Month: March 2019

The Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on Thursday launched a campaign to fight prejudice. The move coincided with International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Begun with the French city of Bordeaux, the UNESCO billboard campaign features a variety of faces — old and young, men and women, and of many ethnic backgrounds. The tagline, “us different?” aims to make us think about who we are, and our prejudices.

“You would walk by it and hopefully react. … [Is that] person on the screen different?” said Magnus Magnusson, partnerships and outreach director at UNESCO’s social and human science division.

Mindful of stereotypes

“Ultimately, it’s about our own awareness of our own stereotypes, and we need to work, each one of us, on those stereotypes that could illustrate or be reflections on racism,” he said.

The campaign rollout comes at a time when experts say brazen forms of racism are resurging — in sports, on social media and in politics.

The initiative follows last week’s mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which a self-proclaimed white nationalist opened fire on worshippers at two mosques. Fifty people were killed. The suspect has been charged with murder.  

Migration is one factor behind the increase in racist incidents, experts say, but so is the power of social media in spreading and enforcing stereotypes.

Activists are fighting back. A round-table hosted by UNESCO featured imaginative ways to counter prejudice, including through chess. 

Cameroonian artist Gaspard Njock fights it with his pen. He’s the author of comic books and graphic novels sold in bookstores across France. 

Versatile medium

Njock said comics can be a powerful tool to fight racism, because it’s a medium that reaches all types of people and can tackle important themes. 

One of Njock’s graphic novels, Un voyage sans retour, is about the dangerous migration of sub-Saharan migrants to Europe. Njock arrived in Europe several years ago, making his way to France after a few years in Italy. 

Njock said he never considered himself a victim of racism — not because he never encountered it, but because he developed ways to fight it.

Magnusson of UNESCO said education is key to wiping out racism. So is being more aware of how we think and feel.
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At the heart of Chinese Premier Xi Jingping’s visit to Rome beginning Thursday is a key prize: A deal to make Italy the first major democracy to join China’s ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure project that has raised concerns about Beijing’s growing economic clout.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has pledged to sign the memorandum of understanding on Saturday, despite objections from U.S. allies and doubts within the coalition government that it could give China greater political influence in Europe and the West.

But Xi’s visit, at the invitation of Italian President Sergio Mattarella, also aims more broadly at deepening trade and cultural ties. Conte has even suggested that Italy could play a role in easing tensions over trade between China and the United States.

Mattarella told the Chinese stat-run news agency Xinhua Thursday that the visit is an expression of the “solidity of the bond and mutual respect” between the two countries, which will celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations in 2020.

Xi’s visit includes a meeting with Mattarella and a wreath-laying at Italy’s monument for unknown soldiers on Friday. On Saturday, Conte will sign the infrastructure deal and Xi will visit the Sicilian city of Palermo before departing Sunday.

Here’s a look what’s at stake with the visit.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Italy’s signature on the ambitious “Belt and Road” infrastructure-building project would give legitimacy to a project that envisions overland and maritime routes connecting China with Europe, reviving the old Silk Road traveled by Marco Polo in the Middle Ages. The initiative encompasses about 60 countries through Asia and Africa to Europe.

Conte has dismissed concerns that signing the framework with China would downgrade Italy’s strategic ties with Europe and the United States, saying its focus was more commercial and on encouraging trade with China.

The White House has criticized the deal, saying it is weighted in China’s interests. Italy’s European allies have declined to sign a joint declaration on the “Belt and Road,” saying it lacks standards on financing and transparency.

While full details have not been released, it includes collaboration and investments in the northern Italian ports of Genoa and Trieste as well as roads, railways, airports and telecommunications.

“Our two countries may harness our historical and cultural bonds forged through the ancient Silk Road,” Xi wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper this week.

TECHNOLOGY

Key Italian officials have insisted that the issue of expanding Chinese company Huawei’s 5G network into Italy is not part of the “Belt and Road” memorandum.

The Chinese 5-G network is viewed with suspicion, mainly by the U.S. government, which says it could give Chinese security services a backdoor to snoop on consumers. The issue is a major source of tension between China and the U.S.

While European countries have balked at banning Huawei outright from participating in the creation of the new 5G networks, one key member of Italy’s government, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, shares the concerns, saying nothing in the memorandum can threaten Italians’ data.

CULTURE

Ahead of the visit, Xi noted that China and Italy are the countries with the largest number of UNESCO world heritage sites, sharing both cultural and tourism resources. He suggested that the two countries could form “twinning relationships” between world heritage sites and cooperate on art exhibitions, TV and movie production, language course and travel.

