Belarus activist 'stabs his neck' in court - BBC News

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A Belarusian activist stabbed himself in the neck during a court appearance in the capital, Minsk, a rights group and opposition media have reported.

Footage appeared to show Stepan Latypov collapsing after using what looked like a pen as a weapon on Tuesday.

Mr Latypov was taken to hospital and was reportedly in a satisfactory condition after surgery.

He is accused of setting up opposition social media and also resisting police during his arrest last September. He has denied all the charges.

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President Alexander Lukashenko has carried out a harsh crackdown on opposition since his heavily disputed election victory last August.

What happened in the Minsk courtroom?

Mr Latypov stabbed himself after his father had given a witness testimony in the courtroom, according to Belarus' rights group Viasna.

It said that, earlier, Mr Latypov was heard telling his father that the law enforcement authorities had threatened to physically punish him if had not admitted his guilt.

He also said that they had promised criminal cases against his relatives and neighbours.

Viasna said it took some time before courtroom guards opened the defendant's cage holding Mr Latypov.

The Belarus opposition Nexta Telegram channel published a video apparently showing Mr Latypov lying down on a bench in the courtroom.

He was later taken by ambulance to hospital.

Nexta said Mr Latypov had undergone surgery and that his condition was "satisfactory".

The Belarusian health ministry said a 41-year-old man was in a stable condition after medics treated his wound in hospital under anaesthetic, Reuters reports. The ministry did not name the man.

In a tweet, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a Belarusian opposition leader, wrote: "Belarusian activist, political prisoner Stsiapan Latypau cut his throat in the courtroom today. He was threatened with the persecution of his family if he didn't admit himself guilty.

"This is the result of state terror, repressions, torture in Belarus. We must stop it immediately!"

Ms Tikhanovskaya was using a Belarusian spelling of Mr Latypov's name.

In a separate development, Belarus has temporarily banned most of its citizens from leaving, including many foreign residency permit holders.

The State Border Committee's tightening of the rules follows international outrage over Belarus's recent diversion of a Ryanair flight and arrest of a top dissident and his girlfriend on board.

Many dissidents have left Belarus since the disputed election.

Ms Tikhanovskaya, who insists that she won, has moved to neighbouring Lithuania with her team.

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2021-06-01 18:29:16Z
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EU funded Wuhan lab: European Commission faces probe over thousands of euros sent to China - Daily Express

Brussels has pumped in tens of thousands of pounds into the Wuhan Institute of Virology over the last six years, it has emerged. MEPs have forced the European Commission to reveal that it will send more than £189,000 to the facility by the end of 2023.  And now Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes is demanding more answers after British intelligence agencies suggested it is “feasible” a leak from the lab sparked the coronavirus pandemic.

He said: “The European Commission must disclose in detail what research they financed at the Chinese labs in Wuhan and why.

“Such clarification to the European taxpayers is imperative especially after President Biden as well as multiple researchers have credibly raised the possibility that the COVID-19 virus was man-made and leaked, intentionally or not, from the Wuhan labs.”

Between April 2015 and July 2020, the EU spent around £34,000 on projects at the Wuhan lab.

This includes helping to produce the PCR tests that are used to diagnose coronavirus infections.

Eurocrats are unable to verify exactly how the money was spent because they are yet to receive full completion reports from the projects.

In a response to MEPs, EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said: “As the project has not yet delivered its final report, the total amount claimed by Wuhan Institute of Virology under this grant is not known yet.

“WIV delivered the first SARS-Cov2 genome sequence, which enabled partners of the European Virus Archive to design the widely used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic test for COVID-19.”

She added: “Payments are made only if the costs claimed by the beneficiary can be accepted. Constant monitoring is ensured until the end of any project.

“In addition, even after the end of the project, the Commission may check its proper implementation and compliance with the obligations laid down in the grant agreement.”

Some of the cash sent to the Wuhan lab would’ve come from British taxpayers before Brexit.

Britain and the United States are demanding a full probe into whether the coronavirus pandemic was caused by a leak from the Wuhan lab.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi this week called for the World Health Organisation to leave “no stone unturned” when investigating the facility.

MUST READ: EU ambassador defends Brexit protocol as no grace extension planned

But the Chinese state has allegedly silenced witnesses and stopped scientists who wanted an investigation into the theory.

A European Commissions spokesman said: “EVA Global started in January 2020 and has 36 participants.

“Among them is the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan Institute of Virology), which receives €88,000.

“Moreover, EVA Global involves 50 institutes, including the 36 partners, and five associate networks.

“This unique advanced community of 29 countries will overcome a crucial step to deepen the integration of its activities, to extend and strengthen this international virus collection. worldwide, all sharing collections and contributing expertise to support research and innovation into viral pathogens.

“EVA Global builds on a previous project, EVAg, which worked with an EU contribution of €10.8 million from Horizon 2020. The duration of the EVAg project was from April 2015 – July 2020, which got extended between 01/01/2021 until 31/12/2023 and had 26 participants. The Wuhan Institute was one of the 26 participants, having received €131,000 in EU contribution."

