The EU on Thursday defended its push to reform the European defense industry in a retort to U.S. accusations that the overhaul would shut out allies such as Washington from European projects.

The skirmish over military spending comes as transatlantic ties are at a long-time low with fears running high that cooperation at NATO could be endangered.

In a letter seen by AFP, two senior officials said that the European Union “remains fully committed to working with the U.S. as a core partner in security and defense matters” despite the planned changes.

However, the EU officials also insisted that the mooted reforms are merely a reflection of rules already imposed by the U.S.

“The transatlantic trade balance is resolutely in favor of the U.S.,” they insisted.

The U.S. concerns, set out in a letter on May 1 from two of President Donald Trump’s top defense officials, focused on the European Defense Fund (EDF), a seven-year 13-billion euro ($14.6 billion) pot approved by the European Parliament last month, and a key new EU defense cooperation pact known as PESCO.

Washington warned the proposed rules “would not only damage the constructive NATO-EU relationship we have built together over the past several years but could potentially turn the clock back to the sometimes divisive discussions about EU defense initiatives that dominated our exchanges 15 years ago.”

Along with the warnings, the U.S. officials also make a veiled threat to hit back, saying the EU would object to similar U.S. restrictions “and we would not relish having to consider them in the future.”

EU countries launched PESCO in late 2017 to try to harmonize a highly fragmented approach to defense spending.

Under the pact, countries cooperate on projects to develop new military equipment and on support systems such as military hospitals and training centers.

The U.S. letter chimed with bitter divisions within the bloc on what rules to set for non-EU allies such as the U.S., Norway — and for Britain after Brexit — who want to contribute to future defense projects.
…

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Chechen group and five people, including at least three Russians, over allegations of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and the torture of LGBTI people. 

The sanctions against the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in the Chechen Republic and the five were announced by the U.S. Treasury under the Magnitsky Act. They included suspects in the deaths of Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky and Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. 

The 2012 Magnitsky Act is named after the 37-year-old Russian auditor and imposes visa bans and asset freezes on officials linked to his death in prison 2009. 

Those targeted on Thursday included Elena Anatolievna Trikulya and Gennady Vyacheslavovich Karlov, members of the Russian state’s Investigative Committee, who the U.S. said “participated in efforts to conceal the legal liability for the detention, abuse or death” of Magnitsky. 

Abuzayed Vismuradov, commander of the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in Chechnya, was accused of “being responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” against those seeking to expose illegal activity by Russian government officials. 

Detention, torture

The U.S. Treasury said Vismuradov was in charge of an operation that “illegally detained and tortured individuals on the basis of their actual or perceived LGBTI status.” 

LGBTI is an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex. 

The Treasury named Sergey Leonidovich Kossiev as being responsible for extrajudicial killings and torture as head of a penal colony in the Republic of Karelia. The fifth person, Ruslan Geremeyev, was accused of acting on behalf of the head of Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, in a matter relating to extrajudicial killings and torture. 

The Treasury statement said Russian investigators had twice tried to bring charges against Geremeyev as the possible organizer of the 2015 slaying of Nemtsov, but were blocked by the head of the Investigative Committee. 

Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was shot and killed near the Kremlin in 2015. 

In 2017, a court sentenced a man to 20 years in jail for his murder, but Nemtsov’s allies called the investigation a cover-up and said those who ordered the assassination remained at large. 

The Russian Embassy in Washington said in a statement that U.S. sanctions under the Magnitsky Act “are at odds with the international law.” It said Russia would respond with “reciprocal measures.” 

The Magnitsky sanctions have been a point of tension between Moscow and Washington, which are far apart on a wide range of global issues and U.S. allegations of Russian interference in U.S. elections. 

Pompeo visit

The latest U.S. move followed a frosty visit to Russia this week by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said Washington would brook no interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and wanted Moscow to take action to show there would be no repeat of its 2016 meddling. 

Magnitsky was arrested and died after discovering a $230 million tax fraud scheme, according to U.S. authorities. His supporters say the Russian state killed him by denying him adequate medical care after he was imprisoned on tax evasion charges. The Kremlin denies the allegation. 

The Treasury statement said officials in Chechnya had launched a series of purges of people they believed to be LGBTI and several were believed to have died as a result. 

“They have rounded up dozens of people on these grounds, some of whom have disappeared, with others returned to their families barely alive from beatings and with their captors outing them to families and encouraging the families to carry out so-called honor killings,” the statement said.
…

Representatives of the Venezuelan government and the opposition are in Norway for talks on resolving the stalemate that has mired the South American nation in a political and economic crisis.

Venezuelan officials say Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez is representing President Nicolas Maduro, while lawmaker Stalin Gonzalez is leading the opposition delegation.

President Maduro said Rodriguez was on “a very important mission” abroad during a televised speech Wednesday, but did not provide any details.

The negotiations in Norway are being held after the military failed to heed a call April 30 by opposition leader and self-declared president Juan Guaido to rise up against Maduro. Guaido, the leader of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president earlier this year after the opposition-majority legislative body determined Maduro won another term in a fraudulent election.

The United States and about 50 other countries recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president. Venezuela has put the United States at odds with Russia, which has supplied military equipment to the Maduro regime, and Cuba, who the U.S. accuses of placing pro-Maduro troops on the ground in Venezuela.

Also on Wednesday, the United States has suspended all commercial flights between the U.S. and Venezuela.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao says she, along with the secretaries of state and homeland security, has determined conditions exist in Venezuela “that threaten the safety or security of passengers, aircraft, or crew.”

Many international airlines, including those in the United States, have already stopped flying to and from Venezuela because of the political upheaval.
…

The heiress of a German biscuit empire has apologized for comments that seemed to downplay the use of forced labor in Nazi Germany.

Verena Bahlsen, who is part owner of her father’s Bahlsen bakery, said she “deeply regrets” her remarks about the way the company treated those forced to work under Hitler’s regime.

“It was a mistake to amplify this debate with thoughtless responses. Nothing could be further from my mind than to downplay national socialism or its consequences,” Bahlsen said.

She said she recognizes the need to learn more about the company’s history.

Bahlsen told Germany’s Bild newspaper that the bakery treated forced laborers “well” during World War II and paid them as much as it paid German workers.

Many of the forced laborers were women from Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

Some in Germany have called for a boycott of Bahlsen products, including the famous Leibniz cookies.

German courts have thrown out compensation claims made by many former laborers because the statute of limitations had run out. But the company voluntarily paid more than $840,000 into a compensation fund in 2000.

Bahlsen was mocked earlier this month when she told a Hamburg business conference that she is happy to be part owner of a company because she wants to make money and buy yachts.
…

Several thousand people rallied Wednesday in Russia’s fourth-largest city as the showdown between authorities and activists protesting the plans to a build a cathedral in a local park entered its third day. 

Thousands gathered in a riverside park in Yekaterinburg in the evening. Some were on bicycles, more camped out on the grass, and others were walking their dogs. 

As night fell, protesters turned on their mobile phone lights and flashlights, chanting, “We stand for the park!”  

Security measures for what has largely been a peaceful protest were heightened on the eve of the rally, with hundreds of riot police deployed to the park.

Earlier, construction workers started building a new fence to replace the chain-link fence that protesters brought down a day earlier. 

Opponents of the cathedral, which is promoted by authorities and funded by the owners of two major local industrial giants, say the construction project smack in the city center would take away green and recreational space needed by residents of a city with 1.5 million people. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier Wednesday that the Kremlin had full trust in the local government to handle the protests, but he also decried the rallies, which he described as unsanctioned, illegal demonstrations. 

