Month: October 2017

Leaders in Catalonia are facing increasing domestic and international pressure to abandon plans to declare independence from Spain, ahead of a planned speech by Catalonia’s regional president.

Catalan regional leader Carles Puigdemont is due to address the regional parliament on Tuesday, and Spain’s government is worried the legislature will vote for a unilateral declaration of independence. Puigdemont has not revealed what his message to lawmakers will be.

Political leaders, both domestically and internationally, urged Catalan leaders on Monday to back down to ease growing tensions in the country.

Major speaks out

Barcelona’s mayor was the latest to speak out against a declaration of independence, saying this would put “social cohesion” at risk. Ada Colau called on all sides to de-escalate tensions to solve “the most severe institutional crisis since the re-establishment of democracy in Spain.”

The head of Spain’s main opposition party, Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, also called for Catalan leaders to drop an attempt to declare independence, saying “a universal declaration of independence doesn’t have a place in a state ruled by law.”

Germany and France also weighed in Monday against a split. German Chancellor Angela Merkel “affirmed her backing for the unity of Spain,” but also encouraged dialogue, according to her spokesman.

France said it would not recognize Catalonia if the region declared independence. “This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics,” France’s European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said.

Tensions have grown in Spain since last week when Catalonia held a regional vote for independence, an election deemed illegal by Madrid. Police cracked down on the vote, firing rubber bullets and storming crowds to disrupt the voting, leading to hundreds of injuries.

Huge support at the polls

Catalan leaders say 90 percent of those who went to the polls voted to break with Spain. However, opponents of the referendum say the vote did not show the true will of the region because those who want to stay in Spain mainly boycotted the polls.

Police say about 350,000 demonstrators attended an anti-independence protest on Sunday.

On Saturday, thousands of protesters gathered at rallies in Barcelona, Madrid and other Spanish cities to demand dialogue to end the dispute.

Banks, businesses may move

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he would not rule out using constitutional powers to take away Catalonia’s autonomous status if the region declares independence.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais published Sunday, Rajoy said that he will consider employing any measure “allowed by the law” to stop the region’s separatists.

The crisis has prompted several major banks and businesses to announce they will move their headquarters out of Catalonia to other parts of Spain so they can be sure they will remain in the European Union common market.

Catalonia, a northeastern region in Spain, has its own language and cultural traditions. It is home to 7.5 million people and accounts for about a fifth of Spain’s economy.
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A satirical look at the European Union and its bureaucracy, which opens with a pig running amok in one of Brussels’ main squares, has won the prestigious German Book Prize.

Austrian writer Robert Menasse scooped a 25,000 euro prize for his novel Die Hauptstadt (The Capital) on Monday, on the eve of the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Europe’s future hangs in the balance as Britain wrangles with Brussels about the terms of its departure from the bloc after the June 2016 Brexit vote. Despite efforts to provide a united front, the other 27 members remain deeply divided over the euro, taxes and migration.

“Contemporary times are presented literarily so well that contemporaries recognize themselves and coming generations will better understand this time,” the German Publishers and Booksellers Association said.

The Austrian newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten called Menasse’s book “provocative, timely and important: a plea to remember what lies at the centre of the ‘European peace project’, and to have the courage to take it into its next phase.”

The book, published by Suhrkampf Verlag in September, was one of six books shortlisted for the prize. Menasse, clearly moved, accepted the prize in Frankfurt.
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Any escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula is unacceptable, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone call on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned over the weekend that “only one thing will work” in dealing with Pyongyang, hinting that military action was on his mind.

“Lavrov underlined the inadmissibility of any escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula, to which the USA’s military preparations lead, and called for contradictions to be resolved by diplomatic means only,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Lavrov also demanded the return of Russian diplomatic property seized by the United States in 2016 when former U.S. president Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered that some of its U.S. diplomatic properties be vacated.

The Obama administration said it was retaliating for Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

In July, Moscow responded, ordering the United States to cut the number of its diplomatic and technical staff working in Russia by around 60 percent, to 455.

“Russia reserves the right to go to court and to [take] retaliatory measures,” Lavrov told Tillerson.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month the foreign ministry would go to court “to see just how efficient the much-praised U.S. judiciary is”.

Lavrov and Tillerson discussed the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, the ministry said.

Lavrov said a Kyiv-backed draft law aiming at “reintegration” of Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is controlled by Russian-backed separatists, contradicts the Minsk peace agreements aimed at resolving the conflict.

The draft law would declare separatist-controlled regions to be “occupied,” allowing Kyiv to use military troops in those territories.

The ministry said the Russian and U.S. sides had agreed to continue a dialogue on “the difficult issues” between Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon.
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Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in Barcelona Sunday to support Spanish unity and to express opposition to a declaration of independence by Catalan leaders. Nobel-prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa was among those who addressed the crowd in Catalonia’s capital. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more on the rally that took place a day ahead of the banned parliamentary session planned by the regional parliament for Monday.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have reportedly reached a deal with Bavarian conservatives on a refugee cap as both sides look to unite ahead of talks on forming a new government.

Merkel and the head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), Horst Seehofer, plan to spell out the details of the deal Monday.

Reports say the number of refugees to be allowed into Germany would be capped at about 200,000 per year. Merkel has, until now, rejected limits. She has said they would violate the country’s constitution which grants anyone facing political persecution the right to seek asylum.

Under the deal, asylum seekers would not be turned away at the border until their cases are heard.

