The trial of Kurdish opposition party leader Selahattin Demirtas has started in Ankara. Demirtas is charged with terrorism and has been held for more than a year in pretrial detention. The case is drawing growing international criticism.

Supporters of the jailed Kurdish leader gathered outside Ankara’s Sincan prison, where the Kurdish leader’s trial began Thursday.  

In a 500 page indictment, Demirtas is accused of leading a terrorist organization, spreading terrorist propaganda, and inciting hate and crime.

Controversy surrounds the case over the decision to hold the trial in a prison and to allocate a court room that allows only 20 people to watch.  

Hasip Kaplan a former parliamentary deputy of Demirtas’s HDP party, speaking outside the prison, voiced anger over the handling of the hearing.

“I have one thing to say to those who had unlawfully lifted the immunity of our political leader and who now cannot even bring him to a court near the parliament, but instead try him, within barbed fences after 399 day’s of detention,” Kaplan said.

Tried in absentia

The Kurdish leader is being tried in absentia after the court denied his right to attend, insisting he use a video link from the prison in which he is being held — an option he refused. 

The trial has become a focal point of criticism over the government’s crackdown after last year’s failed coup and the introduction of emergency rule. Demirtas is widely seen as one of the most charismatic and effective political opponents to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the past year, more than 11,000 HDP officials have been detained, including dozens of elected mayors and nine parliamentary deputies. Party co-leader Figen Yuksekdag appeared in court Wednesday on similar terrorism charges. 

Rights groups criticize move

Human rights groups nationally and internationally claim there is little evidence to justify the case against Demirtas.  

Senior researcher Emma Sinclair Webb of the U.S. based Human Rights Watch says the case is alarming .

“In general, we do not see any evidence of criminal activity. It is all about his speeches, and for this he faces multi charges,” she said. “The sentence altogether when you stack up all the charges comes to around 142 years.”

Ankara also has faced heavy criticism over the Kurdish leader being held for more than a year in pre-trial detention.

But the Turkish government strongly defends the prosecution and judiciary, claiming the HDP, Turkey’s second largest opposition party, is a terrorist organization linked to Kurdish insurgent group the PKK.

Demirtas denies all charges against him. The trial has adjourned until February and the judges ruled Demirtas will remain in prison.

 
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The Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin will visit Egypt next week to discuss expanding political, economic, energy and trade ties.

During Monday’s trip the Russian leader will hold talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on issues related to stability and security in the Middle East and North Africa.

Putin’s visit follows the Russian government’s announcement last week that Moscow and Cairo have drafted an agreement for Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.

The deal comes as part of Moscow’s efforts to further expand its military foothold in the region following its military campaign in Syria.

Under Sissi, Egypt has expanded military ties with Russia and signed a slew of deals to buy Russian weapons.
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At the summit of one of Iceland’s most dangerous volcanoes, a 72-foot (22-meter) depression in the snow is the only visible sign of an alarming development.

The Oraefajokull volcano, dormant since its last eruption in 1727-1728, has seen a recent increase in seismic activity and geothermal water leakage that has worried scientists. With the snow hole on Iceland’s highest peak deepening 18 inches (45 centimeters) each day, authorities have raised the volcano’s alert safety code to yellow.

Experts at Iceland’s Meteorological Office have detected 160 earthquakes in the region in the past week alone as they step up their monitoring of the volcano. The earthquakes are mostly small but their sheer number is exceptionally high.

“Oraefajokull is one of the most dangerous volcanos in Iceland. It’s a volcano for which we need to be very careful,” said Sara Barsotti, Coordinator for Volcanic Hazards at the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

What worries scientists the most is the devastating potential impact of an eruption at Oraefajokull.

Located in southeast Iceland about 320 kilometers (200 miles) from the capital, Reykjavik, the volcano lies under the Vatnajokull glacier, the largest glacier in Europe. Its 1362 eruption was the most explosive since the island was populated, even more explosive that the eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that destroyed the city of Pompei.

Adding to the danger is the lack of historical data that could help scientists predict the volcano’s behavior.

“It’s not one of the best-known volcanos,” Barsotti said. “One of the most dangerous things is to have volcanos for which we know that there is potential for big eruptions but with not that much historical data.”

