Month: December 2018

A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing four people and injuring 43 others, officials and news reports said.

The 6:30 a.m. train from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya first collided with the engine that was checking the tracks at the capital city’s small Marsandiz station, Ankara Gov. Vasip Sahin told reporters at the scene. The high-speed train transits that station without stopping. 

Private NTV television said at least two cars derailed. Parts of the overpass collapsed onto the train.

Television footage showed emergency services working to rescue passengers from mangled cars and debris.

Rescue teams were looking for more survivors, Sahin said. “Our hope is that there are no other victims,” he said.

It was not immediately clear if a signaling problem caused the accident. Sahin said a technical investigation has begun. 

In July, 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured when most of a passenger train derailed in northwestern Turkey, after torrential rains caused part of the rail tracks to collapse. Last month, 15 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a freight train in Turkey’s central province of Sivas 

Konya, some 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Ankara, is home to the tomb of the Sufi mystic and poet Jalaladdin Rumi, attracting thousands of pilgrims and tourists.
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There wasn’t much of a honeymoon Wednesday for Britain’s embattled Theresa May after she survived a bid to oust her by critics from her own Conservative party.

Standing outside No. 10 Downing Street after an internal party vote she won but not emphatically, May pledged she will “get on with the job of delivering Brexit.”

But the British leader’s opponents from both the euroskeptic and pro-European Union wings of her party were not silenced, warning her survival has done nothing to improve the chances of getting the House of Commons to approve her contentious Brexit deal.

More than a third of the Conservative lawmakers voted against her, preferring to see the party elect a new leader, underscoring the mountain she still has to scale in getting her Brexit deal through a Parliament that has grave doubts about the agreement.

​Many in party vote against May

Conservative lawmakers rejected a no-confidence motion to May’s leadership, 200-117, but the win has merely exposed the bitter split in her party over Britain’s departure from the EU and provides no clues as to how May can plot a course out of the Brexit maze, analysts say.

Ominously, most lawmakers who don’t have government jobs or positions voted for May to go.

Even May loyalists conceded privately that her win was hardly a ringing endorsement.

Her critics, as well as Britain’s opposition parties, quickly pointed out that surviving an attempt to topple her changes nothing when it comes to the arithmetic in the House of Commons, where a majority oppose a Brexit withdrawal deal, which took months of haggling with the EU to negotiate.

Before May had even finished talking about a “renewed mission” and her hope of “bringing the country back together,” hardcore euroskeptics in her party announced in a statement, “We cannot and will not support the disastrous withdrawal agreement the prime minister has negotiated.”

General election

They warned that if she pushes ahead with it, the likelihood is that she will be setting the country on course for a general election.

May runs a minority government. With the main parties splintered, the House of Commons is deadlocked, and there’s no majority for anything when it comes to Brexit, including crashing out without a deal, staying in, or holding a second referendum. There is only a majority against her deal.

The warning from Conservative euroskeptics was echoed by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 lawmakers in the House of Commons prop up the minority Conservative government.

The DUP is deeply opposed to the withdrawal agreement that would see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of Britain, in order to avoid the imposition of customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They fear the different treatment will end up weakening the ties between the province and London.

May spoke to DUP leader Arlene Foster shortly before the confidence vote, trying to persuade her to withdraw her opposition to the deal.

Foster later said she “emphasized that tinkering around the edges would not work. … We wanted fundamental legal text changes.”

Brexit vote delayed

On Monday, May delayed a scheduled House of Commons vote on the exit deal as it became clear lawmakers were set to reject it. Defeat would likely force May out of No. 10 Downing Street and possibly trigger the fall of the Conservative government and an early general election.

May’s deal, which tries to square the circle between Britons who want to remain in the EU and Brexiters who want a clean, sharp break, would see Britain locked in a customs union with the EU for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free trade settlement with its largest trading partner.

In the temporary customs union, Britain would be unable to influence EU laws, regulations and product standards it would have to observe. It would be not be able to implement free trade deals with non-EU countries.

Opposition parties also warned that May’s remaining as prime minister would not lessen parliamentary opposition to the deal.

