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Earlier this year, the U.S.-based Pew Research Center polled people in more than 30 countries about their thoughts on various world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped the poll with more respondents expressing confidence in her than any other leader.

With the U.S. turning more isolationist, Britain mired in Brexit wrangling, and France led by an untested young president whose popularity is already plummeting, many see Merkel, who on Sunday secured an historic fourth term — though her Christian Democratic Union party won fewer seats — as the West’s most reliable leader. 

American and European newspapers have dubbed her the “leader of the free world” for much of 2017.

But questions remain about how proactive Merkel will be when it comes to foreign policy  in her fourth term — and how she might approach the crowd of significant challenges facing Germany and Europe, including terror, war, financial crises, and political upheavals. The scientist-turned-politician’s instinct is to search for consensus — but that is a difficult thing to do when faced with alpha male leaders, such as Donald Trump and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who see diplomacy as a zero-sum game.

Earlier this year, following Trump’s announcement that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate-change pact, Merkel counseled fellow Europeans that they must take fate into their own hands. “The times in which we could rely fully on others — they are somewhat over,” she said.

In an interview on the eve of Sunday’s elections Merkel appeared to signal that she intends to push for more coherence in European Union foreign policy, telling the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, that the bloc has to agree quickly to a common stance toward an emerging China and a revisionist Russia.

“The world has to see that member states won’t deviate from a European consensus on these issues,” she said, adding that it was important that individual state governments be prepared to defer in favor to what was the best for the EU as a whole. 

So will Merkel start laying down a foreign policy legacy, take her fellow European leaders by the scruff of their necks and live up to the media designation “leader of the free world”?

Taking the lead

Already under her leadership Germany has become more assertive — a reflection of the country’s economic pre-eminence in Europe as well as it having come more to terms with its Second World War past. Merkel has deployed German troops overseas: in Afghanistan, Mali and Lithuania.

She was the leader who forged a European consensus on imposing sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea, and along with the French, she has been leading the West’s effort to negotiate a solution to the Russian-fomented conflict in east Ukraine.

In sub-Sahara Africa, her government has been pursuing a “Marshall Plan for Africa,” pumping aid and encouraging private investment in a bid to undercut jihadists and to give would-be migrants a reason to remain at home.

And there is some talk that post-election she will team up with French President Emmanuel Macron to “relaunch” a post-Brexit Europe more integrated and centralized than ever before. 

But Merkel’s past suggests she will be far more cautious when it comes to matching action with words, predict some analysts. And she’ll move slowly.

Synonymous with slow

The epitome of the patient pragmatist in politics, she is more reactive than proactive. In 2015 the verb ‘to Merkel’ – meaning to dither – was voted the new word of the year in Germany. Merkel is more about incremental change that won’t upset the multilateral rules-based global order.

Political scientist Matthew Qvortrup, a professor at Britain’s Coventry University and author of a biography of Merkel, noted recently that she’s a manager, more comfortable keeping things ticking along. He doesn’t think Merkel will endorse as daring an overhaul of the EU as proposed by the grandiloquent Macron.

The French president wants six-month-long ‘democratic conventions’ in every country, during which EU citizens would debate common goals and a more integrated eurozone with its own finance minister, parliament and a standalone budget to head off future financial crises.

Earlier this year, Merkel gave qualified endorsement of Macron’s reform ideas but analysts say perceptions in Paris and Berlin of eurozone integration widely differ. Qvortrup draws a distinction between Merkel and her predecessor Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who oversaw the unification of Germany and had a much grander vision for the EU than Merkel does.

“She’s interested in the European Union as an intergovernmental project – a little bit like the ‘Europe of nations,’” he said in a recent interview with Chatham House, a British policy research group.

Other analysts question why Merkel would agree to a massive reform of an economic structure which Germany has benefited from greatly.

It’s the little things

Her party’s manifesto for Sunday’s election was short on grand projects and big on small measures, although it committed to raising defense spending from 1.2 percent of GDP to the NATO target of two percent. But boosting the military isn’t the same thing as using it  — a recent poll showed a majority of Germans uncomfortable with the idea of using force even in the defense of NATO.

But German journalist Bernd Ulrich, political editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, argues Merkel’s leadership traits are of a different kind from her more brash counterparts. The fact that she doesn’t have grand plans doesn’t mean she’s not leading, he argues.

“It was a very American misunderstanding to call the German chancellor the new leader of the Western world. Merkel can only be the leader if ‘leadership’ is something completely different—something based on networking, something female, and something cooperative,” he wrote recently.

Her cooperative instincts though will be challenged in her fourth term. The EU faces unrest in the east, with populist governments in Poland and Hungary defying Brussels on immigration policy and civil liberties. Another problem will be getting some order on Brexit — and on that issue she may turn hardline on a British government keen to cherry-pick when it comes to future relations between Britain and the EU.

But her biggest challenge remains with the U.S., where Trump’s “America First” ideas and suspicion of multilateralism are directly at odds with her determination to protect a rules-based order.
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Russia’s proposal for United Nations peacekeepers to be sent to Ukraine shows that the Kremlin is interested in negotiating a resolution to the three-year-old conflict, said the United States special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker.

“I take the point of view that Russia would not have proposed anything if they weren’t prepared to get into a negotiation about it,” said Volker in an interview Monday with VOA’s Ukrainian Service chief Myroslava Gongadze.

“They haven’t done anything for three years on this. They haven’t proposed a peacekeeping force before. As recently as a couple weeks ago, they were saying that they would never want the U.N. there. So, the fact that they opened this conversation, to me, is an indication that they are willing to discuss it.”

The Ukraine crisis began in March 2014 when Russian special forces took over Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. Subsequent Russian military support for Russia-leaning separatists in eastern Ukraine fueled an ongoing conflict with the Ukrainian military that has so far left more than 10,000 people dead.

Russia’s proposal earlier this month at the U.N. called for peacekeepers along the line of conflict in eastern Ukraine, but not along the Russia-Ukraine border where weapons and fighters can easily cross.

Volker called it a “very narrow concept” that would have the effect of dividing the country even further.

“That’s not acceptable to anybody and does not restore the territory,” he said. “On the other hand, if we can establish a peacekeeping force and build that concept into one that is covering the entire contested area, that is containing heavy weapons and that is controlling the Ukraine-Russian border from the Ukrainian side, then there is a lot of promise in that.”

“That’s where both governments are right now seeing whether it is possible to expand this concept into one that would be truly meaningful and helpful,” he added.

Russia’s growing costs

Russia’s costs for maintaining the conflict in Ukraine have only gone up while benefits the Kremlin may have expected have not panned out, said Volker. Russia has lost influence in Ukraine while Western support for Kyiv has increased along with sanctions against Moscow.

