Month: June 2021

The Belarusian democratic opposition and some Western governments are calling for harsher sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime following the forced diversion in late May of an international airliner to arrest a Belarusian dissident blogger on board. Analysts warn if there is not a strong response, other authoritarian governments around the world might resort to the same tactic to arrest dissidents. VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka has more.Produced by: Ihar Tsikhanenka  
 
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On Tuesday, Italy lifted restrictions on indoor dining, Germany downgraded the coronavirus risk level from very high to high, and Israel lifted almost all pandemic restrictions. More from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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Greece, Germany and five other European Union nations introduced a vaccination certificate system for travelers on Tuesday, weeks ahead of the July 1 rollout of the program across the 27-nation bloc.The other countries starting early were Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia and Poland, according to the European Commission.Greece, which depends heavily on tourism, has been pressing for the commonly recognized certificate that uses a QR code with advanced security features. The certificates are being issued to people who are fully vaccinated, as well as those who have already contracted the virus and developed antibodies, and others who have had a PCR test within the last 72 hours.The documents will have both digital and paper forms. They’ll be free of charge, distributed in the national language plus English and be valid in all the bloc’s countries.”EU citizens are looking forward to traveling again, and they want to do so safely. Having an EU certificate is a crucial step on the way,” EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said.Greece’s digital governance minister, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said easier travel will open up within the EU as nations adopt the new verification standard.”What will happen is that countries will stop issuing certificates using their own convention and adopt the common convention. That will simplify things considerably, because you can imagine the number of bilateral agreements that would otherwise need to be worked out,” Pierrakakis told private Skai television.Kyriakides said in the next few weeks, all EU nations need to “fully finalize their national systems to issue, store and verify certificates so the system is functioning in time for the holiday season.”Countries will be allowed to add extra vaccines to their individual entry list, including those that have not been formally approved for use across the EU.The EU Commission believes that people who are vaccinated should no longer have to be tested or put into quarantines, regardless of where they are traveling to or from, starting 14 days after receiving their second shot. Member countries, however, have not yet endorsed that recommendation.
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A Belarusian opposition activist stabbed himself in the throat with a pen during a court hearing in Minsk on Tuesday to protest what he claimed were threats from authorities to arrest his family members and friends if he did not plead guilty to organizing protests against the country’s authoritarian ruler, President Alexander Lukashenko.Footage from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty showed Stsiapan Latypau lying limp on a bench in the defendant’s cage after his self-inflicted wounding as guards tended to him.The video showed him being carried unconscious from the courthouse on a stretcher, his neck wrapped in a white cloth, and put into an ambulance.The Viasna human rights center in Belarus said Latypau was put into an induced coma. His lawyer declined to comment on his condition.Before he stabbed himself, Latypau climbed on the bench in the cage and claimed investigators had told him, “If I don’t plead guilty, they will open criminal cases against my family and neighbors.”Latypau has been held since September 2020 on various charges, including accusations that he staged actions violating the public order in last summer’s vast protests against Lukashenko. The street demonstrations occurred after the strongman claimed a sixth presidential election victory with 80% of the vote.If convicted, Latypau faces up to 10 years in prison.Latypau’s apparent attempted suicide is the latest incident with links to protests against Lukashenko. Last week, an opposition politician died in prison under unclear circumstances, while a teenager under investigation for protesting committed suicide by throwing himself from a 16-story building. “This is the result of state terror, repressions, torture in Belarus,” wrote Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition leader. “We must stop it immediately!” Many governments, except Russia, a close ally of Belarus, condemned Lukashenko last month after he diverted a Ryanair jetliner flying over Belarus and carrying Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian activist who had fled the country in 2019 and had since lived in exile.Pratasevich and his companion, Sofia Sapega, were arrested when the flight landed in Minsk on the purported claim of a bomb aboard the aircraft, although no explosive was found.In response, European countries stopped flying over Belarus, depriving Minsk of overflight revenue, and blocked flights by Belavia, the Belarusian state air carrier, from landing in European cities.Lukashenko met with Russian President Vladimir Putin late last week to shore up support with his government’s key foreign ally. On Tuesday, Lukashenko announced Belarus would soon open direct flights with Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, although Western governments do not recognize Moscow’s claim to the territory. 
