Month: May 2019

The Italian interior ministry vowed Sunday to press ahead with a new decree formalizing the closure of Italian ports to aid groups that rescue migrants, even after U.N. human rights investigators said it violated international law.

Ministry officials said the security decree was “necessary and urgent” and was expected to be approved at a Cabinet meeting Monday.

In a May 15 letter to Italy’s government released Saturday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Italy to withdraw the decree, calling it “yet another political attempt to criminalize search and rescue operations.”

The decree “further intensifies the climate of hostility and xenophobia against migrants,” said the letter, which was signed by several U.N. human rights rapporteurs.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, a hard-line populist, proposed the decree before the European Parliament elections this week, where nationalist, anti-migrant parties are hoping to make strong gains. Salvini’s League has soared in popularity in part because of his hard-line migration policy, which has involved boosting the Libyan coast guard’s ability to rescue migrants and bring them back.

Among other provisions, the decree leaves it to the interior minister to limit or prohibit entry into Italian territorial waters any ships for public security reasons. It foresees fines of up to 5,500 euros ($6,145) for each migrant transported.

The U.N. letter says the measures would violate migrants’ human rights, which are enshrined in U.N. conventions that Italy has signed. It said Italy is obliged to rescue migrants in distress and can’t impede others from doing so. And it says that Libya can’t be considered a safe port for migrants rescued at sea, particularly after the recent spike in fighting.

Interior ministry officials told journalists in a statement Sunday that Turkey and North Korea similarly punish border violations and that Italy has long had fines in its legal code, which have merely been updated.

“The hope is that the authoritative U.N. dedicates its energies to the humanitarian emergency in Venezuela rather than engage in electoral campaigning in Italy,” they said.
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Thousands of people marched through Belfast Saturday to demand the recognition of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, the only region of the United Kingdom where it does not have legal status.

Attempts to legislate for same-sex marriage have been blocked by the Democratic Unionist Party, a key ally of British Prime Minister Theresa May, despite opinion polls in recent years showing most in the region are in favor.

Sara Canning, the partner of journalist and LGBT rights campaigner Lyra McKee who was killed in April, led the march alongside a number of gay and lesbian couples. Canning said that she and McKee had been planning to marry.

“We pay our taxes, we are governed by the same laws, why should we not be afforded the same rights in marriage” as the rest of the United Kingdom, said Canning, who was wearing a “Love Equality” T-shirt. Protesters waved rainbow flags and placards saying “Love is a human right.”

Protesters called on May’s government to bypass the DUP and introduce legislation in the British parliament in Westminster. The Northern Ireland power-sharing government has been frozen for two years because of disagreement between the DUP and the largest Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein.

“If Stormont is incapable of delivering equality for people here, then it is the responsibility of the Westminster to end discrimination against the LGBT community,” Amnesty International spokesman Patrick Corrigan said.
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Maltese police Saturday said they were questioning two soldiers over a drive-by shooting in April in which an African migrant was killed.

Ivorian national Lassana Cisse was killed April 6 when he was shot from a car as he walked down a street in Hal Far, close to an army barracks and a migrants’ center.

Two men, one from Gambia and the other from Guinea, were injured.

Police said the attack was racially motivated and a source in the investigation said one of the suspects had admitted to targeting the migrants “just because they were black.”

On Saturday, the police confirmed that two Maltese suspects, both soldiers in the Armed Forces of Malta, were in custody.

The weapon and the vehicle used in the crime had been seized, police said.

The deceased man used to work in a factory near Hal Far, in the south of Malta. He was known for checking on his fellow countrymen in the migrants’ center after work, media reported.

In a series of tweets, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said an investigation involving other security services would determine whether the suspects were rogue individuals or part of a wider network.

He said hatred and division had no place in Malta’s society.

“There are consequences to spreading such ill-placed sentiments,” he said. “We remain steadfast in our call for unity among the Maltese and all those who live in Malta.”
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that the purchase of S-400 defense systems from Russia was a done deal, adding that Ankara would also jointly produce S-500 defense systems with Moscow. 

