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A gap is widening between the Trump administration and European allies over the future of President Bashar al-Assad and how to end the six-year war in Syria.

While U.S. officials have shifted the focus away from Assad having to relinquish power, European leaders remain adamant he has no future as ruler of Syria. His departure, they say, remains a crucial part of any solution to a conflict that has left an estimated 470,000 dead.

Following Tuesday’s toxic gas attack on a town in northern Syria, the worst chemical weapons attack in the war since mid-2013, European leaders are intensifying their rhetoric. On Tuesday, Britain’s Theresa May called “on all the third parties involved to ensure that we have a transition away from Assad.”

Photo Gallery: Aftermath of gas attack on  Khan Sheikhoun

European politicians gathered for an international conference hosted by the European Union in Brussels on Syria drew a link between what seems to be the use of a more deadly nerve agent than seen in previous claimed chemical weapons attacks, and the Trump administration’s shift on Syria.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Assad’s future was up to the Syrian people to decide, while the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said removing him was no longer a Washington priority.

On Monday, just hours before the gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Haley hardened her rhetoric, referring to the Syrian leader as a “war criminal” guilty of “disgusting” actions against his people.” She said Syrians “don’t want Assad anymore.”

In the wake of the chemical weapons attack, U.S. officials in Washington did not publicly indicate any likely shift in administration policy. The White House and U.S. State Department condemned the attack as “heinous,” dubbing it a likely war crime.

But officials placed the emphasis on the need for Russia and Iran, Assad backers, to do something. Tuesday, the White House press secretary didn’t outline any punitive steps in response to an attack the administration says was carried out by the Assad regime.

Russian, Iranian influence

Tillerson demanded Tuesday that Moscow and Tehran “exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee this sort of horrific attack never happens again.” He added that “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

On Wednesday, Moscow reiterated its denial the Assad regime was responsible for the attack that has left close to 100 dead, according to local activists, and more than 400 injured. Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement it believed a rebel “terrorist warehouse” was hit by a conventional airstrike from Syria’s military, causing the release of “toxic substances.”

The Defense Ministry claimed chemical weapons were being stored for use in neighboring Iraq. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov said,“On the territory of the depot there were workshops, which produced chemical warfare munitions.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said “all the evidence” he had seen in relation to the incident “suggests this was the Assad regime who did it in the full knowledge they were using illegal weapons in a barbaric attack on their own people.”

Johnson added he did “not see how a government like that can continue to have any kind of legitimate administration over the people of Syria.”

Focus on Assad

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said, “There is one thing which cannot happen, that a dictator who committed horrible crimes in the region remains untouched.”

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini also said she could see no way Assad can remain as Syria’s ruler. “It seems completely unrealistic to believe that the future of Syria will be exactly the same as it used to be in the past,” she told reporters in Brussels.

But it is unclear what the Europeans can or would be willing to do without U.S. support, according to analysts.

They note that European influence on shaping international policy on the Syrian conflict is waning, despite the fact Europe is the largest provider of humanitarian aid in Syria. This week’s EU co-hosted international conference on humanitarian assistance to Syria has attracted minimal participation from the United States, Russia and Turkey.

Instead of sending its foreign minister, Russia is only represented at the gathering by its EU ambassador, Vladimir Chizhov. Washington has sent the State Department’s under-secretary for political affairs, Thomas Shannon. That contrasts with last year when then Secretary of State John Kerry attended.

Damascus calculation

Analyst Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute in Washington, says he believes Damascus has taken note of the Trump administration’s policy shift when it comes to Assad’s future and that may have shaped the decision behind launching Tuesday’s attack.

“Assad also knows full well that the U.S. is increasingly distancing itself from any consideration of intervention in Syria, so what has Assad got to lose?” he argued. “If all he suffers is a few days of international condemnation, then he comes out of things just as secure as he was beforehand.”

 
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The European Union is determined to stick to a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of undocumented migrants into the bloc, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.

Tusk, who met Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev, welcomed Sofia’s efforts to boost security on its southeastern border with Turkey to prevent migrants from crossing. He said Brussels would provide additional financing if the situation worsened.

“We are determined to keep routes of illegal migration in this region closed,” Tusk told reporters. “We remain committed to the full implementation of the EU-Turkey statement. The EU is honoring its commitments, just like we expect Turkey to continue keeping its part of the deal.”

The EU-Ankara agreement came into force in March 2016 after more than a million refugees and migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond reached Europe in 2015, many crossing to Greek islands from Turkey.

“Should further difficulties arise on Bulgaria’s borders, the EU has already planned emergency funding, and stands ready to react quickly in support of Bulgaria,” Tusk said.

Turkey has said it may cancel the migrant readmission agreement, under which it takes back people who enter Greece through irregular routes. It was angered after several EU states prevented Turkish politicians from holding rallies to drum up support for plans to give President Tayyip Erdogan new powers in a referendum.

Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member, expressed concern about a possible new migrant influx given that Turkey-EU tensions are running high.

“It is extremely important for us to develop good neighborly relations with Turkey,” Radev said. “At the same time, rising tensions between the EU and Turkey create the greatest risk for Bulgaria.”
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The referendum in Turkey to extend President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers is a couple of weeks away, and polls indicate the outcome remains too close to call. The “No” campaign, having little access to mainstream media, is increasingly turning to social media, and human rights groups accuse prosecutors of targeting those who adopt such a strategy.

Turkish law student Ali Gul’s video on why to vote “No” highlights, in a humorous way, the dangers of concentrating too much power in one person’s hands. It was an instant hit on social media. At the end of the video, Gul rhetorically asked, “Will I get arrested if this video is popular?”

Within days of its success, Gul issued another video, and he said he knew he would be arrested for making it.

Youth ‘deserve freedom’

“I am now going to the prosecutor to give a statement,” he said. “I will probably be arrested after that.  But it is not important, I am not afraid. The children and youth of this nation deserve freedom and happiness — and not fear, imprisonment and death.”

Gul was indeed arrested and jailed — but not for the video. He was detained instead for tweets posted two years ago that were deemed insulting to the president, a crime that carries three years in jail. Gul denied writing them, but his attorneys warned that he was destined to remain in pretrial detention for many months.

Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair Webb of U.S. based Human Rights Watch said there appears to be a systematic campaign of intimidation against “No” campaigners on social media.

“I think actually clamping down on individuals, making them a target for punitive measures pre-referendum because they have had a prominent voice in the ‘No’ campaign, is all about creating a chilling effect which will give the message loud and clear to the general public that you are not welcome to discuss what is at stake in the referendum and you are not welcome to publicly voice opposition of it,” she said.

