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Foreign ministers representing the Group of 7 industrialized nations have a busy day of meetings Tuesday in London discussing a range of world issues, including relations with China and Russia, the coup in Myanmar, the Syrian conflict, and the situation in Afghanistan. Britain’s foreign office said in Tuesday’s sessions Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb “will lead discussions on pressing geopolitical issues that threaten to undermine democracy, freedoms and human rights.” Raab said the talks are “an opportunity to bring together open, democratic societies and demonstrate unity at a time when it is much needed to tackle shared challenges and rising threats.” He is expected to urge G-7 members to sanction individuals and entities connected to Myanmar’s military junta, to support arms embargoes and to boost humanitarian aid to the people of Myanmar. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Raab on Monday and said regarding China the goal is not to “try to contain China or to hold China down.” “What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades to the benefit, I would argue not just of our own citizens, but of people around the world including, by the way, China,” Blinken told reporters.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, walks with Dominic Raab, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs into Downing Street ahead of a press conference at No 9 Downing Street in London, May 3, 2021.Raab said the United States and Britain are also looking for constructive ways to work with China “in a sensible and positive manner” on issues including climate change when possible.   U.S. President Joe Biden has identified competition with China as his administration’s greatest foreign policy challenge. In his first speech to Congress last week, he pledged to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific and boost U.S. technological development.     Last month, Blinken said the United States was concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and warned it would be a “serious mistake” for anyone to try to change the status quo in the western Pacific by force.   Elsewhere in the region, the United States said it is ready to engage diplomatically with North Korea to achieve the ultimate goal of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, following the completion of a months-long U.S. policy review on North Korea.  “What we have now is a policy that calls for a calibrated practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with North Korea, to try to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States, our allies and our deployed forces,” Blinken said Monday.     Raab said Britain and the United States “share the strategic paradigm,” and both countries will support each other’s efforts.  On Friday, the Biden administration announced it completed the review of North Korean policy, expressing openness to talks with the reclusive communist nation. Biden is also expected to appoint a special envoy for North Korean human rights issues.  North Korea lashed out at the United States and its allies on Sunday in a series of statements, saying recent comments from Washington are proof of a hostile policy.    A statement by Kwon Jong Gun, head of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s North America Department, warns that Pyongyang would seek “corresponding measures” and that if Washington tries to approach relations with Pyongyang through “outdated and old-school policies” from the perspective of the Cold War, it will face an increasingly unaffordable crisis in the near future.    “I hope that North Korea will take the opportunity to engage diplomatically and to see if there are ways to move forward toward the objective of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And so, we will look to see not only what North Korea says but what it actually does in the coming days and months,” the top U.S. diplomat added.  Blinken’s remarks followed his separate meetings with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, where the foreign ministers pledged U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral cooperation toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.  The G-7 ministerial talks are laying the foundation for a summit of leaders from those countries in June, also in Britain.    In addition to Britain and the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also taking part in this week’s talks.       After the G-7 meetings, Blinken is scheduled to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other senior government officials.    State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.” 
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France’s centrist government has released a video ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the so-called Climate and Resilience bill, with Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili explaining how it will lead to cleaner air, more insulated buildings and a greener France overall.Polls find many French citizens support the spirit of the massive legislation, which aims to meet the country’s goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. A recent report by the EU’s climate service found 2020 was Europe’s hottest year on record, and the region was warming faster than the rest of the world.The French bill’s dozens of measures include limiting the most polluting vehicles in urban areas, slapping ecotaxes on truck transport, banning heated restaurant terraces and capping rent on insulated housing.The National Assembly is expected to pass the legislation before it heads to the Senate.But the bill is deeply controversial, with industry saying it’s too constraining, and green groups saying it doesn’t go far enough.Graffiti near the Place de la Bastille in Paris calling for climate action. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Chloe Gerbier, legal officer for environmental NGO Notre Affaire a Tous (Our Shared Responsibility), said the legislation in no way meets the urgency of the climate crisis. She and others said it drastically waters down proposals made by a citizens’ climate convention set up by President Emmanuel Macron.Earlier wording in the bill, for example, that made serious environmental abuses a crime now tags them as lesser misdemeanors. Green groups also want a bigger category of short-haul domestic flights banned in favor of train transport.France’s airline industry, hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, doesn’t want any flight bans. Nicolas Paulissen, managing director of the Union of French Airports, says it doesn’t make sense to penalize French airlines, when much of the industry’s growth is happening in Africa and Asia.Paris climate protesters before France’s rolling coronavirus lockdowns. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)“We do rather believe in the greening of aviation through technological innovation, for instance, and that’s why we encourage the French government to finance the research for new technologies allowing the aviation to be greener than in the future,” Paulissen said.Pompili acknowledges a slew of criticism, but says the legislation is balancing sharply opposing interests to bring everyone on board.Earlier this year, a Paris court convicted the French state of failing to address the climate crisis and for not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouses emissions. The government is appealing the ruling. 
