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There wasn’t much of a honeymoon Wednesday for Britain’s embattled Theresa May after she survived a bid to oust her by critics from her own Conservative party.

Standing outside No. 10 Downing Street after an internal party vote she won but not emphatically, May pledged she will “get on with the job of delivering Brexit.”

But the British leader’s opponents from both the euroskeptic and pro-European Union wings of her party were not silenced, warning her survival has done nothing to improve the chances of getting the House of Commons to approve her contentious Brexit deal.

More than a third of the Conservative lawmakers voted against her, preferring to see the party elect a new leader, underscoring the mountain she still has to scale in getting her Brexit deal through a Parliament that has grave doubts about the agreement.

​Many in party vote against May

Conservative lawmakers rejected a no-confidence motion to May’s leadership, 200-117, but the win has merely exposed the bitter split in her party over Britain’s departure from the EU and provides no clues as to how May can plot a course out of the Brexit maze, analysts say.

Ominously, most lawmakers who don’t have government jobs or positions voted for May to go.

Even May loyalists conceded privately that her win was hardly a ringing endorsement.

Her critics, as well as Britain’s opposition parties, quickly pointed out that surviving an attempt to topple her changes nothing when it comes to the arithmetic in the House of Commons, where a majority oppose a Brexit withdrawal deal, which took months of haggling with the EU to negotiate.

Before May had even finished talking about a “renewed mission” and her hope of “bringing the country back together,” hardcore euroskeptics in her party announced in a statement, “We cannot and will not support the disastrous withdrawal agreement the prime minister has negotiated.”

General election

They warned that if she pushes ahead with it, the likelihood is that she will be setting the country on course for a general election.

May runs a minority government. With the main parties splintered, the House of Commons is deadlocked, and there’s no majority for anything when it comes to Brexit, including crashing out without a deal, staying in, or holding a second referendum. There is only a majority against her deal.

The warning from Conservative euroskeptics was echoed by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 lawmakers in the House of Commons prop up the minority Conservative government.

The DUP is deeply opposed to the withdrawal agreement that would see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of Britain, in order to avoid the imposition of customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They fear the different treatment will end up weakening the ties between the province and London.

May spoke to DUP leader Arlene Foster shortly before the confidence vote, trying to persuade her to withdraw her opposition to the deal.

Foster later said she “emphasized that tinkering around the edges would not work. … We wanted fundamental legal text changes.”

Brexit vote delayed

On Monday, May delayed a scheduled House of Commons vote on the exit deal as it became clear lawmakers were set to reject it. Defeat would likely force May out of No. 10 Downing Street and possibly trigger the fall of the Conservative government and an early general election.

May’s deal, which tries to square the circle between Britons who want to remain in the EU and Brexiters who want a clean, sharp break, would see Britain locked in a customs union with the EU for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free trade settlement with its largest trading partner.

In the temporary customs union, Britain would be unable to influence EU laws, regulations and product standards it would have to observe. It would be not be able to implement free trade deals with non-EU countries.

Opposition parties also warned that May’s remaining as prime minister would not lessen parliamentary opposition to the deal.

“Tonight’s vote changes nothing,” Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said. “Theresa May has lost her majority in Parliament. Her government is in chaos, and she’s unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first.”

It is unclear when a Brexit vote in the House of Commons might take place.

​Back to Brussels

Some government managers said the vote could happen next week or even be delayed until next month. All May has said is that it will take place by Jan. 21, a cut-off date for Parliament to get legislation through in time for Britain’s scheduled departure March 29.

May will fly Thursday to Brussels to appeal once again to her fellow EU leaders to agree to concessions. But she tried that Tuesday, criss-crossing Europe on a whistle-stop diplomatic tour that took her to Berlin and The Hague, but got no agreement on anything substantive.
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European Union leaders will offer Ukraine help for its regions affected by Russia’s actions in the Azov Sea when they meet Thursday, according to a draft summit statement seen by Reuters on Wednesday. 

But there is no mention of consideration of further sanctions against Russia, reflecting division among member states. Diplomats expect a rollover of existing sanctions but no consensus on increases sought by more hawkish governments. 

Condemning Russia, the EU will reiterate its support for Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea’s 2014 annexation by Moscow and — referring to the capture of Ukrainian naval vessels off Crimea last month — said: “There is no justification for the use of military force by Russia.” 

The statement demanded the release of Ukrainian sailors seized during the incident, the return of their vessels and free passage to all ships passing through the Kerch Strait. 

It concluded with the offer of financial and other measures to help areas of eastern Ukraine whose maritime access was affected by Moscow’s action. 

“The EU stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support in favor of the affected areas of Ukraine,” the statement said. 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met summit chair Donald Tusk in Brussels on Wednesday and will hold talks at NATO headquarters in the city on Thursday. EU leaders will discuss Ukraine and Russia over a summit dinner later in the day.
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Turkey’s president says it will begin a new military operation against U.S-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria “within a few days.”

Addressing a defense industry meeting in Ankara on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the target of the operation would be the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG — which Turkey views as a terrorist group linked to the insurgency within its borders.

The YPG is the main component of a Kurdish-led militia that rolled back the Islamic State group with the help of the U.S.-led coalition. U.S. troops are deployed with the Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, in part to prevent clashes with NATO ally Turkey.

Turkish forces have already waged two cross-border campaigns against Syrian Kurdish forces, in 2016 and earlier this year.

 
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The United Nations secretary-general flew back to global climate talks in Poland Wednesday to appeal to countries to reach an agreement, as some observers feared the meeting might end without a deal.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres opened the talks last week, telling leaders to take the threat of global warming seriously and calling it “the most important issue we face.”

But as the two-week meeting shifted from the technical to political phase, with ministers taking over negotiations, campaign groups warned of the risks of failure in Katowice.

Harjeet Singh of ActionAid International said the main holdouts were the United States, Australia and Japan, while the European Union was “a mere spectator.”

“A new leadership must step up,” said Vanessa Perez-Cirera of the environmental group WWF. “We cannot afford to lose one of the twelve years we have remaining.”

She was referring to a recent scientific report by a U.N.-backed panel that suggested average global warming can only be halted at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) if urgent action is taken by 2030, including a dramatic reduction in use of fossil fuels.

Endorsing the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became a crunch issue over the weekend, with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposing the move.

Jean-Pascal Ypersele, a former deputy chair of the panel, said whether or not countries believe the conclusions of the report was irrelevant because the science was clear.

“Nobody, even the so-called superpowers, can negotiate with the laws of physics,” he said.

Ypersele called for the 1.5-degree target — already mentioned in the 2015 Paris accord — to be recognized in the final text.

“It’s a question of survival for a large part of humanity, and many other species,” he said.

Poland, which is chairing the talks, was expected to circulate a condensed draft text Wednesday running to about 100 pages, down from about 300 at the start of the talks.

The Dec. 2-14 meeting is supposed to finalize the rules that signatories of the Paris accord need to follow when it comes to reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce them.

Li Shuo, a climate expert at Greenpeace, warned that the current text was riddled with loopholes. “A Swiss cheese rulebook is unacceptable,” he said.

