Month: April 2019

British Prime Minister Theresa May meets the leaders of Germany and France on Tuesday in a last-gasp bid to keep her country from crashing out of the European Union later this week.

Her huddles with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and President Emmanuel Macron in Paris come on the eve of another tension-packed summit in Brussels focused on the fate of the 46-year-old partnership.

May asked EU leaders on Friday to delay Brexit until June 30 to give her time to strike a compromise with the opposition that lets Britain’s hung parliament back an orderly divorce plan on the fourth attempt.

But the 27 European leaders have already signed off on one extension — the original deadline was March 29 — and have serious doubts that May will somehow break through the political gridlock now.

“We are in a very, very frustrating situation here,” said Germany’s Minister for European Affairs Michael Roth, as he and fellow EU officials arrived for Luxembourg talks on the eve of the summit.

Roth’s French counterpart Amelie de Montchalin told reporters that “we want to understand what the UK needs this extension for, and what are the political surroundings around Theresa May to have this extension”.

“And then comes the question of the conditions of what role we’d want the UK to play during this extension time,” she added.

Some in the EU are worried that if Britain accepts a long delay, its representatives could disrupt EU budget planning and reforms during indefinite Brexit talks, potentially causing more problems than a messy “no-deal Brexit”.

“We’d need a strong political reason to delay,” a diplomat from this camp said.

EU Council president Donald Tusk’s office last week floated a compromise proposal that gives Britain a “flexible” extension of up to a year — which ends earlier should some way forward emerge in London.

But a diplomatic source insisted that this was “Mr Tusk’s position, not the position of the Council”.

Merkel takes a more conciliatory approach backed by EU member Ireland — a crucial player whose politically sensitive border with Britain’s Northern Ireland is holding up May’s deal in parliament.

“I will do everything in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit,” Merkel said Friday.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Paralysis and disarray

The diplomatic disarray in Brussels is mirrored by political paralysis in London that has forced May to promise to resign as soon as she gets this first stage of Brexit over the line.

The weakened British leader had been hoping to come to Brussels with either her deal approved or some sort of alternative way forward drafted that could convince the likes of Macron.

But her talks with the opposition Labour Party have made no tangible progress and seem unlikely to find common ground before she flies to Brussels seeking a second delay in three weeks.

“The problem is that the government doesn’t seem to be moving off the original red lines,” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Monday.

The government will instead present a plan to parliament Tuesday to outline how long it intends to delay Brexit.

This is part of legislation passed into law late Monday to force May to postpone Brexit if the only other alternative is a no-deal scenario.

May’s talks with Labour have stumbled over Corbyn’s demand that Britain join some form of European customs arrangement once the sides formally split up.

EU officials are ready to include such a promise in the outline of a future relationship, which was agreed with May alongside the withdrawal deal.

But May knows that the prospect of close post-Brexit economic relations could further fracture her government and party ahead of possible snap elections.

Almost any form of European customs arrangement would keep Britain from striking its own global trade agreement and leave one of the biggest advantages of Brexit unfulfilled.

 
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and EU institution leaders meet in Brussels on Tuesday for an annual EU-China summit set to be overshadowed by differences over trade and investment.

After years of offering free access to its markets, the European Union has said it is losing patience with Beijing over the pace of liberalizing reforms. It also has growing concerns over state-led Chinese companies’ dominance of some EU markets and acquisitions of strategic industries.

Like the United States, many EU countries want to crack down on industrial subsidies and forced technology transfers, although prefer dialogue to the trade war Washington has triggered.

The European Commission set out a 10-point action plan last month, seeing scope for greater cooperation in fields such as climate change, but demanding greater reciprocity, such as access for EU firms to Chinese public tenders.

“The old narrative is absolutely obsolete,” Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen told Reuters.

Beijing and Brussels have been wrestling for weeks over the text of a joint declaration to be presented as the fruit of Tuesday’s summit between Li and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council chief Donald Tusk.

“China aims to have a feel-good summit, whereas we aim to have a meaningful summit, with a meaningful outcome,” Peter Berz, acting Asia director at the Commission’s trade section, told the European Parliament last week.

EU diplomats said on Monday negotiators had made some progress, but were still short of an agreed text. Talks would continue until the summit, due to start at 1 p.m.

China points to a new foreign investment law due to take effect at the start of 2020. It includes provisions to ban forced technology transfers and ensure foreign companies have access to public tenders.

EU officials say the law lacks detail and question how effective it will be in reality in protecting foreign firms.