Hundreds of protesters stayed in the park well after midnight, facing several rows of riot police who were encircling the fence around the proposed construction site.
…

The United States will not join an international bid to stamp out violent extremism online, the White House said Wednesday, while stressing that Washington backs the initiative’s aims.

“While the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement, we continue to support the overall goals reflected” in the so-called “Christchurch Call,” the White House said.

The initiative is named after the New Zealand city where a far-right gunman massacred 51 people at two mosques in March while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook. It has been spearheaded by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

The White House said in a statement that the private sector should regulate its content, but also stressed the need to protect free speech.

“We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” it said.

“We encourage technology companies to enforce their terms of service and community standards that forbid the use of their platforms for terrorist purposes,” it said.

“Further, we maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech and thus we emphasize the importance of promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging.”

 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Iran should stay in the nuclear agreement and should not take the first step to withdraw.

Speaking at a press conference with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen on Wednesday, May 15, Putin said if Iran takes the first step to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), everyone will blame it for the collapse of the agreement.

“I have repeatedly said during the talks with our Iranian partners that, to my mind, it would be more expedient for Iran to remain in this agreement at whatever cost,” he said.

“The Americans withdrew,” he added. “The agreement is being destroyed, and European countries can do nothing to salvage it and cannot really work with Iran to compensate economic losses.”

However, Putin said “as soon as Iran takes its first reciprocal steps and says that it is leaving, everyone will forget by tomorrow that the U.S. was the initiator of this collapse. Iran will be held responsible, and the global public opinion will be intentionally changed in this direction.”

Russia and China are Iran’s diplomatic — and to an extent — economic allies. Russia and Iran also have been military allies in Syria, fighting side by side to help Bashar al-Assad to survive a nationwide insurgency.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Putin a day earlier. They discussed a host of issues, including topics related to Iran. But it is not clear to what extent there was agreement between them.
…

Catholic clerics in four northern European countries have taken the unprecedented step of urging their congregations to back pro-European Union parties in continent-wide elections later this month. 

The Catholic bishops from France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg have put themselves squarely in opposition to nationalist populists. Praising the principle of solidarity and collaboration among nations, they warn that the EU is under threat.

The bishops urged Europeans to vote in the May 23-26 elections for the 751-seat EU parliament in a show of support for European unity and to promote “dialogue and integration between peoples.” 

Analysts say this month’s election is possibly the most consequential since 1979, when Europeans first began casting ballots for a European parliament. The continent’s new breed of nationalist populists is eschewing pocketbook issues in campaigning and focusing on issues of national identity.

The bishops’ statement added, “The EU is threatened today by various economic, political, demographic and ideological crises — but we are convinced it has tools to overcome them.” The Church leaders said, “Some seek to oppose the EU and resort back to independent nations. We are certain solidarity and collaboration between nations is the most fruitful response we can offer.”

Signatories to the appeal include Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, president of the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, and a dozen other prelates. Hollerich told a German Catholic news agency, “Brexit, populism and nationalism” pose a threat to Europe.​

Populist parties

The appeal has drawn the ire of nationalist populists who accuse Church leaders of meddling in politics. It has become the latest flashpoint in a rhetorical battle between populists and church hierarchies in several European states.

Church leaders say they felt compelled to issue the appeal because of a surge in support for anti-establishment populists.

Populist parties, especially in Italy, Poland, Hungary and France, expect to make major gains in the elections. Pollsters are predicting euroskeptic populists will capture a third of the European parliament’s seats.

Pope Francis has spoken frequently against some aspects of the current surge in nationalist populism and recommenced instead a Christian populism. During an outdoor Mass last month, he told a crowd of 100,000 that “the only possible populism” is a Christian one that “listens to and serves the people without shouting, accusing, stirring up quarrels.”

‘At war’ over migrants

The editor of L’Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, has accused Matteo Salvini, the firebrand leader of Italy’s far-right Lega party, of being “at war” with the Catholic Church over the treatment of migrants. 

Marco Tarquinio’s accusation followed a new anti-migrant law that aims to deny undocumented migrants access to shelters. The law also doubles the time undocumented migrants can be detained, and eliminates humanitarian grounds for granting asylum to migrants unless they’re specifically fleeing political persecution or war.

“In Italy, the war against solidarity networks, large and small, is becoming more bitter and aggressive each day,” Tarquinio wrote in the editorial, in which he condemned what he called the Italian government’s “hostility” toward charitable organizations.

On Monday, a close aide to Pope Francis drew Salvini’s ire by climbing through a manhole to reconnect the electricity supply to an abandoned government-owned building occupied by hundreds of homeless people, including migrants and children. Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who distributes the Pope’s charity funds, broke a police seal to re-connect the electrical circuit.

Rome’s left-leaning Ia Repubblica newspaper dubbed Krajewski “The Pope’s Robin Hood.” The building had been without power since May 6, when the circuits were cut because of more than $300,000 in unpaid bills. 

“Defending illegality is never a good sign,” Salvini told reporters. “There are many Italians and even legal immigrants who pay their bills, even if with difficulty. People can do what they please, but as interior minister, I guarantee the rules.”

Nationalist populists do have supporters among prelates, especially in central Europe. A former Polish secretary-general of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, Msgr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz, told the Catholic News Service recently that some “anti-establishment parties” had “sensible reform ideas,” and could be instrumental in encouraging EU institutions to adopt a “more conservative attitude to religion, family life and national identity.”
…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to work to normalize strained relations and restore bilateral channels of communication following talks Tuesday at the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Although Pompeo and Lavrov discussed a wide range of bilateral and international problems, including the situations in Iran, North Korea, Ukraine, Syria and Venezuela, they didn’t have major breakthroughs on any of those issues.

At the joint news conference with Lavrov following the talks, Pompeo said Washington is willing to rebuild its relationship with Moscow, but it expects its Russian counterparts to act on it with all seriousness.

“President Trump’s made it clear that his expectation is that we have an improved relationship between our countries. This will benefit each of our people. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in this direction”, said Pompeo.

It is Pompeo’s first visit to Russia as Secretary of State. After his meeting with Lavrov, the American diplomat met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader said he had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump several days ago, and he got the impression that Trump indeed “intends to rebuild U.S.-Russian relations and contacts in order to solve the issues of mutual interest.”

“On our behalf, we have said it multiple times that we also would like to rebuild fully fledged relations, and I hope that right now the conducive environment is being built for that,” Putin said to Pompeo.

Putin then brought up the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference by calling it “exotic work.” Putin denied any collusion between his government and the current U.S. administration.

Earlier, during the joint press conference after talks with Lavrov, Pompeo issued a few stern warnings to Moscow, saying it should refrain from interfering in the 2020 U.S election, free captured Ukrainian sailors and try to make peace with Kyiv.

He also said the two sides disagree on Venezuela and urged Russia to end its support for President Nicolas Maduro. Washington and 50 other countries have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim leader.

Tuesday’s Sochi meeting came after Pompeo shared intelligence and details with European allies about what the United States calls Iran’s recent “escalating threat,” blaming Tehran for failing to choose talks over threats.

“And we want to make sure (Europeans) understood the risks as we saw them, and I shared that with them in some detail. As for our policy, it’s been consistent now for the entire Trump administration and the decision to withdraw from the JCPOA [Iran nuclear deal], now just over a year ago, made clear what our objectives are”, said Pompeo about his stopover in Brussels en route to Sochi.

The top U.S. diplomat called on the Iranian regime to “behave like a normal country” and accused its leadership of conducting “assassination campaigns throughout Europe” and “supporting the Hezbollah.”

