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Austria’s vice chancellor has resigned.

Heinz-Christian Strache stepped down Saturday after two German newspapers — Der Spiegel and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung — posted video footage of him appearing to offer state contracts to a potential Russian benefactor.

Strache said Saturday he was the “victim of a targeted political attack,” but admitted that his actions in the video were “stupid and a mistake.”

Political analysts say the scandal throws into the question the governing coalition between Strache’s anti-immigration Freedom Party and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s center-right People’s Party.

Neither politician has commented on the future of their alliance.

 
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The victims of an infamous Nazi pedophile commune in Chile say the compensation of up to $11,000 Germany has agreed to pay each of them is not enough.

Germany said Friday it would pay the funds to the victims of Colonia Dignidad commune founded in 1961 by Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi soldier.

The commune was promoted as an idyllic German family village. The reality of the place, however, was something sinister.

Dozens of children were sexually abused at Colonia Dignidad by Schaefer.

Its approximately 300 German and Chilean residents were abused and drugged. They were prevented from leaving the site that was surrounded by armed guards with dogs.

Survivors say they were virtual slaves.

Horst Schaffrick told the French news agency AFP that the money is “a help, yes, but it does not solve the problem. We are a lost generation.” Schaffrick, who was three when he arrived at the commune with his family, says he was sexually molested by Schaefer.

A lawyer for the survivors said, “What we would have wanted, and what we are arguing for, would be that we give settlers who are old enough to retire a decent pension, no more and no less.”

A German report released Friday said, “The survivors still suffer massively from the severe psychological and physical consequences after years of harm caused by violence, abuse, exploitation and slave labor.”

The report also said that compensation to the victims would be paid “exclusively out of moral responsibility and without recognition of a legal obligation.”

The commune also “actively collaborated with Pinochet dictatorship henchmen on torture, murder and disappearances,” according to the German report in a reference to Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s dictator from 1973 – 1990, who tortured and “disappeared” his critics.

Schaefer was arrested in 2005 in Argentina. He was jailed in Chile for child sexual and other abuses.

He died in 2010 in prison at the age of 88.
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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called a crisis meeting late on Friday after two German newspapers published footage purportedly showing his deputy discussing state contracts with a potential Russian backer in return for political support.

Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was filmed talking about the contracts with someone posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch in Ibiza in July, 2017, months before parliamentary elections, Der Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung said. 

Strache did not reply to a request for comment on the video. Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the footage independently, and the German newspapers did not say how they obtained it.

Kurz planned to make a statement on the case on Saturday, a government source told Reuters. The opposition called for Strache to resign.

Strache is head of the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), which became junior partner in a coalition with Kurz’s conservatives in December 2017 after winning 26 percent of the votes in the October elections.The FPO’s General Secretary, Christian Hafenecker, said the party’s lawyers were evaluating the material. Neither Strache nor the Freedom Party ever received or granted any benefits from the persons concerned, Hafenecker said in a statement.

“Since the video was obviously recorded illegally, we are also preparing appropriate legal steps.”

The footage, parts of which were posted by the newspapers, showed Strache and party colleague Johann Gudenus with the woman in a room in what the newspapers said was a villa in Ibiza.

The woman said she wanted to invest several hundred million euros in Austria, according to the newspapers. Strache and Gudenus discussed investment opportunities for her, including taking over a 50 percent stake in Austria’s influential tabloid Kronen Zeitung and using it to support Strache and the FPO party in the election.

Gudenus was not immediately available for comment.

“If she takes over the Kronen Zeitung three weeks before the election and get us into first place, then we can talk about everything,” Der Spiegel quoted Strache as saying in the video.

Strache held out the prospect of awarding her public contracts in road construction if she helped the Freedom Party succeed, according to the video.

Vienna prosecutors said they would study the reports and decide whether there was sufficient cause to open an investigation, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors said.
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Brexit talks appear to have collapsed a day after British Prime Minister Theresa May set out a timetable for her exit from office — the latest sign of a government in tatters.

Britain’s Labor party head Jeremy Corbyn has sent a letter to May saying the Brexit talks have “gone as far as they can” because of the instability of her government and its refusal to change its position. 

The two major British parties have been at a stalemate for weeks over a deal outlining the conditions by which Britain will withdraw from the European Union. The deadline for withdrawal was originally set for March 29, but the revised date — to give time for more negotiation — is Oct. 31.

Corbyn said in his letter to the prime minister that the two parties “have been unable to bridge important policy gaps between us.” He added, “Even more crucially, the increasing weakness and instability of (May’s) government means there cannot be confidence in securing whatever might be agreed” between the Tory and Labor parties.

Corbyn also told reporters Friday there is no chance of ratifying even a partial Brexit deal by July.

May has said the process is hampered by a lack of consensus among Labor party members about whether they want to deliver Brexit or hold a new referendum in hopes of stopping it.

