політика, бізнес, народ

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he has no knowledge of the website WikiLeaks, after the whistleblowing site’s founder, Julian Assange, was arrested in Britain.

The 47-year-old Australian national had been living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, but was ejected Thursday and taken into custody by British police.

Ecuador said Assange had broken asylum conventions by continuing to interfere in other countries’ affairs through the publishing of confidential information.

WATCH: Trump Denies Knowledge of WikiLeaks

Trump was questioned by reporters on the arrest Thursday.

“I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing,” Trump said. “I know there is something to do with Julian Assange, and I’ve been seeing what’s happened to Assange. And that would be a determination, I would imagine, mostly by the attorney general, who’s doing an excellent job. So, he’ll be making a determination.”

On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump repeatedly referred to WikiLeaks after it published hacked emails from the Democrat National Committee. He once declared, “WikiLeaks! I love WikiLeaks,” at a rally in Pennsylvania.

In 2010, WikiLeaks published a cache of more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts from Iraq and Afghanistan, obtained by former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning. They detailed civilian casualties, along with details of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Manning was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and jailed in 2010. She was released in 2017, but was jailed again in March 2019 for refusing to testify before a grand jury about WikiLeaks.

​Asylum in embassy

Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy after facing rape charges in Sweden, which have since been dropped. He predicted then that he would face extradition to the United States.

“As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies,” Assange told a crowd of supporters from the balcony of the embassy.

The United States accuses Assange of conspiring with Manning to access classified information on Department of Defense computers and has requested his extradition from Britain.

Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the press is protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, so the precise charges against Assange will be key, said legal analyst Caroline Mala Corbin of the University of Miami School of Law.

“If you break the law while you gather information, that is not protected by the free speech clause. If, however, you publish information — even if someone else has illegally obtained it — the free speech clause does come into play,” she told VOA.

Assange supporter and prominent human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said Assange must be afforded the rights of other journalists.

“It smacks of double standards, and it has the whiff of a vendetta against WikiLeaks and against Julian Assange,” he said.

British judges will now decide whether to fulfill the U.S. extradition request.

Geoffrey Robertson, an attorney who has represented Assange in the past, said Assange could face up to 40 years in prison if he is extradited to the United States.

“I have faith in the British justice system, and I think he will argue that this is a breach of his right of freedom of speech,” Robertson said.

Assange will first face sentencing for failing to surrender to authorities on sexual assault charges in 2012.

Meanwhile, one of the Swedish women who accused Assange of rape has requested the case be reopened, further complicating the legal case against him.
…

Pro- and anti-Brexit supporters have vowed to step up their campaigns after European Union leaders have given Britain a six-month extension to Brexit, averting the immediate danger of Britain crashing out of the bloc with no deal. However, it could mean Britain having to take part in EU elections scheduled in May, and there are still few signs that lawmakers will vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, further prolonging the political chaos. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
…

Pope Francis has told leaders of South Sudan that peace is possible and urged the country’s leaders to seek what unites and overcome what divides.

At the end of a two-day meeting in the Vatican, the pope shocked those present by kneeling and kissing the feet of South Sudan’s former warring leaders. 

At the end of the two-day meeting in the Vatican, originally proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Pope Francis told South Sudanese leaders to recognize the enormous shared responsibility they hold for the present and future of their country. 

Those attending the meeting included South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, vice president and former rebel leader Riek Machar, and three other vice presidents.

The pope called on them to commit themselves to the building of their nation. 

The pope said, “People are wearied, exhausted by past conflicts: remember that with war, all is lost! Your people today are yearning for a better future, which can only come about through reconciliation and peace.”

The pope said this meeting was “something altogether special and in some sense unique,” as it was neither an ordinary bilateral nor diplomatic meeting between the pope and heads of state, nor an ecumenical initiative involving representatives of different Christian communities. Instead, it was a spiritual retreat. 

South Sudan’s civil war, which broke out in late 2013, has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 4 million South Sudanese from their homes. A peace deal last August has reduced but not stopped the fighting.

One of the South Sudanese religious leaders attending said these were days of intense prayer and deep reflection and of open and frank dialogue and spiritual conversation.

“The leaders leave here renewed and committed to the task of working for peace, striving for reconciliation and seeking justice for the 13 million people, the South Sudanese, whose prayer and hope they all carry.”

Pope Francis told them how he learned last September that a peace agreement for the country had been signed and congratulated political leaders for “having chosen the path of dialogue.” He urged them to implement what has been agreed on.

The pope expressed his heartfelt hope that hostilities would finally cease, that the armistice would be respected, that political and ethnic divisions would be surmounted, and that there would be a lasting peace for all those citizens who dream of beginning to build the nation.

After his speech at the end of the retreat, Pope Francis kissed the feet of the former warring leaders and told them their people are waiting for their return home, for reconciliation, and a new era of prosperity.    
…

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has published an analysis on the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal, blaming it on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and church laws that protected priests.

The essay immediately raised eyebrows, seeming to interfere with or even contradict Pope Francis’ own efforts to confront one of the most critical issues facing the church.

One church historian called Benedict’s essay “catastrophically irresponsible,” because it conflicted with Francis’ own efforts to lead the church out of the sex abuse crisis.

Benedict in 2013 had said he planned to retire to a lifetime of penance and prayer and would leave Francis to guide the church.

U.S. church analysts said the essay, published in the German monthly Klerusblatt, was both flawed in content and problematic on universal church level, exacerbating existing divisions in the church that have emerged between supporters of Francis and Catholics nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrine-minded papacy.

In his introduction, Benedict said both the Vatican secretary of state and Francis had given him permission to publish it. The Vatican press office confirmed it was written by Benedict.

In the essay, Benedict traced the start of the clergy abuse crisis to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, citing the appearance of sex in films in his native Bavaria. He also blamed the crisis on failures of moral theology in that era, as well as church laws that gave undue protection to accused priests.

