Personal Protective Equipment is a term many people have become familiar with since the COVID-19 outbreak a few months ago. There’s a big demand for them around the globe to help protect against the virus.  But factories that make the protective gear haven’t been able to keep up with the demand. Dave Grunebaum shows us how volunteers in Malaysia are answering the call.
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This is a story about books in an unlikely place, and their struggle to get into the hands of people during a national lockdown. South Africa’s eased lockdown means books are finally available for sale again, but in the nation’s biggest city, with its reputation for speed and hustle, do people care? VOA’s Anita Powell takes us on a literary journey through the unlikeliest of literary towns: Johannesburg.
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The coronavirus has reached the White House as the administration mulls reopening parts of the United States, the country that leads the world in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths from the coronavirus.  At least two White House aides have tested positive for the virus: a valet for U.S. President Donald Trump and the press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence. Trump confirmed Friday that Katie Miller, press secretary to Vice President Pence and the wife of Trump aide Stephen Miller, has tested positive. A spokesman for Mike Pence said the vice president has tested negative and will return to the White House on Monday.  “Vice President Pence will continue to follow the advice of the White House Medical Unit and is not in quarantine,” spokesman Devin O’Malley said in the statement Sunday. Dr Anthony Fauci – a White House chief expert in the fight against the coronavirus – is self-isolating although he has tested negative. More than 1.3 million people in the U.S. have been infected and more than 80,000 people have died. New York has been the hardest hit U.S. state in the coronavirus outbreak, with 26,670 deaths and 335,395 cases as of Sunday. But parts of New York and neighboring states also are looking into reopening some businesses on May 15, after some states with lower figures have begun relaxing lockdowns. As part of the plan, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered mandatory coronavirus testing twice a week for workers at care homes in his state. In his Sunday briefing, Cuomo said that care facilities, some 600 of them, that fail to meet the new requirements will lose their operating licenses. The rate of new infections in New York is declining, but the death toll is growing, especially in elderly people homes.Vice President Mike Pence, right, and President Donald Trump watch a video of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaking during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Sunday, April 19, 2020, in Washington.Elderly people account for one fifth of the deaths in the New York, or about 5,300. Cuomo has been criticized for neglecting that age group. He resented the accusation. “This virus uses nursing homes. They are ground zero. They are the vulnerable population in the vulnerable location,” he said. According to the new rules, hospitals can no longer discharge patients back to care homes unless they have tested negative.  Elderly people account for most deaths in other parts of the world too, notably Sweden, the country that has not imposed lockdown rules, but has instead relied on people’s own responsibility to act with precaution. As a result, Sweden has had twice as many COVID cases – more than 26,000 than neighboring Norway and Denmark together. The death toll in Sweden alone is three times higher than the combined death toll of its Scandinavian neighbors Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. One third of those who died in Sweden are elderly. The British government on Sunday unveiled its three-step plan for a gradual reopening of the country that takes third place after the United States and Spain in the number of COVID-19 cases. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he plans to move cautiously and that there will be no move to a new step until all the conditions of the previous one are fulfilled. He also announced penalties for people who fail to follow the directives. Some European and other countries have already begun easing restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the virus with mixed results. Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam report few or no new cases, but Germany and South Korea recorded an increase after reopening. Germany, which began easing social restrictions last week, has seen some regional spikes in cases, particularly in nursing homes and slaughterhouses. “It’s not over until it’s over,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in told the nation Sunday reporting the number of new coronavirus infections at a one-month high. Schools in South Korea were scheduled to begin reopening this week, but that may be delayed after the new outbreaks while officials say probes into the new cases would determine the next steps.   China reported fourteen new cases Sunday – the first double digit rise in ten days. Worldwide, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 4 million. The global death tally is more than 280,000, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. 
