Ax-wielding robbers stole jewelry on Wednesday possibly worth more than $5 million from a store in the famed Ritz Paris hotel, police said.

Five thieves carried out the heist at the luxury hotel in late afternoon. Three were arrested while two others got away. There were no injuries.

“The loss is very high and remains to be assessed,” one police source said. Another put the figure at 4.5 million euros ($5.38 million), but said that a bag had been recovered possibly containing some of the loot.

The hotel first opened in 1898 and was the first Paris hotel to boast electricity on all floors and bathrooms that were inside rooms.

The former home of fashion designer Coco Chanel and author Marcel Proust, the Ritz was a favourite drinking hole of American writer Ernest Hemingway.

It was at the Ritz that Diana, Princess of Wales, spent her last night in 1997 before the car crash that killed her and her lover Dodi Fayed, son of the hotel’s owner Mohammed al-Fayed.

Armed heists targeting jewellery stores are not uncommon in the ultra chic avenues near Place Vendome square in central Paris where the Ritz is located.
…

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci is insisting that he will sign legislation to abolish a special court set up to try former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members for war and postwar crimes if parliament passes such a measure.

“The law on [the] special court is in place, but if the parliament votes otherwise, it will be my legal and constitutional duty to sign such legislation,” he said in a Wednesday interview with VOA’s Albanian Service.

It is unclear why Thaci, a former leader of the KLA, changed his position on the Hague-based special court, which was set up under Kosovo’s jurisdiction. The law, which required constitutional changes, was passed in 2015 amid pressure from the international community. As foreign minister at that time, Thaci supported the legislation and played a key role in having it passed.

Asked whether he was concerned he might be among those charged with war crimes, Thaci said he was “not afraid of justice.”

Equal treatment demanded

Echoing the opinions of those who see the establishment of the special court as unfair, the president warned that “Kosovo should not be discriminated [against] by the international community.”

“It must be treated the same way as other former Yugoslav states,” he said.

The motion to suspend the law was presented unexpectedly — late on December 22, just before the long Christmas holiday — by a group of 43 parliamentarians.

Alarmed at the surprise development, the U.S. ambassador, along with fellow Western ambassadors, immediately arrived at parliament in an effort to push back, urging Kosovo leaders to abandon the suspension by warning of serious consequences.

“The United States is deeply concerned by recent attempts of Kosovo lawmakers to abrogate the law on the Specialist Chambers,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a December 29 statement, referring to the special court by its official name. “We call on political leaders in the Republic of Kosovo to maintain their commitment to the work of the Chambers and to leave the authorities and jurisdiction of the court unchanged.”

A few days later, another statement by Quint NATO countries — an informal decision-making group consisting of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States — was even harsher.

‘Severe negative consequences’

“Anyone who supports [suspending the special court] will be rejecting Kosovo’s partnership with our countries,” it said, adding that if Kosovo continued on this path, it would have “severe negative consequences, including for Kosovo’s international and Euro-Atlantic integration.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on December 21 that “the pursuit of justice in the Balkans is not over” and that the U.S. “remains committed to supporting justice for the victims.”

The head of the EU’s office in Kosovo called the attempt “appalling” and “extremely damaging for Kosovo.”

The special court would hear cases of alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious crimes committed during and after the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo.

Kosovo’s parliament is in recess until next week, and it is unclear whether the motion will be put up for a vote.

This story originated in VOA’s Albanian Service.
…

It was July 20, 1998, and “Drita” was traveling with her younger sister to visit family in a rural part of Serbia-controlled Kosovo.

“They stopped the bus, made us come out and asked for ID,” Drita, who did not want to be identified by her real name, told VOA’s Albanian Service. “They asked my sister to get out first, and I immediately went after her because I have always been close to her and she is two years younger.”

Like most ethnic Albanian women caught up in Kosovo’s two-year fight for secession, neither Drita nor her sister possessed official documentation, so the soldiers began herding them, along with three other female passengers, toward an abandoned house without doors or windows.

Watching as the frightened women were dragged away, Drita’s husband jumped from the bus, demanding to know where they were being taken. Insistently grabbing a soldier by the arm, he was shoved to the ground and battered with an iron rod.

Once inside, Drita could still hear his screams.

“And right in front of me, I could hear and see my sister,” she said, choking back tears as she struggled to describe the scene. “I was torn whether to run to my husband or my sister, [who] was there in front of me.”

With troops restraining her arms and grabbing at her knees, Drita thrashed about in panic as two others raped and beat her sister unconscious. Drita bit a chunk of flesh from a soldier’s hand, only to be struck by a scrap of discarded lumber, a protruding nail plunging into her arm.

“I still have the mark,” she said. “I tried to stop them, but I was beaten so hard because I tried to fight them like a man, and outside, I was hearing my husband scream.”

​Silent decades

International humanitarian organizations and local NGOs have collected an estimated 20,000 accounts of systematic rape and torture perpetrated by Serbian forces loyal to former President Slobodan Milosevic, whose bid to repress Kosovo’s fight for independence in the late 1990s left at least 11,000 Kosovars dead and 700,000 displaced.

Many survivors kept quiet for decades, fearing the shame that a rape can bring upon an extended family in a historically patriarchal society. Now, they are starting to find their voices, following a decision by the government to provide reparations for victims of sexual war crimes under a law that compensates veterans of the Kosovo War.

They welcome the lifetime monthly compensation of $275 for the physical and psychological trauma — about 90 percent of the average salary for Kosovar women. But many say justice remains elusive.

Two kinds of suppression

As Kosovo struggled to rebuild and secure international recognition in the wake of its 2008 declaration of independence, the issue of sexual violence remained largely on the back burner.

The reason, said Vlora Çitaku, Pristina’s ambassador to the United States, is because in Kosovo, as in many societies, “it is often the victim that gets blamed, not the perpetrator.”

Çitaku, herself a former refugee, said her family has long honored a late uncle lost in the battle for independence.

“Unfortunately for children of the survivors of sexual violence, the experience is completely the opposite,” she told VOA. “They don’t live with pride like I do. They have fear, they feel shame, and they are worried that they will be excluded, that their families will be excluded, that their mother will suffer if her story comes out.”

Drita, for example, said no one in her extended family knows what happened to her.

“These victims,” Çitaku said, “have carried on their shoulders not only the pain but also the shame” of an entire war-racked generation.

The emotional weight was so leaden that many Kosovar rape victims committed suicide or fell prey to family “honor killings,” leading some analysts to suspect that the roughly 20,000 documented accounts of rape by Serb forces in Kosovo are just a small fraction of the actual number.

No role in negotiations

Aside from Kosovo’s regional cultural norms, Shirley DioGuardi, who wrote about Kosovo in Women and Genocide, identifies another reason for the suppression of rape accounts: the international community’s exclusion of female victims from postwar discussions.

