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The prospect of an economic doomsday for Greece may have diminished in the past week, but citizen Angelika Dinkel doesn’t much care.

Following months of negotiations, the Greek government last week agreed to further austerity measures in order to access loans from its $94 billion bailout program..

But as she waits in central Athens for a church to open and a hoped-for handout of maybe $5 — or even $10 if she’s lucky —  the 60-year-old’s mind is focused on day-to-day survival.

There may be talk of a light at the end of the tunnel for a country traumatized by seven years of economic turmoil, but on the streets of Athens they seem a world away from everyday reality.

“There’s no reason to pay attention. Things are just getting worse,” says Dinkel, who struggles to scrape together the $50 a month she needs to stay off the streets.  

“No one thought it could be this bad.”

A disconnect

The race is now on for Greek officials rushing to create a bumper package of new legislation agreed to during the negotiations.

These include a cut in taxes, the opening up of energy markets and a further slashing of pensions.

Pending approval from the Greek parliament in the coming days, it is expected the agreement will be ready for the next meeting of eurozone finance ministers on May 22.

There, hopes are that $8 billion in rescue loans will be approved, allowing the country to make a crucial debt repayment in July.

The markets have been largely cheered by the news, while there have been other positive signs too — last month, the country posted its first overall budget surplus in more than two decades.

Yet little of this is being felt on the ground, where poverty and homelessness remain all too prevalent.  

“I don’t think [the latest agreement] will improve the daily lives of people,” claims Aliki Mouriki, a sociologist and senior research fellow at the National Center for Social Research in Athens. “People are seeing further cuts in things like their pensions, so why would they be happy? Some segments of the Greek population and businesses may be happy over [the reforms] as the economic climate has less uncertainty, but this is not reflecting on daily lives.”

Sense of betrayal

The Greek leftist ruling party Syriza and its leader Alexis Tsipras may have emerged with a deal, but the moves have already sparked new protests.

Meanwhile, many consider these latest steps just another act of weakness or betrayal by a party that swept into power on an anti-austerity ticket in 2015.

Though emergency funds from the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) helped pull Greece back from the brink of collapse in 2010, this is the third such bailout, and many Greeks are of the opinion that the country’s supposed medicine of reforms and austerity is actually proving to be its poison.

Chrysa Lazaridou, who runs a bakery not far from the city’s towering ancient Acropolis, has been keeping an eye on recent developments.

Despite the inclusion of “counter measures” against the austerity — including rent subsidies for low income families — she feels the agreed package represents more of the same when it comes to Greece’s current place in the world.

“I thought [Alexis] Tsipras would be different, but in practice he’s not,” she said.

“All the decisions made here are made outside of Greece in the European Union, while politicians and businessmen will be the ones to profit.”

Vanishing savings

Meanwhile, other signs of progress remain tentative.

Amid the bailouts, reforms and austerity, the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of nearly 28 percent.

However, in recent months it has climbed once again to 23.5 percent — still the highest in Europe — while Friday the European Commission is set to revise its prediction of growth in Greece over 2017 from 2.7 percent to 2 percent.

Panagiotis Lappas, approached by VOA in central Athens, is a banking lawyer who often deals with families overcome by debt — something he sees with increasing regularity.

“Their savings have vanished after seven years,” he explained.

He was circumspect about the latest agreement, stating it was neither “pleasant nor necessary, but maybe now we have no other choice.”

However, in Lappas’ view, the time for austerity is over. More needed to be done, he thought, to stimulate growth and attract investment by lowering business rates.

He also called for debt relief, an issue still at the heart of the debate among creditors regarding Greece, and a pre-condition demanded by the IMF for its participation in this bailout.  

Eyes abroad

Tsipras has talked up the deal as “balanced and sustainable,” but he may find the Greek public even harder to convince than his own party, or those holding the purse strings.

Syriza is badly lagging behind its competitors in the polls, though the true test will come in the country’s elections in 2019.

Meanwhile, for one teenager not yet old enough to vote, the answer may not lie with Tsipras, or any of his political rivals.

Clutching his skateboard in Athens’ Monastiraki neighborhood, 17-year-old Alberto Frangou feels little allegiance to the idea of the EU and is scornful of Greek politicians.  

“I hate them, they’ve not helped us,” he said, telling VOA that he feared entering a job market where youth unemployment was measured at 48 percent in January.