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A prominent leader of Pakistan’s Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and member of the country’s National Assembly blamed “state-sponsored militants” for last week’s fatal attack on a leader of the movement in the country’s South Waziristan region. “It is clear for them [the authorities] that they [state-sponsored militants] have a hand in it. There were cases in the past, and it [the government] kept quiet [about those cases] and even tried to influence those in the investigation,” Mohsin Dawar, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly and a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), said in accusing “state-sponsored militants” of carrying out the attack. “In the cases, such as Tahir Dawar’s, [federal] ministers made promises, in the parliament, that they would conduct (an) investigation but did not kept their words,” Dawar said, referring to the case of a Pashtun police officer who was abducted in 2018, and then tortured and killed by unknown people. Arif Wazir, a leader of PTM, died May 2, a day after he was wounded in an attack in Wana, South Waziristan. Police in Wana have filed a first information report (FIR) against “unidentified gunmen.” Grievances Pashtuns, who are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan but a minority in Pakistan, have felt neglected and targeted in Pakistan for some time. That long-simmering anger boiled over in January 2018 with the death of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old shopkeeper-turned-model, at police hands in Karachi. Police said at the time that Mehsud had been killed in a shootout with members of the Pakistani Taliban, but an internal inquiry cast doubt on that claim, saying Mehsud had no known link to any militant group.  The killing sparked days of protests and a weekslong march in Pashtun-dominated northwestern Pakistan. It also prompted the establishment of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, or Pashtun Protection Movement, that has since held dozens of rallies across the country to demand basic rights for ethnic Pashtuns. The movement demands an end to extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, removal of military checkpoints, and the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission. Pakistan’s government has vowed to address these grievances, but PTM accuses it of dishonesty. Arif Wazir’s case Arif Wazir was an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s military and the establishment’s alleged ties to militants in the region. Since 2018, he has spent more than a year in jail for his activism. He was arrested April 17 and accused of delivering “anti-Pakistan” remarks during a recent visit to Afghanistan. Days after he was released on bail, he was attacked by gunmen on his way home. PTM members have accused the government of being behind the attack, which they claim is meant to intimidate other members of the movement. Prominent rights groups have urged Pakistan’s government to open an investigation into the killing of Wazir. “The Pakistani authorities must carry out an independent and effective investigation into yesterday’s attack in South Waziristan on Arif Wazir, a member of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. The suspected perpetrators must be held accountable,” Amnesty International said in a tweet May 2 in reaction to Wazir’s death.   The Pakistani government has not officially released any statement regarding the call for investigation into Wazir’s killing. Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) did not respond to a request for comment from VOA.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyInvestigation unlikely Some experts said it is “unlikely” that Pakistan’s government would carry out such an investigation. Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told VOA that he believes an investigation should be conducted into the case but doubts Pakistan would conduct or “create space” for such an investigation. “Particularly for an attack that is so sensitive dealing with PTM, which is a group that (the) Pakistani state simply does not want anyone to be talking about,” Kugelman said. Elizabeth Threlkeld, a senior fellow and deputy director of South Asia program at the Stimson Center, told VOA that “a transparent investigation” would help in “addressing what the state has acknowledged are legitimate grievances.”  The international community should highlight “instances of suspected human rights violations and draw attention to such cases,” Threlkeld said. “Even if this is unlikely to lead to a swift investigation by state authorities, external pressure could limit the chances of similar cases going forward,” she added. Muhammad Zubair, a PTM supporter in the United States, stressed the importance of addressing grievances of ethnic Pashtuns. “The movement demands a truth and reconciliation commission‌ so that all the atrocities committed against Pashtuns could be investigated,” Zubair said.  