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Workers from Latin America are already among the lowest paid in Britain. Now, advocates say the pandemic has left nearly half of them without a job, creating what some are warning is a new migrant crisis in Europe.  For VOA, Joana Ramiro reports from London.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is calling for a reset in U.S. – Turkish relations. Relations between the two NATO allies have been strained, particularly over Ankara’s deepening ties with Moscow and its purchase of a Russian missile system. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
Producer: Henry Hernandez 
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A Serbian court has sentenced a former mayor to four years in prison for ordering an arson attack on the home of an investigative journalist.In a trial that lasted nearly two years, a court Tuesday found Dragoljub Simonovic guilty of ordering the December 2018 attack on Milan Jovanovic, a reporter for the news website Zig Info. Simonovic, a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), was mayor of Grocka, a municipality near the capital, Belgrade, at the time of the attack.”I hope that this verdict will be the harbinger of more media freedom in Serbia,” Jovanovic told reporters outside the court, adding that he was satisfied with the ruling.Jovanovic and his wife were at home at the time of the attack and had to escape through a window after Molotov cocktails were thrown through a window, according to reports at the time. The journalist suffered smoke inhalation, Milan Jovanovic in front of his burned home, in Belgrade, Serbia, December 2018.Jovanovic said he believed he was targeted for investigating cases of corruption and graft allegedly linked to the mayor.A man accused of carrying out the attack, Aleksandar Marinkovic, was sentenced in absentia by the court.The verdict was a rare case of justice being secured for journalists in a region where press freedoms are withering. Hostile rhetoric, sometimes from politicians, a lack of independence in media regulatory bodies, online attacks on journalists and weak mechanisms to support news associations are among the obstacles for media in the Balkans.Serbia’s ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has also worsened in the past four years, dropping three places in 2020, according to data compiled by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. (RSF)Significant rulingInternational media rights groups welcomed Tuesday’s court ruling.Milan Jovanovic’s burned vehicle and garage, in Belgrade, Serbia, December 2018. (RFE/RL)The conviction of a mastermind was significant in the fight against impunity in attacks on the press, Pavol Szalai, head of the European Union and Balkans desk at RSF, told VOA Serbian.“The arson attack against the home of Milan Jovanovic is an emblematic case for press freedom not only in Serbia, but also in the whole Balkans,” Szalai said, adding that the region was “plagued by impunity” regarding crimes against the media.“When RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire met the Serbian president in 2019, Aleksandar Vucic committed to healing this disease. Today’s verdict is the beginning of the healing process; it is the beginning of the end of impunity for crimes committed against journalists in Serbia,” Szalai said.Noting that Jovanovic and his wife could have been killed in the attack, the media watchdog representative said that RSF would monitor the appeal hearings closely, adding that it was “crucial” that the verdict be confirmed.“Europe is still traumatized by last year’s acquittal of the alleged mastermind of the assassination of Jan Kuciak in Slovakia. If the perpetrators of the attack against Milan Jovanovic are definitively condemned, it will be an important measure to protect the physical security journalists.” Szalai said.Marian Kocner, a powerful businessman in Slovakia, was acquitted last year of involvement in the 2018 slaying of investigative journalist Kuciak. He denied any role in the killing.Milan Jovanovic’s burned vehicle, in Belgrade, Serbia, December 2018. (RFE/RL)The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also welcomed the sentencing.“The verdict is a strong signal from Serbian authorities that acts of violence against journalists will not remain unpunished,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said in a statement forwarded to VOA. “Fighting impunity for such acts is an important step toward preventing further attacks, and it is especially welcome in Serbia where threats, intimidation and acts of violence against journalists are not unprecedented.”Journalist safetySerbia is under pressure to improve press freedom and safety for journalists as part of its steps toward joining the European Union. In its 2020 country report, the European Commission said “cases of threats, intimidation and violence against journalists are still a source of serious concern” in Serbia.Szalai, from RSF, said the country needs to address several issues, including securing justice in crimes against the media and ending verbal assaults and threats, including those from state officials.”Perpetrators of crimes committed against journalists must be swiftly condemned, regardless if they are state officials or not,” Szalai said, adding, “The editorial independence of the public media must be granted, and economic and institutional pressures on the private media’s editorial independence must stop.”Szalai said that law enforcement should also investigate evidence of crime and corruption exposed by reporters. “All these changes would not only contribute to improving media freedom, but also accelerate Serbia’s integration to the EU,” he said.This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from AFP.   
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German customs authorities Wednesday announced the largest seizure of cocaine in European history, more than 23 tons discovered in two raids this month at ports in Hamburg, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium.German customs official Rene Matchke told reporters the 28-year-old owner of a Dutch import company was arrested Wednesday in the Netherlands, where police say both shipments were bound.  German officers had first discovered 16 tons of cocaine hidden in containers from Paraguay at the port of Hamburg February 12, following a tip from a Netherlands-based company. German and Dutch investigations led the officials Sunday to seize another 7.2 tons of cocaine at the port of Antwerp.German and Dutch police confirm the two shipments account for the largest amount of cocaine confiscated in a criminal investigation, and one of the top five in the world.  German customs officials say the investigation is ongoing and that they do not believe the man who was arrested acted alone. They say the drug haul would have been worth billions of dollars.
 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law bills that impose fines for violating a controversial law on “foreign agents” as well as other legislation relating to protests, such as the financing of rallies and disobedience of law enforcement.
 
