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Venezuelan leader Juan Guaido said Friday that the opposition’s demand for presidential elections is not negotiable, slowing mediation efforts by Norway aimed at resolving Venezuela’s political crisis. 

“A new meeting isn’t planned at the moment, we can get what we’ve proposed on the agenda,” Guaido said at an event in the central city of Valencia, dismissing earlier comments from Russia’s foreign ministry that a third round of exploratory talks with representatives of Nicolas Maduro would take place next week. 

“Nobody who is straight in the head would sit across from a dictator thinking he is negotiating in good faith,” he added.

Guaido’s biting comments, coming as mediators from Norway were in Caracas trying to prevent the talks from derailing, highlight the huge obstacles to negotiating a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela, which has endured economic and political turmoil for years. 

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled congress, revived a flagging opposition movement in January by declaring himself Venezuela’s rightful leader, quickly drawing recognition from the United States and more than 50 nations that say Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate.

But Maduro, backed by the military as well as Cuba and Russia, has held on to power in the face of U.S. oil sanctions that are adding to misery in a nation hit hard by hyperinflation and widespread fuel, food and power shortages.

Norway has hosted two rounds of exploratory talks between the Venezuelan government and opposition in an attempt to break the ongoing stalemate. 

The opposition, mindful of the collapse of past dialogue attempts that only served to strengthen the government’s hand, has insisted the starting point for negotiations be a willingness by Maduro to hold presidential elections within a reasonable time frame. Maduro has balked at that call, blaming the opposition for boycotting last year’s presidential ballot and insisting instead on elections to revamp the opposition-controlled legislature.

“As long as both sides are hurting and don’t see a way out, there’s a possibility negotiations can succeed,” said James Dobbins, a senior fellow at the Rand Corporation who served as special U.S. envoy to several crisis hotspots including Haiti and Afghanistan. “It’s really the only hope left.”

The setback in Norway’s mediation effort comes amid a frenzy of regional diplomacy tied to the Venezuelan crisis.

Talks with Cuba

Also on Friday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez traveled to Toronto for talks with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, hours after he met Venezuelan socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello in Cuba. 

“Cuba has a different position and that’s one reason why it’s important for us to talk to Cuba” about a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, Freeland said after meeting Rodriguez. She said “free and fair elections” is the way forward for Venezuela. Canada has joined the Trump administration in pressuring Maduro to resign.

Cabello had arrived in Cuba on Thursday. One of his first meetings was with Rodriguez, who said on Twitter they “discussed themes of international interest.” 

Maduro’s alleged crimes

Also Friday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, urging him to set up a unit to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes by Maduro and his associates. 

“The long list of Maduro’s crimes includes the illegal mining and trafficking of minerals, transnational drug trafficking, and theft of substantial sums of money from the Venezuelan government and hiding it in offshore bank accounts worldwide,” Rubio said. 

Maduro has denied any illegal activity and says the U.S. wants to overthrow him as a way to exploit Venezuela’s vast oil resources.

Venezuelan passports

In another development, the Trump administration said it will recognize the validity of Venezuelan passports for five years beyond their printed expiration dates. The State Department announced that the passports will be considered valid for visa applications and entry into the United States in recognition of a decision by Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Getting a new passport or an extension is expensive and lengthy for many Venezuelans. Many of the more than 4 million Venezuelans who fled the country in recent years had left without a valid passport.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is open for talks with Ukraine’s newly elected president. 

Asked Friday why he didn’t congratulate comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy on taking office as Ukrainian president last month, Putin pointed at Zelenskiy’s statements in which he called Russia an aggressor.    

Relations between the two countries have been strained since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. 

Putin said that Zelenskiy is a talented actor, but noted that “there is a difference between playing and being.”  

He softened the statement by adding that Zelenskiy may have the makings of a leader and said that he is open for a meeting with Ukraine’s new leader.
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The United States on Friday raised the stakes in its standoff with Turkey over Ankara’s deal to acquire a Russian air defense system, laying out a plan to remove the NATO ally from the F-35 fighter jet program that includes halting any new training for Turkish pilots on the advanced aircraft.

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan sent a letter to his Turkish counterpart, seen by Reuters on Friday, that laid out the steps to “unwind” Turkey from the program.

Reuters on Thursday first reported the decision to stop accepting more Turkish pilots for training in the United States, in one of the most concrete signs that the dispute between Washington and Ankara is reaching a breaking point.

The United States says Turkey’s acquisition of Russia’s S-400 air defense system poses a threat to the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealthy fighters, which Turkey also plans to buy. The United States says Turkey cannot have both.

Shanahan’s letter explicitly states there will be “no new F-35 training.” It says there were 34 students scheduled for F-35 training later this year.

“This training will not occur because we are suspending Turkey from the F-35 program; there are no longer requirements to gain proficiencies on the systems,” according to an attachment to the letter that is titled, “Unwinding Turkey’s Participation in the F-35 Program.”

In his letter, Shanahan warns that training for Turkish personnel on the F-35 at Luke Air Force Base and Eglin Air Force Base will be discontinued at the end of July.

“This timeline will enable many, but not all, Turkish F-35 students currently training to complete their courses prior to departing the United States by July 31, 2019,” Shanahan said in his letter, which noted: “You still have the option to change course on the S-400.”

Turkey has expressed an interest in buying 100 of the fighters, which would have a total value of $9 billion at current prices.

Strained relationship

If Turkey were removed from the F-35 program, it would be one of the most significant ruptures in recent history in the relationship between the two allies, experts said.

Strains in ties already extend beyond the F-35 to include conflicting strategy in Syria, Iran sanctions and the detention of U.S. consular staff in Turkey.

The disclosure of the decision on the pilots follows signs that Turkey is moving ahead with the S-400 purchase. 

Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on May 22 that Turkish military personnel were receiving training in Russia to use the S-400, and that Russian personnel may go to Turkey. The head of Russian state conglomerate Rostec, Sergei Chemezov, said the country would start delivering S-400 missile systems to Turkey in two months, the Interfax news agency reported.

‘Devastating’ deal

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday it was “out of the question” for Turkey to back away from its deal with Moscow. Erdogan said the United States had not “given us an offer as good as the S-400s.”

The Turkish lira declined as much as 1.5% on Friday before recovering some losses. The currency has shed nearly 10% of its value against the dollar this year in part on fraying diplomatic ties and the risk of U.S. sanctions if Turkey accepts delivery of the S-400s.

Kathryn Wheelbarger, one of the Pentagon’s most senior policy officials, said last week that Turkey’s completion of the transaction with Russia would be “devastating,” dealing heavy blows to the F-35 program and to Turkish interoperability within the NATO alliance.

“The S-400 is a Russian system designed to shoot down an aircraft like the F-35,” said Wheelbarger, an acting assistant secretary of defense. “And it is inconceivable to imagine Russia not taking advantage of that [intelligence] collection opportunity.”
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping is on a three-day state visit to Russia aimed at underscoring Russian-Sino cooperation — and his close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin — in the face of strained relations with the United States. 

