Bear EATS 16-year-old at Russian national park before it is stabbed with a penknife by tourist - Daily Mail

Bear EATS 16-year-old after attacking tourist group in Russian national park: Adult tourist survives after stabbing the beast in the neck with a penknife and then playing dead

• The bear attacked the sherpa, 16, at the Ergaki National Park in Sayan Mountains
• Two tourists searched for the missing boy and had to fend off the predator
• One stabbed it with a penknife while the other ran back to camp to raise alarm
• Investigators found the bear feasting on the corpse and later shot and killed it 

By Will Stewart for MailOnline

Published: 10:37 BST, 22 June 2021 | Updated: 11:10 BST, 22 June 2021

A brown bear has eaten and killed a 16-year-old boy at a Russian national park before it was stabbed in the neck with a penknife by a tourist who was also attacked by the predator.

The beast half ate the teenager, floored the tourist and lunged at another when they went in search of the missing boy.  

The bear played dead after being stabbed before it was later shot and killed.

A brown bear has eaten and killed a 16-year-old boy at a Russian national park before it was stabbed in the neck with a penknife by a tourist

The beast half ate the teenager, floored the tourist and lunged at another when they went in search of the missing boy

When the tourist stabbed the bear with the pocket knife, his companion fled back to camp where they raised the alarm.  

Inspectors at Ergaki National Park in the Sayan Mountains rushed to the scene where they found the bear lying on the devoured remains of the teenager some 500 yards from the tourist camp.

They shot and wounded the wild bear, which then fled.

Early next morning they tracked and killed the 'aggressive' animal which tried to attack them.

Rangers carry the body of the teenage boy through the woods after he was savagely attacked

When the tourist stabbed the bear with the pocket knife, his companion fled back to camp where they raised the alarm (file image)

'After hours of tracking, the man-eating bear was killed by the park staff,' said a statement from the national park.

The male tourist suffered scratches, cuts and bruises from his fight with the bear.

The boy, from Abakan, was working as a sherpa for the holiday group when he was attacked and killed at around 11am on Monday.

The two men were confronted by the bear nine hours later when they left their tents to check for him.

The attack took place in Ergaki National Park in the south of Russia near the border with Mongolia

The boy, from Abakan, was working as a sherpa for the holiday group when he was attacked and killed at around 11am on Monday

Igor Gryazin, director of the national park, said the boy had taken a short cut which exposed him to additional danger.

Prolonged cold weather this year had led to thick snow cover, preventing the bears from feeding properly.

Ergaki is known as Russia's Yosemite for its similarity to the Californian national park.

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2021-06-22 09:37:05Z
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Australia hits back at 'flawed' decision to put Great Barrier Reef on 'in danger' list - Sky News

Australia has reacted angrily to a UN committee recommendation that the Great Barrier Reef should be added to a list of world heritage sites that are in danger.

The UN Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation committee said the reef should be added to the list due to the effects of climate change.

Australia has been trying for years to keep the reef off the list and the country's environment minister Sussan Ley said the UN's recommendation had been made "without due process" and "on the basis of a desktop review".

Ms Ley said: "This decision was flawed. Clearly there were politics behind it."

Reuters news agency cited a government source as saying Canberra believed China was responsible, as China has influence on three committees and also holds the chair of the World Heritage Committee.

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"We will appeal but China is in control, the meeting is in China, we don't have much hope," the source said.

But environmental groups are not buying Australia's argument that the recommendation is political.

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Australia's leaders have insisted they are tackling climate change but the country's attachment to coal makes its one of the world's largest carbon emitters per capita.

Image: Over the past three decades, the reef has lost half of its coral cover. Pic: AP

Despite this, the government continues to support fossil fuel industries, saying that it is protecting jobs.

Richard Leck, head of Oceans for the World Wide Fund for Nature - Australia, said: "The recommendation from UNESCO is clear and unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change."

The site off the Queensland coast is one of Australia's main tourist attractions, supporting tens of thousands of jobs - things that would be under threat if it was put on the "in danger" list.

The reef is composed of 3,000 individual reef systems, 760 fringe reefs, 600 tropical islands and about 300 coral cays.

They house a wide variety of marine life, plants, and animals, including sea turtles, reef fish, more than 100 species of sharks and rays, and 400 hard and soft corals.

