While the United States supports Turkey’s concern about a safe and secure Turkish-Syrian border, military operations by Turkey into northeast Syria will not advance regional stability, the State Department said Friday.

Turkey was reportedly intensifying the shelling into Syria’s Kurdish-controlled Afrin region. 

“We do not believe that a military operation, whether in Afrin or directly against the self-defense Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in the north or northeast of Syria, serves the cause of regional stability, Syrian stability or indeed Turkish concerns about the security of their border,” a State Department official said, adding that he could not comment further without more information about Ankara’s reported operations.

Border force

Turkey’s threat to intervene in Afrin came after a U.S.-led coalition said it would form a 30,000-strong Kurdish-led border security force in northern Syria.

Washington later said the effort had been mischaracterized and that the U.S. was not creating a border force, but that the coalition would provide security to liberated areas, blocking escape routes for Islamic State militants.

The United States has led a coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS targets in Syria and Iraq since 2014, and the Pentagon said last month that there were about 2,000 U.S. military personnel in Syria.

Despite suffering apparent defeats on the ground in Iraq and parts of Syria, IS is far from dead.

“ISIS is still present” and a lethal force, the State Department official said using an acronym for the group. “The military campaign against the so-called caliphate is not over. There is heavy fighting. … ISIS in northern Syria and Iraq have chosen not to fight and die but move out of the combat area.”

Broader settlement

Some experts warned that even after areas in Syria have been liberated from IS, the country will need a broader political settlement that reflects regional and national realities to bring displaced people home.

“A Syrian political settlement and the refugee crisis should not be addressed separately,” said Kheder Khaddour, a scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

Khaddour added that “a settlement without a refugee return will hinder reconstruction by keeping away needed professionals and civil society actors. A return without a settlement will lead to local conflicts between traditional leadership and emerging ones empowered during the war.”

The State Department is facilitating Syrian refugees’ safe return home by de-mining and restoration efforts.

Earlier this week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out Washington’s objectives for a “whole and unified sovereign Syria.” He announced Wednesday a revitalized diplomatic and military strategy in Syria, including the defeat of IS and al-Qaida; a U.N.-led political process under a post-Bashar al-Assad Syria that is stable, unified and independent; diminished Iranian influence; conditions that allow refugees to return; and a country free of weapons of mass destruction.
…

Britain’s most prominent campaigner for leaving the European Union, Boris Johnson, has suggested building a giant bridge across the English Channel to France after Brexit, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Foreign Secretary Johnson, who led the campaign to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, told French President Emmanuel Macron that he felt it was ridiculous that the two countries were linked by just a single railway.

The leading Brexiteer then suggested building a second crossing, to which Macron said: “I agree. Let’s do it,” the newspaper reported.

“Our economic success depends on good infrastructure and good connections. Should the Channel Tunnel be just a first step?” Johnson said on Twitter.

Johnson did not mention the idea of a bridge explicitly in public and it was unclear if any detailed discussions had taken place about how such a large project might be built or financed.

The Daily Telegraph said that Johnson believes a privately funded 22-mile Channel Bridge may now be an option and would provide the capacity for increased tourism and trade after Brexit.

“Technology is moving on all the time and there are much longer bridges elsewhere,” Johnson told his aides, according to the newspaper.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office declined to comment.
…

Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet said it would launch a second-hand business this year, becoming the first big brand to announce plans to tap into a fast-growing market for pre-owned premium watches.

The company told Reuters it would launch the business at its outlets in Switzerland this year. If this proved successful, it would roll out the operation in the United States and Japan.

“Second-hand is the next big thing in the watch industry,” Chief Executive Francois-Henry Bennahmias told Reuters in an interview at the SIHH watch fair in Geneva this week.

Going to the ‘dark side’

Luxury watchmakers have hitherto eschewed the second-hand trade, fearing diluting the exclusivity of their brands and cannibalizing their sales. They have instead ceded the ground to third-party dealers.

But some are now looking to change tack, driven by an industry-wide sales slowdown combined with a second-hand market that is expanding rapidly, fuelled by online platforms like Chrono24 and The RealReal.

“At the moment, in watches, we leave it to what I call the ‘dark side’ to deal with demand for pre-owned pieces,” added Bennahmias, whose company is known for its octagonal Royal Oak timepieces that sell for 40,000 Swiss francs ($41,680) on average.

“Anybody but the brands (is selling second hand) — it’s an aberration commercially speaking,” he said.

Others may follow

Several smaller brands, including H.Moser & Cie and MB&F, have signaled interest in the second-hand trade.

“It is important to control the sale of second-hand watches to protect the owners and the value of watches already in the market by keeping the grey market in check,” H.Moser & Cie boss Edouard Meylan told Reuters.

MB&F, which plans to launch second-hand sales via its website this year, told Reuters it expected to typically give a 20-30 percent discount on second-hand watches. A spokesman said customers buying from established watch brands could feel confident they were getting genuine products in good working order and with a valid warranty.

Bigger brands Rolex, Patek Philippe, Swatch Group, Richemont and Breitling all declined to comment, when asked whether they planned to enter the second-hand market, while LVMH’s watch division was not immediately available.

Starting small

Audemars Piguet said it would initially allow customers to trade in old watches as part-exchange for new ones, and then sell the second-hand watches. It has not yet decided whether to buy second-hand watches for cash.

Experts say the second-hand luxury watches business, mostly done via online platforms or specialized retailers, is growing rapidly as a new generation of customers that values variety more than permanent ownership enters the luxury world.

In an example of the discounts offered online, a diamond-studded Audemars Piguet Royal Oak “with moderate scratches” sells for $9,450 on The RealReal, about a third of the estimated retail price.

Kepler Cheuvreux analyst Jon Cox said he estimated the size of the second-hand market at $5 billion a year in revenue, including watches sold at auction, and that it had outperformed the market for new pieces in the last couple of years.

That is still dwarfed by a new luxury watch sector worth 37 billion euros ($45.3 billion), according to consultancy Bain & Cie. However Swiss watch exports fell 3.3 percent in 2015 and 9.9 percent in 2016 before posting a modest 2.8 percent rise in the first 11 months of 2017.

US top market for pre-owned

The United States, where sales of new watches have been falling for years, is the No. 1 market for pre-owned watches, followed by Britain and Japan, said U.S. retailer Danny Govberg, who sells new watches for Rolex and other brands, but also an increasing number of second-hand timepieces.

His company said its second-hand sales had grown by 37-40 percent year-on-year over the past five years. In an example of prices, it said it listed a second-hand Audemars Piguet Royal Oak for $24,950 compared with a $32,000 retail price.

Together with a partner in Hong Kong and a Singapore-based investor, Govberg recently launched global e-commerce platform WatchBox for buying and selling pre-owned luxury watches.

“People sell us watches by the bucket,” he said.

He said many people sold watches to buy a new one so the pre-owned market was actually driving new sales, like in the car market. 

“The brands are still trying to figure it out, they don’t have the solution yet,” he said.
…

After lengthy treks through the muddy Amazon, indigenous men, women and children will greet Pope Francis on Friday in a visit to the world’s largest rainforest that native leaders hope will mark a turning point for the increasingly threatened ecosystem.

Francis is expected to meet with several thousand indigenous people gathering in a coliseum in Puerto Maldonado, the scorching city considered a gateway to the Amazon, in the first full day of the pontiff’s visit to Peru.

Indigenous leaders, many sporting headdresses with brightly colored feathers and intricate beaded jewelry, said they are optimistic the pope can serve as a bridge with Peru’s government to help resolve long-standing issues like land rights.

“His desire to be with us signals a historic reconciliation with the Amazon’s indigenous communities,” said Edwin Vasquez, an indigenous leader who traveled to Puerto Maldonado to hear the pope. “We consider it a good step forward.”