Peace committee Dawar, the Pakistani National Assemly member and a PTM leader, alleged the militants who attacked Wazir are not unknown. “We cannot say that they are unknown, they are known,” Dawar said. “They have their offices in Wana; they have their courts, cars, weapons … they are allowed by the state.” Referring to the 2018 attack in Wana on Ali Wazir, another prominent leader of PTM and a close cousin of Arif Wazir, Dawar said the government called the militants involved in that attack “peace committee,” instead of Taliban. “Two years back when the terrorists attacked Ali [Wazir] in central Wana, the government said that the fight was between them [PTM] and peace committee, not the Taliban. They call it peace committee. They give them protection; they given them resources; if this is not called state support, what else can we call it,” Dawar said. On the radar Kugelman, of the Woodrow Wilson Center, said it is difficult to say who was behind the attack, but he added that because of Wazir’s speech in Afghanistan, he was “on the radar” of the state. “It is because of harsh language [that] they have made a lot of enemies that are not only Pakistani military but also hard-line [Pakistani] nationalists, who are extremely defensive and unhappy of anyone that is critical of the Pakistani state and certainly the Pakistani military,” Kugelman said. “PTM is one of the few groups in Pakistan that is willing to strongly and publicly criticize the Pakistani state, especially the Pakistani military,” Kugelman added. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson emphasized that Britain is not ending the lockdown but only modifying tough measures that had been imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.   In a televised address Sunday from his official London residence, Johnson announced three tentative steps toward reopening of the country. In Step 1, which starts Monday, people who cannot work from home, like construction workers or manufacturers, should be actively encouraged to go to work, but in a safe manner. That means, he said, that people should avoid public transportation and go to work by car, by bicycle or on foot.Johnson said the government has issued guidance to employers on how to make workplaces secure, including for public transport workers. Those measures will limit the capacity of the public transport.As of Wednesday, Johnson said people will be encouraged to go out and sit in the sun or exercise. They can drive out of town and even play group sports, but only with members of their own family.“You must obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules we will increase the fines for the small minority who break them,” he said.People cycle through Westminster area of London, Sunday, May 10, 2020 during the nation-wide coronavirus lockdown.Johnson is the only world leader to have been hospitalized and treated for COVID, including having to spend a few days in intensive care.  Late Sunday, Bloomberg News reported that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is self-isolating after one of his aides was diagnosed with the coronavirus. So far, the vice president has tested negative for the virus.An increase in infectionsSome countries that have relaxed their coronavirus measures, such as Germany and South Korea, have seen an increase in new infections after reopening.The British prime minister said the government will be monitoring the number of new infections and the progress made in containing the virus.He said if the conditions the government has set out are fulfilled, then in the next few weeks or months the country may be able to move to Step 2 on or around June 1.“We believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back into schools in stages, beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6.”   A man looks at the menu of a closed Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, in London, May 9, 2020.Johnson said the goal is to get the secondary school students facing exams next year to have at least some time with their teachers before the holidays. He said a detailed guidance for this phase is upcoming.Step 3 of Johnson’s blueprint is planned for July at the earliest and is subject to the fulfillment of the conditions from the first two steps, as well as scientific recommendations. The British leader said in that phase some of the hospitality industry and public places would reopen “if and only if the numbers support it.” Social distancing and other protective measures will still apply, he stressed, in order to avoid a new wave of infections. Mixed reactionsJohnson’s decision to modify the “stay at home” message to “stay alert” message has met with approval as well as criticism, notably from trade unions and regional leaders of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, said the message on recreation is too vague and she ordered the Scottish people to refrain from sunbathing, picnicking or barbecuing in public spaces until further notice. But walking and outdoor exercising will be allowed more than once a day starting Monday.With more than 220,000 COVID-19 cases, Britain is the world’s third most affected country after the United States and Spain. Britain’s coronavirus-linked death toll is close to 32,000 and is second only to the United States, which has more than 80,000 deaths. Britain has reported nearly 4,000 new cases in the past 24 hours.
