Pope Francis apologized to the Roma people on Sunday for the Roman Catholic Church’s “discrimination” against them as he wrapped up a visit to Romania.

Making up around 10 percent of Romania’s 20 million people, many Roma are marginalized and live in poverty and have suffered centuries of discrimination and insults.

“I ask forgiveness — in the name of the Church and of the Lord — and I ask forgiveness of you. For all those times in history when we have discriminated, mistreated or looked askance at you,” the pope said in a speech to the Roma community in the central town of Blaj.

“My heart, however, is heavy. It is weighed down by the many experiences of discrimination, segregation and mistreatment experienced by your communities. History tells us that Christians too, including Catholics, are not strangers to such evil,” he said.

“Indifference breeds prejudices and fosters anger and resentment. How many times do we judge rashly, with words that sting, with attitudes that sow hatred and division!”

Earlier, the pontiff beatified seven Greco-Catholic bishops jailed and tortured during the Communist era.

“The new blessed ones suffered and sacrificed their lives, opposing a system of totalitarian and coercive ideology,” he told some 60,000 worshippers attending mass on a “Field of Liberty” in Blaj.

“These shepherds, martyrs of faith, garnered for and left the Romanian people a precious heritage which we can sum up in two words: freedom and mercy,” added Francis, while praising the “diversity of religious expression” in mainly Orthodox Romania.

Regime officials detained the beatified bishops overnight on October 28, 1948, accusing them of “high treason” after they refused to convert to Orthodoxy.

The Greek-Catholic Church was outlawed under 1948-89 Communist rule.

Buried in secret

The bishops died of maltreatment, some still in jail, others in confinement in an Orthodox monastery. They were then buried in secret — to this day the whereabouts of four of their graves is unknown.

The bars of the cells where they were held were symbolically incorporated into the throne built specially for the papal visit.

The bishops followed the Eastern Rite Catholic Church which emerged from an Orthodox schism at the end of the 17th century when the central region of Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

While retaining Orthodox practices they recognized Roman Catholic papal authority — unacceptable for the Communist regime which took power following World War II. Under a 1948 decree formally abolishing the Eastern Catholic churches, Greco-Catholics were forcibly obliged to return to the Orthodox fold.

Under such stark political repression, most Romanian Catholics — who numbered more than 1.5 million in 1948, abandoned their faith and their community has shrunk to around 200,000 today in a country of 20 million, almost nine in 10 of whom profess Orthodoxy.

The politics which has seeped through Romania’s modern religious history has poisoned inter-faith relations — even if the papal visit has softened feelings to a degree.

“No matter where we go, to the town hall, to the police or to school, doors get closed,” a 72-year-old Roma, who gave his name as Ion, told AFP.

Roma, originating from northern India, suffered around five centuries of slavery before the practice was formally abolished in 1856.

But they remain a mainly poor and marginalized community — even if recent years have seen roads paved and homes getting running water and electricity.

Seeking inclusiveness

Francis’s arrival in Blaj to wind up his visit was part of his attempt at inclusiveness on his three-day visit to one of what remains Europe’s poorest states.

Although Romania has developed apace since obtaining EU membership in 2007 there remain some “urban or rural ghettos where nothing has changed,” according to sociologist Gelu Duminica, who heads the anti-discrimination Impreuna (Together) association.

Duminica and others in Blaj saw it as no coincidence that Francis, often seen as a defender of the rights of the most marginalised, chose the Barbu Lautaru district of Blaj, whose inhabitants are mainly Roma, to launch his appeal for tolerance and social inclusion.

“The pope’s visit is a message for those who are marginalised, disregarded or not accepted by others,” said Mihai Gherghel, an eastern Catholic priest, who supervised the construction of the Blaj church where Francis celebrated Sunday mass.

 
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A court in Baghdad has sentenced two French citizens to death for being members of the extremist group Islamic State (IS), prosecutors said on June 2.

The new sentences raise the number of French citizens sentenced to death over the past two weeks to nine.

Those sentenced are among a group of 12 French citizens who were detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in neighboring Syria and handed over to Iraq in January.

France has said it would do all it can to spare the group from execution in Iraq.

Human Rights Watch has accused Iraqi interrogators of “using a range of torture techniques” while saying that France and other countries should not be “outsourcing” trials of IS suspects to “abusive justice systems.”

 
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A massive cruise ship lost control as it docked in Venice on Sunday, crashing into the wharf and hitting a tourist boat after suffering an engine failure.

Tourists on land could be seen running away as the 13-deck MSC Opera scraped along the dockside, its engine blaring, before knocking into a tourist boat, amateur video footage posted on Twitter showed.

Four people were slightly injured in the accident at San Basilio-Zattere in Venice’s Giudecca Canal, port authorities said.

The four, who were taken to hospital for check-ups, were on board the River Countess tourist boat.

The Opera, which suffered mechanical trouble before in 2011 during a Baltic cruise, can carry more than 2,500 passengers and boasts a theater, ballroom and water park for children.

Ship unable to stop

“The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain,” Davide Calderan, head of a tugboat company involved in accompanying the ship into its berth, told Italian media.

“The engine was blocked, but with its thrust on, because the speed was increasing,” he said.

The two tug boats that had been guiding the ship into the Giudecca tried to slow it, but one of the chains linking them to the giant snapped under the pressure, he added.

