Month: January 2019

The Russian Foreign Ministry says Paul Whelan, the American detained in Moscow on suspicion of spying, may receive visits from diplomats from the three other countries whose citizenship he holds.

When Whelan was arrested in late December, he was identified only as an American. Last week, it emerged that he also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship. U.S. Ambassador Jon Hunstman Jr. visited him in prison last week.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the state news agency RIA-Novosti that the other countries have applied for consular visits and “if the arrestee confirms that he wants these visits they will be arranged.”

Whelan’s twin brother David said Monday that “the U.S. Embassy has indicated it will continue to lead on consular efforts, since Paul entered Russia on a U.S. passport.”
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Lyon’s archbishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and five other figures are on trial on charges of failing to act against sexual abuse allegations targeting a priest in his diocese. This is the latest pedophilia scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church before a key Vatican conference on sexual abuse.

The sexual abuse allegations date back to the 1980s and 1990s. They involve Father Bernard Preynat, a priest in France’s Lyon diocese, who has admitted to wrongdoing and is due to go on trial later this year.

But one of country’s most prominent clerics, Lyon’s archbishop Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, is accused of covering up the abuse. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in jail and a $54,000 fine.

Barbarin denies the charges. He says he took action as soon as he found out about the sexual abuse allegations — many years later.

The archbishop did not comment publicly before his trial, but one of his lawyers says the cleric expects to be acquitted.

Barbarin reportedly sought advice about how to handle the allegations from a Vatican official who will not be present at the trial on grounds of diplomatic immunity.

Francis Devaux, who heads French victims’ group “Freed Speech” [La Parole Liberee], told local TV what is most important about the case is that it was covered up for so long and that alleged victimizer Father Preynat was protected.

Devaux was the first alleged victim to go public, claiming in 2015 he was abused by Preynat, who was subsequently removed from his post. A year later, investigators dropped the case against the priest. But the victims’ group carried on, ultimately succeeding in landing Barbarin and five others in court.

This is not the French Church’s first sexual abuse scandal, but it is the highest profile one to date. It comes before a key Vatican meeting in February that Pope Francis says aims to shed full light on sex scandals and alleged cover ups by Catholic clergy.

The chair of Catholic reform group “We Are Church International,” Colm Holmes, said Cardinal Barbarin’s trial is an encouraging step. But he is disappointed in Pope Francis, who has praised Barbarin.

“He has backed the Cardinal all the way,” he said, “but he has not listened to any of the victims.And now at last the victims will have their say when it comes to [the] court now.”

Holmes said he is skeptical next month’s Vatican meeting will lead to real church reform.

He also pointed to his native Ireland, one of a number of countries rocked by pedophilia scandals, and where church attendance has plummeted in recent decades.

“And that has happened in other countries as well, where people are so disappointed with the reaction of the hierarchy of the people in charge to the whole abuse scandal,” he added.

A historically Catholic nation that is now staunchly secular, France has also seen emptying pews.

Last year, French bishops announced they would create an independent commission to investigate sexual abuse.A poll found most French Catholics support a parliamentary probe.
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The brother of an American man being held in Moscow on suspicion of spying is raising the possibility that his sibling is being used as a pawn in a potential exchange for a Russian woman behind bars in the U.S.

Paul Whelan’s brother told The Associated Press that he can’t help but question if the events are connected.

“You look at what’s going on and you wonder if this is just a large game of pieces being moved around,” David Whelan told the AP via Skype from Newmarket, Ontario. “You start to wonder if all of these things are connected. But at the same time, they could just be arbitrary events.”

Asked about the matter by reporters at the White House on Sunday, President Donald Trump said: “We’re looking into that.”

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who also holds Canadian, British and Irish citizenship, was detained in Moscow in late December. His arrest has led to speculation that Russia could be using him to bargain for a Russian woman who has pleaded guilty to acting as a foreign agent in the U.S.

But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Saturday that discussing a possible swap involving Whelan and Maria Butina would be premature because Whelan hasn’t been formally charged, according to Russian news agencies.

“As to the possibility of exchanges of one sort of another, it’s impossible and incorrect to consider the question now when an official charge hasn’t even been presented,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA-Novosti.

“Charges will be presented in the near future,” he said, according to the Interfax agency.

Some Russian news reports earlier cited unnamed sources as saying Whelan had been indicted on espionage charges that carry a possible prison sentence of 20 years.

Russian officials haven’t given details of Whelan’s suspected activities and he was initially identified only as an American. His concurrent Canadian, British and Irish citizenships became known on Friday.

