The number of countries impacted by terrorism hit an all-time high in 2016, and for the first time in seven years, the United States experienced a decline in peacefulness, according to new figures from the Global Peace Index. The report, which measures the level of conflict around the world, also shows that violence cost the global economy $14.3 trillion last year. Jesusemen Oni has more.
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It was supposed to be the chance for a fresh start, but having successfully navigated the bureaucratic procedures, it appears Sara’s problems in Greece have just begun.
After interviews and a half-year wait, the 31-year-old, who faced political persecution in her homeland, Iran, was given asylum, but fears she soon won’t have a roof over her head.
“Where can we go now?” lamented Sara, who was told she and her partner, Barak, have to leave the hotel they had previously been allowed to stay in for free because they are no longer asylum-seekers.
More people are now emerging at the other end of the country’s asylum system after a long and uncertain wait.
For those allowed to remain in Greece, concerns are growing that too little is being done to help them try to build a future and integrate into their new home.
Uncertainty ahead
Refugees who find themselves trapped in Greece face a stark choice; take an expensive risk with smugglers or navigate an asylum system barely able to cope with the demand.
Nearly 13,000 have been relocated from Greece to other EU countries but for some of those who remain — a total that is officially around 60,000 people but thought to be less — and are given asylum, deep uncertainty awaits.
Humanitarian assistance has targeted asylum-seekers, but now needs to shift toward a longer term view to ensure those like Sara and Barak are not left in the cold just as they begin to rebuild their lives, said Eleni Takou of Greek NGO Solidarity Now.
“I understand that there’s a point in someone’s life where funding has to stop, but there is a need to do gradual integration,” Takou said.
It also appears there is little clarity on whether the vital cash assistance provided to those seeking asylum will continue after asylum is given.
A number of NGO’s have told VOA it is likely to be retained in some form for some time, but that hasn’t reassured Wessam Alkatreb, a Syrian currently living on the Greek island of Lesvos.
Recently granted asylum, he has been told he stands to lose his cash assistance next month, and has decided to remain in the Moria camp because he can live there for free.
“I waited nine months to get my [identity] papers, but I can’t afford to go to Athens,” he said.
Speaks volumes
Some are questioning why the government is not doing more.
Solidarity Now’s Takou maintains that millions of dollars for integration from a larger European Commission fund to aid the refugee situation in Greece have not been put to use.
For her, the relatively small amount targeting integration, and the apparent failure to even begin to use it, speak volumes.
“This falls under the whole idea that we don’t want people to get integrated into Greece because the worse it [their situation] is the more likely they might leave at some point.”
The Ministry of Migration and Policy defended its approach, saying it plans to create integration centers and that it has set up a strategy covering “all integration aspects,” ranging from early education to health and employment.
Added value
But concerns remain about the long-term impact if efforts to assist and integrate the new population are lackluster.
For those stripped of assistance, becoming self-sufficient is a challenge in a country where unemployment stands at more than 23 percent, the highest in the European Union.
There also remains a lack of awareness about the assistance that is available, such as access to state medical care, said UNHCR’s Petros Mastakas.
“There needs to be efforts to take into account refugees when it comes to state planning for things like housing or social benefits,” he said, adding, “It’s about realizing integration has added value.”
Failing to help realize this value, warns Takou, is not just damaging for refugees, but also poses a risk to wider society.
Takou highlighted reports people are remaining in refugees camps after being given asylum, warning that such continuing division only serves to marginalize communities, breeding delinquency and worse.
Questioning plans
Sara and Barak thought they had left the camps behind with their move into a hotel, but are not sure if they could return there if they wanted to.
The prospect of being kicked out onto the street is making them question any plans they had to start anew in Greece.
The recognition from the asylum service that they are entitled to a life in Greece has instead made them question whether they may try to once again find their way into another EU country, regardless of the rules.
“We almost wish we had not received any answer,” said Barak. “I don’t see how we can have a future in this country.”
*Sara and Barak’s surnames have been omitted to protect their identities.
Major investors put U.S. industry on notice Wednesday that climate change matters, even as reports emerged that President Donald Trump plans to withdraw the United States from an international pact to fight global warming.
A number of large institutional fund firms including BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, supported a shareholder resolution calling on ExxonMobil to share more information about how new technologies and climate change regulations could impact the business of the world’s largest publicly traded oil company. The proposal won the support of 62.3 percent of votes cast.
The victory, on such a wide margin, was hailed by climate activists as a turning point in their decades-long campaign to get oil and gas companies to communicate how they would adapt to a low-carbon economy.
Major investors see major risk
With major investors now seeing climate change as a major risk, activists said U.S. corporations will have to be more transparent about the impact of a warming planet even if the United States withdraws from the 2015 Paris climate accord, as Trump promised during his presidential campaign.
“Economic forces are outrunning any other considerations,” said Anne Simpson, investment director for sustainability at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, one of the sponsors of the resolution.
She credited big investors in Exxon for the change, since at least some of them switched their votes after last year when a similar measure won just 38 percent support.
“We have seen a sea change in their viewpoint,” she said.
Many top investors now consider their votes on shareholder proposals “on merit, rather than considering it a test of loyalty to management,” she said.
Among Exxon’s top investors, Vanguard Group and BlackRock opposed last year’s call for climate change reporting. A spokeswoman for Vanguard, which has about 7 percent of Exxon’s shares, declined to comment on its voting this year.
A person familiar with the matter said funds run by BlackRock, which holds about 6 percent of Exxon shares, voted in favor of the climate resolution.
Filings showing their exact votes are not due for months.
But both fund firms and others have taken steps since last year to make it easier to support climate resolutions.
Doug Holt, a spokesman for Exxon’s ninth-largest investor Northern Trust Corp, said it voted in favor of the proposal, citing its own guidelines updated in 2016.
Vote from the street
The investment firms’ approach reflects a new interest in climate matters among their own investors, who have stuffed money into so-called green mutual funds and other vehicles that use environmental factors in their stock picking.
Wall Street’s priorities have shifted the terms of debate at a number of other energy and utility companies. A majority of shareholders voting at Occidental Petroleum Corp and PPL Corp called for similar reports on the risks of climate change. Votes on two more of the measures are scheduled for June 7 at Devon Energy and at Hess.
Michael Crosby, involved in corporate outreach for the Midwest Capuchin Franciscans, a religious order, said Wednesday’s vote was a rejection of Exxon’s arguments it already provides enough detail on its outlook.
“The Street is saying, you have to give better evidence,” Crosby said.
Exxon and the Paris deal
After the measure passed, Exxon Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said its board would reconsider its climate communications.
