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At least 100,000 Belarusians took to the streets in the capital of Minsk on Sunday in one of the biggest protests yet against President Alexander Lukashenko after he claimed victory in a disputed election last month that his opponents say was rigged.Police said they detained more than 400 protesters in Minsk, with arrests continuing into the evening.With public outrage building against Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet bloc nation for 26 years, Russia said it would support him by sending paratroopers to Belarus for “Slavic Brotherhood” joint drills.Law enforcement officers detain protesters during a rally against police brutality and the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 13, 2020. (Credit: Tut.By)Protesters claim the August 9 presidential election was won by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Key opposition leaders have since either been jailed or fled the country, with Tsikhanouskaya now in Lithuania.Lukashenko has rejected claims the election was rigged and contends that foreign powers are behind the protests. Throngs of protesters marched through Minsk toward a government district Sunday, chanting “Long live Belarus” and “You’re a rat,” a common taunt against Lukashenko.Coming to a halt, they chanted “fascists” as hundreds of riot police with shields blocked a road.The Interfax Russian news agency reported that shots were fired into the air to keep protesters away from an area of Minsk where the Belarusian leadership lives.The unrest came as Lukashenko prepared to travel to Russia on Monday for talks with President Vladimir Putin.Moscow has expressed support for Belarus, potentially restructuring its debt and offering to send in Russian riot police if needed. 
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The European Union and China hold talks Monday with hopes to strike a trade and investment deal by the year’s end. Several issues pose potential hurdles, though, from human rights and climate concerns to the outcome of November’s U.S. election.
Expectations for the summit have already been notched down. It was supposed to be a face-to-face meeting in Leipzig, Germany, between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the 27 European Union leaders. Because of coronavirus concerns, it has now turned into virtual, downsized talks between just Xi, top EU officials and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency. The two sides still hope to reach an agreement this year on a deal granting greater investment in and access to each other’s markets.  But as European Council President Charles Michel pointed out during previous EU-China talks in June, there are key areas the two global powers do not agree on. He noted European concerns on issues such as human rights, climate change and cyberattacks.  Indeed, Reuters news agency suggested Monday’s talks may result in only a modest agreement for now on protecting regional food designations on products such as Irish whisky and Chinese bean paste.  “What’s at stake here is the EU-China relationship is not in really fantastic shape at the moment,” he said.Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations policy institute, says “the situation in Hong Kong, the situation in Xinjiang, plus the economic situation that hasn’t improved over the last few years, plus COVID — has really created a lot of concern in Europe at the future relationship with China.” She’s referring to European concerns about China’s treatment of minority Uighurs, and its policies toward Hong Kong, including the controversial new national security law. On the economic side, Europe wants greater market access, intellectual property rights protection and climate change commitments from Beijing.   FILE – A cargo truck drives amid stacked shipping containers at the Yangshan port in Shanghai, China, March 29, 2018.U.S.-China tensions also form part of the backdrop for the talks. Observers say China, in response, seeks a closer relationship with the EU while Europe is wary of becoming a battleground for the American and Chinese governments.  
 
Oertel says the U.S. presidential election, pitting former Vice President Joe Biden against President Donald Trump, will influence the next steps for Beijing and Brussels.   “Under a Trump presidency, the outlook for transatlantic cooperation and coordination on China is not great, because of the way the Trump administration has so far dealt with its allies,” she said.By contrast, she says, Brussels and Washington may cooperate more closely in responding to China under a Biden presidency.  For now, experts say, EU member states are divided over how to deal with China —whether to adopt a tougher or softer approach moving forward.  