​More mines, farms, roads, dams

Francis’ trip to the Amazon comes as the expansion of illegal gold mining and farming as well as new roads and dams have turned thousands of hectares of once lush green forest into barren, contaminated wasteland. Francis has previously called on world leaders to protect the Amazon, likening it to one of the “lungs of our planet,” and is widely expected to reiterate that message when he speaks in Puerto Maldonado Friday.

He is also using the trip to set the stage for a big church meeting next year on the Amazon and the native peoples who reside there.

A meeting with members of Chile’s indigenous Mapuche community was one of the highlights of the first-leg of the pope’s weeklong trip to the region. Francis urged Mapuche leaders to refrain from political violence and called on the Chilean government to better engage its indigenous communities.

The call for peace came as 11 firebombs damaged and in some cases burned churches to the ground in several parts of Chile during the pontiff’s visit. Investigators found pamphlets promoting the Mapuche cause at some of the churches.

​350 indigenous groups

The Amazon’s native peoples hail from about 350 indigenous groups, some of which live in voluntary isolation. In the centuries after Spanish colonization most traces of native spiritual beliefs were lost as missionaries converted indigenous Peruvians to Catholicism.

The Catholic Church maintains a strong presence in the region, though these days few indigenous men and women go to mass and most identify as evangelical, said Lizardo Cauper, president of the Amazon’s largest indigenous organization.

Many Peruvian native peoples are curious about why Francis wants to meet them, Cauper said, while also hoping he can serve as an influential messenger.

“We are hoping for a reflective message that will help those in power,” he said.

Land rights and a voice

In a letter sent to Francis this week, the leaders of three predominant indigenous groups called on Francis to back their call for the state to grant 20 million hectares in collective land rights to native peoples. They also want him to urge Peru’s government to clean up rivers tainted from illegal gold mining.

Rather than a halt on all mining and exploration in the Amazon, Vasquez said that what indigenous communities want is to be a part of any discussions that take place to decide where and how those activities are conducted.

Studies confirm that contamination from mining is having an impact on the health of many of those who live in the Amazon.

“They have lead in their blood,” Vasquez said. “Is that development?”

Cesar Yojaje, leader of the Palma Real indigenous group, was among the many trekking by boat to greet the pontiff Friday. After a three-hour journey along a brackish river he said he hoped to hear a forceful message from the pope.

He said he wants the state to return indigenous lands and publicly apologize “for robbing us of our lands and turning them into a park.”
…

Turkey’s main business lobby on Thursday called on the government to end the state of emergency as parliament extended it for a sixth time since it was imposed after an attempted coup in 2016.

Emergency rule allows President Tayyip Erdogan and the government to bypass parliament in passing new laws and allows them to suspend rights and freedoms. More than 50,000 people have been arrested since its introduction and 150,000 have been sacked or suspended from their jobs.

The Turkish parliament on Thursday voted to extend the state of emergency, with the ruling AK Party and the nationalist opposition voting in favor.

Rights groups and some of Turkey’s Western allies fear Erdogan is using the crackdown to stifle dissent and crush his opponents. Freedom House, a Washington-based watchdog, downgraded Turkey to “not free” from “partly free” in an annual report this week.

In order to preserve its international reputation, Turkey needs to start normalizing rapidly, Erol Bilecik, the head of the TUSIAD business lobby said.

“The first step in that regard is bringing an end to the state of emergency,” he told a meeting in Istanbul.

Parliament was due to extend emergency rule after the national security council on Wednesday recommended it do so.

The state of emergency has negatively impacted foreign investors’ decisions, another senior TUSIAD executive said.

“As Turkey takes steps towards becoming a state of law, direct investments will increase, growth will accelerate, more jobs will be created,” Tuncay Ozilhan said, adding that he hoped this would be the last extension of emergency rule.

The government says its measures are necessary to confront multiple security challenges and root out supporters of the cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it blames for the coup attempt. Gulen has denied any involvement.

But critics fear Erdogan is pushing the NATO member towards greater authoritarianism.

Some 30 emergency decrees have been published since the failed coup. They contain 1,194 articles and cover defense, security, the judiciary, education and health, widely restructuring the relationship between the state and the citizen.

A total of 2,271 private educational institutions have been shut down in the crackdown, as well as 19 labor unions, 15 universities, 49 hospitals and 148 media outlets.

The two co-heads of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition party, parliament’s third-largest, are in jail on terrorism charges, as are several of the parties deputies.

The Turkish Journalists’ Association says about 160 journalists are in jail, most held since the failed coup. Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists called Turkey the world’s top jailer of journalists.
…

Italy ordered the arrest of 33 people on Thursday on suspicion of running a Chinese mafia group involved in gambling, prostitution, and drugs and which dominated the transport of Chinese goods across Europe.

The group’s base was in Prato, near Florence, a hub for the textile industry where many factories are owned and run by Chinese, police said in a statement. But the network had members in other parts of Italy and across Europe, with arrests sought in Rome, Milan, Padua, Paris, Madrid and Neuss, Germany, the statement said. Police did not say how many had been arrested so far.

They are accused of being members of a mafia organization and other crimes.

The suspected boss, Zhang Nai Zhong, was based in Rome. He used profit from illegal activities to build a massive transport company that dominated the trucking of goods for thousands of Chinese companies, police said.

Zhong had won a near-monopoly in distribution through threats and violence against Chinese company owners, anti-mafia prosecutors said. The investigation, called “China Truck”, began in 2011.

The operation broke up “a dangerous organization that had used force to take control of trucking, and was financed by its illegal activities,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in a statement.

Italy has a long history of home-grown organized crime, including the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, but immigration to Europe has opened the way for foreign crime groups to take root, including the Nigerian and Chinese mafias.

“Being able to shed light on mafia character of this group is almost incredible,” Federico Cafiero De Raho, Italy’s chief anti-mafia prosecutor, told a news conference. “It’s quite unusual to be able to identify a complex Chinese mafia organization.”

Investigators said Zhong emerged the winner of a conflict between rival Chinese gangs in which some 40 people were thought to have been murdered between 2005-2010. They estimated the group’s business activities were worth “hundreds of millions of Euros.”

Apart from the arrests, prosecutors seized eight companies and an equal number of vehicles and “a few” millions of euros.
…

Turkey’s parliament voted Thursday in favor of extending a state of emergency in place since a failed coup in the summer 2016, Turkish media reported.

The sixth extension will become effective from Friday at 1.00 a.m., Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported. According to Turkey’s constitution, a state of emergency can be declared for a maximum of six months.

Turkey will have spent a year and a half under emergency rule after the latest extension, during which time the president and government are allowed to bypass parliament in passing new laws and suspend rights and freedoms.

Roughly 50,000 people have been jailed and over 110,000 dismissed or removed from their jobs in Turkey since the state of emergency was first declared in 2016.

 
…

Britain has appointed a minister of loneliness to combat social isolation experienced by one in 10 Britons. 

Sports Minister Tracey Crouch will add the job to her existing portfolio to advance the work of slain lawmaker Jo Cox, who set up the Commission on Loneliness in 2016.

“For far too many people, loneliness is the sad reality of modern life,” Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday. “I want to confront this challenge for our society and for all of us to take action to address the loneliness endured by the elderly, by carers, by those who have lost loved ones — people who have no one to talk to or share their thoughts and experiences with.”

The British Red Cross says more than 9 million Britons describe themselves as being always or often lonely, out of a population of 65.6 million.

Most people over age 75 in Britain live alone, and about 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month, government data show.

