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Tag Archives: International News
Dutch police clash with anti-lockdown protesters in 2 cities
URK, Netherlands (AP) — Rioters set fires in the center of the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven and pelted police with rocks Sunday at a banned demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannons, arresting at least 30 people.
Police in the capital of Amsterdam also used a water cannon to disperse an outlawed anti-lockdown demonstration on a major square ringed by museums. Video showed police spraying people grouped against a wall of the Van Gogh Museum.
It was the worst violence to hit the Netherlands since the pandemic began and the second straight Sunday that police clashed with protesters in Amsterdam. The country has been in a tough lockdown since mid-December that is due to continue at least until Feb. 9.
In Eindhoven, 125 kilometers (78 miles) south of Amsterdam, a central square near the main railway station was littered with rocks, bicycles and shattered glass. The crowd of hundreds of demonstrators also was believed to include supporters of the anti-immigrant group PEGIDA, which had sought to demonstrate in the city.
Eindhoven police said they made at least 30 arrests by late afternoon and warned people to stay away from the city center amid the clashes. Trains to and from the station were halted and local media reported plundering at the station.
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The violence came a day after anti-curfew rioters torched a coronavirus testing facility in the Dutch fishing village of Urk.
Video from Urk, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Amsterdam, showed youths breaking into the coronavirus testing facility near the village’s harbor before it was set ablaze Saturday night.
The lockdown was imposed by the Dutch government to rein in the spread of the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.
Police said they fined more than 3,600 people nationwide for breaching the curfew that ran from 9 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested 25 people for breaching the curfew or for violence.
The police and municipal officials issued a statement Sunday expressing their anger at rioting, “from throwing fireworks and stones to destroying police cars and with the torching of the test location as a deep point.”
“This is not only unacceptable, but also a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who do all they can at the test center to help people from Urk,” the local authorities said, adding that the curfew would be strictly enforced for the rest of the week.
On Sunday, all that remained of the portable testing building was a burned-out shell.
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Associated Press writer Mike Corder in Otterlo contributed.
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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
New Zealand reports 1st community case in months
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand has reported its first coronavirus case outside of a quarantine facility in more than two months, although there was no immediate evidence the virus was spreading in the community.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said Sunday the case was a 56-year-old woman who recently returned from Europe.
Like other returning travelers, she spent 14 days in quarantine and twice tested negative before being returning home on Jan. 13. She later developed symptoms and tested positive.
He said health officials will conduct genome testing but are working under the assumption that the case is a more transmissible variant of the virus.
He said they are investigating to see whether its possible she caught the disease from another returning traveler who was staying in the same quarantine facility.
New Zealand has eliminated community transmission of the virus, at least for now. Bloomfield said officials are ramping up contact tracing and testing efforts and hope to have more information about the case in the coming days.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region:
— A Chinese city has completed 2,600 temporary treatment rooms as the country’s north battles new clusters of the coronavirus. The single-occupancy rooms in the city of Nangong in Hebei province just outside Beijing are each equipped with their own heaters, toilets, showers and other amenities, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Special attention has been paid to Hebei because of its proximity to the capital and the province has locked down large areas to prevent further spread of the virus. The provincial capital Shijiazhung and the city of Xingtai, which encompasses Nangong, have been largely sealed off. Community isolation and large-scale testing have also been enforced. The National Health Commission on Sunday reported 19 additional cases in Hebei. The far northeastern province of Heilongjiang reported another 29 cases, linked partly to an outbreak at a meat processing plant. Beijing, where around 2 million residents have been ordered to undergo new testing, reported two new confirmed cases. China currently has 1,800 people being treated for COVID-19, 94 of them listed in serious condition, with another 1,017 being monitored in isolation for having tested positive for the virus without displaying symptoms.
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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
Thousands of Hong Kongers locked down to contain coronavirus
HONG KONG (AP) — Thousands of Hong Kong residents were locked down Saturday in an unprecedented move to contain a worsening outbreak in the city, authorities said.
Hong Kong has been grappling to contain a fresh wave of the coronavirus since November. Over 4,300 cases have been recorded in the last two months, making up nearly 40% of the city’s total.
Coronavirus cases in Hong Kong’s Yau Tsim Mong district – a working-class neighborhood with old buildings and subdivided flats – represent about half of infections in the past week.
