Month: April 2019

Pro- and anti-Brexit supporters have vowed to step up their campaigns after European Union leaders have given Britain a six-month extension to Brexit, averting the immediate danger of Britain crashing out of the bloc with no deal. However, it could mean Britain having to take part in EU elections scheduled in May, and there are still few signs that lawmakers will vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, further prolonging the political chaos. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Pope Francis has told leaders of South Sudan that peace is possible and urged the country’s leaders to seek what unites and overcome what divides.

At the end of a two-day meeting in the Vatican, the pope shocked those present by kneeling and kissing the feet of South Sudan’s former warring leaders. 

At the end of the two-day meeting in the Vatican, originally proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Pope Francis told South Sudanese leaders to recognize the enormous shared responsibility they hold for the present and future of their country. 

Those attending the meeting included South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, vice president and former rebel leader Riek Machar, and three other vice presidents.

The pope called on them to commit themselves to the building of their nation. 

The pope said, “People are wearied, exhausted by past conflicts: remember that with war, all is lost! Your people today are yearning for a better future, which can only come about through reconciliation and peace.”

The pope said this meeting was “something altogether special and in some sense unique,” as it was neither an ordinary bilateral nor diplomatic meeting between the pope and heads of state, nor an ecumenical initiative involving representatives of different Christian communities. Instead, it was a spiritual retreat. 

South Sudan’s civil war, which broke out in late 2013, has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 4 million South Sudanese from their homes. A peace deal last August has reduced but not stopped the fighting.

One of the South Sudanese religious leaders attending said these were days of intense prayer and deep reflection and of open and frank dialogue and spiritual conversation.

“The leaders leave here renewed and committed to the task of working for peace, striving for reconciliation and seeking justice for the 13 million people, the South Sudanese, whose prayer and hope they all carry.”

Pope Francis told them how he learned last September that a peace agreement for the country had been signed and congratulated political leaders for “having chosen the path of dialogue.” He urged them to implement what has been agreed on.

The pope expressed his heartfelt hope that hostilities would finally cease, that the armistice would be respected, that political and ethnic divisions would be surmounted, and that there would be a lasting peace for all those citizens who dream of beginning to build the nation.

After his speech at the end of the retreat, Pope Francis kissed the feet of the former warring leaders and told them their people are waiting for their return home, for reconciliation, and a new era of prosperity.    
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Retired Pope Benedict XVI has published an analysis on the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal, blaming it on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and church laws that protected priests.

The essay immediately raised eyebrows, seeming to interfere with or even contradict Pope Francis’ own efforts to confront one of the most critical issues facing the church.

One church historian called Benedict’s essay “catastrophically irresponsible,” because it conflicted with Francis’ own efforts to lead the church out of the sex abuse crisis.

Benedict in 2013 had said he planned to retire to a lifetime of penance and prayer and would leave Francis to guide the church.

U.S. church analysts said the essay, published in the German monthly Klerusblatt, was both flawed in content and problematic on universal church level, exacerbating existing divisions in the church that have emerged between supporters of Francis and Catholics nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrine-minded papacy.

In his introduction, Benedict said both the Vatican secretary of state and Francis had given him permission to publish it. The Vatican press office confirmed it was written by Benedict.

In the essay, Benedict traced the start of the clergy abuse crisis to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, citing the appearance of sex in films in his native Bavaria. He also blamed the crisis on failures of moral theology in that era, as well as church laws that gave undue protection to accused priests.

Benedict wrote that during the 1980s and 1990s, “the right to a defense [for priests] was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible.”

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict reformed those laws in 2001 to make it easier to remove priests who abused children. Benedict took a hard line against clerical sex abuse as the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, and later as pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.

“Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God,” he wrote.

Francis has blamed the scandal on a clerical culture in the church that raises priests above the laity.

Villanova University theologian Massimo Faggioli said the essay was thin in its analysis by effectively attributing the scandal to the sexual revolution. He said it omitted key cases, such as the Legion of Christ founder’s pedophilia, which began well before then.

“If a pope emeritus decides to stay silent, it’s one thing and can be defended. But speaking and telling a tiny part and a very personal version of the story, it’s hard to defend,” he said on twitter.