Li wrote in a German newspaper on Monday that China wanted to work with the European Union on issues including trade and denied Beijing was trying to split the bloc by investing in eastern European states. 
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Turkey’s High Election Board has rejected a request by the ruling AK Party for all votes to be recounted in 31 of Istanbul’s districts, a board member said on Tuesday, in a blow to the party’s goal of a total recount in the city.

President Tayyip Erdogan, also AKP leader, said on Monday the local elections were marred by “organized crime” at ballot boxes in Istanbul, raising the possibility of re-running a March 31 vote in the city that handed a slim majority to the main opposition party.

Erdogan’s comments, his strongest challenge yet to the election process in Turkey’s largest city, briefly drove the lira down and also weighed on Turkish stocks.

The AKP’s election board representative Recep Ozel told reporters after a board meeting that the board had only agreed to a recount of 51 ballot boxes, spread across 21 of the city’s total 39 districts. Each ballot box generally contains several hundred votes.

The AK Party had also called for a full recount in the city’s Buyukcekmece district, but the board has not yet ruled on that request, Ozel said. Vote recounts are continuing in the remaining districts.

Erdogan’s AK Party has already lost the mayoralty in the capital Ankara to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and has appealed several stages of the count in Istanbul which showed a narrow CHP victory.

The Islamist-rooted AKP is reeling from the potential loss of both cities, which the party and its predecessors have governed for a quarter of a century. Erdogan himself rose to prominence as Istanbul mayor in the 1990s before emerging as national leader.

Erdogan said the scale of electoral irregularities his party had uncovered meant the margin of votes between Istanbul’s top two candidates, currently at less than 15,000 in a city of 10 million voters, was too narrow for the opposition to claim victory.

 
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Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček talks to VOA about NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thrown his full political weight into efforts to reverse the defeat of his AK Party in mayoral elections for Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul.

Speaking to reporters Monday before flying to Moscow, Erdogan questioned the validity of the vote.

“We, as the political party, have detected an organized crime and some organized activities,”he said.

Until now, Erdogan appeared to step back from the deepening political controversy over the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) success in Istanbul.  The AKP in Istanbul is challenging the March 31 vote, seeking to overturn Ekram Imamoglu’s 24,000 vote lead over Binali Yildirim.

AKP’s efforts reduced Imamoglu’s majority to around 15,000 votes.  But the current reexamination of 300,000 invalidated ballots is almost complete.  The AKP is now demanding a full recount of the nearly 10 million votes.

Erdogan also introduced the idea of a repeat of the Istanbul poll.

“No one has a right to say, ‘I won’ with a 13,000 to 14,000 vote difference,” Erdogan said.  “We made a promise.  We said that we would protect the votes at ballot boxes, and we did so.  After protecting the votes at the ballot box, we have continued to do the same in the ensuing process.”

The prospect of a rerun of the vote drew scorn from opposition leaders.

“Renewing elections until the AK Party wins is what happens in African dictatorships.  There are examples of it,” said Good Party leader Meral Aksener.

With political tensions rising over the contested vote, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu put the onus on Turkey’s Higher Electoral Board (YSK) to end the dispute.

The YSK administrates elections in Turkey and has the final say in determining results and decisions on recounts and reruns.

“Whatever they (AKP) have tried so far didn’t change the results,” Kilicdaroglu said.  “The YSK judges have to behave independently and decide in accordance with the law.  This is about the fate of our democracy.”

The majority of the ruling YSK board is made up of Erdogan and government appointees.  YSK decisions on sanctioning recounts in the aftermath of the local elections is already raising questions over its impartiality.

“Election monitoring body YSK, which ought to be independent and which will decide on this appeal (Istanbul vote), has thus far granted 86 percent of AKP’s requests for recounts versus 12 percent of opposition CHP and 0 percent of opposition HDP (pro-Kurdish party),” tweeted Sonar Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program, in Washington.

Critics highlight the YSK’s rejection of opposition parties’ calls for recounts in the latest local elections, where the winning margin was in the hundreds or low thousands.

However, the YSK did reject AKP’s calls for a full recount in the mayoral election in Ankara, which saw the CHP win control of the city after 25 years.  In Istanbul, the board also rejected an appeal for a district mayoral election to be repeated.

Analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners said the entrance of Erdogan into the controversy over the Istanbul vote changes the political landscape.

“While the YSK, has shown some backbone during this ordeal (Istanbul vote), let’s not fool ourselves.  No mortal or legal entity in Turkey has the guts to withstand Erdogan’s wrath,” he said.

