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Following are some of the many possible contenders to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as EU chief executive after elections to the European Parliament in May.

Apart from electoral uncertainty, it is unclear that national leaders will follow Parliament’s call for them to pick a European Commission president from among the lead candidates of parties contesting the ballot.

Conservatives

Manfred Weber — An MEP for 14 years, the 46-year-old German has led the biggest EU parliamentary group since 2014. He has declared he will run and he can be confident of support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel despite his youthful years and lack of the government experience that is usual for commission presidents. Diplomats in Brussels say, however, Merkel could still drop Weber to secure another prominent job for Germany, like the head of the European Central Bank, which also comes vacant next autumn.

Michel Barnier — The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator ruled himself

out of the race on Friday.

Alexander Stubb — The former Finnish prime minister announced he would challenge Weber at an EPP nominating convention in Helsinki on Nov. 8. Stubb, 50, competes in “Iron Man” triathlons and is multilingual, unlike Weber, who does not speak French, or Barnier, who rarely seems comfortable in English.

Other names cited have included Merkel allies Peter Altmaier and Ursula von der Leyen and French IMF managing director Christine Lagarde — not to mention the wild card of Merkel herself, who is now in her fourth term.

Socialists

Marcos Sefcovic — The Moscow-educated Slovak diplomat who has worked in Brussels since 2004 and is Juncker’s vice president for energy, said in June he would run. He is 52. Sources in Brussels say he stands no chance in the top job race but will be Bratislava’s pick for a portfolio in the next commission.

Christian Kern — Austria’s former chancellor, Kern is known for his strongly pro-European stance. He said earlier this month he would seek to win a seat in the European Parliament next May.

​Federica Mogherini — The 45-year-old was catapulted into the high-ranked commission post of EU foreign policy chief in 2014. She could benefit from efforts to promote female candidates and a better left-right balance in Brussels but may struggle to get the necessary support from the new populist coalition in Rome.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt — Danish prime minister until 2015, at 51 she is perennially cited as a center-left hope for senior EU roles but lacks backing from the ruling right in Copenhagen.

Frans Timmermans — Juncker’s Dutch deputy, 57, is a former foreign minister and passionate, multilingual advocate for the EU but his party’s national eclipse counts against him.

Pierre Moscovici — Former French finance minister, 60, now EU economics commissioner, his party’s national disarray is also a disadvantage, as is German wariness over his commitment to Berlin’s vision of a eurozone of tight public finances.

Nadia Calvino — Long a senior commission civil servant, at 50 she has the rare distinction for EU Socialists of being in government, having been named Madrid’s economy minister in June.

Liberals

Guy Verhofstadt — Former Belgian prime minister who leads the liberals in the EU parliament, his age (65) and outspoken advocacy of much more powers for Brussels may limit his appeal. 

Margrethe Vestager — As a woman, age 50 and with a star profile in Brussels from attacking tax avoidance and monopoly powers among U.S. multinationals like Google and Apple as the EU competition commissioner, the Danish former economy minister is widely talked about as a liberal who could win support beyond her party — even if Denmark’s ruling conservatives oppose her.

​Cecilia Malmstrom — Another straight-talking, 50-year-old Scandinavian woman who has had a big role in Brussels’ tussles with Washington, the EU trade commissioner and former Swedish Europe minister could tick similar boxes to Vestager.

Mark Rutte — Dutch prime minister for eight years, the 51-year-old may be tempted by a new job. He is solidly pro-EU but appeals to those who want its budgets and powers kept in check.

Xavier Bettel — In five years as Luxembourg prime minister, during which he married his male partner, the 45-year-old has built good relations with fellow national leaders. They might balk at choosing another Luxemburger after Juncker, but his friendship with the even younger Macron could be an asset.
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Greenland Prime Minister Kim Kielsen presented a new minority government on Tuesday, ending a political crisis that started when he lost his majority last month with the withdrawal of a pro-independence party.

Kielsen of the social democrat Siumut party told a press conference in the capital Nuuk that he had agreed with the liberal-conservative party Atassut and the separatist, center-left party Nunatta Qitornai to form a minority government with the support of The Democrats, state broadcaster KNR reported.

A political stalemate on the Arctic island has delayed expansion of major airport projects of strategic interest to both Washington and Beijing and created uncertainty over an ambition to attract foreign investments into its vast hydrocarbon and mineral resources.

Greenland, eager to benefit from growing activity in the Arctic, plans to expand airports in the capital Nuuk, the tourist hub in Ilulissat and at Qaqortoq in southern Greenland to cater for direct flights from Europe and North America.

The Arctic island is a self-ruling part of Denmark, which is concerned that Chinese investment — on the agenda since Greenland’s Prime Minister Kim Kielsen visited Beijing last year — could upset the United States.

Pro-independence party Partii Naleraq on Sept. 10 withdrew from a coalition formed in May over Denmark’s plan to part-fund the upgrade of two airports.

Kielsen’s Siumut, the two other parties in the coalition, Atassut and Nunatta Qitornai, and the supporting Democrats all back a proposed Danish contribution to the airports.

“I think the new government can survive at least a year,” Mikaa Mered, an Arctic expert and professor at the Ileri institute in Paris.

“Siumut and Kim Kielsen are trying to signal investors that they are really committed to their pro-business, pro-mining and pro-uranium platform,” Mered said.

The three parties will hold 13 seats in the 31 seats in parliament.

Kielsen’s Siumut party is the largest party in Greenland.

The second biggest party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) was left out of the coalition.

Greenland relies on fishing and annual grants from Denmark.
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A female suspect allegedly paid tens of thousands of euros for the assassination of a Slovak reporter, whose death shocked the nation and led to the resignation of its prime minister, prosecutors said Monday.

The suspect, identified as Alena Zs, allegedly ordered the murder, paying €50,000 ($58,100) and forgiving a debt of €20,000. The hitman was identified as Tomas Sz, a former police officer. Two other accomplices are in custody.

Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were found dead from gunshots wounds at their home near Bratislava in February.  Kuciak, 27, had been reporting on links between Slovak politicians and the Italian mafia. Prosecutors say he was killed to prevent his story from being published. Kusnirova was apparently an unintended victim.

Kuciak’s death was the first targeted killing of a journalist in the country’s history. Public outcry against the murders and government corruption was so strong that Prime Minister Robert Fico was forced to resign in March.

Local media reported Alena Zs had been an interpreter for Slovak multimillionaire Marian Kocner, whose business activities were being scrutinized by Kuciak at the time of his death. Kocner is reportedly the godfather of the Alena Zs’ daughter. 

Kocner, 55, owns several companies. He has been in custody since June on suspicion of having forged promissory notes. He has not been charged in connection with Kuciak’s killing. 

Observers say the murders are characteristic of a European political climate that has increasingly shifted away from freedom of the press.

“Despite the fact that Slovakia is a democracy and is an EU member, there has been this somewhat negative trend in regards to media freedom for some time,” Gulnoza Said of the Committee to Protect Journalists told VOA News. “It climaxed this year when Jan Kuciak and his fiancée were found murdered.”

“That just shows that even the situation in countries that have always been, or at least for some time have been considered democracies, is changing,” she said.
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Britain cannot be bullied, Brexit minister Dominic Raab said on Monday, sharpening the government’s criticism of the European Union for taunting Prime Minister Theresa May and souring difficult Brexit talks.