Poor countries also want assurances on financial support to tackle climate change.

A third objective of the talks is getting governments to make a firm commit to raising ambitions in the coming two years, albeit without any precise figures.

One issue that has risen to the fore at the talks is the proposal by Poland for countries to back the idea of a “just transition” for workers in fossil fuel industries facing closure from emissions-curbing measures.

Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, told reporters that her country is committed to phasing out the use of coal, though the exact deadline has yet to be determined.

But in a nod to the recent protests in France over fuel prices, Schulze warned against governments forcing through measures, saying they would lose public support “faster than you can spell climate protection, and then people pull on yellow vests.”
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A massive manhunt is underway in France for the gunman who killed three people and wounded 13 others in an attack at the Christmas market in the center of Strasbourg.

French officials deployed hundreds of security forces Wednesday in the search after the suspect escaped from the market following the shooting Tuesday night.

France raised its security threat level to “emergency attack,” adding tighter border controls while security is boosted at other Christmas markets.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner traveled to Strasbourg to open a terror investigation, but the gunman’s motive was unknown.

Authorities have identified the suspect as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt and said he was on a watch list of suspected extremists.

Police went to his home earlier in the day Tuesday in connection with a murder investigation, but he was not there at the time.

A witness told reporters that one of those killed in the attack was a tourist from Thailand who was shot in the head and did not respond to emergency treatment.

Strasbourg is headquarters of the European Parliament. The building was put on temporary lockdown after the shooting.

The market is set up around the Strasbourg cathedral and attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Authorities say they have long been on the alert for an attack on the market since a foiled a terror plot in Strasbourg on New Year’s Eve, 1999.

France is no stranger to extremist attacks. Islamic State claimed responsibility for two nights of bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015, killing 130, months after a deadly shooting at a French satirical magazine and hostage taking in a kosher supermarket.

A terrorist truck attack in Nice in 2016 left 86 dead.
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Kremlin officials and Russia’s opposition on Tuesday gathered to pay tribute to Russia’s most prominent human rights activist, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who died at age 91.

Alexeyeva, a staunch and uncompromising rights advocate, made a name for herself in the 1960s and `70s protesting the treatment of Soviet political prisoners. She returned to Russia in 1993 after spending more than two decades in exile, and continued to be an energetic champion for human rights.

Alexeyeva has been lauded as a bridge-builder. A scathing critic of the Kremlin’s ongoing crackdown on rights and activism, she nevertheless sat on the government’s council for human rights and tried to work with officials to help people in need.

Friends, family as well as political figures including President Vladimir Putin and opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday came to pay their respects at a community center in central Moscow where the wake was held.

Putin sat down with Alexeyeva’s family for a couple of minutes before leaving. In his message of condolences he hailed her as a “courageous and strong person who has always been true to her beliefs.” Later, Putin called a moment of silence in Alexeyeva’s memory before chairing the presidential council for human rights.

In a chilling reminder of the state of Russian civil society, one of Alexeyeva’s associates, Lev Ponomaryov, was sentenced last week to 16 days in prison for reposting a Facebook post, calling for an unsanctioned protest. He petitioned to be released to say his goodbyes to Alexeyeva, but a court rejected his motion.

A member of Putin’s human rights council pleaded for Ponomaryov at Tuesday’s session, telling the president that it is preposterous to jail a 77-year-old man for a social media post. Putin, however, replied with a reference to violent protests in the French capital earlier this month, saying: “We don’t want what has happened in Paris to happen here, do we?”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev hailed Alexeyeva as a “believer in Russia’s democratic future” while Navalny, speaking to the television channel Dozhd, said Russia’s human rights movement “has lost its mother.”

Alexeyeva’s son Mikhail, who teaches economics in the United States, thanked the gathering for messages of support. He said that Alexeyeva was not only a person who helped a lot of people but also “was the best mom anyone could imagine.”

Alexeyeva will be cremated at a cemetery in Moscow and her ashes will be taken to the U.S., where her husband is buried.
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Egyptian authorities have launched an investigation into images said to show a naked couple who scaled the Great Pyramid that has sparked outrage in the conservative Muslim country, an official said Tuesday.

In a video titled “Climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza”, Danish photographer Andreas Hvid appears to scale the 4,500-year-old tomb on the outskirts of Cairo at night with an unidentified woman who is later seen taking off her top.

Hvid says the video was taken in late November but it was published on YouTube on December 8.

A photograph released by Hvid appears to show the couple completely naked on top of each other while looking in the direction of a nearby pyramid with the horizon illuminated.

“The public prosecution is investigating the incident of the Danish photographer and the authenticity of the photos and video of him climbing the pyramid,” Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of Egypt’s supreme antiquities council, told AFP.

If the video was actually filmed at the top of the pyramid, that would make it a “very serious crime”, Waziri said.

The nearly three-minute video has taken social media by storm and has been the subject of late night talk shows. It has notched up almost three million views on YouTube alone.

“A 7,000-year-old civilization has turned into a bed sheet,” a Twitter user in Egypt lamented.

Another protested that “they want to soil the dignity and pride of Egyptians because the pyramid reflects the glory and grandeur of the Egyptian people”.

The authenticity of the images has been disputed with some arguing the photograph showing the pair naked appears to be very bright whereas the video showed them scaling the pyramid at night.

Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany told government newspaper Al-Ahram that the video has stirred “anger and outrage among Egyptians”, and that officials in charge of guarding the pyramids would be punished if found to have been negligent.

Hvid, 23, explained back home to the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that he had “dreamed for many years of climbing the Great Pyramid” as well as of taking a naked photograph.

“I’m sad that so many people have got angry but I’ve also received a lot of positive responses from many Egyptians,” he said in an interview.

The young Norwegian, who runs his own YouTube channel, said he had absolutely no interest in stirring up a crisis such as that triggered by cartoons in Western newspapers of the Prophet Muhammad.

As for the girl in the video, she was not his girlfriend. “It was just a pose. We did not have sexual relations,” Hvid said.

The Great Pyramid, also known as the Khufu pyramid, is the largest in Giza, standing at 146 meters (480 feet) tall, and the only surviving structure of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

Climbing pyramids is forbidden in Egypt.

In 2016, a German tourist was barred from entering the country for life after he posted online footage of climbing one of the ancient structures.
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Spain’s central government says it will send in national police to ensure security in Catalonia if regional authorities fail to stop recent disruptions to major highways by pro-independence protesters.

The warnings follow the blocking of a highway across Catalonia for more than 15 hours on Saturday. Separatist groups on Sunday allowed cars to pass through without paying the mandatory toll.

Three cabinet members of the national government sent letters late on Tuesday urging their Catalan counterparts to explain why the Mossos d’Esquadra police, which is controlled by the regional government, didn’t intervene.

After last year’s independence attempt in the northeastern region led to an unprecedented political crisis, Catalan and central authorities began a timid dialogue in June when a new center-left administration took power in Madrid.

 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron was both humble and resolute as he spoke publicly for the first time on the anti-government protests that have shaken the country.

“I take my share of responsibility. I might have hurt people with my words,” Macron said in a nationwide broadcast speech Monday night.