“In the past six years, we have met nearly 30 times,” said Xi of the Russian leader. 

“Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” added Xi. 

While ostensibly timed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, the state visit comes as both leaders bristle over their treatment by the U.S., which has levied sanctions against Russia since 2014 and currently is engaged in a trade war with China.  

“People generally tend to go to the places where they are liked,” said Mikhail Korostikov, Asia-Pacific observer for the Kommersant daily newspaper, in explaining the personal chemistry between Putin and Xi. “But the conflict with the U.S. that both countries are facing made them closer.” 

Military ties 

Indeed, beyond their grudges with Washington, a shared worldview on global security has helped both sides overcome distrust that once plagued the Soviet-China relationship, which fractured over differing interpretations of communist ideology and border disputes.   

Case in point: inclusion of 3,200 Chinese troops alongside 300,000 Russians in the Kremlin’s massive Vostok-2018 military training exercise in Russia’s Far East last year, according to official sources.

From their perch at the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China now regularly form a global counterweight to the U.S. on thorny issues such as Syria, North Korea and Iran — a point noted by Putin in a statement after meeting with Xi on Wednesday.  

“In discussing important international and regional problems, I can say that in most of them, the views of Russia and China are aligned or very close,” said the Russian leader. 

So, too, increasingly, are their economies. 

Russian ‘pivot’ 

In the wake of Western sanctions levied over the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin announced Russia would “pivot” its economy toward Asia. 

Russian officials now tout trade deals with China worth more than $100 billion annually — making China Russia’s top trading partner — as proof Russia has weathered the storm. Russia is only 10th on China’s list, with the United States first. 

Xi also will appear alongside Putin at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday. While the Chinese delegation to the event is 1,000 strong, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman Jr., is boycotting the event over the detention of an American businessman in Moscow.   

Yet, in all likelihood, the lasting image of the state visit will prove to be Ru Yi and Ding Ding, two giant pandas from China’s Sichuan province that Xi gifted on loan to the Moscow Zoo for the next 15 years.  

With the gesture, Xi tapped into China’s famed panda diplomacy — the use of furry diplomatic gifts to help repair relationships or forge ties anew. 

It certainly seemed to have the desired effect on the Russian leader.  

“When we talk of pandas,” noted Putin, “we always end up with a smile on our faces.” 
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Italian-U.S. carmaker Fiat Chrysler on Thursday pulled the plug on its proposed merger with Renault, saying negotiations had become “unreasonable” because of  political resistance in Paris.  

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, or FCA, had stunned the markets last week with a proposed “merger of equals” with the French group that would — together with Renault’s Japanese partners, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors — create an auto giant spanning the globe.  

The French government, which controls 15 percent of Renault, gave the deal a conditional green light, with analysts suggesting it wanted more control over the combined group alongside Fiat’s Agnelli family. 

FCA said late Wednesday that it “remains firmly convinced of the compelling, transformational rationale” of the tie-up, which it said was “carefully balanced to deliver substantial benefits to all parties.”

“However it has become clear that the political conditions in France do not currently exist for such a combination to proceed successfully,” it said in a statement.  

On Thursday, FCA chief John Elkann stood by the decision to start, and then leave, the merger talks. 

“When it becomes clear that the conversations have been brought to the point beyond which it becomes unreasonable to go, it is necessary to be equally brave to interrupt them,” Elkann wrote in a letter to employees published by Italian media.  

Renault expressed its “disappointment” at the turnabout. 

“We view the [Fiat] opportunity as timely, having compelling industrial logic and great financial merit, and which would result in a European-based global auto powerhouse,” it said in a statement. 

The combined group, including Nissan and Mitsubishi, would have been by far the world’s biggest, with total sales of 15 million vehicles, compared with both Volkswagen and Toyota, which sell around 10.6 million apiece. 

Shares in Renault plunged by more than 6 percent on the Paris stock exchange. In Milan, FCA shares also initially slid but then recovered to close up 0.1 percent.

Nissan holds key

Despite the verbal sparring that erupted after FCA’s announcement, industry experts did not rule out talks being resumed.  

“The collapse of the proposed Fiat Chrysler/Renault merger leaves both firms exposed to the shifting dynamics of a sector at a crossroads,” Ilana Elbim, credit analyst for Hermes Investment Management, said in a note.  

Pointing to falling sales volumes in major auto markets, she said “mega-mergers designed to save on capital expenditures remain inevitable.” 

On Tuesday, Renault’s board had said it was studying FCA’s offer “with interest,” but held off final approval pending further deliberations.  

By Wednesday, all Renault directors had come around in favor of the merger, with the exception of the employee representative affiliated with the powerful CGT union and two from Nissan who abstained, according to a source close to Renault.   

The two Nissan directors were said to have asked for more time to approve the deal. There was no official comment from Nissan headquarters in Tokyo. 

Relations between Renault and Nissan have come under strain since the arrest in November of their joint boss, Carlos Ghosn, who awaits trial in Japan on charges of financial misconduct. 

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had laid down conditions for the tie-up with FCA, insisting there be no plant closures and that the Renault-Nissan alliance be preserved.  

The Renault source said Le Maire had asked for another board meeting next Tuesday following his return from a trip to Japan, where he was to discuss the proposal with his Japanese counterpart at a meeting of G-20 finance ministers.  

Blame game

A source close to FCA said it was the “sudden and incomprehensible” objections by Le Maire’s ministry that had caused the deal to collapse. 

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said: “When politics tries to intervene in economic procedures, they don’t always behave correctly, I don’t want to say any more.”   

But Le Maire stressed that, of his conditions, only the explicit approval of Nissan remained to be secured, while aides denied that the ministry had played politics with the deal. 

A source close to the finance ministry said the French government “regrets the hasty decision of FCA.” 

“Despite significant progress, a short delay was still necessary so that all conditions set by the state could be met,” it said. 

Le Maire indicated the French government was amenable to changes at Renault despite FCA’s U-turn. 

“We remain open to the prospect of industrial consolidation, but once again, in calmness, without haste, to guarantee the industrial interests of Renault and the industrial interests of the French nation,” he told the French parliament. 

For his part, Elkann said FCA “will continue to be open to opportunities of all kinds that offer the possibility of strengthening and accelerating the realization of this strategy and creating value.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron attended a ceremony Thursday at the American Military Cemetery in Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and then held a bilateral meeting. Some 2,500 U.S. troops were killed on June 6 1944, the first day of the Allied invasion to liberate Nazi-occupied France. Ceremonies have been taking place across the region as Britain, Canada and other Allied nations pay tribute to the fallen. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Normandy, the poignant ceremonies come at a time of heightened tension and fears over the future of the transatlantic alliance.
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It was the most massive amphibious invasion the world has ever seen, with tens of thousands of Allied troops spread out across the air and sea aiming to get a toehold in Normandy for the final assault on Nazi Germany. And while portrayals of D-Day often depict an all-white host of invaders, in fact it also included many African Americans.