Benedict wrote that during the 1980s and 1990s, “the right to a defense [for priests] was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible.”

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict reformed those laws in 2001 to make it easier to remove priests who abused children. Benedict took a hard line against clerical sex abuse as the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, and later as pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.

“Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God,” he wrote.

Francis has blamed the scandal on a clerical culture in the church that raises priests above the laity.

Villanova University theologian Massimo Faggioli said the essay was thin in its analysis by effectively attributing the scandal to the sexual revolution. He said it omitted key cases, such as the Legion of Christ founder’s pedophilia, which began well before then.

“If a pope emeritus decides to stay silent, it’s one thing and can be defended. But speaking and telling a tiny part and a very personal version of the story, it’s hard to defend,” he said on twitter.

“Everything we know in the global history of the Catholic abuse crisis makes Benedict XVI’s take published yesterday very thin or worse: a caricature of what happened during in the Catholic Church during the post-Vatican II period — with all its ingenuities and some tragic mistakes,” he tweeted.

Church historian Christopher Bellitto questioned if Benedict, who turns 92 next week, was being manipulated by others. He said the essay undermined Francis’ own efforts to steer the church out of the crisis.

Bellitto said the essay omitted the critical conclusions that arose from the pope’s February sex abuse summit in Rome, including that “abusers were priests along the ideological spectrum, that the abuse predated the 1960s, that it is a global and not simply Western problem, that homosexuality is not the issue in pedophilia.”

“It is catastrophically irresponsible, because it creates a counter-narrative to how Francis is trying to move ahead based on the 2019 summit,” he said. “The essay essentially ignores what we learned there.”

David Gibson at Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture agreed with that assessment.

“For a retired pope to try to undo the critical work of a sitting pope and on such a crucial issue seems … bad,” he said.
…

Swedish prosecutors said on Thursday they have received a formal request to reopen the rape investigation closed in 2017 involving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, from the legal counsel representing the alleged victim.

“Following today’s media reports that Julian Assange has been arrested in London, the legal counsel in Sweden has requested that the Swedish preliminary investigation regarding rape be reopened,” the authority said.

The request has been assigned to Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson, it added.

“We will now look into the matter and determine how to proceed. We cannot pledge any time frame for when a decision will be made,” Persson said in the statement.
…

France and Italy wrangled on Thursday over how best to tackle renewed conflict in Libya as a bid by eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar to seize Tripoli stalled in the face of strong resistance on the capital’s southern outskirts.

The United Nations said the fighting between Haftar’s forces and troops under the internationally-backed Tripoli government had killed at least 56 people and forced 8,000 to flee their homes in the city in the last week.

A Reuters reporter heard occasional heavy gunfire and explosions as the eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) faced off with forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj’s government around the ex-international airport and the Ain Zara district.

Officials brought families displaced by fighting on Tripoli’s southern fringes to area schools. Red Crescent workers were heading out rations in one school as gunfire clattered in the distance.

Haftar’s push on Tripoli in Libya’s northwest is the latest turn in a cycle of factional violence and chaos in Libya dating to the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

After sweeping up from the south, LNA bogged down in Tripoli’s southern suburbs 11 km (7 miles) from the city center.

In Rome, Libya’s former colonial ruler Italy warned France, which has good relations with Haftar, to refrain from supporting any one faction after diplomats said Paris had scuttled a European Union statement calling on him to halt his offensive.

“It would be very serious if France for economic or commercial reasons had blocked an EU initiative to bring peace to Libya and would support a party that is fighting,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini told Radio RTL 102.5. “As minister of the interior I will not stand by and watch.”

France, which has oil assets in eastern Libya, has provided military assistance in past years to Haftar in his eastern stronghold, Libyan and French officials say. It was also a leading player in the war to unseat Gaddafi. Italy supports the U.N.-backed government of Serraj.

Italy spars with France

“Some think that the [2011 Nato-led military intervention] in Libya promoted by [then-French President Nicolas] Sarkozy was triggered more by economic and commercial interests than by humanitarian concerns,” Salvini said.

“I hope we are not seeing the same film all over again.” An EU draft statement on Wednesday said Haftar’s attack on Tripoli put civilians at risk, disrupted normalization efforts and risked an escalation with serious consequences for Libya and the wider region. That statement was sidelined by France . French diplomatic sources said Paris did not object to calls on Haftar to halt his advance, but rather had only requested amendments including mentions of the plight of migrants in Libya and the presence in anti-Haftar forces of Islamist militants designated as terrorists by the United Nations.

The latest tally of casualties from the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) said 56 people – mainly combatants though also some civilians including two doctors and an ambulance driver – had been killed, and another 266 wounded in Tripoli.

In addition, 28 LNA soldiers had been killed and 92 wounded since the start of the offensive a week ago, according to the LNA.

The number of people forced out of their homes by fighting rose to 8,075, the U.N. migration agency IOM said.

As well as the humanitarian consequences, renewed conflict in Libya threatens to disrupt oil supplies, increase migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, scupper the U.N. peace plan for the country and encourage militants to exploit the chaos.

Libya is a main transit point for migrants who have poured into Europe in recent years, mostly by trafficking gangs.

The LNA forces swept out of their stronghold in eastern Libya to take the sparsely populated but oil-rich south earlier this year, before heading towards Tripoli, where Serraj’s U.N.-backed government sits.

Haftar was among the officers who helped Gaddafi seize power in a 1969 coup before parting ways with him later. But critics call Haftar another strongman in Gaddafi’s mold.

Haftar has resisted U.N. pressure to accept a power-sharing settlement to stabilize the country, using his leverage as a Western ally against militant Islam in North Africa.
…

European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to grant British Prime Minister Theresa May a new Brexit deadline of Oct. 31, diplomats told Reuters after French President Emmanuel Macron opposed summit efforts to give her another year.

Summit chair Donald Tusk tweeted that an extension had been agreed upon but gave no details as he went to brief May on the outcome and seek her necessary agreement to the deal.

