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“All I want to do is the Bataclan, the Bataclan.” Those are lyrics to a song released earlier in the year by rapper Medine. Two of his concerts are scheduled for the Bataclan theater in October. But not everyone wants to see the shows go on.

At issue, in part, are the words to another song by the artist, whose real name is Medine Zaouiche. In the song, “Don’t Laik,” one line goes, “I put fatwas on the heads of idiots.” The song was released in 2015 — the same year that France was hit by several terrorist attacks, including one targeting the Bataclan.

This is not the first time Medina has generated controversy. A decade earlier, he released an album titled Jihad — and he has been photographed in a T-shirt bearing the term, and a massive sword.

Now, thousands of people have signed a petition launched by the far right and demanding Medine’s concerts be canceled. Critics are tweeting their opposition via the hashtag #pasdemedineaubataclan, or “no Medine at the Bataclan.”

On French radio, far-right National Rally party head Marine Le Pen described Medine as an Islamic fundamentalist. His performance at the Bataclan, she said, is a threat to public order.

Victims’ associations are divided. Philippe Duperron, who heads one of them, is against the concerts taking place, out of respect for the victims and the memory of them.

Medine and his lawyers are fighting back. The rapper has criticized Islamic fundamentalism a number of times and says he is against violence. He says “Don’t Laik” is more of a slap at France’s tough secular creed, and that the jihad he refers to is an internal spiritual struggle, rather than violence.

“It’s been 15 years since I’ve criticized all forms of radicalism in my albums,” he posted recently on social media. Banning his concerts, he argues, amounts to caving in to the far right.

Medine’s arguments are drawing support, partly in the name of free expression. That appears to be the argument of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. 

Still, others argue the divisions over the rapper’s concerts are the worst outcome, at a time when the French should be united against terrorism. 
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Italy said on Friday Malta had refused to take in a Dutch-flagged ship carrying more than 200 rescued migrants and said the decision was “inhumane,” 10 days after shutting its own ports to a migrant vessel.

The new stand-off between the neighboring Mediterranean countries arose as Italy’s new government has been pressuring European partners to shoulder more of the burden of immigration from North Africa.

Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli criticized tiny Malta on his Facebook page, where he also posted a photo of an email full of nautical information and signed by the Armed Forces of Malta inferring that it was not responsible for the latest ship as it was not in a “SAR (Search and Rescue) Situation.”

Anti-immigrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has said the ship, the “Lifeline,” should take the migrants to the Netherlands since it is flying a Dutch flag.

Malta’s government spokesman said in a separate statement that the country was not the competent authority because initial “Search and Rescue” was done by Libya and that the ship had breached its obligations to oblige by Libyan instructions.

While Toninelli said the ship was in Maltese search and rescue waters and in difficulty, the Maltese email said the ship “has not manifested any distress.”

“Europe must intervene to remedy this inhumanity of Malta,” Toninelli said.

Maltese Interior Minister Michael Farrugia shot back with a statement saying “Toninelli should stick to the facts.”

Toninelli’s criticism of Malta as being inhumane was similar to accusations made by France, which earlier this month accused Rome of “cynicism and irresponsibility” for not letting the charity ship Aquarius dock in Italy.

That left the Gibraltar-flagged ship stranded at sea for days with more than 600 migrants on board — until Spain offered them safe haven. Malta had also refused to take in the Aquarius.

The tiny island nation has not taken in large numbers of people rescued at sea, while Italy has seen 650,000 arrivals since 2014.

The 234 migrants on board the Lifeline include 14 women and four small children.

While the number of sea arrivals to Italy has dropped dramatically this year — by more than 77 percent from 2017 — the new populist government has thrust immigration to the top of the EU’s agenda ahead of a summit of leaders next week.

Italy’s government, sworn in earlier this month after promising to raise its voice on immigration in Brussels, has sparred with France, Malta and Germany ahead of the meeting.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel played down expectations of a breakthrough at a hastily-arranged talks among EU leaders on Sunday on the migration dispute dividing Europe and threatening her own government.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose a 20 percent tariff on vehicles assembled in the European Union and shipped to the United States, in retaliation for European tariffs on American imports.

On Friday, the day new EU tariffs went into effect, Trump tweeted, “…if these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!”

Auto industry experts say such tariffs could negatively impact the U.S. economy, as well as Europe’s.

“It’s really a tangle; it’s not a simple question” of cars being made in one place and sold in another, Kasper Peters, communications manager of ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, said Friday in an interview with VOA.

In March, ACEA Secretary General Erik Jonnaert noted the impact European carmakers with plants in the United States have on local economies. “EU manufacturers do not only import vehicles into the U.S. They also have a major manufacturing footprint there, providing significant local employment and generating tax revenue,” Jonnaert said in a statement.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said earlier this week that his department plans to wrap up by July or August an investigation into whether imported cars and car parts are a threat to national security. But Daniel Price, a former senior economic adviser to President George W. Bush, told The Washington Post that Trump’s threat of new tariffs “short-circuited the … process and conclusively undercut the stated national security rationale of that investigation.”

The new EU tariffs enacted Friday apply to billions of dollars’ worth of American goods — including jeans, bourbon and motorcycles.

The action is the latest response to Trump’s decision to tax imported steel and aluminum.

The U.S. is scheduled to start taxing more than $30 billion in Chinese imports in two weeks.

Like the EU, China has promised to retaliate immediately, putting the world’s two largest economies at odds. 

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president, John Murphy, was cited by the Associated Press as saying he estimates that $75 billion in U.S. products could be subjected to new foreign tariffs by the end of the first week of July.

Separately, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said, “The U.S. is abusing the tariff methods and starting trade wars all around the world.”

“Clarity [is] still lacking about how far things will ultimately go between [the] U.S. and China and the potential ripple effect for world trade,” said financial analyst Mike van Dulken.

During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to apply tariffs, saying countries around the world had been exploiting the U.S.

A former White House trade adviser says Trump “has been so belligerent that it becomes almost impossible for democratically elected leaders — or even a non-democratic leader like [Chinese President] Xi Jinping — to appear to kowtow and give in.”

Phillip Levy, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said, “The president has made it very hard for other countries to give him what he wants.”
…

Father Mick Ngundu has survived the rolling conflict that has ravaged the Democratic Republic of Congo, emerging as a passionate advocate of the poor and critic of corruption he claims poisons chances of democracy. From the stately grounds of a former French monastery, he describes how many in his resource-rich homeland are too destitute to afford electricity.

French retiree Veronique Couque is listening. She has never stepped foot in sub-Saharan Africa. Their paths might never have crossed had it not been for a growing citizen movement known as Living Libraries designed to smash stereotypes and prejudice through dialogue.

