Month: August 2018

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is slamming Russia’s role in Syria’s civil war as the State Department presses Moscow to stop the Syrian regime from launching more chemical attacks on its people. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
…

President Vladimir Putin hinted on Tuesday he was ready to soften an unpopular proposal to reform the pension system which has pushed his approval rating down to its lowest level in more than four years.

He said he would deliver his views in a public statement on the issue, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, adding he was aware of public unhappiness about the proposed reform and decisions had to be undertaken cautiously.

“I ask you not to forget that our decisions will affect the fates of millions of people and must be fair. One should not act mechanically, formally, but only take a balanced and cautious approach,” Putin said.

Lawmakers, in a preliminary vote in July, backed a government proposal to sharply raise the retirement age, part of a controversial budget package designed to shore up state finances.

Putin, who once promised never to raise the retirement age, had until now been careful to distance himself from the proposed reforms, which envisage raising the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women.

Polls show that around 90 percent of the population oppose the proposed reform.

But on Tuesday he told a government meeting in the Siberian city of Omsk that he would soon intervene.

“In the nearest future, maybe even tomorrow, I will formulate my attitude [to the reform] in detail and will make the respective statement.”

Putin said any decision on the pension system had to be balanced and cautious. He said he was aware of the public’s extremely negative reaction to the proposed reform.

“Of course, all this has drawn a predictable reaction, a rather sharp discussion in public,” Putin said, adding that any changes in the pension age must provide a decent standard of living for Russia’s 147 million-strong population.

‘Politically sensitive’

The retirement age proposal is politically sensitive for Putin, who was re-elected in March, because it has prompted a series of protests across Russia since it was announced on June 14, the day Russia played the first match of its soccer World Cup.

According to opinion polls, Putin’s approval ratings have fallen to levels last seen before Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea which provided the Russian leader with a popularity boost.

Putin’s spokesman on Tuesday dismissed speculation that Putin had been pushed into addressing the issue by a drop in his approval ratings, however.

While Putin said authorities could not act “routinely” and “formally” when it came to reforming the pension system, he made clear that some kind of reform was needed though.

“… We need to take into account the current situation in the economy and the labor market, we must understand what the future holds for the country in 10, 20 and even 30 years,” Putin said.

He said he had asked the government to consult with political parties, public organizations and regional administrations to review the legislation before its second reading in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Lawmakers passed the bill in the first reading in July. To become law, the bill must pass three readings in the State Duma and must then be approved by the upper house and finally signed into law by the president.

 
…

Russia has deployed several frigates to the Mediterranean via the Bosphorus, an analysis of shipping traffic showed, part of what a Russian newspaper on Tuesday called Moscow’s largest naval buildup since it entered the Syrian conflict in 2015.

The reinforcement comes as Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is believed to be considering an assault on the last big rebel-held enclave, Idlib in the north.

Russia has accused the United States of building up its own forces in the Middle East in preparation for a possible strike on Syrian government forces.

On Saturday, the Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen frigates sailed through Istanbul’s Bosphorus towards the Mediterranean, Reuters pictures showed.

The day before, the Pytlivy frigate and landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov were pictured sailing through the Turkish straits that connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. The Vishny Volochek missile corvette passed through earlier this month.

The Izvestia newspaper said Russia had gathered its largest naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea since it intervened in Syria in 2015, turning the tide in Assad’s favor.

The force included 10 vessels, most of them armed with long-range Kalibr cruise missiles, Izvestia wrote, adding that more were on the way, and that two submarines had also been deployed.
…

A Pakistani cricketer has offered a reward for the murder of firebrand anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders for organizing a cartoon contest depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

The incendiary bounty offer is adding to fears in the Netherlands that the cartoon competition, which was announced June 12, will lead to targeted violence, either in Holland or against Western targets in Pakistan, by religious militants including so-called Islamic State (IS) or assassins inspired by the terror group.

In 2015, two French militants who had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida massacred 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices, ostensibly for the printing of cartoons of Muhammad.  The attack was the first in a wave of terrorism in France that has left more than 240 dead during the past three years.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 protesters in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, were prevented earlier this month from pelting the Dutch embassy with stones.  Protesters say the contest is sacrilegious.

Khalid Latif, who last year was banned from playing cricket for five years in a spot-fixing scandal, announced a $24,000 bounty on Wilders and his far-right party colleagues on Facebook.  Spot-fixing is predetermining the outcome of a particular passage of play, as opposed to fixing the outcome of a match.

Wilders has said he has more than 200 entries for the contest, which will be judged by American cartoonist and former Muslim Bosch Fawstin.

