U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have described their first meeting in Washington as the beginning of a new era in relations. Erdogan’s visit to Washington comes just two weeks after the United States announced it will arm Syrian Kurds to facilitate their advance on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. Turkey is fiercely opposed to the plan, saying Syrian Kurds are linked to a Kurdish terrorist organization in Turkey. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Amnesty International has launched a campaign to highlight what it says is a dramatically worsening situation for human rights activists across the globe. The group hopes its ‘Brave’ campaign will persuade governments to live up to their United Nations treaty commitments on protecting human rights defenders.
Amnesty says attacks on human rights activists across the world have reached a crisis point. Figures from the campaign group Front Line Defenders show 281 people were killed in 2016 for defending human rights, compared to 156 the year before. Guadalupe Marengo, head of Amnesty’s Human Rights Defenders Program, said authorities must take action now.
“In the current context of us versus them, of demonization, of a full frontal attack actually I would say on human rights, it is crucial that we take stock and that we call on the authorities to stop these attacks immediately,” said Marengo.
In Russia, Amnesty says the persecution of human rights activists is accelerating with the ban on non-governmental organizations.
Protests earlier this month marked the anniversary of demonstrations against President Vladimir Putin. Several human rights campaigners have been jailed. Opposition political activist Gennady Gudkov spoke at the protest in Moscow. He said the state’s actions were serving to provoke the opposition and its backers into a tougher resistance, while also showing that the law in Russia is worth nothing.
Amnesty’s Marengo said a copycat effect appears to be taking hold across some countries in the treatment of activists.
“Only in the last week or so, Hungary is trying to have a bill similar to the one that Russia has, where it’s going to be very difficult to form associations and fight for human rights if you’re getting funding from external sources,” said Marengo.
Turkey is accused of an unwarranted clampdown on human rights following last year’s failed coup. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested or fired from their jobs. Ankara claims they are part of a large anti-government plot.
As well as arrests, abductions and killings, Amnesty says human rights defenders across the globe are attacked using online tools. Surveillance tools are used to track activity. Smear campaigns are launched on social media to cultivate hostility.
“They are accused of being terrorists; they are accused of being criminals, they are accused of defending ‘immorality,’” said Marengo.
Amnesty hopes its ‘Brave’ campaign will highlight the worsening situation for many human rights activists worldwide – who it claims are often the last line of defense in a free society.
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French President Emmanuel Macron spent his first full day in office traveling to Germany, telling Chancellor Angela Merkel he wants to work closely with her to create “deep reforms” to the European Union.
Macron said in Berlin Monday there must be a “less bureaucratic” Europe and that he is ready to change EU treaties if needed.
He also said France will push for economic reforms in the country to bring down unemployment and implement a reform agenda “not because Europe requests it, but because France needs it.”
Macron said he does not favor European countries taking joint responsibility for old debts and that he has never pushed for jointly issued eurobonds. Germany, which has Europe’s largest economy, has always opposed taking direct responsibility for weaker EU countries’ debts.
Merkel told Macron “Europe will only do well if there is a strong France, and I am committed to that.”
The German chancellor said she and Macron agreed to develop a medium-term road map on how to deepen European Union integration. She said Germany would also be willing to change EU treaties if the changes make sense. But the two countries should first work on what they want to reform, she added.
She said the French and German governments would hold a meeting on key issues in July.
The visit to Germany marked Macron’s first foreign trip after his inauguration on Sunday, continuing a tradition of French presidents making their first international trip to Germany.
In his inaugural address, Macron vowed to restore France’s place in Europe and the world.
Macron, a centrist, was elected last week, defeating anti-EU, anti-immigrant candidate Marine Le Pen. The campaign exposed deep splits in France over the country’s role in Europe.
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The Trump administration has tapped the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, days before President Donald Trump embarks on his first foreign trip.
Trump will nominate Callista Gingrich for the post, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said Monday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before an official announcement.
Trump’s foreign trip this month includes a stop at the Vatican.
Callista Gingrich is president of Gingrich Productions and has produced a number of documentaries, including one about Pope John Paul II.
She also served on the House Committee on Agriculture, where she worked as chief clerk until 2007. She was a key figure in her husband’s 2012 bid for the Republican nomination.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s vision for foreign relations and diplomacy has been starkly different to that promoted by the vastly popular Pope Francis. Francis has spoken of the need for bridges between nations, while Trump has advocated for walls and travel restrictions as a means of national security.
Francis has previously remarked that anyone who wants to build walls to keep migrants out is “not Christian.”
Francis also has called for an end to the use of fossil fuels, while Trump has pledged to cancel payments to U.N. climate change programs and pull out of the Paris climate accord.
But both share a populist appeal and speak with a down-to-earth simplicity that has endeared them to their bases of supporters. And both share a common concern about the plight of Christians in the Middle East at the hands of Islamic militants.
Speaking to reporters while traveling home Saturday from a trip to Portugal, Francis said he would listen respectfully to what Trump has to say when the two meet later this month. Trump will call on Francis mid-way through his first foreign trip, after visiting Saudi Arabia and Israel and before attending a NATO summit in Brussels and a G7 summit in Italy.
“I never make a judgment about a person without hearing him out,” the pope said.
Read MoreThe European Union is pressing Venezuela’s government and opposition groups to resume negotiations toward peacefully resolving the political crisis that has convulsed the country for nearly two months.
In a statement issued Monday, the EU repeated concerns it had expressed last July seeking “an urgent, constructive and effective dialogue.”