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Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the Belarus capital Minsk Sunday for another demonstration after longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko extended his rule following a disputed election last month.  Protests have been ongoing since the August 9 vote that opposition parties, the United States and the European Union allege was rigged.On Saturday, thousands demonstrated to demand the release of opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who was jailed this week after she resisted expulsion from the country.Video broadcast by Polish-funded satellite TV channel Belsat and independent outlet Tut.by showed masked Belarusian riot police violently detaining at least 40 women who were thrown into vans as scuffles erupted in the city’s central Freedom Square.Law enforcement officers detain protesters during a rally against police brutality and the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 13, 2020. (Credit: Tut.By)Some of the women protesters chanted “Bring back our Masha,” referring to Kolesnikova, while others beat saucepans.Lukashenko, who denies the August 9 vote was fraudulent, accuses council members and activists of colluding with Western nations to try to create a parallel government.Thousands of people have been detained over five weeks of protests triggered by the contested election. At least three people have been killed and hundreds hurt as police have aggressively dispersed peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, clubs and stun grenades.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said the U.S. and other countries are considering bringing sanctions against “those involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus.”  
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With tensions between NATO allies Greece and Turkey rising, Greece has announced plans to purchase a grab bag of new warplanes, frigates, helicopters and weapons systems. Greece’s defense shopping spree comes amid a new diplomatic scramble with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visiting Cyprus to ease an energy standoff in the eastern Mediterranean.Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the defense upgrade, saying it stemmed from the need to offset what he called Turkey’s destabilizing moves in the region.Along with its longstanding air and sea claims in the Aegean, Ankara is now torpedoing peace in the eastern Mediterranean, Mitsotakis said. Turkey is threatening southeast Europe and is undermining security at a crucial crossroads between East and West, he said.Greece and Turkey are locked in an increasingly tense and dangerous standoff in the Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean over hydrocarbon drilling rights and delineation of their maritime boundaries.In a speech at a trade fair, Mitsotakis said Greece would obtain 18 new warplanes from France to replace its aging fleet of Mirage 2000 fighters. The shopping list will also include four new navy helicopters and an equal number of frigates. Existing battleships will also be refurbished.Details of the deals were not announced but it is not the first instance this year in which Greece has shown an interest in substantially upgrading its defenses.Greece and the U.S. are already in talks for the procurement of at least 24 fifth-generation F-35 warplanes for $3 billion.Having finalized its intent, the new acquisitions, experts say, would give Athens a significant qualitative edge in its air defense against Turkey, which is facing problems in procuring new aircraft and upgrading its existing fleet.The United States suspended Turkey from the F-35 Fighter program after it moved to acquire advanced Russian S-400 air defense missile systems last year.Mitsotakis’ announcement comes amid a new diplomatic effort in the region by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to convince Greece and Turkey to back off from their monthlong standoff in the eastern Mediterranean.After talks with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and other officials, Pompeo said the United States remains deeply concerned by Turkey’s continuing operations surveying for natural resources in areas over which Greece and Cyprus both assert jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades make statements during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, Sept. 12, 2020.Pompeo added that, “Countries in the region need to resolve disagreements – including on security and energy, resource and maritime issues – diplomatically and peacefully. Increased military tensions help no one but adversaries who would like to see division in transatlantic unity.”Pompeo’s visit to Cyprus comes hot on the heels of a similar visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.Greece has refused to engage in negotiations with Turkey until it stops searching for eastern Mediterranean gas reserves.However, Sunday, just hours after Pompeo shuttled to Cyprus for high-level talks, hopes of a breakthrough seemed to emerge.Turkey called its top research vessel back to base, leaving an opening for a potential start to crucial negotiations. 