Before the meeting, State Department Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told reporters Iran “plays a destabilizing role in Syria” and that Iran’s use of Syria “as a missile platform to advance its foreign policy objectives” goes against Russian goals of bringing stability to the Syria.

Russian forces have been aiding the Syrian military since 2015, while Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad, giving support and training to Shi’ite militias.

Analysts say they did not expect any surprise breakthroughs on Iran in Sochi.

“Tehran is an important strategic ally of Moscow in Syria,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, the president of the Moscow-based Russia Institute. “I do not anticipate any changes there, because Russia without Iran in the Middle East would be ‘naked.’ Something should have been offered to Moscow. I am hoping (Pompeo) came to offer some kind of exchanges, tradeoffs  political or economic.”

The head of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrey Kortunov, said Washington should not seek support on its Iran foreign policy in Moscow for a number of reasons.

“How can they reach any compromise here? Russia cannot support the U.S. sanctions toward Iran for a number of reasons, primarily because it is under such pressure itself. Trump, of course, would have liked if Russia used its leverage over Iran’s behavior in the region,” says Kortunov.

Experts believe the meetings in Sochi demonstrated that even in cases when U.S. and Russian interests overlap in certain parts of the world, it should be viewed as a mere coincidence, rather than a pattern.

“We are talking about some situational convergence, and not about a unified vision of the global picture,” concludes Kurtunov.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a Group of 20 summit meeting June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, with both Putin and President Trump expected to attend. Trump said on Monday he will meet with Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.
…

As tensions escalate between the United States and Iran, Europe has urged all sides to avoid further escalation.

The United States has deployed a naval strike group to the Middle East region, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.  B-52 bombers have also arrived at the U.S. air base in Qatar, designed to counter what the Trump administration says are “clear indications” of threats from Iran to U.S. forces.

Military analyst Jack Watling of the London-based Royal United Services Institute says the deployments are not unusual.

“There hasn’t been a massive change in U.S. force posture in the region. What there has been is a very significant change in messaging. And combined with that the U.S. is putting more and more pressure on Iran economically. So the question comes, how is Iran going to push back? How are they going to show the United States that if you keep pressing us, we can respond? And at that point, if they get that wrong, there is a risk of runaway escalation,” Watling told VOA.

Europe believes that risk is dangerously high, a point made clear to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he arrived in Brussels for talks Monday with European Union Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini.

“We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible attitude to take – is we believe should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation of the military side,” Mogherini told reporters after the meeting.

Washington pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran a year ago. Up to now, Europe has urged Tehran to stick with the deal and effectively wait out the Trump administration, says analyst Jack Watling.

“What we’ve seen over the last week is the U.S. administration putting an awful lot of pressure on the viability of that policy. And in pushing the Iranians to the point where they have walked away from a key component of the deal, it essentially underscores the fact it might not be possible to continue in that direction. So, Europe will have to decide.”

Much depends on whether Tehran decides to block nuclear inspectors from entering the country to verify the enrichment freeze.

“That would be very escalatory because Israel would suddenly feel quite threatened, and at that point the deal would be completely dead,” adds Watling.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to tighten the economic noose. India was a major importer of Iranian oil, but stopped purchases this month in the wake of renewed U.S. sanctions. Visiting Delhi Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was questioned on the U.S. military deployments in the Gulf region.

“Unfortunately [the] United States has been escalating the situation unnecessarily. We do not seek escalation, but we have always defended ourselves,” Zarif said.

Analyst Watling says any conflict with Iran would quickly engulf the region.

“It has to fight essentially a regional deep battle. Which means activating a lot of the assets they’ve developed potentially in Lebanon, in Iraq, and conducting ballistic missile strikes.”

Fear of such a conflict has rattled Europe, caught between the demands of its U.S. ally to abandon the nuclear deal and warnings from Tehran that such a move would lead to a resumption of its nuclear program.

 
…

Iran is on the agenda Tuesday as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sochi, Russia.

Lavrov said he expected a “sincere conversation” with Pompeo, including trying to find out how the Trump administration planned to resolve tensions with Iran, which Lavrov said the U.S. side created on its own.

Ahead of the meeting, State Department Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told reporters Iran “plays a destabilizing role in Syria” and that Iran using Syria “as a missile platform to advance its foreign policy objectives” goes against Russian goals of bringing stability to the Syria.

Russian forces have been aiding the Syrian military since 2015, while Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad, giving support and training to Shi’ite militias.

Tuesday’s Sochi meeting comes after Pompeo shared intelligence and details with European allies about what the United States calls Iran’s recent “escalating threat,” blaming Tehran for failing to choose talks over threats.

“The secretary wanted to share some detail behind what we have been saying publicly. We believe that Iran should try talks instead of threats. They have chosen poorly by focusing on threats,” Hook said. 

​Top officials from the European Union are calling on the United States to use “maximum restraint” and avoid military escalation with Iran.

“[U.S. Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo heard very clearly from us — not only from myself but also from the other ministers of EU member states — that we are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take — the most responsible attitude to take — is and we believe should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation of the military side,” Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Monday in Brussels.

Mogherini, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany spoke with Pompeo after he canceled a stop in Moscow. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday the United States has been unnecessarily escalating the situation.

“We do not seek escalation, but we have always defended ourselves,” he said.

UAE claim

Pompeo also discussed while in Brussels reported attacks on several oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, said Hook, who declined to comment when asked if the United States believes Iran is behind those attacks. 

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said Sunday that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate. Monday, Saudi Arabia said two of its oil tankers were among those attacked and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid tensions between the United States and Iran.

“We discussed what seemed to be attacks on commercial vessels that were anchored off of Fujairah,” Hook said. “We have been requested by the UAE to provide assistance in the investigation, which we are very glad to do.”

​Iran nuclear deal

Britain, France and Germany also voiced new support on Monday for the international pact to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for “a period of calm.”

“We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended on either side but ends with some kind of conflict,” Hunt said.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Berlin “still regards this nuclear agreement as the basis for Iran not having any nuclear weapons in the future and we regard this as existential for our security.” He said Germany is “concerned about the development and the tensions in the region, that we do not want there to be a military escalation.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the U.S. move to increase sanctions against Iran to curb its international oil trade “does not suit us.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned last week that Tehran could resume uranium enrichment at a higher grade if the European powers, China and Russia did not develop a plan to thwart punitive U.S. sanctions on Iran’s banking and energy sectors.

The United States, which withdrew from the 2015 international deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers to the Middle East region, in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets. The Pentagon announced on Friday its intent to move additional firepower into the Middle East, including the USS Arlington and a Patriot missile battery.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a Group of 20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, with both Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump expected to attend. Trump said on Monday that he will meet with Putin on the sidelines of G-20 summit.
…

Albanian protesters threw firebombs at the police Monday evening, and the supporters of opposition parties gathered in the capital, Tirana, to ask for the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama and early elections.

Opposition supporters marched in front of the main government buildings amid rain, but did not attempt to break the police barrier as they did on Saturday. Instead, they threw firecrackers at the prime minister’s offices. 

Hours earlier, officials from the United States, European Union and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe had called for restraint.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana called on opposition leaders to “condemn publicly the violent acts of their supporters” and on the authorities “to act with restraint.”

The violent actions that took place during Saturday’s protest “were unlawful and undemocratic,” the U.S. statement read.

European parliamentarians, from both the left and right, in an open public letter on Monday called on Albanians to show restraint and “not to jeopardize the country’s prospects on its European path.”

Albania expects to hear in June whether the EU will give the green light for opening accession talks. 