He also said he recognizes that a proposed tax hike on pensions was “unjust.”

But Macron called the anger that has boiled over in the past weeks the result of what he describes as a 40-year-long “malaise,” especially among rural French.

The president declared an “economic and social state of emergency.”

Along with cutting the tax on pensioners, there will be a government-funded $113 boost in the monthly minimum wage, taxes on overtime pay will be scrapped, and large businesses have been asked to give workers a tax-free, end-of-the-year bonus.

But Macron stood firm against the street protesters, saying there will be “no indulgence” for those who smash windows, loot stores and attack police.

He also showed no signs of giving in to one of the demonstrators’ top demands — his resignation.

Macron has already canceled a fuel tax hike that sparked the protests nearly a month ago.

The anger expanded beyond the tax to a general outrage against a president many protesters say cares more about the rich than ordinary French citizens.

Protests in Paris forced police to temporarily shut down major tourist sites, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum.

They also left the streets of the capital and other major cities covered with debris. More than 4,500 people have been arrested since the marches began.

Some protesters and opposition members called Macron’s moves a good first step, but others said they are still not satisfied.

Since there is no formal protest leader, it is too early to tell how Macron’s words will be received overall and whether more marches are expected.
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The European Union’s foreign policy chief said Monday a system to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran and circumvent U.S. sanctions could be in place by year’s end.

The European Union wants the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to help preserve the economic benefits for Iran deriving from the curbs it placed on its nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers, from which President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in May.

EU diplomats had hoped to have the SPV in place by now but ran into delays as member states balked at hosting it for fear of being targeted by the revived U.S. sanctions regime against Iran.

Asked about progress on the SPV, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters: “I would expect this instrument to be established in the coming weeks so before the end of the year as a way to protect and promote legitimate business with Iran.”

She did not offer any other details following a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels but said work on creating the mechanism was “advancing well.”

France and Germany are now due to take joint responsibility for the SPV. But EU diplomats have said its ambitions could be scaled back to encompass only less sensitive items such as humanitarian and food products, rather than oil trade.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the bloc’s ministers in a closed-door meeting in Brussels on Nov. 19 that Paris and Berlin were working closely together to achieve something by year-end, two other EU diplomats said.

The discussion came as EU nations have debated potential new sanctions on Iran after accusations of Iranian attack plots in France and Denmark.

“Our strong support for the implementation of the JCPOA (2015 nuclear deal) doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye for other issues,” Mogherini told reporters.

Until now, the EU has been straining to uphold the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, but has been less willing to consider sanctions, instead seeking fresh talks with the Islamic Republic.

Iran has warned it could ditch the nuclear deal if EU powers do not protect its trade and financial benefits.
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Kosovo’s prime minister said Monday the army the country expects to have soon will be a modest contributor to creating world peace.

Kosovo’s lawmakers will vote Friday on three laws that would transform the national security force into a regular army. The measures are expected to easily pass the 120-member parliament.

Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said that the transformation would make Kosovo a provider, not only a beneficiary, of peace.

“You cannot be safe and secure, you can’t help peace and stability of the world without being in peace yourself, having your own army,” Haradinaj told The Associated Press.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move Serbia doesn’t recognize.

Serbia’s president has said the new army could jeopardize regional stability and peace, and its prime minister also warned it could trigger an armed intervention.

Last year, Kosovo’s president initiated the same thing but backed down after international pressure.

NATO and the U.S. asked that the transformation be made with constitutional amendments, which need the votes of the ethnic Serb minority to pass.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned Kosovo “that such a move is ill-timed, goes against the advice of many NATO allies.”

He called on both Serbian and Kosovo officials to “show calm and restraint, and avoid any provocative statements or actions.”

U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Kosnett said in an interview last week that the transformation would be “a long, sustainable process” and that it was most important “that as the armed forces are established – which again, is a long process_that it be multiethnic.”

During the 1998-99 war for independence in Kosovo, Serbia’s bloody crackdown on separatists prompted NATO to launch airstrikes to stop the conflict.

Kosovo’s new army would have 5,000 troops and 3,000 reservists with a 98-million-euro ($111 million) annual budget. It will essentially be a security force handling crisis response and civil protection operations.
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As the U.N. global climate conference in Katowice, Poland entered its second week Sunday, the non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace demanded urgent action from world leaders to tackle climate change.

Greenpeace activists projected a message onto the roof of the “Spodek” arena where the COP24 is being held, saying “No Hope Without Climate Action: and “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.”

Disappointing many of the scientists and delegates at the conference, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait refused to endorse a landmark study on global warming which was to be the benchmark for future action in curbing the global warming.

The four nations wanted only to “note” but not “welcome” the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was released in October, in keeping with the views of the Trump administration. With no consensus on including the report, the idea was dropped.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has announced he is pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, tweeted Saturday that “people do not want to pay large sums of money … in order to maybe protect the environment.” 

The IPCC’ report said that drastic actions would be needed to achieve the Paris accord’s most ambitious target of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report warned that the world was far from that target and heading more towards an increase of 3 degrees Celsius.

On Monday, the environmental ministers arrive at COP24 and many delegates hope that they will make every effort to include the IPCC report in the conference agenda.
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A British man who was exposed to the deadly nerve agent Novichok said he is struggling with his eyesight and mobility, and fears the poison will kill him within a decade.

Charlie Rowley, 45, fell ill in June near Salisbury, England, after coming into contact with the Soviet-developed nerve agent that was used months earlier to attack former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Rowley, Skripal and his daughter survived, but Rowley’s partner Dawn Sturgess, who was also exposed, died in the hospital.

Rowley told the Sunday Mirror newspaper that he was back in the hospital being treated for meningitis. He said he was going blind and unable to use one arm, and said he was “terrified about the future” and what long-term effects the military grade poison would have on him.

“I’m still worried the Novichok could kill me if I get any sort of virus again — it’s on my mind all the time. I’m dreading getting a cold,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be alive in 10 years. It’s been horrendous.”

Britain accuses Russia of carrying out the poisoning of the Skripals, a claim Moscow denies.

Rowley and Sturgess collapsed after they handled a small bottle containing the nerve agent, believed to have been discarded by the Skripals’ attackers.

Britain charged two alleged Russian military intelligence agents in absentia for the attack. The pair denied their involvement on Russian television.

The Skripals’ poisoning ignited a diplomatic confrontation in which hundreds of envoys were expelled by both Russia and Western nations.

 
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French President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on Monday in response to massive, often violent rallies staged by “yellow-vest” protesters across the country for the past four weekends.

Before the speech Monday evening, Macron plans to meet with union officials, local lawmakers and business leaders for talks on formulating a response to the protests that have rocked the country during the holiday season.

Workers across France Sunday cleaned up the debris from protesters who threw rocks, burned cars and vandalized businesses through the weekend.

Earlier Sunday, France’s foreign minister urged U.S. President Donald Trump not to interfere in French politics, following Trump’s tweets on weeks of protests in Paris in which he said:

“Very sad day & night in Paris. Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes? The U.S. was way ahead of the curve on that and the only major country where emissions went down last year! ”

An earlier tweet from Trump insinuated that protesters in Paris sided with his decision to leave the Paris agreement — a landmark 2015 agreement between over one hundred countries to combat climate change.

