Світ

Pope Francis presided over solemn Good Friday services amid tight security at Rome’s Colosseum for the Via Crucis procession. Italian police and army soldiers were on high alert, with Holy Week coinciding with a spate of arrests of suspected Islamic extremists around Italy.

Francis presided at a traditional candle-lit Way of the Cross procession around Rome’s ancient Colosseum. Some 20,000 people turned out to take part in the event with the pope on the most somber day in the Christian liturgical calendar, which commemorates the death of Jesus on the cross.

Rome authorities increased security this year with checks carried out as the faithful approached the area. Italian police carried out four raids against suspected supporters of Islamist terrorism, arresting seven people, including one man who was believed to have been planning a truck attack.

The Way of the Cross procession marks 14 events, called stations, beginning with Roman governor Pontius Pilate’s condemning Jesus to death, until his burial in a tomb. This year the meditations at each station were written by Catholic high school and college students in keeping with Francis’ decision to dedicate 2018 to addressing the hopes and concerns of young Catholics.

At the end, he delivered a meditation of his own, denouncing those who seek power, money and conflict. He prayed that the Catholic Church be always an “ark of salvation, a source of certainty and truth.”

Pope Francis also said many should feel “shame because our generations are leaving young people a world that is fractured by divisions and wars, a world devoured by selfishness where young people, children, the sick and the elderly are marginalized.”

The pope praised those in the Church who are trying to arouse “humanity’s sleeping conscience” through their work helping the poor, immigrants, and prison inmates.

Earlier, the pope presided over a solemn Passion of the Lord service in St. Peter’s Basilica which was kept open despite several pieces of plaster having come crashing down from a pillar of the church on Thursday. The damage was swiftly repaired.

Thousands of faithful filled the basilica. Francis lay prostrate in prayer on the marble pavement in front of the altar at the start of the chant-filled evening service. Later, the crucifix was carried in procession from the back of the basilica to the pope who then kissed it. The other concelebrants followed his example.

On Holy Saturday, in the evening, the pope will celebrate the solemn Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, followed by the joyful Easter Sunday Mass marking what Christians observe as Christ’s resurrection.

 
…

The father-in-law of Pippa Middleton, whose sister Kate is married to Britain’s Prince William, has been placed under formal investigation over suspected rape of a minor, a court source told Reuters on Friday.

David Matthews, who is the father of Pippa Middleton’s husband, James Matthews, was arrested Tuesday by the Juvenile Protection Brigade (BPM) and formally put under investigation for suspected rape of a minor under his authority, said the source, confirming a report on Europe 1 radio.

Paris prosecutors arrested Matthews during a visit to France, and later released him and placed him under judicial control, the source said. The source did not say when he was released. French police can hold suspects 24 or 48 hours in such cases.

The source said the alleged rape took place in 1998 or 1999. Europe 1 reported that a complaint was filed in 2017.

Reuters could not immediately reach Matthews nor any spokespeople or lawyers for him.

Being placed under judicial control means that prosecutors have attached certain conditions to his release or imposed certain limits on whom he can meet or where he can go. The source did not say what conditions had been attached in Matthews’ case.

Pippa Middleton came to national attention in Britain as the maid of honor at her sister’s royal wedding to William in 2011. Her own lavish wedding to James Matthews last May was one of the most widely reported social events of the year, attended by William and his brother Harry, grandsons of Queen Elizabeth.
…

Russian ships are skulking around underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths.

Is Moscow interested in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might? Is there a more innocent explanation? Unsurprisingly, Russia isn’t saying.

But whatever Moscow’s intentions, U.S. and Western officials are increasingly troubled by their rival’s interest in the 400 fiber-optic cables that carry most of world’s calls, emails and texts, as well as $10 trillion worth of daily financial transactions.

“We’ve seen activity in the Russian navy, and particularly undersea in their submarine activity, that we haven’t seen since the ’80s,” General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the U.S. European Command, told Congress this month.

Without undersea cables, a bank in Asian countries couldn’t send money to Saudi Arabia to pay for oil. U.S. military leaders would struggle to communicate with troops fighting extremists in Afghanistan and the Middle East. A student in Europe wouldn’t be able to Skype his parents in the United States.

Small passageways

All this information is transmitted along tiny glass fibers encased in undersea cables that, in some cases, are little bigger than a garden hose. All told, there are 620,000 miles of fiber-optic cable running under the sea, enough to loop around Earth nearly 25 times.

Most lines are owned by private telecommunications companies, including giants like Google and Microsoft. Their locations are easily identified on public maps, with swirling lines that look like spaghetti. While cutting one cable might have limited impact, severing several simultaneously or at choke points could cause a major outage.

The Russians “are doing their homework and, in the event of a crisis or conflict with them, they might do rotten things to us,” said Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at nonprofit research group CNA Corp.

It’s not Moscow’s warships and submarines that are making NATO and U.S. officials uneasy. It’s Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, whose specialized surface ships, submarines, underwater drones and minisubs conduct reconnaissance, underwater salvage and other work.

One ship run by the directorate is the Yantar. It’s a modest, 354-foot oceanographic vessel that holds a crew of about 60. It most recently was off South America’s coast helping Argentina search for a lost submarine.

Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s publication, last October said the Yantar has equipment “designed for deep-sea tracking” and “connecting to top-secret communication cables.” The publication said that in September 2015, the Yantar was near Kings Bay, Georgia, home to a U.S. submarine base, “collecting information about the equipment on American submarines, including underwater sensors and the unified [U.S. military] information network.” Rossiya, a Russian state TV network, has said the Yantar not only can connect to top-secret cables but also can cut them and “jam underwater sensors with a special system.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Preparing for sabotage

There is no hard evidence that the ship is engaged in nefarious activity, said Steffan Watkins, an information technology security consultant in Canada tracking the ship. But he wonders what the ship is doing when it’s stopped over critical cables or when its Automatic Identification System tracking transponder isn’t on.

Of the Yantar’s crew, he said: “I don’t think these are the actual guys who are doing any sabotage. I think they’re laying the groundwork for future operations.”

Members of Congress are wondering, too. 

Representative Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat on a House subcommittee on sea power, said of the Russians, “The mere fact that they are clearly tracking the cables and prowling around the cables shows that they are doing something.”

Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, an Armed Services Committee member, said Moscow’s goal appears to be to “disrupt the normal channels of communication and create an environment of misinformation and distrust.”

The Yantar’s movements have previously raised eyebrows.

On October 18, 2016, a Syrian telecom company ordered emergency maintenance to repair a cable in the Mediterranean that provides internet connectivity to several countries, including Syria, Libya and Lebanon. The Yantar arrived in the area the day before the four-day maintenance began. It left two days before the maintenance ended. It’s unknown what work it did while there.

Watkins described another episode on November 5, 2016, when a submarine cable linking Persian Gulf nations experienced outages in Iran. Hours later, the Yantar left Oman and headed to an area about 60 miles west of the Iranian port city of Bushehr, where the cable runs ashore. Connectivity was restored just hours before the Yantar arrived on November 9. The boat stayed stationary over the site for several more days.

Undersea cables have been targets before.

At the beginning of World War I, Britain cut a handful of German underwater communications cables and tapped the rerouted traffic for intelligence. In the Cold War, the U.S. Navy sent American divers deep into the Sea of Okhotsk off the Russian coast to install a device to record Soviet communications, hoping to learn more about the U.S.S.R.’s submarine-launched nuclear capability.