Instead, he is considering another option, one that potentially spells more trouble for Greece in the coming years.

Between 2008 and 2016, around 450,000 mostly young and educated people left the country in search of a better future.

“If things don’t get any better, then I will just have to go elsewhere,” he told VOA.
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Czech President Milos Zeman on Monday demanded his prime minister terminate the agreement that formed the coalition government if he is to agree to firing the finance minister, deepening a rift between the country’s two leaders.

The European Union member is in political crisis over the future of Finance Minister Andrej Babis, a billionaire businessman who faces questions over past business practices and is the main political rival of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka.

With an election due in October, Sobotka is demanding the president dismiss Babis, but the finance minister, who heads the anti-establishment ANO party, has found an ally in Zeman who has long had poor relations with the prime minister.

Sobotka, who heads the center-left Social Democrats, asked Zeman on Friday to dismiss Babis by May 9, but the president has refused to do so.

“The president stated that the prime minister cannot task the president with setting a date for dismissal,” the presidency said in a statement issued after Zeman met Babis on Monday.

Under the constitution, the president dismisses a minister if requested by the prime minister. Lawyers say the head of state should act promptly and has little wiggle room.

However, on Monday Zeman said Sobotka’s and Babis’s parties were bound by coalition agreement — reached in 2014 to form the cabinet — and that the prime minister must pull out of the deal before requesting Babis’ dismissal against the minister’s will.

“A termination of the coalition agreement would be needed for a valid dismissal,” the statement said.

Such a move could trigger the coalition government’s collapse. Last Friday the prime minister took back a pledge to resign along with his whole government in order to dislodge Babis.

Zeman also wanted to see a nomination for a replacement, the statement added.

Sobotka later urged the Zeman to respect the constitution.

“I would like to call on Mr. President to respect the fundamental law of our country. The coalition agreement has nothing to do with that,” the prime minister said in a statement.

Sobotka has said Babis failed to clear suspicions he dodged taxes by buying tax-free bonds from his conglomerate Agrofert.

Babis says he has not violated any laws.

The EU’s fraud office and Czech police have also been investigating whether Babis manipulated ownership of a conference center to unfairly qualify for EU subsidies meant for small businesses.

Babis has said the prime minister’s actions are politically motivated ahead of parliamentary elections in October. Babis’ ANO party enjoys a more-than 10 point lead over the Social Democrats, according to opinion polls.
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World leaders and other political heavyweights have sent congratulatory messages to France’s president-elect, Emmanuel Macron on his victory over Marine Le Pen.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted “Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his big win today as the next President of France. I look very much forward to working with him!”

Trump had not publicly endorsed either candidate ahead of the election, but let it be known he generally favored Marine Le Pen’s views.

Former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and New York mayor Bill de Blasio, among others, congratulated Macron and the people of France for the presidential election result.

“Your victory is a victory for a strong and united Europe and for French-German friendship,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said in statement.

Macron spoke with Merkel after his victory was announced, telling her that he would travel to Berlin “very quickly.”

A British spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement that May “warmly congratulates President-elect Macron on his election success. France is one of our closest allies and we look forward to working with the new President on a wide range of shared priorities.”

May also discussed Brexit with Macron, saying “the UK wants a strong partnership with a secure and prosperous EU once we leave,” the spokesman added.

European Union leaders also offered congratulations to Macron: “Happy that the French chose a European future,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wrote on Twitter.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said the French had chosen “liberty, equality and fraternity” and “said no to the tyranny of fake news”.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said “the victory of President-elect Macron is a symbolic victory against inward-looking and protectionist moves and shows a vote of confidence in the EU.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his message to Macron that China is willing to push partnership with France to a higher level. Xi said their countries share a “responsibility toward peace and development in the world.”

Xi recalled that France was the first Western power to establish diplomatic relations with communist-ruled China in 1964.

Other world leaders from Canada to Latin America to Australia also congratulated Macron on his historic victory.