The accident reignited a heated row in the Serenissima over the damage caused to the city and its fragile ecosystem by cruise ships that sail exceptionally close to the shore.

While gondoliers in striped T-shirts and woven straw hats row tourists around the narrow canals, the smoking chimneys of mammoth ships loom into sight behind the city’s picturesque bell towers and bridges.

Critics say the waves the ships create are eroding the foundations of the lagoon city, which regularly floods, leaving iconic sites such as Saint Mark’s Square underwater.

“What happened in the port of Venice is confirmation of what we have been saying for some time,” Italy’s environment minister Sergio Costa wrote on Twitter.

“Cruise ships must not sail down the Giudecca. We have been working on moving them for months now… and are nearing a solution,” he said.

‘Risk of carnage’

Venice’s port authority said it was was working to resolve the accident and free up the blocked canal in the north Italian city.

“In addition to protecting the Unesco heritage city, we have to safeguard the environment, and the safety of citizens and tourists,” Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli said.

Nicola Fratoianni, an MP with the Italian Left party, noted Italy’s open-armed attitude to cruise ships contrasted sharply with its hostile approach to charity rescue vessels that help migrants who run into difficulty in the Mediterranean.

“It is truly curious that a country that tries to stop ships that have saved people at sea from entering its ports allows giant steel monsters to risk carnage in Venice,” he said.

MSC Cruises, founded in Italy in 1960, is a global line registered in Switzerland and based in Geneva.

The Opera, built 15 years ago, suffered a power failure in 2011 in the Baltic, forcing some 2,000 people to be disembarked in Stockholm rather than continuing their Southampton to Saint Petersburg voyage.
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The captain of a river cruise ship that collided with a smaller sightseeing vessel was charged Saturday over the accident in Budapest that killed seven South Korean tourists and left 21 missing. 

The Mermaid, carrying mainly South Korean tourists, overturned and sank late Wednesday, seconds after colliding with the Viking Sigyn cruise ship on a busy stretch of the Danube in the heart of Budapest.

Strong currents have hampered the search for those missing — 19 South Koreans and two Hungarians — preventing divers from reaching the submerged boat.

The Sigyn’s Ukrainian captain was charged Saturday, a Budapest court official told AFP, but gave no further details.

The 64-year-old was detained Thursday for questioning for “endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths,” police have said. 

The captain’s attorney, Balazs Toth, said the court had granted bail but prosecutors were appealing, so his client remained detained.

“He is devastated by the number of victims and is asking constantly that condolences are conveyed to their families,” Toth said.

“My client has not changed his statement made as a witness. He insists that he has not made any error,” his other attorney, Gabor Elo, told reporters after the hearing. 

Help sought in search

Near the accident site, a floating crane was erected, as well as a small pier for use by divers. 

But with the Danube swollen after weeks of rain, the strong current has complicated plans to lift the wreck, and the prospects of finding any of the passengers alive were seen as very slim.

Serbia, Romania and Croatia — countries along the Danube, south of Hungary — have been asked to help in the search after South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha insisted in Budapest on Friday that her country would not give up hope of finding survivors.

One of the bodies was found about 11 kilometers (seven miles) downstream of the accident site. 

South Korean relatives of the Mermaid passengers arrived in Budapest Friday, and officials took them to the banks of the Danube.

The Hungarian Magyar Nemzet daily, meanwhile, on Saturday quoted police reports as saying the Sigyn might not have warned the pilot of the smaller ship that he was going to overtake.

According to the newspaper, he also did not alert police about the collision.
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Britain’s Border Force intercepted 74 people Saturday, including minors, on eight vessels trying to cross the English Channel into Britain. French authorities stopped two other boats. 

The interceptions on an exceptionally sunny, warm day will heighten concerns that improving weather will encourage smugglers to try their luck at bringing more migrants to the U.K. from France.  

Authorities said a criminal investigation was underway. The nationalities of the migrants were still being determined. Coast guard officials said the incidents stretched along Britain’s southeast coast, from the port of Dover to Winchelsea Beach near Hastings, 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. 

Home Secretary Sajid Javid vowed that he would work with French border authorities to halt this rise in people trafficking across the Channel. 

“Those who choose to make this dangerous journey across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world are putting their lives in grave danger — and I will continue to do all I can to stop them,” he said in a statement Saturday night. 

Local lawmaker Charlie Elphicke suggested the numbers were unprecedented and demanded action. 

‘Get a grip on this crisis’

This crisis was meant to have been dealt with at Christmas, yet numbers continue to rise,'' he wrote on Twitter.The Home Office needs to get a grip on this crisis.” 

The reports about migrants using small boats to cross the English Channel to Britain are politically explosive, even though Britain has not seen nearly as many migrant sea crossings as have fellow European Union nations Spain, Italy and Greece. So far this year, over 21,300 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, and at least 519 others have died trying, according to the International Organization for Migration. 

In December last year, Javid declared a rise in migrant crossings to be a “major incident.”  He said Saturday that since then, two cutters have returned to U.K. waters from overseas and he has agreed upon a joint action plan to halt human smuggling with his French counterparts. 

Officials have blamed the influx on smuggling gangs. 

