ІНСАЙДЕР УКРАЇНА

A Pakistani cricketer has offered a reward for the murder of firebrand anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders for organizing a cartoon contest depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

The incendiary bounty offer is adding to fears in the Netherlands that the cartoon competition, which was announced June 12, will lead to targeted violence, either in Holland or against Western targets in Pakistan, by religious militants including so-called Islamic State (IS) or assassins inspired by the terror group.

In 2015, two French militants who had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida massacred 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices, ostensibly for the printing of cartoons of Muhammad.  The attack was the first in a wave of terrorism in France that has left more than 240 dead during the past three years.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 protesters in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, were prevented earlier this month from pelting the Dutch embassy with stones.  Protesters say the contest is sacrilegious.

Khalid Latif, who last year was banned from playing cricket for five years in a spot-fixing scandal, announced a $24,000 bounty on Wilders and his far-right party colleagues on Facebook.  Spot-fixing is predetermining the outcome of a particular passage of play, as opposed to fixing the outcome of a match.

Wilders has said he has more than 200 entries for the contest, which will be judged by American cartoonist and former Muslim Bosch Fawstin.

Because the judge is an American, Pakistani Islamists say the United States should also be blamed for holding the contest.  The Islamist party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which has demanded Islamabad break diplomatic ties with the Netherlands, says “strict measures should also be taken against the U.S.”  

Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former international cricketer, has acknowledged the growing furor, promising in his maiden speech this week in the Pakistani Senate that he will raise the issue of blasphemous caricatures in the U.N. General Assembly.  “Very few in the West understand the pain caused to Muslims by such blasphemous activities,” said Khan.

Wilders’ Dutch Party for Freedom, which opposes Muslim immigration to the Netherlands, is the second-largest in the Dutch parliament.  Wilders tweeted he had received clearance from the Dutch counterterrorism agency to hold the competition in the PVV’s parliamentary offices.

Wilders’ Dutch critics say the contest is needlessly provocative and Prime Minister Mark Rutte has denounced the competition as “not respectful,” but he has refused Pakistani demands for the contest to be banned, arguing the Netherlands values freedom of speech.

Three years ago, the Dutch parliament turned down Wilders’ plan to hold an exhibition of anti-Islam cartoons inside the legislature’s complex, saying “exhibitions in parliament must focus on the role of parliament and should not offer a platform to party political statements or be controversial.”

Khan says he will campaign for a global ban on cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.  A pledge secular-minded critics of the new prime minister say is playing politics with religion.  Khan has condemned religious killings, but he supports an article in Pakistan’s constitution mandating the death penalty for any “imputation, insinuation or innuendo” against Muhammad.

“Less than a week in office, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has made blasphemy one of his first issues, empowering militants and initiating international moves, long heralded by Saudi Arabia, that would restrict press freedom by pushing for a global ban,” argues James Dorsey, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

On Monday, Pakistan’s Senate approved a unanimous resolution condemning the caricature contest, saying that it “considers the proposed competition tantamount to inciting hatred, racial prejudice, unrest, conflict and insecurity in a world that has already seen much bloodshed, racism, extremism, intolerance and Islamophobia.”

The furor over Wilders’ contest echoes Muslim protests 13 years ago against a Danish newspaper for publishing cartoons depicting Muhammed in bad light.  The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a dozen editorial cartoons in 2005, saying it was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. One of the cartoons showed the prophet with a bomb in his turban. Anger about the publication built up over time.

Now, as then, hardline Islamists began to jump on the controversy.

Last week, the head of an influential madrassa in Lahore, radical spiritual leader Mufti Muhammad Abid Jalali, warned, “In the name of so-called freedom of speech, the West continues to publish blasphemous texts and images.  Even certain animals are sometimes used, while knowing how sensitive that is in Islam.  If the West perseveres in this, it can expect an appropriate response.”

He told Dutch reporters, “Islam is above all a religion of peace, and we condemn all terrorist groups that commit violence on behalf of Islam.  But if non-Muslims have no respect for the prophet, peace with him, or ridicule Islam, as is happening in the Netherlands, we have no choice but to respond.”
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras saw his interior minister take up a key post in his leftist Syriza party on Monday, heralding a cabinet reshuffle to shore up waning support after painful bailouts.