The late-night deal means Britain will not crash out of the bloc on Friday and gives May more than the three months she had asked for to build a parliamentary majority behind the withdrawal treaty she negotiated with the EU last year.

But Macron’s push for a June Brexit, and strong opposition to other leaders’ preference for a much longer extension that might increase the chances of Britain changing its mind to stay in the bloc, meant the meeting ended up with the October compromise.

Oct. 31 would correspond to the end of the five-year mandate of the present EU Executive Commission.

Leaders would meet again in June, EU diplomats said, to assess the situation. Britain could have left by then if May succeeds in building a coalition for her deal with the Labour opposition — though there is no sign of agreement yet.

In order to continue as an EU member beyond June 1, May has agreed to organize British elections to the European Parliament on May 23, though it is still unclear if that vote will go ahead and how far it might turn into a virtual second referendum on EU membership that some hope could mean a British cancellation of Brexit.

Late-night wrangling

Other leaders had all but ruled out pitching Britain, and parts of the EU economy, into chaos on Friday. But a drive by Macron to keep London on a tight leash with an extension no longer than to June saw the emergency summit bogged down in late-night wrangling as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others argued the merits of granting up to a year.

As at a summit last month that put back Brexit for two weeks, several EU diplomats said May failed to persuade her peers that she could definitely break the paralysis of repeated failures to ratify the treaty within the coming months.

But Macron had told reporters on arrival that he was concerned that letting Britain stay in the bloc longer, notably if it takes part in elections to the European Parliament on May 23-26, posed a serious risk to the functioning of the Union.

“Nothing can be taken for granted,” the French president warned.

French officials said the EU faced “blackmail” by hard-line pro-Brexit potential successors to May, such as Boris Johnson. The thinking was that they might try to sabotage decision-making, so any longer EU membership must come with tighter commitments from Britain to play fair than were so far drafted into a summit accord.

An aide to Macron warned that France could even be ready to let Britain crash out without a treaty to avoid legal limbo and provide a transition to new trading terms: “Not everything is preferable to a no-deal. A no-deal situation is a real option.”

Laughter with Merkel

However, Merkel has urged the bloc to do all it can to avoid such disruption. She said before leaving Berlin that she favored a delay of “several months” for May, who has pledged to quit if hard-core Brexit supporters in her own Conservative Party drop objections to her “soft Brexit” and help ratify the deal.

Keen to ease tension, Merkel had broken the ice as talks began by showing May a photo montage on a tablet of both wearing similar jackets when addressing their parliaments earlier in the day. It provoked mutual laughter as other leaders joined in.

As talks wore on beyond midnight, with May patiently waiting elsewhere in the building for word on her nation’s fate, Macron rallied support for his concerns about a long extension.

May said on arrival that she did not want a long delay: “I want us to be able to leave the European Union in a smooth and orderly way as soon as possible,” she told reporters.

Her EU peers, however, are skeptical about her ability to break the deadlock soon and discussed a proposal by Tusk of a “flextension” of nine months to a year. This, some argued, could increase pressure on May’s pro-Brexit critics to back her deal rather than risk Brexit fizzling out.

EU leaders are exasperated with May’s handling of a tortuous and costly divorce that is a distraction from ensuring the bloc can hold its own against global economic challenges.

Across from the summit venue, the EU executive celebrated its part in funding a global project that produced the first picture of a black hole, prompting no shortage of ironic comments on social media about the juxtaposition.

Blogger Eliot Higgins tweeted: “We’re now more certain about what black holes look like than what Brexit looks like.”
…

Just two days away from a potentially calamitous no-deal Brexit, European Union leaders were moving closer to granting the United Kingdom a new delay — possibly of up to a year — to its departure from the bloc.

British Prime Minister Theresa May headed Wednesday into an emergency EU summit, pleading for a second extension until June 30, but indicated she could accept a longer extension as many EU leaders have called for.

“What is important is that any extension enables us to leave at the point at which we ratify the withdrawal agreement,” May said as she arrived in Brussels. She added she was hopeful it could be as soon as May 22.

Most EU leaders indicated they could accept such an extension as long as Britain pledges not to use it to play an obstructionist course and undermine EU policies.

French president Emmanuel Macron was more critical, saying that no extension was guaranteed as long as there was no assurance that Britain would not upset EU policies during any transition.

“Nothing is decided,” Macron said upon arrival at the EU summit and insisted on “clarity” from May about what Britain wants, because, he said, “nothing should compromise the European project.”

According to the latest draft conclusions, Britain would be required to act “in a constructive and responsible manner throughout this unique period” of extended withdrawal, and would have to show “sincere cooperation.” It would have to act in “a manner that reflects its situation as a withdrawing member state.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU had “expectations” of Britain so that EU institutions can continue functioning “seamlessly.”

The issue came up after some British Conservative politicians threatened to become obstructionist. One of them, Mark Francois, said that if the U.K. remained in the bloc, “then in return we will become a Trojan Horse within the EU.”

If no extension materializes Wednesday, Britain would crash out of the bloc on Friday with no deal regulating the departure, unless it cancels Brexit independently. A drastic cliff-edge exit would bring huge costs to businesses and trade across the English Channel and be very cumbersome to travelers as it would likely hit airports, ports, tariff rules and standard regulations overnight.

EU countries, especially Macron’s France, have become increasingly exasperated with the political division and uncertainty in Britain about a way forward. In France, concerns have been growing about how badly a hard Brexit would hit the French economy.

Among conditions France is now setting to agree to a new delay: A “credible prospect” of some kind of solution to the British political deadlock; a promise that Britain won’t keep asking for more delays; and guarantees that Britain would not be involved in future EU decisions while its Brexit drama is playing out.

The bloc’s leaders have tried to help May over two years of negotiations, even after she missed her hand-picked Brexit departure date on March 29 because of a parliamentary revolt.

May’s future is uncertain whatever the EU decides.

