ІНСАЙДЕР УКРАЇНА

Thousands of Poles marched in Warsaw on Saturday to demand respect for their country’s constitution while denouncing a populist government they accuse of eroding democracy.

Many participants carried Polish and European Union flags during an event promoted as the March of Freedom'' and chanted slogans such asConstitution!” and “Free courts!”

Two pro-European and centrist opposition parties, Civic Platform and Modern, were the key organizers of the protest, along with a pro-democracy civic group.

In speeches, their leaders accused the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party of chipping away at democratic freedoms with an overhaul of the judicial system that gives the party vast powers over the courts.

EU leaders have urged the Polish government to reverse some of the changes. The government insists it has the political mandate to reform a broken justice system.

Civic Platform leader Grzegorz Schetyna said the government’s opponents are fighting for “freedom, dignity, democracy, the constitution, the independence of the Constitutional Tribunal, the independence of courts and Poland in Europe.”

Some protesters held up small copies of the Polish Constitution.

The march was also an attempt by political opposition parties to gain some momentum against the ruling party ahead of local elections this fall and the parliamentary election next year.

“We want to show that we are here, we are together and that we have a plan,” Michal Stasinski, a lawmaker with Civic Platform, told The Associated Press.

City Hall, which is controlled by Civic Platform, said 50,000 people took part. Police called that estimate far too high but did not give their own estimate.

Many march participants also expressed support for a protest that mothers of disabled children have held for more than three weeks in the Polish parliament. The mothers are demanding more state funding to care for their children, but so far have been unsatisfied with what the government has offered them.

Across Warsaw there were other rallies Saturday, including the annual pro-EU Schuman Parade and a march of about 250 farmers, foresters and hunters angry at environmentalists. Some ultra-nationalists turned out for the latter event.
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The Everett House, which serves as the Turkish ambassador’s residence, is a Washington landmark. It is also famous as the one-time home of the Ertegun family, the brothers who would go on to found Atlantic records and change the sound of American jazz and pop music. But the Erteguns also played a role in Washington history by standing with African Americans in what was, at the time, a deeply segregated city. VOA’s Ozlem Tinaz reports.
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Ukrainian separatists in Donetsk on Friday celebrated the fourth anniversary of the city’s self-proclaimed independence from Ukraine with a parade. 

Local residents who support the pro-Russian separatists came to the parade in the city center with black, red and blue rebel flags along with Russian flags.

Ukrainian forces have battled the pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk since 2014. A peace deal in 2015 has been little honored by either side. Ukraine accuses Russia of providing military support for separatists, a charge the Kremlin denies.

Residents at Friday’s parade said they wanted the region to be closer to Russia.

“I went to vote for the independence, for joining Russia. We want to be on the right track. Our course is toward Russia only,” said Svetlana, a Donetsk resident.

Donetsk also held a parade Wednesday to commemorate the victory over Nazi Germany. That parade featured tanks and other heavy weapons despite a ban on that type of celebration by Ukraine’s government.

While large, Soviet-style military parades have been revived under President Vladimir Putin in Russia, they have been banned in Ukraine since the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions broke out in 2014.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted weeks after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and has left more than 10,000 dead. 
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The Czech centrist ANO party on Friday approved a coalition agreement for a new government with the center-left Social Democrats, subject to a poll of Social Democrat party members.

The minority government would aim to boost spending on defense, wages and benefits as well as infrastructure, according to a policy agenda agreed by leaders of the two parties, which Reuters saw.

It would maintain a pro-Western policy course but keep the country outside the eurozone and resist any EU pressure to accept asylum-seekers transferred from other EU states.

“This is a solid base for the creation of a stable government,” Social Democrat chief Jan Hamacek said after a party leadership meeting.

But the deal still needs the approval of rank-and-file Social Democrats; the outcome of their poll, likely to be announced June 15, is far from certain.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ ANO party was the clear winner of an election in October but lacks a majority. The coalition will still be in a minority, with 93 of 200 lower house seats, and require ad hoc backing from the small Communist party.

