U.S. President Donald Trump has endorsed a measure that would dramatically reduce the number of low-skilled immigrants admitted to the United States, and introduce a merit-based points system. VOA White House correspondent Peter Heinlein reports.
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The German government has condemned Vietnam’s “unprecedented and blatant violation” of German and international law by kidnapping a Vietnamese citizen seeking asylum in Berlin and returning him to Hanoi to face criminal charges.
The German foreign ministry expelled a Vietnamese intelligence officer and summoned Vietnam’s ambassador to hear a complaint that the incident “has the potential to have a massive negative impact on relations between Germany and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
A statement issued in Berlin Wednesday said senior German officials have “no reasonable doubt” that Vietnamese security services and embassy staff carried out the kidnapping last week of Trinh Xuan Thanh, 51, an executive of the state-owned energy company PetroVietnam, which has been the target of recent corruption investigations that have ensnared government and business leaders. Thanh is accused of responsibility for nearly $150 million in losses by a division of PetroVietnam at a time when he headed that group.
Seized by armed men
A Vietnamese-language newspaper and German media reported that armed men accosted and seized Thanh in Berlin’s Tiergarten, a large forested park in the German capital, July 23, the day before he was to appear for a hearing on his request for political asylum in Germany.
Thanh, a former high-ranking member Vietnam’s Communist Party, turned up in Hanoi this past Monday. Police in the Vietnamese capital claimed he decided to turn himself in, 10 months after an international warrant was issued seeking his arrest.
The Hanoi police did not explain how Thanh made his way from Berlin or why he returned home. No pictures of him have been published and family members were said to have been unaware that he was back in Vietnam.
The German foreign ministry said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government was demanding that Thanh be allowed to travel back to Germany immediately, so authorities there could examine both his asylum application and Vietnam’s request for his extradition. In addition, a spokesman for the German foreign ministry, Martin Schaefer, told reporters: “We reserve the right to draw further consequences, if necessary, at a political, economic and development policy level.”
In Hanoi, no comment
VOA asked the Vietnamese foreign ministry to comment on the case but received no response. Media reports in Germany said the Vietnamese embassy in Berlin was not responding to any inquiries.
Vietnam’s current anti-corruption drive marks a period of change and maneuvering within the country’s Communist Party.
“Massive corruption has been like rust eating away at the authority of the legitimacy of the Communist Party of Vietnam,” Professor Carl Thayer told VOA from Australia.
Thayer, an emeritus professor of the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy, explained: “This has been openly acknowledged by top party officials for well over a decade. Each major corruption case is judged not only on the financial loss to the state, but also on its impact on political stability.
“I liken anti-corruption campaigns to campaigns to end prostitution,” Thayer continued. “They are never-ending, because human greed is involved and officials will take risks.”
Quick promotions for Thanh
Thanh, a Hanoi native, graduated from the Hanoi University of Architecture in 1990 and then worked until 1995 in Germany, which currently is Vietnam’s largest trading partner in the European Union.
After returning to Vietnam, he advanced rapidly through a series of executive positions of increasing responsibility, at a state-owned technology and economic development company, a state-owned civil and industrial construction company and, in 2007, PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation. He was chairman from 2009-2013, and was awarded a Laborers’ Hero in the Renovation Era medal in 2011.
Thanh moved into the government realm in September 2013 as deputy chief of office and head of the representative office of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the central province of Da Nang.
In early June last year, Thanh landed in the spotlight after a photograph of him driving a privately owned car bearing government number plates was posted online.
Tripped up by privilege
An uproar ensued as people questioned why Thanh, then a deputy chairman of the southern province of Hau Giang, was assigned a government plate. After review by authorized agencies, the province’s leaders admitted they had made a mistake.
However, the outcry caught the attention of the head of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, who on June 9, 2016, called for an investigation of Thanh’s activities. That scrutiny uncovered losses of $147 million at PetroVietnam during Thanh’s tenure.
In July 2016, Thanh requested annual leave. The following month, he requested sick leave for medical treatment overseas, and then disappeared.
By mid-September, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security had charged Thanh, along with four others, with mismanagement at a subsidiary of the national oil and gas giant PetroVietnam, had removed him as a member of the Communist Party, and had issued an international warrant for his arrest.
The resulting worldwide manhunt for Thanh appeared to be fruitless until the recent events in Berlin.
One report this week indicated the two governments involved had discussed the Thanh case before he was abducted in Berlin.
The Associated Press said Germany’s foreign ministry spokesman, Martin Schaefer, confirmed that German and Vietnamese officials discussed Hanoi’s request for Thanh’s extradition during a meeting in Hamburg July 7-8, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit.
This report originated on VOA Vietnamese.
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Centers like Pontourney in Beaumont-En-Veron were to be opened in France as reintegration centers, and were to be set up in every region of France. But that will not happen now: At the end of July, officials said Pontourney is closing.
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Three top Democratic senators, in a rare show of bipartisanship, on Wednesday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to stand up to China as he prepares to launch an inquiry into Beijing’s intellectual property and trade practices in coming days.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer pressed the Republican president to skip the investigation and go straight to trade action against China.
“We should certainly go after them,” said Schumer in a statement. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio also urged Trump to rein in China.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated in recent months as Trump has pressed China to cut steel production to ease global oversupply and rein in North Korea’s missile program.
Sources familiar with the current discussions said Trump was expected to issue a presidential memorandum in coming days, citing Chinese theft of intellectual property as a problem. The European Union, Japan, Germany and Canada have all expressed concern over China’s behavior on intellectual property theft.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would then initiate an investigation under the Trade Act of 1974’s Section 301, which allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect U.S. industries, the sources said.
It is unclear whether such a probe would result in trade sanctions against China, which Beijing would almost certainly challenge before the World Trade Organization.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters that China “opposes unilateral actions and trade protectionism in any form.”
Leverage for talks
U.S. Section 301 investigations have not led to trade sanctions since the WTO was launched in 1995. In the 1980s, Section 301 tariffs were levied against Japanese motorcycles, steel and other products.
“This could merely be leverage for bilateral negotiations,” James Bacchus, a former WTO chief judge and USTR official, said of a China intellectual property probe.
Some trade lawyers said that WTO does not have jurisdiction over investment rules — such as China’s requirements that foreign companies transfer technology to their joint venture partners — allowing sanctions to proceed outside the WTO’s dispute settlement system.
But Bacchus argued the United States has an obligation to turn first to the Geneva-based institution to resolve trade disputes, adding: “There is an obligation in WTO to enforce intellectual property rights that is not fully explored.”
