Eurozone ministers on Monday held back granting Greece debt relief because the government failed to implement reforms promised during the massive bailout that ended last year, officials said.

Greece exited its third and final international bailout in August, a turning point in its progress out of the catastrophe that engulfed the country during the financial crisis.

The Greek government has still failed to complete housing insolvency rules that have raised fears in Greece for families threatened with foreclosure on their homes.

European officials, however, played down the delay, not wanting to rekindle memories of the eurozone debt crisis that nearly destroyed Europe’s single currency.

“It’s too early to decide formally on the disbursement today,” said EU Economics Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici ahead of a Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

“The signal given to the markets is decisive, the message of today’s Eurogroup will be and must be positive,” he added.

The debt relief measures are mainly profits made by the European Central Bank (ECB) and other EU central banks on Greek government bonds during the bailout period.

Greece could receive just short of one billion euros from its eurozone partners in the debt relief scheme.

The delay comes days after Greece issued a 10-year bond, the country’s first since its 2010 debt crisis.

The bond was hailed as a major milestone marking Greece’s return to normalcy after almost a decade of being avoided by the markets.

The country hopes to raise a total of around nine billion euros in the markets this year to boost investor confidence in the Greek economy.

Growth is expected to reach 2.4 percent in 2019 after an estimated 2.1 percent in 2018, according to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections.
…

Democrats and Republicans are inviting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to address a joint meeting of Congress next month around the 70th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with agreement from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of Congress, is expected to extend the invitation, the leaders’ offices said. The address is expected to be one of several events in the U.S. capital celebrating the treaty’s signing in 1949, congressional officials said.

The bipartisan show of support for NATO comes after President Donald Trump has criticized the alliance’s 29-member nations for, in his view, not paying their fair share to protect against threats, such as Russian aggression. He has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the alliance. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Each of NATO’s countries spends money on its own military capabilities in an effort to lessen dependence on the U.S. for defense against threats. Stoltenberg said that some NATO allies will spend an additional $100 billion by the end of 2020. 

The celebration of the alliance’s anniversary is the latest bipartisan defiance of Trump on the issue. McConnell in particular among Republicans has been outspoken about his support for NATO, issuing a memorable rebuke of Trump’s behavior at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s side in Helsinki last summer. 

“We value the NATO treaty,” McConnell declared. “We believe the European Union counties are our friends, and the Russians are not.”

For his part, Trump campaigned on the idea that the U.S. is paying too much to defend European countries and vowed to make them pay their fair share. In his State of the Union address in January and in Hanoi last week, Trump misleadingly suggested that the U.S. has “picked up” $100 billion from NATO since he’s been president. 

“A hundred billion dollars more has come in,” he said in Hanoi.

In reality, Stoltenberg said on Feb. 15 that NATO allies in Europe and Canada had spent an additional $41 billion on their own defense since 2016, and that by the end of 2020 that figure would rise to $100 billion. So, the $100 billion refers to additional military spending over a four-year period, not over the past two years.

In 2014, during the Obama administration, NATO members agreed to move “toward” spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their own defense by 2024. Trump’s pressure may have spurred some countries to increase their spending faster than they planned or to become more serious about moving to the 2 percent goal.

The United States is the biggest and most influential NATO member, contributing about 22 percent of the alliance’s budget. 

Member-state contributions were a central point of friction at a NATO summit in Brussels last year. However, in a January interview with Fox News, Stoltenberg said NATO countries heard Trump “loud and clear” and were “stepping up.”

Some analysts have warned diminished U.S. leadership in NATO has already weakened the alliance. Former Ambassador Nicholas Burns said in a recent report NATO is facing its ”most difficult” crisis in seven decades and “the single greatest threat (to NATO) is the absence of strong, principled American presidential leadership for the first time in its history.”

Stoltenberg has said Trump will meet with his counterparts from the military alliance at a summit in London in December.

Stoltenberg said Wednesday that the leaders will “address the security challenges we face now and in the future, and to ensure that NATO continues to adapt in order to keep its population of almost 1 billion people safe.”
…

After months of Brexit deadlock, this is it: decision time. At least for now.

With Britain scheduled to leave the European Union in less than three weeks, U.K. lawmakers are poised to choose the country’s immediate direction from among three starkly different choices: deal, no deal or delay.

A look at what might happen:

Deal deja vu

The House of Commons has a second vote scheduled Tuesday on a deal laying out the terms of Britain’s orderly departure from the EU. Prime Minister Theresa May and EU officials agreed to the agreement in December, but U.K. lawmakers voted 432-202 in January to reject it. To get it approved by March 29, the day set for Brexit, May needs to persuade 116 of them to change their minds — a tough task. 

Opposition to the deal in Parliament centers on a section that is designed to ensure there are no customs checks or border posts between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland. Pro-Brexit lawmakers dislike that the border “backstop” keeps the U.K. entwined with EU trade rules. May has been seeking changes to reassure them the situation would be temporary, but the EU refuses to reopen the withdrawal agreement.

Around 100 hard-core Brexit supporters in May’s Conservative Party look set to oppose the deal unless the backstop is altered. To offset them, May has courted the opposition Labour Party with promises of money for urban regeneration.

Oliver Patel, a research associate at the European Institute at University College London, says “it’s highly unlikely the deal will be passed. The big question is, what will the margin be?”

If, against the odds, lawmakers approve the deal, a short delay to Brexit may be needed so Parliament can translate the agreement’s terms into British law. But the U.K. would be on course to leave the EU in the next few months, with a long transition period built in to help people and businesses get used to the new relationship.

May will have delivered on her promise of an orderly Brexit — and snatched an astonishing political victory from the jaws of widely predicted defeat.

Destination no-deal

If the deal is rejected, lawmakers expect to vote Wednesday on whether to abandon efforts to secure an agreement and leave the EU as planned on March 29 without a deal.

That idea is backed by a phalanx of pro-Brexit politicians, who say it would cut Britain free of EU rules and red tape, allowing the country to forge an independent global trade policy.

But economists and businesses fear a so-called “no-deal Brexit” would hammer the economy as tariffs and other trade barriers go up between Britain and the EU, its biggest trading partner. 

In the short term, there could be gridlock at British ports and shortages of fresh produce. In the long run, the government says a no-deal scenario would leave the economy 6 percent to 9 percent smaller over 15 years than remaining in the EU.

Last month, Parliament passed a non-binding amendment ruling out a “no-deal” Brexit, so lawmakers are unlikely to go with it now.

Delay, delay, delay

If lawmakers reject leaving the EU without an agreement, they have one choice left: seek more time. A vote scheduled for Thursday would decide whether to ask the EU to delay Britain’s departure by up to three months.

This is likely to pass, since politicians on both sides of the debate fear time is running out to secure an orderly Brexit by March 29.

An extension requires approval from all 27 remaining EU member countries. They will probably agree, possibly at a March 21-22 summit in Brussels. But they are reluctant to grant a delay that stretches past elections for the EU’s legislature, the European Parliament, in late May.

Crisis deferred

Whatever the U.K. Parliament decides, this week will not bring an end to Britain’s Brexit crisis. Both lawmakers and the public remain split between backers of a clean break from the EU and those who favor continuing a close relationship — either through a post-Brexit trade deal or by reversing the decision to leave.

May is unwilling to abandon her hard-won Brexit agreement and might try to put it to Parliament a third time, especially if she loses by a small margin on Tuesday. But some lawmakers want her to have Parliament consider different forms of Brexit to see if there is a majority for any course of action.

Maddy Thimont-Jack, a researcher at the Institute for Government think tank, said this week’s votes could force the famously stubborn May to compromise.

“If she loses the vote by quite a significant margin again, it really suggests that what she has done is just not going to fly,” Thimont-Jack said. “In which case she will be under a lot of pressure to follow what Parliament wants.”

Some think the only way forward is a snap election that could rearrange the forces in Parliament and break the political deadlock. May has ruled that out, but could come to see it as her only option.

And anti-Brexit campaigners haven’t abandoned efforts to secure a new referendum on whether to remain in the EU. The government opposes the idea, which at the moment also lacks majority support in Parliament. 

But that could change if the political paralysis drags on. The Labour Party has said it would support a second referendum if other options were exhausted.

It all means more twists are coming in the Brexit drama.

“No one really believes this is the last chance saloon,” Patel said. 
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday accused International Women’s Day protesters of being led by political rivals and of “disrespect” during the Islamic call to prayer, after Friday’s march was broken up by police firing tear gas.         

Thousands of people took to the streets of Istanbul on Friday in defiance of a ban by authorities, crowding the famous Istiklal avenue, before a police crackdown brought the demonstration to a chaotic end.

In his comments on Sunday, Erdogan referenced an unverified viral video showing women and men continuing to chant during the call to prayer.

“A group which came together in Taksim led by the (main opposition Republican People’s Party) CHP and (pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party) HDP supposedly for women’s day behaved rudely with whistling and chanting during the call to prayer,” Erdogan said.