“We have so many qualified Kosovar women, and they were not allowed by the international community to be part of the negotiations,” she told VOA, referring to the fact that peace talks were led exclusively by men.

Some experts say this twofold suppression of accounts of conflict-driven sexual atrocities — on both domestic and international fronts — means that stories such as Drita’s are not only under-reported but also underprosecuted.

Despite numerous high-profile war crimes prosecutions by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a recent report by London-based Amnesty International said only a handful of perpetrators had been convicted of sexually motivated war crimes — and those exclusively by regional Serbian courts.

Because neither ICTY nor the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo has brought any perpetrator to justice, accounts such as Drita’s may be the only remaining historical evidence.

“Now, 18 years later, very little evidence survives, and the main evidence actually is what the survivors have to say,” said Sian Jones, an Amnesty International Kosovo expert.

That’s why, she added, “we are calling for reforms within the judicial system that will protect witnesses if they will come forward, which will give them support if they decide to go through the process of a court case at this stage.”

Amnesty International lauds the monthly stipend as “a just and dignified amount,” noting that the reparations law recognizes rape survivors as victims of the conflict, providing them benefits similar to those of war veterans. But critics say the law still falls short of international standards by excluding the predominantly Kosovo-Serb, Roma and Albanian women who were raped after hostilities formally concluded.

Rape as genocidal act

It wasn’t until 1994 — 46 years after the United Nations unanimously passed the Genocide Convention — that rape was officially categorized as an act of genocide, a step vital to including Kosovar women in the war victims category.

“I think it has to do with the fact that the act of rape is a mechanism of war against the female population of the world, and we can no longer accept that, just as we wouldn’t accept any other form of murder and torture that men were involved particularly,” said DioGuardi, who has written extensively about rape as a tool of warfare.

No amount of financial compensation or redefinition of war crimes can restore what Drita lost — specifically because the burden of trauma is passed on to future generations.

“I feel bad for my son, because I was never able as a parent to give him that joy, that cheerful smile that a child needs,” Drita said.

Although she survived the assault, she lost an unborn child, and three years later her husband died of complications from the beating.

“I have waited so long to be able to tell someone, to tell that we also fought — maybe not with weapons, but I confronted an over 6-foot-tall man,” Drita said. “I was raped and beaten, and I don’t even know how have I been able to make it to this day, but I am very strong and I don’t know how.”

The compensation means she will no longer need to beg, even if she’ll quietly continue to pray for the kind of emotional and psychological support from the broader community that would enable her to maintain the semblance of a normal life.

“Even if we receive millions, what happened to us will remain with us for the whole life,” she said. “It is etched in our souls because it is something that cannot be erased from our brain.”

As Kosovo advances into the future, having largely secured a stable postwar foundation, there still “cannot be peace,” said Çitaku, “if there is denial.”

This story originated in VOA’s Albanian Service.
…

A U.S. congressional report issued Wednesday accused Russia of mounting a protracted assault on democracy at home and abroad, and urged a multi-pronged counter-strategy that begins with U.S. presidential leadership, something the report alleged has been lacking from Donald Trump.

Prepared by Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and provided in advance to VOA, the report said, “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s regime has developed a formidable set of tools to exert influence abroad” and “appears intent on using almost any means possible to undermine democratic institutions and trans-Atlantic alliances.”

Based on months of research and informational exchanges with foreign governments targeted by the Kremlin, the 206-page report exhaustively documented the full array of tools Russia has wielded beyond its borders.

Putin’s “asymmetric arsenal” ranges from “a lethal blend of conventional military assaults, assassinations, disinformation campaigns, [and] cyberattacks” in Ukraine to plotting a coup in Montenegro to disinformation and cyberattacks in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and beyond, according to the report.

The document also details years of alleged oppression and violence within Russia against Putin’s perceived adversaries and critics. The Russian leader, the report said, “gained and solidified power by exploiting blackmail, fears of terrorism, and war” and “combined military adventurism and aggression abroad with propaganda and political repression at home, to persuade a domestic audience that he is restoring Russia to greatness.”

“This is not a report on the hacking of the 2016 [U.S.] election. It’s a report about how Russia operates around the world,” said a committee staff members who helped prepare the document, adding that the report is the first from a U.S. governmental entity that spells out “the scale and scope” of the Russian threat.

Without fully understanding that threat, the staffer said, “you can’t prevent it from happening again.”

The report detailed steps European nations have taken to combat Russian influence, both individually and within organizations such as NATO and the European Union. The United States, it contended, lags far behind.

“President Trump has been negligent in acknowledging and responding to the threat to U.S. national security posed by Putin’s meddling,” the report said. “The president should immediately declare that it is U.S. policy to counter and deter all forms of the Kremlin’s hybrid threats against the United States and around the world. … The president should also present to Congress a comprehensive national strategy to counter these grave national security threats.”

Establishing a fusion cell

The report recommended establishing an inter-agency task force or “fusion cell” for combating Russian influence modeled on the National Counterterrorism Center. It also recommended designating countries that employ malign influence operations as “State Hybrid Threat Actors,” and subjecting them to “a pre-emptive and escalatory sanctions regime.”

Minority reports are common on Capitol Hill. Like all such reports, this one was prepared for the full Foreign Relations Committee, which is Republican-led.

“We think a lot of [the report’s] recommendations and findings would be supported on a bipartisan basis,” a committee staff member said.

Putin has consistently ridiculed any suggestion of foreign meddling, and last year Trump appeared to back him up, at least in regard to the 2016 U.S. election.

“He [Putin] said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump told reporters after a November meeting with the Russian leader in Vietnam. “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”

Prominent Republicans have joined Democrats in slamming Trump’s remarks.

“There’s nothing ‘America First’ about taking the word of a KGB colonel over that of the American intelligence community,” Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said in a statement. “Vladimir Putin does not have America’s interests at heart. To believe otherwise is not only naïve but also places our national security at risk.”

In an interview last year on Australian Broadcasting Corp, McCain said, “I think he [Putin] is the premier and most important threat, more so than ISIS.”

Bipartisan probes

Multiple U.S. congressional committees are conducting bipartisan probes of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, with final reports possible later this year. In the interim, lawmakers of both political parties have spoken out.

“What I will confirm is that the Russian intelligence service is determined, clever,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said in October. “And I recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously.”

“The Russian active measures did not end on Election Day 2016,” the committee’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said, adding that the United States should take a “more aggressive whole government approach” to combat Russian interference.

In pursuing a comprehensive strategy, Democratic staff members on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended examining Russia’s actions in Europe and elsewhere.

“The Europeans have learned some of these lessons and we can learn from them,” a staff member said. “Russia can be deterred.”

