Month: August 2017

German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle said Thursday that an Arabic-language news and culture website it operates had been blocked in Egypt.

A spokesman for Deutsche Welle said the broadcaster received initial reports earlier in the week that the site, qantara.de, was unavailable to Egyptian internet users.

Christoph Jumpelt told The Associated Press that after conducting tests, Deutsche Welle concluded that the problem wasn’t just a technical glitch.

Qantara, which is also available in English and German, is intended as a platform for dialogue with the Islamic world.

Deutsche Welle said it was informed by the chairman of the media committee of Egypt’s parliament that the government is in the process of registering and verifying sites that deal with Egyptian issues.

Qantara has received funding from Germany’s Foreign Ministry.
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Police in Barcelona say they’ve arrested one man in connection to a terrorist attack Thursday in a van hopped a curb on a busy street and crashed into dozens of people, leaving 13 dead and dozens more injured.

“We arrested a man and we are treating this as a terrorist attack,” Catalonian police said on Twitter.

Catalonia’s regional interior chief Joaquim Forn posted on Twitter, confirming “there are 13 dead and more than 50 injured.”

Earlier media reports said two armed men had barricaded themselves in a nearby bar after the attack, but police confirmed there is no one holed up in a bar. The Spanish publication El Periodico reported gunfire in the area of La Boqueria Market, although it did not cite the source of the information.

El Pais newspaper reports that the driver of the vehicle fled on foot after running over the pedestrians, though it was not immediately clear that the gunmen were the drivers of the van.

Police on the scene told people by megaphone to leave the area, as they were dealing with a “terrorist attack.”

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Twitter he’d been in contact with local authorities after the attack and right now the government’s priority is tending to those wounded.

Police have cordoned off the area and emergency services also are on the scene.

US reaction

The White House has said President Donald Trump is being briefed on the ongoing situation. Trump is on a working vacation at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The president took to Twitter Thursday afternoon to condemn the attack, and said the U.S. “will do whatever is necessary to help.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters the U.S. stands ready to “assist law enforcement and national security authorities in Spain,” and he said the U.S. consulates in Barcelona are working with Americans in Spain who’ve been affected by the attack.

“Terrorists around the world should know, the United States and our allies are resolved to find you and bring you to justice,” he said.

First lady Melania Trump, also sent her “thoughts and prayers” to Barcelona via Twitter.

Las Ramblas Boulevard is one of Barcelona’s busiest streets and is generally filled with tourists and street vendors.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by a Taliban gunman at age 15 for speaking out for the right to an education, has been accepted to the University of Oxford.

The 20-year-old activist shared word of her acceptance to the school on Twitter and included the screenshot of her “Congratulations” notice. She plans to major in philosophy, politics and economics, the favored degree of many of Britain’s top leaders.

Yousafzai will study at Lady Margaret Hall, an Oxford college whose notable alumni include the late Benazir Bhutto, the one-time leader of Pakistan and a hero of Yousafzai’s, and Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Yousafzai won international renown in 2012 after she was shot by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan as a teenager for speaking out for the right of girls to go to school, a topic she started raising publicly as an 11 year old.

After being treated at a hospital in Birmingham, England, she continued her education in the city and went on to win the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.

“As far as I know, I am just a committed and even stubborn person who wants to see every child getting quality education, who wants to see women having equal rights and who wants peace in every corner of the world,” she said on the day she collected the Nobel. “Education is one of the blessings of life, and one of its necessities.”

Her acceptance to a university marks a milestone in Malala’s steady progression to achieve her dreams. Social media erupted into the technological equivalent of rounds of applause.

Among those offering accolades were author JK Rowling and Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian newspaper who is now principal of Lady Margaret Hall.

He tweeted: “Welcome to [at]lmhoxford, Malala!

Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, all but burst with pride.

“My heart is full of gratitude,” he tweeted. “We are grateful to Allah & thank u 2 al those who support [at]Malala 4 the grand cause of education.”
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Ukrainian officials and analysts were quick to deny allegations that the Soviet-era Yuzhmash arms factory was a likely source of engine technology used in North Korea’s missiles and to redirect suspicions to Russia.  

“It is a complex and bulky piece of equipment. It is simply not possible to supply it by bypassing export procedures,” said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, director of military programs at the Razumkov Center, a Kyiv think tank, to VOA’s Ukrainian Service. “What is possible, is for North Korea to obtain engines left behind after rocket dismantling in Russia. That could be possible. Meaning Russia could have kept the engines after it had taken apart the rockets, which had been slated for dismantling. Those could have been supplied.”

Michael Elleman, the author of a research report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says Pyongyang probably got illicit help from inside Ukraine. But Elleman acknowledges that help also could have come from Russia.  

“There’s a lot of uncertainty as exactly how it could have been transferred. But, I think the likelihood is that the source is either in Russia or Ukraine,” Elleman told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.  

Elleman says he first became aware of the possibility of Ukrainian technology when he noticed similarities in photos of North Korea’s September 2016 ground test.

“Well, according to two sources that I’ve spoken with, the modifications that we’ve seen in North Korea – that modified engine has actually been seen in Ukraine. That doesn’t mean it was done by Yuzhnoye [Yuzhmash’s design bureau], it could have been done by others or simultaneously. This was a product that was made long ago and it’s just been leveraged by unsavory types who were able to extract it from either Ukraine or Russia.”

‘Completely untrue’

Yuzhmash, the Ukrainian factory, called the claims “completely untrue” and said it had not produced military-grade ballistic missiles since Ukraine’s 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.  

“There is such a high level of confidentiality at the factory and in general it is ensured by a multi-level system of security, which includes not only Yuzhmash services, but also municipal and state services,” Yuzhmash Deputy Director Oleh Lebedev told Reuters TV.

Elleman was first quoted in The New York Times, which cited its own intelligence sources, saying that Ukraine was a likely source. 

But Elleman says that even if Ukraine was a source, he sees no indication Ukrainian authorities would have been involved.

“I don’t believe the Ukrainian government was responsible in any way,” he said. “And I suspect if it did occur in Ukraine, they may not have known. It’s likely they would not have known.”

Other analysts argue that North Korea can build its own engines and would not need help. But all agree it would be a good idea for Ukraine to allow an investigation.  

“I believe in this situation, the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] of Ukraine needs to invite the international community, with the first invitation to be extended to the USA, to conduct an investigation here in Ukraine, as well as globally to study exactly how North Korea was able to develop its missile program, whether there is a Chinese connection or a Russian connection,” said the director of Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies and former head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Volodymyr Horbulin.  