The white smoke from flares was seen in the sky Monday night, but calls for restraint appear to have been heeded. 

At the beginning of the protest, opposition leader Lulzim Basha told his supporters they were marching “in front of the institutions that symbolize the crime.” Besides the offices of the prime minister, demonstrators also protested in front of the Interior Ministry, police headquarters and parliament.

A similar protest Saturday turned violent. About 50 opposition supporters were also arrested.
…

Swedish prosecutors are reopening the rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange following a request from the lawyer of one of the alleged victims. 

Assange was arrested last month in Ecuador’s embassy in London, after the country reversed its decision to give him asylum. The 47-year-old Australian national is also wanted in the United States on hacking charges and the British government will now have to decide which extradition request should take priority.

WATCH: Britain to Decide Assange’s Extradition Fate

In 2011, Assange was accused of rape by two women following a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm. He sought asylum in London’s Ecuadorean embassy, claiming the accusations were part of a plot to have him extradited to the United States over his whistleblowing activities. With apparently little hope of conviction, Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation in 2017. 

In April, however, Ecuador reversed its decision to offer Assange asylum and allowed British authorities into the embassy to arrest him. One of the women who made the rape accusations requested the case be reopened.

Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecution, Eva-Maria Persson, announced the reopening of the case Monday. 

“After reviewing the preliminary investigation in its current state, my assessment is that there is still probable cause to suspect that Julian Assange committed rape,” Persson said at a press conference in Stockholm.

Assange denies the rape accusations. In a statement, WikiLeaks said reopening the case would allow him to clear his name. 

Sweden will seek a European arrest warrant and extradition after Assange has served a 50-week sentence in Britain for skipping bail. 

The United States has also issued an extradition request for Assange over computer hacking accusations, related to the release of thousands of classified military and diplomatic communications via WikiLeaks, mainly relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Britain’s Home Secretary will have to decide which extradition request should take precedence, says London-based extradition lawyer Anthony Hanretty.

“Whether it was hacking into computers or simply releasing information, against the allegations made in Sweden which are of the utmost severity. So it will come down politically to which one he thinks is more palatable for him to make.”

Hanretty notes that Assange has already indicated he would contest any extradition to the United States.

“He no doubt will have fears that he will be held in solitary confinement in conditions which he will say will breach his human rights. There’s also concern that if he is sent to the U.S., they will simply add further charges onto him once he is there. And it also depends on how the U.S. frames the charges against him. They will have to show that what he is accused of in the U.S. would amount to an offense in the U.K.”

Under Swedish law, the statute of limitations on the rape case expires in August of next year, so legal experts say there is pressure on Britain and Sweden to speed up the extradition process.
…

Swedish prosecutors are reopening a rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Speaking to reporters Monday in Stockholm, Eva-Marie Persson, deputy director of public prosecutions, said that “there is still a probable cause to suspect that Assange committed a rape,” adding that in her assessment “a new questioning of Assange is required.”

Persson said that the circumstances now allow for the extradition of Assange from Britain. However, she said, it is for Britain to decide whether to extradite him to Sweden or to the United States where he is wanted for allegedly hacking into a Pentagon computer.

Reacting to the Sweden’s decision, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said in a statement that the reopening of the case will give Assange a chance to clear his name.

“Since Julian Assange was arrested on 11 April 2019, there has been considerable political pressure on Sweden to reopen their investigation, but there has always been political pressure surrounding this case,” Hrafnsson said.

Swedish prosecutors filed preliminary charges against Assange in 2010. The investigation into alleged sexual misconduct was dropped seven years later after Assange fled into the Ecuadorian embassy and the statute of limitations then expired.

The statute of limitations on the reopened rape case expires in August 2020, in which case the investigation would be suspended if no conclusion were reached.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived at the European Union headquarters in Brussels, the first stop on his European trip.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Monday that Pompeo will meet with European allies in Belgium “to discuss recent threatening actions and statements by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Ortagus added that the Secretary “will continue to coordinate closely with our allies and partners and ensure the security of our mutual interests in the Middle East and around the world.”

Originally Pompeo had planned to meet Monday with U.S. diplomats and business leaders in Moscow.

There was a late Sunday change of plans, instead, for the secretary to stop in Belgium first.

The schedule for the rest of schedule for the U.S. top diplomat’s trip plans remain intact.

Pompeo travels to Sochi Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, which both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin will attend.

Pompeo’s trip to Russia also comes as tensions simmer between the two countries over Iran.

The U.S. is strengthening its military presence in the Middle East in what officials said was a “direct response to a number of troubling and escalatory indicators and warnings” from Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets.

On Wednesday, Lavrov asked Pompeo to use diplomacy instead of threats to solve issues after Lavrov’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarifin Moscow.
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An economist and political novice, Gitanas Nauseda, took a thin lead in the first round of Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday and will face Ingrida Simonyte, a conservative ex-finance minister, in a May 26 run-off set to focus on inequality and poverty in the Baltic eurozone state.

Center-left Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis vowed to quit after he was eliminated from the run-off having finished in third place.

Conceding that “the failure to get into the second round is an assessment of me as a politician,” Skvernelis told reporters that he would “step down on July 12.”

He did not rule out early elections. The next regularly-scheduled parliamentary elections are due in October 2020.

Nauseda, promising to seek the political middle-ground and build a welfare state, won 31.07 percent of the vote, according to near-complete official results.

“I want to thank all the people who took to their hearts our message that we want a welfare state in Lithuania and we want more political peace,” Nauseda told reporters in Vilnius.

The 54-year-old is seeking to bridge the growing rich-poor divide in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million people, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.

“Nauseda has a greater chance to attract votes that went to other candidates, especially from the left,” Vilnius University analyst Ramunas Vilpisauskas told AFP. 

In all, nine candidates ran in the first round vote.

In second place, Simonyte, who is popular with wealthy, educated urban voters, garnered 29.46 percent of the vote while resonating with the rural poor, Skvernelis’s populist approach secured 20.72 percent support.

Simonyte, 44, a technocrat who also warns against deepening inequality and the rural-urban divide, has vowed to reduce it by boosting growth further. 

Socially liberal, Simonyte supports same-sex partnerships which still stir controversy in the predominantly Catholic country.

​Simonyte said she would resist “populism” during her second-round campaign and seek support from political forces “with consistent views that do not try to be on the right with one leg and the left with the other.” 

Lithuanian presidents steer defense and foreign policy, attending EU and NATO summits, but must consult with the government and the prime minister on appointing the most senior officials.

Popular incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite, an independent in her second consecutive term, must step down due to term limits.

The politician nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her strong resolve has been tipped as a contender to be the next president of the European Council.

Both Nauseda and Simonyte are strong supporters of EU and NATO membership as bulwarks against neighboring Russia, especially since Moscow’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine.

Analyst Vilpisauskas said that both Nauseda and Simonyte are very likely to opt for continuity in foreign and defense policy.

“With Nauseda, there can be some tactical changes when it comes to communication with neighbors but the strategical line is unlikely to change.”

Although Lithuanian presidents do not directly craft economic policy, bread and butter issues and tackling corruption dominated the campaign.

Lithuania is struggling with a sharp decline in population owing to mass emigration to Western Europe by people seeking better opportunities. 

The global financial crisis triggered a deep recession 10 years ago and austerity measures imposed to prevent further crisis took a high toll, especially on low-income earners.

Despite solid economic growth, a recent EU report noted that almost 30 percent of Lithuanians “are at risk of poverty or social exclusion” and that this risk is “nearly double” in rural areas.