In a rousing speech, Tsipras ruled out early elections, telling his party faithful that polls would be held as scheduled in the autumn of 2019, but that his government and the Syriza movement needed ‘new blood.’

The country emerged from the biggest bailout in economic history last week but jaded Greeks found little reason to celebrate after nine years of cuts and job losses.

“It will be the mother of all battles,” Tsipras declared, referring to the election next year, effectively firing the opening salvo to what appears to be a long-drawn out election campaign.

“To give all these battles victoriously we need to rally together, unity and renewal. Our country, the government and the party, need new blood and more appetite to get to work,” he said.

Greece holds parliamentary elections every four years, with the next expected by October 2019 at the latest.

Based on the latest three opinion polls conducted by Greek media, Syriza is trailing the main opposition New Democracy conservatives by between 5.3 and 11.6 percentage points.

Panos Skourletis, the interior minister nominated by Tsipras to become new Secretary of Syriza’s Central Committee, is a party stalwart with widespread support at a grassroots level. He was backed by a wide majority of central committee members and was elected for the post late on Monday.

Tsipras was elected in 2015 promising to end years of austerity for Greece, imposed by international creditors. But he was forced to reverse course by the prospect of the country being kicked out of the euro zone and pursue deeper reforms under a third international bailout program.

“From now on… we no longer have the alibi of implementing a program which is not ours,” Skourletis told the central committee, adding that he saw potential for reform but also challenges for the party in the post-bailout period.

Austerity and political turmoil followed as the economy shrank by a quarter, pushing a third of the population into poverty and forcing the migration of thousands abroad.

The bailout programmes concluded last week. Greece has received 288 billion euros in financial aid since 2010.

Tsipras said the government now had the fiscal space to alleviate some tax burden on business and individuals, but was not specific. “We are ready to proceed with brave interventions,” he said.

Government officials have previously said the government may scrap plans for further pension cuts next year.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who steered the country’s exit from the third bailout, was likely to remain in his post, sources said.

Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, instrumental in brokering an accord ending years of dispute with Macedonia over its name, was also  expected to stay on board.
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A Russian court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in jail on Monday after convicting him of breaking public protest laws, a move he said was illegal and aimed at stopping him leading a rally against pension reform next month.

Navalny, who was detained by police outside his home on Saturday, was found guilty of breaking the law by organizing an unauthorized Moscow rally on Jan. 28 which called for a boycott of what he predicted would be a rigged presidential election.

Under Russian law, the time, place and size of such protests must be agreed in advance with the authorities who have a track record of rejecting applications to rally in central Moscow and of suggesting less prominent locations instead.

Navalny, who was barred from taking part in the March presidential election over what he said was a trumped-up suspended prison sentence, has been repeatedly jailed for going ahead with such protests anyway despite official rejections.

The 42-year-old politician, who told the court he would never give up trying to organize street protests, said on Monday he believed the authorities were jailing him now, more than six months after his alleged offense, to stop him taking part in a protest planned for Sept. 9 against plans to raise the retirement age in Russia.

That is the same day as Moscow elects a new mayor, a contest expected to be easily won by incumbent Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, and authorities have rejected an application by Navalny’s supporters to rally in central Moscow.

‘Strange trial’

“This strange trial is happening with the single aim of not allowing me to take part in the protest,” Navalny told the presiding judge. “You and I both know it.”

As he was led out of the courtroom, he shouted out the date and time of the planned rally.

“Everyone come to the meeting,” he said. Navalny is hoping to tap into public anger over government plans to raise the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women.

Opinion polls show most Russians strongly oppose the plan, which has been seen as responsible for a drop in Putin’s approval rating in recent months, prompting speculation that the Russian leader, whom Navalny has likened to an autocratic tsar, may decide to dilute the reform.

Putin, who makes a point of never saying Navalny’s name aloud when asked about him, has dismissed him as a troublemaker bent on sowing chaos on behalf of the United States.