Image: The reef has a wide variety of wildlife. Pic: AP

Over the past three decades, the reef has lost half of its coral cover, pollution has caused deadly starfish outbreaks, and climate change has resulted in coral bleaching, the World Wildlife Fund says.

UNESCO said in 2015 that the reef's outlook was poor and since then, it has suffered three major coral bleaching events.

The decision will come up for final consideration in the World Heritage committee late in July.

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2021-06-22 04:52:30Z
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Covid: Vaccines running out in poorer nations, WHO says - BBC News

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A large number of poorer countries receiving Covid-19 vaccines through a global sharing scheme do not have enough doses to continue programmes, the World Health Organization has said.

WHO senior adviser Dr Bruce Aylward said the Covax programme had delivered 90 million doses to 131 countries.

But he said this was nowhere near enough to protect populations from a virus still spreading worldwide.

The shortages come as some nations in Africa see a third wave of infections.

On Monday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for an end to vaccine hoarding by wealthier countries as his government scrambled to curb a steep rise in cases.

On a continental level, only 40 million doses have been administered so far in Africa - less than 2% of the population, Mr Ramaphosa said.

To address this, he said his government was working with Covax to create a regional hub to produce more vaccines in South Africa.

Covax was created last year to ensure Covid-19 doses were made available around the world, with richer countries subsidising costs for poorer nations.

More on Covax:

• How many Covax vaccines have been pledged?
• Unicef asks G7 countries to donate vaccines now
• Why some African states can't use their vaccines

Led by the WHO and other international organisations, Covax initially set a target of providing two billion doses worldwide by the end of 2021.

Most of those are being donated to poorer countries, where Covax hopes to distribute enough vaccines to protect at least 20% of the populations.

However, the distribution of these vaccines has been hampered by manufacturing delays and supply disruptions, leading to shortages in countries wholly reliant on Covax.

Uganda, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Trinidad and Tobago are just some of the countries that have reported running out of vaccines in recent days.

Getty Images

At a WHO briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday, Dr Aylward acknowledged the extent of those shortages in stark terms.

Of the 80 low-income countries involved in Covax, "at least half of them do not have sufficient vaccines to be able to sustain their programmes right now", Dr Aylward said.

"If we look at what we're hearing from countries on a day-to-day basis, well over half of countries have run out of stock and are calling for additional vaccine. But in reality it's probably much higher," Dr Aylward said.

He said some countries had tried to make alternative arrangements to end shortages, with harsh consequences, such as paying above market value for vaccines.

As vaccine supplies come under strain, some wealthier countries with spare doses are leading efforts to step up donations through Covax and other means.

On Monday the administration of US President Joe Biden announced how it planned to donate 55 million vaccine doses to countries in need.

Of those, 41 million would be distributed through Covax, with the remaining 14 million shared with countries deemed to be priorities.

These vaccines are not included in the 500 million doses President Biden said the US would donate via Covax. President Biden made that pledge earlier this month at a summit of major economic powers, known as the G7 (Group of Seven).

Together, those G7 members committed to donate one billion vaccines to poorer countries over this year.

But campaigners criticised the pledge, saying it lacked ambition, was far too slow and showed Western leaders were not serious about tackling the worst public health crisis in a century.

Some health experts believe it could be months - if not years - before enough people are vaccinated globally to declare an end to the pandemic.

When asked about global need for vaccines on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said: "What we have found to be the biggest challenge is not actually the supply, we have plenty of doses to share with the world, but this is a Herculean logistical challenge."

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2021-06-21 21:12:42Z
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US, EU, Canada and UK slap sanctions on Belarus - Al Jazeera English

The United States, the European Union, Canada and The United Kingdom have imposed sweeping sanctions on Belarusian entities and officials and called on Minsk “to end its repressive practices against its own people”.

The allies also told the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko to cooperate with investigations into the forced landing of a Ryanair flight there in May and the arrest of the journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, who were on board.

“We are united in our deep concern regarding the Lukashenko regime’s continuing attacks on human rights, fundamental freedoms, and international law,” the four said in a joint statement on Monday.

“We are committed to support the long-suppressed democratic aspirations of the people of Belarus and we stand together to impose costs on the regime for its blatant disregard of international commitments,” they said.

The coordinated action reflected growing Western frustration over Belarus, which plunged into crisis last year when street protests erupted over what demonstrators said was a rigged presidential election.