“There is a long bipartisan tradition in Congress in support of firm policies to counter Russian government aggression and abuse against its own citizens, our allies, and universal values,” the Foreign Relation Committee’s top Democrat, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, wrote in an introduction to the document. “This report seeks to continue that tradition.”

— This report was embargoed and, as a result, VOA was unable to get White House reaction before its release.
…

During his first state visit to China this week, French President Emmanuel Macron brought with him two key messages, analysts said.

One message was about the huge possibilities cooperation between China and Europe could bring and his commitment to that effort. The other, a warning to not underestimate growing concern and frustration in Europe – and elsewhere – with what many regard as China’s unfair trade practices such as investment restrictions in many sectors that are not blocked in countries overseas.

Matheiu Duchatel, deputy director of the Asia and China Program at the European Council of Foreign Relations said President Macron’s visit goes beyond France.

“He wants to present himself as a leader of the EU, but at the same time, I think he wants to send a signal that Europe and the EU are in better shape than many think in China,” Duchatel said.

Despite the Brexit referendum, Catalonia’s push for independence and the broader rise of populist parties, Duchatel said that now – more than before – governments in Europe are voicing concern about China’s trade practices.

And it is not just Europe, but the United States and Australia as well, he adds, noting that China now faces a “united front from developed countries against its unfair trade practices.”

“Many are coming to terms with the reality that China is no longer the factory of the world, but it is clearly a country that has very strong ambitions in terms of economic leadership for the world and it is not a market economy,” Duchatel said.

Building relationships

In China, President Macron went to great lengths to highlight his desire to meld both the interests of Europe and China, presenting China’s leader Xi Jinping with a gift of a horse, an eight-year old gelding named Vesuvius.

Macron pledged to visit China at least once every year while in office and said that he is determined to “get the Europe-China relationship into the 21st Century.” The two signed several major trade deals during the visit, that included fields such as food, nuclear power and aerospace. President Xi said the two countries will deepen their “strategic cooperation.”

During his first stop in Xi’an, Macron talked up China’s massive trillion-dollar trade and commerce project, the “Belt and Road” initiative, offering Paris’s support, albeit with a caveat.

Xi’an was once the starting point of the Silk Road, ancient trade routes for silk, spices and horses that China seeks to build on adding maritime routes as well. In a speech at Daming Palace, the former royal residence during China’s Tang Dynasty, Macron noted that the ancient Silk Roads were never only Chinese.

“By definition these roads can only be shared,” he told an audience of academics, students and business people. “If they are roads, they cannot be one-way.”

In a speech at a start-up incubator Tuesday, with Alibaba Founder Jack Ma at his side, along with other French and Chinese companies, Macron also talked about the possibilities cooperation could bring and warned about the looming threat of protectionism if adjustments were not made.

“France imports 45 billion from China but only exports 15 billion, so we have access to markets which is unbalanced, unsatisfying. If we don’t deal with this responsibly, the first, natural, reaction, the one we’ve had for too long, will be to close up on both sides,” Macron said.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University said that in many ways the trip is an effort to not only correct France’s deficit problems, but put relations between China and Europe on more equal footing.

“I think the message is clear, France and the European Union want more reciprocity a more balanced relationship, and also want to take advantage of the Silk Road initiative, but there are a lot of questions which are not going to be resolved by this trip,” Cabestan said.

Like France, economies across the globe want to do more business in the country’s massive market and have more investment come to their shores, but China’s pace of adopting reforms to further open up its doors is feeding a global backlash.

The United States and European Union are currently looking at ways to tighten scrutiny of foreign investments and Macron is an advocate of a tighter screening mechanism in Europe for some sectors. A position he did not hide during the visit. But for now, it’s unclear if anything will change soon.

Some analysts argue that given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s frequent stated opposition to protectionism and support for globalization, he has no choice but to press ahead with reforms and soon. Others, however, are not as convinced, noting Xi’s strong support for state-owned enterprises over the past two years.

Zhang Lun, a political scientist at the Universite de Cergy-Pointoise said that there is still a big push back against western companies gaining a bigger share of China’s market.

“Overall it will be very tough for France to achieve its objective (balancing the deficit), much like (U.S. President) Donald Trump has struggled to balance trade as well. But at the same time, China needs the international market to cope with the growing pressure (to open up more) and its slowing economy,” Zhang said.

If China continues to ignore such calls, however, the relationship is likely to only continue to deteriorate.
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Poland’s ruling conservatives fired several senior government ministers on Tuesday in an apparent move to patch up relations with the European Union strained over accusations that Warsaw is subverting rule of law standards.

Facing unprecedented EU legal action over the alleged politicization of Poland’s judiciary, the Law and Justice (PiS) party may want to defuse tensions in other areas such as environment policy and defense, analysts say.

The changes also came with the EU about to embark on negotiations on a new seven-year budget that will decide which member states get what out of the bloc’s coffers – with Poland currently the biggest net recipient.

President Andrzej Duda, acting on recommendations of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, dismissed Environment Minister Jan Szyszko, who has spearheaded far-reaching logging in an ancient forest that prompted action by the European Court of Justice.

Also losing their job were Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, a former anti-communist crusader facing criticism over delays in modernizing the army as well as conflicts with top generals, as well as Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, seen in Brussels as an ineffective diplomat.

The reshuffle removed ministers seen from the EU perspective as combative or ill-informed. It followed the appointment of former bank CEO and finance minister Morawiecki as prime minister, replacing Beata Szydlo, last month at the midpoint of the parliamentary term. PiS faces local elections in late 2018 and legislative and presidential ballots in 2019 and 2020.

“The new (government) should help us build a sovereign Poland within a strong Europe, a Europe of homelands,” Morawiecki said after the new appointments were announced.

The feud between Brussels and Warsaw’s eurosceptic government has emerged as a central element of mounting tensions between wealthier western EU members and the ex-communist east amid a wider debate over the bloc’s future.

Many westerners are keen for EU countries to integrate further in the wake of Britain’s shock decision to leave the bloc, but this is strongly opposed by nationalist-minded politicians dominating eastern EU countries such as Poland and Hungary.

Questions Whether Gesture Will Work

It remains to be seen whether Morawiecki will improve Warsaw’s relations with EU headquarters in Brussels. He travels there later on Tuesday to meet top EU officials.

Poland could face the suspension of its EU voting rights if it fails to strike a compromise on democracy and rule of law issues with Brussels, although Hungary’s like-minded government has threatened to veto such a move.

Judicial reforms at the heart of the dispute with Brussels are seen by PiS as a fundamental element of its efforts to overhaul Poland’s democratic institutions.

“The president has already signed judiciary legislation into law so it seems the conflict is irresolvable here,” said Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

In a sign that policy is unlikely to change, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro kept his job. New rules had given Ziobro powers to appoint the heads of lower-level courts as well as exercise oversight over prosecutors.