Scores of arrests, closures

Meanwhile, independent mainstream media have been all but crushed. Under emergency rule, introduced after July’s failed coup, more than 150 journalists have been jailed and 170 media outlets closed, all critical of the government. The government claims the prosecutions and closures are all related to terrorist actions and coup plotting.

Most news TV channels broadcast at least three or four campaign speeches a day in support of a “Yes” vote on the presidential powers issue, while the “No” campaign is all but invisible, accounting for only 10 percent of coverage.

For the “No” campaign, social media have become vital, but with more than 2,500 prosecutions for insulting the president in the past six months, social media postings are not without risks.  

Observers warn such pressure is likely to intensify as the referendum campaign ends.
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Turkish gold imports rose 17-fold to 28.2 tons in March, as Turks looking to hedge currency risk ahead of a referendum in two weeks time followed President Tayyip Erdogan’s calls to buy gold instead of dollars.

After the sharpest falls in the Turkish lira since the 2008 financial crisis last November, Erdogan called on Turks to sell dollars and buy lira or gold to prop up the local currency. Gold imports have been rising year-on-year ever since.

“People have started opting for gold rather than foreign currencies,” said Mehmet Ali Yildirimturk, a gold specialist in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, adding that a moderate recovery in the lira had also made gold more affordable again.

Gold imports to Turkey rose almost eightfold to 36.7 tons in December after Erdogan’s calls, their highest monthly level in just over two years, according to data from the Precious Mines and Metals Markets of the Istanbul bourse.

Prices in Turkey surged from 132 lira ($36) for 24-carat gold in January to 153 lira in February. On Tuesday, gold prices were around 148 liras.

Gold is seen as a safe place to park assets during times of uncertainty. Turkey holds a referendum on April 16 on constitutional changes which would significantly boost Erdogan’s powers, with polls suggesting a tight race.

($1 = 3.6664 liras)
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Bulgaria’s largest party, the center-right GERB, expects to form a government with three nationalist parties by late April and return Boiko Boriskov to power as prime minister, a senior party official said on Monday.

Borisov’s GERB won 95 seats in the general election on March 26, beating its leftist Socialist rivals, but it failed to gain an outright 121-seat majority in parliament.

His resignation late last year triggered the early election.

GERB has told the third-placed United Patriots (UP), a nationalist alliance of three parties, that the prime minister’s post will not be subject of their coalition negotiations.

“The prime minister of the next government that will be formed I suppose by the end of this month … will be Boiko Borisov”, said Vladislav Goranov, an MP and member of GERB’s political negotiating team. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Goranov’s comments to reporters came after one of the nationalist leaders had suggested that Borisov, 57, should not lead the next government.

Borisov quit as premier after a GERB-backed candidate lost a presidential election in November to Rumen Radev, a Russia-friendly ally of the Socialists. Bulgaria is currently being run by a caretaker administration.

The UP alliance campaigned to boost low living standards and double the minimum monthly state pensions, now at 160 levs ($87.25) – the lowest in the European Union.

Analysts say such demands, coupled with GERB’s plans to double teachers’ wages within four years, may boost public spending and pose risks to Bulgaria’s currency peg to the euro.

But Goranov, a former finance minister likely to get the same post in the next government, told reporters he was not worried for state coffers.

A coalition with the nationalists would have just one seat above the majority threshold of 121 seats and Goranov said GERB would also seek support of smaller, populist grouping of businessman Veselin Mareshki.

Bulgaria’s polls suggested the country would continue with its fiscal and economic policies but was unlikely to break a pattern of unstable governments that have hindered structural reforms, Fitch rating agency said last week.

The timing for inter-party negotiations has yet to be set.

GERB has not ruled out leading a minority government, but Goranov called such an option “extreme.”

(1$= 1.8338 leva)
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Several U.S. legislators have criticized the Russian government for plans to effectively ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a nontraditional Christian movement, as an “extremist” organization.

On March 15, Russia’s Justice Ministry filed a claim with the country’s Supreme Court, calling on it to designate the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia an “extremist” organization and liquidate the group’s national headquarters and 395 local chapters in Russia.

Jehovah’s Witnesses is a millenarian Christian group founded in the United States in the 1870s. It is known, among other things, for door-to-door preaching and refusing to perform military service, salute national flags or accept blood transfusions. Its adherents have frequently been persecuted by authoritarian governments, including that of the former Soviet Union.

“At stake in the upcoming court case is the legality and, perhaps, the survival of the Jehovah’s Witnesses — and, in fact, basic religious freedom — throughout the Russian Federation,” said Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who co-chairs the U.S. Helsinki Commission. “If the Supreme Court of Russia declares this faith group an extremist organization, it is an ominous sign for all believers and it marks a dark, sad day for all Russians.”

Russia’s Justice Ministry reported on its website last week that since 2009, it has identified 95 materials of “an extremist nature” that were brought into Russia and circulated in the country, according to the Tass news agency. Tass quoted the website saying, “As many as eight local cells of the organization were recognized to be extremist ones, banned and disbanded since 2009.”

However, Anatoly Pchelintsev, chief editor of the magazine Religion and Law, said the accusations are incompatible with the principle of freedom of religion.

“Formally, the semblance of legitimacy is observed [by the Justice Ministry],” he told VOA’s Russian Service. “However, there is actually no extremist activity and, in fact, it is baseless and bogus. There are multiple videotapes showing how banned literature is planted [on Jehovah’s Witnesses].”

If the Supreme Court rules against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, its 175,000 followers face the threat of criminal prosecution.

That, according to Pchelintsev, would be “total madness.”

“Of course, there will absolutely be prison sentences, just like it was in Taganrog [in southern Russia’s Rostov region], where 15 innocent people were sentenced,” he said. “But a majority [of the Jehovah’s Witnesses] will go underground. They will also be congregating, praying and so on. Stalin couldn’t do anything about them even though he deported them to the North. Hitler also couldn’t do anything about them, even though he sent them to concentration camps and physically destroyed them.”

Pchelintsev recalled that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were recognized in the early 1990s as having been victims of political repression during the Soviet period, and received official documents to that effect.

“If they’re being banned now, should their documents be revoked?” he asked. “And then, after a while, when a new president is elected, should they receive their documents back? It’s a bizarre logic. We cannot live according to the constitution; we’re constantly looking for an enemy, either external or internal.”

Pchelintsev added: “You may not share their beliefs and there can be different attitudes toward them,” he said. “However, from the standpoint of law and the constitution, they have every right to exist. Otherwise, we will become the first country in the modern world to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Valery Borshchev, a veteran human rights activist and member of the Russian branch of the International Association of Religious Freedom, agrees that harassment of the Jehovah’s Witnesses violates the principles of religious freedom.

