A high-ranking United Nations official has arrived in North Korea to help lower tensions over the secretive regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile testing programs.

Jeffrey Feltman, the world body’s undersecretary-general for political affairs, left for Pyongyang Tuesday after a stopover in Beijing the day before. Feltman is the first U.N. official holding that rank to visit the isolated regime since his predecessor, Lynn Pascoe, in 2010.  

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday that Feltman will discuss “issues of mutual interest and concern” with Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and Vice Minister Pak Myong Guk during his visit, which ends on Friday.  

Feltman’s visit comes less than a week after Pyongyang announced it had successfully test fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the U.S. mainland. The launch heightened tensions between the North and the United States, highlighted by months of insults between the regime and President Donald Trump.  

The visit also coincides with a joint U.S.-South Korea air force exercise that began Monday.

Dujarric said Pyongyang issued an invitation for Feltman to visit back in September, during the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.  

Feltman will also meet with the heads of various U.N. humanitarian programs operating in North Korea, including UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Population Fund.  But Dujarric would not say if Feltman would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his trip. 
…

Russia’s justice ministry on Tuesday designated nine U.S. media outlets, including the Voice Of America, as “foreign agents.”

The ministry further listed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and several of its affiliates, after warning last month they could be affected.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law in November empowering the government to designate media outlets receiving funding from abroad as “foreign agents” and impose sanctions against them.

Russian officials have called the new legislation a “symmetrical response” to what they describe as U.S. pressure on Russian media. On November 13, Russian state-funded television channel RT registered in the United States under a decades-old law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman said FARA is aimed at promoting transparency but does not restrict the television network’s operation in the United States.

The U.S. State Department has condemned Russia’s law, saying it obstructs press freedom.

“New Russian legislation that allows the Ministry of Justice to label media outlets as ‘foreign agents’ and to monitor or block certain internet activity presents yet another threat to free media in Russia,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement last month.
…

Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya insisted Monday that he was innocent of money-laundering accusations after an evacuation of the court building during a London hearing put him the in the center of a media scrum.

The Westminster Magistrates Court session was interrupted briefly by a fire alarm, forcing Mallya outside amid the waiting media. Television crews from India pursued Mallya, while he tried to avoid them.

“The allegations are baseless, unfounded, deliberate and you will see our submissions in court,” he said.

But the media kept pursuing 61-year-old businessman and former politician, circling him on the sidewalk.

“The answer will be given to the judge – you think you are going to conduct a trial by media?” he asked.

India is seeking Mallya’s extradition to answer the allegations related to the collapse of several of his businesses.

Mallya launched Kingfisher Airlines in 2005 and the carrier set new standards for quality and service, forcing competing airlines to improve. But it ran into trouble as it expanded. The Indian government suspended the airline’s license in 2012 after it failed to pay pilots and engineers for months.

The case is expected to take roughly eight days and lead to a verdict on whether he will be sent back to India or allowed to remain in Britain.
…

Ten suspects were arrested Monday over the October 16 car bomb murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s prime minister announced.

Joseph Muscat said eight Maltese citizens were arrested on Monday morning, given a “reasonable suspicion” of their involvement in Caruana Galizia’s slaying. Shortly afterward, he tweeted that two others had been arrested, but didn’t cite their nationality.

Police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said the other two are also Maltese.

Overall, Muscat gave almost no details, citing concerns any information could compromise prospects to prosecute the case.

The investigation appeared to be continuing, as police and armed forces had cordoned off an area in Marsa, a small town close to Valletta, the capital.  

The arrests, made in an operation coordinated among the Police Corps, the Armed Forces of Malta and the Security Services, were the first known break in the murder that has drawn widespread outrage and condemnation.

Investigators have 48 hours to question the suspects to decide whether to seek charges, in accordance with Maltese law.

Caruana Galizia, whose reporting focused heavily on corruption on the EU island nation, was killed when a bomb destroyed her car as she was driving near her home.