The activists now face the task of maintaining alliances with leaders like Woods who opposed their resolutions but who in some cases support the 195-nation Paris agreement. Exxon said in a March 22 letter to the White House that the Paris deal is “an effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change.”
Trump had at least one ally at Exxon’s meeting in Dallas, Steven Milloy of Potomac, Maryland, who urged other investors to support his resolution that would make it harder to file proposals like the one on climate change.
Milloy said management should show less concern for climate issues, which he called misplaced, and cited Trump as a model.
“For the first time we have a president who actively opposes climate hysteria,” Milloy said.
According to Exxon, Milloy’s proposal received support from 1.6 percent of votes cast.
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The head of a New York-based advocacy group has called on President Donald Trump and his older daughter to help secure the release of three men who reported labor violations at a Chinese company that makes shoes bearing the Ivanka Trump brand.
“We appeal to President Trump, Ivanka Trump herself, and to her related brand company to advocate and press for the release of our activists,” Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, the men’s employer, said Wednesday.
The Ivanka Trump brand has declined to comment. The White House and Ivanka Trump’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Calls to provincial police in China were not answered. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was unaware of the situation and declined to make further comments.
Hua Haifeng and two other labor activists, Li Zhao and Su Heng, had been covertly investigating labor conditions at two Chinese factories that make shoes for Trump and other brands, in the cities of Ganzhou and Dongguan. They disclosed preliminary findings to China Labor Watch, indicating workers at the factories had been subject to extremely long hours.
Hua was arrested in Jiangxi province on suspicion of illegally using eavesdropping equipment; he and the other two men disappeared Saturday and were last seen in Ganzhou, in southern Jiangxi province, China Labor Watch reported Tuesday.
The arrest and disappearances came amid Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on the country’s advocacy groups and civil society. In the past year, dozens of human rights activists have been detained in China.
The global human rights group Amnesty International called for the release of the three men if they are being held only for investigating possible labor abuses at the factories, which are owned by Huajian International.
“Activists exposing potential human rights abuses deserve protection, not persecution,” said Amnesty International spokesman William Nee. “The trio appear to be the latest to fall foul of the Chinese authorities’ aggressive campaign against human rights activists who have any ties to overseas organizations, using the pretense of ‘national security.’ ”
The relationship between the Trump family and China has received widespread attention since last year’s presidential campaign. While Trump has accused China of taking coveted manufacturing jobs from the U.S., the Trump family has sought to benefit financially from the Chinese market.
Trump recently obtained more than 75 trademarks in China. The family of Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, is attempting to raise money from Chinese investors for a real estate venture.
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An independent Azerbaijani journalist has been abducted from Georgia, where he had been living, and forcibly taken to Azerbaijan, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
A court in this former Soviet republic was due to hold a hearing later on Wednesday to arrest Afgan Mukhtarli, who is facing charges of smuggling and crossing the border illegally.
Mukhtarli, who is also a civil rights activist, had been living in neighboring Georgia for two years. His lawyer, Elchin Sadigov, told The Associated Press the journalist was abducted outside his home Monday evening, beaten up and taken to the land border between Azerbaijan and Georgia. Sadigov claimed that the journalist’s captors planted 10,000 euros ($11,180) on him, which led to the charges.
Eldar Sultanov, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office, said the journalist was detained late on Monday “after illegally crossing the Azerbaijani border” with a large sum of money.
Mukhtarli left Azerbaijan in 2015, around the time when several Azerbaijani journalists working for foreign or local independent media faced charges of tax evasion.
Mukhtarli’s wife, Leila Mustafayeva, told the AP she was waiting for her husband at home Monday evening but he never showed up. Mustafayeva said her husband had been investigating Georgian business ties of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s family.
“Naturally, this created resentment in the presidential family,” she said, insisting that her husband’s disappearance is connected to his investigation.
Several dozen journalists rallied in the capital, Tbilisi, demanding that Georgian authorities explain how they allowed the reported abduction to happen.
Giorgi Gogia, Human Rights Watch director of South Caucasus, in a statement described Mukhtarli’s disappearance as another step in the Azerbaijani government’s “relentless crackdown on critics.”
Days after President Donald Trump’s first overseas trip, the contentious relationship between the news media and the White House was on full display. Embattled White House press secretary Sean Spicer abruptly cut short the first post-trip press briefing after once again lecturing reporters about their treatment of the president. It comes as reports circulate of an impending shakeup among White House communications staff, as VOA’s Bill Gallo report.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has agreed to hand over documents to the Senate intelligence committee in connection with its investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence last year’s U.S. presidential election.
Flynn had previously refused a subpoena from the committee, with his lawyers asserting the request was too broad in what it was seeking.
The committee filed a more narrow subpoena, and Flynn is now expected to provide some personal documents and those related to two businesses by next week.
The House intelligence committee is conducting its own investigation, and on Tuesday Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, turned down a request to provide information, calling it “poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered.”
The U.S. Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel in another investigation that also includes whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Russia.
Trump has rejected those allegations and dismissed the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the November election with a desire to help Trump’s chances of beating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Russian officials must be laughing at the U.S. & how a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election has taken over the Fake News,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Twitter.
Later, at a White House briefing for reporters, spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump “is frustrated … to see stories come out that are patently false, to see narratives that are wrong, to see, quote, unquote, fake news, when you see stories get perpetrated that are absolutely false, that are not based in fact.”
Trump’s Russia comment came as news reports continued to focus on Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a White House adviser, and his reported attempt to establish a back-channel communications link to Russian officials in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration in January.
Some foreign affairs experts said the move, while former President Barack Obama had weeks left in his term, worried them that it could undermine U.S. security, and some opposition Democrats have suggested Kushner’s security clearance should be revoked. Other experts say exploring the creation of “backchannels” is commonplace, even during presidential transitions.
Spicer deflected several questions about Kushner’s actions, telling one reporter his inquiry “presupposes facts that have not been confirmed.”
The White House also is bracing for the upcoming congressional testimony of former FBI chief James Comey. Trump fired Comey after allegedly asking him to drop the probe into Flynn and his close ties to the Kremlin.
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Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Tuesday that he would sign deals for U.S. goods and services worth $15 billion to $17 billion during his visit to Washington, mainly for high-technology products and for services.
“Vietnam will increase the import of high technologies and services from the United States, and on the occasion of this visit, many important deals will be made,” Phuc told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce dinner.
Phuc, who is due to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday at the end of a three-day visit to the United States, did not provide further details of the transactions.