Most parties, and also some prominent Social Democrats, have rejected joining a cabinet led by the billionaire businessman because he has been charged with fraudulently tapping a European Union subsidy a decade ago. He calls the investigation a plot.

As a condition of forming a coalition, the Social Democrats secured an agreement that Babis will step down if a court finds him guilty in the fraud case.

ANO’s other concessions to the Social Democrats include raising sick pay and child allowances and increasing salaries across the education sector by 50 percent by 2021.

Communist backing

“I think Social Democrat members will respond positively … we made an awful lot of compromises,” Babis said.

If the deal falls through, he said an early election could be held next spring.

The pro-Russia and anti-NATO Communist party has said it would lend the government its 15 votes in the formal confidence vote, which would mark its first involvement in national government since the end of Communist rule in 1989.

The Communists oppose some of the potential coalition’s foreign policy plans, such as more involvement in NATO military missions, but their voice will be limited.

On defense, the new government would plan to boost spending to 1.4 percent of GDP from 1.05 percent last year, still far below the NATO guideline of 2 percent.

It would also look to stabilize debt, which has dropped thanks to strong economic growth in the past three years to 34.6 percent of GDP in 2017.

Taxes should dip with a reduction in personal income tax and in value-added tax on some services, tap water and draft beer. The budget should remain broadly balanced.

ANO’s current one-party cabinet lost a vote of confidence in January and has since served in a caretaker capacity.
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Europe’s heavyweight economies took steps Friday to safeguard their interests in Iran, seeking to keep the nuclear deal with Tehran alive after Washington pulled out and said sanctions would follow.

Germany and France have significant trade links with Iran and remain committed to the nuclear agreement, as does Britain, and the three countries’ foreign ministers plan to meet Tuesday to discuss it.

That is part of a flurry of diplomatic activity following Tuesday’s unilateral withdrawal from what U.S. President Donald Trump called “a horrible, one-sided deal,” a move accompanied by the threat of penalties against any foreign firms doing business in Iran.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said ways to save the deal without Washington needed to be discussed with Tehran, while France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said EU states would propose sanctions-blocking measures to the European Commission.

“Do we accept extraterritorial sanctions? The answer is no,” Le Maire told reporters.

“Do we accept that the United States is the economic gendarme of the planet? The answer is no.

“Do we accept the vassalization of Europe in commercial matters? The answer is no.”

In Berlin, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said Germany was ready to give help to its affected firms, including legal advice, to continue doing business in Iran.

Le Maire said he was seeking concrete exemptions for countries already present in Iran, including Renault, Total, Sanofi, Danone and Peugeot.

The 2015 agreement between major powers and Iran set limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Europeans fear a collapse of the deal could intensify conflicts in the Middle East.

Germany, France and Britain want talks to be held in a broader format to include Iran’s ballistic missile program and its regional military activities, including in Syria and Yemen.

“The extent to which we can keep this deal alive … is something we need to discuss with Iran,” said Merkel, who earlier spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue.

Divisions in Iran over how it should respond to the U.S. pullout were illustrated as senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University on Friday that European nations could not be trusted.

President Hassan Rouhani had said Tuesday that Tehran would remain in the deal, provided its benefits stayed in force with its remaining signatories.

Iran’s foreign minister will travel to Moscow on May 14 and meet his Russian counterpart, Russia’s RIA news agency said, citing a Russian foreign ministry official.

‘Damage limitation’

Iran said it had asked Europe’s Airbus to announce whether it would go ahead with a plane deal with Tehran following the U.S. pullout.

That appears unlikely after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that licenses for the planemaker and rival Boeing Co to sell passenger jets to Iran would be revoked.

Le Maire said Paris would seek to strengthen Europe’s ability to block sanctions and provide investment finance to companies. He called for the creation of a body to monitor the implementation of EU sanctions rules.

Some fear Europe’s room for maneuver is limited. “The Europeans are in the weaker position because they are not united,” said Peter Beyer, Germany’s commissioner for transatlantic relations. Trump’s strength was that he did not need unity, Beyer added.

