Britain is to allow citizens from all Commonwealth countries to join its armed forces – even if they have never lived in Britain. The new rules are aimed at tackling a recruitment crisis. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, activists want clarity over the citizenship rights of the new recruits after they leave the services.
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The European Union’s highest court has ruled that the taste of a food cannot be protected by copyright.
The European Court of Justice said Tuesday “the taste of a food product cannot be identified with precision of objectivity,” thus making it ineligible “for copyright protection.”
Dutch cheese maker Levola had argued that a rival company copied its herbed spread called Heksenkaas or witches’ cheese. The company claimed Heksenkaas was a work protected by copyright and asked the Dutch courts to insist that the rival firm cease production and sale of its cheese.
But the judges ruled that unlike books, movies, songs and the like, the taste of food depends on personal preferences and the context in which the food is consumed, “which are subjective and variable.”
“Accordingly, the court concludes that the taste of a food product cannot be classified as a ‘work,’ and consequently is not eligible for copyright protection under the directive,” the judges said.
This is not the first time the European Court of Justice had to settle disputes about food.
In July, it ruled Nestle could not trademark the four-finger shape of its KitKat chocolate bars.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Tuesday for an integrated European Union military, echoing language used by French President Emmanuel Macron last week that infuriated U.S. President Donald Trump.
Merkel told the European Parliament such an army would not undermine the U.S.-led military alliance NATO but would be complementary to it, remarks that were met with loud applause in the legislature though also with boos from nationalist members.
“The times when we could rely on others are over. This means we Europeans have to take our fate fully into our own hands,” Merkel said. “We should work on a vision of one day establishing a real European army.”
Macron’s call, which reflected a broad trend of EU thinking but is not universally accepted, was meant to show European willingness to meet U.S. demands that Europe do more for its own security and rely less on America’s security umbrella.
However, on Twitter on November 9, Trump accused Macron of seeking to develop the EU’s own military to defend itself from the United States, which EU and French officials said was a misunderstanding.
On Tuesday Trump took aim at Macron again, blasting France over its near-defeat to Germany in two world wars, its wine industry and Macron’s approval ratings.
In his remarks on November 6, Macron had been referring to computer hackers who could attack Europe from anywhere, including from inside the United States, officials said.
First proposed in the 1950s and taken up four years ago by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as a response to fraying EU unity, an EU armed forces is seen as strengthening the global power of the bloc, which is an economic giant but a geopolitical minnow.
With Britain’s pending departure from the EU, there may be more momentum for remaining member states to find common ground on defense, although there remain divisions.
Supporters of a European defense union say the EU has struggled in military and humanitarian missions in the Balkans, Libya and Africa, and that it was caught off guard by Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“No place for nationalism”
Merkel’s address comes at a time when the EU is searching for answers to a U.S. president who views the EU with contempt, to the rise of illiberal democracies and nationalist parties within its borders, and to Britain’s vote to leave the bloc.
She made appeals for tolerance and solidarity, saying “nationalism and egotism should no longer have a place in Europe” to a sustained applause.
As a deadline looms for Italy’s euroskeptic government to re-submit budget plans to the European Union, Merkel said the euro zone would only work if all member states meet their treaty responsibilities.
“Our common currency can only function if every individual member fulfils their responsibility for sustainable finances,” Merkel said, adding that otherwise the strength and the stability of the euro zone were at risk.
“We want to extend a hand to Italy,” she later said. “But Italy also agreed to all sorts of rules and it can’t just tear them up.”
Merkel dominated European politics for over a decade, but she is now a diminished force, weakened by the fragility of her coalition and the rise of the far-right in Germany. She announced in late October that she would step down as leader of her party, though remain chancellor.
Her foot-dragging over far-reaching reforms to the eurozone has frustrated the energetic Macron. In the summer, they agreed to a budget for the single currency area but failed to deliver any big-bang reforms. Few concrete steps have been taken since.
On Tuesday, she kept her vision for deeper monetary cooperation vague: “We need to develop our monetary policy better. We’re working on a banking union,” she said. “We have to look at responsibility and control, a banking union and then later a European insurance system.”
Merkel also trained her sights on Poland and Hungary, two countries whose leaders other member states worry are undercutting democratic institutions.
The European Parliament in September voted to sanction Hungary for flouting EU rules on democracy, civil rights and corruption, while concerns have grown in the EU over Warsaw’s accelerated judicial overhaul.
“Solidarity is always linked to commitments of the community, and the principles based on rule of law,” Merkel said.
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NATO is developing new high-tech tools, such as the ability to 3-D-print parts for weapons and deliver them by drone, as it scrambles to retain a competitive edge over Russia, China and other would-be battlefield adversaries.
Gen. Andre Lanata, who took over as head of the NATO transformation command in September, told a conference in Berlin that his command demonstrated over 21 “disruptive” projects during military exercises in Norway this month.
He urged startups as well as traditional arms manufacturers to work with the Atlantic alliance to boost innovation, as rapid and easy access to emerging technologies was helping adversaries narrow NATO’s long-standing advantage.
Lanata’s command hosted its third “innovation challenge” in tandem with the conference this week, where 10 startups and smaller firms presented ideas for defeating swarms of drones on the ground and in the air.
Winner from Belgium
Belgian firm ALX Systems, which builds civilian surveillance drones, won this year’s challenge.
Its CEO, Geoffrey Mormal, said small companies like his often struggled with cumbersome weapons procurement processes.
“It’s a very hot topic, so perhaps it will help to enable quicker decisions,” he told Reuters.
Lanata said NATO was focused on areas such as artificial intelligence, connectivity, quantum computing, big data and hypervelocity, but also wants to learn from DHL and others how to improve the logistics of moving weapons and troops.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said increasing military spending by NATO members would help tackle some of the challenges, but efforts were also needed to reduce widespread duplication and fragmentation in the European defense sector.
Participants also met behind closed doors with chief executives from 12 of the 15 biggest arms makers in Europe.
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German states have drafted a list of demands aimed at tightening a law that requires social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to remove hate speech from their sites, the Handelblatt newspaper reported Monday.
Justice ministers from the states will submit their proposed revisions to the German law called NetzDG at a meeting with Justice Minister Katarina Barley on Thursday, the newspaper said, saying it had obtained a draft of the document.
