Tens of thousands of women who survived enslavement and rape during the 1992-95 war in the Balkans are still being denied justice, according to a report from Amnesty International.

A quarter of a century after the conflict began, the human rights group says many of the survivors are living in poverty and have lost all hope the perpetrators will face trial.

More than 20,000 Bosnian women were subjected to rape and sexual violence during the Balkan war, mostly by Serbian military or paramilitary groups.  Many were held captive for months or years in so-called “rape camps,” tortured, and forcibly impregnated.

“The Bosnian authorities have failed to provide justice and reparations for the utmost majority of them.  Only about 800 women are receiving a pension as civilian victims of war.  And only about 120 perpetrators have been brought to justice,” says Todor Gartos of Amnesty.

Official designation as a “civilian victim of war” allows survivors access to a range of state services.

But under the 1995 Dayton Agreement that brought an end to the conflict, Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.  

“This means that women survivors who may be in one part of the country do not have access to this status,” says Gartos.  “Consequently they don’t receive any of the services provided by the state. Other women had their statuses not granted because they couldn’t demonstrate that the violence, that the rape committed against them had caused long term sustained trauma and injuries to them.”

Since war crimes trials began in Bosnia in 2004, Amnesty reports less than one percent of the total number of rape victims have had their cases heard in court.  Amnesty’s Gartos says the prosecution system has improved, but there are still huge obstacles.

“That included the lack of witness protection, women being exposed to perpetrators living in the same communities or perpetrators being protected because of their social status, so for example war generals or war veterans were less likely to be prosecuted.”

Amnesty says that has discouraged survivors from coming forward, undermining confidence in the prosecution system and generating an “overwhelming sense of impunity.”  Many survivors say they doubt they will live long enough to see justice.
…

A joint study by the U.N. Children’s Fund and International Organization for Migration says up to three-quarters of refugee and migrant children and young people trying to reach Europe are abused, exploited and subject to trafficking.

The study, based on 20,000 interviews, 11,000 with refugee and migrant children, describes in detail the appalling levels of human rights abuses to which people on the move are subjected.

It finds children and young people traveling on the central Mediterranean route are at a particularly high risk of exploitation and trafficking. U.N. Children’s Fund spokeswoman Sarah Crowe told VOA those moving along this route are mainly young Africans traveling across the Sahara from the Ivory Coast, Gambia, Nigeria, or other West African countries.

“We also see from this report that the children who have less education and who are coming from sub-Saharan Africa have got a greater risk of being exploited, beaten and discriminated against at every step of the way, but specifically in Libya,” Crowe said.

The report says most of the migrants and refugees passing through Libya are exposed to lawlessness, militias and criminality. A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Leonard Doyle, said the young people, ages 14 to 24, pay smugglers between $1,000 and $5,000 for their perilous journey.

“People willingly go there. They pay for the journey. But, they do not realize that they are stepping into a trap where they become exploited. Horribly so. Women get put into the sex trade or sold as slaves. Boys are hugely abused.”  

The report is calling for the establishment of more regular, safe pathways for children on the move.  It says services should be strengthened to protect migrant and refugee children whether in countries of origin, transit or destination.

The study adds children on the move should not be held in detention and that other, less abusive alternatives, must be found.
…

Sweden’s leading photographers are launching a new exhibit and publishing a book in response to President Donald Trump’s criticism of the country’s immigration policies.

During a rally in Florida in February, Trump said that terrorism was growing in Europe, and “look what’s happening last night in Sweden.” But the comment baffled many Swedes because there had been no extraordinary trouble that night in Sweden, a country welcoming to immigrants. Trump later tweeted more comments attacking Sweden’s immigration protocols.

Publisher Max Strom commissioned “Last night in Sweden” in an effort to present a more diverse and multi-faceted portrait of the country.

“We felt we had to react because we didn’t recognize Sweden at all in his words,” photographer and publisher Jeppe Wikstrom told The Associated Press before the opening of the exhibition.

The photos, all taken after 6 p.m. in the spring, present a diverse portrait of Sweden, from an elderly couple in their sauna to a group of scouts from Syria practicing music.

The crowdfunded book hits the shelves on Tuesday, with the first copy sent to the White House and the next ones to all members of U.S. Congress.

“Last night in Sweden” doesn’t shy away from complicated truths, and the book’s foreword acknowledges that following an extremist attack in Stockholm in April, it’s “hard to claim that ‘nothing happened last night in Sweden.'”

But those involved in the project hope to present a nuanced portrait of the country that transcends social statuses as well as political, social and cultural divides.

“When I see this exhibition and this book, I feel very proud of being Swedish,” said Anna Claren, the head of the Nordic School of Photography, who worked on selecting the photos for the book. “There are a lot of different people of course, but there is so much warmth around and among people.”

 
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A day after forcing his way past border guards back into Ukraine, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he would unite the opposition against his former ally President Petro Poroshenko and planned to campaign for support.

Saakashvili wants to unseat Poroshenko at the next election, accusing the president of reneging on promises to root out corruption and carry out reforms made during the 2014 Maidan protests, which ousted a pro-Kremlin leader.

At present it seems unlikely that Saakashvili, who studied in Ukraine and speaks fluent Ukrainian, will come to power. His Ukrainian citizenship, bestowed by Poroshenko when he made him governor of Odessa in 2015, has been withdrawn, and polls show little support for his party, the Movement of New Forces.

“I am fighting against rampant corruption, against the fact that oligarchs are in full control of Ukraine again, against the fact that Maidan has been betrayed,” Saakashvili said at a press conference in the city of Lviv.

Saakashvili divides opinion. Supporters see him as a fearless crusader against corruption but critics say there is little substance behind his blustery rhetoric.

Back home in Georgia, his time in office was tarnished by what critics said was his monopolizing power and exerting pressure on the judiciary. He was president at the time of a disastrous five-day war with Russia in 2008, a conflict that his critics argued was the result of his own miscalculations.

Saakashvili says he does not covet the presidency himself and wants to promote a new, younger politician to the post. But while perhaps not a threat as a direct rival, Saakashvili could prove to be an effective weapon against Poroshenko for powerful opposition figures like Yulia Tymoshenko, who was with him at the border on Sunday.

Poroshenko trails in the polls behind Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and leader of one of Ukraine’s largest opposition parties.

“This is a marriage of convenience between Tymoshenko and Saakashvili, but the parties have different interests,” said political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko. “She tries to use this situation with the hope that this will provoke a political crisis in Ukraine and lead to early elections.”

Border Violation

Saakashvili’s relationship with Poroshenko dates back nearly three decades to when they were students at the same university in Kyiv and their shared opposition to the Kremlin later brought them together as politicians.

But a bitter spat erupted in November 2016, a year after Poroshenko invited Saakashvili to be the governor of the region of Odessa to help drive reforms. The latter quit, accusing Poroshenko of abetting corruption and turned into one of his loudest critics.

Meanwhile Poroshenko’s office said Saakashvili had failed to deliver change as governor and said his Ukrainian citizenship was withdrawn because he allegedly put false information on his registration form. Saakashvili says the decision was politically motivated. It left him effectively stateless as Georgia has also withdrawn his citizenship.