She has previously said that “as prime minister” she could not agree to let Britain stay in the EU beyond June 30, and she has also promised to step down once Brexit is delivered.

Many Conservative Party lawmakers would like her to quit now and let a new leader take charge of the next stage of Brexit. But they can’t force her out until the end of the year, after she survived a no-confidence vote in December.

Every British initiative to get a deal so far has floundered. Several days of talks between May’s Conservative government and the main opposition Labour Party aimed at finding a compromise have failed to produce a breakthrough.

Labour favors a softer Brexit than the government has proposed, and wants to retain a close economic relationship with the bloc.

The two sides said they would resume their discussions after Wednesday’s EU summit.
…

WikiLeaks has accused the Ecuadorian government of spying on founder Julian Assange.

The group’s editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told a news conference Wednesday that Assange’s meetings with lawyers and a doctor had been secretly filmed by Ecuadorian authorities.

Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and has been living there ever since.

Sweden has dropped an investigation into rape allegations against Assange, but he refuses to come out for fear of facing U.S. charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. He faces arrest in Britain for jumping bail.

Ecuadorian officials say they will comment later on Assange’s allegation that he has been spied on. Relations between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts have soured recently.
…

Britain’s Standard Charter Bank has agreed to more than $1 billion in fines and forfeited assets to the U.S. and New York state for violating U.S. sanctions against trade with Iran.

Federal and state prosecutors said Tuesday that between 2007 and 2011, the global financial institution processed about 9,500 financial transactions worth about $240 million through U.S. financial institutions to benefit Iranian entities.

In addition, U.S. authorities said an unnamed former bank employee in the United Arab Emirates pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and to violate the trade sanctions.

Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said the case “sends a clear message to financial institutions and their employees: If you circumvent U.S. sanctions against rogue states like Iran — or assist those who do — you will pay a steep price.”

He said that “when a global bank processes transactions through the U.S. financial system, its compliance program must be up to the task of detecting and preventing sanctions violations. And when it is not, banks have an obligation to identify, report and remediate any shortcomings.”

Jessie Liu, a prosecutor in Washington, said the bank, the unnamed former employee and Mahmoud Reza Elyassi, an Iranian national and former bank customer in Dubai, “undermined the integrity of our financial system and harmed our national security by deliberately providing Iranians with coveted access to the U.S. economy.” 

Elyassi has been charged with two criminal counts linked to the conspiracy.

The indictment in the case said Elyassi and his co-conspirators used general trading companies in the UAE as fronts for a money exchange business in Iran. 
…

A group of Hungarian business leaders and politicians close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban have founded an international news agency in London whose coverage will focus on central and eastern Europe.

Orban’s associates have gained control over a large chunk of the Hungarian media in recent years and his Fidesz party has taken total control of state media, drawing international accusations that they are weakening freedom of speech.

However, Orban has been unable to control international news coverage, which has been far more critical of him than local media. The new agency’s early content suggests it is more sympathetic to him.

The new company, called V4NA, was registered in London by Hungary’s ambassador to the UK, Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, on Dec. 31, 2018, according to company filings.

Last month, Arpad Habony, Orban’s main spin doctor and eminence grise, acquired a 40 percent stake in V4NA via his London political advisory firm, Danube Business Consulting Ltd. Subsequently, New Wave Media Group, owned by KESMA, a foundation that controls most of Hungary’s pro-government media, acquired a 57 percent stake from Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

Despite its huge role in the Hungarian media market, KESMA was exempted from regulatory scrutiny last year on grounds that it was a strategic national asset.

V4NA’s name reflects a focus on the Visegrad Four countries — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It plans more coverage of other centres in the run-up to European Parliament elections due in May.

“Our team of 50 journalists and rapid-response news teams are on location where the leading stories happen in Europe: London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Bratislava, Warsaw,” the agency says on its web site, V4NA.com.

Most of the site’s content is behind a paywall, but the selection of front-page headlines resonates with the populism of Orban, one of the fiercest critics of immigration to Europe.

“Migrant kills wife after she converts to Christianity,” says one headline from Monday. A report about Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s League, anti-immigrant interior minister and ally of Orban, was headlined “Salvini: Citizens should control Europe.”

“Hungarian minister on EP elections: Hungarian votes also matter” and “Immigration is a war of cultures and civilizations” were headlines that borrowed directly from Orban’s rhetoric.

In an emailed statement, V4NA said it offered a “conservative, right-wing perspective” on European news. It did not answer questions about its relations with Hungary’s government or its business plans.

KESMA did not immediately reply to Reuters’ questions.

Habony could not be reached for comment.
…

Police have moved in to stop a scuffle between supporters of rival candidates in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who stars in a widely popular TV sitcom about a schoolteacher turned president, easily beat President Petro Poroshenko in the first round on March 31. Zelenskiy garnered 30% of the vote, while Poroshenko won just under 16%, and a runoff between them is set for April 21.

Supporters of Zelenskiy and Poroshenko clashed Tuesday in front of Zelenskiy’s campaign headquarters in Kyiv, as they tried to wrest campaign posters from each other. Police quickly intervened, detaining two people.

Zelenskiy’s office said he wasn’t in the building when the brawl occurred.

Ahead of the vote, Zelenskiy and Poroshenko are to hold a debate in in Kyiv’s Olimpiskiy Stadium, Ukraine’s biggest arena.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May meets the leaders of Germany and France on Tuesday in a last-gasp bid to keep her country from crashing out of the European Union later this week.

Her huddles with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and President Emmanuel Macron in Paris come on the eve of another tension-packed summit in Brussels focused on the fate of the 46-year-old partnership.

May asked EU leaders on Friday to delay Brexit until June 30 to give her time to strike a compromise with the opposition that lets Britain’s hung parliament back an orderly divorce plan on the fourth attempt.

But the 27 European leaders have already signed off on one extension — the original deadline was March 29 — and have serious doubts that May will somehow break through the political gridlock now.

