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Thousands of Rome residents gathered in the main square in front of city hall on Saturday to call for a new dignity for their city and to protest against what they say has been the failure of city authorities to deal with the rubbish, potholes and fallen trees. The rally was organized by a group called “Rome Says Enough.”

It was a peaceful protest with a clear message: Enough to the current state of affairs in one of the great capitals of the world. Hundreds of city residents of all ages gathered in front of the Renaissance city hall to voice their unhappiness with the public transport system, the lack of efforts in cleaning the filth off streets and buildings, and the dreadful state of the many roads and parks in the city.

The event was launched on social media by six young local women, with different jobs, who created the “Rome Says Enough” civic group. They are appealing for a capital city that must return to being livable and have a vision for the future.

Addressing the large crowd gathered on Saturday, one of the organizers said, “From this square which for us Romans, and for the whole world that watches us in shock, is the symbol of the eternal city, we have come to say ‘enough’ but also to shout ‘let’s start over.’”

Residents who turned out for the sit-in pointed the finger at the current city administration run by 5-Star-Movement Mayor Virginia Raggi. She was elected in 2016 promising a fresh start. Instead, she currently is under investigation for abuse of office and false testimony. They called for her to resign because they say Rome has never before been in such a poor state.

Miriam Klein has lived in Rome all her life. She arrived early in the morning for the protest wearing a white T-shirt sporting the “Rome Says Enough” slogan.

She explained that she lives in quite a central area of the city, Gregorio Settimo, near the Vatican, and her building looks onto a large parking area for tourist buses. It is surrounded, she added, by huge quantities of garbage and there is no proper collection. She said, “I am ashamed for the tourists that come off those buses.”

Organizers added that the ancient Roman Empire’s capital, with its iconic Colosseum and Trevi Fountain, has suffered too many years of neglect and corruption, and it is now urgent that something be done to remedy the situation. They say no other European capital is in such a poor state and tourists visit once but have no desire to come back.

 
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Ratings agency Fitch said Friday it no longer assumed that Britain would leave the European Union in a smooth transition and said an acrimonious and disruptive “no deal” Brexit could lead to a further downgrade of its sovereign credit rating.

“In Fitch’s view, an intensification of political divisions within the UK … has increased the likelihood of an acrimonious and disruptive ‘no deal’ Brexit.

“Such an outcome would substantially disrupt customs, trade and economic activity, and has led Fitch to abandon its base case on which the ratings were previously predicated.”

Previously Fitch had assumed Britain would leave the EU in March next year with a transition deal in place and the outline of a future trade deal with the bloc.

But Prime Minister Theresa May has struggled to agree to a deal that can secure the backing of Brussels and her own lawmakers in the Conservative Party.

The ratings agency currently rates British government debt at AA with a negative outlook, which means a further lowering of the rating is possible. Fitch cut its top-notch AAA rating on Britain in 2013, citing the outlook for weaker public finances.

Ratings downgrades up to now have had little impact on investors’ appetite for British government debt, which is still seen as a safe asset at times of political or economic turmoil.

But downgrades are embarrassing for May’s Conservative government, which emphasized preserving the country’s AAA rating when it embarked on an austerity program in 2010.
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A Turkish court on Oct. 12 freed American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who had been convicted on terror charges — charges he denies — and imprisoned for two years. Brunson, who is now back in the U.S. with his family, and his wife, Norine Brunson, spoke with Mehmet Toroglu of VOA’s Turkish service about his time in prison and how it felt to be released. 

Q: How did you learn you were being released and how did you feel in that moment — whom would you want to thank? 

Andrew Brunson: Well, I didn’t know that I was going to be released because I was actually declared guilty. I knew that I was going to be declared guilty — it was very obvious from what was happening in the court — but I didn’t know how many years they would get me as a sentence. Would it be five, 10, 15 or more? And when I was told I was found guilty — first of all, I was unhappy at being found guilty because I’m not guilty, but now officially, according to the court, [I was found] guilty of supporting terrorism, which is not at all what we’re about. 

We spent our time, 23 years in Turkey, working in churches and telling people about Jesus Christ, showing his love to people. So, we had nothing to do with any kind of terrorism. We never did anything against Turkey. In fact, we tried to bless Turkey and we often prayed for Turkey. So it was a surprise when we were accused of terrorism. So, when I was, I did not know how many years they would give me, I was very afraid that I would be sent back to prison, but when I heard that they were convicting me, giving me a three-year sentence and then releasing me because of time already served, two years that I’ve been held by the government, then I was very relieved. My wife and I got together, we knelt down on the courtroom floor, and we just prayed together and thanked God that this nightmare, this two-year-long nightmare, was finally coming to an end. 