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A Syrian woman who was detained and tortured during the Syrian civil war is daring to hope after Germany, in a rare step, opened trials against two Syrian state security officers accused of committing war crimes.The trials, which began April 23 in Koblenz, Germany, examined a case against two former alleged Syrian intelligence officers, identified as Anwar R. and Eyad A., who allegedly tortured political prisoners held in Syria’s underground prisons.“As torture survivors, we saw a glimpse of hope because we thought that these people will never be held accountable for what they did to us,” Asmaa Saad-Aldin, a U.K.-based Syrian activist and torture survivor, told VOA. “We hope that this is only the first step to bring to justice the heads of security branches who supervised the torture of thousands of people.”Arrested by Syrian forcesIn January 2012, Saad-Aldin, 39, was traveling with two of her friends from the Syrian capital Damascus when the Syrian government forces arrested them for smuggling food and medicine into the rebel-held areas of besieged Daraa governorate, in southwestern Syria.She was held for the next several months, until April 2013, in regime prisons, where she reportedly faced intimidation and torture. “When they found the medical supplies, they started beating us till a military vehicle came and took us to the military intelligence service (Branch) 251 under the command of officer Wafiq al-Naser. There, they put me in the interrogation room and brought one of my friends and tortured him brutally. I was beaten and electrocuted while I was blindfolded,” Saad-Aldin said. “We were 15 women crammed in a very small cell and we had to take turns standing, sitting and sleeping. The interrogation room was next to the girls’ cell, and we used to hear the sounds of agony and screams of people tortured every night,” she said.During the period Saad-Aldin was being held for interrogation at Branch 251, Anwar R. was allegedly the head of the military intelligence investigation branch, where at least 4,000 prisoners reportedly faced torture, and Eyad A. was an alleged member of the Syrian military intelligence service. “They (prisoners) were subjected to brutal violence from beatings, kicks and electric shocks. At least in one case, there was also rape and severe sexual assault,” the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz said in a statement published on its official page.In 2012, months into the Syrian civil war, Anwar R. and Eyad A. defected from the Syrian government and applied for asylum in Germany, where they were arrested in 2019. The German officials, in line with the country’s national privacy law, have concealed the full identity of the two accused.An investigation into their cases came after a series of complaints by victims of both officials, filed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), which will be assisting the 16 torture survivors during the proceedings.Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, thousands of Syrians have reportedly died while being tortured in the notorious Syrian government security agencies, known in Syria as mukhabarat. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said there are approximately 130,000 detainees in Syrian government prisons.Harassment and detentionThe Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), an organization that monitors Syrian war casualties, published in a report in late 2019 identified at least 72 torture methods used by the Syrian government in its detention centers. It found that more than 14,298 detainees have been tortured to death by different parties in Syria.In 2014, the U.N. Security Council moved to take crimes committed during the Syrian war to the International Criminal Court (ICC), but the measure failed after Russia and China vetoed it. Syrian torture survivors, especially those taking refuge in Europe, have since tried to file cases in the court systems of the countries in which they currently reside.“With other avenues for justice currently blocked, criminal cases in Europe are a beacon of hope for victims of crimes in Syria who have nowhere else to turn,” Balkees Jarrah, a senior counsel at Human Rights Watch, said.Jarrah told VOA that criminal justice authorities in several other countries, including Sweden, France and the Netherlands, have begun investigating serious crimes in Syria.“Ensuring that those responsible for serious crimes are held accountable is important in its own right and fundamental to obtaining any durable and stable peace in Syria,” she said, criticizing international inaction and impunity toward crimes against humanity in Syria.“Universal jurisdiction cases may help build some momentum for justice as well as send a strong message to Syrian victims that grave abuses committed against them won’t go unanswered,” Jarrah said.  To hold in Germany the first criminal trial from the Syrian civil, Saad-Aldin said, is a major precedent that should be capitalized upon by torture survivors who still suffer from the psychological effects of abuse.Saad-Aldin was held in Branch 215 for two months before being transferred to Adra prison in northeastern Damascus. She was released in April 2013 following negotiations between the Syrian government and a delegate from her town. Faced with death threats from suspected Syrian regime loyalists, Saad-Aldin soon fled to Jordan where she worked on sexual violence in conflict areas, and later moved with her husband and two daughters to the U.K.“We will continue advocating for justice and accountability in Syria, and I hope that all detainees who know the names of the officers who tortured them would report them,” she said.
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People are working to make connections with each other despite coronavirus quarantines keeping us apart. Neighbors delivering groceries, professional athletes bringing medicines, and the world’s very best musicians serenading entire neighborhoods. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us this good news story from New England, where a teenager’s nonprofit connects loved ones to patients in quarantined hospital rooms.
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A main coronavirus vaccine trial — a joint venture between an American and a German company — got underway this week in the United States. Some participants are U.S. medical students. This trial joins others around the world, as pharmaceutical companies compete to discover the breakthrough for COVID-19. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us through what’s being done and how.