“Tonight’s vote changes nothing,” Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said. “Theresa May has lost her majority in Parliament. Her government is in chaos, and she’s unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first.”

It is unclear when a Brexit vote in the House of Commons might take place.

​Back to Brussels

Some government managers said the vote could happen next week or even be delayed until next month. All May has said is that it will take place by Jan. 21, a cut-off date for Parliament to get legislation through in time for Britain’s scheduled departure March 29.

May will fly Thursday to Brussels to appeal once again to her fellow EU leaders to agree to concessions. But she tried that Tuesday, criss-crossing Europe on a whistle-stop diplomatic tour that took her to Berlin and The Hague, but got no agreement on anything substantive.
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European Union leaders will offer Ukraine help for its regions affected by Russia’s actions in the Azov Sea when they meet Thursday, according to a draft summit statement seen by Reuters on Wednesday. 

But there is no mention of consideration of further sanctions against Russia, reflecting division among member states. Diplomats expect a rollover of existing sanctions but no consensus on increases sought by more hawkish governments. 

Condemning Russia, the EU will reiterate its support for Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea’s 2014 annexation by Moscow and — referring to the capture of Ukrainian naval vessels off Crimea last month — said: “There is no justification for the use of military force by Russia.” 

The statement demanded the release of Ukrainian sailors seized during the incident, the return of their vessels and free passage to all ships passing through the Kerch Strait. 

It concluded with the offer of financial and other measures to help areas of eastern Ukraine whose maritime access was affected by Moscow’s action. 

“The EU stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support in favor of the affected areas of Ukraine,” the statement said. 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met summit chair Donald Tusk in Brussels on Wednesday and will hold talks at NATO headquarters in the city on Thursday. EU leaders will discuss Ukraine and Russia over a summit dinner later in the day.
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Turkey’s president says it will begin a new military operation against U.S-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria “within a few days.”

Addressing a defense industry meeting in Ankara on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the target of the operation would be the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG — which Turkey views as a terrorist group linked to the insurgency within its borders.

The YPG is the main component of a Kurdish-led militia that rolled back the Islamic State group with the help of the U.S.-led coalition. U.S. troops are deployed with the Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, in part to prevent clashes with NATO ally Turkey.

Turkish forces have already waged two cross-border campaigns against Syrian Kurdish forces, in 2016 and earlier this year.

 
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The United Nations secretary-general flew back to global climate talks in Poland Wednesday to appeal to countries to reach an agreement, as some observers feared the meeting might end without a deal.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres opened the talks last week, telling leaders to take the threat of global warming seriously and calling it “the most important issue we face.”

But as the two-week meeting shifted from the technical to political phase, with ministers taking over negotiations, campaign groups warned of the risks of failure in Katowice.

Harjeet Singh of ActionAid International said the main holdouts were the United States, Australia and Japan, while the European Union was “a mere spectator.”

“A new leadership must step up,” said Vanessa Perez-Cirera of the environmental group WWF. “We cannot afford to lose one of the twelve years we have remaining.”

She was referring to a recent scientific report by a U.N.-backed panel that suggested average global warming can only be halted at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) if urgent action is taken by 2030, including a dramatic reduction in use of fossil fuels.

Endorsing the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became a crunch issue over the weekend, with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposing the move.

Jean-Pascal Ypersele, a former deputy chair of the panel, said whether or not countries believe the conclusions of the report was irrelevant because the science was clear.

“Nobody, even the so-called superpowers, can negotiate with the laws of physics,” he said.

Ypersele called for the 1.5-degree target — already mentioned in the 2015 Paris accord — to be recognized in the final text.

“It’s a question of survival for a large part of humanity, and many other species,” he said.

Poland, which is chairing the talks, was expected to circulate a condensed draft text Wednesday running to about 100 pages, down from about 300 at the start of the talks.

The Dec. 2-14 meeting is supposed to finalize the rules that signatories of the Paris accord need to follow when it comes to reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce them.

Li Shuo, a climate expert at Greenpeace, warned that the current text was riddled with loopholes. “A Swiss cheese rulebook is unacceptable,” he said.

Poor countries also want assurances on financial support to tackle climate change.