On Sunday evening Saakashvili and his supporters forced their way past a cordon of border guards to return to Ukraine from Poland.

“It does not matter who violates the state border – invaders in the East or politicians in the West. There always must be legal responsibility,” Poroshenko said in televised remarks on Monday.

The president said Saakashvili should have used Ukrainian courts to challenge the revocation.

“Now this is a matter of law enforcement agencies and they have begun to act,” Poroshenko said.

Saakashvili said he would travel to all regions of Ukraine to unite “different political forces around a common theme that we must have a democracy and we should not let oligarchs hold sway.”

Ukraine’s record of implementing reforms has been patchy since Poroshenko took office in 2014.

Reformist lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem, one of the faces of the Maidan protests and a member of Poroshenko’s faction in parliament, traveled with Saakashvili on Sunday and accused the Kiev authorities of trying to silence opponents.

“We didn’t want this country when we stayed on Maidan,” he told reporters. “We wanted a country in which opponents, political opponents, have a right to say what they want.”

Saakashvili may yet face arrest. Police have launched a criminal investigation into Sunday’s incident, while General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said those who crossed the border illegally would be prosecuted.

Kyiv could leave Saakashvili alone, arrest him and possibly extradite him to Georgia.

Saakashvili took power in Georgia after a peaceful uprising, known as the Rose Revolution, in 2003. The 49-year-old is now wanted on criminal charges in Georgia, which he says were trumped up for political reasons.
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Norway’s tax-cutting Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg declared victory on Tuesday after a parliamentary election, narrowly defeating a Labour-led opposition with her promises of steady management of the oil-dependent economy.

The win is historic for Solberg, whose supporters compare her firm management style to that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, because no Conservative-led government has retained power in an election in Norway since 1985.

“It looks like a clear victory,” for the center-right, a beaming Solberg told cheering supporters in Oslo just after midnight (2200 GMT), following Monday’s voting.

“Our solutions have worked. We have created jobs,” she said, but warned, “We have some challenges ahead. … Oil revenues are going to be lower. We all must take responsibility.”

The ruling minority coalition of her Conservatives and the populist Progress Party, together with two small center-right allies, was set to win a slim majority with 88 seats in the 169-seat parliament, according to an official projection with over 90 percent of the votes counted.

Opposition Labour leader Jonas Gahr Stoere told supporters that it looked like his party, the main force in Norwegian politics in the 20th century, had fallen short.

“It’s a big disappointment,” he said.

Solberg, 56, plans more tax cuts as a way to stimulate growth for Norway’s top oil and gas producer. Stoere favors tax increases to improve public services such as education and healthcare for Norway’s 5 million citizens.

The oil industry could be affected by the vote, because Solberg will need support from two green-minded, center-right allies to ensure a majority to pass legislation in parliament.

The allies include the Liberals, who want to limit exploration in Arctic waters. Solberg’s Conservative Party was set to lose three seats to 45 in parliament, making her more dependent on outsiders’ help.

That means it may be more difficult to have a stable government.

“They [The Liberals and the Christian Democrats] will support Solberg as prime minister, but the question is whether they get a firm agreement or if there is cooperation on a case-by-case basis,” said Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, a professor in comparative politics at the University of Bergen.

“Then it may be a weaker government,” she told Reuters.

The Norwegian currency, the crown, strengthened slightly following the first projections after weakening sharply earlier in the day on weaker-than-expected inflation data.

For much of the year, Labour and its allies were favored by pollsters to win a clear victory, but support for the government has risen as the economy gradually recovered from a slump in the price of crude oil, Norway’s top export.

Unemployment, which a year ago hit a 20-year high of 5 percent, has since declined to 4.3 percent, while consumer confidence is at a 10-year high.

Solberg has won credit for the upturn with a no-nonsense style of management. Norway’s economy also has the cushion of a sovereign wealth fund worth almost $1 trillion, the world’s biggest, built on income from offshore oil and gas.

“Regardless of which government we get, the challenge will be to use less oil money,” said Erik Bruce, chief analyst at Nordea Markets. “There is broad consensus about the outlook for the sovereign wealth fund and the Norwegian economy, which means a tighter fiscal policy.”

The sovereign wealth fund has wanted to invest in unlisted infrastructure to boost its return on investment. Finance Minister Siv Jensen has twice said no to the request over the past two years, citing political risk.

That stance is unlikely to change now that the government has been re-elected.

Labour

Labour was set to remain the biggest party in Norway, with 49 seats, just ahead of the Conservatives.

Stoere, who sometimes compares himself to French President Emmanuel Macron, took over the leadership of the Labour Party from Jens Stoltenberg, who left Norwegian politics to become NATO’s secretary-general.

Solberg’s coalition partner, the populist Progress Party, has sharply limited immigration to Norway in what Stoere says is a betrayal of Norwegian values.

“We have done our share of the job. We have delivered,” Finance Minister Siv Jensen, leader of the Progress Party, told party supporters as they chanted “four more years.”

Norway’s problems are small by the standards of most nations.

Apart from its sovereign wealth fund, Norway tops U.N. lists of the best country in which to live, based on issues such as personal earnings and education. It even rose to first, from fourth, in a 2017 survey that ranked nations by happiness.
…

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has urged the United States to start finding a way to resolve the problems between the two countries.

“We called for a stop to the destruction of Russia-U.S. relations and … to start finding solutions to resolve problems that are mounting through no fault of ours,” said a Russian Foreign Ministry statement after Ryabkov met with U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon in Helsinki, Finland.

Shannon arrived in Finland earlier Monday for the talks aimed at calming tensions, between Washington and Moscow, which have been mounting for months.

Shannon is the State Department’s third-ranking official and met earlier this year with Ryabkov to discuss numerous obstacles in the bilateral relationship.

Mounting tensions

Tensions between the Untied States and Russia have been especially high since allegations emerged that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The U.S. Congress passed sanctions against Moscow in July for its alleged meddling and U.S. President Donald Trump, unwilling to risk having lawmakers override a veto, signed the legislation, but blamed Congress for creating new tensions with Moscow.

Trump, who has sought closer relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, described the legislation as “significantly flawed,” with “clearly unconstitutional provisions” that limited his right to conduct foreign affairs as he sees fit.

Putin retaliated to the new law by closing a U.S. recreational site and a warehouse and ordering the United States to cut 755 diplomats and staff workers, many of them Russians, from its embassy and consulates in Russia.

Trump has been largely dismissive of numerous investigations in Washington into the Russian meddling and accusations that his aides colluded with Moscow, calling them a “witch hunt” and an excuse by Democrats to explain his upset win over his Democratic challenger, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Numerous congressional investigations are under way, as is a criminal probe being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Tragic relationship

Michael McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014, told VOA’s Russian service that the current state of the U.S.-Russia relationship is a “tragedy.”

“It (the US-Russia relationship) is in a bad place. I think you have to go deep into the Cold War to have a comparable time, when things were so confrontational. I personally think it is tragic.”