U.S. officials have called Turkey’s planned purchase of the S-400 missile defense system “deeply problematic,” saying it would risk Ankara’s partnership in the joint strike fighter F-35 program because it would compromise the jets, made by Lockheed Martin Corp. 

However, Erdogan said at a televised question-and-answer session with university students in Istanbul that Turkey had carried out technical work and found that such a problem did not exist. 

“They [the U.S.] are passing the ball around in the midfield now, showing some reluctance. But sooner or later, we will receive the F-35s. [The U.S.] not delivering them is not an option,” he said.
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Austria’s vice chancellor has resigned.

Heinz-Christian Strache stepped down Saturday after two German newspapers — Der Spiegel and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung — posted video footage of him appearing to offer state contracts to a potential Russian benefactor.

Strache said Saturday he was the “victim of a targeted political attack,” but admitted that his actions in the video were “stupid and a mistake.”

Political analysts say the scandal throws into the question the governing coalition between Strache’s anti-immigration Freedom Party and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s center-right People’s Party.

Neither politician has commented on the future of their alliance.

 
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The victims of an infamous Nazi pedophile commune in Chile say the compensation of up to $11,000 Germany has agreed to pay each of them is not enough.

Germany said Friday it would pay the funds to the victims of Colonia Dignidad commune founded in 1961 by Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi soldier.

The commune was promoted as an idyllic German family village. The reality of the place, however, was something sinister.

Dozens of children were sexually abused at Colonia Dignidad by Schaefer.

Its approximately 300 German and Chilean residents were abused and drugged. They were prevented from leaving the site that was surrounded by armed guards with dogs.

Survivors say they were virtual slaves.

Horst Schaffrick told the French news agency AFP that the money is “a help, yes, but it does not solve the problem. We are a lost generation.” Schaffrick, who was three when he arrived at the commune with his family, says he was sexually molested by Schaefer.

A lawyer for the survivors said, “What we would have wanted, and what we are arguing for, would be that we give settlers who are old enough to retire a decent pension, no more and no less.”

A German report released Friday said, “The survivors still suffer massively from the severe psychological and physical consequences after years of harm caused by violence, abuse, exploitation and slave labor.”

The report also said that compensation to the victims would be paid “exclusively out of moral responsibility and without recognition of a legal obligation.”

The commune also “actively collaborated with Pinochet dictatorship henchmen on torture, murder and disappearances,” according to the German report in a reference to Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s dictator from 1973 – 1990, who tortured and “disappeared” his critics.

Schaefer was arrested in 2005 in Argentina. He was jailed in Chile for child sexual and other abuses.

He died in 2010 in prison at the age of 88.
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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called a crisis meeting late on Friday after two German newspapers published footage purportedly showing his deputy discussing state contracts with a potential Russian backer in return for political support.

Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was filmed talking about the contracts with someone posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch in Ibiza in July, 2017, months before parliamentary elections, Der Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung said. 

Strache did not reply to a request for comment on the video. Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the footage independently, and the German newspapers did not say how they obtained it.

Kurz planned to make a statement on the case on Saturday, a government source told Reuters. The opposition called for Strache to resign.

Strache is head of the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), which became junior partner in a coalition with Kurz’s conservatives in December 2017 after winning 26 percent of the votes in the October elections.The FPO’s General Secretary, Christian Hafenecker, said the party’s lawyers were evaluating the material. Neither Strache nor the Freedom Party ever received or granted any benefits from the persons concerned, Hafenecker said in a statement.

“Since the video was obviously recorded illegally, we are also preparing appropriate legal steps.”

The footage, parts of which were posted by the newspapers, showed Strache and party colleague Johann Gudenus with the woman in a room in what the newspapers said was a villa in Ibiza.

The woman said she wanted to invest several hundred million euros in Austria, according to the newspapers. Strache and Gudenus discussed investment opportunities for her, including taking over a 50 percent stake in Austria’s influential tabloid Kronen Zeitung and using it to support Strache and the FPO party in the election.

Gudenus was not immediately available for comment.

“If she takes over the Kronen Zeitung three weeks before the election and get us into first place, then we can talk about everything,” Der Spiegel quoted Strache as saying in the video.