Robust annual wage growth of around 10 percent has raised the average gross monthly salary to 970 euros ($1,00) but poverty and income inequality remain among the highest in the EU, largely due to weak progressive taxation.

Unemployment stood at 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019, and the economy is forecast to grow by 2.7 percent this year, well above an average of 1.1 percent in the 19-member eurozone.

Brussels has urged Vilnius to use solid growth fueled mostly by consumption to broaden its tax base and spend more on social policies.

Nauseda voter Feliksas Markevicius said he wanted the new president to help emigrants to return home to Lithuania.

“We need to improve living conditions because many people are forced to work abroad,” the pensioner told AFP after voting in Vilnius on Sunday.

Voter turnout was 54.96 percent, according to the Central Elections Commission.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s preferred successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, said Sunday that she would not seek the top job before Merkel’s term ends in 2021.

The woman usually dubbed “AKK” took over from Merkel as head of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) last December, while the chancellor said she wants to serve out her 2017-2021 term.

“The chancellor and the government were elected for an entire legislative term and the citizens rightly expect them to take seriously the commitment that came with the election,” said Kramp-Karrenbauer.

“So I can rule out the possibility that I will work deliberately to seek a change earlier,” she told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Rather, the CDU should work on a new policy platform and nominate its chancellor-candidate in the late autumn of 2020, she said.

German media have been speculating for months over whether Germany’s veteran leader Merkel may leave earlier as head of her left-right coalition government.

Under one scenario, her junior partners the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) could quit the “grand coalition” if they receive further election setbacks.

Upcoming electoral tests are the European parliament elections this month and three state polls in Germany’s ex-communist east later in the year.

In all those elections, the far-right and anti-immigration AfD could make further gains at the expense of the mainstream CDU and SPD parties.

Kramp-Karrenbauer acknowledged that the coalition with the SPD “did not emerge smoothly and doesn’t always have an easy time cooperating”.

On her relationship with Merkel, she said that “on some days I speak more with her than with my husband”.

She stressed however that Merkel to her was neither a “personal friend” nor a “benefactor”, and that instead they are “fellow travelers”.

“Our relationship is very good, just as it was before,” Kramp-Karrenbauer told the newspaper.
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Spanish authorities say 52 migrants have climbed a guarded fence to gain entry into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco.

An official with the Spanish Interior Ministry in Melilla says four police officer and one migrant sustained light injuries as the group scaled the high fence around dawn Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules.

Spain’s proximity to North Africa has made it a target for migrants trying to reach the European Union. The migrants try to get in either by land via Spain’s two North African enclaves or by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats.

Spain became the leading entry point to Europe last year, with some 60,000 migrants arriving irregularly, almost all of them by sea.
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Berliners on Sunday celebrated the 70th anniversary of the day the Soviets lifted their blockade strangling West Berlin in the post-World War II years with a big party at the former Tempelhof airport in the German capital.

Among the invited guests of honor was 98-year-old U.S. pilot Gail Halvorsen, who dropped hundreds of boxes of candy on tiny parachutes into West Berlin during the blockade.

Halvorsen came to Berlin from Utah with his two daughters on Friday, the German news agency dpa reported.

On Saturday, a baseball field at Tempelhof airport was named after him — the “Gail S. Halvorsen Park — Home of the Berlin Braves” in honor of his help for Berliners during the Cold War.

Dressed in a military uniform, Halvorsen told Berlin’s mayor Michael Mueller that “it’s good to be home.”

The airlift began on June 26, 1948, in an ambitious plan to feed and supply West Berlin after the Soviets — one of the four occupying powers of a divided Berlin after World War II — blockaded the city in an attempt to squeeze the U.S., Britain and France out of the enclave within Soviet-occupied eastern Germany.

Allied pilots flew a total of 278,000 flights to Berlin, carrying about 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other supplies.

On the operation’s busiest day, April 16, 1949, about 1,400 planes carried in nearly 13,000 tons over 24 hours — an average of one plane touching down almost every minute.

On the ground in Berlin, ex-Luftwaffe mechanics were enlisted to help maintain aircraft, and some 19,000 Berliners, almost half of them women, worked around the clock for three months to build Tegel Airport, providing a crucial relief for the British Gatow and American Tempelhof airfields.

Finally, on May 12, 1949, the Soviets realized the blockade was futile and lifted their barricades. The airlift continued for several more months, however, as a precaution in case the Soviets changed their minds.

Halvorsen is probably the best known of the airlift pilots, thanks to an inadvertent propaganda coup born out of good will. Early in the airlift, he shared two sticks of gum with starving Berlin children and saw others sniffing the wrappers just for a hint of the flavor.

Touched, he told the children to come back the next day, when he would drop them candy, using handkerchiefs as parachutes.

He started doing it regularly, using his own candy ration. Soon other pilots and crews joined in what would be dubbed “Operation Little Vittles.”

After an Associated Press story appeared under the headline “Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin,” a wave of candy and handkerchief donations followed.

To this day, the airlift still shapes many Germans’ views of the Western allies, especially in Berlin. After the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, some 200,000 Berliners took to the streets of the German capital to show their support for the country that had helped prevent their city falling completely to the Soviets.

On Sunday, up to 50,000 people were expected to participate in the festivities, which include musical performances, talks with witnesses, exhibitions of historical vehicles and lots of activities for children, dpa reported.
…

The battle among leading Conservatives to replace Theresa May as prime minister threatens to derail talks with the opposition Labour Party and the bid to find a Brexit compromise, Labour’s John McDonnell said.

May, who has offered to quit if lawmakers accept her Brexit deal, opened cross-party talks with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party more than a month ago after parliament rejected her European Union withdrawal deal three times.

The talks with Labour are a last resort for May, whose party’s deep divisions over Brexit have so far kept her from winning approval for an exit agreement and left the world’s fifth largest economy in prolonged political limbo.

McDonnell, Labour’s financial spokesman and a member of the party’s negotiating team, said the situation was precarious.

“The problem they have is that literally in front of us they will fall out,” he told the Sunday Mirror. “So the exercise here is holding themselves together. And that is proving impossible. The administration is falling apart.”

In terms of progress, the second most powerful man in the Labour Party said nothing new had been put on the table, and in some cases the talks had gone backwards.

“It’s so precarious. We’re dealing with an institution that might not be there in three weeks.” He said the talks had been made more difficult by May’s offer to resign, because a new leader could rip up anything agreed to by the current administration.

“We’re in a position now where we’re asking, ‘How can we trust them to deliver — not just in the short-term, in the medium term as well?’”

May’s Conservatives have said the talks are difficult, as both parties gear up to contest European elections later this month, but that they will continue to try and find a deal that can get parliamentary support.
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Three hostages freed by French commandos from militants in Burkina Faso arrived in Paris on Saturday, expressing sorrow at the deaths of two French 

soldiers in the rescue operation. 

President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the hostages as they stepped off the French government jet less than 48 hours after French special forces stormed their captors’ hideout in a daring nighttime raid. 

Two Frenchmen kidnapped while on safari in Benin more than a week earlier, as well as an American woman and a South Korean woman who were being held with them, were liberated in the high-risk mission authorized by Macron.

The American, who has not been identified, was being repatriated separately. 

“All our thoughts go to the families of the soldiers and to the soldiers who lost their lives to free us from this hell,” Laurent Lassimouillas earlier told reporters as he met Burkinabe President Roch Kabore in Ouagadougou. 

The French government identified the two soldiers killed as Cédric de Pierrepont and Alain Bertoncello. Macron will lead a national tribute to the men, both officers in the naval special forces, at the Les Invalides military hospital and mausoleum in Paris on Tuesday. 