May’s ministers have come out one by one at their party’s annual conference in the city of Birmingham to warn the EU that they will embrace leaving without a deal if the bloc fails to show “respect” in the talks to end Britain’s membership.

Just six months before Britain is due to leave the EU in the country’s biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years, May faces growing criticism over her proposals not only in her governing party but also in Brussels.

Party unity is on British ministers’ minds, and they are encouraging the faithful to direct their anger at the EU rather than at their prime minister, who some eurosceptic Conservatives accuse of leading Britain towards a “Brexit in name only.”

But the new strident tone has annoyed many in Brussels, especially when foreign minister Jeremy Hunt compared the bloc to the Soviet Union, the master of several states in eastern Europe which saw membership of the EU as a measure of their freedom.

Other ministers, such as finance minister Philip Hammond, have taken a softer tone, pointing out that leaving without a deal could hurt Britain’s economy, the world’s fifth largest.

But Raab said he had called on the EU to match the “ambition and pragmatism” Britain had put forward with May’s Chequers proposals, named after her country residence where an agreement with her ministers was hashed out in July.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t on display in Salzburg,” he said, describing a summit last month in the Austrian city where EU leaders rejected parts of the Chequers plan. “Our prime minister has been constructive and respectful. In return we heard jibes from senior leaders and we saw a starkly one-sided approach to negotiation.”

“What is unthinkable is that this government, or any British government, could be bullied by the threat of some kind of economic embargo, into signing a one-sided deal against our country’s interests,” Raab said, later calling again on the EU to move their position and meet Britain half way.

Instead of the much-hoped-for staging post, the Salzburg summit has become a byword for a sharp deterioration in the atmosphere of the talks, when British government officials felt May was ambushed by the other EU leaders over Brexit.

“No Cherries”

A tweet by European Council President Donald Tusk showing him offering May a selection of cakes with the comment: “A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries” “certainly had an impact,” one official said.

With no divorce deal and a standoff over the shape of any future relationship, the possibility of a “no deal Brexit” has increased, with some businesses preparing for what they see as a worst case scenario.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the discussion in Britain over Brexit was still far removed from reality.

“The world is watching,” said Matthew Fell, chief U.K. policy director at the Confederation of British Industry.

“Every signal is hugely important in terms of setting the tone. So the more that people can coalesce around some areas of agreement such as an industrial strategy, innovation and skills would be hugely helpful,” he told Reuters.

But one source close to the government said there was now a sense that the EU had realized that the tone set in Salzburg was “perhaps a bit off” and, behind the scenes, conversations between the two sides were more constructive.

Raab later said the government was open to looking at regulatory checks to try to ease talks on a so-called backstop to prevent a return to a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland – one of the outstanding issues yet to be agreed.

Hammond, for one, was keen to pursue a more positive stance.

After Brexit, Britain and the EU will still “be neighbors and we are going to have to carry on living with each other,” he told the conference, again backing May’s Chequers plan. “Mr. Tusk says it won’t work. But that’s what people said about the light bulb in 1878. Our job is to prove him wrong.”

But Hunt’s popular line at conference, that the EU was acting like the Soviet Union, did little to soothe relations, provoking those eastern members of the bloc which only regained full independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They joined the EU more than a decade later.

Lithuania’s EU commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis told Hunt he was born in a Soviet gulag forced labour camp and was jailed by the Soviet KGB state security agency.

“Happy to brief you on the main differences between EU and Soviet Union,” he said. “Anytime. Whatever helps.”

But back in Birmingham, it was Raab, winning a standing ovation for his story about his father’s journey from then Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion, who summed up Britain’s new combative stance.

“The EU’s theological approach allows no room for serious compromise,” he said. “If the EU want a deal, they need to get serious.”
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Eurozone nations put Italy’s government under immediate pressure Monday over its budget proposals, which they said would pile more debt on Italians and skirt the rules of good fiscal housekeeping shared by the 19 nations using the euro currency.

Italy’s populist government announced last week it would increase spending next year, pushing the budget deficit out to 2.4 percent of GDP, past a 1.6 percent limit the government had earlier said it would observe. While still below the EU limit of 3 percent, the move breaks with Italy’s recent efforts to reduce its debts and sets up a clash with the country’s European partners.

“We are all bound by the euro and need sound policies to protect it,” eurogroup President Mario Centeno said after Italy was forced to explain itself at the monthly meeting of the group’s finance ministers.

A runaway budget deficit and massive debt load already brought eurozone member Greece to the brink of bankruptcy three years ago and threatened to break up the eurozone itself. No one wants that scenario to be repeated.

Italy has the eurozone’s highest debt load in Europe after Greece, and financial markets fell sharply last week when the Italian government unveiled its spending proposals.

“I cannot see how these figures can be compatible with our rules,” EU Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Monday as he joined the eurozone finance ministers.

He said Italy’s spending plans for the next three years were “a very significant deviation from the commitment which had been taken.”

Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said “the signals we are getting so far are not very reassuring.”

Italy sought to reassure its partners, with Italian Finance Minister Giovanni Tria saying they should “remain calm” and await his explanations.

The eurozone sets overall targets of 3 percent annual deficits and commits countries to move toward 60 percent overall debt. Currently, Italy’s debt stands at about 130 percent of GDP.

“I just want to be very clear, that there are rules,” said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. “Rules are the same for every state, because our futures our linked. The futures of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg — all the members of the eurozone — are linked.”

The Italian budget will go to the European Commission for vetting this month.
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French singer Charles Aznavour has died at the age of 94, French media reported on Monday, citing his spokesman.

Aznavour, who was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris to Armenian parents, sold more than 100 million records in 80 countries.

He was often described as France’s Frank Sinatra.

Aznavour began his career peddling his music to French artists of the 1940s and 1950s such as Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier and Charles Trenet.

He discovered his talent for penning songs while performing in cabarets with partner Pierre Roche, with Roche playing the piano and Aznavour singing.

It was after World War II that Piaf took notice of the duo and took them with her on a tour of the United States and Canada, with Aznavour composing some of her most popular hits.

The young Aznavour grew up on Paris’ Left Bank. His father was a singer who also worked as a cook and restaurant manager, and his mother was an actress.

Aznavour’s first public performances were at Armenian dances where his father and older sister Aida sang, and the young Charles danced.

President Emmanuel Macron was a big fan of Aznavour and sang many of his songs during karaoke nights with friends when he was a student, according to former classmates.

 
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European Union and NATO officials are urging Macedonia to move forward with procedures to change its name, which would pave the way for the country to join both entities.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in a tweet that he expects “all political leaders to respect this decision and take it forward with utmost responsibility and unity across party lines.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted: “I urge all political leaders and parties to engage constructively and responsibly to seize this historic opportunity,” adding that NATO’s door is still open to Macedonia “but all national procedures have to be completed.”

The United States also supported moving forward with the process. “We urge leaders to rise above partisan politics and seize this historic opportunity to secure a brighter future for the country as a full participant in Western institutions,” the State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

According to the electoral commission’s official count, more than 90 percent of those casting a ballot favored the name change to North Macedonia, although only one third of the electorate voted.