Strache held out the prospect of awarding her public contracts in road construction if she helped the Freedom Party succeed, according to the video.

Vienna prosecutors said they would study the reports and decide whether there was sufficient cause to open an investigation, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors said.
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Brexit talks appear to have collapsed a day after British Prime Minister Theresa May set out a timetable for her exit from office — the latest sign of a government in tatters.

Britain’s Labor party head Jeremy Corbyn has sent a letter to May saying the Brexit talks have “gone as far as they can” because of the instability of her government and its refusal to change its position. 

The two major British parties have been at a stalemate for weeks over a deal outlining the conditions by which Britain will withdraw from the European Union. The deadline for withdrawal was originally set for March 29, but the revised date — to give time for more negotiation — is Oct. 31.

Corbyn said in his letter to the prime minister that the two parties “have been unable to bridge important policy gaps between us.” He added, “Even more crucially, the increasing weakness and instability of (May’s) government means there cannot be confidence in securing whatever might be agreed” between the Tory and Labor parties.

Corbyn also told reporters Friday there is no chance of ratifying even a partial Brexit deal by July.

May has said the process is hampered by a lack of consensus among Labor party members about whether they want to deliver Brexit or hold a new referendum in hopes of stopping it.

Parliament has rejected May’s plan in three separate votes and is set to hold another vote in early June. While May has promised some tweaks to the bill before the next vote, the plan is not expected to undergo any radical changes — meaning the impasse between the lawmakers likely is to remain unchanged.

Conservative lawmaker and former London mayor Boris Johnson, who has led the Brexit movement and supports leaving the EU even without a plan in place, has announced he will stand for the prime minister’s position after May vacates it.
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Germany on Friday authorized battery-powered scooters on its streets and cycle paths but banned them from pavements to protect pedestrians as the two-wheeled craze continues to spread across Europe.

Following fierce debate over road safety and the impact on traffic, the upper house adopted a proposal by Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer to approve the “electric propulsion vehicles” for road use.

They are either loved or loathed in Europe’s biggest economy.

“In Germany, souls are divided over e-scooters. Rarely has a new technology aroused such strong popularity — and such strong rejection,” said Achim Berg, president of Germany’s IT federation Bitkom.

Scheuer was forced to amend his initial suggestion to allow electric scooters on pavements, after it sparked an outcry from politicians, police unions and insurance groups.

Electrical scooters will only be allowed on pavements in exceptional cases, to be expressly indicated by signs.

E-scooter users must respect a speed limit of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) per hour and be aged 14 years or older.

‘Would be a Ferrari’

The decision opens up the market for mobility companies vying to provide rented e-scooters in Germany’s cities with Berlin-based startup Tier and Sweden’s Voi up against US firms Lime and Bird, leaders in the fast-growing sector.

Europe’s leading economy, with its mostly flat, highly urbanized geography and spiderweb network of cycle paths is a potential goldmine for e-scoot rental providers waiting in the wings.

“You have to expect a greyhound race. Whoever can convince people first will win the market,” said Hans Preissl, a spokesman for Frankfurt’s traffic authority.

The economic model of the booming e-scooter market still needs refining however, warns a study by the Boston Consulting Group on Friday.

“If market growth were vehicle acceleration, the humble electric scooter – the latest answer to urban mobility — would be a Ferrari,” said BCG, which predicts “consolidation is inevitable” in such a crowded market.

Undeterred, German car behemoth Volkswagen is eyeing the e-scooter market with plans to incorporate them into its own car-sharing scheme by the end of the year.

However, an influx of scooters could intensify the battle for space on Germany’s streets, where cycling associations have long demanded more and wider bicycle paths.

The co-existence of cyclists and e-scooter users on Germany’s cycle paths could quickly become untenable, warns Der Spiegel, “while imposing half-empty cars will continue to occupy lanes,” referring to Germans’ love of large cars.

‘Inevitable’ conflicts

“Conflicts are inevitable,” Social Democrat politician Anke Rehlinger said Thursday, adding that “continuous” effort should be made to define new rules for the e-scooters.