Lighthizer and Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, have complained the WTO is slow to resolve disputes and biased against the United States.
The threat comes at a time when Trump has become increasingly frustrated with the level of support from Beijing to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile program.
Trump has said in the past that China would get better treatment on trade with the United States if it acted more forcefully against Pyongyang. Beijing has said its influence on North Korea is limited.
China also says trade between the two nations benefits both sides, and that Beijing is willing to improve trade ties.
A senior Chinese official said Monday that there was no link between North Korea’s nuclear program and China-U.S. trade.
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to Lighthizer urging action to stop China from pressuring U.S. tech companies into giving up intellectual property rights.
Wyden’s state of Oregon is home to several companies that could make a case regarding intellectual property rights and China, including Nike and FLIR Systems.
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A Georgian court on Wednesday rejected a request to postpone former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s hearing on embezzlement charges.
Saakashvili’s lawyers asked Tbilisi City Court to delay the hearing because the former president has been stateless since July 26, when Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko revoked Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship.
Calling the request unsubstantiated, Judge Badri Kochlamazashvili ruled that the hearing would be held at the court’s discretion.
Saakashvili, 49, once a lauded pro-Western reformist, served two terms as Georgia’s president, from January 2004 to November 2013. His popularity declined toward the end of his second term, in part because of a five-day war with Russia during which Moscow’s forces drove deep into the South Caucasus country, and his long-ruling party was voted out of power in a 2012 parliamentary election.
In 2015, Saakashvili forfeited his Georgian citizenship by accepting an offer from his old college friend, Poroshenko, to become governor of Ukraine’s southwestern Odessa Oblast province — a post that required Ukrainian citizenship.
Saakashvili, whom many suspect of harboring Ukrainian political ambitions, resigned as governor of Odessa in November 2016, complaining of official obstruction and corruption. He accused Poroshenko of dishonesty and said his central government had sabotaged democratic reforms required for membership to the European Union and NATO.
‘Very Soviet behavior’
Saakashvili recently told VOA that Poroshenko stripped his Ukrainian citizenship in order to eliminate his main domestic political opponent and undermine democracy in the Russian-occupied Eastern European nation.
“It’s a very Soviet behavior, very much reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s actions,” he told VOA. “First, deprive somebody of citizenship and then declare them crazy, criminal. It’s very much a déjà vu.”
Poroshenko, who announced the decision while Saakashvili was visiting the United States, said he nullified Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship upon learning that the former Georgian leader had lied on his citizenship application.
Ukrainian law requires applicants for citizenship to disclose whether they are subjects of any ongoing criminal investigations inside or outside the country.
Georgia has been seeking the former president’s extradition to face charges connected to embezzlement of public funds, the violent dispersal of protests and a raid on a private television station. Saakashvili said the charges were politically motivated.
He insisted he “indicated everything rightfully” on the 2015 document, and that Poroshenko operatives had since doctored it.
“The documents that I filed were not shown,” Saakashvili said. “We are demanding them to be shown because we need to see that everything was done legally. The fact that they are showing this [falsified application for citizenship reveals a] blatant desire to do something very illegal. We are talking about the forgery here.”
No copy of original
Asked whether he had a copy of the original application, Saakashvili said he did not.
“I happen to trust people,” he told VOA. “I have filed so many documents in my life that I don’t keep copies. I trust the state institutions; I trust people that they would do their jobs fairly.”
Kyiv officials declined to respond to Saakashvili’s assertions or comply with a request to share a copy of the disputed application.
Although Saakashvili has vowed to return to Ukraine and fight to reclaim his citizenship, it is not known whether he has taken any official steps to initiate that legal process.
On Wednesday, Kyiv officials in Washington said he had made no efforts to reach them.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko, said he would be forced to extradite Saakashvili to Georgia should he return to Ukraine — but only if the Georgians filed a new request.
Georgian authorities unsuccessfully requested Saakashvili’s extradition twice prior to Poroshenko’s official visit to Tbilisi last month.
This story originated in VOA’s Georgian service.
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The Trump administration is considering whether to initiate an action that could lead to the United States imposing tariffs and other trade restrictions on Chinese imports.
U.S. news outlets say President Donald Trump will direct U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to begin an investigation of China’s trade practices under a section of the 1974 Trade Act. The section is aimed at protecting U.S. industries from unfair trade practices of foreign countries.
Administration officials say a formal announcement could be made within the next several days.
President Trump and members of his economic team have long accused China of engaging in trade practices that have harmed American businesses, from excess steel imports to theft of intellectual properties.
In an opinion piece published Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross accused China, as well as Europe, of subsidizing their exports through such means as “grants, low-cost loans, energy subsidies, special value-added tax refunds” and other means.
Despite its complaints, the Trump administration had emphasized cooperation with Beijing during its first six months in office. But bilateral trade talks last month failed to end with an agreement, and the administration has become increasingly frustration with China’s apparent reluctance to pressure North Korea to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Europe is experiencing extreme weather conditions, including heat waves and flooding. The heat has caused outbreaks of wildfires in southern countries such as Croatia, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal and southern France, and drought has led to shortages of water in many areas.
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The Sistine Chapel choir is preparing for its first visit to the United States in 30 years. The world’s oldest choir, it began performing for the head of the Roman Catholic Church about 500 years ago.
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Egypt’s foreign reserves reached over $36 billion in July, a record high, which the prime minister described as “good news” as it shows that the economy is recovering, the central bank said Tuesday.
The bank announced the increase in a brief statement saying that the figure is 4.7 billion dollars higher compared to the previous month. In December 2010, foreign reserves reached $36 billion.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Sherif Ismail hailed the increase of the foreign reserves saying, “this is an assuring message about the Egyptian economy and that we are capable of covering the needs of the Egyptian people.”
“This means that the Egyptian economy has recovered,” he said.
$12 billion loan from IMF
The rise comes after the government secured a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. In order to qualify for that loan, the government imposed a set of tough economic measures, including subsidy cuts and the flotation of its local currency.
The economic measures were hailed by the IMF but have left many Egyptians struggling with both reduced buying power and spiraling inflation while the government struggles to generate jobs in country with an official population of 92 million.
This summer, Egypt raised electricity prices by more than 40 percent and increased gasoline prices by up to 55 percent while doubling the price of the household staple butane canisters, used for cooking.
Measures benefit middle, lower classes
Ahead of the latest hikes, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi approved a package of measures benefiting middle and lower class Egyptians, including income tax relief, bonuses for state employees, increases in pensions and ration card subsidies.