Because the judge is an American, Pakistani Islamists say the United States should also be blamed for holding the contest.  The Islamist party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which has demanded Islamabad break diplomatic ties with the Netherlands, says “strict measures should also be taken against the U.S.”  

Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former international cricketer, has acknowledged the growing furor, promising in his maiden speech this week in the Pakistani Senate that he will raise the issue of blasphemous caricatures in the U.N. General Assembly.  “Very few in the West understand the pain caused to Muslims by such blasphemous activities,” said Khan.

Wilders’ Dutch Party for Freedom, which opposes Muslim immigration to the Netherlands, is the second-largest in the Dutch parliament.  Wilders tweeted he had received clearance from the Dutch counterterrorism agency to hold the competition in the PVV’s parliamentary offices.

Wilders’ Dutch critics say the contest is needlessly provocative and Prime Minister Mark Rutte has denounced the competition as “not respectful,” but he has refused Pakistani demands for the contest to be banned, arguing the Netherlands values freedom of speech.

Three years ago, the Dutch parliament turned down Wilders’ plan to hold an exhibition of anti-Islam cartoons inside the legislature’s complex, saying “exhibitions in parliament must focus on the role of parliament and should not offer a platform to party political statements or be controversial.”

Khan says he will campaign for a global ban on cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.  A pledge secular-minded critics of the new prime minister say is playing politics with religion.  Khan has condemned religious killings, but he supports an article in Pakistan’s constitution mandating the death penalty for any “imputation, insinuation or innuendo” against Muhammad.

“Less than a week in office, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has made blasphemy one of his first issues, empowering militants and initiating international moves, long heralded by Saudi Arabia, that would restrict press freedom by pushing for a global ban,” argues James Dorsey, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

On Monday, Pakistan’s Senate approved a unanimous resolution condemning the caricature contest, saying that it “considers the proposed competition tantamount to inciting hatred, racial prejudice, unrest, conflict and insecurity in a world that has already seen much bloodshed, racism, extremism, intolerance and Islamophobia.”

The furor over Wilders’ contest echoes Muslim protests 13 years ago against a Danish newspaper for publishing cartoons depicting Muhammed in bad light.  The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a dozen editorial cartoons in 2005, saying it was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. One of the cartoons showed the prophet with a bomb in his turban. Anger about the publication built up over time.

Now, as then, hardline Islamists began to jump on the controversy.

Last week, the head of an influential madrassa in Lahore, radical spiritual leader Mufti Muhammad Abid Jalali, warned, “In the name of so-called freedom of speech, the West continues to publish blasphemous texts and images.  Even certain animals are sometimes used, while knowing how sensitive that is in Islam.  If the West perseveres in this, it can expect an appropriate response.”

He told Dutch reporters, “Islam is above all a religion of peace, and we condemn all terrorist groups that commit violence on behalf of Islam.  But if non-Muslims have no respect for the prophet, peace with him, or ridicule Islam, as is happening in the Netherlands, we have no choice but to respond.”
…

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras saw his interior minister take up a key post in his leftist Syriza party on Monday, heralding a cabinet reshuffle to shore up waning support after painful bailouts.

In a rousing speech, Tsipras ruled out early elections, telling his party faithful that polls would be held as scheduled in the autumn of 2019, but that his government and the Syriza movement needed ‘new blood.’

The country emerged from the biggest bailout in economic history last week but jaded Greeks found little reason to celebrate after nine years of cuts and job losses.

“It will be the mother of all battles,” Tsipras declared, referring to the election next year, effectively firing the opening salvo to what appears to be a long-drawn out election campaign.

“To give all these battles victoriously we need to rally together, unity and renewal. Our country, the government and the party, need new blood and more appetite to get to work,” he said.

Greece holds parliamentary elections every four years, with the next expected by October 2019 at the latest.

Based on the latest three opinion polls conducted by Greek media, Syriza is trailing the main opposition New Democracy conservatives by between 5.3 and 11.6 percentage points.

Panos Skourletis, the interior minister nominated by Tsipras to become new Secretary of Syriza’s Central Committee, is a party stalwart with widespread support at a grassroots level. He was backed by a wide majority of central committee members and was elected for the post late on Monday.

Tsipras was elected in 2015 promising to end years of austerity for Greece, imposed by international creditors. But he was forced to reverse course by the prospect of the country being kicked out of the euro zone and pursue deeper reforms under a third international bailout program.

“From now on… we no longer have the alibi of implementing a program which is not ours,” Skourletis told the central committee, adding that he saw potential for reform but also challenges for the party in the post-bailout period.

Austerity and political turmoil followed as the economy shrank by a quarter, pushing a third of the population into poverty and forcing the migration of thousands abroad.