Both parties also agreed to do more to attract immigrants with highly-sought-after labor skills and also up the fight against human traffickers.

Bavaria comprises about 15 percent of Germany’s population. Support from its CSU conservatives is vital as Merkel proceeds with talks on forming a new coalition government with the liberal Greens and pro-business Free Democrats.

Merkel won a fourth term as chancellor in last month’s parliamentary election, but her Christian Democrats failed to win an outright majority.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party won a stunningly-high 94 of 709 seats in the Bundestag and could cause trouble for the moderately conservative Merkel.
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When Israel’s envoy told UNESCO delegates last July that fixing the plumbing in his toilet was more important than their latest ruling, it highlighted how fractious geopolitics are paralyzing the workings of the agency.

Whoever wins the race to replace Irina Bokova as head of the U.N.’s cultural and education body next week will have to try to restore the relevance of an agency born from the ashes of World War II but increasingly hobbled by regional rivalries and a lack of money.

Its triumphs include designating world heritage sites such as the Galapagos Islands and the historic tombs of Timbuktu — re-built by UNESCO after Islamist militants destroyed them.

But in a sign of how toxic relations have become, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly last month that UNESCO was promoting “fake history.”

Like Israel’s plain-speaking envoy Carmel Shama Hacohen, Netanyahu was referring to UNESCO’s designation of Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart – the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque – as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger.”

Jews believe the Cave of the Patriarchs is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives, are buried. Muslims, who, like Christians, also revere Abraham, built the Ibrahimi mosque, also known as the Sanctuary of Abraham, in the 14th century.

Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, though, are only part of a minefield of contentious issues on which the U.N. body has to hand down rulings.

Japan, for example, threatened to withhold its 2016 dues after UNESCO included documents submitted by China on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in its “Memory of the World” program.

The Paris-based organization, which also promotes global education and supports press freedom, convenes its executive council on Oct. 9 to begin voting on seven candidates.

Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, France, Lebanon, Qatar and Vietnam have put forward candidates. There is no clear front-runner.

UNESCO’s struggles worsened in 2011, when the United States cancelled its substantial budgetary contribution in protest at a decision to grant the Palestinians full membership. UNESCO has been forced to cut programs and freeze hiring.

“It’s an organization that has been swept away from its mandate to become a sounding board for clashes that happen elsewhere, and that translates into political and financial hijacking,” said a former European UNESCO ambassador.

Drawing Lots

All the candidates have vowed a grassroots overhaul and pledged independence from their home nations.

France and China, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, argue the agency needs “strong leadership, which can only come with the backing of a major power.

Chinese candidate Qian Tang has almost 25 years experience at UNESCO. His bid fits into Beijing’s soft power diplomacy, though Western capitals fret about China controlling an agency that shapes internet and media policy.

Former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay carries the support of France’s new young president, Emmanuel Macron. But the last minute French candidacy has drawn the ire of Arab states, notably Egypt, who believe it should be their turn.

The Arab states face their own political tests. Their three entries underscore their own disunity, something the Egyptian hopeful Moushira Khattab has indicated stymie the Arab bid.

The crisis engulfing Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbors, who have called Doha a “high-level” sponsor of terrorism, meanwhile may have hurt the chances of former Qatari culture minister Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari.

Voting takes place over a maximum five rounds. If the two finalists are level, they draw lots.
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London police have released a 47-year-old man they had detained on suspicion of dangerous driving after his car veered off the pavement Saturday outside the city’s Natural History Museum.

Eleven people were hurt in the incident and nine were hospitalized. Officials said none of the injuries was life-threatening.

Initially, the crash was thought to be a terrorist attack, but police later said, “The incident is a road traffic investigation and not a terrorist-related incident.”

Police said the man was released “under investigation” and did not reveal his identity.

Britain is on its second-highest security alert level after five deadly attacks this year, three involving a vehicle, including attacks on pedestrians at Westminster and London Bridges.
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As Germany moves to implement sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, its efforts seem to be at odds with a private business in Berlin.

Poised to tighten financial screws on a regime that is making steady progress toward a nuclear-tipped missile that can threaten the U.S. mainland, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution in November 2016, which for the first time included a prohibition on using any property that North Korea owns or leases for purposes other than diplomatic activities.

Five months after its passage, Germany stated in an implementation report submitted to the U.N. that it had begun implementing the restrictive measure.

Facing the brunt of Germany’s sanctions implementation is a youth hostel located in North Korea’s embassy compound in Berlin. The German foreign ministry, which has pressured the North Korean embassy into terminating the rental agreement with the hostel, is now squeezing the hostel owners to cease operations that indirectly benefit the Kim Jong Un regime.

​City Hostel Berlin, which has housed tourists for many years, reportedly pays up to 38,000 euro ($45,000) per month in rent to North Korea.

In response to an inquiry from VOA’s Korean Service about the termination of the rental agreement, an unnamed official in Germany’s Federal Foreign Office said, “The office continuously called upon the North Korean embassy to cease all violations of U.N. and EU sanctions. The North Korean embassy now terminated the rental agreement. This is a further step to put an end to this practice.”

However, the hostel owners said the claims in media reports that they are funding Pyongyang’s illegal nuclear and missile programs are false, and they expressed their regrets in a statement obtained by VOA that the hostel had fallen prey to international politics.

The unilateral termination notice issued to the hostel by Pyongyang has no legal basis and was refuted by the hostel’s lawyers, the owners said. They added that although it is still in operation, it is not paying rent to the North Korean embassy, pending legal evaluation.