Macedonia’s electoral commission had said two days ago that the referendum results would be declared invalid if less than 50 percent of the eligible voting population went to the polls.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who had said he would resign if a vast majority of eligible voters did not approve the referendum, described the vote as a clear success, despite the low turnout.

Zaev said he would not resign because a “vast majority” of those who turned out Sunday approved the measure.

He urged lawmakers to ratify the necessary changes to the constitution, which would finalize the deal.

Macedonian nationalists, including President Gjorge Ivanov, had urged a boycott of the vote.

In a statement Sunday, the Greek Foreign Ministry said the “contradictory” vote — overwhelming approval, yet low turnout — would require Macedonia to move carefully to “preserve the positive potential of the deal.”

Athens has always argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that Macedonia’s use of the name implied Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

Greece’s objections forced Macedonia to use the awkward-sounding ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from membership in NATO and the EU as long it retained its name.

Macedonian President Ivanov had said giving in to Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”

He steadfastly refused to back the deal reached between Prime Minister Zaev and his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras that put the name change to a vote.
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Nobel Prizes are the most prestigious awards on the planet but the aura of this year’s announcements has been dulled by questions over why so few women have entered the pantheon, particularly in the sciences.

The march of Nobel announcements begins Monday with the physiology/medicine prize.

Since the first prizes were awarded in 1901, 892 individuals have received one, but just 48 of them have been women. Thirty of those women won either the literature or peace prize, highlighting the wide gender gap in the laureates for physics, chemistry and physiology/medicine. In addition, only one woman has won for the economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel but is associated with the prizes.

Some of the disparity likely can be attributed to underlying structural reasons, such as the low representation of women in high-level science. The American Institute of Physics, for example, says in 2014, only 10 percent of full physics professorships were held by women.

But critics suggest that gender bias pervades the process of nominations, which come largely from tenured professors.

“The problem is the whole nomination process, you have these tenured professors who feel like they are untouchable. They can get away with everything from sexual harassment to micro-aggressions like assuming the woman in the room will take the notes, or be leaving soon to have babies,” said Anne-Marie Imafidon, the head of Stemettes, a British group that encourages girls and young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“It’s little wonder that these people aren’t putting women forward for nominations. We need to be better at telling the stories of the women in science who are doing good things and actually getting recognition,” she said.

Powerful men taking credit for the ideas and elbow grease of their female colleagues was turned on its head in 1903 when Pierre Curie made it clear he would not accept the physics prize unless his wife and fellow researcher Marie Curie was jointly honored. She was the first female winner of any Nobel prize, but only one other woman has won the physics prize since then.

More than 70 years later, Jocelyn Bell, a post-graduate student at Cambridge, was overlooked for the physics prize despite her crucial contribution to the discovery of pulsars. Her supervisor, Antony Hewish, took all of the Nobel credit.

Brian Keating, a physics professor at the University of California San Diego and author of the book “Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor,” says the Nobel Foundation should lift its restrictions on re-awarding for a breakthrough if an individual has been overlooked. He also says posthumous awards also should be considered and there should be no restriction on the number of individuals who can share a prize. Today the limit is three people for one prize.

“These measures would go a long way to addressing the injustice that so few of the brilliant women who have contributed so much to science through the years have been overlooked,” he said.

Keating fears that simply accepting the disparity as structural will seriously harm the prestige of all the Nobel prizes.

“I think with the Hollywood (hash)MeToo movement, it has already happened in the film prizes. It has happened with the literature prize. There is no fundamental law of nature that the Nobel science prizes will continue to be seen as the highest accolade,” he said.

This year’s absence of a Nobel Literature prize, which has been won by 14 women, puts an even sharper focus on the gender gap in science prizes.

The Swedish Academy, which awards the literature prize, said it would not pick a winner this year after sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals rocked the secretive panel, sharply dividing its 18 members, who are appointed for life. Seven members quit or distanced themselves from academy. Its permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, said the academy wanted “to commit time to recovering public confidence.”

The academy plans to award both the 2018 prize and the 2019 prize next year _ but even that is not guaranteed. The head of the Nobel Foundation, Lars Heikensten, was quoted Friday as warning that if the Swedish Academy does not resolve its tarnished image another group could be chosen to select the literature prize every year.

Stung by criticism about the diversity gap between former prize winners, the Nobel Foundation has asked that the science awarding panels for 2019 ask nominators to consider their own biases in the thousands of letters they send to solicit Nobel nominations.

“I am eager to see more nominations for women so they can be considered,” said Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the Nobel Foundation. “We have written to nominators asking them to make sure they do not miss women or people of other ethnicities or nationalities in their nominations. We hope this will make a difference for 2019.”

It’s not the first time that Nobel officials have sought diversity. In his 1895 will, prize founder Alfred Nobel wrote: “It is my express wish that in the awarding of the prizes no consideration shall be given to national affiliations of any kind, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.”

Even so, the prizes remained overwhelmingly white and male for most of their existence.

For the first 70 years, the peace prize skewed heavily toward Western white men, with just two of the 59 prizes awarded to individuals or institutions based outside Europe or North America. Only three of the winners in that period were female.

The 1973 peace prize shared by North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho and American Henry Kissinger widened the horizons _ since then more than half the Nobel Peace prizes have gone to African or Asian individuals or institutions.

Since 2000, six women have won the peace prize.

After the medicine prize on Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce the Nobel in physics on Tuesday and in chemistry on Wednesday, while the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. On Oct. 8, Sweden’s Central Bank announces the winner of the economics prize, given in honor of Alfred Nobel.
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Macedonians voted Sunday whether to change the name of their country – a move that could pave the way for it to join NATO and the European Union.

Following a deal with neighboring Greece after decades of dispute, Macedonians voted on whether to change the country’s name to North Macedonia.

Nationalists, including Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, urged a boycott of the vote Sunday, resulting in low voter turnout.  Macedonia’s electoral commission said two days ago the referendum results would be declared invalid if less than 50 percent of the eligible voting population went to the polls.

Even if the referendum vote passed and turnout exceeded 50 percent, Macedonia’s Parliament would have to pass the name change with a two thirds majority to amend the constitution. 

Athens has argued that the name “Macedonia”  belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and using the name implies Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations.   Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long it retains its name.

President Ivanov said giving into Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.”  

He steadfastly refused to back the deal reached between Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras that puts the name change to a vote.

“This referendum could lead us to become a subordinate state, dependent on another country,” Ivanov said.  “We will become a state in name only, not in substance.”
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Traditional two-handled ceramic jars known as amphoras were used extensively in ancient Greece to store and transport a variety of products, especially wine. These days they are more likely to be found in shipwrecks than in stores. But wine-filled amphoras are once again being found on the sea floor, not from sunken ships, but deliberately placed there by a special Eastern European winery. Faith Lapidus explains.
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Tension flared in a familiar section of the Balkans as thousands of people marched Saturday in Kosovo’s capital against a possible territory swap with former war foe Serbia, while the Serbian government put its troops on alert after special police were deployed to Kosovo’s Serb-dominated north.