“The Jehovah’s Witnesses are not involved in any extremist activity,” he told VOA. “Yes, they have some controversial views that confuse others — for example, the ban on blood transfusions. But it’s a debatable issue.”

In any case, said Borshchev, this has nothing to do with extremist activity.

“All the accusations against them are unfair and anti-constitutional,” he said. “It violates the principles of the freedom of belief and conscience enshrined in the constitution.”

According to Borshchev, those calling for the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be banned do not understand the nature of religious organizations.

“They would do well to learn the history of religious movement in the Soviet Union, where nobody could do anything about the alternative churches,” he said. “The same thing will happen now. More than that, this adversarial position will escalate the conflict. The members of the organization will feel like they have a mission and it will strengthen their rigor.”

According to the Helsinki Final Act, which was signed by the 57 participating countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE), including Russia, “the participating States will recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.”

VOA’s Svetlana Cunningham contributed to this report, which was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Russian Service.
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Amenia’s ruling party won slightly less than 50 percent of the vote in a parliamentary election, officials said on Monday.

Sunday’s vote, which was the nation’s first since the former Soviet republic changed its constitution to expand power of parliament and the prime minister’s office, allowed President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) to claim a majority of seats.

HHK claimed 49 percent of the vote, with businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s opposition coalition trailing with 27 percent, and two other parties getting 5 percent — just enough to get seats in parliament — according to data released by the Central Election Commission. Official results are expected to be released later this week.

Critics have said the recent constitutional amendments are part of Sargsyan’s efforts to retain control of the country after he steps down in 2018 due to term limits. If his party controls parliament, he could be appointed prime minister after that.

Sargsyan and his supporters have vigorously disputed that claim.

The observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) called Sunday’s vote “well administered and fundamental freedoms were generally respected.” OSCE officials, however, did acknowledge allegations of vote-buying and intimidation around the country.

Sona Ayvazyan, executive director of Transparency International Armenian, told VOA’s Armenian Service, “Our observers recorded many violations related to the failures of technical equipment” such as electronic fingerprint scanners.

“These failures were not intentional, I assume,” she added. “However, in terms of frequency, these failures were most frequent. … We [also] saw the increase of pressure on and bribery of the voters.”

Armenian Helsinki Committee Director Avet Ishkhanyan told VOA about widespread bribery.

“Prior to the voting, everything was already predetermined,” he said. “People were already registered as ‘units,’ and each of them was supposed to be bribed or threatened to vote for ruling candidates.

“What distinguishes this voting from previous elections is that, prior to this … many people’s votes had been already bought by bribes, so there was no need for widespread violations during the ballot-counting process,” Ishkhanyan added. “But is that a step forward? I would rather say these are the saddest elections, which illustrate final failure of civil and political institutes in Armenia.”

An RFE/RL reporter who was investigating allegations of vote-buying was attacked a few hours after polls opened.

The incident occurred after Sisak Gabrielian, a reporter with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, saw citizens leaving an HHK office in Yerevan’s Kond neighborhood with money in their hands.

People inside the campaign office, who refused to identify themselves, said it was salary money and that citizens were not receiving “election bribes.”

Gabrielian said he was then roughed up by ruling party loyalists, receiving minor injuries.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Armenian Service Some information is from AP.
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Thousands of people took to the streets of Hungary’s capital Budapest Sunday to protest legislation that a university founded by U.S. billionaire George Soros says is aimed at shutting it down.

There is growing opposition in Hungary and abroad to a bill proposed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government that would tighten regulations on foreign universities.

Central European University, founded by Soros in 1991, says the bill is aimed at driving it out of the country, a charge the government has denied.

The proposed new rules affect universities from non-European Union countries and would ban their awarding of Hungarian diplomas without an agreement between national governments.

Such institutions also would be required to have operations in their home countries.

The future of the CEU, which does not have a U.S. campus, now “depends on talks between the governments of Hungary and the United States,” Orban said on Friday. He also said the “Soros university” was “cheating” because it can award both a Hungarian diploma and an American one, which gives it an “unfair advantage” over local institutions.

Hungarian scholars and teaching organizations, as well as more than 500 leading international academics, including 17 Nobel laureates, have come out in support of CEU, saying it is one of the preeminent centers of thought in the country.

CEU enrolls more than 1,400 students from 108 countries.
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Nikki Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday that President Donald Trump has not blocked her from attacking Russia, even as he continues to assail U.S. news media for its reporting on congressional and legal investigations into whether his aides colluded with Russian officials to help him win the election.

“The president has not once called me and said, ‘Don’t beat up on Russia’ — has not once called me and told me what to say,” Haley told ABC News. “I am beating up on Russia.”

Haley said Russia’s 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula was wrong, as well Moscow’s continuing involvement supporting pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine battling Kyiv’s forces.

“When they do something wrong,” she said, “I have no trouble calling them out. The president has not disagreed with me” holding Russia “accountable.”

Asked whether Trump needs to be “beating up on Russia” as well, Haley responded, “Well, of course. He’s got a lot of things he’s doing, but he is not stopping me from beating up on Russia.”

“The United States continues to condemn and call for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea,” Haley said. She added that “Crimea-related sanctions” levied against Russia will continue to “remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.”

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Moscow, on orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, meddled in last year’s presidential election in an effort to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state.

Haley told ABC that “certainly, I think Russia was involved in the election. There’s no question about that.” She added, “We don’t want any country involved in our elections, ever. We need to be very strong on that.”

The top U.S. investigative agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is probing whether Trump aides criminally colluded with Russian officials to boost Trump’s election chances. In addition, intelligence committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives are conducting their own investigations of Russian interference in the election.

Trump only reluctantly accepted the intelligence community’s finding about Russian meddling in the election, but he frequently has disparaged news accounts about the ongoing probes.

On Saturday, on his Twitter account, Trump said, “It is the same Fake News Media that said there is ‘no path to victory for Trump’ that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!”
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France’s polling commission has issued a warning over a Russian news report suggesting conservative candidate Francois Fillon leads the race for the presidency — something which contradicts the findings of mainstream opinion pollsters.

The cautionary note from the watchdog on pre-election polling followed allegations in February by aides of centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron that he was a target of “fake news” put out by Russian media including the Sputnik news agency.

Macron takes a hard line on European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, whereas Fillon has said they are totally ineffective, creating a “cold war” climate that needs to be reversed.

Almost all media in France are drawing on polls that have shown since mid-February that Fillon, a former prime minister, is trailing in third place behind Macron and far right leader Marine Le Pen for the April 23 first round. Third place would mean Fillon’s elimination from the May 7 runoff.