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2021-06-01 14:37:14Z
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Sicilian Mafia: Anger as 'people slayer' Giovanni Brusca freed - BBC News

Reuters

Sicilian Mafia boss Giovanni Brusca, whose grisly crimes include having a child's body dissolved in acid, has been released from prison.

Dubbed the "people slayer", Brusca has confessed to his role in over 100 killings, including the assassination of Italy's top anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone.

But Brusca became an informant, helping prosecutors hunt down fellow mobsters.

His release after 25 years in jail has outraged his victims' relatives.

He will now be on parole for four years.

Who is Giovanni Brusca?

Brusca, now 64, was a key figure within the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia group.

In 1992, he detonated the bomb that killed Italy's leading anti-Mafia investigator, judge Giovanni Falcone, in one of the country's most infamous murder cases.

Mr Falcone's wife and three bodyguards were also killed in the attack, when Brusca set off half a tonne of explosives under the road near Palermo they were driving along.

The attack, followed two months later by the killing of Mr Falcone's colleague Paolo Borsellino, rocked Italy and resulted in tough new anti-Mafia laws.

EPA

Brusca has confessed to his role in more than 100 murders.

One of the most gruesome was the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 11-year-old son of another mafioso who had betrayed him. Brusca had the boy kidnapped and tortured before he was strangled and his body dissolved in acid - as a result, the child's family couldn't bury him.

After his arrest in 1996, he turned state witness in order to reduce his sentence. He helped investigators track down the gangsters responsible for several Mafia attacks in the 1980s and 1990s.

What has the reaction been?

Brusca's release has prompted grief and anger among relatives of some of his victims.

The wife of one of the bodyguards killed, Tina Montinaro, told the Repubblica newspaper she was "indignant".

"The state is against us - after 29 years we still don't know the truth about the massacre and Giovanni Brusca, the man who destroyed my family, is free," Ms Montinaro said.

Maria Falcone, the sister of the judge, said she was "saddened" by the news but that the law gave Brusca the right to leave prison.

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Several Italian politicians condemned Brusca's release.

"After 25 years in prison, the mafia boss Giovanni Brusca is a free man. This is not the 'justice' that Italians deserve," said Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party.

"It is a punch in the stomach that leaves you breathless," Enrico Letta, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party, told radio station Rtl 102.5 on Tuesday.

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2021-06-01 12:38:28Z
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COVID-19: Coronavirus variants given new names by the WHO under new system - here's the full list - Sky News

Coronavirus variants have been renamed with letters of the Greek alphabet following criticism of the way they have been labelled up until now.

Under a new system revealed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Kent variant will now be known as Alpha, the Indian variant as Delta, and the South African variant as Beta.

Their scientific names - B.1.1.7, B.1.617.2 and B.1.351 - had been considered too complicated to remember, but there were also concerns about referring to them by the locations where they were discovered.

#COVID19 does not care who we are, where we live, or what we believe.

Yet the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.

That’s why I’m appealing for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally. pic.twitter.com/ojh957xhQq

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 8, 2020

Critics have warned this can stigmatise countries where variants are first found and some have warned the rise in coverage of the so-called Indian variant as it becomes more widespread could fuel racism against Indian people.

Human Rights Watch said that "political parties and groups... have latched onto the COVID-19 crisis to advance anti-immigrant, white supremacist, ultra-nationalist, antisemitic, and xenophobic conspiracy theories that demonize refugees, foreigners, prominent individuals, and political leaders".

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Last year, the fact the pandemic originated from China led to an increase in hate crimes against Asian people, and former US president Donald Trump was condemned for regularly referring to coronavirus as the "China virus", among other such labels.

The UK's East and Southeast Asian communities saw a 300% increase in hate crimes during the pandemic, according to advocacy group End the Virus of Racism.

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Rise in hate crime against Chinese people

As a result, the WHO has sought to rename the new variants using a different system.

These are the new names for each of the variants:

• Kent / B.1.1.7 - Alpha
• South Africa / B.1.351 - Beta
• Brazil / P.1 - Gamma
• India / B.1.617.2 - Delta
• US / B.1.427 / B.1.429 - Epsilon
• Brazil / P.2 - Zeta
• B.1.525 - Eta
• Philippines / P.3 - Theta
• US / B.1.526 - Iota
• India / B.1.617.1 - Kappa

The choice of the Greek Alphabet followed months of deliberations, with ideas such as Greek gods and pseudo-classical names floated by experts.

However, many were already the names of brands, companies or aliens.

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Viruses have historically been named after the locations where they were first discovered.

For example, the Ebola virus was named after the Congolese river.

But this labelling can be damaging and at times inaccurate, with the "Spanish flu" pandemic retaining its name despite its origins being unknown.

"No country should be stigmatised for detecting and reporting variants," said WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove.