Macron, the youngest French leader since the Emperor Napoleon, will take office on May 14, 2017.
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Voters in France have elected pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron as the country’s new president, rejecting the anti-EU, anti-immigrant policies of nationalist Marine Le Pen. Preliminary results released immediately after polls closed Sunday showed Macron won 65 percent support compared to 34.5 percent for Le Pen. VOA Europe correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Paris.
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Germany’s president said Sunday that despite recent disagreement the foundation of his country’s relations with Israel remains solid – a reference to a recent diplomatic spat over an Israeli anti-occupation group.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier is in Israel on his first foreign trip outside Europe since he was elected president earlier this year. It comes two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled talks with the German foreign minister because the visitor chose to meet Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli combat soldiers-turned-whistleblowers who oppose Israel’s rule over the Palestinians.

The dispute has cast a shadow over what would otherwise have been a routine visit to Israel by the German president.

Netanyahu said after meeting with Steinmeier that Israel has a “unique partnership” with Germany. In an apparent dig at Breaking the Silence, Netanyahu said Israeli troops have “moral standards second to none.”

The group says soldiers come forward with their war stories to shine a light on problems either unknown or ignored by the public. But many Israeli leaders have portrayed them as traitors, in part because their reports and lectures are often aimed at foreign audiences.

Steinmeier addressed the dispute at a speech in German at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

He said diverse voices are “the oxygen of democracy” and said he believes “those who raise their voice, who criticize, but also respect the voices of others – they are not traitors of the people, but guardians of the people.”

Complex ties

Israel and Germany have had a long, close and complicated relationship. Israel was established in 1948 on the ashes of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were systematically killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The countries only established diplomatic relations in 1965.

Today, Germany is a key Israeli trade partner and ally in Europe, and assumes responsibility for the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.

But tensions occasionally flare up over Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Germany, along with most of the international community, considers Israeli settlements in territory claimed by the Palestinians illegal. Israel says settlements should be resolved along with other core issues in peace talks.

Steinmeier said some advised he cancel or postpone his visit over the spat but he decided otherwise “not because I agreed with your prime minister’s cancellation of the meeting with the German foreign minister, but because I believe that I would be amiss if I allowed the relationship between the two nations to get deeper into a dead end, which would harm both sides,” he said.

“The relationship between Germany and Israel will always remain unique. We must not forget then when it is difficult and the wind is a bit stormy. Especially in such times, we are called upon to protect this precious heritage,” said Steinmeier.
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In a race dominated by the issues of jobs, immigration and security, the choice before voters in this second and final round Sunday is stark, with centrist, pro-EU former economy minister, Emmanuel Macron facing nationalist, anti-immigration crusader Marine Le Pen.
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German authorities are evacuating around 50,000 people from their homes in the northern city of Hannover while five suspected aerial bombs from World War II are made safe for removal.

City officials say two suspected bombs were found at a construction site and three more nearby. Germany was heavily bombed by Allied planes during the war and such finds are common.

Leaflets in German, Polish, Turkish, English and Russian were delivered door-to-door to make sure everyone evacuated on Sunday. The city’s museums are open for free and the senior citizen’s agency organized an afternoon Scrabble and card-playing gathering so evacuated residents would have places to go.

Authorities say they hope people will be able to return to their homes by evening.

 
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Polls have opened in France, culminating a presidential election campaign that many French say is the country’s most acrimonious and contentious in its modern history, one that could decide whether it stays the course of globalization or adopts a new, separate path outside of the European Union.

In a race dominated by the issues of jobs, immigration and security, the choice before voters in this second and final round Sunday is stark, with centrist, pro-EU former economy minister Emmanuel Macron facing nationalist, anti-immigration crusader Marine Le Pen.

Surveys going into Sunday suggested Macron has a substantial lead with 63 percent support against Le Pen’s 37 percent.

Both candidates were mobbed by journalists as they cast their ballots at separate locations. Macron voted in the coastal town of Le Tourquet in northern France alongside his wife, Brigitte Macron. 

Le Pen has cast her ballot in Henin-Beaumont, a small northern town controlled by her National Front party.

Outgoing President Francois Hollande also voted Sunday in his political fiefdom of Tulle in southwestern France.

Le Pen

While Macron is widely favored by pollsters to win the election, it is Le Pen, her anti-EU position and her drive to stop the flow of Muslim immigration to France who is drawing world attention to the race.

“We are being submerged by a flood of immigrants that are sweeping all before them. There are prayers in the street, cafes that ban women, and young women who get threatening looks if they wear a skirt. I will say when I become president that this is not the French way,” Le Pen said at a rally in April. She calls for the expulsion of Islamists, the closure of mosques whose imams preach extremism, cuts in immigration, scrapping the euro, and a referendum on France’s EU membership.

