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Julie Fisher: Russia must help Belarus, Lukashenko ease tensions with EU

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Friction between the European Union and Russia-backed Belarus escalated Monday, while a top U.S. diplomat in the region called on Moscow to exert its influence over Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to stop inflaming regional tensions.

U.S. Ambassador to Belarus Julie D. Fisher, a career diplomat appointed by former President Donald Trump, said Monday that Russia could play a constructive role amid European claims that the Lukashenko government has attempted to flood Middle Eastern migrants into Poland, Lithuania and other EU nations as a way to destabilize the region and protest EU and U.S. economic sanctions.

“Russian disinformation efforts use actions in Belarus such as the migrant crisis to stoke tensions and undermine European unity and trans-Atlantic unity,” Ms. Fisher said Monday. “But it is important to recognize that Moscow has influence, unique influence over the Lukashenko regime. And we welcome Moscow using that influence in a way that moves Belarus forward.”

She made the remarks on a video call hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars at a moment of rising regional tension over Belarus. Mr. Lukashenko on Monday once again sharply criticized the EU, this time calling out what he said was the bloc’s refusal to hold talks on the migrant standoff.

A week after EU officials announced plans to level sanctions against the Lukashenko government for flying migrants from Iraq and other Middle East nations into Belarus as a pathway into Europe, Mr. Lukashenko publicly demanded on Monday that the migrants should be allowed to enter EU territory.

Mr. Lukashenko specifically urged Germany to accommodate about 2,000 migrants who have remained on Belarus‘ border with Poland in recent days, and openly slammed EU officials for refusing to talk. “We must demand that the Germans take them,” the Belarusian leader said, according to a report from Moscow by The Associated Press.

The Belarus leader accused Western governments and aid organizations of using the migrant standoff to score “publicity points” against his government, according to the country’s BelTA news agency.

“We will cope with these people ourselves if Berlin does not take them in. What are we supposed to do? There’s no other way around it. But we should urge Berlin to take them in,” Mr. Lukashenko said.

The Belarus regime has been under steady pressure since a widely discredited 2020 election gave Mr. Lukashenko, in power since 1994, another term in office. EU officials have accused Mr. Lukashenko of engineering the migrant surge as part of a “hybrid attack” as retaliation for EU sanctions after the Lukashenko government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrations. 

Russian role?

But the migrant situation has prompted some analysts to claim Mr. Lukashenko is being used by Russia to try and foment EU political divisions over immigration and to destabilize Poland and Lithuania at a time when Moscow’s own relations with the West are on shaky ground.

The Biden administration has tied the migrant crisis at the border to the Kremlin, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government is using Belarus to signal his unhappiness with the U.S. and its Western allies and to cloak Moscow’s border troop build-up and military intimidation campaign targeting other former Soviet states in Ukraine and Georgia. Polish officials said there were over 300 attempts by migrants on Sunday to get through a razor-wire border fence separating Belarus from the EU nation. 

Many of the hundreds of Iraqis stuck in limbo in Belarus have booked flights back home, while others remain under guard in crowded migrant centers on the Belarus side of the border. Officials said over the weekend that of about 1,900 migrants in those centers, more than 1,200 are Iraqis. About 700 have applied for international protection and are waiting for a decision on whether they will be allowed to stay in the EU.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has begun warning of a possible new migrant surge by the Lukashenko regime — this time from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

Mr. Morawiecki claimed on Sunday to have knowledge of “diplomatic” contacts that Belarus and Russia had with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. “There is a threat of an even more difficult scenario,” he said. “There will most probably be an attempt at using the crisis in Afghanistan as a new act in the migration crisis, putting to use the West’s remorse related to the disorderly pullout from Afghanistan.”

Mr. Morawiecki said “only the full pullback of the migrants and steps toward deescalation can lead back to any kind of a constructive scenario with Lukashenko.”

Regional experts say Mr. Lukashenko has engineered the migrant crisis to pressure the EU into granting sanctions relief.

Oleg Ignatov with the International Crisis Group, in a Q&A analysis published by the group on Monday, said the Lukashenko government has already “drawn an analogy between the present situation and the Greek-Turkish border crisis in 2015.”

“In that crisis, more than a million refugees from the war in Syria entered the EU, and Brussels cut a deal with Ankara to halt further entries,” he said. “It committed to provide [$6.7 billion] in exchange for Ankara’s agreement to prevent the migrants from leaving its territory.”

Like Turkey, Mr. Ignatov added, Belarus “is angling for a deal of its own.”

Ms. Fisher suggested in her own remarks on Monday that the Biden administration will stand with the EU in efforts to confront the Lukashenko government

“As long as the regime in Belarus refuses to respect its international obligations and commitments, undermines the peace and security of Europe, and continues to repress and abuse people seeking to live in freedom, we will continue to pressure the Lukashenko regime and we will not lessen our calls for accountability,” she said.

White House rejects return of COVID-19 shutdowns as Europe’s new lockdowns spark protests

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The White House said Monday it has no plans to shut down the economy again as COVID-19 chaos seizes Europe, with lockdowns meant to thwart a fourth wave triggering violent protests.