Parliament has rejected May’s plan in three separate votes and is set to hold another vote in early June. While May has promised some tweaks to the bill before the next vote, the plan is not expected to undergo any radical changes — meaning the impasse between the lawmakers likely is to remain unchanged.

Conservative lawmaker and former London mayor Boris Johnson, who has led the Brexit movement and supports leaving the EU even without a plan in place, has announced he will stand for the prime minister’s position after May vacates it.
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Germany on Friday authorized battery-powered scooters on its streets and cycle paths but banned them from pavements to protect pedestrians as the two-wheeled craze continues to spread across Europe.

Following fierce debate over road safety and the impact on traffic, the upper house adopted a proposal by Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer to approve the “electric propulsion vehicles” for road use.

They are either loved or loathed in Europe’s biggest economy.

“In Germany, souls are divided over e-scooters. Rarely has a new technology aroused such strong popularity — and such strong rejection,” said Achim Berg, president of Germany’s IT federation Bitkom.

Scheuer was forced to amend his initial suggestion to allow electric scooters on pavements, after it sparked an outcry from politicians, police unions and insurance groups.

Electrical scooters will only be allowed on pavements in exceptional cases, to be expressly indicated by signs.

E-scooter users must respect a speed limit of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) per hour and be aged 14 years or older.

‘Would be a Ferrari’

The decision opens up the market for mobility companies vying to provide rented e-scooters in Germany’s cities with Berlin-based startup Tier and Sweden’s Voi up against US firms Lime and Bird, leaders in the fast-growing sector.

Europe’s leading economy, with its mostly flat, highly urbanized geography and spiderweb network of cycle paths is a potential goldmine for e-scoot rental providers waiting in the wings.

“You have to expect a greyhound race. Whoever can convince people first will win the market,” said Hans Preissl, a spokesman for Frankfurt’s traffic authority.

The economic model of the booming e-scooter market still needs refining however, warns a study by the Boston Consulting Group on Friday.

“If market growth were vehicle acceleration, the humble electric scooter – the latest answer to urban mobility — would be a Ferrari,” said BCG, which predicts “consolidation is inevitable” in such a crowded market.

Undeterred, German car behemoth Volkswagen is eyeing the e-scooter market with plans to incorporate them into its own car-sharing scheme by the end of the year.

However, an influx of scooters could intensify the battle for space on Germany’s streets, where cycling associations have long demanded more and wider bicycle paths.

The co-existence of cyclists and e-scooter users on Germany’s cycle paths could quickly become untenable, warns Der Spiegel, “while imposing half-empty cars will continue to occupy lanes,” referring to Germans’ love of large cars.

‘Inevitable’ conflicts

“Conflicts are inevitable,” Social Democrat politician Anke Rehlinger said Thursday, adding that “continuous” effort should be made to define new rules for the e-scooters.

Scheuer labeled them a “genuine additional alternative for cars” in Germany’s traffic-choked cities yet there are also medical warnings against their use on Germany’s roads.

“E-scooters are highly dangerous in city traffic — not least because other road users find it extremely difficult to adjust to them,” Christopher Spering, from the German Society for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper.

There are also fears cyclists could be pushed off cycle paths specifically built for them.

“The already very limited area, currently granted to cycle traffic, should not have its use further extended,” said Jens Hilgenberg, traffic expert of the environmentalist group BUND told magazine Der Spiegel.

Daily newspaper Maerkische Oderzeitung says German cities have a choice — either they “risk chaos and even war between the modes of transport” or they prioritize cyclists, e-scooters users and pedestrians resulting in “painful losses for motorists” in inner city areas.
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U.N. agencies are expressing anger and sadness at the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians, including children, hit by airstrikes on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Thursday night.

This is just the latest tragedy to hit Yemen, which has been at war for more than four years.The U.N. human rights office reports nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed and 10,800 wounded as of November 2018.

Most of the deaths and injuries are due to aerial bombardments by the Saudi-led coalition, it reports. Saudi Arabia entered the civil conflict in March 2015 in support of the Yemeni government, which is locked in a fight for power with the Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran.

A spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, said preliminary reports indicate five children were killed and 16 wounded by the airstrike.He says a number of health workers are among dozens of other casualties.

“The injured, including the children, were rushed to hospital for medical treatments,” Laerke said. “There are several hospitals functioning there. Two of them are being provided with support from humanitarian partners and they have received the wounded.”

A Somali refugee woman and her daughter reportedly are among the injured receiving critical treatment. The U.N. refugee agency reports Somalis comprise more than 90% of the 275,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Yemen.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said the already precarious situation of asylum-seekers and migrants in Yemen has deteriorated significantly as a result of the conflict.

“Incidents like these obviously result in tragic loss of civilian life and injury and continue to illustrate the fact that the war in Yemen is taking a brutal toll on the civilian population,” he said. “We add our voice to the calls that civilians must be protected and parties to the conflict must ensure adherence to their obligations enshrined under the international Humanitarian Law.”

