Kasey Turcol has just 75 minutes to explain to her high school students the importance of D-Day — and if this wasn’t the 75th anniversary of the turning point in World War II, she wouldn’t devote that much time to it.

D-Day is not part of the required curriculum in North Carolina — or in many other states.

Turcol reminds her students at Crossroads FLEX High School in Cary that D-Day was an Allied victory that saved Europe from Nazi tyranny and that the young men who fought and died were barely older than they are. She sprinkles her lesson with details about the number of men, ships and planes involved in the landing at Normandy while adding a few lesser-known facts about a Spanish spy and a deadly military practice conducted six months earlier in England.

Losing resonance

In the U.S. and other countries affected by the events on June 6, 1944, historians and educators worry that the World War II milestone is losing its resonance with today’s students.

In France, which was liberated from German occupation, D-Day isn’t a stand-alone topic in schools. German schools concentrate on the Holocaust and the Nazi dictatorship. And despite having been part of the Allied powers, in Russia, the schools avoid D-Day because they believe it was the victories on the Eastern Front that won the war.

“History has taken a back seat” in the U.S. because of the focus on science and math classes, said Cathy Gorn, executive director of National History Day in College Park, Md. 

In the U.S., teaching about World War II varies from state to state. It’s often up to the teachers to decide how much time they want to give to individual battles like D-Day.

California framework

California’s History-Social Science Framework, adopted in 2016, includes for sophomores an expansive unit on World War II that covers how the conflict was “a total war,” the goals of the Allied and Axis powers and how the fighting was fought on different fronts. The unit also includes a section on the Holocaust. 

In New York, school officials are using the D-Day anniversary to review the curriculum and “make recommendations on how the current average time of 90 minutes of World War II study in a school year can be strengthened, expanded and mandated.” 

There are special programs available to immerse select students in the history of D-Day. 

For eight years, National History Day sent 15 pairs of students and teachers to Normandy to immerse them in the history of D-Day. The high school sophomores and juniors would research individual soldiers close to them — relatives or people from their hometowns — who died. On the last day, the group visited a cemetery where each student read a eulogy for his or her individual soldier. 

Teachers also have outside resources. The National World War II Museum offers an electronic field trip through D-Day and provides suggested lessons plans.

In North Carolina, history is taught through “conceptual design” with connections to themes such as geography, economics and politics, said Meghan Grant, coordinating teacher for secondary social studies in Wake County schools.  

The lessons are based on a method of teaching social studies that was developed in 2013 and used by about half the states, said Larry Paska, executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies. Paska said it may focus on asking students a question like, “What makes an event a turning point in the war?” Students then will use difference sources of evidence to back up their answers.

‘This is the moment’

As part of her D-Day lesson, Turcol tells her class of juniors and seniors that the Germans thought an attack from the Allied forces wouldn’t be possible.  

“It’s too stormy. It’s too risky,” she said. “And what do we do? Yeah, we find a glimmer of hope. On June 5th, the skies kind of clear. The moon kind of shines. And we’re like, ‘This is the moment. This is what is happening.’ ”

She tells students that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower kept D-Day plans on the “down low.”  

Turcol plays a few minutes of a documentary about D-Day to “show you the true humanity of the war,” she says.  

“You saw the German praying … asking for his mother, father, asking for this to be over. Not everybody is on the same message in Germany,” she says. “Everybody here is a father, a mother, a brother, a cousin, a friend. So every life matters.”

Students in Europe also receive dramatically different lessons on D-Day depending on where they live.

Because of Germany’s history, any hint of militarism remains a taboo. While battles like D-Day, Stalingrad and the Operation Barbarossa invasion of Russia might be mentioned briefly in schools, they tend to be lumped together in broad overviews of the war. Individual teachers do have leeway, however, to pursue topics that capture the attention of students. 

The curriculum is similar from state to state. In Berlin high schools, for example, curriculum guidelines include the history of the war under the overall focus on “the collapse of the first German democracy; Nazi tyranny,” which includes classes on Nazi ideology, resistance movements, the Holocaust and World War II.

Similarly, Bavaria’s ninth-grade curriculum focuses primarily on explaining how the Nazis came to power and their anti-Semitic ideology and genocidal policies, with the war taught briefly as part of their “expansion and conquest policies.”  In the 11th grade, the focus is even more directly on the Holocaust, and the curriculum guidelines note specific dates to be learned, including the anti-Jewish “Kristallnacht” pogrom in 1938.

The Russian narrative on D-Day has remained almost unchanged since the days of the Soviet Union. Historians and schoolbooks describe the invasion as a long-awaited move, happening after the course of WWII had already been shaped by Soviet victories in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and other battles on the Eastern Front.

Even in the country where D-Day occurred, the assault doesn’t have a central place in the teaching of World War II. The history of 20th century conflict is taught in France as a theme and no longer as a chronological list of major battles.

A week of lessons ‘not possible’

“We no longer teach as we did before, what we called ‘the history of battles,’ ” says Christine Guimonnet, who teaches history at a high school west of Paris and is secretary-general of the APHG, a French association of history and geography teachers. “Everyone will, of course, speak about June 6 because it was a major moment in the war, but we’re not going to spend a whole week on it. That’s not possible.” 

As long as they are still teaching the broader themes, French teachers may home in on specific events, like D-Day, to organize study projects and, if they have the budget, trips to Normandy beaches, museums or screenings of The Longest Day, a 1962 film about the events of D-Day. 

As cultural director at Normandy’s Caen Memorial, Isabelle Bournier deals daily with school groups that tour the museum. French children often aren’t familiar with the details of D-Day, partially because fewer families have relatives who lived through the war and can pass on their stories, she said.

Students from Normandy are different from the broader French student population, she said.

“All families are more or less impregnated by this history. It is part of us,” Bournier said. 
…

Fiat Chrysler proposed a merger Monday with Renault, a union that would create the world’s third biggest automaker.

The merger, if it happens, would vault the new company, with annual sales of 8.7 million vehicles, into a position ahead of General Motors and behind only Volkswagen and Toyota, both of which sell about 10.6 million.

The merger could give the combined companies a better chance in the battle among auto manufacturers to build new electric and autonomous vehicles.

Investors in both companies showed their initial approval of the announcement, with Renault’s shares jumping 15 percent in afternoon trading in Paris and Fiat Chrysler stock up more than 10 percent in Milan. The proposal calls for shareholders to split ownership of the new company.

Fiat Chrysler said the deal would save the combined companies $5.6 billion annually with shared payments for research, purchasing and other expenses. The deal does not call for closure of any manufacturing plants but the companies did not say whether any employees would lose their jobs.

The deal would give Fiat access to Renault’s electric car technologies, allowing it to meet the strict carbon dioxide emission standards the European Commission is enacting.

For its part, Renault might be able to gain ground in the U.S. market because of Fiat’s extensive operations in North America.

The French government owns 15 percent of Renault and said it supports the merger, while adding that “the terms of this merger must be supportive of Renault’s economic development, and obviously of Renault’s employees.”

 
…

Prominent opposition politicians from Afghanistan and representatives of the Taliban insurgency will meet in Russia on Wednesday for discussions on promoting a negotiated settlement to the Afghan war that continues to cause dozens of casualties every day.

The intra-Afghan conference comes as months of direct peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban appear to have slowed down, if not deadlocked, over insurgents’ refusal to cease hostilities until all U.S.-led international forces withdraw from Afghanistan.

Washington has linked its troop withdrawal move to counterterrorism assurances by the Taliban, a comprehensive cease-fire and the insurgent group’s participation in a peace dialogue with the Afghan government and other groups to end years of hostilities.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that prior to Wednesday’s peace-related talks, Taliban and Afghan delegates are scheduled to attend a meeting on Tuesday, marking the 100th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Moscow and Kabul. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will deliver the welcome address, it said.

That special gathering will be attended, among others, by former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Mohammad Karim Khalili, the head of Afghanistan’s official High Peace Council (HPC), which is tasked with promoting reconciliation with armed opposition groups. Afghan diplomats in Moscow will also be in attendance.

A Taliban spokesman announced Monday the head of its Qatar-based “political office,” Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, will lead the 14-member team of senior insurgent officials at this week’s meetings in Moscow.  

“The delegation of Islamic Emirate (Taliban) will also hold closed-door meetings with senior officials of the Russian Federation,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, without giving further details.

It was not immediately known whether Khalili and other members of the HPC will be part of Wednesday’s intra-Afghan discussions because the Taliban refuse to engage in any peace talks with anyone associated to the U.S.-backed Kabul government.

The intra-Afghan talks would mark the second time Taliban officials have met with Afghan opposition politicians in Russia. The first such interaction took place in February, but no government representatives were present because of objections by the insurgents

Russia has stepped up its diplomatic involvement in pushing a peaceful settlement to the Afghan war, using its growing influence and contacts with the Taliban. Russia, the U.S. and China announced at a meeting last month that the three countries had reached a consensus on a framework for a peace deal the U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban. They did not elaborate.

 
…

Euro-skeptic parties topped the polls Sunday in the European Parliament elections in Britain, France and Italy. Across the 28 member European Union, they enjoyed their best ever results in the five-yearly elections, boosting their share of seats in the 751-strong parliament from 155 to 169.