“Everything we know in the global history of the Catholic abuse crisis makes Benedict XVI’s take published yesterday very thin or worse: a caricature of what happened during in the Catholic Church during the post-Vatican II period — with all its ingenuities and some tragic mistakes,” he tweeted.

Church historian Christopher Bellitto questioned if Benedict, who turns 92 next week, was being manipulated by others. He said the essay undermined Francis’ own efforts to steer the church out of the crisis.

Bellitto said the essay omitted the critical conclusions that arose from the pope’s February sex abuse summit in Rome, including that “abusers were priests along the ideological spectrum, that the abuse predated the 1960s, that it is a global and not simply Western problem, that homosexuality is not the issue in pedophilia.”

“It is catastrophically irresponsible, because it creates a counter-narrative to how Francis is trying to move ahead based on the 2019 summit,” he said. “The essay essentially ignores what we learned there.”

David Gibson at Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture agreed with that assessment.

“For a retired pope to try to undo the critical work of a sitting pope and on such a crucial issue seems … bad,” he said.
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Swedish prosecutors said on Thursday they have received a formal request to reopen the rape investigation closed in 2017 involving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, from the legal counsel representing the alleged victim.

“Following today’s media reports that Julian Assange has been arrested in London, the legal counsel in Sweden has requested that the Swedish preliminary investigation regarding rape be reopened,” the authority said.

The request has been assigned to Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson, it added.

“We will now look into the matter and determine how to proceed. We cannot pledge any time frame for when a decision will be made,” Persson said in the statement.
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France and Italy wrangled on Thursday over how best to tackle renewed conflict in Libya as a bid by eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar to seize Tripoli stalled in the face of strong resistance on the capital’s southern outskirts.

The United Nations said the fighting between Haftar’s forces and troops under the internationally-backed Tripoli government had killed at least 56 people and forced 8,000 to flee their homes in the city in the last week.

A Reuters reporter heard occasional heavy gunfire and explosions as the eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) faced off with forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj’s government around the ex-international airport and the Ain Zara district.

Officials brought families displaced by fighting on Tripoli’s southern fringes to area schools. Red Crescent workers were heading out rations in one school as gunfire clattered in the distance.

Haftar’s push on Tripoli in Libya’s northwest is the latest turn in a cycle of factional violence and chaos in Libya dating to the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

After sweeping up from the south, LNA bogged down in Tripoli’s southern suburbs 11 km (7 miles) from the city center.

In Rome, Libya’s former colonial ruler Italy warned France, which has good relations with Haftar, to refrain from supporting any one faction after diplomats said Paris had scuttled a European Union statement calling on him to halt his offensive.

“It would be very serious if France for economic or commercial reasons had blocked an EU initiative to bring peace to Libya and would support a party that is fighting,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini told Radio RTL 102.5. “As minister of the interior I will not stand by and watch.”

France, which has oil assets in eastern Libya, has provided military assistance in past years to Haftar in his eastern stronghold, Libyan and French officials say. It was also a leading player in the war to unseat Gaddafi. Italy supports the U.N.-backed government of Serraj.

Italy spars with France

“Some think that the [2011 Nato-led military intervention] in Libya promoted by [then-French President Nicolas] Sarkozy was triggered more by economic and commercial interests than by humanitarian concerns,” Salvini said.

“I hope we are not seeing the same film all over again.” An EU draft statement on Wednesday said Haftar’s attack on Tripoli put civilians at risk, disrupted normalization efforts and risked an escalation with serious consequences for Libya and the wider region. That statement was sidelined by France . French diplomatic sources said Paris did not object to calls on Haftar to halt his advance, but rather had only requested amendments including mentions of the plight of migrants in Libya and the presence in anti-Haftar forces of Islamist militants designated as terrorists by the United Nations.

The latest tally of casualties from the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) said 56 people – mainly combatants though also some civilians including two doctors and an ambulance driver – had been killed, and another 266 wounded in Tripoli.

In addition, 28 LNA soldiers had been killed and 92 wounded since the start of the offensive a week ago, according to the LNA.

The number of people forced out of their homes by fighting rose to 8,075, the U.N. migration agency IOM said.

