Protests broke out in the Spanish city of Barcelona Tuesday after Catalonia’s parliament postponed a vote on who should be president of the region. Pro-independence parties, which form a majority in the parliament, had nominated only one candidate – the exiled former leader Carles Puigdemont. The stand-off between Barcelona and Madrid looks set to deepen as parties on all sides of the debate harden their positions, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
…
Nine members of Turkey’s medical association have been detained for voicing opposition to the ongoing Turkish-led military incursion into Syria against a Kurdish militia group. The arrests are part of a widening crackdown on dissent over the operation.
Ankara’s prosecutor’s office issued arrest warrants for 11 leading members of the Turkish Medical Association, including its head, Rasit Tukel.
Police raided the homes of the doctors early Tuesday morning. The organization’s offices across the country have also been targeted.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday labeled the association’s members as traitors and “servants of imperialism.” The remarks were in response to the association calling for an end to the ongoing military incursion into Syria, and the doctors raising humanitarian concerns for civilians trapped by fighting.
Nearly two weeks ago, Turkish-led forces entered the Syrian enclave of Afrin to oust the YPG Kurdish militia, which is a key ally of the United States in the fight against Islamic State. Ankara accuses the YPG of supporting a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.
Reaction to detentions
The doctors’ detention has drawn swift political condemnation.
Member of parliament Selin Sayek Boke of the opposition CHP, speaking outside the headquarters of the medical association, criticized the government.
“This is an attack on freedom of expression and on those who call for peace and it is an attack done by those who want to kill the culture of living together in this country,” Boke said.
International human rights groups have also criticized the detentions.
The London-based Amnesty International’s Turkey representative, Andrew Gardner, tweeted the government should be protecting the association, rather than detaining doctors from their beds on false propaganda charges.
Growing crackdown
The medical association is one of the country’s most prominent nongovernmental organizations, with more than 80,000 members. The arrest of its leading members is part of a growing crackdown on dissent over the ongoing Syrian operation.
The Turkish Interior Ministry announced Monday that more than 300 people, including four journalists, have been detained under the country’s anti-terror laws for social media postings criticizing the operation.
Erdogan said last week all dissent would be crushed.
…
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the United States has taken a ‘hostile step” by releasing a list detailing the wealth and political connections of 210 people with close Kremlin connections. But he said there would be no immediate move to retaliate.
The U.S. Treasury Department published the list Monday, as required by a law passed by Congress last August aimed at punishing Russia for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, a charge Russia denies.
U.S. President Donald Trump reluctantly signed the law, and administration officials said Monday there are no immediate plans to impose new sanctions on the Kremlin.
In a written statement, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the measure already was hitting Russian companies.
“Today, we have informed Congress that this legislation and its implementation are deterring Russian defense sales,” Nauert wrote. “Since the enactment of the … legislation, we estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions.”
Several Kremlin officials reacted angrily to the U.S. report. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would “poison relations for a long time.”
But Putin was more reserved. Speaking at a campaign event Tuesday in Moscow, he said that while he was dismayed at publication of the list, he would hold off on retaliatory actions, apparently in view of the lack of accompanying U.S. sanctions.
“We were waiting for this list to come out, and I’m not going to hide it: we were going to take steps in response, and, mind you, serious steps, that could push our relations to the nadir. But we’re going to refrain from taking these steps for now,” Putin said.
He joked, however that he was disappointed that he was not included on the list.
The report details the finances and political connections of 114 Russian politicians and 96 so-called “oligarchs” who have prospered under Putin. Officials noted that the list of oligarchs appears to be the same as Forbes’ ranking of Russian billionaires.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who is among those on the list, said Russia would study the information in the U.S. report before deciding on a response.
‘Crooks and thieves’
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny hailed the publication of the list, tweeting Tuesday that he was “glad to see these [people] have been officially recognized at the international level as crooks and thieves.”
Trump criticized the congressionally-mandated list when he signed the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” saying it “improperly encroaches on executive power, disadvantages American companies and hurts the interests of our European allies.”
The measure gave the Trump administration 180 days to produce the list, which includes Prime Minister Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and top spy agency officials. Among the business figures are aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, Sberbank CEO German Gref and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.
The law ordered the Trump administration to impose sanctions on anyone who engages in a “significant transaction” with the defense or intelligence sectors of the Russian government.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer criticized the administration’s decision not to impose new sanctions or “put forth a plan for how it plans to deter further Russian aggression.”
“Sanctions are a deterrent only if countries believe the U.S. will impose them. The anemic announcements today, with no statements from senior administration officials, do not give me confidence that is the case,” Hoyer said in a statement.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi also criticized the White House decision.
“Congress passed sanctions on Russia overwhelmingly to send a message on Russian interference in our democracy. The president doesn’t appear to want to send that message,” he wrote on Twitter.
read moreLast week British Prime Minister Theresa May basked in praise in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he thought she was doing a good job and pledged to help advance a trade deal to help offset economic losses Britain will likely suffer from leaving the European Union.
But this week, the growing rift in her Cabinet over Brexit, as well as her leadership, has critics within her ruling Conservative party saying she isn’t doing a good job and accusing her of governing more like a tortoise than a lion.
Traditionally, the Conservatives are unsentimental when it comes to ditching their leaders, and far more so than the main opposition party, Labour, which has often retained leaders long after they should have been dumped. And internecine warfare in Britain’s Conservative party can be especially fratricidal: most of the key players tend to have grown up together in college, where they waged youthful ideological battles or competed to run student societies and debating clubs. The bruising rivalries of the past often remain unforgiven.
But few of May’s senior party foes have the political courage to condemn her openly. That is left to lawmaker allies who don’t have government positions or to ideological friends in the country’s top newspapers, mostly Conservative.
Hence this week’s avalanche of headlines in the key Conservative newspapers, The Times, Daily Telegraph, and Daily Mail: “Theresa May Faces Growing Calls to Quit,” “It Could End for Mrs. May Tomorrow,” “One Well-Aimed Speech Could Topple Mrs. May,” and “Theresa May’s ‘Tortoise’ Leadership Openly Criticized.”
In a column headlined “Will Someone Rid Us of This Appalling PM?” The Times columnist Iain Martin accused May of overseeing “one of the most spineless, depressed and depressing administrations in living memory.” He remarked she appears “temperamentally incapable” of getting things done, “with a zero capacity for initiative.”
Dogged by criticism
May has been dogged by criticism and predictions of doom since she became prime minister in July 2016 after her Conservative predecessor, David Cameron, quit in the wake of the Brexit referendum. But even her friends acknowledge her tenure has been hapless.
She called an early snap parliamentary election in a bid to expand her party’s Commons majority, only to suffer reversal after running what the media described as a desultory and robotic campaign. That left her heading a minority government dependent on the votes of a small Northern Ireland party.
Critics say May has struggled to define exactly what she stands for, and what she has to offer.
She tried to distinguish herself by offering a social mobility agenda, but that effort collapsed when the entire board of a high-powered Social Mobility Commission resigned in protest at the lack of government action, claiming they were being used as window-dressing.