Eavesdropping by spies

More recently, British and American intelligence agencies have eavesdropped on fiber-optic cables, according to documents released by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.

In 2007, Vietnamese authorities confiscated ships carrying miles of fiber-optic cable that thieves salvaged from the sea for profit. The heist disrupted service for several months. And in 2013, Egyptian officials arrested three scuba divers off Alexandria for attempting to cut a cable stretching from France to Singapore. Five years on, questions remain about the attack on a cable responsible for about a third of all internet traffic between Egypt and Europe.

Despite the relatively few publicly known incidents of sabotage, most outages are due to accidents.

Two hundred or so cable-related outages take place each year. Most occur when ship anchors snap cables or commercial fishing equipment snags the lines. Others break during tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

But even accidental cuts can harm U.S. military operations. 

In 2008 in Iraq, unmanned U.S. surveillance flights nearly screeched to a halt one day at Balad Air Base, not because of enemy mortar attacks or dusty winds. An anchor had snagged a cable hundreds of miles away from the base, situated in the “Sunni Triangle” northwest of Baghdad.

The severed cable had linked controllers based in the United States with unmanned aircraft flying intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for coalition forces in the skies over Iraq, said retired Air Force Colonel Dave Lujan of Hampton, Virginia.

“Say you’re operating a remote-controlled car and all of a sudden you can’t control it,” said Lujan, who was deputy commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group at the base when the little-publicized outage lasted for two to three days. “That’s a big impact,” he said, describing how U.S. pilots had to fly the missions instead.
…

French lawyers staged a walkout Friday while Air France staff went on strike over pay, adding to a growing wave of industrial unrest that threatens to slow President Emmanuel Macron’s reform drive.

Air France canceled a quarter of the day’s flights as its pilots, stewards and ground crew press for a 6 percent pay rise.

And courts postponed hearings as hundreds of lawyers, clerks and magistrates stopped work across the country to protest judicial reforms, among a slew of changes by the ambitious 40-year-old president riling various sections of French society.

“The government’s plan at least has the benefit of being coherent — scrimping, cutting, sacrificing everything it can,” legal profession unions said in a joint statement ahead of protests Friday afternoon.

Law unions complain that the court shake-up, which aims to streamline penal and civil proceedings and digitize the court system, will result in courts that are over-centralized and “dehumanized.”

They particularly object to the scrapping of 307 district courts and their judges which they say will result in a judiciary that is “remote from the people.”

In the meantime, staff at state rail operator SNCF will begin three months of rolling strikes, two days out of every five, on Monday evening — just as many travelers are coming back from an Easter weekend away.

The next day, refuse collectors will strike demanding the creation of a national waste service, energy workers will strike urging a new national electricity and gas service, and Air France staff will walk out again.

“The cost of living goes up, but not salaries,” Francois, an Air France employee, told AFP during a demonstration at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, saying a six percent raise represents “barely a baguette a day for a month.”

Various universities across the country have, meanwhile, been disrupted for weeks by protests against Macron’s decision to introduce an element of selection to the public university admissions process.

‘Growth first, raise later’

Macron has so far avoided the mass industrial action suffered by his predecessor Francois Hollande.

But discord has been growing, with an estimated 200,000 taking to the streets last week in protests and walkouts by workers across the public sector angered by his reforms, including plans to cut 120,000 jobs.

Elected last May, the centrist ex-investment banker has pledged to shake up everything from France’s courts to its education system.

At Air France, 32 percent of pilots were set to join Friday’s walkout along with 28 percent of cabin crew and 20 percent of ground staff, according to company estimates.

But while just 20 to 30 percent of long-haul flights were cut at Charles de Gaulle and Orly in Paris, at other airports such as Nice, as many as half of Air France flights were cancelled.

The French state owns 17.6 percent of the carrier as part of the Air France-KLM group, Europe’s second-biggest airline, which has been plagued by strikes and labor disputes in its French operations in recent years.

Eleven trade unions have already staged two Air France strikes on February 22 and March 23 seeking a six percent salary hike, with two more planned on April 3 and April 7.

Unions argue the airline should share the wealth with its staff after strong results last year, but management insists it cannot offer higher salaries without jeopardizing growth in an intensely competitive sector.

“To distribute wealth we have to create it first,” chief executive Franck Terner told Le Parisien newspaper.

Air France is set to bring in a 0.6 percent pay rise from April 1 and another 0.4 percent increase from October 1, along with bonuses and promotions equivalent to a 1.4 percent raise for ground staff — seen by unions as grossly inadequate.
…

The State Department responded swiftly to an announcement by the Kremlin that Russia will retaliate for the expulsions of Russian diplomats from the U.S., Britain and other countries. Moscow announced Thursday it is expelling 60 U.S. diplomats and closing the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters that is not justified and the U.S. reserves the right to respond. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
…

Girls who spend the most time on social media at age 10 may be unhappier in their early teens than peers who use social media less during the tween years, a U.K. study suggests.

Researchers looked at social media use and scores on tests of happiness and other aspects of well-being among boys and girls at age 10 and each year until age 15. Overall, well-being decreased with age for boys and girls, but more so for girls. And high social media use early on predicted sharper increases in unhappiness for girls later.

For boys, social media use at 10 had no association with well-being in the midteens, which suggests that other factors are more important influences on well-being changes in boys, the authors note in BMC Public Health.

A pattern for girls

“Our findings suggest that young girls, those aged 10, who are more interactive with social media have lower levels of well-being by age 15 than their peers who interact with social media less at age 10. We did not find any similar patterns for boys, suggesting that any changes in their well-being may not be due to social media,” said lead author Cara Booker, a researcher at the University of Essex.

Booker’s research group had done a previous study of social media use and well-being in adolescents, but wanted to explore how it changes over time, she said in an email. They had also noticed gender differences and wanted to look more closely at them, she added.

The study team analyzed data on nearly 10,000 teens from a large national survey of U.K. households conducted annually from 2009 to 2015. The researchers focused on how much time young participants spent chatting on social media on a typical school day.

The survey also contained questions about “strengths and difficulties” that assessed emotional and behavioral problems, and researchers generated a happiness score based on responses to other questions about school, family and home life.

Social media use

The researchers found that adolescent girls used social media more than boys, though social media interaction increased with age for both boys and girls.

At age 13, about half of girls were interacting on social media for more than one hour a day, compared to just one-third of boys.

By age 15, girls continued to use social media more than boys, with about 60 percent of girls and just less than half of the boys interacting on social media for one or more hours per day.

Social and emotional difficulties declined with age for boys, but rose for girls.

It’s possible that girls are more sensitive than boys to social comparisons and interactions that impact self-esteem, the authors write. Or that the sedentary time spent on social media impacts health and happiness in other ways.

“Many hours of daily use may not be ideal,” Booker said.

Digitally literacy needed

The study cannot prove whether or how social media interactions affect young people’s well-being. The authors note that compared to girls, boys may spend more time gaming than chatting online, yet gaming has become increasingly social so it’s possible that it also has an effect that they did not examine in this study.

Parents should become more digitally literate as well as teach their children how to positively interact with social media, Booker said. Dealing with filtered posts and mostly positive posts may lead to incorrect conclusions about others’ lives that lead to lower levels of well-being, she noted.

