Month: November 2017

A separatist leader in Ukraine’s east on Thursday accused a former official of trying to unseat him as a showdown between the two entered its third day.

Breaking almost a week of silence, Igor Plotnitsky, leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, claimed that former Interior Minister Igor Kornet “tried to seize power by force.”

“It seems that a small man harbored big ambitions,” Plotnitsky said on the separatist television station, adding that he intended to “resolve the conflict with the help of the law.”

More than 10,000 people have been killed and a million displaced in a long-simmering conflict between separatists in Luhansk and in parts of the neighboring Donetsk region since 2014. Parts of the two regions have been under separatist control since spring 2014, and the area has been plagued with infighting among various armed groups and warlords.

Suspicious deaths

Several high-profile commanders have been killed in the region in suspicious circumstances in what was widely viewed as power struggle. While the unruly commanders were dying in car bombings, the leadership of the rebel-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions came to be dominated by bureaucrats with ties to ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The showdown between Plotnitsky and Kornet began on Tuesday with dozens of armed people loyal to Kornet surrounding the main administrative buildings in the regional capital, Luhansk. A convoy of armed vehicles entered the city in the middle of the night in a show of support for Kornet.

In a video released on Thursday, the ousted interior minister lashed out at Plotnitsky, suggesting that “the republic’s leadership” was under the influence of Ukrainian spies. Kornet also acknowledged that he was receiving military support from the neighboring separatist Donetsk People’s Republic.

The rebels originally sought to join Russia but the Kremlin stopped short of annexing the area or publicizing its military support for the rebels. It is widely assumed that Moscow provides the rebels with weapons and funding.
…

Hungary’s parliament has banned a camerawoman from working on the premises after she insulted a lawmaker during an interview.

Parliament press chief Zoltan Szilagyi said Thursday in a statement that Petra Laszlo’s ban would be enforced for the rest of the current legislative period, which ends in mid-December.

In January, Laszlo was sentenced to three years’ probation for disorderly conduct after she was filmed kicking and trying to trip migrants on the border with Serbia in 2015.

Laszlo, who works for a pro-government website, could be seen on video arguing Monday with Gyorgy Szilagyi from the far-right Jobbik party.

Szilagyi said he did not want to talk to reporters from pestisracok.hu because he considered them government “propagandists.”

During the 2015 incident, Laszlo was working for N1TV, which is close to Jobbik.
…

France is seeking an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the alleged sale of African migrants as slaves.

President Emmanuel Macron called the video footage aired last week by U.S. news network CNN “scandalous” and “unacceptable.”

“It is a crime against humanity,” Macron said after meeting with African Union chief Alpha Conde. “I hope we can go much further in the fight against traffickers who commit such crimes, and cooperate with all the countries in the network to dismantle these networks.”

CNN aired footage of an apparent auction where black men were presented to buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400. The video sparked international outrage, with protests erupting across Europe and Africa.

The UNSC meeting will likely be next week, a French diplomat said.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was horrified and that the auctions should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity.

Criticism of EU

Human rights groups have criticized the European Union for pressuring Libya into stopping the flow of migrants to Europe.

Conde also put the blame on the European Union, accusing it of encouraging the Libyans to keep migrants in the North African country despite there being no single, universally recognized government.

“What happened in Libya is shocking, scandalous, but we must establish the responsibilities,” Conde said. “In Libya, there is no government, so the European Union can not choose a developing country and ask that country to detain refugees … when it doesn’t have the means to do so.”

Human rights groups have said the increased vigilance by Libyan maritime forces has forced the migrant smugglers to look for ways to unload their human cargo that can’t be transported to Europe.
…

Facebook Inc. said Wednesday that it would build a web page to allow users to see which Russian propaganda accounts they have liked or followed, after U.S. lawmakers demanded that the social network be more open about the reach of the accounts.

U.S. lawmakers called the announcement a positive step. The web page, though, would fall short of their demands that Facebook individually notify users about Russian propaganda posts or ads they were exposed to.

Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter Inc. are facing a backlash after saying Russians used their services to anonymously spread divisive messages among Americans in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. elections.

U.S. lawmakers have criticized the tech firms for not doing more to detect the alleged election meddling, which the Russian government denies involvement in.

Facebook says the propaganda came from the Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization that according to lawmakers and researchers employs hundreds of people to push pro-Kremlin content under phony social media accounts.

As many as 126 million people could have been served posts on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram, the company says. Facebook has since deactivated the accounts.

Available by year’s end

Facebook, in a statement, said it would let people see which pages or accounts they liked or followed between January 2015 and August 2017 that were affiliated with the Internet Research Agency.

The tool will be available by the end of the year as “part of our ongoing effort to protect our platforms and the people who use them from bad actors who try to undermine our democracy,” Facebook said.

The web page will show only a list of accounts, not the posts or ads affiliated with them, according to a mock-up. U.S. lawmakers have separately published some posts.

It was not clear whether Facebook would eventually do more, such as sending individualized notifications to users.

Lawmakers at congressional hearings this month suggested that Facebook might have an obligation to notify people who accessed deceptive foreign government material.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who had asked for notifications, said Facebook’s plan “seems to be a serious response” to his request.

“My hope is that it will be a responsible first step towards protecting against future assaults on its platform,” he said in a statement.

Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, called it a “very positive step” and said lawmakers look forward to additional steps by tech companies to improve transparency.
…

The disappearance this month of an Argentine navy submarine with 44 crew aboard showed the perils that submariners face. Although submarine disasters are rare, here are some of the worst of recent decades.

Kursk catastrophe

On August 12, 2000, the Russian guided missile submarine K-141 Kursk sank to the floor of Barents Sea after two explosions in its bow. All 118 men aboard the nuclear-powered sub died. After recovering the remains of the dead from the sub, officials determined that 23 crew members, including the Kursk’s commander, had survived the initial accident before suffocating.

Sinking of the K-8

A fire that broke out aboard the Soviet attack submarine K-8 on April 8, 1970, disabled the nuclear-powered vessel in the Bay of Biscay, forcing the crew to abandon ship. The crew boarded the sub again after a rescue vessel arrived. But the sub sank while under tow in heavy seas, taking 52 submariners with it.

The Scorpion vanishes

In May 1968, the U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine Scorpion disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean with 99 men aboard. The wreckage was found in October about 400 miles (644 kilometers) southwest of the Azores islands, more than 10,000 feet (3,050 meters) below the surface. There have been several theories about the disaster: It may have involved the accidental release of a torpedo that circled back and hit the Scorpion, an explosion of the sub’s huge battery, or even a collision with a Soviet sub.