“The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting “We Want Trump!” Love France.” he wrote.

Nearly 2,000 people were arrested Saturday across France in the latest round of “yellow-vest” protests.

Nationwide, the interior ministry says some 136,000 people rallied against France’s high-cost of living. Protesters also expressed their dismay with the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

Protests were held in a number of cities besides Paris, including Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyon and Toulouse.

On Saturday, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said violent outbreaks in Paris were “under control” despite ongoing disorderly acts he declared “totally unacceptable.”

France closed the Eiffel Tower and other tourist landmarks and mobilized tens of thousands of security forces for the fourth week of violent demonstrations.

Many shops in Paris were boarded up before Saturday’s protests to avoid being smashed or looted, and police cordoned off many of the city’s broad boulevards.

President Macron made an unannounced visit Friday night to a group of anti-riot security officers outside Paris to thank them for their work.

The protests erupted in November over a fuel tax increase, which was part of Macron’s plan to combat global warming.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe called for new talks Saturday with representatives of the “yellow vest” movement. He vowed the government would address their concerns over rising living costs.

“The president will speak, and will propose measures that will feed this dialogue,” Philippe said in a televised statement.

Since the unrest began in November, four people have been killed in protest-related accidents.

While Macron has since abandoned the fuel tax hike, protesters have made new demands to address other economic issues hurting workers, retirees and students.

Government officials are concerned the repeated weekly violence could weaken the economy and raise doubts about the government’s survival.

The “yellow vest” movement was named after the safety jackets French motorists are required to keep in their vehicles, which the protesters wear at demonstrations.

The weeks of protests have exposed intense resentment among non-city residents who feel that Macron, a former investment banker, is out of touch with struggling middle-class and blue-collar workers.
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Nearly 1,800 people were arrested Saturday across France in the latest round of “yellow vest” protests.

Nationwide, the Interior Ministry says some 136,000 people rallied against France’s high-cost of living. Protesters also expressed their dismay with the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

Protests were mounted in a number of cities besides Paris, including Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyon and Toulouse.

The ministry said Sunday 1,723 people were arrested nationwide, with 1,220 of them ordered held in custody.

Parisian police said they made 1,082 arrests Saturday, a sharp increase from last week’s 412 arrests.

Meanwhile, tourist destinations, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, reopened and workers cleaned up broken glass Sunday. 

The man who unleashed the anger, President Emmanuel Macron, broke his silence to tweet his appreciation for the police overnight, but pressure mounted on him to propose new solutions to calm the anger dividing France.

On Saturday, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said violent outbreaks in Paris were “under control” despite ongoing disorderly acts he declared “totally unacceptable.”

French police supported by armored vehicles fired tear gas at yellow-vested protesters on the Champs Elysees.

Castaner estimated 10,000 demonstrators had taken to Parisian streets.

He said 135 people had been injured, including 17 police officers.

France closed the Eiffel Tower and other tourist landmarks and mobilized tens of thousands of security forces for the fourth week of violent demonstrations.

Many shops in Paris were boarded up before Saturday’s protests to avoid being smashed or looted, and police cordoned off many of the city’s broad boulevards.

Despite what Castaner said were “exceptional” security measures, protesters still smashed store windows and clashed with police.

More than 89,000 police were deployed nationwide, an increase from 65,000 last weekend.

Police in central Paris removed any materials from the streets that could be used as weapons or projectiles during the demonstrations, including street furniture at outdoor cafes.

Macron made an unannounced visit Friday night to a group of anti-riot security officers outside Paris to thank them for their work.

The protests erupted in November over a fuel tax increase, which was part of Macron’s plan to combat global warming.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe called for new talks Saturday with representatives of the “yellow vest” movement. He vowed the government would address their concerns over rising living costs.

“The president will speak, and will propose measures that will feed this dialogue,” Philippe said in a televised statement.

WATCH: Clashes and Hundreds Detained in France in ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday that the Paris Agreement, a global effort to reduce global warming beginning in 2020, “isn’t working out so well for Paris” and that “People do not want to pay large sums of money … in order to protect the environment.”

Since the unrest began in November, four people have been killed in protest-related accidents.

While Macron has since abandoned the fuel tax hike, protesters have made new demands to address other economic issues hurting workers, retirees and students.

Government officials are concerned the repeated weekly violence could weaken the economy and raise doubts about the government’s survival.

Officials are also concerned about far-right, anarchist and anti-capitalist groups like Black Bloc that have attached themselves to the “yellow vest” movement.
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Corruption costs the world economy $2.6 trillion each year, according to the United Nations, which is marking International Anti-Corruption Day on Sunday.

“Corruption is a serious crime that can undermine social and economic development in all societies. No country, region or community is immune,” the United Nations said.

The cost of $2.6 trillion represents more than 5 percent of global GDP.

The world body said that $1 trillion of the money stolen annually through corruption is in the form of bribes.

Patricia Moreira, the managing director of Transparency International, told VOA that about a quarter of the world’s population has paid a bribe when trying to access a public service over the past year, according to data from the Global Corruption Barometer.

Moreira said it is important to have such a day as International Anti-Corruption Day because it provides “a really tremendous opportunity to focus attention precisely on the challenge that is posed by corruption around the world.”

​Anti-corruption commitments

To mark the day, the United States called on all countries to implement their international anti-corruption commitments including through the U.N. Convention against Corruption.

In a statement Friday, the U.S. State Department said that corruption facilitates crime and terrorism, as well as undermines economic growth, the rule of law and democracy.

“Ultimately, it endangers our national security. That is why, as we look ahead to International Anticorruption Day on Dec. 9, we pledge to continue working with our partners to prevent and combat corruption worldwide,” the statement said.

Moreira said that data about worldwide corruption can make the phenomena understandable but still not necessarily “close to our lives.” For that, we need to hear everyday stories about people impacted by corruption and understand that it “is about our daily lives,” she added.

She said those most impacted by corruption are “the most vulnerable people — so it’s usually women, it’s usually poor people, the most marginalized people in the world.”

The United Nations Development Program notes that in developing countries, funds lost to corruption are estimated at 10 times the amount of official development assistance.

What can be done to fight corruption?

The United Nations designated Dec. 9 as International Anti-Corruption Day in 2003, coinciding with the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption by the U.N. General Assembly.

The purpose of the day is to raise awareness about corruption and put pressure on governments to take action against it.

Tackling the issue

Moreira said to fight corruption effectively it must be tackled from different angles. For example, she said that while it is important to have the right legislation in place to curb corruption, governments must also have mechanisms to enforce that legislation. She said those who engage in corruption must be held accountable.

“Fighting corruption is about providing people with a more sustainable world, with a world where social justice is something more of our reality than what it has been until today,” she said.

Moreira said change must come from a joint effort from governments, public institutions, the private sector and civil society.

The U.S. Statement Department said in its Friday statement that it pledges “to continue working with our partners to prevent and combat corruption worldwide.”

It noted that the United States, through the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, helps partner nations “build transparent, accountable institutions and strengthen criminal justice systems that hold the corrupt accountable.”