Earlier this month, her attempt to mold a more friendly Cabinet in a reorganization failed calamitously and revealed her weakness when some senior ministers refused to be moved or sacked. One minister told the Spectator magazine’s James Forsyth, “She’s like the Wizard of Ozthere’s nothing there when you pull back the curtain.”
But behind the curtain is a raging battle within the British establishment over Brexit, one seamed with personal rivalries and ambition. And that, according to a Conservative minister who spoke with VOA, is “sucking the oxygen from the government.”
He added, “We are unable to agree on what Brexit should mean, unable to address other pressing matters, including the awful state of the national health service, and that issue alone could lose us the next general election, and when it comes to important foreign issues, we are just missing in action.”
Brexit
Party members clash over whether Britain should crash out of the European Union without a deal, secure a Canada-like trade agreement or follow the Norwegian example and exit the political institutions of the bloc, Britain’s largest trading partner, but retain membership in the Single Market and the customs union.
Britain’s “soft-Brexit” finance minister, Philip Hammond, caused a storm last week when he said in Davos that May’s government would seek only “modest” changes in Britain’s relationship with the European Union in upcoming negotiations, prompting a furious reaction from so-called hard Brexiters, who have also been making speeches, infuriating May’s officials and disclosing the scale of party rifts.
A leaked government analysis Tuesday that projects Britain will be considerably worse off after Brexit, and especially so if it exits without a deal, is fueling the rancor within party circles with hard Brexiters dubbing their opponents “mutineers” and “traitors” and soft-Brexiters describing their foes as “swivel-eyed” and “jihadists.”
Conservative insiders say May has survived because senior members on either side of the party’s Brexit divide fear the consequences of a leadership challenge. Neither side can guarantee one of their champions would replace May.Others worry that trying to topple May now will lead to an early election, one that Labour is in a strong position to win.
“She survives, for now, because anyone who took over from her would face the same challenges and the same disaffection,” says Walter Ellis, a commentator with the news site Reaction.
An earlier version of this story misidentified Iain Martin as a columnist with The Telegraph. He is in fact a columnist with The Times. VOA regrets the error.
…
Romania’s parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a new Social Democrat-led government Monday, giving Prime Minister Viorica Dancila a mandate that will be scrutinized closely by the country’s foreign partners and investors.
Dancila was named prime minister earlier this month to replace Mihai Tudose, who quit after a falling out with the powerful leader of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea. Tudose himself became prime minister when Dragnea forced out his predecessor, Sorin Grindeanu, last summer.
Dancila had to be approved in a vote of confidence, which she won easily Monday — 282 legislators backed her, including some junior opposition groups. The new cabinet retains around a third of the former government’s ministers.
“This government, as a whole, does not bode well for the rule of law in Romania and its relations with the West, particularly with the European Union,” said independent political commentator Cristian Patrasconiu.
Dancila has set up a new ministry to handle European Union funds and nominated as its head Social Democrat lawmaker Rovana Plumb, whom anti-corruption prosecutors wanted to investigate. Her appointment has fueled renewed concerns about Romania’s commitment to seriously tackling graft.
Parliament rejected the prosecutors’ attempt to investigate Plumb, who denied any wrongdoing. But then-Prime Minister Tudose sacked her and two other ministers, saying graft allegations were damaging Romania’s relations with the EU.
On Monday, Prime Minister Dancila said her cabinet reflected the 2016 general elections. “Together with my colleagues, I do represent the political will of the ruling coalition,” she said.
“Today, you do not vote for persons but back Romanian citizens’ desire revealed by democracy. We will govern with pride and respect for Romanians, having the government program in front of us,” Dancila told parliament.
The revised governing program includes plans to further increase pensions and the minimum wage, and cut value-added tax by one percentage point to 18 percent from 2019. It also aims to set up a sovereign wealth fund and boost the absorption of EU funds.
But leftist legislators aim to change the criminal code that would decriminalize several graft offenses, their second attempt in a year to fight off a crackdown on corruption.
Last week, Brussels urged parliament to reconsider earlier judicial reforms, which critics say weaken judicial independence.
…
Failure by the next German government to fulfill a pledge to boost military spending to two percent of its economic output will weaken the NATO alliance, a senior U.S. military official said on Monday.
Army secretary Mark Esper told reporters during a visit to U.S. troops in Wiesbaden, Germany, that NATO members had recommitted to meeting the NATO 2-percent target in 2017, and he would take the German government at its word that it would stick to that pledge.
“It’s important for all of our NATO allies to live up to their commitments,” Esper said during a teleconference on Monday. “If not, it weakens the alliance, clearly, and Germany is such a critical member of NATO.”
Esper said Germany had a particularly important role in NATO given its economic strength in Europe and its leadership within NATO.
“I take the German government at their word that they’re going to get to the 2 percent and live up to that,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats are locked in negotiations about renewing the coalition government that ruled since 2013.
A negotiating blueprint hammered out by the two political blocs did not mention the NATO target specifically – dodging an issue that continues to divide the parties.
The BDI industry association this month estimated that Germany spent just 1.13 percent of its economic output on the military in 2017, well below NATO’s projection of 1.22 percent due to stronger-than-expected economic growth.
BDI expert Matthias Wachter said the percentage could drop further in coming years if the economy’s expansion outpaced planned increases in military spending.
Esper said NATO’s efforts to reassure Poland and the Baltic States remained a key priority to guard against any Russian “adventurism” given Russia’s actions in Georgia and Ukraine.
“We all wish that Russia was on a different trajectory, but after what we’ve seen in Georgia and Ukraine, we have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” he said, referring to the Russian military incursion into Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
…
Senior European Union officials on Monday urged the eurosceptic but pro-Russian Czech President Milos Zeman to pursue cooperation within the bloc following his re-election.
Zeman won a second term in a presidential election in the Czech Republic last weekend after campaigning on a tough stance against immigration and touting his courtship of Russia and China.
In a message of congratulations, European Council President Donald Tusk wrote: “I trust that your country will continue to play an active and constructive role within the European Union.”
The former Polish prime minister, who has tried to calm mounting frictions between the wealthier governments in the west and the formerly-communist EU states in the east, highlighted his own efforts to get the bloc to “better respond to European citizens’ concerns” — a nod to popular worries over issues such as immigration.
The head of the EU’s executive European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, echoed Tusk’s appeal for cooperation.
“In an increasingly polarized and complex world, we need to build bridges within and between countries,” he wrote.
Later on Monday, Juncker was due to host Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who has support from Zeman as he struggles to form a government following a parliamentary election in October.
While Babis is expected to reassure Juncker that Prague remains dedicated to the EU, he will also make clear he would not help other countries in the bloc by agreeing to host any refugees, sources said.
The migration dispute, which has split the eastern members of the bloc from their western and southern peers, has caused bad blood in the EU, weakening member states’ trust in each other.
…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel will not tolerate “distortion of the truth, rewriting history, and denial of the Holocaust.”
Netanyahu was speaking out against a proposed law in Poland imposing fines and jail time on anyone who refers to the Nazi genocide of Jews as being a Polish crime, or the Nazi death camps as Polish death camps.
Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the Polish ambassador Sunday to express its objections.
Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial also warned against trying to change history.
“Restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion,” it said in a statement.