The EU’s current statement calls for “all Venezuelan political actors and institutions to work in a constructive manner” and to “avoid violent acts.” Since early April, at least 38 people have died and many more have been injured in clashes between opponents and backers of President Nicolas Maduro’s government. The EU statement called for investigating “all incidents of violence.”
Dissatisfied Venezuelans have taken to the streets to demand that the socialist Maduro schedule long-delayed elections, release political prisoners and permit the delivery of humanitarian aid. Their demonstrations, and those of Maduro’s backers, have escalated since the government-friendly Venezuelan Supreme Court’s late-March attempt to strip the National Assembly of its legislative powers and since Maduro’s May 1 call for a new constitution.
The EU has a direct stake in the conflict, its statement noted, “with more than 600,000 European citizens” living in Venezuela. The EU said it “reiterates its readiness to cooperate with the Venezuelan authorities” to ensure their safety.
Protests continue
On Monday, responding to a call for a nationwide sit-in, activists again barricaded streets and highways with lawn chairs, tree limbs and garbage.
“I’m here for the full 12 hours” of the sit-in, which started at 7 a.m., human resources worker Anelin Rojas, 30, told Reuters news service while perched cross-legged with a novel in the middle of Caracas’ main highway. “And I’ll be back every day there’s a protest, for as long as is necessary. Unfortunately, we are up against a dictatorship.”
Appeals to troops
Maduro repeatedly has accused the United States of leading an attempt to overthrow his government. He has ordered troops to block opposition marches, using equipment including tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.
On Sunday, Maduro opponents sought to win over the troops to their way of thinking.
Dozens of women in black converged on the National Guard’s headquarters in Caracas, in a Mother’s Day appeal to the country’s armed forces to “listen to your mothers” and set aside weapons.
“Today, Venezuelan mothers have come to talk to the soldiers, to the National Guard, at all the barracks in Venezuela,” said former National Assembly lawmaker Maria Corina Machado, according to Reuters. These women are telling soldiers “not to obey orders from the dictatorship, from the dictator who has robbed food and brought blood to his country. Listen to your mothers!”
Separately, the head of the opposition-led National Assembly also urged security forces toward conversation, not combat.
Maduro “is pushing you as an institution to ignore the constitutional order of Venezuela and you have to stop that situation,” Julio Borges, the lawmaker, said at a news conference Sunday.
VOA Spanish Service correspondent Alvaro Algarra contributed to this report from Caracas.
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The worldwide “ransomware” cyberattacks appeared to ease Monday, although thousands more computers, mostly in Asia, were hit as people signed in at work for the first time since the infections spread to 150 countries three days ago.
Health officials in Britain, where surgeries and doctors’ appointments in its national health care system had been severely impacted Friday, were still having problems Monday. But health minister Jeremy Hunt said it was “encouraging” that a second wave of attacks had not materialized.
He said “the level of criminal activity is at the lower end of the range that we had anticipated.”
In the United States, Tom Bossert, a homeland security adviser to President Donald Trump, told the ABC television network the global cybersecurity attack is something that “for right now, we’ve got under control.”
But he described the malware that paralyzed 200,000 computers running factories, banks, government agencies, hospitals and transportation systems across the globe as an “extremely serious threat.”
Cybersecurity experts say the unknown hackers behind the “WannaCry” ransomware attacks, who demanded $300 payments to decrypt files locked by the malware, used a vulnerability that came from U.S. government documents leaked online. The attacks exploited known vulnerabilities in older Microsoft computer operating systems.
During the weekend, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the clandestine U.S. National Security Agency had developed the code used in the attack.
Bossert said “criminals,” not the U.S. government, are responsible for the attacks. Experts believe Microsoft’s security patch released in March should protect networks if companies and individual users install it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had nothing to do with the attack and cited the Microsoft statement blaming the NSA for causing the worldwide cyberattack.
“A genie let out of a bottle of this kind, especially created by secret services, can then cause damage to its authors and creators,” Putin said while attending an international summit in Beijing. He said that while there was “no significant damage” to Russian institutions from the cyberattack, the incident was “worrisome.”
“There is nothing good in this and calls for concern,” he said.
Even though there appeared to be a diminished number of attacks Monday, computer outages still affected segments of life across the globe, especially in Asia, where Friday’s attacks occurred after business hours.
China
China said 29,000 institutions had been affected, along with hundreds of thousands of devices. Japan’s computer emergency response team said 2,000 computers at 600 locations were affected there.
Universities and other educational institutions appeared to be the hardest hit in China. China’s Xinhua News Agency said railway stations, mail delivery, gas stations, hospitals, office buildings, shopping malls and government services also were affected.
Elsewhere, Britain said seven of the 47 trusts that run its national health care system were still affected, with some surgeries and outpatient appointments canceled as a result. In France, auto manufacturer Renault said one of its plants that employs 3,500 workers stayed shut Monday as technicians dealt with the aftermath of the Friday attacks.
Security patches
Computer security experts have assured individual computer users who have kept their operating systems updated that they are relatively safe, but urged companies and governments to make sure they apply security patches or upgrade to newer systems.
They advised those whose networks have been effectively shut down by the ransomware attack not to make the payment demanded, the equivalent of $300, paid in the digital currency bitcoin.
However, the authors of the “WannaCry” ransomware attack told their victims the amount they must pay will double if they do not comply within three days of the original infection, by Monday in most cases. The hackers warned that they will delete all files on infected systems if no payment is received within seven days.
Read MoreAustria’s junior government coalition partner chose a new leader Sunday and gave him the unprecedented authority he demanded as a condition for leading his party into expected early elections this fall.
Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz told reporters that senior officials of his People’s Party agreed to let him choose all ministers of any government he would head, as well as to nominate candidates for parliament that would include party outsiders.
Speaking after a closed meeting, Kurz said that the gathering also agreed to contest at least the next elections under a name change. Instead of the People’s Party, Kurz and other candidates would now run under the “List Sebastian Kurz – the new People’s Party.”
“We have decided to start a movement,” Kurz told reporters. “We’re going to rely on proven forces from within the People’s Party, but at the same time we’re going to bring new people on board.”
The power grab is significant in a party where provincial governors have historically had an outsize say in running federal affairs, including pushing through ministerial appointments and overriding major policy decisions by the federal leader.
With few exceptions, that has led party heads to resign in frustration in recent decades. The latest, Reinhold Mitterlehner, threw in the towel Wednesday after less than three years as party leader and vice chancellor.
The center-right People’s Party is now a distant third among voters. But Kurz, a telegenic 30-year old, regularly tops political popularity polls.
That is due in part for his embrace of a harder line on immigrants and other positions of the right-wing Freedom Party, which leads in voter support. But he avoids that party’s xenophobic polemics, as he walks the line between keeping People’s Party supporters and attracting Freedom Party backers.
Acceptance of Kurz’s demands reflects recognition by the party’s power-brokers that refusal would mean an almost certain slide in voter support.
The often cantankerous People’s Party-Social Democratic coalition has shown increased signs of fraying over the past months. Still, Social Democratic Chancellor Christian Kern had resisted People’s Party calls to move up elections from next year.
But as People’s Party officials gathered Sunday he told state broadcaster ORF: “I assume that there will certainly be an election this fall.”
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Paris bid leaders want to capitalize on the sense of optimism surrounding new President Emmanuel Macron to beat Los Angeles and secure the Olympic Games in 2024 — not 2028.
With the IOC currently assessing a proposal to award the next two Olympics — one to each city — Paris officials insist the French capital city is the right choice for 2024.
The 39-year-old Macron, France’s youngest-ever president, officially took office on Sunday as the IOC evaluation commission started a three-day visit to Paris.
“Our team has a new member, the new President of France, Emmanuel Macron,” bid leader Tony Estanguet said on Sunday. “He’s been a fantastic supporter of our bid from the beginning. He will be with us all the way to Lima and hopefully beyond.”
Los Angeles and Paris are the only two bidders left for the 2024 Games, which will be awarded in September at a meeting of Olympic leaders in Peru. The race began with five cities, but Rome, Hamburg, Germany, and Budapest, Hungary, all pulled out.
The IOC has four vice presidents looking into the prospect of awarding the 2024 and 2028 Games at the same time in September.
“We have one goal during these few days: to convince you that Paris is the right city, with the right vision, at the right moment,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said. “The right city with world-class venues and accommodation, and the best public transport in the world, ready right now.”
International Olympic Committee members were in Los Angeles earlier this week to meet with the U.S. bid leaders and inspect their planned venues. While Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appeared at least willing to consider hosting the 2028 Olympics if the city isn’t awarded its first choice of 2024, Hidalgo said Paris is set for the earlier edition.
“With financial and political stability and support, we are ready right now,” Hidalgo said. “At the right moment, as the no risk option.”
Patrick Baumann, the chair of the IOC evaluation commission, said Sunday’s discussions with Paris leaders focused solely on their project for 2024.
“Right now we are still in a process where we assess a potential candidacy for 2024,” Baumann told a press conference. “2024-2028 was not a matter of discussion.”
The French government has pledged one billion euros ($1.1 billion) of support for the Paris bid and Macron is expected to confirm that amount. If Paris is awarded the 2024 Games, the infrastructure budget is expected to total 3 billion euros, with operational costs of 3.2 billion euros.
Paris is also betting on the compactness of its plans to make the difference. According to the bid dossier, 84 percent of the athletes will be able to reach their competition venues in less than 25 minutes, and more than 70 percent of the proposed venues are existing facilities, with a further 25 percent relying on temporary structures.
Paris, which last staged the Olympics in 1924, failed in bids for the 1992, 2008, and 2012 Games.
With the pro-business and pro-EU Macron, Paris bid leaders have a strong supporter. The new president has already thrown his weight behind Paris’ bid, telling IOC President Thomas Bach over the phone of its “expected benefits for all French people.”
Macron did not attend Sunday’s night gala dinner with IOC members in Paris but invited the evaluation commission on Tuesday to the Elysee Palace before they leave.
Meanwhile, the Paris team added another high-profile figure to their list of backers on Sunday as it unveiled France soccer great Zinedine Zidane as their latest ambassador.
“I was involved in several bids, but this one is really close to our hearts,” said Zidane, who also supported the Qatar bid to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup and was involved in Paris’s 2008 and 2012 failed bids.
IOC members started their visit with a full day of discussions on Paris’ proposals that will be followed by venue visits on Monday and further meetings on the final day.
“Our friends of Paris 2024 presented us with an exceptional and well detailed bid presentation,” Baumann said. “We have two cities with a wonderful Olympic spirit. It’s difficult to give them less than 10 out of 10.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives defeated their center-left rivals in a key state election Sunday in the country’s most populous region.
Exit polls showed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union with a strong surge of support in North Rhine-Westphalia, the home state and traditional stronghold of her chief rival, Social Democrat Martin Schulz, who is challenging the German leader in the national election in late September.
Schulz conceded Sunday’s loss, saying, “This is a difficult day for the Social Democrats, a difficult day for me personally as well. I come from the state in which we took a really stinging defeat today.”
He urged his party to focus on the September 24 vote, saying, “We will sharpen our profile further. We have to as well.”