According to the laws, signed by Putin Feb. 24, releasing information about so-called “foreign agents” and their materials without also indicating their status could lead to fines of up to 2,500 rubles ($34) for individuals and up to 500,000 rubles ($6,720) for entities. The law applies regardless of whether the “foreign agent” in question is a mass media outlet or an individual.
 
The other laws signed by Putin the same day set fines for individuals found guilty of illegally financing a rally at up to 15,000 rubles ($200), while officials and organizations for such actions will be ordered to pay up to 30,000 rubles ($400) and 100,000 rubles ($1,345), respectively. Putin also signed a law that significantly increases fines for disobedience of police and security forces.
 
Russia’s “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and submit to audits.
 
Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL’s Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, as well as Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.
 
At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to include individuals, including foreign journalists, on its “foreign agents” list and to impose restrictions on them.
 
Russian officials have said that amending the “foreign agents law” to include mass media in 2017 was a “symmetrical response” to the U.S. requirement that Russia’s state-funded channel RT register under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
 
U.S. officials have said the action is not symmetrical, arguing that the U.S. and Russian laws differ and that Russia uses its “foreign agent” legislation to silence dissent and discourage the free exchange of ideas.
 
The Russian state media monitor Roskomnadzor last year adopted rules requiring listed media to mark all written materials with a lengthy notice in large text, all radio materials with an audio statement, and all video materials with a 15-second text declaration.
 
The agency has prepared hundreds of complaints against RFE/RL’s news websites. When they go through the court system, the fines levied could reach nearly $1 million.
 
RFE/RL has called the fines “a state-sponsored campaign of coercion and intimidation,” while the U.S. State Department has described them as “intolerable.” Human Rights Watch has described the foreign agent legislation as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”
 
Since early in Putin’s presidency, the Kremlin has steadily tightened the screws on independent media. The country is ranked 149th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders.
 
 
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The French government Wednesday said the COVID-19 situation is deteriorating in about 10 French regions, including the Paris-Ile-de-France area around the capital, and said it is considering additional restrictions to address the situation. At a news conference in Paris, government spokesman Gabriel Attal told reporters infection numbers and infection rates have started to climb over the past week after declining the week before. He said some regions “require rapid and strong measures.”  He said the regions of most concern are the northern Hauts-de-France region, the Ile-de-France or Paris region, the eastern Grand Est region and the southern PACA region surrounding the city of Marseille. Officials in the Alpes-Maritimes Mediterranean coastal region around the cities of Nice and Cannes on Monday announced a partial lockdown, to last during the daytime over the next two weekends. The region already has a 12-hour nightly curfew. French Health Minister Olivier Veran and French Junior Minister of Autonomy Brigitte Bourguignon visit the coronavirus disease emergency and intensive care units of the Hospital Centre in Dunkirk, Feb. 24, 2021.Health Minister Olivier Veran was in the northern port of Dunkirk on Wednesday, and was expected to discuss possible measures to limit infections with local officials. Attal told reporters that Prime Minister Jean Castex would hold a news conference Thursday to further discuss the overall COVID-19 situation. Attal said the government was doing all it could to avoid a new national lockdown. Unlike some of its neighbors, France has resisted a new national lockdown to control more contagious variants, hoping a curfew in place since December 15 can contain the pandemic. 
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Police stormed the party offices of Georgian opposition leader Nika Melia and detained him Tuesday, deepening a political crisis that prompted the prime minister to resign last week.
 