Some experts fear the new Polish law could also mean jail for Holocaust survivors when talking about their ordeals.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, recognizing the extreme sensitivity of the law, promised Sunday to give it a “careful analysis” before signing it if it passes the Polish senate.
Poland was home to one of the world’s most thriving Jewish populations before Nazi Germany invaded in 1939. It murdered about 3 million Jews in death camps set up in Poland, including such chilling places as Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland after the war found themselves victims of further anti-Semitism. Some historians say many Poles collaborated with the Nazis in persecuting Jews.
Poland regards itself as having itself been a victim of Nazi terror and resents being blamed for crimes carried out by Hitler and his gang of murderers.
On Sunday, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki tweeted a metaphor comparing Jews and Poles in pre-war Poland.
“A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house,” he wrote. “They kill the first family almost entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one in good conscience say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?”
…
Several thousand people braved sub-zero temperatures in cities across Russia to protest what they say is a lack of competition ahead of March presidential elections all but guaranteed to extend Vladimir Putin’s grip on power through 2024.
The rallies were part of a nationwide “Voters Strike” called by opposition leader and erstwhile presidential candidate Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who has been blocked from participating in the elections over legal problems widely seen as manufactured to keep him out of the race.
“We demand a real contest. Even many supporters of Putin say ‘why wouldn’t he participate in a competitive election?’” said Vladimir Milov, a Navalny campaign adviser, in an interview with VOA at the Moscow rally.
“They believe Putin can beat Navalny, and we believe Navalny can beat Putin,” he added.
“That’s what elections are all about.”
Yet Sunday’s protests reflected a realization among Navalny’s camp that such a direct contest will not take place.
Barred from participating by Russia’s courts and state election commission, Navalny’s campaign has shifted to calls to boycott the election — arguing low voter turnout nationwide will take the shine off a Putin victory and high voter approval ratings that, they argue, are inflated by state manipulation.
“We are not going to take part in this election,” said Vladislav Sovostin, a small business owner, as the crowd shouted “Strike! Strike!” “Boycott!” and “These Aren’t Elections!”
“We are going to monitor the vote and not allow them to falsify the election for Putin,” he added.
Arrests
Organizers argued that protests took place in over 100 cities across the country — with several approved in advance by authorities. Notable exceptions were Russia’s two main cities — Moscow and St. Petersburg — where police and interior ministry troop presence were heavy and authorities threatened arrests.
OVD-Info, a civic police monitoring group, reported 340 people had been detained nationwide.
Many of those included Navalny surrogates and campaign volunteers in cities such as Tomsk, a Siberian university town where the local independent TV-2 channel reported 10 arrests.
In Moscow, police also stormed Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, where an online video feed of the day’s events was shut down after police broke through office doors with a chainsaw.
Navalny, too, had little opportunity to take part in the event he organized.
Video published online (LINK https://twitter.com/navalny/status/957581631921033216) showed police roughly dragging him into a police van almost as soon as he arrived on Moscow’s central Tverskaya Street.
“I’ve been detained. That doesn’t matter,” he posted minutes later on Twitter. “Come to Tverskaya. You’re not coming out for me, but for yourself and your future.”
Generational shifts
Once again, the faces of younger Russians — many in their teens and early 20s who have grown up under Putin’s rule — were prominent at rallies across the country.
“The authorities are used to thinking that Russians will just sit quietly and wait for change. Well, our generation won’t wait. We want a better life,” says Ivan Savin, a high school student who attended the rally.
He also admitted to telling his parents he was “out with friends” for the day rather than out protesting the Russian president.
“Only because they’ll worry and think I’ll get arrested.”
His classmate, Valerie Koltsov, added that other friends felt the same.
“I know a lot of people who don’t come because it really does scare them. They think they’ll get fined for not doing what the government tells them.”
Turnout tactics
Indeed, turnout was smaller than previous Navalny-led protests from the past year, when tens of thousands of Russians came out to protest alleged corruption at the highest levels of government.
Few doubt that Navalny’s message — fueled by an effective social media campaign — has connected well beyond Moscow and into the regions.
But Sunday’s smaller numbers, despite temperatures as low as -40C in Siberia, were all but certain to fuel debate in opposition circles over the wisdom of Navalny’s call for a nationwide boycott of the vote.
The tactic, critics point out, demands widespread participation or risks simply increasing Putin’s margin of victory.
Ksenia Sobchak, a television star-turned-opposition figure whose own presidential bid has been tacitly endorsed by the Kremlin, is among those calling on anti-Putin forces to register their dissatisfaction by supporting her “Against All” candidacy at the ballot box rather than on the streets.
Navalny’s supporters have largely derided Sobchak’s campaign as a Kremlin ploy to legitimize the vote.
Yet Ludmilla Sidodova, a pensioner at the Moscow rally who was a veteran of the massive pro-democratic movement of the late-Soviet period, argued it would simply take a wider movement if Russians hoped to evoke real change.
She was among hundreds of thousands who once had demanded change, and suggested a new generation could learn from that history.
“I wish they’d understand that we did what we could. Maybe it wasn’t always enough. But now it depends on them,” Sidodova said. “Whatever life they decide they want is the life they’ll have.”
…
Ingvar Kamprad, who founded Sweden’s IKEA furniture brand and transformed it into a worldwide business empire, has died at the age of 91.
Kamprad died Saturday of pneumonia in the southern Swedish region of Smaland where he grew up on a farm, and with some modest financial help from his father, starting selling pens, picture frames, typewriters and other goods. It was the start of what became IKEA, now with 403 stores across the globe, 190,000 employees and $47 billion in annual sales.
His brand became synonymous with the simplicity of Scandinavian design, modest pricing, flat-pack boxing and do-it-yourself assembly for consumers. It turned Kamprad into an entrepreneur with a reported net worth of $46 billion. The company name was an acronym of his initials, the name of his farm, Elmtaryd, and his town of origin, Agunnaryd.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said Kamprad “was a unique entrepreneur who had a big impact on Swedish business and who made home design a possibility for the many, not just the few.” King Carl XVI Gustaf called Kamprad a “true entrepreneur” who “brought Sweden out to the world.”
Kamprad’s life was not without controversy, however.
He faced sharp criticism for his ties to the Nazi youth movement in the 1940s. While Sweden was neutral during the war, its Nazi party remained active after the war. Kamprad said he stopped attending its meetings in 1948, later attributing his involvement to the “folly of youth,” and calling it “the greatest mistake of my life.”
While he eventually returned to Sweden, Kamprad fled his homeland’s high-tax structure for Denmark in 1973 and later moved to Switzerland in search of even lower taxes.
The European Commission last year launched an investigation into ways IKEA allegedly used a Dutch subsidiary to avoid taxes, with the Green Party contending the company avoided $1.2 billion in European Union taxes between 2009 and 2014. The Consortium of Investigative Journalists identified IKEA in 2014 as one of the giant multinationals that moved money to tax havens to avoid taxes.
Kamprad was known for his frugality, buying his clothes at thrift shops, driving an aging Volvo and bringing his lunch to work.
…
A leading separatist lawmaker says that Catalonia’s fugitive ex-president Carles Puigdemont will request permission from a Spanish judge to attend a parliamentary session to form a new regional government.