Iceland is home to 32 active volcanic sites, and its history is punctuated with eruptions, some of them catastrophic. The 1783 eruption of Laki spewed a toxic cloud over Europe, killing tens of thousands of people and sparking famine when crops failed. Some historians cite it as a contributing factor to the French Revolution.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in April 2010, prompting aviation authorities to close much of Europe’s airspace for five days out of fear that its volcanic ash could damage jet engines. Millions of travelers were stranded by the move.

To remedy the lack of data for Oraefajokull, scientists are rushing to install new equipment on and around the volcano. Those include ultra-sensitive GPS sensors that can detect even the slightest tremors, webcams for real-time imagery of the volcano and sensors in the rivers that drain the volcano’s glaciers to measure the chemical composition of the water.

Associated Press journalists last week visited scientists working near the mouth of the Kvia River, where the stench of sulfur was strong and the water was murky, clear signs that geothermal water was draining from the caldera.

“The most plausible explanation is that new magma is on the move deep below the surface,” said Magnus Gudmundsson, professor of geophysics at the Institute of Earth Sciences in Reykjavik.

But what happens next is anyone’s guess. In the most benign scenario, the phenomenon could simply cease. More concerning would be the development of a subglacial lake that could lead to massive flooding. At the far end of the spectrum of consequences would be a full eruption.

With such high-risk developments at stake, authorities are taking precautions. Police inspector Adolf Arnason now is patrolling the road around the volcano, which will be used for any evacuation, and residents have received evacuation briefings.

“Some farmers have only 20 minutes (to leave),” he said, pulling up to a small farm on the flank of the mountain.

If an evacuation is ordered, everyone in the area will receive a text message and the radio will broadcast updates. Police are confident that Oraefi’s 200 residents will know how to react, but their biggest concern is contacting tourists.

Iceland has seen a huge boom in tourism since the 2010 eruption — a record 2.4 million people are expected to visit this year and about 2,000 tourists travel through Oraefi every day. While some stay in hotels that could alert their guests, others spend the night in camper vans spread across the remote area.

“The locals know what to do. They know every plan and how to react. But the tourists, they don’t,” said Police Chief superintendent Sveinn Runarsson. “That’s our worst nightmare.”
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Opinion polls show Vladimir Putin is already a shoo-in to win a fourth presidential term. But a ban on Russia taking part in the Winter Olympics is likely to make support for him even stronger, by uniting voters around his message: The world is against us.

Putin announced on Wednesday that he would run for re-election in March’s presidential vote, setting the stage for him to extend his dominance of Russia’s political landscape into a third decade.

With ties between the Kremlin and the West at their lowest point for years, the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bar Russia from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games over doping is seen in Moscow as a humiliating and politically tinged act.

Putin, echoing his familiar refrain that his country is facing a treacherous Western campaign to hold it back, said he had “no doubt” that the IOC’s decision was “absolutely orchestrated and politically-motivated.”

“Russia will continue moving forwards, and nobody will ever be able to stop this forward movement,” Putin said.

Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the upper house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, had been among the first to cast the move as part of a Western plot against Russia, which sees sport as a barometer of geopolitical influence.

“They are targeting our national honor … our reputation … and our interests. They (the West) bought out the traitors … and orchestrated media hysteria,” Kosachyov wrote on social media.

The IOC ruling is also seen by many in Russia as a personal affront to Putin, who was re-elected president in 2012 after spending four years as prime minister because the constitution barred him from a third consecutive term as head of state.

The sport-loving leader cast his hosting of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, at which the IOC says there was “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system, as a symbol of Russia’s success under his rule.

But Putin has often extracted political benefit from crises, and turned international setbacks into domestic triumphs, by accusing the West of gunning for Russia and using this to inspire Russians to unite.

“Outside pressure on Russia, understood as politically motivated and orchestrated from the U.S., leads to more national cohesion,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said on Wednesday.

“Various sanctions are being turned into instruments of nation-building.”

Putin’s popularity, supported by state television, is already high. Opinion polls regularly give him an approval rating of around 80 percent.

But casting the IOC ban as a Western plot to hurt Russia, something he did when Russian athletes were banned from last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio over doping, could help him mobilize the electorate.

Public anger over the IOC move could help Putin overcome signs of voter apathy and ensure a high turnout which, in the tightly controlled limits of the Russian political system, is seen as conferring legitimacy.

There were early signs that fury over the IOC’s decision was duly stirring patriotic fervor.

“Russia is a superpower,” Alexander Kudrashov, a member of the Russian Military Historical Society, told Reuters on Moscow’s Red Square after the IOC ruling.

