Month: May 2019

Albanian protesters threw firebombs at the police Monday evening, and the supporters of opposition parties gathered in the capital, Tirana, to ask for the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama and early elections.

Opposition supporters marched in front of the main government buildings amid rain, but did not attempt to break the police barrier as they did on Saturday. Instead, they threw firecrackers at the prime minister’s offices. 

Hours earlier, officials from the United States, European Union and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe had called for restraint.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana called on opposition leaders to “condemn publicly the violent acts of their supporters” and on the authorities “to act with restraint.”

The violent actions that took place during Saturday’s protest “were unlawful and undemocratic,” the U.S. statement read.

European parliamentarians, from both the left and right, in an open public letter on Monday called on Albanians to show restraint and “not to jeopardize the country’s prospects on its European path.”

Albania expects to hear in June whether the EU will give the green light for opening accession talks. 

The white smoke from flares was seen in the sky Monday night, but calls for restraint appear to have been heeded. 

At the beginning of the protest, opposition leader Lulzim Basha told his supporters they were marching “in front of the institutions that symbolize the crime.” Besides the offices of the prime minister, demonstrators also protested in front of the Interior Ministry, police headquarters and parliament.

A similar protest Saturday turned violent. About 50 opposition supporters were also arrested.
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Swedish prosecutors are reopening the rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange following a request from the lawyer of one of the alleged victims. 

Assange was arrested last month in Ecuador’s embassy in London, after the country reversed its decision to give him asylum. The 47-year-old Australian national is also wanted in the United States on hacking charges and the British government will now have to decide which extradition request should take priority.

WATCH: Britain to Decide Assange’s Extradition Fate

In 2011, Assange was accused of rape by two women following a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm. He sought asylum in London’s Ecuadorean embassy, claiming the accusations were part of a plot to have him extradited to the United States over his whistleblowing activities. With apparently little hope of conviction, Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation in 2017. 

In April, however, Ecuador reversed its decision to offer Assange asylum and allowed British authorities into the embassy to arrest him. One of the women who made the rape accusations requested the case be reopened.

Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Maria Persson, announced the reopening of the case Monday. 

“After reviewing the preliminary investigation in its current state, my assessment is that there is still probable cause to suspect that Julian Assange committed rape,” Persson said at a press conference in Stockholm.

Assange denies the rape accusations. In a statement, WikiLeaks said reopening the case would allow him to clear his name. 

Sweden will seek a European arrest warrant and extradition after Assange has served a 50-week sentence in Britain for skipping bail. 

The United States has also issued an extradition request for Assange over computer hacking accusations, related to the release of thousands of classified military and diplomatic communications via WikiLeaks, mainly relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Britain’s Home Secretary will have to decide which extradition request should take precedence, says London-based extradition lawyer Anthony Hanretty.

“Whether it was hacking into computers or simply releasing information, against the allegations made in Sweden which are of the utmost severity. So it will come down politically to which one he thinks is more palatable for him to make.”

Hanretty notes that Assange has already indicated he would contest any extradition to the United States.

“He no doubt will have fears that he will be held in solitary confinement in conditions which he will say will breach his human rights. There’s also concern that if he is sent to the U.S., they will simply add further charges onto him once he is there. And it also depends on how the U.S. frames the charges against him. They will have to show that what he is accused of in the U.S. would amount to an offense in the U.K.”

Under Swedish law, the statute of limitations on the rape case expires in August of next year, so legal experts say there is pressure on Britain and Sweden to speed up the extradition process.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has had a change of plans for his European trip. 

Pompeo’s first stop will be Brussels instead of Moscow. 

A State Department official says Pompeo will meet with European officials Monday “to discuss a range of pressing matters including Iran.” Originally Pompeo had planned to meet Monday with U.S. diplomats and business leaders in Moscow. 

It was not immediately clear why there was a change in the schedule.

The rest of his trip plans remain intact. 

The secretary of state travels to Sochi Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

​​Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, which both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin will attend.

Pompeo’s trip to Russia also comes as tensions simmer between the two countries over Iran.

The U.S. is strengthening its military presence in the Middle East in what officials said was a “direct response to a number of troubling and escalatory indicators and warnings” from Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets.

On Wednesday, Lavrov asked Pompeo to use diplomacy instead of threats to solve issues after Lavrov’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarifin Moscow.
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An economist and political novice, Gitanas Nauseda, took a thin lead in the first round of Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday and will face Ingrida Simonyte, a conservative ex-finance minister, in a May 26 run-off set to focus on inequality and poverty in the Baltic eurozone state.

Center-left Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis vowed to quit after he was eliminated from the run-off having finished in third place.

Conceding that “the failure to get into the second round is an assessment of me as a politician,” Skvernelis told reporters that he would “step down on July 12.”