The United Nations calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.It reports nearly 80% of the country’s population of 24 million needs humanitarian assistance and protection.

Unfortunately, aid agencies report the security situation and lack of access are hampering their ability to reach the millions of people in desperate need of aid.Another problem is the lack of support from the international community.The U.N. reports its $4.2 billion appeal to assist more than 20 million Yemenis is only 21% funded.
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The EU on Thursday defended its push to reform the European defense industry in a retort to U.S. accusations that the overhaul would shut out allies such as Washington from European projects.

The skirmish over military spending comes as transatlantic ties are at a long-time low with fears running high that cooperation at NATO could be endangered.

In a letter seen by AFP, two senior officials said that the European Union “remains fully committed to working with the U.S. as a core partner in security and defense matters” despite the planned changes.

However, the EU officials also insisted that the mooted reforms are merely a reflection of rules already imposed by the U.S.

“The transatlantic trade balance is resolutely in favor of the U.S.,” they insisted.

The U.S. concerns, set out in a letter on May 1 from two of President Donald Trump’s top defense officials, focused on the European Defense Fund (EDF), a seven-year 13-billion euro ($14.6 billion) pot approved by the European Parliament last month, and a key new EU defense cooperation pact known as PESCO.

Washington warned the proposed rules “would not only damage the constructive NATO-EU relationship we have built together over the past several years but could potentially turn the clock back to the sometimes divisive discussions about EU defense initiatives that dominated our exchanges 15 years ago.”

Along with the warnings, the U.S. officials also make a veiled threat to hit back, saying the EU would object to similar U.S. restrictions “and we would not relish having to consider them in the future.”

EU countries launched PESCO in late 2017 to try to harmonize a highly fragmented approach to defense spending.

Under the pact, countries cooperate on projects to develop new military equipment and on support systems such as military hospitals and training centers.

The U.S. letter chimed with bitter divisions within the bloc on what rules to set for non-EU allies such as the U.S., Norway — and for Britain after Brexit — who want to contribute to future defense projects.
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The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Chechen group and five individuals, including at least three Russians, for alleged human rights abuses under the Global Magnitsky Act, including extrajudicial killings and the torture of LGBTI individuals.

The sanctions against the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in the Chechen Republic and the five individuals were announced by the U.S. Treasury on its website.

The Treasury Department imposed the sanctions, which freeze the banks accounts of those targeted, under a 2012 law known as the Magnitsky Act.

The Magnitsky Act imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials linked to the death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian auditor and whistleblower. The act also seeks to hold responsible those U.S. authorities allege orchestrated or benefited from the death of Magnitsky.

Those targeted on Thursday included Elena Anatolievna Trikulya and Gennady Vyacheslavovich Karlov, members of an investigative committee who allegedly “participated in efforts to conceal the legal liability for the detention, abuse, or death” of Magnitsky.

Also designated was Abuzayed Vismuradov, commander of the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in Chechnya who was accused of “being responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” against those seeking to expose illegal activity by Russian government officials.

The Treasury Department said Vismuradov was in charge of an operation that “illegally detained and tortured individuals on the basis of their actual or perceived LGBTI status.”

LGBTI is an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex.

The Treasury also named Sergey Leonidovich Kossiev as being “responsible for extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognised human rights” as head of a penal colony in the Republic of Karelia.

The fifth individual targeted was named as Ruslan Geremeyev for acting on behalf of the head of Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, “in a matter relating to extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
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Analysts say Turkey is running out of time to balance its relationship with Russia and the United States as Moscow and Washington step up pressure on Ankara over its pending acquisition of Russian missile defense systems.

The U.S. opposes the missile system transaction, maintaining that Turkey’s use of the S-400s would compromise the technology of the F-35 fighter jet, which the U.S. and other NATO allies own. Turkey, also a NATO member, is due to take delivery of the F-35 this year. The U.S. has warned that if the Russian missiles are delivered, Turkey’s purchase of the F-35 will be in jeopardy and sanctions will be possible. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has dismissed Washington’s concerns. “If these claims by the U.S. were true, S-400s would have already accessed [secrets] to the F-35 [aircraft] technology [as both are deployed] in Syria, the Baltic region and the north,” he said Thursday during a visit to Latvia. 

According to reports, Washington had requested that Ankara postpone the July delivery of the Russian missiles. However, in what was widely seen as a slap in the face to the United States, Turkish Defense Industries President Ismail Demir suggested the missiles could be delivered as early as next month.

“We are a serious country. Our deal with Russia continues,” Demir said to reporters Thursday. 

‘No such thing as postponing’

Cavusoglu on Wednesday dismissed reports of any delay. “There is no such thing as postponing or canceling at this stage,” he said. “It’s not on the agenda, either.” 

