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The International Monetary Fund and European leaders pushed back Wednesday against U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, saying it would provoke a calamitous global trade war.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde told a European radio interviewer, “If international trade is called into question by these types of measures, it will be a transmission channel for a drop in growth, a drop in trade and it will be fearsome. In a trade war that will be fed by reciprocal increases of customs tariffs, no one wins.”

Lagarde said the IMF is “anxious” that U.S. tariff increases not be imposed, saying, “We are urging the sides to reach agreements, hold negotiations, consultations.”

Trump boasted last week that trade wars “are good and easy to win” after he announced plans for a 25 percent U.S. tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent levy on aluminum exported to the United States.

The proposal has drawn widespread criticism from his normal Republican colleagues in Congress and U.S. foreign allies, but support from economic nationalists in the United States and a handful of Democratic lawmakers in manufacturing states whose fortunes could be boosted by the tariffs protecting their metal industries.

EU retaliation

European Council President Donald Tusk rebutted Trump’s contention about trade conflicts, saying, “The truth is quite the opposite: Trade wars are bad and easy to lose. For this reason I strongly believe that now is the time for politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to act responsibly.”

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union, detailed retaliatory tariffs it plans to impose on prominent U.S. products if Trump carries out his plan to impose the metal tariffs, taxing Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon, blue jeans, cranberries, orange juice and peanut butter.

Trump has claimed the United States needs to impose the steel and aluminum tariffs to protect its national security, but European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem dismissed his rationale.

“We cannot see how the European Union, friends and allies in NATO, can be a threat to international security in the U.S.,” Malmstroem said. “From what we understand, the motivation of the U.S. is an economic safeguard measure in disguise, not a national security measure.”

Denmark Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said if a trade war starts between the United States and the European Union, “at the end of the day, European and American consumers will pay for it. That is the signal we have to send to Trump that it is not a path we should follow.”

Moody’s Investors Service said the planned tariffs “raise the risk of a deterioration in global trade relations.”

Despite the criticism, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump is “on track” to make the formal announcement on the tariffs by the end of the week.

Cutting the trade deficit

Trump said on Twitter that since former President George H.W. Bush was in the White House 30 years ago, “our Country has lost more than 55,000 factories, 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs and accumulated Trade Deficits of more than $12 trillion.”

Trump claimed the United States last year had a trade deficit of “almost $800 billion,” significantly overstating the actual figure of $566 billion, which still was the biggest U.S. trade deficit in nine years. A new report Wednesday said the U.S. trade deficit in January – the amount its imports exceeded its exports – reached $56.6 billion, the highest monthly total since October 2008.

“Bad Policies & Leadership. Must WIN again!” Trump said.

In another tweet, Trump said the United States has asked China “to develop a plan for the year of a One Billion Dollar reduction in their massive Trade Deficit with the United States. Our relationship with China has been a very good one, and we look forward to seeing what ideas they come back with. We must act soon!”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the planned steel and aluminum tariffs were “thought through. We’re not looking for a trade war.”

He said the Trump administration could take a “surgical approach” to new tariffs, exempting some countries, specifically Canada and Mexico, if revisions are reached in the ongoing negotiations over changes in the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

Ross added that it is “not inconceivable that others could be exempted on a similar basis.”

Stocks prices fell in the U.S. markets with the turmoil over the tariffs and the resignation Tuesday of Gary Cohn, Trump’s chief economic adviser, an economic globalist who had opposed the steel and aluminum tariffs, but lost the internal White House debate.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 key stocks dropped a half percentage point in early Wednesday trading and other markets dropped too.

Trump promised to quickly replace Cohn, saying, “Many people wanting the job — will choose wisely!”
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China and Russia are working to expand their influence across Africa, hoping to outspend or out-compete the United States, U.S. officials warn, describing it as part of a larger effort by both countries to reshape the world order.

For months, top national security officials have been talking about the reemergence of what they describe as a great power competition, calling out China and Russia as the two countries doing the most to counter the United States.

Officials say the efforts by Beijing and Moscow are both regional and global, with both pursuing strategies to deny the U.S. access to conflict zones in times of crisis and to commercial markets in times of peace.

And in Africa, both are trying to portray themselves as viable, if not essential, alternatives to the United States.

On Tuesday, the commander of U.S. forces in Africa told lawmakers it is now critical for African countries to know Washington can and will remain a steadfast partner.

“It’s important that we’re there, that we’re present and that the African people see our commitment,” U.S. Africa Command’s Gen. Thomas Waldhauser told the House Armed Services Committee.

China’s expanding influence

Concerns about China’s ever-expanding reach into Africa are not new. U.S. intelligence warned this past September (2017) that Beijing’s first overseas military base, at Doraleh, in the east African nation of Djibouti, was likely to be the first of many.

“China seeks to build [military bases] around the world, creating new areas of intersecting, and potentially conflicting, security interests between China and the United States,” an intelligence official said at the time.

For U.S. Africa Command, perhaps no situation is as concerning as the one in Djibouti, home to Camp Lemonnier, the only permanent U.S. military installation on the African continent and a hub for U.S. counterterror operations.

Gen. Waldhauser described the Chinese military base at Doraleh as, “right outside our gates.” And despite some efforts to work with the Chinese, in areas like medical aid and training, U.S. defense officials remain wary.

“We are not naïve,” said Waldhauser Tuesday. “We are taking significant steps on the counterintelligence side so that we have all the defenses that we need.”

But China’s military might in Africa, including its approximately 2,500 peacekeepers, is not what has U.S. defense, intelligence and diplomatic officials most concerned.

Rather, they point to the way Beijing relies on economic aid and promises of development to bring countries like Djibouti into its sphere of influence.

“The Chinese there are building facilities. They’re building a shopping mall. They built a soccer stadium,” Waldhauser said. “They built the infrastructure for communications in Djibouti.”

“When we talk about influence and access, this is a classic example,” he added. “We’ll never outspend the Chinese.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday went as far as to accuse China of “encouraging dependency” in its approach to the continent.

WATCH:  Tillerson Touts Africa As Key to Global Security

“Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries. When coupled with the political and fiscal pressure, this endangers Africa’s natural resources and its long-term economic, political stability,” noted Tillerson in a speech hours before leaving on a five-country African trip.

Other U.S. officials have also raised concerns about the high levels of debt some nations are incurring as they increasingly accept Chinese loans. By some U.S. estimates, Djibouti, which is home to the U.S. military base, owes more than $1.2 billion to Beijing.

That has sparked fears among some U.S. lawmakers that China could make a play to take control of Djibouti’s key port, the Doraleh Container Terminal.

Djibouti took control of the port citing a contract dispute with the former operator, Dubai-based DP World.

“Reports that I’ve read say that they didn’t seize it for purposes of operating it for profit, but that they actually intend to gift it to China,” Republican Representative Bradley Byrne (from Louisiana) said during Tuesday’s hearing with Africa Command’s Gen. Waldhauser.

“The Chinese aren’t there for purely charitable reasons,” Byrne said. “We all would recognize that.”

U.S. defense officials admit that if China does take over the port and decides to impose any restrictions, the consequences could be significant – impacting the military’s ability to refuel ships and to resupply Camp Lemonnier and other outposts across Africa.

Russia’s focus on Africa

Russia, too, is making Africa more of a focus.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visits Africa this week, starting with a stop in Zimbabwe, where Moscow has been cultivating economic ties, including a $3 billion investment in platinum mining, while also pursuing deeper military ties.

There has also been extensive Russian outreach to northern African nations, particularly countries like Libya which border on the Mediterranean.

“Our concern would be their ability to influence and be on the southern flank of NATO, and also them to kind of squeeze us out, if you will, by them taking a prominent role,” said U.S. Africa Command’s Waldhauser.

Russian officials say they have no plans to back down.

“African countries view the development of cooperation in the military and technical sphere as an instrument of ensuring their sovereignty, independence and countering the pressure of Western countries,” Andrei Kemarksy, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Africa Department told the Tass news agency last month.

“We are training both military and police personnel for peacekeeping operations,” Kemarksy added.

 
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The Eiffel Tower will light up to honor women’s rights and promote the French equivalent of the Time’s Up movement.

The message “Maintenant On Agit” (“Now We Act”) will be displayed all Wednesday evening on the Parisian monument ahead of International Women’s Day on Thursday.

In a short ceremony, Culture Minister Francoise Nyssen and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo are set to make a speech alongside members of women’s rights associations to support the movement.

Launched by the Foundation of Women, the movement aims to raise funds for associations helping women pursue cases before justice, “so that no woman ever again has to say (hash)MeToo.”

Over 160 French actresses have already joined the movement.

 
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The European Union is cool to the idea of Britain’s “associate membership” in various agencies of the bloc as proposed by London to make Brexit less disruptive for British business.

