout, as in Germany and England — and cultural, sports and leisure activities canceled. Residents will be asked to stay home from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. They can go out to exercise or to work, among other things, and nonessential shops will remain open.

In Spain, lawmakers last week approved an extension until May 2021 of the country's state of emergency. The measure puts into place a national nightly curfew and allows regions to impose more localized restrictions, such as limiting movement outside city limits on weekends.

“These measures save lives,” Catalonia police chief Eduard Sallent said. “We are enforcing a measure that is meant to prevent deaths and the collapse of our health care system.” Spain's curfew drew weekend protests in a dozen cities. Mostly young protesters set fire to vehicles and trash cans, blocked roads and threw objects at riot police.

Cabinet minister José Luis Escrivá told Antena 3 television Monday that “this kind of behavior is to be expected” as people grow weary of restrictions. Countries including hard-hit Belgium, France, Poland and the Czech Republic already have implemented shutdowns of varying strictness.

In Italy, Conte announced new restrictions including the closure of shopping malls at weekends and of museums. Movement between regions will be limited and a “late-evening” curfew introduced, Conte said, without specifying a time or saying when the measures will take effect.

Greece announced a localized lockdown in its second-largest city, Thessaloniki, and the northern province of Serres. While cases have been rising and are well beyond governments' comfort zones across the continent, data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control show wide variations in the average number of new cases per 100,000 residents reported over the past 14 days, with Germany's figure of about 215 as of Monday less than half those of Austria and the U.K. The country currently worst hit, Belgium, has 1,735 new cases per 100,000.

A leading Belgian virologist said that “long-expected points of light” are beginning to appear, though the situation remains “extremely worrying.” “The number of infections and hospital admissions continue to rise but not as fast anymore,” said Steven Van Gucht of the Sciensano government health group.

Associated Press writers around Europe contributed to this report.

Police on curfew patrol as Spain fights nightlife infections

November 02, 2020

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — At 10:00 p.m. each night, Barcelona's professional crime fighters become wet blankets in uniforms. Police officers fan out across the coastal city in northeastern Spain to break up clandestine parties and to clear the streets of young adults drinking alcohol, enforcing a nationwide curfew the Spanish government ordered to slow down the spread of coronavirus.

Associated Press journalists accompanied officers from the Mossos d’Esquadra, the police force for Spain’s Catalonia region, on curfew patrol. Compared to the killings, bar brawls or domestic violence calls the officers are used to handling, busting people for being out after hours is easy work.

Yet for European nations battling the resurgence of COVID-19, the assignment is critical. “These measures save lives,” Catalonia police chief Eduard Sallent said. “We are enforcing a measure that is meant to prevent deaths and the collapse of our health care system.”

Without tourists around to clog Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella, the old town area known for its buzzy late-night scene, patrol cars weaved through labyrinth-like alleys in search of scofflaws with bottles of booze in hand. Officers looked past homeless people and the occasional dog walkers.

They focused on spotting youths who had sneaked out to share a bottle, since the city's bars and nightclubs closed completely due to the virus, while also watching for anyone who might use the unusually empty streets as an opportunity to loot stores.

Uniformed officers, with some help from plainclothes agents, checked the identities of the people they found out and about and told them to go home. Most obeyed promptly. Some decided to make a run for it. Officers chased them down and searched them. Young men who resisted were pushed to the ground and briefly handcuffed. One inebriated woman screamed about her rights being violated. Those under 18 were taken to the police station to be retrieved by parents.

Spanish officials cited the Spanish youth custom of gathering on park benches to drink cheap liquor mixed with soft drinks — a practice called “botellón,” Spanish for “big bottle” — as a potential source of infections when Spain first emerged from its strict spring home confinement.

Some of the outdoor get-togethers can reach the level of a “macrobotellón" — mega-big bottle — and attract hundreds of participants. With face masks off and social distance reduced to inches, the partiers are easy targets for the virus.

Catalonia’s regional interior minister, Miquel Sàmper said declaring a curfew across Spain on Oct. 25 was unavoidable after some groups ignored calls to keep personal contacts and opportunities for exposure to a minimum.

“The prohibiting of night-time movement has one goal,” Sàmper said. “For weeks, we have said that no one should go out at night, or meet with several people, or consume alcohol at these parties called ‘botellón.’ But it is obvious from images we have all seen that we have not been successful."

Over 7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 250,000 virus-related deaths have been reported across Europe since the start of the pandemic. In recent days, European nations from Britain to Italy have reinstituted restrictions ranging from reduced business hours and curfews to partial or near-total lockdowns to control the surge of infections sweeping the continent.

The conflict between reining in personal desires for the greater public good or giving in to individual pleasure is at the heart of Europe's renewed struggle against the virus. Spain isn't the only place where hedonistic tendencies at night are being blamed. A big spike in cases in the northern Greek region of Serres was attributed to a party held to welcome first-year university students.

Residents in Marseille, France, alerted police to music from a nightclub that should have been empty due to virus restrictions but instead kept the party going. On Saturday, police in London discovered a rave attended by 1,000 people. British police warned that properties rented on Airbnb and other short-term services were being used as pop-up party venues.