“So, for all of these reasons, the costs are increasing. Even the financial costs of just maintaining the Donbas, and they’re not getting anything out of it. So, that at least opens the door to thinking maybe Russia would like to try something else,” Volker said.

“Ultimately, I think it really boils down to Russia’s decision-making,” he added. “Do they want to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, get their forces out, and re-establish Ukraine’s territorial integrity or, do they not want to do that? If they want to dig in and create another Abkhazia [breakaway region of Georgia supported by Russia], they can do it. But, that’s a very costly proposition for Russia.”

A 2015 peace deal Russia signed with Ukraine, Germany, and France in Minsk has failed to come to fruition as Kyiv and Moscow blame each other for not moving on the plan.

“The problem with the Minsk agreement is that it was becoming a circular argument that was going nowhere,” said Volker. “The Russians are saying ‘no, Ukraine has to do the political steps.’ Ukraine says, ‘it can’t do the political steps because it can’t even access the territory.’ And, then how can we go to the Rada [Ukrainian parliament] and get a vote when nothing has happened on a ceasefire in three years. So, it’s stuck that way and I think, in some respects, some of the actors found that to be conveniently stuck.”

Volker said the U.S. role was to try to unstick the Minsk deal.

“If we can get to a more strategic level of decision-making with Russia and, frankly, with our European partners and with Ukraine, then if we can create political will, Minsk is a perfectly fine vehicle for implementation,” he said.

In August, the U.S. envoy met with Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov in Minsk.  Surkov is considered the architect of Russia’s strategy on Ukraine and its military backing for separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Status quo:  Bad for all

“When we met in August, one of the things we agreed is that the status quo is not good for anybody,” said Volker. “It’s not good for Russia, it’s not good for Ukraine, it’s not good for the people of the Donbas. So we should be exploring to see if there is something else that would be better.”

More than 10,000 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists broke out in early 2014.

Volker said the U.S. is still considering supplying lethal, defensive weapons to Ukraine’s military forces.

“I don’t have anything new to say on timing of this sort of thing [possibly selling lethal, defensive weapons to Ukraine],” he said. “But, I can say that it’s taken very seriously in the administration and there are people working very hard at it.”

Volker said the U.S. would seek progress in eastern Ukraine separate from the issue of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in March 2014.

“If we are able to make progress in one area  the Donbas  let’s do it. Let’s make progress, let’s see if we can get that territory back,” he said. “At the same that doesn’t change at all our refusal to accept the annexation of Crimea and grant any legitimacy to Russia’s actions.”

Budapest memorandum

The U.S. envoy acknowledged more should have been done to back up the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which was signed when he was a mid-level diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest and should have prevented Russia taking Crimea.

“The only country violating the Budapest Memorandum is Russia. So, France didn’t invade Ukraine. U.K. didn’t invade Ukraine. Only Russia invaded Ukraine,” Volker said.

Ukraine agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in return for guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty under the deal signed by Russia, the U.K., and U.S. But, when Russian forces began taking over Ukraine’s Crimea military bases, none of those who signed the memorandum attempted to stop them.

“We should have done more immediately,” said Volker. “It’s important for Ukraine itself. It’s important for the principle that it establishes about non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. And, so, unfortunately, when Russia invaded, we didn’t do enough on that.”

The U.S. envoy said all that can been done now is go forward to help restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “If we do that, we’ll be taking a step towards the fulfillment of Budapest,” he said.

Peacekeeping Forces

Volker, who President Donald Trump made special envoy in July, shot down suggestions that Russians could be among any peacekeepers deployed to Ukraine.

“I think the U.N. standards themselves are that neighboring countries should not be involved in peacekeeping in neighboring states,” he said. “And, certainly in this case since Russia has been a party to the conflict it would clearly not make sense.”

Despite much evidence to the contrary, the Kremlin maintains it is not involved in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, known as the Donbas.

VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze contributed to this report.
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The Alternative for Germany party has pledged to use its platform in parliament to “reclaim the country and its people.” The AfD won nearly 14 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, giving them 94 seats.

Many believed the turmoil of the 20th century had immunized Germany from a return of far-right politics, but Sunday’s result proved them wrong.

For the group’s opponents who gathered to protest the result in Berlin, the Alternative for Germany’s anti-migrant agenda has parallels with the Nazis’ rise to power.

“It is the first time since after the war that a racist and neo-Nazi party is in parliament,” said one protester. “So that is really worrying to us. And this reminds everyone of 1933.”

Jewish groups were among those expressing fear over the results.

The AfD’s co-leader, Alexander Gauland, has previously said Germans should be proud of their military’s achievements in World War II. However, at a news conference Monday, he denied the party is racist.

Gauland said there is nothing in the party or in its program that could or should disturb Jewish people in Germany. He said his pledge to “reclaim the country” is meant symbolically, adding he does “not want to lose Germany to an invasion of foreign people from foreign cultures.”

Analyst Professor Tanja Borzel of Berlin’s Free University says Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let close to a million migrants into Germany at the height of the migrant and refugee crisis in 2015 led many to punish her at the polls.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats won the highest number of votes Sunday, but gained their lowest share in 70 years.

“Most people who voted for the Alternative for Germany did not vote for the party because they share the platform. It was a protest vote, clearly,” Borzel said.

The far-right’s success overshadowed Merkel’s win, which gives her a fourth term in power.

She told supporters Monday that her aspiration is to win the AfD voters back through good politics and problem solving.

Her first problem is forming a government. The second-placed Social Democrats have ruled out working together, so Merkel’s best option is likely a coalition with the Liberals and the Greens that could take months, Borzel says.

“It will be very hard to find a compromise on issues such as migration and refugees, but also climate change,” Borzel said. “So, we are looking at probably some lengthy negotiations.”

The AfD, meanwhile, has pledged to use its new platform in parliament to, in its words, “hunt down” Merkel and reclaim the country.
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The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party has pledged to use its platform in parliament to “reclaim the country and its people.” The AfD won close to 14 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, giving them 94 seats — the first significant far-right presence in Germany’s parliament since World War II. Henry Ridgwell reports from Berlin.
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A referendum on whether Catalonia should secede from Spain is putting intense pressure on the region’s police officers, who feel caught between their oath to the nation’s constitution and loyalty to local leaders who have vowed to create a new European state.

Francesc Vidal, a 16-year veteran of the force known as the Mossos d’Esquadra, described the referendum planned for October 1 as a “train collision” between Spanish authorities desperate to stop what they consider an illegal vote and Catalan separatists who insist that the balloting go forward.

“We only ask that they don’t put us in the middle of it,” Vidal, a leader of the USPAC police union, told The Associated Press. “We don’t know how to act. We receive orders from both sides.”

