Month: May 2018

A German court on Tuesday rejected a request from prosecutors to take former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont back into custody pending a decision on whether he can be extradited to Spain.

Puigdemont was detained by German police March 25 after crossing the border from Denmark. Spain had issued a European arrest warrant and sought his extradition on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds — charges that stem from an unauthorized referendum last year on Catalonia’s independence from Spain.

He was released April 6 after a German court said it appeared he can’t be extradited for rebellion, the more serious of the two charges. But prosecutors in the northern town of Schleswig argued that new information provided by Spanish authorities suggests that would be possible.

They cited videos showing violence against Spanish police and said in a statement that “the disturbances were on such a scale that prosecutors believe that he should also be extradited over the accusation of rebellion.” The prosecutors argued that the charge is comparable to two offenses under German law — treason and breaching the peace.

They said that Puigdemont would pose a flight risk and called for him to be taken back into custody. The state court in Schleswig disagreed and rejected the request.

Puigdemont remains free with certain conditions, including reporting to police once a week.

The separatist politician has been living in Berlin, frequently receiving political allies from Catalonia including his newly elected successor as regional president, Quim Torra.

The Schleswig court said it is “still open” when a final decision will be made on whether Puigdemont can be extradited. It said that the prosecutors have yet to submit a formal application to examine whether an extradition is possible.

 
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European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said Tuesday that the EU still has no idea whether U.S. President Donald Trump will slap tariffs on the bloc’s steel and aluminum exports next week.

“We have no clarity yet,” Malmstrom told reporters in Brussels as EU ministers gathered for talks on trade. She noted that she and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross speak several times a week.

In March, Trump imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on imported aluminum, but granted the 28 EU countries an exemption until June 1. He also temporarily exempted big steel producers Canada and Mexico, provided they agree to renegotiate a North American trade deal to his satisfaction.

“I don’t think they will be prolonged, the exemptions, so there will be some sort of decision and we have to prepare for different scenarios,” Malmstrom said.

Convinced that the U.S. move breaks World Trade Organization rules, the EU has drawn up a list of “rebalancing” duties worth some 2.8 billion euros ($3.4 billion) to impose on U.S. products if it is not permanently exempt. It has vowed not to negotiate under threat.

The EU, the world’s biggest trading bloc, rejects Trump’s argument that the tariffs are needed to protect national security. Most EU countries are U.S. partners in NATO.

“We think that they are not legitimate, and they go against the WTO,” Malmstrom said.

Should the tariffs be dropped, the EU stands ready to deepen trans-Atlantic energy cooperation, notably on liquefied natural gas, improve reciprocal market access for industrial products and work together to reform WTO rules.

“Time is running out,” German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier warned. “Whether we succeed in preventing punitive tariffs from taking effect on June 1 is a completely open question – but we should leave nothing untried to prevent that, and we should work for an agreement.”

“We want to avoid a trade war,” he said, adding that it’s important “to avoid mutual increases in tariffs, because that would lead to citizens and consumers paying the price, and we want to rule that out.”
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A gay Chilean man who survived abuse by a Catholic priest said Pope Francis told him that his sexual orientation “doesn’t matter” to him and that “God made you like this.”

Juan Carlos Cruz said he spoke to the pope about his homosexuality during their recent meetings at the Vatican. The pope invited Cruz and other victims of a Chilean predator priest to discuss their cases last month.

“Juan Carlos, that you are gay doesn’t matter,” Cruz said Pope Francis told him, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. “God made you like this and loves you like this, and it doesn’t matter to me. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

The Vatican has refused to confirm or deny the remarks, citing its policy not to comment on the pope’s private conversations.

Cruz, who was abused as a child by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, told the paper that his sexual orientation came up during the discussion because he has been targeted for being gay after speaking out about his abuse.

Whether the pope’s comments will bring about change within the Catholic Church is debatable. Pope Francis has sought to make the church more welcoming to gays, most famously with his 2013 comment, “Who am I to judge?”