French exports to Iran doubled to 1.5 billion euros ($1.79 billion) last year, driven by sales of aircraft and automobile parts, according to customs data.

Exports of German goods to Iran rose by around 400 million euros to 3 billion euros. Around 120 German firms have operations with their own staff in Iran, including Siemens, and some 10,000 German companies trade with Iran.

“We are ready to talk to all the companies concerned about what we can do to minimize the negative consequences,” Altmaier told Deutschlandfunk radio. “That means, it is concretely about damage limitation.”

The U.S. ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, said firms should question the morality of doing business with Iran.

“Germany, France and Britain, the ‘EU3,’ say themselves that Iran poses a threat. Do they want to do business with a threat?” Bild newspaper quoted him as saying.

Altmaier said Germany wanted to avoid “a spiral of escalation” in transatlantic trade relations.

Merkel said at a church event in the western German city of Muenster: “It is in our interest to have a strong transatlantic relationship.”

But she also said: “If everybody does what they like, then this is bad news for the world.”
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The chief of inspections at the U.N. nuclear watchdog has resigned suddenly, the agency said on Friday without giving a reason.

The departure of Tero Varjoranta comes at a sensitive time, three days after the United States announced it was quitting world powers’ nuclear accord with Iran, raising questions as to whether Tehran will continue to comply with it.

Varjoranta, a Finn, had been a deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of its Department of Safeguards, which verifies countries’ compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, since October 2013.

He will be replaced in an acting capacity by the head of the department’s Iran team, the Vienna-based IAEA said.

“Mr Tero Varjoranta has resigned effective 11 May 2018,” an IAEA spokesman said. “The director general has appointed Mr Massimo Aparo, acting director, Office for Verification in Iran, as acting deputy director general and head of the Department of Safeguards, effective immediately.”

The accord signed by Iran and major powers in 2015 imposed strict limits on Iran’s atomic activities to help ensure they are not put to developing nuclear bombs in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran.

The IAEA is policing those restrictions and said on Wednesday, the day after Trump’s announcement, that Iran was still implementing its commitments under the deal.

The U.N. watchdog has also repeatedly defended the landmark agreement, saying it is a gain for nuclear verification. “The agency’s safeguards activities will continue to be carried out in a highly professional manner,” the spokesman said.

Asked why Varjoranta had resigned, he said: “The agency cannot comment on personnel matters, which are confidential.”

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano plans to appoint a permanent replacement as soon as possible, he added.
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British citizens were among a group of people taken hostage on Friday in the Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman for the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) said.

“For the moment the (ICCN) cannot communicate much about the incident because the hostages are still in captivity. That would put their lives in danger,” Joel Wenga, the ICCN’s head of communications in North Kivu province told Reuters.
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Former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont on Thursday proposed member of parliament Quim Torra as candidate for head of the Catalan government as the region attempts to put an end to a seven-month impasse and form an administration.

Catalan lawmakers must pick a leader to form a government by May 22 to avert more elections, following a standoff during which separatist politicians put forward candidates who were blocked by the courts for being either abroad or in jail.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called regional elections in December after sacking the previous administration for illegally declaring independence from Spain. However, pro-independence parties again won a majority of seats.

Torra is a lawyer and journalist who has been active in pro-independence lobbies in the wealthy region. He has published several books about the history of Catalonia, according to the Catalan parliament website.

Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium after being sacked as regional leader, is currently in Berlin waiting for German courts to rule on a Spanish request to extradite him on a charge of misuse of public funds.

Puigdemont proposed Torra as candidate in an address released on his YouTube video channel. Torra will need to be confirmed in a vote of confidence in the Catalan parliament.

“Our group proposes member of parliament Quim Torra to be president of the Catalan government so he can take on this responsibility in the next few days and so that a government can be formed immediately,” Puigdemont said.

Spain’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday accepted an appeal from the government that effectively blocked pro-independence politicians in Catalonia from voting in Puigdemont while he remains absent.
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A 104-year-old Australian scientist who had campaigned for the legalization of assisted dying in his home country has ended his life at a clinic in Switzerland.