Roughly 2,000 African American troops are believed to have hit the shores of Normandy in various capacities on June 6, 1944. Serving in a U.S. military still-segregated by race, they encountered discrimination both in the service and when they came home.

But on Normandy, they faced the same danger as everyone else.

The only African American combat unit that day was the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, whose job was to set up explosive-rigged balloons to deter German planes. Waverly Woodson Jr. was a corporal and a medic with the battalion. Although Woodson did not live to see this week’s 75th anniversary – he died in 2005 – he told The Associated Press in 1994 about how his landing craft hit a mine on the way to Omaha Beach.

“The tide brought us in, and that’s when the 88s hit us,” he said of the German 88mm guns. “They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells.”

Woodson was wounded in the back and groin while on the landing craft but went on to spend 30 hours on the beach tending to other wounded men before eventually collapsing, according to a letter from then-Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Van Hollen, now a U.S. senator, is heading an effort to have Woodson posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on D-Day. But a lack of documentation – in part because of a 1973 fire that destroyed millions of military personnel files – has stymied the effort.

Another member of the unit, William Dabney described what they encountered on D-Day in a 2009 Associated Press interview during the invasion’s 65th anniversary.

“The firing was furious on the beach. I was picking up dead bodies and I was looking at the mines blowing up soldiers. … I didn’t know if I was going to make it or not” said Dabney, then 84, who passed away last year.

Linda Hervieux detailed the exploits of the 320th in her book “Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, at Home and at War.” She said the military resisted efforts to desegregate as it ramped up for World War II. Instead they kept separate units and separate facilities for black and white troops.

“This was a very expensive and inefficient way to run an army. The Army … could have ordered its men to integrate and to treat black soldiers as fully equal partners in this war. The Army declined to do so,” she said. The Army wanted to focus on the war and didn’t want to become a social experiment, Hervieux said, but she notes that when African American soldiers were called on to fight side by side with whites, they did so without problems.

By the end of World War II, more than a million African Americans were in uniform including the famed Tuskegee Airmen and the 761st Tank Battalion. The Double V campaign launched by the Pittsburgh Courier, a prominent African American newspaper, called for a victory in the war as well as a victory at home over segregation, including in the military.

During World War II, it was unheard of for African American officers to lead white soldiers and they faced discrimination even while in the service. Black troops were often put in support units responsible for transporting supplies. But during the Normandy invasion that didn’t mean they were immune from danger.

Ninety-nine-year-old Johnnie Jones Sr., who joined the military in 1943 out of Southern University in Baton Rouge, was a warrant officer in a unit responsible for unloading equipment and supplies onto Normandy. He remembers wading ashore and coming under fire from a German sniper. He grabbed his weapon and returned fire along with the other soldiers. It’s something that still haunts his memories.

“I still see him, I see him every night,” he told the AP recently. In another incident, he remembers a soldier charging a pillbox, a selfless act that likely ended the soldier’s life. “I know he didn’t come back home. He didn’t come back home but he saved me and he saved many others.”

After defending their country in Europe, many African American troops were met with discrimination yet again at home. Jones remembers coming back the U.S. after the war’s end and having to move to the back of a bus as it crossed the Mason-Dixon line separating North from South. He recalls being harassed by police officers after returning to Louisiana.

“I couldn’t I sit with the soldiers I had been on the battlefield with. I had to go to the back of the bus,” said Jones, who went on to become a lawyer and civil rights activist in Baton Rouge. “Those are the things that come back and haunt you.”

 
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A former nurse who liked to put patients into cardiac arrest because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them was convicted Thursday of 85 counts of murder, making him what is believed to be the worst serial killer in modern German history. 

Oldenburg court judge Sebastian Buehrmann sentenced 42-year-old Niels Hoegel to life in prison and noted the “particular seriousness of the crimes” in his verdict.

Hoegel worked at a hospital in the northwestern city of Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005, and the killings took place between 2000 and 2005, dpa reported. Hoegel’s victims were between 34 and 96 years old.

2015 conviction

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders and is currently serving a life sentence. There are no consecutive sentences in the German system, but the court’s ruling on the seriousness of the crimes all but ensures he will remain incarcerated after the standard 15-year term is up.

During his first trial, Hoegel said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Authorities subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming bodies of former patients.

100 counts of murder

In all Hoegel was tried in Oldenburg on 100 counts of murder but the court found him not guilty on 15 counts for lack of evidence. 

During the seven-month trial, Hoegel admitted to 43 of the killings, disputed five and said he couldn’t remember the other 52.

In his closing statement to the court Wednesday, Hoegel expressed shame and remorse, saying he realized how much pain and suffering he had caused with his “terrible deeds.”

“To each and every one of you I sincerely apologize for all that I have done,” he said. 
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Hungarian police say two more bodies have been recovered from the Danube River tour boat crash, raising the death toll to 15, with 13 of the 33 South Koreans on board and the two Hungarian crew members still missing. 

Seven South Korean tourists were rescued after the May 29 collision between the Hableany (Mermaid) sightseeing boat and the Viking Sigyn river cruise ship. 

A huge floating crane may be able to lift the Hableany out of the water in the coming days.

However, the Adam Clark, named after the Scottish engineer who oversaw construction of Budapest’s Chain Bridge completed in 1849, was docked Thursday in north Budapest, as the Danube’s high water level is not allowing it to reach the site of the wreckage, near the Hungarian Parliament building.
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Banking problems, administrative worries, threats of tax reassessments or lawsuits — thousands of French people have problems because U.S. law demands they pay U.S. taxes, even though they have few connections to the United States. They are American citizens who were born in the U.S., but left the country as children. A French parliamentary report says Paris should do more to protect such dual nationals from a tax law they see as unfair.

The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA, forces banks wanting to operate in the U.S. to report assets held by American citizens overseas. France signed onto FATCA in 2013, creating problems for many American expats and dual nationals who have since been rejected by retail banks seeking to avoid hassle and risk.

The European Banking Federation estimates there are about 300,000 accidental Americans in Europe.

By “accidental,” they mean people who have dual citizenship and who are U.S. born but left as children — some only few weeks after their birth — and never established a life in the U.S.

Still, the Internal Revenue Service or IRS says they must declare their income and pay taxes on it.

Fabien Lehagre is president of the Accidental Americans Association (AAA), which has more than 800 members. Lehagre left the U.S. at 18 months and returned once as a tourist 26 years later.

To avoid bureaucratic headaches dealing with the IRS, many banks simply refuse to deal with American customers.

Lehagre complains that when he wants to invest money in stocks or life insurance, or open a bank account online, it is impossible, as he is seen as a U.S. person and banks do not want to take risks. “Our first hurdle is banking,” he said.

FACTA is intended to fight tax evasion. However, the U.S. Congress never voted to help other nations track their citizens’ tax obligations, so foreigners can open bank accounts in the United States without their own country being notified.

French lawmaker Laurent Saint-Martin studied the issue and says France should renegotiate its FATCA tax treaty with the U.S. and consider unilaterally pulling out if it can’t win concessions to protect dual nationals.

