Austria’s junior government coalition partner chose a new leader Sunday and gave him the unprecedented authority he demanded as a condition for leading his party into expected early elections this fall.

Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz told reporters that senior officials of his People’s Party agreed to let him choose all ministers of any government he would head, as well as to nominate candidates for parliament that would include party outsiders.

Speaking after a closed meeting, Kurz said that the gathering also agreed to contest at least the next elections under a name change. Instead of the People’s Party, Kurz and other candidates would now run under the “List Sebastian Kurz – the new People’s Party.”

“We have decided to start a movement,” Kurz told reporters.  “We’re going to rely on proven forces from within the People’s Party, but at the same time we’re going to bring new people on board.”

The power grab is significant in a party where provincial governors have historically had an outsize say in running federal affairs, including pushing through ministerial appointments and overriding major policy decisions by the federal leader.

With few exceptions, that has led party heads to resign in frustration in recent decades. The latest, Reinhold Mitterlehner, threw in the towel Wednesday after less than three years as party leader and vice chancellor.

The center-right People’s Party is now a distant third among voters. But Kurz, a telegenic 30-year old, regularly tops political popularity polls.

That is due in part for his embrace of a harder line on immigrants and other positions of the right-wing Freedom Party, which leads in voter support. But he avoids that party’s xenophobic polemics, as he walks the line between keeping People’s Party supporters and attracting Freedom Party backers.

Acceptance of Kurz’s demands reflects recognition by the party’s power-brokers that refusal would mean an almost certain slide in voter support.

The often cantankerous People’s Party-Social Democratic coalition has shown increased signs of fraying over the past months. Still, Social Democratic Chancellor Christian Kern had resisted People’s Party calls to move up elections from next year.

But as People’s Party officials gathered Sunday he told state broadcaster ORF: “I assume that there will certainly be an election this fall.”
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Paris bid leaders want to capitalize on the sense of optimism surrounding new President Emmanuel Macron to beat Los Angeles and secure the Olympic Games in 2024 — not 2028.

With the IOC currently assessing a proposal to award the next two Olympics — one to each city — Paris officials insist the French capital city is the right choice for 2024.

The 39-year-old Macron, France’s youngest-ever president, officially took office on Sunday as the IOC evaluation commission started a three-day visit to Paris.

“Our team has a new member, the new President of France, Emmanuel Macron,” bid leader Tony Estanguet said on Sunday. “He’s been a fantastic supporter of our bid from the beginning. He will be with us all the way to Lima and hopefully beyond.”

Los Angeles and Paris are the only two bidders left for the 2024 Games, which will be awarded in September at a meeting of Olympic leaders in Peru. The race began with five cities, but Rome, Hamburg, Germany, and Budapest, Hungary, all pulled out.

The IOC has four vice presidents looking into the prospect of awarding the 2024 and 2028 Games at the same time in September.

“We have one goal during these few days: to convince you that Paris is the right city, with the right vision, at the right moment,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said. “The right city with world-class venues and accommodation, and the best public transport in the world, ready right now.”

International Olympic Committee members were in Los Angeles earlier this week to meet with the U.S. bid leaders and inspect their planned venues. While Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appeared at least willing to consider hosting the 2028 Olympics if the city isn’t awarded its first choice of 2024, Hidalgo said Paris is set for the earlier edition.

“With financial and political stability and support, we are ready right now,” Hidalgo said. “At the right moment, as the no risk option.”

Patrick Baumann, the chair of the IOC evaluation commission, said Sunday’s discussions with Paris leaders focused solely on their project for 2024.

“Right now we are still in a process where we assess a potential candidacy for 2024,” Baumann told a press conference. “2024-2028 was not a matter of discussion.” 

The French government has pledged one billion euros ($1.1 billion) of support for the Paris bid and Macron is expected to confirm that amount. If Paris is awarded the 2024 Games, the infrastructure budget is expected to total 3 billion euros, with operational costs of 3.2 billion euros.

Paris is also betting on the compactness of its plans to make the difference. According to the bid dossier, 84 percent of the athletes will be able to reach their competition venues in less than 25 minutes, and more than 70 percent of the proposed venues are existing facilities, with a further 25 percent relying on temporary structures.

Paris, which last staged the Olympics in 1924, failed in bids for the 1992, 2008, and 2012 Games.

With the pro-business and pro-EU Macron, Paris bid leaders have a strong supporter. The new president has already thrown his weight behind Paris’ bid, telling IOC President Thomas Bach over the phone of its “expected benefits for all French people.”    