Scheuer labeled them a “genuine additional alternative for cars” in Germany’s traffic-choked cities yet there are also medical warnings against their use on Germany’s roads.

“E-scooters are highly dangerous in city traffic — not least because other road users find it extremely difficult to adjust to them,” Christopher Spering, from the German Society for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper.

There are also fears cyclists could be pushed off cycle paths specifically built for them.

“The already very limited area, currently granted to cycle traffic, should not have its use further extended,” said Jens Hilgenberg, traffic expert of the environmentalist group BUND told magazine Der Spiegel.

Daily newspaper Maerkische Oderzeitung says German cities have a choice — either they “risk chaos and even war between the modes of transport” or they prioritize cyclists, e-scooters users and pedestrians resulting in “painful losses for motorists” in inner city areas.
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U.N. agencies are expressing anger and sadness at the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians, including children, hit by airstrikes on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Thursday night.

This is just the latest tragedy to hit Yemen, which has been at war for more than four years.The U.N. human rights office reports nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed and 10,800 wounded as of November 2018.

Most of the deaths and injuries are due to aerial bombardments by the Saudi-led coalition, it reports. Saudi Arabia entered the civil conflict in March 2015 in support of the Yemeni government, which is locked in a fight for power with the Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran.

A spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, said preliminary reports indicate five children were killed and 16 wounded by the airstrike.He says a number of health workers are among dozens of other casualties.

“The injured, including the children, were rushed to hospital for medical treatments,” Laerke said. “There are several hospitals functioning there. Two of them are being provided with support from humanitarian partners and they have received the wounded.”

A Somali refugee woman and her daughter reportedly are among the injured receiving critical treatment. The U.N. refugee agency reports Somalis comprise more than 90% of the 275,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Yemen.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said the already precarious situation of asylum-seekers and migrants in Yemen has deteriorated significantly as a result of the conflict.

“Incidents like these obviously result in tragic loss of civilian life and injury and continue to illustrate the fact that the war in Yemen is taking a brutal toll on the civilian population,” he said. “We add our voice to the calls that civilians must be protected and parties to the conflict must ensure adherence to their obligations enshrined under the international Humanitarian Law.”

The United Nations calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.It reports nearly 80% of the country’s population of 24 million needs humanitarian assistance and protection.

Unfortunately, aid agencies report the security situation and lack of access are hampering their ability to reach the millions of people in desperate need of aid.Another problem is the lack of support from the international community.The U.N. reports its $4.2 billion appeal to assist more than 20 million Yemenis is only 21% funded.
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The EU on Thursday defended its push to reform the European defense industry in a retort to U.S. accusations that the overhaul would shut out allies such as Washington from European projects.

The skirmish over military spending comes as transatlantic ties are at a long-time low with fears running high that cooperation at NATO could be endangered.

In a letter seen by AFP, two senior officials said that the European Union “remains fully committed to working with the U.S. as a core partner in security and defense matters” despite the planned changes.

However, the EU officials also insisted that the mooted reforms are merely a reflection of rules already imposed by the U.S.

“The transatlantic trade balance is resolutely in favor of the U.S.,” they insisted.

The U.S. concerns, set out in a letter on May 1 from two of President Donald Trump’s top defense officials, focused on the European Defense Fund (EDF), a seven-year 13-billion euro ($14.6 billion) pot approved by the European Parliament last month, and a key new EU defense cooperation pact known as PESCO.

Washington warned the proposed rules “would not only damage the constructive NATO-EU relationship we have built together over the past several years but could potentially turn the clock back to the sometimes divisive discussions about EU defense initiatives that dominated our exchanges 15 years ago.”

Along with the warnings, the U.S. officials also make a veiled threat to hit back, saying the EU would object to similar U.S. restrictions “and we would not relish having to consider them in the future.”

EU countries launched PESCO in late 2017 to try to harmonize a highly fragmented approach to defense spending.

Under the pact, countries cooperate on projects to develop new military equipment and on support systems such as military hospitals and training centers.

The U.S. letter chimed with bitter divisions within the bloc on what rules to set for non-EU allies such as the U.S., Norway — and for Britain after Brexit — who want to contribute to future defense projects.
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