He laid much of the blame for the poor relationship with Putin.

“I don’t think it was inevitable, it didn’t have to go this way, but I also think it is largely in response to policies that president Putin did. It takes two to tango to make a good relationship work.”

McFaul cited Putin’s efforts to annex Crimea and his support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as actions that have put him at odds with the United States and said, “Until he adjusts his policy, we will be in a rather difficult bilateral relationship.”

“Right now, at least in the last couple of years, he (Putin) has done some very dramatic things that have been against the rules of the international system — things like annexation, things like intervention in Syria,” he said.

McFaul described the new Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, whom he knows personally, as a tough negotiator. McFaul expressed hope that beyond having friendly and warm communication with President Trump, the new Russian ambassador will also reach out to members of the U.S. Congress, the media and the U.S. civil society.

McFaul stressed that despite tensions between the United States and Russia, the two countries need to collaborate on an array of issues, including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

Yulia Savchenko contributed to this report.
…

The introduction of post-Brexit customs checks could cost traders more than 4 billion pounds ($5.28 billion) a year, according to a think tank report released on Monday.

The British government has said it plans to leave the European Union’s customs union when it leaves the bloc, and it wants to negotiate a new relationship that will ensure trade is as free of friction as possible.

In its report ‘Implementing Brexit: Customs’, the Institute for Government said the government needed to offer as much certainty as possible to business and help them plan for changes to customs.

Around 180,000 traders now operate only within the EU and face making customs declarations for the first time after Brexit. The government estimates an extra 200 million declarations a year will be made.

Those declarations cost 20 to 45 pounds each, the IfG said, putting the total additional cost at 4 billion to 9 billion pounds.

“The scale and cost of change for many traders could be significant. Government must engage with them in detail about changes, understanding their requirements and giving them as much time to adapt as possible,” the report said.

The government has proposed two options for the future customs relationship. One is a system using technology to make the process as smooth as possible; the second a new customs partnership removing the need for a customs border. It wants a transition period after Britain leaves in March 2019 to allow time to adapt.

However, the EU says negotiating the customs relationship must wait until the two sides have made make progress on the rights of expatriates, Britain’s border with EU member Ireland and a financial settlement.

“To be in and out of the customs union and ‘invisible borders’ is a fantasy,” Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s coordinator for Brexit, said on Twitter after the British government floated its proposals. “First need to secure citizens rights and a financial settlement”.

Moving customs requirements away from the physical border, retaining access to key EU computer systems and setting up working groups with the private sector on implementing changes are among the report’s suggestions for smoothing the process.

To avoid a cliff-edge, the government must make sure everyone from port operators to freight companies and local authorities is ready, the IfG said. It should also work with EU partners to ensure issues at European ports do not cause significant disruption to supply chains.

“In the past they have been given years to adapt to any government change; they now have fewer than 20 months to prepare without yet being clear what they are preparing for,” the report said. “Successful change relies on all these organizations being ready.”
…

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia and later a Ukrainian citizen, crossed from Poland into Ukraine in a crowd of his supporters Sunday.

Saakashvili has been stateless since his former mentor, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, stripped him of Ukrainian citizenship two months ago. He is wanted in Georgia on charges related to his political career there, and Tbilisi has asked the Kyiv government to extradite him, but it is not clear whether the request will be honored.

Saakashvili said he wanted to return to Ukraine to contest Poroshenko’s action stripping him of his citizenship while he was out of the country. Ukrainian authorities in the border region tried to block Saakashvili’s return – first by train, then by bus – but then he walked across the Ukrainian border at Shehyni in the midst of a crowd of his supporters.

The Ukrainian border service said in a Facebook post that the crowd broke through a checkpoint and that fighting broke out when guards tried to block Saakashvili’s supporters. Those who accompanied the former Georgia leader included former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Courtesy – RFE/RL

Also with Saakashvili was Mustafa Nayyem, who was active in protests in Ukraine in 2013-14 that drove then pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych, out of the country. Saakashvili was a strong supporter of those protests and later was a staunch ally of Poroshenko, but more recently he has opposed the current administration in Kyiv, accusing Poroshenko and others of contributing to widespread corruption.

Later Sunday in Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine, about 80 kilometers from the Polish border, Saakashvili said the border crossing took place “according to all legal procedures,” and promised to defend anyone who accompanied him from threatened criminal charges. Government officials at the border said 17 police and guards were injured during the confrontation with Saakashvili’s supporters.

After leaving Georgia, where he led the Rose Revolution in 2003 that toppled then president Eduard Shevardnadze, Saakashvili wound up in Ukraine, where President Poroshenko appointed him governor of the Odessa Oblast (region) in May 2015. He served for 18 months before the political split with Poroshenko that led to his present circumstances. He has been known as a pro-Western, pro-NATO political leader in both Georgia and Ukraine.

Georgia has pursued Saakashvili on criminal charges of abuse of power and misappropriation of property. The former Georgian president, who left office after two terms, contends those claims are politically motivated. He forfeited his Georgian citizenship when he accepted Poroshenko’s welcome to Ukraine and the post as Odessa governor two years ago.
…

Norwegians voted on Sunday in a parliamentary election whose outcome is too close to call, with opinion polls showing Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s centre-right government and the opposition center-left bloc running neck and neck.

Solberg’s Conservatives want to cut taxes if they win a fresh four-year mandate, while the centre-left led by Labor’s Jonas Gahr Stoere seeks tax hikes to fund better public services.

The outcome could also impact Norway’s vital oil industry because to form a government either Solberg or Gahr Stoere is likely to depend on one or more parties that seek to impose limits on exploration in Arctic waters off Norway’s northern coast.

Polling stretches over two days, ending at 1900 GMT on Monday.

“I don’t want to change the current government. For me the most important is the tax reform policies,” said Kjell Solli, 47, a real estate agent who cast his ballot for the right-wing Progress Party, a junior member of Solberg’s coalition.

Economy recovering

For much of the year, Labor and its center-left allies were ahead in the polls and were favored to win a comfortable victory, but support for the government has risen as the economy has gradually recovered from a two-year slump.

Opinion polls in September on average have given Solberg’s four-party bloc 85 seats in the 169-member parliament, just enough for a majority, while Labor and the center-left are expected to secure 84 seats.

Erik Mathiassen, 61, a senior adviser at the Oslo city council, said he hoped Gahr Stoere would manage to oust Solberg.

“The most important for me is education policies matter most for me. I want more extensive policy from the government to support the unemployed… I don’t want the current government to stay in power,” he told Reuters.

Gahr Stoere, who comes from a wealthy background, has vowed to raise taxes on Norwegians on above-average incomes.

Casting his ballot in a quiet neighborhood of western Oslo, the Labor leader expressed confidence his party could stage a late rally to clinch the election.

“We have to keep the qualities of Norway at its best — equity, work for all, good investment in health and education so that we remain a strong team,” Gahr Stoere told reporters.

“What is Norway at its best? It’s when we pull together… We need a change now because we are growing apart from each other and that is not how Norway can perform at its best.”