Macron did not attend Sunday’s night gala dinner with IOC members in Paris but invited the evaluation commission on Tuesday to the Elysee Palace before they leave.

Meanwhile, the Paris team added another high-profile figure to their list of backers on Sunday as it unveiled France soccer great Zinedine Zidane as their latest ambassador.

“I was involved in several bids, but this one is really close to our hearts,” said Zidane, who also supported the Qatar bid to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup and was involved in Paris’s 2008 and 2012 failed bids.  

IOC members started their visit with a full day of discussions on Paris’ proposals that will be followed by venue visits on Monday and further meetings on the final day.

“Our friends of Paris 2024 presented us with an exceptional and well detailed bid presentation,” Baumann said. “We have two cities with a wonderful Olympic spirit. It’s difficult to give them less than 10 out of 10.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives defeated their center-left rivals in a key state election Sunday in the country’s most populous region.

Exit polls showed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union with a strong surge of support in North Rhine-Westphalia, the home state and traditional stronghold of her chief rival, Social Democrat Martin Schulz, who is challenging the German leader in the national election in late September.

Schulz conceded Sunday’s loss, saying, “This is a difficult day for the Social Democrats, a difficult day for me personally as well.  I come from the state in which we took a really stinging defeat today.”

He urged his party to focus on the September 24 vote, saying, “We will sharpen our profile further.  We have to as well.”

The exit polls showed the Christian Democrats winning 34.5 percent of the vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, home to 17.9 million people, nearly a quarter of the German population, with the Social Democrats at 30.5 percent.  Other parties trailed far behind the two leaders.

The conservatives’ general-secretary, Peter Tauber, said the Christian Democratic Union “has won the heartland of the Social Democrats.”

 
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Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $124 billion Sunday for his ambitious new Silk Road plan to forge a path of peace, inclusiveness and free trade, and called for the abandonment of old models based on rivalry and diplomatic power games.

China has touted what it formally calls the Belt and Road initiative as a new way to boost global development since Xi unveiled the plan in 2013, aiming to expand links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond underpinned by billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.

China’s most important diplomatic event of the year, the two-day summit offers Xi another chance to bolster China’s global leadership ambitions as U.S. President Donald Trump promotes “America First” and questions existing global free trade initiatives like NAFTA.

Trade and economic development

“We should build an open platform of cooperation and uphold and grow an open world economy,” Xi told the opening of the summit.

Xi said the world must create conditions that promote open development and encourage the building of systems of “fair, reasonable and transparent global trade and investment rules.”

 “Trade is the important engine of economic development,” Xi said.

He said the world must promote the multilateral trade system, the establishment of free trade regions, and the facilitation of free trade.

Big funding boost

Xi pledged a massive funding boost to the new Silk Road, including an extra 100 billion yuan ($14.50 billion) into the existing Silk Road Fund, 380 billion in loans from two policy banks and 60 billion yuan in aid to developing countries and international institutions in new Silk Road countries.

In addition, Xi said China would encourage financial institutions to expand their overseas yuan fund businesses to the tune of 300 billion yuan.

Xi did not give a timeframe for the new loans, aid and funding pledged Sunday. Leaders from 29 countries are attending the forum, which ends Monday.

Western unease

Some Western diplomats have expressed unease about both the summit and the plan as a whole, seeing it as an attempt to promote Chinese influence globally.

China has rejected criticism of the plan and the summit, saying the scheme is open to all, is a win-win, and aimed only at promoting prosperity.

“What we hope to create is a big family of harmonious co-existence,” Xi said, adding pursuit of the initiative will not resort to outdated geopolitical maneuvering.

“China is willing to share its development experience with all countries. We will not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. We will not export our system of society and development model, and even more will not impose our views on others,” Xi said.

“In advancing the Belt and Road, we will not retread the old path of games between foes,” he said. “Instead we will create a new model of cooperation and mutual benefit.”

Xi: Road open to all

Xi said the new Silk Road would be open to all, including Africa and the Americas, which are not situated on the traditional Silk Road.

“No matter if they are from Asia and Europe, or Africa or the Americas, they are all cooperative partners in building the Belt and Road,” he said.

Some of China’s most reliable allies and partners are at the forum, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

There are also several European leaders attending, including the prime ministers of Spain, Italy, Greece and Hungary.
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Former President Mauno Koivisto, who in the 1980s and 1990s guided Finland from the shadow of the crumbling Soviet Union and into the European Union, has died at a hospital in Helsinki. He was 93.