State-run Sputnik carried different findings in a report on March 29 under the headline: “2017 presidential elections: the return of Fillon at the head of the polls.”

It quoted Moscow-based Brand Analytics, an online audience research firm, as saying that its study based on an analysis of French social media put Fillon out in front.

In a statement, France’s polling commission said the study could not be described as representative of public opinion and Sputnik had improperly called it a “poll”, as defined by law in France.

“It is imperative that publication of this type of survey be treated with caution so that public opinion is aware of its non-representative nature,” it said.

Brand Analytics’ track record either for political polling or for commercial internet audience measurement outside of Russia and former Soviet territory is unknown.

Sputnik published an earlier online survey by the firm from mid-February which also showed Fillon with a strong lead over Macron and Le Pen at a time when other polls showed Macron’s candidacy beginning to surge with Fillon in third place.

Neither Sputnik in Moscow, nor the company, responded immediately to emailed requests for comment on Sunday.

US intelligence warns

Richard Burr, head of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee which is investigating the Russian hacking during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, said last week that the Kremlin was trying to interfere in the French vote.

The Kremlin denied in February that it was behind media and internet attacks on Macron’s campaign. Russia has a strong interest in the outcome of the French election since Macron has suggested imposing further sanctions on Moscow if it does not implement its side of a deal to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

Fillon, once the frontrunner for the Elysee before he was hit by a scandal surrounding payments of public funds to his wife and children, dismissed as “fantasy” concerns of Russian interference in the election. Speaking last Friday, Fillon said he would seek a better balance in relations with a country that was nevertheless “dangerous.”

Richard Ferrand, the head of Macron’s En Marche! (Onwards!) party, said in February that Sputnik and another Russian state-run outlet Russia Today were spreading ‘fake news’ with the aim of swinging public opinion against Macron.

In February, Sputnik announced it would publish weekly French election polls using representative sampling from three mainstream polling firms — IFOP, Ipsos and OpinionWay — alongside an analysis of social media posts in France from Brand Analytics for which it did not disclose its survey methodology.

Separately, Sputnik carried a news report last Friday about Macron supporters being awarded state decorations when he had been a high-level functionary at the Elysee and economy minister in the Socialist government, suggesting this could amount to influence peddling.

It offered no proof that Macron had organized the decorations, which were sometimes awarded by other ministers. In several instances, it cited awards made by the economy ministry, without mentioning that Arnaud Montebourg, Macron’s predecessor, was minister at the time.

The Sputnik report contrasted Macron’s alleged action with a judicial inquiry into an award made when Fillon was prime minister to a billionaire friend who owned a cultural magazine where Fillon’s wife drew a salary.

 
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Serbians voted for a new president on Sunday with conservative Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic the runaway favourite despite opposition warnings about the extent of his domination over the Balkan country.

Most polls see Vucic, 47, winning in the first round with more than 50 percent of the vote, trailed in the low teens by a former rights advocate and a white-suited student whose satirical portrayal of a sleazy political fraudster has struck a chord with some disillusioned voters.

The role of president is largely ceremonial, but Vucic is expected to retain real power through his control of Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party.

As such, the election is unlikely to alter the country’s delicate balancing act between the European Union, which Vucic wants Serbia to join, and Russia, with which Serbs share their Orthodox Christian faith and Slavic heritage.

During the campaign, the studio backdrop of one popular television talkshow on which Vucic was a guest featured a photograph of him flanked by pictures of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

To his supporters, Vucic is a cool head and a firm hand in a troubled region.

“I voted for stability, we’ve had enough wars,” said Bozica Ivanovic, a 65-year-old pensioner who voted for Vucic. “We need more jobs for younger people and if we can get higher pensions and salaries, even better.”

Vucic’s opponents, however, say he has an authoritarian streak that has led him to take control over the media in Serbia since his party rose to power in 2012 and he became prime minister three years ago.

He denies the charge but has struggled to shake it given his record when last in government in the dying days of Yugoslavia.

Then in his late 20s, Vucic was Serbia’s feared information minister behind draconian legislation designed to muzzle criticism of the government during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

“We want above all to give back dignity to Serbian citizens and meaning to state institutions,” Sasa Jankovic, Serbia’s former human rights ombudsman who was polling a distant second or third before Sunday’s vote, said after casting his ballot.

Turnout until 10 a.m was 10.56 percent compared to 11.04 percent in 2012, state election commission said.

‘Proxy’ prime minister

Jankovic and a host of opposition candidates risk being embarrassed by 25-year-old communications student Luka Maksimovic, whose alter ego Ljubisa ‘Beli’ Preletacevic has come from almost nowhere to challenge them for second place.

Dressed in a white suit and loafers, the pony-tailed Maksimovic plays on a widely-held perception of Balkan politicians as greedy cheats. Despite economic growth and greater fiscal stability, Serbia remains mired in poverty and corruption.

“I voted for Beli,” said 30-year-old Dejan Markovic, an unemployed metal worker. “The so-called opposition candidates have betrayed us in the past and Vucic is lying to us all now, so Beli is the only way to mock all this hypocrisy.”

Pollsters said a high turnout among Serbia’s 6.7 million eligible voters may force a run-off on April 16, Easter weekend, if no single candidate wins a majority in the first round.

“I am hoping these elections will facilitate stability and the continuation of economic reforms,” Vucic said after voting.

As president, Vucic would have few formal powers, among them the right to send legislation back to parliament for reconsideration.

But he is widely expected to appoint a loyal ally as prime minister and try to keep a tight rein on policy, as former President Boris Tadic, then of the Democratic Party, did between 2004 and 2012.

Some analysts said that could yet prove difficult.

“Vucic will now be distanced from everyday policy-making and executive affairs and will have to rely on a proxy,” Eurasia Group wrote in on March 30. “This will likely generate some tensions in the chain of command.”
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Armenians voted for a new parliament on Sunday in a closely fought race between the ruling party and a former coalition partner that heralds the start of a parliamentary system of government.

Under constitutional changes critics say were designed to prolong the political life of President Serzh Sarksyan, parliament, not voters, will elect the president for the first time. That role will become largely ceremonial while the office of prime minister will become more powerful.

Voting got under way at 0400 GMT and would last until 1600 GMT in the country with about 2.6 million eligible voters.

Sarksyan, the 62-year-old leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), has repeatedly denied that the changes, which were approved by the electorate in a December 2015 referendum, were made for his benefit.

He has been president since 2008 but his second term expires next year. Under the new system, critics say, he could keep wielding executive power by becoming prime minister, stay active by remaining leader of the RPA or quit politics but keep exercising influence via a handpicked successor.