Critics warn overturning the Istanbul vote or repeating the election could end many Turks’ belief in the Turkish democratic system.  Political scientist Cengiz Aktar said for Erdogan, that would be politically costly.

“Elections, on a general or local level or even referenda are extremely important to the regime as it constitutes the sole source of legitimacy for this regime. Therefore elections are crucial for the regime.”

Erdogan’s favorite rebuttal of criticism domestically and internationally is his repeated electoral success.  Yesilada suggests the president’s AKP defeats in Istanbul and Ankara could have been an opportunity.

“The victories in Istanbul and Ankara by opposition parties should have aroused respect for Turkey’s resilient democracy and earned him (Erdogan) credit from the West for gracefully conceding defeat,” Yesilada said.  The alternative means Turkey is exiting the democratic fraternity and possibly another market quake to devastate the economy.

The Turkish lira fell sharply Monday following Erdogan’s comments.  Economists warn the currency remains vulnerable to political risk, with the economy recession and concerns over the scale of private sector debt.

Observers suggest the political and the economic risks will be considerable in any protracted struggle for Istanbul, Erdogan’s base for 25 years, where he could be calculating that such risks more than outweighed the cost of losing control of his hometown city.

“He (Erdogan) was elected mayor in 1994.  He knows how economically meaningful Istanbul is for his party, the AKP.  It has extensively benefited from Istanbul,” said Aktar.  “In that sense, it’s (Istanbul) extremely important and symbolic, and that is why the opposition will never be allowed to win in Istanbul.”
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Ford workers in Russia have started work-to-rule action over plans to close a plant.

Mikhail Sergeyev, head of a trade union which represents around a third of the St. Petersburg plant’s 900-strong workforce, has told The Associated Press on Monday the work-to-rule will continue until Ford negotiates, and it’s already causing disruption.

Sergeyev says his union is pushing for more generous layoff packages equivalent to twice a worker’s annual salary.

Ford said last month that it’s leaving the Russian car market and closing two assembly plants and an engine plant, after years of lackluster sales. Ford will keep making vans at another site through a joint venture.

Organized industrial action is uncommon in Russia, where many unions have close ties to management, though the auto industry is a rare exception.

 
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The migration of Africans to Europe and North America should be viewed as a positive phenomenon, not a threat, Sudan-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim said Sunday.

Experts said at a weekend conference hosted by Ibrahim’s foundation in Abidjan, Ivory Coast that Africans make up about 14% of the global migrant population, a much smaller share than the 41% from Asia and 23% from Europe.

“Migration is healthy. It’s not a disease,” Ibrahim told The Associated Press in an interview. “Migration is about aspirations, not desperation. People who migrate are mostly capable, ambitious young people who are migrating to work and to build successful lives. They add wealth to the countries they go to.”

Ibrahim also cited statistics to rebut anti-migration politicians who say Africans have inundated Europe.

“Europe is not being flooded by Africans,” Ibrahim said, citing statistics that show 70% of African migrants relocate within Africa.

The 72-year-old philanthropist earned his fortune by establishing the Celtel mobile phone network across Africa.

Now living in Britain, he says African countries should have better education and employment opportunities for their young.

“Farming should be sexy. It should be seen as profitable and productive, not a backward thing,” said Ibrahim. “Yes, IT and technology are important, but agriculture is a way of the future for Africa.”

Ibrahim’s foundation publishes an annual index and awards a leadership prize to encourage good governance in Africa.
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Arrested former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn is set to name the people he believes are responsible for his downfall in Japan, his wife said in an interview on Sunday as she fled Tokyo out of fear she could be detained.

Ghosn was re-arrested last week in the Japanese capital over fresh allegations of financial misconduct which will see him held in custody until at least April 14.

Speaking to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in France, his wife Carole detailed the latest twists in the extraordinary saga, saying that Ghosn had recorded a video interview in English before his detention.

“He names the people responsible for what has happened to him. The lawyers have it. It will be released soon,” she told the newspaper.

Carole added that she had fled Tokyo on a flight to Paris — with support from the French ambassador to Tokyo — because she “felt in danger.”

Despite her Lebanese passport being confiscated by Japanese authorities, Carole said she was able to use her American passport to board a flight and was accompanied by the ambassador to the airport.

“He didn’t leave me until the plane,” she explained. “Up to the last second, I didn’t know if they were going to let me fly. It was surreal.”

The role of the French ambassador could lead to fresh friction between the countries over the highly sensitive case, which involves Nissan and French car maker Renault, which were both previously run by Ghosn.

Japanese news channel NHK said prosecutors in Tokyo wanted to question Carole on a voluntary basis.