“They allow you to actually speak to a black, or an Arab or a Jew, and discover what it’s like to be that person,” said Natacha Waksman, a former French diplomat who helped to launch the latest Living Library encounter this month in the Normandy city of Caen. “It allows you to discover what it’s like to be that person. It’s an opportunity to break barriers.”

The initiative coincides with a new report by Europe’s top rights watchdog that shows rising levels of xenophobia and hate speech across the region, partly driven by populism, terrorist attacks and the massive influx of migrants, the subject of a European Union summit next week.

Along with newer targets like Africans and Arabs, the study authored by the 47-member Council of Europe finds older prejudices also linger against Jews, Roma and the LGBT community, despite strides in some countries.

​Changing the narrative

“It’s not that there is no will to change things, but it shows we need to make more efforts” said Zeynep Usal-Kanzier, a lawyer at the council’s European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, in Strasbourg, France. “We still have to encourage a change in the narrative, for example, by showing the positive contribution of well-governed migration.”

Living libraries also aim to shape the shifting narrative, supporters say, by offering people a chance to meet those they might otherwise shun and ask them frank questions. The initiative’s motto: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

“The living books are often people who have personal experiences of discrimination or social exclusion that they are willing to share with the readers,” said Tina Mulcahy, executive director of the council’s European Youth Centre, which promotes Living Libraries and has written an organizer’s guide. Like their brick-and-mortar counterparts, Mulcahy said, readers can check out subjects they’re interested in, “borrowing” human books for conversations.

Founded by a Danish NGO nearly two decades ago, Living Libraries have spread to more than 60 countries to date, including the United States, New Zealand and India. In Hungary, where right-wing lawmakers toughened anti-immigration legislation this week, Living Libraries have been held nearly annually in Budapest since 2001.

WATCH: Fighting Prejudice by Checking Out People

On a recent afternoon, the Caen event was packed, as visitors sat down for conversations with the homeless and immigrants like Ngundu.

For the Roman Catholic cleric, who now works as a priest in Normandy, the experience has been transformative.

“Since I experienced war, I can offer ideas for how to end it,” he said, sketching out ideas for starting similar initiatives in local schools.

​Moving forward

“It helps people think, and perhaps move forward,” added Couque, the elderly reader, who described her conversation with Ngundu as a primer on politics and development.

Waksman, the former diplomat, is already thinking beyond Caen, describing cross-border initiatives that might bring Europeans together.

“That would give people another image of Germans, for example,” she said. Perhaps Britons might not have backed Brexit, she added, had they been more in touch with fellow EU nationals.

In Normandy, some have approached Waksman about starting an online library, but that is one idea that she rules out.

“I believe it’s great that people actually get to meet, shake hands, look into each others’ eyes,” Waksman said. “With our smart phones and virtual lives, it becomes harder and harder to talk to each other. This creates an intimacy that’s helpful in today’s society.”
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A report published Friday by Europe’s top human rights body finds xenophobia and hate speech are on the rise across the region. Despite progress in some areas, the Council of Europe finds minorities, including Muslims, Jews, homosexuals and Roma, face stigma, intolerance and sometimes exclusion across its 48 member states. A citizens’ initiative aims to bridge these divisions through dialogue. From the northern French city of Caen, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA on so-called “Living Libraries.”
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Increased openness, not protectionism, is the best way to ensure Britain’s prosperity in a rapidly changing world, the U.K. government’s two most powerful money men said Thursday.

Treasury chief Philip Hammond and Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney said financial and trade connections with the rest of the world will help ensure Britain’s economy stays strong as the country leaves the European Union, adjusts to technological advances and copes with an aging population.

“We must commit to being the most open market in the world …,” Hammond said in his annual Mansion House speech to leaders of the U.K. financial services industry. “Because ‘global Britain’ is not just a strategy for Britain’s economic future, it’s a statement about what kind of people we are — and about the economy and the society we are seeking to build.”

Carney, in complementary remarks to the same group, said the Bank of England is working to help Britain’s financial system keep pace with rapid technological developments, for example by allowing new forms of payment that will facilitate trade with everyone from traditional European partners to emerging markets.

Financial industry crucial

Retaining Britain’s place as one of the world’s top financial centers is critical to the success of Brexit. The U.K. financial services industry employs more than 1 million people and contributes 11 percent of annual tax revenues, while generating a trade surplus equal to 3 percent of economic output.

That is because London accounts for 40 percent of global foreign exchange volumes and handles more international banking activity than anywhere else, Carney said.

“Being at the heart of the global financial system reinforces the ability of the rest of the U.K. economy, from manufacturing to the creative industries, to compete globally,” Carney said. “And it broadens the investment opportunities and risk-adjusted returns for U.K. savers.”

Partnerships

But Britain must act now to guarantee that it preserves this position, Hammond said, announcing plans for what he called global financial partnerships.

The partnerships will bring together governments, regulators and industry to facilitate cross-border financial services and provide access to global markets, he said.

“Future success is not ours by right,” Hammond said. “If we are to retain — and entrench — our position as the world’s leading financial center, we must act now to secure it in the face of global challenge.”

Both men reached into history to underscore the challenges of the technological revolution that is at hand, with Hammond noting that past British leaders were slow to adopt the telephone and electric lights.

Carney went so far as to say Britain’s economy is on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution — a dramatic rebalancing of the global world order. It is a hyper-connected world, where the future may increasingly belong to small- and medium-sized firms with direct stakes in local and global markets, Carney said.

“The nature of commerce is changing. Sales are increasingly taking place online and over platforms. … Intangible capital is now more important than physical capital,” Carney said. “Data is the new oil.”
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U.S. national security adviser John Bolton plans to visit Moscow next week to prepare for a possible meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday, citing sources.

The Kremlin said Tuesday there are no plans for a meeting between Trump and Putin before the NATO summit, Interfax reported. Trump is expected to attend the NATO summit in Brussels on July 11-12.

 
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The British government saw its flagship Brexit legislation pass through Parliament on Wednesday, but remains locked in a tussle with lawmakers over the direction of the country’s departure from the European Union.

The EU Withdrawal Bill was approved after Prime Minister Theresa May’s government narrowly won a key vote. The House of Commons rejected by 319-303 a proposal to require Parliament’s approval before the government agrees to a final divorce deal with the EU, or before walking away from the bloc without an agreement.

Later in the day, the withdrawal bill, intended to replace thousands of EU rules and regulations with U.K. statute on the day Britain leaves the bloc, also passed in the unelected House of Lords, its last parliamentary hurdle. It will become law once it receives royal assent, a formality.

Lawmakers favor close ties to EU

A majority of lawmakers favor retaining close ties with the bloc, so if the amendment requiring parliamentary approval had been adopted, it would have reduced the chances of a “no deal” Brexit. That’s a scenario feared by U.K. businesses but favored by some euroskeptic members of May’s Conservative minority government, who want a clean break from the EU.