It is an established principle that those in need of protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, and since January, more than 30 people who arrived illegally in the U.K. in small boats have been returned to Europe,'' Javid said.We will continue to seek to return anyone who has entered the U.K. illegally.” 

Overall, migration into Europe is down substantially since over 1 million asylum-seekers and migrants came to the continent in 2015, but the issue still resonates politically, including in the elections last week to the European Parliament. 
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Pope Francis braved a rain-soaked, twisting drive through the mountains of Transylvania on Saturday to visit Romania’s most famous shrine, urging Romanian and ethnic Hungarian faithful to work together for their future.

Storms forced Francis to change his travel plans and add in a three-hour car ride through the Carpathian mountains that he had planned to traverse via helicopter. The steady rains doused the estimated 80,000-100,000 people who gathered for the Mass at the Sumuleu Ciuc shrine, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The showers let up as Francis arrived and he made a quick run through the poncho-clad crowds in his popemobile. But the 82-year-old seemed unsteady after the long trip and held onto the arms of aides as he negotiated a mud-slicked path to get to the altar for Mass.

In his homily, Francis praised the multicultural and multilingual tapestry that makes up Romania and urged its people to put aside past divisions for the sake of “journeying together.”

The rights of around 1.2 million ethnic Hungarians who live in Romania have been at the center of political disputes between the two countries for decades. Hungary lost Transylvania in the peace treaties after World War I yet the region remains heavily Hungarian in both culture and language.

Those tensions are often reflected in the uneasy relationship between the predominantly Hungarian Roman Catholic community and the Romanian-speaking Greek-Catholic communities. The two rites make up Romania’s Catholic minority in the overwhelmingly Orthodox country.

“Complicated and sorrow-filled situations from the past must not be forgotten or denied, yet neither must they be an obstacle or an excuse standing in the way of our desire to live together as brothers and sisters,” Francis said.

The pope delivered the homily in Italian, and it was translated into Romanian and Hungarian.

After Mass, with the weather improved, Francis was able to fly by helicopter back to the airport for a flight to another corner of Romania, the university city of Iasi in the northeast. There he had an appointment with young Romanians.

Francis was travelling across Romania to visit its far-flung Catholic communities to make up for the fact that St. John Paul II was only allowed to visit the capital, Bucharest, in 1999 in the first papal visit to a majority Orthodox country.

 
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On a trip to Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is seeking common ground with European allies, despite fundamental differences over the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and doing business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington, as talks between Pompeo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrapped Friday.
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A Turkish-American scientist who was recently released from three years in a Turkish prison said Friday he wants to return to the United States and his former job at NASA.

Serkan Golge, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was freed Wednesday shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by telephone.

Golge is on probation and has been staying in his family home in Antakya, a southern Turkish city near the Syrian border.

Not so much as a traffic ticket

Golge told VOA Friday during an interview in his home that the conditions of his release prohibit him from returning to the United States.

“I am on probation now,” Golge said, saying he must “go to a local police station four days a week.”

Golge said his passport has been returned to him, but said he does not want to violate his probation conditions by leaving the country. 

“I have never violated any laws in my life, neither in Turkey or in the United States. I don’t even have a traffic ticket,” he said.

Arrested in wake of coup attempt

Golge was on a family visit in southern Turkey when he was arrested in July 2016 in the aftermath of a failed military coup against President Erdogan.

Turkey blames the coup on supporters of exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in the United States, and Turkish authorities charged Golge with ties to Gulen.

Golge was sentenced in 2018 to 7½ years in prison despite U.S. State Department protests that there was no credible evidence of wrongdoing. A Turkish appeals court subsequently reduced his sentence to five years.

Golge told VOA he always objected to the “unfounded claims” against him.

Golge’s wife, Kurbra, told media outlets this week she is joyful about her husband’s release, but said he is not allowed to travel to the United States.

President Trump said in remarks to reporters Thursday that Golge would “pretty soon” be able to leave the country. He also thanked Erdogan for releasing Golge.

​Meeting at G20

Trump and Erdogan are to meet at next month’s Group of 20 summit. The United States and Turkey are at odds over Turkey’s plans to acquire a missile defense system from Russia. They also have disagreements over Washington’s support of Kurdish rebels in Syria and the U.S. government not extraditing Gulen to Turkey.

At the time of his arrest, Golge was working for the U.S. space agency in Houston, studying the effects of radiation on astronauts.

“I would love to go back to NASA,” Golge said. “I’m a scientist and I’ve been away from science for three years.”
…

Serkan Golge, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was freed from a Turkish prison Wednesday shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by telephone. Golge was visiting family in southern Turkey when he was arrested in a sweeping crackdown that followed a failed military coup in 2016.
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In his first visit to Germany as the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo is meeting Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

Earlier, speaking to reporters at a joint press conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas after their meeting, Pompeo said that Washington would not stand in the way of INSTEX, a system Europeans are developing to protect companies from American sanctions if they deal with Iran.

The system is intended to process payment regarding legal businesses, from medicines to aid services and other goods, which are permitted under sanctions regimen.

INSTEX is not yet up and running, but Europeans hope to have it functioning by this summer.

Maas said that even though the U.S. had withdrawn from the Iran agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), its goal remained the same.