The power struggle is the most serious constitutional crisis Spain has faced in nearly four decades.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has pledged to declare independence within 48 hours should secessionists manage to stage the secession referendum and win it. The move would push the country into uncharted waters and set off a national political emergency.

But if police impede polling stations from opening at schools and other government buildings, it will be a victory for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a long battle against the separatists.

On Saturday, Spain’s Interior Ministry announced that it would begin coordinating all police efforts in the region related to the vote, including the operations of the 17,000-strong Mossos.

That was rejected by Catalonia’s regional interior chief Joaquim Forn, who said the Mossos police chief has told Spanish authorities that regional leaders would not cede command of the force.

“The Mossos will never give up the exercise of the powers that are its own,” Forn said in a statement broadcast on Catalan public television.

Forn has promised that the Mossos will ensure that the referendum happens. He told Catalan newspaper El Punt-Avui: “Not only will we not stop the referendum, we will do the exact opposite: We will facilitate that the referendum takes place.”

​The tensions are driving fault lines in Catalonia: polls suggest roughly half of its 7.5 million residents want to break century-old ties with Spain, with the rest wishing to remain a part of the larger nation. Fissures have also formed within the Mossos, which was created in the early 1980s as part of self-governance granted to the northeastern region.

Serious doubts for many Mossos started in July, when the top two regional officials in charge of the police resigned. The regional government replaced them with Forn and Pere Soler, men with spotless pro-independence credentials.

While rank-and-file officers are concerned that police leadership may not pass down orders from a Spanish judge to stop the vote, a small group of hard-core pro-independence Mossos has promised not to stop the vote under any circumstances.  

‘Anything can happen’

Jordi Costa, a Mosso stationed in the town of Vilafranca and general secretary of the 3,000-member strong CAT police union, said the unprecedented situation meant “anything can happen” – but his loyalty to Spain’s constitution came first.

“This is exceptional because there is a government that against all odds has declared that it will rebel against the law. I think that is an error,” Costa said. “I swore to the Spanish Constitution just like every single one of us Mossos. If something is unconstitutional, it cannot be done.”

Just last month, the Mossos were widely praised for their quick capture and killing of jihadist-inspired extremists who carried out deadly vehicle attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town. Now the same force feels trapped by the tense political climate.

“Our image will be damaged for one side or the other,” said David Miquel, a 25-year veteran of the Mossos in Barcelona and spokesman for the SPC union representing 5,000 officers. “Some who saw us as heroes for finishing off the terrorists will now see us as villains. For others, we will be heroes for having upheld the law.”

Last week a huge crowd of angry protesters took to Barcelona’s streets after the Civil Guard, a national police force with a much smaller presence in Catalonia, carried out raids on an office of the Catalan government. The protesters trashed the Civil Guard’s vehicles and scuffled with the officers, but Miquel said it took hours until the Mossos was ordered to step in and help restore order.

“My fellow Mossos tell me that they could have done more to help, but they were not ordered to,” Miquel said. “When you see people destroying the patrol cars of your fellow policeman, it’s a feeling of impotence. What we want is to receive orders that are not coming. They need to give us a detailed guide on how to act. Don’t leave it in our hands. Give us instructions.”

Albert Donaire is a Mosso from a small town of la Cellera de Ter, where pro-secession sentiment runs deep. He heads a group of 200 to 300 like-minded police officers called “Mossos for Independence.”

“My personal decision is not to confiscate any ballot boxes nor close any polling stations,” Donaire said. “I am not afraid that I will end up in prison for defending democracy.”

Like many separatists, Donaire justifies his disobedience of Spanish law by citing two acts passed by separatist lawmakers in Catalonia’s regional parliament. Those measures called for the referendum and established a roadmap for independence if the “yes” votes prevail.

Even though those acts have been suspended by Spain’s Constitutional Court, Donaire believes the laws are valid because they are protected by international law and the right of people to self-determination.

Faced with the challenge of stopping the vote in the nearly 800 municipalities, many of them tiny villages, the Interior Ministry has rushed more agents of the Civil Guard and the National Police to Catalonia.

“It’s an exceptional situation, and we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. There could be a part of the Mossos that won’t respond,” said Luis Mansilla, general secretary in Catalonia of the National Police union SUP.

The extra manpower on the ground in Catalonia will be enough to quash the referendum should the Catalan police waver, said Juan Fernandez, the spokesman for the Civil Guard’s AUGC union.

“We understand it must not be easy” for the Mossos, Fernandez said.
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Swiss voters rejected raising women’s retirement age to 65 in a referendum on Sunday on shoring up the wealthy nation’s pension system as a wave of Baby Boomers stops working.

Authorities pushing the first serious reform of the pension system in two decades had warned that old-age benefits were increasingly at risk as life expectancy rises and interest rates remain exceptionally low, cutting investment yields.

But it fell by a margin of 53-47 percent, sending the government back to the drawing board on the thorny social issue.

The package turned down under the Swiss system of direct democracy included making retirement between the ages of 62 and 70 more flexible and raising the standard value-added tax (VAT) rate from 2021 to help finance the stretched pension system.

It sought to secure the level of pensions through 2030 by cutting costs and raising additional revenue.

Minimum pay-out rates would have gradually fallen and workers’ contributions would rise, while public pensions for all new recipients would go up by 70 Swiss francs ($72.25) a month.

The retirement age for women would have gradually risen by a year to 65, the same as for men.

“That is no life,” complained one 49-year-old kiosk cashier, who identified herself only as Angie. “You go straight from work to the graveyard.”

Some critics had complained that the higher retirement age for women and higher VAT rates were unfair, while others opposed expanding public benefits and said the reforms only postponed for a decade rather than solved the system’s financial woes.

Opinion polls had shown the reforms just squeaking by, but support had been waning.

The standard VAT rate would have gone up by 0.3 point from 2021 to 8.3 percent — helping generate 2.1 billion francs a year for pensions by 2030 — but the rejection means the standard VAT rate will now fall to 7.7 percent next year as a levy earmarked for disability insurance ends.

A 2014 OECD survey found Switzerland, where a worker earns over $91,000 on average, spends a relatively low 6.6 percent of economic output on public pensions. Life expectancy at birth was 82.5 years. More than 18 percent of the population was older than 65.

($1 = 0.9690 Swiss francs)
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Sunday’s national election in Germany will sound the starting gun for a renewed debate on fixing flaws in Europe’s shared currency to prevent future crises.

France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has made it clear he is willing to push for change to strengthen the euro and is expected to make proposals in a major speech Tuesday. He is pushing for, among other things, a finance minister for the eurozone to oversee a central fiscal pot of money that could even out recessions in individual members.

Even pro-euro policymakers concede their 19-nation currency union contains weaknesses that fed its debt crisis — and leave it exposed to new trouble. But action on fixes has slowed.