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“All changed, changed utterly,” Ireland’s WB Yeats once lamented in a poem. Being caught between the past and something as yet undefined being born is indeed discomfiting. Everything is familiar yet different. Yeats came to mind during my two-day journey this month back to my European home from the United States.I am not sure I want to repeat the experience.The halcyon pre-COVID days of international travel are over — at least for the time being, and maybe for longer than we are willing to accept.“I call it COVID-crazy,” a JetBlue pilot lamented the night before I flew out from New York’s JFK airport. He agreed with President Joe Biden’s recent remark that the U.S. is on the move again — but he had a different perspective on it.Many shops at New York’s JFK airport remain shuttered but some outlets are trying to drum up business. (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)“There are a lot of people traveling who don’t normally travel and don’t now how to behave. There were fisticuffs at my gate today,” he added. Apparently passengers were over-keen to board first so they could grab seats near the front, presumably so they could be among the first to disembark at the destination.Airport hotels have seen a surge in bookings the past month. The Hilton hotel at JFK is running at around 50 percent occupancy during the week and is fully booked at weekends. “People just want to travel,” a receptionist told me.But while domestic U.S. travel may be picking up now that isn’t the case yet with international travel. The EU still has a ban in place for leisure travel form the U.S., although several south European countries are planning re-opening for vaccinated American tourists.America is on the move — domestic travel is picking up at New York’s JFK airport. (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)The upside to my journey from the wilds of West Virginia to Rome was in fact the scarcity of other passengers. The Airbus was empty. The downside was virtually everything else, including the form-filling and database registrations to enter New York, the European Union and Italy.I had opted for a so-called COVID-safety flight to Rome with Delta Air Lines from New York, which meant I wouldn’t have to endure a period of quarantine on arrival. But that entailed having three COVID tests: a PCR test taken no more than 72 hours before departure at a cost of $220, a rapid antigen test taken no more than 4.5 hours before boarding, and then another antigen test on arrival at Rome’s  airport.With complicated pandemic restrictions international flights remain empty. (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)The journey also involved carrying more paperwork than I recall having to have in past times when entering the document-obsessed Soviet Union or any of its equally guarded communist satellites in Central Europe. At JFK airport we all struggled — passengers and staff included — with the forms and database requirements.The EU’s passenger locator form, which had to be completed online, challenged everyone’s efforts to tell the truth. The database gleefully rejected passport numbers and the details of residency cards and driving licenses. Phone numbers and addresses were also blocked routinely for being erroneous. Head-scratching Italians and non-Italians, baffled residents and non-residents alike, were all stumped by a computer that just wanted to say, “no.”Rome’s airport remains deserted and silent. (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)In the end as the line of desperate passengers became ever more agitated we struck on the idea that we needed to be economical with the truth and offer anything we could come up with to coax affirmative reactions. The struggle with the malfunctioning database doesn’t augur well for when (and if) the EU’s fractious member states strike an agreement on digital vaccine passports, something that has so far eluded them.Everyone had their own story to tell about why they were traveling — from work demands to celebrating a landmark birthday of an elderly relative who they hadn’t seen for more than a year. Retirees who had bought houses just before the pandemic had lost patience with a long delay to their carefully planned post-work lives.Others had more immediately gloomy reasons for the trip. “I am trying to get to Sardinia to see my 89-year-old mom before she dies from COVID,” confided Carmella, a dark-haired Italian woman. She only just made the flight having to secure a hurried PCR test and a rapid antigen test at the same time at the gate.With few arriving passengers at Rome’s airport, taxi and limousine drivers are disconsolate. (Jamie Dettmer/VOA)On arrival Rome’s normally crowded airport was eerily deserted and silent. The process for our rapid antigen tests took about an hour — and there was yet another encounter with a database, this time a trouble-free one run by the regional Lazio health authority. In the immigration