There was no immediate reaction from Lukashenko who has so far ridden out the storm with a crackdown, denied rigging the vote and accused journalist Roman Protasevich of plotting a revolution.

The veteran leader has increasingly turned to Russia for support.

The four called on Minsk to cooperate with an international probe into the plane incident, immediately release all political prisoners, and “enter into a comprehensive and genuine political dialogue” with the democratic opposition and civil society.

‘Tighten the thumbscrews’

The EU said it was imposing travel bans and asset freezes on 78 officials – including the Belarusian defence minister and transport minister, its air force commander, judges and lawmakers – as well as entities, which are usually companies, banks, or associations. It means that a total of 166 people and 15 entities are now under EU restrictive measures.

At a meeting in Luxembourg, the bloc said it was also drawing up economic sanctions that Austria said would “tighten the thumbscrews” on the Belarusian government.

“This decision was made in view of the escalation of serious human rights violations in Belarus and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists,” a statement said.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who chaired the meeting, said the economic sanctions “are going to hurt … the economy of Belarus heavily”.

EU states are also soon set to impose economic sanctions on Belarus’s financial, oil, tobacco and potash sectors after a provisional deal was agreed on Friday.

The EU imported 1.2 billion euros ($1.5bn) worth of chemicals including potash from Belarus last year, as well as more than 1 billion euros ($1.2bn) worth of crude oil and related products such as fuel and lubricants. Belarus also relies on loans from European commercial and development banks.

The bloc will ban exports to Belarus of any communications equipment that could be used for spying, and tighten an arms embargo to include rifles used by biathletes, officials said.

Belarusian opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya welcomed the announcements. “The European Union decided they deserve these sanctions,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters in Brussels. “I agree … We have to end the situation in our country, we don’t want it to become North Korea.”

Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department in a statement said it blacklisted 16 people and five entities in response to the Lukashenko government’s “escalating violence and repression”, including the forced landing of the flight.

The US action targeted close associates of Lukashenko, the Treasury said, including his press secretary and the chairperson of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly, the Belarusian Parliament’s upper house.

‘Cutting off oil export revenue streams’

The UK said it had imposed travel bans and asset freezes against “senior-ranking officials”, as well as oil firm BNK (UK) Ltd.

“The sanctions send a strong signal to the Belarusian authorities that the UK will not tolerate those who repress human rights coming to the UK or using our financial institutions,” the foreign office said in a statement.

Britain said its sanctions were imposed separately to the EU, which it left last year, but in parallel to those announced by Washington, Ottawa and Brussels.

The British foreign office said the restrictions on BNK (UK) Ltd, which exports Belarusian oil products, would “significantly impact one of the regime’s main revenue streams”.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “The Lukashenko regime endangered the lives of airline passengers and crew in a shameful ruse to snatch Roman Protasevich.

“We will hold the regime to account in coordination with our allies including through further banning travel, freezing assets and cutting off oil export revenue streams.”

In September last year, the UK announced sanctions on human rights grounds against Lukashenko, his son and senior figures in the Belarusian government.

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2021-06-21 18:36:10Z
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Iran nuclear deal: President-elect Raisi issues warning over talks - BBC News

Reuters

Iran's president-elect has welcomed the negotiations with world powers aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal but said they must guarantee national interests.

At his first news conference since his victory in Friday's election, Ebrahim Raisi promised he would not allow the talks in Vienna to be dragged out.

He also insisted that Iran's ballistic missile programme was "not negotiable".

The nuclear deal has been close to collapse since the US abandoned it and reinstated sanctions three years ago.

Iran nuclear crisis: The basics

• World powers don't trust Iran: Some countries believe Iran wants nuclear power because it wants to build a nuclear bomb - it denies this.
• So a deal was struck: In 2015, Iran and six other countries reached a major agreement. Iran would stop some nuclear work in return for an end to harsh penalties, or sanctions, hurting its economy.
• What is the problem now? Iran re-started banned nuclear work after former US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran. Even though new leader Joe Biden wants to rejoin, both sides say the other must make the first move.

Mr Raisi, a hard-line Shia Muslim cleric who is head of Iran's judiciary and is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, won Friday's election by a landslide, with 62% of the vote in the first round.