GE Power Chief Executive Officer Steve Bolze told the dinner that General Electric Co. would sign deals worth about $6 billion with Vietnam, but also offered no details.
Phuc’s comments came after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressed concern about the rapid growth of the U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam, saying this was a new challenge for the two countries and that he was looking to Phuc to help address it.
“Over the last decade, our bilateral trade deficit has risen from about $7 billion to nearly $32 billion,” Lighthizer said. “This concerning growth in our trade deficit presents new challenges and shows us that there is considerable potential to improve further our important trade relationship.”
Reducing deficits
Lighthizer and other Trump administration trade officials have pledged to work to reduce U.S. bilateral deficits with major trading partners. The $32 billion deficit with Vietnam last year — the sixth-largest U.S. trade deficit — reflects growing imports of Vietnamese semiconductors and other electronics products in addition to more traditional sectors such as footwear, apparel and furniture.
The trade issue has become a potential irritant in a relationship where Washington and Hanoi have stepped up security cooperation in recent years, given shared concerns about China’s increasingly assertive behavior in East Asia.
Phuc’s meeting with Trump makes him the first Southeast Asian leader to visit the White House under the new administration.
It reflected calls, letters, diplomatic contacts and lower-level visits that started long before Trump took office in Washington, where Vietnam retains a lobbyist at $30,000 a month.
Vietnam was disappointed when Trump ditched the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, in which Hanoi was expected to be one of the main beneficiaries, and focused U.S. trade policy on reducing deficits.
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Mexico’s foreign minister says the country is “inevitably” set to review rules of origin when renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, giving a boost to President Donald Trump’s manufacturing push.
Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray said Tuesday at an event in Miami that NAFTA has allowed Mexican industry to enter the U.S. market with lax rules of origin. The rules dictate how much U.S. content a product assembled in Mexico must have in order to escape tariffs when being imported into the United States. Currently set at 62.5 percent for the auto industry, that number could increase.
“One part that must inevitably be reviewed is the chapter on rules of origin,” Videgaray said at the University of Miami. “Over time, the free trade agreement has sometimes been used — not always, of course, but sometimes — as a way to access the U.S. market perhaps with laxity in some ways of rules of origin.”
The Trump administration told Congress this month there would be 90 days of consultations on the renegotiation of the 23-year-old pact before beginning talks with Canada and Mexico. Annual trade of goods between Mexico and the U.S. was worth $525 billion in 2016, with the U.S. running a trade deficit of more than $63 billion.
The foreign minister said Mexico won’t entertain any talks on building a wall along the border. Videgaray maintained it is seen as an unfriendly sign and questioned its efficiency. Trump’s budget seeks $2.6 billion for border security technology, including money to design and build a wall along the southern border. Trump repeatedly promised voters during the campaign that Mexico would pay for a wall.
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The president of Cyprus on Tuesday rebuked a United Nations envoy for speaking of a possible crisis over the ethnically divided country’s search for offshore oil and gas, calling the remark “unacceptable” and a “threat” amid faltering reunification talks.
The envoy, Espen Barth Eide, was quoted in the Greek newspaper To Vima as expressing concern about the issue. In similar remarks earlier this month, Eide said an “international crisis” could lead to a collapse of the ongoing talks aiming at reunifying Cyprus as a federation.
“I regret that I’m being harsh about it, but I’ve made complaints directly that I consider such remarks unacceptable, especially if they’re made in the form of a threat,” President Nicos Anastasiades told reporters.
It’s the second time this month that Anastasiades, a Greek Cypriot, has leveled strong criticism at Eide, accusing him of bias.
Turkey and the Cypriot government are sharply divided over the energy search.
Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded in the wake of a coup mounted by supporters of union with Greece.
Turkey, which doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state, opposes what it calls a unilateral Greek Cypriot project which flouts the rights of breakaway Turkish Cypriots. In March, the Turkish Foreign Ministry warned that it would “take all necessary measures to protect its interests” in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as those of the Turkish Cypriots. Turkey is also said to claim part of gas exploration areas, or blocks, off Cyprus’ western and southern coast.
French energy company Total is scheduled to drill an exploratory well off Cyprus’ southern coast in mid-July.
Peace talks are at a standstill after Eide called off mediation efforts last week when Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci failed to find common ground on holding a final summit in Geneva, Switzerland. Anastasiades insists on prioritizing at the summit an agreement on withdrawing more than 35,000 troops that Turkey has kept in the island’s breakaway north since 1974. Akinci maintains that all issues should be discussed in a give-and-take process.
Anastasiades said Tuesday there would be no point to a Geneva summit if Turkey isn’t ready to discuss the security issue.
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A French judicial source says a former Guantanamo Bay inmate is among six people from an alleged jihadi recruiting network linked to the Islamic State group who have been detained.
The official said Tuesday that the suspects arrested in Bordeaux included Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, who was freed from the U.S. detention center in Cuba in 2009 after France agreed to accept him.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.
Lahmar was one of six Algerians detained in Bosnia in 2001 on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. The Justice Department later backed off the allegations, but held the men at Guantanamo for years.
The French official said Lamar, at age 48, is the oldest of the group of four men and two women arrested.
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A group of Senate Democrats sent a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, requesting information about a raft of trademark approvals from China this year that they say may violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on gifts from foreign governments.
“China’s rapid approvals after years of court battles have raised questions as to whether the trademarks will prevent you from standing up to China on behalf of American workers and their businesses,” the eight senators, led by Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal, wrote.
China’s most recent nod for a Trump trademark, covering clothing, came on May 6, bringing to 40 the number of marks China has granted or provisionally granted to the president and a related company, DTTM Operations LLC, since his inauguration. If there are no objections, provisional approvals are formally registered after 90 days. China has also rejected or partially rejected nine Trump trademarks since the inauguration.
Trademarks give the holder monopoly rights to a brand in a given market. In many jurisdictions, like China, they can also be filed defensively, to prevent squatters from using a name. Because trademarks are granted at the discretion of foreign governments and can be enormously valuable, they can be problematic for U.S. officials, who are barred by the emoluments clause of the constitution from accepting anything of value from foreign states without congressional approval.
In their letter, the senators were particularly interested in any special efforts Trump, his Chinese lawyers, or the U.S. Embassy in China, which sometimes advocates for U.S. firms, may have made to secure approval for the president’s trademarks. They cited an Associated Press report quoting one of Trump’s lawyers in China, Spring Chang, who said that “government relations are an important part of trademark strategy in China.”