Britain started a process to leave the EU last year because it no longer wants to accept the authority of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the free movement of workers, and it does not want to contribute to the EU budget.

But it is keen to keep most of its other links with the EU, especially unfettered access to the EU’s market.

EU officials call this approach “cherry-picking,” where London chooses the areas it wants for closer association but does not accept the obligations linked to it in other areas. 

Last Friday, Prime Minister Theresa May floated the idea of Britain’s remaining an associate member of the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and the European Aviation Safety Agency after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

She said London understood this meant abiding by the rules of those agencies and financial contributions. But EU officials involved in the negotiations on the terms of Britain’s exit from the bloc and deciding on the future trade relationship were not impressed.

“It is not so much ‘how’ they participate. That’s a technicality. The bigger question is ‘if’ they should participate. Why would we let them in?” one official said.

“The bottom line is that the U.K. approach is cherry-picking.

“The EU has a vast number of agencies, and I think we’d think twice to let the U.K. ‘associate’ itself with a selected number they choose because they have an interest,” the official said.

Brussels officials pointed out that an “associate membership” — a status that does not exist yet and would have to be created especially for Britain — would not give London the kind of access to the EU single market it sought.

“It is not possible to accept ECJ oversight in only some segments of business in the EU and not in others,” a second EU official said. “The single market is not made of bits and pieces you can pick and choose.”

An “associate membership” status would also likely involve complex legal work in the EU to create it.

“The willingness to change regulations in order to accommodate the U.K.’s wishes … is limited because it entails lengthy legislative procedures,” a third official said.

The chairman of EU leaders, Donald Tusk, will present draft guidelines for the EU’s future trade deal with Britain in Luxembourg on Wednesday.

‘Freedom implies responsibility’

The closest to an “associate membership” the EU has now is with countries in the European Economic Area but not EU members — Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland — which can take part in meetings, but they do not have voting rights.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said last November that the work of the EU agencies was based on EU laws, which Britain no longer wants to accept and should then go on and build its own.

“The same people who argue for setting the U.K. free also argue that the U.K. should remain in some EU agencies. But freedom implies responsibility for building new U.K. administrative capacity,” Barnier said.

“On our side, the 27 will continue to deepen the work of those agencies, together. They will share the costs for running those agencies. Our businesses will benefit from their expertise. All of their work is firmly based on the EU treaties, which the U.K. decided to leave,” he said.

May argued in her speech last week that every trade agreement, which focused on some aspects of an economy more than on others, was some form of “cherry-picking.”

“With all its neighbors the EU has varying levels of access to the single market, depending on the obligations those neighbors are willing to undertake,” she said.

“What would be cherry-picking would be if we were to seek a deal where our rights and obligations were not held in balance. And I have been categorically clear that is not what we are going to do,” she said.

But EU officials said that Britain would get the trade agreement it sought with the EU only if it agreed to balance the rights and obligations in a way that would not pick apart the EU single market.

The bloc would also have to make sure that the deal is less attractive than EU membership.

“Nobody asked after the EU trade agreement with Canada, or Korea: ‘Why can’t we be like Canada or Korea?’ The point is that also after Brexit, nobody should ask themselves: ‘Why can’t we be like Britain?’ ” the second official said.
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The Vatican on Tuesday signaled its concern over the results of Italy’s national election, which saw sharp gains for populist and anti-immigrant parties.

The biggest winners were the League — the largest party in a center-right grouping that employed the most fiery anti-migrant rhetoric during the campaign — and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, was asked on the sidelines of a conference on immigration if the Holy See was worried about the results.

“The Holy See has to work in whatever conditions arise. We can’t (always) have the society that we would like to have, or the conditions that we would like to have,” he told the Catholic news agency SIR.

It was the Vatican’s first public reaction to the results and its most authoritative because Parolin, its top diplomat, ranks second only to Pope Francis in the Holy See’s hierarchy.

During the campaign, League leader Matteo Salvini clashed with the pope several times over immigration.

When Francis backed a proposed law that would have granted Italian citizenship to children born in Italy of immigrant parents — something the League vehemently opposed — Salvini said Francis could house the children in the Vatican if he wanted to.

Political squabbling blocked discussion of the law before parliament was dissolved ahead of the elections.

Salvini also criticized the pope for promoting dialogue with Islam. Many of the Africans who made the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean to reach Italy are Muslim.

Parolin said at the conference that the Vatican realized that the election results meant it would have to continue “a work of education” about the dignity and rights of immigrants.

Surveys show Italians are increasingly uneasy after more than 600,000 migrants reached Italy by boat in four years. Last month, a neo-Nazi wounded six migrants in a shooting spree in central Italy.

“Citizens must feel safe and protected but at the same time we can’t slam doors in the faces of people who are fleeing violence and threats,” Parolin said.

The pope, who was born in Argentina of Italian immigrant stock, has championed the cause of migrants since taking office in 2013.

Last year he called for a radical change of attitude towards immigrants, saying they should be welcomed with dignity and denouncing the “populist rhetoric” he said was fueling fear and selfishness in rich countries.

The center-right has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if they are able to form a government. 5-Star has also vowed to step up deportations of illegal immigrants.
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At least 21 Libyan migrants who were trying to make the dangerous Mediterranean Sea journey to Italy late last week are missing and feared drowned. 

The U.N. migration agency said Tuesday that they were part of a large group who had set off from Libya aboard a wooden boat and a rubber dinghy and had to be rescued at sea.

Survivors said there was a panic on one of the vessels and people fell overboard, but the details of what happened were unclear.

The Libyan Coast Guard returned some to Libya while a Cypriot commercial ship picked up others. They arrived at the Italian port of Pozzallo on Tuesday.

The number of migrants trying to reach European Union nations from Libya is down substantially from the same time last year, in part because of an agreement between Libya and Italy to immediately return most of those picked up at sea.

U.N. migration officials said 421 people had died trying to sail to Italy so far this year, compared with 521 at the same time in 2017.

But they said more than 100 had died trying to reach Spain in an equally dangerous western sea journey.
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As U.S. influence in Islamabad wanes, Pakistan’s former adversary Russia is building military, diplomatic and economic ties that could upend historic alliances in the region and open up a fast-growing gas market for Moscow’s energy companies.

Russia’s embrace of Pakistan comes at a time when relations between the United States and its historical ally are unravelling over the war in Afghanistan, a remarkable turnaround from the 1980s, when Pakistan helped funnel weapons and U.S. spies across the border to aid Afghan fighters battling Soviet troops.

Though the Moscow-Islamabad rapprochement is in its infancy, and it is neighbor China that is filling the growing void left by the United States in Pakistan, a slew of energy deals and growing military cooperation promise to spark life into the Russia-Pakistan relationship that was dead for many decades.

“It is an opening,” Khurram Dastgir Khan, Pakistan’s defense minister, told Reuters. “Both countries have to work through the past to open the door to the future.”

Watching Islamic State

The cosier diplomatic ties have so far focused on Afghanistan, where Russia has cultivated ties to the Afghan Taliban militants who are fighting U.S. troops and have historic links to Islamabad. Moscow says it is encouraging peace negotiations.

Both Russia and Pakistan are also alarmed by the presence of Islamic State (IS) inside Afghanistan, with Moscow concerned the group’s fighters could spread towards central Asia and closer to home. In Pakistan, IS has already carried out major attacks.

“We have common ground on most issues at diplomatic levels,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Reuters. “It’s a relationship that will grow substantially in the future.”

During a trip to Moscow last month by Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khawaja Asif, the two countries announced plans to establish a commission on military cooperation to combat the threat of IS in the region.

They also agreed to continue annual military training exercises that began in 2016 and followed the sale of four Russian attack helicopters to Pakistan, as well as the purchase of Russian engines for the Pakistan Air Force’s JF-17 fighter jets that Pakistan’s military assembles on its own soil.

India voices concern

The detente has been watched with suspicion by Pakistan’s neighbor and arch-foe India, which broadly stood in the Soviet camp during the Cold War era. In the last two decades, the close Russia-India relationship has been underpinned by huge arms sales by Moscow to a country it calls a “strategic partner.”

“If the Russians start backing the Pakistanis in a big way at the political level, then it creates a problem for us,” said Sushant Sareen, a leading expert on India’s relations to Pakistan and Afghanistan with New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

India’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Russia’s ties with Pakistan, but has previously said that its own relations with Moscow have stood the test of time, and that the two nations are building up defence and energy relations, including collaboration on nuclear reactors in India.

Pivoting east

Russian overtures to Pakistan offer a badly needed diplomatic lifeline for the South Asian nation as it faces growing friction with Western powers over its alleged links to militants.

At U.S. urging, and with backing from Britain, France and Germany, a global financial watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), last month decided to place Pakistan back on its watchlist of countries with inadequate terrorist-financing controls, potentially hurting Pakistan’s fragile economy.