The law, which came into full force on Jan. 1, is a highly ambitious effort to control what appears on social media and it has drawn a range of criticism.
While the German states are focused on concerns about how complaints are processed, other officials have called for changes following criticism that too much content was being blocked.
The states’ justice ministers are calling for changes that would make it easier for people who want to complain about banned content such as pro-Nazi ideology to find the required forms on social media platforms.
They also want to fine social media companies up to 500,000 euros ($560,950) for providing “meaningless replies” to queries from law enforcement authorities, the newspaper said.
Till Steffen, the top justice official in Hamburg and a member of the Greens party, told the newspaper that the law had in some cases proven to be “a paper tiger.”
“If we want to effectively limit hate and incitement on the internet, we have to give the law more bite and close the loopholes,” he told the paper. “For instance, it cannot be the case that some platforms hide their complaint forms so that no one can find them.”
Facebook in July said it had deleted hundreds of offensive posts since implementation of the law, which foresees fines of up to 50 million euros ($56.10 million) for failure to comply.
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The Greater Paris region will become a low-emission zone from next summer, which will limit the circulation of old diesel cars, the regional authority decided on Monday.
The Metropole du Grand Paris council said on its Twitter feed it had voted to ban diesel cars registered before Dec. 31, 2000 from the area within the A86 second ring-road, which includes Paris and 79 municipalities around it, a region with 5.61 million inhabitants.
The ban will use France’s new “Crit’Air” vignette system, which identifies cars’ age and pollution level with color-coded stickers. Cars with the Crit’Air 5 sticker (1997 to 2000-registered diesels) as well as cars without a sticker will be banned.
The council plans to gradually tighten regulations in order to allow only electric or hydrogen-fueled cars on Greater Paris roads by 2030. In central Paris, pre-2000 diesels have been banned since July 2017.
Fifteen French metropolitan areas including Lyon, Nice, Aix-Marseille and Toulouse last month agreed to install or reinforce low-emission zones by 2020. The French government hopes this will prevent European Union sanctions over non-respect of European air quality standards.
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Britain and the European Union appeared to be inching toward agreement on Brexit on Monday, but British Prime Minister Theresa May faced intensifying pressure from her divided Conservative government that could yet scuttle a deal.
Britain leaves the EU on March 29 — the first country ever to do so — but a deal must be sealed in the coming weeks to leave enough time for the U.K. and European Parliaments to sign off. May faces increasing domestic pressure over her proposals for an agreement following the resignation of another government minister last week.
The British leader had been hoping to present a draft deal to her Cabinet this week. But no Brexit breakthrough was announced Monday after talks between European affairs ministers. The two sides are locked in technical negotiations to try to bridge the final gaps in a move laden with heavy political and economic consequences.
May said talks were in their “endgame” but that negotiating a divorce agreement after more than four decades of British EU membership was “immensely difficult.”
May told an audience at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London that “we are working extremely hard, through the night, to make progress on the remaining issues in the Withdrawal Agreement, which are significant.
“Both sides want to reach an agreement,” May said, though she added she wouldn’t sign up to “agreement at any cost.”
The main obstacle to a deal is how to keep goods flowing smoothly across the border between EU country Ireland and Northern Ireland in the U.K.
Both sides have committed to avoid a hard border with costly and time-consuming checks that would hamper business. Any new customs posts on the border could also re-ignite lingering sectarian tensions. But Britain and the EU haven’t agreed on how to achieve that goal.
“Clearly this is a very important week for Brexit negotiations,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told reporters after the meeting in Brussels. “The two negotiating teams have really intensified their engagement … There is still clearly work to do.”
And Martin Callanan, a minister in Britain’s Brexit department, said all involved were “straining every sinew to make sure that we get a deal but we have to get a deal that is right for the U.K., right for the EU and one that would be acceptable to the U.K. Parliament.”
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier didn’t speak to reporters Monday and a planned news conference with him was canceled.
Instead, EU headquarters issued a short statement saying that Barnier explained to the ministers that “intense negotiating efforts continue, but an agreement has not been reached yet.”
Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the two sides “are getting closer to each other.”
“But in negotiations there is only a deal if there is full agreement,” Blok said. “There is only a 100-percent deal. There is not a 90-percent deal or a 95-percent deal.”
Earlier, France’s EU affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, stepped up pressure on May. “The ball is in the British court. It is a question of a British political decision,” she said.
The EU is awaiting Barnier’s signal as to whether sufficient progress has been made to call an EU summit to seal a deal.
Rumors have swirled of a possible top-level meeting at the end of November. But Austrian EU affairs minister Gernot Bluemel, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said “so far progress is not sufficient to call in and set up another (summit).”
In recent days there have been signs of progress behind the scenes, but all parties have remained tight-lipped about the developments, given the politically charged atmosphere.
In Britain, pro-Brexit and pro-EU politicians alike warned May that the deal she seeks is likely to be shot down by Parliament.
Boris Johnson, a staunch Brexit supporter, wrote in a column for Monday’s Daily Telegraph that May’s plan to adhere closely to EU regulations in return for a trade deal and an open Irish border amounts to “total surrender” to the bloc.
The proposed terms are scarcely more popular with advocates of continued EU membership.
Former Education Secretary Justine Greening on Monday called May’s proposals the “worst of all worlds,” and said the public should be allowed to vote on Britain’s departure again.
“We should be planning as to how we can put this final say on Brexit in the hands of the British people,” Greening told the BBC.
Johnson’s younger brother, Jo Johnson, resigned last week backing calls for a second referendum on whether the country should leave the EU. May has consistently rejected the idea of another nationwide vote on Brexit.
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Calculations are shifting in European capitals on whether Donald Trump is likely to serve a second term as U.S. president. The consensus in Europe ahead of last week’s midterm elections was that he would most likely serve only one term in the White House, but the expanded Republican majority in the Senate is prompting a re-consideration.
That, in turn, is leading some European officials to argue that they will not be able just to wait out Trump for two years for a return to business as usual with a more traditional and Atlanticist Washington, but need to rethink now about the best approach to adopt towards a U.S. leader who largely sees foreign policy as a zero-sum game and is unsentimental about traditional American allies.
But there is little consensus on what to do.