In August, police in Scotland broke up a party attended by more than 300 people at a mansion near Edinburgh. The owners said on Facebook that the young man who booked the house had seemed “very pleasant” and they were shocked to be told by a neighbor that “there was a huge rave and police were in attendance.”

Dozens of students have been fined for organizing illegal gatherings, including four undergraduates in the central England city of Nottingham who received the maximum 10,000 pound ($13,000) penalty after police broke up a house party.

“The very last thing we want to be doing as police officers is to be issuing these fines, but we have a responsibility to enforce the law and to keep people safe,” Nottinghamshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Kate Meynell said.

In Spain, most of the enforcement effort has involving nudging stragglers indoors after curfew. But there have been some extravagant exceptions. Police raided a brothel in the autonomous community of La Rioja four times in eight days last month for violating health codes designed to control infections. The owner could be fined nearly 100,000 euros ($116,000).

In Madrid, police stopped the filming of a 50-person orgy. They said a pornographer arranged the event by making an open casting call with a pamphlet titled “Public Health Crime.” The weekend before Spain’s curfew took effect, police in Madrid also busted over 300 parties that violated a prohibition on get-togethers of more than six people. Even with the curfew in place, police broke up over 100 such gatherings in apartments and 22 “botellones” on Friday night alone.

Madrid officials say 30% of the country's new confirmed infections are in people ages 15-29 and that 80% of all known infections happen in groups of family members or friends. Madrid’s regional vice president, Ignacio Aguado, pleaded with young people to consider the consequences of their good times.

“The party you go to today can become the funeral of your father or grandfather in seven days or less," he said.

Jill Lawless contributed from London.

UK's Johnson to hold news conference as new lockdown urged

October 31, 2020

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to hold a news conference alongside his top scientific advisers Saturday amid anticipation of him announcing a new national lockdown for England to stem a resurgence of the coronavirus.

Scientists warned COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the U.K. could soon surpass the levels seen at the outbreak’s spring peak. Johnson's office said the late-afternoon press conference would follow a Cabinet meeting to discuss “the government's coronavirus response.”

The meeting came after the Times of London reported that Johnson could announce a month-long lockdown as soon as Monday. The government said early Saturday that no final decision had been made, but Johnson was under growing pressure to act quickly.

London School of Hygiene epidemiologist John Edmunds, a member of the government’s scientific advisory group, said Saturday that cases were running “significantly above” a reasonable worst-case scenario drawn up by modelers.

“It is really unthinkable now, unfortunately, that we don’t count our deaths in tens of thousands from this wave,” Edmunds told the BBC. “The issue is, is that going to be low tens of thousands if we take radical action now or is that going to be the high tens of thousands if we don’t?”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has introduced a system of local restrictions for England based on levels of infection. But scientists say it has not been enough to tame a surge of COVID-19 cases, and Britain is likely to join other European countries such as France, Germany and Belgium in imposing a second lockdown.

Any new lockdown would likely see non-essential businesses close and people told to stay mostly at home, though schools would remain open. The measures would apply to England. Other parts of the U.K. set their own public health measures, with Wales and Northern Ireland already effectively in lockdown and Scotland under a set of tough regional restrictions.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Saturday that for now people in Scotland should not travel to or from England, “except for essential purposes.” Lucy Powell, business spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party, accused the government of “dithering” and said the country was now facing a longer lockdown than if Johnson had acted sooner.

Owners of businesses that have struggled to get back on their feet since the first lockdown was eased said the impact of new closures would be devastating. A government program that has paid the wages of millions of furloughed employees during the pandemic ends Saturday, replaced by less-generous measures that are likely to bring a surge in unemployment.

“People have borrowed up to the hilt and spent money in order to get COVID-secure,” said Kate Nicholls of pub and restaurant industry group Hospitality U.K. “There is no spare capacity in the tank to be able to fund a lockdown, even for three to four weeks.”

The U.K. is recording more than 20,000 new coronavirus infections a day, and government statisticians say the true figure is far higher. The Office for National Statistics estimated Friday that 1 in 100 people in England, well over half a million, had the virus in the week to Oct. 23. On Saturday the country is likely to surpass 1 million confirmed cases since the outbreak began.

The U.K. has Europe’s highest coronavirus death toll at more than 46,000. Jeremy Farrar, director of medical research charity the Wellcome Trust and a government adviser, urged swift action to avoid many more deaths.

“The best time to act was a month ago but these are very tough decisions which we would all like to avoid,” he tweeted. “The second-best time is now.”

Short of medics as virus surges, central Europe sounds alarm

October 29, 2020

KYJOV, Czech Republic (AP) — Soldiers in Poland are giving coronavirus tests. American National Guard troops with medical training are headed to the Czech Republic to work alongside doctors there. A Czech university student is running blood samples to labs, and the mayor of the capital is taking shifts at a hospital.

With cases surging in many central European countries, firefighters, students and retired doctors are being asked to help shore up buckling health care systems. “This is actually terrifying,” Dr. Piotr Suwalski, the head of the cardiac surgery ward at a Polish hospital said on a day when daily COVID-19 cases rose 20% nationwide. “I think if we continue to gain 20% a day, no system can withstand it."