The avenue is close to Taksim square, a traditional rallying point.

The president has been holding daily rallies across the country and often slamming the opposition ahead of local elections on March 31. He has accused the CHP of being in an alliance with the HDP, which Erdogan says is a political front for Kurdish insurgents.

The “March 8 Feminist Night march” group issued a statement on Sunday decrying the attempt to use Friday’s rally as “election material” in the press and on social media.

“Police violence against tens of thousands of women taking part/trying to take part in the night march cannot be covered up with polarising language… fake news and hate,” the group said, without making any direct reference to Erdogan.

In his statement the Turkish leader also played a short clip of the video as well as footage of an opposition rally from 2011 and said that participants did not carry the Turkish flag.

“(The opposition is) attacking our liberty and our future with this disrespect to our flag and our call to prayer,” he said during a rally in the southern city of Adana.

Although polls suggest Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) remains dominant, the opposition may make larger gains as the economic slowdown and the weaker Turkish lira impacts households.

Erdogan often says that his Islamic-rooted party has given greater freedom to Muslims in Turkey where until a few years ago, women were banned from wearing the Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, in state institutions and universities.

But he has been accused by critics of eroding the secular pillars of modern Turkey.

The call to prayer has been at the centre of controversy in the Turkish republic since its foundation in 1923.

From 1932 to 1950, the call to prayer was banned in Arabic in Turkey.

Most recently in 2018, there was a row after CHP MP Ozturk Yilmaz called for it to be in Turkish rather than Arabic.
…

Europe’s largest Mormon temple will be dedicated over three days starting Sunday. Russell Nelson, president of the world’s 16 million Mormons, will be in Rome for the dedication ceremonies. No expense has been spared on Italy’s first temple, a magnificence, Mormons say, that is justified by faith.

The entire leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church, has for the first time gathered outside of the United States for a very special occasion, the dedication of its temple in the eternal city. For the more than 25,000 Italian Mormons and the many others who will travel to Rome, this temple has special significance, as Italy’s representative of the Mormons, Alessandro Dini-Ciacci explains.

“Rome is the center of Christianity. Here’s where the apostles Peter and Paul, the early apostles of the Church of Christ came to preach and bear their testimony. We are followers of Jesus Christ. We love the Savior,” says Dini-Ciacci. “The temple we just built as a statement of our belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world in our belief that life goes on after we die and that families can be together. That is the focus of our temples. The ordinances that bind families together.”

The Mormons have 162 temples in different parts of the world and 40 more have already been announced for a church growing in numbers. No expense was spared for Rome’s towering white “house of the Lord.”

“The temple was built with the finest materials, is very refined, as our offering of love. Our show of love for the Savior and his father. That’s why we choose the best materials possible,” said Dini-Ciacci. “There’s Carrara marbles, stained glass, fine fabrics. It is all a tribute to our heavenly father.”

Elder Dini-Ciacci said it took a decade to build the 3,800 square meter temple.

He would not give a figure for how much the temple cost but simply said “it’s a cost of faith.” One of the 10 commandments of the Mormons, he added, is to keep the law of tithing which allows the church to pay for temples and all operations. He said the money spent on temples is far less than what the Church spends on humanitarian aid.

Members of the Church abide by rules which include chastity outside of marriage.

“We keep the Ten Commandments. We ask people to treat their bodies as temples. So we ask them not to pollute them with drugs or alcoholic beverages. We ask them not to smoke. That is what we believe was revealed to one of our prophets for the benefit of all out members,” said Dini-Ciacci.

The church’s leader, Prophet Russel Nelson, met with Pope Francis on Saturday at the Vatican. It was the first time a head of the Church of Latter Day Saints met with a pope. While the two churches differ in doctrine, they share concerns like human suffering, the importance of religious liberty and of building bridges of friendship.

 
…

After months of Brexit deadlock, this is it: decision time.

With Britain scheduled to leave the European Union in less than three weeks, U.K. lawmakers are poised to choose the country’s direction, at least for now, from among three starkly different choices: deal, no deal or delay.

A look at what might happen:

Deal deja vu

The House of Commons has a second vote scheduled Tuesday on a deal laying out the terms of Britain’s orderly departure from the EU. Prime Minister Theresa May and EU officials agreed to the agreement in December, but U.K. lawmakers voted 432-202 in January to reject it. To get it approved by March 29, the day set for Brexit, May needs to persuade 116 of them to change their minds — a tough task.

Opposition to the deal in Parliament centers on a section that is designed to ensure there are no customs checks or border posts between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland. Pro-Brexit lawmakers dislike that the border “backstop” keeps the U.K. entwined with EU trade rules. May has been seeking changes to reassure them the situation would be temporary, but the EU refuses to reopen the withdrawal agreement.

Around 100 hard-core Brexit supporters in May’s Conservative Party look set to oppose the deal unless the backstop is altered. To offset them, May has courted the opposition Labour Party with promises of money for urban regeneration.

Oliver Patel, a research associate at the European Institute at University College London, says “it’s highly unlikely the deal will be passed. The big question is, what will the margin be?”

If, against the odds, lawmakers approve the deal, a short delay to Brexit may be needed so Parliament can translate the agreement’s terms into British law. But the U.K. would be on course to leave the EU in the next few months, with a long transition period built in to help people and businesses get used to the new relationship.

May will have delivered on her promise of an orderly Brexit — and snatched an astonishing political victory from the jaws of widely predicted defeat.

Destination no-deal

If the deal is rejected, lawmakers expect to vote Wednesday on whether to abandon efforts to secure an agreement and leave the EU as planned on March 29 without a deal.

That idea is backed by a phalanx of pro-Brexit politicians, who say it would cut Britain free of EU rules and red tape, allowing the country to forge an independent global trade policy.

But economists and businesses fear a so-called “no-deal Brexit” would hammer the economy as tariffs and other trade barriers go up between Britain and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

In the short term, there could be gridlock at British ports and shortages of fresh produce. In the long run, the government says a no-deal scenario would leave the economy 6 percent to 9 percent smaller over 15 years than remaining in the EU.

Last month, Parliament passed a non-binding amendment ruling out a “no-deal” Brexit, so lawmakers are unlikely to go with it now.

Delay, delay, delay 

If lawmakers reject leaving the EU without an agreement, they have one choice left: seek more time. A vote scheduled for Thursday would decide whether to ask the EU to delay Britain’s departure by up to three months.

This is likely to pass, since politicians on both sides of the debate fear time is running out to secure an orderly Brexit by March 29.

An extension requires approval from all 27 remaining EU member countries. They will probably agree, possibly at a March 21-22 summit in Brussels. But they are reluctant to grant a delay that stretches past elections for the EU’s legislature, the European Parliament, in late May.

Crisis deferred

Whatever the U.K. Parliament decides, this week will not bring an end to Britain’s Brexit crisis. Both lawmakers and the public remain split between backers of a clean break from the EU and those who favor continuing a close relationship — either through a post-Brexit trade deal or by reversing the decision to leave.

May is unwilling to abandon her hard-won Brexit agreement and might try to put it to Parliament a third time, especially if she loses by a small margin on Tuesday. But some lawmakers want her to have Parliament consider different forms of Brexit to see if there is a majority for any course of action.

Maddy Thimont-Jack, a researcher at the Institute for Government think tank, said this week’s votes could force the famously stubborn May to compromise.

“If she loses the vote by quite a significant margin again, it really suggests that what she has done is just not going to fly,” Thimont-Jack said. “In which case she will be under a lot of pressure to follow what Parliament wants.”

Some think the only way forward is a snap election that could rearrange the forces in Parliament and break the political deadlock. May has ruled that out, but could come to see it as her only option.

And anti-Brexit campaigners haven’t abandoned efforts to secure a new referendum on whether to remain in the EU. The government opposes the idea, which at the moment also lacks majority support in Parliament.

But that could change if the political paralysis drags on. The Labour Party has said it would support a second referendum if other options were exhausted.

It all means more twists are coming in the Brexit drama.

“No one really believes this is the last chance saloon,” Patel said.

 
…

It could have been another achievement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast of in his frantic election campaign. The prime ministers of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — the Visegrad Group, or V4 — accepted his invitation to hold last month’s summit in Jerusalem, Israel’s controversial capital.

Then came Israel Katz, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, and spoiled it all.

“Poles collaborated with the Nazis,” Katz asserted in a TV interview on the eve of the summit. He quoted former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir as having said that Poles “suckled anti-Semitism from their mothers’ milk.”

That affront the Poles would not bear. They canceled their participation, leaving the others who did come to hold informal and bilateral meetings.

​Cultivating the right

The invitation to meet in Jerusalem was part of Israel’s attempt to cultivate relations with the EU’s eastern and central European members. Those countries, especially the right-wing, nationalist governments of Poland and Hungary, have been critical of the mainstream, Western, liberal EU members.

Netanyahu has attended summit meetings of the Visegrad Group, the three Baltic States and the Craiova Forum that includes Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia.