A broad division is emerging among European policymakers — between those who argue they must take into greater account U.S. interests in a bid to try to improve strained transatlantic relations and those officials and leaders who want to adopt a more aggressive “Europe First” strategy on the grounds European courtship of Trump has already tried and failed.
The current debate is an echo of the one that followed Trump’s first few months in office, when European leaders were unnerved in their dealings with an American president very different from his White House predecessors and who eschews diplomatic norms.
In the run-up to last week’s midterm elections, many European policymakers made little disguise of their hopes that the Republicans would suffer a strong reversal in the polls, banking on the notion that a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives would be able to help them mold U.S. foreign policy more to their liking.
But the durability of Trump’s brand of populism has been partly emphasized by what observers call a “red wave” pushing the Republicans to strengthen their hold on the Senate. Some European policymakers and analysts say Trump could become even more difficult to handle from their perspective in the next two years.
They say he will likely double down on policies that roiled transatlantic relations in his first two White House years, which saw the U.S. leader pull America out of the Iran nuclear deal as well as withdraw from the Paris climate accord, lambast allies like Germany for running trade surpluses, and upbraid NATO allies for not spending more on Western defense.
“The formidable executive powers of the president, notably in foreign policy, remain untouched,” Norbert Röttgen, head of the foreign affairs committee in the German Bundestag, told Deutschlandfunk radio, shortly after last week’s midterms. “We need to prepare for the possibility that Trump’s defeat [in the House] fires him up,” he added.
With Trump now looking to begin his run for re-election in earnest, Röttgen and others say he will be keen to galvanize his base of fervent supporters, and that with the House controlled by the Democrats, he has more room for maneuver to do that with foreign policy than when it comes to domestic issues.
“Transatlantic alliances are fraying,” warns Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to the U.S. “The change of majority in the House will do little to alter U.S. policy on issues where America’s allies have differed with Trump, like climate change, Middle East peace, trade policy, Iran, Russia and the importance of international institutions,” he says.
Martin Kettle, a columnist with Britain’s Guardian newspaper says the midterms suggest that the Trump foreign policy revolution will become more entrenched. “He is more likely than ever to win a second term, especially if the Democrats are divided. These midterms therefore tell the rest of the world something very important. They tell us that America First is not going away, that it is on course to be the new normal, that it is not some unfortunate aberration that can be reset to the status quo ante of 2016,” he argues.
Here for the short-term or a longer term, Trump’s “America First” policy remains an awkward challenge for European leaders and is propelling some to advocate for a counterbalancing “Europe First” policy. But European divisions — as well as fears — are hampering any agreement on that.
British and German officials fault French President Emmanuel Macron for impetuosity, arguing his Gaullist pitch last week for a Euro-army and talk of Europe needing to free itself from military dependence on America was reckless at a time of growing transatlantic rift. Both Britain and Germany are deeply skeptical of Macron’s idea for a Euro-army. Skeptics say such a military could never make up for American military might and its importance for European defense.
As Macron was unveiling his Euro-army proposal on the eve of Donald Trump’s arrival last week in France for the centenary commemoration of the end of World War I, Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, was striking a different, more placatory note. While acknowledging the midterm elections are unlikely to ease transatlantic tensions, he tweeted: “The United States remains our most important partner outside of Europe. We need to reassess and align our relations with the United States to maintain this partnership.”
In the immediate wake of the midterm elections, some European leaders are likely to make a greater effort to identify the few policies on which they can agree with the Trump administration. They are also likely to redouble efforts to reach agreement with Washington to solve trade disputes, say analysts.
One outcome might be greater European support for Trump’s China policy. Writing in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, former British foreign minister William Hague praised Trump for calling out Beijing for its “deeply protectionist and nationalistic policy,” unfair trading practices and theft of Western technological know-how, labeling it “one of Trump’s achievements.” He is calling on other Western and Asian nations to wake up to the dangers of the critical threat China poses to the West.
read moreVoters in the Kremlin-backed Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine cast ballots Sunday for local government leaders in what Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called a “fake election.”
Denis Pushilin, the 37-year-old acting leader of Donetsk, was elected with over 61 percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted, according to the local electoral commission.
Leonid Pasechnik, the acting leader of Luhansk, took 68 percent of the vote.
The United States and European Union have both denounced the election as illegal and a deterrent to a negotiated settlement.
“The people in eastern Ukraine will be better off with a unified Ukraine at peace rather than in a second-rate police state run by crooks and thugs, all subsidized by Russian taxpayers,” U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker tweeted Sunday.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the vote was illegitimate, adding that the EU will not recognize the results.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement that the vote was “illegal and illegitimate. The “so-called elections undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine,” the statement said.
Russia has backed the Russian-speaking insurgents in the self-proclaimed People’s Republics in Eastern Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly denied charges it has been arming the rebels.
While the heaviest fighting that has killed more than 10,000 people in eastern Ukraine has generally ended, occasional skirmishes between the insurgents and Ukrainian soldiers flare up with deadly results.
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The leader of the German Social Democrats’ youth wing said Monday that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition with the SPD would not survive the next year.
The awkward alliance has been marred by disputes about immigration and the fate of the domestic spy chief since it took office in March, coming close to collapse twice. Voters punished both Merkel’s conservatives and the SPD in two recent regional elections.
SPD youth wing leader Kevin Kuehnert, who campaigned against the conservative-SPD tie-up from the outset, said the SPD would be closely watching what happens when Merkel steps down as leader of her Christian Democrats (CDU) in December.
“Next year is full of [regional] elections and political developments that will have a big impact,” Kuehnert told Deutschlandfunk radio. “I can hardly imagine us sticking together for the year. We have to use our time to prepare for the ‘D-Day’ of snap elections.”
Kuehnert said he knew hardly anyone who believed the coalition would survive to the end of this parliament in 2021.
SPD leader Andrea Nahles has said that the SPD leadership, under pressure from a restive membership over flagging polls and disastrous regional election showings, did not discuss quitting the coalition at a meeting last Monday.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the leader of Merkel’s Bavarian allies and a critic of her liberal asylum policies, told members of his Christian Social Union (CSU) that he wanted to resign as party chief, party sources told Reuters on Sunday.
Seehofer has been a thorn in Merkel’s side for much of the past three years, taking a hard line on immigration.