Mattarella said that the heritage of Italy and China both “arouse admiration around the world” and could help develop the economy.

The two countries are expected to soon announce the pairing of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato wine region in Piedmont with China’s Honghe Hani rice terraces, while Verona and Hangzhou are to establish sister-city relationships.

Culture and tourism officials will be meeting Saturday on the sidelines of Xi’s visit.

TRADE

Conte said he aims to rebalance trade with China. Currently 1 billion Chinese consumers provide a market for 13 billion euros (nearly $15 billion) in Italian goods, while Italy’s 60 million people buy 60 billion euros in Chinese-made products each year.

Italy’s undersecretary for economic development, Michele Geraci, says Italy lags its European partners in trade with China by 15 or 20 years, and that the aim is to increase Italian exports to China by 7 billion euros, putting Italy in line with France.

Mattarella said that Italy sees China “not only as an economic partner of prime importance, but also as a driver of global trade,” and a market for Italian technology and expertise in areas like environmental protection, food security, health services and machinery. He called for “open and transparent” trade with both countries acting “on an equal basis.”

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao said the “Belt and Road” deal would be beneficial for both countries’ economic development and trade.

However, Francois Godement, a specialist in Chinese politics at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, called such claims “bogus,” because Chinese companies already have significant investments in Italy.
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Prosecutors in Berlin and the neighboring German state of Brandenburg are interviewing former members of East Germany’s secret police about the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing, according to officials and media reports.

All 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 ?blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on its way to New York and Detroit on Dec. 21, 1988.

Berlin prosecutors said Thursday on Twitter they have received a request for assistance from Scottish authorities “on the basis of which several alleged Stasi employees are questioned, including in Berlin.”

German news agency dpa reported that prosecutors in Frankfurt an der Oder, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Berlin, received similar requests. The ex-Stasi agents are considered possible witnesses, not suspects.

According to German daily Bild, which first reported the story, almost 20 former Stasi employees are being sought for questioning in the Lockerbie bombing.

Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing in 2001. He maintained his innocence until death in 2012, and Al-Megrahi’s family is seeking to overturn his murder conviction, citing concerns about the evidence.

Bild reported that Scottish prosecutors are investigating whether the Stasi agents may have been part of a plot to bomb the plane, which was ordered by then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Most of those questioned were members of the Stasi’s Department 22, which had contacts with extremist groups in Western Europe, the paper reported.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called a trade mechanism launched by European countries to bypass renewed US sanctions a “bitter joke” on Thursday, in a speech aired by state TV.

“This financial channel they recently set up resembles a joke, a bitter joke,” Khamenei told a thousands-strong congregation at a shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad, where he speaks every year to mark Iranian new year.

Britain, France and Germany launched the special payment system, called INSTEX — the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges — in late January after President Donald Trump abruptly quit the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in May last year.

The three countries were the European signatories to the deal, also signed by the US, Russia and China, that curbed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief.

London, Paris and Berlin launched the device in the hope it will help save the deal by allowing Tehran to keep trading with European companies despite Washington reimposing sanctions.

“The difference between what they are obligated to do and what they are proposing is as far as the earth is from the sky,” Khamenei said.

“We should completely forego [any hope] of help or cooperation from westerners in strengthening our economy, we shouldn’t wait for them,” he added, calling western politicians “savages.”

“Once again the Europeans have stabbed us in the back, they have betrayed us,” Khamenei said.
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The European Union could approve Britain’s request for a short delay to Brexit but only if U.K. MPs next week approve the withdrawal deal they have twice rejected, European Council President Donald Tusk said Wednesday. 

With nine days to go before Britain is due to leave the bloc, the country is gripped by uncertainty about how to proceed, and Tusk’s statement was received as an ultimatum to lawmakers to get behind May’s deal. 

“I believe a short extension will be possible, but it will be conditional on a positive vote on the withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons,” Tusk told reporters. 

May told her country in a televised address from Downing Street late Wednesday that she was still “determined” to deliver Brexit and pull Britain through its worst political crisis in a generation. 

“You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with this. I agree. I am on your side,” May said, adding that she was requesting a delay until June 30 with “great personal regret.”

Lawmakers have twice resoundingly rejected May’s agreement, and a third vote the premier hoped to hold this week was canceled by the House of Commons speaker on the ground that the same vote could not be held again. 