Moreira said that it is important for the world to see that there are results to the fight against corruption.

“Then we are showing the world with specific examples that we can fight against corruption, [that] yes there are results. And if we work together, then it is something not just that we would wish for, but actually something that can be translated into specific results and changes to the world,” she said.

VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff contributed to this report.

 
…

Armenians are casting their votes in early parliamentary elections Sunday.

Reformist leader Nikol Pashinian, 43, swept to power in May after weeks of anti-government protests that forced the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, who was also a former president of Armenia.

Sargsyan’s ruling Republican Party, however, blocked Pashinian’s bid to become prime minister, resulting in more protests. The Republican Party then decided to back Pashinian for what it said was the good of the nation.

Pashinian became prime minister, but recently stepped down so parliament could be dissolved for the early election. He remains Armenia’s acting prime minister.

Analysts expect him to be re-instated in office, with his My Step alliance in control of parliament.

Pashinian, a former newspaper editor who had been imprisoned for his activism, has promised to maintain close ties with Russia and fight corruption. He has also pledged to “step up cooperation with the United States and European Union.”
…

In France, police clashed with protesters, as tens of thousands of ‘yellow vest’ demonstrators took to the streets Saturday for the fourth consecutive weekend. Reports say at least 135 people have been injured.

French authorities deployed nearly 90,000 police across the country, detained hundreds of people and closed major landmarks and museums out of precaution. Anti-government yellow vest rallies also took place in nearby Belgium and the Netherlands.

It’s becoming a familiar sound — and smell: teargas lobbed by riot police against so-called yellow vest protesters. Demonstrators sporting fluorescent yellow jackets were out in force again in Paris and across the country, protesting against a range of grievances, including low wages and high taxes.

Around the iconic Champs Elysees, demonstrators clashed with police, set fire to barricades and attacked stores. Armored vehicles rumbled through the streets.

Paris area janitor Jonathan Gonzales wore “Resistance Macron” scrawled on his yellow vest — referring to French President Emmanuel Macron, whose popularity has plunged to record lows.

Gonzales said France is one of the world’s richest nations, but the French people are poor because of decades of government mismanagement. He wants higher minimum wage and lower salaries for government leaders.

Other protesters brandished slogans like “Macron resign” … and “Listen to the anger of the people.” Many criticize a raft of tough reforms the government says are needed to make France more competitive. They claim the president only cares about the rich, not the poor.

The yellow vest protests began against a planned fuel tax hike, aimed to help fight climate change. But while the government has since scrapped the increase, the demonstrations continue, by a movement with no clear leadership or demands.

Protester Olivier Goldfarb says people can’t live on what they earn. The working and middle classes pay more taxes than the more affluent.”

Another protester, giving only his first name Hugo, had broader complaints.

“We’re protesting against a system that doesn’t work, but it’s not up to me to say we should do that or we should do that,” said Hugo. “It’s up to the professional politicians. We send a message that it doesn’t work anymore. Now do something, and do it quickly.”

Polls show public support for the yellow vests is still high, despite the violence. Senior citizen Eliane Daubigny and her husband watched the demonstrations unroll early Saturday.

Daubigny said she understood the concerns of protesters who have a hard time making ends meet. But she also knows how people live in Madagascar — and believes the French are pretty spoiled by comparison.

Many stores were shuttered around hot spots like the Champs Elysees. Others were still boarded up from last week’s rioting that cost Paris alone millions of dollars in damage. Restaurants, hotels and stores have lost business during this holiday season.

Meanwhile, thousands of other French joined a very different protest on Saturday — marching in the capital and other cities for more action to fight climate change. In some cases, yellow vests joined the demonstrations.
…

The Vatican has an unusual dilemma on its hands after nearly all the nuns in a tiny French religious order threatened to renounce their vows rather than accept the Holy See’s decision to remove their superior.

The sisters argue that the Vatican commissioners sent to replace their superior general, who is also the niece of the order’s founder, have no understanding of their way of life or spirituality. The church’s conclusion — contained in a summary of its investigation provided this week to The Associated Press — is that the Little Sisters of Marie, Mother of the Redeemer are living “under the tight grip” of an “authoritarian” superior and feel a “serious conflict of loyalty” toward her.

The standoff marks an extraordinary battle of wills between the Vatican hierarchy and the group of 39 nuns, most in their 60s and 70s, who run homes for the aged in rural western and southern France. Their threat to leave comes at a time when the Catholic Church can hardly spare them, with the number of sisters plummeting in Europe and the Americas.

The unlikely revolt had been brewing for years but erupted in 2017, when the Vatican suspended the Little Sisters’ government and ordered the superior, Mother Marie de Saint Michel, removed. The Vatican says it took action after local church investigations in 2010 and 2016 found an excessive authoritarianism in her rule and serious problems of governance.

Details of her alleged abuses of authority haven’t been revealed. But within two years of her election as superior in 2000, six sisters had left, church officials say.

“The grave acts posed by Mother Marie de Saint Michel are denounced and the sisters are called to religious and responsible behavior,” the prefect of the Vatican’s congregation for religious, Cardinal Joao Braz di Aviz, wrote the nuns in July.

By then, Braz had already appointed a commissioner and two deputies to run the order. But the Little Sisters refused to accept them and kept Saint Michel in place in the mother house.

As the standoff escalated, 34 of the 39 nuns issued an extraordinary public declaration last month saying they had no other choice but to ask to be relieved of their religious vows.

“We are not making this sacrifice lightly,” they wrote. “We wish to remain in total communion with the church but we cannot signify more clearly, or more painfully either, our incapacity in conscience to obey what we are commanded to do.”

Their plight has garnered sympathy. A French support group, the Support Association of the Little Sisters of Marie, claims to have gotten 3,900 signatures for an online petition demanding the immediate restoration of the central government of the order and removal of the commissioners.

“We are in a situation of blockage,” said Marcel Mignot, president of the support association.

The sisters downplay problems with their superior and say the real dispute is over their local bishop’s decision to split up management of their elder-care homes that had been merged in recent years. They say the bishop used his authority to impose an unjust decision on them without taking their views or the financial implications into account.

“This is about power,” Mignot said, referring to the bishop’s authority over diocesan orders.

The sisters have appealed his decision to the Vatican’s high court “so that the truth can be re-established, but Roman justice takes its time,” the sisters wrote their supporters earlier this year.

Their cherished community was founded in 1954 in Toulouse by Marie Nault, a woman who, according to legend, stopped her formal education at age 11 to work on the family farm but possessed such spirituality that she developed the stigmata — the bleeding wounds that imitate those of Christ on the cross.

Nault took the name Mere Marie de la Croix — Mother Mary of the Cross — and opened four communities in western and southern France which, in 1989, won approval from the bishop to become a diocesan institute of consecrated life.

Born in 1901, Mother Marie died in 1999 and her niece, the current ousted superior, took over a year later. She remains at the mother house in Saint-Aignan sur Roë, in western France. She had been due to step down after her term was up and a new superior was elected, but plans for the election are now in limbo, Mignot said.