The bailout programmes concluded last week. Greece has received 288 billion euros in financial aid since 2010.

Tsipras said the government now had the fiscal space to alleviate some tax burden on business and individuals, but was not specific. “We are ready to proceed with brave interventions,” he said.

Government officials have previously said the government may scrap plans for further pension cuts next year.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who steered the country’s exit from the third bailout, was likely to remain in his post, sources said.

Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, instrumental in brokering an accord ending years of dispute with Macedonia over its name, was also  expected to stay on board.
…

A Russian court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in jail on Monday after convicting him of breaking public protest laws, a move he said was illegal and aimed at stopping him leading a rally against pension reform next month.

Navalny, who was detained by police outside his home on Saturday, was found guilty of breaking the law by organizing an unauthorized Moscow rally on Jan. 28 which called for a boycott of what he predicted would be a rigged presidential election.

Under Russian law, the time, place and size of such protests must be agreed in advance with the authorities who have a track record of rejecting applications to rally in central Moscow and of suggesting less prominent locations instead.

Navalny, who was barred from taking part in the March presidential election over what he said was a trumped-up suspended prison sentence, has been repeatedly jailed for going ahead with such protests anyway despite official rejections.

The 42-year-old politician, who told the court he would never give up trying to organize street protests, said on Monday he believed the authorities were jailing him now, more than six months after his alleged offense, to stop him taking part in a protest planned for Sept. 9 against plans to raise the retirement age in Russia.

That is the same day as Moscow elects a new mayor, a contest expected to be easily won by incumbent Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, and authorities have rejected an application by Navalny’s supporters to rally in central Moscow.

‘Strange trial’

“This strange trial is happening with the single aim of not allowing me to take part in the protest,” Navalny told the presiding judge. “You and I both know it.”

As he was led out of the courtroom, he shouted out the date and time of the planned rally.

“Everyone come to the meeting,” he said. Navalny is hoping to tap into public anger over government plans to raise the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women.

Opinion polls show most Russians strongly oppose the plan, which has been seen as responsible for a drop in Putin’s approval rating in recent months, prompting speculation that the Russian leader, whom Navalny has likened to an autocratic tsar, may decide to dilute the reform.

Putin, who makes a point of never saying Navalny’s name aloud when asked about him, has dismissed him as a troublemaker bent on sowing chaos on behalf of the United States.

Navalny has used protests and corruption exposes of the sometimes gilded lives of government officials to mobilize support. But many Russians, who still get much of their news from state TV which either ignores or derides him, say they do not know who he is.
…

The European Union does not believe Syria is safe for refugees to go back, officials in Brussels said of a Russian push to have people return to the war-torn country and the international community to spend money on rebuilding it.

The bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss the matter in Austria later this week.

EU officials expect the bloc to stick to its line that it would not offer reconstruction money for as long as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — propped back to power by Russian and Iranian militaries — does not let the opposition share power.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said before talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month that everything needed to be done for Syria refugees to return. “But the conditions are just not there. Russia would want us to pay for it but Syria under Assad is not safe,” said one EU official.

The EU has backed Syrian opposition groups in the multi-faceted war that has raged for more than seven years, largely because global and regional powers disagree on how to end it.
…

Pope Francis has apologized for the abuse perpetrated by the powerful Catholic Church in Ireland, but critics say it is not enough. The victims of abuse and their supporters gathered in Ireland’s capital Dublin on Sunday to protest what they call the Church’s attempt to silence and marginalize the abuse. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the protests come as a senior Vatican official calls on the pontiff to resign for failing to act sooner against a former U.S. cardinal.
…

Turkey’s Erdogan says will bring safety and peace to Syria, Iraq

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Sunday to bring peace and safety to Iraq and areas in Syria not under Turkish control and said terrorist organizations in those areas would be eliminated.

Turkey, which has backed some rebel groups in Syria, has been working with Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al Assad, and Iran for a political resolution to the crisis.

It has so far carried out two cross-border operations along its border with Syria and set up a dozen military observations posts in the northern Syrian region of Idlib.

The rebel-held Idlib enclave is a refuge for civilians and rebels displaced from other areas of Syria as well as for powerful jihadist forces, but has been hit by a wave of air strikes and shelling this month.

The attacks posed a possible prelude to a full-scale Syrian government offensive, which Turkey has said would be disastrous.

Speaking in the southeastern province of Mus to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Manzikert of 1071, Erdogan vowed to bring peace and safety to Syria and Iraq.