The sinking of K-129

The K-129, a nuclear-powered Soviet ballistic missile submarine, sank on March 8, 1968, in the Pacific Ocean, taking all 98 crewmen with it. The Soviet navy failed to locate the vessel. A U.S. Navy submarine found it northwest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu at a depth of about 16,000 feet (4,900 meters). A deep-sea drill ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, was able to salvage part of the sub in a secret operation. The remains of six Soviet crewmen found in the sub were buried at sea.

The Thresher implosion

On April 10, 1963, the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine Thresher was lost with all 129 men aboard. The sub broke apart in 8,400 feet (2,560 meters) of water during deep-dive trials southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. According to U.S. military reviews of the accident, the most likely explanation is that a pipe joint in an engine room seawater system gave way, shorting out electronics and triggering a shutdown of the vessel’s reactor that left it without enough power to stop itself from sinking.

K-19: nuclear accident

The K-19, one of the first two Soviet nuclear ballistic missile submarines, had been plagued by breakdowns and accidents before its launch. During its first voyage, on July 4, 1961, the sub suffered a complete loss of coolant to its reactor off the southeast coast of Greenland. The vessel’s engineering crew sacrificed their lives to jury-rig an emergency coolant system. Twenty-two of the 139 men aboard died of radiation exposure. The remaining 117 suffered varying degrees of radiation illness. The accident was depicted in the 2002 movie K-19: The Widowmaker.
…

The United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal ruled Wednesday former Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic is guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

The court convicted Mladic on 10 of the 11 charges he faced, including persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians. He was sentenced to life in prison.

“The crimes committed rank among the most heinous to humankind, and include genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity,” judge Alphons Orie said in reading the verdict.

Genocide

The court said Mladic intended to destroy the Bosnian Muslim population in Srebrenica, and in Sarajevo personally directed a campaign of shelling and sniping meant to spread terror and perpetrate murder among civilians.

It also cited as a window into his motivations his expressions of a commitment to seek an ethnically homogenous Bosnian Serb republic.

Mladic appeared in the courtroom, but was not present as Orie read the verdict. He requested a bathroom break partway through Wednesday’s session, which was granted for five minutes but stretched on for 45 minutes.

When the proceedings resumed, his lawyer said Mladic’s blood pressure was dangerously high and requested the judge either stop reading the verdict or skip ahead to the court’s judgment.

Orie said the proceedings would go on as planned, at which point Mladic started yelling until he was ordered removed from the courtroom.

‘Butcher of Bosnia’

After the verdict, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein praised the court’s decision as a “momentous victory for justice” and the “epitome of what international justice is all about.”

“Today’s verdict is a warning to the perpetrators of such crimes that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take,” Zeid said in a statement.

WATCH: ICTY Hands Down Mladic Verdict 

Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is the last former military leader to face war crimes charges in the court, which was set up to deal with the aftermath of the Bosnian war that raged from 1992 through 1995.

He was charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in leading sniper campaigns in Sarajevo and the 1995 killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

Prosecutors asked the International Criminal Tribunal to sentence Mladic to life in prison. Last year, attorney Alan Tieger said anything less than a life sentence would be “an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice.”

Mladic’s defense lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, accused prosecutors of seeking to make the former general a “symbolic sacrificial lamb for the perceived guilt” of all Serbs during the war. He called for Mladic, 75, to be acquitted on all charges.

At the end of the war in 1995, Mladic went into hiding and lived in obscurity in Serbia, protected by family and elements of the security forces.

Mladic was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity but evaded justice for 16 years. He was eventually tracked down and arrested at a cousin’s house in rural northern Serbia in 2011.

The Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic, was found guilty of war crimes in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
…

Ahead of the judgement Wednesday of Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, here is a timeline of the 1990s Balkans conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia.

– Bickering after Tito dies –

Communist Yugoslavia, which emerged shortly after the end of World War II, was made up of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia.

Following the death of its autocratic leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, the Yugoslav federation found itself in crisis, with bickering between ethnic groups and surging nationalist sentiments.

By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, inter-ethnic relations in Yugoslavia were at breaking point. The first multiparty elections in the republics in 1990 were won mostly by nationalists.

The most prosperous republics, Slovenia and Croatia, started advocating a greater decentralization of Yugoslavia’s government.

But the largest republic, Serbia, led by Slobodan Milosevic, rallied fellow Serbs throughout Yugoslavia in a push for centralized control.

– Slovenia and Croatia declare independence –

On June 25, 1991, the parliaments of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, which led to the deployment of the Belgrade-controlled Yugoslav army (JNA) towards affected borders and airports.

After a 10-day conflict, the JNA withdrew from ethnically homogeneous Slovenia.

But in Croatia, Serbian troops sided with ethnic Serb rebels who opposed independence, launching what would become a four-year war.

The eastern town of Vukovar was razed to the ground during a siege by Yugoslav forces in autumn 1991, while the medieval Adriatic town of Dubrovnik was severely damaged.

– Bosnian referendum –

In Bosnia, the most ethnically and religiously diverse republic and home to four million people, Muslims and Croats organized an independence referendum.

The move was fiercely opposed by Belgrade-backed Bosnian Serbs, who made up more than 30 percent of the population.

While Serbs boycotted the vote, 60 percent of Bosnia’s citizens voted for independence.

– Bosnian war –

In April 1992 war broke out between Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats, who were on one side, and Bosnian Serbs. Bosnia won international recognition a day later.

Led by Radovan Karadzic and armed by the JNA, the Serbs declared that territories under their control belonged to an entity called Republika Srpska.

Soon after, Bosnian Croats turned against the republic’s Muslims.

– Siege of Sarajevo –

Bosnian Serb troops immediately started a siege of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo which would last 44 months.

The city’s 350,000 residents struggled to get basic necessities and at least 10,000 were killed by sniping and shelling by Serbs.

By May 1992 Bosnian Serbs controlled two-thirds of Bosnia.

– Ethnic cleansing –

In August the first images of skeletal prisoners in camps awoke the world to the campaign of ethnic cleansing by Serb forces.

An estimated 20,000 women, mostly Muslims, were raped.

– Srebrenica massacre –

In July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces took over the UN-protected “safe area” of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia and massacred up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Described by two international courts as genocide, the massacre was the worst mass killing in Europe since the end of World War II.

– NATO airstrikes, Dayton agreement –

In August 1995, after the fall of Srebrenica and the bombing of a Sarajevo market in which 41 people were killed, NATO unleashed airstrikes on Bosnian Serb positions.

On November 21, 1995, following three weeks of talks in the US city of Dayton, Ohio, the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia agreed to a peace deal.