The government embarked on the economic reform program soon after el-Sissi took office three years ago. Egypt’s economy has been battered since the 2011 uprising and continues to face major challenges, including a rising Islamic militancy. Tourism, a major pillar of national revenue, was dealt a blow in 2015 when militants belonging to an affiliate of the Islamic State group downed a Russian airliner killing all 224 people aboard.
Some European oil majors have made inroads into the emerging U.S. offshore wind energy market, aiming to leverage their experience of deepwater development and the crowded offshore wind arena at home.
Late entrants to the offshore wind game in Europe, which began with a project off Denmark 25 years ago and is now approaching maturity, they are looking across the Atlantic at what they view as a huge and potentially lucrative new market.
Norway’s Statoil has won a license to develop a wind farm of the New York coast, is marketing its new floating turbine to California and Hawaii and is retraining some oil and gas staff to work in its wind division.
Royal Dutch Shell bid for a lease offshore North Carolina earlier this year while Denmark’s DONG Energy, a wind energy pioneer which agreed to sell its oil and gas business in May, is in a Massachusetts-based offshore wind consortium, holds a lease off the New Jersey coast and has opened an office in Boston.
Offshore wind generation began in the United States late last year, ironically after the election of President Donald Trump. He is skeptical about climate change, complains about subsidies for renewable energy and battled against an offshore wind farm near his Scottish golf resort.
However, a string of federal seabed leases were awarded before Trump took office and more are planned. The investment needed to get projects going is one of the biggest
obstacles.
“Undeniably, offshore wind is a big boys’ game because it requires large amounts of capital because scale is such an important cost driver,” said Samuel Leupold chief executive of DONG Energy’s offshore wind business.
While DONG has shifted decisively towards renewables, Statoil and Shell are still firmly rooted in fossil fuels and other major European oil companies, in common with their U.S. counterparts, have so far steered clear of U.S. offshore wind.
Washington estimates its potential at 2,000 gigawatts (GW), many times anticipated capacity in Europe of 25 GW by 2020, but U.S. federal subsidies expire at the end of 2019 and while they may be renewed by Congress, that is no means certain.
Costs in Europe have fallen to a level that enabled DONG to place a zero subsidy bid earlier this year, but offshore wind farms are still multi-billion dollar projects. A push into deeper U.S. waters and the bigger turbines needed to compete without subsidies will keep price tags high.
Early Days
Trump signed an executive order in March expected to roll back his predecessor Barack Obama’s plan requiring states to slash carbon emissions from power plants. There is also no carbon price mechanism across the United States like those in Europe and elsewhere, although there are two regional ones.
U.S. oil companies have some investments in solar and onshore wind, but when it comes to offshore wind, many say they are waiting for a time when government support is not needed.
“Chevron supports renewables that are scalable and can compete without subsidies,” said Morgan Krinklaw, a spokesman for Chevron, which owns an onshore wind farm.
A report from analysts at Lazard in December pegged the cost of U.S. offshore wind at $118 MWh, around twice as much as onshore wind or combined-cycle gas turbines.
Asked to comment on that figure, Statoil, which is building its first floating wind turbine park off the Scottish coast, said costs were coming down and it was working to drive them down further, partly by redeploying existing staff.
The company has about 1,000 employees in the U.S. oil industry, said Stephen Bull, senior vice president of the company’s wind business. “There’s scope for us to plug into our existing oil and gas supply chain,” he added, referring to existing contracts with equipment and service suppliers.
Statoil spokeswoman Elin Isaksen said she did not expect any of its offshore wind projects in the U.S. to have begun construction by 2019 and that it was too early to quote numbers for the New York project, while acknowledging there was, as yet, no supply chain.
“We expect to see – and will help – the supply chain evolve rapidly in step with the broader industry as offshore wind takes hold in the U.S. in the coming years,” she said.
In Virginia, where Spanish utility Iberdrola’s Avangrid has secured an offshore wind licence, a rich marine engineering heritage is expected to help local companies gain work. Smaller European oil and gas firms are also gaining work.
JDR Cable Systems, a British company that has traditionally supplied subsea power lines to oil and gas platforms, earlier this year won a $275 million contract to provide electric cables for the largest U.S. offshore wind farm off the Maryland coast.
“We are well placed to develop business in the U.S. because of the existing relationships we have in Europe,” said John Price, global sales director for renewables at JDR.
State level decision-making on electricity procurement, the next stage of getting offshore wind off the ground, is helping.
Massachusetts, where DONG has secured a seabed license, last year issued a law requiring its utilities to buy up to 1.6 GW of offshore wind power by June 2027, with a tender to be held later this year.
DONG’s North America wind power president Thomas Bostrom said it would bid in the Massachusetts power purchase tender in December and would not comment on costs ahead of that. He too, emphasized his company was playing the long game.
“As excited as we are for offshore wind in the U.S., we are still in the early days of the industry,” Bostrom said.
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Sirens wailed across Poland’s capital on Tuesday as the country marked the 73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, a doomed revolt against the occupying Germans during World War II.
Sirens sounded for about two minutes starting at 5 p.m., the hour the 1944 uprising began, bringing traffic mostly to a standstill while people stopped to pay respect to the Poles who fought and died.
President Andrzej Duda, veterans, scouts and others took part in ceremonies, as did several thousand far-right extremists who marched through Warsaw.
The German Embassy in Warsaw flew its flags — a German and a European Union flag — at half-staff to honor the victims.
The Warsaw Uprising broke out August 1, 1944, with the Polish underground taking up arms against the powerful Nazi forces, hoping to liberate the city before the arrival of the Soviet Red Army. They held out for 63 days before the Germans crushed the revolt.
It was the largest act of resistance in any nation under German occupation during the war. The heroism of insurgents who fought for national liberation remains a defining element in Polish national identity.
The Germans suppressed the rebellion brutally, destroying most of Warsaw and killing around 200,000 people, most of them civilians.
Soviet troops who had arrived on the outskirts of Warsaw in their westward push against Adolf Hitler’s forces remained on the city’s outskirts without helping the Poles who were supposed to be their allies. The Red Army’s inaction was viewed as a deep betrayal.
U.S. President Donald Trump paid homage to the “desperate struggle to overthrow oppression” during a July 6 visit to Warsaw.
Trump recalled that the Soviets “watched as the Nazis ruthlessly destroyed the city, viciously murdering men, women and children.”