hall, bored officials almost competed for the few passengers to process. Outside in the bright sunshine we were heavily outnumbered by taxi drivers anxiously touting for a fare.Not the end yetItalians — especially those in the hospitality and tourism sectors — are desperate for foreign travel to start up again. But while the average number of cases and deaths reported each day has fallen the last few weeks, with infections 35% of the peak reported in November, the country is still struggling to finish with a devastating third wave of infections.A view of the Alitalia check-in counter at Fiumicino International Airport as talks between Italy and the European Commission over the revamp of Alitalia are due to enter a key phase, in Rome, Italy, April 15, 2021.Italian authorities reported 144 coronavirus-related deaths Sunday with a daily tally of new infections of 9,148. That is down from the day before when more than 12,000 new cases were reported. Hardly surprisingly authorities are highly cautious. Italy has registered 121,177 deaths linked to COVID-19 since the pandemic’s outbreak last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh highest in the world.The coalition government led by Mario Draghi has begun relaxing some of its pandemic restrictions after a stringent lockdown over Easter, but not for well regions. The rate of infections still remains stubbornly high in the south of the country and six regions, including Calabria and Puglia, remain under lockdowns, being deemed red zones.And despite protests and lobbying by cash-strapped tourism-related businesses, the government has so far refused to relax strict rules on international travel and other trips deemed non-essential.A near empty bar is seen in Capri, a southern Italian island that relies heavily on foreign tourism, despite the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions in much of the country, April 27, 2021.An ordinance last month extended quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from other EU countries and tightened the rules on people arriving from the pandemic-hit Indian sub-continent.Government ministers say they hope to allow tourism to resume by early next month, but they stress it will all depend on the progress of the vaccination campaign, which as in the rest of the EU has been sluggish.The risks of international travel remain clear. While all the passengers from my U.S. flight proved negative on arrival, that wasn’t the case last week with two flights from India. On Wednesday, 23 passengers on a flight from New Delhi tested positive on arrival and on Thursday 30 passengers and two crew members tested positive from an Air India flight from Amritsar.Italy has now tightened restrictions on all travel from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Under the new rules, only Italian citizens who live permanently in Italy are allowed to enter from any of the three countries. Previously foreign nationals resident in Italy had also been allowed to return.And anyone allowed to enter from those three countries must now spend ten days in a so-called “COVID hotel” where they are monitored by local health authorities. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London for talks with his counterparts from G-7 nations, with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia and China among likely agenda items during three days of formal meetings and side discussions. Iran and North Korea, two nations whose nuclear programs have been the focus of negotiations in recent years, are set to be discussed at a working welcome dinner Monday night. South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said Monday he was “grateful to have this opportunity to have in-depth discussions with the U.S. after the conclusion of your policy review towards North Korea,” as he met with Blinken. On Friday, the Biden administration announced a strategy toward North Korea that expresses openness to talks with the reclusive communist nation.US readout of meeting between Yael Lempert, Charge d’Affaires of the US embassy, left, and John Holloway, UK representative from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office greet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, in northeast of London on May 2, 2021.Britain’s Foreign Office said Raab and Blinken would be consulting on Afghanistan, Iran, China and trade in their meeting. The G-7 ministerial talks are laying the foundation for a summit of leaders from those countries in June, also in Britain. The U.S. State Department said this week’s meetings would be a chance to discuss “advancing economic growth, human rights, food security, gender equality, and women’s and girls’ empowerment.” In addition to Britain and the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also taking part in this week’s talks. After the G-7 meetings, Blinken is due to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior government officials.  State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.” 