In December 1995 a NATO peacekeeping force was deployed in Bosnia, which had been divided into a Muslim-Croat Federation, covering 51 percent of the territory, and a Serb entity, the Republika Srpska.

– The Kosovo conflict –

War then broke out in 1998 in Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo between ethnic Albanian rebels seeking independence and Serbia’s armed forces.

The fighting ended in 1999 after an 11-week bombing campaign by NATO, by which time about 13,000 people had been killed and hundreds of thousands had fled their homes.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move Serbia refuses to recognize.

– Legal postscript –

The International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia, established in 1993, has continued prosecuting those responsible for war crimes since the end of the conflicts.

It has indicted 161 people, convicted 83 and acquitted 19. Among those sentenced is Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic, while Milosevic died in prison before being judged.

The court is scheduled to close down on December 31, and a separate tribunal has been set up to handle remaining appeals and other issues.
…

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is set to hand down a verdict in the case against former General Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb wartime commander charged with crimes in the 1990s ethnic conflict in Bosnia. Hero for many Serbs and a criminal known as “the Butcher of Bosnia” for many others, Mladic will hear his verdict on Wednesday after five years in jail and almost 16 years on the run. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

The White House said President Donald Trump talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, a day after the Russian leader held discussions with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad about a political resolution to end nearly seven years of fighting in Syria.

Trump and Putin spoke informally several times last week when they both were attending a Southeast Asia summit in Vietnam. Among other issues, they discussed principles for the future of war-wracked Syria, where about 400,000 people have been killed and millions of refugees have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting.

The Kremlin said Tuesday it called Assad to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Putin about Russia’s peace proposals for Syria, ahead of Putin’s summit Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Russia has bolstered Assad’s rule with airstrikes since late 2015 against groups trying to overthrow his regime, with Iranian fighters also supporting Damascus, and Turkey backing the Syrian opposition.

His power ensured, Asssad said he expressed his gratitude to Putin “for all of the efforts that Russia made to save our country.”

Putin, according to the Kremlin, told Assad Russia’s “military operation is coming to an end. Thanks to the Russian army, Syria has been saved as a state. Much has been done to stabilize the situation in Syria.”

He praised Assad, predicting terrorism would suffer an “inevitable” defeat in Syria.

The Kremlin quoted Assad as saying, “It is in our interest to advance the political process. … We don’t want to look back. And we are ready for dialogue with all those who want to come up with a political settlement.”

U.N.-led peace talks about Syria are scheduled for November 28 in Geneva.
…

On November 5, more than 50,000 runners and two million spectators turned out for the New York Marathon. The event took place just a few days after a lone attacker drove a van into cyclists and pedestrians beside a busy Manhattan highway, killing eight people.

Security was beefed up for the marathon: sand-filled sanitation trucks were deployed at key intersections to block vehicles, while hundreds of extra police backed by sniffer dogs and snipers were positioned along the 21-kilometer route.

The precautions underline the changing nature of the terror threat, 16 years after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks on the same city.

“They are moving towards the lower technology attacks, using knives, using vehicles, and using weapons that they can perhaps purchase on the black market but not have to make themselves,” said leading counter-terror analyst Brooke Rogers of Kings College, London.

He said, beyond short-term, enhanced security, an urban environment can adapt.

“For example, by having blast-proof glass installed in these grand glass structures. Or having different security measures, physical security measures – some of that could be scanning technology, some of it could be CCTV (closed circuit television) based, but also human measures, in terms of the staff not only walking around the perimeter, walking around inside with highly visible uniforms, but also staff who are less visible,” said Rogers.

In France, thousands of extra security personnel including soldiers have been deployed since the 2015 Paris attacks. But Rogers notes they have themselves become targets for terrorists.

London has installed physical barriers to separate vehicles and pedestrians in the wake of this year’s vehicle attacks in Westminster and on London Bridge. Permanent protection has been built around government buildings, with some of it adapted into street furniture like benches. But sectioning off every walkway is simply not practical.

“The amount of engineering that goes into those can cost millions of dollars. But we have to be careful because everything that we secure means that we are then turning the attention of these terrorist groups to softer targets,” said Rogers.

As a result, more attention is being given to educating the public. Since 2010 the U.S. Department for Homeland Security has been running an awareness campaign titled, “If you see something, say something”. In London, the mantra is similar: “See It, Say It, Sorted.”

British authorities have also issued a campaign on what to do if you’re caught in a terror attack – summarized as “Run, Hide, Tell.”

Rogers says such campaigns aren’t pushed hard enough by authorities. “They’re very anxious that if they start making people think about that type of attack in the public places, that they’re going to frighten them and maybe scare them away. We have a lot of evidence that suggests that that is not the case. It doesn’t have a significant impact in terms of the perceived threat at all and in fact it builds higher levels of trust.”

Increasingly, security services see public awareness as a key line of defense against the changing terror threat.

 
…

The Vatican and China will exchange paintings, vases and sculptures in a bid to mend often strained ties through “the diplomacy of art”, officials said on Tuesday.

Forty works from the Vatican will go on show in Beijing’s Forbidden City and 40 from China in the Vatican Museums in unprecedented simultaneous exhibitions in March, art chiefs from both countries told a news conference.

“It will be an event that overcomes borders and time and that unites different cultures and civilizations,” Zhu Jiancheng, the head of the government-backed China Culture Investment Fund, said.

“It will strengthen the friendship between China and the Vatican and it will favor the normalization of diplomatic relations,” he said of the project, in which each side will loan art works to the other.

Relations between the Vatican and Beijing have been strained for decades.

Chinese Catholics are divided between those loyal to the pope – the so-called “underground Church” – and those who belong to state-backed Church known as The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

The main dispute blocking diplomatic ties is the Vatican’s insistence that the pope – and not the government – be responsible for appointing bishops.

Pope Francis and his predecessors Benedict and John Paul have tried to improve relations with Beijing, whose communist party severed relations in 1951. But efforts at agreement have often stalled.

“With no fear and no barriers, beauty and art are truly a vehicle of dialogue,” said Barbara Jatta, the director of the Vatican Museums.

“This is the key of the success that we, at the Vatican Museums, love to call the ‘diplomacy of art’,” said Jatta, the first woman to head the museums, which receive about six million visitors a year.

The simultaneous shows reminiscent of the “ping-pong diplomacy” of the early 1970s, when China and the United States each hosted national teams of the sport as a prelude to President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing in 1972.

Jatta told Reuters that for the Beijing exhibition, experts would select 39 works of art that originated in China and are now in the Vatican’s Anima Mundi (Soul of the World) ethnological collection, which numbers 80,000 pieces, 20,000 of them Chinese.