Europol, the European Union’s police agency, sent a team of organized crime experts to help Maltese police investigate the assassination, joining the FBI and Dutch forensic experts.

‘Crooks everywhere’

Just before her death, Caruana Galizia, 53, had posted on her closely followed blog, Running Commentary, that there were “crooks everywhere” in Malta.

The island nation has a reputation as a tax haven in the European Union and has attracted companies and money from outside Europe as well.

Just last week, a visiting delegation of European Parliament lawmakers left the island expressing concerns over the rule of law in the tiny EU member country and issued a warning that the “perception of impunity in Malta cannot continue.”

Low tax rates and a popular government program that allows wealthy foreigners to buy Maltese citizenship has made the country an attractive place for investment, financial and other companies. Authorities, including anti-Mafia investigators in nearby Italy worry that Malta is in the eye of criminals on the lookout for money-laundering schemes.

The journalist focused her reporting for years on investigating political corruption and scandals, and reported on Maltese mobsters and drug trafficking. She also wrote about Maltese links to the so-called Panama Papers leaks about offshore financial havens.

 
…

The finance ministers from the 19 countries that use the euro are deciding who should lead their regular meetings, with Portugal’s Mario Centeno widely tipped to take the helm of a group that has led the currency bloc’s crisis-fighting efforts.

The decision of who will succeed Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem as president of the so-called eurogroup is expected later Monday. Dijsselbloem, who has held the post for nearly five years, has been one of the most high-profile European politicians during a period that saw a number of countries, notably Greece, teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and the euro currency itself come under threat.

Three other candidates are in the frame, too: Luxembourg’s Pierre Gramegna, Slovakia’s Peter Kazimir and Latvia’s Dana Reizniece-Ozola.

Whoever gets the presidency will inherit a eurozone in far better shape than the one that existed during Dijsselbloem’s tenure. The economy is growing strongly while worries over Greece’s future in the bloc have subsided and the country is poised to exit its bailout era next summer.

A victory for Centeno, who in Portugal has favored easing off budget austerity policies, has the potential to mark a new era for the eurozone.

While eurozone governments still insist that countries must keep their public finances in shape, there’s a greater acknowledgement that many people, particularly in southern Europe, have grown weary of austerity. Following the departure of long-time German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a Centeno victory would encapsulate that shift.

Portugal was one of four eurozone countries that had to be bailed out during the region’s debt crisis. In 2011, the country required a 78 billion-euro rescue after its budget deficit grew too large and bond market investors asked for hefty premiums to lend to the government. In return for the financial lifeline, Portuguese governments had to enact a series of spending cuts and economic reforms.

Though the strategy may have worked in bringing Portugal’s public finances into better shape, austerity accentuated a recession and raised unemployment. Since Centeno took office in the Socialist government that came to power in December 2015, Portugal’s deficit has fallen to 2 percent, the lowest in more than 40 years while the unemployment rate is down to an almost 10-year low of 8.5 percent, after peaking at a record 16.2 percent in 2013.

Ahead of the meeting where the vote will take place, Centeno said his aim, should he come out on top, would be to “generate consensus” in the “challenging” period ahead.

“We have showed everyone that we can reach consensus, we can work with other parties, we can work with institutions,” he said. “Portugal is an example of that.”

Dijsselbloem said keeping the eurogroup “together and united” should be the primary purpose of the eurogroup president.

“It’s the only way we take decisions in the eurogroup,” he said.

 
…

Nationalist dominated the first round of local elections on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, winning more than 45 percent of the vote in preliminary results. The vote has been closely watched elsewhere, following Catalonia’s independence moves in Spain.

The results mark a clear victory for the current ruling nationalist coalition in Corsica. Their Pe a Corsica list earned significantly more votes during this first round than two years ago, when they swept to an unprecedented victory in regional elections. A smaller nationalist ticket received far fewer votes. But should the two unite, they would capture the majority of seats in Corsica’s assembly.