Le Pen’s main reason for opposing the EU is similar to the one cited by British proponents of Brexit: EU’s policies on the freedom of movement mean it is the EU, and not individual countries, that controls borders.

Watch: France Ready for Sunday’s Ballot Box ‘Revolution’

​Macron

Macron has a starkly different view. The former banker has repeatedly said he believes there is no turning back on globalization.

“The free movement of people between European Union countries is now a reality, with undeniable gains in economic matters, but also in culture and education or in daily life for cross-border workers,” Macron said on his campaign website.

Macron is staunchly pro-EU but said he wants reforms to make the grouping more democratic and has warned that continuing business as usual with the EU will trigger a Frexit, or a French exit similar to Britain’s.

Watch: Many French Are Uncertain on Eve of Presidential Vote

Divided country

Macron’s view is held by many urban, largely affluent voters who see their nation as a cosmopolitan experiment that has worked and globalization as not only inevitable, but the key to future economic prosperity.

Le Pen’s message has resonated largely among those who see their future threatened by crony capitalism and a destruction of French native culture. Her strongholds are largely in areas of northeastern France where factory and steel plant closures have killed thousands of jobs, pushing France’s unemployment rate to nearly 10 percent, among the highest in Europe.

France’s deep divisions were clear in a final, vicious debate where the anger, bitterness and personal dislike between the two candidates were on display to 15 million viewers three days before the election.

Name-calling

“The high priestess of fear is sitting in front of me,” Macron said. Le Pen told Macron, “You are the France of submission.”

Turnout is expected to be high Sunday, and security was tightened around the country.

A VOA correspondent, Luis Ramirez, visiting one of Paris’ polling stations in the first hour of voting, reported a long line of people waiting to cast ballots, despite a steady rain.

Officials say, however, voter turnout at midday across the country was a bit lower that at the same time in 2012, standing at just over percent.

Security

The government deployed a security force of 50,000 police officers, soldiers and private security guards to watch polling stations in Paris, Nice and other cities.

France remains under a state of emergency following a string of Islamist extremist attacks that have killed more than 200 people over the past two years.

The Islamic State terrorist group, in its online propaganda magazine, called for election day attacks.

Outgoing President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, has promised to respond to what Macron’s movement, En Marche, said was the hacking of its computers Friday and the leak of thousands of campaign documents that were posted along with fake ones on social media sites.
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Showtime cable network is presenting four hours of director Oliver Stone interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin on four consecutive nights in June.

The network announced Monday that “The Putin Interviews” will air first on June 12 at 9 p.m. Eastern, with three additional hour-long installments on the following nights. Showtime said Stone interviewed Putin more than a dozen times over the past two years, most recently in February.

Showtime is comparing the project to conversations held by British TV host David Frost and former U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1977.

Stone had also interviewed Putin for his documentary “Ukraine on Fire,” which was said to take a sympathetic view of Russia’s involvement in the conflict there.
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Protesters in the United States and around the world have marked International Workers Day, May Day, with rallies and demonstrations that, from France to Turkey, turned violent Monday. VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports.
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It’s nearly party time for Britain’s Princess Charlotte, who celebrates her 2nd birthday on Tuesday.

Her parents marked the occasion Monday by distributing a snapshot of Charlotte taken by her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. Here are five things to know about the family as the landmark nears:

Why haven’t we seen more of Princess Charlotte?

Prince William and his wife, Kate, want to protect their daughter’s privacy. It’s not surprising that Kate took the official photo to mark Charlotte’s second birthday on the protected grounds of the family’s country estate. The royal couple has tried to keep Charlotte mostly out of the limelight and away from the paparazzi that often follow senior royals at events in London. An important exception was an official trip to Canada in the fall. William and Kate brought Charlotte and her older brother, Prince George, on the trip and Charlotte even attended a children’s party.

What does the photo show? What impact will it have?

Don’t be surprised if there’s a run on fluffy yellow cardigans with cute sheep decorations in British stores catering to kids – that’s what Charlotte is wearing in the official photo. It’s possible the outfit was chosen by the clothes-conscious Kate, who snapped the photo. Earlier outfits worn by Prince George in public have become extremely popular with British consumers charmed by the young royals.