Serbia reacted after Kosovo’s special police moved into an area around the Kosovo side of the strategic Gazivode Lake, said Marko Djuric, director of Serbia’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

Kosovar President Hashim Thaci visited the area near Serbia’s border Saturday, a move that temporarily redirected attention away from the large opposition protest in Pristina. A security unit was dispatched to the area for the president’s stop, Kosovo police said.

Serbia’s Djuric said special troops must not be deployed unannounced to northern Kosovo, where the country’s ethnic Serbian minority population is concentrated. Serbian media said Belgrade had complained to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

President Aleksandar Vucic, an ally of Russia in the Balkans, warned at a news conference later on Saturday that Serbia would not allow any violence against the Serb minority in Kosovo.

No ‘great global conflicts’

Asked if he would seek Russia’s help as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did, Vucic responded he would seek advice but not military help from President Vladimir Putin during an upcoming visit to Moscow.

“I would not like to see great global conflicts take part on our territory,” said Vucic.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence, but their governments have been in European Union-mediated negotiations for seven years. The two sides have been told they must normalize relations as a precondition to EU membership.

Thaci has said a “border correction” could be part of the discussions. Some Serbian officials have suggested an exchange of territories could help end the dispute.

One idea that has been floated by politicians in both countries involves exchanging predominantly ethnic Albanian Presevo Valley in southern Serbia with Kosovo’s Serb-populated north.

However, the idea has faced opposition from Germany and other EU nations, which have said they fear a Kosovo-Serbia trade could trigger demands for territory revisions in other parts of the volatile Balkans.

Thousands of supporters of Kosovo’s opposition Self-Determination Party marched peacefully through the capital, Pristina, on Saturday to protest any potential change of borders. The protesters held national Albanian flags.

‘Grandiose protest’

Opposition leader Albin Kurti said he considered Thaci a collaborator with Serbia and called for fresh elections.

“Such a grandiose protest is our response to the deals from Thaci and Vucic,” Kurti said.

Thaci has rejected both border revisions based on ethnicity and a possible land trade. But he has not clarified how Serbia could be persuaded to give away the Presevo Valley without something in exchange.

Three weeks ago, Serbian leader Vucic visited the lake in northern Kosovo that Thaci traveled to Saturday.

NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, a force known as KFOR, called for calm and restraint. They said they would continue monitoring the situation along the Serbia-Kosovo border with ground patrols and helicopters.

Thaci’s office issued a statement acknowledging his visit to a border crossing and the lake.

“During the weekends the head of state usually goes to Kosovo’s beauties,” the statement said.

The governments in both Pristina and Belgrade have said they hope the EU-mediated talks will result in a legally binding agreement.

“Talks [with Serbia] that continue will be on peace and stability,” Thaci said Saturday.
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Catalan separatists clashed with police Saturday in downtown Barcelona, with two arrests being made, as tensions increased before the anniversary of the Spanish region’s illegal referendum on secession that ended in violent raids by security forces.

Separatists tossed and sprayed colored powder at the local police, filling the air in a thick rainbow cloud and covering anti-riot shields, police vans and the pavement on a downtown boulevard in a panoply of bright colors. Some protesters also threw eggs and other projectiles and engaged with the police line, which used baton strikes to keep them back.

The clashes erupted after local Catalan police intervened to form a barrier when a separatist threw purple paint on a man who was part of another march of people in support of Spanish police demanding a pay raise. Officers used batons to push back the oncoming separatists and keep apart the opposing groups.

The Catalan police told The Associated Press that both people were arrested on charges of aggressions against police officers.

There were more confrontations between separatists and local police as the separatists tried to invade Barcelona’s main city square where 3,000 people supporting Spanish police had ended their march.

Furious shouts

Separatists shouted “Get out of here, fascists!” and cried for `”Independence!” at the Spanish police supporters, who responded by shouting “We will be victorious!” and “Our cause is just!”

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau issued a plea for peace when the first scuffles broke out.

“I make a call for calm,” Colau told Catalunya Radio. “This city has always defended that everyone can exercise their rights to free speech.”

The pro-police march had originally planned to end in another square that’s home to the regional and municipal government seats, but 6,000 separatists, according to local police, gathered in the square to force regional authorities to alter the march’s route.

The police march was organized by the police association JUSAPOL, which wants Spain’s two nationwide police forces, the national police and Civil Guard, to be paid as much as Catalonia’s regional police.

JUSAPOL holds marches in cities across Spain, but Saturday’s march in Barcelona came two days before Catalonia’s separatists plan to remember last year’s referendum on secession that the regional government held despite its prohibition by the nation’s top court.

That Oct. 1 referendum was marred when national police and Civil Guard officers clashed with voters, injuring hundreds.

JUSAPOL spokesman Antonio Vazquez told Catalan television TV3 that while the march’s goal was to demand better salaries, they also wanted to support the national police and Civil Guard officers who had been ordered to dismantle last year’s referendum.

“The national police and Civil Guard agents who acted last year were doing their duty and now they are under pressure and we have to support them,” Vazquez said.

Rallying call

Last year’s police operation that failed to stop the referendum has become a rallying call for Catalonia’s separatists, who argue that it was evidence of Spain’s mistreatment of the wealthy region that enjoys an ample degree of self-rule.

Pro-secession lawmaker Vidal Aragones of the extreme left CUP party called the police march an “insult to the Catalan people.”

“It is not acceptable,” Aragones said. “They have come here to remember the violence that they employed.”

Two weeks ago, police had to intervene to keep apart two separate rallies by Catalan separatists and Spanish unionists in Barcelona, the region’s capital.

Catalonia’s separatist-led government is asking Spain’s central authorities to authorize a binding vote on secession.

Polls and recent elections show that the region’s 7.5 million residents are roughly equally divided by the secession question.
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Journalists are being jailed in unprecedented numbers across the globe, with 262 detained for their work at the end of 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The jailing of journalists is a brutal form of censorship that is having a profound impact on the flow of information around the world,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon told a press freedom event Friday at the United Nations.

At the end of 2017, the worst offenders were Turkey, with 73 journalists jailed; China with 41; and Egypt with 20.

CPJ says that slightly more than half of all imprisoned journalists were jailed for reporting on human rights violations.

WATCH: A Pakistani American Startup Fighting Media Censorship

Simon said the United Nations has not been a strong enough voice on the issue because it has a culture of rarely naming and shaming its member states.

The event, organized on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting, highlighted the cases of five reporters CPJ says have been unjustly detained. They are nationals of Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt and Myanmar.

The two most high-profile cases are of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar. The two men were detained in December 2017 while they were investigating the mass killing of Rohingya Muslim men and boys by Buddhist villagers in the Rakhine state village of Inn Din.

Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown on the minority Rohingya in August 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked several police checkpoints and killed a dozen Myanmar police officers. In a matter of a few months, 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh. Survivors gave accounts of horrific abuses, including widespread rapes, torture, and the looting and burning of their homes. The United Nations has deemed the atrocities a “textbook case” of ethnic cleansing. 

British barrister Amal Clooney is representing the two Reuters reporters. She says the Myanmar authorities did not want their story about the massacre at Inn Din to come out.

“So police planted government documents on the journalists while other officers lay in wait outside to arrest them,” Clooney said of how the two men were set up. “The journalists were arrested and were then prosecuted and subjected to a show trial in which their conviction was guaranteed.”