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Germany has shut down “one of the biggest darknet child pornography platforms in the world” and arrested four of its members, authorities said on Monday.
 
In a series of raids in mid-April, German police arrested three men between the ages of 40 and 64 while and another suspect was detained in Paraguay on the request of German authorities, Frankfurt prosecutors said in a joint statement with the Federal Criminal Police Office.
 
The website, known as “Boystown,” world’s largest for child pornography with more than 400,000 users, had existed since at least mid-2019. It was “set up for the worldwide exchange of child pornography, in particular images of the abuse of boys,” the statement said.
 
The darknet forum allowed users to communicate with others and share graphic image and video content which included “serious sexual abuse of toddlers.”
 
A German police task force, in coordination with Europol and supported by law enforcement authorities from the United States, Canada, Australia, Netherlands and Sweden, had investigated the “Boystown” platform, its administrators and users for months.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London for talks with his counterparts from G-7 nations, with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia and China among likely agenda items during three days of formal meetings and side discussions. Iran and North Korea, two nations whose nuclear programs have been the focus of negotiations in recent years, are set to be discussed at a working welcome dinner Monday night. Blinken’s sideline meetings Monday include talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, Bruneian Foreign Minister II Dato Erywan Yusof, Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishanka and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. “It was eight years ago that the U.K. (United Kingdom), our indispensable Ally, last hosted the G-7 Presidency,” Blinken tweeted after arriving in Britain. “It’s good to be back among partners and allies for these discussions.”Yael Lempert, Charge d’Affaires of the US embassy, left, and John Holloway, UK representative from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office greet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, in northeast of London on May 2, 2021.Britain’s Foreign Office said Raab and Blinken would be consulting on Afghanistan, Iran, China and trade in their meeting. The G-7 ministerial talks are laying the foundation for a summit of leaders from those countries in June, also in Britain. The U.S. State Department said this week’s meetings would be a chance to discuss “advancing economic growth, human rights, food security, gender equality, and women’s and girls’ empowerment.” In addition to Britain and the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also taking part in this week’s talks. After the G-7 meetings, Blinken is due to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior government officials.  State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.” 
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It’s probably best if you prepare yourself before you look down from the Arouca Bridge.The narrow footbridge suspended across a river canyon in northern Portugal claims to be the world’s longest pedestrian bridge and was officially inaugurated Sunday.The Arouca Bridge offers a half-kilometer (almost 1,700-foot) walk across its span, along a metal walkway suspended from cables. Some 175 meters (574 feet) below, the Paiva River flows through a waterfall.Arouca lies 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Local residents took a first walk on the bridge last week. Many were thrilled — even as some admitted it was a little unnerving to feel so high up and exposed.Guinness World Records says on its website that the world’s longest suspension bridge for pedestrians is Japan’s Kokonoe Yume Bridge, which opened in 2006 and spans 390 meters (1,280 feet). But the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge, which opened in the Swiss Alps in 2017, challenges that mark at 494 meters (1,621 feet).The Arouca Bridge cost 2.3 million euros ($2.8 million) to build. Children younger than 6 are not allowed on it and all visits will be accompanied by guides. 