U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. visited Whelan on Wednesday in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, a 130-year-old facility noted for strict conditions. Britain, Canada and Ireland have applied for consular access to him.

Whelan, 48, was discharged from the Marines for bad conduct. He works as the global security director for a U.S. automobile parts manufacturer and lives in Michigan. His family has said he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.

His brother, David, told the AP that Whelan loves to travel and likes to “interact with the people in the places that he goes,” but that Whelan would be too “conspicuous” to be selected as a spy.

David Whelan said his family had had no direct contact with Paul and had received no details about the alleged espionage charges from either the Russian or U.S. governments.

“He likes to go places and Russia happens to be a place where he knows people and when he’s there, he does go and visit,” David Whelan said.

Paul Whelan established an account on VKontakte, a social media service similar to Facebook that is popular among Russians, which showed he had scores of contacts in Russia. Many attended universities affiliated with the military, civil aviation or technical studies. Many share his interest in sports and firearms.

Also Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said it was seeking information about a Russian who was arrested Dec. 29 in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific. The ministry said Dmitry Makarenko was sent to Florida after his arrest and it wants consular access to him.

The Saipan Tribune reported that Makarenko was indicted in 2017 in Florida for the alleged illegal shipment of military goods to Russia.

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said Makarenko’s arrest was “the latest attack on a citizen of Russia outside the framework of international law,” Interfax reported.

 
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Russia’s space agency is complaining that the invitation for its head to visit the U.S. has been cancelled without informing the organization.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told The Washington Post in a story Saturday that he has rescinded the invitation to Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin after several senators raised complaints.

Rogozin is under U.S. sanctions for his role in the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, when he was a deputy prime minister.

Roscosmos spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko told state news agency Tass on Sunday that “it seems strange to us that our NASA colleagues dealt with us through the media and not directly.”

Russian lawmaker Frants Klintsevich said the decision shows that “the U.S. political establishment doesn’t intend to change its Russophobic vector.”
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British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday that a delayed vote in Parliament on her Brexit deal will “definitely” go ahead later this month, as she promised to set out measures to win over skeptical lawmakers.

May told the BBC that in the coming days she will give more details about measures addressing Northern Ireland and concern over the Irish border. She also promised a greater role for Parliament in negotiations over future trade relations with the European Union as a sweetener, and added that “we are still working on” getting extra assurances from Brussels to secure domestic support for her deal.

May struck a withdrawal agreement with the EU in November, but that deal needs Parliament’s approval. In December, May decided to postpone a parliamentary vote intended to ratify the agreement at the last minute after it became clear that it would be overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Commons.

Lawmakers are resuming debate on the deal Wednesday, before a vote expected to be held around Jan. 15.

If the deal is voted down, Britain risks crashing out of the EU on March 29 with no agreement in place, a messy outcome that could plunge the country into its worst recession for decades.

May’s Brexit deal is unpopular with British lawmakers across the spectrum, and the main sticking point is the insurance policy known as the “backstop” – a measure that would keep the U.K. tied to EU customs rules in order to guarantee there is no hard border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland, which won’t belong to the bloc after Brexit.

EU officials have insisted that the withdrawal agreement can’t be renegotiated, although they also stressed that the backstop was meant only as a temporary measure of last resort.

As part of her efforts to win support for her deal, May on Sunday reiterated that the agreement she negotiated was the only one that respects the 2016 referendum result, protects jobs and provides certainty to people and businesses.

She warned in the Mail on Sunday newspaper that critics of her Brexit deal risk damaging Britain’s democracy and its economy by opposing her plan.
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Germany has Alternative for Germany, France has the National Front, Italy has The League and Spain now has VOX, the latest far-right actor to emerge on Europe’s political scene after an unexpectedly strong showing in local elections last month in Andalusia, the Spanish southern region until now considered a Socialist bastion.

Violent protests erupted following the Dec. 2 vote, as leftist leader Pablo Iglesias called for an “anti-fascist mobilization.”

His followers camped out in front of the regional parliament in Seville, threatening to block access to VOX party representatives.

Protesters set cars on fire and vandalized businesses.

But the results were clear and the protests did not change the reality that the populist, anti-establishment fever had arrived in Spain.

​Seats lost

The Socialist party and its far left ally, Podemos, lost seats and could no longer muster a governing majority in the regional parliament. Support for the mainstream center-right People’s Party and the Citizens party remained static while 11 percent of votes were swept up by VOX, whose support may be crucial to form a new regional government.