The PiS believes reforms are needed because the country has lost sight of its Catholic soul and is steeped in mentality and power structures dating to the post-war communist era. Critics say that the government’s efforts to wield control over courts and public media are tilting Poland towards authoritarian rule.

Szyszko had attracted widespread criticism domestically over moves to lift limits on hunting and felling of trees on private property – which led to massive logging in areas of Poland.

Radziwill has struggled to contain widespread protests by medical residents in recent months over working conditions, which have exacerbated staffing shortages in some notoriously underfunded hospitals.

The outgoing defense minister has been the PiS investigator into the 2010 plane crash over Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski – the twin brother of current PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski – and dozens of senior officials.

Kaczynski and Macierewicz believe the crash may have been caused by foul play and not pilot error, which was the official cause returned by an investigation by the previous centrist government and is believed by the majority of Poles.
…

President Donald Trump is planning to attend the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos later this month.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says in a statement that the president welcomes the opportunity to promote his “America First” agenda with world leaders.

Sanders says Trump wants to promote his policies for strengthening American businesses, industries and workers.

The annual gathering of global political and business elites is scheduled to take place from January 23-26 in Switzerland.

American presidents rarely attend. Then-vice president Joe Biden attended last year.

The New York Times first reported on Trump’s plans to attend the forum.

 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday said a sanctions-busting court case in New York involving Turkish nationals is a “political coup attempt” against him and his government. With Erdogan also threatening military action against a key U.S. ally in Syria, relations between the NATO allies could deteriorate further.

Erdogan alleged the conviction of a Turkish state banker in the federal case is the latest attempt by the FBI and CIA to unseat him. He made the comment while addressing members of his AK Party in parliament.

“Those who could not succeed in the military coup attempt in Turkey on July 15 [2016], are now searching for a different attempt in our country, he said. He cited the case in the U.S. as “the address of this political coup attempt.”

Ankara also accuses Washington of collaborating with U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in the 2016 failed coup that left an estimated 150 people dead. The U.S. denies the accusation.Turkey has asked the U.S. to extradite Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania and has denied all involvement in the coup attempt.

Bilateral relations between the NATO allies, already deeply strained since the coup attempt, have been further exacerbated by the conviction in New York of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a senior executive of Halkbank, on charges of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.

The repercussions of that conviction could lead to a further ratcheting up of tensions, warned analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

“I see an escalation of the crisis,” he said. “The United States could threaten a wide range of sanctions; even the threat would cast a long shadow on the Turkish banking system. There would be immense difficulties for Turkish entities to borrow abroad.”

Turkey needs to borrow around $16 billion a month to cover its financial obligations.

Erdogan also threatened Tuesday to attack the Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG, a key U.S. ally in the war against Islamic State. Ankara considers the militia a terrorist organization linked to an ongoing insurgency in Turkey.

Diplomatic columnist Semih Idiz of the al-Monitor website said the threat could be an effort to pressure Washington

“There is definite brinkmanship on the part of Turkey,” he said. “There is no doubt about that and there is no guarantee it will get what it wants. But Ankara is banking on the fact that Turkey is vitally strategic for Washington and somewhere it can’t be avoided, not that Turkey is courting Russia and all this. So I think Erdogan is trying to apply pressure to reduce whatever penalty is coming.”

To U.S. unease, Turkey is increasingly deepening relations with Russia. Erdogan is also looking to France after a visit last week to Paris, with pro-government media touting France as a more reliable ally than the United States.

But with both Paris and Moscow also supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia, analysts suggest Ankara is unlikely to carry out its threats against the group. They say if the current deterioration in relations with Washington continues, Ankara’s search for other allies is likely to intensify.
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Swiss authorities near the famed Matterhorn peak have closed ski slopes, hiking trails, cable cars, roads and train service into the nearby town of Zermatt amid a heightened risk of avalanches, stranding some 13,000 tourists in the town.

Janine Imesch of the Zermatt tourism office says power has been restored in the town and no people were at risk because authorities shuttered access to the nearby ski slopes and hiking trails a day earlier. Imesch says Tuesday “there is nothing to panic about, everything is fine.”

The office’s website earlier indicated that arrivals and departures from the town were not possible. It noted a “power breakdown all over Zermatt” and called on people to “stay at home” so as not to disrupt snow clearing crews.
…

Poland’s new prime minister is looking to improve strained relations with partners in the European Union when he arrives in Brussels on Tuesday. 

Mateusz Morawiecki, who replaced Beata Szydlo last month, is expected to stand his ground over several thorny issues that have raised concerns across the EU. 

The Polish government’s stance on justice reform and immigration has prompted so much unease within the EU that a procedure to strip the country of voting rights in the 28-nation bloc has been started. 

“We are expecting Brussels to understand our position,” deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski said ahead of the introductory bilateral dinner between the new prime minister and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.  

Blurring separation of powers

EU leaders have questioned whether Poland, a member of the bloc since 2004, respects fundamental democratic rules over recent reforms to the judiciary. 

Juncker’s office sees the reform as blurring the separation of powers and gives the governing Law and Justice too much control over the judges.

Defending the changes, Morawiecki said in a New Year’s address that “as a sovereign state we have the right to mend our justice system.”

Poland’s refusal to take in its share of an EU quota of refugees is another source of tension.

Ahead of the meeting, Morawiecki is set to shuffle his government. The changes will be carefully monitored by top EU officials to see if they signal a more emollient approach to EU standards. 

EU seeks a show of unity

Already resigned to the departure of Britain next year, the EU wants to maintain unity as much as possible this year. 

“There is a kind of accumulated tension that is not convenient to either side and none of the sides wants to further escalate this tension,” said Malgorzata Bonikowska, head of the Center for International Relations think tank. 

Both sides are in a bind. 

The EU already faces a serious rebel in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, with his staunch opposition to the EU’s migration policies. Orban could veto any attempt to strip Poland of its voting rights. 

However, Poland has no interest in escalating the crisis either as any road to EU departure could threaten the billions the country receives from EU coffers. In the 2014-2020 budget, Poland has been allocated 86 billion euros ($103 billion) in EU structural and investment funds. A vast majority of Poles support EU membership. 
…

Turkey’s nationalist opposition said on Monday it would back President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the 2019 election, signaling continued right-wing support crucial to his narrow victory in a constitutional referendum last year.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the smallest of parliament’s four factions, backed the vote to grant Erdogan sweeping executive powers, helping it squeak by with a margin of 51.4 percent.

“The MHP will not submit a presidential candidate,” MHP leader Devlet Bahceli told a news conference. “The MHP will take a decision to support Erdogan in the presidential elections.” Turks will vote for both president and parliament next year.

Bahceli has said he wants a reduction in the minimum 10 percent vote required for a party to enter parliament.

Over the past two decades he has brought the MHP more toward the mainstream and away from its early reputation for ties to rightist street gangs.