“In a sense, 39 of them will be going back home,” she said.

The 40th piece would be an object of Western European Christian art, a painting which has not yet been selected.

The Chinese art works displayed in the Vatican will be 10 paintings by contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Yan and 30 works of art from China’s state collections representing various periods of Chinese history.

 
…

The European Union went back to its roots Monday by picking cities from two of its founding nations — France and the Netherlands — to host key agencies that will have move once Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.

During voting so tight they were both decided by a lucky draw, EU members except Britain chose Amsterdam over Italy’s Milan as the new home of the European Medicines Agency and Paris over Dublin to host the European Banking Authority. Both currently are located in London.

“We needed to draw lots in both cases,” Estonian EU Affairs Minister Matti Maasikas, who chaired the meeting and in both cases made the decisive selection from a big transparent bowl.

Frankfurt, home of the European Central Bank, surprisingly failed to become one of the two finalists competing for the banking agency.

The relocations made necessary by the referendum to take Britain out of the EU are expected to cost the country over 1,000 jobs directly and more in secondary employment.

The outcomes of the votes also left newer EU member states in eastern and southern Europe with some bitterness. Several had hoped to be tapped for a lucrative prize that would be a sign the bloc was truly committed to outreach.

Some 890 top jobs will leave Britain for Amsterdam with the European Medicines Agency, giving the Dutch a welcome economic boost and more prestige. The EMA is responsible for the evaluation, supervision and monitoring of medicines. The Paris-bound European Banking Authority, which has around 180 staff members, monitors the regulation and supervision of Europe’s banking sector.

After a heated battle for the medicines agency, Amsterdam and Milan both had 13 votes Monday. That left Estonia, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, to break the tie with a draw from the bowl. Copenhagen finished third, ahead of Slovakian capital Bratislava in the vote involving EU nations excluding Britain. One country abstained in the vote.

“A solid bid that was defeated only by a draw. What a mockery,” Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter.

Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra was elated.

“It is a fantastic result,” he said. “It shows that we can deal with the impact of Brexit”

The European Medicines Agency has less than 17 months to complete the move, but Amsterdam was considered ideally suited because of its location, the building it had on offer and other facilities.

Even though rules were set up to make it a fair decision, the process turned into a deeply political contest.

Zijlstra said that “in the end, it is a very strategic game of chess.”
…

Germany has been plunged into political crisis after coalition talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and two smaller parties broke down. Analysts say the indecisive election result in September has revealed a splintering of German society and politics, posing a serious challenge to Chancellor Merkel. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the political chaos could have a much wider impact on issues like climate talks and European Union reform.
…

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would prefer a new election to ruling with a minority after talks on forming a three-way coalition failed overnight, but Germany’s president told parties they owed it to voters to try

to form a government.

The major obstacle to a three-way deal was immigration, according to Merkel, who was forced into negotiations after bleeding support in the September 24 election to the far right in a backlash at her 2015 decision to let in over 1 million migrants.

The failure of exploratory coalition talks involving her conservative bloc, the liberal pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and environmentalist Greens raises the prospect of a new election and casts doubt about her future after 12 years in power.

Merkel, 63, said she was skeptical about ruling in a minority government, telling ARD television: “My point of view is that new elections would be the better path.”

Watch related video by Henry Ridgwell

Her plans did not include being chancellor in a minority government, she said after meeting President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Steinmeier said Germany was facing the worst governing crisis in the 68-year history of its post-World War Two democracy and pressed all parties in parliament “to serve our country” and try to form a government.

His remarks appeared aimed at the FDP and the Social Democrats (SPD), who on Monday ruled out renewing their “grand coalition” with the conservatives.

“Inside our country, but also outside, in particular in our European neighbourhood, there would be concern and a lack of understanding if politicians in the biggest and economically strongest country [in Europe] did not live up to their responsibilities,” read a statement from Steinmeier, a former foreign minister who has been thrust center-stage after taking on the usually largely ceremonial head of state role in March.

Steinmeier’s intervention suggests he regards a new election — desired by half of Germany’s voters according to a poll — as a last resort. The SPD has so far stuck to a pledge after heavy losses in the September election not to go back into a Merkel-led broad coalition of center-left and center-right.

Merkel urged the SPD to reconsider. “I would hope that they consider very intensively if they should take on the responsibility” of governing, she told broadcaster ZDF, adding she saw no reason to resign and her conservative bloc would enter any new election more unified than before.

“If new elections happened, then … we have to accept that. I’m afraid of nothing,” she said.

Business leaders also called for a swift return to talks. With German leadership seen as crucial for a European Union grappling with governance reform and Britain’s impending exit, FDP leader Christian Lindner’s announcement that he was pulling out spooked investors and sent the euro falling in the morning.

Both the euro and European shares later recovered from earlyselling, while German bond yields steadied near 1-1/2 week lows, as confidence about the outlook for the euro zone economy helped investors brush off worries about the risk of Germany going to the polls again soon.

Fear of far-right gains

Earlier, Merkel got the strong backing of her CDU leadership. Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of Germany weekly Die Zeit said she could rely on CDU support for now, but added: “I will not bet on her serving out her entire four-year term.”

The main parties fear another election so soon would let the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party add to the 13 percent of votes it secured in September, when it entered parliament for the first time. Polls suggest a repeat election would return a similarly fragmented parliament.

A poll published on Monday showed a new election would bring roughly the same result as the September election, with the Greens set to see the biggest gains.

If Germans voted next Sunday, Merkel’s conservatives would get 31 percent, the SPD 21 percent, the Greens and the AfD both 12 percent, the FDP 10 percent and the Left party 9 percent, the Forsa survey for RTL television showed.

This compares with the election result of 32.9 percent for the conservatives, 20.5 percent for the SPD, 12.6 percent for AfD, 10.7 percent for FDP, 9.2 percent for the Left party and 8.9 percent for the Greens.

The failure of coalition talks is unprecedented in Germany’s post-war history, and was likened by newsmagazine Der Spiegel to the shock election of U.S. President Donald Trump or Britain’s referendum vote to leave the EU — moments when countries cast aside reputations for stability built up over decades.

Any outcome in Germany is, however, likely to be more consensus driven. “The problem is stagnation and immobility, not instability as in Italy,” said Joffe.

The unraveling of the German talks came as a surprise since the main sticking points – immigration and climate policy — were not seen as FDP signature issues.

Responding to criticism from the Greens, FDP vice chairman Wolfgang Kubicki said a tie-up would have been short-lived. “Nothing would be worse than to get into a relationship about which we know that it will end in a dirty divorce,” he said.

