Month: August 2018

Pope Francis has “begged for God’s forgiveness” for the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church.

The pontiff said at a shrine in Knock, Ireland, on Sunday the scandal is an “open wound” and “firm and decisive” measures need to be taken to find “truth and justice.”

Francis’ call for forgiveness comes as a letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano was published in the National Catholic Register.  In the 11-page letter, Vigano, the Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States, accuses Francis and other Vatican officials of ignoring sexual abuse claims against U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who was forced to resign last month after a church investigation found claims that he had abused a minor were credible.   

Vigano says he told Francis in 2013 about claims that McCarrick bedded seminarians, but Francis lifted sanctions on McCarrick that Pope Benedict had imposed.

“He [Pope Francis] knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was serial predator,” Vigano wrote, adding “he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.”  

Francis wraps up his visit to Ireland Sunday with a huge outdoor Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Half a million people are expected to turn out to see the pope, but demonstrations are planned to urge Francis to take concrete action against the sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups in the Catholic Church.

Protesters are set to hold a demonstration while the pope says Mass. 

Meeting with abuse victims

On Saturday, Francis met for more than an hour with survivors of clerical abuse in Ireland and, by at least one account, uttered strong condemnation of members of the clergy who committed or covered up impropriety.

Paul Redmond, one of eight survivors who attended the meeting with the pope has told reporters that Francis called such clergy members “caca,” which translates to “human excrement.”

The pope met with eight survivors at the Papal Nuncio’s residence in Dublin. The Vatican has said it will not comment on what was discussed during the meeting, although the attendees are free to do so.

Pope Francis began the first papal visit to Ireland in almost 40 years by expressing the outrage he shares with the Catholic community over the “repugnant crimes” committed by priests who raped and molested children and the failure of church authorities to address them.

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis told a state reception at Dublin Castle where some abuse survivors were in attendance.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.”

​Vetting the church

In an effort to address the world’s outrage about the abuse scandal, Francis noted measures taken by his predecessor, Pope Benedict, to deal with the crisis. Benedict did not admit the Vatican’s culpability, though, in fostering a system of cover-up, and Francis gave no new plan for steps he would take to punish bishops who fail to protect their parishioners.

Francis did say he was committed to vetting the church of this “scourge” regardless of the moral cost or amount of suffering.

Ireland has changed greatly since Pope John Paul II visited in 1979, becoming much more secular following clerical sexual abuse scandals that began to surface in 2005.

Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when recent sexual abuse crises in the United States, Chile and Australia have reminded the Irish people of similar scandals at the hands of Irish priests and bishops.

The pope recently wrote a letter to the world’s Catholics, stressing that “no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”

Two U.S. cardinals — Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s top adviser on clerical sexual abuse, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington — were scheduled to attend the conference in Dublin but were absent because of further revelations of clerical sexual abuse in America.

Another U.S. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, was recently forced to resign because of allegations of abuse and misconduct.

Sabina Castelfranco contributed to this report.
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It’s a good idea for people to get an annual physical … and it’s important for animals, too. The London Zoo hosted its annual weigh-in for thousands of its animals recently, enticing the creatures with food to get their measurements. The documentation process is an extensive and time-consuming exercise for the zoo keepers, but a crucial one, say zoo officials. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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More than 200 supporters of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement have staged a rally in the Swedish capital, chanting slogans and waving the group’s green-and-white flags.

A six-hour rally was approved by Swedish police, who deployed a strong security presence around Stockholm’s Kungsholmstorg Square. But after just a few hours, the crowds wilted and a march was canceled.

Police had warned of potential disturbances across the city but no violence was seen. Local media reported that a counter-rally drew about 200 people.

The neo-Nazi group is anti-European Union, anti-gay and anti-immigration. The rally took place ahead of Sweden’s Sept. 9 general election, in which immigration is a key issue.

The neo-Nazi march was among dozens of events held across Stockholm on Saturday, including an animal rights’ march that drew 500 people.

 
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained in Moscow, just two months after his release from prison for organizing protests against the government of President Vladimir Putin.

A spokeswoman for Navalny said Saturday the reason for the detention is unclear that and he was being held at the Danilovsky police station.

Navalny had posted on his blog Saturday that protests against the Putin government would take place September 9 in Moscow and “almost a hundred other cities.” The protests were against Putin’s pension reform plans.

September 9 is also the date of Moscow’s mayoral election.

Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, told radio station Ekho Moskvy that Navalny’s seizure by authorities is “probably linked” to the protest plans.

Navalny has faced a string of charges for his opposition activism. In March, he was barred from running in the country’s presidential election because of his criminal record.

 
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Austria’s foreign minister is defending a curtsy to Russian President Vladimir Putin at her wedding, saying that it was a traditional dance move and she doesn’t “submit” to anyone.

Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl invited Putin to her wedding last weekend, raising eyebrows at home and abroad. She told Oe1 radio Saturday it was a spontaneous decision made when Putin visited Vienna in June.

Video footage showed the bride dancing with Putin and making a deep curtsy at the end. Kneissl said that “if you’ve seen a ball opening, then you will have seen again and again that there is this curtsy at the end.”

She added “this was portrayed in commentaries as an act of submission, of prostration. And anyone who knows me knows that I submit to no one.”
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The top U.S. envoy on Iran criticized a European Union decision to give $20.7 million in aid to Tehran on Friday, saying it sent “the wrong message at the wrong time,” and he urged Brussels to help Washington end the Iranian threat to global stability.

“Foreign aid from European taxpayers perpetuates the regime’s ability to neglect the needs of its people and stifles meaningful policy changes,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in a statement.

“The Iranian people face very real economic pressures caused by their government’s corruption, mismanagement, and deep investment in terrorism and foreign conflicts,” he added. “The United States and the European Union should be working together instead to find lasting solutions that truly support Iran’s people and end the regime’s threats to regional and global stability.”

The EU decision on Thursday to provide 18 million euros ($20.7 million) in aid to Iran was aimed at offsetting the impact of U.S. sanctions as European countries try to salvage the 2015 agreement that saw Tehran limit its nuclear ambitions.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in May and is reimposing sanctions on Tehran, even as other parties to the accord are trying to find ways to save the agreement.

The EU funding is part of a wider package of 50 million euros earmarked in the EU budget for Iran, which has threatened to stop complying with the nuclear accord if it fails to see the economic benefit of relief from sanctions.

The United States is pressing other countries to comply with its sanctions.

“More money in the hands of the ayatollah means more money to conduct assassinations in those very European countries,” Hook said in his statement.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton told Reuters during a visit to Israel earlier this week that the return of U.S. sanctions was having a strong effect on Iran’s economy and popular opinion.

The U.S. sanctions dusted off this month targeted Iran’s car industry, trade in gold and other precious metals, and purchases of U.S. dollars crucial to international financing and investment and trade relations. Farther-reaching sanctions are to follow in November on Iran’s banking sector and oil exports.
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Firefighters struggled Friday to tame a wildfire southwest of Berlin but had to maneuver carefully as the blaze set off old World War II ammunition that is still buried in the forests around the German capital.

Flames forced the evacuation of several nearby villages and sent clouds of acrid smoke toward the German capital. 

The fire, which was the size of 500 soccer fields, has already set off several detonations of old ammunition, according to local lawmaker Christian Stein. Firefighters were not allowed to enter suspicious areas. 

“The ammunition is very dangerous, because one cannot step on the ground, and therefore one cannot get close to the fire” to extinguish it, Brandenburg state’s governor, Dietmar Woidke, told reporters. 

The fire started Thursday afternoon and spread quickly through the dry pine forests in the Treuenbrietzen region, 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside of Berlin in the eastern state of Brandenburg. By evening, authorities had evacuated 500 people from the villages of Frohnsdorf, Klausdorf and Tiefenbrunnen.

“Something like that, we didn’t even experience during the war,” 76-year-old Anita Biedermann told the dpa news agency as police told her to grab her jacket, ID and medication from her home before taking her to a nearby gym for the night.

Firefighters were trying to douse the flames in areas they could not enter with water-bearing helicopters and water cannons.

“The fire continues to be a big threat,” Woidke said. “But we will do everything to protect people’s property.”

Overnight, winds blew the smoke to Berlin, where people in some neighborhoods were told to keep their windows closed. In some cases the smell of smoke was so strong that residents called Berlin emergency services.

More than 600 firefighters and soldiers were brought in to battle the wildfire, cutting trees to make long firebreaks. Several roads were closed and local trains halted service in the area close to the fire.

Stein said the fact that the fire broke out in several places simultaneously suggested it could have been arson, but Brandenburg’s Interior Ministry said it was still investigating the cause of the fire.

Germany has seen a long, hot summer with almost no rain, and large parts of the country are on high alert regarding possible wildfires. 

Raimund Engel, who is in charge of forests in the state of Brandenburg, said 400 wildfires have already been reported this year.

“I hope the weather will play along and the winds won’t increase again,” Stein said. “We are yearning for rain.” 
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Victims of the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal are calling on Pope Francis to take a strong stance against predator priests during his visit to Ireland.

The pope Saturday begins the first papal visit in nearly 40 years to Ireland. The country has changed greatly since Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, becoming much more secular following clerical sexual abuse scandals that began to surface in 2005.

Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when recent sexual abuse crises in the United States, Chile, and Australia have reminded the Irish people of similar scandals at the hands of Irish priests and bishops.