Other reports in Japan say that investigators are looking into allegations that company money allegedly misused by Ghosn could have transited through a business that was run by his wife.

‘Different person’

Carole intends now to try to pressure the French government to do more for her husband whose 108-day imprisonment in Japan between November 19 and March 6 had left him a “different person,” she told The Financial Times in a separate interview.

France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday he had raised the case during talks with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on the sidelines of the meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers in the French resort of Dinard.

Le Drian said he had “reminded him of our attachment to the presumption of innocence and the full rights of consular protection.”

Japanese authorities are looking into new allegations that Ghosn transferred some $15 million in Nissan funds between late 2015 and mid-2018 to a dealership in Oman.

They suspect around $5 million of these funds were siphoned off for Ghosn’s use, including for the purchase of a luxury yacht and financing personal investments.

Prosecutors say Ghosn “betrayed” his duty not to cause losses to Nissan “in order to benefit himself.”

Ghosn denies the allegations and says he is also innocent of the three formal charges he faces: two charges of deferring his salary and concealing that in official shareholders’ documents, and a further charge related to investment losses.

The man previously seen as the most powerful figure in the global car industry told French channel TF1 last week that he was “a combative man and an innocent man” and vowed to “defend myself to the bitter end”.

And he voiced concern that he would not be given a fair hearing in Japan where around 99 percent of trials result in a conviction.

 
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Ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, the world has been fascinated with the idea of creating life in a lab. But it remained in the realm of fiction… until it became a bit closer to reality with genetic engineering work in a Swiss lab. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May said Saturday that the longer it takes to find a compromise with the opposition Labour Party to secure a parliamentary majority for a Brexit deal, the less likely it is that Britain will leave the European Union. 

May has so far failed to secure backing for her negotiated agreement with Brussels, as some Conservative lawmakers and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up her minority government, have voted it down. 

She has since turned to the opposition Labour Party in a bid to secure a majority for an orderly Brexit, although its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said Saturday that he was waiting for May to move her Brexit red lines. 

“The fact is that on Brexit there are areas where the two main parties agree: We both want to end free movement, we both want to leave with a good deal, and we both want to protect jobs,” May said in comments released by her Downing Street office. 

‘The only way’

“That is the basis for a compromise that can win a majority in Parliament, and winning that majority is the only way to deliver Brexit.” 

She added, “The longer this takes, the greater the risk of the UK never leaving at all.” 

May has a plan to enshrine in law a customs arrangement with the EU to win over the Labour Party, and her aides have discussed offering the opposition a place in the British delegation to Wednesday’s EU summit, The Sunday Times reported. 

The prime minister has asked EU leaders to postpone Britain’s exit from the bloc until June 30. The EU, which gave her a two-week extension the last time she asked, insists she must first show a viable plan to secure agreement on her thrice-rejected divorce deal in the British Parliament. 

It is the latest twist in a saga that leaves Britain, the world’s fifth-biggest economy, struggling to find a way to honor a 2016 referendum result to take the country out of the globe’s largest trading bloc.  

Pressure on both parties

May reiterated Saturday her hope that lawmakers would approve a deal to allow Britain to leave the bloc as quickly as possible. 

“My intention is to reach an agreement with my fellow EU leaders that will mean if we can agree a deal here at home, we can leave the EU in just six weeks,” she said. 

One of the most senior Brexiters in her government, the leader of the lower house of Parliament, Andrea Leadsom, also said there was a risk of Brexit slipping further from lawmakers’ grasp. 

“The vision we had of Brexit is fading away — and we are running out of time to save it,” she wrote in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. 

Some of May’s lawmakers are warning they will try to oust her if Britain participates in EU parliamentary elections next month and is forced to extend membership of the bloc beyond June, The Observer newspaper reported. 

The Sunday Telegraph said ministers are discussing whether to resign if a Brexit delay means Britain must field candidates. 

​Local candidates’ anger

In a further sign of the ever heavier strains on the Conservatives, more than 100 candidates for upcoming local elections wrote to May warning of the growing anger at the grass-roots level and among the public. 

“Our party and our government have completely lost touch with voters,” the candidates said, according to The Sunday Telegraph. “Let’s be clear: More fudge and a further dilution of Brexit is not the answer.” 

Opposition leader Corbyn also faces pressure as more than 80 of his lawmakers warned that another vote on Brexit must be a red line in Labour’s talks with the government, The Independent newspaper said.
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Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in several Swiss cities against climate change, the Swiss news agency Keystone-ATS reported. 