Even if the SPD or the FDP revisit their decisions, the price for either party to change its mind could be the departure of Merkel, who since 2005 has been a symbol of German stability, leading Europe through the euro zone crisis.

The inability to form a government caused disquiet elsewhere in Europe, not least because of the implications for the euro zone reforms championed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Germany’s political impasse could also complicate and potentially delay the Brexit negotiations — Britain has just over a year to strike a divorce deal with the EU ahead of an exit planned for March 29, 2019.

“It’s not in our interests that the process freezes up,” Macron told reporters in Paris, adding he had spoken with Merkel shortly after the failure of talks.
…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will consult Monday with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after weeks of talks to form a coalition government fell apart with one potential partner withdrawing from the process.

“It is at least a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany,” Merkel told reporters. “But I will do everything possible to ensure that this country will be well led through these difficult weeks.”

She spoke after the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) decided to exit a possible coalition with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, along with the left-leaning Greens.

FDP leader Christian Lindner said his party opted to withdraw rather than compromise its principles and agree to policies it does not completely support.

“It is better not to govern than to govern falsely,” Lindner said.

The parties have clashed on several issues, including immigration and the environment.

With the failure of the coalition talks, Germany could be headed to new elections. Merkel could still try to form a minority government, or try to convince the Social Democratic Party to change its mind and continue as a junior coalition partner in a new government.

But the Social Democrats have said since a disappointing result in the September election that they would be heading to the opposition.
…

One-third of the newest crop of Rhodes Scholars from the United States are African-Americans, the most ever elected in a U.S. Rhodes class.

Of the 100 Rhodes Scholars chosen worldwide for advanced study at Oxford in Britain each year, 32 come from the United States, and this time, 10 of those are African Americans. One of them is Simone Askew, the first black female student to head the Corps of Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy.

Other American scholars include a transgender man and students from U.S. colleges that had never had a student win a spot in the Rhodes program.

The Rhodes Scholar program is the most prestigious available to American students, but it had been criticized for excluding women and blacks until the 1970s.

The scholarship program was set up in 1902 by Cecil Rhodes, a wealthy British philanthropist for whom the nation of Rhodesia was named.  After a civil war removed Rhodesia’s white-minority government, that nation was renamed Zimbabwe.  

 
…

Germany’s would-be coalition partners appeared to have reached an impasse over immigration policy as a self-imposed Sunday evening deadline for agreeing the outlines of a government program passed with no deal.

A deadline of 1700 GMT passed with no announcement being made, suggesting Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens had been unable to agree the painful compromises needed to wrap up talks, which appear set to continue.

The reluctant partners were forced to pursue the three-way tie-up, untested at national level, by voters who deserted the main parties of left and right in a September election, returning a highly fragmented parliament.

Failure could precipitate Germany’s worst political crisis in decades, since the Social Democrats (SPD) have already said they intend to go into opposition after coming second. Options include new elections or a minority government, unprecedented in the country’s post-war history.

“Everyone has to take a success back home,” said Julia Kloeckner, deputy chair of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), highlighting the difficulty of compromise. “People must ask themselves if they are prepared for this to fail over details.”

Strange bedfellows

The tie-up represents Merkel’s only realistic chance of securing a fourth term. But the FDP, freshly returned to parliament after four years in the wilderness, and the Greens, out of power for 12 years, are reluctant to put their hard-won return at risk by alienating their rank-and-file.

“The FDP is now waiting for the Greens and the conservatives to see how far they are prepared to go and if we can then look each other in the eye,” said Greens chairwoman Nicola Beer, suggesting it was now for the others to make concessions.

For Merkel’s own arch-conservative allies in Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), the stakes are existential. The CSU fears that a failure to secure an immigration cap could fuel a far-right surge in a regional election next year, perhaps even unseating the CSU after 60 years in power.

While the FDP continues to demand tax cuts, the trickiest sticking point concerns immigration, where the CSU insists on capping new arrivals at 200,000 a year.

The cap is opposed by the Greens, who also want to preserve a rule allowing successful asylum seekers to bring family members to join them – though the CDU’s Kloeckner implored the Greens to acknowledge this as only a “subsidiary right”.

Failure to reach a deal could lead to a new election, something all the parties are anxious to avoid as they fear this could lead to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) making further gains after surging into parliament in September.
…

Brexit is still well over year away but two European cities on Monday will already be celebrating Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Two major EU agencies now in London — the European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Authority — must move to a new EU city because Britain is leaving the bloc. The two prizes are being hotly fought over by most of the EU’s other 27 nations.

Despite all the rigid rules and conditions the bloc imposed to try to make it a fair, objective decision, the process has turned into a deeply political beauty contest — part Olympic host city bidding, part Eurovision Song Contest.

It will culminate in a secret vote Monday at EU headquarters in Brussels that some say could be tainted by vote trading.

The move involves tens of millions in annual funding, about 1,000 top jobs with many more indirectly linked, prestige around the world and plenty of bragging rights for whichever leader can bring home the agencies.

“I will throw my full weight behind this,” French President Emmanuel Macron said when he visited Lille, which is seeking to host the EMA once Britain leaves in the EU in March 2019. “Now is the final rush.”

At an EU summit Friday in Goteborg, Sweden, leaders were lobbying each other to get support for their bids.

The EMA is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU. It has around 890 staff and hosts more than 500 scientific meetings every year, attracting about 36,000 experts.

The EBA, which has around 180 staff, monitors the regulation and supervision of Europe’s banking sector.

With bids coming in from everywhere — from the newest member states to the EU’s founding nations — who gets what agency will also give an indication of EU’s future outlook.

The EU was created as club of six founding nations some 60 years ago, so it’s logical that a great many key EU institutions are still in nations like Germany, France and Belgium. But as the bloc kept expanded east and south into the 21st century, these new member states see a prime opportunity now to claim one of these cherished EU headquarters, which cover everything from food safety to judicial cooperation to fisheries policy.

Romania and Bulgaria were the last to join the EU in 2007 and have no headquarters. Both now want the EMA — as does the tiny island nation of Malta.

“We deserve this. Because as we all know, Romania is an EU member with rights and obligations equal with all the rest of the member states,” said Rodica Nassar of Romania’s Healthcare Ministry.

But personnel at the EMA and EBA are highly skilled professionals, and many could be reluctant to move their careers and families from London to less prestigious locations.

“You have to imagine, for example, for the banking authority, which relies on basically 200 very high-level experts in banking regulatory matters to move to another place,” said Karel Lannoo of the CEPS think tank. “First of all, to motivate these people to move elsewhere. And then if you don’t manage to motivate these people, to find competent experts in another city.”

As the vote nears, Milan and Bratislava are the favorites to win the EMA, with Frankfurt, and perhaps Dublin, leading the way for the EBA.