The office of the Finnish presidency announced the death early Saturday. Koivisto’s wife, Tellervo, said earlier this year that he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

The son of a ship’s carpenter, Koivisto, a Social Democrat, served two six-year presidential terms between 1982 and 1994, a tumultuous period that followed the 25-year presidential reign of Urho Kekkonen. He earlier served twice as prime minister, from 1968 to 1970 and 1979 to 1982.

Koivisto is widely credited as president with strengthening the role of parliament, after his nationalist predecessor consolidated much political power within the office of the presidency.

Koivisto is also broadly acknowledged for building strong ties with the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, while also establishing rapport with U.S. President George H.W. Bush as Europe began in the late 1980s to witness the beginning of the end of communism. He also maintained strong ties with Bush’s predecessor, Ronald Reagan.

In a statement Saturday, President Sauli Niinisto described Koivisto as a leader in “the generation that took part in wars and [the] following rebuilding, and which guided Finland to the path of current success and well-being.”

In his last interview four years ago, Koivisto was asked by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper to summarize what he viewed as important in life.

“In life, it is generally wise to trust that everything will go well. It often pays off, even if you wouldn’t have believed” it would, he said.
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Portugal’s Salvador Sobral won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday with a gentle romantic ballad that challenged the event’s decades-long reputation for cheesy, glittery excess.

Sobral sang his Amar Pelos Dois (Love For Both) in a high, clear tenor accompanied by quiet strings and a piano. Unlike the 25 other competitors who performed on a wide stage backed by flashing lights, bursts of flames and other effects, Sobral sang from a small elevated circle in the middle of the crowd, an intimate contrast to others’ bombast.

“Music is not fireworks, music is feeling,” he said while accepting the award.

Runner-up Kristian Kostov of Bulgaria wasn’t short on feeling — his power-ballad “Beautiful Mess” was awash in melodrama, the singer appearing almost wrung out by romantic turmoil.

Moldova’s Sunstroke Project finished a surprising third, with a bouncy, jazzy song called “Hey Mama”‘ that featured a clever stage routine in which the female backup singers hid their microphones in bridal bouquets.

Francesco Gabbani of Italy had led bookmakers’ tallies for most of the days leading up to the final, but he ended up placing sixth even though his act seemed the epitome of Eurovision’s cheerfully tacky aesthetics — singing a driving number about spirituality while accompanied by someone in a gorilla suit.

Eurovision, in its 62nd year, is aimed at apolitical entertainment. But the sweet intentions were soured this year when Russia’s participation was scuttled by host Ukraine over the two nations’ diplomatic and military conflict.

Russia is one of Eurovision’s heavy hitters, tied with Sweden for the most top-five finishes this century. But this year’s Russian entrant, Yuliya Samoylova, was blocked from competing by Ukraine because she had toured in Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula.

In response, Russia’s state-owned Channel 1 television is refusing to broadcast the contest, replacing Saturday’s final with a screening of the film “Alien.”

The Moscow-Kyiv split is a headache for Eurovision’s producer, the European Broadcasting Union, which strives mightily to keep pop and politics separate. Overtly political flags and banners are banned, and lyrics are monitored for provocative content.

In 2009, the EBU nixed the Georgian entry “We Don’t Wanna Put In,” a dig at Russian President Vladimir Putin. The union, however, has been criticized for not barring “1944” last year, allowing Russia-Ukraine tensions to fester.

The acrimony is ironic, since Eurovision was founded in 1956 to bring the recently warring countries of Europe together. It launched a year before the foundation of the European Economic Community, forerunner of the European Union.

From its launch with seven countries, Eurovision has grown to include more than 40, including non-European nations such as Israel and — somewhat controversially — far-off Australia.

The contest helped launch the careers of Sweden’s ABBA — victors in 1974 with “Waterloo” — Canada’s Celine Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988, and Irish high-steppers Riverdance, the halftime entertainment in 1994.
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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is heading to China Sunday to join leaders of 27 other nations at the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) summit in Beijing.

The massive China-led project aims to revive the ancient Silk Road and maritime trade routes by expanding investment in infrastructure linking Asia, Africa and Europe.

While China plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in the ambitious vision, few details have been made clear on how the project will proceed.

Russia wants investment

A lack of specifics and long-term prospects for the project has led some observers to conclude China’s new Silk Road so far is about politics and symbolism. But analysts in Moscow say Russia is mainly in it for the money.