The U.S. move, which Islamabad angrily dismissed as an effort to “embarrass” Pakistan, followed Washington’s announcement in January to suspend $2 billion in military assistance.

Asif, Pakistan’s foreign minister, said his nation made a historical error by “tilting 100 percent” to the West and was now eager build alliances closer to home with the likes of China, Russia and Turkey.

“We want to correct the imbalance of our foreign policy over 70 years,” Asif told Reuters. “We are not divorcing that relationship (with the West). But we want to have a balance in our relationships, we want to be closer to our friends in our region.”

Defense minister Khan said Pakistan’s military, which has historically been heavily reliant on U.S. weapons and aircraft, may have no choice but to ramp up purchases from the likes of Russia.

Cooling relationship

The cooling relationship with Washington is already pushing Islamabad closer to China, which is investing about $60 billion in infrastructure in Pakistan. But analysts say Pakistan is wary of becoming overly dependent diplomatically on Beijing.

Pakistan is among several nations that have been courted by Moscow after falling out with Washington, including the Philippines and Qatar, but Russia’s long-term aims for the Pakistan relationship are unclear, according to Petr Topychkanov, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“It’s not very transparent, even in Russia,” he said. “There is no serious public debate, there is no detailed explanation to the Russian public about what Russia wants in Pakistan.”

Russia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Moscow’s increasingly close relations with Pakistan.

Huge power projects

Russia and Pakistan are negotiating potential energy deals worth in excess of $10 billion, according to Pakistani energy officials.

Asif said four to five huge power projects “will cement our relationship further.”

Russia last month appointed an honorary council in the Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, where its companies are in talks to build an oil refinery and a power station.

But the biggest deals focus on gas supply and infrastructure to Pakistan, one of the world’s fastest growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) import markets.

“On a strategic basis, Russia is coming in very fast on the energy side,” said a senior Pakistani energy official.

In October, Pakistan and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) on energy, paving the way for Russian state-giant Gazprom to enter negotiations to supply LNG to Pakistan.

The talks are expected to conclude within three months and Gazprom is considered “one of the front-runner” to clinch a long-term supply deal, according to the Pakistani official.

$9 billion deal

Based on two monthly LNG cargo deliveries, that deal would be worth about $9 billion over 15 years, he added.

There is also growing confidence that a gas pipeline due to be built by Russia, stretching 1,100 km (680 miles) from Lahore to the port city of Karachi, will go ahead.

U.S. sanctions against Russian state conglomerate Rostec, as well as a dispute over North-South pipeline transport fees, have held up the $2 billion project since it was signed in 2015.

The North-South pipeline would be the biggest infrastructure deal by Russia since early 1970s, when Soviet engineers constructed the Pakistan Steel Mills industrial complex.

A Russian company, according to defense minister Khan, is eying up a deal to take over the disused Soviet-built steel mills.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she would work with France to tackle pressing issues such as trade policy, the war in Syria and competition with China after the Social Democrats (SPD) approved joining a coalition with her conservatives.

Merkel welcomed the vote by a clear majority of SPD members that ended more than five months of political deadlock after an inconclusive election, and she said the right-left government must quickly get to work.

“What we’re seeing and hearing every day is that Europe needs to step up and Germany needs to have a strong voice there along with France and other member states [of the European Union],” said Merkel during a brief statement to reporters.

Priorities included international trade policy, on which many jobs in Europe’s largest economy depend, ensuring open competition with China and dealing with the “scary situation” in Syria.

“It is important that we start working as soon as possible,” Merkel said.

U.S. President Donald Trump last week stunned his European allies with plans to put tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, triggering a warning by the European Union that it would retaliate with counter-measures.

Sunday’s SPD vote result brought relief to German businesses and European capitals, which say the euro zone would benefit from Merkel being able to partner with French President Emmanuel Macron on ambitious plans to reform the single currency bloc.

But discord within the coalition could hamper Merkel’s ability to tackle challenges like eurozone reforms, Trump’s protectionist policies, and China’s rising dominance. The war in Syria, which could result in more refugees arriving in Germany, is also a prime concern.

Both Merkel’s conservatives and the SPD are under pressure to appear distinctive to voters in a coalition borne out of necessity rather than choice, making it difficult for Merkel to balance conflicting demands.

More than 6 in 10 Germans said in a poll published Monday they believe the coalition will serve a full four-year term.

And more than 56 percent of Germans believe Merkel will serve the full four years, a separate poll conducted for the Bild newspaper showed.

Former Greens Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged the coalition to speed up eurozone reforms and digitalization, saying that Europe risked losing out politically and economically as China accelerated its technology developments.

“I hope they step on the gas pedal, when it comes to Europe. It’s a very un-Green demand, I know, but in this case, it’s warranted,” he told reporters.

‘No opposition in government’

Senior conservative Jens Spahn, seen as one possible successor to Merkel, warned the SPD not to obstruct government policy in a rerun of the coalition that has ruled since 2013.

Spahn, a champion of the right in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), told Deutschlandfunk radio: “The SPD must decide: Either we rule together or some will try to play opposition within the government.”

SPD leaders, under pressure to revive their party after suffering their worst result in September’s election since Germany became a federal republic in 1949, have vowed to fight the conservatives on major issues.

SPD secretary general Lars Klingbeil said his party wants the government, expected to be in place this month, to make social issues such as pensions, education and family policy and strengthening rural areas, its top priority.

But Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of the conservatives, said his bloc would focus on curbing immigration.

Despite agreeing on broad policy outlines, the two blocs are divided on how to implement policies on immigration, car emissions, labor rules and welfare.

Merkel also faces the challenge of easing tensions within her own conservative bloc, comprising her CDU party and their Christian Social Union (CSU) Bavaria-based partners.

The CSU on Monday spoiled her election pledge to have a cabinet equally split among men and women by naming three male politicians to the transport, development and interior posts.

Deputy SPD leader Malu Dreyer told the RND newspaper chain the CSU move was “disappointing” 100 years after women gained the right to vote.

The CDU have appointed three men and three women to fill their six cabinet posts under the coalition agreement and the SPD are expected to do the same. This means that the 16-strong cabinet, including Merkel, will have seven women and nine men.

Merkel was weakened by her 2015 decision to welcome hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum, which helped fuel the rise of a far-right party that stole conservative voters.

In power since 2005, she has led Germany and the EU through the financial and debt crises, but her waning authority at home could complicate efforts to deepen integration in the eurozone.
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Ibrahim, a 35-year-old Moroccan who hawks bracelets weaved out of multi-colored fabric in front of Milan’s cathedral, teared up when he spoke of the family he left behind and which relies on the money he sends home.

“I really hope they don’t make it even more horrible to stay in this country,” he said. “I want to stay here.”

Up and down Italy on Monday, migrants, both legal and not, were pondering their future after the anti-immigrant League surged in popularity in elections the day before.

Ibrahim, who declined to give his last name, is one of the lucky ones. He has permission to stay because he once worked in a factory, but it comes up for renewal every two years.

“It often happens that we have problems, that people shout at us ‘go back to your country’,” he said.

That is precisely what the League, which shot up 14 percentage points from the 2013 national election, and its three center-right coalition partners, would like to see happen: immigrants going back where they came from, by force if necessary.

The center-right has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if they are able to form a government, even though that promise will be hard to keep.

Surveys show Italians are increasingly uneasy after more than 600,000 migrants reached Italy by boat in four years. Last month, a neo-Nazi wounded six migrants in a shooting spree in central Italy.

‘Pick them up’

“These 600,000 people, we will pick them up using police, law enforcement and the military,” former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, of the Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party, said during the campaign.

League leader Matteo Salvini said irregular migrants would be rounded up and sent home “in 15 minutes” if he and his allies take power.

League supporters were thrilled that they had overtaken Berlusconi’s party as the largest in the center-right bloc for the first time since he entered politics nearly a quarter of a century ago.

“With Salvini in government, the problem of immigration can and must be resolved,” said Severino Damiolini, 43, an office worker from Sellero, near Brescia in northern Italy.

The immigration debate also highlighted splits between immigrants who have been in Italy for years or decades and more recent arrivals, with the former fearing that their reputations are tainted by the newcomers.

“The League should not lump all of us together – Indians, Asians, Africans,” said Kris Sumun, 35, who came from Mauritius when he was five years old and has worked as a concierge in a Milan building for 11 years.

“They have to understand that there are many people like me who have been here for years and are a resource for the country.

People who have a different skin tone are all treated like we are all wretched and poor,” he said. “I think it will get worse now.”

Next to Rome’s Tiburtina train station on Monday, buckets of rain poured onto tents that are home to hundreds of migrants who made their way to the capital after making the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean from North Africa.