 
…

When Britain’s 21-year-old Princess Elizabeth married 26-year-old Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in 1947, the wedding sparked joy and celebration in a country just recovering from World War II. 

Seven decades on, the couple who would become Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, both now in their 90s, are still going strong, their marriage a bedrock in British public life amid a world of change.

On Monday, they mark their 70th wedding anniversary, though officials say the milestone will be celebrated privately and no public events are planned. The royal family is reportedly marking the date with a gathering at Windsor Castle. 

The queen is the first monarch in British history to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary. 

At their 50th wedding anniversary, Elizabeth praised her husband as “quite simply… my strength and stay all these years.”

Elizabeth first met Philip, a naval officer and the son of Prince Andrew of Greece, as they attended the wedding of Philip’s cousin in 1934. 

The pair wed at Westminster Abbey in London on Nov. 20, 1947. It would be nearly another six years before Elizabeth would be crowned as monarch, also at Westminster Abbey. 

In the decades that followed, Philip, who also holds the title Duke of Edinburgh, spent almost the entire duration of their marriage supporting his wife in her role as head of state. Both have cut back on their public engagements in recent years, and Philip retired from official duties earlier this year. 

The royal couple has four children, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
…

Ukraine has summoned the Polish ambassador in Kyiv after Poland denied entry to a Ukrainian official in an escalation of a diplomatic spat over the two neighbors’ troubled past.

Poland’s decision to refused entry on Saturday to the head of Ukraine’s commemoration commission, Svyatoslav Sheremet, was in response to a ban imposed earlier this year by Kyiv on the exhumation of Poles killed in Ukraine during World War II, Polish state news agency PAP reported.

“The Ukrainian side has complained that Mr. Sheremet was not allowed into Poland,” Poland’s ambassador to Kyiv, Jan Pieklo, told PAP after the meeting with Ukrainian authorities.

“I have been also informed that this is a problem that concerns the restarting of exhumations because Sheremet is the person responsible for this,” Pieklo said, adding that both sides had agreed that the exhumations should be restarted.

In an apparent effort to mend ties, representatives of the Polish and Ukrainian presidents said on Friday that they “reconfirmed their commitment to strengthening the strategic partnership.”

“The parties agreed that the ban on the search and exhumation works in Ukraine should be lifted,” the statement published Friday said.

The denial of entry to Sheremet came after the Polish foreign minister said earlier in November that Poland would bar Ukrainians with “anti-Polish views.”

Poland last year passed a resolution that declared the World War II-era killing of about 100,000 Polish men, women and children by units in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) “genocide.”

Ukraine rejects that label, saying the killings were a result of bilateral hostilities.
…

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc and two smaller parties pushed Saturday to find agreement on climate change and immigration, with an eye on producing compromises by weekend’s end so they can move ahead with talks on building a ruling coalition.

Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats and sister Bavarian-only Christian Social Union parties met throughout the day with the pro-business Free Democrats and the traditionally left-leaning Greens. The four parties are trying to establish the framework for a coalition never before tried at the national level.

They had hoped to agree Thursday whether to start formal coalition negotiations, but said they now are aiming for a resolution before Monday.

The Greens have faced opposition to a demand for Germany to end its use of coal and combustion engines by 2030, although party leaders have signaled they would be open to a compromise.

The other parties are committed to reducing carbon emissions, but Merkel’s bloc hasn’t put a date on when to phase out coal. The Free Democratic Party has expressed concern about what the moves would mean for jobs and Germany’s economic competitiveness.

A dispute over whether immigrants who have received protection but not full asylum in Germany should be allowed to bring close relatives to the country has been a bigger sticking point.

The Greens argue that extending family sponsorship rights would not result in many more immigrants and would help those already in Germany better integrate. The Christian Social Union, in particular, is against any loosening of the family reunification policy.

A decision to open coalition negotiations would require approval from Greens members at a party congress later this month, so any compromise would have to be something party leaders could sell to their membership.

Failure to reach a coalition agreement could result in a new election. The center-left Social Democrats, Merkel’s partners in the outgoing government, have been adamant about going into opposition after a disastrous result in the Sept. 24 election.

Polls so far suggest that a new vote would produce a very similar parliament to the current one, making efforts to form a new government similarly difficult.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged all sides to avoid pushing the country back to the polls. He told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper he does not think any political parties are eager for another election.

Steinmeier, a former Social Democrat who is now unaffiliated with a political party according to the tradition for German presidents, said it was also good that the sides were tackling issues important to the public.

“If the … negotiators are battling hard now over questions like migration and climate protection, that isn’t necessarily bad for democracy,” he said.
…

Naim Suleymanoglu, the Turkish weightlifter who won three Olympic gold medals and was known as “Pocket Hercules,” died Saturday. He was 50.

Suleymanoglu was considered one of the sport’s greatest athletes and earned his nickname for his strength and diminutive size. He died at an Istanbul hospital where he was receiving treatment for cirrhosis of the liver. He had been in intensive care since Sept. 28 and received a liver transplant in October, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency.

The weightlifter – 1.47 meters (4-foot-10) tall – won three straight Olympic gold medals for Turkey between 1988 and 1996. The Bulgarian-born Suleymanoglu could lift three times his weight.

He came out of retirement to try for a fourth gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but missed all three of his lifts.

“I know only gold,” Suleymanoglu had said as he returned to competition. “I do not know about silver or bronze.”

Suleymanoglu also won seven world and six European championships.

He was born to an ethnic Turkish family in Bulgaria, and defected to Turkey in 1986 while training in Australia.

Regarded as a national hero in his adopted country, Suleymanoglu captured the hearts of Turks after winning his first gold at Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. Whenever Suleymanoglu returned home from a tournament, he would be greeted by thousands of fans who would lift him up on their shoulders.

Suleymanoglu missed the 1984 Games at Los Angeles because of a Soviet-led boycott. Although only 17, he was the favorite to win the bantamweight gold.

He was an outspoken critic of the Bulgarian government’s treatment of the Turkish minority in his homeland, and was forced by the authorities to change his surname to the more Slavic-sounding Shalamanov.

When the Bulgarian weightlifting team went to a training camp at Melbourne, Australia, in 1986, he slipped away from the group while pretending to visit the restroom at a hotel.

Suleymanoglu hid in Australia for several days before he went to the Turkish consulate to seek asylum. Eventually the Bulgarians allowed him to switch nationalities and he kissed the airport tarmac on arrival in Turkey. In 1986 he changed his name to the more Turkic-sounding Suleymanoglu.

He went to the Seoul Olympics as a Turk and twice broke the world record in the snatch on the way to winning the gold medal.