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2021-05-31 21:20:30Z
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China to allow three-child families as birth rate declines sharply - BBC News - BBC News

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2021-05-31 21:17:23Z
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Belarus shuts borders: Citizens barred from leaving and foreigners must provide documents - Daily Express

Border force has imposed tough restrictions on Belarusian citizens and foreign nationals with a residential permit in Belarus. Those with a temporary residence card in another country are not allowed to leave.

A temporary residence permit in a foreign state is not a basis for leaving Belarus, the State Border Committee said.

It added departure from the country through ground checkpoints is limited for both Belarusian citizens and foreigners with a residence permit in Belarus.

Belarus sparked widespread condemnation from the international community last week, after officials re-routed a Ryanair plane to Minsk and arrested a dissident journalist and his partner.

Officials in Belarus scrambled a MiG-29 fighter plane to escort the aircraft to Minsk airport then apprehended Roman Protasevich - a blogger and critic of President Alexander Lukashenko - and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.

The flight had been en route to Lithuania from Greece on May 23.

Ryanair said the crew had been "notified by Belarus of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk".

The European Union has urged its airlines to avoid Belarus amid the outrage over the forced landing of the passenger plane.

The bloc is considering imposing sanctions on Minsk.

Belarus has been isolated by large parts of mainland Europe, but has Russia in its corner.

Moscow will defend Belarus and provide help if Brussels enforces economic sanctions on Minsk, a Russian foreign ministry official.

Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, has been holding cosy talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the weekend.

He added the Kremlin would take note of the fact Ms Sapega also has a Belarusian residency permit.

Russia will also press ahead with a second £352million ($500million) loan to Belarus next month.

Moscow promised Minsk a £1.1billion ($1.5billion) loan in 2020 as part of efforts to stabilise its neighbour.

Minsk received a first instalment of £352million ($500million) in October.

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2021-05-31 11:59:00Z
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China to allow couples to have three children in face of demographic crisis - Financial Times

China will allow couples to have three children, loosening its historic family planning policies in the face of a looming demographic crisis just weeks after reporting that its population grew at the slowest rate in decades.

The Chinese Communist party’s politburo, which comprises its 25 most senior officials, concluded that the new “three-child policy” was intended to “actively address the ageing population, and maintain China’s natural advantage in human resources”, according to Xinhua, the state media agency.

Experts, the public and China’s central bank have called for the government to abolish birth limits entirely after the census published this month showed the population grew 5.4 per cent from 1.34bn in 2010 to 1.41bn in 2020 — the lowest rate of increase between censuses since the People’s Republic of China began collecting data in 1953.

But Beijing has been unwilling to break with the decades-old population control apparatus used to enforce a widely unpopular one-child policy, often employing brutal means, including forced abortions and sterilisations. Abolishing population controls would mean having to repurpose a huge part of its civil service, as well as suggest an embarrassing about-turn.

Demographers have said rising incomes, urbanisation and the increased costs of raising children had led to a long-term decline in fertility rates that would be extremely difficult to reverse. In the past five years, China’s official fertility rate has fallen sharply to 1.3 births per woman, one of the world’s lowest.

The one-child policy was introduced from 1979-80 as the population approached 1bn. The cap was lifted to two children in 2015 but the change had little impact on the birth rate.

As a result of the one-child policy, many Chinese children are in a so-called 4-2-1 family structure, meaning they will have to support four grandparents and two parents on one income. The UN projected that China’s old-age dependency ratio would double to more than 40 per cent by 2040, putting severe pressure on the pension system.

A rapidly ageing population will also shrink the labour pool, putting pressure on economic growth.

Experts said the decision to raise the cap to allow three children would not reverse the overall trend.

“The policy might be able to slightly slow, but cannot stop, the huge decline in births. It could bring a few tens of thousands of new births, while in recent years there has been a drop of 60-70,000 per year,” said Huang Wenzheng, a demographer at the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think-tank.

Huang added that existing policies carried sufficient exemptions that nearly anyone who was not a government employee could already have three children — they simply did not wish to.

The government previously said it would provide more “appropriate support” for parents to help convince couples to have more children. Peng Xizhe, professor of demography at Fudan University in Shanghai, said this would probably mean help with early-age care and paternity leave.

“Opening up to three children on the one hand keeps in place the concept of population controls, while also letting people who want to have children realise that wish,” he said.

The announcement of the three-child policy was met with a swift backlash on social media, despite widespread censorship of government criticism, reflecting concerns that the measures would not address the underlying reasons why Chinese were not having more children.

“I recommend you first resolve the fundamental problems of child support plus . . . the unfair treatment of women in the workplace, before asking them to have children!” read the most-liked response under the Xinhua announcement on Weibo, the microblogging platform.

“So many of us were the only child in our generation. Back then [the government] fined us. Now they want us to raise four ageing parents plus three children . . . only in your dreams,” read another reply.

Additional reporting by Nian Liu and Xinning Liu in Beijing

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2021-05-31 08:48:56Z
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