Macron’s ideas are not new but several of them have faced resistance from Germany, always allergic to the idea of being handed the bill for other members’ troubles. For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, have pushed back against the idea of EU-wide insurance on bank deposits meant to keep bank troubles from hitting government finances.

Now there are signs that after its own elections are out of the way, Germany might be more open to change or at a minimum speeding up steps — like the deposit insurance idea — that have stalled. Polls suggest Merkel will win a fourth term. What’s not clear is which party her center right Christian Democratic Union will form a coalition.

“In several ways, the coming 12-18 months represent an exceptional opportunity for European reform,” says Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Reasons for that, he said, include:

The two biggest EU countries, France and Germany, will now have new governments with fresh mandates from voters.
Europe’s banks are in better shape and the economy is growing, meaning leaders are not preoccupied with fighting a crisis.
 Anti-euro populists have been turned back at the polls this year in France and the Netherlands, giving pro-EU forces a fresh shot of confidence.
 Memories of the debt crisis that threatened to break up the eurozone at its peak in 2011-2012 may still be vivid enough to overcome complacency. 

Merkel has expressed cautious openness to tweaking the setup of the euro.

“I have made clear that I don’t have anything against the title of a European finance minister per se — we would just have to clear up, and we are not yet that far along in talks with France — what this finance minister could do,” she said in August.

“I could imagine an economy and finance minister … so that we achieve a higher degree of harmonization of competitiveness.”

The euro, currently worth about $1.20, was created in 1999, and 19 of the 28 EU members use it.

European officials concede that the debt crisis, which exploded when Greece revealed in October 2009 that it was bankrupt, exposed serious flaws. Once financial trouble hit, member countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal lacked typical crisis safety valves such as letting their national currency devalue, which can help a country’s exports and attract investment. Without their own currencies, this was no longer possible. The countries wound up needing bailouts from the other member countries led by Germany and from the International Monetary Fund.

Additionally, the cost of rescuing failing banks threatened to bankrupt entire eurozone governments. And the euro lacks a central fiscal budget that could even out recessions in member countries by investing more in economies in need.

German resistance will likely remain strong to the bolder ideas, such as a well-stocked central fiscal pot worth several percentage points of EU gross domestic product. Currently, the EU’s budget is 1 percent of GDP, spent on things like support for farmers and infrastructure to help development in the poorest members.

More modest, politically realistic steps could include:

Pushing ahead with EU-wide deposit insurance, to be implemented over a period of years.
Regulations limiting the widespread practice of European banks buying their own governments’ bonds. That would increase pressure on governments to shape up their economies and finances.
 A modest additional pot of money that could be used as targeted stimulus for eurozone countries that fall into serious recessions, with the condition that they implement economic reforms.

EU governments led by Germany, the bloc’s most influential member, have already taken some significant steps since the crisis days. They created a fund that can give bailout loans to states in need. They tightened banking oversight by moving it to the EU level at the European Central Bank, and they took steps to stick bank creditors — not taxpayers — with any losses in case of a rescue.

The new system proved its mettle in June, when the ECB pulled the plug on Spain’s troubled Banco Popular, the country’s sixth-largest bank, and then orchestrated a sale to Banco Santander for one euro. Shareholders and junior bondholders took the losses, while taxpayers and depositors were spared. It’s a step away from crisis times when the financial burden of rescuing banks drove Ireland and Spain to seek bailout help.

Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany, says that reforms like a small central fund and deposit insurance are feasible.

“The opportunity in 2018 would be more a natural evolution of the process that has been ongoing now for the past couple of years, rather than being a revolution,” he said.
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The Russian Defense Ministry has announced one of its generals was killed while fighting Islamic State in Syria.

“Division general Valeri Assapov was killed when a shell exploded during shelling by IS fighters,” the ministry was quoted as saying by local media.

He was serving as an advisor to Syrian government troops “in the operation for the liberation of the city of Deir el-Zour,” it said.

Deir el-Zour province, on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq, is rich with oil and gas fields that served as a key revenue stream for IS at the peak of its power.

Meanwhile, Syrian media reported that government and allied troops have seized Maadan, a town north of Deir el-Zour city and south of Raqqa, which has been a scene of intense fighting with Islamic State militants.
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Hundreds of opposition activists attended an anticorruption protest in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku.

The protest, which has been sanctioned by the municipal government, was organized by the National Council of Democratic Forces — an umbrella organization bringing together some of Azerbaijan’s opposition forces.

Baku police said in a statement that about 1,500 people attended the Saturday rally, although the organizers disputed the official figure, saying the actual attendance was higher. Azerbaijan’s Turan news agency said thousands participated in the rally held in the Yasamal district of Baku. 

According to the statement, supporters of the Popular Front Party, People’s Democratic Party, National Statehood Party, Musavat Party Youth Organization, Muslim Union, and NIDA Movement participated in the action.

No incidents occurred during the rally, the statement said.

However, ahead of the rally, at least three members of the Popular Front Party were reportedly detained by authorities on Friday. It was immediately unclear whether they were subsequently released. 

At the end of the rally, which started at 3 p.m. local time and lasted for two hours, electricity was cut off in the area. 

The protest, held under the slogan “Return the money stolen from the people,” came after an investigative report by a group of international journalists and anticorruption activists called The Azerbaijani Laundromat named state officials allegedly tied to money-laundering operations.

The report alleges the scheme was “a complex money-laundering operation and slush fund that handled $2.9 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies” registered in the United Kingdom.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s press secretary, Azer Gasimov, has called the report “absurd.”

Activists accuse Azerbaijan’s government of repressing journalists, civil society activists, and human rights workers.

They have urged Western governments to do more to confront authorities in Baku.

The oil-rich South Caucasus nation has faced growing social and economic problems stemming from falling world oil prices in recent years.
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Germans go to the polls Sunday in an election that will most likely result in a fourth term for Chancellor Angela Merkel, but could also see the first time a far-right party has become part of the Bundestag since the end of World War II.

Support for Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrat party was at 34 percent, while her challenger, Martin Schulz, and his center-left Social Democrats were projected to receive 21 percent of the vote.

But the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, appeared to have more support than the 5 percent of the vote required to get a seat in Germany’s multiparty Bundestag. In fact, the latest polls showed AfD could get as much as 13 percent of the vote, making it the third-largest party in parliament.

Campaign stops

Schulz addressed the trend at a campaign rally in the western city of Aachen on Saturday, urging his supporters to turn out at the polls to prevent the AfD from gaining more power.

“Young people, think about Brexit,” he said, referencing Britain’s recent vote to withdraw from the European Union. “Think about [U.S. President Donald] Trump. Go vote.”

Merkel was heckled Friday evening at her final stump speech in Munich but used the cacophony to punctuate her message. Emphasizing stability and prosperity in her speech, Merkel said, “The future of Germany will definitely not be built with whistles and hollers.”