“I don’t want people to come away with the idea that social media is bad, just that increased use at a young age may be detrimental for girls,” she said.

More research needs to be done on why and whether this persists into adulthood, Booker added.
…

A committee of British lawmakers published written evidence on Thursday provided by a whistleblower who says information about 50 million Facebook users ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica said the documents did not support whistleblower Christopher Wylie’s testimony to the committee this week.

Wylie, who formerly worked for Cambridge Analytica (CA), alleges the data was used to help to build profiles on American voters and raise support for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Wylie also alleges that CA was linked to Canadian firm AggregateIQ (AIQ), which he says was involved in the development of the software used to target voters. AggregateIQ, he says, received payment from a pro-Brexit campaign group before the 2016 referendum when Britain voted to quit the European Union.

This was co-ordinated with the lead “Vote Leave” group in a breach of British electoral funding rules, Wylie alleged.  Vote Leave denies any wrongdoing.

Wylie appeared before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the British parliament on Tuesday. The committee said Wylie provided it with documents including a services agreement between AIQ and SCL Elections, an affiliate of Cambridge Analytica, dated September 2014.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the documents made public by the committee.

“None of these documents support the false allegations made in Tuesday’s hearing,” Cambridge Analytica said in a statement, adding that Wylie had left the company in July 2014 and would have no direct knowledge of its work or practices since then.

“It is wrong to suggest that Cambridge Analytica’s earlier relationship with Aggregate IQ implies that we were involved with their work for Vote Leave. Cambridge Analytica did no work in any capacity in the 2016 EU referendum.”

AIQ did not respond to a Reuters request for comment after Tuesday’s committee hearing, but in an earlier statement said it had never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica and had never been part of the firm.

The parliamentary committee’s chairman has said it was “astonishing” that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided not to answer lawmakers’ questions, given the claims that Wylie had made about how data was used.
…

A man shouted death threats from his car window at several groups of French soldiers out for a Thursday morning jog in the French Alps, then tried to run two of them over, a military spokesman said.

Col. Benoit Brulot, a French Army spokesman, told the AP that the driver circled the military barracks in Varces-Allieres-et-Risset, in the southeastern Isere region, shouting at groups of soldiers. He returned later and tried to hit the two soldiers with his car before making a quick getaway.

Brulot said that none of the soldiers, from the 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade, was injured.

Authorities are on high alert as the incident occurred one week after an Islamic extremist shot at police returning from jogging in southern France, before taking hostages in a supermarket in an attack that claimed four lives.

Brulot said several of the soldiers were questioned Thursday morning by gendarmes in nearby Grenoble. The motives for the attempted attack are currently unclear.

Jean-Luc Corbet, mayor of Varces-Allieres-et-Risset, told BFM-TV authorities are currently searching for the vehicle and the driver and an inquiry has been opened in Grenoble.

 
…

The former Soviet republic of Georgia says it will expel a Russia diplomat in solidarity with Britain over the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy.

Thursday’s announcement follows the expulsion of more than 150 Russian diplomats by European Union nations, the United States, NATO and other countries in response to the March 4 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Georgia severed diplomatic ties with Russia following a brief war in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. Russian diplomats have been operating out of the special interests section of the Swiss embassy in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, since 2009.

Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the diplomat has been declared persona non grata and must leave within a week. The ministry condemned the poisoning, calling it a “serious challenge to common security.”
…

The world could see its first city with a population of 100 million by the end of this century. That is the conclusion of new research into the speed of urbanization in many fast-growing countries in Africa and Asia, which suggests even small cities could balloon into huge metropolises in the coming decades.

By the end of the century, the world’s population is forecast to reach up to 14 billion. Eighty percent of those people will be living in cities, according to new research from the Ontario Institute of Technology. 

“We are now seeing the urbanization wave headed through China, it is toward the latter part of its urbanization. And now it is headed for India, and then we will see it culminate in the big cities of sub-Saharan Africa,” co-author and professor Daniel Hoornweg told VOA via Skype.

That could mean the first 100-million population city, and the top candidate is Lagos, Nigeria.

WATCH: Africa Could See World’s First 100 Million City by Century’s End

Africa and cities

Today its population is 20 million, not the largest, as that accolade belongs to Tokyo with about 38 million people, but one of the fastest growing. In two generations, Lagos has grown a hundredfold. By 2100 it is projected to be home to more people than the state of California.

“Lagos, Dar Es Salaam, Kinshasa: These are the cities that are looking at four- to five-fold increases in population. By the end of the century, the lion’s share of large cities, the top 20 if you will, most of those will be in Africa,” Hoornweg said.

Lagos sprawls across 1,000 square kilometers, an urban jungle of skyscrapers, shanty towns and everything in between. Its population grows by 900 people per day.

The poorest residents, often migrant communities, live in slums by the lagoon. Amnesty International has warned of ruthless forced evictions to make way for new developments, which have left more than 30,000 people homeless and 11 dead.

Oladipupo Aiveomiye lives in the Ilaje-Bariga shantytown.

“The threat of being evicted, the threat of being chased away overnight has gripped people to the extent that they cannot even work or operate in this area,” he said.

Young continent

Across Africa the median age is younger than 20 and the fertility rate is 4.4 births per woman. Even small cities are forecast to balloon in size. Niamey in Niger could grow from less than 1 million today to 46 million by the end of the century; Blantyre in Malawi from 1 million to 40 million.

Asia, too, will witness huge urban growth, with Kabul in Afghanistan projected to hit 50 million people.

Hoornweg says despite the associated problems of slums, poor sanitation and pollution, increasing urbanization can be a good thing.

“Cities, by their nature, because of a more compact lifestyle, can provide a quality of life higher than anywhere else with less energy per unit of GDP,” he said. “So, cities actually provide a really important opportunity. We will not get to global sustainability without big cities.”

Many cities in the West are predicted to plateau or decline in size. By the end of the century, only 14 of the biggest 100 are forecast to be in North America or Europe.
…

The Ecuadorean government said Wednesday that it had cut off Julian Assange’s ability to communicate outside its embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has lived for more than five years.

The government said it stopped Assange from communicating with the outside world to prevent him from meddling in other countries’ affairs. 

The move came two days after Assange questioned, on Twitter, Britain’s accusation that Russia was behind the March 4 poisoning of a Russian former double agent in Salisbury, England.

Assange was granted asylum in Ecuador’s embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about allegations of sex crimes, which he has denied committing.

The Swedish investigation was closed almost one year ago, but Assange, who was on bail when he entered the embassy, faces arrest by British authorities for violating his bail terms if he steps outside.

A British judge refused to end legal proceedings against Assange last month for jumping bail. The judge said Assange “wants to impose his terms on the course of justice.” 
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May has praised the “very strong response” by the United States, which ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats after Moscow was blamed for a nerve agent attack against a former Russian spy in Britain.

A Downing street statement says May spoke to President Donald Trump by phone, telling him that Britain welcomes the U.S. response to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury earlier this month.

The White House said “both leaders agreed on the importance of dismantling Russia’s spy networks in the United Kingdom and the United States to curtail Russian clandestine activities and prevent future chemical weapons attacks on either country’s soil.”

More than 20 other nations have joined the U.S. in ordering the expulsions of Russian diplomats. May said she welcomes “the breadth of international action in response to Russia’s reckless and brazen behavior.”