A German official declared his countrymen will be “vaccinated, cured or dead.”

Austrians were told to stay home for 10 days, starting Monday, except to go to work or school, or to get groceries or exercise, prompting thousands to protest in the streets of Vienna. Similar protests against a partial COVID-19 lockdown broke out in the Netherlands, resulting in fires and clashes with police, and tens of thousands of Belgians took to the streets as politicians warned of a virus crackdown.

White House COVID-19 Coordinator Jeff Zients said the U.S. has no interest in joining the fracas.

“No, we are not headed in that direction. We have the tools to accelerate the path out of this pandemic — widely available vaccinations, booster shots, kid shots, therapeutics, including monoclonal antibodies to help those who contract the virus,” he said at a COVID-19 task force briefing. “We can curb the spread of the virus without having to in any way shut down our economy.”

Viral spikes in Europe tend to augur what’s in store for Americans. Outbreaks in Italy and Spain at the start of the pandemic preceded a crush of cases in New York City, and a variant known as alpha battered the United Kingdom before walloping the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Mr. Biden faces pushback over workplace vaccine mandates but he has avoided talk of 2020-style restrictions, preferring instead to promote vaccines and pre-purchases of millions of courses of COVID-19 treatment pills.

Any push to renew draconian business restrictions would be devastating for Mr. Biden and is “just dead — dead on arrival,” said Arthur Caplan, a director of the division of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine.

“Politically, he’s already in trouble on the economy. Restricting the economy would seal the fate of the congressional elections,” Mr. Caplan said.

“I think there’s no evidence you can control this stupid virus by locking people up. You get a little relief and then boom, we’re back again,” he added. “The toll of restrictions — mass restrictions — is just huge. It’s completely untenable if you have an option that is purely pharmaceutical.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis recently placed medical breakthroughs over restrictions as his state battles a Mountain West surge. He said he does not plan to issue a statewide mask mandate because cases are comparable to New Mexico, despite its mask rules, and “scientists simply don’t know why our region has a spike.”

“We wouldn’t be here talking about this if everybody was vaccinated,” Mr. Polis, a Democrat, said at a press conference this month. “If you are not vaccinated you are going to get COVID. Maybe this week, maybe this month, maybe next year.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who recently won reelection after fending off attacks over COVID-19 closures, spent his virus briefing Monday promoting boosters and a program that connects employers and workers looking to recover from the pandemic doldrums, rather than shut down again.

Besides vaccines and know-how, he said, “We’ve got other treatments, monoclonal antibodies, which we didn’t have. We’ve got the antivirals, and lot more tools in our toolbox, thank God.”

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser this week lifted a city mask mandate.

Erie County officials in Buffalo, New York, bucked the trend and said Monday they would reimpose a mask mandate on Tuesday. If cases don’t go down, the county will take a look at vaccine mandates in “phase two” before eyeing capacity restrictions or shutdowns in phases three and four if the first steps don’t work.

“My own view is that more restrictive measures would be brought into play only if there was a substantial rise in COVID-related hospitalizations that threatened the overall capacity of the health care system,” said Daniel Kuritzkes, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Mr. Zients said decisions on how to manage the virus are frequently done at the local level because community transmission and vaccination rates differ, though he emphasized scientific interventions.

“We need to use the tools we have and get more people vaccinated, to keep people safe without going backward in any shape or form,” he said.

He rejected economic lockdowns as counterparts across the pond grapple with the fallout from restrictions that range from mandatory vaccinations in Austria starting Feb. 1 — the first such step in the West — to a “partial lockdown” requiring bars and restaurants in the Netherlands to close early. Protests in Rotterdam led to standoffs with police, who deployed tear gas and water cannons on protesters who had hurled fireworks at them.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the protests “pure violence” by “idiots,” and Belgian leader Alexander de Croo called a similar protest by 35,000 in Brussels “absolutely unacceptable,” according to Agence France-Presse.

In Germany, departing Chancellor Angela Merkel said infections are doubling every 12 days in a “highly dramatic situation,” prompting a dire warning from a top health official.

“Probably by the end of this winter, as is sometimes cynically said, pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured or dead,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

He promoted shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as the Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce of vaccines, though he hasn’t ruled out another widespread lockdown as Ms. Merkel hinted that stronger measures will be needed.

About 67% of Germans are fully vaccinated but rates are far lower in eastern regions such as Saxony, where cultural sites, restaurants, bars and Christmas markets will be shut down for three weeks, according to Deutsche Welle media.

Some people see Europe’s viral surge as a direct warning for the U.S., where cases have climbed to more than 90,000 per day after a decrease to the low 70,000s in late October. Hospitalizations have ticked above 50,000.

It’s not as bad as Thanksgiving week last year, when the U.S. recorded 170,000 cases per day and averaged 90,000 hospitalizations ahead of a vaccine rollout that began in December. But the numbers are headed in the wrong direction.

“We’re experiencing the beginning of a winter wave, the consequences of too many unvaccinated and the need for boosters to halt infection,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Scientists say the current spike is driven by the fast-moving delta variant, which struck right as antibody responses from early vaccinations started to wane. Plus, the U.S., like Europe, might have relaxed mask guidance prematurely and opened the door for unvaccinated people to shed face coverings, too.