He competed unsuccessfully for a seat in Turkish parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2007.
…

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said Saturday at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris that he would return to Beirut in the coming days and announce his position on the crisis in his country after holding talks with Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

“With regard to the political situation in Lebanon, I will go to Beirut in the coming days, I will participate in the independence celebrations, and it is there that I will make known my position on these subjects after meeting President Aoun,” Hariri said after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Hariri had talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, who offered to help Hariri resolve his role in the bizarre Lebanese political drama.

Earlier this month, Hariri resigned from office on Saudi TV, sparking turmoil and skepticism.  

Earlier Saturday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Hariri called Lebanese President Michel Aoun to tell him he will return to Lebanon next week to participate in Independence Day celebrations.

Hariri was welcomed “as prime minister” of Lebanon in France, as his resignation is not recognized by his country, Macron said from Sweden on Friday.

‘Behind the scenes’

The French president previously dismissed speculation he offered Hariri exile. But some are not so sure.

“I think it’s hugely uncertain now about what is happening behind the scenes,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “What [Hariri’s] plans are after this, and the nature of this deal is hugely questionable.”

Hariri’s departure from Saudi Arabia caps two tumultuous weeks since he announced his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister from Riyadh on November 4, blaming Iran and Hezbollah, which is part of the Lebanese government, for the move and saying he feared for his life.

The announcement has highlighted the deep political fractures in Lebanon, torn between the competing influences of Shi’ite Tehran and Sunni Riyadh, and unleashed accusations the Saudis were detaining Hariri against his will.

“Lebanon will have to overcome this big obstacle,” Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk said on Friday of Hariri’s departure for Paris, predicting a “door will open to more stability.”

Hariri’s visit clearly marks a diplomatic coup for 39-year-old French President Macron and his broader bid to reassert France on the world stage. That includes the Middle East, where Macron paid a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia last week at the height of the Hariri crisis, after inaugurating the new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi.

The opening was seen by some observers as a manifestation of French “soft power” in the region.

“It’s certainly an achievement for Macron,” Barnes-Dacey said of Hariri’s impending visit to France, which he noted also reflected a “backtracking” by Saudi Arabia in letting the Lebanese leader go.

If the move helps to stabilize the crisis, he added, “I think that will be seen as a very successful French initiative.”

Some skepticism

Others are skeptical about the potential payback.

“It’s a nice diplomatic coup for France,” Middle East analyst Karim Emile Bitar told French radio, describing France’s invitation as face-saving for both Riyadh and Hariri. But, he added, “it doesn’t solve much.”

If Hariri does indeed go into exile, it would not be a first for Lebanese officials.

Hariri spent three years residing in France and Saudi Arabia after the national unity government he then headed collapsed in 2011.

France was also home to Lebanese President Michel Aoun during his own 15-year exile that ended in 2005.

Beyond tapping historic French ties and influence in Lebanon, Macron is reaping the success of a more rebalanced French policy in the Middle East, some analysts say.

Even as his administration reaffirms its relations with powerful Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt – Macron met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman last week and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi last month. Macron is also mulling a visit next year to Tehran, where French businesses are scrambling to invest.

“France is harvesting the fruits of its new diplomatic doctrine in the Middle East,” Middle East expert Hadrien Desuin wrote in Le Figaro newspaper of Macron’s ability to secure Hariri’s visit. “It’s a more balanced position between the Sunnis and Shi’ites that provides fresh air.”

The Trump administration may also be carving out another opportunity for Macron, analyst Barnes-Dacey says.

“There’s clearly a vacuum of any U.S. willingness to pay a mediating role and diffuse some of these regional crises,” he said. “That gives room for someone like President Macron, who’s keen to be an activist president and punch French weight globally.”

“You can see that with Lebanon,” he added.

 
…

The U.S. State Department approved a possible $10.5 billion sale of Raytheon Co’s Patriot missile defense system to Poland, the Pentagon said on Friday. NATO member Poland has sped up efforts to overhaul its military following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and in response to Moscow’s renewed military and political assertiveness in the region.

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said in March that Poland expected to sign a deal with Raytheon to buy the Patriot missile defense system by the end of the year.

Patriot missile defense interceptors are designed to detect, track and engage unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), cruise missiles and short-range or tactical ballistic missiles.

Support services part of deal

The proposed sale includes 208 Patriot Advanced Capabilty-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement missiles, 16 M903 launching stations, four AN/MPQ-65 radars, four control stations, spares, software and associated equipment.

In addition, Poland is authorized to buy U.S. government and contractor technical, engineering and logistics support services as well as range and test programs for a total estimated potential program cost of up to $10.5 billion.

A Raytheon representative said “it is Raytheon’s experience that the estimated cost notified could be larger than the final negotiated contract amount,” signaling that the final price could be lower as negotiations on a final amount proceed.

Raytheon added that it “will work closely with the U.S. and Polish governments to ensure Poland is able to procure Patriot at a mutually agreeable price.”

NATO allies have same system

The Pentagon said the sale will take place in two phases.

If a deal is finalized, it would allow Poland to conduct air and missile defense operations with NATO allies the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Greece, which currently have the Patriot system, a U.S. State Department official said.

The contract still requires approval from the U.S. Congress, because it involves a purchase of advanced military technology for which special permission must be obtained.

Poland, which had said it was planning to spend around $7.6 billion on the whole project, said the negotiations are not over.

“This does not mean that this amount ($10.5 billion) is the final value of the LOA (Letter of Offer and Acceptance),” the Polish Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding it has a “good track record” in negotiating similar offers.

Lawmakers can block sale

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements foreign arms sales, said it had delivered notification to Congress on Tuesday.

U.S. lawmakers have 30 days to block the sale, but that rarely happens.

In addition to Raytheon, the prime contractors will be Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman.

 
…

Greek police clashed with hooded youths in Athens on Friday after thousands marched to mark a bloody 1973 student uprising that helped topple the military junta which then ruled the country.

More than 10,000 people marched peacefully to the embassy of the United States, which some Greeks accuse of having supported the seven-year military dictatorship. About 5,000 police were deployed in the streets of central Athens.

At the tail-end of the demonstration, hooded youths hurled stones and petrol bombs at police in the Exarchia district in central Athens, often the setting for such clashes. Police used teargas to disperse them.

Earlier on Friday, Greeks laid flowers at the Athens Polytechnic University to honour those killed during the revolt.

The junta collapsed less than a year later.

The annual protest often becomes a focal point for protests against government policies and austerity measures mandated by the country’s international lenders in exchange for bailout funds. The crisis that broke out in 2010 has left hundreds of thousands of people unemployed.