“First, Russia’s economy desires foreign investments and it hopes to get some funds through OBOR,” said Petr Topychkanov of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Second, Russia wants to bring new drive to the dying Eurasian Economic Union by connecting it with OBOR. Third, Russia wants to compensate the vanished economic agenda of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) with the Chinese-led OBOR. Fourth, Russia wants to make European countries more nervous with the prospects of Russian-Chinese economic cooperation.”

China in the last few years has invested more than $300 billion in projects in One Belt, One Road countries, and Chinese officials say more than 50 agreements will be signed at next week’s meetings in Beijing.

Leaders attending the summit include the other two founding members of the struggling Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Belarus and Kazakhstan.

“Russian interest in the OBOR project in general is attracting additional Chinese investment into the Russian infrastructure and industry sectors,” said Vasily Kashin, a senior research fellow at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “Russia is also trying to achieve a high level of coordination between the Chinese OBOR policy and the Russian policy concerning the Eurasian Economic Union.”

Russia established the EAEU in 2015 with the aim of integrating economies of former Soviet states. However, critics say the Kremlin uses the group for geopolitics and influence, and other members have shown little interest in deepening economic ties.

Russia looking east?

Western sanctions against Russia over its military involvement in Ukraine have led some Russian officials and analysts to say Moscow will pivot to the east for its political and economic future.

“China did provide significant loans for the Russian state-owned companies currently under the Western sanctions, helping them a lot,” Kashin said.

Russia-China trade is recovering from a 2014-2015 slump and was up 26 percent in the first quarter of 2017, to nearly $25 billion. China’s exports to Russia rose 22 percent while China’s imports from Russia were up 30 percent in the first four months of this year.

“China is Russia’s most important individual trading partner. Its share is growing, and it is already a significant source of investment, loans and technology. However, it will take China a long time to overtake the EU in these roles,” Kashin added.

There has been no dramatic pivot by Russia away from the West and toward the East, but there is a gradual trend for trade in that direction.

“The share of the APEC countries, not just China, but Japan and Korea as well, in Russian trade has been growing at the expense of the EU for a long time,” Kashin said. “The process did speed up after the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, but not dramatically. Turn to the East is inevitable since the European market for Russian commodities will likely have long-term negative growth, because of EU economic stagnation and industrial decline.

“However, building the necessary infrastructure and negotiating the trade deals with the Asian countries will take Russia years,” economic researcher Kashin added. “The historical dependence on the single European market will be overcome, probably at some point in the late 2020s to early 2030s.”

Developing relationship

Russia-China relations are developing steadily but are sometimes exaggerated by Russian officials for propaganda purposes.

“The leaders of Russia and China came to a point where they clearly realized the possibilities and limits of bilateral relations,” Topychkanov said. “Despite comments from some experts about the possibility of any kind of union between Russia and China — let it be political, economic, or military — there is no chance for such a union.

“Even the bilateral trust between both countries isn’t limitless,” the Carnegie associate added. “In short, Russia and China value the visibility of friendship between them, but they can’t transform it in deep-rooted strategic relationships and long-term, mutually beneficial economic cooperation.”

China’s New Silk Road initiative has attracted more interest as the United States under President Donald Trump has looked inward and pulled out of global trade deals.

But Russia does not see OBOR as a future substitute or even competitor for trade pacts like the formerly U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“I doubt, that Russian officials think about OBOR and Russia in the context of global trade,” Topychkanov said. “For Moscow this remains to be the issue of both bilateral cooperation with China and regional economic networks.”

Olga Pavlova​ contributed to this report.
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The European Union’s police agency, Europol, says it is working with countries hit by the global ransomware cyberattack to rein in the threat and help victims.

In a statement Saturday, Europol’s European Cybercrime Center, known as EC3, said the attack “is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits.”

EC3 says its Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce, made up of experts in high-tech crime, “is specially designed to assist in such investigations and will play an important role in supporting the investigation.”

The attack, which locked up computers and held users’ files for ransom, was believed the biggest of its kind ever recorded.

Britain’s National Cyber Security Center says teams are working “round the clock” to restore hospital computer systems that forced hospitals to cancel and delay treatment for patients.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Saturday that 45 public health organizations were hit, but she stressed that no patient data had been stolen.

Germany’s national railway says that departure and arrival display screens at its stations were hit Friday night by the attack. The company said it deployed extra staff to busy stations to provide customer information, and recommended that passengers check its website or app for information on their connections.