Solberg is expected to cast her ballot on Monday.

The election winner will face tricky coalition negotiations and will have to meet tough demands from smaller parties to keep their support over the next four years.

The independent Greens want to end all oil exploration, citing concerns over climate change and pollution, while other smaller parties that may be involved in coalition talks also want to limit the award of new exploration acreage in Arctic waters.

The oil and gas industry accounts for almost half of Norway’s export revenues.
…

U.S. and Russian envoys are to meet in Finland next week in a bid to calm diplomatic tensions that have risen to levels of the Cold War.

The State Department’s third-ranking official, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon, will meet Monday and Tuesday with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

Shannon and Ryabkov have held several rounds of talks this year focused on resolving irritants in U.S.-Russian relations, such as the tit-for-tat closures of diplomatic missions and expulsion of diplomats. They’re expected to address broader strategic relations and arms control as well.

On August 31, in response to an order from Moscow to reduce the U.S. diplomatic presence in Russia by several hundred people, the U.S. ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco and two annexes in Washington and New York. Those actions followed the U.S. seizure of two Russian compounds in Maryland and New York and the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats in retaliation for Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who are expected to meet this month in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, charged Shannon and Ryabkov earlier this year with exploring ways to resolve bilateral disputes that are hindering broader cooperation on strategic and security issues, such as the war in Syria and the conflict in Ukraine.

Among the top complaints from Washington: the harassment of American government personnel in Russia, a Russian ban on adoptions of children by U.S. families, and Moscow’s halting of plans to construct a new U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg. Russia’s complaints include U.S. sanctions imposed after its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and the seizure of its properties.

Two earlier rounds of talks between Shannon and Ryabkov ended inconclusively.

The State Department announced the new talks Saturday and said Shannon would also meet Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and other Finnish officials while in Helsinki.
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A Spanish judge ordered police to search a printer’s shop and two offices of a regional newspaper in Catalonia as part of an investigation into alleged preparations for an illegal referendum on independence for the prosperous northeastern region.

A Barcelona-based court said Saturday that the police searches took place Friday in Valls and Constanti in southern Catalonia. The court said the searches formed part of an investigation into possible disobedience, prevarication and the embezzlement of public funds by Catalan officials.

The regional Catalan newspaper El Vallenc reported that “4 agents of the Civil Guard entered our newspaper.”

El Vallenc said, “The search took place hours after they had searched the Indugraf business.” Indugraf is a printer in Constanti.

Catalonia’s president, Carles Puigdemont, the regional politician leading the push for independence, said on Twitter that police weren’t “looking for ballots, they were looking for a fight.”

The court did not say what police were looking for in the searches.

Spain’s constitutional court has suspended laws passed by the Catalan parliament this week to call for an independence referendum on October 1. State prosecutors have also targeted Puigdemont and other members of his government with lawsuits for possible disobedience, abuse of power and embezzlement charges.

The pro-independence coalition ruling Catalonia says the vote will be binding and says if the “yes” side wins it will lead to the independence from Spain by October 3 no matter what the turnout.

Spain’s constitutional court has previously ruled that only the national government is allowed to call a referendum on secession and that all Spaniards in the country must have a vote when it comes to sovereignty.
…

The Dalai Lama on Sunday will begin a 20-day tour of Europe, where he will give public teachings on Buddhism and also meet with scientists.

The Tibetan spiritual leader arrived Friday in New Delhi, India, from which he will depart for his four-nation tour. Calling it an educational visit, he said he was looking forward to the trip, especially to a meeting with scientists in Frankfurt, Germany.

“I am looking forward to the Frankfurt’s meeting. [I will be] meeting with some scientists, and also there will be some kind of commemoration [of the] late Von Weizsacker,” the Dalai Lama told Reuters. Carl von Weizsacker was a quantum physics teacher to the Dalai Lama, who has long shown an interest in modern science.

The Dalai Lama will first travel to Britain, where he will give a public talk on compassion. From there, he will travel to Frankfurt for a conference on the intersection between Buddhist teachings and modern science. While in Frankfurt, the Dalai Lama will also give a talk on ethics.

The spiritual leader will also attend a symposium on science while on the next leg of his trip in Italy. He will wrap up his European tour in Latvia.

Messenger of ancient thought

The Dalai Lama said his talks come from the ancient Indian wisdom of his teachers.

“I carry wherever I go the ancient Indian thought, Indian knowledge. So I just look at myself as a messenger of ancient Indian thought,” he said.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala since he fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed Chinese uprising. China denounces him as a dangerous separatist. The Dalai Lama denies this and says he is seeking autonomy for Tibetans.
…

Turkey cautioned its citizens on Saturday to take care when traveling to Germany, citing what it said was an upswing in anti-Turkish sentiment ahead of a German national election later this month.

The advisory is likely to further exacerbate tensions between the two NATO allies, whose ties have soured following last year’s failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his subsequent crackdown on alleged coup supporters.

“The political leadership campaigns in Germany are based on anti-Turkey sentiment and preventing our country’s EU membership. The political atmosphere … has actually been under the effects of far-right and even racist rhetoric for some time,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Last weekend German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a televised election debate that she would seek an end to Turkey’s membership talks with the European Union, in an apparent shift of her position that infuriated Ankara.

Merkel, whose conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have long been skeptical about Turkey’s EU ambitions, is expected to win a fourth term in office in Germany’s September 24 election.

“Turkish citizens who live in, or who plan to travel to, Germany should be cautious and act prudently in cases of possible incidents, behavior or verbal assaults of xenophobia and racism,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The advisory marks a reversal of roles. Earlier this year Germany warned its own citizens travelling to Turkey about increased tensions and protests ahead of a Turkish referendum on April 16 which considerably expanded Erdogan’s powers.

Merkel and other EU leaders have strongly criticized Erdogan’s actions since the failed coup, saying his purges of Turkey’s state institutions and armed forces amount to a deliberate attempt to stifle criticism.

More than 50,000 people have been detained and 150,000 suspended in the crackdown, including journalists and opposition figures. Some German nationals have also been targeted.

Turkey says the purges are necessary given the extent of the security threat it faces.
…

The U.N. refugee agency warns overcrowding and deteriorating conditions on Greece’s eastern Aegean islands are causing serious distress among refugees, leading to self-harm and riots in protest.

UNHCR reports that refugees from Syria, Iraq and other destitute and conflict-ridden countries are arriving on Greece’s islands faster than the government can transfer them to the mainland for processing.

In August, it notes, nearly 3,700 people arrived by sea – nearly 1,500 more than in July. UNHCR spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly says living conditions are particularly bad for refugees on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Leros and Chios.

“Many of the people have been staying on the islands for months, and the conditions have affected their physical and mental health. The threat of violence, self-harm and sexual assault is extremely worrying and more security is needed,” Pouilly said.

The agency reports facilities on the islands are seriously overcrowded, and people who lack accommodations are forced to live in containers and tents. Pouilly says on the island of Samos, more than 1,900 people remain crammed into an area intended for 700.

Among them, she says, are more than 600 children, as well as pregnant women, serious medical cases and people with disabilities.