Josep Rull told Catalunya Radio Sunday that Puigdemont will ask for judicial authorization to attend Tuesday’s investiture debate in Barcelona during the next 24 hours.
Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled on Saturday that Puigdemont must be present at the parliament to be chosen as the region’s chief. It also said that he must ask for a judge’s permission to do so.
Puigdemont fled Spain after Catalonia’s parliament made an unsuccessful declaration of independence on Oct. 27 in violation of Spain’s Constitution.
He is wanted in Spain on possible rebellion and sedition charges and is likely to be arrested if he returns.
…
Hundreds of supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny began a nationwide day of protest against the authorities Sunday, calling on voters to boycott what they said was a rigged presidential election March 18.
Beneath bright blue skies, hundreds of young people gathered in the main square of the port of Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. Speakers called the election, which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin should easily win, a farce.
“I will go to the elections when there’s a choice,” read one placard in Vladivostok, a reference to the fact that Navalny has been barred from running over what he says is a trumped up suspended prison sentence. “Putin is gobbling up Russia’s future,” read another.
Other protests took place in Novosibirsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Magadan, Kemerovo and Yakutsk. Navalny’s supporters said they expected thousands of people to take part in similar demonstrations in 118 towns and cities.
“Your own life is at stake,” Navalny, who organized the boycott protests, said in a pre-protest video. “How many more years to do you want to live with these thieves, bigots and creeps?”
Navalny office invaded
In Moscow, where a protest is expected later Sunday, police forced their way into Navalny’s office and started questioning and searching people, citing reports of a bomb, an online feed run by Navalny’s supporters showed.
Police shut down a TV studio at the office that had been broadcasting online news bulletins, but another studio in a different location continued to operate.
Police detained six of Navalny’s supporters at the Moscow studio and around 16 protesters in other parts of Russia, OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said.
It was unclear where Navalny was, but a group of police officers was stationed near his home. Navalny said he planned to attend the Moscow protest later Sunday.
Possible violence
Police warned beforehand they would harshly suppress any illegal protest activity and authorities refused to authorize events in Moscow and St Petersburg, the country’s two biggest cities, raising the possibility of possible violence.
Navalny, a lawyer who has campaigned against official corruption, was barred from running in the election by the central election commission in December over what he said was a trumped up suspended prison sentence.
The United States and the EU criticized the decision.
Putin, who has dominated the Russian political landscape for the past 18 years, described U.S. criticism of the election’s commission’s decision as crude interference in Russia’s internal affairs and suggested Navalny was Washington’s pick for the presidency.
Polls show Navalny had scant chance of beating Putin, but Navalny says the system is rigged against political opponents like himself, which makes polls meaningless.
While there is little suspense about the outcome of the election, there is keen interest in voter turnout as media reports say the Kremlin wants to ensure Putin is re-elected on a turnout of around 70 percent or more as it sees high turnout as lending him greater legitimacy.
Though Navalny can’t run against Putin and says he knows Putin will be re-elected, his spoiler campaign is aimed at lowering voter turnout to try to take the shine off a Putin win.
…
Spain’s top court said Saturday that Catalonia’s fugitive ex-president must return to the country and be present in the regional parliament to receive the authority to form a new government.
The Constitutional Court ruled that a session of Catalonia’s parliament scheduled for Tuesday would be suspended if former leader Carles Puigdemont tries to be re-elected without being physically present in the chamber.
The court also said that Puigdemont must seek judicial authorization to attend the session.
Catalonia’s separatist lawmakers have been considering voting Puigdemont back in as regional chief without him returning from Belgium, weighing options that included another parliament member standing in for him or him addressing the lawmakers via video.
The separatist leader fled Spain after the regional parliament made an unsuccessful declaration of independence on Oct. 27 in violation of Spain’s Constitution. He is wanted in Spain on possible rebellion and sedition charges and is likely to be arrested if he returns.
The court also ruled that neither Puigdemont nor the four other former members of his Cabinet who also fled to Belgium to avoid a judicial summons three months ago could delegate their vote for Tuesday’s session in another candidate.
The court included a warning to the speaker of the Catalan parliament and the other members of his board that they would be breaking the law if they disobey the rulings.
It is still unclear whether the separatist majority in Catalonia’s parliament will heed the court’s ban on voting Puigdemont back into power unless he is there.
Nor is it a sure bet that Puigdemont won’t try to avoid police and return to the parliament come Tuesday, even if it would likely lead to his arrest either before or after the debate.
The independence declaration in October brought to a head Spain’s worst political crisis in decades. Spain responded by invoking special powers allowing it to fire the regional government, dissolve Catalonia’s parliament and call fresh regional elections in December.
Contrary to the Spanish government’s wishes, separatist parties regained a slim majority, keeping the conflict alive and rallying secessionists around the call to bring back Puigdemont.
Polls consistently show that most Catalans want the right to decide the region’s future, but are evenly divided over splitting from Spain.
…
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Russia of using energy as a “political tool” in Europe as he held talks with his counterpart Saturday in Warsaw, Poland.
At a news conference with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz following the discussions, Tillerson said the U.S. is opposed to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, a proposed project that would connect Russia and Germany. Some Eastern European countries are also against the pipeline, which would give Russia a larger share of the natural gas market.
“Like Poland, the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” Tillerson said. “We see it as undermining Europe’s overall energy security and stability and it provides Russia yet another tool to politicize energy as a political tool.”
Tillerson’s visit to Poland comes at a time when the U.S. is boosting exports of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to central Europe and taking on Russia’s stronghold on energy supplies.
Senior U.S. officials have said Washington will help European nations diversify their energy supply so they will not be solely dependent on Russia.
On June 7, 2017, the first U.S. LNG shipment to Central Europe arrived in Poland. The State Department said at that time Washington “has worked closely with European partners to diversify European energy supplies through new sources of natural gas.”
Talks between Tillerson and Czaputowicz were held before Tillerson placed a wreath and made remarks at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Tillerson said the genocide that occurred at German concentration camps in Poland must never be repeated.
“On this occasion it reminds us that we can never, we can never, be indifferent to the face of evil. The Western alliance which emerged from World War Two has committed itself to ensuring the security of all, that this would never happen again.”
Tillerson’s trip to Poland is aimed at strengthening Washington’s “strategic partnership” with Warsaw in meetings with Polish leaders, with security ties and energy cooperation high on the agenda.
Tillerson also met Saturday with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Law and Justice Party Leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, before wrapping up his European trip and returning to Washington.
read moreThe United Nations says it will participate in the Russian-sponsored Syrian peace meeting at the Black Sea resort of Sochi next week now that some of its concerns have been allayed. The U.N. has just wrapped up two days of U.N.-mediated peace talks with Syrian government and opposition delegations in Vienna.
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres has decided to send his special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to the Sochi meeting, which opens Monday. De Mistura said a Russian statement persuaded the secretary-general that the U.N. should participate in the so-called Black Sea Peace Congress.
“I took note of the statement by the Russian Federation that the outcome of the congress would be brought to Geneva as a contribution to the intra-Syrian talks process under the auspices of the U.N.”
Gutteres said he was confident the congress in Sochi will be an important contribution to a revived intra-Syrian talks process mediated by the U.N. in Geneva.