He also has spoken of his own ministry to gay and transgender people, insisting they are children of God, loved by God and deserving of accompaniment by the church.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that people with “homosexual tendencies” “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” it also calls a “deep-seated” homosexual inclination and its acts “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”
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Survivors of a devastating high-rise fire in London wept Monday as relatives paid tribute to some of the 72 victims at the opening of an inquiry into Britain’s deadliest blaze in decades.

The Grenfell Tower inquiry is beginning with two weeks of tributes to those who died when a fire that began in a faulty fridge raced through the 24-story apartment block in June 2017. The statements from friends and family members are meant to keep the victims at the center of the inquiry, which will try to determine how the disaster happened and prevent a similar tragedy happening in the future.

“When we die, we live on in the memories of those who knew and loved us,” said retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, who is leading the inquiry. “It is fitting therefore that the opening hearings … should be dedicated to the memory of those who died.”

The victims included baby Logan Gomes, who was stillborn after his family escaped from the 21st floor of the building.

“He might not be here physically, but he will always be here in our hearts, and will be forever,” said his father Marcio Gomes, his voice breaking. “I know he’s here, with God, right next to me, giving me strength and courage to take this forward.”

The inquiry heard a message left by Mohamed Amied Neda from inside his apartment.

“Goodbye, we are leaving this world now, goodbye,” said the 57-year-old, who came to Britain from Afghanistan and ran a chauffeur company. He was found dead after falling from the building. His wife and son were left comatose but survived.

Mohammadou Saye remembered his 24-year-old daughter Khadija Saye, a promising visual artist whose work was shown at last year’s Venice Biennale.

“Her burning passion was photography, encouraged by her mother, Mary Mendy, who also lost her life in the same fire,” he said in a statement read by a lawyer.

“Khadija said to me one day: `Daddy, I’m in love with images.”

Moore-Bick’s inquiry will look at causes of the blaze, the response of local authorities and the country’s high-rise building regulations. But some survivors are critical because it won’t investigate wider issues around social housing that many residents had wanted to include.

Many residents accuse officials in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s richest boroughs, of ignoring their safety concerns because the publicly owned tower was home to a largely immigrant and working-class population.

Police say they are considering individual or corporate manslaughter charges in the blaze, but no one has yet been charged.
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Sweden will send out instructions to its citizens next week on how to cope with an outbreak of war, as the country faces an assertive Russia across the Baltic Sea.

The 20-page pamphlet titled “If Crisis or War Comes” gives advice on getting clean water, spotting propaganda and finding a bomb shelter, in the first public awareness campaign of its kind since the days of the Cold War.

It also tells Swedes they have a duty to act if their country is threatened. “If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up,” the booklet says. “All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false.”

The leaflet’s publisher, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, did not spell out where an attack might come from. “Even if Sweden is safer than most countries, threats do exist,” agency head Dan Eliasson told journalists.

But Sweden and other countries in the region have been on high alert since Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March, 2014. They have also accused Russia of repeated violations of their airspace – assertions that Moscow has either dismissed or not responded to.

The Kremlin has in the past insisted that it does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries and has accused Western powers of stoking “Russophobia.”

Stockholm has repeatedly cited Russian aggression as the reason for a series of security measures including the reintroduction of conscription this year and the stationing of troops on the Baltic island of Gotland.

The Swedish government decided to start increasing military spending from 2016, reversing years of declines.

The booklet on its way to Sweden’s 4.8 million households warns that supplies of food, medicine and gasoline could run short during a crisis.

It also lists oat milk, tins of Bolognese sauce and salmon balls as examples of food that people should store in case of an emergency along with tortillas and sardines.

The publication describes what an air raid warning sounds like in the first such publication handed out since 1961.

Sweden has not been at war with anyone for more than 200 years, not since its war with Norway in 1814. It was officially neutral during World War II.

 
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Former Polish president and anti-communist leader Lech Walesa met Monday with disabled people and their parents who have been staging a sit-in in the parliament for over a month, offering them his solidarity and strongly denouncing the country’s populist government.