 
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Anti-ownership protests by Manchester United fans forced the postponement of Sunday’s Premier League game against Liverpool as supporters stormed the stadium and reached the pitch, while thousands of others gathered outside the Old Trafford pitch to demand the Glazer family ownership sell the club.Long-running anger against the American owners has boiled over after they were part of the failed attempt to take United into the European Super League. Supporters have been kept out of games due to the coronavirus pandemic.United and Liverpool players were unable to travel to the stadium where there were clashes briefly between fans and the police under a shower of glass bottles as flares were sent off.  Although the crowds were later dispersed around the time the game was due to start, United said the game was postponed “due to safety and security considerations around the protest” after discussions with police, authorities and the league.”Our fans are passionate about Manchester United, and we completely acknowledge the right to free expression and peaceful protest,” United said in a statement. “However, we regret the disruption to the team and actions which put other fans, staff, and the police in danger. We thank the police for their support and will assist them in any subsequent investigations.”The Premier League, which was yet to announce a new date for the match, expressed concern about the disorder.”The security and safety of everyone at Old Trafford remains of paramount importance,” the Premier League said in a statement. “We understand and respect the strength of feeling but condemn all acts of violence, criminal damage and trespass, especially given the associated COVID-19 breaches. Fans have many channels by which to make their views known, but the actions of a minority seen today have no justification.”We sympathize with the police and stewards who had to deal with a dangerous situation that should have no place in football.”The Glazers, who also own the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, have declined to engage with fans since buying United in 2005 in a leveraged takeover that loaded debt onto the club.”Get out of our club,” fans chanted as flares were set off. “We want Glazers out.”Fans found a way into the stadium and also climbed onto vantage points next to turnstile entrances.Supporters wore green-and-gold scarves and also set off flares in the colors of the club’s 1878 formation. More than 100 fans got inside the stadium and some could be seen from windows waving down to protesters. Corner flags were held aloft and one supporter was seen throwing a tripod from the interview zone.Police on horseback later cleared protesting fans from outside the stadium, with glass bottles being thrown in brief clashes. Some fans moved back to a main road near the stadium with police forming a line to stop them returning.If United had lost the planned game, Manchester City would have won the Premier League title. United is the record 20-time English champion but hasn’t lifted the trophy since 2013.United and Liverpool were among six Premier League clubs that tried to form an exclusive European Super League along with three clubs each from Spain and Italy. Widespread opposition quickly ended the project, with all six English teams backing out within 48 hours of the announcement.The “Big 6” clubs have been in damage control since, offering various forms of apologies and statements of regret, while fans long frustrated with billionaire owners have called for wholesale changes.
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Two young Senegalese men met on a Europe-bound migrant boat in 2006, a year that saw a record influx of Africans to Spain’s Canary Islands. Since then, one died of a heart attack running away from Spanish police and the other is running in a polarized election Tuesday for a seat in Madrid’s regional assembly.Serigne Mbaye not only wants to fight what he considers to be “structural racism” against African migrants but also to defy a history of underrepresentation of the Black community and other people of color in Spanish politics.“That’s where all discrimination begins,” the 45-year-old told The Associated Press.In 2018, having failed to secure legal work and a residence permit, the man he met on the boat — Mame Mbaye, no relation — died of a heart attack eluding a police crackdown on street vendors.After that, Serigne Mbaye, who at the time represented a group of mostly Black African hawkers, became one of the most vocal voices against Spain’s Alien Law, saying it ties migrants arriving unlawfully to the underground economy. The regulation also punishes them with jail for committing minor offenses, leaving them with a criminal record that weighs against their chances of getting a residence permit.“His image at night when we were on the boat always haunts me,” said Serigne Mbaye, who is now a Spanish citizen. “The sole fact that he is dead and I’m alive is because of an unjust law that condemns and punishes us. Some of us make it. Some can spend 20 years in a vicious circle without papers.”Mbaye is running on a ticket with the anti-austerity United We Can party, the junior partner in the country’s ruling, Socialist-led coalition.Only a handful of Black people have succeeded in at the top level of Spanish politics. Equatorial Guinea-born Rita Bosaho, now the director of racial and ethnic diversity at Spain’s Equality Ministry, in 2015 became the first Black national lawmaker in four decades of democratic rule. Luc André Diouf, who also migrated from Senegal, also won a seat in Spain’s Lower House in 2019. At a lower, regional level, Mbaye wants to show that “Madrid is diverse.”