Charlotte looks very proper and very British, with her hair styled by a clip and her blue-grey eyes looking directly at the camera at the outdoors photo session in April.

What is the birthday girl’s full name?

She is officially named Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, in tribute to her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, and her great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. She is also known as Princess Charlotte of Cambridge.

What’s next for Charlotte and her family ?

The family is expected to spend more time in London and less in the countryside as William takes up more royal duties and Prince George, 3, prepares to start school in the fall. Their London base is at Kensington Palace.

Will she ever be queen?

Charlotte is fourth in line for the throne, behind Prince Charles (her grandfather), Prince William and Prince George.
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Whether or not Emmanuel Macron wins the French presidency in next Sunday’s runoff, he has already accomplished the unthinkable.

That’s thanks to an unorthodox, American-style grassroots campaign, which has harvested ideas from the left and the right, tossed them with a dose of startup culture and business school acumen and produced a political phenomenon. Without a party to back him up or any experience stumping for votes, the 39-year-old Macron came out on top of the first round of the French presidential vote, winning over 8 million voters and overturning decades of French political expectations.

An inside look by The Associated Press at Macron’s campaign found a mix of high-tech savvy, political naivete and a jarring disconnect between his multilingual, well-traveled campaign team and a mass of ordinary voters who have never left France and fear being crushed by immigration and job losses.

“It’s not a done deal,” campaign spokeswoman Laurence Haim told The AP during a campaign trip Saturday, careful to insist that, despite polls naming Macron the election favorite, risks remain. “We are extremely cautious.”

The centrist Macron is facing off against far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in the presidential runoff.

Detractors dub Macron a bubble that, if elected, would deflate and self-destruct at the first national crisis. Le Pen labels him a puppet of the borderless financial and political elite at a time when many workers feel like globalization roadkill.

Le Pen’s campaign is unusual in its own ways. She has broadened her support base far beyond the xenophobic old guard associated with her National Front party when her father Jean-Marie was in charge. Today the people stumping for Le Pen votes at farmers’ markets and university campuses include the children of immigrants, academics, gays and former communists. She is also campaigning in her own name _ not that of her party, a clear bid to distance herself from its past stigma.

Macron’s team wants to puncture the heterogeneous image of Le Pen’s campaign, and paints her as a closed-minded nationalist with a dangerous populist vision.

“It’s a fight between two different kinds of societies, for France and for Europe,” Haim said. “We are going to show the French people – and hopefully the world – that we are fighting for something bigger than us.”

Feeling the ‘Trump effect’

Haim worked 25 years as a journalist in Washington before deciding to join politics in December – out of fear of seeing a French Donald Trump rise to power on a populist wave.

“Of course we feel the Trump effect,” Haim said. “The Marine Le Pen people watched very carefully what Donald Trump was doing.”

Since Macron won the first-round vote, Haim and other members of his team have been shuttling non-stop around France, from a factory in Macron’s northern hometown of Amiens to the site of a Nazi massacre to a farm in Usseau in central France. His campaign headquarters in southern Paris includes a nap room, though it’s used more for storing spare shoes than rest.

Macron’s team starts their day about 7 a.m. and goes until 1 a.m., huddling around laptops in a low-profile office building. A crucial part of the operation is the “riposte desk,” assigned with tracking Macron’s public statements and the social media reaction. For each hostile tweet, Macron’s team tries to counter.

National Front activists and their supporters have a head start here – they’ve been using social networks for years to build their following outside France’s traditional media.

Macron’s team is increasingly cautious about language, avoiding English words in public statements or anything that smacks of elitism. That’s especially important because his campaign team is exceptionally international – more than half have lived abroad, unlike most French voters.

Le Pen is much better at speaking the language of the people, yet her headquarters is on one of Paris’ most elite streets – the same one as the presidential Elysee Palace. In contrast to Macron’s campaign, she never envisions losing, saying “When I am president,” not

“if.”

For both campaigns, security is increasingly important, especially since an Islamic State-claimed attack in Paris earlier this month. With sniffer dogs, patdowns and layers of bodyguards, it’s tougher to enter a campaign event for either candidate now than it was to follow Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2012 – and he was president at the time.

With concerns about Russian meddling a running theme in the French race, three key figures in Macron’s security team are Russian-speakers – his cybersecurity chief, his towering bodyguard and his security strategist.