The standoff with the Little Sisters comes amid a continuing free-fall in the number of nuns around the world, as elderly sisters die and fewer young ones take their place. The most recent Vatican statistics from 2016 show the number of sisters was down 10,885 from the previous year to 659,445 globally. Ten years prior, there were 753,400 nuns around the world, meaning the Catholic Church shed nearly 100,000 sisters in the span of a decade.

European nuns regularly fare the worst, seeing a decline of 8,370 sisters in 2016 on top of the previous year’s decline of 8,394, according to Vatican statistics.

The Vatican, in its conclusions about the case, said it believed that the majority of the Little Sisters “truly want to follow the Lord in a life of prayer and sacrifice.”

While lamenting the “tight grip” that the superior has over them, the Vatican’s congregation for religious orders told AP that most sisters had been kept in the dark about the management dispute over the elder-care homes — details that even the Vatican commissioners haven’t fully ascertained since they haven’t been able to access the institutes’ finances, the Vatican summary said.

In the past, the Vatican has not been afraid to impose martial law on religious orders, male or female, when they run into trouble, either for financial, disciplinary or other reasons.

St. John Paul II famously appointed his own superiors to run the Jesuits in 1981, some 200 years after Pope Clement XIV suppressed the order altogether. Pope Benedict XVI imposed a years-long process of reform on the Legion of Christ order and its lay branches after its founder was determined to be a pedophile. More recently, the Vatican named a commissioner to take over a traditionalist order of priests and nuns, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

Nevertheless, the standoff with the Little Sisters is unusual, said Gabriella Zarri, retired professor of history and expert in women’s religious orders at the University of Florence.

“It’s serious, but it’s also serious that these nuns would do such a violent act as to threaten to leave religious life,” she said. “It’s difficult to understand, other than perhaps because of their attachment to the charism of the founder” and her niece.

Sabina Pavone, a professor of modern history at the University of Macerata, said Catholic archives — especially from Inquisition trials — are full of cases of the Vatican taking action when religious superiors assume “tyrannical” powers over their devoted followers.

While many of the cases date to the period of tremendous growth of religious orders for women in the 1800s, she added, “we shouldn’t be surprised that you find them today” as well.
…

Several thousand people gathered Saturday amid a heavy police presence in southern Poland for a “March for Climate” to encourage negotiators at climate talks to set ambitious goals.

Activists from around the world gathered in the main square of the city of Katowice where delegates from almost 200 countries are holding a two-week meeting on curbing climate change.

Some of them were dressed as polar bears, some as orangutans, animals that are facing extinction from man-made global warming and deforestation.

They joined in chants of “Wake up, it’s time to save our home,” and held banners including one reading “Defend our Rights to Food, Land, Water,” as large police units and mounted police looked on.

Earlier Saturday, campaign group Climate Action Network said that one of its employees has been allowed to enter Poland after earlier being stopped by border guards citing unspecified security threats.

The group, an alliance of hundreds of organizations from around the world, said Polish authorities gave Belgium-based activist Zanna Vanrenterghem permission to continue to the U.N. climate summit in Katowice.

The Belgian ambassador in Poland, Luc Jacobs, said Polish border guards had provided him with no details about the case but confirmed that Vanrenterghem was admitted into Poland overnight.

CAN had no immediate information about 12 other activists deported or denied entry to Poland in recent days. Poland introduced temporary random identity checks ahead of the conference, arguing they were needed for security.

 
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The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warns the United States is being outgunned in cyberspace, already having lost its competitive advantage to Russia while China is rapidly closing in.

“When it comes to cyber, misinformation and disinformation, Russia is already our peer and in the areas of misinformation or disinformation, I believe is ahead of us,” Senator Mark Warner told an audience Friday in Washington.

“This is an effective methodology for Russia and it’s also remarkably cheap,” he added, calling for a realignment of U.S. defense spending.

Warner, calling Russia’s election meddling both an intelligence failure and a “failure of imagination,” strongly criticized the White House, key departments and fellow lawmakers for being too complacent in their responses.

As for China, Warner called Beijing’s cyber and censorship infrastructure “the envy of authoritarian regimes around the world” and warned when it comes to artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G mobile phone networks, China is “starting to outpace us on these investments by orders of magnitude.”

In contrast, the Democratic senator laid out a more aggressive approach in cyberspace, with the United States leading allies in an effort to establish clear rules and norms for behavior in cyberspace.

He also said it was imperative the U.S. articulate when and where it would respond to cyberattacks.

“Our adversaries continue to believe that there won’t be consequences for their actions,” Warner said. “For Russia and China, it’s pretty much been open season.”

Warner also delivered a stern message to social media companies.

“Major platform companies — like Twitter and Facebook, but also Reddit, YouTube and Tumblr — aren’t doing nearly enough to prevent their platforms from becoming petri dishes for Russian disinformation and propaganda,” he said. “If they don’t work with us, Congress will have to work on its own.”

The Trump administration unveiled a new National Cyber Strategy in September, calling for a more aggressive response to the growing online threat posed by other countries, terrorist groups and criminal organizations.

“We’re not just on defense,” National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters at the time. “We’re going to do a lot of things offensively, and I think our adversaries need to know that.”

Top U.S. military officials have also said their cyber teams are engaging against other countries, terrorist groups and even criminal organizations on a daily basis.

Warner on Friday praised elements of the new strategy, particularly measures that have allowed the military to respond to attacks more quickly. But, he said, on the whole it is not enough, pointing to Trump’s willingness to “kowtow” to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their Helsinki Summit over Moscow’s election interference efforts.

“No one in the Trump administration in the intel [intelligence] or defense world doesn’t acknowledge what happened in 2016,” he said. “But the fact that the head of our government still [finds] it’s hard to get those words out of his mouth, is a real problem.”
…

An Armenian court on Friday put the nation’s former president in custody on charges linked to a deadly police crackdown on a 2008 protest over alleged voting fraud.

Robert Kocharian, 64, spent two weeks in jail last summer on charges of violating the constitutional order by sending police to break up the protest in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. He was freed on appeal, but on Friday a higher court ordered that he should stay behind bars.

Kocharian’s lawyer said he walked to jail without waiting for police to escort him there.

Kocharian rejects the charges, calling them a political vendetta by incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who helped stage the 2008 protest. The demonstration protested the results of an election two weeks earlier for Kocharian’s replacement. Eight demonstrators and two police died in the clash.

“The main organizer of the events … tries to clean himself of blood,” Kocharian said of Pashinian in a statement Friday.

In the 2008 election, Kocharian, who was president from 1998 to 2008, backed Serzh Sargsyan, who served as Armenia’s president for the following decade.

In April, due to term limits, Sargsyan shifted into the prime minister’s seat in what was seen as an attempt to cling to power. But he stepped down after just six days in office in the face of massive protests organized by Pashinian, who then took the prime minister’s post.

Wiretaps released earlier this week had Pashinian discussing Kocharian’s arrest with the nation’s top security official. Pashinian denounced the released recordings as a “declaration of war” by his political foes.

