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A gay French writer has lifted the lid on what he calls one of the world’s largest gay communities — the Vatican, estimating that most of its prelates are homosexually inclined and attributing much of the current crisis in the Catholic Church to an internecine war among them.

In the explosive book, In the Closet of the Vatican, author Frederic Martel describes a gay subculture at the Vatican and calls out the hypocrisy of Catholic bishops and cardinals who in public denounce homosexuality but in private lead double lives.

Aside from the subject matter, the book is astonishing for the access Martel had to the inner sanctum of the Holy See. Martel writes that he spent four years researching it in 30 countries, including weeks at a time living inside the Vatican walls. He says the doors were opened by a key Vatican gatekeeper and friend of Pope Francis who was the subject of the pontiff’s famous remark about gay priests, “Who am I to judge?”

Martel says he conducted nearly 1,500 in-person interviews with 41 cardinals, 52 bishops or monsignors, and 45 Vatican and foreign ambassadors, many of whom are quoted at length and in on-the-record interviews that he says were recorded. Martel said he was assisted by 80 researchers, translators, fixers and local journalists, as well as a team of 15 lawyers. The 555-page book is being published simultaneously in eight languages in 20 countries, many bearing the title Sodom.

The Vatican didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Culture of secrecy

Martel appears to want to bolster Francis’ efforts at reforming the Vatican by discrediting his biggest critics and removing the secrecy and scandal that surrounds homosexuality in the church. Church doctrine holds that gays are to be treated with respect and dignity, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

“Francis knows that he has to move on the church’s stance, and that he will only be able to do this at the cost of a ruthless battle against all those who use sexual morality and homophobia to conceal their own hypocrisies and double lives,” Martel writes.

But the book’s Feb. 21 publication date coincides with the start of Francis’ summit of church leaders on preventing the sexual abuse of minors, a crisis that is undermining his papacy. The book isn’t about abuse, but the timing of its release could fuel the narrative, embraced by conservatives and rejected by the gay community, that the abuse scandal has been caused by homosexuals in the priesthood.

Martel is quick to separate the two issues. But he echoes the analysis of the late abuse researcher and psychotherapist A.W. Richard Sipe that the hidden sex lives of priests has created a culture of secrecy that allowed the abuse of minors to flourish. According to that argument, since many prelates in positions of authority have their own hidden sexual skeletons, they have no interest in denouncing the criminal pedophiles in their midst lest their own secrets be revealed.

‘Gossip and innuendo’

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of Building a Bridge about how the Catholic Church should reach out more to the LGBT community, said that based on the excerpts he had read, Martel’s book “makes a convincing case that in the Vatican many priests bishops and even cardinals are gay, and that some of them are sexually active.”

But Martin added that the book’s sarcastic tone belies its fatal flaw. “His extensive research is buried under so much gossip and innuendo that it makes it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction.”

“There are many gay priests, bishops and cardinals in ministry today in the church,” Martin said. “But most of them are, like their straight counterparts, remaining faithful to a life of chastity and celibacy.”

In the course of his research, Martel said he came to several conclusions about the reality of the Holy See that he calls the “rules,” chief among them that the more obviously gay the priest, bishop or cardinal, the more vehement his anti-gay rhetoric.

Martel says his aim is not to “out” living prelates, though he makes some strong insinuations about those who are “in the parish,” a euphemism he learns is code for gay clergy.

Martin said Martel “traffics in some of the worst gay stereotypes” by using sarcastic and derogatory terms, such as when he writes of Francis’ plight: “Francis is said to be ‘among the wolves.’ It’s not quite true: he’s among the queens.”

Martel moves from one scandal to another — from the current one over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington to the priest-friendly gay migrant prostitute scene near Rome’s train station. He traces the reasons behind Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and the cover-up of the Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ, the pedophile Rev. Marcial Maciel. In each, Martel parses the scandal through the lens of the gay-friendly or homophobic prelates he says were involved.

Gay rights advocate

Equal parts investigative journalism and salacious gossip, Martel paints a picture of an institution almost at war with itself, rife with rumor and with leaders struggling to rationalize their own sexual appetites and orientations with official church teachings that require chastity and its unofficial tradition of hostility toward gays.

“Never, perhaps, have the appearances of an institution been so deceptive,” Martel writes. “Equally deceptive are the pronouncements about celibacy and the vows of chastity that conceal a completely different reality.”

Martel is not a household name in France, but is known in the French LGBT community as an advocate for gay rights. Those familiar with his work view it as rigorous, notably his 90-minute weekly show on public radio station France Culture called Soft Power. Recent episodes include investigations into global digital investment and the U.S.-China trade war.

As a French government adviser in the 1990s, he played a prominent role in legislation allowing civil unions, which not only allowed gay couples to formalize their relationships and share assets, but also proved hugely popular among heterosexual French couples increasingly skeptical of marriage.

His nonfiction books include a treatise on homosexuality in France over the past 50 years called The Pink and the Black (a sendup of Stendhal’s classic The Red and the Black), as well as an investigation of the internet industry and a study of culture in the United States.

Martel attributes the high percentage of gays in the clergy to the fact that up until the homosexual liberation of the 1970s, gay Catholic men had few options. “So these pariahs became initiates and made a strength of a weakness,” he writes. That analysis helps explain the dramatic fall in vocations in recent decades, as gay Catholic men now have other options, not least to live their lives openly, even in marriage.
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Spain will elect its third government in less than four years after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s fragile socialist government acknowledged Friday its support had evaporated and called an early general election.

Sanchez’s eight-month-old administration met its end after failing to get parliament’s approval for its 2019 budget proposal earlier this week, adding to the political uncertainty that has dogged Spain in recent years.

“Between doing nothing and continuing without a budget, or giving the chance for Spaniards to speak, Spain should continue looking ahead,” Sanchez said in a televised appearance from the Moncloa Palace, the seat of government, after an urgent Cabinet meeting.

The ballot will take place on April 28. It is expected to highlight the increasingly fragmented political landscape that has denied the European Union country a stable government in recent elections.

The 46-year-old prime minister ousted his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy last June, when he won a no-confidence vote triggered by a damaging corruption conviction affecting Rajoy’s Popular Party.

But the simple majority of Socialists, anti-austerity parties and regional nationalists that united against Rajoy crumbled in the past week after Sanchez broke off talks with the Catalan separatists over their demands for the independence of their prosperous northeastern region.

Sanchez saw the Catalan separatists join opposition lawmakers to vote down his spending plans, including social problems he had hoped would boost his party’s popularity.

Sanchez had the shortest term in power for any prime minister since Spain transitioned to democracy four decades ago.

Without mentioning Catalonia directly, Sanchez said he remained committed to dialogue with the country’s regions as long as their demands fell “within the constitution and the law,” which don’t allow a region to secede. He blamed the conservatives for not supporting his Catalan negotiations.

Popular Party leader Pablo Casado celebrated what he called the “defeat” of the Socialists, attacking Sanchez for yielding to some of the Catalan separatists’ demands.

“We will be deciding [in this election] if Spain wants to remain as a hostage of the parties that want to destroy it,” or welcome the leadership of the conservatives, Casado said.

Catalonia’s regional government spokeswoman, Elsa Artadi, retorted that “Spain will be ungovernable as long as it doesn’t confront the Catalan problem.”

Opinion polls indicate the April vote isn’t likely to produce a clear winner, a shift from the traditional bipartisan results that dominated Spanish politics for decades.

Although Sanchez’s Socialists appear to be ahead, their two main opponents — the Popular Party and the center-right Ciudadanos (Citizens) — could repeat their recent coalition in the southern Andalusia region, where they unseated the Socialists with the help of the far-right Vox party.

Vox last year scored the far-right’s first significant gain in post-dictatorship Spain, and surveys predict it could grab seats in the national parliament for the first time.

Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, vowed to use the election to “reconquer” the future, a term that refers back to how Spanish Catholic kings defeated Muslim rulers in 15th-century Spain.

Meanwhile, the Socialists are unlikely to be able to form a new government even if they come to a coalition deal with the anti-establishment Podemos [We Can] party, so a third partner will likely be needed.

Sanchez’s options are limited. On the right, a deal with the Citizens party seemed off the table, as its leader Albert Rivera has vetoed any possible agreement with a Socialist party led by Sanchez himself.

And the prospect of Catalan nationalists joining any ensuing coalition is remote, both in the light of the recent failed talks and the ongoing trial of a dozen Catalan politicians and activists for their roles in an independence bid two years ago.

“The Socialists don’t want an election marked by Catalonia because the issue creates internal division, but right-wing parties will use it as a weapon,” said Antonio Barroso of the Teneo consulting firm.

He said polls have erred in recent elections and that clever campaigning could swing the vote significantly.

“The only certainty … is that fragmentation is Spain’s new political reality,” he said.
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Sitting in her living room, 65-year-old Tatyana Rybalchenko goes through a stack of black-and-white photos from more than 30 years ago. In one of them, she is dressed in a nurse’s coat and smiles sheepishly at the camera; in another, she shares a laugh with soldiers on a road with a mountain ridge behind them.

The pictures don’t show the hardships that Rybalchenko and 20,000 Soviet women like her went through as civilian support staff during the Soviet Union’s 1979-1989 invasion of Afghanistan. Although they did not serve in combat roles, they still experienced the horrors of war.

As Russia on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the memories are still fresh for the nurses, clerks and shopkeepers, predominantly young, single women who were thrust into the bloody conflict.

Rybalchenko enlisted on a whim. In 1986, she was 33, working in a dead-end nursing job in Kyiv, the capital of Soviet Ukraine, and was going through a breakup. One day, she joined a colleague who went to a military recruitment office. The recruiter turned to Rybalchenko and asked if she would like to work abroad — in Afghanistan.

She recalls that she was fed up with her life in Kyiv, “so I told him: ‘I’d go anywhere, even to hell!’ And this is where he sent me.”

Family and friends tried to talk her out of it, telling her that Afghanistan is where “the bodies are coming from.” But it was too late: She had signed the contract.

At least 15,000 Soviet troops were killed in the fighting that began as an effort to prop up a communist ally and soon became a grinding campaign against a U.S.-backed insurgency. Moscow sent more than 600,000 to a war that traumatized many young men and women and fed a popular discontent that became one factor leading to the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Rybalchenko, who worked as a nurse at a military hospital in Gardez, was stunned by the many casualties — men missing limbs or riddled with shrapnel. But there was so much work that she found herself shutting off her emotions.

“At the end, I did not feel anything anymore. I was like a stone,” Rybalchenko said, shedding her normally perky persona.

Friendships helped, and she befriended a young reconnaissance officer, Vladimir Vshivtsev.

He once confided to her that he was not afraid of losing a limb, but he would not be able to live with an injury to his eyes. She recalled him saying “if I lose eyesight, I’ll do everything to put an end to it.”

In November 1987, the hospital was inundated with casualties from a Soviet offensive to open the road between Gardez and the stronghold of Khost, near the Pakistani border.

One of the wounded was Vshivtsev, and Rybalchenko saw him being wheeled into the ward with bandages wrapped around his head. She unwrapped the dressing and gasped when she saw the gaping wound on his face: “The eyes were not there.”

She persuaded her superior to let her accompany him to a bigger hospital in Kabul as part of a suicide watch. She stayed friends with Vshivtsev, and he later became a leading activist in the Russian Society for the Blind. Decades later, he briefly served in the Russian parliament.

Raising awareness

Alla Smolina was 30 when she joined the Soviet military prosecutor’s office in Jalalabad near the Pakistani border in 1985. It wasn’t until 20 years later that Smolina started having nightmares about the war.

“The shelling, running away from bullets and mines whizzing above me — I was literally scared of my own pillow,” she said.

She put her memories on paper and contacted other women who were there, telling the stories of those who endured the hardships of war but who are largely absent from the male-dominated narratives.

She is trying to raise awareness of the role the Soviet women played in Afghanistan, believing they have been unfairly portrayed or not even mentioned in fiction and nonfiction written mostly by men.

The deaths of Soviet women who held civilian jobs in Afghanistan are not part of the official toll, and Smolina has written about 56 women who lost their lives. Some died when a plane was shot down by the Afghan mujahedeen, one was killed when a drunken soldier threw a grenade into her room, and one woman was slain after being raped by a soldier.

In an era when the concept of sexual harassment was largely unfamiliar in the Soviet Union, the women in the war in Afghanistan — usually young and unmarried — often started a relationship to avoid unwanted attention from other soldiers.

“Because if a woman has someone, the whole brigade won’t harass you like a pack of wolves,” Rybalchenko said. “Sometimes it was reciprocal, sometimes there was no choice.”

She said she found boyfriends to “protect” her.

Denied war benefits

While the war grew unpopular at home, Soviet troops and support staff in Afghanistan mostly focused on survival rather than politics. While Afghans largely saw Moscow’s involvement as a hostile foreign intervention, the Soviets thought they were doing the right thing.

“We really believed that we were helping the oppressed Afghan nation, especially because we saw with our own eyes all the kindergartens and schools that the Soviet people were building there,” Smolina said.

After Rybalchenko came home, she could hardly get out of bed for the first three months, one of thousands with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder.

When she asked officials about benefits for veterans and other personnel in Afghanistan, she faced hostility and insults. She said one told her: “How do I know what you were actually up to over there?”

In 2006, Russian lawmakers decided that civilians who worked in Afghanistan were not entitled to war benefits. Women have campaigned unsuccessfully to reinstate them.

Rybalchenko eventually got an apartment from the government, worked in physiotherapy and now lives in retirement in Moscow, where her passion for interior decorating is reflected by the exotic bamboo-forest wallpaper in her home.

Smolina, who lives in Sweden, is wary of disclosing all the details about her own Afghan experiences after facing a backlash from other veterans about her publications.

“Our society is not ready yet to hear the truth. There is still a lingering effect from the harsh Soviet past,” she said. “In Soviet society, you were not supposed to speak out.”
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The United States has called on Europe to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Washington pulled out of last year.

At a two-day conference in Warsaw, attended by more than 60 nations Thursday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence accused European allies of trying to break American sanctions against what he called “Iran’s murderous revolutionary regime.”

“The time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and join with us as we bring economic and diplomatic pressure necessary to give the Iranian people, the region and the world the security, peace and freedom they deserve,” Pence said at a news conference.

​Pompeo adds pressure

Also attending the conference, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said global pressure was mounting on Tehran.

“No country spoke out and denied any of the basic facts that we all have laid out about Iran, the threat it poses, the nature of regime. It was unanimous,” Pompeo said.

Unanimous, perhaps, among those countries attending the conference. Some U.S. allies, however, were notable for their absence, including the foreign ministers of France and Germany. Britain’s representative left the summit early.

All three allies have voiced strong support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and have launched a payment system to bypass U.S. sanctions on Tehran in an attempt to keep the agreement alive.

WATCH: U.S. Rebukes EU Allies Over Iran Deal

US-European divide

Warsaw-based analyst Piotr Buras of the European Council on Foreign Relations says summit host Poland and some other European states appear closer to Washington’s approach and the United States sees an opportunity.

“I have the feeling that the Trump administration doesn’t care much about Europe’s unity, or even more perhaps it really tries to exploit some divisions within Europe, or even deepen them,” he said.

Jonathan Eyal of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute argued Washington’s approach is in fact aimed at bridging transatlantic divides with European allies.