Brussels meeting

May now heads to Brussels for an EU leaders summit Thursday and Friday, where she will hope to secure a possible addition to her agreement that will let her put it to a vote next week. 

The pound fell sharply against the euro during the day, reflecting fears that Britain could crash out without any agreement at all. 

Exactly 1,000 days on from Britain’s seismic 2016 vote to split from the other EU nations, the country is unclear about the path ahead. 

‘Credibility’

May said any postponement beyond the end of June would undermine voters’ trust. 

“It is high time we made a decision” on leaving, May said in her address. 

However, the European Commission advised EU leaders that it would be preferable to either have a shorter delay to May 23 — when voting begins in European Parliament elections — or a much longer one, until at least the end of 2019. 

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed London’s “clear request” and said she would “make every effort” to bring about an agreement at the Brussels summit. 

But her foreign minister, Heiko Maas of the junior coalition partner Social Democrats, said May’s letter “only pushes the solution further down the road”. 

And in Paris, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had a tough message.  

“A situation in which Mrs. May is unable to deliver sufficient guarantees on the credibility of her strategy at the European Council meeting would lead to the request being refused and a preference for a no deal,” he said.

Country in crisis

The British Parliament has been deadlocked for months over Brexit, with MPs unable to decide how to implement the referendum result, and voters themselves are also sharply divided. 

But Britain is now in crisis, facing the potentially catastrophic prospect of leaving its biggest trading partner after 46 years with no arrangements in place. 

May had reluctantly accepted that a delay to Brexit was needed, and told MPs Wednesday she had written to Tusk. 

“Some argue that I am making the wrong choice and I should ask for a longer extension to the end of the year or beyond, to give more time for politicians to argue over the way forward,” May told Britons in her special message. 

“That would mean asking you to vote in European elections nearly three years after our country voted to leave. What kind of message would that send?” 

Elections for the European Parliament will be held at the end of May. 

Resignation threat?

In her letter, May said she intended to bring her deal back to the Commons “as soon as possible,” arguing that if it passed, she would need the delay to implement the treaty. 

If the text is rejected a third time, May told lawmakers earlier on Wednesday that Parliament would have to decide what happened next. 

“As prime minister, I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than June 30,” she told lawmakers, in comments interpreted as a hint about her own future. 

May’s team will try to engage senior members of the main opposition Labor Party, hoping to bring enough of its members on side to pull her deal through.
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Turkey is heralding as groundbreaking a joint military operation with Iran against Kurdish rebel groups. Turkish-Iranian relations have markedly improved, to the concern of Turkey’s Western allies. 

Coordinated and concurrent military strikes against “terror groups” were carried out along the “borders of the two countries,” read a statement by the Iranian Interior Ministry, released Wednesday and reported by Turkish media. The announcement came two days after Iran, through military sources quoted by the Fars news agency, denied involvement. 

The Turkish interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, announced the operation Monday, declaring it “a first in history.” The operation targeted the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is fighting a decades-long insurgency for greater minority rights in Turkey. 

Few details about the joint military mission, however, have been given by either Ankara or Tehran, other than a few photos, released Wednesday, showing Turkish soldiers in mountainous regions.

Ankara has long courted Tehran’s support in its war against the PKK. The rebel group has used Iranian territory to enter Turkey from its main bases in Iraq, located near the Iranian border. 

According to former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, Tehran’s support would be essential in targeting the PKK’s headquarters in Iraq’s Qandil mountains.  

“Iran is geographically important because the entry to Qandil is on the Iranian side, as Qandil is a complex mountainous region that is almost inaccessible,” Selcen said.

Claims seen as not ‘realistic’

Selcen opened Turkey’s consulate in Iraq’s Kurdish region and served in Baghdad, spending much of his time working on countering the PKK. Selcen has voiced skepticism about Ankara’s claims of a breakthrough with Tehran in Ankara’s war against the PKK. 

“I don’t find it realistic that such a [joint] operation took place. We have always heard for years that Iran will offer such cooperation, and it never happened. Because Iran has its problems with its Kurdish population, they would prefer to keep their own Kurdish region quiet,” Selcen said. 

The PKK has an Iranian wing called PJAK, which in recent years has mostly avoided confrontation with Iran’s military forces. 

Analysts often describe Iranian-Turkish relations as a combination of cooperation and rivalry. However, they say efforts to end the Syrian conflict are providing the impetus to strengthen bilateral cooperation, even though Iran and Turkey backed rival sides in the civil war. 