David Goodall died Thursday at the Lifecircle clinic in Basel after administering a lethal drug under the guidance of doctors.

With his grandson Daniel and a longtime nurse at his side, the renowned botanist and ecologist from Perth, Australia, began the final stage of the process by receiving a fatal dose of barbiturates.

The lethal cocktail is normally ingested, but since Goodall couldn’t swallow, the substance was injected intravenously.

He died shortly after 12:30 p.m. local time while listening to Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th symphony, according to the clinic.

Philip Nitschke, director of Exit International, said Goodall’s last words before losing consciousness were “this is taking an awfully long time.”

Goodall said his last public farewell Wednesday at a news conference designed to publicize his decision and to help others who might also seek that path.

“At my age, and even at rather less than my age, one wants to be free to choose the death and when the death is the appropriate time,” he told reporters. “All the publicity that this has been receiving can only, I think, help the cause of euthanasia for the elderly, which I want.”

Assisted suicide is illegal in most countries around the world and was banned in Australia until the state of Victoria became the first to legalize the practice last year.

But that legislation, which takes effect in June 2019, only applies to terminally ill patients of sound mind and a life expectancy of less than six months, which would have excluded Goodall.

Goodall did not have a terminal illness but said his quality of life had deteriorated significantly in recent years.

“My abilities have been in decline over the past year or two, my eyesight over the past six years. I no longer want to continue life. I’m happy to have the chance tomorrow to end it,” said the centenarian Wednesday wearing a pullover emblazoned with the words “Aging Disgracefully.”

Goodall told reporters he had no last-minute doubts about his decision. But, he was not without regrets.

“There are many things I would like to do, but it’s too late,” he said. “I’m content to leave them undone.”
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Chilean bishops are arriving in Rome ahead of an expected brow-beating next week from Pope Francis, who says he was misled about a bishop at the center of the Chilean church’s sex abuse scandal.

One top-ranked churchman is apparently not coming: Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, retired archbishop of Santiago, who sits on Francis’ kitchen cabinet. Abuse survivors have laid much of the blame for the scandal on Errazuriz, whom they accuse of discrediting victims and covering up abuse rather than punishing pedophiles.

Errazuriz was quoted by Chile’s La Tercera paper as saying he wasn’t coming for personal reasons. 

The executive committee of the Chilean bishops conference said Thursday that the 30-plus bishops were coming with “humility and hope.” They praised Francis’ recent meetings with victims of the Reverend Fernando Karadima of Chile, saying his example “showed us the path that the Chilean church is called to follow.”

Francis had invited Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo to the Vatican so he could personally apologize for having discredited them during his January trip to Chile. Francis had said their accusations against a Karadima protege, Bishop Juan Barros, were “calumny” and demanded they present proof of his wrongdoing.

The men, who had frequented Karadima’s posh Santiago community when they were teens, say that Barros witnessed and ignored their abuse. He has denied their accusations, but twice offered to resign. 

Francis twice rejected his resignation, after apparently being counseled that Barros was innocent. Francis hasn’t said who counseled him, but Errazuriz has admitted he didn’t initially believe accusations against Karadima, and in more recent emails he called Cruz a liar and a “serpent.”

Francis summoned the bishops to the Vatican last month, warning that he wanted to discuss short-, medium- and long-term reforms to the church. In the letter, he admitted he had made “grave errors in judgment” about the Barros case, but blamed a “lack of truthful and balanced information” for his missteps.

Francis did his about-face after receiving a 2,300-page report compiled by top Vatican investigators who traveled to Chile and interviewed 64 people — victims, priests and lay Catholics — about the scandal.
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 After failing to coax Washington to stick with the Iran nuclear deal, and facing protests at home over his labor and pension reforms, French President Emmanuel Macron may find solace Thursday in Germany, where he will be given a prestigious European award for another key ambition: far-reaching goals to reform and revamp the European Union. 

