COVID-19 has changed the lives of most people around the world, and like adults, children too are being forced to face this new reality.

It is a reality that is hard for some adults and can be even harder for some children to grasp and accept.

With schools and playgrounds being closed and social distancing measures imposed, children cannot mingle with their friends as it is natural to do and isolation prevails.

But what is the most challenging part for kids these days? How is this sudden shift in their daily lives seen by children?

Irene P., an 11-year-old, and her 10-year-old sister Lydia, who both live in Greece, feel uncomfortable having to adjust to this new reality.

“As children, it’s not easy for us to adjust in this new life, as we’re away from our natural environment, which is our school,” said Irene.

“We don’t get the chance to see our friends have fun and play and laugh as kids are supposed to. But it’s also seeing our teachers. It’s different when we’re in class because it’s natural and we get the chance to ask the questions we want,” she added.

“It has affected me a lot, as I don’t have many things to do such as sports like I used to.”

Kids do have the chance to follow their classes online, but they are missing one very important factor that cannot be replaced through home learning: interaction with fellow classmates and friends.

Experts claim that social interaction is an essential skill that children need to learn from a young age, as they are still developing their social skills.

Unfortunately, due to the current situation, children are spending less time with their peers and more time in front of a screen.

Consequently, this can have a serious effect on their cognitive development, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Thomas Maliaroudakis told Anadolu Agency.

According to Lydia P. who is an elementary school student, “all children are overwhelmed with the situation, as we are forced to attend class through a screen.”

“It’s not the same talking and interacting with friends virtually, as it’s impossible to play and have fun!” she added.

“The outcome of the isolation that children face is the lack of working in groups and learning about teamwork. It is very important for children to learn how to work in teams, as it will follow them throughout their lives,” Maliaroudakis pointed out.

Experts also claim that online home learning can create confusion and frustration as a home environment many times is associated with rest and play.

“School and home have become one,” Maliaroudakis said, adding this is not always an easy thing for a child to distinguish.

Apart from the significant changes in their daily routine, they are forced to face other challenges such as different or no rules during class hours.

An interrupted routine without boundaries and rules can make kids feel confused, he said.

Prior to COVID-19, nine-year-old Katerina L. used to spend her weekends at her grandparents or playing with friends.

Today, she tries hard to adjust to the new reality, as there is a limited amount of activities she can do and therefore she is forced to spend a lot of time in front of a screen.

Grumpiness, irritation, and aggression are some of the feelings that Katerina’s mother Anna G. told Anadolu Agency she has noticed in her daughter’s behavior.

According to Maliaroudakis, “each child has their own personality, and therefore their coping skills and resilience may differ.”

“I haven’t seen my grandparents for a very long time, and I just spend my free time on a computer,” Katerina said. “This makes me very mad.”

“This thing is so bad and I want it to end soon,” she said, referring to the virus.

According to experts, isolation can have a significant impact on a child’s emotional and behavioral health.

Sometimes these emotions can be overwhelming for a child and consequently lead them to feel anxious, depressed, and/or frustrated.

“Situations like these can be very tricky for everybody, including experts in this field, as we have to face challenges that are unfamiliar to us,” Maliaroudakis added./aa

Czech police detained five people Wednesday on suspicion of engaging in terrorist activities in Eastern Ukraine.

They were accused of fighting for pro-Russian groups, according to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Prague.

The five nationals were members of an armed organization and had relations with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), according to local media.

On April 18, the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats for alleged links to explosions at two warehouses in 2014 which prompted large-scale evacuations.

They included an explosion at an ammunition depot in the village of Vrbetice in the Zlin region of the Czech Republic that left two people dead and a second explosion at a nearby depot.

In a tit-for-tat move, Russia announced Sunday that it was expelling 20 Czech diplomats.

Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek called on Russia to review its decision, adding that otherwise the Czech Embassy in Moscow would not be able to continue its activities./aa

A Canadian judge granted a 14-week adjournment Wednesday in the extradition hearing of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou to give her defense time to review new documents.  

The adjournment was requested after Meng’s legal team reached an agreement with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. (HSBC) to access the documents, which may influence the hearing. The team hopes the evidence will result in an end to proceedings. 

“I wish now to make plain that the remainder of the proceedings…will be rescheduled to being on or around Aug. 3, 2021,” Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes said in a British Columbia courtroom as reported by CTV News. 

The judge also said after delivering her decision to adjourn that further delays would not be tolerated. 

The HSBC documents total thousands of pages and were ordered released by a Hong Kong court last week. 

Meng’s legal team said her lawyers in New York have already reviewed the documents and found evidence that may undermine the allegations of fraud against Meng. 

Meng is accused of violating US sanctions against Iran through misleading statements and outright lies. The Americans requested that she be extradited from Canada to face fraud charges. She has been under house arrest since December 2018 as the hearing proceeds. 

Meng’s lawyers maintain her rights were violated and Canadian authorities were more interested in appeasing the US than they were in being fair to the Huawei executive. 

At a hearing in late March, Meng’s legal team also accused both American and Canadian authorities of failing to conduct themselves honorably and transparently. 

The Crown – lawyers representing the Canadian government – opposed the adjournment, saying that Meng’s legal team was on a fishing expedition. 

The judge did not give reasons for granting the adjournment but said she will provide them later./aa

Kashmiris in Pakistan and both parts of the Kashmir valley marked the 73rd anniversary Wednesday of a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that established their right to self-determination. 