Senior CSU member Manfred Weber told the newspaper Bild that Seehofer had said Sunday that 2019 would be a year of renewal and that the CSU leader would announce further details this week.
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Voters in the Kremlin-backed regions of eastern Ukraine are voting Sunday for local government leaders.
The elections have been denounced by Kyiv, Washington and the European Union.
Federica Mogherini, the European Union foreign policy chief, said her group found the polls “illegal and illegitimate and will not recognize them.”
“These particular elections are a mockery,” said Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has supported the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
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Poland is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its rebirth as an independent state on Sunday with a multitude of events across the country, including marches, Masses, and the national hymn being sung in more than 600 public places.
The national white-and-red flag fluttered from buildings and buses, dignitaries and regular citizens placed flowers and wreaths at memorials to the father of Polish independence, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, and the historic Sigismund Bell, reserved only for the most important national events, rang out over Krakow.
Poland regained its independence at the end of World War I in 1918, reborn from the ashes of three defeated powers that had partitioned and ruled the Central European nation for more than a century.
The ceremonies in Poland coincide with world leaders gathering in Paris on Sunday to mark the armistice of what was then called the Great War.
To mark the occasion, the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw released a video with citizens of countries from the United States to Germany to Japan reading out the diplomatic cable of Nov. 16, 1918, that informed the world about the creation of the Polish Republic.
Signed by Pilsudski, commander in chief of the armed forces, it declared that Poland “wishes to notify the governments and nations of the existence of an independent Polish state, encompassing all the territories of a reunified Poland.”
President Andrzej Duda attended a Mass early Sunday and laid wreaths at monuments honoring Pilsudski and other fathers of Poland’s independence.
Meanwhile, Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and a top European Union leader, took part in an emotional ceremony at a statue of Pilsudski, singing the anthem with leaders of Poland’s opposition Civic Platform party and a crowd that gathered with them.
Poland’s regained independence fulfilled the dreams of generations of patriots who had kept the language and culture alive despite foreign rule and repression. Though Poland was ruled by Russia, Germany and Austria, and effectively was “wiped off the map” as a state, it was nonetheless a great age for Polish culture, producing the compositions of Frederic Chopin and the works of the great Romantic-era poet Adam Mickiewicz, which largely revolved around the yearning for Poland’s rebirth.
Throughout it all, the Roman Catholic church played a key role in keeping the language and the identity alive.
Contemplations of Poland’s historic achievement in 1918 are inevitably shaped by knowledge of what came later, with Poland to be invaded and occupied yet again in the 20th century by the Germans and the Soviets, and then being under Moscow’s influence during the Cold War era.
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Russia’s Foreign Ministry is complaining that the interrogation of a website editor at a U.S. airport shows authorities are persecuting Russian journalists.
Alexander Malkevich, editor of the USA Really website, reportedly was detained and questioned for several hours Friday at a Washington airport and told that his site must register in the U.S. as a foreign agent. The website is funded by the sponsors of the Russian “troll factory” accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. vote.
Malkevich was released and traveled to Paris, according to state news agency RIA-Novosti.
A ministry statement on Sunday said the incident was “evidence of the campaign of pressure by the American authorities not only on the Russian press, but on any independent opinion about the United States.”
read moreEuropean Council head Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, on Saturday denounced the euroskeptic populists governing Poland as “contemporary Bolsheviks” who threaten the nation’s independence, but can be defeated.
Tusk, seen as a likely contender in Poland’s 2020 presidential election, spoke in the city of Lodz on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the country regaining its statehood at the end of World War I after 123 years of foreign rule.
He honored the statesman who restored Polish independence and as chief of state went on to defeat the Bolsheviks’ Red Army in 1920, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. He also paid homage to Lech Walesa, the Solidarity trade union founder who challenged Poland’s Soviet-backed communist rule during the 1980s and went on to become president from 1990 to 1995.
“Jozef Pilsudski was facing a more difficult situation than we have today when he was conquering the Bolsheviks and in fact, defending the Western community against political barbarians,” Tusk said during an independent anniversary forum gathering intellectuals and politicians.
“Walesa had a more difficult situation when he was conquering the Bolsheviks in a symbolic way, when he was bringing out the European, the freedom, the national values in us. But he managed,” he continued.
“Why shouldn’t you be able to defeat the contemporary Bolsheviks?” Tusk said to great applause.
He appealed for Poles to defend their rights, freedom and to “defend Poland’s independence.”
He criticized the government led by the conservative Law and Justice party, which has repeatedly clashed with European Union leaders, as a threat to Poland.
“Whoever today in Poland takes steps against our strong position in a united Europe is really taking steps against Poland’s independence,” Tusk said.
Deputy Senate Speaker Adam Bielan, a member of the ruling team, responded later by saying that Tusk was trying to divide Poles and provoke conflict on the eve of a big national holiday.
Tusk’s appointment to the EU job in 2014 partly was in recognition of his liberal government’s pro-EU policies. He warned Saturday that the government now influenced by Law and Justice head Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Tusk’s political foe, is moving in the opposite direction.
In hopes of preventing anything from marring the centennial commemorations, Polish government officials negotiated a deal to hold a joint march in Warsaw on Sunday with nationalist groups that had planned their own event.
Past independence day marches held by far-right nationalists featured racist slogans, white supremacist symbols and aggressive behavior.
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The Central African Republic might seem like an unusual venue for Russia’s evolving strategy in Africa. The CAR doesn’t boast Ethiopia’s booming economy or Angola’s deep oil reserves. It lacks a developed mining industry like Zambia or a strategic location like Djibouti.
But the landlocked country of fewer than 5 million people, most of whom survive on subsistence farming, has something else of interest to Moscow: conflict.
Since 2013, the CAR has grappled with a protracted civil war. Mass displacements, political instability, and competing factions of rebels and militia groups have weakened the government and eroded peoples’ trust in its institutions.
In the ensuing volatility, Russia has found opportunities to project power far beyond its borders and rekindle strategic partnerships in Africa that have been dormant since the end of the Cold War.
‘Armed adventurism’
Russia has stepped up its presence in the CAR during the past few years. But its strategies there, which rely on the use of private contractors and mercenary groups, have been employed since the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s and, later, in Ukraine and Syria.