“This is a normal commercial lease signed under usual terms. All approvals and permits for our operation are issued by responsible authorities in Berlin,” the City Hostel owners said in a statement translated via Google. “In this context, City Hostel sees [the termination of rental agreement] an unacceptable intervention … and will defend itself by all means against any such intervention.”

The hostel said the German foreign ministry has yet to respond to its question concerning compensation.

Following the adoption of the resolution in November, other EU member states such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have also taken action against North Korea’s practice of using embassy property for commercial purposes.
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Catalonians are rallying in Barcelona Sunday to protest the Catalan government’s push for secession from the rest of Spain.

“We have perhaps been silent too long,” one protester told the French news agency, AFP.

The rally comes a week after a referendum in which Catalonians voted overwhelmingly for independence.  In that poll, deemed illegal by Madrid, 90 percent voted to break with Spain, but the turnout was well under half of the electorate.

Opinion polls have consistently suggested that more Catalans favor remaining in Spain than declaring independence.

Organizers say the slogan for Sunday’s rally is “Enough, let’s recover good sense.”  

Protesters gathered at Barcelona’s Urquinaona square are singing “Viva Espana.”  

Catalonian leaders, now faced with tough decisions on how to proceed, are calling for dialogue with Spain’s national government.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he will not rule out using constitutional powers to take away Catalonia’s autonomous status, if the region declares independence.

Rajoy made the remark Saturday to the newspaper El Pais. He added, “I don’t rule out anything that is within the law.” He added, “I would like the threat of an independence referendum to be withdrawn as quickly as possible.”

On Saturday, thousands of protesters gathered at rallies in Barcelona, Madrid and other Spanish cities to demand dialogue to end the dispute.

Secessionist anger in Catalonia has intensified following the violence last Sunday when Spain’s national police and Civil Guard fired rubber bullets, roughed up Catalans and raided polling stations as part of an effort to disrupt the plebiscite. Catalan authorities say almost 900 people were hurt in the crackdown.

With the crisis deepening, and no sign of an end to political instability, some Catalan businesses have announced they are relocating their headquarters to other parts of Spain to avoid the possibility of getting knocked out of the European Union common market by a Catalonian secession.
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Thousands of protesters gathered Saturday at rallies in Barcelona, Madrid, and other Spanish cities as Catalonians continue to push for secession from Spain after last week’s independence referendum.

Organizers of the Catalonia secession rally had asked the demonstrators to wear neutral white, and not to display any flags, either Spanish or Catalonian. The demonstration organizers have been promoting the slogan, “Let’s Talk.”

In Madrid, the Spanish national capital, there also was a competing demonstration, for Spanish unity. That demonstration, centered on Madrid’s Plaza de Colon, featured thousands of people waving red and yellow Spanish flags.

The competing rallies follow Monday’s referendum in which Catalonians voted overwhelmingly for independence, but the national government has called the vote illegal. Catalonian leaders, now faced with tough decisions on how to proceed, are calling for dialogue with Spain’s national government.

 A top EU official Thursday warned that the separatist dispute risks escalating into armed conflict.

“The position is very, very alarming. Civil war is conceivable there, in the middle of Europe,” Gunther Oettinger, the Germany EU commissioner said at an event in Munich.

The German commissioner’s startling remarks prompted disquiet among EU diplomats. One told VOA he thought the comments were “nonsense.”

Oettinger and the EU Commission, the European bloc’s governing body, which fears Catalan independence might stir up separatism elsewhere in Europe, also have urged the authorities in Madrid and Barcelona to start negotiations and to avoid further provocations. But there are few signs of that happening. Both sides appear to be standing firm in Spain’s worst constitutional crisis since an attempted coup in 1981.

Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has threatened to suspend Catalonia’s semi-autonomy and to introduce direct rule from Madrid. He has said there can be no talks while Catalonia’s separatist leaders are threatening to issue a declaration of independence on the back of last Sunday’s unauthorized plebiscite.

In that poll, deemed illegal by Madrid, 90 percent voted to break with Spain but the turnout was well under half of the electorate. Opinion polls have consistently suggested that more Catalans favor remaining in Spain.

Secessionist anger in Catalonia has only intensified, though, over the violence last Sunday when Spain’s national police and Civil Guard fired rubber bullets, roughed up Catalans and raided polling stations as part of an effort to disrupt the plebiscite. Catalan authorities say almost 900 people were hurt in the crackdown.

Catalan anger has been further provoked by Spain’s constitutional court barring Catalonia’s regional parliament from sitting on Monday in a session scheduled to discuss the results of last Sunday’s referendum, and possibly to declare independence.

With the crisis deepening, and no sign of an end to political instability, some Catalan businesses have announced they are relocating their headquarters to other parts of Spain to avoid the possibility of getting knocked out of the European Union common market by a Catalonian secession.

 
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London police have ruled out terrorism as the motive behind a car incident Saturday that injured a number of pedestrians near the city’s Natural History Museum.

Police had said earlier that they were keeping an open mind about the incident, after initially saying it was not being treated as an act of terrorism.

But in the latest statement, police said “the incident is a road traffic investigation and not a terrorist-related incident.”

A man was detained after British media reported a car had veered onto the pavement outside the museum, a popular tourist attraction in the South Kensington area of west London. He has not been charged.

Eleven people were hurt, nine of whom were hospitalized, according to the London Ambulance Service.