Concern about favoritism is particularly sharp in China, where the courts and bureaucracy are designed to reflect the will of the ruling Communist Party. China has defended its handling of Trump’s intellectual property interests, saying it followed the law in processing his applications, though some trademark lawyers viewed the pace as unusually quick and well-coordinated. In addition, China approved one trademark for Trump-branded construction services after a 10-year legal battle that turned in his favor only after he declared his candidacy.
Alan Garten, chief legal officer of The Trump Organization, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. He has previously said that Trump’s trademark activity in China predates his election and noted that Trump has stepped away from managing his company. However, the president retains an ownership stake in his global branding and real estate empire.
In April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, added “gratuitous Chinese trademarks” to its lawsuit against the president for alleged emoluments violations. Trump has dismissed the suit as without merit.
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The catastrophic IT failure at British Airways that ruined travel plans for 75,000 people has raised questions about some older airlines’ focus on costs to the detriment of investment in new computer systems.
As British Airways resumed full service Tuesday, shares in its parent company, International Airlines Group, dropped 3 percent as investors appeared to worry that the company’s quality of service may have been undermined by recent efforts to save money.
Disaster struck on Saturday, when the company’s computer systems went down and there was no functioning back-up. The airline cancelled all flights and only managed to resume full service on Tuesday.
“Although cost cutting has been good for the share price in the last year, it will come back to bite IAG if it stops them from doing what they are supposed to do: Fly passengers to their destinations,” said Kathleen Brooks, the research director at City Index.
IAG has been battling tough competition, even as it has faced pressure on its earnings from a weaker pound following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. The company issued a profit warning following the Brexit vote nearly a year ago.
Cost pressures aggravated an already complicated situation. Renewing IT systems is complex, time-consuming and expensive — a factor that prompts many companies to put it off as long as possible, said Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy at Warwick Business School.
The problem with IT systems is recurring across the industry, particularly among established airlines. In August, Delta Air lines cancelled hundreds of flights when a power outage likewise knocked out its computer systems worldwide.
Airlines face challenges with their IT systems also due to linkages across their systems. There’s further demand on the system when companies consolidate — as has been the case among airlines — since “IT issues get heightened and any vulnerabilities are exposed.”
Such troubles give an advantage to newer airlines such as Ryanair, a cost-cutting BA rival that focuses on short haul budget flights.
“The ability to set up an airline from scratch by-passes a lot of the legacy issues, because you can go for state-of-the-art systems,” Heracleous said. “Newer airlines can also invest in IT systems that are more easily upgradeable and scaleable. An airline such as Ryanair, that is also financially successful, has more leeway to divert needed resources towards upgrading its IT systems.”
Capitalizing on BA’s troubles, Ryanair said it had seen “strong bookings” over the weekend. Its Twitter account rubbed salt into the wound with tweets that poked fun and added the hashtag “ShouldHaveFlownRyanair.”
The company’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, admitted on the BBC “we had a bit of fun on social media.”
“We don’t take social media seriously but we do take IT very seriously and that is why we’ve never had an outage,” he told the BBC.
Ryanair posted a 6 percent increase in annual profits Tuesday to 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) despite “difficult trading conditions,” caused by terror attacks in European cities and a sharp decline in the British pound.
BA, meanwhile, is counting up the cost of an IT debacle that some have estimated could run into the tens of millions. There are also all those news clips of passengers swearing they will never fly the airline again.
“The whole sorry episode has undeniably put a dent in BA’s reputation for delivering a premium service,” said George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Ecuador’s new President Lenin Moreno described WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a “hacker” but said he would continue to receive asylum in the South American country’s embassy in London.
“Mr. Assange is a hacker. That’s something we reject, and I personally reject,” Moreno told journalists on Monday. “But I respect the situation he is in, which calls for respect of his human rights, but we also ask that he respects the situation he is in.”
Moreno’s tone is a sharp break from that of his predecessor Rafael Correa, who had said Assange was a “journalist and granted him asylum in London in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape allegations. And Moreno’s right-wing opponent in the election had promised to kick Assange out of the embassy if he won.
Since taking power, Moreno has also warned Assange “not to intervene in the politics” of Ecuador or its allies.
Assange, who denies the allegations, feared Sweden would hand him over to the United States to face prosecution over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.
Even though Sweden dropped the charges earlier this month, authorities in London have warned Assange that he would be arrested if he left the embassy that his been his home for five years.
Cross-border fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has suspended trade worth millions of dollars and stranded hundreds of trucks loaded with fruits and vegetables at the border, where the produce stands to spoil in the rising heat.
Pakistan had temporarily closed the Chaman border crossing, across from Afghanistan’s Spinboldak, after a frontier skirmish earlier this month between Afghan and Pakistani border guards left more than 10 people dead. Global economic institutions say South Asia is one of the world’s least economically connected regions, and the periodic closures of border crossings complicate things further.
Summer is peak time for fruit and vegetable production in the two countries. Under normal circumstances around this time of the year, a significant portion of Afghanistan’s grapes and pomegranates is ferried overland to Pakistan.
Pakistan’s mangoes and vegetables go the opposite direction, along with bilateral trade in many other commodities — some legal and some otherwise.
Part of the Afghan fruit produce is sold in Chaman and nearby villages; the remainder finds its way to markets across Pakistan.
It’s a long-established system that relies heavily on trust: Pakistani fruit traders send advance payments to their Afghan counterparts, who then send the fruit after it’s harvested. But so far this year, the Chaman businessmen say they have not cut the usual deals because the border closure have created the risk of coming up empty-handed.
Amant Khan, a fruit trader in Chaman, said he suffered losses last year as tensions rose between the two countries.
“This season we did not give the grape or melon dealers anything,” he said. “In fact, we decided not to do business with Afghanistan.”
For traders in Waish Mandi, a thriving Afghan market town across from Chaman, these are hard financial times, too. Hundreds of people, who used to benefit from border trade, have lost work. Unable to move their merchandise across the border, goods worth millions of dollars are stranded in truck containers.
Apart from the fruit trade, bilateral trade between Afghanistan and Pakistanonce worth $3 billion a year has dropped to $1.2 billion, said Khan Jan Alkozai, president of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Pakistan’s own fruit exports to Central Asia via Afghanistan, which usually average 2 million pounds, also suffer because of border closures, Alkozai said.
Daro Khan, former vice president for the Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Chamber of Commerce, said Pakistani farmers and businessman have not recovered from losses due to border closures last year.
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The mayor of Paris said Monday that a “clear solution” has been found with organizers of a festival for black feminists, an event that had aroused her ire because four-fifths of the festival space was to be open exclusively to black women.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo had strongly criticized and threatened to cancel the upcoming Nyansapo Festival a day earlier because it was “forbidden to white people.”