“These are the two countries which maintain close relations with the DPRK [North Korea]. The proposal from Ukraine for such an investigation should put an end to constant attacks on our country by those who suggest that it is constantly trading in something banned by international accords or agreements,” said Horbulin.  

Possible implications for U.S.-Ukraine cooperation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday ordered an official inquiry into whether any missile engine technology could have been supplied to North Korea. Some experts in Ukraine worry that the allegations could affect any U.S. decision on whether to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons to fend off Russia-backed separatists.

“There’s ongoing discussion about the possibility to transfer lethal weapons to Ukraine,” noted the Ukrainian Center for Army’s Ihor Fedyk. “This story may have a negative impact on the process,” he told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.  

There are concerns that other areas of bilateral cooperation, such as space programs, could be affected.  

“America is our strategic partner, a very serious strategic partner, in space programs,” said the acting head of Ukraine’s State Space Agency, Yurii Radchenko. “It is not in our interests to harm relations with U.S. official agencies.”

U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert commented Tuesday, saying “We’re certainly aware of those reports that have come out. That’s an issue that we would take very seriously if that were to be the case.”  

“As a general matter, we don’t comment on intelligence reports. Ukraine, though, we have to say, has a very strong nonproliferation record. And that includes specifically with respect to the DPRK,” Nauert added.

The allegations surfaced as North Korea threatens to send missiles near the U.S. island territory of Guam.  

While Elleman’s allegations are investigated, the North Korean government appears to have stepped back from its threat to Guam, saying it will wait to see what further actions the United States takes.
…

The British government has vowed repeatedly to end the free movement of people from the European Union when the U.K. leaves the bloc in 2019. But on Wednesday it acknowledged that, in one area of the country, it won’t.

Britain said there must be no border posts or electronic checks between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic after Brexit, and it committed itself to maintaining the longstanding, border-free Common Travel Area covering the U.K. and Ireland.

“There should be no physical border infrastructure of any kind on either side of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,” Conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May said.

That means free movement across the border for British, Irish — and EU —  citizens. After Britain leaves the bloc, EU nationals will be able to move without checks from Ireland to Northern Ireland, and onto other parts of the U.K.

Free movement among member states is a key EU principle, and has seen hundreds of thousands of people move to Britain and get jobs there since the bloc expanded into eastern Europe more than a decade ago.

Many Britons who voted last year to leave the EU cited a desire to regain control of immigration as a key reason.

In a paper outlining proposals for the Northern Ireland-Ireland border after Brexit, the British government insisted it will be able to control who can settle in the U.K. through work permits and other measures.

It said “immigration controls are not, and never have been, solely about the ability to prevent and control entry at the U.K.’s physical border.” Control of access to the labor market and social welfare are also “an integral part” of the immigration system, the paper added.

Northern Ireland is an especially thorny issue in Brexit talks, because it has the U.K.’s only land border with the EU — and because an open border has helped build the economic prosperity that underpins the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, British military checkpoints along the Ireland-Northern Ireland border have been dismantled, rendering it all but invisible. Thousands of people cross the 300-mile (500-kilometer) border every day.

Britain said it was determined that “nothing agreed as part of the U.K.’s exit in any way undermines” the Northern Ireland peace agreement.

The government’s Department for Exiting the European Union acknowledged that “unprecedented” solutions would be needed to preserve the peace process and maintain the benefits of an open border after Britain leaves the EU, its single market in goods and services and its tariff-free customs union.

It suggested a future “customs partnership” between Britain and the EU could eliminate the need for checks on goods crossing the border.

For agricultural and food products, Britain said one option could be “regulatory equivalence,” where the U.K. and EU agree to maintain the same standards. But it’s unclear what that would mean for Britain’s ability to trade with countries that do not always meet EU standards, such as the United States.

The Northern Ireland proposals came in a series of papers covering aspects of Brexit negotiations, which are due to resume in Brussels at the end of this month.

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the document “brings some clarity and is certainly helpful to move this process forward.” But, he said, “there are still significant questions that are unanswered.”

European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Britain’s position papers — which come after allegations from EU officials that the U.K. is underprepared for the EU divorce negotiations — are “a positive step.”

“The clock is ticking and this will allow us to make progress,” she said.

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this story.
…

British Parliament officials said Wednesday they will review plans to silence Big Ben during four years of repairs after senior politicians criticized the lengthy muting of the beloved bell.

When the repairs were announced last year, officials said the massive bell in Parliament’s clock tower would be silenced for several months. But this week they said the ringing pause would last until 2021.

Prime Minister Theresa May said “it can’t be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years.”

The 13.5 British ton (15.1 U.S. ton, 13.7 metric ton) bell has sounded the time almost uninterrupted since 1859, but it’s due to fall silent on Monday so repairs can be carried out on the Victorian clock and the Elizabeth Tower.

Officials say the silencing is needed to ensure the safety of workers.

Adam Watrobski, principal architect at the Houses of Parliament, rejected claims that the great bell that survived German bombing raids was the victim of overcautious health and safety regulations.

“It is quite simply that we can’t have the bells working with those people adjacent to it. It simply isn’t practical to do that,” he said.

In a statement Wednesday headlined “update on Big Ben’s bongs,” Parliament officials said that in light of the concerns expressed by lawmakers, authorities “will consider the length of time” Big Ben is stifled.

But they rejected calls to allow the bell to strike at night once workers have gone home. “Starting and stopping Big Ben is a complex and lengthy process,” they said.

The sound of Big Ben’s bongs became associated with Britain around the world during wartime BBC news broadcasts. It’s still heard live each day on BBC radio through a microphone in the belfry.

The BBC says it will use a recording during the renovation works.
…

There should be no border posts between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland after Brexit, Britain said in an early attempt to resolve one of the most complex aspects of its European Union exit.

Some 30,000 people cross the 500-kilometer border every day without customs or immigration checks, testing negotiators who have to work out how to tighten controls without inflaming tensions in a region where around 3,600 people were killed before a peace agreement in 1998.

The British government said in a paper due to be published on Wednesday that it wanted a seamless and frictionless frontier without “physical border infrastructure and border posts,” arguing that new customs arrangements it proposed on Tuesday would allow the free flow of goods.

The issue of how the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland will fare is particularly sensitive given the decades of violence over whether it should be part of Britain or Ireland.

“Both sides need to show flexibility and imagination when it comes to the border issue in Northern Ireland,” a British government source said.

Britain put forward two options for future customs arrangements with the EU on Tuesday — the first would involve no customs border at all, while a second detailed “highly-streamlined” customs checks.

However, the idea met with skepticism among some of Britain’s soon-to-be former EU partners, with one EU official describing the idea of an invisible border as “fantasy.”