Ankara’s resistance to Washington coincides with Moscow’s agreeing to Turkish requests for creation of a joint working group on the Syrian rebel enclave of Idlib. The working group is seen as giving breathing space to rebels, who have been under sustained Russian and Syrian government bombardment. 

The latest assault was the most intense since Ankara and Moscow reached an agreement in September, preventing Syrian forces from overrunning the enclave. 

“There are 2 million people in the [Idlib] enclave — jihadis and their families and those Sunni elements who will not make a deal with Damascus,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen. 

“Turkey will be determined to avoid this enclave being overrun as those people have nowhere to go but to Turkey,” said Selcen, who is a regional analyst. 

“Turkey will not want this to happen as it would impose major security and humanitarian problems. While Ankara insists it will not allow this to happen, Moscow could be the key player,” he added. 

​Peace efforts snagged

Russia and Turkey, along with Iran, are working together under the auspices of the so-called Astana Process to end Syria’s civil war and secure a long-term peace. Those efforts have hit an impasse with disagreements on the formation of a committee to create a new constitution. 

Turkish and U.S. diplomats are continuing their efforts to resolve a key point of tension. The diplomats aim to create a safe zone in Syria to protect Turkey’s border from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, designated by Ankara as a terrorist organization. 

Washington’s support of the YPG in the war against the Islamic State group has soured relations with Turkey. The safe zone is seen as a way of putting ties between the two NATO allies back on track. 

Expediting the delivery of S-400 missiles is interpreted to mean Moscow seeks to thwart U.S.-Turkish efforts to resolve differences on Syria. Ankara’s procurement of the weapons would open the door to wide-ranging and severe U.S. sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which bans significant Russian military purchases. 

“Our understanding is that Ankara has resigned to being sanctioned under CAATSA,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of GlobalSource Partners, a business management consultant in New York.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “still clings to the hope that a summit with [U.S. President Donald] Trump will allow him to keep the S-400s, with the latter applying only the least damaging articles of CAATSA,” he said. 

​Fundamental differences

Ankara says Erdogan has built a unique working relationship with Trump, and that the problems in bilateral ties are the result of those working around the U.S. leader. However, some analysts suggest that the difficulties between the NATO allies are more fundamental. 

“Turkish and U.S. understanding of the world order has been diverging rather than converging,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. “They view the international developments through a totally different lens. I think the problem is structural rather than conjectural.” 

Prying Turkey away from its Western partners is a decades-long strategic dream if not the goal of Moscow, but analysts contend that any Russian-Turkish alliance would inevitably fail on historical and regional rivalries, with Syria the likely flash point. 

“Unfortunately, Ankara thinks they can play the Russians and Americans against each other. It won’t work,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Athens University.

“The Russians sooner or later will clear Idlib, which is filled with tens of thousands of terrorists, and this is the first and foremost point of disagreement between Ankara and Moscow,” he said. 
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Representatives of the Venezuelan government and the opposition are in Norway for talks on resolving the stalemate that has mired the South American nation in a political and economic crisis.

Venezuelan officials say Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez is representing President Nicolas Maduro, while lawmaker Stalin Gonzalez is leading the opposition delegation.

President Maduro said Rodriguez was on “a very important mission” abroad during a televised speech Wednesday, but did not provide any details.

The negotiations in Norway are being held after the military failed to heed a call April 30 by opposition leader and self-declared president Juan Guaido to rise up against Maduro. Guaido, the leader of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president earlier this year after the opposition-majority legislative body determined Maduro won another term in a fraudulent election.

The United States and about 50 other countries recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president. Venezuela has put the United States at odds with Russia, which has supplied military equipment to the Maduro regime, and Cuba, who the U.S. accuses of placing pro-Maduro troops on the ground in Venezuela.

Also on Wednesday, the United States has suspended all commercial flights between the U.S. and Venezuela.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao says she, along with the secretaries of state and homeland security, has determined conditions exist in Venezuela “that threaten the safety or security of passengers, aircraft, or crew.”

Many international airlines, including those in the United States, have already stopped flying to and from Venezuela because of the political upheaval.
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The heiress of a German biscuit empire has apologized for comments that seemed to downplay the use of forced labor in Nazi Germany.

Verena Bahlsen, who is part owner of her father’s Bahlsen bakery, said she “deeply regrets” her remarks about the way the company treated those forced to work under Hitler’s regime.

“It was a mistake to amplify this debate with thoughtless responses. Nothing could be further from my mind than to downplay national socialism or its consequences,” Bahlsen said.

She said she recognizes the need to learn more about the company’s history.

Bahlsen told Germany’s Bild newspaper that the bakery treated forced laborers “well” during World War II and paid them as much as it paid German workers.

Many of the forced laborers were women from Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

Some in Germany have called for a boycott of Bahlsen products, including the famous Leibniz cookies.

German courts have thrown out compensation claims made by many former laborers because the statute of limitations had run out. But the company voluntarily paid more than $840,000 into a compensation fund in 2000.