In a new series of tweets on the topic, Hidalgo said her “firm” discussion with organizers had yielded a satisfactory clarification: the parts of the festival held on property would be open to everyone and “non-mixed workshops will be held elsewhere, in a strictly private setting.”
Three-day event
MWASI, the Afro-feminist collective sponsoring the three-day event, responded to the mayor’s latest comments by saying it hadn’t changed the festival program “an inch.”
“That’s what was planned from the beginning,” the collective said of how the public and private spaces would be assigned.
Anti-racism associations and far-right politicians in France both had criticized the event over the weekend for scheduling workshops limited to a single gender and race.
France defines itself as a country united under one common national identity, with laws against racial discrimination and to promote secularism to safeguard an ideal that began with the French Revolution.
Paris mayor steps in
On Sunday, Hidalgo had said she would call on authorities to prohibit the cultural festival and might call for the prosecution of its organizers on grounds of discrimination.
“I firmly condemn the organization of this event in Paris (that’s) ’forbidden to white people,’” Hidalgo had written.
Telephone calls to MWASI were not immediately returned Monday.
The group describes itself on its website as “an Afro-feminist collective that is part of the revolutionary liberation struggles” and is open to black and mixed-race women.
The program for the first annual Nyansapo Festival, which is set to run July 28-30 partly at a Paris cultural center, stated that 80 percent of the event space only would be accessible to black women.
Rights group condemns festival
Other sessions were designed to be open to black men and women from minority groups that experience racial discrimination, and one space was scheduled to be open to everyone regardless of race or gender.
Organizers said on the event’s website that “for this first edition we have chosen to put the accent on how our resistance as an Afro-feminist movement is organized.”
Prominent French rights organization SOS Racism was among civil rights groups condemning the festival, calling it “a mistake, even an abomination, because it wallows in ethnic separation, whereas anti-racism is a movement which seeks to go beyond race.”
The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA), meanwhile, called the festival a “regression” and said American civil rights icon “Rosa Parks must be turning in her grave.”
‘Burkini party’
Identity politics remain a recurrent hot potato in a nation where collecting data based on religious and ethnic backgrounds is banned and the wearing of religious symbols — such as face-covering veils — in public is prohibited.
This approach, known to the French as “anti-communitarianism,” aims to celebrate all French citizens regardless of their community affiliations.
Last week, several women attempting to stage a “burkini party” were detained in Cannes after a ban against the full-body beachwear favored by some Muslim women was upheld in a fresh decree.
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The mosque where the Manchester bomber prayed is coming under the spotlight after it emerged at least two other British recruits of the Islamic State also worshipped there.
One of the recruits, Khalil Raoufi, died fighting in Syria in 2014. The other, Ahmed Ibrahim Halane, is living in Denmark, where he holds citizenship and is banned from re-entering Britain.
Halane’s sisters, Zahra and Salma Halane, who traveled to Syria to become “jihadi brides,” are believed also to have worshipped at the mosque, say local Muslims.
Last week, trustees of the Didsbury Mosque and Islamic Center issued a statement condemning as an act of cowardice the Manchester Arena bombing by 22-year old British-Libyan Salman Abedi. The bombing left 22 people dead and 100 injured.
The trustees detailed clashes Abedi had with imam Mohammed Saeed over sermons he delivered denouncing IS in 2015. Saeed said Abedi looked at him “with hate” after he gave a sermon criticizing IS and militant Libyan group Ansar al-Sharia. Saeed said most of the mosque’s members supported the condemnation of IS, although a few signed a petition criticizing him.
Saeed said he reported his worries about Abedi’s friends to the police. Manchester police say the mosque is not under investigation.
Inconsistent statements
Mosque elders have been inconsistent in their remarks about Salman Abedi and his attendance at the mosque. Saeed acknowledged the suicide bomber was a regular worshipper until the 2015 argument over IS. But mosque chairman, Muhamad el-Khayat, said last week while other family members were regulars, Salman Abedi “himself we did not know, maybe we have seen him once.”
The bomber’s father Ramadan was a member of the anti-Gadhafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that had ties to Osama bin Laden but whose
leaders insist they never affiliated to al Qaida . Ramadan called worshippers to prayer at the Manchester mosque before he moved back to Libya after the ouster of Muammar Gadhafi. He is being held by a vigilante militia in Tripoli along with one of his sons, who the militia says has confessed to IS membership and was involved in a plan to assassinate U.N. envoy to Libya Martin Kobler.
Mosque elders have also appeared defensive. They have refused to allow the media into the mosque and tried to block a Muslim reporter from the BBC from entering to pray.
During Friday prayers, el-Khayat told worshippers the media interest in the mosque, which has been receiving threats and hate mail and is being guarded by police, had been overwhelming. He said the elders fear being misinterpreted.
“We strongly continue to condemn the horrendous crime that was committed,” he said. He praised Britain as a hospitable country for Muslims.
But his remarks aren’t silencing mounting criticism from Muslim activists opposed to militant Islamic ideologies. They say the mosque must bear some responsibility for Abedi’s radicalization because of the conservative Salafi brand of Islam it espouses.
Providing platform for hate
Maajid Nawaz, who helped found the London-based counter-extremist group, Quilliam, has accused the Didsbury mosque of hosting preachers who expressed anti-Semitic and anti-liberal views.
Speaking on London radio station LBC, Nawaz, a British-Pakistani, refused to praise the mosque for its condemnation of IS, saying “the biggest danger to our community at the moment is extremist preachers like this, using mosques that tolerate extremist preachers like this, that breed jihadist terrorists.”
“Until we can separate these extremists from our community and isolate them, don’t blame the rest of society for wondering whether every Muslim is an extremist, when our mosques are hosting the extremists themselves,” he added.
There has been fierce debate in Britain in recent years about the role mosques play, unwittingly or not, in the process of radicalization. In 2015, Conservative peer Baroness Warsi, a Muslim, claimed most radicalization is happening online and not at mosques.
But two British government reports have warned extremists take advantage of mosques and other institutions, including universities, to spread a “poisonous narrative.”
In a recent study of British IS recruits for the Henry Jackson Society, British research institute analyst Emma Webb warned some mosques have “functioned as spaces in which extremists could socialize with each other and form relationships” and where extremists can begin the process of recruitment.
She told VOA some family members of British IS recruits complain that by providing a platform, even for non-violent Salafi ideology, some mosques are playing a role in the radicalization process.
“It isn’t so much that they recruited them,” she argued, “but that they gave them an ideology that allowed them to think it was okay to kill Shi’ites and okay to hate certain people, so it made it easier for them to be recruited subsequently.”