The Charlemagne Prize, which he will receive in the German spa town of Aachen, remains more of an aspirational nod to Macron’s European ambitions than his ability to actually unify the region. Named after the medieval emperor who ruled over a swath of western and central Europe, the prize is awarded to those contributing to European unity. 

Angela Merkel won the prize a decade ago for her work in unifying the bloc. Ironically, the German chancellor is now counted as one of the roadblocks in Macron’s call for a post-Brexit European Union to forge closer economic, political and defense bonds.

“It’s easier for him to reform France because he’s in charge,” said Charles Grant, director of the London-based Center for European Reform think tank, or CER, who believes Macron will ultimately succeed in implementing some but not many of his proposed EU changes. “The problem with Europe is he’s not in charge.” 

In Aachen, Macron is slated to deliver a major speech on the 28-member bloc — that dwindles to 27 with Britain’s slated 2019 departure — described as a continuation but not a replica of one he delivered at the Sorbonne University in Paris last September. There, the French president outlined a raft of priorities, from creating a European rapid response defense force and common asylum policy to deeper eurozone integration. 

One immediate deadline is looming to add substance to the rhetoric. Macron and Merkel are to present a joint plan for reforming the 19-member eurozone by June. But there is another in the not-so-distant future. European parliamentary elections are slated for next year, and some fear euroskeptic parties will score strongly. 

No longer a continent in crisis

Macron’s election a year ago, beating far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, has bucked a populist wave elsewhere in Europe, which saw Hungarian leader Victor Orban re-elected to a third consecutive term in April, and anti-establishment parties in Italy surging in March elections. 

In Germany, France’s co-partner in an EU that emerged from a ’50s-era coal and steel pact, a weakened Merkel and her coalition government are reluctant to push eurozone reforms too far. 

Still, some analysts point to encouraging signs for a more unified Europe. One is public support for the European Union itself, with a 2017 Eurobarometer survey showing three-quarters of Europeans view the bloc positively. 

And despite Britain’s planned 2019 exit, “Europe no longer appears to be a continent in crisis,” wrote researchers Kermal Dervis and Caroline Conroy in a Brookings Institution report last month. Even in debt-strapped Greece, “a majority of respondents now support the EU.” 

At least some of Macron’s proposed reforms will be adopted in the long term, the Brookings report predicted, injecting “new dynamism” into the EU, making European citizens more enthusiastic about the bloc and increasing its ability to assert its economic and social values on a changing world stage. 

More broadly, Macron’s leadership role in the EU is a sharp departure from recent tradition. Under Merkel, Germany has been Europe’s main motor over the past decade, and Washington’s go-to European interlocutor under former President Barack Obama. Today, it is France that is putting its stamp on international affairs in the Middle East and the Sahel, and President Donald Trump’s European calls are more likely placed to Paris, not Berlin.

European resistance

So far, however, the French president has little to show for it. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran agreement on Tuesday has left Europeans scrambling to salvage it, and Macron has yet to secure permanent European exemptions to U.S. metals tariffs.

Macron is also facing German resistance to many of his European reform proposals. On defense, France and Germany recently agreed to jointly develop new military weapons, including a next-generation fighter plane. But there is less appetite in other areas, notably the French leader’s call for closer eurozone financial integration, complete with a eurozone budget and finance minister. 

If Macron is to push Berlin further, he must first prove himself at home, CER’s Grant believes. France’s own economy is only recently emerging from years of lackluster performance. But in March, the country finally met the EU’s 3 percent public deficit cap — posting a surprising 2.6 debt-to-public-deficit ratio — for the first time in more than a decade. 

“If he does succeed in reforming the French economy — which I think he is doing — it will be much harder for the Germans to say no on eurozone reforms,” Grant said. 

Still Macron faces considerable resistance at home. 

Tens of thousands of French took to the streets last Saturday, marking Macron’s year anniversary in office with massive rallies against his proposals. Striking rail and airline employees are snarling commuting schedules and costing their employers billions of dollars in losses. The president’s popularity has hit record lows. Yet the majority of French also support Macron’s rail reforms — and crucially his young La Republique en Marche party controls the French parliament, assuring his legislation safe passage.