The campaign team also includes a large number of political novices, coming from technical, financial or cultural backgrounds, and their campaign inexperience sometimes shows. Macron is trying to learn from recent electoral blows, such as when Le Pen upstaged him last week at a Whirlpool factory in Amiens that is threatened with closure.

Macron “is trying to understand what is happening to French society,” Haim said.

On Saturday, Macron snaked slowly through the open-air market of Poitiers, absorbing a string of complaints from farmers about European aid and competition. Macron remained somewhat stiff but patient, listening to lengthy laments then laying out his plans. He made no generous promises but defended his vision of a simplified yet stringent state and a unified Europe.

When a baker refused to shake Macron’s hand, he took it in stride, moving on to a flower seller happy to seek his autograph.

His staffers buzzed around taking names of his interlocutors, and minutes later in Macron’s convoy afterward, they shared lessons learned on the rough road of political life. They’ve come a long way since a year ago, when Macron launched a vague political movement.

“Everybody was telling him it’s going to be impossible, you’re crazy. It could not happen in France,” Haim said. “He looked at them and said, ‘Trust me, I’m going to do it.’”

And a year later, thanks in large part to a series of electoral surprises that hurt his rivals, Macron won the first round vote and is now a step away from the French presidency.
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Former premier Matteo Renzi regained the Democratic Party leadership, handily winning a Sunday primary that he hopes will bolster the center-left’s ability to counter growing support for populist politicians in Italy ahead of national elections.

“Forward, together,” Renzi tweeted, invigorated by his comeback after a stinging defeat in a December reforms referendum aimed in part at streamlining the legislative process led him to resign as head of Italy’s government and as leader of his squabbling party.

“The alternative to populism isn’t the elite,” Renzi told supports late Sunday after unofficial results indicated he got more than 70 percent of votes cast nationwide. “It’s people who aren’t afraid of democracy.”

Some politicians predicted that the primary win would embolden Renzi to maneuver seeking to bring national elections ahead of their spring 2018 due date as part of his effort to rein in increasing popularity for the populist, anti-euro 5-Star Movement.

But a top Renzi ally sought to counter that idea.

“The government’s horizon is 2018. Starting tomorrow, we’ll work with Premier [Paolo] Gentiloni. Gentiloni’s government is our government,” said Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina.

Renzi’s party is still the main force in Italy’s center-left coalition government, but opinion polls indicate it is no longer the country’ most popular. Overtaking the Democrats in recent soundings was the 5-Star Movement, whose leader, comic Beppe Grillo, wants a crackdown on migrants, rails against European Union-mandated austerity and opposes Italy belonging to the euro single currency group.

Throughout the day, some 2 million voters lined up at makeshift gazebos in piazzas and street corners, at ice cream parlors, cafes or local party headquarters around the country to cast ballots for a new head of the splintering Democratic Party, whose rank-and-file range from former Communists to former Christian Democrats.

Primary voting was open to anyone 16 years of age of older – the oldest voter was reported to be 105. Holding Democratic Party membership wasn’t a requirement.

Trailing far behind in the votes were Justice Minister Andrea Orlando and Puglia region Governor Michele Emiliano.

In addition to countering the challenge of 5-Star’s popularity, to regain Italy’s premiership, Renzi will have to contend with malcontents and defectors in his own party. A group of mostly former Communists split from the Democrats and formed a small, new party in resentment over both Renzi’s centrist leanings and his authoritarian style.

Renzi’s reputation in politics is one of ruthlessness. In early 2014, he promised then-premier and fellow Democrat Enrico Letta that he wouldn’t undermine the government, only to shortly afterward engineer Letta’s downfall. Renzi then became premier.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella recently insisted that electoral laws must be overhauled before new elections. Currently, there is one set of electoral rules for the lower Chamber of Deputies and a completely different one for the Senate, a consequence of the failed reform referendum.
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French forces said Sunday they killed more than 20 militants in Mali near the border with Burkina Faso.

French military officials and witnesses say the attack came from the air and on the ground in a forest in the Sahel region.

More than 3,500 French soldiers are spread out across Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger combating Islamist extremists.