Italy’s Matteo Salvini, whose Lega Party scored a resounding win and was on course to win around 30 percent of the votes cast in his country, boosting his ambitions for a leading role on the European stage, was exultant, arguing voters had given him “a historic mission” to change the EU.

He congratulated Marine Le Pen for her victory over President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party and Nigel Farage for the success of his newly-formed Brexit Party in Britain. “I am counting on having allies everywhere to save the EU … to change its rules,” he said. “We finally have to change after decades of bureaucrats and bankers’ rules.”

But behind all the populist celebrations Sunday night there was also quiet satisfaction in Brussels among EU officials, who had feared Euro-skeptics would run away with the election and do even better.

Some officials suggested that this year’s parliamentary elections may mark a high-water mark for nationalist populists, noting the surprise resurgence in the fortunes of smaller strongly pro-EU parties.

In Britain, pro-Remain parties together attracted more votes than the Brexit Party.

“More a ripple then for the populists and not a flood,” said a senior adviser to outgoing European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

For many the bigger story of the night was the strong performance of the Greens and Liberals — in Britain the Liberal Democrats stormed to big victories in London, a traditional Labour Party stronghold, and came second behind the Brexit Party across the country.

In Germany, the Greens made major gains at the expense of country’s left wing Social Democrats, making a historic breakthrough with more than 20 per cent of the vote.

Despite the big populist wins in Britain, France and Italy, the results did not match the expectations of the continent’s nationalist insurgents. They had talked about grabbing a third of the seats in the parliament, but appear to have won just under a quarter. In Poland and Hungary they also had success, but elsewhere their performance was underwhelming — especially in Germany and Austria — and in the end the populist finish overall was not that much better than in 2014.

Le Pen’s party came in slightly down on its 2014 result. The Danish People’s Party won only one seat, compared to four five years ago. In the Netherlands the anti-Islam Freedom party lost all four of its seats, including that of its leader, Geert Wilders. Thierry Baudet, the new Dutch populist leader, saw his party win three seats, fewer than had been forecast.

The populists fell short of their hopes mainly thanks to a surge in support across the continent for the Greens and smaller pro-EU liberal parties. And in parts of southern Europe there was a surprising revival of traditional socialist and social democratic parties. While the Democratic Party (PD) in Italy lost almost half the number of votes it won in the last European elections, it staged a recovery from the 18 percent it secured in last year’s national election.

Nicola Zingaretti, PD’s new leader, said he was “very satisfied” with the party’s performance. And in Spain, where the far right Vox party won three seats, the ruling Socialists of Pedro Sánchez built on their April national election victory to top the poll, closing with a 33% share of the vote and winning 20 seats, six more than in the 2014 European election.

Despite the less than impressive performances of their own national parties, the strategic gamble by Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Macron paid off. They focused their campaigning on representing the populists as an existential threat to the EU, atavistic throwbacks determined to fracture Europe into competing nation states.

The higher turnout than in the previous four European parliamentary elections is being credited by pollsters to their warnings as Euro-skeptic parties tend to do better with low turnouts.

But for all the sighs of relief in Brussels, governing the bloc is likely to become more complicated thanks to a much more fragmented parliament. The centrist establishment parties recorded loses and the the duopoly of control of the parliament traditionally enjoyed by the center-right European People’s Party, EPP, and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, S&D, has now been overturned.

There will have to be even more horse-trading and the establishment parties will not have such a cozy time.

“For the first time since 1979, EPP & S&D no longer have a majority together,” tweeted Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, ALDE. “No solid majority is possible without our new group,” he added, hailing the night as a historic one. “This evening is a historical moment because there will be a new balance of power in the European Parliament,” he said, as the election results came in.

Verhofstadt said he hoped to form a new group within the Parliament by allying his ALDE group with French President Macron’s La Republique En Marche party, along with other “reform-driven parties.”

With a more fragmented parliament and more haggling to be done, the populists may find that cohesion is beyond them. Already split into three alliances in the parliament itself, horse-trading is likely to bring out the differences in their agendas as much as their similarities, say analysts.
…

Smaller European parties saw a surge of support in continent-wide elections for the European Parliament in what politicians and analysts agree will likely be seen as the most consequential since 1979, when European Union voters first began casting ballots for the bloc’s legislature.

Early results Sunday suggested the 751-seat parliament will be more fragmented than ever before. Smaller parties, both euroskeptic and pro-EU ones, fared well at the expense of their more established and bigger center-right and center-left rivals.

Pro-EU Liberals and Greens will hold the balance of power in the new parliament, which will sit for five years. Philippe Lamberts, leader of the Greens group, said: “To make a stable majority in this parliament, the Greens are now indispensable.”

The rise of new parties appears to have smashed the duopoly of control of the parliament traditionally enjoyed by the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

National populist parties

As the results came in, nationalist populists were on course to win just under a quarter of the seats in the parliament, but they had set their sights on snatching a third of them. In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche was defeated, coming in second to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. Le Pen welcomed the win, saying it had delivered a serious blow to the authority of the French president.

In Italy, too, nationalist populists led by Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister, made important gains. And eurosceptic hard-right parties topped the polls in Britain, Poland and Hungary.

But the bigger takeaway from the election was how well pro-EU Greens and Liberals did. In several countries Green parties saw their support jump from five years ago. In Germany, the Greens made major gains at the expense of country’s left-wing Social Democrats, making a historic breakthrough by securing more than 20% of the vote.

Carsten Schneider, a German Social Democrats lawmaker, acknowledged it was a “bitter result, a defeat for us.”

“I think the main issue was climate change and we didn’t succeed in putting that front and center, alongside the big social issues,” he added.

In Ireland, too, Greens were celebrating, clinching three of Ireland’s 13 seats. The sudden crest in support for the Greens comes amid rising anxiety across Europe over the impact of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Eric Varadkar tweeted: “I want to congratulate the Greens on a very good election. It’s a very clear message from the public that they want us to do more on climate action — and we’ve got that message.”

Voters in 21 countries went to the polls Sunday. In seven other nations, including Britain, voters cast their ballots last week with the results being held back until all countries had completed the balloting.

Bloc gaining power

The European Parliament has become more powerful in recent years — for much of its existence it was just a talking shop (an unproductive bureaucratic agency). Now it helps pick the president of the European Commission and contributes to the shaping of trade and digital regulations. Seats are allocated under a form of proportional representation.

For years, the center-right EPP and the center-left S&D, both pro-EU parties, have together commanded an absolute majority in the parliament and its leaders have more often than not been able to settle disagreements in behind-the-scenes meetings.

In Britain, in an election that wasn’t meant to have been — the country was due to have left the EU by now — the newly formed Brexit Party of Nigel Farage trounced both of Britain’s two main established parties, the Conservatives and Labour, signaling it will likely be a threat to the pair in a general election, which many observers think will have to be called this year.

Both the Conservatives and Labour had been braced for a backlash from voters over Brexit, with the Brexit Party and pro-EU Liberal Democrats expected to do well. The predictions turned out to be right, with the ruling Conservatives recording their worst election performance in their history. The turnout in Britain was higher than previous European polls — as it was across all of the bloc where it averaged 50%, the highest rate since 1994.

British Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan blamed British Prime Minister Theresa May’s reluctance to resign from office for the defeat. On Twitter, he said: “Had the PM announced her resignation even 24 hours earlier, something might have been salvaged.”

Still a strong pro-EU majority

The reduction in the power of establishment parties could potentially make it more difficult for the bloc to agree on collective action when it comes to economic, trade and foreign policies, but EU officials were breathing a sigh of relief Sunday night when it became clear there would still be a strong pro-EU majority in the parliament.

The center-right EPP will likely hold on to 173 seats in the EU parliament, down from 221 in 2014, while the Socialist group will fall from 191 to 147 seats. The Liberals were expected to rise from 67 seats to more than 100; the Greens increased from 50 to 71.

Socialists looked set to top the poll in Spain. And traditional left parties fared better than had been predicted in Italy and the Netherlands.

 
…

The Circus Maximus Experience, opened in Rome this week and offers visitors the chance to relive the ancient splendors of chariot racing in the Imperial period of Rome through augmented and virtual reality. The innovative project implements interactive display technologies never before used in such a large outdoor area.

“Now you find yourself in front of the Arch of Titus, which was possibly built in the place of a more ancient arch and dedicated in the year 81 After Christ by the Roman Senate and people to Emperor Flavius”.

This is just an example of what modern-day visitors will be listening to in their headsets, while at the same time through special visors see a virtual rendering of the majestic 20-meter Arch of Titus in Rome’s Circus Maximus.

Thanks to a ground-breaking project using interactive display technology never before used in such an extended outdoor area, visitors are able to re-live the life in one of Rome’s undisputed landmarks.

Visitors immerse themselves in history for with overlapping images from the past and those of the reality of today. They are able to visualize architectural and landscape reconstructions of what life was like during all of the historical stages of the Circus Maximus.

They can see the ancient Murcia Valley enriched with buildings and walk around in the Circus among the shops of the time. They can visualize the Circus during Imperial times, the Middle Ages and in a more modern age.