Several young adults in wheelchairs and their parents, their full-time caretakers, want more state aid, a demand the government has not fully met. While the numbers of protesters are small, their occupation of a corridor in parliament has received heavy coverage in the Polish media, becoming a headache for the conservative ruling party.

The parliament speaker has reacted by restricting access to some reporters, which itself is sparking complaints to prosecutors.

Walesa, a strong government critic, joined them Monday morning for about an hour, taking a seat and telling them: “You called me, so here I am.”

“I would like to make a contribution to your fight,” Walesa said.

The ruling party, Law and Justice, is strongly pro-Catholic and won elections in 2015 promising to help the poor and other disadvantaged people, but now faces accusations of treating society’s weakest members in a heartless way.

The president, prime minister and the minister for social policies have all visited the protesters, and the president this month signed a law raising the monthly benefits for disabled adults to 1,030 zlotys (239 euros; $281) from 865 zlotys. But they say the state can’t afford to pay them the additional 500 zlotys per month that they seek.

The protesters have asked to also meet party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, but there has been no meeting. Kaczynski has been recently hospitalized, reportedly for knee surgery.

Law and Justice leaders also accuse opposition lawmakers, who let the protesters into parliament, of using them as a tool in a political fight. With criticism rising, the parliament issued a statement on the weekend saying officials there were treating the protesters with “respect and empathy.”

Walesa listened to one of the mothers saying the families have felt humiliated by the government. Most of his comments were directed at criticizing the government.

“Those few people who are in power are chiefly intent on sowing discord. Through quarrels and feuding they are trying to stay in power,” Walesa said. “We must remove these people from power as soon as we can. They fight evil with evil and lawlessness with lawlessness.”

Walesa was the leader of the Solidarity freedom movement in the 1980s that helped topple communism. As Poland emerged as a new democracy he served as president from 1990-95.

Today he is deeply disliked by leaders of Law and Justice, who accuse him of having collaborated with the communist secret police in the 1970s and of mismanaging the country’s transition from communism to democracy, allowing former communists to continue to have too much influence in the new system.

Walesa denies those accusations.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a swipe at European countries that refused to let him campaign on their territory on Sunday as he called at a rally in Bosnia for expatriate Turks to vote for him and his ruling AK Party in elections next month.

The presidential and parliamentary polls on June 24 will see Turkey switch to a powerful, executive presidential system that was narrowly approved in a referendum last year.

“As European Turks you have always supported us by a wide margin. Now we need your support again in the elections on June 24,” Erdogan told a rally in a Sarejevo sports hall, where supporters waved Turkish and Bosnian flags.

Ahead of the 2017 referendum, ministers traveled to countries with big Turkish communities — including Germany and the Netherlands — to urge support for the change, but were stopped from campaigning by authorities citing security fears. Erdogan nevertheless said last month he was expecting to hold a campaign rally in a European city.

“At a time when renowned European countries claiming to be the cradle of civilization failed, Bosnia and Herzegovina showed by allowing us to gather here that it is a real democracy not a so-called one,” he told a crowd of around 15,000.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who heads a right-wing coalition opposed to Turkey joining the European Union, said last month Erdogan would be barred from “trying to exploit” Europe’s Turkish communities.

Germany, home to about 3 million people of Turkish origin, says it will not allow foreign politicians to campaign on its territory ahead of elections.

Earlier in the day, Erdogan pledged a multibillion-euro investment in a motorway connecting Belgrade and Sarajevo. Thousands of Turks came from Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, and from across the Balkans for the rally.

“Turkey is our mother nation,” said Coskun Celiloglu, a Macedonian student of Turkish descent. “We came to Sarajevo just for one day to support our savior Erdogan.”

The most popular — and divisive — politician in recent Turkish history, Erdogan has ruled for 15 years, overseeing a period of rapid economic growth. But a widespread crackdown against his opponents has led rights groups and Western allies of the NATO member to voice concerns about Turkey’s record on civil rights and Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism.