Russia has denied any involvement in the attack.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would respond to the U.S.-led moves within a week. He described the expulsion of his countries’ diplomats from Western countries as “boorish anti-Russian behavior” and said colossal blackmail “is now, unfortunately, the main tool of Washington on the international arena.”

Russia’s Ambassador to Australia Grigory Logvinov added Wednesday that if Western countries continue actions against Russia, then the world would be “deeply in a Cold War situation.”

VOA’s Jeff Seldin and Steve Herman contributed to this report.
…

Israel and Iran, with two of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, appear on a collision course that some experts fear could ignite a regional war that might ultimately drag in the United States and Russia.

The tensions are centered in Israel’s northern neighbor Syria, where both Russia and Iran have been emboldened by their success in shoring up the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The war has occasionally spilled across Israel’s borders, causing alarm in the Jewish state.

“If a Hezbollah missile or mortar shell hits a kindergarten or a school bus — a terror attack that causes major damage in terms of Israeli lives — this would be a tactical incident that entails a strategic price,” predicts Lior Weintraub, a former Israeli diplomat and now a lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

“That would be translated into a significant Israeli retaliation and from there you might see a slippery slope.”

Christopher Kozak, a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, also worries about an incident spinning out of control.

“That’s why I am greatly concerned in the next several months we are going to get, if not a total regional conflagration, then at least a more direct Israel-Iran confrontation on a new third front,” he told VOA.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Lebanese Hezbollah have stationed resources along the eastern Golan Heights and deployed key commanders to the area.

“Jerusalem’s liberation is near,” hardline Iranian cleric Ebrahim Raisi said in January during a tour of the Israel-Lebanon border, where he was flanked by Hezbollah commanders and Iranian officers.

Weintraub says Israel understands there is “only one reason” for Iran to entrench itself Syria, and that is “to build a launching pad for an attack against Israel.”

Some analysts worry that the situation will only get worse if the United States renounces the nuclear non-proliferation deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), between Iran and the international community.

“Beyond allowing Iran to re-initiate a nuclear weapons program, our trashing of the deal would send a signal to Israel that Washington would countenance something as bold as an Israeli military strike on Iran,” Ned Price, a National Security Council spokesman in the Obama administration tells VOA.

“That could well be the spark that sets the region ablaze, with Hezbollah then potentially doing the bidding of Tehran in locales near and far,” says Price, who spent a decade at the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior analyst and then spokesman.

Acknowledging that tension and that “fears have been developing around the worst-case scenario”, Pierre Pahlavi, assistant professor of defense studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, says war is not inevitable.

In February, the Middle East appeared on the edge of a wider war after an Iranian drone was shot down in Israeli airspace and an Israeli fighter jet was hit by anti-aircraft fire from Syria when attacking an Iranian base. Israel retaliated by hitting a dozen more targets in Syria, including four additional purported Iranian military facilities.

Even before those incidents, the International Crisis Group had warned that “a broader war could be only a miscalculation away.”

Pahlavi asserts that “neither Israel nor Iran wants to start a clash that would spiral up.”

In Israel, Weintraub concurs but warns “if the sword would be on Israel’s neck, then Israel will act. And if Israel will act, there’ll be a price for it. But when you fight for your survival, you do what you have to do, and you take what you have to take.”

Last week, Israel openly acknowledged for the first time that it bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 and suggested the air strike should be a reminder to Tehran it will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

“The Iranians are absolutely aware that they have no capacity to confront the Israeli forces conventionally,” says Pahlavi, whose great uncle was the last shah of Iran. “I do believe — but maybe it’s wishful thinking, the Iranians will do whatever they have to in order to keep things under control.”

Russia has an effective coalition with Iran in the Middle East while it is also interested in managing its relationship with Israel. That has allowed Moscow generally to turn a blind eye to Israeli actions against Iran inside Syria.

If Russia has to choose between Jerusalem and Tehran, most analysts see Moscow more closely aligning with Iran.

“Do they go all the way to shooting down an Israeli jet? I don’t know if they’d go that far,” says Kozak.

Israelis express confidence they would not need American forces to help fight Iran, but they also do not expect the Trump administration to try to restrain them.

Weintraub notes that it is “very visible to all of the Middle East that the United States stands behind Israel. It means a lot, in terms of national security, for the lives of Israelis. … But I’m not talking about moving one [additional] American soldier onto the soil of the Middle East.”

The United States military intends to keep forces in Syria, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in January, not only for mopping up Islamic State and al-Qaida fighters, but also as a signal to the forces controlled by Damascus and Tehran.

However, analysts say, Washington has effectively outsourced to Moscow the job of enforcing several so-called de-escalation zones in Syria, giving it the upper hand at a time of rising tension between the two countries.

Should any of its forces be hit by U.S. strikes, such as those conducted to punish Syria for chemical attacks, Russia’s military has issued an unprecedented blunt threat.

“If lives of the Russian officers are threatened, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will retaliate against missile and launch systems,” said Army General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, earlier in March.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone last week. Trump told reporters they discussed the Syrian civil war — which is the world’s deadliest conflict in recent decades — and that the two leaders are looking to meet soon.

Arranging such a summit may prove difficult as the climate of U.S.-Russian relations plunges to its lowest temperature since the Cold War.

Moscow on Monday vowed retaliation after the United States — joined by numerous allies — expelled dozens of its diplomats it considers spies, in response to a nerve gas attack in Britain that is blamed by the West on Russia.

 
…

Europe’s bailout fund on Tuesday approved a 6.7 billion-euro ($8.32 billion) loan installment to Greece as part of its third international rescue program, with payment of the first 5.7 billion euros expected this week.

The European Stability Mechanism said the approval came after the Greek government completed a series of required reforms. The funds will be used to service public debt and clear domestic arrears.

“Today’s decision … acknowledges the hard work by the Greek government and Greek people in completing an extensive set of reforms,” said ESM head Klaus Regling. The reforms were in tax policy, privatizations and the resolution of nonperforming loans, among others.

The ESM said the initial 5.7 billion euros were to be disbursed Wednesday. The remaining 1 billion euros, to be used for clearing arrears, may be disbursed after May 1 if the country “makes progress in reducing its stock of arrears.”

Greece has depended on billions of euros from international rescue loans since 2010, and its third bailout is due to end this summer. In exchange for the money, successive governments have had to implement often painful economic and structural reforms, including tax increases and severe cuts to pensions and public spending.

Regling said he was “confident that Greece is on track to successfully exit the ESM program in August 2018, provided that the remaining reforms are implemented by the Greek government.”

Greece’s financial crisis has wiped out a quarter of the economy and led to persistently high unemployment, which continues to hover above 20 percent. The frequently unpopular reforms have also led to street protests.
…

Elias, the new language teacher at a Finnish primary school, has endless patience for repetition, never makes a pupil feel embarrassed for asking a question, and can even do the “Gangnam Style” dance.

Elias is also a robot.

The language-teaching machine comprises a humanoid robot and mobile application, one of four robots in a pilot program at primary schools in the southern city of Tampere.

The robot is able to understand and speak 23 languages and is equipped with software that allows it to understand students’ requirements and helps it to encourage learning. In this trial, however, it communicates in English, Finnish and German only.

The robot recognizes the pupil’s skill levels and adjusts its questions accordingly. It also gives feedback to teachers about a student’s possible problems.

Some of the human teachers who have worked with the technology see it as a new way to engage children in learning.