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Pope Francis has made sweeping changes to Catholic Church law on sexual abuse crimes.  The changes are aimed not only at punishing those in the church who commit such crimes, but also at making it harder for church officials to cover up offenses by priests.While abuse of minors was previously an offense under the title “Crimes Against Special Obligations,” it has now been moved to “Offenses Against Human Life, Dignity and Liberty.” Monsignor Filippo Iannone, head of the department charged with the project, explained the intention behind this change.The aim, he said, was to re-affirm the gravity of this crime and the attention that must be reserved for the victims.Pope Francis Renews Catholic Church’s Commitment to Uproot Sexual AbusePledge by Pope Francis comes one day after Vatican released much-anticipated report on years of cover-up by high-rankling church members  
Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has been speaking out against sexual abuse in the church and implementing changes aimed at bringing those responsible to justice. He has made great efforts at trying to bring more transparency and avoid cover-ups of those involved in abuse.
 
Presenting the changes on Tuesday, Vatican officials said they will go into effect on December 8, the day the church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
 
The changes made to canon law recognize that both minors and adults can be victims of abuse.  In addition, both clergy and lay people who hold church positions will have to answer for sexual offenses. While members of the church can be defrocked, lay people will pay for their offense either by losing their jobs or their place in their communities or will receive fines.
 
New crimes have also entered the code such as “grooming” minors or vulnerable adults for sexual abuse and possessing child pornography.
 
The changes also make it much more difficult for abusers to benefit from superiors covering up as this will no longer be tolerated and those who do not act against offenders will be held responsible and punished for their negligence.Monsignor Iannone said there was the need to strengthen the criminal code because of some existing situations of irregularity in communities, but above all – as he put it –  because of “recent scandals with disconcerting and very serious episodes of pedophilia.” He also said there has been “a climate of excessive slack in the interpretation of penal law,” where mercy was sometimes put before justice.Monsignor Iannone concluded by saying that justice requires that the order that has been violated be re-established, that victims be eventually compensated and that offenders be punished and pay for their crimes.
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Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open on Monday and wrote on Twitter that she would be taking a break from competition, a dramatic turn of events for a four-time Grand Slam champion who said she experiences “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media and revealed she has “suffered long bouts of depression.”pic.twitter.com/LN2ANnoAYD— NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) May 31, 2021Osaka’s agent, Stuart Duguid, confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that the world’s No. 2-ranked tennis player was pulling out before her second-round match at the clay-court tournament in Paris.
The stunning move came a day after Osaka, a 23-year-old who was born in Japan and moved with her family to the United States at age 3, was fined $15,000 for skipping the postmatch news conference after her first-round victory at the French Open. She also was threatened by all four Grand Slam tournaments with possible additional punishment, including disqualification or suspension, if she continued with her intention — which Osaka revealed last week on Twitter — to not “do any press during Roland Garros.”
She framed the matter as a mental health issue, saying that it can create self-doubt to have to answer questions after a loss.
“First and foremost we are sorry and sad for Naomi Osaka. The outcome of Naomi withdrawing from Roland Garros is unfortunate,” French tennis federation President Gilles Moretton said Monday. “We wish her the best and the quickest possible recovery. And we look forward to having Naomi in our tournament next year.”
Moretton said the four major tournaments, and the professional tennis tours, “remain very committed to all athletes’ well-being and to continually improving every aspect of players’ experience in our tournament, including with the media, like we always have.”
In Monday’s post, Osaka spoke about dealing with depression since the 2018 U.S. Open, which she won by beating Serena Williams in a final filled with controversy.
“I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly,” Osaka wrote, explaining that speaking with the media makes her anxious.
“I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris,” Osaka wrote. “I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer.”
She continued: “Anyone that knows me knows I’m introverted, and anyone that has seen me at the tournaments will notice that I’m often wearing headphones as that helps dull my social anxiety. … I am not a natural public speaker and get huge waves of anxiety before I speak to the world’s media.”
Williams was asked about Osaka on Monday after winning her opening match in the first scheduled night session in French Open history.