Germany is not the only European nation experiencing a rise in support for nationalist parties. France, Austria and Poland have seen similar trends.

But Germany is still recovering from the rule of the far-right Nazi Party last century, whose hold on power in the 1930s and early 1940s led an ethnic cleansing campaign against millions of Jews, Poles and others deemed unwanted.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a member of the Social Democrats, has warned that “for the first time since the Second World War, real Nazis will sit in the German parliament.”

Schulz has called the party “a shame for our nation.”

Limited by history

AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland, who helped found the party in 2013, told The Washington Post on Saturday that his party’s support had been limited by Germany’s history.

“What is National Socialist in Germany is [considered] out of order and you can’t discuss it correctly. It is very difficult for so-called right-wing parties to gain votes in Germany,” Gauland said.

A former member of Merkel’s party, Gauland said he left because the party changed.

“Angela Merkel changed the CDU from a party that had convictions to a party that’s an empty balloon,” he told the Post. “A lot of decisions of Angela Merkel — transitioning to renewable energy, refugees, changing of the military from conscription to volunteer — ran opposite to what we called in former times ‘the soul of the CDU.’ ”

Berlin-based journalist Thomas Habicht said AfD’s rise in influence was rooted in Germany’s participation in pan-European issues.

“AfD gained support as some voters got the impression [that] the euro crisis caused by Greece, Italy and France cost us too much money,” Habicht told VOA in an email. “Germany contributes 27 percent to the EU budget and some Germans don’t want to finance economical mismanagement in southern Europe.”

Cost of refugee crisis

In addition, the refugee crisis, to which Merkel has pledged German support, is seen by AfD supporters as a burden.

“Since September 2015, we had an influx of 1.25 million asylum-seekers,” Habicht said, noting that caring for them had cost the government $25 billion.

Adding to the complication, he said, is crime. “Last year we had a terror attack at a Berlin Christmas market. It was committed by an asylum-seeker from Tunisia and 12 persons died,” he said.

Yet, Habicht noted, all parties in the Bundestag at the time supported Merkel on the refugee situation. “They were seen as a big chance for us, while the problems of integration were not fully discussed,” he said.

While the presence of a far-right party in parliament may be startling in Germany, where the rule of the Nazis last century orchestrated millions of civilian deaths, Habicht said the AfD influence would be far more subtle.

“I do believe the AfD will be quite isolated in our next Bundestag,” he said. “But indirectly, they will influence government policies.”
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Turkey’s main opposition united with the government Saturday to overwhelmingly pass a motion giving its military a mandate to carry out operations in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

The parliament met in an emergency session two days ahead of an independence referendum by Iraqi Kurds. Addressing parliament, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli warned that the Kurdish referendum would bring very dangerous consequences, perhaps even clashes even in global terms.

“Pulling out just a brick from a structure based on very sensitive and fragile balances will sow the seeds for new hatred, enmity and clashes,” Canikli said.

He added that all options and methods were on the table regarding the independence vote and that Turkey would not hesitate to use them.

Ankara strongly opposes the referendum, fearing it could fuel secessionist demands within its own large restive Kurdish minority.

On Saturday, the head of the Iraqi armed forces met with his Turkish counterpart in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, for talks on the forthcoming referendum. Baghdad shares Ankara’s opposition to the vote.

Turkish armed forces carrying out drills on the Iraqi Kurdish border received new reinforcements. The army has been holding military exercises there for the past six days.

Turkish forces were also being beefed up on the Syrian border, with Ankara again warning it would not allow Syrian Kurds to create their own independent state.
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Spanish media report that several hundred students have spent the night inside a Barcelona university to protest the government’s efforts to stop a referendum over Catalonia’s secession from the country.

The protesters have said on social media that pro-independence politicians are expected to give talks at Barcelona University on Saturday.

Jordi Vives, a spokesman for the students, told Catalan public television: “We are showing that as students we have a part to play and that for now we are staying put.”

The remaining students were hold-outs from a group of about 2,000 that gathered in and around the university Friday. Several hundred occupied a central cloister near the offices of the dean and other university managers.

Spain’s Constitutional Court has suspended the Oct. 1 vote while judges assess its legality.
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While Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs dominated headlines, countering terrorism and extremism took center stage at the U.N. General Assembly this week. Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and top officials from 24 countries highlighted progress made in the fight to defeat the Islamic State militant group in Iraq. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.
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The United States sees value in the New START arms control treaty with Russia, despite Washington’s concerns about Moscow’s track record on arms control and other issues, senior U.S. officials said Friday.

The remarks by the Trump administration officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, suggest the treaty will remain in force and the door remains open to pursuing an extension of the accord, which is set to expire in 2021.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty gives both countries until February 2018 to reduce their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550, the lowest level in decades. It also limits deployed land- and submarine-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers.

Moscow seen as unreliable

Reuters has reported that President Donald Trump, in his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, criticized the New START treaty, saying it favored Moscow.

But one of the Trump administration officials said on Friday the United States was not looking to discard New START.

Senior U.S. officials, including U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have questioned Russia’s reliability on arms control, citing longstanding U.S. allegations that Russia has violated the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Russia denies treaty violations and accuses the United States of them.

Working to improve relations

The accusations come amid a nosedive in U.S.-Russian relations.

U.S. intelligence agencies accuse Russia of meddling in the U.S. presidential election, which Moscow denies, and recent tit-for-tat exchanges between Washington and Moscow include moves to slash each others’ diplomatic presence.

The tensions have reached Syria, where the United States and Russia are backing different forces that are scrambling to claim what is left of Islamic State-held territory.

Russia warned the United States on Thursday it would target U.S.-backed militias in Syria if Russian troops again came under fire.

Still, a second senior Trump administration official said Friday the United States was seeking ways to improve communication with Moscow and build some degree of trust, which the official described as nonexistent.

Trump took office saying he wanted to improve ties strained since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, which led Washington to impose sanctions on Russia.

Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko met Trump on Thursday and said afterward that they had a shared vision of a “new level” of defense cooperation.

But the second senior Trump administration official said there had been no decision on whether to provide defensive arms to Ukraine, something Kiev has long wanted.
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Britain’s PM says sides share “a profound sense of responsibility” to ensure Brexit goes ‘smoothly and sensibly’
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Transport officials in London say they will not renew Uber’s license to operate in the city due to “a lack of corporate responsibility” in dealing with the ride hailing app’s safety issues.

The regulatory body Transport for London said in a statement Friday Uber London “is not fit and proper” to operate in the city.

TfL considers that “Uber’s approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications,” the agency said.

Among the issues cited by TfL are Uber’s approach to reporting serious criminal offenses and its use of “greyball” technology, which can be used to block regulators from fully accessing the app.

Uber said the city’s decision to end the app would show the world that “London is closed to innovative companies.”