He complained to the V4 that Israel was being criticized “more than any other place in the world.”

“I unabashedly asked the help of my friends here in making, correcting … a distorted position, a distorted view on Israel in the EU,” he said at a press conference with the leaders of the Baltic states.

​EU objections

Much of the friction is over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and construction in East Jerusalem which, the EU maintains, violate international law.

The EU has deterred Israel from evicting Palestinian refugees from a decades-old encampment beside the Jerusalem-Jericho road. It sought to have Israel label goods produced in the settlements and deny them customs benefits available to products made in Israel proper. It wants Israel to pay for, or return, EU-funded materials that Israel destroyed or confiscated from West Bank Palestinians; Israeli scientists in the occupied territories are not eligible for EU research grants; and it supports Israeli NGOs that criticize the government.

​Right-wing coalition

Israel and nationalist governments share perceptions, noted Joanna Dyduch in a paper published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Netanyahu’s coalition is the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s 70 years history.

According to Dyduch, having experienced Soviet domination, the Visegrad four share the view that “they are entities which continually need to be defended.” They focus on power relations while “liberalism, which emphasizes the significance of the individual, human rights and civil liberties, is often consciously portrayed as being inadequate, or even dangerous.”

Security threats

Netanyahu strikes a sensitive chord among European leaders when he addresses threats to their security.

“The biggest common adversary to our common civilization is the force of militant Islam, its radical forces, the terrorists that seek to bring down our planes, bombard our cities, murder our civilians,” he said with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at his side. 

Israel can help, he said. Its intelligence saved many lives. It built a border fence that blocks illegal migrants, has an effective airport security system and is tops in cybertechnology.

​Turning point was Turkey

The breakthrough to those countries followed the deterioration of its relations with Turkey. The Israeli air force could no longer train in Turkish skies and needed an alternative, the Foreign Ministry’s former Director General Alon Liel recalled.

It started warming relations with Turkey’s enemies, Greece and Cyprus, then with Bulgaria and Romania. A very strong friendship ensued and produced “excellent results in reducing EU pressure,” Liel said.

Israel then decided to expand ties to other former East Bloc countries that were interested in its security technologies, weapons and intelligence to cope with the influx of Syrian refugees and militant Islam.

Political gains, dangers

Security cooperation intensified and political gains emerged.

Hungary and Poland sided with Israel in U.N. and EU forums. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania blocked a proposal that all 28 EU states criticize the United States for moving its embassy to Jerusalem. EU foreign ministers differed on whether to let Netanyahu address one of their breakfast meetings. Lithuania went ahead and invited him.

The EU sanctioned Israeli firms that were conspicuously based in the occupied territories but did not pursue others who were discreet, recalled Avi Primor, a former ambassador to the EU.

Nevertheless, former Israeli ambassadors criticized the close ties with right-wing governments as being short-sighted, on thin ice, and severing an umbilical cord to Western culture. 

It places Israel with allies such as Orban, “who distances himself from democracy and his campaign contains anti-Semitic characteristics,” said Nimrod Goren, head of the Israeli Institute for Regional and Foreign Policy.

Israel’s agreements with the EU must be renewed or updated periodically, and each member state can block it. Israel’s close ties with the United States and memories of the Holocaust moderates them, but if Israel would resist U.S. pressure, “the Europeans will act more decisively,” Primor predicted.
…

Germany changed its travel advice for visitors to Turkey on Saturday, warning its citizens that they risked arrest for expressing opinions that would be tolerated at home but might not be by Turkish authorities. 

“It cannot be ruled out … that the Turkish government will take further action against representatives of German media and civil society organizations,” an updated Foreign Ministry travel advisory read. 

“Statements which are covered by the German legal understanding of the freedom of expression can lead in Turkey to occupational restrictions and criminal proceedings.” 

The advice, which a ministry spokeswoman confirmed was updated on Saturday, noted that several European journalists, including Germans, had been denied accreditation in Turkey without explanation. In the last two years German nationals have also been increasingly arbitrarily detained, it said. 

Turkish authorities are suspicious about any connections to the network of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says orchestrated a 2016 coup attempt, the ministry said. 

But it added that any tourists who had taken part in meetings abroad of organizations banned in Turkey risked being detained, as did Germans who made, or endorsed, statements on social media critical of the Turkish government. 
…

Three police officers in Ukraine have been injured in a clash with far-right demonstrators in the capital.

The violence occurred outside the presidential administration building in Kiev where several hundred demonstrators had gathered Saturday to call for arrests of top figures in an alleged military corruption scandal.

A media investigation last week detailed alleged embezzlement schemes in Ukraine’s military industry, including at a factory controlled by President Petro Poroshenko.

A police statement said the demonstrators tried to break through police lines and were setting off fireworks. Police turned them back with tear gas.

The police said one officer was hospitalized with chemical burns to his eyes.
…

A labor strike in France, prompted by concerns over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, might spread to the flying public. Strikes by customs agents at ports and rail stations earlier in the week could now spread airports.

Long lines of trucks at Calais and Dunkirk ports. Two-hour delays for Britain-bound Eurostar rail passengers. That was the scene this week in France for passengers and merchandise headed for the U.K. French customs agents staged slowdowns by strictly observing rules, leading to lengthy security checks, a preview, they claim, of what might happen if Britain leaves the European Union without an exit agreement later this month.

Unions warned select French airports would also be affected over the weekend, including the country’s busiest hub, Charles de Gaulle, outside Paris — amid heavy school holiday traffic.

Christophe Abadie, head of the (CFDT) customs labor union, urged passengers to prepare for potential delays. He told France’s CNews TV that the French customs service lacks the technical and infrastructure ability to deal with Brexit. The government says it will be recruiting 700 more agents to cope with Brexit demands. Unions say that’s not enough. They also want better pay and working conditions.

Another customs union member warned that without enough reinforcements, kilometer-long lines seen this week at northern French ports could be even longer under a no-deal Brexit.  French authorities say they’ll be prepared. The minister in charge of customs, Gerald Darmanin, meets with union leaders early next week.

British lawmakers are set to vote again Tuesday on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, and reports suggest its passage is unlikely.  Like France, other European countries are concerned about the transportation chaos that could result from London’s departure from the EU without an agreement.  

That’s especially true for the Netherlands, where authorities at Europe’s largest port of Rotterdam warned last month that a no-deal Brexit could lead to serious problems. A Dutch transportation institute also warned that under a worst-case Brexit scenario, trade between Britain and the Netherlands could drop by as much as 50 percent.

 
…

An acclaimed Italian forensic scientist has for years had the difficult job of identifying bodies of migrants, who sought to reach Europe in search of a better life but never made it. Cristina Cattaneo says it is complicated process but an important one for the families of the victims.

At least 30,000 migrants are believed to have perished in the Mediterranean Sea in their efforts to reach Europe. Of these, more than half have not been identified. For some years now, Cattaneo has been trying to improve that situation. But giving a name to migrants who died is no easy matter, particularly because there is no databank of missing migrants.

Cattaneo said what is needed is to put post-mortem details of dead migrants into a single database to match with pre-mortem details that must be gathered from relatives looking for their loved ones. She initially encountered resistance: there were no public funds available for that kind of work and criticism included the fact that no one was looking for the nameless migrants. But she disagreed.

Cattaneo said she felt the “anxiety of relatives searching for their dead and how they have the right to find them and be given their death certificates.” She said the initiative began in 2012 to afford relatives the same dignity that is given to victims of other disasters, like plane crashes. She said “the discrimination toward dead migrants” is wrong.  

The catalyst for proper identification of nameless migrants, Cattaneo said, came in the form of two major disasters that occurred in the Mediterranean: the sinking of a vessel off the island of Lampedusa on October 3, 2013, in which more than 360 migrants died, and an incident off the Libyan coastline on April 18, 2015, in which a vessel carrying more than 800 migrants sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean.  Later reports said that up to 1,100 hundred migrants could have been aboard the doomed vessel.

For both of these tragedies, forensic scientists gathered post-mortem information, including DNA, for all those recovered, in an effort to identify the migrants. In the case of the 2015 sinking, the operation was complex because many of the bodies recovered one year later were decomposed, and the vessel had to be raised from a depth of 400 meters by the Italian navy.

Cattaneo explained that identifying victims’ remains is also important from a legal point of view.

She said that orphans — especially minors — and widows often need death certificates of their relatives or it is very difficult for them to legally move forward with their lives.

After collecting and profiling the information gathered from the victims, Cattaneo said they needed to gather pre-mortem information from living relatives. In the case of the vessel that sank off Lampedusa, the Italian government put out a call for anyone who thought they may have had a family member who died in that disaster to come forward with details that could be matched against data gathered by forensic scientists.

Cattaneo said 72 relatives came forward, leading to the positive identification of 35 dead migrants, and their cases were closed.