“We are concerned at the growing risks to their health and welfare, due to water shortages and poor hygienic conditions, and we have been providing assistance, such as blankets, mats, sleeping bags and so on. On Lesbos, tensions remain high at the Moria center, which has been twice rocked by riots in recent weeks,” Pouilly said.

The UNHCR is calling for robust action to improve conditions in reception facilities on the islands. It says additional national staff is needed to provide health, psychosocial support and protection of unaccompanied children.
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Emergency services in southern Spain say they are fighting a wildfire that has forced the evacuation of 400 residents from seven towns in the province of Seville.

Authorities said Saturday that the evacuations had taken place mostly overnight because of the smoke produced by the blaze, which broke out Friday. About 120 people have been given shelter in a public library, sports center and school.

More than 130 firefighters are combating flames that they say have reached 20 meters (65 feet) in height across a front stretching 20 kilometers (more than 12 miles).

Authorities have yet to say how much land has been burned.
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A Georgian citizen was reported to have died Friday in a car explosion in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said an explosive device went off inside a black Toyota Camry during rush-hour traffic.

Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko said the victim was identified as Timur Makhauri. Shevchenko said Makhauri’s wife was seriously injured in the blast and was hospitalized.

Shevchenko told reporters a child was in the car with the couple. He said the child’s life was not in danger.

Police were investigating. Interfax Ukraine reported that a murder case had been opened.

Interfax quoted Shevchenko as saying Makhauri was “known quite well in the criminal world” and “had firm connections with various Chechen circles.” He said Makhauri had been targeted for the attack.
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Amid rising German-Turkish diplomatic tensions, Ankara has allowed seven German lawmakers to visit German servicemen deployed at Turkey’s Konya NATO air base. For several months, Ankara had banned such visits, saying the climate in bilateral relations was inappropriate.

“The way the Turkish side is billing it is that it’s a multilateral visit, it’s not bilateral,” said political columnist Semih Idiz of the al-Monitor website. “They say this visit comes from NATO, therefore Turkey has to oblige, being a NATO member.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly had been lobbying intensively to allow the German lawmakers’ visit. The ban on German lawmakers already had resulted in Berlin relocating its reconnaissance planes that had been engaged in anti-Islamic State operations from Turkey’s Incirlik air base.

“The visit by German lawmakers is significant. It eliminates one major factor, political factor, of irritation in the relationship,” according to Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute in Brussels. “However, there are still a number of outstanding important problems. So this will help, but it’s not a solution in and of itself in the difficulties we are witnessing.”

Coincidentally or not, Friday also saw the release of the second Turkish German national, detained last Friday. The two detentions had marked a new low in German-Turkish relations, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel calling them political. Berlin claims 12 German citizens, including journalists and human rights workers, are being held for political reasons since last year’s introduction of emergency rule in Turkey following a failed military coup. Ankara has strongly defended the detentions, claiming its judiciary is independent.

‘Effort’ by Turkey

German-Turkish relations have been plummeting in the last few months. Berlin has become increasingly vocal in its concerns over the ongoing crackdown since last year’s failed coup, and Merkel on Sunday said she was opposed to Turkey becoming a member of the EU. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday shot back, accusing Berlin of following policies of the Nazis.

But analysts suggest Ankara could be trying to contain the crisis.

“There is an effort, at least part of the Turkish administration, to prevent a further degradation of the relationship,” analyst Ulgen said. “There are many people in Ankara within the government which are concerned about the state of the affairs. But I think these efforts so far at least have proved to be piecemeal in nature.”

‘Increasing isolation’

Turkey’s increasingly precarious diplomatic situation is being cited as a key factor behind efforts to contain current German-Turkish tensions. Ankara is facing strained relations, not only with Berlin, but the wider European Union and Washington.

On Friday, Erdogan slammed the indictment by a U.S. prosecutor of a former Turkish minister and former head of a Turkish state bank on Iranian sanction-busting charges, claiming they were with “malicious intent.” Last month, U.S. prosecutors indicted 15 of Erdogan’s security detail for allegedly attacking protesters during a visit to Washington.

“Increasing isolation has started costing Turkey a lot, not only in Europe but also the Middle East, where Turkey is being basically sidelined on issues of crucial importance to it, whether it’s in Iraq or Syria,” said columnist Idiz. “So as far as the [Turkish] policy planners are concerned, it’s a matter of concern. But as far as the president is concerned, it seems he is more concerned, sending the right message to his constituents, a message that goes down well with his constituent.”

Erdogan faces a re-election bid within two years and already is campaigning hard on a nationalist platform, with a message that a strong independent Turkey can stand up to western powers.

Some analysts suggest that given the turmoil on Turkey’s southern borders and the need to maintain economic stability, Erdogan will need to balance nationalist campaign rhetoric and populist policies with diplomatic pragmatism.
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Britain announced Thursday it is stepping up support of the Lebanese army, providing funds for defensive barriers to be used along Lebanon’s border with Syria.

The move is being seen as a vote of confidence by London in the Lebanese army and encouragement of the ambition of its commanders to emerge as the dominant military force on the frontier with Syria — a goal that would complicate Iran’s forging of a so-called ‘land bridge’ through Iraq and Syria and of assisting its allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, said Thursday, “Our ambition is for Lebanon to have complete authority over its border with Syria.”

The stepping up of aid to the Lebanese army (LAF) — Britain had already agreed to help fund over several years construction of 30 border watch towers and 20 forward operating bases — comes just days after LAF and Hezbollah, the country’s radical Shi’ite movement succeeded in clearing Islamic State fighters from a mountainous pocket of the Syria-Lebanon border.

The clearance operations were simultaneous but LAF insists there was no coordination between its assault inside Lebanon and Hezbollah’s from the Syrian side, a claim dismissed this week by Israeli officials. Any evidence of liaison with Hezbollah, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, would undermine LAF’s standing in Washington and Western capitals and jeopardize Western military aid for the Lebanese military.

In the end Hezbollah negotiated safe passage for some 300 jihadists and their families to eastern Syria, close to the Iraqi border.

The Hezbollah safe-passage deal infuriated the U.S. and Iraq, whose governments condemned the agreement, which appears to have been engineered to spoil claims of battlefield success by LAF. For years LAF has had to defer to the Shi’ite movement, in a complex dance of a relationship aimed at avoiding clashes between the two and upsetting Lebanon’s delicate and highly charged sectarian politics.

Even so, some analysts say LAF should be seen as the bigger winner of the clearance operations rather than Hezbollah, as it drew the country’s military out from the shadows and allowed it to assert itself, undercutting Hezbollah’s claims that it is indispensable when it comes to Lebanon’s defense.

Aram Nerguizian, a military analyst who specializes in Lebanon, noted in an interview with local media, that for the first time since Lebanon’s independence LAF is now deployed almost fully along the border with Syria. “Over the last five years, areas that have been no-go zones for the Lebanese army – because they were spheres of Syrian government and/or Hezbollah preeminence – have gradually become LAF zones of control,” he said.