Lassimouillas also expressed regret over the death of a Beninese park guide, who was shot dead when the two tourists were kidnapped. 

Islamist insurgency

French officials said Friday that it wasn’t clear who had kidnapped them in Benin but that their captors planned to hand them over to an al-Qaida affiliate in neighboring Mali. 

Jihadist groups with links to al-Qaida and Islamic State have expanded their presence across West Africa’s Sahel region, a strip of scrubland beneath the Sahara desert, in recent years and taken a number of Western hostages. 

France, the former colonial power in the region, intervened in Mali in 2013 to halt an advance by Islamist militants and has kept about 4,500 troops in the Sahel since then. 

“France’s message to terrorists is clear: Those who want to attack France, the French, should know that we will hunt them, we will find them and we will kill them,” Defense Minister Florence Parly said after joining Macron at the Villacoublay military airport outside Paris. 

France was doing all it could to secure the release of another French hostage, Sophie Petronin, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. Gunmen kidnapped Petronin in December 2016 in the northern Malian city of Gao. 
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Thousands of supporters of the Albania’s center-right opposition protested Saturday in Tirana, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. The protesters clashed with police at several points, and reporters saw some people injured.

The protest began in front of the main government building at Tirana’s Martyrs of the Nation Boulevard. Flares, firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and other projectiles were thrown. Police used tear gas when a group of protesters broke the police cordon and headed for the building’s entrance.

After two hours, clashes moved to the parliament building.

Ambulances were seen taking injured protesters away, but there was no immediate information on numbers of casualties among demonstrators.  

Interior Minister Sander Lleshaj said 13 policemen were injured.

Party leader’s release sought

The opposition Democrats’ leader, Lulzim Basha, led protesters to the Tirana police department, asking for the release of a senior party leader taken earlier. 

Minor clashes continued, with some protesters throwing Molotov bombs and projectiles, while police responded with tear gas and water cannons. Masked teenagers were seen setting fires in trash cans on the streets.

President Ilir Meta called on protesters “to avoid acts of violence and confrontation.” 

Lleshaj and Prime Minister Edi Rama both denounced the violence and expressed their support for police forces, deploring their injuries.

​Corruption accusations

The opposition accuses Rama’s Cabinet of being corrupt and linked to organized crime, which the government denies.

Basha called on his supporters to continue the protest until Rama resigns and a transitional cabinet is formed to take the country to an early election. 

“We are determined there will be … no election with Edi Rama,” Basha said.

Rama tweeted that he considered the protest violence as sadness,'' adding thatAlbania is damaged.”

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana condemned protesters’ violence, calling for it to stop.

“Protest leaders have a responsibility to encourage calm. We call on all parties to show restraint,” a statement said.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said violence was “not the answer. Also, heavy response to violence will not help.” 

Opposition lawmakers relinquished their seats in parliament in protest, though many have now been filled by other opposition candidates. The governing Socialists have 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament.

In June, Albania expects an answer from the European Union on whether full membership negotiations will be launched. Municipal elections are set for the same month. 

Saturday’s protest was the fourth national demonstration since mid-February. Regular, smaller ones have been held weekly across the country.  
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French special forces have rescued four foreign hostages from Burkina Faso but lost two of their elite soldiers in the mission.

France’s military said the special forces carried out the raid during a predawn operation Friday, supported by U.S. intelligence.

President Emmanuel Macron’s office said all four hostages were safe. Two of the hostages are French, one is American and one is South Korean.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly told a news conference Friday that no one involved in the operation knew about the presence of the American and South Korean hostages, only the French ones.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said the United States was grateful for the successful recovery of the hostages.

The two French tourists went missing last week during a visit to the Pendjari National Park wildlife reserve in Benin. Their guide was later found dead and their captors were tracked to neighboring Burkina Faso.

Macron expressed condolences in a Friday statement over the deaths of two French commandos who were killed during the operation. A military ceremony is planned for them next week.

France’s army chief Francois Lecointre told reporters that four kidnappers were killed in the operation and two escaped. He described the kidnappers as “terrorists.”

France has about 4,500 troops in Africa’s Sahel region to help local governments fight Islamist extremists. The region has seen an increase in violence by militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State in recent years.
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France welcomed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on Friday with a threat of sweeping new regulation.

With Facebook under fire on multiple fronts, Zuckerberg is in Paris to show that his social media giant is working hard to limit violent extremism and hate speech shared online.

But a group of French regulators and experts who spent weeks inside Facebook facilities in Paris, Dublin and Barcelona say the company isn’t working hard enough.

Just before Zuckerberg met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, the 10 officials released a report calling for laws allowing the government to investigate and fine social networks that don’t take responsibility for the content that makes them money.

The French government wants the legislation to serve as a model for Europe-wide management of social networks. Several countries have introduced similar legislation, some tougher than what France is proposing.

To an average user, it seems like the problem is intractable. Mass shootings are live-streamed, and online mobs are spreading rumors that lead to deadly violence. Facebook is even inadvertently creating celebratory videos using extremist content and auto-generating business pages for the likes of the Islamic State group and al Qaida.

The company says it is working on solutions, and the French regulators praised Facebook for hiring more people and using artificial intelligence to track and crack down on dangerous content.

But they said Facebook didn’t provide the French officials enough information about its algorithms to judge whether they were working, and that a “lack of transparency … justifies an intervention of public authorities.”

The regulators recommended legally requiring a “duty of care” for big social networks, meaning they should moderate hate speech published on their platforms. They insist that any law should respect freedom of expression, but did not explain how Facebook should balance those responsibilities in practice.

After meeting Macron, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that he welcomed governments taking a more active role in drawing up regulations for the internet. He made similar remarks earlier this year but has been vague on what kind of regulation he favors.

Facebook faces “nuanced decisions” involving content that is harmful but not illegal and the French recommendations, which set guidelines for what’s considered harmful, “would create a more consistent approach across the tech industry and ensure companies are held accountable for enforcing standards against this content,” Zuckerberg said.

The regulators acknowledged that their research didn’t address violent content shared on private chat groups or encrypted apps, or on groups like 4chan or 8chan, where criminals and extremists and those concerned about privacy increasingly turn to communicate.

Facebook said Zuckerberg is in France as part of meetings around Europe to discuss future regulation of the internet. Facebook agreed to embed the French regulators as an effort to jointly develop proposals to fight online hate content.

Zuckerberg’s visit comes notably amid concern about hate speech and disinformation around this month’s European Parliament elections.

Next week, the leaders of France and New Zealand will meet tech leaders in Paris for a summit seeking to ban acts of violent extremism and terrorism from being shown online.

Facebook has faced challenges over privacy and security lapses and accusations of endangering democracy — and it came under criticism this week from its own co-founder.

Chris Hughes said in a New York Times opinion piece Thursday that it’s time to break up Facebook. He says Zuckerberg has turned Facebook into an innovation-suffocating monopoly and lamented the company’s “slow response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news.”
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Leading Western industrial powers will for the first time jointly simulate a major cross-border cybersecurity attack on the financial sector next month, French officials said on Friday.

The exercise, organized by the French central bank under France’s presidency of the Group of Seven nations (G7), will be based on the scenario of a technical component widely used in the financial sector becoming infected with malware, said Nathalie Aufauvre, the Bank of France’s director general for financial stability.

Institutions such as the European Central Bank and the Bank of England have already conducted such tests, but the June exercise will be the first across borders at the G7 level,

Aufauvre told a cybersecurity conference at the bank. “Cyber threats are proof that we need more multilateralism and more cooperation between our countries,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the conference.

