President Emmanuel Macron says the French government itself fueled homegrown Islamic extremism by abandoning its poorest neighborhoods — and he’s promising tough and “sometimes authoritarian” new measures to combat radicalization.

Macron unveiled a multibillion-euro plan Tuesday to help France’s troubled banlieues — suburban regions where crime flourishes and job opportunities are scant, especially for minorities with origins in former French colonies.

More than 5 million people live in France’s poorest neighborhoods, where unemployment is 25 percent — well above the nearly 10 percent national average. For those under 30, the prospects are even worse — more than a third are officially unemployed.

Macron’s answer is to provide grants for poor youths to launch startups, double the funding for public housing, expand child care, improve public transport in isolated or poor neighborhoods, offer subsidies for companies that hire disadvantaged youth and hire more local police officers.

Macron’s predecessors also spent billions to try to fix the banlieues, and failed. But he’s undeterred, and says the stakes are increasingly high.

“Radicalization took root because the state checked out” and abdicated its responsibilities in impoverished neighborhoods, Macron said — leaving extremist preachers to fill the void.

Radical recruiters argued “I will take care of your children, I will take care of your parents … I will propose the help that the nation is no longer offering,” Macron said.

Several extremist attackers who have targeted France in recent years were raised in troubled French social housing. The head of domestic French intelligence agency DGSI, Laurent Nunez, said Tuesday that nearly 18,000 people in France are on radicalism watch lists, a growing number.

Macron said his government will present about 15 measures to fight radicalization and will close “unacceptable structures” that promote extremism and “try to fracture us.”

Macron spent three hours Monday talking to residents in Clichy-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb where the death of two boys fleeing police led to weeks of nationwide riots in 2005, an eruption of anger over discrimination, isolation and joblessness.

On Tuesday, he visited Tourcoing in northern France, taking selfies with residents and promoting local technology entrepreneurs.

Labeled by critics as the “president of the rich” for his business-friendly economic vision, Macron insisted Tuesday that his strategy will only succeed if companies hire minorities and the poor.

He promised measures to name and shame companies found to discriminate when hiring, to ensure help for teenagers seeking internships, and to include poor youths in French technology incubators.

Some proposals are small but significant, such as state aid to keep libraries open later, so young people have a safe place to be after dark in dangerous neighborhoods.

 
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When exactly will Britain leave the European Union?

Parliament started hours of debate Tuesday by arguing over when the two-year negotiating period for Brexit should end and whether there should be a fixed time at all.

It was just the first day of what promises to be a lengthy set of debates in Parliament on Prime Minister Theresa May’s blueprint for leaving the EU — debates that will challenge her diminished authority and could force changes to her Brexit plan.

Her absence Tuesday on another engagement suggested she was not unduly worried by the initial discussion.

But the debate’s ill-tempered tone showed the level of anger in a Parliament emboldened since May lost her Conservative Party’s majority in a June election and was forced to garner the support of a small Northern Irish party to be able to pass legislation.

With catcalls, sarcastic jokes and jeers being bandied about — not just between the two main parties, as is the custom, but often within them — some lawmakers took issue with the government’s plans to quit the EU at 11 p.m. on March 29.

One, from the opposition Labor Party, said Britain should leave the EU on March 30, 2019, preferring midnight British time to the government’s proposal to leave an hour earlier — which would be midnight in Brussels.

That was determined to be “technically deficient” by the government minister on the opposite side of the House of Commons, who said any amendment trying to move the exit date and time threatened to push Britain into “legal chaos” if the country’s statute book were not in order when it leaves.

“As a responsible government we must be ready to exit without a deal, even though we expect to conclude a deep and special partnership [with the EU],” he told Parliament.

Divisions exposed

Behind the debate is the fear of pro-Brexit lawmakers that Britain may never leave the EU, and of pro-EU lawmakers who fear that by setting any firm date, Britain will have no flexibility in talks with the bloc and might end up with no deal.

Another debate later Tuesday was to look at the interpretation of EU law.

The debates go to the heart of what parliament calls “one of the largest legislative projects ever undertaken in the UK.”

The process of transposing EU law into British law could not only reopen the divisions exposed when Britons voted in June 2016, by a 52 percent to 48 percent margin, to quit the EU, but also further undermine May’s already fragile authority.

May has lost two ministers to scandals and her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, is facing calls to resign over remarks he made about a jailed aid worker in Iran. The Sunday Times has reported that 40 Conservatives support a no-confidence vote.

The prime minister has tried to ease tensions by offering lawmakers some concessions on the bill, but still faces more divisive debates that could go against her.
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France’s domestic intelligence chief says nearly 18,000 people are on French watch lists for radicalism, a growing figure.

Laurent Nunez, head of the DGSI agency, is also warning that the Islamic State group’s retreat in the Middle East “doesn’t weaken the level of threat” or diminish the extremists’ ability to inspire violent attacks in the West via propaganda.

Speaking on RTL radio Tuesday, he said “the wish of the Islamic State group and al-Qaida to launch an attack is intact,” though the current risk to France comes from homegrown extremists instead of those who come from foreign war zones.

Nunez said that of the nearly 18,000 on watch lists, some 4,000 are under active surveillance. A number of people who have carried out attacks in France in recent years had previously been flagged for radicalism.
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Twenty-three member states of the European Union have signed a historic deal to cooperate more closely on defense. The deal – known as Permanent Structured Cooperation or PESCO – legally binds its signatories into joint defense projects and increased spending. Britain, one of the bloc’s biggest military powers, has long resisted such moves, but its departure from the bloc has persuaded other members to press ahead. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Madrid believes Russian-based groups used online social media to heavily promote Catalonia’s independence referendum last month in an attempt to destabilize Spain, Spanish ministers said Monday.

Spain’s defense and foreign ministers said they had evidence that state and private-sector Russian groups, as well as groups in Venezuela, used Twitter, Facebook and other Internet sites to massively publicize the separatist cause and swing public opinion behind it in the run-up to the Oct. 1 referendum.

Catalonia’s separatist leaders have denied that Russian interference helped them in the vote.

“What we know today is that much of this came from Russian territory,” Spanish Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal said of Russian-based internet support.

“These are groups that, public and private, are trying to influence the situation and create instability in Europe,” she told reporters at a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers in Brussels.

Asked if Madrid was certain of the accusations, Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis, also at the meeting, said: “Yes, we have proof.”

Dastis said Spain had detected false accounts on social media, half of which were traced back to Russia and another 30 percent to Venezuela, created to amplify the benefits of the separatist cause by re-publishing messages and posts.

Ramon Tremosa, the EU lawmaker for the PDeCat party of Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, repeated on Monday that Russian interference had played no part in the referendum.

“Those that say Russia is helping Catalonia are those that have helped the Russian fleet in recent years, despite the EU’s boycott,” Tremosa tweeted, referring to Spanish media reports that Spain was allowing Russian warships to refuel at its ports.

Those who voted in the referendum opted overwhelmingly for independence. But turnout was only about 43 percent as Catalans who favor remaining part of Spain mainly boycotted the ballot.

The separatist vote has plunged Spain, the eurozone’s fourth-biggest economy, into its worst constitutional crisis since its return to democracy in the 1970s.

Dastis said he had raised the issue with the Kremlin.

Moscow has repeatedly denied any such interference and accuses the West of a campaign to discredit Russia.

Information warfare?

NATO believes Moscow is involved in a deliberately ambiguous strategy of information warfare and disinformation to try to divide the West and break its unity over economic sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the U.S. election to try to help President Donald Trump defeat rival Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing emails and spreading propaganda via social media.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who attended the EU meeting in Brussels, declined to comment on Spain’s accusations, but the alliance’s top commander said last week that Russian interference was a concern.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander General Curtis Scaparotti said “Russian malign influence” was trying to sway elections and other decisions in the West, describing it as a “destabilization campaign,” although he did not directly address the Catalonia referendum.
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The next World Economic Forum of world leaders and CEOs in Davos will be chaired by women including International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and IBM’s chief executive Ginni Rometty.