“The United States is willing to re-engage with them on a Middle East policy, especially on a very sensitive issue like the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran where the gulf between Europe and the U.S. is very big,” he sad. “And secondly it is also another attempt by the State Department to remind the White House that the friends in Europe are irreplaceable when it comes to most of America’s foreign policy objectives.”

The summit was attended by Israel and several Sunni Gulf states. Qatar, Turkey and Lebanon declined to take part. Iran, which did not attend the meeting, dismissed it as “dead on arrival.”
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The United States has called on Europe to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Washington pulled out of last year. At a conference in Warsaw attended by more than 60 nations, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence accused European allies of trying to break American sanctions against what he called Iran’s ‘murderous revolutionary regime.’ Several EU states have refused to attend the meeting, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
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The European Union will give Ireland some leeway to establish new border arrangements with Northern Ireland in case of a no-deal Brexit, sources in the bloc’s political hub Brussels said.

But they said Dublin would soon have to come up with a plan to ensure the integrity of the EU’s single market or face checks on its own goods coming into the rest of the bloc.

“Ireland can get transition periods or some temporary opt-outs on the border in the worst-case scenario,” a senior EU diplomat said.

“But soon enough it will have to face up to the fact that either there is a border on the island or a border between Ireland and the rest of the EU,” the person added.

EU diplomats and officials dealing with Brexit admit it is impossible to set up full border controls overnight as should theoretically be the case if the United Kingdom leaves the bloc without a divorce settlement on March 29.

The issue of a “hard border” on the island of Ireland has hung over Brexit negotiations from the start and is threatening to sink the divorce deal put together over months of painstaking EU-U.K. talks as the British parliament opposes the Irish “backstop” part of it.

The “backstop” is meant as a last resort, a way to prevent full-blown border controls on goods crossing between EU-state Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

But without a U.K.-EU free trade deal, yet to be negotiated, that would tie the latter to the bloc’s trade rules — anathema to hardline pro-Brexit supporters in Britain and British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Northern Irish allies who say it would weaken the province’s links with the rest of the country.

Many in Britain, Ireland and the rest of the EU also fear the return of border checks could reignite violence and make checkpoints a target.

In 1998, Britain and Ireland made the Good Friday Agreement to end 30 years of sectarian violence over whether Northern Ireland should remain British or join the Irish Republic. With both states in the EU, checks along the 500-km (300-mile) land border ended.

“The Irish-Irish border is a European border. The Brexit issue is not a bilateral question between the Republic of Ireland and the U.K. It’s a European issue,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said after talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in Brussels this month.

Asked to comment on the matter in the Irish parliament Thursday, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said: “Deal or no deal, there is an obligation on the Irish and British governments, and the EU to try and work together to find a way of avoiding physical border infrastructure on this island.”

Hard choice

But an EU official familiar with the bloc’s preparations for a no-deal Brexit said: “In a no-deal scenario, Ireland would have to choose between setting up a physical border with Northern Ireland and de facto leaving the single market.

“If there is no physical border, the customs checks would have to take place on all goods coming from Ireland.”

The EU has made a point of publishing contingency plans for areas from transport to social benefits to university exchanges as the risk of an abrupt split grows. But it has kept silent on the Irish border.

Varadkar’s stark warning last month that the army may have to be deployed to the border “if things go very wrong” highlighted the risks.

The threat that Ireland could lose at least some access to the EU market is not lost on Varadkar who in Brussels spoke of Dublin’s readiness to protect the bloc’s common economic area.

“It’s core to our economic and industrial strategy, core to our prosperity,” he said standing side-by-side with Juncker, promising Ireland would not become a “back door” to the EU.

But while Ireland is promising the EU it would implement border checks, Varadkar also said: “We are making no preparations, no plans for physical infrastructure on the border.”

EU and Irish sources say the only way to ensure customs controls while avoiding border infrastructure is the backstop.

It envisages that many checks would be carried out away from the actual frontier — in market places or production sites.

“It is not possible to erect a border. It’s just impossible and a different solution needs to be found,” said a second EU official dealing with Brexit. “The backstop is our template. It is a solution that is ready and it works.”
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The United States clashed with Iran in the international arena Tuesday. The U.S. is hosting a Middle East conference in Poland with a focus on countering Iran’s influence in the world. An international court based in the Netherlands ruled Tuesday that Iran can proceed with a bid to unfreeze assets in the United States. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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The leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey are meeting in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi Thursday to discuss the conflict in Syria for the first time since the United States announced its troop withdrawal.

Although the Kremlin hasn’t divulged details, a number of observers say questions about the strategic implications of a U.S. pullout and differences between Moscow and Ankara on a political settlement in northern Syria are likely to predominate.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday made an unexpected visit to Ankara, where he met with Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar to resolve several issues ahead of the so-called Astana trio gathering — particularly recent developments in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, which borders southern Turkey.

WATCH: Russia, Turkey, Iran Discuss Syria’s Postwar Future

Russia and Turkey cut a deal in September to establish an Idlib demilitarized zone to avert a Syrian government offensive, but the agreement was imperiled last month when al-Qaida-linked Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham militants took control there from Turkish-backed rebels.

While Russia and Iran are close allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey, like the United States, supports differing Syrian rebel factions.

Earlier this week Turkey and Russia jointly called for “decisive measures” to retake control of Idlib, though the statement contained no specifics.

Turkey’s foreign minister recently said Ankara might agree to a limited Russian-backed Syrian offensive to seize Idlib, but that would prove a strategic setback for Ankara, which seeks to capitalize on the U.S. troop withdrawal by retaking oil-rich northeastern provinces held by Kurdish fighters, whom Ankara considers terrorists.

Turkey’s long-term plan to create a buffer zone on the Syria-Turkey border, which has long been bolstered by the U.S. forces, would now require Russian support to enforce.

In the Idlib region where Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham has expanded its reach, any kind of massive military assault would likely mean large-scale civilian casualties and a refugee exodus into Turkey.

​Reconstruction investments

On the premise that an unstable Syria will only increase migrant flows to northern Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin began soliciting postwar reconstruction investment from European counterparts in late 2018.

Rebuffed by European leaders who are unwavering in their conviction that Syria’s estimated $250 billion postwar reconstruction bill belongs solely to Assad, Putin, according to Oxford University analyst Samuel Ramani, has been looking to Saudi Arabia and China as potential investment partners, a move that would put Moscow at financial odds with Tehran, with whom it is militarily partnered in Syria.

“Concerns about competition between Russian and Iranian businesses involved in the reconstruction of Syria came to a head in February 2018, when Moscow beat out Tehran for a major 50-year deal in Syria’s phosphate industry,” he recently wrote in a think piece for the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

Although their mutual interest in safeguarding Assad’s rule may allow Tehran and Moscow to see past financial differences throughout the Sochi talks, he wrote, “tensions could flare up between Russia and Iran once their joint military operations in Syria come to a close.”

Senior Iranian figures last week called Syria a top foreign policy priority and a situation where American troops should have no role whatsoever.

On Sunday, Tehran’s Deputy Defense Minister Reza Talai-Nik warned that “all U.S. bases there are within the range of our cross-border weapons, and if these fail, we’ll strike them from within Iran,” according to a report by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

​Moscow as sole broker

As the Astana trio impatiently awaits a full U.S. withdrawal from Syria, some observers say the absence of American boots on the ground may prove a complicating factor for Moscow, which has long sought to assert itself as a broker of global affairs.

“The first question in Sochi is likely to be, who replaces the American presence?” said Alexey Malashenko of the Moscow-based Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute. “And here, there is a misunderstanding between Russia and Turkey, because Turkey has repeated several times that this American place must come to be occupied by Turks, and Russia is against this. So, from that point of view, I think the meeting in Sochi will be very, very difficult for both of those countries.”