However, turnout was just under 49% - a record low for a presidential poll in the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution - following calls for a boycott from dissidents and some reformists in response to the disqualification of several prominent candidates who might have provided serious competition.

Reuters

On Monday, Mr Raisi described Iranians' participation in the election as a message of "unity and cohesion", and a sign that they continued to "walk the path" of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

He also said voters had given him a mandate to "fight against corruption, poverty, and discrimination", which he had accused the moderate President Hassan Rouhani of failing to tackle during the campaign.

• Who is Ebrahim Raisi, Iran's next president?
• The unusual way power is held in Iran
• Iran nuclear crisis in 300 words

Mr Raisi said his approach to foreign policy would not be limited by the nuclear deal negotiated by Mr Rouhani, which saw Iran agree to limit its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

On the Vienna talks, he said: "We will not allow negotiations to be for negotiations' sake. Negotiations should not be dragged out but each sitting should bear results. A result-oriented [negotiation] is important to us and it should have an outcome for the Iranian nation."

Mr Raisi urged the US to immediately return to the deal and lift all the sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. When asked if he would meet President Joe Biden if it did so, he replied: "No."

He likewise dismissed the possibility of any negotiations over Iran's ballistic missile programme and its regional policies, including its support of armed groups in several countries, despite calls by Western countries for them to be part of any new agreement reached in Vienna.

On Sunday, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said representatives in Vienna were "closer than ever to an agreement", but that bridging the remaining gap was "not an easy job".

Israel's new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, meanwhile warned world powers "to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement".

He said Mr Raisi, who was involved in the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988 when he was Tehran's deputy prosecutor, was part of a "regime of brutal hangmen".

When questioned about his human rights record on Monday, Mr Raisi said: "I am proud to have defended human rights in every position I have held so far."

Analysis

By Kasra Naji, BBC Persian

Ebrahim Raisi's statements in his first news conference as president-elect are not going to reassure many people, whether about policies at home, or about Iran's engagement with the outside world. He painted a picture of a hardliner who is set in his ways.

He is best known for his role in signing off on the execution of thousands of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. He is sanctioned by the US for his role in human rights abuses. But he seemed unapologetic, saying he had helped bring security to the nation, and that he should be praised and thanked for what he had done. This issue will not doubt continue to overshadow his presidency.

As the head of the judiciary, he has presided over many cases of gross injustice, particularly relating to human rights activists like Nasrin Sotoudeh. There was nothing in his comments to suggest we will see an improvement in Iran's human rights record. Mr Raisi said he had always endeavoured to fight for the human rights of the people.

On the indirect talks with the US in Vienna he was ambivalent, although he said they would continue if there were clear achievements. He was softer than expected on Israel, saying nothing except that Iran would continue to support the Palestinians. And he was enthusiastic about expanding relations with China. He said he would regard the implementation of a long-term co-operation agreement with China as a priority.

Mr Raisi projected no particular personal character that would mark the next four years in his image. Already, some observers are saying he will be the executive officer for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who they believe will be driving policies at home and abroad more than before.

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2021-06-21 14:18:59Z
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Valerie Bacot: French woman goes on trial for murder of abuser - BBC News

AFP

The trial has started in the case of a French woman who shot dead a man she says abused her years - first as her stepfather then later as her husband.

Valerie Bacot was just 12 when Daniel Polette began raping her. He was jailed but later returned to the family home and allegedly resumed the abuse.

She alleges he forced her to marry him and fathered her four children.

Ms Bacot admits killing him in 2016 but more than 600,000 people have signed a petition calling for her release.

She says she shot Polette dead during an encounter in which he had allegedly been forcing her to work as a prostitute.

Ms Bacot hid the body with the help of two of her children but was arrested in October 2017 and confessed to the killing.

The trial is a major news story in France and has galvanised public debate about violence against women.

• French incest allegations prompt victims to speak out
• France confronts its past on sex abuse

The case bears similarity to that of another French woman - Jacqueline Sauvage - who was jailed for killing her abusive husband but later received a presidential pardon.

Ms Bacot's lawyers said "the extreme violence that she suffered for 25 years and the fear that her daughter would be next" had driven her to carry out the killing.

Last month, a book about the 40-year-old's life story was released in which she wrote that she was "afraid all the time" and "had to put an end to it".

AFP

Ms Bacot says Polette, who was 25 years her senior, began sexually abusing her when she was only 12.

