BERLIN (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators in southern Germany protested against coronavirus restrictions over the weekend, police said on Sunday, although organisers failed to mobilise enough people for a planned human chain around Lake Constance.

Thousands of counter-demonstrators in Constance also turned out to show support for the government's measures to contain the coronavirus while also protesting against right-wing supporters in the other group, police said.

Overall, police counted between 10,500 and 11,000 people taking part in the different demonstrations on Saturday and the two-day protests continued on Sunday with sunny weather likely to draw in further participants, a police spokesman said.

"So far, the situation is calm," the police spokesman added.

Organizers of the protests against coronavirus curbs had initially hoped to mobilize more than 200,000 people.

Local authorities had imposed restrictions such as respecting social distancing to avoid further infections. They also banned the use of Germany's imperial Reichsflagge, a symbol used by neo-Nazis and other far-right groups as an alternative to the forbidden swastika flag.

The marches have attracted a mixed crowd of civil rights activists and people who oppose vaccinations, as well as neo-Nazis and members of far-right groups including the opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

During mass marches against coronavirus curbs in Berlin in late August, protesters stormed the steps of the Reichstag parliament building, some of them holding far-right Reichsflagge. The images went around the world and were condemned by leading German politicians.

Germany so far has managed the COVID-19 pandemic relatively well by keeping infections and deaths low compared to other European countries during the first wave in spring.

But infection numbers are rising again and authorities are mulling further restrictions which could limit public life and slow down the economic recovery after Germany suffered its worst recession on record in the first half of the year.

Egypt executed 13 people who allegedly had close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, opposition-backed media reported Sunday.

The authorities carried out the death sentences of the imprisoned political dissidents, Watan TV, known for its links to the organization, said on Facebook.

According to the state-run Akhbar al-Yawm newspaper, four people were executed.

On Saturday, the Egyptian Interior Ministry carried out the death sentences of Yasser Abasiri, 49, and Yasser Shakr, 45, who had been detained during protests against the 2013 military putsch that deposed the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

The two were held in Tora prison in southern Cairo, which is known as the country’s most fortified jail, after their trial in the case publicly known as the “Library of Alexandria” case./ agencies

ANKARA 

Turkey on Sunday said members of the PKK/YPG terror group collaborating with Armenian terrorists in Upper Karabakh should leave the region immediately.

"PKK/YPG terrorists collaborating with Armenian terrorists who target innocent civilians must leave the region immediately, otherwise, as always, they will be once again disappointed,'' ministry spokeswoman Nadide Sebnem Aktop told reporters in the capital Ankara.

Dismissing Armenian claims that Turkish aircraft and drones had been deployed in the region, Aktop said nobody except Yerevan's supporters took those assertions seriously.

She stressed that Turkey would continue to always stand with brotherly country Azerbaijan.

Fighting began on Sept. 27 when Armenian forces targeted Azerbaijani civilian settlements and military positions, leading to casualties.

Upper Karabakh conflict

Relations between the two former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

Multiple UN resolutions, as well as many international organizations, demand the withdrawal of the invading forces.

The OSCE Minsk Group -- co-chaired by France, Russia and the US -- was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. A cease-fire, however, was agreed upon in 1994.

Many world powers including Russia, France, and the US have urged an immediate cease-fire. Turkey, meanwhile, has supported Baku's right to self-defense.

Anti-terror operations and FETO

During the press conference, Aktop underlined that Turkish forces had neutralized 953 terrorists in 2020 so far, including 128 since September.

Turkish authorities often use "neutralized" to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.

The YPG is the PKK's branch in Syria, just across Turkey's southern border.

Aktop also added that a total of 20,312 staff had been dismissed since the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, adding that judicial process was ongoing for 3,798.

FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated a defeated coup on July 15, 2016 which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Turkey also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary./aa

ANKARA

The Turkish parliament's speaker on Sunday condemned Armenia's shelling in Azerbaijan's second largest city of Ganja.