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In the last two months, the U.N. Refugee Agency reports more than 200,000 people have been forced to flee surging violence between the Lendu and Hema groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri Province.The U.N. Refugee Agency says 5 million people have been uprooted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including 1.2 million in Ituri province. It reports the number of interethnic attacks and counterattacks between Lendu farmers and Hema herders continues to multiply, adding to the already intolerable misery of what is Africa’s largest displacement crisis.U.N. monitors have recorded more than 3,000 serious human rights violations in Djugu territory, mainly occupied by the Hema, in the last 60 days. UNHCR spokesman, Charlie Yaxley says nearly 50 attacks are taking place on average every day against the local community.“Displaced people have reported acts of extreme violence with at least 274 civilians killed with weapons such as machetes.  More than 140 women were raped and almost 8,000 houses set on fire.  The vast majority of those displaced are women and children, many of whom are now living under crowded circumstances with host families from the community,” he said.Yaxley told VOA many others are forced to sleep in the open or in public buildings under very insecure conditions.“That, in turn, is also making the social distancing required to prevent the spread of COVID-19 extremely difficult as we see many people living inside shelters … and, this again places them vulnerable to possible further attacks, vulnerable to the elements and with little protection in terms of preventing the spread of COVID-19,” he said.The Lendu and Hema have been fighting sporadically for decades over valuable resources in their gold- and oil-rich province.  Tensions in the region have been rising since December, following a government-led military operation against various armed groups.U.N. and private agencies report access to Djugu and Mahagi territories is heavily restricted, making it difficult to reach those in dire need of assistance. The UNHCR reports it is working with other agencies to provide relief and to build more shelters for the displaced.The agency reports only 18% of its $154 million appeal for the DRC has been received to date. It says this lack of funding, as well as the prevailing insecurity, is affecting its ability to provide essential relief to the thousands of displaced. 
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U.N. agencies are warning migrants and refugees crossing the central Mediterranean Sea risk losing their lives if European nations continue to prevent search and rescue vessels from saving those in distress. The U.N. human rights office expresses alarm at recent reports of rescue boats failing to assist migrants in trouble on the central Mediterranean Sea, considered to be one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. The agency deplores the coordinated pushback of migrant boats by nations and by hard-nosed policies by some European countries intent on preventing private humanitarian search and rescue vessels from supporting migrants in distress. Human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, says these life-threatening actions are occurring at a time when an increasing number of migrants are making the perilous journey from Libya to Europe. “We call for restrictions on the work of these rescuers to be lifted immediately,” he said. “Such measures are clearly putting lives at risk. In the first three months of this year, there has already been a four-fold increase in departures from Libya compared to the same period in 2019.” Colville says his agency is concerned about the many refugees and migrants who are being returned to Libya after they are rescued at sea. “The Libyan Coast Guard is continuing to turn vessels back towards its own shores, and place the intercepted migrants in arbitrary detention facilities where they face horrendous conditions, as we have often spoken of in the past, including torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, lack of health care and other human rights violations,” he said.Colville says the overcrowded conditions under which migrants are kept expose them to the threat of coronavirus infections. U.N. agencies are calling for the release of all refugees and migrants in Libyan detention facilities. They advocate a return to the age-old tradition of rescue at sea, which was enshrined into law in the last century.   
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Iraq’s new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, chaired his first cabinet meeting Saturday after being sworn in earlier in the week.Kadhimi had meetings with U.S. Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller and Iranian Ambassador Iraj Masjedi.His meeting with the Iranian envoy comes as tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated following the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassim Soleimani in January.Welcoming Iraq’s new government, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to help Kadhimi and urged implementation of reforms.Kadhimi assumed office Thursday, following weeks of negotiations. He had served as the director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service since 2016.
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India must stop buying and depending on foreign-made weapons and instead start manufacturing its own, India’s Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat told The Times of India in an exclusive interview Saturday.Rawat wants to insure that “Make in India,” a favored slogan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, becomes a reality.“We are not expeditionary forces that have to deploy around the globe,” Rawat told the Times. “So, we should not go in for large amounts of imports by misrepresenting our operational requirements.”India, like the rest of the world, is dealing with the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.Only Saudi Arabia surpasses India in the purchase of foreign weapons, the newspaper reports.Rawat said India has to support its domestic defense industrial base even if the produced weapons perform at “reduced technical specifications” or GSQRs (general staff qualitative requirements).“We should boost ‘Make in India’ by hand-holding our domestic industry, even if they deliver weapons with only 70 percent of the GSQRs in the beginning,” the general said.