Even before the pandemic, many countries in the region faced a tragic shortage of medical personnel due to years of underfunding in their public health sectors and an exodus of doctors and nurses to better paying jobs in Western Europe after the nations joined the European Union in 2004. Now, with the virus ripping through their hospitals, many health workers have been sickened, compounding the shortfall.

Over 13,200 medical personnel across the Czech Republic have been infected, including 6,000 nurses and 2,600 doctors, according to the doctors’ union. It's not just clinicians these countries need. Both Poland and the Czech Republic are building field hospitals as beds fill up on wards, and authorities say there are only 12 ventilators left in all hospitals taking COVID-19 patients in the region around Warsaw, the Polish capital.

This may sound familiar, but not for these countries. Many in the region imposed tough restrictions in the spring — including sealing borders and closing schools, stores and restaurants — and saw very low infection rates even as the virus killed tens of thousands in Western Europe.

But now many central European countries are seeing an onslaught similar to the one their western neighbors experienced — and the same dire warnings. As he announced new restrictions last week, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis put a date on when his country’s health system would collapse, if the new regulations were not imposed to slow the virus's spread: between Nov. 7 and 11.

With one of the highest infection rates in Europe, the Czech Republic's hospitals are desperately looking for volunteers. The government is deploying thousands of medical students to hospitals and other students to testing sites.

In the capital of Prague, Mayor Zdenek Hrib, who has a degree in medicine, volunteered to help do initial exams of possible coronavirus patients at a university hospital. Soon, 28 medical personnel from the Nebraska and Texas national guards are expected to arrive to help treat patients at Prague’s military hospital and a new field hospital at the city’s exhibition ground.

Croatia has asked former doctors to come out of retirement to help in hospitals, while Slovenia has put retired physicians and current medical students on standby in case its situation deteriorates. Poland, meanwhile, is mobilizing soldiers to conduct COVID-19 testing, so medical professionals can focus on helping patients, as Warsaw's National Stadium and other spaces are being transformed into field hospitals. Three times this week, the country reported new record highs in daily infections, and on Thursday it also announced a record number of daily deaths, at 301.

In Poland, deaths among people with cancer and other illnesses are also rising because doctors and nurses simply cannot keep up with their care, said Suwalski, the head of the cardiac surgery ward at the Interior Ministry Hospital in Warsaw, the capital’s main coronavirus hospital.

“The numbers of victims of this pandemic are not just the patients dying directly from COVID-19,” Suwalski said. “There are also (patients) who die because of the change of conditions, and even the collapse of the medical system.”

The problem is felt especially keenly in small town hospitals that don’t have the resources of university medical centers, such as the one in Kyjov, a southeastern Czech town of 11,000. The director of the hospital there, Lubomir Wenzl, says staffing became critical in October as the number of COVID-19 patients doubled over three weeks to almost 60, and 75 of the medical staff fell ill.

He appealed for volunteers on social media and got so many offers that the hospital could pick who it needed. Mostly, the hospital chose people who have some medical training. They keep a roster of others they can call if they need them.

“I have healthy hands and legs, and this is something as a firefighter I can do,” said Antonin Kuchar, the deputy mayor and a volunteer firefighter who has helped move patients around the hospital. Vojtech Coufal, a mechanical engineering student at a university in Brno, also answered the call. The 20-year-old has first-aid training and was couriering blood samples around the hospital campus.

While the volunteers' help is vital, their roles are obviously limited, said Dr. Jiri Vyhnal, chief of the intensive care unit in Kyjov that treats COVID-19 patients in serious condition. “It’s impossible to replace those doctors by anyone else, because you need a long time to gain experience to become a good intensive care specialist,” Vyhnal said. “The problem is that a small group of doctors and nurses will have to take care of a high number of patients treated with lung ventilation.”

As the number of coronavirus patients rises, the hospital has closed several wards: ones for ear, nose and throat, neurology, rehabilitation and orthopedics. “We have been forced to stop doing planned operations, but we have to go on with urgent ones,” Wenzl, the hospital director, said.

The intensive care ward, meanwhile, has 11 patients and can accept up to 18, according to Vyhnal. He said he and his staff are ready to work on their days off “to prevent an Italian scenario," referring to how hospitals there became overwhelmed.

“We will do everything,” he said. "But of course we are afraid, who wouldn’t be?”

Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland. Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.

Divided Belgium turns into Europe's worst virus hot spot

October 28, 2020

BUIZINGEN, Belgium (AP) — Small, yet so divided, Belgium has been hit hard again by the pandemic, and now presents some of the most worrying statistics in a continent reeling under a coronavirus resurgence.

If ever there was a common enemy for the rival Dutch- and French-speaking citizens and regions to fight, this would surely be it. But even now cooperation goes against the grain in Belgium, to the extent that the country's Roman Catholics bishops issued a call for all, in the name of the Lord, to show some unity.

“We can win the battle against the coronavirus only if we do it together," the bishops said in a joint letter ahead of Sunday's All Saints Day, highlighting the different rules imposed by the country's national and three regional governments, which are responsible for an area 300 kilometers (185 miles) at its widest reach.

This week, news struck that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded Belgium — shoehorned in between Germany, France and the Netherlands — as having the highest 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 citizens, just surpassing the Czech Republic.