“We have some very clear principles. Top of our list is to agree upfront no physical border infrastructure — that would mean a return to the border posts of the past and is completely unacceptable to the U.K.,” the British source said.

Frictionless trade?

The EU has repeatedly warned that Britain cannot expect to maintain the benefits of the European single market after Brexit, with chief negotiator Michel Barnier saying in July that “frictionless trade” with the EU was not possible.

However, the British government also said it wants to maintain a Common Travel Area, a pact that allows free movement between the United Kingdom and Ireland for British and Irish citizens.

And it rejected the idea of a customs border in the Irish Sea that separates England, Wales and Scotland from Ireland and Northern Ireland as “not constitutionally or economically viable.”

Northern Ireland sold 2.7 billion pounds ($3.47 billion) of goods into Ireland in 2015, according to official figures, and many businesses have complex supply chains that involve crossing the border multiple times during the production process.

Commenting on the advance briefing of the position paper, the Irish government said it was “timely and helpful” and that it hoped enough progress could be made to move talks forward.

“Protecting the Peace Process is crucial and it must not become a bargaining chip in the negotiations,” the Irish government said in a statement, in reference to the Good Friday Agreement which was signed on April 10, 1998, after multiparty talks and led to the creation of an elected assembly in Belfast.

The border is one of three priority issues that the EU is insisting must be dealt with during the opening rounds of talks before moving on to Britain’s future relationship with the bloc.

The first two rounds of divorce talks in Brussels have made limited progress, prompting the EU to warn the next phase — which Britain is keen to get to — could be delayed unless Prime Minister Theresa May’s team comes armed with more detail.

But pro-EU campaign group Open Britain said the government’s proposal lacked specifics.

“They don’t outline how a frictionless or seamless border can be achieved when the U.K. leaves the EU and won’t reassure anybody about the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland,” Labor Party lawmaker Conor McGinn said.
…

Firefighters battled wildfires raging northeast of Athens for a third day on Tuesday as Greece asked for help from its European partners to prevent them from spreading.

The fire started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and has spread to three more towns, damaging dozens of homes and burning thousands of hectares of pine forest. A state of emergency has been declared in the area.

“The blaze is advancing with great speed. Because of the scale and intensity of the wildfires, the country submitted a request for aerial means,” fire brigade spokeswoman Stavroula Maliri told a press briefing.

Cyprus offered a group of 60 firefighters, and a Greek air force plane was headed there to pick them up. But a request for two pairs of CL-415 firefighting aircraft was turned down by France as it had to deal with its own wildfires, she said.

Three firefighting planes and six water-throwing helicopters operated through the day, assisting 210 firefighters and about 100 military personnel battling the blaze on the ground near the town of Kapandriti.

Rugged terrain dotted with small communities made the fire-fighting difficult, with winds rekindling the blaze at many spots. Thick, billowing smoke rendered operations from the air difficult.

Across Greece, firefighters were battling more than 55 forest fires, an outbreak fed by dry winds and hot weather that fanned blazes in the Peloponnese and on the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia.

Arson?

On Zakynthos, an island popular with foreign tourists, a dozen fires burned for a fifth day. Authorities declared a state of emergency there on Monday. A government minister said there was no doubt the fires had been set deliberately.

“It’s arson according to an organized plan,” Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, the member of parliament for Zakynthos, told state TV.

Late July and August often see outbreaks of forest and brush fires in Greece, where high temperatures help create tinder-box conditions.

In Kalamos, community president Dimitris Kormovitis told Reuters TV: “If we don’t manage to cut it off today, there will be terrible consequences. There has been devastation of a biblical scale in our area, which is one of the last lungs of the Attica region.”

Andreas Theodorou, a local councilor in Kalamos, said the blaze had damaged several dozen homes. “Help did not arrive fast enough, and if you don’t stop a forest fire so large as soon as it breaks out, it’s very hard to put it out,” he said.

In the Peloponnese region of Ilia, blazes that broke out in three areas Monday and looked tamed early Tuesday flared up again, fanned by winds. In 2007, the same area was the site of Greece’s worst fires, with more than 70 people killed.

“We asked for the evacuation of the village of Peristeri. The fire has gotten very close, it cannot be contained due to strong winds,” Ilia vice prefect George Georgiopoulos told SKAI TV.
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Italy’s interior minister said on Tuesday he saw light at the end of the tunnel for curbing migrant flows from Libya after a slowdown in arrivals across the Mediterranean in recent months.

But a United Nations investigator said that Italy’s recent effort to draw up a code regulating the operations of humanitarian ships rescuing migrants at sea would cause more deaths.

The subject of immigration is dominating Italy’s political agenda ahead of general elections due before May next year, with public opinion increasingly hostile to migrants. Almost 600,000 migrants have arrived in Italy over the past four years.

“We are still under the tunnel, it’s a long tunnel, but I start seeing the light at the end of it,” Interior Minister Marco Minniti told a news conference.

Small drop in migrant arrivals

After a surge in migrant arrivals from Libya at the start of the year, the numbers have slowed. Data from the Interior Ministry on Tuesday showed that 97,293 people had reached Italy so far in 2017, down 4.15 percent from the same period in 2016.

Minniti said that these trends would continue in August but did not comment further.

Italy has approached the migrant problem with a dual track strategy, strengthening Libya’s efforts to fight smuggling and at the same time putting pressure on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in rescue operations.

“It was important to intervene on the other side of the Mediterranean and we have focused on Libya. It seemed difficult, but it now appears that something is moving,” he added.

Italy offers instruction, upgrades

In Libya, Italy has trained members of the coastguard and upgraded its fleet, in line with the EU’s investments to support search and rescue operations at sea as well as those along its borders.

Minniti said that attention would also be given to the conditions of migrants brought back from sea to Libya and that Italy would start distributing aid in the cities of Sabratha and Zowarah, two hubs for the smuggling of migrants.

At home, the Italian government has introduced a code of conduct for the operations NGOs, demanding that armed police travel on their boats to help root out people smugglers.

Five out of the of eight groups operating in the southern Mediterranean agreed to the terms so far. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has refused to sign so far.

‘Code of conduct’

Hours earlier, a member of the United Nations largest body of independent experts said Italy’s policy could restrict the NGOs’ life-saving work and result in more deaths.

“This code of conduct and the overall action plan suggest that Italy, the EU Commission and the EU Member states deem the risks and the reality of deaths at sea a price worth paying in order to deter migrants and refugees,” Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

Minniti said he would meet his counterparts from Libya, Chad, Niger and Mali on Aug. 28 and that he would soon meet in Rome the mayors of the main Libyan cities involved.