“We are in a very, very frustrating situation here,” said Germany’s Minister for European Affairs Michael Roth, as he and fellow EU officials arrived for Luxembourg talks on the eve of the summit.

Roth’s French counterpart Amelie de Montchalin told reporters that “we want to understand what the UK needs this extension for, and what are the political surroundings around Theresa May to have this extension”.

“And then comes the question of the conditions of what role we’d want the UK to play during this extension time,” she added.

Some in the EU are worried that if Britain accepts a long delay, its representatives could disrupt EU budget planning and reforms during indefinite Brexit talks, potentially causing more problems than a messy “no-deal Brexit”.

“We’d need a strong political reason to delay,” a diplomat from this camp said.

EU Council president Donald Tusk’s office last week floated a compromise proposal that gives Britain a “flexible” extension of up to a year — which ends earlier should some way forward emerge in London.

But a diplomatic source insisted that this was “Mr Tusk’s position, not the position of the Council”.

Merkel takes a more conciliatory approach backed by EU member Ireland — a crucial player whose politically sensitive border with Britain’s Northern Ireland is holding up May’s deal in parliament.

“I will do everything in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit,” Merkel said Friday.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Paralysis and disarray

The diplomatic disarray in Brussels is mirrored by political paralysis in London that has forced May to promise to resign as soon as she gets this first stage of Brexit over the line.

The weakened British leader had been hoping to come to Brussels with either her deal approved or some sort of alternative way forward drafted that could convince the likes of Macron.

But her talks with the opposition Labour Party have made no tangible progress and seem unlikely to find common ground before she flies to Brussels seeking a second delay in three weeks.

“The problem is that the government doesn’t seem to be moving off the original red lines,” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Monday.

The government will instead present a plan to parliament Tuesday to outline how long it intends to delay Brexit.

This is part of legislation passed into law late Monday to force May to postpone Brexit if the only other alternative is a no-deal scenario.

May’s talks with Labour have stumbled over Corbyn’s demand that Britain join some form of European customs arrangement once the sides formally split up.

EU officials are ready to include such a promise in the outline of a future relationship, which was agreed with May alongside the withdrawal deal.

But May knows that the prospect of close post-Brexit economic relations could further fracture her government and party ahead of possible snap elections.

Almost any form of European customs arrangement would keep Britain from striking its own global trade agreement and leave one of the biggest advantages of Brexit unfulfilled.

 
…

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and EU institution leaders meet in Brussels on Tuesday for an annual EU-China summit set to be overshadowed by differences over trade and investment.

After years of offering free access to its markets, the European Union has said it is losing patience with Beijing over the pace of liberalizing reforms. It also has growing concerns over state-led Chinese companies’ dominance of some EU markets and acquisitions of strategic industries.

Like the United States, many EU countries want to crack down on industrial subsidies and forced technology transfers, although prefer dialogue to the trade war Washington has triggered.

The European Commission set out a 10-point action plan last month, seeing scope for greater cooperation in fields such as climate change, but demanding greater reciprocity, such as access for EU firms to Chinese public tenders.

“The old narrative is absolutely obsolete,” Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen told Reuters.

Beijing and Brussels have been wrestling for weeks over the text of a joint declaration to be presented as the fruit of Tuesday’s summit between Li and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council chief Donald Tusk.

“China aims to have a feel-good summit, whereas we aim to have a meaningful summit, with a meaningful outcome,” Peter Berz, acting Asia director at the Commission’s trade section, told the European Parliament last week.

EU diplomats said on Monday negotiators had made some progress, but were still short of an agreed text. Talks would continue until the summit, due to start at 1 p.m.

China points to a new foreign investment law due to take effect at the start of 2020. It includes provisions to ban forced technology transfers and ensure foreign companies have access to public tenders.

EU officials say the law lacks detail and question how effective it will be in reality in protecting foreign firms.

Li wrote in a German newspaper on Monday that China wanted to work with the European Union on issues including trade and denied Beijing was trying to split the bloc by investing in eastern European states. 
…

Turkey’s High Election Board has rejected a request by the ruling AK Party for all votes to be recounted in 31 of Istanbul’s districts, a board member said on Tuesday, in a blow to the party’s goal of a total recount in the city.

President Tayyip Erdogan, also AKP leader, said on Monday the local elections were marred by “organized crime” at ballot boxes in Istanbul, raising the possibility of re-running a March 31 vote in the city that handed a slim majority to the main opposition party.

Erdogan’s comments, his strongest challenge yet to the election process in Turkey’s largest city, briefly drove the lira down and also weighed on Turkish stocks.

The AKP’s election board representative Recep Ozel told reporters after a board meeting that the board had only agreed to a recount of 51 ballot boxes, spread across 21 of the city’s total 39 districts. Each ballot box generally contains several hundred votes.

The AK Party had also called for a full recount in the city’s Buyukcekmece district, but the board has not yet ruled on that request, Ozel said. Vote recounts are continuing in the remaining districts.

Erdogan’s AK Party has already lost the mayoralty in the capital Ankara to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and has appealed several stages of the count in Istanbul which showed a narrow CHP victory.

The Islamist-rooted AKP is reeling from the potential loss of both cities, which the party and its predecessors have governed for a quarter of a century. Erdogan himself rose to prominence as Istanbul mayor in the 1990s before emerging as national leader.

Erdogan said the scale of electoral irregularities his party had uncovered meant the margin of votes between Istanbul’s top two candidates, currently at less than 15,000 in a city of 10 million voters, was too narrow for the opposition to claim victory.

 
…

Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček talks to VOA about NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thrown his full political weight into efforts to reverse the defeat of his AK Party in mayoral elections for Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul.

Speaking to reporters Monday before flying to Moscow, Erdogan questioned the validity of the vote.

“We, as the political party, have detected an organized crime and some organized activities,”he said.