May faced rebellion last week from pro-EU Conservative legislators, but avoided defeat by promising that Parliament would get a “meaningful vote” on the U.K.-EU divorce agreement before Brexit occurs in March.

Pro-EU lawmakers later accused the government of going back on its word by offering only a symbolic “take it or leave it” vote on the final deal and not the ability to take control of the negotiations.

Labour Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer accused May of telling Parliament: “Tough luck. If you don’t like my proposed deal, you can have something much worse.”

The rebels sought to amend the flagship bill so they could send the government back to the negotiating table if they don’t like the deal, or if talks with the EU break down.

The government claimed that would undermine its negotiating hand with the EU.

“You cannot enter a negotiation without the right to walk away,” Brexit Secretary David Davis told lawmakers. “If you do, it rapidly ceases to be a negotiation.”

But Davis also told lawmakers it would be for the Commons speaker to decide whether lawmakers could amend any motion on a Brexit deal that was put to the House of Commons.

Concession enough

The concession was enough to get Conservative lawmaker Dominic Grieve, a leader of the pro-EU rebel faction, to back down and say he would support the government.

Grieve said the government had acknowledged “the sovereignty of this place (Parliament) over the executive.”

While the withdrawal bill cleared a major hurdle, the government faces more tumult in Parliament in the months to come over other pieces of Brexit legislation.

It has been two years since Britain voted by 52-48 percent to exit the 28-nation EU after four decades of membership, and there are eight months until the U.K. is due to leave the bloc on March 29, 2019.

But Britain, and its government, remains divided over Brexit, and EU leaders are frustrated with what they see as a lack of firm proposals from the U.K about future relations.

May’s government is divided between Brexit-backing ministers such as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who support a clean break with the EU, and those such as Treasury chief Philip Hammond who want to keep closely aligned to the bloc, Britain’s biggest trading partner.

EU: No deal is worst scenario

The European Parliament’s leader on Brexit, Guy Verhofstadt, said Wednesday that he remains hopeful a U.K.-EU withdrawal agreement could be finalized by the fall so national parliaments have time to approve it before March.

“The worst scenario for both parties is no deal,” he told a committee of British lawmakers. “The disruption that would create to the economy, not only on the continent but certainly in Britain, would be huge and that we have to avoid.”
…

In 1986, Margaret Thatcher arrived in Israel for the first official visit to the Jewish state by a serving British prime minister. Asked at a news conference why Britain’s queen had never visited, she snapped back, “I am here.”

The Iron Lady’s response got a chuckle, but it did not satisfy the Israelis.

For 70 years successive Israeli governments have tried to persuade Britain to send a Royal on an official visit — something both Buckingham Palace and Downing Street have been reluctant to do. They have feared an official visit would drag Buckingham Palace into a diplomatic quagmire and end up infuriating Britain’s Gulf Arab allies.

But next week Prince William, the heir to the British throne, will bring to an end the royal shunning of Israel, arriving Sunday in the Middle East for a visit to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. While members of the royal family have visited Israel before on private trips or to attend funerals of Israeli leaders, they have never made what are termed formally as official visits.

‘Occupied city’ controversy

The trip has prompted controversy because of Buckingham Palace referring to Jerusalem in the published program for the Prince’s trip as an “occupied city,” outraging Israeli politicians. Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 and annexed it in a move that is not internationally recognized.

Israel’s Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Zeev Elkin, has lambasted the description, posting on his Facebook page, “It’s regrettable that Britain chose to politicize the Royal visit. Unified Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel for over 3,000 years and no twisted wording of the official press release will change the reality. I’m expecting the prince’s staff to fix this distortion.”

There has been no response by Buckingham Palace to the complaint. Under international law East Jerusalem is considered “occupied” by the Israelis. But the spat over the wording of the prince’s itinerary illustrates the risks attached to the visit, say analysts.

Visit to Palestinian territories

Prince William will begin his trip to the Middle East in Jordan on June 24 and travel to Tel Aviv the following day, according to his office. He will spend three days in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ramallah in the West Bank. His visit will also mark the first time a senior member of Britain’s royal family will visit the Palestinian territories.

Visiting Israel and the Palestinian Territories is testimony to the determination of the British government to show even-handedness. Prince William will also have courtesy meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his residence and later with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Royal spokesman Jason Knauf emphasized Buckingham Palace’s neutrality in remarks earlier this month, saying, “the non-political nature of his royal highness’s role — in common with all royal visits overseas — allows a spotlight to be brought to bear on the people of the region.” He noted, “The complex challenges in the region are of course well known.”

Landmark trip

But Knauf added, “Now is the appropriate time and the Duke of Cambridge is the right person to make this visit.” But he did not explain why the British government, which requested the prince take the trip, thinks this is the right time for the landmark trip.

Scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent protests at the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip as the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel is being marked. Tensions are also high with clashes taking place between Israel and Iran, with Israeli forces striking at what they see as threatening Iranian military positions in neighboring war-torn Syria.

The political temperature has remained high since U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision, announced last December, to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, breaking with the United Nations and Western allies by recognizing the city as Israel’s legitimate capital.

Some analysts in Israel and London have linked Trump’s decision to the prince’s trip, saying Britain is dispatching the heir apparent as a way to curry favor with the U.S. president and to gain goodwill in the White House. Anshel Pfeffer, a commentator for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz argues British officials are “hopeful that Netanyahu can help them in the upcoming negotiations in Washington on Britain’s crucial trade deal.”

He adds that Britain has “diminished clout on the world stage” because of Brexit and, “it must utilize whatever assets it has. And the one unique thing Britain has is a young generation of royals who are instantly recognizable across the globe.”

Other analysts see the trip as part of a broader effort by London to raise Britain’s profile as it tries to scout out new trade opportunities to replace the likely loss of trade with European countries once exits the European Union. Two-way trade between Israel and Britain last year reached $7 billion, a 25 percent increase from 2016.

 
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As the United States and China teeter on the brink of an all out trade war and tit-for-tat tariffs loom, a European businesses lobby is urging Beijing to stop dragging its feet on reforms and using unfair trade policies to pamper Chinese companies.

Each year, foreign trade groups in China roll out a laundry list of concerns about market access, regulatory hurdles and other policies that tilt the playing field in the world’s second largest economy.

This year, for the first time ever, the European Chamber of Commerce’s annual survey of the business climate found that 61 percent of its 532 company members saw their Chinese counterparts as equally or more innovative.

Increased spending on research and development, targeted acquisitions of foreign high-tech firms and growing demand for innovative products from consumers were helping driving that shift, the chamber said.

The high response is significant. Policies linked to innovation and competition are a key part of the intensifying US — China trade debate and concerns of foreign companies operating here.

European Chamber President Mats Harborn said that as Chinese companies become stronger and more competitive, it is time for Beijing to “remove the training wheels.”