“I feel for Naomi. I feel like I wish I could give her a hug because I know what it’s like. … I’ve been in those positions,” Williams said. “We have different personalities, and people are different. Not everyone is the same. I’m thick; other people are thin. Everyone is different and everyone handles things differently. You just have to let her handle it the way she wants to, in the best way she thinks she can, and that’s the only thing I can say. I think she’s doing the best that she can.”
Osaka has never been past the third round on the French Open’s red clay. It takes seven victories to win a Grand Slam title, which she has done four times at hard-court tournaments: the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020; the Australian Open in 2019 and this February.
“Here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences,” she wrote.
Tennis players are required to attend news conferences if requested to do so.
The maximum fine of $20,000 is not a big deal to Osaka, the world’s highest-earning female athlete thanks to endorsement contracts totaling tens of millions of dollars.
“Mental health and awareness around it is one of the highest priorities to the WTA,” the women’s tennis tour said in a statement emailed by a spokeswoman.
“We have invested significant resources, staffing and educational tools in this area for the past 20-plus years and continue to develop our mental health support system for the betterment of the athletes and the organization. We remain here to support and assist Naomi in any way possible and we hope to see her back on the court soon.”
Other players, notably 13-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal and No. 1-ranked Ash Barty, have said they respect Osaka’s right to take a stance but explained that they consider speaking to reporters part of the job.
After Osaka’s post Monday, several athletes in tennis and other sports tweeted their support.
Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam champion, wrote: “I am so sad about Naomi Osaka. I truly hope she will be ok. As athletes we are taught to take care of our body, and perhaps the mental & emotional aspect gets short shrift. This is about more than doing or not doing a press conference. Good luck Naomi- we are all pulling for you!”
Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry wrote that it was “impressive taking the high road when the powers that be don’t protect their own. major respect.”
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European Union leaders are scheduled in the next few weeks to discuss once again advancing the long-stalled applications from Balkan states to join the bloc. But recent studies exploring the scale of money-laundering in the region are unlikely to assuage France and the Netherlands, which among other member states want to delay EU enlargement, say officials. Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia and Montenegro are all EU candidates and have expressed frustration with their stalled applications. But opponents to EU enlargement are already seizing on a study suggesting that the real estate market in the Western Balkans is being used to launder proceeds from drugs trafficking and migrant smuggling, prompting soaring property prices in the region.   The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, an international non-governmental organization headquartered in Geneva says illegal money is flowing into the real estate markets and the construction industries of the Western Balkans. “The dirty money being made and laundered in the region is perpetuating an ecosystem of crime and corruption,” said Kristina Amerhauser, one of the authors of a report the NGO published last month. The authors say in their report, “Spot Prices: Analyzing flows of people, drugs and money in the Western Balkans,” it is not possible “to put a concrete number on how much illicit money generated in the Western Balkans and abroad is actually laundered in the region,” but they estimate the range is between $2.2 billion and  $5.6 billion.  While that might look small compared to some much wealthier regions, they note “these numbers are remarkable, especially when put in perspective.” They add: “For example, in 2021, the budgets of the interior ministries of North Macedonia and Albania each amount to €168 million  [$200 million] ; the Kosovo police force has only €87 million [$106 million] at its disposal.”   Real estate  Large amounts of criminal money are being channeled into the property markets across the region, skewing them “as prices are artificially driven up by criminals who want to launder their assets there.” While real estate prices dropped across the region as a whole in 2020 because of the pandemic, many places still showed significant gains since 2017. Last year, the Albanian economy contracted on average by 10.2 percent, but the real estate market continued to expand by 5.5 percent.  FILE – An aerial view of Tirana, Albania, with the ‘Air Albania’ stadium in foreground, March 26, 2021. Picture taken with a drone.And the pandemic and economic slump had little impact on the residential property market in the Albanian capital of Tirana, which saw prices double from 2017 to 2020. The hike is “largely driven by cash from organized crime and corruption which has been invested in construction and real estate.” The real estate industry in Serbia has also seen unusually high and inexplicable growth between 2018 and 2020, where the construction industry continued to expand despite the pandemic last year