The 1944 uprising by the Polish resistance came more than a year after Jews confined to the Warsaw Ghetto and about to be sent to death camps took up arms against the Nazis. That revolt also ended in tragedy for the Jews.
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On the latest leg of his first official tour of Eastern Europe, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence assured regional allies the United States will stand by their side.
Facing a crowd of Georgian and international journalists at government offices in Tbilisi, Pence, standing alongside his host, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, said America first does not mean America alone.
“President Trump has sent me with the simple message to you and to the people of Georgia, we are with you, we stand with you … America stands with Georgia,” said Pence.
The vice president came to Georgia, the only non-NATO member country on his itinerary, from Estonia, a model of a successful EU-leaning transformation, before heading to Montenegro, NATO’s newest member.
Pence is the highest-ranking American official of the current administration to visit Georgia and the larger Caucasus region.
“Thanks to your help, Georgia is no longer a Soviet or a post-Soviet country,” said Kvirikashvili at Tuesday’s joint press conference. “Today we are a democracy closely associated with the European Union.”
Kvirikashvili’s comments, in which he touted Georgia’s role as “a key strategic partner of America,” come amid an ongoing partial Russian occupation.
About 60 kilometers from the news conference, Russian tank units maintain control over 20 percent of Georgian terrain, a holdover from the August 2008 five-day war.
Pence reiterated the U.S. non-recognition policy regarding the Russian-occupied zone, condemning Moscow’s presence on Georgian soil, what many observers describe as an evolving, “creeping” occupation.
“President Trump has called on Russia to cease its destabilizing activities,” Pence said, adding that President Donald Trump will soon sign sanctions against Russia.
“Our country prefers a constructive relations with Russia, based on cooperation and common interest. But the president and our Congress are unified in our message to Russia: a better relationship, lifting of sanctions, will require Russia to reverse actions that caused sanctions to be imposed in the first place.”
‘Reset’ jitters
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Georgia about a year after the 2008 war. Biden’s visit came shortly after the Obama administration’s “reset” policy with Russia, which caused concern among many Europeans that the United States would give Moscow a pass for its invasion of Georgia.
Years later, Russia annexed Crimea and destabilized Eastern Ukraine, which led the West to unilaterally impose sanctions on Russia.
Both Georgia and Ukraine are aspiring NATO members. Some observers argue Georgia’s 2008 war and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea could have been avoided if those countries hadn’t been denied Membership Action Plan status at NATO’s Bucharest summit in April, 2008.
“President Trump and I stand by the 2008 NATO Bucharest statement, which made it clear that Georgia, one day, will become a member of NATO,” said Pence.
According to recent nationwide polls carried by National Democratic Institute, 66 percent of Georgia’s population approves of the government’s stated goal to join NATO. Sixty-two percent of Georgians say the country should join the European Union. Both organizations are largely seen as security instruments that would protect Georgia independence and development.
2017 represents the 25th anniversary of U.S.-Georgian diplomatic relations.
George W. Bush is the only U.S. president who has visited Georgia, which he called “a beacon of democracy.”
This story originated in VOA’s Georgian Service.
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An attempted escape from a Moscow courthouse has left three gang members dead, authorities said Tuesday.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the ill-fated incident occurred at the Moscow Regional Court as the defendants were being escorted under guard in an elevator. Officials say a suspect attacked one of the guards and tried to strangle him before the defendants seized the weapons from the guards.
A shootout with court guards erupted once the elevator doors opened, leaving three of the suspects dead and two wounded. At least two guards also were injured, authorities said.
The trouble happened prior to a hearing for the defendants, who are accused of killing 17 motorists over the course of a few months in 2014.
Prosecutors said the men would lay spike strips across roads as cars were driving by, popping the tires and forcing the drivers to exit their vehicles.
When the drivers left their cars, the gang, totaling nine members, would shoot them dead, investigators said.
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Spain’s National Court has recommended the extradition to the United States of a Russian computer programmer accused by U.S. prosecutors of developing malicious software that stole information from financial institutions and caused losses of $855,000.
Stanislav Lisov, 31, was arrested January 13 in the Barcelona Airport while on honeymoon in Europe. Prosecutors accuse him of developing the NeverQuest software that targeted banking clients in the United States between June 2012 and January 2015.
The Spanish court said Tuesday that Lisov could face up to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to commit electronic and computer fraud. The extradition hearing took place July 20.
The court said its ruling can be appealed by Lisov.
The extradition, if finally decided upon, must be approved by the government.
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Saudi Arabia has announced plans to build a “semi-autonomous” visa-free travel destination along its northwestern Red Sea coast.
The Red Sea area will include diving attractions and a nature reserve – and there are suggestions that the kingdom’s strict rules on women’s veils and gender segregation could be waived in the tourist haven.
The resort area will be developed with seed capital from the country’s Public Investment Fund.
The fund said Monday the project will be built along 125 miles (200 kilometers) of coastline and is tailored toward global luxury travelers and those seeking wellness travel, a genre of tourism associated with personal well-being and health.
The Saudi Commission for Tourism did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for more details on the rules.
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Qatar filed a wide-ranging legal complaint at the World Trade Organization on Monday to challenge a trade boycott by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, the director of Qatar’s WTO office, Ali Alwaleed al-Thani, told Reuters.
By formally “requesting consultations” with the three countries, the first step in a trade dispute, Qatar triggered a 60-day deadline for them to settle the complaint or face litigation at the WTO and potential retaliatory trade sanctions.
“We’ve given sufficient time to hear the legal explanations on how these measures are in compliance with their commitments, to no satisfactory result,” al-Thani said.
“We have always called for dialogue, for negotiations, and this is part of our strategy to talk to the members concerned and to gain more information on these measures, the legality of these measures, and to find a solution to resolve the dispute.”
The boycotting states cut ties with Qatar — a major global gas supplier and host to the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East — on June 5, accusing it of financing militant groups in Syria, and allying with Iran, their regional foe. Doha denies these allegations.
The boycotting countries have previously told the WTO that they would cite national security to justify their actions against Qatar, using a controversial and almost unprecedented exemption allowed under the WTO rules.
They said on Sunday they were ready for talks to tackle the dispute, the worst rift between Gulf Arab states in years, if Doha showed willingness to deal with their demands.
The text of Qatar’s WTO complaint cites “coercive attempts at economic isolation” and spells out how they are impeding Qatar’s rights in the trade in goods, trade in services and intellectual property.
The complaints against Saudi Arabia and the UAE run to eight pages each, while the document on Bahrain is six pages.
