Month: October 2018

A female suspect allegedly paid tens of thousands of euros for the assassination of a Slovak reporter, whose death shocked the nation and led to the resignation of its prime minister, prosecutors said Monday.

The suspect, identified as Alena Zs, allegedly ordered the murder, paying €50,000 ($58,100) and forgiving a debt of €20,000. The hitman was identified as Tomas Sz, a former police officer. Two other accomplices are in custody.

Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were found dead from gunshots wounds at their home near Bratislava in February.  Kuciak, 27, had been reporting on links between Slovak politicians and the Italian mafia. Prosecutors say he was killed to prevent his story from being published. Kusnirova was apparently an unintended victim.

Kuciak’s death was the first targeted killing of a journalist in the country’s history. Public outcry against the murders and government corruption was so strong that Prime Minister Robert Fico was forced to resign in March.

Local media reported Alena Zs had been an interpreter for Slovak multimillionaire Marian Kocner, whose business activities were being scrutinized by Kuciak at the time of his death. Kocner is reportedly the godfather of the Alena Zs’ daughter. 

Kocner, 55, owns several companies. He has been in custody since June on suspicion of having forged promissory notes. He has not been charged in connection with Kuciak’s killing. 

Observers say the murders are characteristic of a European political climate that has increasingly shifted away from freedom of the press.

“Despite the fact that Slovakia is a democracy and is an EU member, there has been this somewhat negative trend in regards to media freedom for some time,” Gulnoza Said of the Committee to Protect Journalists told VOA News. “It climaxed this year when Jan Kuciak and his fiancée were found murdered.”

“That just shows that even the situation in countries that have always been, or at least for some time have been considered democracies, is changing,” she said.
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Britain cannot be bullied, Brexit minister Dominic Raab said on Monday, sharpening the government’s criticism of the European Union for taunting Prime Minister Theresa May and souring difficult Brexit talks.

May’s ministers have come out one by one at their party’s annual conference in the city of Birmingham to warn the EU that they will embrace leaving without a deal if the bloc fails to show “respect” in the talks to end Britain’s membership.

Just six months before Britain is due to leave the EU in the country’s biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years, May faces growing criticism over her proposals not only in her governing party but also in Brussels.

Party unity is on British ministers’ minds, and they are encouraging the faithful to direct their anger at the EU rather than at their prime minister, who some eurosceptic Conservatives accuse of leading Britain towards a “Brexit in name only.”

But the new strident tone has annoyed many in Brussels, especially when foreign minister Jeremy Hunt compared the bloc to the Soviet Union, the master of several states in eastern Europe which saw membership of the EU as a measure of their freedom.

Other ministers, such as finance minister Philip Hammond, have taken a softer tone, pointing out that leaving without a deal could hurt Britain’s economy, the world’s fifth largest.

But Raab said he had called on the EU to match the “ambition and pragmatism” Britain had put forward with May’s Chequers proposals, named after her country residence where an agreement with her ministers was hashed out in July.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t on display in Salzburg,” he said, describing a summit last month in the Austrian city where EU leaders rejected parts of the Chequers plan. “Our prime minister has been constructive and respectful. In return we heard jibes from senior leaders and we saw a starkly one-sided approach to negotiation.”

“What is unthinkable is that this government, or any British government, could be bullied by the threat of some kind of economic embargo, into signing a one-sided deal against our country’s interests,” Raab said, later calling again on the EU to move their position and meet Britain half way.

Instead of the much-hoped-for staging post, the Salzburg summit has become a byword for a sharp deterioration in the atmosphere of the talks, when British government officials felt May was ambushed by the other EU leaders over Brexit.

“No Cherries”

A tweet by European Council President Donald Tusk showing him offering May a selection of cakes with the comment: “A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries” “certainly had an impact,” one official said.

With no divorce deal and a standoff over the shape of any future relationship, the possibility of a “no deal Brexit” has increased, with some businesses preparing for what they see as a worst case scenario.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the discussion in Britain over Brexit was still far removed from reality.

“The world is watching,” said Matthew Fell, chief U.K. policy director at the Confederation of British Industry.

“Every signal is hugely important in terms of setting the tone. So the more that people can coalesce around some areas of agreement such as an industrial strategy, innovation and skills would be hugely helpful,” he told Reuters.

But one source close to the government said there was now a sense that the EU had realized that the tone set in Salzburg was “perhaps a bit off” and, behind the scenes, conversations between the two sides were more constructive.

Raab later said the government was open to looking at regulatory checks to try to ease talks on a so-called backstop to prevent a return to a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland – one of the outstanding issues yet to be agreed.

Hammond, for one, was keen to pursue a more positive stance.

After Brexit, Britain and the EU will still “be neighbors and we are going to have to carry on living with each other,” he told the conference, again backing May’s Chequers plan. “Mr. Tusk says it won’t work. But that’s what people said about the light bulb in 1878. Our job is to prove him wrong.”

But Hunt’s popular line at conference, that the EU was acting like the Soviet Union, did little to soothe relations, provoking those eastern members of the bloc which only regained full independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They joined the EU more than a decade later.