“While polls anticipated gains by VOX, these results have exceeded all expectations by wide margins,” said Ignacio Jurado, a political science professor the University of York. VOX, he said, “becomes for the first time a parliamentary force in Spain.”

VOX leader Santiago Abascal, a political upstart whose violent discourses against immigration, feminism and regional separatism have gained him a strong national following, declared he would go on to “throw Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez out of the Moncloa,” the palace that serves as the official residence.

VOX votes in Andalusia rose from 18,500 in the 2015 elections to almost 400,000 last month, and analysts expect the numbers to multiply by similar proportions in other parts of Spain.

Unlike other populist movements that are sweeping Europe, Spain’s emerging rightists are not necessarily pushing for an exit from the European Union.

Abascal said he wants to keep Spain in the European Union. He has in the past told VOA he instead seeks to change the bloc from within and is focusing his strategy on winning seats in the European Parliament elections set for May. Previously ignored, Europe’s leaders see this year’s poll as the most decisive ever: a de facto referendum on modern European liberal democracy.

​Far right parties

At a meeting of far right parties in Belgium in December, French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called on like-minded forces to take control of the European parliament. She had earlier sent a message of congratulations to Abascal.

Iglesias’ Podemos party had until now been the main beneficiary of disenchantment with the bipartisan status quo that had prevailed in Spain for the past half century.

Iglesias provided key parliamentary support for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to form a government earlier this year. But disdain for Spanish national symbols like the monarchy and the flag alienated many of the kingdom’s traditionally minded voters.

Abascal says much of his support is driven by growing African immigration, which he blames on what he says are overly permissive government policies.

Analysts say the issue was undoubtedly a factor in Andalusia, which has become a main landing zone for migrants crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa.

Voter resentment over the rising number of immigrants was palpable in the run-up to the elections.

“These people are better treated than we are,” said one voter in the town of Jimena de la Frontera, pointing to a hotel that is being used to house migrants.

Her sentiment is providing fertile ground for the populists.

“We will expel anyone who enters our house without permission,” Abascal said before cheering multitudes recently. He pledged to ban the practice of Islam and shut down mosques.

Abascal denies suggestions that his movement bears any resemblance to what Spain saw in the 20th century.

“The stigma attached to the far right over memories of the Franco dictatorship,” Abascal said, “are fading.” Today, he claims, those memories are eclipsed by the seemingly endless corruption scandals plaguing the establishment at large, from the Socialists to the conservative People’s Party.

A controversial bid by Sanchez to exhume Franco’s remains from their resting place in a national mausoleum could be intended to distract public opinion from other issues, Abascal said.

“People want change,” Abascal said. But he says there is no thirst for radical revolutions. “They won’t go the way of Castro Chavismo,” he said, referring to the radical socialist regimes in the former colonies of Cuba and Venezuela, which Iglesias and other Spanish leftists have at times praised.

​Wide following

The Andalusian election results last month also indicate that VOX has a wide following, cutting across income groups. While Abascal received 30 percent of the vote in the wealthy province of Almeria, he also drew 14 percent of votes in the city of La Linea, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in Spain.

Feminist leader Lidia Falcon says despite the electoral upset, Abascal’s support is limited. His opposition to a law targeting violence against women recently passed unanimously by Spain’s parliament has alienated women voters, Falcon said.

The number of incidents in which male spouses abused their wives rose dramatically, by almost 18 percent, in 2017, according to a study by Spain’s high court.

Differences over the law against gender violence has been a stumbling block in forming a governing coalition between VOX and the center-rightists in Andalusia.

Analysts doubt Abascal can ever hope to score a majority in Catalonia or his native Basque region, whose autonomous governments he wants to abolish, he says, to streamline bureaucracy and create a more efficiently managed central state.

But his polarizing message is securing the support of Spanish unionists in both regions who have lost confidence in the ability of mainstream parties to contain the separatists.

It may also attract votes in poorer regions like Andalusia, which depends on revenues from the richer industrial north.
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The leaders of the populist parties that formed Italy’s government sparred Saturday over more migrants who are stranded on private rescue vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, exposing the widening cracks in their coalition’s position on immigration.  

German humanitarian groups Sea-Watch and Sea Eye are seeking a port where two ships can disembark passengers who were picked up from unseaworthy smugglers’ boats, 32 of them on Dec. 22 and 17 more in recent days.  

Malta allowed the aid boats to shelter from bad weather near its coast and to take on fresh crew, food and water. But the tiny island nation has refused to let any of those migrants step onto Maltese land, saying the rescues took place outside the country’s search-and-rescue area. 

Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, who heads the 5-Star Movement, insisted Saturday that Malta had to allow the 49 people off the ships. De Maio said Italy was willing to take the 10 mothers on the aid vessels and their children.  

Strict policy

Since the coalition government came to power in mid-2018, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who heads the right-wing, anti-migrant League party, has made it strict policy that no private aid group receive authorization to transfer rescued migrants to land in Italian ports.  

Both he and Di Maio have likened private aid vessels to “taxi services” for Libya-based human traffickers. Amid criticism of the Italian government’s new hard-line stance, they also have reminded other European Union nations that Italy has taken in hundreds of thousands of rescued migrants as asylum seekers in recent years. 

Di Maio stressed Saturday that Italy was offering to accept the limited number of women and children from the rescue ships to keep families together. Such a gesture, he said, would also give “a good moral slap” to EU nations that have ignored Italy’s insistence that the burden of caring for rescued asylum seekers be shared.  

“We’re not going backward on migration policy, which has allowed us to reduce disembarking considerably,” Di Maio said. 

But Salvini contradicted his governing partner, telling journalists Italy intended to stick with its private rescue vessel ban and wouldn’t be taking the 10 mothers and their children. 

“We opened our hearts and our wallets. Now, it’s someone else’s turn,” Salvini said.  

As for any possible softening of Italy’s immigration policy, Salvini also tweeted, “I’m not changing my mind.” 

Both politicians slammed Malta for refusing to let the 49 disembark, but the EU nation retorted that it had rescued and permitted onto on its shores 250 migrants between Christmas and New Year’s.  

‘Strain on our services’

The recent rescues “are putting a strain on our services,” Maltese Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia said, adding that Italian authorities had not articulated a clear position about the migrants on the aid boats because of the contradictory statements by Italy’s leaders. 

Farrugia has said the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, was working on an ad hoc plan to find countries where the 250 migrants in Malta and the 49 on the aid boats could have asylum applications processed. 

While politicians squabbled, Sea-Watch appealed on Twitter for a rapid, “reasonable solution that guarantees a port, medical care and food to women, children and men at the mercy of the waves.”  

Di Maio’s opening to taking some of the migrants appeared calculated to placate a faction of his party uncomfortable with the government’s rejection of rescued migrants.  

Championing that 5-Star faction is Roberto Fico, the speaker of the Italian Parliament’s lower chamber.  

“We can’t allow human beings, who are fleeing from pain, death and suffering, to be left in unacceptable conditions,” he wrote on Facebook.  
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Russia’s deputy foreign minister brushed back suggestions Saturday that an American being held in Moscow on suspicion of spying could be exchanged for a Russian citizen. 

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, who also holds Canadian, British and Irish citizenship, was detained in Moscow in late December. His arrest has led to speculation that Russia could be using him to bargain for a Russian who pleaded guilty of acting as a foreign agent in the United States. 

But Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that discussing a possible swap involving Whelan and Maria Butina would be premature because Whelan hasn’t been formally charged, according to Russian news agencies. 

“As to the possibility of exchanges of one sort of another, it’s impossible and incorrect to consider the question now when an official charge hasn’t even been presented,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA-Novosti.  

“Charges will be presented in the near future,” he said, according to the Interfax agency. 

Espionage charges

Some Russian news reports earlier cited unnamed sources as saying Whelan had been indicted on espionage charges that carry a possible prison sentence of 20 years. 

Officials haven’t given details of Whelan’s suspected activities and he was initially identified only as an American. His concurrent Canadian, British and Irish citizenships became known on Friday. 

U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. visited Whelan on Wednesday in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, a 130-year-old facility noted for strict conditions. Britain, Canada and Ireland have applied for consular access to him.  

Whelan, 48. was discharged from the Marines for bad conduct. He works as the global security director for a U.S. automobile parts manufacturer and lives in Michigan. 

His family has said he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.  In a column published by The Washington Post on Friday, his twin brother, David, urged the U.S. government to pressure Russia to release him. 

“Paul is a kind and considerate brother, son and uncle, and a generous and loyal friend,” he wrote. “He travels as often as he can, both for work and pleasure. He is many things to many people, but he is not a spy.” 

Paul Whelan established an account on VKontakte, a social media service similar to Facebook that is popular among Russians, which showed he had scores of contacts in Russia. Many attended universities affiliated with the military, civil aviation or technical studies. Many share his interest in sports and firearms. 

Another arrest

Also Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said it was seeking information about a Russian who was arrested Dec. 29 in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific.  