The deepening bilateral relations coincide with a souring in ties between Turkey and the United States. Turkey is angered by America’s support of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in its war against Islamic State. Turkey claims the YPG is affiliated with the PKK. 

Turkish and U.S. military officials are in talks over the creation of a security zone in Syria to protect Turkey’s border from the YPG.

With Turkish media reporting the U.S.-Turkish talks deadlocked, analysts suggest the announced Iranian-Turkish operation is sending a signal to Washington that Ankara has alternatives in combating the PKK and its affiliates.

“It’s a credible idea if you are sitting behind your desk in Ankara,” said Selcen. “But whether such a move will have much effect today on the U.S., I am not so sure, because Turkey and U.S. relations as they are right now have enough troubles. … So it could be quite a risky strategy.” 

Pulling Ankara from West

Analysts say Iran, along with Russia, is working to draw Ankara away from its traditional Western allies. Both countries have committed themselves to developing deeper trade relationships with Turkey. 

They point out, however, that there are limitations to this courtship, given they remain rivals in the region. 

“We get no trading favors from either Iran or Russia, and that does not surprise me,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners, a business management consultancy in New York. “Iran and Russia understand a more prosperous Turkey would invade their markets and would eventually become a political rival to them.” 

Four years ago, Tehran and Ankara signed a preferential trade agreement to boost annual trade to $35 billion. In 2018, bilateral trade amounted to $9.3 billion, a nine-year low. 

Trade is set to worsen after the Iranian parliament passed legislation in January aimed at encouraging use of locally produced goods. 

“I don’t know if it [the new legislation] is specifically against Turkish imports, but in reality, it does affect a lot of Turkish imports into Iran,” said Yesilada. “I have spoken to dozens of businesses who told me Iranians had not granted any favors to Turkish businesspeople.” 

Similar skepticism has been expressed in the past by Turkish officials regarding Tehran’s commitment to assisting Ankara in combating the PKK. “They always talk about cooperation, but when it comes to it, they do nothing,” said a senior Turkish counterterrorism official, who asked not to be identified. Turkish government ministers in the past went as far as accusing Tehran of supporting the PKK in a bid to weaken Turkey. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is campaigning ahead of hotly contested local elections, is aware anti-Western rhetoric and policies play well with his nationalist and religious base. Analysts suggest with the election results of the last four years, Erdogan may have more room to maneuver for a diplomatic reset.
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Ukraine’s president has ordered new sanctions against Russian companies and individuals involved in construction and other activities in Crimea.

Top Russian lawmakers are among the people potentially affected by the decree President Petro Poroshenko’s signed Wednesday. It targeted those involved in building a bridge from Russia to Crimea and a November incident on the Black Sea in which Russia seized Ukrainian navy vessels and their crews.

Individuals involved in staging local elections in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists were also targeted. Russia has thrown its weight behind the separatists.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 in a move that Ukraine and almost all of the world views as illegal. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Black Sea peninsula Monday to mark the fifth anniversary of the annexation.
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Ukraine is gearing up for presidential elections at the end of this month, a vote that holds huge implications for a country still at war with Russian-backed separatists. There are other issues on the agenda too – not least getting around this vast country. The dilapidated infrastructure means long night trains are the only practical transport. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell jumped on board to chat with some of the passengers heading east.
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United Nations appeals judges on Wednesday hand down a final verdict in the case of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, a key figure in the Balkan wars who is serving a 40-year prison sentence for genocide.

The ruling will likely bring to a close one of the highest profile trials stemming from the series of wars in the 1990s that saw the bloody collapse of the former Yugoslavia and death of at least 100,000 Bosnians.

Karadzic, 73, was convicted in 2016 for the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. He was also found guilty of leading a campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove Croats and Muslims out of Serb-claimed areas of Bosnia.

On appeal, prosecutors are seeking a life sentence and a second genocide conviction for his alleged role in that policy of targeting non-Serbs across several Bosnian towns in the early years of the war. Karadzic meanwhile is appealing against his conviction and wants a retrial.

The ruling, which is final and cannot be challenged on appeal, will have huge resonance in the former Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnia, where ethnic communities remain divided and Karadzic is still seen as a hero by many Bosnian Serbs.

The judgment will be read out at 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) in The Hague at a U.N. court handling cases left over when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia closed its doors in 2017.

A delegation of the association of Mothers of Srebrenica will be in the Netherlands for the judgment.

In hiding for nearly a decade, Karadzic was arrested and handed over to the court in July 2008.
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