A bigger roadblock to eurozone reforms lies outside France. Italy — Europe’s third-largest economy — faces a political deadlock and a shaky economy, making any substantial deepening of the financial union unlikely in the immediate future, Grant said.

Cautious optimism

More fundamentally, perhaps, the French president’s vision of Europe is at odds with those of populist leaders and parties that are resonating in many parts of the continent. Macron has called for a more flexible bloc, which tacitly allows more pro-European countries to forge ahead and more skeptical ones to lag behind. Other EU member states have not signed on to the idea, but analysts such as Grant believe it will become a reality in fact, if not in rhetoric. 

Others are cautiously optimistic the French leader may prevail in his European ambitions, but only with a massive effort in rallying European public opinion to his side — mirroring, in some ways, his surprising victory in last year’s elections.

“Macron will need a ‘Europe en March’ … a project for the democratic unification of Europe,” international affairs experts Brendan Simms and Daniel Schade wrote in The New Republic. “… The French cannot be armed missionaries — that never worked — but they must be the animating spirit of the union.”
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A Russian company accused by U.S. prosecutors of funding a propaganda operation to tilt the 2016 presidential election in President Donald Trump’s favor and stir disharmony in the United States pleaded not guilty Wednesday in federal court.

Concord Management and Consulting LLC is one of three entities and 13 Russian individuals indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in February in an alleged criminal and espionage conspiracy to tamper in the U.S. race, boost Trump and disparage his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

The indictment said Concord is controlled by Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, who U.S. officials have said has extensive ties to Russia’s military and political establishment.

The indictment said Concord controlled funding, recommended personnel and oversaw the activities of the propaganda campaign.

Prigozhin, also personally charged by Mueller, has been dubbed “Putin’s cook” by Russian media because his catering business has organized banquets for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior political figures. He has been hit with sanctions by the U.S. government.

“We plead not guilty. We exercise the right to a speedy trial,” the company’s U.S.-based defense lawyer Eric Dubelier said during the arraignment before Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey, who scheduled a May 16 status hearing.

Another business entity that prosecutors said was controlled by Prigozhin, Concord Catering, was named in the indictment, along with the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based Russian troll farm.

Dubelier told the court he was not authorized to represent Concord Catering, adding that prosecutors had indicted a “proverbial ham sandwich” because the entity did not exist during the time the alleged misconduct occurred.

Mueller’s indictment said the Russian defendants adopted false online personas to push divisive messages, traveled to the United States to collect intelligence and orchestrated political rallies while posing as Americans. Moscow has denied meddling in the election.

Mueller also is investigating whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia and whether the president has unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe. Trump has denied collusion and obstruction, calling Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.”

Russia does not have an extradition agreement with the United States, making it difficult to apprehend the Russian defendants.

As expected, no corporate representatives for Concord or any of the other corporate defendants appeared in court.

“Alas, they are not here,” prosecutor Jeannie Rhee said. “The government would be thrilled if they were here.”

Mueller’s office tried unsuccessfully to win a delay in the arraignment, saying it was unsure if Dubelier and another U.S. lawyer hired by Concord Management and Consulting were authorized to represent the company because the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia declined to accept a court summons.
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Google is suspending all advertising connected to Ireland’s abortion referendum as part of moves to protect “election integrity,” the company announced Wednesday.

The move came a day after Facebook banned foreign-backed ads in the Irish campaign, amid global concerns about online election meddling and the role of internet ads in swaying voters. 

Google said that starting Thursday, it would no longer display ads related to the May 25 vote on whether to repeal Ireland’s constitutional ban on most abortions.

The prohibition on ads connected to the Irish vote applies to both Google and YouTube, which the company owns.

The online search leader, which is based in Mountain View, California, declined to say how much advertising revenue it was giving up because of the decision.

Russian role

The role of online ads in elections is under scrutiny following revelations that Russian groups bought ads on leading services such as Google and Facebook to try to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Many of the ads were designed to sow confusion, anger and discord among Americans through messages on hot-button topics.