No reaction
There was no immediate reaction from the three to Qatar’s complaint, which is likely to be circulated at the WTO later this week.
The disputed trade restrictions include bans on trade through Qatar’s ports and travel by Qatari citizens, blockages of Qatari digital services and websites, closure of maritime borders and prohibition of flights operated by Qatari aircraft.
The complaint does not put a value on the trade boycott, and al-Thani declined to estimate how much Qatar could seek in sanctions if the litigation ever reached that stage, which can take two to five years or longer in the WTO system.
“We remain hopeful that the consultations could bear fruit in resolving this,” he said.
The WTO suit does not include Egypt, the fourth country involved in the boycott. Although it has also cut travel and diplomatic ties with Qatar, Egypt did not expel Qatari citizens or ask Egyptians to leave Qatar.
Al-Thani declined to explain why Egypt was not included.
“Obviously all options are available. But we have not raised a consultation request with Egypt yet,” he said.
In its WTO case, Qatar would also draw attention to the impact the boycott was having on other WTO members, he added.
Many trade diplomats say that using national security as a defense risks weakening the WTO by removing a taboo that could enable countries to escape international trade obligations.
Al-Thani said governments had wide discretion to invoke the national security defense but it had to be subject to oversight: “If it is self-regulating, that is a danger to the entire multilateral trading system itself. And we believe the WTO will take that into consideration.”
Aviation group
Qatar also raised the boycott at a meeting of the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on Monday, al-Thani said.
In comments to Qatar-based Al Jazeera television later Monday, Qatar’s transport and information minister said the boycotting countries had discriminated against Doha in violation of an international agreement guaranteeing overflights.
“These countries have used this right arbitrarily and imposed it on aircraft registered only in the \state of Qatar,” Jassim bin Saif al-Sulaiti said.
Qatar in June asked Montreal-based ICAO to resolve the conflict, using a dispute resolution mechanism in the Chicago Convention, a 1944 treaty that created the agency and set basic rules for international aviation.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain said Sunday that they would allow Qatari planes to use air corridors in emergencies.
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Russian authorities are now barring American diplomats and their families from a U.S. recreational residence on the outskirts of Moscow, part of sweeping retaliatory measures announced by Kremlin leader Vladmir Putin.
The Russian president ordered the U.S. on Sunday to cut its overall staff of more than 1,200 in Russia by 755 people, in response to new U.S. sanctions imposed against Moscow for its interference in the 2016 presidential election. It is believed to be the single largest cut ever imposed on the U.S. embassy in Moscow and consulates elsewhere in Russia, although many of those to be dismissed are likely Russians working in support positions.
Putin said the cuts would leave both Russia and the U.S. with the same number of staff and diplomats in Washington and Moscow, respectively — 455.
President Donald Trump has been silent on the issue since Putin announced his retaliatory action.
Asked about this Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “Right now we are reviewing our options, and when we have something to say on it we will let you know.”
No response yet to Putin
The White House has said Trump intends to sign into law the new round of sanctions against Russia that Congress passed last week, but he has not yet done so.
The U.S. State Department said the order to reduce the number of American diplomats in Russia was “a regrettable and uncalled for act.” A spokesman said U.S. officials are assessing how to respond to Putin.
A Russian analyst, Nikolai Petrov of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, said the move reflects the Kremlin’s disillusionment with Trump: “These measures are tough, and it is linked to a deep disappointment that came after the euphoria linked to the arrival of Donald Trump [to power], and to the idea that today we will start our relations anew.”
Another Russian analyst, Gleb Pavlovsky, said a return to Cold War-era hostilities with the U.S. will only boost Putin’s popularity at home ahead of another likely bid for the Russian presidency next year.
Pavlovsky, a former political consultant for the Kremlin who now is president of the Foundation for Effective Politics in Moscow, explained how U.S. efforts to “punish” Putin may have the opposite effect: “American sanctions naturally are causing a definite mass reaction [in Russia] — an anti-American, pro-Putin reaction.” If Putin wished, Pavlovsky added, he could make the American sanctions the centerpiece of his re-election campaign next year.
Russians also will feel cutback
Other experts say the vital work of the U.S. embassy in Moscow will continue despite the massive cuts.
Steven Pifer, a former U.S. diplomat now with the Brookings Institution, told VOA that Russians also may discover some unintended consequences of their president’s crackdown on U.S. diplomacy.
“My assumption is hundreds of Russians are going to lose their jobs now,” Pifer said. “And when you’re looking at priority functions of the embassy, you know, visa functions are important but they’re not as important as other functions. So my guess is that those Russians [who] want to travel to the United States are going to find that visa processing is going to take longer than usual because of reduced staff in the consular section.”
Pifer was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1986, at a time when there were several back-and-forth expulsions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. He later served on the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton, and was ambassador to Ukraine from 1998-2000.
During his time in the Russian capital, Pifer said, American staff were called upon for “all-purpose duty” at times when Russian support staff were unavailable for political reasons.
“So, five or six days out of every seven, I would work on my normal portfolio, which is arms control,” Pifer recalled. “And then one day, I’d drive a truck. And the embassy got by. There was actually this incredible spirit in the embassy that we were going to show the Soviets that this kind of action was not going to cramp the embassy.”
Pifer said he expects the same determined spirit from U.S. embassy personnel now.
Congress approved the new sanctions against Russia last Thursday, as part of a package that also included new measures against Iran and North Korea. Russia’s foreign ministry denounced the U.S. for “extreme aggression” in international affairs and signaled the coming counter-measures the next day, two days before Putin personally announced the cutbacks in diplomatic staff.
In addition to sharply trimming the size of the U.S. mission, Russia reclaimed two U.S. facilities, a recreational retreat near Moscow and a storage facility in the city.
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Five aid groups that operate migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean refused to sign up to the Italian government’s code of conduct on Monday, the Interior Ministry said, but three others backed the new rules.
Charity boats have become increasingly important in rescue operations, picking up more than a third of all migrants brought ashore so far this year against less than one percent in 2014, according to the Italian coast guard.
Italy fears the groups are facilitating people smuggling from North Africa and encouraging migrants to make the perilous passage to Europe, and it proposed a code containing around a dozen points for the charities.
Those who refused to sign the document had put themselves “outside the organized system of sea rescues, with all the concrete consequences that can have”, the ministry said.
Italy had previously threatened to shut its ports to NGOs that did not sign up, but an Interior Ministry source said in reality those groups would face more checks from Italian authorities.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has taken part in many of the rescues of some 95,000 migrants brought to Italy this year, attended a meeting at the Interior Ministry but refused to sign the code.