“By wanting to ban our app from the capital, Transport for London and the mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice,” the company said in a statement.

Uber has said it will appeal the decision.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the city’s taxi drivers union both said they supported the decision not to renew Uber’s license.  

“The mayor has made the right call not to relicense Uber,” Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, said.

“We expect Uber will again embark on a spurious legal challenge against the Mayor and TfL, and we will urge the court to uphold this decision. This immoral company has no place on London’s streets.”

 
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Organizers have stripped Miss Turkey 2017 of her crown over a social media posting that was deemed insulting to the memory of the 250 people killed while opposing last year’s failed military coup.

Miss Turkey organizers said the 18-year-old Itir Esen was dethroned Friday — a day after she won the contest and the right to represent Turkey at the Miss World contest in China — over a tweet they described as “unacceptable.”

Media reports said a flippant remark that the model and university student had posted on Twitter as the country held memorials for the victims on the anniversary of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, had caused uproar on social media. Esen reportedly denied the account was hers.

Runner-up Asli Sumen will now represent Turkey in China.
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The Catalan regional leader on Thursday said he would press on with an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain, flouting a court ban, as tens of thousands gathered for a second day on the streets of Barcelona demanding the right to vote.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said he had contingency plans in place to ensure the vote would go ahead, directly defying Madrid and pushing the country closer to political crisis.

Spain’s Constitutional Court banned the vote earlier this month after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said it violated Spain’s 1978 constitution, which states the country is indivisible. Most opposition parties are also against the vote.

“All the power of the Spanish state is set up to prevent Catalans voting,” Puigdemont said in a televised address.

“We will do it because we have contingency plans in place to ensure it happens, but above all because it has the support of the immense majority of the population, who are sick of the arrogance and abuse of the People’s Party government.”

‘Step back for democracy’

On Thursday, tens of thousands gathered outside the seat of Catalonia’s top court in Barcelona, singing and banging drums, to protest the arrests of senior officials in police raids on regional government offices on Wednesday.

“This is a step back for democracy,” said one of them, 62-year-old pensioner Enric Farro. “This is the kind of thing that happened years ago — it shouldn’t be happening now.”

State police arrested Catalonia’s junior economy minister, Josep Maria Jove, on Wednesday in an unprecedented raid of regional government offices.

Spontaneous protest

Acting on court orders, police have also raided printers, newspaper offices and private delivery companies in a search for campaign literature, instruction manuals for manning voting stations and ballot boxes.

Polls show about 40 percent of Catalans support independence for the wealthy northeastern region and a majority want a referendum on the issue. Puigdemont has said there is no minimum turnout for the vote and he will declare independence within 48 hours of a “yes” result.

A central government’s spokesman said protests in Catalonia were organized by a small group and did not represent the general feeling of the people.

“In those demonstrations, you see the people who go, but you don’t see the people who don’t go, who are way more and are at home because they don’t like what’s happening,” Inigo Mendez de Vigo said.

Mendez de Vigo also said an offer for dialogue from Madrid remained on the table. Repeated attempts to open negotiations between the two camps over issues such as taxes and infrastructure investment have failed over the past five years.

Rajoy said on Wednesday the government’s actions in Catalonia were the result of legal rulings and were to ensure the rule of law. The prime minister called on Catalan leaders to cancel the vote.

Hundreds of National Police and Guardia Civil reinforcements have been brought into Barcelona and are being billeted in two ferries rented by the Spanish government and moored in the harbor. But the central government must tread a fine line in enforcing the law in the region without seeming heavy-handed.

Hardline tactics a concern

The stand-off between Catalonia and the central government resonates beyond Spain. The country’s EU partners publicly support Rajoy but worry that his hardline tactics might backfire.

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, who heads the pro-independence devolved government, said she hoped the Catalan and Spanish governments could hold talks to resolve the situation.

In a referendum in 2014, Scots voted to remain within the United Kingdom.

 
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Two people arrested in connection with the bombing on a London Underground train last week have been released without charges, the Scotland Yard announced Thursday.

A 21-year-old man arrested in Hounslow, west London, on Saturday and a 48-year-old man arrested in Newport, south Wales, on Wednesday were both released. Four other men, aged 17 to 30, remain in police custody.

None of the suspects has been charged, and their names haven’t been released.

Thirty people were injured when a homemade bomb, placed inside a bucket wrapped in a shopping bag, partly detonated on a train stopped at London’s Parsons Green station during rush hour September 15.

The attack sparked a manhunt for the perpetrators and prompted officials to briefly raise the national terrorism threat to the highest level.

Police said they are continuing their investigations and are searching several properties across the country.
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U.S. President Donald Trump praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend who gets “high marks” for “running a very difficult part of the world.”

Trump’s effusive praise for the Turkish leader came on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday despite tensions between the two countries over the conduct of Turkish security officials toward American protesters.

Hours before Trump met Erdogan for talks, Erdogan supporters punched and kicked three protesters who interrupted his speech at a New York hotel.

Erdogan was addressing several hundred people at an event organized by a business group, the Turkish-American National Steering Committee, when one man stood and began shouting, “Terrorist! Terrorist!”

Voice of America TV footage shows audience members pummeling him as U.S. security officers tried to hustle him to safety. Soon after he was gone, a second man followed suit and also was repeatedly punched and hit over the head with Turkish flags as he was led outside by U.S. security.

Erdogan tried to calm the crowd, saying: “Let’s not sacrifice the whole meeting for a couple of terrorists.”

Then a third protester started heckling the president from a different part of the crowd. Although that incident occurred off-camera, a VOA reporter who was nearby said he, too, was beaten.

This was the second time this year that protesters in America have been assaulted by Erdogan supporters.

In past months, 21 people — many of whom were members of the Turkish ambassador’s security detail — were indicted for allegedly attacking protesters outside the Turkish embassy in Washington in May. All were charged with conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison. Several face additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

WATCH: Erdogan Watched Violent Clash Near Embassy in May

The brawl erupted outside the residence of Turkey’s ambassador to Washington shortly after Trump met with Erdogan at the White House. Video of the protest recorded by VOA’s Turkish service, showing what appear to be security guards and some Erdogan supporters attacking a small group of demonstrators, went viral.

Erdogan said in a PBS interview that he was “very sorry” for the violence in May. Erdogan also claimed U.S. President Donald Trump called him a week ago about what happened in May to say he, too, was sorry, and that “he was going to follow up about this issue when [Erdogan and his people] come to the United States within the framework of an official visit.”

The White House has since strongly denied Erdogan’s account of the phone conversation with Trump.

On Thursday, during his appearance with Erdogan, Trump was asked about the conversation with the Turkish leader regarding the violence against peaceful protesters. Trump did not respond.