Norine Brunson: So, who do we thank? First, we thank God because he’s the one that did it. And he did it through the prayers of people in Turkey, in America, in China, in Senegal, in Madagascar — I mean, all over the place. It was very supernatural. And this was all the Christians from all kinds of different churches that for some reason this was in their heart to pray for us. Very supernatural. And it was through these prayers that this happened. 

Andrew Brunson: We believe God did it. But God uses people and he also used people in setting us free. 

Q: Why do you think you were arrested? 

Andrew Brunson: My wife has used the word “the perfect storm,” and what happened is that there had been an attempted coup, and of course that created a lot of tension in Turkey and the government was very, obviously, under tremendous pressure. 

And at the same time, we had been working with Syrian refugees. There was a humanitarian crisis, but many of the ones that came to Izmir and that we ended [up] helping are Kurds, and that made the government uncomfortable because they are concerned about Kurdish terrorism through the PKK. And so they were suspicious of that. 

Also, we are Americans and Christians, and Christians are often seen with some suspicion. And all of that happened at the same time, all of those factors coming together at the same time. We were actually arrested to be deported. When they arrested us, we were told that it was a threat to national security, and normally when that happens — it has happened to other friends of mine — then they are very quickly deported within a day or two. 

But at our arrest someone wrote on our paper, they wrote “terrorism” — and then we knew that this was different. We feared that it would become much more serious, as it did, indeed, and it continued on for two years. 

Q: Would you tell us about the circumstances in the prison? Were you treated well? 

Andrew Brunson: I was treated well by prisoners and I did not complain about the conditions, whether it was cold or crowded or about food or anything like that. Although, some of those [conditions] were difficult. My main complaint was that I’m imprisoned — that my liberty has been taken away and I’m an innocent man. 

As for the people I was with, for example I was in a very crowded cell at Sakran Prison for a number of months. Most of them were very nice to me, and prisoners supported each other. Everyone was of course very afraid. Most people had not been indicted. It was taking a year or longer. 

It took 18 months for me to actually find out what I was being accused of. And during that time of course there was a lot of fear. Why am I in here? How long will I be in here? What am I going to be charged with?  

They were all very conservative Muslims, committed Muslims. And obviously I’m a pastor, so I felt very alone in my faith. There wasn’t anyone else there to pray with me, to support me, to correct me when I’m having wrong thoughts. But even so, there were several of the Muslim prisoners who were very kind to me and encouraged me during very difficult times. 

Q: What did you know about the coup attempt? 

Andrew Brunson: We knew nothing about it until it happened. I had been at a prayer meeting on Friday night and that had gone on for two or three hours. Then I returned to my home and turned on the television, and we saw on the news channels that something unusual was happening. So that’s the first time I heard of it. 

Now, I’ve been accused of helping to plan it, but we knew nothing about it. Shortly after that, I went to the States to visit my children — they were all studying in the States at that time — but then within three or four weeks after the coup, my wife and I returned to Turkey together. So while many people were trying to escape Turkey, because many people were being arrested at that time, we came back very confidently to Turkey because we were innocent and we had no idea that we would be charged with being involved in the coup. 

​Norine Brunson: We had nothing to do with it. So, August 12, we come back very comfortably to Turkey. This is our home. This is where we have our church. These are people we love, and we had no concern whatsoever. 

Andrew Brunson: Yes. 

Q: Well, let’s assume you have a chance to sit down with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. What would you tell him? 

Norine Brunson: We would welcome the opportunity, just like we were able to meet President [Donald] Trump. It was a huge honor, and to be able to pray for him there, and we would really love the opportunity to do that for any president. For any high position in authority. They need prayer. They all need prayer. 

Andrew Brunson: So I would love to meet with him, and I would say to him that God loves him and wants to use him to bless the Turkish people. Leaders need prayer, and as Christians we are told to pray for our leaders. Whatever party they are from, we are told to pray for them. So I would love to meet with him and be able to pray for him in the same way I prayed for President Trump. Just to bless him in the name of Jesus Christ. 

Q: What do you know about other Americans still in jail in Turkey right now, and why do you think you were the only one who was released? 

Andrew Brunson: Well, the main difference between my case and theirs was that I’m an American citizen but they are dual citizens. They’re American and Turkish, and they come from a Turkish background. The American government looks at us all the same. I was told this many times by consular visits. They would tell me, “We look at you all this same.” But the Turkish government looks at dual citizens, a citizen who’s also a citizen of Turkey, [and] they’ll say, “You’re a Turk, so the United States should not be intervening or interfering in any way in this case, because you’re a Turkish citizen.” 