Analysts said they don’t expect European governments to be deterred from the strong-arm positions they are staking out, even amid protests.

“It’s not surprising Europe would potentially be headed down that path. Many of the countries are outright socialist nations where there is an inherent trust the government has the answer to all things and to all problems,” said Colin Reed, a GOP strategist and who worked as a spokesman for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican.

In the U.S., however, “the fact Biden is pumping the brakes speaks to political peril that advocating such a policy might bring on,” Mr. Reed said. “It’s pretty clear Americans long ago grew tired of the forced mandates. I think the way out of this is through vaccines and getting people to make the decision on their own to get vaccinated.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said every country is different but the U.S. has the luxury of ample vaccines and Mr. Biden’s health team has not recommended shutdowns.

Officials advised people to avoid holiday gatherings last year, but the Biden administration told Americans it should be safe to enjoy Thanksgiving with fellow vaccinated people on Thursday.

The White House is pleading with roughly 47 million adults and 12 million teens who are eligible for shots yet remain unvaccinated, to come forward for the shots. They also called on vaccinated Americans to obtain an extra dose of one of three approved vaccines if they got their initial series at least six months ago.

Cyrus Shahpar, the COVID-19 data coordinator for the White House, tweeted that 461,000 people came forward to get vaccinated on Sunday and 890,000 came forward for a booster shot.

As it stands, 4 in 10 Americans are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 while 18% of the fully vaccinated — about 35 million people — have received a booster.

Whether it is enough to help the U.S. avoid a full-scale disaster and European-style standoffs in the streets will be seen in the coming weeks.

“People do have fatigue. I’ve been triple-vaxxed now and I’m tired of the restrictions,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “I think we’ll get a true test as people will be gathering together for Thanksgiving and the holidays. If we get through that without a large outbreak, then we’ll be in good shape. I think it’s a function of whether people get vaccinated or not.”

Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.

Thanksgiving Holiday Travel Will Test Airlines

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Widespread flight cancellations. Excruciating waits for customer service. Unruly passengers.

And that was all before the holiday travel season.

Even in normal times, the days around Thanksgiving are a delicate period for the airlines. But this week is the industry’s biggest test since the pandemic began, as millions more Americans — emboldened by vaccinations and reluctant to spend another holiday alone — are expected to take to the skies than during last year’s holidays.

A lot is riding on the carriers’ ability to pull it off smoothly.

“For many people, this will be the first time they’ve gotten together with family, maybe in a year, year and a half, maybe longer, so it’s very significant,” said Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial pilot who is a spokeswoman for FlightAware, an aviation data provider. “If it goes poorly, that’s when people might rethink travel plans for Christmas. And that’s what the airlines don’t want.”

The Transportation Security Administration said it expected to screen about 20 million passengers at airports in the 10 days that began Friday, a figure approaching prepandemic levels. Two million passed through checkpoints on Saturday alone, about twice as many as on the Saturday before last Thanksgiving.

Delta Air Lines and United Airlines both said they expected to fly only about 12 percent fewer passengers than they did in 2019. And United said it expected the Sunday after Thanksgiving to be its busiest day since the pandemic began 20 months ago.

Many Thanksgiving travelers seem to be going about their travel routines as usual, with some now-familiar pandemic twists.

“Airports are busy right now, and everything seems back to normal,” said Naveen Gunendran, 22, a University of Illinois student who was flying on United from Chicago to San Francisco on Saturday to visit relatives. “But we’re all packed together, and we just have to hope everybody is being safe.”

The pent-up travel demand has elevated the cost of tickets. Hopper, an app that predicts flight prices, said that the average domestic flight during Thanksgiving week was on track to be about $293 round-trip this year, $48 more than last year — although $42 cheaper than in 2019.

While the industry is projecting optimism about easy traveling, the influx of passengers has injected an element of uncertainty into a fragile system still reeling from the pandemic’s devastation. Some airlines have experienced recent troubles that rippled for days — stymying travel plans for thousands of passengers — as the carriers struggled to get pilots and flight attendants in place for delayed and rescheduled flights, a task complicated by thin staffing.

“We’ve said numerous times: The pandemic is unprecedented and extremely complex — it was messy going into it, and it’s messy as we fight to emerge from it,” the president and chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines, Mike Van de Ven, said in a lengthy note to customers last month.

His apology came after Southwest canceled nearly 2,500 flights over a four-day stretch — nearly 18 percent of its scheduled flights, according to FlightAware — as a brief bout of bad weather and an equally short-lived air traffic control staffing shortage snowballed.

Weeks later, American Airlines suffered a similar collapse, canceling more than 2,300 flights in four days — nearly 23 percent of its schedule — after heavy winds slowed operations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, its largest hub.

American and Southwest have said they are working to address the problems, offering bonuses to encourage employees to work throughout the holiday period, stepping up hiring and pruning ambitious flight plans.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a union representing roughly 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines, gave the carriers good marks for their preparations.