As well as the humanitarian consequences, renewed conflict in Libya threatens to disrupt oil supplies, increase migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, scupper the U.N. peace plan for the country and encourage militants to exploit the chaos.

Libya is a main transit point for migrants who have poured into Europe in recent years, mostly by trafficking gangs.

The LNA forces swept out of their stronghold in eastern Libya to take the sparsely populated but oil-rich south earlier this year, before heading towards Tripoli, where Serraj’s U.N.-backed government sits.

Haftar was among the officers who helped Gaddafi seize power in a 1969 coup before parting ways with him later. But critics call Haftar another strongman in Gaddafi’s mold.

Haftar has resisted U.N. pressure to accept a power-sharing settlement to stabilize the country, using his leverage as a Western ally against militant Islam in North Africa.
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European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to grant British Prime Minister Theresa May a new Brexit deadline of Oct. 31, diplomats told Reuters after French President Emmanuel Macron opposed summit efforts to give her another year.

Summit chair Donald Tusk tweeted that an extension had been agreed upon but gave no details as he went to brief May on the outcome and seek her necessary agreement to the deal.

The late-night deal means Britain will not crash out of the bloc on Friday and gives May more than the three months she had asked for to build a parliamentary majority behind the withdrawal treaty she negotiated with the EU last year.

But Macron’s push for a June Brexit, and strong opposition to other leaders’ preference for a much longer extension that might increase the chances of Britain changing its mind to stay in the bloc, meant the meeting ended up with the October compromise.

Oct. 31 would correspond to the end of the five-year mandate of the present EU Executive Commission.

Leaders would meet again in June, EU diplomats said, to assess the situation. Britain could have left by then if May succeeds in building a coalition for her deal with the Labour opposition — though there is no sign of agreement yet.

In order to continue as an EU member beyond June 1, May has agreed to organize British elections to the European Parliament on May 23, though it is still unclear if that vote will go ahead and how far it might turn into a virtual second referendum on EU membership that some hope could mean a British cancellation of Brexit.

Late-night wrangling

Other leaders had all but ruled out pitching Britain, and parts of the EU economy, into chaos on Friday. But a drive by Macron to keep London on a tight leash with an extension no longer than to June saw the emergency summit bogged down in late-night wrangling as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others argued the merits of granting up to a year.

As at a summit last month that put back Brexit for two weeks, several EU diplomats said May failed to persuade her peers that she could definitely break the paralysis of repeated failures to ratify the treaty within the coming months.

But Macron had told reporters on arrival that he was concerned that letting Britain stay in the bloc longer, notably if it takes part in elections to the European Parliament on May 23-26, posed a serious risk to the functioning of the Union.

“Nothing can be taken for granted,” the French president warned.

French officials said the EU faced “blackmail” by hard-line pro-Brexit potential successors to May, such as Boris Johnson. The thinking was that they might try to sabotage decision-making, so any longer EU membership must come with tighter commitments from Britain to play fair than were so far drafted into a summit accord.

An aide to Macron warned that France could even be ready to let Britain crash out without a treaty to avoid legal limbo and provide a transition to new trading terms: “Not everything is preferable to a no-deal. A no-deal situation is a real option.”

Laughter with Merkel

However, Merkel has urged the bloc to do all it can to avoid such disruption. She said before leaving Berlin that she favored a delay of “several months” for May, who has pledged to quit if hard-core Brexit supporters in her own Conservative Party drop objections to her “soft Brexit” and help ratify the deal.

Keen to ease tension, Merkel had broken the ice as talks began by showing May a photo montage on a tablet of both wearing similar jackets when addressing their parliaments earlier in the day. It provoked mutual laughter as other leaders joined in.

As talks wore on beyond midnight, with May patiently waiting elsewhere in the building for word on her nation’s fate, Macron rallied support for his concerns about a long extension.

May said on arrival that she did not want a long delay: “I want us to be able to leave the European Union in a smooth and orderly way as soon as possible,” she told reporters.

Her EU peers, however, are skeptical about her ability to break the deadlock soon and discussed a proposal by Tusk of a “flextension” of nine months to a year. This, some argued, could increase pressure on May’s pro-Brexit critics to back her deal rather than risk Brexit fizzling out.