“It is not for nothing that the only places in Syria where security and peace have been established are under Turkey’s control. God willing, we will establish the same peace in other parts of Syria too. God willing, we will bring the same peace to Iraq, where terrorist organizations are active,” he said.

Erdogan also linked regional conflicts and an ongoing currency crisis in Turkey, which he has cast as an “economic war”, to previous attempts to invade Anatolia, warning that the this would lead to the collapse of surrounding regions.

“Those who seek temporary reasons behind the troubles we have been facing recently are wrong, very wrong. The attacks we face today… are rooted in history,” he said.

“Don’t forget, Anatolia is a wall and if this wall collapses, there will no longer be a Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Balkans or Caucasus.”

Turkey’s lira has tumbled nearly 40 percent this year as investor concerns over Erdogan’s grip on monetary policy and a growing dispute with the United States put pressure on the currency.

Ankara has accused Washington of targeting Turkey over the fate of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor being tried in Turkey on terrorism charges that he denies.

“Some careless people among us think this is about Tayyip Erdogan or the AK Party. No, this is about Turkey,” Erdogan said.
…

Three days after she was given a temporary release, a British-Iranian woman returned to prison in Tehran Sunday after authorities there refused to extend the furlough.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been jailed since early 2016 following her arrest at the Tehran airport as she tried to return to Britain with her daughter following a family visit.  Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was born in Iran, is married to a British man and has dual British and Iranian citizenship. She was given a five year sentence for “plotting to topple the Iranian regime.”

Last week she received a three day release “to reunite with her family,” according to a tweet from Iran’s ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad.  

Family members and supporters hoped that the furlough would be extended or even made permanent, but her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said Sunday that after mixed messages from Iranian authorities as to whether Zaghari-Ratcliffe could remain free longer, she returned to Evin prison.  Ratcliffe said his wife went back to prison voluntarily to avoid having their daughter, who is living with relatives in Iran, see her “dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.”

Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, tweeted that he had spoken to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif last week in an effort to win Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s freedom “but that clearly wasn’t enough.”
…

Hundreds of volunteers from 18 countries have gathered in the northeastern French town of Verdun to keep alive the memory of those who fought under appalling conditions in World War I.

Re-enactors dressed in soldiers’ uniforms brought to life a big military encampment in the town and held a military parade Saturday, part of a series of events to mark the centenary of the end of the war.

Visitors could visualize soldiers’ daily life during the war through the reconstruction of field kitchens, First Aid posts and command posts.

Soldiers in khaki, grey or blue uniforms, depending on the country, and women wearing Red Cross nurses uniforms were presenting authentic objects and equipment from the 1914-1918 war.

Other volunteers were dispatched on key battlefield areas around Verdun. They didn’t re-enact any fighting out of respect for the sites, which have since become a symbol of peace.

Instead, German and Polish volunteers were sharing tips about military clothes and historic anecdotes with their French, Australian and English neighbors at the encampment.

The 10-month battle at Verdun – the longest in World War I – killed 163,000 French and 143,000 German soldiers and wounded hundreds of thousands of others. Between February and December 1916, an estimated 60 million shells were fired. Entire villages were destroyed and never rebuilt.

The former battlefield still holds millions of unexploded shells, so that housing and farming are still forbidden in some areas.

Dozens of heads of state and government, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are expected in Paris to commemorate the Armistice that ended the war on Nov. 11.

World War I remembrance sites and museums have seen a strong increase in tourist numbers in recent years, boosted by the commemorations of the centenary. More than 1 million visitors were counted on the five main sites in and around Verdun in 2016, the year of the 100th anniversary of the battle.

Celine Guillin, visiting Verdun with her 8-year-old son, said the recreated encampment allowed visitors to be “very conscious of the hardness of life during the Great War. It was hard on soldiers, but also on their wives, their whole family.”

She pointed at a poster urging French women and children to work in the fields during the summer of 1914.

Jacob Withoos, 19, came from Australia as a volunteer within a group of 12 men.

“The main importance there is the remembrance,” he said. “War is never a good thing and we must ensure it doesn’t happen again. It’s great to have things like this so we can remember the men who sacrificed themselves in order to preserve freedom, and definitively ensure it doesn’t happen again to any future generation.”

French volunteer Michel Pascal said “this is modern history. We must not forget what we’ve been through.” Pascal was in charge of presenting an American corner in the encampment – composed of a small tent for two men, a backpack including mess tin and cutlery and a bayonet.

Caroline Hecquet, a volunteer from northern France, stressed all countries involved in World War I share a “common suffering.”

“Historical memory is in books: strategies, battles, great generals … But the memory of local people, it is fading,” she said. “People don’t know any more how objects were used, how clothes looked like. That’s what we want to pass on.”
…