“First and foremost, we are getting demand back after the biggest crisis aviation has ever faced,” she said.

“I think there has been a lot of good planning,” she added. “And barring a major weather event, I think that the airlines are going to be able to handle the demand.”

According to FlightAware, just 0.4 percent of flights were canceled on Sunday, which the T.S.A. said was nearly as busy as the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2019.

Major airlines have just started to report profits again, and only after factoring in billions of dollars of federal aid. While the aid allowed carriers to avoid sweeping layoffs during the pandemic, tens of thousands of employees took generous buyouts or early-retirement packages or volunteered to take extended leaves of absence.

That has made ramping back up more difficult, and the pandemic has created new challenges. Flight crews have had to contend with overwork and disruptive and belligerent passengers, leaving them drained and afraid for their safety.

Helene Albert, 54, a longtime flight attendant for American Airlines, said she took an 18-month leave by choice that was offered because of the pandemic. When she returned to work on Nov. 1 on domestic routes, she said, she saw a difference in passengers from when she began her leave.

“People are hostile,” she said. “They don’t know how to wear masks and they act shocked when I tell them we don’t have alcohol on our flights anymore.”

The number of such unruly passengers has fallen since the Federal Aviation Administration cracked down on the behavior earlier this year. But the agency has so far begun investigations into 991 episodes involving passenger misbehavior in 2021, more than in the last seven years combined. In some cases, the disruptions have forced flights to be delayed or even diverted — an additional strain on air traffic.

Layered on top of the industry’s struggles during the holiday season is the perennial threat of inclement weather. Forecasters have cautioned in recent days that gathering storm systems were threatening to deliver gusty winds and rain that could interfere with flights, but for the most part, the weather is not expected to cause major disruptions.

“Overall, the news is pretty good in terms of the weather in general across the country cooperating with travel,” said Jon Porter, the chief meteorologist for AccuWeather. “We’re not dealing with any big storms across the country, and in many places the weather will be quite favorable for travel.”

Even so, AAA, the travel services organization, recommended that airline passengers arrive two hours ahead of departure for domestic flights and three hours ahead for international destinations during the Thanksgiving travel wave.

Some lawmakers warned that a Monday vaccination deadline for all federal employees could disrupt T.S.A. staffing at airports, resulting in long lines at security checkpoints, but the agency said those concerns were unfounded.

“The compliance rate is very high, and we do not anticipate any disruptions because of the vaccination requirements,” R. Carter Langston, a T.S.A. spokesman, said in a statement on Friday.

With many people able to do their jobs or classes remotely, some travelers left town early, front-running what are typically the busiest travel days before the holiday.

TripIt, a travel app that organizes itineraries, said 33 percent of holiday travelers booked Thanksgiving flights for last Friday and Saturday, according to its reservation data. (That number was slightly down from last year, when 35 percent of travelers left on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, and marginally higher than in 2019, when 30 percent of travelers did so, TripIt said.)

Among those taking advantage of the flexibility was Emilia Lam, 18, a student at New York University who traveled home to Houston on Saturday. She is doing her classes this week remotely, she said, and planned her early getaway to get ahead of the crush. “The flights are going to be way more crowded,” she said, as Thursday approaches.

Robert Chiarito and Maria Jimenez Moya contributed reporting.

How Fake News on Facebook Helped Fuel a Border Crisis in Europe

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BRUZGI, Belarus — After more than a week sleeping in a frigid encampment on the border between Belarus and Poland, and an abortive foray across the frontier repelled by pepper spray and police batons, Mohammad Faraj gave up this month and retreated to a warm hotel in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

Soon after, however, he watched with surprise and excitement a video report on Facebook claiming that Poland was about to open its border and urging all those who wanted to enter the European Union to gather at a gas station near the encampment that the migrants had nicknamed “the jungle.”

Mr. Faraj, a 35-year-old ethnic Kurd from Iraq, rushed back to the squalid camp he had just left, traveling 190 miles from Minsk to the gas station just in time for the opening of the border in early November that he had heard about on Facebook.

The Polish border, of course, remained tightly shut and Mr. Faraj spent the next 10 days back in what he described as “like something out of a horror movie.”

The European Union, offering robust support to Poland’s hard-line stand against migrants, has blamed the traumas of recent weeks on its eastern border on the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.

The Belarusian authorities certainly have helped stoke the crisis, offering easy tourist visas to thousands of Iraqis and easing their way to the border with Poland.

But social media, particularly Facebook, also have given Mr. Lukashenko a vital assist, as an unpredictable accelerant to the hopes and illusions of people who have fallen prey to the empty promises of profiteers and charlatans on the internet.

Some were in it for money, promising to smuggle migrants across borders for hefty fees; some appeared to bask in the attention they received as online “influencers” for sharing information; others seemed motivated by a genuine desire to help people suffering. There has been no evidence to suggest a coordinated campaign by Mr. Lukashenko to target migrants with fake information online.

Fake news on Facebook, said Mr. Faraj, who last week was moved from the border encampment along with 2,000 other denizens of “the jungle,” to a giant nearby warehouse converted into a migrant holding center, “poured mud on our heads and destroyed our lives.”