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Nations accused of violating their citizens’ rights and freedoms will come under intense scrutiny by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council during its upcoming three-week session, which begins on Monday. As its first order of business, the council is expected to consider a request by member countries to hold an urgent debate on the human rights situation in Belarus.  The country has been in turmoil following the alleged rigging of the August 9 presidential election.   The alleged extrajudicial killings of thousands of people caught up in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs also will be a top issue.  Beyond that, several perennial violators will come under the glare of the human rights spotlight.   Reports detailing summary executions, torture, arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, sexual assault and other violations in countries such as Syria, Myanmar, Venezuela, South Sudan, Libya, Iran and Cambodia will come under review.   In addition, some investigative mandates may come to an end.  For example, the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Burundi, established four years ago, will present its final report later this month.     Human Rights Watch’s Geneva director, John Fisher says it is important the commission’s mandate be maintained.  He says little has changed on the ground despite the coming into power of Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye following the death of long-serving President Pierre Nkurunziza.   “We are also very concerned that the president has made critical remarks about civil society, has signaled that they not be the mouthpiece of foreign powers or are involved in selling secrets or unveiling secrets to foreign powers, that they have tended to limit themselves to criticism, etc.,” said Fisher.    Fisher says he is concerned that several people responsible for violations under Nkurunziza’s rule remain in the new government.   Human rights activists are pressing for accountability for the actions of so-called untouchable countries at this session.  These are countries deemed to be too powerful to be put in the dock at the Council.   A global coalition of 321 civil society groups from 60 countries is calling for China to face greater scrutiny for its alleged systemic and serious human rights violations.    Activists expect Russia to come under heightened scrutiny because of its alleged poisoning of opposition figure Alexey Navalny with a deadly Soviet-era nerve agent.   Fisher says conditions in Saudi Arabia demand greater scrutiny,” he said.   “A number of the women’s human rights defenders and other government critics remain held incommunicado in detention.  There are details of situations of prison overcrowding, which of course exacerbated the health crisis, particularly during the COVID pandemic.  Denial of access to health care, deaths of detainees in custody under suspicious circumstances.”   Fisher says all detainees should be released and the council should press for prison reforms and keep Saudi Arabia under its human rights lens.      
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Two former British prime ministers who played crucial roles in bringing peace to Northern Ireland joined forces Sunday to urge lawmakers to reject government plans to override the Brexit deal with the European Union, arguing that it imperils that peace and damages the U.K.’s reputation.    In an article in The Sunday Times, John Major and Tony Blair slammed the current British government for “shaming” the country with legislation that, in places, goes against the very deal it signed to allow for the U.K.’s smooth departure from the EU earlier this year.    Major, a Conservative prime minister from 1990 to 1997, and Blair, his Labour successor for a decade, said Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill “questions the very integrity” of the U.K.    “This government’s action is shaming itself and embarrassing our nation,” they said.
The planned legislation, which will be debated by British lawmakers this week, has led to a furious outcry within the EU as it would diminish the bloc’s previously agreed oversight of trade between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland if a U.K.-EU trade agreement isn’t secured.    FILE – A general view at the start of a round of post-Brexit trade deal talks between the EU and the United Kingdom, in Brussels, Belgium, June 29, 2020.The British government has admitted that the legislation would break international law but argues that it’s an insurance policy in the event a trade deal with the EU is not secured by the end of this year. Johnson has said the legislation is needed to end EU threats to impose a “blockade” in the Irish Sea that the prime minister asserted could “carve up our country.” EU leaders have furiously rejected that charge.    Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told the BBC on Sunday that the legislation was a “break the glass in emergency provision,” if needed, and that he would resign if he believed the rule of law was broken in an “unacceptable” way.    “I don’t believe we’re going to get to that stage,” he said.    With the British government showing no sign of changing course, there are real concerns that the talks on a future trade deal between the U.K. and the EU could collapse within weeks. If that happens, tariffs and other impediments to trade will be imposed by both sides at the start of 2021.    The U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31, but it is in a transition period that effectively sees it benefit from the bloc’s tariff-free trade until the end of the year while a future relationship is negotiated. Even before the latest standoff, discussions between the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and his U.K. counterpart, David Frost, had made very little progress.    One major element of the Brexit withdrawal agreement is the section related to ensuring an open border on the island of Ireland to protect the peace process in Northern Ireland.    FILE – A car passes a Brexit sign on the old Belfast to Dublin road, close to the Irish border in Newry, Northern Ireland, Oct. 16, 2019.The issue proved thorny during the more than two years of discussions it took to get a Brexit deal done, as the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is the only land link between the U.K. and the EU.    The EU wanted assurances the border would not be used as a back route for unlicensed goods arriving in Ireland from the rest of the U.K. — England, Scotland and Wales. As a result, the two sides agreed there would be some kind of regulatory border between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.    Major and Blair, who both vociferously opposed Brexit, said the planned legislation puts the 1998 Good Friday agreement that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland at risk.    Th pair said the bill “negates the predictability, political stability and legal clarity that are integral to the delicate balance between the north and south of Ireland that is at the core of the peace process.”    It’s unclear whether the planned legislation will get through the British Parliament, with a number of Johnson’s fellow Conservatives uneasy at the prospect of the government breaching international law.    Tobias Ellwood is one lawmaker who has said he could not accept the legislation, arguing that the bill diminishes “our role-model status as defender of global standards.”    