The party is now looking to fend off a challenge from Meral Aksener, an ex-interior minister and prominent nationalist who last year founded her own party after breaking with the MHP.

One recent poll suggested that Aksener’s party could eclipse the MHP and deprive it of the 10 percent threshold.

Bahceli said the MHP would consider an alliance with Erdogan’s AK Party if such a request came from the AKP.

The MHP won as much as 18 percent in the 1999 parliamentary election, but slipped below the threshold with 9.5 percent in 2002. It has exceeded 10 percent in elections since and took 11.9 percent in the November 2015 vote.

Founded by an ex-colonel involved in a 1960 military coup, the MHP espouses a mix of Turkish nationalism and skepticism toward the West. It is virulently opposed to autonomy for Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

The MHP support base once included sympathizers of the “Grey Wolves,” a nationalist youth group that fought street battles with leftists in the 1970s. Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, was a group member.
…

Romania’s prime minister failed Monday to deliver the government reshuffle he planned as the powerful leader of his party ruled that any changes would have to wait until the end of the month.

There has been mounting speculation in Bucharest that Premier Mihai Tudose wants to replace Liviu Dragnea, the current chairman of the Social Democratic Party who is facing corruption charges, with a committee of regional leaders.

In an open letter published in Romanian media, senior party member Nicolae Badalau urged colleagues to back efforts to make the party more democratic, to be run by “a collective party leadership.”

Dragnea, who can’t serve as prime minister due to a 2016 conviction for vote-rigging, still enjoys the support of most regional party bosses.

While playing down talk of rifts in the party and denying he personally had a tense relationship with the prime minister, Dragnea said any reshuffle had to be conducted through normal party channels.

Dragnea said the Social Democrats would hold another party meeting at the end of the month. Tudose said he would present his plans to reshuffle the government then.

Separately, prosecutors froze Dragnea’s assets in November amid a probe into the misuse of European Union funds. He denies wrongdoing.

Last year, huge anti-government protests erupted over moves to restructure Romania’s justice system, which critics say would make it harder to crack down on high-level corruption.

Dragnea and his allies back the proposals.

 
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January 27 is the day the international community observes Holocaust Remembrance Day by recalling the horrors committed during World War II by Nazi Germany and the bravery of those who risked their lives to save persecuted Jews and others from Nazi death camps. Tatiana Vorozhko and Kostiantyn Golubchyk of VOA’s Ukrainian Service tell the amazing story of a Jewish boy who was saved by a Ukrainian family and later grew up to be a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May has dismissed concerns about Donald Trump’s mental fitness, saying the U.S. president acts in what he sees as the best interests of his country.

A new book by journalist Michael Wolff quotes prominent Trump advisers as questioning the president’s competence.

Asked in an interview whether she thought concerns about Trump’s mental state were serious, May said: “No.”

She said that “when I deal with President Trump what I see is somebody who is committed to ensuring that he is taking decisions in the best interests of the United States.”

In the BBC interview broadcast Sunday, May reaffirmed that Trump would visit Britain. She did not give a date, or say whether it would be a full state visit or a lower-key working trip.

 
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Turkey’s president and the Bulgarian prime minister have unveiled the historic Iron Church in Istanbul after a seven-year restoration project.

In Sunday’s opening ceremony, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the 120-year-old Sveti Stefan Church remains the “single example” of a church built on an iron skeleton.

The cross-shaped Bulgarian church was built on the banks of Istanbul’s Golden Horn in 1898 with 500-tons of prefabricated iron components shipped from Austria. Its restoration since 2011 cost an estimated $3.5 million.

Erdogan said the church contributes to the “beauty and wealth of Istanbul” and is the latest example of Turkey’s efforts to restore synagogues, chapels and churches.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said his country would work to “normalize and improve” Turkey-European Union relations as his country assume the EU’s presidency.

 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel embarked Sunday on talks with the center-left Social Democrats on forming a new government, with leaders stressing the need for speed as they attempt to break an impasse more than three months after the country’s election.

Merkel’s conservative Union bloc and the Social Democrats have run Germany together for the past four years. But the Social Democrats vowed to go into opposition after a disastrous election result Sept. 24, and only reluctantly reconsidered after Merkel’s attempt to build a coalition with two smaller parties collapsed in November.

The effort to form a government has already become post-World War II Germany’s longest ahead of the preliminary talks starting Sunday.

Leaders aim to decide by Friday whether there’s enough common ground to move on to formal coalition negotiations _ a move that would require approval by a Jan. 21 congress of the Social Democrats, many of whom are deeply suspicious of another coalition. Those negotiations, if they happen, would likely take weeks and the Social Democrats have promised to hold a ballot of their entire membership on any coalition deal that emerges.

If the parties don’t form a coalition, the only remaining options would be for Merkel’s conservatives to lead an unprecedented minority government, or a new election.

“I think we can succeed,” Merkel said as she arrived for the talks. “We will work very quickly and very intensely … and always have in mind what people in Germany expect of us – they of course expect of politicians that they solve their problems.”

“I am going into these talks with optimism, but it is clear to me that a huge amount of work lies ahead of us in the coming days,” she added.

The Social Democrats’ leader, Martin Schulz, said his party will take a “constructive and open-ended” approach.

“We are not drawing red lines, but we want to implement as many red policies as possible in Germany,” he said, referring to the party’s color. “Germans are entitled to have this go quickly.”

 
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In January 2018, Kosovo women who were raped by Serbian forces during the 1998-99 armed conflict will begin receiving recognition and compensation for their suffering. For nearly two decades, the women hesitated to tell their stories for fear of being marginalized, stigmatized and shunned. VOA’s Edlira Bllaca and Keida Kostreci report that the trauma is part of the women’s daily lives, and few perpetrators have been convicted for their crimes. Keida Kostreci narrates.
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Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld a ruling barring opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running in the March presidential election.

The high court upheld the Central Election Commission’s decision banning Navalny from running because of his conviction on criminal charges.  

Navalny and his followers say those charges were politically motivated.

Navalny has called for demonstrations across Russia on January 28 to protest the country’s upcoming presidential vote.  

Polls say that incumbent President Vladimir Putin will likely win another six-year term when the election is held on March 18.

Navalny contends that Putin, who has spent the last 17 years as either president or prime minister, has been in power too long.  The opposition leader says Putin’s popularity is largely due to biased state media and an electoral system that excludes legitimate opponents.

Putin, a former KGB officer, is running as an independent, a decision some observers believe would enhance his image as a leader of a nation instead of a party political figure.

Allies have praised Putin for restoring national pride and enhancing Russia’s position as a global leader with military interventions in Syria and Ukraine.

 
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Ex-Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili is vowing to fight the Georgian government if Ukrainian officials move to extradite him to Georgia in light of his conviction by a Tbilisi court Friday.