Asked if the Astana leadership is even confident in White House plans for withdrawal — President Donald Trump’s statements on the U.S. pullout, which contained no timetable, have been contradicted by members of his own Cabinet — Malashenko said it doesn’t matter.

“Regardless of the specifics, just the possibility of an American withdrawal creates additional problems for Russia,” he said. “In the Kremlin they constantly speak about America as an adversary that creates problems in the Middle East. But if Americans withdraw, what will Russia do? Because for Putin and the Kremlin, the situation with the American presence was at least more or less clear. Now this situation is becoming more and more unclear by the day.”

In his assessment, a sustained U.S. presence would only benefit the Kremlin.

“Maybe it’s a paradox, yes, but I think that’s the case,” he said, adding that a U.S. pullout also leaves Moscow to act as an on-the-ground arbiter between Iran, Syria and Israel.

“Before last year we spoke a lot about the multipolar situation of Tehran, Ankara and Moscow,” he said. “But now it seems that triangle is becoming more and more fragile.”

Putin approval ratings in the balance

Russia’s ability to stabilize Syria in the wake of a U.S. withdrawal also has potential consequences for Putin’s domestic approval ratings, which have been at a low point since late 2018.

Thursday’s summit will start just three days after a survey released by Moscow’s independent Levada Center polling organization showed that more than 50 percent of Russians say top officials are lying to them about the true state of affairs in the country.

Less than a week ago, Reuters published an investigation alleging that the Kremlin covered up mass casualties on the ground in Syria at a time when it is expanding its military activities in the Middle East and Africa.

The Higher School of Economics in Moscow recently published data showing that disposable income has decreased since 2014 and is predicted to drop further this year, which marks the fifth anniversary of U.S. and European Union sanctions resulting from Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

Several rounds of negotiations over recent years have failed to end the fighting, which has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, displaced millions, and devastated many historic sites across the country.

President Trump has received criticism from Republicans, Democrats, and some foreign officials for what they have called a hastily planned withdrawal of the 2,000 U.S. troops, with many saying it leaves Kurdish allies at the mercy of the Turks and hands a victory to Russia and Iran.

Turkey has threatened to attack the United States’ Kurdish allies fighting Islamic State militants in Syria. In January, Trump threatened to “devastate Turkey economically” if Ankara attacks the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.

Thursday’s talks will be 12th conference organized by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran, including nine held in Astana. The trio last met in November.
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The leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey meet Thursday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to talk about the way forward in Syria as the conflict comes to an end. All three nations have adversarial relations with the United States and have welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to withdraw American troops from Syria. But as Ricardo Marquina in Moscow tells us in this report narrated by Jim Randle, there are big questions about what will happen after a U.S. pullout.
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China has issued a travel warning to its residents visiting Turkey, in a move seen as targeting Turkey’s large tourism industry. The advisory is the latest escalation in bilateral tensions after Hami Aksoy, a spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry, condemned China’s treatment of its Uighur minority.

In a statement, Aksoy said 1 million Uighurs have been arbitrarily detained and subjected to torture and brainwashing. Beijing swiftly shot back, calling the Turkish statement “vile.” Chinese officials called on Ankara to withdraw what they described as “false accusations.”

The northwest Xinjiang region of China, home to most of the country’s Uighurs, has been under heavy police surveillance after years of ethnic tensions that have sometimes exploded into violence. 

The Chinese government calls its crackdown a counterterrorism effort.

In the past, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan advocated for the rights of Uighurs, who are ethnically related to modern-day Turks, and the country often received Uighurs seeking asylum. In recent years, however, analysts say booming trade with China became more of a priority for Erdogan and his government.

“They stopped talking about this burning issue, preferring an economic relationship with this giant country,” political scientist Cengiz Aktar said.

Erdogan is a conservative Muslim and has been increasingly positioning himself as a defender of global Muslim rights. The Turkish leader regularly condemns Burma’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims, and he is vocal in his support for the Palestinians.

Aktar said the growing international condemnation of Beijing over its treatment of Uighurs forced Ankara to speak out.

“The issue became universal, and there were reactions all over the world especially from non-Muslim countries. So, [Turkey] felt simply compelled to react to it,” he said.

Election politics also is a factor, with Erdogan’s AKP Party competing in hotly contested local polls next month. Analysts say backing the Uighurs will play well among religious, conservative voters.

Analysts expect Beijing to impose further economic sanctions on Ankara, meaning the price Turkey will pay for standing up for the Uighurs in China could be considerable.
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The International Court of Justice ruled Wednesday that it has jurisdiction to hear part of a case brought by Iran against the United States that seeks to claw back around $2 billion worth of frozen Iranian assets.

The U.S. Supreme Court awarded the money to victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran.

At hearings last year, the United States raised five objections to the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of the case, which Iran filed in 2016.

The ruling came amid high tensions between Washington and Tehran after President Donald Trump pulled America out of the nuclear deal last year.

The United Nations’ highest court upheld one U.S. objection to its jurisdiction, but it rejected another and said the third objection should be discussed at a later stage in the case. The judges also rejected two U.S. objections to the admissibility of the case.

The case will now proceed to the merits phase and is expected to take months or years to complete.

Tehran filed the case in 2016 based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity between Iran and the U.S., a bilateral agreement that Washington withdrew from last year.

The little-known treaty regulating commerce between the two countries was among numerous ones signed in the wake of World War II as the Truman and Eisenhower administrations tried to assemble a coalition of nations to counter the Soviet Union. It includes a clause that sends unresolved disputes about interpretation of the treaty to the world court.

The attack at the heart of the case was a suicide truck bombing of a U.S. marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 that killed 241 military personnel and wounded many more. A U.S. court ruled that the attack was carried out by an Iranian agent supported by the Hezbollah militant group.

The court, in an 11-4 majority ruling, upheld a U.S. objection to its jurisdiction based on state immunity claimed by Iran, however they unanimously rejected Washington’s assertion that measures freezing Iranian assets fell outside the scope of the treaty.

The judges unanimously rejected U.S. claims that the case was an abuse of process and that it should be thrown out because of Tehran’s alleged sponsorship of terrorism and involvement in nuclear proliferation.

Iranian representative Mohsen Mohebi called the decision a success, but added he had expected the court to reject all of the American objections. American lawyers left the court without commenting.
…

Catalan separatist and right-wing lawmakers in the Spanish parliament’s lower house rejected Wednesday the ruling Socialist government’s 2019 budget plan, likely paving the way for a call of early elections by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

The 191-158 vote, with one abstention, opens a new crisis in Spanish politics. Members of the cabinet had signaled that a defeat in parliament would lead to a general election. The only other time that a Spanish government lost a budget vote, in 1995, the Socialists were forced to dissolve the parliament and call an election.

Opposition leader Pablo Casado, head of the conservative People’s Party, said Wednesday’s vote was “a de facto confidence vote against Pedro Sanchez.”

Catalan deputies from pro-independence parties had demanded to open talks on the northeastern region’s self-determination in exchange for supporting Sanchez’s spending proposal, but the center-left minority government had rejected that.

The socialist party holds only 84 seats in the 350-seat lower house. Its votes and those of the anti-austerity Podemos party weren’t enough to counter a majority of center-right, conservative and smaller parties voting in favor of six blanket objections.

Sanchez became prime minister in June when the Catalans joined the anti-austerity Podemos and other smaller parties in backing a no-confidence vote against his conservative predecessor, Mariano Rajoy.

Without parliamentary support, Sanchez’s government can’t pass significant legislation and would need to prolong Rajoy’s 2018 spending plan. That leaves the center-left administration without funds for social policies that are key to retaining Podemos’ support.