Without Russia, he said, the Olympics would not be valid. He linked the decision to a Western anti-Russian campaign which many Russians believe took hold after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

“Choosing between the people in Crimea, who wept when the Russian flag was run up and who were doomed to genocide, and sportspeople taking first place on the podium, I choose the people who couldn’t defend themselves,” Kudrashov said.

‘We soak it up and survive’

Blaming the West is an approach the Kremlin has often used before when faced with international allegations of wrongdoing — over Crimea’s annexation, the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukraine in July 2014 and charges of meddling in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists rebelled against rule from Kiev after Crimea was annexed.

The tactic taps into Russians’ patriotism and makes Putin almost bullet-proof when it comes to scandal. The 65-year-old former KGB agent is regarded by many voters as a tsar-like father-of-the-nation figure who has brought their country back from the brink of collapse.

When at the start of the year it seemed there was a window to repair relations with the West after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he wanted better ties, the narrative of Russia versus the world was muted.

But when it became clear that U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in Trump’s election precluded any rapprochement, Putin doubled down on the narrative. In October, he launched a stinging critique of U.S. policy, listing what he called the biggest betrayals in U.S.-Russia relations.

Sources close to the Russian government say the IOC ban, along with continued Western sanctions over Ukraine and the prospect of new sanctions, will help the authorities rally voters around the banner of national unity which Putin embodies.

“Outside pressure just makes us stronger,” said one such source who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, set the tone on social media in comments that found ready support from many Russians.

“What haven’t we been forced to suffer from our ‘partners’ in the course of our history,” she wrote. “But they just can’t bring us down. Not via a world war, the collapse of the Soviet Union or sanctions … We soak it up and survive.”
…

Ukraine’s general prosecutor denied on Wednesday that his office was impeding the work of a new anti-corruption body as he sought to deflect charges by Kyiv’s Western backers that Ukraine was backsliding on promises to fight graft.

The United States, the European Union and Canada have thrown financial and diplomatic support behind the leadership that took power in Kyiv after the 2014 Maidan protests ousted the Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovich.

But perceived backsliding on reform commitments has delayed billions of dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund and tested the patience of Western countries even as Kyiv pushes for closer EU integration and possible membership.

The United States and EU have homed in on concerns that vested interests are trying to undermine the independence of the anti-corruption bureau known as NABU, which was set up after the Maidan protests and has been at loggerheads with other law enforcement bodies.

One recent episode had the General Prosecutor’s office unmasking an alleged sting operation being carried out by NABU against suspected corruption in the migration service. It said NABU had overstepped the law.

General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told parliament he wanted to address issues around “the relationship between various law enforcement agencies that causes public outrage and rather harsh statements by our strategic international partners — the U.S. and the EU.”

He denied his office was at war with NABU, saying NABU officers must face the legal consequences if they commit offenses.

“Our normal cooperation does not mean that the General Prosecutor’s office can ignore signs that laws have been broken,” Lutsenko said.

Earlier Wednesday, NABU tweeted thanks to international backers for their support, posting statements released this week by the U.S. Department of State and the EU.

Questionable actions

The U.S. State Department said on Monday that recent events in Ukraine, including the disruption of a high-level corruption investigation and the arrest of NABU officials, raised concerns about its commitment to fighting corruption.

“These actions … undermine public trust and risk eroding international support for Ukraine,” a spokeswoman said.

The EU on Tuesday night urged that the work of anti-corruption institutions “must not be undermined but reinforced.”

Britain’s Ambassador to Kyiv, Judith Gough, on Wednesday cited a survey showing corruption within state bodies was the top issue for Ukrainian voters.

“Surely tackling corruption is a vote winner, rather than undermining institutions active in the fight against corruption?” she tweeted.
…

Supporters of the far right in Finland and anti-facists staged rival marches in the capital Wednesday as the country celebrated 100 years of independence.

Police in riot gear reinforced by security personnel from around the country made 10 arrests because of scattered fights and misbehavior. About 2,000 people joined the anti-facist march while demonstrations by two far-right groups also gathered up to 2,000 people, the police said.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has been on the rise in the Nordic European Union member country of 5.5 million. About 32,500 migrants and refugees arrived during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015. The number came down to 5,600 last year.

“No Nazis in Helsinki!” shouted anti-fascist demonstrators.

Far-right marchers promoted the slogan “Toward freedom,” and many carried torches. Last week, a court banned a neo-Nazi group called Nordic Resistance Movement, but it took part in a march as the decision has yet to be implemented.