“We know that there is a real impact of social isolation and loneliness on people, on their physical and mental well-being but also on other aspects in society, and we want to tackle this challenge,” Crouch told the BBC. 
…

Syria’s dominant Kurdish party on Wednesday called on the U.N. Security Council to act quickly to ensure the safety of Kurdish-controlled territories in the country’s north, including an enclave that Turkey has threatened to attack.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will launch a military offensive in the coming days against territories controlled by the dominant Syrian Kurdish militia in northwestern and eastern Syria, and in particular the enclave of Afrin, where an estimated 1 million people live. 

Turkey views the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces as terrorists, and an extension of the Kurdish insurgency raging in its southeast. It has criticized the U.S. for extending support and arming the Kurdish forces as part of the campaign that drove the Islamic State group from large parts of Syria. 

Coalition upsets Turkey

The Kurdish militia, which forms the backbone of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, now controls nearly 25 percent of Syrian territory. It is the U.S.-led coalition’s chief ally in the campaign against IS in Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition recently said it is planning a 30,000-strong Kurdish-led border force, further angering Turkey. 

“Turkey has reached the end of its patience,” said Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. “No one should expect it to show more patience. Turkey is determined to take whatever steps are necessary.”

Turkey’s National Security Council also met Wednesday and vowed to take steps to “eliminate” threats from western Syria — in an apparent reference to Afrin.

A statement issued at the end of the meeting also criticized the United States, saying Turkey was saddened by the fact an ally has “declared terrorists as partners”  and “armed them without taking our security into consideration.” It called on the U.S. to reclaim all arms supplied to Syrian Kurdish fighters.

In reference to the planned Kurdish-led border force, the statement added: “Turkey will not allow the creation of a terror corridor or an army of terror near its border.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that those plans were a “perilous” step that would “seriously endanger ties.” The two met in Vancouver Tuesday. 

“Such a development would damage Turkish-American ties in an irreversible manner,” the state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Cavusoglu as saying on Wednesday.

Operation set to ‘purge terror’

Erdogan said the imminent military operation is to “purge terror” from near its borders. Along with Afrin, Erdogan has also threatened Manbij, a town the Kurdish-led SDF seized from IS in 2016.

The Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, the political arm of the main Kurdish militia, said that if Turkey launches an operation against Afrin, the world will bear responsibility for the lives of people residing there. The PYD called on the Security Council to “move immediately” to ensure the security of Kurdish-controlled areas in Syria. 

“Such a responsible behavior will lead to the desired result in finding a resolution for the Syrian crisis,” the PYD said in a statement. 

The Syrian government of President Bashar Assad has meanwhile accused the SDF of being “traitors” for cooperating with the United States. 

On Monday, Erdogan vowed to crush the border force and called on NATO to take a stand against the United States, a fellow ally.

Shelling continues near Afrin

Meanwhile, Syrian activists said Turkish military activities near the borders with Afrin have continued, as well as shelling of the outskirts of the town. Tanks amassed near the border with Syria, while Turkish media reported that medical personnel in Kilis, a Turkish town across the border from Afrin, were asked not to take leave, apparently in anticipation of military operations. 

Turkey’s private Dogan news agency quotes Turkey-backed Syrian rebels as saying they are awaiting Turkish orders to launch the Afrin operations. It says some 3,000 fighters are ready to participate in operations against Afrin and Manbij.
…

Polish abortion rights proponents, most of them women, marched Wednesday in Warsaw and elsewhere in Poland to express their opposition to a proposal in parliament to further tighten the country’s already restrictive abortion law.

Hundreds took part in a march in Warsaw. The turnout appeared far smaller than similar marches that mobilized huge crowds in 2016.

The march, organized by a group known as the Women’s Strike, came after lawmakers voted recently to refuse to consider a proposal to liberalize the abortion law and moved forward with a separate proposal to tighten the law.

Abortion is illegal in most cases in heavily Catholic Poland, and some conservative lawmakers are seeking to restrict it further.
…

France is set to demand that Britain pay more to deal with the ongoing migrant crisis around the port of Calais, the main gateway from the European mainland to the UK. 

French President Emmanuel Macron visited the northern town Tuesday, where he met migrants at a local shelter, and praised the commitment of the police in a speech to local officers.

“Under no circumstances will we allow illegal networks to emerge or develop here. Under no circumstances will we let another jungle camp appear here, or any other illegal occupation of land,” he said, criticizing those who accuse the police of abuses against the migrants.

Macron is expected to unveil new immigration policies in the coming weeks. Official figures this week showed a record number of asylum applications in 2017, exceeding 100,000 people.

 Currently, British border controls are hosted in Calais under an agreement between Britain and France.

Macron is due to travel to London Thursday for talks with Prime Minister Theresa May and is expected to demand Britain accept more asylum seekers and pay more toward policing the border.

Hundreds of asylum seekers, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, are living in dire conditions in makeshift camps around Calais. The roads leading to the port are lined with rows of razor wire fences, but the migrants regularly scale the barriers and attempt to hide in trucks and cars heading across the English Channel. 

Migrants and volunteers accuse police of routine violence. One 22-year-old Afghan refugee, who has been in Calais for three weeks, said authorities regularly raid the camps. 

“When the police stop us, they hit us, they beat us. And when we sleep at night, they take away our tents, they tear them, they gas us, and there’s nothing we can do.”

At its peak, up to 10,000 migrants lived in a sprawling camp known as ‘the jungle” just outside Calais. Former president Francois Hollande sent in bulldozers in 2016, and his successor, Macron, has taken a tougher line, insisting that migrants are bussed away from Calais to processing centers where their asylum status can be assessed.

Many migrant charities refused to meet Macron during his visit to Calais, in protest of the crackdown.

“Now there really is an incomprehensible step backwards, and it can be qualified as harassment,” said Jean-Claude Lenoir, head of the migrant charity, Salam.

Critics say the French and British governments are failing to address the factors that drive migrants to Calais.

“Particularly the fact that some people have family links in the U.K., or they have other reasons behind their willingness to go to the U.K. For example, they believe that there are more integration prospects, or they have language skills that would work better in the U.K. Calais is a symptom, it’s an example of how the U.K. is shirking their responsibilities,” Maria Serrano from Amnesty International told VOA in an interview.

Britain says it has a rigorous asylum process and insists that it is one of the biggest global donors to refugee aid programs. 
…

Next month’s Winter Olympics is the immediate focus for Sweden but the country is already training its next generation of winter sports athletes in special high school programs that combine sports and education for ambitious teenagers.

At the Jamtlands Gymnaisum high school in Ostersund, some 550 kilometers (340 miles )north of Stockholm, promising young skiers and biathletes are put through their paces four mornings a week by highly-qualified coaches at a local ski stadium.

They return to school at lunchtime, piling their plates high with pasta and salad in the cafeteria before heading to the classroom to catch up on their studies.

And when they are done in the classroom, they head back to the gym to work on their strength and conditioning before finishing their homework and heading for bed at the end of a long day.

It sounds like a gruelling schedule, but for those taking part it is a dream way to spend their school years.

“It’s very important, it feels like this is my life,” Julia Albertsson, a budding cross-country skier, told Reuters after strapping on her skis for her morning training session.

“You feel like you’re not just a person, you’re a cross-country skier. Right now it’s the most important thing,” she said before setting off at a blistering pace under the watchful eyes of coach David Engstrom.

Application period

“Eventually, we want them to reach the elite. It’s a very long way, and this is just the start of that long road,” Engstrom said as the skiers raced away.

“We’ve just completed an application period, and I’d say we take in around eight (athletes) every year. It’s up to themselves how good they can be.

“They decide the level of ambition, and how much time they put into training and everything else they need to become really good.”

Albertsson and the cross-country students train alongside the school’s biathletes, who are coached by Jean-Marc Chabloz, a four-time Olympian from Switzerland who has made his home in the area.