Protesters held banners reading: “We will live freely” and “No pensioner will be fired!”

After seven years of belt-tightening Greeks hope that they will emerge from lenders’ supervision in August 2018, when the country’s third international bailout expires. Many of them accuse a political elite of driving the country to bankruptcy.
…

Lebanon’s Saad Hariri is expected to arrive in Paris late Friday, in the latest twist to a bizarre crisis that leaves the onus — or credit — on France and its young leader, Emmanuel Macron, to help resolve it.

Hariri, whose resignation on Saudi TV earlier this month as Lebanon’s prime minister sparked turmoil and skepticism, meets Macron on Saturday at the Elysee presidential palace. His family then joins the two men for a lunch, the French presidency said in a statement.

It’s unclear if the two leaders will make any remarks to the media.

Hariri will be welcomed “as prime minister” of Lebanon, as his resignation is not recognized by his country, Macron said from Sweden on Friday. He added Hariri would travel to Lebanon in “the days or weeks to come.”

‘Behind the scenes’

The French president previously dismissed speculation he offered Hariri exile. But some are not so sure.

“I think it’s hugely uncertain now about what is happening behind the scenes,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “What [Hariri’s] plans are after this, and the nature of this deal is hugely questionable.”

Hariri’s departure from Saudi Arabia caps two tumultuous weeks since he announced his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister from Riyadh on November 4, blaming Iran and Hezbollah, which is part of the Lebanese government, for the move and saying he feared for his life.

The announcement has highlighted the deep political fractures in Lebanon, torn between the competing influences of Shi’ite Tehran and Sunni Riyadh, and unleashed accusations the Saudis were detaining Hariri against his will.

“Lebanon will have to overcome this big obstacle,” Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk said on Friday of Hariri’s departure for Paris predicting a “door will open to more stability.”

Hariri’s visit clearly marks a diplomatic coup for 39-year-old French President Macron and his broader bid to reassert France on the world stage. That includes the Middle East, where Macron paid a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia last week at the height of the Hariri crisis, after inaugurating the new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi.

The opening was seen by some observers as a manifestation of French “soft power” in the region.

“It’s certainly an achievement for Macron,” Barnes-Dacey said of Hariri’s impending visit to France, which he noted also reflected a “backtracking” by Saudi Arabia in letting the Lebanese leader go.

If the move helps to stabilize the crisis, he added, “I think that will be seen as a very successful French initiative.”

Some skepticism

Others are skeptical about the potential payback.

“It’s a nice diplomatic coup for France,” Middle East analyst Karim Emile Bitar told French radio, describing France’s invitation as face-saving for both Riyadh and Hariri. But, he added, “it doesn’t solve much.”

If Hariri does indeed go into exile, it would not be a first for Lebanese officials.

Hariri spent three years residing in France and Saudi Arabia after the national unity government he then headed collapsed, in 2011.

France has also been home to President Michel Aoun, during his own 15-year exile that ended in 2005.

Beyond tapping historic French ties and influence in Lebanon, Macron is reaping the success of a more rebalanced French policy in the Middle East, some analysts say.

Even as his administration reaffirms its relations with powerful Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt — Macron met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman last week and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi last month — the French president is also mulling a visit next year to Tehran, where French businesses are scrambling to invest.

“France is harvesting the fruits of its new diplomatic doctrine in the Middle East,” Middle East expert Hadrien Desuin wrote in Le Figaro newspaper of Macron’s ability to secure Hariri’s visit. “It’s a more balanced position between the Sunnis and Shi’ites that provides fresh air.”

The Trump administration may also be carving out another opportunity for Macron, analyst Barnes-Dacey says.

“There’s clearly a vacuum of any U.S. willingness to pay a mediating role and diffuse some of these regional crises,” he said. “That gives room for someone like President Macron, who’s keen to be an activist president and punch French weight globally.”

“You can see that with Lebanon,” he added.
…

Ukrainian investigators fear corruption probes could get buried because the national anti-corruption bureau will soon be flooded by thousands of old cases and recently passed legislation could further hobble their work.

Their comments spotlight Kyiv’s patchy record on fighting corruption, which has delayed billions in aid from international donors who have supported Ukraine since the 2014 Maidan protests brought pro-Western forces to power.

They come after the NABU anti-corruption bureau launched an investigation this week into an allied crime-fighting agency over extortion allegations.

Beginning Monday, 3,500 cases that were registered before December 2015 will be transferred from the prosecutor’s office to NABU, which include, for example, investigations that may pertain to former Donald Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort.

NABU began life in late 2015 and was given an exemption on investigating cases that opened before its creation, which expires Monday. NABU wants the exemption extended, saying its 200-strong team of detectives cannot cope with the extra work.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, NABU spokeswoman Svitlana Olifira said there was a risk that “all current investigations by [NABU] detectives may be blocked.”

Cases will ‘lie around’

Serhii Horbatiuk, head of special investigations at the general prosecutor’s office, said the old cases would be sent to NABU to ensure no one looks at them. His investigations include two cases related to Manafort’s work in Ukraine.

“They will simply lie around and not be looked at,” he said in an interview at his office. “My opinion is that this is done deliberately to ensure that crimes linked to former senior officials are either simply not investigated, or obstacles are created that prevent it [investigation].”

“The restructuring [of law enforcement] is being used to ensure investigations don’t take place,” he added.

Neither NABU nor Horbatiuk accused anyone by name of trying to block investigations.

NABU appealed to President Petro Poroshenko to veto legislation passed in October that it thinks will also harm investigations.

The law, according to NABU, will too strictly limit the time allowed for an investigation before it can be dismissed, while also making it more cumbersome for police to obtain permission from courts to open probes.

“We urge the president to examine this bill thoroughly and to refrain from signing the current version,” Olifira said, saying the bill could “bring about the collapse of Ukraine’s whole law enforcement system.”

The president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
…

A photo tweeted by Russia’s Ministry of Defense earlier this week as “irrefutable evidence” that the United States was helping Islamic State militants in Syria was actually a screen grab from a video game.

The tweet on Tuesday alleged that the American military had prevented Russian airstrikes against Islamic State fighters by providing aerial cover as the militants fled the city of Abu Kamal on November 9. The image was tweeted by the Russian Ministry of Defense as proof.

But the image was from a video game called “AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.”

The Pentagon has “flatly refuted” the Russian accusation as a “lie,” and the tweet has since been deleted by Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

“Insisting that it happened doesn’t make it true. It is not helpful to continue to insist it, just like it’s not helpful to dig up images from old video games to display as part of the assertion,” Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr. said Thursday.

Army Col. Ryan Dillon said Tuesday the Russian accusation was “about as accurate as their air campaign.”
…