The exit polls showed the Christian Democrats winning 34.5 percent of the vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, home to 17.9 million people, nearly a quarter of the German population, with the Social Democrats at 30.5 percent. Other parties trailed far behind the two leaders.
The conservatives’ general-secretary, Peter Tauber, said the Christian Democratic Union “has won the heartland of the Social Democrats.”
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Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $124 billion Sunday for his ambitious new Silk Road plan to forge a path of peace, inclusiveness and free trade, and called for the abandonment of old models based on rivalry and diplomatic power games.
China has touted what it formally calls the Belt and Road initiative as a new way to boost global development since Xi unveiled the plan in 2013, aiming to expand links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond underpinned by billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.
China’s most important diplomatic event of the year, the two-day summit offers Xi another chance to bolster China’s global leadership ambitions as U.S. President Donald Trump promotes “America First” and questions existing global free trade initiatives like NAFTA.
Trade and economic development
“We should build an open platform of cooperation and uphold and grow an open world economy,” Xi told the opening of the summit.
Xi said the world must create conditions that promote open development and encourage the building of systems of “fair, reasonable and transparent global trade and investment rules.”
“Trade is the important engine of economic development,” Xi said.
He said the world must promote the multilateral trade system, the establishment of free trade regions, and the facilitation of free trade.
Big funding boost
Xi pledged a massive funding boost to the new Silk Road, including an extra 100 billion yuan ($14.50 billion) into the existing Silk Road Fund, 380 billion in loans from two policy banks and 60 billion yuan in aid to developing countries and international institutions in new Silk Road countries.
In addition, Xi said China would encourage financial institutions to expand their overseas yuan fund businesses to the tune of 300 billion yuan.
Xi did not give a timeframe for the new loans, aid and funding pledged Sunday. Leaders from 29 countries are attending the forum, which ends Monday.
Western unease
Some Western diplomats have expressed unease about both the summit and the plan as a whole, seeing it as an attempt to promote Chinese influence globally.
China has rejected criticism of the plan and the summit, saying the scheme is open to all, is a win-win, and aimed only at promoting prosperity.
“What we hope to create is a big family of harmonious co-existence,” Xi said, adding pursuit of the initiative will not resort to outdated geopolitical maneuvering.
“China is willing to share its development experience with all countries. We will not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. We will not export our system of society and development model, and even more will not impose our views on others,” Xi said.
“In advancing the Belt and Road, we will not retread the old path of games between foes,” he said. “Instead we will create a new model of cooperation and mutual benefit.”
Xi: Road open to all
Xi said the new Silk Road would be open to all, including Africa and the Americas, which are not situated on the traditional Silk Road.
“No matter if they are from Asia and Europe, or Africa or the Americas, they are all cooperative partners in building the Belt and Road,” he said.
Some of China’s most reliable allies and partners are at the forum, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
There are also several European leaders attending, including the prime ministers of Spain, Italy, Greece and Hungary.
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Former President Mauno Koivisto, who in the 1980s and 1990s guided Finland from the shadow of the crumbling Soviet Union and into the European Union, has died at a hospital in Helsinki. He was 93.
The office of the Finnish presidency announced the death early Saturday. Koivisto’s wife, Tellervo, said earlier this year that he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
The son of a ship’s carpenter, Koivisto, a Social Democrat, served two six-year presidential terms between 1982 and 1994, a tumultuous period that followed the 25-year presidential reign of Urho Kekkonen. He earlier served twice as prime minister, from 1968 to 1970 and 1979 to 1982.
Koivisto is widely credited as president with strengthening the role of parliament, after his nationalist predecessor consolidated much political power within the office of the presidency.
Koivisto is also broadly acknowledged for building strong ties with the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, while also establishing rapport with U.S. President George H.W. Bush as Europe began in the late 1980s to witness the beginning of the end of communism. He also maintained strong ties with Bush’s predecessor, Ronald Reagan.
In a statement Saturday, President Sauli Niinisto described Koivisto as a leader in “the generation that took part in wars and [the] following rebuilding, and which guided Finland to the path of current success and well-being.”
In his last interview four years ago, Koivisto was asked by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper to summarize what he viewed as important in life.
“In life, it is generally wise to trust that everything will go well. It often pays off, even if you wouldn’t have believed” it would, he said.
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Portugal’s Salvador Sobral won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday with a gentle romantic ballad that challenged the event’s decades-long reputation for cheesy, glittery excess.
Sobral sang his Amar Pelos Dois (Love For Both) in a high, clear tenor accompanied by quiet strings and a piano. Unlike the 25 other competitors who performed on a wide stage backed by flashing lights, bursts of flames and other effects, Sobral sang from a small elevated circle in the middle of the crowd, an intimate contrast to others’ bombast.
“Music is not fireworks, music is feeling,” he said while accepting the award.
Runner-up Kristian Kostov of Bulgaria wasn’t short on feeling — his power-ballad “Beautiful Mess” was awash in melodrama, the singer appearing almost wrung out by romantic turmoil.
Moldova’s Sunstroke Project finished a surprising third, with a bouncy, jazzy song called “Hey Mama”‘ that featured a clever stage routine in which the female backup singers hid their microphones in bridal bouquets.
Francesco Gabbani of Italy had led bookmakers’ tallies for most of the days leading up to the final, but he ended up placing sixth even though his act seemed the epitome of Eurovision’s cheerfully tacky aesthetics — singing a driving number about spirituality while accompanied by someone in a gorilla suit.