At 1,390.9 per 100,000 people, it far outstrips even hotbeds like France or Spain. In all, 11,038 people have died so far in the pandemic. All this in a wealthy nation of 11.5 million people where no fewer than nine ministers — national and regional — have a say on health issues. The dictum “less is more" never reached the Belgian high echelons of power.

“A great many politicians can claim power but, in the end, no one is ever responsible,” historian and former member of the European Parliament Luckas Vander Taelen said. He called Belgium's system of multiple layers of government to serve the 6.5 million Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north and the 5 million Francophones “institutional lasagna."

The pandemic finds in Belgium one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, a crossroad of international trade. Its capital, Brussels, hosts the headquarters of the 27-nation European Union with its steady stream of international visitors. But Belgium's political makeup, with its multiple regional authorities, also creates a kaleidoscope of different government health measures.

Throughout the crisis, the Belgian population was unified in one thing: The general sense of bewilderment about the ever-changing rules imposed by the different layers of government and a growing confusion caused by clumsy communication. For someone living near Brussels, a bar closing hour or a maximum cap on attending a funeral might face different rules within just 20 kilometers (12 miles).

Late Tuesday, the regional government of Flanders finally considered adapting its coronavirus curfew to match that of the francophone region and Brussels, but then thought better of it. While it stays at midnight in the north of the country, it is at 10 p.m. in other areas, complicating life for everyone who travels from one region to the other, as many commuters do.

Underscoring the threat, authorities said that on Tuesday, 689 people were rushed to hospital with COVID-19, 60 more than the record during the March peak. “And admissions continue to rise," said crisis center virologist Steven Van Gucht. He added that ICU admissions doubled every 8 days and, if it continued unabated, would reach the saturation level of 2,000 patients around Nov. 6.

Even during the health crisis, linguistic strife has raised its head, something which has never been fully contained during almost two centuries and two World Wars, when the whole nation faced one common enemy.

Christoph D'Haese, the mayor of Aalst in Flanders, recently said he would no longer accept patients from Brussels, Belgium's largely francophone capital. “Medical solidarity has limits and borders," he said. Hospital authorities disagreed and insisted that the essence of medical solidarity was the lack of borders.

When the Brussels UZ hospital, with Flemish roots, warned that the capital needed to take tougher action to contain the crisis, the Francophone Brussels Health Minister Alain Maron sniped back that “when a Flemish hospital in Brussels raises a problem, it is a major issue, and when six of 14 hospitals in (Flemish) Antwerp are in the same situation, nobody talks about it."

Vander Taelen has seen it all before. “So fast, you get to the level of village politics. Even when lives are at stake," he said. Paradoxically compounding the problems of too many governments is the issue that Belgium had been without a fully-functioning national government for almost 500 days before Prime Minister Alexander De Croo cobbled together a 7-party coalition one month ago. One of the last measures his predecessor took in September was to relax virus measures — against the advice of many medical experts. That relaxation is now partly blamed for the record surge this fall.

Charles Michel, the European Union Council President, was groomed in Belgian politics but now sees that against such a foe as the coronavirus only a continent-wide approach is effective, not a patchwork of ill-coordinated local measures.

“Of course, health – like social affairs – is primarily a matter for the member states, and even the regions. However, this crisis has already demonstrated that no single country can tackle the situation on its own," he said Tuesday. “Any management of this epidemic on a patchwork basis, whereby some would emerge better off than others, would serve only to exacerbate the economic imbalances."

And when it comes to the patchwork of rules in Belgium, the Roman Catholic bishops urged everyone to apply one rule of thumb: “Go for the safest measure, the safest figure. In the short term it is the toughest approach. In the long term, the most secure."

Germany, France gear up for new lockdowns as virus surges

October 28, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Germany and France were bracing for new lockdowns Wednesday, as governments sought to stop the fast-rising tide of coronavirus cases that are beginning to fill European hospitals. French markets opened lower on expectations that President Emmanuel Macron will announce tough measures during a televised evening address to the nation.

Doctors in France are calling on the government to impose a new nationwide lockdown, noting that more than half of the country's intensive care units are now occupied by COVID-19 patients and medical staff are under increasing strains.

Most parts of France were colored deep red on a map representing COVID-cases from the European Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, signifying more than 240 cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks. On Tuesday alone, the country had a big spike in the number of daily deaths from COVID-19, recording an additional 523 deaths and another 33,417 new infections.

Belgium, the Netherlands, most of Spain and the Czech Republic are seeing similarly high rates of infection, while Germany was still colored in orange — indicating that the average number of new cases there is still under 120 per 100,000 over the last 14 days.

Still, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was pressing governors of the country’s 16 states to quickly agree a partial lockdown Wednesday that could include further restrictions on public gatherings and the closure of bars and restaurants.

The plan has caused anguish in Germany's hospitality industry, with thousands of venue owners staging a protest Wednesday at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate to demand further financial support from the government.

While Germany has fared better than many of its neighboring European countries during the pandemic, officials warn that it, too, is beginning to lose control of the situation. Economists said further restrictions need to be carefully calibrated to avoid dealing a second severe blow to businesses.