Speaking to French TV, nationalist leader Gilles Simeoni, who heads the winning ticket, said his group would represent all Corsicans, whether they supported their movement or not.

The nationalists took power in 2015, refueling, for some, long-held independence dreams on the island. Catalonia’s independence struggle has added further juice.

University of Bordeaux Corsica expert Thierry Dominici said the results were a huge victory – and suggest nationalist sentiments touch everyone in Corsica. He credited the high abstention rate to a mix of factors – including that many are waiting for next Sunday’s runoff.

Strikingly, France’s main parties scored extremely low – including the far-right National Front party which faired strongly in Corsica during the presidential elections.

That meant, Dominici said, Corsican support for the far right reflects a protest vote, rather than real support.

The Corsican results mark yet another European region tilting to more autonomy. Unlike Spain’s Catalonia region, however, Corsica’s ruling coalition is not demanding independence – rather more local control of matters like taxation and education. More die-hard nationalists continue to hope for more.

 
…

German authorities say a suspicious package containing nails that led to a bomb scare on a Christmas market in Potsdam was part of a blackmailing plot against a delivery company.

Brandenburg state Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schroeter told reporters Sunday the package was part of a scheme to extort millions of euros from delivery company DHL. It was delivered Friday to a pharmacy on the same street as the market in Potsdam and later destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Schroeter said it most likely didn’t target the market.

Officials said the package’s sender was still at large and that an online company in Frankfurt an der Oder had received a similar package “a while ago.”

Police initially said the device wasn’t viable, but now think the package could have exploded.
…

Germany wants to support rejected asylum-seekers who voluntarily move back to their home countries with a one-time payment of 3,000 euros ($3,570).

The Interior Ministry says those who qualify can apply by a Feb. 28 deadline and they would get the money once they return home.

Migrants who agree to go back even before their asylum request is rejected have already been offered 1,200 euros per adult and 600 euros per child under a different program for almost a year. They are now eligible to apply for both programs.

But the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday that 8,639 migrants participated in the returnee program between February and October, even though there are about 115,000 rejected asylum-seekers in Germany -many of whom can’t be deported for humanitarian reasons.
…

Romanian protesters clashed with riot police Saturday when they stopped construction workers from building a Christmas fair at the site of anti-corruption demonstrations in Bucharest.

Victory Square saw big street protests at the beginning of the year following attempts by the ruling Social Democrats to decriminalize some corruption offenses. It has been a gathering place for largely peaceful protests since.

Further demonstrations have been announced on social media as parliament gears up to approve a judicial overhaul that has been criticized by thousands of magistrates, centrist President Klaus Iohannis, the European Commission and the U.S. State Department.

Earlier this week, Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea, a senior Social Democrat member, said she would stage a Christmas fair for most of December in the square — a decision that Social Democrat Prime Minister Mihai Tudose said was not “the most inspired.”

On Saturday, protesters began dismantling the scaffolding and fences for the fair, waving flags and chanting “We won’t give Victory Square up,” and “Firea, don’t forget, this square is not yours.”

Three protesters were taken to a police station, riot police spokesman Georgian Enache told state news agency Agerpres. He added one of them was accused of hitting another citizen.

“We are asking Bucharest city hall to abandon immediately … the move to fence in Victory Square,” protest activists said in a statement on the Facebook page “Corruption Kills.”

“We urge citizens to protest firmly but nonviolently. We must stop this treacherous and rudimentary attempt by Mayor Gabriela Firea to discourage protests at a time when they will be crucial for the future of this country.”

“This means the beginning of anarchy,” Firea said in a statement later. She said she would find another place to locate the fair.
…

Greece’s finance minister said Saturday that an agreement had been reached between the heavily indebted country and its creditors on its progress in implementing reforms.

The agreement on the so-called Third Assessment of Greece’s latest bailout program will allow Greece to receive fresh funds next year, after implementing workplace reforms, speeding up the settlement of bad loans, tightening up rules for family subsidies and selling off state-owned power plants.