Bahlsen was mocked earlier this month when she told a Hamburg business conference that she is happy to be part owner of a company because she wants to make money and buy yachts.
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Several thousand people rallied Wednesday in Russia’s fourth-largest city as the showdown between authorities and activists protesting the plans to a build a cathedral in a local park entered its third day. 

Thousands gathered in a riverside park in Yekaterinburg in the evening. Some were on bicycles, more camped out on the grass, and others were walking their dogs. 

As night fell, protesters turned on their mobile phone lights and flashlights, chanting, “We stand for the park!”  

Security measures for what has largely been a peaceful protest were heightened on the eve of the rally, with hundreds of riot police deployed to the park.

Earlier, construction workers started building a new fence to replace the chain-link fence that protesters brought down a day earlier. 

Opponents of the cathedral, which is promoted by authorities and funded by the owners of two major local industrial giants, say the construction project smack in the city center would take away green and recreational space needed by residents of a city with 1.5 million people. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier Wednesday that the Kremlin had full trust in the local government to handle the protests, but he also decried the rallies, which he described as unsanctioned, illegal demonstrations. 

Hundreds of protesters stayed in the park well after midnight, facing several rows of riot police who were encircling the fence around the proposed construction site.
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A U.S official has called for the trial of a Turkish employee of the U.S. Consulate on espionage charges to be resolved “swiftly, transparently and fairly.”

The trial was adjourned Wednesday until June 28.

Metin Topuz, a translator and assistant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, has been jailed on charges of espionage and attempting to overthrow the Turkish government. His case is one of several issues that have strained ties between the NATO allies.

Topuz is accused of links to U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the Turkish government blames for the 2016 coup attempt. Topuz, who faces a life sentence if convicted, denies the charges.

U.S. charge d’affaires Jeffrey Hovenier told reporters there was “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” against Topuz.

 
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said nearly two hours of meetings Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about “nearly every issue facing our two countries” were productive, though there appeared to be no major breakthroughs.

The United States and Russia both have interests in a number of ongoing global issues. But they often find themselves on opposite sides, even if they share a stated basic goal.

WATCH: Pompeo’s visit to Russia

One such situation is the conflict in Syria, where Russia has supported President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, while the United States has backed rebels who want to see Assad out of office. U.S.-Russian efforts to bring a U.N.-brokered end to the war that began in 2011 fell apart in 2016.

But Pompeo told reporters Tuesday he thinks U.S. and Russian officials “now can begin to work together” in a way to begin the process set out in a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for a Syrian-led political transition with a cease-fire, new constitution and elections.

“I’m not sure we have all the capacity of that, but I think we now have a common understanding of the places where we were hung up, which I think we can work our way through,” Pompeo said after the talks at Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.

He also expressed hope the United States and Russia can work toward what he says he believes is a common objective of a denuclearized North Korea.

Other topics for Tuesday’s meeting included Iran, Ukraine and Venezuela.

At a joint news conference with Lavrov following the talks, Pompeo said the United States is willing to rebuild its relationship with Russia, but it expects its Russian counterparts to act on it with all seriousness.

“President Trump’s made it clear that his expectation is that we have an improved relationship between our countries. This will benefit each of our people. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in this direction,” said Pompeo. 

​Putin said he had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump several days ago, and he got the impression that Trump indeed “intends to rebuild U.S.-Russian relations and contacts in order to solve the issues of mutual interest.”

“On our behalf, we have said it multiple times that we also would like to rebuild fully fledged relations, and I hope that right now the conducive environment is being built for that,” Putin said to Pompeo.

Putin then brought up the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference by calling it “exotic work.” Putin denied any collusion between his government and the current U.S. administration.

Earlier, during the joint press conference after talks with Lavrov, Pompeo issued a few stern warnings to Russia, saying it should refrain from interfering in the 2020 U.S election, free captured Ukrainian sailors and try to make peace with Ukraine. 

He also said the two sides disagree on Venezuela and urged Russia to end its support for President Nicolas Maduro. The United States and 50 other countries have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim leader.

Experts said the meetings in Sochi demonstrated that even in cases when U.S. and Russian interests overlap in certain parts of the world, it should be viewed as a mere coincidence, rather than a pattern.

“We are talking about some situational convergence, and not about a unified vision of the global picture,” said the head of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrey Kurtunov.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a Group of 20 summit meeting June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, with both Putin and President Trump expected to attend. Trump said on Monday he will meet with Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is committed to improving relations with Russia, as he met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Tuesday. But the two top diplomats acknowledged continued disagreement on the issue of foreign election interference, Venezuela and Iran. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
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As tensions escalate between the United States and Iran, Europe has urged all sides to avoid further escalation.

The United States has deployed a naval strike group to the Middle East region, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.  B-52 bombers have also arrived at the U.S. air base in Qatar, designed to counter what the Trump administration says are “clear indications” of threats from Iran to U.S. forces.