“Very few politicians have told the truth about migration,” said Andrea Costa, who oversees the site for a charity.

“There is no invasion in Italy. It’s not a siege. It’s not a crisis. It’s an issue that has to be governed like all other issues,” he said.
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France’s foreign minister arrived in Tehran on Monday for meetings with the country’s president and his Iranian counterpart, Iran’s state TV reported, with talks likely to focus on Syria’s years-long war and French criticism of Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Jean-Yves Le Drian’s one-day trip highlights the balancing act Paris finds itself in after Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

While French leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron, have criticized Iran’s missile program, French companies like oil giant Total SA have bullishly entered the Iranian market after the atomic accord, complicating any possible sanctions.

Ahead of Le Drian’s trip, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying he would pursue “a frank and demanding dialogue with Iran.”

Iran’s ballistic missile capacity and position “worries us enormously,” Le Drian said last week at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “Having such tools is not uniquely defensive, given the distance they can reach.”

Le Drian faced immediate pushback over French concerns about Iran’s ballistic missiles, starting with Iranian students waving signs at Iran’s Mehrabad International Airport protesting his comments.

That continued with Iran’s armed forces spokesman Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, who this weekend said Tehran only would give up its missiles when the West abandons nuclear weapons.

“The country’s defense capabilities will continue non-stop and foreigners do not have the right to enter this field,” Jazayeri said Monday, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

France, the United States and the United Nations say Iran supplies ballistic missile technology to Shi’ite rebels in Yemen, who have fired the weapons into Saudi Arabia. Iran denies supplying the rebels with that and describes its ballistic missile program as only a defensive weapon.

Le Drian first met Monday with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Shamkhani, a former chief of Iran’s navy, made a point to wear his military uniform to the meeting.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, runs the country’s ballistic missile program.

Le Drian had been scheduled to visit Tehran earlier but postponed his trip after protests across Iran in late December and early January that saw at least 21 people killed.

Macron praised the demonstrations as “the free expression of the Iranian people,” though he did not offer a full-throated encouragement of them like President Donald Trump.

Macron also has said he wants to see the emergence of an accord limiting Iran’s regional presence. The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah is notably fighting in Syria at the side of President Bashar Assad and has a prime political role in Lebanon, where it is based.

During his visit, Le Drian is also to inaugurate an exhibition called “The Louvre in Tehran” at the Iranian National Museum.
…

With no outright winner and the Italian parliament appearing to be hung based on early seat projections Monday, the already fractious country will be thrown into weeks of tortuous backroom deal-making and behind-the-scenes horse trading as coalition negotiations drag on, prolonging political instability in one of Europe’s biggest economies.

On the face of it, Italy underwent a political revolution with voters ditching the center and riding a populist wave. Nearly half of all Italians who voted Sunday supported populist candidates, many of them once considered extremists or catalogued as fringe. The biggest beneficiaries appear to have been the upstart Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), a maverick, anti-establishment party, that seeks to upend the Italian political system, and the xenophobic Lega party, which wants migrants expelled. 

On early projections — and completing the full seat distribution could take days — M5S will emerge as the largest single party with about 32 percent of the vote but the right-wing alliance of Silvio Berlusconi, which includes the Lega, looks like it captured a 36 percent share of the vote, which will give it the largest number of seats in the lower house, from 248 to 268, short of the 316 needed to govern.

Voters clearly rejected claims by the center-left Democratic Party (PD) that things had improved under its government and the party suffered historic setbacks in its strongholds of the north and center of the country. “Voters have spoken very clearly and irrefutably. The populists have won and the Democratic Party has lost,” admitted PD lawmaker Andrea Marcucci on his Facebook page.

Italian daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano announced Monday: “Everything will change.” 

But political insiders say that isn’t necessarily so. “If M5S and the Lega formed a government, which theoretically may be possible, then we would be facing a political revolution,” said an adviser to Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella. “But I think that isn’t likely, despite the alarm in Brussels. Many in M5S just won’t sit at the same table as the Lega..” 

The voters may have spoken but it isn’t clear that Italy’s political system won’t just adapt — it may just absorb the upheaval, much as it did in the 1990s when a sprawling judicial Clean Hands investigation collapsed the then dominant Christian Democrat and Socialist parties, only for Italy’s political patronage system to reassert itself and for many of the same political faces to reappear.

President Mattarella will start the formal process to form a government after March 23 and he has wide scope on how he does it and who he approaches. “The president is under no obligation to hand a mandate to the biggest party, and may first seek to establish whether parties can get together a coalition with enough seats to govern,” noted Wolfango Piccoli of the risk analysis firm Teneo Intelligence on the eve of the polls.

And at the end of it, Italy may be left with the same prime minister as before the polls, the PD’s Paolo Gentiloni.Analysts and ‘establishment’ politicians say coalition politics and parliamentary gridlock will restrict populist politicians delivering on their carefree campaign promises of tax cuts and benefit increases and mass migrant expulsions.

Gentiloni will continue on as caretaker prime minister while Mattarella oversees negotiations. And he is being tipped as the most likely to be picked by Mattarella, to head subsequently a ‘grand coalition,’ if the parties can’t sort out a deal among themselves.The 63-year-old Gentiloni is widely seen as one of the few politicians with the diplomatic finesse to oversee a so-called ‘government of the president’ to stabilize Italian politics. 

“Don’t you you know your Lampedusa?” said the Mattarella adviser, referring to Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, one of Italy’s well-known 20th century writers. “He wrote, ‘If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.’”

The political Rubik’s Cube Mattarella now has in his hands would try the patience of a puzzle-master. 

Various coalition combinations are possible — in theory — but they involve pushing together odd bedfellows and the M5S and the Lega are likely to prove the most awkward in their demands. Coalition negotiations risk triggering party schisms and breakaways, making the puzzle-solving for Mattarella even more challenging. Along with that, personal animosities, even among formal allies, and unchecked ambitions will complicate coalition building. 

The wily, 81-year-old Berlusconi may well seek to woo defectors from others parties to see if his alliance can form a government without having to rely on it being underpinned by Mattarella. And Lega leader Matteo Salvini has already expressed his suspicion that the former three time prime minister, who had to resign in disgrace amid sex and Mafia scandals, could betray him and seek to form a government with the PD. 

Gentiloni, who was thrust into the prime minister’s job in December 2016 after his predecessor Renzi suffered a humiliating defeat in a plebiscite over constitutional reforms, has the trust of other European leaders and in recent weeks Italy’s elder statesmen, including Giorgio Napolitano, a popular former president, have been heaping praise on him, as if preparing for the eventuality of his returning to steady Italy.

Napolitano describes Gentiloni as “essential for governability.”

“Domani, dopo colazione, nulla sarà cambiato” (Tomorrow, after breakfast, nothing will have changed), said Roberto, a waiter from Rome, clapping his hands for emphasis Monday as the early projections of seat distribution were released. 

As they headed to the polls Sunday, many voters in the towns and villages north of Rome said they expected little would change after the election, even though they expected a populist surge. 

A survey published last week by the Pew Research Center, a U.S. think tank, found that more than three quarters of Italians suspect politicians do not care what ordinary people think. 

For Italy’s neighbors, weeks of party wrangling and political gridlock poses both risks and benefits. Gridlock will restrict much of what parties promised on the campaign they would do, which will come as relief to Italy’s European neighbors and to many Italians.

Nonetheless, Italy’s main stock exchange crashed Monday as the markets absorbed the still incomplete election results. Traders said they were unnerved by the voters’s spurning of traditional parties and their flocking to populist and far-right parties.

That, they say, will give the European Union another political challenge to absorb, and they worry that at the heart of a new government, euro-skeptics will rule the roost, challenge EU budget restrictions and undermine French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for greater European integration. Political observers also fear that any coalition government will be friendlier to Russian President Vladimir Putin, threatening European unity when it comes to Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia.

For migrants from Africa — or those planning on trying to reach Europe via Italy — Sunday’s election won’t be good news. Any government likely to emerge will be riddled with politicians and factions pressing for tougher action against asylum-seekers already in Italy and for every effort to be made to stop migrants from reaching the shores of Italy. That will likely include continuing to maintain previous deals reached with Libyan warlords to block migrants from setting off and to deterring NGOs from rescuing migrants at sea. 

Following Sunday’s election, Italian migrant organizations say they expect a dramatic increase in deportations of failed of asylum-seekers. 

While old guard Italian politicians argued Monday that gridlock and coalition-building will result in the populists from M5S and the Lega having to moderate their euro-skepticism as well as their suspicion of free markets and open societies, populists across Europe and in America welcomed the election upheaval. Marine Le Pen, a friend of Lega leader Matteo Salvini, applauded the results, tweeting: “The spectacular progression and the arrival at the top of the Lega led by our ally and friend @matteosalvinimi is a new stage in the awakening of peoples! Warm congratulations!”

