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For the Italian government, it seemed like a recipe for success: create an official “Made in Italy” logo to defend the country’s finest food exports from an army of foreign impersonators.

On supermarket shelves worldwide, a star-shaped logo would mark out real Italian cheeses, hams, pasta and sparkling wines from those that only look or sound Italian, such as Parmesan made in New Zealand or Prosecco bottled in Brazil.

But Rome has discovered that even the simplest recipe can go wrong. Instead of unifying Italy’s food industry against a common enemy that is bagging billions of euros in sales, the government’s proposal for a Made in Italy certification quickly created bitter divisions.

A row has erupted over what it means to be truly Italian — should every single raw ingredient be made in Italy, for example — and now the project could be ditched altogether for lack of an industry consensus, according to two industry ministry sources who declined to be named as talks with food firms are ongoing.

“For now there is no final decision on whether to go ahead with the Made in Italy sign, we are studying it, we are doing technical checks,” said one of the sources, an industry ministry official who is working on the project.

“We will launch it only if it fully meets the requests of producers,” he said, adding that the food industry was split into several groups with conflicting views on the project.

The ministry announced the project at the end of last year, and began consultations with food producers in March, in response to industry complaints that foreign-made foods masquerading as Italian produce were costing the country billions of euros in lost export sales.

A logo guaranteeing Italian origin would enable exporters to grab some of the roughly 60 billion euros ($67 billion) in annual global sales generated by foreign imitations, according to Italy’s food producers’ lobby, Federalimentare.

Marketing experts agree. Brand Finance, a global consultancy that compiles an index of the world’s most valuable brands, estimates it could add up to 5 percent to the enterprise value of small- and medium-sized Italian food companies.

“Domestic companies would surely gain from such a logo given that Italy has a high reputation in the food sector and many of them are not well known outside the country,” said Massimo Pizzo, Italy managing director for Brand Finance.

However, Federalimentare’s members could not agree on a definition of Italian-made. Some took a hard line, insisting products be made entirely in Italy from ingredients sourced at home, while others argued for a less stringent approach.

‘If we open the door’

The consortium of producers of Parmigiano Reggiano, the king of Italian cheeses, insists on rigid standards for everyone.

“If we open the door to products with foreign ingredients, we are not talking of real Made in Italy … this is not the kind of help we are looking for,” said Riccardo Deserti, chairman of the consortium.

Under the consortium’s rules, recognized across the European Union, cheese can only be marketed as Parmigiano Reggiano, or by its English name Parmesan, if it is made according to a precise method within a restricted area around the town of Parma.

The consortium of Prosecco wine producers takes a similar stance, rejecting the idea of being put in the same authenticity category as products made with foreign raw materials.

On the other hand, some firms believe traditional Italian production methods should be enough to qualify for the logo.

Barilla, the world’s biggest pasta maker, wants to carry the Made in Italy logo though 16 of its 30 plants are abroad, including in the United States and Russia.

“We are Italian, we pay taxes in Italy and we run our foreign plants following the rules of the Italian quality,” Paolo Barilla, vice chairman of the family-owned business, told a food conference in March. A Barilla spokesman declined to make any further comment for this story.

One of Italy’s most identifiable food brands, the high-end food chain Eataly, draws a finer line on the issue.

It recently opened its first store in Moscow where an embargo on some European food imports forced it to make some cheeses from local ingredients. It sells mozzarella and burrata made in Russia, but not Parmigiano.

Olive and oak

Italian food producers can at least agree on one thing: Foreign rivals are competing unfairly by marketing distinctly Italian products, using words and symbols that suggest an Italian origin but listing the real provenance in fine print.

They point the finger at goods such as New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra’s Perfect Italiano range of Parmesan and Mozzarella cheeses or Garibaldi Prosecco made in Brazil by the Garibaldi Winery Cooperative.

“I totally agree with the idea of a Made in Italy sign,” Eataly founder Oscar Farinetti told Reuters at the inauguration of the store, but did not say whether he sided with the Italian-made purists or the likes of Barilla.

Contacted by Reuters, a Fonterra spokesperson said the group markets the two cheeses using their Italian names and featuring the Italian flag because they were launched by Natale Italiano, an Italian who migrated to Australia in the 1920s.

“While the brand is proud of its heritage, its packaging is evolving away from featuring the Italian flag,” Fonterra said.

The group did not disclose the turnover of the Perfect Italiano products.

Garibaldi Winery did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The Rome government had proposed a Made in Italy logo employing the symbols of the Italian republic: a star framed by olive and oak branches.

The project, however, was constrained by EU rules.

The government planned to include products if their last “significant transformation” happened in Italy, the ministry official said — meaning, for example, sausages produced in Italy using imported meat would qualify for the label while ham made in a foreign plant of an Italian producer would not.

This would bring the logo into line with the European Customs Code governing country-of-origin labeling, but the plan satisfied neither side in the food fight; the purists balked at the idea of foreign ingredients being allowed, while other firms argued the rules were too stringent.

Hence the impasse that threatens the project.