The full itinerary involves eight stops including: the valley and the origins of the Circus, the Circus from Julius Caesar to Trajan, the Circus during the Imperial age, the cavea or tiered seating arena, the Arch of Titus, the tabernae or shops, the Circus during the Middle Ages and modern age, and lastly “A Day at the Circus” for an experience of the exciting chariot race of the quadrigas with the screams of incitement of the public and the overturning of wagons.

Visitors are able to enjoy similar experiences in Rome at the Baths of Caracalla, the Ara Pacis and the Domus Aurea.
…

The prospect of a “no deal” Brexit was fast becoming the central battle of the race to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday, as environment minister Michael Gove became the latest candidate to declare.

May said on Friday she was quitting over her failure to deliver Brexit, potentially opening the way for a new leader who could seek a more divisive split with the European Union and lead to confrontation with the bloc or a possible parliamentary election.

Setting out their pitch to the Conservative Party’s largely pro-Brexit membership who will decide the outcome of the contest, four of the leadership hopefuls have said Britain must leave the EU on Oct. 31 even if this means a no-deal Brexit.

“I will fight for a fairer deal in Brussels … if not I will be clear we will leave on WTO terms in October,” former Brexit minister Dominic Raab, who bookmakers rank as the second favorite to win, told BBC TV.

“If you’re not willing to walk away from a negotiation, it doesn’t focus the mind of the other side … I will not ask for an extension.”

Fellow contenders Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom both made similar comments on Sunday, while former foreign minister Boris Johnson, the favorite to replace May, said on Friday: “We will leave the EU on October 31, deal or no deal.”

Gove, a leading campaigner for Brexit during the 2016 referendum campaign and a candidate in the Conservative leadership contest that May ultimately won, told reporters on Sunday that he planned to run again.

“I am ready to unite the Conservative and Unionist Party, ready to deliver Brexit and ready to lead this great country,” he said, without giving any detail on his plans for Brexit.

‘A dangerous strategy’

The EU has said it will not reopen negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement, which has been rejected by parliament three times, while British lawmakers have also repeatedly voted against the prospect of a no-deal exit.

Highlighting the deep splits within the governing party over the way forward on Brexit, several senior Conservatives, including leadership candidate Rory Stewart, on Sunday warned against pursuing the policy of leaving without a deal.

Finance minister Philip Hammond said parliament would be “vehemently opposed” to a no-deal strategy and a prime minister who ignored parliament “cannot expect to survive very long”.

“I will urge all of my colleagues who are standing in this contest to embrace the concept of compromise … going to parliament with a hard line absolutist view and daring parliament to accept it is quite a dangerous strategy,” he told BBC TV.

Hammond said he could not support a no-deal strategy but declined to say what he would do if there was a vote of confidence in a government which adopted that policy.

“In 22 years in parliament I have never voted against the Conservatives … and I don’t want to have to start now contemplating such a course of action,” he said.

The opposition Labour Party said it was seeking to work with other parties to try and block May’s successor from taking Britain out of the EU without a deal.

“There is real threat now of an extremist Brexiteer becoming the leader of the Conservative Party and taking us over the cliff edge of a no deal,” Labour’s finance spokesman John McDonnell told Sky News. “We have got to move to block a no deal.”

The deadlock over Brexit is expected to have hit both main parties when the results of the European Parliament elections are declared from 2100 GMT on Sunday, with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which backs a no-deal exit, predicted to come out on top.
…

Representatives of the Venezuelan government and opposition have returned to Norway for talks aimed at resolving the political crisis in the South American country, the Norwegian government said Saturday.

Norway said it will mediate discussions next week in Oslo, in an indication that the negotiation track is gaining momentum after months of escalating tension between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Juan Guaido, the U.S.-backed opposition leader.

The negotiators

Top Maduro aide Jorge Rodriguez and Hector Rodriguez, the governor of Miranda state, both of whom were in Oslo earlier this month for an earlier round of exploratory talks, will once again lead the government delegation. They will be joined this time by Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, said Maduro, who thanked Norway for promoting “peace and stability” in Venezuela through the mediation effort.

Larry Devoe, the government’s top human rights official, is also a delegate member, said a Venezuelan official who was not authorized to discuss the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The opposition delegation is being led by Stalin Gonzalez, a senior member of the opposition-controlled congress, former Caracas area Mayor Gerardo Blyde and former Transport Minister Fernando Martinez Mottola, according to an opposition statement. They will be joined by Vicente Diaz, a supporter of past negotiations with the government who previously served on the nation’s electoral council.

Both delegations traveled Saturday for the meetings, according to officials.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide praised both sides for their involvement.

Representatives of Venezuela’s political factions traveled to the European country earlier this month for talks, but it had been unclear if they would continue to engage with one another amid increased tensions over the opposition’s call for a military uprising April 30.

The opposition had previously ruled out talks, accusing Maduro of using negotiations between 2016 and 2018 to play for time, and has demanded Maduro’s resignation and early elections. Maduro, in turn, alleges the opposition tried to seize power by force.

The U.S. State Department noted the arrests of key opposition figures in Venezuela and said the only thing to negotiate with Maduro is “the conditions of his departure” from office.

“We hope the talks in Oslo will focus on that objective, and if they do, we hope progress will be possible,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

Talks reflect stalemate

The diplomatic effort reflects recognition in Venezuela that neither side has been able to prevail in the struggle for power, leaving the country in a state of political paralysis after years of hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine. Several million Venezuelans have left the country, creating Latin America’s biggest migration crisis.

The United States and more than 50 other countries support Guaido’s claim to be Venezuela’s rightful leader. The U.S. has imposed oil sanctions to try to force out Maduro, whose key allies are Cuba, Russia and China.

Norway has a long, successful history of foreign mediation: The country hosted peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in September 1993 and Maoist rebels and the government in the Philippines in 2011. The government also brokered a 2002 cease-fire between Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebel negotiators. Seven years ago, mediators from the Colombian government and left-wing FARC rebels held their first direct talks in a decade in Norway.
…

Albanian opposition supporters took to the streets again Saturday in a mostly peaceful protest, the sixth national one in three months, calling on Prime Minister Edi Rama to step down to pave the way for early elections.

Waving posters and releasing paper lanterns marked “Quit,” some in the crowd of several thousand threw a dozen paint bombs at Rama’s office. Some also hurled firecrackers at riot police near the parliament building.

But there was less unrest than in the last protest two weeks ago, when some demonstrators hurled petrol bombs, firecrackers and paint at the government building and parliament.

Rejecting allegations of fraud at the 2017 elections that gave his Socialist Party victory and him a second term in office, Rama told opposition Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha he would not resign and urged him in a public letter to settle the crisis with talks.

“He is asking me, asking us to capitulate? Answer to him!” Basha told the crowd, who chanted back in unison: “Rama quit.” “Pave the way to the political solution,” Basha added.

Hours before the rally, the EU delegation, its member states’ embassies and the United States embassy had urged protesters to demonstrate peacefully.

“We call on all sides to build upon the existing offer for a dialogue, with the view to finding a way out of the current political situation as a matter of urgency,” the EU office said.
…

Support for Ireland’s Green Party surged in European and local elections, an exit poll showed Saturday, putting it in line to take its first seats in the European Parliament in 20 years and make the biggest gains in county and city councils. 

The Greens were set to win as many as three of the 13 European seats up for grabs and increase their local vote to 9% from less than 2% five years ago, according to a RED C exit poll for RTE/TG4, a showing that would put them in contention for government formation if repeated at a parliamentary poll. 

Results track polling

After 90 of the 949 council seats were filled at 1000 GMT, early results suggested the Greens’ performance was in line with the exit poll. In Dublin, some of their candidates topped polls by significant margins. 

“We cannot yet count our chickens, but the exit polls for the Irish Greens are extremely encouraging,” Irish Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said in a statement issued by the European Greens. 

European Greens co-lead candidate Bas Eickhout talked of a “green wave” rolling on to Irish shores from the Netherlands, where GroenLinks’ (GreenLeft’s) share of the vote rose to 10.5%, according to an exit poll there. 

​Possible kingmakers

While Ireland does not hold a significant share of the 751-seat EU chamber — and will initially send 11 MEPs until Britain actually leaves the bloc — an ebb in support for mainstream parties is raising hopes among Europe’s Greens that they could act as kingmakers. 

“It is those climate strikes, it is those young people standing up and saying we have to protect our future,” Ryan told national broadcaster RTE. 

The exit poll showed that almost 90% of voters feel that the government needs to prioritize climate change more. 

Health Minister Simon Harris of the governing Fine Gael said the topic came up on the doorsteps more in the last six months than in all of his last eight years as a member of parliament, while Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the government had got a very clear message from the public that it wants more action. 

Fine Gael and the two main opposition parties, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein, looked set to share most of the remaining European seats, with results set to be announced beginning Sunday. 

Fine Gael, Fianna Fail even

In Varadkar’s first electoral as Fine Gael leader, the exit poll put his party and fellow center-right Fianna Fail level on 23%, both down slightly from 2014, when Fianna Fail emerged as the biggest party. That set it up to close the gap on its main rival in parliamentary elections two years later. 