Many abuse victims, their families and supporters are calling on the pope to do more than just hold a private meeting with a select group of survivors. Protesters will gather in Dublin while the pope says Mass on Sunday urging him to take concrete action against sex abuse.

A prominent Irish abuse survivor, Marie Collins, told a Vatican-sponsored conference on Friday that the Catholic Church must put in place “robust structures” to hold abusive clergy accountable.

“Anyone in the Vatican who would stand in the way of proper protection of children should be accountable as well,” said Collins, a former member of Pope Francis’ abuse advisory board.

The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will be meeting with victims of clerical sexual abuse and says he will also visit Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Dublin to pray for victims.

The Vatican’s chief spokesman Greg Burke told Irish broadcaster RTE on Friday that the sexual abuse scandal is the result of a “cultural problem” that will take time to remedy.

He suggested that the pope would not be announcing specific measures during his trip.

“I think in 36 hours — or 32 hours on the ground — it’s hard to change a culture,” he said.

“In terms of moving to actions, that will happen. But it doesn’t happen overnight … Let’s first listen to the pope, and that in itself is an important part of this,” Burke said.

This past week, the pope wrote a letter to the world’s Catholics, stressing that, “No effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”

The Catholic Church is much less dominant in public life in Ireland than it once was. The country has recently voted to legalize same-sex marriage and abortion, and has put a gay prime minister in office.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he is glad the Church is less influential.

“I think it still has a place in our society but not one that determines public policy or determines our laws,” he said.

Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland was originally meant to focus on attending and closing the World Meeting of Families, which is held once every three years to discuss matters of importance to the family unit. However, the latest abuse scandals around the world have shifted the focus, in part, to how the Vatican will respond to the matter.

Two U.S. cardinals were scheduled to attend the conference in Dublin but will be absent due to further revelations of clerical sexual abuse at home. They are Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s top adviser on clerical sexual abuse, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington. Another U.S. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, was recently forced to resign due to allegations of abuse and misconduct.

Sabina Castelfranco in Rome contributed.
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Following a three-day swing through the United States, Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov says he will return home to lock in domestic support for the upcoming name referendum on which the small Balkan nation’s EU-NATO integration depends.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed up talks with Dimitrov by expressing strong support for the deal, signed this summer, in which Macedonia agreed to change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia.

Greece and Macedonia have been feuding over who gets to use the name since Macedonia’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Many Greeks say allowing the neighboring country to use the name insults Greek history and implies a claim on the Greek territory also known as Macedonia, a key province in Alexander the Great’s ancient empire.

As a result, Greece has blocked Macedonian efforts to join the EU and NATO. Despite recognition by 137 countries, Macedonia is officially known at the United Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

“It’s a great day for Macedonian diplomacy,” Dimitrov said of his meeting with Pompeo, which he described as “very encouraging.”

“We are now focused on our homework — we need to win a referendum to get our people to stand behind the name agreement that we have reached with our friends in Greece that unlocks the doors for the future,” he said. “And here the support and friendship of our American partners is extremely important. So, I go back to Macedonia greatly encouraged.”

September 30 referendum

Full implementation of the deal hinges on the name referendum that Macedonia’s parliament set for September 30 in a measure approved with 68 votes in the 120-seat parliament. Opposition members boycotted the vote.

“The Secretary [of State] noted the referendum presented an opportunity for citizens to voice their opinions on an issue of vital importance to the future of Macedonia,” the State Department wrote.

Staunch U.S. support for passage of the referendum, which would secure the country’s Euro-Atlantic future, draws from a longstanding U.S. interest in a politically stabilized Balkans, one of Europe’s most impoverished and politically turbulent regions, one where U.S. lawmakers have called for substantially strengthened commitments to counter Russian efforts to influence elections and discourage NATO membership.

Dimitrov’s meeting with Pompeo, his second with the top U.S. diplomat since November, underscored that point, he said.

“The main reason for [U.S. support for the referendum] lies in the fact that it will wrap up the long process of preparations for the country to join NATO, and that will bring stability in the region,” Dimitrov told VOA’s Macedonian Service.

His primary objective now, he said, is to make sure all Macedonians have the facts to make an informed decision at the polls next month.

“I am planning to devote maximum time to do just that,” he said. “I will talk to people, go to markets and elsewhere, to explain the agreement with Greece, and to assure them that I understand their concerns. In these circumstances, there is no other alternative,” he said.

The referendum question that parliament approved in July does not explicitly mention changing the country’s name. It says only: “Are you for EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Greece?”

Macedonia’s nationalist opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, criticized the wording of the referendum question as manipulative.

Members of the opposition have not yet said whether they will call upon supporters to participate in the referendum, which would significantly increase the likelihood of achieving the 50 percent threshold required for ratification.