Critics of the Sochi Congress, which is backed by Turkey and Iran, accuse Russia of trying to hijack the Syrian peace process from the United Nations and come up with a result that favors the government of Bashar al-Assad. Syria’s opposition group agrees and says it will boycott the Sochi meeting.
De Mistura says the only sustainable solution to the Syrian crisis is through an inclusive Syria-led political process.
“The ultimate goal of a constitutional process is to enable the Syrian people to freely and independently determine their own future in U.N.-supervised parliamentary and presidential elections meeting the requirements laid out in resolution 2254,” de Mistura said.
Security Council resolution 2254 sets out the U.N.’s road map for peace in Syria. Under the mandate, de Mistura notes a new constitution will be drawn up in Geneva under the auspices of the so-called Geneva process.
read moreA defiant Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Friday that he’s prepared to risk confrontation with the United States over Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria, vowing to next target a Kurdish-held town where U.S. Special Forces are stationed.
Speaking to members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, a belligerent Erdogan shrugged off U.S. calls for Turkey to limit the incursion launched a week ago, saying the next town to be targeted after the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, where Turkish tanks have been grinding through winter mud, will be Manbij, raising the possibility of American troops being drawn inadvertently into the bruising fight between Turks and Syrian Kurds.
The Reuters news agency reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Saturday the United States needs to withdraw from northern Syria’s Manbij region immediately, suggesting that an attack might be imminent.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed concerns in a phone call with Erdogan about the Turkish offensive aimed at ousting Kurdish militiamen the U.S. sees as allies in the battle against the Islamic State terror group. Trump urged him to limit the incursion and to avoid civilian casualties. The U.S. president, though, acknowledged Turkey’s legitimate security concerns, according to Turkish officials, who say that Trump asked Erdogan “not to criticize the U.S.”
Dramatic escalation
But speaking to AKP members, Erdogan outlined a far more expansive operation than he’s committed to before, indicating his readiness to order Turkish forces, along with thousands of allied Syrian rebels, remnants of the Free Syrian Army that led the fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to drive right across northern Syria all the way to Iraq.
That would mean attacking east of the Euphrates River the Kurdish stronghold of Rojava, which Syrian Kurds hope one day will become their own independent state. It would mark a dramatic escalation of Turkey’s offensive – as well as adding a massive complication in the already complex Syrian conflict.
“We will rid Manbij of terrorists, as was promised before. Our battles will continue until no terrorist is left right up to our border with Iraq,” Erdogan said.
Turkish officials refer to Kurdish militiamen with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a terrorists. They say the YPG is an affiliate of the Turkey’s own outlawed Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against Ankara.
The Turkish offensive, oddly named Operation Olive Branch, “will continue until it reaches its goals,” Erdogan pledged. He made no reference to the fact that as many as 2,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Manbij or nearby. We will “walk on our road until the end,” Erdogan added.
Turkey shares a 911-kilometer-long border with Syria, around two-thirds of which is under YPG control. Manbij is some 100 km east of the mountainous pocket of Afrin, which has been the focus of the Turkish offensive so far. U.S. troops have been located in Manbij since 2016, when Islamic State militants were driven from the city by the YPG with American assistance.
Kurdish officials say they are ready to deploy militiamen from Rojava to reinforce about 10,000 YPG fighters in the crowded city of Afrin, which would mean weapons, including anti-tank missiles, supplied by Washington for use against jihadist militants being turned instead on the Turks and their Syrian rebel allies.
‘Confusion and conflict’
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington would continue to pursue talks with Turkey and hoped to find a way to create a “security zone” that would meet Turkey’s “legitimate” security interests.” Senior Pentagon officials visited Ankara this week and sought to try establish a clear line between Afrin and other Kurdish-held territory and between different YPG units. Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that “the armed Kurdish groups in Afrin” are not part of the U.S.-backed coalition against Islamic State.
But some analysts say that distinction is false, and former U.S. envoy to Turkey James Jeffrey says there is “confusion and conflict” in Washington about what steps to take.
Gonul Tol, an analyst with the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based policy research organization, says that persuading Erdogan not to move on Manbij will likely prove extremely difficult. He argues one of the driving factors behind the offensive is Erdogan’s goal of “galvanizing [Turkish] nationalists ahead of critical 2019 elections.”
Syrian Kurds have accused both the U.S. and Russia of stepping aside when it comes to Afrin, which has an estimated population of more than 300,000 after having been swelled by refuges from other parts of war-torn Syria. Russian advisers were based in Afrin but were withdrawn by Moscow just days before Operation Olive Branch was launched. Erdogan claimed last week that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have an agreement over the Turkish incursion.
A Kurdish official told al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper, that the Kremlin brokered a meeting between the YPG and the Syrian government 48 hours before the Turkish offensive. He said the Kurds were told to hand over Afrin to President Assad as a way to avoid a Turkish attack and it was when they refused that the Russian military advisers were removed from Afrin.
Russia has been wooing the Kurds but appears now to have chosen the Turks in the conflict with the Kurds. Russian analysts say Turkey is more important in Moscow’s plans for ending the Syria conflict in a way that benefits its ally Assad.
“Afrin’s defenders have a poor hand to play,” according to Aron Lund, an analyst at the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank. He says that while the Turks risk getting bogged down during the offensive and the YPG could drag out an insurgency, the Syrian Kurds face a powerful foe in Turkey “whose goal is not to win concessions but to destroy it.” Kurdish leaders may have no option but “to negotiate with Moscow and Damascus, self-interested actors whose assistance will come at a steep price, if at all,” he says.
Operation Olive Branch is enjoying widespread public support in Turkey. Three of the country’s four main parties support the incursion amid a media frenzy backing the offensive. Ankara has moved against critics, and dozens who oppose the offensive, including at least five journalists, have been detained. Erdogan has pledged to “crush anyone who opposes our nationalist struggle.”
read moreU.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is focusing on strengthening Washington’s “strategic partnership” with Warsaw in meetings with Polish leaders, with security ties and energy cooperation high on the agenda.
Tillerson and Polish President Andrzej Duda met on Friday to discuss a range of issues, including global challenges, regional security and economic prosperity, according to the State Department.
In Warsaw, Tillerson will also lay a wreath and make remarks at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“The purpose of the secretary’s trip is really to underscore the importance and the deep alliance and friendship that we share with Poland and the Polish people, especially as one of our closest NATO allies,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters Thursday.
Tillerson’s visit to Poland comes at a time when the United States is boosting exports of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to central Europe and taking on Russia’s stronghold on energy supplies.
Senior U.S. officials have said Washington will help European nations diversify their energy supply so they will not be solely dependent on Russia.
On June 7, 2017, the first U.S. LNG shipment to Central Europe arrived in Poland. The State Department said at that time Washington “has worked closely with European partners to diversify European energy supplies through new sources of natural gas.”
Tillerson is scheduled to meet with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacek Czaputowicz on Saturday, before wrapping up his European trip and returning to Washington.
On Friday, Tillerson met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The United States has been a stalwart supporter of Ukraine since 2013, when a series of street protests over closer integration with Europe evolved into a major confrontation with President Viktor Yanukovych, culminating in his ouster in February 2014 and leading to a pro-Western government under Poroshenko.