Karin von Abrams, a London-based analyst with the research firm eMarketer, said banning ads represented a short-term safeguard from potential backlash and reputational damage.

“They won’t want to forgo election-related revenues in the longer term, but they do need to get their houses in order, rather than risk further troubles at this stage,” von Abrams said in an email Wednesday.

Google’s statement followed Facebook’s decision Tuesday to ban foreign advertisements around the abortion referendum, which has drawn worries about the influence of North American groups.

Both Google and Facebook are working on measures to improve transparency before November’s U.S. midterm elections, including tools to show the home country of advertisers.

Ireland bars political donations from abroad, but the law has not been applied to social media advertising. Anti-abortion groups based in the United States are among the organizations that have bought online ads in Ireland during the referendum campaign.

’11th hour’ effort

Irish lawmaker James Lawless, technology spokesman for the opposition Fianna Fail party, welcomed the moves by Google and Facebook, but said “they are rushed and they are coming at the 11th hour,” with just two weeks until voting day.

“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s an awful pity we couldn’t have done this six months ago,” said Lawless, who has introduced a bill to Ireland’s parliament that would require all online advertisers to disclose the publishers and sponsors behind ads.

Largely Catholic Ireland has Europe’s strictest restrictions on abortion, which is legal only when a woman’s life is in danger. Several thousand Irish women travel each year to get abortions in neighboring Britain.

Voters are being asked whether they want to retain the constitutional ban or repeal it and make parliament responsible for creating abortion laws.

Lawless said he had concerns about some of the online advertising from both sides in the referendum campaign.

“Some quite disingenuous ads have been going around in recent weeks targeting people who are in the middle that aren’t always from who they seem to be from,” he said.

“What we really need is legislation and we need a proper, robust, thought-out approach” to the problem, he said.
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Following President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the other signatories said Wednesday they remain committed to the deal.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio the agreement is “not dead.” He said French President Emmanuel Macron and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani were due to speak to each other Wednesday, and that the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany would discuss the situation with Iranian officials on Monday.

In addition to those diplomatic moves, the foreign ministers of Russia and Germany are holding their own talks Thursday in Moscow with Iran on their agenda.

China’s Foreign Ministry pledged to safeguard the 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and said that it regrets Trump’s decision to walk away from the pact.

A joint statement from the European Union said the JCPOA has so far been working to meet its goal of ensuring Iran does not develop nuclear weapons, and that lifting sanctions on Iran has had a positive impact on trade and relations.

That contrasts strongly with Trump’s view of what he said Tuesday is “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”

In remarks from the White House Diplomatic Room, the president declared that the United States is immediately reinstating all nuclear-related sanctions it waived as part of the JCPOA.

He said the agreement, reached under former President Barack Obama, “didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”

Inside Iran’s parliament Wednesday, Trump’s decision was greeted with lawmakers setting fire to a piece of paper with a picture of the American flag as well as another paper representing the nuclear deal.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Iran’s nuclear department should be ready to resume all of its activities.

And President Rouhani said earlier Iran would remain committed to the multinational pact.

Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement came despite pleas from several of America’s closest allies in Europe not to imperil the pact. Trump and hard-liners close to the president, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, have been fierce advocates for scrapping it.

A senior State Department official told reporters the Trump administration had made “good progress” and “got close” in efforts to reach a supplemental deal with European partners in recent months, including on the issues of ballistic missiles and regional issues.

But the official said the sticking point that prevented an agreement was the so-called sunset clauses in the nuclear deal that allow certain provisions to expire after a given number of years.

Israel, believed to be the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear arsenal, has also backed Trump’s rhetoric on the JCPOA.

Obama, whose administration led intense negotiations to strike the agreement, called Trump’s action “misguided.”

“I believe that the decision to put the JCPOA at risk without any Iranian violation of the deal is a serious mistake,” he cautioned in a statement.

Immediately after Trump’s remarks, the U.S. Treasury Department announced “wind-down provisions” for existing contracts that European countries have with Tehran to avoid running afoul of U.S. banking regulations.