The seven co-chairs for the four-day event in January were announced in the face of criticism that the conference has in the past lacked female representation.

“Co-chairs… were chosen to reflect global stakeholders,” said a spokeswoman for WEF, adding the co-chairs were all leaders in their fields.

The co-chairs shape the program and lead discussions and panels. The theme of the 48th conference is to “explore the root causes of, and pragmatic solutions for, the manifold political, economic and social fractures facing global society,” WEF said.

WEF, in an annual report this month, found it will take another 217 years before women earn as much as men and have equal representation in the workplace, revealing an economic gap of 58 percent.

It is the second straight year the Swiss non-profit has recorded worsening economic inequality.

A typical representative of the more than 2,500 titans of industry and influence that each January descend upon the Alps has received the unofficial moniker of “Davos Man” — a sign of the further shift in representation and thinking still necessary to balance uneven gender dynamics.

Other co-chairs are Isabelle Kocher, head of French energy conglomerate Engie; Italian physicist and director general of the CERN particle physics research centre Fabiola

Gianotti; founder of the rural cooperative Mann Deshi Bank for women, Chetna Sinha; and International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Next year’s event will take place January 23-26, 2018.

 
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The United States is participating in the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP-23) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement it will be leaving the Paris Climate Accords.

The State Department says a U.S. delegation is participating in the conference in Bonn, Germany.

A State Department statement Monday said, “The United States remains a Party in good standing to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and is participating in ongoing negotiations under the Framework Convention as well as the Paris Agreement, in order to ensure a level playing field that benefits and protects U.S. interests.”

The president announced in June the United States will leave the Paris climate agreement, which would obligate the United States to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels.

Trump, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt have all questioned how much human activity has contributed to climate change.
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Irish musician and anti-poverty activist Bob Geldof returned his “Freedom of the City of Dublin” award to his hometown Monday, saying he cannot hold an honor also given to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi.

“I am a very proud Dubliner but cannot in all conscience continue to be one of the honored few to have received this great tribute whilst Aung San Suu Kyi remains amongst that number,” Geldof said in a statement.

“In short, I do not wish to be associated in any way with an individual currently engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people of North West Burma.”

Geldof is best known for organizing the 1985 “Live Aid” concert – reported to have been the biggest concert in the world, boasting multiple locations, and raising more than $104 million to combat hunger in Ethiopia.

Aung San Suu Kyi – a Nobel laureate – has come under fire internationally for failing to address what the U.N. has described as ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority Rohingya. More than half a million Rohingya have fled across the border to Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar.

Fellow Nobel laureates, including the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, have also spoken out and called on her to say something to condemn the violence.

Aung San Suu Kyi initially maintained there had been “a huge iceberg of misinformation” about the plight of the Rohingya. She recently visited conflict-wracked northern Rakhine state, having come under pressure to halt a military crackdown. The operations were launched in response to attacks by Rohingya militants.
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Two former U.S. intelligence officials slammed President Trump Sunday for saying believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin “feels that he and Russia did not meddle” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Former CIA director John Brennan, in an appearance on CNN with James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said Trump’s initial indication that he believed Putin shows “that Donald Trump can be played by foreign leaders who are going to appeal to his ego and try to play upon his insecurities, which is very, very worrisome from a national security standpoint.”

Clapper said Russia poses and obvious threat to the U.S., and to suggest otherwise “poses a peril to this country.”

Trump was asked Saturday whether the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election came up in conversations with Putin in Vietnam where the two leaders attended an Asia-Pacific summit. Trump replied, “He said he didn’t meddle, he said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times.”

Trump went on to say, “That whole thing was set up by the Democrats” – slamming former United States intelligence leaders, including Brennan and Clapper.  

“They’re political hacks. So you look at it, and then you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have [James] Comey. Comey’s proven now to be a liar and he’s proven to be a leaker,” he said, referring to the FBI’s former director, who was fired early in Trump’s presidency amid much controversy.

“So you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that,” Trump said.

Taking issue

Trump’s remarks brought immediate criticism on Saturday.

In a statement, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a frequent critic of the president from his own party, said, “There’s nothing ‘America First’ about taking the word of a KGB colonel over that of the American intelligence community. … Vladimir Putin does not have America’s interests at heart. To believe otherwise is not only naive but also places our national security at risk.”

But Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Saturday the president understands the truth about Russian interference, and is simply choosing to “accept” Putin’s denials “over the solid evidence of our own intelligence agencies.” 

“He understands all this and more. He just doesn’t understand how to put country over self. Or to put it in terms he is more familiar with – Mr. Trump simply can’t bring himself to put America first,” Schiff said in a statement.

And Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) tweeted Saturday, “So my question is: which is the position of the U.S. government? POTUS or CIA?”

Hayden then tweeted, “CIA just told me: The Dir stands by and has always stood by the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment entitled: Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections. The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed.”

On Sunday, President Trump clarified that he meant Putin was sincere when denying that Russia did not meddle in the election.

“As to whether I believe it, I’m with our agencies,” Trump said. “As currently led by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies.”

Cooperation with Russia

Trump also reiterated his stance Sunday that “having Russians in a friendly posture, as opposed to always fighting with them, is an asset to the world and an asset to our country, not a liability.”

Earlier Sunday, on his Twitter account, the president wrote: “Does the Fake News Media remember when Crooked Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was begging Russia to be our friend with the misspelled reset button.  Obama tried also, but he had zero chemistry with Putin.”

Trump told reporters on Air Force One as it flew from Danang to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi Saturday that a joint statement on Syria he agreed to issue with Putin is “going to save a tremendous number of lives.”

The statement, first released by the Kremlin, says the two leaders “confirmed the importance of de-escalation areas as an interim step to reduce violence in Syria, enforce cease-fire agreements, facilitate unhindered humanitarian access, and set the conditions for the ultimate political solution to the conflict.”

It also says that Putin and Trump “agreed to maintain open military channels of communication between military professionals to help ensure the safety of both U.S. and Russian forces and de-confliction of partnered forces engaged in the fight against ISIS.”

‘A very good relationship’

Putin told reporters in Danang Saturday the joint statement is one of extraordinary importance, confirming the principles of the fight against terrorism.

Trump said of the Russian leader “we seem to have a very good feeling for each other, a good relationship considering we don’t know each other well. I think it’s a very good relationship.”

Trump also said the United States could be helped a lot by Russia on the North Korean nuclear issue.

“You know, you are talking about millions and millions of lives. This isn’t baby stuff, this is the real deal. And if Russia helped us in addition to China, that problem would go away a lot faster.”

But Trump said, concerning the North Korea nuclear and ballistic missile issue, “I did not speak to President Putin about it, because we just had these little segments where we were talking about Syria.”

Putin, in his remarks to the media, said, “We discussed all we wanted” at the APEC Summit, but unfortunately there was little time to speak in detail. He added that it would be good for Russian and American teams to sit down to talk about the whole breadth of the bilateral relationship.

Putin described Trump as a comfortable person, educated, and said he and the U.S. president were highly civil in their interactions.

RT retribution

The Russian leader warned, however, that action is likely to be taken against U.S. media in response to an American requirement that Russia’s RT media outlet register as a foreign agent in the United States.

Putin termed it an attack on free speech by the U.S. government, and he warned retaliatory measures will be proportionate and reciprocal.

CNN, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America have been mentioned by Russian officials and media reports as the most likely targets of the retaliation.

VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin and VOA House Correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.

 
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Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives has fallen to the lowest level in more than six years, according to a poll on Sunday, as they prepare for more talks on a coalition deal with the environmentalist Greens and a pro-business party.