For the ship that was recovered from the bottom of the sea, the International Red Cross put out a call for the likely relatives to come forward. One-hundred-ninety relatives from Mali and Mauritania alone responded to that call. Cattaneo and her team are continuing their identification efforts at a forensic laboratory at Milan University.

Italy is the only country in Europe that has embarked on a project like this using post-mortem and pre-mortem information matching for migrants. Underscoring the many hurdles in this process, Cattaneo saaid the only way forward is for a databank to be created in which European countries share information, similar to how law enforcement officials currently operate.

 
…

In Turkey, International Women’s Day saw nationwide protests, with many focusing on the growing scourge of violence against women. According to rights groups, hundreds of women are slain yearly in Turkey.

In Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, the heart of the Asian side of the city, hundreds of women gathered, holding placards condemning violence against women.

“We are here to demand the police and judiciary take these endless murders of women seriously. I have had enough of these killings,” said Sibel, who wanted to give only her first name. 

Police presence

Despite a heavy police presence, the Kadikoy demonstration passed without incident. But thousands of women gathered in Istanbul’s main Istiklal Street area, where hundreds of riot police, backed by armored cars, used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up a procession. 

In Izmir, on Turkey’s western Aegean coast, police using clubs broke up a Women’s Day demonstration, arresting seven. However, most commemorations and protests, held in many towns and cities across Turkey, ended without incident.

The scale and extent of the protests, in the face of strict laws controlling demonstrations, reflect a growing assertiveness regarding women’s rights and violence against women. Last month saw nationwide outrage through social media and protests over the death of Sule Cet, 23.

Police initially treated Cet’s death as a suicide after she fell from the 20th floor of an office building, where she worked overnight. After intense pressure from an attorney representing Cet’s family, police finally treated her case as a homicide, with her boss and another man now standing trial for rape and murder.

Anger about the case was exacerbated when the defense attorney said Cet was not a virgin and that she should not have been drinking with her boss late at night. The case, which has engrossed millions, has become a focal point for women’s rights groups across Turkey and the source of growing anger about an increasing number of killings. Cet’s name has become a leading hashtag, while talk shows and social media have become platforms for people’s outrage about the way the case has been handled.

“Cet’s case raises so many issues that are wrong about the way cases of murdered women are handled,” said law professor Istar Gozaydin, who is also a presenter of a women’s rights television program.

“In the judicial process, we see the private lives of the victims being routinely mentioned or the character of the victim being impugned, like raising whether the victim is a virgin or not. Also, the figures of murdered women given by authorities are not very reliable. They are designated as accidents or considered as suicides, which we saw in Sule Cet’s case,” added Gozaydin, who is doing research on violence against women for the European Union.

This week, the Umut, a prominent nongovernmental organization, said that 477 women were slain and 232 were injured by men in 2018, and that Turkish media reported 1,760 femicide cases over the past four years.

In 2012, Turkey’s AK political party made the country the first signatory of the Council of Europe’s convention to protect women. The document is intended to prevent violence against women, provide victim protection and “end the impunity of perpetrators.” 

“On paper, the legal regulations and structures are very sufficient [in Turkey] to stop violence and murders against women,” said Gozaydin. “But the way the judiciary and police enforce these procedures and laws is very, very problematic. That’s why the judicial process should be monitored very closely to achieve a fair trial.”

Seen as major problem

Experts suggest there is a growing awareness within Turkish society about the scale of violence against women. A survey released this month by Istanbul’s Kadir Has University found that 60 percent of the participants viewed violence as “the biggest problem that women face in society.”

The issue appears to be crossing the deep political divide between religious and secular Turkey. “It [violence against women] has become the target issue of so many people to give their reaction,” said Gozaydin. “It is just not limited to the secular group or just women. It is much wider.”
…

The United Nations says 1.8 billion people in the world are below age 30. Most live in developing countries, with hundreds of millions in areas of conflict.

Actor Forest Whitaker, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, says young people too often are viewed in a negative light. He says they are seen as a problem rather than the solution to unresolved conflicts.  

Speaking to VOA on Friday on the sidelines of a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting, Whitaker said his foundation, the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative, trains young people to become mediators in four systems of conflict resolution and education. He said young women and men also are trained in information and communication technologies, life skills and entrepreneurial skills.

Efforts in South Sudan

Whitaker said many are applying their skills within their own communities as part of a peace and reconciliation program his foundation is running in South Sudan.

“They are in the middle of mediating conflicts that have to deal with cattle issues,” he said. “They are in the middle of mediating conflicts that have to do with revenge killings, that have to do with territorial rights. … They go out into the communities as well, sometimes, and interpret in their native language or native tongue the peace agreements to the communities.”

Whitaker said young people apply their expertise on many fronts. He said they often are called upon by the countries themselves to act as mediators.

He said many of the people his foundation works with in South Sudan are decommissioned child soldiers. Similar programs exist in post-conflict situations for young people who were recruited as child soldiers by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, he said.

The foundation has projects in Mexico and the United States and soon will begin working with young people on peace and reconciliation issues in South Africa.
…

The Pentagon is warning of “grave consequences” to military relations between the United States and Turkey should Ankara purchase a Russian surface-to-air missile system.

“If Turkey takes the S-400, there would be grave consequences in terms of our relationship, military relationship with them,” chief Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers told reporters Friday.

Summers said those consequences would encompass losing U.S. military sales to Turkey, including the long-awaited sale of the United States’ new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet.

“If they take the S-400s then … they would not get the F-35s and the Patriots,” Summers said, referring to the Patriot surface-to-air missile system, which has a primary function of defending against ballistic missiles and has been presented as an American-made alternative to the S-400.

Ankara signed an agreement with Moscow for the S-400 missile system in 2017. At the same time, Turkey has helped finance the F-35 program and planned to buy 100 of the jets from the U.S., the first of which are due to be delivered later this year.

Washington fears the sophisticated radar of the S-400 system could compromise the F-35 technology, which was developed to elude Russian-made systems. Ankara insists the S-400 offers the best value for its needs and poses no threat to NATO systems.

Earlier this week, the head of U.S. European Command told lawmakers the United States should not move forward with the F-35 sales, should Turkey purchase the S-400.

“My best military advice would be that we don’t then follow through with the F-35, flying it or working with allies that are working with Russian systems, particularly air defense systems,” Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said Tuesday.

A day later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his commitment to buy the Russian missile system and suggested expanding the purchase to Russia’s more advanced S-500 system.

Ankara is slated to receive the S-400 later this year in hopes of making the system ready for use by 2020.

Dorian Jones contributed to this report from Istanbul
…

Britain will hand diplomatic protection to British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to underline the government’s belief that Iran has behaved unjustly in its treatment of her, foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday.

Hunt said while the move, a little-used way for governments to seek protection on behalf of their nationals, was unlikely to be a “magic wand,” it may help Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case.

Iran’s ambassador in London said on Twitter that Britain’s move “contravenes international law.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she headed back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit.

She was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment, a charge denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organization that operates independently of Thomson Reuters and Reuters News.

“I have today decided that the UK will take a step that is extremely unusual and exercise diplomatic protection,” Hunt said in a statement, adding that the move signaled to Tehran that “its behavior is totally wrong.” 

“It is unlikely to be a magic wand that leads to an overnight result. But it demonstrates to the whole world that Nazanin is innocent and the UK will not stand by when one of its citizens is treated so unjustly,” he said.

Diplomatic protection is a mechanism under international law through which a state may seek reparation for injury to one of its nationals on the basis that the second state has committed an internationally wrongful act against that person.

“UK Govt’s extension of diplomatic protection to Ms Zaghari contravenes int’l law. Govts may only exercise such protection for own nationals,” Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran’s ambassador in London, said on Twitter.

“As (the) UK Govt is acutely aware, Iran does not recognize dual nationality. Irrespective of UK residency, Ms Zaghari thus remains Iranian,” Baeidinejad added.

Earlier this year, Zaghari-Ratcliffe went on hunger strike in protest at her treatment in jail.

“We have been working hard to secure her release but despite repeated efforts have not been successful. We have not even been able to secure her the medical treatment she urgently needs despite assurances to the contrary,” Hunt said.

“No government should use innocent individuals as pawns for diplomatic leverage so I call on Iran to release this innocent woman so she can be reunited with her family.”
…

President Donald Trump and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis now have another thing in common: They both like the same campaign slogan.

Babis said Thursday at the White House that he similarly wants to “Make the Czech Republic great again.”

The two leaders already have much in common.

Babis, like Trump, is a wealthy businessman who rode into office on a nationalist-style campaign.

While Trump is dogged by special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Babis is facing charges of misusing European Union subsidies for a farm he transferred to relatives, including his son.

Trump wants to strengthen the U.S. border with Mexico. Babis is a vocal opponent of accepting migrants and refugees in his country.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump greeted the prime minister of the central European country and his wife, Monika Babisova, outside the White House and they walked to the Oval Office.

“Czech Republic doing very, very well economically and in all other respects,” Trump said. “It’s always been a safe country. Strong military. Strong people. We have a very good relationship with the Czech Republic and the United States. We do a lot of trade.”