The outcome of Sunday’s vote was difficult to predict, with polls showing the RPA neck-and-neck with an opposition alliance led by wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukyan.

His alliance has ruled in coalition with the RPA before, but it is not clear whether it would agree to do so again if, as expected, it fails to win enough support to rule alone.

The ruling party still wields considerable support and its main campaigner, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, who was appointed in September, is a popular figure and the RPA candidate for the post of the prime minister after this vote.

“I’m very optimistic, but time will show [who will win],” he said after voting.

Many Armenians, however, accuse the government of corruption and of mishandling the troubled economy.

Armenia depends heavily for aid and investment on Russia, which has been hard hit in the past three years by an economic downturn. Armenia has felt the impact, with growth falling to 0.2 percent last year from 3.0 percent in 2015.

“Voters should vote for [our] party, which will change laws and will change life,” Tsarukyan said after voting at a polling station in his native town of Abovyan, about 20 km north-east from the capital Yerevan.

“Economic growth is impossible in the current situation.” Political analysts say unrest could erupt after the vote, partly due to a growing malaise over the economic slowdown.

“The situation is especially tense, due to the deepening level of discontent and dissent,” said Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan.
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Hundreds of men in the Russian republic of Chechnya have been rounded up and detained recently on suspicion of being homosexual, and at least three have died while in custody, according to a prominent Russian newspaper.

Novaya Gazeta, which reported the crackdown Saturday, said it was aware of other sources who say the death toll may be far higher. The gay men who have disappeared from the streets of Grozny, the Chechen capital, and other towns and cities are said to have ranged in age from 16 to 50.

Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based publication known for independent investigative reporting and its willingness to confront Russian officialdom, said it learned of the action against gay men in Chechnya from the Interior Ministry in the Caucasus republic, local activists and law enforcement sources.

The men were detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, on suspicion of such,” Novaya Gazeta reported. It said none of the detainees had openly disclosed their sexual orientation — a move the paper equated with asking for a death sentence in the largely Muslim North Caucasus region.

The account also quoted locals as saying Chechens who used gay contact groups on social messaging networks have been abandoning them and closing their accounts. It further quoted sources in Chechnya’s special services as describing the police sweep as “a preventative clear-out” aimed at discouraging public gay rights rallies.

Chechen leader: no gay men here

There was no immediate comment on the report from authorities in Moscow, which has granted its Muslim-majority Caucasus republics freedom to enforce traditional Muslim values.

However, a spokesman for Chechnya’s authoritarian leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, denied the Novaya Gazeta report in a statement to the Russian news agency Interfax that claimed no one in the republic is homosexual.

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” Alvi Karimov said.

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them,” Karimov added, “since their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”

Novaya Gazeta has a history of confrontation with the Chechen government and the republic’s Kremlin handlers.

Reporter’​s death

In 2006, Gazeta reporter and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya wrote a series of reports critical of Russia, Kadyrov and Moscow’s role in the second Chechen war.

In her last interview, Politkovskaya described Chechen leader Kadyrov to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as a “coward armed to the teeth and surrounded by security guards.”

She said she hoped to see Kadyrov “someday sitting in the dock, in a trial that meets the strictest legal standards,” facing justice for atrocities allegedly committed by his forces during the Moscow-backed war against separatists in Chechnya.

Politkovskaya’s interview with RFE/RL took place October 5, 2006. Two days later, she was shot dead at point-blank range as she entered an elevator in her Moscow apartment building. Her colleagues blamed the assassination on Kadyrov.

The fateful interview that week coincided with then-Prime Minister Kadyrov’s 30th birthday, a milestone that meant he could seek the republic’s presidency, which he did a few months later.

Five men were eventually convicted of killing Politkovskaya.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders on trade deficits and import duty evasion are a sign that Washington plans to move away from free trade and international agreements, German Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said on Saturday.

Trump instructed his administration on Friday to study the causes of U.S. trade deficits and clamp down on countries that abuse trade rules in two executive orders he said would open a new chapter for U.S. workers and businesses.

Zypries said that while the executive orders were initially only reviews, “they show, however, that the U.S. obviously wants to move away from free trade and trade agreements.”

“We must seek constructive dialogue and explain that the reasons for the U.S. trade deficit are not just abroad,” the minister said, adding that she would raise the issue in talks with U.S. counterparts during a trip to Washington in May.

For years, the United States has been importing more goods from Germany than it exports to Europe’s biggest economy, due to the relatively strong competitiveness of German firms and the high demand among U.S. customers for ‘Made in Germany’ goods.

The resulting U.S. trade deficit with Germany has nearly doubled in the past 10 years from some 28.8 billion euros in 2006 to 49 billion euros in 2016, according to data from Germany’s Federal Statistics Office.

Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has accused Germany of exploiting other countries through a “grossly undervalued” euro.

This sparked a sharp response from German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said the European Central Bank is in charge of the euro and the central bank is a politically independent body.

In a further sign of increased tensions between Germany and the United States, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel urged the European Union on Friday to consider filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States over its plan to impose duties on imports of steel plate from five EU member states.
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The Trump administration escalated its criticism of Moscow Friday, with two of its most senior officials denouncing Russia’s treatment of Ukraine and reiterating a vow to maintain U.S. sanctions.

In his first visit to a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Russia of “aggression” in Ukraine and told his counterparts that their alliance is “fundamental to countering both nonviolent, but at times violent, Russian agitation” in the region. 

He also said U.S. sanctions against Moscow will remain in effect until it “reverses the actions” that triggered them. Washington imposed the sanctions in response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and expanded them after Moscow began providing military aid to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Tillerson’s previous language on Russia had been more conciliatory. After his first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a Group of 20 major economies meeting in Bonn in February, Tillerson said the U.S. wants to find “new common ground” with Russia and “expects” it to honor commitments to de-escalate violence in Ukraine as part of the 2015 Minsk agreement.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, whose role is subordinate to Tillerson, similarly criticized Russian “aggression” and vowed to keep U.S. sanctions in place in remarks to the U.N. Security Council February 2.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis also fired a verbal attack at Russia Friday. Echoing language he used in February, Mattis told reporters in London that Russian “violations” of international law are now a “matter of record — from what happened with Crimea to other aspects of their behavior in mucking around inside other people’s elections” — a likely reference to U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.

Senior Russian lawmaker Alexey Pushkov was not amused by the U.S. verbal assaults. In a Friday tweet, he said the new U.S. administration “sounds like the old one — Mattis is indistinguishable from (former Defense Secretary Ash) Carter, Tillerson is talking about ‘Russian aggression.’ (Barack) Obama and (Hillary) Clinton must be happy.”