European monetary affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici also announced that a “staff-level agreement” had been reached, meaning that although creditor representatives were involved, the European Union’s finance ministers must approve the agreement, which they are expected to do Monday.

Finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos said Greece would have to vote on at least two major bills by January 22 to implement the agreement.
…

Voters on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica head to the polls Sunday for the first round of territorial elections, with a nationalist ticket projected to score big.

The campaign might not have attracted much attention but for the Spanish region of Catalonia, where independence aspirations have grabbed world headlines and turned attention to other autonomy-minded regions.

Candidates from seven political lists will be on Sunday’s ballot. But the main nationalist ticket, Pe a Corsica (For Corsica), is surging.

The elections aim to fuse Corsica’s two administrative territories into one, but they’re about much more than bureaucracy. They’re expected to solidify the power of Corsica executive council head Gilles Simeoni and other nationalists, who won elections in 2015 for the first time, refueling centuries-old independence dreams — at least for some Corsicans. Catalonia’s example has given them another reason to hope.

The big question, said University of Bordeaux Corsica expert Thierry Dominici, is not whether the nationalists will win, but by how much.

Dominici said Pe a Corsica supporters hope to win the majority of votes during Sunday’s first round, making a second-round runoff unnecessary. They could then compare themselves to Catalonia and demand more autonomy from France, or even at some point a referendum on full independence.

Dominici and many other experts think such dreams are unrealistic. Besides sharing strong cultural identities, including languages, rich and teeming Catalonia and relatively poor and sparsely populated Corsica have little in common.

French subsidies

“Corsica receives a lot of subsidies from the French government, and Corsica is a special situation concerning taxes,” said political analyst Philippe Moreau Defarges. “And many Corsicans don’t want to lose that.”

He also noted that Corsica’s main economic lifeline, tourism, is highly dependent on mainland France.

Sunday’s elections do underscore a major shift in Corsican politics. A decades-long armed independence struggle formally ended in 2014, although it lost credibility much earlier. A year later, a mix of pro-independence politicians — opposed to armed violence — and more moderate autonomists won regional elections, toppling the island’s traditional clannish power structure.

So far, Dominici said, the nationalists have gotten good reviews. He described council head Simeoni, a moderate nationalist, as a local variation of French President Emmanuel Macron, who exploded traditional French party politics with his own election this year.

Macron and his government have been strikingly silent about the Corsica vote and nationalist demands for more autonomy over such matters as taxes and education. Moreau Defarges said Paris wants to lie low — for now.

France wants “to preserve French unity, the territorial integrity of France,” he said.

But if Pe a Corsica scores a major victory in the polls, the Macron government will be pressured to respond.
…

Pope Francis talked to a group of Bangladeshi priests and nuns about the “terrorism of gossip” and how it can destroy religious communities on Saturday, before returning to the Vatican.  

The leader of the world’s Roman Catholics spoke from his heart to the crowd at Dhaka’s Holy Rosary Church.

He abandoned the speech he had prepared and instead gave a spontaneous 15-minute address about the highs and lows of living in a religious community.

In the laughter-filled monologue, he urged his audience to tend to their religious vocations “with tenderness” and warned them about the havoc gossip “bombs” can wreak when detonated in a closed religious  life.

Francis said he was speaking from personal experience and urged the nuns and priests to “Please, bite your tongue” which means to consider your words carefully before speaking.

Pope Francis asked for forgiveness from Rohingya Muslim refugees for all of their suffering Friday, using the politically sensitive term “Rohingya” to describe the persecuted – a term he had not uttered during his trip that began in Myanmar.

“The presence of God today is also called Rohingya,” he said after meeting refugees brought to the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka from Cox’s Bazaar, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have settled after fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

The pontiff blessed the Rohingya refugees during an emotional meeting in which he held their hands and listened to their stories.