Pompeo’s stop in Berlin makes up for a visit that he abruptly called off in early May to fly to Iraq. It is the first of his four-nation European trip, during which he also will visit Switzerland and the Netherlands before joining President Donald Trump on his state visit to Britain.
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Rescue crews in Budapest Friday are working to raise a sightseeing boat from the bottom of the Danube River, while searching for 21 people still missing after a cruise ship collided with the smaller tour boat late Wednesday.

Seven people are confirmed dead and seven have been rescued All but two people on the boat were South Korean tourists.

Hungary’s state TV reported that all rescued people have been released from the hospital except one who is being treated for broken ribs.

Hungarian police arrested the Ukrainian captain of the Viking cruise ship, identifying him as Yuriy C.

Police say he is suspected of “endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths.”

Investigators say the Viking ship and the tour boat, Mermaid, were sailing side-by-side on the Danube in central Budapest when both vessels arrived at pillars under the Margit Bridge.

The Mermaid turned in front of the Viking ship which struck the boat and capsized it. Police say the Mermaid sank in just seven seconds, giving passengers and two Hungarian crew members almost no time to get to safety.

Hungarian rescuers say heavy rain and the Danube’s strong currents are hampering their efforts. They have extended their search downriver into Serbia.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the boat accident was “shocking,” and asked authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the accident.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has sent a delegation of Korean officials and experts to Budapest to help.
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U.S. President Donald Trump will be in Britain June 3 on a state visit by invitation of Queen Elizabeth II and participate in events commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

This will be the second time Trump has gone to Britain since taking office, after a working visit in July of last year.

A state visit involves more pomp and pageantry, and the host country pays the costs. An invitation was extended after Trump took office but was delayed for a number of reasons, including security.

“There is an enormous controversy surrounding a state visit for Donald Trump,” said Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The biggest news of the visit is that it’s happening, he said. “It was on again off again, on again off again.”

Trump will take part in the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, in which 150,000 Allied troops pushed German forces from France. He will attend events in Portsmouth, and in Normandy, France, alongside French President Emanuel Macron.

The president will attend a state banquet at Buckingham Palace and cultural engagements with members of the Royal Family.

​May resigns after Trump leaves

Trump is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May, who is resigning June 7, two days after Trump departs, over failure to reach a deal on Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Trump, a Brexit supporter, has in the past criticized May’s handling of the issue. He has in some ways reached out to the Brexiteers, Kupchan said, and told May at one point that “she’s not firm enough, she’s not getting out quickly enough, and completely enough.”

Still with May having recently announced her resignation, the expectation is that Trump would speak highly of her in his public appearances with her and wish her all the best, said Jacob Parakilas, an analyst at the Chatham House in London. But he added that there’s not much depth to the relationship. 

“I don’t think the two of them see eye-to-eye or have pretty strong personal bond,” he said.

​Meeting with Johnson or Farage?

On Thursday, days before his departure, Trump said he may meet with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, pro-Brexit politicians seeking to replace May.

“It’s not my business to support people. But I have a lot of respect for both of those men,” Trump said.

On a briefing call to reporters, a White House senior official would not confirm whether such a meeting would take place.

WATCH: Pomp and Protests in Store for Trump on State Visit to Britain

​Trade, Brexit, Iran and China

Trump and May could still discuss major issues related to the current U.S.-U.K. relationship, including negotiations on a trade agreement.

The U.K. is keen to begin bilateral trade conversations with the U.S., said Kupchan, as it anticipates no longer being part of the EU.

Kupchan said the president will want an update on where things stand with Brexit. Although that may not be a very long conversation because “the balls are still up in the air,” he said.

Officials are also expected to discuss how to deal with Chinese investments and Huawei in particular, said Parakilas. He said the U.S. has taken a much more hard-line approach than the U.K. on this issue as well as on confronting Iran, which the U.S. under the Trump administration has much more appetite for, than either the U.K. or France.

​‘Trump Baby’ to appear again

Last year more than a 100,000 people protested in London and elsewhere in Britain. This year organizers say they expect similar numbers, protesting against Trump’s policies including immigration and climate change.

“Trump Baby,” the giant balloon depicting the president as an angry infant, is expected to make another appearance. Matt Bonner, the artist behind the giant inflatable said he would let it fly again if a crowdfunding campaign can raise $38,000 (30,000 pounds) for groups backing causes from climate action to women’s rights.

Last year London Mayor Sadiq Khan gave permission for the 6-meter tall balloon to fly above Parliament Square in London during Trump’s visit, provoking the president’s anger, who said it was an insult to the leader of Britain’s closest ally.

The senior administration official said that the White House is not concerned about the planned protests. 

“We haven’t talked about this at all,” she said.
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British mobile phone operator EE on Thursday became the first in the country to launch a high-speed 5G service, but without smartphones from controversial Chinese technology giant Huawei.

EE, which is a division of British telecoms giant BT, has launched 5G in six major cities comprising Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and Manchester — and more hubs will follow.

“From today, the U.K. will be able to discover 5G for the first time thanks to EE,” it announced in a statement, after an official launch featuring a performance from chart-topping grime act Stormzy on a boat on London’s River Thames.

Next-generation 5G mobile networks offer almost instantaneous data transfer that will become the nervous system of Europe’s economy in strategic sectors like energy, transport, banking and health care.

EE had announced last week that it would make its 5G network available to the public — but would not sell Huawei’s first 5G phone, the Mate 20 X 5G.