The left wing Sinn Fein was set to fall to 12% from 15%, and while the estimates suggested a further slight fragmentation of party support, it showed continued strong backing for centrist political parties in the EU’s most committed member state. 

“In a lot other European countries, the far right in particular is encroaching very significantly, and that isn’t the case here. In general terms, it looks like the center parties have done reasonably well,” said Theresa Reidy, a politics 

lecturer at University College Cork. 
…

Voters in Slovakia, Malta, Latvia and the Czech Republic are casting ballots Saturday in European Parliament elections.

The stakes for the European Union are especially high in this year’s selections, which are taking place over four days and involve all 28 EU nations.

Many predict nationalists and far-right groups will gain ground, and would try to use a larger presence in the legislature to claw back power from the EU for their national governments.

Moderate parties, on the other hand, want to cement closer ties among countries in the EU, which was created in the wake of World War II to prevent renewed conflict.

Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands have voted, and the Czech Republic started voting Friday and continues Saturday.

Slovakia, Malta and Latvia are holding their European Parliament elections Saturday, and all the other nations vote Sunday.

Official results will be released Sunday night, after all countries have voted.

A Dutch surprise?

Voting in the Netherlands may have already produced a surprise. An Ipsos exit poll forecast a win for the Dutch Labor Party, and predicted that pro-European parties would win most of the Netherlands’ seats in the European Parliament, instead of right-wing populist opponents.

Overall, the European Parliament’s traditional political powerhouses are expected to come out with the most votes. But the center-right European People’s Party and the center-left Socialists & Democrats look set to lose some clout and face their strongest challenge yet from an array of populist, nationalist and far-right parties skeptical of the EU.

Emulating Trump, Brexiteers

Those parties hope to emulate what President Donald Trump did in the 2016 U.S. election and what Brexiteers achieved in the U.K. referendum to leave the EU: to disrupt what they see as an out-of-touch elite and gain power by warning about migrants massing at Europe’s borders ready to rob the continent of its jobs and culture.

The traditional parties warn that this strategy is worryingly reminiscent of prewar tensions, and argue that unity is the best buffer against the shifting economic and security challenges posed by a China and U.S.-dominated new world order.

Voters across Europe are electing 751 lawmakers, although that number is set to drop to 705 when Britain eventually leaves the EU. Each EU nation gets a number of seats in the EU parliament based on its population.

The legislature affects Europeans’ daily lives in many ways: cutting smartphone roaming charges, imposing safety and health rules for industries ranging from chemicals and energy to autos and food, supporting farming, and protecting the environment.
…

This story originated in VOA’s Macedonian Service. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers may vote to approve North Macedonia as the 30th member of NATO as early as next month, according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator James Risch.

“The process is that we need to have a hearing on it in the Foreign Relations Committee, and I have tentatively scheduled that for approximately two weeks from now,” the junior Idaho Republican senator told VOA’s Macedonian Service. “Then, as far as when it will be finalized, it goes to the Senate floor, and we would very much like to have that done in June, and we are cautiously optimistic that we can get that done in June.”

North Macedonia’s long-standing bid to join the military alliance was blocked for more than a decade because of a name dispute with neighboring Greece, which has a province called Macedonia.

North Macedonia, formerly known as Macedonia, changed its name under the Prespa Agreement in June 2018 with Greece, opening the path to NATO and EU membership.

North Macedonia’s accession protocol was signed by all member states in Brussels on Feb. 6. The accession process continues in the capital of each allied nation, where individual protocols are ratified according to national procedures.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has praised the country as a “steadfast security partner,” submitted its NATO accession protocol to the Senate for ratification on April 30.

North Macedonia’s full accession to the alliance would represent a blow to Russia, which opposes NATO expansion and, therefore, the country’s accession.

Asked if North Macedonia’s NATO membership can reduce Russian influence or political meddling within North Macedonia, he said “that’s going to be up to the North Macedonian people themselves.”

“But they’ve already spoken on that,” Risch said. “I think the election itself, regarding accession, was a good, clear indication that they don’t want that Russian influence, that they don’t want that Russian propaganda. So, this taking of what would really be a final step into NATO is a final rejection of Russia and what it stands for and the kind of malign influence they bring.”

Last August, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson and Connecticut Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, sponsored a bipartisan resolution to put the tiny Balkan country on the path to NATO and European Union membership.

Risch also said he anticipates near-unanimous support for North Macedonia’s accession protocol when the bill arrives on the Senate floor.

 
…

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation Friday, plunging the country deeper into chaos as it tries to negotiate its exit from the European Union. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the race to become her successor will begin June 7, and the scene is set for more political drama and uncertainty.
…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo next week will make up a trip to Germany he canceled earlier this month amid heightened tensions with Iran.

The State Department says Pompeo will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin before heading to additional stops in Europe.

Pompeo abruptly canceled a planned May 7 stop in Germany to make an unexpected visit to Iraq, shortly after the Trump administration announced it was sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in response to threats from Iran.

After meeting Merkel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, the department said Pompeo would travel on to Switzerland and the Netherlands before joining President Donald Trump on his state visit to Britain in London. Pompeo leaves Washington on Thursday.

 
…

The Italian parliament’s anti-mafia committee on Thursday declared five candidates for the European elections “unpresentable,” including billionaire and three-time prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The five include three candidates from Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party and one from the far-right Casa Pound, and all are currently under investigation or being tried for alleged crimes, according to the committee’s president Nicola Morra.

The committee’s declaration will not stop the candidates from running in the European Parliament elections, which in Italy are to be held on Sunday.

Media magnate Berlusconi has faced a string of charges over the so-called Rubygate scandal linked to his dinner parties and then 17-year-old Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima El-Mahroug, also known as “Ruby the heart-stealer.”

The 82-year old is currently on trial accused of paying a witness to give false testimony about the notoriously hedonistic soirees.

Berlusconi is also being investigated or prosecuted for alleged witness tampering in Milan, Sienna, Rome and Turin, each time accused of paying people to keep quiet about his so-called “bunga-bunga” parties.
…

U.S. prosecutors Thursday announced new criminal charges under the Espionage Act against jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over his alleged role in what they termed “one of the largest compromises of classified information” in U.S. history.

The charges are not related to WikiLeaks’ alleged role in disseminating stolen Democratic emails during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

An 18-count superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia accuses Assange of working with former Army specialist Chelsea Manning to obtain and publish on WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of highly sensitive U.S. government reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the Guantanamo Bay prison.

The documents, many of them classified as secret, contained the names of journalists, dissidents and other human sources that provided information to U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to U.S. diplomats around the world.

Warned in 2010

Assange, prosecutors allege, knew that disseminating the names endangered the human sources and that he continued to do so even after a warning by the State Department in late 2010.

Assange was charged last year with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in connection with working with Manning. The indictment was unsealed in April after Assange was expelled from Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he’d taken refuge in 2012, and arrested by British police.

He remains in jail on charges of violating his bail conditions and faces possible extradition to the U.S. and Sweden.

The new charges against Assange include conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information as well as obtaining and disclosing national defense information. The conspiracy charge carries a maximum of five years in prison. Each new count carries a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Assange has long maintained that he’s being targeted for his work as a journalist.

“This is madness,” WikiLeaks tweeted after the charges were announced. “It is the end of national security journalism and the First Amendment.”

Press and government transparency advocates have come to Assange’s defense, arguing that prosecuting Assange could endanger others who publish classified information.

But U.S. law enforcement officials were quick to emphasize that they don’t see Assange’s work as journalism.

“The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told reporters. “It has not and never has been the department’s policy to target them for reporting. Julian Assange is no journalist.”

​‘Complicity in illegal acts’

U.S. Attorney Zach Terwilliger stressed that Assange is only charged for his “complicity in illegal acts” and for “publishing a narrow set of classified documents” that contained names of confidential human sources.

“Assange is not charged simply because he is a publisher,” Terwilliger told reporters.

Assange, a 47-year-old Australian computer programmer and activist, founded WikiLeaks in 2006 as “an intelligence agency of the people.”

To obtain secret documents to publish, he “repeatedly encouraged sources with access to classified information to steal and provide it to WikiLeaks to disclose,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment.

Manning, an intelligence specialist based in Iraq, responded to Assange’s call by stealing and providing to him databases containing about 90,000 Afghanistan war reports, 400,000 reports about the Iraq war, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables, according to the indictment.

Manning served seven years in a military prison for her role in the WikiLeaks disclosures before then-President Barack Obama commuted the remainder of her 35-year sentence shortly before he left office in January 2017.

She spent 62 days in federal jail earlier this year on civil contempt charges after she refused to answer questions to the federal grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Last week, a federal judge ordered her back to jail.

The charges against Assange predate by several years allegations that the anti-secrecy website published tens of thousands of Democratic documents stolen by Russian agents during the 2016 election.
…

Iran told a German envoy seeking to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal that its patience was over and urged the treaty’s remaining signatories to fulfill their commitments after the United States pulled out, the Fars news agency reported on Thursday.

Jens Ploetner, a political director in the German Foreign Ministry, met Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. A German diplomatic source told Reuters that talks with other Iranian officials were also planned.