Earlier Friday, Pope Francis ordained 16 priests at a huge outdoor Mass in the Bangladeshi capital. An estimated 100,000 people attended the Mass in Dhaka’s Suhrawardy Udyan Park.

Before visiting Bangladesh, the pontiff spent four days in neighboring Myanmar, where he had been criticized by human rights activists for not specifically mentioning the Rohingya.

The Rohingya are a minority ethnic group that has been denied basic rights for decades in the majority Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which views them as immigrants from Bangladesh, despite the fact that many families have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Their situation has worsened since August, when the military launched a scorched earth campaign against Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine state in response to attacks on Myanmar police outposts on Rohingya militants.  The campaign, including reports of mass rapes and indiscriminate killings, triggered a mass exodus of more than 620,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, which the United Nations has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

The pope has denounced the treatment of the Rohingya in previous public remarks, but his advisers counseled him not to speak about the issue while in Myanmar, for fear of a backlash against the 650,000 Catholics in the country.  

Myanmar Bishop John Hsane Hgyi went even further Wednesday, casting doubt about the reported atrocities against the Rohingya, and urging critics of the Myanmar government to go to the scene “to study the reality and history” of the issue and learn the truth.  

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Wednesday that Pope Francis has not lost his “moral authority” on the issue, and suggested he may have been far more direct during his private talks with de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and powerful military chief Min Aung Hlaing.
…

Pope Francis visited a home in Dhaka founded by Mother Teresa for orphans, unwed mothers and destitute elderly on Saturday as he wrapped up his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The pope, who leaves for Rome later Saturday, was surrounded by children and nuns wearing the traditional blue-and-white habit of the woman who died in 1997 and became a saint in 2016.

Mother Teresa, who started the Missionaries of Charity to serve “the poorest of the poor,” opened the home in the early1970s to look after Bengali women who became pregnant as a result of rape by Pakistani soldiers during the war of independence.

Today the home, in one of the world’s poorest cities, looks after orphaned and abandoned children, unwed mothers and sick elderly people.

Francis, who has made outreach to the poor and other people on the margins of society a priority, visited some of the bed-ridden sick.

​Pontiff says Rohingya

Francis said he was very pleased by an inter-religious meeting Friday night, where he held an emotional encounter with Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and then used the word Rohingya for the first time on his current trip, saying they had God within them and should be respected.

Previously, in Myanmar, he followed the advice of Myanmar Church officials who said his use of the word could prompt a backlash against Christians and hurt Myanmar’s fragile path to democracy.

That had disappointed rights groups such as Amnesty International.

Predominantly Buddhist Myanmar does not recognize the stateless Rohingya as an ethnic group with its own identity.

Best relations among religions

At the Saturday morning meeting at the home founded by Mother Teresa, the pope praised Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim country where Catholics make up less than 1 percent of its around 169 million people, for having what he called some of the best inter-religious relations in the world.

As he has done in similar encounters, Francis told the priests and nuns gathered in Dhaka’s Holy Rosary Church that he was ditching the eight-page speech that he had prepared and would instead speak to them from his heart. 

“I don’t know if it will be better or worse, but I promise it will be less boring,’’ he quipped. 

And then for the next 15 minutes, Francis had the crowd in stitches, mixing paternal advice on how to tend to religious vocations (‘‘with tenderness’’) with gentle warnings about the havoc that gossip “bombs” can wreak when lobbed in closed religious life. 

History’s first Jesuit pope has frequently lamented the damage gossip can do within the church, where vows of obedience, strict hierarchies and closed communities can breed jealousies and resentment. 

The Bangladeshi edition was far more jovial in tone, and many in the pews nodded along as Francis delivered one zinger after another to make his point. It was a humor-filled end to a tense diplomatic trip.

His last event in Bangladesh will be a meeting with young people at a college founded by Catholic priests after the war of independence in the early 1970s left the new country with a dearth of places of higher education.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
…