Sanchez rushed out of the lower house’s chamber shortly after the vote, dodging questions by reporters.

His finance minister, Maria Jesus Montero, said that it made sense that Sanchez’s term, which ends next year, would be shortened with the budget rejection – but that it was up to the prime minister himself to decide if and when to call a new general election.

Talks between Sanchez’s government and a new separatist coalition that took power in Catalonia after 2017’s failed independence push broke down last week when the government refused to accept self-determination talks.

The ongoing trial against a dozen politicians and activists who drove the breakaway attempt in Catalonia two years ago has further angered many pro-independence supporters.

The politically charged trial entered its second day on Wednesday with the Supreme Court prosecutor criticizing what he said were defense lawyers’ attempts to turn the proceedings into an examination of the Spanish state and judiciary.

Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza called “ridiculous” and “unjustified” the arguments made on Tuesday, the trial’s opening day, by defense lawyers who called the case politically motivated and an attempt to eliminate dissent in the troubled northeastern region.

Twelve Catalan politicians and activists face years behind bars if they are convicted of rebellion or other charges for having pushed ahead with a unilateral independence declaration that opened an unprecedented political crisis in Spain.
…

Russia said on Tuesday it was ready to facilitate the start of dialogue between Venezuela’s government and opposition, but warned the United States against intervening in Caracas’ internal affairs.

Russia has sided with President Nicolas Maduro in his standoff with opposition leader Juan Guaido. Maduro retains control of state institutions including the military, but most Western countries, including the United States, have recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s president.

“We have been maintaining very important contacts with the government of this country and stand ready to provide a kind service in order to facilitate the process of finding ways out of the situation,” Tass news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

He also said Russia had made some proposals to Venezuela on settling its crisis, but gave no details.

Moscow has invested billions of dollars into Venezuela’s economy and oil production.

On Tuesday, opposition supporters returned to the streets nationwide to keep the heat on Maduro and demand that he allow humanitarian aid into Venezuela, where food and medicine shortages are rife.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a telephone call Tuesday evening that Washington should avoid any interference, including military, in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

Lavrov also said Russia was ready for consultations on the situation in Venezuela in line with the United Nations charter.
…

Enter North Macedonia.

The small Balkan country of Macedonia officially changed its name Tuesday by adding a geographic designation that ends a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and secures its entry into NATO.

A government press release said the young country now is formally called the Republic of North Macedonia. A series of practical adjustments — ranging from new road signs to updated passports and currency — will be made gradually, and started with the government website late Tuesday.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said his country would press ahead with all the changes needed to fulfill its end of the historic deal he reached with the prime minister of Greece last year.

“At the end of the day we must show that we are implementing our part of the obligations,” he said. “I believe that all institutions are ready to act.”

Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov said the move followed a final exchange of diplomatic notes with Greece.

“May today be the beginning of a long friendship between Greece and North Macedonia,” he said in a tweet. “We can’t change our past, but we can and we will shape our future of friendship, partnership and cooperation.”

The name change resolves a dispute with Greece dating back to Macedonia’s declaration of independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Athens had long argued that its small, landlocked neighbor’s name implied claims on the northern Greek province of Macedonia, and on ancient Greek cultural heritage.

Although more than 130 countries formally had recognized the country as Macedonia, the United Nations and other international bodies used the “Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia,” the cumbersome moniker Greece and Macedonia settled on for an interim accord in 1995.

A breakthrough in their name dispute came last summer when Zaev and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to a compromise under which Greece also lifted its objections to Macedonia joining NATO and the European Union.

Despite opposition on either side of the border, the deal was ratified by both parliaments.

North Macedonia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrej Zernovski, told local Telma TV that authorities would change, within three days, road signs at border crossings, airports and customs checkpoints.

Within four months, the Interior Ministry will start issuing new car license plates with the abbreviation NMK, while new passports will be issued at the end of this year, Zernovski said.

The country plans to give the U.N. and its member states formal notice of the name change within days, he said.

A government press release said that changes will also be made to notice boards at airports, while the country’s central bank will draft plans for replacing the circulating currency with the old one-word name.

Earlier Tuesday, Macedonia raised a NATO flag at its main government building, as more member nations approved making it the alliance’s 30th member.

Speaking at a ceremony in the capital of Skopje, Zaev said the country had achieved a “historic goal” in being accepted into NATO.

All of NATO’s 29 current members must ratify the accession agreement. Slovenia on Tuesday became the second country to do so after Greece, which made the move last week.
…

The European Union produced 17.5 percent of its power needs from renewable sources in 2017, while 11 of the bloc’s 28 members had already achieved a 2020 goal of 20 percent or more, the latest data released by Eurostat showed.

Renewables, such as wind, solar and hydro power, accounted for 17 percent of the energy mix in the EU in 2016 and 8.5 percent in 2004, the first year for which figures were available, Eurostat said.

The 2020 target is a stepping stone to the goal of 32 percent in 2030.

“The EU is on track to meet its 2020 renewable target, with 11 member states already above their national targets,” said Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete, who has called for the bloc to aim for net zero emissions.

The report said Sweden had the highest share of renewable energy consumption, with more than half its energy coming from renewable sources in 2017. Luxembourg had the lowest proportion, with renewables accounting for just 6.4 percent of energy use.

The Netherlands, France, Ireland, Britain, Poland and Belgium were among EU nations still a few percentage points off their 2020 objective, as of 2017.

European Environment Agency said last year the bloc’s shift towards renewable energy was slowing, putting its ability to meet its 2020 and 2030 targets at risk.

The targets are part of the bloc’s overall drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement to keep global warming well below 2 degrees.
…

Dozens of Iranian opposition activists have rallied in four European capitals since Sunday to protest the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and to demand the ouster of the nation’s Islamist rulers.

Video clips verified by VOA Persian showed the Iranian opposition activists holding protests in Athens and Stockholm on Monday, and in Berlin and London on Sunday. Monday marked the 40th anniversary of the rise to power of Shi’ite Islamist rulers who ousted Iran’s former monarchy.

Stockholm protest, Feb. 11, 2019

In a video sent to VOA Persian by an Iranian resident of Sweden’s capital, activists gathered in a Stockholm square chanted slogans calling for the “death” of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Athens protest, Feb. 11, 2019

Another clip sent to VOA Persian by an Iranian asylum-seeker in Athens showed protesters in front of the Greek capital’s Iranian embassy, chanting, “Iran, Yes. Mullahs, No. They are terrorists, they must go.”

Berlin protest, Feb. 10, 2019

Images shared on social media showed Iranian opposition activists also rallying near the Brandenburg Gate in Germany’s capital, Berlin. At one point, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell greeted participants in the rally, which took place adjacent to the U.S. embassy.

London protest, Feb. 10, 2019

In another video clip shared on social media, Iranian activists gathered in front of the Iranian embassy in the British capital, London, chanting for the “death” of Iran’s Islamist system and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

No major anti-government protests were reported Monday in Iran, where the nation’s Islamist rulers mobilized hundreds of thousands of people in Tehran and other cities to join rallies in support of the Islamic Revolution.

Iran saw frequent nationwide protests last year by smaller groups of citizens expressing anger toward local and national officials and business leaders whom they accused of mismanagement, corruption and oppression.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is warning Hungary the presence of Chinese telecommunication manufacturer Huawei in the European country is complicating Budapest’s partnership with Washington. 

The chief American diplomat Monday arrived in Budapest on Monday, the first leg of his European trip. Huawei has established Hungary as a European hub, where it can develop its fifth-generation mobile networks.

“If that equipment is co-located in places where we have important American systems, it makes it more difficult for us to partner alongside them. We want to make sure we identify [to] them the opportunities and the risks associated with using that equipment,” said Pompeo.