On Saturday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency reported there had been tip-offs about a potential assassination attempt against Erdogan while he visits the Balkans.

Asked about the report, Erdogan said: “This news reached me and indeed that is why I am here … Such threats and operations cannot deter us from this path.”
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Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Sunday that Europe’s political support to save the 2015 international nuclear accord after the U.S. withdrawal was not sufficient if too many European companies end their investments in Iran.

“The cascade of decisions by EU companies to end their activities in Iran makes things much more complicated,” Zarif said after meeting with European Union energy commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB quoted Zarif as saying, “With the exit of the United States from the nuclear deal, the expectations of the Iranian public towards the European Union have increased… and the EU’s political support for the nuclear agreement is not sufficient.”

With the threat of reimposed U.S. sanctions against European companies doing business in Iran, several foreign firms have already pulled out of the country.

French oil major Total said it is abandoning its $4.8 billion investment in Iran unless it gets a sanctions waiver from the U.S., while another energy company, Engie, said it plans to stop its engineering work in Iran before November, when U.S. says it will reimpose sanctions.  

“The European Union must take concrete supplementary steps to increase its investments in Iran,” Zarif said. “The commitments of the EU to apply the nuclear deal are not compatible with the announcement of probable withdrawal by major European companies.”

EU leaders have pledged to try to keep Iran’s oil trade flowing, but conceded it would not be easy.

Arias Canete said, “We have to preserve this agreement so we don’t have to negotiate a new agreement. Our message is very clear. This is a nuclear agreement that works.”

If the nuclear deal falls apart in the aftermath of President Donald Trump withdrawing the U.S., Iran has threatened to resume industrial uranium enrichment “without limit.”

Tehran’s economy was hobbled by the sanctions imposed before the international agreement was reached to restrain Iran’s nuclear development, in exchange for ending the sanctions. Even as Trump withdrew the U.S., the remaining five signatories –Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — have all said they intend to stay in the pact with Tehran.

The U.S. has said it wants to reimpose sanctions to force Iran to negotiate a new deal with tighter curbs to prevent its development of nuclear weaponry, end its ballistic missile tests and rein in its military advances in the Middle East.

 
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Facebook and European Union officials were locked in high-stakes negotiations Sunday over whether founder Mark Zuckerberg will appear Tuesday before EU lawmakers to discuss the site’s impact on the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Europeans, as well as Facebook’s impact on elections on both sides of the Atlantic and the spreading of fake news.

Being debated is whether the meeting would be held after EU Parliament President Antonio Tajanibe agreed to have it live-streamed on the internet and not held behind closed-doors, as previously agreed.

The leaders of all eight political blocs in the parliament have insisted the format be changed.

Lawmakers say it would be deeply damaging for Zuckerberg, if he pulls out simply because they want him to hold what they say is the equivalent of a “Facebook Live.”

Claude Moraes, chairman of the EU parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs panel, warned Zuckerberg will have to go into greater detail than he did in his testimony before U.S. Senate and Congressional panels last month on the “issues of algorithmic targeting, and political manipulation” and on Facebook’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook shared with the British firm the data of millions of Americans and Europeans, which was subsequently used for election campaigning purposes. Facebook did not return calls from VOA asking about whether Zuckerberg’s meeting with EU lawmakers would still go ahead.

“EU governments are absolutely aware that every election now is tainted. We want to get to the heart of this,” said Moraes. EU lawmakers say Zuckerberg’s appearance is all the more important as he has declined to appear before national European parliaments, including Britain’s House of Commons.

Terrorist connections

Zuckerberg is likely also to be pressed on why Facebook is still being used by extremists to connect with each other and to recruit. Much of the focus in recent weeks on Facebook has been about general issues over its management of users’ data, but analysts are warning the social-media site is enabling a deadly form of social networking and isn’t doing enough to disrupt it.

“Facebook’s data management practices have potentially served the networking purposes of terrorists,” said the Counter Extremism Project, nonprofit research group, in a statement.