Navalny has used protests and corruption exposes of the sometimes gilded lives of government officials to mobilize support. But many Russians, who still get much of their news from state TV which either ignores or derides him, say they do not know who he is.
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The European Union does not believe Syria is safe for refugees to go back, officials in Brussels said of a Russian push to have people return to the war-torn country and the international community to spend money on rebuilding it.

The bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss the matter in Austria later this week.

EU officials expect the bloc to stick to its line that it would not offer reconstruction money for as long as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — propped back to power by Russian and Iranian militaries — does not let the opposition share power.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said before talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month that everything needed to be done for Syria refugees to return. “But the conditions are just not there. Russia would want us to pay for it but Syria under Assad is not safe,” said one EU official.

The EU has backed Syrian opposition groups in the multi-faceted war that has raged for more than seven years, largely because global and regional powers disagree on how to end it.
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Pope Francis has apologized for the abuse perpetrated by the powerful Catholic Church in Ireland, but critics say it is not enough. The victims of abuse and their supporters gathered in Ireland’s capital Dublin on Sunday to protest what they call the Church’s attempt to silence and marginalize the abuse. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the protests come as a senior Vatican official calls on the pontiff to resign for failing to act sooner against a former U.S. cardinal.
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Turkey’s Erdogan says will bring safety and peace to Syria, Iraq

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Sunday to bring peace and safety to Iraq and areas in Syria not under Turkish control and said terrorist organizations in those areas would be eliminated.

Turkey, which has backed some rebel groups in Syria, has been working with Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al Assad, and Iran for a political resolution to the crisis.

It has so far carried out two cross-border operations along its border with Syria and set up a dozen military observations posts in the northern Syrian region of Idlib.

The rebel-held Idlib enclave is a refuge for civilians and rebels displaced from other areas of Syria as well as for powerful jihadist forces, but has been hit by a wave of air strikes and shelling this month.

The attacks posed a possible prelude to a full-scale Syrian government offensive, which Turkey has said would be disastrous.

Speaking in the southeastern province of Mus to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Manzikert of 1071, Erdogan vowed to bring peace and safety to Syria and Iraq.

“It is not for nothing that the only places in Syria where security and peace have been established are under Turkey’s control. God willing, we will establish the same peace in other parts of Syria too. God willing, we will bring the same peace to Iraq, where terrorist organizations are active,” he said.

Erdogan also linked regional conflicts and an ongoing currency crisis in Turkey, which he has cast as an “economic war”, to previous attempts to invade Anatolia, warning that the this would lead to the collapse of surrounding regions.

“Those who seek temporary reasons behind the troubles we have been facing recently are wrong, very wrong. The attacks we face today… are rooted in history,” he said.

“Don’t forget, Anatolia is a wall and if this wall collapses, there will no longer be a Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Balkans or Caucasus.”

Turkey’s lira has tumbled nearly 40 percent this year as investor concerns over Erdogan’s grip on monetary policy and a growing dispute with the United States put pressure on the currency.

Ankara has accused Washington of targeting Turkey over the fate of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor being tried in Turkey on terrorism charges that he denies.

“Some careless people among us think this is about Tayyip Erdogan or the AK Party. No, this is about Turkey,” Erdogan said.
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Three days after she was given a temporary release, a British-Iranian woman returned to prison in Tehran Sunday after authorities there refused to extend the furlough.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been jailed since early 2016 following her arrest at the Tehran airport as she tried to return to Britain with her daughter following a family visit.  Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was born in Iran, is married to a British man and has dual British and Iranian citizenship. She was given a five year sentence for “plotting to topple the Iranian regime.”

Last week she received a three day release “to reunite with her family,” according to a tweet from Iran’s ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad.  

Family members and supporters hoped that the furlough would be extended or even made permanent, but her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said Sunday that after mixed messages from Iranian authorities as to whether Zaghari-Ratcliffe could remain free longer, she returned to Evin prison.  Ratcliffe said his wife went back to prison voluntarily to avoid having their daughter, who is living with relatives in Iran, see her “dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.”

Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, tweeted that he had spoken to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif last week in an effort to win Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s freedom “but that clearly wasn’t enough.”
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Hundreds of volunteers from 18 countries have gathered in the northeastern French town of Verdun to keep alive the memory of those who fought under appalling conditions in World War I.

Re-enactors dressed in soldiers’ uniforms brought to life a big military encampment in the town and held a military parade Saturday, part of a series of events to mark the centenary of the end of the war.

Visitors could visualize soldiers’ daily life during the war through the reconstruction of field kitchens, First Aid posts and command posts.

Soldiers in khaki, grey or blue uniforms, depending on the country, and women wearing Red Cross nurses uniforms were presenting authentic objects and equipment from the 1914-1918 war.

Other volunteers were dispatched on key battlefield areas around Verdun. They didn’t re-enact any fighting out of respect for the sites, which have since become a symbol of peace.

Instead, German and Polish volunteers were sharing tips about military clothes and historic anecdotes with their French, Australian and English neighbors at the encampment.

The 10-month battle at Verdun – the longest in World War I – killed 163,000 French and 143,000 German soldiers and wounded hundreds of thousands of others. Between February and December 1916, an estimated 60 million shells were fired. Entire villages were destroyed and never rebuilt.

The former battlefield still holds millions of unexploded shells, so that housing and farming are still forbidden in some areas.

Dozens of heads of state and government, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are expected in Paris to commemorate the Armistice that ended the war on Nov. 11.

World War I remembrance sites and museums have seen a strong increase in tourist numbers in recent years, boosted by the commemorations of the centenary. More than 1 million visitors were counted on the five main sites in and around Verdun in 2016, the year of the 100th anniversary of the battle.

Celine Guillin, visiting Verdun with her 8-year-old son, said the recreated encampment allowed visitors to be “very conscious of the hardness of life during the Great War. It was hard on soldiers, but also on their wives, their whole family.”

She pointed at a poster urging French women and children to work in the fields during the summer of 1914.

Jacob Withoos, 19, came from Australia as a volunteer within a group of 12 men.

“The main importance there is the remembrance,” he said. “War is never a good thing and we must ensure it doesn’t happen again. It’s great to have things like this so we can remember the men who sacrificed themselves in order to preserve freedom, and definitively ensure it doesn’t happen again to any future generation.”

French volunteer Michel Pascal said “this is modern history. We must not forget what we’ve been through.” Pascal was in charge of presenting an American corner in the encampment – composed of a small tent for two men, a backpack including mess tin and cutlery and a bayonet.

Caroline Hecquet, a volunteer from northern France, stressed all countries involved in World War I share a “common suffering.”

“Historical memory is in books: strategies, battles, great generals … But the memory of local people, it is fading,” she said. “People don’t know any more how objects were used, how clothes looked like. That’s what we want to pass on.”
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Pope Francis has “begged for God’s forgiveness” for the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church.

The pontiff said at a shrine in Knock, Ireland, on Sunday the scandal is an “open wound” and “firm and decisive” measures need to be taken to find “truth and justice.”

Francis’ call for forgiveness comes as a letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano was published in the National Catholic Register.  In the 11-page letter, Vigano, the Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States, accuses Francis and other Vatican officials of ignoring sexual abuse claims against U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who was forced to resign last month after a church investigation found claims that he had abused a minor were credible.   

Vigano says he told Francis in 2013 about claims that McCarrick bedded seminarians, but Francis lifted sanctions on McCarrick that Pope Benedict had imposed.

“He [Pope Francis] knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was serial predator,” Vigano wrote, adding “he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.”  

Francis wraps up his visit to Ireland Sunday with a huge outdoor Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Half a million people are expected to turn out to see the pope, but demonstrations are planned to urge Francis to take concrete action against the sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups in the Catholic Church.

Protesters are set to hold a demonstration while the pope says Mass. 

Meeting with abuse victims

On Saturday, Francis met for more than an hour with survivors of clerical abuse in Ireland and, by at least one account, uttered strong condemnation of members of the clergy who committed or covered up impropriety.