The United States and the European Union have imposed numerous sanctions on Russia over its March 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its role in the war in eastern Ukraine.
…
A Moscow cinema has been warned after defying a government ban on showing The Death Of Stalin. (Please see related stories link for VOA story on “The Death of Stalin”) The black comedy was screened to a packed audience on January 25, and many said they didn’t find the satirical film offensive. (RFE/RL’s Russian Service)
…
The U.S. Treasury has announced new sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian citizens involved in the Russian annexation of Crimea, barring them from doing business with Americans and freezing any assets they hold under U.S. jurisdiction.
“The U.S. government is committed to maintaining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and to targeting those who attempt to undermine the Minsk agreement,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday, referring to the agreement under which Russia and Ukraine are obligated to support a cease-fire, withdraw heavy weapons, and support electoral reform.
The new sanctions target several Russian officials, including deputy energy ministers Andrei Cherezov, who is already under European Union sanctions for his role in transferring energy turbines to Crimea, and Evgenia Grabchak. Also listed is Sergei Topor-Gilk, director general of Technopromexport, a Moscow-based engineering firm that builds hydropower, geo-thermal and diesel power plants, power lines and electricity substations in Russia and abroad.
Eleven of the other people targeted are Ukrainian separatists holding government titles in the separatist areas that have proclaimed themselves Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.
In addition to the individuals, the new sanctions target nine Russian companies involved with building infrastructure in the separatist-controlled areas of Crimea. The list also includes the foreign trade association Technopromexport, Power Machines, 12 subsidiaries of Surgutneftegaz, and Doncoaltrade, which is registered in Poland.
The United States and European Union say the separatists in Crimea are directly backed by Russian forces. They accuse Russia of sending personnel and weapons, funding, and supplies to Crimean separatists.
Russia announced in 2014 that it was annexing Crimea and denied accusations that it was arming and supporting separatist fighters there.
The U.S. Commerce Department announced Thursday that Russian company Abtronix had also been included on a separate sanctions lists. U.S. property and assets of Abtronix’s general director, Timofey Telegin, will be seized, and Telegin with be banned from entering the United States.
Treasury is expected to submit the list to Congress by January 29.
This story includes reporting from VOA’s Russian Service.
…
North Korea shipped coal to Russia last year which was then delivered to South Korea and Japan in a likely violation of U.N. sanctions, three Western European intelligence sources said.
The U.N. Security Council banned North Korean exports of coal last Aug. 5 under sanctions intended to cut off an important source of the foreign currency Pyongyang needs to fund its nuclear weapon and long-range missile programs.
But the secretive Communist state has at least three times since then shipped coal to the Russian ports of Nakhodka and Kholmsk, where it was unloaded at docks and reloaded onto ships that took it to South Korea or Japan, the sources said.
A Western shipping source said separately that some of the cargoes reached Japan and South Korea in October last year. A U.S. security source also confirmed the coal trade via Russia and said it was continuing.
“Russia’s port of Nakhodka is becoming a transhipping hub for North Korean coal,” said one of the European security sources, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of international diplomacy around North Korea.
Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment sent on Jan 18. Russia’s mission to the United Nations informed the Security Council sanctions committee on Nov. 3 that Moscow was complying with the sanctions.
Two lawyers who specialise in sanctions law told Reuters it appeared the transactions violated U.N. sanctions.
Reuters could not independently verify whether the coal unloaded at the Russian docks was the same coal that was then shipped to South Korea and Japan. Reuters also was unable to ascertain whether the owners of the vessels that sailed from Russia to South Korea and Japan knew the origin of the coal.
The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday put the owner of one of the ships, the UAL Ji Bong 6, under sanctions for delivering North Korean coal to Kholmsk on Sept. 5.
It was unclear which companies profited from the coal shipments.
Russia urged to ‘do more’ on sanctions
North Korean coal exports were initially capped under a 2016 Security Council resolution that required countries to report monthly imports of coal from North Korea to the council’s sanctions committee within 30 days of the end of each month.
Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia had not reported any imports of North Korea coal to the committee last year.
The sanctions committee told U.N. member states in November that a violation occurs when “activities or transactions proscribed by Security Council resolutions are undertaken or attempts are made to engage in proscribed transactions, whether or not the transaction has been completed.”
Asked about the shipments identified by Reuters, Matthew Oresman, a partner with law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who advises companies on sanctions, said: “Based on these facts, there appears to be a violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution by the parties involved.”
“Also those involved in arranging, financing, and carrying out the shipments could likely face U.S. sanctions,” he said.
Asked about the shipments, a U.S. State Department spokesman said: “It’s clear that Russia needs to do more. All U.N. member states, including Russia, are required to implement sanctions resolutions in good faith and we expect them all to do so.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The independent panel of experts that reports to the Security Council on violations of sanctions was not immediately available for comment.
North Korea has refused to give up the development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States. It has said the sanctions infringe its sovereignty and accused the United States of wanting to isolate and stifle North Korea.
An independent panel of experts reported to the Security Council on Sept. 5 that North Korea had been “deliberately using indirect channels to export prohibited commodities, evading sanctions.”
Reuters reported last month that Russian tankers had supplied fuel to North Korea at sea and U.S.
President Donald Trump told Reuters in an interview on Jan. 17 that Russia was helping Pyongyang get supplies in violation of the sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on nine entities, 16 people and six North Korean ships it accused of helping the weapons programs.
Two routes
Two separate routes for the coal were identified by the Western security sources.
The first used vessels from North Korea via Nakhodka, about 85 km (53 miles) east of the Russian city of Vladivostok.
One vessel that used this route was the Palau-flagged Jian Fu which Russian port control documents show delivered 17,415 tons of coal after sailing from Nampo in North Korea on Aug. 3 and docking at berth no. 4 run by LLC Port Livadiya in Nakhodka. It left the port on Aug. 18.
The vessel had turned off its tracking transmitter from July 24 to Aug. 2, when it was in open seas, according to publicly available ship tracking data. Under maritime conventions, this is acceptable practice at the discretion of the ship’s captain, but means the vessel could not be tracked publicly.
Another ship arrived at the same berth — No. 4 — on Aug. 16, loaded 20,500 tons of coal and headed to the South Korean port of Ulsan in Aug. 24, according to Russian port control documents.
Reuters was unable to reach the operator of the Jian Fu, which was listed in shipping directories as the China-based Sunrise Ship Management. The Nakhodka-based transport agent of the Jian Fu did not respond to written and telephone requests for comment. LLC Port Livadiya did not respond to a written request for comment.
The second route took coal via Kholmsk on the Russian Pacific island of Sakhalin, north of Japan.
At least two North Korean vessels unloaded coal at a dock in Kholmsk port in August and September after arriving from the ports of Wonsan and Taean in North Korea, Russian port control data and ship tracking data showed.
The Rung Ra 2 docked in Kholmsk three times between Aug. 1 and Sept. 12, unloading a total of 15,542 tons of coal, while the Ul Ji Bong 6 unloaded a total of 10,068 tons of coal on two separate port calls — on Aug. 3 and between Sept. 1 and Sept. 8, according to the official Russian Information System for State Port Control.