“A democratic country (like Italy) does not chase migrants flows, but governs them … ungoverned flows threaten a country’s democracy,” Minniti said. “Italy is not retreating but remains firmly committed to rescues at sea.”

 
…

London’s Holborn underground station closed briefly Tuesday after overheating equipment on a train filled a platform with smoke.

The fire service said it had sent two fire engines and 10 firefighters to the station.

“It was an overheated compressor on a train not a fire,” London Fire Brigade said a statement.

A witness on a train at the station said smoke filled one of the carriages.

“There was a fire alert on a westbound Central line train,” a spokesman for London’s transport operator said. “We are investigating the cause.”

The fire service said it dealt with the incident in less than 50 minutes.
…

With four weeks to go before an election that is too close to call, Norway’s Conservative prime minister, Erna Solberg, pledged on Monday to cut taxes to boost growth and job creation if she was re-elected.

In power as head of a minority coalition government since 2013, Solberg is attempting to become the first right-wing prime minister to win re-election since 1985.

While taxes, unemployment and a rural backlash against government reforms are hotly debated, opinion polls show a near dead heat between Solberg’s right-wing coalition and center-left parties seeking to replace it in a Sept. 11 vote for parliament.

Support for the main opposition Labor Party, which seeks to raise taxes on high earners and the wealthy, has slipped slightly in recent weeks, erasing the narrow lead held by the center-left in most polls during spring and early summer.

“We must get across the message that Norwegian politics won’t have to go left when it’s so obvious that the economy is improving and jobs are being created,” Solberg told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference.

She highlighted spending on education and transport, as well as “growth-enabling tax cuts” as key priorities ahead.

The price of oil, Norway’s key export, fell by more than 70 percent from 2014 to 2016, lifting unemployment to a 20-year high of five percent last year, but crude has since staged a partial recovery and the jobless rate has eased to 4.3 percent.

The government increased spending from Norway’s $975 billion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, to aid the recovery, but the growth in public spending should moderate now that growth is normalizing, Solberg added.

Labor leader Jonas Gahr Stoere reiterated a plan to raise income and wealth taxes by up to 15 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.89 billion) to pay for public services while avoiding becoming too dependent on the wealth fund’s cash.

“It’s fair and necessary to do this,” he told independent broadcaster TV2, adding the money would be used to hire more teachers, improve care for the elderly and help combat climate change.

A survey published by TV2 on Monday, asking eligible voters who they believed would win, showed 50.3 percent expected Gahr Stoere to become prime minister, while 48.4 percent of those polled thought Solberg would stay in power.

An Aug. 11 poll by Respons on behalf of the newspaper Aftenposten showed Labour and two key backers, the Center Party and the Socialist Left, obtaining a combined 44.6 percent support, down from 46.3 percent in June. The government and its backers rose to 47.1 percent from 46.3 percent.

The outcome of the vote could ultimately be decided by the results for several small parties, including the right-leaning Liberals, the far-left Reds and the unaligned Green Party. All are battling to surpass a four-percent election threshold.

Leaders of all eight parties that currently hold seats in parliament, as well as the Red Party, are due to hold their first televised debate of the campaign at 1930 GMT.

($1 = 7.9371 Norwegian crowns)
…

Firefighters battled more than 90 forest fires across Greece on Monday, an outbreak fed by dry winds and hot weather that saw blazes burning near Athens, in the Peloponnese, and on the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and

Kefalonia.

The fire near Athens was burning unchecked for a second day, damaging dozens of homes. It had started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and spread overnight to three more towns. A state of emergency was declared in the area.

On Zakynthos, an island popular with foreign tourists, several fires continued to burn for a fourth day and authorities declared a state of emergency. One minister said those fires had been set deliberately.

“It’s arson according to an organised plan,” Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, who is the MP for Zakythnos, told state TV when asked to comment on the dozen fires burning on the island. “There is no doubt about it.”

It is not clear what caused the fires, and no investigation has begun into possible arson. Late July and August often see a outbreaks of forest and brush fires in Greece, where high temperatures help create tinder-box conditions.

Near Athens, authorities ordered a precautionary evacuation of two summer camps and homes in the area and evacuated a monastery after flames reached its fence on Monday. Hundreds of Kalamos residents fled, heading to the beach to spend the night.

“It was a terrible mess, that’s what it was. You could see homes on fire, people running, people desperate, it was chaos and the fire was very big,” a resident told Reuters TV.

Andreas Theodorou, a local councillor, said the blaze had damaged “several dozens of homes.”

“Help did not arrive fast enough, and if you don’t stop a forest fire so large as soon as it breaks out, it’s very hard to put it out,” he said.

The fire brigade said rugged terrain dotted with small communities made the fire fighting difficult.

In the Peloponnese region of Ilia, the site of Greece’s worst fires in 2007, which killed more than 70 people, blazes broke out in three areas on Monday, prompting the evacuation of a village.
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Russia’s top domestic security agency said Monday it has thwarted suicide bombings in Moscow planned by the Islamic State group in Syria.

Four people have been arrested on suspicion of plotting attacks on Moscow transit system and shopping malls, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement.

Those arrested included two would-be suicide bombers along with an Islamic State envoy and an expert in explosives. One of them is a Russian national and three others are from ex-Soviet Central Asia, the FSB said.

The agency released a video in which its agents inspect a house used by the group to make explosives while two suspects lie down on the floor in handcuffs. It didn’t say when the arrests took place.

The FSB said the attacks were planned by two senior IS militants who fight with IS. The agency didn’t give their nationalities, but their names given by the FSB appear to indicate they hail from the former Soviet Union.

In May, the FSB arrested another group of suspected IS members in May who were also accused of plotting terror attacks in the capital.

The arrests follow a suicide bombing in St. Petersburg’s subway that left 16 dead and wounded more than 50 in April.

President Vladimir Putin said in April that some 9,000 militants, about half of them from Russia and the rest from ex-Soviet Central Asian nations, have joined the Islamic State in Syria.

He emphasized that a key goal for the Russian military operation in Syria is to crush them there and prevent them from coming back home.
…

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is voicing alarm its leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu could face prosecution and jail in an ongoing crackdown in Turkey, which has seen more than a dozen parliament deputies jailed.

“There is a big plot against the CHP,” warned Bulent Tezcan in an interview Monday with Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper, “Any steps taken against the main opposition party may open an era where the ruling party would not be able to have their way in peace,” added Tezcan.

Tezcan’s comments follows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s suggestion Kilicadaroglu could be implicated in an ongoing espionage investigation into the publishing of a newspaper story linking Erdogan’s AKP government to arms shipments to Syrian rebels. “Don’t get surprised if Kilicdaroglu’s is linked to the issue,” Erdogan said in a speech Sunday.