Paul Redmond, one of eight survivors who attended the meeting with the pope has told reporters that Francis called such clergy members “caca,” which translates to “human excrement.”

The pope met with eight survivors at the Papal Nuncio’s residence in Dublin. The Vatican has said it will not comment on what was discussed during the meeting, although the attendees are free to do so.

Pope Francis began the first papal visit to Ireland in almost 40 years by expressing the outrage he shares with the Catholic community over the “repugnant crimes” committed by priests who raped and molested children and the failure of church authorities to address them.

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis told a state reception at Dublin Castle where some abuse survivors were in attendance.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.”

​Vetting the church

In an effort to address the world’s outrage about the abuse scandal, Francis noted measures taken by his predecessor, Pope Benedict, to deal with the crisis. Benedict did not admit the Vatican’s culpability, though, in fostering a system of cover-up, and Francis gave no new plan for steps he would take to punish bishops who fail to protect their parishioners.

Francis did say he was committed to vetting the church of this “scourge” regardless of the moral cost or amount of suffering.

Ireland has changed greatly since Pope John Paul II visited in 1979, becoming much more secular following clerical sexual abuse scandals that began to surface in 2005.

Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when recent sexual abuse crises in the United States, Chile and Australia have reminded the Irish people of similar scandals at the hands of Irish priests and bishops.

The pope recently wrote a letter to the world’s Catholics, stressing that “no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”

Two U.S. cardinals — Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s top adviser on clerical sexual abuse, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington — were scheduled to attend the conference in Dublin but were absent because of further revelations of clerical sexual abuse in America.

Another U.S. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, was recently forced to resign because of allegations of abuse and misconduct.

Sabina Castelfranco contributed to this report.
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It’s a good idea for people to get an annual physical … and it’s important for animals, too. The London Zoo hosted its annual weigh-in for thousands of its animals recently, enticing the creatures with food to get their measurements. The documentation process is an extensive and time-consuming exercise for the zoo keepers, but a crucial one, say zoo officials. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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More than 200 supporters of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement have staged a rally in the Swedish capital, chanting slogans and waving the group’s green-and-white flags.

A six-hour rally was approved by Swedish police, who deployed a strong security presence around Stockholm’s Kungsholmstorg Square. But after just a few hours, the crowds wilted and a march was canceled.

Police had warned of potential disturbances across the city but no violence was seen. Local media reported that a counter-rally drew about 200 people.

The neo-Nazi group is anti-European Union, anti-gay and anti-immigration. The rally took place ahead of Sweden’s Sept. 9 general election, in which immigration is a key issue.

The neo-Nazi march was among dozens of events held across Stockholm on Saturday, including an animal rights’ march that drew 500 people.

 
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained in Moscow, just two months after his release from prison for organizing protests against the government of President Vladimir Putin.

A spokeswoman for Navalny said Saturday the reason for the detention is unclear that and he was being held at the Danilovsky police station.

Navalny had posted on his blog Saturday that protests against the Putin government would take place September 9 in Moscow and “almost a hundred other cities.” The protests were against Putin’s pension reform plans.

September 9 is also the date of Moscow’s mayoral election.

Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, told radio station Ekho Moskvy that Navalny’s seizure by authorities is “probably linked” to the protest plans.

Navalny has faced a string of charges for his opposition activism. In March, he was barred from running in the country’s presidential election because of his criminal record.

 
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Austria’s foreign minister is defending a curtsy to Russian President Vladimir Putin at her wedding, saying that it was a traditional dance move and she doesn’t “submit” to anyone.

Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl invited Putin to her wedding last weekend, raising eyebrows at home and abroad. She told Oe1 radio Saturday it was a spontaneous decision made when Putin visited Vienna in June.

Video footage showed the bride dancing with Putin and making a deep curtsy at the end. Kneissl said that “if you’ve seen a ball opening, then you will have seen again and again that there is this curtsy at the end.”