The weekly Emnid survey for Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed only 30 percent would vote for Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc if there were a federal election this Sunday, down 1 percentage point.

This is the lowest reading for the conservatives in this survey since October 2011 and marks a slump in support since the Sept. 24 election, in which Merkel’s bloc won 32.9 percent.

Merkel’s conservatives, who bled support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the election, are trying to forge a three-way coalition government with Greens and the pro-market Free Democrats (FDP) – an alliance untested at the national level.

At a meeting later on Sunday party leaders are expected to discuss progress made so far in exploratory talks and try to overcome their remaining differences over climate, immigration and euro zone policy.

The meeting is due to start at 1500 GMT in Berlin and no statements are planned after the talks.

While politicians from the CDU/CSU and the FDP have cited progress after three weeks of exploratory talks, senior Greens voiced frustration and stepped up the pressure on Merkel.

“We see no goodwill at all on Europe, foreign and domestic policy, on affordable housing and good working conditions, on transport and agriculture transition,” Greens co-leader Cem Ozdemir told Bild am Sonntag.

Touching on one of the thorniest issues, Merkel said on Saturday that Germany should lead the fight against climate change and cut emissions without destroying industrial jobs.

Merkel’s comments, made in her weekly podcast in the middle of talks on limiting global warming attended by about 200 nations in the western German city of Bonn, highlighted the dilemma facing the center-right leader in the negotiations.

While the CUD/CSU and the FDP want to spare companies from additional burdens, the Greens want to spell out which measures the next government will implement for Germany to reach its 2020 goal of lowering emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels.

Due to strong economic growth and higher-than-expected immigration, Germany is at risk of missing its emissions target without any additional measures.

Merkel wants to have an agreement in principle by Nov. 16 on moving ahead to formal coalition negotiations to form a black-yellow-green government – also dubbed a “Jamaica coalition” because the parties’ colors match those of that country’s flag.

With less than a week to go, the exploratory coalition talks are not only complicated by the differences between the parties, but also by splits within the political parties themselves e€“ especially within the conservatives and Greens.

A breakdown of the talks could mean fresh elections in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, since the Social Democrats (SPD) – the second biggest party – have made clear they have no appetite for joining another ‘grand coalition’ under Merkel.
…

The Kremlin said on Sunday that inflexibility on the part of the United States was to blame for the lack of a bilateral meeting between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump during a summit in Vietnam.

Trump and Putin met briefly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam on Saturday and agreed on a joint statement supporting a political solution for Syria, but did not hold substantive bilateral talks.

“Unfortunately the American side did not offer any alternatives despite all efforts of our Russian colleagues.

There was only one time offered that was convenient for the American side, and only one place offered, which had already been rented by the Americans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.

“The Americans showed no flexibility, and unfortunately did not offer any other alternative proposals. That is why the meeting could not happen,” Peskov added.

Putin himself said on Saturday the lack of a bilateral meeting with Trump in Vietnam was due to both leaders’ schedules and protocol obstacles that their teams had been unable to overcome.

Allegations that Trump’s election campaign colluded with Moscow last year to turn voters away from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton have hampered the president’s efforts to improve frosty U.S.-Russian relations.

Putin renewed his denial of the allegations during his brief meeting with Trump on Saturday. Trump has previously said the accusations of collusion were a hoax.
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Iran’s nuclear deal is “not negotiable,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bassam Ghassemi said Saturday in response to remarks by the French president.

Emmanuel Macron called for vigilance toward Tehran over its ballistic missile program and regional activities, in an interview published Wednesday by the Emirati daily Al-Ittihad.

“We have told French leaders on several occasions that the Iran nuclear deal is not negotiable and that no other issues can be included in the text” of the 2015 agreement, state news agency IRNA quoted Ghassemi as saying.

France, the Foreign Ministry speaker said, is “fully aware of our country’s intangible position concerning the issue of Iran’s defensive affairs, which are not negotiable.”

In the interview with Al-Ittihad, published during Macron’s 24-hour visit to Abu Dhabi, the French president said: “It is important to remain firm with Iran over its regional activities and its ballistic program.”

Macron also said there was no immediate alternative to the Iranian nuclear deal — long lambasted by U.S. President Donald Trump — which curbs Iran’s nuclear program.

France has been trying to salvage the 2015 nuclear, which Iran signed with six world powers — Britain, China, Germany, France, Russia and the United States.

On October 13, Macron told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a phone call that France remained committed to the deal.

But the French leader stressed it was also necessary to have a dialogue with Iran on other strategic issues, including Tehran’s ballistic missile program and regional security, a proposal ruled out by Iran.

Macron’s visit this week to Abu Dhabi came amid renewed tensions between regional arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s nuclear deal saw sanctions imposed on Tehran lifted in exchange for limits on its atomic program.
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Spanish authorities said they rescued 251 migrants, including children, on Saturday who were making the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

The people were saved “from five improvised vessels, all in the Alboran Sea,” Spain’s maritime safety authorities said on Twitter, referring to the westernmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea.

The number of migrants arriving by sea on Spanish shores has soared over last year, with the figure nearly tripling to 15,585 in 2017 by November 8, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Many Africans undertaking the long route to Europe are choosing to avoid crossing danger-ridden Libya to get to Italy along the so-called central Mediterranean route, and choosing instead to get there via Morocco and Spain.

However, Spain is still well behind Italy, which has recorded 114,400 arrivals by sea since since the start of the year.

Since January, nearly 15,600 migrants have made it to Spain by sea, with 156 dying during the crossing, according to the IOM.

The agency estimates that 155,850 migrants have made the dangerous crossing to Europe this year and another 2,961 died or went missing while trying.
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Carrying Polish flags and throwing red smoke bombs, tens of thousands of people on Saturday joined a march in Warsaw organized by far-right nationalists to mark independence day, while counterprotesters rallied against fascism.

The annual march also attracted a considerable number of supporters of the governing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party to honor the re-establishment of Poland’s independence in 1918.

This year’s slogan was “We Want God,” which 21-year-old Pawel from the southern city of Rzeszow said was “important because religion is important in our country and we don’t want Islamization, of Europe or especially Poland.”

Those marching chanted “God, honor, country” and “Glory to our heroes,” while a few people also shouted xenophobic lines like “Pure Poland, white Poland” and “Refugees, get out.”

A smaller rally of a couple thousand people earlier in the day protested what they called the “fascist” nature of the main march.

“I’m shocked that they’re allowed to demonstrate on this day. It’s 50,000 to100,000 mostly football hooligans hijacking patriotism,” said Briton Andy Eddles, 50, a language teacher who has been living in Poland for 27 years.

“For me it’s important to support the anti-fascist coalition, and to support fellow democrats, who are under pressure in Poland today,” he told AFP.

Main march participant Kamil Staszalek, however, warned against making generalizations and said he was marching to “honor the memory of those who fought for Poland’s freedom.”

“I for one don’t identify with fascists. The same goes for other people — and there are families with children here, too,” said Staszalek, 30, a Warsaw office worker.

“I’d say some people here do have extreme views, maybe even 30 percent of those marching, but 70 percent are simply walking peacefully, without shouting any fascist slogans,” he told AFP.

No monopoly on patriotism

Polish President Andrzej Duda hosted an official ceremony to mark 99 years since Poland regained independence after being wiped off the map for 123 years in a three-way carve-up between Tsarist Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Duda invites all living former Polish presidents and premiers to attend each year, and Saturday marked the first time since the PiS party came to power in 2015 that EU President Donald Tusk — a former Polish premier and PiS rival — decided to attend.

“Independence Day has always been and will continue to be a celebration of all Poles and not just one party. No politician in Poland has ever had nor will ever have a monopoly on patriotism,” Tusk told reporters upon arriving at Warsaw’s Chopin airport.