Since July, activity on Facebook in Arabic and Kurdish related to migration to the E.U. through Belarus has been “skyrocketing,” said Monika Richter, head of research and analysis for Semantic Visions, an intelligence firm that tracked social media activity related to the crisis.

“Facebook exacerbated this humanitarian crisis and now you have all these people who were brought over and explicitly misled and ripped off,” said Ms. Richter.

Researchers said smugglers openly shared their phone numbers and advertised their services on Facebook, including video testimonials from people said to have reached Germany successfully via Belarus and Poland. In one post, a smuggler advertised “daily trips from Minsk to Germany with only a 20 km walking distance.” The journey, a writer warned in another post on Oct. 19, is “not suitable for children due to the cold.” Another smuggler with the Facebook user name “Visa Visa” pitched trips to Germany from Belarus through Poland. The smuggler said the trip would take 8 to 15 hours but added a warning: “Don’t call if you are afraid.”

Last Friday, despite the bitter experience of so many promises on Facebook that turned out to be false, a ripple of excitement swept across despondent people huddled in the warehouse after reports on social media that it was still possible to get into Europe — for anyone willing to pay $7,000 to a guide who claimed to know an easy route across the Belarus-Poland frontier and through massed ranks of Polish soldiers and border guards on the other side.

Rekar Hamid, a former math teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan who had already paid around $10,000 to travel agents in Iraq for a “package tour” that was supposed to get himself, his wife and young child to Europe but only got them locked up in a warehouse, scoffed at the latest offer as yet another scam. “They keep saying the door is opening but look where we all are now,” he said, gesturing toward a mass of people huddled on the concrete floor.

Musa Hama, another Kurd from Iraq confined to the warehouse, lamented that no amount of fact-checking would prevent people grasping at straws of hope provided by Facebook. “People are desperate so they believe anything,” he said.

The stampede by migrants to Belarus in the hope of getting into the European Union began earlier this year when the authoritarian former Soviet republic relaxed tightfisted visa policies for certain countries, notably Iraq. The relaxation was ostensibly an effort to boost tourism at a time when most Westerners were staying away following a brutal crackdown by Mr. Lukashenko in response a contested presidential election.

Sensing a lucrative business opportunity, travel companies in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Region started advertising on Facebook and other platforms about the availability of visas to Belarus. Smugglers used social media to pitch Belarus as an easy back door to Europe.

Since July, Semantic Visions has identified dozens of Facebook groups created to share information about migration routes and used by smugglers to advertise their services. A private group titled “Migration of the powerful from Belarus to Europe” exploded from 13,600 members in early September to roughly 30,000 currently, according to Semantic Visions. Another group, “Belarus Online,” grew from 7,700 members to 23,700 during the same period. On Telegram, a messaging and chat room platform, channels devoted to Belarus as a route to Europe have also attracted thousands of members.

“Our findings reveal the extent to which social media platforms — particularly Facebook — have been used as a de facto market for smuggling into the European Union,” Semantic Visions concluded in a recent report that has been circulated among European Union officials.

Facebook, now officially known as Meta after a corporate name change, said it prohibited material that facilitates or promotes human smuggling and has dedicated teams to monitor and detect material related to the crisis. It added that the company was working with law enforcement agencies and nongovernmental organizations to counter the flood of fake news relating to migration.

“People smuggling across international borders is illegal and ads, posts, pages or groups that provide, facilitate or coordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We remove this content as soon as we become aware of it.”

But the events in Belarus have exposed how, even after Facebook experienced a similar abuse of its services during the European migration crisis in 2015, the company still struggles to keep banned material off its platform, especially in non-English languages.

“Facebook is not taking their responsibility seriously and as a direct consequence of that we see desperate people in the cold, in the mud, in the forest in Belarus, in a desperate situation, all because they believe the misinformation that was provided to them through Facebook,” said Jeroen Lenaers, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands who is a leader on the legislature’s committee that handles migration issues.

It is unclear what, if any, steps Facebook has taken to deal with misleading and potentially dangerous information.

One Kurdish-German influencer widely known online as Karwan Rawanduzy is a popular figure among would-be migrants to Europe, but his online videos and other reports frequently promote bogus stories, like the claim that Poland would open its border in early November.

Mr. Rawanduzy’s live posts on a Facebook page named Kurdisch News had more than 100,000 followers before it was disabled in November after the Kurdish-German influencer said a Polish politician had publicly accused him of helping to fuel the crisis. The page also featured videos sent by hungry and cold migrants trapped along the border.

Reached by phone in Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Rawanduzy said he was repeating information about pressure on Poland to open the border that he said had been reported by German media. He blamed smugglers and countries including Poland for the misery faced by migrants and that he was simply trying to help the asylum-seekers.

Mr. Rawanduzy, 42, describes himself as an immigration activist and a former refugee who left Iraq in 2009, two years after a suicide bombing in Erbil wounded him.

Mr. Faraj is still furious that he followed the advice of Mr. Rawanduzy, widely known by his first name, Karwan, by rushing from Minsk back to the border. “Everyone knows him and everyone follows him,” he said. He added: “Karwan tricked us all on Facebook.”