A new ban imposed by India’s government on the sale of cows and buffaloes for slaughter to protect animals considered holy by many Hindus is drawing widespread protests from state governments and animal-related industries.
Many state governments criticized the ban as a blow to beef and leather exports that will leave hundreds of thousands jobless and deprive millions of Christians, Muslims and poor Hindus of a cheap source of protein.
The rules, which took effect Friday, require that cattle traders pledge that any cows or buffalos sold are not intended for slaughter.
At least one state government is planning a challenge in court. Some have said the ban infringes on states’ commercial autonomy and are calling for a nationwide protest.
Others say the ban will hurt farmers who will be forced to continue feeding aged animals, and that millions of unproductive cattle will be turned out on the streets.
The new rules also propose the setting up of a vast animal monitoring bureaucracy, including animal inspectors and veterinarians, to ensure the rules are followed. Traditionally, cattle fairs and markets allow the sale of animals headed to abattoirs to provide raw materials used in dozens of industries, including leather making, soap and fertilizer.
The state governments have appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to repeal the order, which they say was issued without consultations with them. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has been pushing a Hindu nationalist agenda since it came to power in 2014.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the top elected official in southern Kerala state, wrote to Modi on Sunday describing the restrictions as a “drastic move” that would have “far-reaching consequences and would be detrimental to democracy.”
He said the move amounts to “an intrusion into the rights of the states” in India’s federal structure and violates the principles of the Indian Constitution.
The government of West Bengal state also protested the move, saying the Modi government cannot make such decisions unilaterally.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the state would not accept the imposition of such restrictions on its commercial authority. She described it as a step by the Modi government to “destroy the federal structure of the country.”
“We won’t accept the decision. It is unconstitutional. We will challenge it legally,” Banerjee told reporters Monday.
Hindus, who form 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people, consider cows to be sacred, and for many eating beef is taboo. In many Indian states, the slaughtering of cows and selling of beef is either restricted or banned. India has the highest number of vegetarians in the world as a result of Hinduism’s predominance, although not all Hindus are vegetarians.
While the eating of beef is not a crime in many states, slaughtering a cow carries a punishment of up to seven years in jail throughout the country. In Gujarat state, lawmakers have approved a bill increasing the punishment for killing a cow to life imprisonment.
Critics say the new rules, ostensibly to protect the way animals are treated and transported, are in keeping with demands of Hindu nationalists, who have long been pressing for a nationwide ban on the sale of beef. The past two years have also seen a rise in vigilante attacks on Muslims and lower caste Hindus involved in the cattle trade. Several deaths have occurred.
On Monday, police arrested seven people on suspicion of assaulting two Muslim men who were transporting meat in western Maharashtra state. The men were beaten and forced to chant Hindu slogans by a vigilante group on Sunday, police said.
Meanwhile, leather and meat industry groups said the ban could push them out of business.
Fauzan Alavi of the All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association said beef exports, which had been growing rapidly, have already been affected. “Such a drastic move is bound to hit the industry,” Alavi said Sunday.
The government “has handed a death certificate to us,” said Ramesh K. Juneja of the Council of Leather Exports.
Donald Trump is back in Washington after wrapping up his first international trip as president. The nine day trip was free of any major controversies abroad, but did produce several eyebrow-raising moments. VOA’s Bill Gallo reports.
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New French President Emmanuel Macron is promising tough talk at his first meeting with Vladimir Putin on Monday, following an election campaign when his team accused Russian media of trying to interfere in the democratic process.
Macron, who took office two weeks ago, has said that dialogue with Russia is vital in tackling a number of international disputes. Nevertheless, relations have been beset by mistrust, with Paris and Moscow backing opposing sides in the Syrian civil war and at odds over the Ukraine conflict.
Fresh from talks with his Western counterparts at a NATO meeting in Brussels and a G-7 summit in Sicily, Macron will host the Russian president at the palace of Versailles outside Paris.
Amid the baroque splendor, Macron will use an exhibition on Russian Tsar Peter the Great at the former royal palace to try to get Franco-Russian relations off to a new start.
“It’s indispensable to talk to Russia because there are a number of international subjects that will not be resolved without a tough dialogue with them,” Macron said.
“I will be demanding in my exchanges with Russia,” the 39-year-old president told reporters at the end of the G-7 summit on Saturday, where the Western leaders agreed to consider new measures against Moscow if the situation in Ukraine did not improve.
Strained relations under Hollande
Relations between Paris and Moscow were increasingly strained under former president Francois Hollande. Putin, 64, cancelled his last planned visit in October after Hollande said he would see him only for talks on Syria.
Then during the French election campaign the Macron camp alleged Russian hacking and disinformation efforts, at one point refusing accreditation to the Russian state-funded Sputnik and RT news outlets which it said were spreading Russian propaganda and fake news.
Two days before the May 7 election runoff, Macron’s team said thousands of hacked campaign emails had been put online in a leak that one New York-based analyst said could have come from a group tied to Russian military intelligence.
Moscow and RT itself rejected allegations of meddling in the election.
Putin also offered Macron’s far-right opponent Marine Le Pen a publicity coup when he granted her an audience a month before the election’s first round.
Macron decisively beat Le Pen, an open Putin admirer, and afterwards the Russian president said in a congratulatory message that he wanted to put mistrust aside and work with him.
Hollande’s former diplomatic adviser, Jacques Audibert, noted how Putin had been excluded from what used to be the Group of Eight nations as relations with the West soured. Meeting in a palace so soon after the G-7 summit was a clever move by Macron.
“Putin likes these big symbolic things. I think it’s an excellent political opportunity, the choice of place is perfect,” he told CNews TV. “It adds a bit of grandeur to welcome Putin to Versailles.”
The Versailles exhibition commemorates a visit to France 300 years ago by Peter the Great, known for his European tastes.
Frank conversation
A Russian official told reporters in Moscow on Friday that the meeting was an opportunity “to get a better feel for each other” and that the Kremlin expected “a frank conversation” on Syria.
While Moscow backs President Bashar al-Assad, France supports rebel groups trying to overthrow him. France has also taken a tough line on European Union sanctions on Russia, first imposed when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and cancelled a $1.3 billion warship supply contract in 2015.
During the campaign, Macron backed expanded sanctions if there were no progress with Moscow implementing a peace accord for eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists.
Since being elected, Macron appears to have toned down the rhetoric, although he noted the two leaders still had “diverging positions” in their first phone call.
Macron has said his priority in Syria was crushing the Islamic State group, which will resonate with Putin.