“We should think about mercenaries as an instrument which allows plausible deniability but also hard-power projection, which has multiple uses in contested areas,” said Kiril Avramov, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Intelligence Studies Project.
Avramov told VOA’s Russian service that Moscow officially bans mercenaries and security companies, but ex-military or intelligence officers often organize them, providing close ties to the Kremlin. Their work, which Avramov called “armed adventurism,” has helped Russia rebound from isolation and advance its political objectives.
One company, Wagner Group, has come under increasing scrutiny. This summer, three journalists investigating Wagner’s operations in the CAR were ambushed and killed. Footage captured by the journalists suggests Wagner.
‘Club of illiberals’
For Russia, private military contractors complement a broader strategy focused on strengthening state sovereignty, Avramov said. “The current Kremlin is trying to export counterrevolution,” he added. Rather than destabilize regimes, Russia looks for countries already besieged, from the CAR to Syria.
These governments welcome help, Avramov said, and that provides Russia with multiple opportunities, from weapons deals to training programs.
In the CAR, Moscow has gone a step further, cementing deals for political consultations, joint foreign operations and security details for the president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra. In the future, mineral mining might present opportunities to “entrepreneurs and their little private armies,” Avramov said, even if the sector is currently underdeveloped.
But the country may be getting more than it bargains for. “You’re going to get what I call the ‘club of illiberals.’ You buy insurance, and then you receive a package,” Avramov said.
That package includes mercenary groups, such as Wagner, which often have ties to both oligarchs and political elites. “You somehow start losing a grasp (on) where the private ends and the state begins,” Avramov said.
Countries also can end up pawns in Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. In the CAR, Russia is “playing in the backyard of France and trying to sow division with the neighbors,” Avramov said.
And while Russia may not want the countries with which it aligns to plummet into chaos, quick resolutions to the battles it inserts itself into aren’t desirable, either. Drawn-out conflict means more time to sell arms, secure energy contracts and counterbalance China.
Despite outpacing Russia in political alliances and economic deals, Beijing faces real competition from Moscow, Avramov said. Compared to China, “(Russia) is punching above its weight, and it’s doing it in a very spectacular manner,” he added.
Logistics facility
Two thousand kilometers from the CAR, Moscow sees opportunities in another country dealing with the fallout of war. Eritrea, in East Africa, emerged this summer from decades of active conflict with Ethiopia, followed by 20 years of isolation.
In August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed plans to build a logistics center at the Port of Assab, in southern Eritrea, during a meeting with a high-level Eritrean delegation, according to RIA, a Russian state-owned news agency.
Avramov said it makes sense for Russia to pursue the base, along with similar partnerships.
“We will see those activities on the rise,” he said, citing Russia’s desire for recognition as a world superpower and its need for diplomatic relationships.
Countries steeped in conflict give Moscow a chance to develop a longterm presence, Avramov added, despite limited resources. They also give the Kremlin a chance to send a message, both to China and the West.
“It’s a way of saying, ‘If you’re criticized for your human rights record, if you’re criticized for any of the things the West clings on, here is always another option,’” Avramov said.
This story originated in VOA’s Africa Division. Sandzhar Khamidov contributed reporting from the Russia service.
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Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to dissolve parliament, worsening an already major political crisis, has drawn criticism from Western powers, including the United States and the European Union.
Sirisena dissolved parliament on Friday night, only five days before it was due to reconvene. A new cabinet he installed was in danger of losing a vote of no confidence. He also called a general election for Jan. 5.
The president triggered a power struggle when he sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe late last month and appointed the island’s former leader, Mahinda Rajapaksa, a pro-China strongman defeated by Sirisena in an election in 2015, in his place.
Sirisena’s rivals are set to challenge his decision, which they describe as illegal and unconstitutional, in the Supreme Court on Monday.
The U.S. Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs said in a tweet that the United States was “deeply concerned by news the Sri Lanka Parliament will be dissolved, further deepening the political crisis”. It said democracy needed to be respected to ensure stability and prosperity.
A spokeswoman for the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement that the move “risks undermining public confidence in the country’s democratic institutions and processes and further deepens the political and economic crisis in the country.”
Last week, the EU’s ambassador warned it could consider stripping Sri Lanka of its duty-free access if it backs off commitments on rights. The EU is worried the return of Rajapaksa could derail halting progress made toward national reconciliation following a war with ethnic minority Tamil separatists that killed tens of thousands, many during the final stages under his watch as president.
Mark Field, the British minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, tweeted his concern about the dissolution of parliament days before it was due to be reconvened.
“As a friend of Sri Lanka, the UK calls on all parties to uphold the constitution and respect democratic institutions and processes,” Field said.
Canada’s Foreign Policy twitter feed said that it was “deeply concerned” about the decision and referred to the risks to reconciliation work after the nation’s civil war.
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne expressed both concern and disappointment in a statement, saying the move “undermines Sri Lanka’s long democratic tradition and poses a risk to its stability and prosperity.”
Sirisena has said he fired Wickremesinghe because the prime minister was trying to implement “a new, extreme liberal political concept by giving more priority for foreign policies and neglecting the local people’s sentiment.”
Parliament test
Mangala Samaraweera, an ally of Wickremesinghe, said their party expects the court to rule that the dissolution of parliament was illegal and that eventually a vote in parliament will be held to test whether there is a majority.
“We will show that we have the parliament majority and we will show that the dictator president has dissolved a government which had a majority in the parliament,” he told reporters.
They were supported by the Tamil National Alliance, the main party representing ethnic Tamil groups in parliament, who said it too will petition the Supreme Court against the dissolution of the house.
“This is a clear violation of the constitution. The president can’t do this,” said M.A. Sumanthiran, a spokesman for the alliance.
India and the West have raised concerns over Rajapaksa’s close ties with China. Beijing loaned Sri Lanka billions of dollars for infrastructure projects when Rajapaksa was president between 2005-2015, putting the country deep into debt.
Wickremesinghe has refused to vacate the official prime minister’s residence saying he was the prime minister and had a parliamentary majority.
Before he signed the papers dissolving parliament and calling the election, Sirisena appointed allies of his and of Rajapaksa to cabinet positions.
One of them said Sirisena was right to order an election to end the political crisis. Dinesh Gunawardena, a newly appointed urban development minister, said the president had handed the country back to the people.