The court tried and convicted Saakashvili in absentia of abusing his pardon powers while in office. Georgia’s prosecutor says Saakashvili, who was in office from 2004-2013, tried to cover up evidence in the 2006 murder of Sandro Girgvliani. The 28-year-old banker was found dead outside of Tbilisi with multiple injuries after he was seen arguing in a bar with high-ranking Interior Ministry officials.

In 2008 Saakashvili pardoned four Georgian law enforcement officers convicted in Girgvliani’s murder. Georgian prosecutors claim the pardons failed to follow the procedures of a parliamentary commission on pardons and that the pardons were ultimately part of a deal to cover up evidence in an investigation of the banker’s death.

Saakashvili: Pardons were no cover-up

In an exclusive interview with VOA’s Georgian Service, Saakashvili again denied that the 2008 pardons were part of a cover-up.

“Of course [that] did not happen, but even if it had happened it would not have been a crime,” he said, describing presidential power of pardon as unlimited, “one of the very few powers that are totally unlimited for any president in the world.”

Presidential pardons, the power to absolve a convict of their conviction, while common, vary by country according to constitutional statues.

Saakashvili also called Friday’s sentencing a politically motivated conspiracy that “has nothing to do with legality.”

“Nobody ever has tried a former president for using right to pardon,” he said. “What we see is a joint effort by the Ukrainian and Georgian oligarchs. President Poroshenko went to Tbilisi last summer, [and since] he thinks that I am his main problem, he asked them to speed up the cases against me. And that’s when they came up with this case.”

It is not known whether Poroshenko and his Georgian counterparts ever discussed Saakashvili’s case. Shortly after Poroshenko’s July 2017 visit to Tbilisi, however, Kyiv officials stripped Saakashvili, who was on U.S. soil at the time, of his Ukrainian citizenship.

In August he flew to Poland before marching across the Ukrainian border surrounded by a throng of his political supporters who moved border guards aside and ultimately transported him to Kyiv, where he now lives as the world’s only stateless ex-president.

​Renewed extradition dialogue

While Saakashvili’s legal turmoil has followed him from his native Georgia to his adopted home country of Ukraine, Friday’s ruling represents his first prison sentence. Ukrainian officials on Friday said they would consider Georgia’s extradition request, though legal procedures would have to be followed.

According to Saakashvili’s government-appointed lawyer, Sofio Goglichidze, the ruling violates “a number of legal provisions and the constitution.”

“It is obvious that political persecution is going against Mikheil Saakashvili,” Goglichidze said in an interview with RFE/RL. “It was impossible to deliver a guilty verdict in the case in accordance with the law.”

Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian prosecutor general, told Reuters by phone: “[Ukrainian] prosecutors are in the process of arranging a date for Saakashvili’s questioning due to Georgia’s request to extradite him.”

But Saakashvili’s lawyer in Ukraine, Ruslan Chornolutskiy, told RFE/RL that his client’s legal status should prevent his extradition to Georgia.

“According to Ukrainian laws, a person who was a Ukrainian citizen and for the last several years resided in Ukraine cannot be extradited,” Chornolutskiy told RFE/RL. “That is what the law says on foreigners and individuals without citizenship, as well as the international convention that Ukraine has ratified.”

If extradited to Georgia, Saakashvili says he will start a “peaceful fight” to remove the government of billionaire and former prime minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili from power.

“Ivanishvili is very reluctant to get me in Georgia because I am not going to sit quietly in a prison cell,” he told VOA. “For God’s sake, I am a founding father of modern Georgia. I have a huge support among populist there and also among majority of law enforcement and armed services. I am going to call for getting rid of Ivanishvili’s government if they extradite me there. I will do it. I am saying it openly. We will do it peacefully, but we will do it.

“I am not going to allow them to execute the wish of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin by punishing me through the hands of the Georgian jail administration and law-enforcement,” he said.

As Georgia’s president, Saakashvili lost a five-day war in which Russian forces drove deep into Georgia in 2008. He has since referred to himself as Putin’s “biggest enemy in the post-Soviet space.”

Since Saakashvili’s September return to Ukraine, he has led a number of anti-corruption protests against the government.

This story originated in VOA’s Georgian Service.
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Two U.S. senators have called for a criminal investigation of a former British spy who authored a salacious report about Donald Trump when he was a businessman, a report known as the Steele Dossier.

The letter, released on Friday by Republicans Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham, adds to the turmoil that has plagued the Trump administration and will likely deepen the bipartisan rancor in Congress over both the dossier and also interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials. 

In their letter, the two called on the Justice Department to investigate Christopher Steele for what they alleged were false statements Steele made about how the dossier was circulated. 

“This referral does not pertain to the veracity of claims contained in the dossier,” the senators said in a statement.

Steele and his lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment. 

Former British spy

Steele, a former MI6 officer with deep experience in Russia, was hired by a Washington-based political research firm known as Fusion GPS in the summer 2016. 

Fusion had earlier been retained by a Republican donor interested in gathering embarrassing political dirt on Trump, but after Trump won the Republican nomination, Fusion was hired by a law firm with connections to the Democratic Party. 

Steele’s research, which focused on Russia and Trump’s ties there, resulted in a 35-page report that circulated among political operatives and reporters in Washington for months until BuzzFeed published the entire dossier online in January 2017. 

News reports have said the FBI had considered paying Steele for more research but later decided not to. 

Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations in the dossier. Some Republicans have also asserted that the dossier was what prompted the FBI to open its criminal investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s interactions with Trump-connected officials, something contradicted by court documents and other public statements. 

Grassley calls for inquiry

Grassley, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, earlier called for a Justice Department investigation of Fusion GPS, suggesting the firm was involved in a Russian-linked lobbying campaign to undermine the 2012 U.S. Magnitsky Act, which punishes Russians deemed to be human rights abusers. 

In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Tuesday, the founders of Fusion GPS accused Republican lawmakers of trying to obscure Trump’s Russian connections and called on Grassley to release transcripts of their testimony to the Judiciary Committee. 

The Judiciary Committee is one of three congressional panels investigating interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials. 

The FBI probe, now taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, has resulted in two indictments and two guilty pleas, including from Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of two senior Turkish officials who have made or are making trips to European Union countries in what analysts say is a diplomatic offensive to reset relations with the 28-member bloc.

The EU is Turkey’s No. 1 import and export partner. Relations between Ankara and the EU, however, have been strained in part over human rights in Turkey, a controversial referendum last year to extend his powers, refugee migration and Turkey’s quest for visa-free travel for its citizens across the EU.

Erdogan met Friday in France with counterpart Emmanuel Macron for talks on Syria and trade, and he signed a series of contracts. The two presidents also witnessed the signing of an agreement in which Turkish Airlines will purchase 25 jets from Airbus.

