Worldly News Online

By Sarah RainsfordBBC News Minsk, Belarus Maria Kolesnikova has spent the past 11 months in a tiny cell, only allowed out for an hour's exercise each day. But when the opposition activist appeared in court this week, she was dancing. Together with fellow activist Maxim Znak she's been declared a threat to national security and accused of plotting to seize power. But as their trial began on Wednesday, Maria Kolesnikova was defiantly cheerful, smiling broadly at state TV cameras and making heart-shapes with her hands from inside a cage surrounded by armed guards. Ahead of the hearing, Maxim Znak told the BBC that he is innocent and argued that closing the trial, supposedly for security reasons, underlines that. 'I didn't do anything,' he wrote in an exclusive interview from prison. 'There is only one reason to hide supposedly criminal public calls from the public (and from me too, so far) - and that's that they don't exist,' Mr Znak said. ...

OTTAWA -- Ottawa Public Health is reporting seven more people in Ottawa have tested positive for COVID-19, a slight uptick over previous reports in the past week. OPH reported five new cases on Saturday, following three days of net zero case increases and one day where the total decreased by one. The new cases Sunday bring Ottawa's pandemic total to 27,741 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. No new deaths were reported on Sunday. The pandemic has claimed the lives of 593 residents of Ottawa. Across Ontario, officials reported another 177 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday and said six more Ontarians have died due to the virus. The number of resolved cases was lower than the number of new cases, with 166 newly resolved infections, meaning the active case count in the province went up slightly. Public Health Ontario added five cases to its total for Ottawa on Sunday. Figures from OPH often differ from Public Health Ontario's because the two healt...