Kilicdaroglu’s close ally and parliamentary deputy Enis Berberoglu was jailed June for 25 years for writing the arms story. The jailing of Berberoglu was the trigger for Kilicdaroglu launching his 25 day “Justice March” from the capital Ankara to Turkey’s largest city Istanbul. The march drew tens of thousands of supporters culminating in a rally drawing over a million people.

Kilicdaroglu targeted 

Erdogan who until recently dismissed Kilicdaroglu as a political no hoper, is now targeting the main opposition leader. July’s commemorations marking the defeat of last year’s coup attempt saw the president alleging Kilicdaroglu’s involvement with the coup plotters.

“Erdogan is reacting to this [Kilicdaroglu] threat, as he perceives it. We are two years away from general elections and presidential elections and he sees that the playing field is not as smooth and as clear as he would like it,” observes Semih Idiz political columnist of the Al Monitor website, “So we can expect in the coming days that he [Erdogan] will ratchet up his rhetoric against the main opposition leader. But it is inconceivable he [Kilicdaroglu] would be put in prison. I think you would have a block uniting, that Erdogan would not want to uniting,” Idiz added.

Under emergency rule introduced after the failed coup, HDP party co-leader’s Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas have been jailed on terrorism charges. Nine other deputes of Turkey’s second-largest opposition party are also in jail, with further prosecutions looming.

“When it comes to rhetoric, it is very seldom, he [Erdogan] really means what it says. So when it comes to Kilicdarolgu he may face prosecution,” warns Political scientist Cengiz Aktar. “By doing so, if it happens, President Erdogan shows how he is strong to his constituency. That he is even capable of putting in jail the president of the party, which is after all, is the party of Ataturk. Symbolically its very, very strong.”

A potential heavy price

The founder of the Turkish Secular Mustafa Kemal Ataturk formed the CHP in 1919. But Erdogan could pay a heavy price if Kilicdarolgu is prosecuted. “If you start persecuting that person, then his leadership qualities will increase in the eyes of many and diverse community in Turkey,” points out columnist Idiz, noting that in Turkey the underdog invariably resonates with the electorate. “Now whether the AKP wants to go in that direction, well it may try, but it will be hard one for it to swallow. Don’t forget he [Erdogan] himself built a career on his unjust, and it was unjust, imprisonment.”

During a crackdown inspired by Turkey’s generals against Islamic groups, Erdogan was jailed for four months in 1999 for sedition, for reciting a poem at a political rally. Erdogan went on to lead his AKP three years later.

But political scientist Aktar suggests the Turkey of today is very different from 20 years ago,

“Six million voters have elected scores of HDP deputies, and the top management of the party and the MP’s and the co- presidents of the party are in jail, and there is no reaction. So I think it will be the same for CHP, people will protest, but full stop. I mean they will let it go. I think everyone is trying to survive with this regime.” said Aktar.

The president and his government insist any decision on the prosecution of Kilicdaroglu is strictly a matter for prosecutors and the courts. But with Erdogan showing no signs of easing up his rhetoric against Kilicdaroglu, all sides are likely to be weighing up the consequences of such a prosecution.

 
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The bongs will soon be gone.

Big Ben — the huge clock bell of Britain’s Parliament — will fall silent next week as a four-year restoration project gets underway.

The bongs of the iconic bell will be stopped after chiming noon on Aug. 21 to protect workers during a 29-million-pound ($38 million) repair project on the Queen Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben and its clock. It isn’t due to resume regular service until 2021.

Steve Jaggs, keeper of the Great Clock, said Monday that the clock mechanism will be dismantled piece by piece and its four dials will be cleaned and repaired. The 13.5 British ton (15.1 U.S. ton, 13.7 metric tons) bell will be cleaned and checked for cracks.

Big Ben has been stopped several times since it first sounded in 1859, but the current restoration project will mark its longest period of silence.

Parliamentary officials say they will ensure that the bell still sounds on major occasions, such as New Year’s Eve and Remembrance Sunday.

The silence presents a problem for the BBC, which broadcasts the bongs every evening before the radio news through a microphone in the belfry.

After testing out the sound of substitute bells, the broadcaster said it will use a recording.
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More than 3,000 firemen struggled to put out forest fires across Portugal on Sunday, after the country requested assistance from Europe to fight blazes that threaten to spread with more hot weather in the coming days.

Exceptionally dry and hot weather ignited Portugal’s worst fire disaster in memory early this summer, killing 64 people, and fires have continued to flare up in recent weeks with the arrival of each new hotter spell of weather.

Interior Minister Constanca Urbana de Sousa said the country sent the request for help to Europe late on Saturday because of concerns that high temperatures and high winds in the coming days could increase the number of fires.

The minister said the request was carried out “because of a question of prudence” due to the weather forecast for coming days, according to news agency Lusa. It covered requests for firefighting airplanes and firemen and is part of a European mechanism for cooperation to fight fires.

Emergency services said 268 fires broke out on Saturday, the highest number for any single day this year, with 6,500 firemen fighting to put them out. There are fears that many of them could flare up again later on Sunday, with higher winds and temperatures that hit in the afternoon.

The central district of Coimbra adopted a local state of emergency to deal with fires, as did four smaller municipalities in the region.

While fires have burned through the summer none has had the tragic impact of the one in late June, as emergency services have gone to far greater efforts to evacuate villages and shut roads early in affected areas.

But the country could face many more weeks of fires before the end of summer.

More than 140,000 hectares of forest have burned this summer in Portugal, more than three times higher than the average over the last 10 years, according to European Union data.
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Danish police say they have not found the body of a missing Swedish journalist inside an amateur-built submarine that sunk off the Nordic country’s eastern coast last week.

Copenhagen police spokesman Jens Moller Jensen says Sunday that investigators uncovered no trace of 30-year-old freelance journalist Kim Wall in the UC3 Nautilus sub, which was raised and transported for investigation Saturday.

Police will now continue to search for Wall in the waters near the island in Copenhagen’s harbor where the sub’s owner Peter Madsen allegedly dropped her off late Thursday.

Madsen made a last-minute escape from the sinking sub and has denied any responsibility on the fate of Wall. He was arrested Friday on preliminary manslaughter charges.

Moller Jensen said there are indications that the Danish inventor deliberately sank his submarine.
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The British government tried to fight back Sunday against criticisms that it is divided and unprepared for Brexit, saying it will set out detailed plans for the U.K.’s exit from the European Union and issuing a joint statement by two Cabinet rivals over Europe.