Aufauvre said the three-day exercise aimed to demonstrate the cross-border effects of such an attack, and would involve 24 financial authorities from the seven countries, comprising central banks, market authorities and finance ministries.

Representatives of the private sector in France, Italy Germany and Japan will also participate.

The financial sector is the most common target of cyberattacks, accounting for 19 percent of the total, according to a recent study by IBM.

Many countries have in recent years stepped up oversight of banks and insurers’ capacity to respond.

However, financial regulators in countries such as France and Germany say that requirements in some countries outside the G7 are less onerous, creating an incentive for firms to move operations there to cut costs.
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More than seven decades after the end of World War II, the remains of political prisoners executed by the Nazis and dissected for research will be given a proper burial in Berlin.

The microscopic remains — 300 tissue samples each a hundredth of a millimeter thin and about 1 centimeter square — were uncovered by the descendants of the late Hermann Stieve, an anatomist who worked on the bodies of Third Reich opponents.

“Such small tissue samples are usually not deemed worthy of burial,” Andreas Winkelmann, who had been tasked to determine the origin of the histological samples, told AFP. “But this is a special story, because they came from people who were actively denied graves so that their relatives would not know where they are buried.”

Monday ceremony

A ceremony will be Monday with descendants of the victims expected to attend, before the remains are laid to rest at the Dorotheenstadt cemetery in central Berlin.

The site was picked because there are many graves and memorials for the victims of Nazism there, said Johannes Tuchel, director of the German Resistance Memorial Center, which is organizing the special event along with Berlin’s university hospital Charite.

Tuchel said a decision was made to bury the specimens because they are “the last remains of people who were victims of the Nazi unjust justice system.”

“They were denied a grave at that time, and so today, a burial is a matter of course,” he said.

A plaque will also be put up to explain the find.

Research specimens

More than 2,800 people held at Berlin-Ploetzensee prison were put to the guillotine or hanged between 1933 and 1945, and most were then sent for dissection at the Berlin Institute of Anatomy.

Most of the 300 specimens found in Stieve’s estate stemmed from women, adds the plaque, which would not list the names of individual victims at the request of relatives.

Winkelmann, who had done extensive research into Stieve and his controversial experiments, said it was unclear how many individuals’ remains were included in the batch of specimens.

Some 20 specimens came with names, others only numbers.

The clues have however helped draw a firm link with the Ploetzensee victims.

Crucially for the history books, the specimens each set on 2 by 7 centimeter (0.8 by 2.7 inch) glass plates provided rare concrete proof that prisoners’ bodies were sent for dissection.

Stieve was the director from 1935 to 1952 of the Berlin Institute of Anatomy, where he carried out his controversial research on the female reproductive system.

Among those executed at Ploetzensee were 42 resistance fighters from the Berlin group Red Orchestra.

Stieve is believed to have dissected at least 13 of 18 female Red Orchestra fighters executed.

He was never charged with a crime and continued his career after the war as did many other scientists who collaborated with the Nazis.

Only the highest-ranking physicians under the Third Reich were prosecuted at Nuremberg for grotesque human experimentation and mass murder under the “euthanasia” program.

Winkelmann said it was particularly objectionable that while Stieve did not directly experiment on live victims, he was examining the physical impact of fear experienced by the women sitting on death row.

“That’s of course very cold-hearted and turned these people into mere objects,” Winkelmann said.

‘Open questions’

“The Nazi justice system found that interesting for them, not because they wanted to back Stieve’s research, but because it was a way to humiliate the victims once again,” Winkelmann said.

“First, by sending them to anatomy … and it was also a way to deny the victims a grave,” he said.

Adolf Hitler’s regime sought to dump the remains in unmarked mass graves because it did not want sites where relatives could mourn the victims, and from where political demonstrations could ensue.

While Monday’s burial may finally provide a form of closure to relatives of victims, Winkelmann said “there are still open questions that haven’t been answered about Hermann Stieve and how he went about his research.”

“I don’t want to close this chapter, because the future generations need to be informed about what happened there and why we think it was wrong. All that is relevant for the future.”
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Britain’s young royals, brothers Prince William and Prince Harry and their wives Kate and Meghan, launched a new phone messaging service Friday to help people suffering a mental health crisis.

The two princes have been widely praised for speaking out about their own struggles with mental health in the wake of the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in a 1997 car crash and have made the issue one of their main charitable causes.

Shout

The new text messaging service, called “Shout,” aims to provide 24/7 support for people suffering from crises such as suicidal thoughts, abuse, relationship problems and bullying by connecting them to trained volunteers and helping them find longer-term support.

“We are incredibly excited to be launching this service, knowing it has the potential to reach thousands of vulnerable people every day,” the four royals said in a statement. “We have all been able to see the service working up close and are so excited for its future. We hope that many more of you will join us and be part of something very special.”

The service is particularly aimed at younger people and using text messaging means it is silent and private, allowing people to use it at school, on a bus or at home, the organizers said. 

Appeal for volunteers

As part of the launch, William appears in a video appealing for people to come forward as the service seeks to expand from 1,000 to 4,000 volunteers.

The initiative is one of the first to involve the quartet of royals who are joint patrons of the Royal Foundation, their primary vehicle for helping charities and good causes and which is supporting the Shout scheme.

It comes after the British media has been rife with speculation of a rift between the brothers and their wives, although there has been no public indication of any disagreements.

On Monday, Meghan, 37, and Harry, 34, celebrated the birth of their first child Archie, with William, 36, and Kate, 37, saying they were absolutely thrilled at the news.
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The European Union’s 28 countries consume the Earth’s resources faster than they can be renewed and none of them has sustainable consumption policies, a report released Thursday said, as EU leaders met to discuss priorities for the next five years.

“All EU countries are living beyond the means of our planet. The EU and its citizens are currently using twice more than the EU ecosystems can renew,”  the report  by the World Wide Fund (WWF) and Global Footprint Network said.

It was issued as leaders met in the Romanian city of Sibiu to set the course for the bloc after Britain’s planned departure from the EU.

Climate change key priority

French President Emmanuel Macron said before the summit that climate change was among his key priorities and it was included in the bloc’s 10 “commitments” for the future until 2024, agreed by all the 27 leaders meeting in Sibiu.

But the bloc is divided on how to achieve any ambitious climate goals and it remains far from clear how the Sibiu declaration would be implemented.

Some 100 Greenpeace activists and students from several European countries marched through Sibiu carrying a huge banner saying “Broken Climate Broken Future.”

“We cannot talk about a prosperous future without a healthy climate,” Greenpeace climate activist Alin Tanase told Reuters.

Views on concrete action to be taken to combat climate change differ between EU countries, influenced greatly by their dominant industries, such as carmakers in Germany or the coal industry in Poland.

Tusk sensitive to climate change

The chairman of the summit, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, said there was no future for politicians who were not sensitive to climate change and environment protection issues.

“The young generation is much more united on this than the member states. The truth is that nothing has changed when it comes to this divide and different opinions about this. What is new is this very fresh and energetic pressure,” he told a news conference after the summit.

Climate protection and sustainable development is also an important topic in the election campaign for the May 23-26 European Parliament elections, which will influence the leadership of European institutions and their programs.

The European Commission has been pushing for the EU to become climate neutral by 2050 through reducing carbon emissions that will otherwise boost the Earth’s average temperatures with devastating consequences.

“The EU uses up almost 20 percent of the Earth’s bio-capacity although it comprises only 7 percent of the world population,” the WWF report said.

“In other words, 2.8 planets would be needed if everyone consumed at the rate of the average EU resident,” it said.