Mr. Rawanduzy, who also owns a restaurant, said it was “not for me to feel bad or guilty” about people persuaded by his posts. “It is up to the Iraqi and Kurdish government to feel bad for all the reasons people want to escape.”

Andrew Higgins reported from Bruzgi, Belarus, Adam Satariano from London and Jane Arraf from Erbil, Iraq. Reporting was contributed bySangar Khaleelfrom Erbil, Masha Froliak from New York, and Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promises ‘get tough’ policy toward Iran

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed to remain tough on Iran’s nuclear ambitions even as the Biden administration struggles to revive a nuclear deal to lift economic sanctions if Tehran limits its uranium enrichment program.

Mr. Austin made the comments over the weekend in Bahrain at the annual Manama Dialogue, which brings together dozens of world leaders to the island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia to discuss regional security issues. He sought to reassure regional leaders concerned about the U.S.’ abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan and its strategic shift to the Indo-Pacific region.

“The United States remains committed to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, and we remain committed to a diplomatic outcome of the nuclear issue,” he said. “But if Iran isn’t willing to engage seriously, then we will look at all the options necessary to keep the United States secure.”

The U.S. team will return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) talks in Vienna and negotiate in good faith, he said. But Mr. Austin added that Iran’s actions in recent months haven’t been encouraging.

“Iran’s nuclear activities are bringing us closer to the point at which returning to the JCPOA won’t recapture its benefits,” the defense secretary said.

Former President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, calling it a “one-sided deal” that failed to curtail Iran’s missile program and influence in the region. Tehran used that as a pretext to ramp up its uranium enrichment program, although some analysts said it had never stopped.

Since then, U.S. officials have accused Iran of being behind a number of incidents that have struck the wider Middle East, such as drone and mine attacks targeting ships transiting through the Persian Gulf region.

“Iran presents us all with serious security challenges that go beyond its nuclear program. Iran stokes tensions in this region and beyond, and that undermines peace and stability for us all,” Mr. Austin said.

Tehran hit back at the U.S. defense chief Monday, with a top government spokesman telling reporters that Mr. Austin‘s real purpose in visiting the region was not to strengthen alliances but to help out U.S. defense contractors.

Government spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh dismissed what he called Mr. Austin‘s anti-Iran rhetoric and warned countries of the region not to be taken in by U.S. promises of engagement.

“I believe that Americans are sending expensive bills to certain regional countries with their comments,” the spokesman said, according to an account by the state-linked Tasnim News Agency.

“Those are sentences and words preceding a bill, otherwise they are worth nothing,” he added.”The United States is probably seeking to sell more arms.”

The defense secretary also addressed Saudi Arabia‘s operations since 2015 against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis launched drone and ballistic missile attacks against the kingdom in retaliation for Saudi Arabia’s aerial bombing campaign.

While the Biden administration has cut off support for the Saudis’ offensive operations in Yemen, Mr. Austin boasted that U.S. backing allows them to “significantly enhance” their ability to defend themselves from attacks.

“Saudi ground and air forces are now defeating nearly 90% of [unmanned aerial vehicles] and missiles fired from Yemen, and we’ll work with them until it’s 100%,” he said. “America’s commitment to helping our friends defend their sovereign space is unwavering.”

Tucker Carlson’s ‘Patriot Purge’ Special Leads Two Fox News Contributors to Quit

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For his part, Mr. Goldberg said he has been thinking about William F. Buckley, the late founder of National Review, who saw as part of his mission “imposing seriousness on conservative arguments” and purging some extreme fringe groups, including the John Birch Society, from the right.

“Whether it’s ‘Patriot Purge’ or anti-vax stuff, I don’t want it in my name, and I want to call it out and criticize it,” Mr. Goldberg said. “I don’t want to feel like I am betraying a trust that I had by being a Fox News contributor. And I also don’t want to be accused of not really pulling the punches. And then this was just an untenable tension for me.”

Now, their views have put them outside the current Republican mainstream, or at least outside what mainstream right-wing institutions and politicians are willing to say out loud. But while in recent years both appeared occasionally on the evening show “Special Report” and on “Fox News Sunday,” which the network classifies as news, it’s been years since they were welcome on Fox’s prime time, and Mr. Goldberg clashed bitterly with the prime-time host Sean Hannity in 2016. (Mr. Hayes and Mr. Goldberg emailed their readers Sunday to announce their departure.)

Despite the former contributors’ hopes, Fox’s programming has hewed to Mr. Trump’s line, as have its personnel moves. The network, for instance, fired the veteran political editor who accurately projected Mr. Biden’s victory in the key state of Arizona on election night, and has hired the former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Mr. Hayes and Mr. Goldberg are the first members of Fox’s payroll to resign over “Patriot Purge,” but others have signaled their unhappiness. Geraldo Rivera, a Fox News correspondent since 2001, captured the difficulty of internal dissent at the network when he voiced cautious criticism of Mr. Carlson and “Patriot Purge” to my colleague Michael Grynbaum. “I worry that — and I’m probably going to get in trouble for this — but I’m wondering how much is done to provoke, rather than illuminate,” he said.