So I think that’s the main issue. It’s not an issue that the United States government gave more importance to me. We were at the State Department yesterday and Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo said very clearly … that they still continue to work to get the other Americans released. So from the U.S. government side, they’re committed to continue to work on this. The main issue has been that [the other prisoners] are also Turkish citizens, and so the Turkish government evaluates them differently. 

Norine Brunson: This is what we think. This is what we think. 

Q: Is there anything you’d like to add? 

Norine Brunson: No. I mean, we pray for them too, for their spouses. It’s a very difficult situation. 

Andrew Brunson: I would like to say — we’ve said in a number of interviews — that we love Turkey, and this is true. We love the Turkish people, but we want to clarify what this means. 

Obviously, we love Turkish food. We lived in Turkey for many years, and we love many things about the culture. But when we say we love Turkey and the Turkish people, what we especially mean by that is that God loves the Turkish people, and he gave us some of his love that he has for the Turkish people and put it in our hearts. 

So it’s not just that we’re enamored of Turkish culture, although we love and have lived in it. We’re talking about a different kind of love — the love of God that is in our hearts for the Turkish people. So we say we love Turkey in spite of what we’ve been through, and it was a very difficult two years for our family. We can say God loves Turkey and we love Turkey. 
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Spain’s High Court agreed Friday to extradite a Venezuelan woman who was part of the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez’s inner circle to her home country, where she is suspected of money laundering and illicit enrichment.

According to Venezuelan media, Claudia Diaz was Chavez’s nurse when he was being treated for cancer, which ultimately led to his death in 2013, while her husband served as one of his aides de camp.

From 2011 until 2013, Diaz also served as an executive of government fund Fonden — an obscure state-run investment fund which received more than $100 billion in state revenue but produced little if any documentation as to how the funds were spent.

The court said in a statement that Diaz is suspected of using the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to create companies through which she acquired illicit assets in Venezuela and abroad, in a case linked to the “Panama Papers.”

Both Diaz and her husband’s names surfaced in the Panama Papers — millions of documents from Mossack Fonseca that were published by the media in April 2016 and which show how the rich and powerful used offshore corporations to evade taxes.

When Diaz was detained in Spain in April, Venezuela’s Chief Prosecutor Tarek Saab wrote on Twitter that his office had requested her arrest due to her appearance in the Panama Papers.

In a written statement, Saab’s office said it opened an investigation into Diaz and her husband in April 2016 and that the two were wanted for money laundering and embezzlement.

Investigators raided their properties and determined their wealth was greater “than they could have acquired from their occupations as public officials,” according to Saab’s office.

According to the High Court statement, Diaz claims the case is politically motivated due to her opposition to Venezuela’s current government. The court dismissed this explanation, saying there was no indication the case was motivated by her political ideas.

The court’s decision, which may be appealed, must now be ratified by the Spanish government.

It is not clear whether Fonden funds were implicated in the alleged money laundering.

A 2012 Reuters investigation found that Fonden ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars into state-run factories that were never completed and have never produced anything.

Human rights groups and Venezuela’s opposition accuse President Nicolas Maduro of holding hundreds of critics of his administration in harsh conditions to stifle dissent. Maduro’s government denies it holds political prisoners.
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Several schools in Poland have canceled activities promoting tolerance for gays and lesbians following government pressure and threats in some places. 

More than 200 schools had planned to take part in “Rainbow Friday,” an anti-discrimination event that a civic rights group, the Campaign Against Homophobia, had promoted in hopes of building greater acceptance for LGBT students. 

Private broadcaster TVN reported that some schools pulled out of the event following an outcry. 

The education minister of Poland’s conservative government, Anna Zalewska, had warned ahead of time that any principals who allowed such events to take place could face negative consequences. She also asked parents to report any such activities to authorities. 

It was not immediately clear how many schools canceled their plans to participate.
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Russia failed on Friday to get the U.N. General Assembly to consider calling on Washington and Moscow to preserve and strengthen an arms control treaty that helped end the Cold War and warned that if the United States quits the pact it could raise the issue in the U.N. Security Council.

President Donald Trump said on Oct. 20 that Washington planned to quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty which Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, and Ronald Reagan had signed in 1987. It eliminated all short- and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles held by both states in Europe.

Washington has cited Russia’s alleged violation of the treaty as its reason for leaving it, a charge Moscow denies.