Some smaller political parties and nationalist groups who say the name change would compromise national identity have been campaigning to boycott the referendum.

This story originated in VOA’s Macedonian Service
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An outbreak of fighting in Ukraine’s rebel-held east has killed four troops and left another seven wounded, officials said Thursday.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the losses were the biggest in months and followed fighting that lasted five hours.

The ministry said the fighting erupted when the rebels began to shell government troops with mortars, trying to break through the front line in the east of the Luhansk region.

The rebels in Luhansk, however, accused government troops of attacking them first. They said they fired back when the Ukrainian troops launched an offensive in a bid to seize some ground near the village of Zhelobok.

The separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 10,000 since it began in April 2014. A 2015 peace agreement has helped reduce hostilities, but clashes have continued. The warring parties blamed each other for the failure to observe the truce.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday apologized to the country for his 2014 promise to quickly end the conflict in the east.

“People perceived it as an opportunity to end the war quickly,” Poroshenko said. “I am sorry to have created inflated expectations. I sincerely apologize for giving you hope that has not come true.”
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British Airways and Air France said on Thursday they would halt flights to Iran from September for business reasons, months after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would re-impose sanctions on Tehran.

British Airways said it was suspending its London to Tehran service “as the operation is currently not commercially viable.”

BA, which is owned by Spanish-registered IAG, said its last outbound flight from London to Tehran will be on September 22 and the last inbound flight from Tehran will be on September 23.

Air France will stop flights from Paris to Tehran from September 18 because of “the line’s weak performance,” an airline spokesman said.

“As the number of business customers flying to Iran has fallen, the connection is not profitable any more,” the spokesman said.

German airline Lufthansa said it had no plans to stop flying to Tehran.

“We are closely monitoring the developments … For the time being, Lufthansa will continue to fly to Tehran as scheduled and no changes are envisaged,” it said in an emailed statement.

The European Union has tried to keep an international deal on the Iranian nuclear program alive despite Trump’s decision in May to withdraw the United States from the agreement.

Some new U.S. sanctions on Iran took effect this month. The EU, which is working to maintain trade with Tehran, agreed 18 million euros ($20.6 million) in aid for Iran on Thursday, including for the private sector, to help offset the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Despite this, a number of European companies have announced they are pulling out of projects or scrapping investment plans in Iran.

Air France is the French arm of Franco-Dutch airlines group Air France KLM. KLM, the group’s Dutch arm, had previously announced it was halting flights to Tehran.

The airlines’ decision was welcomed by Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

“Today we learned that three major carriers, BA, KLM, and Air France, have discontinued their activities in Iran. That is good, more should follow, more will follow, because Iran should not be rewarded for its aggression in the region, for its attempts to spread terrorism far and wide …,” he told a news conference during a visit to Lithuania.

The BA route was reinstated in the wake of the 2015 accord between western powers and Iran under which most international sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on the country’s nuclear program.

Air France had re-opened the Paris-Tehran route in 2016. Iran’s ambassador to Britain expressed regret at BA’s decision.

“Considering the high demand … the decision by the airline is regrettable,” Hamid Baeidinejad wrote on his official Twitter account.

($1 = 0.8744 euros)
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A man with severe psychiatric problems killed his mother and sister and seriously injured another woman in a knife attack Thursday in a Paris-region town, officials said.

Police shot and killed the man soon afterward. The Islamic State group, which has a history of opportunistic claims, swiftly claimed responsibility.

French prosecutors weren’t treating the attack in Trappes, west of Paris, as a terrorism case, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said. He noted the attacker suffered from serious mental health issues although he had also been flagged for glorifying terrorism.

Collomb said that the man killed his mother at her home and stabbed the other women outside. Still wielding the knife, he then ignored police warnings and was shot and killed, the minister said after meeting officers and prosecutors in Trappes.

He described the man as “unstable, rather than someone who was engaged, someone who could respond, for example, to orders and instructions from a terrorist organization, in particular from Daesh.” Daesh is another name for IS.

A long-time friend of the attacker named him as Kamel Salhi, 36. The friend, Said Segreg, said Salhi had no obvious problems, didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol and wasn’t fervently religious.

A government official confirmed Salhi’s name and age. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss such details publicly.

Salhi was divorced and living with his mother, said Adama Traore, another of his acquaintances in Trappes.

The Islamic State group, via its Aamaq news agency, claimed responsibility. The agency said the attack was motivated by calls from the IS leadership to attack civilians in countries at war with the extremist group. Hours earlier, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urged followers to attack enemies everywhere.

The Islamic State group, which has lost most of the territories it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, has been known to make opportunistic claims in the past, even when there was no established link between an attacker and the extremist group.
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