Britain is on its second-highest security alert level after five deadly attacks this year, three involving vehicles, including vehicular attacks on pedestrians at Westminster Bridge and London Bridge.
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Three men have been handed preliminary terror-linked charges in the failed attack a week ago on a residential building in an upscale Paris neighborhood with gas canisters that failed to ignite, a judicial official said Saturday.

The suspects were placed under formal investigation late Friday in the mysterious attack attempt in the building in western Paris’ chic 16th arrondissement, the official said. No motive for the attack has been uncovered, and the three have refused to answer questions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the record about an ongoing investigation.

The trio has denied a role in the attack plot in which four gas canisters on the building’s ground floor, doused with gasoline, were set to explode once a phone call was made to a mobile phone that served as a detonator, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said at a Friday news conference. A resident awakened by a whistling sound and the smell of gas alerted police. Molins said the explosion, had it been pulled off, could have led to “dramatic human and material consequences.”

But a week later, the mystery remains. Investigators have yet to find a “logical explanation” for why the building was targeted, the prosecutor said. The attempt to destroy the building stood apart from numerous other attacks in France, including last week’s deadly knife attack on two young women at the Marseille train station, claimed by the so-called Islamic State group. Investigators continued that probe with no known concrete advances about the attacker, killed by soldiers, who used seven identities, including a Tunisian passport.

Two of the three men charged in the attempted Paris bombing, identified as Aymen B., who turns 30 next month, and Amine A., 30, are among thousands on a list for radicalization. Samy B., 28 and father of three, also was charged.

All were held for attempted murder linked to a terrorist enterprise, transporting explosives and participating in a terrorist association aimed at preparing attacks. They all had been convicted in the past. Aymen B., convicted three times, had been checked last November by police when he was found praying in the emergency lane of a highway, along with Amine A., detained in 2013 in another terrorist case.
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Experts from Europe’s top human rights body on Friday expressed concerns over decrees issued by Turkey’s government that removed elected mayors from posts and replaced them with unelected officials.

Following last year’s coup attempt Turkey declared a state of emergency that allows the government to rule by decrees, largely by-passing parliament. Turkey says the emergency powers are needed to deal with the coup-plotters and thwart security threats.

The Council of Europe’s advisory body — known as the Venice Commission and made up of constitutional law experts — said it was “particularly worried” by the use of decrees to sack elected mayors and other municipal officials in Turkey’s mainly-Kurdish southeast over terror-related charges and to appoint unelected officials in their place.

The Commission said: “Local authorities are one of the main foundations of democratic society … Their election by the local population is key to ensuring the people’s participation in the political process.”

Among other things, the Commission called on Turkey to stop filling vacancies through appointments, to ensure that decisions affecting municipalities are taken after parliamentary debate and to introduce rules that would reinstate mayors if charges do not lead to a criminal conviction.

Opposition politicians say the government has used the state of emergency to crack down on critics.

More than 50,000 people have been arrested and some 110,000 others were sacked from government jobs in a large-scale crackdown on people with alleged links to terror groups or to U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey accuses of orchestrating the failed coup.

 
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Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif says other countries in the region may be able to sway the Taliban into peace talks better than Islamabad, including Russia.

“At least for our influence on Taliban today, there is a mistrust … perhaps they have more influence from other countries in that region than in our Pakistan,” Asif said Thursday when asked by VOA’s Urdu service whether he was referring to Russia.

Asif was speaking to reporters in Washington a day after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss issues of mutual concern, such as Afghanistan.

The Pakistani foreign minister said an upcoming four-way round of talks on Afghanistan was slated for Oman’s capital, Muscat, on October 16.

“The quadrilateral arrangement will again be in operation. So, that is something we still hope will … still work,” Asif said.

He gave no further details on the talks or who would be attending.

Quadrilateral group restored

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani agreed in June to revive the Quadrilateral Coordination Group, made up of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States. The group last met in May 2016 and fell into disarray with the Taliban’s refusal to take part, a change in U.S. leadership, and bickering between Islamabad and Kabul.

Asif urged the United States to act as a facilitator between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“We need the bilateral contacts, which were resumed three or four days back with Kabul and Islamabad. The Americans will support us in this process,” Asif said.

Pakistan has rejected U.S. accusations that it is not doing enough to fight terrorism on its own soil.

Asif told VOA Urdu that Pakistan is going beyond offering Kabul joint-border monitoring and is asking for Afghan military commanders to help identify hideouts of Taliban inside Pakistan.

“We offered them — don’t give us information, board the helicopter with us, tell us the coordinates — we’ll straight go over there,” he said. “You want us to sniff them out? We’ll do that. You want us to take action against them? Whatever action you propose, we’ll do that. But,  … these hollow allegations are not acceptable.”

Russia in Afghanistan

Russia’s influence has slowly been returning to Afghanistan since the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion ended in defeat at the hands of the U.S.-backed mujahedeen.

Since launching a 2001 war against the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida terrorists, U.S. forces have gradually drawn down from the protracted conflict, providing room for Russia to assert itself.

Since December, Moscow has hosted three rounds of expanding international talks on Afghanistan, which the Taliban also has refused to support. For the second round in February, Russia invited Afghan representatives for the first time after Kabul and Washington raised concerns about their exclusion.

For the last round in April, Moscow invited former Soviet Central Asian states to join Afghanistan, China, India, Iran and Pakistan for a total of 11 countries. The United States also was invited, but Washington declined, saying it was not informed of the agenda beforehand and was unclear of the meeting’s motives.