Bloomberg reported that Tillerson’s tough language on Russia was well-received by NATO officials. 

But NATO’s previous secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told VOA Persian that he believes the Trump administration should go further. After speaking at a Hudson Institute forum in Washington Thursday, Rasmussen said the U.S. should “strengthen” its sanctions in response to what he called Russia’s continued destabilization of eastern Ukraine.

Watch: Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on US Sanctions

Tillerson and Mattis made no reference in their new remarks to Russia’s plans for more weapons sales to Iran, a nation the Trump administration has warned against threatening the U.S. or its Middle East allies.

A Russian lawmaker who heads the upper house of parliament’s defense and security committee, Viktor Ozerov, visited Iran last November and told reporters that Tehran was in talks to buy $10 billion worth of Russian military hardware. Ozerov said any Russian deliveries of conventional weapons to Iran likely will have to wait until 2020 when U.N. restrictions on arms sales to Tehran expire.

Moscow had taken a major step to boost military cooperation with Tehran before Ozerov’s announcement, delivering an S-300 advanced air defense system to Iran last year.

U.S. officials responded to the Russian-Iranian weapons talks with alarm, according to The Washington Free Beacon news site. It quoted State Department officials as saying they had long been working behind the scenes to persuade Moscow not to sell weapons to Iran.

Former NATO deputy secretary general Alexander Vershbow, who also spoke at Thursday’s Washington forum, told VOA Persian he does not think U.S. sanctions alone can stop Russia from arming Iran.

Watch: Former NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow on US Sanctions and Russia

“To be effective, the U.S. would have to adopt a unified sanctions approach with Europe,” Vershbow said. “While some sanctions imposed on Russia because of Ukraine may cover the Russian defense as well as financial sectors, targeting additional sanctions against Moscow specifically because of Iran may not be an easy issue for agreement with Europe, given its desire not to harm the Iran nuclear deal.”

Iran agreed to curb activities that could produce nuclear weapons as part of a 2015 deal with world powers, who agreed to ease sanctions against Tehran in return.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian Service.
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Austria’s top diplomat on Friday called on both sides of the conflict in Azerbaijan’s autonomous breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh to renew the political settlement process.

Marking the first anniversary of deadly clashes in the Azeri region, which is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), emphasized his hope for a fresh start in the largely stalled peace negotiations.

“Clashes and serious violations of the cease-fire on the Line of Contact, resulting in casualties, were of particular concern to us throughout the past year,” Kurz said in a public statement. “It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building as well as a resumption of substantive negotiations.”

The United States, Russia and France, which co-chair OSCE’s Minsk Group for conflict mediation, used diplomacy to halt the violence between Armenian-backed separatists and Azeri forces, which was the deadliest incident since a 1994 cease-fire established the current territorial division. Although they have been unable to secure a binding peace resolution, former U.S. Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh said, the renewed push by the OSCE presents a rare opportunity for U.S. and Russian coordination.

“President [Donald] Trump had made clear during his campaign, and since then, that he would like to find a way to have more positive relations with Russia. This might be one of those areas where that is more easily tackled,” said Cavanaugh, who once co-chaired the Minsk Group as a special negotiator alongside Russian and French diplomats.

Opportunity to surprise

“For two decades we’ve been working together as co-chairs on this, and I can tell you as a former co-chair — and I have talked with my successors — that the cooperation would surprise people,” he said.

Unlike the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts, Nagorno-Karabakh is place where U.S. and Russian interests converge. Considering the constant cease-fire violations since the 2016 clashes left more than 100 people dead, Nagorno-Karabakh, he said, cannot be considered a frozen conflict, but rather “a simmering one, which needs a lot of attention and has a lot of danger.”

The only solution that can prevent further violence is close coordination between U.S. and Russian diplomats, whose nations would both benefit from a sustained peace in the region.

But that can only happen, Cavanaugh said, if both Azeri and Armenian-aligned factions show Washington and Moscow that they are ready to re-engage the peace process.

“The sides need to send clear signals to Moscow, to Washington, to Paris, that they are prepared now really to work on peace again.”

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Armenian service.
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Pressure is growing on the Hungarian government to withdraw a draft bill on higher education that could lead to the closure of the Central European University in Budapest, which was founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

The U.S. State Department as well as dozens of academics in Hungary and abroad Friday called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to ensure CEU’s independence and operations.

Orban said Friday on state radio that the CEU was “cheating” because it did not have a campus in its country of origin and because it issued diplomas recognized both in Hungary and the United States, giving it an undue advantage over local institutions. The CEU is accredited in New York state but does not have a U.S. campus.

“This is not fair to Hungarian universities,” Orban said. “There is competition among universities and it is inexplicable why we should put our own universities at a disadvantage … while securing an unfair advantage for the foreign university.”

Nobel Prize winners

Fourteen winners of the Nobel Prize in economics were among about 150 academics from U.S. and European universities who advocated for the CEU in an open letter addressed to education officials and Reka Szemerkenyi, Hungary’s ambassador in Washington.

“It would be a sad outcome for the training of students from the region, for academic research in Hungary, and for our own cooperation with Hungarian academics, if the proposed legislation came into force,” the academics said.

Orban, however, conditioned CEU’s survival to a bilateral Hungary-U.S. agreement on the university. He did not hide his disdain for the Hungarian-born Soros’ policies supporting the university and numerous non-governmental organizations that Orban considers “foreign agents” working against Hungarian interests.

University vows to stay open

CEU rector Michael Ignatieff has vowed to keep the university open despite the draft bill, scheduled to be debated by lawmakers next week. The bill sets new conditions on foreign universities operating in Hungary and was seen as directly targeting the CEU.

Among the 28 foreign universities in Hungary, only CEU would fail to meet a requirement to also have a campus in its home country.

“Contrary to the prime minister’s statement, there is no current Hungarian law that requires universities to have operations in their home countries in order to award degrees in Hungary,” the CEU said. “We have been lawful partners in Hungarian higher education for 25 years and any statement to the contrary is false.”

The CEU also said it was notified Friday by Hungary’s education authority that its accreditation in New York state met the conditions for operating in Hungary.

US speaks out

The U.S. State Department also took exception to the proposed legislation, saying it would impose “new, targeted, and onerous regulatory requirements on foreign universities.”

“If adopted, these changes would negatively affect or even lead to the closure” of the CEU, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “We urge the government of Hungary to avoid taking any legislative action that would compromise CEU’s operations or independence.”

Hungarian university organizations also expressed their support for the CEU.