Melia’s supporters had barricaded themselves in the offices, using furniture to block the doors. Scores of police surged into the building during the early morning raid, including using firefighting ladders to gain access via the roof.  
 
Seventeen people were hurt in the scuffles between police and activists, the Interfax news agency reported. Some activists were coughing and suffered eye irritation after police sprayed gas towards them from hand-held canisters.
 
Melia, the United National Movement (UNM) party’s chairman in the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million people, has been accused of inciting violence at street protests in June 2019, a charge he dismisses as politically motivated.
 
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply troubled” by Melia’s arrest, urging the Georgian government to avoid actions that could further escalate tensions. A State Department spokesman added that recent developments in the country were in contravention of its Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
 
A new prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, was chosen by parliament late on Monday to replace Giorgi Gakharia, who resigned last week after a court ordered the detention of Melia, a move Gakharia said would cause political turmoil.
 
In a video posted on Facebook late on Tuesday, the new prime minister called for “all the political forces to which our country is dear to start a true dialogue.” 
Hundreds protest
 
Hundreds of people massed outside parliament to protest Melia’s detention and pitched two tents in the capital, Tbilisi. One protester held up a sign calling for a snap election, the government’s resignation and freedom for “political prisoners.” A UNM party member called for a large-scale protest march on Friday, the Rustavi 2 media outlet reported.
 
The Interior Ministry said it had no option but to use coercive measures at Melia’s party offices as activists had ignored numerous warnings not to obstruct their work.
 
“Polarizing rhetoric, force and aggression are not the solution to Georgia’s political differences,” Blinken said in a statement. “We call on all sides to avoid actions that could further escalate tensions and to engage in good faith negotiations to resolve the current political crisis,” he said.
 
The U.S. Embassy earlier expressed regret that its call for restraint and dialogue had been ignored.
 
Britain’s ambassador, Mark Clayton, urged restraint from all sides. The European Union’s ambassador called for efforts to find common ground.
 
“The logic of escalation is getting the upper hand. The political crisis is deepening,” the EU diplomat, Carl Hartzell, wrote on Twitter.
 
Zygimantas Pavilionis, a special envoy from the Lithuanian parliament who returned on Monday from a mediating mission to Georgia, said the authorities had been seeking support from Western diplomats for a crackdown.
 
“They were asking for green light from me, from the EU ambassador, from the American ambassador. I said, no way,” he said. “Now democracy is dying there.”
 
Last week, a court ordered Melia to be detained for allegedly failing to post bail. Gakharia abruptly resigned on Thursday, citing disagreement with his own team over the arrest order. The Interior Ministry initially held off on detaining Melia because of Gakharia’s resignation.
 
The new prime minister, Garibashvili, served as prime minister from 2013 to 2015. His candidacy was put forward by the ruling Georgian Dream party.
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A German court has convicted a former member of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s secret police of accessory to crimes against humanity for facilitating the torture of prisoners.
 
The court in Koblenz sentenced Eyad Al-Gharib to 4 1/2 years in prison.
 
Prosecutors accused him of being part of a unit that arrested protesters and delivered them to a detention center where they were tortured.
 
The conviction marked the first time a court outside of Syria ruled in a case alleging members of Assad’s government committed crimes against humanity.   
 
The court is also holding a trial for a second person who is accused of directly committing crimes against humanity.  That trial is expected to last until late this year.
 
Prosecutors are invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction to bring charges of crimes against humanity in a German court.
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