and the contraction of the overall economy.  Pushback Several money laundering probes involving real estate and large infrastructure projects have been launched in North Macedonia, including one investigation into Nikola Gruevski, the country’s former prime minister, and his business associates. Large public infrastructure projects have also drawn the attention of anti-corruption campaigners. “Respect for European standards has proven to be a particular challenge for the Western Balkan countries when it came to large projects in areas such as infrastructure and energy in recent years,” according to Marko Pankovski of the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis,” a Macedonian think tank.    Writing in a commentary for European Western Balkans, a news site, he added: “Despite all the efforts of civil society, the ruling parties seem to be adamant not to let the contracts for these projects become fully transparent and subjected to control of independent institutions.  The primary reason behind the disrespect for standards is not hard to guess — ruling parties can arrange for the money to end up in the pockets of their associates, which often leads to inflated prices.” FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, front 3rd left, and French president Emmanuel Macron, front 2nd left, pose during for a group photo at a meeting with Balkan leaders at the chancellery in Berlin, Apr. 29, 2019. (Michael Sohn/Pool via Reuters)France has been a leading opponent of states of the Western Balkans joining the EU. French officials argue that the EU has suffered some bad experiences with the enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe countries as well as continual problems with corruption and the rule of law in countries such as Romania and Bulgaria. They say that’s been the result of permitting what some officials describe as “unprepared” countries to join the EU and they fear Western Balkan countries have turned into states captured by corrupt politicians, linked with organized crime.  Advocates of EU enlargement counter that being member states will help Balkan countries in their anti-corruption efforts.     In 2019, after French President Emmanuel Macron wielded a veto, an exasperated Charles Michel, president of the European Council, tweeted: “I would like to send a message to our Macedonian and Albanian friends: don’t give up! You did your share and we didn’t. But I have absolutely no doubt that you will become full members of the European Union.” The then president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said stalling accession talks was “a major historic mistake.” FILE – Slovenia’s Prime Minister Janez Jansa arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 16, 2020.Last week, Prime Minister Janez Janša of Slovenia, whose country takes up the presidency of the Council of the EU on July 1 for next six months, said he will push for member states to accept an aggressive enlargement of the European Union. He said at a press conference that saying the Balkan candidate states would assist in solving several problems bedeviling the bloc, including with migration and with “malign interference” by outside powers, taken to mean Russia, Turkey and China.But he said reaching unanimity among EU heads of state and government would be difficult. “Obviously we can’t do this from one day to the next, we’re not going to be able to do it without the consensus of everyone,” he said. In March 2020, the EU gave a green light for Albania and North Macedonia to begin the accession process but in November Bulgaria blocked further formal steps because of bilateral disputes with North Macedonia over language and history. Serbia and Montenegro have already begun membership talks, but they have been slow, too. North Macedonia’s prime minister, Zoran Zaev, has warned the EU will lose ground to rival powers, if the bloc fails to start admitting Western Balkans countries soon.  
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Morocco and Spain traded new accusations on Monday in a diplomatic row triggered by the Western Sahara territorial issue that led this month to a migration crisis in Spain’s enclave in northern Morocco.Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described Morocco’s actions in appearing to relax border controls with the enclave of Ceuta as unacceptable and an assault on national borders.Morocco’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile blamed Spain for breaking “mutual trust and respect,” drawing parallels between the issues of Western Sahara and Spain’s Catalonia region, where there is an independence movement.The dispute was sparked by Spain admitting Western Sahara independence movement leader Brahim Ghali for medical treatment without informing Rabat.”It is not acceptable for a government to say that we will attack the borders, that we will open up the borders to let in 10,000 migrants in less than 48 hours … because of foreign policy disagreements,” Sanchez said at a news conference.Most migrants who crossed into Ceuta were immediately returned to Morocco, but hundreds of unaccompanied minors, who cannot be deported under Spanish law, remain.The influx was widely seen as retaliation for Spain’s decision to discreetly take in Ghali.Morocco regards Western Sahara as part of its own territory. The Algeria-backed Polisario seeks an independent state in the territory, where Spain was colonial ruler until 1975.Describing Spain as Morocco’s best ally in the European Union, Sanchez said he wanted to convey a constructive attitude toward Rabat but insisted that border security was paramount.”Remember that neighborliness … must be based on respect and confidence,” he said.Morocco’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Spain violated good neighborliness and mutual trust and that migration was not the problem.Rabat added that it has cooperated with Madrid in curbing migrant flows and in countering terrorism, which it said helped foil 82 militant attacks in Spain.The case of Ghali “revealed the hostile attitudes and harmful strategies of Spain regarding the Moroccan Sahara,” the ministry said in a statement.Spain “cannot combat separatism at home and promote it in its neighbor,” it said, noting Rabat’s support for Madrid against the Catalan independence movement.Separately, Ghali, who has been hospitalized with COVID-19 in Logrono in the Rioja region, will attend a Tuesday high court hearing remotely from the hospital, his lawyer’s office said.Morocco, which has withdrawn its ambassador to Madrid, has said it may sever ties with Spain if Ghali left the country the same way he entered without a trial. 