“CEP’s findings regularly debunk Facebook’s claims of content moderation. This week, a video made by the pro-ISIS al-Taqwa media group was found that includes news footage from attacks in the West and calls for further violence, encouraging the viewer to attack civilians and ‘kill them by any means or method,” according to CEP

CEP researchers say Facebook’s “suggested friends” feature helps extremists connect to each other and is “enabling a deadly form of social networking.” “Worldwide, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, there has been a spike of militant activity on social media channels … Encrypted messaging apps like Facebook-owned WhatsApp are well known mechanisms used by terrorists to communicate, plot and plan attacks, a practice that is tragically continuing,” CEP says.

New rules

Aside from the EU parliament, Zuckerberg has agreed to be interviewed onstage Thursday at a major tech conference in Paris, and is scheduled to have lunch with French president Emmanuel Macron during the week.

His visit comes as the British government is threatening social-media companies with a tax to pay for efforts to counter online crime. According to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, British ministers have instructed officials to carry out research into a new “social media levy” on internet companies.

Culture Minister Matt Hancock indicated Sunday the British government is beginning to move away from allowing the internet companies to regulate themselves and is ready to impose requirements on them, which if approved by parliament will make Britain the “safest place in the world” to be online.

A new code of practice aimed at confronting social-media bullying and to clear the internet of intimidating or humiliating online content could be included in the legislation, say officials. Other measures being considered include rules that have to be followed by traditional broadcasters that prevent certain ads being targeted at children. Hancock said work with social-media companies to protect users had made progress, but the performance of the industry overall has been mixed, he added.

Hancock said, “Digital technology is overwhelmingly a force for good across the world and we must always champion innovation and change for the better.”

 
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Meghan Markle picked a sleek sculpted dress by the British designer of couture house Givenchy for her wedding to Prince Harry on Saturday, worn with a five-meter long veil and a sparkling diamond tiara lent by Queen Elizabeth.

The pure white long-sleeved gown with a boat neck had been eagerly anticipated by royal fans around the world, with speculation over which designer would be chosen starting soon after the couple announced their engagement in November.

As the bride stepped out of her classic Rolls-Royce, Kensington Palace announced that Clare Waight Keller, who became the first female artistic director at famed French house Givenchy last year, had secured the coveted role of making the dress.

Focus on neckline

The 47-year-old, previously at Pringle of Scotland and Chloe, met Markle earlier this year and the two worked together on the design, which “epitomizes a timeless minimal elegance,” Kensington Palace said.

“The focus of the dress is the graphic open bateau neckline that gracefully frames the shoulders and emphasizes the slender sculpted waist,” the palace said in a statement.

“The lines of the dress extend towards the back where the train flows in soft round folds cushioned by an underskirt in triple silk organza. The slim three-quarter sleeves add a note of refined modernity.”

The double bonded gown made of cady silk with a sweeping train was simple in style, which won praise from fashionistas.

Reaction

Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue, called the dress “beautiful” while bridal designer Raishma said the gown was “an example of couture design at its most classic and timeless.”

On social media, fans mainly showered the bride, who wore her hair up, with compliments, some even posting an image of Cinderella. Outside the wedding venue in Windsor, well-wishers were divided over its simplicity.

“It was simple and elegant,” 23-year-old Emily Devaney from New Zealand said. “It’s probably hard to dress for a royal wedding — you probably don’t have much you can go with but I thought she looked beautiful.”

Nursing student Linda O’Dwyer said it was “very modern and classy” and she preferred it to the lace-embroidered gown Kate Middleton wore at her 2011 wedding to Prince William.

“It was like (Megan) didn’t want it to be too over the top with lots of embroidery. It really suited her style,” she said.

However spectator Jennifer Hill, 69, described it as “very plain.” “I’m not surprised but slightly disappointed,” she said. “I thought it might be a little more flamboyant but it was very simplistic. I prefer her hair down.”

​Commonwealth tribute

The well-kept secret over who would design the dress had kept royal fans and fashionistas guessing for months. Among those cited as contenders were labels Ralph & Russo and Burberry as well as designer Stella McCartney.