The coal did not pass Russian customs because of the UN sanctions taking effect, but was then loaded at the same dock onto Chinese-operated vessels. Those vessels stated their destination in Russian port control documents as North Korea, according to a source in Sakhalin port administration who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Reuters has seen the port control documents which state the destination of the coal as North Korea. But the vessels that loaded the North Korean coal sailed instead for the ports of Pohang and Incheon in South Korea, ship tracking data showed.
The Chinese commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday included the owner of the Ul Ji Bong 6 under sanctions for delivering North Korean coal to Kholmsk after the sanctions took effect.
It was unclear which companies profited from the coal shipments.
Asked about the shipments, a South Korean foreign ministry official said:c“Our government is monitoring any sanctions-evading activities by North Korea. We’re working closely with the international community for the implementation of the sanctions.”
The official declined to say whether the ministry was aware of the shipments reported by Reuters.
The Japanese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The European security sources said the route via Russia had developed as China, North Korea’s neighbour and lone major ally, cracked down on exports from the secretive Communist state.
“The Chinese have cracked down on coal exports from North Korea so the smuggling route has developed and Russia is the transit point for coal,” one of the European security sources said.
…
A partial jawbone bearing seven teeth unearthed in a cave in Israel represents what scientists are calling the oldest-known Homo sapiens remains outside Africa, showing that our species trekked out of that continent far earlier than previously known.
Researchers on Thursday announced the discovery of the fossil estimated as 177,000 to 194,000 years old, and said the teeth bore telltale traits of Homo sapiens not present in close human relatives alive at the time, including Neanderthals.
The fossil of the left part of the upper jaw of a young adult — the person’s sex remains unclear — came from Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel’s western slopes about 7.5 miles (12 km) south of Haifa. Also found inside the large collapsed cave, once inhabited by humans, were blades and other stone tools that were sophisticated for the time, several hearths and burned animal bones.
Earlier migration, different route
Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa, with the earliest-known fossils roughly 300,000 years old. A key milestone was when our species first ventured out of Africa en route to populating the far corners of the globe.
Until now, the oldest Homo sapiens fossils outside Africa had come from two other cave sites in Israel, including one also on Mount Carmel, about 90,000 to 120,000 years old.
The new discovery supports the idea that humans migrated out of Africa through a northern route, the Nile valley and the eastern Mediterranean coast, and not a southern route across the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the southern coast of Saudi Arabia, the Indian subcontinent and East Asia, said Tel Aviv University paleoanthropologist Israel Hershkovitz, who led the study.
“This is an exciting discovery that confirms other suggestions of an earlier migration out of Africa,” added paleoanthropologist Rolf Quam of Binghamton University in New York, a co-author of the study published in the journal Science.
Fossil, DNA evidence
“Now we finally have fossil evidence of this migration, in addition to inferences drawn from ancient DNA studies and archaeological sites,” Quam said, referring to genetic research suggesting a migration from Africa at least 220,000 years ago and probably earlier.
Hershkovitz said he believes Homo sapiens may have originated some 500,000 years ago.
The Misliya humans were likely nomadic, moving around the landscape following the movements of prey species or according to the seasons of the year, Quam said.
“They were capable hunters of large-game species including wild cattle, deer and gazelles. They also made extensive use of plant materials, including perhaps for bedding,” Quam added.
…
Grocery shopping went a little nuts in France when a supermarket chain deeply discounted jars of Nutella.
Aficionados of the chocolate hazelnut spread jostled and fought each other when the Intermarché supermarkets offered the treat at a 70 percent discount.
“They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand,” one customer told French media.
Videos posted on social media showed huge crowds gathered around pallets of Nutella, with people grabbing as many jars as they could carry.
In some stores, including in Ostricourt in northern France, police had to be called as scuffles broke out between customers.
In L’Horme, an employee told a newspaper that he saw a customer with a black eye in the crowd. “We were trying to get in between the customers, but they were pushing us,” he said.
France is the second-biggest consumer of Nutella, eating around 100 million jars per year, behind Germany.
…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the U.S is “not concerned” about the value of the dollar in the short-term.
At a press briefing at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, Mnuchin said the short-term value of the dollar is dependent on many factors in what is a very liquid market.
In the longer-term, he said, the U.S. currency’s value will be determined by the underlying strength of the U.S. economy.
On Wednesday, Mnuchin sparked a big dollar sell-off when he said the recent fall in the value of the dollar was “good” for trade. The euro, for example, spiked to a three-year high.
Mnuchin insisted Thursday that his comment on the dollar was “balanced and consistent.”
…
A commuter train derailed Thursday in northern Italy, killing at least three people, seriously injuring 10 and trapping others heading into Milan at the start of the work day, officials said.
The Trenord train derailed at a switch track near the Pioltello Limito station on the outskirts of the city, halting train traffic into and out of Italy’s financial capital for hours. At least two main cars from the middle of the train peeled off the rails but were still standing, albeit at an angle. Rescue crews gingerly climbed through the crushed sides of the cars trying to get to trapped passengers.
Prosecutors at the scene said at least three people were killed, 10 were seriously injured and dozens more slightly injured. The train was heading from Cremona, in eastern Lombardy, into Milan’s Garibaldi station and came off the rails at a switch track, suggesting that at least played a role in the derailment, the local prefect said.
Passengers reported feeling the car shake for a few minutes before hearing a big bang, and then feeling the car crush in on them.
Trenord is the regional train company serving the Lombardy region. It is notorious among passengers for dirty, packed cars and frequent delays. On social media Thursday, it was ridiculed for tweets blaming delays into Milan on a “technical inconvenience” involving a train.
It was the latest incident involving Italy’s aging rail system. In 2016, 23 people were killed when two trains collided on a single track in an olive grove in Puglia, southeastern Italy. In 2009, 32 people were killed when a freight train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed and exploded in Viareggio, in central Italy’s Tuscany region.
…
Donald Trump arrived at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos on Thursday, the first serving U.S. president to attend since Bill Clinton in 2000.
Analysts say many delegates are braced for a clash of competing visions for the global economy.
Trump is expected to push his agenda of “America First,” which has seen the United States put tariffs on some imports and demand the restructuring of global trade deals. Other global powers, including Europe, China and Japan, are urging a renewed commitment to global free trade.
Organizers hope the summit will help reconcile the rival visions.
“We strongly believe in dialogue and I think the fact that the president of the U.S. is here also opens up for a discussion about more equitable globalization,” said Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum.
WATCH: Davos Elite Braced For Trump’s ‘America First’ Agenda
Speech Friday
But it is Trump’s attitude toward globalization, and by extension free trade, that is generating a tangible tension ahead of his speech that will close the summit Friday.
The president signed an order Tuesday imposing steep import tariffs on washing machines and solar panels, repeating his assertion that the current trade system is bad for America.
“These executive actions uphold the principle of fair trade and demonstrate to the world that the United States will not be taken advantage of anymore,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Modi sets the stage
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the opening address to the forum. His message contrasted sharply with what will likely be Trump’s.
“Forces of protectionism are raising their heads against globalization. Their intention is not only to avoid globalization themselves but also want to reverse its natural flow,” Modi told delegates Tuesday.