He wants a moratorium on the agreement between France and the United States, as long as Europe does not get reciprocity from Washington. It would also be an opportunity to review the full agreement to solve the specific issue of accidental Americans who should not pay U.S. taxes.

Several European delegations have discussed the issue at the U.S. State Department and the IRS, but so far, the Trump administration has not shown any willingness to renegotiate FACTA to end the burden on accidental Americans.

 
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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sat down for talks at the Kremlin in a visit affirming the increasingly close relationship between the two former Cold War communist rivals.

Xi, who arrived in Moscow earlier in the day, will attend a ceremony marking the launch of a Chinese car factory and stop by Moscow’s zoo to hand over two pandas. Xi will also be one of the key speakers at Russia’s major investment conference in St. Petersburg on Friday.

Putin and Xi are meeting in Russia as world leaders gathered on the south coast of England to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Putin, who attended 70th anniversary commemorations in France five years ago, has not been invited. Russia was not involved in D-Day but the Soviet effort was crucial in defeating the Nazis on the Eastern Front.

China and Russia in recent years have aligned their foreign policy positions at the United Nations and in regard to major international crises such as Syria and Iran’s nuclear program.

Putin in televised remarks at the start of the talks at the Kremlin called Xi a “friend” while the Chinese leader said that he hoped the talks will be a success.

 
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Russia has denied it informed U.S. President Donald Trump that it is pulling defense personnel out of Venezuela, contradicting a comment by the U.S. leader.

“I was surprised when I read this. We did not notify anyone. He apparently read an article in The Wall Street Journal,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on June 4 referring to a June 3 tweet by Trump.

Trump in March said Russia “has to get out” of the South American nation after it landed planes carrying supplies and technical advisers to help President Nicolas Maduro amid an uprising.

The United States is seeking the ouster of Maduro, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as thousands of Venezuelan citizens take to the streets to protest his regime.

Trump on June 3 tweeted that Russia had informed the United States “that they have removed most of their people from Venezuela.”

His tweet came a day after The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source close to the Russian Defense Ministry, reported that Moscow had pulled out many defense advisers from the country.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that Russia had not informed the United States of any such withdrawal, adding that Russian specialists continue to work in the South American country.

However, neither Lavrov nor Peskov addressed whether the number of Russian advisers in Venezuela has decreased significantly.

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 2 that Russian state defense contractor Rostec had reduced its staff in Venezuela from about 1,000 several years ago to “just a few dozen.”

Rostec, which trains Venezuelan troops to use Russian weapons, is pulling personnel due to a drop in military contracts “and the acceptance” that Maduro’s regime doesn’t have the money to pay for its services, The Wall Street Journal reported.

However, Rostec said the paper’s description of a massive withdrawal of Russian personnel was “overstated by tenfold.”

The Russian state-owned corporation said its technical advisers come and go all the time as demanded by service contracts and that some advisers had recently left after completing work on airplanes.

The State Department declined to comment on whether it has information that Russia is cutting back its presence in Venezuela. The Pentagon did not immediately reply to a request by RFE/RL for comment.
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Roderick James contributed to this report.

LONDON — President Donald Trump deployed a mix of diplomacy and barbs in his joint news conference with British Prime Minister Teresa May in London Tuesday.

Trump said the U.S. is committed to a “phenomenal trade deal” with Britain as the country prepares to leave the European Union.

“There is tremendous potential in that trade deal, probably two and even three times of what we’re doing right now,” Trump said.

Trump said he saw “no limitations” on future intelligence-sharing, despite disagreements over the threat posed by Chinese tech giant Huawei.

“We have an incredible intelligence relationship, and we will be able to work out any differences,” Trump said.

He also praised May, who is stepping down as Conservative Party leader on Friday, saying she has “done a very good job.”

But Trump described opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has been critical of Trump, as a “negative force,” and said he would not meet with him during his visit. Trump also renewed his criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who wrote in The Observer newspaper that welcoming Trump for a state visit was “un-British.

Chances of trade deal slim

May said she supported a bilateral trade deal. She praised the economic and trade relations between the countries as one that “helps to ensure there are jobs that employ people here in the U.K. and in the United States, that underpins our prosperity, and our future.”

But analyst Jacob Parakilas of Chatham House said the chances of achieving that trade deal anytime soon is slim.

He said with Brexit still uncertain, there was a pretty limited chance of anything substantive emerging, as well as “the inability to determine what a future U.S.-U.K. trade relationship will look like” without the resolution to the question of whether the U.K. will remain in the customs union or the single market with the European Union.

Where are the protests?’

While Trump and May held their joint press conference, protesters flooded the streets a block away.

They had various messages for the U.S. leader, including protesting his policies on the environment and climate change.

They also protested what they see as Trump’s attacks on values they uphold.

“Values like respect for other people, tolerance, nondiscrimination,” said Londoner Christine Fuchs. “Now, our government turns around and hosts someone with full stage honors, who stands against all those values.”

Women groups, some wearing red outfits similar to those in the hit TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” also protested what they view as the administration’s attacks on reproductive rights.

Though they focused on different causes, they were united in their rejection.

“My biggest problem with Trump is just the hate within him, and the fact that he can bring that hatred out in other people,” said Ethan Holden of Bournemouth.

Trump dismissed the protests as “fake news” and said he felt only “tremendous love” from the British people.”And even coming over today, there were thousands of people cheering,” he said. “Where are the protests? I don’t see any protests.”

There appeared to be fewer protesters compared to the more than 100,000 who protested Trump on his visit here last year. Organizers point to the fact that it’s the middle of the work week, and blamed the weather, which drizzled for much of the day.

Support for Johnson, meeting with Farage

Trump, who has publicly backed former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson to replace Prime Minister May, predicted an agreement for Britain to leave the EU “will happen and that it should happen.” He said he thought Brexit was going to happen “because of immigration, more than anything else.”

Further wading into Britain’s divorce from the EU, Trump met with Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage,a strong critic of May, at the U.S. ambassador’s residence.

On Wednesday, Trump will continue his trip with D-Day commemoration ceremonies in both Britain and France, with a stop in Ireland.
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Thousands of protesters marched through central London and along the stately government thoroughfare of Whitehall Tuesday to within shouting distance of where U.S. President Donald Trump and his aides held a working lunch with their British counterparts at No. 10 Downing Street.

The U.S. leader’s state visit to Britain morphed from the pomp and pageantry of the first 24 hours, during which Trump attended a white-tie state banquet in his honor at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Elizabeth, to protest and hard-headed politics on the second day of his three-day visit — one many Britons have opposed.

According to a recent poll by YouGov and Queen Mary University of London, more than half of Londoners said they oppose Trump’s visit, with only 24% approving it.

On Monday, the banquet tables at Buckingham Palace overflowed with flowers, fruit, and wine from the monarch’s own vineyard at Windsor, where Trump first met the queen a year ago. 

A few hours after the state dinner, which included members of the royal family, aristocrats, diplomats, politicians and business leaders, anti-Trump protesters grabbed flat white coffees and made their way on an overcast and drizzly morning to Trafalgar Square for what they dubbed a “carnival of resistance” to Trump’s visit.