Eurovision, in its 62nd year, is aimed at apolitical entertainment. But the sweet intentions were soured this year when Russia’s participation was scuttled by host Ukraine over the two nations’ diplomatic and military conflict.
Russia is one of Eurovision’s heavy hitters, tied with Sweden for the most top-five finishes this century. But this year’s Russian entrant, Yuliya Samoylova, was blocked from competing by Ukraine because she had toured in Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula.
In response, Russia’s state-owned Channel 1 television is refusing to broadcast the contest, replacing Saturday’s final with a screening of the film “Alien.”
The Moscow-Kyiv split is a headache for Eurovision’s producer, the European Broadcasting Union, which strives mightily to keep pop and politics separate. Overtly political flags and banners are banned, and lyrics are monitored for provocative content.
In 2009, the EBU nixed the Georgian entry “We Don’t Wanna Put In,” a dig at Russian President Vladimir Putin. The union, however, has been criticized for not barring “1944” last year, allowing Russia-Ukraine tensions to fester.
The acrimony is ironic, since Eurovision was founded in 1956 to bring the recently warring countries of Europe together. It launched a year before the foundation of the European Economic Community, forerunner of the European Union.
From its launch with seven countries, Eurovision has grown to include more than 40, including non-European nations such as Israel and — somewhat controversially — far-off Australia.
The contest helped launch the careers of Sweden’s ABBA — victors in 1974 with “Waterloo” — Canada’s Celine Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988, and Irish high-steppers Riverdance, the halftime entertainment in 1994.
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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is heading to China Sunday to join leaders of 27 other nations at the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) summit in Beijing.
The massive China-led project aims to revive the ancient Silk Road and maritime trade routes by expanding investment in infrastructure linking Asia, Africa and Europe.
While China plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in the ambitious vision, few details have been made clear on how the project will proceed.
Russia wants investment
A lack of specifics and long-term prospects for the project has led some observers to conclude China’s new Silk Road so far is about politics and symbolism. But analysts in Moscow say Russia is mainly in it for the money.
“First, Russia’s economy desires foreign investments and it hopes to get some funds through OBOR,” said Petr Topychkanov of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Second, Russia wants to bring new drive to the dying Eurasian Economic Union by connecting it with OBOR. Third, Russia wants to compensate the vanished economic agenda of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) with the Chinese-led OBOR. Fourth, Russia wants to make European countries more nervous with the prospects of Russian-Chinese economic cooperation.”
China in the last few years has invested more than $300 billion in projects in One Belt, One Road countries, and Chinese officials say more than 50 agreements will be signed at next week’s meetings in Beijing.
Leaders attending the summit include the other two founding members of the struggling Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Belarus and Kazakhstan.
“Russian interest in the OBOR project in general is attracting additional Chinese investment into the Russian infrastructure and industry sectors,” said Vasily Kashin, a senior research fellow at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “Russia is also trying to achieve a high level of coordination between the Chinese OBOR policy and the Russian policy concerning the Eurasian Economic Union.”
Russia established the EAEU in 2015 with the aim of integrating economies of former Soviet states. However, critics say the Kremlin uses the group for geopolitics and influence, and other members have shown little interest in deepening economic ties.
Russia looking east?
Western sanctions against Russia over its military involvement in Ukraine have led some Russian officials and analysts to say Moscow will pivot to the east for its political and economic future.
“China did provide significant loans for the Russian state-owned companies currently under the Western sanctions, helping them a lot,” Kashin said.
Russia-China trade is recovering from a 2014-2015 slump and was up 26 percent in the first quarter of 2017, to nearly $25 billion. China’s exports to Russia rose 22 percent while China’s imports from Russia were up 30 percent in the first four months of this year.
“China is Russia’s most important individual trading partner. Its share is growing, and it is already a significant source of investment, loans and technology. However, it will take China a long time to overtake the EU in these roles,” Kashin added.
There has been no dramatic pivot by Russia away from the West and toward the East, but there is a gradual trend for trade in that direction.
“The share of the APEC countries, not just China, but Japan and Korea as well, in Russian trade has been growing at the expense of the EU for a long time,” Kashin said. “The process did speed up after the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, but not dramatically. Turn to the East is inevitable since the European market for Russian commodities will likely have long-term negative growth, because of EU economic stagnation and industrial decline.
“However, building the necessary infrastructure and negotiating the trade deals with the Asian countries will take Russia years,” economic researcher Kashin added. “The historical dependence on the single European market will be overcome, probably at some point in the late 2020s to early 2030s.”
Developing relationship
Russia-China relations are developing steadily but are sometimes exaggerated by Russian officials for propaganda purposes.
“The leaders of Russia and China came to a point where they clearly realized the possibilities and limits of bilateral relations,” Topychkanov said. “Despite comments from some experts about the possibility of any kind of union between Russia and China — let it be political, economic, or military — there is no chance for such a union.
“Even the bilateral trust between both countries isn’t limitless,” the Carnegie associate added. “In short, Russia and China value the visibility of friendship between them, but they can’t transform it in deep-rooted strategic relationships and long-term, mutually beneficial economic cooperation.”
China’s New Silk Road initiative has attracted more interest as the United States under President Donald Trump has looked inward and pulled out of global trade deals.
But Russia does not see OBOR as a future substitute or even competitor for trade pacts like the formerly U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“I doubt, that Russian officials think about OBOR and Russia in the context of global trade,” Topychkanov said. “For Moscow this remains to be the issue of both bilateral cooperation with China and regional economic networks.”
Olga Pavlova contributed to this report.
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The European Union’s police agency, Europol, says it is working with countries hit by the global ransomware cyberattack to rein in the threat and help victims.