European populists say populists in Italy will be further enabled and strengthened, if Sunday’s election upheaval does turn into much ado about nothing, as it will just build up more frustration that they willbe able to feed off. 

European and American populists say that the weakening of the center in Italian politics will further rattle the European Union, which has already been shaken by Britain’s decision to leave the bloc as well as the electoral weakening last year of Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany. 

On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who observed the Italian elections, will point to the electoral performances of M5S and the Lega in a speech in Switzerland as marking a further major stage in the building of a broader populist movement throughout Europe and America, one that will change the West’s relationship with the rest of the world, including Asia and Africa, by changing the terms of trade and reshaping international institutions, from the UN to the EU.
…

The International Criminal Court’s March calendar illustrates why the Hague-based tribunal remains a deeply polarizing institution, two decades after its conception.

Three appeals judgements next week deal with atrocities in Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and attacks against cultural treasures in Timbuktu, Mali. Later this month, trial hearings continue against Dominic Ongwen, a former child soldier and senior commander of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebel movement.

For years, the ICC has weathered accusations of being excessively and unfairly focused on Africa, and a painfully slow, inefficient and expensive institution. Some of the world’s biggest heavyweights, including the United States, China and Russia, are not ICC members, weakening its credibility.  More recently, the tribunal opened an internal probe into questionable dealings between court employees and its former prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo.

But as is marks the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute that created it, there are signs the ICC is broadening its scope, even if the controversy surrounding it has not diminished.

New directions?

In February, court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened preliminary investigations into alleged crimes by governments in the Philippines and Venezuela. And late last year she requested court approval to turn a decade-long initial inquiry into the war in Afghanistan into a formal investigation, which might include alleged torture by American forces and the Central Intelligence Agency. If granted, the only formal investigations pursued against a non-African country, after Georgia.

“The ICC has been working where it can work, and now it’s starting to work in other regions of the world and that is positive,” says Elizabeth Evenson, associate international justice director for Human Rights Watch.  “But we still have a long way to go to make sure the court has the political support and space to address atrocities in more places around the world.”

Court supporters argue the Hague-based tribunal’s existence and mandate, covering some of the most heinous crimes on the planet, committed in countries without the means or will to offer justice, makes it an inevitable lightening rod, and that its budget, in fact, cannot cover it’s daunting mandate.

The ICC has scored a few victories, including a groundbreaking case treating the destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime.  Its 2016 conviction of former Congolese vice-president and warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba drew jubilation and fueled hopes of justice in places with little history of it.  Some also argue the ICC gives victims a powerful voice and serves as a deterrent against more heinous crimes.

Yet the 40 or so indictments the ICC has issued since opening its doors in 2002 have led to just four convictions. And at every step in the judicial process, African cases dominate, accounting for all the convictions and, until recently, almost all the preliminary and formal investigations.

“Africa does not count for 100 percent of the world’s population, but not a soul outside of Africa has been indicted after 20 years,” says J. Peter Pham, vice-president of Washington DC research group, the Atlantic Council.

Anger over Africa bias’

The perception of bias has nurtured mounting resentment and outright rebellion among some African governments, depriving the court of the political legitimacy it needs, Pham says.

[[Sudan’s President Omar Bashir has made dozens of trips around the world since the ICC’s 2009 arrest warrant against him.  Last October, Burundi became the first member state to withdraw from the ICC, complicating a formal investigation the ICC opened days later into killings and disappearances in the country between 2015-2017.

In one of its biggest setbacks, the ICC was also forced to drop cases against Kenya’s president and vice-president for lack of sufficient evidence, amid accusations of witness harassment and lack of cooperation from the Kenyan government.

Analyst Pham says, the ICC not only took on a “democratically elected president” in Uhuru Kenyatta, albeit following a disputed vote, but also refused to give him time to manage a terrorist attack in Nairobi that took place during the proceedings.

“I’m not a cheerleader for President Kenyatta,” Pham adds.  “But it’s precisely this full-speed-ahead, torpedoes-be-damned approach that gets the court into trouble, and enables those, for less-than-honorable reasons, to discredit it.”

The ICC does not always choose its targets, a number come at the request of the U.N. Security Council and African nations.

New challenges beyond Africa

In the Philippines, where the court is looking into the government’s deadly war on drugs, President Rodrigo Duterte has called the tribunal “useless” and threatened to withdraw.  Analysts say the court will be challenged to protect witnesses, get government cooperation and manage expectations in what may be a years-long effort.

In Venezuela, where the prosecution is examining arrests and allegations of excessive force during anti-government protests from 2017 or earlier, the attorney general claimed the prosecution is basing its investigation on “biased” information.

Afghanistan may be most formidable challenge.  If the court grants a formal investigation, after an 11-year preliminary investigation, it could lead to groundbreaking war-crime indictments against Americans for alleged atrocities committed in Afghanistan, and also at alleged CIA detention centers in Eastern European countries where the he court has jurisdiction.

Some critics consider such a move foolhardy, joining broader calls for the ICC to take on cases it stands a chance to win.

“The problem is that none of the target authorities is likely to cooperate,” professor and author Thierry Cruvellier wrote in the New York Times, referring to the United States, the Afghan government, and Taliban. “The ICC will be able to claim it no longer targets only Africans … but it will keep showing its own powerlessness.”

But Katherine Gallagher, a senior lawyer at the New York-based the Center for Constitutional Rights, called a formal probe into Afghanistan’s war and holding U.S. officials accountable “long overdue.”

“It will demonstrate,” she wrote, “that no-one is above the law.”
…

Thousands of Spaniards for unity marched Sunday in Barcelona in support of a grassroots group that mocks Catalonia’s separatist movement.

The group, “Platform for Tabarnia,” facetiously calls for the secession of the cities of Barcelona and Tarragona from Catalonia – allowing them to remain in Spain as the rest of Catalonia calls for secession.

Under the slogan “the joke is over — long live Tabarnia,” as many as 15,000 pro-unity Spaniards waving flags of Spain and the fictitious Tabarnia took to Barcelona streets.

The group also employs the slogan, “Barcelona is not Catalonia,” a twist on the state’s secessionist slogan, “Catalonia is not Spain.”

Political unrest has rocked Catalonia since it unsuccessfully tried to secede from Spain in September.Independence parties maintained a slim majority in the state following December elections, but leader Carles Puigdemont is exiled in Brussels, while other former leaders are in jail.
…

More than 47 million Italians are eligible to vote in Sunday’s general election, and polling booths will remain open until late with exit polls expected immediately after closing.  Opinion polls were banned in the past two weeks of the campaign, but surveys before suggested no party would win the needed majority to govern the country.

This election is expected to determine the makeup of the new 945-member Italian parliament and the next government. It is Italy’s 18th general election since 1948. But much uncertainty surrounds the outcome of the vote with the main contenders having predicted victory.

Three time former 81-year-old Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has brought his center-right Forza Italia party into an alliance with the anti-immigrant League headed by Matteo Salvini and the far-right Brothers of Italy, headed by Giorgia Meloni. This group stands the best chances of coming close to a majority, but recent opinion polls predicted it would come short of the needed 40 percent to govern.

Rome resident Leopoldo Targiani says he will vote in this direction.

“I decided to vote for Forza Italia, Berlusconi because I have certain ideas which are very close to him but not all of them. In Italy, the panorama is a little bit confusing,” he said.

Another Rome resident, Riccardo Frulli, has decided the League is the only party that can bring change. He says Italy urgently needs to deal with the high level of youth unemployment, high taxation and public spending, as well as immigration.

“In this moment we have a lot of problems like the huge flow of migrants that are approaching every day our territory,” he said. “We have also a below average security level with most of the people that have a bad feeling of danger.”

The populist and Five Star Movement, which did not exist 10 years ago and is headed by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, could emerge as the largest single party.

Di Maio has made clear he wants to lead the country’s new government and his party will make no compromises or join forces with others.

In essence, the youngest in this electoral contest is facing his toughest opposition from one of the oldest. Berlusconi is banned from holding public office until next year due to a tax fraud conviction and is backing European Parliament President Antonio Tajani as his choice to lead the country. But League leader Salvini also has prime minister ambitions.

Also a player in these elections is the ruling Democratic Party with current prime minister Paolo Gentiloni considered the most popular single politician and party leader, and former prime minister Matteo Renzi also likely to gather a substantial number of votes.

Many Italians casting their ballots in the fourth-largest EU economy admitted their concern about the country’s future.

This lady said, hope is the last to die, so hopefully things will change for the better because it can’t get worse than this. She says Italy has reached the bottom, it can only come back up.

Observers say the chances of a hung parliament are high. In such a scenario, the Italian head of state, Sergio Mattarella, would have to find a cross-party solution to create a government; a grand coalition of various parties would have to come together. This could take weeks of negotiations and if an agreement for a workable government is not reached, Italians could head back to the polls.