One French diplomat said Macron was insisting on talking more after several years when everyone took France’s hard line for granted, making compromise difficult.
“Macron gave himself enough wiggle room, which opens up a new diplomatic and political window,” said the diplomat.
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Norway is demanding that the Palestinian Authority reimburse it for funds donated to a women’s center on the West Bank because the center was named after a female militant who participated in an attack in Israel that killed 37 civilians.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry says the country “will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry officials applauded Norway’s move and urged “the international community to check closely where the money that it invests in the Palestinian Authority goes.”
The women’s center was named for Dalal Mughrabi, a member of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). She participated in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel and died during the attack.
For the second day in a row, Pope Francis has expressed his solidarity with Egypt’s Coptic Christians following an attack on a bus carrying Coptic pilgrims to a remote desert monastery.
Francis led thousands of people in prayer Sunday for the victims, who Francis said were killed in “another act of ferocious violence” after having refused to renounce their Christian faith.
Speaking from his studio window over St. Peter’s Square, Francis said: “May the Lord welcome these courageous witnesses, these martyrs, in his peace and convert the hearts of the violent ones.”
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, which killed 29 people.
On Saturday during a visit to Genoa, Francis prayed for the victims and lamented that there were more martyrs today than in early Christian times.
Militiamen have a freed French national and three Congolese who were kidnapped in March during an attack on Banro Corp’s Namoya gold mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
“The president of the republic welcomes the news of the liberation of our compatriot kidnapped on March 1 in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo,” said a statement from the office of French President Emmanuel Macron.
The militiamen had kidnapped five workers, including the French national, a Tanzanian and three Congolese.
The Tanzanian had already been freed. The remaining four hostages were all freed on Saturday, the Congolese Interior Ministry said in a statement.
New York and Toronto-listed Banro’s four gold mines in eastern Congo have faced hazards both from illegal miners squatting on site and by armed groups that are a legacy of a regional conflict which officially ended in 2003.
Armed robbers attacked Banro’s Twangiza gold mine in neighboring South Kivu province in February, killing three police officers.
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White House press spokesman Sean Spicer declared Saturday night Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as U.S. president had been a success in a tweet posted as the American leader was flying back to Washington “after very productive 9 days.”
Just hours earlier President Trump told American troops stationed in Sicily he had strengthened bonds with allies.
That isn’t how Europe leaders and most of the continent’s media see it.
European reaction — especially in the key capitals of Berlin and Paris — to the Trump visit is very different from the White House’s characterization; and “success” isn’t a word being used.
European officials say the transatlantic allies are no more united now than they were before Trump came and that they now are convinced Europe will have to go it alone more — something they expected would be the case after Trump was elected.
For them, Washington is no longer the dependable ally. And that broadly has been the view of Europe’s press. Headlines all week have been providing a counterpoint to the White House version of meetings. Belgium’s Le Soir headlined one front-page story: “Trump shoves his allies.”
And Germany’s financial newspaper Handelsblatt dubbed him “Boor-in-Chief.”
Disappointment
The Europeans had hoped Trump’s visit might mark a reset in transatlantic relations roiled by his election — that the U.S. president would be persuaded to see the world through their eyes more. But from Brussels to Sicily, there were uneasy smiles, awkwardness and no disguising rifts on a range of issues — from trade and immigration to sanctions on Russia and climate change.
European leaders and officials complained to the media that Trump and his advisers were ignorant of basic facts, notably on transatlantic trade. “Every time we talked about a country, he remembered the things he had done,” one official told Belgium’s Le Soir. “Scotland? He said he had opened a club. Ireland? He said it took him two-and-a-half years to get a license and that did not give him a very good image of the EU.”
German officials told Süddeutsche Zeitung that Trump and his aides were under the impression America had separate trade deals with each individual EU country.
‘America First’ message
France’s Le Monde newspaper said: “During this visit, President Trump maintained his line ‘America First,’ refusing to take a step to improve U.S.-European relations.” It faulted him for failing to make a clear statement reaffirming Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, guaranteeing mutual assistance in the event of armed attack, and for lecturing European leaders on financial burden-sharing.
The German magazine Der Spiegel pounced on the closing photo-op of a midweek meeting between Trump and newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron in which the two men appeared locked in a hand-wrestling match as a visual metaphor of the U.S. president’s European trip.
WATCH: Trump Meets French President Macron
“The Frenchman grabbed Trump’s hand and squeezed hard,” the magazine noted. “Trump squeezed back. For a moment, they looked like opponents locked in a wrestling match. Trump wanted to let go, but Macron squeezed even harder until his knuckles turned white,” was the Der Spiegel’s description of an iconic almost sumo-like standoff between the two leaders.
Body language
Other European media outlets focused their attention on the shove President Trump gave Montenegro’s prime minister, Dusko Markovic, in order to position himself to the front for a group photo-opportunity of NATO leaders.
Aside from body-language, European media attention Saturday focused on the brevity of the communiqué concluding the two-day G-7 summit in Sicily Saturday — half-a-dozen pages long, compared to 32 pages last year — which many editorial writers saw as advertising the absence of consensus between the U.S. and the other G-7 members.
Trump’s refusal to reaffirm the 2015 Paris pact on climate change aimed at reining in greenhouse gas emissions was the headline dispute of the G-7 summit in the cliff-top town of Taormina on Sicily’s Ionian coast, but European commentators noted that across the board there was very little meeting of minds.
Italian newspapers noted the disappointment of Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in his efforts to get U.S. backing for a new partnership between G-7 nations and Africa involving aid and investment in a bid to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean.
Deadlock over climate change
European newspapers have now taken to dubbing the G-7 as “G-6 plus one” — a characterization prompted partly by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s remarks on the summit deadlock over climate change.
“The whole discussion on the topic of climate was very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory,” Merkel said as the summit of the leaders of the world’s most economically advanced nations was drawing to a close. “Here we have a situation of six against one, meaning there is still no sign of whether the U.S. will remain in the Paris accord or not,” she added.
The Guardian newspaper’s Jon Henley, the paper’s European affairs correspondent, argued in his assessment of Trump’s visit: “It may, mercifully, have passed off without apocalyptic mishap, but Donald Trump’s first transatlantic trip as U.S. president still left European leaders shaken.”
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British Airways passengers continue to face delays, cancellations, and overcrowding Sunday at Heathrow Airport as the airline reels from a computer failure.
The airline said that all long-haul flights will continue Sunday, but to avoid further overcrowding, passengers will only be allowed to enter the airport terminal 90 minutes before their scheduled departure.