Earlier this month, the two were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating a law on state secrets. Clooney said they are seeking a presidential pardon in Myanmar for them, as it is the only avenue currently available to win their freedom.

“The attack on them is a chilling warning to other journalists worldwide,” said Reuters President Stephen Adler. “Myanmar is not the only country where attempts are made to deter investigative news gathering, scare sources and whistle-blowers, dim the spotlight of reporting, and thereby allow officials to act in darkness with impunity.”

Other arrests

Azimjon Askarov, a Kyrgyz journalist, has been serving a life sentence since July 2010. CPJ’s Simon says he was covering deadly ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2010. During the trial, he and his lawyer were both assaulted.

“CPJ conducted its own investigation into the case in 2012 and found that charges against Askarov were in retaliation for his reporting on corrupt and abusive practices by regional police and prosecutors,” Simon said.

Bangladeshi photojournalist and commentator Shahidul Alam was arrested last month while covering student protests in Bangladesh. A Dhaka court ordered that he be held for seven days to determine if he violated an information law by spreading propaganda and false information.

“When Shahidul was brought into court, he screamed that had been tortured. He was unable to walk without assistance,” Simon told the panel. He remains in detention.

Since 2013, CPJ says, Egypt has been among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, often detaining reporters on politically motivated anti-state charges.

Alaa Abdelfattah, a well-known Egyptian blogger and activist who has written about politics and human rights, is one of them. He is serving a five-year sentence on charges that he organized a protest and assaulted a police officer.

“We believe the charges are trumped up and in retaliation for Alaa’s coverage of alleged human rights abuses by the police and security forces,” Simon said.

“We are witnessing a growing hatred of journalists worldwide, which unfortunately is not limited to authoritarian regimes,” said Margaux Ewen, North America director of Reporters Without Borders. “We are seeing democratically elected regimes also attack the press more and more frequently, which is why we need to continue to address wrongs as they occur.”

U.S. President Donald Trump refers to negative news coverage of him and his administration as “fake news,” and reporters at his rallies and during his campaign reported encountering hostility from his supporters.

Reporters in the United States are facing a more dangerous work environment. CPJ says at least three journalists have been arrested this year and 34 last year. In June, five people were killed in the newsroom of an Annapolis, Maryland, newspaper.

Journalists covering white nationalism and the far-right political movement have reported receiving threats, and at least 24 journalists have been assaulted, shoved or had their equipment damaged while working.

“A free press is not an adversary, but an essential component of democracy,” Ewen said.
…

Journalists are being jailed in unprecedented numbers across the globe, with 262 detained for their work at the end of 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The jailing of journalists is a brutal form of censorship that is having a profound impact on the flow of information around the world,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon told a press freedom event Friday at the United Nations.

At the end of 2017, the worst offenders were Turkey, with 73 journalists jailed; China with 41; and Egypt with 20.

CPJ says that slightly more than half of all imprisoned journalists were jailed for reporting on human rights violations.

WATCH: A Pakistani American Startup Fighting Media Censorship

Simon said the United Nations has not been a strong enough voice on the issue because it has a culture of rarely naming and shaming its member states.

The event, organized on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting, highlighted the cases of five reporters CPJ says have been unjustly detained. They are nationals of Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt and Myanmar.

The two most high-profile cases are of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar. The two men were detained in December 2017 while they were investigating the mass killing of Rohingya Muslim men and boys by Buddhist villagers in the Rakhine state village of Inn Din.

Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown on the minority Rohingya in August 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked several police checkpoints and killed a dozen Myanmar police officers. In a matter of a few months, 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh. Survivors gave accounts of horrific abuses, including widespread rapes, torture, and the looting and burning of their homes. The United Nations has deemed the atrocities a “textbook case” of ethnic cleansing. 

British barrister Amal Clooney is representing the two Reuters reporters. She says the Myanmar authorities did not want their story about the massacre at Inn Din to come out.

“So police planted government documents on the journalists while other officers lay in wait outside to arrest them,” Clooney said of how the two men were set up. “The journalists were arrested and were then prosecuted and subjected to a show trial in which their conviction was guaranteed.”

Earlier this month, the two were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating a law on state secrets. Clooney said they are seeking a presidential pardon in Myanmar for them, as it is the only avenue currently available to win their freedom.

“The attack on them is a chilling warning to other journalists worldwide,” said Reuters President Stephen Adler. “Myanmar is not the only country where attempts are made to deter investigative news gathering, scare sources and whistle-blowers, dim the spotlight of reporting, and thereby allow officials to act in darkness with impunity.”

Other arrests

Azimjon Askarov, a Kyrgyz journalist, has been serving a life sentence since July 2010. CPJ’s Simon says he was covering deadly ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2010. During the trial, he and his lawyer were both assaulted.

“CPJ conducted its own investigation into the case in 2012 and found that charges against Askarov were in retaliation for his reporting on corrupt and abusive practices by regional police and prosecutors,” Simon said.

Bangladeshi photojournalist and commentator Shahidul Alam was arrested last month while covering student protests in Bangladesh. A Dhaka court ordered that he be held for seven days to determine if he violated an information law by spreading propaganda and false information.

“When Shahidul was brought into court, he screamed that had been tortured. He was unable to walk without assistance,” Simon told the panel. He remains in detention.

Since 2013, CPJ says, Egypt has been among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, often detaining reporters on politically motivated anti-state charges.

Alaa Abdelfattah, a well-known Egyptian blogger and activist who has written about politics and human rights, is one of them. He is serving a five-year sentence on charges that he organized a protest and assaulted a police officer.

“We believe the charges are trumped up and in retaliation for Alaa’s coverage of alleged human rights abuses by the police and security forces,” Simon said.

“We are witnessing a growing hatred of journalists worldwide, which unfortunately is not limited to authoritarian regimes,” said Margaux Ewen, North America director of Reporters Without Borders. “We are seeing democratically elected regimes also attack the press more and more frequently, which is why we need to continue to address wrongs as they occur.”

U.S. President Donald Trump refers to negative news coverage of him and his administration as “fake news,” and reporters at his rallies and during his campaign reported encountering hostility from his supporters.

Reporters in the United States are facing a more dangerous work environment. CPJ says at least three journalists have been arrested this year and 34 last year. In June, five people were killed in the newsroom of an Annapolis, Maryland, newspaper.

Journalists covering white nationalism and the far-right political movement have reported receiving threats, and at least 24 journalists have been assaulted, shoved or had their equipment damaged while working.

“A free press is not an adversary, but an essential component of democracy,” Ewen said.
…

Four large Finnish unions called on Friday for tens of thousands of their members to go on strike on Oct. 3 to protest against what they called attacks on workers’ rights.

The unions said the strike was over government plans to make it easier for small companies to dismiss workers.

“The obstinacy of the right-wing government … has not left us with any choice,” the Industrial Union’s chair Riku Aalto said in a statement.

Service sector union PAM, professionals’ union Pro and the Finnish Electrical Workers’ Union also called the 24-hour strike.

Finnish food industry workers had already announced plans to strike on Oct 3. against the government plans.

The government led by the Center Party has said the changes will end up creating more jobs as they will make small companies more willing to hire.
…

France’s leaders are proposing a new international coalition to revive global cooperation that they say is being threatened by countries like the United States and Russia.

Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced the plan Friday while speaking at Harvard University, calling for an alliance of “goodwill powers” that believe in cooperation and share democratic values.

Any nation could join, but the minister says he hopes it would include countries like India, Australia and Japan, along with others in Europe. He says it would go on with or without the U.S.

His speech came days after U.S. President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that he rejects “the ideology of globalism.”

French President Emmanuel Macron countered with calls for greater cooperation and said “nationalism always leads to defeat.”
…

As global leaders digest the fallout from a stormy United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, China has strongly denied accusations from President Donald Trump that it is trying to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections next month.

Meanwhile the diplomatic tussle has intensified between the United States and other signatories over the future of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as the U.S. prepares to hit Tehran with fresh sanctions.

Trump’s accusations against China took many at the U.N. by surprise. In a news conference Wednesday evening, the president was asked by reporters what evidence he had to support his claim.

“It will come out. I can’t tell you now. But it came, it didn’t come out of nowhere,” he said.

WATCH: World Digests Stormy UN General Assembly, Trump’s Tough Talk on Iran, China

China, not Russia?

Beijing strongly denies trying to influence U.S. politics, and many in China question why President Trump did not mention the investigation into Russian meddling, says analyst and professor Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

“It would appear that the allegation that Donald Trump made against China, when he deliberately not mentioned about Russia, really was to distract attention domestically in the United States. So the Chinese are rather upset about it. And I would expect that Putin in Russia is rather pleased about it,” Tsang told VOA.

Trump’s accusation, taken alongside the ramping up of trade tariffs, marks a significant escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing.

“The real issue for China is the status and the standing of President Xi and therefore the Communist Party in the country as a whole. President Xi cannot afford and therefore will not agree to appearing to be weak in front of an American onslaught like that,” Tsang said.

​Iran sanctions

Meanwhile the diplomatic tussle intensified at the United Nations between the United States and other signatories over the future of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as the U.S. prepares to hit Tehran with fresh sanctions. Chairing a U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday, President Trump set his sights firmly on Iran, accusing it of spreading “chaos, death and destruction.” Middle East analyst Aziz Alghashian of the University of Essex says Trump’s words are aimed at others in the region.

“I think he is trying to appease the allies that he has in the region, the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), Saudi Arabia and Israel. And I think that is very important for him because he tried to repatch the bad relations, or the tense relations that the allies had with Obama.”

The United States pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May. The five remaining signatories, the U.K., France, Germany, China and Russia, want to create an alternative payment system to bypass U.S. sanctions. At a press conference Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reacted with anger to those plans.

“By sustaining revenues to the regime you are solidifying Iran’s ranking as the No. 1 state sponsor of terror,” he said.

At the U.N. Wednesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani praised efforts to keep the nuclear deal alive.

“Until such time when we keep reaping the benefits promised within that agreement for our nation and our people, we will remain in the agreement. Should the situation change, we have other paths and other solutions,” President Rouhani told reporters in New York.

Analyst Aziz Alghashian believes Europe has little room for maneuver.

“There’s a lot of European companies that rely on the American economy, so they must take that into account as well when the sanctions hit,” Alghashian said.

Those new sanctions are set to hit in November. President Trump has pledged that they will be “tougher than ever before.”
…

As global leaders digest the fallout from a stormy United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, China has strongly denied accusations from U.S. President Donald Trump that Beijing is trying to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections in November. Meanwhile, the diplomatic tussle has intensified between the United States and other signatories over the future of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as the U.S. prepares to hit Tehran with fresh sanctions. Henry Ridgwell reports.
…

President Gjorge Ivanov on Thursday urged Macedonians to boycott a referendum on changing the country’s name, saying making such a change would amount to “historical suicide.”

“On September 30, I will not go out and vote, and I know that you, my fellow citizens, will make a similarly wise decision,” Ivanov said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Macedonians are being asked to change the name of their country to North Macedonia to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and pave the way for the country’s admission into NATO and the European Union.

Athens has argued that the name belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that using the name implies Skopje’s intention to claim the Greek province.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations.

It has also consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long as it retains its name. 

Ivanov said giving into Athens’ demand would be a “flagrant violation of sovereignty.” He has steadfastly refused to back a deal reached between Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, that put the name change to a vote.

“This referendum could lead us to become a subordinate state, dependent on another country,” Ivanov said. “We will become a state in name only, not in substance.”
…

Moscow has responded derisively to a report by a Britiain-based investigative group claiming one of the two men suspected of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal is a highly decorated colonel in Russian military intelligence.

A report by Bellingcat asserted Wednesday that the man identifying himself as Ruslan Boshirov is really Anatoly Chepiga, a military intelligence colonel awarded the Hero of Russia, the country’s highest honor.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova characterized the report as a stunt timed to coincide with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s address to the U.N. General Assembly.

“There is no proof, so they are continuing their information campaign whose main task is to divert attention from the main question: WHAT HAPPENED IN SALISBURY?” Zakharova wrote on Facebook Wednesday, referring to the British town where the poisoning occurred.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the president’s administration had seen the Bellingcat report but dismissed it.

“Lots of people look like one another,” he said when questioned about the physical similarities between Boshirov and the photo of Chepiga published in the report.

Putin has denied that the men in question are spies, repeatedly identifying them as civilians.

His government has been accused of being behind the March poisoning of Skripal and his daughter Yulia with Novichok, a nerve agent developed in the Soviet era.

The report said the man identified as Chepiga, 39, graduated from the Far-Eastern Military Command Academy, one of the country’s top training grounds for marine commandos and special forces.

He is said to have fought in Chechnya and possibly Ukraine, receiving the Hero of Russia award in 2014 for “conducting a peace-keeping mission,” probably a reference to the Ukraine conflict.

The report said it was “highly likely” that Putin knew Chepiga as he personally hands out the Hero of Russia awards.

 
…

Residents in a small Russian village have identified one of the two suspects in the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain as a senior intelligence agent, Russia’s respected Kommersant daily said Thursday in a report that backed up findings by an investigative group.

Britain-based investigative group Bellingcat on Wednesday named one of the men suspected to have carried out the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter as Col. Anatoly Chepiga, an agent with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU who was awarded Russia’s highest medal, Hero of Russia, in 2014.

The suspect had been named by British authorities as Ruslan Boshirov, and he had also appeared on Russian television channel RT under that name denying any involvement in the poison attack. The Bellingcat report published a photo from Chepiga’s 2003 passport that resembled Boshirov, but didn’t contain further proof that they are the same person.

Kommersant on Thursday interviewed several residents of Beryozovka, the small village where Chepiga’s family used to live, and quoted them confirming that Chepiga is one of the suspects identified by British authorities.

The villagers said they have not seen Chepiga for about ten years, but could recognize him in the photos released by British police and in the interview on RT. One resident described him as a “very good, clever boy.” Another said people in the village knew that Chepiga was “in the secret service” and that his mother was worried about his assignments.

Britain has charged Boshirov and another suspect, Alexander Petrov, with trying to kill Skripal and his daughter on March 4 with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury. Britain has said the attack received approval “at a senior level of the Russian state,” an accusation Moscow has fiercely denied.