 
…

In advance of International Women’s Week (March 5), a report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union finds little progress is being made in increasing the number of women parliamentarians around the world.

Before 2016, the Inter-Parliamentary Union reports the number of women being elected to Parliaments around the world was increasing annually on average by six percent. But it says this encouraging upward trend seems to have come to an end.

Over the past two years, the IPU finds the number of women in national parliaments globally has increased only by about one percent. It says women represent fewer than one-quarter of world parliamentarians.

IPU secretary-general, Martin Chungong says women are faring better in countries that have electoral quota systems than in those that do not.

“So, this actually calls for more countries to adopt quota systems to try to level the playing field,” he said. “We need more and more women in parliament to create a critical mass so that parliamentary decisions and outcomes are adequately informed by the interests of both men and women. And this… is a very major factor for legitimacy and effectiveness in decision-making processes.”

Progress in Africa

A look at the IPU’s League table of 193 countries, shows a number of bright spots. As in past years, Rwanda comes out on top in the rankings, with more than 61 percent women parliamentarians. Senegal in ninth position outranks 10th placed Norway, with nearly 42 percent female representation. These compare favorably with the United States, which ranks 100, with a dismal showing of just over 19 percent women lawmakers.

Regionally, the report finds the Nordic countries leading. It says Europe, which has made the greatest gains in the number of women MPs, also recorded the greatest losses. It shows some improvement being made in Latin America, with Argentina, Chile and Ecuador as trailblazers.

IPU says sub-Saharan Africa has stabilized at nearly 24 percent and Algeria was the only country in the Arab region to hold elections for its legislature last year. While female participation in Asia’s electoral process remains low, the report says the Pacific region, with 15.5 percent women MPs, holds up the bottom of the rankings.

 
…

Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, made a surprise appearance at a chapel in Naples Saturday, one day before Italians vote in a general election to select a new parliament.

Politicians were forbidden to campaign Saturday, but Berlusconi’s visit to the Sansevero chapel drew crowds of journalists and fans. The 81-year-old Berlusconi told reporters that he and his 30-year-old girlfriend were visiting the chapel as tourists. He said the chapel was part of the country’s heritage, to which “no other country in the world can remotely compete against.”

Berlusconi, who served four terms as prime minister, cannot run in Sunday’s election because of a tax fraud conviction in 2013; but he is the driving force behind the center-right Forza Italia party and has thrown his support behind former European Parliament President Antonio Tajani to serve as prime minister if the party wins enough seats.

But forecasters say the election results will probably not end with a clear party as winner, forcing the parties to form a ruling coalition — something that could mean weeks of uncertainty as the parties compete and compromise in a bid to form a workable team.

Populism is a strong force in this election, as it was in recent elections in Britain, France, and Germany.

Three populist-driven major parties are fielding candidates and promising to crack down on immigration. Forza Italia could find coalition partners in the far-right Brothers of Italy or the anti-migrant Lega, or League, party.

Also populist is the Five-star Movement, but the party takes an anti-establishment stance and has vowed not to form coalitions.

On the left, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party, the leader of the ruling coalition, could see a drop in support due to Italy’s sluggish economy, with high unemployment and stagnant economic growth. Italy is also struggling to accommodate a large influx of immigrants, and Renzi is personally unpopular.

The Democratic Party is in a coalition with the Democratic Progressive Party and the Italian Left.

Of those, the Democratic Party is by far the strongest player — but this year’s wave of Italian populism could deliver victory for the right wing on Sunday.

With that outcome, Italians may find themselves with a governing coalition focused on cracking down on immigration, reforming the nation’s tax system, and trying to bridge complicated divides — with no guarantee of positive results.
…

A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentine newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily. The paper said it had not received formal notice of the lawsuit.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called ‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organization said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the “doomed soldiers.” While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarusians and other minorities.

In an article posted on its website on Saturday evening, Pagina 12 said, “this newspaper did not receive any legal communication and only learned of the information through international news agency reports.”

“If successful, this attempt at international censorship could threaten freedom of expression worldwide,” the article read.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organization has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible – and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland — home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community at the time — including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians.
…

An avalanche in the French Pyrenees swept away five Spanish skiers on Saturday, killing two, local authorities said.

The avalanche hit near the Aragnouet-Bielsa tunnel linking France to Spain. Three of the skiers managed to extract themselves from the snow and were unharmed.

One skier was killed at the scene and the other died after being evacuated to hospital in the city of Toulouse.

On Friday, an avalanche in the French Alps killed four people. Their guide escaped unharmed and was questioned by police on Friday evening. He was released on Saturday. 
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she is confident that a deal can be done on leaving the European Union but warned that ‘no one will get everything they want’ out of Britain’s EU exit. In a key speech Friday, May urged both sides to move faster. The UK is to leave the EU at the end of March next year, but wants a two-year transition period. As Henry Ridgwell reports, there are growing doubts that a comprehensive deal can be reached within that time.
…

“Absolutely unacceptable” were the words Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used to describe U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement that he plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum products.

Trudeau made the comment Friday, adding that he is prepared to “defend Canadian industry.” Canada is the United States’ biggest foreign source of both materials. He warned that the tariffs would also hurt U.S. consumers and businesses by driving up prices.

The European Union was also stung by Trump’s plan, as evidenced by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s warning that the EU could respond by taxing quintessentially American-made products, such as bourbon whiskey, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Juncker told German media Friday that he does not like the words “trade war.” “But I can’t see how this isn’t part of warlike behavior,” he said.

Trump had tweeted earlier in the day: “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

The director of the World Trade Organization, Roberto Azevedo, responded coolly, saying, “A trade war is in no one’s interests.” 

The currency market responded with a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against most other major currencies. It ended the day at its lowest level against the yen in two years. The euro gained a half-percent against the dollar on Friday.

And the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the trading week with its fourth decline in as many days, ending at 24,538.06. The Nasdaq and S&P 500, however, rose slightly after a three-day losing streak.

Trump spent Friday defending his threat to impose the tariffs, saying potential trade conflicts can be beneficial to the United States.

“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump wrote in a post on the social media site Twitter. “Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore — we win big. It’s easy!” 

A Japanese government official told VOA that Tokyo “has explained several times to the U.S. government our concerns,” but declined to comment further on any ongoing discussions with Washington.

“While we are aware of the president’s statement, we understand that the official decision has not been made yet,” the Japanese official said. “If the U.S. is going to implement any measures, we expect the measures be WTO-rules consistent.” 

China on Friday expressed “grave concern” about the matter. 

Trump said Thursday the tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports will be in effect for a long period of time. He said the measure will be signed “sometime next week.” 

In 2017, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico accounted for nearly half of all U.S. steel imports. That year, Chinese steel accounted for less than 2 percent of overall U.S. imports. 

 William Gallo, Fern Robinson, Wayne Lee contributed to this report
…

The Turkish military says eight Turkish soldiers and 13 others were wounded in fighting in northern Syria’s Afrin enclave in one of the deadliest days for the Turkish military since it launched “Operation Olive Branch” against the Syrian Kurdish militia, YPG, in January.

“May God grant peace to our martyred soldiers in Afrin. All my condolences to their loved ones,” tweeted Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin.

In a sign of the continuing cross-party support for the operation, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, tweeted “We trust our army, we have no doubt that they will succeed in their mission to fight terror.” 

Turkey’s defense minister, Nurettin Canikli, said Friday that 41 Turkish soldiers and 116 Free Syrian Army members have been killed in Operation Olive Branch.

Turkey’s mainstream media is offering little criticism of the operation, and protests and dissent on social media are banned. International relations professor Husein Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University says history has shown that the more deaths there are in a conflict, the more difficult it will be for the Turkish government to maintain support for it.

“The psychology of the people will change from happiness to them being very unhappy, with what is happening. This is probably already happening. The more Turkey stays there [in Syria] the more unhappiness,” he said.

Widening conflict

Thursday also saw a widening of the conflict in Afrin, with reports of 14 members of a pro-Damascus militia being killed in Turkish airstrikes. The militiamen had joined Kurdish YPG forces resisting Turkey’s offensive.

The threat of extending the conflict beyond YPG forces is likely to put more pressure on Turkey to curtail its incursion into northern Syria. Ankara insists the operation is about securing Turkey’s borders from the threat posed by YPG, which it accuses of supporting a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey. Ankara is infuriated with its allies over what it perceives as a lack of support for what it claims is its legitimate right to fight terrorism.

“Turkey will likely get more angry with a lot of people, not only with the West,” warned political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor website, “There is already potential trouble brewing with Iran, not everything is hunky-dory [agreeable] with Russia. The dialogue with the Arab world is non-existent. This could lead to more isolation for Turkey.”