The Taliban so far has refused direct talks with Kabul, calling it a “U.S. puppet,” and has declined to support the Moscow-led talks.

Russia acknowledged in 2016 it has been in direct contact with the Taliban leaders, but insists it is part of efforts to promote peace, and it has denied allegations of supplying or arming the Taliban.

Just days ahead of the February talks, however, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Russia was legitimizing and supporting the Taliban.

Pakistan has said Russia is “positively” using its influence with the Taliban and wants the U.S. to participate in the talks initiated by Moscow.

VOA’s Urdu service contributed to this report.
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U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass is criticizing the arrest of a local U.S. Consulate employee in Istanbul, saying it was motivated by “revenge rather than justice” on the part of elements within the Turkish government.

Bass made his comments Friday in the case of Metin Topuz, who was taken into custody Wednesday on terrorism charges.

“There is a big difference between pursuing justice and pursuing vengeance in terms of the rule of law and the democratic norms that this country, and my country, have committed themselves to, both through the Helsinki Charter and their own constitutions,” Bass said at a meeting of Turkish reporters.

Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu news agency, citing security sources, reports that Topuz was in regular communication with alleged leading members of a terrorist network blamed for last year’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to the government, the Fethullah Terrorist Organization, created by U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, was involved in the attempted coup in which more than 250 people were killed. Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, denies any involvement.

Takes issue with media

The same media report says Topuz also faces charges of espionage and attempting to overthrow the constitutional order.

Ambassador Bass took aim at the use of the media in Topuz’s detention.

“I am deeply disturbed that some people in the Turkish government prefer to try this case through media outlets rather than properly pursuing the case in a court of law before a judge. That does not strike me as pursuing justice; it seems to me more a pursuit of vengeance,” he said.

The U.S. ambassador, who is due to leave his post in Ankara for a new assignment in Afghanistan, also pushed back against the Turkish Foreign Ministry, saying Topuz was a staff member.

On Tuesday, the ministry issued a statement saying, “He [Topuz] is neither a staffer of the U.S. Consulate nor does he have any diplomatic or consular immunity.”

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag on Friday, in appearing to contradict the Foreign Ministry, criticized the U.S. diplomatic representation for its employment of Topuz.

“The important thing to be highlighted here is the presence and employment of a terror-linked person at the U.S. embassy without the knowledge of Turkish authorities,” Bozdag said.

U.S.-Turkish tensions have been on the rise over Washington’s support of the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG in its fight against Islamic State. Ankara deems the YPG as terrorists.

“This crisis of the confidence has been there for quite a while,” noted Semih Idiz, a political columnist with Al Monitor website.

But those tensions continue to be exacerbated over the ongoing fallout concerning last year’s coup attempt.

In the days after the botched military takeover, several Turkish ministers and the pro-government media accused Washington of being involved, a charge the U.S. strongly denied; however, the U.S. refusal to extradite cleric Gulen continues to fuel suspicions of Washington’s alleged collusion with him.

Political rhetoric

Turkish President Erdogan is increasingly using in his rhetoric accusations of foreign conspiracies against his government and country.

“It’s affecting the public opinion because when these conspirators are regularly referred to, the Turkish public is simply looking to its [Turkey’s] Western allies as conspirators and as enemies,” said former Turkish Ambassador Unal Cevikoz, who now heads the Ankara Policy Forum.

“If this belief and this perception become more and more structural, then I am afraid it will carry Turkey away from its Western location and it will be very difficult to find a remedy to that illness in the future because it will be a part of the structural Turkish public opinion thinking.”

Erdogan warned recently of what he said was the danger of Turkish students studying overseas and returning as spies. The fear of foreign spies, especially from Turkey’s Western allies, is part of the national psyche. “Under every stone can be found an English spy,” is a Turkish adage.

Analysts point out Erdogan will be aware that stirring xenophobic fears and standing up to Washington will play well with nationalist voters, a key constituent for him in the 2019 presidential elections.
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Protesters in Catalonia have demonstrated for and against independence. Thursday, both sides gathered outside Barcelona over the deployment of national troops in the region. Spanish authorities have sent thousands of police and Civil Guard to Catalonia to block moves for independence. Spain’s Constitutional Court has ordered a suspension of Catalonia’s parliamentary session next week, in which regional leaders plan to vote for a unilateral declaration of independence. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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European countries are forcibly returning tens of thousands of Afghan asylum seekers, knowing they are at serious risk of torture, kidnapping, death and other human rights abuses, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group says the deportations are a brazen violation of international law. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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European countries are forcibly returning thousands of failed Afghan asylum seekers, knowing they are at serious risk of torture, kidnapping, death and other human rights abuses, according to Amnesty International.

The human rights group says the deportations are a ‘brazen violation’ of international law.

Between 2015 and 2016, European Union figures show the number of Afghans returned by European countries almost tripled, from just more than 3,000 to 9,500.

WATCH: Amnesty: Afghan Asylum-seekers Deported From Europe Face Death, Torture, Persecution

Amnesty International’s Audrey Gaughran told VOA the migrants are being sent back to a country still in the grip of war.

“2016 was the deadliest year on record in Afghanistan since monitoring began.  And in 2016 there were 11,000 casualties.  Thus far in 2017 the United Nations has recorded more than 16,000 security incidents.  So people are being sent back in greater numbers as the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates.”