Babis said U.S.-Czech Republic business relations are growing.

“Our investors are investing in the U.S. and already created thousands of jobs,” Babis said. “Mr. President, I watched your 2019 State of the Union address and I perfectly understand you plan how to make America great again. I have a similar plan to make the Czech Republic great again.”

The two leaders also discussed cybersecurity. A Czech watchdog followed U.S. authorities in warning against use of hardware or software made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE.

Huawei has become the target of U.S. security concerns because of its ties to the Chinese government. The U.S. has pressured other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft of information.

“Our countries will work to ensure secure and reliable telecommunications networks and supply chains to reduce the risk of malicious cyber activity,” the two leaders said in a joint statement issued after their meeting. “We resolve to deepen our cooperation. … to develop telecommunications security principles.”

On trade, Trump has raised the ire of many Europeans by imposing tariffs on aluminum and steel, while threatening to slap tariffs on imports of cars from the European Union. Before leaving for the United States, Babis told The Associated Press that he hoped the trade spat would not escalate and that talks would result in a solution that avoids a trade war.

In their statement, the two leaders also said they would work together to promote enhanced energy diversification in Europe and ensure security. “We will further investigate the potential benefits of regional energy infrastructure development in Central Europe,” they said.

Babis’ visit coincides with the 30th anniversary of the 1989 anti-communist “Velvet Revolution” and the 20th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s membership in NATO, which began in 1999.

The Czech Republic is among the countries criticized by Trump for not meeting the NATO goal of committing 2 percent of their gross domestic product to defense. Babis has promised to meet the target by 2024.
…

Russia’s leading telecoms firm said Thursday it had agreed to pay $850 million to settle a U.S. corruption case over huge bribes paid to the family of Uzbekistan’s former president.

The case shed light on massive corruption in Uzbekistan under former president Islam Karimov, who ruled the ex-Soviet republic from 1990 until his death in 2016.

MTS, based in Moscow and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said the settlement had been agreed with the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The deals “mark the closure of the investigations into the company’s acquisition and operation of its former subsidiary in Uzbekistan,” MTS said in a statement.

MTS complies 

In agreeing to the fine “MTS affirmed its commitment” to complying with anti-corruption legislation, it said.

MTS was in a long-running dispute with the Uzbek authorities, which seized the company’s local subsidiary in 2012 after cancelling its operating licenses for alleged tax evasion.

The Uzbek subsidiary, which had 9.5 million subscribers by the end of 2011, filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

The SEC said that MTS had “bribed an Uzbek official” related to Karimov to obtain and retain business operations in Uzbekistan, a Central Asian nation of more than 32 million people.

“The company engaged in egregious misconduct for nearly a decade, secretly funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to a corrupt official,” the SEC said in a statement. 

‘$1 billion worth of payments’

An investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project previously said that the subsidiary, which was known as Uzdunrobita before it was acquired by MTS, had paid hundreds of millions of dollars to companies owned by Karimov’s daughter Gulnara.

The OCCRP, an NGO that works with investigative reporters mainly in Eastern Europe, alleged that MTS made payments in 2004 and 2007 to purchase stakes in the company. 

MTS was not the only telecoms company involved. “Karimova squeezed more than $1 billion worth of payments… out of international telecom-related companies,” OCCRP said.

Some commentators in Russia expressed dismay that the U.S. was fining Russian companies for operations in third countries.

“What concern does the U.S. have about the faraway Uzbekistan and Russian operators?” said a journalist on BFM business radio, pointing out that “the money will go to the American budget, not the Uzbek one.”

End to economic isolation

Uzbekistan is led by Karimov’s former prime minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has moved to end the country’s economic isolation and removed visa restrictions for travelers from European Union countries and the United States.

Gulnara Karimova, once a high-profile diplomat and pop singer, was being held under house arrest after being convicted on fraud and money laundering charges in 2017 and sentenced to five years.

Uzbek authorities this week said she had violated the terms of her house arrest and had been sent to prison where she would remain until the end of her sentence.
…

A French court convicted the Roman Catholic archbishop of Lyon on Thursday of failing to act on historic allegations of sexual abuse of boy scouts in his diocese, handing Cardinal Philippe Barbarin a six-month suspended jail sentence.

Barbarin is the highest-profile cleric to be caught up in the child sex abuse scandal inside the Catholic Church in France. He was found guilty of failing to report allegations of sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s by a priest who is due to go on trial later this year.

Barbarin has 10 days to appeal.

Barbarin’s trial put Europe’s senior clergy in the spotlight at a time when Pope Francis is under fire for the church’s response a sexual abuse crisis that has engulfed the church, deeply damaging its standing around the globe.

The pontiff last month ended a conference on the sexual abuse of children by clergy by calling for an “all-out battle” against a crime that should be “erased from the face of the earth.”

Victims and their advocates expressed deep disappointment, saying Francis had merely repeated old promises and offered few new concrete proposals.
…

British police said a suspicious package destroyed by bomb-disposal experts at the University of Glasgow on Wednesday contained an explosive device and was linked to three letter bombs sent to two London airports and a railway station.  

The Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command said the item sent to the Scottish university had “similarities in the package, its markings and the type of device” to the three small improvised bombs received by the London transportation hubs on Tuesday.  

The mailing envelope sent to London’s Heathrow Airport with one of the bombs inside partly caught fire when someone opened it, but no one was injured.  

The force said it had not identified the sender and urged transportation operators, mail sorting companies and schools “to be vigilant” about watching for suspicious packages. 

Precautionary evacuation

The University of Glasgow said several buildings on its campus, including the mailroom, were evacuated “as a precautionary measure” after the package was found in the mailroom on Wednesday morning. 

Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson of Police Scotland said “the package was not opened and no one was injured.” 

He said bomb-disposal experts later performed a controlled explosion on the item.  

Another package sparked an evacuation Wednesday at the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh. It was found to contain “promotional goods” and deemed no threat to the public, police said. 

The envelopes received in London appeared to carry Irish stamps, and Jarrett said one line of inquiry “is the possibility that the packages have come from Ireland.” 

There has been speculation the devices could be connected to Irish Republican Army dissidents. But Dean Haydon, Britain’s senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, said no sender had been identified and no group had claimed responsibility. 

“We are talking to our Irish counterparts but at the moment there’s nothing to indicate motivation of the sender or ideology, so I cannot confirm at the moment if it’s connected to any Ireland-related terrorist groups,” he said.
…

Pope Francis has urged Roman Catholic faithful to free themselves from the “clutches of consumerism and the snares of selfishness” as he marked the start of Lent, the period of prayer and fasting before Easter.

Francis led a procession and then celebrated Ash Wednesday Mass at the basilica of Santa Sabina, one of Rome’s most beautiful.

In his homily, Francis said the 40-day period of Lent is a “wakeup call for the soul” to rediscover the direction of life.

He said: “We need to free ourselves from the clutches of consumerism and the snares of selfishness, from always wanting more, from never being satisfied, and from a heart closed to the needs of the poor.”

At the end of Lent, Christians commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
…

U.S. officials have warned at an energy conference in Brussels that the Trump administration will take punitive action against European companies that are building the Kremlin-favored Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which will deliver energy from Russia to Germany while bypassing Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 (NS2) will largely replace an older pipeline running through Ukraine and Poland that has the backing of the German government. But it is prompting the alarm of Central European governments, increasingly infuriated with Berlin’s dismissal of their concerns.

They object to Nord Stream 2 — which will run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany, and snake under the Baltic Sea — not only because they’ll lose lucrative transit fees from the older pipeline, but because they fear the Kremlin wants to develop NS2 largely for political reasons, not commercial ones.

Speaking at the energy conference in the Belgian capital, Nicole Gibson, deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s office for Europe, warned that if European companies resume laying pipe later this year they “risk significant sanctions.”

Declining to go into any details about the threatened sanctions, Gibson said Washington doesn’t accept that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal. “Some people say it is a fait accompli that Nord Stream 2 will be done. We don’t see it that way… We call on European leaders to make sure Nord Stream 2 is not implemented,” she said.

Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko has warned that NS2 would allow the Kremlin to switch off gas to Ukraine and Central Europe when it wants to blackmail its nearer neighbors without disrupting supplies to Western Europe, lessening likely push back from the more powerful European countries while it toys with weaker ones.

Her high-profile warning, upping the political stakes, comes two months after Richard Grenell, the U.S. envoy to Germany, sent letters to dozens of European construction and energy companies saying they face sanctions if they resume in the spring the laying of NS2’s concrete-coated steel pipes. Construction work was suspended in December because of winter weather.

Washington’s opposition to Nord Stream 2 has been consistent — the Obama administration also was critical.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s opposition has a harder edge, however, with officials seeing a dark political menace behind the new pipeline. They argue NS2 will undermine European security, deepen Western Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and give the Kremlin a greater opportunity to use natural-gas supplies to exert political influence and blackmail Western European governments.