Pashinian has called an early parliamentary election for this Sunday in a bid to win control of parliament, which is still dominated by members of Sargsyan’s Republican Party. Pashinian’s party is expected to sweep the vote.
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Talks between the opposing sides in the Yemeni conflict are deadlocked on day two of indirect negotiations outside the Swedish capital Stockholm, according to Arab media reports.

U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has been meeting separately with the Houthi delegation and that of the internationally recognized government. 

The conflict in Yemen has been under way for nearly four years, and the second day of talks showed that many difficult issues remain to be resolved. 

Media reports say the two sides agreed to release captives, though there is no timetable yet to actually begin releasing prisoners.

But Foreign Minister Khaled al Yamani, head of the delegation of the internationally-recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, told journalists such confidence-building measures are a step forward.

He says that releasing prisoners and forcing the Houthis to allow aid into certain regions of the country that they control, in addition to getting them to withdraw from the (Red Sea port of) Hodeida, were the first steps on the road to peace.

However, Jamal Amr, who is a member of the Houthi delegation from Sanaa, told the BBC Arabic service the two sides remain far apart on who should control Hodeida, but the Houthis “would like to avoid any fighting that could potentially damage the port,” which is essential to bring food aid and other goods into the country. 

The U.N. has offered to administer the port, but the Houthis refuse to hand it over.

Another dispute: re-opening Sanaa Airport to commercial air traffic. 

The Houthis, who control the airport, say it should re-open to international flights, without forcing planes to be searched for weapons in Saudi-coalition controlled areas.  

Hamza al Kamali, deputy minister of youth and sports, says the Hadi government and the Saudi-coalition are worried that without searches, weapons will be smuggled in from outside the country.

He says that the Houthis would like to use Sanaa Airport as a military airport, but that the government side considers that unacceptable and thinks traffic should be limited to food aid and commercial goods.

Other key issues include ending a blockade that has divided Taiz — Yemen’s second largest city — and put some of its population in dire straights.

There are also arguments over control of Yemen’s central bank and payment of government employees. The government of President Hadi insists that revenues be deposited at the central bank branch in Aden, which it controls. Houthis reject that demand. 

Yemeni analyst Ezzet Mustapha told Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV that Griffiths “has not done a good job of organizing the talks,” and that he is afraid that they “may degenerate into a battle of rival agendas and irreconcilable demands.” The Houthis, he claims, “are insisting on achieving their political goals before making any concessions.”

Meanwhile, Houthi spokesman Mohammed al Bakhiti, told Arab media that “a new transitional government must be formed (in Sanaa) to replace the Hadi government as well as the Houthi-backed government.” “Then,” he argues, “all the parties inside the country must return to the bargaining table.”
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The search-and-rescue ship Aquarius, which has helped about 30,000 migrants avoid death in the Mediterranean Sea, is suspending its operations.

The humanitarian groups Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee said European governments were forcing them to end the rescue runs.

The Aquarius has been docked in Marseille, France, since early October after Panama revoked its registration at the behest of the right-wing, anti-immigration Italian government.

The ship has been rescuing migrants who were trying to make the dangerous crossing from Libya to Europe in inadequate rafts and dinghies.

“The end of Aquarius means more lives lost at sea; more avoidable deaths that will go unwitnessed and unrecorded. It really is a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for UK and European leaders as men, women and children perish,” Vickie Hawkins, head of MSF UK, said in a statement.

15,000 deaths

The International Organization for Migration said that about 15,000 migrants have drowned in the central Mediterranean since 2013. An estimated 2,133 have died this year alone.

The Aquarius was the last rescue ship operating in the Mediterranean. Last year, five groups were running rescue ships.

At the height of the migrant influx in 2015 and 2016, NGO vessels worked alongside Italian coast guard ships.

The election of Italy’s coalition government this year on an anti-migrant platform rapidly ended the cooperation, and rescue boats have been prevented from docking in Italian ports. Migrant arrivals in Italy have since fallen to pre-crisis levels following a series of hard-line measures drafted by far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Now rescue missions fall on national coast guard crews from Europe and North Africa, who tend to return the rescued migrants to the country they set off from, usually Libya.

NGO groups describe conditions for the migrants there as “inhuman,” with allegations of arbitrary detention, torture, rape and killings by human smugglers and security forces.

Henry Ridgwell contributed to this report. 
…

A rescue operation began Thursday for a British woman who was sailing solo in an around-the-world race and was stranded in the Southern Ocean after a storm battered her boat. 

Susie Goodall texted that she was “safe and secure” after being briefly knocked unconscious when the storm flipped her boat end over end and destroyed its mast.  

On the race website, Golden Globe Race officials said they had been in regular radio contact with Goodall since she regained consciousness. 

Goodall, 29, was the youngest skipper and the only woman participating in the 48,280-kilometer (30,000-mile) race.  

On Wednesday, Goodall texted race officials, “Taking a hammering! Wondering what on earth I’m doing out here,” and sent her position. 

Hours later, she tweeted, “Nasty head bang as boat pitchpoled [somersaulted].” She then tweeted that her rig had been “totally & utterly gutted!” 

She also reported that she’d lost most of her equipment and was unable to make any makeshift repairs. 

Goodall was about 3,200 kilometers (1,990 miles) west of Cape Horn, near the southern tip of South America. Chile diverted a ship to her location to rescue her, and it was expected to reach her Friday. 

The race began on July 1 in Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, with 18 skippers from around the world. After Goodall’s exit, just seven remained in the hunt.  The race will end at the same port. 

The sailors are expected to sail alone, nonstop and without outside assistance. They are also not allowed to use most modern technology, including satellite navigation, and the yachts must have been designed before 1988. 
…

Just days before scores of countries sign up to a landmark U.N. migration pact, a number of European Union nations have begun joining the list of those not willing to endorse the agreement.

The 34-page U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is to be formally approved in Marrakech, Morocco, on Dec. 10-11.

The drafting process was launched after all 193 U.N. member states, including the United States under President Barack Obama, adopted in 2016 a declaration saying no country can manage international migration on its own and agreed to work on a global compact

But the United States, under President Donald Trump, pulled out a year ago, claiming that numerous provisions in the pact were “inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies.”

Despite its non-binding nature, Bulgaria signaled this week that it will not sign the pact, as did Slovakia, whose foreign minister resigned in protest at his government’s stance. Meanwhile, Belgium’s government was teetering on the brink of collapse, riven by coalition differences over the pact.

“It’s way too pro-migration. It doesn’t have the nuance that it needs to have to also comfort European citizens,” Belgium’s migration minister, Theo Francken, said Thursday.

“It’s not legally binding, but it’s not without legal risks,” he said, adding that rights laws are being interpreted widely in EU courts and those rulings are tying the hands of migration policy-makers.

Francken said his right-wing N-VA party wants “nothing to do with it.”

But Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel took the migration agreement to parliament Thursday, where it was approved against the wishes of the N-VA, the biggest party in his governing coalition.

The arrival in Europe in 2015 of well over 1 million migrants — most fleeing conflict in Syria or Iraq — plunged the EU into a deep political crisis over migration, as countries bickered over how to manage the challenge and how much help to provide those countries hardest hit by the influx. Their inability to agree helped fuel support for anti-migrant parties across Europe.