Trade Secretary Liam Fox, a strong supporter of leaving the European Union, and the more pro-EU Treasury chief Philip Hammond, wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that they agreed there should be a “time-limited” transition period after Britain formally leaves the bloc in 2019, to avoid a “cliff-edge” for people and businesses.

Fox and Hammond said the transition period “cannot be indefinite; it cannot be a back door to staying in the EU.” They didn’t say how long the transition would last or what rules would apply during that period.

The government also said Sunday it wants to increase pressure on the 27 other EU nations to start negotiating a “deep and special” future relationship that would include a free trade deal between Britain and the EU.

The EU says those negotiations can’t start until sufficient progress has been made on three initial issues: how much money the U.K. will have to pay to settle its outstanding commitments to the bloc; whether security checks and customs duties will be instituted on the Irish border; and the status of 3 million EU nationals living in Britain.

The government’s Brexit department said Britain wants to show that progress on the preliminary issues has been made and “we are ready to broaden out the negotiations” by the time of an EU summit in October.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said that “with time of the essence, we need to get on with negotiating the bigger issues around our future partnership to ensure we get a deal that delivers a strong U.K. and a strong EU.”

The push comes after EU officials expressed impatience with the pace of Britain’s preparations.

The bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said last month there was “a clock ticking” on the talks. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said last week that Brexit advocates “already had 14 months” to issue detailed proposals, but had not.

Barnier is due to meet Davis for a new round of negotiations at the end of August.

Britain voted to leave the EU in June 2016, but did not trigger the formal two-year exit process until March.

Prime Minister Theresa May then called a snap election in an attempt to increase her Conservative Party’s majority in Parliament and strengthen her negotiating hand. But voters did not rally to her call, leaving May atop a weakened minority government.

In recent weeks, with May on her summer vacation, members of her Cabinet have openly disagreed about what direction Brexit should take.

Opponents of Brexit have become increasingly vocal, arguing that the public or Parliament must get the chance to vote on any final deal between Britain and the EU.

David Miliband, who was foreign minister in Britain’s previous Labour government, said leaving the EU was “an unparalleled act of economic self-harm.”

Writing in The Observer newspaper, Miliband said there must be “a straight vote between EU membership and the negotiated alternative.”

 
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The British government is fighting back against criticism that it is divided and unprepared for Brexit, announcing it will publish a set of detailed proposals on customs arrangements, the status of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border and other issues.

The Department for Exiting the European Union said Sunday that it would release the first set of position papers this week, more than a year after Britons voted in a referendum to leave the European Union.

The government says it hopes to persuade the 27 other EU nations to start negotiating a “deep and special” future relationship that would include a free trade deal between Britain and the EU.

Three issues

The EU says those negotiations can’t start until sufficient progress has been made on three initial issues: how much money the U.K. will have to pay to leave the bloc; whether security checks and customs duties will be instituted on the Irish border; and the status of EU nationals living in Britain.

The exit bill, estimated at tens of billions of euros, is to cover pension liabilities for EU staff and programs Britain committed to funding over the next few years.

The government’s Brexit department said Britain wants to show that progress on the preliminary issues has been made and “we are ready to broaden out the negotiations” by the time of an EU summit in October.

“Businesses and citizens in the U.K. and EU want to see the talks progress and move towards discussing a deal that works for both sides,” the department said in a statement.

EU impatience

EU officials have expressed impatience with the pace of Britain’s preparations.

The bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said last month there was “a clock ticking” on the talks. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said last week that Brexit advocates “already had 14 months” to issue detailed proposals but had not.

Barnier is to meet Britain’s Brexit minister, David Davis, for a new round of negotiations at the end of August.

Britain voted to leave the EU in June 2016, but did not trigger the formal two-year exit process until March.

Prime Minister Theresa May then called a snap election in an attempt to increase her Conservative Party’s majority in Parliament and strengthen her negotiating hand. But voters did not rally to her call, leaving May atop a weakened minority government.

In recent weeks, with May on her summer vacation, members of her Cabinet have openly disagreed about what direction Brexit should take. 
…

Child beggars have long been part of the social fabric in Ashgabat, where some families acknowledge that they depend on such income for survival.

However, Ashgabat police have begun clearing the streets of those children as the Turkmen capital gears up for the Asian Indoor And Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in September, according to residents and parents interviewed by RFE/RL.

Police officers, raiding the city in vans, order such children home and warn them not to return to the streets, said Ashgabat resident Amanmyrat Bugaev. 

An Ashgabat police officer within the juvenile-affairs department, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, described the process as rounding up repeat offenders, taking them home in police vans, and warning the parents that forcing children to beg is a criminal offense.

The officer said that in some cases the department summons the parents and issues official warnings.

He acknowledged that the “main” goal was to preserve the country’s “image,” although he said the measures were also aimed at safeguarding children.

Only source of income

“A disabled person in a wheelchair begging for money damages the image of any country,” the officer said. “The main goal is to fight something that might damage the [national] reputation.”

Some parents who acknowledge benefiting from alms collected by their children complained that the government’s effort deprives their families of their only source of income.

Turkmenistan is a mostly rural, post-Soviet country whose jobs and economy are heavily dependent on the state. The wealth from its sizable natural-gas and other exports, including cotton, has largely failed to trickle down to its 5 million or so people.

RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service spoke with four parents — all Ashgabat residents — who said the money their children made on the streets helped the family survive.

“Apart from my disabled son, there are three other small children in our family,” said one unemployed woman whose disabled child spends hours in the streets every day seeking handouts from strangers. She said the family also “depends on the monthly social allowance he gets from the government.”

“We would work, but there are no jobs, so we send our children to the streets, hoping for kind people’s donations,” said the woman, who didn’t want to give her name.

Widespread unemployment

None of the parents would say how much their children made in a day on Ashgabat’s streets.

Unemployment is widespread in Turkmenistan, although the government doesn’t release official figures. Regional media have put the jobless rate in the country at around 50 to 60 percent. 

Turkmenistan wants to use the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, the brainchild of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, to boost its image as a regional sports hub. The isolated nation expects tens of thousands of foreigners to visit during the September 17-27 event. 

In the months leading up to the games, authorities have restricted the movement of provinces’ residents to the capital, ordered former inmates to stay away from the games’ venues, and tried to clear the city of stray dogs and cats.

Farangis Najibullah wrote this article, based on a report by RFE/RL’s Turkmen service.
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Residents of St. Petersburg on Saturday paid homage to sailors from the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea exactly 17 years earlier.

Relatives and friends of crew members gathered for a memorial service and a commemorative meeting at St. Petersburg’s Serafimovskoye Cemetery.

All 118 crew members aboard the nuclear-powered Kursk submarine died on August 12, 2000, after an explosion occurred as the crew was preparing to fire a practice torpedo.