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As the world begins to travel again, Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away!Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armored truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine.It’s part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometer (125-mile) Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally.A new steel wall, similar to recent construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, blocks commonly used crossing points along the Evros River, which separates the two countries.Police officers patrol alongside a steel wall at Evros river, near the village of Poros, at the Greek -Turkish border, Greece, May 21, 2021.Nearby observation towers are being fitted with long-range cameras, night vision and multiple sensors. The data will be sent to control centers to flag suspicious movement using artificial intelligence analysis.”We will have a clear ‘pre-border’ picture of what’s happening,” Police Maj. Dimosthenis Kamargios, head of the region’s border guard authority, told The Associated Press.The EU has poured 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) into security tech research following the refugee crisis in 2015-16, when more than 1 million people — many escaping wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — fled to Greece and on to other EU countries.The automated surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border is aimed at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices.Key elements of the network will be launched by the end of the year, Kamargios said. “Our task is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. We need modern equipment and tools to do that.”Testing at Greek bordersResearchers at universities around Europe, working with private firms, have developed futuristic surveillance and verification technology, and tested more than a dozen projects at Greek borders.AI-powered lie detectors and virtual border-guard interview bots have been piloted, as well as efforts to integrate satellite data with footage from drones on land, air and sea and underwater. Palm scanners record the unique vein pattern in a person’s hand to use as a biometric identifier, and the makers of live camera reconstruction technology promise to erase foliage virtually, exposing people hiding near border areas.Police officer Dimosthenis Kamargios watches an electronic surveillance tower near the village of Lagyna, at the Greek -Turkish border, Greece, May 21, 2021.Testing has also been conducted in Hungary, Latvia and elsewhere along the eastern EU perimeter.The more aggressive migration strategy has been advanced by European policymakers over the past five years, funding deals with Mediterranean countries outside the bloc to hold migrants back and transforming the EU border protection agency, Frontex, from a coordination mechanism to a full-fledged multinational security force.But regional migration deals have left the EU exposed to political pressure from neighbors.Earlier this month, several thousand migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in a single day, prompting Spain to deploy the army. A similar crisis unfolded on the Greek-Turkish border and lasted three weeks last year.Greece is pressing the EU to let Frontex patrol outside its territorial waters to stop migrants reaching Lesbos and other Greek islands, the most common route in Europe for illegal crossing in recent years.Armed with new tech tools, European law enforcement authorities are leaning further outside borders.Not all the surveillance programs being tested will be included in the new detection system, but human rights groups say the emerging technology will make it even harder for refugees fleeing wars and extreme hardship to find safety.’Everybody should care’Patrick Breyer, a European lawmaker from Germany, has taken an EU research authority to court, demanding that details of the AI-powered lie detection program be made public.”What we are seeing at the borders, and in treating foreign nationals generally, is that it’s often a testing field for technologies that are later used on Europeans as well. And that’s why everybody should care, in their own self-interest,” Breyer of the German Pirates Party told the AP.He urged authorities to allow broad oversight of border surveillance methods to review ethical concerns and prevent the sale of the technology through private partners to authoritarian