Experts say the pact is an easy target. Leaving it can play well with anti-migrant domestic audiences and pulling out has no obvious negative impacts on governments.

“The ones who opposed the global compact, have they read it? It is only a framework of cooperation with all countries,” EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Thursday. “It is not binding. It doesn’t put in question national sovereignty.”

Other EU countries to turn their back on the document are Hungary and Poland, which have opposed refugee quotas aimed at sharing the burden of Mediterranean countries like Italy, Greece and more recently Spain, where most migrants are arriving.

But the withdrawal of Austria — holder of the EU’s presidency until the end of the year — has been of high symbolic importance.

Conservative Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, in a coalition with the nationalist, anti-migration Freedom Party, announced Austria’s departure from the pact in October, highlighting “some points that we view critically and where we fear a danger to our national sovereignty.”

Francken said that never before had the head negotiator for the European states, Austria, “pulled out the plug. That gave a lot of political shock effect in all countries.”

It remains to be seen whether North African countries — and others like Turkey, which the EU has outsourced its migrant challenge to — see this as a new sign that migration management can only be done on Europe’s terms. 
…

The “yellow vests” in France are worrying greens around the world.

The worst riots in Paris in decades were sparked by higher fuel taxes, and French President Emmanuel Macron responded by scrapping them Wednesday. But taxes on fossil fuels are just what international climate negotiators, meeting in Poland this week, say are desperately needed to help wean the world off of fossil fuels and slow climate change.

“The events of the last few days in Paris have made me regard the challenges as even greater than I thought earlier,” said Stanford University environmental economist Lawrence Goulder, author of the book “Confronting the Climate Challenge.”

Economists, policymakers and politicians have long said the best way to fight climate change is to put a higher price on the fuels that are causing it — gasoline, diesel, coal and natural gas. Taxing fuels and electricity could help pay for the damage they cause, encourage people to use less, and make it easier for cleaner alternatives and fuel-saving technologies to compete.

These so-called carbon taxes are expected to be a major part of pushing the world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and try to prevent runaway climate change that economists say would be far more expensive over the long term than paying more for energy in the short term.

But it’s not so easy for people to think about long-term, global problems when they are struggling to get by.

Macron said the higher tax was his way of trying to prevent the end of the world. But the yellow vest protesters turned that around with the slogan: “it’s hard to talk about the end of the world while we are talking about the end of the month.”

The resistance to the fuel tax is a personal blow to Macron, who sees himself as the guarantor of the 2015 Paris climate accord, its strongest defender on the global stage. He has positioned himself as the anti-Trump when it comes to climate issues.

The French government quietly fears a Trump-led backlash against the accord could spread to other major economies whose commitment is essential to keeping the deal together.

The fuel tax was not originally Macron’s idea; it dates back to previous administrations. But he vigorously defended it and won the presidency in part on a promise to fight climate change.

So what went wrong?

Yale University economist William Nordhaus, who won this year’s Nobel prize for economics, said the tax was poorly designed and was delivered by the wrong person. “If you want to make energy taxes unpopular, step one is to be an unpopular leader,” he said. “Step two is to use gasoline taxes and call them carbon taxes. This is hard enough without adding poor design.”

Macron, like French presidents before him, made environmental and energy decisions without explaining to the public how important they are and how their lives will change. He’s also seen as the “president of the rich” — his first fiscal decision as president was scrapping a wealth tax. So hiking taxes on gasoline and diesel was seen as especially unfair to the working classes in the provinces who need cars to get to work and whose incomes have stagnated for years.

The French government already has programs in place to subsidize drivers who trade in older, dirtier cars for cleaner ones, and expanded them in an attempt to head off the protests last month. But for many French, it was too little, too late.

The French reaction to higher fuel prices is hardly unique, which highlights just how hard it can be to discourage fossil fuel consumption by making people pay more. In September, protests in India over high gasoline prices shut down schools and government offices. Protests erupted in Mexico in 2017 after government deregulation caused a spike in gasoline prices, and in Indonesia in 2013 when the government reduced fuel subsidies and prices rose.

In the United States, Washington state voters handily defeated a carbon tax in November.

“Higher taxes on fuel have always been a policy more popular among economists than among voters,” said Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist and former adviser to President George W. Bush.

Even proponents of carbon taxes acknowledge that they can disproportionally hurt low-income people. Energy costs make up a larger portion of their overall expenses, so a fuel price increase eats up more of their paycheck and leaves them with less to spend. And because energy costs are almost impossible to avoid, they feel trapped.

It is also not lost on them that it is the rich, unbothered by fuel taxes, who are hardest on the environment because they travel and consume more.

“The mistake of the Macron government was not to marry the increase in fuel taxes with other sufficiently compelling initiatives promising to enhance the welfare and incomes of the ‘yellow vests,’ said Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Now the question is “How can we address the climate problem while also avoiding producing political upheaval,” Goulder said.

The key is giving a good chunk of money back to the people, Wesleyan University environmental economist Gary Yohe said.

Many economists back proposals that would tax carbon, but then use that money to offer tax rebates or credits that would benefit lower-income families.

The protests, while sparked by fuel prices, are also about income inequality, populism and anti-elitism, experts say, not just about carbon taxes.

“Is it a death knell for the carbon tax or pricing carbon? I don’t think so,” economist Yohe said. “It is just a call for being a little bit more careful about how you design the damn thing.”
…

Police across Europe and in South America have carried out a massive operation targeting members of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group, with agents arresting scores of suspects wanted for cocaine trafficking and money-laundering, among other crimes.

In the largest-ever sweep against the organized crime group, 90 people were arrested in Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. One person was also apprehended in Suriname. The coordinated dawn raids were carried out in locations that had been identified by the police in an investigation codenamed “Pollino” that was launched in 2016.

Italy’s national anti-mafia and anti-terrorism prosecutor, Federico Cafiero de Raho, speaking in the Hague, said the arrests were nothing for the ‘Ndrangheta, because thousands of people affiliated with the clan should be arrested.

De Raho stressed that the ‘Ndrangheta has cells that operate and cooperate with each other in a network that covers all of Europe. Officials said 3 to 4 tons of cocaine were seized, 140 kilos of ecstasy pills and 2 million euros in cash. They said the ‘Ndrangheta was laundering money in Italian restaurants and ice cream parlors.

Officials provided details of the maxi operation at the headquarters of Eurojust, the European agency in charge of judicial cooperation in criminal investigations.

Filippo Spiezia, vice president of Eurojust, explained the purpose of the press conference, the first of its kind for an operational case.

“To inform you about an unprecedented and extraordinary result that we have reached today with a joint judicial action that has been carried out in different member states in order to fight ‘Ndrangheta, one of the most powerful organizations — criminal organizations — in the world,” he said.

The ‘Ndrangheta has its base in the southern Italian region of Calabria, but its tentacles extend all over the world. De Raho said the group has infiltrated ports in Europe to ease drug smuggling. He added that coordination among the police forces in different European countries is essential in order to combat these types of criminal activities.

Tuesday’s operation came one day after Italian police arrested Settimino Mineo, the suspected new “boss of bosses” of the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra, along with 45 other alleged mobsters.
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