Waight Keller, whose name has now been catapulted into the global spotlight, described the chance to work on the historic occasion as “an honor.”

“We wanted to create a timeless piece that would emphasize the iconic codes of Givenchy throughout its history, as well as convey modernity through sleek lines and sharp cuts,” she was quoted by British Vogue as saying on the magazine’s website.

Meghan’s long veil, made of silk tulle, was decorated with a trim of hand-embroidered flowers in silk threads and organza, the palace said, and paid tribute to the 53 countries of the Commonwealth.

“Ms. Waight Keller designed a veil representing the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country united in one spectacular floral composition,” the palace said.

Prince Harry last month was appointed a Commonwealth youth ambassador.

Queen Elizabeth lent the 36-year-old bride a historic tiara for the occasion. Made in 1932 for Queen Mary, the sparkling diamond and platinum bandeau has a center brooch dating from 1893.

Meghan, now to be called the Duchess of Sussex, also wore Cartier earrings and bracelet, and silk duchess satin shoes.
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Diplomats from Europe, China and Russia are discussing a new accord to offer Iran financial aid to curb its ballistic missile development and meddling in the region, in the hope of salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal, a German newspaper reported Sunday.

The officials will meet in Vienna in the coming week under the leadership of senior European Union diplomat Helga Schmid to discuss next steps after the May 8 decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper said, citing senior EU sources.

No US participation

Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China would participate in the meeting, but the United States would not, it said. It was not immediately clear if Iran, which has resisted calls to curb its ballistic missile program in the past, would take part.

Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most Western sanctions. One of the main complaints of the Trump administration was that the accord did not cover Iran’s missile program or its support for armed groups in the Middle East, which the West considers terrorists.

Concluding a new agreement that would maintain the nuclear provisions and curb ballistic missile development efforts and Tehran’s activities in the region could help convince Trump to lift sanctions against Iran, the paper said.

“We have to get away from the name ‘Vienna nuclear agreement’ and add in a few additional elements. Only that will convince President Trump to agree and lift sanctions again,” the paper quoted a senior EU diplomat as saying.

No immediate comment was available from the German foreign ministry.

Reassurances to Iran

The EU’s energy chief sought to reassure Iran on Saturday that the 28-member bloc remained committed to salvaging the nuclear deal and strengthening trade with Tehran.

Officials from the EU, Germany and other countries that remain committed to the deal have said it would disastrous if EU efforts fail to preserve it.

Iran has struggled to achieve financial benefits from the deal, partly because remaining unilateral U.S. sanctions over its missile program deterred major Western investors from doing business with Tehran.

The officials are looking for a new approach given an understanding that it would be difficult for European firms to work around new U.S. sanctions, the newspaper reported.

It said the new deal could include billions of dollars of financial aid for Iran, in line with an EU deal that provided billions in aid to Turkey for taking in millions of migrants and closing its borders, which helped end a 2015 migrant crisis.

Iran and European powers have made a good start in talks over how to salvage the 2015 deal but much depends on what happens in the next few weeks, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said last week.
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Greece and representatives from its European and International Monetary Fund creditors have reached an initial agreement on the country’s reform progress under its final bailout review, the finance minister said Saturday.

“The staff-level agreement closed. We have an agreement on all issues,” Euclid Tsakalotos told reporters, adding it would be ratified at an upcoming meeting of euro zone finance ministers.

Greece is keen for a quick closure of the review as it looks to the end of its third bailout in August. It is being assessed on more than 80 demanded reforms, including on energy issues, pension and labor issues.

Athens also wants to reach a deal with its lenders before July on further debt relief, which will be implemented in the post-bailout period.

Greece has received about 260 billion euros in emergency loans since 2010 in exchange for unpopular austerity measures and reforms. The money has kept it afloat but has also increased its debt, which now stands at 180 percent of GDP.

The government wants to emerge from the bailout without requesting a precautionary credit line or extra financial aid. It has been building a cash buffer and wants to be able to service its debt with funds raised directly from the markets.
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