In a recent interview, Macron confirmed he regularly speaks with Erdogan, conversations that analysts say the Turkish president values. “The steps we have taken until now with Mr. Macron are all in the right direction and I have a lot of hopes in Mr. Macron,” Erdogan said to reporters before leaving for Paris.

Message from Kalin

Turkey has been seeking to join the European Union but cannot do so unless certain criteria required for membership have been met. Ahead of the Paris visit, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, speaking to the France 24 news channel, sent a message to the EU: “As Turkey, we see EU membership as a strategic aim; however, in recent years, not much progress has been made in this regard, due to several reasons. We want to overcome these troubles.”

Ankara’s ongoing crackdown following a failed coup in 2016 has resulted in tens of thousands of arrests and the jailing of dozens of people, including journalists. The crackdown threatens the collapse of the troubled relations with the EU.

Ahead of Erdogan’s visit, Macron offered thinly veiled criticism of Turkey. “Freedom of the press is not only being damaged in dictatorships but also in some democratic European states as well,” he told reporters.

Human rights concerns are set to be an even bigger obstacle to Ankara’s bid to smooth over relations with Europe’s other major powerhouse, Germany. German-Turkish relations all but collapsed last year over Ankara’s accusations that Berlin was harboring hundreds of people linked to a 2016 coup attempt. Berlin, meanwhile, has likened the arrest and jailing of a number of its citizens, including two journalists and a human rights activist, to hostage taking.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is scheduled to visit his German counterpart, Sigma Gabriel, on Saturday in Goslar, Germany.

“Both sides have an interest in a new start in the bilateral relationship as we live in a time full of challenges,” Cavusoglu wrote this week in an op-ed piece for a German newspaper. “It is not the time for bullhorn diplomacy.”

Following a surprise meeting between the Turkish and German foreign ministers in November at the Turkish Mediterranean Sea resort of Antalya, both sides have started to take tentative steps to ease tensions. Three Germans being detained have been released. Deniz Yucel, a journalist for German newspaper Die Welt, remains incarcerated, although his conditions have improved with the ending of months of solitary confinement.

‘Very difficult’ path ahead

Despite such steps, experts warn Ankara faces a protracted process in improving relations with the EU.

“It will be very difficult to bring normalcy to Turkish-German relations,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

The release of Yucel is seen by analysts as key by Berlin to any substantive progress. Erdogan has previously said that as long as he remains in power, Yucel will never be free.

Given its growing isolation, however, Turkey could be set to make more gestures to Europe.

Turkey faces a similar situation with its other key Western ally, the United States. Until now, Ankara has been happy to look to Moscow to send the message that Ankara can do without its traditional allies. But growing dependence on Moscow is coming at an increasing cost.

“Russia is the leading engine, and Turkey is the wagon of the Russian policy,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “Unfortunately at the moment, Turkey is just doing and repeating what Russia is saying. So Turkey is very strongly under the influence of Russia, which has never been the case in the last 25 years.”

While Ankara has found some common ground with Moscow in the region, the countries are historical rivals, as is the case with Iran, another country with whom Turkey has started to develop warming relations.

“Turkey and Iran have issues that could flare up anytime,” said political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website.

Observers say Ankara now could be realizing the precarious situation it is facing and a realization of the need for a more balanced diplomatic approach. They say the cost could be high, with European countries expected to press for an easing up on the crackdown.
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The Italian Riviera, like its French counterpart, is known for its resorts, glamour and beauty. But away from the tourists, hundreds of migrants and refugees willingly endure grim conditions and risk their lives, making repeated attempts to cross the border.
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Officials say Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter Zara Tindall and her husband Mike Tindall are expecting their second child.

Buckingham Palace said Friday the queen and the royal family are “very pleased” with the news.

The pregnancy comes just over a year after Tindall suffered a miscarriage shortly before Christmas in 2016. She is an Olympic silver medal winner in equestrian events and the daughter of Princess Anne. Her husband is a former England rugby player.

They have a three-year-old daughter named Mia.
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Nearly 30 civilians, including children, have been killed by airstrikes in the rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta, outside the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The Britain-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors the Syrian civil war, said most of the airstrikes were carried out by Russian jets.

There was no immediate confirmation by the Russian military, which is providing air support to government forces fighting rebels.

A government forces base, the only one in the region, was surrounded by rebels earlier this week. Syrian state television said “army units had launched an assault to break the siege.”

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory, said “violent clashes were taking place” Thursday close to the base, which is believed to hold some 250 government soldiers.

Eastern Ghouta, home to 400,000 residents, has been cut off from food and medical aid since 2013.

Last week, the Syrian government allowed Red Cross to evacuate 29 critically ill patients, including 18 children and four women suffering from heart disease, cancer, kidney failure and blood diseases, in addition to cases requiring surgery not available in the besieged area.

The United Nations had called for an emergency evacuation of nearly 500 patients and an end to the siege to allow access for humanitarian medical and food aid.   
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Ankara has slammed the conviction in the U.S. of a Turkish banker for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.

“This is the scandalous verdict of a scandalous case,” Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalin told reporters at the presidential palace. “Unjust and unfortunate,” said the Turkish foreign ministry in a statement, adding, “the evidence was fake and open to political exploitation.”

Mahir Unal, the spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AKP, pointed the finger directly at Washington. “The purpose of the case in United States is interference in the internal affairs of Turkey. This case is a violation of international law and a legal disaster. It is clear that this decision has no provision for us,” tweeted Unal.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has in the past been at the forefront of condemning the case, has remained silent on the verdict.

That silence is telling, claimed political consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global source partners.

“Erdogan was misled by his advisers, who told him Mr. [Hakan] Atilla would be acquitted. Now he understands that if the United States really intends to kick Turkey in the shin, they have received the perfect excuse to do so. At this point, he realizes it’s not wise to antagonize the United States. Now I am sure there are high-level contacts with Washington on how to make this case ago away,” said Yesilada.

On Wednesday, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who headed international banking at the Turkish state-owned Halkbank, was convicted by a New York court on 5 of 6 charges of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. With prosecutors presenting evidence of several Turkish banks involved in extensive laundering of money to avoid Iranian sanctions, analysts warn the door is open to a potential wide range of financial sanctions.

Such measures range from fines on Turkish banks to extensive restrictions on banks’ ability to borrow from U.S. financial markets. Turkey borrows on average about $16 billion a month to sustain existing loans and meet its financial obligations.

Joon Kim, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, speaking after the conviction, made clear there would be consequences. “Foreign banks and bankers have a choice: You can choose willfully to help Iran and other sanctioned nations evade U.S. law, or you can choose to be part of the international banking community transacting in U.S. dollars. But you can’t do both.”

“Best-case scenario is a couple of billion dollars in fines against Halkbank for violating sanctions and the American administration closing the file, and that’s the end of it,” said consultant Yesilada.