Military analyst Jack Watling of the London-based Royal United Services Institute says the deployments are not unusual.

“There hasn’t been a massive change in U.S. force posture in the region. What there has been is a very significant change in messaging. And combined with that the U.S. is putting more and more pressure on Iran economically. So the question comes, how is Iran going to push back? How are they going to show the United States that if you keep pressing us, we can respond? And at that point, if they get that wrong, there is a risk of runaway escalation,” Watling told VOA.

Europe believes that risk is dangerously high, a point made clear to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he arrived in Brussels for talks Monday with European Union Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini.

“We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible attitude to take – is we believe should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation of the military side,” Mogherini told reporters after the meeting.

Washington pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran a year ago. Up to now, Europe has urged Tehran to stick with the deal and effectively wait out the Trump administration, says analyst Jack Watling.

“What we’ve seen over the last week is the U.S. administration putting an awful lot of pressure on the viability of that policy. And in pushing the Iranians to the point where they have walked away from a key component of the deal, it essentially underscores the fact it might not be possible to continue in that direction. So, Europe will have to decide.”

Much depends on whether Tehran decides to block nuclear inspectors from entering the country to verify the enrichment freeze.

“That would be very escalatory because Israel would suddenly feel quite threatened, and at that point the deal would be completely dead,” adds Watling.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to tighten the economic noose. India was a major importer of Iranian oil, but stopped purchases this month in the wake of renewed U.S. sanctions. Visiting Delhi Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was questioned on the U.S. military deployments in the Gulf region.

“Unfortunately [the] United States has been escalating the situation unnecessarily. We do not seek escalation, but we have always defended ourselves,” Zarif said.

Analyst Watling says any conflict with Iran would quickly engulf the region.

“It has to fight essentially a regional deep battle. Which means activating a lot of the assets they’ve developed potentially in Lebanon, in Iraq, and conducting ballistic missile strikes.”

Fear of such a conflict has rattled Europe, caught between the demands of its U.S. ally to abandon the nuclear deal and warnings from Tehran that such a move would lead to a resumption of its nuclear program.

 
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Google opened a privacy focused engineering center in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday, its latest move to beef up its data protection credentials as tech companies’ face growing scrutiny of their data collection practices.

CEO Sundar Pichai said the Silicon Valley tech giant is expanding its operations in the southern German city, including doubling the number of data privacy engineers there to more than 200 by the end of 2019.

The new Google Safety Engineering Center will make Munich a global hub for the company’s “cross-product privacy engineering efforts,” Pichai said in a blog post.

Staff will work with Google privacy specialists in other cities to build products for use around the world, Pichai said, adding that Munich engineers built the Google Account control panel as well as privacy and security features for the Chrome browser.

Data privacy and security at Google and its tech rivals including Facebook are increasingly in the spotlight. Both companies dedicated much of their annual developer conferences last week to privacy, with Google unveiling new tools giving people more control over how they’re being tracked while Facebook outlined plans to connect people though more private channels.
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Albanian protesters threw firebombs at the police Monday evening, and the supporters of opposition parties gathered in the capital, Tirana, to ask for the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama and early elections.

Opposition supporters marched in front of the main government buildings amid rain, but did not attempt to break the police barrier as they did on Saturday. Instead, they threw firecrackers at the prime minister’s offices. 

Hours earlier, officials from the United States, European Union and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe had called for restraint.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana called on opposition leaders to “condemn publicly the violent acts of their supporters” and on the authorities “to act with restraint.”

The violent actions that took place during Saturday’s protest “were unlawful and undemocratic,” the U.S. statement read.

European parliamentarians, from both the left and right, in an open public letter on Monday called on Albanians to show restraint and “not to jeopardize the country’s prospects on its European path.”

Albania expects to hear in June whether the EU will give the green light for opening accession talks. 

The white smoke from flares was seen in the sky Monday night, but calls for restraint appear to have been heeded. 

At the beginning of the protest, opposition leader Lulzim Basha told his supporters they were marching “in front of the institutions that symbolize the crime.” Besides the offices of the prime minister, demonstrators also protested in front of the Interior Ministry, police headquarters and parliament.

A similar protest Saturday turned violent. About 50 opposition supporters were also arrested.
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Swedish prosecutors are reopening the rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange following a request from the lawyer of one of the alleged victims. 

Assange was arrested last month in Ecuador’s embassy in London, after the country reversed its decision to give him asylum. The 47-year-old Australian national is also wanted in the United States on hacking charges and the British government will now have to decide which extradition request should take priority.

WATCH: Britain to Decide Assange’s Extradition Fate

In 2011, Assange was accused of rape by two women following a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm. He sought asylum in London’s Ecuadorean embassy, claiming the accusations were part of a plot to have him extradited to the United States over his whistleblowing activities. With apparently little hope of conviction, Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation in 2017. 