A third objective of the talks is getting governments to make a firm commit to raising ambitions in the coming two years, albeit without any precise figures.

One issue that has risen to the fore at the talks is the proposal by Poland for countries to back the idea of a “just transition” for workers in fossil fuel industries facing closure from emissions-curbing measures.

Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, told reporters that her country is committed to phasing out the use of coal, though the exact deadline has yet to be determined.

But in a nod to the recent protests in France over fuel prices, Schulze warned against governments forcing through measures, saying they would lose public support “faster than you can spell climate protection, and then people pull on yellow vests.”
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A massive manhunt is underway in France for the gunman who killed three people and wounded 13 others in an attack at the Christmas market in the center of Strasbourg.

French officials deployed hundreds of security forces Wednesday in the search after the suspect escaped from the market following the shooting Tuesday night.

France raised its security threat level to “emergency attack,” adding tighter border controls while security is boosted at other Christmas markets.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner traveled to Strasbourg to open a terror investigation, but the gunman’s motive was unknown.

Authorities have identified the suspect as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt and said he was on a watch list of suspected extremists.

Police went to his home earlier in the day Tuesday in connection with a murder investigation, but he was not there at the time.

A witness told reporters that one of those killed in the attack was a tourist from Thailand who was shot in the head and did not respond to emergency treatment.

Strasbourg is headquarters of the European Parliament. The building was put on temporary lockdown after the shooting.

The market is set up around the Strasbourg cathedral and attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Authorities say they have long been on the alert for an attack on the market since a foiled a terror plot in Strasbourg on New Year’s Eve, 1999.

France is no stranger to extremist attacks. Islamic State claimed responsibility for two nights of bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015, killing 130, months after a deadly shooting at a French satirical magazine and hostage taking in a kosher supermarket.

A terrorist truck attack in Nice in 2016 left 86 dead.
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Kremlin officials and Russia’s opposition on Tuesday gathered to pay tribute to Russia’s most prominent human rights activist, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who died at age 91.

Alexeyeva, a staunch and uncompromising rights advocate, made a name for herself in the 1960s and `70s protesting the treatment of Soviet political prisoners. She returned to Russia in 1993 after spending more than two decades in exile, and continued to be an energetic champion for human rights.

Alexeyeva has been lauded as a bridge-builder. A scathing critic of the Kremlin’s ongoing crackdown on rights and activism, she nevertheless sat on the government’s council for human rights and tried to work with officials to help people in need.

Friends, family as well as political figures including President Vladimir Putin and opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday came to pay their respects at a community center in central Moscow where the wake was held.

Putin sat down with Alexeyeva’s family for a couple of minutes before leaving. In his message of condolences he hailed her as a “courageous and strong person who has always been true to her beliefs.” Later, Putin called a moment of silence in Alexeyeva’s memory before chairing the presidential council for human rights.

In a chilling reminder of the state of Russian civil society, one of Alexeyeva’s associates, Lev Ponomaryov, was sentenced last week to 16 days in prison for reposting a Facebook post, calling for an unsanctioned protest. He petitioned to be released to say his goodbyes to Alexeyeva, but a court rejected his motion.

A member of Putin’s human rights council pleaded for Ponomaryov at Tuesday’s session, telling the president that it is preposterous to jail a 77-year-old man for a social media post. Putin, however, replied with a reference to violent protests in the French capital earlier this month, saying: “We don’t want what has happened in Paris to happen here, do we?”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev hailed Alexeyeva as a “believer in Russia’s democratic future” while Navalny, speaking to the television channel Dozhd, said Russia’s human rights movement “has lost its mother.”

Alexeyeva’s son Mikhail, who teaches economics in the United States, thanked the gathering for messages of support. He said that Alexeyeva was not only a person who helped a lot of people but also “was the best mom anyone could imagine.”

Alexeyeva will be cremated at a cemetery in Moscow and her ashes will be taken to the U.S., where her husband is buried.
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Egyptian authorities have launched an investigation into images said to show a naked couple who scaled the Great Pyramid that has sparked outrage in the conservative Muslim country, an official said Tuesday.