“We have good clubs in the area who work with young people, so we have them served up to us on a silver platter,” Chabloz said as he gave the teenagers shooting tips.

Despite his own Olympic history, where he took part in the Games in Albertville, Lillehammer, Nagano and Salt Lake City, the 50-year-old said it was not essential for him that the athletes go on to compete at the Games, or in the World Cup.

“I wouldn’t say that’s what drives me as a coach, it’s more about creating a platform so that they can move on in their sporting lives, or in something else. But obviously it’s great when they succeed in sport,” he explained.

School sporting director Michael Soderkvist and his team of teachers and coaches look after the student athletes, making sure they stay focussed on their studies as well as their dreams of representing Sweden at a future Olympics.

“The goal is to give students a chance to get an education, and in combination to see how far you can get with your sporting talent,” Soderkvist said.

Wrestling with maths

Back in the classroom, some of the student athletes wrestle with mathematics while those with no lessons scheduled sit on sofas in common areas, catching up on schoolwork or talking through the competitions they took part in at the weekend.

Aside from winter sports, the school offers a number of other pursuits such as soccer, basketball and fencing.

The local soccer club in Ostersund, which the school is in regular contact with, is set to meet Premier League giants Arsenal in the last 32 of the Europa League in February.

For Soderkvist, Sweden’s long-held tradition of making both sport and education accessible to all is the secret behind the success of the programs offered by similar schools, where there are no tuition or coaching fees.

“If we compare it to the States, where most of the sports are in college or schools or the private market, it’s very much different here. Because of this culture with no-profit clubs, many people can afford to do sport.” Soderkvist said.

The school is one of many with such programs all over Sweden, and every year dozens of athletes from the age of 16 and upwards apply to attend.

The handful of chosen athletes aim to follow in the footsteps of Charlotte Kalla, who had a similar high school education before going on to win multiple Olympic gold medals, and will head to Pyeongchang as one of the country’s brightest medal hopes.

Julia Albertsson is typical of the well-mannered, conscientious teenagers attending the school, and though she could never be described as cocky or arrogant, the 17-year-old is crystal clear about her burning ambition to emulate Kalla.

“You work successively, year after year, to be better, and in the end you want to get to the Olympics,” she said.
…

Bosnia’s security agencies are investigating a Serbian right-wing group that the national government said Tuesday was a paramilitary unit formed to create “a problem” for those opposed to Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik.

Members of Serbian Honor caused an uproar when they marched in full combat gear in the Bosnian Serb capital, Banja Luka, during a January 9 military parade to mark a national holiday in one the country’s two autonomous regions.

The parade was staged as a challenge to a ruling by Bosnia’s Constitutional Court to ban the holiday because it discriminated against the country’s other ethnic groups. Bosnia is split into the Federation, shared by the Bosnian Croats and Muslim Bosniaks, and the Serb-dominated Serb Republic.

Serbian Honor is registered in neighboring Serbia but has an informal wing in the Bosnian Serb Republic, whose leaders say they are in the process of registering as a charity there.

“For me this is a paramilitary formation,” Security Minister Dragan Mektic told reporters Tuesday. “The way they showed up is dangerous and their claims to be a charity are ridiculous.”

Dodik’s office said the reports were false and dangerous.

Mektic, member of a party that opposes Dodik, said the group was formed to “sow fear” and “pass a pre-election message that those who oppose the current government will have a problem.”

A national election is due in Bosnia in October.

Dodik’s SNSD party, which had been the dominant Bosnian Serb party at regional and national levels since 2006, saw its popularity slide in the last national vote and was excluded from a ruling coalition.

Russian link reported

Bosnian investigative web portal Zurnal, without citing sources, said the group had been trained in a Russian-funded humanitarian center in Serbia and would be organized to act against Dodik’s political opponents.

The Russian Embassy said it did not even want to comment on something so ridiculous.

Mektic compared the group to paramilitary groups led by criminal gang leaders that emerged on the eve of Bosnia’s war in the 1990s, and later committed some of the most gruesome atrocities against civilians during the conflict.

“What we need the least is the repetition of such events,” Mektic warned. “I call on all institutions to protect this country and I expect a quick response.”

Mektic told reporters he could not provide much of the operational data, but said the case would be documented and forwarded to the prosecutor this week.

Concerns are high regarding increasing instability in the Balkans, including secessionist pressures in Bosnia, a parliamentary boycott in Montenegro and renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo.

Western leaders have accused Russia, traditional ally of the Serbs, of seeking to exploit diminishing European Union leverage in the Balkans by manipulating political events in the region. Russia denies such allegations.
…

Pope Francis begged for forgiveness Tuesday for the “irreparable damage” done to children who were raped and molested by priests, opening his visit to Chile by diving head-first into a scandal that has greatly hurt the Catholic Church’s credibility here and cast a cloud over his visit.

Speaking to Chile’s president, lawmakers, judges and other authorities, Francis said he felt “bound to express my pain and shame” that some of Chile’s pastors had sexually abused children in their care. He was interrupted by applause from the dignitaries at La Moneda palace when he pronounced the words.

“I am one with my brother bishops, for it is right to ask forgiveness and make every effort to support the victims, even as we commit ourselves to ensuring that such things do not happen again,” he said.

History’s first Latin American pope didn’t refer by name to Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, who was sanctioned in 2011 by the Vatican to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for sexually molesting minors. Nor did he refer to the fact that the emeritus archbishop of Santiago, a top papal adviser, has acknowledged he knew of complaints against Karadima but didn’t remove him from ministry.

Karadima had been a politically connected, charismatic and powerful priest who ministered to a wealthy Santiago community and produced dozens of priestly vocations and five bishops. Victims went public with their accusations in 2010, after complaining for years to church authorities that Karadima would kiss and fondle them when they were teenagers.

While the scandal rocked the church, many Chileans are still furious over Francis’ subsequent decision, in 2015, to appoint a Karadima protege as bishop of the southern city of Osorno. Bishop Juan Barros has denied knowing about Karadima’s abuse but many Chileans don’t believe him, and his appointment has badly split the diocese.

“Sex abuse is Pope Francis’ weakest spot in terms of his credibility,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Vatican expert and theology professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia. “It is surprising that the pope and his entourage don’t understand that they need to be more forthcoming on this issue.”

The Karadima scandal and a long cover-up has caused a crisis for the church in Chile, with a recent Latinbarometro survey saying the case was responsible for a significant drop in the number of Chileans who call themselves Catholic, as well as a fall in confidence in the church as an institution.

That distrust extends to Francis, who is making his first visit as pope to this country of 17 million people. The Argentine pope is nearly a native son, having studied in Chile during his Jesuit novitiate and he knows the country well, but Chileans give him the lowest approval rating among the 18 Latin American nations in the survey.

“People are leaving the church because they don’t find a protective space there,” said Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman for a group of church members in Osorno that has opposed Barros’ appointment as bishop. “The pastors are eating the flock.”

People angry over Barros planned a protest for Tuesday, when Francis is scheduled to celebrate Mass in Santiago’s O’Higgins Park.

Other groups also called demonstrations against the pontiff.

Victor Hugo Robles, an activist in Chile’s lesbian and gay community, said the Vatican tries to paint an image of the pope as being close to the people, particularly those with the most needs.

“We are the ones who need help,” said Robles. “Gay people, people living with AIDS. When it comes to those things, the church has an attitude of intolerance, of disgust.”

Felipe Morales, from a group called the Workers’ Socialist Front, said many were unhappy with the pope and the church’s historical influence in Chile. They planned to protest outside while Francis celebrated Mass.

“The role of the church has been nefarious,” said Morales. “Sex abuse cases have been covered up and people are unhappy with many other issues.”