The railway said that there was no impact on actual train services.

Several cybersecurity firms said they had identified the malicious software behind the attack, which has apparently hit Russia the hardest.
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There is a “realistic possibility” Russia might try to interfere in Britain’s national election next month, Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, said.

In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper published Saturday, the Conservative politician also said Russian President Vladimir Putin would “rejoice” if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labor Party won the June 8 election.

Referring to Putin, Johnson said: “Clearly we think that is what he did in America, it’s blatantly obvious that’s what he did in France [where incoming president Emmanuel Macron’s emails were hacked], in the western Balkans he is up to all sorts of sordid enterprises, so we have to be vigilant.”

He said Putin wanted “to undermine faith in democracy altogether and to discredit the whole democratic process.” On Friday, Britain’s health system was subjected to a major cyber attack.

Johnson also told The Telegraph that rather than Britain having to pay a divorce bill for leaving the European Union, the EU could end up having to pay Britain because it had contributed to so many EU assets.

“They are going to try to bleed this country white with their bill,” he said.

Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported the EU might seek an upfront payment in 2019 of up to 100 billion euros ($109 billion). That sum was immediately rejected by British ministers.
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A large number of hospitals across Britain were hit by a cyber-attack Friday, shutting down their computer systems and forcing the cancellation of patient appointments.

According to Britain’s National Health Service, hospital computers were infected with a type of “ransomware” that blocks use of a computer system until victims agree to pay the attacker a ransom to free it up.

Photos posted on social media show infected NHS computers with the message “Ooops, your files have been encrypted,” and a demand for $300 worth of Bitcoin, an anonymous online currency.

At least 16 NHS organizations reported being affected by the ransomware attack.

While the affected hospitals were forced to turn away patients and divert ambulances to other facilities, the NHS said the attackers hadn’t breached any patient data.

“NHS Digital is working closely with the National Cyber Security Center, the Department of Health and NHS England to support affected organizations and to recommend appropriate mitigations,” the health agency said in a statement.

The NHS said it was not attacked specifically, and the attack is “affecting organizations from across a range of sectors.”

Around the same time Friday, the Spanish energy ministry reported various cyber attacks aimed at Spanish companies, including telecom giant Telefonica, using ransomware software. It is not clear if the two hacking incidents are related.

Portugal Telecom was also hit by a cyber attack but no services were impacted, a spokeswoman for the company said.

 
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The United States Navy said Friday that a Russian jet flew within six meters of an American spy plane earlier this week over the Black Sea, but that the encounter was professional.

The Russian jet was scrambled to greet the U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon in international airspace Tuesday as the U.S. plane flew near Russian territory, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The Russian pilot approached the spy plane “at a safe distance” in order to identify it as a U.S. aircraft, the statement said, noting that the U.S. plane changed its course after the encounter and the Russian jet returned to its base.

U.S. Navy spokeswoman Pamela Kunze said in a statement the encounter was conducted in a “safe and professional” manner, downplaying the proximity of the Russian aircraft to the U.S. aircraft.

“For aviation interactions, distance, speed, altitude, rate of closure, visibility and other factors impact whether an event is characterized as safe or unsafe, professional or not professional,” she said. “Every event is unique and any single variable does not define an event.”

Kunze said that Navy aircraft and ships interact with their Russian counterparts in international waters on a routine basis, but did not provide any further details about Tuesday’s encounter.

The incident is the latest in a series of close fly-bys between U.S. and Russian planes. In February, four Russian aircraft buzzed a Navy destroyer in the Black Sea, flying within 91 meters of the ship.

Last month, the U.S. military intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace off Alaska’s coast. That encounter was similarly described as “safe and professional” by the Navy.
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Turkey’s state-run news agency says police have detained 62 former employees of the Istanbul stock exchange over their alleged links to a U.S.-based Muslim cleric blamed for last year’s coup attempt.

Anadolu Agency said the suspects were detained Friday in simultaneous police raids in Istanbul and five other cities. Detention warrants were issued for 40 other people, the agency reported.

The detained are suspected of being followers of Fethullah Gulen who the government says is behind the July 15 coup attempt. Anadolu said the suspects were removed from positions at Borsa Istanbul stock exchange following the attempt.

Gulen denies involvement in the failed coup.

Turkey declared a state of emergency following the attempt and dismissed some 100,000 people from government jobs while arresting more than 47,000 people.
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