Russia in turn accuses Washington of breaking the pact.

Russia had proposed a draft resolution in the 193-member General Assembly’s disarmament committee, but missed the Oct. 18 submission deadline. On Friday, it called for a vote on whether the committee should be allowed to consider the draft, but lost with only 31 votes in favor, 55 against and 54 abstentions.

“In a year, if the U.S. withdraws from the treaty and begins an uncontrolled buildup of weapons, nuclear-capable weapons, we will be confronting a completely different reality,” Andrei Belousov, deputy director of Russia’s Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, told the committee.

He questioned whether the United States was preparing for a war, asking: “Why is it then … do they want to leave the treaty? Why do they want to build up their nuclear capability?”

Belousov said if the United States follows through on its threat to withdraw, then Russia could raise the issue in the 15-member Security Council. However, such a move would not lead to any action as both countries have veto powers in the council.

U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood told the committee Washington had spent some five years trying to engage Moscow on the issue of compliance and that Russia had “denied having produced or tested a ground-launch cruise missile.”

“It’s only recently that they admitted to having produced a ground-launch cruise missile but then maintained that it did not violate the range limits of the treaty,” he said.

“The U.S. has been extremely patient with Russia and our hope is that Russia will do the right thing and destroy that ground-launch cruise missile,” Wood said.

European members of NATO urged the United States on Thursday to try to bring Russia back into compliance with the treaty rather than quit it, diplomats said, seeking to avoid a split in the alliance that Moscow could exploit.
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After two years of imprisonment on terror charges, American pastor Andrew Brunson was released Oct. 12, 2018, by a Turkish court. Now home with his family, how does Pastor Brunson view his time in prison? VOA Turkish Service’s Mehmet Toroglu sat down with Pastor Brunson and his wife, Norine Brunson, and filed this report.
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A strong earthquake off a western Greek tourist island early Friday morning was felt as far away as Athens, but no major damage or injuries were immediately reported.

The main harbor for the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea was damaged but still functional, civil protection agency press spokesman Spyros Georgiou said. Power was lost in the island capital and main town, also called Zakynthos, but no major damage was reported there.

“We’re checking out the villages on the island, where there are several older buildings,” he told The Associated Press. “The lack of electricity is a problem, but technicians are trying to restore power.”

Rockfalls, church wall collapses

The fire service said rockfalls were reported in another part of the island, and part of a church wall collapsed on the mainland town of Pyrgos, in the southern Peloponnese area. A couple of people were treated for minor injuries.

Georgiou said a precautionary tsunami warning was issued, although none had materialized two hours after the quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the undersea quake was magnitude 6.8 and its epicenter was 33 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Mouzaki in the southern part of the island. It had a depth of 14 kilometers and struck just before 2 a.m. local time (2300 GMT Thursday).

Greece’s main earthquake monitoring center, Athens’ University’s Geodynamic Institute, measured the magnitude at 6.4, and said it had a depth of 5 kilometers. Measurements of quake strength can vary because of the equipment each institution uses and other factors.

The quake rattled the whole of western Greece and was strongly felt in the capital, 280 kilometers (174 miles) to the northeast of Zakynthos.

Quake-prone region

Greece lies in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone regions, with thousands of quakes recorded every year. But few cause injuries or significant damage. In 1999, a magnitude 5.9 quake on the outskirts of Athens killed 143 people.

Zakynthos has had severe earthquakes in the past and as a result has a very strict building safety code.
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Hundreds outside the main Catholic church in Madrid Thursday protested against the possibility that Spanish dictator Francisco Franco may be laid to rest there.

Demonstrators carried signs denouncing Franco as a criminal and waved photos of him standing next to his ally, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

One protester said he would rather see Franco’s remains tossed into a ditch than placed in the crypt inside the Almudena Roman Catholic Cathedral.

Spain’s government wants to exhume Franco’s body from a mausoleum that glorifies the dictator’s memory. Many dead from the Spanish Civil War, including those who fought against Franco’s forces, are also buried there, many in unmarked graves. Spanish officials have not said where they want to place Franco’s remains.

His family wants to re-inter the body in the Franco family crypt in the cathedral, a proposition many of descendants and victims of the Spanish Civil War find unacceptable.

Franco-led military forces, backed by Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s Fascists, defeated leftist Republicans in the Spanish civil war, from 1936 to 1939.

Franco spent the next 36 years ruling Spain as a military dictatorship, stifling free speech and brutally suppressing the opposition until his death in 1975.