“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t use a different standard from the one used in Europe,” said the source.
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Reacting to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, leading scientific organizations say evidence clearly shows the world’s climate is changing and urgent measures must be taken to slow the warming of the planet.

The organizations say the scientific evidence is clear that human activity is behind the changing climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an independent scientific assessment body, warned that without additional efforts beyond those already in place, warming by the end of the century will lead to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts.

IPCC spokesman Jonathan Lynn said the scientific body finds that limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which together with adaptation can limit climate change risks.

“In its analysis of decision-making to limit climate change and its effects, the IPCC noted that climate change is a problem of the commons, requiring collective action at the global scale,” he said. “Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual players advance their own interests independently. … It is not clear at this stage how the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will affect future emissions.”

Deon Terblanche, head of the Atmospheric Research and Environment department at the World Meteorological Organization, said global warming will continue for as long as the world emits greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere

“Even a reduction in the emissions will not lead to a reduction in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because there is a cumulative effect and CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years,” said Terblanche. “… The climate will continue to warm in any case.”

In a worst-case scenario, he warned the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could result in an additional warming of the atmosphere of 0.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
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The Trump administration is considering handing back two Russian diplomatic compounds along the U.S. East Coast after they were seized last year as punishment against the country, according to a report.

The compounds, one in coastal New York and the other along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, were believed by the Obama administration to have been used for intelligence purposes and were vacated on December 29 when former president Barack Obama sanctioned Russia for its alleged role in trying to sway the 2016 presidential election.

President Donald Trump is now deciding whether to return the two compounds to Moscow in exchange for certain concessions from Russia, according to reports in The Washington Post and Reuters.

According to several unnamed sources cited in the reports, Trump administration officials have spoken to Moscow about returning the compounds if Russia lifts a freeze on the construction of a U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg and stops harassing American diplomats in Russia.

The deal-making process is still in its early stages, though, and R.C. Hammond, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, told the Post that “the U.S. and Russia have reached no agreements.”

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Wednesday Russia may try to take back the property through legal action “if these steps are not somehow adjusted by the U.S. side.”

The next senior-level meeting between the two sides will come later in June, and the issue is expected to be prominent on the agenda.
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British police investigating the Manchester Arena attack cordoned off an area around a car significant to the investigation as they hunted Friday for clues about the suicide bomber’s movements.

Officers put a 100-meter (100-yard) cordon in place around a white Nissan Micra in southern Manchester. They want to piece together Salman Abedi’s preparations for the attack at the Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people — and to learn whether others helped him.

“This is potentially a significant development in the investigation,” Detective Chief Superintendent Russ Jackson said. “We are very interested in anything people can tell us about the movements of this car, and who was in it, over the past months.”

Police were also interested in “who may have had access to the car or who may have gone to and from it.”

As a precaution, people were being evacuated from the nearby Ronald McDonald House, which offers accommodation for families with children who are being treated in the hospital. A local hospital remained working as usual and even managed to host a visit by Prince William, who met with children wounded in the attack.

The second-in-line to the throne later visited Manchester Cathedral, where he praised the grit of the city and those who responded to the attack.

“Manchester’s strength and togetherness is an example to the world,” he wrote in a book of condolence. “My thoughts are with all those affected.”

William also met with police officers, expressing his gratitude for the actions of those first on the scene of the blast. Among them was 47-year-old police constable Michael Buckley, who treated the wounded even as he frantically searched for his own child.

Buckley was off duty and waiting for his 15-year-old daughter Stephanie when the bomb exploded. He found himself in an arena’s foyer, which he described as a scene of “absolute devastation.”

“I knew my daughter was in there somewhere,” he said.

Even so, he tried to help others and kept trying to contact her in the confusion. She had suffered a concussion and some crush injuries.

“I eventually met her in a hotel in the early hours of the morning,” Buckley said. “She just ran to me and grabbed hold of me but I couldn’t hold her because I was covered in other people’s blood.”

In a city traumatized by the events of last week, police have released new security camera images of the Manchester bomber’s last moments, hoping to jog the memories of the public to see if someone might remember something.

Even those who knew Abedi struggled to explain his actions. His cousins, Isaac and Abz Forjani, expressed shock in a BBC interview.

“It’s not easy being connected to 22 lost, innocent lives,” Isaac Forjani said. “The fact that the person that did this is related to us by blood is something that’s going to stay with me for the rest of my life.”

The two brothers were arrested by police after the attack and released without charge.

Ten men, aged between 18 and 44, remain in custody on suspicion of terrorism offences in connection with the attack. Six others, including a 15-year-old boy, have been released without being charged.
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The prosecutor at the trial of five men charged with killing Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2015 has urged jurors to find them guilty.

Wrapping up the state’s case Thursday, Maria Semenenko said their guilt was undisputed.

She also told the official Itar-Tass news agency that investigators had used special equipment during a re-enactment of the crime that placed the defendants’ mobile phones at the site of Nemtsov’s death when the shots were fired.