Passengers should still expect delays and cancelations for shorter flights, British Airways chief executive Alex Cruz said, adding that the airline was at “near-full operation” Sunday.
“I know this has been a horrible time for customers,” Cruz said, apologizing in a video statement posted online.
The airline was forced to cancel flights Saturday at Heathrow and Gatwick airports as officials tried to fix a global computer failure.
British Airways has not said what caused the glitch, but did report there is no evidence pointing to a cyber attack.
The failure occurred on a particularly busy weekend in Britain, where a public holiday will be observed on Monday and when many children are starting their mid-term school breaks — prompting some stranded travelers to express their frustration on Twitter.
British Airways has experienced other recent computer glitches. Passengers were hit with severe delays in July and September last year because of problems with the airline’s online check-in systems.
Saffron has long been one of the world’s most expensive spices. The saffron crocus that produces the spice grows mostly in parts of Europe, Iran and India. Now, a U.S. company seeking to “cultivate peace” is attracting attention to this historic spice and trying to develop new markets for saffron grown in Afghanistan. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Chicago.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has told “confidants,” including the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave a landmark international agreement on climate change, the Axios news website reported Saturday, citing three sources with direct knowledge.
On Saturday, Trump said in a Twitter post he would decide whether to support the Paris climate deal next week.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A source who has been in contact with people involved in the decision told Reuters that a couple of meetings were planned with chief executives of energy companies and big corporations and others about the climate agreement ahead of Trump’s expected announcement later in the week. It was unclear whether those meetings would still take place.
“I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!” Trump tweeted on the final day of a Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Italy at which he refused to bow to pressure from allies to back the 2015 agreement.
Six against one
The summit of G-7 wealthy nations pitted Trump against the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan on several issues, with European diplomats frustrated at having to revisit questions they had hoped were long settled.
Trump, who has previously called global warming a hoax, came under concerted pressure from the other leaders to honor the 2015 Paris Agreement on curbing carbon emissions.
Although he tweeted that he would make a decision next week, his apparent reluctance to embrace the first legally binding global climate deal, signed by 195 countries, clearly annoyed German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“The entire discussion about climate was very difficult, if not to say very dissatisfying,” she told reporters. “There are no indications whether the United States will stay in the Paris Agreement or not.”
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A group of protesters sought to break through a police cordon at the end of a protest march against world leaders meeting on the island of Sicily on Saturday, scuffling with security forces, who fired tear gas to disperse them.
After hundreds of people had peacefully marched through the streets of the seaside town of Giardini Naxos, down the hill from where a Group of Seven meeting had been held, a smaller group of about 100 people peeled off from the pack and challenged riot police.
When they tried to flank them by running along the beach, police charged and fired tear gas. Protesters washed their eyes out with water and an ambulance appeared to take away at least one injured person.
Italy had massive security measures in place for the protesters who accused world leaders of ignoring the interests of ordinary people.
Though some 3,500 were expected to turn up, the actual turnout appeared to be about half of that.
Salvatore Giordano, a Sicilian high school professor, blamed the low turnout of in part on heavy security. He was stopped by police multiple times and blocked for a half-hour at the highway exit before finally being let through. Police were also stopping buses and searching them, he said.
“They are criminalizing our dissent,” Giordano said. “We’re pacifists. We’re not here to break windows, but to protest against Sicily being turned into a giant aircraft carrier for the world’s military powers.”
“CAMPAIGN OF FEAR” U.S. President Donald Trump and the heads of Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Canada and Japan had been meeting in Taormina, which sits on a rocky hilltop just north of Giardini Naxos.
Bus loads of police lined the route of the march in what is normally a sleepy town of beach-going tourists, while a police helicopter circled above.
Giordano came to air his opposition to the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), part of an ultra-fast satellite communications network for the American military that he says poses a health risk to people living near the infrastructure.
Another group of protesters carried red flags bearing the communist hammer and sickle symbol.
Alessandro D’Alessandro, the coordinator of Sicily’s communist party, said there had been a media campaign of fear against the protesters, which kept numbers low.
“It was hard to get here,” D’Alessandro said. “But we came to tell the world’s most powerful people that we oppose their military and capitalistic worldview. We’re here to defend the interests of the weakest.”
Fears of violent protests like the ones seen during a G7 summit in the northern Italian city of Genoa in 2001 prompted the mayor of Giardini Naxos to order all local businesses to close for the day.
Sixteen years ago throngs of protesters in Genoa clashed with authorities in street battles spread out over two days, and police shot dead an anti-globalization protester during some of Italy’s worst-ever riots.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party’s lead over the opposition Labor Party has narrowed to 10 percentage points, according to an Opinium poll for the Observer newspaper on Saturday.
Opinium said May’s lead had slipped from 13 percentage points on May 16 and 19 percentage points at the start of the campaign.
The Conservatives were on 45 percent, down one percentage point since Opinium’s last survey, and Labor were on 35 percent. The online poll of 2,002 people was carried out between May 23 and 24.
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British Airways canceled all flights from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports Saturday as a global IT failure caused severe disruption for travelers on a busy holiday weekend.
The airline said it was suffering a “major IT systems failure” around the world. It didn’t say what was causing the problem but said there was no evidence of a cyberattack.
Several hours after problems began cropping up Saturday morning, BA suspended flights up to 6 p.m. (1700GMT) because the two airports had become severely congested. The airline later scrapped flights from Heathrow and Gatwick for the rest of the day.
Passengers at Heathrow reported long lines at check-in counters, flight delays and failures of BA’s website and mobile app.
One posted a picture on Twitter of BA staff writing gate numbers on a white board.
“We’ve tried all of the self-check-in machines. None were working, apart from one,” said Terry Page, booked on a flight to Texas. “There was a huge queue for it and it later transpired that it didn’t actually work, but you didn’t discover that until you got to the front.”
Another traveler, PR executive Melissa Davis, said she was held for more than an hour and a half on the tarmac at Heathrow aboard a BA flight arriving from Belfast.
She said passengers had been told they could not transfer to other flights because “they can’t bring up our details.”
Passenger Phillip Norton tweeted video of an announcement from a pilot to passengers at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, saying the problem affects the system that regulates what passengers and baggage go on which aircraft. He said passengers on planes that have landed at Heathrow were unable to get off because there was nowhere to park.
Heathrow said the IT problem had caused “some delays for passengers” and it was working with BA to resolve it. Some BA flights were still arriving at Heathrow Saturday afternoon, while many were listed as “delayed.”
The problem comes on a holiday weekend, when thousands of Britons are travelling.
BA passengers were hit with severe delays in July and September 2016 because of problems with the airline’s online check-in systems.
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