VOA’s Peter Heinlein and Paul Alexander contributed to this report.
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The lack of a unified approach by world governments to paying kidnap ransoms is putting the lives of citizens of all nationalities at greater risk and is providing terror groups with a big source of finance, warns a new report by a prominent British defense policy institute. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.
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The lack of a unified approach by world governments to paying kidnap ransoms is putting the lives of citizens of all nationalities at greater risk and providing terror groups with a big source of finance, warns a new report from British analyst group the Royal United Services Institute.

The authors call for a global, rigorously applied and scrupulously monitored commitment to prevent any concessions to terrorist organizations.

A series of high profile kidnappings by Islamic State in Syria highlighted the lack of a unified global response. Among them was American filmmaker James Foley, held for nearly two years alongside other hostages, until he was murdered in August 2014.

WATCH: Governments Paying Terror Kidnap Ransoms Put All Citizens At Risk, Warns Report

“There are cases where a number of individuals are taken hostage, so in the James Foley case, tragically, and other cases in West Africa, where you have mixed nationalities.  And those that pay ransoms are freed earlier, multimillion-dollar ransoms that allow the terrorist groups to perpetuate their work.  And those that do not pay ransoms are kept for extended periods of time until it becomes politically expedient to murder them,” explains report author Tom Keatinge of RUSI.

He adds that terrorists often will abuse hostages whose governments refuse to negotiate, in order to raise the pressure on countries that do.

France is among the countries accused of paying ransoms.  In December 2014, then President Francois Hollande waited on the tarmac of a military airport outside Paris to welcome home hostage Serge Lazarevic, who had been kidnapped in Mali by al-Qaida militants.  He is one of several French hostages to have been released.

Choosing ‘right to life’

While Hollande consistently denied his government paid ransoms, the evidence suggests otherwise, says Keatinge.

“There are a number of countries, Italy is another one, where hostages have come home.  And the country has chosen the immediate right to life of their citizen over adhering to an internationally-agreed ban not to finance terrorist organizations.”

Ransoms are a major source of criminal financing in Colombia.  Guerrilla fighters belonging to the rebel National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, have kidnapped dozens of people.  In a rare interview this month, the group’s commander “Yernson” spoke about the key role that kidnapping plays.

“It’s a difficult economic situation; that’s why we have hostages.  We could say, ‘No, we won’t kidnap anyone else,’ but how would we finance our struggle? How would we finance our work?  We live off of the ‘ransom tax’ and kidnappings,” he told a Reuters journalist.

Specialist private sector companies, usually backed by insurance policies, are brought in to negotiate in such cases.  They often secure a release for a fraction of the ransom demand, says Keatinge.

“In places like Mexico, South America, where kidnapping is almost an industry for money raising for criminal groups, that’s where these private sector companies have proven to be very effective.  In the [Niger] delta in Nigeria, releasing people who have been taken hostage from oil companies, that’s another place they have been very effective.”

Currently, the ban on terrorist financing precludes the use of private sector resolutions in terrorist hostage situations.  Keatinge argues reversing this policy would lower kidnappers’ ransom expectations and potentially throttle a major source of terrorist financing.
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World leaders meeting at the United Nations on Wednesday launched a half-billion-dollar effort to end violence against women and girls, a crime suffered by 1 in 3 in their lifetimes.

The effort will fund anti-violence programs that promote prevention, bolster government policies and provide women and girls with improved access to services, organizers said.

It will take particular aim at human trafficking, femicide and family violence, they said.

A third of all women experience violence at some point in their lives, and that figure is twice as high in some countries, according to the United Nations.

“Gender-based violence is the most dehumanizing form of gender oppression. It exists in every society, in every country rich and poor, in every religion and in every culture,” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, head of U.N. Women, said as the United Nations held its annual General Assembly.

“If there was anything that was ever universal, it is gender inequality and the violence that it breeds against women,” she said.

In other forms of violence, more than 700 million women worldwide were married before they were 18, and at least 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation in 30 countries, according to U.N. figures.

The initiative of 500 million euros (US$595 million) was launched by the U.N. and the European Union, which is its main contributor, organizers said.

“The initiative has great power,” said Ashley Judd, a Hollywood actress and goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) who participated in Wednesday’s announcement.

“There are already so many effective, research-based, data-driven programs,” Judd told the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of the announcement. “Financing for existing programs is a beautiful thing.

“It also makes an incredibly powerful statement to show that the world is increasingly cohesive around stopping gender-based violence,” she said.
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British police arrested two more suspects Wednesday in connection with last week’s bombing on a London train that injured more than 30 people.

Authorities said officers arrested a 48-year-old man and a 30-year-old man in Newport, Wales. Police had arrested another man there Tuesday night, and searches at the addresses of both arrest sites were ongoing Wednesday.

A Metropolitan Police statement did not say how the men might be linked to the bombing.

“This continues to be a fast-moving investigation,” said Commander Dean Haydon, head of the Met Counter Terrorism Command. “Detectives are carrying out extensive inquiries to determine the full facts behind the attack.”

A total of five men have been arrested since Friday’s attack.

An 18-year-old refugee from Iraq was nabbed in the port area of Dover, a major ferry terminal for travel between Britain and France, and a 21-year-old from Syria was arrested in the west London suburb of Hounslow, which is home to London’s Heathrow Airport. They remain in police custody, but neither has yet been formally charged.

A homemade bomb partially exploded at the Parsons Green station during rush hour.

Images of the bomb posted on social media appear to show a bucket on fire that had been placed inside a plastic bag close to a rail car door.

Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the attack, but Home Secretary Rudd discounted it.

“It is inevitable that so-called Islamic State or Daesh will try to claim responsibility, but we have no evidence to suggest that yet,” she told the BBC. Rudd said authorities will try to determine how the suspects may have been radicalized.

Prime Minister Theresa May said the British public may see more armed police on the streets and the transport network. The prime minister also said members of the military will begin aiding police, providing security at some sites not accessible to the public.

The blast was the fifth major terrorist attack in Britain this year.
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Ukraine could have a new Supreme Court installed by next month as part of judicial reforms aimed at rooting out corruption, Ukraine’s Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said Tuesday.

“I think from October the new Supreme Court will start working,” Petrenko told Reuters in an interview at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York. “The next challenge for us is to establish new appeal courts throughout the country, and to take in new judges in the regional courts.”

Petrenko added that reforms within appeal and regional courts could be in place within the next four years. Other government reforms began in 2014, after a popular uprising driven partly by public anger over endemic corruption.

Ukraine is still dealing with nagging allegations of graft, and Transparency International ranked it a poor 131st out of 176 countries in the World Ranking of Corruption Perception in a report this year.

The selection process for new Supreme Court judges has been questioned by figures including British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who cited concerns in July that Ukrainian government reforms were faltering.