“CEU is a very significant scholarly center,” said Laszlo Lovasz, president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. “It is good that it operates in Budapest.”
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Poland’s defense minster said Friday that he expected to sign a multibillion-dollar deal with U.S. firm Raytheon to buy eight Patriot missile defense systems this year.

Antoni Macierewicz told reporters in Warsaw that the $7.6 billion deal was necessary in light of what he called “a growing threat from the East.” Poland has increased efforts to modernize its military since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine three years ago.

“Those systems allow us to guarantee the security of the Polish state,” Macierewicz said.

Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki said the missile system would help protect against Russian missiles based in Kaliningrad, an enclave of Russian territory between Poland’s northeastern border and Lithuania.

Raytheon also expressed satisfaction that the deal was moving forward. Congress must approve any contract for the sale of advanced U.S. military technology.

Macierewicz said the Polish government and Raytheon “concluded a very important stage of our discussions on the acquisition of medium-range missile systems to ensure Poland’s security.” He said that some issues were still outstanding, but that the deal could be signed by the end of 2017 if all conditions were agreed upon.

The defense minister acknowledged the talks were sometimes difficult and said Raytheon’s earlier price estimate for the missile systems, $12.7 billion, was “unacceptable.”
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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has criticized those, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who praise Britain’s secession from the European Union (EU), and champion similar movements in other member nations. Leaders of the European People’s Party met on Malta Thursday, a day after Britain triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, officially starting the process known as Brexit. Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected.

Ninety percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea. Every vessel has an identification number administered by the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization or IMO. But crews are able to change the digital identity of their ship, making it possible to conceal previous journeys.

The Israeli firm Windward has developed software to track the changes. Its CEO, Ami Daniel, showed VOA several examples of suspicious shipping activity, including one vessel that changed its entire identity in the middle of a voyage from a Chinese port to North Korea.

“It’s intentionally changing all of identification numbers. Also its name, and its size, and its flag and its owner. Everything that’s recognizable in its digital footprint. This is obviously someone who is trying to circumvent sanctions [on North Korea],” says Daniel.

Transfers at sea

In a joint investigation with the Times of London newspaper, Windward showed that in January and February more than 1,000 cargo transfers took place at sea. Security experts fear traffickers are transporting drugs, weapons, and even people.

Suspicious activity can be highlighted by comparing a vessel’s journey with all its previous voyages. In mid-January a Cyprus-flagged ship designed to carry fish deviated from its usual route between West Africa and northern Europe to visit Ukraine, deactivating its tracking system on several occasions.

“It’s leaving Ukraine, transiting all through the Bosphorus Straits into Europe, then drifting off Malta,” explains Daniel, as the Windward system plots the route of the reefer [refrigerated] vessel on the screen. “On the way it turns off transmission a few times … then it comes into this place east of Gibraltar. This area is known for ship-to-ship transfers and smuggling, because of the proximity to North Africa.”

Under global regulations all vessels must report their last port of call when arriving in a new port.

“But as you can understand, when it does ship-to-ship transfers here, it doesn’t actually call into any port, right, because it’s the middle of the ocean. So it’s finding a way to bypass what it already has to report to the authorities,” Daniel said.

Finally the vessel sails to a remote Scottish island called Islay, but again it anchors around 400 meters off a tiny deserted bay. The specific purpose of this voyage hasn’t yet been identified.

Lack of political will

Daniel shows another example of a vessel leaving the Libyan port of Tobruk before drifting just off the Greek island of Crete, raising suspicions that it is involved in people smuggling.

But he says using information like this to investigate suspicious shipping activities requires political will as well as technological advances.

“Regulation, coordination, legislation. And then proof in the court of law. And not all of this necessarily exists. The high seas, which means 200 nautical miles onwards by definition, are not regulated right now. The U.N. is still working on it.”

Meanwhile the scale of smuggling around the United States’ coastline was underlined this month, as the Coast Guard intercepted 660 kilos of cocaine off the coast of Florida, with a street value of an estimated $420 million.

 
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Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern that the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected. New technology enables authorities to follow the routes of suspect vessels, but security experts say taking on the smugglers will require greater coordination. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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While much attention is on Russia’s policy toward the Baltic states, some experts say Russia’s growing influence in the Balkans poses more of a danger to Western interests in that region. They say Moscow’s aim is to counter Western interests by preventing Balkan states from being integrated into the Euro-Atlantic institutions. VOA’s Jane Bojadzievski has more.
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Russian high school student Roman Shingarkin had some explaining to do when he got home after becoming one of the faces of anti-Kremlin protests at the weekend. His father is a former member of parliament who supports President Vladimir Putin.

At the height of a protest in Moscow on Sunday against what organizers said was official corruption, 17-year-old Shingarkin and another young man climbed onto the top of a lamp-post in the city’s Pushkin Square.

Hundreds of protesters in the square cheered and whistled as a police officer, dressed in riot gear, shinned up the lamp-post and remonstrated with the two to come down. They refused, and the police officer retreated, to jubilation from the protesters down below.

As images of the protests, the biggest in Russia for several years, ricocheted around social media, Shingarkin’s sit-in on top of the lamp-post was adopted by Kremlin opponents as a David-and-Goliath style symbol of defiance.

Shingarkin was eventually detained when, after the protest in Pushkin Square had dispersed, police persuaded him to climb down. He was taken to a police station but as a minor, he could not be charged. From the police station, he had to ring his father to ask to be picked up.

His father, Maxim Shingarkin, was from 2011 until 2016 a lawmaker in the State Duma, or lower house of parliament. He was a member of the LDPR party, a nationalist group that on nearly all major issues backs Putin.

Putin last year gave the party’s leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a medal for services to Russia. With Putin standing next to him, Zhirinovsky proclaimed: “God protect the tsar.”

Shingarkin had not told his father he would be going to the protest, but the former lawmaker quickly guessed what had happened.

“When I rang my dad from the police station, he immediately understood why I was there,” Shingarkin, wearing the same blue and black coat he had on during the protest, said in an interview with Reuters TV.

“I went there [to the rally] out of interest to see how strong the opposition is, how many people would take to the streets, and at the same time to get a response from authorities to a clear fact of corruption.”

He decided to climb up the lamp-post because he “could see nothing from the ground.”

Contacted by telephone on Wednesday, Shingarkin senior said he was sympathetic with his son’s motives for attending the protest.

“He has a social position, against corruption, I support it completely,” Maxim Shingarkin said.

But he emphasised that his son’s actions did not mean that he or the family were opponents of Putin.

The Russian leader, Shingarkin senior said, is popular among voters and there is no one to replace him, but he is let down by the officials around him.