Sewage testing in the area picked up more concentrated traces of the virus, prompting concerns that poorly built plumbing systems and a lack of ventilation in subdivided units may present a possible path for the virus to spread.
Authorities said in a statement Saturday that an area comprising 16 buildings in Yau Tsim Mong will be locked down until all residents have been tested. Residents will not be allowed to leave their homes until they have received their test results to prevent cross-infection.
“Persons subject to compulsory testing are required to stay in their premises until all such persons identified in the area have undergone testing and the test results are mostly ascertained,” the government said in a statement.
Hong Kong has previously avoided lockdowns in the city during the pandemic, with leader Carrie Lam stating in July last year that authorities will avoid taking such “extreme measures” unless it had no other choice.
The restrictions, which were announced at 4 a.m. in Hong Kong, are expected to end within 48 hours, the government said.
It appealed to employers to exercise discretion and avoid docking the salary of employees who have been affected by the restrictions and may not be able to go to work.
Hong Kong has seen a total of 9,929 infections in the city, with 168 deaths recorded as of Friday.
Russia welcomes US proposal to extend nuclear treaty
MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin on Friday welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden’s proposal to extend the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the two countries, which is set to expire in less than two weeks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia stands for extending the pact and is waiting to see the details of the U.S. proposal.
The White House said Thursday that Biden has proposed to Russia a five-year extension of the New START treaty.
“We can only welcome political will to extend the document,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “But all will depend on the details of the proposal.”
The treaty, signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance. It expires on Feb. 5.
Russia has long proposed to prolong the pact without any conditions or changes, but President Donald Trump’s administration waited until last year to start talks and made the extension contingent on a set of demands. The talks stalled, and months of bargaining have failed to narrow differences.
“Certain conditions for the extension have been put forward, and some of them have been absolutely unacceptable for us, so let’s see first what the U.S. is offering,” Peskov said.
Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian ambassador at the international organizations in Vienna, also hailed Biden’s proposal as an “encouraging step.”
“The extension will give the two sides more time to consider possible additional measures aimed at strengthening strategic stability and global security,” he tweeted.
Biden indicated during the campaign that he favored the preservation of the New START treaty, which was negotiated during his tenure as U.S. vice president.
The talks on the treaty’s extension also were clouded by tensions between Russia and the United States, which have been fueled by the Ukrainian crisis, Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and other irritants.
Despite the extension proposal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden remains committed to holding Russia “to account for its reckless and adversarial actions,” such as its alleged involvement in the Solar Winds hacking event, 2020 election interference, the chemical poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny and the widely reported allegations that Russia may have offered bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Asked to comment on Psaki’s statement, Peskov has reaffirmed Russia’s denial of involvement in any such activities.
After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, New START is the only remaining nuclear arms control deal between the two countries.
Arms control advocates have strongly called for New START’s preservation, warning that its lapse would remove any checks on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.
Last week, Russia also declared that it would follow the U.S. to pull out of the Open Skies Treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities to help build trust and transparency between Russia and the West.
While Russia always offered to extend New START for five years — a possibility envisaged by the pact — Trump asserted that it put the U.S. at a disadvantage and initially insisted that China be added to the treaty, an idea that Beijing flatly rejected. Trump’s administration then proposed to extend New START for just one year and also sought to expand it to include limits on battlefield nuclear weapons.
Moscow has said it remains open for new nuclear arms talks with the U.S. to negotiate future limits on prospective weapons, but emphasized that preserving New START is essential for global stability.
Russian diplomats have said that Russia’s prospective Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle could be counted along with other Russian nuclear weapons under the treaty.
The Sarmat is still under development, while the first missile unit armed with the Avangard became operational in December 2019.
The Russian military has said the Avangard is capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound and could make sharp maneuvers on its way to a target to bypass missile defense systems. It has been fitted to the existing Soviet-built intercontinental ballistic missiles instead of older type warheads, and in the future could be fitted to the more powerful Sarmat.
World leaders cheer US return to climate fight under Biden
BERLIN (AP) — World leaders breathed an audible sigh of relief that the United States under President Joe Biden is rejoining the global effort to curb climate change, a cause that his predecessor had shunned over the past four years.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron were among those welcoming Biden’s decision to rejoin the the Paris climate accord, reversing a key Trump policy in the first hours of his presidency Wednesday.