To be sure, many are excited to see the pope. Thousands lined the streets of Santiago to get a glimpse of Francis after he arrived Monday night, though the crowds were notably thin compared to previous visits to other Latin American capitals. O’Higgins Park, though, was teeming with faithful waiting for the pope’s Mass, with some pilgrims camping out overnight.

“It was amazing to see him,” said Luis Salazar, a young boy who came out with his family to see Francis pass by in his popemobile Monday.

The pope will try to inject new energy into the church during his visit, which includes sessions with migrants, members of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous group and victims of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship. It remains to be seen if he will meet with sex abuse survivors. A meeting wasn’t on the agenda, but such encounters never are.

 
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Russia’s main independent polling agency has stopped publishing results of opinion polls on the upcoming presidential election, fearing legal repercussions.

Levada Center was listed as a foreign agent in 2016 under a new law aimed at curbing alleged foreign influence on public life in Russia. Authorities insist that the law does not aim to target critics of the Kremlin.

Levada is not a foreign company, but Russian authorities are able to list it as a foreign agent because it has received foreign funding.

Levada’s director, Lev Gudkov, told the Russian daily Vedomosti on Tuesday that the agency is carrying out election polling but will not publish results during the campaign because it fears that this could be viewed as election meddling and could lead to a motion to close down the pollster.

Russians go to polls on March 18 to vote for their president. Incumbent Vladimir Putin is expected to win by a landslide.

Results of Levada’s polls have not differed dramatically from those by the two main state-owned polling agencies in terms of support for Putin and the ruling party. But recent polls did show a difference regarding the turnout for the upcoming vote.

With his key rival, Alexei Navalny, barred from running, Putin is facing candidates who only nominally oppose him. That raised fears of a lower turnout at the election, which would be a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

Commenting on the pollster’s announcement, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday it was “unfortunate” that Levada will not be able to publish its polls but said it was a matter of following the law.

 
…

The head of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats lobbied party members Tuesday to vote in favor of opening coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, amid strong opposition from grassroots members.

Martin Schulz made the rounds in the populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia, talking with party members to push for their approval at a party convention Sunday to open formal negotiations with Merkel’s Union bloc.

A rejection of talks would be a setback for both Schulz and Merkel, who has already failed to forge a coalition with two smaller parties.

The Social Democrats and the Union bloc, who have governed Germany in a “grand coalition” since 2013, suffered heavy losses in September’s national election.

In non-binding votes, Social Democrats in the smaller states of Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt have indicated they’ll vote against opening coalition talks, while party members in Brandenburg voted in favor.

In North Rhine-Westphalia Schulz met with party members in Dortmund before heading to the state capital Duesseldorf for similar meetings in the evening.

The Social Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia aren’t planning any poll ahead of time on whether to approve the talks, the dpa news agency reported, but with about a quarter of the delegates to the Sunday convention their support is key.
…

Resistance is growing in the ranks of Germany’s Social Democrats against forming another “grand coalition” with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, and migration policy is a major sticking point.

Migration remains the most divisive issue in the country following the slaying late last month of a teenage German girl by her former boyfriend, an Afghan migrant.

The killing has refocused public anxiety about a rising level of violent crime associated with migrants, as well as the government’s handling of thousands of unaccompanied male asylum-seekers who claim to be under 18 years of age, but who may be adults.

The December 27 killing of the 15-year-old girl prompted a tabloid press furor. It followed a series of brutal crimes by young male migrants, including the slaying in September of a 19-year-old medical student by a 22-year-old Afghan migrant, who told a court he posed as a minor to improve his immigration chances.

In his case, public anger deepened when it emerged he had been jailed for attempted murder in Greece, but released under an amnesty before making his way to Germany.

In July of last year, another adult male migrant claiming to be a teenager went on an axe rampage on a train, injuring several people before being shot dead by police.

The reports of migrant-related crime are adding to Merkel’s difficulties in pulling off a coalition deal with the Social Democrats (SPD) that would allow her to remain Germany’s leader.

Immigrant cap

Social Democrat rebels object to a cap on the number of migrants allowed to resettle in the country that was included Friday in a preliminary agreement among the parties. Chancellor Merkel’s junior partner, Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), is demanding a 220,000-person a year cap on the resettlement of asylum-seekers.

Migration differences contributed to the collapse of weeks-long coalition talks last year among her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Green party, following federal elections at the end of September.

Those elections left Merkel’s ruling CDU the largest party, but with a reduced share of the vote and fewer seats thanks partly to a surge by Germany’s far-right populists. The SPD recorded its worst electoral performance since 1933.

In last week’s negotiations with the SPD, the Bavarian CSU conservatives insisted on the resettlement cap and have been demanding medical tests for unaccompanied male migrants suspected of lying about their age. SPD activists accuse the CSU of exploiting the migration issue, arguing that young German males also commit crimes.

Since the migration influx started in 2015, when Merkel offered an open-door policy to asylum-seekers from war-torn countries, crime rates have risen. Violent crime rose 10 percent between 2014 and 2017 in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The migration cap has enraged some SPD rebels, who say it is unconstitutional. They also want a new social security plan and stronger protections for employees.

Changes to coalition deal

Speaking to Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel newspaper, the city’s mayor, Michael Muller, said the preliminary coalition talks “fell short of party expectations.” He refused to rule out the possibility of SPD delegates withholding their approval, the coalition talks collapsing, and the need for new elections.

SPD leaders fear party members will reject the outline coalition agreement when they vote on January 21 and are scrambling to seek changes in the deal. Rank-and-file skeptics remain bruised by the SPD’s poor performance in last year’s elections and doubtful it should agree to a renewed version of their 2013-2017 “grand coalition” with Merkel’s conservatives.

Talk of seeking changes in the provisional deal struck Friday is angering conservatives. Julia Kloeckner, a deputy CDU leader, questioned the trustworthiness of the SPD. “You negotiated, raised your hand for the complete exploratory package,” she said 

“Being able to trust means being able to rely on the word of the other,” she tweeted. “Everything was negotiated in the package, no cherry picking please!.”

CDU lawmaker Thomas Strob told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, “What we have agreed upon with each other is valid.”

On Saturday, delegates at a regional SPD conference in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt voted 52-51 against agreeing to a “grand coalition” with Merkel, despite a plea by former party leader Sigmar Gabriel to back the deal for the sake of German stability.

The teenage girl’s slaying will “inevitably have repercussions for ongoing coalition talks in Berlin,” said Marcel Fürstenau, a commentator for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s public international broadcaster. “One thing seems impossible: that people, despite being understandably horrified and outraged, might deal with it calmly.”
…

The International Monetary Fund has told the Ukrainian authorities that it does not support a draft law to create an anti-corruption court because the bill does not guarantee its independence, the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported on Monday.

Slow progress in establishing a court to handle corruption cases while demonstrating independence and transparency has been one of the main obstacles to the disbursement of a long-delayed loan tranche under the aid-for-reforms program.

In response to international pressure to speed up the process, President Petro Poroshenko submitted a new draft law to parliament in December.

But the IMF mission chief for Ukraine, Ron van Rooden, has since written to the presidential administration to express the Fund’s concerns about parts of the bill, Ukrainska Pravda said, publishing what it said was the text of the letter in full.

“We have serious concerns about the draft law,” van Rooden said in the letter dated Jan. 11. “Several provisions are not consistent with the authorities’ commitments under Ukraine’s IMF-supported program.”

He said parts of the legislation could undermine the independence of the court and the transparent appointment of competent and trustworthy judges.

The law could also lead to further delays as an additional bill would need to be submitted by the president for the court to established, he said.

“In its current form… we would not be able to support the draft law,” he said.

Responding to a request for comment, Poroshenko’s office denied an allegation in the letter that the law is not in line with recommendations of a leading European rights watchdog.