While noting sovereign nations such as Hungary will “make their own decisions,” Pompeo said it’s imperative the United States shares potential risks from Huawei with its NATO allies.

American officials are increasingly troubled by Huawei’s expansion in Europe, especially in NATO member states where Washington believes the Chinese telecom manufacturer poses significant information security threats.

At a joint press conference with Hungarian Foreign minister Peter Szijjarto, Pompeo said he has raised with Szijjarto “the dangers of allowing China to gain a bridgehead in Hungary.”

But the U.S. pressure campaign against Huawei faces challenges. Hungary has said it has no plans to reconsider the decision to award the 5G networks contract to Huawei. 

Many in China believe that the U.S. government concerns over Huawei’s security are at least in part aimed at helping American companies better compete against foreign rivals. But U.S. officials reject that notion.

“That sounds like a lot of mirror imaging to me,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Christopher Ford in an interview with VOA, noting “the Chinese government has actually been extraordinarily grand in its ambitions to do just that sort of thing with Chinese companies.”

Ford pointed to numerous public reports in recent years that have blamed Chinese government-backed hackers with cyber campaigns stealing corporate secrets and financial data. 

“Cyber-facilitated theft of intellectual property, for example, has become notorious around the world. But the Chinese government has been doing that very systematically in order to advantage its own national champion industries in particular sectors,” Ford added.

Social media threats?

Weary of data collection and Chinese technology transfer for military purposes, the U.S. government is considering tighter restrictions on the use of social media apps that have geolocation features within diplomatic and military facilities.

While the State Department does not expressly prohibit the use of commercial geolocation applications on smartphones and other personal electronic devices by employees serving internationally, measures are taken to address the potential security risks.

The State Department has issued guidance requiring each post to develop a policy regarding the restrictions placed on using personal electronic devices.

“We obviously need to continue to be mindful of that, and to update and improve our understanding of best practices,” said Assistant Secretary of State Ford.

Last year, the Pentagon started prohibiting personnel from using geolocation features on electronic devices while in locations designated as operational areas.

Those restrictions could impact popular social media applications like TikTok, a Chinese-made app for sharing short videos that is popular among young adults.

All social media companies gather data on their users, but experts warn that Chinese companies in particular pose unique challenges because the Beijing government has absolute authority to request private user data. 

“The user in Western countries might not be aware that in China, the government has a far broader reach compared to over here, so they can request data out from a private company on national security grounds,” Claudia Biancotti, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), told VOA in a recent interview.

Biancotti added in China, “they don’t really have independent courts to oversee the process.”

“If this information is sent to China, it can be easily accessed by the government and leveraged, say, to make Beijing’s surveillance software better at recognizing Western faces, or at extracting intelligence on Western military activities,” warned Biancotti in a recent report.

TikTok, launched as Douyin in China in 2016, is owned by Chinese internet technology company ByteDance who later acquired Musical.ly, a popular lip-sync app among American teenagers. ByteDance merged Musical.ly with TikTok in 2018 as a means of entering the U.S. market. 

Last October, TikTok surpassed Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat in monthly installations. 

TikTok recently updated its privacy policy for U.S. residents, removing all references about storing data in China. 

Last August, TikTok stated in the privacy policy: “We will also share your information with any member or affiliate of our group, in China,” but the latest update in January of 2019 deleted the word “China.”

The company wrote an email to VOA’s Mandarin service that they regularly update their privacy policies while noting that TikTok does not operate in China.

TikTok’s current privacy policy stated it automatically collects technically and behavioral information from users, including IP address, location-related data or other unique device identifiers. 

“We may also collect Global Positioning System (GPS) data and mobile device location information.” But users can switch off location information functionality on their mobile device if they do not wish to share such data.

“We will share your information with law enforcement agencies, public authorities or other organizations if legally required to do so,” TikTok stated. 

VOA’s Mandarin Service, Jeff Seldin and Mo Yu contributed to this report.
…

The European Court of Human Rights has dealt Turkish human rights activists a significant blow in its refusal to hear a pivotal case stemming from a Turkish military operation that left more than 100 civilians dead. The military campaign took place in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast between December 2015 and February 2016 as the security forces sought to oust PKK separatist fighters from towns and cities across the region.

The European Court cases focused on Cizre, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Turkish security forces “deliberately and unjustifiably killed about 130 people — among whom were unarmed civilians and injured combatants — trapped in the basements.” Ankara strongly condemned the allegations, maintaining that civilians were not deliberately killed.

Two civilians, Orhan Tunc and Omer Elci, were among the casualties in Cizre. Last Thursday, the court ruled that their cases were inadmissible because all “domestic remedies” had not been exhausted.  That means lawyers had not taken their case to Turkey’s Constitutional Court. The decision is a crucial legal victory for Ankara, but casts a shadow in the minds of many in Turkey over the integrity of the European court.

Town centers turned to ruins

During the military campaign in southeastern Turkey, the military, using tanks and artillery, turned many city and town centers to ruins, killing thousands and leaving hundreds of thousands more homeless. More than 600 members of the Turkish security forces were also killed.

“Human rights groups documented unlawful and mass killings, destruction of property and displacement, and so far there has been no effective criminal investigation into any aspect of what occurred,” said Turkey senior researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch. 

Lawyer Ramazan Demir, representing Orhan Tunc, whose burned remains were found with his brother Mehmet in Cizre, said the case was the last hope for legal redress. “They (families of the killed) were hoping that the (European) Court would rule on the facts of mass crimes committed by security forces. They are abandoned to Turkish judiciary once again by the court.”

The court’s rejection of the cases validates Ankara’s argument the Turkish judiciary remains independent and functioning, according to analysts who say the ruling will also likely end hopes of dozens more similar pending cases. 

“The European Court of Human Rights has become an apologist for the Turkish Constitutional Court, claiming that the Turkish Court provides an effective remedy,” tweeted law professor Yaman Akdeniz and freedom of speech activists.

‘Demise of judiciary independence’

International human rights organizations and the European Union have sharply criticized Ankara for undermining the independence of the judiciary.

Since a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, 4,400 judges and prosecutors have been jailed or arrested. Two constitutional court judges are also languishing behind bars.

“In the history of the republic, it has never witnessed such demise of the judiciary independence,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar.  “The judiciary was always under the heavy influence of the executive, but never at the level, we are witnessing now. The regime is installing a new concept of law in Turkey.”

Ankara defends the purge, saying those behind the attempted coup have an extensive network of followers within the judiciary and security forces.

The mass arrests and dismissals within the judiciary and the Turkish presidency’s greater powers to appoint high-level judges, including to the constitutional court, are adding to growing pressure on the European Human Rights Court to accept cases without going through the Turkish legal process. This is a power the European court has seldomly used.

Court has limitations

Analysts warn such a move threatens to bring the court to a standstill. “There are so many violations (in Turkey) of the European Convention of Human Rights, if the courts accepted all those cases it would be overwhelmed,” said Aktar, adding, “It would stop the work of the court. This is why the court is so careful in accepting cases.”

Aktar points out it’s essential to understand the court’s limitations.

“The European Court of Human rights is not a tribunal to ensure the change of non-democratic countries into democratic ones,” said Aktar. “The court is conceived to redress of small deviations from the rule of law.  In Turkey, Azerbaijan and Russia, these are non-democratic countries. The court can’t help there.”

Demir said he fears the door is closing on the last hope of legal redress for victims of injustice in Turkey. “The court has always been final hope for the victims,” said Demir. “However, they (Court) prefer not to disappoint the (member) states nowadays…”
…

A senior Russian diplomat says Venezuela hasn’t asked Russia for military assistance amid the South American country’s political crisis.

Alexander Shchetinin, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Latin America department, said Monday that Moscow hasn’t received any such request from Caracas, according to Russian news reports.