She added “this was portrayed in commentaries as an act of submission, of prostration. And anyone who knows me knows that I submit to no one.”
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The top U.S. envoy on Iran criticized a European Union decision to give $20.7 million in aid to Tehran on Friday, saying it sent “the wrong message at the wrong time,” and he urged Brussels to help Washington end the Iranian threat to global stability.

“Foreign aid from European taxpayers perpetuates the regime’s ability to neglect the needs of its people and stifles meaningful policy changes,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in a statement.

“The Iranian people face very real economic pressures caused by their government’s corruption, mismanagement, and deep investment in terrorism and foreign conflicts,” he added. “The United States and the European Union should be working together instead to find lasting solutions that truly support Iran’s people and end the regime’s threats to regional and global stability.”

The EU decision on Thursday to provide 18 million euros ($20.7 million) in aid to Iran was aimed at offsetting the impact of U.S. sanctions as European countries try to salvage the 2015 agreement that saw Tehran limit its nuclear ambitions.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in May and is reimposing sanctions on Tehran, even as other parties to the accord are trying to find ways to save the agreement.

The EU funding is part of a wider package of 50 million euros earmarked in the EU budget for Iran, which has threatened to stop complying with the nuclear accord if it fails to see the economic benefit of relief from sanctions.

The United States is pressing other countries to comply with its sanctions.

“More money in the hands of the ayatollah means more money to conduct assassinations in those very European countries,” Hook said in his statement.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton told Reuters during a visit to Israel earlier this week that the return of U.S. sanctions was having a strong effect on Iran’s economy and popular opinion.

The U.S. sanctions dusted off this month targeted Iran’s car industry, trade in gold and other precious metals, and purchases of U.S. dollars crucial to international financing and investment and trade relations. Farther-reaching sanctions are to follow in November on Iran’s banking sector and oil exports.
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Firefighters struggled Friday to tame a wildfire southwest of Berlin but had to maneuver carefully as the blaze set off old World War II ammunition that is still buried in the forests around the German capital.

Flames forced the evacuation of several nearby villages and sent clouds of acrid smoke toward the German capital. 

The fire, which was the size of 500 soccer fields, has already set off several detonations of old ammunition, according to local lawmaker Christian Stein. Firefighters were not allowed to enter suspicious areas. 

“The ammunition is very dangerous, because one cannot step on the ground, and therefore one cannot get close to the fire” to extinguish it, Brandenburg state’s governor, Dietmar Woidke, told reporters. 

The fire started Thursday afternoon and spread quickly through the dry pine forests in the Treuenbrietzen region, 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside of Berlin in the eastern state of Brandenburg. By evening, authorities had evacuated 500 people from the villages of Frohnsdorf, Klausdorf and Tiefenbrunnen.

“Something like that, we didn’t even experience during the war,” 76-year-old Anita Biedermann told the dpa news agency as police told her to grab her jacket, ID and medication from her home before taking her to a nearby gym for the night.

Firefighters were trying to douse the flames in areas they could not enter with water-bearing helicopters and water cannons.

“The fire continues to be a big threat,” Woidke said. “But we will do everything to protect people’s property.”

Overnight, winds blew the smoke to Berlin, where people in some neighborhoods were told to keep their windows closed. In some cases the smell of smoke was so strong that residents called Berlin emergency services.

More than 600 firefighters and soldiers were brought in to battle the wildfire, cutting trees to make long firebreaks. Several roads were closed and local trains halted service in the area close to the fire.

Stein said the fact that the fire broke out in several places simultaneously suggested it could have been arson, but Brandenburg’s Interior Ministry said it was still investigating the cause of the fire.

Germany has seen a long, hot summer with almost no rain, and large parts of the country are on high alert regarding possible wildfires. 

Raimund Engel, who is in charge of forests in the state of Brandenburg, said 400 wildfires have already been reported this year.

“I hope the weather will play along and the winds won’t increase again,” Stein said. “We are yearning for rain.” 
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Victims of the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal are calling on Pope Francis to take a strong stance against predator priests during his visit to Ireland.

The pope Saturday begins the first papal visit in nearly 40 years to Ireland. The country has changed greatly since Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, becoming much more secular following clerical sexual abuse scandals that began to surface in 2005.

Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when recent sexual abuse crises in the United States, Chile, and Australia have reminded the Irish people of similar scandals at the hands of Irish priests and bishops.

Many abuse victims, their families and supporters are calling on the pope to do more than just hold a private meeting with a select group of survivors. Protesters will gather in Dublin while the pope says Mass on Sunday urging him to take concrete action against sex abuse.

A prominent Irish abuse survivor, Marie Collins, told a Vatican-sponsored conference on Friday that the Catholic Church must put in place “robust structures” to hold abusive clergy accountable.

“Anyone in the Vatican who would stand in the way of proper protection of children should be accountable as well,” said Collins, a former member of Pope Francis’ abuse advisory board.

The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will be meeting with victims of clerical sexual abuse and says he will also visit Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Dublin to pray for victims.

The Vatican’s chief spokesman Greg Burke told Irish broadcaster RTE on Friday that the sexual abuse scandal is the result of a “cultural problem” that will take time to remedy.

He suggested that the pope would not be announcing specific measures during his trip.

“I think in 36 hours — or 32 hours on the ground — it’s hard to change a culture,” he said.

“In terms of moving to actions, that will happen. But it doesn’t happen overnight … Let’s first listen to the pope, and that in itself is an important part of this,” Burke said.

This past week, the pope wrote a letter to the world’s Catholics, stressing that, “No effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”

The Catholic Church is much less dominant in public life in Ireland than it once was. The country has recently voted to legalize same-sex marriage and abortion, and has put a gay prime minister in office.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he is glad the Church is less influential.

“I think it still has a place in our society but not one that determines public policy or determines our laws,” he said.

Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland was originally meant to focus on attending and closing the World Meeting of Families, which is held once every three years to discuss matters of importance to the family unit. However, the latest abuse scandals around the world have shifted the focus, in part, to how the Vatican will respond to the matter.

Two U.S. cardinals were scheduled to attend the conference in Dublin but will be absent due to further revelations of clerical sexual abuse at home. They are Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s top adviser on clerical sexual abuse, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington. Another U.S. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, was recently forced to resign due to allegations of abuse and misconduct.

Sabina Castelfranco in Rome contributed.
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Following a three-day swing through the United States, Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov says he will return home to lock in domestic support for the upcoming name referendum on which the small Balkan nation’s EU-NATO integration depends.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed up talks with Dimitrov by expressing strong support for the deal, signed this summer, in which Macedonia agreed to change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia.

Greece and Macedonia have been feuding over who gets to use the name since Macedonia’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Many Greeks say allowing the neighboring country to use the name insults Greek history and implies a claim on the Greek territory also known as Macedonia, a key province in Alexander the Great’s ancient empire.

As a result, Greece has blocked Macedonian efforts to join the EU and NATO. Despite recognition by 137 countries, Macedonia is officially known at the United Nations as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

“It’s a great day for Macedonian diplomacy,” Dimitrov said of his meeting with Pompeo, which he described as “very encouraging.”

“We are now focused on our homework — we need to win a referendum to get our people to stand behind the name agreement that we have reached with our friends in Greece that unlocks the doors for the future,” he said. “And here the support and friendship of our American partners is extremely important. So, I go back to Macedonia greatly encouraged.”

September 30 referendum

Full implementation of the deal hinges on the name referendum that Macedonia’s parliament set for September 30 in a measure approved with 68 votes in the 120-seat parliament. Opposition members boycotted the vote.

“The Secretary [of State] noted the referendum presented an opportunity for citizens to voice their opinions on an issue of vital importance to the future of Macedonia,” the State Department wrote.

Staunch U.S. support for passage of the referendum, which would secure the country’s Euro-Atlantic future, draws from a longstanding U.S. interest in a politically stabilized Balkans, one of Europe’s most impoverished and politically turbulent regions, one where U.S. lawmakers have called for substantially strengthened commitments to counter Russian efforts to influence elections and discourage NATO membership.

Dimitrov’s meeting with Pompeo, his second with the top U.S. diplomat since November, underscored that point, he said.