Nord Stream 2, which will be owned by the Kremlin-directed energy giant Gazprom, would double the capacity of Russian gas delivered to Germany, the European Union’s most powerful economy. NS2 will cost billions of dollars to build. Russia currently supplies more than one-third of the natural gas Europe uses, though with demand increasing, that could reach closer to 50 percent next decade, forecast energy industry experts.

Last July, during his visit to the annual summit of NATO allies in Brussels, President Trump expressed his frustration with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the Russia-to-Germany undersea pipeline, saying, “We’re supposed to protect you from Russia, but Germany is making pipeline deals with Russia. You tell me if that’s appropriate. Explain that.”

But Merkel has dug in amid pressure from Germany businesses, which say NS2 will slash their energy costs. The German Chancellor also appears to be distancing herself from a promise she made last year to Central European leaders when she acknowledged for the first time allies’ geopolitical concerns, saying NS2 could proceed only if Ukraine’s role as a transit country for Russian gas also was protected.

Germany, along with NS2 transit countries Finland, Sweden and Denmark, counter-argue the pipeline will increase Europe’s energy security by avoiding potential cutoffs from the more politically volatile Ukrainian route. Washington believes the pipeline also is a Russian bid to hurt Ukraine economically by stripping it of gas transit fees.

Ukrainian officials estimate their losses from Nord Stream 2 will be high, running at about $2.5 billion a year.

“When Nord Stream 2 is finished this year, there will be no need to use the Ukrainian gas transit system,” Yuriy Vitrenko, managing director of Ukraine’s Naftogaz, a state-owned oil and gas company, told the Brussels conference. “Ukraine will lose approximately 4 percent of GDP,” he added.

Kremlin officials say Washington wants to stop NS2 because U.S. energy giants are hoping to export surplus shale gas to Europe as liquified natural gas (LNG). U.S. officials have made no secret of their hopes that American energy firms will be able to profit from a halt to NS2, but say that isn’t the major reason for their objections to the pipeline.

U.S. officials’ alarm about NS2 is echoed by European security officials. NATO’s former head, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has described Nord Stream 2 as a “geopolitical mistake” for the EU, saying it would make a mockery of EU sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
…

The Venezuelan government has ordered the expulsion of Germany’s ambassador, citing his alleged support of opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is engaged in a political battle with President Nicolas Maduro.

The government said in a statement that ambassador Martin Kriener had 48 hours to leave for what it said was Kriener’s meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs. The order came after Kriener met with Guaido at Caracas airport Monday upon Guaido’s return to the country.   

Guaido, recognized by the U.S. and about 50 other nations as Venezuela’s interim leader, returned on a commercial flight following a tour of Latin American countries in defiance of a court-imposed travel ban. Guaido called for Maduro’s ouster at a rally shortly after his return.

Venezuela is in the midst of a political and humanitarian crisis that is expected to worsen as U.S. oil sanctions against the country take their toll.

Guaido supporters contend last year’s re-election of Maduro, who is supported by Russia, was invalid.

 
…

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is warning that growing social, economic, and political inequalities are increasing alienation and instability in countries throughout the world. The high commissioner presented a sweeping view of major human rights situations around the world in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Bachelet said inequalities in income, opportunity, justice and the enjoyment of human rights exist in all countries — rich and poor alike. Tackling these inequalities, she says, is critical in overcoming the grievances and unrest that fuel hatred, violence and threats to peace.

She cited many examples of countries where the denial of rights has led to protests and violent crackdowns by security forces. She mentioned Sudan, where people protesting harsh economic conditions and bad governance have been violently dispersed by security forces.

She noted similar scenarios are playing out in many other places, including Zimbabwe, Haiti, France, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Bachelet said she is shocked by the number of killings of human rights defenders around the world. She expressed alarm at the increasingly widespread attacks on journalists and media freedoms.

The human rights chief said she is very concerned about government reprisals against victims, human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations who cooperate with the United Nations.

“Today, allow me to voice my concern at the apparently arbitrary arrest and detention, and alleged ill-treatment or torture, of several women human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “The persecution of peaceful activists would clearly contradict the spirit of the country’s proclaimed new reforms. So, we urge that these women be released.”

Bachelet condemned the detention of members of the Uighur Muslim minority in what China calls re-education centers in its Xinjiang province. Activists say about 1 million Uighurs are kept in what they call detention centers.

Bachelet also did not shy away from criticizing the United States’ migration policy. Thousands of migrant children have been separated from their families during border crossings into the U.S.

Separately, she called on Australia to implement more humane policies toward hundreds of migrants detained on Manus Island and Nauru.

She said inequalities undermine social progress, and economic and political stability; whereas human rights build hope.

The high commissioner urged nations to do away with the divisive, destructive forces of repression in favor of principled and more effective policies grounded in human rights.
…

The leader of the main center-right party in the European Parliament said on Tuesday that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban must apologize for his criticism of the EU or his ruling Fidesz party could be suspended from the grouping.

Orban, an outspoken nationalist, wants to remain in the EPP, Fidesz said on Tuesday, despite growing pressure within the European Parliament’s biggest grouping to suspend or expel it, a scenario backed by European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.

The Hungarian leader has long been at loggerheads with Brussels over his hardline stance on immigration and accusations — which he denies — that he is undermining the rule of law. The feud is escalating ahead of European Parliament elections in May.

“Viktor Orban must immediately and permanently end his government’s anti-Brussels campaigns,” Manfred Weber, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) candidate to be EU Commission President, told Bild newspaper.

On Monday, the EPP said it had received motions from 12 member parties in nine EU countries and would discuss suspending or excluding Fidesz on March 20.

Juncker, who in 2014 was the EPP’s candidate for the top EU executive position he now holds, accused Orban of coming “within a hair’s breadth” of peddling falsehoods and said he would support the exclusion.

Asked about Orban, Juncker told German broadcaster ZDF: “Whoever lies in European affairs for domestic political reasons has to ask himself whether he still wants to belong to the EPP club. I think, they are not one of them any more.”

“I already said months ago that the EPP’s biggest problem in the European elections has a name, and that is Orban. I will support this exclusion,” Juncker added.

Speaking to journalists in the Germany town of Rottersdorf, Weber said that in recent weeks “Viktor Orban and the Fidesz have crossed red lines again” and added that all options were on the table, “especially the option of expulsion and going away, going our future way without Fidesz.”

Orban’s party said in a statement: “Fidesz does not want to leave the (European) People’s Party, our goal is for anti-immigration forces to gain strength within the EPP.”

‘Constructive dialogue’

Orban has launched a media and billboard campaign that frames the May elections as a choice between forces backing and opposing mass immigration and that attacks Juncker.

However, on Tuesday he said he welcomed an initiative by French President Emmanuel Macron for reforming the EU. 

“In the details, of course, we have differences of views, but far more important than these differing opinions is that this initiative be a good start to a serious and constructive dialogue on the future of Europe,” Orban said in a statement to Reuters.

Weber told Bild newspaper he expected an apology to EPP member parties, an immediate and permanent end to Orban’s anti-EU campaigns and renewed government support for Central European University to stay in Budapest.

CEU was forced out of Hungary and plans to relocate to Vienna from September as Orban wages a bitter campaign against its founder, U.S. billionaire George Soros, accusing him of supporting immigration to undermine Europe’s way of life.

Hungarian-born Soros, 87, denies that.

The EPP has 217 lawmakers in the 750-strong EU legislature, 12 of them from Fidesz. It is expected to remain the biggest parliamentary group in the May elections, although likely weakened, opinion polls show.

Far-right, populist parties are expected to perform well.
…

A call by French President Emmanuel Macron for reforms of the European Union to pave the way to a “European renaissance” won mainly just polite support on Tuesday from other EU leaders.

Some officials portrayed Macron’s reform plan as part of a bid to become the new leader of Europe as Angela Merkel prepares her exit as German chancellor, and suggested it was at least partly intended to boost his waning popularity in France.

His proposals, unveiled in an open letter to citizens of Europe that was published in newspapers across the EU, are to protect and defend Europe’s citizens while giving the 28-nation bloc new impetus in the face of global competition.

Britain is preparing to leave the EU, and elections to the European Parliament take place in May. The EU also faces a more assertive China and challenges from Russia, and has differences with the United States, especially over President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies.

“The German government supports engaged discussions about the direction of the European Union,” said a spokesman for the government in Germany, the EU’s biggest member state. He declined to give further details.

The importance of Berlin’s backing for any change in the EU, or lack of it, has become clear since Macron’s vision of deeper integration among the 19 countries that use the euro currency failed to materialize after 18 months of EU talks.

European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs EU leaders’ summits, focused on only one aspect of Macron’s reform drive — the creation of a European Agency for the Protection of Democracies to protect EU countries from outside cyber-attacks and meddling in elections.

“I agree with Emmanuel Macron. Do not allow external anti-European forces to influence our elections and decide on key priorities and new leadership of EU,” Tusk said.