Tusk’s appearance came at a time when Warsaw has been increasingly at odds with Brussels because of the PiS government’s controversial court reforms, large-scale logging in a primeval forest and refusal to welcome migrants.

Relations between PiS and Tusk have been so tense that Poland was the only country to vote against his re-election as EU president in March.

Warsaw business owner Wojciech Krol, who attended the anti-fascist rally with a huge Polish flag, said he was a Tusk opponent for a long time but was now happy with his work in the European Union and glad that he returned to Poland on Saturday.

“I’m really happy he came. What we want most here is as much Europe as possible, because right now it is only global pressure, and specifically EU pressure, that has stopped us all from being arrested, beaten, harassed and so on,” Krol, 55, told AFP.
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President Vladimir Putin is promising that Russia will retaliate for what he calls attacks on Russian media in the United States.

Putin’s comments at a news conference Saturday in Vietnam follow complaints by the Kremlin-funded RT satellite TV channel that the U.S. Justice Department has ordered it to register as a foreign agent by Monday.

Putin says “attacking our media in the United States is an attack on freedom of speech, without any doubt,” and promised to retaliate.

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said the station would register, since otherwise its American director could be arrested and its accounts frozen. She says “we categorically disagree with this requirement” and vowed to sue. She says “this requirement is discriminatory, it contradicts both the principles of democracy and freedom of speech.”
…

For Sherpa, a scrappy French monitoring group that is thinly staffed, no multinational is too powerful, and no head of state untouchable as it seeks economic and social change through the courts.

It accuses a major bank of complicity in Rwanda’s genocide and a cement manufacturer of helping to finance terrorism in Syria. It has gone after African leaders, mining companies and even a supermarket chain for activities that allegedly impoverish communities and violate human rights.

“I think we are the demonstration that small is beautiful,” Sherpa’s founder, lawyer William Bourdon, said in his Paris office.

Sherpa teamed up with fellow anti-corruption group Transparency International France to score a major win in late October, when a French court handed a suspended prison sentence to Equatorial Guinea’s vice president, Teodorin Obiang.

The playboy son of the country’s longtime leader, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the younger Obiang was found guilty of using public funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle in France, including a 101-room Paris mansion and a fleet of luxury cars. He is appealing the verdict, delivered after a decade-old campaign by Sherpa and fellow nongovernmental groups to bring him to justice.

“It’s a new wind,” Bourdon said of the verdict. “What was considered absolutely unrealistic 10 or 15 years ago is now considered possible.”

Families of two African heads of state — Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Gabon’s deceased leader Omar Bongo — also face corruption investigations in France as part of a larger probe of “ill-gotten gains.”

Broader change

Observers say the Obiang sentencing reflects a broader change in France, long accused of turning a blind eye to lavish property snapped up by African dictators and their families — and of maintaining a tangle of shadowy business and political ties with former colonies, dubbed France-Afrique.

“Teodorin is somebody who seems to be completely immune to any sort of pressure,” Human Rights Watch researcher Sarah Saadoun said of Obiang, whose opulent lifestyle sharply contrasted with the grinding poverty in his country. “Here is a case where France was able to pierce this impunity by seizing some of his assets. It’s a tremendous victory in a context where it’s very hard to have victories.”

Also groundbreaking is new French due diligence legislation that went into effect this year, forcing multinational corporations to address the impact of their actions on people and the planet. Criticized by France’s MEDEF employers group and some conservative politicians and hailed by anti-corruption groups, it is considered by some as a model for other European countries.

“It marks a huge change in French law,” said Ken Hurwitz, senior legal anti-corruption officer for the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative, one of Sherpa’s funders, “because it gives standing to civil society organizations focused on anti-corruption to actually bring a civil party case.”

Finding legal bases

The legislation could help buttress Sherpa’s arguments as it goes after powerful companies.

“We have to be creative to find a legal basis” to link French multinationals to abuses allegedly committed thousands of kilometers away, said Sherpa’s litigation head, Marie-Laure Guislain. “The violations of human rights must also be really clear, like environmental damage or working conditions. And they must be very big, to affect communities as a whole.”

While some nongovernmental organizations use “name and shame” tactics against corrupt companies and wrongdoers, Sherpa’s team of lawyers and jurists, many working pro bono, argue legal tools are more sustainable.

” ‘Name and shame’ works sometimes, but not always,” Guislain said. “What we have seen so far is they are really only willing to change their practices before justice.”

In June, Sherpa and two other groups filed a complaint against BNP Paribas, alleging the French banking giant knowingly approved a $1.3 million transfer that helped arm Hutu fighters during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Judges are now looking into the allegations against BNP, along with those against Swiss-French company LafargeHolcim, which Sherpa alleges made payments through intermediaries to the Islamic State group to keep its Syria plant open.

Lafarge said that an internal investigation had found “significant” errors of judgment and that it had taken measures to correct them, although it could not source who exactly received the payments; BNP did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Not surprisingly, Sherpa has attracted its share of critics, and founder Bourdon said he had faced numerous threats.

Close aides to Mauritania’s president also reportedly plan to file defamation charges against the NGO in Paris, following an October report highlighting alleged corruption in the West African state, according to magazine Jeune Afrique.

All about attention, money

Other critics argue Sherpa’s attacks are easily and unfairly destroying the reputation of large and vulnerable companies for the sake of media attention and funds.

“They file a complaint and their objective is met,” said Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, lawyer for French construction company Vinci, which sued Sherpa over its Qatar worker abuse claims. “The bigger the company, the bigger the media interest.”

Sherpa claims the contrary — that it is tilting against vastly more powerful and richer adversaries — and says that defamation suits with mounting compensation claims are attempts to silence it and other critics.

“It’s a whole strategy of intimidating NGOs,” said litigation head Guislain. “We’re lucky that we’re French lawyers, but our partners are terrified when they are attacked in French courts.”
…

The presidents of the U.S. and Russia have approved a joint statement on Syria, agreeing that “there is no military solution to the conflict.”

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin approved the statement on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam. Russian officials said Putin and Trump had a conversation before the group photo ceremony for APEC leaders in Danang.

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the Kremlin announcement or the conversation the Kremlin said took place. 

In the statement the two world leaders repeated the urgency of destroying the Islamic State and agreed “to maintain open military channels of communication between military professionals to help ensure the safety of both U.S. and Russian forces,” as well as to prevent dangerous incidents involving the forces of allies fighting the Islamic State.

Trump and Putin confirmed their commitment to Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and also called on the parties involved in the Syrian conflict to use the Geneva process to find a resolution.

The statement was released by the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, which said the document had been drafted by experts from Russia and the United States and coordinated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Television pictures from Danang showed Putin and Trump chatting — apparently amicably — as they walked to the position where the traditional APEC summit photo was being taken at a viewpoint looking over the South China Sea.

Earlier pictures from the meeting show Trump walking up to Putin as he sits at the summit table and patting him on the back. The two lean in to speak to each other and clasp each other briefly as they exchange a few words.

Although the White House had said no official meeting was planned, the two also shook hands at a dinner Friday evening.

Reuters contributed to this report.
…

Turkey’s increasingly fractious relations with some key Western allies are taking a growing financial toll amid investor concerns, analysts warn.

Although the lira surged Monday on news that Turkey and the United States had resolved a dispute over the detention of some of Washington’s local employees in Turkey, the currency plummeted Tuesday following apparently contradictory statements by both sides.

The currency gyrations linked to diplomatic tensions are increasingly becoming the norm. In the space of a couple of months, Turkey’s lira fell sharply on news that a reporter working for a U.S. newspaper was convicted in absentia on terrorism charges. Additionally, the currency dropped in value amid reports that Berlin planned to sanction Ankara in the case of 11 Germans detained following a coup attempt in Turkey last year and a resulting crackdown. The tensions have led to the lira approaching record lows.