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Angry migrants left homeless by a blaze at Europe’s largest refugee center demanded to leave the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday as authorities opened up new tent shelters and European leaders faced growing calls to take in more of the displaced.More than 12,000 people, most from Africa and Afghanistan, have been sleeping rough since flames swept through the notoriously squalid and overcrowded Moria camp earlier this week. Some residents had COVID-19, raising fears the outbreak could spread.Under a hot sun on Saturday, hundreds of migrants, many chanting “Freedom” and “No Camp,” gathered as bulldozers cleared ground in preparation for tents to be put up.Some carried handwritten signs carrying messages including “We don’t want to go to a hell like Moria again” and “Can you hear us Mrs Merkel?” in an appeal to the German chancellor.“The fire made things much more difficult,” said Sajida Nazari, a 23-year-old student from Afghanistan who has been on Lesbos for over a year. “We don’t have food, we don’t have water, we don’t have freedom.”Police briefly fired rounds of teargas when some of the protesters attempted to march down a road leading to the island’s main port of Mytilene, which police had blocked while work on the new tent settlement continued nearby.The fire at the camp, which was holding four times the number of people it was supposed to, has returned the spotlight to the migration crisis facing the European Union, which has struggled to find a response that goes beyond temporary fixes.German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Europe to accept more refugees but the difficulty of reaching an accord was underlined by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who ruled out taking more in.Greek authorities have refused any mass transfer off the island, located a few miles off the Turkish coast, despite growing hostility from residents angry after years at the front line of the crisis.But officials said they were determined to provide shelter and proper sanitation and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.“As of today, asylum seekers will start coming into the tents, into safe conditions,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi told reporters at the site.The need to bring the situation under control has been made more urgent by the fact that authorities have lost track of 35 camp residents who had tested positive for coronavirus.Health authorities have promised to conduct rapid tests at the entrance of the new camp, with a quarantine unit ready for anyone testing positive.Still, the unsanitary conditions being endured by Moria’s former inhabitants in the fields and streets of Lesbos has caused deep alarm.“This is a health bomb. These people haven’t even had access to water all these days, they cannot even wash their hands,” Matina Pagoni, president of Athens and Piraeus hospital doctors’ union, told Skai television. 
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Russians vote Sunday in dozens of local elections that will be scrutinized for signs of discontent with the ruling United Russia party following the suspected poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.Navalny, 44, had hoped to undermine United Russia’s grip on regional power and had urged his supporters to vote against it tactically before he fell gravely ill in what Germany and his allies say was an attempt to kill him last month.United Russia, which backs President Vladimir Putin, dominates regional politics, but the elections come at a time of public frustration over years of falling wages and the government’s handling of the pandemic.Seen as a dry run for next September’s parliament elections, the regional polls will elect 18 governors and an array of local parliaments and city councils.Early voting began Friday after authorities stretched the elections over three days, a move criticized by independent election watchdog Golos, which warned the longer period would make it harder for monitors to catch fraud at polling stations.Navalny’s allies have pressed ahead with the Kremlin critic’s “smart voting” strategy, naming more than 1,000 politicians on the ballots they think can beat ruling party candidates and telling their supporters to vote for them.The strategy aims to disrupt a political system that often bars the Kremlin’s staunchest foes from running, while allowing softer candidates from the parliamentary parties to compete. Navalny has been unable to set up his own party.The anti-corruption campaigner also has dozens of allies running in elections for seats in the city councils of Novosibirsk and Tomsk in Siberia.There have been some signs of anti-Kremlin discontent in the regions.Mass rallies in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk show no sign of abating two months after they flared over the arrest of a popular local governor who defeated United Russia’s candidate in an election upset in 2018.  
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