“I think in the new curriculum, the main idea is to get the kids involved and get them motivated and make them active. I see Elias as one of the tools to get different kinds of practice and different kinds of activities into the classroom,” language teacher Riika Kolunsarka told Reuters.

“In that sense, I think robots and coding the robots and working with them is definitely something that is according to the new curriculum and something that we teachers need to be open-minded about.”

Elias the language robot, which stands around a foot tall, is based on SoftBank’s NAO humanoid interactive companion robot, with software developed by Utelias, a developer of educational software for social robots.

The mathematics robot — dubbed OVObot —is a small, blue machine around 25 cm (10 inches) high and resembles an owl. It was developed by Finnish AI Robots.

The purpose of the pilot project is to see if these robots can improve the quality of teaching, with one of the Elias robots and three of the OVObots deployed in schools. The OVObots will be tested for one year, while the school has bought the Elias robot, so its use can continue longer.

Using robots in classrooms is not new — teaching robots have been used in the Middle East, Asia and the United States in recent years — but modern technologies such as cloud services and 3-D printing are allowing smaller startup companies to enter the sector.

“Well, it is fun, interesting and exciting and I’m a bit shocked,” pupil Abisha Jinia told Reuters, giving her verdict on Elias the language robot.

Despite their skills in language and mathematics however, the robots’ inability to maintain discipline amongst a class of primary school children means that, for the time being at least, the human teachers’ jobs are safe.
…

Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia heightened a day after a senior Serb politician was arrested and expelled in northern Kosovo, with Russia wading into the dispute and the European Union trying to avert further friction Tuesday.

Kosovo Serbs set up a roadblock in the divided town of Mitrovica to monitor access into Serb-dominated territory, and Serb politicians walked away from Kosovo’s government and threatened to form their own local administrations throughout Kosovo where minority Serbs live.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini made an urgent trip to Belgrade for talks with Serbia’s president in a bid to prevent a full-blown crisis from erupting. President Aleksandar Vucic’s office said in a statement that he and Mogherini agreed to find “new ways” to solve problems between Serbia and Kosovo peacefully.

Mogherini didn’t immediately comment, but the statement quoted her as saying “what happened yesterday must not be repeated.”

“The European Union expects peace to be preserved with wisdom and restraint,” Mogherini said according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strongly-worded statement, accusing the EU and the U.S. of wanting “to crudely suppress” attempts by Kosovo Serbs to “safeguard their legitimate interests.”

“It is nakedly clear that the Kosovars [Kosovo Albanians] follow the advice of their U.S. and European patrons, who trample international law and act on the basis of arbitrariness,” said the statement carried by Tass news agency.

While Russia supports Serbia’s claims over its former province, the U.S. and most Western states have recognized Kosovo’s independence a decade ago. Russia has been trying to expand its influence in the Balkans mainly through its traditional Slavic ally Serbia.

Djuric detained

The developments came a day after Marko Djuric, the head of the Serbian government office for Kosovo, was briefly detained in the divided town of Mitrovica because he entered the country without Kosovo’s official approval. Kosovo police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse Serb protesters in Mitrovica on Monday.

Djuric said he was beaten while in detention and that his arrest was aimed at humiliating Serbs in Kosovo and as a rehearsal for a possible attempt by Kosovo police to take over northern Kosovo.

“By dragging me on the ground like a dog, pulling me by my tie, they wanted to humiliate me, thinking they can humiliate the Serbian people,” Djuric told a news conference Tuesday.

But Kosovo President Hashim Thaci denounced the incident as a provocation by Serbia.

“Monday’s events are contrary to the commitment of dialogue and building sustainable peace in Kosovo,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

‘A forced move’

Politicians representing Kosovo’s Serb minority met with Serbia’s president in Belgrade, saying they would no longer support Kosovo’s government. This could trigger a government crisis if the Serb ministers aren’t quickly replaced by Kosovo Albanians.

Goran Rakic, who heads the Serbian List in Kosovo’s parliament, said that Serbs would on their own form an association of Serb-dominated municipalities in Kosovo, which was envisaged in a European Union-mediated deal in 2013 but was never carried out by Kosovo authorities.

“This is not a one-sided move. This is a forced move,” Rakic said. “We waited for five years for them to give us what is ours. We will form only what they signed up to, what was guaranteed five years ago.”

The move could further fuel friction between Serbia and Kosovo, which declared independence against Belgrade’s wishes in 2008. In 1999, NATO intervened to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.

On Tuesday, Kosovo Serbs blocked the main road leading from northern Kosovo to the capital, Pristina, by parking a bulldozer and a flatbed truck across it.

Djuric, whose hands were bandaged, appeared at the news conference with Kosovo Serb officials after talks with Vucic.

He said that Kosovo police officers “took selfies with me and pulled me down to my knees, with a gun pushed against my body.”

He accused unidentified Western countries of directly or indirectly supporting Kosovo’s actions.

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said in Pristina on Tuesday that “yesterday’s actions weren’t directed against Serb citizens in Kosovo, but against those who broke the law.”

“It is not good to make limitless testing of anyone’s decision,” Haradinaj said. “It would be good to return to the negotiating table and discuss the issues together.”
…

Spain has been plunged back into political turmoil after violent protests over the weekend in the wake of the arrest of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont. 

The 55-year-old former leader was detained on the German-Danish border Sunday under a European arrest warrant issued by Spain, as he attempted to drive back to his adopted home in Belgium. He appeared before a court in the German town of Neumuenster on Monday for a preliminary hearing ahead of a decision on his extradition. 

Puigdemont declared independence after the semi-autonomous region of Catalonia voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum last year, though turnout was below 50 percent. 

Madrid called the vote illegal, and the Spanish government sacked the Catalan administration and imposed direct rule. Puigdemont fled to Brussels, where he has been living since being charged with rebellion.

Puigdemont’s detention triggered violent demonstrations in several Catalan cities over the weekend. At least 50 people were injured, including several police officers.

“I think it’s time for a real revolution. We need to bring this country to a complete halt,” said one pro-independence supporter who did not want to be named.

Pro-independence lawmakers and parliament workers staged a strike Monday in protest.

Paul Bekaert, Puigdemont’s lawyer in Brussels, criticized Madrid’s actions.

“The elected people are put in jail — that is [a] dictatorship. And they abuse the European warrant for political purpose. And it’s a scandal that Europe doesn’t react against the situation,” Bekaert said Monday.

German judges will have to decide whether to extradite Puigdemont — a potentially complex process, said German legal analyst Nikolaos Gazeas.

“The responsible court will have to examine whether the events that occurred in Spain, in Catalonia, the things that Mr. Puigdemont is being accused of, are punishable in Germany and would be considered criminal under German law.”

Thirteen former Catalan independence leaders have been charged with rebellion by Madrid. Five — including Puigdemont — fled overseas in the wake of the government crackdown in October and are subject to international arrest warrants. But criminal law differs across Europe, where the principle of mutual recognition is key, said Gazeas.

“If the German court rules that rebellion is not an extraditionable offense, then that would mean — if the German government agrees to this — that Puigdemont could not be charged with rebellion in Spain. But only with the offenses he was extradited for. And that would probably be the offense of embezzlement — an offense with a much lower range of sentencing, and which is not in the prime focus of Spain.”

Germany has 60 days to make a decision, but that can be extended by another 30 days, if necessary. Analysts say a decision is likely to take several days, or even weeks. 