In a paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy research group, Nerguizian noted that “successive generations of LAF leadership have grown ever more confident and emboldened by the idea that the LAF can be Lebanon’s preeminent national security actor. Still, the LAF has struggled time and again with what it sees as the false perceptions of LAF-Hezbollah collusion.”

Last week, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Dany Danon, accused Hezbollah of planning for its next military campaign against Israel, arguing that Shi’ite commanders are “using officers in the Lebanese Army as terror operatives who help it against the IDF [Israel Defense Force] along the border,” with Israel. He claimed Hezbollah was building up its arsenals in southern Lebanon readying for a future attack and accused the UN peace-keeping force of failing to interdict the movement of arms.

Since Lebanese General Joseph Aoun, a veteran field commander and counter-terrorism expert who trained in the U.S., was made army commander in March, LAF has become more assertive. Aoun has irritated Hezbollah with some of his picks for staff positions, although Nerguizian notes in his research paper that the army is “not in a position where it can be openly antagonistic towards Hezbollah,” which remains “the preeminent faction in Lebanon’s sectarian political landscape.”

Western powers, though, are clear in their determination to help boost LAF. Britain’s ambassador to Lebanon offered congratulations to Aoun during a Thursday visit to LAF headquarters on the clearance operation known as “the dawn of mountains,” of IS fighters in the mountain regions of Al-Qaa and Aarsal, on Lebanon’s north-eastern border with Syria.

The ambassador, Hugo Shorter, said the assault was “complex, risky and dangerous,” adding, “The Lebanese Army has shown that it is an effective, professional army capable of defending Lebanon from the threats of an uncertain region. We believe in the Lebanese Army as the sole legitimate defender of Lebanon and the only one which represents all Lebanese acting within the law and with the consent of the Lebanese state and its people.”
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Spain’s Constitutional Court on Thursday blocked the prosperous Catalan region’s plan to vote on independence from Spain.

The ruling was expected after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vowed earlier in the day to “stop at nothing” to prevent the independence referendum called by the regional leaders from taking place.

According to court regulations, the suspension lasts five months while judges come up with a ruling.

The pro-independence coalition ruling Catalonia claims that the universal right to self-determination overrules Spain’s laws.

The regional parliament on Wednesday approved a law to legitimize the independence vote and set an October 1 date for it.

It is not clear how such a vote might turn out. Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans say they do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain.

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría on Wednesday condemned the Catalan leadership for carrying out “an act of force” and for acting more like “dictatorial regimes than a democracy.”

“What is happening in the Catalan parliament is embarrassing, it’s shameful,” she told reporters.
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Germany said on Thursday that Russia was planning to send more than 100,000 troops to war games on NATO’s eastern flank this month, disputing Moscow’s version that only 13,000 Russian and Belarussian servicemen would participate.

The Sept. 14-20 exercises known as Zapad, or “West,” in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are stirring unease in NATO despite Moscow’s assurances troops would rehearse a purely defensive scenario.

“It is undisputed that we are seeing a demonstration of capabilities and power of the Russians,” German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at an EU defense ministers’ meeting in Tallinn.

“Anyone who doubts that only has to look at the high numbers of participating forces in the Zapad exercise: more than one hundred thousand,” she said in a joint news conference with her French counterpart, Florence Parly.

While Baltic nations have voiced concerns about a bigger-than-reported exercise and while NATO’s secretary-general expects more than 13,000 troops, Von der Leyen’s remarks are the first time a top Western politician has called out Russia publicly on what NATO sees as the true size of the war games.

Such numbers would be legal under international treaties on war games, but would require inviting international observers.

With less than 13,000 troops, international observation of the drills is not mandatory, Russia says.

In a sign of efforts to contain tensions, NATO general Petr Pavel held his first face-to face meeting in more than two years with Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, in Azerbaijan on Thursday, the alliance said.

NATO said in a statement the meeting showed “a clear mutual interest to maintain the military lines of communication.”

“Demonstration of force”?

An exercise on that scale is one of NATO’s most pressing concerns. France, for one, believes the war games are no simple military drill, even though Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told Western military attaches in Moscow in August the West had nothing to fear.

Russia accuses NATO of building up forces on its frontiers in a manner reminiscent of the Cold War. But NATO says it is protecting the interests of member states bordering Russia who are troubled by Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and links to pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Previous large-scale exercises in 2013 employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that were later used in the Crimea annexation and in actions in eastern Ukraine and Syria, NATO diplomats said.

“Russia has a global strategy of a visible, deliberate demonstration of force,” Parly said before heading to meet French troops in Estonia as part of NATO’s deployment of deterrent forces in the Baltics and Poland.

“They have a strategy of intimidation,” Parly said, warning that any attack on a Baltic country or Poland by Russia would be considered an attack on all of the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
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Forensic experts began searching a ravine in central Bosnia on Thursday for the remains of around 60 Bosnian Muslims and Croats killed by Serb forces early in the 1992-95 war.

The search began hours after the Bosnian war crimes court ordered the exhumations at Mount Vlasic where between 160 and 220 prisoners of war were shot dead on August 21, 1992.

Bosnian Serbs told the prisoners from detention camps for non-Serbs near the town of Prijedor that they would be released in a prisoner exchange but instead drove them away by bus, lined them up by the edge of a ravine and shot them.

Only a dozen survived what has become known as the Koricani Cliffs massacre, by tumbling or jumping down the steep ravine.

The war claimed 100,000 lives.

The killings were part of a wave of ethnic cleansing by rebel Bosnian Serb forces who were trying to create a Serb statelet by removing Bosniaks – Bosnian Muslims – and Croats from the area.

The remote site is believed to be a secondary mass grave, meaning the bodies were removed from the execution site to this location some time later in an attempt to hide the crime, Amor Masovic, the head of a regional Commission for Missing Persons, told Reuters.

Forensic experts have already unearthed skeletal remains from two other secondary mass graves and have established the identities of 117 victims of the massacre whose bodies were mainly incomplete due to removal.

Eleven Bosnian Serb ex-policemen were convicted for the crime at Koricanske Stijene, including Dargo Mrdja who was jailed for 17 years by the Hague-based U.N. war crimes court.

The remainder were convicted by the Bosnian war crimes court.
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Prince William’s wife Kate was too ill with morning sickness Thursday to take young Prince George to his first day of school.

The 4-year-old prince arrived at school holding the hand of his father, William.

Kate had planned to accompany them but canceled. “Unfortunately the Duchess of Cambridge remains unwell,” a Kensington Palace statement said.

George arrived on time for his first day at Thomas’s Battersea school in south London. He was met by a teacher who will introduce him to the other students.

The palace said earlier this week that Kate is pregnant with her third child and is suffering from acute morning sickness, as in her earlier pregnancies.

She has canceled several public appearances since the announcement.
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Parliament in Spain’s prosperous Catalonia region has approved an independence vote for October 1, which Madrid has vowed to stop.

Separatist parties, which hold a slim majority, backed the referendum legislation and legal framework needed to set up an independent state.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ordered government lawyers to file a complaint with the country’s constitutional court in hopes of annulling the referendum.

Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans say they do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain.

The vote will come about three weeks after Barcelona and a nearby town were struck by Islamist attacks that killed 15 people.

‘Act of force’

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría condemned the Catalan leadership for carrying out “an act of force” and for acting more like “dictatorial regimes than a democracy.”

“What is happening in the Catalan parliament is embarrassing. It’s shameful,” she told reporters.

But Catalan leaders have pledged to proclaim a new republic within 48 hours if the “yes” side wins, regardless of turnout.

Former Catalan President Artur Mas said pushing ahead with the referendum was justified because a pro-independence coalition won the 2015 regional election.

“The referendum is what we have to do because we have the mandate of the peoples of Catalonia,” Mas said.
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The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, has defended the expulsion of Russian diplomats from seized consular property in the United States amid an increasing strain in diplomatic ties.

In a joint interview Wednesday in Moscow with the Russian services of VOA News and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tefft rejected statements in Russian media that the seizing of diplomatic property in San Francisco, New York and Washington was done in what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “boorish and unprecedented” fashion.

Putin accused U.S. authorities of threatening to “break down the entrance door” of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco after Washington set a September 2 deadline for the premises to be evacuated.

“Nobody broke down doors. Nobody put undue pressure on people. It was all done very, very carefully — and, in compliance with the Vienna Conventions,” Tefft said.

Court battle

Speaking in China on Tuesday, Putin said, “Let’s see how well the much-praised American legal system works in practice.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a telephone call on Wednesday that Russia had initiated legal proceedings for what was a “violation of international law.”

U.S. President Donald Trump reduced Russia’s consular facilities this month after the Kremlin demanded the U.S. cut its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people.

Russia said it was imposing the demand as a countermeasure to new U.S. sanctions over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and to achieve “parity” with the level of the Russian diplomatic presence in the U.S. Trump’s closing of the Russian consulate and two annexes brought the number of Russian diplomatic facilities in the U.S. even with the number of U.S. facilities in Russia.

“But when we used parity to withdraw our consent for the Russian government to have a consulate in San Francisco, then everyone got all excited. And, you know, parity is parity,” Tefft noted.

Tefft: Reduction not voluntary

Russia’s Foreign Ministry gave conflicting statements, implying that the U.S. had voluntarily reduced its staff, a notion also rejected outright by Tefft.

However, Tefft said in the interview that it was false to suggest that Washington “negotiated or somehow signed on to the idea of reducing our staff.”

“We were told to do that. That was not something that was negotiated,” he said.

Russian officials say they are considering how to respond to the reduction of their U.S. consular facilities.

Despite the downward spiraling diplomatic relations, Tefft has urged Russia to join U.S. allies in Asia and Western governments in pressuring North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.

“While the focus, at this point, is on the United States, I noted one of the earlier missiles a few weeks ago, you know, landed 60 kilometers off of Vladivostok in the water,” Tefft said. “This is a regional and now becoming a global threat. It’s not just against the United States, it’s against all of us.

“One of the things that Secretary Tillerson and Foreign Minister Lavrov agreed, when they saw each other here in March, was that the United States and Russia both believed the Korean Peninsula should be non-nuclear.That’s a fundamental which we can work on,” Tefft added.

Regular talks seen continuing

The U.S. ambassador said there had been regular consultations between U.S. and Russian experts on North Korea and that he expected more in the next few weeks.

“Now, getting forward, we’ve got to try to find the best tactics to do this. But we need strong efforts by Russia and China if we’re all going to be successful,” he said.

Tefft is expected to leave Russia this year and be succeeded by Trump appointee Jon Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China.

VOA’s Danila Galperovich contributed to this report.
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European judges Wednesday rejected an attempt by Hungary and Slovakia to block mandatory quotas of resettled refugees from Greece and Italy. European Union officials welcomed the ruling and called on member states to speed up the resettlement process – seen as a key part of the bloc’s response to the crisis, which has seen millions of asylum seekers arrive on the continent over the past three years. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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New Lisbon resident Madonna has been extolling the delights of living in the Portuguese capital, the most illustrious of a growing number of foreigners in the newly-fashionable city.

“I used to be a basket case but now I live in Lisbon,” she wrote on Instagram on Sunday under a photo of baskets hanging from the ceiling of an old Portuguese kitchen.

Local media say she has bought a 7.5 million-euro ($9 million) estate in the mountains of Sintra, outside Lisbon, and will continue to stay at the Pestana Palace hotel, where she is in the royal suite, while it is refurbished.

The 18th century Quinta do Relogio estate mentioned by various news outlets was still up for sale on the Engel&Volkers real estate agency’s website on Wednesday.

If the reports are true, Madonna — who wrote that “the energy of Portugal is so inspiring” — joins film stars Michael Fassbender and Monica Bellucci, who have bought properties in Lisbon in the past year.

Among the reasons the pop star has come to Lisbon is that her 11-year-old son, David Banda, has started soccer training at the youth academy of Benfica, according to the Lisbon club.

She also arrives as Portugal has been named Europe’s best destination for expatriates to live in 2017 and the world’s best for quality of life, in a survey published by social network InterNations on Wednesday.

In the overall global rating for best expatriate destination, it soared 23 positions from 2016 to No. 5, making it the leading gainer worldwide.

Portugal, which boasts sandy beaches, golf courses, historic castles and some of the lowest prices in Western Europe, was hard-hit by an economic and debt crisis in 2010-13, but has been on a steady recovery since and is going through a tourism boom.
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Catalan lawmakers were voting Wednesday on a bill that will allow regional authorities to officially call an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain, making concrete a years-long defiance of central authorities, who insist the referendum as illegal.

In an effort to rein in one of the country’s deepest political crises in recent years, Spain’s conservative government threatened to challenge the Catalan parliament’s decision to allow the vote at the country’s top court. The public prosecutor’s office also said it was preparing a lawsuit to punish the Catalan speakers’ committee for disobeying previous court orders and for abusing power.

The plenary session in Barcelona saw tensions flare when the regional parliament’s top speaker, Carme Forcadell, announced that the vote on the bill will go ahead without the customary vetting of a legal committee.

The so-called “referendum bill” was included at the last minute in Wednesday’s agenda. It was likely to be passed by a pro-independence majority later in the day, paving the way for plans for the ballot to be formalized.

The pro-independence coalition ruling Catalonia, where a strong Catalan identity is built around its own language and traditions, says the bill will legitimize a binding vote on breaking away from Spain based on the right to self-determination.

The Spanish government, however, considers that the referendum violates the country’s constitution because only the central authorities can make such a call.

Spain’s constitutional court has previously ruled that any step taken toward a referendum on secession would be illegal. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday urged the court to take punitive measures against the Catalan legislative body’s committee of speakers, including Forcadell.

Wednesday’s parliamentary session was an “embarrassing show” and “a kick to democracy, to Catalans and to political decency,” said Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.

Rajoy has vowed to use all legal measures at hand to ensure the vote doesn’t take place and has ordered his cabinet to be ready to challenge the constitutionality of the bill if it ends up being passed.