Civilian deaths

Ankara is also facing growing international criticism over how it’s conducting its operation.

“It appears that vulnerable civilians are facing displacement and death because of the way Turkey’s latest offensive is being conducted,” said Larma Fakih, deputy Middle East director at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. “Turkey is obligated to take every feasible precaution to avoid harming or killing civilians, and to help them if they want to flee the violence.”

The rights group highlighted three separate incidents in which it accused Turkish forces of negligence resulting in the deaths of civilians. Similar concerns and criticism have been raised by the London-based Amnesty International rights group. While the YPG Kurdish militia also was blamed by Amnesty for indiscriminate use of mortars in civilian areas, Amnesty’s most scathing criticism was reserved for Turkish forces.

“Reports of shelling of villages and residential areas in cities are deeply troubling,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East research director. “The use of artillery and other imprecise explosive weapons in civilian areas is prohibited by international humanitarian law and all parties should cease such attacks immediately,” it said.

Amnesty, siting eyewitnesses, claimed scores of civilians have been killed by Turkish forces.

The Kurdish Red Crescent reported that between Jan. 22 and Feb. 21, 2018, 93 civilians were killed, including 24 children. A further 313 civilians were wounded, including 51 children.

‘Black propaganda’

Rejecting growing criticism, Ankara insists its forces are taking the utmost precautions to avoid civilian casualties. “To date, no civilians have died or even been hurt in Turkish Armed Forces operations,” declared Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag in February.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims such steps are the reason why the Afrin operation is proceeding slowly. All reports of civilian casualties are routinely dismissed by Turkish officials as “black propaganda.” A similar stance is taken by Turkey’s media, which rarely acknowledged even claims of civilian deaths.

International concern for civilians is likely to grow, with the Turkish offensive heading toward increasingly urbanized areas of the Afrin enclave, with the ultimate goal being the city of Afrin, home to several hundred thousand people.

But for now, Ankara is relying on its strategic importance in the region to get its way.

“Every country involved in the region is being very cautious with Turkey,” claimed columnist Idiz, “so having this critical mass means Turkey can muscle its way on many occasions. But will it ultimately get its way remains to be seen.”
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U.S. military planners are brushing aside Moscow’s claims that its military has an array of new strategic nuclear weapons that can hit any target anywhere in the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted about his military’s newfound capabilities in a speech ahead of the Russian elections. But U.S. military officials are downplaying Putin’s claims. VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin reports from the Pentagon.
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Temperatures in the Arctic in recent days have surged above the freezing point, raising fears that climate change is affecting the planet’s atmospheric system far faster than predicted.

The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard sits high above the Arctic Circle. It is still late winter, and the sun won’t rise above the horizon for another three weeks, and yet the ice is melting. Waves lap the shoreline of fjords that just a few years ago would have been frozen solid. Snowmobiles lie trapped in muddy meltwater.

In the past 30 days, temperatures in Svalbard have soared 10 degrees Celsius above average, and weather station data suggests it’s even gone above freezing at the North Pole.

WATCH: Huge Arctic Temperature Spike May Be Linked to Europe Cold Snap

“We’ve seen what are called these winter warming events before. But what we know is they’re becoming more common, and they’re lasting longer, and they’re becoming more intense as well,” NASA climatologist Alek Petty told VOA.

Warm Arctic, cold Europe

Warm, cyclonic low-pressure systems are being drawn into the Arctic. At the same time, winter sea ice cover is at its lowest since records began. Scientists say the arctic region is warming twice as fast as the global average.

“The ocean stores huge amounts of heat, and as soon as you remove that sea ice then this heat can essentially be transferred into the atmosphere, and so we think these lows are now gaining some additional heat,” professor G.W.K. Moore of the University of Toronto said.

The warm arctic weather coincides with an unusually severe cold snap across Europe. Temperatures in Germany have dipped to minus 27 degrees Celsius, while in Ukraine the severe weather has caused blackouts. Snow has covered Rome’s Colosseum and the palm-fringed shores of the Bay of Naples.

A theory known as “warm Arctic, cold continents” suggests that the winds that circulate around the Arctic and normally keep it cold, known as the polar vortex, become unstable. Warm air is taken in and cold air expelled into lower latitudes.

“Is this loss of sea ice and this rapid warming we’re seeing in the Arctic making the likelihood of these cold snaps in Europe, say, more common? And that’s the more contentious issue here. Unfortunately, we just don’t have many years of data here,” NASA’s Petty said.

Jet stream perturbed

Thirty kilometers up, there has also been what’s called stratospheric sudden warming, which is having a big influence on the weather, Moore said.

“Essentially, it perturbs the jet stream, which is this core of high winds that go around the Earth. And that perturbed jet stream is now leading to Europe being under the influence on easterly winds from Siberia,” he said.

Short term, the plunging temperatures have caused travel chaos in Europe, with several airports closed, and rail lines and roads blocked.

Longer term, the impact — though not yet fully understood — could be far more profound for the whole planet.
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Forget self-driving cars! Imagine a future filled with flying cars. The latest design comes from the Netherlands, where a company plans to officially unveil the newest combination of a gyrocopter and a sports car. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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The British government has scrapped plans for an inquiry into alleged media law-breaking and relations between journalists and the police.

Britain held a year-long, judge-led inquiry into press “culture and practices” after the 2011 revelation that employees of the now-defunct News of the World tabloid had hacked the mobile-phone voicemails of celebrities, politicians and crime victims.

At the time the government said there would be a second phase, looking at “unlawful or improper conduct” within media organizations and their relations with the police.

But successive Conservative-led governments delayed acting on the promise. Culture Secretary Matt Hancock said Thursday that reopening the “costly and time-consuming” inquiry was not the right thing to do.

Labour Party culture spokesman Tom Watson called the decision “a bitter blow to the victims of press intrusion.”

 
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In the 19th century, the Kingdom of Dahomey was a major West African power, boasting a flourishing slave trade with Europe and a feared corps of Amazon women warriors. Commissioned by the royal court, its art — intricate wood and ivory carvings, metalwork and appliqué cloth — stood as a potent symbol of the kingdom’s might.

But by 1894, Dahomey was annexed by France after a pair of brutal wars. Its artifacts ended up in French museums and private collections.

Now modern-day Benin, the seat of the former Dahomey kingdom, may have the best chance to date of getting them back, as French President Emmanuel Macron vows to make the return of treasures from former African colonies a top priority. That vow will be tested next week, when Benin President Patrice Talon visits France. Restitution of Dahomey artifacts is expected to rank high in (March 6) discussions between the two leaders.

“The question is to give back what has been stolen during the worst conditions of war,” said Marie-Cecile Zinsou, daughter of Benin’s former prime minister and president of the Zinsou Foundation, an organization in the main city, Cotonou,  that promotes African art.

“It’s very small for France, but for us it’s everything,” she said of the roughly 5,000 artifacts Benin wants back. “We have nothing left in Benin — we have copies, but no original trace of our history.”

Made during a November speech in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, Macron’s restitution promise has been described as historic and even revolutionary. Over the next five years, he said, the conditions must be met ‘for the temporary or permanent restitution of African heritage to Africa.”

“African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums,” Macron said. “African heritage must be highlighted in Paris, but also in Dakar, in Lagos, in Cotonou.”

Experts believe that if realized, France’s example may prove the tipping point for other former colonial powers, similarly pressured by restitution claims. But while much of Africa’s cultural heritage lies outside the continent — stolen, sold or otherwise expatriated by European soldiers, missionaries and Africans themselves — returning it lays bare a tangle of difficult questions.

Who should receive artifacts that may have changed hands and borders many times over the years? Should private collections, as well as national museums be compelled to return the treasures? And would those returns be permanent or temporary? In France, repatriation may also demand changing current law that recognizes the artifacts as inalienable cultural heritage.  

Skeptics argue that many African countries lack national museums or other spaces capable of housing old and fragile artifacts. And apart from a handful of exceptions like Benin, some say, few governments have mounted strong restitution campaigns.  

“All these countries have so many problems to solve that it’s not been the priority,” according to Corinne Hershkovitch, a French lawyer specializing in the restitution of cultural goods. “But it has be be a priority if you want to make cultural heritage come back to your country.”

Others say restitution discussions are taking place outside the media spotlight. Many agree returning African art will demand creative ways of thinking and pooling resources.

“The debate has started in France,” said Mechtild Rössler, director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center. “Museums now need to look at their own collection and identify pieces, which may have been trafficked illegally, or which may have come out of some dubious circumstances during colonialism. It’s part of reviewing the whole colonial history.”

The debate also heating is up in other European countries, which collectively house several hundred thousand African artefacts.  That includes in Germany, where Berlin’s museum chief wants to draw up international museum guidelines for the repatriation of African artefacts — similar to those created for the return of Nazi-confiscated art.