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President Donald Trump on Saturday said the United States will next week begin purchasing $3 billion worth of dairy, meat and produce from farmers as unemployment soars and people are forced to food lines.”Starting early next week, at my order, the USA will be purchasing, from our Farmers, Ranchers & Specialty Crop Growers, 3 Billion Dollars worth of Dairy, Meat & Produce for Food Lines& Kitchens,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.It was unclear whether his statement referred to a $19 billion relief plan announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in April. The agency said it would buy $3 billion worth of agricultural commodities as part of that program.The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.The U.S. economy lost a staggering 20.5 million jobs in April and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent, government data showed on Friday.Food banks have been running short on staples as hunger soars. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted supply chains, with farmers saying they have had to destroy their produce and euthanize pigs because processing facilities have shuttered.  
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The Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a white supremacist group based in St. Petersburg, is increasingly expanding its outreach beyond Russia through the establishment of transnational networks with like-minded neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups, experts on the group warn.RIM adheres to an ultranationalist ideology and aims to bring Russia’s tsarist rule back. The group is known for disseminating anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric on its online networks.In April, the U.S. State Department listed three leaders of the group, Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariyev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The move marked the first time the U.S. had labeled a white supremacist group as a terrorist organization.“The Russian Imperial Movement is an organization that has very likely thousands of members, an organization that trained two individuals who then later carried out terrorist attacks in Sweden,” said Jason Blazakis, the director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.Combat training in St. PetersburgOver the years, RIM has been able to persuade foreign white supremacists from various countries to visit the group’s camps in St. Petersburg for combat training, Blazakis told VOA. The group’s capacity and intent to carry out terrorist activities make it a major threat, he added.RIM was established in St. Petersburg by Vorobyev in 2002. The group reportedly has two training camps in St. Petersburg that are run by its paramilitary unit called Partisan. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists gain combat experience there before relocating to conflict zones.The group’s second paramilitary unit, the Imperial Legion, has been found fighting on the side of pro-Russia separatists in the war in eastern Ukraine. An April report by the Soufan Center concluded that the Imperial Legion has sent its fighters to other conflict areas, including Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic.“This group has innocent blood on its hands,” Nathan Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department, said during a teleconference following the U.S. ban on the group in early April.In 2016, two Swedish men, trained by RIM in St. Petersburg for 11 days, later that year conducted terrorist attacks in Gothenburg, Sweden, Sales said.Viktor Melin and Anton Thulin, identified as the two perpetrators of the Gothenburg bomb attacks, targeted asylum centers and seriously wounded a man. Swedish authorities said the men were members of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), a neo-Nazi group aiming to create a pan-Nordic nation.RIM allegedly established contacts with NRM during a right-wing conference called the International Russian Conservative Forum in March 2015 in St. Petersburg. Rodina, a Russian political party, organized the conference.“At the conference, there was a resolution to try to coordinate Russian and European conservative elements,” Magnus Ranstorp, a research director at the Swedish Defense University, told VOA.“Later, Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, one of the leaders of the RIM, came to one of the social gatherings organized by the Nordic Resistance Movement called Nordic Days, and he spoke there. Also, he donated a sum of money to the Nordic Resistance Movement,” Ranstorp said.Visiting USSome observers of RIM claim the group has made similar moves elsewhere by sending its representatives to sympathetic foreign organizations. In 2017, RIM representative Stanislav Shevchuk reportedly visited Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to join a far-right rally.“It was the first time that we had a meeting on the U.S. soil of the American white nationalists and then the members of the Russian far right nationalist community,” Casey Michel, an investigative journalist who covered RIM’s American ties, told VOA.He said Shevchuk then met Matthew Heimbach, the head of the far-right Traditionalist Worker Party, in Washington. The two were seen in a photograph holding a Russian imperial flag in front of the White House.Contacted by VOA about the alleged ties between RIM and the Traditionalist Worker Party, Sales, of the State Department, said U.S. officials were aware of such reports, without providing more information.“Any group whose leaders or members have visited the United States or any group that has sought to recruit Americans into its twisted causes is a matter of grave concern,” Sales said.Russian officials have condemned the U.S. embargo on RIM, calling it a part of “the Russophobia of the U.S. establishment.”“Since Washington has not substantiated its decision with convincing and detailed information, we have the impression that it was made primarily for propaganda purposes and has little to do with cooperation in countering international terrorism,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a press briefing in April.Some experts said Russian intelligence units such as the Federal Security Service are likely aware of RIM activities but allow it to operate for short-term benefits.The “Kremlin knew what the Russian Imperial Movement was doing, and it never hid what they were doing,” Anton Shekhovtsov, a Vienna-based senior fellow at the Free Russia Foundation, told VOA.RIM’s recruitment efforts and pledge to send members to combat zones were “beneficial to the Kremlin in its aggression against Ukraine,” Shekhovtsov said. 