Luxembourg smallest but fastest

It said the EU’s smallest and richest country, Luxembourg, was also the one which used up renewable resources the fastest last year. Just 46 days into the year, it had consumed its full share of the Earth’s resources, it said.

The EU’s poorest nation, Romania, took the longest to arrive at that point, on July 12th. But that was still earlier than the world’s average of Aug. 1, called Earth overshoot day.
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It’s a little-known fact that Sweden was the first western country to recognize the government of Vietnam, in 1969, at a time when many states were wary of ruffling the feathers of their ally, the United States, which was fighting a war in the Southeast Asian country.

Sweden went on to become the biggest foreign donor in Vietnam, which faced international isolation in the 1980s leading up to the 1990s, when Washington lifted its economic embargo on Hanoi.

Now Stockholm and Hanoi are marking their 50 year anniversary with what they call a shift from aid to trade. Vietnam sees some potential pointers from Sweden, a small country with social democratic policies that is home to many companies people may not realize have Swedish roots: Skype, Spotify, and Ericsson, as well as Ikea, Volvo, and H&M.

Sustainable trade

The Crown Princess of Sweden, Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree, brought a delegation to Hanoi this week to try some Vietnamese bun bo noodles and conical hats, as well as to promote commerce that is good for the environment.

“I would like to stress that sustainability and trade are not mutually exclusive,” the crown princess said, adding that, on the contrary, sustainable trade is the only option going forward.

That is in contrast to global trade after the first industrial revolution, when businesses did not mind burning fossil fuels and filling garbage dumps — known in economics as a classic externality, because the culprit does not suffer the direct impact of its pollution.

A different Kind of industrialization

As Vietnam industrializes, some hope it will do things differently from the west’s old polluting industries. It can join the “circular economy” that wastes fewer raw inputs, with more emphasis on putting materials back into the business process.

Swedish firms have been looking for ways to clean up their act. H&M, for example, allows shoppers to bring back clothes for recycling, although that can give them an excuse to consume even more new products.

The fashion retailer also aims to source from factories that treat and reuse wastewater. Ikea will ban single-use plastic from its stores by next year and find new uses for plastic so that it doesn’t end up in the ocean. The plastic efforts are an example of areas where big corporations may have a bigger impact than the individuals who have stopped using plastic straws and plastic bags to do their part.

A Swedish model

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said Sweden was a small country that turned to foreign trade and industrialized responsibly.

“That is a lesson Vietnam wants to learn from Sweden,” he said.

Relations between the two countries used to be underpinned by Sweden’s official aid money to Vietnam, money that went toward common goals like gender equality. The Swedish crown princess, for example, is next in line to the throne because her country revised a law that had restricted royal succession to males. In Vietnam, Sweden has supported equality programs in areas from agriculture, such as training female farmers to market their products, to Wikipedia, where there are more biographies of men than of women.

Business partners

But today the focus is changing from development assistance to business development. Instead of getting aid from Sweden, Vietnam is getting investment, whether it’s Spotify launching its music streaming app in the communist country in 2018, or Electrolux selling air conditioners and washing machines to the emerging middle class.

The change is also indicative of broader trends in Vietnam, generally shifting from cash assistance from foreign countries, to doing business with them. Among Vietnam’s many new trade deals is the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, which Swedish officials also touted on their visit this week to increase cross-border commerce.

Such commerce, including more technology investment, could help Vietnam move up from lower middle income status.

“How to escape the middle income trap in a rapidly changing global economy,” Fulbright scholar Vu Thanh Tu Anh told an audience of Vietnamese and Swedish businesses this week. “That is our objective.”

 
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Turkey’s surprise move to allow Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), to meet with his lawyers after an eight-year hiatus is spurring speculation of a shift in Ankara’s hard-line policy following the 2015 collapse in peace talks with the rebel group.

A nationwide hunger strike calling for an end to Ocalan’s isolation spurred Turkish authorities to allow his lawyers a visit at Imrali Island prison where the 70-year-old Kurdish leader is being held.

“The lawyers were informed they could meet Ocalan on the day of the announcement of a death fast [hunger strike leading to death], which involves at least 2 or 3,000, which has put the government in a difficult position,” said Ertugrul Kurkcu, honorary president of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

In a statement, Ocalan called on his supporters not to engage in activities that could harm them. What drew the most attention, however, was the rebel leader’s call to Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that “Turkish sensitivity should be taken into consideration.”

Turkey on the border 

Turkish forces are currently amassed on the Syrian border facing off against the SDF. Ankara accuses the People Protection Units (YPG), which makes up a large part of the SDF, of being a terrorist organization linked to the PKK. The PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.

“I think he is showing the YPG the limits they should remain within in the Syrian context and not bother the Turkish government,” said Kurkcu. “He [Ocalan] seeks to finalize the situation without any losses of Syrian Kurdish population because Turkey is looking for an opportunity to intervene.”

Washington has been lobbying hard to prevent a Turkish intervention because the YPG is a crucial ally in its war against Islamic State. U.S. Special Representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, visited Ankara earlier this month for high-level talks to broker a solution.

“We know James Jeffrey, the former U.S. ambassador to Ankara, is already the go-between to find the middle ground between the Ankara regime and the Kurdish political movement, be it in Turkey or Syria,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar.

“So, the Ocalan lawyers’ visit could be a proposal by him, because Ocalan is considered the symbolic leader of the YPG. We know from the Kurdish authorities in Syria that James Jeffrey was active to establish an indirect dialogue between Ankara and [YPG leader] Mazlum Kobane,” Aktar added.

Ocalan’s influence

Former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who founded Turkey’s consul in the Iraqi Kurdistan regional capital, Irbil, said the significance of Ocalan’s statement should not be overestimated.

“Will it change anything on the ground? I am not sure, because on the ground, even the relationship between Qandil [PKK Iraqi headquarters] and the YPG commanders is quite opaque, not clear, let alone Ocalan’s influence,” he said. 

Selcen added, “What is the most interesting point is whether now there is some sort of coordination between the United States, the SDF, Ankara and Ocalan, and even perhaps between Qandil. That we shall see in the coming months.”

Reports of tentative communications between Ankara and the SDF, coupled with Ocalan’s lawyers’ meeting, is spurring speculation of a possible resumption of broader PKK peace talks. 

Turkish government members previously engaged in peace talks with Ocalan, which were accompanied by a PKK cease-fire and a partial withdrawal from Turkey.

The process collapsed in 2015 amid mutual recrimination. The resulting fighting claimed thousands of lives and the destruction of numerous town and city centers across Turkey’s predominately Kurdish region.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is ruling out a return to peace talks.

“There is no question of such a thing as the peace process,” he said Monday.

Erdogan’s AKP is in a coalition with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which is ardently opposed to any peace talks.

“It’s [the AKP-MHP coalition] a problem, but it is also an opportunity,” Selcen said. “It might mean Erdogan can change his coalition. It might mean he can opt for a new partner.”

Growing tensions?

Turkish media have been awash with reports of growing tensions between the AKP and MHP, which have been exacerbated by the political defeat in most of Turkey’s main cities, including Istanbul, during the local elections in March.

Kurkcu played down hopes of new peace talks.

“The present line of the PKK is devoted to changing the interlocutor, changing the negotiating partner, which they believe cannot be the AKP,” he said. “The credit the AKP had five to six or seven years ago has vanished in tyranny. The AKP doesn’t have the promise for any positive change in Turkey. It only offers dictatorship.”

Kurkcu confirmed that the HDP would again back Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition CHP, who won the Istanbul mayoral election in March but is re-runningafter the AKP succeeded in having the vote annulled over claims of voting irregularities.
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