Finland was part of the Russian empire and won independence during the 1917 Russian Revolution, then nearly lost it fighting the Soviet Union in World War II.
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Two men were charged Tuesday in London with terror offenses over an alleged plot to kill British Prime Minister Theresa May, according to British government officials.

Both will appear before a court Wednesday in the British capital in connection with what officials say was a conspiracy to launch a suicide-knife attack on Downing Street, the official home of the prime minister.

News of the foiled assassination plot broke shortly after the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, Andrew Parker, had briefed the cabinet on the terrorist threat and informed ministers that his service had thwarted nine terrorist attacks this year.

He informed ministers of the plot during the briefing, although the information was held back from the media for several hours.

Both of the conspirators were arrested last week in raids by counterterrorism officers in London and Birmingham, according to police officials. One of the men, named as Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, is accused of preparing acts of terrorism.

He was allegedly carrying two improvised explosive devices, which were inert, when he was arrested November 28 in London. His suspected co-conspirator was named as 21-year-old Mohammed Aqib Imran. He was seized 90 minutes later in a raid on a house in Birmingham in the English Midlands.

Imran also is accused of previously trying to secure a fake passport in a bid to reach Libya to join the Islamic State affiliate in the North African country.

According to officials, both men were plotting a bomb assault on the security gates protecting the entrance of Downing Street. Rahman then allegedly planned to storm Number Ten, wearing a suicide vest and using pepper spray and a knife, in an effort to kill Theresa May.

A Downing Street spokesman said earlier that Parker had told cabinet ministers that while Islamic State had suffered serious defeats in Iraq and Syria, “this did not mean the threat is over, rather it has spread into new areas, including trying to encourage attacks in the U.K. and elsewhere via propaganda on social media.”

Missed opportunities

The disclosures about the Downing Street plot came hours after an official report was released on last year’s Manchester bombing and other terror attacks on the British capital. According to the report undertaken by David Anderson, British security forces had missed opportunities to thwart the Manchester attack. The report confirmed that the ringleader of the London Bridge knifing spree had been under investigation by MI5.

The Anderson report revealed that the Manchester suicide bomber, British-Libyan Salman Abedi, had been flagged for closer scrutiny by the security services and that his bombing of the audience at an Ariana Grande concert in which 22 people died could have been averted “had the cards fallen differently.”

He said MI5 investigators had misinterpreted intelligence on Abedi. His case was due to be considered at a meeting scheduled for nine days after his May 2016 attack at the Manchester Arena.

But Anderson, a former terrorism law reviewer asked by the government to review the recent spate of terror attacks, concluded there is “no cause for despair.” Most terror plots continued to be foiled before they are launched, he said.

Downing Street security

Downing Street is heavily protected by fortified gates and armed police officers. Analysts say the chances of the men gaining entrance to the prime minister’s residence would have been remote.

Stringent protective measures were first put in place in the 1970s, and were tightened during the 1980s when Irish republicans launched attacks on the British mainland.

In 1991, the IRA managed to breach security, launching a homemade mortar bomb attack on Number 10. The mortars fell in the garden, but the explosions prompted officials and ministers to dive for cover.

The nearest the IRA got to killing a British prime minister was in 1984 when they targeted the hotel Margaret Thatcher and top officials were staying in for that year’s annual Conservative party conference in Brighton on Britain’s south coast. Thatcher was uninjured, but several ministers were seriously wounded in the bombing.
…

A war on food waste in France, where supermarkets are banned from throwing away unsold food and restaurants must provide doggy bags when asked, has helped it secure the top spot in a ranking of countries by their food sustainability.

Japan, Germany, Spain and Sweden rounded out the top five in an index published the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which graded 34 nations based on food waste, environment-friendly agriculture and quality nutrition.

It is “unethical and immoral” to waste resources when hundreds of millions go hungry across the world, Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said at the launch of the Food Sustainability Index 2017 on Tuesday.

“We are all responsible, every person and every country,” he said in the Italian city of Milan, according to a statement.

One third of all food produced worldwide, 1.3 billion tons per year, is wasted, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Food releases planet-warming gases as it decomposes in landfills. The food the world wastes accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the United States.

“What is really important is the vision and importance of [food sustainability] in these governments’ agendas and policies,” Irene Mia, global editorial director at the EIU, told Reuters. “It’s something that is moving up in governments’ agendas across the world.”