“The main reason for [U.S. support for the referendum] lies in the fact that it will wrap up the long process of preparations for the country to join NATO, and that will bring stability in the region,” Dimitrov told VOA’s Macedonian Service.

His primary objective now, he said, is to make sure all Macedonians have the facts to make an informed decision at the polls next month.

“I am planning to devote maximum time to do just that,” he said. “I will talk to people, go to markets and elsewhere, to explain the agreement with Greece, and to assure them that I understand their concerns. In these circumstances, there is no other alternative,” he said.

The referendum question that parliament approved in July does not explicitly mention changing the country’s name. It says only: “Are you for EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Greece?”

Macedonia’s nationalist opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, criticized the wording of the referendum question as manipulative.

Members of the opposition have not yet said whether they will call upon supporters to participate in the referendum, which would significantly increase the likelihood of achieving the 50 percent threshold required for ratification.

Some smaller political parties and nationalist groups who say the name change would compromise national identity have been campaigning to boycott the referendum.

This story originated in VOA’s Macedonian Service
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An outbreak of fighting in Ukraine’s rebel-held east has killed four troops and left another seven wounded, officials said Thursday.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the losses were the biggest in months and followed fighting that lasted five hours.

The ministry said the fighting erupted when the rebels began to shell government troops with mortars, trying to break through the front line in the east of the Luhansk region.

The rebels in Luhansk, however, accused government troops of attacking them first. They said they fired back when the Ukrainian troops launched an offensive in a bid to seize some ground near the village of Zhelobok.

The separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 10,000 since it began in April 2014. A 2015 peace agreement has helped reduce hostilities, but clashes have continued. The warring parties blamed each other for the failure to observe the truce.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday apologized to the country for his 2014 promise to quickly end the conflict in the east.

“People perceived it as an opportunity to end the war quickly,” Poroshenko said. “I am sorry to have created inflated expectations. I sincerely apologize for giving you hope that has not come true.”
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British Airways and Air France said on Thursday they would halt flights to Iran from September for business reasons, months after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would re-impose sanctions on Tehran.

British Airways said it was suspending its London to Tehran service “as the operation is currently not commercially viable.”

BA, which is owned by Spanish-registered IAG, said its last outbound flight from London to Tehran will be on September 22 and the last inbound flight from Tehran will be on September 23.

Air France will stop flights from Paris to Tehran from September 18 because of “the line’s weak performance,” an airline spokesman said.

“As the number of business customers flying to Iran has fallen, the connection is not profitable any more,” the spokesman said.

German airline Lufthansa said it had no plans to stop flying to Tehran.

“We are closely monitoring the developments … For the time being, Lufthansa will continue to fly to Tehran as scheduled and no changes are envisaged,” it said in an emailed statement.

The European Union has tried to keep an international deal on the Iranian nuclear program alive despite Trump’s decision in May to withdraw the United States from the agreement.

Some new U.S. sanctions on Iran took effect this month. The EU, which is working to maintain trade with Tehran, agreed 18 million euros ($20.6 million) in aid for Iran on Thursday, including for the private sector, to help offset the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Despite this, a number of European companies have announced they are pulling out of projects or scrapping investment plans in Iran.

Air France is the French arm of Franco-Dutch airlines group Air France KLM. KLM, the group’s Dutch arm, had previously announced it was halting flights to Tehran.

The airlines’ decision was welcomed by Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

“Today we learned that three major carriers, BA, KLM, and Air France, have discontinued their activities in Iran. That is good, more should follow, more will follow, because Iran should not be rewarded for its aggression in the region, for its attempts to spread terrorism far and wide …,” he told a news conference during a visit to Lithuania.

The BA route was reinstated in the wake of the 2015 accord between western powers and Iran under which most international sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on the country’s nuclear program.

Air France had re-opened the Paris-Tehran route in 2016. Iran’s ambassador to Britain expressed regret at BA’s decision.

“Considering the high demand … the decision by the airline is regrettable,” Hamid Baeidinejad wrote on his official Twitter account.

($1 = 0.8744 euros)
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