Under those provisions, after six months sanctions will be back in place related to Iran’s oil, petrochemical and shipping sectors as well as its central bank. Sanctions involving Iran’s purchase of U.S. bank notes, trade in gold or precious medals and providing Iran with aluminum or steel.

A senior White House official told reporters that new sanctions are possible “as new information comes to light.”

Trump’s move allows him to claim he has accomplished one of his major 2016 election campaign promises — removing the United States from the pact he repeatedly deemed “the worst deal ever.”

“People will make this all about Trump, but it is not,” James Carafano, vice president for the Heritage Foundation’s national security and foreign policy institute, told VOA. “The deal was not sustainable over time. No one was happy with it, not even the Iranians, who expected big benefits that never materialized. Trump did the equivalent of a mercy killing.”

Proponents of the JCPOA accuse Trump of misrepresenting the agreement’s clauses, contending it has successfully frozen Iran’s nuclear weapons development. They also said the deal’s demise could prompt a nuclear arms race in the region.

Trump’s announcement was made as he prepares to meet — possibly in about a month — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to discuss a possible denuclearization agreement.

 
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U.S. lawmakers are weighing in on the decades-long dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Greece has objected to its neighbor calling itself Macedonia, arguing the name implies a territorial claim to a region in Northern Greece with the same name. Experts say this is the last obstacle to Macedonia joining NATO And with Russian influence growing in Europe, there’s a new push to include the former Yugoslav republic in the alliance. VOA’s Jane Bojadzievski has more.
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After years of calling the Iran nuclear deal “insane,” disastrous,” and “the dumbest deal ever,” President Donald Trump on Tuesday pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. Trump’s decision is a major blow to the Iran nuclear accord, reached in 2015 among Iran, the U.S., and five other world powers. The main question now is whether the rest of the deal may fall apart, reports VOA’s Bill Gallo.
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Bosnia will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on October 7, even though rival ethnic leaders have yet to agree on voting rules for the upper house of the Bosniak-Croat Federation’s parliament.

Nearly 3.4 million voters will choose Croat, Serb and Bosniak members of the tripartite presidency and lawmakers for parliament’s lower house, plus regional leaders and assemblies, the Central Election Commission (CIK) said on Tuesday.

But CIK chief Irena Hadziabdic warned: “We are entering the election period without clear regulations on how to carry out elections and contrary to the international principles.”

Days after the European Union said Bosnia risked sliding into a constitutional crisis, she said Federation institutions could cease to operate unless a  solution to the dispute over voting rules is found.

“Unless we … reach a solution within a legal time-frame, we are facing a major problem,” Hadziabdic told a news conference.

The Balkan country has been governed along ethnic lines since a 1995 peace deal ended a four-year-long war that claimed 100,000 lives. The accords split Bosnia into two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, which are linked via a weak central government.

Christian Croat and Muslim Bosniak political parties are currently deadlocked over amendments to the law on voting for the upper house of parliament of their joint Federation.

Responding to an appeal by Croat nationalists, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that candidates elected to the upper house should come from main parties that draw the support of most of their respective ethnic kin.

Croat parties have since proposed new, ethnically-based electoral districts where people would vote only for their own community’s representatives at all levels of governance including the presidency.

They say they want to prevent Muslim Bosniaks, the majority group in the Federation, from bringing about the election of Croats of a civic, non-nationalist persuasion they see as not serving the best interests of Bosnian Croats.

But Bosniak parties oppose their proposals, fearing they could be a maneuver to forge a separatist Croat entity reminiscent of Bosnia’s devastating 1992-95 war.

Western envoys have been mediating talks between the parties but no breakthrough has been made. The EU last week warned Bosnian leaders not to hold the election results “hostage to party interests.”

Bosnian Serb, Bosnian Croat and Muslim Bosniak leaders have heated up nationalist rhetoric recently, launching election campaigns unusually early and halting reforms needed for Bosnia to progress towards membership of the EU and NATO.
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