Start of a serious debate?

The European Commission, the EU executive, saluted Macron’s call as a contribution to the debate about Europe but said most of the ideas had already been implemented or were under way.

However, Macron’s proposals failed to impress Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who described them as “totally divorced from reality,” according to Czech news website www.parlamentnilisty.cz.

“I have noticed that when France says ‘more of Europe’, she in fact means more of France. But that is not the way. We are all equals in Europe,” he was quoted as saying.

Other EU officials, when speaking on condition of anonymity, were also less diplomatic, ascribing the timing of the proposals to Macron’s desire to boost his popularity ratings in France before the European Parliament elections in May.

“People are seeing it as a bit ridiculous that he keeps reinventing the wheel,” one official said.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel offered selective support for Macron’s ideas.

“Support for Emmanuel Macron’s proposals for a new impetus for the European project. Minimum wage, climate investments, Security and Defense Council, multi-speed Europe,” Michel said on Twitter.

More surprising was support from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, usually a strong critic of the EU.

“This could mark the beginning of a serious European debate,” Orban said in a statement sent to Reuters by email.

“In the details, of course, we have differences of views, but far more important than these differing opinions is that this initiative be a good start to a serious and constructive dialogue on the future of Europe,” he said.
…

The United States needs more firepower and focus to push back against ever-increasing Russian aggression across Europe and beyond, according to the top U.S. commander in Europe.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, European Command’s Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti called Russia the primary threat to stability in Europe and recommended the U.S. boost the number of troops it deploys to the continent on both a permanent and rotational basis.

Scaparrotti said he was particularly concerned about insufficient intelligence and surveillance capabilities, as well as a shrinking advantage on the high seas.

“I’ve asked for two more [naval] destroyers,” Scaparrotti told lawmakers, saying the need for additional ships was critical “if we want to remain dominant in the maritime domain.”

“We do need greater capacity, particularly given the modernization and the growth of the Russian fleets in Europe,” he said, noting growing concern about the presence of Russian submarines in European and international waters.

Countering Russian Influence

Scaparrotti, who also serves as the supreme allied commander for NATO, is not the first high ranking U.S. military official to raise concerns about what many in the U.S. see as Russia’s increasingly aggressive posture.

Last month, a report by the U.S. military’s Defense Intelligence Agency warned of the threat posed by Russia’s action is space, while the commander of U.S. forces in Africa cautioned Moscow was playing on perceived U.S. weakness to gain influence there.

In his prepared testimony Tuesday, Scaparrotti said Europe, however, was still the lynchpin to Moscow’s overall approach.

“Moscow seeks to assert its influence over nations along its periphery, undermine NATO solidarity, and fracture the rules-based international order,” he wrote, adding from there, Russia is looking to “increase its influence and expand its presence in Afghanistan, Syria, and Asia.”

Scaparrotti told lawmakers that the U.S. military has been working closely with European allies, including Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic nations to develop the right capabilities to counter Russian aggression.

US support for Ukraine

He also said strong consideration is being given to find more ways to support Ukraine.

Since 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, the U.S. has given Kyiv more than $1 billion worth of military assistance, though the vast majority of it has been non-lethal.

To date, the lone exception has been shipments of javelin missiles which started last April (2018), following authorizations by U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress.

Scaparrotti said the additional lethal aid could include sniper systems, ammunition and even naval warfare systems, citing Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian naval vessels last November, as part of an effort to block off Ukrainian access to the Kerch Strait.

Disinformation, cyberattacks and arms race

But like top U.S. intelligence officials, the commander of U.S. forces in Europe cautioned that while Russia is strengthening its military might, the biggest threat comes from the Kremlin’s devotion to information warfare. And he raised concerns Washington’s response in that arena is lacking.

“We need to probably get greater focus and energy into a strategy, a multifaceted strategy to counter Russia,” Scaparrotti said, “specifically within information operations, challenging their disinformation in cyber.”

U.S. lawmakers Tuesday also raised concerns about a possible nuclear arms race with Russia, with both President trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing last month they are withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

The U.S. and its European allies accuse Moscow of violating the terms of the treaty, which prohibited ballistic and ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, since at least 2014.

“We simply cannot tolerate this kind of abuse of arms control and expect for arms control to continue to be viable,” a senior U.S. administration official said at the time. “Let’s be clear: If there’s an arms race, it is Russia that is starting it.”

Pressed on how the U.S. would proceed in a post-treaty environment, Scaparrotti said planning was underway.

“I don’t know that we have a plan today,” he said. “We’re still in a 6-month period here where we are looking at what our options are.”
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The speed and elegant appearance of the Concorde inspired awe. Its ear-rattling sonic booms irritated people on the ground and led to restrictions on where the jet could fly.

The Concorde’s maiden flight was 50 years ago this month. Although the plane went out of service in 2003, its delta-wing design and drooping nose still make it instantly recognizable even to people who have never seen one in person.

The Concorde was the world’s first supersonic passenger plane. It was a technological marvel and a source of pride in Britain and France, whose aerospace companies joined forces to produce the plane.

Its first flight occurred on March 2, 1969, in Toulouse, France. The test flight lasted 28 minutes. British Airways and Air France launched passenger flights in 1976.

With four jet engines and afterburners, the plane could fly at twice the speed of sound and cruised at close to 60,000 feet, far above other airliners. It promised to revolutionize long-distance travel by cutting flying time from the U.S. East Coast to Europe from eight hours to three-and-a-half hours.

Depending on the layout, the plane could seat up to 128 passengers, far fewer than on many other planes flying the trans-Atlantic routes. The relative scarcity of seats and the plane’s high operating costs made tickets expensive — typically several thousand dollars — so it was mostly reserved for the wealthy and famous, occasionally royalty.

In the U.S., the plane flew mainly to New York and Washington and attracted quite a buzz. In the mid-1980s, men dressed as Union and Confederate soldiers to re-enact a Civil War battle in Virginia paused in mid-skirmish to gaze up at a Concorde flying into nearby Dulles Airport.

A Concorde captain raved that the plane flew beautifully, and that the only indication of its speed came from looking down at other jets far below that seemed as if they were flying backward — the Concorde was moving about 800 mph faster.

Jamie Baker, an airline analyst and aviation enthusiast, took the plane from New York to London in 2002. Perhaps because it was a morning flight, the mood was more dignified than festive, Baker says. The ride was so smooth that there was hardly any sensation of flight.

“No turbulence. No sense of motion, save for the clouds passing by below us,” Baker says. “Concorde was a tool devised to outwit time.”

Former Boeing engineer Peter Lemme recalls his 1998 flight as a delight, but cramped.

“The seats were more like what we flew domestically in coach,” he says. “The food was excessive,” including caviar, and there was a duty-free cart piled with very expensive items.

However, the Concorde never caught on widely. The plane’s economics were challenging, and its sonic booms led it to be banned on many overland routes. Only 20 were built; 14 of which were used for passenger service.

As time went on, flights were disrupted by mechanical breakdowns including engine failures and a broken rudder. Reviewers complained about the small cabin, noise, and vibrations that started during takeoff and continued once airborne.

The plane’s darkest day came on July 25, 2000, when an Air France Concorde crashed into a hotel and exploded shortly after takeoff in Paris, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

Investigators determined that the plane ran over a metal strip that had fallen off another jet on to the runway, damaging a tire. A piece of the tire crashed into the underside of the wing, shockwaves caused a fuel tank to rupture, and the fuel ignited.

The planes were grounded for expensive modifications. After 18 months, BA and Air France both resumed flights, but traffic never recovered.

It was determined that a more intensive and expensive maintenance schedule would be required to keep the fleet flying. In 2003, BA and Air France both stopped Concorde service.

BA’s chief executive called it “the end of a fantastic era in world aviation,” but added that retiring the planes was a prudent business decision.

Supersonic transports could yet make a comeback. Several companies are working on models and hope to test them soon.
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At President Donald Trump’s direction, the United States intends to scrap the preferential trade status granted to India and Turkey, officials said Monday.

Washington “intends to terminate India’s and Turkey’s designations as beneficiary developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program because they no longer comply with the statutory eligibility criteria,” the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said in a statement.

India has failed to provide assurances that it would allow required market access, while Turkey is “sufficiently economically developed” that it no longer qualifies, USTR added.

Under the GSP program, “certain products” can enter the US duty-free if countries meet eligibility criteria including “providing the United States with equitable and reasonable market access.”

India, however, “has implemented a wide array of trade barriers that create serious negative effects on United States commerce,” the statement said.

Turkey, after being designated a GSP beneficiary in 1975, has meanwhile demonstrated a “higher level of economic development,” meaning that it can be “graduated” from the program, according to USTR.
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Tiny Estonia has become the latest European country with a political landscape reshaped by a populist party promising national survival in an age of globalism, a development noted Monday in light of European Union parliament elections.