EU leaders are exasperated with May’s handling of a tortuous and costly divorce that is a distraction from ensuring the bloc can hold its own against global economic challenges.

Across from the summit venue, the EU executive celebrated its part in funding a global project that produced the first picture of a black hole, prompting no shortage of ironic comments on social media about the juxtaposition.

Blogger Eliot Higgins tweeted: “We’re now more certain about what black holes look like than what Brexit looks like.”
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Just two days away from a potentially calamitous no-deal Brexit, European Union leaders were moving closer to granting the United Kingdom a new delay — possibly of up to a year — to its departure from the bloc.

British Prime Minister Theresa May headed Wednesday into an emergency EU summit, pleading for a second extension until June 30, but indicated she could accept a longer extension as many EU leaders have called for.

“What is important is that any extension enables us to leave at the point at which we ratify the withdrawal agreement,” May said as she arrived in Brussels. She added she was hopeful it could be as soon as May 22.

Most EU leaders indicated they could accept such an extension as long as Britain pledges not to use it to play an obstructionist course and undermine EU policies.

French president Emmanuel Macron was more critical, saying that no extension was guaranteed as long as there was no assurance that Britain would not upset EU policies during any transition.

“Nothing is decided,” Macron said upon arrival at the EU summit and insisted on “clarity” from May about what Britain wants, because, he said, “nothing should compromise the European project.”

According to the latest draft conclusions, Britain would be required to act “in a constructive and responsible manner throughout this unique period” of extended withdrawal, and would have to show “sincere cooperation.” It would have to act in “a manner that reflects its situation as a withdrawing member state.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU had “expectations” of Britain so that EU institutions can continue functioning “seamlessly.”

The issue came up after some British Conservative politicians threatened to become obstructionist. One of them, Mark Francois, said that if the U.K. remained in the bloc, “then in return we will become a Trojan Horse within the EU.”

If no extension materializes Wednesday, Britain would crash out of the bloc on Friday with no deal regulating the departure, unless it cancels Brexit independently. A drastic cliff-edge exit would bring huge costs to businesses and trade across the English Channel and be very cumbersome to travelers as it would likely hit airports, ports, tariff rules and standard regulations overnight.

EU countries, especially Macron’s France, have become increasingly exasperated with the political division and uncertainty in Britain about a way forward. In France, concerns have been growing about how badly a hard Brexit would hit the French economy.

Among conditions France is now setting to agree to a new delay: A “credible prospect” of some kind of solution to the British political deadlock; a promise that Britain won’t keep asking for more delays; and guarantees that Britain would not be involved in future EU decisions while its Brexit drama is playing out.

The bloc’s leaders have tried to help May over two years of negotiations, even after she missed her hand-picked Brexit departure date on March 29 because of a parliamentary revolt.

May’s future is uncertain whatever the EU decides.

She has previously said that “as prime minister” she could not agree to let Britain stay in the EU beyond June 30, and she has also promised to step down once Brexit is delivered.

Many Conservative Party lawmakers would like her to quit now and let a new leader take charge of the next stage of Brexit. But they can’t force her out until the end of the year, after she survived a no-confidence vote in December.

Every British initiative to get a deal so far has floundered. Several days of talks between May’s Conservative government and the main opposition Labour Party aimed at finding a compromise have failed to produce a breakthrough.

Labour favors a softer Brexit than the government has proposed, and wants to retain a close economic relationship with the bloc.

The two sides said they would resume their discussions after Wednesday’s EU summit.
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WikiLeaks has accused the Ecuadorian government of spying on founder Julian Assange.

The group’s editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told a news conference Wednesday that Assange’s meetings with lawyers and a doctor had been secretly filmed by Ecuadorian authorities.

Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and has been living there ever since.

Sweden has dropped an investigation into rape allegations against Assange, but he refuses to come out for fear of facing U.S. charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. He faces arrest in Britain for jumping bail.

Ecuadorian officials say they will comment later on Assange’s allegation that he has been spied on. Relations between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts have soured recently.
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Britain’s Standard Charter Bank has agreed to more than $1 billion in fines and forfeited assets to the U.S. and New York state for violating U.S. sanctions against trade with Iran.