“It’s time for China to lift or reduce the pampering of its own enterprises and expose them to even more open and fair competition for them to develop into the champions that China wants them to be,” Harborn said.

Currently, Chinese companies account for 115 of the Fortune 500 list of global enterprises. The Chinese government claims that of the world’s 260 “unicorns” — start up companies valued at more than a billion dollars — more than 160 are from China.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos early last year, China has repeatedly pledged to further open up the country’s economy.

According to the group’s survey of its members 52 % said that the government’s promises of opening up had yet to be realized. And looking forward, 46 percent said they thought the number of regulatory obstacles would increase over the next five years.

Harborn said that time is running out for China and 2018 has to be the year that it delivers on its promises.

“Dragging the feet on delivering on promises that have been made in China will cause reactions around the world,” Harborn said.

The United States response to that has led to reactions such as the $50 billion, and more recently $200 billion, in possible tariffs that Washington could levy on Chinese goods.

“We don’t agree with that action but it is the result of what we have warned about earlier,” he said.

Washington and European companies alike have long voiced concern about trade policies in China that protect domestic companies and State Owned Enterprises through subsidies, regulatory barriers and unequal treatment.

The Trump administration has alleged that Beijing is stealing American intellectual property and forcing technology transfers. Beijing denies that is the case.

Still, the European chamber’s survey found that about one in five of its companies “felt compelled to hand over technology in exchange for market access,” despite Chinese government assurances to the contrary.

According to the survey, 19 percent said they felt compelled to transfer technology.

Harborn said that while the percentage may seem small, the value it represents is much larger. Numbers were even higher among companies in the aerospace and aviation sector (36 percent), civil engineering and construction (33 percent) and automakers (27 percent).

 “And no foreign company going to Europe has to even consider the issue of giving up technology for market access,” Harborn said.

Reciprocal treatment is a key concern from companies in China, regardless of whether they are from Europe and America. It is also a key aim of Washington’s trade dispute with Beijing and effort to make trade fairer.

But as the rhetoric in the U.S.-China trade dispute has heated up, some analysts argue that the focus has shifted too heavily to reciprocal and damaging tariffs. Actions that risk hurting not only the United States and China, but the global economy as well.

Harborn said confrontation through tariffs is not the most efficient way to get reforms and opening up that companies have been asking China to deliver.

“We are afraid that when you are exerting pressure this way [through threats of tariffs] that China keeps its aces up its sleeve and is presenting what is needed to defuse the tension at the time and is not is not addressing the fundamental and broader issues,” Harborn said.

Besides, he add, reforms are not only important for foreign companies but China’s own economic development as well.

 
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Despite opposition in Congress, Turkey will receive its first F-35 Joint Strike fighter jet this week, Pentagon and aviation industry officials tell VOA.

Lockheed Martin, maker of the F-35, will hold a ceremony Thursday in Fort Worth, Texas, for Turkey’s new jets, according to a company spokesperson.

Both House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contain restrictions on Turkey’s participation in the F-35 program.

U.S. lawmakers are concerned about Ankara’s imprisonment of an American pastor and its plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system, which they say would “degrade the general security” of the NATO alliance and be incompatible with systems used by Turkey’s NATO allies.

The NDAA, and any language therein, would not become law until the House and Senate pass a final, joint version of the bill.

“As always, Lockheed Martin will comply with any official guidance from the United States government,” the company said.

After the rollout ceremony on Thursday, Turkey’s two jets will travel to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona at a later date so that Turkish pilots can learn how to use them, Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, a Pentagon spokesman, told VOA.

“Turkish F-35 pilots and maintainers have arrived at Luke Air Force Base, and will begin flight academics soon,” Andrews added.

A defense official noted the U.S. government could likely still be in custody of the aircraft when the newest NDAA is passed.

“After aircraft production of F-35 jets are complete, the U.S. government maintains custody of the aircraft until custody is transferred to the partner. This normally occurs after the lengthy process of foreign partner training is complete in about one to two years,” the official told VOA.

Turkey is a NATO ally and has been an international participant with the U.S.-made F-35 program since 2002.
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Laura was barely 18 when a palm reader told her she could make $180 a month working in beetroot farms in Russia — an attractive sum for a girl struggling to make a living in the town of Drochia, in Moldova’s impoverished north.

That she had no passport, the fortune teller said, was not a problem. Her future employers would help her cross the border.

“They gave me a [fake] birth certificate stating I was 14,” Laura, who declined to give her real name, told Reuters in an interview.

That was enough to get her through border controls as she traveled by bus with a smuggler posing as one of her parents.

It was the beginning of a long tale of exploitation for Laura — one of many such stories in Moldova in eastern Europe, which aims to become the first country in the world to pilot blockchain to tackle decades of widespread human trafficking.

Trafficking generates illegal profits of $150 billion a year globally, with about 40 million people estimated to be trapped as modern-day slaves — mostly women and girls — in forced labor and forced marriages, according to leading anti-slavery groups.

The digital tool behind the cryptocurrency bitcoin is increasingly being tested for social causes, from Coca-Cola creating a workers’ registry to fight forced labor to tracking supply chains, such as cobalt which is often mined by children.

Moldova has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in Europe as widespread poverty and unemployment drive many young people, mostly women, to look for work overseas, according to the United Nations migration agency (IOM).

Due to the hidden nature of trafficking and the stigma attached, it is unknown how many people in the former Soviet country have been trafficked abroad but IOM has helped some 3,400 victims — 10 percent of whom were children — since 2001.

In Russia, Laura was forced to toil long hours, beaten and never paid. After ending up in hospital, she was rescued by a doctor, only to be trafficked again a few years later when an abusive partner sold her into prostitution.

She now lives with her daughter in a rehabilitation center in the northern village of Palaria with help from the charity CCF Moldova.

“I had a lot of suffering,” the 36-year-old said. “I am very afraid of being sold again, afraid about my child.”

​Scans and bribes

Moldova plans to launch a pilot of its digital identity project this year, working with the Brooklyn-based software company ConsenSys, which won a U.N. competition in March to design an identity system to combat child trafficking.

Undocumented children are easy prey for traffickers using fake documents to transport them across borders to work in brothels or to sell their organs, experts say.

More than 40,000 Moldovan children have been left behind by parents who have migrated abroad for work, often with little supervision, according to IOM.

“A lot of children are staying just with their grandfathers or grandmas, spending [more] time in the streets,” said Lilian Levandovschi, head of Moldova’s anti-trafficking police unit.

Moldova, with a population of 3.5 million, is among the poorest countries in Europe with an average monthly disposable income of 2,250 Moldovan Leu ($135), government data shows.

ConsenSys aims to create a secure, digital identity on a blockchain — or decentralized digital ledger shared by a network of computers — for Moldovan children, linking their personal identities with other family members.