regimes outside the EU.Ella Jakubowska, of the digital rights group EDRi, argued that EU officials were adopting “techno-solutionism” to sideline moral considerations in dealing with the complex issue of migration.”It is deeply troubling that, time and again, EU funds are poured into expensive technologies which are used in ways that criminalize, experiment with and dehumanize people on the move,” she said.The London-based group Privacy International argued the tougher border policing would provide a political reward to European leaders who have adopted a hard line on migration.”If people migrating are viewed only as a security problem to be deterred and challenged, the inevitable result is that governments will throw technology at controlling them,” said Edin Omanovic, an advocacy director at the group. “It’s not hard to see why: Across Europe we have autocrats looking for power by targeting foreigners, otherwise progressive leaders who have failed to come up with any alternatives to copying their agendas, and a rampant arms industry with vast access to decision-makers.”Migration flows have slowed in many parts of Europe during the pandemic, interrupting an increase recorded over years. In Greece, for example, the number of arrivals dropped from nearly 75,000 in 2019 to 15,700 in 2020, a 78% decrease.But the pressure is sure to return. Between 2000 and 2020, the world’s migrant population rose by more than 80% to reach 272 million, according to United Nations data, fast outpacing international population growth.At the Greek border village of Poros, the breakfast discussion at a cafe was about the recent crisis on the Spanish-Moroccan border.Many of the houses in the area are abandoned and in a gradual state of collapse, and life is adjusting to that reality.Cows use the steel wall as a barrier for the wind and rest nearby.Panagiotis Kyrgiannis, a Poros resident, says the wall and other preventive measures have brought migrant crossings to a dead stop.”We are used to seeing them cross over and come through the village in groups of 80 or a 100,” he said. “We were not afraid. … They don’t want to settle here. All of this that’s happening around us is not about us.” 
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Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny asked a court Monday to halt the hourly nighttime checks he has been subjected to in his penal colony.  Speaking to the court in a video link from prison, Navalny charged that he has done nothing that would warrant the authorities’ decision to designate him as a flight risk, which has resulted in the checks.  “I just want them to stop coming to me and waking me up at nighttime,” he told the judge in remarks that were broadcast by the independent Dozhd TV. “What did I do: Did I climb the fence? Did I dig up an underpass? Or was I wringing a pistol from someone? Just explain why they named me a flight risk!”He argued that the hourly nighttime checks “effectively amount to torture,” telling the judge that “you would go mad in a week” if subjected to such regular wake-ups.The court later adjourned the hearing until Wednesday.Navalny, the most determined political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin — accusations that Russian officials reject.In February, he was handed a 2 1/2-year sentence for violating terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction, which he says was politically motivated.He went on a 24-day hunger strike in prison to protest the lack of medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs, ending it last month after getting the medical attention he demanded.While he still was on hunger strike, Navalny was moved from a penal colony east of Moscow, where he was serving his sentence, to the hospital ward of another prison in Vladimir, a city 180 kilometers (110 miles) east of the capital. He remains at that prison, where he said the nighttime checks continued, although they were less intrusive.With Navalny in prison, prosecutors have asked a Moscow court to designate his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his network of regional offices as extremist groups. A bill, which has sailed quickly through the Kremlin-controlled lower house of Russian parliament, bars members, donors and supporters of extremist groups from seeking public office.The parallel moves have been widely seen as an attempt to keep any of Navalny’s associates from running in September’s parliamentary election. 