In Britain, Cambridge University students are calling for a bronze cockerel on the university campus to be returned to Nigeria. It is among hundreds of ‘Benin bronzes’ looted during colonial days whose return will be discussed by European museums during a meeting this year. Restitution also will be on the menu at yet another conference being organized in Brazzaville.

“It’s a matter of justice and culture, but it’s also a matter of business,” said Louis-Georges Tin, head of CRAN, an umbrella group of black French associations that helped spearhead some of the repatriation demands. “You cannot do business with African countries and be a robber at the same time.”

For African countries, repatriating the artefacts carries another powerful economic argument, since they can  attract sought-after tourism revenue. “Museums can be the first entry point to learn about the history and culture of these countries,” said UNESCO’s Rossler. “But there must also be different explanations than those given in Europe.”

Beyond restituting African artifacts, Rossler also said Europe could help African countries to house them.

“I have seen museums in Africa where this is absolutely possible,” she said, adding that in other cases, the European Union or individual countries may offer financing.

In France, the public Quai Branly Museum, which houses most of the country’s colonial-era African artifacts, says it is open to restitution demands — providing proper conditions and political will exist.

“We don’t return objects just to heal wounds,” Quai Branly’s president, Stephane Martin, told Paris Match magazine. “The people who receive them must have a real desire to do something with them.”

Others argue African countries should be making those calls.

“It’s our problem what to do with our heritage,” said Zinsou of the Benin foundation. “It’s not a question of France telling us what to do.”

In 2016, Benin became the first sub-Saharan African country demanding that France return its artifacts, arguing they were important both culturally and economically. But last year, the previous French government rejected that request, arguing the pieces now were legally French property. If the Macron administration gives the green light, it may demand changing French law.

“I hope Benin will show what is possible,” Zinsou said. “Even if you’re a poor country, you can [repatriate artifacts] properly.”

Restitution questions also are roiling private galleries and auction houses. But at his office near the Seine River, Paris gallery owner Robert Vallois is serene.

“The doors are open for discussion among people of good will,” he said.

Vallois and group of local gallery owners have offered one answer to the debate. In 2015, they opened a small museum in Benin that exhibits art donated from their own collections.

“Is it a national treasure for France, or is it a national treasure for Africa?” Vallois asked. “Both. The problem is to show it to the people.”
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On one level it was the kind of speech an incumbent leader seeking reelection would give, offering material improvements, making economic promises, and pledging to create more jobs and build better houses.  

Delivering his annual state of the nation address Thursday, his 14th and the last one he will make before an election on March 18 he’s expected to win easily, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his “top priority is to preserve the people of Russia and improve their welfare,” adding that it was “unacceptable” that 20 million Russians are living below the official poverty line.

What grabbed international attention, however, wasn’t his pledge to spend more on maternity pay, hospitals and childcare as well as urban development and education, but his highlighting in bold language Russia’s military buildup under his leadership and his focus, especially on the country’s nuclear strength.

Putin’s surprise announcement of the development of a new cruise missile that he claims can’t be intercepted by the U.S. air-defense shield in Europe and Asia, and of a new, heavy payload intercontinental missile, risks upending strategic stability and triggering a new arms race, according to former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt.

“If there was wisdom in the world there would now be a new phase of strategic stability talks between the U.S. and Russia followed by concrete agreements,” tweeted a clearly worried Bildt.

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul also argued it is time to restart arms control negotiations. “Putin’s announcement today about his new nuclear weapons aimed at us should be a wake up call to Trump,” he tweeted. He said the unveiling of the new super-weapons may not be a return to the Cold War, “but most certainly is a Hot Peace.”

‘Wake-up call’

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul also argued it is time to restart arms control negotiations. “Putin’s announcement today about his new nuclear weapons aimed at us should be a wake up call to Trump,” he tweeted.

Mc Faul added the unveiling of the new super-weapons may not be a return to the Cold War, “but most certainly is a Hot Peace.”

Of the new super-weapons unveiled by Putin, the innovative cruise missile stands out as a possible game-changer. Putin described it as “low-flying, difficult-to-spot” and “with a nuclear payload with a practically unlimited range and an unpredictable flight path, which can bypass lines of interception and is invincible in the face of all existing and future systems of both missile defense and air defense.”

His showcasing of a range of new nuclear-related weapons, including a submarine-launched nuclear-armed underwater drone, was accompanied by video presentations and computer images of the new weapons speeding toward the United States. The videos were shown on large screens in the conference hall full of enthusiastic Russian lawmakers and officials.

The speech’s venue had been shifted in a clear signal that the Kremlin wanted to attract more attention. Normally, Putin delivers his annual state of the nation speech in the gilded St. George’s Hall in the Kremlin complex.  This time, it was transferred to an exhibition hall in central Moscow, where video and animations of speeding missiles could be shown.

They will strike “like a meteorite, like a fireball,” Putin said dryly in his most forceful declaration yet of Russia’s military might and nuclear strength. “Russia remained a nuclear power, but no one wanted to listen to us. Listen to us now,” Putin said after announcing the super-weapons.

‘Moment of truth’

“Giving half the time in the annual address to the Russian parliament to a graphic description of new weapons’ capabilities is a measure of how close the U.S. and Russia have moved toward military collision,” tweeted Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.

As the speech unfolded, former Putin adviser Gleb Pavlovsky said, “The old man only brightened up when talking about how he can destroy the whole world. A moment of truth!”

Why Putin decided to announce a new arms race now has left analysts divided.

Some say it has to be seen as part of the Russian leader’s electioneering.

While he remains highly popular, according to opinion polls, the Kremlin is worried about voter turnout, and opposition activists say Putin’s aides are worried as they try to balance between keeping tight control over campaigning and avoiding voter apathy. The Kremlin, they say, is determined to ensure a big turnout to demonstrate that Putin remains Russia’s “irreplaceable leader” 18 years after first coming to power, and that his grip on the nation hasn’t weakened.

The country’s only truly independent opposition leader, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, has been excluded from running. He is urging supporters to boycott the polls to try to depress the vote.

‘You have failed to contain Russia’

In a bid to boost his popularity, Putin has presented himself before as the kind of decisive leader Russia needs to protect itself. He outlined again on Thursday the narrative of a Russia under siege. “I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country’s development: all what you wanted to impede with your policies has already happened,” Putin said. “You have failed to contain Russia.”

The nuclear-missile developments Putin has been pushing pre-date this election. They began more than a decade ago, after Putin complained bitterly about the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and its deployment of missile defense installations in Romania and Poland.

The Kremlin has long feared that defensive systems capable of intercepting Russian missiles would open the way for Western enemies to launch a first strike against Russia.

The roots of this fear go back to the early 1980s, when Soviet intelligence agencies were convinced that the U.S. was preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack against what was then the Soviet Union and its allies. The war scare was revealed subsequently by high-ranking Soviet intelligence defector Oleg Gordievsky, who in a later book described his intelligence bosses as being in the grip of paranoia. He said it reflected genuine fears by Soviet leaders, who misread then U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s tough rhetoric against the USSR as a prelude to war.

The Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, launched Operation RYAN, and ordered overseas agents and assets to scoop up any information they could and act as a collective early warning system of a possible U.S.-launched first strike. This even involved deploying spotters at night to park near the Pentagon to see if more office lights were switched on than usual.

Much of Operation RYAN’s early warning focus was on Germany, where KGB agents in the Communist half of the country were under pressure to find evidence of America’s malign intention to attack.

Among those officers was a young Vladimir Putin.

 
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A Slovak website has published the unfinished investigative report on alleged government ties to the mafia written by slain journalist Jan Kuciak.

Kuciak and his girlfriend, Martina Kusnirova, were found dead Sunday in their home east of Bratislava. It was the first time a journalist’s death in Slovakia was linked to his or her work.

Kuciak’s story describes the alleged connection between a suspected member of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime family in Slovakia and two senior aides to Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The two aides — security council secretary Viliam Jasan and chief state adviser Maria Troskova — say they are shocked by the murders but deny any connection to the killings. They say they are stepping down from their posts until the investigation is complete.

Fico called the shootings an unprecedented attack on the freedom of the press and democracy in Slovakia. However, he warned newspapers against linking “innocent people” to a double slaying “without any evidence. Don’t do it.”

Slovak police chief Tibor Gaspar said Wednesday that Kuciak and Kusnirova were most likely killed because of Kuciak’s work as an investigative journalist. He said both were killed with the same weapon, which is missing.

The shootings have outraged Slovaks. More than a thousand people turned out for an opposition-sponsored protest, and student marches are planned across the country Friday.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. is “shocked and saddened” by the murders, and calls for a “swift, determined investigation” to bring the killers to justice.
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