Mali has extended a state of emergency for another six months as it tries to stave off an al-Qaida-linked insurgency in the north, and extremists launching attacks from Burkina Faso in the south.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats have opened a seven-point lead over the center-left Social Democrats five months ahead of the Sept. 24 election, according to a poll on Sunday in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The Emnid institute survey found the Christian Democrats and their Christian Social Union allies winning 36 percent of the vote if the election were held on Sunday, unchanged from a similar Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag taken a week ago.

But the Social Democrats (SPD), led by their chancellor candidate Martin Schulz, continued to slide and lost two percentage points in the week to 29 percent. The CDU/CSU long held a comfortable lead in polls until Schulz was nominated in early 2017 and lifted the SPD to the same levels as the CDU/CSU.

The latest poll, taken just one week before an important state election in Schleswig-Holstein, also showed the CDU/CSU’s preferred coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), rising one point to 6 percent in the last week.

The center-right alliance would still be well short of winning a majority in parliament with 42 percent.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would win 9 percent, unchanged over the week. All parties have said they will not join forces with the AfD, making it more difficult to form the next government.

The SPD’s preferred partner, the Greens, rose 1 point to 7 percent in the last week. The far-left Linke party would win an unchanged 9 percent, according to the latest Emnid poll. The so-called “red-red-green” alliance of SPD, Linke and Greens would also fall short of a majority with 45 percent.

The CDU/CSU and SPD currently lead Germany in a grand coalition government. Both parties have said they do not want to continue that arrangement after the Sept. 24 election.
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FIFA Council member Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah of Kuwait is resigning from his soccer roles under pressure from allegations in an American federal court that he bribed Asian officials.

Sheikh Ahmad said Sunday in a statement he will withdraw from a May 8 election in Bahrain for the FIFA seat representing Asia, which he currently holds.

“I do not want these allegations to create divisions or distract attention from the upcoming AFC [Asian Football Confederation] and FIFA Congresses,” said the Kuwaiti royal, who denies any wrongdoing.

“Therefore, after careful consideration, I have decided it is in the best interests of FIFA and the AFC, for me to withdraw my candidacy for the FIFA Council and resign from my current football positions,” he said.

The long-time Olympic Council of Asia president contacted the ethics panels of FIFA and the IOC after the allegations were made in Brooklyn federal courthouse on Thursday.

FIFA audit committee member Richard Lai, an American citizen from Guam, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges related to taking around $1 million in bribes, including from Kuwaiti officials. The cash was to buy influence and help recruit other Asian soccer officials prepared to take bribes, Lai said in court.

Sheikh Ahmad resigned his candidacy ahead of a FIFA panel deciding whether to remove him on ethical grounds.

The FIFA Review Committee, which rules on the integrity of people seeking senior FIFA positions, has been studying the sheikh’s candidacy since the allegations emerged, The Associated Press reported on Saturday.

The FIFA ethics committee is making a separate assessment of whether to provisionally suspend the sheikh, a long-time leader of Kuwait’s soccer federation who was elected to FIFA’s ruling committee in 2015.

Resigning from his soccer positions does not necessarily put Sheikh Ahmad out of reach of FIFA ethics prosecutors and judges if any action was taken.

In 2012, former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar was banned for life by the ethics committee days after he resigned.

Bin Hammam was also clearly identified in Lai’s court hearing for having paid Lai a total of $100,000 in bribes to support the Qatari’s failed challenge to FIFA’s then-president Sepp Blatter in 2011. Bin Hammam was removed from that election contest in a Caribbean bribery case.

Sheikh Ahmad has also contacted the IOC’s ethics commission about the allegations against him, the IOC said on Saturday.

As president since 2012 of the global group of national Olympic bodies, known as ANOC, Sheikh Ahmad’s support has often been cited as key to winning Olympic election and hosting awards. The sheikh was widely credited for helping Thomas Bach win the IOC presidency in 2013.

Although Sheikh Ahmad was not named in Department of Justice and court documents last week, he has become one of the most significant casualties of the sprawling U.S. federal investigation of bribery and corruption in international soccer revealed two years ago.

The sheikh could be identified in a transcript of Lai’s court hearing which said “co-conspirator [hash]2 was also the president of Olympic Council of Asia.” Sheikh Ahmad has been OCA president since 1991.

Co-conspirator #3 was described as having a “high-ranking” role at OCA, and also linked to the Kuwait soccer federation.

According to the published transcript, Lai claimed he “received at least $770,000 in wire transfers from accounts associated with Co-Conspirator [hash]3 and the OCA between November of 2009 and about the fall of 2014.”