The Russian Navy’s final official report concluded that the explosion was caused by the failure of a torpedo.

The Kursk was raised from the bottom of the Barents Sea in 2001.

Reporting includes information from TASS and Interfax.
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The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is appealing to the government of Ukraine in Kyiv and Russian-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine to provide basic services and pension benefits to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people struggling to survive in the rebel-held parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.  

With the conflict in Ukraine in its fourth year, more than 10,000 people have been killed as sporadic fighting continues between Russian-backed rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine, and the death toll continues to mount.

Among the living, those who are suffering the most include nearly 1.6 million internally displaced in eastern Ukraine.  The U.N. refugee agency says they are struggling to find safety, adequate housing and employment.

UNHCR spokesman Andrei Mahecic says more than 580,000 retired and elderly people residing in the conflict zone have lost access to their government pensions and are having great difficulty making ends meet.

“This has affected the most vulnerable groups, as many of them depend on pensions and social [subsistence] payments as their sole source of income.  Those living in non-government controlled areas are required to register as internally displaced people with Ukrainian authorities in order to have access to their rightful pensions and social payments.”

Mahecic says these benefits should be de-linked from the place of residence.  Regardless of the political situation, he tells VOA these pensions belong to the elderly retirees and they should not be withheld.  

“That is why we are appealing that they have full access to their rightful pensions and social [subsistence] payments and other benefits that they have and that they have acquired during their working life,” Mahecic said.

The UNHCR says displacement is causing extreme hardship for more than 50,000 people with disabilities who have been forced to flee their homes.  It says they lack access to services and often face difficulties and discrimination based on their disability, ethnic or religious background.

It says one of its major concerns is the use of civilian houses along the frontline of the conflict zone for military purposes.  It says stationing combatants and weapons in residential areas puts civilians at great risk during fighting.
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Sixteen months after deadly clashes erupted in Azerbaijan’s autonomous breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, international mediators are saying it’s time for all parties to undertake confidence-building measures to jump-start the political settlement process.

Russia led mediation to settle the four days of shelling and rocket strikes between Azerbaijan’s military and Armenian-backed separatists over Nagorno-Karabakh. The clashes were the deadliest incidents since a 1994 cease-fire established the current territorial division. The brief but intense fighting of April 2016 claimed dozens of lives.

Since then, the United States, Russia and France, which co-chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group for conflict mediation, have continued advocating diplomacy to secure a binding peace resolution.

Steps toward demilitarization are essential to deterring accidental flare-ups of violence between the groups, said Ambassador Richard Hoagland, U.S. co-chairman of the Minsk Group.

“When you have two armed groups facing each other in difficult terrain not very far apart, there is always the chance for some kind of accident to happen that then spirals out of control,” he recently told VOA’s Armenian and Azeri services. “I know that at this point it will be difficult to ask for total demilitarization, although that would be good, so what we have to do is to look for those things that can help to reduce the possibility of some kind of military accident that then gets out of control.”

Removal of snipers along both sides of the Karabakh line of contact, which separates Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, would be a logical first step, Hoagland said.

Allowing the presence of international observers and installing new electronic equipment that traces cease-fire violations, he said, would be a second realistic benchmark to achieve.

“There is an actual document [that maps out the peace process], and it’s a very comprehensive, but there are steps and steps and steps, and stages and stages,” he told VOA. “So I would hope that in the next highest level of negotiations, the two sides will look very seriously and say even if they can’t come to a final conclusion, here are things we can accomplish.”

U.S.-Russian coordination?

Although some observers describe the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a rare point of shared strategic interests between the U.S. and Russia, others are skeptical.

Hoagland, however, struck an optimistic tone, saying the United States was continuing to work with Russia on this issue despite deteriorating relations between the two countries.

“I have seen absolutely no change in how we work together and how we regard each other,” he told VOA. “Just because sometimes the politicians are bumping up against each other, for us, the work continues and we do it arm in arm.

“Maybe at the top the headline news doesn’t look good, but when you get down to specific issues, specific problems to work on together, where we do cooperate, that continues and it continues today on Nagorno-Karabakh,” he added.

Although the conflict has yet to come under the focus of the President Donald Trump’s administration, former Ambassador John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, told VOA that might change in the coming six to 12 months.

While a planned U.N. General Assembly meeting between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev may signal a loosening of tensions between the groups, Herbst said, “I still do not see any grounds for a reasonable settlement of the conflict.”

“Everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of the population of Karabakh are Armenians and they will have substantial autonomy, and this should be the basis of the settlement,” he said.  

Competing interests

The main obstacle to full settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the fact that there are too many interests involved in the problem, said analyst Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy research group.

“If the problem was only about the two countries, it would probably have been settled, but states like Russia want to maintain the conflict,” he said.

Echoing that sentiment, Anna Borshchevskaya of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said Armenian officials have complained that a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement has been hampered by Russian arms sales to both sides.

“Russia wants to play a serious role in this conflict, and if there is no conflict, there will be no such role,” she said.

Although Russian weapons deliveries to Baku remained a contentious issue throughout Armenia’s 2017 parliamentary elections, most political forces steered clear of the topic and the question of whether Armenia is more secure with Russia as an ally.

Russia plays an important role in the region as its former imperial and Soviet-era overlord. It is also the main seller of weapons to both Armenia, a close Moscow ally, and Azerbaijan, which has developed warm relations with ethnically kin Turkey.

The Kremlin has consistently stated that it intends to continue selling arms to both camps while supporting peaceful resolution of the conflict.

On July 17, Armenia’s president called Russian arms sales to Baku “the most painful side of Armenian-Russian relations.”

Baku

Armenian political scientist Suren Sargsyan said Baku officials need to assume a more proactive role in securing the front lines, touching on Hoagland’s calls for demilitarization as an example.

“Such an agreement has been reached between the parties,” she told VOA. “But the Azerbaijani side has not taken any practical steps in that direction for a long time. That is why the negotiation process goes to a deadlock.”

Fighting between ethnic Azeris and Armenians erupted in 1991 and a cease-fire was agreed to in 1994. But Azerbaijan and Armenia regularly accuse each other of carrying out attacks around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Azeri-Armenian border.

On July 5, an Azeri woman and child were killed and another civilian wounded by Armenian forces near the boundary with Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Wednesday.

Sporadic exchanges of fire in the fight for control over the region — inside Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenians — have stoked fears of a wider conflict breaking out in the South Caucasus, which is crossed by oil and gas pipelines.

This story originated in VOA’s Armenian service. Some information came from Reuters.
…

The next presidential election in Slovenia will be held on October 22 and the incumbent is expected to run for a second term.