“A national lockdown, as we have seen in, ravages an economy and would add significant complications to the ongoing economic recovery,” said Fiona Cincotta, an analyst at online trading firm GAIN Capital.

But Thomas Gitzel, chief economist at Liechtenstein's VP Bank Group, said a temporary lockdown could be less harmful than a prolonged slump in consumer spending as infection levels remain stubbornly high.

“One doesn't need to be a virologist to conclude that, without further restrictions, the number of new daily infections will likely rise,” said Gitzel, adding that a short, strict lockdown could be effective. “The strict containment measures in March and April laid the ground for an economically successful summer.”

Wales has opted for that short, sharp approach, with a 17-day lockdown in which people cannot even drive out of their region to England. Officials in Germany have cited the failure by authorities in the neighboring Czech Republic to maintain their springtime successes against the virus, saying they opened too widely in the summer.

The Czech Health Ministry said the country's day-to-day case increase hit a new record high of 15,663 on Tuesday — as many as Germany, which has eight times the population. The Czech government has further tightened its regulations, imposing a nationwide curfew between 9 p.m and 6 a.m. that started Wednesday. It previously limited free movement, closed stores, schools and restaurants, made it mandatory to wear face masks indoors and outdoors and banned sport competitions, but the number of infections has continued to rise.

Several demonstrations against the virus restrictions were planned for Wednesday in the capital of Prague. Even Sweden, which avoided a national lockdown and generally imposed far lighter measures than other European countries, is now urging people to avoid shopping centers and shops and stay away from public transportation.

The World Health Organization said more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases were reported last week — the shortest time ever for such an exponential increase. It said for the second consecutive week, the European region accounted for the biggest proportion of new cases, with more than 1.3 million cases or about 46% of the worldwide total. The U.N. health agency said deaths were also on the rise in Europe, with about a 35% spike since the previous week. Overall, Europe has seen more than 250,000 virus-related deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The WHO also noted that hospitalizations and ICU occupancy due to COVID-19 increased in 21 countries across Europe.

Maria Cheng in London and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.

French doctor warns his country has 'lost control' of virus

October 27, 2020

PARIS (AP) — A French doctor warned Monday that his country has “lost control of the epidemic,” a day after health authorities reported more than 52,000 new coronavirus cases as nations across Europe enact more sweeping restrictions to try to slow surging infection rates.

Spain — the first European country to surpass 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases — declared a state of emergency Sunday that included a nationwide overnight curfew, a cap of six people on social gatherings and possible travel bans in and out of the hardest-hit regions.

The effect was clear on Barcelona's famed Las Ramblas promenade, which was deserted Sunday night when it normally would have been teeming with people. In two major Italian cities, people took to the streets amid a pushback from small sections of society to new restrictions. On Friday, demonstrators in Naples protested a locally imposed 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and clashed with police. On Saturday night, far-right and neo-fascist groups led a similar protest in Rome against a curfew. Another protest is planned for Tuesday in Milan.

Dr. Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the scientific council that advises the French government on the virus, said the country is in a “very difficult, even critical situation." "There probably are more than 50,000 new cases every day. Our estimate at the Scientific Council is closer to 100,000 – twice as many,” Delfraissy told RTL radio. “Between those who aren’t tested and asymptomatic patients, we’re close to that number of cases. This means the virus is spreading extremely fast.”

France declared a state of emergency earlier this month and has been imposing more and more restrictions since September to try to ease the pressure on France’s hospitals, where COVID-19 patients occupy more than half of all ICU beds.

Dr. Eric Caumes, head of the infections and tropical diseases department at Paris’ Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, said the country needs to lock down again. “We lost control of the epidemic but that doesn’t date from yesterday,” he said on broadcaster Franceinfo. “We lost control of the epidemic several weeks ago already.”

Europe’s confirmed death toll has surpassed 250,000 according to a count by Johns Hopkins University, which puts the global toll at more than 1.1 million. A senior World Health Organization official said national lockdowns could be avoided if people are willing to make sacrifices.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said she hoped countries would use other tools to stop transmission, including strengthening their surveillance, testing and contact tracing systems.

“We can avoid national lockdowns,” Van Kerkhove said. She said people should take personal responsibility for everyday decisions, like whether or not they should go to crowded places, avoiding closed settings and postponing social gatherings.

Italy, the first country in the West to get slammed by COVID-19, took new measures over the weekend to try to rein in the new outbreak, ordering restaurants and bars closed by 6 p.m., and shutting down gyms, pools and movie theaters.

The measures, which took effect Monday, also require high schools to transition to at least 75% distance learning while letting younger students remain in classrooms. Indoor and outdoor gatherings, including those for religious reasons, are barred, and the government is strongly recommending people avoid having house guests and traveling in the country except for work, health or other necessities.

The new restrictions sent Rome resident Matteo Serba to the city's Villa Borghese for a run Monday. “I used to go to gym. Now jogging in the park is the alternative," Serba said. "Unfortunately, we have no other alternatives but coming here. It’s sad but we have been asked to do it and we comply with the rules.”

Italy has been registering around 20,000 new confirmed infections per day and health authorities have warned that some hospital COVID-19 wards risk hitting the saturation point in the next week or two.