In a video titled “Climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza”, Danish photographer Andreas Hvid appears to scale the 4,500-year-old tomb on the outskirts of Cairo at night with an unidentified woman who is later seen taking off her top.

Hvid says the video was taken in late November but it was published on YouTube on December 8.

A photograph released by Hvid appears to show the couple completely naked on top of each other while looking in the direction of a nearby pyramid with the horizon illuminated.

“The public prosecution is investigating the incident of the Danish photographer and the authenticity of the photos and video of him climbing the pyramid,” Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of Egypt’s supreme antiquities council, told AFP.

If the video was actually filmed at the top of the pyramid, that would make it a “very serious crime”, Waziri said.

The nearly three-minute video has taken social media by storm and has been the subject of late night talk shows. It has notched up almost three million views on YouTube alone.

“A 7,000-year-old civilization has turned into a bed sheet,” a Twitter user in Egypt lamented.

Another protested that “they want to soil the dignity and pride of Egyptians because the pyramid reflects the glory and grandeur of the Egyptian people”.

The authenticity of the images has been disputed with some arguing the photograph showing the pair naked appears to be very bright whereas the video showed them scaling the pyramid at night.

Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany told government newspaper Al-Ahram that the video has stirred “anger and outrage among Egyptians”, and that officials in charge of guarding the pyramids would be punished if found to have been negligent.

Hvid, 23, explained back home to the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that he had “dreamed for many years of climbing the Great Pyramid” as well as of taking a naked photograph.

“I’m sad that so many people have got angry but I’ve also received a lot of positive responses from many Egyptians,” he said in an interview.

The young Norwegian, who runs his own YouTube channel, said he had absolutely no interest in stirring up a crisis such as that triggered by cartoons in Western newspapers of the Prophet Muhammad.

As for the girl in the video, she was not his girlfriend. “It was just a pose. We did not have sexual relations,” Hvid said.

The Great Pyramid, also known as the Khufu pyramid, is the largest in Giza, standing at 146 meters (480 feet) tall, and the only surviving structure of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

Climbing pyramids is forbidden in Egypt.

In 2016, a German tourist was barred from entering the country for life after he posted online footage of climbing one of the ancient structures.
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Spain’s central government says it will send in national police to ensure security in Catalonia if regional authorities fail to stop recent disruptions to major highways by pro-independence protesters.

The warnings follow the blocking of a highway across Catalonia for more than 15 hours on Saturday. Separatist groups on Sunday allowed cars to pass through without paying the mandatory toll.

Three cabinet members of the national government sent letters late on Tuesday urging their Catalan counterparts to explain why the Mossos d’Esquadra police, which is controlled by the regional government, didn’t intervene.

After last year’s independence attempt in the northeastern region led to an unprecedented political crisis, Catalan and central authorities began a timid dialogue in June when a new center-left administration took power in Madrid.

 
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French President Emmanuel Macron was both humble and resolute as he spoke publicly for the first time on the anti-government protests that have shaken the country.

“I take my share of responsibility. I might have hurt people with my words,” Macron said in a nationwide broadcast speech Monday night.

He also said he recognizes that a proposed tax hike on pensions was “unjust.”

But Macron called the anger that has boiled over in the past weeks the result of what he describes as a 40-year-long “malaise,” especially among rural French.

The president declared an “economic and social state of emergency.”

Along with cutting the tax on pensioners, there will be a government-funded $113 boost in the monthly minimum wage, taxes on overtime pay will be scrapped, and large businesses have been asked to give workers a tax-free, end-of-the-year bonus.

But Macron stood firm against the street protesters, saying there will be “no indulgence” for those who smash windows, loot stores and attack police.

He also showed no signs of giving in to one of the demonstrators’ top demands — his resignation.

Macron has already canceled a fuel tax hike that sparked the protests nearly a month ago.

The anger expanded beyond the tax to a general outrage against a president many protesters say cares more about the rich than ordinary French citizens.

Protests in Paris forced police to temporarily shut down major tourist sites, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum.

They also left the streets of the capital and other major cities covered with debris. More than 4,500 people have been arrested since the marches began.

Some protesters and opposition members called Macron’s moves a good first step, but others said they are still not satisfied.