The semi-official Fars news agency said Araghchi had relayed Iran’s impatience during the talks.

Britain, France and Germany, which signed the 2015 deal along with the United States, China and Russia, are determined to show they can compensate for last year’s U.S. withdrawal from

the deal, protect trade and still dissuade Tehran from quitting an accord designed to prevent it developing a nuclear bomb. 

But Iran’s decision earlier this month to backtrack from some commitments in response to U.S. measures to cripple its economy threatens to unravel the deal, under which Tehran agreed

to curbs on its uranium enrichment program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions.

“At the center of the political director’s visit is the preservation of the Vienna nuclear accord (JCPOA),” the German diplomatic source told Reuters. “After Iran’s announcement to partly suspend its commitments under the JCPOA, there is a window of opportunity for diplomacy to persuade Iran to continue to fully comply with the JCPOA.”

U.S., Iran tensions

Tensions have soared between Iran and the United States since Washington sent more military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles, in a show of force against what U.S. officials say are Iranian threats to its troops and interests in the region.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials said the Defense Department was considering a U.S. military request to send about 5,000 additional troops to the Middle East.

Despite such pressure, Keyvan Khosravi, a spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reiterated on Thursday that there would be no negotiations with Washington.

He said officials from several countries had visited Iran recently, “mostly representing the United States,” but that Tehran’s message to them was firm. 

“Without exception, the message of the power and resistance of the Iranian nation was conveyed to them,” he said. 

‘Clash of wills’

Fars earlier quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards as saying the U.S.-Iranian standoff was a “clash of wills” and any enemy “adventurism” would meet a

crushing response.

The German diplomatic source added: “The situation in the Persian Gulf and the region, and the situation around the Vienna nuclear accord is extremely serious. There is a real risk of escalation. … In this situation, dialogue is very important.”
…

Prominent Brexit supporter Andrea Leadsom resigned from Prime Minister Theresa May’s government on Wednesday, piling pressure on the British leader after a new Brexit gambit backfired and fueled calls for her to quit.

So far May has resisted, vowing to press on despite opposition from lawmakers and other ministers to her bid to get her Brexit deal through parliament by softening her stance on a second referendum and customs arrangements.

But Leadsom’s resignation further deepens the Brexit crisis, sapping an already weak leader of her authority. Almost three years since Britain voted to leave the European Union, it is not clear when, how or even if Brexit will happen.

Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons, said she could not announce the new Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which will implement Britain’s departure, in parliament on Thursday as she did not believe in it.

“I no longer believe that our approach will deliver on the referendum result,” Leadsom, once a challenger to May to become prime minister, said in a resignation letter. “It is therefore with great regret and with a heavy heart that I resign from the government.”

A Downing Street spokesman praised Leadsom and expressed disappointment at her decision, but added: “The prime minister remains focused on delivering the Brexit people voted for.”

May might still try to press on with her new Brexit plan, which includes a vote on whether to hold a second Brexit referendum — once her legislation passes the first stage — as well as closer trading arrangements with the EU.

But it has been met with a swift backlash, with several lawmakers who have supported her in previous Brexit votes saying they could not back the new plan, particularly over her U-turn regarding a possible second referendum.

“I have always maintained that a second referendum would be dangerously divisive, and I do not support the government willingly facilitating such a concession,” Leadsom said.

“No one has wanted you to succeed more than I have,” Leadsom wrote to May. “But I do now urge you to make the right decisions in the interests of the country, this government and our party.”

Labour lawmaker Ian Lavery, chair of the opposition party, said the resignation underlined that “the prime minister’s authority is shot and her time is up.”

“For the sake of the country, Theresa May needs to go, and we need an immediate general election,” he said.

Time to go

Labour’s call echoed those of many of May’s own Conservatives, who say that a fourth attempt to get her deal approved by parliament should be shelved and she should leave office to offer a new leader a chance to reset the dial.

“There is one last chance to get it right and leave in an orderly fashion. But it is now time for Prime Minister Theresa May to go — and without delay,” said Conservative lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, chairman of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

“She must announce her resignation after Thursday’s European (Parliament) elections,” he wrote in the Financial Times.

But while so much about Brexit is up in the air, what is clear is that May plans to stay for now, or at least for the next few days.

The chairman of the powerful Conservative 1922 Committee, which can make or break prime ministers, told lawmakers that she planned to campaign in the European poll on Thursday before meeting with the group on Friday to discuss her leadership.

May has so far fended off bids to oust her by promising to set out a departure timetable once parliament has had a chance to vote again on Brexit, but a new discussion on a possible date could now take place on Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, May stood firm during more than two hours of questions in parliament, urging lawmakers to back the bill and then have a chance to make changes to it, so they can have more control over the final shape of Brexit.

Asked by euroskeptic lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg whether she really believed in the new deal she had proposed or whether she was simply going through the motions, May said, “I don’t think I would have been standing here at the despatch box and be in receipt of some of the comments I have been in receipt of from colleagues on my own side and across the house if I didn’t believe in what I was doing.”

Britain’s marathon crisis over Brexit has stunned allies and foes alike. With the deadlock in London, the world’s fifth-largest economy faces an array of options including an exit with a deal to smooth the transition, a no-deal exit, an election, a second referendum, or even revocation of the Article 50 notice to leave the EU.

The pound was on track for its longest-ever losing streak against the euro as some traders said they saw the rising chance of a no-deal Brexit. Those fears pushed investors into the relative safety of government bonds — particularly those that offer protection against a spike in inflation.

“The proposed second reading of the WAB is clearly doomed to failure so there really is no point wasting any more time on the prime minister’s forlorn hope of salvation,” Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative lawmaker, told Reuters. “She’s got to go.”
…

The next NATO summit will be held in London in December, marking the alliance’s 70th anniversary, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday. 

“The next summit of Allied leaders will take place on 3-4 December 2019 in London. … I look forward to a successful summit,” he said. 

Stoltenberg said the had discussed preparations for the summit of heads of state and government with British Prime Minister Theresa May during a visit to London last week. 

The December summit will be a chance to “address current and emerging security challenges and how NATO continues to invest and adapt to ensure it will remain a pillar of stability in the years ahead,” Stoltenberg said in a statement. 

He added that London was a fitting venue to mark 70 years of transatlantic military cooperation because it was home to the alliance’s first headquarters after the United Kingdom become one of NATO’s 12 founding members in 1949. 

Nowadays there are 29 member states and the headquarters is in Brussels. 

“London was the home of our first headquarters, so it is a fitting venue for NATO heads of state and government to plan the Alliance’s future,” said Stoltenberg. 

Delicate time 

The 70th anniversary comes at a delicate time for NATO. 

Tensions with Russia are at a high not seen since the Cold War. There are also concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s commitment to the alliance and his willingness to honor its mutual defense pact.  

Trump has been unstinting in his criticism of NATO’s European members, accusing them of freeloading on the protection offered by the U.S. military while not spending enough on their own armed forces. 

Before taking office, Trump called NATO “obsolete.”

NATO summits normally conclude with a formal, binding statement of aims and actions agreed by all allies — such as the 2014 agreement to try to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. 

It is yet to be confirmed whether a statement will be issued at December’s meeting. 

Brexit and NATO

Britain is due to leave the European Union in October, and the December summit will be seen as a signal of solidarity between NATO and the U.K., which is the continent’s leading military power, along with France. 

“Brexit will change the United Kingdom’s relationship to the European Union but it will not change the United Kingdom’s relationship to NATO,” Stoltenberg said in February. 

On Wednesday, he was back in London for talks with British Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt. On Thursday, he will participate in a conference on cybersecurity in the British capital. 
…

The Swiss government on Wednesday proposed new laws aimed at preventing extremist violence and forcing people including children deemed a threat to be registered with authorities, with house arrest a last resort in some cases.

The measures, due now to be considered by Switzerland’s parliament, are part of an evolving national action plan against violent extremism introduced in 2017.

Though Switzerland has, so far, been spared deadly Islamist militant attacks that hit Germany, France and Belgium in recent years, it is wary and has been tracking hundreds of suspected extremist threats under a national jihad monitoring program.

Federal Police Director Nicoletta della Valle told a news conference in Bern she expects “a few dozen people” could be affected by the expanded measures, should they be enacted.

Such individuals, according to the legislation, could be made to report their whereabouts to police stations. Their passports could be confiscated, to prevent travel abroad, and they could be slapped with no-contact orders.

People slated for deportation who are deemed threats would be incarcerated, while Swiss police would get new powers to covertly track suspected threats via electronic media.

“House arrest is seen as a last resort and would require permission from the Swiss Federal Police as well as approval from the courts,” a cabinet statement said.

Such measures could last six months and be renewed. Children as young as 12 could be required to register with authorities, placed under surveillance or have passports confiscated. Those as young as 15 could get house arrest, according to the legislation.

The 28-page legislative proposal stops short of allowing so-called “secure housing” for suspected extremists — something Swiss law enforcement agencies had wanted — “because it was determined to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights,” the cabinet said.

Switzerland has prosecuted several extremism-related cases in recent years, including three Iraq men jailed in 2016 for between 42 and 56 months for belonging to or supporting a terrorist organization.