Around 50,000 marched in all, the news agency estimated, including 15,000 in Zurich and up to 9,000 in the capital, Bern, and in Lausanne. 

“It’s about knowing if finally we want to listen to the voice of science,” high school student Jan Burckhardt told ATS. 

“Save the climate, please: It’s the last time we ask politely,” read one of the placards at the Lausanne demonstration, an AFP photographer saw. 

The marches were organized by an alliance of activist groups in Switzerland, including Greenpeace, Swiss Youth for Climate and green groups.  

“We don’t want to stop our movement as long as our claims have not been heard, as long as we have not obtained concrete results,” said Laurane Conod, one of the organizers of a smaller march in Geneva. 

The climate change protests in Switzerland were in part inspired by the teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who started weekly school strikes calling for policy change on the climate issue.
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Right-wing populist parties are gearing up to campaign for European Parliament elections next month, but policy differences and the Brexit drama threaten their dream to “unite the right.” 

Many fear the May 26 vote will be a wake-up call for Brussels on the reality that Europe’s anti-immigration and blood-and-soil patriotic forces have moved from the fringes to the mainstream. 

Once considered outsiders, they could now end up with one-fifth or more of the seats, allowing them to shift the tone of political discourse and make a claim for legitimacy. 

Key players are Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (NR) in France and the Italian League of Matteo Salvini, who is hosting a meeting of like-minded right-wing groups in Milan on Monday. 

In the EU’s top economy, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the biggest opposition party by railing against Chancellor Angela Merkel and her 2015 decision to allow a mass influx of asylum seekers. 

The AfD launched its election program in the southwestern city of Offenburg on Saturday, calling for “a Europe of fatherlands” and opposing the EU’s immigration, financial and climate policies. 

“This European campaign is a campaign about identity,” said party co-leader Alexander Gauland.  

“The European Union is not a state. It doesn’t need a parliament,” he added. 

Despite financial scandals, the AfD has the support of 10 percent of voters, according to opinion polls, with its popularity highest in the former East Germany. 

Meeting in Milan

On Monday in Milan, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Salvini will follow up and gather allies from across Europe to try to lay the foundations for a future hard-right grouping in the now 751-member European Parliament. 

Salvini and Le Pen also agreed to call another meeting in May, after they met in Paris on Friday, a NR source said. 

“The leaders are considering a common manifesto to close the electoral campaign and announce the start of a new Europe,” said a spokesman for Salvini. 

So far, Europe’s right-wing nationalists have been divided into three blocs and a tangled web of alliances in the legislature that moves between seats in Brussels and the French city of Strasbourg. 

They are the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group, which includes the RN and League; the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR); and the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD). 

The dream of Salvini — and of Steve Bannon, the former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump — has been to unite the disparate patriotic forces and form a federation of nationalist parties.  

But so far such efforts have met with only limited success, in part because the parties’ nationalist focus runs counter to a multinational approach.

Divided on key issues

Another problem for the groups has been that, despite their shared dislike for immigration, multiculturalism, the left and the EU, they remain divided on other key issues. 

On economic policy, the AfD and their Scandinavian allies tend to believe in the market economy, while the French RN favors a more protectionist and statist approach. 

While Italy’s League, Poland’s PiS and Hungary’s Fidesz highlight Europe’s Christian cultural roots, the RN has shied away from taking a similar stance in a country where the majority is in favor of secularism. 

And even on immigration, Salvini’s League favors an EU-wide redistribution of asylum seekers while others demand an outright stop to immigration. 

On relations with Russia, Salvini has praised President Vladimir Putin, a view not shared by Poland’s governing party.

‘Patriotic alliance’?

The AfD’s top candidate, Joerg Meuthen, said he expects big gains for nationalist parties but that they will have trouble forming a “patriotic alliance” with a common agenda.  

There are also strategic deliberations. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has voiced admiration for Salvini but was considered unlikely to come to the Milan meeting, given his Fidesz party still belongs to the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) group, despite its temporary suspension. 

Meanwhile, most parties have also toned down their anti-EU rhetoric as the Brexit debacle has made the prospect of leaving the bloc look far less appealing. 

Le Pen renounced a “Frexit” after the 2017 presidential election and her disastrous debates against Emmanuel Macron, while Germany’s AfD has downgraded a “Dexit” scenario to a “last resort.” 

Still, the potential of the far-right must not be underestimated, said Sven Hutten, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. 

He warned that such groups target “15 to 30 percent of the population” and that at the moment “the populist right is fighting for unity and to build a single bloc.”
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