Global hunger levels rose last year for the first time in more than a decade, with 815 million people, more than one in 10 on the planet, going hungry.

France was the first country to introduce specific food waste legislation and loses only 1.8 percent of its total food production each year. It plans to cut this in half by 2025.

“France has taken some important and welcome steps forward including forcing supermarkets to stop throwing away perfectly edible food,” said Meadhbh Bolger, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe. “This needs to be matched at the European level with a EU-wide binding food waste reduction target.”

High-income countries performed better in the index, but the United States lagged in 21st place, dragged down by poor management of soil and fertilizer in agriculture, and excess consumption of meat, sugar and saturated fats, the study said.

The United Arab Emirates, despite having the highest income per head of the 34 countries, was ranked last, reflecting high food waste of almost 1,000 kilos per person per year, rising obesity and an agriculture sector dependent on depleting water resources, it said.
…

Turkey’s president says the New York trial of a Turkish banker is a U.S. conspiracy being staged to “blackmail” and “blemish” his country.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Tuesday in Ankara, Turkey. His comments came as the trial of Halkbank executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla continued in its second week.

Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab described criminal activities he was forced to divulge after he pleaded guilty to seven charges in October and became a government cooperator. His testimony likely will win him leniency at sentencing.

The defense says Atilla is “not corrupt.”

Erdogan says the trial is a ploy to distract Turkey while Washington hatches plans to strengthen Syrian Kurdish groups Turkey considers to be terrorists.

U.S. prosecutors say claims the trial resulted from political maneuvering are “ridiculous.”
…

Ukrainian security forces stormed Mikheil Saakashvili’s Kyiv apartment and arrested the former Odesa governor, now an adamant opponent of President Petro Poroshenko, accusing him of criminal ties with ousted ex-leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Police used tear gas or pepper spray on protesters and Saakashvili appeared on the roof of the building during the drama, shaking his fist and accusing Poroshenko of being a traitor and a thief before being dragged away by security forces.

As the events unfolded in the street, Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko alleged at a briefing that an “organized crime” group led by Yanukovych, who is in exile in Russia, have financed protests organized by Saakashvili.

Saakashvili’s detainment prompted clashes between law enforcement officers in riot gear and supporters of the former Georgian president, who urged “all Ukrainians to take to the streets and drive out the thieves.”

“Do not let lawlessness happen. Do not let chaos happen. Do not let Poroshenko and his gang continue the robbery,” he said. “Ukraine is under a real threat. These people have completely usurped power.”

Shouting and shoving matches ensued, and after police hauled Saakashvili into a blue van, supporters attempted to lie in the street to keep him from being taken away.

Hours later, more than 1,000 supporters were on the scene, along with dozens of police, and cars were wedged close together in an effort to keep the van from moving away. The street was blocked with a makeshift barricade.

The commotion began shortly after 7 a.m. and was first made public by Saakashvili associate David Sakvarelidze.

“They’re breaking down the door at Mikheil Saakashvili’s home!” he wrote on Facebook, giving the address and apartment number.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said that Saakashvili’s residence was being searched as part of a criminal inquiry conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“Investigative procedures are indeed taking place. SBU officers are providing investigative support to a criminal inquiry of the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office,” SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlyanska told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service.

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Hitlyanska did not specify the nature of the criminal inquiry, but the SBU later said Saakashvili was accused of “complicity with members of criminal organizations and concealing their activity by providing premises and by other means.”

At a news briefing, Lutsenko alleged that Saakashvili has held protests financed by allies of Yanukovych, who was pushed from power by pro-European protests in February 2014 and fled to Russia.

The prosecutor-general said the alleged Yanukovych allies included Serhiy Kurchenko, a businessman who also fled to Russia, and claimed that Saakashvili had received $500,000 in a bank transfer from Russia.

As the search unfolded, live videos shared on social media showed a chaotic and sometimes violent scene outside Saakashvili’s building, steps away from Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square — the focal point of the Euromaidan protests.

A shoving match between law enforcement agents and supporters of Saakashvili ensued as the latter tried to push their way into the apartment.

Saakashvili appeared on the roof, and officers quickly seized him and moved him away from the ledge before bringing him out of the building.

Video on Facebook showed dozens of riot police around the apartment building preventing people from entering.