Not ideal, but ‘very good’

Petrenko addressed criticism surrounding the selection, saying that while there are no ideal processes, “this one is very good.”

“We have a democratic society, and all the time there are people who will criticize the process,” he said.

Ukraine currently is the recipient of an aid-for-reforms program from the International Monetary Fund.

So far, the IMF has given the country $8.4 billion, helping it recover from a two-year recession following the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the outbreak of a Russian-backed insurgency in its industrial east.

Under the $17.5 billion program, the IMF wants Ukraine to set up a special court to focus on tackling corruption.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Friday said he hoped an anti-corruption chamber would be created next month, but expressed doubt that an independent court as envisaged by the IMF could be set up before 2019.
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Russia will abide by a European Court of Human Rights ruling requiring it to pay nearly 3 million euros ($3.6 million) in damages for the 2004 Beslan school siege, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday, citing the Russian justice ministry.

Russia used excessive force to storm a school in the small southern Russian town seized by Islamist militants in 2004, causing a high number of hostages to be killed, the court ruled in April.

The three-day drama began when Islamist militants took more than 1,000 people hostages on the first day of the school year and called for independence for the majority-Muslim region of Chechnya.

More than 330 hostages died, including at least 180 children, when the siege ended in a gunbattle. It was the bloodiest incident of its kind in modern Russian history.

The case for damages was brought by 409 Russian nationals who either were taken hostage or injured in the incident, or were family members of those taken hostage, killed or injured, the European Court of Human Rights statement said in April.

On Tuesday, the court said in a press release that its Grand Chamber Panel had rejected a Russian government request to refer the case and said its ruling was final.

“No other actions are being contemplated by the participants in this process,” the Russian justice ministry said in comments carried by Interfax.

In its April ruling, the court said the heavy-handed way Russian forces stormed the school had “contributed to the casualties among the hostages.”

It also ruled that authorities had failed to take reasonable preventive measures, despite knowing militants were planning to attack an educational institution.
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The remains of at least 65 victims have been retrieved from a mass grave recently found in central Bosnia, forensic experts said Tuesday about the site of one of the most gruesome crimes of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

Lejla Cengic from Bosnia’s Missing Persons Institute said the remains, which included 65 skulls, were found in a grave at the Koricanske Stijene cliff near Mount Vlasic. The remains are believed to belong to some of over 220 non-Serb civilians executed in the area by Bosnian Serb forces on August 21, 1992.

The grave was discovered in August. Experts have been there since Sept. 7 and the exhumation work is continuing.

Most of those killed were taken from notorious Serb-run detention camps near the northwestern town of Prijedor and told they were going for a prisoner exchange.

The victims are believed to have been forced out of a convoy of several hundred civilians whom Serbs were deporting from Prijedor. They were ordered to line up atop the 300-meter (990-foot) cliff and executed. Once the victims fell into the abyss, Serb policemen threw bombs at them to make sure nobody would survive.

Only a dozen men survived by falling or jumping down the ravine when the shooting started.

After the killings, the Bosnian Serbs removed the bodies from the bottom of the cliff and buried them under rocks in several locations in the wider area of Koricanske Stijene. The Missing Persons Institute and the victims’ relatives have been searching the area for the remains since the end of the war.

Exhumations at previously discovered mass graves, not far from the site located in August, have uncovered the remains of 117 victims.

So far, 11 former Bosnian Serb policemen from Prijedor have been sentenced for the slayings at Koricanske Stijene.

Since the end of the war, the remains of 25,500 people have been found by forensic experts in mass graves across Bosnia. Another 7,000 people are still listed as missing and their remains are believed to be hidden at clandestine mass burial sites around the country.
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Stanislav Petrov, a former Soviet military officer known in the West as “the man who saved the world” for his role in averting a nuclear war over a false missile warning at the height of the Cold War, has died at 77.

Petrov’s German friend, Karl Schumacher, said Tuesday that he died on May 19. Schumacher called Petrov earlier this month to wish him a happy birthday, but was told by Petrov’s son Dmitry that his father had died. The Russian state Zvezda TV station only reported the death on Tuesday.

Petrov was on night duty at the Soviet military’s early warning facility outside Moscow on Sept. 26, 1983, when an alarm went off, signaling the launch of several U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles. The 44-year-old lieutenant colonel had to quickly determine whether the attack was real. He chose to consider it a false alarm, which it was.

The incident was particularly harrowing as it happened at one of the tensest periods of the Cold War when the Soviet Union appeared to genuinely fear a surprise U.S. nuclear attack.

A few weeks earlier, the Soviets had shot down a passenger plane flying to South Korea from the U.S., suspecting it of spying, killing all 269 people aboard. The United States, after a series of provocative military maneuvers, was preparing for a major NATO exercise that simulated preparations for a nuclear attack.

In a 2015 interview with The Associated Press, Petrov recalled the excruciating moments at the secret Serpukhov-15 control center when the fate of the world was in his hands.

“I realized that I had to make some kind of decision, and I was only 50/50,” Petrov told the AP.

The responsibility was enormous.

If he had judged it a real launch, the top Soviet military brass and the Kremlin would have had no time for extra analysis in a few minutes left before the incoming nuclear-tipped missiles hit Soviet territory. They would have likely ordered a retaliatory strike, triggering a nuclear war.

“It was this quiet situation and suddenly the roar of the siren breaks in and the command post lights up with the word ‘LAUNCH,'” Petrov told the AP. “This hit the nerves. I was really taken aback. Holy cow!”

Within minutes of the first alarm, the siren sounded again, warning of a second U.S. missile launch. Soon, the system was reporting that five missiles had been launched.

Petrov recalled standing up as the alarm siren blared and seeing that the others were all looking at him in confusion.

“My team was close to panic and it hit me that if panic sets in then it’s all over,” he said.

Petrov told his commander that the system was giving false information. He was not at all certain, but he was driven by the fact that Soviet ground radar could not confirm a launch. The radar system picked up incoming missiles only well after any launch, but he knew it to be more reliable than the satellites.

The false alarm was later determined to have been caused by a malfunction of the satellite, which mistook the reflection of the sun off high clouds for a missile launch.

Petrov was not rewarded for his actions. In fact, he received a reprimand for failing to correctly fill the duty log and retired from the military the following year.

Although his commanding officer did not support Petrov at the time, he was the one who revealed the incident after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. If Col. Gen. Yury Votintsev had not spoken out, Petrov said he himself “would have forgotten about it like a bad dream.”

After his story was told, Petrov has received accolades, international awards and became known as “the man who saved the world.”

But his role won him little fame in his homeland. He continued to live in a small, unkempt apartment in the Moscow suburb of Fryazino. There have been no official reports or statements about his death from any Russian government agency.

Schumacher said it was important for him to let the world know about Petrov’s passing because “we owe this man a lot.”
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