“It is the people’s right to vote. We have gone before the people. No force can interfere. The people’s mandate is supreme,” he said.
Independent legal experts have told Reuters that parliament could be dissolved only in early 2020, which would be four-and-half-years from the first sitting of the current parliament. The only other legal way would be through a referendum, or with the consent of two thirds of lawmakers.
Given those views, it was not immediately clear how Sirisena is on legal safe ground by dissolving parliament, though his legal experts have said there are provisions for him to do so.
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A wheelchair used by the late British physicist Stephen Hawking has sold at auction for almost $400,000, with the money going to charity.
The motorized wheelchair, which was used by Hawking after he was paralyzed with motor neuron disease, had been expected to sell for around $20,000 in the online auction organized by Christie’s.
A copy of Hawking’s doctoral thesis, called “Properties of expanding universes” from 1965 sold for $767,000, much more than the estimate of $200,000.
Proceeds from the auction will go to two charities, the Stephen Hawking Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Hawking was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at age 22 and given just a few years to live. However, he lived to the age of 76, dying in March.
Hawking explored the origins of the universe, expanding scientific thinking about black holes and became a well-known figure in pop culture.
A script from one of his appearances on the television series “The Simpsons” was one of the 22 items in the auction, selling for more than $8,000.
Hawking’s daughter, Lucy, said the sale gave “admirers of his work the chance to acquire a memento of our father’s extraordinary life in the shape of a small selection of evocative and fascinating items.”
Other items sold at the auction included an early edition of Hawking’s best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time,” marked with a thumbprint, a collection of his medals and awards, and essays.
In total, the auction raised $1.8 million for charity. Hawking’s family is donating other items from Hawking’s archive to the British government in lieu of paying inheritance tax.
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The U.S. Treasury Department has again extended a deadline for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska to reduce his holdings in the aluminum company Rusal before sanctions take effect.
The Treasury Department said Friday that licenses allowing Rusal to continue doing business would be extended from Dec. 12 to Jan. 7.
The department said in April that it would impose sanctions on Deripaska and several companies in which he is a large shareholder, citing “malign activities” by Russia.
However, the agency has pushed back the sanction deadline multiple times since then as it works with the companies, who are looking to find new shareholders.
Rusal and its parent En+ Group have been taking steps to change their management to people not linked with Deripaska to ease the sanctions. Both companies recently appointed new chief executive officers.
Concerns about the impact of sanctions on Rusal have roiled aluminum markets.
Rusal is the world’s largest aluminum producer outside China’s Hongqiao and is a large supplier to the aerospace and automotive industries.
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The moment Air Force One touched down Friday at Orly airport, U.S. President Donald Trump blasted a caustic message for his host, terming French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a European military “very insulting.”
In the touchdown tweet, Trump suggested Europe first pay “its fair share” of NATO before contemplating a Europe-wide force.
As he stepped off his plane, accompanied by the first lady, Melania Trump, a group of White House reporters shouted questions at him about the Twitter message. Trump stared at the journalists but did not respond before entering the presidential limousine.
The fresh dispute between the two leaders, who have had a hot and cold relationship, threatens to cast a pall on Sunday’s ceremony here marking the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, in which 40 million people died.
The United States and France were allies in both world wars and partners in the post-World War II security structure for Western Europe: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is composed of separate forces of varying strengths and capabilities of the member nations.
Trump, however, since taking office nearly two years ago, has repeatedly questioned the mutual defense pact and harshly criticized European countries for failing to meet pledges of contributions of 2 percent of their gross domestic product to the alliance. He has also emphasized that the United States needs to take care of itself first before the needs of other nations, rejecting the concept of globalism.
Macron, during a visit to the World War I Western Front at Verdun, told Europe 1 radio that in face of a revived threat from Moscow, Europe needed to “defend itself better alone.” Europeans, he said, cannot protect themselves without a “true European army.”
Macron, in the interview, also blasted Trump’s recent announcement that Washington would withdraw from the 1987 INF Treaty limiting nuclear weapons that U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to.
The “main victim” of the withdrawal, Macron argued, is “Europe and its security.”
European force
The French president added that Europe also has to protect itself “with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.”
Nine defense ministers from European countries are discussing how such a new international force would operate.
European leaders have been rattled since a NATO summit earlier in the year, when they perceived Trump’s demands for billions of additional dollars in military spending from them as a threat that the United States would pull out of the nearly 70-year-old alliance.
But the idea of a European army has limited support in Berlin and London. Political and military analysts question whether European countries have the will, money or materiel to replace the raw power of the United States.
The issue comes into sharp focus as France commemorates the fallen of a century ago in the war that ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
As a prelude to Sunday’s ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, which will be attended by dozens of world leaders, Trump and Macron are to meet on Saturday at Elysee Palace to discuss European and Mideast security.
Trump on Saturday also will make pilgrimages to two American cemeteries.
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U.S. President Donald Trump will travel to France this weekend along with dozens of other world leaders for ceremonies to mark the centenary of the armistice that brought an end to the fighting in World War I. As Henry Ridgwell reports, relations between America and U.S. allies are tense, and France has warned that the current geopolitical climate is reminiscent of the build-up to the world wars.
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Turkey with its Ottoman Empire was a key ally of Germany in World War I, but there are no commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the war’s end. The defeat and occupation is a history that Turkey chooses not to commemorate. Yet as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the painful memories still remain a powerful force in society.
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Italian police discovered 270 kg (600 lb.) of heroin hidden in a container that arrived aboard a ship from Iran, the biggest such haul for at least 20 years in Italy, police said on Thursday.
The freighter had set sail from the Iranian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas and stopped off in Hamburg, Germany and Valencia, Spain before reaching the Italian port of Genoa on Oct. 17, where police discovered the heroin stashed away in a consignment of Bentonite clay.
A police spokesman said investigators were not sure when or where the drugs were brought onto the ship.
Police allowed a small portion of the illicit cargo to continue its planned journey by truck to the Netherlands.
They tracked the vehicle as it crossed Switzerland, France and Belgium before reaching the Dutch town of Roosendal.
When the vehicle pulled into a warehouse on Nov. 2, Italian and Dutch police raided the premises and arrested two men of Turkish origin. The truck driver apparently did not know heroin was in his rig, police said.