However, the Chinese company still provides 5G network infrastructure equipment to EE.

“We are very pleased to be one of the partners supporting EE with a new era of faster and more reliable mobile connectivity over 5G in the U.K.,” a Huawei spokesperson told AFP on Thursday.

Rival British mobile phone giant Vodafone will launch its own 5G services on July 3 in seven UK cities — but it has also paused the sale of the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G smartphone.

Vodafone does not use Huawei in its core UK network but uses a mixture of Ericsson and Huawei technology in its radio access network or masts, according to a company spokesman. He added that there are “multiple” layers of security between the masts and the core network.

Huawei faces pushback in some Western markets over fears that Beijing could spy on communications and gain access to critical infrastructure if allowed to develop foreign 5G networks.

The Chinese company flatly denies what it describes as “unsubstantiated claims” about being a security threat.

US internet titan Google has meanwhile started to cut ties between its Android operating system and Huawei, a move that affects hundreds of millions of smartphone users, after the U.S. government announced what amounts to a ban on selling or transferring technology to the company.

Earlier this week, Huawei asked a U.S. court to throw out US legislation that bars federal agencies from buying its products.

The U.S. moves against Huawei come as the Washington and Beijing are embroiled in a wider trade war.

 
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He is loathed and feted in equal measure.

But no one gainsays his star quality,’ his disarming knack at prompting chuckles from foes for his foibles and, until recently, shambolic appearance as well as his witticisms.

Nor to be discounted is his deftness at connecting with ‘Middle England’ — with the tweed-wearing middle-class Conservative faithful in the rural shires of the country, who are incensed that Britain has not already left the European Union.

Boris Johnson, who unlike most other British politicians has international name-recognition, is the front-runner to succeed Theresa May as Britain’s Conservative leader, and prime minister — that is as far as the bookmakers and many party activists are concerned.

He has made no secret over the years about his ravenous hunger for the job, announcing precociously when a teenager at Britain’s storied private boarding school, Eton, that one day he would be prime minister. The onetime journalist and former mayor of London was furious, reportedly, when David Cameron, an Eton contemporary but three years his junior, acceded to the party leadership.

Cameron, who campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union, resigned immediately after a slim majority of Britons voted to leave the bloc in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Johnson switched on the eve of the referendum campaign from being pro-EU to a Brexiter, an unabashed career-enhancing move, say his critics.

Crowded field

Johnson was seen as a shoo-in three years ago to replace Cameron. But he lost out to Theresa May, partly thanks to the defection of his Brexit ally Michael Gove, who withdrew as his campaign manager, stood against him, saying his friend and Oxford University contemporary was unfit for the highest office.

Gove, a brainy politician with greater ministerial experience than Johnson, is running again and is seen by some party insiders as the dark horse in the febrile contest to succeed May. The competition also features the current foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, who is running on his businessman credentials and positioning himself as a compromise candidate, and Dominic Raab, a former Brexit minister, who is trying to compete with Johnson as the man who can deliver Brexit.

With Gove, the current environment minister, in the race, the Conservative leadership contest, which will take nearly two months to conclude, has the whiff of fratricide about it.

“I want the job! I want the job! I want the job!” Johnson reportedly told one Conservative lawmaker last week as his opening gambit when pleading for the parliamentarian’s vote in the crowded leadership race featuring nearly a dozen aspiring contenders. Naked ambition, though, may not be sufficient for Johnson, a short-lived and gaffe-prone foreign minister.

The 54-year-old has under the supervision of his latest partner, a 30-year-old former Conservative party communications official, spruced up his appearance, trimming his trademark tousled hair and modernizing his suits. But a neater appearance and ambition cannot compensate for seriousness and ability, say his foes.

What the critics say

In a devastating column in The Sunday Times, Dominic Lawson, a former national newspaper editor who gave Johnson a job, describes him as “epically unreliable.”

He noted his star quality, describing how once when walking with him in Britain’s capital city “men of no obvious Tory persuasion [and certainly not of Johnson’s class and background] called out to him as if he were their favorite drinking companion.” People, he noted swarmed around him “as if he were a soap opera star.”

But he added: “He manifests chaotic jollity. The jollity is, as so often, the mask of a depressive character. But the chaos is genuine — and the last we need in a new prime minister.”

Lawson’s public dismissal of Johnson’s steadfastness reflect the criticism expressed by Conservative lawmakers. They argue Johnson, popularly known just as Boris,’ is too reckless and unpredictable to plot a course out of the Brexit mess the country — and the fractious Conservative party — has been mired in for nearly three years.

His foes maintain he might light up a room, attract crowds and has a startling ability to recover from grave missteps, but he is too tumultuous to occupy Downing Street — especially at a time Britain is facing its thorniest and potentially biggest policy challenge since the 1954 Suez crisis, which risked Britain’s important ties with the U.S..

Conservatives in crisis

Last week, in the elections for the European Parliament the Conservatives were trounced by Nigel Farage’s newly-formed Brexit Party, suffering their worst ever electoral setback, attracting just over nine percent of votes cast.

With Brexit overturning traditional two-party politics, some Conservatives fear their party is in an existential crisis and could easily split in two. “The future survival of the Conservative party is at risk,” according to onetime deputy prime minister Damian Green. “Too much political blood has been spilt,” he argued.