Moldova has strengthened its anti-trafficking laws since Laura’s ordeal and children now need to carry a passport and be accompanied by a parent, or an adult carrying a letter of permission signed by a guardian, to exit the country.

With the blockchain system, children attempting to cross the border would be asked to scan their eyes or fingerprints.

A phone alert would notify their legal guardians, requiring at least two to approve the crossing, said Robert Greenfield who is managing the ConsenSys project.

Any attempt to take a child abroad without their guardians’ permission would be permanently recorded on the database, which would detect patterns of behavior to help catch traffickers and could be used as evidence in court.

“Nobody can bribe someone to delete that information,” said Mariana Dahan, co-founder of World Identity Network (WIN), an initiative promoting digital identities and a partner in the blockchain competition.

Corruption and official complicity in trafficking are significant problems in Moldova, according to the U.S. State Department, which last year downgraded it to Tier 2 in a watchlist of those not doing enough to fight modern day slavery.

Moldova is eager to prove that it is taking action, as a further demotion could block access to U.S. aid and loans.

​Tricked

Many details have yet to be agreed before the blockchain project starts, including funding, populations targeted, the type of biometrical data collected, and where it will be stored.

But the scheme is facing resistance from some anti-trafficking groups who say it will not help the majority of victims — children trafficked within Moldova’s borders and adults who are tricked when they travel abroad seeking work.

“As long as we don’t have job opportunities … trafficking will still remain a problem for Moldova,” said IOM’s Irina Arap.

Minors made up less than 20 percent of 249 domestic and international trafficking victims identified in 2017, said Ecaterina Berejan, head of Moldova’s anti-trafficking agency.

“For Moldova, this is not a very big problem,” she said, referring to cross-border child trafficking, adding that child victims may travel with valid documents as their families are in cahoots with traffickers in some cases.

But supporters of the blockchain initiative say low official trafficking figures do not account for undetected cases, and they have a duty to attempt to stay ahead of the criminals.

“Many times, authorities are late in using latest technologies,” said Mihail Beregoi, state secretary for Moldova’s internal affairs ministry. “Usually organized crime uses them first and more successfully. … Any effort [to] secure at least one child is already worth trying.”
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Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, welcomed on Tuesday the adoption by Ukraine’s parliament of a law to create an anti-corruption court, but said lawmakers needed to amend it to guarantee the court’s effectiveness.

Creating an independent and trustworthy court dedicated to handling corruption cases is one of the key conditions for Ukraine to receive further funding under its $17.5 billion aid-for-reforms program from the IMF.

Earlier in June, parliament passed the law after months of delay, but the draft contained an amendment that activists said would undermine the reform by allowing appeals on existing cases to be handled by the current courts system.

In the Fund’s first direct comments on the law, Lagarde said she had spoken with President Petro Poroshenko and said she was encouraged by the adoption of the legislation.

“We agreed that it is now important for parliament to quickly approve … the necessary amendments to restore the requirement that the HACC (anti-corruption court) will adjudicate all cases under its jurisdiction,” she said in a statement.

The law is meant to ring-fence court decisions from political pressure or bribery in Ukraine, where entrenched corruption remains a deterrent to foreign investors and knocks two percentage points off Ukraine’s economic growth each year, according to the IMF.

Establishing the court, adjusting gas prices and honouring budget commitments are key conditions to unlock the next loan tranche under the IMF program, which expires next year.

Lagarde said she and Poroshenko had “also agreed to work closely together, including with the government, toward the timely implementation of this and other actions, notably related to gas prices and the budget.”
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Chancellor Angela Merkel coolly rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s assertion that migrants were behind a surge in crime in Germany, pointing to statistics that showed crime was in fact down.

“My answer is that the interior minister presented the crime statistics a short while ago and they speak for themselves,” Merkel told a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron when asked about a recent flurry of tweets from Trump.

“We are seeing a slight positive development. We must always do more to fight criminiality. But they were very encouraging numbers,” she added.

Statistics published last month showed that overall crime fell 9.6 percent in Germany in 2017.

A government-sponsored study published in January showed that violent crime had risen about 10 percent in 2015 and 2016, attributing more than 90 percent of the rise to young male asylum seekers.

Merkel has faced opposition at home for a decision in 2015 to open Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly Middle Eastern asylum seekers who crossed by sea from Turkey to Greece and overland through the Balkans. That route has since been closed under a 2016 deal Turkey-EU deal.

In a tweet on Monday, Trump said that the people of Germany were turning against their leadership because of loose migration policies.

“Crime is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture,” Trump said.

He followed that up with a tweet on Tuesday that said: “Crime in Germany is up 10% plus [officials do not want to report these crimes] since migrants were accepted. Others countries are even worse. Be smart America!”

His tweets come amid a storm of criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for his administration’s policy of detaining immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said it was “not the American president’s role to speculate —  as he did yesterday — that the German people would march towards the chancellery to remove Mrs. Merkel.”

“Mr. Trump may govern the USA, he doesn’t govern Europe,” Juncker added.
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Italy’s new right-wing interior minister Matteo Salvini said his department has to look into “the Roma question” in Italy — a comment the opposition said reminds them of Italian fascism.

Salvini said Monday he wants to take a census of Italy’s Roma population.

“Unfortunately, we will have to keep the Italian Roma because we can’t expel them,” Salvini told Telelombardia television.

Center-left politicians immediately jumped on Salvini’s comments, likening it to ethnic cleansing.

“You can work for security and respect for rules without becoming fascistic,” lawmaker Ettore Rosato tweeted. “The announced census of Roma is vulgar and demagogical.”

But Salvini said he wants to help the Roma, an itinerant ethnic group. He said he wants to know who they are and where they live, and protect Roma children, whose parents he said did not want them to integrate into society.

“We are aiming primarily to care for the children who aren’t allowed to go to school regularly because they prefer to introduce them to a life of crime,” he said.

The interior minister said he has no desire to take fingerprints of the Roma or keep index cards of individuals. He also said he wants to see how European Union funds earmarked to help the Roma are spent.

Many Roma live in camps on the outskirts of Italian cities. They complain of lifelong discrimination, being denied job and educational opportunities.

But officials say many Roma are responsible for petty crimes, such as pickpocketing and theft.

Salvini’s comments about the Roma came a week after Italy refused to let a shipload of migrants dock at an Italian port. Spain gave permission for the ship to dock in its country Sunday.
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France’s finance minister promised to cut red tape on companies, open up more financing for them and create incentives for employee profit-sharing under a new bill presented on Monday.

The proposed law is part of President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-business reform drive that has already eased labour laws and cut companies’ and entrepreneurs’ taxes.

“The law’s ultimate objective is more growth and the creation of a new French economic growth model,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters.

Le Maire said that by 2025 the overhaul of French corporate law was expected to boost overall gross domestic product by one percent over the long term.