Political observers watched a parliamentary election held Sunday in the Baltic nation, an EU and NATO member that borders Russia, as a continental barometer for whether far-right nationalists would continue making gains. And in Estonia, they did. 

While the center-right Reform Party, which ran on a low-tax, small-government platform, will be tasked with forming a government, the anti-immigrant, euroskeptic Estonian Conservative People’s Party more than doubled its seat tally in parliament.

Reform Party leader Kaja Kallas is expected to become the country’s first female prime minister after her party finished with 28.8 percent of the vote. The party said before the election it would not consider the Estonian Conservative People’s Party, or EKRE, as a potential governing coalition partner. 

The far-right party nevertheless captured a larger platform for its positions, some of which critics see as homophobic and racist. Martin Helme, who runs EKRE with his father and leads its parliament caucus, has said publicly that only white immigrants should be allowed into Estonia. 

On election night, Helme said the party’s growing popularity was “no different than almost all other countries in Europe, where there’s a serious public demand for political parties who will stand up against the globalist agenda” and European Union policymakers.

But the “biggest achievement” the vote count reflects is “We are dictating the Estonian political agenda,” he said. 

In recent years and months, support for populist parties with nationalist agendas has grown in Europe, from Poland and Hungary to France and Italy.

The outcome in Estonia bore similarities to what happened in Sweden last year. The Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, won 62 seats in the 349-member parliament on Sept. 9, making it the third-largest party. 

The other parties ruled out forming a coalition government that included the Sweden Democrats. It took four months before a two-party, center-left minority government took office. 

In some countries, including Italy, nationalist surges followed large influxes of immigrants. In others, like Poland and Estonia, mass migration has been a source of anxiety even though the number of arriving migrants has been extremely small.

Shrinking populations and the threat of cultural identity eroding stirs the fear in countries that gained independence with the fall of the Soviet Union three decades ago.

Estonia, a former Soviet republic, has just 1.3 million people and its population declines each year due to low birth rates and emigration to richer Western countries. Ethnic Estonians make up 70 percent of the population, or some 900,000 people.

​In explaining his party’s success in the election, Martin Helme, 42, said its message promoting traditional values has appeal to voters when demographic changes are causing worries.

“Emigration is a big thing in Estonia,” he said. “The replacement of the population in Estonia. Estonians are leaving and others coming in. These are big issues. Compared to those issues, tax issues are just meaningless.”

EKRE was formed in 2012 through a merger of an agrarian and a populist party. It defines its ideology as nationalist-conservative and its goal to protect the benefits of ethnic Estonians.

The party leads an annual torch-lit Independence Day march through Tallinn’s Old Town. During the February event, hundreds of participants shout the party’s slogan “For Estonia!”

Martin Helme’s father, party chairman Mart Helme, is a former diplomat and a historian specializing in ancient Estonian civilization. He took over as EKRE’s leader in 2013 and led it to securing 8 percent of the vote, or seven parliament seats, in 2015.

The party opposed Estonia becoming the first ex-Soviet republic to allow same-sex couples to register as civil partners. In the past, it called for a referendum on leaving the EU but did not gain traction with the idea.

Martin Molder, a political scientist at Estonia’s University of Tartu, thinks the party’s growing strength is a protest against established elites.

“There’s a lot of generic dissatisfaction in the electorate in regards to how ‘business as usual’ is done in politics,” Molder said. “Certain parties and politicians have been in power for a long time and they’ve created a kind of class of professional politicians whose only experience in life has been doing politics.”

 
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The Kremlin had hoped that by fomenting a separatist insurgency in east Ukraine’s Donbas region, Ukraine could be snapped back into the Russian orbit, but the strategy appears to have backfired, say analysts.

The debate over whether Ukraine should look west and align with the European Union or east towards Moscow appears to be over — at least for now.

This month’s presidential election appears to many as another major stage in Ukraine’s journey to break free of Russia and carve out an independent future for itself free of constraints imposed by the Kremlin.

It is the first, they say, since the Soviet era that has not been dominated by debate about whether Ukraine’s best prospects rest with the West or Russia. Being labeled Russia-friendly is a liability for any candidate in an election that’s featuring 43 hopefuls.

And in his bid to secure re-election, incumbent president Petro Poroshenko, who is trailing according to opinion polls in third place, has not been shy to label his two main rivals: popular TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the upstart frontrunner, and veteran politician Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister now campaigning as a recast Ukrainian nationalist, as “agents of the Kremlin.”

Pro-Moscow is out

The top openly pro-Russian candidate, Yuriy Boyko, a former deputy prime minister and ally of ousted authoritarian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was driven from office by the popular Maidan uprising in 2014, is languishing in fourth place.

In the opinion polls he is stuck at around 10 percent of the vote. And there are few signs he will be able to break out from his electoral stronghold of the south-east and improve his position before polling in the first round of voting on Mar. 31.

“He has Russian President Vladimir Putin to thank for that,” says Tetiana Popova, media expert and former deputy minister for information policy. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its violent occupation of the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, has in effect deprived Boyko of a huge pool of pro-Russian voters.

Voters in the Donbas and the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea traditionally back candidates who promote close ties to Russia, but in this election they have all but been disenfranchised inadvertently by Putin. They face steep obstacles if they want to cast a ballot in the presidential race, having either to go to consulates overseas or travel to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.

“Losing pro-Russian voters in Crimea and Donbas means the electorate has become even more pro-Europe — you can see it in the ratings,” says Popova.

And Russia’s intervention in the east, a reaction to the pro-Moscow Yanukovych’s ouster and part of a strategy, say Western diplomats, aimed at disrupting Ukraine and exerting pressure on it, is deeply angering Ukrainians. An estimated 13,000 people have died in the Donbas conflict. As a result, two-thirds of Ukrainians view Russia as an “aggressor country,” fueling pro-West sentiment and public support for the country to join NATO.

“Russia’s intervention in the east, where pro-Moscow separatists enjoy Russia’s full support, has backfired — it is just making Ukrainians more pro-Western,” says a U.S. diplomat. “It isn’t for nothing that people here say, ‘Putin may have got Crimea for a while, but he has lost Ukraine,’” he adds.

Debate not over, really

But some warn Russia should not be written out of the picture yet, noting that Ukraine has switched between East and West and back again before.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, Ukrainian commentator Konstantin Skorkin noted that while “for the first time since Ukraine’s independence, national elections will not feature a powerful, pro-Russian force capable of winning,” the Kremlin will likely continue to play a “long game” to try to snap Ukraine back into the Russian orbit.

Elections later this year for the Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, could well be seized on by the Kremlin as “an opportunity to change the political course in Kyiv,” he fears. Viktor Medvedchuk, a well-known pro-Russian politician closely associated with Putin, has already announced plans to create a pro-Russia political coalition.

And the “Kremlin will likely try to enact its will by manipulating information and fomenting propaganda narratives that stoke division within Ukrainian society,” Skorkin cautions.

Some say that’s already happening.

Russian influence

There are fears that Russian special services with the help of local proxies are preparing to spread false exit-poll data to set the grounds for the Kremlin to claim the results are fake and the election illegitimate.

And Poroshenko has accused Russia of launching cyberattacks against Ukraine’s Central Election Commission. And Ukraine’s State Security Service, SBU, say cyber-hackers have been targeting campaign staff’s personal computers.

On Thursday, SBU deputy head Viktor Kononenko told reporters a “group of Russian citizens and Ukrainian collaborators” had used financial bribes to set up a network of people ready to vote for a certain candidate and to influence public opinion. He did not indicate which candidate.

Adrian Karatnycky, an analyst at the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, has raised the possibility the Kremlin “may have had a hand in the doctoring of data” for an explosive media expose last week implicating the son of a Poroshenko associate in the embezzlement of millions of dollars from state defense enterprises.

The scheme, involving the smuggling of used parts from Russia and then the selling of them to Ukrainian defense companies at inflated prices, has been seized on by Poroshenko’s challengers.

Poroshenko has not been directly implicated in any accusations of wrongdoing, and his aides point out that the expose was based on leaked documents of an ongoing probe into the scheme by the government, an illustration, they say, of the incumbent’s commitment to fighting corruption.

“Whatever the ultimate truth of the allegations [and even the journalists say only that the evidence is ‘most likely’ true] voters should be skeptical until the facts have been ascertained,” says Karatnycky. “Given Putin’s aim to destroy any Ukrainian President who defies him, a Russian intelligence hand in this cannot be excluded.”

The fallout from the expose appears to be helping the upstart Zelenskiy.

Poroshenko is widely seen as the Kremlin’s least preferred candidate. He has pushed reforms to help Ukraine integrate with Europe and has responded robustly to Russian intervention in the east, say analysts.

Zelenskiy, who’s turned the race upside down by capitalizing on economic hardship and public fatigue with falling living standards, has promised to engage with the Kremlin to end the conflict in the Donbas. Poroshenko supporters say Zelenskiy is ill-equipped and too inexperienced to deal with the wily Putin.

 
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