Despite the protests in Catalonia, analysts say it’s uncertain whether his arrest will spark a revived bid to break away from Spain, as the independence movement itself is divided.
…

The Trump administration’s decision to shutter the Russian consulate in Seattle displeased many Russian immigrants Monday, some of whom rushed to its offices in hopes of securing passports, visas and other important documents.

One woman, who identified herself as a dual U.S.-Russian citizen from Boise, Idaho, said she spent $1,000 traveling to Seattle to renew a passport so that she could visit her brother in Russia – only to be turned away. Another, Luda Rieve, of San Diego, told The Seattle Times she too was turned away after taking the day off work and flying from California to renew her passport.

Many procedures handled by the consulate require in-person appearances, and because the administration also ordered the San Francisco consulate closed last September, the only facilities remaining are in New York, Houston and Washington, D.C.

“My sister is at the consulate right now trying to get a travel passport,” David Mordekhov said, a Seattle lawyer and Moscow native who moved to the U.S. 20 years ago. “Any travel paperwork that has to do with trips to Russia, visa applications, powers of attorney and any other documents are going to be much harder to procure.”

The closure of the Seattle consulate, effective April 2, came as the United States and more than a dozen European nations kicked out Russian diplomats as punishment for Moscow’s alleged poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain. The Seattle consulate was responsible for handling requests from people in Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The administration cited the consulate’s proximity to a submarine base, Naval Base Kitsap, as well as Boeing’s operations, but University of Washington international relations professor Don Hellmann suggested that rationale “might be a little simplistic.”

“The real thrust of intelligence these days is digital,” he said. “It’s intellectual property. We live in a hacked world. Microsoft is probably as much a target as the naval base or Boeing.”

The Seattle area is home to about 33,000 Russians, a number of whom work in the engineering or tech industries. Among them is Sergey Bobkov, an analyst for the travel website Expedia, who said Russians and Russian-Americans would to have to travel farther and go through more hoops to visit friends and family there.

“It’s been frustrating to no end, to say the least,” Bobkov said, a 34-year-old native of St. Petersburg, Russia, who holds dual citizenship. “I’m trying to get a visa for my wife to go to Russia with me in August. We will have to either fly to New York City or Washington, D.C. and handle those things in person, or we’ll have to pay someone under the table to do express services.”

He added, “It’s hard on all of us who have nothing to do with politics.”

Not everyone who showed up Monday came away empty-handed. Alex Bendetov said he was able to obtain a passport for his baby after starting the process some time ago.

“My wife acted quickly. She said, ‘We gotta go and try to pick up the passport,”’ he said. “We have grandparents living back home and it’s important to go back and visit with them.”

Last summer, the Trump administration ordered the San Francisco consulate closed in a diplomatic tit-for-tat, after Congress passed sanctions against Russia for election interference and the Kremlin retaliated by ordering the U.S. to cut its diplomatic staff there. A day later, black smoke poured from a chimney as consular officials burned undisclosed items in a fireplace, prompting a response from firefighters.

There were no immediate reports of smoke Monday at the consulate’s offices on the 25th floor of a downtown Seattle skyscraper or at the consular residence, a stately red-brick building surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, cedar trees and rhododendrons.
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday voiced hope that a difficult period in relations between Turkey and the European Union is now in the past.

Erdogan spoke after talks with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Varna.

“I hope that we have left a tough period in the relations between Turkey and Europe behind us,” Erdogan said and voiced hope that “a first step was taken here toward restoring trust with Europe.”

He also said that EU membership was a “strategic goal.”

Tusk said that the summit’s purpose was to “continue the dialogue in really difficult circumstances.”

“Our meeting today demonstrated that while our relationship is going through difficult times, in areas where we do cooperate, we cooperate well,” he said.

Tusk acknowledged that no concrete compromise or solution had been achieved at the summit, but expressed hope that such would be possible in the future.

“Only progress on these issues will allow us to improve the EU-Turkey relations, including the accession process,” he added.

“We reconfirm our readiness to keep up the dialogue and conversation and work together to overcome current difficulties with a view to unleashing the potential of our partnership,” Tusk said.

On migration and support for refugees, Tusk said that the EU and Turkey remain very close partners.

“I would like to express our appreciation for the impressive work Turkey has been doing, and to sincerely thank Turkey and the Turkish people for hosting more than 3 million Syrian refugees these past years,” he said.

“The EU has lent substantial support to improve the livelihood of these refugees, and this evening we reaffirmed the European Union’s unwavering commitment to continue this support,” Tusk said.

He also said that while the EU understands Turkey’s need to deal effectively with its security, it is concerned that some of the methods used, undermine fundamental freedoms and the rule of law in Turkey.

“It would be a mistake for a Europe that claims to be a global power to keep Turkey outside of expansion policies,” Erdogan said.

Borissov said that “I think that before the end of our EU presidency (the end of June) another EU-Turkey summit will be held.”

In response to European criticism of its cross-border operation to drive out Syrian Kurdish militia from the northwestern Syrian border enclave of Afrin, Erdogan said Turkey expected European backing. He added that Turkey intended to continue with its operations as long as necessary.

“Our operations against terrorism do not just contribute to our and the Syrians’ security, but to Europe’s security as well,” Erdogan said. “On sensitive issues such as the struggle against terrorism, we don’t expect unnecessary criticism but strong support.”

On Cyprus, Erdogan reiterated the Turkish Cypriot community’s rights to Cyprus’ resources and said the EU had “nothing to contribute” to the dispute as long as it does not maintain a “fair” approach.

The summit was held amid an array of issues that have strained ties, including a dispute between Turkey and EU member Cyprus over energy exploration in the Mediterranean.

Turkish warships have prevented a drillship from carrying out exploratory drilling on behalf of Italian company Eni southeast of Cyprus, in a move that the EU criticized.

Turkey objects to “unilateral” gas searches by ethnically divided Cyprus’ Greek Cypriot-run government without the direct involvement of breakaway Turkish Cypriots. The Cyprus government says a gas search is its sovereign right and will benefit all citizens.

Erdogan pressed his European leaders to grant Turkish citizens visa liberalization to allow them to travel to certain European countries without visa restrictions.

“We told the EU side, that it needs to complete its work on this issue… This should not be turned into a political issue, it should not become an issue that shakes the trust of our people,” he said.
…

Britain and Russia have been waging a fast and furious information war since former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found poisoned March 4 in the provincial English town of Salisbury. 

Not a day has gone by without at least one fierce exchange between British and Russian officials — and both governments have turned to social media, from Twitter to Facebook, to make accusations and counter-claims in their efforts to convince a global audience of guilt or innocence. 

And the barbs flying have been getting more personal. The British narrative has been more consistent, demanding an explanation from Moscow for why a Soviet-developed nerve agent, Novichok, was used to poison the Skripals and arguing the only plausible one is that the attempted assassination was sanctioned by the Russian government, a view endorsed by European Union leaders last week and by the U.S. government. 

Russian officials have offered more than 20 different explanations about who might have been behind the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals or why Russia is innocent of the charge of being behind the assassination attempt. Western officials charge this changing of stories is designed to muddy the waters and sow doubt.