"The attack in Azerbaijan's historical city of Ganja is the latest example of Armenia's unlawful and occupant attitude," Mustafa Sentop tweeted.

"I condemn this attack towards civilians, I wish success to the Azerbaijani army that is fighting for their country heroically."

Occupied Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, he added.

Sentop also criticized the OSCE Minsk Group -- co-chaired by France, Russia and the US -- which he said "hesitates to find a fair solution for Armenia's occupation in Azerbaijani territories," for its silence on the attack.

He called on the body to end its double standards towards Azerbaijan.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

New clashes erupted on Sept. 27 but international calls for a halt to the fighting have gone unanswered. Armenia has continued its attacks on civilians and Azerbaijani forces, who are the rightful owners of the occupied region.

The OSCE Minsk Group was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. A cease-fire was agreed upon in 1994./aa

KABUL, Afghanistan

At least four prominent individuals were killed in Afghanistan on Sunday as the country's rights commission expressed anxiety over a surge in targeted assassinations.

The Defense Ministry confirmed that two officers of its legal department were assassinated in the capital Kabul in the early morning hours, while Hamdullah Arbab, a prominent member of the Access to Information Commission, and Zarifa Ghafari, the female mayor of Maidan city, survived similar attacks.

Elsewhere, prominent tribal leader Fazal Khan was killed by a magnetic bomb that exploded in the eastern Paktia province, according to the Interior Ministry, while well-known religious figure Mawlawi Enayatullah was assassinated in the northeastern province of Takhar.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.

Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) expressed concern over increasingly frequent targeted civilian killings across the country.

In a statement released Sunday, the AIHRC said their findings showed that in the first six months of this year, 533 people had been killed and 412 injured in systematic and targeted assassinations.

"News of targeted attacks on activists, government officials, religious scholars and other civilians every day. This has created an environment of anxiety and fear, at the time when we most need to engage, mobilize, raise our voices and shape our peace process. Extremely worrying," tweeted AIHRC chairwoman Shaharzad Akbar.

The rights commission found that in the southern Kandahar province alone, 122 civilians, including seven women, were killed from Feb. 19 to Sep. 20, 2020. Another 73 were wounded.

This comes as representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban continue to engage in agenda-setting talks for landmark intra-Afghan talks in the Qatari capital Doha since Sep. 12 as part of a previous US-Taliban deal./aa

TRIPOLI

A Stockholm-based human rights group on Sunday condemned the arrest of a Libyan activist in the city of Benghazi by militias loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar. 

In a statement, Skyline International said it has “testimonies indicting that security personnel affiliated with the so-called "Criminal Investigation Service" arrested Majdi al-Khashmi several days ago, due to his public views on social media”.

The watchdog voiced concern over violating the rights of activists and civilians in Libya, particularly in areas controlled by Haftar’s forces.

"The arrest of Al-Khashmi and other activists gravely reflects the repressive attitude of the National Army forces against any peaceful civil opposition and expresses its awful record of violating freedom of opinion and expression and public freedoms,” it said.

The rights group called for the immediate release of the Libyan activists and for piling pressure on Haftar’s forces “to respect freedom of opinion and expression and the rule of law, stop the continuous violations of public freedoms and adhere to international human rights standards”.

On Aug. 21, the Libyan government announced a truce and ordered its military to stop operations against Haftar's militias. However, the Libyan army has since reported several breaches of the cease-fire by the militias.

Libya has been torn by civil war since the ouster of late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

VAN/BATMAN, Turkey(AA)

At least 148 irregular migrants were held in eastern and southeastern Turkey, local sources said on Sunday.

As part of probe into migrant smuggling and human trafficking, local gendarmerie forces conducted an operation in Van province where they found the migrants in a minivan, said the Governor's Office. 

While two of the migrants were found dead inside the overcrowded vehicle, remaining 70 migrants were held by the security teams. 