In a statement Saturday, Europol’s European Cybercrime Center, known as EC3, said the attack “is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits.”
EC3 says its Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce, made up of experts in high-tech crime, “is specially designed to assist in such investigations and will play an important role in supporting the investigation.”
The attack, which locked up computers and held users’ files for ransom, was believed the biggest of its kind ever recorded.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Center says teams are working “round the clock” to restore hospital computer systems that forced hospitals to cancel and delay treatment for patients.
British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Saturday that 45 public health organizations were hit, but she stressed that no patient data had been stolen.
Germany’s national railway says that departure and arrival display screens at its stations were hit Friday night by the attack. The company said it deployed extra staff to busy stations to provide customer information, and recommended that passengers check its website or app for information on their connections.
The railway said that there was no impact on actual train services.
Several cybersecurity firms said they had identified the malicious software behind the attack, which has apparently hit Russia the hardest.
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There is a “realistic possibility” Russia might try to interfere in Britain’s national election next month, Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, said.
In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper published Saturday, the Conservative politician also said Russian President Vladimir Putin would “rejoice” if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labor Party won the June 8 election.
Referring to Putin, Johnson said: “Clearly we think that is what he did in America, it’s blatantly obvious that’s what he did in France [where incoming president Emmanuel Macron’s emails were hacked], in the western Balkans he is up to all sorts of sordid enterprises, so we have to be vigilant.”
He said Putin wanted “to undermine faith in democracy altogether and to discredit the whole democratic process.” On Friday, Britain’s health system was subjected to a major cyber attack.
Johnson also told The Telegraph that rather than Britain having to pay a divorce bill for leaving the European Union, the EU could end up having to pay Britain because it had contributed to so many EU assets.
“They are going to try to bleed this country white with their bill,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported the EU might seek an upfront payment in 2019 of up to 100 billion euros ($109 billion). That sum was immediately rejected by British ministers.
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A large number of hospitals across Britain were hit by a cyber-attack Friday, shutting down their computer systems and forcing the cancellation of patient appointments.
According to Britain’s National Health Service, hospital computers were infected with a type of “ransomware” that blocks use of a computer system until victims agree to pay the attacker a ransom to free it up.
Photos posted on social media show infected NHS computers with the message “Ooops, your files have been encrypted,” and a demand for $300 worth of Bitcoin, an anonymous online currency.
At least 16 NHS organizations reported being affected by the ransomware attack.
While the affected hospitals were forced to turn away patients and divert ambulances to other facilities, the NHS said the attackers hadn’t breached any patient data.
“NHS Digital is working closely with the National Cyber Security Center, the Department of Health and NHS England to support affected organizations and to recommend appropriate mitigations,” the health agency said in a statement.
The NHS said it was not attacked specifically, and the attack is “affecting organizations from across a range of sectors.”
Around the same time Friday, the Spanish energy ministry reported various cyber attacks aimed at Spanish companies, including telecom giant Telefonica, using ransomware software. It is not clear if the two hacking incidents are related.
Portugal Telecom was also hit by a cyber attack but no services were impacted, a spokeswoman for the company said.
Read MoreThe United States Navy said Friday that a Russian jet flew within six meters of an American spy plane earlier this week over the Black Sea, but that the encounter was professional.
The Russian jet was scrambled to greet the U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon in international airspace Tuesday as the U.S. plane flew near Russian territory, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The Russian pilot approached the spy plane “at a safe distance” in order to identify it as a U.S. aircraft, the statement said, noting that the U.S. plane changed its course after the encounter and the Russian jet returned to its base.
U.S. Navy spokeswoman Pamela Kunze said in a statement the encounter was conducted in a “safe and professional” manner, downplaying the proximity of the Russian aircraft to the U.S. aircraft.
“For aviation interactions, distance, speed, altitude, rate of closure, visibility and other factors impact whether an event is characterized as safe or unsafe, professional or not professional,” she said. “Every event is unique and any single variable does not define an event.”
Kunze said that Navy aircraft and ships interact with their Russian counterparts in international waters on a routine basis, but did not provide any further details about Tuesday’s encounter.
The incident is the latest in a series of close fly-bys between U.S. and Russian planes. In February, four Russian aircraft buzzed a Navy destroyer in the Black Sea, flying within 91 meters of the ship.
Last month, the U.S. military intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace off Alaska’s coast. That encounter was similarly described as “safe and professional” by the Navy.
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Turkey’s state-run news agency says police have detained 62 former employees of the Istanbul stock exchange over their alleged links to a U.S.-based Muslim cleric blamed for last year’s coup attempt.
Anadolu Agency said the suspects were detained Friday in simultaneous police raids in Istanbul and five other cities. Detention warrants were issued for 40 other people, the agency reported.
The detained are suspected of being followers of Fethullah Gulen who the government says is behind the July 15 coup attempt. Anadolu said the suspects were removed from positions at Borsa Istanbul stock exchange following the attempt.
Gulen denies involvement in the failed coup.
Turkey declared a state of emergency following the attempt and dismissed some 100,000 people from government jobs while arresting more than 47,000 people.
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned home Thursday after surgery in Spain to fix his eye that was damaged in an attack and immediately roused his supporters to action.
Navalny suffered a severe chemical burn in his right eye last month when an attacker doused him with green antiseptic. His supporters identified the attacker as a pro-government activist. Police have failed to track him down.
Navalny urged his supporters in a YouTube video broadcast Thursday to attend anti-corruption rallies next month. He said the demonstrations are planned in 147 Russian cities.