“Rejoining the Paris Agreement is hugely positive news,” tweeted Johnson, whose country is hosting this year’s U.N. climate summit.
Macron said that with Biden, “we will be stronger to face the challenges of our time. Stronger to build our future. Stronger to protect our planet.”
The Paris accord, forged in the French capital in 2015, commits countries to put forward plans for reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is released from burning fossil fuels.
As president, Donald Trump questioned the scientific warnings about man-made global warming, at times accusing other countries of using the Paris accord as a club to hurt Washington. The U.S. formally left the pact in November.
“The United States departure from it has definitely diminished our capacities to change things, concretely to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions,” said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
“Now we are dealing with an administration that is conscious of what is at stake and that is very committed to use the voice of the United States, a voice that is very powerful on the international level,” she said.
Biden put the fight against climate change at the center of his presidential campaign and on Wednesday immediately launched a series of climate-friendly efforts to bring Washington back in step with the rest of the world on the issue.
“A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear now.”
Experts say any international efforts to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally 1.5C (2.7F), as agreed in the Paris accord would struggle without the contribution of U.S., which is the world’s second biggest carbon emitter.
Scientists say time is running out to reach that goal because the world has already warmed 1.2 C (2.2 F) since pre-industrial times.
Of particular importance is deforestation in the vast Amazon rainforest. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has faced criticism from global leaders, including Biden before his election victory, and non-profit organizations for rising deforestation.
Bolsonaro has been dismissive of international efforts to steer Brazil’s management of the huge rainforest, saying its resources must be harnessed to support growth and economic development. Still, he sent a letter to Biden on Wednesday urging that the two countries continue their “partnership in favor of sustainable development and protection of the environment, especially of the Amazon.”
“I stress that Brazil has shown its commitment with the Paris Accord after the introduction of its new national goals,” Bolsonaro added in the letter, which he published on his social media channels.
Italy said the U.S. return to the Paris accord would help other countries reach their own climate commitments. “Italy looks forward to working with the U.S. to build a sustainable planet and ensure a better future for the next generations,” Premier Giuseppe Conte tweeted.
The Vatican, too, was clearly pleased given the decision aligns with Pope Francis’ environmental agenda and belief in multilateral diplomacy. In a front-page editorial in Wednesday’s L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican deputy editorial director Alessandro Gisotti noted that Biden’s decision to rejoin Paris “converges with Pope Francis’ commitment in favor of the custody of our common home.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more muted in her reaction, noting on Thursday that her government would “probably have a more similar opinion” with Biden on issues such as the Paris climate accord, migration and the World Health Organization.
Youth activists who have been at the forefront of demanding leaders take the threat of global warming seriously said they now want to see concrete action from Washington.
“Many countries signed the Paris Agreement and they are still part of the Paris Agreement, but they make very free interpretations of what that implies,” said Juan Aguilera, one of the organizers of the Fridays for Future movement in Spain. “In many cases, signing it has become a show, because at the end of the day the concrete measures that are being taken, at least in the short term, are not satisfactory.”
Biden has appointed a large team to tackle climate change both on the domestic and international front. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, named as the president’s special climate envoy, on Thursday took part in a virtual event with Italian industry at which he touted the ‘green economy’ as an engine for jobs and said the U.S. planned to make up for time lost over the past four years.
Organizers of a meeting Monday on adapting to climate change said they hoped Kerry would take part, too, and Biden himself has talked about inviting world leaders to a summit on the issue within his first 100 days in office.
Over the coming months the U.S. allies and rivals will closely watch to see by how much the administration offers to cut its emissions in the coming decade. A firm number is expected to be announced before the U.N. climate summit taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
Veterans of such gatherings noted the formidable diplomatic clout that the U.S. has managed to bring to them in the past.
Farhana Yamin, a British lawyer who served as adviser to the Marshall Islands in the Paris negotiations, said she left the climate talks in 2018 feeling “disillusioned” not only by the U.S. withdrawal but also by how other countries, including her own, were failing to live up to the agreed goals.
“I wish there were more progress here in the UK,” she said, adding she hoped that the change in the White House would mean others would increase their ambition on climate, too. “The U.S. always has massive influence on its allies.”
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Associated Press writer Karl Ritter and Nicole Winfield in Rome, Oleg Cetinic in Paris, Aritz Parra in Madrid and David Biller in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://www.apnews.com/Climate