On this day in 1947, the UNSC committed that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute would be decided through a free and fair plebiscite. Pakistan on the occasion called for the resolution of the long-running dispute in accordance with the UNSC resolution.

"Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the adoption of UNSC Resolution 47, which clearly establishes the right to self-determination of people of Jammu and Kashmir to be exercised through the democratic method of a fair and impartial plebiscite," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It is unfortunate that this inalienable right has still not been given to Kashmiris to date, it added.

"We once again underscore the need to peacefully resolve the J&K dispute in accordance with Resolution(19 )47 and other relevant UNSC resolutions," the statement said, referring to at least 17 resolutions and memorandums adopted by the Security Council and the General Assembly during the last 73 years.

The picturesque valley has been a key bone of contention between Pakistan and India, two nuclear rivals that have fought three full-scale wars -- two of them over Kashmir in 1948 and 1965 -- in addition to the three week-long Kargil skirmish in 1999.

Disputed region

Already fraught relations between India and Pakistan further flared up when New Delhi scrapped special provisions of the disputed valley in August 2019.

The region from 1954 until Aug. 5, 2019, enjoyed a special status under the Indian Constitution which allowed it to enact its own laws.

The provisions also protected the region's citizenship law, which barred outsiders from settling in and owning land in the territory.

Both countries hold Kashmir in parts but claim it in full. China also controls a small sliver of the contested region.

Some Kashmiri groups have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have been killed and tortured in the conflict which flared up in 1989./aa

The European Union on Wednesday welcomed the global chemical watchdog’s decision to suspend rights and privileges of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, urging it to reveal its chemical weapons program.

“The European Union welcomes the Decision adopted today by the 25th Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) suspending the voting rights and privileges of the Syrian Arab Republic due to its failure to comply with the Convention,” said the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in a statement.

Calling the decision a strong message by the international community against impunity for the use of chemical weapons, he said that the convention is a key instrument of the global non-proliferation and disarmament architecture.

“The European Union has strongly condemned the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab Air Force in Ltamenah in March 2017 and Saraqib in February 2018, as concluded by the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team report,” he added.

He urged the Syrian regime to reveal the full extent of its chemical weapons program and return to full compliance with the convention.

He stressed the EU and its members will continue to work at the national and international levels addressing chemical weapons attacks and other atrocity crimes committed by the Syrian regime.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) determined that the regime used chemical weapons in al-Lataminah in March 2017 and in Saraqib in February 2018.


Member states of the global chemical watchdog on Wednesday voted to suspend rights and privileges of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, including the right to vote at the organization.

The decision stands out as the heaviest sanction the OPCW has ever imposed on a member state.

The OPCW, the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) based in The Hague, the Netherlands, with its 193-member states, oversees the global endeavor to permanently eliminate chemical weapons.

The Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons was previously confirmed by UN investigators as well as the OPCW.

The regime’s use of chlorine as a chemical weapon is a violation of its obligations under the CWC, to which it is a party, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2118./aa

A Black man was killed by a sheriff's deputy while executing a search warrant in Elizabeth City, North Carolina early Wednesday.

"During the execution of the search warrant, a citizen who was subject to the search warrant was shot and fatally wounded," the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

The deceased was identified as 40-year-old Andrew Brown, a father of 10 children, according to the Wavy news website.

"Brown got into his car and started to drive away, witnesses say. That’s when shots were fired by the deputy. Neighbors say they heard anywhere from 6 to 8 shots," Wavy reported.

North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation into the killing./aa

The crisis in Ethiopia's Tigray region enters its sixth month with no clear end in sight amid severe and ongoing child rights violations, the UN Children’s Fund has said.

"The crisis in Tigray has entered its sixth month with no clear end in sight," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said on Tuesday.

Elder said more than 1 million people have been displaced, and fighting continues in the Tigray region, while "access and security remain serious issues."

The Tigray region has come under the international spotlight after Nov. 4 last year when the Horn of African country launched a massive law enforcement operation against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

On Nov. 3, 2020, the TPLF forces attacked the Northern Command of the Ethiopian defense forces stationed in the Tigray regional state, including in the capital Mekele, killing soldiers and looting sizable military hardware.

On Nov. 28, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ended the military operation, but sporadic fighting continued in the state. Hundreds of thousands of people got displaced while more than 60,000 fled the fighting to neighboring Sudan.

"Children in Tigray have been hit by COVID-19, then conflict. That means 1.4 million children have been out of school for more than a full year [since March 2020]. Yes, not a day of school in 13 months," according to Elder.

He said he met a 16-year-old girl who fled fighting in the western part of Tigray, and walked – with her baby brother on her back – for 300 kilometers (186 miles).

"This is also an education and nutrition emergency," Elder said, adding that he saw extensive destruction to the systems and essential services on which children rely.

A decision to reopen schools, however, is contingent on security and rehabilitation works – the Education Ministry estimates that up to 25% of schools have been damaged, and reopening schools requires relocation of the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons who are currently sheltering in school premises – according to Elder./aa

CANAKKALE, Turkey 

The Turkish Coast Guard rescued at least 18 asylum seekers off the coast of Canakkale province early Wednesday after they were pushed back to Turkish territorial waters by Greece, said a security source.

The coast guard teams took action upon receiving information that there was a group of foreign national asylum seekers on a boat off Ayvacik district, said the source, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

They were taken to the shore and transferred to the provincial repatriation center, it added.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution./aa