Plans bid for presidency
The charismatic opposition leader intends to run for president next year. He said he would continue to travel widely to open his campaign offices.
Navalny shot to prominence with his investigations into official corruption and was a key driving force behind massive anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow in 2011-2012.
He also organized anti-government rallies in March, Russia’s largest and most widespread in years.
Trip to Spain allowed
Until his medical trip to Spain, Navalny had been denied travel documents for five years. He is serving a five-year suspended sentence in a dubious embezzlement case.
He said Thursday that after his Moscow doctor strongly recommended he to travel abroad for eye surgery, he wrote to Kremlin human rights council chief Mikhail Fedotov to demand that authorities issue him a passport.
On Fedotov’s advice, he then sent the same request to Kremlin chief of staff Anton Vaino. Navalny said he also applied for a passport and received one the next day.
Navalny, who was operated on at a Barcelona clinic, said doctors expect the vision in his injured eye to be restored in several months.
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Bulgaria is seeking private investors to build a nuclear power plant on the Danube River, which was canceled five years ago, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
Sofia canceled the Belene project in 2012 after failing to find foreign investors and facing pressure from Brussels and Washington to limit its energy dependence on Russia.
Since then Bulgaria has opened a gas link with neighboring Romania and is working to connect its gas network with neighboring Greece, Turkey and Serbia to diversify its suppliers.
It hopes to privatize the nuclear plant project after it paid more than 600 million euros ($652 million) in compensation to Russia’s state nuclear giant Rosatom when it canceled the 10 billion euro project. Rosatom had agreed to provide the nuclear reactors.
Bulgarian authorities have already said that Belene could be built without state guarantees or obligatory long-term contracts for the government to purchase power from it.
“Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said the government is looking for a strategic private investor to develop the project,” the government’s press office said in a statement.
In December, the Bulgarian government said that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China’s biggest lender by assets, was ready to finance the Belene nuclear power project. China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has also expressed an interest in investing in the project.
During their phone call, Borisov and Putin also underlined their mutual interest in the construction of the natural gas hub on Bulgarian territory, the government’s press office said.
Plans for a hub at the Black Sea port of Varna, which would store and transport gas from Russia and the Caspian Sea to southeastern and central Europe, follow the cancellation of Russian gas giant Gazprom’s South Stream gas pipeline project, which would have shipped Russian gas under the Black Sea via Bulgaria to central Europe.
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The U.N.’s human rights chief urged Uzbekistan on Thursday to avoid “repressive policies” in its fight against Islamist radicalization, a growing threat throughout Central Asia, while welcoming a rapprochement with Tashkent.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the first United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Uzbekistan since the post was created in 1993, said the former Soviet republic had agreed to work with his office after previously refusing to do so.
Commenting on President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s reform plans, which include an overhaul of the judicial system and measures to tackle religious extremism, Hussein said it was crucial to balance the latter with ensuring individual rights.
“As in other countries, I have emphasized that the answer to the risk of radicalization is not simply heavy-handed security measures and repressive policies which breed resentment and frustration, thereby making it easier for extremists to recruit new supporters,” he said.
President Islam Karimov, who died in September after 27 years in power, had been widely criticized for his government’s human rights violations, and Tashkent’s ties with the West hit their lowest point after troops violently suppressed unrest in the city of Andijan in 2005.
Hussein, describing the Andijan events as “terrible,” told a briefing: “While it is important to look forward, it also important to come to terms with past events and ensure that victims are not forgotten and their grievances are addressed.”
Hussein said he had had an hour-and-a-half meeting with Mirziyoyev, “in which we found much common ground and reached agreements on a number of concrete steps.”
Uzbekistan found itself in a global security spotlight after an Uzbek man living in Sweden was identified as the main suspect behind the deadly truck attack in Stockholm last month. Hundreds of Uzbeks are also believed to have joined the Islamic State militant group based in Syria and Iraq.
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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the foreign ministers of the other Arctic Council nations, Russia, Greenland, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland meet Thursday amid changes to the North Pole ice and a decision by the Trump administration about the U.N. Paris Agreement on Climate. Any changes to U.S. climate policy could have a direct impact on the lives of Alaskan Natives, who depend on the Arctic Sea to survive. VOA’s Cindy Saine reports from Fairbanks, Alaska.
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Montenegro’s historic port city of Kotor has earned the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site for the beauty of its well preserved medieval town. But Kotor’s international fame has become a source of trouble in recent years. Excessive construction is now threatening to diminish the town’s beauty and its reputation as one of the world’s top tourist destinations. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday criticized what he called a destabilizing Russian military build-up near Baltic states and officials suggested the United States could deploy Patriot missiles in the region for NATO exercises in the summer.
U.S. allies are jittery ahead of war games by Russia and Belarus in September that could involve up to 100,000 troops and include nuclear weapons training —the biggest such exercise since 2013.
The drills could see Russian troops on the border with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Russia has also deployed Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, its enclave on the Baltic Sea. It said the deployment was part of routine drills, but U.S. officials worry that it may represent a permanent upgrade to Kaliningrad’s missile capability.
Asked during a trip to Lithuania about the Russian missile deployment, Mattis told a news conference: “Any kind of buildup like that is simply destabilizing.”
The United States is ruling out any direct response to the Russian drills or the potential missile deployment.
But at the same time, U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, raised the possibility that a Patriot missile battery could be deployed briefly to the Baltic region during upcoming NATO exercises in July that focus on air defense, known as Tobruk Legacy.
One of the officials said Patriots had not been previously deployed to the Baltics, although they had been in Poland. The officials stressed the Patriots, if deployed, would be withdrawn when the drills were concluded. That would likely happen before the Russian drills began, they said.