The Turkish finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, already has guaranteed that any fines would be covered by the government.

Despite international investors reportedly closely watching the New York case, Turkish financial markets Thursday were largely unaffected by Wednesday’s verdict.

The experience of previous foreign banks caught violating U.S. sanctions suggests the repercussions could be severe for Turkish banks. 

In 2015, the French bank BNP Paribas was fined about $9 billion for violating U.S.-Iranian sanctions. An economist specializing on financial matters relating to Turkey — working for an international bank and speaking anonymously — warned that given the scale of the violations outlined by prosecutors in the New York case, Halkbank could face fines of up to $40 billion. Last year Turkey’s Haber Turk newspaper reported U.S. authorities were considering a similarly large fine. 

Observers single out the Halkbank case from previous sanction-busting cases. During the New York trial, the prosecutor witness implicated Turkish government involvement in sanctions violations, including then-Prime Minister Erdogan.

“If the Trump administration wants to portray this as a state crime, as Ankara systematically violating Iranian sanctions, I don’t think anyone can stop them,” said political consultant Yesilada.

Analysts suggest the price of leniency by Washington could be Ankara having to cool its warming relationship with Moscow, and Tehran, as well as the toning down of its hostility toward the Syrian Kurdish militia, which has been backed by the U.S. in fighting Islamic State militants.

Ankara accuses the militia of being terrorists linked to an insurgency in Turkey. Both issues have contributed to recent deep strains in U.S.-Turkish relations. But Washington’s decision in December to restore normal visa services after being severely curtailed was seen as a sign of its commitment to improving ties.

Even if Ankara can come to an agreement with the White House, Congress still remains a problem. 

“The American Congress acts independently of both the judiciary and the executive, and the information I receive from my sources in the United States, it’s extremely angry with Turkish behavior, and it might consider a sanction law against Turkey,” warned consultant Yesilada. “But I think the financial markets collectively don’t think that the United States does want to push this any further. There, I don’t agree with the markets, but as the American game plan is crystallized over the coming weeks, market sentiments will change to a negative.”
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A political storm is brewing ahead of Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s May 19 wedding over whether to crack down on homeless people and beggars in the well-to-do English town of Windsor.

Homeless charities are reacting angrily to borough councilor Simon Dudley’s call for police to clear the streets so the town makes a favorable impression on visitors drawn to see what they can of the royal nuptials.

They reject his assertion that the homeless in Windsor are living on the streets by choice, a view expressed in a letter Dudley sent to police and to Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May. Greg Beales, a spokesman for Shelter, says Thursday that punishing the homeless is “totally counter-productive.”

Dudley says beggars and homeless people are creating a “hostile atmosphere” in Windsor.
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Turkey dismissed Thursday a U.S. court conviction of a Turkish banker in connection with a billion-dollar plot to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.

The court in New York City convicted Mehmet Hakan Atilla on four counts of conspiracy, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, plus one count of bank fraud. The 47-year-old Turkish national was acquitted on a charge of money laundering.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Thursday the ruling was unfair and unfortunate, and also an unprecedented interference in Turkey’s internal affairs.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter the jury’s decision does not carry legal value in Turkey.

The case has strained relations between Turkey and the United States.

Atilla is a deputy general manager at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank. U.S. prosecutors charged him with helping to facilitate a deal in which Iran traded oil and gas for gold, moving some of the transactions through U.S. banks without their knowledge.

Atilla was heard on telephone recordings setting up fake food and agriculture deals with Iran to disguise deals that were really sales of oil. Atilla’s lawyer said his client was merely “a hapless pawn” in those deals, blaming Atilla’s boss, Reza Zarrab, instead. 

Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian trader who has admitted arranging the deals, told the court he paid about $50 million in bribes in 2012 to the Turkish finance minister to push the deals through. Zarrab testified that he believed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was aware of the scheme.

Erdogan said the case is an American conspiracy to blackmail Turkey, a strategic partner with the United States in Middle East affairs.

Iran and the United States have had chilly relations since the Iran hostage crisis from 1979-1981, in which 52 Americans were held by student activists in Iran for 444 days until a release was negotiated. The United States now bans most financial dealings with Iran, which is a major oil-producing nation.
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Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 70 people, including 58 serving soldiers, in an investigation targeting supporters of the U.S.-based cleric accused of orchestrating an attempted coup in July 2016, state media said Thursday.

The operation was focused on the central Turkish province of Konya, with police carrying out simultaneous raids at addresses across 27 provinces, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Twelve of the 70 suspects had previously been expelled from the Turkish armed forces, Anadolu said.

Police operations to detain suspects accused of links to the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen have been a near daily occurrence since the failed putsch of July 15, 2016, in which Gulen has denied any involvement.

Since then more than 50,000 people, including thousands of security personnel and civil servants, have been jailed pending trial and some 150,000 suspended or dismissed from their jobs.

Rights groups say the crackdown has been exploited to muzzle dissent. The government says the measures have been necessary because of the security threats Turkey has faced since the failed coup, in which 250 people were killed.
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A Turkish banker has been convicted in a U.S. court for participating in a billion-dollar plot to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.

A court in New York City has convicted Mehmet Hakan Atilla on four counts of conspiracy, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, plus one count of bank fraud. The 47-year-old Turkish national was acquitted on a charge of money laundering.

The case has strained relations between Turkey and the United States.

Atilla is a deputy general manager at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank. U.S. prosecutors charged him with helping to facilitate a deal in which Iran traded oil and gas for gold, moving some of the transactions through U.S. banks without their knowledge.

Atilla was heard on telephone recordings setting up fake food and agriculture deals with Iran to disguise deals that were really sales of oil. Atilla’s lawyer said his client was merely “a hapless pawn” in those deals, blaming Atilla’s boss, Reza Zarrab, instead.

Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian trader who has admitted arranging the deals, told the court he paid about $50 million in bribes in 2012 to the Turkish finance minister to push the deals through. Zarrab testified that he believed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was aware of the scheme.

Erdogan said the case is an American conspiracy to blackmail Turkey, a strategic partner with the U.S. in Middle East affairs.

Iran and the United States have had chilly relations since the Iran hostage crisis from 1979-1981, in which 52 Americans were held by student activists in Iran for 444 days until a release was negotiated. The United States now bans most financial dealings with Iran, which is a major oil-producing nations.
…

A storm disrupted air traffic at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Wednesday, with many flights canceled or delayed.

Airlines canceled 176 out of a total of more than 1,200 incoming and outgoing flights on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the Dutch national airport said.

That number was expected to rise, as the storm would grow stronger during the day, with wind gusts reaching speeds of up to 120 kph (75 mph).

Flights that were not canceled faced an average delay of about an hour, the airport said.

Schiphol is Europe’s third busiest airport in number of total passengers per year, after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
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