Roman Shingarkin said for now he would not attend any more protests unless they were approved by the authorities.

He said he might venture to a non-approved demonstration once he turns 18, because if he gets into trouble then, the police will charge him and not involve his parents.
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The United States is examining its next steps in the campaign to defeat Islamic State militants and stabilize the refugee crisis with regional allies, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson embarks on trips to Turkey and NATO headquarters this week. The top U.S. diplomat will press NATO allies to demonstrate a clear path to increase defense spending, in his first meeting with counterparts from this security bloc.

U.S.-led forces are increasing their campaign to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State militants. Stabilizing areas where militants have fled and allowing refugees to return home is high on the agenda for the U.S. and its anti-Islamic State coalition partners.

In Turkey, Tillerson will try to build on progress from last week’s meeting of coalition partners in Washington.

“While a more defined course of action in Syria is still coming together, I can say the United States will increase our pressure on ISIS and al-Qaida, and will work to establish interim zones of stability through cease-fires to allow refugees to go home,” he said, using a common acronym for Islamic State, which is also known as ISIL and Daesh.

But it could be a tall order, according to Middle East expert Daniel Serwer.

“The Turks would like to have safe zones; they have been proposing them for years,” he said. “But they are, in fact, extraordinarily difficult to create, and to defend, and to maintain.”

NATO

Days before Tillerson’s first meeting with NATO foreign ministers, Tillerson met with his counterparts from the Baltic states. They expressed confidence in Washington’s support for NATO.

“We’re passing what we consider very important messages of the need to develop transatlantic security and economic links, so it was, overall, a very good introductory meeting,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.

After Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea, NATO agreed to send troops to Lithuania and to Estonia, Latvia and Poland, in a move to deter potential Russian aggression.

“I wouldn’t say the military presence is insignificant,” Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Misker told VOA’s Russian Service. “These are very well-trained, well-equipped forces. But when you look at the numbers, the presence is slightly modest compared to what Russia has in place on the other side of the border. So it shouldn’t be viewed as escalatory in any way … but I think it’s sufficient to make Russia change its calculus. It makes clear to Russia that they should not launch a provocation and think that they can do it with impunity.”

Tillerson is going to the NATO talks before he goes to Moscow, a move that ends the controversy over his earlier decision to skip the event.

“[NATO allies] want the commitment by Tillerson to maintain sanctions [on Russia for its actions] on Ukraine; they want a commitment from Tillerson that his president isn’t going to sell out the alliance to the Russians,” Serwer said.

Tillerson will make it clear that it is no longer sustainable for the United States to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s defense spending. He also will consult with allies about their shared commitment to improve security in Ukraine and the need for NATO to push Russia to end aggression against its neighbors.

NATO member states have until 2024 to meet a shared pledge to contribute 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.

Estonia is the only Baltic nation to spend 2 percent of the GDP for defense purposes. Lithuania and Latvia have pledged to reach that level by 2018.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Russian and Ukrainian services.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to sign off on a delivery of fighter jets, battle tanks and armored vehicles to Serbia, the Balkan country’s defense minister said Tuesday, in what could worsen tensions with neighboring states and trigger an arms race in the war-weary region.

Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic said that Putin agreed to approve the delivery during a visit by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to Moscow on Monday. He said six MiG-29 fighter jets, 30 T-72 tanks and 30 BRDM-2 armored vehicles will be delivered soon.

“The president of the Russian Federation said he will sign that decree, and when it’s signed, we will act accordingly,” Djordjevic said. “We are waiting for the process to be finalized in Russia and see how (the equipment) will be delivered to Serbia.”

The jets would have to fly over NATO-member countries before reaching Serbia. Or, they would have to be taken apart and flown in transport planes, if the neighboring countries approve.

Djordjevic said that the jets, tanks and fighting vehicles — donated from Russian arms reserves for free — will be “fully modernized and refurbished” in Serbia by Russian technicians for an undisclosed sum. It is estimated that the overhaul of the MiGs alone would cost Serbia some 200 million euros ($216 million.)

Djordjevic said earlier that Serbia is also interested in buying a Russian air defense system as well as opening a repair center for Russian MIL helicopters which, analysts believe, would be tantamount to opening a Russian military base on its territory.

Serbia formally has been on the path to join the European Union, but under political and propaganda pressure from Moscow has steadily slid toward the Kremlin and its goal of keeping the countries in the Balkan region out of NATO and other Western integrations.

EU officials have voiced their alarm over increasing Russian influence in the western Balkans, which has seen a bloody civil war in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, Serbia’s archrival and NATO-member Croatia is shopping for a new fighter to replace the nation’s aging MiG-21s.

The two leading contenders for the planned contract reportedly include American Lockheed Martin’s F-16 and Swedish Saab JAS-39 Gripen.
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Scotland’s Parliament voted Tuesday to seek a new referendum on independence from Britain, clearing the way for the country’s first minister, its top lawmaker, to ask the British government to approve such a vote.

The legislature in Edinburgh voted 69-59 to seek Britain’s parliamentary endorsement, which is required, for a referendum that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants to hold within two years — before Britain has completed its departure from the 28-nation European Union.

British voters narrowly approved a departure from the EU last year, and London will begin the formal process leading to Britain’s exit from the union on Wednesday.

Despite the overall vote last year in favor of leaving the EU — based on ballots cast in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — nearly two-thirds of Scottish voters elected to remain in the bloc. Since then, Sturgeon has insisted that independence is the only way for Scotland to maintain its formal EU relationship.

Scottish voters chose not to declare independence from London in a referendum three years ago, but that was months before discussions began about Britain’s possible departure from the Brussels-based EU.  

‘Democratically indefensible’

Sturgeon has argued that last year’s Brexit vote necessitates a new independence referendum. On Tuesday, she said “it would be democratically indefensible and utterly unsustainable” for London to block a new Scottish vote.

Sturgeon first predicted a push for a new independence referendum last year, hours after British voters elected to leave the EU. She said it would be “unacceptable” for Scotland to be forced to leave the EU along with the rest of Britain, in light of Scots’ strong support for remaining in the bloc.

For her part, British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not support a new Scottish vote until Britain has formally departed the EU — a process of negotiations that experts say could take take several years.

“Now is not the time,” May said of a new Scottish referendum, adding that Britons “should be working together, not pulling apart,” as the Brexit unfolds.
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Britain has launched a new pound coin that authorities say will be difficult to counterfeit.
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Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.

Cheney said Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a serious attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and other democratic processes in America.

In a speech at a speaker’s conference in New Delhi, Cheney said, “In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.”

Cheney’s accusation comes at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump to power.

 
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