He spent two and a half years in jail for the assaults in the 1990s, but later returned to the family home and first made her pregnant aged 17.

Ms Bacot says Polette married her and became physically abusive, later forcing her to prostitute herself from a vehicle.

She admits shooting him dead with his own pistol after an incident involving a client in March 2016.

Prosecutors will argue that the killing was pre-meditated while the defence say Ms Bacot felt she had to kill him to protect herself and her children.

"These women who are victims of violence have no protection," lawyer Janine Bonaggiunta told AFP. "The judiciary is still too slow, not reactive enough and too lenient towards the perpetrators who can continue to exercise their violent power.

"This is precisely what can push a desperate woman to kill in order to survive."

The trial is being held in Chalon-sur-Saône in central France and is expected to last about a week.

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2021-06-21 12:58:38Z
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Defeat for Macron in regional poll blows presidential race wide open - Financial Times

On a visit to three towns in northern France last week, President Emmanuel Macron insisted he was not campaigning for Sunday’s regional elections. “I’m simply carrying on my work for the nation,” he said. Few believed him. The Hauts-de-France region north of Paris is led by Xavier Bertrand, a centre-right presidential hopeful and a potentially dangerous rival for Macron in next year’s election for the Elysée Palace.

The president needed a decent election result for his centrist La République en Marche party to clip Bertrand’s wings. So he pulled out the stops, adding no fewer than five ministers to the party’s regional list to beef up its appeal and scheduling his own visit to the area. But in Sunday’s first round vote, LREM flopped, winning only 9 per cent in Hauts-de-France, according to estimates, and failing to make the cut-off for the second round vote on June 27. Bertrand triumphed with 41 per cent, beating his far-right rival into a distant second.

Nationwide, Macron was the big loser from the poll even though the far-right Rassemblement National led by Marine Le Pen did much worse than expected, taking only 19 per cent of the vote and coming first in only one region, rather than the expected six. Macron’s party, which still lacks a grassroots organisation and the benefits of local incumbency, slid into fifth place with 11 per cent of the vote and failed to make the cut-off for the second round in several regions.

A proportional representation election for regional assemblies with only limited powers over transport, schools and economic development is an unreliable guide to next year’s presidential contest. Turnout was also very low at 35 per cent. But in two respects it was a warm up for the big race ahead.

“What’s at stake here is Emmanuel Macron’s capacity to present himself as rampart against Marine Le Pen,” said Chloe Morin, an analyst at the Fondation Jean-Jaures think-tank. “For Marine Le Pen, it is about the glass ceiling and breaking the idea that a high stakes election is unwinnable for her party.”

Sunday’s election suggests the glass ceiling is still tough to crack, although the far-right may still have a chance of winning in Provence-Alpes Cote d’Azur next weekend. Taking a regional council would be another step in the normalisation of the far-right which has moderated its policy positions in recent months. Le Pen’s opponents will hope that the far-right’s disappointing score will take some of the wind out of her sails.

Macron, meanwhile, has to worry about Bertrand, his most plausible rival on the centre right.

Presenting himself as the best-placed politician to defeat the far-right has been a core part of Macron’s political strategy from the outset. He proved it by winning the presidency convincingly in 2017. But after four turbulent years at the Elysée, and with French politics in a febrile state over perceived threats from lawlessness and Islamist terrorism, the menace from Le Pen is as strong as ever. Opinion polls consistently suggest she will win the first round of the presidential election in April next year and run Macron uncomfortably close in the second. They also suggest that Bertrand, a former conservative health and labour minister, would defeat her more easily than Macron.

By easily fending off the far-right in northern France, Bertrand has strengthened his claim to be better able to unite the nation against Le Pen. “Here we have loosened and smashed the jaws of the National Front [as the far-right used to be known],” he said on Sunday night. He was the rampart now, he added.

Macron would have hoped for a closer contest in the Hauts-de-France to be able to ride to Bertrand’s rescue in the second round. But Bertrand did not need his help. The centre-right Republicans strengthened their hold over other regions too, showing that France has tilted firmly in a conservative direction even if the left proved less moribund than thought. Bertrand can expect a big boost for his presidential campaign, assuming the Republicans fall in behind him. The duel between Macron and Le Pen has now become a three-way race.

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2021-06-21 08:22:31Z
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