British authorities are likely to tighten restrictions on more areas of the country this week, amid mixed signs about whether measures introduced in the last few weeks have stemmed a steep rise in infections.

Government scientific advisers say there are some signs the increase has begun to level off since a three-tier system of restrictions came into force, but that it is too soon to be certain. A large chunk of northern England, including the major cities of Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, has been placed in the top tier of “very high” risk, with pubs closed and people from different households barred from mixing. The government said that Warrington, another large town in the northwest, will be added to the top tier on Tuesday. Another city, Nottingham, will follow on Thursday, authorities there said.

Lawmakers in the Czech Republic, which has been one of the hardest-hit nations in the pandemic's resurgence in Europe, are set to approve this week a government plan to draft up to 300 military health personnel from NATO and EU countries to help treat the influx of patients.

They will help their Czech colleagues at Prague’s military hospital and at a field hospital for 500 patients that the armed forces completed over the weekend at Prague’s exhibition ground. The first group of 28 National Guard doctors from the United States is expected to arrive later this week.

Authorities also said they are canceling Prague's major Christmas markets because of the virus. The Bavarian city of Nuremberg also canceled its big Christmas market, one of Germany’s best-known and a major tourist draw. City officials originally wanted the bustling Christkindlesmarkt to go ahead under strict hygiene rules, but Mayor Marcus Koenig said they concluded it would send the wrong signal as virus cases rise.

“This decision is very difficult for us. The Christkindlesmarkt with its great tradition belongs to Nuremberg,” Koenig said. Germany's rising coronavirus numbers also prompted Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party to delay for the second time a decision on who will become its new leader — one that had already been pushed by the pandemic from the spring to December.

Whoever wins the Christian Democratic Union’s leadership will be in a position to become the center-right candidate to succeed Merkel as chancellor in a German election expected next fall, although that isn’t guaranteed.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press reporters across Europe contributed.

UK judge refuses US extradition of WikiLeaks founder Assange

January 05, 2021

LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Monday rejected the United States’ request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges over the publication of secret U.S. documents a decade ago, saying he was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.

In a mixed ruling for Assange and his supporters, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected defense arguments that the 49-year-old Australian faces a politically motivated American prosecution that rides roughshod over free-speech protections. But she said Assange's precarious mental health would likely deteriorate further under the conditions of “near total isolation” he would face in a U.S. prison.

"I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America," the judge said. Lawyers for the U.S. government said they would appeal the decision, and the U.S. Department of Justice said it would continue to seek Assange’s extradition.

“While we are extremely disappointed in the court’s ultimate decision, we are gratified that the United States prevailed on every point of law raised," it said in a statement. "In particular, the court rejected all of Mr. Assange’s arguments regarding political motivation, political offense, fair trial and freedom of speech.”

Assange’s lawyers said they would ask for his release from a London prison where he has been held for more than 18 months at a bail hearing on Wednesday. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia was providing Assange with consular assistance. Morrison also said Assange would be free to return to Australia if he wins his court case.

“Assuming if that all that turns out, then he’s like any other Australian. He’d be free to return home if he wished,” Morrison told Melbourne Radio 3AW. Australia’s Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, the journalists’ union of which Assange is a member, has called on the Australian government to expedite Assange’s safe passage to Australia.

Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen, co-chairs of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group, which comprises more than 20 Australian lawmakers, called on the Australian government to ensure Assange would not be extradited if he returned to his home country.

Assange, who sat quietly in the dock at London's Central Criminal Court for the ruling, wiped his brow as the decision was announced. His partner Stella Moris, with whom he has two young sons, wept. Outside court, Moris said the ruling was “the first step towards justice,” but it was not yet time to celebrate.

“I had hoped that today would be the day that Julian would come home," she said. “Today is not that day, but that day will come soon.” The ruling marked a dramatic moment in Assange’s long legal battles in Britain — though likely not its final chapter.

It’s unclear whether the incoming Biden administration will pursue the prosecution, initiated under President Donald Trump. Assange's American lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the legal team was “enormously gratified" by the British court's decision.

“We hope that after consideration of the U.K. court’s ruling, the United States will decide not to pursue the case further," he said. Moris urged Trump to pardon Assange before he leaves office this month.

“Mr. President, tear down these prison walls,” she said. “Let our little boys have their father.” U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lawyers for the U.S. government denied that Assange was being prosecuted merely for publishing, saying the case “is in large part based upon his unlawful involvement” in the theft of the diplomatic cables and military files by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

The British judge sided with U.S. lawyers on that score, saying Assange's actions, if proven, would amount to offenses "that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech.” She also said the U.S. judicial system would give him a fair trial.

The defense also argued during a three-week hearing in the fall that Assange risked “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “draconian and inhumane conditions” if he was sent to the United States.

The judge agreed that U.S. prison conditions would be oppressive, saying there was a “real risk” he would be sent to the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado. It is the highest security prison in the U.S., also holding Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

She accepted evidence from expert witnesses that Assange had a depressive disorder and an autism spectrum disorder. “I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate, causing him to commit suicide with the single minded determination of his autism spectrum disorder," the judge said.