The protesters expressed opposition to a host of Trump policies, from his confrontation with Iran and China to his border and immigration policies.

Climate change and Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accord figured prominently among the issues cited by the demonstrators. Many of the manufactured banners were produced by Trotskyite factions, the Socialist Worker’s Party and the Communist League.

Environmental groups, including the Friends of the Earth, made others. But most of the protesters, young and old, appeared nonaligned and came from different walks of life.

Many female protesters said they had decided to join the demonstration because of women’s rights.

Sitting on the steps leading up to Britain’s National Gallery, 20-year-old Londoner, Nikita, told VOA she’d decided to come because, “Trump is a misogynist, is a racist, he denies climate change. We don’t have time anymore. It is getting too late for everyone.”

Ella Johnson, a 24-year-old student, said she was at the protest because as a “gay woman, she needed to stand up to hate.” She added, “We can’t have him here with his views that would strip women, people of color and immigrants of their human dignity. It is a disgrace he is here, and anyone who facilitated will have a debt to cleanse on their soul.”

There were also smaller protests Tuesday in other British cities, including Edinburgh, Manchester, Belfast, Oxford, Birmingham, Glasgow and Exeter.

During Trump’s visit to Britain last July, an estimated 250,000 people protested on the streets of central London. Organizers of Tuesday’s rally said they were expecting numbers much lower this time, likely under 100,000.

But the smaller numbers made up for it with noise.

“Let’s show him what we think of his divisive, hateful policies,” said the Stop Trump Coalition, which organized the protest.

“Trump and his politics aren’t welcome in the U.K.,” announced one of the organizers from the plinth of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. The crowd roared their approval as a samba band beat out a drum rhythm.

Anti-Trump protesters did not have the area to themselves. On Whitehall, as demonstrators marched and chanted toward Downing Street, pro and anti- Trump protesters clashed, including a group of more than a dozen Trump supporters, some wearing “Make America Great Again” baseball caps.

Police intervened and pulled the pro-Trump group into the nearby Lord Moon of the Mall pub for their own safety as cries of “Nazi scum off our streets” rang out.

Earlier, a lone pro-Trump protester and an opponent of the president held an impromptu debate in Trafalgar Square notable for its lack of aggression.

“I came to let Donald Trump know that not everybody hates him in England,” the 34-year-old supporter, who gave his name as John, told VOA. “I thought there would be a lot more protesters here,” he added.

During a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump dismissed reports of the protests.

“We left the prime minister, the queen, the royal family — there were thousands of people on the streets cheering. And then I heard there were protests and I said, ‘Where are the protests? I don’t see any protests.’ I did see a protest today, but very small. So, a lot of it is fake news.”

 
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No more Nutella?! French workers are threatening as much, bringing the world’s biggest Nutella factory to a near-standstill in a showdown over salary negotiations.

Tensions have been mounting at the site in Villers-Ecalles in Normandy, where activists from the Workers’ Force union have been barring trucks from entering or leaving the factory for a week.

The plant produces a staggering 600,000 jars of the chocolate and hazelnut spread every day — a quarter of the world’s production of a product cherished by children and adults alike.

After six days of failed efforts to end the standoff, Nutella owner Ferrero on Monday started threatening fines for workers involved in the blockade, according to a company statement.

But that didn’t deter unions. Workers’ Force says 160 of the factory’s 350 workers are taking part in a walkout to demand 4.5% salary increases, one-time 900-euro bonuses and better working conditions.

“It’s war, anger is mounting,” union activist Fabien Lacabanne said in a statement.

He said the company agreed to a 1.7% raise for the lowest paid workers, and one-time bonuses between zero and 400 euros, which unions say isn’t enough given rising living costs. Unions also complain of deteriorating factory conditions and increasing pressure to be more productive.

Italian-owned Ferrero said it is trying to protect workers who aren’t on strike, and wants to resume dialogue — but not until the workers stop blocking the factory.

The next negotiation meeting is scheduled for June 13.

French workers frequently go on strike during salary negotiations and occasionally resort to more dramatic methods. The last strike to hit the Villers-Ecalles factory was in 2011.

The action comes amid anger among many low-income French workers at pro-business policies by President Emmanuel Macron seen as favoring the rich — and that prompted the yellow vest protest movement.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May is hosting U.S. President Donald Trump for a series of meetings Tuesday in London on his second day of a state visit.

The two leaders are scheduled to go before reporters for a joint news conference after their talks.

Trump and his wife Melania will then have dinner with Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

Monday was a day full of pomp and circumstance with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth greeting President Trump and Melania after they arrived at Buckingham Palace by helicopter. After a welcoming ceremony that included a 41-gun salute, the Trumps had a private lunch with the queen and a tour of the palace art gallery.

​The rest of the day included inspecting the Guard of Honor formed by the Grenadier Guards, a tour of historic Westminster Abbey, tea with Prince Charles at his London home, Clarence House.

But the highlight of the day was the white-tie-and-tiaras state banquet at Buckingham Palace. Besides the queen and her husband Prince Philip, other royals in attendance included Prince Charles and Camilla, and Prince William and his wife, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. 

Also at the dinner were Trump’s four adult children — Donald Trump Jr.; Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner; Eric Trump and his wife, Lara; and Tiffany Trump.

Trump said in his toast that the liberation of millions from tyranny in World War II “forever sealed” the bond between Britain and the United States. 

In her toast, the queen said, “Tonight, we celebrate an alliance that has helped to ensure the safety and prosperity of both our peoples for decades, and which I believe will endure for many years to come.”

​Noticeably absent from the Trumps’ day was Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the American-born wife of Prince Harry who is on maternity leave after giving birth to a son last month. She had been critical of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Trump’s visit comes as Britain is in the midst of political turmoil, as May is scheduled to resign on Friday after failing to complete Britain’s exit from the European Union.

That process will be inherited by her successor, with no clear path to a resolution among sharply divided parties.

Trump has publicly backed former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, and told reporters late Sunday he may meet with Johnson and pro-Brexit politician Nigel Farage while he is in London.

​What is certainly not on his agenda is a meeting with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who wrote in The Observer newspaper that welcoming Trump for a state visit is “un-British.”He cited Trump’s sharing of tweets from a “British far-right racist group,” the president’s rejection of scientific evidence of climate change, and Trump “trying to interfere shamelessly” in the race to replace May.

When asked if he would be open to meeting with Khan, Trump said Sunday, “No, I don’t think much of him.”

Upon landing in London, Trump continued his attack on Khan, calling him a “stone cold loser” who “has been foolishly ‘nasty’ to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom.” 

Trump’s trip will also include D-Day commemoration ceremonies in both Britain and France, and a stop in Ireland.
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Hungarian police say they have found two more victims from last week’s collision between a tour boat and a cruise ship on the Danube River.

Divers found the body of a woman outside the sunken tour boat Mermaid Monday at the site of the disaster in Budapest. The second body was pulled out of the river in a town about 100 kilometers (62 miles) downstream.