In July, a trial is slated for a 48-year-old Kosovo native accused of breaking Swiss laws forbidding Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

Of 92 Swiss “jihad travelers” identified as having journeyed to the Middle East to participate in violent conflicts since 2001, 31 are dead. Another 16 have returned to Switzerland, the government has said.

“All this shows that while Switzerland is a safe country, there’s still a threat,” Interior Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said with respect to why the new measures are needed.
…

Like last year on May 22 bells will toll across the northern English city of Manchester to mark the anniversary — this time the second— of the suicide bombing of the Manchester Arena that left 23 concert-goers dead, including the attacker, and 139 wounded, more than half of them children.

Many of the survivors and relatives of the dead say they remain unable two shake off the terrors of the blast and loss of loved ones. Many of the physically wounded still struggle to overcome injuries and disabilities. 

Several hundred of the concert-goers at the arena, there to listen to American singer Ariana Grande, are still grappling with the effects of psychological trauma of the deadliest terrorist attack, and the first suicide bombing in Britain since the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

The parents of eight-year-old Saffie Roussos, the youngest of those killed, say they remain stuck in 2017 when radical Islamist Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old local man of Libyan descent, detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb that shred bodies and lives. He is thought to have trained for the attack in Libya.

“Saffie had got hold of my hand, and she was pulling me, jumping about,” Lisa Roussos told the BBC on the eve of the anniversary. 

“And the next minute I just hit the floor with a thud,” she added. She couldn’t move, but she could blink and willed herself to keep her eyes open. Lisa Roussos was gravely injured and had to relearn to walk. She was in a coma for six weeks and only learned about her daughter’s death after she woke up.

Two years on Saffie’s parents say the bombing remains raw. The time makes no difference, the parents said. “I feel like we’re stuck in 2017,” said little girl’s father, Andrew Roussos. 

In a statement marking the anniversary, Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said the city “will never forget the terrible events of May 22, 2017, nor the remarkable display of unity and love which followed. Those who were killed and their loved ones, as well as all those left physically or mentally injured, have a place in our hearts.”

Despite the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group, the danger of radical Islamist terrorism remains far from over, say counter-terror experts. More than 500 incarcerated Islamist militants are due to be freed in Europe over the next two years, according to Olivier Guitta, head of the geopolitical risk company GlobalStrat. 

Guitta, who contributed to a report released Wednesday by GlobSec, a think tank, on the criminal ties of many of Europe’s Islamist militants, says European governments need to consider lengthening jail terms for those convicted of terror offenses and not granting early release for good behavior.

While the security services are doing a “good job at honing down on the potential terrorists, he says in a conclusion to the report, “the sheer number of people, up to 30,000, recorded on Britain’s main terror watchlist including 3,000 branded as dangerous, make it impossible for security services to monitor even a fraction of that, knowing that about 30 officers are needed per individual.”

He adds: “Due to early releases from prisons and generally short sentences, the situation is even more problematic and will allow 500 dangerous jihadists to be freed in the next two years in Europe.”

According to the report, most of the Islamist militants who’ve carried out attacks in Britain in the past six years were already on terror watch lists, and more than half of British militants arrested for terrorist offenses were under surveillance prior to their detention.

Like most of jihadists who carried out attacks on European soil, Manchester bomber Abedi was “on the radar of security services and was at one point actually monitored until the investigation was dropped off because nothing happened,” says Guitta.

Many of the relatives of the dead attending services in Manchester Wednesday say the government needs to mandate tougher security checks at large public events.

Earlier this week, Britain’s interior minister Sajid Javid announced plans to update the country’s treason laws to cover terrorists. British-born jihadis returning from the battlefields of the Middle East would be open to prosecution under the planned updated law, say officials.

Calls for an updated treason law increased have increased after officials said they were abandoning efforts to prosecute two alleged members of the Islamic State so-called “Beatles” cell, a quartet of Britons responsible for torturing and beheading Western hostages in Syria, including American journalist James Foley. 

A paper drawn up by the Policy Exchange think-tank last year suggested defining treason as “aiding a hostile state of organization.”The paper set out a series of actions that could be deemed treason, including helping prepare or commit an attack in Britain, aiding the military or intelligence operations of a state or organization intending to attack Britain or “prejudicing the security and defense of the UK”.
…

Bulgaria and Greece are launching the construction of a pipeline to transport Azeri gas to Bulgaria to ease its almost total dependence on Russian gas supplies.

At a ceremony near the border on Wednesday, the two prime ministers, Boyko Borissov and Alexis Tsipras, oversaw the formal start to construction of the 182-kilometer (114 miles) link between the two countries’ gas transmission systems.

The pipeline is scheduled to become operational at the end of 2020, when Bulgaria is due to receive deliveries of Azeri gas from the Shah Deniz 2 development.

The link is estimated to cost 220 million euros ($245 million) and its projected capacity will be between 3 and 5 billion cubic meters (105-175 billion cubic feet) per year.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May vowed Tuesday to give lawmakers a vote on holding a second Brexit referendum as part of her final effort to salvage her hated EU divorce deal.

The embattled British leader dangled a package of sweeteners that she hopes can resolve the Brexit crisis three years after the country first voted to end more than four decades of membership in the European project.

Success on the fourth attempt in parliament would help May reclaim her legacy as the leader who kept her promise to safely steer a bitterly divided nation through its most profound strategic shift in generations.

May has already said she will leave office shortly after the measures she outlined Tuesday are put up for a vote early next month — no matter the outcome.

The most eye-catching is a promise to give lawmakers a chance to set a confirmatory referendum on whatever version of Brexit they end up approving in the weeks or months to come.

“I recognize the genuine and sincere strength of feeling across the house on this important issue,” May said in a nationally televised address delivered from the offices of a major accounting firm in London.

“The government will therefore include in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill at introduction a requirement to vote on whether to hold a second referendum,” she said.

“This must take place before the Withdrawal Agreement can be ratified.”

The measure is a key demand of the main opposition Labor Party.

But it is also bitterly opposed by Brexit-supporting Conservatives whose votes May also needs if she is to get her deal passed.

The British pound rose sharply in response to May’s announcement. Many businesses oppose Brexit and hope that the two sides can preserve much closer ties.

‘Last chance’

May said her proposals were this parliament’s “last chance” to end a political deadlock that has already delayed Brexit past its original March deadline and caused huge public anger.

She called them “a new Brexit deal” that Britain must now rally behind.

The government is aiming for the law to be approved by the time that parliament’s summer recess begins on July 20, which would allow Britain to leave the EU at the end of that month — as long as MPs reject a second referendum.

Otherwise the process could be delayed until October 31 — the deadline set by the EU — or even later if EU leaders grant Britain another postponement.

“The majority of MPs say they want to deliver the result of the referendum. So I think we need to help them find a way. And I believe there is now one last chance to do that,” May said.

May set out 10 incentives in all that will be included in a new Brexit bill that is expected to come up for a vote in the week starting June 3.

The measures would give parliament a chance to approve a temporary customs union with the other 27 nations.

They also commit the government to preserve the rights of European workers and maintain EU environmental standards.

These are all major Labor demands.

But they threaten to only reinforce the resistance within Brexit-backing ranks of her own Conservative Party.

Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, the favorite to replace May in a leadership contest, said on Twitter that he would not support the new incarnation of the deal, having voted for it the last time it was put to parliament. 

“The Bill is directly against our manifesto – and I will not vote for it. We can and must do better – and deliver what the people voted for,” he said, rejecting the idea of any customs union or second referendum.

May warned EU skeptics within her party ranks that a rejection of her final throw of the dice threatened to doom Brexit for good.

This compromise solution “is practical,” May said. “It is responsible. It is deliverable. And right now, it is slipping away from us.”

‘Harder than anticipated’

The last vote on the Brexit deal in March was the closest. She lost that by 58 votes in the 650-seat House of Commons.

But most analysts and UK newspapers still give May little-to-no chance of winning on this occasion.

The vote also comes with the race to succeed her as party leader in full swing.

British media estimate that a third of her cabinet members have either openly declared their ambitions to become prime minister or are preparing their campaigns.

Her speech was billed by some as her possible swan song — and May conceded that her time in office has not been smooth.

“I knew that delivering Brexit was not going to be simple or straightforward,” May said.

“It has proved even harder than I anticipated.”
…

The U.N. human rights office warns civilian casualties are growing in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province as fighting between Russian-backed Syrian government forces and rebels allied with al-Qaida escalates.

The U.N. agency says it is extremely worried about the military action in Idlib, which is putting at risk the lives of three million civilians trapped in the province. Agency officials express concern at the speed with which a recent 72-hour cease-fire was broken by the warring parties.

They say ongoing airstrikes and ground-based attacks in Idlib and Hama governorates do not bode well for peaceful prospects in the region.

U.N. human rights spokeswoman Marta Hurtado says indiscriminate bombing and ground-based attacks by both pro-government forces and rebel armed groups has resulted in a high number of civilian casualties and injuries, as well as significant damage to civilian property.

“Military objects have been placed in close proximity to civilians and civilian objects, resulting in deaths and injuries among civilians, and causing significant damage to civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, mosques, schools and markets,” she said.