Historians say hundreds of thousands were killed by the regime. Franco’s supporters credit him with saving the country from communism and an alliance with the Soviet Union.
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About 50,000 NATO personnel from 31 NATO and partner countries are springing to action Thursday at the start of the alliance’s Trident Juncture exercise, its largest drills since the end of the Cold War.

The massive exercise takes place in and around Norway and involves about 65 ships, 250 aircraft and 10,000 vehicles.

‘We are ready’

NATO’s Command Senior Enlisted Leader for Allied Command Operations, Command Sgt. Maj. Davor Petek, told VOA in an exclusive interview that the large-scaled defensive games send a “very simple message.”

“We are ready, and we are capable to meet any possible security threat coming to our NATO borders,” he said. “Nobody’s willing to mess with an alliance that has so much potential, so much capability.”

WATCH: Sgt. Maj. Davor Petek

Russia invited

NATO said the drills are not an act of aggression, and the exercise’s commander said the alliance has invited Russia to observe.

“I’m happy that we have observers because they’re going to see that we’re very good at what we do. And that will have a deterrent effect on anybody who wants to cross those borders, but one nation in particular,” U.S. Navy Adm. James Foggo, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, told reporters at the Pentagon earlier this month.

The exercise comes with Russia and the West still bitterly divided over Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, with some NATO countries worried Moscow may try to encroach on their sovereign land.

NATO funding

It also comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has slammed NATO for benefiting Europe more than the United States.

NATO members have committed to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024, but just nine of the military alliance’s 29 members are expected to reach or surpass that amount this year.

Petek told VOA Trident Juncture helps display NATO’s readiness and its commitment to stick together.

“It’s just an alliance that’s been there for a long, long time — over 70 years — but I’d say it was never probably as active and determined as it is right now in this point of time,” he said.

Trident Juncture is expected to run through Nov. 7.
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Russian State Duma lawmakers on Tuesday passed new legislation that would expand the federal government’s ability to ban foreign nongovernmental organizations accused of meddling in Russian elections. 

The legislation builds on a series of Russian laws that in 2012 began targeting “undesirable” activities, mainly by foreign advocacy groups, nonprofit organizations and news media outlets. The “undesirable” designation bans them from operating inside Russia, with any violation punishable by fines and jail time. 

In 2017, Russia warned nine U.S. government-funded news operations — including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and seven separate regional outlets — that they would probably be designated “foreign agents” under legislation drafted in retaliation against a U.S. demand that Kremlin-supported television station RT register as such in the United States.  

Under Russian law, being declared a foreign agent requires designees to regularly disclose their objectives, full details of finances, funding sources and staffing. 

According to Riga-based online news portal Meduza, Tuesday’s expanded legislation, authored by deputies of all legislative parties, defines election meddling as any activities that “create obstacles to nominating or electing candidates or voting in referenda.” 

“Russian citizens who continue working for these banned groups risk criminal penalties,” Meduza reported. “Currently, Russia has designated 15 undesirable organizations, including the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Foundation, the Open Russia Civic Movement and the German Marshall Fund.” 

Stephen Nix, Eurasia director for the Washington-headquartered International Republican Institute, said the latest legislation further restricted civil society space and open dialogue in Russia. 

“IRI closed our office in Moscow a few years prior to receiving the ‘undesirable’ designation in 2016, so it did not directly affect our work, since we had already left the country,” Nix told VOA’s Russian service in a prepared statement Wednesday.  

“In recent years, the Kremlin’s practice of issuing these designations has severely undermined the already limited civil society space in Russia,” he added. “This most recent bill is a clear attempt to deflect attention away from the Kremlin’s brazen and malignant interference in elections abroad as part of its campaign to undermine democracies around the world. Now more than ever, it is crucial that democracies speak out against these practices, the chief victims of which are the Russian people.” 

This story originated in VOA’s Russian service.  
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The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ban single-use plastic products such as straws, eating utensils and coffee sticks across the European Union.

The measure passed 571 to 53, with 34 abstentions.

If approved by the European Commission — the EU executive — and individual states, the ban would become law in 2021.

Supporters say plastics are a major source of pollution that chokes oceans, litters cities, and can take decades to disintegrate.

Some U.S. cities have moved to ban plastic straws in restaurants after a heartbreaking video of a wildlife rescuer pulling a straw out of a turtle’s bloody nose was posted on the internet earlier this year.

A consortium of European plastics manufacturers called the EU bill “disproportionate” and said banning single-use plastics discourages investment into new ways to recycle.

The EU plastics bill also includes deadlines for reducing or recycling other plastics such as bottles, fishing lines, food wrappers, and cigarette filters.

 
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