The new law aims to address one long-standing complaint from business owners about a complex system that imposes new charges in multiple stages as companies increase their workforce.

The bill would simplify the system, Le Maire said, by halving the number of those stages to three — bringing in new charges and obligations when a company has 11, 50 and then 250 employees.

It would also make it easier, cheaper and faster to register a company, giving entrepreneurs a single online platform to replace the current round of seven administrative bodies.

Liquidation of insolvent companies will be sped up so business owners can move on and bankruptcy law will give more power to creditors who have a stake in seeing the firm survive, the minister added.

The government aims to boost the more than 220 billion euros French people currently hold in long-term retirement savings, which it hopes will make more funds available to be invested in companies’ capital.

To do that, employees’ voluntary contributions will largely be made tax-deductible for all types of savings products and they will be able to transfer savings from one money manager to another at no cost, potentially boosting competition, according to a statement on the bill.

The government aims to make profit-sharing much more common in small companies by scrapping charges employers currently have to make on payouts to employees.

Largely because of that measure, the new law is expected to cost the government 1.2 billion euros annually, which Le Maire said would be paid for by planned cuts in subsidies to companies.

The law also sets the stage for several large privatizations with the proceeds already earmarked for a new 10 billion euro innovation fund.

It will in particular lift legal restraints on selling down stakes in airport operator ADP and energy group Engie while allowing the national lottery FDA to be privatized.

While some left-wing and far-right politicians have said the sales amounted to selling the family jewels, Macron’s party has a sufficiently large parliamentary majority to pass the bill with little trouble early next year.
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The remains of fascist dictator Francisco Franco could soon be removed from a state-funded mausoleum under a plan by Spain’s new socialist government to transform the monument into a place to remember the civil war rather than glorify the dictatorship.

This would be the latest of a raft of high-profile measures launched by Spain’s new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to cement his power and lure left-wing voters ahead of a general election due by mid-2020.

Sanchez, who toppled his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy in a confidence vote last month, controls less than a quarter of the seats in parliament.

“The decision about exhuming Franco’s remains is quite clear,” Oscar Puente, a senior member of the socialist party who is close to Sanchez, told a news conference.

The civil war still casts a shadow over the country nearly eight decades after its end. Lack of accountability for the war has left wounds unhealed, and pressure has grown to turn the site into a memorial honoring those who died on both sides.

Puente said the government’s plans were to transform the state-funded Valley of the Fallen mausoleum into “a place of recognition and memory of all Spaniards.”

The 150-meter cross of the monument, built by prisoners of war, towers over the Guadarrama Sierra, a mountain range just outside Madrid.

Opened by Franco himself in 1959, the Valley houses a Catholic basilica set into a hillside, where the founder of Spain’s fascist Falange party, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, is also interred. It has long been a site of pilgrimage for far-right groups in Spain.

The conservative People’s Party has opposed attempts to exhume Franco’s body when they were in power, saying it would only stir up painful memories more than four decades after his death and nearly 80 years after the end of the war.

The Spanish parliament, however, passed a motion last year to remove Franco’s remains as well as those of tens of thousands of other people buried at the mausoleum.

Many of those interred there fought for the losing Republican side and were moved to the monument under Franco’s dictatorship without their families’ permission.
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Discarded life jackets on a beach in Greece inspired an artwork by a teenager who wanted to learn more about the refugee crisis. Seventeen-year-old Achilleas Souras hopes his project, called SOS – Save Our Souls, inspires others to learn more about their plight. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles.
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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says thousands of migrants trekking through the Balkans are “in desperate need of basic humanitarian services and support.”

IFRC said Monday, “More than 5,600 people have reached Bosnia and Herzegovina since the beginning of January, compared with just 754 across the whole of 2017.”

“We are concerned that people are not receiving the assistance they need,” said Simon Missiri, IFRC regional director for Europe. “People are keen to keep moving and are reluctant to access state services for fear of being detained.”

Missiri said, “Red Cross Societies in the Balkans are doing what they can to reach and help people migrating through their territories, but the scale and complexity of this operation is such that more assistance is needed.”

The Red Cross said 100 of its volunteers in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina are serving hundreds of hot meals everyday at an abandoned university campus where they are also distributing sleeping bags, clothes and hygiene kits and are providing medical assistance to people who have been “sleeping in the open.”

Bosnia and Herzegovina, the statement says, “is the most mine contaminated country in Europe” and “some mine fields are still active in the areas where people are trying to cross the border.” Red Cross volunteers are distributing flyers to warn the migrants about the danger.

“These people are extremely vulnerable,” said Missouri. “Regardless of their migration status, they, like everyone, should be able to access basic services, and should be protected from harm.”

 
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German authorities have arrested the chief executive of Volkswagen’s Audi division, Rupert Stadler.

He was arrested Monday as part of an investigation about cars Audi sold in Europe that are believed to have been equipped with software that turned emissions controls off during regular driving.

Last week, Munich prosecutors raided Stadler’s home on suspicion of fraud and improprieties of documents.

Volkswagen Audi said “the presumption of innocence remains in place for Mr. Stadler.”

Volkswagen has pleaded guilty to emissions test cheating in the United States.

CEO Martin Winterkorn was charged in the United States, but he will unlikely face those charges since Germany does not extradite its nationals to countries outside the European Union.
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One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers said Sunday he is advising him to not pardon anyone linked to the year-long investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election because it would “just cloud” the perception that there was wrong-doing.  

Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor and part of Trump’s legal team, told CNN, “You’re not going to get a pardon because you’re involved” in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. But he said that in the months to come pardons were “certainly not excluded” if Trump concluded “you’ve been treated unfairly.”

“The president has issued no pardons in this investigation,” Giuliani said. “The president is not going to issue pardons in this investigation.”

“And my advice to him, as long as I’m his lawyer, is not to do it,” he said. “Because you just cloud what is becoming now a very clear picture of an extremely unfair investigation with no criminality involved of any kind. I want that to come out loud and clear and not get clouded by anybody being fired or anybody being pardoned.”

Trump has pardoned several conservative icons in recent weeks, but Giuliani said no one being investigated by Mueller “should rely on it.”

Even so, he said, “When it’s over, hey, he’s the president of the United States. He retains his pardon power. Nobody’s taking that away from him. He can pardon in his judgment based on the Justice Department, counsel’s office, not me. I’m out of it. And I shouldn’t be involved in that process because I’m probably too rooted in his defense, but I couldn’t and I don’t want to take prerogatives away from him.“

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was jailed last week, prompting new questions whether Trump might pardon him. Manafort is accused of witness tampering in a criminal case that stems from his lobbying efforts for Ukraine years before he was a top Trump aide for nearly five months during the 2016 campaign.

Trump attacked Manafort’s jailing, saying on Twitter, “Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort …. Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob…. Very unfair!”