He did not rule out early elections. The next regularly-scheduled parliamentary elections are due in October 2020.

Nauseda, promising to seek the political middle-ground and build a welfare state, won 31.07 percent of the vote, according to near-complete official results.

“I want to thank all the people who took to their hearts our message that we want a welfare state in Lithuania and we want more political peace,” Nauseda told reporters in Vilnius.

The 54-year-old is seeking to bridge the growing rich-poor divide in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million people, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.

“Nauseda has a greater chance to attract votes that went to other candidates, especially from the left,” Vilnius University analyst Ramunas Vilpisauskas told AFP. 

In all, nine candidates ran in the first round vote.

In second place, Simonyte, who is popular with wealthy, educated urban voters, garnered 29.46 percent of the vote while resonating with the rural poor, Skvernelis’s populist approach secured 20.72 percent support.

Simonyte, 44, a technocrat who also warns against deepening inequality and the rural-urban divide, has vowed to reduce it by boosting growth further. 

Socially liberal, Simonyte supports same-sex partnerships which still stir controversy in the predominantly Catholic country.

​Simonyte said she would resist “populism” during her second-round campaign and seek support from political forces “with consistent views that do not try to be on the right with one leg and the left with the other.” 

Lithuanian presidents steer defense and foreign policy, attending EU and NATO summits, but must consult with the government and the prime minister on appointing the most senior officials.

Popular incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite, an independent in her second consecutive term, must step down due to term limits.

The politician nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her strong resolve has been tipped as a contender to be the next president of the European Council.

Both Nauseda and Simonyte are strong supporters of EU and NATO membership as bulwarks against neighboring Russia, especially since Moscow’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine.

Analyst Vilpisauskas said that both Nauseda and Simonyte are very likely to opt for continuity in foreign and defense policy.

“With Nauseda, there can be some tactical changes when it comes to communication with neighbors but the strategical line is unlikely to change.”

Although Lithuanian presidents do not directly craft economic policy, bread and butter issues and tackling corruption dominated the campaign.

Lithuania is struggling with a sharp decline in population owing to mass emigration to Western Europe by people seeking better opportunities. 

The global financial crisis triggered a deep recession 10 years ago and austerity measures imposed to prevent further crisis took a high toll, especially on low-income earners.

Despite solid economic growth, a recent EU report noted that almost 30 percent of Lithuanians “are at risk of poverty or social exclusion” and that this risk is “nearly double” in rural areas.

Robust annual wage growth of around 10 percent has raised the average gross monthly salary to 970 euros ($1,00) but poverty and income inequality remain among the highest in the EU, largely due to weak progressive taxation.

Unemployment stood at 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019, and the economy is forecast to grow by 2.7 percent this year, well above an average of 1.1 percent in the 19-member eurozone.

Brussels has urged Vilnius to use solid growth fueled mostly by consumption to broaden its tax base and spend more on social policies.

Nauseda voter Feliksas Markevicius said he wanted the new president to help emigrants to return home to Lithuania.

“We need to improve living conditions because many people are forced to work abroad,” the pensioner told AFP after voting in Vilnius on Sunday.

Voter turnout was 54.96 percent, according to the Central Elections Commission.
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Pope Francis’ almoner, a church leader who personally distributes charity in the name of the Vatican, took action to restore electricity to about 450 people in Rome.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski broke into an abandoned government building where 450 homeless people are living.

Authorities cut off power and water to the building last week because of an unpaid bill reported to be more than $300,000. 

Krajewski ignored the possible legal consequences when he broke the police seal on the building, went underground, and flipped a switch to turn the lights back on in the darkened building.

A nun who works with the homeless told Italian radio and television that when workers went to the building to cut off the power again, they found a note from the cardinal asking them to leave it on.

Krajewski called his act “a gesture of desperation.”
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Spanish authorities say 52 migrants have climbed a guarded fence to gain entry into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco.

An official with the Spanish Interior Ministry in Melilla says four police officer and one migrant sustained light injuries as the group scaled the high fence around dawn Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules.

Spain’s proximity to North Africa has made it a target for migrants trying to reach the European Union. The migrants try to get in either by land via Spain’s two North African enclaves or by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats.

Spain became the leading entry point to Europe last year, with some 60,000 migrants arriving irregularly, almost all of them by sea.
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Berliners on Sunday celebrated the 70th anniversary of the day the Soviets lifted their blockade strangling West Berlin in the post-World War II years with a big party at the former Tempelhof airport in the German capital.

Among the invited guests of honor was 98-year-old U.S. pilot Gail Halvorsen, who dropped hundreds of boxes of candy on tiny parachutes into West Berlin during the blockade.

Halvorsen came to Berlin from Utah with his two daughters on Friday, the German news agency dpa reported.