This latest military escalation started at the end of April. Since then, the U.N. reports at least 105 civilians have been killed. It says about two-thirds of those deaths have occurred between May 8 and 16.

The U.N. says the intensified fighting has also forced at least 200,000 people to flee their homes in search of safety.

The U.N. human rights office is appealing to the warring factions to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law. It says parties to the conflict are obliged to do everything feasible not to put civilians in harm’s way.
…

 German authorities on Tuesday handed over to Israel some 5,000 documents kept by a confidant of Franz Kafka, a trove whose plight could have been plucked from one of the author’s surreal stories.

The papers returned include a postcard from Kafka from 1910 and personal documents kept by Max Brod, which experts say provide a window into Europe’s literary and cultural scene in the early 20th century.

They are among some 40,000 documents, including manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks and other writings that once belonged to Brod, which are being brought together again in Israel’s National Library. They had ended up in bank vaults in Switzerland and Tel Aviv, a Tel Aviv apartment and in a storage facility in Wiesbaden, Germany, where police found them tucked among forged Russian avant-garde artworks.

`I think he [Kafka] would really be amused,” said National Library archivist and humanities collection curator Stefan Litt, who helped identify the papers recovered in Germany. “He couldn’t invent by himself a better plot.”

The documents recovered in Wiesbaden have little to do with Kafka himself, but make the Brod collection complete and shine a light on Brod and his circle, which included Kafka and other writers, Litt said.

“This is an important chapter in Max Brod’s estate,” Litt said. “And it’s always good for researchers to have as complete a picture as possible.”

Kafka, a Bohemian Jew from Prague who lived for a while in Berlin, was close friends with Brod, himself an accomplished writer. Shortly before his untimely death at 40 of tuberculosis in 1924, Kafka bequeathed his writings to Brod, reportedly telling him to burn them all unread.

Instead, Brod published much of the collection, including the novels “The Trial,” The Castle,” and “Amerika,” helping to posthumously establish Kafka as one of the great authors of the 20th century. He also brought “Kafkaesque” into the English language to describe a situation evoking a bizarre, illogical or nightmarish situation like the ones Kafka wrote about.

After the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938, Brod fled to escape persecution with the entire collection to what was then British-ruled Palestine.When Brod died, he left his personal secretary Esther Hoffe in charge of his literary estate and instructed her to transfer the Kafka papers to an academic institution.

Instead, she kept the documents for the next four decades and sold some, like the original manuscript of Kafka’s “The Trial,” which fetched $1.8 million at auction in 1988. She kept some of the items in a bank vault in Tel Aviv, some in Switzerland, and others at her apartment in Tel Aviv.

When she died in 2008, the collection went to her two daughters, who fought to keep it but eventually lost a battle in Israel’s Supreme Court in 2016. The court sided with the country’s National Library, whose lawyers had argued the Kafka papers were “cultural assets” that belonged to the Jewish people.

Both daughters have now died, and the documents stored in Israel have already been transferred to the National Library’s care. The documents held in Switzerland should be on their way soon after the National Library won a court case in Zurich last month, which upheld the Israeli verdict and ordered that several safe deposit boxes be opened and their contents shipped to the institution in Jerusalem.

But that left the documents in Germany, which had been stolen from Hoffe’s apartment about a decade ago.

They ended up with an Israeli dealer, who tried in 2013 to sell them to the German Literature Archive in Marbach — the same institution that bought “The Trial” manuscript at auction in 1988. The German archive instead reported the offer to Israel’s National Library, which then got authorities involved, Litt said.

The documents resurfaced at the Wiesbaden storage facility of an international forgery ring that produced and sold millions of euros [dollars] worth of forged paintings, which was taken down by German authorities that same year, Litt said. Since then, they have been stored by German authorities as Litt and others sought to confirm their provenance.

Those being returned include correspondence between Brod and his wife, and even some of his notebooks from high school, Litt said.

“There’s no doubt these materials were part of his papers,” he said.

The manuscript of “The Trial,” however, was properly purchased by the German Literature Archive in the 1988 Sotheby’s auction, and the National Library has no claim on it, he said.

“We’re happy it’s in safe hands,” Litt said.
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Ukraine’s new president on Tuesday ordered the dissolution of the nation’s legislature and called a snap election in two months, hoping to ride the wave of his electoral success to get his supporters into parliament.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old comedian who won 73% of the vote last month, announced his intention to disband parliament in his inauguration speech Monday, saying that current lawmakers are focused on self-enrichment and lack public trust.

He quickly fulfilled the promise in Tuesday’s decree that set the parliamentary election for July 21.

The election to the Verkhovna Rada was originally scheduled for Oct. 27, a situation that would have put Zelenskiy in a position where he would face a parliament dominated by supporters of former President Petro Poroshenko and would be unable to pursue his agenda for months.

Zelenskiy, who has become famous for playing the role of a Ukrainian president in a widely popular TV sitcom, is gambling that his popularity will allow his party to make a successful showing in the parliamentary vote.

“Zelenskiy is trying to act as quickly as possible, because he realizes that voters’ excitement will cool down in half-a-year,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kiev-based independent think-tank Penta.

His foes in parliament sought to push back his inauguration past the May 27 deadline by which the parliament can be dissolved, but eventually had to submit to public pressure.

Zelenskiy’s landslide victory reflected Ukrainians’ exasperation with the country’s economic woes and rampant official corruption and the country’s political elite.

Zelenskiy already has asked several top ministers to step down, but he will likely have trouble getting their successors appointed by the current parliament.

In his inaugural speech, Zelenskiy said the main goal for the presidency is to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, where government troops have been fighting Russia-backed separatists for five years in a conflict that has left at least 13,000 dead.
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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called time Monday on his coalition government with the far-right Freedom Party after its leader was shown on video appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.

Kurz said he was seeking the removal of the country’s interior minister, Freedom Party politician Herbert Kickl, to ensure an unbiased probe into the video.

“I’m firmly convinced that what’s necessary now is total transparency and a completely and unbiased investigation,” Kurz told reporters in Vienna.

The Freedom Party reacted by withdrawing its ministers from the government.

“We won’t leave anyone out in the rain,” said the party’s interim leader, Norbert Hofer.

Kickl’s removal, which must still be approved by Austria’s president, follows the resignation on Saturday of Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, who was also Austria’s vice chancellor. 

That came a day after two German newspapers published a video showing Strache pandering to a woman claiming to be a Russian tycoon’s niece at a boozy gathering in Ibiza two years ago, shortly before national elections. Strache and party colleague Johann Gudenus are heard telling the woman that she can expect lucrative construction contracts if she buys an Austrian newspaper and supports the Freedom Party. They also discuss ways of secretly funneling money to the party.

Gudenus, who was instrumental in arranging the meeting, has quit as leader of the party’s parliamentary group and is leaving the party.

The Hamburg-based weekly Der Spiegel and Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the meeting in Ibiza was likely a trap that Strache and Gudenus had fallen for. The papers refused to reveal the source of the video.

Kurz noted that at the time the video was shot, Kickl was general-secretary of the Freedom Party and therefore responsible for its financial conduct. The chancellor added that in his conversations with Kickl and other Freedom Party officials following the video’s release, he “didn’t really have the feeling (they had) an awareness of the dimension of the whole issue.”

String of scandals

The ouster of the Freedom Party from the government was a setback for populist and nationalist forces as Europe heads into the final days of campaigning for the European Parliament elections, which run Thursday through Sunday.

Kurz has endorsed a hard line on migration and public finances, and he chose to ally with the Freedom Party after winning the 2017 election. 

The chancellor, who is personally popular, had said Saturday that “enough is enough” — a reference to a string of smaller scandals involving the Freedom Party that had plagued his government. In recent months, those have included a poem in a party newsletter comparing migrants to rats and questions over links to extreme-right groups.

Kickl, a longtime campaign mastermind of the Freedom Party, had already drawn criticism over matters including a raid last year on Austria’s BVT spy agency, which opposition parties claimed was an attempt by the new government to purge domestic political enemies.

Kickl’s party said he had done nothing wrong and sought to portray itself as the victim of a plot. 

Response from Russia

The Russian government, meanwhile, said it couldn’t comment on the video “because it has nothing to do with the Russian Federation, its president or the government.”

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said of the woman in the Strache video that set off the crisis: “We don’t know who that woman is and whether she’s Russian or not.” 

Pledging to ensure stability in Austria over the coming months, Kurz said vacancies in the government left by the Freedom Party’s departure would be filled with civil servants and technocrats.

His government, meanwhile, may find it difficult to continue as planned until Austria holds early elections, likely in September. Opposition parties plan to call for a vote of no confidence in Kurz’s government in the coming days. 
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Indonesia on Monday sentenced a French drug smuggler to death by firing squad, in a shock verdict after prosecutors had asked for a long prison term.

The three-judge panel in Lombok handed a capital sentence to Felix Dorfin, 35, who was arrested in September at the airport on the holiday island next to Bali, where foreigners are routinely charged with drugs offenses.

Indonesia has some of the world’s strictest drug laws — including death for some traffickers.

It has executed foreigners in the past, including the masterminds of Australia’s Bali Nine heroin gang.