MSF objected most strongly to a requirement that aid boats must take migrants to a safe port themselves, rather than transferring people to other vessels, which allows smaller boats to stay in the area for further rescues.
“Our vessels are often overwhelmed by the high number of [migrant] boats … and life and death at sea is a question of minutes,” MSF Italy’s director Gabriele Eminente wrote in a letter to Interior Minister Marco Minniti.
“The code of conduct puts at risk this fragile equation of collaboration between different boats,” Eminente continued, adding that MSF still wanted to work with the ministry to improve sea rescues.
But Save The Children gave its backing, saying it already complied with most of the rules and would monitor constantly to be sure that applying them did not obstruct their work.
“We would not have signed if even one single point would have compromised our effectiveness. This is not the case, not one single point of the code will hinder our activities,” Save The Children Italy director Valerio Neri said after the meeting.
The Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) and Spanish group Proactiva Open Arms agreed to the conditions, but Germany’s Sea-Watch, Sea-Eye and Jugend Rettet, and France’s SOS Mediterranee abstained.
MSF, SOS Mediterranee and Jugend Rettet also called for clarity on the rules and took issue with a clause in the code which would oblige groups to accept police officers on board.
“For us the most controversial point … was the commitment to help the Italian police with their investigations and possibly take armed police officers on board,” Jugend Rettet coordinator Titus Molkenbur said. “That is antithetical to the humanitarian principles of neutrality that we adhere to, and we cannot be seen as being part of the conflict.”
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When Luxembourg’s new law governing space mining comes into force on Tuesday, the country will already be working to make the science-fiction-sounding mission a reality, the deputy prime minister said.
The legislation will make Luxembourg the first country in Europe to offer a legal framework to ensure that private operators can be confident about their rights over resources they extract in space.
The law is based on the premise that space resources are capable of being owned by individuals and private companies and establishes the procedures for authorizing and supervising space exploration missions.
“When I launched the initiative a year ago, people thought I was mad,” Etienne Schneider told Reuters.
“But for us, we see it as a business that has return on investment in the short-term, the medium-term, and the long-term,” said Schneider, who is also Luxembourg’s economy minister.
Luxembourg in June 2016 set aside 200 million euros ($229 million) to fund initiatives aimed at bringing back rare minerals from space.
While that goal is at least 15 years off, new technologies are already creating markets that space mining could supply, said Schneider.
He said firms could soon make carrying materials to refuel or repair satellites economically feasible or supply raw materials to the 3-D printers now being tested on the International Space Station.
Lifting each kilogram of mass from Earth to orbit costs between 10,000 and 15,000 euros ($11,000 to $18,000), according to Schneider, but firms could cut these costs by recycling the debris of old satellites and rocket parts floating in space.
The small European country, best known for its fund management and private banking sector, will on Tuesday begin the work of making such deals, with the security of a legal framework in place, said Schneider.
Luxembourg has already managed to attract significant interest from pioneers in the field such as U.S. operators Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, and aims to attract research and development projects to set up there.
A similar package of laws was introduced in the United States in 2015 but only applies to companies majority owned by Americans, while Luxembourg’s laws will only require the company to have an office in the country.
“I am already in discussions with fund owners for more than 1 billion euros which they want to dedicate to space exploration over here in Luxembourg,” Schneider said. “In 10 years, I’m quite sure that the official language in space will be Luxembourgish.”
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is in Estonia for talks on military support with the three Baltic members of NATO, to assure them the United States supports its allies who are concerned about Russian expansionism.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all have asked for tangible demonstrations of U.S. military support. Concerns about Russian expansionism have increased sharply in the Baltic region with Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Pence was upbeat on his arrival in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, on Sunday: “President (Donald) Trump sent me to Eastern Europe with a very simple message, and that is that America first doesn’t mean America alone.”
Pence will meet with all three Baltic presidents on Monday, then travel on to Georgia, where troops from the U.S. and other NATO partners began military exercises Sunday, and later to Montenegro, NATO’s newest member.
“Our message to the Baltic States, my message when we visit Georgia and Montenegro will be the same,” Pence said in Tallinn. “To our allies here in Eastern Europe: We are with you, we stand with you on behalf of freedom and it’s a great honor for me to be here.”
The NATO military exercise that began Sunday at Georgia’s Vaziani military base, Tbilisi, marks the first time that U.S. and German heavy military machinery was deployed in the former Soviet republic, which borders Russia.
Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili attended the opening ceremony at the exercise, dubbed Noble Partner 2017. A total of 2,800 soldiers from five NATO members — the U.S., Britain, Germany, Turkey and Slovenia — joined troops from NATO partner countries Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia.
Pence said the U.S. is making it very clear “that Russia’s destabilizing activities, its support for rogue regimes, its activities in Ukraine are unacceptable.”
Thousands of people rallied in Turkey’s largest city on Sunday against security measures Israel has imposed at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, shortly after Israel removed other measures that led to two weeks of violent Palestinian protests.
The rally in Istanbul, called “The Big Jerusalem Meeting” and organized by Turkey’s Saadet Party, drew some five thousand people to the Yenikapi parade ground on the southern edge of Istanbul.
Protesters were brought in by buses and ferries from across the city, waved Turkish and Palestinian flags, and held up posters in front of a giant stage where the chairman of the Saadet party and representatives from NGOs addressed the crowd.
“The Al-Aqsa mosque is our honor,” read a poster.
“You should know that not only Gaza, but Tel Aviv also has their eyes on this parade ground. Netanyahu does as well, and he is scared”, said Saadet Party Chairman Temel Karamollaoglu, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Turkey has opposed the security measures installed at the entry points of the mosque compound, with President Tayyip Erdogan warning Israel that it would suffer most from the dispute.
Erdogan accused Israel of inflicting damage on Jerusalem’s “Islamic character”, in comments that Israel’s foreign ministry called “absurd”.
The dispute over security at the mosque compound – where Israel installed metal detectors at entry points after two police guards were shot dead this month – has touched off the bloodiest clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in years.
On Friday however, the main prayer session at the Al-Aqsa mosque ended relatively calmly after Israel removed the tougher security measures, though it barred entrance to men under age 50.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Middle East war. It annexed the area in a move that has never been recognized internationally.
Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, sits in the heart of the Old City. It is also the holiest place in Judaism – the venue of two ancient temples, the last destroyed by the Romans. Jews pray under heavy security at the Western Wall at the foot of the elevated plaza.