Discrimination

Many Afghan asylum seekers feel unfairly treated, compared to other nationalities. 

Mohammed Jamshidi was deported to Kabul from Germany last month.

“In every corner of Europe, the priority is given to the people of Syria.  They need only three months to get registered, but Afghans are deported after years of staying in Germany,” Jamshidi said at Kabul airport.

Amnesty highlighted cases of returned Afghans who were killed or injured in bomb attacks, and others left in fear of persecution for their religion or sexual orientation.Several were sent back to parts of Afghanistan they had never known.  European governments justified these returns by claiming there were safe areas of the country.

“That’s just not true.  You are not safe in Afghanistan in any province.  But in addition to that, people are being returned to Afghanistan to places they’ve never seen before, that they don’t know anything about,” says Amnesty’s Gaughran.

Germany paused the return of Afghans in May, following a bomb attack in Kabul that killed 150 people and damaged the German embassy.  Deportations resumed last month.

A spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry told VOA that each returnee is assessed on a case-by-case basis, adding the government disputes Amnesty’s assertion that there are no safe areas in Afghanistan.

A spokesperson for the European Union said deportation decisions are made by member state governments, not by Brussels.
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British author Kazou Ishiguro has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The prize committee in Sweden says Ishiguro, through his novels, has “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

The committee said the 62-year-old author was born in Nagasaki, Japan.  He moved to Britain when he was five-years-old.

Ishiguro has written numerous novels, but the committee said on Twitter his most celebrated work was The Remains of the Day, a story about a butler at an English country estate.  

The novel was turned into a movie featuring Academy Award winners Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

Swedish academy secretary Sara Danius said Ishiguro is “a writer of great dignity” who has “developed an aesthetic universe all his own.”

“He is a little bit like a mix of Jane Austen, comedy of manners and Franz Kafka.  If you mix this a little, not too much, you get Ishiguro in a nutshell,” Danius said.

As the recipient of the $1.1 million prize, the world’s most prestigious literary award, Ishiguro joins the ranks of Doris Lessing and Ernest Hemingway.

The recipient last year was poet/songwriter Bob Dylan, an influential contributor to popular music and culture for the past half century.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 110 times between 1901 and 2017, according to NobelPrize.Org.

 
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Thursday urged Kurdish peshmerga forces to continue working with Iraqi security forces in the fight against Islamic State, while also reiterating his rejection of Kurdish independence.

Speaking during a visit to Paris, Abadi said his government does not want armed confrontation with the Kurds, but that “federal authority must prevail.”

Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted in favor of a non-binding independence referendum last month. Leaders said they hoped that would serve as the beginning of negotiations, but the government in Baghdad strongly rejected the vote.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday his government is prepared to help mediate the situation.

The Kurds and the Iraqi government have long-running disputes over oil revenues and who controls several key cities in the northern part of the country.
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The United States says it is “deeply concerned” about authorities in Turkey arresting a local employee of the U.S. consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish media reports say the employee, identified by the initials M.T., is accused of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and Turkey’s government,” and alleged to have ties to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The U.S. Mission to Turkey said in a statement Thursday it believes the allegations to be “wholly without merit.” It further objected to the way the case was being handled, expressing concern at what it said were Turkish government sources leaking information and leaving the employee to be tried in the media instead of a court.

Turkey accuses Gulen, who lives in the United States, of masterminding a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Turkish authorities have since jailed 50,000 people in a crackdown that has also included firing tens of thousands of people from government jobs and shutting down more than 100 media outlets.

Gulen has denied the accusations from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.

 
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Anti-corruption activists hoping to shine a light on the hundreds of millions of dollars funneled through London every year are organizing tours of properties allegedly bought with dishonest money.

The “Kleptocracy Tour” is billed as a journey to the dark side of globalization. This is the first such tour which focuses on Nigeria.

“The international community, specifically the United Kingdom, the United States, other financial centers, are playing a huge role in facilitating elite corruption in Nigeria, through offshore corporate tax havens, lax banking and property laws,” said tour guide Matthew Page, a former U.S. State Department Nigeria analyst, now with Transparency International.

The tour’s first stop is the capital’s wealthy Belgravia district. Tax papers leaked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca suggest two multi-million dollar properties are linked to Nigerian Senate President Bukola Saraki. He has denied the allegations.

Also among the several tour stops are lavish properties that have been subjected to asset forfeiture proceedings by a court in Houston, Texas. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating allegations they were received as bribes by Diezani Alison-Madueke, the former Nigerian Oil Minister and OPEC Secretary.

Nigeria analyst Clementine Wallop says Nigeria’s president is following through, though slowly, on pledges to crack down on corruption.

“It contributes to poverty. It contributes to poor education. It contributes to terrorism,” Wallop said of corruption. “You have communities where the young men are compelled to or driven into the arms of organizations like Boko Haram as a result of the depravation which results from corruption.”

Nigeria’s Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, told VOA the West must do more to help repatriate corrupt money.

“The government will not relent in pursuing these people,” Mohammed said. “But we also need the cooperation of many foreign countries, because sometimes we are hampered by the foreign jurisdictions.”

An estimated $100 billion of corrupt money passes through London each year. Activists say fears over the economy in a post-Brexit world are stalling government efforts to clamp down on global corruption, an industry with the British capital at its core.
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U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said Wednesday the committee continues to investigate whether President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election to help propel him to victory, adding that “a clear picture of what happened” is still developing.