His sentiments were shared by many other leaders at Davos, including America’s European allies and big economies like China and Japan.
Trump’s agenda?
So how will Trump’s “America First” agenda be received?
“It’s almost setting the agenda for a confrontation of some form,” said Inderjeet Parmar, professor of international politics at City University London.
“So, I think there’s going to be some anxiety, because there is a sort of changing character of the international system, or at least changing character of America’s engagement with it. And that’s having a knock-on effect on other states, which are beginning increasingly to see that it’s going to be a bit more competitive in the international order,” Parmar said.
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump warned against the “false song of globalism.” Trump is to arrive in the spiritual heart of that globalism Thursday, with a message many fellow guests may not want to hear.
…
Pope Francis denounced “fake news” as evil and urged reporters to rediscover the “dignity of journalism” and search for the truth.
“Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions and serve economic interests, the pope wrote in an annual message released Wednesday in advance of the Roman Catholic Church’s World Communications Day on May 13.
The document was the first released by a pope on the topic and came after months of ongoing debate about the effect of fake news stories on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The pope’s message cited the difficulty people have of differentiating erroneous information from the truth due to their lack of exposure to information outlets that offer different opinions and perspectives.
“Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas,” the pope wrote.
Francis called on journalists to pursue information that is “truthful and opposed to falsehoods, rhetorical slogans, and sensational headlines.”
The pontiff has had a contentious relationship with the news media, often complaining about what he has considered biased news reporting.
During his recent trip to Chile and Peru, media criticism of him was renewed for having appointed a bishop accused by victims of being participating in a cover-up for Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest. He was then heavily criticized in the Chilean media for accusing the victims of slander.
Francis touted educational efforts to make social media users aware of disinformation, as well as institutional and legal campaigns to expose those who use technology to hide their identities so they can anonymously plant lies to the public.
“None of us can feel exempted from the duty of countering these falsehoods,” he said.
The Catholic Church has been observing World Communications Day since 1967. The release of the pope’s message on January 24, coincides with the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists.
…
Russia tightened its so-called “foreign agent” law last month to target overseas media operating in the country. It means the government can require media outlets to state that they are “foreign agents.” They also have to submit to intensive scrutiny of staffing and financing. Voice of America is among the media organizations to receive such a designation.
Similar legislation was introduced in 2012 against civil society and non-governmental groups that receive any type of foreign financial support.
The human rights group Memorial has long been targeted for its efforts at documenting historical crimes in the Soviet era, as well as modern-day rights abuses. It was founded in the late 1980s by political dissidents, including the late Russian nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov.
Memorial was designated a foreign agent in 2015 — accused of receiving funds from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy and the European Commission, among others. The designation has seen a big increase in workload for the group’s legal director, Kirill Koroteev.
“The most significant problem is that we have to spend a great deal of time in court. We have to spend a lot of time defending ourselves, because we are under the tight control of the state. And that means that even the smallest possible fault, the way the state sees it, leads to a fine or a threat to be eliminated,” Koroteev told VOA in a recent interview.
WATCH: Henry Ridgwell’s report from Moscow
For many of those who fall foul of the designation, the law has echoes of Stalin-era denunciations of alleged anti-Soviet spies. Koroteev says even the term foreign agent appears to be copied from those times.
“This particular expression itself, let us say, is undoubtedly borrowed from the “Great Terror” period. Someone could just open any reasonable book on history, or even a dictionary of the Russian language. That is why the parallel is quite evident.”
The organization Levada conducts social research and polling, aiming to gain an insight into Russian public opinion. But it, too, has also been designated a foreign agent and banned from operating during Russia’s upcoming election campaign season.
“Nobody is going to try to find out for themselves what the foreign money was used for — it does not matter. The most important thing is that the label was attached. Then, that makes it seem there is something murky. That label means one works for foreigners, and if he works for foreigners, that means he is against Russia,” says Levada’s Denis Volkov.
Russia’s government says the foreign agent law is aimed at stopping nefarious foreign interference in Russian politics. On the streets of Moscow, few wanted to discuss the topic. Those who did voiced support for the government.
“I stand for everything in the national interest, everything that is for us. That pleases me. Maybe I am a patriot, but I think that we shall survive without all those foreign things,” Moscow resident Larisa told VOA.
In its latest report for 2018, the group Human Rights Watch says the foreign agent law has had a chilling effect: By September 2017, Russia had designated 158 groups as foreign agents, and courts had levied crippling fines for those failing to comply. They estimate that approximately 30 civil society groups have shut down.
…
Italy holds national elections on March 4 under a new, complicated electoral system that mixes proportional representation with first-past-the-post balloting.
Unlike the previous electoral system, the new law does not provide any bonus to the first-placed party or coalition.
Pollsters estimate that the winner this time around will need at least 40 percent of the vote, and probably more, to govern.
No party or coalition has taken 40 percent of the vote in an opinion poll for months. Here are some of the more likely scenarios following the vote:
The president’s government
President Sergio Mattarella is the supreme arbiter of Italian politics and will play a central role if, as polls suggest, the ballot box delivers deadlock. One scenario would see him try to engineer a cross-party deal to create a government with a clearly defined policy program. Such an administration could be led by a technocrat.
The grand coalition
A variation of that scenario would see the mainstream center-right and center-left parties, led respectively by former prime ministers Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Renzi, agree to forge the sort of “Grosse Koalition” that is taking shape in Germany. This would have a more ambitious remit than the so-called “president’s government.”
Both parties currently rule out such an alliance, but they managed to work together, briefly, after inconclusive 2013 national elections. However, recent polls suggest they will not have enough seats to govern, meaning they would have to try to get other groups onboard, complicating any coalition negotiations.
Center-right victorious
Berlusconi’s center-right bloc has been inching up in the polls and currently stands at around 37 percent. Berlusconi says he is aiming to win 45 percent, which would enable the alliance to govern alone. His Forza Italia (Go Italy!) and Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigrant League are the two main parties in the alliance. They have agreed that whoever gets more votes will name the prime minister.
Forza Italia has a five-point lead against the League at present and Berlusconi, who is barred from holding public office because of a tax fraud conviction, has yet to say who he would nominate to head the coalition government.
Swift new elections
If no workable government can be created after March 4, some politicians have suggested Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s center-left government should stay in office until new elections are held, as happened in Spain, which went to the polls twice within six months between 2015 and 2016.
Some analysts have suggested that parties might give Gentiloni a limited mandate to re-write the electoral laws again, but it is hard to see consensus forming on this issue any time soon.
5-Star to the fore
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement has backed away from its long-standing refusal to form alliances with other parties and is likely to emerge as Italy’s largest single party, with polls putting it on around 27 percent. It says this means it should get the first nod to try to form an administration and has suggested it would seek a deal based on line-by-line policy items to be carried out, rather than a formal coalition.
The 5-Star is a bitter enemy of both Berlusconi and Renzi, but some analysts have speculated it could forge a coalition with either Salvini’s rightist League, or the leftist Free and Equal group. It is unclear whether either party would have enough seats to make this a feasible option. A three-way tie-up would never happen.
…
ukrlines skype чат