“I understood that the source of this money was ultimately Co-Conspirator #2 and on some occasion Co-Conspirator #3 told me to send him an email saying that I need funds so he could show the email to Co-Conspirator #2,” Lai said in court.

Lai admitted that he agreed to help recruit other Asian officials that voted in FIFA elections who would help Kuwait’s interests.

The Guam soccer federation leader since 2001, Lai pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. He agreed to pay more than $1.1 million in forfeiture and penalties, and will be sentenced at a later date.

The American federal investigation of corruption linked to FIFA has indicted or taken guilty pleas from more than 40 people and marketing agencies linked to soccer in the Americas since 2015.

Lai’s case marked the first major step into Asia, and suggests other soccer officials potentially recruited by the Kuwait faction could be targeted.

The Asian election for FIFA seats on May 8 in Manama, Bahrain, is the same day as a FIFA Council meeting which the sheik will not attend. The FIFA congress is held in the city three days later.
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Pope Francis called on Sunday for the respect of human rights and an end to violence in Venezuela, where nearly 30 people were killed in unrest this month.

Francis, speaking to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly address, decried a “grave humanitarian, social , political and economic crisis that is exhausting the population”.

Venezuela’s opposition is demanding elections, autonomy for the legislature where they have a majority, a humanitarian aid channel from abroad to alleviate an economic crisis, and freedom for more than 100 activists jailed by President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

“I make a heartfelt appeal to the government and all components of Venezuelan society to avoid any more forms of violence, respect human rights and seek a negotiated solution …,” he said.

Supporters say Leopoldo Lopez, the jailed head of the hardline opposition Popular Will party, and others are political prisoners whose arrests symbolize Maduro’s lurch into dictatorship.

Maduro says all are behind bars for legitimate crimes, and calls Lopez, 45, a violent hothead intent on promoting a coup.

Vatican-led talks between the government and the opposition have broken down.

Francis told reporters on the plane returning from Cairo on Saturday that “very clear conditions” were necessary for the talks to resume.
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Turkey has dismissed nearly 4,000 people from its civil service, military, and gendarmerie, in what appears to be a purge related to last year’s attempted coup.

Turkey announced the move on Saturday, saying in the government’s Official Gazette that those let go include 1,127 employees of the justice ministry, made up of prison guards, academics and religious affairs ministry employees.

It appears to be one of the largest such purges since the coup attempt last July.

Since that time some 120,000 people have been suspended from their jobs in civil service and the private sector, and more than 40,000 people were arrested.

Also Saturday, Turkey announced it has banned television dating programs, and access to the Wikipedia online research tool. Ankara says Wikipedia has suggested Turkey is cooperating with terror groups.
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The Russian opposition movement founded by exiled Kremlin critic and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky protested President Vladimir Putin in 32 cities Saturday, despite the fact that authorities have banned the movement and declared it illegal, and police have raided its Moscow offices.

The main rally in Moscow had a few hundred protesters gathering in a park before moving to an administrative building nearby, where they submitted a letter urging Putin not to run for a fourth term in 2018.

In St. Petersburg, though, police arrested a few dozen protesters after about 200 of them gathered for an unsanctioned demonstration.

The demonstrations Saturday come on the heels of a large protest in March – the largest unauthorized rally in recent years – that saw more than 1,000 people arrested, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russian authorities have not simply warned opposition group Open Russia not to conduct any activities, but have blacklisted the group.  

The Russian prosecutor general’s office Wednesday declared Open Russia and two other groups founded by Khodorkovsky to be “undesirable” organizations.  The three organizations are the U.K.-registered Open Russia, the U.S.-based Institute of Modern Russia, and a social movement that also uses the Open Russia name.  

The “undesirable” designation bans them from operating inside Russia, with any violation punishable by fines and jail time.  

Police raided the group’s offices in Moscow Friday, prior to Saturday’s protest.

Maria Galitskaya, a spokeswoman for Open Russia told VOA she thinks the raid was politically motivated.

“One [of the police officers] started breaking open the doors of the rooms and desk drawers, though there was nothing illegitimate in the office,” she said.  “It is difficult to talk about the real reasons of the search but we connect that with tomorrow’s action and think that this is an effort at intimidation.”

 
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