She said Assange was “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” who had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken by American prison authorities. Britain’s extradition agreement with the U.S. says that extradition can be blocked if “by reason of the person’s mental or physical condition, it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.”

This is not the first time the U.K. has refused extradition to the United States on those grounds. In 2018, a British court refused to extradite Lauri Love, a hacker accused of penetrating U.S. government networks, because of the risk he would kill himself. In 2012 then-Home Secretary Theresa May blocked the extradition of Gary McKinnon, who was accused of breaking into U.S. military and space networks, because of the risk he would end his life.

The prosecution of Assange has been condemned by journalists and human rights groups, who say it undermines free speech and imperils journalists. They welcomed the judge's decision, even though it was not made on free-speech grounds.

"This is a huge relief to anyone who cares about the rights of journalists," The Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted. Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of U.K. and Swedish authorities — but also effectively was a prisoner, unable to leave the tiny diplomatic space in London’s tony Knightsbridge area.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but Assange has remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison throughout his extradition hearing.

Associated Press reporter Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.

Tanya Roberts, Bond girl and 'That '70s Show' star, dies

January 04, 2021

NEW YORK (AP) — Tanya Roberts, who captivated James Bond in “A View to a Kill,” appeared in the final season of “Charlie’s Angels” and later played Midge Pinciotti in the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” has died in Los Angeles. She was 65.

Roberts' death Sunday was announced by her publicist, Mike Pingel. She collapsed in her home and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. No cause of death was given, but Pingel said it was not due to COVID-19.

One of her highest profile roles was playing geologist Stacey Sutton opposite Roger Moore in 1985's “A View to a Kill,” where she held a gun on Bond after tricking him into thinking she was in a shower. The character later joined him to stop bad guys on an airship over San Francisco.

“We are saddened to hear of the passing of Tanya. She was a very lovely person," Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli wrote in tribute. Britt Ekland, who starred opposite Moore in 1974′s “The Man with the Golden Gun,” tweeted: “Once a Bond Girl always a Bond Girl!”

“One of my favorite memories with Tanya was driving in the car and Duran Duran's ‘A View to a Kill’ theme song came on the radio — we both sang along. Priceless,” Pingel said. Roberts also appeared in such fantasy adventure films as “The Beastmaster” and “Hearts and Armour.” She replaced Shelly Hack in “Charlie’s Angels,” joining Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd as third Angel Julie. She also played comic book heroine Sheena — a female version of the Tarzan story — in a 1984 film.

A new generation of fans saw her on “That ‘70s Show,” playing Midge, mother to Laura Prepon’s character Donna. On Twitter, Topher Grace, one of the the show’s stars, called Roberts “truly a delightful person to work with.” He added: “I had never acted before and, to be honest, a little nervous around her. But she couldn’t have been kinder. We’ll miss you Midge.”

Roberts, a huge animal rights activist, is survived by her husband, Lance O’Brien. “Tanya and I have never been apart. This is too much to handle. Her animals are lost without her and so am I,” he said in a statement.

Students in Turkey protest rector tapped to head university

January 04, 2021

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish police on Monday clashed with hundreds of students protesting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s appointment of a figure with ties to his ruling party as rector to one of Turkey’s most prestigious universities.

The students marched to Bogazici University’s campus to denounce the appointment of Melih Bulu, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party who once stood as a candidate in parliamentary elections.

The students regard the appointment as a move by Erdogan to curtail academic freedoms, and are demanding the right for the university to elect its own rector. They chanted: “AKP, take your hands off our university,” in reference to the ruling party. Several academicians joined the protest.

Clashes broke out as some of the students tried to break through a police barricade at the entrance to the campus, Birgun newspaper reported. Police used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to break up the protest. Several students were detained.

Ruling party spokesman Omer Celik defended Bulu’s appointment as “legal.” “It is not a crime for a person to have a political view,” Celik he told reporters following a ruling party meeting that was chaired by Erdogan.

On Sunday, Bulu issued a statement saying he aimed to make Bogazici one of the top universities in the world.

UK judge refuses extradition of WikiLeaks founder Assange

January 04, 2021

LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Monday rejected the United States’ request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges, saying he was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected allegations that Assange is being prosecuted for political reasons or would not receive a fair trial in the United States. But she said his precarious mental health would likely deteriorate further under the conditions of “near total isolation” he would face in U.S. prison.

"I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America," the judge said. She said Assange was “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” who had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken by American prison authorities.

The U.S. government said it would appeal the decision. Assange’s lawyers said they would ask for his release from a London prison where he has been held for more than a year-and-a-half at a bail hearing on Wednesday.

Assange, who sat in the dock at London's Central Criminal Court for the ruling, wiped his brow as the decision was announced. His partner Stella Moris, with whom he has two young sons, wept. Assange's American lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the legal team was “enormously gratified by the U.K. court’s decision denying extradition.”

“The effort by the United States to prosecute Julian Assange and seek his extradition was ill-advised from the start,” he said. “We hope that after consideration of the U.K. court’s ruling, the United States will decide not to pursue the case further.”