Russian explanations have ranged from claims the British might have done it themselves to accusations that the whole incident was made up. Kremlin officials have insinuated also that Sweden, Slovakia or the Czech Republic may be to blame, earning sharp rebukes from the governments of all three European countries. The Russian finger has pointed at Uzbekistan and Ukraine, too.

“The authorities of UK are not interested in finding the truth about the Skripal case, they have other motives,” lamented the Russian Mission to the United Nations on Twitter last week. “They are using propaganda war tools to influence an uninformed and impressionable public. There are no facts, only allegations about the ‘Russian trace,’” the mission added. 

On Saturday, the Russian emphasis returned once again to implying that Britain itself was behind the assassination bid, with officials noting that Porton Down, the British military research facility, is only about 10 miles from where the Skripals were discovered. The shifting Russian narratives give Moscow some advantages in the information war, say analysts.

“Russia feels free to say whatever it wants, it doesn’t feel need to tell truth, be consistent, or stick to any norms or rules,” says a communications strategist, who has worked for the British government. “These are handicaps in a battle like this,” he adds. Britain doesn’t have the same centralized, aggressive messaging machinery the Kremlin has, he notes.

Social media battle

Moscow has also launched an extensive social media-based disinformation campaign to buttress it claims of innocence as well as to press its accusations that London is in the grip of Russophobia, say Western analysts. 

“Twitter has become a battleground,” says Ben Nimmo, an analyst with the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, a New York-based think tank. Supporters and defenders of the Russian government have clashed over who was to blame, and which side to believe; politicians and diplomats have joined in on both sides with much of the invective ‘organic” and driven by angry users and officials, he says.

But Russia’s so-called troll factories have also been at work using fake and automated social media accounts able to spread rapidly memes and messages.

Atlantic Council researchers have been plotting the activity of accounts that have been used in other Kremlin disinformation campaigns — notably during the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine. One tactic they have spotted is the large-scale amplification by Russia’s troll accounts of doubts or criticism posted by genuine British critics of the British government or conspiracy theorists in a bid to show that Britons did not believe Russian leader Vladimir Putin was behind the poisoning.

British officials estimate at least 2,800 robotic troll accounts have posted messages or re-tweets about the attempted assassination of the Skripals reaching at least 7.5 million people in Britain. Facebook also has witnessed a large volume of postings of English-language content produced by Russian state-owned media. 

Russia’s Twitter campaign “shows the power which anonymous trolls with demonstrably falsified profiles continue to wield online,” says Nimmo.

British officials have sought to expose the methodology behind what they say is Russia’s online disinformation campaign, posting on social media sites last week a video mocking the shifting narratives their Russian rivals have offered for what happened to the Skripals.

Not that Britain’s information approach is receiving unblemished praise. On Saturday, a former British envoy to Moscow, Tony Brenton, said while he supported the actions taken by the British government over the Skripal poisoning, he worried the language use, especially by Britain foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who has compared Putin to Adolf Hitler, was “unnecessarily virulent.” 

He told a British newspaper: “Obviously we have to react robustly and firmly to deal with the Skripal outrage, but at some point we are going to have to get back to doing business with Russia. We should certainly be taking action that minimizes the recurrence of [a similar] attack, but we should not be burning our bridges so much that we cannot re-establish lines of communication.”

There is also criticism of Johnson in the Russian capital from British expatriots who say his comparisons of Russia now with Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 1940s is deeply offensive, noting that the Great Patriotic War, as Russians describe the Second World War, is something people from across the spectrum here celebrate.
…

Turkey has declared complete control of the northern Syrian area of Afrin after a two-month-long offensive to oust a Kurdish militia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday that the next target is the nearby town of Tal Rifaat. Erdogan has vowed to remove Kurds from power in all areas of Syria and Iraq where they took control after defeating Islamic State militants. As VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

With the fire alarms silent and staff reportedly nowhere to be seen, a fire at a shopping mall packed with children and their parents on the first weekend of the school recess killed 64 people in eastern Russia.

The fire at the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo, a city in Siberia, about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, was extinguished by Monday morning after burning through the night. Firefighters were still recovering bodies as parts of the buildings were still smoldering. Some of the dead were found inside a cinema.

Sixty-four deaths were confirmed after the firefighters finished combing through the four floors of the mall, Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov told a televised briefing. Six of the bodies have not yet been recovered. Puchkov would not immediately say how many of the victims were children. 

Ten people have been hospitalized. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova, who visited the Keremovo hospital where the victims were receiving treatment, said on Russian state television that the patient in the gravest condition is an 11-year-old boy who jumped out of a window from the fourth floor. The boy’s parents and younger brother died in the fire, Skvortsova said.

The Investigative Committee said it has detained four people for questioning, including one of the mall’s tenants, but would not immediately give the cause of the fire, which started on the top floor on Sunday evening. The investigators have launched a probe into possible negligence and violations of the fire safety rules.

Witness testimony indicated that the fire alarm did not go off and that staff did not arrange for the evacuation at the shopping mall, which was was converted from a former confectionery factory in 2013.

Winter Cherry was one of Kemerovo’s most popular entertainment centers for children, with its own indoor skating rink, petting zoo and trampolines. Kemerovo residents said the mall was packed with children and their parents.

The Ekho Mosvky radio station on Monday quoted witnesses who said the fire alarm did not go off and that the mall’s staff did not organize the evacuation.

Anna Zarechneva who was on the top floor where the fire started, watching a movie with her husband and son, said they only found out about the fire when a man ran into the theater shouting.

“We didn’t hear the fire alarm, they even didn’t turn on the light during the show,” she said. “That movie could have been the last for us, I’ve only just realized that.”

Zarechneva said her husband stayed upstairs trying to help arrange the evacuation because the mall’s security and staff were nowhere to be seen.
…

Catalonia’s ousted president Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Germany Sunday while crossing the border from Denmark, German police said.

Puigdemont’s lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, confirmed the arrest on Twitter, adding that Puigdemont was traveling to Belgium, where he initially fled after an arrest warrant was issued against him for his role in an independence referendum in October.

A news report (on AFP) says Puigdemont will appear before a judge in Germany on Monday as part of a process of determining if he is to be returned to Spain. Puidgmont’s detention sparked some demonstrations in Spain, according to the Associated Press.

Puigdemont “was heading to Belgium to present himself, as always, at the disposal of Belgian courts,” Alonso-Cuevillas wrote.

The arrest follows a Spanish Supreme Court decision Friday to charge 13 Catalan separatist leaders with rebellion and other crimes for their attempt to declare independence from Spain last year.

German police arrested Puigdemont in conjunction with an international arrest warrant issued by Spain. The ousted Catalan leader could face up to 25 years in Spanish prison.

Last week, the latest regional presidential candidate, Jordi Turull, was placed in custody over his role in the attempted breakaway from Spain, marking the third time Catalonia’s parliament has been unable to nominate a new president.

One of Puigdemont’s associates, former Catalonia education chief, Clara Ponsati may also face arrest after fleeing from Spain to Scotland.  News reports say her attorney has been working out arrangements for Ponsati to surrender to police.  After leaving Spain, she resumed teaching at a university in Scotland.

Catalonia has been in political limbo since December, when Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called a special election in an effort to derail an independence movement in the region. The plan backfired when parties favoring a split with Spain won the election.

Madrid invoked special powers to take over the regional government after the Catalan administration declared independence in October.

 
…

Survivors and families of victims of Friday’s terror attack in France attended a special mass to honor the four killed and three wounded, including an officer who swapped himself with a hostage in a supermarket in the southwestern town of Trebes.