“Step by step, using the process of elimination, the investigators uncovered the entire chain of the crime, thanks to that expertise,” she told Itar-Tass.

The defense argued that no one could prove a motive for the killing.

Nemtsov was gunned down just steps from the Kremlin in February 2015. He was a popular opposition leader and a strong critic of Russian support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Five suspects from Chechnya or Ingushetia were arrested. One of them confessed but later recanted, claiming he had been tortured.

A former Chechen security official, Ruslan Mukhudinov, is accused of paying the suspects to kill Nemtsov. He is at large.
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European leaders expressed dismay and anger in equal measure Thursday at President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States, the world’s second-worst polluter, from the landmark Paris climate accord.

They saw it as rebuke and warned it would make it harder to slow the pace of climate change. Government officials in several major European capitals said the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 agreement would further strain a Western alliance they worry is unraveling.

Others said the move would affect America’s standing in the world and undermine the country’s traditional global leadership role as it breaks with virtually every other nation on the issue of climate change.

The European Union’s climate change commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, said the announcement “has galvanized us rather than weakened us, and this vacuum will be filled by new, broad, committed leadership. Europe and its strong partners all around the world are ready to lead the way.”

The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, said: “It is a matter of trust and leadership. This decision will hurt the U.S. and the planet.”

‘Small’ America

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal group of lawmakers in the European Parliament, tweeted a report on the impact of rising sea levels on Hawaii, adding: “Make America small again.”

And Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, tweeted that the city hall there “will be illuminated with green to affirm our will to implement” the Paris Agreement.

Environmental NGOs were scathing in their reaction. Greenpeace said: “By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, Trump has turned the U.S. from a climate leader into a climate deadbeat.”

The leaders of Germany, France and Italy issued a joint statement expressing “regret” at the decision.

European leaders lobbied Washington with mounting urgency in recent weeks, imploring the Trump administration not to break with the agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Ever since Trump blasted the accord during the 2016 presidential campaign, saying it would cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars with no tangible environmental benefit, European leaders have been bracing themselves for him to fulfill his pledge to break with the Paris pact.

They made strenuous efforts to dissuade Trump last month at the Group of Seven summit in Sicily, where a frustrated German Chancellor Angela Merkel highlighted the isolation of the U.S. in climate change discussions as a matter of 6-1.

Economic argument

In March, European leaders pursued a new tactic — with Canadian and U.S. business support — by making an economic argument, warning that if the U.S. withdrew, it would miss out on commercial opportunities in clean growth and lose out in energy innovation and clean-energy job creation.

Even at the 11th hour, efforts to dissuade Trump continued. Senior European policymakers tweeted to him, asking him not to break with the pact. And alarmed lawmakers in the European Parliament warned “climate change is not a fairy tale.”

Just before Trump’s withdrawal announcement Thursday, a Vatican official, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, warned the break would be a “disaster for everyone,” but would be seen by the pontiff as a “slap in the face.”

“Saying that we need to rely on coal and oil is like saying that the Earth is not round,” the bishop said. He and some other European officials blamed the fossil fuel industry in the U.S., saying it has an outsized influence on the Trump administration.

At their first ever meeting last month, Pope Francis handed Trump a signed copy of his 2015 encyclical calling for protection of the environment from the effects of climate change.

The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries in 2015, aims to cut emissions blamed for global warming. The United States committed to reducing by 2025 its own emissions by 26 to 28 percent compared with 2005 levels. Scientists have said a U.S. withdrawal from the pact could speed up the effects of climate change.

Chinese officials said the move would damage trust among leading powers in multilateral negotiations. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said his country would honor its commitments on climate change. “China will continue to implement the promises made in the Paris accord,” Li said.

Legal response

Some European policymakers are now turning their focus to how they could obstruct the U.S. withdrawal by pursuing legal avenues.

On Wednesday, Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president and a lawyer, said at a conference of the Confederation of German Employers in Berlin that “the Americans can’t just get out of the agreement,” adding that “it takes three to four years” to pull out.

Other European policymakers want to explore ways of enticing American energy innovators and climate researchers to relocate to Europe, using tax advantages and government subsidies to attract them. And some are advocating the imposition of carbon taxes on U.S. exports to EU nations.

But leaders of Europe’s nationalist populist parties cheered the abandonment of the pact. Britain’s Nigel Farage tweeted: “Trump keeps election promise to ditch the Paris climate accord and everyone is shocked. It’s called democracy.”
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The Black Eyed Peas and Robbie Williams will join Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and other stars at a charity concert Sunday in Manchester, England.

Live Nation said Thursday that girl group Little Mix had also been added to the show being held in response to the Manchester bombing that took place at Grande’s concert in the city last week. Twenty-two people died at the show.

Katy Perry, Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Take That and Niall Horan also will perform. The event, “One Love Manchester,” will take place at Emirates Old Trafford.

Tickets went on sale Thursday. Proceeds will go to an emergency fund set up by the city of Manchester and the British Red Cross.
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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.

 
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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.”

 
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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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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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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.

 
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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.

 
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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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