Nineteen passengers aboard the Mermaid are still missing, and rescuers say there is almost no chance of finding any more survivors.

Thirty-three South Korean tourists and two Hungarian crew members were onboard the Mermaid as it sailed side-by-side with a Viking cruise ship last Wednesday.

Surveillance video shows the Viking ship striking the Mermaid as both vessels passed under the Margit Bridge across the Danube.  

The Mermaid capsized and sank in just seven seconds, giving passengers and two Hungarian crew members almost no time to get to safety.

Only seven people survived. The two crew members are among the dead.

Hungarian police arrested the Ukrainian captain of the Viking cruise ship, identifying him as Yuriy C. Police say he is suspected of “endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths.”

The captain has denied any wrongdoing.
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More than 40,000 people have been intercepted in the Mediterranean and taken to detention camps and torture houses under a European migration policy that is responsible for crimes against humanity, according to a legal document asking the International Criminal Court to take the case Monday.

The request filed with the ICC alleges that European Union officials are knowingly responsible for migrant deaths on land and at sea, as well as culpable for rapes and torture of migrants committed by members of the Libyan coast guard, which is funded and trained at the expense of European taxpayers.

The filing names no specific EU officials but cites an ongoing ICC investigation into the fate of migrants in Libya.

Officials with the European Union’s executive commission, and the German and Spanish governments defended the EU’s strategy to curb migration and efforts to help migrants in Libya. France dismissed the accusations as “senseless” and lacking “any legal foundations.”

The legal document cites public EU documents, and statements from the French president, the German chancellor and other top officials from the bloc.

“We leave it to the prosecutor, if he dares, if she dares, to go into the structures of power and to investigate at the heart of Brussels, of Paris, of Berlin and Rome and to see by searching in the archives of the meetings of the negotiations who was really behind the scenes trying to push for these policies that triggered the death of more than 14,000 people,” said Juan Branco, a lawyer who co-wrote the report and shared it with The Associated Press. He was referring to the deaths and disappearances at sea, which come on top of the interceptions by the Libyan forces.

The ICC is a court of last resort that handles cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide when other countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute. It is up to the prosecutor, who receives many such requests, to decide whether to investigate and ultimately bring a case.

The EU spokeswoman in charge of migration, Natasha Bertaud, declined to comment directly on the court filing but said the EU’s overall approach to intercepting migrants was directed at saving lives.

“The EU’s track record on saving lives in the Mediterranean speaks for itself, saving lives has been our top priority and we have been working relentlessly to this end,” Bertaud said.

The first crime, according to the document, was the decision to end the Mare Nostrum rescue operation near the end of 2014. In one year, the operation rescued 150,810 migrants in the Mediterranean as hundreds of thousands crossed the sea.

The operation cost more than 9 million euros a month, nearly all paid for by Italy. It was replaced by an operation named Triton, financed by all 28 EU nations at a fraction of the cost. But unlike the earlier operation, Triton ships didn’t patrol directly off the Libyan coast, the origin of most of the flimsy smuggling boats that were taking off for Europe.

Deaths in the Mediterranean then soared. In 2014, around 3,200 migrants died in the sea. The following year, it rose to over 4,000, and in 2016 peaked at over 5,100 deaths and disappearances, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.

Omer Shatz, the other lead lawyer responsible for the document, said internal EU documents showed officials hoped that ending Mare Nostum would create a deterrent effect.

“Deterrent effect – what does it mean? It means sacrifice the lives of some, in this case of many, to change the behavior of others, to discourage others from doing the same thing,” Shatz said.

Bertaud said the EU quickly realized its mistake in ending the Mare Nostrum operation and tripled its rescue capacity in 2015, helping save the lives of 730,000 since that year.

But EU countries leaned heavily on the Libyan coast guard to do so, sending money and boats and a degree of training to units of the loosely organized force linked to various factions of Libya’s militias. For Alpha Kaba, a Guinean detained in slave-like conditions in Libya before ultimately making the crossing in 2016, that decision is a travesty.

Kaba was rescued by a ship operated by humanitarian organizations. Those are all but gone now from the Mediterranean, after Italy, Malta and other countries repeatedly refused to allow them to dock with migrants on board.

And in the past two years migration has dropped considerably to Europe. The total for the first four months of 2019 was around 24,200 for irregular migration, 27% lower than a year ago, according to Frontex, the EU’s border agency.

“Yes, there’s no more migration, but where are all those young people that they picked up? They’re in the prisons. They’re in Libya and in prisons, and they’re being tortured over there. If they aren’t allowed in Europe, then let them go back to their countries quickly and under good conditions,” said Kaba, who has received asylum in France. “There are no more entrances or exits.”

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said Libya’s migrant holding cells “cannot be referred to as torture detention centers.”

“We are trying all means to help Libya provide migrants with the best possible conditions,” Borrell, who is maneuvering to become the EU’s next foreign policy chief, told reporters in Morocco on Monday.

Libya’s role in the migrant crisis and the conditions in the detention centers are already on the radar of the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

The court receives many similar requests every year for formal investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“The more detailed the communication, the more likely the prosecutor will take it seriously,” said Dov Jacobs, a defense lawyer at the ICC who is not connected to the 243-page request.
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Dating app Tinder is now required to provide user data to Russian intelligence agencies, the country’s communications regulator said Monday.

The app was included on a new list of online services operating in Russia that are required to provide user data on demand to Russian authorities, including the FSB security agency.

Russia adopted a flurry of legislation in recent years tightening control over online activity. Among other things, Internet companies are required to store six months’ worth of user data and be ready to hand them over to authorities.

The communications regulator said Monday that Tinder had shared with them information about the company and that it is now on the list of online apps and websites that are expected to cooperate with the FSB.

Russian authorities last year issued an order to ban messaging app Telegram after it refused to provide the user data as required by the Russian law.

Tinder was not immediately available for comment.

 
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British Airways on Sunday resumed service to Pakistan after a more than decade long hiatus. 

BA stopped flying to Pakistan in 2008 after a suicide bombing attack that killed more than 50 people at a Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad. 

The attack was one of many during a period of Islamist militant violence in Pakistan. BA said at the time that it would suspend operation to the South Asian country, declaring: “We will not compromise on the safety of our customers, staff or planes.”

But security situation has since improved and BA dispatched its first direct flight from London Heathrow to Islamabad on Sunday, becoming the only western airline to serve Pakistan.

Until now, Pakistan’s national airline, PIA, was the only carrier to fly directly from Britain. Some Middle Eastern airlines, includingQatar, Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines, also provide service to the country. 

Pakistan’s economy has been weakened by years of political unrest and international isolation over state-sponsored terrorism. The government of Prime Minister Imran Khan is hoping the return ofBritish Airways to the country’s skies will send a positive signal to other international carriers. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump is in Britain for a two-day visit that includes meeting with the royal family, a state dinner and talks with outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth greeted Trump and his wife Melania after they arrived at Buckingham Palace by helicopter Monday.  After a welcoming ceremony that included a 41-gun salute, the Trumps headed inside for lunch with the queen.