Lithuania’s EU commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis told Hunt he was born in a Soviet gulag forced labour camp and was jailed by the Soviet KGB state security agency.

“Happy to brief you on the main differences between EU and Soviet Union,” he said. “Anytime. Whatever helps.”

But back in Birmingham, it was Raab, winning a standing ovation for his story about his father’s journey from then Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion, who summed up Britain’s new combative stance.

“The EU’s theological approach allows no room for serious compromise,” he said. “If the EU want a deal, they need to get serious.”
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Eurozone nations put Italy’s government under immediate pressure Monday over its budget proposals, which they said would pile more debt on Italians and skirt the rules of good fiscal housekeeping shared by the 19 nations using the euro currency.

Italy’s populist government announced last week it would increase spending next year, pushing the budget deficit out to 2.4 percent of GDP, past a 1.6 percent limit the government had earlier said it would observe. While still below the EU limit of 3 percent, the move breaks with Italy’s recent efforts to reduce its debts and sets up a clash with the country’s European partners.

“We are all bound by the euro and need sound policies to protect it,” eurogroup President Mario Centeno said after Italy was forced to explain itself at the monthly meeting of the group’s finance ministers.

A runaway budget deficit and massive debt load already brought eurozone member Greece to the brink of bankruptcy three years ago and threatened to break up the eurozone itself. No one wants that scenario to be repeated.

Italy has the eurozone’s highest debt load in Europe after Greece, and financial markets fell sharply last week when the Italian government unveiled its spending proposals.

“I cannot see how these figures can be compatible with our rules,” EU Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Monday as he joined the eurozone finance ministers.

He said Italy’s spending plans for the next three years were “a very significant deviation from the commitment which had been taken.”

Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said “the signals we are getting so far are not very reassuring.”

Italy sought to reassure its partners, with Italian Finance Minister Giovanni Tria saying they should “remain calm” and await his explanations.

The eurozone sets overall targets of 3 percent annual deficits and commits countries to move toward 60 percent overall debt. Currently, Italy’s debt stands at about 130 percent of GDP.

“I just want to be very clear, that there are rules,” said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. “Rules are the same for every state, because our futures our linked. The futures of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg — all the members of the eurozone — are linked.”

The Italian budget will go to the European Commission for vetting this month.
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French singer Charles Aznavour has died at the age of 94, French media reported on Monday, citing his spokesman.

Aznavour, who was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris to Armenian parents, sold more than 100 million records in 80 countries.

He was often described as France’s Frank Sinatra.

Aznavour began his career peddling his music to French artists of the 1940s and 1950s such as Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier and Charles Trenet.

He discovered his talent for penning songs while performing in cabarets with partner Pierre Roche, with Roche playing the piano and Aznavour singing.

It was after World War II that Piaf took notice of the duo and took them with her on a tour of the United States and Canada, with Aznavour composing some of her most popular hits.

The young Aznavour grew up on Paris’ Left Bank. His father was a singer who also worked as a cook and restaurant manager, and his mother was an actress.

Aznavour’s first public performances were at Armenian dances where his father and older sister Aida sang, and the young Charles danced.

President Emmanuel Macron was a big fan of Aznavour and sang many of his songs during karaoke nights with friends when he was a student, according to former classmates.

 
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European Union and NATO officials are urging Macedonia to move forward with procedures to change its name, which would pave the way for the country to join both entities.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in a tweet that he expects “all political leaders to respect this decision and take it forward with utmost responsibility and unity across party lines.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted: “I urge all political leaders and parties to engage constructively and responsibly to seize this historic opportunity,” adding that NATO’s door is still open to Macedonia “but all national procedures have to be completed.”

The United States also supported moving forward with the process. “We urge leaders to rise above partisan politics and seize this historic opportunity to secure a brighter future for the country as a full participant in Western institutions,” the State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

According to the electoral commission’s official count, more than 90 percent of those casting a ballot favored the name change to North Macedonia, although only one third of the electorate voted.

Macedonia’s electoral commission had said two days ago that the referendum results would be declared invalid if less than 50 percent of the eligible voting population went to the polls.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who had said he would resign if a vast majority of eligible voters did not approve the referendum, described the vote as a clear success, despite the low turnout.

Zaev said he would not resign because a “vast majority” of those who turned out Sunday approved the measure.

He urged lawmakers to ratify the necessary changes to the constitution, which would finalize the deal.

Macedonian nationalists, including President Gjorge Ivanov, had urged a boycott of the vote.

In a statement Sunday, the Greek Foreign Ministry said the “contradictory” vote — overwhelming approval, yet low turnout — would require Macedonia to move carefully to “preserve the positive potential of the deal.”

Athens has always argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that Macedonia’s use of the name implied Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

Greece’s objections forced Macedonia to use the awkward-sounding ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from membership in NATO and the EU as long it retained its name.

Macedonian President Ivanov had said giving in to Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”

He steadfastly refused to back the deal reached between Prime Minister Zaev and his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras that put the name change to a vote.
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