There is no indication when Mueller’s investigation might end. He is probing whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian interests to help him win and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey when he was leading the agency’s Russia investigation before Mueller, over Trump’s objections, was appointed to take over the probe.

In a new broadside against the investigation, Trump tweeted, “WITCH HUNT! There was no Russian Collusion. Oh, I see, there was no Russian Collusion, so now they look for obstruction on the no Russian Collusion. The phony Russian Collusion was a made up Hoax. Too bad they didn’t look at Crooked Hillary like this. Double Standard!” His reference to “Crooked Hillary” is his oft-repeated pejorative for his 2016 challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Giuliani called for investigation of the origins of the Mueller investigation, contending it was “premised on Comey’s illegally leaked memo” about the FBI’s director’s private conversations with Trump.

“There’s a lot of unfairness out there, but we don’t know the scope of it,” Giuliani said.

 
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A woman crying “Allahu akbar” — “God is great” in Arabic — injured two people with a box cutter Sunday at a supermarket in southern France before she was detained.

A customer in the store in the maritime town of La Seyne-sur-Mer was injured in the chest and hospitalized. A woman working the cash register was hurt less seriously, French radio station Europe 1 quoted the prosecutor in nearby Toulon as saying.

Prosecutor Bernard Marchal said the suspect may have mental health problems. She has not been identified. Police were searching her home.

“It’s apparently an isolated case involving a person with psychiatric issues,” the prosecutor told Le Monde newspaper quoted the prosecutor as saying. However, that does not exclude the possibility that the suspect was radicalized, Marchal added.

“There is a presumption of attempted murder and … of a crime with terrorist implications,” Marchal was quoted as saying.

Regional newspaper Nice-Matin, which first reported the 10:30 a.m. attack, quoted an unidentified witness as saying that people in the store stopped the woman from cutting anyone else.

A sense of edginess has been with France since a murderous series of killings in 2015 in the name of the Islamic State group. Adding to concerns are the hundreds of French who have traveled to the Iraq-Syria war zone, or are returning as IS crumbles.

In March, an hours-long attack and hostage-taking in a supermarket near the southern French town of Carcassonne left four people dead. A man attacked people near the Paris Opera house in May, killing one person and injuring four, an action claimed by the Islamic State

Last week, a man who took hostages in a Paris building was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit.

 
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A deep rift over migration policy between Angela Merkel and a rebellious interior minister is threatening to upend the German chancellor’s fragile governing alliance formed earlier this year after weeks of laborious talks.

The German chancellor’s 13-year rule will be on the line in the event Horst Seehofer, a member of the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union, a junior partner in the coalition government, defies Merkel by ordering border guards to turn back migrants arriving Monday at German borders.

Neither the chancellor nor minister appeared Sunday to be in any mood to compromise. Seehofer blamed the chancellor in remarks to German newspapers for the crisis, saying it is a consequence of her 2015 decision to adopt an “open border” policy that has allowed more than a million migrants and refugees to enter Germany.

CSU’s top official in Bavaria, Markus Soder, tweeted: “We must finally secure our borders effectively. This, of course, includes rejection. Asylum tourism must be terminated.”

Analysts say Merkel would likely have no choice but to fire Seehofer for his open revolt against her if he goes ahead with his threat to shutter the border for migrants, collapsing the coalition as a consequence and triggering likely elections.

Merkel fears an abrupt shutting out of asylum-seekers by Germany will prompt other EU countries to follow suit, imperiling an orderly negotiated EU-wide deal. The stakes are high not only for her, but also for the bloc as it searches to craft a migration policy all its fractious states can agree to, and for the CSU, which faces elections in October in its home region of Bavaria and fears the rising support for the far-right AfD party.

In her weekly podcast, Merkel acknowledged the need for changes, but said, “This is a European challenge that also needs a European solution. And I view this issue as decisive for keeping Europe together.”

At the moment the member states are anything but united over migration, and in the words of British commentator and historian Niall Ferguson, the EU melting pot is at risk of melting down.

The German crisis is playing against the backdrop of drama in the Mediterranean, where Rome is refusing to allow NGO ships carrying migrants rescued at sea to dock at Italian ports. It comes as the nationalist populist-led governments of Italy, Austria and Hungary are negotiating what they are terming an “axis of the willing,” an alliance of anti-migration member states that will adopt a hard collective line on asylum-seekers in order to provoke a confrontation with EU leaders later this month.

In 2016, 2.4 million migrants entered the European Union, bringing the total of the foreign-born population in the bloc to nearly 40 million.

Having ridden into power on a tide of anti-migrant sentiment, populists in Central Europe have been further galvanized by Italy’s coalition government formed by Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega and Luigi Di Maio’s Five Star Movement (M5S).

The new Italian government increased the political temperature over migration earlier this month when Interior Minister Salvini announced a ban on humanitarian rescue ships docking at Italian ports after picking up migrants in the waters off Libya. Salvini argues the rescue ships are indirectly encouraging smugglers and migrants and are in effect in league with traffickers.

On Sunday three ships, an NGO vessel and two Italian naval ships, carrying more than 600 migrants docked in the Spanish port of Valencia. They were rescued a week ago off the coast of Libya and have remained at sea while the European Union insisted Italy had a duty to admit them. The ban prompted an exchange of insults between Paris and Rome.

Speaking Friday in Paris after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime minister Giuseppe Conte said EU rules have to change with a re-writing of the Dublin Treaty that requires migrants to claim asylum in the first country they arrive.” The concept itself of the ‘state of first entry’ must be rethought,” he said. President Macron argued against any unilateral action by individual member state, saying there had to be an overall European response to migrants.

But Macron accepts change is needed, saying “the existing European response has not adapted.”

In Valencia, the Spanish Red Cross set up a reception center staffed by more than 1,000 volunteers and 400 translators.

More than 23,000 migrants have reached European shores this year, with about 42 percent arriving in Italy from Libya. Thirty-eight percent arrived in Greece from Turkey and 20 percent arrived in Spain from Morocco, according to the International Organization for Migration.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May will pledge a cash boost to the National Health Service, to be funded partly from tax hikes and partly from money that will no longer be going to the European Union after Brexit, newspapers reported Saturday.

May will pledge to increase the NHS budget by 20 billion pounds ($26.6 billion) a year, or 384 million pounds a week, after Brexit, according to front-page reports in the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Observer, which were published late Saturday.

The announcement, timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS, which delivers care for free to everyone living in Britain, aims to foster unity in the government and the country after two years of bitter divisions over Brexit, the reports said.

An official spokeswoman from May’s No. 10 Downing Street said she did not have the details available. She said the reports were the result of unofficial briefings by special advisers.

Downing Street had earlier said May would deliver a speech about the NHS on Monday, giving no further details. Special advisers are known to sometimes brief the content of speeches to newspapers ahead of time for their own purposes. 