The ruling marks a dramatic moment in Assange's years-long legal battles in Britain — though likely not its final chapter. U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked military and diplomatic documents a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers for the 49-year-old Australian argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing leaked documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The judge, however, said Assange's actions, if proven, would “amount to offenses in this jurisdiction that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech.” The defense also argued during a three-week hearing in the fall that extradition threatens Assange’s human rights because he risks “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “draconian and inhumane conditions” that would exacerbate his severe depression and other mental health problems.

The judge agreed that U.S. prison conditions would be oppressive. She accepted evidence from expert witnesses that Assange had a depressive disorder and an autism spectrum disorder. “I accept that oppression as a bar to extradition requires a high threshold. ... However, I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate causing him to commit suicide with the ‘single minded determination’ of his autism spectrum disorder," the judge said in her ruling.

Lawyers for the U.S. government deny that Assange is being prosecuted merely for publishing the leaked documents, saying the case “is in large part based upon his unlawful involvement” in the theft of the diplomatic cables and military files by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

The prosecution of Assange has been condemned by journalists and human rights groups, who say it undermines free speech around the world. They welcomed the judge's decision, even though it was not made on free-speech grounds.

"This is a huge relief to anyone who cares about the rights of journalists," The Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted: “The extradition request was not decided on press freedom grounds; rather, the judge essentially ruled the U.S. prison system was too repressive to extradite. However, the result will protect journalists everywhere.”

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, to avoid being sent to Sweden, Assange sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was beyond the reach of U.K. and Swedish authorities — but also effectively a prisoner, unable to leave the tiny diplomatic mission in London’s tony Knightsbridge area.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for jumping bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but Assange remains in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, brought to court in a prison van throughout his extradition hearing.

Spanish-flagged boat rescues 265 migrants in Mediterranean

January 03, 2021

ROME (AP) — A Spanish-flagged humanitarian ship on Sunday was seeking a port of safety for 265 migrants its crew rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in the last few days. The Open Arms charity tweeted that its vessel on Saturday had safely brought aboard 96 migrants who had been adrift in a wooden boat with without life vests in international waters. It said the passengers, most of them from Eritrea, included two women and 17 minors and were suffering from hypothermia.

In a separate operation two days before that rescue, Open Arms took aboard 169 migrants, who had departed Libyan shores, where many human traffickers are based. The traffickers launch vessels, many of them flimsy rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats, crowded with migrants who hope to reach European shores to seek asylum. Some are fleeing conflict or persecution, but many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have been rescued at sea in recent years are fleeing poverty and thus are denied asylum by European Union countries.

Italy and fellow EU nation Malta have often refused docking permission to the humanitarian rescue boats, contending that most migrants want to reach jobs or relatives in northern Europe. Italian and Maltese government authorities have insisted other European nations do their share.

3rd body found after landslide in Norway; 7 still missing

January 03, 2021

HELSINKI (AP) — Rescue teams searching for survivors four days after a landslide carried away homes in a Norwegian village found no signs of life Saturday amid the ruined buildings and debris. Three bodies have been recovered but searchers are still looking for seven more people believed to be missing. The landslide in the village of Ask is the worst in modern Norwegian history and has shocked citizens in the Nordic nation.

Search teams patrolled with dogs as helicopters and drones with heat-detecting cameras flew amid harsh winter conditions over the ravaged hillside in Ask, a village of 5,000 people 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of Oslo.

Norwegian police pledged not to scale down the search even though a rescue team from neighboring Sweden has already returned home. Local police chief Ida Melbo Oeystese said it may still be possible to find survivors in air pockets inside the destroyed buildings.

“Medically, you can survive for several days if you have air,” she told reporters at a news conference. By late Saturday, a second and third body had been found after a first one was discovered on Friday. Only a Dalmatian dog has been rescued alive from the ruins so far.

King Harald V, Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon plan to visit the disaster area on Sunday to pay their respects to the victims and to meet with residents and rescue workers. The 83-year-old monarch said in his New Year’s speech that the royal family had been deeply moved by the tragedy.

Norwegian police have published the names and birth years of the 10 people initially reported missing, including a 2-year-old child. Officials haven’t yet identified the three recovered bodies. The landslide early Wednesday cut across a road through Ask, leaving a deep, crater-like ravine. Photos and videos showed buildings hanging on the edge of the ravine, which grew to be 700 meters (2,300 feet) long and 300 meters (1,000 feet) wide. At least nine buildings with over 30 apartments were destroyed.

The rescue operation is being hampered by the limited number of daylight hours in Norway at this time of year and fears of further erosion. The ground is fragile at the site and unable to hold the weight of rescue equipment, including a heavy vehicle from the Norwegian military.

Over 1,000 people have been evacuated, and officials said up to 1,500 people may be moved from the area amid fears of further landslides. The exact cause of the accident is not yet known but the Gjerdrum municipality, where Ask is located, is known for having a lot of quick clay, a material that can change from solid to liquid form. Experts said the substance of the clay combined with excessive precipitation and the damp weather typical for Norway at this time of year may have contributed to the landslide.

Norwegian authorities in 2005 warned people not to construct residential buildings in the area, but houses were eventually built there later in the decade. Spokeswoman Toril Hofshagen from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate called the landslide unique in its destruction.

“Not since 1893 has there been a quick clay landslide of this dimension in Norway,” Hofshagen told the media on Saturday.