“President Petro Poroshenko has repeatedly emphasized that the country’s leadership has the political will to create an independent anti-corruption court,” it said in an emailed statement.

The IMF did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The IMF and Ukraine’s other foreign backers have repeatedly called for Ukraine to improve efforts to root out graft. They see an anti-corruption court as an essential tool for eliminating the power of vested interests.

Reform progress stalled last year, raising concerns the authorities are backtracking on commitments and unpopular policy changes in anticipation of presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.

Establishing the court, sticking to gas price adjustments and implementing sustainable pension reform are the key conditions Ukraine must meet to qualify for the next loan tranche of around $2 billion from the IMF.
…

Turkey’s president on Monday denounced U.S. plans to form a 30,000-strong Kurdish-led border security force in Syria, vowing to “drown this terror force before it is born,” as Russia and Syria also rejected the idea.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also warned U.S. troops against coming between Turkish troops and Kurdish forces, which Ankara views as an extension of Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgency.

Turkey has been threatening to launch a new military operation against the main Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, in the Kurdish-held Afrin enclave in northern Syria. The YPG is the backbone of a Syrian force that drove the Islamic State group from much of northern and eastern Syria with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes.

Russia has also warned that the nascent U.S. force threatens to fuel tensions around Afrin.

“The United States has admitted that it has created a terrorist force along our country’s border. Our duty is to drown this terror force before it is born,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

The U.S.-led coalition says the new force, expected to reach 30,000 in the next several years, is a key element of its strategy in Syria to prevent the resurgence of the IS group in Syria.

“A strong border security force will prohibit (IS) freedom of movement and deny the transportation of illicit materials,” the coalition said in a statement to The Associated Press. “This will enable the Syrian people to establish effective local, representative governance and reclaim their land.” The SDF currently controls nearly 25 percent of Syrian territory in the north and east.

The core of the force is to be made up of fighters from the existing Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the coalition’s ally in the fight against IS. Some 230 cadets have already been recruited to the new border force, according to the coalition. The force is expected to be deployed along the borders of the SDF-held areas and Iraq and Turkey.

Turkey sent troops into Syria in 2016 to prevent Syrian Kurdish fighters from forming a contiguous entity along its border. It has also supported rival Syrian rebels and independently fought to drive IS from parts of Syria.

Tensions with Washington have repeatedly erupted over its support of the SDF, prompting U.S. troops to deploy in northeast Syria to prevent clashes between the Kurdish forces and Turkey-backed fighters.

In recent days, Turkey said it would soon launch a new operation in Afrin and sent reinforcements to the border. Russia deployed military observers to Afrin last year in an effort to prevent Turkish-Kurdish clashes.

On Monday, Erdogan said preparations for the military assault on Afrin “are complete,” adding that an operation could start any moment. He said Turkish troops are already firing artillery at Afrin from the border.

“Don’t stand between us and these herd of murderers. Otherwise, we won’t be responsible for the unwanted incidents that may arise,” he said. “Tear off the insignia you have placed on the uniforms of the terrorists so that we don’t have to bury them (U.S. soldiers) together with the terrorists.

Russia said Monday that the new force is a sign Washington “doesn’t want to preserve the territorial integrity of Syria.” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the nascent border force is “not helping calm the situation.”

Moscow is a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Turkey supports the Syrian opposition. But they came together last year along with Iran, another Assad ally, to set up “de-escalation” zones that have reduced much of the fighting. Since then, Turkey’s ties with Russia have warmed as relations with the U.S. have deteriorated.

Assad’s government also condemned the U.S. plans for the border force, calling it “a blatant encroachment upon the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Syria,” and a violation of international law.
…

More than 12 million boxes of French baby milk products are being recalled from 83 countries for suspected salmonella contamination.

The recall includes Lactalis’ Picot, Milumel and Taranis brands.

The head of the French dairy Lactalis on Sunday confirmed that its products are being recalled from countries across Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia after salmonella was discovered at one of its plants last month. The United States, Britain and Australia were not affected.

Emmanuel Besnier told weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that his family company, one of the world’s biggest dairies, would pay damages to “every family which has suffered a prejudice.”

The paper said 35 babies were diagnosed with salmonella in France, one in Spain and a possible case in Greece.

Salmonella can cause severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting and severe dehydration. It can be life-threatening, especially in young children.

Lactalis officials have said they believe the contamination was caused by renovation work at their Celia factory in Craon, in northwest France.

France’s agriculture minister said products from the factory will be banned indefinitely during the investigation.

 
…

The U.S.-led coalition is working with its Syrian militia allies to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Sunday, a move that has added to Turkish anger over U.S. support for Kurdish-dominated forces in Syria.

A senior Turkish official told Reuters the U.S. training of the new “Border Security Force” is the reason that the U.S. charge d’affaires was summoned in Ankara on Wednesday. The official did not elaborate.

The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria dominated by the Kurdish YPG.

In an email to Reuters, the coalition’s Public Affairs Office confirmed details of the new force reported by The Defense Post. About half the force will be SDF veterans, and recruiting for the other half is underway, the coalition’s Public Affairs Office said.

The force will deploy along the border with Turkey to the north, the Iraqi border to the southeast, and along the Euphrates River Valley, which broadly acts as the dividing line separating the U.S.-backed SDF and Syrian government forces backed by Iran and Russia.

U.S. support for the SDF has put enormous strain on ties with NATO ally Turkey, which views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — a group that has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

Syria’s main Kurdish groups have emerged as one of the few winners of the Syrian war, and are working to entrench their autonomy over swathes of northern Syria.

Washington opposes those autonomy plans, even as it has backed the SDF, the main partner for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Syria.

The coalition said the BSF would operate under SDF command and around 230 individuals were currently undergoing training in its inaugural class.

“Efforts are taken to ensure individuals serve in areas close to their homes. Therefore, the ethnic composition of the force will be relative to the areas in which they serve.

“More Kurds will serve in the areas in northern Syria. More Arabs will serve in areas along the Euphrates River Valley and along the border with Iraq to the south,” the coalition’s Public Affairs Office said.

‘A new mission’

“The base of the new force is essentially a realignment of approximately 15,000 members of the SDF to a new mission in the Border Security Force as their actions against ISIS draw to a close,” it said.

“They will be providing border security through professionally securing checkpoints and conducting counter-IED operations,” it said, adding that coalition and SDF forces were still engaging Islamic State pockets in Deir al-Zor province. IED stands for improvised explosive device.

The United States has about 2,000 troops in Syria fighting Islamic State, and has said it is prepared to stay in the country until it is certain Islamic State is defeated, that stabilization efforts can be sustained, and there is meaningful progress in U.N.-led peace talks on ending the conflict.

The Syrian government in Damascus has declared the United States an illegal occupation force, and its SDF allies as “traitors”. A top Syrian Kurdish politician told Reuters last week the United States appeared in no hurry to leave Syria.
…

The leader of Britain’s eurosceptic UK Independence Party faced calls on Sunday to stand down after a newspaper published racist messages sent by his girlfriend about Prince Harry’s fiancee Meghan Markle.

Last year, Henry Bolton was the fourth leader in a year to be appointed to the helm of UKIP, a party which helped bring about a Brexit vote. He hit the tabloid newspapers over Christmas when they reported that he had left his wife for 25-year-old model and UKIP member Jo Marney.

The Mail on Sunday published a series of messages sent by Jo Marney to a friend in which she made offensive comments about Markle and black people. The newspaper also published an apology from Marney, who said her comments had been “taken out of Context.”

UKIP’s Bill Etheridge, a member of the European Parliament, said: “The time has come for Henry Bolton to resign as leader of UKIP. He must go, he must go quickly, he must go as quietly as possible.”