Asked to compare the situation in Venezuela to Syria, where Russia has waged a military campaign to shore up President Bashar Assad’s government, Shchetinin said “there is a big difference” between Syria and Venezuela but wouldn’t elaborate.

At the same time, the Russian diplomat strongly warned the U.S. against making calls on the Venezuelan military to drop support for President Nicolas Maduro, saying it represented an “unthinkable meddling into foreign affairs of a sovereign nation.”

 
…

Ukrainian prosecutors said Monday they had charged a high-ranking regional official with organizing a deadly acid attack on a prominent anti-corruption activist that prompted widespread outrage.

Kateryna Gandzyuk, who worked as an adviser to the mayor of the southern city of Kherson, was an outspoken critic of corruption in law enforcement agencies.

She was attacked in July and had about a liter of acid poured on her by several attackers. The 33-year-old died in November after months of treatment, including more than 10 operations.

Her murder has prompted widespread outrage, with civil society activists accusing the authorities of failing to complete the investigation or find out who ordered the attack.

On Monday, less than two months before Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a president, General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko pointed the finger at the head of the local council in the southern region of Kherson.

Vladyslav Manger is accused of “organizing the murder of Kateryna Gandzyuk,” Lutsenko said on Facebook.

According to the charge sheet released by Lutsenko, Manger was guided by “personal animosity” towards Gandzyuk because she opposed “illegal logging” in the region.

Lutsenko’s spokeswoman Larysa Sargan said Manger was accused of “intentionally and unlawfully causing the death of another person… with special cruelty and by prior agreement with a group of individuals”.

Speaking to AFP, Sargan said that Manger was not yet arrested.

“Searches are under way in Kherson,” she said.

Expelled from the party

If found guilty, the 48-year-old faces up to life in prison.

Manger was a member of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) political party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a key rival of President Petro Poroshenko in the March 31 presidential election.

He was expelled from the party last week.

Gandzyuk’s death has sparked condemnation of the government and drew renewed attention to dozens of assaults on other anti-corruption campaigners in Ukraine over recent months.

In August, police detained five people in connection with the case, three of whom were placed under house arrest.

In November, a former aide to a ruling party lawmaker was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the attack.

Both the European Union and the United States have called the attacks on activists unacceptable and urged authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Fellow activists accused police and prosecutors of reluctance to investigate the case, insisting the detention of those possibly involved in the attack was made only after a wave of protests across the country.

Lutsenko in November submitted a letter of resignation to Poroshenko over the affair but the Ukrainian leader refused to fire him.

More than 50 attacks on anti-graft activists, environmental and human rights campaigners including five murders were recorded last year.
…

Norway’s foreign intelligence unit on Monday expressed renewed concerns that its GPS signals in the country’s Far North were being jammed, as Oslo again blamed Russia for the “unacceptable” acts.

In its annual national risk assessment report, the intelligence service said that in repeated incidents since 2017, GPS signals have been blocked from Russian territory in Norwegian regions near the border with Russia.

The jamming events have often coincided with military exercises on Norwegian soil, such as the NATO Trident Juncture manoeuvres last autumn and the mid-January deployment of British attack helicopters in Norway for training in Arctic conditions.

“This is not only a new challenge for Norwegian and Allied training operations,” the head of the intelligence unit, Morten Haga Lunde, said as he presented the report.

“Jamming is also a threat to, among others, civilian air traffic and police and health operations in peacetime.”

Norway has on several occasions raised the issue with Russian authorities, and is cooperating with other Nordic countries to gather as much information as possible, Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen said.

“It’s important… to say clearly that this is unacceptable,” he told television channel TV2 Nyhetskanalen.

In November, neighbouring Finland summoned Russia’s ambassador to Helsinki to answer to accusations that Moscow had disrupted geopositioning signals on its territory during the Trident Juncture exercises.

Moscow has rejected the allegations as baseless.

 
…

The head of the International Monetary Fund warned Sunday that the British exit from the European Union means it “will never be as good as it is now” for the country’s economy.

Christine Lagarde spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai, which also saw Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri make an own investment pitch for his small country, now struggling through a major economic crisis as one of the world’s most-indebted nations.

The clubby annual event brings world leaders together at a luxury hotel in Dubai for motivational talks littered with business buzzwords. But this year’s summit comes amid a worldwide turn toward populism and away from globalization.

Lagarde didn’t hesitate to criticize Britain’s upcoming departure from the EU, known as “Brexit.” Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29. U.K. businesses fear a possible “no-deal” Brexit with the EU will cause economic chaos by imposing tariffs, customs and other barriers between Britain and mainland Europe.

“I’m certain of one thing, is that it’s not going to be as good as if they had not been Brexit, that is for sure,” Lagarde said. “Whether it ends well, whether there is a smooth exit given by customs unions as predicated by some, or whether it’s as a result of a brutal . exit on March 29 without extension of notice, it’s not going to be as good as it is now.”

She urged all parties to “get ready for it” as it will upend how trade is now conducted with Britain.

For his part, Hariri sought to attract investment from Gulf Arab states, which long have been a major benefactor of Lebanon. His nation now faces soaring public debt of $84 billion, or 150 percent of the gross domestic product, making it one of the most-indebted nations in the world. Lebanese unemployment is believed to be around 36 percent.

Political paralysis has exacerbated the crisis. Lebanon formed a government last week after nine months of deadlock.

“We took the decision to bring together all the political powers because is this is the only way to save Lebanon,” Hariri said. “Today in Lebanon, we don’t have the time or the luxury of politics because our economy could completely collapse unless we surgically remove (politics) quickly, seriously and collectively.”

Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia are increasingly suspicious of Lebanon’ government because of the influence of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite political party and militant group. Hezbollah has three ministers in the new government.

A moderator gave Hariri a $100 bill and said he could keep it if he pitched him on investing in the country. After his pitch, Hariri returned the bill and said that he wished he had $115 to offer back.

Making a surprise visit to the summit was U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who took the stage to announce a robotics competition would be held in the United Arab Emirates later this year. Perry, a former governor of Texas who twice ran for president unsuccessfully, has tended to avoid the spotlight in President Donald Trump’s administration.
…

Thousands of Spaniards joined a right-wing rally in Madrid on Sunday to demand that Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez step down.

Many in the crowd gathered in the capital’s Plaza de Colon, waving Spanish flags. They chanted slogans in favor of the nation’s security forces and for Sanchez to resign.

The conservative opposition Popular Party and the center-right Citizens party organized the rally, which was also backed by the upstart far-right Vox and other marginal far-right parties. They claim that Sanchez must resign for holding talks with separatists in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

“The time of Sanchez’s government is over,” said Popular Party president Pablo Casado, who asked voters to punish Sanchez’s Socialists in upcoming European, local and regional elections in May.

The political tensions come as a highly sensitive trial at Spain’s Supreme Court starts Tuesday for 12 Catalan separatists who face charges, including rebellion, for their roles in a failed secession attempt in 2017.

Sanchez inherited the Catalan crisis from former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the then-leader of the Popular Party. Rajoy proved incapable of stopping support for secession from swelling in Catalonia to roughly half of the region’s voters.

Sanchez came to power in June promising to thaw tensions between central authorities in Madrid and the Catalan leaders in Barcelona. He has met twice with Catalan chief Quim Torra and members of both governments had several more encounters.

Sanchez had said he would be willing to help Catalan lawmakers agree to a new Charter Law, which determines the amount of self-rule the region enjoys. But Sanchez’s government broke off negotiations on Friday, when Vice President Carmen Calvo said the separatists wouldn’t budge from their demand for an independence referendum.

Sanchez is trying to cobble together support to pass a national budget and will need votes from the Catalan separatists to pass it.

Even though Sanchez has said he wants to see out the legislative term through 2020, a failure to win a budget vote will crank up the pressure on him to call for an early election.