“What I will confirm is the Russian intelligence service is determined, clever, and I recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously as we move into this November’s election, and as we move into preparation for the 2018 elections,” Burr said.

Burr’s remarks came as he released an interim report on the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.

Ranking Democrat Mark Warner said the federal government should take a “more aggressive whole government approach” toward Russia’s meddling, noting that electoral systems in 21 U.S. states were targeted by the Russians in the 2016 elections and some were penetrated.

Although Burr emphasized the investigation has not produced any conclusions, he believed the panel could not wait until the probe is completed before emphasizing to the public that Russia likely will interfere again.

The majority of Trump’s national security team agrees with the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had, indeed, meddled in last year’s election in favor of Trump. The president, however, has not said he believes them.

During the course of the investigation, committee members and staff investigators have conducted mostly behind-the-doors interviews with several members of Trump’s inner circle and the intelligence community.

Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was interviewed, as was senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, who also is Trump’s son-in-law. Others questioned were senior executives of social media companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, which displayed many of the Russian-supported advertisements that were intended to exacerbate divisions among voters on hot-button issues before the election.

The committee has scheduled a handful of public hearings, during which intelligence officials and the committee leaders have underscored that last year’s elections probably have encouraged Russia to interfere in future U.S. elections. The White House is not up for grabs in the 2018 elections, but the midterm contests could have an impact on control of Congress.

 
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The leader of the Catalan regional government in northeast Spain has said he will declare independence within days. This follows a referendum Sunday in which 90% of Catalans voted in favor of breaking away from Spain – although less than half of those registered turned out to vote. Madrid has declared the vote illegal, and Spain’s King has also strongly criticized the Catalan government – raising the stakes yet further in a crisis that has caught Europe by surprise. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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The Russian Foreign Ministry, saying U.S. officials had broken into residences at Russia’s consulate in San Francisco, has threatened retaliation over what it called an illegal act.

Russian staff left the consulate last month, after Washington ordered Moscow to vacate some of its diplomatic properties. The moves were part of a series of tit-for-tat actions during a thorny phase in bilateral relations.

Since then, U.S. officials had occupied administrative parts of the compound, but on Monday they entered residential areas that the departing staff had locked, the ministry said in a statement late Monday.

“Despite our warnings, the U.S. authorities did not listen to reason and did not give up their illegal intentions,” it said. “We reserve the right to respond. The principle of reciprocity has always been and remains the cornerstone of diplomacy.”

Footage aired repeatedly on Russian state television showed what the broadcaster said were U.S. officials breaking locks that had sealed off parts of the compound and entering the buildings.

The “intruders” had taken over the whole premises, including the consul general’s residence, the ministry said.

“Therefore, we understand that Americans, breaking into our diplomatic buildings, have de facto agreed that their missions in Russia may be treated likewise.”

A State Department spokeswoman denied Tuesday that U.S. officials had broken into the residences, saying diplomatic security and representatives of the department’s Foreign Missions Office had walked through the spaces to ensure they had been vacated by an October 1 deadline.

Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States had “graciously” given the Russian government more time to leave the buildings after discovering they had families and individuals “living in this sort of office-type space.”

“Once we learned that, we then offered them extra time there to pack up their items and leave,” Nauert said. “So we permitted them living in the apartments until October 1. And their time was up.

“We did not break locks. No FBI [was] involved,” she added.

“This is diplomatic security along with the Foreign Missions Office. What they do is they just walk through, look around. The purpose of that is to make sure that people are no longer living there. And they conducted and they completed it.”

Expulsions began dispute

In San Francisco, a Department of State Diplomatic Security guard answered the door at the Russian consulate, a six-story brick building surrounded by a modest security fence and manicured hedges in the city’s Pacific Heights neighborhood.

The guard declined to comment and left the building in a black SUV.

A sign on the front door said the consulate was closed and gave a new mailing address. The State Department guard left the consulate front door open, behind a closed gate, and sounds of activity could be heard inside, but no one responded to repeated calls by a reporter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month accused Washington of “boorish” treatment of Russia’s diplomatic premises on U.S. soil, ordering the Foreign Ministry to take legal action over alleged violations of Russia’s property rights.

The dispute began late last year when former U.S. President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats on accusations of Russian meddling in the election that took Donald Trump to the White House.

Trump took office in January, saying he wanted to improve ties with Russia, while Putin also spoke favorably of Trump.

But the allegations of interference in the vote, which Moscow has denied, have persisted as an investigation by U.S. authorities has widened.

In July, Moscow ordered the United States to cut the number of its diplomatic and technical staff working in Russia by around 60 percent, to 455.
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Spain’s King Felipe VI has condemned the Catalan authorities, saying they placed themselves “outside the law” by holding an independence vote Sunday.

In a television address to the nation Tuesday, the king called for unity even as thousands took to the streets across Spain’s northeastern province to protest a Spanish police crackdown during the referendum.

Separatist Catalan leaders have vowed to declare independence even though Madrid has declared the vote illegal and invalid. Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont told the BBC such a declaration could come within days.

Catalan labor unions called for a general strike to voice anger about the treatment by Spanish police of people trying to vote in the region’s independence referendum.

The strike affected affected bus and subway services, schools, shops and other businesses. Spain’s famous Barcelona soccer team said it would join in the strike, and it suspended operations at its club headquarters for the day.