Foreign investors, attracted by relatively high Turkish interest rates offering rare lucrative returns, had until now been largely indifferent to Ankara’s diplomatic and political woes. With growing concerns, however, that Turkey’s central bank is not doing enough to contain surging inflation running at a nine-year high, political risk is entering into investors’ equations.

“From the investors’ perspective, the real [interest] rates are not only inadequate to contain domestic demand pressures, but they are also inadequate to compensate for the elevated political risk premium,” warns economist Inan Demir of Nomura Bank.

Demir says international investors’ concerns over diplomatic tensions are heightened by the fear they could now have direct financial implications for Turkey.

“It’s more customary to talk about the EU tensions and talk about it in the same breath a German veto on large financing deals for Turkey from multilateral institutions,” Demir said. 

The ongoing crackdown following last year’s attempted coup resulted in the detention of several German nationals along with a number of U.S. citizens, including a pastor, Andrew Brunson.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, in a statement after meeting Thursday in Washington with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, expressed “deep concern over the arrests of American citizens, our Mission Turkey local staff, journalists, and members of civil society under the state of emergency.”

Reliance on foreign credit

The Turkish economy depends heavily on overseas borrowing. Over the next 12 months, Turkey needs to renew $170 billion in loans. The current account deficit, the difference between what it imports and exports, has surged this year to more than $40 billion, an increase from 3 percent to 5 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP. Analysts warn this will likely put further pressure on the lira.

That pressure is predicted to leave the country financially vulnerable when it comes to political uncertainties.

“The possibility of political shocks, leaving the currency alone, is almost nil,” warned political consulate Atilla Yesilada of the New York-based Global Source Partners.

“Given Turkey’s reliance on foreign credit, prolonged political pressure on global banks to reduce exposure or more bad news about potential sanctions on Ankara could have a chilling effect,” Yesilada said.

Alleged sanctions violations

The trial in New York of a Turkish Iranian businessman, Reza Zarrab, and a senior Turkish State Halkbank executive, Mehmet Atilla, accused of Iranian sanctions violations also is looming large over Turkey.

“If the guilt or the wrongdoing of the Turkish public bank, whose vice president is in jail, is proven in court, it will have severe repercussions on Turkey’s financial system,” warned international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

“There were some unconfirmed reports about a big bill of penalties prepared for several Turkish banks and that would obviously shake Turkey’s financial sector and Turkey’s economy seriously, which relies on cheap credit in order to run its affairs. The repercussion for the Turkish economy and, therefore, Turkey’s political stability and the grip of the president on the country can be very serious,” Ozel added.

In the next two years, Turkey is due to hold presidential and general elections. With President Recep Tayyip Erdogan predicted to face a closely fought election, he is widely seen as increasingly using anti-Western rhetoric to secure nationalist voters. Analysts warn any financial turmoil triggered by international sanctions or fines on Turkish banks is likely to see Erdogan further ratcheting up his nationalist rhetoric, which could further unnerve foreign investors.

“There is that risk the political tensions will escalate and in a manner to affect the external financing outlook for Turkey, and the resulting market pressure would lead Turkey to adopt an even more uncompromising stance, and that intensifies pressures on the market even further,” said economist Demir.

Demir warns such a vicious cycle poses the danger of a fundamental change in foreign investors’ lending attitudes toward Turkey and with it considerable risks to its currency. “The scenario where Turkey is facing an external funding shock because of political tensions could easily deliver a depreciation well in excess of the level of 20 to 25 percent levels.”
…

From Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to Formula One racing champion Lewis Hamilton — the leak of more than 14 million documents from firms involved in offshore finance, known as the Paradise Papers, has engulfed some of the world’s most famous names.

The latest revelations show U2 frontman Bono used a company based in low-tax Malta to invest in a shopping mall in Lithuania. The Irish band, well known for its campaigning against poverty, has faced past criticism for its tax arrangements. There’s no suggestion that Bono acted illegally.

But campaigners against poverty say sheltering profits in secretive tax havens is depriving the public.

“This is money that’s lost to healthcare, to education, vital public services,” says Murray Worthy of Global Witness.

Europe wants to blacklist jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate on tax transparency. After a meeting of finance ministers this week, French representative Bruno Le Maire said the threat must be credible.

“If states do not stick to their commitments we have to put sanctions on those states,” he said Thursday.

Many of the world’s wealthy shelter their money in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, which operate autonomously and have their own rules on tax and company law. British Prime Minister Theresa May said the government is demanding more openness. “We want people to pay the tax that is due,” she told business leaders this week.

Campaigners question that commitment, especially as economic uncertainty grows after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

“Since the Brexit vote here in the United Kingdom, the government has been far less assertive with British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies,” said Duncan Hames of Transparency International.

The group has just released the details of an investigation into how lax rules and enforcement on company ownership in Britain are exploited to launder illicit wealth. Hames says just six people are employed to police the ownership of the country’s 4 million registered companies.

“We looked at just over 50 known corruption and money-laundering schemes. And we found over 750 U.K. companies at the very heart of those schemes, which themselves amounted to some $80 billion.”

Forty-four of the companies identified in the investigation were officially registered at one mailbox — number 11, at 43 Bedford Street in central London.

The property is owned by a franchise of the firm Mail Boxes Etc. No allegations of corruption or money laundering are made against the owners — who told VOA they carry out due diligence and follow all U.K. laws. But mailbox forwarding services are a major weakness in the system, argues Hames.

“That has resulted in what we call ‘company factories’ — single locations where there are thousands upon thousands of companies registered. Not locations where there is any meaningful head office activity taking place. Half of the companies we found involved in these corruption and money-laundering schemes were registered at just eight addresses,” said Hames.

An estimated $100 billion of illicit wealth passes through London every year. Campaigners say British laws on company ownership urgently need tightening up.

 
…

Three Chinese students were injured Friday when a man deliberately ran over them with his car near the city of Toulouse, France, police said.

The French news channel BFM reports the driver, who was immediately arrested, was known to authorities for previous crimes but was not on a list of known extremists.

One police source told the French news agency the driver “deliberately” tried to ram the students with his car, one of whom is in serious condition.

All three of the victims, one woman and two men, are said to be in their early 20s.

France has experienced a rash of vehicular terror attacks inspired by the Islamic State group, but there has been no immediate confirmation of the driver’s identity or motive.

Last summer, a Tunisian man used a large truck to kill 86 people in the southern French city of Nice.

 
…

Pope John Paul I, the shortest-lived pope in modern history, has moved a step closer to sainthood.

The Vatican said Thursday that Pope Francis has recognized the “heroic virtues” of John Paul I, who reigned for only 33 days before his sudden death in 1978.

His death fueled conspiracy theories that the former Cardinal Albino Luciani was murdered as part of a plot involving the Vatican bank, or perhaps committed suicide.

The move comes just days after the publication of a book that debunks the conspiracy theories. Pope Luciani: Chronicle of a Death, written by journalist Stefania Falasca, concludes that the man dubbed the “smiling Pope” died of a heart attack at age 65.

Falasca was involved in his beatification cause and had access to confidential Vatican documents, including the pope’s medical file.

Before John Paul I can be beatified, though, the Vatican still must confirm a miracle attributed to his intercession, and also a second miracle, before he can be made a saint.
…

Lithuania said a growing rift between some eastern and western European Union states over issues such as migration posed a threat to the bloc at a time of increased Russian military assertiveness.

Frictions between ex-communist states in Europe’s East and the wealthier West have increased since the 2015 migration crisis and Britain’s decision to leave the bloc, as leaders try to quell popular disenchantment with the EU.

Nationalist politicians in Poland and Hungary have called for sweeping reform to bring more power back to member states at the expense of Brussels bureaucracy and refused to take part in efforts to relocate migrants from the Middle East.

“I believe it’s a worry,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told Reuters on the sidelines of a security conference in Warsaw, when asked about Polish and Hungarian assertiveness within the EU.