In April, however, Ecuador reversed its decision to offer Assange asylum and allowed British authorities into the embassy to arrest him. One of the women who made the rape accusations requested the case be reopened.

Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Maria Persson, announced the reopening of the case Monday. 

“After reviewing the preliminary investigation in its current state, my assessment is that there is still probable cause to suspect that Julian Assange committed rape,” Persson said at a press conference in Stockholm.

Assange denies the rape accusations. In a statement, WikiLeaks said reopening the case would allow him to clear his name. 

Sweden will seek a European arrest warrant and extradition after Assange has served a 50-week sentence in Britain for skipping bail. 

The United States has also issued an extradition request for Assange over computer hacking accusations, related to the release of thousands of classified military and diplomatic communications via WikiLeaks, mainly relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Britain’s Home Secretary will have to decide which extradition request should take precedence, says London-based extradition lawyer Anthony Hanretty.

“Whether it was hacking into computers or simply releasing information, against the allegations made in Sweden which are of the utmost severity. So it will come down politically to which one he thinks is more palatable for him to make.”

Hanretty notes that Assange has already indicated he would contest any extradition to the United States.

“He no doubt will have fears that he will be held in solitary confinement in conditions which he will say will breach his human rights. There’s also concern that if he is sent to the U.S., they will simply add further charges onto him once he is there. And it also depends on how the U.S. frames the charges against him. They will have to show that what he is accused of in the U.S. would amount to an offense in the U.K.”

Under Swedish law, the statute of limitations on the rape case expires in August of next year, so legal experts say there is pressure on Britain and Sweden to speed up the extradition process.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has had a change of plans for his European trip. 

Pompeo’s first stop will be Brussels instead of Moscow. 

A State Department official says Pompeo will meet with European officials Monday “to discuss a range of pressing matters including Iran.” Originally Pompeo had planned to meet Monday with U.S. diplomats and business leaders in Moscow. 

It was not immediately clear why there was a change in the schedule.

The rest of his trip plans remain intact. 

The secretary of state travels to Sochi Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

​​Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, which both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin will attend.

Pompeo’s trip to Russia also comes as tensions simmer between the two countries over Iran.

The U.S. is strengthening its military presence in the Middle East in what officials said was a “direct response to a number of troubling and escalatory indicators and warnings” from Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets.

On Wednesday, Lavrov asked Pompeo to use diplomacy instead of threats to solve issues after Lavrov’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarifin Moscow.
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An economist and political novice, Gitanas Nauseda, took a thin lead in the first round of Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday and will face Ingrida Simonyte, a conservative ex-finance minister, in a May 26 run-off set to focus on inequality and poverty in the Baltic eurozone state.

Center-left Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis vowed to quit after he was eliminated from the run-off having finished in third place.

Conceding that “the failure to get into the second round is an assessment of me as a politician,” Skvernelis told reporters that he would “step down on July 12.”

He did not rule out early elections. The next regularly-scheduled parliamentary elections are due in October 2020.

Nauseda, promising to seek the political middle-ground and build a welfare state, won 31.07 percent of the vote, according to near-complete official results.

“I want to thank all the people who took to their hearts our message that we want a welfare state in Lithuania and we want more political peace,” Nauseda told reporters in Vilnius.

The 54-year-old is seeking to bridge the growing rich-poor divide in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million people, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.

“Nauseda has a greater chance to attract votes that went to other candidates, especially from the left,” Vilnius University analyst Ramunas Vilpisauskas told AFP. 

In all, nine candidates ran in the first round vote.

In second place, Simonyte, who is popular with wealthy, educated urban voters, garnered 29.46 percent of the vote while resonating with the rural poor, Skvernelis’s populist approach secured 20.72 percent support.

Simonyte, 44, a technocrat who also warns against deepening inequality and the rural-urban divide, has vowed to reduce it by boosting growth further. 

Socially liberal, Simonyte supports same-sex partnerships which still stir controversy in the predominantly Catholic country.

​Simonyte said she would resist “populism” during her second-round campaign and seek support from political forces “with consistent views that do not try to be on the right with one leg and the left with the other.” 

Lithuanian presidents steer defense and foreign policy, attending EU and NATO summits, but must consult with the government and the prime minister on appointing the most senior officials.

Popular incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite, an independent in her second consecutive term, must step down due to term limits.

The politician nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her strong resolve has been tipped as a contender to be the next president of the European Council.

Both Nauseda and Simonyte are strong supporters of EU and NATO membership as bulwarks against neighboring Russia, especially since Moscow’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine.

Analyst Vilpisauskas said that both Nauseda and Simonyte are very likely to opt for continuity in foreign and defense policy.

“With Nauseda, there can be some tactical changes when it comes to communication with neighbors but the strategical line is unlikely to change.”

Although Lithuanian presidents do not directly craft economic policy, bread and butter issues and tackling corruption dominated the campaign.

Lithuania is struggling with a sharp decline in population owing to mass emigration to Western Europe by people seeking better opportunities. 