“It appears to me that the lack of experience in politics from Henry has got the better of him,” he said in a video statement, describing the last few months as “hell” for the party.

Peter Whittle, UKIP’s member of the London Assembly, also criticized the remarks, saying they were “disgraceful.”

“This person should not just be suspended from @UKIP but expelled altogether,” he said on Twitter.

Led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, UKIP won nearly 4 million votes in 2015, 12.6 percent of those cast, on its anti-European Union platform, putting it at the forefront of British politics even though it managed to win one seat in parliament.

But its fortunes have sunk since, hurt by internal fights over its future direction. At last year’s election in June, UKIP won 1.8 of the vote.
…

Ukraine proudly announced this year that the country was free of all monuments to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in towns controlled by the Kyiv-based government. But while Ukraine has been busy completing the tearing down of statues to Lenin and monuments to other Communist figures, Soviet heroes have never been more in vogue in neighboring Russia.

Monuments to Lenin have been springing up across the country. Other Communist luminaries have received tributes, too, including Communist spymaster Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB, who was dubbed Lenin’s “willing executioner.”

Dzerzhinsky once wrote: “We stand for organized terror — this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Soviet government and of the new order of life.”

Soviet nostalgia used to be the preserve of quirky fringe groups composed mainly of resentful old Communist retainers, destitute state pensioners and right-wing nationalists lamenting Russia’s military weakness. But it has become more widespread, with even youngsters embracing a glorified past — and Russian leader Vladimir Putin doesn’t appear to mind.

Remaining nostalgic

Since 2014, regret about the collapse of the Soviet Union has been high, with about half of the population remaining nostalgic about the past and lamenting the end of the USSR, according to pollsters at the Leveda Center.

A 2017 survey by the polling agency found that 47 percent of Russians approved of Josef Stalin, both for his personality as well as his “managerial skills,” despite his bloodthirsty legacy. Historians estimate that Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler.

And nostalgia has fueled the rehabilitation of a host of characters in the Soviet story that few thought would ever again be eulogized — including biologist Trofim Lysenko, who has been dubbed “the Soviet era’s deadliest scientist” for his role overseeing Stain’s agricultural polices that led to famines fatal to millions.

Lysenko believed that modern genetics was a Western imperialist plot designed to undermine Russia.

There have been an increasing number of books and articles praising Lysenko, “part of a disturbing pro-Lysenko movement, which is accompanied by a growing sympathy for Stalin,” a group of Russian and German scientists noted in a recent article for the journal Current Biology. Despite the triumphs of modern genetics and the discrediting of Lysenkoism, “recent years have seen a rethinking of [his] doctrine in Russia,” they said.

Last November, the Kremlin played down the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution, although it didn’t move to deter Communist devotees from holding celebration rallies. Uneasiness about memories of revolution and uprisings is one thing; celebrating Soviet heroes and strong national leadership is another, say analysts.

In the run-up to March presidential elections, Soviet nostalgia and celebrations of Russian nationalism serve a useful purpose for the Kremlin.

Upcoming election

Putin is assured of winning in March, but there are Kremlin worries about voter apathy and low turnout. Patriotic appeals and eulogies to forceful leadership and national discipline could help in getting more voters to the polling stations.

Putin has not been shy to co-opt the Soviet regime’s greatest victories and Russian nationalism to burnish himself and his own credentials.

Flying into Crimea after annexing the Ukrainian province in 2014, Putin’s itinerary was tightly choreographed to invoke the past. He laid a wreath at a World War II memorial, visited an ancient Russian Orthodox cathedral, and recalled czarist and Soviet-era glory with an inspection of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

Not only have Kremlin officials increasingly been encouraging Soviet nostalgia and the memory of Stalin, they also have been promoting autocratic figures from Russia’s pre-Communist past — including Ivan the Terrible.

Last October, the government endorsed the country’s first-ever monument to Ivan the Terrible, with the unveiling in the city of Orel of a statue to the 16th-century czar who expanded Russia but at great human cost. Ivan the Terrible is reputed to have killed one of his sons during a rage.

The official lionization of historical despots feeds into an embrace of anti-democratic values, according to academic Dina Khapaeva, professor of Russian at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She noted in an article for Project Syndicate, a nonprofit that distributes commentary, that Russian officials have even spoken approvingly of Russian serfdom, which “complements the desire for a return to autocracy.”

“No wonder, then, that monuments to Stalin, too, are multiplying in Russian cities,” she said.
…

Czech President Milos Zeman has won the first round in the nation’s presidential election, and now must face Jiri Drahos, the former head of the country’s Academy of Sciences, in a runoff vote in two weeks.

Eight candidates were hoping to unseat the current controversy-courting 73-year-old leader, who is seeking another five-year term.

With 95 percent of ballots counted by the Czech Statistics Office, and a 61-percent turnout, Zeman was leading with 39.3 percent of the vote, followed by Drahos with 26.3 percent. A former diplomat, Pavel Fischer, placed third with 10.1 percent.

None of the other candidates seeking the largely ceremonial post received a majority of first-round votes, which makes it possible for Drahos to advance to the second round.

Zeman was elected to the largely ceremonial post in 2013 during the country’s first direct presidential vote, a victory that returned the former left-leaning prime minister to power.

In office, he has become known for strong anti-migrant rhetoric that won him support from the populist far-right. He has divided the nation with his pro-Russian stance and his support for closer ties with China.

Zeman was one of the few European leaders to endorse Donald Trump’s bid for the White House. He flew the European Union flag at Prague Castle, but later used every opportunity to attack the 28-nation bloc.

“This looks hopeful,” he told reporters.

The run-off election will be held January 26 and January 27.
…

Thousands of Austrians are protesting their country’s new right-wing government with a march in Vienna.

Police in the capital said about 20,000 people were attending the march on Saturday.

Some protesters carried placards reading “Never Again.” Others chanted slogans such as “Refugees should stay, drive out the Nazis.”

The new governing coalition made up of the conservative Austrian People’s Party and the nationalist Freedom Party has taken a hard line against migration.

 
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Russia deployed a new division of S-400 surface-to-air missiles in Crimea on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported, in an escalation of military tensions on the Crimean peninsula.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, triggering economic sanctions by the European Union and United States and a tense standoff in the region.

The U.S. said in December it planned to provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities,” which officials said included Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Moscow’s latest deployment represents the second division armed with S-400 air defense systems on the peninsula, after the first in the spring of 2017 near the port town of Feodosia.

The new division will be based next to the town of Sevastopol and will control the airspace over the border with Ukraine, the RIA news agency reported.

The new air defense system, designed to defend Russia’s borders, can be turned into combat mode in less than five minutes, Interfax news agency quoted Viktor Sevostyanov, a commander with Russia’s air forces, as saying.

Russia’s defense ministry says the S-400 systems, known as “Triumph,” can bring down airborne targets at a range of 400 kilometers and ballistic missiles at a range of 60 kilometers.

They were first introduced to the Russian military’s arsenal in 2007, the ministry said.
…

Japan’s prime minister Friday landed in Estonia, his first stop on a tour of the Baltic states and other European nations as he seeks to drum up support for his hawkish stance on North Korea.

Despite a recent cooling of tensions in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, Shinzo Abe has insisted on “maximizing pressure” on Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

In the Estonian capital Tallinn, Abe met with President Kersti Kaljulaid and Prime Minister Juri Ratas and discussed bilateral cooperation on cybersecurity, a topic that digital-savvy Estonia has championed since being hit by one of the first major cyberattacks a decade ago.

Abe will then visit fellow Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania, before continuing on to Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania. He is the first sitting Japanese leader to visit these countries.

Abe told reporters that he and Ratas had “agreed that we would not accept nuclear armament of North Korea, and that it was necessary to maximize pressure on North Korea.”