“We are defending the rule of law in Spain and democracy in Catalonia,” his deputy, Saenz de Santamaria, said in a televised press conference that was hastily convened.

The Spanish government is trying to strike a delicate balance between offsetting the secessionist defiance and staying away from more dramatic measures that would further inflame anti-Spanish sentiments, such as suspending Catalonia’s autonomous powers or declaring a state of emergency that would bring the army into the mix.

The vote is also not recognized by most of the political opposition at the national level. The leaders of the Socialists and the business-friendly Ciudadanos party declared support for the conservative government in fighting the vote.

Home to 7.5 million, the prosperous Catalonia region centered on Barcelona generates a fifth of Spain’s gross domestic product and enjoys ample self-government, running its own police and with considerable powers in health and education. But key areas such as taxes, foreign affairs and most infrastructures are in the hands of the Spanish government.

The pro-independence block has argued that full control would benefit Catalonia, an idea that grew in support in times of high unemployment and harsh austerity measures as a result of Spain’s 2008-2013 financial crisis. The return to solid growth has weakened public backing for independence, although polls show that almost eight out of 10 Catalans want to have the right to vote.

But a referendum in defiance of Spain’s rule of law, without the blessing of central authorities, has inflamed controversy. If the vote takes place and there is a victory for the “yes” side, Catalan leaders have pledged to proclaim a new republic within 48 hours, regardless of turnout.

Former Catalan leader Artur Mas said that pushing ahead with the referendum was justified because a pro-independence coalition won the 2015 regional election. “The referendum is what we have to do because we have the mandate of the peoples of Catalonia,” he said.

Mas is the highest-ranking among Catalan politicians suspended from office and fined by the country’s Supreme Court for organizing a non-binding vote on independence in 2014. The “yes” vote to breaking away from Spain won at the time amid a low turnout by voters.
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A Spanish audit office has demanded the former leader of Catalonia and other politicians from the region pay 5 million euros ($5.96 million) for holding a consultative independence ballot in 2014, El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday.

The report, which cited judicial sources, came a day before Catalonia is expected to approve plans to hold an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain.

The 2014 vote was non-binding, a symbolic ballot by pro-independence campaigners that was declared illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court.

Catalonia, along with Britain’s Scotland and Belgium’s Flanders, has one of the most active independence movements in the European Union.

El Pais said the former head of the Catalan government, Artur Mas and other regional leaders, were being told by the audit body in charge of overseeing the financing of political parties and the public sector to pay out of their own pocket for organizing the consultation vote.

The money was due by Sept. 25, it said.

The audit office was not immediately available for comment.

The current head of the Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, said the move was the Spanish state “spreading fear.”

Catalan lawmakers are due to vote on Wednesday on laws approving the referendum and the legal framework to set up an independent state.

The laws are expected to be approved because pro-independence parties have a majority in the regional parliament.

The populous, north-eastern region, with its capital Barcelona, has a strong national identity with its own language and traditions, although polls show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves.

($1 = 0.8391 euros)
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France’s financial prosecutor said Tuesday the son of the president of track and field’s global governing body was at the center of large corruption investigations.

“The investigations revealed a large-scale system of corruption around Papa Massata Diack, son of Lamine Diack, former IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) president and influential members of the International Olympic Committee,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The IAAF has regulatory and sanctions authority over IAAF competitions.

The prosecutor’s office said it has evidence showing that payments were made in exchange for votes of IAAF and International Olympic Committee members over the selection of host cities for the “biggest global sporting events.”

The probes initially focused on Tokyo’s designation as the host city for the 2020 Olympic games, but were expanded to include the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.

They stem from a two-year-old corruption probe in France that first came to light with the November 2015 arrest of Lamine Diack. French authorities had been investigating allegations that Diack, his son, and others were involved in blackmailing athletes and covering-up doping violations.

The French investigation has evolved into a large probe that involves several law enforcement agencies outside of France. The investigation, named “Unfair Play,” has authorities looking beyond the IAAF to explore possible vote-buying to influence where sports events are hosted.

Brazilian police raided the house of the country’s Olympics chief Tuesday on allegations International Olympic Committee members were bribed to select Rio de Janeiro as host of the 2016 games.

French anti-corruption Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke was seen with Brazil’s federal police as they raided the posh seaside Rio home of Carlos Nuzman, who was detained for questioning but was not arrested. Nuzman’s lawyer, Sergio Mazzillo, told reporters outside Nuzman’s home that he was innocent and would cooperate with authorities.

Brazilian police said in a statement they were investigating an “international corruption scheme.” The statement said 70 officers, accompanied by French officials, searched 11 sites in Rio. An arrest warrant was issued for Nuzman’s associate, Miami resident Arthur Cesar de Menezes Soares Filho, who received lucrative contracts from the Rio government in the spending spree that preceded the Olympics games. A former associate of Soares Filho, Eliane Pereira Cavalcante, was arrested in Rio.

Brazilian prosecutor Fabiana Schneider told reporters Tuesday that Soares Filho allegedly bribed Papa Massata Diack before the 2009 vote that resulted in Rio being named host of the 2016 games. Diack’s father was president of the IAAF at the time and had considerable influence over African votes on the IOC.

Schneider said Nuzman had been the “linchpin” between Soares Filho and the younger Diack.

Nuzman’s lawyer, Sergio Mazzillo, told reporters outside Nuzman’s home that he was innocent and would cooperate with authorities.

The Rio games were generally considered a success until revelations came to light of massive corruption during the preparations.

Former Rio governor Sergio Cabral was sentenced in June to 14 years in jail. He was convicted of bribery and money laundering, including the embezzlement of $64 million from public works projects like Rio’s iconic Maracana football stadium.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin refrained from criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump at a news conference in China on Tuesday, but said a decision to shutter Russian diplomatic outposts in the U.S. was poorly handled.

Speaking at a news conference during a summit in China on Tuesday, Putin dismissed as “naive” a question about whether he was disappointed in Trump.

In comments carried by Russian news agencies, Putin said Trump is “not my bride, and I’m not his groom.”

Asked how Russia would feel if Trump were impeached, Putin said it would be “absolutely wrong” for Russia to discuss domestic U.S. politics.

Russian officials cheered Trump when he was elected last year, and Putin praised him as someone who wanted to improve ties with Russia. However, further U.S. sanctions on Russia and the U.S. decision to close Russian diplomatic outposts have raised concerns that the two countries remain far apart.

The Trump administration last week ordered the closure of three Russian facilities in the U.S.: The San Francisco consulate and trade missions in New York and Washington. It was the latest in a series of escalating retaliatory measures between the former Cold War foes.

Putin said the U.S. had a right to close consulates but “it was done in such a rude way.”

“It is hard to hold a dialogue with people who mix Austria with Australia,” he continued, an apparent reference to a decade-old gaffe by George W. Bush, who during a 2007 visit to Sydney referred to Austrian troops when he meant Australian troops.

“The American nation, America is truly a great country and a great people if they can tolerate such a big number of people with such a low level of political culture,” Putin said.
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