Both men appeared in an exclusive interview with the Kremlin-funded RT television station earlier this month, when they denied any role in the poisoning or links to the intelligence services. They said they were in the sports nutrition business and that they were in Salisbury on vacation.

Putin earlier this month said the two suspects are civilians who did nothing criminal.

Asked about Bellingcat’s report, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that the president stands by his statement. He added that the Kremlin doesn’t know who Chepiga was, but promised to check whether he received Russia’s highest award.

A search in the Spark-Interfax corporate database shows that Vladimir Chepiga, whose first and family names indicate that he could be Anatoly Vladimirovich Chepiga’s father, has a 6 percent holding in a small construction company based in the village of Beryozovka.

A local patriotic society briefly wrote about Anatoly Chepiga in a December article, saying he graduated in 2001 from the Far Eastern Military Command College. The article said he had been on assignment in Chechnya three times and has been awarded “Hero of Russia”.

Some Russian media on Thursday tried to debunk Bellingcat’s findings.

Russia’s best-selling newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Thursday quoted a Defense Ministry employee who pointed to what he described as several discrepancies in the investigation.

The Defense Ministry source, who was unnamed because he is still an active serviceman, reportedly said that it was unlikely that a graduate of the Far Eastern Military Command College could be a spy because the school doesn’t train intelligence officers.

Chepiga, however, went on to study at another military academy after that, according to Bellingcat.

The official also cast doubt on reports that Chepiga worked in Ukraine, for which he reportedly was awarded Hero of Russia.

Many others, including Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, focused on Belligcat’s sources rather than on the content of the revelations.

Maj. Gen. Alexander Mikhailov told the National News Service radio station that the data released by Bellingcat is so highly confidential that they couldn’t have been leaked. He called the report “nonsense.”

Russian commentators posted numerous memes online on Thursday, making fun of Chepiga’s allegedly blown cover identity.

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-funded RT channel that scored the exclusive interview with the two suspects, posted one of them on Thursday. In the meme, Simonyan asks one of the suspects in a speech bubble: “Are you Chepiga?” and the man who called himself Boshirov replies: “Are you?”

 
…

The presiding judge in the appeal by Radovan Karadzic against his genocide and war crimes convictions removed himself from the case Thursday, following a request by the former Bosnian Serb leader’s lawyer.

The decision by American Judge Theodor Meron could delay a ruling in the appeal that had been expected before the end of the year at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. The mechanism is a court set up to deal with appeals and other residual issues from now-closed temporary tribunals for the Balkan wars and Rwandan genocide.

Meron’s decision follows a ruling removing him and two other judges from the appeal of Karadzic’s former military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, for appearance of bias because they had previously convicted lower-ranking Bosnian Serb officers.

In his written decision, Meron stressed that, had he remained on the five-judge appeals bench, “I would continue to adjudicate the Karadzic Case with an impartial mind.”

He also criticized the decision to remove him from Mladic’s appeal, saying that it “clearly contradicts established jurisprudence and, in my view, harms the interests of the Mechanism.”

Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment after being convicted in March 2016 on 10 counts including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as the political mastermind behind Serb crimes in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He was acquitted of one genocide charge. Prosecutors appealed the acquittal and urged judges to increase Karadzic’s prison term to life behind bars.

Mladic was convicted last year of largely the same crimes following a separate trial. He was given a life sentence.

Meron appointed Portuguese judge Ivo Nelson de Caires Batista Rosa to replace him on the Karadzic appeal.
…

A group of British investigative journalists have identified a highly decorated member of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) as one of two men accused of trying to assassinate an ex-Russian spy and his daughter in Britain earlier this year.

British prosecutors have charged two Russians, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, of trying to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with the Soviet nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. 

On Wednesday, the investigative website Bellingcat reported that Boshirov was actually Col.  Anatoliy Chepiga, who was awarded Russia’s highest honor — Hero of the Russian Federation — in 2014.

The New York Times reported that the Russian news outlet Insider has confirmed Bellingcat’s findings. 

British authorities say the suspects arrived at London’s Gatwick airport two days before the poisoning took place.  

Their journey from a London hotel to the crime scene in Salisbury was tracked by security cameras. The two men then flew out of Heathrow Airport back to Russia the same evening.

Boshirov and Petrov were charged in absentia with carrying out the attack. In an interview on the Kremlin-funded RT channel, they denied they were GRU agents and claimed to work instead in the nutrient supplements business. The suspects said they visited Salisbury to see its famous cathedral and did not know Skripal or where he lived.

Britain quickly rejected the claims. 

“The government is clear,” Britain said, that the men “used a devastating toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country.” 

Skripal and his daughter recovered from the attack, but a British woman who touched a discarded perfume bottle that contained the nerve agent died. 

Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
…

Israel should think carefully before attacking Syria again once it obtains the sophisticated S-300 defense system from Russia, a Damascus official said.

The warning followed pledges from Moscow to deliver the missile system after last week’s downing of a Russian plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said late Tuesday that the S-300 should have been given to Syria long ago.

Israel, “which is accustomed to launching many aggressions under different pretexts, will have to make accurate calculations if it thinks to attack Syria again,” he said.

The Russian Il-20 military reconnaissance aircraft was downed by Syrian air defenses that mistook it for an Israeli aircraft, killing all 15 people on board.

Russia laid the blame on Israel, saying Israeli fighter jets were hiding behind the Russian plane, an account denied by the Israeli military.

On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the S-300s will be delivered to Damascus within two weeks. Earlier in the war, Russia suspended a supply of S-300s, which Israel feared Syria could use against it.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said the delivery would be a “significant escalation” in already high tensions in the region and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would raise the matter this week with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at the U.N. General Assembly.

Mekdad said the missiles are for defensive purposes, adding that “Syria will defend itself, as it always did” — a reference to missiles Syrian forces fired at Israeli warplanes carrying out airstrikes inside Syria over the past months.

Meanwhile, in northwestern Syria, preparations were underway to set up a demilitarized zone around the rebel-held province of Idlib, the last major area controlled by a mix of Turkey-backed opposition fighters and other insurgent groups, including al-Qaida-linked militants.

Two jihadi groups have so far rejected the plan to set up a demilitarized zone by Oct. 15. The al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, the largest militant group in Idlib province, has not said yet whether it approves setting up the zone.

A Turkish security official said Wednesday that there were “indications” that some insurgents were leaving the demilitarized zone in and around Idlib but that it was unclear whether a “concrete” withdrawal of radical groups has started. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules.

Russia and Turkey agreed last week to set up a demilitarized zone around Idlib to separate government forces from rebels, averting a government offensive on the last major opposition stronghold in Syria.

Also Wednesday, Russian Maj. Gen. Yevgeny Ilyin said more than 3,150 Syrians returned to their homes in the past week, including 494 refugees. The rest were internally displaced people.

Moscow has called for international assistance for Syrian refugee returns, rejecting Western arguments that the Mideast country remains unsafe.

Ilyin, who spoke during a conference call on coordination of efforts to encourage the return of refugees, said the total of more than 1.2 million internally displaced people and more than 244,000 refugees have regained their homes.

In seven years of civil war, some 5.5 million Syrians have fled their homeland and millions more were internally displaced.
…

Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall aboard one of his own vessels last year, lost his appeal Wednesday against his life sentence.