Until now, Erdogan appeared to step back from the deepening political controversy over the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) success in Istanbul.  The AKP in Istanbul is challenging the March 31 vote, seeking to overturn Ekram Imamoglu’s 24,000 vote lead over Binali Yildirim.

AKP’s efforts reduced Imamoglu’s majority to around 15,000 votes.  But the current reexamination of 300,000 invalidated ballots is almost complete.  The AKP is now demanding a full recount of the nearly 10 million votes.

Erdogan also introduced the idea of a repeat of the Istanbul poll.

“No one has a right to say, ‘I won’ with a 13,000 to 14,000 vote difference,” Erdogan said.  “We made a promise.  We said that we would protect the votes at ballot boxes, and we did so.  After protecting the votes at the ballot box, we have continued to do the same in the ensuing process.”

The prospect of a rerun of the vote drew scorn from opposition leaders.

“Renewing elections until the AK Party wins is what happens in African dictatorships.  There are examples of it,” said Good Party leader Meral Aksener.

With political tensions rising over the contested vote, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu put the onus on Turkey’s Higher Electoral Board (YSK) to end the dispute.

The YSK administrates elections in Turkey and has the final say in determining results and decisions on recounts and reruns.

“Whatever they (AKP) have tried so far didn’t change the results,” Kilicdaroglu said.  “The YSK judges have to behave independently and decide in accordance with the law.  This is about the fate of our democracy.”

The majority of the ruling YSK board is made up of Erdogan and government appointees.  YSK decisions on sanctioning recounts in the aftermath of the local elections is already raising questions over its impartiality.

“Election monitoring body YSK, which ought to be independent and which will decide on this appeal (Istanbul vote), has thus far granted 86 percent of AKP’s requests for recounts versus 12 percent of opposition CHP and 0 percent of opposition HDP (pro-Kurdish party),” tweeted Sonar Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program, in Washington.

Critics highlight the YSK’s rejection of opposition parties’ calls for recounts in the latest local elections, where the winning margin was in the hundreds or low thousands.

However, the YSK did reject AKP’s calls for a full recount in the mayoral election in Ankara, which saw the CHP win control of the city after 25 years.  In Istanbul, the board also rejected an appeal for a district mayoral election to be repeated.

Analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners said the entrance of Erdogan into the controversy over the Istanbul vote changes the political landscape.

“While the YSK, has shown some backbone during this ordeal (Istanbul vote), let’s not fool ourselves.  No mortal or legal entity in Turkey has the guts to withstand Erdogan’s wrath,” he said.

Critics warn overturning the Istanbul vote or repeating the election could end many Turks’ belief in the Turkish democratic system.  Political scientist Cengiz Aktar said for Erdogan, that would be politically costly.

“Elections, on a general or local level or even referenda are extremely important to the regime as it constitutes the sole source of legitimacy for this regime. Therefore elections are crucial for the regime.”

Erdogan’s favorite rebuttal of criticism domestically and internationally is his repeated electoral success.  Yesilada suggests the president’s AKP defeats in Istanbul and Ankara could have been an opportunity.

“The victories in Istanbul and Ankara by opposition parties should have aroused respect for Turkey’s resilient democracy and earned him (Erdogan) credit from the West for gracefully conceding defeat,” Yesilada said.  The alternative means Turkey is exiting the democratic fraternity and possibly another market quake to devastate the economy.

The Turkish lira fell sharply Monday following Erdogan’s comments.  Economists warn the currency remains vulnerable to political risk, with the economy recession and concerns over the scale of private sector debt.

Observers suggest the political and the economic risks will be considerable in any protracted struggle for Istanbul, Erdogan’s base for 25 years, where he could be calculating that such risks more than outweighed the cost of losing control of his hometown city.

“He (Erdogan) was elected mayor in 1994.  He knows how economically meaningful Istanbul is for his party, the AKP.  It has extensively benefited from Istanbul,” said Aktar.  “In that sense, it’s (Istanbul) extremely important and symbolic, and that is why the opposition will never be allowed to win in Istanbul.”
…

Ford workers in Russia have started work-to-rule action over plans to close a plant.

Mikhail Sergeyev, head of a trade union which represents around a third of the St. Petersburg plant’s 900-strong workforce, has told The Associated Press on Monday the work-to-rule will continue until Ford negotiates, and it’s already causing disruption.

Sergeyev says his union is pushing for more generous layoff packages equivalent to twice a worker’s annual salary.

Ford said last month that it’s leaving the Russian car market and closing two assembly plants and an engine plant, after years of lackluster sales. Ford will keep making vans at another site through a joint venture.

Organized industrial action is uncommon in Russia, where many unions have close ties to management, though the auto industry is a rare exception.

 
…

The migration of Africans to Europe and North America should be viewed as a positive phenomenon, not a threat, Sudan-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim said Sunday.

Experts said at a weekend conference hosted by Ibrahim’s foundation in Abidjan, Ivory Coast that Africans make up about 14% of the global migrant population, a much smaller share than the 41% from Asia and 23% from Europe.

“Migration is healthy. It’s not a disease,” Ibrahim told The Associated Press in an interview. “Migration is about aspirations, not desperation. People who migrate are mostly capable, ambitious young people who are migrating to work and to build successful lives. They add wealth to the countries they go to.”

Ibrahim also cited statistics to rebut anti-migration politicians who say Africans have inundated Europe.

“Europe is not being flooded by Africans,” Ibrahim said, citing statistics that show 70% of African migrants relocate within Africa.

The 72-year-old philanthropist earned his fortune by establishing the Celtel mobile phone network across Africa.

Now living in Britain, he says African countries should have better education and employment opportunities for their young.

“Farming should be sexy. It should be seen as profitable and productive, not a backward thing,” said Ibrahim. “Yes, IT and technology are important, but agriculture is a way of the future for Africa.”

Ibrahim’s foundation publishes an annual index and awards a leadership prize to encourage good governance in Africa.
…

Arrested former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn is set to name the people he believes are responsible for his downfall in Japan, his wife said in an interview on Sunday as she fled Tokyo out of fear she could be detained.