The NHS budget increase was expected to take place over five years, reaching the full amount in 2023-24, the newspapers said.

Britain’s official exit date from the European Union is March 29, 2019.

Pro-Brexit claim

During the 2016 referendum campaign on EU membership, the pro-Brexit camp claimed that Britain was sending 350 million pounds a week to the EU and should spend that money on the NHS instead.

The claim was controversial because the figure of 350 million pounds did not take into account Britain’s sizable rebate or the payments that were flowing back from the EU to Britain, so it was widely seen as overstating Britain’s

contribution to the bloc.

The newspapers said the 384 million-a-week pledge was politically significant from May — who campaigned against Brexit in 2016 and has been under pressure from hard-line Brexiters ever since to prove her conversion to the cause — because it went above and beyond 350 million.

Jeremy Hunt, the health minister who also campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU, was quoted by the Sunday Telegraph as saying that the new pledge “can now unite us all.”

The newspaper said the precise details of how the spending increase would be funded would be disclosed in a future government budget.
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Pope Francis denounced abortion on Saturday as the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics program and urged families to accept the children that God gives them.

Francis spoke off the cuff to a meeting of an Italian family association, ditching his prepared remarks to speak from the heart about families and the trials they undergo. He lamented how some couples choose not to have any children, while others resort to prenatal testing to see whether their baby has any malformations or genetic problems.

“The first proposal in such a case is, ‘Do we get rid of it?’ ” Francis said. “The murder of children. To have an easy life, they get rid of an innocent.”

Francis recalled that as a child he was horrified to hear stories from his teacher about children “thrown from the mountain” if they were born with malformations.

“Today we do the same thing,” he said.

“Last century, the whole world was scandalized by what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today, we do the same thing but with white gloves,” Francis said.

The pope urged families to accept children “as God gives them to us.”

Francis has repeated the strict anti-abortion stance of his predecessors and integrated it into his broader condemnation of what he calls today’s “throwaway culture.” He has frequently lamented how the sick, the poor, the elderly and the unborn are considered by some to be unworthy of protection and dignity.

He has also decried how women are often considered part of this “throwaway culture,” sometimes forced to prostitute themselves.

“How many of you pray for these women who are thrown away, for these women who are used, for these girls who have to sell their own dignity to have a job?” Francis asked during his morning homily Friday.

Francis has dedicated much of his pontificate to preaching about families, marriage and the problems that families today encounter. He is expected to highlight these issues during his August trip to Ireland, where he’ll close out the Catholic Church’s big family rally.
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Following a red carpet arrival Saturday at the New Orleans Museum of Art, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain enjoyed music by a jazz group and a cultural performance by Mardi Gras Indians as they ended a visit to the city celebrating its tricentennial.

After a private lunch with New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser and other dignitaries and officials, the royals departed New Orleans for San Antonio, Texas, which is also celebrating 300 years of existence.

“It was a great and amazing weekend for the city, our residents and the king and queen for them to come back to a former Spanish colony,” said Trey Caruso, a spokesman for Cantrell’s office.

Musical connections

Clarinetist, music historian and Xavier University Spanish professor Michael White said he and his Original Liberty Brass Band played two pieces with a connection to Europe and New Orleans at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The first piece was Panama, a march in the traditional European style.

“It was published in 1911, and all over the country it was played by and read by brass bands,” White said prior to the performance. “But in New Orleans they kind of threw away the sheet music and improvised, and therefore made it personal. I think it’s a good way to show the interaction between European culture and New Orleans culture.”

The second piece, Andalusian Strut, was one of White’s compositions. It combines a common flamenco structure and flamenco-type rhythms and melodies with classic New Orleans jazz style and improvisation, he said.

“That one went over really, really well,” White said after the event. “The king and all of the people there really loved it.”

White said their third song was When the Saints Go Marching In, which White described as “probably the most famous song in New Orleans history.”

“We surprised them by singing the chorus in Spanish,” he said.

The Mardi Gras Indians, groups of African-Americans who create elaborate feathered and beaded costumes in which they strut and dance through the streets on Mardi Gras, performed as well.

“Though the program was relatively short, I think overall it gave a good idea of New Orleans’ culture,” White said.

Arrived Thursday

Felipe and Letizia flew in Thursday evening to Louisiana, which was a Spanish colony from 1763 to 1802. They arrived at New Orleans’ airport at sunset and were greeted by several officials, including Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and Cantrell.

They saluted New Orleans’ centuries-old Spanish heritage at an event Friday at Gallier Hall, a former City Hall opened in 1853 and renovated for the city’s 300th anniversary. That evening, they visited two buildings erected under Spanish rule: St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, the Spanish government seat in Louisiana.

On Monday they’ll go to Washington for a White House visit Tuesday with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump.
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The phrase ‘don’t mix politics and sport’ is often heard in Moscow these days. But it’s difficult to escape the unique circumstances of this year’s World Cup. As the tournament gets underway in Russia, the country remains subject to a range of international sanctions over its annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin sees the World Cup as an opportunity to break that isolation and present a different image of Russia.
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After trading insults this week over the fate of a migrant ship, French and Italian leaders presented a more united front Friday, demanding an overhaul to Europe’s migration policies ahead of a European Union summit on the subject later this month.

As French President Emmanuel Macron hosted Italian Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte in Paris, their rhetoric seemed very similar, even though they come from two very different political backgrounds. Their message: European policies for taking in migrants and sharing the burden aren’t working.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Conte at the French presidential palace, Macron said Europe’s collective response toward migration was not good, adding it was unable to respond to today’s challenges.

Macron outlined a number of areas that he believes need reform, from tougher patrolling and control of the EU’s external borders, to working more closely with countries of origin and transit, and more fairly sharing the migration burden within Europe — a concept that has so far not worked in practice.

Macron also tied migration reforms closely to eurozone reforms, which he is leading.

In remarks translated on France 24 TV, Conte also argued for the European Union to change direction on migration, including establishing hot spots to process asylum claims outside European borders.

“We have to establish centers of protection in Europe and the countries of origin and transit to prevent and accelerate processes of asylum seekers,” he said.

The show of unity was a sharp change from earlier in the week, when Italy’s new government demanded an official apology from Macron, who denounced it of being cynical and irresponsible’ for refusing to take in a roving migrant ship. The ship, Aquarius, is now heading to Spain. It is due to arrive in Valencia on Sunday.

Macron has also faced some domestic criticism for not taking in the Aquarius migrants, although the French government now says it may accept some asylum seekers. Hard-right politicians, in contrast, are sharply against the idea.

These divisions are reflected across Europe, where populist parties in Italy, Austria, and Hungary have adopted tough positions on migration. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her interior minister are also at odds on the issue.

Amid the disagreements, the number of migrants arriving in Europe has dropped sharply, from a high of 1.2 million in 2015 and 2016, to about 650,000 last year.
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