While Dorfin was eligible for the death penalty, prosecutors instead asked for a 20-year jail term plus another year unless he paid a huge fine equivalent to about $700,000.

But Indonesian courts have been known to issue harsher-than-demanded punishments.

Dorfin was carrying a suitcase filled with about three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of drugs including ecstasy and amphetamines when he was arrested.

“After finding Felix Dorfin legally and convincingly guilty of importing narcotics … (he) is sentenced to the death penalty,” presiding judge Isnurul Syamsul Arif told the court.

The judge cited Dorfin’s involvement in an international drug syndicate and the amount of drugs in his possession as aggravating factors.

“The defendant’s actions could potentially do damage to the younger generation,” Arif added.

The Frenchman made headlines in January when he escaped from a police detention center and spent nearly two weeks on the run before he was captured.

A female police officer was arrested for allegedly helping Dorfin escape from jail in exchange for money.

It was not clear if the jailbreak played any role in Monday’s stiffer-than-expected sentence.

Wearing a red prison vest, Dorfin, who is from Bethune in northern France, sat impassively through much of the hearing, as a translator scribbled notes beside him.

After the sentencing, he said little as he walked past reporters to a holding cell.

“Dorfin was shocked,” the Frenchman’s lawyer Deny Nur Indra told AFP.

“He didn’t expect this at all because prosecutors only asked for 20 years.”

The lawyer said he would appeal against the sentence, describing his client as a “victim” who did not know the exact contents of what he was carrying in the suitcase.

“If he had known, he wouldn’t have brought it here,” Indra added.

In Paris, the French foreign ministry said it was “concerned” by the sentence and reiterated France’s opposition to the death penalty.

“We will remain attentive to his situation,” the statement said, adding that seven French people faced the death penalty worldwide.

In 2015, Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran — the accused ringleaders of the Bali Nine  — were executed by firing squad in Indonesia.

The Bali Nine gang’s only female member was released from jail last year, while some others remain in prison.

The highly publicized case sparked diplomatic outrage and a call to abolish the death penalty.

“The death penalty verdict marks another setback for human rights in Indonesia,” Human Rights Watch campaigner Andreas Harsono said Monday.

“The Indonesian government’s many pledges about moving toward abolishing the death penalty clearly meant nothing in Lombok”.

There are scores of foreigners on death row in Indonesia, including cocaine-smuggling British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford and Serge Atlaoui, a Frenchman who has been on death row since 2007.

Last year, eight Taiwanese drug smugglers were sentenced to death by an Indonesian court after being caught with around a tonne of crystal methamphetamine.
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With Julian Assange locked away in a London jail, a new battle has broken out over what may contain some of the WikiLeaks founder’s biggest secrets: his computers.

On Monday, judicial authorities from Ecuador carried out an inventory of all the belongings and digital devices left behind at the London embassy following his expulsion last month from the diplomatic compound that had been his home the past seven years.  

It came as Sweden announced it was seeking Assange’s arrest on suspicion of rape, setting up a possible future tug-of-war with the United States over any extradition of Assange from Britain.

It’s not known what devices authorities removed from the embassy or what information they contained. But authorities said they were acting on a request by the U.S. prosecutors, leading Assange’s defenders to claim that Ecuador has undermined the most basic principles of asylum while denying the secret-spiller’s right to prepare his defense.  

“It’s disgraceful,” WikiLeaks’ editor in chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Ecuador granted him asylum because of the threat of extradition to the U.S. and now the same country, under new leadership, is actively collaborating with a criminal investigation against him.”

Assange, 47, was arrested on April 11 after being handed over to British authorities by Ecuador. He is serving a 50-week sentence in a London prison for skipping bail while the U.S. seeks his extradition for conspiring to hack into military computers and spill secrets about U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hrafnsson, who has visited the Australian activist in jail, said Assange saw his eviction coming for weeks as relations with President Lenin Moreno’s government deteriorated, so he took great care to scrub computers and hard drives of any compromising material, including future planned leaks or internal communications with WikiLeaks collaborators.

Still, Hrafnsson said he fully expects Moreno or the Americans to claim revelations that don’t exist. He called Monday’s proceedings a “horse show” because no legal authority can guarantee Assange’s devices haven’t been tampered with, or the chain of custody unbroken, in the six weeks since his arrest.

“If anything surfaces, I can assure you it would’ve been planted,” he said. “Julian isn’t a novice when it comes to security and securing his information. We expected this to happen and protections have been in place for a very long time.”

A group of Assange’s supporters gathered outside Ecuador’s Embassy in London to protest the judicial proceeding. Demonstrators put banners on the railings with images of Assange, his mouth covered by an American flag, and chanted “Thieves! Thieves! Thieves! Shame on you!”

Ecuadorian authorities said they will hand over any belongings not given to U.S. or Ecuadorian investigators to Assange’s lawyers, who weren’t invited to Monday’s inventory-taking. Hrafnsson said he didn’t have a full inventory of Assange’s devices.

Moreno decided to evict Assange from the embassy after accusing him of working with political opponents to hack into his phone and release damaging personal documents and photos, including several that showed him eating lobster in bed and the numbers of bank accounts allegedly used to hide proceeds from corruption.

Moreno’s actions immediately were celebrated by the Trump administration, which was key in helping Ecuador secure a $4.2 billion credit line from the International Monetary Fund and has provided the tiny South American country with new trade and military deals in recent weeks.

“The Americans are the ones pulling the strings, and Moreno their puppet dancing to the tune of money,” said Hrafnsson.

Separately on Monday, Swedish authorities issued a request for a detention order against Assange.

On May 13, Swedish prosecutors reopened a preliminary investigation against Assange, who visited Sweden in 2010, because two Swedish women said they were the victims of sex crimes committed by Assange.

While a case of alleged sexual misconduct against Assange in Sweden was dropped in 2017 when the statute of limitations expired, a rape allegation remains. Swedish authorities have had to shelve it because Assange was living at the embassy at the time and there was no prospect of bringing him to Sweden.

The statute of limitations in the rape case expires in August next year. Assange has denied wrongdoing, asserting that the allegations were politically motivated and that the sex was consensual.

According to the request for a detention order obtained by The Associated Press, Assange is wanted for “intentionally having carried out an intercourse” with an unnamed woman “by unduly exploiting that she was in a helpless state because of sleep.”
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Vietnam and Europe could be swapping more pomelo fruit and Portuguese cheese soon if a new trade deal comes into effect, linking two regions that have been looking for an alternative to the trade tensions brought on by the United States.

The European Parliament is scheduled to discuss the trade deal on May 28, after years of negotiations between Vietnam and the European Union. The deal is significant not only because it facilitates exports, like tropical fruit, but also as it lays out commitments on human rights, labor unions, and protection of the environment. Critics, though, say the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement would not really enforce human rights standards and would continue the offshoring of jobs that has left workers vulnerable.

For the EU, the deal is one more way to access Asia’s fast-growing economies, set a model for trading with developing countries, and hold Vietnam’s one-party state accountable on its promise to level the business playing field. 

For Vietnam, it is a chance to call itself a country open for business, with many trade deals, as well as raise quality standards to those expected by European customers. 

“It includes a lot of commitments to improve the business environment in Vietnam,” Le Thanh Liem, standing vice chair of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, said at a European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam event.

Vietnamese officials often say that it helps to have an external factor to get difficult internal reforms over the finish line. For example it might be hard to convince conservatives to allow workers to form their own labor unions. But if there is an outside incentive, such as greater trade with the EU, that could bring conservatives on board. 

Labor unions were one concern for Europeans. Another is the loss of blue-collar jobs to Asia, including to Vietnam. European workers worry that as they take gig jobs, like food delivery, in place of their old stable jobs, there is less of a safety net through long-term employers or through tax-funded government programs. And there is one more concern raised through the trade deal:“We have some concerns about human rights in Vietnam, but that has been discussed,” Eurocham chair Nicolas Audier said at the chamber event. 

​Amnesty International reported this month that the number of Vietnam’s political prisoners jumped to 128 from 97 last year, despite the fact that Hanoi says it does not jail people for political reasons.

Some question if the EU is applying consistent standards as it moves toward the trade deal with Vietnam, even while punishing nearby Myanmar and Cambodia for human rights abuses. Brussels is pulling back its Everything But Arms scheme of preferential trade access for the two other countries, based in part on Cambodia’s crackdown on opposition politicians in the 2018 election and on Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s mass killing of the mostly Muslim Rohingya.

But both Vietnam and the EU want more trade options because a major trading partner, the United States, is turning away from the world economy. Washington pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in 2017, removing a key reason that Hanoi signed the deal, which was to get Vietnamese textile and garment companies more access to U.S. customers. Europe was also hit when Washington slapped tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum in 2018, and now it is threatening more import duties on European cars. 

So the EU and Vietnam are still working on their trade deal, and it is reflected in Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s schedule. He paid a visit to EU member states Romania and the Czech Republic in April, then hosted a state visit from Romania in May. Lobbying for the deal continued as he welcomed the Swedish crown princess this month, and he will return the courtesy, with the next trip on his calendar planned for Stockholm. 
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