In a statement, the ministry said Sergei Makarenko was sent to the U.S. state of Florida after his arrest and that it wanted consular access to him. 

The Saipan Tribune reported that Makarenko was indicted in 2017 in Florida for the alleged illegal shipment of military goods to Russia. 

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said Makarenko’s arrest was “the latest attack on a citizen of Russia outside the framework of international law,” Interfax reported.  
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A former North Korean diplomat who staged a high-profile defection to the South on Saturday urged an old colleague who has gone missing in Italy to defect to Seoul, following a report that he was seeking asylum in the United States.

Jo Song Gil, the 44-year-old who was until recently North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, disappeared with his wife after leaving the embassy without notice in early November, South Korean lawmakers said Thursday.

Jo has applied for asylum in the United States and is under the protection of Italian intelligence, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper said Friday, citing an unidentified diplomatic source.

The State Department and the U.S. embassy in Seoul did not immediately respond to a query from Reuters regarding the report.

In an open letter, Thae Yong Ho, Pyongyang’s former deputy ambassador to Britain, who said he went to the same university and worked with Jo before defecting to South Korea in 2016, urged Jo to follow in his footsteps.

To defect to the South is an “obligation, not a choice” for North Korean diplomats committed to unification, Thae said, calling Seoul “the outpost” for that task.

“If you come to South Korea, the day when our suffering colleagues and North Korean citizens are liberated from the fetters would be moved forward,” Thae said in the letter released on his website. “If you come to Seoul, even more of our colleagues would follow suit, and the unification would be accomplished by itself.”

Thae said his family visited Jo in Rome in 2008, where the latter was studying from 2006 to 2009. He guided them to sites such as St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

South Korea could not be “heaven on earth” but a place where Jo can realize his wishes, Thae said, highlighting the ardent desire for unification among many of the roughly 32,000 defectors there.

“The defectors may not be as wealthy as South Koreans,” Thae added. “But isn’t it the only thing you and I, as North Korean diplomats, should do the rest of our lives — to bring about unification and hand over a unified nation to our children?”
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For any world-class athlete, losing most of his or her vision would be a devastating setback. For former Portuguese boxer Jorge Pina however, it was an opportunity to give back to young people in his country. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.
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Norwegian Air Shuttle said Friday one of its Boeing 737s has been stuck in Iran for three weeks after an unscheduled landing because of engine problems, as U.S. restrictions reportedly create headaches for the airline and possibly passengers.

The aircraft was en route from Dubai to Oslo with 192 passengers and crew members when it carried out a “safety landing” in Shiraz in southwestern Iran because of engine trouble Dec. 14, a Norwegian Air Shuttle spokesman, Andreas Hjornholm, told AFP.

While passengers were able to fly on to Oslo the following day on another aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max has been stuck on Iranian soil where the airline’s mechanics are trying to repair it, Hjornholm said.

Parts needed

According to specialized websites, the repair work has encountered problems because international sanctions bar the airline from sending spare parts to Iran.

With the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration decided to re-impose sanctions on Tehran.

Norwegian Air Shuttle refused to comment on those reports.

“I can only say that we are working with several options to get the plane back on the wings, and right now we are waiting for our technicians to be able to service the plane and to get it working,” Hjornholm said.

The incident has fueled jokes on social media.

“Iran has become a Bermuda Triangle that feeds on planes,” one Iranian Twitter user wrote.

Problem for passengers, crew

It could also pose problems for the plane’s passengers and crew members if they want to travel to the U.S. in future.

Since 2015, anyone who has traveled to seven countries considered at risk (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) since March 2011 is excluded from the U.S. visa waiver program applied to most Europeans.

According to Hjornholm, the passengers and crew on the Dubai-Oslo flight officially entered Iran and stayed overnight at a hotel, Dec. 14-15.

The US embassy in Oslo was not available for comment.

Last year, former NATO secretary general Javier Solana was refused entry to the U.S. because he had visited Iran for the inauguration ceremony of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country will host the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan for a meeting geared toward bringing peace to Afghanistan.

Erdogan spoke Friday at a joint news conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is making his first visit to Turkey since he came to power in August.

Erdogan said the trilateral meeting would take place in Istanbul after Turkey’s March local election.

Khan told reporters he hoped the meeting would bring “badly needed peace” to Afghanistan.

Erdogan, meanwhile, welcomed Pakistan’s decision to hand over schools affiliated with exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen to a Turkish government foundation. Turkey blames Gulen for a 2016 failed coup.

Khan on Thursday visited the tomb of the 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaladdin Rumi in the city of Konya.

 
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