Before leaving Washington, Trump said his trip would be “very interesting” and that he thinks the United States and Britain have an opportunity to work out a “very big trade deal” in the near future.

His visit comes as Britain is in the midst of political turmoil. May announced last month she would be resigning after failing to complete Britain’s exit from the European Union.

That process will be inherited by her successor, with no clear path to a resolution among sharply divided parties.

Trump has publicly backed former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, and told reporters late Sunday he may meet with Johnson and pro-Brexit politician Nigel Farage while he is in London.

What is certainly not on his agenda is a meeting with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who wrote in The Observer newspaper that welcoming Trump for a state visit is “un-British.”He cited Trump’s sharing of tweets from a “British far-right racist group,” the president’s rejection of scientific evidence of climate change, and Trump “trying to interfere shamelessly” in the race to replace May.

When asked if he would be open to meeting with Khan, Trump said Sunday, “No, I don’t think much of him.”

Trump’s trip will also include D-Day commemoration ceremonies in both Britain and France, and a stop in Ireland.

 
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Pope Francis apologized to the Roma people on Sunday for the Roman Catholic Church’s “discrimination” against them as he wrapped up a visit to Romania.

Making up around 10 percent of Romania’s 20 million people, many Roma are marginalized and live in poverty and have suffered centuries of discrimination and insults.

“I ask forgiveness — in the name of the Church and of the Lord — and I ask forgiveness of you. For all those times in history when we have discriminated, mistreated or looked askance at you,” the pope said in a speech to the Roma community in the central town of Blaj.

“My heart, however, is heavy. It is weighed down by the many experiences of discrimination, segregation and mistreatment experienced by your communities. History tells us that Christians too, including Catholics, are not strangers to such evil,” he said.

“Indifference breeds prejudices and fosters anger and resentment. How many times do we judge rashly, with words that sting, with attitudes that sow hatred and division!”

Earlier, the pontiff beatified seven Greco-Catholic bishops jailed and tortured during the Communist era.

“The new blessed ones suffered and sacrificed their lives, opposing a system of totalitarian and coercive ideology,” he told some 60,000 worshippers attending mass on a “Field of Liberty” in Blaj.

“These shepherds, martyrs of faith, garnered for and left the Romanian people a precious heritage which we can sum up in two words: freedom and mercy,” added Francis, while praising the “diversity of religious expression” in mainly Orthodox Romania.

Regime officials detained the beatified bishops overnight on October 28, 1948, accusing them of “high treason” after they refused to convert to Orthodoxy.

The Greek-Catholic Church was outlawed under 1948-89 Communist rule.

Buried in secret

The bishops died of maltreatment, some still in jail, others in confinement in an Orthodox monastery. They were then buried in secret — to this day the whereabouts of four of their graves is unknown.

The bars of the cells where they were held were symbolically incorporated into the throne built specially for the papal visit.

The bishops followed the Eastern Rite Catholic Church which emerged from an Orthodox schism at the end of the 17th century when the central region of Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

While retaining Orthodox practices they recognized Roman Catholic papal authority — unacceptable for the Communist regime which took power following World War II. Under a 1948 decree formally abolishing the Eastern Catholic churches, Greco-Catholics were forcibly obliged to return to the Orthodox fold.

Under such stark political repression, most Romanian Catholics — who numbered more than 1.5 million in 1948, abandoned their faith and their community has shrunk to around 200,000 today in a country of 20 million, almost nine in 10 of whom profess Orthodoxy.

The politics which has seeped through Romania’s modern religious history has poisoned inter-faith relations — even if the papal visit has softened feelings to a degree.

“No matter where we go, to the town hall, to the police or to school, doors get closed,” a 72-year-old Roma, who gave his name as Ion, told AFP.

Roma, originating from northern India, suffered around five centuries of slavery before the practice was formally abolished in 1856.

But they remain a mainly poor and marginalized community — even if recent years have seen roads paved and homes getting running water and electricity.

Seeking inclusiveness

Francis’s arrival in Blaj to wind up his visit was part of his attempt at inclusiveness on his three-day visit to one of what remains Europe’s poorest states.

Although Romania has developed apace since obtaining EU membership in 2007 there remain some “urban or rural ghettos where nothing has changed,” according to sociologist Gelu Duminica, who heads the anti-discrimination Impreuna (Together) association.

Duminica and others in Blaj saw it as no coincidence that Francis, often seen as a defender of the rights of the most marginalised, chose the Barbu Lautaru district of Blaj, whose inhabitants are mainly Roma, to launch his appeal for tolerance and social inclusion.

“The pope’s visit is a message for those who are marginalised, disregarded or not accepted by others,” said Mihai Gherghel, an eastern Catholic priest, who supervised the construction of the Blaj church where Francis celebrated Sunday mass.

 
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A court in Baghdad has sentenced two French citizens to death for being members of the extremist group Islamic State (IS), prosecutors said on June 2.

The new sentences raise the number of French citizens sentenced to death over the past two weeks to nine.

Those sentenced are among a group of 12 French citizens who were detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in neighboring Syria and handed over to Iraq in January.

France has said it would do all it can to spare the group from execution in Iraq.

Human Rights Watch has accused Iraqi interrogators of “using a range of torture techniques” while saying that France and other countries should not be “outsourcing” trials of IS suspects to “abusive justice systems.”

 
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A massive cruise ship lost control as it docked in Venice on Sunday, crashing into the wharf and hitting a tourist boat after suffering an engine failure.

Tourists on land could be seen running away as the 13-deck MSC Opera scraped along the dockside, its engine blaring, before knocking into a tourist boat, amateur video footage posted on Twitter showed.

Four people were slightly injured in the accident at San Basilio-Zattere in Venice’s Giudecca Canal, port authorities said.

The four, who were taken to hospital for check-ups, were on board the River Countess tourist boat.

The Opera, which suffered mechanical trouble before in 2011 during a Baltic cruise, can carry more than 2,500 passengers and boasts a theater, ballroom and water park for children.

Ship unable to stop

“The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain,” Davide Calderan, head of a tugboat company involved in accompanying the ship into its berth, told Italian media.

“The engine was blocked, but with its thrust on, because the speed was increasing,” he said.

The two tug boats that had been guiding the ship into the Giudecca tried to slow it, but one of the chains linking them to the giant snapped under the pressure, he added.

The accident reignited a heated row in the Serenissima over the damage caused to the city and its fragile ecosystem by cruise ships that sail exceptionally close to the shore.

While gondoliers in striped T-shirts and woven straw hats row tourists around the narrow canals, the smoking chimneys of mammoth ships loom into sight behind the city’s picturesque bell towers and bridges.

Critics say the waves the ships create are eroding the foundations of the lagoon city, which regularly floods, leaving iconic sites such as Saint Mark’s Square underwater.

“What happened in the port of Venice is confirmation of what we have been saying for some time,” Italy’s environment minister Sergio Costa wrote on Twitter.