On air, two programs with smaller audiences than Mr. Carlson’s scrambled after his special to rebut the false theories presented in “Patriot Purge.” “Special Report” called in a former C.I.A. officer on Oct. 29 to debunk “false flag” theories. And on “Fox News Sunday,” Chris Wallace turned the same question over to one of Mr. Trump’s few foes in the Republican congressional delegation, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Mr. Carlson called Mr. Hayes’s and Mr. Goldberg’s resignations “great news” in a telephone interview on Sunday. “Our viewers will be grateful.”

Fauci encourages all adults to get COVID-19 booster shots after FDA approval

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Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that he “absolutely” recommends that every adult get a booster shot for the coronavirus, now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all adults.

Dr. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said adults who received the two-shot Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines more than six months ago should get a booster.

The same rule of thumb applies for people who received the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine more than two months ago.

“Just go out and get boosted,” Dr. Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We know they are safe and highly effective.”

With the holiday season fast approaching, Dr. Fauci said now is a good time to get a booster shot and families who are fully vaccinated should feel free to celebrate Thanksgiving together.

He also urged people to wear masks when traveling in public places where the vaccinated status of the people around them is unknown.

The FDA on Friday approved booster shots for all adults, opening a new chapter in the vaccine rollout and allowing the Biden administration to catch up to states that advised residents to seek an extra dose regardless of eligibility.

Senior regulators said they want to act quickly to backfill waning immunity and streamline rules that began to splinter across the country.

“Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA has worked to make timely public health decisions as the pandemic evolves,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said. “Authorizing the use of a single booster dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 18 years of age and older helps to provide continued protection against COVID-19, including the serious consequences that can occur, such as hospitalization and death.”

The FDA authorizations arrive as cases are starting to rise on the advent of the holiday shopping and travel season. Scientists are particularly worried that older persons will see bad outcomes from COVID-19 because they tend to be furthest from their initial vaccine series.

Regulators decided to bypass an advisory committee that pumped the brakes on widespread boosters in September.

A separate panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that persons over 18 “may” get the boosters and those over age 50 “should” get a booster.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky accepted those recommendations late Friday, clearing the way for the booster rollout to widen significantly by the weekend.

President Biden has pushed to provide booster shots to all Americans since August, when he saw data from Israel showing the antibody response provided by initial vaccination tends to wane after six months. He is fighting the pandemic on two fronts, using mandates to draw in more than 60 million eligible Americans who haven’t come forward for any doses, while offering extra doses to people who got vaccinated first.

How far the shots have waned varies depending on who is studied, including their age and where they live, and how far out they are from their initial vaccinations. But effectiveness against symptomatic infection has generally dropped to between 40% to 70%, while protection against hospitalization and death is typically at least 80%.

The number of coronavirus cases has been on the rise again in the United States, reaching 100,000 new cases per day and leaving some to conclude the nation is on the verge of winter surge.

Europe also is reeling from a wave of new daily infections.

Dr. Fauci said the uptick in cases is not unexpected, given that people spend more time indoors during the winter and that immunity provided by the vaccines wanes over time.

He said the best way to address the problem is for the roughly 60 million people in the United States who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated.

“The bottom-line common denominator of all of this is we should get vaccinated if you are not vaccinated and get boosted if you have been vaccinated,” Dr. Fauci said.

Health, The New York Today

‘We don’t get rattled’: Comeback wins becoming a theme for Wizards

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The Washington Wizards closed last week the same way they started it — with a comeback victory.

The Wizards opened the week by coming back from down 19 in the third quarter against the New Orleans Pelicans — a win that came without star Bradley Beal, who was out due to the death of his grandmother, as well as increasing the team’s winning streak to five games and giving the team a historically rare 10-2 start.

Washington then lost two straight games, including one to the Miami Heat on Thursday, and then went down 16 midway through the third quarter against the visiting Heat on Saturday. But the victory over the Pelicans, along with a few other comeback victories earlier this season, have given point guard Spencer Dinwiddie and his Wizards teammates confidence — even when they find themselves down by double digits.

“Knowing that we’ve been there before,” Dinwiddie said about how the team remained calm after the Heat’s 18-2 run in the third quarter. “Believing that we can win and also trying to make the right play. As long as you’re not pointing the finger and bickering, you don’t allow things to snowball. You can stay the course, try to do the right thing and just hit a couple shots.”

Dinwiddie, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma were crucial for the Wizards down the stretch Saturday in the 103-100 win over the Heat — the team’s fourth significant comeback victory of the season.

In addition to the win over the Heat and the Pelicans last week, the Wizards came back from down nine with less than six minutes remaining against the Cavaliers on Nov. 10. The team also beat the Celtics in double overtime in late October despite being down six with less than 2:30 remaining in the first overtime period.

The comeback wins are a big reason why the Wizards continue to be off to one of their best starts in franchise history. Their 11-5 record is tied for the franchise’s second best, behind only the 1968-69 Baltimore Bullets team that started 12-4, with the 1974-75 and 2014-15 teams.