“We would like to see more cohesion,” he said. “I know who is gaining. Those who are not happy with our cohesion,” Linkevicius said, adding that he was referring to Russia. “We are taking it very seriously not to help those who would like to divide East and West.”

Lithuania, alongside Poland, has been particularly worried about Russia since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

NATO has sought to reassure allies in the region by sending troops to the Baltics, Poland and the Black Sea, setting up a network of NATO outposts, holding more exercises and preparing a rapid response force.

Some western officials have expressed concern that parts of the Baltic states, which have large ethnic Russian minorities, could be seized by Moscow, much as Russia took control of Crimea.

Linkevicius said good relations with EU powerhouses Germany and France within the EU were crucial because of their ability to help militarily.

Poland, in particular, has seen ties with Paris and Berlin deteriorate since 2015, when the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party took power, over issues such as military procurement, wartime reparations and the EU’s single market rules.

Reporting by Justyna Pawlak; editing by Ralph Boulton.
…

Disguised Russian agents on Twitter rushed to deflect scandalous news about Donald Trump just before last year’s presidential election while straining to refocus criticism on the mainstream media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to an Associated Press analysis of since-deleted accounts.

Tweets by Russia-backed accounts such as “America_1st_” and “BatonRougeVoice” on October 7, 2016, actively pivoted away from news of an audio recording in which Trump made crude comments about groping women, and instead touted damaging emails hacked from Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.

Since early this year, the extent of Russian intrusion to help Trump and hurt Clinton in the election has been the subject of both congressional scrutiny and a criminal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. In particular, those investigations are looking into the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

AP’s analysis illuminates the obvious strategy behind the Russian cyber meddling: swiftly react, distort and distract attention from any negative Trump news.

The AP examined 36,210 tweets from Aug. 31, 2015, to Nov. 10, 2016, posted by 382 of the Russian accounts that Twitter shared with congressional investigators last week. Twitter deactivated the accounts, deleting the tweets and making them inaccessible on the internet. But a limited selection of the accounts’ Twitter activity was retrieved by matching account handles against an archive obtained by AP.

“MSM [the mainstream media] is at it again with Billy Bush recording … What about telling Americans how Hillary defended a rapist and later laughed at his victim?” tweeted the America_1st_ account, which had 25,045 followers at its peak, according to metadata in the archive. The tweet went out the afternoon of Oct. 7, just hours after The Washington Post broke the story about Trump’s comments to Bush, then host of Access Hollywood, about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, saying, “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Within an hour of the Post’s story, WikiLeaks unleashed its own bombshell about hacked email from Podesta’s account, a release the Russian accounts had been foreshadowing for days.

“WikiLeaks’ [founder Julian] Assange signals release of documents before U.S. election,” tweeted both “SpecialAffair” and “ScreamyMonkey” within a second of each other on Oct. 4. “SpecialAffair,” an account describing itself as a “Political junkie in action,” had 11,255 followers at the time. “ScreamyMonkey,” self-described as a “First frontier.News aggregator,” had 13,224. Both accounts were created within three days of each other in late December 2014.

Twitter handed over the handles of 2,752 accounts it identified as coming from Russia’s Internet Research Agency to congressional investigators ahead of the social media giant’s Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 appearances on Capitol Hill. It said 9 percent of the tweets were election-related but didn’t make the tweets themselves public.

That makes the archive the AP obtained the most comprehensive historical picture so far of Russian activity on Twitter in the crucial run-up to the Nov. 8, 2016, vote. Twitter policy requires developers who archive its material to delete tweets from suspended accounts as soon as reasonably possible, unless doing so would violate the law or Twitter grants an exception. It’s possible the existence of the deleted tweets in the archive obtained by the AP runs afoul of those rules.

Earlier activity

The Russian accounts didn’t just spring into action at the last minute. They were similarly active at earlier points in the campaign.

When Trump reversed himself on a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace on Sept. 17, declaring abruptly that Obama “was born in the United States, period,” several Russian accounts chimed in to echo Trump’s subsequent false claim that it was Clinton who had started the birther controversy.

Others continued to push birther narratives. The Russian account TEN_GOP, which many mistook for the official account of the Tennessee Republican Party, linked to a video that claimed that Obama “admits he was born in Kenya.” But the Russian accounts weren’t in lockstep. The handle “hyddrox” retweeted a post by the anti-Trump billionaire Mark Cuban that the “MSM [mainstream media] is being suckered into chasing birther stories.”

On Sept. 15, Clinton returned to the campaign trail following a bout with pneumonia that caused her to stumble at a 9/11 memorial service.

The Russian account “Pamela_Moore13” noted that her intro music was “I Feel Good” by James Brown — then observed that “James Brown died of pneumonia,” a line that was repeated at least 11 times by Russian accounts, including by “Jenn_Abrams,” which had 59,868 followers at the time.

According to several obituaries, Brown died of congestive heart failure related to pneumonia.

Racial discord also figured prominently in the tweets, just as it did with many of the ads Russian trolls had purchased on Facebook in the months leading up to and following the election. One Russian account, “Blacks4DTrump,” tweeted a Trump quote on Sept. 16 in which he declared “it is the Democratic party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow & the party of opposition.”

TEN_GOP, meanwhile, asked followers to “SPREAD the msg of black pastor explaining why African-Americans should vote Donald Trump!”
…

The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court warned Wednesday that the situation in Libya “remains dire” and promised to seek new arrest warrants if serious crimes don’t stop.

Fatou Bensouda also demanded the arrest and transfer of suspects already subject to arrest warrants, including the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the former head of Libya’s Internal Security Agency and a Libyan military officer alleged to have been involved in the killing of 33 captives “in cold blood.”

Bensouda told the U.N. Security Council that the security situation in Libya “remains unstable with violent clashes occurring between various factions across Libya.” Widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by different parties to the conflict also have been reported, she said.

Arrests, torture, killings

Bensouda pointed to reports emerging that the bodies of 36 men were found in the town of al-Abyar, 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Benghazi.

“The bodies were reportedly handcuffed, showed signs of torture, and displayed bullet wounds to the head,” she said.

Bensouda also cited information that the Libyan National Army commanded by Gen. Khalifa Hifter has allegedly intensified restrictions on access to the city of Derna in recent months, blocking medicine and fuel from entering because of fighting with the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council.

She said hundreds of residents attempting to leave the city had been arrested, and she condemned airstrikes on a residential neighborhood that reportedly killed civilians, including 12 women and children.

Chaos in Libya

The overthrow of Gadhafi in 2011 spawned chaos in Libya. The power and security vacuum left the country a breeding ground for militias and militants including the Islamic State extremist group and al-Qaida affiliates. It has also made Libya a gateway for thousands of migrants from Africa and elsewhere seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Italy.

Since 2014, Libya has been split between rival governments and parliaments based in the western and eastern regions, each backed by different militias and tribes. A U.N.-brokered deal in December 2015 to create a unity government failed, though talks have been taking place to form an administration to lead the country ahead of elections.

Bensouda told the council she is gravely concerned at reports of unlawful killings, including the execution of detained people, kidnappings and forced disappearances, torture, prolonged detention without trial, rape “and other ill-treatment of migrants in official and unofficial detention centers.”

She expressed concern at crimes against migrants transiting through Libya and said “such crimes may fall within the jurisdiction of the court.”

“Let me be clear: If serious crimes … continue to be committed in Libya, I will not hesitate to bring new applications for warrants of arrest,” Bensouda said.

Arrest warrants

As for Libyans already the subject of arrest warrants, Bensouda said her office is trying to confirm the current whereabouts of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the late dictator’s son, who is charged in an ICC arrest warrant with murder and persecution for his alleged role in the violent suppression of anti-government protests in 2011.