“That a Black person is running in the lists has surprised many. In that way, this is making many people think,” he said.Vox, the country’s increasingly influential far-right party, has responded to Mbaye’s candidacy with an Instagram post vowing to deport him, even though that’s impossible because the far-left candidate is a Spanish citizen. With its mixture of patriotism and populist provocation, Vox has become the third force in the national parliament and might emerge as the kingmaker in Madrid’s May 4 election.“They are basically saying that because I’m Black there is no place for me here,” said Mbaye. “These are the kind of messages that criminalize us and that we continue receiving.”Vox has also made waves with large subway ads citing inaccurate figures comparing Madrid’s alleged public spending on unaccompanied foreign minors with the alleged average stipend for a retiree. The party blames the minors — a total of 269 people in the region’s population of 6.7 million — for increased insecurity.Judges have ruled that the billboards fall under free speech. But when Vox is accused by opponents of being racist, the party says its crusade is only against illegal migration and that a racist party wouldn’t have a mixed-race spokesman in northeastern Catalonia’s regional parliament. That’s Rafael Garriga, a dentist of Belgian and Equatorial Guinean descent.“By surrounding themselves with what they see as some kind of respectability, they try to legitimize clearly racist speech while not crossing certain legal lines,” said Antumi Toasijé, a historian who heads the National Council Against Ethnic and Racial Discrimination.The ascent of the far-right and the polarization in social media has normalized hate speech in Spain, he said.The Black Lives Matter movement led last year to some of the largest protests against racism seen in Spain. But while many condemned the murder of Black citizens by police in the United States, few reflected on domestic racism or Spain’s own history of colonialism, slavery and, according to Toasijé, “a long tradition of attempts to conduct ethnic cleansing.”In a country where the census doesn’t ask about race or ethnicity, like in much of Europe, a recent government study put the number of Black people in Spain at just over 700,000.Toasijé’s own estimation elevates the figure to at least 1.3 million “visibly” Black people, including sub-Saharan Africans, Black Latin Americans and Afro-descendants born in Spain. That would be 2.7% of the population, or at least nine Black lawmakers if the 350-seat Congress of Deputies reflected the country’s diversity. There is currently one Black lawmaker.Still, quotas or other measures that would help address racial inequality aren’t even part of the debate, said Toasijé.That underrepresentation also affects Spain’s Roma people, a community of 700,000 that scored a historic victory in 2019 by snatching four parliamentary seats, close to the 1.5% share it represents in the total population. But one of them failed to retain his seat in a repeated election. The situation isn’t better for descendants of Latin Americans or Moroccans, who represent some of the largest groups of non-white Spaniards, or the more than 11% of foreign-born residents who can’t even run in regional or national elections.Moha Gerehou, a Spanish journalist and anti-racism activist, said “structural racism” is inbred in Spanish life.“It has a lot to do with education, because the main bottleneck is in access to universities, leaving low-paid and precarious employment like domestic work or harvesting, where there is rampant exploitation,” he said.Barring sports figures and some artists, people of color are pretty much invisible in high-powered Spanish circles from academia to big business, said Gerehou, who just published a book on growing up as a Black person in a provincial northern Spanish capital.His description is of a largely white country that considers itself non-racist and welcoming to migrants, even when numerous studies have captured rampant discrimination against people of color, especially in jobs or housing.”The problem is that the debate of racial representation is still on the fringes,” Gerehou said. “We need to go much faster.” 
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Berlin police on Sunday said they had arrested more than 250 people after May Day rallies descended into “unacceptable” violence that saw protesters pelt officers with stones and bottles and set fire to bins.   Around 30,000 people from across the political spectrum took part in several marches in the German capital on Saturday as part of the traditional Labor Day workers’ rights demonstrations.   Most of the demonstrations passed off peacefully, police said.   But the mood darkened in the evening after police pulled far-left “black block” protesters out of the crowd for not adhering to pandemic hygiene regulations such as social distancing.    Along with thousands of others, they had been marching in the “Revolutionary May Day” demonstration to protest racism, capitalism and rising rents in the city.   Heavy scuffles ensued, with protesters throwing glass bottles and stones at police and setting dustbins and wooden pallets ablaze in the streets.    Around 50 officers were injured by the time the protest was broken up, Berlin’s GdP police union said, putting the number of arrests at over 250.   “Violence during demonstrations is absolutely unacceptable,” said Berlin police chief Barbara Slowik.   “The situation did degenerate but was quickly brought under control,” she added.   The German capital had deployed around 5,600 officers on Saturday to monitor the May Day protests, which have turned violent in the past.   Similar protests took place around the world, some of which also descended into skirmishes.   In Paris, police fired tear gas at protesters who smashed windows of bank branches, set dustbins alight and threw projectiles at police. 
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