As the Conservative leadership race accelerates, and more rivals enter, Johnson’s supporters, many firm Brexiters, counter he remains the best candidate for the job — and the only one able to match the blustery Farage for campaigning nous.

“With Boris what you see it’s what you get and some people find it very attractive and other people have concerns,” said Jacob Rees-Mogg, lawmaker and Brexiter. “Boris is the real deal,” he told a British broadcaster.

While acknowledging his shortcomings, the editor of the Conservative-supporting Spectator magazine agrees.

“In an era when exasperated voters seek mould-breaking politicians, he is the best candidate to present the Conservatives as a force for change,” argued Fraser Nelson. “In fact, he might be the only candidates able to do so.”

Potential court action

His supporters say Johnson’s inventiveness is what his party needs. But his creativity has got him in trouble in the past: he was fired while a journalist at The Times for making up a quote. This week a private prosecution against him was unveiled for lying during the referendum campaign, a court action that might cloud his leadership bid.

One sobering fact has Johnson and his backers nervous. No initial frontrunner has won in eight Conservative leadership races since 1965. And the knives are out for him. While opinion polls suggest Johnson is the favorite among Conservative activists to be the next leader, he is deeply unpopular among his fellow party lawmakers.

Many of them disdain his unbridled opportunism, envy his showmanship and worry about his chaotic private life, which include serial relationships, children fathered out of wedlock, terminated pregnancies and a couple of divorces, one of which is being wrapped up now.

But for all of that Johnson is the key candidate — the one his rivals know has to be knocked out of the race quickly or he will only get stronger. His backers say Johnson has the Midas touch when it comes to lifting party morale.

“The bottom line is that the only person who can deliver Brexit and defeat Labour is Boris Johnson,” said former defense secretary Gavin Williamson. “He reaches out to a lot of people,” he added.

Unlike most of his rivals, Johnson is upbeat when describing what he sees as post-Brexit benefits for Britain.

“He has a very bold vision for the country and very much wants to see the opportunities that Brexit can present realized,” said Williamson. His optimism fires up the party faithful. He is also liberal when it comes to social policy — a clear electoral benefit for the Conservatives, who have struggled to shake off the tag that they are the “nasty party.”

The resistance to him among fellow Conservative lawmakers is a possible race-killer.

Conservative lawmakers hold a series of knockout votes to reduce the field to a pair of candidates to present to the broader party membership in a head-to-head runoff. Currently Jermey Hunt has more public endorsements from lawmakers than Johnson.
…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to address Harvard University graduates.

The Ivy League school is hosting its 368th commencement ceremony Thursday with a keynote speech from Merkel.

It caps several days of activities that also included speeches from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

The 64-year-old Merkel was elected to Germany’s top post in 2005 and is serving her fourth term, which she has said will be her last.

Harvard President Larry Bacow calls Merkel one of the most “influential statespeople of our time.”

Merkel comes to Harvard after her party finished first in Germany’s European Parliament election Sunday but had its worst showing in a nationwide vote since World War II.

Last year’s Harvard commencement speaker was U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
…

The Norwegian government said Wednesday progress has been made in negotiations between representatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido.

The Foreign Ministry said the two sides “have demonstrated their willingness to move forward” toward a negotiated solution to the Venezuelan crisis.

A second round of talks in recent weeks were held in the capital, Oslo, in an effort to find solutions to the political and economic crises that have gripped the country for months.

The Foreign Ministry did not provide more information about the talks but urged both sides to exercise “utmost caution in their comments” about the negotiating process.

The talks are held amid growing tension between Maduro and Guaido, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly who declared himself president in January with the backing of the United States and about 50 other countries.

The declaration followed the May 2018 presidential elections which Guaido deems fraudulent.

The political crisis has been compounded by Venezuela’s worst economic crisis in recent memory, with food shortages and power outages common occurrences. The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation in the oil-rich country will reach 10 million percent this year.

Guaido agreed to talks in Norway after initially saying any dialogue should result in Maduro’s resignation and new elections.

Norway has a history of playing the role of facilitator in peace negotiations. The Scandinavian country hosted talks that led to the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords in the 1990s and a deal reached in 2016 between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
…

France’s domestic intelligence service on Wednesday questioned a journalist who broke the story of a scandal that shook President Emmanuel Macron, the latest in a growing number of reporters to be quizzed in a trend that has disturbed press freedom activists.

Ariane Chemin, who works for the daily Le Monde, said she was questioned by the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) for some 45 minutes in the presence of her lawyer after being summoned last week.

“I explained that I only did my job as a journalist,” she told AFP after the meeting.

She added that she had insisted on her right to protect her sources while carrying out work in the public interest based on a law dating to 1881.

“They asked me many questions on the manner in which I checked my information, which was an indirect way of asking me about my sources,” Chemin said.

Le Monde’s managing director Louis Dreyfus was also questioned by the DGSI on Wednesday.

Chemin has written a series of articles over former presidential bodyguard Alexandre Benalla, who was fired last year after he was filmed roughing up a protester in one of the biggest scandals to shake Macron to date.

It was a July 18 article by Chemin that first reported that Benalla had beaten the May Day demonstrator while wearing a police helmet.