Live at the Saakashvili showdown in Kyiv. Turning violent. Police using tear gas on provocative protesters. https://t.co/tg0eNGaZCU

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 5, 2017

The search of Saakashvili’s home was conducted two days after his Movement of New Forces party organized a rally in Kyiv calling for Poroshenko’s impeachment and for legislation that would allow it to take place. Poroshenko has accused the protest organizers of seeking to destabilize Ukraine, which is struggling with economic troubles and a deadly conflict with Russia-backed separatists in two eastern provinces.

Saakashvili was swept to power in Georgia’s peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003 and served as president of Georgia from 2004-13. He conducted major reforms and fought corruption in the former Soviet republic but was accused of abusing his power and is wanted in his home country on suspicion of trying to organize a coup there after leaving office, an allegation he denies.

In the wake of the Euromaidan protests that brought a pro-Western government to power in Ukraine, Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili — an acquaintance from university days — as governor of the Odesa region in 2015. Saakashvili surrendered his Georgian citizenship to take the post.

But Saakashvili resigned in November 2016, saying his reform efforts had been blocked by Poroshenko’s allies, and went into the opposition. Saakashvili was then stripped of Ukrainian citizenship by Poroshenko while he was in the United States in June 2017, a move he is challenging in court.

Weeks later, Saakashvili forced his way back into Ukraine and was found guilty of violating the state border. He paid a fine and has since been touring the country, speaking out against Poroshenko and trying to garner support for his fledgling political party, Movement of New Forces.

Saakashvili has indicated he wants to be Ukraine’s next prime minister, a post that he could theoretically hold as it is a position appointed by the president upon ratification by parliament. With his citizenship status in flux, under current law he is forbidden from officially running for president.

While well-known across Ukraine, Saakashvili and his party enjoy little public support, with nearly all polls showing putting them at around 1-2 percent.

Saakashvili recently claimed that Poroshenko was planning to force him to flee to another country to avoid extradition to Georgia.

During the rally on December 3, Saakashvili alleged in comments to Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television that Poroshenko and former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili have “agreed that a sentence on trumped-up charges will be quickly issued next week.”

Poroshenko’s office has not commented on the allegations or Saakashvili’s detention on December 5.
…

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.

 
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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.

 
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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.

 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Physical therapists can be a vital part of getting injured people back on their feet. But the therapy they recommend can sometimes be less than precise. Some new technology now being used in Italy could be a valuable tool for helping people recover from their injuries. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been greeted by hundreds of well-wishers on their first official royal visit since announcing their engagement.
Webvideo by Jon Spier.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is reacting angrily after testimony in a New York trial implicated him in an alleged multi-million-dollar scam to evade U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran. His reaction is adding to concerns Ankara is on a collision course with U.S. courts that could have financial and political repercussions.

“We have trade and energy ties with Iran. We did not breach the sanctions (on Iran). Whatever the verdict is, we did the right things,” Erdogan was reported to have said to his ruling party executives Thursday.

Mehmet Hakan Atilla, deputy head of the Turkish state-owned Halkbank, is on trial, accused of facilitating an elaborate scheme to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran. Prosecutors allege the scheme involved billions of dollars and involved senior government members.

During testimony Thursday, Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, the prosecution’s star witness who has pleaded guilty in the case, accused Erdogan and his then-finance minister, Ali Babacan, of being aware of the sanctions evasion scheme. Zafer Caglayan, a former economy minister and Erdogan ally, is also indicted in the case but remains at large.

Turkish media, which are heavily influenced by the president, have criticized the trial as being politically motivated and aimed at undermining Erdogan. Government spokesman Bekir Bozdag joined in the condemnation. “The objective of this trial is to destroy their credibility and harm them in the eyes of the Turkish public and the world. That is clear,” Bozdag said, speaking to reporters Thursday.

Such conspiracy theories play well in a country that is traditionally suspicious of the United States. “Some people in Turkey do not think the American judiciary is as independent as it’s made out to be. We’ve seen cases before where this actually proved to be the case,” notes international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University

With a combination of hostility toward the United States among the president’s supporters and a compliant media, Erdogan is widely predicted to be able to contain any political fallout from the trial.

Suspicions were heightened further by Turkish prosecutors Friday when they issued an arrest warrant for Graham Fuller, the former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, in connection with a failed coup last year.

Some analysts suggest the Turkish president might even turn the ongoing New York case to his advantage by playing the victim at the hands of a more powerful aggressor, a move that often plays well among the electorate. The financial markets, however, may not be so forgiving.