Officials in Catalonia said nearly 900 people were injured when police tried to keep residents from voting in the referendum, which was deemed unconstitutional by Spanish courts.

Video from Sunday showed police dragging people from polling stations and beating and kicking would-be voters and demonstrators.

Amnesty International said its observers witnessed “excessive use of force” by Spanish police.

The top Spanish official in the Catalan region, Enric Millo, said Tuesday that he regretted the violence that left so many people injured, but he blamed Catalan officials for “exposing citizens to danger.”

He added, “Nothing of this would have happened if the government wouldn’t have declared itself in rebellion, breaking the orders of the courts and lying and tricking people.”

He said Spanish police broke into schools being used as polling stations only after local police failed to carry out a judge’s order to stop the vote.

European Union chief Donald Tusk appealed to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Monday to “avoid further escalation and use of force” in the standoff.

Officials in Catalonia said 90 percent of those who voted in the referendum chose independence from Spain, and they called for international mediation to solve the political deadlock.

Spain will do “everything within the law” to prevent Catalonia from declaring independence, Justice Minister Rafael Catala said Monday in an interview with Spanish public television.
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The prime ministers of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania gave their support to their Balkan neighbor Serbia’s bid to join the European Union on Tuesday, saying the integration of the western Balkans would guarantee regional peace and stability.

Serbia, which in the 1990s was seen as pariah of Western Balkans for its central role in wars that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia, expects to complete negotiations on EU membership by 2019.

“All of us know that the natural place of Serbia is in the European Union,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said after a four-party summit in the Black Sea city of Varna with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Romanian Prime Minister Mihai Tudose and Serbian President Alexander Vucic.

Borissov said that the three EU members would work to speed up the process to the advantage of peace and stability in the Balkans and Europe generally.

Bulgaria takes over the rotating six-month EU presidency in January while Romania will take over in 2019.

Many Serbs, however, remain skeptical about joining the bloc and view Western European countries as outspoken advocates of the 1999 NATO bombing to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians in the former province of Kosovo, in which thousands of civilians had been killed.

Double standards

Vucic accused the European Union of using double standards by refusing to accept the Catalan independence referendum while largely welcoming a separate Kosovo.

“We support Spain, it is our friendly country,” said Vucic.

“But the European Commission responded in a different way [over Kosovo] and it was against my people and my state.

Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 was accepted by Washington and most EU states, but rejected by Belgrade and its allies.

“Kosovo gained independence without even holding a referendum but Catalonia … cannot get anything like that,” Vucic said. “Sometimes, we, the Serbs, are asking ourselves why we should have been the victim of double standards?”

Serbia’s position on Kosovo has been one of the main stumbling blocks in its own bid to join the European Union.

Brussels has said it needs to improve relations with the authorities in Pristina and stop trying to block their efforts to join international bodies.
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Police in Las Vegas, Nevada say a man opened fire on a country music concert late Sunday, killing 59 people and wounding 527 others, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

An edited list of mass shootings that have taken place in other parts of the world:

Paris, France

November, 2015

Terrorists claiming allegiance to Islamic State carried out several coordinated attacks in the city, including shootings of pedestrians on the street and a mass shootings at the Bataclan theatre. One hundred and thirty people were killed in the combined attacks.

Paris, France

January, 2015

Islamist gunmen stormed the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly magazine, and killed 12 people, including the paper’s top editors and cartoonists, in anger over its satirical cartoons of Islamic terrorists and the Prophet Muhammad.

Nairobi, Kenya

September, 2013

Al-Shabab Islamist militants, who are based in Somalia, attacked the upscale Westgate mall in Nairobi, killing nearly 70 people and wounding about 175. The siege latest for three days before government troops could end the attack.

Utoya, Norway

July, 2011

A gunman disguised as a policeman opened fire at a youth camp for political activists on the small island of Utoya, northwest of Oslo. The gunman, who had been linked to an anti-Islamic group, killed 68 campers. Separately, the gunman set off a bomb in Oslo that killed 8 people.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

April, 2011

A 23-year-old former student returned to his public school in Rio de Janeiro and opened fire on the students, killing 12 children and seriously wounding more than a dozen others, before shooting himself in the head.

Baku, Azerbaijan

April, 2009

A Georgian citizen of Azerbaijani descent killed 12 students and staff at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy. Several others were wounded.

Winnenden, Germany

March, 2009

A 17-year-old boy shot and killed 15 people at his school, Albertville Technical High School, in southwestern Germany.

Mumbai, India

November, 2008

Islamist terrorists carried out a series of shooting and bombing attacks across the city over the span of several days, including mass shootings at two hotels, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and the Oberoi Trident. The attacks left 164 people dead and a further 308 people were wounded.

Moscow, Russia

October, 2002

A group of armed Chechen militants seized the crowded Dubrovka theater and took 850 people hostage. At least 170 people died in the terrorist attack.

Erfurt, Germany

April, 2002            

A 19-year-old student opened fire at his secondary school, killing 16 people, including 13 teachers, two students, and one policeman, before killing himself.

Port Arthur, Australia

April, 1996

A 28-year old man opened fire at a cafe on a historic penal colony site in Tasmania, killing 35 people and wounding 23. It was the worst mass-murderer in modern Australian history.

Dunblane, Scotland

March, 1996 

A gunman killed 16 children and one teacher at Dunblane Primary School before killing himself.

Montreal, Canada

December, 1989

A 25-year-old gunman shot 28 people at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, killing 14 women, before committing suicide.

 
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