Since there is no formal protest leader, it is too early to tell how Macron’s words will be received overall and whether more marches are expected.
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The European Union’s foreign policy chief said Monday a system to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran and circumvent U.S. sanctions could be in place by year’s end.

The European Union wants the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to help preserve the economic benefits for Iran deriving from the curbs it placed on its nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers, from which President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in May.

EU diplomats had hoped to have the SPV in place by now but ran into delays as member states balked at hosting it for fear of being targeted by the revived U.S. sanctions regime against Iran.

Asked about progress on the SPV, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters: “I would expect this instrument to be established in the coming weeks so before the end of the year as a way to protect and promote legitimate business with Iran.”

She did not offer any other details following a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels but said work on creating the mechanism was “advancing well.”

France and Germany are now due to take joint responsibility for the SPV. But EU diplomats have said its ambitions could be scaled back to encompass only less sensitive items such as humanitarian and food products, rather than oil trade.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the bloc’s ministers in a closed-door meeting in Brussels on Nov. 19 that Paris and Berlin were working closely together to achieve something by year-end, two other EU diplomats said.

The discussion came as EU nations have debated potential new sanctions on Iran after accusations of Iranian attack plots in France and Denmark.

“Our strong support for the implementation of the JCPOA (2015 nuclear deal) doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye for other issues,” Mogherini told reporters.

Until now, the EU has been straining to uphold the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, but has been less willing to consider sanctions, instead seeking fresh talks with the Islamic Republic.

Iran has warned it could ditch the nuclear deal if EU powers do not protect its trade and financial benefits.
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Kosovo’s prime minister said Monday the army the country expects to have soon will be a modest contributor to creating world peace.

Kosovo’s lawmakers will vote Friday on three laws that would transform the national security force into a regular army. The measures are expected to easily pass the 120-member parliament.

Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said that the transformation would make Kosovo a provider, not only a beneficiary, of peace.

“You cannot be safe and secure, you can’t help peace and stability of the world without being in peace yourself, having your own army,” Haradinaj told The Associated Press.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move Serbia doesn’t recognize.

Serbia’s president has said the new army could jeopardize regional stability and peace, and its prime minister also warned it could trigger an armed intervention.

Last year, Kosovo’s president initiated the same thing but backed down after international pressure.

NATO and the U.S. asked that the transformation be made with constitutional amendments, which need the votes of the ethnic Serb minority to pass.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned Kosovo “that such a move is ill-timed, goes against the advice of many NATO allies.”

He called on both Serbian and Kosovo officials to “show calm and restraint, and avoid any provocative statements or actions.”

U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Kosnett said in an interview last week that the transformation would be “a long, sustainable process” and that it was most important “that as the armed forces are established – which again, is a long process_that it be multiethnic.”

During the 1998-99 war for independence in Kosovo, Serbia’s bloody crackdown on separatists prompted NATO to launch airstrikes to stop the conflict.

Kosovo’s new army would have 5,000 troops and 3,000 reservists with a 98-million-euro ($111 million) annual budget. It will essentially be a security force handling crisis response and civil protection operations.
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As the U.N. global climate conference in Katowice, Poland entered its second week Sunday, the non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace demanded urgent action from world leaders to tackle climate change.

Greenpeace activists projected a message onto the roof of the “Spodek” arena where the COP24 is being held, saying “No Hope Without Climate Action: and “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.”

Disappointing many of the scientists and delegates at the conference, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait refused to endorse a landmark study on global warming which was to be the benchmark for future action in curbing the global warming.

The four nations wanted only to “note” but not “welcome” the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was released in October, in keeping with the views of the Trump administration. With no consensus on including the report, the idea was dropped.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has announced he is pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, tweeted Saturday that “people do not want to pay large sums of money … in order to maybe protect the environment.” 

The IPCC’ report said that drastic actions would be needed to achieve the Paris accord’s most ambitious target of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report warned that the world was far from that target and heading more towards an increase of 3 degrees Celsius.

On Monday, the environmental ministers arrive at COP24 and many delegates hope that they will make every effort to include the IPCC report in the conference agenda.
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