Mattis declined to comment directly on the possible Patriot deployment when asked by reporters after talks in Vilnius.
“The specific systems that we bring are those that we determine necessary,” Mattis said, saying that NATO capabilities in the region were purely defensive.
It was Mattis first trip to the Baltic states, who fear a repeat of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The Baltic states are concerned about their lack of air defenses and are weighing upgrades in their military hardware.
Asked about any future Patriot deployment, Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaite, standing next to Mattis, said: “We need all necessary means for defence and for deterrence, and that’s what we’ll decide together.”
The scale of this year’s Russian Zapad exercises, which date from Soviet times when they were first used to test new weapon systems, is one of NATO’s most pressing concerns. Diplomats say the war games are no simple military drill.
Estonian Defense Minister Margus Tsahkna told Reuters last month NATO governments had intelligence suggesting Moscow may leave Russian soldiers in Belarus once the Zapad 2017 exercises are over, also pointing to public data of Russian railway traffic to Belarus.
Moscow denies any plans to threaten NATO and says it is the U.S.-led alliance that is risking stability in eastern Europe.
The Kremlin has not said how many troops will take part in Zapad 2017.
Read MoreU.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will welcome Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the State Department Wednesday, for talks expected to be dominated by the two countries’ differences over Syria and Ukraine. This will be the first time Lavrov has visited Washington since 2013, and analysts say the two men will have their work cut out for them, before both head to Alaska for a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council. VOA State Department correspondent Cindy Saine reports,
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Britain’s political centrists and liberals can only look on jealously. The victory of Emmanuel Macron across the English Channel in France’s presidential race is reviving talk in Britain of a progressive alliance to deprive the Conservatives of a likely landslide win in next month’s parliamentary elections.
The leaders of the country’s main opposition Labor Party, however, are rejecting out of hand any electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats and Greens, despite mounting calls from activists for them to do so.
“Labor is a national party and everyone needs to have the opportunity to vote for a Labor candidate,” senior Labor lawmaker John Ashworth told reporters Monday. “Politicians who try to do these backroom deals never, ever come out of it well.”
Last week, Labor candidates in local elections suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the Conservatives, losing control of councils in the party’s traditional heartland territory of the industrial Midlands and the north, regions that favor Brexit — Britain quitting the European Union.
If the voting pattern is repeated in the parliamentary elections on June 8, Labor could be facing a wipeout as large as the one it suffered in 1983 at the hands of Margaret Thatcher, who secured a 144-seat majority in the House of Commons. One gloomy newspaper columnist quipped that the local election setback was “a bloodbath foreshadowing a full-on abattoir come June 8.”
Tactical voting
Nonetheless, Labor leaders also are discouraging supporters from engaging in tactical voting on election day, an idea touted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair to the fury of party stalwarts.
Blair and some other opposition party grandees have urged voters to back “progressive” candidates in the strongest position in their districts to defeat Brexit-supporting Conservative rivals.
Labor’s leader, the hard-left Jeremy Corbyn, is insisting against the facts, “We are closing the gap on the Conservatives.”
The Green Party has decided not to run candidates against Labor’s in London and the southern coastal town of Brighton, and it has demanded to no avail that Corbyn return the favor elsewhere. The Greens’ leader, Caroline Lucas, is accusing the Labor leader of paving the way for a Tory majority by ignoring calls for an election deal.
“We are going to wake up on June 9 and a lot of people are going to be asking themselves, ‘When will the left ever learn?’” she said Monday.
Lucas told BBC Radio, “We’ve still got a few more days where we could build on these alliances, which it isn’t just the Green Party asking for them, it is people up and down the country begging parties of the left and the center-left to get together to do grown-up politics and to be able to put in place a group of people who have a better chance of serving the interests of the people, rather than allowing a massive Tory landslide.”
Ideological battles
As an electoral annihilation approaches, the Labor Party — moderates and hard-left alike — appears more eager to focus on internal ideological battles and to position itself for an internecine fight after the election. The ideological divisions are spilling out publicly on the campaign trail as party members fight for the soul of their party and Labor candidates opposed to Corbyn distance themselves publicly from their leader.
Labor moderates see a huge defeat on June 8 as the only way of forcing Corbyn, who has weathered several attempts by them to oust him, to resign. As they see it, that would clear the path for a moderate to replace him. The party could then begin the arduous process of expunging the hard left from its ranks, modernizing the party and returning Labor to credibility, much as the Labor modernizer Tony Blair and his supporters did more than 20 years ago after Thatcher’s three-on-the-trot [one after the other] election victories.
Corbyn loyalists, many of whom are young entryists from far-left Trotskyite groups, are less interested in electoral politics, say their critics, and are focused on refashioning the party as a revolutionary protest movement, pure in ideology and untainted by the nasty compromises electoral politics require.
Some Labor stalwarts are turning away from the party’s tribal politics. A former Labor minister, Chris Mullin, a former darling of the Labor left and a one-time editor of the weekly Tribune newspaper, once the home of writer George Orwell, believes “the only way forward” is “an eventual pact between Labor, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens not to oppose each other in marginal seats.”
“It will be difficult for any party that is not the Conservative party to form a government on its own in the foreseeable future,” Mullin recently argued.
“It may take three or four election defeats for the penny to drop,” he added.
Even if the penny did drop [meaning: an understanding of the situation occurs] before June 8, it is not clear, thanks to Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system, that a ‘progressive’ electoral pact could even stop the Conservative juggernaut. Pollsters say a functioning progressive alliance would only reduce a likely Tory majority.
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