The global financial crisis triggered a deep recession 10 years ago and austerity measures imposed to prevent further crisis took a high toll, especially on low-income earners.

Despite solid economic growth, a recent EU report noted that almost 30 percent of Lithuanians “are at risk of poverty or social exclusion” and that this risk is “nearly double” in rural areas.

Robust annual wage growth of around 10 percent has raised the average gross monthly salary to 970 euros ($1,00) but poverty and income inequality remain among the highest in the EU, largely due to weak progressive taxation.

Unemployment stood at 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019, and the economy is forecast to grow by 2.7 percent this year, well above an average of 1.1 percent in the 19-member eurozone.

Brussels has urged Vilnius to use solid growth fueled mostly by consumption to broaden its tax base and spend more on social policies.

Nauseda voter Feliksas Markevicius said he wanted the new president to help emigrants to return home to Lithuania.

“We need to improve living conditions because many people are forced to work abroad,” the pensioner told AFP after voting in Vilnius on Sunday.

Voter turnout was 54.96 percent, according to the Central Elections Commission.
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Pope Francis’ almoner, a church leader who personally distributes charity in the name of the Vatican, took action to restore electricity to about 450 people in Rome.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski broke into an abandoned government building where 450 homeless people are living.

Authorities cut off power and water to the building last week because of an unpaid bill reported to be more than $300,000. 

Krajewski ignored the possible legal consequences when he broke the police seal on the building, went underground, and flipped a switch to turn the lights back on in the darkened building.

A nun who works with the homeless told Italian radio and television that when workers went to the building to cut off the power again, they found a note from the cardinal asking them to leave it on.

Krajewski called his act “a gesture of desperation.”
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Spanish authorities say 52 migrants have climbed a guarded fence to gain entry into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco.

An official with the Spanish Interior Ministry in Melilla says four police officer and one migrant sustained light injuries as the group scaled the high fence around dawn Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules.

Spain’s proximity to North Africa has made it a target for migrants trying to reach the European Union. The migrants try to get in either by land via Spain’s two North African enclaves or by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats.

Spain became the leading entry point to Europe last year, with some 60,000 migrants arriving irregularly, almost all of them by sea.
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Berliners on Sunday celebrated the 70th anniversary of the day the Soviets lifted their blockade strangling West Berlin in the post-World War II years with a big party at the former Tempelhof airport in the German capital.

Among the invited guests of honor was 98-year-old U.S. pilot Gail Halvorsen, who dropped hundreds of boxes of candy on tiny parachutes into West Berlin during the blockade.

Halvorsen came to Berlin from Utah with his two daughters on Friday, the German news agency dpa reported.

On Saturday, a baseball field at Tempelhof airport was named after him — the “Gail S. Halvorsen Park — Home of the Berlin Braves” in honor of his help for Berliners during the Cold War.

Dressed in a military uniform, Halvorsen told Berlin’s mayor Michael Mueller that “it’s good to be home.”

The airlift began on June 26, 1948, in an ambitious plan to feed and supply West Berlin after the Soviets — one of the four occupying powers of a divided Berlin after World War II — blockaded the city in an attempt to squeeze the U.S., Britain and France out of the enclave within Soviet-occupied eastern Germany.

Allied pilots flew a total of 278,000 flights to Berlin, carrying about 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other supplies.

On the operation’s busiest day, April 16, 1949, about 1,400 planes carried in nearly 13,000 tons over 24 hours — an average of one plane touching down almost every minute.

On the ground in Berlin, ex-Luftwaffe mechanics were enlisted to help maintain aircraft, and some 19,000 Berliners, almost half of them women, worked around the clock for three months to build Tegel Airport, providing a crucial relief for the British Gatow and American Tempelhof airfields.

Finally, on May 12, 1949, the Soviets realized the blockade was futile and lifted their barricades. The airlift continued for several more months, however, as a precaution in case the Soviets changed their minds.

Halvorsen is probably the best known of the airlift pilots, thanks to an inadvertent propaganda coup born out of good will. Early in the airlift, he shared two sticks of gum with starving Berlin children and saw others sniffing the wrappers just for a hint of the flavor.

Touched, he told the children to come back the next day, when he would drop them candy, using handkerchiefs as parachutes.

He started doing it regularly, using his own candy ration. Soon other pilots and crews joined in what would be dubbed “Operation Little Vittles.”

After an Associated Press story appeared under the headline “Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin,” a wave of candy and handkerchief donations followed.

To this day, the airlift still shapes many Germans’ views of the Western allies, especially in Berlin. After the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, some 200,000 Berliners took to the streets of the German capital to show their support for the country that had helped prevent their city falling completely to the Soviets.

On Sunday, up to 50,000 people were expected to participate in the festivities, which include musical performances, talks with witnesses, exhibitions of historical vehicles and lots of activities for children, dpa reported.
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