He was released from custody in June after more than five years in detention as part of a pardon issued by the Libyan parliament based in the country’s eastern region.

The ICC prosecutor also urged that Hifter transfer to the court without delay Mahmoud al-Werfalli, a Libyan military officer suspected of being behind a string of killings earlier this year in the city of Benghazi, including the killing of the 33 captives. Bensouda noted that Hifter “has publicly expressed gratitude for the work of the court in relation to Mr. al-Werfalli’s case.”

She said her office is also trying to locate Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled, who is wanted for four crimes against humanity and three war crimes, including torture, persecution, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity. The charges involve prisoners held by Libyan security forces during protests against Gadhafi’s regime in 2011.
…

The European Commission said Wednesday it wants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide from cars by 30 percent by 2030 and boost the use of electric vehicles by making them cheaper and easier to charge.

The proposal stops short of imposing fixed quotas for emission-free vehicles and is more modest than goals already set out by some EU members. Still, European automakers said the commission’s targets were too drastic, and Germany’s foreign minister warned against the proposal.

Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic insisted that the plan is the most “realistic” compromise between Europe’s ambitions to blaze trails on clean energy and the costs that the continent’s powerful car manufacturers will have to bear to overhaul workforces and production.

Current targets require automakers to achieve the average permitted emission for new models in the European Union of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer for cars, or 147 grams for light commercial vehicles by 2021.

The new proposal foresees a further reduction of 15 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030, compared to 2021 levels.

Car companies that fail to meet those targets face substantial fines of 95 euros ($110) per excess gram of carbon dioxide – per car. Automakers that manage to equip at least 30 percent of their new cars with electric or other low-emission engines by 2030 will be given credits toward their carbon tally.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, an industry body, criticized the 2025 target, saying “it does not leave enough time to make the necessary technical and design changes to vehicles, in particular to light commercial vehicles given their longer development and production cycles.”

The lobby group also said the targeted cut of 30 percent by 2030 was “overly challenging” and called for a 20 percent reduction instead, saying that was “achievable at a high, but acceptable, cost.”

“The current proposal is very aggressive when we consider the low and fragmented market penetration of alternatively-powered vehicles across Europe to date,” the group’s secretary general, Erik Jonnaert, said.

Germany’s foreign minister wrote to the commission last week to say the new rules shouldn’t “suffocate” the ability of automakers to innovate.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said all European countries benefit from the jobs the auto industry creates and warned that the time frame for emissions cuts “mustn’t be too restrictive.”

The letter caused friction within the German government, which is currently hosting a two-week United Nations meeting on implementing the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“The contents of this letter weren’t coordinated within the Cabinet,” a spokeswoman for Germany’s environment ministry, Friederike Langenbruch, told reporters in Berlin.

Germany is predicted to fall short of its own climate goals, in large part due to continued high emissions from coal-fired electricity plants and vehicle traffic.

The European executive’s plan also includes 800 million euros in funding for the expansion and standardization of electric charging stations Europe-wide.

 
…

Visiting Berlin in the midst of sensitive coalition talks, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire urged Germany to seize a historic window of opportunity to reform Europe, warning that the bloc could succumb to nationalism if they failed.

The visit comes six weeks after a German election forced Chancellor Angela Merkel into negotiations with parties, including the Free Democrats (FDP), that are sceptical of French President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious vision for Europe.

By holding talks with leading members of those parties, including FDP leader Christian Lindner, Le Maire said he hoped to convince members of the next German government to leave the door open to a European deal with France as they hammer out a coalition blueprint for the next four years.

“We are of the view that there is a unique window of opportunity to improve the situation and make the eurozone stronger,” Le Maire said.

“I hope that they will take into account the necessity to

preserve a room of maneuver for negotiation,” he added.

“Because if everything is already decided in the German coalition agreement, what should we negotiate? This is one of the key reasons for my trip to Berlin.”

After nearly a decade of economic and financial crisis, and following Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Macron is pushing for a leap forward in European integration, including the creation of a budget for the eurozone and closer cooperation in defense and migration matters.

Merkel has welcomed many of his ideas, but members of her own conservative bloc and the FDP are sceptical, particularly on French plans for the eurozone, fearing Germany will be asked to pay for the policy failures of reform-wary southern states.

Europe faces choice

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Lindner, Le Maire said he believed that the differences could be overcome.

“None of the difficulties are insurmountable. I found a man who is conscious of his political responsibilities, conscious of his historic responsibilities,” he said.

Earlier in a speech to a Franco-German business forum, Le Maire likened the current situation in the eurozone to standing in the middle of a strong-flowing river where the currents were most dangerous.

He said Europe faced a choice: turn back to the shore from where they came, embracing nationalism and isolation, or say “now is the time” and press on to the opposite bank by pursuing closer integration of the eurozone.

“That status quo is not an option,” Le Maire said.

He spelled out four steps for a reform of the 19-nation single currency bloc. In the first, Europe would complete its banking union, capital markets union and harmonise its tax regimes, particularly in the area of corporate taxes.

Second, Europe would bolster its rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and third, it would introduce a budget for the eurozone to fund investments in areas such as transport, energy and artificial intelligence, and help the bloc cope with economic shocks.

In a last step, member states could appoint a finance minister for the eurozone, he said.

Switching between fluent German and French, Le Maire said Franco-German working groups should be created to discuss reform on a “weekly or even daily basis.” He said other countries should be brought into the process, naming Spain and Italy.

In his speech to the business forum, Le Maire urged the bloc to unite in pushing back against powers like China and the United States that he said were determined to shape the world according to their national interests.

German politicians have been sceptical of Macron’s “l’Europe qui protege” (Europe that protects) pledge, fearful of a return to old-fashioned French protectionism.

But Le Maire said Europe should no longer be “naive” in the face of economic challenges from abroad, accusing the Chinese of killing off the European solar panel industry and the Americans of using extra-territorial sanctions to shape global trade rules in their favor.

“Europe needs to stop being scared of its own shadow,” Le Maire said. “Divided we are nothing. Together we are everything.”

 
…

Russia clashed with Western nations Tuesday over a report blaming Syria for a deadly chemical weapons attack, with Moscow dismissing its findings as “mythical or invented” and the U.S. backing its finger-pointing at President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The debate in the Security Council during a meeting on the report reflected the sharp differences between Russia, Syria’s most important ally, and Western countries that have backed Assad’s opponents.

It also raised serious questions about whether the mandate of the experts who issued the report will be renewed — and whether anyone in Syria will ever be held accountable for using chemical weapons, which are banned internationally.

Russia and the United States have circulated rival resolutions to extend the experts’ body, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM. Its mandate expires Nov. 14.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that a revised U.S. draft circulated Tuesday included some points from the Russian draft, including the importance of high standards and sound evidence.

But she said Russia continues “to push unacceptable language only meant to undermine the investigators and divide this council.”

Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored council resolution Oct. 24 that would have renewed the mandate of the experts from the United Nations and the international chemical weapons watchdog for a year. It said it wanted to wait to see the JIM report on the sarin nerve gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun and a mustard gas attack at Um Hosh in Aleppo in September 2016.

Two days later, the JIM reported its leaders were “confident” that Syria was responsible for an aerial attack on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 using sarin that killed about 100 people and affected about 200 others who survived “acute exposure” to the nerve agent. The conclusion supported the initial findings by the United States, France and Britain.

The experts also said they were “confident” the Islamic State extremist group was responsible for the Um Hosh attack using mustard gas.

Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet, who heads the JIM, told the council how experts reached their conclusions, including finding that the chemistry of the sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun was very likely to have been made from the same precursor, called DF, as the sarin in Syria’s original stockpile.

In September 2013, Syria accepted a Russian proposal to relinquish its chemical weapons stockpile and join the Chemical Weapons Convention. That averted a U.S. military strike in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

Mulet said the Security Council has “a unique responsibility” to deter all those using chemical weapons and “end the use of such weapons forever.”  