The asylum seekers included 37 Pakistani, 33 Afghan and two Iraqi nationals.

At least three human smuggling suspects, identified by the initials C.O., S.H. and H.O., were arrested. 

Separately, security teams in southeastern Batman province identified 78 irregular migrants of Afghan and Pakistani origin.

Security sources said the migrants were on board two buses. 

While four drivers were arrested for human smuggling, migrants were sent to local migration office.

Turkey has been a key transit point for irregular migrants aiming to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.

LONDON (Reuters) - Supermarkets, food manufacturers and restaurant chains under pressure from campaigners over their environmental impact urged Britain on Monday to strengthen a plan to stop tropical forests from being cut down to grow cocoa, palm oil and soy.

With the food industry under growing scrutiny for its role in driving deforestation in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia, Britain is drawing up legislation to force the sector to tighten oversight of its supply chains.

In an open letter here, some 20 large companies welcomed the plans as a "step forward" but said "it's not currently envisioned to be enough to halt deforestation and we encourage the government to go further to ... address this issue."

Signatories included supermarkets Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s, food manufacturers Unilever, Nestle and Greencore Group, McDonald’s Corp and various livestock producers.

Britain’s move to introduce legal penalties for companies found to be complicit in deforestation aims to improve upon a range of voluntary, industry-led initiatives that have faced widespread criticism from environmental groups.

Companies say they would prefer clear direction from governments that would create standard rules rather than navigating the existing maze of voluntary intiatives.

Under the proposed legislation, large companies would have to report on how they source tropical commodities. The companies would also be banned from using products that are harvested illegally in their country of origin.

But the supermarkets and food companies who signed the letter say the proposed new law has a major loophole: farmers in developing countries can often clear forests to grow cash crops for export without breaking any laws.

The companies want the new British rules to apply to all deforestation - not just in cases where the destruction is illegal.

“The proposed legislation would continue to allow rampant deforestation in hotspots such as Indonesia and Brazil,” said Robin Willoughby, UK director of campaign group Mighty Earth.

Companies are also concerned that the legislation would not apply to smaller firms who may import considerable amounts of products, such as rubber, from sensitive forest regions.

Cyril Kormos, executive director of Wild Heritage, a nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, said a more comprehensive overhaul of forest management rules globally would be needed to reverse the loss of old-growth forests, whose stores of carbon form bastions to slow climate change.

“Deforestation pledges only go so far,” Kormos said. “We need an equivalent focus on ending degradation of primary forests.”

CARACAS (Reuters) - The final tanker in a flotilla of three Iranian fuel tankers docked at eastern Venezuela’s Guaraguao port on Sunday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and a person familiar with the matter, as President Nicolas Maduro promised to normalize fuel supply in the gasoline-starved country.

The three tankers, which began arriving last week, brought some 820,000 barrels of fuel to the South American country, where severe shortages of gasoline -- as well as unreliable power, water and cooking gas supplies -- have led to a wave of protests in the neglected interior in recent weeks.

The shortages come as state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela’s once-formidable 1.3 million barrel per day (bpd) refining network has all but collapsed, although two refineries have for the past week been producing around 50,000 bpd of gasoline.

Maduro last week announced a new rationing plan, set to begin on Monday, in which authorities would distribute fuel according to motorists’ license plate numbers.

“Tomorrow, October 5, the plan to normalize and restart the gasoline distribution situation begins,” Maduro said in a Sunday state television address. “We have in the last week managed to produce the gasoline and other products Venezuela needs, in addition to the good quantity of gasoline that has arrived from abroad.”

The Faxon entered Venezuelan waters on Saturday and docked at the Guaraguao fuel port, which is connected to the Puerto La Cruz refinery, on Sunday afternoon, according to the person familiar with the matter. The other tankers are docked at refineries in the west and central regions of Venezuela.

Iran and Venezuela have intensified economic cooperation this year as the United States ramped up sanctions on both countries’ oil industries.