Federal and state prosecutors said Tuesday that between 2007 and 2011, the global financial institution processed about 9,500 financial transactions worth about $240 million through U.S. financial institutions to benefit Iranian entities.

In addition, U.S. authorities said an unnamed former bank employee in the United Arab Emirates pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and to violate the trade sanctions.

Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said the case “sends a clear message to financial institutions and their employees: If you circumvent U.S. sanctions against rogue states like Iran — or assist those who do — you will pay a steep price.”

He said that “when a global bank processes transactions through the U.S. financial system, its compliance program must be up to the task of detecting and preventing sanctions violations. And when it is not, banks have an obligation to identify, report and remediate any shortcomings.”

Jessie Liu, a prosecutor in Washington, said the bank, the unnamed former employee and Mahmoud Reza Elyassi, an Iranian national and former bank customer in Dubai, “undermined the integrity of our financial system and harmed our national security by deliberately providing Iranians with coveted access to the U.S. economy.” 

Elyassi has been charged with two criminal counts linked to the conspiracy.

The indictment in the case said Elyassi and his co-conspirators used general trading companies in the UAE as fronts for a money exchange business in Iran. 
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A group of Hungarian business leaders and politicians close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban have founded an international news agency in London whose coverage will focus on central and eastern Europe.

Orban’s associates have gained control over a large chunk of the Hungarian media in recent years and his Fidesz party has taken total control of state media, drawing international accusations that they are weakening freedom of speech.

However, Orban has been unable to control international news coverage, which has been far more critical of him than local media. The new agency’s early content suggests it is more sympathetic to him.

The new company, called V4NA, was registered in London by Hungary’s ambassador to the UK, Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, on Dec. 31, 2018, according to company filings.

Last month, Arpad Habony, Orban’s main spin doctor and eminence grise, acquired a 40 percent stake in V4NA via his London political advisory firm, Danube Business Consulting Ltd. Subsequently, New Wave Media Group, owned by KESMA, a foundation that controls most of Hungary’s pro-government media, acquired a 57 percent stake from Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

Despite its huge role in the Hungarian media market, KESMA was exempted from regulatory scrutiny last year on grounds that it was a strategic national asset.

V4NA’s name reflects a focus on the Visegrad Four countries — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It plans more coverage of other centres in the run-up to European Parliament elections due in May.

“Our team of 50 journalists and rapid-response news teams are on location where the leading stories happen in Europe: London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Bratislava, Warsaw,” the agency says on its web site, V4NA.com.

Most of the site’s content is behind a paywall, but the selection of front-page headlines resonates with the populism of Orban, one of the fiercest critics of immigration to Europe.

“Migrant kills wife after she converts to Christianity,” says one headline from Monday. A report about Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s League, anti-immigrant interior minister and ally of Orban, was headlined “Salvini: Citizens should control Europe.”

“Hungarian minister on EP elections: Hungarian votes also matter” and “Immigration is a war of cultures and civilizations” were headlines that borrowed directly from Orban’s rhetoric.

In an emailed statement, V4NA said it offered a “conservative, right-wing perspective” on European news. It did not answer questions about its relations with Hungary’s government or its business plans.

KESMA did not immediately reply to Reuters’ questions.

Habony could not be reached for comment.
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Police have moved in to stop a scuffle between supporters of rival candidates in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who stars in a widely popular TV sitcom about a schoolteacher turned president, easily beat President Petro Poroshenko in the first round on March 31. Zelenskiy garnered 30% of the vote, while Poroshenko won just under 16%, and a runoff between them is set for April 21.

Supporters of Zelenskiy and Poroshenko clashed Tuesday in front of Zelenskiy’s campaign headquarters in Kyiv, as they tried to wrest campaign posters from each other. Police quickly intervened, detaining two people.

Zelenskiy’s office said he wasn’t in the building when the brawl occurred.

Ahead of the vote, Zelenskiy and Poroshenko are to hold a debate in in Kyiv’s Olimpiskiy Stadium, Ukraine’s biggest arena.
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