The summons stemmed in particular from articles about former air force officer Chokri Wakrim, the partner of Marie-Elodie Poitout, the ex-head of security at the prime minister’s office.

Poitout resigned her post after media revelations that she and Wakrim had welcomed Benalla to their home in July but insisted it had only been a social affair.

The Elysee has been accused of covering up the affair by failing to report Benalla to the authorities.

A Growing Pattern?

The secret service has already summoned seven reporters who published details over how French arms sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were being used in Yemen’s civil war, sparking an outcry by press freedom activists.

The SNJ-CGT union called for a demonstration outside the headquarters of the DGSI on Wednesday “in support of those journalists summoned by the French state in violation of the law on press freedom.”

The association of Le Monde Reporters (SRM) said on their Twitter account that Chemin was simply “bringing to the attention of citizens information that was in the public interest and thus was only doing her job.”

But Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet told the French Senate on Wednesday that the summons should “in no way be seen as an attempt at intimidation or a threat”.

She said the summons for Chemin was issued as part of a preliminary enquiry carried out under the supervision of the Paris prosecutor following a complaint by a special forces member that his identity had been revealed by the paper.

Senior journalists from 37 French media outlets, including Agence France-Presse, Le Figaro daily, France 2 TV and Mediapart, signed a statement supporting the journalists who were questioned over the Yemen controversy, saying they were “just doing their jobs”.

Disclose has pressed ahead with its reporting on the issue, saying on Tuesday that a shipment of munitions for French Caesar cannons would be loaded at a Mediterranean port onto a Saudi ship.
…

Serkan Golge, a Turkish-American scientist imprisoned in Turkey for nearly three years, has been released.

Morgan Ortagus, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, welcomed the decision but declined to discuss why he was released.

However, he told reporters Wednesday it was the “right thing to do.”

Golge was on a family visit in southern Turkey when he was arrested in the aftermath of a failed coup, which Turkey blames on U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Golge was convicted in February 2018 for membership in a terror group and sentenced to 7 1/2 years, subsequently reduced to five by the appeals court.

His wife Kubra Golge told The Associated Press that she spoke on the phone with him upon his release and that he was very happy.

Golge denies links to Gulen’s network.
…

Daredevil visitors to Paris will be able to leap off the second-floor balcony of the Eiffel Tower, albeit for a limited time. 

A zipline will allow some of the visitors to travel 800 meters in a minute at speeds of 90 kilometers an hour from the iconic tower to the 18th-century military complex of Ecole Militaire.

The zipline was set up by the French mineral water brand Perrier to celebrate the French Open and to coincide with the 130th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower.

The free ride will be available to thrill-seekers picked by an online lottery on social media and a select few who manage to get some spots set aside for an onsite drawing. 

One visitor to the tower posted a video of one of the zipline riders on Twitter saying, “Don’t try this at home.”

The zipline will be in place until June 11. 

 
…

European leaders are in Brussels to choose their preferred candidates for top European Union positions after last week’s parliamentary elections, but already are divided on who should be the next president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation bloc.

The term of Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the commission ends in October. But Germany and France, two of the biggest economic forces on the continent, are at odds on who should replace him, a choice that must be ratified by the 751-member parliament when it assumes power in July.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel favors fellow countryman Manfred Weber, who has led the conservative European People’s Party group, the biggest in the EU assembly, since 2014. The EPP, even as it lost seats in the parliamentary elections, still constitutes the largest bloc of lawmakers and her support for Weber is in line with past practice in picking a European Commission president from the leading party in the parliament.

But the big centrist blocs in parliament will lose their majority in the new legislature, with nationalists and Greens gaining ground, leading to a more fragmented assembly and possibly more difficulty in picking a consensus nominee for president of the commission, which proposes EU laws and enforces them.

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters he favors a nominee with “experience either in their country or in Europe that allows them to have credibility and savoir faire,” an apparent attack on the 46-year-old Weber, who has never served in government or a major institution like the commission.

Macron suggested two alternative nominees, Denmark’s Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition since 2014, and Frenchman Michael Barnier, who has led the EU’s so-far unsuccessful negotiations with Britain over London’s Brexit effort to divorce itself from the EU.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez suggested a fellow socialist, Dutchman Frans Timmermans, saying he “has the qualities and the experience.”

The European leaders are also picking a new leader of the EU Council, a body that defines the European Union’s overall political direction and is now headed by Poland’s Donald Tusk; the European Central Bank, now led by Italian Mario Draghi and a new foreign policy chief, currently Italian Federica Mogherini.

 
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has reinstated the Ukrainian citizenship of Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who served as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region in 2015-16.

In a decree signed and posted on the presidential website on May 28, Zelenskiy annulled a portion of his predecessor Petro Poroshenko’s July 2017 decree that stripped Saakashvili of his citizenship.

Zelenskiy’s decree comes eight days after his inauguration and six days after Saakashvili’s lawyer, Ruslan Chornolutskiy, filed a request seeking restoration of Saakashvili’s citizenship.

Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed to the Odesa governor’s post in 2015 by Poroshenko, an acquaintance from their student days.

Authorities in Tbilisi stripped Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship in December 2015 on grounds that Georgia does not allow dual citizenship.

Then, when relations between Poroshenko and Saakashvili soured over corruption allegations and slow reform efforts, Poroshenko in November 2016 sacked Saakashvili from the Odesa governor’s post.