“Cruise ships must not sail down the Giudecca. We have been working on moving them for months now… and are nearing a solution,” he said.

‘Risk of carnage’

Venice’s port authority said it was was working to resolve the accident and free up the blocked canal in the north Italian city.

“In addition to protecting the Unesco heritage city, we have to safeguard the environment, and the safety of citizens and tourists,” Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli said.

Nicola Fratoianni, an MP with the Italian Left party, noted Italy’s open-armed attitude to cruise ships contrasted sharply with its hostile approach to charity rescue vessels that help migrants who run into difficulty in the Mediterranean.

“It is truly curious that a country that tries to stop ships that have saved people at sea from entering its ports allows giant steel monsters to risk carnage in Venice,” he said.

MSC Cruises, founded in Italy in 1960, is a global line registered in Switzerland and based in Geneva.

The Opera, built 15 years ago, suffered a power failure in 2011 in the Baltic, forcing some 2,000 people to be disembarked in Stockholm rather than continuing their Southampton to Saint Petersburg voyage.
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The captain of a river cruise ship that collided with a smaller sightseeing vessel was charged Saturday over the accident in Budapest that killed seven South Korean tourists and left 21 missing. 

The Mermaid, carrying mainly South Korean tourists, overturned and sank late Wednesday, seconds after colliding with the Viking Sigyn cruise ship on a busy stretch of the Danube in the heart of Budapest.

Strong currents have hampered the search for those missing — 19 South Koreans and two Hungarians — preventing divers from reaching the submerged boat.

The Sigyn’s Ukrainian captain was charged Saturday, a Budapest court official told AFP, but gave no further details.

The 64-year-old was detained Thursday for questioning for “endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths,” police have said. 

The captain’s attorney, Balazs Toth, said the court had granted bail but prosecutors were appealing, so his client remained detained.

“He is devastated by the number of victims and is asking constantly that condolences are conveyed to their families,” Toth said.

“My client has not changed his statement made as a witness. He insists that he has not made any error,” his other attorney, Gabor Elo, told reporters after the hearing. 

Help sought in search

Near the accident site, a floating crane was erected, as well as a small pier for use by divers. 

But with the Danube swollen after weeks of rain, the strong current has complicated plans to lift the wreck, and the prospects of finding any of the passengers alive were seen as very slim.

Serbia, Romania and Croatia — countries along the Danube, south of Hungary — have been asked to help in the search after South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha insisted in Budapest on Friday that her country would not give up hope of finding survivors.

One of the bodies was found about 11 kilometers (seven miles) downstream of the accident site. 

South Korean relatives of the Mermaid passengers arrived in Budapest Friday, and officials took them to the banks of the Danube.

The Hungarian Magyar Nemzet daily, meanwhile, on Saturday quoted police reports as saying the Sigyn might not have warned the pilot of the smaller ship that he was going to overtake.

According to the newspaper, he also did not alert police about the collision.
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Britain’s Border Force intercepted 74 people Saturday, including minors, on eight vessels trying to cross the English Channel into Britain. French authorities stopped two other boats. 

The interceptions on an exceptionally sunny, warm day will heighten concerns that improving weather will encourage smugglers to try their luck at bringing more migrants to the U.K. from France.  

Authorities said a criminal investigation was underway. The nationalities of the migrants were still being determined. Coast guard officials said the incidents stretched along Britain’s southeast coast, from the port of Dover to Winchelsea Beach near Hastings, 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. 

Home Secretary Sajid Javid vowed that he would work with French border authorities to halt this rise in people trafficking across the Channel. 

“Those who choose to make this dangerous journey across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world are putting their lives in grave danger — and I will continue to do all I can to stop them,” he said in a statement Saturday night. 

Local lawmaker Charlie Elphicke suggested the numbers were unprecedented and demanded action. 

‘Get a grip on this crisis’

This crisis was meant to have been dealt with at Christmas, yet numbers continue to rise,'' he wrote on Twitter.The Home Office needs to get a grip on this crisis.” 

The reports about migrants using small boats to cross the English Channel to Britain are politically explosive, even though Britain has not seen nearly as many migrant sea crossings as have fellow European Union nations Spain, Italy and Greece. So far this year, over 21,300 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, and at least 519 others have died trying, according to the International Organization for Migration. 

In December last year, Javid declared a rise in migrant crossings to be a “major incident.”  He said Saturday that since then, two cutters have returned to U.K. waters from overseas and he has agreed upon a joint action plan to halt human smuggling with his French counterparts. 

Officials have blamed the influx on smuggling gangs. 

It is an established principle that those in need of protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, and since January, more than 30 people who arrived illegally in the U.K. in small boats have been returned to Europe,'' Javid said.We will continue to seek to return anyone who has entered the U.K. illegally.” 

Overall, migration into Europe is down substantially since over 1 million asylum-seekers and migrants came to the continent in 2015, but the issue still resonates politically, including in the elections last week to the European Parliament. 
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Pope Francis braved a rain-soaked, twisting drive through the mountains of Transylvania on Saturday to visit Romania’s most famous shrine, urging Romanian and ethnic Hungarian faithful to work together for their future.

Storms forced Francis to change his travel plans and add in a three-hour car ride through the Carpathian mountains that he had planned to traverse via helicopter. The steady rains doused the estimated 80,000-100,000 people who gathered for the Mass at the Sumuleu Ciuc shrine, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The showers let up as Francis arrived and he made a quick run through the poncho-clad crowds in his popemobile. But the 82-year-old seemed unsteady after the long trip and held onto the arms of aides as he negotiated a mud-slicked path to get to the altar for Mass.

In his homily, Francis praised the multicultural and multilingual tapestry that makes up Romania and urged its people to put aside past divisions for the sake of “journeying together.”

The rights of around 1.2 million ethnic Hungarians who live in Romania have been at the center of political disputes between the two countries for decades. Hungary lost Transylvania in the peace treaties after World War I yet the region remains heavily Hungarian in both culture and language.

Those tensions are often reflected in the uneasy relationship between the predominantly Hungarian Roman Catholic community and the Romanian-speaking Greek-Catholic communities. The two rites make up Romania’s Catholic minority in the overwhelmingly Orthodox country.

“Complicated and sorrow-filled situations from the past must not be forgotten or denied, yet neither must they be an obstacle or an excuse standing in the way of our desire to live together as brothers and sisters,” Francis said.

The pope delivered the homily in Italian, and it was translated into Romanian and Hungarian.

After Mass, with the weather improved, Francis was able to fly by helicopter back to the airport for a flight to another corner of Romania, the university city of Iasi in the northeast. There he had an appointment with young Romanians.

Francis was travelling across Romania to visit its far-flung Catholic communities to make up for the fact that St. John Paul II was only allowed to visit the capital, Bucharest, in 1999 in the first papal visit to a majority Orthodox country.

 
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On a trip to Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is seeking common ground with European allies, despite fundamental differences over the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and doing business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington, as talks between Pompeo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrapped Friday.
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