“The investigation continues in order to trace the entire network that manages the drug trade, which shows, once again, that the port of Genoa is an important crossroads for drug shipments destined for the rest of Europe,” a statement said.
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Spanish police say they have arrested a man who they believe intended to attack Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez over his controversial decision to exhume the remains of late dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.
Police say the 63-year-old former private security guard was arrested in the town of Terrassa in the Catalonia region on Sept. 19 after a brief investigation. He remains in custody and has not been charged.
The case was revealed Thursday by Spanish newspaper Publico.
Police found 16 firearms in the suspect’s home, ranging from handguns to sniper rifles, but did not explain how he had managed to amass such an arsenal.
“This person had a clear intention and will to take actions against the prime minister,” Catalan regional police spokesman Albert Oliva told journalists during a press conference.
read moreAugustin Trebuchon is buried beneath a white lie.
His tiny plot is almost on the front line where the guns finally fell silent at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, after a four-year war that had already killed millions.
A simple white cross says: “Died for France on November 10, 1918.
Not so.
Like hundreds of others along the Western Front, Trebuchon was killed in combat on the morning of November 11 — after the pre-dawn agreement between the Allies and Germany but before the armistice took effect six hours later.
His death at almost literally the eleventh hour only highlighted the folly of a war that had become ever more incomprehensible to many in nations drawn into the first global conflict.
Before November 11, the war had killed 14 million people, including 9 million soldiers, sailors and airmen from 28 countries. Germany came close to a quick, early victory before the war settled into hellish trench fighting. One battle, like the Somme in France, could have up to 1 million casualties. The use of poison gas came to epitomize the ruthlessness of warfare that the world had never seen.
For the French, who lost up to 1.4 million troops, it was perhaps too poignant — or too shameful — to denote that Trebuchon had been killed on the very last morning, just as victory finally prevailed.
“Indeed, on the tombs it said `Nov. 10, 1918,’ to somewhat ease the mourning of families,” said French military historian Nicolas Czubak.
There were many reasons why men kept falling until the call of the bugler at 11 a.m.: fear that the enemy would not abide by the armistice, a sheer hatred after four years of unprecedented slaughter, the ambition of commanders craving a last victory, bad communications, the inane joy of killing.
As the hours ticked down, villages were taken, attacks were thwarted with heavy losses and rivers were crossed under enemy fire. Questions remain whether the gains were worth all the human losses.
Historian Joseph Persico estimated the total dead, wounded and missing on all sides on the final day was 10,900.
U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing, who had been bent on continuing the fighting, even had to explain to Congress the high number of last-day losses.
Other nations also were not spared such casualties.
With two minutes to go, 25-year-old Canadian Pvt. George Lawrence Price was slain by a German sniper.
About 250 kilometers (150 miles) away in France, a 23-year-old American, Henry Gunther, was killed by German machine-gun fire one minute before the armistice.
Trebuchon, 40, also was shot minutes before the cease-fire. He was running to tell his comrades where and when they would have a meal after the armistice.
All three are considered their nations’ last men to fall in active combat.
“The futility of the larger war”
Anti-German sentiment ran high after the United States declared war in April 1917, and Gunther and his family in Baltimore were subjected to the kind of prejudice and suspicion that many of German descent faced at the time.
“It was not a good time to be German in the United States,” said historian Alec Bennett.
Gunther had little choice when he got drafted. He was given the rank of sergeant, but he later was demoted when he wrote a letter home critical of the conditions in the war.
Soon after, he was thrown into the biggest U.S. battle of the war, the Meuse-Argonne offensive in northeastern France.
There were reports he was still brooding over his demotion right on Nov. 11. When he emerged from a thick fog in the valley around Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, he and his comrades faced a German machine gun nest on the hillside.
Indications are that the Germans fired one salvo over his head as a warning, knowing the war was almost over. But he still charged onward.
“His time of death was 10:59 a.m., which is just so haunting,” Bennett said. Gunther was recognized by Pershing as the last American to die on the battlefield.
Questions remain whether it was a suicide run, an attempt at redemption or an act of true devotion.
“It is just as puzzling now as it was 100 years ago,” Bennett said, adding that one thing is clear: “Gunther’s act is seen as almost a symbol of the futility of the larger war.”
But there was one more cruel twist for his family: They were unaware he had been killed.
Upon his expected return “they went to the train station to meet Henry — not there!” said Bruce Malone, superintendent of Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, the final resting place for 100 Americans who died Nov. 11.
“A need to kill one last time”
There was no mystery surrounding the death of Price, the Canadian. It was an utterly senseless loss of life.
He was a farm laborer in Saskatchewan when the swirl of history plucked him off the land in October 1917 as the Allies sought ever more manpower for the Western Front.
The summer after he was drafted, he was part of the surge of victories that seized villages and cities right up to Nov. 11. By that time, Canadians were retaking Mons in southern Belgium, where soldiers from the British Commonwealth had their very first battle with the Germans in August 1914.
It was especially sweet for the Commonwealth commanders to retake the city, bringing the war full circle where they lost their first soldier, English Pvt. John Parr, on Aug. 21, 1914.
Price decided to check out homes along the canals while civilians in the center of Mons had already broken out the wine and whiskey they had hidden for years from the Germans to celebrate with the Canadians.
Suddenly, a shot rang out and Price collapsed.
“It really was one man, here and there, who was driven by vengeance, by a need to kill one last time,” said Belgian historian Corentin Rousman.
The final minutes counted not just for the casualties but also for the killers.
“There are rules in war,” Rousman said. “There is always the possibility to kill two minutes before a cease-fire. Two minutes after, the German would have had to stand before a judge. That’s the difference.”
At the St. Symphorien cemetery just outside Mons, Price, the last Commonwealth soldier killed in the war, lies a stone’s throw from Parr, the first.
“He is not forgotten,” Rousman said of Price. “It’s a soldier whose tomb is often draped in flowers.”
“Part of this great patriotic momentum”
Trebuchon’s grave stands out because of the date, underscoring the random fortunes of war.
He was a shepherd from France’s Massif Central and could have avoided the war as a family breadwinner at age 36.