In July 2017, after Saakashvili created an opposition party called the Movement of New Forces, Poroshenko issued a decree that stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship.

In February last year, Saakashvili was detained in Kyiv, taken to the airport, and flown to Poland.

Days later, Ukraine’s border service banned Saakashvili from entering Ukraine until February 13, 2021.

Saakashvili swept to power in Georgia after helping lead the peaceful Rose Revolution protests there in 2003, when he was mayor of Tbilisi.

His party was dislodged from power by an opposition force in 2012 parliamentary elections and his term as president expired in 2013.

Saakashvili currently resides in the Netherlands, his wife’s native country.

 
…

An Iraqi court sentenced on Tuesday two more French members of the Islamic State group to death, bringing the total number of French former jihadis condemned to death this week to six.

The men were identified as Karam el-Harchaoui and Brahim Nejara. They are among a group of 12 French citizens who were detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in neighboring Syria and handed over to Iraq in January.

The Kurdish-led group spearheaded the fight against IS in Syria and has handed over to Iraq hundreds of suspected IS members in recent months.

France’s foreign minister said earlier Tuesday that his government is working to spare the group of condemned Frenchmen from execution after Iraq sentenced them to death — though France has made no effort to bring back captured French IS fighters.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also reiterated France’s position but said the IS militants should be tried where they committed their crimes.

“We are multiplying efforts to avoid the death penalty for these … French people,” he said on France-Inter radio. He didn’t elaborate, but said he spoke to Iraq’s president about the case.

France is outspoken against the death penalty globally. The sentencings in Iraq come amid a controversy about the legal treatment of thousands of foreign fighters who joined IS in Syria and Iraq.

 
…

Russian military police last week reportedly carried out a raid against Iranian-backed militiamen stationed at Syria’s Aleppo international airport, local media reported. 

In the aftermath, several Iranian militia leaders were arrested in what was seen as the latest episode of tensions between Iranian and Russian forces in Syria.  

Since the beginning of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Russia and Iran have built a strong military presence in the country in support of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.  

Iran has since deployed thousands of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and allied Shiite militias to Syria, while Russia officially entered the Syrian conflict in September 2015 to help Assad’s regime.   

But as the war is waning, with Syrian regime forces reclaiming most of the territory once controlled by rebel forces, Russia and Iran seem to be vying for influence in the war-torn country.  

‘Slice of the pie’ 

Analysts say the protracted war in Syria has created a slight fissure between the two allies. 

“There are definite tensions that exist between Russia and Iran within Syria,” said Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who closely follows Iranian-backed militias in Syria.  

“You see things like this [raid in Aleppo] that occur in flashpoint zones because there’s criminal activity going on. Each country’s proxy wants a cut of that,” he told VOA.  

Similar incidents have been taking place throughout the country in the past two years.  

Recently, two divisions of the Syrian military were engaged in deadly clashes in different parts of the country, local reports said.  

This power struggle is the result of differences among Syrian military leaders who are either loyal to Russia or Iran, observers believe.  

“I do believe that it comes down to who controls what, what slice of the pie they all have. But I don’t necessarily believe that this is going to lead to some major conflagration between Iranian and Russian forces there,” analyst Smyth said.  

Tactical differences  

The strategic partnership between Russia and Iran in Syria goes beyond such disagreements, especially since Russia is still dependent on Iranian forces to hold territory and to provide manpower for Syrian regime troops, some experts say.  

“I never believe that Russia would separate from Iran,” said Anna Borshchevskaya, a research fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy who focuses on Russia’s policy in the Middle East. 

“The disagreements they’re having is that they’re trying to carve out spheres of influence in Syria, which is something that Russia understands very well,” she told VOA in a phone interview. “Their relationship is a complex one, for sure. But what holds them together is their anti-Americanism and a desire to reduce American influence in the region.”  

Borshchevskaya added that “on the tactical level, [Russia and Iran] are going to have differences sometimes. But they agree on the big picture.” 

The U.S. has been involved in the war against Islamic State militants since 2014, when the terror group announced its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq.  

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who declared victory over IS in March, now control more than a third of Syria’s territory.  

The United States has about 2,000 troops in areas under the control of the Kurdish-led SDF. But the U.S. administration has said it will keep only about 400 soldiers in those areas after the war against IS is over.  

Russia and Iran have constantly opposed the U.S. military presence in Syria. 

Economic competition  

Some analysts believe that, unlike when they became involved in Syria’s war, Russian and Iranian forces now control larger territories and both countries are searching for economic opportunities in the country.  

“Now there are more points of friction between the two countries than ever before,” said Jowan Hemo, a Syrian economist who follows the economic patterns of the war.  

“So naturally, you would see them compete to win contracts with the Syrian regime, including the energy and power sectors and other types of investments,” he told VOA. 

In 2018, Russia was awarded exclusive rights to produce Syria’s oil and gas. Russia has also signed a contract to use the Syrian port of Tartus for 49 years, while Iran won a bid to partially use the port of Latakia. 

Both countries want to economically monopolize Syria for the long term, because they each have given sizable loans to the Syrian regime throughout the war, economist Hemo said.  

“I believe this type of competition will continue in Syria, but eventually Russia’s economic dominance will prevail,” he added. 
…

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.

 
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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.
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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.
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