Cyberdefense

The leaders also said their countries would start working together on cyberdefense, and a Japanese spokesperson later said Tokyo would cooperate with NATO countries including Estonia on cybersecurity.

“Estonia and Japan are separated by thousands of kilometers, but tightly connected by a digital umbilical cord,” Ratas said, adding that “Japan will soon become a contributing participant with regard to the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence, which is located in Tallinn.”

Tokyo and NATO

Japan’s foreign ministry press secretary Norio Maruyama told reporters in Tallinn that “step by step we understand which way NATO can be a useful entity for Japan and in which area can Japan be useful for NATO.”

Maruyama added that given the threats posed by cyberterrorism “we need to have closer coordination among the countries that share the same values.

“I think that the NATO center provides us with a kind of information and a way we can cooperate together,” he added.

Representatives from more than 30 companies would accompany Abe to develop business ties in the region.

Japan is keen to raise its profile in the region as China bolsters its ties there.

All six nations Abe is visiting are among the 16 Central and Eastern European countries that hold an annual summit meeting with China.

China has been pushing its massive $1 trillion “One Belt, One Road” initiative, which seeks to build rail, maritime and road links from Asia to Europe and Africa in a revival of ancient Silk Road trading routes.

Abe is scheduled to return to Japan on Wednesday.
…

Riot police used tear gas on protesters in Athens, Greece, on Friday, as thousands of people gathered in the streets to demonstrate against a new austerity bill coming up for a vote Monday.

The police deployed tear gas when a small group of demonstrators tried to enter the parliament building. No arrests or injuries were reported.

The bill, which has triggered demonstrations all week in the Greek capital, is expected to be one of the last major packages of cuts before the end of Greece’s EU bailout package in August. It would limit workers’ rights to strike and speed up property foreclosures.

Friday’s strike involved a disruption in Athens public transport. On Monday, the protest is expected to continue with a work stoppage by air traffic controllers from noon to 3 p.m. local time. The public transport strike is expected to continue, along with stoppages by hospital workers. 

The General Confederation of Greek Workers union (GSEE) said the bill “deals a killing blow to to workers, pensioners and the unemployed … effectively eliminating even constitutionally safeguarded rights, such as the right to strike,” according to the French news agency AFP.

Since the bailout, Greece’s economic prospects have improved, increasing the country’s chances of functioning effectively without its EU safety net for the first time in nine years.
…

The U.N. human rights office has sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s vulgar comments on migrants from Africa and Haiti, calling them shocking and shameful.

Trump’s reportedly crude outburst against migrants from the African continent and Haiti have set off a firestorm of global rebuke. Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. Human Rights Office, calls Trump’s remarks clearly racist.

“You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘s—holes’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome. The positive comment on Norway makes the underlying sentiment very clear,” Colville said.

Recalling Trump’s earlier comments vilifying Mexicans who cross the border as “rapists” and Trump’s re-tweeting of anti-Muslim propaganda from a far-right British group, Colville says policy proposals targeting entire groups on grounds of nationality or religion goes against universal values.

“This is not just a story about vulgar language,” he said. “It is about opening the door to humanity’s worst side. It is about validating and encouraging racism and xenophobia that will potentially disrupt and even destroy the lives of many people.” 

Colville warns that comments by a major political figure, such as the president of the United States, can have damaging and dangerous consequences.

Trump’s remarks were made at a meeting of Congressional leaders working on a bipartisan immigration deal to allow some 800,000 so-called Dreamers to remain in the United States.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has previously said the future of the Dreamers should not be used as a bargaining chip to negotiate restrictive immigration measures. The young people are human beings, not commodities, he said.
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Angela Merkel has survived as German chancellor but the coalition deal she clinched on Friday puts her fate in the hands of her Social Democrat (SPD) partners and risks eroding support from her close allies before the end

of her fourth term.

Europe’s pre-eminent leader for more than 12 years, Merkel’s star is waning as she pays for her 2015 decision to leave German borders open to over a million refugees, a move that cost her Christian Democrats votes and fueled the rise of the far-right.

After the collapse of talks in November to form a three-way coalition with the liberal Free Democrats and Greens, Merkel and her conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) allies were forced to turn again to the left-leaning SPD.

Merkel’s immediate destiny now lies in the hands of rank-and-file Social Democrats whose party leaders will ask them on Jan. 21 to back Friday’s deal, a repeat of the grand coalition that governed from 2013 to 2017.

The chancellor, who still commands wide respect abroad, needed the talks to succeed to avoid further erosion of her authority, after losing ground in September elections, and the weakening of German influence, not least in the European Union.

An Infratest Dimap poll for broadcaster ARD published last week showed Merkel’s personal approval had dropped 2 percentage points from a month earlier to 52 percent.

To win over the SPD, Merkel agreed to 5.95 billion euros ($7.2 billion) of investment in education, research and digitalization by 2021, expanded child care rights, and a pledge to strengthen Europe’s cohesion with increased German contributions to the EU budget.

The investment is a small proportion of the extra 45 billion euros the government will have at its disposal for the next four years and for many in the SPD, the deal did not go far enough on cherished social justice issues.

The leader of the SPD’s more radical Berlin branch, Michael Mueller, said commitments on affordable housing were inadequate. “Living cannot be allowed to be a luxury,” he said.

Friday’s 28-page coalition blueprint also failed to convince Marcel Fratzscher, head of the DIW economic research institute and an advocate of stronger investment in Germany, who said “a clear vision and courageous reforms are lacking.”

European legacy

Even if SPD delegates do back the coalition agreement, negotiations on forming a government could still fail.

Describing the deal clinched after a 25-hour meeting as a “give and take” agreement, Merkel said much hard work remained before a full coalition could be formed.

“The coalition negotiations probably won’t be easier than the exploratory talks,” she told a joint news conference with CSU leader Horst Seehofer and SPD leader Martin Schulz.

Mujtaba Rahman of political consultancy Eurasia assigned a 35 percent probability to coalition negotiations failing and leading to an early election or a minority government.

“There are still multiple risks to an overall agreement,” he said. “There is still a risk, even in a scenario where Merkel is able to form a government, that she will not be able to fulfill her complete term.”

Conservatives, though, were pleased Friday’s coalition blueprint omitted a call from the SPD’s Schulz for a “United States of Europe” by 2025.

“It is welcome that the goal of a United States of Europe, which sounds great and which perhaps sometime in the future can be a long-term objective, is not included in this coalition agreement,” said Detlef Seif, the deputy EU spokesman for Merkel’s conservative parliamentary bloc.

A commitment to “sustainably strengthen and reform the euro zone” in close partnership with France does give Merkel scope to secure her legacy as a guardian of the European project.

However, beyond boosting Germany’s EU budget contribution and transforming the European Stability Mechanism that can bailout member states into a European Monetary Fund, the blueprint is short of specifics on Europe.

Fiscally conservative members of Merkel’s Christian Democrats are wary of France pushing Berlin into European reforms at increased cost to the German taxpayer.

Beyond Merkel

Carsten Nickel, deputy research director at advisory firm Teneo Intelligence, said of Merkel’s centrist strategy: “The real challenge has always been to sell this logic internally.”

That Merkel has been able to survive as chancellor is partly due to the absence of a natural successor.

Though a challenger has yet to come forward, impatience is growing in Christian Democrat ranks about Merkel’s tendency to manage crises as they arise rather than presenting a vision the party can rally behind and sell to voters.

Her message during campaigning for September’s election was simply “don’t experiment” with a shift to the political left — a narrative that failed to resonate with voters, who handed her conservatives their worst result since 1949.

“The conversation has now moved on,” said Eurasia’s Rahman. “There is a lot of active consideration being given to the post-Merkel era.”
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