The Danish version of a life sentence typically is about 16 years long, but it may be continuously extended if the court rules that circumstances call for it. Madsen had sought a time-limited term. Now the 47-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison.

His defense had argued that Wall’s death was an accident, although Madsen himself admitted to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The prosecution had argued that Madsen’s motive was sexual and that the murder was planned.

“I’m terribly sorry to Kim’s relatives for what happened,” Madsen told the court. Wall’s parents were not present.

A Copenhagen court ruled in April that Madsen had lured Kim onto his home-made submarine UC3 Nautilus with the promise of an interview, where she then died. The exact cause of her death has never been established.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy speech to the 73rd session of the U.N. General Assembly drew mixed reaction from world leaders. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has this report looking at the international community’s response.
…

Morocco’s navy opened fire on a boat carrying migrants off its Mediterranean coast Tuesday, wounding four.

Moroccan officials say the boat’s Spanish captain ignored orders to stop.

The wounded migrants were taken to a hospital while authorities seized the boat and opened an investigation. It gave no other information.

Meanwhile, France, Germany, Malta, Portugal and Spain reached a deal Tuesday to take in a boatload of 58 migrants stranded at sea.

The Aquarius will dock in Malta, where the 58 migrants will disembark and head for their new homes.

A dog named Bella is also aboard the ship. Her final destination has not been revealed.

Italy’s new right-wing government refused to let the ship dock, saying it has taken in enough migrants over the past several years and other EU members need to help out.

France also denied permission for the boat to go to Marseille, saying under the law of the sea, the ship needs to head to the closest port.

Two well-known charities — Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee — operate the Aquarius.

The ship picked up more than 600 migrants from the Mediterranean in June. EU nations squabbled for nearly two months over who is responsible for accepting them before several nations gave them refuge.
…

The stone steps leading into the medieval church where Serbian Orthodox worshipers enter are worn. In the half-light of the interior, some pilgrims reverentially lean on or drape themselves across the tomb of King Stefan Dečanski, considered by Serbs a “holy monarch.”

Others light candles. One young woman has dozens of tapers in her hand, lighting each one slowly and methodically after a brushing kiss and a silent prayer.

Many of the pilgrims have driven six hours from Belgrade to pray this Sunday in one of the most revered Serbian Orthodox churches, the 14th century Visoki Dečani. For many Serbs, Visoki Dečani is a besieged church, surrounded as it is by Kosovar Albanians and located deep in the territory of Kosovo, the former province that broke away from Serbia in 1999 after a U.S.-led NATO intervention brought a year-long ethnic war to a halt.

“We have had a very hard time since the last Kosovo conflict,” said Father Sava Janjic, Visoki Dečani’s abbot.

“Last” seems an appropriate word, hinting at the possibility of more conflict to come.

And taking the long, historical view, it is not hard to imagine that sometime in the future, monks at Visoki Dečani will again hear the fearsome echo of war raging around them.

The church has been plundered over the centuries by Ottoman troops, Austro-Hungarian soldiers, and during World War II, it was targeted for destruction by Albanian nationalists and Italian fascists. During the Kosovo War, the final one in a series of Balkan wars in the 1990s, the church was attacked five times. In May 1998, two elderly Albanians were killed 400 meters from its walls reportedly by the Kosovo Liberation Army for allegedly collaborating with Serbian forces.

“This is one of the most politically turbulent areas in Europe. The Balkans have always been on the crossroads of civilizations and invasions,” said Fr. Sava.

As he talked with VOA, soldiers from the NATO-led Kosovo Force of peacekeepers patrolled the grounds – as they have done every day since the war’s end.

“Since 1999, we have had three mortar attacks and one RPG (rocket-propelled grenade), bazooka attack. Thank God no particular damage was made and nobody was hurt,” said Fr. Sava. A strong advocate of multi-ethnic peace and tolerance, he likes to think of the church as “a haven for all people of goodwill.” During the war, the church sheltered not only Serbian families but also Kosovar Albanians and Roma.

He added, “I’m still trying to believe that the majority of Kosovar Albanians don’t harbor negative feelings toward us. But very often we are seen just as Serbs. This church is seen as something alien here, as a kind of threat to the new Kosovo identity.”

Now he worries about whether Serbia and Albania can put conflict behind them.

Serbs and Kosovar Albanians remain at odds over Kosovo, and the jigsaw puzzle of the Balkans map isn’t helping them.

The presidents of Serbia and Kosovo are considering border changes in a bid to reach a historic peace settlement which, if sealed, could advance their countries’ applications to join the European Union and, for Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, secure U.N. membership. More than 100 countries recognize Kosovo as an independent state, but not Serbia. The EU has said it will not consider advancing accession talks until Belgrade and Pristina have made up.

Most EU leaders have long opposed any Balkan border changes, fearing any tweaks large or small might spark a return of ethnic violence.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton recently indicated that Washington could entertain the idea of border changes.

The U.S. ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt, appeared more cautious about a land-swap deal, but kept the door open. In an interview with VOA, Pyatt said, “There are no blank checks.” “What we have been very clear on is that this process needs to be locally-owned and locally-driven and we are supporting European Union efforts to see progress.”

Under the land-swap deal, the Serbian border would be extended south to include Serbs in Kosovo’s north and some majority ethnic Albanian areas in Serbia would be traded in return by Belgrade. That would not help the majority of Serbs in Kosovo, who are spread across the south and west of the country.

Fr. Sava worries a land-swap deal, if pulled off, would amount to ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing. “Land swaps, where the majority of Kosovo Serbs would not just be left in majority-Albanian territory but also probably be forced to leave, would be very unjust,” he said.

Ultranationalists on both sides reject land swaps.

Serbia’s main opposition leader, Vojislav Šešelj, dismissed land transfers. “What are we talking about? Kosovo is just part of Serbia,” He told VOA. Kosovo is being illegally occupied, he said, due to assistance from the West, and especially the U.S.

“We are not exchanging the land,” Šešelj said. “They can only have the highest level of autonomy. We will not recognize their independence.”

Šešelj, a onetime deputy to Serbia’s wartime leader Slobodan Milošević, was found guilty by the U.N. court of crimes against humanity for instigating the deportation of Croats from the village of Hrtkovci in May 1992. He argues Serbs and Albanians cannot possibly live together and that they should be in separate communities. “Albanian ones in Kosovo could be allowed some self-administration rights,” he added.

Earlier in September, Kosovo Albanian nationalists led by veterans of the 1998-1999 war disrupted a planned two-day visit by Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, to Kosovo by blocking roads and burning tires. Their action showed how inflammatory the whole issue can easily become. Banje, the village west of the capital, Pristina, that Vučić planned to visit was the scene of the first crackdown by Serbian troops against ethnic Albanian separatists in 1998, which triggered the outbreak of open hostilities.

“All the wars in the former Yugoslavia were focused on territory and division, and to continue with the idea of territory is dangerous and will inflame nationalistic passions,” warned Nataša Kandić, a Serbian human rights campaigner and Nobel Peace prize nominee.

Fr. Sava harbors the same fear. “We still see people who are drawing up maps, and these maps in the 1990s became actually the killing fields. Do we still need it now?” he asked. “I am just trying to be hopeful that politicians see the risk of going into this story again.”
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