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Security officials said on Sunday that the Egyptian man who stabbed to death three tourists and wounded three others earlier this month in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada was tasked by the Islamic State group to carry out an attack against foreigners.
The officials said that investigations revealed 29-year old Abdel-Rahman Shaaban had communicated with two IS leaders on social media after they recruited him online.
One of them gave Shaaban daily lessons for a month after which he got in touch with the other, who asked him carry out an attack against tourists in either the resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh or Hurghada, to prove his allegiance to the group, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Shaaban rode a bus from the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh to Hurghada on July 14 and headed to a beach hotel where he killed two German women and wounded two Armenians, a Ukrainian and a Czech woman, using a knife that he bought earlier from a store, the officials added. Shaaban was arrested shortly after he was chased by hotel workers and security guards who handed him over to the police.
The Czech woman, who was hospitalized with back and leg injuries after the attack, died last week.
Shaaban is a resident of Kafr el-Sheikh where he attended the business school of the local branch of Al-Azhar University – the world’s foremost seat of learning of Sunni Islam and the target of mounting criticism in recent months over its alleged radical teachings and doctrinal rigidity.
The resort attack took place just hours after five policemen were killed in a shooting near some of Egypt’s most famous pyramids in the greater Cairo area. The Interior Ministry said last week that its forces killed four suspects and arrested two others who were behind the killing of the policemen.
Egypt’s government has been struggling to contain an insurgency by Islamic militants led by an Islamic State affiliate that is centered in the northern region of the Sinai peninsula, though attacks on the mainland have recently increased.
The extremist group has been mainly targeting security personnel and Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.
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A gunman who killed one person and injured three others in a nightclub in southern Germany on Sunday was an Iraqi citizen who had lived in the country for a long time and was not an asylum seeker, police said, ruling out terrorism as a motive.
Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told the n-tv broadcaster that after an initial investigation into the events surrounding the shooting at the nightclub in Konstanz on the border with Switzerland investigators ruled out terrorism.
“The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear,” he said. “We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background.”
The 34-year-old man was fatally wounded in a gunfight with police officers outside the music venue after they rushed to the scene shortly after the incident began around 0230 GMT. He died later in hospital. One police officer was also injured in the exchange of fire.
On Friday, a failed asylum seeker killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg. Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and he was psychologically unstable.
A spectacular fire at a music festival in Spain has forced the evacuation of more than 20,000 concertgoers in Barcelona, the regional government says.
Images show towering flames consuming a large outdoor stage Saturday night at the Tomorrowland electronic music festival at Barcelona’s Parc de Can Zam.
Barcelona firefighters say there were no serious injuries during the concert evacuation. The event’s private security told authorities they treated 20 people for minor injuries or anxiety during the evacuation.
Firefighters are investigating the cause of the fire. The Tomorrowland website published a statement saying the “stage caught fire due to a technical malfunction.”
The festival in Barcelona was one of several offshoot events of a main Tomorrowland festival in Belgium. Organizers say the Barcelona event has been canceled following the fire.
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The crocodile industry in Australia’s Northern Territory, a new report says, is worth more than four times the previous estimate of US $80 million. Officials hope the findings will give poorer aboriginal communities the chance to develop crocodile farming industries.
The saltwater creature is the world’s largest reptile. In Australia, they were once hunted to the brink of extinction, mainly for their skins, which were used to make durable leather goods and clothes.
They have been a protected species since the early 1970s, and their numbers in Australia’s tropical north have soared.
Economic opportunities
The Northern Territory regional government now sees economic opportunities for indigenous communities, where officials want to see an expansion of crocodile egg collection programs.
The eggs would help to stock crocodile farms owned by aboriginal groups, or traditional owners of land, which would supply reptile skins to big fashion houses including Louis Vuitton and Gucci, as well as supplying crocodile meat.
“We are looking at direct investments into rangers to make sure that we see on country a growth in the crocodile industry, so the harvesting of eggs, the growing of the crocodile locally and remotely, which is a very important and valuable use of traditional country done by traditional owners,” said Michael Gunner, the Northern Territory’s chief minister.
Hunting for sport?
An independent Australian MP, Bob Katter, has said that as crocodile numbers increase, so does the threat to people. He believes big game trophy hunters should be allowed to shoot them for sport. Katter has argued that crocodile safaris would boost the incomes of indigenous communities.
While the Northern Territory government supports crocodile safaris, the final decision rests with Australia’s federal government, which has refused to allow them. Conservationists have insisted that the shooting of iconic animals for profit in Australia is abhorrent and should never be allowed.
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Seven Turkish journalists were freed Saturday after spending nine months in prison, but they expressed sorrow that four of their colleagues were still being detained on charges of having aided terror groups.
The staff members from Cumhuriyet, a Turkish opposition newspaper, were released from Silivri jail on the outskirts of Istanbul. They must still stand trial, with the next hearing scheduled for September 11. If convicted, they face terms of up to 43 years in prison.
The journalists are charged with using their news coverage to support three groups Turkey considers terrorist organizations: the Kurkistan Workers’ Party, or PKK; the leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party; and the followers of a U.S.-based spiritual leader, Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of backing last year’s coup attempt.
“To be honest, I thought I would be very happy the moment I was released,” said cartoonist Musa Kart in a statement. “But I cannot say that I am very happy today. Unfortunately, four of our friends are still incarcerated in Silivri Prison. I do not think that the image of journalists in prison is one that becomes this country.”
An Istanbul court ruled Friday that the seven journalists should be freed, but it kept the most prominent of the Cumhuriyet journalists behind bars: commentator Kadri Gursel, investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and chief executive Akin Atalay.
Sik, who was jailed in 2011-12 over a book he’d authored, was jailed again in December over the content of his Twitter feed. Prosecutors said they planned to charge him additionally for a statement in court Wednesday that was fiercely critical of Turkey’s ruling party.
Indictment called ‘trash’
In what was expected to be a defense statement, Sik lashed out with a tirade about press freedom. He called the indictment against him and his colleagues “trash” and referred to the judiciary as a “lynch mob.” He said the purpose of the charges against him and his colleagues was to scare and silence people who would speak out against the government.
Following last year’s coup attempt, Turkey instituted a crackdown on journalists that resulted in the closure of more than 100 media outlets.
The independent watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists, which tracks press freedom issues, says Turkey jails more journalists than any other country, due to broadly worded laws on supporting terrorism and “insulting Turkishness.” As of December 2016, at least 81 journalists were being held in Turkish jails, all of them facing charges that they were working against the state, CPJ said.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday pardoned two women who were sentenced to prison terms for sending text messages to Georgian acquaintances about the movement of Russian military equipment on the eve of a war in 2008.