“I understand the political issues surrounding the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said. “However, this is not a political issue about the lives of innocent civilians. Impunity must not prevail.”

Russia’s criticisms

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, was sharply critical of the JIM and the report, especially the experts’ failure to visit Khan Sheikhoun, which Mulet said was for security reasons.

Safronkov derided the JIM for not pinpointing specific responsibility, asking: Is “an entire state is responsible?” He also complained that “while some continue to try to find this mythical or invented chemical weapons in Damascus, the region is seeing an increasing threat of chemical terrorism” that isn’t being addressed.

Deputy British Ambassador Jonathan Allen said Russia has advanced multiple theories about the Khan Sheikhoun attack, and when one gets debunked Moscow goes with something else.

“It’s one of the great tragedies that Russia is a country with hugely respected and impressive scientists, but also a country of great fiction writers,” he told several reporters. “And unfortunately the scientists of Russia are being ignored and the fiction writers are being indulged.”

Allen called Russia’s draft resolution to renew the JIM mandate “a cynical ploy to discredit a professional, independent and impartial body.”

“Russia is trying to shoot the messenger to cover up for the crimes of the Syrian regime,” he said.

Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, the last speaker, told the council the JIM report “is not neutral, nor is it professional.”

Its “wrongful” accusation against Syria is based on “the fabrication of evidence and the manipulation of information,” he said.

Ja’afari said Syria abides by the Chemical Weapons Convention and “considers the use of chemical weapons an immoral act that must be condemned.”
…

Lithuania expects NATO to reach an agreement next year to shield Baltic countries with air defenses, plugging a gap in its security against Russia, its defense minister said Tuesday.

Since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and began providing weapons and troops to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, NATO has sent more forces to the Baltics, eastern Poland and around the Black Sea.

Lithuania, which borders the Russian region of Kaliningrad, wants NATO to permanently deploy anti-aircraft weapons in the Baltics or Poland — a move seen by Moscow as an unjustified military buildup on its borders.

“We expect so,” Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told Reuters when asked if he saw an agreement shaping up for the NATO summit in 2018. “Air defense is one of the issues which we need to address. We also need to look at other domains, like NATO command structure reform, we need to move forward on all on these aspects,” he said, also calling for NATO to strengthen maritime defenses in the Baltics.

Karoblis spoke in Helsinki after meeting his counterparts from Northern Group countries, including the Nordic and Baltic states, Britain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis also joined the meeting.

Karoblis said exercises should be considered by NATO after Russia’s Zapad war games unnerved the West in September.

Mattis told reporters after the meeting that the 12 nations stood together to reaffirm territorial integrity.

“It is clear that one nation thinks it holds some kind of a veto or strong influence over others, that is Russia. The country’s name came up repeatedly over the last 48 hours,” he said.
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EU diplomats will start sketching out a Brexit transition offer on Wednesday that would probably let Britain stay in the single market for about two years after it leaves the bloc in March 2019, EU officials said.

But some officials and diplomats involved in preparing for the first “orientation debate” among envoys from the other 27 EU states warned London should not assume it can clinch an initial deal next month to open talks on post-Brexit relations. Some governments see benefits in making Britain wait for it.

An EU official familiar with Wednesday’s agenda said states would be asked their views on the “scope of the transition period, its length” and whether special regulations would be needed to enforce EU rules in Britain, which will no longer be a member but wants to maintain full access to EU markets.

Several officials who spoke to Reuters said that in the transition period Britain would have to abide by all EU laws, even if they are changed during that period, but would have no influence over them. “Anything else would be too complicated,” a second official said. Two others expressed the same view.

“The EU view on the transition period and the future will in a way be a moment of truth, exposing all the lies of those who campaigned for Brexit saying that Britain will be able to have the cake and eat it,” a third official said.

Wednesday’s discussions will also seek to gather views on the future trade relationship with London that is to follow a transition, which may finish in December 2020, at the end of the current seven-year EU budget period.

EU leaders told Prime Minister Theresa May last month they were not ready to negotiate post-Brexit arrangements until London offered more concessions on its “divorce’’ terms. But they held out the prospect of opening such talks at a summit in mid-December and ordered their officials to start preparing among the 27 for a move to this new phase of talks.

Brief encounter

British Brexit Minister David Davis is expected in Brussels on Friday for the first negotiations since that mid-October summit with May. But the anticipated brief encounter with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is not expected to produce a breakthrough on how much Britain will pay the EU on leaving.

Diplomats and officials said the continued slow pace of the divorce talks was increasing the possibility that EU leaders would again refuse next month to open trade talks. They said some may already be considering that as a useful tactic against Britain, which is anxious to prevent businesses relocating investment.

“Some believe that the worse it gets for the British, the better for us … that maybe we could delay it all until for instance March, increasing the uncertainty and triggering the contingency plans in the corporate sector,” the first EU official said.

“That would be ruthless and risky, but people have different views on what is risky.”

An EU diplomat involved in negotiations said he expected envoys also to discuss how to handle a possible failure next month to open the next phase of talks if May refuses to meet EU demands.

“What do we do if they (the British) don’t move?” he said.

Some continental negotiators believe British anxiety about businesses starting to shift investments in the new year if there is no transition deal could be to Brussels’ advantage.

Officials said Britain’s full membership in the single market, even during a transition, is not a given. “There is no up-front agreement on that. It is part of a bigger package. For instance it is not feasible to expect they would be in the single market … but not pay into the EU budget,” one said.

There will be one or two more meetings of EU envoys before they expect to agree what in detail they might offer Britain in terms of a transition period, officials said. The results of these discussions will not be presented to the British, however, until after leaders have agreed to open a new phase of talks.

 
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British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is facing calls to resign after saying recently that a British-Iranian woman currently jailed in Iran had been training journalists when she was arrested. Boris Johnson has since said he “could have chosen his words more carefully.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 as she tried to return home to Britain after a vacation to visit her parents.

Iranian authorities have never revealed the exact charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but earlier this year sentenced her to jail for five years, purportedly on grounds of national security.’

The website of the Iranian judiciary Monday published an article quoting Johnson, saying the foreign secretary’s statement “has shed new light on the realities about Nazanin.”

The Reuters news agency reports that after Johnson made the controversial remarks, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was brought back to court in Iran and accused by a judge of “spreading propaganda against the regime.”

Johnson’s remark that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran “teaching people journalism” was made before a parliamentary committee last week.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, says that is false, and fears Iran will use Johnson’s words to justify extending her sentence.

“We have not seen any progress in Nazanin’s situation, and the situation is that now they want to double her sentence. This is unimaginable that she would do 10 years without being a culprit of anything,” said Monique Villa, the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, where Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked as a project manager.

Johnson has since spoken to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on the telephone and said that the earlier remarks “could form no justifiable basis for further action in this case.” Johnson said he plans to travel to Tehran in the coming weeks to discuss the case.

The incident sparked a heated exchange in the British parliament Tuesday as Johnson faced opposition calls to step down.

“How about the foreign secretary himself show a bit of personal responsibility and admit that a job like this, where your words hold gravity and your actions have consequences, is simply not the job for him,” opposition Labor MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry told lawmakers.

Johnson accused his rival of trying to create political capital out of the incident.

“She can choose to blame, to heap blame, on to the British Foreign Office that is trying to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and in so doing, she deflects blame, she deflects accountability from those who are truly responsible for holding that mother in jail, and that is the Iranian regime.”

The foreign secretary added the British government had “no doubt” Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on vacation.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been separated from her two-year-old daughter, who is now being cared for by her grandparents. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is still only able to see her child for strictly limited periods. She has been held in solitary confinement and her health is reported to be deteriorating.

Despite the setbacks, her family and supporters say they still have hope that she will be released before Christmas.
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