Ghosn was re-arrested last week in the Japanese capital over fresh allegations of financial misconduct which will see him held in custody until at least April 14.

Speaking to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in France, his wife Carole detailed the latest twists in the extraordinary saga, saying that Ghosn had recorded a video interview in English before his detention.

“He names the people responsible for what has happened to him. The lawyers have it. It will be released soon,” she told the newspaper.

Carole added that she had fled Tokyo on a flight to Paris — with support from the French ambassador to Tokyo — because she “felt in danger.”

Despite her Lebanese passport being confiscated by Japanese authorities, Carole said she was able to use her American passport to board a flight and was accompanied by the ambassador to the airport.

“He didn’t leave me until the plane,” she explained. “Up to the last second, I didn’t know if they were going to let me fly. It was surreal.”

The role of the French ambassador could lead to fresh friction between the countries over the highly sensitive case, which involves Nissan and French car maker Renault, which were both previously run by Ghosn.

Japanese news channel NHK said prosecutors in Tokyo wanted to question Carole on a voluntary basis.

Other reports in Japan say that investigators are looking into allegations that company money allegedly misused by Ghosn could have transited through a business that was run by his wife.

‘Different person’

Carole intends now to try to pressure the French government to do more for her husband whose 108-day imprisonment in Japan between November 19 and March 6 had left him a “different person,” she told The Financial Times in a separate interview.

France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday he had raised the case during talks with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on the sidelines of the meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers in the French resort of Dinard.

Le Drian said he had “reminded him of our attachment to the presumption of innocence and the full rights of consular protection.”

Japanese authorities are looking into new allegations that Ghosn transferred some $15 million in Nissan funds between late 2015 and mid-2018 to a dealership in Oman.

They suspect around $5 million of these funds were siphoned off for Ghosn’s use, including for the purchase of a luxury yacht and financing personal investments.

Prosecutors say Ghosn “betrayed” his duty not to cause losses to Nissan “in order to benefit himself.”

Ghosn denies the allegations and says he is also innocent of the three formal charges he faces: two charges of deferring his salary and concealing that in official shareholders’ documents, and a further charge related to investment losses.

The man previously seen as the most powerful figure in the global car industry told French channel TF1 last week that he was “a combative man and an innocent man” and vowed to “defend myself to the bitter end”.

And he voiced concern that he would not be given a fair hearing in Japan where around 99 percent of trials result in a conviction.

 
…

Ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, the world has been fascinated with the idea of creating life in a lab. But it remained in the realm of fiction… until it became a bit closer to reality with genetic engineering work in a Swiss lab. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Saturday that the longer it takes to find a compromise with the opposition Labour Party to secure a parliamentary majority for a Brexit deal, the less likely it is that Britain will leave the European Union. 

May has so far failed to secure backing for her negotiated agreement with Brussels, as some Conservative lawmakers and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up her minority government, have voted it down. 

She has since turned to the opposition Labour Party in a bid to secure a majority for an orderly Brexit, although its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said Saturday that he was waiting for May to move her Brexit red lines. 

“The fact is that on Brexit there are areas where the two main parties agree: We both want to end free movement, we both want to leave with a good deal, and we both want to protect jobs,” May said in comments released by her Downing Street office. 

‘The only way’

“That is the basis for a compromise that can win a majority in Parliament, and winning that majority is the only way to deliver Brexit.” 

She added, “The longer this takes, the greater the risk of the UK never leaving at all.” 

May has a plan to enshrine in law a customs arrangement with the EU to win over the Labour Party, and her aides have discussed offering the opposition a place in the British delegation to Wednesday’s EU summit, The Sunday Times reported. 

The prime minister has asked EU leaders to postpone Britain’s exit from the bloc until June 30. The EU, which gave her a two-week extension the last time she asked, insists she must first show a viable plan to secure agreement on her thrice-rejected divorce deal in the British Parliament. 

It is the latest twist in a saga that leaves Britain, the world’s fifth-biggest economy, struggling to find a way to honor a 2016 referendum result to take the country out of the globe’s largest trading bloc.  

Pressure on both parties

May reiterated Saturday her hope that lawmakers would approve a deal to allow Britain to leave the bloc as quickly as possible. 

“My intention is to reach an agreement with my fellow EU leaders that will mean if we can agree a deal here at home, we can leave the EU in just six weeks,” she said. 

One of the most senior Brexiters in her government, the leader of the lower house of Parliament, Andrea Leadsom, also said there was a risk of Brexit slipping further from lawmakers’ grasp. 

“The vision we had of Brexit is fading away — and we are running out of time to save it,” she wrote in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. 

Some of May’s lawmakers are warning they will try to oust her if Britain participates in EU parliamentary elections next month and is forced to extend membership of the bloc beyond June, The Observer newspaper reported. 

The Sunday Telegraph said ministers are discussing whether to resign if a Brexit delay means Britain must field candidates. 

​Local candidates’ anger

In a further sign of the ever heavier strains on the Conservatives, more than 100 candidates for upcoming local elections wrote to May warning of the growing anger at the grass-roots level and among the public. 

“Our party and our government have completely lost touch with voters,” the candidates said, according to The Sunday Telegraph. “Let’s be clear: More fudge and a further dilution of Brexit is not the answer.” 

Opposition leader Corbyn also faces pressure as more than 80 of his lawmakers warned that another vote on Brexit must be a red line in Labour’s talks with the government, The Independent newspaper said.
…

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in several Swiss cities against climate change, the Swiss news agency Keystone-ATS reported. 

Around 50,000 marched in all, the news agency estimated, including 15,000 in Zurich and up to 9,000 in the capital, Bern, and in Lausanne. 

“It’s about knowing if finally we want to listen to the voice of science,” high school student Jan Burckhardt told ATS. 