Two orders published by the Kremlin said Annik Kesyan and Marina Dzhandzhgava would not have to complete the rest of their sentences. It cited humanitarian principles for the decision.
Kesyan and Dzhandzhgava were found guilty of treason for sending text messages about the movement of Russian military hardware near the border with Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia not long before a war broke out in 2008.
Kesyan was sentenced to eight years in prison, while Dzhandzhgava was given a prison term of 12 years, according to Team 29, an association of lawyers based in St. Petersburg.
Putin in March pardoned a third woman, Oksana Sevastidi, who was also convicted of treason for sending a text message to a Georgian acquaintance about a train carrying Russian military equipment.
Rights groups had criticized the sentences given to the women.
Team 29 said in an article on its website that in April 2008 Kesyan had sent a text message to a friend saying “Yes, they are moving”, in response to a question about whether Russian tanks were moving in Sochi.
Dzhandzhgava was accused of treason for sending a text message to a Georgian acquaintance about the movement of a train carrying Russian troops, Team 29 said.
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The European Union has launched an infringement procedure against Poland over reforms the country made to its judiciary, which the EU fears will affect the impartiality of Poland’s courts.
EU commissioners decided to start the legal action Wednesday, prior to the publication of the new Polish law, with the main concern that the justice minister now can extend the mandates of judges, and dismiss and appoint court presidents.
“The new rules allow the minister of justice to exert influence on individual ordinary judges through, in particular, the vague criteria for the prolongation of their mandates thereby undermining the principle of irremovability of judges,” the European Commission said in a statement on Saturday.
Also of concern to commissioners is that female judges are required to retire five years earlier than their male counterparts.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party wants to push forward with the court reforms because it says the courts are too slow and bogged down with communist-era thinking.
According to the EU statement, the Polish ruling party has a month to respond to the notice, which informed the country it is infringing on EU laws.
The Polish government has called the court reforms an internal matter. Poland’s deputy foreign minister for European affairs, Konrad Szymanski, told the PAP news agency that the EU decision was “unfounded,” and he said the new law met legal requirements.
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Regional government authorities in southeastern Spain say a wildfire has forced the evacuation of 300 people and burned 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of pine forest.
Francisco Martinez, the regional head of agriculture, environment and rural development for Castilla-La Mancha, says residents from 10 small towns and visitors at a campsite have been relocated.
More than 150 firefighters supported by air units were fighting the fire Saturday. The blaze started Friday and spread into the National Park of Los Calares del Rio Mundo.
Spain and neighboring Portugal are prone to forest fires during the typically dry and hot summer months.
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For Tesla, everything is riding on the Model 3.
The electric car company’s newest vehicle was delivered to its first 30 customers, all Tesla employees, Friday evening. Its $35,000 starting price, half the cost of Tesla’s previous models, and range of up to 310 miles (498 km) could bring hundreds of thousands of customers into the automaker’s fold, taking it from a niche luxury brand to the mainstream. Around 500,000 people worldwide have reserved a Model 3.
Those higher sales could finally make Tesla profitable and accelerate its plans for future products like SUVs and pickups.
Or the Model 3 could dash Tesla’s dreams.
Much could go wrong
Potential customers could lose faith if Tesla doesn’t meet its aggressive production schedule, or if the cars have quality problems that strain Tesla’s small service network.
The compact Model 3 may not entice a global market that’s increasingly shifting to SUVs, including all-electric SUVs from Audi and others going on sale soon. And a fully loaded Model 3 with 310 miles of range costs a hefty $59,500; the base model goes 220 miles (322 km) on a charge.
Limits on the $7,500 U.S. tax credit for electric cars could also hurt demand. Once an automaker sells 200,000 electric cars in the U.S., the credit phases out. Tesla has sold more than 126,000 vehicles since 2008, according to estimates by WardsAuto, so not everyone who buys a Model 3 will be eligible.
“There are more reasons to think that it won’t be successful than it will,” says Karl Brauer, the executive publisher for Cox Automotive, which owns Autotrader and other car buying sites.
Always part of Tesla plans
The Model 3 has long been part of Palo Alto, California-based Tesla’s plans. In 2006, three years after the company was founded, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would eventually build “affordably priced family cars” after establishing itself with high-end vehicles like the Model S, which starts at $69,500. This will be the first time many Tesla workers will be able to afford a Tesla.
“It was never our goal to make expensive cars. We wanted to make a car everyone could buy,” Musk said Friday. “If you’re trying to make a difference in the world, you also need to make cars people can afford.”
Tesla started taking reservations for the Model 3 in March 2016. Musk said more than 500,000 people have put down a $1,000 deposit for the car. People ordering a car now likely won’t get it until late 2018. Cars will go first to employees and customers on the West Coast; overseas deliveries start late next year, and right-hand drive versions come in 2019.
Challenges to deliver
But carmaking has proved a challenge to Musk. Both the Model S and the Model X SUV were delayed and then plagued with pesky problems, like doors that don’t work and blank screens in their high-tech dashboards.
Tesla’s luxury car owners might overlook those problems because they liked the thrill of being early adopters. But mainstream buyers will be less forgiving.
“This will be their primary vehicle, so they will have high expectations of quality and durability and expect everything to work every time,” said Sam Abuelsamid, a senior researcher with Navigant Research.
The Model 3 was designed to be much simpler and cheaper to make than Tesla’s previous vehicles. It has one dashboard screen, not two, and no fancy door handles. It’s made primarily of steel, not aluminum. It has no instrument panel; the speed limit and other information normally there can be found on the center screen. It doesn’t even have a key fob; drivers can open and lock the car with a smartphone or a credit cardlike key.
‘Manufacturing hell’
Still, Musk said he’s expecting “at least six months of manufacturing hell” as the Model 3 ramps up to full production. Musk wants to be making 20,000 Model 3s per month by December at the carmaker’s Fremont factory.
Musk aims to make 500,000 vehicles next year, a number that could help Tesla finally make money. The company has only had two profitable quarters since it went public in 2010. But even at that pace, Tesla will remain a small player. Toyota Motor Corp. made more than 10 million vehicles last year.
Abuelsamid said even if it doesn’t meet its ambitious targets, Tesla has done more than anyone to promote electric vehicles.
“A decade ago they were a little more than golf carts. Now all of a sudden, EVs are real, practical vehicles that can be used for anything,” he said.
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