The Bishop of Carcassonne and Narbonne Alain Planet celebrated mass, during which he praised the “extraordinary devotion” of Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame.

“I am here to share in people’s mourning, but also to warm myself to their profound solidarity. This event was also an opportunity to see an extraordinary act, extraordinary devotion by [Lieutenant] Colonel Arnaud Beltrame,” he said. “The whole of France has been touched by this, we were too, especially the Christian community, as he was one of ours. And at the start of this holy week, when we look at Christ take our place to save us from death, well his act takes on a whole new meaning and I’m sure he was aware of that when he did what he did.”

Planet said Friday’s events offered an opportunity to reflect on the suffering felt by countless people around the world.

After French President Emmanuel Macron said evidence suggested the gunman’s actions were considered terrorism, the Islamic State militant group’s propaganda arm claimed responsibility.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said counterterrorism authorities have assumed control of the investigation.

French authorities say two people have been arrested in connection with the shootings, including a woman who is reported to have been close to the assailant.

Islamic State extremist attacks have killed more than 200 people since 2015.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump denounced Friday’s attack in France in a message on Twitter Saturday.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the horrible attack in France yesterday, and we grieve the nation’s loss,” the president wrote, adding “We also condemn the violent actions of the attacker and anyone who would provide him support. We are with you @EmmanuelMacron!”

.
…

Pope Francis marked Palm Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square urging young people not to let themselves be manipulated. A large crowd turned out at the Vatican to listen to the pope’s words and receive his blessing on the first of Holy Week services leading up to Easter.

Pope Francis and cardinals dressed in red robes marked Palm Sunday with a long and solemn ceremony in Saint Peter’s Square attended by a large crowd, which included many young people who turned out to celebrate the Catholic Church’s World Day of Youth.

Carrying a woven palm branch, Pope Francis first led a procession in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica to commemorate the day Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem and was hailed as a savior, before his crucifixion five days later.

Palm fronds and olive branches surrounded the altar. In his homily, Pope Francis told young people that the temptation to silence them has always existed.

The pope said: “There are many ways to silence young people and make them invisible. Many ways to anesthetize them, to make them keep quiet, ask nothing, question nothing. There are many ways to sedate them, to keep them from getting involved, to make their dreams flat and dreary, petty and plaintive.”

Pope Francis urged young people to keep shouting and not allow the older generations to silence their voices. He urged youth to be like the people who welcomed Jesus with palms rather than those who shouted for his crucifixion only days later.

Palm Sunday is the start of one of the busiest weeks for the pope in the Christian calendar. On Holy Thursday he is due to preside at two services, including one in which he will wash the feet of 12 inmates at a Rome prison to commemorate Jesus Christ’s gesture of humility towards his apostles the night before he died.

On Good Friday, he is due to lead a solemn Way of the Cross procession at Rome’s ancient Colosseum. Then, on Saturday night he is scheduled to lead an Easter vigil service before delivering his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” message and blessing on Easter Sunday.

 
…

About 1,000 people have protested again in Volokolamsk, some 100 kilometers west of Moscow, demanding the closure of a landfill that has been leaking toxic gas that harmed dozens of children this week.

The protesters gathered outside the local administration headquarters, many of them wearing pink ribbons as homage to a local schoolgirl who shamed Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov with a defiant gesture during a previous protest.

Saturday’s protest came despite the fact that Vorobyov the previous day fired the district chief, after dozens of local children were hospitalized Wednesday due to apparently breathing gas that leaked from the Yadrovo landfill near Volokolamsk.

Vorobyov’s office said that he replaced Yevgeny Gavrilov with another regional official.

Some 150 schoolchildren sought medical assistance Wednesday after they felt extremely sick following a suspected leak of noxious gas from Yadrovo.

The same day, angry residents scuffled with government officials in Volokolamsk, demanding explanations and the closure of the dump. Vorobyov was pelted with snowballs and confronted by irate residents.

During the protest, 10-year-old Tanya Lozova, a local girl who was wearing a pink ski cap and bright jacket, was caught on cameras pointing her finger in a throat-cutting gesture at Vorobyov, who was promising furious residents that he would quickly deal with the problem.

Lozova, who instantly became an internet hero in Russia, told Dozhd TV that her gesture was meant to say “You are killing us!” She said she wanted the landfill to close so “people finally could breathe fresh air.”

On March 7, Volokolamsk authorities declared a temporary state of emergency, saying the level of hydrogen sulphide in the air was recorded as 2.5 times higher and the level of nitric oxide was double usual levels because of a gas leak at the landfill.

The Yadrovo landfill was opened in 2008 and is a dumping site for garbage from Moscow and nearby regions. Local residents have been staging protests, demanding the closure of the landfill for some time.

The Moscow regional authorities said earlier Friday that the landfill will suspend its operations until April 14, after which the old section of the dump will be closed.

In the past, local authorities had promised to “modernize” the landfill but refused to consider closing it.
…

Britain’s information regulator said Saturday that it was assessing evidence gathered from a raid on the office of data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, part of an investigation into alleged misuse of personal information by political campaigns and social media companies like Facebook.

More than a dozen investigators from the Information Commissioner’s Office entered the company’s central London office late Friday, shortly after a High Court judge granted a warrant. The investigators were seen leaving the premises early Saturday after spending about seven hours searching the office.

The regulator said it would “consider the evidence before deciding the next steps and coming to any conclusions.”

“This is one part of a larger investigation by the ICO into the use of personal data and analytics by political campaigns, parties, social media companies and other commercial actors,” it said.

Authorities in Britain as well as the U.S. are investigating Cambridge Analytica over allegations the firm improperly obtained data from 50 million Facebook users and used it to manipulate elections, including the 2016 White House race and the 2016 Brexit vote in Britain.

Both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook deny wrongdoing. 

​Chief executive suspended

The data firm suspended its CEO, Alexander Nix, this week after Britain’s Channel 4 News broadcast footage that appeared to show Nix suggesting tactics like entrapment or bribery that his company could use to discredit politicians. The footage also showed Nix saying Cambridge Analytica played a major role in securing Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Cambridge Analytica’s acting chief executive, Alexander Tayler, said Friday that he was sorry that SCL Elections, an affiliate of his company, “licensed Facebook data and derivatives from a research company [Global Science Research] that had not received consent from most respondents” in 2014.

“The company believed that the data had been obtained in line with Facebook’s terms of service and data protection laws,” Tayler said.

His statement said the data were deleted in 2015 at Facebook’s request, and he denied that any of the Facebook data that Cambridge Analytica obtained were used in the work it did on the 2016 U.S. election.
…

Turkey’s president on Saturday criticized anti-war students at a top university, calling them terrorists following a fight there.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “communist traitor youth” tried to mess up a student stand opened by “religious nationalist local youth” at the public Bogazici University. Erdogan announced an investigation and said “we won’t give these terrorist youth the right to study at these universities.”

On Monday, a group of students opened a stand distributing sweets dubbed “Afrin delight” to commemorate fallen soldiers in Turkey’s cross-border operation in Syria. Another group protested against them, holding anti-war banners.

Turkey’s official Anadolu Agency said a fight broke out and 12 people were later detained.

Turkey hasn’t tolerated criticism of its military offensive to oust a Syrian Kurdish militia that it considers a terror group.
…