“But he was part of this great patriotic momentum,” said Jean-Christophe Chanot, the mayor of Vrigne-Meuse, where he died.
Trebuchon knew misery as part of France’s most brutal battles — Marne, Somme, Verdun. He survived right up to his last order — to tell soldiers where to gather after the armistice.
Instead, his body was found with a bullet wound to the head. He was recognized as “the last French soldier killed during the last French attack against the Germans,” Chanot said.
The date on his grave — November 10, 1918 — remains controversial, even if it was meant to soothe a family’s sorrow.
“It was a lie, without a question,” said Czubak, the French historian.
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Bullied herself online, Britain’s Princess Beatrice is determined to ensure other girls are equipped to deal with internet abuse and get the best from the digital world.
Beatrice — who as the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and his former wife, the Duchess of York, is eighth in line to the British throne — said her bullying, about her weight and her appearance, were very public and could not be ignored.
But she said other girls faced this in private and needed to be encouraged to speak out and to know where to get support, which prompted her to get involved in campaigns against cyber bullying.
A recent study by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center found about 60 percent of U.S. teens had been bullied or harassed online, with girls more likely to be the targets of online rumor-spreading or nonconsensual explicit messages.
“You’d like to say don’t pay attention to it … but the best advice is to talk about it,” Beatrice, 30, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation during an interview on Wednesday at the Web Summit, Europe’s largest annual technology conference.
“Being a young girl, but now being 30 and a woman working full time in technology, I feel very grateful for those experiences. But at that time it was very challenging.”
Beatrice, who works at the U.S.-based software company Afiniti, co-founded the Big Change Charitable Trust with a group of friends, including two of Richard Branson’s children, in 2010 to support young people who also grew up in the public eye.
Campaign
She also last year joined the anti-bullying campaign “Be Cool Be Nice” along with other celebrities such as Kendall Jenner and Cara Delevingne, which included a book.
“There are lots of people who are ready to help and I want to make sure young people feel they have the places to go to talk about it,” said Beatrice, adding that teachers and parents also had a role to play.
Beatrice said her bullying was so public that she could not hide from it, but her mother, Sarah Ferguson, was a great source of support.
One of the most public attacks on the princess was at the 2011 wedding of her cousin Prince William when her fascinator sparked a barrage of media attention. A month later she auctioned the hat for charity for 81,000 pounds ($106,500).
Her mother, who divorced Prince Andrew in 1996, had to get used to unrelenting ribbing by Britain’s royal-obsessed media.
“She has been through a lot,” said Beatrice, whose younger sister, Eugenie, married at Windsor Castle last month.
“When you see role models who are continually put in very challenging situations and can support you … [then] some of the tools that I have had from her I would like to share.”
Beatrice said mobile technology should be a force for good for girls in developed and developing countries, presenting new opportunities in terms of education, careers and health.
“Social media and the pressures that these young people now face is a new phenomenon … and if I can do more to give young people the tools [to cope], that is my mission,” she said.
“I would say to young girls: You are not alone. Keep going.”
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A coalition of European militaries ready to react to crises near the continent’s borders was launched Wednesday with Finland becoming the 10th country to join, amid calls by French President Emmanuel Macron for a “real European army.”
The French-led initiative would not conflict with the almost 70-year-old, U.S.-dominated NATO alliance, proponents say, but reflects in part concerns about a more isolationist United States under President Donald Trump.
The European Intervention Initiative took official shape in Paris after months of negotiations with Germany, who France wants at the center of the force.
Macron proposed the idea more than a year ago but was met with skepticism by other European Union nations, the idea coinciding with the EU’s launch of a landmark defense pact meant to promote joint military investment.
Germany, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal have all given their green light for the French-led move. It will see members collaborate on planning, on the analysis of new military and humanitarian crises, and on eventual military responses to those crises.
“In an environment where threats and upheavals of a geopolitical or climatic nature are multiplying, the initiative must send the message that Europe is ready, that Europe is capable,” a French defense ministry official said.
The imminent departure from the EU of Britain, long opposed to EU military collaboration outside NATO, has revived talk of defense cooperation — as have concerns that Trump might prove less willing than his predecessors to come to Europe’s defense in the face of a newly assertive Russia.
The initiative does not “contradict or circumvent the EU’s historic defense efforts, nor those of NATO,” the defense official said. “On the contrary, it will only improve interoperability between the participating countries.”
On Tuesday, Macron called for a “real European army” to reduce dependence on the United States.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has long been a vocal supporter of the idea that the EU should have more common defense capability, separate from NATO.
Not everyone is convinced.
“Pragmatic advances and patient construction with those who are ready and willing for a political convergence in defense are infinitely preferable to totally illusory and even counterproductive slogans and incantations,” said Arnaud Danjean, a member of the foreign and defense committee at the European parliament.
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Three members of an Iranian opposition group were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of having praised those behind a Sept. 22 terror attack in Iran that killed at least 25 people.
Police spokesman Bjoerke Kierkegaard said that would violate Danish laws and they could face fines or up to two years in prison.
Kierkegaard said all three are members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz that Tehran has blamed for the deadly attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz. However, ASMLA has condemned the violence and says it was not involved.
The men were held on preliminary charges — a step short of formal charges.
Denmark’s intelligence agency has said that a police operation on Sept. 28 that briefly cut off Copenhagen from the rest of Denmark stemmed from an alleged Iranian plot to kill an ASMLA activist. The person was not named.
Iran has strongly denied the allegation, calling it an Israeli conspiracy that sought to harm Tehran’s relations with the European Union,
A series of raids were also made in Denmark Wednesday, Kierkegaard said, adding that the ASMLA remains under police protection out of fears they still may be targeted.
read moreBalkan nations that fought bitter wars as Yugoslavia broke apart during the 1990s have agreed to step up their cooperation in identifying thousands of people still missing as a result of the conflicts.
Representatives from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro signed an agreement Tuesday laying out how they will work together.
Some 12,000 of the 40,000 people who went missing as the former Yugoslavia violently collapsed remain unaccounted for, including about 4,000 whose unidentified bodies still are stored in morgues across the region.
The nations agreed to improve the sharing of information and to allow representatives from more than one country to take part in exhumations.
The Hague-based International Commission on Missing Persons will assist in DNA testing, manage the exchange of data and maintain a regional database.
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