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Рішення щодо майбутнього російського газопроводу «Північний потік-2» очікується до кінця цього місяця. Про це в інтерв’ю Радіо Свобода розповів посол України у Німеччині Андрій Мельник.

«Сьогодні ситуація така, що, завдяки в першу чергу американським санкціям будівництво цього газогону призупинено, можливо, і припинено назавжди. Але боротьба продовжується. Оскільки компанія «Північний потік-2» подала клопотання до незалежного німецького регулятора, який може надати цьому проєкту виключення з-під законодавства ЄС», – зазначив дипломат.

Мельник наголосив, що таке рішення буде невигідним для України.

«Станом на сьогодні зарано говорити, яким буде рішення німецького агентства, оскільки це не уряд, а незалежний орган, але завдяки крокам, які здійснює і українська дипломатія спільно з «Нафтогазом», з нашими партнерами, ми можемо з певним оптимізмом говорити про те, що цей дозвіл, виняток для «Північного потоку» все-таки не буде наданий. Рішення очікується до кінця травня цього року. Тобто нам залишилося чекати не так довго», – сказав посол.

На його думку, залежно від того, яким буде рішення регулятора, можна буде говорити і про те, наскільки щирою чи не щирою була позиція офіційного уряду.

«Оскільки від уряду ми мали завжди запевнення у тому, що незалежно від того, як буде просуватися цей проєкт, буде зроблено все, щоб законодавство ЄС було дотримано стосовно «Північного потоку-2», і для того, щоб (і це, до речі, для нас головне) інтереси України були максимальною мірою враховані», – наголосив Мельник.

Він нагадав, що канцлер Німеччини Ангела Меркель два роки тому обіцяла, що незалежно від долі «Північного потоку-2», транзитна роль України буде забезпечена.

«І, як ви знаєте, Німеччина дотрималась свого слова – федеральний канцлер Меркель особисто вела переговори з Путіним у грудні минулого року не лише щодо обсягів цих постачань, але так само і щодо цінових параметрів», – зазначив Мельник.

«Північний потік-2» прокладається для поставок природного газу з Росії до Німеччини. У проєкті, окрім російського «Газпрому», бере участь низка європейських компаній.

Газопровід мав бути добудований до кінця 2019 року. Однак у грудні минулого року в США ухвалили оборонний бюджет, один з розділів якого передбачає санкції проти компаній, які укладають труби для «Північного потоку-2» дном Балтійського моря. Після цього компанія Allseas, яка займалася спорудженням газопроводу, відмовилася продовжувати роботи.

Президент Росії Володимир Путін заявив, що Росія знайде спосіб добудувати газопровід, при необхідності, самостійно.

Сполучені Штати заперечують проти спорудження газопроводу, стверджуючи, що реалізація цього проєкту посилить залежність Європи від Росії, а також загрожуватиме стабільності економіки України, оскільки дозволить Росії в майбутньому відмовитися від транзиту газу через Україну. Влада Німеччини каже, що йдеться про комерційний проєкт, в якого немає політичної складової.

Повний текст інтерв’ю посла України у Німеччині Андрія Мельника читайте тут.
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