“Save the climate, please: It’s the last time we ask politely,” read one of the placards at the Lausanne demonstration, an AFP photographer saw. 

The marches were organized by an alliance of activist groups in Switzerland, including Greenpeace, Swiss Youth for Climate and green groups.  

“We don’t want to stop our movement as long as our claims have not been heard, as long as we have not obtained concrete results,” said Laurane Conod, one of the organizers of a smaller march in Geneva. 

The climate change protests in Switzerland were in part inspired by the teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who started weekly school strikes calling for policy change on the climate issue.
…

Right-wing populist parties are gearing up to campaign for European Parliament elections next month, but policy differences and the Brexit drama threaten their dream to “unite the right.” 

Many fear the May 26 vote will be a wake-up call for Brussels on the reality that Europe’s anti-immigration and blood-and-soil patriotic forces have moved from the fringes to the mainstream. 

Once considered outsiders, they could now end up with one-fifth or more of the seats, allowing them to shift the tone of political discourse and make a claim for legitimacy. 

Key players are Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (NR) in France and the Italian League of Matteo Salvini, who is hosting a meeting of like-minded right-wing groups in Milan on Monday. 

In the EU’s top economy, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the biggest opposition party by railing against Chancellor Angela Merkel and her 2015 decision to allow a mass influx of asylum seekers. 

The AfD launched its election program in the southwestern city of Offenburg on Saturday, calling for “a Europe of fatherlands” and opposing the EU’s immigration, financial and climate policies. 

“This European campaign is a campaign about identity,” said party co-leader Alexander Gauland.  

“The European Union is not a state. It doesn’t need a parliament,” he added. 

Despite financial scandals, the AfD has the support of 10 percent of voters, according to opinion polls, with its popularity highest in the former East Germany. 

Meeting in Milan

On Monday in Milan, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Salvini will follow up and gather allies from across Europe to try to lay the foundations for a future hard-right grouping in the now 751-member European Parliament. 

Salvini and Le Pen also agreed to call another meeting in May, after they met in Paris on Friday, a NR source said. 

“The leaders are considering a common manifesto to close the electoral campaign and announce the start of a new Europe,” said a spokesman for Salvini. 

So far, Europe’s right-wing nationalists have been divided into three blocs and a tangled web of alliances in the legislature that moves between seats in Brussels and the French city of Strasbourg. 

They are the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group, which includes the RN and League; the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR); and the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD). 

The dream of Salvini — and of Steve Bannon, the former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump — has been to unite the disparate patriotic forces and form a federation of nationalist parties.  

But so far such efforts have met with only limited success, in part because the parties’ nationalist focus runs counter to a multinational approach.

Divided on key issues

Another problem for the groups has been that, despite their shared dislike for immigration, multiculturalism, the left and the EU, they remain divided on other key issues. 

On economic policy, the AfD and their Scandinavian allies tend to believe in the market economy, while the French RN favors a more protectionist and statist approach. 

While Italy’s League, Poland’s PiS and Hungary’s Fidesz highlight Europe’s Christian cultural roots, the RN has shied away from taking a similar stance in a country where the majority is in favor of secularism. 

And even on immigration, Salvini’s League favors an EU-wide redistribution of asylum seekers while others demand an outright stop to immigration. 

On relations with Russia, Salvini has praised President Vladimir Putin, a view not shared by Poland’s governing party.

‘Patriotic alliance’?

The AfD’s top candidate, Joerg Meuthen, said he expects big gains for nationalist parties but that they will have trouble forming a “patriotic alliance” with a common agenda.  

There are also strategic deliberations. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has voiced admiration for Salvini but was considered unlikely to come to the Milan meeting, given his Fidesz party still belongs to the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) group, despite its temporary suspension. 

Meanwhile, most parties have also toned down their anti-EU rhetoric as the Brexit debacle has made the prospect of leaving the bloc look far less appealing. 

Le Pen renounced a “Frexit” after the 2017 presidential election and her disastrous debates against Emmanuel Macron, while Germany’s AfD has downgraded a “Dexit” scenario to a “last resort.” 

Still, the potential of the far-right must not be underestimated, said Sven Hutten, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. 

He warned that such groups target “15 to 30 percent of the population” and that at the moment “the populist right is fighting for unity and to build a single bloc.”
…

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies were wrapping up a two-day meeting in the French seaside resort of Dinard on Saturday where they hope to seal joint commitments on a range of global challenges and lay the groundwork for August’s G-7 summit in Biarritz.

Diplomats from G-7 countries, which include the U.S., France, Canada, Japan, Germany, Italy and the U.K., walked side-by-side against the rocky Atlantic coast backdrop and in the fresh Brittany air to project a united front before a working lunch. They hope to agree on a joint statement on the fight against trafficking drugs, arms and migrants in Africa’s troubled Sahel region, fighting cybercrime and stopping sexual violence against women in conflict zones, especially in Africa.

But U.S. officials said that points of discord will also be discussed at the talks led by the host, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said that Washington will use the G-7 forum to galvanize support for Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido, who the U.S. has backed to lead the country into a “democratic transformation from the failed regime” of President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido has embarked on an international campaign to topple the socialist administration of Venezuela’s president amid deepening unrest in the country, which has been plagued by nearly a month of power outages.

Washington seems to be at odds with Italy over its stance on the crisis-hit South American country, being the sole G-7 member state to not back Guaido.

The U.S. and Canada have pursued a pro-active stance on widening support for Guaido, according to French officials.  But there has already been widespread alarm after Guaido was stripped of immunity by Maduro loyalists earlier this week.

“With Juan Guaido being stripped of his immunity … we don’t want the situation to escalate,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in Dinard on Saturday.

“We are still of the opinion that free elections should take place during which Venezuelans can decide themselves who will lead the country,” he added.

Italy has also irked EU and U.S. allies by becoming the first G-7 member to sign up to a contentious Chinese plan to build a Silk Road-style global trade network, the trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.

 
…