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After outlining a fresh chapter in French-African relations, with calls for massive economic support for Africa and visits to Rwanda and South Africa last week, President Emmanuel Macron is back home to confront familiar and thorny problems in France’s former colonies, underscoring the challenges of breaking with the past.At front and center is Mali, buffeted by its fifth coup since independence from Paris in 1960 — and the second in less than a year. To the east, Chad is also unsettled by a controversial political transition, following the April death of longstanding leader Idriss Deby. Both countries are key allies in France’s counter-terrorism operation in the Sahel.Russians and Malian flags are waved by protesters in Bamako, Mali, during a demonstration against French influence in the country on May 27, 2021.Farther south, Paris fears Russia’s growing influence in the Central African Republic — among that of other newer foreign powers — including Moscow’s alleged role in fueling anti-French sentiments.Taken together, some analysts say, these developments, combined with France’s legacy in Africa — and, in some cases, Macron’s own actions — may make it harder to deliver on his promises of change.“Emmanuel Macron is trapped in a contradictory position,” Africa specialist Antoine Glaser told French television station TV5 Monde.“He wants to get out of FrancAfrique by turning to anglophone countries like Rwanda and South Africa,” he said, referring to the tangle web of business and political interests with France’s former colonies, “but he’s bogged down in the francophone countries.”Moving forward, looking backMacron states otherwise, as he looks for new ways and new places to exert French influence on the continent. At a May summit in Paris, he called on richer countries to invest massively in Africa’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and echoed Washington’s call for a patent waiver on COVID-19 vaccines — calls he reiterated during his visit to South Africa on Friday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the virus.The French leader also organized a special donors’ conference on Sudan — another country outside Paris’ traditional sphere of influence — and announced plans to cancel Khartoum’s $5 billion bilateral debt.Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, left, Chad President Idriss Deby, center, and France President Emmanuel Macron arrive for a picture during the G5 Sahel summit on June 30, 2020, in Nouakchott, Mauritania.The calls fit into Macron’s broader reset of relations with the continent since taking office in 2017. Visiting Burkina Faso later that year, he promised to return plundered artifacts to former colonies, a pledge several other European governments have since echoed.“For sure, colonialization has left a strong imprint,” Macron told the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, in a lengthy interview published Sunday. “But I also told young people in Ouagadougou (in 2017) that today’s problems aren’t linked to colonialism, they’re more caused by bad governance by some, and corruption by others. These are African subjects, and relations with France should not exonerate leaders from their own responsibilities.” Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso.Yet Macron has also gone further than his predecessors in acknowledging France’s blame for past injustices. He set up fact-finding commissions to examine Paris’ role in Algeria’s war of independence and in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. While both reports were critical, Macron ruled out official apologies.Still, he has followed some of the reconciliatory actions recommended by the Algeria commission. And in Kigali on Thursday, he turned the problem around, asking Rwandans instead to forgive France for its role in the mass killings, while saying France had not been an accomplice in them.”His words were something more valuable than an apology. They were the truth,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said of Macron’s speech, calling it “an act of tremendous courage.”French President Emmanuel Macron, center, and his wife Brigitte Macron, left, welcome Chadian Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, right, for a dinner with leaders of African states, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, May 17, 2021.Continuation or break?Yet in Rwanda and elsewhere, Macron’s actions have also drawn controversy—reflecting, some analysts say, a continuation rather than a break with the past. Some question Macron’s visit to Kigali, for example, noting its increasingly authoritarian leader.In Chad, where Macron was the only Western leader to attend Deby’s funeral, Paris appeared to initially endorse the military council that took over after Deby’s death, and which is headed by his son. While the body has promised eventual elections, some opposition activists claim its existence amounts to an effective coup d’etat.Days later, Macron appeared to backtrack, saying France supported a democratic and inclusive transition and not a “succession plan.”“For too long, France’s view remained short-sighted and purely military: Chad was no more than a provider of troops for regional wars,” Chad expert Jerome Tubiana wrote in Foreign Policy magazine.Deby’s death, he added, was a potential game changer Paris should seize.“If France renews with a new junta the same deal it had with Deby — fighters in exchange for political, financial, and military backing — it will miss that long-awaited turning point when democratic change in Chad could actually become a reality,” he added.In Mali, by contrast, France and the European Union have denounced the country’s latest coup as “unacceptable.” Macron warned West African leaders they could not support a country without “democratic legitimacy or transition,” he told Le Journal du Dimanche, threatening to pull French troops from the country if it tipped to “radical Islamism.”The president has long floated an eventual drawdown of France’s 5,100-strong counter-insurgency operation in the Sahel, hoping also to beef up other European forces in the region, to help shoulder the fight.But analyst Glaser believes Mali’s latest military takeover could make it harder, not easier, to fulfill that goal.“This situation puts him in a delicate position,” Glaser said of Macron. “He wants to get out of FrancAfrique and keeps saying … that the solution in Africa is political, not military. So, when Mali faces major problems politically, his whole strategy is undermined.” 
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