In the run-up to the trial, the Turkish lira suffered heavy declines, which could continue because of the prospect that some Turkey’s state banks could face massive fines, if convicted. Thursday’s testimony saw two other state banks implicated for sanctions evasion along with Halkbank. “If big bill penalties are prepared for several Turkish banks, that would obviously shake the Turkish financial industry,” warns Soli Ozel.

There is precedent for such fears. Several European banks have already been hit hard for Iranian sanctions violations by U.S. courts, most notably the Paris-based BNP Paribas Bank that was fined $9 billion.

Turkish state banks such as VakifBank have strongly rejected accusations of wrongdoing. “VakıfBank has always acted in compliance with laws and related legislation and shown utmost care and diligence to act in accordance with the laws and the related legislation,” read a statement released Friday.

Given the strong pushback by Erdogan and the Turkish banks, the question increasingly being asked is whether Ankara would pay any fines imposed on its banks by U.S. courts for sanctions violations. Failure to do so would raise not only political but financial consequences.

“The political risk scenario we are talking about could be something else,” warns economist Inan Demir of Nomura Bank. “It could inflict greater pain than the recent depreciation episodes that we’ve seen in Turkey. It could mean more significant tightening of the external funding conditions for Turkey. This could mean the external financing constraints turn binding on Turkey. That would have significant effects on the currency and growth,” said Demir. Underpinning Demir’s concerns is that Turkish banks and companies have to pay back around $170 billion in loans in the next 12 months.

Erdogan is also facing growing domestic pressure. The main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, on Friday produced what  it said was evidence to support their accusation the president’s close family, including one of his sons and brothers, along with members of his inner political circle, deposited more than $15 million into an offshore bank account. Erdogan has demanded that CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu produce evidence to back up the claim made Tuesday.

The government says the accusations are part of another conspiracy against the president. Erdogan Thursday repeated his charge that Kilicdarolgu and his party have committed treason and pose a threat to Turkey. The leader of the second largest parliamentary opposition pro-Kurdish HDP party, lawmaker Selahattin Demirtas, has already been in jail for more than a year on terrorism charges.

 
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German police have destroyed a suspected improvised explosive device in Potsdam, a small city on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, Berlin.

A local report said the suspicious package was delivered Friday to a pharmacy near a Christmas market. Police were called and the area was evacuated.

Brandenburg state police said they inspected the package and confirmed that it was a possible IED that was successfully defused. Reports said the package contained nails and some kind of powder.

Brandenburg state Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schroeter told reporters the powder will be analyzed. He said it is not clear whether the package was a real weapon.

Streets in the area were closed off as the 40-by-50-centimeter device was destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Police warn that there may be more such packages in the area.

The incident takes on special significance in light of last year’s deadly terror attack on a Christmas market in a wealthy shopping area of Berlin. On December 19, 2016, a hijacked truck driven by a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia went off the road and into the market held near a historic church on the Kurfurstendamm shopping avenue. The incident left 12 people dead and dozens more injured..

Security measures were in the spotlight as Berlin’s Christmas markets officially opened on Monday. A temporary memorial to the victims of last year’s attack is set to be replaced by a permanent one on December 19, at the historic Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on the site of the market that was attacked.

Potsdam, a small but historic city, is the capital of Brandenburg state. It lies about 40 kilometers southwest of Berlin.
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Turkish officials are working overtime to discredit testimony at a New York trial implicating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top officials in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme designed to help Iran skirt international sanctions.

The officials have described the proceedings as a “mockery” and “theater” aimed at overthrowing the Turkish government, even suggesting that Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, is “pulling the strings” behind the prosecution. U.S. officials and prosecutors strongly deny the allegations.

However, the trial has exacerbated the United States and Turkey’s strained relations, which have been deteriorating since a Turkish coup attempt in July 2016. Turkey has been frustrated in its attempts to extradite Gulen, a one-time friend of Erdogan whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the coup.

Center of trial

At the center of the trial is Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who was originally the most prominent of nearly a dozen people charged in the case. He could have faced up to 70 years in prison before he agreed to plead guilty to charges of money-laundering, bribery and evasion of sanctions.

Zarrab now is the prosecution’s star witness against the only defendant in custody, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the former deputy general manager of Turkey’s state-run Halkbank.

“Cooperation was the fastest way to accept responsibility and to get out of jail at once,” Zarrab told the court Monday. He testified that he continued to pay bribes even after he was jailed in the United States, paying guards for cellphones, liquor and women.