Following Saturday’s slate of NBA games, Washington was second in the Eastern Conference after being in first place earlier in the week. The 1968-69 team ended the season 57-25, while the 1974-75 squad won 60 games and lost in the NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors. Both teams were led by Wes Unseld Sr., whose son is now the Wizards’ coach. The 2014-15 team, meanwhile, won 46 games and won a playoff series.

Wes Unseld Jr. said the comeback mentality is something that is in his team’s “fiber.”

“Of course you’re going to be frustrated, but it’s how you respond,” he said. “I think we’ve shown time and time again we’re going to have to continue to do that because we’re going to be in a lot of close games. We’re just not going to fold and say ‘tonight’s not our night.’ We keep fighting.”

The Wizards fell down 16 with about 6:30 left in the third quarter for several reasons. Most challenging was when centers Daniel Gafford and Montrezl Harrell both got into foul trouble in the second quarter, forcing Unseld to play a small lineup for the last seven minutes of the half. The Wizards scored only 15 points in the second.

Washington also continued to struggle with turnovers in the game. After turning the ball over 17 times in its loss at Miami on Thursday, Washington gave the ball away seven times in the first quarter and 19 times by night’s end. The Wizards have lost the turnover battle in 11 of their 16 games.

Then came the Heat’s 18-2 run that was quickly followed by a 9-2 run by the Wizards to lessen the blow.

“They went on a big run, and it got ugly for a minute,” said Bradley Beal, who led the team with 21 points and nine assists. “But we stood our ground. We don’t get rattled, and we kind of snapped out of it, and we made a nice run.”
Midway through the fourth, it seemed as if Jimmy Butler and the Heat were pulling away. Butler’s fadeaway jumper with 4:42 remaining put the Heat up 10.

But that’s when Dinwiddie and Caldwell-Pope took over, each making two 3-pointers, with Caldwell-Pope tying the game and Dinwiddie taking the lead. Kuzma, who had only two points until the final minute of the game, knocked down four straight free throws and played tight defense on Miami’s final possession to clinch the triumph. The win improved Washington to 7-1 at Capital One Arena this season — the second-best home mark in the NBA as of Sunday afternoon.

While the triumph was a “character win,” as Unseld described it, consistently winning games by coming back from double-digit deficits in the second half isn’t a model for success.

“It’s ugly, but we’re finding ways to win,” Beal said. “We love that, but at the same time, in order to be a great team and win further in the playoffs, we have to clean up a lot of this stuff.”

‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ captures $44 million in theaters

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Busting ghosts is still a fairly lucrative business after almost 40 years.

Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, the latest attempt to revive “Ghostbusters” drew a sizable audience to theaters, while the awards darling “King Richard,” like most dramas in the pandemic era, is struggling.

With a reverence for nostalgia and a few high-profile cameos in its arsenal, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” opened above industry expectations with $44 million in ticket sales from 4,315 locations, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Sony movie is playing exclusively in theaters.

“Afterlife’s” first weekend is actually trailing that of Paul Feig’s “Ghostbusters” with Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, which had a $46 million opening in June 2016. Aside from the somewhat unpredictable pandemic-era moviegoing habits, the crucial difference is that “Afterlife” cost about half as much to make.

The weekend’s other high-profile offering didn’t fare as well. “King Richard,” the well-reviewed drama starring Will Smith as the father of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams, earned $5.7 million from 3,302 locations, missing its modest expectations by almost half. The Warner Bros. film was released simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters.

Although traditional blockbusters have managed to draw decent audiences, dramas have disproportionately struggled during the pandemic. Most have debuted in the $3 million range. One of the more successful launches was the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect,” which opened to $8.8 million.

Meanwhile, in limited release from A24, Mike Mills’ “C’mon C’mon” had one of the best limited platform debuts since February 2020 with $134,447 from 5 screens. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as a man looking after his 9-year-old nephew.

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Curtis Samuel out against Panthers

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CHARLOTTE — Curtis Samuel won’t get to play in the Carolina reunion.

The Washington wide receiver was ruled out of Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers when the team’s inactives were released 90 minutes before kickoff.  Samuel, who played for the Panthers from 2017 to 2020, will miss his fifth straight contest and eighth overall game of the season. 

Samuel has dealt with a nagging groin injury since late May, limiting him to just two games and 30 snaps. He re-aggravated the injury in a Week 5 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, though coaches said Samuel went past his suggested snap count the week prior — contributing to Samuel’s latest injury woes.

Washington listed Samuel as questionable entering Sunday’s contest as Samuel returned to practice Friday. If the wide receiver, signed to a three-year, $34.5 million contract in March, continues to progress, Samuel could potentially play in the team’s next game: A Nov. 29 “Monday Night Football” showdown against the Seattle Seahawks. 

Here’s who else is out for Washington in Charlotte:
– Wide receiver Antonio Gandy-Golden
– Cornerback Corn Elder
– Tackle Saahdiq Charles
– Defensive end Shaka Toney (concussion) 
– Tight end Ricky Seals-Jones (hip)