On Saturday, a baseball field at Tempelhof airport was named after him — the “Gail S. Halvorsen Park — Home of the Berlin Braves” in honor of his help for Berliners during the Cold War.

Dressed in a military uniform, Halvorsen told Berlin’s mayor Michael Mueller that “it’s good to be home.”

The airlift began on June 26, 1948, in an ambitious plan to feed and supply West Berlin after the Soviets — one of the four occupying powers of a divided Berlin after World War II — blockaded the city in an attempt to squeeze the U.S., Britain and France out of the enclave within Soviet-occupied eastern Germany.

Allied pilots flew a total of 278,000 flights to Berlin, carrying about 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other supplies.

On the operation’s busiest day, April 16, 1949, about 1,400 planes carried in nearly 13,000 tons over 24 hours — an average of one plane touching down almost every minute.

On the ground in Berlin, ex-Luftwaffe mechanics were enlisted to help maintain aircraft, and some 19,000 Berliners, almost half of them women, worked around the clock for three months to build Tegel Airport, providing a crucial relief for the British Gatow and American Tempelhof airfields.

Finally, on May 12, 1949, the Soviets realized the blockade was futile and lifted their barricades. The airlift continued for several more months, however, as a precaution in case the Soviets changed their minds.

Halvorsen is probably the best known of the airlift pilots, thanks to an inadvertent propaganda coup born out of good will. Early in the airlift, he shared two sticks of gum with starving Berlin children and saw others sniffing the wrappers just for a hint of the flavor.

Touched, he told the children to come back the next day, when he would drop them candy, using handkerchiefs as parachutes.

He started doing it regularly, using his own candy ration. Soon other pilots and crews joined in what would be dubbed “Operation Little Vittles.”

After an Associated Press story appeared under the headline “Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin,” a wave of candy and handkerchief donations followed.

To this day, the airlift still shapes many Germans’ views of the Western allies, especially in Berlin. After the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, some 200,000 Berliners took to the streets of the German capital to show their support for the country that had helped prevent their city falling completely to the Soviets.

On Sunday, up to 50,000 people were expected to participate in the festivities, which include musical performances, talks with witnesses, exhibitions of historical vehicles and lots of activities for children, dpa reported.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week, as the two countries clash over a number of issues including Venezuela, Iran, and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Pompeo heads to Moscow Sunday, in his first visit to Russia as chief U.S. diplomat.

Top U.S. officials, including Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, have accused Russia of working against Venezuela’s democratically elected opposition leader Juan Guaido in his attempts to oust embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

The United States accuses Russia of seeking a foothold in the Western Hemisphere through Venezuela.

“We are concerned about Russia’s actions in Venezuela, and we think the support for Maduro is a losing bet. So our support to the Venezuelan people continues, and that will be a subject for the discussion,” a senior State Department official told reporters last week.

Pompeo arrives in Russia on Monday to meet with American diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders. He will also lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in honor of those who fought against the Nazi regime.

The secretary of state will then travel to Sochi Tuesday for talks with Putin and Lavrov.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, which both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin will attend.

“It is in our interest to have a better relationship with Russia,” said the senior official. “When we have concerns, we’re going to raise them directly, narrow those differences and find areas we can cooperate.”

The official declined to comment on whether a meeting between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit is being arranged.

The State Department says Pompeo is expected to bring up Americans being detained in Russia, including former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Michael Calvey, founder of the Moscow-based Baring Vostok private equity group.

Whelan was accused of espionage, a charge he denies. He is due to be kept in pre-trial detention until May 28 while the investigation continues.

Calvey was detained in February, pending a trial on embezzlement charges that he has denied. He says the case was being used to pressure him in a corporate dispute over control of a Russian bank.

“The administration places the highest priority on the safety and the welfare of U.S. citizens overseas. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular services in cases where U.S. citizens are detained,” said the senior official.

Last month, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited Whelan in a Moscow jail. American diplomats have asked Russia to “stop playing games,” saying Russian officials are likely trying to get a forced false “confession” from Whelan.

Pompeo’s trip to Russia also comes as tensions simmer between the two countries over Iran.

The U.S. is strengthening its military presence in the Middle East in what officials said was a “direct response to a number of troubling and escalatory indicators and warnings” from Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets.

On Wednesday, Lavrov asked Pompeo to use diplomacy instead of threats to solve issues after Lavrov’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarifin Moscow.
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Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.

The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting “Jewish interests” over the interests of Poland.

The nationalists say that Poland was a major victim of Nazi Germany during World War II and that it is not fair to ask Poland to compensate Jewish victims when Poland has never received adequate compensation from Germany.

“Why should we have to pay money today when nobody gives us anything?” said 22-year-old Kamil Wencwel. “Americans only think about Jewish and not Polish interests.”

 
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