Using flowcharts to show how the deal worked, Zarrab testified Tuesday that he paid 50 million euros ($59 million) in 2012 to former Economy Minister Zafer Çaglayan as he sought to establish himself as the prime intermediary in lucrative gold-for-oil trafficking involving Turkish and Iranian banks that evaded U.N. and U.S. sanctions. He said he also paid off Mehmet Attila, a former deputy general manager at Halkbank and a co-defendant in the case.

On Wednesday, Zarrab testified that Caglayan had told him the illegal trade was approved by Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, and former Economy Minister Ali Babacan.

Criticism of case

Turkey has gone on an all-out offensive against Zarrab and the prosecutors in the case.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told Turkey’s Anatolia News Agency that the judicial process is a “plot against Turkey and President Erdogan,” saying Zarrab had become “a false witness under duress.”

“A theater is being staged in New York by the courts,” Bozdag said.

Erdogan, for his part, denied any wrongdoing at a meeting of his ruling AKP party Wednesday.

“We have energy and trade relations with Iran,” said Erdogan, who has moved his country closer to Russia and Iran in recent months. “We didn’t violate the sanctions against Iran. Whatever comes out of this trial, we always did what was right. We didn’t promise anything to the United States of America. The world doesn’t consist of America only.”

A day earlier, Erdogan angrily rejected allegations by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, that he and his relatives have used offshore bank accounts to hide ill-gotten wealth.

Talk of ‘treason’

Erdogan accused the opposition leader and his party of “treason.” “If you strike me, be prepared to be struck back,” he threatened.

Kilicdaroglu said Erdogan’s brother, son and executive assistant made transactions worth around $15 million to offshore company Bellway Limited in the tax haven Isle of Man in December 2011 and January 2012.

The Turkish government has cracked down hard on its critics and decimated what once was a free-wheeling media, jailing hundreds of journalists and opposition legislators.

The state-run media has carried virtually no coverage of the trial other than the government’s charges of unfairness. Residents instead have been getting the news through international media online.

 VOA Turkish contributed to this report.
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Germany’s president brought together Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leader of the center-left Social Democrats, Martin Schulz, on Thursday night with the aim of breaking the impasse over the formation of a new government.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the party leaders together after talks between Merkel’s conservative bloc and two smaller parties to form a previously untried coalition collapsed.

Schulz, Merkel and her Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer agreed to meet at Germany’s presidential palace to explore the possibility of forming a so-called grand coalition like the one that makes up the outgoing government.

Schultz had initially refused to consider another “grand coalition” with Merkel after a disastrous showing of the Social Democrats in the election on Sept. 24, saying the Social Democrats needed to go into opposition. But he reversed course after Steinmeier’s appeal, and said his party is now open to holding exploratory talks.

Merkel this week said she hoped to talk with the Social Democrats “in a serious, engaged, honest way and obviously with the intention of success.”

Schulz sounded more skeptical, however, saying the talks hosted by Steinmeier would be about “if and in which form” they would continue discussions and “if it even makes sense to continue to talk with one another.”

He added that his party members would have to have a final say over any agreement.

Even if the two sides do agree to continue, they’ll first have to negotiate the prerequisites for coalition talks, then carry out the coalition talks themselves, meaning it will likely be several months before a new government is formed.

If Merkel can’t put together a coalition, the only options would be a minority government or a new election.

Meanwhile, she continues to head a caretaker government made up of her conservatives and the Social Democrats.
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Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he bribed a witness to give false testimony at a trial four years ago where he eventually was acquitted of paying for sex with an underage prostitute.

The trial for the 81-year-old, four-time premier is set for February in the Tuscan city of Siena, not long before Berlusconi is set to try to reclaim control of the Italian government in new elections.

Berlusconi, leader of the center-right Forza Italia party, is accused of paying a piano player at his wild Bunga Bunga parties to lie at his trial about Berlusconi’s involvement with the prostitute, Karima El Mahroug, a 17-year-old Moroccan-born belly dancer who called herself Ruby the Heart Stealer.

Berlusconi has denied all charges in the case and maintained that the parties at his home near Milan were nothing more than elegant dinner parties.

He was originally convicted of paying to have sex with a minor and handed a seven-year prison sentence. But the verdict was overturned by an appellate court in 2014, which said there was no proof that Berlusconi knew the prostitute’s age.
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