Parliamentary speaker Milan Brglez on Friday formally set the date for the vote which must be held in the autumn. Recent opinion polls predict that President Borut Pahor will likely be re-elected if he chooses to run.

The 53-year-old Pahor is a former fashion model who has become known for his use of social media while in office.

The Alpine nation of 2 million people is the homeland of U.S. first lady Melania Trump.
…

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is warning people against returning prematurely to war-torn Syria as the number of displaced going back to their homes reaches a record high.

An IOM report found more than 600,000 displaced Syrians have returned home in the first seven months of this year, nearly as many as the total number of returnees for all of 2016.

IOM spokeswoman Olivia Haedon said most of the returns are spontaneous, but not necessarily voluntary, safe or sustainable.

“As the security situation changes in different parts of the country, displacement can occur again,” she said. “As you noted, in the number of people who were displaced this year, which is over 800,000, some people are being displaced for the second or third time.”

The report said most of the people returning to their homes, 84 percent, are internally displaced, while 16 percent are returning refugees from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. It said an estimated two-thirds have returned to Aleppo Governorate. Others have gone mainly to Idleb, Hama, Raqqa, and Rural Damascus Governorates.

Haedon said people cite a variety of reasons for their decision to go home.

“They are going back with the hope that they can stay to protect their property and engage in a better, improved economic situation, or, protect themselves if they are leaving because of the area that they were living was less secure than the place that they originated from,” she said. “So, we do see that the people are hoping that they can stay for a longer term.”

Haedon said humanitarian organizations agree organized returns to Syria are not yet an option. Syria is not safe, she added, and the places to which people return are not equipped to provide essential services.

She said the IOM is not encouraging Syrians to go home.
…

Opponents of Britain’s departure from the European Union are floating the idea of setting up a new anti-Brexit political party.

James Chapman, a former aide to Brexit Secretary David Davis, has become an outspoken critic of Britain’s looming departure from the 28-nation bloc.

He is calling for a new centrist political party because both the governing Conservatives and main opposition Labour parties say they will go through with the decision to leave.

Chapman said Friday “there is an enormous gap in the center now of British politics” that could be filled by an anti-Brexit force.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has also called for pro-EU politicians from all parties to unite.

Britain is currently negotiating its divorce from the EU and is due to leave in March 2019.
…

Croatia revoked on Thursday its decision to raise import fees on some farm products by 220 percent, avoiding a trade war with its Balkan neighbors who had threatened to hit back with counter-measures.

European Union-member Croatia last month raised its fees for phytosanitary controls — agricultural checks for pests and viruses on fruits and vegetables — at its borders to 2,000 kuna ($317.52) from 90 kuna, citing compliance with EU standards and protection of its consumers.

EU candidates Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as fellow EU aspirant Bosnia, have called on Croatia to withdraw its decision, saying otherwise each of them would take counter-measures it considered adequate to protect its economic interests.

Serbia, which is the only country in the region that operates a trade surplus with its neighbor, has already stepped up phytosanitary controls on all organic produce from Croatia and said it would increase them further.

Croatia’s agriculture ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it cut the import fee for a shipment of one brand of fruits and vegetables to 90 kuna, and that the decision will become effective on Friday.

The ministry also agreed with neighboring countries that agricultural inspections on their borders will go back to normal routine as of Friday, while all other pending issues will be analyzed and discussed, it said in the statement.

Most countries in the region import more than they export to Croatia, except for Serbia. Serbia’s exports to Croatia in 2016 reached 116 million euros ($136.04 million) versus imports worth 79 million euros.

Neighboring countries welcomed Croatia’s move.

“Bringing the prices back at the previous level will contribute to the relaxation of relations among the countries of the region,” said Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

($1 = 0.8527 euros)

($1 = 6.2989 kuna)
…

A former investigative reporter for Russia’s independent RBC media group was found guilty and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on Thursday on charges of organizing an extremist group and attempting to overthrow the government.

Authorities said Alexander Sokolov, 29, was the mastermind behind the group “For Responsible Government,” or FRG, a Moscow-based organization alleged to be a cover for banned extremist group “People’s Will Army,” which was created by Sokolov associate Yuri Mukhin.

Moscow judge Alexey Krivoruchko sentenced Mukhin, a newspaper editor, to a four-year suspended term, while two other activists – Valery Parfenov and Kirill Barabash – both received four-year sentences. All deny the charges.

Sokolov said his trial and sentencing are persecution for his investigative reporting. The human rights group Memorial called Sokolov “a political prisoner,” and media rights group Reporters Without Borders testified on his behalf.

During the proceedings, independent Russian channel TV Rain recorded video of Sokolov making brief remarks before the press was ordered to leave.

“The idea of a referendum in Russia has been equated with ‘extremism,’” said Sokolov on camera, wearing a white T-shirt with the same message printed on the front. “It is a crime, as you see, to want a referendum in Russia….” Sokolov’s speech was interrupted by a guard shouting, “Press, this is it, you’re leaving! Press, out!”

Sokolov was arrested July 29, 2015, weeks after RBC published a report he wrote on the alleged embezzlement of $1.55 billion from a project initiated by President Vladimir Putin – construction of a new space launch site in Russia’s Far East. Additionally, Mukhin, Parfenov and Barabash were taken into custody the same day. Prosecutors alleged that as members of FRG, the four were advocating for a referendum on government in Russia.

The article that Sokolov wrote was passed to the Auditing Chamber of the Russian Federation, which in December 2015 confirmed his findings and issued a statement about “financial irregularities” during the construction project.

Sokolov had been monitored by the Russian authorities since 2014, when police investigator Natalia Talaeva opened the criminal probe into Sokolov and his associates. Court records dealing with Sokolov’s arrest said Talaeva considered his work at the FRG, including publications calling for the referendum in Russia, to be incriminating evidence against him. Talaeva added that the real goal of Sokolov’s group was the “dismantlement of Russian statehood” and “an illegal transition of power” through a referendum.

The same year, Sokolov was finishing his thesis on government losses from corruption, looking at government companies Rosnano, Rostech, Olympstroi, and Rosatom. Police, suspecting him of extremist activity, searched his home at 5:00 one morning and confiscated all data storage devices, accusing him of plotting a regime change.

In an interview with Russia’s independent media outlet Novaya Gazeta after the search, Sokolov said, “I am not afraid because the truth is on my side. This will be more proof that the government is scared of responsibility before the people. I am not even considering moving away or leaving and hiding somewhere. I have absolutely nothing to hide. It’s they who are potentially going to compensate me for the damages…”

Sokolov and the other defendants have already spent two years in jail and plan to appeal their sentences.
…