 
…

With Brexit just 47 days away, the British government asked lawmakers on Sunday to give Prime Minister Theresa May more time to rework her divorce deal with the European Union.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said Parliament would get to pass judgment on May’s Brexit plan “no later than Feb. 27.”

The promise is a bid to avert a showdown on Thursday, when Parliament is set to debate and vote on next moves in the Brexit process. Some lawmakers want to try to seize control and steer the country toward a softer exit from the bloc.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but Parliament has rejected May’s divorce bill, leaving the prime minister to seek changes from the EU. The U.K.’s bid for last-minute changes has exasperated EU leaders, who insist the legally binding withdrawal agreement can’t be changed.

The impasse risks a chaotic “no deal” departure for Britain, which could be painful for businesses and ordinary people on both sides of the Channel.

British businesses fear a no-deal Brexit will cause gridlock at ports by ripping up the trade rulebook and imposing tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told the BBC that a “disorderly exit” was now the most likely option.

Opponents of the government accuse May of deliberately wasting time so that Parliament will face a last-minute choice between her deal and no deal.

Carolyn Fairbairn of business group the Confederation of British Industry said failure to secure a deal in good time was “negligence on behalf of our political institutions and leaders.”

    
…

Bulgaria will investigate reports that a new suspect in the Skripal nerve agent attack in Britain may also have been involved in a 2015 poisoning in Bulgaria, a ruling party lawmaker said Saturday. 

A parliamentary committee will on Thursday seek information from the intelligence services following a new investigation into the attempted poisoning of local businessman Emiliyan Gebrev, said Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the parliamentary leader of the ruling GERB party. 

“I am certain that the necessary coordination has already been set up between the Bulgarian, British and European authorities on the case and they are working actively on it,” he added. 

The statement was the first official reaction in Bulgaria to a report issued last week by the investigative website Bellingcat. 

That report identified a hitherto unknown third suspect in last year’s attack in Salisbury, England, on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. 

Russian role alleged

Skripal and his adult daughter were discovered unconscious on a Salisbury park bench after they had been poisoned by the highly toxic nerve agent Novichok in an attack the British government said was “almost certainly” approved by the Russian state. 

Although they both recovered, a British woman died last June after her partner picked up a discarded perfume bottle that investigators believe was used to carry the Novichok. 

British-based group Bellingcat has already used open-source techniques to identify two Russian military intelligence officers, Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, accused by Britain of carrying out the attack. 

Despite Russian denials that they were involved, both men are now the subject of EU sanctions. 

Bellingcat’s latest report identifies a third man — named by his alias “Sergey Fedotov” — as being involved in the British attack, having arrived in Britain two days before the Skripals were poisoned. 

They concluded that the same man may also have been involved in the attempted poisoning in April 2015 of Gebrev, a veteran of the Bulgarian arms industry. 

Presence in Sofia

“Fedotov” is said to have flown into Sofia from Moscow just days before Gebrev collapsed at a reception there on April 28, 2015, and fell into a coma with symptoms of severe poisoning. 

His son and one of his company executives were treated with similar symptoms, although all three recovered. 

On Friday, the Bulgarian weekly newspaper Capital cited Interior Ministry sources as confirming Fedotov’s itinerary in Bulgaria. 

The Salisbury attack, the first offensive use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II, caused an international outcry and prompted a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western nations — but not by Bulgaria. 
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Turkey on Saturday condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim ethnic Uighur people as “a great embarrassment for humanity,” adding to rights groups’ recent criticism of mass detentions of the Turkic-speaking minority. 

“The systematic assimilation policy of Chinese authorities toward Uighur Turks is a great embarrassment for humanity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement. 

The northwest Xinjiang region of China, where most Uighurs live, has been under heavy police surveillance in recent years, after violent inter-ethnic tensions. 

Nearly 1 million Uighurs and other Turkic language-speaking minorities in China have reportedly been held in re-education camps, according to a U.N. panel of experts. 

Beijing says the “vocational education centers” help people steer clear of terrorism and allow them to be reintegrated into society.  

But critics say China is seeking to assimilate Xinjiang’s minority population and suppress religious and cultural practices that conflict with communist ideology and the dominant Han culture. 

“It is no longer a secret that more than 1 million Uighur Turks — who are exposed to arbitrary arrests — are subjected to torture and political brainwashing in concentration centers and prisons,” Aksoy said in the Turkish Foreign Ministry statement.  

“Uighurs who are not detained in the camps are also under great pressure,” he added.  

Turkey called on the international community and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to take effective steps to end the human tragedy in the Xinjiang region.” 

Most mainly Muslim countries have not been vocal on the issue, not criticizing the government in China, which is an important trading partner. 
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Prince Philip has decided to stop driving at age 97, less than a month after he was involved in a collision that left two women injured, Buckingham Palace said Saturday. 

The palace said in a statement that “after careful consideration,” Queen Elizabeth II’s husband “has taken the decision to voluntarily surrender his driving license.” 

Philip was behind the wheel of a Land Rover near the royal family’s Sandringham estate in eastern England when he smashed into another car on Jan. 17. Philip had to be helped out of his overturned vehicle but wasn’t injured. Two women in the other car were injured, though not seriously, and a 9-month-old baby boy was unhurt. 

Philip was photographed driving again two days later, without a seat belt. Police said they offered him “suitable words of advice” after that. 

The prince was not charged in the crash. Police said he and the other driver were both given breath tests for alcohol and passed. 

In a letter of apology to one of the injured women, Philip said he was dazzled by the sun when he pulled onto a main road near the royal retreat, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London. 

He told Emma Fairweather, who suffered a broken wrist in the crash, that “I can only imagine that I failed to see the car coming, and I am very contrite about the consequences.” The letter was published by a newspaper. 

There is no upper age limit for licensing drivers in Britain, although drivers over 70 are required to renew their licenses every three years and tell authorities about any medical conditions that might raise safety issues.
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After holding up its admission for years, Greece became the first nation Friday to ratify Macedonia’s membership of NATO after the two states resolved a decades-old name dispute last month.

NATO members signed the accord with Macedonia this week, days after the Greek parliament endorsed an agreement between Athens and Skopje that changes Macedonia’s name to North Macedonia.

Staring down strong domestic opposition from Greeks worried the Balkan neighbor was appropriating Greek heritage, the government of leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pushed the name change through parliament on Jan. 25.

Under NATO alliance rules, Macedonian membership now has to be approved by each member state, giving Greek lawmakers the opportunity for another round of verbal jousting over the controversy.

“I feel we did our patriotic duty. We did what is right,” Tsipras told parliament during a heated debate Friday.

The dispute had frustrated Macedonian attempts to join the EU and NATO: Greece is a member of both and has veto power over other countries joining.

It also exposed old rivalries with Russia, in a region where Moscow competes for influence with NATO and the EU. Moscow had taken a dim view of the name accord, and of Macedonian membership in NATO. It says the alliance is undermining security in the region by taking in Balkan members.

The accord over the name angered many Greeks who believed the ex-Yugoslav state was hijacking their history with a name linked to the Greek heritage of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. Greece has a northern province called Macedonia.

One lawmaker described the pact as “worth spitting at,” another that Greece was “humiliated.”

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the opposition New Democracy party, said the agreement over the name change lacked legitimacy. This referred to the resignation of a junior partner from the governing coalition in January over the accord, which left the governing Syriza party short of an absolute majority in parliament.

“This is the final act of a nationally damaging deed,” he said.

Syriza has 145 seats in parliament but has support from a number of independents, allowing it to muster a majority in voting. The protocol was approved by 153 MPs.

The NATO ratification process typically takes about a year, and the United States has said it expects North Macedonia to formally join the alliance in 2020.
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